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Nigeria, Iran and Libya were granted exemption from a resolution by Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, to cut members oil output by about 740,000 barrels per day by November 2016 to stabilize prices.

The daily production capacity of all members of the group at the moment stands at about 33.24 million barrels.

With continued decline in global oil prices, OPEC had struggled unsuccessfully for several months to reach a consensus on how to reduce production in a bid to stabilise prices.

The sticky point in arriving a consensus was Iran, which resisted any resolution that did not recognise its interest, considering it recently returned to the group after serving years of U.S. imposed sanctions.

The Iranian government had argued it would need some time to recover from the impact of the sanctions, which included restrictions on its oil production and exports.

Last Wednesdays resolution was reached during the groups meeting in Algiers, the Algerian capital.

Apart from accommodating the Iranian concern, the resolution also took into consideration Nigerias peculiar crisis situation.

Incessant attacks by Niger Delta militants on oil and gas production facilities in the region resulted in a massive cut in the countrys oil production capacity by almost 50 per cent, from an average of 2.2 million barrels per day.

The impact of the attacks has been a drastic drop in revenue earnings from oil exports, which has plunged the country into a major crisis underlining the current economic recession and the difficulty in funding the N6.06 trillion 2016 budget.

Consequently, with the decision to determine output levels of each member country scheduled for next month, Nigeria was granted exemption from any cut in production till further notice.

Libya was exempted for a similar reason, following series of attacks on its oil facilities by terrorists in recent months.

Iran was also exempted after having its economic sanctions lifted earlier in the year.

The decision to cut production by the group would be the first time in eight years.

Nigeria on Thursday tied the resolution to the growing cohesion among member countries, particularly its growing influence to help work harmoniously in identifying needs, challenges and ways to resolve them.

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, who led Nigerias delegation at the meeting, said Nigerias exemption from the production cut was a result of recent challenges the country was facing, due to incessant vandalism of oil and gas facilities.

Mr. Kachikwu said the deal would enhance prospects for energy industry to realise its capacity.

He said the impact was already being felt, as global crude oil price rose by more than 5 per cent in the wake of the agreement.

A steady increase in oil prices, which is one of the advantages the deal would produce, would most likely contribute positively to the revival of the economies of member countries, including Nigeria, currently undergoing challenges, Mr. Kachikwu said.

The meeting was the first official meeting of OPEC organized by the new Secretary General, Mohammed Barkindo, since his appointment in August, 2016.
Nigerias regulatory body for the judiciary, the National Judicial Council, has recommended the compulsory retirement of three judges following allegations of fraud and other judicial misconduct.

The judges include the Chief Judge of Enugu State, A. I. umezulike; a presiding justice at the Court of Appeal in Kwara State, Mohammed Tsamiya; and Kabiru Auta of the Kano State High Court.

They were sacked by the NJC during the councils 78th meeting held on September 29.

In a statement made available to journalists on Friday, the Councils Director of Information; Soji Oye, said Justice Umezulike was accused of abusing his office and mistreating defendants.

The council made its findings against Mr. Umezulike following a petition by a lawyer, Peter Eze.

The findings include the following:

That the Hon. Chief Judge failed to deliver Judgement in Suit in which final addresses were adopted on 23rd October, 2014, until the 9th day of March, 2015, about 126 days after addresses were adopted.

The act goes contrary to constitutional provisions that judgement should be delivered within a period of 90 days after adoption of addresses.

The council also said Mr. Umezulike abused his privileges when he ordered the petitioner, Mr. Eze, to be arrested by police officers and brought to court, after an agreement had been reached on a matter before him and judgement entered on terms of settlement.

Mr. Umezulike was also accused of making defamatory statements in public against the petitioner, contrary to Rule 1.3 of the National Judicial Council Revised Code of Conduct for Judicial Officers.

That there have been many instances of abuse of Judicial powers, by the Chief Judge, particularly against the two defendants in Suits Nos. E/6/2013 and E/88/2016. The Chief Judge clung to these two suits to remain in his Court, despite all genuine efforts made by the defendants to get the suits transferred to another Court.

That the Chief Judge sitting at a vantage position of Senior Judicial Officer and Head of Court for that matter, should not have allowed his emotions to dictate his judicial functions to the detriment of the defendants in both suits, the statement said.

THE APPEAL COURT JUDGE

On his part, Mr. Tsamiya was recommended for retirement for collecting a bribe of N200 million from an applicant to facilitate the processes for his case.

The findings were made following investigations into a petition by a certain Nnamdi Orji against Mr. Tsamiya and three other judges: Husseini Muktar, F. O. Akinbami and J. Y. Tukur.

The petitioner had alleged that the judges made contrasting decisions, in similar cases; in addition to allegations of fraud said to have been perpetrated by Mr. Tsamiya.

The council, in its findings said there was evidence that the petitioner met with Mr. Tsamiya thrice, in his residence in Sokoto, Abuja and Owerri where on each occasion, the judge demanded from the petitioner the sum of N200 million to influence the Court of Appeal Panel in Owerri or risk losing the case.

The council, however, found that there was no evidence of conflicting judgements against Mr. Tsamiya, as the cases referred to were different in content.

It also found that there was no evidence that the petitioner ever met or discussed with the other Justices  Mukhtar, Akinbami and Tukur  in respect of the appeal before them.

It is in the Light of the foregoing that Hon. Justices Husseini Mukhtar (JCA), F. O. Akinbami(JCA) and J. Y. Tukur(JCA), were exonerated, the statement said.

THE KANO JUDGE

In the case of Mr. Auta of the High Court of Justice, Kano State, he was recommended to the State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, for dismissal for collecting N125 million from the petitioner.

The council said Mr. Auta is to be handed over to the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Zone 1, Kano, for prosecution.

He was found to have defrauded the petitioner in many ways, some of which Mr. Auta admitted to police officers.

The petitioner also made cash payment of N72 million to Mr. Auta in several instalments through his Personal Assistant, Abdullahi Bello, the statement said.

The payment was to assist a former Chief Justice of Nigeria who had just been appointed to secure accommodation and for the petitioner to be in turn rewarded by the award of some contracts by the said Hon. Chief Justice of Nigeria.

The council said the allegations against the three Judicial Officers constitute misconduct contrary to Section 292 (1) (b) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended and subsections of rule Rules 1, 2, 3, 4 13 and 15 of the 2016 Revised Code of Conduct for Judicial Officers.

The judges were suspended pending the approval of their recommendation for retirement.
I am indeed pleased to be here with you today on this special occasion of the 44th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN). I congratulate MAN on the successful hosting of this meeting, which brings together captains of industry from across the country to share experiences and ideas on strategies to overcome our problems and to chart a new and prosperous course for the nations industrial sector.

2. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen; Let me use this opportunity to express Governments appreciation to the President and the members of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, for your immense contributions and unwavering commitment to the socio-economic development of our dear nation over the years.

Suffice it to say that our nation owes you all a debt of gratitude for your show of commitment, demonstrated by your respective investments in Nigerias economy despite daunting challenges. The future of our nation depends on such commitment and our collective desire to build a thriving economy. This Administration remains committed to partnering with you in the task of charting a brighter future for our nation. Government is very appreciative of your contributions in formulating national economic policies. This event is timely and the theme Diversifying the Nigerian Economy: the Role of Government in Manufacturing quite apt as it is coming at a time when the nation is faced with the urgent need to diversify the economy in the light of dwindling price of crude oil in the global market. As you know, the dramatic fall in crude oil and other commodity prices has had a serious negative impact on world economies, especially countries like Nigeria which depended on one commodity for its export earnings. This Administration is convinced that the key to our quest for economic diversification and therefore survival lies in Agriculture and the Manufacturing sector. A strong manufacturing sector will create more jobs and wealth for our people. It will usher in sustainable economic prosperity because we will produce what we consume as a nation and generate foreign exchange by exporting any surplus. The Manufacturing sector is well positioned to be a major driver of Nigerias economic growth because of our immense natural resources and the entrepreneurial spirit of Nigerians. Government is therefore focused on implementing necessary policies and strategies aimed at unleashing the full potentials of manufacturing in Nigeria. We will rely heavily on your ideas and inputs at all stages of formulation and implementation of new industrial policies. For our part, we will remove bottlenecks and create a more business friendly environment. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, our strategic plan to boost manufacturing activities in the country is supported by the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) and the National Enterprises Development Programme (NEDEP). These programs, present a clear road map towards an industrialised Nigerian economy. We are working on improving the patronage of locally made goods, bridging the gap between skills required by industry and those provided by our educational institutions and access to finance for our Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises (SMEs). We recognise that MAN and the other Organised Private Sector (OPS) groups are our key stakeholders in this journey and we will continue our engagement with you. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, I am inspired by your commitment to the future of our great country and as you deliberate on the theme of this 44th Annual General Meeting (AGM), I urge you to consider our national interest, so that the outcome of your deliberations will be to the benefit of Nigerians workers and promoters alike. I look forward to receiving a communique of the deliberations from this meeting. I salute all members of MAN and once again congratulate you on the occasion of your 44thAGM and invite you today to join hands with government in making our ongoing efforts a success. As events unfold in the coming months, many of you will be called upon to play critical roles in the implementation of this Administrations agenda. I implore you to avail us your wealth of experience so that together we can uplift our nations economy and social well-being.
Babachir Lawal, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, has restated the commitment of the Federal Government to establish ranches and grazing reserves across the country.

Bolaji Adebiyi, the Director of Press in the Office of the SGF, disclosed in a statement on Thursday in Abuja.

According to Mr. Adebiyi, the SGF said the decision to establish ranches and grazing reserves was to address the incessant clashes between herdsmen and farmers across the country.

Mr. Lawal reiterated the Federal Governments decision when he received a delegation from Tabital Pulako Njode Jam Foundation, led by its Chairman, Abdul Bali.

Mr. Lawal said most of the crimes on farmlands were perpetrated by nomads, who migrated into the country.

He pledged the Federal Governments commitment to enlightening the herdsmen on ways to make cattle rearing more profitable.

Speaking earlier, Mr. Bali said the foundation was set up to look into the clashes between herdsmen and farmers.

He said that its submissions had shown that nomads from other countries were responsible for clashes with farmers.

In a related development, the SGF assured the people of North-East of fairness in the provision of relief materials to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) across the various states in the region.

He gave the assurance when he received a delegation from the Lardin Gabas Elders Forum led by the Chairman of its Board of Trustees, Paul Tahir.

He said that a Presidential Committee on North-East Initiative (PCNI) will soon be inaugurated to streamline rehabilitation activities in the region and accelerate the return of normal life to the North-Eastern states.

The Chairman of the forum pledged its readiness to work with the Federal Government to ensure that succour was brought to the victims of insurgency.

Mr. Tahir said the forum also advocated the return of Christian Religious Studies to school curriculum to teach youths about good moral upbringing and fear of God.

(NAN)
An FCT High Court in Abuja has fixed October 4 to sentence a Polish woman, Dora Gilmaska, convicted of N9 million fraud.

This is contained in a statement by Wilson Uwujaren, the Spokesman of The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, in Abuja on Thursday.

Mr. Uwujaren said the convict was arraigned before Justice Abubakar Umar.

He said the Polish woman would be sentenced alongside her company, Icon Media and Marketing Agency Limited.

He said Mr, Umar had reserved the sentence after the convict was found guilty of a one-count charge of fraud brought against her by the EFCC.

Mr. Uwujaren said Ms. Gilmaska was found guilty of forging and issuing a dud cheque of N9 million to Tayo Olugbemi sometime in 2012.

The spokesman said the convict was arraigned on November 7, 2012, and she pleaded not guilty to the charge.

(NAN)
Nigerian authorities should immediately release at least 11 journalists, bloggers, and media support staff detained in recent days across the country and stop harassing the media, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

The impunity with which Nigerian security forces have recently attacked the press is reminiscent of Nigerias darkest days of military rule, said CPJ West Africa Representative Peter Nkanga. We call on President Muhammadu Buharis administration to reverse this alarming slide and let journalists do their jobs without fear of reprisal.

At around 1:45 a.m. on September 21, soldiers and officers of Nigerias special police, the State Security Service, arrested 10 journalists and media workers from the independent news website Watchdog Media News at the Douban Hotel in Benin, the capital of the southern Nigerian state of Edo, their employer reported.

The crew was in the city to cover gubernatorial elections scheduled to take place on Wednesday.

Watchdog Media reported that the journalists were brutalised, and were arrested wearing only their underwear.

Taiye Garrick, the editor of Watchdog Media, told CPJ that witnesses said the crew were beaten with barbed wire and had cold water poured on their bodies before they were arrested. The elections were initially scheduled for September 10, but were postponed based on fears that hoodlums were planning to disrupt voting.

Army spokesman, Sani Usman, said in a September 22 statement that the army acted on credible security reports that hired hoodlums were in the hotel preparing to attack the state. He said the journalists were arrested in possession of incriminating, sensitive election material, without elaborating, and that they had not identified themselves as journalists.

All the suspects were treated humanely and in the most dignified manner, he said, according to the Premium Times. Watchdog Media subsequently published pictures of the crew conducting interviews on the streets of Benin while wearing their press credentials.

Mr. Garrick told CPJ that the SSS is targeting his newspaper because of material the staff collected while covering the Edo South senatorial district before the elections, which were initially scheduled for September 10, but postponed over security concerns.

The crew returned to the state on September 20 to cover the Edo North and Edo Central senatorial districts ahead of the September 28 elections. Mr. Garrick said he refused an SSS invitation to visit its office in Edo State, where his crew has been held without access to family or a lawyer, because he feared arrest himself, according to news reports.

The 10 journalists and media workers have not yet been arraigned.

The Edo State government wants to stop us from reporting the elections because, sincerely, the facts we were getting from the opinion polls we were running from our call centre and vox-pop interviews with people on the streets were really damaging against them, Mr. Garrick said.

According to press reports, those arrested include: production manager Tony Abulu; reporters Richard Hasley, Opara Uche, and Handy Romeo Eze; video editor Kelvin Toryila; information technology specialists Lanre Ogunleye, Balogun Ehigie, and Kenneth Danpome; a logistics manager identified only as Mathew; and driver Joe Epi.

At a press conference in the city of Benin yesterday, the head of the Edo State branch of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Roland Osakwe, said the union was seriously embarrassed to discover the detained men were not journalists, and disclaimed them on behalf of the union as a way of sending a clear message to those who find it most convenient to impersonate members of the pen profession for pecuniary gains.

Asked about the NUJs statement, three journalists at Watchdog Medias Abuja office and Garrick, the websites editor, today told CPJ that those detained were their colleagues. Mr. Garrick said he was planning on bringing a defamation suit regarding Mr. Osakwes comments on behalf of the NUJ.

In a separate event, police from the northern Nigerian state of Katsina on September 19 arrested Jamil Mabai  the publisher of Cliqq Magazine and a columnist with Katsina Reporters  in the neighbouring state of Kaduna after Mr. Mabai on September 6 took to social media to criticize Aminu Masari, the governor of Katsina State, over the governments distribution of 3,000 coffins to mosques while it was unable to pay civil servants their salaries, according to news reports.

Katsina Police Commissioner, Usman Abdullahi, said that Mr. Mabai was arrested following the state governments complaint over his tweets. Abdullahi justified Mabais arrest by saying We had to invite him to assist the police.

Abdu Labaran, Mr. Masaris spokesman, denied that the state reported the blogger to the police, the reports said.

A magistrate court on September 22 said it had no jurisdiction in the case and remanded Mr. Mabai to prison pending a trial before another court.

Peter Israel, Mr. Mabais lawyer, told CPJ that police charged Mr. Mabai with inciting disaffection against the government.

In a second session Wednesday, the magistrate insisted on remanding Mr. Mabai to prison custody until the prosecution could apply to try the case before a competent higher court, Mr. Israel said. Mr. Mabai remains in state custody.

Bloggers Bashir Dauda and Umar Faruq were detained on September 19 and arraigned September 22 on charges of abetment for writing about Mr. Mabais story with the intent to cause civil disturbance and to expose governor Masari to public ridicule, news reports said . Israel told CPJ that the two were released, pending trial, on September 27.
President Muhammadu Buhari has promised that his administration will improve funding of creative industry in the 2017 budget in order to boost employment opportunities.

The president made the pledge in Abuja at the public presentation of a pictorial book titled Buhari A New Beginning.

The book launch with the theme: Creative Youth as Drivers of the Change Agenda, featured youth conversation, discussion session where seven selected youth exchanged ideas with the president on issues relating to creative industry.

The president said the improved allocation will provide the requisite infrastructure for rapid transformation of the creative industry in the country.

He said the fund would be channelled through the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture.

The president said steps would be taken by his administration to tackle the menace of piracy across the country and other challenges facing the country.

He called on the youth to partner with the administration in its efforts to diversify the economy and ensure a corrupt-free society.

In a message, a former Governor of Lagos, Bola Tinubu, stressed the need for the country to leverage on its youth as fulcrum for development.

Mr. Tinubu, who was represented by Gov. Rauf Aregbesola of Osun, said that the youth were instrumental to the electoral victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015.

He said the strength of the nation lies with the youth, adding that their mobility and intellectual inquisitiveness were assets the country could not afford to ignore.

We must create opportunities for them, empower them and carry them along in the policies we formulate.

I am happy this government, through the office of the Vice-President, is involved in various programmes aimed at the youth, he added.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr. Tinubu bought 300 copies of the book at an undisclosed amount for immediate distribution to youth at the presentation.

NAN reports that during interactive session, selected youths highlighted contributions of creative industry to socio-cultural and economic development as well as challenges facing the sector.

Cobham Asuquo, an artist, spoke on the unifying strength of music amongst Nigerians.

An Arts Curator, Aderele Shonarewo, identified the enormous potentials of the visual arts in addressing unemployment and ensuring wealth creation.

Ishaq Sidi Ishaq, an Actor and Film Director with the Kannywood, stressed the need for Nigeria to give priority to the film industry.

He said that Nigerias film industry has been rated second in the world.

A fashion designer, Lanre Da Silva-Ajayi identified poor electricity supply and inadequate infrastructure as some of the challenges frustrating the development of the nations fashion sub-sector.

The event was attended by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, some governors, traditional rulers, business mogul, Aliko Dangote and many other personalities. (NAN)
The Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has commended the conduct of the police and other security agencies over the just concluded governorship election in Edo State.

The Force Public Relations Officer, Don Awunah, in a statement issued on Friday, said the Inspector General and the Police management team were satisfied with the performance of security officers, after an appraisal of security operations during the election.

The statement said that the election was conducted transparently and in accordance to principles of democratic policing, and that it has become an index for future elections in Nigeria.

It said from the preliminary reports from local and international observers, there was no loss of lives and property during the election.

This exceptional performance of the Nigeria Police Force in the election, exemplified the determination of the Inspector General of Police in ensuring that Election Security in the Country is implemented based on international standards and policing with integrity, the statement said.

The Edo governorship election has proved from the policing perspective that the Nigeria Police Force has the capacity, knowledge, ability and personnel to process and safeguard our nascent democracy.

The Inspector General of Police also commended the people of the state for cooperating with the security agencies, and assured Nigerians that the police was ready to sustain this tempo in future elections.
A bill seeking to enthrone gender equality by combating discrimination against women has passed the second reading in the Senate, five months after it was rejected.

The bill, sponsored by Biodun Olujimi, is titled A bill for an Act to Incorporate and enforce certain provisions of the United Nations Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, the Protocol of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the rights of women in Africa, and other matters connected therewith, 2016 (SB. 301).

It first came up for consideration in March, as Senate Bill 116, but failed to scale second reading.

Sani Yerima (APC-Zamfara), a known opponent of reforms seeking to promote womens rights, led the onslaught against the legislation.

He was backed by Adamu Aliero (APC-Kebbi), and Immanuel Bwacha (PDP-Taraba). They argued that the Nigerian constitution already established the rights of all persons, including women.

Mr. Bwacha said he was drawing perspectives from the Bible and history in opposing the bill.

It has been re-engineered to suit everyone, Mrs. Olujimi said on Thursdat, assuring his colleagues when the bill came up for consideration.

The bill, Mrs. Olujimi said, sought to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women. She said the bill would guarantee equal opportunity, development advancement for all Nigerian citizens irrespective of gender.

The bill will also promote girls access to education, freedom for women to participate in any economic activity and their right to freedom sexual abuse, and violence in public and domestic spaces.

Olufemi Tinubu (APC-Lagos) and Binta Garba (APC-Adamawa), expressed their support for the bill as they did when it was first introduced.

Mrs. Tinubu said the bill was important not only for today but also for future generations.

Women are partners in progress; we are not trying to fight men, said Mrs. Garba.

Senate Whip, Olusola Adeyeye (APC-Osun), also expressed support for the bill.

Of all forms of discriminations, the worst is gender discrimination, Mr. Adeyeye argued. He said there should be gender character as there is federal character principle.

No senator spoke against the bill. It was referred to the committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters headed by David Umaru (APC-Niger).
The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Aisha Alhassan, said N200 million would be disbursed to eight pilot states each through the National Women Empowerment Fund, NAWEF, to empower women at the grassroots.

Ms. Alhassan said this during a media briefing on the take-off of the National Women Empowerment Fund, NAWEF, and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, GEEP, in Abuja.

She said the eight pilot states are Adamawa, Borno, Yobe, Nasarawa, Jigawa, Akwa Ibom, Osun, and Abia, adding that other states would benefit later.

She added that the NAWEF targets 10,000 women beneficiaries in each of the pilot states; the condition of the loans both under the GEEP and NAWEF are the same.

The GEEP programme is one of the five Federal Government Social Investment Programme targeted at providing loans to young men and women from all states on liberal condition.

Under both programmes, each beneficiary will receive between N10,000 and N100,000, depending on the type of business or trade with no interest, no collateral and repayable in six months.

Ms. Alhassan said beneficiaries would have to form functional cooperative groups or local trade associations or other community based groups of at least 10 persons per group.

She added that the administering bank for disbursements and recovery which is Bank of Industry (BoI) had concluded all necessary arrangements for the disbursement of the funds to successful beneficiaries.

By next week, which is October, beneficiaries will be free to access the fund through their individual accounts.

The repayment schedules are much easier and less stringent than those of conventional banking loans.

We are sure the country will witness increased economic activities nationwide with the desired multiplier effects and subsequent boost in the economy.

The minister said measures for monitoring and evaluation of disbursement, usage and recovery had also been put in place.

She added that it was necessary that beneficiaries repay the loans in order for fresh applicants to benefit from the revolving scheme.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Ms. Alhassan had met with state commissioners of women affairs in August on the implementation of the fund.

The fund was specially targeted at grassroots women operating informal businesses, through start ups and scale up credit facilities to reduce high poverty and facilitate growth and entrepreneurial development.

(NAN)
The Senator representing Edo South, Matthew Urhoghide, has said the practice of urging voters to file a petition after an election had been rigged must stop.

Mr. Urhoghide spoke to journalists in Benin, Thursday, during the collation of the results of the governorship election.

You dont blatantly rig an election and then say go to court, a seething Mr. Urhoghide said inside the premises of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The senator, who was the campaign director for Andrew Ize-Iyamu, the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, said although voting at his polling unit was free and fair, the result was cancelled.

They must do something about it. That units result should be returned, unit 9, ward 2, I voted there. There was no violence in that unit. Why will they cancel the result?

But a member of the All Progressives Congress, Blessing Agomere, quickly countered Mr. Urhoghides claims, saying election results were also cancelled in APC strongholds.

The election was free and fair, said Mr. Agomere.

Even in the deputy governors constituency, results were cancelled, in Edo Central, results were cancelled, even in some areas in Edo North, results were cancelled.

Nobody has complained. INEC is doing their job and they have a right to do their job.

People find it difficult to accept defeat. If you are a senator and you are defeated in your local government, you accept your defeat. You will not come to INEC and begin to lay allegations.

Godwin Obaseki, the APC candidate polled 319,483 votes to defeat his closest rival, Mr. Ize-Iyamu of the PDP who got 253,173 votes.

On Wednesday, after casting his vote, Mr. Urhoghide had, said the issue of vote-buying by the APC should be nipped in the bud.

There are criticisms for some of the things going on, particularly the horse trading and the haggling, the touting that is going on, he had told PREMIUM TIMES.

Its very obvious in this Unit 4 and, of course, I think this is obscene. The APC is doing it with a whole lot of impudence.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday forwarded to the senate names of nominees for the positions of national commissioners of the Independent National Electoral Commission and the National Population Commission.

The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, read President Buharis letters conveying the nominations.

Mr. Buhari also sent another letter inviting the Senators to attend the launching of a book written about him in October.

For INEC, six persons were nominated from the six geo-political zones.

The nominations came two days after the Senate passed a resolution asking the president to fill the vacant positions at the commission.

The Senates resolution on Tuesday followed a motion by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who also said there were no Resident Electoral Commissioners in about 20 states.

Those nominated for the positions of INEC national Commissioners are:

1. Okechukwu Ibeanu, a professor of political science and former Dean, Social Sciences, at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka from Anambra representing South East.

2. May I. Agbamuche-Mbu, a 1984 University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) law graduate and member of Presidential Projects Assessment Commitee (2010-2011) from Delta State representing member South South.

3. Ahmed Tijani Muazu, a retired Air Vice Marshall from Gombe State representing North East.

4. Mohammed Haruna, a 65-year-old veteran journalist from Niger State representing North Central.

5. Adekunle Ogunmola, fomer provost of Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo, and Lagos State REC from Oyo State representing South West.

6. Abubakar Nahuche, an engineer with working experience at the Nigerian Army and the Nigerian Telecommunication Ltd as CEO (2007-2008), from Zamfara State representing North West).

The nominations had earlier been approved by the National Council of State.

Those nominated to serve as commissioners of the NPC are:

1. Benedict Ukpong, former deputy governorship of All Progressives Congress in Akwa Ibom State.

2. Gloria Izonfuo, a nurse and former head of civil service from Bayelsa State.

3. Kupchi Iyanya, a lawyer from Benue State.

4. Haliru Bala, a lecturer at the Kebbi State Polytechnic with Ph.D. from Obafemi Awolowo University, representing from Kebbi State.

5. Eyitayo Oyetunji, Ph.D. holder from Oyo State.

The names of the five NPC nominees were also approved by the Council of State.
President Muhammadu Buharis greatest dream is to see the emergence of a greater and more prosperous Nigeria from the current crisis situation, his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, has stated.

Vice President Osinbajo said the President told him during a meeting on Thursday that despite the present situation in the country, his only objective was to make necessary sacrifice to make Nigeria great again.

At my age, there is only one thing I am looking for. I want to see a great Nigeria, Mr. Osinbajo recalled the President as saying.

This morning, I had a meeting with the President and he repeated to me twice. I feel very inspired by that, he told a delegation of Christian Ministers Welfare Initiative known as the Pastors Forum, Taraba State, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Mr. Osinbajo said the president reaffirmed his commitment to a great Nigeria where peace and justice reigned.

It is madness for anybody in our position to be looking for money. God put people in positions of authority for them to do something for their people.

I think if any Nigerian gets the chance to be president of the country, there is nothing he/she is looking for anymore, except to improve the lot of the people while there, he noted.

Linking the current economic situation to corruption and official graft, the vice president said no economy would tolerate the level of corruption in Nigeria without consequences.

Nigerian lives were being lost and yet people cannot account for $15 billion meant for purchase of security equipment to fight the insurgents, he said.

On how vandalism of oil installations contribute to the current economic recession the country is facing, Mr. Osinbajo said Nigeria lost millions of barrels of crude oil due to the activities of militants in the Niger Delta.

In early 2016, the Vice President said, the country was generating 5,000 MW of electricity.

However, due to the destruction of Forcados terminal by militants, he said about 40 per cent of the gas used to fire the power plants were lost and electricity supply was cut down to about 2,500MW.

He said the vandalism of oil facilities cost the country loss of over one million barrels of oil a day, and about 60 per cent of the countrys revenues.

There is nowhere such amount of revenue is lost without the country going into some economic challenges like the current recession, he noted.

Assuring that the country would soon come out of the recession, the VP said there is no question at all, God has a reason for bringing us in at this time. God helping us, we will see a change in this country.

Vice President Osinbajo urged the Church and religious leaders to stand up against corruption.

If this government is doing the right thing by fighting corruption the Church should support it, he said.

Assuring the group that government was working seriously to end the herdsmen crisis, the vice president said the president had instructed the police and the military to deal decisively with anybody found carrying arms.

It is not possible for one tribe to dominate another based on the way God has structured the country. The reason we have Christian president and Muslim vice president or Muslim president and Christian vice president is to have balance, he said.

Earlier, chairman of the delegation, Godwin Nyiekule, a reverend, said their visit was to pledge their support to the present administration for its forthrightness and fight against corruption.

Mr. Nyiekule said the group was a non-partisan group that supports persons interested in participating in governance.
Students of the University of Ilorin have continued to react to the decision of a 300-level Sociology student, Abolarin Jephthah, who recently notified the authorities of his decision to withdraw from the institution because he obtained the results of his West African Senior School Certificate Examination, WASSCE, through examination malpractices.

In a letter of withdrawal dated August 5, 2016, addressed to the universitys Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academics), Professor N. Y. Ijaiya, the student declared that having become born-again, he has decided to withdraw from the university because he cannot continue to be a student of the university with a faulty foundation.

The letter reads in part:

With all sense of humility, I ABOLARIN AKIN JEPHTHAH with matric number (13/77jd010), a 300 level student in the department of sociology, wish to openly declare the reason why I withdraw from the university. Sir, just as a house that was built on a faulty foundation will definitely collapse

Sir, with deep conviction, I have realised that there is no point of building my academic career on a faulty foundation, since the WAEC result I got through malpractice is the basis in which my admission into this university was anchored.

Therefore, I have decided to withdraw from the university and start all over again.

Mixed reactions have since trailed the students decision.

The University of Ilorin Students Union President, Shobowale Olawale, praised Mr. Jephthahs decision, describing it as bold and encouraging.

Speaking with our correspondent recently, Mr. Shobowale, a student of History and International Studies department, expressed his total support for the student, stating that the step he took is a good one.

Another student, Seyi Alonge, explained that Mr. Jephthah has shown high level of morality and commitment to basic Christian ethos. He applauded the students decision and wished him well in his future endeavours.

Christian Olaloluwa, a 400-level Engineering student, said Mr. Jephthah should not be blamed because he alone understood why he took the sensitive decision.

People should stop passing judgment and allow the young man live with the consequences of his decision. Only he understood why he took that very critical decision, he said.

In contrast to those in support of the confession, a cross section of the university students condemned Mr. Jephthahs decision; stating that it was a badly conceived one.

According to Jolayemi James, a 400-level student of Mass Communication department, repentance and restitution are personal affairs which he could have handled without taking the extreme position of withdrawing from the university.

He said, What about the examination malpractices he must have involved in during his elementary school days? Is he going to declare his primary school certificates too fraudulent? I think it was a bit too extreme and he could have repented without making it public like this. God is a merciful God.

Another student who simply identified herself as Tola stated that the decision was a bad one. She explained that it must have been an end-result of poor understanding of the Bible.

If you truly understand the bible, you will know what true repentance is. When you repent and show restitution, it means that you should stay away from iniquities and not necessarily go the extreme way of withdrawing from the university, she said.

The University of Ilorin management has since acknowledged Mr. Jephthahs withdrawal letter.
The United States of America has congratulated Nigeria on its countrys 56th Independence Anniversary which comes up on Saturday.

In a statement Friday, the U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, gave his countrys best wishes to Nigeria on behalf of President Barack Obama.

I recently returned from my third trip to Nigeria as Secretary, and I came away with a strong sense of the nations resolve to build a better future, Mr. Kerry said.

During my trip, I was reminded that many Nigerians are engaged in bringing people together across the divides of culture, religious practices, and ethnicity.

According to Mr. Kerry, there is still much work to be done to provide economic opportunities for all, end corruption, win the fight against Boko Haram and ensure broad respect for human rights.

He said Nigeria should provide humanitarian relief for millions of displaced people.

But we know that Nigerians are hard at work to address these challenges. The United States looks forward to deepening our partnership and friendship with Nigerians from all walks of life, so that we may work together for the betterment of Nigeria and all of Africa.

Best wishes to all of you on this 56th anniversary of your independence, U.S. secretary said.

(NAN)
The opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has said that President Muhammadu Buharis congratulatory message to the newly elected governor of Edo state, Godwin Obaseki, has finally revealed his hand in the election.

The party in a statement Friday said it had noted with sadness that Mr. Buhari had never extended similar congratulatory messages or goodwill to PDP candidates who were victorious in various elections since he assumed office.

In Bayelsa State where his party with the support of security agencies virtually declared war on Governor Seriake Dickson and the people of Bayelsa, the President refused to congratulate the PDP candidate who against all odds managed to survive the APC onslaught, the party said.

His aides claimed then that the President was not in the business of congratulating election winners. Why the sudden change of heart now if we may ask? The only plausible explanation is that the President was eager to confer legitimacy on an otherwise badly flawed election in which his party acted like Shina Rambo, the notorious Armed Robber. Only that this time they were robbing the people of their votes, PDP said.

The party said the action of the president belies his statement that he belongs to nobody but belongs to everybody. It said Mr. Buhari has shown where he belongs.

We recall that President Jonathan dutifully never failed to congratulate opposition candidates who won elections during his tenure, including Adams Oshiomhole. That is what is expected of a statesman.

We did not lose the gubernatorial election in Edo State. We can therefore not be described as bad losers according to the APC State Chairman in Edo State, Anselm Ojezua. We were robbed by very shameless election riggers.

We fully support the Edo Chapter of the PDP in the total rejection of the election results. We also fully endorse their determination to employ all legitimate means to reclaim their stolen mandate, PDP said in the statement signed by its spokesperson, Dayo Adeyeye.

PDP said Nigerias democracy is in danger with the advent of the Buhari administration. It said no election had been free and fair since Mr. Buhari came on board.

We go for elections as if we are going to war; and virtually all elections conducted by INEC have been either inconclusive or blatantly rigged.

Today Rivers State has no representation in the National Assembly. No thanks to the powers that be. If we do not collectively rise to resist this anti-people onslaught we might as well say bye bye to democracy, the party said.
Suspended lawmaker, Abdulmumin Jibrin, on Friday called on Nigerians to intervene in his ordeal and prevent the leadership of the House of Representatives from further humiliating him.

Mr. Jibrin, who was suspended on Wednesday after accusing the House leadership of budget fraud, said it would be unfortunate if Nigerians failed to act as he was being persecuted for being a whistleblower.

Here we are talking about the fight against corruption, Mr. Jibrin said in a statement. Today, Im being humiliated and my crime is simply exposing corruption in high places. Who will want to take such risk in future?

Mr. Jibrins appeal for solidarity came a day after his office was sealed by the National Assembly security as his 180-day suspension commenced.

The lawmaker blamed Speaker Yakubu Dogara for the development, saying it was the latest in a series of dubious attempts by the Speaker and his cohort to destroy evidence.

The office was purportedly sealed as a consequence of my illegal suspension, Mr. Jibrin said. But the truth was that it was done to enable the Speaker lay hands and destroy evidence.

Mr. Jibrin said his security detail had seen a drawdown as part of Mr. Dogaras alleged plans to silence him.

He called on Nigerians to keep the controversy on the front burner, saying the focus should be on the cases of budget fraud he uncovered.

House spokesman, Abdulrazak Namdas, said on Thursday that the Constitution accorded sufficient independence to the National Assembly, therefore, its internal decisions cannot be a subject of external investigation.

Mr. Namdas, however, told PREMIUM TIMES Mr. Jibrins allegations could not be probed because he failed to go through the right channel to raise them.

If he had credible allegations of corruption, he should have presented everything before the Ethics Committee in form of a petition, Mr. Namdas said. He failed to do that and instead went to the EFCC and others.

Mr. Dogaras spokesman, Turaki Hassan, said Mr. Jibrins latest claims against his principal will attract fresh sanctions for the embattled lawmaker.

The latest allegation will meet its own penalty, Mr. Hassan told PREMIUM TIMES Friday.
The Nigerian Army says its troops from the 13 Brigade Nigerian Army, Calabar, in the early hours of Friday, repelled an attack on its soldiers by killing seven armed militants at Efut Esighi in Bakassi local government area of Cross River.

Kayode Owolabi, Army Public Relations Officer, who disclosed this to journalists on Friday in Calabar.

Mr. Owolabi, a colonel, said the militants were boys of the most wanted militant leader, Benjamin Ene a.k.a G1 who has been on the wanted list of security agencies in the state.

The very determined troops from the 13 Brigade and Operation Delta Safe repelled an attack from armed militants at Efut Esighi in Bakassi local government area this morning.

The militants tried to attack the Army post in Efut Esighi. Some of them were wearing Nigerian military camouflage.

We recovered 250 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, rocket propelled gun luncher, GPMG belt links and various charms on their bodies. Other militants escaped with very serious gun shots injuries.

There was no casualty on the side of the military. Our men were in full combatant during the attack.

We have also destroyed their camps and shrines in the creeks, he said.

The APRO said that the 13 Brigade Commander, Bulama Biu, had warned that no militant group or criminal under any guise would be spared.

Mr. Owolabi further said the military and other security agencies would continue to hunt down any militant group or criminal that did not surrender.

He called on residents in the state to always avail the security agencies with useful and timely information that would enable them curb crime.

The Director of Army Public Relations, Sani Usman, had on September 24, confirmed that militants killed a soldier at the same spot (Efut Esighi) where the attack was repelled today. (NAN)
The UK Minister for Africa and Middle East, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Tobias Ellwood, has pledged to support Nigeria end oil vandalism and environmental pollution in the Niger Delta.

Mr. Ellwood, who toured the creeks in Rivers, told journalists in Port Harcourt on Friday that it had become imperative to help provide solutions to some of the challenges hindering the development in the country.

He said that he was tasked by his prime minister to have a broad knowledge of the security challenge in the North East and those of oil theft which had negatively impacted the countrys economy.

The minister said that his tour of Nigeria was expected to avail him the opportunity to recognise areas for which the UK could intervene to restore security and economic stability in the country.

Mr. Ellwood, however, expressed dismay with his findings in the Niger Delta region, saying that the level of environmental degeneration was overwhelming.

He called on the government and the oil companies to take urgent steps to restore sanity to the region.

The amount of money that is being wasted because of the oil that is being stolen, which the Nigerian people are denied because it is not going through the government, is in hundreds of millions of dollars every single year.

If we have better preventive measures to stop stealing of oil, that money could be invested into all kinds of livelihood schemes, scholarships, training in education, to allow people legal forms of occupation, jobs.

This is why we need to be clever about understanding what is happening in the Delta.

I flew up in a helicopter (over the creeks) to see the devastation that is being caused, the wide damage, lots of footprints of disaster.

This means no fishing can take place and even if you wanted to go fishing, you couldnt because there is oil leaks everywhere. It is really sad to see, he said.

Mr. Ellwood stated that we all have a duty and responsibility to save the situation, adding that a British company brought to the area made it clear that it was trying to resolve the matter.

On the use of the military to solve the problem, the minister said that it would not put a permanent solution to the problem.

He said that if the military was used it stop the boats from coming in to steal the oil, they would devise another means of doing that.

He recognised that militancy was not an easy thing to resolve since once there is criminality, they are using it to create the black market to sell.

We need to recognise that what governments are doing is not enough; we need to protect the environment, to have great control over the area.

I dont have all the answers now but I am moved by what I saw and I am very keen to work with both the federal and state governments but I understand there is a lot of politics in the country.

Mr. Ellwood, however, observed that perhaps, collectively we are not doing enough to take full advantage of the prosperity opportunities that the region is providing.

We have also failed in our responsibility to tackle the negative impacts of oil exploration on the environment, he said.

He called for a total overhaul of surveillance on oil facilities, repair and pipeline maintenance to avoid oil leakages.

He said that Nigeria could only effectively gain full economic potentials in the oil rich Delta if safe exploration mechanisms were adopted.

Ellwood, however, commended the Federal Government as it took steps to implement the UNEP Report.

He urged the government to kick-start the implementation to give succour to the residents of the affected area in Ogoni land. (NAN)
The All Progress Grand Alliance, Social Democratic Party and the Labour Party have separately condemned the outcome of Wednesdays Edo State governorship election, describing it as a total disregard for the popular will of the citizens.

This follows an earlier rejection of the polls by the Peoples Democratic Party, which alleged massive rigging by the ruling party.

The All Progressives Congress candidate, Godwin Obaseki, was declared winner of the election after polling 319,483, defeating his closest rival, Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the Peoples Democratic Party, who garnered a total of 253, 173.

The national chairman of APGA, Victor Oye, while condemning the election in a statement on Friday, said the treatment meted out to his party was contemptuous, callous and malicious.

He expressed surprise that the 876 votes allotted to his party was deliberately done to humiliate and intimidate its members because of the massive attractions the party had among the people of Edo during preparations for the election.

Mr. Oye wondered how INEC came to 876 votes when the support for the party cut across the three political zones of the state.

He challenged INEC to produce the results collated at each polling unit and get a forensic expert to examine each of them, saying the outcome of the scrutiny would shock the world.

The results collated by our polling agents showed that APGA garnered over 30,000 votes, he said.

Some fraudulent persons traded with the APGA votes to make up for their own votes in order to win the election at all costs.

Mr. Oye, however, congratulated APGA supporters in Edo State on their doggedness and unrelenting support, urging them not to be fazed by the outcome of the election as it did not reflect what actually transpired.

Remain calm, peaceful and prayerful. It will not be long before the world knows the truth. Truth is unassailable, he advised.

He also praised his partys candidate, Osaro Onaiwu, for his innovative style of campaign that sent shock waves across the state, forcing the two leading parties to plot to silence him by squandering his votes and allocating a paltry 876 votes to him.

In the same vein, SDP said the election was messed up by the ruling APC. It alleged that the ruling party ruined the will of the people through financial inducements and blatant manipulation of results.

The Publicity Secretary of the party, Oshobugie Bonvist, told PREMIUM TIMES that the election would have to be cancelled and fresh one conducted to rectify the malpractices of the APC in the election.

This is not democracy at all, he lamented. We want the election cancelled and repeated.

He argued that besides inducements, the APC continued to intimidate opposition party supporters and forcefully ensured results were written in their favour.

He said the party would challenge the results in court, warning that if the situation is not corrected it would be bad for democracy in the state.

The governorship candidate of the Labour Party, Amos Areloegbe, said the election was a sham, and what happened was not democratic.

He however said he had put the developments behind him and would simply continue with his life.

He also said he would not be going to court, even though he believed the election was rigged.

He wished Mr. Obaseki well, urging him to call all political stakeholders in order to work together.
The Imo State House of Assembly has passed a motion calling for the sack of the state Commissioner for Community Government Council, Innocent Eke, for alleged sabotage.

In a motion moved by Arthur Egwim (APC, Ideato North) in Owerri on Friday, the commissioner was accused of sabotaging efforts of the House to resolve crises emanating from autonomous communities.

Mr. Egwim, who is the chairman, Committee on Community Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, said the commissioners activities had brought disrepute to the smooth running of government.

He said the committee had made necessary efforts to end crises in some communities over chieftaincy disputes, but met brick walls due to the excesses of the commissioner.

The chairman said the assembly would not allow anybody to ridicule its effort.

The motion urged the Gov. Rochas Okorocha to immediately sack the commissioner and appoint another person to replace him.

Passing the motion, the Speaker of the Assembly, Acho Ihim, said the House would communicate to the governor officially about the recommendation.

Mr. Ihim said that considering the reaction of the lawmaker, the activities of the commissioner might cause more harm than good if he was allowed to continue. (NAN)
A clergyman, Wale Fagbere, who was reportedly paralysed after destroying a shrine in Aiyetoro in Ogun, has said that people mistook his posture at the shrine for paralysis.

Mr. Fagbere, who presides over the Christ Apostolic Church, CAC, Ona-Iye parish, Ayetoro , stated this at a press conference in Abeokuta.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the press conference was organised by the Ogun branch of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN.

Mr. Fagbere was reportedly stricken in the process of destroying a shrine in Ketu community of Aiyetoro in Yewa North Council Area of Ogun on September 20.

The pastor, who was reported to have been stricken by the angry gods of the shrine, allegedly regained consciousness after custodians of the shrine carried out some rites on him.

This was said to have followed the intervention of the Alaye of Ayetoro, Abdulazeez Adelakun.

But Mr. Fagbere , who admitted that the traditionalists tried many charms on him, claimed that none worked.

He said that he only stood still and kept mute at the scene in conformity with Gods commandment to him.

Mr. Fagbere, who narrated his story to journalists, said: About what happened at Ayetoro, it was from God and direction from the Holy Spirit for the deliverance of Ayetoro from darkness.

God told me that I should go to the shrine to bring out those things for the liberation of Ayetoro.

When I started what God told me, He told me to do three things in the shrine .

He said that when I get there, I should evacuate; I should step aside and remain silent when people come out to see me .

So, I did exactly as instructed by God on that September 20 .

I got there around 5.a.m. and after I took out those things ,God told me to wait and stay and I did so.

It was not their gods that held me transfixed or struck me; it was the idol worshipers that struck me with their charms.

When I was taken to the palace, I told them that all my actions were directed by God and not human beings or the church of God.

Although, they tried many charms on me, none was effective on me.

I only followed the instruction of God that I should be quiet and they too know the truth .

The state Chairman of CAN, Tunde Akin-Akinsanya , described the reports, especially those on social media, as exaggerated.

He said that the body intended to correct the misconception about the incident.

The Regional Coordinator of Yewa/Awori Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN, Lola Dada, said at the briefing that the custodians of the shrine demanded for money from the family and CAN to appease the gods.

They demanded for things they claimed they wanted to use for sacrifice.

They asked the family of the pastor to pay N300,000 while CAN should bring N200,000, making it N500,000 for the sacrifice to appease their gods.

However, no money was given to them and peace has returned to the town, he said.

Although the police had moved to charge Mr. Fagbere for malicious damage and act capable of breaching public peace, the case may not continue.

The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Abimbola Oyeyemi, told journalists on Thursday that the case might not continue because the traditionalists were dragging their feet on the case.

(NAN)
The Lagos State University said on Friday that 24,734 certificates of graduates who left the institution over the last 10 years were lying uncollected at its registry.

Adekoya Martins, Acting Head, Centre for Information, Press and Public Relation, LASU, told the News Agency of Nigeria that the certificates were for students who graduated with diplomas and degrees.

Mr. Martins said that the university, following the backlog of uncollected certificates, had decided that affected graduates who fail to collect theirs before October 21 would have to pay N15,000 before doing so.

Before you know it, some the graduates of the university will be clamouring that LASU is withholding their certificates.

Now that the certificates have been signed and released for collection, only a few are coming for it.

Collection of certificates commenced on September 26 and it will end on Oct.21.

Payment for late collection after the stipulated period of four weeks, after Friday October 21, is N15,000 only, he said.



The university, in its official bulletin, had said the certificates were available for collection at the Certificate Unit of the Exams and Records in its Registry.

The university, in the bulletin, gave a breakdown of the certificates and the faculties that were affected.

It urged graduates to visit the university website  www.lasu.edu.ng  for further information on the procedure for collection of certificates and confirmation of the list of issued certificates.

(NAN)
A family business that lasts nearly a century inevitably sees its share of struggles, from the Great Depression to the stagflation of the 1970s to the recession of the late 2000s. It also evolves through the generations.

Among them are Shrivers Salt Water Taffy & Fudge in Ocean City and Swains Hardware in Cape May, both of which have passed 100 years in business. Formica Bros. Bakery in Atlantic City will reach that milestone in 2019.

Meryl Berwick-Vangelov, of Linwood, remembers always answering no as a child when she was asked whether one day she would like to take over her parents Shrivers Salt Water Taffy shop. She was even fired a couple of times. But now, she is the president of the business.

Each generation has put in their two cents, Berwick-Vangelov said. I have to give props to Henry Glaser, my grandfather, and Hank Glaser, my uncle. Each generation has expanded the business slightly or more than slightly to keep up with the times.

Thrift stores to build homes The Atlantic County and Cape May County affiliates of Habitat for Humanity are two of the la

Virginia Berwick and Hank Glaser, Berwick-Vangelovs mother and uncle, taught her everything about the business. Shrivers used to be open five months a year, but under the leadership of Berwick and Glaser, heat was added to the building on the Boardwalk to allow it to stay open later.

Since taking over the business, Berwick-Vangelov and her husband, Blue Vangelov, 38, the vice president, have expanded the product line and the footprint of the store.

I acquired Shrivers Gelato, which was started in 2006, while I was still working for my mom and my uncle, Berwick-Vangelov said.

Since she started running things, Shrivers has expanded its online business, so that their candy and fudge can be shipped all over the country.

The internet was a huge savior, Berwick-Vangelov said.

Terri L. Swain, the owner of Swains Hardware, traces her work ethic back to her great-grandmother, Margaret Swain, and her interest in community involvement to her grandfather, Charles A. Swain Jr., who became the international president of Kiwanis and a leader in the building of Cape Island Baptist Church.

During the 120 years the Swains have been in business, the hardest time was during the Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to 1939. Back then, everything was recorded manually. Swain said bartering took place with people who had no cash.

There was always a good sense of community even during the trying times. That stayed with my family, she said.

Trump Taj Mahal Local 54 strike surpasses 90-day mark ATLANTIC CITY  Rich Marin has battled more than sweltering weather and rainstorms while pic

As a child, Swain worked with her grandfather in the receiving part of the store. Her grandfather worked until he was 100 years old.

The middle child of five, Swain said her brothers and sisters all worked in the business at some point growing up. As adults, some were involved a little bit or not at all, while others, like herself, have done other things but have also worked there.

Before Swain bought the business from her father in 2000, she was a certified public accountant in New York City, where she learned a great deal about other businesses.

Swain attends buying shows all the time to see what the latest products are. She looks to reset four departments in her store next year.

On most nights, Swain is in bed by 7 or 7:30 p.m. so she can wake up at 4 a.m. and walk her dogs before coming into the store.

I like my mornings. I can get stuff done, she said.

Frank D. Formica is the third-generation owner-operator of Formica Bros. Bakery. Formicas grandfather, Francesco Formica, founded the business in 1919. The business was run by Mario Formica and his two brothers, Frank and Dominic Tar Formica, from 1945 until Mario sold it to his son, Frank D., in 1987.

My grandmother (Rosa Formica) ... knew how to mix dough and make bread. She made bread alongside my grandfather, said Formica, who added she had an apron on one day after arriving in this country in 1916. Before they took her to the hospital to die when she was 88, she had an apron on that day.

While Formica has been running the business, he has grown it.

Morey's Piers shows students the business behind the food WILDWOOD  The pounding coming from Jumbos restaurant on Mariners Landing Pier was not con

Formica, whose first job was sweeping floors at age 9, expanded the business into school food service and landed new customers in Cape May. He also hired a full-time artisan baker, upgraded to brick-lined, gas-fired ovens and established a co-manufacturing joint venture with Ginsburg Bakery.

At the 100th anniversary, he said he plans to recognize his family and celebrate with the community.

If we are doing well enough, we can give everybody who comes by a free loaf of bread, and if its 1,000 people, hopefully, we are good enough to do that, Formica said.
The Atlantic County and Cape May County affiliates of Habitat for Humanity are two of the last in the state without stores to aid in funding for future projects. But not for long.

Both branches are working to open up what Habitat calls a Restore.

Its a place that we take in donations of furniture, appliances and building equipment and supplies, said Carol Schwartz, executive director of Atlantic County Habitat for Humanity. You can come there and purchase and the money goes back to build more homes.

The Restore works as a thrift store for larger items. It does not accept mattresses, clothing or home decorations.

Atlantic Countys Restore will open this winter at the former General Floor at 2733 Fire Road in Egg Harbor Township.

Cape May County Habitat for Humanity is negotiating for a space in Middle Township, said Executive Director Shawn Lockyear.

Lockyears goal is to open in spring.

Its a big investment to do the build out, but its really the way Habitat affiliates all over the country support themselves, she said.

Lockyear said the more than 850 Restores in the United States generate about $400 million a year for Habitat affiliates.

It has become basically the single biggest source of unrestricted funds for affiliates, she said.

Funds are important for the organization, because while the land is donated and much of the building work is done with volunteers, supplies and administration cost money.

Schwartz said that, locally, homes cost about $100,000 to build. The Atlantic County affiliate recently partnered with the Atlantic County Improvement Authority to obtain funding, she said.

There are so many people that needs homes. We, as a small affiliate, would love to build more, and thats why were doing the Restore. We need the funding, she said.

Lockyear said it wouldnt be hard to fill a store.

We get calls every single day from people that want to give us stuff. The brand is so well known, and theres so much stuff that had been going into the landfills, Lockyear said.

The land for Habitat for Humanity homes is often donated, either by a town or a private owner or developer. For the Cape May County affiliate, Middle Township has donated land to help fulfill its Council on Affordable Housing obligation.

Since 2012, eight Habitat homes have been built in the Whitesboro section. Lockyear said they are continuing to try to expand to other areas. In June, they presented a plan for COAH-eligible housing on a vacant lot in Ocean City that is owned by the city. Lockyear said the city had reached out to Habitat initially, but nearby residents didnt want the lot developed.

People get used to having it vacant, and there was a lot of opposition to sort of taking away what the neighbors considered to be their open space, she said. Were still hopeful that we can do something with Ocean City.

In Atlantic County, private developer Ryan Homes donated two lots in a Mays Landing development to the local affiliate.

The second home was completed this summer. On Sunday, Hamilton Township Mayor Roger Silva told Schwartz the township is ready to donate a lot on Beacon Avenue.

Schwartz said she is eager to expand, which the Restore would help with.

Most of our building at one point was centralized around Atlantic City and Pleasantville, but we want to branch out, because its Atlantic County, and there are people all over the county that need homes, she said.
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AVALON  The salt marsh behind Avalon provides wildlife habitat as well as protection against flooding for the island and mainland.

So signs of degradation were not taken lightly.

The water was expanding inside and out, said Metthea Yepsen, Nature Conservancy of New Jerseys coastal restoration manager, of the erosion and breaking up of some of the marsh.

Pools inside the marsh were growing larger, she said.

We had big blowout areas where there wasnt enough grass to keep it in place, she said. It was ripping off.

The causes are complex, including rising sea levels and sinking land, as well as erosion from boat wakes and wind driving waves against the salt marsh, she said.

In some areas, water hits bulkheads on the island, then reflects back to the wetlands, causing more erosion.

Yepsen said the Nature Conservancy estimates 15 percent to 30 percent of New Jerseys tidal salt marsh could be lost to those forces by 2050, based on modeling done by Rutgers Universitys Rick Lathrop.

They would become nonvegetative habitat, or mud flats.

At the same time, it has become more difficult to find a place to put materials from dredging channels and lagoons, said Bob Allen, assistant state director for the Nature Conservancy.

So the Nature Conservancy partnered with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, which owns the marshes; and the Army Corps of Engineers and state Department of Transportation, which handle dredging.

They are testing to see whether dredge sediments can help rebuild and stabilize selected marshes. If so, they will solve two problems at once.

Its paid for by a $3.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Interiors Hurricane Sandy Coastal Resilience Competitive Grant, said DEP spokesman Larry Hajna.

Dredging partners are also helping with funding, Yepsen said.

Hajna said the state helped with facilitating permitting, and some Division of Fish and Wildlife personnel are helping with monitoring.

Our role is to make sure the project conforms to all applicable regulations while looking at innovative technologies, Hajna said.

Dredge materials were first spread over wetlands in the summer of 2014 on four acres at Ring Island in Middle Township. Two of those acres are used as bird nesting habitat, and threatened and endangered species have used it since, Yepsen said.

During the winter of 2014 to 2015, the materials were spread on two pilot areas in Avalon, and last winter on five areas of Avalon marsh totaling 44 acres, she said.

The material was also put on 10 acres of marsh in Fortescue in the Delaware Bay last winter, Yepsen said. It may get another application this winter if a dredging project can be arranged.

Each site is unique and the materials spread on each are different, with different grain sizes, she said. The materials were piped directly from dredging site to marsh and sprayed through a large nozzle on chosen areas.

Coconut coir logs, which will naturally decompose, now ring where the materials were placed to keep the sediment in place.

On Wednesday, a Nature Conservancy team took a boat ride out to the Avalon site to see how it was faring.

I did a quick calculation, and about 37 percent (of randomly selected sites marked with stakes) have some vegetation so far, said Jessie Buckner, the nonprofit organizations coastal science specialist, who was driving the boat. Thats a good number.

But Yepsen said it will likely take three years or more to really see how well it worked.

It takes three growing seasons in the Gulf of Mexico to see the full effect, she said. And the growing season there is much longer.

All three sites are showing signs of vegetation recovering and coming back, Yepsen said.

If the native grasses like Spartina alterniflora, Spartina patens and Distichlis spicata come back thickly enough, along with other plants such as sea lavender and Salicornia  also known as pickleweed or glasswort  it will mean dredge material can rebuild wetlands, she said.

Rebuilding marshes with dredge sediment is working in the Gulf of Mexico, Yepsen said.

On Thursday, the surface in some sections where sediments were distributed was cracked, and the pickleweed was among the first plants to reappear in those cracks, along with sparse growth of Spartina alterniflora  also called saltmarsh cordgrass.

The pools had been reduced in size and birds of all kinds were feeding along their banks, including egrets, herons, dunlin, killdeer, black- bellied plovers, least sandpipers and dowitchers.

We saw fewer birds before (adding the materials), Yepsen said. They are feeding on what is in the sediment.

The hope is that it will also be less expensive to spread dredge materials on wetlands rather than have to move them to islands or find other places to put them, Yepsen said. We are doing a full cost analysis now.

But because its an experimental effort, it would be surprising if the cost savings show up right away, Allen said.

He said true cost savings would likely come about after the projects can be done on a larger scale.
Little Egg Harbors Gaten Matarazzo didnt expect that Netflixs original series Stranger Things would become a massive hit.

He also didnt expect his character, the lovable and comedic Dustin Henderson, would become a fan favorite.

I actually wasnt too sure it was going to be as big as it was because its such a different show, Matarazzo said. I didnt think a lot of people would get it. Im glad with the way it turned out and Im glad season two is happening.

Stranger Things, by Matt and Ross Duffer, premiered over the summer on the streaming service, and quickly gained a massive cult following.

Set in 1983 in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, an investigation is launched after single mother Joyce Byers son, Will, goes missing under mysterious circumstances. Wills friends, Dustin, Mike Wheeler and Lucas Sinclair set off to find him with the help of a young telekinetic girl named Eleven.

Since Stranger Things has become a household name, Matarazzo, 14, has appeared on multiple late night shows such as Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon. Matarazzo, along with Millie Bobby Brown and Caleb McLaughlin who play Eleven and Lucas, respectively, made headlines with their Uptown Funk performance at the Emmys.

As for the overnight fame, Matarazzo said he likes it more than he thought he would.

I like it a lot more than I thought I would. I thought it was going to be crazy overwhelming and (I would) be on lockdown, he said. It definitely can be a little overwhelming at times, but I definitely enjoy it. I definitely enjoy all my fans and being a part of this wonderful project.

Matarazzo has found a way to show his fans how special they are to him, too. When fans stop to ask him for a selfie, hell ask for one with them as well.

I really just respect them and appreciate them watching the show, he said. I appreciate them wanting to take a picture with me  it makes me feel like Im doing my job well.

Matarazzo has also made headlines for opening up about his cleidocranial dysplasia, a condition that affects the development of the bones and teeth, which the Duffer brothers wrote into the show.

As the actor has brought awareness to the condition, he said others who have cleidocranial dysplasia have reached out to him to thank him.

I dont know why theyre thanking me, I didnt write (it into the script). Im definitely glad they put that in there because now I get to talk about it, he said, noting that the thanks should go to the Duffer brothers.

Although hes always had a great deal of respect for the Duffer brothers, Matarazzo said that writing the condition into the script made him respect them 40 times more. The brothers, he added, are like his own older kin.

Matarazzo also has had a great relationship with his co-stars too, noting that its easy to play friends on screen when youre actually friends in real life.

All of us have completely different personalities. We have some similarities, sure, but I guess it worked, he said. Its kind of like the perfect storm.

Matarazzo said one of his favorite scenes was the first scene they shot, which was one of the first of the series, where the boys are playing Dungeons and Dragons.

His character has one moment where he knocks his own hat off. The first time he did it, he said it was a mistake. The second time, it was intentional.

When I did that, when were in the middle of rehearsal, it knocked off and everyone was like Keep it! Were using that. Were going to do that, he said.

When it comes to his character, Matarazzo said he can relate to him. Hes the goofball of his own group of friends, like Dustin, though he concedes hes less awkward.

Matarazzo, who has never taken an acting class, has had a lucrative career in productions such as Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Radio City Christmas Spectacular and Les Miserables. After he graduates high school, he said hed like to try to get into more shows on the stage, though he admits he hasnt done anything for film.

His dream role?

On stage it would be the Phantom of the Opera. I love that show, he said. Off stage, it would be anybody in the Star Wars movies.

But Matarazzo said he never had the thought that he was going to be an actor. In fact, it was only when he tagged along to a showcase with older sister Sabrina, who also acts and sings, that he decided to give acting a go.

I was there and they asked me if I like to do that stuff. Me, trying to be like my awesome sister said, Yeah I do, its my dream, he said. I just started going on auditions from there.

Matarazzo has said his younger brother, Carmen, also has interest in acting and singing. His mother, Heather, said shes the one who makes sure her talented brood get where they need to be, and that the rest is up to them.

Matarazzo said his family, who he describes as being very close to, is proud of his work on the show.

But they dont talk about it much when hes around.

They love it. They know when Im with them I dont really like to talk about the show all that much; it feels like its all I talk about right now, he said.

For now, Matarazzo is enjoying his first year of high school, earning straight As, and is excited to start filming season two, which will premiere in 2017. Like the rest of the Stranger Things fans, Matarazzo said he doesnt know anything about the content of the new season. Hes just as excited to find out.

While Matarazzo was born in Connecticut, he said he has a special place in his heart for his admirers in South Jersey.

I love everybody. Im a Jersey boy, always will be, even though I was born in Connecticut. South Jersey boy and you guys know it. And I love you all, he said.
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.




PEORIA, Illinois, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT / NYSE Euronext: CATR) informs its stockholders that on September 29, 2016, a Form 8-K was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") with respect to 2017 pricing.

Caterpillar files electronically with the SEC required reports on Form 8-K, Form 10-Q, Form 10-K and Form 11-K; proxy materials; ownership reports for insiders as required by Section 16(a) of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended; and registration statements on Forms S-3 and S-8, as necessary; and other forms or reports, as required. All of the forms and reports filed electronically with the SEC are available on the SEC Internet site (http://www.sec.gov ).

Caterpillar also maintains an Internet site (www.Caterpillar.com) and copies of its annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and any amendments to these reports filed or furnished with the SEC are available free of charge through Caterpillar's Internet site (http://www.Caterpillar.com/secfilings ) as soon as reasonably practicable after the relevant document has been filed with the SEC.

CONTACT: Rachel Potts, Corporate Public Affairs, +1-309-675-6892

This is a disclosure announcement from PR Newswire.

SOURCE Caterpillar Inc.
- AQUACEL Ag+ Extra dressing recognized as Most Innovative Dressing by independent panel of experts

- ConvaTec Research & Development team also win award for scientific contribution in Infection and Biofilm category

FLORENCE, Italy, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ConvaTec, a leading global medical technology company, received two top honours at the inaugural Journal of Wound Care World Union of Wound Healing Societies (JWC WUWHS) Awards, presented at this year's 5th quadrennial WUWHS Conference in a ceremony on Tuesday evening, September 27 in Florence, Italy.

ConvaTec's AQUACEL Ag+ Extra dressing  the first dressing specifically developed to combat wound biofilm  won the Most Innovative Dressing Award, one of only two award categories to recognise industry achievement in developing "breakthrough technologies that have revolutionised wound care over the last four years, and genuine game changing dressings which have forged the way for new categories of dressings to be created and have changed patient lives through their outcomes."

In the prestigious Infection and Biofilm category, recognising scientific contributions in this complex area of wound care, the Award went to the ConvaTec Research & Development team of Phil Bowler, VP, Science & Technology; Daniel Metcalf, Associate Director, Science & Technology, and collaborator Jennifer Hurlow, RN, MSN, GNP-BC, CWOCN.

Judged by an independent panel of JWC WUWHS board members, representatives from their sister and collaborating societies and key opinion leaders, the JWC WUWHS Awards were created to chart the progress of wound care over the last four years, giving an opportunity to benchmark the global position of wound care and the work conducted in this field of medicine.

"This has been a milestone year for ConvaTec, in which we have celebrated 20 years of innovation and customer collaboration with our AQUACEL dressing, and brought the benefits of AQUACEL technology to negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) with the launch of our Avelle system," said Steve Bishop, Vice President, R&D, Advanced Wound Care at ConvaTec.

"These two awards acknowledge the many years of research and collaboration that resulted in the development of AQUACEL Ag+ Extra dressing, honoured as the world's most innovative wound dressing and supported by world-renowned infection and biofilm science. We look forward to continuing to help wound specialists promote better healing outcomes, addressing further unmet needs in wound care and helping more patients resume their daily lives."

AQUACEL Ag+ Extra dressing is part of ConvaTec's broad range of Advanced Wound Care products including AQUACEL Foam dressing, the new Foam Lite ConvaTec dressing and the recently launched Avelle disposable NPWT system.

AQUACEL dressings feature ConvaTec's proprietary Hydrofiber Technology which is designed to help create a beneficial moist wound environment for healing. Originally developed to manage wound exudate, the technology evolved with the addition of ionic silver to help manage and reduce risk of wound infection and, most recently, with the inclusion of Ag+ advanced technology to combat wound biofilm  key barriers to wound healing. AQUACEL and Hydrofiber Technology have been the subject of more than 365 clinical studies and papers.

For more information about AQUACEL dressings, the Avelle System and ConvaTec Advanced Wound Care, visit www.convatec.co.uk or call ConvaTec customer service at 0800 289 738.

About ConvaTec

ConvaTec is a global medical products and technologies company focused on therapies for the management of chronic conditions, with leading market positions in advanced wound care, ostomy care, continence and critical care, and infusion devices. ConvaTec's products provide a range of clinical and economic benefits including infection prevention, protection of at-risk skin, improved patient outcomes and reduced total cost of care. The company is owned by Nordic Capital and Avista Capital Partners.

AQUACEL, Avelle and Hydrofiber are trademarks of ConvaTec Inc.

 2016 ConvaTec Inc.

AP-016968-MM EM

References available on request

Contact:

Punnie Donohue

ConvaTec

punnie.donohue@convatec.com

Related Links

http://www.convatec.com



SOURCE ConvaTec
RHODES, Greece, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Pooran Chandra Pandey named as institute's first CEO

named as institute's first CEO Andrea von Knoop joins DOC Supervisory Board

DOC Research Institute ("DOC", or the "Institute"), an independent international think tank headquartered in Berlin, is pleased to announce the results of a Supervisory Board meeting held on September 29.

Meeting ahead of the formal opening of the 14th annual Rhodes Forum, the DOC's annual flagship public event, the Board named Pooran Chandra Pandey as the DOC's inaugural CEO, and welcomed Andrea von Knoop as a new member of the Supervisory Board. Both appointments take effect immediately.

Pooran Chandra Pandey joins the DOC from UN Global Compact Network India, where he served from 2011 to 2016 as Executive Director. In that role he led Indian companies and other stakeholders in promoting key principles of human rights, anti-corruption, environmental protection and labour standards.

On his appointment, Pooran Chandra Pandey said: "I am excited to be joining this organisation, which has such a key role to play in reducing conflict and tensions in the world, and developing practical solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems through a process rooted in mutually respectful dialogue and an understanding of our common interests and challenges."

"Throughout my career I have sought to address some of the greatest challenges humankind faces - from natural disasters and resource pressure to access to education, empowering marginalised communities, and environmental protection. In this new role I look forward to continuing my work within a new forum. The Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute has formed at a time in which global tensions are running high, and I believe it has a real role to play in delivering practical positive change."

Andrea von Knoop said: "It is a privilege to be joining the DOC Research Institute as the organisation launches its mission. From my personal experience and involvement in dialogue-based initiatives between East and West I am deeply convinced of the need to foster mutual understanding to tackle the many challenges our world faces today, and look forward to contributing to this process as a member of the Supervisory Board."

For news from the Rhodes Forum follow us on Twitter (@DOCResearchInst) and Facebook (@DOCResearchInstitute) and using the hashtags #RhodesForum and #DOCResearch

Notes to editors:

About Pooran Chandra Pandey:

Pooran Chandra Pandey is one of India's leading experts on advocacy, economic and social development work, management and the voluntary sector. From 2011 to 2016, he served as Executive Director for UN Global Compact Network India. Prior to taking up that post, he was Director at the Times Foundation, one of India's leading corporate foundations working in the areas of health, education, environment, women's empowerment, and disaster management. From 2004 to 2007, he was CEO at Voluntary Action Network India, the country's largest association of voluntary organizations, comprising 2,400 members within India.

Credited with pioneering the notion of involving civil society, businesses and government through a consensus-building approach for inclusive social dividends, Pooran Chandra Pandey has led the launch of national public service campaigns within India such as Lead India, Teach India and the social impact awards.

Specialising both in development and humanitarian assistance, he has also chaired and co-chaired a number of Indian Government task forces and committees developing national policy on the voluntary sector, implementing the UN Handbook, non-governmental charter of good governance, rationalisation of policies for NGOs, and the foreign contribution regulation act.

Pooran Chandra Pandey holds holds a BA and MA from the University of Allahabad, an M.Phil in International Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, and was also a Chevening Scholar in Leadership and Global Organization at the London School of Economics.

About Andrea von Knoop:

Andrea von Knoop has more than 40 years of business experience between Germany and Russia. She currently serves as Senior Counsel to EY Russia. Previously she was General Director for Management Consulting at Arthur Andersen.

From 1993 through 2007, Andrea von Knoop served as the Head of the Delegation of German Industry and Commerce. She has been Chairwoman of the German Business Association in the Russian Federation since its foundation in 1995. Her professional career also includes 13 years of working with major German banks in international business.

Among numerous other awards in both Germany and Russia, she was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (First Class) and the Order of Friendship - the highest decoration in Russia for foreign citizens - by the country's respective presidents.

About DOC:

Rooted in a tradition of seeking dialogue-based solutions to humankind's most pressing issues, Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute builds on the work and achievements of its predecessor organization, the World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations, bringing together global thought leaders from academia, public policy, business and civil society to debate and develop practice-based policy advice.

The roots of the organization date back to 9 November 2001, following an initiative by Iranian leader Mohammad Khatami, when UNESCO Member States unanimously adopted the 'UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity' and the UN General Assembly presented its Global Agenda for Dialogue Among Civilisations, setting out the principles of intercultural dialogue to be defended and objectives to be achieved. The World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations emerged as a practical endeavour to implement this initiative, and has since evolved into what is today Dialogue of Civilisations Research Institute.

SOURCE DOC Research Institute
AMSTERDAM, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Approval of hybrid high-dose fluticasone/salmeterol maintenance treatment for people living with severe asthma and COPD, delivered via the award-winning Spiromax inhaler to help patient usability

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., announced today that it has received EU Marketing Authorization for Aerivio Spiromax (fluticasone/salmeterol 500/50)[1] as a maintenance bronchodilator treatment for adult patients with severe asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Aerivio Spiromax contains a fixed dose combination of fluticasone propionate, an inhaled corticosteroid to treat the underlying inflammation in asthma and COPD, and salmeterol xinafoate, a long-acting beta-agonist, being delivered via the award-winning[2] Spiromax inhaler.

"We are excited about the European approval of Aerivio Spiromax that can give patients with severe asthma and COPD the possibility to benefit from this widely used fixed dose combination in the award-winning Spiromax inhaler," said Luca Frangoni, VP Head of Respiratory Europe. "It is an important goal of our growing respiratory franchise to bring a wide range of new treatment options to patients and healthcare professionals; from innovative treatments and value-adding services to advanced inhalers such as Spiromax."

The Spiromax inhaler has received a Medical Design Excellence Award that recognizes significant advances in medical product design. The inhaler is primed by opening the cover and a click confirms it is ready for use. It provides dosing confirmation for patients through a subtle taste and precise dose indicator. Spiromax delivers consistent dosing of the medicines from first dose to last.

With the approval of Aerivio Spiromax[1] Teva adds another established fixed dose combination of ICS/LABA (inhaled corticosteroid with long-acting beta-agonist) to its inhaler family. DuoResp Spiromax, the combination of budesonide and formoterol fumarate dihydrate, already received EU marketing authorization for the treatment of asthma and COPD in May 2014.

About asthma and COPD

More than 16 million young adults (15-45 years) in Europe are estimated to have asthma.[3] Of these, 5-10% have severe asthma,[4] and the burden of cost and lost productivity is highest for this group.[5] A further 23 million adults suffer from COPD, with poor control resulting in up to 1.1 million hospital admissions each year.[4] More than 90% of patients make inhalation technique errors, and poor technique is associated with poor disease control.[6],[7]

About Aerivio Spiromax

Aerivio Spiromax (fluticasone/salmeterol 500/50) is indicated as a maintenance bronchodilator treatment for adult patients with severe asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Aerivio Spiromax contains a high-strength formulation of salmeterol xinafoate, a selective long-acting inhaled  adrenoceptor agonist, and fluticasone propionate, an inhaled glucocorticoid with anti-inflammatory activity in the lungs. This formulation is delivered via the award-winning[2] Spiromax inhaler. National launches will take place in selected markets over the coming months. See the Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC) for full prescribing information.

About Teva Respiratory

Teva Respiratory develops and delivers high-quality treatment options for respiratory conditions, including asthma, COPD and allergic rhinitis. The Teva Respiratory portfolio is centered on optimizing respiratory treatment for patients and healthcare providers through the development of novel delivery systems and therapies that help address unmet needs. The company's respiratory pipeline and clinical trial program are based on drug molecules delivered in proprietary dry powder formulations and breath-actuated device technologies, as well as a targeted biologics. Through research and clinical development, Teva Respiratory continually works to expand, strengthen and build upon its treatment portfolio to positively impact the lives of the millions of patients living with respiratory disease.

About Teva

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE and TASE: TEVA) is a leading global pharmaceutical company that delivers high-quality, patient-centric healthcare solutions used by millions of patients every day. Headquartered in Israel, Teva is the world's largest generic medicines producer, leveraging its portfolio of more than 1,800 molecules to produce a wide range of generic products in nearly every therapeutic area. In specialty medicines, Teva has a world-leading position in innovative treatments for disorders of the central nervous system, including pain, as well as a strong portfolio of respiratory products. Teva integrates its generics and specialty capabilities in its global research and development division to create new ways of addressing unmet patient needs by combining drug development capabilities with devices, services and technologies. Teva's net revenues in 2015 amounted to $19.7 billion. For more information, visit http://www.tevapharm.com.

References

1. European Medicines Agency, Aerivio Summary of Product Characteristics. Available at: http://www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/EPAR_-_Product_Information/human/002752/WC500212329.pdf Date accessed: September 2016

2. Medical Design Excellence Awards 2015. Silver award winner, Drug-Delivery Devices and Combination Products category. Available from: http://mdeawards.mddionline.com/2015-winners . Date accessed: September 2016

3. European Lung White Book 2013, Online Edition - Chapter 1, http://www.erswhitebook.org/chapters/the-burden-of-lung-disease . Date accessed: September 2016.

4. Wenzel S. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. 2005;172(2):149-60, DOI: 10.1164/rccm.200409-1181PP

5. Antonicelli L, Bucca C, Neri M, et al. European Respiratory Journal. 2004;23(5):723-9, DOI: 10.1183/09031936.04.00004904

6. Giraud V, Roche N. European Respiratory Journal. 2002;19(2):246-51, DOI: 10.1183/09031936.02.00218402

7. Melani AS, Bonavia M, Cilenti V, et al. Respiratory Medicine. 2011;105(6):930-8, DOI: 10.1016/j.rmed.2011.01.005

SOURCE Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd
LONDON, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Expert global leaders in the fields of technology, innovation, creative business and health, and leading female entrepreneurs, today announce plans to partner with Saudi Arabia's MiSK Foundation by hosting the first ever dual-nation Hackathon to dream up and develop tech solutions to the world's most challenging health and medical problems.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413416 )



Funded by MiSK and supported by global and local partners within technology, innovation and health, the event will be broadcast live as mixed gender teams collaborate in tandem across the two nations on 25-27 November in London and Riyadh. Themed 'The Medical Internet of Things' the contest will bring together the most inventive British and Saudi young minds, challenging them to change the world and save millions of lives in 48 hours by developing an innovative new tech health invention. Individuals can register and apply at www.miskhackathon.com

Comments Badr Al-Asakir, MiSK Foundation Secretary General: "Youth empowerment and entrepreneurialism, health and wellbeing are the life blood of a prosperous, diverse and thriving economic future. With life expectancy, health issues and service costs all escalating and becoming a global challenge, we believe that finding timely and innovative solutions to these problems are critical. The Hackathon is designed to contribute to these goals."

Supported by world-leading mentors and specialists, up to 400 participants will work in mixed teams and pitch their life-changing idea to an expert panel. The winning team will receive the tools and means to bring their tech health concept to market, including ongoing training and mentoring, and a USD $10k investment.

Supporting the event, Hashim Alawadi, Vice-Chair, Saudi British Joint Business Council, said: "Today, with technology the driver of global progress, great innovation can come from anyone and anywhere. Effective, affordable and sustainable health provision is increasingly one of humanity's greatest challenges.

"As an investor and entrepreneur we look to invest in products that will drive huge change globally, and improve human lives. By bringing together the best young minds across different nations, ages and genders, we can create change."

Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer in Intensive Care Medicine at Imperial College London, Francesca Rubulotta, welcomed the timeliness of the initiative, saying: "With increasing health care needs and expectations placing even more demand on an accelerating NHS deficit, relying solely on current health provision is no longer a viable or sustainable option. Thanks to new and emerging technologies, breakthrough solutions can be tested and implemented. New ways of sharing information and knowledge are needed as well, especially working in emergency or intensive care medicine at the front line of new pandemics or conflicts. Initiatives such as this will genuinely optimise the use of current resources and potentially save millions of lives around the world."

The initiative is part of a long-term programme to drive transformative change in Saudi Arabia by building entrepreneurs within cultural innovation, business creativity and technology & leadership. Young talent nurtured by programmes such as these will return significant knowledge capital to Saudi Arabia as part of the Deputy Crown Prince's ambitious Vision 2030 economic blueprint.

His Royal Highness comments: "By applying our sovereign wealth to invest in technology, diversify our economy through knowledge and intellectual capital, and bring about healthcare improvements not just for the kingdom, but for all of mankind, we are setting the stage for our next generation and our future."

The initiative has also been applauded by senior female figures for its ambition to reach, empower and inspire millions of young females into technology innovation and creative business within the UK and Saudi Arabia.

Comments Jan Ward, former UK Female Entrepreneur of the Year and founder of energy business, Corrotherm: "As the first cross-cultural, mixed gender event designed to provide health solutions to world problems, it's an important and progressive step forward. I'm a huge champion of empowering more young men and women into business and leadership roles, and want to see more programmes like this which have my full support."

Contact:

miskevent@wearexpert.com





Notes to editor:

About MiSK Hackathon 2016

MiSK Hackathon 2016 takes place on 25-27 November in London (ILEC Conference Centre, Fulham) and Riyadh. The contest is open to all young Britons and Saudis aged between 18 and 32 years. Participants can find more information and register at www.miskhackathon.com Closing date for entry is 18 November.



About MiSK Foundation

Established in 2011, the MiSK Foundation cultivates learning and leadership to define a new talent for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Foundation focuses on the country's youth, fosters talent, develops creative potential, and generates innovation. In this way, MiSK advances Saudi society in business and technology, and provides equal opportunity for women and men. MiSK, under the leadership of HRH Prince Mohammed bin Salman, pursues these goals by establishing partnership programmes with diverse local and global organisations.

SOURCE MiSK Foundation
CARLSBAD, California and BOSTON, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Over 800 executives from the life science industry attended BioPharm America life science partnering event in Boston in early September. The one-to-one partnering meetings that take place propel M&A and deals in the drug development industry.

The highly successful 2016 event was accentuated by robust activity, including attendance by delegates from 530 companies representing 32 countries. As well, 2,424 one-to-one partnering meetings took place at the event where 881 licensing opportunities were on offer.

The 9th annual event was held over three days, September 1315, at the Boston Marriott Copley Square, and featured daily "Food for Thought" keynotes with executives from pharma and finance speaking on pressing topics, including:

"Has the IPO window closed?" with moderator John Carroll of Endpoints and panelists Christiana Bardon of MPM Capital ; David Sabow of Silicon Valley Bank ; and Simos Simeonidis of RBC Capital .

of and panelists of ; of ; and of . "What makes a serial entrepreneur tick and why are they so successful?" with moderator Luke Timmerman of Timmerman Report , and panelists Tillman Gerngross of Adimab ; Michael Gilman of Atlas Venture ; and Troy Wilson of Kura Oncology .

of , and panelists of ; of ; and of . "The intersection of technology and medicine" with moderator Asher Rubin of Hogan Lovells, and panelists Jared Josleyn of Verily Life Sciences; James Mault of Qualcomm Life; and Kathleen McGroddy Goetz of IBM Watson Health.

A pitch contest took place the first day, where biotech startups pitched their company to investors to win a coveted one-on-one meeting with the investor of their choice. The winner was Michael Winlo, CEO of Linear Clinical Research Limited, who pitched on his Perth, Australia-based dedicated early phase clinical trials facility.

A special program track on Partnerships in Cell and Gene Therapies took place on September 13, and focused on industry updates and opportunities in this developing field.

Two concurrent one-day programs took place during the event. Biotech Startup Day on September 14 drew investors to the company presentations given by a curated group of startup companies. A Biotech Startup Day pitch competition took place where qualified startups pitched their companies to a top-notch panel of judges comprising BD execs, venture capitalists, and industry experts. The overall winner of the competition for both "best pitch" and "most investable company" was Ailis Tweed-Kent, Founder and CEO of Cocoon Biotech, Inc.

"We are thrilled to receive recognition from the Biotech Startup Day pitch competition," said Tweed-Kent. "That such an esteemed panel of biotech investors appreciates our vision is exciting. The Cocoon team is committed to developing new treatments for osteoarthritis that will improve pain and function for millions of patients worldwide."

The winners for the category of "best pitch" were first runner up Jeremy Chrisp, CEO of EpiAxis Therapeutics, and second runner up Christopher Per, CEO of Virvio. For the category of "most investable company, the first runner up was Leo Cytrynbaum, CEO of HepaPharm, and second runner up Jeremy Chrisp, CEO of EpiAxis Therapeutics.

The second one-day program, Digital Medicine Connect, took place on September 15 and focused on challenges and opportunities for digital medicine stakeholders in this emerging field. A highlight of the day was a morning panel moderated by Nicole Fisher or HHR Strategies, with panelists from Evidation Health, Pear Therapeutics and Hogan Lovells speaking directly about findings from the just-published white paper, "The Digital Medicine Crystal Ball: Unlocking the Future of Real-Time, Precise, Effective, Healthcare."

BioPharm America 2017 will be held in Boston September 2627, 2017.

Additional links and information:

Follow BioPharm America on Twitter: @EBDGroup (hashtag: #BioPharmAmerica).

About EBD Group

EBD Group is the leading partnering firm for the global life science industry. Since 1993, biotech, pharma and medical device companies have leveraged EBD Group's partnering conferences, technology and services to identify business opportunities and develop strategic relationships essential to their success.

EBD Group's conferences are run with the support of leading corporations and international trade associations and include:

BIO-Europe and BIO-Europe Spring, Europe's largest life science partnering conferences, supported by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO)

largest life science partnering conferences, supported by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) BioPharm America, the fastest growing partnering event in North America

Biotech Showcase, a unique forum in San Francisco for presenting to investors and business development executives, co-produced with Demy-Colton Life Science Advisors

for presenting to investors and business development executives, co-produced with Demy-Colton Life Science Advisors BioEquity Europe, the investor conference co-organized with BioCentury Publications and BIO

ChinaBio Partnering Forum, the first dedicated biotech/pharma partnering conference in China , co-produced with ChinaBio Group

, co-produced with ChinaBio Group Biolatam, facilitating partnering among global life sciences executives in Latin America's vibrant life science hubs

EBD Group's sophisticated web-based partnering service, partneringONE, is used as the partnering engine at numerous third-party events around the world, and partnering360 is the open online community of life science dealmakers that enhances partnering experiences throughout the year.

EBD Group is an Informa company. Informa is the largest publicly-owned organizer of exhibitions, conferences and training in the world.

EBD Group has offices in the USA and Europe.

For more information, please visit www.ebdgroup.com.

Related Links

http://www.ebdgroup.com



SOURCE EBD Group
MIAMI, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Jennifer Le Nechet has been crowned the world's best bartender at the climax of the global cocktail competition WORLD CLASS Bartender of the Year 2016 in Miami.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160926/411770 )

The French bartender, usually found crafting drinks and charming customers behind the bar at Cafe Moderne in Paris, wowed the judges by creating a spectacular range of vibrant drinks at her Steampunk themed pop-up bar.

Nearly 10,000 bartenders from all over the world entered the competition, with 56 selected to represent their country at the Miami finals. An elite group of six made it through the final round which saw them conceive and create a pop-up bar in just 24 hours. Each challenge showcased a different skill from the bartender's armoury: technique, personality, spirits knowledge and how well they perform under pressure.

Selecting top brands from Diageo's Reserve portfolio including Ketel One vodka, Ciroc, Don Julio, Tanqueray No TEN, Bulleit, Zacapa rum and Johnnie Walker Blue Label Blended Scotch Whisky, the bartenders crafted classic cocktails and created their own recipes. They also went up against the clock to mix up to fourteen quintessential drinks in just 10 minutes.

Jennifer Le Nechet, the first female bartender to claim the title, said: "I'm completely blown away - it's such an honour to take home the title of World's Best Bartender - especially when competing against such talent from around the world. This week has inspired me to continue pushing the boundaries of flavours and to explore how all the senses can be engaged through cocktails. I can't wait for the experience ahead!"

Le Nechet is set for a whirlwind year of adventure - she will have the chance to travel the world as a Diageo Reserve Brand Ambassador, judging competitions and making bespoke drinks in far-flung locations.

Alex Kratena, former Head Bartender of Artesian London said:

"The standard this year has been absolutely phenomenal. It's been just so difficult to choose between these bartenders. Jennifer just nailed it in the Superstar Pool Party showing all the skills you could want in a bartender, and her pop-up bar blew us all away with its cool Steampunk theme and twist on classic cocktails with homemade emulsions, cola and organic ingredients. These bartenders really are at the top of their game and the five runners up were worthy contenders. Not only can they pull off all the classics flawlessly, but they are developing new and exciting techniques every step of the way."

Johanna Dalley, Global World Class Director said: "This week has been a whirlwind of creativity, flair and amazing talent - truly raising the role of the bartender to be on a par with that of the world's leading chefs. And that's what WORLD CLASS is all about, inspiring people to drink better and appreciate great drinks in the same way they appreciate great food. The final six were exceptional and it was an extremely close final, however we're delighted to name Jennifer as our winner and our first female WORLD CLASS Bartender of the Year."

At the Awards evening, Mexico City was also revealed as the location for the WORLD CLASS Bartender of the Year Global Final 2017.

Dalley continued, "This year, WORLD CLASS will take cocktail culture to a new level in Mexico City, and there could be no better place for this, since for many years, this city been developing into one of the most vibrant capitals for food, drink and culture."

WORLD CLASS is on a mission to inspire people to drink better and shape the future of drinking, whether at home or in the bar. If you have been inspired to drink better, visit theworldclassclub.com or the WORLD CLASS Facebook community, where you can find delicious recipes, how-to videos and get the low-down on the latest trends.

Notes to editors:

The Finalists

Finalists representing each of these countries:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Grand Cayman, Greece, Hong Kong & Macau, Iceland, India, Indian Ocean, Ireland, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, UAE, Uruguay, United Kingdom, US and Vietnam. Cruise Ships are also represented by finalists from these sectors.

About WORLD CLASS

WORLD CLASS is on a mission to inspire people to drink better and create unforgettable experiences in the process. Whether at home or in a bar, WORLD CLASS encourages consumers to think and care about fine drinking in the same way they care about fine dining.

WORLD CLASS has supported, trained and inspired 250,000 bartenders across the globe over the past eight years, while partnering them with the world's finest spirits - the Diageo Reserve Collection. WORLD CLASS is also the authority on the drinks industry whom consumers look to for the information on the latest drinks trends, cocktail recipes and industry insight.

World Class hosts the 'WORLD CLASS Bartender of the Year' - the world's most prestigious bartending competition. After local competition around the globe, 56 of the world's finest bartenders compete to be crowned the world's best bartender.

Visit theworldclassclub.com for more information.

About Diageo Reserve

Created in 2004, Diageo's Reserve division focuses on the global luxury opportunity, bringing together brands built on strong heritage, craftsmanship and authenticity. This luxury portfolio consists of Johnnie Walker Blue Label, Ciroc, Don Julio, Tanqueray No. TEN, Ketel One vodka, Zacapa and a fine collection of Single Malts. The Reserve portfolio accounts for over 15% of Diageo's total sales, and has grown by 7% this financial year.

About Diageo

Diageo is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands including Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, J&B, Buchanan's and Windsor whiskies, Smirnoff and Ciroc vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness.

Diageo is listed on both the London Stock Exchange (DGE) and the New York Stock Exchange (DEO) and our products are sold in more than 180 countries around the world. For more information about Diageo, our people, our brands, and performance, visit us at http://www.diageo.com. Visit Diageo's global responsible drinking resource, http://www.DRINKiQ.com, for information, initiatives, and ways to share best practice.

Celebrating life, every day, everywhere.

SOURCE WORLD CLASS
LONDON, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Leading global news portal One News Page today launches a smartphone-friendly version of its fast-access portal, enabling mobile users to take advantage of the website's news aggregation quicker and easier than ever before.

One News Page's update takes advantage of the AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) protocol to allow smartphones to load pages at a faster rate, making the user experience much more responsive. The new portal is rolling out across all smartphone devices, allowing for universal access to news headlines and videos via platforms such as iOS, Windows and Android. AMP is designed to load up to four times quicker than standard pages on average, and to consume just a tenth of their data - making for an overall speedier, more streamlined service for existing One News Page readers.

"Since 2014 we've witnessed a significant shift towards mobile browsing from desktop browsing - and in response to this trend, our team have designed and are launching a dedicated mobile portal," advises Dr. Marc Pinter-Krainer, founder and CEO of One News Page. "As more and more of our readers are accessing our sites via their smartphone, it was important that we focused upon developing a version of One News Page that allows for faster access, enhanced browsing and an overall more positive user experience for such devices."

One News Page is free to browse and allows its readers to take advantage of its comprehensive repository of over 100 million different news resources from scores of reputable and authoritative sources and journalists. Offering written digests, original content and video news for readers to consume at their leisure, One News Page is continuing to tap into the news aggregation market by making it easier and quicker to access with each update.

The smartphone-friendly version of One News Page can be accessed via all smartphones at http://m.onenewspage.com/

One News Page was founded in 2008 and services markets in the English, German and Spanish languages across Europe, America, Asia and Australasia. In 2015 it served over 20 million users accessing its news portal websites.

For further information, please visit http://www.onenewspage.com/

Enquiries / Media Contact

One News Page Ltd

Dr Marc Pinter-Krainer

Founder & CEO

Email: marc@onenewspage.com

Tel: +44 (0) 208 1333 700

http://www.onenewspage.com/



About One News Page Ltd

One News Page Ltd is a British media firm which runs a family of news portal websites across the globe. The sites feature original news coverage and syndicated news content including news videos from major trusted news sources.

The One News Page portal is arguably the fastest-access news portal in the world. It provides users with a powerful search engine of more than 100 million news resources, allowing them to discover and locate relevant news coverage easily. Users are referred to the source website directly by clicking on a corresponding link.

Optional free member registration provides access to news archives and live news alerts by email.

Access to all One News Page sites is free of charge.

One News Page Sites:

 Global  http://www.onenewspage.com (English Language)



 United States  http://www.onenewspage.us (English Language)



 United Kingdom  http://www.onenewspage.co.uk (English Language)



 Australia  http://www.onenewspage.com.au (English Language)



 India  http://www.newsr.in (English Language)



 German-language  http://www.newsdeutschland.com (Deutsche Sprache)



 Spanish-language  http://www.paginanoticias.com (Idioma espanol)

SOURCE One News Page Ltd
PARIS MOTORSHOW 2016, PARIS, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Founded in 2007, Parkopedia provides detailed information on 40 million parking spaces in 6000 cities in 75 countries; including real-time parking space availability information in over 500 cities in 30 countries.

Founded in 2005, Coyote provides real-time information on speed limits, traffic hazards and traffic conditions to millions of drivers in Europe .

Parkopedia, the world's largest parking service provider, announced today a pan European deal with Coyote. The provision of premium on-street and off-street parking information (including real time availability) across the Coyote suite of products forms part of the agreement.

This new parking feature, in Coyote's solutions, will enable drivers to be directed to the nearest and most convenient parking location to their chosen destination. This new feature will be gradually integrated in the coming months.

Commenting on the announcement, Parkopedia's COO Hans Puvogel said, "This is an exciting new partnership, which builds on our existing efforts to bring drivers seamless parking information during every step of their journey."

Coyote's Director of Marketing and Product Development, Franck Louis-Victor said, "We have taken a close look at parking, and through our partnership with Parkopedia, we will leverage the best parking information for the benefit of our users."

The announcement was made at the 2016 Paris Motor Show.

Notes to Editors:

Parkopedia is the world's leading parking service provider used by millions of drivers and organizations such as Apple, BMW, Coyote, Ford, Garmin, GM, Jaguar, Land Rover, Peugeot, Sygic, TomTom, Toyota, Volvo and many others.

Parkopedia provides detailed static information on 40 million parking spaces in 6000 cities in 75 countries; including real-time parking space availability information in over 500 cities in 30 countries.

The service allows drivers to find the closest parking to their destination, tells them how much it will cost and whether the space is available. Parkopedia also allows drivers to pay for parking online, through a mobile app and in-car.

Further Enquiries:

Christina Onesirosan Martinez MBA MCIM

Marketing Director

Parkopedia

T: +44(0)7980-058760

E: christina@parkopedia.com

W: http://www.parkopedia.com

SOURCE Parkopedia
PARIS, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

GLM's new, luxury electronic vehicle has been unveiled at Salon Mondial de l'Automobile in Paris. GLM G4 is a new car concept: what a luxurious vehicle should be and not merely the extension of existing internal combustion engine models. Founded in Kyoto, GLM has contributed unprecedented EV technology and aesthetics to the automotive industry, together with Japanese dedication to ruthless efficiency and pursuit of perfection.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413472 )



If EV means Electric Vehicle, GLM interprets it as Exotic Vehicle.

GLM G4 belongs to the exotic car segment, a standout example of the luxury electric vehicle it combines a fluid but robust exterior, four doors and supreme internal comfort allowing 4 passengers to cover distance in style.

GLM worked on advanced technologies to achieve results, improving the driving efficiency and performance using a multi-source power model. Two packages are loaded front and back on the GLM G4 in order to control coordination and improve performance. GLM G4 features a multi stage transmission that improves the performance and is not affected by the powertrain output. The reduction of switching loss and the improvement of electric efficiency are realized by the IGBT systems. The car structure is light and solid incorporating a chassis structure comprised of composite materials.

System total output is above 1000Nm (>101kgm) and 540PS (400kW) with a twin motor application to split torque depending on driving mode: the vehicle accelerates 0-100km/h in less than 3.7 sec and cruises at 250km/h.

This is coupled with a multi stage transmission system, which consumes the minimum current at city-to-autobahn cruising speeds. The twin motor system is coordinated to continuously calculate the road surface and give maximum traction. Amalgam chassis with light and stiff multi-merit package incorporates a chassis structure using optimum materials.

"The Automotive industry is changing and in the next few years the EV market will see significant growth, taking shares of internal combustion vehicles market. GLM's mission is to be at the forefront and push the boundaries of EVs. Our 'key enabler' technologies and the concept of 'application to variants' will be applied for dissemination of EVs which you would witness in near future" - Hiroyasu Koma, GLM CEO.

Developing EV technology not only concretely contributes to a low-carbon society but provides an exciting driving experience: this is our vision and daily inspiration."

GLM G4 performance:

0-100km/h 3.7sec Power 400kW (540PS) Torque 1000Nm (101kgm) Top speed 250km/h (155mph) Range 400km (248mile) NEDC

http://glm.jp/

Media contact: AD MIRABILIA - Martina D'Aguanno, +39-02-4382191, daguanno@admirabilia.it





SOURCE GLM Press Office
PARIS, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

GLM's new, luxury electronic vehicle has been unveiled at Salon Mondial de l'Automobile in Paris. GLM G4 is a new car concept: what a luxurious vehicle should be and not merely the extension of existing internal combustion engine models. Founded in Kyoto, GLM has contributed unprecedented EV technology and aesthetics to the automotive industry, together with Japanese dedication to ruthless efficiency and pursuit of perfection.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413472 )



If EV means Electric Vehicle, GLM interprets it as Exotic Vehicle.

GLM G4 belongs to the exotic car segment, a standout example of the luxury electric vehicle it combines a fluid but robust exterior, four doors and supreme internal comfort allowing 4 passengers to cover distance in style.

GLM worked on advanced technologies to achieve results, improving the driving efficiency and performance using a multi-source power model. Two packages are loaded front and back on the GLM G4 in order to control coordination and improve performance. GLM G4 features a multi stage transmission that improves the performance and is not affected by the powertrain output. The reduction of switching loss and the improvement of electric efficiency are realized by the IGBT systems. The car structure is light and solid incorporating a chassis structure comprised of composite materials.

System total output is above 1000Nm (>101kgm) and 540PS (400kW) with a twin motor application to split torque depending on driving mode: the vehicle accelerates 0-100km/h in less than 3.7 sec and cruises at 250km/h.

This is coupled with a multi stage transmission system, which consumes the minimum current at city-to-autobahn cruising speeds. The twin motor system is coordinated to continuously calculate the road surface and give maximum traction. Amalgam chassis with light and stiff multi-merit package incorporates a chassis structure using optimum materials.

"The Automotive industry is changing and in the next few years the EV market will see significant growth, taking shares of internal combustion vehicles market. GLM's mission is to be at the forefront and push the boundaries of EVs. Our 'key enabler' technologies and the concept of 'application to variants' will be applied for dissemination of EVs which you would witness in near future" - Hiroyasu Koma, GLM CEO.

Developing EV technology not only concretely contributes to a low-carbon society but provides an exciting driving experience: this is our vision and daily inspiration".

GLM G4 performance:

0-100km/h 3.7sec Power 400kW (540PS) Torque 1000Nm (101kgm) Top speed 250km/h (155mph) Range 400km (248mile) NEDC

http://glm.jp/

Media contact: AD MIRABILIA - Martina D'Aguanno, +39-02-4382191, daguanno@admirabilia.it

SOURCE GLM Press Office
- Tohoku & Tokyo's Traditional Festivals Reproduced, Popular Local Personality Sabrina Sato Rahal Appears on Stage -

TOKYO, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Tokyo Metropolitan Government held TOKYO DAY at JAPAN HOUSE in Rio de Janeiro, the Federative Republic of Brazil, on Friday, August 19. Under the catchphrase, "& TOKYO," a tourism seminar and other programs were held to introduce Tokyo's attractions to Brazilians and encourage them to visit Japan.

During the event, Tokyo and the Tohoku region's traditional performing arts were performed. The Tokyo side showed the traditional art of "Edo Tobi Kiyari" (steeplejack's chant), which is from Edo culture in the 17th-19th centuries. The Tohoku region in northeastern Japan staged the "Onikenbai" folkdance (Iwate Prefecture) and the "Iwaki Jangara Nenbutsu Odori" folkdance (Fukushima Prefecture), which are local performing arts performed to purify the land and as a requiem for the souls of the dead.

To enhance the recognition of Tokyo as a tourist destination, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's TV commercial was shown and various tourist attractions in the Japanese capital were introduced to the audience under the theme, "Food, Water and Culture." Sabrina Sato Rahal and Kendi Yamai, popular local personalities as well as an official of the Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau (TCVB) and Marcel Iyeiri, an expert at travel agency KNT Co., Ltd., were present at the program. Through the program, the Metropolitan Government introduced Tokyo's tourist attractions that local people were unfamiliar with, and demonstrated that Tokyo and Tohoku have recovered from the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, thereby expressing gratitude to countless people in the world who have sent encouraging messages and assistance to disaster victims.

After introduction of the "& Tokyo" concept, by a Tokyo Metropolitan Government official, each guest briefly talked about Tokyo's attractions.

Sabrina said, "I've visited various countries in the world, but when I visited Tokyo, I felt as if I were reborn. Tokyo people are cheerful, kind and always smiling."

TOKYO DAY closed with a message by the TCVB official: "I think Tokyo is really far away for you, but if you visit Tokyo, it will certainly be an impressive trip."

SOURCE TOKYO DAY PR Office
Launched in 2004, CVS has always been a platform for product launches and exclusive debut appearances by large and small enterprises. CVS presents all solutions and innovations involving the themes of automated sales solutions, coffee, hot beverages, additional products, snacks, beverages, filling products, multi-payment solutions, parts and components.

As the leading trade show in this industry, CVS provides attendees with vital business growth and relationship-building opportunities through education, networking and exposure to hundreds of new products and services.

A not-to-be-missed appointment:

The largest and longest-running networking platform dedicated to the vending, self-service and OCS industries in China.

Top brands as FUJI BINGSHAN, LEIYUNFENG, AUCMA, LE VENDING and BAIXUE make their appearances at the show every year. It is the best place where they offer their products to decision makers and achieve success.

"China's vending industry has developed for decades, and China Vending Show has been dedicated to this industry for 13 years," said Zhang Haipeng, General Manager of Qingdao AUCMA at the 13th CVS Show in 2016. "As the most professional platform to connect providers and buyers, the show plays an important role in promoting the development of this industry. We hope the show keeps leading industrial trends and meeting market demands and becomes more and more successful."

Create More Business Channels and Meet New Partners Outside of the Industry

CVS 2017 will be held as part of HOTEL PLUS, a total solution for commercial properties. Covering an exhibition area of 200,000 square meters, HOTEL PLUS is expected to attract 2,000 exhibitors and 100,000 professional buyers from various industries.

HOTEL PLUS provides a good opportunity to promote vending and self-service equipment and solutions across various industries.

Enjoy the Highest Amount of Attention

Exhibitors can make use of a wide variety of tools to achieve efficient communication results and become involved in a strong communication campaign integrating both the sector experts and media, and building up traditional visitors' loyalty: invitations, e-news, e-mailings, press releases, we-chat and public relations.

They can also gain critical company exposure, interact face-to-face with key prospects, demonstrate products and technology, and connect with industry heavyweights - all in one results-oriented environment that brings all your markets right to you.

Look Who's Exhibiting!

Six months in advance of the event, many leading brands from across the vending industry are already confirmed as exhibitors including: LE VENDING, FULEI, YANGHUA ELECTRONICS, FUJITSU, N&W, HAPPYLINE, HANTAI, HUAHAIDA, JIAFENG Electrical, Inhand, ICT, Caimore, Pyramid, Supermax and Silkron.

So don't delay; start taking advantage of this opportunity. If you have already confirmed your booth space, send details of your show special(s) and we'll start promoting your participation. If you haven't already confirmed your booth space, contact us now for early bird savings.

Contact:

Ms. Kim Chen

+86-21-33392569

kim.chen@ubmsinoexpo.com

Website: www.chinavending.com.cn

About Shanghai UBM Sinoexpo International Exhibition Co., Ltd:

Shanghai UBM Sinoexpo International Exhibition Co., Ltd is a professional O2O event company that operates trade shows/events/online B2B platforms. It is a joint venture between Shanghai Sinoexpo International Exhibition Ltd and UBM Asia Ltd., a division of UBM plc listed on the London Stock Exchange.

With over 20 years of professional experience, Shanghai UBM organizes 62 international trade shows covering an exhibition area of 900,000 square meters and attracts more than 350,000 professional buyers from around the globe. Headquartered in Shanghai, UBM Sinoexpo operates three regional offices in Beijing, Guangzhou and Zhongshan, China with a total headcount of more than 350.

SOURCE Shanghai UBM Sinoexpo International Exhibition Co. Ltd.
"To earn the Best and Brightest Award for the third year in a row is such an honor," said Ken Lear, President at 2313 Inc. "Our team is very proud of this momentous accomplishment, as well as earning the Elite Award again this year. It shows that 2313 Inc. is focused on creating a great work place where teamwork, passion and outstanding results for our clients are valued."

The Best and Brightest awards presentation was held September 23 at the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center, with Devin Scillian from WDIV Local 4 News serving as emcee for the ceremony. The annual competition honors Metro Detroit companies that display a commitment to high achievement in human resources and employee enrichment practices and is hosted by the National Association for Business Resources (NABR). Companies are measured on their achievements in areas such as communication, diversity, employee education, recognition, retention, and work-life balance.

The 2313 Inc. team has been recognized for their steady growth, progressive internal practices, top-notch service to their Fortune 500 clientele, as well as charitable giving within their local community. The company is continually focused on developing personal and professional skills within their team.

To learn more about 2313 Inc., like them on Facebook, follow on Twitter and Instagram, or visit www.2313inc.com.

About 2313 Inc.

2313 Inc. is a privately owned business consulting firm located in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Focusing on customer acquisition and retention for small to mid-sized clients in the telecommunications field, 2313 Inc. is dedicated to achieving success. The firm specializes in offering marketing strategies, new market expansion, and conducting client relations.

Contact: Ken Lear, 248-702-6750

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413695

SOURCE 2313 Inc.

Related Links

http://www.2313inc.com


MCLEAN, Va., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- More than 200 military and business dignitaries gathered last night to commemorate the creation of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA). The organization, established to ensure a continued dialogue between government and industry after World War II, is today's premier association for information technology and intelligence professionals.

Gen. Dennis L. Via, USA, commanding general, U.S. Army Materiel Command (l), was the keynote speaker at the AFCEA 70th Anniversary & Sarnoff Award Celebration. Alfred Grasso, president and CEO, The MITRE Corporation, also was honored at the event as the recipient of AFCEA's highest honor, the David Sarnoff Award.

In 1946, Maj. Gen. Harry C. Ingles, USA; Brig. Gen. David Sarnoff, USAR; and industry leaders founded the Army Signal Association, which subsequently merged with two other signal-related organizations to form the Armed Forces Communications Association. In 1954, "electronics" was added to the organization's name to better reflect the growing role technology was playing in military operations.

During the celebration at The Ritz-Carlton, keynote speaker Gen. Dennis L. Via, USA, commanding general, U.S. Army Materiel Command, spoke about how the reliance on communications has accelerated during the past seven decades. He pointed out that AFCEA's founders created an organization that is as important today as it was immediately following World War II.

Speaking about AFCEA's founders, he described the similarities between the post-war world and the world today, explaining why the association is as relevant now as it was 70 years ago. "Sarnoff, Ingles and the others  had been part of the industrial and military might that had won the war and in the process, our nation, our military and the private sector combined, invented and fielded a series of remarkable communications and electronic devices for our troops on land, at sea and in the air.

"Now the challenge was two-fold. First, they had to continue advancing the technologies that were created during war years. Adversaries were looming over the horizon, peace wasn't assured and the nation badly needed to maintain its technological edge. Does that sound familiar? And second, they had to ensure that the strong partnership that had been forged between our military and the industrial base during World War II remained intact during the post-war yearsa time of drawdowns, a time of budget austerity and a time of change. Does that sound familiar? Thankfully they knew then as we know todaythat relationships matter," Gen. Via stated.

In addition to commemorating AFCEA's 70-year history, the event honored Alfred Grasso, president and CEO, The MITRE Corporation, as the recipient of AFCEA's highest honor, the David Sarnoff Award. Grasso has been an AFCEA member since 1999. He has served the association in several ways, including as chairman of the board from 2012 to 2014 and vice chairman from 2010 to 2012. He is a staunch supporter of the AFCEA Educational Foundation.

An appointed member of the Defense Science Board, Grasso has led and participated in numerous studies and is currently co-chairing the Task Force on MILSATCOM and Networking. Grasso's professional life also includes being a member of the Stevens Institute of Technology's Systems Engineering Research Center advisory board and the University of Virginia Department of Systems Engineering advisory committee, as well as a board member of the Northern Virginia Technology Council.

AFCEA International, established in 1946, is a non-profit membership association serving the military, government, industry and academia. Join online.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160930/414033

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130410/DC92618LOGO

SOURCE AFCEA International

Related Links

www.afcea.org


MONCLOVA, Coahuila, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Altos Hornos de Mexico S.A.B. de C.V. ("AHMSA" or the "Company"), one of Mexico's largest integrated steel producers, reported that the U.S. federal court for the District of Delaware (the "U.S. Court") today gave full force and effect in the U.S. to the Company's general payment agreement (the "Restructuring Plan") and the order of the Mexican Court approving the Restructuring Plan (the "Lifting Order"). In recognizing the now final Lifting Order, the U.S. Court ruled that AHMSA's assets situated in the U.S. are immune from enforcement actions by Recognized Creditors with claims in the SP Proceeding and further enjoined U.S. creditors with claims in the SP Proceeding from seeking to enforce their claims against those assets. The ruling by the U.S. Court also allows AHMSA to invoke the jurisdiction of the U.S. Court to enforce the prior relief granted by the Mexican Court.

In addition, AHMSA announced that the U.S. Court today (i) recognized AHMSA's SP Proceeding as the foreign main proceeding under chapter 15, (ii) recognized Mr. Francisco Xavier Gaxiola Fernandez as the foreign representative (the "Foreign Representative"), and (iii) granted related relief on a final basis.

No objections were filed by any creditors or parties-in-interest to AHMSA's petition for chapter 15 protection and related relief, which was previously filed on behalf of the Company by the Foreign Representative. The U.S. Court ruling follows the acceptance of the Restructuring Plan by recognized creditors at its April 18, 2016 creditors meeting and the subsequent lifting of the Company's SP Proceeding, approved by the Mexican Court through the Lifting Order issued on May 16, 2016.

The Lifting Order and the conclusion of AHMSA's SP Proceeding is a final, non-appealable matter, as the applicable appeals period in Mexico expired without an appeal having been filed and without creditor opposition. The chapter 15 process provided AHMSA with a centralized venue to address matters related to its administration of the approved Restructuring Plan and the enforcement of the Lifting Order in the U.S.

Recognition of AHMSA's SP Proceeding as the foreign main proceeding by the U.S. Court gives full effect and force to the Lifting Order in the U.S., facilitating the orderly implementation of the approved Restructuring Plan. Additionally, the granting of related relief by the U.S. Court enjoins all parties in the U.S. from commencing or taking any action to obtain possession of, exercise control over, or assert claims against AHMSA or its assets in the U.S. in contravention of the Restructuring Plan or the Lifting Order.

AHMSA stated: "Securing the recognition, protection and related relief afforded by the U.S. chapter 15 process is the final step in the implementation of AHMSA's restructuring process. We are excited about the future prospects for AHMSA, given the positive trends in Mexico's domestic energy and manufacturing sectors, and look forward to enhancing our competitive position as one of Mexico's largest integrated steel producers with the sound capital structure developed through the Restructuring Plan."

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to purchase, the securities described herein, in any jurisdiction, to or from any person to whom it is unlawful to make such offer or solicitation of an offer in such jurisdiction.

About AHMSA

Altos Hornos de Mexico S.A.B. de C.V., an integrated steel producer, has two steel plants located in Monclova, Coahuila, and operates its own iron and metallurgical coal mines. Its current nominal production capacity is more than 5 million tons of liquid steel per year, which is then transformed into diverse finished products. Additionally, AHMSA operates thermal coal mines in Mexico. It employs over 19,000 workers in steel plants, mines, and services.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management's current expectations or beliefs about future events and financial, political, economic and social trends and assumptions it has made based on information currently available to it. AHMSA cannot assure that any expectations, forecasts or assumptions made by management in preparing these forward-looking statements will prove accurate, or that any projections will be realized. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of inaccurate assumptions or a number of risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date of this release. AHMSA does not undertake any obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether to reflect new information, future events or otherwise.

Media Contact

Madisen Obiedo / Ross Lovern

Kekst

(212) 521-4961

[email protected] / [email protected]

SOURCE Altos Hornos de Mexico S.A.B. de C.V.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- An anti-Trump Super PAC plans to air a 30-second TV ad called "Republixan" in selected battleground states. The ad was broadcast on CNN and Fox News during the Republican convention. (http://www.yakety-yakpac.com)

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413643

Yakety-Yak PAC, a newly formed, Washington, DC-based Super PAC that produced the ad, is targeting Republican women.

The ad is a parody of pharmaceutical commercials and urges Republican women to talk with their doctor about taking a drug called Republixan -- "a little red pill that relieves the stress, guilt and shame associated with voting for Donald Trump."

According to the PAC's director, Deno Seder, "No rational, thinking woman would vote for Donald Trump unless she was drugged."

The ad's producer, Jeorge Seder, remarked, "This is a great ad, believe me, a great ad. An incredible ad. We're going to win so many voters, we're gonna get tired of winning, believe me. It'll make Trump start bleeding from his whatever."

In the ad, a narrator warns of harmful side effects such as "tax cuts for the rich; reduced benefits for women, veterans and minorities; cuts in Medicare and Medicaid; cuts in funding for education; a possible war with Iran and other side effects hazardous to the health of our nation."

This ad and other anti-Trump ads can be seen at www.yakety-yakpac.com.

Yakety-Yak PAC

301 320-0385

[email protected]

www.yakety-yakpac.com

Media Contact:

Deno Seder

301 320-0385

Email

SOURCE Yakety-Yak PAC

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HILLSDALE, Mich., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Hillsdale College's Alpha Tau Omega (ATO) men's fraternity, Beta Kappa chapter, has been named the fraternity's national "True Merit Award" winner, the College announced today. Beta Kappa accepted the award at the 82nd Biennial Congress, held Aug. 3-6 in Charlotte, North Carolina. This is the fourth consecutive True Merit Award for Hillsdale College's chapter.

Hillsdale College's Alpha Tau Omega men's fraternity named National True Merit Chapter.

"We are grateful to everyone who made this possible, including the national fraternity, the College administration, and most importantly my brothers at the Beta Kappa chapter of ATO," said Matt Katz, Alpha Tau Omega president at Hillsdale College. "Each year, we make it our goal to be better than we were the year before, the semester before, and even the day before. This award shows that we accomplished that goal. I'm very proud to be a member of ATO at Hillsdale College."

In 2015, Best College Reviews named the Hillsdale College one of the 50 best colleges in the nation for Greek life. In the 2014-15 school year, Hillsdale's four fraternities and three sororities performed more than 8,600 hours of community service. Many chapters earned recognition for their outstanding academic and community achievements.

"We are pleased with the continued efforts and accomplishments of our men of ATO," said Aaron Petersen, dean of men and adviser to the College's four fraternities. "It is one of our many blessings at Hillsdale College to have fraternities that reinforce the College's aim of developing the minds and hearts of its students and prepare them to be leaders. Fraternity life can be a real force for good and a practical way to learn self-government."

To be considered for the True Merit Award, the chapter must display significant leadership and participation in national programs and campus organizations and enhance a positive ATO experience for all members and pledges.

To learn more about Hillsdale College and its Greek life, visit www.hillsdale.edu.

About Hillsdale College

Hillsdale College, founded in 1844, has built a national reputation through its classical liberal arts core curriculum and its principled refusal to accept federal or state taxpayer subsidies, even indirectly in the form of student grants or loans. It also conducts an extensive educational outreach effort promoting civil and religious liberty, including a free monthly speech digest, Imprimis, with a circulation of more than 3.5 million.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160930/413871



SOURCE Hillsdale College

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WINDSOR, Ontario, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Axxon (OEM) Inc. today announced their next generation low cost RS232 serial port host adapter for PCI Express (PCIe) expansion slots (P/N LF1082KB). This new model enables customers to quickly add a high speed serial port with true Direct Memory Access (DMA) support to virtually any motherboard with an available PCIe expansion slot. LF1082KB supports speeds of up to 921Kbps via the onboard DB9M connector with a full DTE RS232 pin out. The DMA feature allows for autonomous high speed data transfers to and from the on-board UART buffers without CPU intervention. Deeper FIFOs with 16x50 compatible registers further improve performance over competing adapters. Operating system support is available for Windows (32/64), Linux (32/64), OS X VMWare, QNX and DOS. The LF1082KB adapter boards are available now from stock.

Axxon Announces New $10 PCI Express Serial Port RS232 Adapter

"We leveraged our in-house design expertise from over 30 years of experience in the industry to help cost optimize this board without lowering quality," notes Kumar Bhatia (CTO). "The new LF1082KB is sure to fulfill the needs of price conscious computer enthusiasts everywhere."

About Axxon (OEM) Inc.

Axxon (OEM) Inc. is one of the dominant players in the high performance serial I/O marketplace. Axxon has over 30 years of design and volume manufacturing experience and is headquartered in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Axxon (OEM) Inc. manufactures all products in Canada for export to markets around the world through VARS, OEMs and system integrators.

Features:

Compatible with all PCI Express (PCIe) expansion slots (Low & Standard Height)

Native PCIe 16x50 UART with deep FIFOs (TX & RX) with hardware flow control

1 Mbps RS232 transceiver 15kv ESD and excessive current protected)

Full 9-wire DTE DB9 male connector pin out

Support for Windows  Linux, OS X  VMWare  , QNX  and DOS  operating systems

Linux, OS X VMWare , QNX and DOS operating systems Designed & Assembled in Canada (ISO 9001:2008)

FCC Class B, CE, RoHS and Conflict of Minerals compliant

5 year product replacement limited warranty

Order P/N Axxon LF1082KB

Axxon Website: http://axxon.io

Axxon (OEM) Inc.

T +01 800.361.1913

or +01.519.974.0163

Contact:

Kumar Bhatia

Email

axxon.io

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413659

SOURCE Axxon (OEM) Inc.

Related Links

http://axxon.io


TUPELO, Miss., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- BancorpSouth, Inc. (NYSE: BXS) will release third quarter 2016 earnings on Wednesday, October 19, after the close of the financial markets. It will also hold its regularly scheduled webcast Thursday, October 20, beginning at 10:00 a.m. CDT.

The webcast is live coverage of management's conference call with analysts and can be found by visiting: www.BancorpSouth.com/Webcast. This will be an interactive session between management and analysts; others may listen to the live broadcast as it happens. The conference will also be available in archived format at the same address.

BancorpSouth, Inc. (NYSE: BXS) is a financial holding company headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi, with $14.1 billion in assets. BancorpSouth Bank, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BancorpSouth, Inc., operates 238 full service branch locations as well as additional mortgage, insurance, and loan production offices in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas, including an insurance location in Illinois. BancorpSouth is committed to a culture of respect, diversity, and inclusion in both its workplace and communities. To learn more, visit our Community Commitment page at www.bancorpsouth.com; "Like" us on Facebook; follow us on [email protected]; or connect with us through LinkedIn.

SOURCE BancorpSouth, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.bancorpsouth.com


JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Brightway Insurance, a national property/casualty insurance retailer selling through a network of franchised independent agencies throughout the country that started franchising in 2008 has reached $425 million in annualized written premium, growing its book of business by $30 million in 2016 alone. Hitting this milestone happens in conjunction with the Jacksonville-based company's weeklong celebration of Customer Service Week Oct. 3-7, 2016, the company announced.

Brightway Founder and Chairman David Miller said, "It's apropos that we hit a growth milestone on the eve of Customer Service Week since we invented, and have since perfected, the 'you sell, we service' model in the industry. The comprehensive system of support we provide our Agency Owners frees them up to truly listen to each customer and design customized insurance solutions that provide total protection for their unique needs using the dozens of insurance companies we make available to them."

"Our organization of more than 750 insurance professionals benefits from hundreds of people at our Home Office who provide turnkey support to our Agency Owners and our customers," Miller added. "With nearly 300,000 policies in force, this support lets our Agency Owners enjoy unparalleled success as they build their businesses and lets customers enjoy true peace of mind knowing they are properly protected."

The company will host a different celebration each day of Customer Service Week to recognize the important work each of its employees does on behalf of Agency Owners and customers. The week highlights the significant contributions of employees such as Caitlin Harkins, who was one of two named Employees of the Year in 2015. Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry signed a proclamation on behalf of Brightway recognizing the important work the company's employees do.

"It's hard choosing Employees of the Year because everyone at Brightway goes above and beyond for agents and customers," said Customer Experience Vice President Kris Azar. "We're proud to highlight Caitlin Harkins; like others, she lives our Core Values of Smart, Accountable and Trustworthy and sets a leading example every day."

About Brightway Insurance

Brightway Insurance is a national property/casualty insurance retailer selling through a network of franchised independent agencies throughout the country. With $425 million in annualized premium written, the company is the nation's seventh largest privately held Personal Lines independent insurance agency.

Brightway began franchising operations in 2008 and has since grown to 770 people in 12 states serving customers in all 50 states. In 2015, Forbes recognized the company as America's No. 1 Franchise to Buy. Additionally, the company was named a top franchise three years in a row by Entrepreneur magazine and one of the fastest-growing private companies in America nine consecutive years by Inc. 5000. Learn more about Brightway at Brightway.com, and find us on Facebook and LinkedIn.

SOURCE Brightway Insurance

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RALEIGH, N.C., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Bulk TV & Internet (Bulk TV), a leading provider of television solutions to commercial properties nationwide, announces their inclusion among the list of Best Places to Work in the Triangle by the Triangle Business Journal. This is the sixth time Bulk TV has been named among the list of highly regarded businesses throughout the Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill area of North Carolina.

Bulk TV delivers DIRECTV commercial-grade television systems to thousands of hotels and healthcare properties throughout the US. Headquartered in Raleigh, Bulk TV's staff of 140 full-time employees support Bulk TV's growing customer base. Bulk TV ranked #10 within the large company category.

"It is an incredible honor to receive an award based directly on the feedback of our employees," said Tom Conley, president of Bulk TV. "We recognize that our success is largely due to the dedication of our staff, and we make it a priority to provide an encouraging work environment that fosters both personal and professional growth."

Bulk TV offers a variety of benefits to encourage a productive yet rewarding atmosphere. In addition to an outstanding benefits package, employees can take advantage of a free gym membership, 401K with employer match, regular corporate outings and weekly-catered lunches.

The winners were chosen following a confidential employee survey process distributed by Quantum Workplace, a third party administrator. Once nominated, a minimum threshold of participation had to be met in order for the company to be eligible.

"Employees are the lifeblood of any company," says TBJ Publisher Jason Christie. "These 50 companies have demonstrated belief that happy employees produce successful and thriving businesses."

The Best Places to Work awards ceremony took place on September 22, 2016 at the Crabtree Marriott.

About Bulk TV & Internet

Bulk TV & Internet is a leading provider of DIRECTV services designed to meet the unique needs of the hospitality, senior living, healthcare, campus housing and business viewing markets. Bulk TV & Internet provides service to more than 400,000 rooms nationwide including free-to-guest television programming and digital satellite TV systems. In addition to award-winning television services, Bulk TV also offers high-speed Internet access solutions and Mitel phone systems. For more information, please visit www.BulkTV.com.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120328/CL78154LOGO

SOURCE Bulk TV & Internet

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SANFORD, Fla., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Derive Systems, a leading automotive technology company, is relocating its Idaho-based Bully Dog headquarters from American Falls to Pocatello.

Bully Dog, a brand that operates under Derive Systems, started in Aberdeen, Idaho in the late 1990s before relocating to American Falls. Derive Systems CEO David Thawley said the strategic move to Pocatello will give Bully Dog's employees access to more amenities, support the local economy, and help attract more top talent to the growing business.

"It's important for us to keep our business here in Idaho," said Thawley. "Pocatello is a great location for our current employees, and will bring opportunities for growth and jobs to the area."

Bully Dog is moving approximately 50 jobs to its new location in the Kinport Building, 815 S. First St. in Old Town Pocatello. Employees residing in American Falls are still able to commute to the new location.

Bully Dog expects to be fully operational in its new location by January 2017. For more information on Derive Systems and Bully Dog, please visit http://www.derivesystems.com.

ABOUT DERIVE SYSTEMS

Derive Systems is the parent company of SCT, Bully Dog and its business-to-business fleet division, Derive Efficiency. Established after the merger of SCT and Bully Dog, Derive Systems is a leading software company whose vision is to empower customers to take control of their vehicles. Derive Systems products customize a vehicle's performance, connecting drivers to a smarter, more highly optimized vehicle. SCT and Bully Dog are flagship brands under Derive Power, offering software and performance tuning devices to improve horsepower, torque and overall drivability. Derive Efficiency offers corporate, government and law enforcement fleet solutions allowing customers to realize immediate fuel and energy savings as well as driver safety improvements.

SOURCE Derive Systems

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http://www.derivesystems.com


PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- More than three dozen CEOs and other top executives of some of the leading, best-known U.S. businesses publicly argued today that federal funding for basic scientific research is an investment in Americans' prosperity, security and quality of life.

The statement signed by 39 business leaders was published this morning as a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal. It also ran as a full-page ad in the New York Times on Monday, September 26. The ad can be found here.

"Business leaders agree: Federal funding of basic scientific research is an investment in our prosperity, security and well-being," the group wrote.

Without basic research, the leaders said, we would be without some essential technologies that connect us, protect us, and power our world. Without it, we would not have the internet and smartphones, the hepatitis B vaccine and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), solar panels, microprocessors and the Global Positioning System (GPS).

The signatories include Wanda Austin, president and CEO, Aerospace Corporation; Eric Schmidt, executive chairman, Alphabet, and former CEO of Google; Charles Munger, vice chairman, Berkshire Hathaway Corporation; John Watson, CEO, Chevron; Larry J. Merlo, president and CEO, CVS Health; Mary T. Barra, chairman and CEO, General Motors; Meg Whitman, president and CEO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise; Norm Augustine, former CEO, Lockheed Martin Corporation; Steve Mollenkopf, CEO, Qualcomm Incorporated; Thomas J. Falk, chairman and CEO, Kimberly-Clark; William S. Demchak, chairman, president and CEO, PNC Financial Services Group; and Roger Ferguson, president and CEO, TIAA.

The initiative emerged from a meeting at the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands in February 2016 that was convened by Robert Bradway, CEO of Amgen, and Subra Suresh, president of Carnegie Mellon University and former director of the National Science Foundation. It was organized by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, program director of Sunnylands and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The ads are sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center's program in the Science of Science Communication.

The participants at the retreat voiced concern that the importance of federal funding for basic scientific research not be lost in broader debates about budget priorities.

"The ecosystem for innovation in the U.S., which pairs academic research with private industry investment, is unrivaled anywhere in the world," noted Bradway. "Government funding of research is a critical component, and one which we must sustain if we are to preserve our role as the global leader in innovation."

"Support of basic research, primarily funded by the federal government with a significant boost from the private sector, has played a pivotal role in the emergence of the United States as the undisputed innovation leader since the end of World War II," Suresh said. "This support has served as an engine of economic prosperity and national security, leading to world-changing technologies, tens of millions of high-quality jobs, Nobel Prize-winning discoveries, and the creation of American companies with a global footprint."

Jamieson added, "Without basic research, many of us would literally be lost: We would not have smartphones, the internet and GPS."

Join the business leaders in expressing support: #FundBasicResearch.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center was established in 1994 to educate the public and policy makers about the media's role in advancing public understanding of issues in politics, health and science. Follow @APPCPenn on Twitter and APPC.org on Facebook.

SOURCE The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania

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NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, a leading counselor to global financial institutions and corporations, today announced the promotion of two new practice group leaders. Richard Brand has been named Co-Chair of the firm's Corporate Group and Yushan Ng has been named Co-Chair of its Financial Restructuring Group.

Brand will serve as Co-Chair of the Corporate Group with William Mills. The highly regarded group is comprised of a transatlantic team of lawyers with broad expertise in mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings, private equity transactions, takeover preparedness and defense, corporate governance, debt finance and executive compensation and benefits.

Ng will serve alongside current Co-Chair Gregory Petrick. The group represents investors, debtors, secured and unsecured lenders, bondholders, creditors' committees and asset purchasers in complex, cross-border corporate restructurings and special situation investments, including bankruptcy sensitive products, and structuring deals to preserve and enhance value.

"Richard and Yushan are both established leaders within the firm and demonstrate commitment to their clients, colleagues and community with a vested interest in the future direction of the firm," said Patrick Quinn, Managing Partner of Cadwalader. "We're excited to elevate these partners to leadership positions while we continue to grow all of our core practice areas at Cadwalader."

Brand is widely recognized as a leading advisor to public companies, hedge funds, private equity firms and investment banks. His experience includes mergers and acquisitions, takeover preparedness and defense, shareholder activism and defense, general corporate advisory work and securities offerings. Described by The American Lawyer as "a takeover and defense specialist" who is "no stranger to billion-dollar deals," Brand was named a New York "Rising Star" by Super Lawyers Magazine each year from 2011 to 2016 for his corporate practice. He is also a member of the advisory board of The Harvard Law School's Program on Corporate Governance.

Widely recognized as one of Europe's leading restructuring and insolvency attorneys, Ng has acted on a wide range of restructurings, insolvency proceedings and financings across a range of jurisdictions, with a focus on advising institutions that invest in distressed situations or finance impaired credits. He has particular experience in advising on complex loan-to-own transactions for investors with significant strategic positions, as well as in structuring and implementing bespoke rescue or priming financings. Ng is described by Chambers & Partners as "very innovative, mixes technical expertise with calmness." He is also praised for thinking through a transaction "from every angle."

About Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, established in 1792, serves a diverse client base, including many of the world's leading financial institutions and corporations in more than 50 countries. With offices in New York, London, Charlotte, Washington, Houston and Brussels, Cadwalader offers legal expertise in antitrust, banking, corporate finance, corporate governance, energy, environmental, executive compensation, financial restructuring, health care, intellectual property, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, private wealth, real estate, regulation, securitization, structured finance, tax and white collar defense. For more information, visit www.cadwalader.com.

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SOURCE Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP

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DOVER, N.J., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- This September, Casio America, Inc. is excited to welcome New York-based pianist and Grammy-nominated artist Eldar Djangirov to its Artist Program. Most recently, Djangirov released a new live album "World Tour Vol. 1" which is a compilation of tracks from his recent touring schedule, and covers a wide range of performances from around the globe with trio and solo performances that are sure to impress.

"At Casio, we take pride in our instruments and enjoy working with artists who trust our gear to sound their best," said Stephen Schmidt, Vice President of Casio's Electronic Musical Instrument division. "Eldar is a phenomenal talent, and we are excited to have him join the Casio Artist family!"

Eldar Djangirov has been a talented pianist since a young age, with his first of many performances taking place in his hometown of Kansas City at the age of just 11. Since then he has appeared at numerous major jazz festivals including Tokyo Jazz Festival, Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, and San Francisco Jazz Festival and has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe and Asia.

In 2008, Djangirov was nominated for a Grammy for his album "Re-imagination." Along the way, Djangirov had the good fortune to meet and work with the masters including Dr. Billy Taylor, Michael Brecker, Marian McPartland, Dave Brubeck, Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Redman, Chris Potter, Nicholas Payton, Harvey Mason, Chris Botti, Joe Locke, Ron Carter, Pat Martino, Roy Hargrove and many others.

Over the years, Casio has been committed to providing generations of aspiring musicians with quality electronic musical instruments. Djangirov is part of a multitude of artists on the current roster including Larry Dunn, Steve Weingart, Victoria Hermann, Tom Brislin, and more. For additional information about Casio's Artist Program or portfolio of electronic musical instruments, please visit www.CasioMusicGear.com.

About Casio America, Inc.

Casio America, Inc., Dover, N.J., is the U.S. subsidiary of Casio Computer Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, one of the world's leading manufacturers of consumer electronics and business equipment solutions. Established in 1957, Casio America, Inc. markets calculators, keyboards, digital cameras, mobile presentation devices, disc title and label printers, watches, cash registers and other consumer electronic products. Casio has strived to fulfill its corporate creed of "creativity and contribution" through the introduction of innovative and imaginative products. For more information, visit www.casiousa.com.

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SOURCE Casio America, Inc.

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BELLEVUE, Wash., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today called on Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Kenneth Walker to step down from the bench after launching an anti-gun-rights tirade in court earlier this week in which he stated that firearms "are a scourge of this country and no one should have one as far as I'm concerned."

"Judge Walker is entitled to his opinion," said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, "but he should not use the bench as a bully pulpit to attack a constitutionally-protected civil right. Just because he had to sentence a criminal to prison for brutally murdering another man in 2014 is no excuse for this kind of rhetoric."

Judge Walker's comments came as he sentenced Marcell Lee Daniel Jr. to 17  years in prison for the June 30, 2014 slaying of 24-year-old Andrew Coggins, Jr. on a North Portland sidewalk. Gottlieb said Walker's remarks seemed to blame the gun, not the man who committed the crime.

The judge declared that if he could, he would "take all the guns in America, put them on big barges and go dump them in the ocean." And he did not stop there, according to the Portland Oregonian and a YouTube video. He also said, "There's no defense to guns. There's just absolutely no reason to have them. But it is a right of people in this country to own and possess them, and I will not say anything to affect that right."

"But that's exactly what he did do," Gottlieb countered. "Judge Walker used his courtroom to campaign against a civil right he is sworn to uphold and defend as an officer of the court. His comments could easily be used by Oregon anti-gunners who are promising to push for a ban on so-called 'assault weapons' next year.

"Judge Walker is absolutely wrong about firearms," he stated. "There are many good reasons for honest citizens to have guns, including self-defense against criminals like the man he just sent to prison. Indeed, law-abiding citizens don't need any reason at all to exercise a civil right. Whether Judge Walker likes it or not, keeping and bearing arms is a right protected by the constitutions of both the State of Oregon and the United States.

"At the very least," Gottlieb concluded, "Judge Walker should apologize for his remarks. If he cannot do that, he should step down. Such an extremist viewpoint is offensive and has no place on the bench."

With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (www.ccrkba.org) is one of the nation's premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States.

SOURCE Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Related Links

http://www.ccrkba.org


BETHESDA, Md., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Duball, LLC, developer of the award-winning Lionsgate condominiums in Bethesda, Md., hosted a Grand Opening event for Cheval Bethesda on Thursday, September 29, introducing prospective residents to what will soon be the tallest condominium residences in Bethesda.

As the tallest condominium residence in Downtown Bethesda, Cheval will illuminate and redefine the city's skyline. Rising 17 floors above the vibrant city center at the corner of Fairmont Avenue and Old Georgetown Road, the all-glass tower will soon house 71 ultra-luxury residences, ranging from one-bedroom condos to penthouse residences with private rooftop terraces. Residences will be delivered in 2017 and are priced from the $700's to over $3 million.

Highly acclaimed Black's Bar & Kitchen in downtown Bethesda hosted the celebration where hundreds of prospective residents enjoyed food and drink while previewing floorplans and design renderings of the ultra-luxury residences. A virtual reality headset also provided attendees with an immersive, 360 preview of the sweeping views Cheval's prime location will offer. With just 71 residences available at Cheval, attendees vyed for prime units and were the first to sign contracts for the future residences.

Cheval is set to be Bethesda's tallest condominium residence, rising 17 floors above the city at the corner of Fairmont Avenue and Old Georgetown Road. Just steps from the Bethesda Metro Station and a short walk to Woodmont Triangle and Bethesda Row, Cheval's ideal location is considered a "Walker's Paradise," with a Walk Score of 97 out of 100.

When completed, Cheval will offer floorplans ranging from one-bedroom condos to penthouse residences with private rooftop terraces, priced from the $700's to over $3 million. These modern residences will feature 8-foot walls of windows, inviting in abundant natural light and providing gorgeous panoramic views of downtown Bethesda. Each residence also includes a private balcony, a terrace or both.

Residents at Cheval Bethesda will have access to on-site garage parking, a state-of-the-art fitness center and yoga room, as well as a rooftop social area featuring a bar and a stylish club room. Cheval's on-site concierge will provide a variety of services to complement residents' lifestyles, including mail, dry cleaning, dog walking and grooming, car detailing, transportation arrangements and in-residence catering.

Sales are being managed by D.C. area firm McWilliams | Ballard. "At 17 floors and with a shimmering glass facade, Cheval Bethesda will truly redefine the Bethesda skyline," said McWilliams | Ballard Vice President Laura Henne. "We're looking forward to showcasing the walkable, urban lifestyle these 71 residences will offer and demonstrate how Cheval will take luxury living in Bethesda to new heights."

Prospective residents, Realtors and other interested parties can visit ChevalBethesda.com or call (301) 476-1527 for more information. The Cheval Bethesda sales gallery is also open daily at 7706 Woodmont Avenue in Bethesda, and private appointments are available. Residences will be delivered in 2017.

About Duball, LLC

Founded in 2004, Duball, LLC, is one of the leading real estate development and investment firms in the Washington, D.C., region with over 1.2 million square feet developed or in progress. Duball, LLC, serves as developer and investor in exceptionally located mixed-use real estate projects within the Washington/Baltimore metropolitan region. Duball's portfolio includes residential, retail and hotels with total asset value exceeding $750 million. Duball is capitalized by several investment partners, including institutional investment funds and pension funds and high net worth private investors. Duball, LLC, was the developer of the award-winning Lionsgate condominium, located in Bethesda, Maryland.

About McWilliams | Ballard

McWilliams | Ballard, based in Alexandria, Va., is a sales and marketing firm specializing in condominiums and townhomes. While focused in the Washington, D.C., metro area, McWilliams | Ballard has clients nationwide and has created partnerships with developers and builders to provide sales and marketing solutions from project inception to the final closed sale. In addition to start-to-finish sales and marketing, the firm also provides consultation and market research used by some of the largest development firms in the country. Founded in 1996, the firm's expertise now spans 13 states, including Virginia, Maryland, Connecticut and Florida, as well as the District of Columbia. As one of the most successful project development real estate and marketing firms in the country, McWilliams | Ballard has sold and settled more new homes than any other firm in the Mid-Atlantic region and is consistently ranked in the top 5 of national firms with a focus on for sale multi-family product. McWilliams | Ballard is also currently working with Duball, LLC, to develop and sell Stonehall Bethesda condominium residences at the corner of Woodmont Avenue and Battery Lane, across from the new Harris Teeter.

Contact: Laura Henne, McWilliams | Ballard

Phone: (301) 747-3644

Email: [email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160930/413922

SOURCE Duball, LLC

Related Links

http://www.duball-llc.com


COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Community Health Partnership (CHP), a coalition of more than 25 provider organizations in southern Colorado, announced today that it has signed an agreement with Eccovia Solutions of Salt Lake City to implement their flagship software product ClientTrack.

CHP's membership includes the largest healthcare provider organizations in Colorado Springs and the greater Pikes Peak region. CHP's Community Care of Central Colorado programunder a contract with the State of Coloradocoordinates care for more than 180,000 clients. CHP determined that coordinating care for this large population required use of a proven software system specifically designed for this purpose.

Assisted by Ed Daniels of the consulting firm First Response Management, LLC, CHP conducted an extensive competition involving over 15 vendors before selecting the ClientTrack software package. ClientTrack will be used by CHP and its partners to help clients more easily access medical and behavioral healthcare, as well as necessary services such as transportation and housing.

"ClientTrack will enable CHP to move forward with our mission of improving access and controlling cost for the State's Medicaid program," said Jackie Driscoll, Interim Chief Executive Officer for CHP. "Improving access to healthcare and associated resources is fundamental to providing the highest quality of care for our citizens."

For more than 20 years, ClientTrack Case Management has played a critical role in helping community and government organizations across the country improve administrative operations to more effectively serve individuals in their community. CHP will use ClientTrack to enable staff to spend more time delivering coordinated and culturally responsive care. It will eliminate manual look-up processes and make it easier to refer people to the most appropriate agency. By configuring program eligibility rules into ClientTrack, the system will automatically notify the appropriate health team members when a person is eligible for a particular program or service. Because ClientTrack can support many different agencies at the same time, our providers, members and community partners will benefit from a single, comprehensive view of care coordination activities.

"ClientTrack has long been involved with care coordination especially related to population health management and housing," said Carl Champagne, CEO of Eccovia Solutions. "CHP is one of the most ambitious health care coalitions in Colorado. They are implementing state-of-the-art technology that will significantly improve collaboration among service organizations in their area. Ultimately, this will improve patient outcomes and reduce overall health care costs for everyone by addressing the social determinants of healthstable housing, food security, and transportation."

"This new easy to use, web-based system will support our programs as we scale up and will help us reach our goal of providing the most appropriate services to each and every one of our clients," added Jim Calanni, Chief Information/Technology Officer at CHP. "If you know of a community organization or physician practice that would like to learn more about our ClientTrack solution, have them contact CHP at 719-632-5094."

About Community Health Partnership (CHP)

CHP is a member-based community coalition whose enduring purpose is to improve the health of the community through collaboration. CHP members know each other well, are open to new ways of working together and are not afraid to take chances. The coalition is built on a foundation of trust and respect aligned with mutual values and goals. For more information visit http://www.ppchp.org /

About Eccovia Solutions

Eccovia Solutions is a trusted provider of industry-leading software and services for health and human service organizations. As an innovator in cloud-based technology, Eccovia Solutions is at the forefront of case management solutions for organizations of all sizes. With diverse partners in the non-profit, private, and public sectors, Eccovia Solutions is dedicated to providing compliant, collaborative, outcomes-oriented solutions to those who create a lasting impact in the lives of the people and communities they serve. For more information visit https://eccoviasolutions.com/

SOURCE Community Health Partnership

Related Links

http://www.ppchp.org


MURFREESBORO, Tenn., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- National HealthCare Corporation (NYSE MKT: NHC), the nation's oldest publicly traded senior health care company, today announced that both Donald K. Daniel and Charlotte A. Swafford have informed the Board of Directors that they plan to retire from their positions within the company effective December 31, 2016. Ms. Swafford will be leaving her position as Senior Vice President and Treasurer, a position that she has held since 1985. Mr. Daniel will be leaving his position as Senior Vice President & Controller and Principal Accounting Officer, a position that he has held since 1993. Ms. Swafford has been with NHC for 43 years while Mr. Daniel has been with NHC for 39 years.

Jeffrey R. Smith, currently Vice President of Treasury, has been appointed by NHC's Board to replace Ms. Swafford as Senior Vice President and Treasurer effective January 1, 2017. Mr. Smith has served NHC for 22 years. Brian F. Kidd, currently Vice President and Assistant Controller, has been appointed by NHC's Board to replace Mr. Daniel as Senior Vice President, Controller and Principal Accounting Officer effective January 1, 2017. Mr. Kidd has served NHC for 8 years. Both Mr. Smith and Mr. Kidd have been trained and developed as replacements for Ms. Swafford and Mr. Daniel.

Mr. Smith has been with NHC since 1994. Prior to being promoted to Vice President of Treasury in 2009, Mr. Smith served as an Assistant Vice President and an Accounting Manager at NHC. Mr. Smith is a CPA and earned his B.S. in Accounting from David Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee in 1985. Mr. Smith also earned his law degree from the Nashville School of Law in 1998.

Mr. Kidd has been with NHC since 2008. His responsibilities at NHC have included overseeing and reviewing all aspects of external financial reporting, which includes compliance and monitoring of GAAP and US Securities and Exchange Commission requirements. Mr. Kidd has also overseen Federal and State tax issues and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance for NHC. Prior to joining NHC, Mr. Kidd was in public accounting for 10 years. Mr. Kidd is a CPA and received his B.S. in Accounting from Middle Tennessee State University in 1998.

Robert Adams, current CEO and Chairman of the Board stated, "The entire Board expresses its appreciation to both Don and Charlotte for their many years of service and significant contributions to NHC." Stephen Flatt, current NHC President, who has been appointed NHC's CEO effective January 1, 2017, stated that "Jeff and Brian are well qualified, have been groomed as Charlotte's and Don's replacements, and I look forward to working with them in their new roles."

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. NHC cautions investors that any forward-looking statements made involve risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance. The risks and uncertainties are detailed from time to time in reports filed by NHC with the S.E.C., including Forms 8-K, 10-Q and 10-K, and include, among others, the following: liabilities and other claims asserted against us and patient care liabilities, as well as the resolution of current litigation; availability of insurance and assets for indemnification; national and local economic conditions; including their effect on the availability and cost of labor, utilities and materials; the effect of government regulations and changes in regulations governing the healthcare industry, including our compliance with such regulations; changes in Medicare and Medicaid payment levels and methodologies and the application of such methodologies by the government and its fiscal intermediaries; and other factors referenced or incorporated by reference in the S.E.C. filings. The risks included here are not exhaustive. All forward-looking statements represent NHC's best judgment as of the date of this release.

About NHC

NHC affiliates operate for themselves and third parties 74 long-term health care centers with 9,403 beds. NHC affiliates also operate 36 homecare programs, five independent living centers and 20 assisted living communities. NHC's other services include Alzheimer's units, long-term care pharmacies, hospice, a rehabilitation services company, and providing management and accounting services to third parties. Other information about the company can be found on our web site at www.nhccare.com .

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SOURCE National HealthCare Corporation

Related Links

http://www.nhccare.com


ATLANTA, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Equifax, a global information solutions powerhouse, announced that it is ready to assist banks with the new Military Lending Act (MLA) requirements. Beginning Oct. 3, 2016, creditors will be required to verify whether a consumer is a covered borrower before originating or closing certain credit products and retain the record for five years. The Equifax MLA solution helps lenders by providing an indicator of covered borrower status either in a separate segment delivered with a consumer credit report, or in standalone format without a credit report.

"Equifax stands committed to helping the lending community with the new MLA covered borrower verification requirements," said Robbie Purser, Director of Government Relations at Equifax. "By leveraging our powerful data delivery solutions, we are ready to help lenders meet the new MLA requirements without disruption to the origination process."

For lenders, performing these status checks internally can take time and drain resources because it involves pausing the origination process, manually entering applicant information on the Department of Defense's Defense Manpower Data Center website, and waiting for the results. Equifax can provide lenders with an easier, integrated option with minimum data input needed. Lenders can request the status check at the same time as requesting an applicant's consumer credit report, or enter a standalone request, enabling the process to become more fluid and efficient.

"Equifax will continue working closely with the Department of Defense to maximize efficiencies for lenders and active duty consumers," said Purser. "Providing efficient solutions to lenders that benefit consumers is a sweet spot for us and we're proud to equip banks and creditors with the tools necessary to hit the ground running before the Oct. 3 deadline."

About Equifax

Equifax powers the financial future of individuals and organizations around the world. Using the combined strength of unique trusted data, technology and innovative analytics, Equifax has grown from a consumer credit company into a leading provider of insights and knowledge that helps its customers make informed decisions. The company organizes, assimilates and analyses data on more than 820 million consumers and more than 91 million businesses worldwide, and its databases include employee data contributed from more than 5,000 employers.

Headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., Equifax operates or has investments in 24 countries in North America, Central and South America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. It is a member of Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 Index, and its common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol EFX. Equifax employs approximately 9,200 employees worldwide.

Some noteworthy achievements for the company include: Ranked 13 on the American Banker FinTech Forward list (2015); named a Top Technology Provider on the FinTech 100 list (2004-2015); named an InformationWeek Elite 100 Winner (2014-2015); named a Top Workplace by Atlanta Journal Constitution (2013-2015); named one of Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies (2011-2015); named one of Forbes' World's 100 Most Innovative Companies (2015). For more information, visit www.equifax.com.

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SOURCE Equifax Inc.

Related Links

http://www.equifax.com


NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Evercore (NYSE: EVR) and the principals of its Mexican private equity business, Evercore Mexico Capital Partners ("EMCP"), today announced the completion of the transfer of control of the business to Glisco Partners Inc. ("Glisco"), a new entity formed by the principals, under the terms of the transaction agreement announced on July 20, 2016.

About Evercore

Established in 1995, Evercore is a leading global independent investment banking advisory firm. Evercore advises a diverse set of investment banking clients on a wide range of transactions and issues and provides institutional investors with high quality equity research, sales and trading execution that is free of the conflicts created by proprietary activities. The firm also offers investment management services to high net worth individuals and institutional investors. With 28 offices in North America, Europe, South America and Asia, Evercore has the scale and strength to serve clients globally through a focused and tailored approach designed to meet their unique needs. More information is available at www.evercore.com.

About Glisco Partners

Glisco is a newly-created, independent private equity firm, organized to manage the invested capital in Evercore Mexico Capital Partners Funds II and III, and successor funds. Glisco is focused on making influential minority investments in high-growth, middle-market Mexican companies, and partnering with these companies' equity owners and management teams to create shareholder value. The investment team is located in Mexico City comprising ten experienced investment professionals with deep local knowledge.

Investor Contact: Robert B. Walsh

Chief Financial Officer, Evercore

+1.212.857.3100



LP Contact: Alfredo Castellanos

Managing Partner, Glisco Partners

+52.55.5249.4386



Media Contact: Dana Gorman

The Abernathy MacGregor Group, for Evercore

+1.212.371.5999

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150517/216568LOGO

SOURCE Evercore

Related Links

http://www.evercore.com


SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Extra Space Storage Inc. (the "Company") (NYSE: EXR) announced today it will release financial results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016 on Wednesday, October 26, 2016 after the market closes. The Company will host a conference call at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, October 27, 2016 to discuss its financial results. Hosting the call will be Extra Space Storage's CEO, Spencer Kirk. Joining him will be Scott Stubbs, Executive Vice President and CFO, and Joe Margolis, Executive Vice President and CIO.

During the conference call, company officers will review operating performance, discuss recent events, and conduct a question-and-answer period. The question-and-answer period will be limited to registered financial analysts. All other participants will have listen-only capability.

To Participate in the Telephone Conference Call: Dial in at least five minutes prior to start time.



Domestic: 855-791-2026 International: 631-485-4899



Conference ID: 90584177





Conference Call Playback:





Domestic: 855-859-2056 International: 404-537-3406



Conference ID: 90584177



The playback can be accessed beginning on October 27, 2016 at 4:00 p.m. ET through November 1, 2016 at 4:00 p.m. ET.

The conference call will also be available on the Company's website under Investor Relations at www.extraspace.com. To listen to a live broadcast, go to the site at least 15 minutes prior to the scheduled start time in order to register, download and install any necessary audio software. A replay of the call will also be available for 30 days on the Company's website.

Full Text of the Earnings Report and Supplemental Data

The full text of the earnings report and supplemental data will be available at the Company's website at www.extraspace.com immediately following the earnings release to the wire services after the market close on Wednesday, October 26, 2016.

For those without Internet access, the earnings release will be available by mail or fax, on request. To receive a copy, please call Extra Space Storage Investor Relations at (801) 365-1759.

About Extra Space Storage Inc.

Extra Space Storage Inc., headquartered in Salt Lake City, is a fully integrated, self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust. As of June 30, 2016, the Company owned and/or operated 1,412 self-storage properties in 37 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. The Company's properties comprise approximately 945,000 units and approximately 106 million square feet of rentable storage space offering customers conveniently located and secure storage units across the country, including boat storage, RV storage and business storage. The Company is the second largest owner and/or operator of self-storage properties in the United States and is the largest self-storage management company in the United States.

For more information, please visit www.extraspace.com.

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SOURCE Extra Space Storage Inc.

Related Links

http://www.extraspace.com


LONDON, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Expert global leaders in the fields of technology, innovation, creative business and health, and leading female entrepreneurs, today announce plans to partner with Saudi Arabia's MiSK Foundation by hosting the first ever dual-nation Hackathon to dream up and develop tech solutions to the world's most challenging health and medical problems.

HACKATHON LOGO (PRNewsFoto/MiSK Foundation)

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413416 )



Funded by MiSK and supported by global and local partners within technology, innovation and health, the event will be broadcast live as mixed gender teams collaborate in tandem across the two nations on 25-27 November in London and Riyadh. Themed 'The Medical Internet of Things' the contest will bring together the most inventive British and Saudi young minds, challenging them to change the world and save millions of lives in 48 hours by developing an innovative new tech health invention. Individuals can register and apply at www.miskhackathon.com

Comments Badr Al-Asakir, MiSK Foundation Secretary General: "Youth empowerment and entrepreneurialism, health and wellbeing are the life blood of a prosperous, diverse and thriving economic future. With life expectancy, health issues and service costs all escalating and becoming a global challenge, we believe that finding timely and innovative solutions to these problems are critical. The Hackathon is designed to contribute to these goals."

Supported by world-leading mentors and specialists, up to 400 participants will work in mixed teams and pitch their life-changing idea to an expert panel. The winning team will receive the tools and means to bring their tech health concept to market, including ongoing training and mentoring, and a USD $10k investment.

Supporting the event, Hashim Alawadi, Vice-Chair, Saudi British Joint Business Council, said: "Today, with technology the driver of global progress, great innovation can come from anyone and anywhere. Effective, affordable and sustainable health provision is increasingly one of humanity's greatest challenges.

"As an investor and entrepreneur we look to invest in products that will drive huge change globally, and improve human lives. By bringing together the best young minds across different nations, ages and genders, we can create change."

Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer in Intensive Care Medicine at Imperial College London, Francesca Rubulotta, welcomed the timeliness of the initiative, saying: "With increasing health care needs and expectations placing even more demand on an accelerating NHS deficit, relying solely on current health provision is no longer a viable or sustainable option. Thanks to new and emerging technologies, breakthrough solutions can be tested and implemented. New ways of sharing information and knowledge are needed as well, especially working in emergency or intensive care medicine at the front line of new pandemics or conflicts. Initiatives such as this will genuinely optimise the use of current resources and potentially save millions of lives around the world."

The initiative is part of a long-term programme to drive transformative change in Saudi Arabia by building entrepreneurs within cultural innovation, business creativity and technology & leadership. Young talent nurtured by programmes such as these will return significant knowledge capital to Saudi Arabia as part of the Deputy Crown Prince's ambitious Vision 2030 economic blueprint.

His Royal Highness comments: "By applying our sovereign wealth to invest in technology, diversify our economy through knowledge and intellectual capital, and bring about healthcare improvements not just for the kingdom, but for all of mankind, we are setting the stage for our next generation and our future."

The initiative has also been applauded by senior female figures for its ambition to reach, empower and inspire millions of young females into technology innovation and creative business within the UK and Saudi Arabia.

Comments Jan Ward, former UK Female Entrepreneur of the Year and founder of energy business, Corrotherm: "As the first cross-cultural, mixed gender event designed to provide health solutions to world problems, it's an important and progressive step forward. I'm a huge champion of empowering more young men and women into business and leadership roles, and want to see more programmes like this which have my full support."

Contact:

[email protected]





Notes to editor:

About MiSK Hackathon 2016

MiSK Hackathon 2016 takes place on 25-27 November in London (ILEC Conference Centre, Fulham) and Riyadh. The contest is open to all young Britons and Saudis aged between 18 and 32 years. Participants can find more information and register at www.miskhackathon.com Closing date for entry is 18 November.



About MiSK Foundation

Established in 2011, the MiSK Foundation cultivates learning and leadership to define a new talent for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Foundation focuses on the country's youth, fosters talent, develops creative potential, and generates innovation. In this way, MiSK advances Saudi society in business and technology, and provides equal opportunity for women and men. MiSK, under the leadership of HRH Prince Mohammed bin Salman, pursues these goals by establishing partnership programmes with diverse local and global organisations.

SOURCE MiSK Foundation
Friendly's believes that every child deserves a great future and is proud to be aligned with Boys & Girls Clubs of America, an organization that for more than 150 years, has enabled young people who are in need achieve great futures as productive, caring, responsible citizens. Today, more than 4,200 Clubs serve nearly 4 million young people annually through Club membership and community outreach.

Throughout a three-year partnership, over 250 Friendly's restaurants in 14 states will host in-restaurant "Cones for Kids" fundraising campaigns, with the first launching on Saturday, October 1, just in time for eager parents planning what to hand out for this year's Halloween treats!

"At Friendly's, we believe that all kids deserve a chance to succeed, which is why we're thrilled to host two annual 'Cones for Kids' fundraising campaigns in our restaurants that will benefit local Clubs across the country," said John Maguire, President and CEO of Friendly's. "For well over a century, Boys & Girls Clubs of America have supported America's youth in our local communities by providing a safe place with adult mentors who work hard every day to make sure our kids have fun, form lasting friendships, and can participate in programming that emphasizes academic success, good character and citizenship, and active lifestyles."

In exchange for a $1 donation to Boys & Girls Clubs of America, guests dining at their local Friendly's restaurant will receive a "Kid Card" featuring coupons good for one Free Single Cone, a sweet surprise that's sure to be a hit with neighborhood kids donning their favorite costumes!

For those who are simply "young at heart," but still wish to support Boys & Girls Clubs of America with a $1 donation, an Adult Coupon Book featuring the following four delicious offers is also available:

$5 Off $25 Purchase

Off Purchase $3 Off $15 Purchase

Off Purchase Free Kids Meal With Adult Entree

BOGO Any Size Sundae

"Boys & Girls Clubs of America works to ensure that all kids and teens have a safe, engaging place to go where they can explore new opportunities and find their passions during the out of school time," says Jim Clark, President and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of America. "The generous donations raised at Friendly's restaurants during the 'Cones for Kids' promotion will help enable more youth at Clubs in local communities to have a great future."

Friendly's next "Cones for Kids" fundraising campaign is slated to begin mid-January 2017 and will feature a similar Adult Coupon Book and Valentine's Day-themed "Kid Card" in exchange for a $1 donation to Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

About FIC Restaurants, Inc.:

FIC Restaurants, Inc. is a restaurant company that operates under an iconic brand name (Friendly's), serving signature sandwiches, burgers and ice cream desserts in friendly, full service restaurants. Together with its franchisees, the company has system-wide sales of over $320 million. For over 80 years, Friendly's restaurants and their dedicated service teams have delighted generations of guests by offering every day value on great tasting food and ice cream creations. For the future, Friendly's has plans for introducing new and innovative food and ice cream offerings, bright new restaurants, and unique ways to reach and satisfy guests. For additional information please visit www.friendlys.com.

About Boys & Girls Clubs of America

For more than 150 years, Boys & Girls Clubs of America (greatfutures.org) has enabled young people most in need to achieve their great futures as productive, caring, responsible citizens. Today, more than 4,200 Clubs serve nearly 4 million young people annually through Club membership and community outreach. Clubs are located in cities, towns, public housing and on Native lands throughout the country, and serve military families in BGCA-affiliated Youth Centers on U.S. military installations worldwide. They provide a safe place, caring adult mentors, fun, friendship and high-impact youth development programs on a daily basis during critical non-school hours. Priority programs emphasize academic success, good character and citizenship, and healthy lifestyles. In a Harris Survey of alumni, 54 percent said the Club saved their lives. National headquarters are located in Atlanta. Learn more at Facebook and Twitter.

Information re: BGCA:

Every day, there are 11 million kids that leave school and don't have anywhere to go. During the summer months, the number grows to a staggering 43 million youth. This time spent out-of-school, without the guidance of caring adults and access to engaging learning opportunities can leave kids with few positive influences. Boys & Girls Clubs help to put nearly 4 million young people each year on the path to great futures at 4,200 Club facilities around the country. Clubs serve America's most vulnerable populations: 60% of Club members qualify for free or reduced price school lunch, 41% come from single-parent homes and most are first generation college-goers.

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SOURCE FIC Restaurants, Inc.
ATLANTA, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Genuine Parts Company (NYSE: GPC) plans to release Third Quarter Earnings on October 19, 2016. Management will also conduct a conference call on this date at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time. The public may access the call on the Company's website, www.genpt.com, by clicking "Investors," or by dialing 877-718-5098. The conference ID is 3577037. If you are unable to participate during the call, a replay of the call will be available on the Company's website or toll-free at 877-870-5176, ID 3577037, two hours after the completion of the conference call until 12:00 a.m. Eastern time on November 3, 2016.

About Genuine Parts Company

Genuine Parts Company is a distributor of automotive replacement parts and accessories in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Australasia. The Company also distributes industrial replacement parts in the U.S., Canada and Mexico through its Motion Industries subsidiary. S. P. Richards Company, the Office Products Group, distributes business products in the U.S. and in Canada. The Electrical/Electronic Group, EIS, Inc., distributes electrical and electronic components throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Genuine Parts Company had 2015 revenues of $15.3 billion.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081002/CLTH108LOGO

SOURCE Genuine Parts Company

Related Links

http://www.genpt.com


Official Author Website

Order Children Of The Different HERE



Stuart C. Flynn is a blogger who has done over 100 interviews with folks all over the blogosphere. He also recently released his debut novel CHILDREN OF THE DIFFERENT, which is a post-apocalyptic story set in Australia. Stuart was kind enough to stop by and answer a few questions about his writing debut and what drives him to write. So read ahead to know more about him & CHILDREN OF THE DIFFERENT & be sure to checkout



Q] Welcome to Fantasy Book Critic. To begin with, could you tell us a little about yourself and your background?



SCF: I am an Australian/British/Irish/Italian reader and obsessive reviser. I was born in a small town in South West Western Australia, but I have lived in Europe for more than twenty years. First the United Kingdom, then Italy and currently Ireland, the home of my ancestors. That has been a great experience, but also difficult and lonely at times.



My whole life has been fairly multicultural, I guess. The town I grew up in had lots of different nationalities. And there was the Australian Aboriginal culture. When I lived in London, there seemed to be just about every culture in the world! Then I met my Italian wife and lived in Italy, and now I speak fluent Italian. So you never really know what directions life will take you in!



Q] Can you tell us what inspired you to be a writer in the first place, & why you chose to go the self-publishing route?



SCF: I have made up stories as long as I can remember, and a long time ago I started focusing seriously on writing them down and trying to publish them.



In more than twenty years of writing fiction (including six other fantasy novels of various types), I have had two different professional literary agents for extended periods of time, but neither was able to sell my work, leaving me feeling blocked. Perhaps I was unlucky. But the choice I faced seemed to be the following: either give up on my writing dream, invest more years in the traditional publishing grind, or take charge of the situation myself.



I chose the last of those options. I would not have made that decision if I were not certain that CHILDREN OF THE DIFFERENT would be produced to the highest standards. That level of production is now possible for two principal reasons. Firstly, technology. Secondly, many of the best creative people no longer work exclusively for the big publishers. So I went out and hired them.



For a long time, I could not afford to. The Financial Crisis that started in 2008 left me broke for many dark years. My dream had to wait until I could put some money together. Now, although I am really tired because of my day job and a lot of hard work on the novel, I can start making CHILDREN OF THE DIFFERENT live again.



Q] Many writers have a muse, who directs their writing, and others do not seem to be affected the same way. Which group do you fall into? What is your main motivation and source of inspiration?



SCF: My muse is my wife, Claudia, who is my first reader and critic.



More generally, I have to write when I have the time and opportunity  like every writer with a day job, I suppose. Once I am well underway with a novel, I find that inspiration is there when I need it. It has to be, as I cant afford to wait for it to turn up!



Having said that, I believe a lot in the importance of sub-conscious processes for creativity. While you are sleeping or concentrating on other things, that part of the mind is working. What the ultimate sources of inspiration are, I dont know for sure. They must be a mixture of life experiences, reading, memories and other material that got into the writers mind in various ways. is a blogger who has done over 100 interviews with folks all over the blogosphere. He also recently released his debut novel, which is a post-apocalyptic story set in Australia.was kind enough to stop by and answer a few questions about his writing debut and what drives him to write. So read ahead to know more about him && be sure to checkout all of his previous stops in his blog tour I am an Australian/British/Irish/Italian reader and obsessive reviser. I was born in a small town in South West Western Australia, but I have lived in Europe for more than twenty years. First the United Kingdom, then Italy and currently Ireland, the home of my ancestors. That has been a great experience, but also difficult and lonely at times.My whole life has been fairly multicultural, I guess. The town I grew up in had lots of different nationalities. And there was the Australian Aboriginal culture. When I lived in London, there seemed to be just about every culture in the world! Then I met my Italian wife and lived in Italy, and now I speak fluent Italian. So you never really know what directions life will take you in!I have made up stories as long as I can remember, and a long time ago I started focusing seriously on writing them down and trying to publish them.In more than twenty years of writing fiction (including six other fantasy novels of various types), I have had two different professional literary agents for extended periods of time, but neither was able to sell my work, leaving me feeling blocked. Perhaps I was unlucky. But the choice I faced seemed to be the following: either give up on my writing dream, invest more years in the traditional publishing grind, or take charge of the situation myself.I chose the last of those options. I would not have made that decision if I were not certain thatwould be produced to the highest standards. That level of production is now possible for two principal reasons. Firstly, technology. Secondly, many of the best creative people no longer work exclusively for the big publishers. So I went out and hired them.For a long time, I could not afford to. The Financial Crisis that started in 2008 left me broke for many dark years. My dream had to wait until I could put some money together. Now, although I am really tired because of my day job and a lot of hard work on the novel, I can start makinglive again.My muse is my wife,, who is my first reader and critic.More generally, I have to write when I have the time and opportunity  like every writer with a day job, I suppose. Once I am well underway with a novel, I find that inspiration is there when I need it. It has to be, as I cant afford to wait for it to turn up!Having said that, I believe a lot in the importance of sub-conscious processes for creativity. While you are sleeping or concentrating on other things, that part of the mind is working. What the ultimate sources of inspiration are, I dont know for sure. They must be a mixture of life experiences, reading, memories and other material that got into the writers mind in various ways.

Q] Please elaborate how the genesis of Children of the Different occurred. How long have you been working on it? Has it evolved from its original idea (if any)?



SCF: CHILDREN OF THE DIFFERENT leaped into my mind almost fully formed once I had the basic idea. Of all my novels, CHILDREN was by far the easiest and quickest to write, at least as far as the first draft was concerned.



I am an obsessive reviser, so that was four years ago, during which time there have been long pauses while I was revising other novels, or even  surprisingly enough  taking some time off from revision. Still, the first draft of CHILDREN virtually wrote itself  every day when I needed a scene, it was there ready-made.



Q] Could you tell us about the research which you undertook before attempting to write your debut and what were things which you focused upon and any fascinating things that you found amidst your research?



SCF: I grew up in country Western Australia and that landscape will always be part of my inner self, so not much new research was necessary. CHILDREN OF THE DIFFERENT features an American military base. That base not only actually exists, but I have been inside it  not for military or research purposes, but it was a good experience to be able to draw on.



Q] You have set your story in Australia specifically the western half of Australia (wherein most of the big deserts are located). What was your reasoning for basing your story in this specific region?



SCF: There is a lot of desert there, as you say, but the state is so big that it includes many different climates and types of landscapes. I dont mention them in the novel, but to give an idea of the variety, there are penguins and seals in the temperate south and crocodiles in the tropical north! That great variety of environments and creatures was very attractive for a story in which the main characters  physically and mentally  travel a lot, and gave plenty of opportunities for inventing fantasy scenes.



The south-west corner, where I come from, contains huge forests with some of the tallest trees in the world. That is where the two main characters  psychic twins Arika and Narrah (a girl and a boy, respectively) grew up. The giant trees have always sheltered them and the small, isolated non-industrial community they were born into.



When the twins are forced by circumstances to leave that protected place, they encounter other communities and environments that are threatening in various ways. The great trees were usually seen as benign, but these other worlds often feature different kinds of tall structures: termite mounds three metres, tall, military towers, skyscrapers, stromatolites (communities of microscopic algae that form domed shapes). Western Australia provided all of these and much more as background, as well as lots of strange animals, of course!



Q] With regards to the plot, you have mixed in some Aboriginal mythos within your world and come up with some refreshing concepts. How did you come up with the concept of The Changing and were you worried that you might face some criticism for appropriating myths from a different people?



SCF: Yes, the Changing was in part inspired by the traditional Aboriginal concept of the Walkabout, in which a young person would go off completely on their own for weeks. The kind of spiritual experience they must have gone through, out there in the desert alone, is impossible to know precisely.



I grew up in the country and had quite a lot of contact with Aboriginal people at school and in sports. I am a descendant of white people, so I cannot hope to understand the complexities of Aboriginal culture, but it has always intrigued me and I have great respect for it. In CHILDREN OF THE DIFFERENT, the Walkabout and Dreamtime (creation mythology) are suggested lightly and generally, so I do not think there is a question of appropriating them.



As it appears in the novel, the Changing concept is influenced by other, completely different, thought-streams. Most important of these is the science fiction idea of applying insect behavior to humans, in this case the cocoon transformation phase. The adolescents undergo their Changings in a comatose state and eventually emerge transformed. This was the central idea that led to the novel: a natural state for many insects, but a very strange and eerie one for human beings.
NORFOLK, Va., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Norfolk Southern Corporation's (NYSE: NSC) safety train rolled into Greenville, S.C., this week, hosting 213 area emergency responders who received advanced training in safely handling potential rail incidents involving hazardous materials.

"The safety train is a mobile technical training center  a vocational school  for the continuing education of first responders and representatives of government agencies who support Norfolk Southern's commitment to incident-free handling of hazardous materials," said David Schoendorfer, Norfolk Southern's system manager hazardous materials. "It's a whistle-stop train that helps keep our communities safe."

Staged this week at Norfolk Southern's Greenville rail yard, the safety training attracted representatives of 18 area agencies, including fire departments from Bradley County, Crosswell, Easley City, Gantt, Greenville City, Mauldin, Parker, Pickens, Piedmont Park, Poplar Springs, Silverstreet, South Greenville, Taylors, and Wade Hampton. Sheriff's offices from Greenville County and Spartanburg County and the Anderson County Hazmat Team also attended.

Captain Mike Marlow, a 30-year veteran of the Greenville City Fire Department, brought 90 of his firefighters to attend the classes. "This is essential training for every community with train tracks going through its town," Marlow said. "We are now better prepared to respond in the event of a railroad emergency with the knowledge of how to stay safe around trains and rail equipment."

The safety train is visiting 18 cities in 13 states during its inaugural tour this year. To date, 1,423 emergency responders have received professional instruction on the train. At every location, responders can choose to attend one of the free four-hour classes offered over a three-day period that include instructor-led and hands-on learning. The train includes two boxcars converted into classrooms, four types of railroad tank cars used in transporting all types of chemicals, and two specially equipped flat cars.

"Norfolk Southern has a great safety record, but in the unlikely event of a train derailment involving hazmat, we want to make sure the communities we serve are prepared," Schoendorfer said. "We are focusing on areas where we have significant hazmat shipments. It's a best business practice to help with preparedness."

The train's next stops will be Oct. 11-13 in Atlanta; Oct. 25-27 in Chattanooga; Nov. 8-10 in Slidell, La.; and Nov. 12-13 in Columbia, S.C., during the Southeastern HazMat School.

To register in advance for upcoming training, visit www.joinNSoar.com and click on "Training" and "Download Invitation" near the bottom of the page. The training is beneficial for all emergency responders, including representatives of fire departments, law enforcement, emergency medical services, hazmat response teams, emergency management personnel, military, homeland security personnel, rail regulators, shippers, and customers.

The dedicated safety train is part of Norfolk Southern's "Operation Awareness and Response" initiative launched in 2015 to educate the public about the safe movement of hazardous materials by rail and to connect emergency first responders in Norfolk Southern communities with information and training resources. Including instruction on the train and through other course offerings, Norfolk Southern in 2016 has trained more than 4,000 local emergency responders throughout its operating territory.

About Norfolk Southern

Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE: NSC) is one of the nation's premier transportation companies. Its Norfolk Southern Railway Company subsidiary operates approximately 20,000 route miles in 22 states and the District of Columbia, serves every major container port in the eastern United States, and provides efficient connections to other rail carriers. Norfolk Southern operates the most extensive intermodal network in the East and is a major transporter of coal, automotive, and industrial products.

SOURCE Norfolk Southern Corporation

Related Links

http://www.nscorp.com


The Community College Consortium for Bioscience Credentialsor c 3 bcconsisted of 35 biotechnology educators from around the U.S. who engaged in a collaborative process to establish for the first time bioscience industry skill standards, credential programs, and break-through delivery methods to expand access to bioscience education and training opportunities for students, displaced workers and veterans.

c3bc's goal was to help the high-growth bioscience industry identify ways to unlock its ability to recruit, hire and build careers for entry-level technicians in a complex marketplace by focusing on the bioscience industry hubs of Medical Devices, Biomanufacturing and Biosciences Lab Skills as well as Learning Technologies.

In less than four years, c3bc has engaged more than 170 colleges, employers, bioscience industry groups and workforce organizations, has served more than 3,000 students, and has achieved several groundbreaking results, including:

Creation of the first set of core bioscience skill standards that are being used nationwide by: Educators to focus on curriculum design and teaching effort fundamentals to get students hired and promoted within the industry Employers to help assess and evaluate their own training programs and the structure of student internship opportunities Employees to help them understand the work functions and key activities they need to be successful in the workplace

Development of the first set of industry skill standards in the medical device arena where industry representation was present throughout the development process

Creation of new stackable and portable credential programs in the biosciences, as measured by the: Introduction of four new two-year associate programs Creation of 19 new certificate programs Expansion and creation of six new science laboratories

Development of new cutting-edge processes, delivery methods and resources to help students more easily attain the credentials they need, including extended lab hours, new online and hybrid courses that reduce textbook expenses and scheduling barriers, and virtual tools that provide interactive instruction, assessments and links to additional resources

Creation and storing of 370 program elements on the free and open online library at SkillsCommons.org .

"The c3bc was an idea in 2012 that became a reality with the US DOL TAACCCT funding," says Russ H. Read, c3bc project director and executive director, National Center for the Biotechnology Workforce, Forsyth Technical Community College. "Four years later, we can see how the fruits of our labor tie in very nicely for bioscience workforce education and training trends and needs expressed by educators, employers and workforce agencies."

According to Dr. Gary Green, president, Forsyth Technical Community College, the c3bc's success was due to the exceptional leadership of project director Read and all the hub leaders. "It's also important to thank the consortium member's college presidents for recognizing that the c3bc personnel could not do their jobs without their institutions' support and guidance."

"Technically skilled, multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary people can talk across different issues," says William Pratt, vice president, Operations & Director of Creative Design at Kinamed, a designer and manufacturer of implants and surgical instruments in Camarillo, CA. "They are the employees that really make our factories go."

The c3bc consisted of the following community college partners from across the U.S.:

Biomanufacturing Hub Bioscience Lab Skills Hub Medical Devices Hub Learning Technologies Hub

Led by Dr. Sonia Wallman, NBC2 Montgomery County CC, PA Led by Dr. Elaine Johnson, Bio-Link City College of SF, CA Led by Dr. Sengyong Lee Ivy Tech CC, IN Led by Michael V. Ayers Forsyth Tech CC, NC

Bucks County CC, PA Madison Area Technical College, WI Salt Lake City CC, UT Alamance CC, NC

LA Valley CC, CA Austin CC, TX St. Petersburg CC, FL Rowan-Cabarrus CC, NC

About Forsyth Tech

Forsyth Tech provides students with flexible educational pathways to a competitive workforce for the community and global economy. The college offers associate degrees, diplomas, and certificates in more than 200 programs of study, including programs that promote personal and professional development through non-credit courses and seminars, as well as customized training for business and industry. Forsyth Tech is the fifth largest community college in North Carolina and serves more than 35,000 students with approximately 1,500 full and part-time faculty and staff.

This workforce product was funded by a grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and training Administration. The product was created by the grantee and does not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Labor. The U.S. Department of Labor makes no guarantees, warranties, or assurances of any kind, express or implied, with respect to such information, including any information on linked sites and including, but not limited to, accuracy of the information or its completeness, timeliness, usefulness, adequacy, continued availability, or ownership.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

MARTHA MURPHY

PUBLIC RELATIONS DIRECTOR

THE REUBEN RINK CO.

W: 336.397.5407

C: 336.408.5015

or [email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160930/413852

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160930/413853LOGO





SOURCE Forsyth Technical Community College

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In 2015, Chinese beauty mogul and philanthropist Yue-Sai Kan received the "Women's Champion Award." This year, another brilliant Chinese businesswoman was selected to celebrate with VIPs from around the world, the progress made of positive social change worldwide, in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. As China plays a bigger role in the global economy, we are very glad to see more successful Chinese begin to use their voice and power to improve social good and enter the philanthropic field.

In 2014, Mengqing Fan, founded Shixi Technology (www.Shixi.com), to tackle the issue of unemployment for new college graduates in China. With one third of the world's college students residing in China, employment has been a major concern for the nation. Fan is focusing on one thing that has been missing from the Chinese education system--the internship. Utilizing big data technology, she created China's first web-based platform providing information about internships, jobs, and volunteer opportunities.

Shixi Technology not only provides an efficient and reliable platform with internship information but also internship solutions, such as insurance practices, internship fund and loan facility, while encouraging employers to offer internship opportunities to help themselves find qualified student candidates, thus reducing the cost of training and recruitment of new hires. At the luncheon, many of the honorees promoted the idea of "Empowerment," "education is empowering," "protecting is empowering," "providing jobs is empowering." By connecting over 1,000 Chinese universities and nearly 100,000 business enterprises with students and new graduates, Fan and her company are making a significant contribution in "the endeavor of empowerment." Today, Fan's acceptance of Empowerment Innovation Award is far more beyond just an honor, it is a truly influential event that will encourage more Chinese businessmen to increase their efforts for positive changes, to support sustainable development and to empower the less fortunate 98% of the global population to live better lives.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160925/411563

SOURCE Shixi Technology

Related Links

http://www.Shixi.com


NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Glenlivet, the original single malt that has set the standard for nearly 200 years, unveils the second edition of The Glenlivet Winchester Collection, a series of rare and precious 50 year old single malt whiskies, with the launch of Vintage 1966. Following the inaugural release of Vintage 1964 in 2014, Vintage 1966 is a celebration of craftsmanship, as this extraordinary whisky was created by The Glenlivet Master Distiller Robert Arthur in 1966, and has been carefully guarded by generations of Master Distillers and now released under the guardianship of esteemed Master Distiller, Alan Winchester.

With only 100 bottles available worldwide of this remarkable expression with a suggested price of $25,000, The Glenlivet Winchester Collection Vintage 1966 is truly liquid history in a bottle. As an exquisite whisky resting in its high quality sherry cask, this matured expression has stayed hidden at The Glenlivet Distillery as the world evolved around it, becoming one of the rarest whiskies in the world.

Over time, Vintage 1966 has been slowly and steadily developing the signature flavors that make The Glenlivet an enduring benchmark of quality. Vintage 1966 is a precious whisky that has used sherry casks to enhance the trademark soft, sweet, sumptuous complexity that The Glenlivet is famed for. The result is a remarkable single malt that layers the soft smooth notes of The Glenlivet with delicate spice  a teasing intermingling of cinnamon and liquorice  and offers an exceptionally long, smooth finish, with a pleasing hint of dryness.

"The release of Vintage 1966 marks another milestone for The Glenlivet Winchester Collection," said Master Distiller, Alan Winchester. "Casks of this age and quality are such a rare thing these days, that the resulting single malt is literally liquid history in a glass. I'm immensely proud to release this wonderful whisky, which has been cared for and crafted over generations."

This commitment to craft runs through The Glenlivet Winchester Collection Vintage 1966 experience: The Glenlivet commissioned Brodie Nairn of acclaimed studio Glasstorm, to produce a hand blown glass bottle around the concept of water, paying homage to The Glenlivet's Gaelic translation of 'Valley of the Smooth Flowing One', with elegant flow lines lending gentle movement to the sculpted glass. Designer silversmith Richard Fox made the stunning gold stopper set with a smoky quartz Cairngorm Stone - specially selected to echo the richly dark liquid of Vintage 1966. While esteemed wood craftsman, John Galvin made the beautiful cherry wood cabinet that houses the whisky.

Continuing the theme of craftsmanship by generations and looking towards the future, Alan Winchester's own bottle will be donated to the British Crafts Council and auctioned at Christie's in New York on October 21st, alongside the unique opportunity to lay down a cask of Vintage 2016. Proceeds from the auction will go to the British Crafts Council, developed to support artist craftsman.

"The release of the second chapter of The Winchester Collection sets yet another benchmark in single malt, adding another unrivaled expression to The Glenlivet portfolio," said Sona Bajaria, Vice President Marketing, The Glenlivet, Pernod Ricard USA. "Each chapter: Vintage 1964, Vintage 1966 and, in 50 years' time, Vintage 2016 is steeped in dedication, passion and excellence, values we intend to extend to future generations."

For additional information please visit www.theglenlivet.com/us or join The Guardians of The Glenlivet program to find out more at www.theglenlivet.com/guardians .

Enjoy Our Quality Responsibly.

2016 The Glenlivet Distilling Company, Purchase, NY

About Pernod Ricard USA

Pernod Ricard USA is the premium spirits and wine company in the U.S., and the largest subsidiary of Paris, France-based Pernod Ricard SA, the world's second-largest spirits and wine company. Pernod Ricard employs approximately 18,000 people worldwide, is listed on Euronext (Ticker: RI) and is part of the CAC 40 index.

The company's leading spirits and wines include such prestigious brands as Absolut Vodka, Tequila Avion, Chivas Regal Scotch Whisky, The Glenlivet Single Malt Scotch Whisky, Jameson Irish Whiskey, Malibu, Kahlua, Aberlour Single Malt Scotch, Olmeca Altos, Beefeater Gin, Lot No. 40 and Pike Creek, Midleton, Powers, Redbreast, Plymouth, Seagram's Extra Dry Gin, Martell Cognac, Lillet, Hiram Walker, Pernod, Ricard; and such superior wines as Kenwood Vineyards, Brancott Estate, Campo Viejo, Graffigna and Jacob's Creek; and such exquisite champagnes and sparkling wines as Perrier-Jouet Champagne, G.H. Mumm Champagne and Mumm Napa sparkling wines.

Pernod Ricard USA is based in New York, New York, and has roughly 850 employees across the country. Pernod Ricard USA urges all adults to consume its products responsibly and in moderation. For more information, please visit: www.responsibility.org.

About The Glenlivet Winchester Collection

The Glenlivet Winchester Collection was the world's first series of 50 Year Old single malt Scotch whiskies, which will be released over the next few years. The inaugural Vintage 1964 was released in 2014 and Vintage 1966 is the second release. Taking its name from current Master Distiller Alan Winchester, this exquisite collection of rare whiskies represents the legacy of generations of men and honors the past, celebrates the present and looks to the future.

SOURCE Pernod Ricard USA
In support of the new album, IL VOLO performed "Nessun Dorma" during the live finale of Season 11's A merica's Got Talent (NBC) . They earned a standing ovation, along with heartfelt compliments from Simon Cowell and record viewer ratings. Plus, People.com just premiered IL VOLO 's new live video "Granada"  view it here .

For Notte Magica, Maestro Domingo conducted the orchestra of the famous Teatro Massimo di Palermo in eight pieces, and he also joined IL VOLO to sing "Non ti scordar di me." Maestro Marcello Rota alternated with Maestro Domingo as the conductor. The members of IL VOLO  Piero Barone, Ignazio Boschetto and Gianluca Ginoble  performed songs that encompassed popular Neapolitan, Italian, and international music, blending in complete harmony with songs from famous musicals and renowned classical opera arias.

On July 7, 1990, Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti sang together for the very first time in one of the most evocative temples of opera, the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome  giving life to the biggest classical music project of the century: The Three Tenors. Twenty-six years after this debut appearance by The Three Tenors, and fresh from a triumphant worldwide tour, IL VOLO paid tribute to this event and the three Maestri. They delivered the same experience and emotions as the original performance to a new, younger audience, and with the full support and attendance of Pavarotti's widow Nicoletta Mantovani and the Luciano Pavarotti Foundation.

"A tribute to such artists and such an event could be considered presumptuous, but in fact it is not, as we have not the slightest thought of comparing ourselves to our idols, our artistic inspirations," say IL VOLO.

"I am very happy to be with Piero, Ignazio and Gianluca conducting them in this magical night under the stars in such a beautiful city: Florence! I really love these guys. They are performing such a great repertoire around the world  some of the music my colleagues and I performed in our own concerts," says Placido Domingo.

"IL VOLO is carrying on what Luciano started, and that is bringing Opera to the masses. I think he would be so happy!" says Nicoletta Mantovani, widow of Luciano Pavarotti.

IL VOLO will kick off their world tour in the U.S. performing songs from their new album beginning in March 2017.

Since forming in 2009, the success of IL VOLO's critically acclaimed PBS-TV Specials resulted in touring with legendary songstress Barbra Streisand and performing across the world's greatest stages. To date, the vocal trio have released four albums, charted on the top 10 of Billboard's Top 200, won two Billboard Latin Music Awards (2014  "Latin Pop Albums Artist of the Year, Duo or Group", "El Pulso Social") and received four nominations, plus two Latin GRAMMY nominations (2011 - "Best New Artist", "Best Pop Album by a Duo or Group"). IL VOLO have appeared on major television programs including The Tonight Show, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Talk, American Idol, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Rachael Ray Show The Daytime Emmy Awards, as well as appearing in the final episode of HBO's smash hit series Entourage.

NOTTE MAGICA  A TRIBUTE TO THE THREE TENORS Tracklisting 1. Turandot: Nessun Dorma (Live) 13. 'O surdato 'nnammurato (Live) 2. Granada (Live) 14. Mamma (Live) 3. Mattinata (from "West Side Story") (Live) 15. Cielito lindo (Live) 4. L'elisir d'amore: Una furtiva lagrima (Live) 16. En aranjuez con tu amor (Live) 5. La danza (Live) 17. La tabernera del puerto: No puede ser (Live) 6. Tosca: E lucevan le stelle (Live) 18. Non ti scordar di me (Live) (with Placido 7. Torna a surriento (Live) Domingo) 8. Core 'ngrato (Live) 19. Sole mio (Live) 9. 'O paese d'o sole (Live) 20. La Traviata: Libiamo ne' i calici (Live) 10. Maria (from "West Side Story") (Live) 21. Ave Maria, Mater Misericordiae (Live) 11. My Way (Live) 22. Adeste Fideles (Live) 12. Tonight (Live)



IL VOLO

Website: ilvolomusic.com

Facebook: @ilvolomusic

Twitter: @ilvolo

Instagram: ilvolomusic

Youtube: ilvoloVEVO

Buy Notte Magica here:

Amazon: http://smarturl.it/iv-nottemagica-cd

iTunes: http://smarturl.it/iv-nottemagica

Listen to Notte Magica here:

Spotify: http://smarturl.it/iv-nottemagica-str

Press Contacts:

Sony Music: Angela Barkan / Larissa Slezak:

[email protected] / [email protected]

212-833-8575 / 6075

Varela Media | Victoria Varela

212-332-3485 |

[email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160930/414082

SOURCE Sony Music Masterworks

Related Links

http://www.ilvolomusic.com


MANCHESTER, England, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

EDM, a leading global provider of training simulators to the civil aviation and defence sectors, welcomed UK Minister, Dr Liam Fox, to its headquarters yesterday.

Visiting Manchester to give a speech to business leaders about free trade, the Secretary of State for International Trade met with EDM's's Managing Director, Tony Bermingham and other Directors for a round-table discussion about the company's exporting success and how the government can better support British businesses selling goods overseas. The MP for North Somerset also enjoyed a tour of the company's 100,000 square feet facility during which he was shown a range of the company's market-leading training simulators for civil aviation and defence customers.

EDM has grown its workforce from 150 to 220 in the past 12 months and is on course to increase its turnover by 50% by the end of the financial year as the company continues to win major contracts globally. This year alone EDM has announced major orders from Cathay Pacific, China Southern Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Singapore Airlines and counts Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and Thales amongst its customer base. In 2015, the company won the Manchester Evening News Business of the Year and the Insider North West Excellence in International Trade Awards.

International Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox said: "EDM is a prime example of where British business can reach new heights by seizing global opportunities. With 96% of its business coming from exports this year and a new 2m US contact announced today, EDM is driving new jobs and spreading the benefits of free trade across Manchester."

"It was fantastic to welcome the Secretary of State for International Trade to EDM this week," said Tony Bermingham, Managing Director of EDM. "We enjoyed showing the Minister around our facility and discussing how we've been successfully exporting our products all over the world for the past 15 years."

For more information about EDM visit: http://www.edm.ltd.uk

About EDM

EDM is a leading global provider of training simulators to the civil aviation, defence, rail and other industries. Combining the highest engineering standards with leading-edge technologies, EDM provides airlines with Door Trainers, Cabin Service Trainers, Cabin Emergency Evacuation Trainers and Full Size Mockups and defence organsiations with Procedure Trainers, Maintenance Trainers, Ejection Seats, Simulators and Full Size Replicas. Serving organisations worldwide from its UK headquarters, EDM is committed to delivering exceptional quality and value to its clients to help them enhance safety and operational efficiency.

SOURCE EDM Limited
MADISON HEIGHTS, Mich., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The BetterInvesting board of directors is pleased to announce that Philip J. Keating, CFA, has joined the board effective Oct. 1. Phil is a familiar presence to longtime BetterInvesting members. He has served as a volunteer for the association and has been a popular speaker at local and national events. Readers of BetterInvesting Magazine enjoyed the growth stock screen (as well as the growth and income screen) he provided for many years as well. In recognition of his commitment to investor education, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the organization.

Phil, a resident of South Florida since the 1950s, is a portfolio manager with his own firm. He has appeared on CNBC and been quoted by The Wall Street Journal and other national and local publications. In a 2003 article, editor Don Danko wrote this of Phil: "For more than two decades he's been empowering individuals to become successful investors, helping them avoid the errors that thwart wealthbuilding and focus on principles and techniques that support it."

Meanwhile, three board members have stepped down recently. Shanna Rendon joined the board in 2009 from the Rocky Mountain Chapter. She has provided many contributions to the extended BetterInvesting community, including serving on the board's New Member Growth Committee as well as a predecessor committee, as a director on the BetterInvesting Volunteer Advisory Board and as a national volunteer educator who willingly shared her technological and investing expertise with others.

Effective Oct. 1, Beth Hamm and Bob Wynn are departing the board after many years of service. Beth, the daughter of association co-founder George Nicholson, is an enthusiastic champion of the organization and its mission. An active volunteer for the Western Michigan Chapter, Beth also served the BetterInvesting board of directors in several capacities, including as interim chairman as well as chair of the Awards Committee that annually presents the Distinguished Service Award in Investment Education named in honor of her father.

Bob helped lead the organization through difficult times in the mid-2000s, providing a vision that clearly focused on continuing BetterInvesting's mission to provide investment education. He eloquently and passionately articulated BetterInvesting's mission and facilitated many discussions among volunteers, members, the board of directors and staff that enabled these stakeholders to envision a new future for BetterInvesting.

The board welcomes Phil and earnestly thanks Shanna, Beth and Bob for their dedication to the organization.

About BetterInvesting

BetterInvesting is a national nonprofit organization that has been empowering individual investors since 1951. Founded in Detroit, the association (formerly known as National Association of Investors Corporation) was borne out of the conviction that anyone can become a successful long-term investor by following commonsense investing practices. BetterInvesting has helped more than 5 million people become better, more informed investors by providing webinars, in-person events, easy-to-use online tools for analyzing stocks, a monthly magazine and a community of volunteers and like-minded investors. For more information about BetterInvesting, visit its website at www.betterinvesting.org or call toll free (877) 275-6242.

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

SOURCE BetterInvesting

Related Links

http://www.betterinvesting.org


COLUMBUS, Ohio, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Lane Bryant, the nation's leading women's specialty size apparel brand, is partnering with the American Cancer Society to host a makeover event during the brand's This Body Stands Strong campaign in support of breast cancer awareness.

The cause-dedicated This Body Stands Strong aligns with Lane Bryant's national body positive campaign, This Body. Lane Bryant recently revitalized the This Body campaign, featuring new imagery and a new manifesto that encourage all women to show the world that her body is beautiful.

The makeover event will take place on October 2 at the Lane Bryant Store at The Promenade at Brentwood from 11AM-1PM. During each event, well-deserving breast cancer survivors will receive makeovers including hair, makeup, and head-to-toe Lane Bryant outfitting. Each survivor will have her moment in the spotlight as her new look is revealed during the in-store event, where Lane Bryant customers who attend will have the chance to win cause-dedicated product.

The Promenade at Brentwood Makeover Event

Where:

Lane Bryant

8 Brentwood Promenade

Brentwood, MO 63144

When: October 2, 2016

Time: 11AM-1PM

For more information about Lane Bryant and its role in Breast Cancer Awareness Month, please visit www.lanebryant.com/CombatCancer.

About Lane Bryant: Lane Bryant is the nation's leading women's specialty size apparel brand, providing stylish and high-quality fashion in sizes 14-28. The Lane Bryant collection includes a wide selection of career to fashion conscious apparel as well as accessories, footwear, hosiery and Cacique intimate apparel. Lane Bryant fashions are available nationwide at its 764 Lane Bryant stores, and online. Please visit lanebryant.com and cacique.com for store locations and the latest fashion trend information.

About the American Cancer Society: The American Cancer Society is a global grassroots force of 2 million volunteers saving lives in every community. As the largest voluntary health organization, the Society's efforts have contributed to a 23 percent decline in cancer death rates in the U.S. since 1991, and a 50 percent drop in smoking rates. We're finding cures as the nation's largest private, not-for-profit investor in cancer research, ensuring people facing cancer have the help they need and continuing the fight for access to quality health care, lifesaving screenings and more. For more information, to get help, or to join the fight, call us anytime, day or night, at (800) 227-2345 or visit cancer.org.

SOURCE Lane Bryant

Related Links

http://www.lanebryant.com


BETHESDA, Md., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Maryland Hispanic Business Conference kicks off its 15th year anniversary celebration Monday October 3 at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, an event that attracts more than 700 notable business leaders, entrepreneurs, experts, media executives and government officials.

Emmy Award-Winning Anchor and Reporter Yolanda Vazquez will emcee the hallmark gathering. Maryland Lieutenant Governor Boyd K. Rutherford will provide remarks. A top-notch speaker line-up includes representatives from leading companies such as BGE, Whiting-Turner, Comcast Spotlight, U.S. Census Bureau and more.

The plenary breakfast and ribbon cutting ceremony starts at 9:00am featuring a Conversation with Leading CEOs: Andres Echeverri, president and CEO of ACSI Translations, Maria Martinez, founder and chief executive officer, Respira Inc, Ricardo (Rick) Martinez, president and chief executive officer, Project Enhancement Corporation and Natalie Martz, owner, Chick-Fil-A.

The workshops will unveil new opportunities for entrepreneurs pursuing government contracts. A special procurement connection workshop, "Ready, Set, Exito" organized by the Governor's Office of Minority Affairs (GOMA) will provide contracting opportunities to small, minority and women-owned businesses.

"The conference highlights the important role that Hispanic-owned businesses play in spurring Maryland's economic development," said Veronica Cool, CEO, Cool & Associates, LLC. Her company launched the Latino Innovators' Pitch, a competition that invites enthusiastic entrepreneurs to present their innovative concepts and companies for a $5,000 cash prize.

"The event also spotlights Maryland's vibrant nonprofit sector and helps entrepreneurs create valuable relationships that promote economic growth," said Lanaea C. Featherstone, president, William & Lanaea C. Featherstone Foundation.

The Conference will host its first career fair, providing a forum for job seekers to connect with top employers. "We invite all job-seekers to bring their resume and register for free," said Executive Director Maria P. Rodriguez.

Attendees will hear from the region's chamber presidents: Jorge Castillo, president, Maryland Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Angela Franco, president and CEO, Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Erick Oribio, president, Baltimore Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Daniel Parra, president, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Montgomery County, Jorge Ribas, president and CEO, Mid-Atlantic Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Carlos A. Romero, president, Salvadoran American Chamber of Commerce of Washington, D.C. and Cindy Shao, president, Asian American Chamber of Commerce.

Musical icon Raul Morel will serenade attendees during a networking reception that concludes festivities. Visit our website for the full conference schedule and registration information.



The Maryland Hispanic Business Conference (MDHBC) is the premier Hispanic business event in the State of Maryland. Since 2001, the MDHBC has served more than 54,000 Hispanic businesses statewide.

SOURCE Maryland Hispanic Business Conference

Related Links

http://www.mdhbc.com/


FARMINGDALE, N.Y., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- John F. McKlosky of Seattle, Washington, has attained recognition in Strathmore's Who's Who for his achievements and accomplishments in the field of Fiber Optics. To acknowledge his accomplishments, Strathmore's Who's Who will honor him with a special Times Square, New York City appearance on Friday, September 30, 2016.

John F. McKlosky is the Fiber Network Specialist at the University of Washington. He is responsible for designing, provisioning and managing a multitude of large fiber networks and connectivity both on and off campus. Mr. McKlosky is a nationally recognized expert in the fiber optics industry with 30 + years of experience. He works with a number of entities including Pacific North West Giga Pop (PNWGP) which provides connectivity to global organizations around the world, K-20 Educational Network, the Community Connectivity Consortium (C3) in King and Pierce Counties, in the medical field is the UW Medical Center, Northwest Hospital, Harborview Medical Center, Valley Medical Center and dozens of UW clinics throughout the state. Mr. McKlosky's expertise lies in supporting networking/data center locations in Seattle, Tacoma, Bothell, Olympia, Yakima, Spokane and Portland, Oregon. In addition, he has supported/maintained the fiber network aboard the UW's Thomas G. Thompson Oceanographic Research Vessel. Previous to his association with the University of Washington, he was the owner of MON-ARC Fiber Optic Services for 6 years. He provided high level expertise for fiber network installation, testing and emergency restoration services. He also spent 8 years with GRCC Technical Education where he was the Training Director of the Fiber Optics Program. During this time, he was contracted to do fiber optic training of military personnel at the Yong Sang Army Base in Seoul, South Korea and at the Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan spending 2 weeks at a time at each location. Mr. McKlosky actually founded the fiber technical training programs which provided a variety of accredited/certified hands-on courses to various communications companies and individuals nationwide. Strathmore's Who's Who has also honored him as a Professional of the Year and a Roundtable Member.

The Times Square honor is of particular significance because of the high visibility it offers. This visual celebration of John F. McKlosky's career will appear at regular intervals on two monitors attached to the landmark skyscraper at 3 Times Square, #1, New York, NY 10036. This structure is situated in what could be considered the busiest area of Manhattan. Strathmore's Who's Who is pleased to honor him for his exemplary career in Fiber Optics.

SOURCE Strathmore's Who's Who

Related Links

https://strathmore-ltd.com


"Buying and selling online can be intimidating for a lot of people, especially women," says Angus Tucker, Executive Creative Director at john st., the agency behind the campaign. "That whole 'having some total stranger come to your house to buy your stuff' thing is a real pain point."

In a survey of 1,000 Americans conducted by VarageSale, 51% of respondents reported discomfort with using a local buy and sell site because they feel unsafe meeting anonymous buyers and sellers in person.

Tami Zuckerman, Co-Founder of VarageSale, had the exact same pain point. Zuckerman initially felt creeped out shopping on other local buy and sell sites because she never knew who she was dealing with. She felt there had to be a better way to buy and sell, so she and her husband built VarageSale based on members using their real identity so that families could have a better and safer buy/sell experience.

The app uses Facebook-verified profiles to ensure members use a real name and photo, along with a personal bio and reviews (called Praises) from other members. VarageSale also relies on a dedicated group of people, called admins, who vet members and moderate their local buy/sell communities to ensure a friendly experience.

"VarageSale is the only buy/sell app made up of private local communities, creating a trusted shopping experience," says Zuckerman. "Our members tell us VarageSale makes them feel comfortable doing transactions on and offline because we've removed anonymity--they know who they're dealing with."

Survey results show that Zuckerman and VarageSale members aren't alone in their feelings. A whopping 90% of respondents said seeing someone's full name and a profile photo would make them more comfortable buying and selling online. 73% of respondents said they'd be more comfortable if able to read members reviews.

VarageSale's member base is 85% females who are buying and selling items for their family such as clothing, accessories, baby gear and home decor. The app has local buy/sell communities across US and Canada.

About VarageSale

Designed by a mom, VarageSale is the family-friendly app to buy and sell used items locally. Founded in 2012, it has millions of members in local communities across the United States, Canada and beyond. VarageSale is free to use at varagesale.com and on the mobile app, which is available on iOS, Android and Kindle devices. The company is based in Toronto and funded by investors including Sequoia Capital and LightSpeed Venture.

About john st.

john st. was launched in 2001 by partners Arthur Fleischmann, Angus Tucker, Stephen Jurisic, Emily Bain and Jane Tucker. A fully integrated agency, john st. offers advertising, strategy, design, digital and social marketing to a roster of clients in consumer goods, beverage alcohol, retail, automotive, financial services and pharmaceuticals.

For More Information:

Jennifer Lui Angus Tucker VarageSale john st. 416-527-1850 (cell) 416-315-8544 (cell) 647-560-4593 (office) 416-348-0048 (office) [email protected] [email protected]

Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_gWDtheHAk

SOURCE VarageSale
BOSTON and CHICAGO, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel toured the UI LABS facilities earlier this month in Chicago, where they viewed a range of pilot projects aimed at improving urban environments. The event was an opportunity for the Mayors to experience new technologies with the potential to improve how infrastructure is managed and maintained.

The Mayors visited UI LABS for demonstrations of pilot projects run by City Digital, a Chicago-based consortium focused on data-driven urban innovation within the built environment. Opti's Internet-of-Things technology was featured in a demonstration of green infrastructure monitoring and control.

The event was part of Mayor Khan's first visit to the United States as serving Mayor of London. Participants included Brenna Berman, Chief Information Officer for the City of Chicago, Steve Fifita, Executive Director of City Digital, and Caralynn Nowinski Collens, Chief Executive Officer of UI LABS.

Prior to the pilot demonstrations, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA) hosted a roundtable discussion at UI LABS with industry thought leaders. Discussion topics included motivation and best practices for deploying green infrastructure in cities globally, as well as the potential role of on-going pilot projects. The discussion was moderated by Chicago's first Chief Sustainability Officer and current Senior Fellow on Global Cities with CCGA, Karen Weigert. The roundtable discussion featured representatives from City Digital's partner organizations, including the City of Chicago, Microsoft, Opti, various technology and consulting firms, and educational institutions.

Further announcements about the City Digital pilot projects highlighted during the Mayors' visit and roundtable discussion are expected by the end of 2016.

About Opti: OptiRTC, Inc., (Opti) is an Internet-of-Things technology company focused on monitoring and control of stormwater infrastructure. Opti's software uniquely combines sensor data, weather forecasts, and proprietary algorithms to optimize stormwater infrastructure through active, cloud-based control. Opti lowers the risk of managing stormwater by adaptively managing the rate and timing of stormwater flows. Opti aims to improve the effectiveness of new or existing infrastructure and help keep natural water bodies clean. https://optirtc.com/

About City Digital: City Digital, a UI LABS collaboration, uses Chicago as a test bed for technology and demonstration, focusing across its pilots on four critical impact areas: physical infrastructure, water and sanitation, energy management, and mobility. Ongoing pilots include Underground Infrastructure Mapping, Smart Green Infrastructure Monitoring, and Smart Building Data Services; planned 2017 pilots include energy and mobility platforms. www.citydigital.org.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141217/164951LOGO

SOURCE OptiRTC, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.optirtc.com


SINGAPORE and TIANJIN, China, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The China Air Finance Development Summit Awards, held in September during the multi-day China Air Finance Development Summit in the coastal city of Tianjin, bestowed its Innovation Award on a 64 million jet-engine leasing deal led by Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP Asia Aviation and Asset Finance Practice Leader Paul Ng.

Mr. Ng, based in Milbank's Singapore office, advised Bank of Communications Financial Leasing Co. (BOCFL) on the financing of a six-year lease of four jet engines to Korean Air Lines. The transaction had the added complexity of being denominated in euros  the first such euro-denominated lease financing from a China-based financier. US dollars are the normal currency for international airline financings. The deal is worth approximately 64 million.

BOCFL, headquartered in Shanghai, is one of China's three largest leasing companies, with more than 40 airline clients based in Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

Mr. Ng said: "Milbank is pleased to be able to demonstrate its in-depth expertise by delivering on this multidimensional transaction. Both our client, BOCFL, and Korean Air Lines have expressed that they are impressed by the speed and efficiency with which the deal was put together and completed."

Singapore-based Transportation Group associate Hui Ling Teo also advised BOCFL on the transaction.

The China Air Finance Summit has become a prestigious gathering of aviation finance professionals, clients, and media, with the added cachet of being the site of the China Air Finance Awards, which were created to recognize the tremendous growth of the country's aviation finance industry. The awards dinner, a lavish event hosted by popular Chinese TV personalities, featured remarks by government and business officials and performances by recognized Chinese artists.

Milbank's Aviation Practice Group was recognized by AirFinance Journal for 12 separate "Deals of the Year." The practice was lauded for playing a pivotal role on landmark aviation transactions across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, North America and Latin America.

ABOUT MILBANK

Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP is a leading international law firm that provides innovative legal services to clients around the world. Founded in New York 150 years ago, Milbank has offices in Beijing, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Munich, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo and Washington, DC. Milbank's lawyers collaborate across practices and offices to help the world's leading commercial, financial and industrial enterprises, as well as institutions, individuals and governments, achieve their strategic objectives.

To learn more about Milbank and its attorneys, please visit www.milbank.com

More information is available at www.milbank.com/news

From: Jocelyn De Carvalho, Public Relations Manager; 212-530-5509; [email protected]

SOURCE Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP

Related Links

http://www.milbank.com


AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Mozido, a global provider of trusted digital commerce and payment solutions, today learned that the Delaware Chancery Court dismissed all of Philip Geier's claims against Mozido, Inc. and Mozido LLC.

Geier, the former Chairman and CEO of Interpublic Group of Companies, claimed that he was promised an option to buy 1% of Mozido LLC's stock in exchange for fourteen months of board service. On September 29, 2016, The Delaware Chancery Court found that Mr. Geier had long ago released any possible claims and it dismissed all of his claims against Mozido.

Kasowitz partner Constantine "Dean" Z. Pamphilis, who argued the motion to dismiss, stated, "The Court agreed with Mozido that Mr. Geier's claims had no basis, and soundly rejected Mr. Geier's attempt to obtain an enormous windfall at the expense of Mozido, its employees, and its investors. The dismissed claims were part of a campaign launched by Geier which was intended to intimidate, harass and defame Mozido and its founder, Michael Liberty. We are very pleased with the result."

"Mozido is pleased that the Court in Delaware dismissed the claims against Mozido," said Todd Bradley, CEO of Mozido. "Our team remains focused on impacting digital and mobile technology and bringing an entirely new experience and network of mobile commerce services throughout the world."

The Kasowitz team representing Mozido, LLC includes partners Marc E. Kasowitz, Constantine "Dean" Z. Pamphilis, Albert Shemmy Mishaan, and associate Danielle R. Gill.

Ab out Mozido

Mozido provides trusted digital payment and commerce solutions globally delivered as cost-effective mobile cloud-based solutions branded for clients. Highly interoperable, Mozido solutions work with virtually any wireless carrier and mobile device, and integrate easily with ads, offers, and other products from third parties. Mozido's worldwide presence and global offerings include operations in the US, China, India, Africa, Sri Lanka, Middle East, Europe and Latin America, enabling people to manage their money, payments and other services from their mobile phones. For more information, visit us at mozido.com. Follow us on Twitter: @Mozido.

Press Contact:

Van Leigh

SVP of Marketing

Mozido

512-518-2200

SOURCE Mozido

Related Links

http://www.mozido.com


WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- During bilateral meetings in Daejeon, South Korea, NASA and France's Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aerospatiales (ONERA) signed an agreement Tuesday to collaborate on research that focuses on mitigating the effects of civil air transportation noise.

"Noise is a major issue affecting not only the aviation community, but citizens around the world that live near active airports," said Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. "This agreement with ONERA establishes a partnership in the area of mitigating of aircraft noise research to create a synergistic effect that just can't be achieved when working alone."

Under the agreement, NASA and ONERA will work together to advance technology in the areas of aircraft noise prediction and understanding human response to aircraft noise through validation of models using advanced measurement methods and comprehensive data sets.

The agreement creates a forum through which both agencies can share technical knowledge and data in order to independently improve their own capabilities with the overall objective of mitigating the effects of civil air transportation noise. This research complements the work currently being performed by NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.

For more information about NASA's aeronautics research, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/aero

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO

SOURCE NASA

Related Links

http://www.nasa.gov


NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ABS Management & Development announces new acquisitions and renewals of leases of major tenants, continuing its' aggressive growth, quickly becoming a major real estate owner and developer in New York, New Jersey, and across the U.S.

Led with it's vision and mission by the company's founder and president, Reuven Rivlin, ABS Management and Development has been acquiring and developing properties in prime locations in New York, New Jersey and across the U.S., and has amassed a portfolio of properties in retail, multi-family and development over the past 20 years.

One major New York based real estate broker said, "Mr. Rivlin is a quiet and private individual, but of the group of brokers that know him and deal with him regularly over the past 20 years, he is one of the most respected real estate owners in the industry, and when you do a deal with him, his word is as good as a contract in-hand. What stands out about Reuven, is that he deals with you with a sense of respect and commitment, and appreciates the effort put into every deal.. That sense of respect, and his capability for creative deal structuring, makes you want to work with him, just for the experience and the relationship."

This week, ABS Management & Development signed two major tenants of Camillus Plaza, a 100,000 square foot shopping plaza located in Syracuse, New York. National Retail and Pharmacy Rite Aid, a Fortune 500 Company, will continue to anchor Camillus Plaza, and has signed a five-year extension for the 15,000 square foot space they currently occupy. In addition, Solvay Bank, which has been serving the Greater Central New York for close to 100 years, has also signed a five-year extension with ABS Management and Development. The signing of these two class A tenants continue to prove ABS Management and Development's strong relationships with national brands, and ensure that Camillus Plaza will continue to thrive for both the tenants and the neighborhood.

There are currently 15 tenants in Camillus Plaza, which is located on West Genesee Street in Syracuse, New York, and ABS Management and Development's Leasing Staff stated that there is still limited space for lease in Camillus Plaza which interested parties can contact ABS Management and Development for more information.

Negotiations for the extended leases at Camillus Plaza were handled by Marc Friedman and Joel Warfman of ABS Management and Development.

About ABS Management & Development

Headquartered in New York, ABS Management and Development is a privately help real estate company with an amassed portfolio of retail, multi-family, and development projects in New York, New Jersey and across the U.S. in primary and secondary markets. With experienced leadership that spans more than 25 years, and an aggressive growth strategy in acquisitions and development, ABS Management and Development continues to grow and is quickly becoming a well known leading U.S. real estate company.

Additional information about ABS Management and Development can be found by visiting the company's website at http://absmgt.com/

SOURCE ABS Management & Development

Related Links

http://absmgt.com


NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- New York REIT, Inc. ("NYRT" or the "Company") (NYSE: NYRT), today issued the following statement in response to the letters issued on September 26 and 29, 2016 by Michael L. Ashner, Steven Witkoff, and their jointly owned entity, WW Investors LLC ("WW Investors"):

The NYRT Board Has Actively Engaged with WW Investors to Reach a Reasonable Settlement

NYRT maintains open communications with its stockholders and is firmly committed to serving the best interests of all stockholders. Over the past several weeks, NYRT's Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee (the "Committee") of its Board of Directors (the "Board") engaged in extensive discussions with WW Investors to reach a settlement with regards to WW Investors proposed director candidates and sought to work constructively with WW Investors.

As part of these discussions, and in an effort to avoid a potentially costly and distracting proxy contest, the Committee offered what it believes are reasonable terms  namely, that Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff be included on NYRT's proxy statement to be elected to the Board by NYRT stockholders and prior to being elected by stockholders they could attend all of the Company's board meetings and participate in those Board meetings as observers. As clearly communicated to WW Investors, the Committee believes that the election of directors is a matter to be determined by a vote of all NYRT stockholders. As such, the Committee believes that the terms offered are reasonable and Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff should be willing to stand for election by the stockholders with the other directors.

In its settlement discussions with Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff, the Committee also considered the potential for conflicts of interest in light of Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff's indication that they intended to participate in the Request for Proposal ("RFP") process for the management contract to operate the Company. As stated in their letter, Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff believe their role on the Board should include "determining the award of the RFP" Based on their assertion, we question how Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff would remain as independent directors given the significant conflict of interest created by their participation as bidders in the RFP process while simultaneously acting as Board members determining the outcome of such process. This inherent conflict between Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff's desire to be independent board members while at the same time bidding for the management contract, significantly affected the settlement negotiations.

As part of the proposed settlement terms, and contrary to the assertions made by Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff, the Committee remains open to discussing WW Investors' out-of-pocket third-party expenses and, in no way, summarily rejected the issue. To the contrary, the Committee communicated to Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff that it would agree to the reimbursement of WW Investors' expenses if such reimbursement was approved by NYRT stockholders. In fact, the Committee researched the issue of reimbursement of such expenses to determine standard practices, and these expenses were not reimbursed in a vast majority of studied cases in which a settlement was reached with a dissident stockholder. Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff continue to insist on immediate reimbursement with no shareholder vote. However, the Committee believes that it has offered the appropriate avenue to facilitate the reimbursement of expenses, if approved by stockholders.

The Committee believes that the terms offered to WW Investors are reasonable and fair. While the Committee remains committed to reaching an amicable resolution and is open to continuing to engage in productive discussions with WW Investors, we are disappointed in Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff's mischaracterizing our attempts at reaching a reasonable settlement agreement. We believe this intransigence underscores the fact that Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff's interests lie only with their own agenda, rather than the best interests of all NYRT stockholders.

The NYRT Board Is Committed to Maximizing Shareholder Value and Has Independently Taken Actions to Achieve that Objective

As evidenced by our recent announcements, the Board has independently taken a number of decisive actions to maximize and enhance value for our stockholders, many of which steps Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff have publicly supported. These actions include:



Announced a RFP for all interested, qualified parties to serve as the external manager for New York REIT;

Adopted a plan of liquidation and dissolution that provides for the sale of the Company's assets, and distribution of the net proceeds to the Company's stockholders, after which the Company will be dissolved;

Retained Spencer Stuart to commence a search for new independent members for our Board of Directors, as well as to vet Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff due to concern regarding their independence and ongoing conflicts of interests;

to commence a search for new independent members for our Board of Directors, as well as to vet Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff due to concern regarding their independence and ongoing conflicts of interests; Amended its current credit facility to permit NYRT to adopt a plan of liquidation; and

Is in the process of putting in place a new financing which will provide additional financial flexibility to the Company enabling it to implement the plan of liquidation while achieving maximum value to stockholders.

Contrary to Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff's assertions, our recent RFP announcement was not suggested by WW Investors and, further, the plan of liquidation originated with the Board and not with WW Investors. Consistent with our commitment to maximizing value, the Board decided to pursue the RFP to obtain the best possible terms for the management of the Company.

Ashner and Witkoff Continue to Mislead Stockholders Regarding the Facts

Despite the misleading assertions by Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff, the Board is focused on maximizing value for all NYRT stockholders. We note that our recently filed a preliminary proxy statement relating to NYRT's plan of liquidation sets the record straight on many of the misleading statements made by Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff, and we encourage stockholders to review the document in detail.

Notably:

In the process described in our preliminary proxy statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), we performed a thorough review of strategic alternatives and the NYRT Board did not receive a firm and actionable offer that exceeded $11 per share from that process. To be clear, the NYRT Board received non-binding indications of interests and did not receive an actionable proposal to acquire NYRT for more than $11 per share. Importantly, the same party which has been described in NYRT's preliminary proxy statement as making a non-binding indication of interest in excess of $11 per share has been encouraged by this Board to make a firm offer even today, but a firm actionable proposal still has not been made.

per share from that process. To be clear, the NYRT Board received non-binding indications of interests and did not receive an actionable proposal to acquire NYRT for more than per share. Importantly, the same party which has been described in NYRT's preliminary proxy statement as making a non-binding indication of interest in excess of per share has been encouraged by this Board to make a firm offer even today, but a firm actionable proposal still has not been made. Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff claim that they made a proposal to purchase NYRT shares that was "rejected out of hand by the Board." We note that the proposal was conditioned on WW Investors becoming the external advisor and property manager for NYRT, an important point that Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff conveniently did not disclose in their letter.

The plan of liquidation was developed by the Board in consultation with its financial and legal advisors, and did not originate with WW Investors.

Though Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff claim otherwise, throughout the discussions, the Board made every attempt to provide Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff with access to relevant Board committee members.

Given that Messrs. Ashner and Witkoff have asserted their interest in putting "an end to the needless waste of time and corporate resources," as stated in their letter, we urge them to come back to the table and reconsider the entirely reasonable terms of our proposal rather than continue their unproductive and contentious approach that relies on selective disclosure and manipulation of the facts, and appear to be focused on their own self-interests and not the interests of all NYRT shareholders.

About NYRT

NYRT is a publicly traded real estate investment trust listed on the NYSE that owns income-producing commercial real estate, including office and retail properties, located in New York City. Additional information about NYRT can be found on its website at www.nyrt.com. NYRT may disseminate important information regarding it and its operations, including financial information, through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements

The statements in this press release that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements. These forward looking statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Actual results or events could differ materially from the plans, intentions and expectations disclosed in the forward-looking statements NYRT makes. Forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements regarding stockholder liquidity and investment value and returns. The words "anticipates," "believes," "expects," "estimates," "projects," "plans," "intends," "may," "will," "would," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to: the impact of current and future regulation; the impact of credit rating changes; the effects of competition; the ability to attract, develop and retain executives and other qualified employees; changes in general economic or market conditions; the Company's ability to complete asset sales, refinance its credit facility on favorable terms, if at all, and realize the results of its plan of liquidation; the timing of and the amount of proceeds of asset sales; and other factors, many of which are beyond NYRT's control, including other factors included in NYRT's reports filed with the SEC, particularly in the "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" sections of NYRT's latest Annual Report on Form 10-K for year ended December 31, 2015, filed with the SEC on February 26, 2016, the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2016 filed with the SEC on August 9, 2016 and, the Preliminary Proxy Statement on Schedule 14A with respect to the plan of liquidation filed with the SEC on September 27, 2016 (the "Preliminary Liquidation Proxy"), as such Risk Factors may be updated from time to time in subsequent reports. NYRT does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Additional Information about the Plan of Liquidation and the Election of Directors

and Where to Find It

The plan of liquidation and the election of directors at the Company's annual meeting will be submitted to the stockholders of the Company for their approval. The Company has filed the Preliminary Liquidation Proxy and expects to file with the SEC other relevant materials, including definitive proxy statements which will be mailed or otherwise disseminated to the Company's stockholders when available. THE COMPANY'S STOCKHOLDERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO READ ANY PROXY STATEMENT AND OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC IF AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

Investors may obtain free copies of the Preliminary Liquidation Proxy, any other proxy statement and other relevant documents filed by the Company with the SEC (when they become available) through the website maintained by the SEC at www.sec.gov. Copies of the documents filed by the Company with the SEC are also available free of charge on the Company's website at www.nyrt.com.

Participants in Solicitation Relating to the Plan of Liquidation and the Election of Directors

The Company and its respective directors and executive officers may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from the Company's stockholders in respect of the plan of liquidation and the election of directors at the Company's annual meeting. Information regarding the Company's directors and executive officers can be found in the Company's latest Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, filed with the SEC on February 26, 2016. Additional information regarding the interests of such potential participants has been included in the Preliminary Liquidation Proxy and will be included in any other proxy statements or other relevant documents filed with the SEC in connection with the plan of liquidation or the election of directors at the Company's annual meeting when they become available. These documents are available free of charge on the SEC's website and from the Company's using the sources indicated above.

Contacts



Media: Investors:

Jonathan Keehner Michael A. Happel Matthew Furbish Mahmoud Siddig CEO and President Director, Investor Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher New York REIT, Inc. Relations [email protected] [email protected] New York REIT, Inc. [email protected] (212) 415-6500 (212) 415-6500 (212) 355-4449





SOURCE New York REIT, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.nyrt.com


THE WOODLANDS, Texas, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Newpark Resources, Inc. (NYSE: NR) announced today that it will release its third quarter 2016 results on Thursday, October 27, 2016 after the market closes. In conjunction with the release, the Company has scheduled a conference call, which will be broadcast live over the Internet, on Friday, October 28, 2016 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern / 9:00 a.m. Central.

What: Newpark Resources Third Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference Call



When: Friday, October 28, 2016 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern / 9:00 a.m. Central



How: Live via phone  By dialing 412-902-0030 and asking for the Newpark Resources call at least 10 minutes prior to the start time, or Live over the Internet  By logging onto the web at the address below.



Where: www.newpark.com

For those who cannot listen to the live call, a replay will be available through November 11, 2016 and may be accessed by dialing 201-612-7415 and using pass code 13646164#. Also, an archive of the webcast will be available shortly after the call at www.newpark.com for 90 days.

Newpark Resources, Inc. is a worldwide provider of value-added drilling fluids systems, and composite matting systems used in oilfield and other commercial markets. For more information, visit our website at www.newpark.com.

Contacts: Brian Feldott

Director, Investor Relations

Newpark Resources, Inc.

[email protected]

281-362-6800

SOURCE Newpark Resources, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.newpark.com


BELFAST, Northern Ireland, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- NoBullying.com is currently celebrating its 3rd year of providing quality online content with the aim of helping children, teens, and adults face the threat of bullying and overcome it. With content targeted at bullying victims, perpetrators, onlookers, parents, and teachers, the Website has been able to cover a wide array of subjects over time.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413508LOGO

Bullying and Cyberbullying impact everyone, from young children all the way through to working adults. More than 16,000 children miss school every day in the USA due to bullying. Almost 50% of young people have bullied another person and the effects of such acts are known to leave deep psychological scars for life. Adults face bullying too - surveys have found that 35% of workers have been victims of workplace bullying.

Prevention programs are known to decrease bullying in schools by up to 25%, which is why NoBullying.com has dedicated specific categories for parents and teachers who are looking for resources on bullying and its causes as well as how to combat it.

Among the most important topics NoBullying.com tackles is the issue of Cyber Bullying and its effects. It is estimated that approximately 42% of youth report being bullied online. When considering that cyber bullying victims often have low self-esteem and are l ikely to consider suicide, these rates become worrisome.

NoBullying.com also takes great interest in addressing mental health issues that bullying victims might face, providing articles on the connection between depression and bullying, getting the necessary bullying help, as well as how to deal with suicide attempts.

While a great deal of bullying does occur in student environments, workplace bullying is also a sensitive issue that requires an additional amount of attention. It is estimated that 35 per cent of workers in the USA reported being bullied at work, making it essential for the issue to be brought to light.

NoBullying.com also tackles bullying from different angles and perspectives, featuring articles about issues such as cell phone hacking, social media bullying, as well as LGBT bullying.

The Website also prepares an annual report on the global status of bullying, with its most recent report addressing The Complicated Web of Teen Lives.

NoBullying.com has had over 15 million visits since its inception, with traffic reaching its peak with the beginning of the school year in September and October, and then again in March and April. Traffic to the Website has increased year over year, leading to the belief that while there is more awareness about the subject, more people are trying to reach out for the right help and resources.

Ciaran Connolly, CEO of Treze / NoBullying.com further elaborates, "We look forward to helping more parents, teens, and schools in dealing with the issue of bullying. We have seen no reduction in the problem - as the number of people visiting the website shows, but there is more awareness of the issues globally. Yet it appears that further measures need to be taken to solve this everyday problem."

Contact

Ciaran Connolly

CEO Treze Ltd.

Tel: +44 7733951638

E-mail

SOURCE NoBullying.com

Related Links

http://nobullying.com


SEATTLE, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading fashion specialty retailer Nordstrom, Inc. opened the doors to Nordstrom Domain NORTHSIDE today, the company's second full-line store in Austin. The two-level, 127,500 square-foot store features five shoe departments, expansive cosmetics and accessories areas, and a comprehensive offering of popular brand names for men, women and children. The first Nordstrom store in Austin opened at Barton Creek Square Mall in 2003.

"We're excited to be among a great group of retailers here at Domain NORTHSIDE," said Shannon Ricca, Nordstrom Domain NORTHSIDE store manager. "We've enjoyed being part of the Austin community for the past 13 years and hope our new location makes it more convenient for customers who live closer to North Austin to shop with us. We can't wait to show our existing and new customers what we have in store!"

The women's apparel offering features popular fashion brands in a variety of price points from designers like Alice & Olivia, Tory Burch, Veronica Beard, Madewell, Topshop and J. Crew, as well as shoes and handbags from brands such as Kate Spade New York, Tory Burch and Rebecca Minkoff. Customers will also find a new At Home department, which houses gifts and home decor items, including Austin-native brands Son of a Sailor, Misha Blaise Art and Satchel & Sage. In the Beauty department, customers will find brands like MAC, Bobbi Brown, Aesop, Space NK, Jo Malone and Le Labo perfumerie, which is exclusive to the new store in Austin.

Nordstrom Domain NORTHSIDE features the company's latest design concept, which includes more windows to incorporate natural light and connect the shopping experience to the outside world. The store also offers a number of special services and amenities including Curbside Pickup and Same Day Delivery as well as an Buy Online Pick Up In Store service counter with dressing rooms that make it easy for customers to try on online purchases, an in-store alteration and tailor shop, a leather embossing machine to customize leather goods, certified bra and prosthesis fit specialists and Personal Stylists  a complimentary wardrobe and shopping service. The store has two food offerings: Bazille, a contemporary interpretation of bistro cuisine including a full bar; and the Ebar, for handcrafted coffee drinks and grab-and-go food options.

Opening day kicked off at 8 a.m. with a Beauty Bash  a high energy celebration of all things beauty  just outside the store's entrance. Customers enjoyed a preview of the store's expansive cosmetics selection as well as one-on-one time with Nordstrom beauty experts to get the inside scoop on new products and fall trends. In what has become a Nordstrom tradition, more than 300 employees welcomed the first customers when the doors officially opened at 10:00 a.m.

Earlier in the week, Nordstrom underwrote Austin City Social  an opening party that raised more than $35,000 for Austin Symphony BATS (Be at the Symphony) and the next generation of Austin music lovers. More than 1,000 guests were in attendance to enjoy fall fashion presentations, bites and beverages, as well as live music from locals Tameka Jones and local low grass band Sour Bridges.

ABOUT NORDSTROM:

Nordstrom, Inc. is a leading fashion specialty retailer based in the U.S. Founded in 1901 as a shoe store in Seattle, today Nordstrom operates 338 stores in 39 states, including 122 full-line stores in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico; 208 Nordstrom Rack stores; two Jeffrey boutiques; and one clearance store. Additionally, customers are served online through Nordstrom.com, Nordstromrack.com and HauteLook. The company also owns Trunk Club, a personalized clothing service serving customers online at TrunkClub.com and its five clubhouses. Nordstrom, Inc.'s common stock is publicly traded on the NYSE under the symbol JWN.

CONTACT: Anya Pavlovic

Nordstrom, Inc.

206.303.3015

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20001011/NORDLOGO



SOURCE Nordstrom, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.nordstrom.com


CONYERS, Ga., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Novae and myEcon have finalized details of a merger to take effect on October 1, 2016.

Since Novae's inception in 2014, the company has focused on Lifestyle Enhancement, offering products and services to enhance individuals' lives in all areas. The merger with myEcon, founded in 2005, allows Novae to streamline their focus to myEcon's specialty, Wealth Creation through a concept myEcon refers to as "Income Shifting". With hundreds of millions of Americans looking to improve their financial situation, Novae and myEcon are poised to become industry leaders within this category.

"This is not only going to be great for both companies, but a major home run for the Independent Business Owners (IBOs) of Novae as well!" states Reco McDaniel, Novae President & CEO. McDaniel further explains, "This merger allows our IBOs to have an enhanced opportunity from day 1. The top level enrollment fee for new IBOs is decreasing from $499 to $199, which lowers the barriers of entry. The compensation payout is significantly increasing as well, allowing IBOs to potentially earn thousands of dollars weekly for sharing the new opportunity. Novae's monthly membership fee of $99.95 is now being reduced to $34.95 through the merger and will provide IBOs with increased value and services!"

myEcon's Financial Success Membership includes a Cashflow Manager Software, Identity Theft Protection, Free & Discounted Legal Services, Tax Advice Service & Preparation, and Identity Theft Prevention. Novae will add Novae Perks, Novae Library, and Novae Travel to this membership and at no additional cost to current myEcon and Novae IBOs. In addition to the membership, Novae Roadside Companion, Sprayology, and Novae Money will also be added to myEcon's product offerings.

Ivey Stokes, Founder of myEcon, also sees the merger as a major win for his company. Stokes states, "Over the last few years, myEcon set company goals to improve marketing, become mobile, and begin to attract a younger demographic. For more than a decade, our company has attracted tens of thousands of Baby Boomers across the country and we have been successful. This merger allows us to capitalize on Novae's strengths which help us accomplish our goals in short order."

With the release of Novae Connect, Novae's mobile application, in August, both companies are excited about smart phone technology being married with this newly enhanced opportunity. In October, all of the IBOs of myEcon and Novae will now have access to this application, which is sure to generate momentum for these companies and make the industry take notice.

Multi-Million Dollar Earner and Top Industry Trainer Brian Beane is excited about this merger and has decided to come out of retirement to join these two powerhouses to create something special. Beane exclaims, "It's not often that you have 2 company owners that have collectively built multi-million dollar companies decide to come together for the benefit of their companies and communities so everyone wins! This may very well be the greatest merger in the history of the Network Marketing industry!"

myEcon and Novae's executive teams will begin efforts to blend corporate leadership. Over the next several months, the companies will continue to take steps to integrate systems, marketing, organizations, and culture to create a huge conglomerate that will change the lives of millions across the country.

About Novae

Pronounced "NO-VA", it is the feminine meaning of the latin word Novus, which means New, Newness, or New Beginnings. Coupled with the symbol in the logo, the KORU symbolizes LIFE, GROWTH, and a FRESH START; Novae's goal is to give their members just that and more importantly, to enhance the lives of their members in every area! Novae's focus is to INSPIRE individuals to get more out of life, EDUCATE them on ways to go about it and lastly to provide an OPPORTUNITY to make it happen!

Novae negotiates deals with major corporations allowing them to offer much needed products and services at discounted prices. Customers are able to receive high value products and services at an affordable price and members of Novae are able receive even greater discounts. With tens of thousands of satisfied members and customers to date, Novae is poised to become a leader in the world of business and the ever growing "Membership Economy". Company executives are Reco McDaniel, Carlton Calhoun, and Justin Owens.

About myEcon

myEcon, Inc. is a privately held, debt free company based in Gwinnett County, GA, a suburb of Atlanta. The company was founded by a small group of entrepreneurs in 2005. The company operates in the multi-billion dollar Direct Sales industry. The founders' vision is to empower people to attain Personal Financial Success. The company name myEcon, is short for "my Economy"; because the founders envision each individual taking care of their Personal Economy just as governments and corporations take care of theirs.

myEcon empowers its Associates to attain financial success by helping them earn income through a web-based business system and by teaching them financial strategies. The company currently has over 50,000 independent marketing associates and is one of the fastest growing companies in America. Company executives are Ivey Stokes, Alvin Curry, and Larry Gates.

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE Novae
OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Oakland Museum of California's (OMCA) major fall exhibition, All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50 will open October 8 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party (October 15, 1966) and continuing OMCA's commitment to examining topics and themes that are socially relevant and meaningful to the community. Organized by an OMCA team headed by Senior Curator of Art Rene de Guzman, All Power to the People explores the Party's stories of human achievement and struggle to support the needs of the oppressed. The exhibition delves into aspects of the Party that are not often told or remembered, such as its survival programs, the presence of women and rank and file members, its use of media and art, and its founding Ten Point Program that continues to inform and inspire contemporary movements of change today. All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50 runs October 8, 2016, through February 12, 2017. Visit museumca.org.

The exhibition examines the human stories behind the Black Panther Party, a necessary and innovative response to societal needs during a complex and turbulent time in American history. Informed by insights from former Black Panthers, artists, scholars, and community members, the exhibition features art installations, historical photographs and media presentations, rare artifacts, and contemporary works of art. Designed to inspire reflection and dialog about the Panthers and their time, the exhibition includes an unprecedented variety of materials from OMCA's collections and other public and private sources that illuminate the historical and social contexts of the late 1960s that precipitated the founding of the Black Panthers, presenting the complex stories of the Party and its work to make revolutionary change possible.

"Controversial to some yet inspirational to many, we wanted to understand why the Black Panther Party continues to capture people's imagination today," says curator Rene de Guzman. "This project has transformed how I understand the world and we hope to provide a similar sense of reflection and revelation to visitors. The Black Panthers are a deeply local story that's had lasting national and international influence."

Download hi-res photos: http://museumca.org/gallery/all-power-people-black-panthers-50

SOURCE The Oakland Museum of California
LAKE WORTH, Fla., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- It's time for travelers to welcome the Palm Beach County season of arts and culture, and New Yorkers got a glimpse of what's in store at the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County's "Preview of Arts and Culture in The Palm Beaches" reception at The CORE Club this week.

During the event, which was attended by an invited group of 50 of the most influential New Yorkers, Cultural Council CEO Rena Blades said, "With more than 200 arts organizations, Palm Beach County is known as the Cultural Capital of Florida. It's going to be a record year for cultural tourism in The Palm Beaches."

The event heralded the beginning of the arts and culture season in The Palm Beaches, a favorite destination of sophisticated New Yorkers who prefer to vacation in a culture-rich environment. Surrounded by breathtaking beaches and natural beauty, they experience arts and culture in a relaxed and welcoming manner that is typically Palm Beach County.

Event attendees were treated to a special performance by Emmanuel Ceysson, solo harpist with the Metropolitan Opera, courtesy of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach, where he's a frequent guest artist. They learned about upcoming cultural activities in The Palm Beaches, from opera to street art.

Tourists who visit the Palm Beaches this season will be treated to special experiences including the Boca Raton Museum of Art's Hungarian Art exhibition featuring the collection of Nancy Brinker, and the museum's Glasstress exhibition of glass installations from contemporary artists throughout the world. CANVAS Outdoor Museum will transform downtown West Palm Beach into an interactive art experience, and Mar-a-Lago will echo with the beautiful sounds of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach. Thousands more cultural delights await visitors to Palm Beach County.

Visitors to The Palm Beaches will also experience the area's traditions including Palm Beach Opera @ The Waterfront; the Palm Beach Jewelry, Art and Antique Show, the popular lecture series Culture & Cocktails at the historic Palm Beach Colony Hotel; SunFest, Florida's largest waterfront music and art festival; and the world famous Lake Worth Street Painting Festival.

Highlights of the 2016-2017 Palm Beach County season can be found at https://www.palmbeachculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2016-17-Art-Culture-Season-Preview-for-The-Palm-Beaches.pdf. For a complete calendar and information on visiting Palm Beach County cultural venues please visit www.palmbeachculture.com.

Photos of the New York City event are available for download

Patrick McMullan site:

http://www.patrickmcmullan.com/site/event_detail.aspx?eid=52452&home=1&page=2&pgSize=64&sortdir=DESC

Getty Images site:

http://mm.gettyimages.com/mm/nicePath/gyipa_public?nav=pr468692743

For assistance please contact Judith Czelusniak at [email protected] or Lauren Spoto at [email protected].

About the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County

The Cultural Council of Palm Beach County is the official support agency for arts and culture in The Palm Beaches, serving non-profit organizations, artists and arts districts. The Cultural Council administers $4.5 million in grants annually, supports arts and cultural education, provides capacity-building training, and advocates for arts funding and arts-friendly policies. The Council promotes Palm Beach County's cultural experiences to visitors and residents through multi-platform marketing and public information programs, including its one-of-a-kind Cultural Concierge service.

The Cultural Council presents exhibitions featuring Palm Beach County artists and provides additional programming at its headquarters in the historic Robert M. Montgomery, Jr. Building, an iconic Streamline Moderne former movie theater in Downtown Lake Worth. Also at the Cultural Council headquarters are the Roe Green Uniquely Palm Beach Store featuring products by Palm Beach County artists and the Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Visitor Information Center, a VISIT FLORIDA designated Florida Certified Tourism Information Center.

The Cultural Council galleries, visitor information center and store are open 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. For a complete calendar of cultural activities in The Palm Beaches, connect with the Council at palmbeachculture.com or (561) 471-2901. To plan a personalized cultural itinerary, connect with the Cultural Concierge at palmbeachculture.com/concierge.

CONTACT

Judith Czelusniak

[email protected]

(561) 471-1602

SOURCE Cultural Council of Palm Beach County

Related Links

http://www.palmbeachculture.com


GUANGZHOU, China, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Experiential consumption provider Plateno Group has announced that it will once again host the hospitality industry's newest fashion show, Plateno Collection 2017, from December 9th to 11th in Guangzhou China. After accepting strategic investment from leading Chinese hotel group Jinjiang International in September 2015, and ranked as World's No. 5 Hotel Group, Plateno has been committed to promoting the idea that hotels are not simply about "stay", but will also become fashion and tourism destinations in the future. Plateno Collection 2017 will help Plateno's brands align with more industry peers and provide consumers a wonderful experience through the annual release of new products, services and designs.

The 3 days' show will include Members' Day, Recruiting Day, and Investors' Day. It will provide the members with a series of interactive games, enabling them to have a better understanding and a close touch of Plateno's brands and new products in hotel service, in return members will get prizes such as free room nights, travel bonus, etc. On the other hand, Plateno will invite all the elites in tourism and hospitality industry to take part in the interviews at the show-- an incredible interview that one could never experience elsewhere.

Alice, a tourist experience architect attended the event last year and said that she initially thought the so-called fashion show of the hospitality industry would probably be something like a showroom. Not until she went to the show did she discover that the whole place was like a small town with unique characteristics that transcended what people's traditional idea about "hotel" had implied.

In the spacious and luxurious 5,000 square meters' exhibition hall which featured 18 unique brand experience pavilions and six major stage shows for new products release, the splendid and colorful performances, stylish pavilion designs, and fascinating experiential interactions showed to people in a creative way the brand new lifestyle associated with hotels.

After the success of last year's show, Plateno Collection 2016, Plateno is going to make large upgrades this year not only in activities, but also in marketing and promotion. The Plateno Collection 2017 will feature a stronger international style and create more interesting interactions with customers. In addition, Plateno will integrate more brands, more influential online celebrities, KOLs(Key Opinion Leaders), and more diverse communication channels. This year's event is expected to attract more than 2,000 senior investors and over 20,000 fans to the show with its direct influence reaching out to more than 100 million people.

With more than 84% of its consumers came from in-house CRS and walk-ins, Plateno shows its expertise in marketing and connecting with its loyal members. As a consequence, it is no doubt that the Plateno Collection 2017 will receive an overall publicity through in-house social medias such as Wechat, Weibo, Plateno Trip APP, official Websites, etc. An upgraded and unique design showroom of Plateno Collection 2017 is going to provide a more impressive experience for all the participants.

Commenting on the company's vision for the event, Plateno Group's brand architect, president and founder, Zheng Nanyan (Alex Zheng), said, "Just being functional as a place for accommodations is not enough for hotels nowadays. As the space where consumers spend the most time, it is becoming a hub for experiential consumption, where the integration of people, space and time is bound to create more values and more stories. " What kind of inspirations and surprises will this year's fashion show bring to the tourism and the experiential consumption industry? Let's look forward to what is going to happen.

About Plateno Group

Plateno Group is one of China's most innovative and influential enterprises. Focusing on the field of experiential consumption and penetrating into consumers' real demands, it has created two strategic platforms including membership and brand establishment from unique traveling and leisure life experience as well as value appeal, thereby providing consumers with a diverse experiential life circle.

After accepting strategic investment from leading Chinese hotel group Jinjiang International in September 2015, the alliance (Jinjiang International Group and Plateno Group) became the first Chinese hotel group to rank in the Global Top 5 in HOTELS 325 of Year 2015 published by the HOTELS magazine.

Plateno Group's business portfolio covers hotels, apartments, coffee chains and a public welfare artwork platform. It owns 20 brands including Maison Albar, H12, Portofino Hotel, Barcelo, Ameron, Xana Hotelle, JamesJoyce Coffeetel, Lavende Hotel, ZMAX Hotel, Hampton by Hilton, 7 Days Premium, 7 Days inn, PAI HOTELS, the Manjusaka art platform, MORA COFFEE, and Wowqu department with over 3,700 hotels in more than 300 destinations around the world. Meanwhile, Plateno Group is also actively expanding to Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa and other overseas markets. Plateno pursues the vision of "Connecting better experience".

Plateno International

Pink Li

Tel: +86 (020) 89115109

E-mail: [email protected]

Web: www.platenogroup.com

SOURCE Plateno Group

Related Links

http://www.platenogroup.com


MIAMI, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Power Clouds Inc. (www.powercloudsinc.com) (OTCMARKETS: PWCL) today announces that it will host the first in a series of regular webinars on Wednesday October 5, 2016 at 2:00pm EDT. Access to the webinar can be found at the following link: https://presscaster.com/news/livestream-presscasts

Roberto Forlani, CEO, and Vincent Browne, CFO, will discuss the recent developments in the business following a shift in business strategy during 2016 to move from focusing solely on developing PV solar projects from green field to also acquiring connected and operational solar parks internationally that deliver immediate positive income streams on acquisition.

As part of this strategy PWCL has completed Letters of Intent for the acquisition of up to 36MW of operational Solar parks in Italy, and has agreed terms for $48 million in senior and mezzanine debt to purchase the first 12MW portfolio of these projects. Closing of these acquisitions is dependent on successful due diligence, which is ongoing and expected to complete in October, signing of definitive agreements and PWCL successfully raising the project equity required. Successful completion of the first portfolio will see annual revenues grow from $1 million per year to over $7 million per year with an average of 85% cash EBITDA.

The Company has also filed an updated Corporate Profile with OTC markets, that outlines the current business overview and growth strategy and can be found at the following link http://www.otcmarkets.com/financialReportViewer?symbol=PWCL&id=160809

Roberto Forlani, President and Chief Executive Officer of PWCL, said, "We look forward to discussing the exciting new direction and positive developments we have made in Power Clouds Inc. over the past twelve months. We are now moving to the next phase in our mission to build the world's largest distributed and connected green energy parks that together produce clean energy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."

About Power Clouds Inc.

Power Clouds Inc. is a global renewable energy provider that is changing how energy is generated and owned. We create value for our investors by developing, owning and operating clean energy power plants in multiple countries where the combination of regulatory, economic and environment elements are maximized. PWCL operates solar parks that connect directly to national power grids rather than residential rooftops. We currently have operations in Europe & Asia. Our global focus means operations are not limited to any one geography or single commercial model or regulatory influence. For further information about how the Power Clouds see www.PowerCloudsInc.com

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Words such as "expects," "intends," "believes," and similar expressions reflecting something other than historical fact are intended to identify forward-looking statements, but are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including the timely development and market acceptance of products and technologies, the ability to secure additional sources of finance, the ability to reduce operating expenses, and other factors described in the Company's filings with the OTC Markets Group. The actual results that the Company achieves may differ materially from any forward-looking statement due to such risks and uncertainties. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release.

SOURCE Power Clouds Inc.

Related Links

http://www.PowerCloudsInc.com


ATLANTA, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Preferred Apartment Communities, Inc. (NYSE: APTS) today announced plans to release its third quarter 2016 earnings after the market closes on Monday, October 31, 2016.

Following are the details of a conference call Preferred Apartment Communities will host on Tuesday, November 1, 2016, at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time to discuss its third quarter 2016 results. To participate in the conference call, please dial in to the following:

Live Conference Call Details

Domestic Dial-in Number: (800) 860-2442

International Dial-in Number: (412) 858-4600

Company: Preferred Apartment Communities, Inc.

Date: Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Time: 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time (8:00 a.m. Pacific Time)

The live broadcast of Preferred Apartment Communities' third quarter conference call will be available online, on a listen-only basis, at the company's website, www.pacapts.com, under "Investors" and then click on the "Upcoming Events" link. A replay of the call will be archived on Preferred Apartment Communities' website under Investors/Audio Archive.

About Preferred Apartment Communities, Inc.

Preferred Apartment Communities, Inc. is a Maryland corporation formed primarily to acquire and operate multifamily properties in select targeted markets throughout the United States. As part of our business strategy, we may enter into forward purchase contracts or purchase options for to-be-built multifamily communities and we may make real estate related loans, provide deposit arrangements, or provide performance assurances, as may be necessary or appropriate, in connection with the development of multifamily communities and other properties. As a secondary strategy, we may acquire or originate senior mortgage loans, subordinate loans or mezzanine debt secured by interests in multifamily properties, membership or partnership interests in multifamily properties and other multifamily related assets and invest not more than 20% of our assets, subject to any temporary increase unanimously approved by our board of directors, in other real estate related investments such as grocery-anchored shopping centers, senior mortgage loans, subordinate loans or mezzanine debt secured by interests in grocery-anchored shopping centers, membership or partnership interests in grocery-anchored shopping centers and other grocery-anchored shopping center related assets as determined by our manager as appropriate for us. At June 30, 2016, the Company was the approximate 96.4% owner of Preferred Apartment Communities Operating Partnership, L.P., or the Operating Partnership. Preferred Apartment Communities, Inc. has elected to be taxed as a real estate investment trust under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, commencing with its tax year ended December 31, 2011.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160707/387211LOGO

SOURCE Preferred Apartment Communities, Inc.
DETROIT, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Rainbow PUSH Automotive Project, an initiative of the Citizenship Education Fund, will be gathering with industry leadership today to assess the diversity environment and outcomes for African Americans in the automobile industry. This year's conference, Refocusing Diversity on Ethnic Minority Growth, is meant to highlight the inconsistency between the inclusion we envision and the results we can measure, with an intent to resolve the disparities that prevent African Americans from fully participating in the industry. The Global Automotive Summit is the only event of its kind that addresses the automotive industry from the perspective of people of color.

Joining the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. as key speakers at the conference are:

Alan Batey , executive vice president and president, North America , General Motors Company

Robert Young , group vice president Supplier Engineering Development and Cost Planning, Toyota Motor North America Inc .

. John Martin , senior vice president, Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management and Purchasing, Nissan North America, Inc .

. Uwe Ellinghaus , chief marketing officer, Global Cadillac, General Motors Company

Tom Peyton , assistant vice president of Marketing Operations, American Honda Motor Co., Inc.

Dr. David Thomas , professor of management, dean of the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University

Together with more than 400 attendees they will address some of the industry's challenges which, left unresolved, will have wide reaching effects on the industry's future prospects. Today more than half of all public school children are from ethnic backgrounds. As our nation becomes more multicultural, African Americans will make up a larger share of new vehicle volume growth, which is already nearly double overall industry growth (9.4% versus 5%). Based on average transaction prices for a new vehicle, African Americans contribute more than $35 billion to automaker revenue. Despite this level of contribution as buyers, we've witnessed the number of African American dealers decline 65% in the past 10 years. "African Americans are the only group not recovered from the recovery," said Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. "While there's an increasing respect for African American customers and companies, respect without economic parity is as the Bible says, 'a noisy gong or clanging cymbal,' we must demand our fair share, so we can fully participate." Record vehicle sales last year is in part due to the large numbers of ethnic buyers. Maintaining that momentum requires candid discussions on parity and partnership made possible by forums like the Rainbow PUSH Automotive Summit.

About Rainbow PUSH Coalition

The Rainbow PUSH Coalition is a progressive organization protecting, defending and expanding civil rights to improve economic and educational opportunity. The organization is headquartered at 930 E. 50th Street in Chicago, IL. For more information about the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, please visit www.rainbowpush.org . Follow Rainbow PUSH Coalition on Twitter: @RPCoalition; follow the Global Automotive Summit on Twitter: @RPCGAS2016 and use the hash tag #RPCGAS2016 to join the conversation.

SOURCE Rainbow PUSH Coalition Automotive Project

Related Links

http://www.rainbowpush.org


CHICAGO, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Ryerson Holding Corporation (NYSE: RYI), a leading distributor and processor of metals, today provided guidance for its third quarter ending September 30, 2016. The Company expects third quarter 2016 net income attributable to Ryerson Holding Corporation in the range of $8 million to $12 million and Adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO in the range of $46 million to $50 million. Ryerson reported third quarter 2015 net income attributable to Ryerson Holding Corporation of $7 million and Adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO of $30 million. A reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO to net income attributable to Ryerson Holding Corporation is included below in this news release.

The Company anticipates revenue for the third quarter of 2016 to be flat with the second quarter of 2016, with higher average selling prices offset by lower sequential shipments. Spot hot rolled coil steel prices are down 25% from their peak levels in the second quarter, and spot carbon plate prices are nearing parity with hot rolled coil prices. Steel mill lead times have shortened across all carbon steel categories, consistent with slowing demand evidenced so far during the third quarter. With respect to specific end markets, food processing equipment and consumer durables are demonstrating sequential quarterly demand strength while oil & gas, commercial ground transportation, agricultural equipment, metal fabrication and machine shops are showing sequential quarterly demand weakness. Construction equipment sequential quarterly demand is neutral.

Ryerson Holding Corporation's Third Quarter 2016 Conference Call Details

Ryerson also announced that it will host a conference call to discuss third quarter 2016 results on Thursday, November 3 at 10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The live online broadcast will be available on the Company's investor relations website, ir.ryerson.com. Ryerson will report earnings after the market closes on Wednesday, November 2.

DATE:

Thursday, November 3, 2016 TIME:

10:00 a.m. EDT / 9:00 a.m. CDT DIAL-IN:

800-862-9098 (U.S., Canada) / 785-424-1051 (International) CONFERENCE ID:

6688203

An online replay of the call will be posted on the investor relations website, ir.ryerson.com, and remain available for 90 days.

Ryerson is a leading processor and distributor of metals, with operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico and China. Founded in 1842, Ryerson employs around 3,400 employees in approximately 100 locations. Visit Ryerson at www.ryerson.com.

Safe Harbor Provision

Certain statements made in this filing constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding our future performance, as well as management's expectations, beliefs, intentions, plans, estimates or projections relating to the future. Such statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "believes," "expects," "may," "estimates," "will," "should," "plans" or "anticipates" or the negative thereof or other variations thereon or comparable terminology, or by discussions of strategy. The Company cautions that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and may involve significant risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may vary materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Among the factors that significantly impact the metals distribution industry and our business are: the cyclicality of our business; the highly competitive, volatile, and fragmented market in which we operate; fluctuating metal prices; our substantial indebtedness and the covenants in instruments governing such indebtedness; the integration of acquired operations; regulatory and other operational risks associated with our operations located inside and outside of the United States; work stoppages; obligations under certain employee retirement benefit plans; the ownership of a majority of our equity securities by a single investor group; currency fluctuations; and consolidation in the metals producer industry. Forward-looking statements should, therefore, be considered in light of various factors, including those set forth above and those set forth under "Risk Factors" in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 and in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Moreover, we caution against placing undue reliance on these statements, which speak only as of the date they were made. The Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances, new information or otherwise.

Set forth below is a reconciliation of our anticipated net income attributable to Ryerson Holding Corporation to our Adjusted EBITDA and our Adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO expense (income), net.











Range of Estimates



(unaudited)



(in millions)



Low High Net income attributable to Ryerson Holding Corporation

$8 $12 Interest and other expense on debt

23 23 Provision for income taxes

4 8 Depreciation and amortization expense

10 10 EBITDA

$45 $53 Reorganization

3 3 Adjusted EBITDA

$48 $56 LIFO expense (income), net

(2) (6) Adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO expense (income), net

$46 $50











EBITDA represents net income before interest and other expense on debt, provision for income taxes, depreciation and amortization. Adjusted EBITDA gives further effect to, among other things, impairment charges on assets, reorganization expenses and foreign currency transaction gains and losses. We believe that the presentation of EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO expense (income), net, provides useful information to investors regarding our operational performance because they enhance an investor's overall understanding of our core financial performance and provide a basis of comparison of results between current, past and future periods. We also disclose the metric Adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO expense (income), net, to provide a means of comparison amongst our competitors who may not use the same basis of accounting for inventories. EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO expense (income), net, are three of the primary metrics management uses for planning and forecasting in future periods, including trending and analyzing the core operating performance of our business without the effect of U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, expenses, revenues and gains (losses) that are unrelated to the day to day performance of our business. We also establish compensation programs for our executive management and regional employees that are based upon the achievement of pre-established EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO expense (income), net, targets. We also use EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO expense (income), net, to benchmark our operating performance to that of our competitors. EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO expense (income), net do not represent, and should not be used as a substitute for, net income or cash flows from operations as determined in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and neither EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO expense (income), net, is necessarily an indication of whether cash flow will be sufficient to fund our cash requirements. Our definitions of EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, and Adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO expense (income), net may differ from that of other companies.

SOURCE Ryerson Holding Corporation

Related Links

http://www.ryerson.com


NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Attorney Advertising -- Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC is investigating potential claims on behalf of purchasers of the securities Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC ("Och-Ziff" or the "Company") (NYSE: OZM). Investors who purchased shares before February 9, 2012 and continue to hold the shares are advised to contact Peretz Bronstein or his Investor Relations Analyst, Yael Hurwitz at [email protected] or 212-697-6484.

The investigation concerns whether Och-Ziff and certain of its officers and/or directors have violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

The investigation focuses on bribery charges or Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA") violations which allegedly occurred at the Company from 2007 through 2014. On May 3, 2016, Och-Ziff revealed that it had set aside $200 million as it negotiates with the U.S. government. The Wall Street Journal then reported that U.S. federal authorities had been pushing for Och-Ziff to plead guilty to criminal charges and pay $400 million in civil penalties. Och-Ziff and certain senior officers and directors were also listed as defendants in another class action lawsuit for similar allegations of bribery in the U.S. District Court for the District of New York. For over a year, Och-Ziff stock has fallen from about $12 per share in June 2015 to less than $4.00 per share as of June 27, 2016.

If you are aware of any facts relating to this investigation, or if you purchased shares of Och-Ziff before February 9, 2012 and continue to hold your shares, you can assist this investigation by visiting the firm's site: http://www.bgandg.com/ozm or by contacting Peretz Bronstein or his Investor Relations Analyst, Yael Hurwitz of Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC at 212-697-6484 or via email [email protected]. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, email and telephone number.

Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC is a corporate litigation boutique. Our primary expertise is the aggressive pursuit of litigation claims on behalf of our clients. In addition to representing institutions and other investor plaintiffs in class action security litigation, the firm's expertise includes general corporate and commercial litigation, as well as securities arbitration. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Contact:

Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC

Peretz Bronstein or Yael Hurwitz

212-697-6484 | [email protected]

SOURCE Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC

Related Links

http://www.bgandg.com


Sony's "  Universe" website ( www.alphauniverse.com ), a content-driven community site that has steadily grown in popularity since its launch one year ago, has been upgraded to support our community by increasing the visibility of the many amazing content pieces that people are creating with Sony's digital imaging products. Notable additions include a section for "  University", which brings together educational content, plus a link to listen to and download the new "  Universe" Podcast, covering many of the most relevant topics in the world of digital imaging.

Additionally, Sony has announced their new " Imaging Collective" social advocacy program. Designed to support and promote the many influential photographers that are actively using Sony cameras, the program will serve as another component to strengthen and support the Sony  social community.

"With a singular focus on our community of  enthusiasts, we are continually pushing to match the high level of innovation of our products with an equally innovative and forward-thinking approach to our sales and marketing initiatives," said Neal Manowitz, Vice President of Digital Imaging at Sony Electronics. "What we are doing with  Universe and the new  Imaging Collective are perhaps the best examples of that. Along with our Artisans of Imagery program, these platforms allow us to showcase the amazing work and to share the incredible passion of Sony customers with the world. They are and will remain a key cornerstone for all of our future plans and activities."

 Universe 2.0

The redesign of the new  Universe website is focused on showcasing more content more often. Education-themed and "how to" content has also been prioritized, with a new " University" section (www.alphauniverse.com/university) that focuses on tips and tricks for popular categories within photography and videography including landscapes, weddings, portraits, 4K video and more, as well as a "Tutorials" section on the home page that highlights the latest instructional articles and posts.

Visibility of video content as a whole has also increased, with a new highlighted section on the home page that will serve as a quick link to all of the latest videos posted to the site. The new site also highlights key events more prominently, including industry trade shows, retail shooting events, artisan speaking appearances, photography workshops and more.

 Universe Podcast

Sony's new  Universe Podcast will be hosted by the website's editor-in-chief, Christopher Robinson, and will feature a bi-weekly release of episodes. Christopher will be speaking with a variety of modern creatives including many of Sony's Artisans of Imagery, covering many relevant topics in today's imaging industry.

Each episode will consist of three sections including a guest interview, a brief product / technology discussion with a Sony team member and a "Do This Now" tip, where the main interviewee provides a simple idea to help listeners improve their work immediately.

To visit the home page for the  Universe podcast and to download any of the first five episodes, please visit the podcast home page at www.alphauniverse.com/podcasts. The podcast is also available for download on iTunes.

 Imaging Collective

The  Imaging Collective, Sony's new advocacy program, provides a unique platform for passionate Sony photographers and videographers to express their creativity. The program is comprised of strong, vocal Sony supporters that represent a powerful voice for the  brand throughout social media and beyond.

To view some of the inspiring content captured by the  Imaging Collective members on their recent launch adventure, please follow @SonyAlpha or check out #AlphaCollective on Instagram, or read the Alpha Universe article HERE.

To apply to become a part of the  Imaging Collective, please apply HERE.

With the introduction of the new  Universe 2.0 website and the  Imaging Collective advocacy program, plus the existing Artisans of Imagery program, Sony now owns a diverse set of high-visibility, highly creative platforms/communities that all share one common goal: to showcase the incredible imagery being created by Sony shooters.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160930/413832

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140206/LA60150LOGO

SOURCE Sony Electronics

Related Links

http://www.sony.com/news


Suzanne McKechnie Klahr , Founder and CEO of BUILD, which uses entrepreneurship to ignite the potential of youth in under-resourced communities and equip them for high school, college, and career success.

, Founder and CEO of BUILD, which uses entrepreneurship to ignite the potential of youth in under-resourced communities and equip them for high school, college, and career success. Laura Weidman Powers , Co-Founder and CEO of CODE2040, which seeks to build a stronger, more inclusive innovation economy by closing the diversity gap in tech.

, Co-Founder and CEO of CODE2040, which seeks to build a stronger, more inclusive innovation economy by closing the diversity gap in tech. Doniece Sandoval , Founder and CEO of Lava Mae, which converts retired city buses into mobile hygiene facilities to deliver showers and rekindle dignity to those experiencing homelessness.

Over the past ten years, Elfenworks has honored 30 social entrepreneurs across America who are working to create sustainable change. Previous In Harmony with Hope Award recipients have included visionaries like Rosalynn Carter and Dr. Paul Farmer.

For the sixth year, Wells Fargo contributed $10,000 in support of the program. Radio personality Charly Kayle served as the Mistress of Ceremonies.

In reflecting on the incredible individuals whom Elfenworks has honored with its In Harmony with Hope Award over the past decade, Elfenworks Founder and CEO Dr. Lauren Speeth, said, "This year's honorees have very different skills and niches. Each has a vision for how to help that is different from the other, but they all share an address. They all dwell in possibility. That's where hope lives. And their work keeps hope alive."

For more information, photos and quotes, please visit our newsroom: http://elfenworks.org/ihh2016.

Video - https://youtu.be/PDQkHIQT_Io

SOURCE The Elfenworks Foundation

Related Links

http://elfenworks.org


WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- "The National Association of County and City Health Officials representing nearly 3,000 local health departments across the nation gratefully acknowledges Congress' bipartisan effort to pass H.R. 5325, legislation providing funding for federal state, tribal and local agencies to protect the public from the Zika virus. The passage of this bill will enable local health departments to better protect pregnant women and their families from the devastating consequences of the Zika virus. The additional funds it provides are critical to our members because it is local health departments who are delegated the authority and responsibility to respond to the Zika emergency in places like Harris County, TX; Miami-Dade County, FL; and New York City all of which have hundreds of travel-acquired cases.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413655

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413654LOGO

"Because half of the local health departments across our nation depend solely on federal funding for emergency preparedness, the passage of this bill is especially welcome. Local health departments will be able to increase their efforts to protect vulnerable mothers and their babies while continuing to do their day-to-day job of protecting the public health. We thank Congress for their efforts to address the Zika emergency and ask them to consider creating a standing emergency preparedness fund that could be tapped whenever the next public health crisis strikes. This would benefit us all."

About NACCHO

The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) is the national nonprofit association representing the approximately 2,800 local health departments (LHDs) in the United States, including city, county, metro, district, and tribal agencies. NACCHO's vision is health, equity, and security for all people in their communities through public health policies and services. NACCHO's mission is to be a leader, partner, catalyst, and voice for local health departments in order to ensure the conditions that promote health and equity, combat disease, and improve the quality and length of all lives.

Contact:

Theresa Spinner

Director, Media and Public Relations

Direct: 202-783-5551

Email

SOURCE National Association of County and City Health Officials
RAMSEY, N.J., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Inc. Magazine has ranked ToiletTree Products (www.ToiletTreeProducts.com) Number 1117 on its list of the 5000 fastest growing privately held companies in the United States. ToiletTree Products has been ranked on the Inc 5000 list for the third year in a row, as No. 439 in 2014, No. 877 in 2015 and No. 1117 in 2016.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413450

ToiletTree Products Appears on the Inc. 5000 List of Fastest Growing Companies in the U.S. for the 3rd Consecutive Year

The 35th Annual List represents a comprehensive look at thousands of companies that have experienced tremendous growth and distinguishes them as the leaders in multiple business sectors. Companies are analyzed and ranked according to the percentage growth of their annual revenue over a three-year period.

"It is a tremendous honor to make the Inc. 5000 list for the third consecutive year", says ToiletTree Products Co-Founder, Steve Parisi. "This achievement of three consecutive wins makes us part of an elite group that has previously included companies like Microsoft, Timberland, Zappos.com, and Under Armour. We've seen significant growth over the past few years thanks to our customers and hardworking employees. Moving forward, we hope to continue our success, and expect to make the list again next year."

Growth has been steady, as revenue increased from $3.2 million in 2013 to $5.3 million in 2014 and $7.6 million in 2015. Sales in 2016 are expected to increase another 30%, with projections exceeding $10 million. The company also has an aggressive schedule to introduce another 20 new products in the 2016 calendar year. Product lines will expand in the following categories: bathroom accessories, skin care products, travel accessories, personal grooming, and oral care products.

"With our business growing at a rapid pace, it was necessary to move operations into a larger facility," says ToiletTree Products Co-Founder, Paul Parisi. "Not only did we need room for more inventory, but we also needed space for more employees. Our newest team member, Joe Matos, joined us this year as CFO. Joe is a key addition to the team and brings the experience and knowledge that will take our business to the next level."

The company is proud to be among the most elite group of America's entrepreneurial community and looks forward to continued success. ToiletTree Products can be found in thousands of brick and mortar locations throughout the US and Canada. Products are also available worldwide through ToiletTree Products website, Amazon and other major online retailers.

About ToiletTree Products

ToiletTree Products designs and manufactures innovative home and bath products. Every product comes with a 100% ToiletTree Products satisfaction guarantee and all ToiletTree Products are available on ToiletTreeProducts.com and Amazon.com.

For more information on and other products, visit the website or contact Steve Parisi, President, ToiletTree Products Inc.

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.toilettreeproducts.com

Related Links

Inc 5000 story

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com.

SOURCE ToiletTree Products Inc.

Related Links

https://toilettreeproducts.com


SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Tribal Planet, Inc. ("Tribal") is pleased to announce its partnership with history-making astronaut Scott Kelly in founding a new scholarship titled Scott Kelly Endurance: Journey to Mars Micro-Scholarships (the "Micro-Scholarships").

The Micro-Scholarships announcement comes on the back of Tribal's successful launch of its Citizen Science mobile platform, co-hosted by Kelly, on September 29. As Kelly recounted enthralling stories from his historic 340 days orbiting Earth, guests got a preview of the anecdotes found in his upcoming book, "Endurance: My Year in Space and Our Journey to Mars", which is the inspiration for the Micro-Scholarships.

"The appeal of these micro-scholarships is that they're not tied to any one particular school, giving students of all ages the benefit of making a post-secondary education decision that's all their own," said Jeff Martin, Founder & CEO of Tribal Planet. "Micro-scholarships have the potential to span tens of thousands of students, because every experiment done in the classroom, and every digital action done outside the classroom through the Citizen Science platform, has a micro-value assigned to it that is economically transferred to the student once they are accepted to college."

Students accumulate credit by engaging in a variety of digital actions, including completing STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) experiments and activities outside the classroom using Citizen Science, and inside the classroom using the Lab4U app, as well as by earning credit for their school attendance, grades and extracurricular activities.

Throughout the day on September 29, Kelly visited numerous schools within the Bay Area discussing the importance of Citizen Science and STEAM education, drawing a parallel to his own journey from student to astronaut. Kelly ended the afternoon at Berkeley's School of the Madeleine where he joined a science class alongside one of Tribal's partners, Komal Dadlani, CEO & Co-Founder of Lab4U.

Citizen Science's first partner app with Lab4U is Lab4Physics, which allows teachers to put scientific experimentation in the hands of their students like never before. Lab4Physics provides experiments aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards with supporting materials including lesson plans, teacher instructions, student instructions and worksheets, saving teachers time by including all the required pedagogical material.

"At Lab4U we believe in democratizing science education, and with this partnership, we are confident that we will be able to give thousands of teachers and students around the world the opportunity to have a science lab in their pockets," said Dadlani.

Echoing the sentiment from the Citizen Science launch event on September 29, Martin said: "What we're hoping to accomplish is being able to look back years from now and see whether a student had a journey with Citizen Science and Scott Kelly that led them to Mars, because it is this next generation that will be our future astronauts."

Students can begin accumulating credit using Citizen Science and Lab4U after the grand opening of the Citizen Science Rewards Store in October.

For more information, please contact:

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (650) 319-6338

About Tribal Planet

Tribal Planet is a leading technology platform company creating mobile innovation and consumer engagement platforms around global issues including education, sustainability, health and equality. Tribal Planet's mobile platforms empower citizens from around the world to engage, learn, discover and collaborate in helping to solve the greatest challenges facing our world today. Tribal Planet is headquartered in San Mateo, California.

SOURCE Tribal Planet, Inc.
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Trump, the Republican candidate for president, has raised the stakes in the policy debate by assigning his national campaign Co-Chairman and Senior Policy Advisor, Sam Clovis, to debate against Clinton economic policy adviser, Austan Goolsbee, an economist at The University of Chicago and previous head of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors. The change is an indication of increased importance that this debate has for the campaign. The debate is focusing on economic policies of the candidates.

The Debate, sponsored by EF Hutton, will take place at 2:00pm on Sunday, October 2, in Springfield Ohio.

It will be streamed LIVE. To watch it for FREE, register by noon on Sunday at efhutton.com/townhall

EF Hutton decided to stream it live for free as a service to the nation and due to the acute national interest in this Ohio debate.

The debate is attracting a large number of undecided voters who are more likely to be swayed by policy issues than by personalities. This debate could therefore be pivotal as it occurs in Ohio, a battleground state where absentee ballots can be cast just 10 days from the date of the debate.

Sam Clovis is the Trump Campaign Co-Chairman and Senior National Policy Advisor. He has an extensive and broad-based policy background - from national economy to national defense. Clovis has advised many republican candidates, including Governor Perry of Texas, and was himself recently a candidate in Iowa for the US Senate. He participated in the National Security Program at Georgetown University; received his PhD from University of Alabama; received an MBA from Golden Gate University; and is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. Prior to retiring from the Air Force in 1996, he was Inspector General of North American Aerospace Defense Command and the United States Space Command.

The EF Hutton Town Hall event will be held in downtown Springfield Ohio, the home of EF Hutton's new national headquarters, at the Clark State Performing Arts Center. EF Hutton CEO Christopher Daniels noted that the event is in line with the company's history of providing economic and financial insight for its clients.

"This event continues EF Hutton's tradition of delivering decisive insights to clients  actionable information at a point that it can have maximum impact," Daniels said. "By sponsoring this debate, EF Hutton seeks to benefit all Americans looking for information on policies before going to the ballot box to decide what is shaping up to be a very close election both nationwide and in Ohio, a key swing-state. That makes this debate a potential tipping point."

About EF Hutton

EF Hutton is a legendary brand in financial services. For 112 years it has been known for its attention to clients. The firm has launched a set of services with a Main Street approach which involves "no commissions" and "no conflicts". The Main Street approach shows why, "When EF Hutton Talks, People Listen." EF Hutton stock is traded under the symbol HUTN. Learn more at www.efhutton.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), and are intended to be covered by the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

OTC: HUTN

Inquiries can be directed to [email protected].

SOURCE EF Hutton

Related Links

http://www.efhutton.com


WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Turkish Airlines, which was recently named "Best Airline of Europe" for the sixth consecutive year by Skytrax*, celebrated the official opening of its prestigious first lounge in the U.S., the Turkish Airlines Lounge Washington D.C., at Dulles International Airport (IAD) on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016.

The new 5,000 square foot lounge seats 120 guests and features amenities that cater to the needs of business and leisure travelers, which include:

Food and beverage buffet

Shower and bathroom facilities

Free Wi-Fi

Business Corner with six all-in-one PCs

Prayer and relaxation rooms

Direct connection to the Aerobridge

Entertainment, daily newspapers and magazines

"We are pleased to bring to the United States the world-renowned lounge experience that Turkish Airlines pioneered at Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport," said Ilker Ayci, Chairman of Turkish Airlines. "Travelers who visit the Turkish Airlines lounge at Dulles International Airport will be treated to some of the finest services and accommodations available anywhere."

Since November 2010, Turkish Airlines has connected business and leisure travelers in the Washington, D.C. area to the world with nonstop service through its Istanbul hub.

The prestigious new lounge reinforces Turkish Airlines' commitment to ensuring travel is both convenient and comfortable for U.S. travelers as it strives to be the international carrier of choice. Turkish Airlines currently offers 10 flights per week from Washington, D.C. to Istanbul, and serves eight other gateway cities in the U.S., including New York, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Known for its award-winning inflight service and catering, Turkish Airlines flies to more countries than any other airline and serves more than 291 destinations in 116 countries. To book a flight with Turkish Airlines or to learn more, visit www.turkishairlines.com.

* 2016 Skytrax Passenger Preferences Ranking.



About Turkish Airlines:

Established in 1933 with a fleet of five aircraft, Star Alliance member Turkish Airlines is a 4-star airline today with a fleet of 334 (passenger and cargo) aircraft flying to 291 destinations worldwide with 242 international and 49 domestic. According to the 2016 Skytrax survey, Turkish Airlines was chosen as "Europe's Best Airline" for the sixth and "Best Airline in Southern Europe" for the eighth consecutive time. Having won in 2010 the world's "Best Economy Catering Service", in 2013 and also in 2014 the world's "Best Business Catering Service", and "Best Business Class Lounge Dining", "Best Business Airline Lounge" awards in last year's survey, Turkish Airlines was awarded again the world's "Best Business Class Dining Lounge" and "Best Business Class On-Board Catering" prizes in this year's survey. More information about Turkish Airlines can be found on its official website www.turkishairlines.com or its social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin, and Instagram.

About Star Alliance:

The Star Alliance network was established in 1997 as the first truly global airline alliance to offer worldwide reach, recognition and seamless service to the international traveller. Its acceptance by the market has been recognized by numerous awards, including the Air Transport World Market Leadership Award and Best Airline Alliance by both Business Traveller Magazine and Skytrax. The member airlines are: Adria Airways, Aegean Airlines, Air Canada, Air China, Air India, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Austrian, Avianca, Avianca Brazil, Brussels Airlines, Copa Airlines, Croatia Airlines, EGYPTAIR, Ethiopian Airlines, EVA Air, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, SWISS, TAP Portugal, Turkish Airlines, THAI and United. Overall, the Star Alliance network currently offers more than 18,500 daily flights to 1,330 airports in 192 countries.

SOURCE Turkish Airlines

Related Links

http://www.turkishairlines.com


HAMBURG, Germany, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

As of 1 December 2016, an energy system of the future will be developed in Northern Germany as part of the large-scale project NEW 4.0. From 2035, around 4.5 million residents in the federal states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein will be provided with power by renewable energy sources alone. Applying Industry 4.0 systems, the project will demonstrate how imbalances in production and consumption can be offset based on renewable energies.

Northern Germany is playing an important role in Germany's energy transition: Schleswig-Holstein as an energy supplier with an ever increasing number of onshore and offshore wind farms, and the city state of Hamburg as a location for industry and large power consumers. As part of the NEW 4.0 project, the states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein have been merged into one consistent energy region. The overall objective is to serve as a showcase for Germany and to demonstrate within a European context that the energy transition is indeed feasible: NEW 4.0 will showcase how a region with 4.5 million residents can be supplied with regenerative energy as early as 2035 using 100% safe, affordable, eco-friendly and socially acceptable energy sources that can lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions by 50 to 70%.

Prof. Werner Beba, project coordinator of NEW 4.0., explains: "This is the first time that the interplay of different technological approaches, the targeted integration into the energy market and the application of the regulatory framework will be tested in an orchestrated manner as part of this large-scale practical trial, and this is what makes NEW 4.0. both unique and challenging. The findings of this project will contribute to making the necessary transformation of the entire energy system a success."

NEW 4.0 is an unparallelled project initiative that unites stakeholders from industry, science and politics. "NEW" stands for Norddeutsche Energiewende (North German energy transition), and "4.0" signifies the threshold of the fourth industrial revolution, i.e. the digitisation of industry, which will play a key role also with regard to the energy transition as intelligent system networks are developed.

To this end, about 60 regional and transregional partners have formed an "innovation alliance" that aims to overcome the challenges of the energy transition based on integrated technological expertise. The project is supported by the state governments of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein as well as by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs (BMWI). Around EUR 90 million will be invested by the project partners within the next four years, and the BMWI is supporting this showcase project (SINTEG - Smart Energy Showcase) to the tune of EUR 44 million. The overall strategy, some 100 individual projects as well as 30 demonstrators have been developed over the course of the project's three-year preparation phase.

Along this development path towards the energy system of the future, 70% of the region is to be supplied with safe, reliable renewable electricity as early as 2025. What is more, NEW 4.0 aims to support the process further based on its sector coupling concept. As part of the project, renewables will be gradually used for heat supply and industrial processes that previously ran on fossil fuels such as gas. Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg are thus using the current power shift as the starting point for accomplishing the energy transition in the medium term.

First and foremost, this large-scale project aims to demonstrate how the full integration of renewable energies can be accomplished even in a region characterised by pronounced, growing imbalances between production and consumption. This will require the comprehensive synchronisation of (fluctuating) production and consumption. To achieve this, the project will use an innovative approach for integrating and orchestrating all of the stakeholders and components of the production, transport, distribution, storage and consumption stages by means of intelligent network technologies. At the same time, the market-oriented system integration will be tested in the context of advanced market rules and regulatory conditions.

Stakeholders from all industries and along the energy sector's entire value chain have joined forces for the NEW 4.0 project. Participating companies will be able to tap new market and export opportunities with product innovations and solutions developed in the context of the project and to boost their competitiveness within a highly innovative growth market. Based on this project, the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg aim to strengthen their regional economies and to create new industrial value chains, which will contribute to securing and creating jobs in the region. And, finally, the project will enable Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein to sharpen their profile as a leading innovation location for the energy sector in particular.

Further information on NEW 4.0 (in English):

https://www.haw-hamburg.de/english/research/energy-sustainability/cc4e/new-40.html

Project PDF: http://www.new4-0.de/?wpdmdl=412

Hamburg - The Wind Energy Capital:

The Hamburg Metropolitan Region is already one of the main centres for renewable energy in Europe. Among industry experts and beyond, Hamburg is considered as the international wind energy capital. Today, 2/3 of the global know-how in wind energy is located in the Metropolitan Region of Hamburg or the neighbouring region encompassing Schleswig-Holstein and Jutland, Denmark. Around 25,000 people work for nearly 1,500 renewable energy companies. The most important contribution to this has been made by wind energy. Many of the wind industry's global players, such as DONG Energy, Nordex, Senvion, Siemens and Vestas, have established headquarters in Hamburg.

Since 2014 the city is hosting WindEnergy Hamburg, the new leading international trade fair for the wind energy industry. WindEnergy Hamburg is taking place from 27 to 30 September 2016 at the Hamburg Messe fair site. Roughly 1,400 exhibitors from 34 nations are showcasing product novelties and services for the onshore and offshore wind sector. The world's leading trade fair for onshore and offshore wind energy mirrors all segments of the global market and its value chain. It is a key meeting place for decision-makers from the global energy sector. For the first time the conference WindEurope Summit run by WindEurope, the European wind industry association, is held side-by-side with the expo. In 2017 HUSUM Wind will be held from 12 to 15 September in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, the German North Sea region which pioneered wind energy.

Further information on Hamburg: http://www.mediarelations.hamburg.de

Hamburg pictures (for editorial use): http://www.mediarelations.hamburg.de

Contact:

Matthias Beer, Project Manager Media Relations

Tel. +49-40-300-515-82

E-mail: [email protected]

Web: http://www.mediarelations.hamburg.de



SOURCE Hamburg Marketing GmbH
ANN ARBOR, Mich., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Skipstone, of Ann Arbor, MI, is proud to announce their first major customer utilizing Skipstone on a public facing website, and sharing at a massive level on social media is the Johnson-Weld Campaign.

Gary Johnson, Libertarian Candidate for President, just received the endorsement of the Detroit News, which is the first time in decades that the Detroit News didn't endorse a Republican.

The app is expected to be very popular with younger voters.

"You ask it a question about the candidate and then it gives you the answer," said Troy Ontko, owner of Skipstone. "What is better when deciding who to vote for, watching a debate, or simply asking right from your phone?"

Ontko said the app is expected to be very popular among all voters, but even more so among young voters who utilize technology for everything.

The best part of Skipstone is that you get to rank the issues that matter for you and also see which are shared most among social media and you can see the answers from the shared content by the receiving party.

The app is available for all the candidates and Skipstone is talking with the Trump-Pence Campaign and has reached out to the Clinton Campaign as well.

The app can also be used for all products that are looking to offer quick answers to their customers or to potential customers. Anyone who would like to know more about how the app can help their business can email Troy Ontko at [email protected]

SOURCE Skipstone
CHICAGO, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today VTech announced nine toys received recognition from the prestigious National Parenting Product Awards (NAPPA), honoring products that have been carefully evaluated and deemed "top of its class" by expert judges, parent and child testers and product reviewers. Winners include new playsets from the engaging Go! Go! Smart lines, including the Go! Go! Smart Friends Enchanted Princess Palace, Go! Go! Smart Wheels Treasure Mountain Train Adventure and Go! Go! Smart Animals Happy Paws Playland. Additionally, the Touch & Learn Activity Desk Deluxe and new products from the Baby, Infant and Preschool lines received NAPPA Awards, including the Care for Me Learning Carrier, Gallop & Rock Learning Pony, Sort & Discover Activity Cube, Ring & Learn Cash Register and Bizzy the Mix & Move Bot.

"We are thrilled that so many of our products have been recognized by the National Parenting Product Awards," said William To, President, VTech Electronics North America. "VTech remains committed to developing innovative, interactive products that enrich children's development, make learning fun and offer lasting play value."

"VTech's products receive high praise from our judging panel year after year," said Julie Kertes, General Manager, National Parenting Product Awards. "Their robust line-up offers many opportunities to engage and entertain our expert testers, and all of their offerings received high marks for excellence."

Additional details about VTech's award-winning products can be found at www.vtechkids.com and include:

Go! Go! Smart Wheels Treasure Mountain Train Adventure: It's a gold rush at the Go! Go! Smart Wheels Treasure Mountain Train Adventure. Turn on the motorized freight train and watch as it chugs around the tracks, through the tunnels and up hills on its own! The included train responds to nine SmartPoint locations with fun phrases, music and more. Pretend to mine for gold in the mountain by hammering the three shape-sorter blocks through the mine shaft. Each piece will roll down the mountain where it can be loaded onto the cargo car attached to the train. Or, kids can wait for the cargo car to pass under the mine shaft and try to hammer the shape-sorter blocks onto it. The gold mine also includes rotating gears and a crane to move the shape pieces around. Press the toy freight train's light-up button to hear three sing-along songs and learn the letter "F" and the name of the vehicle. Collect other SmartPoint vehicles, and connect to other Go! Go! Smart Wheels and Go! Go! Smart Animals playsets with tracks (sold separately) to encourage children's creativity. (Ages 1-5 years, MSRP: $54.99 )

Go! Go! Smart Friends Enchanted Princess Palace: Explore each magical room in the Go! Go! Smart Friends Enchanted Princess Palace. This epic palace expands to four feet long and has a variety of luxurious rooms including a ballroom, music room, kitchen, bedroom and observation tower. While exploring the palace with Princess Darla , place her on the five MagicPoint locations to experience her friendly personality, lights and more. When Princess Darla sits at her MagicChat tea set table with a friend (additional characters sold separately), they will interact by chatting and singing with each other. The palace also has a clock with a movable hand and three light-up buttons that introduce words, colors, letters and numbers and play magical melodies and sing-along songs. Toddlers can create a whole kingdom featuring princesses, princes, fairies, magical creatures and more with Go! Go! Smart Friends characters and playsets (sold separately). (Ages 18 months  5 years, MSRP: $59.99 )

Go! Go! Smart Animals Happy Paws Playland: Play and explore with the Go! Go! Smart Animals Happy Paws Playland. This exciting playland for pets has three light-up buttons at the top of the elevator that introduce time concepts and play sing-along songs, melodies and fun phrases. Put the adorable SmartPoint cat in the elevator and move it up and down to trigger playful responses on each floor. Then, hop on one of the two slides to travel back to the first floor. Place the carefree cat on the eight SmartPoint locations for more songs, melodies, sounds and phrases. The playland also includes a turning telescope, swinging hammock, a secret trap door and more that help build fine motor skills. Collect other SmartPoint animals, and connect to other Go! Go! Smart Wheels and Go! Go! Smart Animals playsets with tracks (sold separately) to encourage children's creativity. (Ages 1-5 years, MSRP: $44.99 )

Touch & Learn Activity Desk Deluxe: The Touch & Learn Activity Desk Deluxe is a three-in-one desk with interactive activity cards that's expandable for more fun and discovery. The desk features an interactive desktop and five pages to explore that are filled with engaging content including letters, numbers, music, colors and more. Choose from eight expansion packs (each sold separately) that each focus on a specific curriculum like reading skills, animals and numbers. It also transforms from a desk into an easel and chalkboard with plenty of storage space for art supplies to encourage play and discovery. The LED display illustrates letter and number stroke order and how to draw basic shapes. For even more fun, toddlers can play with the toy telephone or listen to fun tunes on the music player. Enjoy hours of fun as kids create, discover and learn. (Ages 2-5 years, MSRP: $54.99 )

Care for Me Learning Carrier: The Care for Me Learning Carrier is an interactive pet carrier that lets little ones take their plush pet anywhere! Put the plush puppy inside or take her out of the carrier and hear playful phrases when opening and closing the door. The activity panel on the side of the carrier is packed with learning fun. Press the light-up buttons to learn about colors, shapes, pet care and more. Sliding the letter beads introduces letters and plays music. Sliding the window and spinning the roller add to the fun and encourage motor skills. The carrier also includes four pet care accessories so toddlers can groom, feed and play with the cuddly puppy. (Ages 9-36 months, MSRP: $24.99 )

Sort & Discover Activity Cube: The Sort & Discover Activity Cube is five sides of fun! Little ones will love exploring seven fun activities and two electronic panels that introduce colors, numbers, animals and more. Turn the book page, twist the spinner and slide the animals to develop fine motor skills. The activity cube also develops hand-eye coordination with the shape sorter and colorful shape blocks. (Ages 9-36 months, MSRP: $29.99 )

Gallop & Rock Learning Pony: Hop in the saddle and go for a ride on the Gallop & Rock Learning Pony. This interactive 2-in-1 pony grows with a child and quickly transforms from a rocking horse to a ride-on toy. Brightly colored buttons introduce colors, action words and play realistic pony sounds for imaginative play. The pony also features a motion sensor that detects children's movement and responds with cheerful music and pony sounds to encourage them to rock and ride! (Ages 12-36 months, MSRP: $39.99 )

Ring & Learn Cash Register: Little shoppers will love filling their basket with healthy play food and pretending to buy it with this interactive toy cash register. Weigh the food, ring up the order and use the credit card to pay for the groceries. Each interaction is rewarded with a variety of playful phrases, fun sounds, songs and music. Press the light-up number buttons to introduce numbers, colors, food and play healthy-eating phrases. For more role-play fun, press the "open" button to pop open the cash register drawer. (Ages 12-36 months, MSRP: $24.99 )

Bizzy the Mix & Move Bot: Now children can get creative as they build their own robot with Bizzy the Mix & Move Bot. With 10 different accessories there are so many ways to encourage the role-play experience by creating a different robot every time they play. This playful bot illustrates cause and effect as children connect the 10 accessories to trigger fun responses. It also includes 10 fun and unique melodies that children can personalize by switching around the accessories to add in their own special sound effects. Bizzy will guide children through various activities, allowing for creative, independent play. Bizzy also loves to dance around to the music on his interchangeable legs or wheels. With Bizzy around, the fun never stops! (Ages 2-5 years, MSRP: $24.99 )

About VTech

VTech is a world leader in age-appropriate and developmental stage-based electronic learning products for children. As a pioneer in the learning toy category, VTech develops high-quality, innovative educational products that enrich children's development and make learning fun. With a rich, almost 40 year history, VTech has not only established itself as a learning authority but also consistently remains at the forefront of innovation with multiple award-winning products. The company also has a broad range of award-winning infant and preschool products available in 24 different languages worldwide, with more than 100 new products introduced every year. VTech was awarded a prestigious 2015 Toy of The Year (TOTY) Award for its Go! Go! Smart Animals Zoo Explorers Playset. In order to further strengthen VTech's position as a learning authority, the company's Expert Panel, with esteemed experts in reading, language arts, science, math, and child development, consult on new product introductions.

VTech Electronics North America, LLC is based in Arlington Heights, Illinois. VTech Electronics Limited is headquartered in Hong Kong with distribution globally.

For more information on VTech's additional product lines, visit www.VTechKids.com, www.facebook.com/VTechtoys on Facebook or follow @VTechToys on Twitter.

About The National Parenting Product Awards

The National Parenting Product Awards (NAPPA) is one of the longest running and most respected awards programs in the country. With 26 years of experience in the industry, we have been continuously celebrated as the "go-to" source for parents and professionals seeking the best products for their children and families.

NAPPA enlists a team of independent expert judges and family testers to review each submission thoroughly. Together, they select the most entertaining, appealing, safe, educational, age-appropriate and enduring products as NAPPA winners. A NAPPA recognition is more than just a seal of approval. It signifies that a product has been rigorously evaluated against stringent criteria and that it stands out among hundreds of similar products from around the world. Products that receive the prestigious NAPPA award are quality products that parents and professionals can trust.

Media Contact:

Nicole Centinaro

Coyne Public Relations

973-588-2000

[email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150528/219139LOGO

SOURCE VTech

Related Links

http://www.vtech.com


Washington, Sep 26 : Scientist have developed a set of five instruments that can potentially advance NASAs understanding of wind and weather conditions on the surface of Mars that can help ascertain the planet's habitability.

The US space agency sends rovers to the surface of Mars to photograph the landscape and operate scientific experiments to understand the habitat for humans or other kinds of life.

One of those future rover missions may host the Martian Aqueous Habitat Reconnaissance Suite (MAHRS), a set of five instruments that can take surface measurements in the search for habitable environments, NASA said.

Developed at NASA Glenn Research Centre in partnership with the University of Michigan, MAHRS is specifically focused on searching for wet brine environments in the shallow subsurface of Mars.

"Brine environments are where you would look for life," said Project Manager Dan Vento of NASA.

"Any water that exists today on Mars would likely be in the form of a brine if is in a liquid state," he added.

The MAHRS research hardware includes an optical microscope to study the size and characteristics of settling dust on Mars.

"The interesting feature about the microscope, is that the electronics architecture can support a camera lens or hyperspectral sensor depending on the scientific goals of the mission," Norman Prokop from NASA Glenn Research Centre said.

Mounted to the microscope, a radiometre measures the amount of solar energy absorbed at the surface to study the amount of dust in the Martian atmosphere.

Less energy making it to the surface means more dust in the atmosphere is absorbing the solar energy.

A saltation probe, which would hang vertically off the bottom of a rover, measures the impact of soil and dust swirling on the Martian surface.

Because it is close to the ground, it can measure the impact, mass and velocity of soil as it hits the probe, giving researchers an indication of wind energy and soil movement.

The scientists also developed a soil wetness sensor, which measures water content on the surface and detects the formation of liquid brine.

And finally, Michigan engineers are testing an electric field sensor to measure electrical charges in the atmosphere caused by airborne dust, NASA said. As it sits and spins on a rover arm, it will measure weather patterns and indicate the level of erosion on Mars.

As NASA seeks to develop more sophisticated scientific devices for solar system exploration, this integrated suite of instruments can potentially advance understanding of wind and weather conditions on the surface of Mars and the implications for habitability.

NASA's Mars rover missions advance understanding about the Red Planet and serves in preparation for planned human-crew missions to Mars beginning in the 2030s.
New Delhi, Sep 26 : Blaming Delhi's Municipal cCorporations for the poor sanitation conditions in the city, Public Works Department (PWD) Minister Satyendar Jain on Monday said the BJP-run civic bodies have "miserably failed" Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Jain said the three Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCDs) do nothing "except harassing people" and "making money" through corruption.

"The three MCDs, which are controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, have miserably failed Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and have shown a mirror to the BJP, apart from severely hurting the image of the nation," he said.

The minister's remarks come after his meeting with Lt. Governor Najeeb Jung on Monday regarding cleanliness here following the rising cases of chikungunya, dengue and malaria.

"The sanitation condition of Delhi is very bad and Delhi is burdened with garbage. Both LG and I are worried about the state of affairs," Jain said after the meeting.

At the meeting, Jung stressed on the need to synergise efforts of the health department, municipal corporations and other government departments to help tide over the current situation.

In order to make the city clean, there cannot be any complacency in the government machinery or the local bodies, he said.

Jung directed the MCDs to take all necessary steps to check dengue, chikungunya and malaria and utilise the funds released to them for taking preventive measures to keep a check over these diseases.

He also asked Deputy Commissioners and the MCDs to ensure adequate anti-mosquito fogging in schools and areas under their jurisdiction.

"District Magistrates may advise cinema halls under their jurisdiction to run audio-visual clips in cinema halls for prevention of dengue and chikungunya. Mock drills may be conducted in shopping malls and plazas to keep the city clean for prevention of vector borne diseases," Jung ordered.

He also asked the sub-divisional magistrates to conduct surprise inspection of localities, hospitals and government buildings to check cleanliness and to ensure measures are taken to prevent vector-borne diseases.

Taking a dig at the BJP-run MCDs, Jain said they are responsible for poor sanitation conditions in the city.

"Have MCDs done any work except making money? They just take bribes and do nothing else. If you make a list of things done by the MCDs, you will realise that they only harass people and make money from them," he said.

The meeting was attended by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Health and PWD Minister Satyendar Jain, Municipal commissioners of all three MCDs as well as the New Delhi Municipal Council chairman.

Last week, the Aam Aadmi Party had launched "Spot the Kachra (garbage)" social media campaign to put pressure on the MCDs on the sanitation issue.
Kolkata : Kolkata Sep 27 (IANS) The Border Security Force (BSF) seized fake Indian currency notes (FICN) of face value of Rs 5 lakh from West Bengal's Malda district on Tuesday, an official said.

Acting on a tip-off, the South Bengal frontier of Kolkata BSF kept a vigil close to gate number 19 of the border outpost Sasani.

"During the vigil, suspicious operations were observed on both sides of Indo-Bangladesh border and two persons from Bangladesh side threw a bundle over the fence to the Indian side," Naveen Chouhan, Deputy commandant of BSF's South Bengal Frontier said.

When challenged by the security personnel, the miscreants on the Indian side fled without collecting the money.

No one could be arrested due to darkness.

"The ambush party searched the place and recovered FICN of face value of Rs 5 lakh from the spot," he said.

The BSF South Bengal Frontier has seized FICN of the face value of Rs 1,20,31,000 and apprehended 13 fake note smugglers so far in 2016.

In a separate raid, BSF's South Bengal frontier also seized a non-licensed country pistol from the Daulatpur outpost in Maldah. The seized pistol has been handed over to Baishnavnagar police station for further legal action.
New Delhi, Sep 27 : The central government is looking at possible sites in the northern states of Uttarakhand, Punjab and Haryana for setting up new atomic power plants, a minister said on Tuesday.

"We are exploring the possibility of having such establishments in other places, for example near Dehradun in Utarakhand and near Patiala in Punjab. We are also looking for a place in Bhiwani in Haryana," Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh said while addressing a conference here on nuclear power organised by industry chamber Assocham.

"The present government can stake claim of having set up an atomic energy plant in Gorakhpur in Haryana, so we have brought atomic energy northwards which it had been waiting for 60-70 years and we made it to cross through Delhi because atomic energy never had the opportunity to see the capital of this country," he added.

The Prime Minister's Office looks after the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE).

Of the 22 nuclear power plants in the country, the majority are located in western and southern India.

Singh said most of the atomic energy generation was confined mostly to Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

"Atomic energy had remained confined to certain parts of the country, in Tarapur for obvious reasons because Dr Bhabha had set up his first establishment in Mumbai then we had south but we hardly had any presence in north India," he said.

"The nuclear power plant being set up in Haryana will become operational by about next year at the cost of just Rs 6 per unit," he added.

Singh also said that within the next ten years India will have at least 25 per cent of energy sourced from nuclear sector.

"That is going to be a remarkable achievement because energy needs of the country are growing very fast and it is going to be cost-effective," he said.

In this connection, Russia has offered India a new range of reactor units - the VVER-Toi (typical optimised, enhanced information) design - for the third and fourth units of the Kudankulam project in Tamil Nadu being built by its atomic power corporation Rosatom.

An inter-governmental agreement between India and Russia was signed in December 2008 for setting up Kudankulam's units 3 to 6. The ground-breaking ceremony for construction of units 3 and 4 was performed earlier this year.
Bengaluru, Sep 27 : The Karnataka government will holding an all-party meeting and emergent cabinet meeting on Wednesday to deliberate and decide on the Supreme Court order to release 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu for three days from Wednesday, an official said.

"The chief minister has convened tomorrow (Wednesday) an all-party meeting followed by a cabinet meeting to discuss and decide on the apex court order, which directed the state to release water despite the assembly passing a resolution against it," the official told IANS here.

Earlier in the day, a division bench of Justices Dipak Misra and U.U. Lalit directed Karnataka to release 6,000 cusecs of water from September 28 to September 30, when it takes up the matter again for further hearing.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who was on a tour of rain-hit districts in the state's northern region, rushed back to Bengaluru for discussing the apex court order with the ruling Congress leaders and cabinet colleagues to decide its next course of action at the all-party meeting.

"We can't release water just because the Supreme Court said so, as we are not in a position to do. Let me first read the full order and come back to you," Siddaramaiah told reporters at Bidar airport, about 690 km from here.

The state on Monday sought time till January to comply with the apex court's September 20 order to release 6,000 cusecs daily for a week from September 21-27, as it needs the depleting quantity for drinking needs.

The state also substantiated its interim plea for a modification of the September 20 order with the resolution of the state legislature passed unanimously on September 23, which resolved to use the water in the four reservoirs across the river basin for supplying drinking water to the region.

In a related development, 11 Congress lawmakers of Karnataka from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention in the inter-state water dispute, urging him to convene a meeting of chief ministers of the two states for an amicable settlement.

"We have requested Modiji to intervene in the matter immediately and call the meeting of chief ministers and give directions to settle the Cauvery water dispute amicably," said Lok Sabha member D.K. Suresh from Bangalore Rural constituency about their joint letter to Modi.

Meanwhile, security has been tightened in the state's southern region where the river flows and prohibitory orders extended till Friday to maintain peace.

Hundreds of farmers, traders and youth held peaceful protests at Mandya and Mysuru against the apex court's latest order on releasing water to the neighbouring state.
Mumbai, Sep 28 : Value buying, along with short covering and a firm rupee, lifted the Indian equity markets during the mid-afternoon trade session on Wednesday.

Healthy buying was witnessed in automobile, banking and capital goods stocks.

The wider 51-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) edged up 47.90 points or 0.55 per cent to 8,754.30 points.

The barometer 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the BSE, which opened at 28,198.88 points, traded at 28,348.12 points (at 2 p.m.) -- up by 124.42 points or 0.44 per cent from the previous close at 28,223.70 points.

The Sensex touched a high of 28,348.12 points and a low of 28,198.30 points during the intra-day trade so far.

The BSE market breadth was tilted in favour of the bulls -- with 1,639 advances and 863 declines.

On Tuesday, the key indices were pulled lower by a decline in global crude oil prices and foreign fund outflows.

The barometer index had receded by 70.58 points or 0.25 per cent, while the NSE Nifty edged down 16.65 points or 0.19 per cent.

"Short covering and value buying after last couple of day's falls has pulled the equity markets up. Banking sector, especailly the public sector banks, are leading the recovery," Anand James, Chief Market Strategist at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services, told IANS.

"Positive European markets and a firm rupee have also supported the upward movement."

According to Dhruv Desai, Director and Chief Operating Officer of Tradebulls, the CNX Nifty traded with firm sentiments due to short covering.

"IT stocks faced profit booking at higher levels. Auto, Oil-gas and textile stocks also traded firm," Desai said.

"Aviation and FMCG stocks traded with mixed sentiments due to profit booking. Power and cement stocks also traded firm on buying support."
New Delhi, Sep 28 : Of the four South Asian nations that have pulled out of the Saarc Summit scheduled to be held in Pakistan in November, the message from Afghanistan citing its reasons was a stinging, if indirect, indictment of the Pakistan state's backing of terror.

The rather curt official message sent to the Saarc Chair Nepal on Tuesday, spoke of the "imposed terrorism" in Afghanistan, leaving little doubt that the reference was to Pakistan.

It explained that Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani would not be able to attend the summit as he would be "fully engaged" in combating the "increased level of violence and fighting as a result of imposed terrorism on Afghanistan", according to sources who quoted the letter.

Islamabad is scheduled to host the 19th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) Summit on November 9-10.

Afghanistan's decision came after India announced that it was pulling out of the Islamabad summit in the wake of the September 18 cross-border terror attack on an Indian Army camp in Uri town of Jammu and Kashmir that claimed the lives of 18 soldiers.

New Delhi has blamed the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed terror outfit for the Uri as well as the January 2 Pathankot airbase attack.

Afghanistan's decision also comes less than a week after its Vice President Sarwar Danesh, addressing the UN General Assembly, accused Pakistan of backing terrorists waging a "full-scale war".

Vice President Danesh also warned that Kabul reserves the right to do "whatever is necessary for the defence and protection" of its people and urged the international community to eliminate terrorism safe havens.

In a harsh indictment of its neighbour, Sarwar Danesh told the General Assembly summit, "We have repeatedly asked our neighbouring country Pakistan to destroy the known terrorist safe havens, but we unfortunately are yet to witness any change in the situation."

Turning to the world leaders in the Assembly chamber, Danesh asked, "Where were the previous leaders of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda residing, and where were they killed? At this very moment, where are the leaders of the Taliban and Haqqani network located? From where and how are terrorists being trained, equipped and financed during a full-scale war?"

Afghan envoy to India, Shaida Mohammad Abdali, has also said that Pakistan should be singled out by the South Asian countries because it jeopardizes regional unity and peace.

Following the diplomatic blitzkrieg launched by New Delhi, Pakistan is virtually getting isolated in the region with Bangladesh and Bhutan joining India and Afghanistan in pulling out of the annual Saarc Summit citing incitement of terrorism in the region as the reason.

Afghanistan's stance comes following President Ghani's visit to India earlier this month during which the two countries issued a joint statement expressing grave concern over terrorism in the region.

According to the statement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Ghani "discussed the regional situation and expressed grave concern at continued use of terrorism and violence in the region for achieving political objectives".

"They agreed that this phenomenon presented the single-biggest threat to peace, stability and progress in the region and beyond," the statement said.

"Stressing that elimination of all forms of terrorism, without any discrimination, is essential, they called upon the concerned to put an end to all sponsorship, support, safe havens and sanctuaries to terrorists, including for those who target Afghanistan and India," it said.

Also, during a trilateral meeting on September 21 between India, the US and Afghanistan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York, the security situation and the challenges posed by terrorism in the region were discussed.
Abuja (Nigeria), Sep 28 : Observing that only organised international action can defeat terrorism, India's Vice President Hamid Ansari said on Wednesday called for restructuring the international legal framework and for adopting a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

Stronger India-Nigeria relations would add to the regional and global security, Ansari said while addressing the Nigerian National Defence College here.

"International terrorism can only be defeated by organised international action. We need to restructure the international legal framework such as by adopting a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism," said Ansari.

He described terrorism as the "biggest threat" to international peace and sovereignty of states.

"Terrorism today has global reach and no city remains safe. There is a new level of threat to pluralist and open societies," he said.

"A terrorist is a terrorist, one who commits crimes against humanity cannot have any religion, or be afforded any political sanctuary," he added.

Ansari said, "Societies that stand for peace and humanism have to increase their cooperation and strengthen efforts to prevent supply of arms to terrorists, disrupt terrorist movements, and curb and criminalise terror financing."

"We have to help each other by sharing intelligence, securing our cyber space, and minimising the use of internet and social media for terrorist activities."

The Vice President is on a four-day visit to Nigeria and Mali to strengthen India's ties with two west African nations.
New Delhi, Sep 28 : The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved an agreement between India and Singapore on industrial property cooperation that is expected to enhance bilateral activities in Industrial Property Rights of patents, trademarks and industrial designs.

It will also give boost to innovation, creativity and technological advancement in both the countries.

The cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gave approval to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Industrial Property Cooperation between Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), Ministry of Law, Government of Singapore.

The agreement will be signed during the visit of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to India from October 4-7.

"The MoU will enhance bilateral cooperation activities in the arena of Industrial Property Rights of Patents, Trademarks and Industrial Designs. It is intended to give a boost to innovation, creativity and technological advancement in both regions," said an official statement.

The initiatives under the agreement would be exchange of best practices, experiences and knowledge on intellectual property awareness among the public, businesses and educational institutions of both countries; exchange of experts specialised in the field of intellectual property; exchange and dissemination of best practices, experiences and knowledge on IP with the industry, universities, Research and Development organisations and small and medium enterprises.

The initiatives also include cooperation in the development of automation and implementation of modernization projects and partnership in IP-related training for local IP and business communities.
Abuja (Nigeria), Sep 28 : Observing that only organised international action can defeat terrorism, Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari on Wednesday called for restructuring the international legal framework.

"International terrorism can only be defeated by organised international action. We need to restructure the international legal framework such as by adopting a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism," said Ansari while addressing the Nigerian National Defence College here.

Stronger India-Nigeria relations would add to the regional and global security, he added.

He described terrorism as the "biggest threat" to international peace and sovereignty of states.

"Terrorism today has global reach and no city remains safe. There is a new level of threat to pluralist and open societies," he said.

"A terrorist is a terrorist, one who commits crimes against humanity cannot have any religion, or be afforded any political sanctuary," he added.

Ansari said: "Societies that stand for peace and humanism have to increase their cooperation and strengthen efforts to prevent supply of arms to terrorists, disrupt terrorist movements, curb and criminalise terror financing."

"We have to help each other by sharing intelligence, securing our cyber space, and minimising the use of internet and social media for terrorist activities."

Ansari also noted that the idea of security has expanded beyond the traditional sphere of military security, and there is growing recognition that security of any given society is also impacted by several non-military factors, including political, economic, environmental, social and human domains.

"Many of the states have radiated insecurity towards their citizens and residents and thus destabilised their own societies and polities. This has led to state failures and implosions in the internal dimension and to regional and even global crises in the external dimension. One cannot escape the harsh conclusion that states have, quite often, been significant contributors to individual and systemic insecurity," he said.

"Our main concern should, therefore, be to establish the credibility and legitimacy of the state and its institutions. Aberrations must be resolved in a transparent and just fashion as public perceptions are important, he pointed out.

The Vice President said that both Nigeria and India face similar security challenges ranging from climate change and diverse societal needs which have been compounded by the spread of terror and newer fears of insecurity.

Ansari also talked about finding ways of using international opinion as a force multiplier.

"No country in the world, howsoever powerful, can counter the emergent threats unilaterally. This makes diplomacy doubly important for developing economies such as ours.

"It is important to devise methods of effectively participating in international fora, in influencing world opinion and striving to make such mechanisms more representative, more consensual and more effective," he added.

The Vice President is on a four-day visit to Nigeria and Mali to strengthen India's ties with the two west African nations.
Kathmandu, Sep 29 : Refusing to support India's decision to pull out from the scheduled 19th Saarc Summit followed by Bhutan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, Nepal, the present Chair of Saarc, has strongly urged the member countries to ensure the summit was on time.

Nepal's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement late Wednesday calling all member states to create a conducive environment for the summit scheduled for November 9 and 10, in Islamabad.

As the current Chair of Saarc, the government of Nepal strongly urged that a conducive environment be created for the summit soon by ensuring participation of all member states in line with the spirit of the Saarc Charter, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Nepal's statement might not appease India, as other member nations -- Sri Lanka, Maldives and Pakistan -- also have not made their position clear on India's decision to pull out from the summit.

The statement further added that the government of Nepal has received communications from the Saarc Secretariat transmitting the diplomatic notes from four Saarc member states -- Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and India, in which they have conveyed their inability to participate in the summit stating that current regional environment was not conducive.

"We have taken this development seriously," the Nepalese government said in the statement.

Officials told IANS that as current Chair of the Saarc, it should be Nepal's priority to resume the regional engagement rather than derailing it.

However, the reason as to why Nepal tried to play the balanced role instead of going against's India's interest in the matter was not known.

The eight members regional grouping was now equally split for and against India's position to pull out from the summit.

The September 18 killings of 18 Indian soldiers in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir that India holds Pakistan-based millitants responsible for, has renewed tension between the two nations.

In retaliation, India on Tuesday unilaterally announced that "in the prevailing circumstances, the government of India is unable to participate in the proposed summit in Islamabad."

According to the statement issued by India's Ministry of External Affairs, "the growing interference in the internal affairs of member states by one country have created an environment that is not conducive to the successful holding of the 19th Saarc Summit in Islamabad."

Though one country's inability to participate in the summit meant automatic cancellation or postponement, officials in Kathmandu said the it was now the host, Pakistan, who should take a call.
Washington, Sep 29 : US National Security Advisor Susan Rice spoke to her Indian counterpart Ajit Doval and said that the US has reiterated that Pakistan must "take effective action to combat and delegitimise" UN-designated terrorists and terror groups.

Rice spoke to Doval just ahead of the Indian Army's surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday night.

On September 18, in a cross-border terror attack on an Indian Army garrison at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir, 18 soldiers lost their lives.

In a press statement on Wednesday, US National Security Council spokesperson Ned Price said that Rice "strongly condemned the September 18 cross-border attack on the Indian Army Brigade headquarters in Uri and offered condolences to the victims and their families".

"Ambassador Rice affirmed President (Barack) Obama's commitment to redouble our efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of terrorism throughout the world," Price said.

"Highlighting the danger that cross-border terrorism poses to the region, Ambassador Rice reiterated our expectation that Pakistan take effective action to combat and delegitimise United Nations-designated terrorist individuals and entities, including Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, and their affiliates," he said.

India has blamed the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed for the Uri attack.

The attack came amid large-scale violence in Jammu and Kashmir that has claimed around 90 lives following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani in July.

On Tuesday, India announced its decision to pull out of the 19th South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (Saarc) Summit scheduled to be held in Islamabad on November 9-10.

Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan too followed suit citing state sponsorship of terrorism as the reason.

In his statement, Price said that in the context of the strong India-US relationship, Rice, in her conversation with Doval, "discussed our shared commitment with India to pursuing peace and regional stability and pledged to deepen collaboration on counter-terrorism matters including on UN terrorist designations".

On Thursday, India's Director General Military Operations Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, at a media briefing in New Delhi, said that the Indian Army carried out surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir and caused "significant casualties" to the "terrorists and those who support them".
Tel Aviv, Sep 29 : Former Israeli President Shimon Peres' casket was laid outside parliament Knesset, as the country's leaders and the public on Thursday started to pay their last respects.

Peres died at 93, on Wednesday in a hospital near capital Tel Aviv after spending two weeks in induced coma following a stroke.

The wreath-laying ceremony started as President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Speaker of the Knesset Yuli-Yoel Edelstein paid their respects, Xinhua news agency reported.

Road 1, which connects Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, will be closed to traffic as hundreds of world leaders are expected to arrive ahead of the funeral, which will be held on Friday, the police said in a statement.

Securing the event would be the "largest" operation of its kind in the history of the nation, the statement added.

According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the list of foreign dignitaries expected to attend the funeral includes US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, French President Francois Hollande, Britain's Prince Charles, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Australian Governor-General Peter Cosgrove.

Peres served as Israel's ninth President between 2007 and 2014.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 and covered almost every significant office in his 70-year political career.
New Delhi, Sep 29 : It is not yet clear when the army actually received "specific and credible" inputs about terrorists gathering at "launch pads" behind the Line of Control (LoC), but the plan to take these out was well in place by Wednesday -- a day that saw a flurry of high-level activity involving the brass as well as their civilian masters.

The mission to strike behind the LoC was actively monitored by senior officers in the army's 'operations room' at the Ministry of Defence in South Block, sources told IANS.

They said Chief of Army Staff Gen Dalbir Singh himself was in the operations room on Wednesday night as Special Forces Para Commandos from the 4th and 9th Battalions of the Northern Command prepared for the assault that was launched around midnight. The operation concluded around 4.30 Thursday morning.

The sources said the commandos were air-dropped close to the LoC and they struck at seven terrorist launch pads around 2km to 3km inside Pakistan territory -- across the LoC in the Poonch and Kupwara sectors.

The sources confirmed that the terrorists -- who were planning strikes in Kashmir as well as several metros -- suffered "significant casualties". Although no details were released by the army, some reports said the number of terrorists killed was 38.

Earlier on Wednesday, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar met the three Service chiefs at his office around 5 p.m. He later went to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the sources said.

Modi had met the army and air force chiefs and the Vice Chief of the navy on Saturday, September 24. He also visited the operations room on Monday, September 26, the sources said, though it is not clear whether plan to launch the surgical strikes had been firmed up by then.

There have been a series of high-level meetings in the government following the terror attack in Uri earlier this month that killed 18 soldiers. India has blamed the terror attack on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba.
New Delhi, Sep 29 : The Supreme Court will pronounce on Friday its order on the Bihar government's plea challenging the bail granted to RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin in the Rajiv Roshan murder case.

The September 7 order of the Patna High Court granting bail to Shahabuddin was initially challenged by one Chandrakeshwar Prasad, whose three sons -- third one being Rajiv Roshan -- were killed allegedly by Shahabuddin's henchmen.

The bench of Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Amitava Roy gave the ruling at the conclusion of arguments.

Shahabuddin's counsel Shekhar Naphade told the court that although cognizance of the case was taken on February 25, 2015, he had not been served the charge-sheet to date, despite its being a mandatory requirement under criminal law.

Naphade on Thursday told the court that it was the Bihar government that was delaying the trial, and the shifting of Shahabuddin from Siwan to Bhagalpur Central Jail on May 18, 2016, was also a ploy to that end.

Criticising the alleged delays engineered by the state government, Naphade said that it was contrary to the principle of natural justice, as Shahabuddin was not given a hearing.

"It is a conscious attempt on their (Bihar government) part that the trial should not proceed. The moment the trial starts, it will not stand, as there is no evidence of alleged conspiracy against me (Shahabuddin)," Naphade told the court.

Fortifying his client's bail request, Naphade told the bench that it could saddle him with any condition. The accused would stay in Delhi and never go to Bihar till the end of trial, he added.

Countering this, the Bihar government's counsel argued that Shahabuddin had challenged the order after taking cognizance of the charge-sheet before the session's court, and it was not possible that he did it without having a copy of the document.

Senior counsel Dinesh Dwivedi recounted to the court that the trial court took cognizance on February 25, 2015, and it was challenged by Shahabuddin in a criminal revision on May 25, 2015, and that case lasted for 14 months till his plea was rejected by the session's court on July 22, 2016.

Dwivedi told the bench that when the high court on February 3, 2016 ordered that trial in the case be completed in nine months, it was not told that the entire record of the case was with the session's court, which was seized of the revision petition challenging February 25, 2015, order of cognizance by the trial court.

Counsel Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for Chandrakeshwar Prasad, said that cognizance of charge-sheet was taken on February 25, 2015, thereafter Shahabuddin challenged the order of cognizance. He moved the court thrice for grant of bail, but he never aired the grievance that he had not been given the copy of the charge-sheet, he pointed out.

Bhushan asked that even if there was delay of nine months, could it be the basis for grant of bail to a criminal who had been convicted in 10 cases, awarded life imprisonment in two cases, 10-year sentence in one and also facing charges under the Arms Act.

It was only now that his counsel was telling the top court, that too in an oral argument, that he had not been provided the copy of the charge-sheet. He said that there was not even a whisper since February 25, 2015, when cognizance was taken, that he had not been supplied with a copy of charge-sheet.

Defending Shahabuddin's shifting to Bhagalpur jail, Bhushan told the bench that jail authorities in Siwan were at the beck and call of Shahabuddin and he used to leave the jail at his will and was present when Chandrakeshwar Prasad's two sons were killed by his henchmen.
New Delhi, Sep 29 : Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangram Ahir on Thursday advised jail authorities to adopt Prime Minister Narendra Modi's skill development programme to accelerate prison reforms, and assured to increase the police and prison modernisation budgets on the basis of need.

"Inmates can be imparted training in vocations like farming, sericulture, beekeeping, fisheries and animal husbandry so that they can be rehabilitated and reintegrated with the society. Prime Minister has emphasized on skill development and modernisation," Ahir said.

He was speaking on the inauguration of the 5th National Conference of Heads of Prisons of States and Union Territories on prison reforms here.

Giving example of certain prisons in Maharashtra, Ahir said: "There should be residential colonies and open jails for inmates where they can live a normal life with their families while being under a sort of house arrest situation."

He also suggested prison authorities to go through Supreme Court guidelines for undertrials to help them in obtaining bail to reduce overcrowding in the jails.

Ahir also assured to increase the budget for the modernisation of Police and Prisons as per need.

"A sum of Rs 1,800 crores has been provided in the current budget for police modernisation including prisons," Ahir said.

Pointing out the circulation of drugs, gang wars and other such menaces in the prisons, the minister said, "The conduct of prison authorities should be improved in bringing about the reformation of inmates."

On the occasion, Director General of Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D), Meeran Borwankar highlighted the overcrowding of prisons as a matter of grave concern impeding the prisons reform process.

"There are around five lakh inmates in prisons across the country, of whom a vast majority of them, about 68 per cent are undertrials and as many as 2.4 per cent are women," Borwankar said.

Besides overcrowding, almost 35 per cent vacancies in prison staff made it impractical to implement prison reforms, Borwankar said.

"All of prison staff is tied down in prison security, administration and court procedures, leaving little or no time for inmates' rehabilitation and reintegration."

She also suggested that the name of prisons should be changed to 'correctional administration' or 'correctional homes' to reflect its changing role from punitive action to a reformatory role.

The two-day conference being organised by the BPR&D would provide a platform to the stakeholders, the correctional administrators in states and union territories to exchange ideas and learn from each other's experience.

Four such conferences were organised by the BPR&D and Ministry of Home Affairs in 2004, 2008, 2010 and 2013.

For the first time, the superintendents of central and district jails were invited. The representatives from leading universities, NGOs, and students of law and criminology departments also attended the conference for the first time.
New Delhi, Sep 29 : BJP President Amit Shah on Thursday congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and the Indian Army after the troops carried out surgical strikes across the LoC.

"I congratulate Modi, Parrikar and Indian Army for surgical strikes on terror launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir," Shah said in a statement.

"The army has shown exemplary valour and courage by carrying out surgical strikes on the launching pads and trainning camps of terrorists in PoK," the Bharatiya Janata Party leader added.

Shah said it was for the first time that the army had inflicted heavy damage on terrorists without any loss to the Indian side.

"After a long battle against terrorism, for the first time, damage was inflicted on the breeding centres of terrorism and a befitting reply given to terrorists. Today, all countrymen feels proud of the army," Shah said.

Earlier, in a series of tweets Shah hailed the army and said the action "reaffirms the army's valour and commitment to the nation's security".
Algiers, Sep 30 : Algerian counterterrorism forces on Thursday killed five armed militants in Tazoult of Batna province, 480 km southeast Algiers.

The operation is still underway. Troops have managed to retrieve machine guns and large quantity of ammunition, Xinhua quoted Defense Ministry as saying.

Six bunkers containing food, home-made mines, photovoltaic plates and other stuffs were also destroyed.

The statement added that the operation reveals the strong determination of the Algerian army forces to eliminate remains of terrorism in the country.

Algerian army forces have been very active in the last five months, as they have managed to kill nearly 100 armed militants in different operations nationwide.
Islamabad, Sep 30 : Pakistan's UN Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi is set to meet UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday to inform him about the "surgical strikes" that India carried out on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC).

On Thursday, Lodhi met with New Zealand's UN Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who is the current president of the 15-member Security Council and urged him to informally brief the body on the escalating tension along the border, Radio Pakistan reported.

Talking to the media after the meeting, Lodhi said she brought to his attention the dangerous situation that was building up in "our region as a result of Indian provocation".

She said, "our call to the international community is to avert a crisis before there is one."

Lodhi said Pakistan was "showing maximum restraint but there were limits to our restraint if India continues with provocations."

An unspecified number of terrorists and Pakistani troops were killed in the late Wednesday operation across Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara and Poonch sectors as the army moved Special Forces into Pakistan-held Kashmir.

Pakistan, however, insisted that no "surgical strike" took place and that there were only firing and artillery shelling between the two armies across the LoC that killed two of its soldiers and left some others wounded. Pakistan threatened to repel any Indian attack.

Pakistani media said one Indian soldier, identified as Chandu Babulal Chohan, 22, from Maharashtra, had been captured and eight others had been killed.
Washington, Sep 30 : Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's campaign is ready to attack his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, using the infidelities of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, according to documents.

In the documents, the idea is developed that Trump "has never treated women the way Hillary Clinton and her husband did when they actively worked to destroy Bill Clinton's accusers," EFE news reported.

The Democratic campaign did not delay in reacting and on Thursday said in a statement that "as many Republicans have warned, this is a mistake that is going to backfire."

"After his disastrous debate performance and his sexist attack on a former Miss Universe over her weight, Donald Trump is now trying to deflect by going after Hillary Clinton about her marriage," Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said on Thursday in a statement.

The mogul admitted on Tuesday in an interview with the Fox cable network that during Monday's debate he was on the verge of attacking Clinton with her husband's scandal, but he said "I really eased up because I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings."

He said he decided not to bring up former President Clinton's infidelities because their daughter Chelsea was in the audience, and he added that he thought he did the right thing.

Bill Clinton, who was impeached by the Republican-controlled House in 1998 after lying about his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Tennessee Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Trump supporter, told What almost motivated Trump to air the Clintons' dirty laundry yet again was the former secretary of state's criticism of him for his insults of women, which she highlighted by noting his offensive remarks concerning former Venezuelan Miss Universe Alicia Machado, now a US citizen, who won the 1996 pageant, which the magnate directed at the time.

Trump's son Eric on Wednesday said on Sean Hannity's radio show that Bill Clinton had been possibly the worst sexist ever, according to Buzzfeed.

"It's amazing when you hear her talk about sexism and these various claims, which are ridiculous, aside from obviously Bill, her husband, being maybe the worst that's ever lived," the younger Trump said.

It remains to be seen whether Trump, under pressure because it is widely considered - and recent voter surveys show - that he lost the first debate and Clinton has gained several points, resorts to using the former president's romantic escapades to attack his rival.

For the moment, though, Trump has simply issued a warning that he might "hit her harder" in the next presidential debate, scheduled for October 9.
New York, Sep 30 : The Indian government and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) have signed an agreement extending the Indian Conservation Fellowship Programme to promote modern museum practices.

India's Consul General Riva Ganguly said she hoped that the programme would enrich both sides through learning from each other and that it will help Indian conservationists improve scientific methods of conservation and management.

She was speaking at a reception at the consulate on Tuesday to mark the signing of the memorandum of agreement extending the programme for five more years.

The Andrew Mellon Foundation has given $1.55 million for the new phase of the conservation fellowship programme, according to the foundation's database.

It was started in 2013 as a pilot programme and its success led to the renewal, a consulate statement said.

Under the agreement the MET will work with the Indian Ministry of Culture to develop a broad range of knowledge on modern operations of museums like conservation and planning of exhibitions.

The MET's Deputy Director for Collections and Administration, Carrie Rebora Barratt, said the rich cultural heritage of India needed conserving and the interaction of the participants from India and the United States will lead to a mutual learning process.

The Mellon Foundation's Executive Vice President, Mariet Westermann, said she was happy the foundation was participating in a program that will contribute to conserving the rich cultural treasures of India.

The MET is a premiere cultural institution of the US that was recently named the world top museum for the second year in the TripAdvisor Traveler's Choice Awards.

Last year, over 6.7 million people visited the museum that features 5,000 years of art from around the world.

The museum has a large collection of cultural artifacts from India and features special programme about the country's heritage.

It is currently holding an exhibition, Poetry and Devotion in Indian Art, featuring 22 of the dozens of Rajput and Pahari paintings in its collection.

Recent exhibitions have included "Divine Pleasures" painting from India's Rajput courts, "Company School Painting in India" and "Encountering Vishnu: The Lion Avatar in Indian Temple Drama."
Jammu, Sep 30 : Pakistan Rangers on Friday restored to indiscriminate firing at Indian positions in Jammu and Kashmir's Akhnoor sector of the International Border (IB).

The police said Pakistan Rangers violated the ceasefire agreement by firing without any provocation at Border Security Forces (BSF) positions in Pallanwalla area.

"Pakistan Rangers used automatics and small arms to target BSF border outposts," the police said, adding "Firing exchanges started at 12.30 a.m. and lasted until 1.30 a.m."
San Francisco, Sep 30 : Cloud computing company Salesforce is reportedly trying to block the $26.2 billion Microsoft-LinkedIn deal, arguing that Microsoft's acquisition of the enterprise social network LinkedIn will be anti-competitive.

According to a report in pcworld.com, Salesforce Chief Legal Officer Burke Norton will take the company's argument to the European Union's anti-trust authorities.

"Microsoft's proposed acquisition of LinkedIn threatens the future of innovation and competition," Norton said in a statement.

"By gaining ownership of LinkedIn's unique dataset of over 450 million professionals in more than 200 countries, Microsoft will be able to deny competitors access to that data, and in doing so obtain an unfair competitive advantage," Norton added.

Salesforce - now rumoured to be in the race to buy micro-blogging website Twitter - was also in the fray to acquire LinkedIn.

After losing to Microsoft, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has showed his concerns over the deal, urging the Federal Trade Commission to "scrutinise Microsoft's plans for LinkedIn".

Microsoft President Brad Smith, however, said "the deal has already been cleared to close in the US, Canada, and Brazil," Wall Street Journal reported.

In June, Microsoft announced to acquire LinkedIn in an all-cash deal, billed as one of the largest such pacts in the global social media space.

LinkedIn, which has nearly 10 per cent of its over 430 million users in India, will retain its distinct brand, culture and independence and Jeff Weiner will remain the chief executive of LinkedIn, reporting to his Indian-born Microsoft counterpart Satya Nadella, the tech giant said in a statement.

The deal, expected to close within this year, works out to over $60 per LinkedIn user.

Microsoft will pay $196 per LinkedIn share -- a 50 per cent premium to LinkedIn's closing price on June 10.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) will hold a meeting on Friday to review the situation in the wake of the surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army across the Line of Control (LoC), officials said.

The meet will be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh will also meet senior officials from both Home and the Defence will also be meeting later during the day under chairmanship of prime minister.

Modi also chaired a CCS meeting to consider the situation along the LoC on Thursday, An unspecified number of terrorists and Pakistani troops were killed in the early Thursday operation across Kupwara and Poonch sectors as the army moved Special Forces into Pakistan-held Kashmir, officials said.
Chennai, Sep 30 : India's eyes in the skies - family of remote sensing or earth observation satellites - is said to have given the necessary images to the armed forces to carry out its surgical strikes on terror camps across the Line of Control (LOC), officials said on Friday.

The officials said the Cartosat series of satellites (Cartosat-2, 2A, 2B and 2C) were being used for strategic purposes and more so the Cartosat 2C whose images have better resolution.

The Cartosat 2C was launched in June 2016.

Informed sources told IANS that Cartosat 2D and 3 will also be used by the armed forces.

While officials at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) were silent on the use of satellites for strategic purposes, they did agree that satellite images are sourced by various agencies including the defence forces.

Sources told IANS that while the earth observation satellites are managed by ISRO, the use of satellite's payload/equipments dedicated for strategic use is decided by the defence forces.

India also has its Risat series of radar imaging reconnaissance satellites that provides all weather images using synthetic aperture radars (SAR).

While the eyes in the skies are earth observation satellites, the hearing power for the defence forces is given by the communication satellites.

The Indian armed forces and in particular the Navy got its own satellite power in GSAT-7/Rukmini, a communication satellite for maritime communication purposes.

India's second dedicated military communication satellite is GSAT-6 while Indian Air Force is also set to get one satellite for its use in the future.

Looking at the overall picture it seems that Indian defence forces will have around six satellites for their use at any given point of time in the near future.
Amritsar, Sep 30 : There has been no gunfire, no alert sirens and no fighter jets dropping bombs. It is not war time yet but tens of thousands of villagers in Punjab's border belt with Pakistan are already experiencing a war-like situation.

Over 400,000 people in Punjab's border belt, comprising Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Ferozepur, Gurdaspur, Pathankot and Fazilka districts, have been evacuated from their homes to "safer areas".

Residents in nearly 1,000 villages in these districts have been ordered by the authorities to evacuate following escalation of tension between nuclear neighbours India and Pakistan after the Indian Army carried out surgical strikes at the Line of Control (LoC) on Thursday night.

"We loaded a lot of our belongings and household articles on our tractor-trolley. We have not yet decided where we will go. But we have to move out. The standing crop in our fields has to be harvested within the next 10 days. We hope this situation eases out soon," farmer Sardul Singh of Amritsar district told IANS.

Punjab shares a 553-km international border with Pakistan. The entire border is maked by an electrified barbed wire fence.

The Sikh holy city of Amritsar, which lies only 30 km from the international border, too seemed to be prepared for any eventuality, including war.

Hospitals in the border districts have been asked to keep some beds in emergency wards vacant for any contingency. The leave of police personnel, medical staff and others maintaining emergency services have been cancalled.

In some of the border villages which are located across the rivers in the border belt, Border Security Force (BSF) and Indian Army personnel could be seen ferrying people, including children and the elderly, and their belongings to safer areas on Thursday and Friday.

"There is nothing to panic about. The evacuation is being done as a preventive measure. Arrangements are being made to accommodate the evacuated people," Isha Kalia, deputy commissioner of Fazilka district in southwest Punjab, said. Kalia visited various evacuation centres in her district and talked to people accommodated there.

But villagers said that there was some panic and anxiety among them.

"Old timers have been through the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan. Those days were bad. But Punjabis have always faced wars valiantly. For the newer generation, who have not seen wars, the evacuation is a new thing. Many youngsters are worried about what will happen," Waryam Singh of Ferozepur district, who is 70-plus and lived through the 1965 and 1971 wars, told IANS.

The villagers who have been evacuated were headed either to the homes of relatives and friends in "safer zones" or opted for camps organized by the district authorities.

With arrangements to accommodate hundreds of people at each of the 45 relief camps having to be made within a few hours, the evacuated people complained of mismanagement and chaos.

Local gurdwaras and social organizations chipped in, within the past 12 hours, to arrange food and water for the displaced people.

Along all roads and paths in the border belt, any mode of transport available -- be it tractor-trolleys, trucks, buses, private cars, horse and cattle-driven carriages and other vehicles -- was being used by the people to move out with their belongings. The authorities also arranged buses at some places to ferry people.

Army convoys, with artillery, moved towards the border with Pakistan on Thursday and Friday.

(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted at jaideep.s@ians.in)
Islamabad, Sep 30 : Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali has rejected an invitation for a conference scheduled in New Delhi next month amid rising tensions between the two neighbouring countries.

In a letter to the Indian Supreme Court he wrote that in the present conditions he could not attend the meeting, Geo News reported on Friday.

The Chief Justice was invited to attend the conference scheduled from October 21 to 23.

Pakistan has claimed that two soldiers were killed in Indian Army shelling across the Line of Control (LoC) late Wednesday. It has denied that India carried out "surgical strikes" behind the LoC to destroy seven terror launch pads and kill between 35 and 40 terrorists waiting to cross into Kashmir.
Washington, Sep 30 : Chemistry in the surface material on Mars contributed dynamically to the make-up of its atmosphere over time, a study has found.

The findings come from the NASA's Curiosity rover's Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, instrument suite, which studied the gases xenon and krypton in the Mars atmosphere.

The two gases can be used as tracers to help scientists investigate the evolution and erosion of the Martian atmosphere.

The SAM team ran a series of first-of-a-kind experiments to measure all the isotopes of xenon and krypton in the Martian atmosphere, a paper published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters said.

The team's method is called static mass spectrometry, and it is good for detecting gases or isotopes that are present only in trace amounts.

"The unique capability to measure in situ the six and nine different isotopes of krypton and xenon allows scientists to delve into the complex interactions between the Martian atmosphere and crust," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Programme at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

"Discovering these interactions through time allows us to gain a greater understanding of planetary evolution," Meyer noted.

A lot of information about xenon and krypton in Mars' atmosphere came from analyses of Martian meteorites and measurements made by the Viking mission.

"What we found is that earlier studies of xenon and krypton only told part of the story," lead author of the report Pamela Conrad, and SAM's Deputy Principal Investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said.

"SAM is now giving us the first complete in situ benchmark against which to compare meteorite measurements," Conrad noted.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : Mira Nair is shocked that the big screen in the West doesn't reflect the diversity of the world and feels artistes of colour are "marginalised in the mainstream industry". The acclaimed Indian filmmaker, who is garnering plaudits for making "Queen of Katwe" with an all-black cast, however says her aim is not to propagate a colour.

Disney's "Queen of Katwe", releasing in India on October 7, traces the journey of 11-year-old Ugandan girl Phiona Mutesi and how she gets out of the slum where she resides to become a world class chess player.

The film, which stars Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o, is being lauded for its heart-warming story. But reactions also saw the virtual world buzzing with hashtags like #BlackGirlsRock or #BlackLivesMatter.

Asked if the bigger picture is to reinstate the importance of colour over talent or story, the National Award-winning director Nair was quick to dismiss this.

"I don't think it is anything about colour more than talent. We have been marginalised in the mainstream industry for long. It is shocking that the screen does not reflect the way the world is and the diversity in the world... What the world really looks like should be on screen and it isn't," Nair told IANS in a telephonic interview from New York.

Delving on the importance of getting diversity on the big screen, Nair also said that this should be done by the "talent of our work and integrity of our work".

"I welcome the talk about this issue because we have got to remind people that we matter. And we matter through the talent of our work and integrity of our work.

"The film itself should interact with the audience. In the case of 'Queen of Katwe', people are laughing, sobbing and dancing. I am taking them on a ride... It is not like I am asking them for handouts," said the 58-year-old, adding that the industry and the "people responsible for taking decisions" need to wake up to the truth of diversity.

"The fact is that it is not doing charity to make a black film or an African film... But finally the work has to speak."

The colour debate has been under way for long in India and abroad but got added attention with the diversity row after the 2016 Oscar nominations.

In fact, India has also got a notorious image due to its obsession with fair skin, which again made headlines this week when critically-acclaimed actress Tannishtha Chatterjee was "roasted" on a nationally televised comedy show with what she called a "regressive and blatantly racist attack" on her skin tone.

Be it with her debut fiction feature "Salaam Bombay!" -- which was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category -- to films like "Mississippi Masala", "Monsoon Wedding", "The Namesake" or "The Reluctant Fundamentalist", Nair has explored diverse themes and represented different issues long before "diversity" became a buzzword in Hollywood.

And she continues the pattern with "Queen of Katwe", which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

According to Nair, who is settled in the Ugandan capital Kampala after she fell in love with that part of the world during research for her film "Mississippi Masala", the USP of her latest film is that it doesn't paint a "suffering picture of despair" and there are no white saviours coming in to help the people of Africa.

"It is the first time that a story has been told about this modern and everyday Africa as opposed to the usual suffering Africa... It is always a suffering picture of despair, but this is a picture of ordinary people believing in extraordinary things and achieving them," she said.

Asserting that it is not a "white person story or a white person saviour story", Nair rested her case by saying that the "movie tells us that genius is everywhere, you just have to find it and nourish it".

(Sugandha Rawal can be contacted at sugandha.r@ians.in)
New York, Sep 30 : Humans reached the southern cone of South America some 14,000 years ago, earlier than previously thought, says a study based on ancient artifacts found at an archaeological site in Argentina.

Humans' arrival in southern South America 14,000 years ago may represent the last step in the expansion of Homo sapiens throughout the world and the final continental colonisation, the researchers said.

Approximately 13,000 years ago, a prehistoric group of hunter-gathers known as the Clovis people lived in Northern America.

Previous research suggests that the Clovis culture was one of the earliest cultures in South America.

However, the new research from the Pampas region of Argentina supports the hypothesis that early Homo sapiens arrived in the South America earlier than the Clovis hunters did.

The evidence for earlier human arrival in South Americas comes from a rich archaeological site in southeastern South America called Arroyo Seco 2.

"The Arroyo Seco 2 site contains a rich archaeological record, exceptional for South America, to explain the expansion of Homo sapiens into the Americas and their interaction with extinct Pleistocene mammals," the study said.

A group of scientists led by Gustavo Politis from Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires presented the research in a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE.

At Arroyo Seco 2, the researchers excavated ancient tools, bone remains from a variety of extinct species, and broken animal bones containing fractures caused by human tools.

They used radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the mammal bones and analyzed the specimens under a microscope.

The analysis revealed the presence of limb bones from extinct mammals at the site, which may indicate human activities of transporting and depositing animal carcasses for consumption at a temporary camp.

The bones of some mammal species were concentrated in a specific part of the site, which could indicate designated areas for butchering activities.

Microscopic examination also revealed that some bones contained fractures most likely caused by stone tools.

The remains were dated between 14,064 and 13,068 years ago, and the authors believe that Arroyo Seco 2 may have been occupied by humans during that time.

This timeline, along with evidence from other South American sites, indicates that humans may have arrived in southern South America prior to the Clovis people inhabiting the Americas, but after the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum, the last glacial period, which took place 19,000 to 20,000 years ago, the researchers said.
Islamabad, Sep 30 : Funeral prayers for a Pakistani soldier killed in the cross-border surgical attacks by India were held in Faislabad, Pakistani media reports said.

The soldier, Naik Imtiaz Ahmad, was one of the two soldiers killed in the Bhimber sector of LoC.

He was laid to rest with full military honours in his village in district Faislabad. Besides army officers, relatives and friends, hundreds of people attended the soldier's funeral and chanted slogans in favour of the military, Geo News reported.

At the funeral, Ahmed's father said he had five sons and three daughters and Ahmed was the youngest among them. "He was a very obedient son and we all loved him very much," he said.

According to a statement issued by the military, Naik Imtiaz Ahmed is survived by a wife and three children.

The surgical attacks on Wednesday night on terrorist launch pads across the LoC killed two Pakistani soldiers.

The attacks were a retaliation to the September 18 Uri army base camp attack in Jammu and Kashmir, which killed 19 Indian soldiers.
Rome, Sep 30 : Italian police have recovered two famous Vincent Van Gogh paintings stolen from an Amsterdam museum in 2002, officials said on Friday.

The Van Gogh museum in the city said the works were recovered during a "massive, continuing investigation" by Italian prosecutors and organised crime officials, the BBC reported.

The paintings were taken when thieves used a ladder to break into the museum.

Italian police said the works were recovered from the Naples mafia.

They were among assets worth millions of euros seized from the Camorra group, reports said.

The museum said it was so far unclear when the works would be returned to Amsterdam but in a statement it said the pieces appeared to be in "relatively good condition".
New Delhi, Sep 30 : India's civil aviation regulator on Friday lifted the restrictions on in-flight use of the new Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone -- but only those purchased after September 15.

On September 9, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had prohibited the use of the high-end smartphone on-board aircraft.

The DGCA said the usage restrictions have only been lifted for mobile phones purchased after September 15. Restrictions still continue for Note 7s purchased before that date.

The select type of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone allowed to be used on-board have a green battery charge indication on their screen, the DGCA said in a Public Notice issued on Wednesday.

A Samsung India Spokesperson said: "It is important to note that Samsung has not sold a single unit of Galaxy Note7 in India so far. The 'green battery icon' will apply to all Galaxy Note7 units that will be sold to customers in India when it is launched."

The DGCA notice said: "In the light of recent incidents and concerns raised by Samsung about its Galaxy Note 7 devices, travelling public and airlines are advised to ensure the following in respect of Samsung Note 7 purchased before 15th September 2016 which have been recalled by Samsung and have white battery charge indication on their screen."

In the public notice, the regulator advised travellers and the airlines to ensure that the communication device is not turned on or its battery charged on-board the aircraft.

The notice further detailed that the smartphone should not be stowed away in any checked-in baggage. However, the smartphone can be carried in a switched off mode in hand-baggage.

Civil aviation regulatory and safety authorities around the world and several airlines have issued warning not to charge or switch on Galaxy Note 7 smartphones on-board aircraft.

Samsung has recalled its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone over battery overheating issues globally.

On September 23, the civil aviation regulator had summoned officials from Samsung India Electronics for questioning after one of the company's smartphones -- the Samsung Note 2 -- emitted smoke on-board an IndiGo flight causing panic.

"We recognise the inconvenience this has caused to customers, flyers and airline authorities, and remain committed towards customer safety," the Samsung spokesman said.
Mumbai, Sep 30 : Value buying and short covering, along with a recovering rupee, buoyed the Indian equity markets on Friday.

Both the key indices traded in the green during the late-afternoon session, as healthy buying was witnessed in automobile, oil and gas, and banking stocks.

The wider 51-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) edged up 29.80 points or 0.35 per cent to 8,621.05 points.

The barometer 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the BSE, which opened at 27,807.82 points, traded at 27,905.57 points (at 2.30 p.m.) -- up by 78.04 points or 0.28 per cent from the previous close at 27,827.53 points.

The Sensex has touched a high of 27,911.07 points and a low of 27,716.78 points during the intra-day trade so far.

The BSE market breadth was skewed in favour of the bulls -- with 1,859 advances and 702 declines.

On Thursday, the key Indian equity indices took a sharp fall after the Indian Army said it had carried out surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir, inflicting "significant casualties".

The barometer index had ended with a loss of 465.28 points, or a 1.64 per cent, while the NSE Nifty closed lower by 153.90 points, or 1.76 per cent.

"The markets are trading with volatility, as investors are not willing to push prices further," Anand James, Chief Market Strategist at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services, told IANS.

"However, yesterday's falls had attracted some value buying, which have arrested the falls and the key indices have recovered from the days' lows. Gains were capped on the back of lower European and Asian markets."
Agartala, Sep 30 : Following the abolition of the Planning Commission of India and the adoption of a new policy at the Centre, Tripura lost Rs 1,356 crore in 2015-16, an official statement said here on Friday.

"The Government of India has stopped various central aids and changed the sharing pattern for the centrally-sponsored schemes (CSS), which caused Tripura a net loss of Rs 1,356 crore in the last financial year (2015-16)," the statement said.

It said that the central government has stopped funding under normal central assistance, special plan assistance and special central assistance. Besides, the fund flow under some major schemes has got reduced by Rs 314.72 crore during 2015-16.

The Tripura government statement came in response to the NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy's criticism of the state government's "laxity in utilisation of central funds".

Debroy, who was here last week in connection with the "North East Connectivity Summit", said that it is not correct that the Tripura government was getting less funding from the Centre after the abolition of the Planning Commission.

While addressing the summit, organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar had said: "With the abolition of Planning Commission and new policy of NITI Aayog, Tripura is losing Rs 1,800 crore every year. How we would develop our infrastructure if the Centre does not help us?"

Referring to Debroy's contention on the "failure" of Tripura government to submit utilisation certificates (UCs) of central fund of Rs 475 crore sanctioned to various projects, the statement said that UCs for Rs 174 crore had already been submitted and that UCs of the remaining amount would be submitted to the Centre after completion of the various projects.

Debroy had also stated that the Tripura government failed to prepare any vision document.

"The vision document is under preparation and it would be submitted to the NITI Aayog after completion. The matter was discussed at a national conference in Delhi on July 27, 2016," the official statement added.

Debroy, who is looking after the affairs of northeastern states on behalf of the NITI Aayog, had said it would aid, facilitate and monitor governmental schemes, plans and projects in the country.

"Services sector, like higher education, health, bio-technology and tourism, can be the priority sectors for development. Poor condition of the national highways in the region must be improved at once. Medium, small and micro industries have great scope in the northeast," he had observed.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday reviewed the security situation in the country, particularly along the border with Pakistan in states like Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, and directed central security organisations to be on high alert.

National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and top officials of security and intelligence agencies attended the review meeting.

It comes in the wake of surgical strikes by the Indian Army on terror launch pads in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir in the early hours of September 29.

During the hour-long meeting, Doval and others briefed the Home Minister about the situation along the border and steps taken to foil any Pakistani design.

"The Border Security Force (BSF) and other central police organisations functioning under the Home Ministry have been put on high alert along the India-Pakistan border," an official source later said.

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) top brass have been asked to intensify security at all industrial units, airports and other locations wherever they are deployed, the source said.

All BSF units deployed along the international border in Jammu, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat have been directed to step up vigil.

The BSF has been ordered to increase the number of personnel deployed at sensitive posts, the sources said.

Earlier in the day, Rajnath Singh held separate meetings with the chiefs of important central security forces, including National Security Guard (NSG), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and CISF.

According to an official source here, these were routine meetings but were significant in the wake of the army's surgical strikes across the LoC.

Rajnath Singh met CISF Director General O.P. Singh, NDRF Director General R.K Pachnanda and NSG chief Sudhir Pratap Singh and discussed the general preparedness, sources said.
Kathmandu, Sep 30 : Nepal, the present Chair of the Saarc, said on Friday that the summit of the South Asian regional grouping cannot take place if even one member country notifies its inability to participate in the event.

In a statement after India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan pulled out from the 19th Saarc Summit that was scheduled to be held in Islamabad, Nepal said it is clear that the summit cannot take place even if one member notifies of its inability to attend the event.

The Foreign Ministry of Nepal's remarks came in the wake of various ambiguous media reports about the upcoming summit.

Earlier, in its first statement, the ministry had urged all the member countries to create an environment conducive for the summit by ensuring their participation.

It also said that indefinite postponement of the summit would not be in the interest of any country and that Nepal expected the host nation would take necessary initiatives to hold the regional meet.

Pakistan is the rotational host (in alphabetical order) of the upcoming summit whose future is hanging in balance after four countries pulled out their participation from the summit as tension arises at India-Pakistan border.

"As a Chair of the Saarc, Nepal is ready to play its role. And, as a Chair, Nepal has already urged the member states to create conducive environment to hold the event as soon as possible," teh Foreign Ministry said.
Colombo/New Delhi, Sep 30 : Sri Lanka on Friday expressed its unwillingness to attend the upcoming Saarc Summit in Islamabad, saying the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the summit.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Colombo, in a statement, said that the Saarc Charter requires that decisions at all levels are taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States as well.

"Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia. As a founding member of Saarc, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our region's peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation," it said.

Sri Lanka condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, and stresses in this regard, the need to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region in a decisive manner, the statement said.

Sri Lanka's unwillingness to attend comes three days after India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan wrote to Nepal the current Chair of Saarc, conveying they are pulling out of the Saarc Summit, citing rising terrorism in the region.

With this, five members of the eight-member South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation have pulled out of the summit.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : Over 70 per cent of terrorists and terror groups across the globe are using various cyber medium tools to spread the evil of terrorism and further their goals, Gulshan Rai, the National Cyber Security Coordinator in the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) has said.

Speaking at the India Conference on Cyber Security & Internet Governance organised by Observer Research Foundation here, Rai said 70-75 per cent of terrorists are using tools like voice over internet telecom, social media and even encryption to spread the menace of terrorism and further their goals.

He said that post the controversy surrounding whistle-blower Edward Snowden, users and nations have become worried about the security of their data and are now using various encryption techniques and policies that has led to interruptions in seamless flow of data and information.

Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee Snowden copied and leaked classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013 without prior authorisation.

Stressing on the need for finding a fine balance between the security and seamless flow of data, Rai said India is coming out with the national encryption policy with the focus on multi-stake holder model.

Based on public private partnership, the model, will have the government, industry, academia and the civil society working together to ensure a perfect balance between security and smooth flow of data.

The three-day international conference that began on September 28, was inaugurated by Union Minister for Information Technology & Law and Justice, Ravi Shankar Prasad.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : Bollywood superstar Salman Khan on Friday questioned the campaign against Pakistani actors working in India, saying they were not terrorists.

"They are artistes. What do you think... Are artistes terrorists?" Salman asked at a press conference here.

"They come to India with visa. Who gives them the visa? Our (Indian) government gives them visa. The government gives them work permit," Salman added.

But the veteran actor did not specifically question the moves in Bollywood to ban Pakistanis from working in films being made in India.

Salman was in the national capital to launch a "Being Human" jewellery line.

Commenting on the surgical strikes India carried out on terrorists across the Line of Control, Salman said: "The ideal situation would have been of peace. Now when this has happened, then obviously there will be reaction to this action.

"In this day and this age, I think if we live with love and peace, then it will be better for everyone, especially for the common man."

He, however, justified the surgical strikes, saying it targeted the terrorists who killed 19 Indian soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir on September 18 and were planning more attacks.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena was the first to ask Pakistani artistes to leave India.

The Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association on Thursday decided to ban Pakistani artistes from working in Indian movies.
Washington, Sep 30 : Two co-chairs of the Senate India Caucus, in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have strongly condemned the Uri terror attack and said they will work within the US Congress to put pressure on Pakistan to end any association with terror groups targetting India.

Republican John Cornyn and Democrat Mark Warner of the Senate India Caucus, the only country-specific caucus in the US Senate, said in their letter on Thursday that they are greatly concerned about initial indications that the perpetrators of the September 18 Uri attack "were Pakistani and that the attack emanated from Pakistan".

"If true, this attack would be just the latest in a series of deadly attacks in India conducted by Pakistan-based terrorist groups."

They called on Pakistan to cooperate fully and transparently in the probe and prosecute those "within its territory that participated in this horrendous attack".

"Pakistan's possible involvement in this attack underscores our broader concern about Pakistan's use of terrorism as a pillar of its foreign policies toward Afghanistan and India."

"As many credible experts have noted, such groups as the Haqqani network, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad still operate freely in Pakistan, launching attacks not only on India but also on US personnel and interests in Afghanistan."

They said it is "unacceptable" that such terror groups still operate within Pakistan.

"That such terrorist groups continue to operate within Pakistan is unacceptable, and we will work within Congress to pressure Pakistan to end any association with these terrorist groups targeting India, put a stop to their cross-border incursions, and take active and immediate steps to rein in homegrown terrorists," they wrote.

They said the continued threat of terrorism that both India and the US face highlights the critical need to continue expansion of US-India bilateral defence, intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation.

They welcomed the declaration of India as a major defence partner, and the inking of the Defence Framework Agreement and deepening of the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative.

"Similarly, we are pleased by the finalisation of an arrangement to facilitate the sharing of terrorist screening information and the progress made by the US-India Counter-terrorism Joint Working Group and the Homeland Security Dialogue. We will continue to support these and other initiatives that will increase US partnership with India against terrorism," they said.

The Senators conveyed their deep condolences to the families of the soldiers killed in the attack. "Please know that the Senate Caucus stands with you, and that we will not allow terrorists to sway our shared commitment to fostering greater peace and promoting democracy in the region."
Patna, Sep 30 : Former RJD MP Mohammad Shahabuddin on Friday surrendered in a court in Bihar's Siwan district soon after the Supreme Court cancelled his bail, and was taken into custody by the state police, officials said.

After surrendering in court, Shahabuddin told the media that he respected the apex court's decision.

However, he attacked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar by saying that his supporters will give him a reply in the next assembly elections.

The former Lok Sabha member said he stood by his earlier comment that "Nitish Kumar is a Chief Minister of circumstances".

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court set aside the Patna High Court's September 7 order granting him bail in the Rajiv Roshan murder case.

The apex court had reserved its order on Thursday after hearing three petitions by Rajiv Roshan's father Chandrakeshwar Prasad, his wife Kalawati Devi and the state government for cancellation of Shahabuddin's bail.

A local Rashtriya Janata Dal leader considered close to Shahabuddin said the criminal-turned-politician surrendered in the Siwan court without delay.

"Unlike in 2003 when he surrendered in the court along with thousands of his supporters, he went alone this time and surrendered."

Early this week, Shahabuddin said he would abide by the apex court's order, whatever it may be.

His supporters were upset over the apex court's order.

According to district police officials, Shahabuddin surrendered in the court even before police could arrest him.

"When a team of security forces led by the District Superintendent of Police reached his residence at Pratappur village, where he was staying after his release from the (Bhagalpur Central) jail, Shahabuddin was not there. His supporters said he had already surrendered in court. It surprised the police."

Last week, the apex court issued notice to Shahabuddin on a plea challenging the grant of bail to him in the murder case.

Senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan filed a petition on behalf of Chandrakeshwar Prasad for cancellation of bail on the ground that Shahabiddin will misuse his liberty to derail the case trial and his release posed threat to the petitioner's life.

Shahabuddin is the main accused in the murder of Chandrakeshwar Prasad's third son while he was already convicted in the murder of his two other sons.

The Bihar government also moved the apex court on the bail cancellation issue.

After Justice Jitendra Mohan Sharma of the Patna High Court granted bail to Shahabuddin on September 7, he was released from the Bhagalpur Central Jail on September 10 after spending 11 years in prison.
London, Sep 30 : Women are likely to be more adventurous in the bedroom as they age even if the number of nights ignited by passion may drop, suggests new research.

The findings are based on a study by University of Pittsburgh researchers who spoke to 39 women about how their sex lives changed with age, Daily Mail reported on Thursday.

The confidence that comes with age may play a role in the increased satisfaction with sex that the women -- aged between 46 and 59 - reported, the study said.

"One of the most enlightening findings of this study was the large number of women who had successfully adapted to any negative changes by modifying their expectations regarding sexual activity, putting more emphasis on the emotional and intimacy aspects of sex, or adapting the sex acts themselves," the study's lead author Holly Thomas was quoted as saying.

Some had adapted their lovemaking to compensate for age and menopause-related body changes and such adjustments included spending more time on foreplay, trying new sexual positions and putting more emphasis on intimacy than passion, the report said.

As the women were around the age of menopause, they suffered loss of libido and other changes related to hormonal fluctuations of the menopause.

However, while many blamed their low sex drive on stressful jobs or family life or on a rocky relationship, quite a few of them said their libido was much higher than that of their spouse.

Some of the participants said that they enjoyed sex more, despite having it less often.

But some women also said that they enjoyed sex more, despite having it less often, the report noted.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : Time was when Sweden was best known in this country for the pop group ABBA, luxury carmaker Volvo and the Nobel prize.

Today, 160 companies have invested over $1 billion in India and directly employ 150,000 people -- and the Scandinavian nation is participating in India's Smart Cities project by offering sustainable mobility solutions, the country's top envoy here has said.

"Swedish companies are participating in India's sustainable urban development projects," Swedish Ambassador Harald Sandberg told IANS here. "Volvo is offering a bus rapid transport system through electrical mobility."

In this connection, he mentioned Scania, another Swedish firm that manufactures buses and trucks that run on alternative fuels. Sandberg said that a plant to produce alternative fuel was also being set up in Nagpur.

As for employment opportunities created by Swedish investments, he said telecom major Ericsson itself employed more people in India than anywhere else in the world.

His comments came ahead of the 10th edition of the Sweden India Nobel Memorial Week starting from October 1.

The annual event showcases the sustainability and innovations of Sweden and Swedish companies and comprises events ranging from seminars and panel discussions to competitions for students and cultural performances.

These events are being held across Indore, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Guwahati and New Delhi.

Ambassador Sandberg said that the highlight of this year's Nobel Memorial Week will be the visit of Swedish Minister for Policy Coordination and Energy Ibrahim Baylan who will meet Minister of State for Power, New and Renewable Energy and Coal Piyush Goyal.

The Sweden India Nobel Memorial Week is held in memory of Swedish innovator and philanthropist Alfred Nobel to celebrate Indian Nobel laureates and is organised in cooperation with leading Swedish companies in India.

The theme for the 10th edition of the Week is "Sweden Makes in India", including sustainability and innovation.

"The Nobel Week is a great platform to strengthen cooperation and deepen relations between the two countries. India and Sweden do share common basic values and interests and, at the same time, we see a great potential to take inspiration from each other and expand our cooperation across a range of sectors," Sandberg said.

He said that Swedish companies have been "Making in India" for long and also referred to the visit of Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven to Mumbai this February for the Make in India Week.

Asked about Swedish furniture manufacturing major Ikea's plans for India, the Ambassador said that it would open its first outlet in Hyderabad "in the second half of 2017" -- followed by outlets in Mumbai, the National Capital Region and Bengaluru.

Ikea has been in India for 28 years, sourcing many different products for its stores worldwide. It sources products worth about 315 million euros every year, aiming to doubling it in the next few years.

Stating that Sweden would participate in the Make in India programme in the defence sector too, Sandberg said: "Gripen participates under the Make in India umbrella through transfer of technology."

Saab's Gripen was a major contender when India originally sought to acquire 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) before placing a truncated order for 36 Rafale fighters from France's Dasault Aviation.

As for India-Sweden bilateral trade that stands at around $2.5 billion, Sandberg said that it was on the upswing.

"We are issuing 20,000 Schengen visas in a year and a large number of them are business visas," he said.

A number of Indian IT, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have opened offices in Sweden and have employed a good number of local people. Among major Indian investors in Sweden are Aditya Birla Group, Wipro and Bharat Forge.

(Aroonim Bhuyan can be contacted at aroonim.b@ians.in)
New Delhi, Sep 30 : One of the members of the Indian Army team involved in surgical strikes against terrorist launch pads in Pakistan-held Kashmir received "minor injury" during exfiltration, official sources said here on Friday.

According to the sources, the video clips of alleged casualties on the Indian side being shown by the Pakistani media were "doctored".

The Indian Army killed unspecified number of terrorists and Pakistani troops during the operation across Kupwara and Poonch sectors in the early hours of September 29.

The military action followed the September 18 terror attack at an Indian Army camp at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir which left 19 soldiers dead and many others injured.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : Afghanistan on Friday backed India on the cross-LoC surgical strikes in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi was taking "bold decisions" in the fight against terrorism.

Afghanistan Ambassador to India Shaida Mohammad Abdali told the media: "The goal is that we have to end a problem that is increasingly taking our lives."

"I can see Prime Minister Modi taking bold decisions. The leadership of the region and the governments must take bold decisions and take risks in order to free ourselves for good," he said.

Abdali's remarks came a day after the Indian Army said it had carried out surgical strikes across the Line of Control on Wednesday night on terrorist launch pads.

India's move follows the September 18 terror attack on an Indian Army camp at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 19 soldiers.

"We have to fight a phenomenon that is going to inflict us in a much bigger way. If you have that in mind, that means you need to do more and use different measures," Abdali said, referring to terrorism.

Asked if Pakistan was a state sponsor of terrorism or there were elements within that country that incited terrorism, the Afghan envoy said: "There is no doubt about state sponsorship of terrorism."

"(There is) no doubt about clear use of terrorism by a state against neighbours. I am glad to see the world recognising this more than any time before."

Abdali in an interview to a news channel earlier said his country was willing to consider a joint boycott of the Saarc summit along with India and other members.

He said for years Afghanistan was among the few countries to raise the issue of state sponsorship of terrorism by Pakistan. "Now we have the world community recognising it."

Stating that India and Afghanistan alone did not discuss the issue of fighting terrorism, he said that "we discuss with all our world partners".

Abdali said the war against terrorism would not be won if it was fought in Afghanistan but it should be fought "where it originates from".

Abdali, who earlier served as Deputy National Security Advisor and Special Assistant to former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said Kabul did not make any distinction between terror groups.

"We have suffered from terrorist groups from across the border. We feel the pain in a similar way as India."

On Pakistan, he said "patience was wearing thin" and "it is high time we review our relations."

"We have tried our best to have good neighbourly relations but the goodwill has not been reciprocated," Abdali said.
Shillong, Sep 30 : A Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) militant, wanted to stand trial for several kidnappings and killings, was on Friday killed in a gunfight with the security forces in Meghalaya's East Garo Hills district, the state police said.

Acting on intelligence inputs, Swift Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) commandos of the state police ambushed a group of 15 to 20 GNLA militants.

As the commandos approached the camp, they were fired upon, a police officer said.

In retaliatory fire, one of the militants who was in the camp was shot dead.

The killed militant was wanted to stand trial in kidnappings and killings of police personnel, East Garo Hills district police chief Davies Marak said.

An INSAS rifle, a grenade besides incriminating documents were recovered from the site of the gun battle and an operation is on to nab the other militants who fled, Marak said.

The GNLA, formed in 2010, has been active in Garo Hills and named as the prime accused in various cases of kidnapping, extortion and killing of both civilians and security forces.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the Karanataka government to release 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery river water every day to Tamil Nadu for six days, starting October 1, while asking it to shun its stance of continued defiance of its order.

The apex court also directed the central government to constitute the Cauvery Management Board by October 4, and told Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry to inform the central government of their nominees by 4 p.m. on Saturday.

The court said that soon after it is set up, the CMB would visit the spot for an assessment of the ground situation and report back to it.

The bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit expressed its displeasure over the continued defiance of its last three orders by the Siddaramaiah's government in Karnataka.

The top court by its September 5, September 12, September 20 and September 27 had asked Karnataka to release water to Tamil Nadu. Except for first two orders which were partially complied with, the last two were met with total defiance.

Telling Karnataka government that it was its "last chance" to fall in line, the bench said: "We are granting this opportunity as a last chance. We are passing this order despite assembly resolution," which practically said no release of water to Tamil Nadu.

"The State of Karnataka should not be bent upon maintaining a stand of defiance, where the wrath of law fall on them," it said in its order.

Though without saying so, the court left nothing to doubt that Karnataka was inching towards troubles, Justice Mishra told senior counsel Shekhar Naphade, appearing for Tamil Nadu, that they "understand your anguish".

Naphade had told the court that: "We are not saying anything. We have been shabbily treated. There is nothing that the State of Tamil Nadu wants to place before the court. We are not saying anything."

At this Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said: "I think the court is doing its best. We must appreciate it."

At the outset of the hearing, Rohatgi apprised the court of the meeting that Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bhatrti had with Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Tamil Nadu's PWD Minister Edappadi K. Palanisamy in pursuance to the court's September 27 order to convene the meeting of the Chief Ministers to break the impasse.

He said at the end, the "the ball is back in the court" as during the meeting, Karnataka expressed its helplessness in releasing the water citing its problem of drinking water and standing crops, while Tamil Nadu stuck to its position that Karnataka had to fall in line and comply with the court's order on releasing Cauvery water.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : The Delhi High Court on Friday sought response from the Centre and Delhi government on a PIL seeking directions to increase the size of 'statutory warnings' on liquor bottles and packaging.

A division bench of Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal asked both governments to file their response by December 7.

The PIL filed by Delhi resident Ved Pal also sought direction from the government to come up with a policy and plan about the nature, size and contents of the mandatory statutory warnings on liquor bottles and packaging.

The plea, filed through advocate Anju Jain, said statutory warning of a larger size when visible shall be more effective in discouraging people from consuming alcohol.

It said the larger format would work better in preventing health-related issues and even leave a positive impact by reducing addiction and dependency on alcohol thereby positively impacting family life.

The petition stated that "the manner in which it is written is ... unreadable and ... is not prominent ... due to which the purpose of writing ... become meaningless and hence needs to be increased ... prominent to obtain and achieve the purpose".

"The warning -- Consumption of liquor is injurious to Health -- is a mere formality and there exist no set rules, prescription as to colour, size or specific directions to prominently display it to obtain the desired objective," the plea added.

It further said that a set policy/guideline regarding the same is required which needs to be urgently framed by the respondents.

It said governments cannot merely seek the sale of alcohol for the purpose of earning revenue to the exchequer at the cost of health and life of its citizens.

It said that it was the government's moral responsibility to promote and educate the citizen about the adverse effects of alcohol.

The petition also sought direction for governments to increase amount of expenditure on prohibition and welfare programmes for alcohol addicts in proportion to the revenue earned in the form of excise duty from the sale of liquor.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : The Indian public needs to be educated about the benefits of nuclear power so as to facilitate wider diffusion of this clean, non-fossil based energy, particularly in north India, the government said on Monday.

"The recent setting up of the Hall of Nuclear Power exhibition at the Pragati Maidan in Delhi, was precisely aimed to educate the public coming to the capital, about India's achievements in this area," Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh said.

Addressing a nuclear conference here organised by the India Energy Forum in partnership with companies like NPCIL, Nuvia India and Westinghouse, he lamented the poor footfall at this impressive nuclear exhibition in the national capital.

"For historical reasons the headquarters of Indian atomic energy and space programmes have not been in Delhi, but in western and southern India respectively. So, there is need to educate the public, particularly of the north, to dispel fears about this clean form of energy," Singh said.

"Whenever we tried to take up acquiring land for a nuclear plant in the north, there would be land acquisition issues. For instance, we are exploring a site in Doon Valley in Uttarakhand and protest messages have come in this regard," he added.

The government is looking at possible sites in the northern states of Uttarakhand, Punjab and Haryana for setting up new atomic power plants, he said.

"We are exploring the possibility of having such establishments in other places, for example near Dehradun in Uttarakhand and near Patiala in Punjab. We are also looking for a place in Bhiwani in Haryana," the minister said.

Haryana will have its first nuclear plant when the 1,400 MW unit being built in Gorakhpur, in Fatehabad district, for which state-run Nuclear Power Corp. of India has sought bids from domestic equipment manufacturers, comes up by 2021.

Singh earlier this week said that electricity will be available from the Haryana plant at a cost of just over Rs 6 per unit.

The tariff from the operational Russian-built Kudankulam nuclear power plant is at Rs 3.89 per unit, according to the presentation made by R. Banerjee, Director (Projects) NPCIL.

Singh also said that even though currently over 60 per cent of power generated in India is from fossil fuels, renewable energy will have a greater role in the years to come and the country will have at least 25 per cent of energy from nuclear plants within the next decade.

Former Secretary of Department of Atomic Energy Anil Kakodkar, who is Professor at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, said the target of India generating 63,000 MW power from nuclear energy is back on the agenda of the government, though a time line has not yet been set for achieving it.

In this connection, Russia has offered India a new range of reactor units -- the VVER-Toi (typical optimised, enhanced information) design -- for the third and fourth units of the Kudankulam project in Tamil Nadu being built by its atomic power corporation Rosatom.

An inter-governmental agreement between India and Russia was signed in December 2008 for setting up Kudankulam's units 3 to 6. The ground-breaking ceremony for construction of units 3 and 4 was performed earlier this year.
Geneva, Sep 30 : A WHO official on Friday urged warring factions to stop targeting Syria's depleted health care sector, and to allow the immediate and safe evacuation of the sick and wounded who are trapped in conflict areas.

"Throughout this entire conflict, we have seen regular attacks on health services. In the last few months the situation has got desperately worse," Xinhua news agency quoted Rick Brennan, Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) department of emergency risk management and humanitarian response, as saying.

"Some of the data that we have collected indicates that out of over 100 public hospitals throughout the country, only 45 per cent are fully functional," he said.

While the health situation on the ground is dire throughout the country, the official warned that the situation in Aleppo was significantly worse, especially in eastern parts of the city where fewer than 30 doctors were catering to the needs of up to 275,000 people.

"Children and other civilians are being treated on the floor, in corridors. There are not enough intensive care beds," said Brennan, who stressed that the "Geneva Conventions prohibit attacks on health care and promotes the neutrality of health services, health facilities, and health workers".

According to a new WHO report, 63 alerts on attacks carried out by air to surface missiles and barrel bombs were documented across the warn-torn country in August this year, up from 54 in July.

The attacks over these two months resulted in the deaths of at least 52 people, including nine health workers and eight children.

The WHO official called upon those responsible to stop the violence, end attacks on health care, let the sick and wounded out, while allowing much-needed humanitarian aid to reach those in need.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : A man accused in multiple dacoity cases, who fled from West Bengal Police custody earlier, was arrested here, police said on Friday.

Rahim Ali, a Kolkata resident and wanted in nearly 20 cases of dacoity and robbery, was arrested by Delhi Police near the Kalkaji Mandir Metro Station on Thursday.

Ali had escaped from the custody of Howrah police on August 26.

"With the Howrah police seeking assistance, a surveillance of Ali's mobile phone was done. On the basis of technical surveillance and local sources, Ali was nabbed," said Deputy Commissioner of Police (south east) Romil Baaniya.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : In view of intelligence inputs that some Pakistan-based terror groups may carry out attacks in various parts of the country, the central government on Friday issued a nation-wide alert and directed states to heighten vigil to foil any such attempts.

In an advisory, the Union Home Ministry conveyed to the states that additional forces should be deployed in all sensitive places, strategic installations, markets, religious places and other key areas to ensure security, an official source said here.

The centre also directed that metropolitan cities should be particularly asked to be extra vigilant.

According to sources, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat -- four states bordering Pakistan -- have been asked to be extra vigilant as there are reports that some terrorists and suicide attackers might have crossed over to India during the last one month or so, and could act now as part of their retaliation to the "surgical strikes" by the Indian Army across the Line of Control (LoC).

The directives came close on the heels of Home Minister Rajnath Singh reviewing the national security scenario with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, top officials of the Home Ministry, and the top brass of various central security organisations including the Border Security Force (BSF).

"Elements in Pakistan and terror groups may try to carry out attacks in India, including in some vulnerable installations in the metropolis, to avenge the surgical strikes that left significant casualties both among terror groups and regular Pakistan army," a source said.

The surgical strikes by the army came 10-11 days after Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists had attacked an army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir which left 19 Indian soldiers martyred.

Earlier during the day, Home Minister Singh reviewed the security situation in the country, particularly along the border with Pakistan in states like Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, and directed central security organisations to be on high alert.

"BSF and other central police organisations functioning under the Home Ministry have been put on high alert along the India-Pakistan border," an official source later said.

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) top brass have been asked to intensify security at all industrial units, airports and other locations wherever they are deployed. All BSF units deployed along the international border in Jammu, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat have been directed to step up vigil.

The BSF has been ordered to increase the number of personnel deployed at sensitive posts along the Pakistan border, the sources said.

Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and top officials of security and intelligence agencies also attended the review meeting. Rajnath Singh also held separate meetings with the chiefs of important central security forces, including National Security Guard (NSG), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and CISF.

Singh met CISF Director General O.P. Singh, NDRF Director General R.K. Pachnanda and NSG chief Sudhir Pratap Singh and discussed general preparedness.

These were routine meetings but were significant in the wake of the army's surgical strikes across the LoC, sources added.
Chandigarh, Sep 30 : Punjab remained on high alert and evacuation from villages along the international border with Pakistan continued on Friday while a number of rumours on the Pakistan Army's build-up did rounds on social media despite authorities urging people not to panic as no such situation was reported.

Punjab ministers Bikram Singh Majithia and Gulzar Singh Ranike toured areas of the border belt and listened to problems of people being evacuated.

The Indian Army, the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Border Security Force (BSF) were put on high alert in Punjab and neighbouring states to counter any escalation of the situation following the the Indian Army's surgical strike across the Line of Control (LoC) on Thursday.

Army convoys, carrying artillery guns, could be seen moving towards the border belt in Punjab on Thursday and Friday in preparation to thwart any retaliatory move from Pakistan for the LoC strike.

The IAF also has been put on high alert with forward air bases on the western front in full preparedness. The IAF bases in the region include Halwara and Adampur (both in Punjab), Ambala (in Haryana) and Hindon (near Delhi).

IAF fighter jets carried out sorties over some parts of Punjab as a preventive measure.

The international border in Punjab frontier is manned by the Border Security Force which is on maximum alert following the latest developments at the LoC.

Anxious villagers on Friday continued to move out of border villages as panic gripped the area regarding a possible retaliation by Pakistan.

People alleged mismanagement by local authorities at evacuation camps, saying that arrangements were poor or non-existent.

"We were asked to evacuate our homes on Thursday evening. There were no means to travel out and we did not know where to go. There were no arrangements in any schools as we were told," said Gurdev Singh, a villager of Rajatal area in Amritsar district's border belt.

Since most villagers are from farming families, they were worried that their standing paddy crop, which is ready, could be affected if it was not harvested on time.

"The crop is ready for harvest. We don't even know when we will return to do that," said farmer Shamsher Singh.

However, some male residents refused to move out saying that they had to tend to their cattle and animals, properties and crops.

The Punjab government, following directions from the Union Home Ministry, had on Thursday ordered evacuation of people to "safer areas" from within the 10-km belt from the 553-km border with Pakistan.

Over four lakh villagers in six border districts have been affected due to the evacuation. Many people moved out of the villages to homes of relatives and friends a little away from the border belt.

But officials in the border districts -- Fazilka, Ferozepur, Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur and Pathankot -- said that arrangements were still being made to accommodate people being evacuated.

"We got the evacuation orders on Thursday afternoon only. It takes time to make arrangements. The schools were ordered closed around that time only. We are working round-the-clock," an official in Ferozepur district told IANS.

Cots and beds were arranged and put up in government school buildings, community centres and private marriage palaces. Local gurdwaras and social organisations made arrangements to serve food and water to the evacuated people. People could be seen moving out on tractor-trolleys, trucks and private vehicles out of the border belt.

In most of the nearly 1,000 villages in the border belt which have been evacuated, there was silence on Friday. In some villages, Punjab Police personnel could be seen keeping a vigil.

The villages being evacuated as a preventive measure include 300 in Ferozepur, 290 in Gurdaspur, 137 in Amritsar, 135 in Tarn Taran, 65 in Pathankot and 60 in Fazilka.

Army convoys with artillery moved towards the border with Pakistan on Thursday.

The Punjab government has ordered all schools falling within a distance of 10 km from the border be shut down, while leave of all officials in the border belt, including police, has been cancelled.

The BSF strengthened the security along the border, while leave of troopers has also been cancelled.
Imphal, Sep 30 : An Assam Rifles officer was seriously injured when insurgents on Friday ambushed a convoy in Manipur's Ukhrul district.

Major Mandip Singh, Commanding Officer of a company of 31 Assam Rifles, was injured in the attack between Kamjong and Kongtong.

He was flown to the military hospital at Leimakhong, about 20 km away from Imphal, the state capital, informed sources said.

The insurgents used explosives and automatic rifles in the attack. The troopers retaliated, leading to heavy exchange of fire for over 30 minutes.

As additional security personnel rushed from a nearby Assam Rifles camp, the insurgents escaped.
Paris, Sep 30 : France on Friday launched a new operation against the Islamic State militant group in Iraq from its largest warship Charles de Gaulle in order to intensify strikes and retake Mosul, the group's stronghold.

At least eight Rafale fighter jets took off from the carrier in the eastern Mediterranean. But, it was not clear whether the French jets were to carry out air strikes or were on a reconnaissance mission, Xinhua news agency reported.

Vincent Desportes, general of ground forces division, said the aircraft carrier's deployment in the fight against the extremist group in Iraq was "important but it doesn't change the situation".

"This is neither the beginning of the great battle of Mosul nor the final assault against the IS. We are far from winning back Mosul because it's a city with hundreds of thousands of people which is strongly held by Daesh (the IS)," he said.

"Mosul reconquest will be difficult and will only be done by help of ground troops. It could last many weeks or months," he said.

On September 6, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said: "(French) artillery is arriving close to the front line," as "we decided to bolster our support of the Iraqi forces this autumn with the aim of recapturing Mosul."

Since 2014, Mosul has been IS stronghold.

France was one of the first European countries to join the US-led coalition against the IS. Its fighter jets have bombed the group in Iraq in 2014.

After growing terror threats, Paris decided by the end of September last year to strike the IS targets in Syria where hundreds of French nationals have been recruited and could return home to carry out attacks after being trained there.
Shillong, Sep 30 : One of the nine traders from Assam abducted by militants in Meghalaya, escaped from the militant's captivity, the police said on Friday.

A police officer said that a manhunt is still on to rescue the other eight traders, abducted by A'chik Songna An'pachakgipa Kotok (ASAK) militants on Thursday morning from Songotagre village, near Chokpot in South Garo Hills district.

Meghalaya's Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) commandos have been pressed into service to trace the hostages.

"We have intensified our operation to secure the safe release of all the traders," Meghalaya police Chief Sunil Kumar Jain told IANS.

Intelligence officials said that Reading T. Sangma, the "commander in chief" of the tribal Garo outfit, had made a ransom call of Rs 20 lakh to one of the family members for the safe release of the abducted traders.

The ASAK, whose name means "vanguard of Garoland", fighting for a separate Garoland in western part of Meghalaya, were involved in kidnappings and killings in the district.

The militant outfit was also involved in kidnapping and killing of Intelligence Bureau officer Bikash Singh last year.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : The Supreme Court on Friday ordered RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin back in jail in the Rajiv Roshan murder case as it pointed to the need for balancing consideration for individual liberty with societal interest.

Roshan, who was the sole witness to the killings of his two brothers, was allegedly killed by Shahabuddin's henchmen, including his son Osama, days before he could finally depose in the case realting to his brothers' murder.

Setting aside Patna High Court's order of September 7 to grant bail to Shahabuddin, a bench of Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Amitava Roy said: "The state (Bihar) is directed to take all consequential steps, inter alia, for taking him to custody forthwith."

It directed "the state and the concerned court to take all steps as contemplated in law to dispose of the case, as early as possible".

Referring to the cases in which the former Rashtriya Janata Dal MP has been convicted and those pending trial, the order said: "Balancing the considerations of individual liberty and societal interest, as well as the prescriptions and the perception of law regarding bail, it appears to us that the High Court has erred in granting bail" to Shahabuddin.

The apex court said the bail was granted to Shahabuddin "without taking into consideration the overall facts otherwise having a bearing on the exercise of its discretion on the issue."

Referring to the recorded allegations against Shahabuddin and the overall factual scenario and the present stage of Rajiv Roshan case, the apex court said: "We are of the view that the High Court was not justified in granting bail on the considerations recorded."

The court's order came on an appeal by the Bihar government and Rajiv Roshan's father Chandrakeshwar Prasad who had challenged the High Court order.

Shahabuddin was released on September 10 from the Bhagalpur central jail after the grant of bail.

Referring to an earlier judgment of the top court in 2012, Justice Ghose, pronouncing the order, said the apex court had held that "though the period of custody is a relevant factor, the same has to be weighed simultaneously with the totality of the circumstances and the criminal antecedents (of the accused)".

"These are to be weighed in the scale of collective cry and desire and that societal concern has to be kept in view in juxtaposition to individual liberty," the order said citing the 2012 judgement.

One of the factors that weighed with the high court in granting bail to Shahabuddin was that he was shown to be arrested in the case on November 27, 2014, whereas the trial had not commenced yet.

Shahabuddin was already in jail when he was shown as arrested in the Rajiv Roshan murder case.

A report from Patna said Shahabuddin surrendered in a court in Bihar's Siwan district soon after the Supreme Court cancelled his bail. He was taken into custody by the state police, officials said.

After surrendering in court, Shahabuddin told the media that he respected the apex court's decision.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal put off a "major revelation" he was to make on Friday in the wake of the Indian surgical strikes on terrorists in Pakistani territory.

And in a rare show of unity, the AAP-dominated assembly unanimously passed a resolution hailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian Army for targeting the terrorists across the Line of Control (LoC).

Speaking towards the end of the day's session, Kejriwal said he was putting off the promised revelation in the light of the "situation at the border".

He did briefly refer to the frequent arrests of his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs, saying they were being framed in false cases as part of a larger conspiracy.

"We wanted to present this in the assembly today. But because of the prevalent situation at the border, it is our duty to stand by the Central government," he said to thumping of desks by members.

"We can sort out our issues at a later date," Kejriwal said.

On Thursday, Kejriwal first postponed and then cancelled a press conference after the government said the army carried out surgical strikes across the LoC on Wednesday night.

Earlier, moving a resolution condemning the September 18 attack on an army camp that killed 19 soldiers, Kejriwal extended wholehearted support to the Central government for any steps it takes in the country's interest.

"We will support all the steps it takes for internal as well as external security of the nation," he said.

The original resolution hailed the Army for attacking the terrorists.

Opposition leader Vijender Gupta, while backing the resolution, moved an amendment to include Prime Minister Narendra Modi's name for taking the "landmark" decision to attack the terrorist launch pads.

Kejriwal agreed. The resolution was amended to also congratulate Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and chiefs of armed forces.

Gupta also urged Kejriwal to delete his September 27 tweet referring to an article he had shared with the comment: "Excellent article. On Uri, rather than Pak, India seems to be getting isolated internationally."

"The Chief Minister had tweeted barely three hours before the forces left for the mission. I request him to withdraw his tweet so that it doesn't have a negative impact on the morale of our forces," Gupta said.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : The National Commission for Women (NCW) on Friday said the commission will share best practices with the BPR&D for bringing about prison reforms particularly in the context of women inmates.

NCW Chairperson Lalitha Kumaramangalam also said that the Commissioner and the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) could work together to extend legal aid, rehabilitation and grievance redressal related to women prisoners.

She was delivering the valedictory address at the two-day fifth National Conference of Heads of Prisons of States and Union Territories on prison reforms here.

Stating that rehabilitation of marginalised sections is very difficult, Kumaramangalam said the NCW had developed training modules and women's participation in panchayats which can also be beneficial for authorities dealing with women inmates.

On the occasion, Director General of BPR&D Meeran Borwankar said: "Rehabilitation issues of women inmates and their minor children are critical since as many as 4.2 per cent of total prisoners in the country are women."

The conference passed 12 resolutions including changing the nomenclature of prisons to correctional administration or correctional homes, creation of probation officers vacancies and appointment of welfare officers, counsellors and law officers.

Adoption of the model prisons act, linking of prisons with courts through video conferencing and integrating prison e-system with the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and System (CCTNS) project were also the important resolutions passed in the conference.

Four such conferences were organised by the BPR&D and the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2004, 2008, 2010 and 2013.

For the first time, the superintendents of central and district jails were invited. The representatives from leading universities, NGOs, and students of law and criminology departments also attended the conference.

The delegates later visited India's largest prison complex Tihar Jail to see the best practices and systems in use there.
New York, Sep 30 : Hinduja Group Chairman P.P. Hinduja, in a meeting with Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das here, on Friday expressed interest in setting up a commercial vehicle assembly unit in the state, an official said.

"Serving up an attractive menu of 'good governance, speedy implementation, fast decision making, abundant and undisputed resources' for prospective investors, Chief Minister Raghubar Das had a series of one-to-one meetings with investors at Hotel Waldorf Astoria, on Park Avenue in New York," said an official statement here.

"The visit is part of the effort to attract potential investors and companies to participate in the Global Investors Meet in Ranchi February 16-17 this year. The summit is aimed at establishing Jharkhand as a premier investment destination for both foreign as well as domestic investors."

According to the statement, the Hinduja group representatives will visit Jharkhand in October this year to explore further on their proposal.

"I am confident that Jharkhand will see more and more investments. We have simplified the rules/procedures for investors resulting in speedy decisions," the Chief Minister said while addressing a gathering of investors at a roadshow organised by the state government in association with US India Business Council (USIBC) on September 29.

"The government has taken measures to make the system business-friendly and there is transparency in decision making."

According to the statement, during the New York stay the Chief Minister and his delegation also interacted with entrepreneurs from Clutch Group, Medtronic, Gilead Sciences, and Claudio Lilenfeld, who are looking for high growth consumer markets.

At this session, Das raised awareness about the investment opportunities in Jharkhand as a power house of India's manufacturing sector (Make in India) and priority areas like food processing, metal sector, automotive sector, film industry, textile and apparel, tourism and others, the statement added.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday reviewed issues affecting the elite ITBP force like border outposts, construction and up-gradation of helipads and additional air courier services and asked ministry officials to extend necessary assistance to the force.

In an hour-long meeting, Director General of Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) D.K. Chaudhary informed Singh about the cadre management and other issues of the force such as housing, health and education facilities.

The minister asked the Home Ministry officials to extend necessary assistance to the ITBP for the welfare of the "jawans" and their families and provide them training and better equipments.

The meeting was attended by Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, Kiren Rijiju, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Secretary (Border Management) Susheel Kumar and senior officers from ITBP and the Home Ministry.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : Full service passenger carrier Vistara airline on Friday launched operations between New Delhi and Port Blair.

"Vistara, India's fastest growing full service carrier, today inaugurated operations to Port Blair, as its flight UK 747 took off from Delhi for Port Blair via Kolkata," the airline said in a statement.

"With the addition of Port Blair to its rapidly expanding pan-India network, Vistara now serves 18 destinations across the length and breadth of the country."

The passenger carrier said the new service to Port Blair offers a daily flight from Delhi and Kolkata (same aircraft service via Kolkata), with arrival and departure timings that allow for convenient connections to ferry and catamaran services between Port Blair and Havelock Island.

"Delivering on our brand promise to provide seamless, thoughtful and personalised services, we are pleased to introduce a variety of attractively priced packages in cooperation with top travel entities to offer our customers the most convenient travel in the Andamans," said Sanjiv Kapoor, Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer of Vistara.

"While Port Blair itself offers a lot to see and do, including the historic Cellular Jail and an excursion to the neighboring Ross Island, we have also timed our flights to offer the most convenient connections to and from the most popular inter-island ferries such as to Havelock Island."

The airline said it has also announced the addition of a third daily flight between Delhi and Kolkata to meet the Durga Puja rush.

The supplementary flight will operate between September 30 and October 12, the airline added.
London, Sep 30 : Japanese car giant Nissan has threatened to scrap a potential new investment in Britains biggest car plant, unless the British government pledges to reimburse firms for the hit they could take from the country's exit from the European Union, a media report said.

Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn said Britain car-makers should get compensation for any tariffs that may be imposed after Brexit, the Independent reported.

The plant in Sunderland, which produces about a third of the Britain's all car output, is heavily dependent on exports to the single EU market.

Ghosn said: "If I need to make an investment in the next few months and I can't wait until the end of Brexit, then I have to make a deal with the British government."

"If there are tax barriers being established on cars, you have to have a commitment for car-makers who export to Europe that there is some kind of compensation," Ghosn added.

The site in Sunderland is Nissan's biggest factory in Europe. It employs almost 7,000 persons and supports a further 20,000 in the local supply chain.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) backed his warning, saying that British Prime Minister Theresa May's government should step in to maintain the competitiveness of the sector.

Mike Hawes, SMMT's Chief Executive, said: "The government must do all it can to maintain the competitiveness of the Britain automotive sector, which has been hugely successful in boosting exports, creating jobs and generating economic growth in recent years."

Ghosn's comments came only two days after Executive Director at Jaguar Land Rover Hanno Kirner said that post-Brexit trade barriers imposed on the British car industry would "frankly be disastrous" if the right deal is not reached.

If Britain failed to conclude a free trade deal with the rest of the EU and was forced to fall back on basic World Trade Organization rules, British car exporters could face tariffs of up to 10 per cent.

Some 57 per cent of the 1.6 million cars made in Britain are purchased by buyers in the rest of the EU. The next largest market is the US (12 per cent), followed by China (7 per cent).
Patna/New Delhi, Sep 30 : Former RJD MP Mohammad Shahabuddin on Friday surrendered in a court in Bihar's Siwan district after the Supreme Court cancelled his bail, ending his short-lived freedom.

Police immediately took the tainted politician into custody, exactly 20 days after he walked out of the Bhagalpur Central Jail following the grant of bail by the Patna High Court.

When he was released on September 10, he had spent 11 years in prison.

The Supreme Court ordered Shahabuddin back in jail in the Rajiv Roshan murder case, saying it was necessary to balance individual liberty with societal interest.

Roshan, the sole witness to the killing of his two brothers, was killed allegedly by Shahabuddin's henchmen, including his son Osama, days before he could depose in the brothers' murder case.

Setting aside the Patna High Court's September 7 bail order, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Amitava Roy said: "The state (Bihar) is directed to take all consequential steps ... for taking him to custody forthwith."

After surrendering in the court, Shahabuddin told journalists that he respected the apex court's decision.

But he attacked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, saying his supporters would give him an appropriate reply in the next assembly elections.

Shahabuddin, a vocal supporter of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad, said he stood by his earlier comment that Nitish Kumar "is a Chief Minister by circumstance".

When the Superintendent of Police reached his residence in Pratappur village where he was staying after his release from prison, Shahabuddin was not there.

His supporters said he had already surrendered in the court. "It surprised us," an officer said.

A RJD leader said Shahabuddin, a criminal-turned-politician, surrendered in the Siwan court without delay after the Supreme Court verdict.

"Unlike in 2003 when he surrendered in the court along with thousands of his supporters, he went alone this time and surrendered."

The apex court reserved its order on Thursday after hearing petitions by Rajiv Roshan's father Chandrakeshwar Prasad, his wife Kalawati Devi and the Bihar government seeking cancellation of Shahabuddin's bail.

Shahabuddin is the main accused in the murder of Chandrakeshwar Prasad's third son. He was convicted in the murder of his two other sons.

Senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan filed a petition on behalf of Chandrakeshwar Prasad seeking cancellation of bail on the ground that he will misuse his liberty to derail the trial against him.

It was also argued that his release posed a threat to the petitioner's life.

Referring to the cases in which Shahabuddin had been convicted and those pending trial, the Supreme Court order said: "Balancing the considerations of individual liberty and societal interest, as well as the prescriptions and the perception of law regarding bail, it appears to us that the High Court has erred in granting bail.

"We are of the view that the High Court was not justified in granting bail on the considerations recorded," the judges said.
Bengaluru, Sep 30 : Leading Indian motorcycles maker Tork Motors Ltd on Friday unveiled its premium electric bike T6X here.

"T6X has been developed ground up as a future of mobility for the smart modern urban commuter," said the Pune-based Tork in a statement here.

To be rolled out for testing and reviews by year-end, the rugged bike was designed and built over seven years of indigenous research and development, it said.

"Powered by lithium batteries, the 130kg bike is engineered to ride at 100 kmph top speed and up to 100km on a single charge," said Tork Founder Director Kapil Shelke at the preview here.

The two-wheeler's battery can be charged up to 80 per cent in one hour and full charge in two hours. Depending upon the usage, the battery life can last up to 80,000-1,00,000km.

To be introduced in Bengaluru, Delhi and Pune markets in the first phase, the bike can be pre-booked at a promotional price of Rs 124,999 excluding taxes and levies.

Handcrafted with custom-designed components, the two-wheeler features boasts of on board navigation, storage, cloud connectivity, digital display, quick charge and superior acceleration, said Tork.

"The bike connects with customer's mobile device through our app to communicate its health, range, service alerts and customised riding profiles," said Shelke.

"The bike also has safety features like ABS, CDs, anti-theft, geo fencing and daytime running lamp," he added.

Apart from analysis and compilation of data for every ride, power management, real-time power consumption and range forecasts, the product TIROS (Tork Intuitive Response Operating System) also likes to learn how you ride.

On the overall market scenario and the policy framework, Shelke said the state-run National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020 aimed to put seven million electric and hybrid vehicles on roads by 2020.

In addition, the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles scheme will provide Rs.795 crore aid to electronic vehicle markets by 2020.

The sale of electric vehicles (EV) grew nearly 38 per cent in the last financial year. Total EV sales for 2015-16 was 22,000 units (20,000 two wheelers and 2,000 four-wheelers) as against 16,000 EVs sold during 2014-15, according to Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles.
Chandigarh, Sep 30 : With schools in Punjab's border belt being shut indefinitely due to escalation of tension between India and Pakistan, state Education Minister Daljit Singh Cheema on Friday issued instructions to provide alternate education arrangements for students of border districts displaced from their native places.

Cheema said that students who have been shifted to relief camps would get the education in the nearby schools.

"Students would not be required to take formal admission and to deposit any fee in these schools. The education department would take care of all the needs of these students so that their formal education does not suffer," he said.

Cheema said that separate sections would be created in the schools where the students of evacuated families go for studies. If any students who have not shifted to relief camps but have gone to their relatives' place, they may also attend the nearby schools without any formal admission or fee depositing, the minister said.

The Punjab government on Thursday had ordered evacuation of nearly 1,000 villages within the 10-km belt of the 553-km international border that Punjab shares with Pakistan. Schools and other institutions in the border belt were also ordered closed indefinitely.

Over 400,000 people have been asked to evacuate from the border belt villages.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : A nationwide alert was issued on Friday after intelligence inputs on possible attacks by Pakistan-based terror groups in the country in retaliation to the Indian Army's surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh reviewed the security scenario with top officials of his ministry and central police organisations at a meeting attended, among others, by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi.

In an advisory to states, the Home Ministry said additional forces should be deployed in all sensitive places, strategic installations, markets, religious places and other key places to ensure security, The central government has asked the metro cities to be extra vigilant.

Sources said border states of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat have been asked to be extra vigiliant as there were reports that some terrorists might have crossed over to India during last one month and could be retaliate in view of "surgical strikes."

Rajnath Singh held separate meetings with the chiefs of central police organisations including National Security Guard (NSG), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and CISF.

Sources said the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has been asked to intensify security at all industrial units, airports and other locations. The Border Security Force has been asked to increase the number of personnel deployed at sensitive posts along Pakistan border.

The surgical strikes were carried out early Thursday on seven launch pads by the Indian Army which said it inflicted "significant casualities" on the terrorists and those who supported them.

The strikes came 11 days after the Uri terror attack on September 18, which killed 19 Indian soldiers. India has blamed Pakistan militants for the Uri attack.

Indian Army sources said on Friday that one of the soldiers involved in surgical strikes received "minor injury" during exfiltration. They said the video clips of alleged casualties on the Indian side being shown by the Pakistani media were "doctored".

The Pakistan cabinet also met on Friday amid heightened border tensions with India. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said that Islamabad wants peace in the region but "we will not allow anyone to cast an evil eye on Pakistan".

Pakistan Army chief General Raheel Sharif on Friday warned that any "misadventure" by India will be met with the "most befitting response".

Pakistan has insisted that there have been no "surgical strike" and only firing and artillery shelling between the two armies across the LOC. However, Afghanistan on Friday backed India on the surgical strikes, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi was taking "bold decisions" in the fight against terrorism.

Modi also got more domestic backing with Delhi assembly passing a resolution hailing the Army action and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi also praising him.

The government continued to take steps to meet any escalation in situation on the border with Pakistan. Around 400,000 people have been moved to safer places from border towns of Punjab.

In Islamabad, Sharif said after a meeting of his cabinet that Kashmir was an "unfinished agenda of the partition of the sub-continent" and accused India of "atrocities".

Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations also issued a statement and said Gen. Raheel Sharif had asked all commanders to lay more emphasis on combat readiness.

"Pakistan can't be coerced through any amount of malicious propaganda," he said.

He said that "highest" state of vigil was being maintained along the LoC and all along the International Border.

The Delhi assembly met for a day and passed a resolution congratulating Modi and the Indian Army for targeting terrorists across the LoC.

Rahul Gandhi addressed a rally in Bulandshahr and praised Modi for the surgical strikes.

Gandhi, a staunch critic of Modi, said the whole country and Congress was with the government.

"I want to thank him that for the first time in two-and-a-half years, he has taken action which befits the stature of PM. He has my full support," Gandhi said.
Amritsar, Sep 30 : Despite the escalation of tension between India and Pakistan, trade and bus service between both countries continued through the Attari-Wagah joint check post (JCP) on Friday.

The 'Sada-e-Sarhad' peace bus between Delhi and Lahore also plied on Friday with 15 passengers, all from Pakistan, travelled to Lahore.

The bus had its scheduled stop at the Punjab Tourism-run restaurant at Kartarpur, 15 km from Jalandhar city.

The bus is accompanied by pilot and escort police vehicles with armed security right through its 500-km journey from Delhi to Attari border.

On Friday, nearly 185 truck-loads of trade took place through the Integrated Check-post (ICP) at Attari-Wagah, said customs officials.

A total of 63 trucks from India crossed the land border route carrying vegetables, mainly tomatoes, ginger, garlic and spices, while over 120 trucks from Pakistan entered India carrying dry dates, gypsum, cement and salt.

Out of the $2.6 bn trade between India and Pakistan, out of which Indian exports are worth nearly $2.2 bn, only a small percentage of trade takes place through the Attari-Wagah land route. The rest of the trade takes place through the sea route via Dubai.

Tension between both countries escalated on Thursday after Indian Army carried out surgical strikes near the Line of Control (LoC) to neutralise terrorist launch-pads in the Pakistani-administered Kashmir.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda on Friday dubbed Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a "guiding statesman", saying the world looks up to him along with the Presidents of the United States and Russia.

"Unlike in the past, the world today looks towards Modi along with the US or Russian President as a guiding statesman," Nadda said while addressing the Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party's National Executive meeting here.

"The Prime Minister has an unflinching commitment towards social programmes of yoga, 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' and 'Swachh Bharat'," Nadda said.

The minister said the BJP is "lucky to have a clear and confident national leadership and devoted workers at the grass roots".

"The political climate is favourable for us and the 'niyat' and 'neeti' (intentions and policies) of our leadership is committed towards public welfare," the BJP leader added.

Nadda said the central government is working for the development of both rural and urban India.

"Infrastructure is being strengthened to take the fruits of development to all. While the Goods and Services Tax will better the trading atmosphere, industrial growth is seeing new heights thanks to 'Make in India' initiative of the government," he added.
Panaji, Sep 30 : Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Friday hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar for the surgical strikes at terror camps in Pakistan-held Kashmir.

"Pakistan used to hammer India and we would sit calm and quiet. For the first time, I believe, proper reply has been given, which has been enjoyed, accepted and appreciated by all citizens, irrespective of their party affiliations. Kudos to Modi-ji and Manohar Parrikar," Parsekar told reporters.

"(It was a) fantastic move... People across the country had on many occasions become frustrated because it always used to be a one-sided action," the Goa Chief Minister added.

In a swift move, Indian Army commandos slipped into PoK in the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday and destroyed several terrorist launch pads, killing an unspecified number of terrorists, who an Indian Army spokesperson said, were waiting to infiltrate into India.
Naples, Sep 30 : Anti-mafia police in southern Italy on Friday recovered two Vincent Van Gogh paintings stolen from a museum in Amsterdam in 2002 in a heist which the US Federal Bureau of Investigation ranked among the world's top ten art crimes.

Italian tax police retrieved the paintings wrapped in cloth at the home of Naples mafia or Camorra-linked drug trafficking suspect Raffaele Imperiale in Castellammare di Stabia, a pretty coastal town near Sorrento.

The two paintings, "Seascape at Scheveningen" and "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church at Nuenen" are worth an estimated $100 million and were among the 'most wanted' stolen works of art in the world. They were said to be in "relatively good condition".

Italian Premier Matteo Renzi praised Friday's operation in a tweet.

"Thanks to Italy's tax police for recovering these works by Van Gogh. I am proud of our security forces," Renzi said.

Police also seized assets worth 20 million euros from Imperiale and another Camorra-linked drug trafficking suspect Mario Cerrone in Friday's operation.

The impounded assets included a small plane, a boat and 49 apartments in the Campania region around Naples and the neighbouring Lazio region, bank accounts and a large company police said.

Imperiale, an alleged drug trafficking gang leader and Cerrone were arrested in January. They reportedly invested their proceeds in Dubai, Spain and the Isle of Man and are linked to the one of the biggest mafia clans in the Scampia area of northern Naples.

Cerrone is said to have tipped off investigators on the location of the two Van Gogh paintings.

The two paintings were stolen from The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam in a daring raid when thieves used a ladder and sledgehammers to break into the museum through the roof during the night of December 6-7, 2002.

Experts were baffled by the theft because guards had been on patrol and infra-red security systems were in place.

Neither work was insured at the time, and both were on loan to the Van Gogh museum from the Dutch government.

Van Gogh (1853-1890) is widely considered the greatest Dutch artist after Rembrandt.
Hyderabad, Sep 30 : Putting brake on demolition of unauthorised constructions in Hyderabad, the Hyderabad High Court on Friday directed the municipal authorities to issue notice to the occupiers before razing such structures.

The High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the States of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh found fault with the manner in which Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is demolishing the unauthorised structures.

The court asked GHMC to issue notice and give the occupiers three weeks' time to respond. It observed that after this period, the GHMC may take action after conveying to the owners why the structures are unauthorized and why they have to be demolished.

The court passed the orders on a series of petitions filed by the owners of unauthorised constructions, challenging the action of GHMC.

The municipal body earlier this week launched the massive drive and during last four days it razed over 600 structures.

The action came after the authorities found that several localities in the city and outskirts were inundated last week following heavy rains due to unauthorized constructions on 'nalas' or open storm water drains blocking the natural flow of rain water.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had said that 28,000 unauthorised constructions were identified. He had asked GHMC to go ahead with the demolition of all such structures without succumbing to pressure from any political party, minister, MP, MLA or any other politician.

The high court on Wednesday had stayed demolition of a couple of structures. The court had observed that while it can understand the intention behind for demolitions, the GHMC should adopt the proper method.

The court also wanted to know from the government as to what action it proposed to take against the officials who had turned a blind eye to unauthorized structures all these years.
New Delhi, Sep 30 : Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will come on a five-day visit to India on October 3, it was announced on Friday.

"At the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong will pay an official visit to India on October 3-7," the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

"Prime Minister of Singapore would be accompanied by his wife Ho Ching, key ministers and senior officials," it added.

Lee, who will hold talks with Modi, will also call on President Pranab Mukherjee while External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will call on the visiting dignitary, according to the statement.

Lee's delegation will include, among others, Minister of Trade and Industry S. Iswaran, Acting Minister of Education (High Education and Skills) and Senior Minister of State for Defence Ong Ye Kung, Senior Minister of State for Defence and Foreign Affairs Mohamed Maliki Bin Osman and Members of Parliament Denise Phua and Vikram Nair.

Lee will also visit Udaipur on October 5-6, the statement add.

Lee's visit comes following Modi's visit to Singapore in November last year after he attended the India-Asean and East Asia summits in Kuala Lumpur.
Beijing, Sep 30 : Urging India and Pakistan once again to exercise restraint, China on Friday maintained that New Delhi and Islamabad can "properly settle disputes through dialogue and consultation to cool down the situation", an official here said.

"We call on the two sides to exercise restraint and avoid further escalating tensions," a foreign office statement said, adding that it hopes that the two sides can properly settle disputes through dialogue.

Voicing its concern, the Chinese foreign ministry said that as a neighbour and friend to both India and Pakistan, "we are concerned about the tension and rivalry between them. Beijing has been in touch with both sides, and we will continue our efforts to promote peace talks".

Tensions between India and Pakistan have become strained after New Delhi on Thursday announced that it had launched surgical strikes at terror launch pads across the Line of Control.

Islamabad, however, denied that any Indian strike had taken place on its soil.

The Indian strikes followed the September 18 terrorist attack at an army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir in which 19 soldiers were killed.
Reuters

In a response to a Twitter user asking about the layoffs, Musk tweeted: "This is false." The New York Times reported on Saturday that Musk has ordered job cuts across the company, with some teams to be trimmed more than others and that layoffs would take place before Nov. 1 date, when employees were scheduled to receive stock grants as part of their compensation. According to media reports on Saturday, Musk fired top executives in an effort to avoid hefty severance payouts, while lining up other layoffs as soon as Saturday.
Scott Jacobsen, NorthStar Bank

The Board of Directors of NorthStar Bank selected Scott Jacobsen as the organizations new President and Chief Executive Officer. Jacobsen will replace David Stone who, following a successful two-and-a-half-year stint at the Bank, will return to retirement.

Stone will continue to serve on the bank's Board of Directors. Rob Shaw will transition to the role of Chief Operating Officer. The changes take effect on October 11.

David is a banking guru and has been a dear friend for several decades. I am thankful that he came out of retirement to lead NorthStar, said Jim Cantonis, NorthStar's Chairman.

Scott is part of the leadership team that David built, added Cantonis. He will lead a smooth transition while guiding us to our next stage of growth.

During Stones leadership, NorthStar has experienced a significant growth in loans and core deposits by growing its core local customer base. The Bank also opened a flagship office in South Tampa, built a new management team, and maintained a strong credit quality with a Five Star rating from BauerFinancial.

I am personally grateful to David for his mentorship, counsel, and friendship over the years, said Scott Jacobsen. Davids 50-plus years of experience in banking have been a tremendous resource to me and the entire team. His continued involvement as a Board Member will be a huge asset.

Jacobsen's banking career spans 30 years and includes many of Tampa Bay and Florida's leading financial institutions. These have included Merrill Lynch, Bank of Tampa, Barnett Bank and AmSouth Bank. He holds a BA degree from Dickinson College and is a graduate of the Stonier ABA Graduate School of Banking.

I look forward to watching the Bank grow under Scott's leadership, said David Stone. I have confidence that he and his team will make the Bank even stronger as they guide us into the future.

Rob Shaw has more than 19 years of experience working with major banks in Tampa Bay. He holds an MBA degree from the University of Phoenix and attended the United States Military Academy at West Point where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics. He is also a graduate of the ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking.

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NorthStar Bank, opened in 2007, is an independent community bank headquartered in Tampa, Florida with assets exceeding $200 million. NorthStar Bank provides the highest level of personal and commercial banking services by doing the unexpected to deliver unparalleled service quality and product value. NorthStar Bank is the true alternative to mega-regional banks for anyone looking for cutting edge technology from a strong, stable community bank. NorthStar Bank is rated Five-Stars by BauerFinancial (http://www.bauerfinancial.com), the nations leading independent bank rating and research firm. For clients looking to Bank Up, NorthStar is the clear choice. Member FDIC.
A cruise vacation in Fiji can include a wide range of water sports and cultural experiences. Flights arrive early in the morning, allowing passengers to embark the same day for their cruise vacation, and depart Fiji in the late evening...

Goway Travel is inviting passengers to save when booking early for their Fiji cruise vacation.

Goway has seen growth throughout 2016 in the number of passengers embarking on boutique cruises in Fiji, with the most popular itinerary being an 8-day journey through the stunning Yasawa Islands. The cruise is one of numerous programs ranging from four to eight days that Goway offers in partnership with Blue Lagoon Cruises and Captain Cook Cruises.

There are 332 islands in Fiji and cruising is one of the best ways to explore them, says Bronwyn Hodge Goways Islands General Manager. Passengers will experience amazing landscapes and uninhabited remote islands. The cruises also include numerous shore excursions to local villages and schools. Meeting the friendly, smiling children or partaking in a traditional Kava ceremony, these cruises immerse travellers in Fijian culture. Theres also usually time spent relaxing at a private beach, plus snorkeling and options for divers.

Blue Lagoon Cruises offer adults-only cruises (with select family departures), accommodating a maximum of 68 passengers, with a 100% Fijian Crew. Captain Cook Cruises caters to a maximum of 130 passengers over three accommodation levels. Their Reef Endeavor ships have popular 4-day to 8-day itineraries as well as a unique 12-day Lau & Kadavu Discovery program, which sails to very remote islands.

Fiji Airways flight schedule from North America is perfectly matched to cruise departures and returns. Flights arrive early in the morning, allowing passengers to embark the same day for their cruise vacation, and depart Fiji in the late evening, leaving time for transfers, some relaxation, or even the odd travel delay.

Goway currently has an early booking offer for Blue Lagoon Cruises. Clients who book and pay in full six months in advance receive a saving of 25% on all Blue Lagoon Cruises itineraries (based on travel 3 Feb-31 Mar 17). For Captain Cook, passengers who book 30-days in advance will save 20%.

Travellers who book the 8-day Escape to Paradise Cruise and travel before 31 March 2017 will receive two free nights at Sofitel Fiji Resort & Spa, perfect for a pre or post cruise extension. Cruises can easily be combined with one of Goways many island resort packages, which include 7 nights at a range of resorts, and roundtrip airfare from North America flying Fiji Airways.

Since 1970, Goway has been providing unforgettable travel experiences to Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, polar and idyllic island destinations, Europe and South America. Today Goway is recognized as one of North America's leading travel companies for individuals, families and groups to select exotic destinations around the globe. Goway has offices in Los Angeles, Vancouver, Toronto, Manila, and Sydney (Australia).

For reservations and information, visit http://www.goway.com, or call 1-800-387-8850.
A Breastfeeding-Friendly Approach To Postpartum Depression by Kathleen Kendall-Tackett Depression is the most common complication of childbirth and results in adverse health outcomes for both mother and child. It is vital that health professionals be ready to help women who have depression, anxiety, or posttraumatic stress disorder.

October is nationally recognized as Depression Awareness Month. Promoting excellence in women's health is the central mission of Praeclarus Press. In providing books, webinars and more with current research, Praeclarus Press serves to educate, inform and create awareness. On October 6th join those in need of support for a nationwide Depression Screening Day. To recognize this, Praeclarus Press offers a new downloadable white paper, Postpartum Depression at a Glance. This 2-page handout summarizes everything clinicians need to know about depression in new mothers including two short screening scales and a list of treatment options.

Many of the titles in the Praeclarus Press library focus on women's health as it relates to motherhood, birth, and breastfeeding. One of the most important topics for women of childbearing age is postpartum depression. Editor-in-Chief and founder of the press, Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, is a leading health psychologist and researcher in the field of Maternal-Infant health with an extensive academic background making her a leading voice in the the field. Dr. Kendall-Tackett is at the forefront of emerging discussions relating the intersection of maternal health and childbirth, breastfeeding, postpartum depression, and trauma. Praeclarus Press is dedicated to raising awareness for women's mental health and families affected by depression. Now available is the third edition of Depression in New Mothers by Dr. Kendall-Tackett. Additionally, the handout Depression Screening at a Glance, also by Dr. Kendall-Tackett can be downloaded here.

Please visit the webstore to learn more about our books on depression: A Breastfeeding-Friendly Approach to Postpartum Depression by Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, PhD, IBCLC, FAPA; Perfect Mothers Get Depressed by Kimberly D. Thompson, PhD; Transformed by Postpartum Depression by Walker Karraa, PhD. Other books that address depression include: A Mother's Climb Out of Darkness by Jennifer Hentz Moyer; The Virtual Breastfeeding Culture by Lara Audelo; Somebody Stole My Iron by Vicki Tapia.

Praeclarus Press is a small press founded by Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, Ph.D., IBCLC, FAPA and specializes in womens health. It features books, webinars, and products that support women's health throughout their lifespan. Based in Amarillo, Texas, the mission of Praeclarus Press is to produce materials that change womens lives.
ThinkTime has the most advanced Retail Task Management platform on the market today - Steve Levy, President of ThinkTime

Doug Spiron, a seasoned retail industry leader who served a succession of influential roles at companies including Sears and Home Depot, has been named Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for ThinkTime. Our company is growing, both in terms of product and customer base, says ThinkTime President Steve Levy. Its time for our leadership team to grow as well.

Spiron joined the company in early 2016 as a sales executive, and quickly immersed himself in ThinkTimes Retail Task Management. Ive always been interested in systematizing operational problems, he says. How do I report on the data better, how do I use systems to make the process better? ThinkTime is designed to do just that.

Spirons experience using technology to improve day-to-day operations had an immediate impact at ThinkTime. Doug is unique because he has an incredibly rich retail background and has used technology every step of the way, says Levy. He understands how features like repeat tasks and employee verification can move the needle for our clients.

With more than 30 years of experience, Spiron brings an intimate knowledge of the challenges retailers face to his new role with ThinkTime. The reality is, people get stuck in doing things a certain way, Spiron says. Theyre stuck with multiple systems and multiple processes that they are very tied to. The challenge for me is helping them see past that, to what they could achieve if they adopted a comprehensive system like ThinkTime.

To unlock that potential, you need great listening and observation skills. We will be continuously engaged with our customers, timing new product releases to their needs.

In his new role, Spiron will oversee the development of a marketing strategy that evolves with ThinkTimes dynamic software. Sales efforts will include bringing ThinkTimes multilingual capacity to the global marketplace. Every retailer is completely different, Spiron says. Its not good enough to have an off-the-shelf solution. ThinkTime is adaptable to everybodys unique way of doing business. Well get to know you and then well optimize the system to help you optimize your business.

Levy agrees. ThinkTime has the most advanced Retail Task Management platform on the market today. Doug understands the potential our tools have to improve store performance for every retailer.

ThinkTime will participate in this years NextPoint conference in Phoenix, AZ, but Spiron is clear theres no need to wait. Dont wait; we want to talk to you today so we can get to know your business right away. Request a demo at http://www.thinktime.com/demo

About ThinkTime

ThinkTime is a major disruptor in the Retail Task Management, communications and support space. ThinkTime provides retailers with a web and mobile platform to clearly articulate priorities, key communications and tasks to associates while allowing those same associates to seek clarity, support and help. ThinkTime bridges the gap between what needs to get done and what actually does. We provide visibility to status and data that helps retailers move faster and optimize their ROI on tasking hours. Learn more at http://www.thinktime.com or call 877.844.4462

About Productive Edge

Productive Edge, ThinkTimes parent company, provides custom software solutions for some of Americas largest and most well-known companies, delivering Intranet Communications with KPI and social components. Productive Edge has been included on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies in America in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Learn more at http://www.productiveedge.com
We are honored to be a part of the forum because MB strives to help business owners grow and become more competitive in the global marketplace. -- Chantal Wittman, V.P. International Trade Sales, International Banking Division, with MB Financial Bank

While known export revenue of small- and medium-sized enterprises in the United States rose to $479,376 billion in 2014, SMEs were only responsible for 34 percent of goods exports in 2014. Exporting helps businesses compete globally, reach higher levels of profitability, and supports jobs. Global TradeSource, Ltd. invites startups, entrepreneurs and small business owners to learn how to achieve global success at its 2nd Annual Global Small Business Forum with the theme Make the World Your Business at 70 West Madison Street in the heart of downtown Chicago on Friday, Oct. 21, 2016.

The Global Small Business Forum will inspire attendees to make the world their business. Event attendees will gain the knowledge and insights they need to set strategy, market, sell, get paid, and fulfill orders internationally by taking full advantage of the Internet and the opportunities it creates. Attendees will be able to boost their revenues and profitability by learning how to expand beyond borders.

Exporting is not a choice, it is an imperative. An export-or-die mentality is required by those individuals and business owners who dont want to be beaten by their competitorsboth local and globalin the world marketplace, says Laurel Delaney, founder, GSBB Media, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Global TradeSource, Ltd. This forum will help entrepreneurs and small business owners choose exporting as a growth avenue for their business.

The daylong forum will encourage participants to share challenges, strategies and experience with other successful exporters from all over the world, as well as learn from interactive panel discussions and keynote speakers, including:



Richard Paullin, Executive Director, International Trade Association of Greater Chicago; Chairman, IL District Export Council

Kati Suominen, Founder and CEO, Nextrade Group, LLC

Marc Schulman, President, Elis Cheesecake Company

Mary Safie, President and Chief Executive Officer, Safie Specialty Foods Company

Chantal Wittman Meier, V.P., International Trade Sales, MB Financial Bank

Peter Darley, Owner, VP & COO, W.S. Darley

Mike Howard, Managing Director for the Central Region of the Business Development Division of the Export-Import Bank

Frank Gogliotti, Project Engineer, Weldy-Lamont

Susan Meyer, Counsel for Nixon Peabody LLP

Philip Pittsford, Chair, National District Export Council

Dennis Foldenauer, Regional Manager, IL and WI, International Trade Finance Specialist U.S. SBA, International Trade, U.S. Export Assistance Center

Constantine Grapsas, CEO and Founder of Automated Industrial Machinery, Inc.

Participants will also have a chance to network, get to know their peers and make new connections.

The 2nd Annual Global Small Business Forum 2016 will have business owners  the makers, movers, and shakers on this planet who want to make the world their business  cover such topics as:

Taking sexy, hot pickled foods to a global market

Leading, sustaining, and getting paid on complex international projects

Creating B2C and B2B business opportunities through the global mobile revolution

Tapping into TPP, TTIP, TISA, Brexit and CETA for global growth

Developing an export plan

Connecting with agents and distributors to expand into new overseas markets

Were proud to support local business owners to help them learn the ropes to expanding their businesses globally, says forum Event sponsor Linda Bi, president of Chicago Expert Importers. The 2nd Annual Global Small Business Forum provides startups, entrepreneurs and small business owners with the information they need to take their business to the next level of growth by exports.

Adds Chantal Wittman, V.P. International Trade Sales, International Banking Division, with MB Financial Bank and also Event sponsor to the Forum: We are honored to be a part of the forum because MB strives to help business owners grow and become more competitive in the global marketplace.

The forum will be held Friday, Oct. 21, 2016, at 700 West Madison Street, Chicago, IL 60602. To register, visit: http://www.globalsmallbusinessforum.com. Registration is limited and will sell out quickly.

When:

Friday, Oct. 21, 2016

7:30 a.m.  4:30 p.m. Central Time

Breakfast, lunch and a copy of export expert Laurel Delaneys 2nd edition Exporting: The Definitive Guide to Selling Abroad Profitably book (endorsed by Good to Great author Jim Collins) are included in the registration fee.

Where:

70 West Madison Street

4th Floor, Chicago, Illinois 60602

The event fee is $125 until October 19, 2016. Student fee is $75. Vendor tables are already sold out. Registration is required. Register at: http://www.globalsmallbusinessforum.com

About GSBB Media LLC

GSBB Media LLC is the publisher of the award-winning Global Small Business Blog, ranked No. 1 in the world for helping entrepreneurs and small businesses expand their businesses internationally. GSBB Media LLC provides quality global business content addressing the specific needs, strengths and challenges of business owners worldwide and empowers them to reach their full potential in the global marketplace. Expert content, news and networking events provide startups, entrepreneurs and business owners with resources to support their global endeavors. GSBB Media LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Global TradeSource, Ltd., a Chicago-based global marketing and management consulting company established in 1985. GSBB Media LLC seeks to help startups, entrepreneurs and small business owners flourish in the global marketplace. Visit: http://www.globalsmallbusinessblog.com.

About Chicago Expert Importers (CEI)

CEI is an importer, warehouse, and global distribution company that specializes in sourcing products from China, warehousing products for just-in-time delivery and shipping goods globally. For more information, call 630-761-9816, email sales(at)ceimporters(dot)com or visit: http://www.ceimporters.com

About MB Financial

MB Financial Bank, N.A. is a commercial bank with approximately $19 billion in assets and a more than one hundred year history of building deep and lasting relationships with middle-market companies and individuals. MB Financial Bank offers a full range of powerful financial solutions and the expertise and experience of bankers who are focused on their clients success. For more information, call 847-653-0301, email internationalbanking(at)mbfinancial(dot)com or visit: http://www.mbfinancial.com
In this year of unprecedented anger towards Latinos, I have the privilege and ability to break outdated stereotypes by highlighting the achievements of Latinas today, said Moreno.

The nations 35 million Latinas now have new voice. Latina Media Ventures today announced that Emmy-nominated host and former Womans Day and In Style editor, Robyn Moreno, has been promoted from Executive Editor to Editorial Director of Latina Media Ventures. Effective immediately, Moreno will oversee all editorial for Latina magazine and Latina.com as well as all content for the franchises social, digital and video channels.

My first job after graduating college was at Latina, said Moreno. So to be in charge of shaping the direction and image of Latinas everywhere as the magazine celebrates its 20th anniversary is a tremendous honor.

Latina was the first in its space and remains the largest magazine aimed at celebrating and inspiring acculturated Latinas. In her new role, Moreno plans to place more of an editorial focus on reshaping the narratives of Latinas by including more stories and in-depth features that highlight areas in which Latinas are thriving, such as the growing number of entrepreneurs, their role on environment issues, and their positive strides in education among other topics.

In this year of unprecedented anger towards Latinos, I have the privilege and ability to help break outdated stereotypes by highlighting the achievements of Latinas today, said Moreno. I take an inordinate amount of pride and responsibility in celebrating and shaping the narratives of Latinas everywhere.

As a former Emmy-nominated TV host, Moreno will also oversee a new beauty web series, Beauty Our Way, and will help Latina and Latina.com populate its wellness and leadership content. And, in addition to annual events like the Hollywood Hot List party, Moreno will also help shepherd new events like the Latina Leadership Summit.

Over the past decade, Robyn has been nominated for an Emmy as the host and producer of the lifestyle show Plum Daily Hamptons and has contributed editorial that has appeared in Elle, InStyle, Glamour, Cosmo for Latinas, Latina, Womans Day & Womans Day Latina, Manhattan, Beach, USA TODAY, The New York Daily News, Redbook.com, Jetsetter.com, Aloha.com, SheKnows.com, TheLatinKitchen.com, and About.com.

She has become one of the most sought-after lifestyle experts in the country based on her belief that personal style, along with beauty and joy, can be achieved easily in all areas of life, regardless of budget. This philosophy prompted her to publish a weekly newsletter and blog, Pockets of Pretty, at RobynMoreno.com and write a bestselling Amazon book, Practically Posh: The Smart Girls Guide to a Glam Life (HarperCollins).

She appears regularly on The Today Show, Extra, The Meredith Vieira Show, The Steve Harvey Show, and Fox & Friends discussing chic DIY projects and offering her stylish-yet-affordable tips.

Robyn is a native Texan and proud Latina of Mexican-American decent. She currently resides in Cold Spring, New York with her two daughters and husband. You can catch her speaking at the Omega Institute Women & Power 2015 conference leading a workshop titled The Guru is You: Learn How to Trust Your Inner Voice.

Her new book, Hecho By You: Make a Life You Love From The Inside Out will be published in winter 2016.

###

About Latina Media Ventures:

Latina Media Ventures is a leading integrated media company for American Latinas. For close to two decades, the Latina brand has continuously provided unique, in-depth, culturally relevant and engaging content to the bicultural Hispanic woman across a variety of platforms including: Latina magazine, latina.com and TheLatinKitchen.com. With a total monthly audience of over 5 million, and reaching one out of every three acculturated Latinas across the United States, the Latina brand is the largest brand by and for Latina women.

[EDITORS NOTE: Robyn Morenos bio, headshot and links to past television segments are available by contacting Christina Duffney at Christina(at)RobynMoreno(dot)com or (917) 841-6178.]

MEDIA CONTACT:

Christina Duffney

Christina(at)RobynMoreno(dot)com

(917) 841-6178
The new standard provides detailed guidance as to the systems companies should have in place to prevent bribery."

The Center for Responsible Enterprise And Trade (CREATe.org) today releases an eBook, Top 10 Takeaways of the ISO 37001 Anti-Bribery Management Systems Standard.

CREATe.orgs eBook provides insight into the soon-to-be-launched International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) guidance that addresses bribery through a detailed, auditable framework for organizations to use to develop or benchmark an effective anti-bribery program.

The new standard is significant on several fronts. It provides detailed guidance as to the systems companies should have in place to prevent bribery. It is written in understandable business language and also reflects input from a diverse range of companies, roles and geographies, stated CREATes Leslie Benton, a member of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group to the ISO committee developing the standard.

The eBook provides an overview of the key elements of ISO 37001, the certification process and what differentiates ISO 37001 from other guidance. The standard is scheduled to be published by ISO in mid-October.

The eBook is available on CREATes.org along with other resources related to anti-corruption including the whitepaper: Why Anti-Corruption Programs Fail: Turning Policies into Practices; Addressing Corruption Risk Through Enterprise Risk Management (2014); an overview of international Anti-Corruption Guidelines; and a preview of the Guide to Improving your Anti-Corruption Program, a comprehensive reference for companies participating in CREATe Leading Practices for Anti-Corruption service.

For more information, please email info(at)CREATe(dot)org.

Please visit https://create.org/resources/ to download the eBook.

About CREATe.org

Founded in October 2011, the Center for Responsible Enterprise And Trade (CREATe.org) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) helping companies prevent corruption and protect intellectual property and trade secrets from cyber and other threats.

Our mission is to make leading practices in IP and trade secret protection and anti-corruption achievable for all companies. To achieve this mission, we have developed CREATe Leading Practices for IP Protection, CREATe Leading Practices for Trade Secret Protection and CREATe Leading Practices for Anti-Corruption. These services are based on best practices drawn from multinational companies, academics, international and business organizations.

Building on decades of work across the business community on quality assurance, health and safety and other issues, CREATe takes a management systems approach to helping companies implement the internal business processes they need to effectively protect intellectual property (including trade secrets) and prevent corruption.

Companies around the world are using CREATe Leading Practices to benchmark and improve systems for the protection of IP and trade secrets, and also for anti-corruption. CREATe Leading Practices for Anti-Corruption is available in a variety of languages including Chinese, Japanese, English, Portuguese and Spanish.

For information about CREATe.org, email: info(at)CREATe(dot)org. Please follow us on Twitter @CREATe_org or connect with us on LinkedIn.

# # #

Media Contact:

Anne Walker

Director of Marketing and Communications

awalker(at)CREATe(dot)org
The Learning In Practice Awards are a benchmark for enterprise learning and development

Chief Learning Officer magazine, a publication of Human Capital Media, announced the winners of the 13th annual Learning In Practice Awards last night at a special dinner at the CLO Symposium Plus conference in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The Learning in Practice Awards recognize industry leaders who have demonstrated excellence in the design and delivery of workforce learning and development programs. Awards were given to practitioners and providers in 16 categories, including CLO of the Year, the industrys top honor.

The Learning In Practice Awards are a benchmark for enterprise learning and development, said Mike Prokopeak, vice president and editor in chief at Human Capital Media. This years group of winners is no exception. From Fortune 500 CLOs to learning leaders at midsized businesses as well as progressive vendor companies, they are all leading examples of the powerful personal and organizational impact that learning creates.

The full list of winners is available at the Chief Learning Officer website. Winners will also be featured in the November/December issue of the magazine.

To learn more about the Learning In Practice Awards, visit clomedia.com/learning-in-practice.

###

About Human Capital Media (HCM)

Through editorial content, events, research and awards programs, HCM is the leading voice for companies that care about their people. HCM is a publishing group dedicated to providing organizations with the tools and insights necessary for success. Brands include Chief Learning Officer, Workforce and Talent Economy. For more information, visit humancapitalmedia.com.

Media Contact:

Taylar Ramsey

3Points Communications

312.725.7952

taylar(at)3ptscomm(dot)com
The ImproveCareNow Network has improved outcomes for nearly 25,000 patients across 90 participating care centers.

Today the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University announced that the ImproveCareNow Network is the winner of the 2016 Drucker Prize.

The ImproveCareNow Network has transformed health and care by enabling patients, families, clinicians and researchers to collaboratively improve knowledge and outcomes related to Crohns disease and ulcerative colitis. It engages these stakeholders in a learning health network that provides real-time quality improvement, research and community-building for children with these conditions.

The Drucker Prize judges were particularly impressed that the ImproveCareNow Network has developed a high-performance, beneficiary-centered program. The judges also recognized the organizations impressive results, patient focus and future promise to further leverage the discipline of innovation.

It is humbling to be recognized by the Drucker Institute from among a remarkable group of finalists. ImproveCareNows accomplishments are the result of hundreds of patients, families, clinicians and researchers working together with an unrelenting focus on continuously improving outcomes, said Richard B. Colletti, MD, ImproveCareNow Executive Network Director, and pediatric gastroenterologist at the University of Vermont Children's Hospital.

Zach First, Executive Director of the Drucker Institute said, The ImproveCareNow Network has improved outcomes for nearly 25,000 patients across 90 participating care centers. Among its impressive innovations is the way it has effectively combined the creative energies and expertise of so many who were previously unconnected with each other.

Peter Drucker identified a Change in Perception as one of the greatest, and most often overlooked, opportunities for innovation, added First. The ImproveCareNow Network exploited this masterfully, by reframing health care from a product delivered to patients to an activity that patients, care providers and researchers co-produce together. The ImproveCareNow Network has demonstrated robust results and a rigorous commitment to continuous improvement. We are delighted to recognize them as the winner of the 2016 Drucker Prize.

The Drucker Institutes application process fostered valuable learning for our organization, said Peter A. Margolis, MD, PhD, ImproveCareNow Executive Scientific Director, and Co-Director of the James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence at Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center. It caused us to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of our current system. And we have already begun applying some of what we learned. Cincinnati Childrens is a strategic and supportive partner of the ImproveCareNow Network.

The Drucker Prize application was itself a way for nonprofits to learn about Peter Druckers key innovation principles. A survey of those who completed the 2016 application found that 92% said that doing so would prompt them to explore additional opportunities for innovation. And, most significantly, 97% of the 50 semifinalists said the learning-centric second round of the process would help their organizations more effectively innovate.

All of the ideas and tools for effectiveness created for The Drucker Prize application process are now available for free on the Drucker Prize learning platform. It features the timeless wisdom of Peter Drucker, videos showcasing insights from some of todays top thinkers on management and leadership, and other practical resources.

In addition to First, the judges for the 2016 Drucker Prize included Stephan Chambers, Director of The Marshall Institute for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship at the London School of Economics; Sumita Dutta, Managing Director at Golden Seeds; Thomas Horan, Henry Y. Hwang Dean of the Drucker-Ito School of Management; Geneva Johnson, former President and CEO of Family Service America and Families International; Virginia Kelly Judd, Executive Director of Humana Foundation; Kevin McCoy, President of National Office Furniture; C. William Pollard, Chairman Emeritus of ServiceMaster Co. and an emeritus member of the Drucker Institutes Board of Advisors; Theresa Reno-Weber, Chief of Performance and Technology at Louisville Metro Government and a member of the Drucker Institutes Board of Advisors; David Styers, Manager of Program and Business Development at the Presidio Institute; and Jocelyn Wyatt, Co-Lead and Executive Director at IDEO.org.

Administered annually since 1991, The Drucker Prize, formerly known as the Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation, is given to a social-sector organization that demonstrates Druckers definition of innovationchange that creates a new dimension of performance. The judges look for programs that demonstrate a strong mix of current effectiveness and future promise.

About the Drucker Institute

The Drucker Institute is a social enterprise based at Claremont Graduate University. Our mission is strengthening organizations to strengthen society. Our programmingfor the corporate, nonprofit and public sectorsis built on a foundation of YESTERDAY/TODAY/MONDAY*. Yesterday refers to the fact that our work is grounded in Peter Drucker's timeless wisdom. Today speaks to the urgency that we know organizational leaders feel to successfully meet their greatest challenges and opportunities. And Monday points to our proven ability to help executives move quickly from ideas to action to results, just as Drucker urged his own consulting clients: Don't tell me you had a wonderful meeting with me. Tell me what you're going to do on Monday that's different. For more, visit drucker.institute.

About Claremont Graduate University

Founded in 1925, Claremont Graduate University is the graduate university of the Claremont Colleges. Our five academic schools conduct leading-edge research and award masters and doctoral degrees in 24 disciplines. Because the worlds problems are not simple nor easily defined, diverse faculty and students research and study across the traditional discipline boundaries to create new and practical solutions for the major problems plaguing our world. A Southern California based graduate school devoted entirely to graduate research and study, CGU boasts a low student-to-faculty ratio.
Gregory G. Brown named Best Lawyers in America It is an honor to receive this important peer recognition from The Best Lawyers in America, said Gregory G. Brown. Since the firm was founded in 2002, our firm has been committed to providing the highest quality legal services to all of our clients.

Brown & Charbonneau, LLP congratulates top rated business attorney Gregory G. Brown who has been selected for inclusion on The Best Lawyers in America 2017 list  an annual list universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. The annual Best Lawyers list has been published since 1983 and, for the last 6 years, has been published in the U.S. News & World Report.

Mr. Brown is a top rated business attorney. It is an honor to receive this important peer recognition from The Best Lawyers in America, said Gregory G. Brown. Since the firm was founded in 2002, our firm has been committed to providing the highest quality legal services to all of our clients. We look at this recognition as a reminder of this founding commitment. To hear from Mr. Brown, click here.

Since it was first published in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Best Lawyers lists are compiled based on an exhaustive peer-review evaluation. For the 2017 edition, more than 83,000 leading attorneys globally were eligible to vote, and 7.3 million votes were analyzed. Lawyers are not allowed to pay a fee to be listed; therefore inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. To learn more about Best Lawyers, click here.

Gregory G. Brown is a State Board Certified Trial Specialist, who focuses on business, commercial and related litigation and trials. He is well respected in the community and has been referred to as the go to trial attorney, especially when the entire company is on the line! Mr. Brown practices in Irvine, CA and has tried fraud, contract, shareholder, breach of fiduciary duty and many other disputes in courtrooms throughout California. The Best Lawyers recognition adds to an already impressive list of awards, ratings and prominent recognitions. These include, the highest possible AV Rating by Martindale-Hubbel, Super Lawyers top 5%, American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), AVVOs highest rating of Superb 10/10, Lead Counsel rated, Top 100 Trial Lawyers, Attorney of the Year and many others.

Brown & Charbonneau, LLP is an Irvine, California business and family law firm providing full-service legal representation to individuals and businesses throughout Orange County and Southern California. This highly regarded firm is unique because they offer clients knowledge, experience and results, with personalized one-on-one attention. They handle business and corporate matters, fraud and breach of fiduciary duty claims, contract, shareholder and partnership disputes, and divorce, custody and support matters. For more information, visit http://www.bc-llp.com

With more than 75 years of collective experience, Brown & Charbonneau, LLP attorneys provide the comprehensive, effective and practical advocacy that you are looking for. Their focus is on preventing and solving legal problems, protecting your rights and exploring options that save you money and help you achieve the best legal outcome possible. If the only option is trial, their Certified Trial Specialists will help you present the most compelling and persuasive case in court.

Brown & Charbonneau, LLP's award-winning attorneys are available for meetings on evenings and weekends to fit your schedule. Call us today at 714.505.3000 / toll free at 866.237.8129.
PolyU President Tong (left) received a souvenir from RUPP. I am confident that with our concerted efforts, the two universities will join forces to create a vibrant and fruitful learning environment, and nurture students to become better global citizens.

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) signed Memorandums of Understanding and Agreement on educational and research collaboration with The Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), the national university of Cambodia, on 19 September 2016 (Monday) at the signing ceremony in Cambodia.

The agreements signify a broader and deeper collaboration between the universities in the areas of Service-Learning (SL), exchange of students and staff, development of innovative academic programmes and research.

PolyU has been in strong ties with Cambodia since 2010 with a group of 20 students undertaking SL projects there. This summer, the number leaped to about 150 students and staff members. Among the successful SL projects, one of which was in collaboration with RUPP. PolyU and RUPP have mutually agreed to jointly establish a Global Service-Learning and Leadership Hub in Cambodia, signifying the beginning of a new phase of SL.

Under the agreement, a Global Service-Learning and Leadership Summer School will be set up, targeting committed student leaders from PolyU, RUPP, as well as higher education institutions of other countries. The one-month summer school programme, featuring a wide range of educational activities, will serve as an intellectually rich, diverse and dynamic platform where students from different parts of the world will learn and research on issues together and enhance their leadership abilities through SL. Combined with other initiatives including Global Staff Attachment Programme and international symposium, the hub will scale new heights in global service-learning and leadership education.

These initiatives are in line with PolyUs plan to deepen and broaden the impact of SL in three directions, namely integrating SL with leadership education; conducting research on SL pedagogy; and strengthening the internationalization of SL. In the case of Cambodia, PolyU is making a positive impact on the local community in terms of enhancing peoples livelihoods and well-being, improving living environment in local areas, and promoting good governance through ongoing SL projects. Those projects are of great variety, ranging from providing hospitality management and operation training, enhancing language literacy, designing and installing zero-carbon, solar-powered learning centres, to offering basic physical assessment and health education.

PolyU President Professor Timothy W. Tong remarked at the ceremony, I am confident that with our concerted efforts, the two universities will join forces to create a vibrant and fruitful learning environment, and nurture students to become better global citizens. We look forward to working closely with our RUPP counterparts in the years to come.

Dr Chealy Chet, Rector of RUPP said that the universities had been working closely previously, and the MoU was a further step to strengthen their collaboration, specifically on summer programmes, leadership training hub, service learning (in areas of science, technology, hygiene, education, solar energy), joint research activities, exchange of staff and students.
Uebert Angel

Uebert Angel, the British businessman, bestselling author and sought-after speaker, has been honoured by Forbes magazine, who have written a feature about his life. Angel, who was born in Africa, is only the second Zimbabwe-born man in history to be featured in the prestigious publication.

A former finance lecturer and financier by profession, Uebert Angel has two degrees from the Salford University in Britain. He also obtained a postgraduate degree at Bolton in Manchester and has a Masters degree in applied philosophy from the University of Wales in Cardiff. Angel caught their attention as a successful entrepreneur who are creating million-dollar fortunes in Africa. These entrepreneurs do not inherit wealth; they earn it.

His hunger to succeed and eye for the finer things in life inspired his first successful business venture. In 2005, Angel established Club Millionaire, a concierge establishment providing services to the cash-rich but time-poor individuals around the globe. Angel timed the launch of his business well. He set up his company long before the concierge boom flooded the industry in 2102 to secure his fortune.

Angel then ventured into real estate, starting with residential and then moving into developing commercial properties. His real estate construction companies traded under various holdings and trusts in Europe, Africa and Asia.

He then forayed into building a noteworthy media empire, with secular and lifestyle television channels and a record label that owns the rights to the music of multi-award winning artists like Sonnie Badu.

Angel is reputed to have such a keen business sense and entrepreneurial skill that he is able to start small companies and grow them. He then sells them and invests the money in real estate and other projects. Uebert Angel is currently CEO of construction firm Sam Barkley, which has completed over 140 projects and it is creating buildings in cities including Birmingham UK, Johannesburg SA and Dallas US.

As a philanthropist and charity leader Angel has raised and also personally donated millions of dollars to charitable causes. He is also founder of Free Earth Humanitarian Organisation This is a charity devoted towards empowering the most vulnerable and at risk people and help them out of poverty through education and support. As a self-made millionaire, Uebert Angel stands out as a role model to both Zimbabwean and British young people who dream of succeeding in business. Find out more about Uebert Angel on his Wikipedia page.
American Sanders, the worldwide leader in the design and production of wood floor sanders, today announced two new distribution partnerships for the hardwood floor sanding equipment line. Floor Sanding Supplies in Australia and Floorlines Limited in New Zealand have been selected as the official distributors for the Oceania region.

Both companies will provide sales, service and support for the American Sanders professional market.

Were extremely pleased to have these partnerships formalized, said Tom Benton, President of Amano Pioneer Eclipse. We are confident that the American Sanders brand will reach its full potential in Oceania through the partnerships with Floor Sanding Supplies and Floorlines Limited.

Floor Sanding Supplies and Floorlines Limited will carry a full line of professional sanders which includes the American Sanders FloorCrafter Belt Sander, American 12 Drum Sander, OBS-18 Orbital Sander, RS-16 Rotary Sander, B-2+ Edger and Super 7R Edger.

Nilfisk Pty. Ltd. in Sydney continues to operate as the American Sanders distribution partner for the hire and rental market.

About American Sanders

American Sanders began in 1903 as The American Floor Surfacing Machine Company and built the first floor sanding machine on record with the U.S. Patent Office. One hundred years later, American Sanders remains the worldwide leader in the design and production of wood floor sanders and edgers for the professional contractor as well as the do-it-yourselfer. Today American Sanders continues the same heritage with innovative equipment designs focusing on performance, reliability and user ergonomics while furthering investments in state-of-the-art product testing facilities, quality enhancement processes and upgraded production methods. American Sanders is a division of Amano Pioneer Eclipse Corporation. Visit http://www.americansanders.com or http://www.pioneereclipse.com or call 336.372.8080.
The Chambersburg Pump Track adjoins the Chambersburg Rail Trail and is an opportunity to enjoy a different style of biking. Franklin County Visitors Bureau appreciates efforts to connect to trails and expand the walkability and bikeability of Chambersburg..

Walkable and bikeable communities appeal to visitors--all ages and fitness levels, so the Franklin County Visitors Bureau appreciates efforts to connect to trails and expand the walkability and bikeability of its county seat, Chambersburg. The Chambersburg Borough is poised to share plans to make Chambersburg more walkable and bikeable at a Pedestrian and Bicycle Improvements Plan Public Workshop on Wednesday, October 5, from 6 PM to 8 PM at the Eugene C. Clarke Jr. Community Center, 235 South Third Street in Chambersburg.

In 2014, Summit Health approached the Chambersburg Borough with the idea of forming a partnership to improve bicycle and pedestrian access by enhancing the connections to trails and existing sidewalks within the Borough. A stakeholders group of Summit Health and Chambersburg Borough representatives plus local bicycle enthusiasts was formed. The group identified a list of priorities:



Highlight a list of new sidewalk installations

Develop a network of bicycle routes, including extension of the Rail Trail

Identify connections between the bicycle network and public areas , like parks and the downtown

Create a public education campaign to encourage walking and bicycling as alternative modes of transportation.

Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson, Inc. was hired as the consultant for the undertaking. At the October 5 workshop, Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson, Inc. will provide an update of the effort and seek feedback to create vision, goals and strategies for the Pedestrian and Bicycle Improvements Plan. Thoughts and ideas from the public are essential to ensure that the project gives the best return to the community.

The Franklin County Visitors Bureau invites all to explore Franklin County PA and enjoy the trails of history, arts and architecture, recreation, natural beauty, fresh foods and the warm hospitality of communities like Chambersburg, Greencastle, Mercersburg, Shippensburg, and Waynesboro. Franklin County PA is located just north of the Mason Dixon Line and is an easy drive to Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Discover more....plan a visit soon at ExploreFranklinCountyPA.com.
Five Four is looking to expand its portfolio of designers within its already impressive roster. Led under the creative direction of CFDA-award winning designer Mark McNairy, Five Four has gained lots of press and attention for its modern, fashion-forward designs and collaborations. Names like Robert Geller, Parabellum, and Woolrich have released or planned to release capsule collections with the brand throughout 2016 and 2017. As their designs evolve and expand, so does their need for for a counterpart under McNairy. Five Four has been negotiating with highly-acclaimed former Scotch & Soda Designer, Aaron Lee Cooper, to come on board as a Design Director and infuse his signature aesthetic and style into their future collections.

Hailing from Great Britain, Aaron Lee Cooper graduated with a BA in Fashion Design from the University of Westminster. After graduation, he started his design career with fashion powerhouses like Tommy Hilfiger Europe and French Connection. Eventually landing in his most-recognized role of heading up the menswear department at Scotch & Soda. What drew Five Four to Cooper is his wide experience in the menswear realm within one of the largest fashion communities. His time with international labels is in line with Five Fours goals of expanding their design verticals and design aesthetic on a global scale.
ClassAction.com Attorney Michael Hanna

On September 29th, 2016, ClassAction.com civil rights attorney Michael Hanna filed a discrimination lawsuit against Florida restaurant Los Perros, alleging that the restaurant violated state and federal public accommodations and anti-discrimination statutes.

According to court documents, a receipt, upon which a racial slur appears to be printed multiple times, was submitted as evidence in the filing. The customer that allegedly received this receipt is the Plaintiff, Frantz Leger, a black resident of Florida.

Discrimination Allegations

According to the lawsuit, on July 2nd, 2015, Mr. Leger allegedly ordered a meal at Los Perros restaurant in South Beach, Florida, and was given a receipt for the transaction.

According to court documents, the lawsuit alleges that there was a racial slur written twice on the receipt: first, in the section of the receipt that requests the table number, and again in the section of the receipt that requests the order number.

According to the filing, the server, Kissila, who allegedly handed Mr. Leger the receipt, resigned from her employment on her next scheduled shift due to distress about the customers discrimination claims.

Los Perros Alleged Response to the Discrimination Claims

According to court documents, Los Perros allegedly countered the claims of discrimination by claiming that the racial slurs were printed in error, and at one point allegedly submitted a completely different receipt to the Florida Commission on Human Relations (FCHR).

The receipt alleged as different than the original, as noted by the FCHR in court documents, does not contain racial slurs, and shows a date different from the one on the original receipt. Court documents suggest that the receipt provided by Los Perros as supposed evidence that no discrimination occurred is likely not the receipt originally given to Mr. Leger.

In addition, court documents pertaining to the FCHR investigation allege that Los Perros suggested the racial slur was entered into the computer system unintentionally, as a result of the systems autocorrect feature. Court documents suggest that the FCHR found Los Perros claim that autocorrect was the cause of the racial slur to be unsubstantiated.

Court documents show that the FCHR determined that the Complainant had reasonable cause to proceed with the lawsuit on September 19th, 2016. According to the filing, the designation of reasonable cause indicates that there is reason to believe an unlawful practice may have occurred.

Alleged Violations of Civil Rights Laws

According to court documents, the lawsuit alleges that by printing a racial epithet twice on a customers receipt, the Defendant may have violated civil rights statutes designed to protect individuals against discrimination.

As noted in the lawsuit, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in public accommodations. The Florida Civil Rights Act of 1992 echoes federal legislation in its assertion that discriminatory practices are prohibited in public spaces, including facilities principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises.

According to the filing, the lawsuit alleges that Los Perros violated public accommodation provisions of the Florida Civil Rights Act of 1992, Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

ClassAction.com is part of the Complex Litigation branch of nationwide plaintiffs law firm Morgan & Morgan. Michael Hanna is an experienced class action civil rights attorney who has litigated discrimination cases in Florida and throughout the United States.

CASE INFORMATION:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA, MIAMI DIVISION

FRANTZ LEGER, individually, Plaintiff, vs. MI COLOMBIA BAKERY, INC., d/b/a LOS PERROS, a Florida For-Profit Corporation, Defendant.

Case 1:16-cv-24158-XXXX

Full Complaint
Hoboken Mayor, Dawn Zimmer (center) with Jennifer and Carl Mazzanti

Hoboken Mayor, Dawn Zimmer officially presented Hoboken-based IT consultant and Managed Services Provider, eMazzanti Technologies, with a proclamation recognizing the company for its 15-year track record of growth and commitment to the community.

The presentation took place at eMazzanti Technologies 15th Anniversary Spectacular for customers, employees and vendors at a trendy Manhattan rooftop on Thursday, September 15, 2016. Mayor Zimmer was on hand to personally present the proclamation to co-founders Carl and Jennifer Mazzanti.

Our customers facilitated 15 years of growth by staying with us through good times as well as bad, stated Carl Mazzanti, CEO, eMazzanti Technologies. By recognizing eMazzanti, Mayor Zimmer also acknowledges them as partners in the success of the community.

Below are a few excerpts from Mayor Zimmers proclamation:

Proclamation

WHEREAS on August 30th, 2001, Carl and Jennifer Mazzanti founded eMazzanti Technologies, an IT company specializing in computer network security and disaster recovery solutions; and

WHEREAS eMazzanti Technologies has been on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies for seven consecutive years, has grown to nearly 100 employees, and expanded to a second office in Seattle, Washington in 2015 and a third office in Guatemala in 2016; and

WHEREAS throughout years of tremendous growth, eMazzanti Technologies has proudly kept their headquarters in Hoboken, servicing many of Hobokens local businesses, and employing staff which is primarily from Hoboken and Hudson County;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT PROCLAIMED that I, Dawn Zimmer, Mayor of the City of Hoboken, do hereby congratulate eMazzanti Technologies on their 15th anniversary, thank them for their commitment to the City of Hoboken, and wish them continued success in the years ahead.

Signed

James J. Farina, City Clerk

Dawn Zimmer, Mayor

Congratulations and Leadership

In addition to the Proclamation from Mayor Zimmer, eMazzanti Technologies received a Letter of Congratulations from Congressman Albio Sires of New Jerseys 8th District. A Senate Resolution introduced by New Jersey State Senator, Diane Allen, recognizing the firm was also adopted.

Rounding out eMazzantis consistent growth and economic commitment to the city of Hoboken, the company lends support and leadership to local chamber of commerce organizations and the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT).

Related resource information:

eMazzanti to Contribute at PCI Security Standards Council Community Meeting

15 Years of Growth with No Increases in MSP Rates

About eMazzanti Technologies

eMazzantis team of trained, certified IT experts rapidly deliver cloud and mobile solutions, multi-site implementations, 247 outsourced network management, remote monitoring and support to increase productivity, data security and revenue growth for clients ranging from law firms to high-end global retailers.

eMazzanti has made the Inc. 5000 list seven years running, is a 2015, 2013 and 2012 Microsoft Partner of the Year, and a 5X WatchGuard Partner of the Year. Contact: 1-866-362-9926, info(at)emazzanti(dot)net or http://www.emazzanti.net Twitter: @emazzanti, Facebook: Facebook.com/emazzantitechnologies.
Volunteers create the mosaic mural in downtown Chambersburg.

Downtown Chambersburg and downtown Waynesboro offer good ways to celebrate American Craft Week, October 1 to October 16, and see how art builds community.

In downtown Chambersburg, the 4th Annual Mural Project is installed on the buildings throughout downtown. More than 65 individual 2x 4 murals went up during First Friday, September 2. Now, the public is involved as they vote for their favorite mural on Facebook. Voting continues until October 15when winners will be announced at AppleFest. A different type of mural can be seen at 33 North Main and 100 South Main Streets. This summer, Philadelphia-based mosaic-mural artist, Isaiah Zagar, worked with local volunteers to install a large mosaic mural on the Foundry, Chambersburgs newest art co-op, located at the corner of South Main and Queen Streets.

Especially for American Craft Week, the Make Believe Tour--a fun, different and inspirational traveling art experience--will be in Chambersburg at 1 North Main on Monday, October 3 through Sunday, October 9. Make Believe creators Ron Morris and Ken Jones, Jr. own Mercantile Home in Easton, PA and decided to travel to Americas Main Streets to experience the people and flavor of different communities. During their stay, they will hand-make unique creations, meet as many people as possible, coordinate a community art project, and host a free repair and shareall the while hoping to inspire art in others and themselves.

Another Franklin County community energized by art is Waynesboro, which is benefitting from a revitalization effort called Destination ARTS! It has successfully filled vacant storefronts in downtown Waynesboro with amazing local, regional, and national art and brought the streets to life with lots of music. Getting started in July 2013, Destination ARTS! opened seven galleries throughout downtown Waynesboro. These spaces are now rented or being used as permanent art galleries.

Downtown Waynesboros anchor art locations are Gallery 50, 42 West ARTS Co-Op, Through the Lens & Beyond, and the Ceramic Arts Center of Waynesboro. Together they feature oil paintings, watercolors, pottery, sculptures, jewelry, photographs, furniture, and more. People are talking about the changes to downtown Waynesboro, and in 2015, the effort received one of the Pennsylvania Downtown Centers Townie Awards.

All Destination ARTS! galleries are open 5:30 PM to 8 PM on Friday, 12 PM to 6 PM on Saturday, and 1 PM to 4 PM on Sunday. October highlights included wood burning demonstrations, a chance to join a drum circle, gourd art demonstration, a writers forum, clay sculpting, and more. Details are available here.

The Franklin County Visitors Bureau invites all to explore Franklin County PA and enjoy the trails of history, arts and architecture, recreation, natural beauty, fresh foods and the warm hospitality of communities like Chambersburg, Greencastle, Mercersburg, Shippensburg, and Waynesboro. Franklin County PA is located just north of the Mason Dixon Line and is an easy drive to Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Discover more....plan a visit soon at ExploreFranklinCountyPA.com or by contacting 866.646.8060.
FMT Consultants, a seasoned San Diego and Los Angeles based provider of integrated business management solutions and information technology services, today announced the launch of its newly redesigned website.

The website features a newly modernized design, streamlined navigation, and is now fully responsive.

We are very excited to be able to provide an improved website experience for our visitors, said Linh Nguyen, Senior Director, Finance and Operations at FMT. Our team has put a great deal of thought into restructuring and redesigning our website, and we believe that the new site better reflects a more cohesive brand experience and the levels of quality and care that our clients can expect from FMT Consultants.

The new website also features design and structure updates for FMTs blog, resources, and product pages.

FMT invites you to visit their new site at http://www.fmtconsultants.com

About FMT Consultants

FMT is a seasoned provider of integrated business solutions and information technology services throughout the US and Canada with a significant presence in San Diego County, Los Angeles County, and Orange County. Since 1995, FMTs experienced team of experts has been partnering with clients to integrate, configure and customize innovative technology solutions to help them improve and streamline their business operations. The company has offices in Carlsbad and Los Angeles, CA. Visit http://www.fmtconsultants.com or call 760.930.6400 for more information.
Mobile Tornado is well placed to benefit as the market shifts from traditional radio infrastructures to delivery across cellular networks

Tooba replaces Jeremy Fenn, who will move to the role of Executive Chairman, replacing Peter Wilkinson, who in turn will move to the role of Non-executive Director, all with effect from 30 September 2016.

As disclosed on 12 May 2016, Avi, 59 years old, joined Mobile Tornado as Chief Operating Officer to lead the Groups technical and operations teams and brings significant experience to the business as we continue to engage Tier 1 MNOs, major global enterprises and public sector bodies. He was previously the senior director of engineering at Motorola Solutions overseeing engineering operations and some 500 engineers at the Israel Design Centre. Prior to that, he was Director of engineering at Motorola Networks which was later sold to Nokia for an estimated US$1 billion.

There are no other matters which are required to be disclosed in accordance with Rule 17 and paragraph (g) of Schedule Two of the AIM Rules for Companies.

Jeremy Fenn said: Avi has had a very positive impact on the Company since his arrival in May. He has strengthened the technical team across all key areas and demonstrated a very clear vision for the business. His experience and credibility in the industry is already bringing results as our level of engagement with new opportunities in both the enterprise and public safety sectors is increasing. I would like to welcome him to the Board and have no doubt that his appointment marks the start of an exciting period of development for the Company and its shareholders.

Avi Tooba said: "Having now spent some time working with our technical platform and engaging with our existing customers, I am confident that we can become a leader in the Instant Communications sector, serving both the enterprise and public sector markets. I have built a technical development plan that will result in the launch of a number of new products over the coming months. From a strategic perspective, Mobile Tornado is well placed to benefit as the market shifts from traditional radio infrastructures to delivery across cellular networks. I look forward to leading the team as we strive to build a substantial communications business.
Bruce Huang, CEO of Madai Wealth is discussing Capital Markets: Determining Growth Drivers. "Fintech industry has huge business potential. With Chinese government support on regulations, Chinese people are confident to participate and invest in this industry.

Madai Wealth's 12th Brunei Roundtable Conference was successfully held on September 6, 2016 in China. The conference topic is Capital Markets: Determining Growth Drivers. More than 150 government officials from Brunei and other countries, financial experts, and entrepreneurs shared the latest Asian economical financial updates and analysis.

The Fintech industrys growth is rapid and strong. Bruce Huang, CEO of Madai Wealth, said, With the governments support in the industry through new online loan regulation rules, people are confident in participating and investing in Fintech. The industry has huge business potential."

Mr. Huang illustrates that the Fintech will transform the financial services industry as technology has reshaped other industries. There are huge businesses opportunities can be explored. Within the past 5 years, it has grown 10 times in size from 1.8 billion to 19 billion. Fintech products such as mobile payment, peer to peer (P2P) loans, and Robo-advisors will establish a new type of customer relationship in financial services by offering increased connectivity, security, and independence from traditional banking. By 2023, Fintech industry expects to take away 17% of profits from the banking sector. A recently frequently mentioned technology keyword "block chain technology," which encrypts all digital information from electronic money, online signatures, to voting systems. Block chain technology has the capabilities to be implemented in various industries, but is expected to be the most valuable to the world trade system. Fintech is well-received in the socio-political and economic conditions in China. The Chinese government has shown continuous support for the development of Fintech. Stated in the August 24, Interim Measures for the Administration of Business Activities of Online Lending Information Agency, the government formally recognized the legitimacy of the online lending industry and its enthusiasm to promote the development of it.

Bruce Huang concludes that Fintech plays an important role in the market. In emerging market countries like China, it reinvents the traditional financial sector while in developed countries such as America, it promotes the evolution of the traditional financial sector. The Chinese traditional financial sector and financial technology companies must establish cooperative relationships, meanwhile in America, large investment banks are more likely to start their own technology companies. Although there is this difference, it is clear that Fintech will be integrated into traditional finance. Therefore, the financial future is technology-driven.

About Maidai Wealth

Madai Wealth is an Internet financial services platform invested by controlling shareholder CITIC Private Equity Funds Management, and is operated comprehensively by Shanghai Kaian Information Technology Co., LTD. Depending on advanced technology, extensive range of financial products and a strict risk control system, Madai Wealth provides a fast and professional money demand solution for borrowers, attractive investment opportunity for investors, and offers safe, efficient and reliable Internet financial services.

About CITIC Private Equity Funds Management Co., Ltd.

CITIC Private Equity Funds Management Co., Ltd (CITIC PE) was founded in June 2008, following approval by the National Development and Reform Commission of the PRC. With a paid-in capital of RMB2.3 billion, CITIC PE gained support from multiple shareholders including CITIC Securities. CITIC PE adheres to a strategic vision of becoming one of the most trustworthy world-class fund management partners, and is committed to identifying and improving the value of portfolio companies, creating superior returns for fund investors, and achieving multi-win cooperation through in-depth industry research, precise investment decisions, efficient operation management, professional value creation services, and sustained consolidations through mergers and acquisitions.
This business achievement is a significant honor for the Vistra Team, said President of Vistra, Brian Butler.

Communications strategy and professional solutions agency Vistra Communications (Vistra), LLC, was honored as the 2016 Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerces Small Business of the Year. The company was one of seven nominated in the 21-50 employees category. Judging was based on each companys operational management, community involvement and ethical business practices. The award ceremony highlighted the impact of small business on the Tampa Bay area community and celebrated the achievements of the best of the best in Tampa Bay. The 36th annual SBOY awards banquet was held at the Straz Center for Performing Arts on Friday, Sept. 16.

This business achievement is a significant honor for the Vistra Team, said President of Vistra, Brian Butler. The Small Business of the Year award provides proof that the Vistra Way works because we place the success of our clients above our own. Butler founded Vistra in 2007 after a successful U.S. Army career and the growing agency now consists of more than 50 team members.

As a small business with large agency experience and expertise, Vistra team members are passionate about producing results for clients. Offering services for a variety of local and national businesses and nonprofit organizations, as well as local, state and federal government agencies, Vistra works closely with clients to build successful strategies designed to help them reach their goals. Team members value meaningful relationships, quality service, treating others with dignity and respect and making a difference in the community.

Butler was also a finalist for Outstanding Small Business Leader of the Year during the ceremony. The annual award distinguishes the exemplary leaders of business enterprises that have a tremendous impact on our community.

About Vistra Communications

Vistra is a nationally-recognized, full-service, communications strategy and professional solutions agency headquartered in Tampa, Florida providing services to corporate, government and nonprofit clients. Vistra is SBA 8(a) Certified and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB). The company was recently named the 2016 SBA South Florida Region Service Disabled Veteran Owned Business of the Year, Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerces Small Business of the Year as well as ranked number one in the Top PR Firms in the Tampa Bay area according to the Tampa Bay Business Journal. For more information about Vistra, please call 813.961.4700 or visit http://www.ConsultVistra.com.

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1000 Degrees pizza is fired to perfection in just 2 minutes Were thrilled to open the doors of our third 1000 Degrees restaurant in Virginia, said 1000 Degrees CEO and Founder Brian Petruzzi.

1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza, a fast-casual American spin on authentic, hand-tossed Neapolitan pizza, is coming to the greater D.C. area on Wednesday, Oct. 5. The new restaurant is located at 3400 Columbia Pike, Suite 200, in Arlington.

To celebrate the new restaurant, the first 10 guests through the doors on Oct. 5 at 11 a.m. will win free pizza for a year. In addition, all guests who visit the grand opening between 11 a.m. and 10 p.m. and like 1000 Degrees on Facebook or follow on Instagram or Twitter will receive a free 10 pizza of their choice.

1000 Degrees serves personalized, made-to-order authentic Neapolitan pizza. Each pizza starts with fresh, never frozen, hand-tossed dough, created with authentic Neapolitan flour and available in both a personal 10 and sharable 14 sizes. Guests then choose to create their own pizza or order one of the 1000 Degrees Favorites.

The Arlington 1000 Degrees is the first location in the D.C. area, and is owned and operated by a long-time, local entrepreneur of the area. Prior to 1000 Degrees, the owner had owned several different businesses in the area, and chose to open 1000 Degrees after being drawn to its fresh, quality ingredients and fun atmosphere.

Were thrilled to open the doors of our third 1000 Degrees restaurant in Virginia, said 1000 Degrees CEO and Founder Brian Petruzzi. Im confident that we serve the best hand-tossed Neapolitan pizza in the area and provide an unparalleled customer experience that will keep people coming back for more.

Customizing a 1000 Degrees pizza is truly a unique experience, as guests can choose to top theirs with any of the more than 50 high quality cheeses, sauces, meats, vegetables and other toppings all for one flat price. While choosing their toppings, customers are guided down an assembly line of pizza consultants to create a pizza that is totally unique to them.

Outside of the build your own option, there are more than 12 varieties of specialty pizzas including favorites like The Smokey Pollo, also known as Barbecue Bourbon Chicken, which features sweet and smokey bourbon barbecue sauce, roasted chicken, red onion, pineapple, shredded Grande brand mozzarella and blue cheeses, and The Philly, which is a cheese steak pizza topped with thinly sliced rib-eye, caramelized Spanish onions, balsamic glaze, shredded Grande brand mozzarella and provolone cheeses. Pizzas are then fired to perfection at 1000 degrees in a custom, handmade, revolving Neapolitan brick oven in just two minutes.

Unlike traditional Neapolitan pizza which has a slightly undercooked center and requires a fork and knife to eat, 1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza has fused this classic style with American flare. The result is a thin crust pizza that maintains the light and airy appeal of a Neapolitan style pizza.

1000 Degrees pizza captures American appeal and old world Neapolitan flavor. The company currently has more than 18 domestic restaurants open and one international location in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 1000 Degrees is growing at a rapid pace, on target to have more than 25 units open by the end of this year.

1000 Degrees Arlington is open Monday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. To learn more about 1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza or to be part of its daily free pizza contests, please visit http://www.facebook.com/1000degreesarlington or call (703) 920-9000.

About 1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza

1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza brings guests the finest hand-tossed Neapolitan pizza. Founded in 2014, the international franchise has experienced unparalleled growth and is on target to have more than 25 units open by the end of this year and projects more than 50 more by the end of 2017. For more information on the 1000 Degrees Neapolitan Pizza brand, or for franchise or investor relations, visit the company website at http://www.1000DegreesPizza.com.

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MRPR announced that Angela Mastroionni, CPA and Principal at MRPR, will succeed Mark Rottermond, CPA as Managing Principal.

At MRPRs annual State of the Firm meeting, Rottermond announced the election to the role.

With succession planning in mind, the principals have met and elected Angie Mastroionni as the succeeding Managing Principal of MRPR, said Rottermond. Taking into account her 20 years of public accounting experience at MRPR, we find that she is well suited and uniquely qualified for the position by bringing to the Firm a deep understanding of our culture, our clients, our history and the business of public accounting."

Greg Zink, CPA and fellow Principal at MRPR, added "the Principal group unanimously supports Angie's election to the role of Managing Principal."

Mastroionni has been with MRPR her entire career, joining in 1996 and becoming a Principal in 2010. She will continue to provide consultative financial and tax services to her clients, to support and be part of MRPRs executive leadership and strategic planning teams, while now assuming a larger role in the overall management of the firm.

"I am thankful for the opportunity to lead MRPR, yet humbled by the show of confidence in my skills and leadership by the Principals of MRPR, said Mastroionni. I will look for their continued support and input as we move into a fifth decade of service to our clients. MRPR means a lot to me, and I am committed to reaching our long-term strategic goals with this great MRPR team; it is truly an honor."

MRPR is a certified public accounting and business advisory firm with offices in Southfield and Ann Arbor, Michigan. As a part of the SE Michigan business community since 1974 and leader among Michigan CPA firms, MRPR serves privately owned middle-market companies in various industries, including manufacturing and distribution, construction and real estate, transportation, engineering and professional service firms and technology and software. MRPR also performs audits of employee benefit plans and not-for-profit organizations. Team members at MRPR are dedicated to and trained to deliver Five Star Client Service. MRPRs mission is to strive to be valuable to clients by providing proactive, relationship driven service, while being a great place to work and grow for their people. Contact MRPR at (248) 357-9000 or visit online at http://www.mrpr.com.
Safe Harbor LLP, a Top San Francisco Bay Area CPA Firm Among the contentious issues in the US presidential election is the issue of inheritance taxes.

Safe Harbor LLP (http://www.safeharborcpa.com/), a San Francisco CPA firm specializing in inheritance and estate tax issues, is proud to announce an update to its informational page on estate tax planning. Many San Francisco residents have substantial assets and can face rising estate or inheritance taxes if they do not plan well. The firm has also released a new 2016 inheritance tax guide available on the website.

Among the contentious issues in the US presidential election is the issue of inheritance taxes, explained Chun Wong, CPA, managing partner at Safe Harbor LLP. Many San Francisco residents have property or business interests that are close to, or even exceed, many asset thresholds vis-a-vis the estate tax. Our newly updated page has basic information, including a 2016 inheritance tax guide.

To download the 2016 estate planning guide, visit http://www.safeharborcpa.com/estate-planning-san-francisco/. To view the newly updated information page on estate tax issues for San Francisco Bay Area residents, visit http://www.safeharborcpa.com/estate-tax/.

Estate Tax Planning: Working with an Accountant Can Save Money for Descendants

Recent demographic and political changes in the United States have increased the likelihood of a rise in the estate tax. No one knows for certain, as the political situation in the USA is fluid to say the least. That said, contentious debate about estate taxes in both California and in the USA as a whole, should service as the proverbial "wake up" call to those who have significant assets. The tax man cometh. By working with a skilled accountant, however, estate taxes can be minimized if not avoided altogether. This type of estate planning, with an eye towards taxation, allows a person or couple to pass down significant assets to their heirs, contribute to charity, and provide many other wonderful asset transfers while minimizing the legal bite of the government. The newly updated page and 2016 estate planning guide now available by Safe Harbor LLP should be required reading for anyone who faces this problem. Even better, interested parties should reach out to a qualified CPA firm for customized advice. No two estates, after all, are the same.

About Safe Harbor LLP  a Professional CPA Firm in San Francisco

Safe Harbor LLP is a CPA firm that specializes in accounting and tax services for individuals and businesses throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and greater California. Safe Harbor CPAs helps both individuals and businesses with tax preparation, IRS audit defense, and audited financial statements. The firm prides itself on friendly yet professional service and utilizes state-of-the-art Internet technology to provide quality customer service.

Safe Harbor CPA

http://www.safeharborcpa.com

Tel. 415.742.4249
Best Online Colleges 2016-2017 We highlight the schools that offer the best combination of degree program cost, quality, and flexibility. These schools continue to adopt and scale innovative learning methods to help students realize academic success.

AffordableCollegesOnline.org, a leader in higher education information and resources, has released its ranking of the Best Online Colleges for 2016. The site analyzed more than a dozen unique data points to identify the colleges and universities providing students with the highest quality and most affordable online learning options today.

"We wanted to highlight the schools that offer the best combination of degree program cost, quality, and flexibility," said Dan Schuessler, CEO and Founder of AffordableCollegesOnline.org. "These schools continue to adopt and scale innovative learning methods to help students realize academic success.

To qualify for the list, colleges must have regional accreditation and hold public or private not-for-profit standing. Schools earning a spot on the ranking also had at least ten online degree programs and an annual in-state tuition under $25,000. To see the full ranking of Best Online Colleges and the methodology used to rank them, please visit the following page:

http://www.affordablecollegesonline.org/best-colleges-online/

The full list of universities recognized for having outstanding online learning platforms include:

Belhaven University

Clemson University

Colorado Christian University

Columbia College

Concordia University - Saint Paul

Davenport University

Dickinson State University

East Carolina University

Emporia State University

Fort Hays State University

Goodwin College

Great Basin College

Indiana State University

Iowa State University

Judson College

Kansas State University

Keiser University - Fort Lauderdale

Liberty University

Mercy College

North Carolina Central University

North Carolina State University at Raleigh

Northern Arizona University

Northwestern State University of Louisiana

Oklahoma State University - Main Campus

Oregon State University

Saint Leo University

Siena Heights University

Southwestern College

SUNY Empire State College

Texas A & M University - College Station

The University of Texas of the Permian Basin

Tiffin University

Troy University

University of Alaska Fairbanks

University of Arizona

University of Central Florida

University of Central Missouri

University of Florida

University of Houston - Victoria

University of Idaho

University of Illinois at Springfield

University of Louisiana at Monroe

University of Memphis

University of Missouri - Columbia

University of Northern Colorado

University of Southern Mississippi

University of Toledo

Washington State University

Webster University

Western Kentucky University

AffordableCollegesOnline.org began in 2011 to provide quality data and information about pursuing an affordable higher education. Our free community resource materials and tools span topics such as financial aid and college savings, opportunities for veterans and people with disabilities, and online learning resources. We feature higher education institutions that have developed online learning environments that include highly trained faculty, new technology and resources, and online support services to help students achieve educational and career success. We have been featured by nearly 1,100 postsecondary institutions and nearly 120 government organizations.
Our best instrument is the universal harmony of being.

After receiving a widely-loving response from the release of her single Dharma, Brazilian artist Anaya released her anticipated new album, Eternity, worldwide. In the process of bringing her musical vision to life, the multi-talented composer/producer experienced her childhood dream of playing alongside a live symphony orchestra. The unique production featured a virtual collaboration and real time recording in cyberspace between the artists label AnayaMusic in Brazil, a live symphony orchestra in Prague, and Steve Salani at Orchestra.net Studios in Los Angeles.

Anaya's hope is that the lush-sounding orchestra will soothe listeners as well as appeal to her peers; she has submitted it for consideration in New Age for the 59th Grammy Awards. In depth information about Anaya, Eternity and her other music can be found at AnayaMusic.

The making of Eternity was as harmonious as the music itself. Fine global musicianship and innovative technology enabled Anaya  who also holds a PhD in Information Technologies -- to live out her lifes dream to record her music with an orchestra. Salani and Orchestra.net Studios focus on live orchestra production, bringing warmth, depth, and emotion to Anayas soothing musical style; the symphony combines members of the finest ensembles in Prague, including the Czech Philharmonic. Anaya and Salani composed and arranged a majority of the tracks together, recorded them with the symphony, and had the project mastered by Matthew Shell at Sweet Spot Studio in Annandale, VA.

The result, Anaya says, is that Eternity becomes a harmonious, uplifting passage into the soul of music, playing the symphony of the universe. The essence of Love is Eternity. Love transcends time. Beyond memories of a beginning and fear of an end our immortal soul symbolizes love and Eternal life. Music becomes a gateway to the realization and integration of our deepest feelings of love, grief, fear, joy and peace, says the artist, who refers to this album as Cosmic New Age Music, reflected in her music videos with images of outer space.

Ethereal album packaging illustrated with light, spheres, lotus flowers and elements of space set in deep blues and purple conveys the message that this is modern new age music. The songs are carefully sequenced for those seeking a relaxing spiritual journey through music. The album opens with Dharma, a warm, gentle track with a celestial feel, inviting the listener to prepare to go deeper. For Love truly demonstrates the difference in quality with a live symphony as opposed to electronic tracks; the orchestration adds depth while freeing the heart-based music to soar with a universal feeling. Gaia is a track that beautifully weaves natural bird song into the music, giving it an earthy, grounded feeling for the Mother. There are seven songs in all.

New Age music writer Michael Diamond shares, "While I have heard and enjoyed Anayas previous keyboard-based albums, her new release, Eternity, in collaboration with a live symphony orchestra, brings out the richness and dimension of her stirring compositions, taking her music to another level altogether. Anayas desire to elevate the human spirit is deeply felt in every note of this inspired recording."

Over the course of her career, which includes the albums Fifth Essence (2015), Devotion (2014) and Aligned in the Universe (2013), the Brazilian-born-and-raised Anaya has passionately expressed her spirituality and the influence of her cultural roots through music, art and poetry. Her unique style captures the soothing, inspiring and energizing essence of Brazilian music, delivering a dynamic synthesis of new age, electronic and melodic trance influences and textures. Her expansive vision  also reflected in her YouTube videos -- is translating to an increasing following in North America and Europe.

Anaya shares that music heals not only the listener, but the composer, too. "I was finishing the album Devotion in 2014 when my husband died; I had to go way beyond my strength to transcend. I began composing Fifth Essence and recorded 'The New Journey' in tears, but afterward came the song 'Aonki' which means the gate between the galaxy and the universe. I continued healing, and eventually happiness flowed through with the song 'In Love.'"

The complete AnayaMusic catalog is available via Anayas website, online music stores and in select retail stores; please see links below. For additional information or requests, please contact AnayaMusic at anayamusic(at)terra.com.br. Radio airplay and media is being managed by: Ed & Stacey Bonk at LAZZpromotions(at)Rogers(dot)com. Mainstream retail distribution is handled by CPI Distribution, claypinc(at)cs(dot)com, or 440-333-2208, and for specialty store retailers by New Leaf Distributing at 800-326-2665.

Links:

Official Website - http://www.AnayaMusic.com or AnayaMusic.net

YouTube - https://youtu.be/lkzAZVrT4Yw?list=PL5632D79CD21BCE22

Amazon - http://amzn.to/2cztJOC

CDBaby - http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/anayamusic13

ITunes - https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/eternity/id1133843196

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/anayamusic/?fref=ts

Twitter - http://www.Twitter.com/AnayaMusic or @AnayaMusic

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Anaya is a timeless composer and vocalist devoted to elevating the human spirit through music, to fulfill a collective yearning shared by humanity for harmony, unity and balance. Anayas desire to learn the universal language of music emerged when she was 4 years old reared by a rich culture driven by music and the arts. Her musical journey began on guitar and piano, which led to many years of dedication to composing and producing her own albums. Anaya is a multi-talented professional with a Post Doctorate degree in leadership and a PhD in Information Technologies. She has a very unique international resume, which includes traveling the world as a performer of Brazilian pop music and working for the University of Brazil and the United Nations as an Information System Specialist. Anaya weaves her expertise in computer science with a deep understanding of universal spirituality to create a union between technology and the senses, which becomes the heart of her work. AnayaMusic is her independent record label.
Appleton Attorneys Michael S. Siddall and Charles D. Koehler Appleton Attorneys Michael S. Siddall and Charles D. Koehler have been invited to join the Fellows of the Wisconsin Law Foundation honorary program.

Herrling Clark Law Firm, Ltd., located in Appleton, Wisconsin, is proud to announce that Michael S. Siddall and Charles D. Koehler have been invited to join the Fellows of the Wisconsin Law Foundation honorary program.

Since 1999, the invite-only Fellows of the Wisconsin Law Foundation has honored and recognized members who have attainted high professional achievement within their respective practice area. Members of the program have also made substantial contributions to the expansion and improvement of the administration of justice in Wisconsin. Fellows are also acknowledged for their devotion to the legal profession with regards to their local community.

Herrling Clark Law Firm President, Kevin Lonergan, who was himself named a Fellow earlier this year, is honored to have Siddall and Koehler join the ranks of the Wisconsin Law Foundations distinguished Fellows. For years, both Mike Siddall and Chuck Koehler have been successful attorneys with tremendous reputations. Both have held leadership positions in law-related organizations and managed to maintain an active civic presence in our Fox River Valley community despite their extraordinarily busy practices. Their lifelong accomplishments have now been recognized by the distinguished Wisconsin law Foundation. We are extremely honored and proud to call Mike Siddall and Chuck Koehler our partners.

Appleton Personal Injury Attorney Michael S. Siddall is a shareholder with Herrling Clark Law Firm, Ltd. and has been with the firm since 1974. After thirty-two years of practice, Siddall served as the firms president for six years. He dedicates his legal practice exclusively to personal injury cases. As an experienced litigator, Siddall has been certified as a Civil Trial Advocacy Specialist and as a Civil Pre-trial Advocacy Specialist by the National board of Trial Advocacy for over thirty years. He is rated by the National Trial Lawyers as one of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers and he is a Top 50 Super Lawyer in the state of Wisconsin. He is an active member of the Wisconsin Association for Justice, and serves on the organizations Board of Directors.

In addition to his legal practice, Siddall plays an active role within the local community by serving as a director and vice president of legal for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Wisconsin, and he is a member and volunteer of the organizations Field Advisory Counsel. He also serves as a director and vice president of legal of the Greater Fox Cities Area Habitat for Humanity, and he is an active member of the ABATE: Motorcycle Safety Rights Group.

Appleton Attorney Charles D. Koehler has been a shareholder with Herrling Clark Law Firm, Ltd. for over 25 years. He assumed the role of firm President in 2012, following on the heels of Siddalls service. Koehler is a veteran litigator who concentrates his legal practice in business and personal financial matters, business transactions, and municipal law. Koehler is certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and he has been rated twice as one of the Best of the Bar by his peers within the Fox Cities Magazine. Additionally, he maintains the AV Preeminent Rating on Martindale-Hubbell, the highest attainable peer review rating. Koehler has been named a Wisconsin Super Lawyer since 2014, which places him among the top five percent of attorneys in the state.

He currently serves as chairperson of District 6 of the State Bar of Wisconsins Fee Arbitration Program, and also serves on the Board of Directors for the Community Real Estate and Personal Property Foundation, Inc. Koehler is a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin and the Outagamie County Bar Association.

About Herrling Clark Law Firm, Ltd.

Herrling Clark Law Firm, Ltd. has served the Fox River Valley community since 1959. The attorneys at Herrling Clark have over 200 years of combined experience and the firm has been voted the Best Law Firm in the Valley for 12 years in a row by the Post-Crescent.

Herrling Clark represents clients from four office locations throughout the state including: Appleton, Green Bay, Oshkosh, and New London, Wisconsin. To speak with a qualified member of the Herrling Clark legal team call 920-739-7366 or visit http://www.herrlingclark.com to schedule an initial consultation.
New Website for Waveriders Coffe, Deli and Pub features Menus and Events It was important for our website to be current, user friendly and loaded with information. We offer more than you expect and needed a spot where our customers could go to keep up with all the happenings!

Outer Banks Media (OBX Media), a North Carolina-based digital marketing agency specializing in website design, search engine optimization and internet marketing, announces the website launch of their client, Waveriders Coffee and Deli. Waveriders is a surf-themed hangout specializing in espresso drinks, panini sandwiches, and draft and bottled beer & wine, along with weekly live music events with a large local following. Theyve been serving the Outer Banks since 2011, and offer indoor seating with a computer bar, tables and comfortable lounge area, along with outside seating on their patio.

Initially Bobbie and Dave Stager, owners of Waveriders, met with Outer Banks Media to refresh the design of their existing website. A long-time favorite breakfast and coffee spot, they had recently added beer, wine and events to their offerings and needed their website to reflect these additions. It was important for our website to be current, user-friendly and loaded with information, said the Stagers. We offer more than you expect and needed a spot where our customers could go to keep up with all the happenings! they added.

In addition to the website redesign, which includes an eye-catching logo and vibrant images of the coffee bar, menu items, and craft beers & wine, Outer Banks Media suggested adding an online calendar so customers and visitors to the area could easily view upcoming events. The addition of the online calendar not only keeps their patrons up to date on events going on at Waveriders, but it also keeps visitors coming back to their site to view new menu items and other news, said C.K. Evans, Owner of Outer Banks Media.

For information and events going on at Waveriders, please call (252) 715-1880 or visit their website.

About OBX Media

Outer Banks Media, a Google Certified Partner Agency, provides marketing and advertising consultation services to small and large businesses all over the nation. OBX Media specializes in website design and development, hosting, pay-per-click management, search engine optimization services, social media marketing, and an array of traditional marketing services such as print, TV and radio. To learn how you can increase web traffic and build online sales, please visit their website or call 252-256-7116.
LIA was proud to deliver an elite lineup of laser experts in our first year of the Industrial Laser Conference, covering 360 degrees of lasers-in-manufacturing technology.

Laser Institute of America held its first Industrial Laser Conference on Tuesday, September 13, 2016 at the International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago. Tailored exclusively to the future-forward industrial manufacturing professional, the conference showcased leading laser applications driving the evolution of manufacturing, and instructed manufacturing shops and industry professionals in how to leverage lasers into their manufacturing processes in a high-demand marketplace.

Thirteen experts in laser manufacturing, including technical directors, laser applications engineers, and program managers, presented a diverse program in room W190-A of Chicagos renowned McCormick Place. Hailing from leading manufacturing organizations such as IPG Photonics Corporation, SLM Solutions NA, Inc., TRUMPF Inc., FANUC America Corporation, Laserline Inc., Optomec Inc., Lincoln Electric Company, Fraunhofer USA - CLA, Alabama Laser, Mitsui Seiki (U.S.A.), Inc., and Imperial Machine & Tool Co., the presenters covered topics like technology advances in additive manufacturing, hybrid additive and subtractive tool technology, laser additive manufacturing in production, advances in welding with fiber lasers and novel beam delivery products, and the role of flexibility in laser automation.

These innovative techniques are emerging and revolutionizing the industry to meet market demands, all rooted in the fields collective understanding of conventional machining. From advancements in technology to expected challenges, the LIAs Industrial Laser Conference provided a newfound clarity on the present and future of industrial manufacturing.

LIA was proud to deliver an elite lineup of laser experts in our first year of the Industrial Laser Conference, covering 360 degrees of lasers-in-manufacturing technology, said Jim Naugle, LIAs Marketing Director. The opportunity to dive into a real machine shops journey into metal additive manufacturing with lasers and cover new innovations in directed energy deposition (DED) systems in one day, all while receiving access to cutting edge exhibitions at the IMTS show, is a thrilling opportunity for manufacturing engineers, automation specialists, and sales managers.

From seasoned manufacturing experts new to lasers, to shops who have already begun reaping the benefits of laser technology, the conference offered something for everyone in the sector, including James Hail of L-3 Communications. [The show provided] excellent information! I learned a lot, Hail said.

Attendees like Mansour Ashtiani of Huf North America hope to attend the event again. It was a very professionally done conference, Ashtiani said.

The Laser Institute of America (LIA) is the international society for laser applications and safety. For more information about the Industrial Laser Conference, including presenters, programs, and sponsor information, please visit http://www.lia.org/laserconference.

About LIA

The Laser Institute of America (LIA) is the professional society for laser applications and safety serving the industrial, educational, medical, research and government communities throughout the world since 1968. http://www.lia.org, 13501 Ingenuity Drive, Ste 128, Orlando, FL 32826, +1.407.380.1553.
Naveed Khan, M.D. to host Fertility Myths Webinar on October 26, 2016 at 12:00 p.m. Whether attending an event online or in-person, we want to make these experiences valuable to the attendees.

Shady Grove Fertility, the largest fertility center in the nationcelebrating 25 years and more than 40,000 babies born continues to educate the community about overcoming infertility. The practice will be opening its doors in all of our regions throughout the month of October and beyond as part of its ongoing patient education series. These events provide attendees with the opportunity to learn about the latest information in regards to treatment options, financial programs, and how to take the next step in pursuing treatment. Each event concludes with a question and answer session providing attendees with the opportunity to engage either in-person or virtually with their physician experts.

Whether attending an event online or in-person, we want to make these experiences valuable to the attendees and make sure they walk away from each event with all of the information they need to make an informed decision about seeking treatment, says Lauren Roth, M.D., who will be hosting a Fertility Options Seminar in Frederick, MD, on Tuesday, October 18, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.

At the in-person events, the physician expert will discuss the general fertility timeline, which includes diagnostic testing for infertility, treatment options, affording care, and success rates. The primary goal at Shady Grove Fertility is to not only to help patients achieve a family, but to provide optimal, affordable patient care. The patient comes first is the core of the practice and what SGF believes is a strong differentiator among other fertility practices.

While there is a great deal of inaccurate information about getting pregnant and fertility circulating in the social sphere, its our duty as leaders in our field to set the record straight about some of the common fertility myths our physicians hear from patients, says Naveed Khan, M.D., of Shady Grove Fertilitys Leesburg, VA, office. Dr. Khan will dispel some of the common fertility myths at the Fertility Myths Webinar on Wednesday, October 26, 2016, at 12:00 p.m.

For prospective and current patients who enjoy using an app to learn about their fertility, Shady Grove Fertility has partnered with the fertility app, Glow, in an effort to educate the thousands of active app users about their personal fertility health, reproductive options, and the infertility treatment process.

Throughout October, our weekly ask-the-expert Q&A forums on Glow will cover all aspects of getting pregnant and infertility with different topics highlighted each week. Melissa Esposito, M.D., of Shady Grove Fertilitys Harrisburg, PA, office will be hosting the Q&A Miscarriage: The Quiet Fear on Thursday, October 13, 2016, at 4 p.m. With one in four pregnancies resulting in miscarriage, its an important topic that affects many couples. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask Dr. Esposito questions about miscarriage and learn more about the primary causes and chances of achieving a healthy pregnancy following a miscarriage.

For all in-person and online events in October and beyond, all interested parties must register to attend by visiting the Shady Grove Fertility calendar of events.

Upcoming October Seminars:



October 4 | Rockville, MD | Fertility Options

October 5 | Leesburg, VA | Getting Started

October 12 | Towson, MD | Fertility Options

October 13 | Annandale, VA | Getting Started

October 15 | Hagerstown, MD | Fertility Options

October 18 | Frederick, MD | Fertility Options

October 20 | Chesterbrook, PA | Fertility Options

October 27 | Annapolis, MD | Fertility Options

Upcoming Webinars and Glow Q&As



October 5 | Glow Q&A with Dr. Andrea Reh | How is Infertility Treated

October 12 | Glow Q&A with Dr. Melissa Esposito | Miscarriage: The Quiet Fear

October 19 | Online | Financial Options Webinar

October 19 | Online | Out-of-State Donor Egg Treatment Webinar

October 25 | Online | Become an Egg Donor Webinar

October 26 | Online | Fertility Myths Webinar

October 27 | Online | Egg Freezing Webinar

To learn more about the benefits of attending an SGF event, read Top Five Reasons to Attend an SGF Educational Event.

About Shady Grove Fertility

Shady Grove Fertility is a leading fertility and IVF center of excellence offering patients individualized care, innovative financial options, and pregnancy rates among the highest of all national centers. 2016 commemorates 25 years of Shady Grove Fertility providing medical and service excellence to patients from all 50 states and 35 countries around the world, and celebrates over 40,000 babies bornmore than any other center in the nation. Today, 34 reproductive endocrinologists, supported by a highly specialized team of 600 urologists, Ph.D. scientists, geneticists, and staff care for patients in 19 full-service offices and six satellite sites throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Shady Grove Fertility physicians actively train residents and reproductive endocrinology fellows and invest in continuous clinical research and education to advance the field of reproductive medicine through numerous academic appointments and partnerships such as Georgetown Medical School, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the University of Maryland, and the National Institutes of Health. More than 1,700 physicians refer their patients to Shady Grove Fertility each year. For more information, call 1-888-761-1967 or visit ShadyGroveFertility.com.
Stanley Law, which combines the work of experienced and dedicated personal injury lawyers, recently added sixty more years of combined experience by joining forces with the attorneys of Fallon, Fallon & Bigsby, who are experts in workers compensation. The total focus is on leveraging the wisdom and extensively focused expertise of Megan Fallon, Sheila Fallon and Arthur Bigsby in the field of workers compensation, said Joe Stanley, founder of The Stanley Law Offices, LLP. Most people work, so personal injury cases frequently require handling a clients workers compensation case as well.

Workers compensation, adds Stanley, is highly detailed and requires intensive focus and energy to execute well. As a result of this partnership, Fallon, Fallon & Bigsby inherit the strength and breadth of the Stanley Team and a platform to strengthen their overall position in the markets Stanley Law serves. Its a win for us both, but the biggest winners will be our clients, said Stanley.

Attorneys at The Stanley Law Offices help injured workers who go with Joe throughout upstate New York and Pennsylvania. They understand how the pain and stress of a work injury can feel overwhelming, and do everything possible within the scope of the law to help clients get the workers compensation benefits they depend on. Stanley Law combined with Fallon, Fallon & Bigsby can now more aggressively pursue appropriate compensation for injured workers, such as lost wages and off-work benefits.

About The Stanley Law Offices, LLP

The Stanley Law Offices, LLP has five offices located in central New York and northern Pennsylvania, including Syracuse, Binghamton, Watertown and Rochester, NY, as well as Montrose, PA. The firm focuses on personal injury law, workers compensation and accident-related law. For more information, please call 1-800-608-3333, or visit http://www.stanleylawoffices.com.

About Fallon, Fallon & Bigsby

Fallon, Fallon & Bigsby have practiced in several areas of law. Their work with Joe moving forward will focus entirely on workers compensation. For more information, visit http://www.fallonlaw-ny.com. Their law office remains located at 501 E. Washington Street, Syracuse, NY 13202.

About the NALA

The NALA offers small and medium-sized businesses effective ways to reach customers through new media. As a single-agency source, the NALA helps businesses flourish in their local community. The NALAs mission is to promote a business relevant and newsworthy events and achievements, both online and through traditional media. For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361.
Travelers are urged to join airline frequent flier programs with the promise of getting perks and free flights down the road. But while earning status on an airline seems like a great idea, it quickly becomes clear that seeing any real benefits is going to take timeand a lot of money.

So is all of that loyalty really worth it? Or would flying be better if travelers just picked the airline with the cheapest airfare?

That question was a hot topic during a panel discussion with The Points Guy Brian Kelly, and Airfare Watchdog founder George Hobica, at Skifts 2016 Global Travel Forum. Both men have made a living sharing travel advice and tips with travelers, but they had very different views on the current status of airline loyalty programs.

Is your loyalty being returned?

Its no secret that airline loyalty programs are changing. The days of acquiring points based on distance flown are past, with more airlines now rewarding points based on the amount of money a traveler spends. In fact, American Airlines (AAL) switched over to revenue-based awards programs in July. Delta (DAL) and (UAL) a similar switch in 2015. This model makes it harder for regular travelers to earn perks, while offering more benefits to high-spending business-class travelers.

Airfare Watchdog is an online resource that helps travelers find cheap airfare. At the forum, Hobica announced he recently gave up the chance to earn a higher status on American Airlines because he was able to spend $300 less, per ticket, on another airline. He didnt want to invest in a program that doesnt give him much in return.

Why should I be loyal to American? Hobica said. From now on, Im going to shop for the best deal.

Kelly didnt agree. People always say how bad frequent flier programs are, but I think our programs are really lucrative, he countered. I think in the US were just so used to them being insanely lucrative and now they are less so. But there is no culture of free upgrades in Asia and Europe. So I dont think its doomsday if we dont get something we didnt pay for.

Story continues

Brian Kelly (center) and George Hobica (right) discuss the relevance of airline loyalty programs.

While Kelly makes a valid point, it seems some consumers are feeling disenchanted with programs and their ever-changing rules concerning how travelers earn miles or reach status. According to U.S. News and World Report, American Airlines was the second-most popular frequent flier program in 2015. After switching to a revenue-based program, the airline dropped to seventh on 2016s list, which was released in August.

When it comes to airlines giving travelers the best quality, Alaska Airlines (ALK) topped the ranking, due in large part to the fact that its program still uses a distance-based rewards model. The Alaska Airlines program is also a member of several carrier alliances (OneWorld and Skyteam), so travelers have more freedom to transfer miles to other airlines.

JetBlues (JBLU) TrueBlue loyalty program was a close second, which Kelly attributes to its simplicity. Jetblue is adding to their program. They arent promising free upgrades, but they are promising better experiences, enhanced earning, change flexibility, and same-day confirmations, he said.

Southwests Rapid Rewards Program wrapped up the top three, being labeled as the program most beneficial for budget-minded travelers.

What about those credit cards?

Airlines spend a lot of time and money trying to gain customer loyalty. Personally, I get a flyer from an airline almost every day in the mail, offering me a credit card and promising bonus miles in the airlines loyalty program if I sign up. The same credit cards are offered to me at the airport and even on the plane during flight attendant announcements.

The offers are certainly tempting: I mean, who doesnt want a free ticket to a far-off destination? But getting those rewards typically requires card users to spend thousands of dollars in a short amount of time, which Hobica says can lead consumers to spend recklessly in order to earn travel perks.

I think the people who get those credit cards and spend $3,000 or $4,000 in a few months, they probably buy stuff that they dont really want, and the banks know that, he said. In other words, travelers are overspending to earn a free plane ticket, instead of budgeting their money to pay for a trip when they can actually afford it.

On the other hand, Kelly says the most popular stories on his website are those centered around how to get the most out of credit card perks. He is adamant that customers can benefit from the spending as long as they know the rules.

I disagree that consumers are racking up debt, Kelly said. These cards are good for smart consumers, and were able to educate credit card holders on benefits of the card in ways to maximize the points.

The conservation quickly turned to the new Chase Sapphire Reserve card, which is being touted by many as the best travel credit card on the market. This is the one time Kelly suggested that straying from frequent flier programs and opting for a bank credit card could be better for consumers because they are less restrictive.

Why would you put money on an airline card? When youre investing into one program, youre overexposing yourself to risk when that program inevitably makes changes, he said.

Verdict

Unfortunately, there isnt a clear cut answer on this one.

I think frequent flier programs have outlived their usefulness, Hobica said. Theyre expensive to administer for the banks, for the airlines, and I dont think they provide the value that they did when they were founded.

For Kelly, the rewards far outweigh the risks.

I think frequent flier programs are the greatest loyalty marketing instrument ever created. They drive business, they drive jobs, theyre good for consumers when you know how to use them, he said. I dont see a doomsday scenario approaching, they are too much of a big business.

Where do you stand? Do you think frequent flier programs are worth your time and money?

Brittany is a writer at Yahoo Finance.

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Ideally, We Should Have One European Gas Hub

Jean-Arnold Vinois, Adviser on the Energy Union, Jacques Delors Institute

AUTHOR: publics.bg

Mr. Vinois, in your speech during the 14-th annual meeting of GIE in Sofia this June you spoke about the progress of the European Internal Energy Market, both in terms of electricity and gas. What are the main milestones since 2006 and what lies ahead?



The progress made since 2006 is unprecedented and has been made possible thanks to the political will expressed at the highest possible level, i.e. the Heads of State and Government sitting in the European Council. This political will triggered in turn the commitment of all the players to work together in order to implement the rules enshrined in the third internal market package, proposed in July 2007, adopted in July 2009 and entered fully into force since 2011.



Some key features have been determinant for enhancing competition and the integration of the national markets into European markets. After a fierce battle between the Commission and several major Member States, the adoption of the effective unbundling of the electricity and gas transmission systems from the production and supply was secured and boosted the market. Indeed, it allowed the infrastructures to be used by all players in a transparent and non-discriminatory manner, making possible gas to gas competition and major injections of renewable sources in the electricity grid.



The creation of the European Network for Transmission System Operators for electricity (ENTSO-E) and gas (ENTSOG), duly supervised by the Agency of Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) has been essential to develop the technical rules governing the infrastructures, known as network codes now mostly adopted and in the course of implementation. This is the result of a remarkable effort of all the experts involved to create a level playing field for all players in the electricity and gas markets. The independent management of infrastructures has made possible the freedom of choice of suppliers by all customers throughout Europe.



Going from non-existing market dominated by state-owned monopolies considering the consumer as a passive subject (a subscriber without any choice) to a market made of several suppliers competing on prices and services is a major change which can only take place slowly and encouraged by strong independent (from the incumbent and from the political arena) regulators. It should also pave the way for a dynamic demand-side management and facilitate energy efficiency.



The most visible success up to now is the free flow of gas in the European Union and the convergence of much lower gas prices made possible by diversification of sources and fully flexible infrastructures allowing reverse flows.



The electricity market has been hit by many distortions of competition, due to over-subsidization of renewables such as wind and solar PV and by inadequate rules of the market, hence the soon to be proposed new power market design. But in any case, progress is still needed to ensure the full implementation of all the rules.



The EC is preparing a Winter legislative package concerning the security of gas supply. Which are the most urgent issues to be addressed and what are the solutions?



This package is already on the table of the co-legislators, the Council (the Member States) and the European Parliament and should be adopted in the coming months. It is reinforcing the rules governing security of gas supply in two respects. First, it requires a more tight regional cooperation to assess the risks and to elaborate preventive and emergency action plans. Secondly, it is imposing more solidarity between neighboring countries in case of emergency, including more transparency in the exchange of information.



In addition, there are new provisions requiring more exchange of information regarding the conclusion of intergovernmental agreements between a Member State and a third country, with an ex-ante scrutiny by the Commission in order to assess the compatibility with the rules of the internal market.



Bulgaria and the Central-Eastern European region have always been regarded as one of the most vulnerable in the EU when it comes to supply disruption. What do you think of the announced plans for a regional gas hub situated in Bulgaria?



I am a bit puzzled by the flourishing of gas hubs everywhere in Europe. Ideally we should have one European gas hub like there is one Henry Hub for the whole United States of America which is the most liquid market offering the cheapest gas prices.



We should have a global gas market with a price of reference, like we have in oil. The proliferation of national/regional gas hubs in Europe is the sign of an insufficiently mature market and of the existence of different markets which are still affected by problems such as the lack of diversification of sources of gas, the lack of interconnections, the dominance of a single player, the lack of transparency and possibly the lack of independence of the regulator.



A successful hub needs to offer clear, transparent and non-discriminatory rules, a large variety of sources of gas made possible by various routes, serious competition between the suppliers and so on. Bulgaria should help itself by creating the right conditions to develop a successful hub. At the moment, I regret that Bulgaria is still struggling with the right implementation of the rules of the third gas directive.



Can existing infrastructure cope with demand and should large planned pipeline projects, such as South Stream, be re-thought? Is it possible for Europe to have joint negotiations with its biggest gas supplier  Russia, instead of keeping natural gas supplies as a national-level matter?



Demand for gas has been drastically reduced since 2010 and is now stagnating. While it is the cleanest fossil fuel, it remains a fossil fuel which will have to remove its carbon content sooner than later. EU has sufficient import infrastructures to cope with the existing and future demand of gas, especially with the growing share of LNG made possible by the globalization of the gas market and more competitive prices. It is thus important to ensure the full connectivity between the LNG terminals, the storage facilities and the transmission systems to make the whole system as flexible and reactive as possible.



For Bulgaria, which is not a large gas market, it should be sufficient to enhance its connections with all its neighbors to benefit from more sources of gas coming also from different companies. In any case, any major import pipeline coming from Russia should be subject to an agreement between the European Union and the Russian Federation to ensure that such pipeline would benefit the whole EU and would not strengthen the dominance of a single supplier.



There seems to be a shortage of enough knowledge and experience in the region regarding electricity and gas liberalization. What do you think of the idea to set up a regional knowledge center in Bulgaria as a possible solution?



There is indeed an urgent need to foster exchange of knowledge and best practices among the Eastern European countries and between the latter and the Western European countries. It should start with strong and active network of academics, offering common platforms for students and for professionals.



Whatever the location of such center, and the geographical location is becoming less and less important given the increase of virtual learning center, it is absolutely necessary to encourage the gathering of academics, regulators, managers active in the energy sector to understand each other, to solve common problems and to undertake common projects.



The Energy Union has been made a priority for the EU for the years ahead. How will Brexit and other similar tensions in other member-countries impact the Energy Union?



The Brexit vote has demonstrated that, as anticipated, it can only create a lose-lose situation for both UK and EU. UK will lose the easy access to the EU market and EU loses a major political player reducing its world standing and influence. Each of the 28 Member States will lose something. Managing the consequences of this vote will be very complex and will unfortunately absorb a lot of resources on both sides, while there are many other challenges to be addressed.



One of them is the implementation of the Energy Union whose agenda is ambitious and demanding. Many proposals will be made in the coming months requiring the Council and the European Parliament to handle them. The absence of UK, or at least its likely neutrality, in the Council discussions, will lead to different balances of power between the Member States.



For instance, it is well known that UK was a strong advocate of the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and of nuclear, while it was much more lukewarm on renewables and energy efficiency. Those following UK in the Council will have to find another opinion leader or join the others. But it is still too early to assess the very concrete consequences of the Brexit.



Lyudmila ZLATEVA, Atanas GEORGIEV

This interview was first published in Bulgarian in the August-September 2016 issue of Utilities magazine.

www.utilities.bg



_________



Jean-Arnold Vinois, a Belgian lawyer, spent most of his professional career in the European Commission. Starting in 1987, he occupied several management posts dealing with internal market, transport, trans-European networks and energy policies, and lastly as acting director for the internal market for electricity and gas in 2011/2012. Since his retirement in 2013, he was appointed Honorary Director and he acted as Special Adviser to the Commissioner in charge of energy until 2014. He is now Adviser on the Energy Union of the Jacques Delors Institute, for which he co-authored with Sami Andoura a report published in January 2015 From the European Energy Community to the Energy Union: a policy proposal for the short and the long term. He is also performing specific missions for the European Commission, namely in Ukraine, and for other organizations.
NEWARK, CA--(Marketwired - Sep 29, 2016) - SST, Inc., the global leader in gunfire detection and analysis, today announced that Cape Town, South Africa -- rated among the world's most violent cities -- has selected ShotSpotter as a pivotal part of its crime prevention efforts to reduce gun violence and murders. SST, Inc., the maker of ShotSpotter Flex, is working with Cape Town's Department of Safety and Security to deploy the technology over seven square kilometers (more than 4 square miles) in the high-crime areas of Manenberg and Hanover Park.

Cape Town, a port city and the capital of the Western Cape Province, has a high concentration of gang and gun violence in the seven square kilometers where ShotSpotter is being deployed.

"For the month of September, a total of 31 incidents were recorded, down from 128 in August and 211 in July, when ShotSpotter was activated. Although we would need to analyze shooting patterns over a longer period to accurately quantify the impact, the initial success of the technology has been stunning," said Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, Alderman JP Smith. "Not only does the technology empower the police force, but also seems to give the community renewed impetus in the fight against gangsterism. During the pilot project, we saw an increasing willingness from the community to come forward with tip-offs that resulted in arrests and the confiscation of drugs and weapons. Between October 2014 and mid-November when the pilot period ended, Metro Police made nearly 30 arrests in Hanover Park, including five for the possession of illegal firearms."

"We are proud to partner with Cape Town to help crack down on gun violence and make this beautiful city safer and more secure for its residents," said Ralph A. Clark, President and CEO of SST/ShotSpotter. "We know how to help solve the problems so many cities face. More than 90 municipalities use ShotSpotter to assist law enforcement with fast, accurate gunfire data that can save lives and rein in crime. Since most gunfire goes unreported to police, ShotSpotter becomes an incredibly valuable tool to alert police to all gunfire incidents, which enables them to respond to the crime scene quickly, precisely and safely. In fact, fewer than one in five unlawful gunfire incidents are reported to police, and in the communities most impacted by gun violence, those residents are the least likely to call."

In addition to Cape Town, ShotSpotter has been in use in South Africa's Kruger National Park to help park authorities fight rhino poachers. With a very small proof of concept deployment, ShotSpotter helped detect two poaching events that led to the capture and prosecution of several poachers as well as the recovery of a baby rhino whose mother was poached.

About ShotSpotter

ShotSpotter Flex helps local law enforcement agencies by directing police to the precise location of illegal gunfire incidents enabling first responders to aid victims, collect evidence and quickly apprehend armed, dangerous offenders. The ShotSpotter actionable intelligence can then be used to prevent future crimes by positioning law enforcement when and where crime is likely to occur. With ShotSpotter Flex, police now possess a scientific barometer of success since smart policing leads to fewer shootings.

About SST, Inc.

SST, Inc. is the global leader in gunfire detection, protection and connection technology, providing the most trusted, scalable and reliable gunfire alert and analysis solutions available today. SST's ShotSpotter Flex is the leading gunfire alert and analysis solution for detecting gunshots, protecting officers with tactical awareness, and connecting law enforcement agencies to the community; while providing critical intelligence to give law enforcement agencies the detailed real-time data needed to investigate, analyze and prosecute gun related crimes. SST's ShotSpotter SiteSecure and SST SecureCampus provide critical indoor/outdoor infrastructure protection against active shooter attacks. The company's deep domain experience, intellectual property including 33 issued patents, along with cumulative agency best practice experience, enables measurable outcomes that contribute to reducing gun violence. SST is a proven solution provider with more than 90 installations across the United States and the world. Privately held and Silicon Valley based, the company has nearly two decades of innovation and deployment experience in the area of acoustic gunshot location technology. For more information on ShotSpotter Flex, visit our datasheet here. Details can be found at www.ShotSpotter.com. Details about our U.S. and foreign patents can be found at http://www.ShotSpotter.com/patents.
In the preface to her book, Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivors Story, Minneapolis writer Caren Stelson relates an event in a Minneapolis park on August 26, 2005 that changed her life. It was a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A Japanese woman who had survived the bombing of Nagasaki spoke that day, and five years later, Stelson tracked Sachiko Yasui down to ask her if Stelson could share her story with young readers. Sachiko has just been longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award in Young Peoples Literature.

What inspired you to write Sachiko?

The first time I met Sachiko Yasui, I was inspired by her strength, courage, resilience, and hope for peace. How does a six-year-old child survive nuclear war? How does a child heal from such an apocalyptic experience and find a pathway peace as an adult? I wanted to understand Sachikos lifes journey. In times such as ours, I believe Sachikos story is important for all of us to contemplate.

The U.S. bombed Nagasaki in 1945. Why is Sachikos story still relevant to young people so many years later?

Although the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki took place over 70 years ago, the world continues to live with the unthinkable possibility of another nuclear war. Sachikos story is a reminder of what ordinary civilians had to endure long after August 9, 1945. Yet Sachikos story also offers young people hope that they too have the resilience and courage to overcome whatever losses and hardships they may face in their own lives.

Why did you decide to write Sachiko as a childrens book rather than for adults?

Young people have always been my audience, whether as a teacher or a freelance writer. Sachiko is passionate about reaching out to children too. At the beginning of our work together, Sachiko and I agreed our audience would be young people. They are the future of the world.

You interviewed Sachiko Yasui for this book. Did you speak to any other Nagasaki survivors?

Yes, I interviewed hibakusha [atomic bomb survivors] in both Nagasaki and Hiroshima  even in Minnesota. I also read many translated testimonials written by atomic bomb survivors. The Japanese were not the only people exposed to dangerous levels of radiation as a result of the bombings. I interviewed a WWII veteran from Minnesota who had fought in the Pacific and was part of the occupation of Nagasaki after Japans surrender when radiation levels were still quite high. I also listened to oral histories of other American soldiers who were stationed in Japan after the war.

What other kind of research did you do and what kind of sources did you use in your writing?

Beyond the history books, the interviews, and the oral histories, I was determined to learn as much as I could about Sachikos world. I toured the atomic bomb museums in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki and attended Hiroshima City Universitys weeklong Peace Symposium to gain a wider historical perspective. I had Nagasaki newspaper articles translated into English so I could better understand the American occupation through Japanese eyes. I made a point to visit Pearl Harbor and stood on the deck of the USS Missouri, where Japan officially surrendered to the Allies. In New York City, I visited the American Foundation for the Blind and Helen Kellers archives, searching for original documents about Kellers 1948 trip to Japan. Over 5,000 people met Helen Keller at the Nagasaki train station, and among them was nine-year-old Sachiko Yasui. I spent six years immersed in researching the wider history in which Sachikos story takes place.

You ended Sachikos story in August 1995, the 50th anniversary of the bombing. What has Sachikos life been like since?

On the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Sachiko found her courage to tell her story in public. She gave lectures at universities, toured Japan on speaking tours, and in 2005 became president of the Keisho-bu Branch of the Nagasaki Foundation for the Promotion of Peace, an organization that supports the public sharing of the experiences of atomic bomb survivors. Sachiko held that post until November 2013, when she had a stroke, effectively ending her public speaking career. With the help of our translator Keiko Kawakami, Sachiko and I continue to talk by phone. In January, I will travel to Nagasaki to give Sachiko her personal copy of the published book.

What was your reaction to hearing that the book has been longlisted for a National Book Award?

Stunned.

What kind of impact did researching and writing Sachiko have on you as a writer and as a person?

I am a different person having written Sachikos story. I have a greater sense of strength and determination to work for peace and justice in my community. As a writer, I learned how much courage it takes to write a powerful story. At times, I wondered if I had enough. I kept saying to myself, if Sachiko had the courage to live her life, I could find the courage to listen to her story and write it down.

Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivors Story by Caren Stelson. Lerner/Carolrhoda, $19.99 Oct. 1 ISBN 978-1-4677-8903-5
An Oregon shop trashes 'Portlandia;' an African-American bookstore preps to open in Texas; SIBA plans its Pat Conroy celebration; and more.

African-American Bookstore to Open in Killeen, Tex.: Maeva Jackson is planning an October 15 opening for Black World Books, after running an online bookstore with the same name for the past two years. In addition to books by black authors, the store will carry incense and oils, coffee and tea, and African art and artifacts. And it will hold storytimes and workshops for children.

Her Bookshop Opens in Nashville: Writer and long-time publishing veteran Joelle Herr opened a 400 sq. ft. nook for people who love beautiful books earlier this week. She wants the bookstore to be a place where people can discover interesting books. That doesnt include bestsellers, which she has no plans to stock.

Feminist Bookstore Says No to 'Portlandia': In Other Words in Portland, Ore., posted a F@#k Portlandia! sign in its window earlier this week. The bookstore followed up with a blog post today about why they are discontinuing their relationship with the show, which they said has not earned them enough money be closed for the filming. Hence the Indiegogo campaign announced earlier this week. The catalyst was a filming that left the store a mess and forced neighboring businesses to close for the day.

The Espresso Bar Becomes Part of Literati: Earlier this week two customers got engaged at the Ann Arbor, Mich., bookstore. And yesterday the bookstore tied the knot with its Espresso Bar, which had been independently run. Owners Hilary and Mike Gustafson plan to unify the two businesses.

SIBA Booksellers Celebrate Pat Conroy Week Next Month: During the week of October 24, Southern booksellers are planning to hold fund drives and promotions to raise money for a literary center http://patconroyliterarycenter.org in Conroys home town of Beaufort, S.C. The idea is to do for Conroy what he did for booksellers, said SIBA executive director Wanda Jewell. The timing coincides with Conroys birthday and the release of a collection of his speeches and interviews, Lowcountry Heart. SIBA is sponsoring a contest for those who donate $41 or more to be entered into a drawing to win the 41 new books that were the finalists and winners of the new Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize (formerly known as the SIBA Book Awards).
If you had asked me my thoughts on Banned Books Week two years ago, before the release of my debut novel, None of the Above, I would have admitted to secretly hoping that my book would be challenged. After all, it featured one of the truest hallmarks of a controversial title: characters that defied the gender binary.

During my release year I faced no overt pushback, possibly because Im a physician, and can discuss the science behind my intersex characters biological condition. And, as recent actions by the NCAA and the ACC suggest, society as a whole seems to be more open to discourse around gender diversity.

Then it happened. I was disinvited from a school visit in Tennessee with no warning. And I realized that being banned is not thrilling. It is not something to be celebrated. Its more like the gut punch youd feel if someone threw your child off a playground because they think theyd start a fight. More importantly, with books like mine, that hope to shine light on subjects that are associated with stigma and shame, its the readers who lose. A chance to save lives, down the drain.

As I tried to process the withdrawn invitation, I wondered. What kind of educator turns away the opportunity to educate? What kind of administrator cant be bothered to introduce students to topics that will make them think critically across disciplines? What kind of person denies our youth any kind of literature that increases openness and tolerance?

Writing for children is possibly the most important thing that I do, and I say this as both a mother and as a surgeon who recently removed a 15-centimeter kidney tumor from a 61-year-old man. This is not to trivialize the act of treating cancer, but to emphasize the importance of saving lives through literature.

Books can cure in many wayspeople contain multitudesbut in my own experience they have shaped my life threefold: by being a balm to loneliness, by inoculating me against my own latent prejudices, and by providing me a hopeful prognosis for the future.

Ive been extraordinarily lucky to witness this healing process from the other side of the page, as well, through feedback Ive gotten from readers. Comments like: Your book gave me the courage to reach out to others with my condition" and "thank you for showing me that I am not alone."

 "What kind of person denies our youth any kind of literature that increases openness and tolerance?" 

In fact, a plurality of young adult writers I know have similar examples. Almost universally, its because theyve dared to tackle difficult subjects: Police brutality. Coming out. Drug use. Issues of gender identity. Disability. Gun violence. Suicide.

Booksparticularly the books that delve into the tough topics that todays youth are exposed to every news cycle save lives. Of course, it's these "difficult books that are most often challenged by parents and school administrators. The American Library Associations Office of Intellectual Freedom documents library challenges, and data consistently show that diverse books, books featuring people of color, religious minorities or characters that are LGBTQIA or disabled, are disproportionately banned.

The tragedy, of course, is that diverse youth are at the highest risk for suicide: Native American teens are twice as likely to take their lives as their peers; LGBTQIA teens are more than four times as likely to take their life.

If there is any greater proof that the pen is mightier than the sword, its the fact that there are areas of the country where people are more afraid of picture books about gay penguins than they are concerned about guns in schools.

Typically, challenges are offered by parents on grounds of content that is unsuitable for age group. Yet educational research suggests that shielding kids from tough topics denies them critical thinking skills, whereas students exposed to controversial issues leave school as better citizens, being more likely to vote, support democratic values, and do charitable work.

Therein is the most important attribute of books as medicinetheir ability to foster compassion, promote empathy, and reconcile division. There is nothing like a book to allow you to walk in another persons shoes. Take it from someone who is both a physician and a writer: Every banned book is a missed opportunity to treat.

I.W. Gregorio is a mother, practicing surgeon, and young adult author. Her debut novel, None of the Above (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray), was a finalist for the 2016 Lambda Literary Award, a Publishers Weekly Flying Start, and a 2015 ABC Childrens Group Best Book for Young Readers.
Colin Dickey. Viking, $27 (336p) ISBN 978-1-101-98019-4

In the introduction to this illuminating study of so-called true hauntings and the American publics enduring fascination with them, Dickey (Cranioklepty) posits that ghost stories reveal the contours of our anxieties, the nature of our collective fears and desires, the things we cant talk about in any other way. Grouping haunts into four categorieshouses, hangouts, institutions, and entire townshe shows how the persistence of these ghost stories, especially when their details change with the times, say more about the living than the dead. Noting how popular accounts of the ghost of Myrtles Plantation has shifted over the years from that of an abused slave to revenants from a Native American burial ground beneath the plantation, Dickey notes that ghost stories like this are a way for us to revel in the open wounds of the past. Describing the ghost stories that cropped up in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrinas devastation, he writes that ghost stories are how cities make sense of themselves: how they narrate the tragedies of their past, weave cautionary tales for the future. In contrast to many compendia of true ghost stories, Dickey embeds all of the fanciful tales he recounts in a context that speaks to some larger facet of American consciousness. His book is a fascinating, measured assessment of phenomena more often exploited for sensationalism.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  A National Science Foundation grant will fund Purdue University research into computational thinking by children.

The NSF awarded a $2.5 million grant to principal investigator Alka Harriger, a professor in the Computer and Information Technology Department, for the project, "Curriculum and Assessment Design to Study the Development of Motivation and Computational Thinking for Middle School Students across Three Learning Contexts."

Along with Brad Harriger, a professor in the School of Engineering Technology, the project will build upon on the work of Alka and Brad Harriger, through the "Teaching Engineering Concepts to Harness Future Innovators and Technologists" project. That work also was funded by an NSF grant.

Through the new project, Alka Harriger said the TECHFIT work done in an after-school class will be expanded with the new NSF funds, creating an elective class for the students as well as inserting computational thinking modules into the existing middle school courses for students. Mike and Susan Flynn, former Purdue professors and current professors at the College of Charleston and TECHFIT partners, will provide consulting expertise on the new project.

Alka Harriger said the new project will study the impact of the three overall delivery methods on students' career interests in computing and their understanding of computational thinking. The final goal will be to determine if the three contexts influence teacher delivery and student experiences as well as the ultimate development in computational thinking with the students.

The new project is funded under the NSF STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) + Computing Partnerships program and will last for three years. Loran Parker and Weiling Li, both in the College of Education, are co-investigators on the project team who will study the work's impact.

An advisory board with representatives from Phoenix Contact, Balluff and the National Center for Women and Information Technology, along with educational experts, will guide the project team.

A total of 165 teachers and around 2,800 students in grades six through eight will be involved. Two schools have agreed to partner on the effort: Lafayette Sunnyside Intermediate School and Winamac Middle School in Winamac. Middle schools that are interested in being considered for the project should email the team at techfit@purdue.edu.

Writer: Brian L. Huchel, 765-494-2084, bhuchel@purdue.edu

Source: Alka Harriger, 765-494-2565, harrigea@purdue.edu
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One of the minor but memorable recurring characters who live forever in "Seinfeld" syndication history is Babu Bhatt, who on a number of occasions had good reason to wag his finger at Jerry and say, "You bad man! You very very bad man!"

The almost willfully negligent BP executive played by John Malkovich in "Deepwater Horizon" is so arrogant, so obstinate and so quick to brush off multiple and serious safety concerns aboard the ill-fated oil rig, I half-expected the good guys played by Mark Wahlberg and Kurt Russell to get in his face and say, "You bad man! You very very bad man!"

Just as Oliver Stone's "Snowden" made no bones about declaring the NSA leaker an American freedom fighter, Peter Berg's "Deepwater Horizon" paints a number of crew members as flat-out heroes while portraying BP officials as almost cartoonishly villainous -- blinded to the point of stupidity by their greed.

I'd say Berg has a much stronger case than Stone.

The April 20, 2010, explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig some 40 miles southeast of the Louisiana coast killed 11 workers, injured 17 others, created the largest offshore oil spill in history and is considered the worst ecological disaster our nation has ever seen.

In the hands of director Berg, who specializes in quick-cut, adrenaline-pumping action ("Friday Night Lights," "Battleship," "Lone Survivor"), it's a well-made, sometimes horrifyingly realistic re-creation of events.

But it often feels like a formulaic disaster film, from the obligatory scenes depicting "Peaceful Morning at Home for the Main Characters Before All Hell Breaks Loose" to the "Joshing Around Before All Hell Breaks Loose" scenes on the rig to the "Something's Seriously Wrong" sequences to the "All Hell Breaks Loose!" madness to the "Frantic Wife on the Phone Trying to Get Information" cutaway scenes.

Berg reteams with "Lone Survivor" star Mark Wahlberg, who plays the likable and respected chief electronics technician Mike Williams. Wahlberg is believable and natural in the early, tender scenes at home with his lovely wife (Kate Hudson) and their whip-smart, beyond adorable daughter (Stella Allen), and in the sequences aboard the rig, whether he's exchanging techno-jargon with the crew, verbally sparring with the BP execs aboard the rig or repeatedly risking his own safety to save others as fierce explosions and raging fires roar all around him.

Kurt Russell is perfectly cast as the beloved crew captain Mr. Jimmy, Gina Rodriguez is outstanding as the relatively inexperienced technician Andrea Fleytas, and Hudson does fine work as Mike's wife, Felicia. (The screenplay gives Hudson's character a little more depth than Laura Linney's very similar wife-on-the-phone role in "Sully.")

As for the great Malkovich, who if he were cast as a lamppost would play that lamppost as the most eccentric lamppost ever: There's a smirking malevolence to his portrayal of BP executive Donald Vidrine, who is so frustrated with Deepwater Horizon's behind-schedule performance, he finds a way to discount every safety concern, bypass crucial performance tests and demand the crew proceed as scheduled.

Meanwhile, Berg builds the suspense with murky glimpses of the drill creaking and cracking and shuddering deep below the rig. (Working on a school project, Mike's daughter describes the oil as a "monster" in the deep that must be contained -- and indeed, Berg sets up the action sequences as if he's building the foundation for a monster movie.)

The screenplay by Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand is overloaded with inside jargon that would be decipherable only to oil rig engineers and technicians. And once the rig explodes, it's so dark and Berg's camera is so hyperactive and the actors are covered in oil that it's impossible at times to decipher exactly whom we're watching and what they're trying to accomplish.

But Berg does a solid job of capturing the intensity and ferocity of the explosion, and how terrifying it must have been for all onboard when they realized the rig was going down and their only hope was to head for the waters, which were literally on fire.

Wahlberg's Mike Williams shifts into full-on action hero mode (it's visual hyperbole, but thrilling to watch) as he makes astounding leaps and performs near superhero-level stunts. Russell's Mr. Jimmy is a steady leader even though he's been seriously injured. And Hudson's Felicia is the symbol of all the families whose lives were forever changed that night.

And the BP execs, quite deservedly, are given the cinematic equivalent of Babu's Wagging Finger of Shame.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic -- Recently, a group of 20 people gathered at a shady corner outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy in the Czech capital, preparing to stage a particularly controversial brand of protest.

Several in the group wrapped scarves and pillowcases around their heads in mockery of the traditional Muslim headdress, the keffiyeh. Others put on sheets like the ankle-length garment the thawb, securing them with a pin, printed on which was a red cross through a mosque with the words "Block Islamization." The group rolled out a portable toilet meant to resemble the Holy Kaaba at Mecca and the costumed protesters began to march around it to mock the Hajj pilgrimage before police shut demonstration down.

"We have the right of freedom of speech," Martin Vitek, one of the leaders of the group, said at the time. "Islam is not a religion; it is an ideology for governing the world."

Though small in size, the group is one expression of far bigger nationalist movements sweeping across Europe, from countries like France and the Netherlands, to the heart of Central Europe, in the Czech Republic, Austria, Poland and Hungary. The anti-Muslim mood, anchored to recent terrorist activities in France, Germany and Belgium, is part of a call for change across the region. Right-wing leaders are capitalizing on fear and xenophobia to flatly reject incoming Muslim refugees primarily fleeing Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

"What you have here is a perfect storm resulting from the financial crisis in the West, the security crisis and the refugee crisis," says Mabel Berezin, an expert in nationalism in Europe and a sociologist at the department of sociology at Cornell University.

According to a study by the Pew Research Center published in July, 43 percent of the surveyed populations of 10 countries had an unfavorable view of Muslims. Another 59 percent said they believe accepting refugees increases the likelihood of terrorism. The 10 countries included France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Story continues

[ READ: France wrestles with its Muslim relations]

In the Czech Republic, which is holding senate elections in October and general legislative elections next year, nationalistic and anti-Islamic rhetoric has become commonplace, even among top leaders. "After what has been happening in Europe, I say clearly that I don't want even a single refugee in the Czech Republic, not even temporarily," Deputy Prime Minister Andrej Babis wrote in an op-ed in August. President Milos Zeman encouraged citizens to "arm themselves" against the rising terrorist threat.

The mood today in Central Europe harkens back to centuries-long antipathy toward another group, the Romani, a minority originating from northern India believed to have first arrived in Europe in the 15 th century. This group, disparagingly referred to by locals as "gypsies," have for decades been the victims of hate crimes in countries like Hungary and the Czech Republic that are often met with violence. During World War II, up to half a million Romani were believed to have been executed by the Nazis in what has become known as the Romani Holocaust.

The shift toward nationalism in Central Europe is perhaps no more apparent than in Hungary and Poland, where anti-migrant leaders hold top positions in the government and have pledged to bar migrants from entering. Both countries have become the subject of numerous protests over the issue and have experienced a sharp increase in hate crimes.

The July Pew study also showed Hungarians possessed the strongest negative views about Muslims, closely followed by Italians and Poles. Additionally, 82 percent of Hungarians and 75 percent of Poles view refugees as a burden on a country by taking jobs and benefits that otherwise would have been available to citizens.

Hungarian President Viktor Orban has consistently rejected efforts by the European Union to manage the migrant crisis through resettlement quotas. He has called on the EU to round up migrants and put them on an island, according to European media reports. On Oct. 2 his country will vote on a Brexit-inspired referendum on whether to accept the proposed EU refugee quotas.

Cornell's Berezin says anti-migrant views in Central Europe are largely reactionary since most of the countries in the region have very small Muslim populations. By contrast, "In a place like France that has experienced terrorist threats, it is not surprising that people are worried about terrorism, because it actually happened."

Roughly 1.3 million migrants arrived in the 28 EU member states, Norway and Switzerland in 2015, nearly double the previous record of about 700,000 recorded in 1992 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to Pew.

Hungary last year began installing razor-wire fencing along its border with Serbia. In the run-up to the Oct. 2 referendum, Orban's government distributed pamphlets to the public warning that immigrants had turned sections of London and other European cities into "no-go " zones. The Orban government's position on immigration has drawn scorn from regional leaders. In September, Luxembourg's foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, called for Hungary to be thrown out of the EU for treating asylum seekers "worse than wild animals."

The issue of nationalism in Central Europe has been fueled not only by the migration crisis, but by some influential member-states of the EU reacting to a variety of political and economic issues that have been accumulating gradually over several years.

These issues include "the nature of EU responses to the Ukraine- Russia conflict and by a general feeling that the 'new' member states of central Europe still do not get a fair hearing within the EU," says Richard Youngs, a senior associate at Brussels-based think tank Carnegie Europe who is an expert on EU foreign policy. Youngs and Berezin point to badly needed reforms on the part of the European Union if the issue is going to be dealt with.

"If there are certain social values that appear more conservative in some of the eastern member states, the EU will need to be flexible enough to allow these some room, before such values tip over into really serious illiberal politics as in Hungary and increasingly in Poland, too," says Youngs.

It does not seem that any such reform is forthcoming however as the de facto leader of the EU, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has shown signs of waning power after her party only drew about 18 percent of the vote in Berlin elections earlier this month. The loss has given rise to anti-immigration populists Alternative fur Deutschland , described by Berlin mayor Michael Muller days before the election as "a sign of the return of the right wing and the Nazis in Germany."

[IN-DEPTH: Merkel to confront political tests]

Without a powerful voice at the helm of the EU , however , it appears there is little left to stand in the way of the rising tide of nationalism and anti-Muslim sentiments.

"You have party leaders who are fueling these [nationalist] sentiments by omission really, by failing to stand out against these issues," says Lydia Gall, a Europe researcher and human rights lawyer with Human Rights Watch in Hungary.

"I think it's one of the most important issues presently and will be for some time, and as far as I can see right now the European Union is failing."





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The Quad City Symphony's new "Joined by a River" season floats in Saturday, diving into its many water-themed works with a fairly new one, literally about our mighty Mississippi.

"Reflections on the Mississippi," by Cedar Rapids native Michael Daugherty, is the centerpiece for this weekend's concerts. The tuba concerto was commissioned by Temple University, and premiered in 2013 in Philadelphia. The first QCSO performances will feature Minnesota Orchestra tubist Steven Campbell.

"I'm always looking for new pieces. The tuba is a newer instrument to the orchestra, relatively, and it's a growing repertoire. This is certainly a great addition," Mr. Campbell said this week. "The most difficult thing to write for this instrument, is because the instrument is lower, if the orchestra is too thick the tuba can get lost in texture of the sound."

The Daugherty does not, he said, adding it's "a very accessible piece to anyone. It does sound popular in some ways, without being kitschy."

A rave review of the piece (at classicstoday.com) said that "most tuba concertos are simply terrible and richly deserve their obscurity, but Michael Daugherty has given the music a great deal of thought and has come up with an evocative quartet of movements (Mist, Fury, Prayer, Steamboat) that permits the soloist a huge range of expression in a style -- typically tinged with rock, pop, gospel, and jazz -- that suits the instrument singularly well."

Another review of the "Reflections" premiere (at broadwayworld.com) called it "an appealing, intensely melodic work."

The QCSO program notes say of the composer (who teaches at the University of Michigan): "Resonating strongly with audiences and scandalizing the academic establishment, Daugherty has become one of the most frequently-performed living American composers."

The program says after his fathers death in 2011, Mr. Daugherty went back to Iowa, traveling the river from Dubuque to Hannibal, Mo.

Along the 'Great River Road,' I explored small river towns and snapped photographs of scenic river vistas," he wrote. "Local boat owners also guided me to the secluded wildlife havens and murky backwaters of the Mississippi River. All the while, I was collecting sounds, musical ideas and an emotional framework for my tuba concerto.

Each of the four picturesque movements depict scenes familiar to all QCSO listeners, the program says:

-- Mist, where the tubas mystical melody depicts sunrise as seen and heard through a misty haze over the Mississippi River."

-- Fury, which recalls the 1927 flood as described by William Faulkner.

-- Prayer, depicting meditative river vistas (complete with small town church bells.

-- Steamboat, a nod to Mark Twains "Life on the Mississippi."

Mr. Campbell said "Reflections" is different from other concerti because it's programmatic, which "evokes a picture from the start."

In the program, the soloist said the piece "has some breathtaking phrases in the first and third movements. Personally, I've noticed more composers realizing what the tuba can do and how to write for it, not just a fourth trombone part, but a solo instrument that can stand on its own."

"As a tuba player, it's always fun to show people what you can do on the tuba," Mr. Campbell said in the interview. "It can do anything you can do on any other brass instrument. Composers that realize that are not afraid to do that, and stretch the limits. It can be aggressive; it also can be very lyrical, French horn-like in its sonority."

A 44-year-old native of Brenham, Texas, Mr. Campbell grew up studying under his tuba-playing father, who directed band at a community college.

"It was kind of a natural progression, I just knew from a young age I wanted to play the tuba," he said, noting that playing high-school marching band "is obligatory in Texas," and he went on to study at the University of Houston and at the New England Conservatory, with the now-retired tubist for the Boston Symphony.

Mr. Campbell -- who also teaches tuba -- has been with the Minnesota Orchestra 12 years, where he's played under conductor Mark Russell Smith (the QCSO's music director). Mr. Smith's wife, Ellen, plays horn in that orchestra.

This weekend's program includes two beloved masterworks -- Richard Strauss's "Don Juan" (1888), and Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E-flat ("Eroica," from 1805).

Program notes say Strauss' symphonic story of the infamous ladies man is "his first important work demonstrating his narrative and descriptive genius..."

Strauss "seems to empathize more with the philanderer than the women he leaves behind, and concludes not with a stern moral warning, but rather a quiet shudder of existential despair," the program says. "Listen especially to how the character of the opening motives and themes change kaleidoscopically as the piece progresses, from carefree and arrogant at first to increasingly desperate and bleak."

Regarding the titanic Beethoven, the QCSO program cites Bruce Springsteen and Donald Trump, and calls Beethoven (1770-1827) "The Boss of his day," who had "no shortage of political opinions, one of them being his enthusiastic support for the forward-thinking French consul Napoleon Bonaparte."

Beethoven dedicated his third symphony, subtitled Eroica (heroic), to Napoleon, but between the works completion in early 1804 and premiere in 1805, Napoleon named himself French emperor, which moved Beethoven to withdraw the dedication, the program says.

Musically, it represents a turning point in the composer's career, with the program noting from this . symphony onward, he "demonstrates a phenomenal technical confidence and creative independence." Beethoven achieves that on top of the fact that he was deaf by 1802.
Robbie Patton was arraigned Friday in Urbana. The 18-year-old appeared by video from the Champaign County Jail and barely spoke as the charges against him were read. Patton answered "yes sir" several times as a judge asked him whether he understood the charges.

Patton unexpectedly turned himself in at the jail late Thursday night.

He is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 22-year-old George Korchev Sunday on Green Street, an area near campus known for bars and restaurants. Three other people were injured.

Patton has not entered a plea and was only assigned an attorney Friday afternoon.
PORT BYRON -- A nearly forgotten Civil War soldier killed in battle is getting a helping hand so his story is better remembered.

Lt. George Apthorp was killed in 1864 while leading the Union's 14th U.S. Colored Infantry, a regiment of black troops. A fellow officer sent his body to his family, and his father buried him next to his mother in Port Byron where the family had lived when Lt. Apthorp was a child.

Over the last 150 years, the markers for the mother and son have disappeared, as discovered by Doug Lambert, who is helping restore Rock Island County's monument to its Civil War fatalities.

Mr. Lambert, who chairs the Quad Cities Civil War Roundtable, said records indicate Lt. Apthorp's plot is in a cemetery on Cherry Street in Port Byron. But there are no headstones.

A group of residents hope to obtain a replacement marker for the grave.

"There is an overwhelming interest in seeing Lt. Apthorp get a grave marker," said Lawrence Bay, part of the group.

Mr. Bay said the group, which includes Coe Lamb American Legion Post 421, considered seeking a replacement marker through the federal government. The rules for such replacements, however, require the request be made by a family member.

No descendants of Lt. Apthorp have been found.

Post commander Scott Angelici said he also has made asked officials with the state and other organizations about help obtaining a replacement stone. None has been found.

Mr. Bay said having a marker made for the grave is a possibility. Price quotes are around $1,800, he said, and the group is trying to decide what to do.

Accounts of Lt. Apthorp's death at the Battle of Decatur exist. They include "Freedom By the Sword," an account of the U.S. black regiments; "The Martyrs and Heroes of Illinois in the Great Rebellion," which details the lives of some slain Illinois soldiers; and the National Park Service website nps.gov/abpp/battles/al004.htm.

The several-day engagement occurred as the Confederate Army of Tennessee tried to cross the Tennessee River at Decatur, Ala., and was opposed by a smaller Union force.

During the fighting, the Lt. Apthorp's unit was attacked, but it disabled a Confederate artillery emplacement and escaped before it could be reached by a counterattack, according to "Freedom By the Sword." The next day, the regiment fought the Confederate rearguard as the Army of Tennessee withdrew.

Lt. Apthorp, in his early 20s, probably was killed during the fight with the rearguard, based on "Freedom" and "Martyrs." The latter includes a letter from his commanding officer to Lt. Apthorp's father saying several soldiers, under fire, carried the dead lieutenant from the battlefield.

"My men almost worshiped him; and when someone cried 'Lt. Apthorp is killed,' my whole company seemed ready to die rather than leave his body," the letter states.

Lt. Apthorp's name is not on the county's monument that lists the names of hundreds of Rock Island County soldiers killed during the war. Mr. Lambert believes Lt. Apthorp's family had left the area by the time monument builders were gathering names.

Some of the names on the monument, which stood outside the Rock Island County Courthouse, also are in danger of disappearing. Dedicated in April 1869, the monument has suffered weathering that has eroded the names. There also are cracks and other damage.

A restoration effort that includes the roundtable, the Rock Island County Sheriff's Office and the Rock Island County Historical Society hopes to renovate the monument. That work will include adding the names of Lt. Apthorp and other local Civil War fatalities not listed, Mr. Lambert said.
A consortium of NGE Civil Engineering, GTS, Guintoli, Pizzarotti, Implenia, Franki Foundations Belgium and Atlas Foundations has been awarded a 363m contract to construct a 4.7km twin-bore tunnel between Noisy-Champs and the station box at Bry-Villiers-Champigny, together with a 2.2km link to the lines depot.

SGP has also awarded a 51m contract to a consortium of Parenge, Dacquin, and Leon Grosse to carry out civil works at the junction between Line 15 South and Line 16 at Noisy-Champs.

Both contractors will begin work on site in January 2017.

The 33km Line 15 South will connect the southern suburbs of Paris linking Pont de Sevres in the west with Noisy Champs in the east. The 5.7bn project is due to be completed at the end of 2022 and the 16-station line is forecast to carry around 300,000 passengers per day.
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In the wake of the Russian transfer of files from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks, many voices across the political spectrum have urged a U.S. response to discourage further hacks from Russia. Otherwise, Russians might be tempted to manipulate electronic voting systems, throwing the integrity U.S. elections into doubt.

A response could be a very powerful message. But how would it be read?

Perhaps others would hear: you have angered us, and in our anger we have retaliated. The lesson is not to anger us and we leave it up to you to understand what might do so. Whether or not the United States has a right to be angry would be beside the point. Our anger would be the point.

Or others could hear: Your actions have clearly violated what all responsible countries would consider acceptable state behavior. Here's the line. Your action fell on the far side of the line (while none of our actions do). So, the punishment you have received reflects not our anger but your transgression. We punish in order to foster a respect for international norms of responsible state behavior.

Both arguments are functional, but the second is far more consistent with how the United States sees its role in the world  and it sets a better precedent as a unipolar moment fades and a multipolar world emerges. To wit, the world is a better place if everyone plays by the rules. The key to global peace and stability is to develop, maintain  and enforce  such rules. U.S. power is necessary as a backstop to ensure rules are followed, but the United States (in theory) neither exempts itself from the application of such rules nor blatantly rigs these rules to favor narrow U.S. interests.

So, what rule would Russia have violated to deserve punishment? That is unclear. Espionage, itself, is not forbidden; it's what countries do. Even if individual spies are prosecuted if caught, spying is considered an acceptable activity for states. Cyberespionage is regarded likewise: understandable for states and not forbidden to those who work for states (as long as they do not leave their own country).

Or, was it influencing elections that deserved punishment? If influencing election is crossing a line, it is one that the United States has often done openly. President Obama spoke against Brexit, for instance. Furthermore, any rule framed in terms of elections may be deemed unfair by countries whose political processes do not include them (China lacks elections; Russia does have elections, albeit not necessarily free and fair).

Thus, to make the norm relevant to all countries would require stating it in terms of, say, political decision-making. Such a norm would enjoin one country's tampering with another country's political processes in general. Would the United States be comfortable agreeing to that? Perhaps not; there are many countries whose political processes produce outcomes that are awful from the U.S. perspective.

Hence, if one would write a norm that would hold the Russian DNC hack to be unacceptable, it cannot rest on a general prohibition against cyber-espionage or political interference. It would have to combine both prohibitions at once. Many countries would tend to agree to such rules. It may even win concurrence from China, which has an active cyber-espionage capability, but is recognizing limits on what it can do with what it takes (in September, China agreed not to use the results of cyber-espionage to boost the competitiveness of its industrial firms).

Russia  whose recent behavior is what spurs such consideration  will be the major hurdle (unless its leadership signs up in the blithe belief that it can still do what it wants as long as it can pretend otherwise). And while their concurrence is not necessary for such a norm to be recognized by others, it makes it a lot easier to hold them to account.

So, how does the United States show Russia that it is serious about red-lining such behavior? It could increase sanctions on Russia for the DNC hack by way of demonstration, but sanctions have their limits. The more they are used to express displeasure for one act, the less they can be used for another.

Or, the United States can leverage the fact that Russia has more to fear from others using cyber-espionage for political interference than it has to gain by doing it to others. Russia, after all, is a country in which corruption is rife and censorship increasingly relied upon to block reporting of corruption. Cyberespionage can reveal the former, and other cyber tricks can be used to pierce the censorship. Once challenged, the Russian leadership's legitimacy is at risk.

So if the United States would promulgate such a norm, its line could be quite simple: if you want your rules to prevail, understand what your world would look like if we followed them.

But that all assumes that the United States has gone to the trouble of stating which rules it wants to see.

Martin Libicki, author of Cybersecurity in Peace and War (Naval Institute Press, available Oct. 15) is the Maryellen and Richard Keyser Distinguished Visiting Professor in Cyber Security Studies at the U.S. Naval Academy and adjunct senior management scientist at the RAND Corporation.

This commentary originally appeared on FedScoop on September 12, 2016. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
This commentary originally appeared in the opinion section of FoxNews.com.

The next U.S. president is likely to be met with multiple international crises after assuming office, and Iran may be one of the most challenging of them.

Despite the heated partisan rhetoric, the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (United States, UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany) has been beneficial for the United States as Iran has shipped out most of its uranium stockpile, reduced the number of its centrifuges, and accepted intrusive international inspections, making it much more difficult for Tehran to develop nuclear weapons. But the JCPOA has not eliminated the fundamental differences between America and the Islamic Republic.

The Iranian regime continues to support terrorism, back the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and violate the rights of its people at home.

The election of Hassan Rouhani as president in 2013, while making JCPOA possible, has not led to any major changes in Iran.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards continue to wield unsurpassed power, often bypassing or outmaneuvering Iran's president and challenging U.S. interests in the region.

Iran holds its own presidential election in 2017 and Rouhani will likely face a strong challenge from the conservative establishment. Khamenei has voiced strong criticism of JCPOA in recent months, claiming that it has not led to a strengthening of Iran's economy because of U.S. treachery. While the JCPOA may have calmed some tensions in U.S.-Iran relations, a recalcitrant Iran may test the new American president by pushing the limits of the nuclear agreement and challenging U.S. interests in the Middle East more aggressively than before. Instead of seeking greater engagement with Iran, as was once hoped, Washington may have to adopt tougher policies against the Iranian regime.

Some proponents of the JCPOA hoped that it would lead to a thaw between Tehran and Washington, and perhaps even lead to the end of the long enmity between the two countries. In theory, Rouhani, often portrayed as a moderate by the Western media, would have been strengthened by the agreement and able to pursue his agenda of liberalizing Iran both economically and politically.

In reality, Rouhani's presidency has failed to deliver on most of his promises.

The Iranian economy has not improved for the average Iranian; most international banks continue to avoid doing business with Iran despite the easing of nuclear related sanctions.

Low oil prices have also been disastrous for the economy. That may be mostly beyond Rouhani's control, but the president never pushed against the economic or political role of the Revolutionary Guards, leaving Iran's most powerful military and security actor to define Iran's post-JCPOA agenda both at home and abroad.

The Guards' arrest of dual nationals, including Iranian-Americans, has sent a chill through the Iranian diaspora community and even potential foreign investors who once viewed Iran as an attractive market. Iran is simply not a safe bet for most investors.

But Rouhani's biggest failing may be his inability to bridge the gap between U.S. and Iranian interests in the Middle East.

The president and his talented foreign minister may be suitable interlocutors for American and European diplomats, but they are unable or unwilling to pursue policies in order to promote regional stability.

The Guards, under the command of the vaunted General Qassem Soleimani, have recruited tens of thousands of Shi'a fighters to fight for Tehran in Iraq and Syria, and perhaps beyond.

While Iran may have fought the so called Islamic State alongside American allies in Iraq, it nevertheless helped promote the sectarianism that continues to fan the flames of conflict in the region.

Iranian officials have even bragged that their new foreign legion could be used to liberate other parts of the Middle East.

At the same time, Iranian speed boats in the Persian Gulf have harassed U.S. warships as Khamenei has called for greater resistance to the U.S. presence in the region.

The Iranian regime's repression at home is as bad as ever before. The Guards and the Judiciary continue to imprison activists, academics, journalists, and artists. Except for a few mildly worded public speeches, Rouhani has offered no resistance to the regime's repression despite his first campaign's promise to create a freer and less securitized society.

On the whole, the enthusiasm that resulted from Rouhani's first campaign is unlikely to repeat itself in 2017.

It is rare for Iranian presidents to lose a second term, but Rouhani is likely to face great resistance not only from his conservative political competitors, but also from the millions of Iranians who initially supported his efforts to improve Iran. Khamenei, the Guards, and perhaps even the new Iranian president may test a new American president as she or he confronts multiple global crises.

Challenges from Iran could come in the form of questionable nuclear activities or even more assertive actions in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East.

The partisan rhetoric around the JCPOA has obscured its ability to constrain Iran's potential to develop nuclear weapons; the agreement has been largely a success for America up to this point on that front. But the next U.S. president should adopt a broader policy toward Iran that goes beyond enforcing the JCPOA or engaging Iran diplomatically.

The United States already has sizeable military forces and well-armed allies to counter Iran in the Middle East. But the next U.S. president should highlight the behavior of the Iranian regime at home.

It is not enough for the United States to maintain a strong military in the region or sell more arms to its allies; those efforts have to be accompanied by strong criticisms of Iran's human rights abuses, especially given the Iranian population's disappointment with the Rouhani administration.

In addition, the United States should increase support for Iranian groups seeking a stronger civil society; some may criticize United States ties to such groups as delegitimizing them, but in the absence of meaningful reform from within the system, the U.S. must take advantage of the Iranian regime's vulnerabilities at home.

A U.S. focus on promoting democracy is often tied to past failures at regime change in the Middle East, but this does not mean that it cannot be a valuable policy.

The hope for U.S.-Iran detente appears to be over. The Iranian regime is not interested in reform or improving relations with America as long as Khamenei and the Guards reign supreme.

The JCPOA does not mandate that America stop treating the Islamic Republic as an adversary.

The next U.S. president should have the pragmatism to see the JCPOA as benefiting American interests without having to feel constrained by it.

Bottom line: The continuing climate of repression, the next Iranian presidential election, and Khamenei's eventual demise may provide some important opportunities for America's next president.

Alireza Nader is a senior international policy analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.

This commentary originally appeared on Fox News Channel on September 29, 2016. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.

2022
Premiering next month, Imagen Television is giving the Televisa-Azteca duopoly in Mexicos free-to-air (FTA) sector some competition.





The network has confirmed it will premiere on 17 October during prime me, nearly two years after it was awarded its FTA broadcasting licence.Imagen Television will also be operating the third virtual DTT channel across the country after the recent reorganisation carried out by the Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones (IFT).The network belongs to Grupo Imagen Multimedia , which owns another TV signal Excelsior TV - which is only available free-to-air in Mexicos capital but also broadcast by pay-TV operators  as well as the Excelsior newspaper and Imagen Radio.So far, the Mexican journalist Ciro Gomez Leyva has been confirmed as director of news programming and Javier Alarcon, formerly at Televisa, as head of sports. In addition, other familiar names from Mexican TV will be part of the Imagen Televisions team, including Yuriria Sierra, Francisco Zea, Carlos Arenas, Luz Maria Zetina and Mauricio Barcelata.
Extremism case opened in Russia against far-right Ukrainian group leaders

MOSCOW, September 30 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko)  Russian investigators have opened an extremism case against leaders of Right Sector, a far-right Ukrainian group banned in Russia, RAPSI learnt in the Investigative Committees press office on Friday.

The criminal case was launched against Right Sector leaders Dmitry Yarosh and Andrei Tarasenko, the group heads Andrei Stempitsky, Valery Voronov, Artem Skoropadsky and others under an article on the extremist organizations activity, the statement reads.

Investigators claim that the organizations aim is justifying violent use based on political, racial, national and religious motives.

From 2014 till present, leaders and activists of Right Sector have been regularly planning and committing crimes against Russia, Russian residents and diplomatic establishments in Ukraine, according to investigation.

Over 5,000 militants are members of the group including citizens of Ukraine, Russia and other countries. Branches of the organization were created in some countries of Europe and North America.

Right Sector is a Ukrainian association of radical nationalist organizations. In January and February 2014, they clashed with police and seized administrative buildings in Kiev. Since April 2014, Right Sector has been involved in fighting the protest movement in eastern Ukraine.

In November 2014, Russias Supreme Court declared Right Sector an extremist group and banned its activity in Russia. The Investigative Committee has already opened a criminal case against Right Sector leader Dmitry Yarosh for the alleged incitement of terrorism.

In January 2015, Right Sector was added to the Russian register of prohibited organizations.
Russian Interior Ministrys ex-employee condemned of protecting illegal gambling

ST.PETERSBURG, September 30 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov)  A court in the Russian city of Cherepovets has sentenced ex-employee of the local Interior Ministrys Directorate Anna Smelkova to 1.5 years in prison for protection of illegal casinos organizer, the Prosecutor Generals Offices department in the Northwestern Federal District told RAPSI on Friday.

Smelkova was additionally fined 1.7 million rubles ($26,600) and prohibited from holding positions in the civil service, law enforcement agencies and local government bodies for 3 years.

The woman has pleaded guilty, the Prosecutor Generals Offices directorate said.

According to case materials, between 2012 and 2014, Smelkova provided information on expected inspections of gambling venues by police to a businessman, who had organized illegal casino in the city. Thus, the woman assisted the entrepreneur to avoid liability imposed by law. Smelkova received from the businessman a bribe in the form of property and provision of monetized services for a total amount of 1.7 million rubles.

Gambling business was prohibited in Russia on July 1, 2009 with the exception of four specialized gambling zones: Kaliningrad Region, Primorsky Krai, Altai Krai and Krasnodar Krai. According to Kommersant newspaper, Russia has only four legal casinos: Oracle and Nirvana in Krasnodar Krai, Altai Palace in Altai Krai and Tigre de Crystal in Primorsky Krai.
Appeal hearing on Russian Orthodox Church ex-employees sentence for treason adjourned

MOSCOW, September 30 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko)  Russias Supreme Court has postponed hearing of an appeal against a 12-year prison sentence given to Yevgeny Petrin, former employee of Russian Orthodox Church who claimed to be working as an operative of the Federal Security Service (FSB), for treason, the court told RAPSI on Tuesday.

The appeal will be considered on October 5.

Petrin was convicted in June. He appealed the sentence immediately after it had been delivered, according to his lawyer Ivan Pavlov.

Prosecution demanded a 19-year imprisonment for Petrin, while defense asked the court to acquit him. The case was classified and heard behind closed doors.

As reported earlier, Petrin contacted with unnamed agents of US intelligence services and passed them secret information about the FSB. A criminal case against him was reportedly opened in April 2014. He was arrested soon afterwards and placed in pre-trial detention center.
Around 2,000 dangerous items confiscated from Moscow Metro passengers in September

MOSCOW, September 30 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko)  The Moscow Metro security service employees revealed over 2,000 attempts by the passengers to carry highly dangerous items into the subway in September, RAPSI learned from the Metros press-service on Friday.

Over 85 percent of such items are knives.

According to the press-service, this month employees of the subway system inspected about 3.6 million passengers, which is almost 10 times more than last year. At the same time amount of dangerous items that were attempted to be carried into the Metro is getting lower. In comparison to the summer months their number was lowered almost 2.5 times.

Selective screening of passengers is present at all stations of the Moscow Metro. Since its introduction, the security inspected more than 36.2 million passengers and 16.1 million pieces of luggage.
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.
Credit Suisse Group AG CS and Barclays PLC BCS are in talks with the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) to settle investigations into their mortgage-backed securities, which triggered the 2008 financial crisis. The news was first reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Notably, a Credit Suisse deal is anticipated to be announced within a few weeks, per sources.

Are Provisions Enough to Bear the Settlement Charges?

Credit Suisse, the Swiss banking giant, had provisions of around CHF1.76 billion ($1.62 billion) as of the end of the second-quarter 2016, to cover its litigation expenses. Though the market speculates that the settlement charges could sum up to $2 billion, any amount higher than this can pose a problem for the bank.

Further, the bank is also fighting similar lawsuits with the New York and New Jersey attorney generals, who have accused it of misleading investors. Also, in addition to the mortgage-securities claims, Credit Suisse is facing allegations of rigging financial benchmarks and criminal complaints by its clients in Switzerland.

On the other hand, while Barclays currently maintains a provision of around 2.5 billion ($3.3 billion) for incurring investigation and litigation-related charges, the market speculates that it might have to pay less than $1 billion to settle its charges. However, the bank hasnt specified a provision for a U.S. mortgage settlement.

Regulatory Concerns Linger for European Banks

Clearly, the U.S. regulators have now shifted their focus toward European banks. Only a few days back, Deutsche Bank AG DB confirmed an initial claim for $14 billion from the DoJ, for settling its investigation into mis-selling of mortgage securities. However, the German banking giant has no intention to pay the amount sought by the DoJ.

Apart from these banks, UBS Group AG UBS and HSBC Holdings Plc have also disclosed U.S. investigations into their mortgage-securities businesses. Per a source, DoJ officials are eager to settle the pending cases against lenders. However, the talks can extend or may not materialize ultimately.

Story continues

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Concerned about what would happen to German-American relations in the event Donald Trump wins the US presidential election, government officials are holding low-key talks with his advisors. It's clear that if the Republican wins, it could be expensive for Berlin.
realclearworld Newsletters: Mideast Memo

Yeah, I guess so. Probably no set of words has been parsed and pulled apart more in the 2016 presidential election season than these four, uttered by Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump during a September 2002 interview with radio host Howard Stern when asked by the shock jock if he supported the proposed invasion of Iraq.

The interview, conducted on the one-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, was a medley of updates on the New York City investment environment and, on Sterns ogling insistence, the whereabouts of Trumps wife, Melania. But the interview has taken on a much larger life in the 2016 election, largely due to the real estate tycoons repeated and mostly erroneous claims that he was a vocal opponent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

During Monday nights presidential debate between Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, the Republican candidates equivocal support for the Iraq War back in 2002 again took centerstage, as the two sparred over the veracity of the wealthy investors claims of being an early war critic.

That is mainstream media nonsense put out by her, argued Trump during the live debate at Hofstra University. I was against the war in Iraq.  The record shows that I'm right.

For Trump, such hyperbole and exaggeration is certainly nothing new. During a 2015 presidential primary debate, the bombastic billionaire asserted that the Bush administration had to send a delegation to Trump Tower to plead with the developer to tone down his anti-war rhetoric. This, as it turns out, probably never happened.

Additionally, in an op-ed written last year for USA Today, Trump argued that he opposed the Iraq invasion from the very beginning, all the way back to 2004 -- more than a year after the United States had already invaded the country.

Trumps dogged insistence that he was openly critical of the Iraq invasion represents a missed opportunity to draw a stark contrast between himself and Secretary Clinton, the chosen candidate of the foreign policy establishment. But to truly understand the nuance -- yes, nuance -- in Trumps views on Iraq in those days leading up to the war, and how they appear to have informed his current foreign policy approach, its important to first consider the political climate of the post-9/11 United States.

The Fog of War Reporting

By the fall of 2002 a near consensus had congealed around the invasion of Iraq. The Bush administration -- buffered by both popular and elite opinion -- had worked all that year to link Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to the scourge of global terrorism and, more importantly, to nuclear proliferation and other weapons of mass destruction.

Complicit in this campaign was a not-so-insignificant portion of the press and the policymaking community. Indeed, todays inquisitors were in many cases yesterdays enablers, and all that was required for their self-exoneration, carried out in most cases years after the fact, was a public mea culpa tour in the form of apologetic essays and blog posts. While some chocked their war support up to an analytical failure," others provided more candid appraisal of their thinking at the time.

I was 21 years old and kind of a jerk, wrote liberal blogger and author Matthew Yglesias in 2010. Being for the war was a way to simultaneously be a free-thinking dissident in the context of a college campus and also be on the side of the countrys power elite.

That so many early war boosters went on to become some of its biggest critics only speaks to the persuasive powers of the countrys intellectuals and elected officials during the lead-up to war, and likewise to the potential for a country in chaos to attach itself to bad ideas and broken policymaking. And this is precisely Donald Trumps point.

Secretary Clintons own timeline on the Iraq War has been far better documented, and her 2002 decision as senator to vote in favor of the invasion thwarted her 2008 presidential ambitions and prolonged her bid for the Democratic nomination this election.

Clinton, to her credit, hasnt shied away from that vote and its many consequences, and supporters have noted that her decision to vote for the war came only after the Senate received assurances from the Bush administration that it would pursue U.N. approval for the military campaign, and that it would outline in detail its evidence linking Iraq to WMDs.

[H]er vote on Iraq, under the circumstances, should not be seen as the indicator of her stance or judgment on armed intervention generally, writes Slates Fred Kaplan.

Clinton, however, reiterated the Bush administrations Iraq-9/11 linkage line during an interview with MSNBCs Chris Matthews the following month:

[T]here is a very strong argument  that any rogue state, particularly one headed by a person of such megalomania, and a history of gross miscalculation, like Saddam Hussein  in this new world, where youve got organized terrorists with money, and means, and global reach, who could therefore get access to weapons of mass destruction means that we have to put some attention there.

Clintons record in her capacity as a United States senator, in addition to her time as secretary of state, is far more relevant to todays Middle East foreign policy debate than the radio musings of an eccentric and wealthy real estate developer. And though the media schadenfreude over Trumps unwillingness to part from his war opposition fiction is arguably overwrought and misplaced, the GOP flagbearer has clearly squandered an opportunity to poke the experts and elites who so erred during those days leading up to the war. Those who peddled the notion -- either explicitly as the Bush administration did, or more implicitly as Clinton did at the time -- that the attacks on 9/11 were somehow linked to the odious regime of Saddam Hussein were ultimately proven wrong, but only years after the fact, and well after the security situation in Iraq had deteriorated. A Washington Post poll released months after the invasion showed that nearly seven in 10 Americans believed then that the Iraqi dictator was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks.

This colossal, and collective, error in judgement by Americas elected officials in the months and years after Sept. 11 dovetails well with an argument often made by Trump while out on the stump, albeit inartfully: that Americas experts and elected officials -- beginning with the Bush administration and continued on by the Obama administration -- have become overly reliant on tactical pinpricks and half measures in the war against terrorism. Moreover, by bogging itself down in internal wars across the greater Middle East -- conflicts that historically end in stalemate -- the United States has committed itself to ill-defined and indefinite war.

There is a discernible doctrine of sorts in Trumps opposition to this kind of statecraft and war waging. In his 2000 book, The America We Deserve, Trump writes:

Im no warmonger. But the fact is, if we decide a strike against Iraq is necessary, it is madness not to carry the mission to its conclusion. When we dont, we have the worst of all worlds: Iraq remains a threat, and now has more incentive than ever to attack us.

The billionaire articulated similar displeasure in the 2002 Stern interview, lamenting that he wished the first time it was done correctly, a reference to the first Gulf War and the decision by President George H.W. Bush to leave Hussein in power.

None of this amounts exactly to a clear rejection of war in Iraq, far from it, but it is a rejection of the way in which America has for decades handled the country.

That Trumps present vision for post-war Iraq is illegal and arguably immoral doesnt help the Republican candidates case, but it also doesnt change the fact that the efforts by the American intelligentsia to paint Trumps evolution as an outright flip-flop is a disingenuous one that consequently deprives voters of a serious debate on decades of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

More on this:

In 2002, Donald Trump Said He Supported Invading Iraq -- BuzzFeed

Trump: Perhaps We Should Be Waiting for the United Nations [VIDEO] -- Fox News

Does an Old Interview Prove Trump Opposed the Iraq War? Nope -- Vox

Whos Checking the Fact Checkers on Trumps Iraq Views? -- Wall Street Journal



***

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 Real Clear Middle East.
This piece was created in collaboration with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Karen Weigert is a senior fellow on global cities at the Chicago Council. She served as the First Chief Sustainability Officer of the City of Chicago from 2011 to 2016. She is on Twitter @KarenRWeigert. All views are the author's own.

The Obama administrations stalled effort to regulate carbon emissions from power plants, the Clean Power Plan, was back before the courts on Tuesday. Even if it survives the process, the Clean Power Plan and the United States may miss a chance to catch up with China, which is building a transformative platform set to dominate global carbon markets.

In 2014 the United States and China made a bilateral announcement on their commitments to carbon reduction, paving the way for the Paris Agreement. The Clean Power Plan anchors the U.S. commitment, with a goal to reduce carbon from the electricity sector 32 percent by 2030.

Thirty-two percent may seem daunting, but a shift from coal to natural gas and renewables has already pushed carbon emissions down 21 percent from baseline 2005 levels. PJM Interconnection, one of the nations largest operators of the electrical grid, analyzed the Plan and concluded it can accommodate the effort with no impact to reliability and minimal impact to price. States are obliged comply with the Clean Power Plan individually, and the majority are on track to meet the first targets in 2022.

While this is good news for carbon emissions now, it raises questions for the long term. If states believe they can meet their goals independently, they may not build interstate mechanisms for trading emissions credits. Creating a national platform for emissions credit trading is what could put a national price on carbon and eventually transition the United States beyond fossil fuels.

In contrast to the Unites States, China is actively creating a national market for trading carbon emissions. After piloting carbon markets in seven different cities and regions, China is poised to launch its national cap-and-trade system in the next few months.

Chinas carbon market will soon be the largest in the world, with potential for global growth. Not only will China use this market to meet its Paris Agreement pledge, it may be positioned to partner with approximately 90 other countries that included a price on carbon in their Paris commitments.

Is it too late for the United States?

The state-led Clean Power Plan does provide a way in. California, the first state to release a draft of its implementation plan, will use its existing cap-and-trade system to meet its goals. Other states, in drafting their plans, could also ensure their approaches are trading ready. Even stronger, they could collaborate to join existing trading systems like Californias, or that of the nine eastern states that participate in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Beyond the Clean Power Plan, the absence of a national platform and policy creates an ambiguous planning environment. Increasingly, companies are taking matters into their own hands. The latest data from CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) shows over 500 companies globally had an internal price on greenhouse gas emissions in 2016, a 19 percent increase over 2015. Almost 700 more say they are planning to use one in the next two years.

The core of the Clean Power Plan is the argument that carbon is a pollutant, one that needs to be regulated and reduced. Countries and companies increasingly agree. The question is whether the United States can use tools like the Clean Power Plan to play a meaningful role in the global markets that result.
The audience roars as the stage lights reveal the panel of judges. Smiling broadly and bumping fists, Friedrich Nietzsche and Fyodor Dostoevsky, Albert Camus, and Flannery OConnor wave at the crowd. The cameras then cut to a figure, jutting his chin nervously and shifting in a chair across from them. A deep voice purrs: Welcome to The Celebrity Nihilist, with tonights guest, Donald Trump.

Given the headlines over the past year, this scenario is less surreal than it first appears. Typing the words Trump nihilism, a quick Google search uncovers more than 200,000 results. From the Washington Monthlys Trump and the Epitome of Post-Policy Nihilism, Esquires Trumps Raging Nihilism and The American Interests The Nihilistic Populism of Trump, to The Huffington Posts Trump: The Nihilist We Deserve, the Washington Posts The Dangerous Nihilism of Trump Voters, and the Wall Street Journals The Nihilist in the White House -- oops, sorry, that was Peggy Noonan on Barack Obama -- Trumpism has become the new nihilism.

Understandably, commentators are scrambling to find the words to describe a phenomenon as unprecedented as it was, at least until now, unthinkable. Equally understandable is that they are invoking the notion of nihilism in order to do so. Few isms, after all, carry connotations as dark and dim. But they may well be missing the target. As unsettling and unwholesome as Trumpism is, it has little to do with what one of the panels judges, Nietzsche, called the uncanny guest. By getting the meaning of nihilism right, we will better understand what is wrong with Trump -- and, perhaps, with our own selves.

Derived from the Latin nihil, or nothing, the term was popularized in 1862 with the publication of Ivan Turgenevs Fathers and Sons. Embodied by the novels hero, Bazarov, the term first signified the rejection of the leaden and oppressive political and social systems of Czarist Russia. We repudiate everything, Bazarov announces. As for what follows, he couldnt care less: That is not our affair: the ground must be cleared first.

By the end of the century, nihilism came to mean much more: the rejection not just of an old form of government or society, but of the very possibility of moral or philosophical foundations on which to build a new one. It was, for Nietzsche, the discovery that the world is not worth what we believed. Whether filtered through religious faiths or moral codes, the truths we had been taught, gradually undermined by scientific progress, were revealed to be empty. We endure life, Nietzsche wrote, only because we believe it has meaning. Once the possibility of meaning evaporates, so too does our reason to live.

The repudiation of everything is no small matter. In the past, nihilisms presence disturbed and distressed  decentered -- those who encountered it. Nietzsches uncanniest of monsters seemed to be both cause and consequence to the political and ideological upheavals of the 20th century, from the trenches of the First World War through the bloodlands of the interwar period to the death camps of World War II. It gave life to the deadly isms of the age, fascism and totalitarianism; it gave voice to its literary chroniclers like Louis Ferdinand Celine, whose work embarked us all on a voyage to the end of night; and it gave cause to theologians like Karl Barth to announce the impossibility of faith and absence of God from our world.

But a funny thing happened to nihilism on the way to the 21st century. The guest is as uncanny as ever, but what has changed is our response to it. From the heroic challenges issued by a Bazarov, or Zarathustra, we live in an age where meaninglessness is, well, meaningless. We have become either oblivious or indifferent to the loss of absolutes; we are at home in a universe where the very notion of home has been swallowed by a metaphysical black hole. When we now look into the Abyss, as Lionel Trilling observed, the Abyss smiles back and says: Interesting, am I not? With the loss of absolutes, either moral or religious, comes neither howls of protest nor calls to resistance, but instead sighs of relief or shrugs of indifference. We find ourselves unburdened not only of the weight of meaning, but also the sense of loss that once accompanied it.

Uncanny guests no longer haunt us; instead, unwanted guests like Trump hound us. True explorers of nihilism -- like the panels judges -- not only plumbed the depths of the abyss, but also found different paths back out. As Mondays presidential debate reminds us, Donald Trump is many things: an opportunist, a narcissist, an arsonist, and a racist. But he is not a nihilist. He has neither the moral intelligence nor the historical grounding to recognize the void, even if it bit him. Given the towering challenge it represents, nihilism deserves better than to be yoked to the Trump brand -- a product of an age that threatens to make nihilism banal.

It is not hard to imagine our panel of Celebrity Nihilist, after briefly conferring, turning to the overweight and under-prepared contestant and announcing in one voice: Youre fired!
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Trending now at 1MOA  Skills Software and Shooting Standards

A Sponsored Disquisition by Adam Wilson of 1MOA Solutions and Fire4Effect Weapon Systems LLC

I recently concluded a private Defensive Carbine1 class with a student whose only previous shooting experience was a Tactical Response1 course. He had a solid understanding of the basics and we set out to refine his skills. By the end of the day wed shaved some of his carbine standards scores in half, his shot groups were noticeably better and he was successfully engaging the target while moving.

Those were some massive changes from the beginning of the day. It was gratifying to see the progression in action.

Afterward I began thinking about recent trends I've noticed as a instructor. These aren't specific to particular class I previously referenced, but more general observation.

Reloads as a Fundamental Skill and Measure of Confidence

1. Some instructors are glossing over reloads. They've made statements to the effect that reloads shouldn't be the focus when a student has limited training time. I agree to a point. However, that only seems reasonable until your student struggles with reloading and can't get the gun back into the fight. Putting time into working the reload process ensures they arent fumbling about when they need to be getting the new mag into the magwell and the weapon into battery. The ability to get the gun up also increases overall confidence with the rifle.

If they arent dropping magazines or trying to bang a mag in backwards because theyre frustrated theres a better chance theyll retain the information youre presenting.

Quantification: Shot timers, Base Standards, Accuracy Drills

2. Shot timers and base standards are your friend. In every class I instruct, students list using a shot timer. This sends them home with hard, quantifiable data they can train against as a win. It sucks to hear s student say I spent hundreds of dollars with _____ and left without a clue how I did. Timers, with the provision of accuracy standards and drills they can perform on their own, are a good thing.

Software Over Hardware  Always

3. An instructor cannot stress software or hardware often or earnestly enough. Software is (or should) be the priority for a students investment of time, money, and resources. I am by no means the fastest shooter I know, but I am consistent, regardless of what rifle Im shooting. When Im teaching .MIL specific courses, I run it with an issued M4 and Aimpoint, Inc. CompM4 optic. In my other courses I use an American Defense MFG UIC Mod 2 rifles. There is a significant different between these two rifles. Putting in the time and ammo to master basic weapon manipulation allows me to switch back and forth without issue.

Counsel and Instruct

Be a voice of informed reason, on the range and off. Discourage (without disparaging) students from dropping $3k on a high-end carbine before spending dollars and bullets just learning how to shoot. The latest and greatest rifle will do them no good if the guy with the $600 AK can outshoot them because hes put in the training time.

AW

1 This is neither an endorsement nor a criticism of that class or training institution, just a statement of fact.

We just finished up a G23 with a Rule fIVe slide, PVD camo finish and a Trijicon, Inc. RMR cut. The frame has our Kryptek stippling pattern with recessed edges, undercut trigger guard and foliage green cerakote on the frame. We also added our match performance trigger, a storm lake drop in barrel and XS suppressor height sights. Fire 4 Effect Weapon Systems LLC

1MOA Solutions is headquartered in El Paso. 1MOA can be contacted Facebook here or on Instagram, @1MOAsolutions.

1MOA Solutions founder and lead instructor Adam Wilson is a US Army veteran of numerous combat deployments. Although his primary background is in reconnaissance and small unit operations, he has over the course of his career served as an assault team leader, Sniper Section Leader, and Small Arms Master Gunner directly responsible for the training of Soldiers during combat operations. He's a graduate of SELC (Sniper Employment Leaders Course), Short Range Marksmanship (SRM) and Small Arms Master Gunner (SAMG) courses, as well as the Army Marksmanship Unit's SDM (Squad Designated Marksman) and Rifle Instructor courses. A member of the Ashbury Precision Marksmanship Team on his own time and a SNCO on the Army's, Wilson's last active duty billet as an assignment as a Small Arms Master Gunner responsible for testing and evaluation weapon platforms and TTPs on the Army's. He currently serves as an instructor at the Texas Army National Guard Regional Training Institute conducting SAMG, SRM and SDM courses. Wilson is the Rangemaster and Chief Instructor for Fire 4 Effect Weapon Systems LLC, which can also be found on Instagram (@fire4effectllc) and on Facebook, and recently became a father, having recently (in conjunction with his wife) introduced a new small human to the world (congratulations, guys).

Here's a look at a G19 Gen 3 with the Fire 4 Effect 2-3 Actual slide package, a Trijicon, Inc. RMR and a KKM threaded match grade barrel with compensator. We also added a custom cerakote finish and suppressor height sights. The frame features our microdot stippling pattern, a undercut trigger guard and our flat trigger bow match trigger. Fire 4 Effect Weapon Systems LLC

[instagram-feed includewords=#1MOAsolutions,#FireforEffect instagram-feed showlikes=true instagram-feed disablemobile=true]
Instead of holding the event planners accountable this year or for the 2014 Homecoming game that also fell on Yom Kippur, I excused the lapse in judgement. However, I shouldnt have to excuse those lapses.
Courtesy of Dave Jacobs Professional Guide Service

Guide Dave Jacobs (left) and client Deanna Davis of Oakdale hold another large, hard-fighting Sacramento River king salmon that was caught while out with Dave Jacobs Professional Guide Service this week.

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Sacramento River salmon

Salmon fishing on the Sacramento River has been fair depending on what section you choose to fish on any given day. The fish are spread throughout the upper Sacramento River and have been moving through all of the popular holes. Anderson/Balls Ferry downriver through Hamilton City have been the best sections. Groups of salmon that are heavily fished in some holes have not been biting that good while the quieter groups of salmon being fished are cooperating and biting more often. Best bets still have been back-bounced, sardine-wrapped Kwikfish-style lures like the Brad's Killer Fish in the KF-16 sizes. Salmon that are being caught now are still very fresh and very hard fighters. The majority of returning salmon look to be 3- and 4-year old returning salmon from 20 to 30 pounds. Salmon fishing should continue through October.

Feather River salmon

The best salmon fishing river in the Central Valley has hands down been the Feather River near Oroville. The lights-out, limit-style fishing has been happening every day this week. Hanging roe/puffballs and back-bounced, sardine-wrapped lures are working best in and around the Feather River Outlet Hole just downriver of downtown Oroville. The outlet hole is holding and producing the most bites for both the power boats and bank fishermen. Expect crowded fishing if heading to the Feather River this weekend.

Sacramento River trout

It's that time of year to start thinking of heading to the Redding, Anderson and Red Bluff sections of the Sacramento River to fish for wild rainbow trout and steelhead. Look for great fishing around those areas where the fall salmon begin to spawn in October. Fly fishing is also going to be spectacular in October. Fly fishermen should look to use egg patterns primarily as well as caddis and mayflies. Best yarn patterns are peachy king and best glow beads are the glow roe and tangerine colors.

Today's Sacramento and Feather River salmon fishing report is courtesy of Dave Jacobs Professional Guide Service. The Sacramento River trout fishing report is courtesy of Jacobs and guide Greg Hector. For more current Northern California river fishing information, call Jacobs direct at 530-646-9110 or visit his website at www.sacramentofishing.com.
In this Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016, photo, a restored section of the Great Wall is seen in Suizhong County in northeastern China's Liaoning Province. Chinese officials are being pilloried over the smoothing-over of a crumbling but much-loved 700-year-old section of the Great Wall of China - a UNESCO World Heritage Site - in the name of restoration. (Chinatopix via AP)

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By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press

BEIJING (AP)  Chinese officials are being pilloried over the smoothing-over of a crumbling but much-loved 700-year-old section of the Great Wall of China in the name of restoration.

The widely mocked project on the UNESCO World Heritage Site involved an 8-kilometer (5-mile) unrestored Xiaohekou section of the wall that has become known as the "most beautiful wild Great Wall."

Defensive works and guard towers were knocked flat as part of the project, officially launched to prevent further deterioration caused by the elements. Reports said sand and other materials were poured on top, protecting it but giving it the appearance of an elevated bike path running through steep forested hills.

The head of the Liaoning Provincial Antiquities Bureau, Ding Hui, was quoted by the newspaper Beijing News on Wednesday as saying the work was completed two years ago over the course of three months as part of a government restoration plan.

"It really was an ugly repair job," Ding conceded.

The wall section built during the Ming Dynasty in 1381 lies in Liaoning's Suizhong county along the border with Hebei province.

An official reached by phone at the government's Culture Bureau in Huludao city, which oversees Suizhong, said he had been told the restoration plan had been approved at the central government level by the State Administration of Cultural Relics.

"The old wall was badly damaged over a long period of history and the restoration work was aimed at preventing it from falling apart and being washed away by the rain," said the official, who like many Chinese bureaucrats declined to give his name because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.

Phones were not answered at county and provincial government cultural relics offices.

Many of the reports on the restoration lamented its inconsistency, with different materials, including lime, mortar and concrete, used in different places.

Dong Yaohui, vice chairman of the Great Wall Studies Society, called the restoration work "basic and crude."

"This sort of repair work harms the people's appreciation of the Great Wall's history and culture, severing a channel of dialogue between the people and cultural heritage," Dong was quoted as saying by the Beijing News.

"This sort of behavior is ridiculous," he added.

Online, commentators were scathing in their criticisms.

China has passed legislation in recent years to protect the Great Wall, large sections of which have been bulldozed, pillaged for building materials or heavily restored and commercialized.

The wall dates from 220 B.C., when China joined existing walls and fortifications to defend against invasions from northern tribes.

Construction continued up through the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) until the wall became the world's largest military structure, allowing troops and couriers to move long distances quickly.

Estimates of its overall length vary, but according to UNESCO, which named it a World Heritage Site in 1987, it once ran for more than 20,000 kilometers (12,500 miles).

___

Associated Press researcher Yu Bing contributed to this report.
SHARE Brigette Nicole Bowling-Jordan

Woman interviewed in purse-theft case

A woman who the Shasta County Sheriff's Office identified as possibly being involved in the theft of a purse from a woman injured in a traffic accident spoke to investigating deputies Thursday, but she was not arrested, the sheriff's office said.

The suspect, Candace Wade, contacted the sheriff's office and was interviewed by investigators. Her statements will be submitted to the Shasta County District Attorney's Office for review, investigators said.

Deputies said this week they were looking for Wade in connection with a theft following the Sept. 8 single-vehicle crash that injured Carole Hardcastle, 67, on Highway 299 near Kern Drive in Bella Vista.

Hardcastle's family received a call from Hardcastle's cellphone at the crash scene from a woman who said she was Wade, deputies said. The caller said she was a nurse and needed Hardcastle's pass code to obtain the crash victim's medical information and would bring the purse and phone to the hospital, which she didn't, deputies said.

Family members of Hardcastle  who was treated for four days in the intensive care unit  later reported the woman's debit card was charged without permission.

An investigation led to the arrests of William Daniels and Sherri Perez, both of Shasta Lake, after they were seen in surveillance video using Hardcastle's debit card at two Redding-area businesses, deputies said. Daniels and Perez were arrested on suspicion of forgery, burglary, criminal conspiracy, crimes against elder or dependent adults and unauthorized use of personal information.

Deputies say the investigation is ongoing.

Fishing groups seek help cleaning river

Members of the Shasta Trinity Fly Fishers and Trout Unlimited are seeking volunteers to help them remove trash from the banks of the Sacramento River in Redding on Saturday morning.

Members of the groups will meet at the Posse Grounds boat ramp behind the Redding Civic Auditorium at 8:15 Saturday. They'll pick up trash for about three hours from the Posse Grounds south to the South Bonnyview fishing access. Boats will be used to take the trash collectors to various spots along the river.

The groups especially need volunteers in waders. If they have a wading staff, all the better. The groups will supply gloves, bags and grippers.

Police: Driver suspected of DUI

Redding police arrested a woman on suspicion of DUI on Thursday afternoon after she crashed into a light pole in east Redding with her 2-year-old son inside the car.

Police said Brigette Nicole Bowling-Jordan, 28, of Redding, crashed in the 1800 block of Conifer Way off Victor Avenue about 1 p.m. Officers said they arrested her after giving her a field-sobriety test

Bowling-Jordan's Chevy Malibu went off the road, struck and sheared off a city of Redding power pole before hitting a city electric box.

Police said Bowling-Jordan had her 2-year-old son in the car when she crashed. No one was injured.

The woman was arrested on suspicion of DUI and felony child endangerment, and was booked into Shasta County Jail.

The crash initially was described as a car driving into the side of a building.
Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight

Katelyn Sharp, from left, a family nurse practitioner fellow with the Shasta Community Health Center's Nurse Practitioner and Physicians Assistant Fellowship Program, examines Thomas Secrest, 1, as his mother, Heather Gutierrez of Redding, looks on during a well child visit Thursday at the center's downtown location.

SHARE Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight Katelyn Sharp, left, a family nurse practitioner fellow with the Shasta Community Health Center's Nurse Practitioner and Physicians Assistant Fellowship Program, goes over what immunizations patient Thomas Secrest, 1, needs with Medical Assistant Lindy Kolar Thursday at the center. Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight Esperanza Eusebio, left, a family nurse practitioner fellow with the Shasta Community Health Center's Nurse Practitioner and Physicians Assistant Fellowship Program, talks to the program's director and Physicians Assistant Dorothy Bratton-Sandoval about a patient Thursday at the center's downtown location.

By Amber Sandhu of the Redding Record Searchlight

When Nancy Wallner's physician at Shasta Community Health Center resigned more than a year ago, she was reassigned to a nurse practitioner in the office. Wallner, 39, thought nothing of it. After all, a year prior, her daughter was reassigned to a physician assistant once her physician resigned.

Two years later, not being under the care of a doctor hasn't made much of a difference to either mother or daughter. In fact, they like the new assigned health clinicians a lot better.

"I really don't have any negativity towards it at all," Wallner said.

With Shasta County already facing a physician shortage, using physician assistants and nurse practitioners is one way the medical community is meeting the county's healthcare needs.

The Health Alliance of Northern California published the Shasta County Physician Workforce Assessment, a report where they found that out of the 424 physicians working in Shasta County, more than half of them were older than 55.

Doreen Bradshaw, executive director of Health Alliance of Northern California, said in the coming five years many of the physicians could retire, relocate or even slow down their practice. It's why creative solutions are needed now to meet care and retain incoming doctors, she said.

"We've got to start working together on this," she said.

Bradshaw said it was challenging to get a "solid number" on how many physicians practice in the county. Health Alliance initially had more than 500 people listed, but after much research, out of the 424 physicians they found, 132 were in primary care, 57 worked in the emergency rooms, and 235 were specialists.

But of those physicians, the majority were based in Redding, which meant that residents living in rural areas of Shasta County still lacked care despite being covered under Medicare or Partnership Health Plan.

"Coverage is great, but it doesn't necessarily mean access," Bradshaw said.

Patients who don't have easy access to doctors often don't undergo preventive services, such as lab tests or wellness checkups, and eventually end up in the local emergency rooms. "It's not a good use of healthcare resources," she said.

At Hill Country Health and Wellness Center, Chief Executive Officer Lynn Dorroh said the center's Round Mountain location needs nurse practitioners and physician assistants to keep the ball rolling.

"They've kind of been the bedrock of our availability," she said.

Hill Country Health and Wellness Center serves about 6,000 patients, but the three physicians, six physician assistants and six nurse practitioners are already at their maximum number of patients, she said. The shortage of physicians concerns her very much, especially since physician recruitment has proven difficult.

"Who knows how long it will take," Dorroh said about recruitment. "But nurse practitioner and physician assistant recruitment is easy."

Nurse practitioners and physician assistants must still be supervised by a physician. Dorroh said one physician supervises the clinicians full-time at the center.

Bradshaw said there needs to be a vested interest in bringing and retaining physicians to Shasta County, whether it's through loan repayment programs or training. But using mid-level clinicians such as physician assistants and nurse practitioners is one way to address the gap.

A report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services projects that by 2020, there would be a short supply of primary care physicians, and demand is projected to grow due to the aging population.

"Without changes to how primary care is delivered, the growth in primary care physician supply will not be adequate to meet demand in 2020," the report states.

However, the supply of nurse practitioners and physician assistants is projected to grow rapidly, and could help alleviate the physician shortage, according to the report.

At Shasta Community Health Center, healthcare professionals have taken note of this message.

A postgraduate fellowship program geared toward newly graduated nurse practitioners and physician assistants has already gained traction since its inception in February. "Primary care is very challenging, especially in rural areas," said Dorothy Bratton-Sandoval, director of the program. "We want to build up our staff here."

Two fellows have already completed their first six months of the program, and two more have joined. Through the program, the fellows are assigned their own group of patients while under supervision. And if those fellows sign on to join the staff, they would continue to care for those patients they trained with, Bratton-Sandoval said. So far, one fellow is thinking about continuing a practice at the Health Center.

"We want to show that we're clinicians," she said.

The Health Center will open up to more patients in October, and will expand care at its Anderson clinic once construction of a new 16,000-square-foot facility is completed.

For patients like Wallner and her daughter, she said she doesn't see it as a gap in her care when she sees her clinician and has so far been pleased with the services.

"I have not had any problems with the NPs or the PAs," she said. "We've been very blessed in that."

survey tool
And now, less than six weeks from the election, what is the main event of the day? A fight between the GOP presidential nominee and a former Miss Universe, whom he had 20 years ago called Miss Piggy and other choice pejoratives. Just a few weeks earlier, we were seized by a transient hysteria over a minor Hillary Clinton lung infection hyped to near-mortal status. The latest curiosity is Donald Trump's 37 sniffles during the first presidential debate. (People count this sort of thing.) Dr. Howard Dean has suggested a possible cocaine addiction.

In a man who doesn't even drink coffee? This campaign is sinking to somewhere between zany and totally insane. Is there a bottom?

Take the most striking  and overlooked  moment of Trump's GOP convention speech. He actually promised that under him, "the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon  and I mean very soon  come to an end."

Not "be reduced." End.

Humanity has been at this since, oh, Hammurabi. But the audience didn't laugh. It applauded.

Nor was this mere spur of the moment hyperbole. Trump was reading from a teleprompter. As he was a few weeks earlier when he told a conference in North Dakota, "Politicians have used you and stolen your votes. They have given you nothing. I will give you everything."

Everything, mind you. "I will give you what you've been looking for 50 years." No laughter recorded.

In launching his African-American outreach at a speech in Charlotte, Trump cataloged the horrors that he believes define black life in America today. Then promised: "I will fix it."

How primitive have our politics become? Fix what? Family structure? Social inheritance? Self-destructive habits? How? He doesn't say. He'll will it. Trust him, as he likes to say.

After 15 months, the suspension of disbelief has become so ubiquitous that we hardly notice anymore. We are operating in an alternate universe where the geometry is non-Euclidean, facts don't matter, history and logic have disappeared.

Going into the first debate, Trump was in a virtual tie for the lead. The bar for him was set almost comically low. He had merely to (1) suffer no major meltdown and (2) produce just a few moments of coherence.

He cleared the bar. In the first half-hour, he established the entire premise of his campaign. Things are bad and she's been around for 30 years. You like bad? Stick with her. You want change? I'm your man.

It can't get more elemental than that. At one point, Clinton laughed and ridiculed Trump for trying to blame her for everything that's ever happened. In fact, that's exactly what he did. With some success.

By conventional measures she won the debate handily. But when it comes to moving the needle, conventional measures don't apply this year. What might, however, move the needle is not the debate itself but the time bomb Trump left behind.

His great weakness is his vanity. He is temperamentally incapable of allowing any attack on his person to go unavenged. He is particularly sensitive on the subject of his wealth. So central to his self-image is his business acumen that in the debate he couldn't resist the temptation to tout his cleverness on taxes. To an audience of 86 million, he appeared to concede that he didn't pay any. "That makes me smart," he smugly interjected.

Big mistake. The next day, Clinton offered the obvious retort: "If not paying taxes makes him smart, what does that make all the rest of us?" Meanwhile, Trump has been going around telling Rust Belt workers, on whom his Electoral College strategy hinges and who might still believe that billionaires do have some obligation to pay taxes, that "I am your voice."

When gaffes like this are committed, the candidate either doubles down (you might say that if you can legally pay nothing, why not, given how corrupt the tax code is) or simply denies he ever said anything of the sort. Indeed, one of the more remarkable features of this campaign is how brazenly candidates deny having said things that have been captured on tape, such as Clinton denying she ever said the Trans-Pacific Partnership was the gold standard of trade deals.

The only thing more amazing is how easily they get away with it.

Charles Krauthammer's email address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com. He writes for The Washington Post Writers Group.
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Mitt Romney sunk his 2012 campaign by speaking the truth: that 47 percent of Americans paid no federal income tax, were dependent on government programs and therefore unlikely to support his call for lower taxes.

This boilerplate statement of an obvious truth generated weeks of relentless coverage from Democratic operatives with bylines, who used it to "otherize" Romney as an un-American snob.

Four years later, Hillary Clinton smeared half of Donald Trump's supporters with false statements fueled by venomous ignorance. At a fundraiser (of course) she separated Trump's supporters into two baskets. On one side of her chilling ledger is the "basket of deplorables." These American citizens are "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic  you name it." They are, she added, "irredeemable."

That's not very Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or even atheistic.

Let that sink in. Ponder what policies she might pursue toward them as president  or toward the large number of "irredeemable" Democrats who also hold "deplorable" views.

She didn't label the other "basket" but helpless losers captures her views of the lost souls who support Trump because they no longer want to "see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead end."

Put aside the larger question of why so many Americans, not just Republicans, but African-Americans marching in the streets of Charlotte and other cities feel so hopeless after seven years of Obama's presidency. Put aside the question of how her continuation of his policies could turn things around.

Consider instead what these comments say about how Clinton views the people she wants to lead.

Trump has been pilloried by the press for presenting a dark vision of America. In fact, he is simply sounding the call for change trumpeted by every challenger. And, simply as a matter of rhetoric, he holds out the promise  however questionable  that our problems can be fixed through new policies.

Clinton, by contrast, is not condemning the state of our laws, but our souls. And, if Trump's comments about some illegal immigrants and Syrian refugees were beyond the pale, how do we describe Clinton's harsh dismissal of so many Americans? Has any other major candidate for the presidency shown such contempt?

Even more troubling  if that's possible  is that she is not an outlier. She is echoing, for example, the views of prominent religious leaders and academics in North Carolina who routinely describe Republicans as evil racists intent on reimposing Jim Crow.

Her views are echoed by journalists who blithely compare Gov. Pat McCrory to George Wallace and Trump to Hitler.

With shocking brazenness and profound cognitive dissonance, these same people  who slice and dice the electorate into ethnic and racial categories  then claim that Trump and the Republicans are divisive.

When I look around, I don't see Hillary's America. I do not see, as she now claims, a 50/50 race between love and hate.

I see a nation that has struggled to dismantle the barriers that have prevented every citizen from enjoying the blessings of liberty. We are not there yet. But, as President Barack Obama has repeatedly said, we have made tremendous strides during the last half century. To pretend otherwise is to spew poison for partisan advantage.

I see a nation of flawed human beings in a world ever rived by tribalism that has tried and succeeded better than most to create an inclusive society.

I see our largely peaceful debates about contentious issues as a sharp rebuke to the religious and ethnic violence and anger roiling Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

America is not defined by hate.

We have many pressing problems including a soaring national debt, an economy that has not adjusted to changes wrought by globalism and technology, and poor leadership at almost every level of government.

For all of our challenges, we remain an exceptional land of redemption. We remain the nation others dream of coming to for hope and acceptance. We do not greet them with jackbooted thugs. We offer them opportunity.

As we have been since our founding, Americans are an imperfect people in an imperfect world. We are a good people who hold fast to the idea that we are a shining city on a hill and humanity's best hope.

J. Peder Zane wrote this for The News & Observer.
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One of the last questions asked of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at Monday night's debate at Hofstra University deserves to be revisited. Moderator Lester Holt asked both candidates whether, if they lost the election, they accept the results as the "will of the voters." Both indicated that yes, they would (although Trump agreed to support Clinton so reluctantly  it required a follow-up question from Holt  that reporters felt compelled to confirm his position afterward).

In any other presidential race, a question about recognizing the will of the voters would be regarded as a softball  the answer so obvious that surely no debate prep was needed. After all, what kind of presidential nominee seeks to delegitimize the essential process that sustains the greatest democracy on earth? But these are not ordinary times.

The nation's voting system faces a very real threat from computer hackers. That much was made clear with the breach of a voter information database in Illinois this summer. Election boards across the country were put on alert by federal authorities out of concern for potential vulnerabilities.

Such a problem deserves to be taken seriously, yet the biggest threat of all may be one not so easily addressed in the final six weeks of the campaign: What if the public loses confidence in the voting system and judges it so unreliable that voters do not believe the winner of the election is necessarily the winner at all?

Experts in cybersecurity worry that this sowing of doubt within the electorate is far more worrisome than anything a hacker could achieve. After all, there are significant protections already in place  from disconnecting voting machines from the internet to educating election officials on how to spot a potential breach of the registration or absentee ballot databases. According to a recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice, about 80 percent of votes cast on Nov. 8 will leave behind a "paper trail," meaning they can be double-checked without use of any electronic technology.

Some of these security enhancements stem from the last truly close presidential election, the 2000 contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush that came down to a dispute over Florida and its "hanging chads." The subsequent reforms include the use of ballot scanner systems that maintain a paper trail, federal certification of equipment and a disconnect from the internet (even now, the overwhelming majority of voting isn't online).

Yet there are also added vulnerabilities: The election may be close, and the issue of cybersecurity is sensationalized given that Republicans for years have been attacking the integrity of the U.S. voting system with red herring claims about the need for photo identification cards  supposedly to counter in-person ballot fraud, which is virtually nonexistent, but actually in order to quash turnout by minorities and others who tend to vote Democratic. It's also unhelpful that Trump's anti-establishment campaign has been stoking fears of a "stolen" election for months. Some days, it's going to be stolen by party leaders rigging the nominating process, and more recently the finger of blame has landed on the lack of ID laws (leading Trump to ask his supporters to volunteer as an army of poll watchers in places like Philadelphia with its large African-American vote).

In testimony heard Tuesday by the House subcommittee that oversees information technology, it was clear that there's much more the nation needs to do to protect election integrity  particularly by focusing on real problems like replacing outdated equipment that might be manipulated remotely (in the 14 states that went paperless, for example) and not on greatly overstated problems like people showing up at the polls claiming to be someone they are not.

Here's the real nightmare scenario: What if there is evidence of hacking in a swing state where there is no paper trail? Or what happens if thousands of people in those states have been wrongly purged from the voting rolls and can't cast a ballot at all? What if all that hacking is traced to foreign agents? Again, that's worrisome, but it's exactly what authorities are now working to prevent.

In the long term, there are numerous reforms needed, from replacing old machines to ending the practice of voting over the internet. In the near-term, election boards must do all they can to recognize and address existing vulnerabilities  including auditing the final results. Still, it would be wise for the candidates and their supporters not to overstate or sensationalize the problem and certainly not to goad supporters into rejecting the outcome before it's even known. Trump and Clinton set a reasonable standard at the debate when the issue was raised. Now they need to stick to that standard and not casually raise undue alarm over the integrity of what remains  at least until proven otherwise  a respectable election process.

The Baltimore Sun
Gina Rodriguez knows what its like to be the odd one out.

That may seem hard to believe now that the 32-year-old Chicago native stars in the hit CW series Jane the Virgin and Deepwater Horizonan action-disaster film about the 2010 BP oil spill out todaybut its tough to ignore the ways that Rodriguez breaks the mold. Shes proudly curvy in a profession that traditionally prefers itty-bitty measurements. Shes passionate about self-love and inner strength in a culture that favors demureness from women. Shes a Latina in a white-washed, male-dominated industry.

Rodriguez champions all of these qualities that place her outside the realm of the Hollywood norm. So when she first heard about Deepwater Horizon and the part of Andrea Fleytas, a young Latina crew member involved in dynamic positioning on the rig and one of the only women aboard, she jumped on it.

I thought, What a great opportunity for a feature film to represent the Latino community, who are a part of U.S. history and a part of the backbone of U.S. history, in a major feature film, Rodriguez said in a phone interview from New Orleans. Especially one discussing inclusion and the need for seeing different faces onscreen.

It doesnt hurt that the project was directed by Peter Bergwhom shes always wanted to work withand included heavy-hitting cast members like Mark Wahlberg, John Malkovich, Kate Hudson and Kurt Russell.

Knowing that I could possibly have an opportunity to learn from those people, I definitely knew I was going to fight for that as well, she said. Ultimately, I think you have to believe in a project to put your best foot forward and do your best work, and thats how I felt. So I knew that should I have the opportunity to work on the movie, I was going to give it my all.

Throwing herself into the movie meant preparing for the role on a deep, technical level. Before shooting, she was sent to dynamic positioning school in Houston, where she trained in Fleytas duties aboard the rig. Real-life crew members who survived the disaster were available on set for day-to-day consulting. And although Rodriguez hasnt met Fleytas yet, she spoke to her over the phone and studied the tapes from her testimony in an investigation of the spill.

Andrea Fleytas isnt a public figure, Rodriguez said. And, you know, to play her likeness isnt as necessary as getting across the sentiment of the experience. At first I was scared, I was frightened going into it, because my desire to make her proud was so prominent in my mind. But I realized to make her proud was the sentiment of getting her strength and her bravery and her honor, not her gestures or the way she walks and talks.

Her desire to capture the undercurrent of emotion in Fleytas experience is palpable throughout Deepwater Horizon. Theres a scene in the film when Rodriguez, as Fleytas, attempts to make a distress call after the explosion, only to be forced to back down after shes berated by one of her male superiors. Its a small moment, but one that feels decidedly representative of a woman trying to assert her authority on a ship full of men. Frankly, its pretty infuriating to watch.

Youre like, Just [bleep]ing do it, [bleep] him! Totally, she said, laughing. And what is it that we do in those situations when we dont have the seniority? When we dont have the power, if you will? We face that a lot, and often.

Equally important as Fleytas status as a woman is the sheer fact that shes a Latina face on the big screensomething Rodriguez would like to see much more of. On Instagram, she started a weekly post called #MovementMondays, where she writes up quick bios of other actors of color and promotes their work. Past subjects include Oscar Isaac, Rosario Dawson and fellow Jane the Virgin star Diane Guerrero, among many others.

Despite her frequent activism, Rodriguez admits that juggling her status as a role model for the Latino community can get overwhelming at times. Shes Puerto Ricanher parents were born therebut thats just one of the hundreds of identities that fall under the umbrella of Latino, and it can get tricky to navigate. Shes faced criticism in the past from within the community for not speaking Spanish well enough, but she insists that Latinos share a bond far more powerful than the language of their mother countries.

Our commonality is the struggle of being brown in America, Rodriguez said. And whatever shade of brown you are, from a light-skinned Latina to a black Latina, we all have that same struggle.

Universal among Latinos is a constant battle against stereotyping, but Rodriguez wants to fight the tide of those misconceptions through her work.

I know what it is to be followed in a clothing store because they dont think I can afford anything in there. I know what it is to sit next to a supporter of discrimination and racism and a perception that is false that Im going to hurt, steal or kill because of my skin color, she said. I know what that feeling is, and I want to change that perception. Because at the root of all of it, I am human, and I want the same things that everybody else does: love, success, health, a good family, a career, an opportunity to do more and more and more.

One of the ways Rodriguez gets to change the public perception regarding what a typical Latino family looks like is through her show Jane the Virgin, in which she stars as the eponymous Jane. The show, which premieres its third season Oct. 17, is never shy to discuss hot-button political topics. A particularly poignant example of this was in Season 1, when the narrator flashed an #ImmigrationReform message across the screen, urging viewers to look it up. Rodriguez credits show creator Jennie Urman for writing in that type of smart, nonjudgmental takes on social and political issues happening as the show unfolds.

Even when we dealt with #ImmigrationReform, it was like, Its a real thing, look it up,  she said. And it wasnt saying anybody whos against immigration is bad, but it was saying Get information. 
Had it not been for the intellectual dominance and political legitimacy of the Leftist philosophy since 1970, would EPW have become what it did? After all, there were other more established journals around then, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.

How do ideology, politics, patronage and intellect interact? The Economic and Political Weekly, which is celebrating 50 years of existence, provides a textbook example. It was born in 1966 from the Economic Weekly, which had been founded in 1949 by Sachin Chaudhuri.

1966 was important not only because it ensured the longevity of the Economic Weekly but also because political was inserted in its title. This later became the pursuit of a political agenda, defined first, by the broad Left, and then, the narrow one.

In 1966 it was still not clear what would become of that agenda. The newly born EPW wielded no clout then, no intellectual heft which its admirers would later claim.

In 1969, prime minister Indira Gandhi made common cause with the Communist Party of India. Over the next five years, Left-oriented ideas became enormously respectable. The time for EPW to emerge as a leading intellectual journal had arrived as by now it was being run by a trust that broadly agreed with the Left notions of how state policy should be run.

Over the 1970s, it emerged as an important vehicle for the Left but not liberal point of view. It did not, by the way, cease publication during the Emergency. It did, however, publish opaque and oblique criticisms, the most notable of which was the Eighteenth Brumaire article by K N Raj on intermediate regimes.

In the 1980s it even acquired the right to certify budding academics as being acceptable to the HighChurch, comprising Marxists and assorted Leftists who now dominated central universities.

This little background is necessary because most commentators have paid handsome compliments to the magazine and said that it is an invaluable repository of great intellectual debates. Others, including me, would beg to differ.

Debates, yes, aplenty; intellectual, possibly; but great? Easy does it.

My problem is this: The label of great is usually attached only if there is political sanction and legitimacy to an underlying idea. But sadly, all too often the greatness is acquired by promoting a certain framework of analysis to the exclusion of all others.

It is therefore necessary to ask: Had it not been for the intellectual dominance and political legitimacy of the Leftist philosophy since 1970, would EPW have become what it did? After all, there were other more established journals around then.

For example, Indian Finance and Eastern Economist were far more influential until 1972. They maintained a steady intellectual following throughout the 1970s.

But ironically, by the 1980s, when Indira Gandhi was turning somewhat to the right, they became the pariahs of economic intellect.

The Left dominance happened because after 1971, Nurul Hasan, Mrs Gandhis education minister, systematically installed friends in the central universities, mostly in the social sciences. This turned many of these universities into a stranglehold of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, against which Dharma Kumar, the feisty liberal professor of economic history at the Delhi School of Economics, protested against in 1991.

She was soon singled out by the Left as an agent of Western imperialism and finance capital. Ramchandra Guha, her nephew, has this to say: In 1991, the historian Dharma Kumar, who had been a friend of Sachin Chaudhuri, called for an end to Marxist hegemony in the journal and a return to the old Catholicism. Her letter, printed in the EPW, brought forth howls of protest from the Left. Particularly noteworthy was a letter signed by about two dozen Western academics, the product of some frenetic trans-Atlantic phone-calls, which suggested that Professor Kumars protest was part of the larger IMF-World Bank conspiracy to destabilise India.

How could a journal that called itself the pre-eminent forum for intellect, represent just one broad point of view? How did an intolerance of other views become a virtue?

Not just that. As was recently pointed out by 101 of its major supporters -- supporters, mind you -- the magazine was financially supported by government institutions such as the University Grants Commission, the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Council of Social Science Research. Can you imagine any other publication which is funded by government agencies gaining this sort of influence?

EPW did a lot of good but it has also done a lot of harm. It legitimised the propagation of ignorance by endorsing a method of public engagement that has morphed into activism.

There was, to give just one example, the debate in the mid-1980s over the import of milk powder from the European Union. Those against it were objecting to the origin of the milk, not the fact of the import itself. The same thing happened in the case of World Trade Organization. Joining a Soviet-led trade block had been ok, however.

Ditto on human rights, rural poverty, gender issues etc in China. It was one rule for India and another for China. Why, one well-known Left economist even wrote that there had been no starvation deaths in China during the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s.

A whole generation has grown up to sally forth and proselytise. They are now derisively called the EPW types. Their passionate, biased and ignorant voices dominated the National Advisory Council during 2004-14.

India paid the price.
Threats from IS militants, the Syrian conflict and the migrant crisis in Europe are some of the recent risks that have companies worried, says M Saraswathy.

Political risk cover is gaining importance for Indian firms at a time when global incidents have been on the rise. Threats from the Islamic State militants, the Syrian conflict, violence by the Boko Haram and the migrant crisis in Europe are some of the recent risks that have firms worried.

The Army conducted surgical strikes across the Line of Control on Wednesday night on launch pads where terrorists had amassed and positioned themselves to infiltrate into India. From an insurance perspective, however, very little movement of goods happens across the Indo-Pak border.

War-related situations are not covered by insurers. An industry executive explained compensation for damage due to war could only be provided by governments. Only marine cargo is covered for war-related peril at sea. While extreme situations like war are excluded from political risk cover, violence due to civil disobedience or government decisions are covered.

Ketan Kale of JLT Independent Insurance Brokers said there was increased awareness of political risk cover for investments. It is critical for manufacturing, infra and power.

Large companies take terrorism cover as a standalone product in India and abroad. With the rise in political violence across the globe, companies are buying such products. Securing a cover for such risks is difficult in certain markets but we cover even risky countries like Yemen, said Kale.

Private insurance companies like HDFC ERGO General Insurance have launched political risk policies recently for investors, lenders, contractors, exporters and other entities.

Kale said in regions with political instability, the premia were 100-600 per cent higher.

Political risk includes expropriation, currency inconvertibility, political violence, sovereign default and other specific events. Under security risk, kidnapping and ransom, terrorism, civil war, riots, property damage and business interruption are included.

Initially there was a dearth of reinsurance capacity to cover large political risks. However, there are more than 50 specialist reinsurers in this segment now.
'The interests of the United States and India are sharply aligned on the issue of Pakistan-based terrorism.'

'In fact, assuming US-India security relations continue to deepen, Washington could in due course help enhance India's capacities to take out anti-India terrorists,' says Michael Kugelman.

On Thursday, India may have fired the opening salvo of a new campaign of covert activities in Pakistan.

If so, it got off to a rather bizarre start.

India announced it staged a 'surgical strike' across the LoC that took out seven terror facilities and killed multiple terrorists. In effect, New Delhi went public -- in a big way, with press conferences and official statements -- about an operation that is typically kept under wraps.

It's easy to understand why India went public.

India's government needed to do something to convince the public that it is truly willing and able to act tough, not just talk tough, when it comes to Pakistan.

If it stages a covert strike and says nothing about it, then the public won't know about it -- and can't be convinced of its government's act-tough policy.

Much is unclear about this strike that India claims to have carried out -- particularly if Indian troops actually crossed into Pakistan-administered Kashmir or simply fired on it from the Indian side of the border.

And, in fact, there is no clear proof that the incident happened at all (though covert activities are not meant to leave evidence). Yet, for India, the lack of detail is immaterial. It's the incident itself that matters.

Then there was Pakistan's reaction: Utter denial. There was no surgical strike, the country and its media insisted. Instead, India had merely committed a LoC violation and engaged in cross-border firing, killing two Pakistani troops.

If, as Pakistan claims, India's operation was indeed a routine LoC violation, then the Pakistani reaction to it was anything but routine. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif decried India's 'naked aggression,' and called for a joint session of its parliament to convene next week. And it denied that anything happened other than cross-border firing.

Pakistan's denial of the strike, much like India's decision to go public about it, is easy to understand. If Pakistan acknowledges the strike, then it admits that India staged a major incursion into its territory -- an embarrassment for the Pakistani military that would resurrect memories of the humiliation it suffered after US special forces staged their raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad.

There may have been a lot of surrealism and subterfuge surrounding India's claimed surgical strike and the response to it, but the implications are crystal clear.

First, the India-Pakistan relationship has entered a dramatic new phase.

New Delhi has telegraphed its willingness and ability to respond to Pakistani provocations -- and particularly terror attacks in India that New Delhi traces back to Pakistan -- with (limited) military force.

Immediate prospects for escalation will largely be determined by Pakistan's response. Will it do nothing and settle for more posturing and saber-rattling, a policy of relative restraint that would score it points in Washington but upset an angry public? Or will it mobilise more troops along the border? Or encourage its non-State militant assets to stage strikes in India?

Second, New Delhi can count on more support from Washington than would have been the case in previous years.

The US-India relationship is going places, and fast. Washington's public messaging in recent days has been notable for its strong pro-India stance.

After the Uri attack, the State Department said it stood behind India in its fight against terror. Then, more recently, a White House statement mentioned a phone call between US National Security Adviser Susan Rice and her Indian counterpart Ajit Doval that interestingly took place on September 28, the day before India's cross-border strike. It's worth quoting this statement at length:

'Highlighting the danger that cross-border terrorism poses to the region, Ambassador Rice reiterated our expectation that Pakistan take effective action to combat and delegitimize United Nations-designated terrorist individuals and entities, including Lashkar-e-Tayiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, and their affiliates. In the context of the robust US-India partnership, Ambassador Rice discussed our shared commitment with India to pursuing peace and regional stability and pledged to deepen collaboration on counterterrorism matters including on UN terrorist designations.'

This rhetoric is miles away from the anodyne 'we-call-on-the-two-sides-to-work-their-differences-out-through-dialogue' official US statements of recent years.

This is not to say that Washington will implore New Delhi to stage more of these strikes -- but it is to say that Washington likely won't try to stop New Delhi from doing so.

The interests of the United States and India are sharply aligned on the issue of Pakistan-based terrorism. Additionally, as many in Washington like to point out, Americans died in the LeT-led attacks in Mumbai.

The US government appears to have lost patience with Pakistan and its refusal to crack down on terror groups on its soil that target Pakistan's neighbours. For this reason, it's not going to stand in the way of India's decision to take matters into its own hands and target these terrorists itself.

In fact, assuming US-India security relations continue to deepen, Washington could in due course help enhance India's capacities to take out anti-India terrorists -- through deeper intelligence-sharing and more weapons sales, including, perhaps, drones.

The third implication is that prospects for any type of India-Pakistan dialogue are officially dead for the more-than-foreseeable future. In fact, these prospects probably died after the Uri attacks -- a point amplified by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a speech last weekend and underscored again in Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj's speech at the UN General Assembly earlier this week.

Clearly, India has concluded that any policy space the Pakistani government may have enjoyed to meaningfully engage with India has now been completely eliminated. Such calculations likely figured in New Delhi's decision to stage its cross-border strike.

This isn't to say that tensions won't eventually subside, leading to fresh opportunities for a conversation. Though that's an outcome unlikely to materialise for quite some time.

What's in store for the immediate future?

Expect India to continue its efforts to isolate Pakistan diplomatically, both regionally and globally. This is admittedly a tall order, and particularly the global dimensions of this plan.

At the same time, also expect India to stage additional surgical strikes across the LoC in the coming weeks and months -- though without the fanfare and publicity that accompanied the one it claims to have staged on Thursday.

The question, as ever, will be how Pakistan chooses to respond.

A hot war between India and Pakistan remains unlikely, due to nuclear realities and capacity issues. Yet a covert war -- marked by Indian incursions into Pakistan to take out terrorists and terror attacks in India sponsored by Pakistan-based actors -- may already be under way.

What this means is that the anti-India terrorism that emanates from Pakistani soil is unlikely to be eliminated anytime soon, despite the new forms of pressure New Delhi is applying, both in the military and diplomatic realms.

Pakistan continues to provide an environment ripe for extremist ideologies, and its security establishment continues to have no incentive to sever its ties with the anti-India terror groups on its soil.

Meanwhile, India's heavy-handed shows of force in Kashmir give Pakistan a grievance to exploit, as well as a constant talking point that allows it to deflect attention away from its failure to crack down on anti-India terrorists, their facilities, and their sources of financing.

It's a reminder that the Kashmir issue, and the draconian and brutal tactics of Indian security forces there, continue to loom large in any discussion of India-Pakistan tensions.

IMAGE: An Indian soldier practices carrying techniques with his US counterpart during field trauma management training in the recent India-US military exercise in Uttarakhand. Photograph: Staff Sergeant Samuel Northrup/US Army photo

Micheael Kugelman is the Senior Associate for South and Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, DC.
'The Pakistanis were lulled adequately to provide one of the fundamental prerequisites for successful execution of such an option: Surprise.'

'The other requisite: Deception in terms of selection of areas for launch/time of offensive action,' explains Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).

For decades Indians have awaited a response like the one that the Indian Army delivered on the night of September 28/29, 2016 to the Pakistanis.

The blow was delivered in pitch darkness when most of the jihadis in the launch pads were in deep slumber. It was a tonic for a nation smarting after a string of attacks deep on its soil.

Apparently, about 200 Special Forces spearheaded the attack. The objectives were shallow, barely 500 to 2,000 metres across the Line of Control.

The arc of operations covered areas opposite south Kashmir, the Pir Panjal and Shamsabari ranges that delineate the opponent's positions in a sector where it has been no war, no peace for ages.

There were a total of eight objectives. So close to the Line of Control, they are unlikely to be training camps of jihadis. More likely, they were the final staging areas/launch pads for launching these mercenaries across to the Indian side.

The fact that the Special Forces have inflicted over 38 casualties gives an idea about the number of well paid, trained jihadi fighters that Pakistan had readied to rock the Kashmir valley.

In a display of pure professionalism, the commandos extricated without losing a man. The tradition that goes along with the Special Forces, invokes its men to back bring their dead. Fortunately, nobody had to be carried on the shoulders.

The launch of the operations took a total of 11 days since the day an attack had been staged on the Uri Brigade. It proved enough for the Indian political leadership to take the decision, plan in detail, move resources -- both men and material, and execute the surgical strikes.

The entire exercise also witnessed a diplomatic offensive, the threat of using water resources governed by the Indus Water Treaty and building up of a scenario where it appeared that India was reluctant to use anything but diplomatic means.

The Pakistanis were lulled adequately to provide one of the fundamental prerequisites for successful execution of such an option: Surprise.

The other requisite: Deception in terms of selection of areas for launch/time of offensive action was achieved by attacking disparate Pakistani posts that straddle most of the frontages of three Indian divisions opposing the Pakistanis, and are spread from south Kashmir to the higher reaches of North Kashmir.

Indian unmanned aerial vehicles were apparently up in the sky to use their infra red cameras and other optical loads to observe the progress even as our men used all the stealth to avoid detection by Pakistani electronic means.

Once the footage is analysed, a better picture of the haemorrhage that the Indian soldiers inflicted on the exporters of terror will emerge.

What are the likely options that the Pakistanis have is the issue that is of greater import now for the Indian side to avoid possible losses to a Pakistani retaliation.

The cheapest option available to them is to raise the ante in J&K. Already, a large contingent of jihadis have managed to infiltrate into the state. These groups could be coaxed into taking higher risks and attacking military posts and convoys.

Such activities, being a mere extension of the established jihadi modus operandi within the valley, would barely lead to more than routine recriminations by the global community.

Pakistan could also try and repeat its recently adopted strategy of attacking high value military targets in the Indian hinterland. Such a strategy is fraught with the danger of louder international condemnation.

With India having already launched a diplomatic offensive, any such offensive action will only provide fresh breeze to the Indian sail.

The Pakistani army could also attempt cross border raids on our posts. It is a very probable riposte; however, it can barely be undertaken on the scale which India has undertaken.

Attacking a launch pad and a regular army post are two different options altogether. The later will require huge investments in terms of committing troops and resources. Failures may lead to greater embarrassment.

Pakistan has tied itself in knots by stating that no cross border raids have been launched by India, obviously to avoid loss of face. It narrows its diplomatic options. If they go to the UN or other forums and nations, they would only be contradicting themselves.

Of course, they are likely to accept the fact of the raids as the dust settles and pursue diplomatic channels.

The SAARC meet shortly scheduled in Pakistan is already in jeopardy with India, Bangladesh and Bhutan having declined to participate. Any overtly violent step by Pakistan at this stage would be at a high diplomatic cost.

As far as the Indians are concerned, it would be advisable to launch no further operations as of now, as the Director General of Military Operations has already stated. However, it should be prepared for all possible options that the Pakistani army may exercise.

In the long run, and should the Pakistani army decide to stage another high decibel attack in a misconstrued effort to redeem its image at home, the Indian response must lead to greater damage to Pakistan's military and jihadi conglomerate.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban and Al Qaeda had attacked the Pakistani naval establishment at Mehran, Sind, in May, 2011. The losses included 18 regulars killed, 16 injured and two American P3C Orion Surveillance aircraft destroyed.

Indian intelligence agencies have to develop the capabilities to deliver similar blows. Out of work jihadis throng the Pakistani streets. Most of them are lured more by dollars rather than ideology. There is a possibility of turning Pakistani trained jihadis against their own masters.

There is also a necessity for the Indian side to be able to target the jihadi leadership in Pakistan. Elimination of the top rungs of these organisations will deter them from greater adventurism.

Finally, the diplomatic endeavours must continue and all efforts made to declare Pakistan a State sponsor of global terror. Along with it, the Indus Water Treaty needs to be pursued as a weapon of coercion.

Every other means available to wean Pakistan away from terrorism needs to form a part of the armoury. And that could include giving moral and material support to the Baluchs, and providing military resources and intelligence to Afghanistan.

India needs to leverage its relationship with Iran. Pakistan has been unkind enough to its Shias, and its relationship with Iran is neither deep nor built on trust.

IMAGE: Soldiers in Lachipora in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, September 20, 2016. Photograph: Umar Ganie
'A couple of hours before the H-Hour, the Kupwara division opened small arms and mortar fire on posts opposite its area of operation.'

'This was a diversionary tactic.'

'As Pakistani forces began to react to the firing, special forces teams began to slowly cross the LoC into PoK.'

Nitin Gokhale reveals how planning for the surgical strikes began hours after the Uri attack.

On Thursday morning, a long-standing taboo in the minds of India's strategic decision-makers was broken.

As news about the Indian Army's surgical strike on terrorist camps in Pakistan occupied Kashmir broke around noon on Thursday, it was clear that India was no longer afraid of a possible escalation with Pakistan, its empty nuclear threat notwithstanding.

In fact, Pakistan's nuclear bluff has been called: Both armies understand nuclear escalation requires a much higher threshold.

Even the threat of first use of tactical nuclear weapons is just bluster: Both armies are professional, whatever image they may project.

After this event, at least in the public mind and thus of the politicians, the fear of nuclear escalation will recede.

The entire episode has changed the India-Pakistan dynamics on the LoC.

A decisive move by the political leadership to declare to the world the action the army took has brought in an element of unpredictability that Pakistan is not used to.

So far, Pakistan could always predict an Indian response to any terrorist attack. Condemnation, shock, presentation of dossiers would complete the Indian action.

By going beyond the rhetoric, the Narendra Modi government has injected a new element to which Pakistan is not used to.

In Islamabad, the reaction have therefore been extremely muted or confused.

While the Pakistan army has denied any surgical strike by India, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his defence minister have condemned the attack and said any such future attack will get a befitting reply!

For India, arriving at this decision was not easy.

On September 18, when Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and army chief General Dalbir Singh were flying together back from Srinagar late that night after taking stock of the aftermath of the attack on an administrative camp near the army's Uri brigade that killed 18 soldiers ( two soldiers died later), the mood in the aircraft was sombre.

India had not lost so many soldiers together in one attack in the past decade. The nation was downcast.

It seemed India had no answers to Pakistan's continuing proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir.

Mid-way through the flight, Parrikar, who is about to complete two years as defence minister in November, told the army chief to give him at least three options that would involve demonstrable action against the perpetrators of the attack early the next morning.

Parrikar wanted the options in his hand before he attended the Cabinet Committee on Security meeting the next day.

The Military Operations Directorate worked through the night and presented the possibilities that existed to launch operations along and across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

Armed with the options, the defence minister went for the CCS meeting.

The CCS, taking inputs from various agencies -- the Research and Analysis Wing, the Intelligence Bureau, the National Technical Research Organisation -- and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval decided to order preparations for a retaliatory strike.

The CCS, India's highest decision making body on matters of strategic affairs, was determined to go off the usual beaten track of 'we-condemn-the heinous-attack' that has been India's standard response to any terrorist attack in the past two decades.

The prime minister had already promised that the sacrifice of the 18 soldiers would not go in vain. So preparations began in right earnest.

All of India's top decision-makers on security affairs had a series of meetings between September 18 and 25 to decide on multiple steps to hurt Pakistan.

Revisiting the Indus Waters Treaty, boycotting the SAARC summit in Islamabad, describing Pakistan as the 'Ivy League of Terrorism' in the UN, was all part of the well thought out, coordinated strategy to corner Pakistan.

Even as these steps were being initiated, preparations for a punitive strike on terrorist camps located in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, not very far from the LoC, were underway.

The NTRO and R&AW were tasked to get accurate assessment of the camps and launch pads, the strength of terrorists present there along with Pakistani army regulars.

The Indian Army's Northern Command also had local intelligence through their Humint (human intelligence) about what was happening across the LoC.

Initial reports spoke about heightened defences in these camps. Some of the 30-odd camps that the Pakistan army maintains and nurtures along the LoC were emptied immediately after the Uri attack, fearing retaliation from the Indian Army.

After 10 days had passed without any visible action or even any overt preparation for an attack across the LoC, the guard seemed to lower perceptibly in the camps.

Pakistan was lulled into thinking India's response will be on expected lines: Every other measure but a military strike.

Little did they know that targets had been selected, assessments done and a crack force assembled to hit the camps and Pakistani army posts in an arc between Poonch and Kupwara.

On Wednesday, September 28, the CCS was presented with the plan.

The basic aim was to hit the terrorist infrastructure in PoK and send a message that India would not allow the attacks to go unpunished.

It was immediately approved.

Defence Minister Parrikar and NSA Ajit Doval were tasked by the prime minister to oversee and coordinate the operation.

The MO Operations Room (mistakenly described by many as the War Room) became an intense hub of activity between Wednesday noon and early morning on Thursday.

By noon on Wednesday, the strike teams had been staged forward from three directions.

The chosen targets were across the areas under the jurisdiction of 19 Division (in Uri), 28 Division (in Kupwara) and 25 Division (in Rajouri).

The H-Hour (the specific time at which an operation commences, or is due to commence) was half past midnight on Wednesday.

A couple of hours before the H-Hour, the Kupwara division opened small arms and mortar fire on posts opposite its area of operation.

This was a diversionary tactic. As Pakistani forces began to react to the firing, special forces teams began to slowly cross the LoC into PoK.

A couple of teams slipped out between the Beloni and Nangi Tekri battalion areas in Poonch sector south of the Pir Panjal and across the Tutmari Gali in the Nowgam sector.

By 2 am, the teams were on target.

Five launch pads and two Pakistani army posts -- which were co-located with the launch pads -- were destroyed and all occupants killed.

The Indian Army has refused to put a number to the fatal casualties among the terrorists so far. As the DGMO said in a statement, the operation is over and India has no further plans at the moment.

Clearly, its advantage India for the moment.

Now the government must keep up the pressure on all fronts -- economic, political, diplomatic -- besides retaining the option to use a military response whenever it feels Pakistan needs to be punished.

The decisiveness shown by Mr Modi and his colleagues needs to continue even in the face of grave provocations that Pakistan may unleash in coming weeks although further escalation could stretch the Pakistani army even more -- they are heavily committed on the western borders, FATA, and controlling internal insurgencies/terrorism.
Afghanistan on Friday backed India's surgical strikes on terror launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, terming it as an act of "self-defence", and in a strong message to Pakistan asserted that time has come to take "tough" and "risky" decisions to deal with the menace of terrorism.

Afghanistan's Ambassador to India Shaida Abdali said his country does not make distinction between terrorist groups and is against all such organisations that pose a danger and threat to any country in the world.

When asked about Afghanistan's stand on the surgical strikes undertaken by India in PoK, Abdali told reporters at The Foreign Correspondents' Club of South Asia,"We hope that no one will allow its territory as a safe haven for terrorists to be used against neighbouring countries."

"If terrorist groups continue to exist without action, no wonder self-defence against such terrorist groups will be in the form of action that we saw," he said, referring to the surgical strikes conducted by India on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the army inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Abdali said it was "high time we take tough decisions" and they may be "risky" but are needed to be taken to end terrorism.

He said such decisions may have a cost but the cost is worth it because "we have to end this continued terrorism that affects our people, our lives every day and is taking our vision backward day by day."

"We have to fight a phenomenon that is going to inflict us in a much bigger way....the core is that we have to act. The problem that we have is that it is increasingly taking our lives so at whatever cost, we have to end it," Abdali said.

After India, Afghanistan was among three other countries which pulled out of the SAARC summit to be hosted by Pakistan.

In a terse statement Afghanistan said, "Due to the increased level of violence and fighting as a result of imposed terrorism on Afghanistan, the President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani with his responsibilities as the Commander in Chief will be fully engaged, and will not be able to attend the summit."

The Afghan envoy said he can see Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking "bold decisions" and emphasised that there was a need for the leaderships in the region and the governments to take bold decisions and "risks in order to free ourselves (from terrorism) for good".

Asked about the situation in Balochistan and the human rights violations there, Abdali said, "We have a problem of terrorism and Balochistan is our neighbour. We are being affected from our neighbourhood. Terrorism exists and at the same time people suffer there."

"We want to fight terrorism for the sake of all of us. For the sake of the common people of Pakistan, for the Balochis there and for all others living there, especially the Pashtuns. So we would like to end the atrocity, the wars in whatever forms there may be in order for the people to live freely," the Afghan envoy said.

Asked about India contemplating giving asylum to Baloch leader Brahamdagh Bugti, Abdali said, it is "up to India to give asylum to an outsider".

"I fully sympathise with the people of Balochistan, who are suffering. There is a war going on...We should speak for all human beings. Its a human rights issue. We hope that the people of Balochistan will have a peaceful life and a free life," he said.Asked about four countries -- India, Afghanistan, Bhutan and Bangladesh -- pulling out of the SAARC summit in Islamabad, he said the environment is "not conducive" to convening the conference when terrorism was "at its peak".

"Being selective against terrorism, and that continues to exist, can make those who are affected to decide whether we should continue our business as usual or whether we should think and rethink on our approach to regional affairs or the mechanism that we have, especially SAARC," Abdali said.

"Afghanistan, because of the evolving security situation that is very serious, will not be able to attend," he said.

When asked about Pakistan's denial of surgical strikes and also its refusal to acknowledge the evidence on Pakistan-based groups' involvement in terror attacks on Indian defence installations like in Uri and Pathankot, Abdali said, the sharing of evidence was a bilateral issue between the two countries. He, however, acknowledged there was "no doubt" that "the double standard approach" vis-a-vis terrorism continues.

"We hope that the approach of denial will end and we come out (on) how we deal with terrorism, whether we are sincere in the war against terrorism. Unfortunately, that sincerity is not there. The fact of denial has been there for a long time. We hope we come clean and there is no doubt that the deception in terms of war against terrorism will not be accepted forever," he said, in an apparent reference to Pakistan.

"Time has come we come clean and we make sure, based on evidence, that we act in collaboration with South Asian and all other international partners with sincerity," he said.

Noting that with regard to terrorism "patience is wearing thin nowadays", the Afghan envoy said it is high time that India and Afghanistan "reviewed" their relations with countries.

"As peaceful nation, we are trying our best to have good neighbourly relations but let me be frank here that goodwill has not been reciprocated so far," Abdali said, in another obvious reference to Pakistan. Seeking a change of approach towards terrorism, Abdali said it is important to take along the international community because terrorism is a global phenomenon and not a regional issue. He said there was a need to raise this issue at global fora, including the UN.

"Business as usual (approach) is going to harm all of us," Abdali said.

He stated that Afghanistan has suffered because of terrorist groups from "across the border" and feels the pain in a similar way as India.

"We understand how difficult it is to see continued violence inflicted on the people in a nation. Afghanistan, prior to 9/11 warned the world that terrorism...will not be only affecting Afghanistan forever, that this will have spillover effects on the region and beyond," he said.

"We have to be together to go against any element...not just one country, but if there is safe sanctuary (for terrorists) in any other country, we have to go against them," the envoy said.
Donald Trump

There's a really weird trend happening at Donald Trump's rallies.

The Republican nominee keeps asking supporters at his events a question  and the crowd reacts the same way each time.

At his past three events  two on Wednesday and one Thursday  Trump has asked attendees if anyone has ever smashed their phone with a hammer. It's a reference to revelations from an FBI report that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's staff destroyed 13 of her phones, some with a hammer.

Each time Trump asks, a lone respondent in the crowd raises their hand.

During his Wednesday rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the real estate magnate asked if anyone in the crowd had either gone through 13 phones or destroyed them with a hammer. One hand was raised.

"One hand," Trump responded. "What business are you in? Whats your business? I think he was just a wise guy. But she destroyed a number of them with a hammer. How many people have destroyed an iPhone or a phone with a hammer? Anybody in the room? Ahh, a couple of hands go up. I dont know if theyre kidding. I think theyre kidding, but who knows."

Then, during a rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin, later that night, Trump asked again. And the same thing happened.

"Does anybody in this room over the last how ever many years have 13 phones?" he posed to the crowd. "Okay, a number of them were hammered to death. Right? They were hammered. So let me ask you, has anybody, when you get rid of your phone, hammered it? Raise your hand."

"One," Trump pointed out. "Oh there's one guy. What business are you in? What business? Get him out of here. I don't want to be near him."

Trump said that last bit in jest, but asked the question again at his Thursday rally in Bedford, New Hampshire. And it happened again.

"Thirteen phones missing, several destroyed with a hammer," he said. "Who in this room has destroyed their phone with a hammer? Anybody?"

"Oh there's one person," he continued. "What business is that person in? I want to find out."

Story continues

Trump has fostered an interactive atmosphere at events throughout his campaign. He often excites his large crowds with questions about who will pay for his proposed wall, for instance. When he was selecting a vice presidential running mate, Trump even went as far as to read the crowd his short list and ask who he should pick.

NOW WATCH: 'Taco Trucks on every corner': Watch the stunning comments made by the leader of 'Latinos for Trump'





More From Business Insider


Central Industrial Security Force chief OP Singh briefed Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on the heightened security arrangements at airports, ports and other vital installations guarded by the central force.

IMAGE: Border Security Force soldiers patrol in the Chenab river near the India-Pakistan International border Dewali post in Akhnoor sector. Photograph: PTI

On Thursday, as the day unfolded with the Indian Army announcing it had conducted strikes on terrorist locations, a review meeting of Coast Guards and Central Industrial Security Force was held for security at ports. Simultaneously, the Indian civil aviation ministry sounded off airlines to maintain caution, while flying over Pakistani airspace. Besides, oil refining and marketing firms decided to take a closer look at their stocks.

There is tighter monitoring of stocks at bulk terminals now. We usually keep stocks, more so to meet defence requirements, but, in a situation like this, we monitor more closely and quickly replenish the stocks, said an official in one of the state-owned refiners.

Though Indias late night surgical strikes on locations in the Pakistan territory are not akin to a full-blown war, strategic locations in states on the western border have been placed on high alert. Besides, an alert has been sounded off for all airports. An airline executive said, There was direction from the ministry two days back to fly above a specific height when passing Karachi. According to the circular, Indian aircraft, passing over Pakistani airspace, have been asked to maintain a minimum height of 34,000 feet.

This comes amidst media reports that the Prime Ministers Office has sought feedback from the civil aviation ministry over consequences of suspension of Indian airspace for Pakistani airlines.

A civil aviation ministry official though said if India shuts its airspace, it is imperative Pakistan will take reciprocal measures. Flights originating from India use Pakistani airspace for flying to Gulf and the Middle East.

An airline executive said closure or avoiding the Pakistani airspace will force airlines to take a detour towards South India, which will increase flight time by more than 30 minutes. It will cost us Rs 10 lakh more per flight, he said. A senior IndiGo official said presently there is no restriction and there has been no change of route plans over Pakistani airspace.

During the Kargil War in the summer of 1999, Indian aircraft had stopped flying over Pakistan and were taking longer detours on their flights to and from West and the Gulf.

Airlines like SpiceJet have, in recent times, requested India to allow it to fly direct between Ahmedabad and Gulf over the Arabian Sea, instead of taking the existing circuitous route from over Pakistan to help cut costs.

Senior executives involved with operation of some of the strategic locations along the western border, however, said they were always on alert because of perceived threat from the neighbouring country, besides terrorist attacks. We have not received any special alert from the government, said an executive in one of the private sector refineries.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday night spoke to the family members of an Indian soldier, whose grandmother passed away after hearing the news of his capture in Pakistan.

The Union home minister telephoned the close family members of Chandu Babulal Chohan, son of Bashan Chohan, who hails from Dhule in Maharashtra, after learning about the demise of his grandmother.

Sources said Chandus grandmother died of shock after hearing the news that he has been captured by Pakistani forces.

Singh assured Chandu's family members that the government is doing its best to bring back home the soldier safe.

Singh said the government has taken note of the reports which stated that an Indian soldier is in Pakistans captivity.

All attempts are being made to secure his release, he told reporters.

The home minister also said that New Delhi will take up the matter with Islamabad for his early release.

Indian Army sources had said on Thursday that one soldier from 37 Rashtriya Rrifles with weapon has inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control. Pakistan has been informed by the Director General of Military Operations on the hotline.

The sources said his crossing over was not related to the surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army at terror launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Such inadvertent crossing by the army and civilians are not unusual on either side. They are returned through existing mechanisms, they had said.

The Indian Army had on Thursday rejected as 'false and baseless' reports in a section of Pakistani media that eight Indian soldiers were killed and one captured by Pakistani military in retaliatory fire.

Indian Army sources said, "As regard (to the) report of killing of eight Indian Army personnel reported in sections of Pakistan media, the report is completely false and baseless."

Army's reaction had came after Pakistans Dawn News reported that Pakistani military has claimed that it has killed eight Indian soldiers and captured one while retaliating to Indias firing at the first line of defence at the Line of Control at Tatta Pani.

India had carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the Army inflicting 'significant casualties' on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

IMAGE: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh during an all-party meeting in New Delhi. Photograph: Vijay Verma/PTI Photo
For the nation, which was reeling 10 days ago over the dastardly Uri terror attack in which Indian Army soldiers were martyred, the recent surgical strike conducted by the armed forces along the Line of Control has somewhat acted like a balm on the wounds of the citizens.

After Director General of Military Operations Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh on Thursday said significant casualty was caused to terrorists during the operation, the whole nation was seen celebrating and congratulating the Indian Army for avenging the Uri bravehearts.

The locals in Uttar Pradeshs temple city Varanasi were seen performing a Ganga Aarti, congratulating and commending the valour of the Indian Army.

Holding placards which read Jai Hind, Bharat Mata ki Jai, people from all walks of life took part in the special aarti, which is usually performed every evening, at the pious Ganga river.

The locals, in particular the elderly women, prayed at the Dashashwamedh Ghat, which is the main ghat in Varanasi.

The members of the Ganga Seva Nidhi also lit diyas for the soldiers who were part of the surgical attack.

Marking a radical departure from the past in its response to cross-border terrorism, Director General of Military Operations Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh on Thursday announced that the army had carried out surgical strikes in the early hours of the day to destroy seven launch pads along the Line of Control where teams of terrorists had positioned themselves.
Having left their crops and cattle behind, villagers living close to the international border have put up a brave face and hailed Indian Army's surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, praising the Narendra Modi government for giving a stern reply to Pakistan.

IMAGE: Villagers living close to the border with Pakistan sit in a bunker after authorities asked them to leave their villages for safety reasons in RS Pura near Jammu. Photograph: PTI

As they vacated their houses, the villagers remained cheerful and raised patriotic slogans in several border areas including Fazilka, Amritsar and Gurdaspur.

"What our army has done is good. Over the years, Pakistan has been repeatedly shown its evil designs. From fighting wars with us, it later started a proxy war with India by aiding and abetting terrorists.

"From Kargil to Pathankot and now Uri, it has not learnt a lesson. We welcome the firm step taken by the central government and what the army has done," said Angrez Singh, resident of a border village in Fazilka.

Evacuation of people residing in 1000 villages within ten kilometres of the international border continued following orders of the authorities.

Heads of local gurdwaras and temples, sarpanches and the police reached out to people using loud speakers, asking them to start evacuation at the earliest in light of the escalating situation between the two countries.

IMAGE: Border villagers migrating after government asked people to vacate their villages falling in 10 km range of international border with Pakistan as a precautionary measure. Photograph: PTI

Punjab shares 553-km border with Pakistan and it has six districts which lie close to international border.

Long queues were witnessed in villages for buying fuel with some people even carrying drums in their tractors. At many places, villagers could be seen rushing to ATMs to withdraw money as panic spread.

At the border villager of Daoke, people could be seen carrying heavy bags on their heads as they quickly packed their belongings to move to temporary camps or head to their relatives who live in cities.

There was a heavy rush on roads in border villages as people moved to safer locations. Many villagers could be seen discussing the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars and wondering whether Pakistan would retaliate this time after the strikes.

There were many who did not want to leave their houses, saying they did not want to leave their ripe crop and domestic animals behind. Paddy crop is ready for harvesting and will start reaching the market from Saturday.

"We cannot leave our crops and animals behind, we will suffer great losses. The government must settle this issue with Pakistan once for all," a farmer in Ferozepur district said.
The United Nations mission tasked with monitoring the ceasefire line between India and Pakistan has not directly observed any firing along the Line of Control, UN chief Ban Ki-moons spokesperson said on Friday against the backdrop of the surgical strikes conducted by India in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan has not directly observed any firing across the LoC related to the latest incidents, the UN Secretary Generals spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

When pressed to explain how UNMOGIP did not observe any firing even as India said it has conducted surgical strikes across the Line of Control, Dujarric repeated that UNMOGIP has not directly observed any of the firing.

They are obviously aware of the reports of these presumed violations and are talking to the relevant concerned authorities, he said.

In response to a question, he said Pakistans Permanent Representative Maleeha Lodhi did meet the UN chief earlier on Friday at the request of the envoy but said Bans office does not give readouts of his meetings with ambassadors of nations.

Dujarric reiterated that the Secretary General is following the situation along the LoC between India and Pakistan with great concern and the increased tensions along the LoC as well as the escalating rhetoric between the two countries.

He stressed that the UN chief would welcome any proposals to de-escalate the tensions between the nuclear-armed neigbours.

The Secretary General urges the government of India and Pakistan to exercise maximum restraint and address the outstanding issues peacefully and through dialogue. He would welcome all proposals in that regard as well as any de-escalation initiatives, Dujarric said.

He said the UN observer group for India and Pakistan is 'aware' of the reports of the presumed ceasefire violations and is liaising with the concerned authorities to obtain further information.

The Secretary General also recalls the role played by UNMOGIP, which is deployed to observe, to the extent possible, developments pertaining to the strict observance of the 1971 ceasefire to report thereon to the Secretary General, he said.

India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the Army inflicting significant casualties on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.

The terror launch pads were targeted by the Army on the intervening night of September 28 and 29 in a nearly five-hour-long operation.
It also asked Pakistan to act tough on terror.

Sending a strong message to Pakistan that it needs to act against United Nations-designated terrorist groups, the White House on Friday called for de-escalation of tension between India and Pakistan.

What I can tell you is that we have seen some reports from the region. Those reports include that Indian and Pakistani militaries have been in communication with one another and we encourage continued discussions between India and Pakistan to avoid escalation, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters at his daily news conference.

Earnest said United States National Security Advisor Susan Rice spoke to her Indian counterpart Ajit Doval on Thursday and asked to combat and delegitimise UN-designated terrorist entities, including Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Ambassador Rice made it clear that the United States continues to be concerned by the danger that cross-border terrorism poses to the region. The United States fully expects that Pakistan will take effective action to combat and delegitimise UN-designated terrorist individuals and entities, he said.

The US, he said, is firmly committed to its partnership with India, and to their joint efforts to combat terrorism. We are prepared to deepen collaboration on UN terrorist designations, Earnest said.

At the same time, US continues to be in close contact with Pakistan and value the important partnership that they have formed with them on a range of issues, including security, the press secretary said.

Meanwhile a State Department official called for de-escalation of tension.

We urge calm and restraint on both sides, the official said.

We understand that the Indian and Pakistani militaries have been in communication, and we believe continued communication is important to reduce tensions, the official added.

The US has repeatedly expressed its concerns regarding the danger that cross border terrorism poses to the region, including the recent attack in Uri.

We continue to urge actions to combat and delegitimise terrorist groups like Lakshar-e Tayyaba, Haqqani Network, and Jaish-e-Mohammed, the official said.

India has blamed Pakistan-based terror outfit JeM for the attack in Uri. In the backdrop of the heightened tension with Pakistan over Uri terror attack, India on Tuesday announced its decision to not participate in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Summit, citing increased cross-border attacks.

Other Pakistan-based terror group LeT has been accused by India of attacking military and civilian targets in the country, including the 2001 Parliament attack and the 2008 Mumbai attack.

India wants UN to impose sanctions on JeM chief Masood Azhar. Hafiz Saeed, a co founder of LeT and the chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawah, carries a bounty of $10 million (Rs 67 crore) on his head for his role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack in which 166 people, including six Americans, were killed.
Hailing the surgical strikes by India on terror launch pads across the Line of Control, the wife of martyred soldier Hemraj said the action was a "befitting reply" to Pakistan.

IMAGE: Martyred soldier Hemraj's widow feels that the government should not show any leniency towards terrorists. Photograph: ANI

"The strikes by India have instilled confidence among soldiers and the common man. But if such a step was taken earlier, we would not have lost lives of soldiers in Uri," Dharmvati said in Mathura on Thursday.

She said the government should not show any leniency towards Pakistan-sponsored terrorists.

Lance Naik Hemraj was killed and beheaded by Pakistani soldiers on January 8, 2013 in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir.

Calling the surgical strikes very appropriate, timely and effective move, Kargil war martyr Captain Saurabh Kalia's father, N K Kalia thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking such a bold step.

IMAGE: N K Kalia, Kargil war martyr Captain Saurabh Kalia's father salutes the Indian Army for the surgical strikes. Photograph: ANI/Twitter

"I salute our brave Indian Army personnel for conducting this. I also thank the PM for taking such a bold decision to teach Pakistan a lesson," said Kalia.

Uri martyr S K Vidyarthi's daughter, Aarti also expressed her happiness over Indian Army's action.

However, Vidyarthi's wife echoed Dharmvati's sentiments saying if the strikes had it been done before, she would have been more happy.

IMAGE: Uri martyr S K Vidyarthi's daughter, Aarti is happy that the army conducted strikes . Photograph: ANI/Twitter

India had carried out the surgical strikes across the LoC on Wednesday night, inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists and those who were trying to support them.

The sudden action by the army came 11 days after the terror strike by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed on an Indian Army camp in Uri in Kashmir which left 19 Indian soldiers dead.

With inputs from agencies
Rahul Gandhi, who has been unrelenting in his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Friday lauded him for the surgical strikes by the army across the Line of Control, saying it was the "first action" befitting his post in two-and-a-half years.

Days after he slammed Modi's "short-sighted" political alliance with Peoples Democratic Party, saying it has "opened space" for terrorism in Kashmir and apportioned blame to National Democratic Alliance government's "politics" for the Uri attack, the Congress vice president said he and his party stand by the prime minister's decision to carry out surgical strikes.

"When the prime minister acts as the prime minister of the country then I too support him...I want to thank him that in the past two-and-a-half years, this is the first action which can be termed as worthy of prime minister," he said at a road show as part of his Deoria-to-Delhi Kisan yatra in Bulandshahr.

The army on Thursday carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launchpads across the Line of Control and inflicted "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Rahul said, "He (Modi) has my full support and that of the Congress...The entire nation is with him today."

He also paid homage to the jawans, who were prepared to make the supreme sacrifice to safeguard the country. His tribute came against the backdrop of the attack by Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad on the army base in Uri in which 19 soldiers were killed.

In the course of the Kisan yatra, Rahul had alleged that Modi's "short-sighted" political alliance with PDP has "opened space" for terrorism in Kashmir.

"I stand by our soldiers and I condemn what has been done to them by Pakistanis. However, space for that has been created by the politics the NDA has practised in Jammu and Kashmir," he had said in Mati (Kanpur Dehat) on September 20, days after the Uri attack.

Rahul had said the erstwhile United Progressive Alliance government had spent nine years fighting terrorism and curbing it.

He had held Pakistan responsible for the Uri attack and apportioned blame to the NDA government's "politics" for it.

Alleging that the NDA had "no strategy" vis-a-vis Kashmir, Rahul had targeted the Prime Minister, saying, "He goes from one event to another and this is no way of handling national security. National security cannot be handled like public meetings. This is a serious matter."

"FYI Modiji: a Kashmir strategy cannot be developed using selfies and sound bites (sic)," he had tweeted.

Targeting the Modi government, Rahul alleged that it is an anti-poor government, which works a few industrialists and has failed to deliver on its promise of creating 2 crore jobs for the youth.

"In the last one-and-a-half years, it waived off loans of Rs 1,10,000 crore of 15 industrialists," he claimed at a "Khat Sabha" in Khurja.

The previous Congress government wrote off 70,000 crore of farmers' loan. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee scheme, which guarantees 100 days of employment in a year to a rural household, was a gift to farmers by the UPA dispensation, he said.
The Indian Army on Friday denied Pakistani media reports that eight Indian soldiers were killed in the raids in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and one was captured alive, adding that they were "fake" and an example of "black propaganda."

Only one soldier has "minor injuries" from stepping on a mine once he was back on the Indian side of the Line of Control, said army sources.

The sources also said that images played out on Pakistan TV channels claiming to show Indian casualties are "doctored or morphed clips and fake."

Rejecting a report published by the Pakistani media that "eight Indian Army personnel were killed in the cross-border firing" along the Line of Control and an Indian soldier was taken into custody by Pakistani forces, the Indian Army sources had on Thursday as well stated that they were "completely false and baseless".

According to army sources, "One soldier from 37 Rashtriya Rifles with weapon inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control, following which Pakistan has been informed by Director General of Military Operations Lt Gen Ranbir Singh over the hotline."

Stating that such inadvertent crossing by army and civilians are not unusual on either side, sources added, "They are returned through existing mechanisms. As regard report of killing of eight Indian Army personnel reported in sections of Pakistan media the report is completely false and baseless."

Quoting security sources, Pakistani daily the Dawn on Thursday reported that soldiers from the Indian Army were killed in the episode of cross-border firing.

In his show 'Capital Talk' on Geo News, Hamid Mir said, "Fourteen Indian soldiers were killed in two sectors." Defence analyst Major General (Retd) Ijaz Awan, who was on his show, confirmed his claim.

An Indian soldier by the name Chandu Babulal Chohan was taken into custody by Pakistani forces, however, there is as yet no official confirmation of this claim, reported the Dawn quoting sources.

The Pakistani media witnessed such claims on Thursday after the Indian armed forces conducted surgical strikes late on Wednesday night on terror launch pads across the LoC to neutralise terrorists planning to infiltrate into the Indian territory.
Violating the ceasefire again, Pakistani troops opened fire from small arms along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmirs Akhnoor district.

This is the fifth ceasefire violation in the month of September and the third in the past 36 hours.

There was small arms firing (from Pakistan on forward posts) along the LoC in Pallanwala, Chapriyal and Samnam areas of Jammu district during the night, Deputy Commissioner, Jammu, Simrandeep Singh said.

He said the firing started at 12.30 am and ended at 01.30 am.

There was no loss of life or injury to anyone in the firing, he said.

On Thursday, Pakistani troops had resorted to firing in Balnoie area of Mendhar sector and around Poonch district. A special police official was injured in Poonch during the cross-firing.

On September 28, the Pakistan Army had violated the ceasefire by opening fire on Indian Army posts along the LoC in Sabzian area Poonch sector.

Pakistani troops had fired on army posts along LoC in Poonch sector on September 6.

On September 2, Pakistan troops had violated the ceasefire by firing on forward army posts along the LoC in Akhnoor sector.

Last year, 16 civilians were killed and 71 others injured in 405 incidents of cross-border firing by Pakistan, the officer said.
(Adds background)

BERLIN, Sept 29 (Reuters) - European Central Bank Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said on Thursday he expected Austria to resolve a crisis surrounding the "bad bank" Heta Asset Resolution.

Nowotny told Reuters he expected Austrian Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling to get the support of a necessary majority of creditors for a settlement offer related to Austria's worst financial disaster in 60 years.

"It's going in the right direction," Nowotny told Reuters before an event hosted by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung foundation. "I think Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling will get the needed majority. It's like a band-wagon effect."

Schelling last month said that he expected a two-thirds majority of creditors to accept a settlement that will make a bond buyback offer binding for all creditors.

Creditors have until Oct. 7 to respond, with answers expected to be made public on Oct. 10.

(Reporting by Reinhard Becker, Writing by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Dominic Evans)
Over four years after the infamous Park Street gang rape case, Kolkata police has arrested the prime accused Kader Khan from Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad district.

Kader along with his accomplice Ali Khan was arrested by a special team of Kolkata Police in a joint operation with Delhi Police from their hideout in an apartment in Ghaziabad on Thursday night, the officer said.

Sources in Kolkata Police said the duo would be brought to the city on transmit remand and likely be produced at a local court on Saturday.

The victim, a mother of two, was gang-raped on February 6, 2012 by five men who had offered to drop her home from a night club at city's Park Street area.

Acting on a tip off that Kader, absconding since the incident, sleuths of Kolkata Police started tracking his mobile calls, he said.

Soon after he was located somewhere near New Delhi, sleuths started zeroing on him.

On Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar's instruction, a special team was formed to nab Kader.

"We had information that Khan has returned to the country and was having regular interaction with his family members in Kolkata over phone. We started tracking their numbers and found that calls from a particular number from Ghaziabad were made... We started tracking it and found that it was Kader's," the officer said, adding that Kader had rented the apartment in Ghaziabad under a psuedo name.

It was learnt that Kader was hiding in Bangladesh and after running out of cash he returned to Delhi through Nepal.

After keeping him under surveillance for almost a week, a joint team of Delhi Police and Kolkata Police team raided his hideout on Thursday night and arrested him, the IPS officer said.

A few days later when the victim filed her complaint, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had termed the incident as "sajano ghatana" (fabricated case), triggering a controversy.

Damayanti Sen, the then Kolkata Police Joint Commissioner-crime had pursued the case and identified the five accused. She was later shunted out from her post.

Three of the five accused were arrested and two including prime accused Kader Khan absconded.

Nine months after the victim died of meningitis in March 2015, the city sessions court had convicted the accused persons -- Ruman Khan, Naser Khan and Sumit Bajaj -- and sentenced them to 10 years rigorous imprisonment.
A division bench of the Patna High Court, comprising Chief Justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari and Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh, quashed the April 5 notification of the Bihar government to stop consumption and sale of alcohol in the state.

The April 5 notification is ultra vires to the Constitution, hence not enforceable, the court said in its verdict.

The same bench had on May 20 reserved its order on a batch of writ petitions filed by Liquor Trade Association and many individuals challenging the liquor law in Bihar brought by Nitish Kumar government with stringent penal provisions.

Hours later, a high-level meeting called by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar decided to summon the state cabinet on October 2 to ratify a notification on an amended liquor law for continuation of prohibition.

The meeting also deliberated on the option to knock on the doors of the Supreme Court against the high court order, quashing the April 5 notification on liquor ban.

The Grand Secular Alliance government had first banned manufacture, trade, sale and consumption of country-made liquor since April 1 but later, imposed a blanket ban on all types of liquor, including foreign liquor, in the state.

The chief minister has now called the meeting of the state Cabinet on October 2 in which an amended liquor law, passed by both Houses of the state legislature and consented to by the Governor, is likely to be approved for notification with an aim to continue with prohibition in the state.

Fridays's meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, Principal Secretary, Excise and Prohibition Amir Subhani and Principal Additional Advocate General Lalit Kishore among others.

Anjani Kumar Singh confirmed that the Cabinet would be meeting on October 2.

JD-U state president Basistha Narayan Singh and senior minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan also attended the meeting.

"We are not satisfied with today's court order... the option of going to the Supreme Court against it is available to us," Lalit Kishore said after the meeting.

"We will study the 150-page judgment to decide on the next course of action, including the option to move the apex court," he added.

The court's order quashing liquor notification would be a severe jolt to the government.

The chief minister had taken up the cause of prohibition on a mission mode and has been continously monitoring the implementation of the alcohol ban in the state.

Kumar has also toured many places in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab championing the cause of prohibition.

As per the last data provided by the state Excise department on September 2, 11,679 litre of Indian Made Foreign Liquor and 92,291.47 litre of country liquor were seized from April to August this year.

Photograph: Reuters
Leaders from 70 countries, including United States President Barack Obama and Arab politicians, gathered in Jerusalem on Friday to bid farewell to one of the last leaders of Israels founding generation and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres as his funeral began amid unprecedented security.

IMAGE: US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem. Photograph: Reuters

As two-time prime minister, minister of defence, foreign affairs, finance and transportation; and, until 2014, as president, Peres did more than anyone to build up Israels formidable military might and the countrys nuclear programme.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Peres as a great man of the world.

He soared to incredible heights. He was a great man of Israel; he was a great man of the world. Israel grieves for him, the world grieves for him, but we find hope in his legacy, as does the world, Netanyahu told mourners at Mount Herzl national cemetery where Peres would be buried alongside other prominent leaders of the Jewish state.

In what is the largest gathering of foreign dignitaries in the history of Israel, US President Obama, French President Francois Hollande, German President Joachim Gauck and scores of other world leaders are attending the funeral.

IMAGE: Bill Clinton touches the flag-draped coffin of former Israeli President Shimon Peres, after eulogising him during his funeral ceremony at Mount Herzl cemetery. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Obama, who awarded Peres the presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, is one of the speakers at the ceremony. He arrived in Israel on Friday morning. He wore a black Jewish skullcap as he took his seat at the ceremony.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was also among attendees. He was seated in the front row.

Abbas, who is on his first visit to Israel since September 2010 when peace talks broke down, shook hands and spoke briefly with Netanyahu upon arrival.

Abbas, who signed the Oslo accords along with Peres, has called him a brave partner for peace.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Jordanian Prime Minister Jawad Anani were also in attendance.

Jordans King Abdullah II on Thursday sent a condolence letter to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in which he highlighted Peres efforts to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians as part of a two-state solution.

IMAGE: German Chancellor Angela Merkel sings a book of condolence for former Israeli President Shimon Peres at the embassy of Israel in Berlin. Photograph: Michael Kappeler/Reuters

Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel.

Israels President Reuven Rivlin in his eulogy at the funeral ceremony credited Peres with ensuring the State of Israel as an indisputable fact.

Like you, I was also born into the Zionist Movement in those decisive years between vision and fulfilment. I was fortunate to look up to you as a partner in the building of the State of Israel from its very foundations, Rivlin said.

However, with much thanks to you Shimon, for our sons and daughters, for our friends -- and yes for our opponents -- the State of Israel is an indisputable fact, he said.

IMAGE: Britain's Prince Charles and French President Francois Hollande at the funeral. Photograph: Baz Ratner/Reuters

Applauding Peres as the visionary who shaped Israels future right from its foundation, the Israeli President said that he was not just a thinker but a doer.

You had the rare ability Shimon to conceive what seemed to be the inconceivable, and see it to fruition. Your eyes saw far ahead, while your feet covered great distances on the landscape of Jewish and Zionist history, Rivlin said.

He succeeded in moving even the most stubborn of politicians, and to melt away even the hardest of hearts of our opponents, Rivlin added.

Peres, who was the pioneer of Israels nuclear programme and also backed the creation of Jewish settlements in the earlier years only to abandon the idea later as a peacemaker, earned praise for his contributions to Israels security.

IMAGE: Tsvia, the daughter of former Israeli President Shimon Peres is comforted by her family as she mourns her father's loss. Photograph: Amir Cohen/Reuters

How deep was your belief in the sacred combination of ethical leadership and military prowess, that Israel must act not just with wisdom, but with justice, faithful at every moment to its values as a Jewish and democratic state, democratic and Jewish, the president added.

Some 50,000 people paid tributes to the Israeli leader on Thursday at the Knesset (Parliament) where his coffin laid in state throughout the day.

Former US president Bill Clinton was among those who paid their last respects there.

Security forces were put on high alert as the funeral began, with roads closed and thousands of officers deployed.

IMAGE: A man takes a photograph of a portrait of former Israeli President Shimon Peres, as he lies in state at the Knesset plaza, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem. Photograph: Reuters

Some 2,000 police officers backed by personnel from other agencies have been deployed in Jerusalem for the ceremony with media reports saying that some Arab and Jewish suspects have been put under preventive arrest to prevent any disruption.

Earlier, the casket carrying the departed soul was moved from the Knesset plaza to Mount Herzl.

The former president died on Wednesday morning at the age of 93, two weeks after suffering a massive stroke.
In another setback to Pakistan, Sri Lanka on Friday pulled out of 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad, becoming the fifth country to do so after India expressed its inability to participate in the summit.

Sri Lanka regrets that the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The General Provisions of the SAARC Charter require that decisions at all levels shall be taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of heads of state or government of SAARC Member States as well, it said in the brief statement.

The statement made no reference to the current tension between India and Pakistan, but it condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

It stressed on the need to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region in a decisive manner.

Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia.

As a founding member of SAARC, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our regions peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation, the statement added.

Besides India, three other SAARC members -- Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan -- have pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding of the meet.

That development came after tensions ran high between India and Pakistan after militants stormed an Indian Army base in Uri on September 18, killing 18 soldiers. The militants belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist group.

Founded in 1985, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation currently has Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka as its members.

Image: Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the SAARC summit in Kathmandu in 2014. Photograph: Narendra Shrestha/Reuters
A terrorist attack like the one on an Indian Army camp in Uri escalates tensions, United States have said, asking Pakistan to take action against United Nations-designated terrorist outfits and delegitimise them.

Obviously, an (terrorist) attack like that (in Uri) escalates tensions. What I dont want to do is try to get into, you know, some sort of broad characterisation one way or the other but obviously an attack like this is horrific and..., the State Department Spokesman, John Kirby, told reporters.

The spokesperson was interrupted by a reporter mid-way that her question was about Indias response to the September 18 Uri attack.

But the Indian response is that -- is that the kind of escalation that Secretary Kerry was warning against? the journalist asked referring to the telephonic conversation between the Secretary of State John Kerry and the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj earlier this week.

Kirby was quick to clarify that he was referring to the Uri terrorist attack.

Oh, I thought you were talking about the Uri attack, the spokesman said.

On September 27, Kerry spoke with Swaraj. For technical reason, the conversation was spread over two separate calls.

I can confirm for you that the secretary spoke with -- on the 27th, so earlier this week, with Indian External Affairs Minister Swaraj and reiterated his strong condemnation of the September 18 Uri attack.

He condemned terrorism in all its forms and he cautioned against any escalation intentions, he said.

Responding to questions, Kirby called for de-escalation of tension between the two countries.

Weve seen those reports (of Indian surgical attack), were following the situation closely as I think you can understand.

We also understand that the Indian and Pakistani militaries have been in communication, he said.

We believe that continued communication is obviously important to reduce tensions.

Weve repeatedly expressed our concerns regarding the danger that terrorism poses to the region and we all know that terrorism in many ways knows no border, Kirby said.

We continue to urge actions to combat and de-legitimise terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Tayiba, and Haqqani Network, Jaish-e-Mohammed.

So, this is something that were obviously keenly focused on, Kirby said in response to a question.

Counter-terrorism co-operation, he said, is something that the United States is always working at with its partners in the region.

Were always trying to get better at combating terrorism in the region.

There are many ways you can do that, you know, through information sharing regimens and increasing communication between all parties involved, he said.

But he refused to entertain questions on if there was any co-operation between India and the United States on the latest Indian operation.

I dont have a specific laundry list here to read out to you because, frankly, its something that weve been constantly working at with our partners in the region, he

said.

Kirby said Americas message to both sides has been the same in terms of encouraging them to increase communication to deal with this threat and to avoid steps that escalate the tensions.

I think Im not going to get into characterising each and every step along the way there.

But obviously, what we want to see is increased cooperation against what is a very shared common threat for both countries, and to see steps being taken to deal with it by all sides, Kirby said.

Meanwhile the US Ambassador to India, Richard Verma, who was in Washington, DC has rushed back to New Delhi.

As far as I know, hes returning to New Delhi. My understanding is that he believed that it was, appropriate for him to go back.

He has got a big job. There a lot of responsibilities that come with it. And, obviously its a very dynamic situation and he felt it was prudent to go back. We support that, Kirby said.
Nearly a fortnight after four terrorists infiltrated the Line of Control and attacked an army brigade headquarter in Uri, Jammu-Kashmir and killed 18 soldiers, another soldier, Naik Rajkishor Singh, died of his injuries on Friday.

With Singhs demise, the toll now rises to 19 in what has been labelled as the worst terrorist attack against the Indian Army in Jammu and Kashmir since the Kaluchak attack in 2002.

The attack unfolded in the early hours of September 18 when four terrorists sneaked into the administrative buildings and store complex of an infantry battalion in Uri, home of the 12 Infantry Brigade, near the Line of Control and gunned down the soldiers in a three-hour gun battle.

There was great outrage over the attack with Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowing that those who shed the blood of the soldiers would not go unpunished.

On Thursday, nearly 10 days after the attack, the Indian Army conducted surgical strikes across the LoC in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and systematically took out 38-40 terrorists who, according to intelligence sources, were planning to infiltrate India.
Immediately after India launched its surgical strikes, sources said, it had informed the US of its action.

Aziz Haniffa reports from Washington, DC.

Senior US intelligence and Congressional sources privy to intelligence reports and classified briefings have told Rediff.com of "the growing body of irrefutable evidence of Pakistani complicity" in the Uri terrorist attack that the US had "gathered independently" which it found to be in sync with the "proof of evidence India has shared" with Washington, as part of the unprecedented counter-terrorism cooperation between the two countries in recent years.

The sources acknowledged that it was this evidence that had led to US Secretary of State John F Kerry, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, US Senators Mark Warner and John Cornyn and other senior administration officials to call on Pakistan to act against State Department and United Nations designated terrorist groups operating from Pakistan, often inspired and supported by the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence services.

The interactions, phone calls and messages by these officials and US Senators with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Prime Minister Narendra Modi respectively, the sources noted, was in anticipation of "the inevitability" of the Indian surgical strikes across the Line of Control against terrorists launching pads and "the less than lukewarm reaction" by the US when it happened, was in some sense subtly condoning India's actions, although publicly calling for restraint.

There was now concern over the escalating tensions and the possibility of a conflict that had resulted in a flurry of activities by US officials with their counterparts in both Delhi and Islamabad, manifest by US Ambassador to India Richard Rahul Verma -- in Washington to address the Woodrow Wilson Centre on Thursday, September 29 -- canceling his appearance and taking the next plane back to Delhi to monitor the situation and to impress upon India to keep the lines of communication open with Pakistan and not up the ante on its recent actions.

The US envoy in Islamabad has also been instructed to do the same and strongly warn Pakistan against contemplating any retaliatory tit-for-tat.

At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest urging a de-escalation of the tensions between India and Pakistan, lauded the continuing communications between the two militaries and called for these lines to be kept open, even as he said it was imperative that Pakistan come down hard on the terrorist groups in its territory engaged in international terrorism.

A day earlier, on September 28, Rice spoke to Doval by phone and according to the White House 'strongly condemned the September 18 cross-border attack on the Indian Army brigade headquarters in Uri and offered condolences to the victims and their families.' National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said, Rice had 'affirmed President Obama's commitment to redouble our efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of terrorism throughout the world.'

'Highlighting the danger that cross-border terrorism poses to the region, Price said Rice had 'reiterated our expectation that Pakistan take effective action to combat and de-legitimize United Nations-designated terrorist individuals and entities, including Lakshar-e-Tayiba, Jaish-e-Muhammed, and their affiliates.'

'In the context of the robust US-India partnership, Ambassador Rice discussed our shared commitment with India to pursuing peace and regional stability and pledged to deepen collaboration on counter-terrorism matters including on UN terrorist designations,' Price added.

At the State Department, spokesman Joe Kirby, asked about India's surgical strikes, said, echoing Earnest's statement about Indian and Pakistani militaries being in communication, said, 'We believe that continued communication is obviously importance to reduce tensions.'

He was circumspect when asked if there was any prior consultation between the US and India before the surgical strikes since Kerry had spoken to Swaraj and Rice to Doval, saying only that the secretary of state in his conversation with Swaraj had 'reiterated his strong condemnation of the September 18 Uri attack,' and also 'condemned terrorism in all its forms and he cautioned against any escalation in tensions.'

When pressed that since this was a counter-terrorism operation and there is strong coordination between India and the US on counter-terrorism issues, if there was coordination on this strike by the Indian forces, Kirby, who was formerly the Pentagon spokesman, said, 'I don't have anything for you on that.'

Immediately after India launched its surgical strikes, sources said, it had informed the US of its action.

Asked about Ambassador Verma's rushing back to Delhi, Kirby said, 'My understanding is that he believed that it was appropriate for him to go back. He's got a big job, there's a lot of responsibilities that come with it, and obviously it's a very dynamic situation, and he felt it was prudent to go back.'

Earlier, during his meeting with Sharif at the UN, as Sharif was raising the Kashmir issue with Kerry, the secretary of state, according to the State Department, 'reiterated the need for Pakistan to prevent all terrorists from using Pakistani territory as safe havens.'

Senators Warner and Cornyn, who co-chair the Senate India Caucus, shrugging aside the diplomatic nuances, said they were troubled over initial indications that the Uri terror attack emanated from Pakistan.

In a letter to Modi said, they said, 'We are greatly concerned about initial indications that the perpetrators of this attack were Pakistani and that the attack emanated from Pakistan. If true, this attack would be just the latest in a series of deadly attacks in India conducted by Pakistan-based terrorist groups.'

'We call on the government of Pakistan to cooperate fully and transparently in this investigation and prosecute any individuals within its territory that participated in this horrendous attack,' Warner and Cornyn said, adding, 'Pakistan's possible involvement in this attack underscores our broader concern about Pakistan's use of terrorism as a pillar of its foreign policies toward Afghanistan and India.'

'As many credible experts have noted, such groups as the Haqqani network, the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Tayiba, and Jaish-e-Muhammed still operate freely in Pakistan, launching attacks not only on India but also on US personnel and interests in Afghanistan,' the senators added.

'That such terrorist groups continue to operate within Pakistan is unacceptable, and we will work within Congress to pressure Pakistan to end any association with these terrorist groups targeting India, put a stop to their cross-border incursions, and take active and immediate steps to reign in homegrown terrorists,' they pledged.

Warner and Cornyn told Modi that 'the continued threat of terrorism that both India and the US face highlights the critical need to ensure that we continue to expand US-India bilateral defence, intelligence and counter-terrorism cooperation.'

While welcoming the declaration of India as a major defence partner, the senators said, 'Similarly, we are pleased by the finalisation of an arrangement to facilitate the sharing of terrorist screening information and the progress made by the US-India Counter-terrorism Joint Working Group and the Homeland Security Dialogue.'

Meanwhile, buoyed by a bill introduced by Congressman Ted Poe, Texas Republican, to designate Pakistan as a State sponsor of terrorism in the wake of the Uri attack, an online 'We the People' petition launched by a group of Indian Americans on the White House Web site to do just that by September 28 had garnered 265,000 signatories, propelling it as most popular active petition on the White House site.

This would make it incumbent -- as per the guidelines of the 'We the People' petition -- that the Obama administration respond within 60 days if the petition is signed by a minimum of 100,000 people.

The US-India Political Action Committee on September 23 also launched a nationwide effort to canvass Indian Americans to get their local legislators to support H R 6069, the bill introduced by Poe.

'It is time we stop paying Pakistan for its betrayal and designate it for what it is, a State sponsor of terrorism,' Poe had said after introducing the bill.
Hafiz Saeed, chief of terrorist outfit Jammat-ud-Dawah and mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attack, on Friday warned India of a "befitting response" for its military operation in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will now know what "surgical strikes" really mean.

"We will tell you what is a real surgical strike... and you will get the deserved response soon," Saeed said in a public address in Faisalabad, Lahore.

"I want to tell Indian media to see soon how Pakistani Jawans conduct surgical strikes. Let me tell you... the United States will not be able to help you," he said, a day after India conducted surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

"Now it is Pakistan's turn to give a befitting response to India. Narendra Modi will now know what is meant by surgical strikes," Saeed said.
happy kid parent water summer play fun

For the first time since 2013, American parents list saving for college among their top two savings priorities, surpassing both retirement and general savings, and second only to emergency funds, according to a new national study by Sallie Mae.

The study found that parents are planning to pay more than 40% of their children's college costs. But the reality is that most are still coming up short.

Of the 57% of parents who are currently saving for their child's college education, the average family didn't start saving until their oldest child was 7 years old. In many cases, that's too late.

Parents are missing out on the incredible power of compound interest  earning money on your money  by not contributing to a college fund for the first seven years of their child's life. And once they do start saving, the majority are putting money intended for college into a general savings account (61%) or checking account (38%), admitting that those accounts not earmarked for college could easily be used for "other household expenses," according to Sallie Mae.

But a rising percentage of parents  up to 37% from 27% in 2015  are capitalizing on 529 college savings plans  state-sponsored tax-advantaged investment accounts that anyone, including grandparents and other family members, can open and contribute to.

With a 529 plan, savings can start at a child's birth  or even before birth by using a qualifying family member as a beneficiary and switching it over to the child once they're born  and grow steadily until age 18.

It's no surprise then that parents who use a 529 end up with higher savings than those who don't, racking up an average of $7,534 compared to $7,448 in an investment account, $6,043 in a general savings account, and $5,004 using a certificate of deposit.

With an average college savings goal of $61,902, parents who are quick to open up a 529  which has a maximum contribution of $14,000 per year, per child, and per donor  are able to enjoy the power of compounding and the benefits of a tax-free savings account.

Story continues

Since the plans are state-sponsored, each state runs one or more of their own, and savers are allowed to choose which they prefer. At savingforcollege.com, there are 111 options, and each one has a slightly different investment structure  the site lets you compare investment options, fees, and various tax benefits of each plan.

Additional reporting by Libby Kane.

NOW WATCH: Don't be afraid to cancel cable  here's how to watch all of your favorite shows for less than $42 a month





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Uzbekistan: Punished for religious books at home

Publisher Forum 18 Publication Date 29 September 2016 Cite as Forum 18, Uzbekistan: Punished for religious books at home, 29 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee4e5c4.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Stanislav Kim was given two years' corrective labour in Urgench for having religious books at home, something the authorities punish as "illegal". He must live at home under restrictions with a fifth of his wages seized by the state. Courts often order such religious literature destroyed.
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Colombia: UN human rights chief reaffirms ongoing collaboration in wake of peace accord

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 29 September 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Colombia: UN human rights chief reaffirms ongoing collaboration in wake of peace accord, 29 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee572e40c.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

29 September 2016 - Speaking to the media just days after the signing of the historic peace agreement in Colombia and ahead of the 2 October national poll in which Colombians will have their say on the accord, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reiterated that his Office (OHCHR) will continue to follow the progress of the human rights aspects of the agreement.

"I wish to pay tribute here to the Government of Colombia [] for having the foresight to invite, and then accept and retain, the presence of a UN human rights office in the country," said Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein at the press conference in Bogota.

"Unlike many other governments around the world, Colombia has accepted that we are fiercely independent; that we will criticize them from time to time, as well as their opponents; that we play the role of the blunt friend prepared to speak plain truths when necessary," he added.

The OHCHR presence in Colombia was established in April 1997 and has since been working to strengthen human rights protection and promotion there.

Hailing the progress made by Colombia in improving its human rights situation in the past 19 years, the High Commissioner said: "[These] are perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the text of the Final Peace Accord, which contains 353 references to 'rights,' and a preamble which stresses that the entire accord is permeated with human rights, as well as a strong focus on gender."

The Accord also has five specific references to the role OHCHR is requested to play during its implementation.

Signing ceremony of the Colombian peace agreement in Cartagena. 26 September 2016. UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

"I promise that we, the UN human rights office, as foreseen in the text, will follow the progress of the numerous human rights aspects of the peace accords closely. I will not hesitate to speak out, or intervene in other ways, in the event of any serious violations or omissions by either side," stressed Mr. Zeid.

He further noted that he will pay close attention to the fulfilment of the guarantees for the protection of members of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) from physical violence, and stigmatization, made by the Government. "It is of fundamental importance that there is no repeat of the deplorable assassinations that have followed - and sometimes wrecked - previous peace agreements," he said.

The High Commissioner also underlined the importance of accountability and justice, and said that these must be in line with international standards when it comes to violations and abuses such as war crimes, crimes and against humanity and very serious violations of human rights.

He also called for immediate steps be taken to consolidate peace and urged the Government to create a schedule for the implementation of the accords it has reached with social movements and communities, but not implemented and said that OHCHR will continue to offer support to this vital process.

Noting the threats posed by illicit economies to human rights, the UN rights stressed the importance for all parts of Colombian society to work towards transforming these such economies as well as on the State to create a set of incentives to facilitate successor groups of paramilitaries to stop their illegal activities and contribute to the country transformation so that finally, in a few years' time, Colombia can benefit from complete peace.
Treaties against human trafficking key to fighting scourge, supporting victims  UN anti-crime official

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 29 September 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Treaties against human trafficking key to fighting scourge, supporting victims  UN anti-crime official, 29 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee578540c.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

29 September 2016 - With current armed conflicts and humanitarian crises driving massive population movements - and not just in Europe, though the continent has been heavily challenged - an upcoming United Nations report will confirm the troubling fact that human trafficking generally follows the overall migratory flows, a senior UN anti-crime official said today, urging States to back the Trafficking in Persons Protocol and other international tools to address the evolving and complex situation.

John Brandolino, Director of the Division for Treaty Affairs at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), spotlighted the importance of international treaties and agreements in tackling human trafficking in his address to a Headquarters event co-hosted with the European Union (EU) following up last week's first-ever UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants.

"The forthcoming biennial 2016 UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, which will be released in November, confirms that human trafficking flows generally follow the overall migratory flows, he said, adding that the majority of trafficking victims detected globally by Member States (around 60 per cent) are foreigners in the country of detection, most of them migrants.

Likewise, information collected for the Global Report has shown an increasing detection of victims from conflict-affected countries such as Syria, Iraq and Somalia in countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The continuing vulnerability of women and children as victims of trafficking in persons will also be revealed in the Global Report, comprising 79 per cent of the total victims detected. The EU Anti-Trafficking Coordinator's Progress Report from June of this year came to the same conclusion, highlighting the particular vulnerability of migrant children, he added.

Further, EU data confirms that child trafficking is exacerbated by the ongoing migration crisis, during which the number of children arriving in the EU has risen exponentially. A significant amount of these children are travelling unaccompanied, making them preferred targets for traffickers.

A young woman from a fishing community in West Bengal in eastern India. She comes from a village that is known for high levels of trafficking of women and girls to other major cities. Photo: UN Women/Anindit Roy-Chowdhury

With these challenges in mind, Mr. Brandolino said that for him, two core messages stand out in the Summit's outcome, the New York Declaration: first, a desire to protect and save lives in peril, born from a profound solidarity for the millions of persons around the world who are forced to flee their homes; and second, moving beyond moral compassion, to a call for action. In the Declaration, States reiterate in the strongest language their commitment to fight human trafficking and migrant smuggling.

He went on to reconfirm the centrality of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, known as the TIP Protocol, saying: "This treaty provides us with the first and only internationally agreed upon definition for trafficking in persons, and steers our common efforts with a clear framework for action - a framework which UNODC has been successfully delivering upon for the last 15 years, often with the generous support of partners like the EU and the United States."

The New York Declaration actually reaffirms the importance of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and the two Protocols - the Trafficking in Persons Protocol and the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol. Specifically the TIP is one of the most successful treaties in modern international law, enjoying one of the speediest ratification trajectories ever, and soon approaching universality, he said, noting that as of today, there are 170 ratifications, or nearly 90 per cent of all Member States, including most recently, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and the Maldives.

Mr. Brandolino noted that UNODC is also facilitating direct support to victims of trafficking in persons through the UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, and that around 2,000 victims a year are being provided critical assistance, such as safe shelter, legal support and advice on victims' rights, appropriate treatment for physical and mental abuse, vocational training, establishing small businesses, schooling for children, and basic health services, among others.

"The Trust Fund has so far allocated nearly $3 million and stands ready to continue this work should more donations be made," he added.

Wrapping up his presentation, he said "commitment yields results," and "the Trafficking in Persons Protocol is the cornerstone of our response and should continue to be so. More than 15 years on, this hard-won instrument appeals to nearly all States while containing progressive, forward-looking provisions which promote the protection of victims.
Amid political jockeying and grandstanding, 'Syria is bleeding,' UN aid chief tells Security Council

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 29 September 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Amid political jockeying and grandstanding, 'Syria is bleeding,' UN aid chief tells Security Council, 29 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee57f3412.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

29 September 2016 - In an impassioned appeal to the Security Council, the top United Nations relief official today called on the global body's primary organ for maintenance of peace and security to act immediately to end the bloodshed in Syria so that humanitarian assistance is able to reach those who desperately need it.

"Syria is bleeding. Its citizens are dying. We all hear their cry for help. As humanitarians we are doing all we can," UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien told the 15-member Council today.

He added that last week, even as world leaders discussed Syria at high-level meetings and during the General Assembly's annual high-level debate, violence intensified in the war-torn middle-eastern country and more civilians and aid workers were killed.

"It is time to place blame. It is time this Council stops tolerating the utter disregard for the most basic provisions of international humanitarian law," Mr. O'Brien underscored.

Recounting the intensification of fighting across the country and in particular in eastern Aleppo, the UN official stressed that the conflict he said: "This is not an unforeseen result of forces beyond our control. This is due to the action of parties to the conflict and it is the direct result of inaction - be it through unwillingness or inability - by the international community, including most notably those present in this chamber."

The situation is s a critical test of the "capacity and willingness" of the members of the Security Council to make a decision and take action and to uphold the words of the UN Charter: "to save the Syrian people from the scourge of war."

The iconic city of Aleppo is the worst affected location in the country, where according to estimates, since the 22 September announcement by the Syrian Ministry of Defence that it would launch an offensive there, some 320 civilians were killed and 765 injured in the first days. It is particularly concerning that over 100 children have been killed.

"These are not simply numbers to be added to a tally, these are individuals, family lives that we have collectively failed to save," lamented Mr. O'Brien, who is also the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

Relief aid at the ready, but pause in fighting needed

Highlighting the humanitarian needs, Mr. O'Brien said that the priority for assistance is medical items and food. He also noted that there are more than 100,000 children trapped in east Aleppo and that they are among the most vulnerable.

"We have been ready, and we remain ready to deliver assistance to eastern Aleppo through cross-border and cross-line support," he said, and added that a minimum 48 hours weekly humanitarian pause must be urgently implemented to allow humanitarian aid to enter and for medical evacuations to be carried out.

"Now is not the time for political grandstanding or protection of one's political or, indeed, military position. Now is the time to recognize the horror unfolding before our eyes, agree upon our common humanity and restore the cessation of hostilities to protect civilians and save lives," he stated.

Attack on humanitarian convoy

Speaking on last week's attack on a joint UN-Syrian Arab Red Crescent convoy to Urum al-Kubra, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator said that while full details on the incident are not yet available, if the attackers knew of the aid convoy and intentionally directed an attack against it, they committed a war crime.

"As I have said before, those on the front lines delivering aid are brave, but they are not suicidal," and he underlined the necessity of sufficient security guarantees for the delivery of aid must be in place.

"That means engaging with all parties impartially, even to the distaste of some [] for us access is everything, without it, as we go far and wide across Syria we can't make the difference that the world's citizens call on us to make," he added.

Mr. O'Brien went on to tell the Council about situations in other parts of the war-ravaged country, and of efforts to deliver humanitarian support in those regions.

Concluding his briefing, he urged the Council: "It is up to you to turn the tide, to create the conditions for aid to reach all in need. To end the sieges. To restore political dialogue. And to bring an end to the war."

Deputy Special Envoy for Syria Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy. UN Photo/Elma Okic

UN Deputy Special Envoy for Syria briefing in Geneva

Earlier today, UN Deputy Special Envoy for Syria Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy spoke to the media in Geneva and reiterated Mr. O'Brien's concerns about the desperate situation in Aleppo.

He noted that according to estimates, as many as 600 wounded people cannot be provided with medical treatment and underlined that there are now less than 35 doctors covering a population of at least 275,000.

"It is clear that humanitarian aid, especially medical items and medical evacuations are urgently needed [and] we hope that it will be possible to create conditions for such deliveries to be made," he said, adding: "The UN continues to be ready to deliver humanitarian assistance as soon as possible."
Afghanistan: UN mission condemns killing of at least 15 civilians in airstrike

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 29 September 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Afghanistan: UN mission condemns killing of at least 15 civilians in airstrike, 29 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee5823413.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

29 September 2016 - The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has condemned the killing of at least 15 civilian men and the injuring of at least 13 others, including at least one boy, in an airstrike targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) conducted yesterday in the country's eastern district of Achin.

In a press statement, the UN Assistance Mission (UNAMA) reiterated the need for all parties to the conflict to adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law.

"UNAMA calls on the Government and international military forces to launch a prompt, independent, impartial, transparent, and effective investigation into this incident," the mission said.

In the early morning of 28 September, an international military forces unmanned aerial vehicle conducted an airstrike, reportedly targeting members of ISIL/Da'esh, which struck a civilian home, killing the 15 civilians, according to UNAMA.

The civilians had gathered in a village to celebrate the return of a tribal elder from the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and were reportedly sleeping in a guesthouse of the elder when the airstrike occurred. Civilian victims of the strike included students and a teacher, as well as members of families considered to be pro-Government. Government sources report that ISIL/Da'esh personnel also died in the attack, UNAMA said.

The mission highlighted that in a press release issued yesterday, United States Force-Afghanistan acknowledged conducting the airstrike, but refrained from elaborating further, indicating that they "are still reviewing all materials related to the strike."

UNAMA also expressed condolences to the families of those killed in the incident and wished a speedy recovery to the injured.

Afghanistan has been in protracted conflict for almost 35 years, which, in addition to being prone to recurrent natural disasters, has seriously hampered poverty reduction and development, strained the fabric of society and depleted the country's coping mechanisms.
UNICEF more than doubles funding appeal for children in north-east Nigeria

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 29 September 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UNICEF more than doubles funding appeal for children in north-east Nigeria, 29 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee584b40e.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

29 September 2016 - The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has revised its humanitarian appeal for Nigeria from $55 million to $115 million in order to be able to assist an additional 750,000 people who can now be reached across conflict-affected areas in the north-east of the country.

"Children's lives are literally hanging by a thread," said Afshan Khan, UNICEF's Director of Emergency Programmes. "We are reaching new areas to provide critical humanitarian assistance but we need greater international support to further scale up and reach all children in dire need."

UNICEF emphasized that as new areas open up to humanitarian assistance, the true scale of the Boko Haram-related crisis and its impact on children is being revealed.

The insurgency in north-east Nigeria has mutated into a vast regional crisis confronting Nigeria and its three Lake Chad Basin neighbours - Chad, Cameroon and Niger. Insecurity has driven more than 187,000 Nigerians across the border, but incursions by Boko Haram insurgents into the surrounding countries have generated growing numbers of internally displaced people too. There are currently more than two million internally displaced persons in Nigeria.

UNICEF stressed that an estimated 400,000 children under five will suffer from severe acute malnutrition in three states across north-east Nigeria this year. More than four million people are facing severe food shortages and 65,000 people are living in famine-like conditions, mostly in Borno, the worst affected state.

The agency said that the destruction of whole towns and villages further complicates the response in north-east Nigeria. Some 60 per cent of health clinics have been partially or completely destroyed, and 75 per cent of water and sanitation facilities require rehabilitation in Borno state.

Food aid being distributed to internally displaced people (IDPs) in Banki IDP camp, Borno state, northeast Nigeria. Photo: UNICEF

Moreover, nearly one million children are now displaced across the north-east, a million are out of school and hundreds of thousands are psychologically affected from the horrors they have lived through, the agency said.

The conflict-related lack of access to children has also lead to an outbreak of polio in Borno state, where three cases of wild polio virus were confirmed in August and September.

UNICEF's funding appeal comes as a series of coordinated emergency polio immunization and nutrition campaigns in north-east Nigeria and neighbouring countries is under way, targeting 1.8 million children in Borno state alone. The immunization campaign is also identifying and treating children with severe malnutrition.

The agency has increased its response in the areas most affected by the Boko Haram conflict since April, supporting basic health care and nutrition for children and mothers, and helping provide safe water and sanitation, child protection services and learning opportunities.

Since the beginning of 2016, 2.6 million conflicted-affected people have been given access to UNICEF-supported preventive health-care services and nearly 75,000 children have been treated for severe acute malnutrition in north-east Nigeria.

The construction and rehabilitation of boreholes has provided nearly half a million people with improved access to safe water. Safe learning spaces, teacher training and educational supplies have helped more than 72,000 children restart their education, and some 133,000 children have been provided with psychosocial support, UNICEF said.

To date, only $28 million of the $115 million humanitarian appeal has been received, which the agency said presents a "serious obstacle" to its scale-up plan.
Health experts have warned Asia is particularly vulnerable to the Zika virus, given that the Aedes aegypti mosquito -- which carries Zika, dengue fever and the chikungunya virus -- thrives in its congested cities (AFP Photo/Christophe Archambault)

Thai health authorities on Friday said microcephaly in two babies was caused by the Zika virus, in what is believed to be Southeast Asia's first confirmed case of a link between the sickness and the birth defect.

Tourism is expected to account for 17 percent of Thailand's GDP this year, and authorities will be desperate to prevent visitor numbers from tailing off after Friday's announcement.

"Two of the three infants (tested) had microcephaly due to the Zika virus," Wicharn Pawan, a disease control official at the Health Ministry told AFP.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) this week said any confirmed cases in Thailand would be the first identified in Southeast Asia.

Zika causes only mild symptoms in most, including fever, sore eyes and a rash. But pregnant women with the virus risk giving birth to babies with microcephaly -- a deformation that leads to abnormally small brains and heads.

There is no cure or vaccine for the virus, which has infected more than 1.5 million people, mainly in Brazil, since last year, according to WHO.

While Zika has been present in the region for years, there has been an uptick in the number of recorded cases in Southeast Asia in recent months.

The WHO has however noted that the rise in confirmed cases also comes in conjunction with heightened surveillance.

Thai authorities have been monitoring 36 pregnant women infected with the virus.

Earlier this week Thai doctors cleared two other babies with the condition of a link to Zika, a virus spread mainly by mosquitoes.

Virologist Praset Thongcharoen said "4.3 infants per 100,000", are born with microcephaly in Thailand, twice the global average.

The condition can also be caused by Down syndrome and other infections during pregnancy such as German measles and chickenpox.

Scientists warned this month that the world should prepare for a "global epidemic" of microcephaly as the virus takes root in new countries.

Tourism has buttressed Thailand's otherwise stagnant economy and authorities have been eager to reassure locals and visitors that the country is not experiencing a Zika epidemic.

Story continues

Friday's news could deliver a blow to Thailand's "teflon" reputation as a tourist haven.

The industry has swiftly bounced back in recent years from coups, violent street protests and bomb attacks.

Before the Thai test results were announced, the United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel advisory urging pregnant women to "consider postponing nonessential travel to Southeast Asia countries with reports of Zika virus".

The news comes just one day before the start of "Golden Week", an annual Chinese holiday that sees a flood of tourists descend on neighbouring Thailand.

The kingdom is hoping to receive 33 million visitors this year, boosted by surging numbers of visitors from China.
Security Council calls on Somali parties to address political challenges amid latest election delay

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 29 September 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Security Council calls on Somali parties to address political challenges amid latest election delay, 29 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee589240c.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

29 September 2016 - Regretting an extension to the 2016 electoral process in Somalia announced by the country's electoral body, the United Nations Security Council has called on all parties in the country to upload their commitments on the elections and to come to an agreement on the remaining political challenges without further delay.

"The members of the Security Council underlined that holding a peaceful, transparent and inclusive electoral process in 2016 will mark a historic step forward for all Somalis, and will be fundamental for the country's continued progress towards democracy and stability," said a press statement issued by the Council late yesterday.

"[They also] called for all parties to adhere to the implementation plan put in place by the FIEIT [Federal Indirect Electoral Implementation Team, the body responsible for the oversight and overall planning of the electoral process and for ensuring its uniformity], and to demonstrate the political will to ensure the revised timetable will be met," the statement added.

In the statement, the members noted the African country's progress since 2012 and underscored the importance of maintaining momentum towards democratic governance in Somalia, as well as underlined the need governance arrangements to be agreed by the Somali authorities in order to avoid an institutional vacuum.

The Council members also called on the relevant actors in Somalia to ensure that this period is not be used for political gain, and underscored the importance of adhering to the national political road map between now and 2020, in particular attaining "one-person, one-vote elections" by 2020.

The 15-member body further recalled the Government's commitment to reserve 30 per cent of seats in the Upper and Lower Houses for women and urged all parties to take the necessary steps to ensure its implementation.

Further to the statement, Security Council members strongly condemned recent Al-Shabaab attacks and hailed the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) and the Somali National Army for their efforts in reducing the threat posed by the terrorist organization.

The statement follows the briefing to the Council earlier this week by the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia, Michael Keating, and the Special Representative of the African Union Chairperson on Somalia, Francisco Madeira on the situation in the country.
Global inaction is enabling the brutal destruction of Aleppo

Publisher Amnesty International Author Diana Semaan Publication Date 30 September 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Global inaction is enabling the brutal destruction of Aleppo, 30 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee58ef4.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The collapse of the latest Syrian ceasefire agreement in recent days brought a ferocious escalation in the bombardment of Aleppo last weekend. At least 173 civilians were killed, predominantly in Aleppo city and governorate according to the Violations Documentation Center, an independent Syrian human rights group.

On Saturday, texts and calls from people trapped in the besieged city described sustained, horrifying attacks with an aim that could be summarized in one word: obliteration.

The most worrying call I received was from Ghina, now a mother of two after losing her third child in an air strike on Aleppo city a couple of months ago. The sound of bombing echoed in the background as she pleaded for help before the line cut off. I tried calling back but to no avail. I knew it could have simply been a network failure yet I could not help but imagine the worst; that she was killed in an air strike.

I later discovered that Ghina and her two remaining children were alive, but an air strike had severely injured her and destroyed their home.

The battle to win control of Aleppo has seen the governorate subjected to relentless bombardment by the Syrian government and its ally Russia. Time and again the Syrian government has attacked schools, residential buildings, hospitals and medical facilities but more horrifically the civilian population directly. The question is why?

The Syrian government, with Russia's support, has without a doubt used air power to deliberately inflict suffering on civilians, routinely bombing densely populated civilian areas and buildings. For several years, there's been a clear pattern of government bombardment as a means of punishing populations in areas controlled by the armed opposition. But there is more to it than that. Over the past year, Amnesty International has documented a pattern of deliberate attacks on hospitals in the north of Aleppo governorate in what appears to be part of a military strategy to empty towns and villages of residents, in order to pave the way for ground forces to advance.

It is this same strategy that Syrian government forces are now using to gain control of Aleppo city. The city's besiegement - coupled with the impotence of the UN Security Council and others - has empowered Russia and the Syrian government to attack civilians with impunity and leave only one option for Aleppo residents to escape the horror - forcing them to evacuate to government-controlled areas. Once the city is emptied of people, the government can seize control and claim victory. It did this last month too in Daraya, near Damascus, which the remaining inhabitants reluctantly agreed to completely evacuate after four years of brutal siege and bombardment.

Aleppo city resident Mayada* told me she is afraid to die but does not want to leave the city she has called home her entire life. Her neighbourhood was subjected to three aerial attacks over the weekend, despite being almost a kilometre away from the front line.

Another resident spent his weekend evacuating the injured. He said: "I was in the car about to evacuate another injured friend from an aerial attack on al-Mashhad neighborhood when I heard the sound of a warplane and then the window glass shattered on us. I heard a series of small explosions that went on for almost a minute. I waited for another 10 minutes before I drove to the hospital, which was a few metres away. It turned out that the bomb dropped was a cluster munition. More than 40 people were injured with shrapnel."

Activists and residents of Aleppo city said that incendiary weapons as well as cluster munitions were used in the latest round of attacks. These claims could not be independently verified but Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have previously documented the use of these weapons in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria.

Saad, a media activist in Aleppo city, refused to describe what he witnessed as his anger and frustration seethed. Besides the bombardment itself, he was irked by US Ambassador Samantha Power's speech at the UN Security Council, accusing Russia of "barbarism".

"We only hear statements, speeches, apologies and empty threats from the US," he said. "The only solution they have for us [is] ceasefire agreements. I think it is very clear by now that this is not the solution that will save our lives; it is killing us every time it fails."

Many Syrians understandably feel frustrated with the international community's colossal failure to protect civilians from the horrifying abuses.

The appalling catalogue of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Syrian government in Aleppo has caused bloodshed and human suffering on a mass scale for years, and its repercussion are felt well beyond Syria and the Middle East. But the world has failed to take action.

Ceasefire agreements have not protected civilian lives or ended atrocities. The UN Security Council has adopted a series of strong resolutions which, if enforced, could have halted, or at least reduced, attacks on civilians and sieges on civilian areas, and facilitated humanitarian access.

Targeted sanctions and an arms embargo could still give these resolutions some teeth. And a referral of the situation to the International Criminal Court could at least send the signal that those ordering mass atrocity crimes will face justice.

Speeches decrying the inhumanity of the ongoing war crimes are not enough.

Ghina, Mayada and Saad's lives - and the lives of hundreds of thousands of other civilians trapped in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria - depend on the international community finally doing something to stop further war crimes and punish those responsible.

This opinion piece was first published by Newsweek here

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Libya: Civilians trapped in Benghazi in desperate conditions as fighting encroaches

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 30 September 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Libya: Civilians trapped in Benghazi in desperate conditions as fighting encroaches, 30 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee59724.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Fears are growing for hundreds of civilians who are trapped in a Benghazi neighbourhood which faces intensified fighting after several months under military blockade, Amnesty International said today.

The organization has gathered testimony from some of the 130 Libyan families and hundreds of foreign nationals who have been trapped for months in the residential district of Ganfouda, in south-west Benghazi. All entry roads are blocked by the fighting or Libyan National Army forces, and food, water and electricity supplies have been cut off.

"Time is running out for civilians in Ganfouda, who are being left to die trapped by the fighting. While bombs and shells continue to rain down on them, civilians are struggling to survive on rotten food and dirty water. And the sick and wounded must make do with dwindling supplies of expired medicines," said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

"As the airstrikes intensify and the fighting moves ever closer, many people are too afraid to leave their homes. We are urging all parties to the fighting in Benghazi to respect international humanitarian law and allow unfettered access to humanitarian relief for civilians in need. Those who wish to leave must be protected from any attacks based on where they are from or their perceived political affiliation."

A military offensive named Operation Dignity was launched in mid-2014 by former General Khalifa Haftar against Islamist militias and armed groups in Benghazi, which later formed a coalition known as the Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries (SCBR). During fighting in the city, both sides have committed serious human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law, in some cases amounting to war crimes.

Two years on, the Libyan National Army under Khalifa Haftar's command has continued to carry out repeated air strikes on areas under SCBR control in Benghazi - namely Ganfouda and other smaller pockets in the city - endangering the lives of civilians. General Khalifa Haftar's forces have also restricted entry to, and departure from Ganfouda, leaving many people pinned down by airstrikes.

Mohamed, a resident of Ganfouda, told Amnesty International that airstrikes and artillery shelling have intensified and moved closer over the past week. He spoke of the desperate need for humanitarian supplies, especially for children.

"Children look like skin and bones because of the lack of food and poor nutrition If they could just drop us some food for the children or get them out of here, even if that meant leaving the rest of us, that would be fine," he said.

He described how the flour, rice and oil available had all expired, and how lack of cooking fuel meant they had to cook in a wheelbarrow filled with coal. Mohamed has a kidney problem, but the medicine he needs to treat this has run out.

Mohamed took in eight other families who fled the fighting and around 45 people, including 23 children, are now living in terribly cramped conditions in his house.

"There are no fighters amongst us: we're just normal civilians," he said.

He described how constant, indiscriminate shelling and lack of electricity, which has been cut for over two years, leaves them huddled at home in the dark. "It's like we're in prison," he said.

"We just want a safe way to leave," said "Waleed", another resident trapped in Ganfouda, whose name has been changed to protect his identity.

"I have two sons, one is three and a half and the other is two years old. There is no baby milk or food for them. I have to fill bottles with water and fool them into thinking it's milk."

As well as the lack of basic supplies which make daily life so difficult, people are also living in constant fear of airstrikes and shelling, with many saying they are too scared to leave their homes. One of the civilians Amnesty International had been in contact with inside Ganfouda, Tarik Gaoda, was killed on 1 July 2016 alongside his 80-year-old father. They perished as a result of a fatal air strike, according to an eyewitness who did not want to be named for security reasons.

"Planes are patrolling the skies and people are scared to even walk outside because any area where they see movement, they strike. Even a mosque was hit by shelling a few months ago," said "Hassan".

"There are constant airstrikes, and we don't leave our houses at all," said "Khadija", a woman trapped with her four young children including a 10-month-old girl who she was forced to give birth to at home because of the fighting. She has no baby powder or medical supplies for her daughter, and the lack of clean water is becoming a serious concern.

"All the warring parties must take all feasible precautions to protect the lives of civilians caught up in the fighting in Ganfouda and other parts of Libya in line with their obligations under international humanitarian law," said Magdalena Mughrabi.

"Indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks are prohibited by international law and every effort must be made to distinguish between military targets and civilians or civilian homes and buildings. Artillery and other imprecise explosive weapons with wide area effects should never be used in the vicinity of densely populated civilian areas."

Amnesty International has expressed concern for an estimated 130 detainees who were abducted by the armed group Ansar al-Sharia in 2014 and are also trapped under fire in Benghazi. Recent media reports, which have not been independently verified, suggest that as many as 20 detainees may have been killed in airstrikes, with photos of their dead bodies shared online.

Hundreds of foreign nationals, including Sudanese, Chadian and Bangladeshi migrant workers are believed to be amongst those trapped in Ganfouda. According to media reports, at least five Sudanese nationals were killed in an airstrike in mid-August. Ganfouda residents interviewed by Amnesty International have also said that foreign nationals were amongst those killed in recent airstrikes.

"We're living like animals," said "Samir", another resident and former judicial police officer who lives in Ganfouda with his wife, three sons and a one year old daughter. He has also taken in three other families who were displaced by the conflict- bringing the number of people living in their household to 24, including 14 children.

"Our house has been hit and damaged by three tank shells. One hit the bedroom, another the stairs, while the third shell hit the kitchen but did not explode. The shell is still there and intact," he said, adding that at least six families have had loved ones killed in airstrikes in August. Two of the families were from Chad.

Lack of a phone signal in many parts of Ganfouda has made it difficult for those trapped to make contact with the outside world, meaning their relatives do not know whether they have survived.

Civilians are also scared that they may be subjected to attacks based on their perceived support for SCBR forces, after a tribal leader affiliated with Operation Dignity stated at the end of August that any person over the age of 14 should not be allowed to leave Ganfouda alive.

"All sides should be facilitating the delivery of aid and granting civilians who wish to leave the area safe passage. Civilians should not be used as human shields, and those who wish to leave must be protected from arbitrary detention, torture or any other abuses, "said Magdalena Mughrabi.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Brazil declares trial on Carandiru massacre null in shocking blow for justice

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 28 September 2016 Cite as Amnesty International, Brazil declares trial on Carandiru massacre null in shocking blow for justice, 28 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee5af14.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

A Brazilian court's decision to declare the trial and sentences against 74 police officers for a prison massacre in 1992 null is a shocking blow for justice and human rights, said Amnesty International.

The 1992 military operation in Sao Paulo's Carandiru prison left more than 100 prisoners dead.

The authorities claimed the police were trying to break up a fight between prisoners who had seized control of the jail's Block 9. But evidence uncovered later suggested that the military police had shot prisoners and later destroyed evidence which could have determined individual responsibility for the killings.

"The fact that 111 prisoners can be killed without anybody being held responsible after 24 years is not only shocking, but sends a terrifying message about the state of human rights in Brazil," said Atila Roque, Director at Amnesty International Brazil.

"Carandiru illustrates everything that is wrong with Brazil's prison system and with the country's lack of justice for human rights violations committed in the context of public security operations. Unless serious steps are taken to improve prison conditions and ensure all those responsible for human rights violations face justice, we will inevitably see this tragedy repeated across the country for years to come."

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Disclaimer

This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
Iran: Heavy sentence against human rights defender Nargess Mohammadi must be overturned

Publisher International Federation for Human Rights Publication Date 29 September 2016 Cite as International Federation for Human Rights, Iran: Heavy sentence against human rights defender Nargess Mohammadi must be overturned, 29 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee5ec34.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (FIDH-OMCT partnership) strongly condemns the heavy prison sentence upheld in appeal against the arbitrarily imprisoned human rights defender Ms. Nargess Mohammadi, Spokesperson and Vice-President of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC) and recipient of the medal of the "City of Paris", and calls for an end to the ongoing judicial harassment against her.

On September 28, 2016, Branch 36 of the Tehran Court of Appeals upheld the sentence which had been issued on May 18 against Ms. Nargess Mohammadi. The Court of Appeals asserted in its ruling that pursuant to Article 134 of the Islamic Penal Code, the maximum sentence against her should be implemented against her, i.e. 10 years of imprisonment.

On the same day, Ms. Mohammadi's husband, Taghi Rahmani, reported that during a hearing on September 19, the court had accepted the request of her lawyers to submit new evidence, but then rushed to impose the new sentence before receiving the evidence.

On May 18, 2016, Ms. Nargess Mohammadi had been notified of a new sentence issued by Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolution Court against her[1], totalling 16 years in prison consisting of five years for "assembly and collusion to commit crimes against national security", one year for "spreading propaganda against the State", and 10 years for "establishing and running the illegal splinter group LEGAM"[2]. Under the above-mentioned Article 134 of the 2013 Islamic Penal Code, she was required to serve the highest sentence, i.e. 10 years of imprisonment.

Ms. Mohammadi has been facing continuous judicial harassment related to her human rights work, in and out of prison, including repeated summons, interrogations and trials for several years.

On April 21, 2012, she had commenced serving another six-year prison sentence but had been released on bail on July 31, 2012 for medical reasons, as she suffered from muscular paralysis and lung complications. On May 5, 2015, she was arbitrarily re-arrested,allegedly in order to serve the remainder of the same six-year prison sentence, although she was still suffering from the same diseases [3]. Ms. Mohammadi was particularly targeted after she met with then European Union (EU) High Representative Ms. Catherine Ashton in Tehran during her visit in March 2014, which prompted the charge of "spreading propaganda against the State" in the new case.

In October 2015, Ms. Mohammadi, after suffering nervous attacks, was transferred from the prison to the hospital, where she was kept under round the clock watch and was chained hand and foot to her bed. Such chaining and surveillance within the healthcare facility appear to be an inhuman and degrading punishment for her activities promoting human rights[4].

The Observatory urges once more the Iranian authorities to release Ms. Mohammadi immediately and unconditionally, since her detention is arbitrary as it only aims at sanctioning her human rights activities, as well as to guarantee in all circumstances her physical and psychological integrity.

The Observatory finally urges the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which has received an official communication regarding Ms. Mohammadi's case, to urgently issue an Opinion on her situation, and reiterates its calls to the EU and the French Government to intervene on Ms. Mohammadi's behalf.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (the Observatory) was created in 1997 by the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and FIDH. The objective of this programme is to prevent or remedy situations of repression against human rights defenders. OMCT and FIDH are both members of ProtectDefenders.eu, the European Union Human Rights Defenders Mechanism implemented by international civil society.

For more information, please contact:

FIDH: Mr Arthur Manet / Ms. Audrey Couprie: +33648059157 (Paris)

OMCT: Mr. Miguel Martin Zumalacarregui / Ms. Chiara Cosentino +32 2 218 37 19 (Brussels) / Ms. Delphine Reculeau: +41 22 809 49 39 (Geneva)

[1] See Observatory Press Release of May 20, 2016

[2] LEGAM ("Step by Step to Stop the Death Penalty") is a group of human rights activists, which campaigns for the abolition of death penalty in Iran. It has never been declared illegal. Ms. Mohammadi joined LEGAM after it was established.

[3] See Observatory Press Release of May 5, 2015.

[4] See Observatory Press Release of October 19, 2015.
Jordan: Journalist's murder must be fully and transparently investigated

Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 27 September 2016 Cite as Article 19, Jordan: Journalist's murder must be fully and transparently investigated, 27 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee5f964.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

On 25 September, Jordanian journalist and writer Nahid Hattar, was shot dead outside a court in Amman where he was standing trial in a criminal case for offending Islam and inciting sectarian strife. ARTICLE 19 condemns the killing and calls for a full and transparent investigation.

Hattar was detained on 13 August and held for 15 days on charges after the Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior initiated an investigation against him for sharing a satirical cartoon deemed offensive to Islam by the authorities on Facebook. Hattar stated that the cartoon was intended to be critical of the extremist group, ISIS. A person was detained at the scene, allegedly a local imam who had been offended by the cartoon.

"Attacks against journalists aimed at silencing them are the ultimate form of censorship and chill the free flow of information and ideas in society," said Saloua Ghazouani, Director of ARTICLE 19 Tunisia Office.

Hattar's family claimed that he had requested police protection but had not received any, despite receiving threats online and by phone. States have an obligation to take measures to prevent crimes against freedom of expression, particularly in situations where the authorities know or should have known of the existence of a real and immediate risk of such crimes.

"States should create the conditions where attacks on journalists and media workers do not take place in the first place. Rather than fostering such conditions, the Jordanian government prosecuted Hattar for his expression, contributing to an environment of heightened sensitivity;" she added.

ARTICLE 19 calls on the authorities in Jordan to:

- Initiate an independent, speedy and effective investigation and into the killing of Hattar, followed by prosecution of those responsible.

- Carry out a full and transparent review of police procedures on protecting individuals who are likely to be targeted for what they say.

- Refrain from prosecuting journalists for their expression.

Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19
UN HRC: Enhanced Interactive Dialogue on Burundi

Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 27 September 2016 Cite as Article 19, UN HRC: Enhanced Interactive Dialogue on Burundi, 27 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee60c34.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

ITEM 10: ENHANCED INTERACTIVE DIALOGUE ON BURUNDI

ORAL STATEMENT

27 SEPTEMBER

DELIVERED BY ANDREW SMITH, ARTICLE 19

Mr. Vice President,

We agree with the Independent Experts assessment that the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly are "virtually non-existent" in Burundi.

Gross violations of these rights make clear that a Commission of Inquiry must be established to ensure thorough investigations, with a view to securing accountability for potential crimes against humanity.

Since the peaceful protests sparked by President Nkurunzinza's decision to seek a third term, dissent and opposition, whether real or perceived, has been met with ruthless repression. Impunity for these crimes continues to have a severe chilling effect on free expression, and has choked off democratic space

The report provides grim detail on mass extrajudicial executions and murders of the President's opponents and their sympathizers. Women opponents and sympathizers have been the targets of physical and sexual violence.

Arbitrary arrest and detention of opponents, including members of civil society groups and journalists, has become a hallmark of the repression in Burundi. Torture and inhumane treatment against those detained is reported as commonplace.

ARTICLE 19 remains concerned at the enforced disappearance of freelance journalist Jean Bigirimana, who was arrested by the SNR on 22 June and has not been seen or heard from since. The torture in detention of the Burundi correspondent of Radio France Internationale (RFI) and Agence France-Presse (AFP), Esdras Ndikumana, following their arrest on 2 August 2015, must be investigated and those responsible held to account.

We are also concerned at outstanding criminal charges against journalists Egide Ndaisenga of Radio Bonesha and Julien Barinzigo, a journalist with Oximity News website.

A restrictive media environment has facilitated this deterioration in respect for freedom of expression. June 2013 reforms to media laws do not comply with Burundi's regional or international human rights obligations. Government domination of the media sector, including through its ownership of television and radio stations and newspapers, restricts avenues for independent voices. Three of the five radio stations closed in Burundi by the end of 2015 remain closed, and the two others have only been permitted to continue operating under strict conditions.

The report of the Independent Experts makes clear that the situation for civil society actors in Burundi is also dire.

We are concerned by the enforced disappearance of Marie-Claudette Kwizera, Treasurer of the CSO Ligue ITEKA, allegedly arrested on 10 December 2015 by the SNR, and not seen since. On November 23rd, 2015, the Burundian Ministry of Interior issued Decree 530/1597 which ordered the temporary suspension of activities of the top ten Burundian human rights organisations. Several of these associations' bank accounts, and the accounts of their directors, have been frozen.

As a member of the Human Rights Council, ARTICLE 19 calls on Burundi to vote in favour of the resolution on the human rights situation in the country, and to cooperate fully with the Commission of Inquiry once it is established.

Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19
UN HRC: Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Cambodia

Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 28 September 2016 Cite as Article 19, UN HRC: Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Cambodia, 28 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee62864.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

ITEM 10 INTERACTIVE DIALOGUE WITH THE SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON CAMBODIA

ORAL STATEMENT

28 SEPTEMBER 2016

DELIVERED BY ANDREW SMITH, ARTICLE 19

Mr. President,

ARTICLE 19 agrees with the Special Rapporteur that democratic space continues to shrink in Cambodia.

We are gravely concerned at the continuing abuse of laws to restrict the legitimate exercise of the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, in particular by outspoken civil society organizations. This is combined with a concerning trend of pervasive impunity for abuses and violations of the rights of environmental human rights defenders.

Attacks on Cambodia's environmental human rights defenders have been prevalent in 2016. In addition to the July murder of environmental HRD Mr. Kem Ley, at least 12 other environmental HRDs have been attacked or threatened for speaking out against environmental degradation as a consequence of the illegal activities of powerful logging and extractive companies, and the alleged complicity of public officials therewith. The safety and security for environmental HRDs conducting their work has markedly deteriorated in 2016, which has increased fear and had a considerable chilling effect on freedom of expression.

ARTICLE 19 calls for independent, speedy and effective investigations and prosecutions for all attacks and violence against environmental HRDs, and full redress for victims, including Mr. Kem Ley's family. Public authorities, including at the highest levels, must unequivocally condemn such attacks where they occur, and institute prevention and protection policies to avoid their recurrence.

National laws impacting on these rights must be urgently reformed. We call on the government of Cambodia to heed the Special Rapporteur's recommendation regarding the Criminal Code; in our view the repeal of several provisions is necessary to ensure against the judicial harassment of individuals, in particular HRDs, for their legitimate expression.

We also reiterate the Special Rapporteur's recommendation that the government publicly disseminate drafts of new laws and call for this to be at the earliest possibility. Fully transparent and inclusive processes must be instituted to guarantee effective and meaningful public participation in consultations on such laws, to ensure their compliance with international human rights law. ARTICLE 19 expects no less than this in relation to the anticipated but as yet unseen Cybercrime and Access to Information Laws.

Given the deterioration in respect for the right to freedom of expression in Cambodia in the last year, we ask the Special Rapporteur how the international community and this Council can maintain pressure on the government to reverse this trend, and in particular address the problem of impunity.

Thank you.

Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19
Russian Investigative Journalist and Activist Grigory Pasko Attacked

Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 29 September 2016 Cite as Article 19, Russian Investigative Journalist and Activist Grigory Pasko Attacked, 29 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee64654.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

ARTICLE 19 submitted this alert to the Council of Europe Platform for the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists:

At about midday on 27 September 2016, the Director of the Community of Investigative Journalists Grigory Pasko was attacked in the city of Barnaul (Altai region) in Russia by two unknown assailants.

He escaped with concussion and a bruise to half of his face. The men shouted, "Get out of our city!" and warned him that they would attack him again. Pasko posted about the attack on Facebook and was referred by police for a medical examination.

The previous day, a local newspaper quoted a local nationalist activist calling Pasko a "foreign agent." Unknown people had already been following him and loitering around his hotel. Pasko has previously served time in prison for which he was recognised as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. He was in Barnaul to give a seminar on investigative-reporting techniques.

Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19
Is Georgia Headed Toward Post-Election Violence?

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Publication Date 28 August 2016 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 156 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Is Georgia Headed Toward Post-Election Violence?, 28 August 2016, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 156, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee68664.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Link to original story on Jamestown website

Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, who also serves as the chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party (GDDG), stated on September 14 that the formerly ruling United National Movement (UNM) was trying to radicalize the country's political situation through its affiliate organizations. He asserted that UNM was setting up new groups and was planning to block the exits and entrances of polling stations to artificially create tensions. The prime minister's statement followed Interior Minister Giorgi Mgebrishvili's statement a day earlier, who said that, based on his information, "some political parties [intended] certain provocations during and after the elections" (Civil Georgia, September 14). Nationwide parliamentary elections are scheduled in Georgia for October 8.

UNM quickly fired back, stating that it was actually the GDDG that wanted to destabilize the situation in Georgia. Sergo Ratiani, UNM's executive secretary, accused GDDG of raiding 60 UNM offices in the last year alone (News.on.ge, September 14).

The public's expectations of an impending post-election civic confrontation became more real after September 27. On that day, secret audio recordings surfaced on Georgian Internet sites, in which former president Mikheil Saakashvili is allegedly urging senior UNM members to prepare for a revolutionary, violent takeover of power following the elections. He calls on them to enlist the help of opposition TV channel Rustavi 2 to exacerbate the political climate in the country. Saakashvili is also allegedly heard scolding Giga Bokeria, one of the UNM leaders, for his readiness to form a coalition with other parties were UNM to lose at the polls (Ambebi.ge, September 27). UNM has denied the authenticity of the tapes (Ipress.ge, September 27).

Earlier, on September 25, a dozen members of the UNM affiliate youth group Free Zone (Tavisupali Zona), left the organization. Beso Kaladze, one of the defectors and the leader of Free Zone's Gldani district branch, stated that several days ago he met with Saakashvili in Odesa (where the latter is currently serving as governor). Saakashvili purportedly told him that, in case the elections do not go UNM's way, Kaladze should prepare to organize protest rallies, block government agencies and, if necessary, be ready to stage provocations and to deal with the subsequent human casualties. Kaladze ominously called on the public not to yield to any possible provocations (Newposts.ge, Kvira.ge, September 26). UNM quickly rejected these allegations. Koba Khabazi, the founder of Free Zone, stated that the meeting between Saakashvili and Kaladze, in fact, had never taken place (1tv.ge, September 26).

Is it actually possible, or even likely, that civic confrontations or street violence may break out following the elections in Georgia? The war of words between GDDG and UNM, which accuse each other of deliberate attempts to destabilize the country, has continued for weeks (Pia.ge, September 2; For.ge, September 11). Yet, there are some signs that the situation could quickly spiral out of control, with the conflict even spilling out into the streets. For instance, back in May, pro-government thugs attacked UNM senior members in western Georgia (in the village of Kortskheli, Zugdidi district) and severely beat them up (Exclusivenews.ge, May 22). On the other hand, on September 18, several armed UNM members entered one of the campaign offices of GDDG and tried to provoke the GDDG members. UNM has denied any involvement (Timer.ge, September 19).

At the same time, UNM has been trying to create the sense of inevitability of its victory in the election, repeatedly declaring that the party would definitely win and that it was ready to defend its victory against any electoral fraud (Primetimenews.ge, Civil Georgia, September 25). Such tactics set the stage to allow the party to galvanize support if it loses at the polls, as the shock of disappointment ultimately could push UNM supporters into the streets. So far, there has not been any evidence that the government is taking any measures to commit electoral fraud. Moreover, the latest polls show that UNM's public support stands at only 15 percent, four points behind that of the ruling GDDG (Ndi.org, June 2016). However, this number of supporters would still be enough to stage sizeable protest rallies and to generally destabilize the situation in the country in the event of a discouraging result for UNM.

Georgian Prime Minister Kvirikashvili as well as Interior Minister Mgebrishvili vowed that the government had enough resources and resolve to maintain order on the streets and keep calm and stability in the country. As the interior ministry stated, task forces will be set up in each region to address potential threats during and after the elections (Civil Georgia, September 14). Nevertheless, even an unsuccessful attempt by any political group to destabilize the situation could seriously upset Georgia's already fragile internal peace.

As the October 8 elections approach, it is still not certain if Georgia will manage to avoid post-election turmoil. One thing is clear, however: if after the polls close the country descends into chaos, the losers will not be the political parties or its leaders, but the whole country and the people of Georgia. Instability, let alone violent confrontation, can devastate an economy already in crisis, and plunge Georgia into long-term political turmoil with far-reaching consequences. Georgia experienced a deeply destructive civil war in 1991-1993, whose ruinous economic, political, and psychological legacy is still felt in the country today. Georgian politicians, both in the government and in the opposition, must definitely draw lessons from the past to avoid dragging Georgia into another senseless cycle of conflict and destruction. The next several weeks certainly will show what is more important to the Georgian political establishment: personal ambition or their country.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
The 'Prussian Curse' on Kaliningrad Governors Remains Unbroken

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Sergey Sukhankin Publication Date 30 September 2016 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 155 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, The 'Prussian Curse' on Kaliningrad Governors Remains Unbroken, 30 September 2016, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 155, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee69564.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Link to original story on Jamestown website

On July 29, Russian President Vladimir Putin relieved the governor of Kaliningrad Oblast, Nikolay Tsukanov, of his duties (Krpress.ru, July 29). Tsukanov's temporary replacement, Major-General Evgeny Zinichev, used to head the local branch of the Federal Security Service (FSB) (Rugrad.eu, July 28). Later, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed Zinichev had previously also served as a presidential bodyguard (RBC, July 29). According to Peskov, this and several other personnel reshuffles in Kaliningrad-which increased the number of "siloviki" (security services personnel) in the regional executive branch-were allegedly carried out to "strengthen efficiency" and "correct negative growth rates where necessary" (Lenta.ru, July 28).

Tsukanov's sacking last summer was surprising. In addition to being the first "democratically elected" governor of the region since 2005 (President Putin restored direct gubernatorial elections in 2012, and in September 2015 Tsukanov received more than 70 percent of the vote), he was one of the staunchest regional supporters of the ruling United Russia party and a person utterly loyal to Putin. Nonetheless, none of this protected him from being removed.

Some observers were tempted to seek an explanation for Tsukanov's fate in the so-called "Prussian curse" (Newkaliningrad.ru, September 13), which has supposedly affected local governors since 1991. According to this locally-conceived "urban legend," none of Kaliningrad's governors will be able to stay in office for more than one term. So far, this has proven true for every one of the exclave oblast's leaders, starting from the liberal Yuri Matochkin (1991-1996) to the loyalist Tsukanov (2010-2015). However, a deeper analysis of the local milieu reveals a much more a complex reality than that offered by political folklore.

In fact, a June 2016 meeting of the "Patrushev Commission" (a Security Council session headed by Secretary Nikolai Patrushev), which took place in Kaliningrad, already hinted that some serious local changes would ensue (Newkaliningrad.ru, June 20). In spite of the parsimonious information of that meeting that was made publicly available, it was apparent from the reports that the true picture of Kaliningrad does not match its artificially created image made for "external consumption." Not only has the oblast in reality failed to "catch up and outdo" its geographic neighbors Poland and Lithuania (the main agenda of local governors since 2005), the gap between Kaliningrad and the leading Russian regions in terms of economic development is also inexorably growing. Moreover, in addition to being one of the main acceptors of federal financial assistance, the region is increasingly becoming bogged down in the mire of corruption and criminality, especially in the domain of amber extraction-a scourge that has not been defeated since the early 1990s (Newkaliningrad.ru, June 20). Moreover, a humiliating scandal (that was rapidly hushed down) regarding the Baltic Sea Fleet proved that something is indeed fundamentally wrong on the Russian "island" in Europe (see EDM, July 19).

In addition, Moscow was visibly annoyed with the evident collapsing level of local support for Governor Tsukanov, as reflected by an early 2016 survey conducted by the Foundation for Civil Society Development (Izvestia, March 21). For the Kremlin, the potential political repercussions of this loss in popularity were troubling. Incidentally, it was the combination of economic hardships and growing local frustrations with then-governor Georgy Boos (2005-2010) that pushed 15,000 residents of Kaliningrad to take to the streets in 2009-2010; their anti-Putin slogans were audible far beyond the oblast.

Russian political scientist Evgeny Minchenko has argued that the replacement of Tsukanov was based on concerns in Moscow over Kaliningrad's "challenging" geopolitical position in addition to the worsening relations between the Kremlin and the West-especially the Baltic States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (RBC, July 28). This supposition does contain a good deal of truth. But the reality seems to be much more complicated and tightly connected with Kaliningrad's specific identity traits, which are conspicuously absent in Russia's other regions.

First, Kaliningrad's economic performance is based on a combination of financial subsidies from the federal center as well as privileges granted by the region' Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in 2006. And now, Kaliningrad is on the brink of losing both of these benefits. The collapse of global oil prices is acutely constraining the first, whereas the abolishment of the SEZ on April 1, 2016 (as mandated by Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization), has already derailed the second. Moscow appears to have no strategy for how to effectively replace the revenue flows Kaliningrad's economy had grown dependent on. This means that, from now on, the oblast can likely expect more austere fiscal measures-directly imposed from above and not to be questioned locally.

And in addition to economic policy, Moscow may start to politically tighten its grip over Kaliningrad to an even greater extent than it used to. Over the past 15 years, while trying to solve the "Kaliningrad Puzzle," the federal center has oscillated between supporting the "locals" (Admiral Vladimir Yegorov and Nikolay Tsukanov) and the "Varangians" (Georgy Boos-a Moscow native, born into a Crimean German family). Neither approach seems to have worked. For a number of reasons-whether excessive personal ambitions, lack of docility or weak managerial skills-each governor ultimately proved a poor fit for governing the exclave. The newest Kaliningrad head, Zinichev, remains the most secretive governor in Russia. Indeed, his first press-conference lasted a mere 49 seconds (Newsru.com, July 31). But from what is known about him, he apparently satisfactorily meets the Kremlin's expectations and the mission set before him.

During his June visit to Kaliningrad, Security Council Secretary Patrushev hinted at how the region may be expected to develop in the near future. Although Kaliningrad's hardships are mainly of an economic nature, top Russian functionaries continue to blame the region's "excessive openness" and its purported susceptibility to "external threats" as the main hindrance to progress. In this regard, Patrushev pledged to allocate more resources for upgrading "information security in the oblast" (Newkaliningrad.ru, June 20). This can be interpreted as the imposition of greater top-down control over Kaliningrad and the elimination of the last vestiges of external contacts. Presumably, Zinichev will be expected to play a key role in implementing this policy strategy.

Such a course is likely to be yet another failure in a long line of the Kremlin's abortive regional initiatives. Arguably, Kaliningrad will only be successful if it reaches out to its European neighbors and becomes a "laboratory" of cooperation-otherwise, the "Prussian curse" will remain unbroken.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Is Putin Planning a 'Hybrid' Deportation of Crimean Tatars and North Caucasians?

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Paul Goble Publication Date 30 September 2016 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 155 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Is Putin Planning a 'Hybrid' Deportation of Crimean Tatars and North Caucasians?, 30 September 2016, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 155, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee6a1a4.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Link to original story on Jamestown website

Reportedly, the Kremlin is mulling an idea to relocate 500,000-1,000,000 people from the southern portions of the Russian Federation to the Far East and Siberia. This prospect has sparked fears among some non-Russians. Specifically, certain regional minorities, including Crimean Tatars from the Russian-occupied Ukrainian peninsula, fear President Vladimir Putin may use this program to carry out a "hybrid" deportation of these groups in order to punish those who have resisted his power as well as to tighten his control over their regions.

Aslambek Paskachev, the head of the Putin's Commission on Ethnic Relations, told the newspaper Izvestia, on September 21, that his group was working on a large-scale resettlement proposal, to be given to the Kremlin leader next month. This proposed plan calls for moving between 500,000 and one million Russian citizens from places where there are not enough jobs (primarily in the southern portions of the country) to those where there are not enough people (Siberia and the Far East). He said that the first candidates for moving would be "residents of certain regions of Central Russia, the Southern Federal District and the North Caucasus (Izvestia, September 21).

Such a program is needed, he continued, because Russia east of the Urals has been losing population over the last 25 years, thus creating a potential security problem. Workers from elsewhere can be stimulated to move there by subsidies of various kinds, the offer of free land, and the development of infrastructure.

This is not the first time such an idea has surfaced during Putin's time in office. Two years ago, the Kremlin announced something similar (TASS, March 3, 2014; Kremlin.ru, December 4, 2014); but there has not been enough money or enough development in the region to make it a success. Given that there is even less money now to act as "a carrot," experts and political leaders are suggesting this program is likely to fail, while some members of non-Russian groups in the south fear that Moscow will use various "sticks" to force them to move, in what would be a kind of "hybrid" deportation of their number from their historical homelands.

Izvestia cited the words of two experts, Anatoly Vishnevsky, of the Moscow Institute of Demography, and Igor Beloborodov, a demographer with the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISI). Both suggested that the program would not work on the basis of carrots (Izvestia, September 21).

Vishnevsky said that Russia has never been able to populate Siberia and the Far East by voluntary means alone. Some may be tempted to go there by government promises, but having done so, they do not and will not remain. Indeed, he declared, Moscow lacks the resources to make such a program effective. The only way it might work is if the Russian government were to receive aid from abroad. Right now, that does not look like a promising avenue.

And Beloborodov pointed to another reason that the program would fail: taking non-Russians from the Caucasus and putting them in a predominantly ethnic-Russian milieu in Siberia and the Far East would spark ethnic conflicts and crime. He said that Moscow should focus instead on developing the economy where people already are rather than moving them somewhere else. That position is supported by parliamentarians surveyed by the Regions.ru portal (Regions.ru, September 23.

Although the money necessary to make such a program work is scarce, Putin has nevertheless repeatedly spoken about the need to build up the population of Siberia and the Russian Far East as a national security priority. As a result, at least some of those who might be candidates for this resettlement fear that Moscow may use force to accomplish its goal. This program, they worry, will thus be a covert or "hybrid" way of deporting all or part of their nations to lands east of the Urals.

One Ukrainian news agency, for example, suggested that the Kremlin had "taken a decision about the deportation of Crimeans to the Far East" and asked pointedly: "do Crimeans want 'to die for Russia" in some future war with China (Proua.com.ua, September 21)? Interestingly, the framing of this question is an obvious reference to Moscow's recent questioning of the willingness of Europeans to "die for Narva"-Putin's own update of Adolf Hitler's adopted remarks in the 1930s about the Western allies "dying for Danzig."

Such fears of a concealed, forced mass deportation program may be overblown, but they do exist. And they highlight three problems with this latest Kremlin attempt at pursuing a "gigantist" project rather than seeking to address smaller and more immediate problems it might be able to do something about: First, this kind of talk will only further unsettle the non-Russians in the North Caucasus and in Russian-occupied Crimea, making the problem this program is supposed to solve even worse. Second, it will enrage many ethnic Russians in Siberia and the Far East who are already upset by the presence of guest workers from Central Asia and China. This anger, in turn may help to energize anti-Moscow regionalism in Russia's eastern territories. And third, even if they do not lead to anything, such discussions will mean that ever more Russians will see just how weak their country now is, Putin's bombast notwithstanding.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Russian Iskanders in Yerevan: New Challenges for Azerbaijan's Security

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Anar Valiyev Publication Date 28 September 2016 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 156 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Russian Iskanders in Yerevan: New Challenges for Azerbaijan's Security, 28 September 2016, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 156, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee6b594.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Link to original story on Jamestown website

The military parade dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Armenian independence was held in Yerevan, on September 21, 2016. The event drew considerable attention from Azerbaijan because of the advanced military equipment demonstrated during the parade. The Armenian side showcased several offensive military systems, tanks as well as other equipment. Perhaps most notably, the parade for the first time featured the Iskander mobile short-range ballistic missile system, produced by the Russian Federation (see EDM, September 26).

Baku, which has been in a conflict with Yerevan since the late 1980s over the Azerbaijani territory of Karabakh, is acutely sensitive to issues of Armenian-Russian military cooperation. And as illustrated by its clashes with Armenian forces in Karabakh in April of this year, Azerbaijan's goal has been to attain a clear military superiority over Armenia (see EDM, April 6, May 11). The acquisition of Iskanders by Armenia may force a change in Azerbaijan's armament plans and intensify its efforts to obtain either similar or superior types of weapons to neutralize the new threat.

The appearance of Russian Iskanders on the streets of Yerevan sparked excited commentary and a fervent debate in the Azerbaijani media. In particular, experts disagreed over whether the Iskander systems shown during the parade were the property of the Russian Armed Forces stationed in Gyumri, or whether these theater ballistic missiles had in fact been sold and transferred to Armenian command. Confusion on this point was fueled by reports that soldiers from the Russian 102nd base in Gyumri participated in the Armenian parade. And although the Armenian government rushed to announce that the displayed Iskanders were, indeed, Armenian property, Moscow did not issue any statement on the ownership of these weapons (Minval, Contact.az, September 20; 1news.az, September 26).

Several Azerbaijani military experts have argued that the Iskander systems must have belonged to Russia and not to Armenia. Analyst Uzeir Jafarov asserted that Yerevan's poor financial situation would have precluded it from being able to purchase these systems. Even Russia's $200 million loan, extended to Armenia earlier this year for the purchase of Russian military equipment (see EDM, March 18), would not have been enough to cover the presumed cost of the Iskanders on display earlier this month, he claimed. Moreover, no specific reports or documentation are readily available that would unequivocally prove that the sale actually occurred, he said (Minval, September 20). In addition, the parade in Yerevan also demonstrated the Smerch multiple rocket launch system, which Armenia heretofore also did not possess (Contact.az, September 20). Other experts claimed that the demonstration of the Iskanders at the September 21 parade was foremost aimed at the Armenian domestic public, dissatisfied with Russia's apparent impartiality during the April clashes in Karabakh and Moscow's willingness to sell weapons to both sides in the conflict. Thus, even if the Russian side did in fact supply Iskanders to the Armenian side, the effect of their presence in Armenia's inventory would have more of a psychological rather than military effect, some analysts claimed (1news.az , September 26).

Yet, if the parading of Iskanders was in part designed to frighten and deter Baku, it achieved the opposite effects. Azerbaijan reacted quickly and harshly. Immediately, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov instructed the Armed Forces to increase their monitoring of Armenia's strategic and military facilities and be ready to destroy them if necessary. The military top brass also reportedly discussed increasing reconnaissance with the aim of identifying and prioritizing new targets in Armenia (Turan, September 21). Then, on September 26, the Ministry of Defense reported on the Azerbaijani Army's successful completion of five-day-long military exercises. During these drills, divisions of missile and artillery troops practiced targeting and destroying enemy targets with the use of optical and electronic reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as trained with special forces reconnaissance teams (Ministry of Defense, September 26).

Yahya Musayev, Azerbaijan's deputy minister of defense industry, stated that his country would step up its efforts to purchase modern weapons technology abroad as well as aim to manufacture more such products at home. The deputy minster declined to elaborate on unconfirmed reports that since at least 2014, Azerbaijan has been in talks with Pakistan to purchase the Hatf-IV Shaheen, a missile system similar to the Iskander (APA, September 22). But only days later, on September 26, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met with Pakistan's Minister of Defense Production Rana Tanveer Hussain. The two officials discussed issues of future defense-sector cooperation. Minister Hussain later stated that his country was modernizing its military-industrial complex and was specifically prioritizing the production of surface-to-surface missile (SSM) as well as surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems. He further stated that Baku was negotiating to obtain technology to produce ballistic missiles with a range of 280 kilometers (the same range as the export model of the Iskander) (Contact.az, September 27).

At the same time, AZAD Systems Co, the production branch of Azerbaijan's Ministry of Defense Production, presented newly developed Zarba unmanned aerial vehicles. It is worth to mentioning that these drones played a significant role during the April clashes against Armenian forces in Karabakh (Report.az, September 27). The government also revealed that Turkey has finalized supplying Azerbaijan with 21 T-300 Kasirga multi-barrel rocket launchers (News.az, September 28). Baku signed the agreement back in 2013, and the final part of the order was finally delivered.

The appearance of Russian Iskanders in Armenia creates new challenges for security in the South Caucasus. Azerbaijani parliamentarian Rasim Musaboayov believes that if Russia did indeed sell Armenia this weapon, then Baku should reconsider its relations with Russia. "Moreover, if Armenia and the separatist Karabakh regime consider using this weapon against Azerbaijan-[such as by targeting] the Mingechevir Dam for instance-then they should know that retaliation by Azerbaijan would be heavy. Azerbaijani artillery and missiles can reach both Yerevan and other strategic facilities of Armenia," Musaboayov stressed (1news.az, September 26).

Regardless of who actually commands these Armenian Iskanders, their very presence in the South Caucasus may spark a new arm race in the region. It is highly unlikely that the weapon will actually be used against Azerbaijani cities by the Armenian/Russian side. Still their presence on Armenian territory put Baku in an uncomfortable security situation. So even if these few Iskanders do not change the overall military balance in the region, Baku will nonetheless strive to obtain similar weapons if only to maintain parity with its regional archrival.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Moscow Supports Creation of Single Agricultural Cossack Enterprise in Stavropol Region

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Valery Dzutsati Publication Date 27 September 2016 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 155 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Moscow Supports Creation of Single Agricultural Cossack Enterprise in Stavropol Region, 27 September 2016, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 155, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee6bc24.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Link to original story on Jamestown website

In the past several years, Moscow has reinvigorated its efforts to unite the plethora of Cossack organizations in southern Russia. One of the most important issues dividing various groups of Cossacks has been their affiliation with the government. Some Cossack communities belong to so-called "registered" (reestrovye) and others to "public" (obshchestvennye) organizations. The former are officially part of the Russian government structure and play auxiliary military and police roles. The fate of the latter is highly dependent on their relations with local authorities and their constituents. The central Russian government has been pushing for the multiple groups to unify into a single Terek Cossack Force, which would operate under the auspices of Moscow.

Following the Kremlin-driven change in the leadership of the Terek Cossacks in 2015 (see EDM, March 18, 2015; May 11, 2015; February 3, 2016), the government is pushing to concentrate all Cossack resources under one umbrella-a policy that has aroused protests and scandals. The majority of the Terek Cossacks currently reside in Stavropol region, and there are around 160 Cossack communities throughout the region. Traditionally, Cossacks have resided in rural areas and relied on agriculture for subsistence. As a result, Cossacks currently control about 42,000 hectares of land in Stavropol, but those holdings are scattered across various small plots. The new Cossack ataman (chieftain), Alexander Zhuravsky, reportedly proposes to create an inventory of all Cossack lands, take them over, and lend them out to his associates (Kavkazskaya Politika, September 22).

Land ownership across the North Caucasus is, in general, a poorly regulated and explosive issue. Due to the scarcity of land and political concerns, regional authorities never legalized the private ownership of agricultural land in the region. Hence, farmers have to go through a tortuous process of acquiring short- and long-term rent rights. Since land ownership is not monetized but "bureaucratized," land-related corruption is rife across the North Caucasus. For example, Cossacks have been quite active in Kabardino-Balkaria in their attempts to reclaim rights to what they consider to be their "native" Cossack land. But they have encountered numerous semi-legal obstacles and outright opposition from the regional bureaucracy (Kavkazskaya Politika, July 31).

The socio-economic status of the various Cossack organizations is also unclear, which makes land-related disputes even more complicated and prone to government bureaucrats' manipulation and corrupt practices. For example, Cossack communities have the official status of non-profit organizations. According to Russian legislation, they cannot directly engage in commercial activities. They can, however, hand over their lands to the individual members of the Cossack communities and establish commercial organizations. Stavropol's land code stipulates that the government should allot agricultural lands to Cossacks, bypassing auctions "for agricultural production, preservation and development of the traditional way of life and economic activities" of Cossacks. The Cossacks, however, complain that the government does not follow its own laws (Kavkazskaya Politika, September 22).

The legal formula for supporting the Cossacks' "way of life" is in itself quite a puzzle: potentially, it can be used as a precedent for other ethnic groups in Russia, especially, in the North Caucasus. In other words, dozens of ethnic groups in the North Caucasus could also try to claim land rights to preserve their way of life and their traditions. The legal riddle does not end there. Many Cossacks nowadays belong to "registered" communities, which are officially designated and supported by the Russian state. If Cossacks are an ethnic group, then it is unclear why the state should register them or why the president of the country would be allowed to appoint their atamans. On the other hand, if Cossacks are not an ethnic group, then it is unclear what "way of life and traditions" they are trying to protect or why Stavropol region should prioritize the Cossacks, at least on paper, before other potential land bidders.

Even in Kabardino-Balkaria, where Cossacks have no legal right to receive lands without public bidding, they still claim land rights on the basis of their Cossack identity (Kavkazskaya Politika, June 4). In the non-Russian republics of the North Caucasus, land ownership quickly acquires the flavor of ethnic rivalry; but the conflicts over land in Stavropol region are also quite fierce, even when both conflicting sides are Cossacks. The new leadership of the Cossacks appears to be directly involved in resolving land disputes among its subordinates. In one such case, the ataman, Zhuravsky, reportedly dispatched a team of harvesters to gather the wheat on disputed land in the village of Tersky, in Budyonnovsky district of Stavropol region. The scandal also indicated that some shrewd individuals are using Cossack identity for material gain without providing anything in return to the Cossack communities (Kavkazskaya Politika, July 19).

Constant financial scandals and haggling over land and other material resources have become emblematic of the Cossacks in the North Caucasus. A large part of the problem is the government's ambiguity about who the Cossacks are. Moscow does not want to grant ethnicity rights to the Cossacks, which would then undermine their "Russianness." Many of the Cossacks in the North Caucasus derive from ethnic Ukrainians and speak so-called "mova"-a version of the Ukrainian language. Russian authorities certainly do not want to overplay this fact. At the same time, Moscow is trying to maintain some unclear Cossack identity that could be conveniently put to use to provide them with special rights whenever it is deemed useful by the Russian state.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Afghanistan: Breaking Taboos Around Menstruation

Publisher Institute for War and Peace Reporting Author Pazhman Pazhohish Publication Date 27 September 2016 Cite as Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Afghanistan: Breaking Taboos Around Menstruation, 27 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee77064.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

When Zainab got her first period at the age of nine, her mother responded by slapping her across the face.

Now a 22-year-old student at a private university in Kabul, Zainab said that her mother had immediately feared her daughter had lost her virginity.

Other family members also hit and shamed her.

Zainab recalled how she had turned from an outgoing, mischievous girl into a withdrawn and fearful youngster tormented by embarrassment.

"Whenever I got my period, I tried to hide it so that my father and brothers didn't know about it," she said, adding that this was particularly hard during the month of Ramadan when menstruating women are exempt from fasting.

So as not to draw attention to herself, she fasted anyway.

"It's a question that I may never be able to answer: will I have to suffer shame and ridicule my whole life because of the harsh environment around me?" she asked

In Afghanistan, menstruation is viewed as shameful and rarely discussed, even amongst female family members. It is surrounded by taboos, with menstruating women viewed as somehow unclean.

Girls often have no idea what is happening to them when they get their first period.

That was Farida's experience. Now a 20-year-old government employee, she said that, terrified, she confided in her aunt when she realised that she was bleeding.

Her aunt told Farida that she had become a woman and would now have a period every month, listing many prohibitions she should observe.

"My aunt told me not to touch the table cloth or the food when I have my period," Fardia continued. "If you touch food, it will become haram [unclean]. You should not get close to your sister or brother or kiss them because they are innocent and they will be affected by it. Once you your period finishes and you take a bath, you will be clean again."

Farida recalled her own devastation, and how she had broken down and cried.

Her aunt had only this to say to her.

"Allah has created women to be miserable and there is no other way but suffering."

SELF-PERPETUATING CYCLE

Mahboba Seraj, a social affairs expert, said that women were often themselves responsible for perpetuating such illogical beliefs.

"It is women's responsibility not to be ashamed of their physiological functions," she said. "They should see them it as an ordinary part of life, and mothers have particular responsibility when it comes to this issue."

Some women, for instance, insist that a woman who is having her period cannot visit a religious site or shine for fear of defiling it.

Hangama Faiz, a lecturer at a private university in Kabul, recounted her own experiences as head of a voting commission during the presidential elections two years ago.

The voting centre was in a mosque that had two entrances. Initially, in keeping with Afghan traditions of gender separation, one entrance was to be for men and the other for women.

But then some of her female colleagues warned that women who had their periods entering the mosque would render it unclean.

A tent was constructed outside the mosque for all women to cast their votes.

"I was so shocked and disappointed for me see that while the men had nothing to say about this issue, it was the women who considered themselves and other women unclean," Faiz said.

Islamic experts say that it is ignorance of religious law that drives such prejudices.

"Living, talking, sitting, and eating with women in this state - [everything] except sexual intercourse - is allowed in Islam," said religious scholar Sayed Mohammad Hojjat.

"The practise of not having sexual intercourse during a woman's period is so as to encourage men to be patient and sexually restrained. As well as this, women may feel uncomfortable and intercourse increases this. Any other explanation is baseless."

Sharif Sharif, a mental health specialist at the Avesta hospital, said that puberty encompassed psychological as well as physical changes. If this was a traumatic experience, young girls could experience long-term emotional damage.

"Fear and shame will have an inadvertent effect on them and can put their future social lives at risk," he said, adding, "Youth is the most critical period of every person's life and positive behaviour from the parents helps them navigate this stormy period properly. Whether a person turns out good or bad depends on how the family raises him or her."

Although the issue has such an impact on the lives of Afghan women, there have been few efforts to change attitudes.

Aziza Adalatkhwa, head of the rights department of the women's affairs ministry, told IWPR that this issue did not fall under their remit.

"It has nothing to do with us," she said. "We just investigate violence against women."

Shafiqullah Sahim of the ministry of health said that his department had made some efforts to raise awareness of issues surrounding menstruation as part of public outreach programmes on family planning.

"People should know that menstruation is not a problem which needs to be hidden or which should cause women shame," he said, adding, "Menstruation is a part of girls' lives and it is as completely natural as eating, drinking and becoming pregnant."

It seems that attitudes, even amongst the more educated, will take a long time to change. Saeeda (not her real name), a student at a private university in Kabul, recalled one incident which she said illustrated widespread ignorance in Afghan society.

During a lecture, the teacher asked the class to explain why women were so often regarded as unintelligent or second-class citizens in Afghanistan.

One of the male pupils replied that it was because blood loss during menstruation weakened their minds and thoughts.

"After that all the boys in the class started laughing, but all the girls felt humiliated and disgraced," she continued. "When we witness such an environment in a centre of higher education, we shouldn't be surprised at the behaviour of ordinary people."

This report was produced under IWPR's Promoting Human Rights and Good Governance in Afghanistan initiative, funded by the European Union Delegation to Afghanistan.

Copyright notice:  Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Will Duterte's offensive against Islamist militants in the Philippines backfire?

Publisher IRIN Author David Doyle Publication Date 30 September 2016 Cite as IRIN, Will Duterte's offensive against Islamist militants in the Philippines backfire?, 30 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee78314.html [accessed 31 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

At dusk, the blue-grey peaks of Basilan look serene, rising out of the tranquil sea that separates them from the Philippine city of Zamboanga on the southernmost tip of the large main island of Mindanao.

But the peaceful scene is a mirage. In reality, Basilan and the remote islands of Sulu, further south but still part of the Mindanao group, are home to Abu Sayyaf.

The Islamist militant group has been active since 1991 and had early ties to al-Qaeda. More recently, Abu Sayyaf members have pledged allegiance to so-called Islamic State. But mostly, the group is feared for its beheadings and frequent kidnap for ransom operations, which occur mainly in the maritime junction between the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Rodrigo Duterte, the recently elected strongman president of the Philippines, has ordered the army to "destroy" Abu Sayyaf. During a 17 September speech to soldiers, he said the group is "hungry to establish a caliphate".

The first three months of Duterte's presidency have been characterised by a toxic mix of blood and bluster. In his latest gaffe, responding to criticisms of his war on drugs, which has seen more than 3,000 people killed by police and vigilantes, he likened himself to Hitler and said he'd be happy to "slaughter" three million drug addicts.

Some of Duterte's remarks about the ramped-up war against Abu Sayyaf have been similarly off-colour. In an angry outburst during a recent regional summit in Laos, Duterte warned Abu Sayyaf: "I will open your body - just pass me the vinegar and salt and I will eat you."

Strong words have been followed by strong actions: 10,000 troops were deployed to Sulu and Basilan along with the country's newest and biggest warship, the BRP Tarlac.

But will the new offensive succeed in defeating Abu Sayyaf or might it actually help foster more militancy?

Critics accuse the campaign, which has largely consisted of shelling Abu Sayyaf locations, of having limited impact on militants, who flee into the jungle, whilst displacing tens of thousands of civilians.

If the military continues to use such tactics, it could actually drive young men to join the group, said Sheikh Loderson Gustham, a religious leader from Sulu.

"Most of the people in the province work in either fishing or agriculture," he said in an interview in Zamboanga. "People are not being allowed back onto their land, because military operations are there.

"It will even contribute to the violence, because if people are without jobs and Abu Sayyaf has its own money, they can just recruit," said Gustham.

As of 19 September, the campaign against Abu Sayyaf had displaced 18,783 people on Basilan and 23,920 people on Sulu, according to the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Cycle of displacement

The Philippines is an overwhelmingly Catholic country, but Muslims make up the majority population in some parts of Mindanao, which has been wracked by conflict since the late 1960s. The government is still battling communist insurgents, as well as an array of Islamist groups. It is all too common throughout Mindanao that civilians have to flee their homes.

Three years ago, fighting broke out in Zamboanga between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and a splinter group of the Moro National Liberation Force rebel group: 100,000 people were displaced and several civilians killed. Thousands of civilians remain in camps like the Mampang Transitory Site on the outskirts of the city.

"We don't want it to happen again. The conflict is there in Sulu, and we just want it to stay in Sulu," said Alfonso Hassan, a 30-year-old pedicab driver who lives in Mampang. "People here are already in trauma."

The Mampang camp is run by a local NGO, Integrated Resource Development for Tri-People, which has partnered up with international NGOs including Action Against Hunger.

Kalma Isnain, executive director at IRDT, says the continual cycle of violence in Mindanao, and particularly on Sulu and Basilan, means recruitment by Abu Sayyaf has become normalised.

"The tension is already there and the children are the ones most affected," she said. "These children, they have nothing to do with their lives, so they will join."

Peace on the rocks

The government is in the process of negotiating an end to the conflict with the MNLF, and is in similar discussions with another rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. But there appears to be little chance that peace will be negotiated with Abu Sayyaf.

After the MNLF asked the government to include the group in the current talks, President Duterte responded unequivocally: "I will not, I will never."

"There will be no amnesty for so much killing," he added, speaking to Marines on Tuesday.

There may be little public support among residents of Mindanao for Abu Sayyaf, which is notorious for beheading prisoners and carrying out bombings like the 2004 SuperFerry 14 attack, which killed 116 people. But there is also a lot of distrust towards the military, especially in places like Basilan and Sulu.

Sheikh Gustham said some young people see the military operation as "Christian soldiers coming to Muslim lands - a kind of crusade".

That plays into a narrative that favours Islamist militant groups like Abu Sayyaf.

Underdevelopment and widespread poverty in Mindanao may also be factors in radicalising youth.

"One thing that does concern us generally is what could be a trend towards increasing extremism," said Mark Bidder, head of office in the Philippines for the UN emergency aid coordination body, OCHA.

"Perhaps it is driven in part by the expectations of the youth not being met," he said. "There are communities that have been frustrated by the lack of progress over the years - particularly in terms of dealing with age-old issues: challenges of underdevelopment, lack of jobs, lack of opportunities."

The Armed Forces of the Philippines did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
UNHCR sounds warning over situation in South Sudan's Yei

Publisher UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Publication Date 30 September 2016 Cite as UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UNHCR sounds warning over situation in South Sudan's Yei, 30 September 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57ee90c14.html [accessed 31 October 2022]

UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, is increasingly concerned for the safety and well-being of some 100,000 people trapped in Yei - a town situated in Central Equatoria State about 150 kilometres southwest of Juba.

According to the town church, more than 30,000 people have been displaced into Yei from surrounding areas, following deadly attacks on civilians and looting of private property on 11 and 13 September. They joined several thousand others displaced from nearby Lainya County since mid-July, and up to 60,000 town residents who remain in Yei with no means to leave and who are now in as much need as those displaced by the conflict.

Until now, Yei has been largely spared from the violence and attacks that have plagued the country since December 2013. UNHCR's presence there has been limited to providing protection activities and assistance to refugees from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who live in Yei town and nearby Lasu settlement.

The security situation in Yei deteriorated rapidly after renewed conflict broke out in Juba in early July and came to a head earlier this month, forcing thousands of civilians to flee their homes. This is the first time that the population in Yei - primarily farmers living on commercial and subsistence agriculture - has become a direct target of violence, and on suspicion of their belonging to opposition groups. They urgently need humanitarian assistance.

An inter-agency mission to Yei, led by UNHCR on Tuesday 27 September, observed that tens of thousands of displaced are sheltering in abandoned houses and smaller numbers in church compounds and are facing a serious shortage of food and medicine.

Terrorized men and women spoke of horrific violence against civilians before and during their flight, including assault, targeted killing, mutilation, looting and burning of property. Several civilians have been hacked to death, including women and infants. There are reports that many young men, aged between 17 and 30, have been arrested on suspicion of siding with the opposition.

Displaced people need food, household items, medicines and the children need access to schools. Food prices are skyrocketing, with basic commodities quickly disappearing from the market. Many internally displaced people have reported that their food stocks have been looted. Two local hospitals are functioning at reduced capacity. Lack of high-energy food for malnourished children and breastfeeding mothers is becoming critical. As information continues to be gathered, there are indications of increasing sexual and gender-based violence, and unaccompanied and separated children. The population is unable to leave the town due to limited freedom of movement and lack of resources. With farmers unable to reach their fields, harvests are rotting and the risk of missing the upcoming planting season is very high. This means that people may have no crops next year.

Back in Juba, humanitarian partners are mobilizing to respond to the situation in Yei, including provision of food, non-food items and drugs. A date for access is still not certain.

Deteriorating security in South Sudan has forced more than 200,000 people to flee the country since 8 July 2016, bringing the number of South Sudanese refugees in neighbouring countries to over 1 million. In South Sudan, more than 1.61 million people are internally displaced and another 261,000 are refugees from Sudan, DRC, Ethiopia, and Central African Republic.
Shania Twain coming to Indianapolis on first tour in nearly five years
The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice said in a 78-page report that a claim of conflict of interest against President John Dramani Mahama "has not been substantiated" (AFP Photo/Stephane De Sakutin)

Accra (AFP) - Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama has been cleared of corruption over the gift of a car from a construction firm bidding for a lucrative government contract, a report concluded Thursday.

The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) said in a 78-page report that a claim of conflict of interest against Mahama "has not been substantiated".

"Full or further investigations into the allegations are not warranted," it added.

Mahama's government has not denied receiving the four-wheel-drive vehicle from a contractor in Burkina Faso, who had previously built a wall on Ghanaian Embassy land in Ouagadougou.

But it dismissed opposition suggestions the car was a bribe to get a road-building contract in Ghana's Volta region that the same contractor later secured.

Mahama himself called the accusations "baseless". The vehicle was a gift and had been added to the government car pool, his administration said.

Despite being cleared of bribery, the CHRAJ, which is independent but whose commissioners are appointed by the president, found him guilty of breaching government rules on the acceptance of gifts.

Corruption has been a key issue in Ghana in recent years, not least in December last year when a string of judges were sacked for taking bribes after an undercover newspaper investigation.

Mahama, of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), is seeking a second term of office and on Thursday submitted his candidacy forms to the country's electoral commission.

He will again face Nana Akufo-Addo, the veteran leader of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), who lost out at the last election in 2012.

Electoral Commission of Ghana spokesman Yussif Alhassan Ayuba told AFP 23 people picked up nomination forms for the presidential race.

"Out of the 23, 16 are political parties and seven are independent candidates," he said.

"So far today (Thursday) we have received eight political parties who have submitted their forms.

"We are currently going through their forms, and the two major political parties, the NPP and the NDC, have submitted their nomination forms."

The election is set to take place on December 7.
Cowboys offense clicks in rout of Bears

Dak Prescott threw for two touchdowns and ran for another, Micah Parsons returned a fumble for his first NFL score in Dallas Cowboys win.
Two lines of people  a mix of students and professors  stretched across the lecture hall facing each other.

A question was posed. A conversation ensued, with a person in one line engaging directly with the corresponding person in the other line. The mingled voices echoed in the large hall, creating a tower of Babel effect. But a point was made.

'Having input helps people get involved,' said Aric Bailey, a first-year psychology and philosophy major at McMurry University. 'You feel validated by expressing yourself.'

The exercise came at the end of the opening session Thursday morning of a daylong forum at McMurry titled, 'Religion as a Bridge, Not a Barrier.' The program is the first this year of a McMurry program called 'Ubuntu,' an African word meaning, 'I am because we are.'

The three-year program, which started last year at McMurry, emphasizes connectedness and building relationships, said Mark Waters, director of international education and professor of religion and servant leadership at McMurry.

Presenters for Thursday's forum were Joe Morrow of Chicago, campus engagements manager with the Interfaith Youth Core, and Megan Johnson of Cincinnati, interim director of campus engagements with the same organization.

The organization's vision statement says it exists, 'To make interfaith cooperation a social norm.' And the way IFYC tries to do that is by partnering with institutions of higher education.

Morrow used himself as an example of how knowing only facts about a person limits the understanding of that person. An individual's whole story is much more complex than a set of facts.

In addition to working with the Interfaith Youth Core, Morrow is a Presbyterian minister. As a Christian, he believes in the divinity of Christ, acknowledges one God, and worships on Sundays.

'My identity,' he said, 'is defined by facts very often.'

But there is more, he said. Morrow is black, he grew up as an agnostic, and experienced conversion and transformation. His freshman year in college, Morrow had Jewish roommate. Morrow accompanied him to worship services and began to see the world from a new perspective.

'I began to see it differently,' he said, 'because of the lens my Jewish friend put on it.'

Johnson told of growing up in a traditional Protestant Christian home in Southern California. She eventually met a Catholic and began to see religion differently. In college, she spent a summer in Israel and found herself as a minority for the first time.

'It was a really beautiful and rich experience,' she said.

When she returned to college, she sat next to a Muslim woman who told of her family who lived in Jerusalem and how difficult it was for her father to get a job because it was Muslim. Johnson realized she had experienced only one aspect of life in Jerusalem.

'It was a moment of very real tension for me,' she said, and made her realize she wanted a career as a reconciler.

Morrow said a good way to engage in interfaith discussions is to focus on shared values. He read familiar-sounding scriptures from various holy books and had the audience guess where they came from. The scriptures were examples of shared values among various religions such as service, hospitality, and compassion.

Emphasizing shared values, he said, is a good starting point for interfaith conversation.

'What is the common good we can do together?' he asked.
DE LEON  Distance, multiplied by Time, equals Dinner.

At least, that's how it can work on a Model T.

'That's a non-Ford accessory,' said Russ Grunewald, pointing to a black metal box attached to the top of the engine on his 1926 Model T Touring car. On the lid, painted in yellow under the word 'Enjoy', was written, 'Clear Lake Model T Cooker and Bake.'

'In 1926, if you wanted to drive from Comanche to California, where are you going to eat?' Grunewald asked. 'There was no Wendy's or McDonald's along the road, so you'd have to carry your food, and if you wanted to heat it up at night you'd have to start a fire and all that.'

Grunewald's car and around 60 others were lined up at Comanche City Park, pausing for lunch before heading back to DeLeon, which they'd all driven through already on their way over from Dublin. The group, Space City T's, is touring the eastern Big Country this week.

'Whereas if you put a Model T cooker on here, you can cook it as you go,' Grunewald continued, returning to the topic at hand. 'They even put out a cookbook that tells you, depending on what you're eating, how many miles you need to drive to get it cooked.'

He said he's cooked hot dogs with his and, no, they didn't taste like engine.

'There were more accessories made for the Model-T Ford than any car built, and that's just one of them,' Grunewald said.

Ford Model T's were the first mass-produced automobile made specifically for the average Joe. Henry Ford's innovation wasn't limited just to cars; designing the assembly line to make Model T's cut the purchase cost for the vehicle down to the $350-$450 range. Making the car affordable also made it popular. Fifteen million were built between 1908 and 1927.

Of course being a pioneer, the car had its quirks.

'No fuel pump, it's a gravity feed from the gas tank to the carburetor,' Grunewald said.

Since his car's tank was located in front, that wasn't a problem. With older Model T's, the tank was under the front seat.

'If you're down to a gallon or two left, and you have a steep hill, you'd have to back it up the hill to get the gravity feed,' he said.

Winston Ross didn't remember driving Model T's, he was only born in 1921. But he remembered the one his grandfather drove.

'When my granddad wanted to go to town, you had to jack up the rear wheel,' Ross recalled.

Starting the vehicle depended on an interaction of magnets and field coils under the hood to produce spark. Jacking-up the rear wheel was a common remedy for when the engine bearings began to allow too much play in the crankshaft and the magnets couldn't do their job. By being lifted into the air, the discs on the planetary transmission were compressed, putting the drivetrain into high-speed mode, and tightening it all back up.

Putting a block on the other rear wheel ensured the car didn't run you over while you stood in front of the machine to crank the lever to start it. If young Ross wanted to go to town, jacking up the Model T was his job.

'Then we'd go fishing,' he said. 'He'd help me get up and get hold of the crank. He'd say, 'Now turn it slow, Son.' Well, I turned it slow, and he'd say, 'OK Son, it's ready to go,' and then I'd have to let the jack down.'

Kathy Harris of Garland said the official name of the tour is the Space City T's Texas T Party.

'It's with the letter T', not T-E-A,' she said with a chuckle. 'We are not political, we all drive old cars.'

As you can guess by the name, the group is from Houston. Eleven years earlier they visited Stephenville, this time Harris said they picked the location mainly to support the Ranger Fly-In, which happens Saturday.

'We wanted to partner with them to get old cars and old planes together,' she said. Over 200 airplanes are scheduled to be at Ranger Airfield.

On Friday the cars will tour Hico and Granbury before returning to Stephenville for the night. Harris said they average about 100 miles a day at about 35-40 miles-per-hour.

'It's smoother than you would think. Of course you don't have the same kind of suspension, so you hit bumps a little harder,' she said.

Corky Huddleston of Navasota said he's got at least 10 Model T cars. He took a few back roads from Dublin to Comanche, having already been familiar with the area.

'I'm kin to everybody up here. If I'm not kin to them, my kinfolks are kin to them,' he explained.

I asked him about how his 1925 Model T Touring drives. He pointed to the pedals; one was a clutch, one was a brake and the third put the car in reverse. The throttle for these machines was a small lever on the steering column.

'You've got to learn all the pedals and everything,' Huddleston said. 'You've got your reverse pedal in the middle.'

'Did you ever hit the reverse by mistake?' I asked

'Well, you mean like putting a dent in my shop or something?' he replied

'No, maybe you put it in reverse accidentally and didn't mean to,' I tried to explain.

'And you run over something?' he persisted.

'Well, I don't know about running over something. Maybe you go a few feet,' I responded. Then I thought about his question for a moment.

'Wait, did you run over something?'

He hesitated, then laughed.

'Hey; if you don't have any scars on you, there's no stories,' he answered.
On Oct. 12, we'll have a special section on health. My contribution is a story about the students in one particular class at Holland Medical Early College High School.

First off, that name certainly is a handful to write and a mouthful to get out while speaking. But the specialty school is one of my favorite aspects of Abilene, in general and part of why I'm happy writing about education in this area.

When I arrived in July 2014, it didn't take me long to find out about Holland and its purpose.

I feel I need to put here in this column that my mother spent more than 30 years as a medical technologist at the VA hospital in Buffalo before she retired a few years ago. Since that time, she's spent her retirement teaching a pair of Med-Tech courses at the community college (think Cisco College) back in Buffalo.

So I have tremendous respect for the educators at Holland, many of whom had careers in the medical field before answering the call to teach high school students. But I also really enjoy the programs they offer.

And that's coming from someone who could barely pass biology. I was always a chemistry kid, though I feel like that came from my mother's background in a chemistry lab.

I have never heard of a school set up like Holland and I wonder if maybe this column isn't long overdue because of my respect and admiration for the program. The certifications those students can attain, from their certified nursing assistant to phlebotomy, simply blow my mind.

Speaking of phlebotomy, I was offered a chance to visit the school in November to participate in their 'Stick Night.' I must say, I'm deathly afraid of needles. But I might sacrifice that to allow those students, working toward their professional certification to draw blood, to scare me stiff.

Then again, they're high school students. I may not be able to wrap my head around students that young doing something as incredibly important as sticking a needle in my vein.

We'll see.

COLLEGE FAIR TIME

It's the return of an annual tradition as the Abilene Education Foundation and the Abilene ISD are putting on college night from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday.

Like in years past, the event will be held in the Abilene Civic Center, 1100 North Sixth St. More than 50 universities are expected to attend.

Parents and students looking at college options are invited to attend, though that's not to say it's just for juniors and seniors. And the event is open to students of any district, not just Abilene ISD.

This year, organizers are encouraging families planning to attend to visit www.gotocollegefairs.com and create a profile. The website will create a special bar code that can be presented to the colleges at the fair to scan. It eliminates the need for individual student cards, organizers said, and provides more face-to-face opportunities.

Twitter: @TimothyChippARN
Dyess personnel amass to honor four airmen killed in a aircraft crash last year. (Photo by Brian Bethel)

SHARE Nellie Doneva/Reporter-News Two planes fly over during a moment of silence in the ceremony at Dyess Air Force Base. Nellie Doneva/Reporter-News Col. Stephen Hodge hugs wife Amy Hodge next to newly dedicated plaque, in memory of the Dyess Air Force Base airmen who lost their lives in a crash a year ago. Nellie Doneva/Reporter-News Airmen and their families gathered for a ceremony Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, to remember the Dyess Air Force Base airmen who lost their lives in a crash a year ago.

By Brian Bethel of the Abilene Reporter News

Lt. Col. Mitchell Spillers admitted to those honoring four Dyess Air Force Base airmen who perished in a C-130 crash last fall that one of the things that hurts the most is also the thing that "keeps me going."

"I think about those crew members and their individual personalities," said Spillers, one of a group of Air Force leaders, family members and others those who shared memories of Capt. Jordan Pierson, Capt. Jonathan "JJ" Golden, Staff Sgt. Ryan Hammond and Senior Airman Quinn Johnson-Harris at a special ceremony at the base's parade grounds Friday.

Several hundred gathered in memory of Pierson, Golden, Hammond and Johnson-Harris, among a group of 11 people in the aircraft and three on the ground who died when a C-130J Super Hercules crashed in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Oct. 2, 2015.

Spillers, 39th Airlift Squadron commander, described the fallen crew members of TORQE 62 with humor and reverence.

He recalled Pierson as one of the "hardest working people I've ever met," with a strength of character that others were drawn toward  so focused on his work he had to be reminded to take a break to eat.

Golden was "the example family man," Spillers said, who through his example taught others to hang on to those precious moments that make life sweeter.

Hammond was powerfully goal-oriented, a man who "would have been an officer," while Johnson-Harris radiated "the most sincere smile I've ever seen," Spillers remembered.

Pierson was a pilot assigned to the 39th Airlift Squadron. He graduated from the United States Air Force Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree in general studies and received his commission May 26, 2010.

Golden was also a pilot assigned to the 39th Airlift Squadron. Prior to commissioning through Officer Training School in 2011, he was an Airborne Operations Technician at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia.

Hammond was a loadmaster assigned to the 39th Airlift Squadron. He graduated from John Marshall High School in 2007 and arrived at Dyess Mar. 30, 2014.

Johnson-Harris was also a loadmaster assigned to the 39th Airlift Squadron. He graduated from Homestead High School in 2012 and arrived at Dyess May 2, 2014.

Col. Stephen Hodge, commander of the 317th Airlift Group at Dyess, said those who came to honor the airmen Friday were there "for the noblest of reasons."

"A year ago, I challenged us to remember," he said. "We've done so, through courage and honor. And through remembering we gather that strength. Jordan, JJ, Ryan and JH, they remain in us."

A plaque honoring the airmen was unveiled at the ceremony, a "recognition of their service and their sacrifice," said Gray Bridwell with the Abilene Chamber of Commerce Military Affairs Committee.

"We can never truly appreciate the magnitude of the loss that these families are feeling right now," Bridwell said, though the community  which supports the base in good times and bad  offered "our deepest sympathy to the families of the fallen heroes."

As part of the ceremony, the parade grounds fell into 62 seconds of deep silence. Not long thereafter, a thundering pair of C-130s shook the heavens. Family members shared brief memories of their loved ones, filled with intermingled warmth and loss.

After the ceremony, Hodge said that "strength through unity" was a central message of the day's observance  and had been all throughout the aftermath of the crash.

"As we mourned we were very careful to mourn together, to reach out to one another and feel the support and love," he said. "At any given moment, we received words of strength and words of encouragement from the globe, not just this patch here."

That sense of ties from "all over" was what Hodge wanted people to walk away from with from Friday's ceremony.

"When we fly a crew and it has a call sign of TORQE 62, that's only indicative of the bigger group  we stand next to each other in our times of trouble and our times of elation," he said.

Col. David M. Benson, 7th Bomb Wing commander at Dyess, said that he wanted people to remember the "service and sacrifice" of each airman.

"Sometimes I think that we're so good at what we do that we fail to remember it is an inherently dangerous (undertaking)," he said.

The "incredible friendship and family that is Dyess Air Force Base" has helped carry those left behind, Benson said.

"We live, we laugh, and we cry as one  and its' been that way for a long time here in Abilene," he said.

In addition to the Dyess crew  five civilian contractors on board the plane, two members of the 66th Security Forces Squadron from Hanscom AFB in Massachusetts, and three Afghan troops in a guard tower were killed in the crash.
Ted Cruz on Sept. 23 finally endorsed for president a man he has described as 'a pathological liar' and 'a sniveling coward.'

That would be Donald Trump, who had beaten Cruz for the Republican presidential nomination.

Cruz finally decided to endorse Trump, he said, to avoid the election of Democrat Hillary Clinton. He said a third-party choice, or not voting, wasn't an option.

He also credited Trump's plans to appoint a conservative justice for the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the death of outspoken conservative justice Antonin Scalia.

Also, some Republican officials were saying the party disloyalty of not endorsing Trump could endanger Cruz's political future.

Cruz is already campaigning for re-election to his U.S. Senate seat in 2018, and is presumed to have his sights set on another run for president in 2020  unless he loses his senate job.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who had chaired Cruz's primary campaign, but now heads Trump's campaign in Texas, said in a radio interview that Cruz not backing Trump could cause him to 'be left in the rearview mirror of the Republican Party moving forward.'

Add the warning of Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, on 'Face the Nation,' about GOP pols snubbing Trump.

'Those people need to get on board,' Priebus said. 'And if they're thinking they're going to run again some day, I think that we're going to evaluate the process  of the nomination process and I don't think it's going to be that easy for them.'

Trump won the nomination, Cruz, speaking at the Republican National Convention in July, dramatically refrained from endorsing Trump.

Delegates should 'vote your conscience,' Cruz said  and was roundly booed.

The next day, at a Texas delegation breakfast that included many delegates pledged to Cruz, he defended his non-endorsement, despite his earlier pledge to support the winner of the GOP nomination.

'I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and who attack my father,' Cruz said.

'And that pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi that I'm going to nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say 'Thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father.''

On Sept. 24, the day after Cruz endorsed Trump, Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith at the Tribfest 2016 asked Cruz if he and Trump had talked recently. Cruz said they had.

So, Smith asked, did Trump apologize for the slurs of Cruz's wife and father?

'No,' Cruz replied.

Smith asked whether Cruz just 'caved' from the pressure from other Republicans, even though he knew it would  and did  disappoint a lot of his supporters.

Cruz said he was trapped in a situation where no matter whether he said he'd vote for Trump, or continued to hold out, his decision would please some and anger others.

Trump, for his part, had said after Cruz's snub at the Republican convention that he didn't need Cruz's endorsement, and wouldn't accept if it offered.

As is the case with these political healings, that changed after Cruz's capitulation.

'I am greatly honored by the endorsement of Senator Cruz,' Trump said in a statement Sept. 23. 'We have fought the battle and he was a tough and brilliant opponent. I look forward to working with him for many years to come in order to make America great again.'

Contact McNeely at davemcneely111@gmail.com or 512-458-2963.
With the passing of Shimon Peres, who died Wednesday at age 93, Israel suffers the loss of a lion, the last of the founding generation of leaders. Peres came to Palestine from a village in what is now Belarus when he was 12. He became a young kibbutznik, a lieutenant to founding father David Ben-Gurion, a Knesset member, a deputy defense minister, an acting prime minister, and minister of defense, foreign affairs, transportation, communications, immigrant absorption, information and finance. He was twice prime minister and, near the end, the nation's president. Through a career that spanned this tumultuous period  through years of siege, bloodshed and building a nation  Peres never abandoned hope that, with enough sweat and tears, Israel would live in peace.

The young Shimon Persky once described the Jewish world of his birth as similar to a voyage in a subway train  'you travel underground, you don't see the scenery, and nobody sees you in the train.' Nevertheless, with an eloquent tongue and quick mind, he excelled in school. He arrived in Palestine in 1935 pale and introverted, but within a few years had heartily embraced the Labor movement. He worked the land at a youth village, impressing friends with a fondness for literature and history that was, at times, otherworldly. One friend told biographer Michael Bar-Zohar that 'when he spoke to us we felt as if we were right now in London and had met Churchill an hour before.'

Peres did not fight in the trenches in Israel's war of independence, but rather scoured the world for arms, often working in an office separated only by a sheet of plywood from Ben-Gurion. Later, he helped found Israel's aircraft industry and, using tortuous and sometimes illegal methods  because no one would sell weapons to Israel openly  he snapped up tanks, aircraft, torpedo boats and spare parts. He opened the doors for Israel to the French arms industry in the 1950s. This was followed by an even more spectacular and secret achievement, the creation of the Israeli atomic bomb, an unstated but powerful deterrent.

Peres was a security hawk at a time when Israel's enemies were its Arab neighbors. But the dynamic changed somewhat after Israel made peace with Egypt in the Camp David Accords of 1979. When the Palestinian uprising broke out in 1987, Peres realized that, while the Palestinians were not an existential threat, Israel would never live in peace without settling with them. Peres had been shrewd, secretive and scheming in politics, but he and his longtime rival, Yitzhak Rabin, made a fateful decision to work together upon returning to power in 1992. The next year, a surprising back-channel negotiation with the Palestine Liberation Organization led to the Oslo Accords, offering the Palestinians limited self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It was a crowning triumph for Peres, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Rabin and Yasser Arafat.

It also marked a metamorphosis for Peres, who spoke of peace fervently and with no less eloquence than in his school days. He found great respect as Israel's president, his final stop in a long journey, but his dream of Israel at peace, pursued with such determination and vision, eluded him to the last.

The Washington Post
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By Dan Carpenter, Special to the Reporter-News

From Ranger to Roscoe and beyond on Interstate 20, the Texas Department of Transportation is spending millions of dollars to improve roadways and enhance safety.

Mary Belle Turner, public information officer for TxDOT's Abilene district, said two of the projects TxDOT is currently working on along I-20 are in Nolan and Howard counties.

"The work on I-20 near Roscoe at the U.S. 84 split is actually part of a larger project to improve the safety of certain horizontal curves in the district along various roadways by adding a high-friction surface," she said. "The cost of the total project is $3.5 million; approximately $825,000 is for the I-20 part of the contract. This work is scheduled to be complete this fall or early winter.

"In Howard County contractors have been working on I-20 at U.S. 87 in conjunction with the newly completed U.S. 87 South truck relief route. This project consists of lowering the interstate to provide adequate clearance under the newly constructed U.S. 87 overpass."

More than $60 million worth of Abilene district projects are on the schedule in the coming months, including replacing and widening the I-20 bridge at state Highway 351, and "mill and fill" projects in Nolan, Howard and Callahan counties. Mill and fill involves removing approximately two inches of the current surface and then refilling it with new asphalt.

To the east of Abilene, a $17 million project between Eastland and Ranger will provide new pavement and two new safety rest areas east of Ranger.

An $80 million project, slated to begin early next year, will make a major change to Ranger Hill, said Andrew Carlson, public information officer for TxDOT's Brownwood district.

"We will shift the interstate about 500 feet to the south of the current alignment, resulting in a much shallower grade and less pronounced curve," he said. "There will also be a third westbound (uphill) lane for slower-moving trucks to use, and continuous frontage roads the entire length of the project."

Carlson said the Ranger Hill project is expected to take about three years to complete.

"Interstate 20 is the primary link for commercial and personal travel between Abilene and the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and points beyond," he said. "The amount of traffic is expected to double over the next 30 years, so major projects such as the reconstruction of the interstate at Ranger Hill will bring the highway up to modern safety and design standards to safely serve travelers for decades to come."
Members of Mexican forensics team examine bodies next to burned vehicles after a military convoy was ambushed by gunmen in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, on September 30, 2016 (AFP Photo/Andres Villarreal)

Culiacan (Mexico) (AFP) - The sons of imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman were probably behind a grenade attack on a military convoy in northern Mexico, killing five soldiers, authorities said.

Some 60 gunmen, who also fired several rounds from assault rifles, freed a wounded suspect who was being escorted by the soldiers in an ambulance during the pre-dawn ambush in Culiacan, capital of the state of Sinaloa, state and military officials said on Friday.

Guzman's sons were "very probably" responsible for the attack, which freed a suspect identified as Julio Oscar Ortiz Vega, alias "El Kevin," General Alfonso Duarte, a regional commander, told reporters.

The gunmen stole the ambulance while a military Humvee caught fire in the assault, which left 10 people injured, including a Red Cross worker. Four of the injured were in surgery.

The soldiers were returning with the wounded suspect after another shootout in the mountain community of Bacacoragua, part of the municipality of Badiraguato, the region where Guzman and other notorious drug lords were born.

The suspect was "being transferred to Culiacan for immediate medical attention... but unfortunately this group acts in a premeditated, cowardly, treacherous way, using firearms and grenades," Duarte said.

The general said Guzman's brother, Aureliano Guzman Loera, alias "El Guano," is battling for control of drug production against the Beltran Leyva drug cartel in the remote region. One of Guzman's sons, Jesus Alfredo, was kidnapped by rivals for a few days in August. Another son, Ivan, is also allegedly involved in cartel activities.

President Enrique Pena Nieto vowed on Twitter that the assailants "will answer to the law."

Sinaloa is one of Mexico's most violent states and the ambush came as murders are on the rise this year across the country.

- Guzman woes -

Guzman is hailed as a Robin Hood-type figure in his stronghold, and his cartel is still considered a fearsome force despite his capture.

Story continues

The cartel leader was arrested in the Sinaloa coastal city of Los Mochis in January, six months after he escaped from prison near Mexico City by sneaking through a 1.5-kilometer (one-mile) tunnel that opened into his cell's shower.

Guzman now waits for a Mexican judge to decide whether he can be extradited to the United States, a ruling that he could appeal, although US officials believe he could be in US territory before the end of the year.

His capture dealt a blow to his cartel, but the gang still has a strong leader, his longtime associate, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who has never spent a day in prison.

Guzman's sons are also accused by the authorities of having roles in the criminal group.

But in a sign of the cartel's vulnerability, one of them, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, 29, was kidnapped in a restaurant in the Pacific resort of Puerto Vallarta in August, apparently by members of the rival Jalisco New Generation drug cartel.

Two US government officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, have told AFP that the son was released days later and the reasons for the abduction are unclear.

One of the US officials said the kidnapping appeared to be a "non-sanctioned event" committed by lower ranking members of the New Generation cartel, and that their bosses ordered them to release Guzman's son.
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Pan-democratic politicians in Hong Kong plan to boycott a lavish official party in honor of China's National Day on Saturday, they told RFA.



The city's chief executive Leung Chun-ying has invited 4,000 guests, including senior government officials and lawmakers, to join him for a reception marking the 67th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China by Mao Zedong.



The party and cultural show will be followed by the now-traditional fireworks display over Hong Kong's iconic Victoria Harbor.



But at least 21 pan-democratic politicians, including existing and newly elected members of the Legislative Council (LegCo), plan to snub Leung's invitation, and stage protests outside the venue instead.



Shiu Ka-chun, a lawmaker representing the social welfare professions, said he wouldn't be going in protest over the recent violent crackdown on land protesters in the rebel village of Wukan, across the internal border in China's Guangdong province.



"I won't be going to the National Day reception because of what happened in Wukan," Shiu told RFA. "I don't think we have anything to celebrate."



"I think it would go against our conscience to do that, and the conscience of Hong Kong people."



'A national tragedy'



Meanwhile, members of the League of Social Democrats said they would stage a demonstration near the venue on Saturday calling on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to overturn the verdict of "counterrevolutionary rebellion" on the student-led democracy protests of 1989, which were bloodily suppressed by the People's Liberation Army on June 4 that year.



"This isn't a National Day celebration; it's a national tragedy," LSD deputy chairman Anthony Wong told RFA.



"When the Communist Party came to power, they said they were for the people, but we have seen that in today's China, the rights enshrined in the constitution aren't enforced."



"There has been a draconian crackdown on human rights lawyers, and a proliferation of miscarriages of justice," Wong said.



He said the Communist Party has already done considerable damage to Hong Kong's traditional rights and freedoms, in spite of promising those rights and freedoms would remain for 50 years after the 1997 handover.

"The dictatorial regime in China has also had a huge impact on democracy, freedom, and the rule of law in Hong Kong," Wong said. "This isn't something to celebrate: it's a disaster."



Ted Hui, lawmaker-elect for the Democratic Party, who won his seat in LegCo polls earlier this month, said however that he would be attending with some of his colleagues.



"I'll be going along with six other people," Hui told RFA. "Our thinking is that it's a good opportunity to meet the chief executive in person and put our demands to him."



"I don't think there is much to celebrate either, but opportunities like that don't come around very often," he said.



"We won't be going there to party, and we will make that clear to people when we go."



Anti-Beijing mood



Chung Kim-wah, assistant professor of applied social science at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said the pan-democrats are responding to an increasingly anti-Beijing mood in Hong Kong.



"Political parties have to be sensitive to public opinion, and so they have to take a position; they have to protest," Chung said.



"It shows that there really has been a change in the political mood after the last two years of political debate."



"The more they suppress Hong Kong people's political aspirations for democracy, the more they will create a rebellious mood ... and politicians need to reflect that mood through their actions," he said.



The announcements by pan-democrats came after hundreds of people gathered under yellow umbrellas to mark the second anniversary of clashes with riot police that kicked off a 79-day civil disobedience campaign for fully democratic elections in Hong Kong.



Crowds of protesters occupied the city's streets in rejection of Beijing's proposals for preapproved slates of electoral candidates, using umbrellas to protect themselves from sun, rain, and pepper spray, and giving the Umbrella Movement its nickname.



The movement ended with no political victory however, and amid accusations from the ruling Chinese Communist Party that the protests were being orchestrated by "hostile foreign forces" behind the scenes.



But political analysts said it inspired a new generation to get involved in politics, with former protest leader Nathan Law, 23, becoming the youngest-ever candidate to win a seat in LegCo earlier this month.



Reported by Lam Kwok-lap for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.




Authorities in the Chinese capital have detained dozens of people who traveled there to make complaints against the ruling Communist Party ahead of the country's National Day celebrations on Saturday.

As Beijing gears up to mark the 67th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic by late supreme leader Mao Zedong on Oct. 1, 1949, thousands of petitioners have converged on the city with grievances ranging from nonpayment of military and disability pensions to forced evictions, financial scams and official abuses of power.

Among the detainees, who were put aboard police buses and escorted to an unofficial detention center at Majialou in a Beijing suburb, 12 were placed under administrative detention for "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble" after they traveled from the southwestern city of Chongqing to make their complaints.

"There were 14 of them who went to lodge a petition, and 23 of them were held under administrative detention," the husband of detainee Zhou Kelan said on Friday.

"Zhou Kelan is now under 15-day detention, starting yesterday, on charges of picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," he said.

The group was detained outside the complaints department of China's cabinet, the State Council, fellow petitioners said.

The wife of another detainee, He Chaozheng, said she had been unable to locate her husband since his detention.

"We called the [Chongqing] representative office in Beijing, and they said He Chaozheng had gone back home on Wednesday, and that no officials had come to escort him back there," his wife said.

"But if he went home of his own accord, then how come I haven't heard any news of him?" she said. "The local police station ... said they don't know where he is either."



Unofficial detention and torture

Chongqing activists said some petitioners already escorted back to home had been subjected to unofficial detention and tortured by local officials.

They said leukemia patient Cheng Ruwen was taken to the city's Beibei District police department on Sept. 25 and deprived of sleep for 48 hours without undergoing any legal formalities. Cheng was released on Thursday after vomiting blood.

Meanwhile Zheng Jijun, Yuan Changshu remained incommunicado, while police handed down a 10-day administrative sentence to Zou Maoshu, and 15-day sentences to Zhou Kelan and Xiao Chenglin, fellow petitioners said.

Xiao Chenglin's son told RFA he had learned of his father's detention in a phone call from police.

"They told me to take some clothes to him at the detention center and that he was being held for 15 days," he said.

Asked if there were any written documents issued, he said: "No, there weren't."

As President Xi Jinping laid wreaths at the Monument to the People's Heroes on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the entire area was cordoned off by police, preventing petitioners from approaching, they told RFA.

Chongqing evictee Chen Mingyu said many petitioners had come to Beijing in the hope that the central government would be more receptive to their complaints at a time of national celebration.

"There are so many people at this time of year, because ... petitioners want to get in their complaints before the long vacation," Chen said. "That's why there are more people here."

Large-scale oppression

A Chongqing-based rights activist surnamed Pan said that many of the complaints are triggered by local officials violating the basic rights of local residents in the first place.

"It's very, very common for people who try to defend their rights to be targeted for persecution," Pan said. "But the oppression is on such a large scale now; it's gotten crazy."

"They are also acting under pressure from their leaders higher up," he said. "But this is only going to make more people want to complain and petition."

Among the petitioners in Beijing were several hundred victims of an investment scam from Shanghai.

"There are around 800 people here in all, because the financial scams affected a lot of different companies," Shanghai petitioner Zheng Jianfang said.

"There were several thousand people outside the State Council complaints department [on Thursday]," Zheng said.

He said more than 30,000 people had been hit by the scam across China, which had resulted in the loss of more than 40 billion yuan [U.S. $6 million] in life savings.

But the group has already been in Beijing for more than a year, he added.

"We have been complaining about this at the central government for more than a year now, to no avail," Zheng said.

"This is the second time we have presented a mass petition ... We want the government and the police to take action by starting an investigation and pursuing those responsible, and getting our money back," he said.

The scene outside the complaints office has been chaotic in recent days, as petitioners hope to use the National Day celebrations as a way of highlighting their cases to the authorities in Beijing.

"Some people are clutching large folders of people, spreading them out on the carpet; others are lining up," Hebei-based petitioner He Yazhen told RFA on Thursday.

"There are interceptors from various localities across China who are looking for people to escort home again," He said. "I am in Majialou right now, and yet another busload has just arrived."

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
On Sept. 20, China put Ma Xiaohong and her Hongxiang Industrial Development Co. Ltd. under criminal investigation for selling North Korea materials for Pyongyangs nuclear weapons program. Changsop Pyon of RFA's Korean Service asked North Korea experts Andrei Lankov of Kukmin University in Seoul about the impact of China's move, which came as pressure mounted on Beijing to do more to rein in its ally.

RFA: How do you assess the Hongxiang case and China's actions?

Lankov: This is not something that has happened out of the blue. Chinas policy toward North Korea has two conflicting trends. Namely, China doesnt welcome North Koreas nuclear development at all, but at the same time it doesnt want to push for economic hardship on the North hard enough to lead to its collapse. Above all, as a recognized nuclear power, China regards nuclear proliferation as a grave issue. China regards North Koreas development of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles as a threat to its own security. Accordingly, Beijing does not cooperate with Pyongyang at all in the nuclear and missile area, and strictly controls any trading of those parts and materials necessary for North Koreas nuclear development.

RFA: Does China's probe into the Hongxiang case demonstrate a commitment to enforce U.N. sanctions?

Lankov: Displeased with South Koreas recent THAAD deployment decision, China has started easing its economic pressure on North Korea, but its strongly opposed to the Norths nuclear development. Pyongyangs nuclear development can lead Seoul and Tokyo to follow suit. Also, various terrorist groups around the world can gain access to nuclear material due to the Norths nuclear pursuit. Although most of the terrorist groups are operating in Middle East, mainly targeting the U.S. and other Western countries, there are some aiming at China.



RFA: Is it possible Chinese officials were complicit in Hongxiang's illegal dealings with North Korea?

Lankov: I guess so. China is a country with lots of corruption. The fact that Ma Xiaohong was a delegate of the National People's Congress of Liaoning Province shows her relationships with the power elites in Dandong were very good. Ma must have realized from the beginning that Hongxiangs dealings with North Korea were dangerous and risky. Thats why Ma kept such good relations with the local political heavyweights and clearly bribed them. Although Dandong officials may have tacitly approved Hongxiangs illegal dealings with North Korea, they are far from the real power and the eyes of the Chinese central government, and when Beijing finally detected these illegal dealings, it ordered an official probe immediately.



RFA: Will a conviction of Hongxiang executives deal a fatal blow to Chinese-North Korean trade?

Definitely Hongxiangs conviction will deal a very hard blow to North Koreas trade with China, but it will be far from a fatal one. I stressed this point several times, but let me repeat: China wont allow the North Korean economy to plunge into a serious crisis.



RFA: Will China stop the export of strategic or dual-use material to North Korea?

There is no way for China to stop its companies from exporting strategic materials to North Korea completely. China is a very big country. There are many, many traders in China who want to do trading with North Korea, because they know any trading with the North might be risky, but at the same time very profitable. Accordingly, the Chinese authorities might not be able to succeed in stopping Chinese companies strategic trading with the North. Of course, Chinas continued crackdown will lead to a decrease in those businessmen and companies trying to do such trading.

Reported and translated by Changsop Pyon for RFA's Korean Service.
Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi (R) accompanied by parliamentary speaker Mahn Win Khaing Than arrives for the opening ceremony of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly in Naypyidaw, Sept. 30, 2016.

Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday asked member states of a regional economic and security organization for constructive support in resolving the crisis in the countrys troubled western Rakhine state.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmars de facto national leader, is trying to drum up regional support for an advisory commission on Rakhine which she created in late August to review conflict resolution between majority Buddhists and minority Muslim Rohingya in the restive state. It will also look at humanitarian assistance, development issues, and strengthening local institutions.

Buddhist nationalists and political parties in Rakhine oppose the appointment of three foreigners to the commission, including former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who chairs the body, and have called for its disbandment.

We are working to build understanding, harmony and trust between communities while standing firm against prejudice, intolerance, and extremism, Aung San Suu Kyi told the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the bodys Inter-Parliamentary Assembly which is meeting on Sept. 30-Oct. 3 in Myanmars capital Naypyidaw. In doing so, we ask for the constructive support of our regional neighbors.

Progress in every field will not be possible overnight, but we are determined to persevere to bring about positive change in Rakhine state as in other areas of our country affected by conflict, she said.

Rakhine is home to roughly 1.1 million stateless Muslim Rohingya, considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, who face persecution and are denied basic rights, including those of citizenship and freedom of movement. Their plight has drawn condemnation from the international community.

About 120,000 Rohingya live in squalid refugee camps after being displaced by communal violence with Rakhine Buddhists in 2012 that left more than 200 people dead.

The Buddhists and the states dominant Arakan National Party (ANP) believe that the three foreign members of the advisory commission will side with the Rohingya and turn the issue into an international one. The commissions six other members are Myanmar citizens.

Annan, who was heckled by protesters during the commissions first visit to Rakhine in early September, later told reporters at a press conference in the commercial capital Yangon that the bodys mandate is to provide recommendations to the government on measures for finding solutions to the states complex problems in accordance with international standards, and that it will remain rigorously impartial.

The commission must submit a report on its findings to the Myanmar government in 12 months.

A previous investigative committee was formed just after the outbreak of communal violence in 2012, but the suggestions it provided in a subsequent report were not implemented.
A Tibetan man sentenced to three years in prison after being linked to his sisters self-immolation protest in southwestern Chinas Sichuan province in 2013 has been released after completing his sentence, sources say.



Chodzin, whose sister Kalkyi burned herself to death in a challenge to Chinese rule, was freed on Sept. 27 and was taken by police back to his village in Dzamthang (in Chinese, Rangtang) county, a Tibetan living in India told RFAs Tibetan Service on Thursday.



After hearing he was to be released, Chodzins relatives had traveled quickly to Sichuans Mianyang prison to welcome him home, the source named Gyape said, citing contacts in the region.



However, they were not allowed to take him back, Gyape said. Instead, Chinese officials escorted him home.



The day after he returned, he went to the [nearby] Jonang monastery to pray, Gyape said.



Chodzin appeared lean and thin on his release, but his actual state of health is still unknown, Gyape said.



Chodzins sister Kalkyi, a 30-year-old mother of four, set herself ablaze in Dzamthangs Barma township on March 24, 2013 to protest Chinas policy of violent rule in Tibet and in Tibetan-populated areas [of Chinese provinces], a local source told RFA in an earlier report.



Following her protest, local Tibetans took her body to Jonang monastery, where monks and laypeople conducted funeral ceremonies, sources said.



Chodzin was later accused of involvement in his sisters protest and was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in Mianyang, Gyape said.



He was released after completing his sentence.



Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijings rule have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in 2008.



A total of 145 Tibetans living in China have now set themselves ablaze in self-immolations since the wave of fiery protests began in 2009, with most protests featuring calls for Tibetan freedom and the Dalai Lamas return from India, where he has lived since escaping Tibet during a failed national uprising in 1959.



Reported by Kunsang Tenzin for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.




Members of the Knesset (parliamentary) guards stand beside the flag-draped coffin of former Israeli President Shimon Peres during the burial ceremony at the funeral at Mount Herzl National Cemetery (AFP Photo/Ronen Zvulun)

Jerusalem (AFP) - The gathering of world leaders for Friday's funeral of Israel's ex-president Shimon Peres featured a rare show of Israel-Palestinian detente, US President Barack Obama's attempt at Hebrew and just a touch of humour.

- Handshake -

On arrival at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl national cemetery, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who knew Peres well and had negotiated with him, shook hands with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu before exchanging pleasantries with him and his wife, Sara.

The last substantial public meeting between Abbas and Netanyahu was in 2010, though there have been unconfirmed reports of secret meetings since then.

The rare gesture sparked debate among Palestinians.

- Pre-ceremony -

Under heavy security, with roads closed and thousands of officers deployed, dozens of world leaders descended on Mount Herzl accompanied by a small army of officials, aides and bodyguards.

Before proceedings began, the master of ceremonies felt compelled to remind the distinguished gathering as they greeted each other that they were at a funeral.

Britain's Prince Charles was present, though not in an official capacity, and no Arab leader save from Abbas attended.

- Bibi grieves -

Netanyahu acknowledged that he and his "political adversary" Peres had not always seen eye to eye but the prime minister was soon overcome with emotion.

His brother Yoni was killed 40 years ago during an operation to free Israeli hostages in Uganda. Yoni was buried at Mount Herzl by then defence minister, Shimon Peres.

- Bill Clinton too -

The former US president, a black kippa cap atop his white hair, welled up as he fondly remembered Israel's elder statesman.

"He started off life as Israel's brightest student, became its best teacher, and ended up its biggest dreamer," he said.

Two decades ago, Clinton's memorable eulogy at the funeral of assassinated Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin -- who along with Peres won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Oslo Accords -- ended with the words "Shalom Haver" ("Goodbye, my friend").

Story continues

- Moving tribute -

Peres's favourite prayer, "Avinu Malkeinu", was performed by Israeli artist David d'Or.

Chemi, one of Peres's two sons, broke down within the first few bars, hiding tears with hands pressed to his face.

- A touch of laughter -

His other son, Yoni, used his comments to poke gentle fun at his father's advanced age, saying the 93-year-old former president was "too young to die".

Peres's daughter Tsvia recalled her father's favourite dish, a tomato and cucumber salad prepared by his wife Sonia, who died in 2011.

- Obama tries his Hebrew -

"Toda Raba Haver Yakar," US President Barack Obama said during his turn at the lecturn -- "Thank you, my dear friend."

Also wearing the traditional Jewish kippa, Obama invoked a parallel between his path and that of Peres, who was born in a tiny Jewish "shtetl" in rural Poland.

"I think our friendship was rooted in the fact that I could somehow see myself in his story, and maybe he could see himself in mine," Obama said.

- Peace for 'all people' -

The traditional Jewish funeral prayer, the Kaddish, was recited by Peres's three children by his grave.

It was the voice of Tsvia that rose above the others. At the final blessing, which calls for peace "for the people of Israel", she added her own universal prayer: "And for all people."

Moments later, the coffin was lowered into the ground and slowly disappeared beneath piles of earth.
Azerbaijani's parliament has passed a resolution on resuming relations with the European Parliament that have been suspended for more than a year.

The vote on September 30 by the Milli Mejlis in Baku approved a resolution saying that steps taken by the European Parliament have paved the way for a resumption of dialogue and cooperation.

In September 2015, in response to the European Union's criticism of human rights abuses by the government in Baku, Azerbaijan's parliament terminated its membership in the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly.

The Euronest Parliamentary Assembly is a forum that includes members of the European Parliament and the national parliaments of Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.

The Azerbaijani parliament in September 2015 also suspended its participation in the European Union-Azerbaijan parliamentary cooperation committee.

A delegation of the European Parliament visited Azerbaijan from September 19 to September 21 for talks with Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev about restoring ties.

With reporting by Interfax and TASS
With most voters still undecided on the eve of Georgia's parliamentary elections, a mysterious audio recording has surfaced that is apparently intended to smear former President Mikheil Saakashvili and his party. The country's State Security Service is investigating whether its contents constitute a coup attempt.

The audio recording, uploaded on September 26 by an anonymous YouTube user, features the purported voices of Saakashvili and five parliamentarians from his United National Movement (ENM) discussing their options in the event of the party's defeat in the October 8 vote. The six can be heard considering the possibility of forming an opposition coalition government -- an idea dismissed by the voice attributed to Saakashvili -- or launching a long-term public protest in an effort to have the results of the elections overturned.

"Our task is to hold elections in a revolutionary atmosphere," says a voice alleged to be that of ENM parliamentarian Gigi Tsereteli. "This means stirring up the public."

Saakashvili has reportedly dismissed the recording as a fabrication, implying on his Facebook page that former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia (GD-DG) party came to power after defeating the ENM in the October 2012 parliamentary ballot, resorted to doctoring the audio in a last-ditch attempt to avoid "inevitable defeat" in the upcoming elections.

Parliamentarian Petre Tsiskarishvili, another ENM member whose voice can purportedly be heard in the audio, said that the alleged discussion was pieced together using altered recordings obtained from illegal surveillance carried out by the State Security Service, according to Civil.ge.

The ENM issued a statement denying any plans to destabilize the situation or plan a revolution. Parliamentarian Akaki Bobokhidze, also named as one of the five purported ENM members on the tape, denied ever having held a telephone conversation with Saakashvili this year, or that the five had met personally with Saakashvili.

The nearly 2 1/2 minute recording was posted on a YouTube channel maintained by "GeorgiaReality," whose profile only says "stay informed :)" and offers a number of videos critical of the ENM.

'Conspiracy' Probe

Even though the authenticity of the audio is questionable, Georgia's State Security Service has opened an investigation under Article 315/1 of the Criminal Code into a possible "conspiracy to overthrow the government," Civil.ge reported on September 27.

The service added that in the course of its investigation the origin and authenticity of the recording would be examined, and people featured in it would be questioned.

At the same time, it has formally asked "all relevant states" for help in the investigation. That request is presumably directed in the first instance at Ukraine. Saakashvili is currently governor of Odesa and holds Ukrainian citizenship. Since Georgia does not allow dual citizenship, he was stripped of his Georgian citizenship in December 2015.

The State Security Service summoned two of the putative interlocutors, Akaki Minashvili and Nugzar Tsiklauri, for questioning on September 27 -- and Tsiskarishvili and Tsereteli on September 28 together with another ENM member alleged to be part of the alleged discussion, Irma Nadirashvili, who immediately issued a statement pointing out that her voice is not heard on the tape.

The State Security Service said on September 29 that none of the five has complied with that summons, according to the Russian-language Interpressnews. Rustavi-2 television, owned by associates of Saakashvili, reported that Minashvili and Tsiklauri would agree to questioning only if investigators visited them.

On September 26, just hours before the audio was uploaded, Saakashvili had assured ENM supporters via Facebook live streaming video that the party's victory in the October 8 elections was "inevitable." Opinion polls suggest that many voters are disenchanted with GD-DG, but at the same time do not want the ENM to return to power, and that neither GD-DG nor the ENM is capable of winning a majority in the new parliament. If true, that could explain why some ENM members, including party Executive Secretary Giga Bokeria, might favor a coalition -- as claimed in the released audio recording by the voice attributed to Saakashvili, which rejects the idea as "not what I am fighting for."

'A Very Good Cell'

Saakashvili's successor as Georgian president, Giorgi Margvelashvili, responded on September 27 to the audio footage with an address in which he called on Saakashvili to stop interfering in the election campaign.

Russian media quoted Saakashvili's wife, Sandra Roelofs, as saying during a campaign rally in Zugdidi district that he would travel to Georgia to celebrate victory following the elections. The reports prompted Georgian Interior Minister Giorgi Mghebrishvili to warn publicly that Saakashvili would be arrested if he sets foot on Georgian territory, while former Prime Minister Ivanishvili suggested that "a very good cell" awaited the former president, according to Interfax.

U.S. Ambassador to Tbilisi Ian Kelly was quoted by Interpressnews.ge as commenting that "the only way to come to power is through the ballot box, any other method is illegitimate." It is not clear whether he was referring specifically to the released audio recording, or to the ongoing acrimonious exchange between the ENM and GD-DG of accusations of intent to destabilize the situation and/or falsify the outcome of the vote.

This is not the first time that audio footage has surfaced of a conversation between speakers whose voices resemble those of Saakashvili and senior ENM members. Eleven months ago, in late October 2015, footage was made public in which speakers purported to be those of Saakashvili, Bokeria, and Nika Gvaramia, head of the pro-Saakashvili Rustavi-2, discuss the need to "smash faces" in a "physical confrontation" with representatives of the authorities in the ongoing court battle over ownership of the embattled broadcaster.

The results of the State Security Service's probe into whether the recording was evidence of a coup plot have not been reported.


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.
Kacanik in particular has gained a reputation as the jihadist capital of the Balkans. In the past three years, at least 24 men from its population of 30,000 have left to fight for extremist groups like IS or Al-Qaeda in Syria and Iraq.

Adem's own path toward radicalization began when he received a Facebook invitation to attend a sermon hosted by an imam from a nearby town. He says he was "curious" about Islam. For the next five months, Adem attended sermons and Koran classes at a makeshift mosque where he and other young men lived.

The sermons were organized by Rinia Islame (Islamic Youth in Albanian), an Islamic charity operating in Kacanik. It is one among dozens of secretive organizations funded by Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states that promote an extreme version of Islam. The groups are accused of brainwashing youth and recruiting them for extremist causes abroad.

Adem says the sermons he attended were "very strict and harsh." "They told us not to shake hands with women and don't go to cafes or bars," he says.

There are indeed mounting outward signs of Islamic fundamentalism in Kacanik, where it is no longer uncommon to see women in Islamic veils or men with untrimmed beards and calf-length trousers, none of which has much real tradition in the country.

As Adem tells it, the sermons worked their way up from Koran lessons, to the meaning of jihad, to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

"My family doesn't practice religion very much," says Adem, who lives with his parents and two sisters in a crammed flat in Kacanik. "Only my grandfather and I."

Residents of Kacanik gather for "iftar," the twilight meal to break the day's fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, in June 2015. (AFP)

He says his family picked up on signs that he was becoming radicalized. "They said that if I want to practice religion, I can do it -- I can pray -- but not become a radical."

The sermons attended by Adem were given by Zeqirja Qazimi, a notorious imam who was jailed for 10 years on May 20 after he and six associates were convicted for fighting for IS militants in Syria from 2012 to 2014 and for trying to gather IS recruits.

"Imam Zekerija Qazimi came from Gjilan," says Adem, referring to a town in eastern Kosovo. "He was telling us about jihad."

Qazimi also posted a video on YouTube in which he said that the "blood of infidels is the best drink for us." Local media reported that Qazimi was responsible for recruiting 11 Kosovar fighters to IS; three were said to have been killed in Syria.

When I ask whether Adem has been threatened since turning his back on the extremists who radicalized him, his answer belies the bloodthirsty reputation of a group that routinely kills captives en masse and is said to ruthlessly execute suspected traitors. "I've never felt danger," he says. "It was my decision."

The Middle Eastern-funded charities have penetrated poor, rural communities like Kacanik that have been neglected by the government and where unemployment is around 40 percent, making young men easy targets for indoctrination.

The Islamic charities often run schools, dormitories, and welfare programs. But they also push a hard-line agenda that appears to have gained at least a minor foothold in Kacanik.
Activist Yanar Mohammed has been awarded Norway's 2016 Rafto Prize for her "work on behalf of women and minorities in war-torn Iraq."

The 55-year-old journalist and researcher heads the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, which she founded in 2003. It works with local groups to teach about human rights and offers shelter to women who are victims of violence.

"Sexual violence is often part of battle plans, and Iraq is just one of many places where women's rights are sacrificed for political and military objectives," the Rafto jury said.

In Iraq, it said, "there has been a huge increase in abuse and violence against women, including rape, abduction into prostitution, and honor killings."

Worth $20,000, the prize was created in 1986 in memory of Thorolf Rafto, a Norwegian academic and human rights activist and is administered by the Rafto Foundation for Human Rights.

Last year, Honduran Catholic priest Ismael Moreno Coto won the award. Previous Rafto Prize winners include Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi and Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, both of whom later became Nobel laureates.

Based on reporting by dpa and AFP


A court in Almaty has sentenced a former prison guard to nine years in jail in an inmate rape case.

The Turksib District Court on September 30 found Ruslan Khakimov guilty of raping inmate Natalya Slekishina and sentenced him the same day.

Slekishina, who gave a birth to a girl while in custody, filed a lawsuit against several guards of an Almaty detention center, accusing them of gang-raping her.

A DNA test revealed that Khakimov had fathered the child. The other prison guards were not charged but were brought to the trial that started on August 11 as witnesses.

Khakimov pleaded not guilty.

Slekishina, who continues to serve her prison term, said she is satisfied with the court's decision but added that she will work on bringing to justice other prison guards who she says raped her.

Slekishina's lawyer, Aiman Omarova, called the court's ruling precedent-setting and said her client will file a lawsuit against the Kazakh government for failure to provide secure conditions in custody.

Omarova added that rape in custody by prison guards can be defined as torture, stressing that Kazakhstan has international obligations to prevent torture in its penitentiary system.


Russia's Foreign Ministry has summoned the Netherlands' ambassador in Moscow over the Dutch-led international investigation which concluded that a Russian military missile fired from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine downed the MH17 civilian passenger jetliner in 2014.

The ministry said the October 3 meeting was in response to "similar actions" by Dutch authorities at The Hague.

Earlier this week, a team of international investigators presented findings showing that the Buk missile launcher used to shoot down the Malaysia Airlines flight originally came from Russian territory and was returned there after the July 17, 2014 tragedy -- despite Russia's repeated denials of involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

All 283 passengers and 15 crew members on the flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur were killed.

On September 30, the Dutch Foreign Ministry summoned Russias ambassador at The Hague for a diplomatic rebuke after Moscow made critical and dismissive remarks about the criminal investigation.

The Dutch ministry described Russia's reaction as "unacceptable" and "unfounded criticism."

On September 28, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the Joint Investigation Teams findings showed that the probe was "biased and politically motivated."

Based on reporting by Reuters, Interfax, and TASS


Dozens of people, some of them in military and traditional Cossack uniforms, have destroyed photos taken in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine that were on exhibit in Moscow.

The group of men and women entered the Sakharov Center in Moscow on September 29, carrying a large jar containing a red liquid with a label saying "Blood of Donbas Children Killed by Ukrainian Army."

They tore down all of the photos in the exhibition, which had been organized by the Center of Documentary Photography, demanding its closure and threatening to sue the organizers for "propagating extremism."

The photos were taken in Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where government forces have been fighting Russia-backed separatists since April 2014.

On September 28, a man sprayed the photographs with red paint and called the photographers -- Alyaksandr Vasyukovich of Belarus and Russia's Sergei Loiko -- "fascists."
Pakistan has urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to personally intervene to help defuse rising tensions with India over the divided and disputed region of Kashmir.

Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations, Maleeha Lodhi, said after his meeting with Ban on September 30 that it is "a dangerous moment for the region."

Lodhi said the time has come for "bold intervention" by Ban if Pakistan and India are to avoid a crisis because "we can see a crisis building up."

Tensions have been rising since India accused Pakistan-based militants of launching an assault on an army base in Indian-administered Kashmir in early September that killed 18 soldiers.

Pakistan said on September 29 that two of its soldiers were killed by Indian troops during a clash along Kashmir's de facto border.

India's military said it carried out "surgical strikes" along the line of control to thwart attacks that it said were being planned against cities in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP


Pope Francis has arrived in Georgia for a three-day trip to the Caucasus that will also take him to Azerbaijan as he meets with political and religious leaders in both countries.

Francis was greeted in Tbilisi on September 30 by Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili and by the leader of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia.

At the presidential palace in Tbilisi, standing beside Margvelashvili, Francis issuing a call for the respect of international law and the sovereign rights of nations.

His remarks, though measured, were seen as implicit criticism of Russia  which keeps military troops in Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions.

On October 2, Francis will fly to Baku and hold Mass at the Salesian-run Church of the Immaculate Conception. Later, he will visit the monument to those who died in the struggle for independence and meet with government leaders.

The pope's visit to Azerbaijan will end with a series of interreligious meetings, including one with the sheikh of Muslims in the Caucasus at the Heydar Aliyev mosque.

Based on reporting by AP and dpa
Donald Trump

Donald Trump admitted he did nothing to prepare for what turned into a nearly two-hour deposition he gave in June.

"I would say virtually nothing," Trump said when asked about what he did to prepare for the deposition, later adding he did not look at documents beforehand.

The footage of the deposition was released Friday after BuzzFeed News filed separate court motions seeking the full release of both the transcripts of the depositions and the video footage.

The deposition was part of a lawsuit Trump filed against restaurateurs who backed out of an agreement to operate in his Old Post Office hotel project in Washington, DC, after the Republican nominee made inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants in his speech announcing his presidential bid.

In the deposition, Trump suggested he planned those comments before his announcement.

Watch the two-part deposition below:

NOW WATCH: 'CHECK OUT SEX TAPE': Trump goes on raging tweetstorm ripping Miss Universe contestant





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Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak has praised the OPEC oil cartel's agreement to curb production but signaled that Russia intends to keep output at its current record levels.

"Everything will depend on the macroeconomic situation and companies' plans, but we are looking to keep current production volumes at the achieved level," he said on state television on September 29, one day after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to trim production by about 750,000 barrels a day.

"It was a very positive decision," Novak said. The agreement "will allow to lower price volatility...I think we can see already today that the market reacted positively."

The price of premium crude jumped by over 7 percent to $49.24 a barrel in London trading since the agreement was announced on September 28.

Novak credited increased "flexibility" shown by Saudi Arabia, OPEC's biggest producer, for making the agreement possible.

For the first time since 2014, Riyadh indicated it was willing to cut its own production to achieve OPEC's lower production target of 32.5 million barrels a day, allowing archrival Iran, as well as Nigeria and Libya, to keep raising output that has been held back by international sanctions and insurgencies.

Analysts credited Russia, as well as Algeria and Qatar, for helping break the impasse between Saudi Arabia and Iran over curbing production.

Novak openly pushed to allow Iran to raise its production back to levels around 4 million barrels a day that prevailed before sanctions were imposed in 2012. Sanctions on Iran's oil sector were lifted in January of this year.

Perhaps more importantly, Russian President Vladimir Putin last month came out in favor of reaching an agreement with OPEC to freeze production with an eye toward bolstering oil prices and the critical revenues that the Russian government derives from oil taxes.

Putin then met with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G20 summit in China in early September. After that meeting, Riyadh and Moscow jointly announced they were working on a production agreement to prop up oil prices.

Russia is the largest oil exporter outside OPEC and in September produced crude at an average of 11.1 million barrels a day, compared with 10.7 million in August, reaching a new post-Soviet record high, according to Bloomberg.

Novak said that Russia is willing to consider freezing output at different monthly levels, although "undoubtedly, September would be the month that objectively would suit us best."

Novak said Russia would like to see prices climb to the $50 to $60 range from the $40 to $50 range, an increase he said "would allow to satisfy both the interests of producers and consumers."

While asserting the Russia hopes to maintain its current output levels rather than cut back production, he said Moscow will continue to work with OPEC, which is expected to seek cooperation from producers outside the cartel like Russia and Mexico once it nails down the details of its own production agreement in the next month.

"Russia will closely examine the propositions that will be finalized and we will hold active consultations, talks with our colleagues, over these months," Novak said.

With reporting by AFP, Bloomberg, and TASS


In terms of its reputation, Russia has had one of its worst weeks ever. Incensed that Moscow is pushing ahead with the "barbarous" bombing of Aleppo and angry over an attack on an aid convoy that is widely blamed on Russian and Syrian forces, the United States is threatening to stop all cooperation with the Kremlin on Syria. And an international investigation concluded that it was a Russian missile system, smuggled into separatist-held territory in Ukraine and then spirited back across the border, that brought down a Malaysia Airlines jet in 2014 and killed all 298 people aboard.

What are the potential consequences for Russia, short-term and long?

No Grand Alliance?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has long sought to forge a common front with the United States on terrorism, casting his country as an indispensable partner whose methods, abroad and at home, should not be questioned by Washington. In place since Putin's 1999-2000 war in Chechnya -- and stepped up in a speech at the UN a year ago, two days before he launched Russia's air campaign in Syria -- this dream seemed close to reality when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, reached a deal this month to renew a cease-fire, work together against terrorist groups, and lay the foundations for peace talks. But for now, such a partnership seems much more unlikely: Kerry said on September 29 that the United States is "on the verge of suspending" its discussion with Russia on Syria "because it is irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place." In a phone call the same day, President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel "strongly condemned the barbarous Russian and Syrian regime air strikes against eastern Aleppo," the White House said.

No Grand Bargain

For Russia, a side benefit of a common front on Syria or terrorism would be the hope that the West would put less pressure on Moscow to fulfill its obligations under the Minsk accord -- the February 2015 deal to end the war between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The United States and EU say they steer clear of quid-pro-quo arrangements, and the Joint Investigation Team's (JIT) finding about the downing of MH17 makes any such understanding even less likely.

In The Dock?

Evidence of Russian involvement in the MH17 tragedy prompted calls for Moscow to face a formal war-crimes investigation. The path to such a prosecution would be long and filled with hurdles: Russia has used its clout as a permanent UN Security Council member to block the creation of an international tribunal to try any suspects who come to light, and has passed a law saying its own legislation can take precedence over rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, where a civil case claiming that Putin ultimately bears responsibility has been filed. But Human Rights Watch says that Russia could potentially face charges before the International Criminal Court or the courts of individual countries.

As for Syria, Kerry told a conference on September 29 that the ongoing air strikes on Aleppo amounted to war crimes, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the same of the bombing of two big hospitals there earlier that day. Faced with criticism over civilian deaths in Syria, Russia seems to have stepped up claims that the United States is no less culpable. Amid calls for a probe into the attack on an aid convoy in Syria, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova demanded "an unbiased investigation" of recent U.S. air strikes that she said killed civilians in Afghanistan.

U.S. Ties

Some analysts were surprised when Russia lashed out vociferously over a U.S. air strike that killed Syrian government troops, saying that the angry reaction undermined the cooperation agreement with Washington -- a deal that took plenty of painstaking diplomacy and seemed to suit the Kremlin's interests in Syria. One reason Russia may be reluctant to seek peace in Syria and smooth relations with the United States now could be concern that the U.S. approach might change after a new president is inaugurated in January. But the ongoing bombing of Aleppo, and the findings of the MH17 investigation, seem likely to decrease the chances that the next president -- whether it is Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump -- will seek a swift rapprochement with Russia. Trump has been far more conciliatory than Clinton toward the Kremlin, but the winning candidate is likely to face pressure from Congress and other quarters to be wary of Russia's intentions.

Test Of Time

Russia appears to be hoping the United States will not follow through on its threat to suspend talks on a Syria cease-fire and peace process. On September 30 -- two days after Kerry's initial warning, and one day after he said Washington was "on the verge" of halting the discussion -- Lavrov was planning to speak to Kerry again. Western officials have warned that the longer the war in Syria rages on, the greater the risk of a quagmire for Russian forces there and the danger of militant attacks on Russia itself. But if the current efforts fall apart entirely, Putin may believe that he has little to lose in the long run. Continuation of the conflict could enable President Bashar al-Assad's government to take more territory from rebels, potentially strengthening Russia's role in any future peace negotiations and improving its ability to shape a postwar Syria -- however distant that prospect now seems. Putin, who many expect to seek a new six-year term in an election due in 2018, may also believe that the United States and other Western countries will eventually seek to mend relations, as Obama did when he launched a "reset" of Russia ties early in his first term -- about a year after Russian forces invaded ex-Soviet Georgia in 2008.
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."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the United States of trying to protect a militant extremist group in Syria in its effort to overthrow the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Lavrov made the accusations in an interview with BBC World News on September 30.

He said Washington had vowed to "take as a priority an obligation to separate" some opposition fighters in Syria from the former Al-Qaeda affiliate once known as Al-Nusra Front.

But Lavrov accused the United States of failing to do so.

The Russian foreign minister said Russia has "more and more reasons to believe that from the very beginning the plan was to spare Al-Nusra and to keep it just in case for Plan B or stage two, when it would be time to change the regime."

Moscow has repeatedly accused the United States of failing in its commitment to persuade rebel forces to distance themselves from militant groups such as Al-Nusra, which changed its name to Fateh al-Sham Front in July after renouncing its ties to Al-Qaeda.

Lavrov told the BBC he would speak with Kerry about the issue again on September 30.

A spokesman for the U.S. State Department said on the same day that it was difficult to continue to believe in a diplomatic process for Syria considering the events happening there on the ground.

Meanwhile, Russian news agencies on September 30 quoted Lavrov as saying that a cease-fire deal on Syria that Moscow agreed with Washington was still working.

He also said Russia was not using banned weapons in Syria and demanded evidence from those accusing Moscow of hitting civilian targets with air strikes in Aleppo's opposition-controlled east.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on September 29 that Washington was on the verge of suspending talks with Russia cooperation in Syria over the collapse of the cease-fire on September 19.

WATCH: U.S. Calls Russian Air Strikes 'Barbarism'

Since then, Russian and Syrian warplanes have unleashed devastating bombardments of rebel-held neighborhoods in the city of Aleppo.

Together with rebel fighters, some 250,000 civilians are surrounded by Syrian government forces in those parts of Aleppo.

Kerry's comments came hours after the Kremlin dismissed an earlier U.S. threat to suspend cooperation with Moscow in Syria, and said Russian forces would continue to support a government offensive on rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, BBC, Interfax, and TASS


Russia has rejected a claim by a Syria monitoring group that its air strikes killed nearly 10,000 people in the war-torn country in the past year.

"We do not consider information about what happens in Syria from an organization based in Britain to be reliable," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on September 30.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that more than 9,364 people were killed by Russian air strikes, including 3,804 civilians and 906 children, in addition to rebel fighters seeking to topple the Moscow-backed Syrian regime.

The group added that the strikes killed 2,746 members of the Islamic State extremist movement and 2,814 fighters from other rebel Islamist groups.

On September 30, 2015, Russia began an air campaign backing forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Opposition activists have blamed Russia for the recent air campaign against rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo that has killed more than 200 civilians in the past two weeks.

Based on reporting by AP and dpa
Final News Summary For September 1, 2017

-- EDITOR'S NOTE: We have started a new Ukraine Live Blog as of September 2, 2017. Find it here.

-- Ukraine says it will introduce new border-crossing rules from next year, affecting citizens of countries that pose risks for Ukraine.

-- The Association Agreement strengthening ties between Ukraine and the European Union entered into force on September 1, marking an end to four years of political drama surrounding the accord.

-- The trial of Crimean journalist Mykola Semena will resume later this month after the first hearing in weeks produced little progress toward a resolution of the politically charged case.

*NOTE: Times are stated according to local time in Kyiv (GMT +3)
The UN mission in Afghanistan has condemned the killing of at least 15 civilians in what it says was an unmanned U.S. drone strike in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on September 30 called upon the Afghan government and international military forces to launch an independent investigation into the incident.

The United States has acknowledged carrying out the air strike on September 28, which was reportedly targeting members of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group. It said an investigation is under way.

According to UNAMA, villagers had gathered to celebrate the return of a tribal elder from the hajj pilgrimage and were reportedly sleeping in a guesthouse of the elder when the air strike occurred.

Islamic State members also died in the attack, the UNAMA statement added, citing government sources.

Nangarhar province has been a focus for Islamic State activity since 2015.

Based on reporting by dpa, Reuters, and AP
World leaders gathered in Jerusalem to pay homage to former Israeli leader Shimon Peres, who was laid to rest at a state funeral. He died on September 28 at the age of 93. Peres shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for helping negotiate a historic interim peace agreement with the Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Peres left behind a legacy of hope. U.S. President Barack Obama praised Peres, saying he treated all people with dignity and respect. (Reuters, AP video)
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk attends a forum on startups in Hong Kong, China January 26, 2016. REUTERS/Bobby Yip/File Photo

Just days after SpaceX founder Elon Musk delivered his sweeping vision of colonizing Mars, a Colorado congressman is calling on government agencies to take over an investigation of the aerospace company's recent launchpad rocket explosion.

The move  a signed congressional letter dated Thursday, September 29  follows on the heels of two recent explosions of uncrewed Falcon 9 rockets.

"These failures could have spelled disaster, even loss of life, had critical national security payloads or NASA crew been aboard those rockets," the letter states. "Both SpaceX failures occurred after the Air Force certified the Falcon 9 launch vehicle for U.S. national security launches, less than fifteen months ago."

Congressman Mike Coffman (R-CO) penned the four-page congressional letter, which was cosigned by nine other House Republicans. (The letter's full text is at the end of this post.)

It asks for increased scrutiny of SpaceX's investigation practices, given its plans with NASA to launch astronauts to the International Space Station. It also lobs pointed questions at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), NASA, and the US Air Force (USAF) about the certification process of SpaceX hardware, pricing schemes, risk assessment, and more.

Semi-internal investigations

An explosion on the launch site of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is shown in this still image from video in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. September 1, 2016. U.S. Launch Report/Handout via REUTERS

The first SpaceX incident in question was an in-flight explosion of a Falcon 9 rocket on June 28, 2015, destroying a telecommunications satellite.

SpaceX chose to do an internal accident investigation with some FAA oversight, ultimately determining that a faulty strut had caused the accident.

The most recent accident was a launchpad fireball of a Falcon 9 rocket on September 1, 2016, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The percussive blaze destroyed Facebook's $200 million Amos-6 satellite, and SpaceX again exercised a federal law to perform its own investigation (since no people were harmed). That investigation isn't done, though a helium system seems to be at fault.

Story continues

For its ongoing investigation, SpaceX nearly doubled its team to a core group of "around 20 people," of which "more than half are representatives from FAA, NASA, US Air Force and industry experts," a company spokesperson previously told Business Insider in an email.

Leading the entire group is Hans Koenigsmann  SpaceX's vice president of mission assurance.

"[W]e believe he is the best person to do so," the spokesperson said. "We are collaborating very closely with the participating agencies, sharing raw data and providing access to meetings."

But the 10 signers of the congressional letter do not seem satisfied with the internally led process.

"We feel strongly that the current investigation should be led by NASA and the Air Force to ensure that proper investigative engineering rigor is applied and that the outcomes are sufficient to prevent NASA and military launch mishaps in the future," the draft letter states.

John Taylor, a SpaceX spokesperson, declined to comment when provided a copy of the letter.

A space battle on Capitol Hill

mike coffman representative colorado AP_16141658955371

Raising issues about SpaceX, its failures, and its treatment by the US government is not a first for Coffman.

As a member of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee (which oversees military spacecraft), he did so in 2015 on multiple occasions, and in 2014 as well.

The congressman now faces a heated 2016 reelection campaign in his district  the home of SpaceX's biggest competitor, United Launch Alliance (ULA), which is itself a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Records show that Coffman has publicly accepted more than $51,000 in campaign donations from Lockheed Martin during his career.

Coffman has also publicly supported ULA.

Samantha Masunaga, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, captured the scuffle well in a story published in May 2016:

"Traditional launch providers see their market being threatened by nontraditional entrants," said Loren Thompson, aerospace analyst with the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va., think tank. "Basically, this is competition between launch providers over market share and money that in the political process gets related to local interests."

In 2015, United Launch Alliance spent $1.4 million on lobbying, up from $1 million the year before, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks federal campaign contributions and lobbying efforts on its website opensecrets.org.

That same year, SpaceX spent $1.7 million on lobbying, up from $1.5 million in 2014.

The sparring has been especially heated between the two companies as they compete for government launch contracts worth tens of billions of dollars.

A government rule limiting the use of Russian-made engines  which ULA has relied on for its rockets  in the launch of military spacecraft has not helped matters for the company. (SpaceX makes its own rocket engines.)

Business Insider contacted Rep. Coffman's press secretary as well as ULA and Lockheed Martin for this story, but we did not immediately receive a response. A Boeing representative could not immediately provide a comment.

How federal agencies initially responded

space x launch and landing falcon 9 rocket

The letter calls on the FAA, USAF, and NASA for their responses to the letter by October 31, 2016.

Business Insider forwarded both a draft and then a signed letter to those agencies as well as to the DoD (which is named in the letter) and asked for comment.

Hank Price, an FAA spokesperson, told Business Insider "it'd take some time to draft a response, and we wouldn't respond to it until we'd spoken to the Congressman first."

Another FAA spokesperson later told Business Insider in an email: "The FAA received the letter late Thursday afternoon and has not had a chance to review it. Safety of all operations, including commercial space, is our top priority, and the FAA is closely overseeing the accident investigation. We will respond to the members of Congress in a timely manner."

NASA representatives for the agency's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate told Business Insider in an email "we haven't officially received this, but even when we do, we wouldn't be able to comment in advance of responding."

Laura Seal, a DoD spokesperson, told Business Insider by email that the "letter is not addressed to the Department of Defense. If we do receive a letter from Congress on this topic for response, we would respond directly to the author."

Representatives at the USAF did not immediately reply.

The congressional letter

Below is the full text of the signed letter.

Congressional Letter to AF, NASA, FAA on Assured Access to Space by Rebecca Harrington on Scribd

Correction: In one instance of a previous version of this story, Rep. Mike Coffman was misidentified in as a Senator.

NOW WATCH: Elon Musk rarely hires non-US citizens to work at SpaceX  heres why





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Gov. Terry McAuliffe supports the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The project would create jobs while the pipeline itself would be a safer alternative to rail and roads for transporting natural gas, he explains. He also recently said on his Ask the Governor radio broadcast on Northern Virginias WTOP that even if he opposed the pipeline he could not unilaterally stop it. The project is subject to regulatory overview, not to gubernatorial fiat. Opponents must secure statutory changes if they are to prevail. One of the most challenging arguments regarding energy generally and pipelines specifically is not addressed by secular law. McAuliffe left out the theological implications, to no ones great surprise.

Virginia is not alone. A tense pipeline debate is occurring in the Dakotas, too. The Standing Rock Sioux Nation opposes the Dakota Access Pipeline, which it says would violate sacred tribal grounds. It also would threaten the water supply, protesters believe. The Episcopal Church enjoys a strong presence among the tribes; the national denomination lines up with them. Michael Curry, the churchs presiding bishop, has visited the region to encourage the Standing Rock Sioux. He cited biblical precedent for Standing Rocks claim.

The Times-Dispatch does not inherently endorse or oppose pipelines. Each must be judged on its merits. Domestic natural gas serves as a welcome alternative to imported fuels. We believe energy must be regulated, too. Regarding the various pipeline questions, the Sioux make the strongest case against the one proposed for their front yard. Indians have earned considerable deference. The issue transcends the redress of wrongs committed against them as well.
WASHINGTON

The question about the TPP  the Trans-Pacific Partnership, President Obamas signature trade agreement  is whether its already gone to the political morgue or whether its still in intensive care. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump oppose the agreement, while the president has urged ratification. With Obamas term ending and his already-modest influence eroding by the day, TPP seems dead.

But it may still be in intensive care.

In a speech to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank, Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee whose jurisdiction includes trade agreements, said that the TPP could still be ratified in the lame-duck session after the election and before a new Congress takes office.

Brady gave two main reasons to approve the TPP.

The first is geopolitical: It would maintain and enhance American influence in the Asia-Pacific region and act as a counterweight to Chinas growing economic and political power.

As Obama has often argued, TPP would give the United States a major role in regulating global commerce in the 21st century. The trade agreement codifies rules on intellectual property (patents, copyrights), data flows and state-owned firms, among other things. Ratification of TPP would fortify Asian confidence that the United States intends to remain a Pacific power. Rejection would sow doubts.

The second reason is economic: Asia remains a fast-growing region. TPP would eliminate most tariffs among the 12 member countries, aiding American exporters in these markets. The advantage may be particularly important in services (tourism, consulting, finance and engineering), where U.S. firms are especially strong. In 2015, the United States had a $762 billion deficit in goods trade (machinery, steel, medical equipment) and a $262 billion surplus in services trade, leaving an overall deficit of $500 billion.

According to the Peterson Institute, the 12 countries in the TPP accounted for about 36 percent of the world economy and 24 percent of global trade in 2014. The biggest countries ranked by their economies are the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia and Mexico. The other countries are Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. Other countries  say, South Korea and Indonesia  might someday join. Perhaps even China.

Still, anti-trade sentiment is pervasive in the campaign. Why doesnt Brady dismiss TPPs prospects as bleak?

People change once they get into office, he says. Translation: The campaigns anti-trade and anti-globalization rhetoric might recede before the realities of governing. Although Brady didnt say so, one implication is that a victorious Hillary Clinton might put up only token opposition to TPP, both because the case for approval is strong and because she might feel obligated to Obama for his political support.

Even with this, getting a deal would be difficult. Brady indicated that there are some details to the TPP that require further explanation to members of Congress or renegotiation. These include rules on drug pricing, data storage and tobacco products, according to a spokesperson for Brady.

In addition, with many Democrats adamantly opposed to TPP, President Obama would need to rely heavily on Republicans to approve the agreement. Unless the president can round up enough Democratic votes to ensure victory, its unlikely that Republicans would even allow the agreement to be taken up.

We are running out of time, Brady told the Peterson audience. The TPP may yet wind up in the political morgue.
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Students at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech will hold their biannual Community Dog Wash on Saturday, Oct. 1, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg.

The dog wash will be held at the rear of the veterinary college complex on 245 Duck Pond Drive, on the side closest to Southgate Drive.

Signs on Southgate Drive and Duck Pond Drive will guide participants to the event, and ample parking will be provided behind the building.

Presented by doctor of veterinary medicine students enrolled in the college, the dog wash is always a popular community event. The cost of the dog wash is $10, and for an additional $5 customers can have their dogs nails trimmed and ears cleaned.

Animals will be washed on a first-come, first-served basis, and no appointments are necessary. Dogs will be washed while owners wait. Dogs must be on a leash and be at least 5 months old with current vaccinations. Please provide proof of rabies vaccination upon arrival.

Proceeds from the event will go to its sponsors: the Student Chapter of the American Veterinary Medical Association, a professional organization for doctor of veterinary medicine students, and the doctor of veterinary medicine Classes of 2019 and 2020.

For more information about the dog wash, please email Laura Parkhurst at dawnstar@vt.edu or Angela Ives at amives@vt.edu.

For more information about the dog wash, please email Laura Parkhurst at dawnstar@vt.edu or Angela Ives at amives@vt.edu.

Submitted by Virginia Tech
PITTSBURGH, PA--(Marketwired - September 29, 2016) - Michael Baker International, a global leader in engineering, planning and consulting services, announced today the promotion of Dale Spaulding, P.E., to director of the newly created Pennsylvania Headquarters Region. Michael Baker's Headquarters Region consists of the company's Pittsburgh (corporate headquarters), Harrisburg and Fort Washington/Philadelphia offices.

To recognize its significant home-base presence in Pennsylvania and acknowledge the company's largest single client, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Michael Baker established the Pennsylvania Headquarters Region. In his leadership role, Mr. Spaulding will continue to cultivate strong, engaged, long-term relationships with clients and other key stakeholders in the state. He also will lead business development efforts and oversee marketing, resource allocation and acquisition, talent management and development for more than 800 Michael Baker colleagues in the region.

Mr. Spaulding, who will be based in the firm's Moon Township office, brings more than 30 years of experience in civil engineering, environmental planning and construction management. His experience includes planning, permitting, design and construction management of civil infrastructure projects ranging in size from $5 million to $1.3 billion. The variety of complex projects he has led includes simple town road improvements to the construction of major wastewater treatment plants. His collective experience includes planning; design; right-of-way; utility coordination; public outreach; local/state/federal permitting and construction management.

"Our Pennsylvania Headquarters Region requires a versatile leader who can partner with one of the firm's largest clients while identifying new avenues for growth in our home state," said Kurt Bergman, CEO of Michael Baker International. "Based on his success with building business and managing complex projects for clients, I'm confident Dale will demonstrate how 'We Make a Difference' for the clients and communities we serve in Pennsylvania."

As director of the Pennsylvania Headquarters Region, Mr. Spaulding will report to Michael Baker's Chief Operating Officer, Brian Lutes.

Since 2010, Mr. Spaulding has served as vice president and office executive for the New York City, Rensselaer and White Plains operations for Michael Baker, responsible for the daily operation and development of the statewide engineering and construction management practice. He was the principal in charge for a number of signature projects in the New York metro area including the World Trade Center flood resilience bollard protection system for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and construction management services for the upgrade of the Newtown Creek Water Pollution Control Plant for the new York City Department of Environmental Protection.

"Michael Baker International was founded in Pennsylvania more than 76 years ago and our ties to the state run deep. We've contributed to revitalizing infrastructure for clients throughout Pennsylvania and many of our industry renowned innovations were developed in the state," said Mr. Spaulding. "I look forward to continuing our legacy of success in the region by creating new opportunities for our colleagues and by serving our clients with a full continuum of services."

Mr. Spaulding contributes his time as a member of multiple professional organizations, including: American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) New York; American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and Beta Gamma Sigma (BGS), an international academic honor society for achievement in the study of business.

He is a registered professional engineer and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from the University of Vermont and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of New Hampshire.

About Michael Baker International

Michael Baker International is a leading global provider of engineering and consulting services, which include planning, architectural, environmental, construction, program management and full life-cycle support services as well as information technology and communications services and solutions. The company provides its comprehensive range of services and solutions in support of U.S. federal, state, and municipal governments, foreign allied governments, and a wide range of commercial clients. Michael Baker International has more than 6,000 employees in more than 90 locations across the U.S. and internationally. To learn more, visit www.mbakerintl.com.
(Adds details on Couto's new position)

MAPUTO, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Mozambique Energy Minister Pedro Couto has been sacked, the presidency said on Thursday, a month before Italy's Eni is due to finalise an offshore gas project worth tens of billions of dollars.

No reason was given for the dismissal of Couto, who had held the energy portfolio since January 2015. A separate statement said he had been appointed as president of Mozambique's Cahora Bassa hydroelectric power company.

The southern African state discovered offshore gas reserves six years ago amounting to some 85 trillion cubic feet, one of the largest finds in a decade and enough to supply Germany, Britain, France and Italy for nearly two decades.

The gas offers Mozambique an opportunity to transform itself from one of the world's poorest countries into a middle-income state and a major global liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter.

Negotiations with operators Eni and U.S. firm Anadarko have dragged on for years due to disputes over terms and concerns about falling energy prices. However, there have been several signs of significant progress in recent months.

Eni met with bankers in London last week about project financing to develop the Coral field, a significant step in getting the first of a series of long-delayed LNG projects off the ground.

Eni struck a deal in July with Samsung Heavy as part of a consortium with France's Technip and Japan's JGC to build a floating LNG platform in a deal worth around $5.4 billion.

Exxon Mobil is close to buying into Eni's Mozambique's assets, sources told Reuters last month.

(Reporting by Manuel Mucari, writing by Joe Brock, editing by Mark Heinrich)
TWO men accused of taking a schoolgirl to a flat and forcing her to perform sex acts on five men have denied she was held against her will and abused.

The complainant told police in 2003, when she was 13, she had been picked up by Masoued Malik (32) and an Iraqi man and taken to a flat where she was forced to perform sex acts on five men, including Malik.

The girl, now 27, also told police Naeem Rafiq (33) was at the flat and she was held against her will, like somebody was holding the bedroom door shut from the outside.

Malik told police in 2003 he had had sex with the girl but believed she was 16.

Both men admitted being at the flat, but denied she was held against her will and abused at an ongoing trial at Sheffield Crown Court.

Six other men on trial also deny sexually exploiting her during the same time period.

Malik denies rape, false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit indecent assault and Rafiq denies conspiracy to commit indecent assault and false imprisonment.

Giving evidence, Malik said in 2003 when he was 18 to 19 years-old he used to hang around Rotherham town centre and Boots alleyway quite often.

He said at the time he was working at the KP Nuts factory and would occasionally associate with Rafiq.

Malik said he had sex with the complainant twice in 2003 and she had told him she was at college.

Giving evidence Malik and Rafiq both admitted to being in a flat with the complainant around August 2003, an Iraqi man and another man, but deny any sexual activity took place.

The jury heard a phone call was made on Rafiqs mobile phone to the girl and Malik and the Iraqi man went to pick her up while Rafiq stayed at the flat.

Miss Michelle Colborne, prosecuting, said Malik went to pick her up as he knew the girl would get in the car if he was there because she thought at the time he was kind and Rafiq invited other men round to have a turn on her.

Miss Colborne said in his October 2003 police interview Malik said he went to pick her up because Nemy wanted to see her and it was obvious sex was taking place in the flat but didnt see it.

Malik also told police 13 years ago that three men, including Rafiq, were in the bedroom with the girl for 30 minutes each.

Miss Colborne asked if he thought it was strange different men were going in and coming out or if he thought to check on her.

Malik said he didnt and the girl would have said if she was uncomfortable, adding he didnt know what went on behind closed doors.

Miss Colborne said: You could hear her calling: Masy while another man was in the room and you told her she had to get on with it and you were all laughing at her.

Miss Colborne said Rafiq was lying when he said no sexual activity took place at the flat and he had not engaged in any.

Rafiq said: Ive taken an oath, Ive not come here to lie, Ive come here to tell the truth.

Miss Colborne replied: You left the living room and went into the bedroom and it was your idea to pick the girl up.

Rafiq responded: No.

All eight men on trial deny the charges. The trial continues.
Mountain Province Diamonds announces 3Q 2022 production and sales results Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. has announced production and sales results for the third quarter ended September 30, from the Gahcho Kue Diamond Mine. According to the company, 1,451,455 carats recovered, 7% lower than Q3 2021, and a 15% increase...

Hong Kongs jewellery export dips 17.6% in September Hong Kongs government data revealed that exports of jewellery, goldsmiths and silversmiths wares were down 23.1 per cent year on year to HK$18.24 bn which is around $2.32 bn during September 2022.

Diamcor more than doubles Q2 revenue Diamcor generated gross revenues of about $3 million from its operations in the interim period ended September 30, 2022, compared to $1,4 million for the same period in the previous year. The company is still conducting trial mining exercises at its...

IBJA commits to Declaration of Responsibility & Sustainability Principles The Indian gold industry has signed a Declaration of Responsibility and Sustainability Principles, convened by the LBMA and the World Gold Council, which expresses a commitment to operate responsibly and sustainably, based on a clear set of shared goals...
The World Federation of Diamond Bourses' (WFDB) Executive Committee discussed the major challenges facing the global industry at its meeting in London this week. The gathering focused on the issues of financing, the need for the trade to demonstrate clearly that it is self-regulating, synthetic stones, and the success of the launch of the Young Diamantaires initiative.

"Diamond companies, especially the small and medium-sized firms who make up the bulk of our membership, cannot easily access financing," explained WFDB President Ernie Blom. "Diamond manufacturing and trading companies need to finance their operations, however with banks facing higher capital requirements, risk aversion and increased regulatory burden, the financing they make available to diamantaires has fallen significantly in recent years and that has meant reduced operational flexibility and increased vulnerability to market movements for diamond companies.

"The WFDB aims to proactively address the issue of declining trade financing with a diamond financing seminar and roundtable discussion at the Presidents Meeting in Mumbai in January 2017. We will be inviting representatives from a wide range of organisations, including banks, insurance companies and funds, to understand our needs and to see that we are a well-organised industry that acts prudently," he said.

Blom added that a lengthy discussion was held on the impact of undisclosed synthetic diamonds on natural, mined diamonds. "Whilst they are a very small part of the overall market, our fear is that undisclosed synthetic diamonds could undermine consumer confidence in our product and industry as a result of this underhand activity." The Executive Committee discussed the importance of The WFDB Charter on Disclosure of Synthetic, Treated Natural and Natural Diamonds, and the requirement of its 30 affiliated bourses to comply.

Although the diamond trade is one of the best-regulated in the world, it was agreed that it must demonstrate this clearly and take further steps to show consumers and others that it is a transparent and responsible industry.

The Young Diamantaires initiative was praised for encouraging the younger generation of diamantaires into the diamond and jewellery businesses. Scores of members of diamond companies have joined the group, bringing new ideas for how to market diamonds in the new technological era, the meeting was told.

Alex Shishlo, Editor of the Rough&Polished European Bureau in Brussels






The Kimberley Process said Zimbabwe is free to regulate its diamond industry and it will not interfere in the decision by the southern African country to consolidate mining firms into one.

The Herald newspaper quoted KP chairperson Ahmed Bin Sulayem as saying that the consolidation of diamond mining firms was an internal issue.

"This is the situation that Zimbabwe has taken, and they know what is best for them, he was quoted as saying during his visit to Harare.

From our side, we are working on coming to a solution that brings the KPCS and bring all the producing countries to know the value of the rough diamonds. We will, at the end of this month, hold a workshop on valuation for rough diamonds."

Suyalem said he had a fruitful meeting with President Robert Mugabe, but could not elaborate.

He also visited Marange diamond fields prior to his meeting with Mugabe.

Sulayem would visit Namibia after Zimbabwe.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




Israeli exports were down 9 per cent to approximately $4 bn in the first six months of 2016. During that period, jewellery exports surged 3 per cent, totaling $340 mn, according to the latest figures announced recently by the Ministry of Economy in Israel.

During said period, Israeli exports were characterised by a sharp increase in the international trade of service, and a continued decrease in the exports of goods.

The service sector grew 13 per cent in the first half of the year, largely due to the expansion of the high-tech industry (which comprises 50 per cent of the service sector today).

Shipment of goods, however, continued to fall, and decreased by 5.7 per cent, totalling $2.8 bn. Exports of goods excepting diamonds decreased by 5.2 per cent totalling US $2.4 bn.



Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished




NICTD

U.S. Congressman Pete Visclosky announced this week that the U.S. Department of Transportations (USDOT) Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has given the West Lake Corridor (WLC) extension of the South Shore Line (SSL) expansion the green light to move into the project development phase.

I am excited to learn that the FTA has recognized the value of the South Shore expansion through this designation. It is another successful step forward to not just expand South Shore service, but to build a regional economy that provides innumerable benefits for current Northwest Indiana residents and future generations, Congressman Visclosky said.

The SSL link connects Northwest Indiana to Chicago and Cook County, Illinois. The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD) suggests that the WLC project would be a southern branch extension of the SSL to serve growing areas in Lake County, Indiana. NICTD says the project is meant to expand the systems service coverage, improve accessibility for passengers and stimulate Lake Countys economy.

Congressman Visclosky added that he has  no doubt that the projects success is resultant of the resilient efforts of the NICTD and the RDA, as well as the state of Indiana and its contributing communities.

Their collective support has generated this outstanding forward momentum. I will continue to work very hard to support the efforts to have commuter trains running on the new expanded track as soon as possible, Congressman Visclosky said.

Michael Noland, President of NICTD, said, This is great news. We have been working closely with the congressmans office, the FTA and communities that would be served by the West Lake Corridor and look forward to advancing the project through the environmental and preliminary engineering process. Improving access to jobs by making commuter rail service faster and more convenient will lay the groundwork for new private development throughout the region.

Bill Hanna, president and CEO of the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority (NIRDA), said, This is a key step toward completion of the West Lake expansion of the South Shore line. We are now closer than ever before to the largest commuter rail investment in Indiana historyan investment that will create thousands of jobs in Northwest Indiana and provide world-class access to Chicago, the ninth-largest economy on the planet.

Hanna added that members of the NIRDA are grateful for Congressman Viscloskys support, as well as that of the state of Indiana and the NICTD, and he looks forward to continuing to collaborate through the completion of the new line.

The project aims to:

Serve high-growth areas in central, southern and western Lake County

More efficiently connect Northwest Indiana residents to downtown Chicago jobs and other attractions

Establish a reliable modal alternative to driving between the two metropolitan regions

Lower commuting travel times and costs

Boost NICTD system ridership

Create jobs in Northwest Indiana

Provide a valued transportation mode for all Northwest Indiana residents

Additional information regarding the FTA grant process can be found here.
Takeaway.com Holding B.V., an online food delivery marketplace in Continental Europe, announced Friday its ordinary shares offered in the initial public offering on Euronext Amsterdam have been priced at 23 euros per share. This values Takeaway.com at an enterprise value of approximately 849 million euros and a market capitalization of approximately 993 million euros.

Listing and first trading of the shares will occur Friday, September 30 under the symbol "TKWY".

The company said the total size of the Offering amounts to approximately 328 million euros prior to exercise of the over-allotment option.

The offering comprises 7.61 million newly issued Shares, raising approximately 175 million euros of primary gross proceeds, and, excluding any exercise of the Over-allotment Option, 6.66 million existing Shares, resulting in approximately 153 million euros of secondary gross proceeds

These shares will represent 33.1% of the company's total issued share capital post-IPO assuming no exercise of the Over-allotment Option and 38.0% assuming full exercise of the Over-allotment Option.

Jitse Groen, CEO of Takeaway.com, said: "The level of interest in our IPO underpins our strong belief that we have an attractive investment story with significant growth and value-creation opportunities."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Italy's producer prices continued to decline in August, though at a slower pace than in the previous month, data from the statistical office Istat showed Friday.

Producer prices fell 1.1 percent year-over-year in August, following a 1.5 percent drop in the preceding month.

Domestic market prices slid 1.1 percent annually in August and prices in the foreign market by 0.9 percent.

On a monthly basis, producer prices edged down 0.2 percent from July, when it rose by 1.1 percent. It was the first decrease in four months.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Economic News

What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
Hungary's producer prices continued to decline in August, figures from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office showed Friday.

The total producer price index fell at a faster pace of 2.8 percent year-over-year in August, following a 2.3 percent decrease in July. The measure has been falling since August 2015.

Domestic market producer prices dipped 3.3 percent annually in August and foreign market prices went down by 2.6 percent.

During the first eight months of the year, total producer prices slid 2.0 percent compared with the corresponding period last year.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Economic News

What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
Cheniere Energy, Inc. (LNG) announced Friday that it has submitted a proposal to acquire the shares not already owned of Cheniere Energy Partners LP Holdings, LLC (CQH) in a stock for stock exchange. The proposed consideration represents a value of $21.90 per common share of Cheniere Partners Holdings.

Subject to negotiation and execution of a definitive agreement, Cheniere is proposing consideration of 0.5049 Cheniere shares for each outstanding publicly-held share of Cheniere Partners Holdings.

The proposed consideration represents a premium of approximately 3.0% over the closing price of Cheniere Partners Holdings' shares, based on the closing prices of Cheniere Partners Holdings' shares and of Cheniere's shares as of September 29. It also represents a premium of approximately 7% over the 30-trading day average CQH / LNG exchange ratio as of September 29.

The transaction would be structured as a merger of Cheniere Partners Holdings with a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cheniere.

The proposed transaction is subject to the negotiation and execution of a definitive agreement and approval of boards of directors.

The company said there can be no assurance that any such approvals will be forthcoming, that a definitive agreement will be executed or that any transaction will be consummated.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Thursday, CDC posted Zika virus-related special travel considerations for 11 Southeastern Asian countries.

CDC now recommends that pregnant women should consider postponing nonessential travel to these countries because of the uncertain risk of Zika virus infection.

The countries included in these considerations are Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste (East Timor), and Vietnam.

Zika virus has been present in areas of Southeast Asia for many years, and several countries have reported occasional cases or small outbreaks. Recent variations in the number of cases reported in the area have been observed. Zika virus is considered endemic in some of these countries, and many people who live there are likely immune. But CDC warned that US travelers to areas where Zika is endemic may not be immune to the virus and infections have occurred in travelers to Southeast Asia.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has denied a recent Newsweek report that he violated the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, claiming the reporter has a bad reputation.

"I never did in Cuba," Trump said in an interview with NH1 News in New Hampshire on Thursday. "There's this guy who has very bad reputation as a reporter. You see what his record is. He wrote something about me in Cuba."

"No, I never did anything in Cuba," he added. "I never did a deal in Cuba. I heard about it last night for the first time."

The article from Newsweek senior writer Kurt Eichenwald claims a company controlled by Trump once violated the U.S. embargo against Cuba by secretly conducting business on the communist island.

The article published on Newsweek.com on Thursday cited interviews with former Trump executives, internal company records and court filings.

Eichenwald said documents show the company, then known as Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, spent a minimum of $68,000 for its 1998 foray into Cuba by funneling the cash through an American consulting firm.

The consulting firm subsequently instructed senior officers with Trump's company how to make the transaction appear legal by linking it to an after-the-fact charitable endeavor, Eichenwald said.

Eichenwald seemed to take pleasure in the attack from Trump, who frequently bashes media sources that are critical of him.

"@realDonaldTrump announced I'm a terrible reporter. Finally! My oldest son was thrilled," Eichenwald said in a post on Twitter.

Eichenwald also posted a document he says proves Trump's company sent a consultant to Cuba and discussed hiding it as charitable effort, calling the real estate tycoon a "liar."

Democratic rival Hillary Clinton jumped on the report, claiming it adds to the long list of actions and statements that raise doubts about Trump's temperament and qualification to be president and commander in chief.

While the statute of limitations ran out long ago, preventing any potential criminal charges, the report could affect Trump's support among Cuban-Americans in the crucial swing state of Florida.

(Photo: Michael Vadon)

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Activist investor Ralph Whitworth died on Thursday at the age of 60, after battling throat cancer.

Whitworth died at UC San Diego Medical Center. Whitworth had resigned as chairman of Hewlett-Packard Co. in July 2014 and took a leave of absence in order to focus on his .

He had co-founded Relational Investors LLC along with David Batchelder. Whitworth has served on 11 corporate boards in the U.S., and his San Diego-based company, Relational Investors LLC, once had $6 billion in assets.

In a WSJ report, Whitworth is described as "a leading pioneer in activist investing who sparked change at companies like Home Depot and Hewlett-Packard."

Whitworth had graduated from University of Nevada. According to reports, Whitworth and his family committed $1 million to fund a tutoring program aimed at helping high school students in Humboldt County prepare for college.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Republican Congressman Joe Heck, R-Nev., has pulled out to a slim lead in the Nevada senate race, according to the results of a new Suffolk University poll.

Thirty-eight percent of likely Nevada voters support Heck, while 35 percent favor Democratic former state attorney general Catherine Cortez Masto. The three-point gap is within the poll's margin of error.

A significant 18 percent of voters remain undecided, 4 percent said "none of these candidates" and several other candidates receive a collective 2 percent.

The slim lead for Heck compares to a previous Suffolk poll conducted in August showing the two candidates tied at 37 percent.

The outcome of the race to succeed retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., could play a key role in Democrats' efforts to retake the Senate.

Looking at the presidential race, the poll showed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton with a 44 percent to 38 percent lead over Republican rival Donald Trump.

Clinton has expanded her lead from the slim two-point advantage seen in August, with the former Secretary of State seeming to benefit from a strong debate performance.

Among those who watched the debate, 57 percent said Clinton won, while 23 percent said Trump was the winner and 12 percent called it a draw.

The Suffolk poll of 500 likely Nevada voters was conducted September 27th through 29th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA--(Marketwired - Sep 29, 2016) - North Springs Resources Corp. (OTC PINK:NSRS) is pleased to announce that the Company's strategic alliance partner, M & G Contracting LLC has finalized terms on laying fiber-optic lines for Industry Leader, MasTec Engineering in Austin Texas.

MasTec engineering is the general contractor for Google Fiber Optic Texas, LLC., a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Google Fiber builds networks for internet connection up to 1 gigabit, which is equivalent to 1,000 megabits per second. "The team at M & G have done a tremendous job of building confidence in their quality of work for some time now. This contract is an extension of their promise of excellence they give to the communities in Texas. We are honored to be involved with such a high caliber quality group," stated J. Douglas Pulver, President of North Springs Resources Corp.

The Company has been a technological forerunner for over three quarters of a century, historically having built telephone networks throughout the nation, as well as in the Middle East and the Pacific Islands. They laid the first underwater telephone cable from Florida to Puerto Rico, and built nearly one-fourth of the country's cable television systems. MasTec is ranked #2 in the "Top 500 Hispanic Businesses 2011" according to Hispanic business.com, and MasTec is ranked #3 in the "Top 600 Specialty Contractors" in the country by Engineering News-Record.

M & G Contracting is a vertically integrated drilling and pipeline service company. They are or have been engaged in projects for, but not limited to CenterPoint Energy, the city of Sedine, and various other pipeline companies. They are currently on track to record annual revenues of over four million dollars, ($4,000,000 US). Present management for M & G has a long history of successful operations in, but not limited to Wyoming, Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, and Texas.

The financial terms of the contract are not yet being publicly disclosed, but the Company plans to update shareholders in a timely manner as details become available.

Story continues

About MasTec, Inc.: About MasTec, Inc. is a leading infrastructure construction company operating mainly throughout North America across a range of industries. The Company's primary activities include the engineering, building, installation, maintenance and upgrade of energy, utility and communications infrastructure, such as: electrical utility transmission and distribution; natural gas and petroleum pipeline infrastructure; wireless, wireline and satellite communications; power generation, including renewable energy infrastructure; and industrial infrastructure. MasTec's customers are primarily in these industries. The Company's corporate website is located at www.mastec.com.

ABOUT NSRS: For more information about North Springs Resources, please visit the corporate website at: www.northspringsresourcescorp.com

Safe Harbor: This press release contains forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, assumptions and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those projected in such statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date made and are not guarantees of future performance. We undertake no obligation to publicly revise any forward-looking statements.
Workers stand near an oil drilling rig belonging to Petroamazonas at Miranda Port in Tiputini, Ecuador September 7, 2016. REUTERS/Guillermo Granja

By Keith Wallis

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices rose in mixed trading on Wednesday, after sharp losses in the previous session, as industry data showed a surprise draw in U.S. crude stocks, although worries over a lack of agreement among producers to curb output kept a lid on gains.

Brent crude rose 24 cents to $46.21 a barrel as of 0502 GMT after settling down $1.38, or 2.9 percent.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was up 11 cents at $44.79 a barrel after climbing as high as $45.09 in earlier trading. The benchmark ended down $1.26, or 2.7 percent, in the previous session.

Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will hold informal talks at 1400 GMT on Wednesday. Its members are also meeting non-OPEC producers on the sidelines of the three-day International Energy Forum being held in Algiers and which ends on Wednesday.

Crude futures fell on Tuesday after Iran rejected an offer from Saudi Arabia to limit its oil output in exchange for Riyadh cutting supply, dashing market hopes the two major OPEC producers would find a compromise this week to help ease a global glut of crude.

The market is coming to think this week's discussions could provide the groundwork for an agreement at OPEC's formal policy meeting set for Nov. 30 in Vienna, said Vyanne Lai, oil analyst at National Australia Bank in Melbourne.

"I think OPEC producers realize they can't continue to expand production indefinitely - OPEC producers are close to maximum capacity - so there could be room for a deal (in November)," Lai said.

An agreement in November could provide a short-term boost to prices, Lai said, although the level of support would depend at what level output is curbed, Lai said.

"Our expectation is prices will be relatively range-bound at slightly below $50," Lai said.

Investors had largely priced in the likely lack of a deal among oil producers in Algiers and were focused on official U.S. oil stocks data from the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) to be released later in the day, Lai said. [EIA/S]

Story continues

"Prices could draw support from U.S. inventory data. Prices could track higher but below the levels of yesterday," Lai said.

Data from industry group the American Petroleum Institute showed crude stocks fell 752,000 barrels in the week ended Sept. 23 to 506.4 million barrels. Analysts polled by Reuters were forecasting a 2.8 million-barrel build. [API/S]

(Reporting by Keith Wallis; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Christian Schmollinger)
A first-of-its-kind journey along India and Pakistan border

What binds the two most talked about nations - India and Pakistan together? What makes the
MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte appeared to liken himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Friday and said he would be happy to exterminate three million drug users and peddlers in the country.

In a rambling speech on his arrival in Davao City after a visit to Vietnam, Duterte told reporters that he had been portrayed to be some cousin of Hitler by critics.

Noting that Hitler had murdered millions of Jews, Duterte said: There are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines).

Id be happy to slaughter them. "If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have, he said, pausing and pointing to himself.

You know my victims. I would like (them) to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition."

Duterte was voted to power in a May election on the back of a vow to end drugs and corruption in the country of 100 million people. He took office on June 30 and over 3,100 people have been killed since then, mostly drug users and peddlers, in police operations and in vigilante killings.

(Reporting by Karen Lema and Manny Mogato; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Consumer goods giant The Procter & Gamble Co. PG intends to expand operations in two of its manufacturing plant at Csomor and Gyongyos, Hungary. The proposed expansion will involve an investment of $200 million, creating 250 positions.



The signing of the expansion agreement with Hungarian government officials reportedly took place at P&Gs Hyginett Plant in Csomor, where it will upgrade technology to manufacture womens sanitary pads. Packaging operations for its Braun razor brand and assembly and packaging operations for some Oral B tooth care products will be carried out at its Baby Care plant in Gyongyos.



Notably, total P&G employs about 1,200 workers in Hungary. About 800 people work at the Hyginett Plant whereas the Baby Care plant has employed more than 150 workers.

PROCTER & GAMBL Price

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Management is optimistic about the fact that this expansion, which is part of its global supply chain transformation, will make P&Gs end-to-end supply network more efficient, productive, innovative and better positioned to drive growth.



Notably, P&Gs core earnings per share dipped 2% to $3.67 in fiscal 2016. Although the companys organic sales grew 1% year over year, its net sales were down 8% to $65.3 billion. Though weak sales have been offsetting margin improvement from pricing gains and cost cuts for some time now, P&G is investing in its brands and products as well as re-designing the supply chain to boost productivity and organic growth.



In the wake of intensifying competition from industry peers like Colgate-Palmolive Co. CL, The Clorox Company CLX and Reckitt Benckiser Group plc RBGLY, the expansion drive could likely be P&Gs strategy to boost its top line.



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$25K in Gannett Foundation grants go to central Kansas organizations

Four local organizations are receiving a total of $25,000 as the Gannett Foundation invests in community-building initiatives in north-central Kansas.
Thirteen-year-old Ella Carvan has taken the top prize in the Protect Pacific Whales social media competition.

The competition, launched in May in celebration of World Biodiversity Day by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (S.P.R.E.P), was made possible through a partnership with Digicel Samoa.

It was one of the communications and awareness activities employed for the Protect Pacific Whales  Ocean Voyagers campaign.

Wed like to congratulate and thank all those that submitted entries for this event and we look forward to seeing these works of art we are able to use, in our work to promote the Protect Pacific Whales  Ocean Voyagers campaign, said Nanette Woonton of the Communications and Outreach Unit of S.P.R.E.P.

The competition sent out a call for all residents of S.P.R.E.Ps 21 island member countries and territories to send in their entries in the form of artworks inspired by Pacific whales, in order to gain more awareness for whale and ocean conservation. The entries were closed a month later on the 22 June, after which voting was open to the general Facebook population until 16 July.

The youngest entrant in the competition, Ella Carvan, residing in Samoa, won the most votes for her artwork which showcased two whales forming the Yin and Yang symbol of harmony. I really didnt expect to win, so I feel very surprised and happy. I hope that my picture helps to raise awareness of the importance of protecting the ocean and our Pacific whales, said Ms. Carvan.

My picture was inspired by the ying-yang symbol, which means that we need to exist in balance. For such a long time weve been taking advantage of the environment and the Earths resources. Now we need to restore balance by protecting it.

The top three entries with the most received prizes in the form of Alcatel Pixi 3 smartphones, kindly donated by Digicel Samoa along with other prizes.

Christelle Montane of New Caledonia came in second, while Zarfia Amoa, also from Samoa, took third place.

Ms Amoa said, The Protect Pacific Whales Facebook competition was a great visual platform to showcase the importance and beauty of these creatures as part of our Pacific island environment, culture and art. I used various Pacific tatau patterns in my artwork to create a pan-Pacific whale to convey the idea that whales are part of our collective heritage. We are all responsible for protecting and conserving our Pacific whales for future generations.

The Protect Pacific Whales  Ocean Voyagers campaign continues for the next year, with a whole range of activities planned throughout the duration of the campaign, to promote awareness for protection and conservation of Pacific whales.
The first intake of the Farm to Table youth programme graduated yesterday after 12 weeks of learning about organic farming.

The programme not only promotes organic farming, it also looks at promoting youth employment, giving young people another option if they drop out of school.

The project is run by Women in Business Development Inc. (W.I.B.D.I) under their Farm to Table project, which is funded by U.N.D.P.

The Associate Director of W.I.B.D.I, Aualiitia Alberta Vitale said 14 people registered at the beginning but only eight graduated yesterday.

And this is not the end for them, said Aualiitia.

We will keep visiting them and follow up with their work to make sure that they are applying and using the skills they learnt from the programme and so that they can also bring in the fruits of their work to our farm to table programme.

As this is a new programme, implementation was not easy.

It was hard at first for it is the first time weve had this programme, and the participants had to show up every day for trainings the past twelve weeks. And we want to congratulate them for their commitment, hard work and effort.

The others gave up after the induction programme but the eight graduates did not give up and were very eager to finish what they started, and today we are proud of them.

The Youth Farm to Table programme will have a new intake next week, and they will also carry out trainings for them for three months.

Aualiitia said that they are also thinking of taking this programme to the rural areas and Savaii.

For our third intake, we are looking at taking this programme to the big island of Savaii, to give our youths in Savaii the same opportunity to learn about organic farming and also have an opportunity to learn and have a better future.

Iese Mataia from the village of Vaimoso uttered that the programme was really helpful and is ready to use all the skills he learned from the programme to start his farm.

People always say that education is the key to success, he said. And we are so grateful to this programme because it has taught us a lot of important things about how to become a successful farmer. We learned about things we didnt know before. And I think that this is a great programme for all the youths who didnt do so well in school.

This programme provides an opportunity for us youth to educate ourselves on how to become farmers and then use the skills wisely to help us out with our families and have a better future. We all have different talents from God, and if we use it wisely, we will be blessed.

So I am grateful that I have this opportunity to learn and this is a great idea as well to promote organic farming in Samoa.

A lot of people dont really consider being a farmer as a career path, but like what our Prime Minister always says, you can be successful and have a lot being a farmer if you do it well and work hard.
The country paused yesterday to honour the contribution of public servants to the development of Samoa.

The opportunity to do this came during the celebration of the Public Service Day, which started with a parade on Beach Road in the morning.

The parade brought together all government ministries, public bodies and corporations. It was a colourful event with public servants proudly wearing their uniforms.

The 5th Samoa Public Service Day also remembered and honoured many of those who had retired from the service and have passed on.

The theme for this years commemoration was Celebrating the Public Service of Samoa.

Acting Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, Hon. Sili Epa Tuioti, congratulated all the public servants for their contribution to Samoa. In his view, the public service in Samoa is among the most respected in the Pacific region.

Our development partners have also often commented favourably on the performance of our public service including in the implementation of projects funded or supported by them, he said.

Our public servants have contributed immensely to Samoas current economic and social development standing as well as our valued engagement with the United Nations and the international community.

These achievements are worth celebrating and the contributions by the public service to these achievements must be celebrated.

Sili reminded that the vision of the current Public Administration Sector Plan is for Samoa to acquire professional and competent public servants who provide quality service for and to its people.

Over the course of the last two decades, our government has undertaken a number of reforms and restructuring in the public sector to strengthen organisational performance, financial management and accountability and to improve service delivery, he said.

It is important for us public servants to be diligent and thorough in carrying out our work responsibilities.

We have a duty to respond on a timely basis to the needs of our people.We need to be willing and available to meet with them, to understand their needs and to assist in facilitating assistance your ministry is able to provide within the boundaries of government policy and available resources.Faamalo le Tautua.
Samoa will always be a very special friend to China.

So assured the Chinese Ambassador to Samoa, Wang Xuefeng, during the celebration of the 67th Anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China at Vailima on Thursday night.

The occasion at the Chinese Embassy was attended by Acting Prime Minister, Hon.Sili Epa Tuioti, Cabinet Ministers, government officials and members of the business community.

For Mr. Xuefeng, the evening had special significance.

This September happens to mark the first anniversary of the arrival of my wife and myself in Samoa. We have strongly felt the sincere support from Samoan people for China-Samoa friendship and the profound and firm foundation of China-Samoa relationship, he said.

In the past one year, we have witnessed with great delight the fruitful results of exchange and cooperation in various fields between China and Samoa.

Early this month, the Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress paid a successful visit to Samoa and has reached broad consensus in developing bilateral relations with leaders of parliament and government of Samoa. Several Ministers of Cabinet and Members of Parliament of Samoa have also visited China.

We are glad to see that three major China-aid projects, namely, the Maritime School of NUS, Loto Taumafai Society National Disability Centre and Siumu Primary School, have been put into use.

The first phase of the construction of the terminal building of Faleolo International Airport will be completed by the end of this November. This year, altogether 32 young people have been awarded the Chinese Government scholarship to study in universities in China. More than 250 officials and professionals from various sectors have participated in various specialized training programs in China.

Chinese Embassy has also invited the first Samoan Youth Delegation of 11 outstanding young people recommended by NUS and Samoa Observer to go on a 10-day tour to China.

The bilateral local exchange and cooperation have also developed vigorously. The cooperation between Huizhou City of Guangdong, China and Samoa in such fields as education, medical service and infrastructure has achieved encouraging results.

Two Chinese popular TV dramas have been airing on TV1 for the first time in Samoa. Chinas UnionPay Card Payment business has been opened, making it more convenient for Chinese people who visit Samoa. Currently we are working closely with concerned ministries of Samoan Government to start several new friendly cooperative projects including the Police Academy, the Cultural and Art Center and the Friendship Park.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are glad to see that the newly-elected government of Samoa after the successful election in March this year has been trying hard in developing economy and improving the livelihood of people in Samoa. At this happy moment when we are celebrating the National Day of China, we would like to express our heartfelt thanks to the Samoan Government and people for the sincere friendship and strong support to the Chinese government and people in various aspects.

Acting Prime Minister Sili congratulated China and thanked Ambassador Xuefeng for their support.

Since formal diplomatic ties between Samoa and China were established 40years ago our two countries continue to enjoy a very close relationship, he said.

China has made a significant contribution to the development aspirations of Samoa by providing support to projects in health, education, sports, agriculture, infrastructure and many others.

There is also a large number of Samoan students who have received technical trainings and scholarships to China and these opportunities continue to grow between the countries.

Samoa continues where ever it can to support China at various international forums and we look forward to fostering further partnerships in our common tasks to achieve the goals for sustainable development and ensure that no one is left behind.
The decision by an Associate Minister accused of forgery and fraud to leave the country in the middle of the hearing of allegations against him has angered Justice Mata Tuatagaloa.

The Associate Minister of the Ministry of the Prime Minister, Peseta Vaifou Tevaga, who has pleaded not guilty to the allegations brought against him by business associates  including another senior H.R.P.P. member  is accompanying Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi to Tuvalu.

They are attending that countrys Flag Day celebrations.

When the matter was called for the final submissions yesterday, his lawyer, Leuluaialii Olinda Woodroffe said his departure was a last minute decision.

I take the blame your Honour, said Leuluaialii.

As we walked out of the Court on the third day of the hearing, it was then he advised me that he had received an urgent call from the Prime Minister to accompany him to Tuvalu. He was supposed to be back today and my understanding is he was to return this morning (yesterday) but apparently he will be returning this evening.

Justice Tuatagaloa was not impressed. She was concerned about how members of the public would perceive such a situation.

The defendant should have never left the country without an application before the Court, said Justice Tuatagaloa.

It doesnt make him look good. He is a politician, this is the judiciary, this is the justice (system) and for something like that to have happened, what does that make us look like?That politicians are above the law?

In response, Leuluaiali'i continued to apologise and told the Court it was her fault.

I take responsibility and I shouldve come back to Court to seek your permission, said the lawyer.

But the Judge reminded the lawyer that she was missing the point.

Mrs. Woodroffe I take what you are saying but look at this, said Tuatagaloa. What is the public going to say?

Prosecutor and Acting Director of the National Prosecution Office, Muriel Lui also shared her concerns about Pesetas absence.

She raised the issue of the Associate Ministers bail condition explaining that she does not have it with her because she did not anticipate it.

She suggested his decision to leave the country might be a breach of his bail condition.

You are correct your Honour it is implied for politicians that there is a disregard of the law and justice, said Ms. Lui.

We have an objection to this that he can just leave the jurisdiction especially when his trial is not finished.

Justice Tuatagaloasaid the Court had two options.

Those options are, either Peseta will be issued with a warrant of arrest or the matter will be adjourned until Monday for him to appear and final submissions to be filed.

Leuluaialii pleaded to defer the matter until Monday considering the reasons she had given.

She said she was under the impression that Peseta will be back in the country yesterday.

On another issue the lawyer pointed out that it would be helpful to call the matter on Monday since she had difficulty with technology to allow her to do spell check on her submission.

I am quite embarrassed that there are some errors because of technology problems, she said.

Justice Tuatagaloa suggested that perhaps a warrant of arrest should be issued for Peseta to remand him in custody while you attend to your submission.

In that way your submission will be technologically savvy and his opportunity to be in custody for what he has done.

Once again, Leuluaialii urged the Judge to consider that it was her at fault and the delay on her submission is her responsibility,not her client.

Justice Tuatagaloa then adjourned the matter until Monday with great reluctance on my part to issue a warrant of arrest.

I accept what counsel is saying and for you to file your submission by 5 oclock today and adjourn the matter on Monday 10 a.m.

Peseta is facing charges of forgery and fraud. The charges arose from a complaint filed by the former Speaker of Parliament, LaaulialemalietoaLeuateaPolataivao, Apulu Lance Polu and Martin Jonathan Schwalger with the Police.

The plaintiffs are shareholders of a company called Local Partners and Associate Limited. Pesetas son, Leiataua Danny, was also a shareholder of the company. The complainants claim Peseta had forged the signature of Mr. Schwalger in order to transfer shares from his son, Danny, to his name.
Members of Parliament from the Pacific  including Samoa - have been told to remember who they serve at a conference on sexual health in New Zealand.

Deputy Prime Minister, Fiame Naomi Mataafa, is among the participants.

More than 30 delegates representing 10 Pacific countries are in Wellington to discuss how Pacific Parliaments can prioritise sexual and reproductive health and rights in the sustainable development goals, or S.D.G.s.

But the delegates were told talk is worth little if it doesn't improve the reality for Pacific people.

Fiame told Radio New Zealand that M.P.s are targeted on the concept that they are representing their respective communities.

"The whole point is, and I think it's still relevant, to remind members of parliament of that community connection, their representation of those as opposed to being a member of a government that sets policies," she said.

Fiame said MPs have to check if their work is actually matching up with the needs expressed at the local level.

The two-day workshop is co-hosted by the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (A.F.P.P.D.) and their New Zealand colleagues from the New Zealand Parliamentarians Group on Population and Development (N.Z.P.P.D.).

The aim of the workshop is to strengthen parliamentarians advocacy skills and capacity to address population and development issues.

A.F.P.P.D. is a network of 29 parliamentary committees from across the Asia Pacific region. It advocates for parliamentary action and change, in support of population and development issues.

These issues include sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender equality, womens empowerment and population dynamics.

Following the adoption of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (S.D.G.s) in September 2015, parliamentarians are working to ensure that the International Conference on Population and Development (I.C.P.D.) remains a priority within this new international development agenda.
Sad memories are the ones you want to forget. Quickly.

But seven years since lives in this country were changed forever by a devastating tsunami, the memories remain fresh.

The emotions are raw, the pain is real and while weve made some progress in our efforts to move on, there are reminders everywhere we look. The scars have not healed and as much as we want to completely move on, we remain in a state of mourning.

For how can we forget? How can we erase such pain? How can such sorrow ever be easily forgotten? The memories are as if it happened yesterday.

On that fateful morning in 2009, thousands of people on the south coast of Upolu rose from their beds with dreams and visions of better days ahead.

The working population was getting ready for their daily routine, students were preparing for school while tourists were enjoying the paradise they travelled thousands of miles to see. It was like any other morning in beautiful Samoa. It was warm, tranquil and had all the makings of another day in paradise.

But then without warning and out of nowhere, a powerful earthquake with a magnitude of up to 8.3 struck near Samoa. It shook an entire nation for what felt like an eternity. Never before did we experience an earthquake so powerful and so frightening we thought it would never stop.

From Upolu to Savaii, Manono and Apolima, we all felt it. Our Pacific neighbours  including our brothers and sisters in American Samoa  were not spared. But that was just the beginning of it.

Just when we thought it was over, along came deadly waves that swept across the South Pacific. It killed indiscriminately in three countries. Lives were lost in Tonga, American Samoa and Samoa.

Entire communities were swept away and thousands of people were left in the tsunamis wake without homes, jobs, food, or medical care.

Worst hit was the south coast of Upolu, which was once the iconic image of Samoan tourism. Claiming the lives of 143 people from Aleipata to Falealili, the day remains one of the darkest moments in the history of this country.

Seven years later, we have not forgotten the profound impact it has had on this country. Yesterday, we remembered the devastation. We remembered the sense of hopelessness. We remembered the smell, feeling and the sight of death and destruction.

I paused for a moment to pay tribute to the victims. As one of the first people to arrive at the scene, I recall Aleipata resembling a war zone. The sight of so many dead people being pulled from the water will always stay with me. There were parents hugging their children, some alive, others were not. At the Lalomanu hospital, dead bodies were everywhere. And they kept piling up.

The memories are graphic and the pictures are still there.

They will stay there forever.

Thinking about it yesterday was still painful. I remember picking up the body of a dead baby in front of Taufua Beach Fales. I remember crying and looking at him, he could have been my daughter. I remember parents hugging their children, one dead, another badly injured.

While wed like to think that we have moved on, we can never quite do that. For how can we?

29 September 2009 was a day of sorrow. And while we remember the devastation, we also recall the acts of courage and kindness as strangers and our partner nations rallied to help those in need and provide urgent relief.

It was a day when the goodness in the hearts of people of this country was demonstrated. Total strangers turned up to help. They offered water, food, clothes and money. They were there to counsel, help and give their time in whatever way. It was an amazing effort. Those are the beautiful memories that will comfort the spirit in such sad times.

Today, we should pause to remember the victims of the tragedy.

We pay tribute to their lives and we acknowledge everyone who helped in this countrys hour of need.

We cannot name everyone but our good God knows everything and he will bless you accordingly. Seven years after the tsunami, we join our people around the world in the spirit of unity, remembrance and resolve.

May the Almighty God comfort all those affected by the tsunami and give them strength.

And may we never forget the lesson that was so obviously clear this time seven years ago, life is too precious.

We must enjoy it for we never know what might be lurking around the corner.

So hug your loved ones, kiss your children when you leave them, tell your family you love them. Forgive someone, share your blessings and rejoice while we have the opportunity.

Have a great Friday Samoa, God bless!
Toleafoa Douglas Creevey is set to return to Samoa.

He is coming back as the interim Chief Executive Officer (C.E.O) of Bluesky.

This was confirmed in a statement issued by the company yesterday.

Toleafoa Douglas Creevey is being proposed to the Board to step in as interim CEO of Bluesky as Amper SA finalizes the sale of the company to Amalgamated Telecom Holdings (A.T.H), the statement reads.

Amper and A.T.H have confirmed that a definitive Sale and Purchase Agreement has been signed for the sale of Bluesky Pacific Group companies, and Amper is in the process of obtaining necessary shareholder and regulatory approvals.

Toleafoa has been a part of Bluesky since 2011.

He has held a number of key leadership roles within the company including, Chief Operations Officer, Country Manager  Samoa and is currently Blueskys Country Manager in New Zealand and a Director on the board of Bluesky Cook Islands.

Regarding the pending appointment, Toleafoa said: My priority is to ensure the continuity of our operations and that we continue to uphold Blueskys vision and values. I, together with the leadership team remain focused on delivering the best quality of service and looking after our customers.

The announcement about Toleafoa followed confirmation about the sacking of Chief Executive Officer, Aoee Adolfo Montenegro.

Blueskys Chief Executive Officer (C.E.O) Aoee Adolfo Montenegro and Blueskys parent company Amper SA have decided to conclude their management agreement effective on Friday last week, a statement from the company said.

Mr. Jaime Espinosa the Chairman of Blueskys parent company Amper now assumes the role of Group C.E.O of Bluesky Pacific Group.

The statement did not give the reasons behind the decision.

The news comes as Amper works to finalise the sale of its South Pacific business to a Fiji government-backed company, Amalgamated Telecom Holdings (A.T.H).

Bluesky expresses its sincerest gratitude to Montenegro for his contributions to the Bluesky Pacific Group, to its staff and to the Pacific communities that it serves, the statement from Bluesky continues.

Montenegro has been the C.E.O of Bluesky since 2008 and he has led the companys significant regional expansion across the Pacific where it now operates in Samoa, American Samoa, the Cook Islands and New Zealand.
Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi left the country yesterday to attend the 38th Independence Day celebration of Tuvalu.

Tuvalu, formerly known as Ellice Islands, became politically independent on 1st October 1978.

Speaking to the media, Tuilaepa said he has been invited on behalf of Samoa to two Independence celebrations.

The first invitation I didnt go but it was Leota Lu who went, he explained.

This is the second invitation and I thought I should go and attend as it is an invitation on behalf of the country.

I will leave on the Talofa airline which will take less than two hours to fly there.

Tuilaepa said he will attend the celebration on the 1st October and fly back the same day.

He added the country uses the Samoan bible and some of its people live in the village of Elise.
The nation paused yesterday to pay tribute to the work of the Police Force.

A special service was held to remember the services and sacrifices of the men and women who have served Samoa over the years.

Held at the Police headquarters on Beach Road, former Police officers were present to commemorate and celebrate the importance of the polices service in the country.

Former Police Commissioner, Asi James Blakelock and former Member of Parliament, Patu Ativalu Togi joined the special occasion.

The Minister of Police, Sala Fata Pinati addressed the audience and spoke about the importance of the service and work done by the police for the people of Samoa.

This is one of the most important services in any country, said Sala.

He emphasised the importance of their work in terms of security and safety.

People of the country come to you for help, and you are to keep the people of the country safe.

The Police play various roles added Sala. These include enforcing the law, keeping the peace and protecting life and property.

Sala reminded that just because they are police officers, it doesnt mean they can abuse the power given to them.

We have had a lot of complaints from members of the public with how they are being treated by police officers. That is not your duty. You are to respect the people of our country and treat them well.

Thats my advice to you all. Be respectful, because people come to you for help. Your work helps the work of the government, villages, and the whole country. The safety and peacefulness of this country depends on you.

A minute of silence was also observed to remember the lives of those who served and died in the line of duty.

Certificates were then given to family members of some of the former police officers who held high positions in the police force but had already passed away.

Awards were also given to former members of the police force who were still alive and still supporting the work of police.

Lastly, there was special acknowledgement for all the officers who risk their lives for the safety of Samoa.
Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, has downplayed a lawsuit being brought against his government by a family at Sogi.

I am not worried about it (lawsuit), Tuilaepa told the Samoa Observer.

Why should I be worried if the land belongs to the government? Another thing, Im not a lawyer. The matter is being handled by the Attorney General.

So there is nothing to worry about.

Tuilaepa said the government would not change its mind about relocating the people of Sogi to Falelauniu.

He said the land they have been occupying belongs to the government and they are moving ahead with the plan.

Two weeks ago, the family of Tokuma in Sogi engaged a lawyer to challenge the governments decision to relocate them.

Nanai Liu Tokuma, 76, said they have been left with no other option but to fight the government in Court.

The familys Court claim is seeking three orders. They are:

 An order from the court to restrain the government from asking the family to pay for any surveying and evaluation works on the land.

 An order to stop the government from relocating the family

 A decision by the government to allow these people to own the land

Weve tried everything so that we can keep our land but now we have nowhere to turn to for help so we have decided to take this matter to Court, said Nanai.

This is not about money and it will never be about money. Were not looking for any compensation or anything; we just want our freedom to remain on this land. This land was offered to us by the late Mataafa Mulinuu when the government at the time mistakenly charged my father with the death penalty. Luckily he escaped the charge.

The family elder said the Court challenge is about fighting for their inheritance.

We dont want any money. We just want the government to give us that freedom to live and die on this land. Ive already given my statement to the lawyer; its all in his hands now.

The lawyer representing the family is Pau Tafaogalupe Mulitalo.

The Tokuma family has been living in Sogi for more than a hundred years, he said.

Pau made reference to an incident involving the government many years ago.

One of those problems was when Nanais father, Tokuma Torurae, was mistakenly charged by the government and when he was about to serve his death penalty, someone testified that Tokuma didnt kill the businessman."

Then the late Mataafa offered the land for Torurae and his family because the government couldnt afford to pay what they owed him."

At this stage, were looking at imprisonment, unlawful detention and the death penalty that nearly took the old mans life."

This matter shouldn't be taken lightly especially when Mataafa told Tokuma go live on the land with your children.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The White House lashed out at Congress on Thursday, a day after Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly overrode President Barack Obama's veto of a bill to allow families of the 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia. The White House turned to mockery as top GOP leaders expressed buyer's remorse and vowed to fix the bill.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both said the measure, the only law enacted over Obama's veto in his eight years as president, needed repairs. McConnell said the law may have "unintended ramifications," while Ryan said "there may be some work to be done" to make sure it doesn't lead to U.S. service members overseas being sued.

"Everybody was aware of who the potential beneficiaries were but nobody really had focused on the downside in terms of our international relationships," McConnell told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference.

The law 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. Courts would be permitted to waive a claim of foreign sovereign immunity when an act of terrorism occurred inside U.S. borders.

Supporters said the families of 9/11 victims should be able to pursue justice against Saudi Arabia for its alleged backing of the attackers. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudis. Nearly 3,000 people in New York, the Washington, D.C., area, and Pennsylvania died in the terror attacks.

The White House had long raised concerns about the law, warning that it could have a chilling effect on Saudi Arabia's cooperation with the U.S. in fighting terrorism. Senior national security officials also argued that it could trigger lawsuits from people in other countries seeking redress for injuries or deaths caused by military actions in which the U.S. may have had a role.

But top lawmakers said the White House didn't press those warnings until it was too late and the popular bill was already barreling its way through Congress. Other lawmakers acknowledged that they didn't pay much attention to the bill.

That earned McConnell and others a scathing response from the White House, which said lawmakers didn't know what they were voting for.

"What's true in elementary school is true in the United States Congress: Ignorance is not an excuse," said spokesman Josh Earnest.

With enough blame for the White House and Congress to go around, both sides engaged in finger-pointing.

Earnest said the president had publicly discussed the bill's potential negative impact in April. The Senate passed the bill by voice vote in May. The president, administration officials and other national security experts wrote letters detailing concerns in recent weeks  though many of the letters came after the House backed the bill on Sept. 9.

"I think what we've seen in the United States Congress is a pretty classic case of rapid onset buyer's remorse," Earnest said.

McConnell, R-Ky., said the White House was too slow to warn about the "potential consequences" of the measure. Both the House and Senate overwhelmingly overrode Obama's veto of the measure on Wednesday.

McConnell said he told the president recently that the 9/11 victims bill "was an example of an issue that we should have talked about much earlier."

McConnell said the dynamic involving the bill  in which it picked up unstoppable election-year momentum  was what happens when there is "failure to communicate early about the potential consequences of a piece of legislation that was obviously very popular."

Other top Republicans and Democrats such as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., are already working on proposed fixes to the law.

"We want to make sure that the 9/11 victims and their families have their day in court. At the same time, I would like to think there may be some work to be done to protect our service members overseas from any kind of  any kind of legal ensnarements that could occur, any kind of retribution," Ryan said.

In a statement, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was their "hope that wisdom will prevail and that Congress will take the necessary steps to correct this legislation in order to avoid the serious unintended consequences that may ensue."
EL CAJON, Calif. (AP)  The mother of an unarmed black man shot to death in a confrontation with police in a San Diego suburb this week called for peaceful protests Thursday and said her son did not deserve to die.

Alfred Olango "was a good, lovely young man," said the mother, Pamela Benge. "I wanted him to enjoy his daughter."

She said she and her family came to the U.S. from war-torn Uganda 25 years ago when Olango was a teen and just wanted to be safe.

"How painful it is to lose a loved one that you have embraced through struggling," Benge told reporters.

She mentioned similar shootings of black men around the country by police officers but said she never thought one of the shootings would directly affect her, calling on people who protest her son's killing to embrace non-violence.

"I am always for peace, I don't want war," she said.

Olango, 38, was shot and killed Tuesday by police in El Cajon after pulling out an electronic cigarette, known as a vape pen, from his pocket and pointing it at the police officer who fired, while a second officer stood nearby trying to subdue him with a stun gun, according to police. A family attorney said Olango was having an emotional breakdown over the recent death of his best friend.

Earlier Thursday, U.S. authorities confirmed they had tried twice to deport Olango, but his native Uganda refused to take him, resulting in his release.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Alfred Olango stopped reporting to officers in February 2015. Spokeswoman Virginia Kice did not know if officers tried to find him after that.

Olango arrived as a refugee in 1991 and was ordered deported in 2002 after being convicted on drug charges. He was released under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring detention of foreign nationals after six months if deportation is unlikely.

Immigration authorities took Olango into custody in 2009 after a firearms conviction in Colorado but were again unable to obtain travel documents.

John Sandweg, a former ICE director, said Olango could not be held for more than six months for failing to report to immigration authorities last year because it is not a crime.

"The officers knew that they were not going to be able to hold this guy," Sandweg said.

The investigation centers on a video taken by a bystander. Police have produced a single frame from the cellphone video to support their account, saying it shows Olango in a "shooting stance."

The photo shows Olango's hands clasped together and pointed directly at an officer who had assumed a similar posture with his gun a few feet away.

The vaping device in his hands had two components, a box about the size of a cellphone and a metallic cylinder that was 3 inches long and 1 inch wide. Police said the cylinder was pointed right at the officer.

Olango's relatives demanded the full video be released, according to Dan Gilleon, a lawyer who is working with the family.

"They're cherry-picking part of the video," Gilleon said. "This is exactly what police have said is unfair when only portions of video are released against them."

Mayor Bill Wells said he had seen the video and that it was not "tremendously complicated to figure out what happened."

After arriving in the U.S. years ago, Olango ran afoul of the law several times: selling cocaine, driving drunk, and illegally possessing a 9mm semi-automatic handgun when he was arrested in Colorado in 2005 with pot and ecstasy in his car, according to court records. He pleaded guilty in federal court and was sentenced to nearly four years for being a felon in possession of a gun.

The fatal shooting happened less than two weeks after black men were shot and killed by police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Charlotte, North Carolina, where violent protests broke out.

Experts said it was too early to conclude whether the California shooting was justified or could have been prevented.

Chuck Drago, a former Florida police chief who consults about police use of force, said that once Olango struck the shooting pose, officers would have had to react quickly if he drew an unknown object from his pocket.

"An officer doesn't have enough time to wait to determine if that's a gun in his hand," Drago said. "If a person is pointing something at an officer and he believes it's a gun and it is a gun and that officer doesn't have his gun out, that officer will lose that gunfight."

Police have not named the officers involved, though Wells said both were 21-year veterans and one was Officer Richard Gonsalves.

Gonsalves was demoted last year after allegations that he sexually harassed a lesbian colleague. Angry citizens had called for him to be fired.

El Cajon, a city of 100,000 people about 15 miles northeast of San Diego, has become home for many refugees fleeing Iraq and, more recently, Syria.
Putting up home solar panels is not so much a matter of political persuasion as pragmatism, says a solar company that looked at a host of data points.

A company based in Denver crunched a combination of census, political and proprietary numbers and found Californians who live in areas that elected a Republican to Congress were far more likely to buy solar technology for their homes than those that elected a Democrat.

Yes, the findings were a bit counter-intuitive, said Paul Zalewski, director of digital marketing for Solar Pulse, an outfit that provides consumers information about solar installations and refers them to clients.

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Republicans have generally been more skeptical about the growth of renewable energy sources, especially state and federal subsidies for solar and wind.

We encourage the cost-effective development of renewable energy sources  wind, solar, biomass, biofuel, geothermal and tidal energy  by private capital, this years GOP party platform said.

The Democrats party platform calls for a commitment to getting 50 percent of our electricity from clean energy sources within a decade, with half a billion solar panels installed within four years while extending tax incentives for clean energy.

California leans heavily toward Democrats, with President Obama winning more than 60 percent of the vote in the state in 2012 and Democrats making up 39 of 53 Californias members in the U.S. House of Representatives.

But the Solar Pulse compilation of data showed that in the past five years, homes in Republican-leaning areas were five times more likely to install solar panels:

Solar Pulse then looked at the degree of partisanship among rooftop solar customers. Using numbers from the Cook Partisan Voting Index showed that those who identified themselves as Very Republican as well as Mildly Republican outscored Mildly Democratic and Moderately Democratic with Very Democratic finishing far behind.

Perhaps this could be explained by relative wealth. But using U.S. Census figures, Solar Pulse reported that the median income by party in California congressional districts showed Democrats actually earning more than Republicans  $58,285 to $50,534.

So what gives?

Part of the explanation, Zalewski said, is renting. Homeowners are far more likely to invest in their properties than renters who live in apartment buildings. And, Zalewski said, Most solar companies want to be working directly with the homeowner.

But Zalewski said the best explanation for the party-line solar disparity is geography.

Republican districts tend to be located in the southeastern part of the state, which is sunny, dry and much less densely populated, with greater levels of home ownership:

When you talk about very Democratic areas of California like the Bay Area, youve got condo buildings, youve got smaller homes, Zalewski said. Both of those things make the process of going solar much more challenging versus Republican areas of the state (with) more space, more homeowners, larger homes, larger roofs, all leading to an easier process of going solar.

Zalewski said Californias leadership position in solar penetration made it a good place to get reliable data and since its an election year, Solar Pulse wanted to look into this perception that solar is very polarizing, from a political perspective.

His conclusion? Politics takes a back seat to practical considerations.

When you start to look at how the installation of solar panels can translate into your individual electricity bill and what that can mean for your family, especially in California where you deal with above average per-kilowatt-hour electricity costs, I think that can trump any political persuasions you may have about solar and renewables.
Authorities on Friday released cellphone and surveillance video showing the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man, hoping to quell growing questions about the incident that has led to violent protests.

The video provides more context about the moments before the fatal encounter on Tuesday, though officials said their investigation remains in its early stages and that evidence is still being gathered.

The cellphone video shows the man, Alfred Olango, weaving back and forth in a parking lot as a police officer confronted him. The video shows the officer, identified as Richard Gonsalves, following Olango with his gun drawn and pointing the weapon at the man.

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Olango then briefly clasps his hands together and points them at Gonsalves, who opens fire. Olangos sister, who had called police earlier to say her brother was acting strangely, is heard wailing nearby.

A second video from a fast-food restaurant security camera shows Gonsalves following Olango through the parking lot. At some point, Olango starts walking rapidly toward the officer, who appears to back up. For a few seconds, Gonsalves and Olango appear to be jockeying with each other. A second officer, Josh McDaniel, appears holding a Taser, and then Gonsalves fires. At least four shots are heard. The angle of this video makes it difficult to see exactly what Olango was doing.

Authorities have said Olango had an electronic cigarette in his hands and pointed it at Gonsalves in a shooting stance.

El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis said the department decided to release the video in hopes of giving the public a better sense of what happened and for the well-being of the community. He said the move was also influenced by three nights of unrest in El Cajon.

Protesters and others have been calling on authorities to release the video, after the public was provided with only a single freeze-frame of the confrontation that shows Olango, 38, clasping an object, his arms raised toward an officer.

Until now, authorities had said they could not release the video during an active investigation, in keeping with an agreement drawn up by San Diego County law enforcement agencies. The policy was created in August in an attempt to balance public transparency with the needs of investigators to collect evidence.

San Diego County Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis said officials released the video while the investigation was ongoing in the interest of transparency, to keep folks calm and protected here in El Cajon.

1 / 23 Members of the community pray outside the El Cajon Police Department.

(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 23 El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis holds a vaping device similar to the one that victim Alfred Olango was holding in the video. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 23 El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis stands at the podium while he releases the video of the officer involved shooting. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 23 Photographers capture views of the police shooting video during a press conference at the El Cajon Police Department. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 23 Members of the community pray outside the El Cajon Police Department. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 23 Members of the community pray outside the El Cajon Police Department. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 23 Police arrest a protester who tried to stand his ground after an unlawful assembly was declared near the site where Alfred Olango had been shot by police in El Cajon. (David McNew / Getty Images) 8 / 23 A protester points a cellphone at a police officer after an unlawful assembly is declared near the site where Alfred Olango had been shot by police earlier this week in El Cajon. (David McNew / Getty Images) 9 / 23 A protester walks toward sheriffs deputies in an intersection after an unlawful assembly was declared near the site where Alfred Olango had been shot by police earlier this week in El Cajon. (David McNew / Getty Images) 10 / 23 A driver, left, argues with protesters blocking an intersection near the site where Alfred Olango had been shot by police earlier this week in El Cajon. (David McNew / Getty Images) 11 / 23 Protesters block a driver from entering an intersection near the site where Alfred Olango had been shot by police earlier this week in El Cajon. (David McNew / Getty Images) 12 / 23 Victoria Bonini offers a Buddhist prayer chant at a memorial for Alfred Olango, who was shot by police earlier this week in El Cajon. (David McNew / Getty Images) 13 / 23 Protesters peacefully sit on Broadway in El Cajon, stopping traffic in both directions overthe death of Alfred Olango. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 14 / 23 Khadijah Neely, left, and Sabrina Crawford hold a candle during avigil held in El Cajon for Alfred Olango. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 15 / 23 A police officer blocks the onramp to a freeway during the police-shooting protest in El Cajon. (Gregory Bull / Associated Press) 16 / 23 Demonstrators yell at police in El Cajon at a rally against the shooting of Alfred Olango. (Julie Watson / Associated Press) 17 / 23 Taina Rozier, left, wife of victim Alfred Olango and daughter Chare Rozier listen during a news conference about the shooting. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 18 / 23 Protesters lock arms in front of a police line in El Cajon after the police shooting of Alfred Olango. (Bill Wechter / AFP/Getty Images) 19 / 23 Protesters face off with police in El Cajon after the shooting of Alfred Olango. (Bill Wechter / AFP/Getty Images) 20 / 23 A driver yells at demonstrators blocking a street in El Cajon. (Gregory Bull / Associated Press) 21 / 23 People block streets in El Cajon as they protest the shooting ofAlfred Olango. (Gregory Bull / Associated Press) 22 / 23 Ebonay Lee holds up her fist toward a line of Sheriffs deputies protesting Tuesdays police shooting. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune) 23 / 23 A man protests the shooting of Alfred Olango in El Cajon. (Gregory Bull / Associated Press)

We have not formed any conclusion yet, there is still information that we are waiting to see, she said. Video evidence is one piece of the evidence that is out there.

Community activists and family members had said that the still shot was misleading without context.

Dan Gilleon, an attorney for the Olango family, accused authorities of litigating the case in the media by choosing to cherry pick an image.

It took 15 minutes for them to respond and about a minute for them to kill him, Gilleon said. They know theyre in trouble.

The past week has roiled the working-class city of 100,000, and on Thursday evening the protests turned violent. At a main intersection of downtown El Cajon, dozens of protesters blocked vehicles and broke car windows, according to the citys Police Department. One motorcycle rider was knocked off of his vehicle, while a San Diego Union-Tribune photographer was attacked and then robbed of his camera.

Ordered to disperse by police, the crowd began throwing glass bottles, bricks and rocks at officers, who responded with pepper-spray balls. Several people were arrested on suspicion of unlawful assembly, police said. One was arrested for throwing a brick at an officers head, Davis said.

Earlier Thursday, Olangos mother, Pamela Benge, had called for unity and peaceful demonstrations.

I dont want war, Benge, a Ugandan refugee, told reporters. If you have seen war, you will never ever, ever want to step near. Family members say Olango had been suffering from a mental breakdown Tuesday because of the death of a friend.

U.S. Immigration officials said Thursday that two earlier attempts to deport Olango for drug and firearms convictions had been ignored by the Ugandan government.

El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells, who viewed video of the shooting earlier in the week, said Thursday the footage was enlightening, adding that he didnt think it was tremendously complicated to figure out what happened.

Gonsalves is a 21-year department veteran who was demoted last year after a subordinate officer sued him and the city, alleging sexual harassment, according to city officials and court documents.

An interfaith prayer vigil was held in front of the El Cajon Police Department before the video was released. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times )

Bystander videos of shootings and other police actions are becoming common, going viral on social media. But there is no standard policy for when  or if  authorities will release videos in their possession. Many police departments have said they do not intend to make footage from body cameras public.

Authorities have been under increasing pressure to raise the bar in terms of accountability at a time when the public has grown to expect to see any known videos. Protests after several high-profile police shootings this year drove authorities to reverse course on their initial refusal to release footage.

When word of the video release of the El Cajon shooting made its way around the city, a business leader urged the downtown district to shut down early and remain closed until Sunday. A weekly car show and concert were also canceled.

No one has any idea of what may happen next, Daryl R. Priest, president of an organization of El Cajon businesses, said in a statement. Its my hope that nothing happens, but we all need to exercise an abundance of caution.

Gilleon, the Olango family attorney, said the video does not change his view that the officer didnt need to open fire.

He was also puzzled at why officials released the tape a day after they said they would wait until the probe was completed.

sarah.parvini@latimes.com

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

corina.knoll@latimes.com

Times staff writer Richard Winton and David Hernandez of the San Diego Union-Tribune contributed to this report.

ALSO

Immigration officials tried twice to deport Ugandan refugee fatally shot by El Cajon police

Officer involved in fatal El Cajon police shooting was embroiled in sexual harassment lawsuit

These things happen in split seconds: El Cajon shooting reignites debate over how police deal with the mentally ill

UPDATES:

5:07 p.m.: Updated with reaction from family attorney.

3:47 p.m. Updated with more reaction.

3:18 p.m.: Updated with further details from video.

3:02 p.m. Updated with video.

12:50 p.m.: This article was updated with El Cajon police announcing plans to release video of the fatal shooting.

This article was originally published at 7:30 a.m.
State and local officials will host a town hall meeting in Oceanside next week to talk about how and whether to regulate sober-living homes that provide temporary group housing for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts.

The meeting is part of an effort led by state Sen. Pat Bates, R-Laguna Niguel to gather input and provide information about facilities, which often operate in single-family homes in residential neighborhoods. Neighbors often complain the homes are overcrowded and noisy and need more oversight.

We receive a lot of constituent emails, letters and calls complaining about these homes, said Ronald Ongtoaboc, a spokesman for Bates. They go to their local government asking for regulations but are told that its a state issue.

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In addition to Bates, Assemblyman Rocky Chavez, R-Oceanside, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista are scheduled to attend the event, as well as representatives of various social service organizations such as Interfaith Community Services.

Earlier this year Bates introduced Senate Bill 1283, which would have authorized a city or county to adopt health and safety standards for structured sober living homes. The bill  which failed to make it through the senates health committee  would have given local governments some regulatory control over the homes, such as requiring mandatory registration and in-home supervision for the residents, and an operation plan that addresses noise and maintenance issues.

Bates bill was modeled on legislation that was passed by the Arizona Legislature on a bipartisan basis and signed into law by Arizonas governor in 2016, Ongtoaboc said. She hasnt decided whether she will introduce the same bill next year or modify it.

Councilman Jerry Kern will moderate the town hall, which will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday at Oceansides Council Chambers.

Kern said sober-living homes havent been as large a problem in Oceanside as in some other cities, but there are occasional complaints.

The homes are hard to regulate because people recovering from alcohol or drug addiction are classified as disabled under federal law, and they must be provided certain accommodations for housing.

Last year, Encinitas appeared poised to enact an ordinance requiring that sober living homes obtain a city permit; pay a $140 fee; have an on-site manager at each group home on a 24-hour basis; and maintain a 650 foot buffer away from any other sober living home or treatment facility. That ordinance was put on hold on the advise of the city attorney, pending the outcome of a lawsuit against Costa Mesa over that citys sober-living regulations.

Anyone planning to attend Mondays town hall is asked to RSVP at senator.bates@senate.ca.gov. Oceansides City Hall is located at 300 N. Coast Highway.

edward.sifuentes@sduniontribune.com

@EdwardSifuentes
A group of teachers and their supporters have begun calling openly for changes in senior management at El Camino Real Charter High School, which is facing allegations of serious financial wrongdoing  allegations that school leaders have denied.

About 60 teachers and others participated in a Wednesday protest, which took place early in the morning, before staff members signed in for the day at the Woodland Hills campus.

Many drivers, including parents dropping off students, honked their support as they passed. But others ignored the protesters or made critical remarks about the demonstration.

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The school community is divided over the best way to handle allegations that senior managers, especially Executive Director David Fehte, mishandled public education dollars.

A large group of us passionately spoke in defense of keeping our charter by imploring our board of directors to dismiss and terminate ... Dave Fehte and our chief business officer, Marshall Mayotte, for alleged criminal misconduct regarding our schools finances, said teacher Carlos Monroy.

We are sending a message that our voices have been silenced by the inaction of our board and it is jeopardizing our future as an independent charter.

Many of the demonstrators called for the immediate release of findings of an internal investigation, which have not been made public.

El Camino officials declined to comment about the protest, but they have insisted that the school has worked diligently and successfully to address shortcomings in its policies and practices.

Alleged problems cited by the Los Angeles Unified School District include possible inappropriate spending, poor accounting and oversight, and violations of public meeting rules. In coverage over the last several months, the Los Angeles Daily News reported on Fehtes spending for such things as wine, first-class air travel and expensive hotel rooms.

Fehte has denied wrongdoing and said he inadvertently charged about $6,100 in personal expenses on his school credit card. He said he reimbursed the school as soon as these charges were pointed out to him.

Charter schools are independently operated and exempt from some rules that govern traditional campuses. But the authorizing school district retains an oversight role and can revoke a charter or decline to renew it when there is significant misconduct, mismanagement or poor academic performance.

Last month, the L.A. Board of Education approved a formal notice of violations, the first step in a lengthy, multi-step process that could lead to the campus returning to district control.

The school responded to the notice of violations on Sept. 23, submitting a 42-page letter and nearly 400 pages of appendices.

The charter school strongly believes that it has cured all alleged violations, and also that it has put in place mechanisms to ensure that such items do not happen again, wrote Janelle A. Ruley, an attorney representing El Camino. The items identified in the [notice of violations] occurred in the past; the remedies implemented ensure that they will not be repeated.

The letter also alluded to undisclosed discipline against one or more employees  which, wrote Ruley, could be disclosed confidentially to L.A. Unified.

L.A. Unified is reviewing El Caminos submission.

El Camino has been considered a generally successful campus before and after 2011, when it converted to charter status under the leadership of Fehte. The school won the national Academic Decathlon in 2014.

howard.blume@latimes.com

Twitter: @howardblume

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L.A. school board members dream of 100% graduation

UPDATES:

5:05 p.m.: This article has been updated with additional details.

This article was originally published at 6 a.m.
A California agency overseeing judges discipline publicly admonished a Los Angeles County judge Thursday, concluding that he mistreated several prospective jurors who were being vetted for a murder trial.

The Commission on Judicial Performance issued a 34-page admonishment of Superior Court Judge Edmund W. Clarke Jr., who has been on the bench for seven years and works at the downtown criminal courthouse.

The misconduct demonstrates a pattern of discourteous and undignified treatment of jurors, the commission wrote.

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In a statement released by his attorney, Clarke noted that the commissions punishment went beyond the recommendation of a three-person evidentiary panel that heard his case. The panel said there was only misconduct involving one juror instead of four. Clarke plans to ask the state supreme court to review the commissions decision.

The decision chills the spontaneous and human interaction that is part of jury selection, Clarkes statement said.

The allegations stem from a single day in May 2014 when Clark was presiding over jury selection for the type of case that even by the commissions own account, typically proves difficult to seat a jury  a month-long, gang-related murder trial with four defendants. The commission said he belittled and mocked four jurors.

It started with the juror hardship form, which citizens can use to provide reasons why they cannot serve on a jury.

One woman wrote she was having severe anxiety!! and said she earned minimum wage as a waitress, had a wedding coming up and was experiencing anxiety while at the courthouse. When she complained to Clarke that his courtroom clerk was disrespectful, the judge cut her off and ordered her to wait outside until the end of the day.

When she returned, Clarke was condescending and criticized her for not approaching the clerk privately, the commission wrote. He told the woman, If you came here thinking that this was going to be Disneyland and you were getting an E Ticket and have a good time, Im afraid you have no sense of what is going on in this building.

In between these two conversations, Clarke mistreated three more jurors, the commission wrote.

One woman claimed she didnt speak or understand English well enough to be on a jury. Like the first juror, Clarke ordered her to wait outside until he was ready for her. He told her that he doubted her because her juror hardship form indicated that she spoke English, though the woman apparently changed it to show that she could not.

After more than an hour waiting, Clarke called her back in with a Spanish-language interpreter. Audibly sobbing in the courtroom, the woman told the judge she was ashamed that she didnt speak English after 25 years in the country and then offered the following explanation:

My father was German, may he rest in peace. And he had me naturalized as a citizen when I was 2 years old. And then he sent me to Mexico. And when I came back here, I was already a grownup.

Clarke apologized and excused her, but the damage was done, the commission said.

Judge Clarke has again violated his duty under the canons to be patient, dignified and courteous to those who appear before him by accusing [the juror] in open court of dishonesty in an intemperate and disparaging manner, the commission concluded.

That same afternoon, two more prospective jurors indicated they could not afford to sit on the jury because of financial strains. The jurors wrote how much money they had in the bank and each amount was less than $50.

Its an impressive and convincing figure, Clarke told one of the jurors, according to the commission.

Thank you for not sharing it, the juror replied.

Well, every one of these lawyers spent more than that on lunch today, he said.

Great, the juror sarcastically replied.

As soon as the juror exited the courtroom, the judge announced that she had listed her bank account balance as $25, an action that the commission found to be manifestly discourteous and undignified.

Clarke then needled a second juror who reported having $33 in the bank.

You are putting [the previous juror] in the shade with that big account, Clarke said, and then excused the juror. Good luck on getting paid and being able to bring that number up a little bit better.

The commission criticized Clarkes attempt at humor.

Public esteem for the judicial system is harmed when a judge mistreats and belittles jurors, uses humor at a jurors expense, and retaliates against a juror for complaining about his clerk.

This is the second time Clarke has been disciplined, the commission noted. In December 2013, he received an advisory letter for the way he spoke to a defendant.

The two incidents show that Judge Clarke has shown a very limited appreciation of the impropriety of his conduct, warranting the public admonition, the commission wrote.

Joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.
Hours after federal prosecutors filed charges against him, a Mexican national pleaded guilty Thursday to starting a wildfire that recently burned more than 45 square miles in the Sequoia National Forest.

A federal judge sentenced Angel Gilberto Garcia-Avalos, 29, to 13 months in prison and ordered him to pay $61 million in restitution for damage caused by the Cedar fire, according to the U.S. attorneys office.

Garcia-Avalos, a resident of Michoacan, Mexico, was driving off-road illegally Aug. 16 when his Nissan Maxima got stuck on a berm and his catalytic converter and muffler ignited dead grass.

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The fire swiftly spread and burned 29,322 acres in Kern and Tulare counties, according to Acting U.S. Atty. Phillip A. Talbert. Flames destroyed six homes and triggered mandatory evacuations of several communities in both counties.

Prosecutors charged Garcia-Avalos with one count of causing a fire to burn in the forest and two counts of giving false information to a forest officer.

At his first court appearance Thursday in Bakersfield, he entered the guilty plea and was sentenced. While imposing the penalty, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jennifer L. Thurston commented that Garcia-Avalos exhibited significant negligence and made no effort to get help after the blaze erupted.

Prosecutors say Garcia-Avalos turned off a highway onto a rough dirt road in the forest and he got stuck as he tried to drive over the berm. When the car rolled back and hit a tree, the hot muffler and catalytic converter touched tall, dead grass and sparked the fast-moving blaze.

Ranchers spotted Garcia-Avalos carrying his 4-year-old son on his shoulders west of the Cedar Creek Campground area, where the fire had been reported, according to a U.S. District Court complaint. They suspected he started the fire and offered to help, but he said he was OK. Still, ranchers recorded the conversation with an iPhone.

Garcia-Avalos told the ranchers that his car had been stolen and that his son saw the man who took it, and that he was walking home to Delano, which is more than 42 miles away from the Cedar Creek area, according to an affidavit written by U.S. Forest Service Special Agent Brian Adams.

The ranchers were able to convince Garcia-Avalos to enter their home so that he could call someone for help. During the visit, they asked him several questions about the fire, and Garcia-Avalos denied responsibility, prosecutors say.

At the crash site, fire investigators found a burned vehicle and shoe prints belonging to a small child and an adult. The shoe prints led investigators from the car to Highway 155. Tire tracks found at the scene indicated that the driver tried several times to make it up a hill before the car hit the tree.

According to federal prosecutors, Garcia-Avalos lied to a Forest Service official about driving through the forest and having his car stolen.

Garcia-Avalos told the investigator that he and his son had gone to the mountains to watch the view and that he had gone to retrieve water when his son yelled out that a man with long hair was stealing the car, according to the affidavit. Garcia-Avalos agreed to have his and his sons shoes photographed and taken for evidence.

Garcia-Avalos reported Aug. 29 to his probation office and was detained for deportation proceedings. Garcia-Avalos has previously been convicted of burglary, stealing a car and traffic violations, according to court documents. He told investigators that he entered the U.S. illegally.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

For breaking news in California, follow VeronicaRochaLA on Twitter.

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UPDATES:

7:10 p.m.: This article was updated with details on the guilty plea and sentencing of Angel Gilberto Garcia-Avalos.

This article was originally published at 3:10 p.m.
You know that old Otto von Bismarck line about how laws are like sausages, and it is better not to see them being made? No one ever says that at the Heart & Trotter. At this North Park butcher shop specializing in local and sustainable meats, people not only want to see the sausage being made, they are willing to pay $75 for the privilege of making it it themselves.

We started doing these classes to get more involved with our customer base, said Sausage 101 instructor Joey Parks, Heart & Trotters chef and production manager. People really like them. Some people bring their families or they do a date night. One time, we even had guys do it for a bachelor party. They did the pig butchery class and the sausage class in the same night.

So last Wednesday night, while many of San Diegos champion eaters were taking advantage of Restaurant Week bargains, four food fiends were preparing for an evening of wrestling with bone-chilling meat, sinus-clearing cayenne and muscle-straining machinery.

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They would be stymied by slippery sausage casings and briefly embroiled in fennel-related disputes. They would use too much garlic and not regret it. And what would they get in the end? Three pounds of artisanal sausage and a heaping portion of bragging rights.

Its not hard to make sausage, Parks said as he assembled the ingredients in the butcherys small kitchen before his students arrived. But were trying to make great sausage.

The first thing most people want to know about Sausage 101 is how gross is it going to be, really? Unless your Squirm-o-meter threshold is set at fainting couch, the answer is not gross at all.

Unlike Heart & Trotters Pork 101: How to Break Down a Whole Pig, the sausage-making class does not get into the kind of anatomical specifics that bring up traumatic high-school biology class memories. Because the shops pork-grinding process involves multiple steps and many hours, the sausage-class pork is ground ahead of time and waiting for the students in neat, non-bloody portions in the walk-in refrigerator. (The pigs themselves are from Cooks Pigs Ranch in Julian.)

The two young couples attending the class were food lovers and Heart & Trotter customers, so the prospect of being faced with a whole pig might not have phased them much. But Lorenzo Tano, Alejandra Klorig, J.J. Liu and Alice Fan were faced with something almost as daunting  a blank pork canvas.

Sausage 101 students have the choice of three recipes: breakfast sausage, mild Italian and hot Italian. But Parks gives them a lot of latitude in the spicing department. Too much, maybe.

Feel free to spice it however you want, Parks said.

So, extra fennel? Liu said of the licorice-flavored spice that is a deal-breaker for many palates.

So, youre sleeping outside, Fan said, probably kidding.

Emulsifying came next. Time for the students to plunge their gloved hands into the cold pork and massage in the spices and some ice water until the mixture of ground picnic roast (from the shoulder), ham and fatback were blended into silky sausage innards.

Next step? Test patties. Parks threw small rounds of everyones sausage on the grill for a taste test, along with a few of Heart & Trotters stellar bratwurst and chaurice sausages.

Everyone agreed that the Heart & Trotter links were awesome and the sausage-class sausages were pretty darned good, too. Klorig decided a touch more brown sugar would liven up her breakfast sausages, while Fan stood by her recipe tweaks.

I put in a ton of garlic, she said of her hot Italian mix. Im going to keep the recipe as it is and eat these on the weekend when Im not going to be seeing anyone.

One of the weird things about sausage making is how it turns out to be just the opposite of the Otto von Bismarck vision of culinary chaos.

After heaving their pork mix into the fearsome-looking sausage press, the students turned the hand-crank that fed the sausage mixture through the tube that fed it into the vaguely porn-y looking sausage casing. Then little food miracles occurred.

Some of the resulting sausage ropes were pocked with air bubbles, and Lieu had to do battle with a stray ice cube. Then Parks showed the students how to use a fancy twisting motion that turned their unwieldy, uneven sausage ropes into neat sausage links They had transformed mounds of eccentrically spiced meat into piles of plump sausages ready to appear on a Facebook feed near you.

They had watched the sausage being made, and it was beautiful.

Ive never had anyone make a bad sausage, Parks said happily. I wont let it happen.
Shimon Peres

Shimon Peres, the former Israeli president and prime minister who died Wednesday at 93, told The Jerusalem Post two years ago that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "was ready to launch an attack" on Iran, and "I stopped him."

Peres, speaking with The Post's Steve Linde and David Brinn in a meeting at the Peres Center for Peace in Jaffa on August 24, 2014, apparently said he didn't want to go into details about his conversation with Netanyahu.

He also stipulated that The Post could not report on the exchange until after his death.

In 2011, Netanyahu and his defense minister at the time, Ehud Barak, were actively building their case to attack Iran by arguing that the Islamic Republic was developing a nuclear bomb.

"By next spring, at most by next summer at current enrichment rates, [Iran] will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage," Netanyahu said at a UN General Assembly meeting in 2012. "From there, it's only a few months, possibly a few weeks before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb."

The Israeli Defense Force and members of Israel's defense establishment opposed Netanyahu's plans to strike Iran first, however. So did Peres.

"It is now clear to us that we cannot go it alone," Peres said in an interview with an Israeli news outlet in 2012, referring to Netanyahu's desire to attack Iran.

"We can forestall it; therefore it's clear to us that we have to work together with America. There are questions of coordination and timing, but because of the nature of the danger, we are not alone," he added then.

A secret cable written by Israel's intelligence leaked that year further conveyed the dissent brewing within Netanyahu's own establishment. Iran was "not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons," the cable read.

Obama Netanyahu

Story continues

The Obama administration intervened shortly after Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli lieutenant general, visited Washington and relayed Netanyahu's plans to attack Iran, which Ashkenazi opposed (with Peres' agreement, according to The Post).

President Obama  who was in the beginning phases of negotiating his landmark nuclear deal with Iran at the time  sent the vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. James Winnefeld, to Israel to pressure officials not to follow through with an attack. The move infuriated Netanyahu and contributed to the tense relationship that remains between the two leaders.

Netanyahu was ultimately overruled. And if what Peres said is true, he apparently had more to do with deterring an attack on Iran than either Israel's defense establishment or the US.

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Theres more bad news for the beleaguered U.S. Veterans Affairs Departments not-so-hot hotline for suicidal veterans.

An insider memo newly uncovered by the Associated Press indicates that more than one-third of calls to the national suicide hotline for troubled veterans are not being answered by front-line staffers because of poor work habits and other problems at the VA.

Thats according to Greg Hughes, former director of the VA's Veterans Crisis Line in Canandaigua, NY.

Hughes said in an internal email that some crisis line staffers "spend very little time on the phone or engaged in assigned productive activity." Coverage at the crisis line suffers "because we have staff who routinely request to leave early," he said.

Some hotline workers handle fewer than five calls per day and leave before their shifts end, even as crisis calls have increased sharply in recent years.

An average of 35 to 40 percent of crisis calls received in May rolled over to back-up centers where workers have less training to deal with veterans' problems, said Hughes, who left his post in June, weeks after sending the emails.

That news comes atop a February VA inspector general report revealing that more than 20 people who called the same crisis line in fiscal 2014 were transferred to a voicemail system and their calls never returned.

Congress has jumped on the issue this week.

The House on Monday unanimously approved a bill requiring the VA to ensure that all telephone calls, text messages and other communications received by the crisis line are answered in a timely way by a qualified person.

On Wednesday night, President Barack Obama at a CNN town hall meeting acknowledged that there have been significant problems with an overall VA bureaucracy overwhelmed by the number of returning troops.

I dont want to in any way pretend that we are where we need to be, Obama said.

The VAs national crisis line launched in July 2007. Since then, VA personnel have answered more than 1.86 million calls and made more than 50,000 lifesaving rescues, according to department figures.

In July 2009, the program added an online chat feature and, in November 2011, text messaging became available.

Callers from San Diego are routed for follow-up from the suicide prevention team at the San Diego VA.

Dawn Miller, a social worker on that team, discusses what they do.

jen.steele@sduniontribune.com

Facebook: U-T Military

Twitter: @jensteeley
San Diego police say it appears a man fatally shot his girlfriend, then turned the gun and killed himself at a Bankers Hill womens living facility Thursday.

The girlfriend was at work at the Frances Woods housing facility on Redwood Street at the time of the shooting, homicide Lt. Ray Valentin said.

The couple, who was not identified, was locked in an office while the girlfriend spoke to another woman through the door, homicide Lt. Ray Valentin said.

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The woman who was outside the office suddenly heard a bang. She called 911 about 3:15 p.m.

Fire crews arrived and broke a window. They saw the couple on the floor inside the office, Valentin said. Both had suffered gunshot wounds and were pronounced dead.

Police recovered a gun at the scene.

Valentin said no one around heard an argument prior to the shooting.

The Frances Woods facility, which is run by the Big Sister League of San Diego, provides transitional housing to women, most of whom suffer from mental illnesses, according to the organizations website.

Valentin did not know whether the victims left behind children.

The couple, from San Diego, was identified Thursday as Arnisha Harris, 35, and Joseph Robinson, 44. Valentin did not know whether the two left behind children.

Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez

UPDATES:

6:55p.m.: This article was updated with additional details.

This article was originally published at 5:15 p.m.
A person was found dead in a fire that destroyed a house east of Poway Thursday morning, a fire official said.

The 2,000-square-foot home on Dos Picos Park Road was fully engulfed when firefighters arrived about 9 a.m., Cal Fire Capt. Kendal Bortisser said.

Fire crews began attacking the flames and searched the home, just north of Dos Picos County Park. They found the victim, who has not been identified, dead in a back room.

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The Medical Examiners Office will determine how the person died.

It took firefighters more than three hours to fully extinguish the fire because the residents had collected boxes full of items, Bortisser said.

There were boxes full of a lot of stuff that hindered the firefighting efforts. The boxes burned, the captain said.

The blaze briefly spread to the thick vegetation that surrounded the home, but firefighters promptly doused those flames.

It had a large potential of becoming a large brush fire but firefighters jumped on the flames very quickly, Bortisser said.

Cal Fire, San Diego and Barona firefighters put out the fire about 12:45 p.m. A Cal Fire firefighting aircraft responded but was not needed.

Investigators had not determined how the blaze started or how much damage it caused. The house was completely destroyed, Bortisser said.

He did not know how many people lived in the home.

Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez
Protests of the police shooting in El Cajon turned violent Thursday night, with police using pepper balls and flashbang grenades to disperse a crowd that threw glass bottles and smashed vehicle windows.

At least two men were arrested during the third consecutive night of protests following the death of 38-year-old Alfred Olango.

The unarmed black man was shot by police when he grasped a vape smoking device with both hands and pointed it at an officer.

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On Thursday night about 50 to 75 people  a smaller crowd than previous nights  took over the intersection of Broadway and Mollison Avenue.

The violence began about 8 p.m. when the crowd stopped passing vehicles and broke several of their windows, police said.

At one point, a man laid down his motorcycle in the intersection when he lost control of it, and a scuffle broke out between the rider and the protesters.

Police said they received several 911 calls about the altercation.

Sheriffs deputies and officers from several police departments formed a line, facing off with the crowd in their riot gear.

Shortly after, a sheriffs helicopter declared the protest an unlawful assembly and instructed protesters to disperse or risk arrest.

Police said some demonstrators threw glass bottles, and officers responded by firing pepper balls at the crowd.

Two men from El Cajon, ages 19 and 28, were arrested on suspicion of engaging in an unlawful assembly. Their names were not released.

Officers and deputies eventually left the intersection, leaving most of the protesters behind.

Several vehicles performed donuts in the intersection, and police later pulled over a driver in a nearby parking lot on Broadway. Many of the protesters rushed over, spurring yet another confrontation between police and the crowd.

Platoons of officers and deputies faced off with the crowd, firing pepper rounds and throwing flashbang grenades as a sheriffs helicopter once again declared an unlawful assembly and ordered the crowd to disperse.

Most of the protesters left by midnight.

The unrest began Tuesday afternoon shortly after Olango was killed in the police confrontation behind the Los Panchos taco shop on Broadway.

Protesters, community leaders and his family say the shooting was unwarranted and have demanded police release video of the shooting, captured by a witness.

Crowds of about 300 people turned out Tuesday and Wednesday nights to denounce the shooting.

Mayor Bill Wells and police Chief Jeff Davis have pleaded for calm in the community. Wells said Wednesday night that he was pleased the demonstrations hadnt turned violent.

While there is anger, I dont think theres anger to the point that it leads to violence. Im happy about that, the mayor said.

Unlawful assembly declared during third night of protest following fatal police shooting in El Cajon PD pic.twitter.com/wMY0qBMjQ5  David Hernandez (@D4VIDHernandez) September 30, 2016

Sheriff's helicopter declaring unlawful assembly in El Cajon. Some protesters remain. pic.twitter.com/A5hfdvQA1X  David Hernandez (@D4VIDHernandez) September 30, 2016

Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez

UPDATES:

1:05 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details.

This article was originally published at 11:10 p.m.
Legal Aid Society of San Diego will receive a $371,000 grant to help fund a project that provides free legal services to elderly and disabled clients.

The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Legal Services Corp. announced Thursday that the award would go to Legal Aids pro bono project that provides advice and representation to low-income clients receiving in-home assistance.

In-Home Supportive Services is a statewide program that allows disabled people to stay home instead of being forced into nursing homes or board-and-care facilities, which may exceed what they can afford, authorities said.

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Legal Aid Society of San Diego is one of 11 grant recipients this year from Legal Services Corporations $4 Pro Bono Innovation Fund.

This is the third year the corporation has awarded grants from the innovation fund, which was established by Congress in 2014.

dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com

TWITTER: @danalittlefield
About 50 clergy members from around the region gathered at El Cajon police headquarters Friday, praying for peace and unity after a night with violent protest over the Alfred Olango shooting by an officer.

Surrounded by about 150 onlookers, the pastors sang Amazing Grace.

None of us is perfect, said Pastor Richard Cisco of Gospel Fest Ministries in Encanto. We pray for your presence and your peace.

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Let us use this moment to draw us forward for the city of El Cajon and the East County region, said Rolland Slade, senior pastor at Meridian Baptist Church in El Cajon. We pray to the Lord on behalf of the city of El Cajon and the East County for shalom.

Dave Josphe of Last Harvest in El cajon prayed in English and Arabic, asking God, the prince of peace, to give us peace.

The crowd quietly lingered afterward for a time.

City Manager Doug Williford entered the police station early Friday, saying he suggested to council members that they stay away from the prayer gathering, to let the community have its say.

The police station has remained closed for business for three days. One man walked up to the locked doors, disappointed that he would not be able to retrieve his identity card taken by police when he was arrested, he said.

City Hall also is closed for the day.

Cajon Valley Union School District is letting students out early, as a precaution, according to Superintendent David Miyashiro.

The school districts website posted a message for parents, alerting them to a last day of school schedule:

This will mean that middle school dismissal time will be at 12:15 p.m. and all elementary schools will dismiss one hour early. The District Offices will close at 3:00 p.m. Your school principal will be sending an all-call message home tonight with the specific time and details around dismissal.

Youth football has moved its Saturday games to Mount Miguel High School in Spring Valley.

In the early hours Friday, a growing memorial of flowers and candles was largely deserted at the strip mall at Broadway and Mollison Avenue where Olango was killed by police on Tuesday.

No officers were there and yellow barrier tape has been removed. Passing motorists slowed to look at the memorial.

One El Cajon woman stopped and took a photograph.

My heart breaks for the fact a man is dead, said the woman, who did not want to be identified. She added that, based on a photograph of the confrontation between Olango and officers, she can understand why officers fired.

Olango, 38, a refugee from Uganda to the United States when he was young, was fatally shot during a brief encounter with two El Cajon police officers.

Police say they got several calls from a man described as possibly mentally ill, with erratic behavior, getting into traffic near Broadway and Mollison Avenue. The officers got there about 2:10 p.m. and saw Olango in a taco shop parking lot.

One officer fired a Taser and one fired his gun when Olango pulled a shiny metal vaping device out of his front pants pocket and aimed it at the officers, police said.

A witness recorded video of the incident and turned the cellphone video over to police. Authorities later released to the public a still photo from the video, showing Olango aiming the device at one nearby officer. Police have said the officers thought it was a weapon.

Hundreds of people have rallied and marched in protest of the shooting, calling it unwarranted. Olangos mother, in a tearful speech to reporters on Thursday, said her son was not mentally ill, but distraught over the recent death of his best friend.

Thursday night, demonstrators took to the streets and turned violent by stopping cars, smashing car windows and scuffling with a motorcycle rider.

Officers and sheriffs deputies in riot gear and gas masks used tear gas, pepperball rounds and flash-bang grenades to disperse the crowds.

Two men, ages 19 and 28, were arrested on misdemeanor charges of unlawful assembly.
A former California Highway Patrol officer who was found guilty of illegally transferring temporary drivers licenses to a family friend was sentenced in San Diego federal court this week to three months in prison.

Carlos Ravelo, a 13-year Highway Patrol veteran, was convicted in June. On Monday at sentencing, he was also given three months of home confinement following his prison term.

Prosecutors said Ravelo obtained a temporary license for a family friend who was arrested for a DUI in 2013. The friend had a blood-alcohol content of 0.19 percent and faced suspension of her drivers license.

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Ravelo  through an intermediary  paid a DMV official cash in exchange for the temporary license, prosecutors said. He did it again a few months later.

The DMV employee turns out to have collected other bribes. Alva Benavidez was charged in a separate case in which she admitted conspiring to accept bribes from attorneys and their representatives in exchange for letting their clients keep their driving privileges.

Benavidez worked as a driving safety officer and was in charge of hearings that determined whether drivers charged with DUI should have their licenses suspended. She also could decide to give such drivers temporary licenses. She was sentenced to three months in custody and six months of home confinement.

Prosecutors have not named attorneys allegedly involved, nor have they been charged.

According to court records, Ravelo had a past DUI arrest of his own, and Benavidez presided over his administrative hearing.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavis
A lawsuit filed earlier this year against former Rep. Duncan Hunter, father of the current congressman with the same name, has been dismissed and the judge made sure the case will not be refiled.

The complaint was a longshot when it was filed. It accused Hunter of failing to properly process a pair of adoptions he oversaw in 1980 while working as an attorney in private practice  and long before he was elected to the first of 14 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Plaintiffs Pedro Aguila and his two adopted children, Maria and Julio, accused Hunter of failing to complete paperwork for the adoptions from Mexico and as a result the children did not become U.S. citizens.

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Judge Ronald L. Styn dismissed the suit with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled. He said in his ruling that it was simply too late to lodge such allegations.

Although plaintiffs seek leave to amend, plaintiffs fail to demonstrate a reasonable probability the complaint can be amended to plead around the  statute of limitations, the judge ruled on Sept. 23.

Therefore, defendants Duncan L. Hunter Sr.s demurrer is sustained without leave to amend.  This ruling disposes of this case in its entirety, Styn added.

The Aguilas, who acted as their own attorneys in the case, did not respond to questions about the decision.

Before he joined Congress in 1981, Hunter ran his own law practice in Barrio Logan. He was one of few lawyers in the lower-income community and often discounted his fees.

The Aguilas suit said Hunter committed negligence, fraud and misrepresentation when he assured the parents and their adopted children that they were naturalized citizens.

Attorney Elliot Adler, who represented the former congressman, said he and his client were pleased with the decision.

The facts in this case purportedly occurred over 35 years ago, Adler said. The allegations are entirely unfounded, and plaintiffs original counsel substituted out of the case. The court dismissed the case in its entirety.

According to court records, Maria Aguila said she planned to appeal the ruling.
Law enforcement officials across California will no longer be able to share in the proceeds of most cash and property seizures unless there is a criminal conviction resulting from the case, under a bill signed Thursday by Gov. Jerry Brown.

The legislation, authored by Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, represents a significant win for civil-right advocates, who have complained for years that the law gives police and sheriff agencies a financial incentive to seize cash and other assets.

Why should private property be forfeited to the police agency which confiscated it when no conviction has shown any connection to a crime? Mitchell asked, when urging Brown to sign her bill. Innocent until proven guilty is the law of the land.

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Brown, who is signing and rejecting hundreds of bills in the hours before the Friday deadline, did not issue a signing statement explaining his decision.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has made the so-called asset forfeiture rules a top priority this year, applauded Browns decision Thursday.

For years, asset forfeiture abuse has wreaked havoc on innocent people throughout the country, especially people of color, immigrants, and low-income people who cannot afford to fight the government in court, said Mica Doctoroff of ACLU of California Center for Advocacy and Policy.

The ACLU issued a report earlier this year that found what it called widespread abuse of federal civil-asset forfeiture rules.

According to the study, 85 percent of the proceeds of federally seized assets in California went to agencies in jurisdictions where a majority of residents are people of color. It also said half of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration seizures in California involved people with Latino surnames.

SB 443 will not only rein in the abuse in California, but also offers a blueprint for workable solutions to other states seeking reform, Doctoroff said.

San Diego County law enforcement agencies collect millions of dollars a year under the federal civil-asset forfeiture program, money they can spend in a variety of ways.

San Diego police used some of their funds to pay for helicopter insurance. The sheriffs department spent part of its seized assets on overtime and new construction. The District Attorneys Office spent some of its revenue on travel, training and a banquet honoring courageous citizens, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported earlier this year.

State law already required an underlying conviction for law enforcement to retain any seized assets.

But local police ad sheriffs departments regularly partner with federal agencies like the DEA and take property from criminal suspects under U.S. law, which does not require the suspect to be criminally convicted.

Under the new law, state and local police agencies can only receive a portion of the seized cash or property in federal cases if there is an underlying conviction or if the forfeited property is $40,000 or more in cash.

In state cases, cash amounts of less than $40,000 can only be forfeited with an accompanying conviction. The $40,000 threshold was raised from $25,000.

The $40,000 threshold is important because numerous studies have shown police regularly used the forfeiture rules to seize relatively small amounts of cash from people on their way to rent an apartment or buy a used car.

Joseph Villela of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, said the new law will help ease tensions between law enforcement agencies and minority communities.

In addition to providing due process to all Californians, the enactment of this bill would further restore trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities, he said.

The legislation is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2017.
Gov. Jerry Brown signed five bills Thursday aimed at reform for the California Public Utilities Commission and called on the agency to take additional steps to impose changes of its own.

These important reforms cannot wait another year, Brown said in a statement announcing his support for the package of bills. To that end, I am calling on the commission to use its existing authority to take immediate action. Together, these administrative reforms and legislative acts will bring much needed improvement to the commission.

The signings came almost a year after Brown vetoed six bills that would have imposed a different set of reforms on the commission, which oversees power companies, telecommunications firms, passenger carriers and other public services. He said those bills contained contradictory provisions and did not work as a package.

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Browns action this week follows a report last week by the California State Auditor that found the commission has not guarded against the appearance of improper influence in its decision-making and failed to fully disclose important communications between its regulators and external parties.

The legislation signed by the governor requires commissioners to disclose and report private, or ex parte, communications with utility executives and other interested parties in rate-setting cases.

Some consumer groups called for an outright ban on such communications but the governor supports strong disclosure in the interest of not stifling important stakeholder voices.

The new laws also require more information to be made publicly available, establish the position of safety advocate and authorize the Attorney Generals Office to bring enforcement actions in Superior Court against commission employees who violate ex parte rules.

The laws also call for future commission meetings to be scheduled around the state so more people can attend.

The reform package that made it to the governors desk excluded certain provisions of an agreement reached in June, when Brown and key legislators announced a deal to fundamentally restructure the commission.

In addition to steering many commission responsibilities to other state agencies, the agreement called for Superior Court review of commission denials of public records requests. It also called on the commission to work to relocate tons of nuclear waste from the San Diego County coastline.

Even though those proposals won the initial support of Brown and top lawmakers, they did not make it through the statehouse.

The governors signature on five commission-reform bills was largely welcomed by lawmakers and consumer advocates, although some feel more needs to be done.

The reforms approved by the governor today will ensure commissioners disclose their private meetings with utility executives and will result in heavy penalties for those who violate the rules, said Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who co-wrote one of the bills Brown signed.

The changes included in SB 215 will help keep the CPUC focused on the publics ratepayer and safety interests, and I am pleased we were able to find common ground with the governor in pursuit of enhanced transparency and accountability, Leno said.

Jamie Court, president of the Santa Monica advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, was skeptical of Browns approach.

This is a shameful ruse that pretends, in the face of mountains of Public Records Act evidence, that there is separation of powers between the Governors Office and the PUC, Court said.

Brown had several suggestions for the CPUC. He said the commission should appoint an ethics ombudsman to help promote compliance with regulations and best practices. The governor also said the commission should develop a reorganization plan to transfer some duties to other agencies, post more information on the Internet, improve its coordination with other state agencies and streamline the release of public records.

The commission said it shares the commitment of the governor and lawmakers to improve its operations.

We will continue our efforts to transform into an agency that is dedicated to safety, transparency and accountability to the people of California, spokeswoman Terrie Prosper said.

Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Los Angeles, who introduced a plan to dismantle the utilities commission after Brown vetoed the reform bills last year, was unconvinced that regulators would adopt stricter rules of practice on their own.

The public will certainly be watching whether the PUC heeds the call to implement the reforms proposed, Gatto said. But if it was so easy for the PUC to reform itself from the inside, then the question becomes why hasnt it already.

The California Public Utilities Commission has been under criminal investigation since 2014, when thousands of emails were released showing that regulators and utility executives routinely met to discuss business pending before the panel, sometimes trading favors. No charges have been filed.

One such meeting between former President Michael Peevey and a Southern California Edison executive involved an undisclosed draft deal to assign costs for the failed San Onofre nuclear plant in San Diego County. The men met at a luxury hotel in Poland. Eventually, utility customers were assigned 70 percent of the $4.7 billion in costs, a decision that has since been reopened amid criticism.

The Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco consumer group that fights to reduce electricity rates, said improvements to the ex parte reporting rules will help level the playing field in future proceedings.

Although these reforms are not as comprehensive as the ones vetoed by the governor last year, they provide the CPUC with an opportunity to demonstrate a commitment to transparency and ethical practice, staff attorney Matthew Freedman said in a statement.
An African White Bellied Tree Pangolin, which was the only one on display in the United States, died this week at the San Diego Zoo.

Named Baba, the pangolin was believed to be about 10 years old and was one of the longest living of its kind ever recorded.

Its species has the unfortunate designation of being the most poached and trafficked mammal in the world. Experts say that more than one million of the scale-covered, burrowing animals have been killed in the last decade.

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Pangolins, which are also known as scaly anteaters, live in Asia, the Philippines and Africa. They are prized primarily for their scales which are used in traditional medicine and as fashion accessories and they are also killed for their meat which is considered a luxury food in some parts of the world.

Jeff Flocken, the North American Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, told the Los Angeles Times earlier this month that the threat to the animals is significant and escalating. Due to the high demand for consumption, they are disappearing, he said.

There are eight types of pangolins in the wild and two of them are listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Red List of Threatened Species.

In an effort to end the threat, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, on Wednesday voted to up the pangolins status to the highest international protection possible.

The new listing will prohibit international commercial trade and empower range states to increase domestic protections to fight the tremendous threats facing the species, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe. We are thrilled with this outcome.

Baba was brought to the zoo in 2007 after being intercepted by fish and wildlife officals in an illegal shipment. Near death, he was nursed back to health and has since lived at the Childrens Zoo where officials said he became a beloved ambassador for his species.

His health declined over the past year and he was taken to the zoos hospital after keepers noticed he was behaving abnormally. He died on Wednesday.

Baba played an important role educating our guests and will be greatly missed by all who knew him, said zoo officials in a statement.
Since 1998, California voters have approved $40 billion in state school construction bonds. All were put on the ballot by the Legislature and backed by the governor.

Proposition 51 is different. The Legislature did not put Proposition 51 on the ballot and Gov. Jerry Brown opposes it.

The Yes on 51 campaign is funded by the California Building Industry Association and the Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH)  a cozy alliance of school contractors and school officials who hire them. They put Proposition 51 on the ballot.

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ANOTHER VIEW: Yes on 51: San Diego County schools need state

Proposition 51 represents a corruption of our initiative process. The school construction industry hijacked the process to get what the Legislature wont provide  state funding without reform.

If thats not reason enough, there are three other reasons to defeat Proposition 51.

First, Proposition 51 increases developer profits at taxpayer expense. By law, developer fees are the funding source used to build new schools in new housing tracts.

When state bond money is available, developer fees are reduced to half the construction cost. By shifting school construction costs onto taxpayers, developers make bigger profits.

In May, the State Allocation Board allowed school districts to increase developer fees to cover 100 percent of new school construction costs since state bond money was gone. Developers put up a legal fight. Recently a Sacramento court ruled in favor of the allocation board. As a result, several school districts are expected to increase developer fees to the full cost of new school construction.

But if Proposition 51 passes, school districts will be prevented from raising fees and may be required to reduce them. Developers will pass their costs onto taxpayers and increase their profits. This is why developers are bankrolling the Yes on 51 campaign.

Second, Proposition 51 blocks needed reforms. It does nothing to correct problems with the distribution of state bond money. Existing rules are burdensome and inefficient. Reform is needed to address these flaws:

 Big districts quickly scoop up the limited funding while smaller districts lose out because state bond money is allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Large, wealthy districts have permanent and dedicated staff that can quickly prepare and submit the sizable and complicated applications. Smaller districts in poor communities cant compete. They lack the resources to complete the huge and burdensome paperwork fast enough.

 State rules are inflexible. They prevent school districts from designing schools that meet local needs. Funding formulas are based on outdated space requirements and drive up costs.

 When the rules were adopted, student enrollment was growing. But in the coming decade, Californias student population is expected to decline. Districts using outdated enrollment data may build more than is needed.

 Existing rules create incentive to build new schools when districts already have the capacity to absorb enrollment growth. Proposition 51 continues this defect by setting aside $3 billion of the $9 billion for new construction.

 Districts deal with as many as 10 separate state agencies to obtain the bond funding. This creates long delays experienced by most school construction projects, often doubling and tripling costs.

Proposition 51 keeps the state Legislature from reforming this outdated one-size-fits-all approach for another five years.

Third and finally, Proposition 51 is unnecessary. Voters need to understand the expanded local revenue available resulting from the reduction of the voter approval threshold to 55 percent. Since that rule was implemented more than 80 percent of local school bonds pass. Today, school construction needs can be met without expensive statewide bonds.

Last June voters approved over 90 percent of the $6 billion in local bond measures on the ballot. The November ballot is filled with 184 such measures statewide totaling $25.2 billion, which at least $20 billion will pass; more than twice the size of Proposition 51.

While taxpayers in wealthy communities can afford to fund school construction, others need help. State assistance should target small, disadvantaged school districts and make the program more equitable.

Instead of Proposition 51, propose a smaller, targeted state bond for low-income districts that cant afford or pass local bonds.

Lets pursue real solutions, not special-interest giveaways. Vote No on Proposition 51.

Marshall is the chief financial officer of California Taxpayers Action Network, the official signer of the argument against Proposition 51. California Taxpayers Action Network is an all-volunteer, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes fiscal responsibility and transparency in local government. Website: www.caltan.org.
When President Obama vetoed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) last week, the Senate majority leader, House speaker and New York-based presidential candidates all called for a congressional override to revive the act. It authorizes private civil litigation against other nations for terrorist events on U.S. soil.

One of the primary legislative sponsors, New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, said JASTA would facilitate the ability of Americans attacked on U.S. soil to get justice from those who have sponsored that [9/11] terrorist attack. ... [It] will hopefully help victims and their families achieve the closure that they so terribly need from this horrific tragedy.

Yet the commander-in-chief, secretary of defense, and Joint Chiefs of Staff all characterized JASTA as a dreadful idea, with predictable negative consequences. But with no post-veto floor debate, JASTA was passed Wednesday, just five days after President Barack Obamas veto  the first override of the Obama presidency.

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The 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) was the sole basis for a U.S. court to hear cases involving a foreign nation. Per its central provision: a foreign state shall be immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States.

It was amended in 1996, to expose a half-dozen specifically designated terrorist countries to suits in the United State. Iran was thus subjected to a multi-trillion-dollar judgment for its role in the 1983 barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon. Sudan was also sued for its role in the 2000 Yemen bombing of the USS Cole which killed or injured 56 sailors.

The JASTA amendment to the FSIA now subjects all foreign countries  including U.S. allies  to privately initiated terrorist civil law suits. It authorizes the filing of any case in which money damages are sought against a foreign state for physical injury to person or property or death occurring in the United States and caused by ... an act of international terrorism in the United States.

Obamas veto exemplifies why the ends do not always justify the means. JASTA links a reasonable objective with a not so reasonable solution. Nations generally employ a sovereign immunity approach that vests the foreign relations power in the executive branch.

JASTA now authorizes private citizen civil suits against any nation, triggered by anyones allegations that a foreign government is responsible for terrorism-related activities on U.S. soil.

The pre-existing filter for suing foreign sovereigns  an official State Department designation as a terrorist state  has thus been eclipsed by the potential for numerous U.S. citizens to inject themselves into the conduct of foreign affairs.

JASTAs election-year machinations may have actually passed the buck to the judicial branch. Thus, a court may stay a proceeding against a foreign state if the Secretary of State certifies that the United States is engaged in good faith discussions with the foreign state defendant concerning the resolution of the claims against the foreign state ... A judge might theoretically decline to grant the Department of State an indefinite stay. But judges have devised a number of jurisprudential limitations, routinely seeking ways to avoid reaching the merits of suits involving the executive branchs foreign relations power.

JASTA is a politicians band-aid solution to a 15-year old wound. It will create more problems than it purportedly solves. For example, what will stop other nations from following suit? U.S. officials traveling abroad, and military personnel in the distant fog of war, will likely be subject to responsive tit-for-tat foreign legal and executive actions that will threaten behind the scenes diplomacy and our national security.

Because of our vast diplomatic and military presence abroad, we have far more to lose in such a game. The worldwide U.S. Status of Forces agreements currently protect our military service members from foreign prosecution. Other nations consent to this sensitive immunity from prosecution on their soil, for reasons including their (prior) immunity from suits against them in our courts. (But for their commercial activities, they otherwise remain generally immune from U.S. litigation.)

So President Obama correctly characterizes the new JASTA terrorist legislation as undermin[ing] core U.S. interests. It upends the more considered intergovernmental methods by which (now just three) Department of State-designated terrorist nations like Iran and the former Sudan are singled out for U.S. retribution.

JASTA throws the entire bathtub out with the bathwater. It morphs an apparent single-country issue  responsibility for 9/11  into a populist fix which will no doubt adversely impact U.S. foreign relations.

JASTA trumps the reciprocal rationale which buoys nation-based sovereign immunity. As a result, U.S. citizens, public officials and our military forces may soon have to look over their shoulders when abroad. Nation X can similarly target them as participants in U.S.-based terror when the denuded sovereign immunity shoe is positioned on the other foot.

Slomanson is professor emeritus and adjunct professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego.
Sixteen months into his campaign, Donald Trump remains Donald Trump. Despite constant counsel from GOP advisors and insiders to adopt a decorous public persona, Trump continues to lash out at critics, to insist complex problems can be solved with little effort and to depict an America thats been ripped off by every single country in the world, as he said in this weeks debate.

For millions of Americans upset with the status quo, its an entertaining show, and a convincing one.

But if Trump is elected president, he will no longer just be putting on a show. Upon inauguration on Jan. 20, he would be in charge of the executive branch of a global superpower and possess enormous authority, operating with no coherent worldview besides I alone can fix it. Military leaders have said Trump will face pushback if he orders them to do illegal things, such as torturing the families of terrorists, but in many crucial parts of the government, a President Trump will be able to people his administration with individuals whose jobs depend on keeping him happy. Imagine that. Imagine President Trump.

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Based on what Trump has said, we could see an administration thats friendlier to ruthless Russia  which is waging a cyberwar against America  than to such democracies and historic partners as Great Britain, Germany, Canada, Japan and Australia.

We could see an administration that reneges on its treaty commitments to dozens of nations, throwing the world into turmoil and increasing tensions in regions that historically have relied on the United States to be a stabilizing force.

We could see an administration that ruins U.S. trustworthiness in international finance by seeking to refinance terms with debt-holders, putting a singular economic power in the same basket as Greece.

We could also see an administration that launches a trade war by abandoning Republican tradition and abrogating international trade deals, destroying a framework that has greatly enriched our nation and the world, even if its benefits havent been as well-distributed as one would hope.

And we could see an administration with an open enemies list, starting with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, his Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN and more.

Now consider President Hillary Clinton. We understand the lack of enthusiasm for her candidacy, the anger over her private email server, family foundation and income from Wall Street speeches, and the questions about how America fared in foreign affairs when she was secretary of state. But despite Trumps insistence otherwise, she has the better temperament to be president  and the experience, background and relationships with world leaders that we need in a president.

As secretary of state, she traveled nearly a million miles and visited a record 112 countries. As a U.S. senator, the Democrat showed she can collaborate with Republicans, using what Roll Call labeled an incremental approach that could help restore a working relationship between the White House and Capitol Hill that has been in tatters for years. As first lady, she expanded health coverage to millions of lower-income children after her husbands administration lost the battle over universal health care and Democrats lost the Senate and the House.

Diplomacy. Collaboration. Patience. Mitt Romney, whom we endorsed for president in 2012, exhibited those same traits as the moderate governor of Massachusetts and the business-savvy savior of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Vengeful, dishonest and impulsive, Trump is no Romney. This is why Hillary Clinton is the safest candidate for voters to choose in a complex world.

Terrible leaders can knock nations off course. Venezuela is falling apart because of the obstinance and delusions of Hugo Chavez and his successor. Argentina is finally coming out of the chaos created by Cristina Kirchner and several of her predecessors.

Trump could be our Chavez, our Kirchner. We cannot take that risk.

This paper has not endorsed a Democrat for president in its 148-year history. But we endorse Clinton. Shes the safe choice for the U.S. and for the world, for Democrats and Republicans alike.

ALSO SEE OUR CALIFORNIA PRIMARY PRESIDENTIAL ENDORSEMENTS:

California GOP voters, send Donald Trump this message

Hillary Clinton deserves California Democrats votes

To read all the Union-Tribune editorial boards endorsements and candidate interviews this election season, visit sdut.us/endorsements.
Logan Jenkinss sarcastic tour of the November propositions (SAT prep for state propositions, Sept. 23) contained remarks about Proposition 66 that must be challenged.

Letters and commentary policy

The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy.

E-mail letters@sduniontribune.com

Mail: Andrew Kleske, Reader Outreach Editor San Diego Union-Tribune P.O. Box 120191 San Diego, CA 92112-0191.

You can also leave a comment below

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The authors glib language about killing people aside (getting kicks on 66), the facts are simply wrong. Proposition 66 will not save money on capital cases. Its sponsors freely acknowledge it will be hugely expensive.

Proposition 62, which ends Californias failed death penalty, will also end the taxpayer obligation to pay big money on few cases. Yes on Proposition 62 will free up money for better things like testing rape kits our city permits to lie fallow.

Juliana Humphrey

University Heights

Trump is an unknown, but Clinton is worse

Last Thursday you printed Thomas Friedman, Top spy fears Trump. On Friday, Michael Gerson, Worst of all worlds. Saturday, Catherine Rampell, Third party crushes. Sunday, E.J.Dionne, Decision of our life and Monday, Robert J. Samuelson, Immigration matters.

I get it. You dont like Donald Trump, and there is plenty of negative material out there. We dont know how Trump would perform as president.

No doubt Hillary Clinton would be cool, but we can also predict from past experience that regardless of how disastrous her policies the administrative state corruption will deepen covering up and spinning the narrative. Your editorial page has already signed up.

Kevin Villani

La Jolla

Where was the harm of Clintons emails?

With due respect to letter writer Derrick Haun (Wheres the outrage over Clinton accountability, Sept. 28), except for providing Republican talking points ad nauseam, Hillary Clintons careless use of her private server resulted in no demonstrable email harm to our country.

Karl Newmeyer

Del Mar

Wells Fargo scandal reactions keep coming

Regarding Bank scams: Its not just Wells Fargo (Sept. 22): We dont have to do business with the reckless, greedy and dishonest mega-banks that care about their stock value and bonuses at the expense of their customers. There is an alternative, nonprofit credit unions can provide the same financial service, and their focuses are on their customers.

M. Endriss

Carlsbad

* * *

Reading about the employees who lost jobs reminds me of Jonathan Swifts observation: Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

Margaret Agne

Rancho Bernardo

Photo would indicate suspect was aggressive

Regarding Alfred Olango: A difficult lifes tragic end in El Cajon (Sept. 29): It is tragic that a life was lost in El Cajon.

However, if the front-page photo accurately portrays the encounter between Mr. Olango and the police, this incident does not fit the rhetoric of the Black Lives Matter protesters. Mr. Olango took a shooting stance with something in his hands before armed police. That action virtually guarantees the shooting that occurred.

Police are always entitled to protect themselves. Suspects are required to comply with reasonable requests by police. The police cannot know what is in a suspects mind, or know his journeys, as one protester seems to require.

They only know what they see and hear from the person in front of them. Here Mr. Olango behaved in an aggressive and dangerous manner when told to stand down.

It seems this shooting is entirely justified.

Laurie Orange

Chula Vista

Proposition 55 deserves our support

San Diegans would be more concerned about the U-Ts dire warnings against funding our public schools by supporting Yes on 55 (Prop. 55: The three big reasons to vote no, Sept. 27) if it had a winning record on the issue. Ironically, the U-T forecast three hauntingly similar doomsday determinations when it opposed Proposition 30 back in 2012. As our schools recovered, each one proved ultimately inaccurate or illegitimate.

Proposition 55s intent is simple; to extend the current level of taxation on Californias wealthiest earners and prevent more cuts after several years of progress made in public schools across the state.

A massive deficit was caused by the Great Recession, forcing more than 50,000 teacher and staff layoffs, huge class sizes and eliminating programs like music and art that make our kids well-rounded. It is irresponsible not to extend these revenues when public schools and colleges are just coming back from devastating cuts.

Helen Farias

President, Sweetwater

Teachers Association

Progressives are just socialists in disguise

Regarding People can rise above the laws of the jungle (Sept. 27): I agree with Clancy Fuzak. This country was founded by people who werent afraid of working for a living. Take whats given at birth and do your best. Silver spoon? A plus. Hopefully youll be able to provide for a family. Government provides, through taxation, things we all need in life. People do need extra help due to physical or mental problems. The government has to help them. The world doesnt owe us a living.

Democratic liberals (progressives) are actually socialists. Socialism believes that we all work and turn over what we make to the government. The government divides the money equally among us to live on. No incentive to better yourself. Why not drag your feet and let the others support us? Its the so-called progressives who have us in debt up to our scuppers, not staying within a budget.

Bruce Skovmand

Vista

Stadium would aid downtown renaissance

Lawrence A. Herzog (Downtown is the wrong spot for new stadium, Sept. 29) opposes a downtown stadium because he fears disruption of emerging, dense, street-friendly center of small scale, high tech, etc., etc.

Why is downtown experiencing such a renaissance? Petco. I remember when downtown was a seedy, rundown Navy port with nothing going on.

Lets keep the downtown renaissance going. Vote yes on C and D.

Bob LaPolla

Carmel Valley

Want to see more letters that appear only online? Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP)  Californias latest carbon auction brought disappointing results Tuesday as litigation and lagging support by lawmakers weigh down the states landmark programs combating climate change.

State officials said only 34 percent of the available carbon pollution credits were sold in the latest auction under the program, which requires companies that emit climate-changing gases to buy the pollution permits.

It was a slight rebound from this spring, when investors bought just 10 percent of the pollution credits offered, signaling a rocky period for the states overall campaign against climate-changing pollution from fossil fuels.

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The cap-and-trade program is a keystone of Gov. Jerry Browns efforts to reduce climate-changing pollution in California and is being watched closely around the world as other governments put together efforts to fight climate change.

Dave Clegern, spokesman for the state air board that runs the effort, said the program is adapting as it should to shifts in the market.

The California cap-and-trade program is first and foremost a greenhouse gas reduction program, and it is working to bring down carbon pollution from fossil fuels, Clegern said in an email.

Pollution credits consistently sold out after the cap-and-trade program began in 2012, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars quarterly for initiatives that reduce greenhouse gases. The proceeds are used to fund a high-speed rail project pushed by Brown, along with other transit construction and energy conservation efforts.

This year, demand plummeted amid uncertainty about the programs viability. The result was the steep decline in revenue at a spring auction, prompting concerns that funding wont be available long-term to continue the programs.

Brown, backed by environmental groups and some Democratic lawmakers, is struggling to win support for extending the states landmark global warming law amid opposition from oil companies, Republicans and moderate Democrats in the Legislature.

Republican lawmakers called the latest middling auction results a failure and a flop, and called again for the state to abandon the cap-and-trade program.

However, the state Assembly took a critical step Tuesday when it advanced the latest global warming legislation to the state Senate, where it is also expected to pass before next week. Both chambers are dominated by Democrats.

The California Chamber of Commerce is fighting cap-and-trade in court, claiming it is an illegal tax that did not go through the proper legislative approval process.

The lawsuit in particular is scaring away some potential investors, said Dan McGraw, a Houston-based carbon analyst with the ICIS trade publication.

Potentially theres a lot to lose if the California Chamber of Commerce wins that case, McGraw said.

The growing backlog of unsold carbon credits also is weighing on the cap-and-trade program, he said.

Theyre going through something every carbon market has gone through, the analyst said. The question is: What do you do now?

The latest auction results show that the market needs certainty about the states long-term cap and trade program, through either the Legislature or state voters vouching for its future in a ballot initiative, Nancy McFadden, Browns chief of staff, said in a statement.
Country

United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
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Browse 81 market data tables with 60 figures spread through 155 pages and in-depth TOC on "Refractories Market - Trends & Forecasts to 2020"

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The Global Refractories Market is projected to reach USD 33.7 Billion by 2020, registering a CAGR of 3.9% between 2015 and 2020.



Shaped refractories: The largest form of refractories



Owing to the ability to withstand high temperatures, high mechanical strength, high abrasion resistance, and sensible porosity, shaped refractories are used in various industries, majorly in glass, iron & steel, and cement industries. The major applications of these refractories are, as linings in high temperature furnaces, boilers, nuclear reactors, cement kilns, and rotators used in various manufacturing industries such as iron & steel, glass, cement and many more among others, which are expected to drive the market. The growing infrastructural development all across the globe is expected to significantly boost the consumption of shaped refractories in coming future.



Iron & Steel: The largest end-use industry for refractories



The iron & steel industry is the largest end-use industry of refractories globally. As refractories are characterized with lightweight, high temperature sustainability, and robustness, therefore they are ideal for linings and insulation of the high temperature furnaces used in iron & steel industry. Additionally, the increasing infrastructure and construction activities in the developing economies such as India, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and other economies worldwide are contributing abundantly to the steel consumption and henceforth increasing refractories usage.



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Asia-Pacific: The largest market for refractories



Asia-Pacific is the global forerunner in refractories market, in terms of value and volume, and the trend is expected to continue till 2020. The countries in this region such as China and India are the fastest-growing markets for refractories, due to significantly increasing usage of refractories in iron & steel, cement, glass, non-ferrous metals, and other industries. South East Asia, with countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, is also a rapidly growing market for refractories. This growth is mainly due to the increasing demand for cement, iron & steel, cement and glass mainly in construction, automotive and other manufacturing sectors in Asia-Pacific.



Major players such as Corning Incorporated (U.S.), CoorsTek Incorporated (U.S.), Magnesita Refratarios S.A (Brazil), Morgan Advanced Materials Plc (U.K.), RHI AG (Austria), Saint-Gobain S.A. (France), Shinagawa Refractories Co. Ltd (Japan), and Vesuvius Plc. (U.K.) have been profiled in the research report.



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This report covers the market by value and volume for refractories and forecasts the market size till 2020. The report includes the market segmentation by form, by chemical composition, by application, and by region. It also includes company profiles and competitive strategies adopted by the major market players in the global refractories market.



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High Temperature Fiber Market by Fibers Type (Aramid (Para-aramid, Meta-aramid, others), Ceramic (Refractory Ceramic Fibers, Low Bio-persistent and others), and other fibers (Basalt, and others)), by Application (Security & Protection, Automotive, Aerospace, Industrial, Electrical & Electronics, and others) and by Region - Global Trends and Forecasts to 2020

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Ceramic Fiber Market by Type (Refractory, Low Bio-persistence, Polycrystalline), End-product (Blanket, Module, Bulk, Board, Paper), and Application (Petrochemical, Iron & Steel, Aluminum, Ceramics, Power Generation) - Global Trends & Forecasts to 2019

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Pune, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/30/2016 -- The report "Refurbished Medical Equipment Market (X-Ray, Ultrasound, MRI, CT Scanner, Nuclear Imaging Systems, Heart-Lung Machine, Surgical, CO2 Monitor, Patient Monitor, Pulse Oximeter, AED Defibrillator, Cath Labs, Neonatal, Endoscopy) - Global Forecast to 2021", analyzes and studies the major market drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Rest of the World (RoW).



Browse 110 market data Tables and 47 Figures spread through 208 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Refurbished Medical Equipment Market"

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This report studies the global refurbished medical equipment market over the forecast period of 2016 to 2021. The market is expected to reach USD 11.91 Billion by 2021, at CAGR of 12.7% from 2016 to 2021.



On the basis of product, the global refurbished medical equipment market is divided into 11 major segments, namely, operating room equipment & surgical equipment, patient monitors, defibrillators, neurology equipment, medical imaging equipment, cardiovascular & cardiology equipment, IV therapy systems, endoscopy equipment, intensive care systems, neonatal intensive-care equipment, and other medical equipment.



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The other medical equipment segment comprises blanket warmers, autoclaves, suction pumps, sequential compressor devices (SCDs), stretchers, stress test systems, heaters/coolers, dry imagers, and beds. The medical imaging equipment segment is estimated to hold the largest share of the refurbished medical equipment market in 2016.



Key factors such as increasing privatization in the healthcare sector, poor reimbursement scenario for various medical treatments, large patient population base, and presence of a large number of hospitals/clinics with budget constraints in developing countries are the major factors driving the growth of this market. Also, growing initiatives undertaken by leading market players (such as GE Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, and Siemens Healthineers) to establish refurbishment facilities in both mature and developing markets are further adding to the growth prospects of this market.



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On the other hand, the negative perception about the quality of refurbished medical devices among public institutes is a major factor limiting the growth of this market. The stringent regulatory environment in some countries (such as China, Egypt, and Kuwait) and the lack of standardization and harmonization of policies related to the sale and use of refurbished medical devices are the key challenges faced by players in the global refurbished medical equipment market.



As of 2016, North America holds the largest share of the global refurbished medical equipment market, followed by Europe. However, the Asia-Pacific market is expected to grow at the highest CAGR from 2016 to 2021. A number of factors such as cost containment pressures on healthcare providers, increasing patient population base, and rising number of partnerships and joint ventures among refurbished medical device providers are driving the growth of the Asia-Pacific refurbished medical equipment market.



About MarketsandMarkets

MarketsandMarkets is the largest market research firm worldwide in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model  GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors.



M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical infographics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers.



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The reboot of the Europe-Africa clinical trials alliance could make Africa invest in health R&D, writes Linda Nordling.



In 2010 in Malis capital Bamako, representatives from over two dozen African health ministries signed a call for action urging their governments to allocate at least two per cent of health ministry budgets to research. [1]



The aim of the call was for African governments to take ownership of the research agenda, which at the time was viewed as too driven by international donor priorities.



Nearly a decade on, many people argue that donors influence over health research agendas in Africa remains too strong. And the two per cent goal is still a pipe dream.



There is no doubt that African countries have seen increased investment in health research. But with most of this increase coming from international donors, the question of who sets the research agenda remains.



Mechanisms matter



In 2008, after the Bamako meeting, critics condemned the lack of mechanisms in the call of action for its proposed implementation. [2]



But for countries looking for a way to fulfil their two per cent ambition, a reinvented Europe-Africa clinical trials programme offers a vehicle for doing so and for directing international funding towards national priorities.

Many people argue that donors influence over health research agendas in Africa remains too strong. Linda Nordling



The first European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) was launched in 2003 as a European response to the health crises caused by three poverty-related diseases: HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.



Between its launch and 2014, when the programme ended, EDCTP funded 254 collaborative research projects between Africa and Europe to the tune of 378 million (about US$425 million, focusing on phase II and III clinical trials, according to the EDCTP.



A second programme  EDCTP2  was launched in December 2014. So far the ten-year programme has secured almost US$115 million for calls for proposals launched in 2014 and 2015. Another round of calls for proposals are expected later this year.



The European Union has approved about US$767 million for EDCTP2 provided that additional member country and private sector contributions materialise as expected.



Restructured partnerships



The need for clinical research capacity development and project funding remains immense despite the large investments made to date through EDCTP, says the programmes executive director, Michael Makanga.



The disease burden in Africa remains enormous, he says. There are natural differences between populations  how they respond to diseases and treatments  which are still poorly understood, and drug resistance is an emerging threat.



EDCTP2 has an expanded scope. Both in terms of diseases  in addition to the big three in the first programme, it addresses neglected infectious diseases  and the type of clinical research it funds. Whereas the first EDCTP focused on phase II and III clinical trials (efficacy studies), EDCTP2 funds phase I (human safety studies) and phase IV (monitoring interventions that have reached the market).

There simply are no short cuts to taking back control of their continents health research agenda. Linda Nordling



Another innovation in EDCTP2 is the closer involvement and ownership of African participating countries. The 14 African member countries  Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia  now have representation and equal voting rights on the governance and implementation mechanisms of the programme, whereas in the first instalment the project was driven from Europe.



This reflects a widespread conviction in the development community that development cannot be done through one-sided action or aid, says Makanga. But while it gives African countries more power to influence the programme, it also places an expectation on them to pull more weight in investing in their health care systems and research, he adds.



Africas opportunity



The EDCTP2 African member countries have already committed to pay 200,000 each as a membership investment in the programme. While this may be a small contribution compared to the entire project budget, it is nevertheless significant for the countries involved.



But in order to fully exploit the opportunity offered them by the programme, African countries should invest more. They should use their EDCTP2 projects as catalysts for strengthening domestic health research.



History shows that scientifically at least, EDCTP funding can bring a lot of bang for its buck. A bibliometric evaluation published last year of clinical research papers in Europe and Africa found that between 2003 and 2011, EDCTP-associated papers related to HIV, tuberculosis and HIV-TB co-infection involving authors from Africa were cited around five times more than the world average. [3]



As with all other health research programmes targeting Africa, the challenge with EDCTP and its successor is making sure that investments are sustainable. In other words, that once the programme funding runs out, the gains made in terms of capacity building on the ground in Africa persist into the future.

The only way for this to happen is for African governments to take ownership of the capacity and view it as something for them to sustain, not for donors to keep fuelling. There simply are no short cuts to taking back control of their continents health research agenda.Journalist Linda Nordling, based in Cape Town, South Africa, specialises in African science policy, education and development. She was the founding editor of Research Africa and writes for SciDev.Net, Nature and others.
A 14-year-old, homeschooled South Carolina boy killed his father at home, then went to a nearby elementary school to shoot two boys and a teacher with a handgun. Because of his age, the boy's name was not released, but he was taken into custody soon after the shooting.

County District 4 Superintendent Joanne Avery credited the quick response to the principal, teachers, and staff, all of which who "kept this horrific tragedy from being much worse." The boy's victims also included a student who was shot in the leg, another shot in the foot, and a teacher, who was shot in the shoulder. Fox News reported that the shooter never entered the school building - he was apprehended by Jamie Brock, a volunteer of the Townville Volunteer Fire Department.

It was not after the shooting that the father of the shooter, Jeffrey Osborne, was found dead with a gunshot wound after a 911 call from family members. The suspect's grandparents, who were said to live nearby, recalled getting a phone call from their grandson, who was crying and upset. They were not able to understand what he was saying, but became concerned. They decided to go to their son's home, where they found him dead by gunshot.

The suspect, according to the New York Times, drove about three miles to school, but nobody knew where he was able to get the vehicle. He never made it inside the campus, as he was apprehended by Brock outside the school. The remaining students were bused to the Oak Dale Baptist Church, and were then reunited with their parents.

Motives for the shooting still remain unclear - there is no known connection between the suspect and the school or its victims. The suspect's mother, meanwhile, was at work, and found out about the incident when she saw news of the shooting on television.
U.S. based technology giant Apple on Wednesday said it is shifting its London headquarters to the iconic Battersea Power Station, a landmark located in South West London at the centre of a $10 billion regeneration project. The decision has been hailed with enthusiasm by the British government, as a vote of confidence after the economical fallout of Brexit.

@odwyerd: #NAMA sells Battersea for 495m; now worth 10Bn https://t.co/obq8SmJAx1#NAMA good to some - At the expense of Irish people...  Mick Wallace (@wallacemick) September 28, 2016

The Battersea power station, decommissioned in 1983, was previously a functioning coal-fired power station and stood derelict for about three decades on the south bank of the River Thames until the site was bought by a Malaysian consortium in 2012. Apple's HQ will be accommodated in the central boiler house of the power station, which has been a staple in the culture of Britain.

The station was featured on the cover of Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals, and the massive interior has been filmed in movies including The Dark Knight Rises and Children of Men. According to the Battersea Power Station Development Company, Apple will be the largest tenant and occupy around 500,000 square feet across six floors. This is the largest office letting deal in the West End in 20 years.

Apple's new 9 Billion HQ to be built at Battersea Power Station. https://t.co/B9Wy9KFkWj pic.twitter.com/dGOvyXiOgg  Huffington Post UK (@HuffPostUK) September 28, 2016

In a statement to the Standard, Apple said it will move to the new HQ in 2021, which includes the six floors inside the central Boiler House to accommodate 1,400 of its workforce. This will cover its central function staff currently based in other offices. This large space ensures that the company can comfortably hire or transfer more staff if needed.

British Finance minister Philip Hammond welcomed Apple's move after Britons voted to leave the European Union earlier on June 23. "It's a vote of confidence in the UK economy, and that Britain is an attractive investment destination for the global technology industry," he stated.

According to a report by The Verge, Apple's main European HQ however, will remain at Cork, Ireland. "It's a huge opportunity to have our complete team running and collaborating in one site, supporting the restoration of a neighbor-hood rich in history," an Apple spokeswoman said.
Poachers are hunting this one of the world's most spectacular birds and now under threat of extinction. This rare bird is known as helmeted hornbill with red ivory beak that is more valuable than elephant ivory.

The helmeted hornbill is a huge bird that belongs to the hornbill family. It can be found in Borneo, Sumatra and Malay peninsula. Its body length is about 110 to 120 cm (43-47 in) with tail feathers 50 cm (20 in) long. It is considered the largest Asian hornbill. The males weigh about 3.1 while the females weigh 2.7 kg.

The Guardian reports that the helmeted hornbill has a solid red beak that sells as a "red ivory" on the black market. It is costlier that the elephant ivory. The poaching increased since 2011 to meet the Chinese demand for carving ivory. In 2012, the rare bird is listed as "near threatened."

According to the Species Survival Network, there were about 2,100 heads of the helmeted hornbill that were confiscated in China and Indonesia in the two years up to August 2014. Some also assess there are 6,000 that are killed each year.

The delegates from Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Indonesia stated that the high price reached by the casques motivates hunters to kill all the hornbills they cross, including the juvenile birds. They further stated that the illegal trade in rhino horn and elephant ivory has been well documented. On the other hand, the illegal trade in casques (helmeted hornbill) has been little known. They added that if this highly profitable illegal trade is not stopped, the existence of this majestic species is in danger and is likely to lead to extinction.

The CITES delegate from the Indonesian Hornbill Conservation had witnessed the rampant illegal poaching in the rainforest. They said that only global cooperation can stop the illegal trade in hornbill ivory before it is too late.
Global climate continues to be warmer as the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is significantly increasing at around 400 parts per million. This may not fall below that threshold ever again, according to scientists.

Ralph Keeling, the director of the Scripps Institute for Oceanography's carbon dioxide monitoring program in May explained how the carbon dioxide levels topped 400 ppm for this month. September is usually the time of year when the carbon dioxide is at its lowest, according to Huffington Post.

Keeling wrote that the low point reflects the transition between summer and fall when the uptake of CO2 by vegetation weakens and is overtaken by the release of CO2 from soils. "Is it possible that October 2016 will yield a lower monthly value than September and dip below 400 ppm? Almost impossible."

David Black, the associate professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University in New York told the Christian Science Monitor that the last time the Earth saw 440 ppm carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 3.5 million years ago and the global climate was particularly different than today. He further explained that it took millions of years for the atmosphere to reach 400 ppm CO2 back then, and it took millions of years for the carbon dioxide level to fall to 280 ppm tight before the industrial revolution.

Keeling also said that it goes upwards and could reach 450 parts per million. He added that stabilizing before 500 parts per million is not going to be very easy.

Meanwhile, Dr. Damon Matthews, an environment professor at Concordia University in Montreal said the carbon dioxide concentration level is somewhat reversible because of plants absorption of carbon dioxide. He further said that the temperature that has resulted from that change is not reversible in the absence of direct human efforts.
Surprisingly, these cute creatures, the meerkats, are known as having the most violent behavior and dubbed as the most murder murderous mammal known to science that would likely kill their own kind. Yes, they would kill their own breed just to be of dominance.

The study was published in the journal Nature. It was led by Dr. Jose Maria Gomez from the University of Granada in Spain and colleagues. The researchers examined over 4 million deaths among 1,024 mammal species. They compared them with the results of 600 studies of violence among humans from the prehistoric times up to the present, according to NPR.

The results showed that some incidence of violence in humans is attributed to human's place on the evolutionary tree. Another shocking finding is that meerkats are murderous and destructive.

In the list of the mammals that would likely kill their own kind, meerkats rank first with a rate of almost 19.4 percent of all deaths. They are followed by the red-tailed monkey, blue monkey, red-fronted lemur, mongoose lemur, black lemur, New Zealand lion, long-tailed marmot and lion, respectively.

According to Independent, meerkats live in the Kalahari and Namib deserts in southern Africa. It is known for infanticide, which is a crime of killing a child or creature within a year of birth. In a 2006 study, National Geographic featured meerkat mothers as killing the offspring of other female meerkats to maintain dominance.

Dr. Gomez said that it is surprising that a priori cute and pacific animals, like meerkats, marmots and ground squirrels, have high levels of mortality to conspecifics (members of the same species). The study was also conducted to aid the researchers in knowing the rate of intentional killing among humans when Homo sapiens first evolved, which is about two percent. This was more than six times greater than the average among the 1,024 mammal species, which is just 0.3 percent.
Amazon has announced that they are ready to launch a new faster streaming Fire TV media stick for the upcoming fall. Many of the competitors of Amazon are also introducing such product lines. Amazon's Fire TV streaming media stick will have a quad-core processor and will be able to support faster Wi-Fi.

The Media Stick will come with an 'Alexa' remote which operates on voice sensors and lets you operate Fire TV by using oral instructions. Though this new media stick will not be able to stream 4K video, Amazon bets that with 7,000 HD channel to use and multi apps to browse through customers will be fully satisfied and they will not require 4K videos.

PCWorld reported that, while watching Amazon based content, Alexa can also fast forward and rewind the videos. Other features include weather forecast, ordering food, news updates and going through local movie times.

According to the reports by The verge, Amazon's FireTV streaming media stick will be priced at $40. The price of the new faster media stick will be same as the old media stick but will now include voice sensors technology as well. Amazon will officially start selling the new faster media stick by October end. Also, in an exclusive offer Amazon is offering $65 credit to customers (for media buying) who are activating the new media stick before October end. Reported TechCrunch

Amazon Fire TV Stick vs Chromecast - Media Streaming Stick Showdown





Amazon announced the launch of new media stick after Roku launched a new set of streaming media hardware. Roku's new streaming media stick set will also include a $30-dollar express box which is designed for low-income group market. Roku has redesigned all the media streaming devices except Roku media stick which was launched in the beginning of the year. If sources are to be believed then google will soon launch a new Chromecast, it might be called Chromecast Ultra and would be supporting 4K video streaming.

With all the cool features, Amazon's new streaming media stick is sure to be an instant hit in the upcoming holiday season.
The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has forewarned Samsung washing machine owners about the sudden explosions in certain top-loaded models after reports of explosions were filed. The agency is working with Samsung to bring out a corrective measure regarding the issue which is prevalent in certain units manufactured between March 2011 and April 2016.

Mellisa Thaxton, a young woman from Dallas, Georgia, shared her terrible experience with her device. Her thoughts of the washing machine being a lifesaver and just perfect turned into a nightmare when the running machine exploded while she was standing next to it on the morning of 8 April, 2016. "It was the loudest sound. It sounded like a bomb went off in my ear," Thaxton said.

The agency has recommended the people to "use only the delicate cycle to wash bedding and water-resistant and bulky items because the lower spin speed lessens the risk of impact injuries or property damage due to the washing machine becoming dislodged", according to CNNMoney. Since no specific model has been mentioned in the warning, people have been suggested to contact Samsung for more information and to find out whether their machine's model is an affected one or not.

Samsung has already been hit with a lawsuit a month back by consumers who claimed their machines exploded during use. Customers in cities of Texas, Georgia and Indiana heard violent outbursts while they were washing clothes.

The owners and spokesperson of Samsung denied commenting on the lawsuit or the allegations. Instead, they directed CNNMoney to a statement put up on its website suggesting that the officials are in talks with the U.S. authorities about the possible remedies for further safety. They even claimed that Samsung washing machine users have washed off millions of loads without any accidents since 2011.

Samsung has been facing major criticism due to the troublesome smartphone, Galaxy Note 7. Reports of the device bursting into flames while charging have been all around and the company assured to replace the 2.5 million handsets. Thaxton has stated that Samsung offered to refund her money but she is keen on taking the firm to court in order to warn all other consumers of the potential risk that they are at.
The German manufacturer has revealed the second generation of its World dominating Audi Q5 SUV, which has even more classy looks and technologically advanced. The first generation Q5 rocked the world selling about 1.6 million units since its launch in 2008. The second-generation Q5 has made its debut at the 2016 Paris Motor Show.

Outer And Inner Looks

According to Bangkok Post, the New Audi Q5 SUV has a similar look to that found in the latest Q2 and Q7 SUVs. Audi probably believes that the same family look is one of the reasons its cars sell this well. The new SUV hence has the similar matrix LED lights and accentuated front grille. Although the new Q5 SUV is larger than its precursor, thanks to the use of the new Volkswagen Group's efficient MLB platform it has now become 90kg lighter.

The Auto manufacturer states the new Audi Q5 SUV features a spacious and more versatile cabin. The brand's Virtual Cockpit has also been included in the cabin. The driving environment feels the same way as any other modern-day Audi.

Complete Engine Specs

The Power-Train consists of six and four cylinder diesel and petrol turbocharged units coupled with either a seven-speed dual-clutch or eight-speed torque-converter automatic. If you wish can opt for either the two or the all four wheel drive.

The diesel engine produces about 150-190hp, whereas the 2.0-litre petrol motors develop 252hp. According to Fortune, a 286hp 3.0-litre V6 diesel is also to be launched at a later date. Sources also suggest that a plug-in version of the present four-cylinder petrol version is being worked on giving an all-electric driving range of 50km.

High-performance versions of the Q5 including a diesel-powered S Q5 and petrol-driven RS Q5 are also on the list. The air suspension in the new Audi Q5 not only enhances driving and comfort but also aids in the loading of big stuff into the boot, which has been claimed to be considerably larger than before, states ibtimes.

Launch Date And Price

Right-hand drive versions of the Audi Q5 are reported to be made available by mid of the next year. The car is also to receive Audi's latest technology, with Google Maps-based navigation with additional smart route planning. The expected price of the new Q5 is around 39,000. The India launch of new generation Q5 is expected in the second quarter of 2017.
Donald Trump scored a gentleman's "C" in his first debate with Hillary Clinton. She was programmed, like one of those androids from the film "Westworld," spewing out well-rehearsed sound bites, smiling (sometimes condescendingly), and even tossing in a few wiggles. It was all designed to make her look warm and wonderful.

As the saying goes, if you can fake sincerity, you can fake anything.

Trump did best when he didn't focus on himself, and this is the pattern he should follow in the next two debates.

As a seasoned debater who has taken on professors and liberal thinkers on campuses from Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale in the east, to the University of California-Davis in the west, I think I can say without too much hubris that I know how to destroy a bad argument.

Let's start with the race issue. Hillary Clinton slammed Trump for comments she regards as racist. If she tries that again, Trump should extend the road he began to walk down Monday night. He was right to say that his opponent and her party have had decades to repair the racial divide (which President Obama suggested he would do), but that chasm has only widened over the past eight years. Real racism, Trump should say, is refusing to allow minority children in failing public schools to escape them in favor of better ones simply because many teachers unions oppose school choice and contribute significantly to the Democratic Party.

Trump should take on the issue of poverty and propose a public-private partnership with churches and religious institutions that would be assigned to an individual in need of help. These churches then would do all that was necessary to help that person escape poverty, including offering financial advice, access to education or even baby-sitting services so that this person could go to school. Retiring baby boomers could find new purpose in life by helping someone become independent of government programs, which have cost a lot but have done little to reduce the number of poor.

Trump should ask Hillary Clinton why she thinks government is the answer to so many of the nation's problems when in reality it has too often caused or contributed to this country's ills. She wants to grow government even more, spending additional billions in borrowed money, mortgaging the futures of generations to come. Remember when Democrats decried debt? That was when a Republican occupied the White House.

Again, during Monday's debate, Trump started to make the case for success in business and in life, but he made it more about himself than others. Americans are inspired by stories of people who have overcome obstacles, and Trump should not only tell their stories, he should start featuring them in his political ads and on stage with him  as he has done with veterans. Inspiration has always been the fuel that ignites economic and personal growth.

One subject we didn't hear discussed in the first debate was the Constitution. Hillary Clinton said she believes in a "living Constitution," meaning it is open to interpretation by liberal judges to fit the times. What does Trump believe about our founding document?

On nuclear weapons, Trump needs to embrace Ronald Reagan's view (and that of President Obama) that they need to be reduced, especially in rogue regimes. Talk of using such weapons is irresponsible, though our adversaries must believe we would use them if attacked. The prospect of mutually assured destruction during the Cold War ensured nuclear weapons would not be used. Extremist regimes, like Iran, do not appear to fear a nuclear apocalypse.

Lastly, how about appealing to personal accountability and responsibility in the second debate? Let's hear about entitlement reform, entitlements being the main driver of debt. As I have argued, government should be a last resort, not a first resource  a safety net, not a hammock.

More than missing emails and Hillary Clinton's character (which is already fixed in the minds of most people), voters want to hear about subjects that will affect their lives. It's about us, more than them. If Trump can close that deal, he is likely to score a "B" in the next debate. If he scores higher, he just might win in November.

Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.
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Not only is shipping crucial today but it is set to remain central to world economic growth as we make the inevitable transition towards an era of clean and sustainable development, said IMO secretary-general Kitack Lim in his annual World Maritime Day Message.

Around 80% of global trade by volume and over 70% of global trade by value are carried by sea and are handled by ports worldwide according to UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) figures, the IMO pointed out.

"The importance of shipping in supporting and sustaining today's global society makes it indispensable to the world, and to meeting the challenge of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, commented United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.

Individual governments are encouraged to mark the World Maritime Day, on a date of their choosing but usually in the last week of September. The Maritime Authority of Jamaica (MAJ), for example, has helped organise a week-long series of Maritime Awareness events, designed to focus on the critical link between shipping and the everyday lives of people in Jamaica and across the world.

Jamaicas sustainable economic development is dependent on shipping, commented MAJ director general RAdm Peter Brady (Retd) in his welcome message at the opening of the week.
AFRICA

Central African Republic

Expected Council Action

In October, Special Representative Parfait Onanga-Anyanga will brief on the report of the Secretary-General on the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA).

Key Recent Developments

On 26 July, the Council adopted resolution 2301 , renewing the mandate of MINUSCA in the Central African Republic (CAR) until 15 November 2017. The resolution divides the missions tasks into immediate priority tasks, core priority tasks, essential tasks and additional tasks. The immediate tasks include the protection of civilians by maintaining a proactive deployment, a mobile and flexible posture, the promotion and protection of human rights and facilitating a secure environment for the immediate, full, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance. The core tasks focus on the sustainable reduction in the presence of, and threat posed by, armed groups, by supporting the reconciliation and stabilisation political processes, the extension of state authority and support for security sector reform and disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programmes.

After attacks waned during and following the April elections, violence has been on the rise in recent months, with Muslim-dominated ex-Seleka and Christian anti-Balaka factions still controlling large parts of the country. Elements from the two groups continue to run parallel administrations in various areas, including parallel taxation systems to fund their activities. The Lords Resistance Army (LRA) also remains active in the east of the country. Intercommunal tensions are common, as is the widespread availability of small arms.

Clashes broke out on 16 September between anti-Balaka and ex-Seleka groups in Ndomete and Kaga Bandoro, some 350 kilometres north of Bangui, leaving dead at least six civilians. MINUSCA responded by dispatching troops to the area to separate the two groups. On 10 September, gunmen raided several villages in the central Kouango region, killing six people, torching houses and forcing some 2,000 people to flee.

Related but not limited to the operations of rebel groups, crime rates are also very high. On 17 August, for example, MINUSCA arrested four Central African Armed Forces soldiers and ten civilians in Lobaye Prefecture and handed them over to the CAR authorities for allegedly forcing civilians to mine for diamonds at gunpoint for two weeks.

Despite appeals by newly elected President Faustin-Archange Touadera for reconciliation dialogue, the majority of ex-Seleka leaders remain discontented, seeing little prospect for themselves and their combatants in the new government and armed forces. Reintegration efforts for combatants who have surrendered their arms have been very slow. According to the Panel of Experts assisting the CAR Sanctions Committee, the rivalry among various ex-Seleka factions appears, for the time being, to rule out the possibility of the ex-Seleka forming a unified front against the government.

The humanitarian situation in the country remains dire. According to the UN Refugee Agency, as of 10 September there are over 450,000 refugees outside the CAR and over 385,000 internally displaced people.

Sanctions-Related Developments

On 5 August, the coordinator of the Panel of Experts of the 2127 CAR Sanctions Committee briefed members on the Panels mid-term report . The report notes that the mineral sector, in particular in the east, continues to attract armed groups seeking to loot or establish parallel taxation systems around the mines. It further notes that ex-Seleka groups maintain their fighting capacity through illicit arms trafficking from the Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Also on 5 August, Zainab Bangura, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sexual Violence, briefed members, emphasising the important role of the UN and humanitarian actors in ending impunity with regard to sexual violence in the CAR. The Committee also met on 9 September with the representatives of the CAR, Chad, Ethiopia, South Africa, Sudan and Uganda to discuss the mid-term report. On 23 August, the Committee imposed targeted sanctions on Ali Kony and Salim Kony, deputies in the LRA.

Human Rights-Related Developments

The Human Rights Council considered the report of the independent expert on the situation of human rights in the CAR, Marie-Therese Keita Bocoum, during its 33rd session in September ( A/HRC/33/63 ). The reportcovering the period from July 2015 to June 2016, during which time Bocoum conducted three country visitsdetailed human rights violations, including killings, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment, arbitrary arrest and gender-based violence, mostly perpetrated by armed groups. According to the report, MINUSCA documented 21 cases of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse allegedly committed by international forces against children during the reporting period. In 19 of these cases, the violations were attributed to MINUSCA peacekeepers, including seven alleged rapes of girls between 11 and 17 years of age. The report recommended that the government endorse, as soon as possible, the road map on disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration, and encourage inclusive national reconciliation. It also recommended that MINUSCA respond more proactively to threats against civilians, be more present in displaced persons camps and enclaves, and strengthen mechanisms to monitor and communicate information on sexual and gender-based violence.

Key Issues

With Touadera and his government now in place, sustainable progress in lowering the levels of violence is a major priority.

A related issue is permanently disarming and reintegrating the anti-Balaka and ex-Seleka fighters and establishing state authority in areas under their control.

Options

The Council could:

call on MINUSCA contingents to adopt a proactive approach in carrying its immediate priority tasks by expanding areas under its control and for the Secretariat to provide the mission with appropriate capabilities;

call on countries in the region to cooperate and implement the sanctions regime in order to eliminate illicit arms trafficking to the rebel groups and the funding of their operations through illicit exploitation of natural resources; and

act through the Sanctions Committee to impose further sanctions on individuals and entities.

Council and Wider Dynamics

Council members were hopeful that the end of the transition period and the installation of the newly elected government would provide momentum to address some of the fundamental issues facing the country, including constructive dialogue with armed groups and their disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration and, later on, security sector reform programmes, accountability measures and re-establishing state authority and institutions, including incarceration facilities and judicial institutions.

Although the elections were relatively peaceful and on the whole credible and took place less than six months ago, Council members are increasingly of the view that the momentum on the ground has dissipated, and that as long as state authority is not established and rebel groups remain in control of large areas, sustainable progress will be impossible to achieve.

France is the penholder on the CAR, and Ukraine is the chair of the Sanctions Committee.

UN Documents on the CAR

The Council renewed the mandate of MINUSCA until 15 November 2017. This resolution renewed the CAR sanctions regime until 31 January 2017. This was the special report of the Secretary-General on the strategic review of MINUSCA. This was a briefing on the situation in the CAR. This was a press statement condemning the killing of a MINUSCA peacekeeper. This was a Committee press statement that imposed targeted sanctions on Ali Kony and Salim Kony, deputies in the Lords Resistance Army. This was the midterm report of the Panel of Experts of the 2127 Central African Republic Sanctions Committee .

OTHER RELEVANT FACTS

Special Representative of the Secretary-General

Parfait Onanga-Anyanga (Gabon)

MINUSCA Force Commander

Lieutenant General Balla Keita (Senegal)

MINUSCA Size, Composition and Cost of Mission

Strength as of 31 August 2016: 10,245 troops (including 148 military observers and 1,759 police), 760 international civilian personnel, 242 local civilian staff and 154 UN volunteers.

Approved budget (1 July 2016-30 June 2017): $920 million

Mission duration: April 2014 to present
AFRICA

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Expected Council Action

In October, the Security Council will be briefed by Maman Sambo Sidikou, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). The Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Region, Said Djinnit, will brief on the latest report on the implementation of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework Agreement.

The mandate of MONUSCO expires on 31 March 2017.

Key Recent Developments

On the political front, the presidential election scheduled for 27 November continues to be a deeply divisive issue in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as it is clear that it will be logistically impossible to hold the election on time, despite the fact that the second andaccording to the constitutionlast presidential term of President Joseph Kabila ends on 19 December. On 17 September, the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) petitioned the Constitutional Court for a postponement of the presidential election without proposing a new date. This was the first official recognition by a DRC institution that the presidential election will not be held in November.

A national dialogue on elections began on 1 September with the assistance of Edem Kodjo, the AU-appointed facilitator of the dialogue. Several of the main opposition groups have chosen not to participate, as they see the talks as a delaying tactic by Kabila to remain in power. Those parties have formed a coalition called Rassemblement, headed by Etienne Tshisekedi.

After setbacks in the talks regarding the sequencing of the electoral cycle, the participating opposition parties and the government announced on 14 September that they had agreed that the presidential, legislative, provincial and local polls would be held simultaneously. If this proves to be logistically impractical, the other polls may be further delayed, but not the presidential election. Participants in the dialogue tentatively agreed to form an interim government that will include opposition members and will run the country until elections can be held. A specific date has yet to be determined, but it seems that elections will not be held before July 2017, when the CENI expects to finish its update of the voter census.

To contribute to the national dialogue, the government has released 118 political prisoners. Nevertheless, tensions remain high regarding the ability of opposition parties to participate in political activities leading up to the elections amid an atmosphere of increased harassment and human rights violations, mostly against opposition members, civil society representatives and journalists. On 15 July, Council members issued a press statement stressing the crucial importance of a peaceful and credible electoral cycle in accordance with the constitution and expressing their concern at the increased restrictions on political activities in the DRC.

On 23 June, the US imposed sanctions on Celestin Kanyama, police commissioner of Kinshasa, for alleged involvement in dozens of deaths and other actions that have created a climate of fear over the past three years. According to media reports, the EU is considering sanctions on the DRC for the violent suppression of opposition.

An anti-Kabila rally in Kinshasa organised by the Rassemblement opposition deteriorated into violent clashes between government forces and demonstrators on 19 and 20 September. Congolese officials have said that 32 people were killed, including four policemen, one of whom was burned alive. The opposition claims that more than 50 people were killed. MONUSCO estimates that roughly 180 people were arrested following these events. Council members issued a press statement on 21 September expressing concern over the violence and stressing the crucial importance of peaceful, inclusive and timely elections in accordance with the constitution.

While attention is focused on the political situation, violence committed by rebel groups in eastern DRC continues. According to the UN Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO), 135 civilians were killed in areas affected by armed conflict in August. On 16 August, Council members issued a press statement condemning the killing of at least 50 civilians on 13 August in the area of Rwangoma village, North Kivu Province, by suspected members of the Ugandan Islamist Allied Democratic Forces rebel group.

Sanctions-Related Developments

On 24 August, the Group of Experts assisting the 1533 DRC Sanctions Committee briefed Committee members on its programme of work.

The chair of the Committee, Ambassador Amr Aboulatta (Egypt), visited the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda from 1 to 6 August. He was accompanied by the experts from France, New Zealand and Spain, as well as from Egypt, and by two members of the Group of Experts assisting the Committee. On 8 September, Aboulatta briefed the Committee members on his visit, sharing his view that it was well timed and had presented an opportunity to get a first-hand assessment from the concerned governments and other interlocutors on the effectiveness and impact of the sanctions regime.

Human Rights-Related Developments

The Human Rights Council considered the report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the human rights situation in the DRC during its 33rd session in September (A/HRC/33/36). The report, covering June 2015 to May this year, concluded that the human rights situation was marked by a gradual shrinkage of the democratic space, together with a steady increase in attacks on fundamental freedoms. The intervention of state agents in suppressing political opponents and other civil society actors, including through the excessive use of force against demonstrators, arbitrary arrests and incommunicado detentions, is particularly worrying with the approach of an important electoral period, the report said. The report recommended that the government guarantee the protection of the fundamental freedoms of all persons, including political opponents, journalists and other civil society actors; set up judicial mechanisms to combat impunity; and establish a national mechanism for the prevention of torture.

UNJHRO documented 393 human rights violations throughout the DRC in August compared to 383 in July, with state agents responsible for more than 63 percent of the violations.

Key Issues

A key issue for the Council is the political tension surrounding the electoral calendar and Kabilas possible attempt to remain in power, and finding a way forward that is accepted by all stakeholders.

The continued violence by rebel groups against the population of North Kivu remains a serious threat to peace and security. This violence may worsen if political instability ensues in western DRC.

Options

The Council could adopt a resolution or presidential statement:

condemning human rights abuses related to the pre-election developments and urging the government to ensure that free, fair and credible elections are held as soon as possible;

endorsing the provisional agreement reached on a new electoral calendar and calling on all opposition parties to enter immediately into the national dialogue to reach consensus on a new and viable electoral calendar; and

threatening to impose sanctions on actors who destabilise the DRC by contributing to electoral violence or incitement to violence.

The Council (or a representative group of Council members) could also consider visiting the country during the run-up to the elections to take stock of the situation and deliver a strong political message to interlocutors.

Council Dynamics

Council members all have similar concerns over the political tensions surrounding the issue of elections. They fear potential destabilisation in the countryand consequently in the Great Lakes regionif presidential elections are not held as soon as is feasible. However, it may prove difficult to find a common approach in the Council to resolving the political stalemate and towards any solutions that are not agreeable to all stakeholders in the DRC. Some Council members view this issue mainly as an internal constitutional matter to be dealt with through local institutions and through dialogue among political actors, such as the national dialogue led by the government. Other Council members are of the view that addressing actions that seem to have been taken to override the constitutional order, along with human rights abuses related to the political process, is integral to solving the crisis, including the grievances of those who are boycotting the national dialogue.

UN DOCUMENTS ON THE DRC

This resolution renewed the DRC sanctions regime and the mandate of the Group of Experts. This was a resolution renewing the mandate of MONUSCO for a year. This was a briefing by Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson. This press statement expressed concern over violent clashes between protestors and security forces that took place on 19 September. This was a press statement condemning the killing of at least 50 civilians on 13 August in the area of Rwangoma village, North Kivu Province of the DRC, by suspected members of the Allied Democratic Forces. This was a press statement stressing the crucial importance of a peaceful and credible electoral cycle, in accordance with the constitution, and expressed their concern at increased restrictions of the political space in the DRC. This was a press release concerning the 8 September briefing of the chair of the DRC Sanctions Committee to the Committee members on his 1-6 August visit to the DRC

Other Relevant Facts

Special Representative of the Secretary-General

Maman Sambo Sidikou (Niger)

MONUSCO Force Commander

Lieutenant General Derick Mbuyiselo Mgwebi (South Africa)

MONUSCO Size, Composition and Cost of Mission

Strength as of 31 August 2016: 16,735 troops (including 478 military observers and 1,407 police), 816 international civilian personnel, 2,654 local civilian staff and 364 UN volunteers.

Approved budget (1 July 2016-30 June 2017): $1.23 billion

Mission duration: July 2010 to present
AMERICAS

Haiti

Expected Council Action

This month the Security Council is due to extend the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) before the current mandate expires on 15 October. Ahead of the renewal, the Council is expected to convene a meeting with troop-contributing countries (TCCs) and hold a debate with a briefing by Special Representative Sandra Honore, who will present the Secretary-Generals 31 August MINUSTAH report. The debate is likely to take place after elections in Haiti, currently scheduled for 9 October.

Key Recent Developments

Following Honores last briefing on 17 March, Council members issued a press statement on 18 March expressing deep concern regarding the continued suspension of electoral rounds in Haiti, and calling for the completion of the electoral cycle without further delay. In particular, they urged all political actors to adhere to the 5 February political accord and its agreed timelines. The accord, which aimed to safeguard constitutional continuity following the failure to elect a new president before the end of former President Michel Martellys term on 7 February, contained provisions for parliament to appoint an interim president to serve for a maximum period of 120 days, with elections preliminarily scheduled for 24 April.

Despite the appeals of the international community, elections were not held within the agreed timeframe. Political divisions continued to hamper implementation of the 5 February agreement, and there were renewed calls for the annulment of the 25 October 2015 first round of the presidential elections. On 27 April, interim President Jocelerme Privert announced the establishment of a new independent electoral evaluation and verification commission with a mandate to assess the 2015 elections. (An evaluation had already been carried out by a commission created by Martelly in December 2015.) The commission recommended in its 30 May final report that the first round of the presidential elections should be repeated.

Meanwhile, on 12 May, at the request of the US, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous briefed Council members on the electoral crisis in consultations. In a 13 May press statement, they expressed deep disappointment that Haitian leaders had failed to meet the election deadlines and called on them to ensure the prompt return to constitutional order.

On 6 June, the new provisional electoral council issued a revised calendar based on the recommendations of the electoral commission. A repeat of the first round of the presidential elections will be held on 9 October, along with a partial re-run of the legislative elections and first-round elections for one-third of the Senate, with a second round scheduled for 8 January 2017, including presidential and senatorial run-offs, if required, and single-run local elections. Final results of the presidential elections will be announced by 30 January 2017, with installation of a new president expected to take place on 7 February 2017.

In response, the international core group on Haiti (Brazil, Canada, France, Spain, the US, the EU, the Organisation of American States [OAS] and the UN) said in a 6 June statement that it remained deeply concerned about the decision to re-run the elections and urged all relevant actors to scrupulously respect the electoral calendar. The core group issued further statements on 15 June and 22 July, expressing concern that no measures had been taken to ensure constitutional continuity at the end of the 120-day interim period, and calling on parliament to take action to avoid a constitutional vacuum and decide on provisional governance arrangements.

During a visit to Haiti from 30 June to 3 July, Ladsous said Haitis political crisis was generating increasing impatience within the international community and stressed that it was up to Haitians to overcome the political stalemate. At the request of the US, Ladsous briefed Council members in consultations upon his return to New York, on 7 July.

Confirming Ladsous assertion, the EU on 8 June announced the withdrawal of its electoral observer mission from Haiti, while the US said on 7 July that it would not provide any additional election funding. (The cost is estimated at $55 million.) However, the OAS announced on 2 August that it would observe the 9 October elections.

In his latest report, the Secretary-General noted that Ladsous had concluded after his visit to Haiti that MINUSTAHs presence was required until the end of the electoral cycle, underlining the crucial importance of the missions deterrent effect in the context of continuing political uncertainty and a fragile security situation. The Secretary-General therefore recommended the renewal of MINUSTAHs mandate for another six months in its current configuration. He proposed to carry out a strategic assessment and present recommendations to the Council on the future presence and role of the UN in Haiti ahead of the next mandate renewal. Provided the new electoral calendar is maintained, the assessment would be carried out after the installation of a new president on 7 February.

On 19 August, the UN spokesman said the Secretary-General regretted the suffering the Haitian people had endured as a result of the cholera epidemic and that the UN had a moral responsibility to the victims without explicitly attributing the epidemic to UN peacekeepers. He announced that the UN was working closely with member states to develop a support package to families most directly affected by cholera. The Secretary-General made similar remarks in his opening speech to the General Assembly on 20 September. In a related development, a US federal appellate court on 19 August upheld an earlier ruling dismissing a lawsuit brought against the UN by representatives of cholera victims requesting compensation.

Key Issues

A key issue for the Council in October is the renewal of MINUSTAHs mandate and whether to endorse the Secretary-Generals recommendations.

Another issue is whether and how the Council should express any views on the preferred timelines for the deployment of the strategic assessment mission, the resumption of the withdrawal of the military contingent and the reconfiguration of the UN presence.

A further issue is the continued risk of instability and violence associated with the electoral process and possible further delays if any of the candidates again refuses to accept the results.

Options

The main option for the Council is to extend MINUSTAH for six months with the same authorised strength, as recommended by the Secretary-General, and call for the completion of the electoral process without further delays.

In addition, the Council could either request the Secretary-General to deploy a strategic assessment mission by a specific date, independently of the outcome of the elections, or ask that the mission be deployed only after the successful conclusion of the elections. It could also signal its intention to authorise a complete drawdown of the military contingent by a specific date, depending on developments on the ground.

Council Dynamics

Council members are clearly frustrated by the general lack of progress in Haiti and the inability of its leaders to make the compromises and decisions necessary for the country to move forward. While they welcome the new electoral calendar, there seems to be some concern about the risk of further disruptions if the results of the first round are contested.

With regard to MINUSTAH, at press time negotiations on the mandate renewal had only just begun in the Group of Friends of Haiti, which comprises Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Guatemala, Peru, the US, Uruguay and Venezuela. According to established practice, the US, as the penholder on MINUSTAH, will prepare a draft resolution for the Council on the basis of the discussions in the Group of Friends.

At the Council level, most members seem ready to endorse the Secretary-Generals recommendations, but there are still important differences in their positions. Some members, including France, the UK and Uruguay, have said very clearly that election delays should not prevent discussions on the reconfiguration of MINUSTAH from moving forward. (It seems that Uruguay, which is MINUSTAHs third-largest TCC with a military contingent of 248, earlier this year indicated its intention to withdraw all of its troops by years end, although it has recently signalled that the troops may remain until April.) Other members, as well as some TCCs, remain cautious about decoupling the reconfiguration of MINUSTAH from the electoral process, warning against a premature drawdown and stressing the importance of having a legitimate government in place as an interlocutor for the strategic assessment mission.

UN Documents on Haiti

This was a resolution that renewed MINUSTAHs mandate until 15 October 2016. This was the most recent report on MINUSTAH. This was the Councils last debate on Haiti. This was a press statement that expressed deep disappointment that Haitian leaders had failed to meet election deadlines. This was a press statement that expressed concern regarding the continued suspension of electoral rounds in Haiti and called for the completion of the electoral cycle without further delay.
In Hindsight: The Security Council Penholders

Contrary to a widespread assumption, the Security Councils so-called penholder system is not a longstanding practice. Rather, it is still in its first decade. Under the current arrangement, most Council outcomes (including resolutions, presidential statements or press statements) are drafted by one of the P3 (France, the UK and the US) which are the penholders on most situation-specific issues on the Councils agenda. As of early 2016, the US was serving as the penholder for eight of these situation-specific agenda items, the UK for seven and France for six. Elected members have been serving as penholders on Afghanistan and Guinea-Bissau and on some thematic issues.

Drafting of outcomes has been an increasing task ever since the workload of the Council exploded a quarter of a century ago, after more than 40 years of paralysis during the Cold War. Members, permanent and elected alike, took the initiative to produce a text. Specific, recurring topics were not seen as belonging to a particular Council member. Sometimes, members with an interest in a given situation would join forces or, on some occasions, compete to produce a draft first, in order to then chair the negotiations. Occasionally, members with shared concerns about a particular conflict would constitute groups of friends, fairly temporary and changeable arrangements which might be represented in the Council by either a permanent or an elected member.

Under the current penholder practice, one of the P3 produces a draft that is then agreed within the P3 group. The next step is to negotiate the text with China and Russia. Only thereafter, sometimes very close to the intended time of adoption, is it shared with the ten elected members.

Possibly the first example of this drafting and negotiating practice was the lengthy process leading up to the adoption of the Councils first resolutions on nuclear non-proliferation in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea and Iran in 2006. For a few years, this approach was used only for non-proliferation issues, with some elected members occasionally protesting (in one case in 2008, the adoption of a resolution on Iran had to be postponed by several days because South Africa requested time for its capital to study the text). In the next year or two, this drafting and negotiating system was gradually extended to more and more situation-specific issues on the Councils agenda.

This arrangement may have seemed logical in terms of Council efficiency and convenience, but it soon developed several consequences. Elected members were left out of the drafting process altogether and were brought into negotiations only at the very endand were often discouraged from making meaningful amendments because they might disturb the wording agreed to among the P5, sometimes after painstaking negotiations.

Furthermore, all members, permanent and non-permanent, began seeing the penholder as the lead on all matters related to the situation at hand. This cascade effect has resulted in the penholder being seen as the leader in taking the initiative on all other possible Council actions, such as holding emergency meetings, organising open debates or undertaking visiting missions. The chairpersons of the Council sanctions committees (all of which currently are elected members) are generally not involved in the drafting of resolutions on countries to which the sanctions applynot even when the draft deals with sanctions issues. In at least two cases, there is a separate P3 penholder specifically for sanctions-related drafts.

In some cases, when a crisis arises while the penholder is either unwilling or unable to take the initiative (for example, because it is already managing other crises on the agenda), the Council is paralysed and delayed in taking any action. This default situation has quite possibly affected Council effectiveness in addressing conflicts.

The net effect is that while the demand for Council action has become the highest it has ever been, the burden-sharing within the 15-member body is probably at its historical lowest.

In 2014, the Council issued a note by the president (S/2014/268) in which it proclaimed that members of the Council agreed to support where appropriate, the informal arrangement whereby one or more Council members (as penholder(s)) initiate and chair the informal drafting process of documents, including resolutions, presidential statements and press statements of the Council. The note specified that any member of the Council can be a penholder. The document also emphasised Council members commitment to enhancing the participation of all members of the Council in the drafting process, including through early and timely exchanges and consultations, while continuing to consult informally with non-Council members.

The issuing of the 2014 note did not result in any noticeable change in actual arrangements. However, the dynamic with respect to the penholder system had possibly already begun to change in 2013. Elected members Australia and Luxembourg were instrumental in focusing the Councils attention on the humanitarian aspect of the situation in Syria. Joined in 2014 by another elected member, Jordan, they drafted three resolutions on the topic that were adopted by the Council and had an impact on humanitarian access, also prompting regular monthly briefings to the Council. In 2015, after Australia and Luxembourg left the Council, elected members New Zealand and Spain stepped in to join Jordan as penholders on Syrias humanitarian situation. After the end of Jordans term on the Council, Egypt joined New Zealand and Spain as co-penholder in 2016.

In February, Venezuela took the initiative of organising a Council debate on the politically sensitive issue of the Councils approach to the use of sanctions, which resulted in agreement on a rare note from the president on the topic (S/2016/170). The interesting aspect of the process was that Venezuela started out by circulating the draft to the ten elected members and negotiating it initially within that group.

In May, the Council adopted a resolution on healthcare in armed conflict that was drafted jointly by five elected membersEgypt, Japan, New Zealand, Uruguay and Venezuelawho led all the negotiations on the draft and secured co-sponsorship by most Council members and by several member states not on the Council.

During its September presidency of the Council, elected member New Zealand took the initiative of holding a high-level debate on the overall situation in Syria, with the countrys Prime Minister John Key presiding.

During the annual Security Council open debate on working methods, the penholder system has received considerable criticism from the UN leadership at large, the elected Council members and also, in a recent case, from a permanent member, Russia. Speaking during the October 2015 open debate, the countrys Permanent Representative, Vitaly Churkin, said:

We are convinced that the Council would benefit from a democratization of its work, facilitated by a more balanced distribution of obligations informally linked to the so-called penholdership of some dossiers. Certain Council members should not consider countries or even regions to be their exclusive purview or act as mentors on issues concerning those countries. Such conduct is a remnant of days gone by that we need to abandon.

With these recent developments and the longer preparatory period for incoming Council members due to the fact that Council elections are now held in June, a new dynamic may develop and some new members may be more eager to serve as penholders or co-penholders.
MIDDLE EAST

Lebanon

Expected Council Action

In October, Council members expect to receive the semi-annual briefing on the latest report on the implementation of resolution 1559. Adopted in 2004, resolution 1559 urged the disarmament of all militias and the extension of government control over all Lebanese territory.

Key Recent Developments

Lebanon continues to face challenges to its stability and security, both internally and along its borders with Syria, including from extremist groups and arms smugglers. The activities of Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias along the border continue to pose a threat to the stability of the region.

Notwithstanding the Lebanese governments policy of staying out of the Syrian civil war, Lebanese militants continue to engage in the conflict there in contravention of resolution 1559, and Hezbollahs involvement continues to have domestic and regional repercussions for Lebanon.

In a 16 August letter to the Council, Israel expressed deep concern about information regarding the direct involvement of Hezbollah in developing terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza. The letter claimed that several Palestinian suspects indicted for involvement in terror attacks in Israel had revealed that the terror plots were initiated, funded and carried out under direct instructions from Hezbollah. Israel claims that Hezbollah pursues such recruits through the use of social media, through operatives in Lebanon, and through activities of local agents in the West Bank and Gaza. The letter called on the Security Council to formally designate Hezbollah as a terror organisation.

On 2 September, a Lebanese military court magistrate indicted and issued arrest warrants for two Syrian intelligence officers in connection with the twin bombing of mosques in Tripoli in 2013 in which more than 40 people were killed and hundreds injured. The indictment accused the officers of planning and overseeing the attacks.

Lebanon continues to struggle to maintain domestic security. On 31 August, a bomb blast on a road in Lebanons Bekaa Valley killed at least one person and wounded 11 others, according to the Lebanese Red Cross. On 9 September, several missiles were reportedly fired from the Syrian province of Homs into Lebanons Akkar District. No party claimed responsibility.

Meanwhile, Lebanon continues to struggle with the burden of hosting more than one million Syrian refugees. Addressing a high-level plenary meeting about large movements of refugees and migrants at the beginning of the 71st annual UN General Assembly on 19 September, Prime Minister Tammam Salam referred to the situation as an existential challenge and warned that Lebanon runs the risk of a serious collapse. He appealed to the UN to urgently put into motion a plan that would involve drafting, within three months, detailed arrangements for the safe return of Syrians from Lebanon to Syria when circumstances permit, and establishing burden-sharing quotas for countries in the region.

Meanwhile, Lebanon is still unable to elect a president to fill the vacancy left by Michel Sleiman, whose term ended on 24 May 2014. On 22 July, the Council adopted a presidential statement stressing that the election of a president, the formation of a unity government and the election of a parliament by May 2017 are critical to Lebanons stability and ability to withstand regional challenges. The statement encouraged regional partners to engage constructively in resolving the presidential vacancy and preventing the spillover of regional crises into Lebanon.

On 15 September, the ambassadors of France, China, Russia, the UK and the US and UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Sigrid Kaag met with Prime Minister Salam and reaffirmed their strong support for the continued stability and security of Lebanon. They commended the prime ministers efforts to govern under increasingly difficult circumstances and conveyed their ongoing support for his work. They called on all Lebanese parties to work responsibly in the national interest, to enable government institutions to function effectively, and to ensure that key decisions are taken at a time when Lebanon is facing mounting security, economic, social and humanitarian challenges. Recalling the July presidential statement, they expressed their deepening concern over the twenty-seven-month vacancy in the presidency and discussed with Salam the question of the legislative elections to be held by May 2017. They said they welcomed the intent of the government of Lebanon to take steps to ensure that the elections are held on time.

On 30 August, the Council adopted resolution 2305, which renewed UNIFILs mandate for an additional year without any major changes and requested the Secretary-General to conduct a strategic review of UNIFIL by February 2017. Negotiations on the resolutions text, drafted by France, were straightforward. A few Council members sought the addition of information on the scope and objectives of the strategic review, expressing concern that the review ought not to distract the mission from its tasks. However, the final text did not specify the scope of the review.

Key Issues

The main issue is that Hezbollah and other non-state actors continue to maintain weaponry that directly hinders the governments exercise of full authority over its territory, poses a threat to Lebanons sovereignty and stability, and contravenes its obligations under resolutions 1559 and 1701, which called for a cessation of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.

The ongoing crisis in Syria, with Hezbollahs involvement on the side of the regime, remains a major concern for several reasons, including the flow of arms through Syria to Hezbollah. These circumstances have had a negative effect on Lebanon and continue to stall efforts to fully implement resolution 1559. Lebanons burden in hosting more than one million refugees from Syria is also of deep concern.

Another issue is the continuing threat of a resumption of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.

Lebanons inability to elect a presidentwhich has paralysed the countrys parliament, rendering it incapable of passing critical legislation and impairing Lebanons ability to address its growing security, economic, social and humanitarian challengesis of utmost concern.

Options

Considering that the Council adopted a comprehensive presidential statement on 22 July outlining the main issues on which they stand united in their support of Lebanon, the most likely option is to merely receive the briefing and take no other action at this time.

Council Dynamics

The Council continues to demonstrate unity in its support of Lebanons sovereignty, territorial integrity and security, and to support Lebanon in its efforts to insulate itself from the damaging effect of the Syrian conflict. The Council has been united in repeatedly calling on all Lebanese parties to recommit to Lebanons policy of dissociation and to cease any involvement in the Syrian crisis, while voicing concern about the vacancy in the presidency.

France is the penholder on Lebanon.

UN DOCUMENTS ON LEBANON

This was a resolution which renewed UNIFILs mandate for an additional year and requested the Secretary-General to conduct a strategic review of UNIFIL by February 2017. This resolution urged withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon, disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias, extension of the Lebanese governments control over all Lebanese territory and free and fair presidential elections. This was a presidential statement that stressed the importance of Lebanons electing a president by May 2017 in order to maintain stability. This was the Secretary-Generals report on the implementation of resolution 1559. This was from Israel, accusing Hezbollah of developing a terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza.
AFRICA

Mali

Expected Council Action

In October, the Council expects to receive a briefing from Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous.

The mandate of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) expires on 30 June 2017.

Key Recent Developments

The security situation in northern Mali has deteriorated significantly, with continued violations of the ceasefire along ethnic lines. Members of the Ifoghas ethnic group, who are part of the coalition of armed groups known as the Coordination, have clashed with GATIA, a rebel group drawn mainly from the Imghad ethnic group, which is part of the coalition of armed groups known as the Platform. Tensions among these groups had subsided after bilateral talks held in Anefis in October 2015. However, tensions resumed earlier this year, and clashes on 21 and 22 July in Kidal over the control of the city and of trafficking routes resulted in some 20 dead. Clashes have continued despite efforts to de-escalate tensions among armed groups which signed the Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali through its main follow-up mechanism, the Comite de Suivi de lAccord, as well as through the involvement of MINUSMA, the Malian government and Niger.

On 16 September Council members were briefed on the situation in northern Mali as part of a situational awareness briefing presented by the Executive Office of the Secretary-General with relevant departments. Two days earlier, Council members had been briefed by the head of MINUSMA, Special Representative Mahamat Saleh Annadif, at the initiative of Spain and the UK as co-chairs of the 2242 Informal Expert Group on Women, Peace and Security.

In a 20 September press statement, MINUSMA expressed its concern at the deteriorating situation in Kidal, given the repeated violations of the ceasefire and the alleged human rights violations, which are currently being investigated. It also condemned the obstacles imposed on the delivery of humanitarian aid.

The volatility of the security situation has contributed to, and been affected by, the lack of progress in the implementation of the agreement. The parties continue to lag in implementing key measures of the agreement, including conducting joint patrols, the appointment and establishment of interim authorities, and progress on the cantonment of armed groups. The conclusions of a 23 September ministerial meeting, held in New York on the sidelines of the General Assembly, urged the parties to undertake concrete steps to swiftly deliver on their obligations as per the agreement.

Terrorist attacks targeting civilians and the Malian Defence and Security Forces (MDSF) are rising in central Mali. A 21 July attack against a MDSF camp in Nampala, in the Segou region, killed 17 and injured 35 soldiers. The attack was jointly carried out and claimed by the Macina Liberation Front, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Alliance Nationale pour la Sauvegarde de lIdentite Peule et la Restauration de la Justice (ANSIPRJ), which was formed in June. For a few hours on 3 September, terrorist group Ansar Dine took over the town of Boni in the Mopti region after the MDSF had allegedly retreated earlier in the day. Also on that day, the minister of defence was dismissed. Of the groups mentioned, AQIM and Ansar Dine are listed as terrorist groups by the Al-Qaida/ISIL Sanctions Committee.

MINUSMA continues to be a target of asymmetric attacks: since it was established in 2013, 69 peacekeepers have been killed. On 8 August, Council members issued a press statement condemning the terrorist attacks that occurred between 5 and 7 August against MINUSMA in Kidal. To better operate in Malis non-permissive environment, resolution 2295 requested MINUSMA to adopt a more proactive and robust posture to carry out its mandate, and increased its force levels to a ceiling of 13,289 military personnel (up from 11,240) and 1,920 police personnel (up from 1,440). The resolution also highlighted the need to ensure MINUSMAs force protection through the deployment of necessary capabilities and resources and included a reference to improving its intelligence capacities within the limits of its mandate. Three months after the adoption of this resolution, the additional personnel and capabilities for the mission had not been deployed.

On 22 August, Ansar Dine member Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi pleaded guilty at his trial at the ICC to the war crime of destroying historical and religious monuments in Timbuktu in 2012. On 27 September, the ICC Trial Chamber VIII declared him guilty and sentenced him to nine years of imprisonment.

Key Issues

The deterioration of the security situation in Kidal and in northern and central Mali more broadly, as well as the spate of inter-ethnic violence, are urgent issues for the Council.

An overarching issue is the slow implementation of the agreement and the lack of progress in such areas as confidence-building measures, reconciliation and return of basic services to the north. Ensuring that cantonment and the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of combatants take place within a broader context of security sector reform and accountability for human rights violations is an important issue.

Addressing the grievances and frustrations of different communities that are not seeing the impact of the peace dividends in their daily lives, including youth at risk of being recruited by violent groups, is a related issue.

The limited mobility of MINUSMA and its insufficient capacities and resources to fulfil its mandate in the current context are also key issues.

The marked increase in terrorist attacks and their reach, the deliberate targeting of MINUSMA and the safety concerns of troop- and police-contributing countries are further key issues for the Council to address.

Options

The Council could adopt a statement:

expressing its readiness to impose sanctions on those violating the ceasefire and undermining the implementation of the agreement;

urging the parties to fulfil their commitments to implement the agreement and emphasising the importance of holding the inclusive Conference dentente nationale to advance national reconciliation;

calling on member states to supply key capacities and personnel that the mission is lacking; and

requesting the Monitoring Team of the Al-Qaida/ISIL Sanctions Committee to report on ways to curb the terrorist threat in Mali, including from non-listed groups such as the Macina Liberation Front and the ANSIPRJ.

Council and Wider Dynamics

Council members remain united in support of accelerating the implementation of the agreement. One of the most contentious issues in the negotiations of resolution 2295 was language on the missions posture. Most Malian stakeholders who interacted with Council members during their March visit to Mali stressed the need for a more robust mandate for the mission. During negotiations there were some divisions over whether the changes proposed by Francesuch as requesting MINUSMA to move to a more proactive and robust posture to carry out its mandate, and including language regarding the anticipation of threatscould expand the missions posture in such a way that it could ultimately be used to engage pre-emptively in counter-terrorism activities. After Russia broke silence, language was added to ensure that direct operations are only carried out when threats to civilians are serious and credible. Council members might be interested in discussing the impact of this language, if any, on the missions capacity to respond to the deteriorating security situation and ceasefire violations. Council members continue to be worried about attacks targeting MINUSMA in northern Mali.

France is the penholder on Mali.

UN DOCUMENTS ON MALI

This resolution renewed MINUSMAs mandate for a year. This was a briefing from the Special Representative Mahamat Saleh Annadif. This was a press statement that condemned the terrorist attacks that occurred between 5 and 7 August against MINUSMA in the northern region of Kidal, killing one peacekeeper and injuring six others.
Status Update

Counter-Terrorism

On 1 September, Council members issued a press statement condemning a terrorist attack against the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan (SC/12502). A 4 September press statement condemned a terrorist attack perpetrated in the Philippines in which at least 14 people were killed and over 67 injured (SC/12503). On 22 September, the Council held a ministerial-level meeting on countering the terrorist threat to civil aviation. The Secretary-General of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Dr. Fang Liu, briefed. At the meeting, the Council adopted resolution 2309 which called on member states to work within ICAO to ensure that its international security standards are reviewed, adapted and implemented to effectively address this threat. According to the concept note circulated by New Zealand, the objective of the meeting was to highlight the importance of having effective security arrangements in place at airports given the iconic nature of attacks against civil aviation by terrorist groups (S/2016/791).

Guinea-Bissau

Following the Councils 30 August briefing and consultations on Guinea-Bissau, Council members issued a press statement on 4 September expressing serious concern over the political impasse, urging national actors to abide by the constitution and the rule of law and to engage in dialogue to find a solution. The statement further stressed the urgency of deploying the ECOWAS presidential mission and encouraged ECOWAS and the CPLP to take steps towards organising a meeting of the International Contact Group on Guinea-Bissau. Issuing the statement was delayed due to Council members negotiations on language related to donor funding, in particular whether the release of pledges should be dependent on finding a solution to the political impasse.

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

On 6 September, the Council adopted resolution 2306 amending the Statute of the ICTY to allow the Secretary-General to appoint a former judge of the ICTY or the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda who is also a judge of the International Residual Mechanism, to be assigned on an ad hoc and temporary basis to the ICTY Appeals Chamber.

Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea

On 6 September, Council members met in consultations to discuss the ballistic missile launches conducted by the DPRK on 5 September. In a 6 September press statement, they strongly condemned the launches as a grave violation of relevant Council resolutions and called on the DPRK to refrain from further such actions (SC/12509). They also called on member states to redouble their efforts to fully implement the sanctions measures against the DPRK. The DPRK protested the press statement in an 8 September letter to the Council, affirming its intention to continue to bolster its nuclear force (S/2016/771). Following the DPRKs fifth nuclear test on 9 September, Council members again held urgent consultations and in a press statement strongly condemned the test and expressed their intention to immediately start work on a resolution imposing appropriate measures under Article 41 against the DPRK (SC/12513). In a 9 September letter, the Republic of Korea called for tougher sanctions against the DPRK and said it would maintain a posture of heightened readiness against further provocations (S/2016/775).

Colombia

On 13 September, the Council adopted resolution 2307 approving the Secretary-Generals 18 August recommendations (S/2016/729) on the size, operational aspects and mandate of the UN Mission in Colombia (S/PV.7768). On 21 September, the Council was briefed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia delivered a short statement and presented the peace agreement between the Colombian government and FARC-EP to the Council (S/PV.7773).

Libya

On 13 September, the head of UNSMIL, Special Representative Martin Kobler, briefed the Council (S/PV.7769). The Council was also briefed by the chair of the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Ramlan Ibrahim (Malaysia).

Afghanistan

On 14 September, the Council held its quarterly debate on Afghanistan (S/PV.7771) which focused on the most recent UNAMA report (S/2016/768). Special Representative Tadamichi Yamamoto briefed the Council for the first time in his new role. On the same day, the Council issued a presidential statement calling on the international community to continue its civilian and development efforts to assist Afghanistan, ahead of the 5 October 2016 Brussels Conference hosted by Afghanistan and the EU (S/PRST/2016/14).

Liberia

On 14 September, the Council adopted resolution 2308 which extended UNMILs mandate, in its current configuration, for an additional three months. The extension of the missions mandate will allow the Council to review the recommendations from the Secretary-Generals assessment mission, due by 15 November, before ultimately deciding on when to withdraw the mission.

Non-Proliferation

At the initiative of the US, the Council on 23 September, adopted resolution 2310 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the opening for signature of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Egypt abstained, while all other Council members voted in favour (S/PV.7776). The resolution stressed the importance of achieving the early entry into force of the treaty and urged all states that have either not signed or ratified it to do so without delay, while encouraging all state signatories to promote its universality and entry into force. Also, the 1540 Committee met on 27 September to consider the first draft of the report on the comprehensive review of resolution 1540 which is due for submission to the Council by 1 November.

Somalia

On 27 September, Special Representative Michael Keating briefed (S/PV.7778) the Council on the latest report of the Secretary-General on Somalia (S/2016/763). A representative from the AU also briefed on the activities of AMISOM. On 28 September, the Council issued a press statement that expressed regret at the 26 September announcement by the Federal Indirect Election Implementation Team that the timetable for the 2016 electoral process required a further extension (SC/12538).

Protection of Civilians

On 28 September, the Council held a briefing on the protection of health care in armed conflict (S/PV.7779). The meeting focused on the Secretary-Generals recommendations on this issue, as requested by the Council in resolution 2286 on 3 May (S/2016/722). Briefers included Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, ICRC President Peter Maurer and Medecins Sans Frontieres President Joanne Liu.

Golan Heights

On 29 September, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations briefed Council members in consultations on the Secretary-Generals latest UNDOF report (S/2016/803).
AFRICA

Sudan (Darfur)

Expected Council Action

In October, the Council will hold a briefing, followed by consultations, on the report of the Secretary-General on the UN/AU Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), whose mandate expires on 30 June 2017. Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous is expected to brief. No outcome was anticipated at press time.

Key Recent Developments

A dire humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by fighting in the Jebel Marra region and by refugees fleeing the conflict in South Sudan, continues to unfold in Darfur, amid limited progress on the political front. There are now approximately 2.6 million displaced persons in Darfur. Between 1 January and 31 July, fighting in Jebel Marra displaced more than 158,000 people. Between 1 January and 4 September, more than 90,000 refugees crossed into Darfur from South Sudan.

On 8 August, several rebel groups in Sudanthe Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the Sudan Liberation Army-Minni Minawi (SLA-MM) and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N)and the opposition National Umma Party signed the Roadmap for Ending the Conflict in Sudan. The roadmap calls for a cessation of hostilities, humanitarian access and a more inclusive national dialogue process. When the government signed the roadmap on 21 March, the rebel groups had refrained from signing out of concerns about government control over the national dialogue process. In a press statement issued on 11 August, Council members welcomed the signing of the roadmap by the opposition groups and commended the government of Sudan for having signed it earlier this year.

Soon after signing the document, the opposition groups met with government representatives in Addis Ababa from 9 to 14 August. These talks failed to make progress, however, as they were mired in disagreements over security arrangements in Darfur and humanitarian access in the Two Areas (Sudans Blue Nile and South Kordofan states). With regard to Darfur, the government wanted information on the location of rebel forces as a precondition to a cessation of hostilities; the rebels were reluctant to provide this information. At press time, the AU High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP), responsible for mediating the conflict, was engaging with both sides in the hope of reconvening them, but no date had been confirmed for further negotiations.

On 12 September, Abdul Wahid Mohamed el-Nur, the leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement-Abdul Wahid (SLM-AW) rebel group, announced that his group would continue its efforts to overthrow the regime. The SLM-AW, which engaged in heavy fighting with government forces earlier this year, did not participate in the recent negotiations with the government. In his 12 September statement, Wahid Mohamed el-Nur asserted that previous efforts to negotiate with the regime had been unsuccessful because it had not adhered to its agreements. In recent months, intermittent low-intensity fighting has been reported between government forces and the SLM-AW in the Jebel Marra region.

On 14 June, Under-Secretary-General Ladsous briefed the Council on UNAMID. Ladsous described the lack of progress in finding a political resolution to the Darfur conflict, while underscoring that intercommunal clashes remain a major cause of insecurity in Darfur. He emphasised that continued government restrictions on access and freedom of movement significantly hampered UNAMIDs operations. The Council adopted resolution 2296 on 29 June, renewing the mandate of UNAMID for one year.

Sanctions-Related Developments

On 27 September, Ambassador Rafael Ramirez (Venezuela), the chair of the 1591 Sudan Sanctions Committee, provided the quarterly briefing to Council members on the Committees work. He reported that a new panel of experts had been appointed and that the final report of the 2015 panel of experts had been published. Both the appointment of the panel and the publication of last years final report had been held up for several months by Russia. Ramirez further conveyed the contents of the 8 July briefing to the Sanctions Committee by Zainab Bangura, the Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, who expressed concern at the high rate of sexual violence in Darfur.

Human Rights-Related Developments

The Human Rights Council (HRC) considered the report of the independent expert on the situation of human rights in Sudan during its 33rd session in September (A/HRC/33/65). The report, covering October 2015 to June 2016, concluded that major human rights challenges persist and that, notwithstanding the ongoing national dialogue, there is growing concern about the pervasive actions of the National Intelligence and Security Service and its impact on the exercise of civil and political rights in the country, including widespread reports of arbitrary arrests and incommunicado detention. The report found that the human rights situation in Darfur and in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states remains precarious, with continuing fighting and breaches of human rights and international humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict. Hundreds of thousands of civilians continue to suffer the effects of the armed conflict through direct attacks, displacement and limited access to humanitarian assistance, and the peace process continues to face significant challenges without the active participation of some major armed movements, the report said.

The HRC also considered the report of the special rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, on his mission to Sudan (A/HRC/33/48/Add.1). The report gave an overview of the unilateral coercive measures imposed on the Sudan by different states and their impact on basic human rights, including the rights to life, health, education and food, affecting in particular the poorest and most vulnerable. The report found that unilateral coercive measures targeting Sudan should be limited in time and be phased out in accordance with the fulfilment by Sudan of clear objectives. It proposed a step-by-step approach to removing these measures, starting with those with the most severe impact on the enjoyment of human rights.

Key Issues

The underlying issue for the Council is the continuing instability of the security and humanitarian environment in Darfur, with limited progress on the political front.

An ongoing key issue is the limited level of cooperation that Sudan accords to the mission. Restrictions on the movement of peacekeepers and delays in the shipment of equipment to the mission continue to hinder UNAMIDs operations.

A further important issue is what future steps will be taken regarding an exit strategy for the mission, especially given divergent views on this issue in the Council. The joint working group on the exit strategyconsisting of representatives of the AU, the UN and the government of Sudanis expected to convene in October.

Options

One option is for the Council to request a briefing on the work of UNAMID from Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhithe Joint AU-UN Special Representative for Darfur, the head of UNAMID and the Joint Chief Mediator. Uhomoibhi has been in his post since October 2015 and has yet to brief the Council, as Under-Secretary-General Ladsous generally provides UNAMID briefings.

Members might also request an informal interactive dialogue with Thabo Mbeki, chair of the AUHIP, on the status of the peace talks between the government and the opposition groups.

A demarche by the Council president to the Sudanese permanent representative regarding the importance of removing impediments on the movement of peacekeepers and the shipment of equipment to UNAMID could be a useful option.

An additional option is to issue a presidential statement that:

urges the government to eliminate restrictions on the freedom of movement of UNAMID personnel and on the shipment of equipment to the mission;

encourages continued negotiations between the government and the opposition forces; and

urges donors to support the 2016 Humanitarian Response Plan for Sudan, which was only 41 percent funded at press time.

Council Dynamics

Perceptions of the government of Sudan and the situation in Darfur vary widely among Council members. France, the UK and the US have tended to be critical of the government of Sudan for contributing to the instability in Darfur, referring to human rights violations committed by government forces, the impunity for these violations and the governments lack of cooperation with UNAMID. These states have emphasised the difficult security and humanitarian environment in Darfur. Given this view, the US argued during its explanation of vote on resolution 2296 on 29 June, which renewed the UNAMID mandate, that any calls for the mission to leave the Sudan are woefully premature and must be linked to the achievement of specific benchmarks related to an inclusive peace process and the protection of civilians, among other factors.

Other Council members, including China, Egypt and Russia, stress the importance of Sudans sovereignty and maintain that the government is making a good faith effort to bring peace to Darfur. These member states have urged that a clear exit strategy for the mission be developed sooner rather than later.

The UK is the penholder on Darfur, while Venezuela chairs the 1591 Sudan Sanctions Committee.

UN Documents on Darfur





The was a resolution that renewed UNAMIDs mandate for one year. This was the meeting at which resolution 2296 was adopted and included explanations of vote by China, Egypt, Russia, the UK, the US and Venezuela. This was a briefing on the special report of the UN Secretary-General and the AU Commission Chairperson on UNAMID. This was a press statement welcoming the signing on 8 August of the Roadmap Agreement by opposition groups and commending the government of Sudan for having signed the agreement on 16 March. This was the report of the Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, on his mission to the Sudan. This was the report of the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in the Sudan.
MIDDLE EAST

Syria

Expected Council Action

Following the breakdown of the 9 September cessation of hostilities agreement between Russia and the US, it remains unclear how Council members will address the situation in Syria. At press time, Council members expected to receive the regular monthly briefings on the political, humanitarian and chemical weapons tracks but could not rule out other activity, given the fluid nature of the Syrian crisis.

On the chemical weapons track, the mandate of the UN-Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), the body instructed to determine responsibility for the use of chemical weapons in Syria, was extended to 31 October.

Key Recent Developments

Developments over the course of September centred on the negotiation, agreement, initial implementation and rupturing of a renewed cessation of hostilities agreement between Russia and the US, followed by a massive military escalation by the Syrian government and Russia against opposition-held eastern Aleppo.

On 9 September, Russia and the US agreed to create the conditions necessary for the resumption of political talks through a cessation of hostilities that would begin on 12 September and would include the grounding of Syrian air assets and humanitarian access, in exchange for greater counter-terrorism cooperation against Al-Nusra Front, now known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.

While the cessation of hostilities largely held for almost a week, it was seriously challenged on several fronts.

On 12 September, the day the cessation of hostilities went into effect, President Bashar al Assad said from Daraya, a suburb of Damascus surrendered by the opposition in late August after years of a government imposed siege and aerial bombardment, that he was determined to retake every inch of Syria. The surrender of Daraya has been characterised by the opposition as a forced population transfer disguised as a local truce. Another evacuation, under almost identical circumstances, of the opposition-held Al Waer neighbourhood of Homs began on 22 September.

A key component of the cessation of hostilities agreement was unfettered humanitarian access. The day after the cessation of hostilities went into effect, UN aid convoys en route to eastern Aleppo were held up in the zone between the Turkish and Syrian borders. If allowed to proceed, the convoys would have been the first aid delivery to reach the opposition enclave since 7 July, when Syrian government forces and allied militiasbacked by Russian air strikestook control of Castello Road, severing the oppositions final supply route and setting the stage for a siege.

Despite these challenges, Russia and the US were unwilling to declare the agreement dead, though the US exhibited scepticism about whether the cessation of hostilities would last. In anticipation of possibly adopting a resolution to endorse the cessation of hostilities, Russia and the US called for consultations on 16 September to brief Council members on the content of their agreement, which had yet to be made public at the request of the US. However, the meeting was cancelled at the last minute as there was disagreement about how much information to share with other Council members.

The confidence in the agreement was further eroded by US airstrikes on 17 September which killed Syrian military personnel and 19 September airstrikes against a humanitarian convoy, allegedly by Russia.

On Sunday, 17 September, Russia requested emergency consultations regarding the US-led coalition airstrikes in Deir ez-Zor. In comments to the media, Russia suggested that the US might have intentionally attacked Syrian government targets. The US stated that the strikes had been meant for ISIL targets, and that it had ceased attacks once informed by Russia that the targets were thought to be Syrian military. The US dismissed Russias call for consultations as a stunt to draw attention away from the Syrian regimes actions.

On 19 September, Syria announced that the cessation of hostilities had ended, and regime airstrikes against Aleppo, Deraa and Idlib were immediately resumed. On the same day, a UN/Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) humanitarian convoy and a SARC warehouse were attacked by sustained airstrikes, resulting in 20 deaths and the destruction of 18 of the 31 convoy trucks. The UN described the attack as a possible war crime, called for an independent investigation and suspended all aid convoys in Syria for several days. On 21 September, the US announced that it had reached the preliminary conclusion that Russian jets carried out the attack. Russia has said neither it nor Syria carried out these airstrikes.

Despite this turn of events, neither Russia nor the US had yet to declare an end to their efforts to shore up the cessation of hostilities. On 20 September, US President Barack Obama said in his General Assembly address that the hard work of diplomacy had to be pursued in Syria. On the same day, the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), co-chaired by Russia and the US, met in New York and agreed that it was imperative to continue to pursue a nationwide cessation of hostilities. However, by 28 September the US said it would take steps to suspend bilateral engagement with Russia on Syria unless Russia moves to end the Aleppo assault.

Before the Deir ez-Zor strikes and the attack against the humanitarian convoy, a high-level meeting on Syria held on 21 September was viewed as an opportunity for the Council to endorse the cessation of hostilities agreement and provide momentum towards the resumption of political talks. However, as the agreement collapsed, there was palpable tension between Russia and the US displayed at the Councils high-level meeting, where US Secretary of State John Kerry said that to restore credibility to the cessation of hostilities agreement all aircraft flying in key areas should be grounded in order to de-escalate the situation and give a chance for humanitarian assistance to flow unimpeded. There was a meeting of the ISSG the next day to discuss this proposal, which by all accounts was acrimonious, and agreement to ground air assets could not be reached.

Beginning on 21 September there has been some of the heaviest aerial bombardment by Russian and Syrian forces of eastern Aleppo since the Syrian crisis began, with media reports of the use of incendiary bombs, cluster bombs and bunker busters. The pace of the strikes continued for days, leading France, the UK and the US to call an emergency meeting of the Council on Sunday, 25 September, requesting that Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura brief on the massive military escalation against Aleppo. De Mistura described the strikes against eastern Aleppo as unprecedented and posing the greatest threat to civilians. He also reported the use of hellfire rockets by armed opposition groups. He added that the presence of Al Nusra in Aleppo was no justification for the heavy bombardment of densely populated areas. He called on the Council to press for:

a cessation of violence, particularly aerial bombardment, and to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, particularly in Aleppo;

weekly 48-hour pauses to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid;

medical evacuations;

a common understanding on a monitoring and enforcement mechanism for the cessation of hostilities agreement; and

the resumption of political talks.

At press time, OCHA head Stephen OBrien was set to brief the Council on 29 September on the deteriorating humanitarian situation where the impact of the ruptured cessation of hostilities agreement and the subsequent severe escalation of fighting in Aleppo will be a key focus.

September consultations on the chemical weapons track were cancelled. The JIMs third report concluded that of the nine cases in investigated, the Syrian regime used chlorine gas against its own population in two cases and that ISIL used mustard gas in one case. Three cases required further investigation and there was insufficient evidence to make a determination in the remaining three cases. The JIMs final report was expected to make a determination on the three cases requiring further investigation and was to be submitted before the JIMs mandate expired on 23 September. However, in an exchange of letters with the Secretary-General, the Council agreed to extend the reports deadline to 21 October and extend the JIMs mandate to 31 October.

Human Rights-Related Developments

In his opening statement at the Human Rights Councils 33rd session on 13 September, High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein said Syria, is a state led by a medical doctor and yet is believed to have gassed its own people; has attacked hospitals and bombed civilian neighbourhoods with indiscriminate explosive weapons; and maintains tens of thousands of detainees in inhuman conditionsThe government, which is responsible for some of the gravest violations on record in the history of this Council, has regularly sent notes verbales to my office reporting abuses by armed groups. But it offers no possibility whatsoever for independent scrutiny. The Human Rights Council considered the latest report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria during its 33rd session in September (A/HRC/33/55). Among the reports findings are that since late March there has been a marked upsurge in the fighting, with indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilian-inhabited areas, particularly through aerial bombardments. Recent indiscriminate attacks on civilians, including on medical workers and facilities, blocked humanitarian convoys, enforced disappearances, summary executions and other crimes committed by all parties to the conflict, have left Syrians in a state of despair, with violence reaching unprecedented levels in Aleppo. The Commission reiterated its recommendation that the Security Council refer the situation to the ICC or an ad hoc tribunal.

Key Issues

With Syria in the fifth year of a war that has exacted a death toll of 470,000, left 860,000 living under siege and displaced half of the Syrian population, including 4.8 million refugees, the essential issue for the Council is to exert effective leadership in supporting a cessation of hostilities and efforts to reach a political solution.

Regarding chemical weapons, the preliminary conclusions of the JIM report and the determination by the OPCWs Director-General that Syrias declared chemical weapons arsenal cannot be considered accurate and complete means that the Council is in a position to consider whether Syria is in breach of resolutions 2118, 2209 and 2235.

Options

While the Council has many tools at its disposalsuch as imposing an arms embargo or targeted sanctions, referring Syria to the ICC or authorising a no-fly zone to deter Syria from using its aerial capacityP5 divisions have made it impossible for the Council to fulfil its role in maintaining international peace and security in the case of Syria.

In this context, the Council could vote to refer Syria to the General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace procedure, so that the General Assembly might recommend collective action, including sanctions and the use of force. This would be a procedural vote and therefore could not be vetoed by any of the P5, requiring only nine affirmative votes. A Uniting for Peace resolution by the General Assembly can confer legitimacy on international collective action, but it would carry no binding obligation for such action. (Alternatively, the General Assembly does not require a Security Council referral to adopt a Uniting for Peace resolution.)

The Council has found a degree of agreement on humanitarian, non-proliferation and counter-terrorism efforts, but has been unable to effectively stop or hold accountable a government responsible for indiscriminate attacks on civilians and widespread violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. In practice, the Council has limited its options to receiving more briefings or findings which confirm what is already widely known about the brutal tactics employed by parties to the conflict. In this context options for the Council include:

responding to the Secretary-Generals call to establish an immediate, impartial and independent investigation of the 19 September air strike on a UN/SARC humanitarian convoy;

taking up de Misturas suggestion of authorising a monitoring and enforcement mechanism for the cessation of hostilities agreement (if it can be salvaged); and

inviting the Human Rights Councils Commission of Inquiry on Syria or the High Commissioner for Human Rights to give periodic briefings to the Council.

Regarding chemical weapons, if the Council is able to determine that Syria has violated resolutions 2118, 2209 and 2235, it has the option to pursue the further measures cited in all three resolutions, commonly understood to be an implicit threat of sanctions.

Council Dynamics

The quick collapse of the cessation of hostilities agreement has led Council members to conclude that the chances for a near-term political solution have been severely diminished.

Many Council members are of the view that the governments offensive in eastern Aleppo confirms the regimes preference for prolonged armed conflict over a negotiated settlement. There is also broad recognition that if fighting in Syria cannot be controlled, particularly in Aleppo, then it will be close to impossible for UN mediation between the government and the opposition to resume.

With Russia and the US publicly displaying the depth of their disagreement over Syria, a few Council members think it might be a good time for others to inject new thinking or energy to help resolve the situation. However, a majority of Council members believe that if Russia and the US cannot agree bi-laterally, it will be almost impossible to achieve agreement in a multi-lateral setting.

At press time, it was too early to gauge whether there was broad support in the Council for pursuing further measures against Syria with the OPCW and JIM reports pointing to non-compliance with resolutions 2118, 2209 and 2235. However, most Council members feel certain that if such a draft resolution were tabled for a vote it would be vetoed by Russia.

Four of the P5 members (France, Russia, the UK and the US) are involved militarily in the Syrian war to varying degrees.

UN Documents

This was a resolution that endorsed the cessation of hostilities and called for the resumption of political talks. This was the first resolution focused exclusively on a political solution to the Syrian crisis. It was adopted unanimously. This was a resolution that requested the UN Secretary-General and OPCW Director-General to recommend the establishment and operation of a UN-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism to determine responsibility for the use of chemical weapons in Syria. This resolution condemned the use of toxic chemicals such as chlorine, without attributing blame; stressed that those responsible should be held accountable; recalled resolution 2118; and supported the 4 February 2015 decision of the OPCW. This resolution was adopted unanimously by the Council and required the verification and destruction of Syrias chemical weapons stockpiles, called for the convening of the Geneva II peace talks and endorsed the establishment of a transitional governing body in Syria with full executive powers. This was a report on the humanitarian situation. This was the 35th OPCW report on chemical weapons. This was the JIMs third report. This was an emergency meeting called by the P3 on the massive military escalation in Aleppo. This was a high-level meeting on Syria with the participation of US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. This was a letter from the Security Council, in an exchange of letters with the Secretary-General, to extend the mandate of the JIM until 31 October 2016. This was a letter from the Secretary-General, in an exchange of letters with the Security Council, to extend the mandate of the JIM until 31 October 2016.
AFRICA

Western Sahara

Expected Council Action

In October, the Council may receive the second of this years semi-annual briefings on the situation in Western Sahara by Special Representative and head of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) Kim Bolduc and Personal Envoy Christopher Ross.

Key Recent Developments

Reports began emerging on 11 August that Moroccan forces had repeatedly crossed the berm into the Polisario-held part of Western Sahara in the Al Guergerat zone near the Mauritanian border, in contravention of the ceasefire agreement. The Royal Moroccan Army initially told the UN that they were clearing the area of drug trafficking and smuggling, but MINURSO later observed the building of a road in the area. MINURSO had observed the presence of armed forces in the area, in breach of Military Agreement No. 1 of the ceasefire. The Secretariat has sent several notes to the Council, depicting a situation of increasing tensions and risk of confrontation. According to these notes, on 28 August the Polisario informed MINURSO that it would establish a checkpoint intended to stop Moroccan construction work, and the mission informed the Polisario that this too would constitute a violation of Military Agreement No. 1. The parties remain positioned 120 metres apart.

Bolduc has presented the parties with several proposals to resolve the crisis, including a freeze of engineering work and the complete withdrawal of all armed elements, or a continuation of the construction work by a third party or by MINURSO. However, the parties have failed to agree, as Morocco has affirmed that it intends to proceed with the construction of the road, which would link the Moroccan position at the berm with the Mauritanian border, and Polisario officials continue to object to the building of the road.

In response, MINURSO has deployed 12 military observers stationed between the Moroccan and Polisario positions. DPKO has noted that these observers are conducting their tasks under hardship conditions, with no shelters or facilities available. Bolduc has consulted Moroccan civilian authorities concerning establishing a small shelter for the observers, and was told to refer the question to the Royal Moroccan Army, who had previously signalled their opposition to such a move.

On 9 September, the Polisario sent a letter to the Council highlighting that the construction of a road in the buffer zone had been previously attempted by Morocco in 2001 and 2002, as reflected in the reports of the Secretary-General in those years, but that such work had been suspended at the request of MINURSO on the basis that such activities could constitute a breach of the ceasefire. The letter expressed surprise that MINURSO would offer to complete construction of the road, stating that the UN seems to have been advised to ignore its own decision on this issue.

Key Issues

The immediate issue is that given the tense situation in Al Guergarat, some resumption of hostilities remains a real possibility.

The underlying issue is that the parties to the conflict remain deadlocked and the political process has stalled, since the parties proposals for the basis of a political solution as outlined in 2007 are mutually exclusive.

A further issue is that the civilian component of MINURSO has not yet been fully reinstated, following Moroccos expulsion of over 70 staffers in March.

Options

One option would be for the Council to merely receive the briefing and continue to monitor the situation.

Another option would be to issue a statement urging the parties to de-escalate and withdraw from the buffer zone.

A further option would be to take the opportunity to address the wider conflict and reiterate the call made in resolution 2285 for the parties to continue negotiations without preconditions with a view to achieving a political solution to provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.

Council Dynamics

Deep divisions have rendered the Council largely impotent on Western Sahara through successive recent crises. Following Moroccos expulsion of MINURSOs civilian component in March due to a dispute with the Secretary-General, the Council remained mostly silent, due to the insistence of some members that support the Moroccan position concerning Western Sahara. These members, who include France, Senegal and Spain, continue to advocate minimal involvement of the Council concerning the current crisis. Other members, including Angola, New Zealand, Uruguay and Venezuela, have attempted to enhance the Councils role through requesting ad hoc briefings and proposing outcomes; however, they face strong opposition.

UN Documents on Western Sahara

This resolution renewed the MINURSO mandate. This was the Secretary-Generals report that addressed Moroccans attempts to construct a road in the buffer zone in 2001 and 2002. This was Secretary-Generals report that addressed Moroccans attempts to construct a road in the buffer zone. This was Secretary-Generals report that addressed Moroccans attempts to construct a road in the buffer zone.
THEMATIC ISSUES

Women, Peace and Security

Expected Council Action

In late October, the Security Council will hold its annual debate on women, peace and security and the implementation of resolution 1325, which acknowledged that conflict has a differential impact on women and decided that addressing the needs, views and participation of half of society would provide a positive peace dividend. The Executive Director of UN Women and two civil society representatives are expected to brief. The Secretary-General may also participate, though this was not confirmed at press time.

The Secretary-Generals annual report on the implementation of resolution 1325 is due on 1 October. At press time, no outcome was expected.

The Open Debate

It is expected that Russia, as president of the Council in October, will circulate a concept note ahead of the debate asking member states to focus their interventions on the progress achieved over the last yearthe period since gender recommendations were put forth in the three 2015 peace and security reviews on peace operations, peacebuilding and women, peace and security. All three reviews underlined the need for the increased and enhanced participation of women in peace and security decision-making.

2015 Peace and Security Reviews

Some of the recommendations from these reviews specific to the Security Council include:

Establishing an informal expert group on women, peace and security.

Inviting civil society to brief at country-specific Security Council meetings.

Enhancing capacity for gender analysis when mandating UN peace operations.

Encouraging increased and improved reporting by high-level leadership on women, peace and security in country-specific situations on the Councils agenda, both in written reports and oral briefings.

Expanding ownership of the pen on the women, peace and security agenda within the Council by including an elected member as a co-lead.

Strengthening the Councils attention to women, peace and security in the work of its sanctions committees.

The Council has begun to implement, to varying degrees, some of these recommendations.

Resolution 2242, adopted on 13 October 2015, expressed the Councils intention to convene meetings of relevant Security Council experts as part of an Informal Expert Group to facilitate a more systematic approach to women, peace and security within the Councils own work and to enable greater Council oversight and coordination of the UN systems implementation efforts.

After the adoption of resolution 2242, Spain and the UK worked with other Council members to establish what has become known as the 2242 Informal Expert Group on Women, Peace and Security, and became its co-chairs. In practice, UN Women has coordinated meetings of the Informal Expert Group by bringing together representatives of multiple UN departments, UN agencies, UN peace operations and civil society to brief Council members on gender information specific to a country situation on the Councils agenda.

Over the course of 2016, the 2242 Group has met on four situations: Mali (29 February), Iraq (29 April), Central African Republic (15 June) and Afghanistan (13 July). At each meeting, Council experts received briefings from senior leadership of field missions, in each instance at the level of either Special Representative or Deputy Special Representative.

Spain and the UK subsequently circulated a summary of each of the 2242 Groups meetings as a letter of the Security Council. In addition, follow-up meetings on each of the country situations have been scheduled to assess progress and discuss options for the Security Council to enhance women, peace and security implementation in that particular context. The first follow-up meeting was on Mali on 14 September, with follow-up meetings planned on Iraq in October, Central African Republic in November and Afghanistan in December.

It seems that the meetings of the 2242 Group have enabled the Council to make some headway with another recommendation emanating from the 2015 peace and security reviews, namely better information leading to better outcomes. Council members have observed improvement in the quality of gender information presented to the Council during briefings, an increase in the number of questions posed by Council members to Special Representatives regarding their missions implementation of women, peace and security obligations, and a greater willingness to include gender specific language when renewing mandates of peace operations. However, such improvement has largely been limited to the countries considered by the 2242 Group, rather than extending to broader improvement across all country-specific situations considered by the Council. Additionally, some Council members report only incremental improvement in gender analysis in written reports by the Secretary-General on country-specific situations, remarking that most women, peace and security reporting continues to be descriptive rather than analytical.

The ownership of the pen on the women, peace and security agenda within the Council has not been shared with an elected member and remains with the UK, and with the US in relation to conflict-related sexual violence. However, Spains inclusion as co-chair of the 2242 Group has helped to expand elected members voices in the shaping of the women, peace and security agenda in the Council.

There have been few, if any, advances in implementing other Council-specific recommendations highlighted above. While the Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict has briefed numerous Security Council sanctions committees this year, this is in line with previous practice, not a new development.

Key Issue

The key issue for the Council is how it will continue to take forward actionable recommendations from the 2015 peace and security reviews to achieve fuller implementation of the women, peace and security agenda in its own workin particular how gender is incorporated into mandates of peace operations, how gender is reported to the Council and how the Councils subsequent oversight role is enhanced if conflict gender analysis is presented.

Options

No outcome is anticipated. However, Council members can continue to close the gap in their everyday work between Council decisions on women, peace and security and subsequent implementation on the groundparticularly where there is a UN presence or UN-led process.

In this regard, Council members during their interventions at the open debate could commit to:

invite the head of UN Women to brief, in particular when considering a mandate to support post-conflict structures that should ensure broad participation and decision-making by women;

invite womens civil society to brief at country-specific meetings of the Security Council;

ensure that the women, peace and security agenda is integrated into the Councils thematic work on counter-terrorism, as well as into country-specific situations where groups such as Boko Haram and ISIL operate; and

improve the quality of gender analysis by calling for gender expertise in all UN-led commissions of inquiry; transitional justice mechanisms; mediation processes, including in support of Special Representatives, Special Envoys and mediation teams; and peace operations, including by the deployment of gender advisers and women protection advisers.

In order to strengthen the Councils attention to women, peace and security in the work of its sanctions committees, members could commit to:

expand the designation criteria in relevant sanctions regimes where sexual and gender-based crimes and specific attacks against women are persistently perpetrated;

encourage and expand the existing practice that expert groups assisting relevant sanctions committees should include gender expertise; and

include the respect for the rights of women as delisting criteria in sanctions regimes that target political spoilers who may eventually need to be part of a political solution, as was done in the 1988 Afghanistan sanctions regime.

Finally, Council members could encourage the UN system and member states:

to better implement the zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse in UN peace operations; and

to develop and implement a gender-sensitive humanitarian response to the needs of displaced women and girls.

Council Dynamics

Between 2013 and 2015, the Council did not adopt a resolution on women, peace and security, leaving dynamics on this issue largely untested for two years. However, familiar divisions quickly re-emerged during negotiations of resolution 2242 in October 2015, particularly around language related to the convening of an informal expert group; incorporating this thematic agenda into the Councils sanctions regimes; describing an improved gender architecture in the UN system; and integrating the women, peace and security agenda into strategies to counter violent extremism and terrorism.

In subsequent negotiations in 2015 and 2016 on Council outcomes on human trafficking, sexual exploitation and abuse, and on womens role in conflict prevention in Africa, similar issues emerged. China and Russia, and in some instances Egypt, resisted many elements that they interpreted as an expansion of the women, peace and security agenda or perceived as infringing on state sovereignty or the competencies of other parts of the UN system.

In this context, most Council members view this Octobers open debate as an opportunity to reflect on the advances and challenges that have emerged since the adoption of 2242 and to advocate ways to consolidate gains. Council members are unanimous in their agreement that no new resolution or presidential statement is required and that members need a respite from engaging in another potentially acrimonious round of negotiations.

The UK is the penholder on women, peace and security in the Council. The US is the penholder on sexual violence issues. Spain and the UK co-chair the 2242 Group. It is anticipated that the co-chair of the 2242 Group will continue to be an elected member in 2017 after Spains term on the Council comes to an end on 31 December.

UN Documents

The was a resolution that addressed womens roles in countering violent extremism and terrorism, improving the Councils own working methods in relation to women, peace and security and taking up gender recommendations made by the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations and the Global Study. This was the resolution on women, peace and security, in particular expressing the Councils willingness to incorporate a gender perspective into peacekeeping missions, calling on all parties to protect women and girls from gender-based violence and to put an end to impunity for such crimes. This was the annual open debate on women, peace and security. This was the annual open debate on women and peace and security. This was the annual report on women, peace and security that included recommendations from the Global Study on implementation of resolution 1325. This was the summary of the 29 April 2016 meeting on Iraq held by the Security Councils 2242 Informal Expert Group on Women, Peace and Security. This was the summary of the 29 February 2016 meeting on Mali held by the Security Councils 2242 Informal Expert Group on Women, Peace and Security. This was the summary of the 13 July 2016 meeting on Afghanistan held by the Security Councils 2242 Informal Expert Group on Women, Peace and Security. This was the summary of the 15 June 2016 meeting on the Central African Republic held by the Security Councils 2242 Informal Expert Group on Women, Peace and Security. This was from Spain transmitting the ideas and proposals from participants at the October 2015 open debate on women, peace and security (S/PV.7533 and resumption 1).
MIDDLE EAST

Yemen

Expected Council Action

In October, the Special Envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, is expected to brief the Council, followed by consultations.

Key Recent Developments

Peace talks in Kuwait, ongoing for more than three months, between the Yemeni government and the Houthis, a Zaydi Shiite rebel group, and their allies in the General Peoples Congress (GPC) ended on 6 August without any agreement. On 31 July, the Yemeni government announced that it had accepted the Special Envoys proposal that would require the Houthis and GPC forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh to withdraw from cities under their control and surrender medium and heavy weapons within 45 days. After that, a unity government would be installed. Talks were extended for an additional week, but the Houthis and the GPC rejected the proposal.

With the breakdown in talks, ground fighting and Saudi Arabia-led coalition airstrikes in Yemen intensified, causing increasing civilian casualties and heavy damage to civilian infrastructure. A 13 August airstrike on a school killed at least 10 children and a 15 August airstrike on a Medecins San Frontieres (MSF)-run hospital killed 19, prompting MSF to withdraw its staff in Saada and Hajjah governorates. Airstrikes in Beit Saadan on 10 September killed 30 people, and 26 people were killed in an airstrike in Hodeidah on 22 September. There are assertions of increased rocket and missile attacks fired at Saudi Arabia, and the Houthis have been reported as holding and seizing additional territory in border regions of southern Saudi.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) remain a threat, particularly in the south. On 29 August, ISIL claimed an attack on a government military recruiting centre in Aden that killed at least 54.

Following the Houthi and GPC agreement on 28 July to create a ten-person Supreme Political Council (SPC) to govern Yemen, a parliamentary session was held on 13 August in which legislators ratified the arrangement. The Special Envoy has said that establishing the SPC violates resolution 2216, which demanded that all parties refrain from unilateral actions that undermine Yemens political transition.

To revive a political process, foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the UK and the US met with the Special Envoy on 25 August in Jeddah. This was followed by a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the UK and the US, together with the Special Envoy. After this meeting, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced an agreement on a renewed approach to negotiations that would address the security and political tracks simultaneously. The Special Envoy said during his 31 August briefing to the Security Council that this approach would define a path for the rapid formation of a government of national unity to be formed immediately following the withdrawal and handover of weapons in Sanaa and some other vital areas. Over a week after the 31 August briefing, Council members issued a press statement expressing continued support for the Special Envoy and urging the parties to resume consultations and to recommit to and respect the cessation of hostilities.

Since then, there has been little progress. Houthi/GPC negotiators have been unable to return to Yemen and remain in Oman as the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, which has banned commercial flights to and from Sanaa following the Kuwait talks, has refused to allow their return.

Yemen continues to endure a humanitarian crisis. More than 14 million people require food aid, of which 7 million are suffering from food insecurity. About 3.1 million Yemenis have been displaced, a 7 percent increase since April. On 30 August, OCHA said that the death toll had surpassed 10,000.

Compounding the situation is Yemens fiscal crisis resulting from the near-depletion of the Central Bank of Yemens reserves, which the government says the Houthis have used to finance their war effort. The banks potential insolvency threatens to further destabilise the humanitarian situation if its ability to continue to pay civil servants salaries and finance essential imports of food, fuel and medical supplies is undermined. In August, President Abdo Raboo Mansour Hadi requested that financial institutions no longer deal with the Central Bank, and on 18 September, he ordered that it be relocated to Aden.

Sanctions-Related Developments

On 5 August the Yemen 2140 Sanctions Committee met to consider the 27 July midterm update of its Panel of Experts. This report covered ongoing investigations into armed groups, implementation of the arms embargo and financial sanctions, and allegations of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law that the Panel asserted have been committed by all sides.

Human Rights-Related Developments

In his opening statement at the Human Rights Councils 33rd session in Geneva on 13 September, High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein noted that his office continues to enjoy broad access in Yemenbut  the national investigation effort has not been able to provide the impartial and wide-ranging inquiry that is required by serious allegations of violations and abuse. I recommend a comprehensive inquiry by an international independent body. The Human Rights Council considered the High Commissioners report on technical assistance and capacity-building for Yemen in the field of human rights (A/HRC/33/38). The report describes alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by all parties to the ongoing conflict, including attacks on residential areas, marketplaces, medical and educational facilities and public and private infrastructure; the use of landmines and cluster bombs; sniper attacks against civilians; deprivation of liberty; targeted killings; the recruitment and use of children in hostilities; and forced evictions and displacement. In several of the documented military attacks, the UN Human Rights Office was unable to identify the presence of possible military objectives. Its key recommendation reiterates the High Commissioners call for an international, independent body to investigate alleged violations. In making the recommendation, the report noted the challenges faced by the Yemeni governments commission of inquiry that have not allowed it to implement its mandate in accordance with international standards.

Key Issues

How the Council can support efforts to re-establish a cessation of hostilities and advance peace talks, including overcoming differences between the parties over the sequencing of security and political measures, is the key issue.

The humanitarian crisis and violations of international humanitarian and human rights law also remain key issues.

The threat posed by AQAP and ISIL amidst the security vacuum created by the conflict remains a major concern.

Options

If progress emerges from peace talks, the Council may adopt a statement or resolution backing the outcome.

If current political initiatives do not produce results, the Council could reconsider a humanitarian resolution. Elements for a resolution were proposed by New Zealand last March. Such a resolution could call on all parties to allow unhindered humanitarian access and to ensure the safety of humanitarian personnel, and demand that the parties adhere to international human rights and international humanitarian law, including taking all precautions to avoid civilian casualties.

Council and Wider Dynamics

Russia was critical of the Special Envoys recent proposal, considering it unrealistic to expect the Houthis to turn over their arms and withdraw from territory before there was an agreement on their future political participation. Other members appear to have had similar concerns, which seemed to be taken into account in the renewed approach for talks announced by Kerry.

Reaching consensus on Council decisions on Yemen has been difficult lately. Members failed to agree on press elements following the 3 August consultations and required nine days to agree on their last press statement. Differences play out, in particular, between Egypt and Russia. Egypt champions the positions of the Yemeni government and the coalition, of which it is a member, and has pushed back against criticism of the coalition, seeking stronger condemnation of the Houthis. Russia often seeks to present the perspective of the Houthis and promote what it considers to be a more balanced Council approach.

Other members tend to be less vocal. This appears to be due to political sensitivities stemming from the close relations of many members, such as the UK and the US, with Saudi Arabia. For this reason, the Council remains unlikely to depart from resolution 2216 as a basis for resolving the conflict, despite widespread criticism of the resolution as one-sided and unrealistic in light of the situation on the ground. The demands of resolution 2216 that the Houthis withdraw and relinquish seized weapons have represented actions the Yemeni government says must be fulfilled before making concessions. The Councils approach has, therefore, been to hope for progress in the political process which it can then support through presidential statements, gradually shifting the framework away from resolution 2216.

The Group of 18 Ambassadors to Yemen, which includes the P5 countries, Egypt, Japan and the Gulf states, has pressured the sides to engage in negotiations. The so-called Quad, comprising Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the UK and the US, emerged in July to address the deadlock around the political process.

The UK is the penholder on Yemen.

UN DOCUMENTS ON YEMEN

This resolution demanded the Houthis to withdraw from all seized areas and to relinquish all seized arms, and established an arms embargo on the Houthis and forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. This presidential statement welcomed the launch of peace talks that started on 21 April 2016 in Kuwait and requested the Secretary-General to provide a plan on how the Special Envoys office can further support the Yemeni parties. This press statement expressed members continued support for the Special Envoy and urged the parties to resume consultations and to recommit to and respect the cessation of hostilities. This was a briefing by the Special Envoy for Yemen.
Photo: Krzysztof Starnawski is seen during five hours of decompression after diving to 215 meters in Hranicka Propast cave, Czech Republic. Photograph by Marcin Jamkowski A team of explorers has found the deepest underwater cave yet discovered, with a bottom that lies at least 1,325 feet below the water's surface.

Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski, who led the team, first explored the cave -- named Hranicka Propast and located near the Czech town of Hranice -- in 1999, and instantly knew it was an unusual find. He told National Geographic, which sponsored his most recent expedition, that hot water saturated with carbon dioxide bubbled up like a volcano, and made his exposed skin itch.

A series of dives over the years hinted at the abyss' depth. In 2014, he reached 656 feet, thinking he had found the bottom, only to discover a very narrow opening that led to a vertical tunnel. The following year, some of the rock in the cave had crumbled, widening the opening and making it possible for him to squeeze through. He reached a depth of 869 feet and released a probe, which at 1,214 feet landed on what was probably a pile of debris from the collapsed passage above.

RELATED: Creepy Remains of Macaw, Baby Found in Cave

Each time he dived down to such depths, Starnawski had to spend between two and four hours in a dry decompression bell; the only way to explore much deeper was to deploy a Remote-Operated Vehicle (ROV), which his team did during its record-setting mission Tuesday.
Photo: Lions Majo (L) and Motshegetsi roam the grounds at Leipzig Zoo. Credit: Facebook/Leipzig Zoo German zookeepers shot dead a lion Thursday after two of the animals escaped from their enclosure and a tranquilizer failed to stop one of them, the zoo's director said.

"It's a very, very sad outcome but we had no choice," said the head of the zoo in the eastern city of Leipzig, Joerg Junhold.

The one-year-old lions, named Majo and Motshegetsi, had slipped into the main grounds of the zoo at about 8:40 am (0640 GMT), before the park opened to the public.

Zoo staff implemented an emergency plan, placing the facility on lockdown so the animals could not breach the facility's fences.

"After Majo was caught and Motshegetsi was hit with a tranquilizer dart, we were hopeful that the breakout could end without any loss of life," Junhold said.

RELATED: Why the Copenhagen Zoo Killed Lion Family

However the staff then determined that they had lost control of the situation and a zookeeper shot and killed Motshegetsi.

"Human safety always comes first," Junhold said.

The two lions originally from Namibia had only arrived in Leipzig last month from Basel Zoo.

They were given several weeks to get used to their new home before being released into an enclosure where they could be seen by the public.

The escape "surprised all of us because the enclosure had been in operation for 15 years. Of course we assume that it is secure," Junhold said.

Last March, one tiger was killed by another at Leipzig zoo when a partition separating the two was removed by accident.

An Ohio zoo faced international uproar in May when its staff killed a critically endangered gorilla as it dragged a young boy who had fallen into its enclosure.

While acknowledging the US zookeepers had few options, critics slammed the zoo saying it should have installed more barriers. The park's managers insisted its facility met all industry standards.

WATCH VIDEO: Why Do Zoos Kill Healthy Animals?
Here's a term you may as well get used to now: radar-1770984402.html">metamaterials. They refer to artificial structures that, unlike naturally occurring materials that have physical properties dictated by their chemical compounds, have properties engineered to behave in unusual ways. Some metamaterials deflect radar or sound, other sharpen light or even make objects invisible.

Now metamaterials are beginning to infiltrate the realm of 3-D printing. Scientists at the University of Potsdam in Germany have used a 3-D printer to spit out a structure that has moving parts from a single block of material, reports fastcodesign.com. These "metamaterial mechanisms" move thanks to specifically organized composite cells. Certain areas of the mechanism are designed to be less dense and structurally weaker, so that they deform in predetermined ways when force is applied.

RELATED: Stunning Petal Dress 3D-Printed Just for You

Essentially a machine is making a machine -- a notion that may be alarming to sci-fi fans of sufficient nerdiness.

WATCH VIDEO: When Will We Have Real Invisibility Cloaks?
A number of Medieval wooden barrels have been uncovered in Denmark, revealing their less- than-glamorous contents.

Originally built to transport goods and store fish, the barrels were converted into latrines - still filled with their original contents.

"We are talking about 700-year-old latrines. And yes, they still smell bad," Maria Elisabeth Lauridsen, the archaeologist in charge of the excavation, told Discovery News.

Photos: Digging Up a Medieval Latrine

Unearthed in the center of the Medieval town of Odense, the birthplace of the fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen, the barrels are believed to have served a toilet area.

"The excavation is characterized by great conditions for preservation and is located on a Medieval site that has been found to contain brick houses, half-timbered houses and stables," Lauridsen said.

Described as being in "excellent condition," the human excrement can give scientists unique insight into what people ate in Denmark in the Middle Ages.

Photos: Top 10 Things Poop Makes Better

"Preliminary results of analysis show that raspberries were popular in Odense in the 1300s. The contents also contain small pieces of moss, leather and fabric which were used as toilet paper," Lauridsen said.

It appears that barrels were recycled for various use in Medieval Odense. The excavation unearthed three barrels stacked on top of one another and tied together that served as a basic well.

Poop Gets Its Close-Up

A system of pipes at the bottom of the structure led water to the well. To prevent mud from getting into the well, the lowest barrel was covered with reeds.

"This well has probably been a part of beer brewing. We have excavated nearby a stock of partially germinated barley which is commonly used in the brewing process," Lauridsen said.

Video: What's in Your Poop?

Visitors can go on a free tour of the excavation every Tuesday and Thursday at 1:00 pm and can visit the archaeologists' workshop every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from noon to 3:00.

"We are finding new and exciting information about the life that was lived in Odense during the 14th century," Lauridsen said.

Image: Human excrement still smelling bad has been found in these 700 year old barrel latrines. Credit: Odense City Museum.
A stone toilet unearthed at a 2,800-year-old shrine in Israel has provided compelling evidence for the Biblical tale of King Hezekiah, according to archaeologists at the Israeli Antiquities Authority. One of the most prominent kings of Judah, Hezekiah is known for the religious reforms he carried out in the Eighth century B.C., when he centralized all worship of Yahweh in Jerusalem, banishing cult sites of other deities. According to the account in the book of Kings, King Hezekiah "removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles." The limestone toilet, fashioned in the shape of a chair with a hole in its center, was found inside one of the six chambers of the monumental gate in the ancient city of Tel Lachish, some 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem. The gate served as a shrine and the toilet was installed there in a symbolic act of desecration. RELATED: Roman Toilets Spread Parasites The practice of destroying cult locations by installing a toilet in them is documented in the Bible, particularly in the case of King Jehu's fight against worshippers of the pagan god Baal. "And they demolished the pillar of Baal, and demolished the house of Baal, and made it a latrine to this day," the Book of Kings reads. WATCH VIDEO: Why So Many Scientists Believe In God

According to the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA), this is the first time archaeological evidence has been found for the practice of desecrating a site in this way. The gate-shrine in Tel Lachish National Park was uncovered decades ago, but the current excavation has now completely exposed the massive structure. Preserved at a height of 13 feet, the portal featured six chambers, three on either side of the main street that passed between them. RELATED: Unique 2000-Year-Old Wooden Toilet Seat Found Benches with armrests were found in the first chamber. "According to the biblical narrative, the cities' gates were the place where 'everything took place': the city elders, judges, governors, kings and officials -- everyone would sit on these benches," Sa'ar Ganor, the IAA's excavation director, said. His team also uncovered jars, scoops for loading grain, terracotta lamps and stamped pot handles. The seal impressions bear Hezekiah's royal mark and the name of a senior official during Hezekiah's reign, evidence of the military and administrative preparations of the Kingdom of Judah in the war against Sennacherib, king of Assyria. Ganor also unearthed a large room housing a bench upon which offerings were placed. RELATED: Medieval Poop Found: Still Stinks "An opening was exposed in the corner of the room that led to the holy of holies; to our great excitement, we found two four-horned altars," Ganor said. Although it is not known which deities were venerated at the gate-shrine, it is clear that the cult was eradicated as the altar horns were intentionally smashed. To make the point clear, a stone toilet was installed. Laboratory tests revealed the toilet was never used, prompting the archaeologists to conclude that its placement had been symbolic. The gate was destroyed by Sennacherib, king of Assyria, in 701 BC. The excavation revealed arrow heads and sling stones, suggesting that hand-to-hand combat occurred there. SEE PHOTOS: Top Archaeological Finds Expected in 2016

style="text-align: left;">Egypt will likely offer promising finds in 2016. King Tutankhamun's tomb will be under the spotlight as a recent investigation suggests the western and northern walls of the 3,300-year-old burial may hide two secret chambers. According to Egypt's Minister of Antiquity Mamdouh al-Damaty there is a 90 percent chance the tomb of King Tut contains such chambers. Damaty made the announcement last November at the end of a radar-based investigation. The non-invasive search followed a claim by Nicholas Reeves, a British Egyptologist at the University of Arizona, who first speculated the existence of the chambers, arguing that one contains the remains, and possibly the intact grave goods, from queen Nefertiti. She was the wife of the "heretic" monotheistic pharaoh Akhenaten, Tutankhamun's father. Will archaeologists try to access the hidden chambers? Their attempt may lead to what Damaty called "one of the most important finds of the century." RELATED: Radar Finds Secret Chamber in King Tut's Tomb

style="text-align: left;">The noninvasive technologies applied to King Tut's tomb will be widely used this year in another ambitious project. Called Scan Pyramid, the investigation is carried out by a team from Cairo University's Faculty of Engineering and the Paris-based organization Heritage, Innovation and Preservation under the authority of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities. The project aims to scan the largest pyramids of Egypt in order to detect the presence of any unknown internal structures and cavities. The technique could lead to a better understanding of the pyramids' structure and how they were built. The project uses a mix of technologies such as infrared thermography, muon radiography, and 3D reconstruction to look at the inside of four pyramids, which are more than 4,500 years old. They include Khufu, or Cheops, Khafre or Chephren at Giza, the Bent pyramid and the Red pyramid at Dahshur. One particularly remarkable anomaly has been already detected on the eastern side of the Great Pyramid, also known as Khufu or Cheops, at the ground level. Much more is to come -- the first results are expected in the first months of the year. RELATED: Striking Anomaly Found in Great Pyramid

style="text-align: left;">Last year a study made an extraordinary and controversial claim: Stonehenge was basically a second-hand monument from Wales. It would have stood there hundreds of years before it was dismantled and transported to Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. The research indicates that two quarries in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire, in southwest Wales, are the source of Stonehenge's bluestones. style="text-align: left;">Carbon dating revealed such stones were dug out at least 500 years before Stonehenge was built -- suggesting they were first used in a local monument that was later dismantled and dragged off to England. style="text-align: left;"> "Stonehenge was a Welsh monument from its very beginning. If we can find the original monument in Wales from which it was built, we will finally be able to solve the mystery," Mike Parker Pearson, director of the project and professor of British later prehistory at University College London said. Researchers have been using geophysical surveys, trial excavations and aerial photographic analysis to identify the ruins of a lost, dismantled monument. The results of such research promise to make the headlines this year. style="text-align: left;"> "We think we have the most likely spot. We may find something big in 2016," Kate Welham, of Bournemouth University, said. style="text-align: left;">RELATED: Stonehenge First Built in Wales, Study Claims

style="text-align: left;">In early December, the Colombian government announced they had found the holy grail of treasure shipwrecks -- an 18th-century Spanish galleon that went down off the country's coast with a treasure of gold, coins and precious stones now valued between $4 billion and $17 billion. The multibillion-dollar ship, called the San Jose, was found off the island of Baru, near Cartagena. The vessel was part of Spain's only royal convoy to bring colonial coins and bullion home to King Philip V during the War of Spanish Succession from 1701 to 1714. style="text-align: left;"> The San Jose was trying to outrun a fleet of British warships off the island of Baru on June 8, 1708, when an explosion sent it to the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. She was reportedly carrying 600 people, chests of emeralds and tons of silver, gold and platinum. style="text-align: left;"> The shipwreck has been at a center of a decades-long search that also involved a legal battle with the Seattle-based Sea Search Armada, or SSA, a commercial salvage company that claims it first discovered the wreck's location in 1981. Moreover, Peru has argued that any treasure recovered from the San Jose should be considered a Peruvian national patrimony. As more legal fights will likely occur, new expeditions to the wreck in 2016 are expected to recover the much disputed treasure of gold and emeralds. style="text-align: left;">RELATED: Multibillion Dollar Shipwreck Found Off Colombia
Billions of dollars worth of weapons change hands each year, but global arms sales are dominated by just a few major players. Jules Suzdaltsev has the story in today's Seeker Daily report.

Not surprisingly, the world's largest exporter of weapons is the country that outspends the rest of the world in defense: the United States. From 2011 to 2015, the U.S. produced a full one-third of global arms exports, according to The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

It's a booming business. Six of the world's eight largest-defense industry companies are based in the U.S. The largest, Lockheed Martin, makes about 80 percent of its sales through arms manufacturing and defense. You won't see them at the local gun show, though. Most of these weapon sales take place via high-level arrangements with foreign governments in countries like South Korea, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

RELATED: Why So Many Assault Weapons?

Russia is the world's second-busiest exporter of arms and, not coincidentally, home to the second most powerful army in the world. Russia buys a lot of weapons from itself -- that is to say that the military purchases from its own domestic arms manufacturers. It's estimated that about a fifth of Russia's total manufacturing workforce is in the arms and defense business.

Russian weapons account for roughly a quarter of global sales. Like U.S. weapons, Russian arms go all over the world, but the country's main two buyers are China and, perhaps surprisingly, India -- the largest importer of weapons in the world.

China, meanwhile, has its own robust weapons manufacturing pipeline, accounting for about 6 percent of global trade in recent years. The country is actually a big player in both buying and selling weapons. According to an interesting report in The Economist, China tends to equip its own military with Russian arms, then sell the weapons it produces to dozens of low-income and middle-income countries.

Other major weapon producers include France, Germany and the U.K.

-- Glenn McDonald

Learn More:

SIPRI: International arms transfers

BBC: Arms trade: Exports grow as world crises grip

The Economist: Measuring the arms merchants

Music Track Courtesy of APM Music: "Responsible"

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"As we expand and our production increases, my goal is to lower the unemployment rate in Michigan. I can do that by hiring and putting people on the line."

Buying local may be all the rage these days, but Nailah Ellis-Brown says introducing her Detroit-made product into the local market has still been an uphill battle.

Ellis-Brown is the founder and owner of

"The shelf space that everyone fights for is center eye-level space because that's the most prime spot," she says. "It's always filled with Pepsi and Coke because they pay more money."

The tyranny of the big guys becomes even more pronounced in certain situations. Ellis-Brown recently hit a roadblock while trying to hammer out a distribution deal with HMSHost and Hudson News, which operate rest stops and airport stores nationwide. She was initially told Ellis Island Tea couldn't be sold at Detroit Metropolitan Airport because the airport had an exclusive contract to sell Pepsi products.

"I can't even start in my hometown," Ellis-Brown says. "I'm at the Westin at the airport, but once you pass security, it's only Pepsi."

Ellis Island Tea is available at Meijer, Whole Food, and across the Midwest. She found a solution to that frustrating problem in an unexpected way earlier this year. Late last year, while accepting the Michigan Black Chamber of Commerce's Sankofa Next Generation Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Ellis-Brown connected with Leon Richardson, president and CEO of the Southfield-based chemical management company

"Everything for me from day one has been trial and error," Ellis-Brown says. "[Richardson has] been doing this a lot longer and he's helped to save us a lot of wasted money and cut down the trial and error bit, because we have been able to learn from the mistakes he's made already."

The airport situation is just one example of how Ellis-Brown's mentorship has helped her business. Richardson funded Ellis Island's $15,000 initial order from Meijer. Ellis-Brown says he's also been helpful to her business in building a relationship with the distributor Aramark, which services cafeterias in hospitals, schools, and businesses.

"A lot of times it's just a phone call," she says. "A lot of doors won't be open because I'm coming in as a cold call and no one knows who I am. It just makes it a lot harder."

There's an interesting coincidence in the fact that Ellis-Brown discovered such an important mentorship at the Sankofa awards ceremony, because the acceptance speech she gave that night focused on the power of nurturing the next generation. She says it's important not only for consumers and distributors to support local business, but for the Southeast Michigan business community to support its own as well.

"Those who come before us, it's their job to make it easier for those who come after," she says. "Just because it took you 30 or 40 years to get a positive cash flow, it should take me less time because that's what you came before me for: to open the doors and make it easier for me."

Ellis-Brown has applied that ethos in a particularly focused way at Ellis Island. She says she tries to prioritize hiring Detroit residents, particularly those of color. That practice arises partly from her frustration with the fact that businesses have moved into Detroit from its suburbs in recent years, and they may bring workforces in with them instead of hiring Detroiters.

"My passion is more for Detroit natives," Ellis-Brown says. "Because Detroit happens to be majority black, we should have more of a hiring rate of Detroit natives who happen to be black."

Ellis-Brown says she may expand her business to include facilities in other states, but she firmly intends to maintain her headquarters in Detroit.

"As we expand and our production increases, my goal is to lower the unemployment rate in Michigan," she says. "I can do that by hiring and putting people on the line."

As for mentoring local young entrepreneurs herself, Ellis-Brown says she's just beginning. Although she's helped a few with simple questions, she says she feels she doesn't yet have the experience required of a good mentor.

"I can show the basics, but as far as mentoring and actual business and manufacturing, I'm not at that point," she says. "But once I get to that point? Absolutely."

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Drivers accustomed to accelerating when they find a rare patch of congestion-free asphalt in San Francisco may want to consider hitting the brakes. Beginning Saturday, police will start a yearlong crackdown on speeders across the city.

The enforcement campaign, part of the Vision Zero effort to eliminate traffic deaths by 2024, will not only boost enforcement on a dozen of the citys most dangerous corridors that are already frequented by traffic cops, but bring stiff enforcement to at least 14 more streets where speeding is common.

Officials with the Municipal Transportation Agency, the Police Department, the Department of Public Health and the Vision Zero campaign announced the $2 million effort Thursday at a news conference in the South of Market, one of the deadliest neighborhoods for traffic collisions.

Speeding is a leading cause of crashes that kill pedestrians and bicyclists, the officials said, and the Safe Speeds campaign aims to slow drivers down. Natalie Burdick, outreach director for Walk San Francis-co, an advocacy group for pedestrians, said speeding is most dangerous  and common  in busy neighborhoods like the Tenderloin, Chinatown and SoMa.

In places like this, where people work, live, shop, where children go to school, where they play, its simply not OK to go faster than the speed limit, she said.

As speeds increase, she said, so does the peril of collisions.

We know that if 10 people are hit by a car going 40 mph, 9 of those 10 will die at that speed, she said. We also know that if 10 people are hit by a car going just 20 mph, 9 of those 10 will survive.

Capt. Tim Oberzier, who oversees traffic for the Police Department, said the department will add 132 hours a week of enforcement, focused on speeding, for the next year. All 10 district stations will participate in the push, he said, as well as the traffic division. Regular traffic enforcement will continue.

Officers will be outfitted with new lidar speed detectors, which are similar to radar guns but use more reliable laser technology. Using money from a federal grant, the MTA purchased 32 lidar devices for the program, said John Knox White, an agency program manager.

The MTA will also use the money to pay for overtime and campaigns that alert drivers to the crackdown and urge them to slow down.

Oberzier said police will focus on 12 primary enforcement corridors, which include Howard Street from the Embarcadero to South Van Ness Avenue; westbound Pine Street between Jones Street and Presidio Avenue; Leavenworth Street between California and McAllister streets; and Sunset Boulevard between Lake Merced and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

Another 14 streets scattered all over the city have been identified as secondary enforcement areas, with other known problem areas targeted as well, Oberzier said.

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And what constitutes speeding? Any speed over the posted speed limit, he said. Where a speed is not posted, the limit is 25 mph.

The crackdown, said Ed Reiskin, the MTAs transportation director, is not designed as a way to issue tickets but to slow traffic.

We want people to slow down and drive safely, he said. And the best way to get them to do that is to have a strong presence.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan

S.F. crackdown

To see where San Francisco police will focus their enforcement during the yearlong antispeeding campaign, visit the Municipal Transportation Agency website, www.sfmta.com.
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Industrial robots have assembled cars and other machinery for decades, but a conference in San Jose this week showcased robots that are creeping into other segments of business and society.

At the two-day RoboBusiness Conference, about 2,000 people were serenaded with lullabies and Disney tunes, including Let It Go from the hit film Frozen, by a human-like robot designed to comfort senior citizens and autistic children.

And next to a man-size robot that can drive a motorcycle 190 mph around a race track, a half-dozen ant-size robots quickly scurried about a miniature factory floor.

In five years, could you imagine what this conference is going to look like? Transhumanist Party presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan asked the crowd. There are going to be 8-foot robots walking all around us, talking to us, some of them maybe being smarter than us.

The 12th annual conference, which wrapped up Thursday, illustrated how the focus of robotics is shifting from industrial uses to consumer products. Thats especially true at a time when drones, self-driving cars and police robots that carry bombs are making news.

The global market for robotics should be worth about $83 billion by 2025, said Meldon Wolfgang, partner and managing director of the Boston Consulting Group.

Two years ago, the company estimated that the market would be worth $67 billion and we were too conservative, Wolfgang said. What we were struck by was the relative increase in funding of robotics companies. Its basically been triple the investment from what we saw in the prior three years.

Those attending the conference included venture capitalists looking for investment opportunities, and representatives from companies like Johnson & Johnson, Target and Walmart scouting for the latest technology that they might employ, said Brent Watters, product director for the robotics division of conference sponsor EH Publishing.

Their challenge is to not only understand the machines, but the software and solutions behind them, Watters said.

The show floor included robots from San Joses Fellow Robots, which are designed to escort Lowes home improvement store customers to the items they want to buy. And startup Fetch Robotics, also of San Jose, showed off its robots that can be used by stores to monitor or move inventory.

Were branching into this space where robots are not in cages anymore and theyre interacting more with the workers in the environment, and even moving into some front-of-the-house applications like the grocery store or a department store, said Fetch CEO Melonee Wise.

The conference still included companies exhibiting huge robotic arms and hands designed to rapidly repeat assembly-line tasks considered mind-numbing for humans.

But there was also the iPal, the singing 3-foot-tall robot with infrared and ultrasound sensors, a high-resolution video camera and a smile created by LED lights.

The robot, from startup AvatarMind Robot Technology of Nanjing, China, is designed to serve as a teachers aide for kindergarten classes, to help parents with autistic children and as a companion for senior citizens.

The company plans to sell the robot in the United States in the first quarter of 2017 for less than $2,000. We wanted to make an affordable robot that even families could buy, said CEO John Ostrem, who works in Palo Alto.

In another booth, the Motobot sat atop Yamahas top racing bike. Menlo Parks SRI International is working with Yamaha to develop the robot, which can be used to test motorcycles without endangering a human rider.

The robot has all the control inputs that a human would have, said Alexander Kernbaum, senior robotics research engineer. It has to be able to steer, manage the throttle, shift, sense its environment.

And most importantly, not crash, Kernbaum said. What we basically have here is the worlds most expensive test dummy.

SRI plans to have the Motobot ready to challenge professional motorcycle racer Valentino Rossi in August. To beat Rossi, the company has to create robot sensing technology that reacts faster than whats now available.

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If you can solve this problem of super-fast sensing, there are all kinds of other robotic applications that we can do, Kernbaum said.

SRI also showed off micro robots that it is developing for use in manufacturing electronic circuits, in biology labs or other industries that might need precise work with parts as small as a cord one-fifth the size of a strand of human hair.

And because these robots are the size of bugs, they can be transported into space. You can have a micro factory building satellites in space, Kernbaum said.

Istvan, who is running for president representing a pro-technology and science party, said he had a microchip implanted in his arm that can unlock his front door. But in a presentation at the conference, he talked about a day when human thoughts could be converted into computer algorithms and then downloaded into a robot.

That scenario, he said, brings up an entirely new dynamic of ethics and who we are as a person. If somebody dies and their avatar continues, is it something that is still alive? Its absolutely a brave new world out there.

Benny Evangelista is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: bevangelista@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChronicleBenny
Two shootings, just miles and hours apart, shook Oakland Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, police said.

The shootings left multiple people injured and one person dead.

Police received reports of the first instance of gunshots about 10 p.m. in the 1900 block of Auseon Avenue. When officers arrived, they found 20-year-old Christian Casillas, an Oakland resident, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Casillas was declared dead at the scene once paramedics arrived, said a spokesperson for the Oakland Police Department.

A woman standing nearby was also injured during the shooting, but she was treated at the scene, police said.

Five hours later, police received reports of multiple gunshots in the 3000 block of 62nd Avenue  nearly two miles from the first shooting. When officers arrived, they found two men at 64th Avenue and Brann Street suffering from gunshot wounds. Both men were transported to a hospital where they were listed in stable condition, police said.

Police are still investigating the incidents for suspects and motives.

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.

Anyone with information can contact the Oakland Police Department Felony Assault Unit at (510) 238-3426.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
Since they became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012, Washington and Colorado have been scrutinized as test cases around the country  particularly in California, where voters will decide on election day whether to follow suit.

Here are six questions that are being asked about legal weed, and the answers that are emerging:

How much cash are states hauling in?

Washington brought in $186 million in marijuana tax revenue in the fiscal year that ended June 30  an amount that is on pace to jump by roughly 50 percent in fiscal 2017. The government collects a 37 percent excise tax on pot products in addition to regular sales taxes.

Colorado took in $135 million in 2015 and is on track to substantially surpass that figure this year. The state has two separate taxes that amount to a 25 percent charge on recreational marijuana sales, in addition to regular sales taxes.

Are more kids toking up?

Colorado saw a modest increase in teenage marijuana use after legalization, while Washington saw a very small increase, according to the federal governments National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The increases, though, follow longer upward trends, making it difficult to say how the pot laws factored in.

The numbers are based on rolling two-year surveys of youths ages 12 to 17, which found increases in respondents who said they had used marijuana in the past month from 2011-12 to 2013-14. The Washington figure rose from 9.45 to 10.06 percent, while the Colorado figure jumped from 10.47 to 12.56 percent. At the same time, teen pot use slightly declined across the nation.

Has stoned driving made roads more dangerous?

The number of Washington drivers involved in fatal crashes who had marijuana in their systems has risen since legalization  but deadly crashes overall have gone up at almost the same pace, according to figures from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. In 2012, 66 drivers in fatal crashes tested positive for THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, and in 2015 there were 98 such drivers.

In Colorado, fatalities involving drivers with traces of THC in their blood increased from 55 to 79 from 2013 to 2014, according to the Colorado Department of Public Safety.

However, its unknown how many of the drivers in fatal crashes were stoned at the time of the incident, as THC can stay in a persons system for days. And the drivers may have been drunk or under the influence of another drug. Moreover, a report last year by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the agency did not find that marijuana use was associated with an increased risk of getting in a crash.

Studies in states that have legalized pot have also shown increases in THC-related DUIs. But marijuana advocates say DUI statistics  as well as the crash data  may reveal only an increased focus on testing for marijuana.

Did legalization bring criminal justice?

A central argument for marijuana legalization has been that people of color are disproportionately subject to pot-related arrests, even though they dont use the drug any more than whites. The early figures out of Colorado offer a mixed bag as to whether legalization has changed that.

In the first two years of legalization, marijuana arrests fell 46 percent as many people complied with the new regulations, according to the Colorado Department of Public Safety. However, while the number of arrests decreased 51 percent for whites, they dropped only 33 percent for Latinos and 25 percent for African Americans. The pot-related arrest rate for African Americans remained nearly triple that of whites.

Juvenile marijuana arrests increased by 5 percent overall, but went up 29 percent for Latino youths and 58 percent for black youths. The number of white juveniles arrested fell 8 percent.

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.

What about the price of pot?

There is strong evidence that increasing competition after legalization and the spread of retail stores has pushed prices downward.

In Washington, a gram of dry flower, or bud, now averages about $9  the cheap stuff can go as low as $6  compared with a year ago when it averaged $10 to $12 before taxes, according to BOTEC Analysis Corp., which tracks data for the state.

In Colorado, the cost of a pound of pot fell from a high of $2,600 last October to $1,600 in August, according to the online marijuana distribution platform Tradiv.

Have residents of Colorado and Washington changed their minds?

Four years after 55 percent of Colorado voters supported recreational pot, support seems to be steady or growing, with only 36 percent of the states voters favoring a repeal, according to a recent poll. The Public Policy Polling survey, commissioned by a pro-legalization group, found a slim majority (51 percent) saying they would not repeal it, with 13 percent unsure. A solid 61 percent of respondents said legalizations impact had been positive, with 19 percent seeing negative effects. Fourteen percent perceived no impact, and 6 percent werent sure.

The same trend holds in Washington, where 56 percent of voters backed legalization in 2012. A 2014 survey conducted by the Public Health Institute in Emeryville found that 5 percent of those who voted to legalize would change their vote, while 14 percent of those who opposed legalization would go the other way.

Peter Fimrite and Joe Garofoli are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com, jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite, @joegarofoli
A 47-year-old homeless man was shot and killed on a Milpitas street Thursday, police said.

The man, whose name was not released, was found suffering from a gunshot wound on the 100 block of Dixon Road in the middle of the night.

Police responded to the area about 3:50 a.m. after hearing reports of shots fired, then took the victim to the hospital. He later died from his wounds. Authorities said they havent identified any suspects.

In the neighboring city of San Jose, eight homeless people have been killed this year.

Most recently, 31-year-old transient Valentine Cortesosguera was found dead Tuesday in a field behind a San Jose apartment complex on the 800 block of Jeane Avenue. No arrests have been made in any of the cases.

Anyone with more information on the Milpitas slaying can call police at (408) 586-2400.

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno
A judge who was presented with chilling evidence and the testimony of a killer-turned-states-witness sent a pair of drifters to trial Friday on murder and robbery charges in the slayings of a backpacker in Golden Gate Park and a hiker in Marin County last year.

Marin County Superior Court Judge Kelly Vieira Simmons ruling in the case against 24-year-old Morrison Haze Lampley and his girlfriend, 19-year-old Lila Scott Alligood, came after a preliminary hearing in which prosecutors offered a stark picture of an allegedly remorseless couple who committed a drug-fueled crime spree while hoping to start a pot farm in northern Oregon.

The couple are accused of robbing and killing 23-year-old Audrey Carey, whose body was found Oct. 3 in Golden Gate Park, as well as Steve Carter, a 67-year-old tantric yoga instructor who was gunned down two days later on a trail near Fairfax.

According to their former co-defendant, Sean Michael Angold, they committed the crimes using a handgun the trio stole from a truck parked in San Francisco. Angold pleaded guilty in May to second-degree murder in connection with Carters killing, while agreeing in a plea bargain to testify against Alligood and Lampley.

Defense attorneys said Friday that Angolds account could not be trusted due to his drug use and because he testified in a deal for a lesser sentence  up to 15 years to life in prison.

But prosecutor Leon Kousharian argued the evidence was strong, including statements from Alligoods former cellmate, who said Alligood had mocked Carey for trusting the trio.

According to testimony, Alligood and Lampley  the alleged ringleader and triggerman  had met up with Angold in San Francisco about a week before the killings. Angold testified that the drifters, after meeting Carey near Ocean Beach, planned to rob her because she was foreign and possibly had money.

In Golden Gate Park, Alligood tackled Carey and tried to tie her hands with rope while Lampley hit her and held her shoulders down, Angold said. He said he was tying rope around Careys legs when Lampley grabbed the gun and shot her.

There was no reason for Ms. Carey to be killed, Kousharian said. They had rope to tie her up.

The trio allegedly took Careys belongings, and after some time apart, continued north. In Fairfax, they decided they needed a car to get to Oregon, Angold said. There was a group consensus to shoot somebody for a car just as Carter drove past in his Volkswagen station wagon, according to Angold.

The trio followed Carter to the entrance of the trail he walked down with his Doberman pinscher, Coco, and waited for him to return, Angold said. He said he had been walking down the trail to hide his bicycle when Lampley shot Carter, and he described looking back and seeing the shooting unfold.

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Attorneys for Lampley and Alligood seized on the detail, with a defense investigator testifying that Angold would have been unable to see anything from where the bicycle was found at the crime scene.

While Judge Simmons held Lampley to answer on all charges, she ruled there was insufficient evidence to support a charge of animal cruelty against Alligood.

She and Lampley were charged with animal cruelty because Carters dog lost her right eye in the shooting. Simmons upheld the charge for Lampley.

Lampley, Angold and Alligood were arrested two days after Carters death outside a Portland, Ore., soup kitchen after authorities tracked the station wagons GPS device. Lampley and Alligood, who are scheduled to return to court Oct. 20, face up to life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo
On this day, she was guilty. Twenty-eight years later, she would be pardoned by a president.

The Chronicles front page from Sept. 30, 1949, covers the verdict in the trial of the woman known as Tokyo Rose.

Iva Toguri dAquino, stony-faced and silent, heard herself judged a traitor to her native United States at 6 oclock last night, the story read. Such was the end for Tokyo Rose of three months trial and four days jury debate.

DAquino stood accused of being part of the Japanese propaganda machine during World War II. She would broadcast messages meant for American soldiers, her accusers testified, with the intent of breaking their will.

A famous recording from Tokyo Rose during the Battle of Leyte Gulf: Orpans of the Pacific, you really are orphans now. How will you get home now that all your ships are sunk?

Nearly 30 years after her conviction, dAquino would be pardoned by President Gerald Ford on his last day in office.

Its hard for me to believe ... the pardon is really true, she said.

A new inductee: Lets welcome Chronicle great Stanton Delaplane to the Byline Hall of Fame. Its a name made for prestige and print.

Bookies death: Martin D. (Marty) Breslauer, 61, a San Francisco bookie for three decades, was slugged to his knees and then shot through the heart on a Daly City street at dusk last night, a front-page story read. His two killers assisted him to the sidewalk, calmly walked back to their automobile, and were driven away by a third man. R.I.P. Marty the bookie.

See more front pages: Go to SFChronicle.com/covers to search a database of hundreds of Chronicle Covers articles that showcase the newspapers history.

More from the Archive The Vault Home of the San Francisco Chronicle's archive and more than 150 years of journalism covering the Bay Area and beyond.

Chronicle Covers highlights one classic Chronicle newspaper page from our archive for 366 days. Library director Bill Van Niekerken and producers Kimberly Chua, Michelle Devera and Jillian Sullivan contributed to the project. Tim O'Rourke is the executive producer of SFChronicle.com. Email: torourke@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TimothyORourke

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EMILY BERL/NYT

Donald Trumps acts of humiliation against Alicia Machado, after Miss Universe gained weight in 1997, were crude and cruel. What is even more disturbing is that two decades later, as a candidate for president, Trump cannot bring himself to acknowledge that the public shaming of a young woman was wrong.

Once again, Trump is demonstrating an utter unwillingness to show even an ounce of contrition for spewing hurtful or factually unsupportable words. This is the man who expressed no regret for fanning a myth about President Obamas citizenship, discounting the sacrifice of ex-POW Sen. John McCain, criticizing a fallen soldier whose parents dared to publicly challenge him or questioning the objectivity of an American-born judge because of his Mexican heritage.
With CalPERS sitting on $170 billion of pension debt created by 17 years of underfunding, we CalPERS pensioners deserve some answers.

Will this finally be the year that the California Public Employees Retirement System board proves that getting full funding is more important than keeping public employee unions happy?

Will this be the year that the CalPERS board meets its fiduciary duties as required by the state Constitution by placing retirement security first?

Will this be the year that the CalPERS board accepts financial reality and reduces its assumed rate of return?

As a CalPERS pensioner, I want to be paid every penny I have earned. I want the money for the benefits earned by all CalPERS members placed in a trust fund where no bankruptcy court can take it. Unfortunately, CalPERS is short of what should have been set aside. Way short.

In 1999 CalPERS had a surplus. Today, it has a debt larger than the states annual budget.

One of the most important decisions the CalPERS board makes is an assumption about future investment returns. The higher the earnings assumption, the less money gets paid into the fund each year by employees and employers. If the earnings fall short, the pension debt goes up.

The CalPERS Board now assumes the fund will earn a 7.5 percent return on investments indefinitely  despite a contrary view of its own investment experts, Wilshire Associates, who predict an average of 6.4 percent return over the next 10 years.

BNY Mellon recently predicted an average return of 5.8 percent for public pension funds. Super-investor Warren Buffet thinks 6 percent is the right long-term investment estimate for public pension funds, and the U.S. Treasury Department rejected the Teamsters Central States pension funds 7.5 percent figure, saying 6.43 percent was the consensus 10-year prediction.

So why does CalPERS pursue this underfunding strategy? It keeps employee contributions low and leaves more money available for salary increases. By lowering the employees contribution rate, the risk and debt is transferred to the taxpayers. The public employee unions controlling CalPERS love that approach.

As the CalPERS board pursues its underfunding strategy, the pension debt gets bigger and bigger, the cost to pay it goes up and up, and government agencies ability to pay gets squeezed tighter and tighter. Pension debt will force some cities into bankruptcy. But CalPERS will not be there to resuscitate a city. Under state law, CalPERS cannot cover the pension obligations of a distressed city. Thats a local taxpayer responsibility.

If the money for CalPERS benefits has been fully paid, the employees and retirees of a bankrupt city have little to worry about. If not, those city employees and retirees must fight in bankruptcy court and hope for the best.

They might fare as well as the employees and retirees of Vallejo, Stockton and San Bernardino, who lost only their health care benefits. But they might suffer pension benefit cuts like those in Central Falls, R.I., and Detroit.

Its time for CalPERS to put plan participants and their beneficiaries first.

Its time for CalPERS to stop its underfunding strategy that increases long-term employer contributions. Its time for CalPERS to minimize employers costs of providing benefits as required by state law.

Its time for the CalPERS board to put fiduciary duties ahead of political calculations.

Its time for public employees and retirees to demand full funding of pension obligations.
There will be blood. Former U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said earlier this month that Americans should accept the inevitability that a terrorist attack will take place on U.S. soil. The United States  despite boasting the most sophisticated intelligence agencies and the best prepared and funded federal, state and local law enforcement organizations in the world  is powerless to stop a deeply committed terrorist. We will be hit  and hit hard. Despite this grim reality, we have been dangerously distracted from our focus on true security vulnerabilities by the debate over providing a haven to Syrian refugees.

With more than 5 million Syrian refugees forming part of the greatest humanitarian crisis since World War II, the crucial question for this administration  and especially for the next  and indeed all Americans is whether the United States should commit to resettling more Syrians here.

I spent my entire public service career with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. I worried night and day about how terrorists might exploit troubling weaknesses and gaps in our immigration system to carry out a terrorist attack here. One thing that my colleagues and I did not need to spend much time agonizing about, however, was the overseas refugee processing program.

That is because applicants applying from overseas to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program are subject to the most rigorous vetting and highest levels of security checks of anyone hoping to enter our country.

It is difficult  but not impossible  to check the backgrounds of individuals fleeing war and terrorism. Refugees are rigorously vetted through a multistage process involving, initially, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and several U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies. These checks take time: Refugees must wait anywhere from 18 to 24 months to enter the United States.

Moreover, refugees from Syria undergo an additional layer of screening called the Syria Enhanced Review process. In addition to deep background investigations, including leveraging intelligence and security officers on the ground in the region as well as querying databases shared by our trusted allies, each applicant is interviewed by highly skilled and very experienced officers with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Refugee Corps. All of this takes place outside the United States.

The United States has welcomed millions of refugees, including hundreds of thousands of Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa. To be sure, imperfections exist within the homeland security framework. There are many ways for terrorists to enter the United States. However, the refugee route is a dauntingly difficult avenue.

Last month, the United States celebrated its annual goal of resettling slightly more than 10,000 Syrian refugees in the country  more than 70 percent of them children under 12 and women. That is a significant increase over the fewer than 2,000 refugees admitted in the first four years of the Syrian war. The United States is likely to admit 10,000 more Syrians this year.

But should the United States  in its unrivaled leadership role  accept more? Other countries have resettled many more Syrian refugees: Turkey is now home to some 2.7 million. Lebanon and Jordan have accepted a combined total of nearly 2 million. Germany has admitted more than 500,000. Canada has taken in more than 35,000.

Terrorists and their organizations are sophisticated and savvy: We must keep our guard up. If the United States decides to accept a higher number of refugees from Syria, then it should, in addition to the vetting process, leverage all available tools, including technology, to develop an even more rigorous screening procedure.

Peter Vincent was a legal adviser to the departments of Justice and Homeland Security and is the assistant director general for international policy at Borderpol, where he handles refugee and terrorism issues.
SACRAMENTO  Nearly 7 million Californians who work jobs without retirement benefits will automatically be enrolled in a savings plan under a bill Gov. Jerry Brown signed Thursday.

The new law requires employers who do not provide pensions or retirement savings plans for their workers to enroll employees in the state plan  putting 3 percent of their wages into an account  unless the employee opts out.

The California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Trust would invest those contributions in low-risk and long-term investments on behalf of the workers, who could increase or decrease how much they set aside at any time. The bill says the state and employers are not liable if savings plans lose money in a bad market or due to a poor investment.

The new law seeks to help Californians prepare for their senior years. A Pew Charitable Trusts report this year found nearly half of private-sector employees in California do not have a retirement plan through their employer. In major cities like Los Angeles, 58 percent of full-time workers do not have a work-sponsored retirement plan, while 44 percent of workers in San Francisco do not have a retirement plan.

This is a step forward, and its also something very important in todays age of spend now and worry about it later, Brown said before signing the bill at the Capitol. This is save now and prepare for later.

The Secure Choice board is expected to adopt a final plan next year and workers could begin seeing payroll deductions in 2018. Once enrolled, contributions would automatically increase by one percentage point each year until reaching an 8 percent cap  unless changed by the employee.

When the employee retires, they could take all of their money out of the plan or convert it into monthly income.

The bills author, Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, said too many workers are forced to retire only after they can no longer physically work.

This bill is about personal responsibility, de Leon said. Its about offering retirement savings opportunities to hardworking Californians so they can build savings over their lifetimes and retire with dignity.

Opponents of the bill questioned whether the state should take on another retirement obligation when California already has billions in unfunded pension liabilities for state workers and teachers.

The financial services industry lobbied against the bill, saying a state-run plan would hurt companies that offer retirement savings accounts to people who dont have them through their employer.

Although the law shields the state from bailing out the fund, critics in the financial industry said the state could face political pressure to shore up the new retirement savings plan if investments take a hit.

One critic, Paul Schott Stevens, president of the trade group Investment Company Institute, wrote in a letter to Brown that there is a very high likelihood taxpayers and workers will bear substantial unforeseen costs from the program. All investments are subject to market fluctuations and potential losses and during those losses the state will be faced with whether to reduce workers account balances or bail out the program, Stevens wrote.

In other words, California taxpayers may well need to come to the rescue of the program, Stevens wrote.

Critics also questioned whether low-wage workers can afford to set aside 3 percent of their paycheck when they already are struggling to pay for food and housing.

Supporters said the plan will help low- and middle-income workers who risk living in poverty once they retire. The plans would follow workers if they change jobs so that they can continue to build their retirement savings.

The state treasurers office estimates it will cost the state up to $134 million over the next several years to run the plan. Treasurer John Chiang, who is a member of the Secure Choice board, said the plan will be a model for taking care of workers.

This will have a substantial impact on the opportunities of younger generations, Chiang said. This is the most significant development since the enactment of Social Security.

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez
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Its a pretty straightforward question: When did you first register to vote as a Democrat? Kimberly Alvarenga, though, got it wrong.

The candidate for supervisor in District 11, the Excelsior, answered that query on the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committees candidate questionnaire for its endorsement process by writing, When I turned 18 years old and was first able to register to vote.

She answered similarly on a questionnaire for the San Francisco District 11 Democratic Club. It asked, What is your political affiliation? How long? She answered, I have been a registered Democrat since I was 18 years old.

Neither answer is true.

Voter registration information from the San Francisco Department of Elections shows Alvarenga first registered to vote when she was 19 with no party affiliation. According to the voter records, she remained a decline-to-state voter until April 2016, switching to Democrat.

That was when the election was starting to heat up and endorsements from key political groups were around the corner. The powerful DCCC will endorse only Democrats. In the District 11 race, the party members tied 15-15 between Alvarenga and her main competitor, Ahsha Safai, and gave no endorsement. The Safai campaign believes that had Alvarenga been truthful about her party registration, the outcome might have been different.

Its important you represent yourself in a truthful way to voters, and if you say something it has to be truthful, Safai said.

He has been a registered Democrat in San Francisco since moving to the city from the East Coast in 2000, according to the Elections Department. Safai said he registered as a Democrat at age 18 and switched to decline-to-state for one year in Massachusetts because he was miffed with the federal policies of the Democratic Party.

Alvarenga said she has always been devoted to Democratic ideas  the values of fairness and representing the underdog.

She cited her membership in the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, her internship with Rep. Barbara Lee and her work as a district director for then-Assemblyman Tom Ammiano as examples of her Democratic credentials.

On why she didnt register as a Democrat until recently, she said, Our party doesnt always represent our values.

And as for the wrong answers on the questionnaires? She said that as a busy working mom, she had a campaign staffer fill them out.

She assumed, and I missed it, Alvarenga said. Thats the truth.

 Heather Knight

Not so sexy: There is no more powerful tool of misdirection in politics than a sex scandal. So thats why youre hearing everyone from Donald Trump surrogate-adviser Rudy Giuliani to Eric Trump to the GOP nominee himself dusting off allusions to former President Bill Clintons history of infidelity. Why? Because their candidate lost Mondays debate to Hillary Clinton .

Giuliani said  on video  after the debate that, After being married to Bill Clinton for 20 years, if you didnt know the moment Monica Lewinsky said that Bill Clinton violated her that she was telling the truth, then youre too stupid to be president.

Trumps son Eric, whose father cheated on his mother, Ivana, said it took courage for his dad not to bring up Bill Clintons infidelity. At the end of Mondays debate, Donald Trump said he didnt say something rough about the Clintons because their daughter, Chelsea, was in the audience.

I mean, he really took the high ground where he had the opportunity to go very, very low. And Im proud of him for doing that, Eric Trump said.

President Obamas former speechwriter Jon Favreau tweeted Wednesday that this line of attack is coming from Trump Chairman Steve Bannon, who was once charged in a domestic violence case that was ultimately dismissed, and former Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who left the conservative news outlet after multiple allegations of sexual harassment against him by on-air employees.

This is an Ailes/Bannon special: They understand a conversation about sex is irresistible to the media, Favreau tweeted, adding later: The Trump campaign is talking about affairs because they don't want a conversation about Trump not paying his taxes or stiffing his workers.

 Joe Garofoli

Which direction? Even residents of deep-blue California are unhappy with the direction the country is taking, a new Field/IGS Poll shows, giving a hint of the surprising strength Republican outsider Donald Trump has shown in a presidential race that polls have found to be nearly tied.

A full 62 percent of Californias registered voters believe the United States is on the wrong track, while 37 percent are convinced were headed in the right direction. Theres an unsurprising partisan split in the results, with 57 percent of Democrats, the party of President Obama, pleased with the countrys progress, compared with 85 percent of Republicans who disagree.

But voters with no party preference, who dont have a dog in the partisan political fight, are also deeply unhappy with the nations direction, with 72 percent convinced that things are bad and getting worse.

Those no-party-preference voters likely have a different reason from Republicans, who just dont like Obama, said Mark DiCamillo, director of the nonpartisan Field Poll. But the independents look at Washington and see partisan gridlock, with nothing getting done.

By contrast, the poll found voters nearly evenly split on the question of whether California is headed in the right direction. In this case, though, only 55 percent of no-party-preference voters thought the state was heading toward trouble.

In California, voters see laws being passed, a budget getting signed and things getting done, DiCamillo said.

The polls results, taken from an online survey of 600 registered California voters from Sept. 7 to 13, also found that 60 percent of those surveyed approve of the job Gov. Jerry Brown has done and that voters were nearly evenly split on the Legislatures job performance.

 John Wildermuth

Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com, jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com, jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightSF, @joegarofoli, @jfwildermuth
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SEATTLE  They were all out of Super Lemon Haze at Dockside Cannabis, so those looking for an agreeable alternative had to seek out the shops bud tender for help selecting from the kaleidoscope of products.

Among the options: the sticky orange-flecked flowers from the artisanal Vashon Velvet, whose creations are for the pursuit of happiness, and Mr. Moxeys Mints, THC-infused candies that can be sucked by those seeking a dash of panache and a wink in your step.

Californians contemplating a future of legal marijuana after election day may want to gaze north, to places like this hip pot spot south of downtown Seattle, to see how radically the landscape has changed in the four years since Washington voters decriminalized recreational weed and the two years since retail sales launched.

A thriving, slick-marketed cannabis economy is fronted by boutique ganja shops where green-thumbed bud tenders wander like sommeliers, pontificating on their feel-good goods.

With more than 300 stores open, the price of getting high is falling with competition, tax revenue is pumping in and the black market is beginning to drift away like smoke from a vape pen, regulators say. Its the kind of herbal haven about which some California tokers have dreamed, but it hasnt come without wrenching policy fights, vocal critics and complications.

One of the most controversial moves came this year when Washingtons medical pot dispensaries were shut down to make way for the closely controlled market system that has generated more than $150 million in tax revenue this year alone, thanks to well over $400 million in retail sales.

Legalizing pot 6 lessons from legal pot in Washington and Colorado

In California, the annual tax haul could end up topping $1 billion, according to some estimates  money earmarked for drug research, treatment and enforcement.

When we started, the federal government hadnt weighed in on it  they were silent  so we built our system to be very tightly regulated, said Brian Smith, a spokesman for the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board. We had to build this industry from scratch. It didnt exist anywhere in the world.

The Evergreen State is laying out a blueprint for California to learn from if voters pass Proposition 64 on Nov. 8 and legalize recreational pot use for people 21 or older. Recreational use has already been given the green light in Washington state, Colorado, Oregon, Alaska and Washington, D.C., and five more states including California will weigh in next month.

Washingtons experiment is young, but so far theres little sign of the public health disaster foretold by critics. Teen use of the drug has gone up slightly and adult use has risen moderately, according to surveys, as pot-related arrests have nearly disappeared.

There are indications that more people may be driving stoned, though the early data are limited, hazy and contested. In general, crime in Washington has fallen since pot was legalized, with violent crime down 5 percent and property crime down 4 percent from 2012 to 2015, according to the FBI.

Daniel Berman/Special to The Chronicle

Still, with retail sales climbing, people like Reggie Witherspoon have seen enough. The pastor of Seattles Mount Calvary Christian Center Church said the state ignored his mostly African American parishioners when it allowed Uncle Ikes Pot Shop  one of the busiest stores in Washington, with more than $26 million in sales so far  to open 250 feet from the churchs teen center.

Its all about the money, said Witherspoon, who has led demonstrations seeking to close down the shop and rescind the law, which he calls immoral. They decided there is a lot of tax money to be had so they legalized it, but they are placing dollars over human lives.

The experience in Washington suggests Californias multibillion-dollar pot industry is in for seismic shifts that could decide who profits  and whether existing medical dispensaries and new recreational stores can coexist.

In Seattle, pot has become part of the regular hustle and bustle, with thousands of people choosing from dozens of stores, all monitored from parking lot to counter by surveillance cameras. Customers are required to provide identification showing theyre 21 before they can browse the neatly arranged glass display cases, but nobody is allowed to sample the products  and the premises are devoid of that familiar skunky scent.

Its the sanitized version of what authorities said was a failed medical marijuana system. There were once an estimated 1,100 or more dispensaries in Washington state, all guided by a system of rules that state officials described as wink, wink, nod, nod.

It was getting a little out of control, said Kristi Weeks, policy counsel for the Washington State Department of Health. Sales were going to nonpatients, and brand new dispensaries were being set up right next to licensed stores and siphoning off business and tax revenue. Frankly, the licensees who had worked very hard and were following rigorous rules werent very happy.

In July, the state Legislature folded together the medicinal and recreational markets, meaning anybody who sold pot had to be state-licensed and pay the 37 percent excise tax. Customers with medical cards are spared local sales taxes, but sales figures indicate a great many Washington residents are choosing to forgo that route.

The state cannabis board initially limited licensed stores to 334. Under pressure to accommodate medical marijuana providers, the board agreed to license 222 additional stores, all of them former dispensaries like Dockside. That still meant the closure of about 500 dispensaries, according to regulators.

If you like to watch capitalists run amok, then you will like this system, said Jeff Steinborn, a Seattle attorney who advocates for dispensary owners and fears the corporatization of the marijuana industry. Weve succeeded in making pot available for the wealthy.

Perhaps 1,000 or more dispensaries now operate in California. And its no secret they serve both needy patients and those who simply enjoy partaking. But advocates of Prop. 64 say California dispensaries will survive.

Richard Miadich, managing partner at a Sacramento law firm that helped write Prop. 64, said the initiative would allow stores to be licensed as a medical dispensary, a nonmedical retailer, or a hybrid of the two. Both enterprises would pay a 15 percent excise tax, but recreational customers would also pony up the local sales tax. Existing dispensaries would be given first priority for licenses under the new system.

You will have two systems that will be highly regulated that will be complementary and mirror each other, Miadich said.

But nothing is carved in stone. The Medical Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act, passed in 2015, gives California until Jan. 1, 2018, to come up with rules for dispensaries and growers. Prop. 64 doesnt specify how many recreational retailers to license, leaving that decision up to state regulators.

Its all a question right now, said Veronica Harms, a spokeswoman for Californias new Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation. We dont have answers for the medical side, so we cant determine what recreational would look like.

The California proposition, though, gives preference to small growers by delaying for five years the issuance of licenses to people who plan to harvest 22,000 square feet or more of marijuana. Its an attempt to prevent deep-pocketed corporations from taking over.

Kraig Seltzer, a former Los Angeles gang officer, marched into Xanders Green Goods in Tacoma one recent night and confronted the manager. A teenager had recently sneaked into the pot shop and nearly made a purchase before he was discovered  a security breach Seltzer deemed unacceptable.

You heard what happened, right? Seltzer, who is now an enforcement officer for the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, asked the manager, who nodded.

Its your job, Seltzer said sternly to the on-duty security guard. Then he turned back to the manager: You help the guy at the door, OK? You double-check.

Seltzer, who must do three annual compliance checks at each store on his beat, visited six that night, resolving complaints about signage and other violations, at least one of which was made by a rival store.

Washington opted for strict rules for pot-selling. Stores must have surveillance and every-customer identification. Child-proof packaging on all products must include measurements of pot potency, THC and cannabidiol, or CBD, the key nonpsychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Growers and food processors face a complex inspection, labeling and tracking system that requires a bar code to be affixed to every new sprout and remain with it until the plant is consumed.

Daniel Berman/Special to The Chronicle

Washington also did away with vertical integration, meaning shopkeepers cannot raise their own plants and growers cannot sell their own weed. Californias proposition carries no such prohibition.

Steinborn groused, They are regulating it like plutonium. But many retail customers in Seattle appreciate what theyre finding on the shelves.

I feel reassured that when I come in here I can get a safe product and sound advice, said Debra, a 60-year-old nurse who was shopping at Dockside Cannabis, one of 49 licensed pot shops in Seattle, where art hangs from the ceiling and 1930s-era artifacts populate a cannabis museum.

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She bought a packet of i ndica bud known as Sour Tsunami and pills and oil loaded with CBD, which she uses to relieve pain in her arthritic back. Pot may be legal, but she still asked that her last name not be printed in case some people frowned upon her choice to use the drug.

Those in Washingtons pot business complain about the regulations and the hefty tax, which other states have kept lower in a bid to defeat the black market. But the potential bounty is clearly enticing.

There are 902 marijuana growers and product manufacturers in the state in addition to the stores. In August alone, three retailers sold more than $1 million in goods, and a pair of growers sold more than $2 million in marijuana, according to records compiled at 502data.com.

We heard from Colorado early on that when they opened their medical marijuana system, 50 percent of the businesses failed within 18 months, said Smith of the Liquor and Cannabis Board. We havent seen that. Some businesses have sold, but we havent seen too many failures. Thats because they are still making money.

The regulations so far havent precluded small business owners with high-quality goods, though getting started can be difficult. Susie Gress, who founded the boutique farm Vashon Velvet with her sister and daughter and calls her cannabis the Dom Perignon of the market, said she sells five to seven pounds of pot a month and grosses between $15,000 and $20,000.

But she only broke even last year after deducting her expenses. And, due to the ban on vertical integration, she cant set up a bud-and-breakfast inn to make ends meet like some California growers hope to do. Nonetheless, she expects to make a profit this year.

Its a huge expense and a complicated process, Gress said. Its not going to make anybody rich, but its better than working at Starbucks.

Mike Mercer, the co-owner of Soulshine, which began producing pot grown in its 50,000-square-foot warehouse in Renton in May, said the company has doubled sales every month, allowing it to donate a portion of sales to an animal rescue group.

The competition between purveyors means prices are dropping. A gram of dry flower, or bud, now costs about $9  the cheap stuff can go as low as $6  compared with a year ago when it averaged $10 to $12.

Everyone had to drop their prices to compete with state-licensed stores, Smith said. He said illegal sales, which made up an estimated 28 percent of the market in December, have been drastically reduced, a contention that several Seattle residents echoed.

Four years into Washingtons pot experiment, the stigma of the stoner is also wafting away, many in the industry say. There is even a move afoot to legalize vaping lounges and smoking bars so visitors have a place to get high and socialize.

Theres less giggling about pot now, and people arent so embarrassed to be seen in a place like this, Ian Eisenberg said as he mingled with employees at his Uncle Ikes Pot Shop, which he owns along with an adjacent glass pipe and bong shop. People now vape or smoke it like they are drinking wine.

Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite

The March of Marijuana

Recreational pot use is now legal in: Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Washington, D.C.

Medical marijuana is legal in: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana*, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Washington, D.C.

Voters next month will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana in: Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada.

Voters will decide whether to legalize medical marijuana in: Arkansas, Florida, Montana and North Dakota.

Note: Montana is voting on medical marijuana a second time after state legislators placed severe restrictions on the previous initiative.

Source: NORML
Imagine there are two versions of yourself. One that feels these things and asks these questions, and one thats safe. Which would you rather be?

Thats the fundamental question asked in the very brainy but thoroughly gripping sci-fi series Westworld, based on Michael Crichtons 1973 film and premiering Sunday, Oct. 2, on HBO.

The update, developed by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, and co-produced by J.J. Abrams, is set in a futuristic theme park where people can live out their darkest fantasies. We dont necessarily know much about the actual lives of the towns guests, but they are able to interact with any number of hosts who are, in fact, extremely lifelike robots, programmed to participate in scripted scenarios with their visitors.

Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood), a young woman in cornflower blue, leaves the general store and attaches her parcel to the saddle of her horse. A single can drops to the dusty street and rolls away. A man stoops to retrieve it and approaches her to give it back.

We see the scene multiple times. Often, the man is the gunslinger known as Teddy Flood (James Marsden). Other times, he is someone else. The scenario involves the man accompanying Dolores back home, where she finds her father shot to death.

There are similar scenes in the four episodes sent to critics for review. But as they are repeated, we begin to notice variations  slight at first, but more obvious with repetition.

Perhaps the one image that grounds the whole series is a player piano in the saloon known as the Mariposa. We see the piano roll start to move and hear a tune. Later, we see the image again; the roll starts to move, but another tune is played. The same, yet different  thats what Westworld is all about.

Behind the scenes, there is concern that some of the hosts are beginning to demonstrate aberrant behavior. In stark contrast to the old-fashioned Western town, the operations for Westworld are housed in a dark, futuristic structure overseen by the creator of the theme park, Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins). Its probably not accidental that the character is named for the man who killed Jesse James, one of the best-known characters of the real Old West.

Ford is deceptively genial, almost doddering at times, but he has a clear vision of what he wants Westworld to be. The organization is a corporation, though, and the engineers are always wary of the people in charge of the narrative division.

Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) oversees the division that programs the hosts. He of all people should know that his creations are not human, and that its a mistake to treat them as such. But he cant help seeing the emerging flaws in Dolores programming as a suggestion that she may be capable of evolving beyond being merely a mechanical creation.

Elsie Hughes (Shannon Woodward) has her work cut out for her trying to correct the increasing number of flaws in the parks artificial population. Theresa Cullen (Sidse Babett Knudsen) is the no-nonsense operations chief, who is increasingly worried about her own position in the company. Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman) is the temperamental head of the narrative division, responsible for creating the backstories and the scenarios for all the hosts.

Guests like Logan (Ben Barnes), a return visitor, and his friend, William (Jimmi Simpson), a first-timer, get to do whatever they want. Logan has sex with any available male or female host, and dispatches them at will when his trigger finger starts itching. His friend is reluctant to bed down with one of the dance-hall girls working at the Mariposa, and hes not interested in killing any hosts at first. But eventually, the towns pervasive atmosphere of wanton sex and brutality liberates him from his own moral code.

And thats really the thematic core of Westworld, the exploration of how common values influence us to do things we might not otherwise do on the one hand, but also impose societal rules were obligated to obey at the same time. Its the concept explored notably by William Golding in Lord of the Flies.

As the series explores the nature of the human mind, we contemplate the dualism of existence itself  good and evil, spirit and flesh, hope and heartbreak. Presumably, the guests at Westworld lead what we would call ordinary lives in civilized society, whose rules they more or less follow. As visitors to Westworld, they are free to break any rule they wish. And if they feel like killing a host, it doesnt matter: Theyre just machines anyway.

Structurally, though, breaking the rules is exactly what the mechanical hosts are doing. They are not living, of course, and their actions and reactions are dictated by programs. Yet something is prompting deviations in their behavior. Could it be the repeated association with living guests? Are they beginning to mimic feelings of concern, love, dislike, sorrow and longing that they observe in Westworld visitors?

We return to the touchstone image of the piano roll, beginning to turn once again, but playing a different tune each time.

Westworld isnt easy to understand at first, but you will be hooked nonetheless by unusually intelligent storytelling, powerful visuals and exceptionally nuanced performances. Several major characters, from both the host and guest categories, display conflicts that reflect the series overall theme of exploring the dualism of human nature.

That includes Ed Harris as the Gunslinger, who has visited Westworld more often than any other guest, and Thandie Newton as Maeve, the madam of the Mariposa, who is beginning to doubt her own existence as a host because of apparent memories from a previous life.

Crichtons original film was a hit back in the 70s, but in some ways, perhaps he  and the film  were ahead of their time. The new Westworld makes a different kind of sense within the context of 21st century life, when so much of our interaction with each other is carried out through machines  computers, smartphones and the like. How are our true emotions homogenized and altered by those devices? Think about how well we have learned to compartmentalize our emotions through little cartoon emojis.

Have we, in our world today, become the guests transmitting our thoughts, feelings and secrets through little handheld hosts? If so, do you ever wonder which version of ourselves is real?

David Wiegand is an assistant managing editor and the TV critic of The San Francisco Chronicle and co-host of The Do List every Friday morning at 6:22 and 8:22 on KQED FM, 88.5 FM in San Francisco, 89.3 FM in Sacramento. Follow him on Facebook. Email:dwiegand@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @WaitWhat_TV

Westworld: Science fiction drama. 75-minute premiere, 9 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 2, on HBO.
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The autopsy of a 45-year-old homeless man killed in April by San Francisco police officers on a Mission District street found he was struck by six gunshots, including one to the head.

The city medical examiners office report revealed Luis Gongora was shot in the forehead, right lower chest, right upper back, left shoulder and twice in his right forearm. The exam also concluded that Gongora had traces of methamphetamine and marijuana in his system at the time of the shooting.
Firefighters battled a three-alarm blaze that broke out Friday afternoon at the First Congregational Church in downtown Berkeley and gutted the historic sanctuary, fire officials said.

Berkeley police officers and firefighters responded to the report of fire on Channing Way at Dana Street around 12:30 p.m., authorities said. Heavy smoke loomed in the area, near the UC Berkeley campus.

No injuries were reported. Several church members were inside when the blaze erupted and were safely evacuated. Children at a day care on the church grounds also were evacuated, Berkeley Police Officer Jennifer Coates said. UC Berkeley officials said a dormitory at 2400 Durant Avenue, which houses 1,400 students, was also evacuated.

Witnesses said work was being done on the roof earlier in the day

Were going to be here all day and all night, said Berkeley Fire Chief Gil Dong. I dont know when the fire is going to be under control, but its going to be a while.

The multistory church was completely engulfed and most of its roof collapsed as flames shot from the top of the chapel. One of the buildings many chimneys also toppled over.

One firefighter who became trapped inside the red-brick building while fighting the flames was forced to jump out of a window, Dong said. He was not injured.

The famously progressive church held its first service in June 1874 at the Berkeley Hotel at Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue, according to the churchs website. In 1925, the church moved to the current sanctuary, which was described as a gem of New England Architecture.

Carmelle Knudsen, a member of the congregation for 30 years, was doing volunteer work in a first-floor office when she heard shouts, smelled smoke and fled the building. She lamented the loss of the picturesque high ceilings, arches and huge pipe organ inside.

It is what it is, I guess, Knudsen said. Of course Im incredibly sad, but its a strong congregation, and well plow through.

Michael Bodley and Jenna Lyons are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com, jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michael_bodley, @JennaJourno
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For the first time, automakers will be able to test autonomous cars with no steering wheels, brake pedals or human drivers on some public roads in California, under legislation signed Thursday by Gov. Jerry Brown.

The law does not open Californias vast network of freeways, highways and streets to robot cars. Instead, it is tailored to allowing tests in two particular places  both in the East Bay.

AB1592 allows self-driving car tests on public roads in the former Concord Naval Weapons Station and Bishop Ranch business park in San Ramon. The old naval facility, which used to store munitions, has been converted by the county into a test bed for autonomous vehicles, dubbed GoMentum Station.

The Contra Costa Transportation Authority recently acquired two self-driving shuttles made by French company EasyMile. The shuttles will first be tested at GoMentum Station, which the authority manages, before being sent to Bishop Ranch, a 585-acre business park along Bollinger Canyon Road that is home to offices for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and AT&T as well as Chevrons global headquarters.

The bill was written by Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Concord. She cast the rules as necessary to maintaining the Bay Areas role as a center for research into autonomous cars.

California has always been a global leader in innovation, and as transportation technologies evolve, so must our laws and regulations, she said in a press release. With the passage of AB1592 our state will prove to the federal government and the rest of the nation that California remains the leader, and that the deployment of autonomous vehicles without the presence of a driver can be done safely and successfully.

California currently requires that any autonomous cars tested on public roads have a human in the drivers seat  as well as the equipment to ensure that the human can take control if needed.

The new law allows for very specific exceptions.

For example, any company wishing to test cars without drivers or steering wheels on public roads within the designated areas must first prove to the county that the cars have successfully navigated similar roads on their own. The company must also give the county detailed plans for the test and obtain insurance worth $5 million.

David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dbaker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DavidBakerSF
Leaflets bearing anti-Semitic messages were placed on windshields of cars at the Lafayette BART Station parking lot by a man wearing a Santa Claus hat who threatened to kill a bystander attempting to stop him, police said Thursday.

BART police investigators plan to ask the Contra Costa County district attorneys office Friday to charge the man with disturbing the peace, stemming from the confrontation that prompted the threat, a spokeswoman for the transit agency said.

Police did not identify the suspect.

Disturbing the peace  or the intent to use words to provoke a violent reaction  can be classified either as a misdemeanor or a lesser infraction under California state law.

The pamphlets  bearing the Star of David and covered in nonsensical anti-Semitic ramblings that referred to a race war  were reported to police by passersby on Tuesday and Wednesday. The flyers also contained barcodes linking to a series of racist website.

By Thursday afternoon, almost all of the flyers were gone, and a BART employee said a crew with the transit agency had swept up the stragglers earlier that day.

The distribution of the flyers left some residents of the East Bay community outraged and blaming the act on racial tensions throughout the county, some of it brought to a head by the presidential election.

Its all this rhetoric thats going around on Facebook and wherever. Actually, this is now spilling out into the real world, into real life and its threatening and scary, said Lafayette resident Eva Woo, as she entered the BART station.

Jeremy Russell, the head of communications for San Franciscos Jewish Community Relations Council, said its a chicken or an egg kind of question of what causes such overt racism. But the effect matters more than the cause, he said, especially on Jewish people who live in the neighborhood.

People who live near a place where theyve been targeted by this kind of hateful speech are definitely going to feel a loss of safety and a sense of discord, and its really unfortunate to have to face that in your home, Russell said.

While BART police are investigating the alleged death threat reported Wednesday by a BART rider who tried to stop the man from placing the leaflets on car windows, a spokeswoman for the agency said the act of distributing the pamphlets was protected under the First Amendment.

The pamphlets themselves are a free speech issue that transit police cant interfere with, said Alicia Trost, a BART spokeswoman, citing a California appellate court ruling that protects the leaving of flyers on cars parked on public property.

Appellate court case law rules leafleting free speech material on windshields is allowable and we cannot prohibit it, Trost said in a statement. There is no legal basis for us to intervene with leafleting alone even with hate speech.

Seth Brysk, regional director for the Central Pacific branch of the Anti-Defamation League, said hes deeply unsettled and troubled by the hateful act, adding that its one of several recent instances of discrimination around the Bay Area, including the July dissemination of KKK recruiting flyers in San Francisco.

The local ADL branch is assisting police in their investigation, Brysk said, adding that though it can be understandably tempting for bystanders to intervene when they see someone spewing out racist propaganda, that can do more harm than good.

Its really important that when the public encounters these types of things that they do not interact directly with the person who is doing it, that they contact law enforcement, Brysk said. If youre a member of a targeted group and somebody is distributing information thats hateful, thats disparaging to your group, its understandable to have a reaction. But nobody should be taking the law into their own hands.

The flyers also contained barcodes linking to a series of racist websites. The leaflet are similar in style and content to a blog targeting Jewish individuals in and around Lafayette for harassment, even singling them out by name.

Doesnt he have a life? Lafayette resident Armand Doroodian said in response to the individual who passed out the flyers. Is he a loser?

Another local, Nataliya Kobal, said she has a host of Jewish friends from Russia and Ukraine who came to the United States to escape religious persecution years ago and were looking for freedom here. The flyers disgust her, she said.

Wow, she said, thumbing the glossy texture of one of the pricey-looking pamphlet. Somebody actually paid money to print these?

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @michael_bodley
Ron Chapple/Getty Images

A man out jogging late Thursday on San Franciscos Cathedral Hill had his exercise interrupted when he was shot, police said.

The 24-year-old victim was trotting up Ellis Street outside the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption when a gunshot rang out through the neighborhood about 10:30 p.m. Only after he looked down moments later did he realize a bullet hit him in the upper torso area, police said.
Spencer Platt / Getty Image/Getty Image

A 24-year-old man was killed early Friday in San Franciscos Tenderloin neighborhood, just four blocks away from the site of a shooting the day before that left one dead and three injured.

The shooting was reported about 4:30 a.m. near Polk and Ellis streets. Paramedics transported the victim to San Francisco General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
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Comedians Will and Debi Durst have launched a fundraising campaign to have the area of Golden Gate Park currently known as Sharon Meadow renamed after late comedian Robin Williams.

Williams, who started his comedy career in San Francisco and remained a presence in the Bay Area for decades, often performed at Comedy Day, a free festival held in the meadow each fall. After his 2014 death, Debi Durst revealed that he was also the event's largest financial backer.

Shortly after his passing, Debi Durst had the idea to name Sharon Meadow for Williams. "Comedy Day is traditionally in September, and I thought we should do something to honor his memory."

According to the Rec & Park Commission's naming policy, name changes may be made if the individual to be honored has been deceased for at least two years, and "only to commemorate a person or persons who have made major, overriding contributions to the park."

Working with other local comedians, Durst researched the history of the field adjacent to the Sharon Arts Building, which was donated in 1888 by lawyer William Sharon. "We found out that it's called 'Sharon Meadow' simply because it's right next to the Sharon Arts Building," she said. "We're not really renaming it; we're naming it."

Durst said that Rec & Parks Director Phil Ginsberg searched through the department's historical archives, "and there's nothing else in there" that indicates that 'Sharon Meadow' is an official designation for the paddock at the east end of Golden Gate Park, near picnic areas and a carousel.

Money raised via the Robin Williams Meadow crowdfunding campaign (which has collected $871 as of this writing) will be used to replace existing park signage. Durst said she hopes to "piggyback" on other signage changes that will be required for Nancy Pelosi Drive (once Middle Drive East) and Hellman Hollow (formerly Speedway Meadow).

The total cost for the new signage "is about a hundred grand," said Durst. "That's the number that's been bandied about by Rec & Park, because that's what it cost the last time they changed any signs."

Durst said it "wasn't clear" in which Supervisor district the meadow is located, but District 1 Supervisor Eric Mar has offered his support.

"Robin Williams is a local treasure," said Conor Johnston, an aide to District 5 Supervisor London Breed. "Our office is watching the effort enthusiastically and hopes his supporters can raise the funds to make it happen."

However, one local historian, Woody LaBounty, is arguing that it's unwise to name public spaces after famous people.

"I just think that naming things after people is a problem that never goes away," said LaBounty, a professed Williams fan. "Renaming things just sort of takes away the historical background that people in San Francisco live their lives through."

LaBounty says he's "no fan" of Sharon, "a rapacious and reviled unscrupulous senator and banker who foreclosed on people."

"I have no problem, really, with his name being removed or Robin Williams' being added ... [but] I think the solution is just to stop naming things after people," said LaBounty, who favors naming spaces after the purpose for which they're used, citing Speedway Meadow as an example.

"Al Jolson used to be a pretty famous entertainer; now, we're pretty uncomfortable with his blackface routine," he said. "Are we going to look at Robin Williams playing a gay hairdresser and think we don't want that on the meadow in 50 years?"

Durst disagrees. "Robin Williams was a huge part of San Francisco, and a huge part of Comedy Day," said Durst. "There were times we wouldn't have had a Comedy Day if he hadn't stepped up, but we couldn't tell anyone when he was alive."

Although a freeway tunnel north of the Golden Gate Bridge was named after the late actor, "there's nothing in San Francisco that reflects anything for Robin," said Durst. "For what the man did for humanity in general, I think he deserves it."

This article originally appeared on Hoodline.
Bay Area activists have no right to force public disclosure of the names of Latin American military leaders trained at a U.S. Army installation formerly known as the School of the Americas, a divided federal appeals court ruled Friday.

A federal judge had ruled in 2013 that the government must identify students and instructors at the school at Fort Benning, Ga., whose graduates have included Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega and Salvadoran death squad leader Roberto dAubuisson. But in a 2-1 ruling Friday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the information had little public value, and that disclosure would invade the trainees privacy and could endanger their lives.

There are many groups in foreign countries that would seek to harm those who are publicly associated with the United States military, Judge Sandra Ikuta said in the majority opinion.

She also cited assurances by the Defense Department and an oversight board that the school, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, is complying with a federal law that requires it to instruct students about human rights. Federal law additionally requires the department to deny enrollment to any member of a military unit that has committed a gross violation of human rights, Ikuta said.

Dissenting Judge Paul Watford said the majority was taking the governments word that everything was in order  a fox-guarding-the-henhouse notion  despite past revelations of abuses by School of the Americas graduates. He noted that past training materials disclosed by the Pentagon in 1996 included manuals providing instruction on torturing and executing insurgents.

Whether the human rights training is effective, and whether the Army is screening out members of Latin American military units with records of abuses, are not idle questions given the schools checkered history, Watford said.

Plaintiffs lawyer Duffy Carolan said she would encourage her clients to ask the full appeals court for a new hearing. The ruling comes less than six weeks after the death of one of the lead plaintiffs, Judith Liteky, 74, of San Francisco, a longtime activist who had organized the western branch of School of the Americas Watch in 1999.

The school, founded in 1946, trains Central and South American military leaders in combat and counterinsurgency techniques. Names of its attendees were withheld until 1994, when President Bill Clintons administration started releasing the information. The list contained more than 60,000 names of graduates before President George W. Bushs administration halted disclosures, citing the rise of terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001. President Obamas administration has continued Bushs policy and defended it in court.

Besides dAubuisson and Noriega, the schools graduates have included 19 Salvadoran soldiers implicated in the 1989 killings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her 16-year-old daughter. Watford, in his dissenting opinion, said there was no evidence that any of the 60,000 identified graduates had been subjected to harassment or violence based on their attendance at the school.

But Ikuta, joined in the majority by Judge Andrew Kleinfeld, said simple common sense supports the governments argument that attendees would be at risk if their names were revealed. There is little evidence of errors in the current screening process, she said, and disclosure of the names would add little to public awareness.

Even if individual attendees are later alleged to engage in human rights abuses, such subsequent incidents are unlikely to shed light on what the government is currently up to at the school, Ikuta said.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
WASHINGTON  Federal regulators have approved a first-of-a-kind artificial pancreas, a device that can help some diabetes patients manage their disease by constantly monitoring their blood sugar and delivering insulin as needed.

The device from Medtronic was approved Wednesday for patients with Type 1 diabetes, the kind usually diagnosed during childhood. About 5 percent of the nations 29 million Americans with diabetes have this type.

Doctors said they have long awaited a device that could help patients around the clock.

I cant wait to get my hands on it because I can think of a lot of our patients who need this, said the Cleveland Clinics Dr. Betul Hatipoglu. Now I have a helper who is going to help me to help them.

Type 1 diabetes patients now have to manage their insulin through multiple injections throughout the day or a drug pump that delivers it through a tube. Their own pancreas doesnt make insulin, a hormone needed to turn food into energy. They face increased risks of dangerously high blood-sugar levels, heart disease and many other health problems.

The new MiniMed 670G consists of a drug pump, a sensor that measures blood sugar and a tube that delivers the insulin. The sensor measures sugar levels every 5 minutes, infusing or withholding insulin as needed. Patients still have to manually increase insulin before meals.

Medtronic said the device will cost between $6,000 and $9,000, similar to its other insulin pumps.

Older insulin pumps simply deliver a baseline level of insulin, and patients must monitor their sugar levels and give themselves more insulin to keep their blood sugar from getting too high. A big danger is having too much insulin in the body overnight, when blood-sugar levels naturally fall. People can go into comas, suffer seizures and even die.

The Food and Drug Administration said it approved the device based on a three-month study of more than 120 patients. The study reported no major adverse events, such as dangerously low blood sugar, showing that the device is safe for those 14 years and up, regulators said in a release.

The pump is about the size of a deck of cards and can be worn on a belt or carried in a pocket.

The device can provide people with Type 1 diabetes greater freedom to live their lives, said Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDAs device center.

While the device can currently only be marketed for Type 1, doctors said it could eventually be used by those with Type 2 diabetes, where the body gradually loses the ability to produce or use insulin.
1 Election hacking: A Homeland Security Department official said Friday that hackers have targeted voter registration systems of more than 20 states in recent months. The official spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The FBI last month warned states to improve their election security after hackers targeted systems in Illinois and Arizona. FBI Director James Comey said this week that the agency is looking very, very hard at Russian hackers who may try to disrupt the U.S. election. Officials say the decentralized nature of election systems makes it hard for hackers to alter the election outcome.

2 Police killing: A not guilty plea was entered Friday on behalf of an Oklahoma police officer charged with first-degree manslaughter in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man. Tulsa officer Betty Shelby did not say anything at her first court appearance, other than acknowledging her name. Her attorney entered the plea. Shelby is charged in the Sept. 16 death of Terence Crutcher, whose family sat in the courtroom Friday. Prosecutors allege Shelby acted unreasonably when she shot Crutcher, 40, after she encountered his vehicle abandoned on the street. Shelby, who is white, told investigators she feared for her life.
The odds of Hillary Clinton becoming the next president of the United States spiked twelve percent following the first debate with Republican nominee Donald Trump, according a respected poll monitoring firm.

FiveThirtyEight - which has a track record of correctly projecting races by synthesizing multiple polls - found that the race was as close as it had been in weeks when Trump and Clinton took the stage at Hofstra University Monday. But after a performance described 'disastrous' by some pundits, Trump has seen his poll numbers slip over the last four days.
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To achieve complete solitude while backpacking you will probably, at some point on your trip, tell yourself that backpacking stinks.

This has been my experience after many years of backpacking once, maybe twice, a year. I always seem to be over matched by the journey, which may be partly because, at least in recent years, my trip planner is a guy 10 years younger. He's in top shape and a super salesman for a living, and he always convinces me the hellacious trip he's mapped out will be a piece of cake.

And this year was no different. He had chosen Iceland Lake in the Emigrant Wilderness, an area of the Sierra we keep going back to because of its Yosemite-like beauty without the crowds, and because it is one of the few areas in the Sierra that still permits campfires.

In years past, I had refused to go to Iceland Lake because of the difficulty getting there. But this year was going to be different. Our fearless leader had arranged to rent mules to carry our packs for the first 6 miles of our trip. The final 3 miles we would take them in on our own.

This seemed easy enough. In fact, since nothing can be that bad for only a few miles, I threw extra beer, a little extra food and some other useless gear into the pack. Bad move.

Because, as it turns out, the hike from our starting point at the Kennedy Meadows pack station was tough. Even with mere day packs. We spent 4 hours on an uneven trail climbing abut 2,000 feet in altitude. After that, we picked up our packs and had another 1,200 feet of climbing to go over the next two-and-a-half miles.

These miles were not only steep but without trail. We were scrambling up difficult granite terrain that rarely flattened out. For long stretches. I simply put one foot about 4 inches in front of the other, repeating my new mantra:

"You will never backpack again. You will never backpack again."

That helped some. Also, I focused mostly on leaning into the hill so when I passed out I would only break my face instead of tumbling backward and ending up like the hiker who perished near this spot eight years ago.

Finally, after seven-and-a-half hours on the trail, we arrived at Iceland Lake. I fully intended to maintain my foul mood, until I threw off the pack and stared at what was one of the most spectacular Sierra lakes I've ever seen. And no one else was here.

After a couple of hours, all thoughts of never backpacking again began to thaw.

So, apparently this is what it takes to get true solitude in a short trip to the Sierra. A backbreaking trip, leaving mid-week and traveling after Labor Day. But in the end it made for a fantastic few days of fishing, swimming, great hikes around the lake, total quiet and spectacular moon rises.

HOW TO GET THERE: Kennedy Meadows directions: Take Highway 108 about 35 miles past Pinecrest. The Kennedy Meadows pack station and resort is about a mile down the road. There are cabins for rent but the resort and pack station are only open from the end of April until Columbus Day.
It began last Friday: Tens of thousands of young Californians registering to vote online at a clip rarely seen in the state.

More than 123,270 California voters registered to vote or updated their registration status with the state Friday, according to data from the California secretary of states office. Thats more than five times more people than the day before and about a 13-fold increase from Californias daily average.

It was the fourth most active day California has seen since it opened its online voter registration tool four years ago. And it was only the beginning.

The spike in activity was fueled by voters aged 17 to 25, who accounted for more than 36 percent of the online voter activity, state data show. (Those who turn 18 by election day are eligible to register.) Secretary of State Alex Padilla credited Facebook and other social media with driving voters to sign up.

Over the next five days, more than 372,000 people registered or updated their voter status online  the kind of numbers California usually sees over the course of months, not days.

Other states observed similar trends. Georgia, perhaps the most dramatic example, saw a 2,225 percent jump in voter registrations on Sept. 23 from the same day last year.

Facebooks voter push boosted registration in nearly all states that allow citizens to register online. This week, the Center for Election Innovation and Research noted voter registration spikes in 16 states and Washington, D.C.

To be fair, its been a busy week.

Last Friday, Facebook issued a reminder to all U.S. users over 18 that sent them to voter registration sites to update or check on their status. The reminders lasted through the weekend.

Google changed its home page Monday to a cartoon depicting voting machines and a message encouraging visitors to register to vote in several languages and linking to step-by-step registration instructions.

Then came Monday nights presidential face-off between candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the general election debate.

Tuesday was National Voter Registration Day, during which several tech companies started their own get-out-the-vote initiatives.

Twitter launched a feature that allowed users to send a direct message to the companys own government and elections team, @Gov, with their ZIP code to receive an automated response that informed users of their states voter registration deadline and a link to register. On-demand delivery company DoorDash hand-delivered registration forms to customers on Tuesday. Hashtagged posts declaring #Iregistered to celebrate #VoterRegistrationDay abounded on social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and more.

But of all the days, secretary of state data show, Fridays Facebook push moved the numbers the most.

On Friday, none of those other things had happened yet, so when we saw such a dramatic increase in registration, we knew it had to be Facebook. That was the only element at play, said Sam Mahood, a spokesman for the secretary of states office. It was a big first step.

Other states saw similar trends.

Kentucky officials declared it a historic registration drive after 25,000 state residents registered or updated their status. Nebraskas secretary of state called its uptick of nearly 10,000 registrations tremendous. Rhode Island, whose online voter registration system has been active since August 1, saw more than a third of the total number of voters who signed up via the website do so in the past week.

Registering to vote is the first step to becoming an active voter, Padilla said in a statement. For many who may be new to the political process, an invitation to register can be a powerful nudge to get involved. Facebook has demonstrated the power of social media to engage more people to register to vote, helping thousands take a big step to casting a ballot this November.

Last Friday was the first time Facebook had rolled out a national reminder for adults in all 50 states. The social media site had previously presented a tool to encourage voters in states that do not allow for election-day registration to sign up to vote in the presidential primaries.

California was among them.

Facebook has offered election-day reminders to vote since 2008.

The company sees its efforts to encourage users to register as an extension of the same civic duty.

Going back to 2008, weve been reminding people on Facebook to vote on Election Day and directing them to information on where to vote. This is the natural next step, Samidh Chakrabarti, Facebooks product manager for civic engagement, said in a statement. We want people to have a voice in the process, and getting registered means that theres one less hurdle for them.

During the 2012 general election cycle, about 65 percent of voting-age citizens were registered .

Little more than half of eligible American voters  53.6 percent, according to the Pew Research Center  cast a ballot in 2012.

You have to be registered to cast a ballot in the first place, Mahood said. We still have some time before (Californias) deadline. ... Were hoping as people start tuning into the election, theyre going to get more engaged.

Nearly 6 million Americans missed the 2008 election because they didnt know how to register or missed the deadline , according to National Voter Registration Day organizers.

In California, according to the figures from July 7, the states most recent, about 6.7 million eligible voters remain unregistered. Officials hope harnessing the power of social media may help close that gap.

Californias deadline to register to vote is Oct. 24.

Marissa Lang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mlang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Marissa_Jae

Facebook effect

in California

A call on the social network to register to vote drew a strong response.

Sept. 19 (Monday): 12,436

Sept. 20 (Tuesday): 13,377

Sept. 21 (Wednesday): 16,922

Sept. 22 (Thursday): 24,168

Sept. 23 (Friday): 123,279

Sept. 24 (Saturday): 43,888

Sept. 25 (Sunday): 29,256

Sept. 26 (Monday): 71,805

Sept. 27 (Tuesday): 103,816
The United Nations News Centre's Twitter account quickly took back something it said yesterday.

The official U.N. news service's account pushed out a tweet calling on 8 million Americans living abroad to "stop Trump."

After the message was sent at 9:14 p.m. EST on Thursday, it was deleted 20 minutes later without an explanation (but not before Politico captured a copy).

The tweet also encouraged expats to vote and included a link to a page on activist group Avaaz's website that included a voter registration tool and the message "The October surprise that will end Trump. At a time when Trump is trying to divide us, we could help defeat him if we all share this page with EVERYONE. Let's reach every U.S. voter abroad."

The tweet was likely the result of a hack. "I wanted to let you know that that tweet did not originate from the UN News Centre and that this was the reason for it being taken down. We're looking into its provenance," Ari Gaitanis, chief of news services section within the U.N. Department of Public Information, told the Washington Examiner.
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Rohnert Park  Magnolia, a new neighborhood by Signature Homes, is opening its professionally decorated model homes October 8th at University District, a master planned community in Rohnert Park.

Discover four well-designed floor plans ranging from approx. 1,838 to 2,342 square feet with three to four bedrooms. Prices start from the $500,000's.

These beautifully crafted single-family homes in a courtyard setting feature spacious great rooms, delightful gourmet kitchens, and luxurious master suites, creating the perfect home design that's ideal for both elegant entertaining and casual family gatherings.

It's the ideal place for up and coming professionals, young families or those mature couples ready to relax.

Magnolia is located within the 260 acres of University District where you'll soon find two public parks spread over 13 acres. The neighborhoods are linked together with three miles of on-site trails connected to the city, Sonoma State University, the Green Music Center, a high school and middle school.

There's even 60 acres of on-site dedicated open space. A 7-acre commercial center is also planned here.

University District is located in the heart of the wine country, just south of Santa Rose and Sonoma where some of the world's most famous wineries in California can be found. Discover higher education, recreation, fine dining, shopping, state parks, and so much more.

Best of all, come home to Magnolia. These homes are finely crafted with designer selected amenities from handset ceramic tile flooring, custom beech, shaker-style stained cabinetry, and elegant stair rails with square, painted newel posts.

For the chef in the family, these well-appointed gourmet kitchens include premier Whirlpool stainless steel appliance packages with stainless steel sink and cabinets with European hinges.

In addition, each home features energy-efficient solar pre-plumbed, Navien tankless water heaters and a Honeywell Set Back Home Thermostat zoned system.

Welcome to Magnolia at University District by Signature Homes.

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Signature Homes continues the tradition of superior new home design with its expertise in innovative design and construction, community planning, green building, quality construction and a commitment to long-term customer satisfaction for homeowners now and in the future.

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Find Magnolia at University District

Magnolia is located at 5362 Kelliann Place, Rohnert Park, CA 94926. For information, call 707-703-1594 or visit our website at www.sighomes.com

Exclusively represented by Signature Homes. CalBRE License #01885946. Prices, terms and availability subject to change without notice.
Q: I had round-trip tickets to fly from Cleveland to Bangor, Maine, via Philadelphia on American Airlines recently. Three of the four flights were in first class. I paid a total of $957.

American made unrequested changes to my flights several times, resulting in a downgrade to economy class for all but one leg. There was no offer of a refund for the difference between the cost of the three first-class flights that I paid for and the one first-class flight that I received.

I contacted customer service, and they directed me to the refunds department. An airline representative told me to submit the request again after I completed the flights, which is not the response that I expected.

I submitted a request after my last flight, but after waiting several weeks and then resubmitting it, Ive received no response. Id like an apology and a refund of the fare difference.

John Rodda, Rocky River, Ohio

A: This ones simple. American Airlines sold you three flights in first class; it should have delivered them. If it didnt, it should have refunded the difference between economy class and first class on the day you purchased the tickets.

But thats not how airline math works. Airlines calculate the fare difference on an involuntary downgrade based on the price the day of the flight, not the day you booked the flight. As you probably know, the price of an airline ticket changes right until the moment of departure. The numbers work to the airlines advantage in a big way, because an economy-class ticket is much more expensive on the day of travel.

So the difference between first- and economy-class may be only a few dollars or, strangely, it may have a negative value. Thats right, unbelievably, the economy-class fare to which you were downgraded could cost more than your advance-purchase first-class ticket.

When we spoke, your estimate of the fare difference was about $200. By Americans estimate, it was $112. Thats airline math.

I have no idea why American ignored your repeated efforts to obtain a refund. You could have contacted a customer-service executive at the airline. I list their names, email addresses and phone numbers on my consumer-advocacy site: http://elliott.org/company-contacts/american-airlines.

I think this kind of airline math is morally wrong and opportunistic. But American is hardly alone. This is how virtually all airlines do it.

I contacted American on your behalf. It refunded the $112 fare difference. Its not quite the $200 you were hoping for, but its better than nothing.

Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. Find travel tips at www.elliott.org. Email: chris@elliott.org Twitter: @elliottdotorg
Summer Wilson

Frozen rose: We'd heard rumors of it in faraway lands, but had yet to see the beast in the Bay Area wild. Until now. The Palm House in San Francisco has announced that during the month of October, it will hold Frose Sundays, which will involve the Palm House Frose Cocktail, made with rose, thyme, strawberry puree, lemon juice and rum ($9.75).

New York spots like Bar Primi (where the rose is blended with vermouth) and Extra Fancy (where it's fashioned lemonade-style) have been doing this for months. It's disappointing to see San Francisco arrive late to the frose game, but then again, our distorted summer weather patterns make for a confusing rose-season timeline.
BEIRUT  A year of Russian air strikes on areas outside government control in Syria have killed more than 9,300 people, displaced tens of thousands and caused widespread destruction, an opposition monitoring group said Friday.

On Sept. 30 last year, Russia began an air campaign backing the ground forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, turning the balance of power in his favor in many areas  including the northern province of Aleppo and the suburbs of the capital Damascus.

Opposition activists have blamed Russia for most of the recent air strikes against rebel-held neighborhoods of eastern Aleppo city that have killed more than 320 civilians in the past two weeks and demolished many buildings.

The anniversary came as violence in different parts of Syria claimed more lives Friday, mainly in Aleppo city where at least 12 people were killed and dozens more wounded.

A Syrian opposition monitoring group that tracks the civil war said a year of Russian air strikes have killed 9,364 people in the war-torn country.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead include 3,804 civilians, among them 906 children. The dead also include 2,746 members of the Islamic State group and 2,814 from other rebel and militant groups, including al Qaedas affiliate in Syria.

Russia on Friday is marking one year since it launched its air campaign in Syria in support of Assad. In light of that, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a warning to Russians abroad about possible provocations, urging them to exercise caution.

A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russias involvement in Syria is justified by the fact that militants have not managed to capture the capital, Damascus. Marking the 1st anniversary, Dmitry Peskov said that Putin never gave a timeline for how long the bombing mission might last and still wont.

Regarding figures cited by the Observatory on casualties as a result of the air strikes, he said he would not comment reports by a group based in the U.K. The Observatory relies on a network of activists on the ground inside Syria.

Also Friday, Russias Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow is doing all it can together with the Syrian government to help the U.N. arrange weekly pauses in Aleppo to deliver humanitarian goods. Its the Nusra-controlled people in eastern Aleppo who refuse, he said referring to the al Qaeda-linked Fatah al-Sham Front, which used to be known as the Nusra Front.

The backers of the opposition blasted the Russian intervention.

Russia claims to be committed to a political solution in Syria, yet since its military intervention, the brutal Assad regime still clings to power. Russias action has not curbed the regimes atrocities, said Britains Special Representative to Syria, Gareth Bayley. Russia has proved to be either unwilling or unable to influence Assad and must bear its responsibility for the Assad regimes atrocities.

A video posted on the oppositions Shaam News Network described Russias military operations in Syria as a year of crimes. It said that after a year of air strikes Russia has not been able to defeat the insurgents.

Russia continues to blame the U.S. government and U.S.-backed insurgents for the collapse of a cease-fire earlier this month.
BRUSSELS  The European Unions environment ministers on Friday approved the ratification of the landmark Paris climate change pact, paving the way for the agreement to take effect in November.

Its really a historic result, French Environment Minister Segolene Royal said after the ministers agreed unanimously to ratify the deal at talks in Brussels, tweeting Victory! in delight.
What is a special session?

A special session is a legislative meeting held in addition to New Mexico's annual January sessions. These meetings typically occur when there is something that needs to be addressed immediately. Only the governor may call a special session. She also gets to control the agenda.

Although the state constitution allows special sessions to go on for 30 days, our lawmakers usually finish business in a few days or less. New Mexico last held a special session in 2015 to address a capital spending bill. It took a day.

Whats on the agenda for the session beginning Friday?

According to the governor's proclamation, lawmakers will address two general issues:

1. Finding a fix for New Mexicos massive budget deficit



2. Crime bills, including a proposal to bring back the death penalty



How big is the deficit?



The short answer is hundreds of millions. The long answer depends on how you look at the numbers, and for those who dont regularly read legislative finance reports, it depends on where you get your news. The Santa Fe New Mexican reports a $220 million deficit for the fiscal year ending in June, with a potential $430 million shortfall between expected revenues and planned spending for the next fiscal year, which began in July. The Albuquerque Journal, meanwhile, says were about $130 million in the hole, and facing another $458 million deficit in the next fiscal year.

We asked Sen. John Arthur Smith (D-Deming), who chairs the Legislative Finance Committee, about this discrepancy. He says they're both right. The $130 million figure likely assumes a fix that's been bandied about already: that the Legislature will approve a transfer of money from a pool of cash called the Tobacco Settlement Permanent Fund to cover last year's gap and a bit of this year's.



How do lawmakers plan to get us out of this hole moving forward?

That's hard to say, because they're still working out a deal as I write this. But it'll likely be some combination of budget cuts and closing tax loopholes.

Smith tells SFR that education, both public and higher ed, will probably take a significant hit, as it accounts for about roughly half of all appropriations. The question is how big that hit will be. Very generally speaking, House Republicans and the Martinez administration seem more inclined to cut more than Democrats and Senate Republicans. Democrats have also indicated that they want to limit cuts to social services like veterans' programs and the Child, Youth and Families Department.



Along with cuts, lawmakers are looking at ways to bring in more revenue, primarily through closing tax loopholes. Sen. Carlos Cisneros (D-Questa) gives the example of a tax credit for employers who pay high wages. Another potential source would be limiting a tax credit for health practitioners in rural areas. On the Republican side, Rep. Conrad James (R-Bernalillo), who sits on the House Finance and Appropriations Committee, tells SFR that some of his colleagues are looking at capping a tax incentive for film production companies.

What is the crime component of the special session?



In addition to addressing the budget deficit, the governor plans to put a number of bills on the agenda that would increase penalties for people who commit crimes.

The big one, of course, is reinstating the death penalty, which has been off the books since 2009. Another bill would expand a law that makes life sentences eligible for people who commit three or more violent felonies. Finally, legislators will also discuss a bill that would impose a mandatory life sentence for anyone convicted of intentional child abuse that results in death.



Why can't they discuss these crime bills during the regular legislative session?



Good question. When talks of convening a special session popped up in July, the focus was solely on responding to the state's budget crisis. But the killing of a police officer in Roswell in July, as well as the rape and murder of 10-year-old Victoria Martens last month, helped fuel discussions over bringing back the death penalty. Martinez, a former state prosecutor, led the charge. She announced this month that capital punishment would be on the special session agenda.

[endif]

Democrats right away accused Martinez of attempting to distract from the state's budget crisis. They suspect that the governor wants to force them to vote against tough-on-crime measures before November. Nationally, states are moving away from the death penalty and so-called "three-strikes" laws.

Oh yeah. The election.



Oh, that. Some of the state lawmakers who have to drop everything and come to Santa Fe for an unknown amount of time are fending off challengers for their seats. They won't be able to raise funds during the session. Send that extra campaign cash to the state coffers? Couldn't hurt. Might help.

[endif]

Santa Fe Reporter
Fund managers including those at the Accident Compensation Corp were among sellers of Intueri Education Group shares this week that sent the company to a record low in the wake of a cascade of bad news.

ACC sold about 1.1 million shares at about 6.8 cents apiece on Sept. 27, reducing its core holding to about 3.8 percent from 4.9 percent. ACC fund managers had been buying the stock on their own account at the start of August, paying 29 cents a share and because of the way the ACC tallies its corporate funds with those of its fund managers, its relevant interest fell from more than 5 percent, a substantial holding under the rules.

Asked whether there are any systemic problems with Intueri in the wake of its announcement this week that its Australian schools are at risk of being struck off for failing to comply with standards, interim chief executive Rod Marvin said the company's missteps have been a series of one-offs.

"There is no common factor between the developments that Intueri has faced to its operations in New Zealand and Australia," he told BusinessDesk.

Intueri shares rose 4.2 percent to 12.5 cents on the NZX today, having sunk as low as 4 cents when they resumed trading on Tuesday. They had tumbled from 30 cents on Sept. 21 before being halted. The company was sold by ASX-listed owner Arowana International at $2.35 a share in its May 2014 initial public offering, and they still own a 25 percent stake.

Apart from two minor trades this year on its own funds, ACC bought the bulk of its Intueri holding in previous years, meaning it could have paid as much as $3.35 a share in September 2014.

"As you observe, we sold the shares at a lower price than we had bought at, so it has been a poor investment," said Nicholas Bagnall, ACC's investment manager. "I dont want to say too much about the rationale for selling, as we continue to have a shareholding in the company, but the news about Intueris Australian subsidiaries facing the possibility of de-registration or other sanctions was unexpected, by both ACC and other investors".

Bagnall says the ACC's own fund has deliberately kept its holding in Intueri below 5 percent, but fund managers who answer to him can trade on their own account provided Bagnall is satisfied there's no conflict with ACC's funds. Paul Robertshawe, Jason Familton and Blair Tallot filed separate SSH notices today. All three were buyers of the shares on Aug. 3 at 29 cents, based on earlier SSH notices.

"We had recognised that investing in Intueri carried a higher than average level of risk, and for this reason we had not approved ACC taking a shareholding of more than 4.99 percent in the company," Bagnall said. "ACCs portfolio managers nonetheless chose to invest in Intueri because they perceived potential upside that provided an offset to the downside risks."

He said ACC sold the 1.1 million shares this week after the news broke about Intueris Australian registered training organisations facing possible de-registration. ACC has retained about three-quarters of its holding, now diminished in value.

Some of Intueri's troubles predate the IPO, which raised about $60 million for the acquisition of Quantum Education Group. The deal was conditionally agreed in February 2014, three months before the company came to market with its IPO. Quantum generated about 20 percent of Intueris revenue in 2015, making it the biggest of its New Zealand schools, the company said at the time.

In January this year the shares plunged after Intueri confirmed that the Serious Fraud Office was investigating Quantum. Intueri's account included a $53 million impairment against Quantum, of which $27 million was against goodwill and brand. It also suspended dividends pending Tertiary Education Commission funding reviews of Quantum and the NZ School of Outdoor Studies (a dive school). NZSOS and the Design and Arts College were also impaired.

While the TEC approved an overall 6 percent increase in funding for Intueri in 2016, it restricted enrolments of unfunded students at Quantum, which it estimated at the time would cut $8 million-to-$9 million from revenue. Marvin said the company would consider legal remedies and recourse against the original vendors once Deloitte had completed a review for the TEC.

More unfinished business flowed through from privately owned Intueri to the business in its listed company form. In late 2014 it was charged by Worksafe New Zealand under the Health and Safety in Employment Act over the death of a foreign student enrolled at its dive school in April 2014. The company was required to tweak its prospectus as a result.

Yet none of the events have been as destructive to shareholder value as news of the Australian audits by the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) that found Online Courses Australia (OCA) and Conwal & Associates weren't compliant with its standards. Intueri has until Oct. 21 to respond before the ASQA makes a decision, with possible outcomes ranging from a directive to correct areas of non-compliance through to the full cancellation of OCA and Conwal's registrations as registered training organisations (RTOs).

Cancellation of the registration for Conwal, which generates some 95 percent of OCA's revenue, "would place serious doubt on OCA Groups ability to continue to operate, and also significantly impact Intueris ability to remain a going concern as it would be unlikely to meet its future banking covenants," Intueri said on Tuesday. OCA accounted for 35 percent of Intueri's $50.1 million of revenue in the six months ended June 30.

Since then the company has secured a letter of support from banker ANZ Bank, which has also signed off on its response to the ASQA. In New Zealand, Intueri says it consulted NZQA and TEC and alerted its bank before deciding to amalgamate six training schools in New Zealand into a single entity, to be known as Intueri Education New Zealand.

The new group doesn't include the companys NSIA, NZ Institute of Sport, NZ College of Massage and NZ School of Commercial Diving

"This is primarily being done for ease of administration and will move us from six separate PTEs to a single PTE and legal entity," Marvin said. "The project will help us reduce costs, but more importantly, provide benefits associated with a larger scale group."

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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October 31st Morning Report


No, not exactly. More like once you start legalizing more and more and more drugs, prostitution, etc, that sooner or later you get a reactionary backlash. Take the Netherlands for example. Extremely liberal sex trade, now grown to 5% of GDP! Now many Dutch regret having legalized it. Yet, if they continue with such extreme legalization we can imagine an eventual backlash whereby the community increaingly wants to adopt the toughest possible laws against it. Think of it as a pendulum. Same with drugs. The more we legalize them, the more the community will rally against them.



Of course we can argue that the same can be true in reverse. If the laws become too strict, eventually even those who might support strict laws in principle start to rally to loosen the laws a little.



However, I think at this point in time, we find ourselves in the former scenario. We're legalizing more and more and so we risk a reactionary backlash in the future.



Since you mentioned immigration, I'll take that as an example. I'm for totally open borders, but I also recognize that if we open them up faster than the general public can accept, it too can provoke a reactionary backlash. So though I would like us to open up our borders as fast as possible, I also recognize that we might need to also consider what the geneal community can tolerate before doing so. Not all will be able to tolerate borders as open as I could.
The only reason I am alive is the fact that the abortionist had not yet arrived at work

Thank you, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak with you this morning.

I wish to appeal not only to those present within this chamber today, but to my nation.

We are here to discuss infanticide. I am greatly troubled that this hearing is even necessary, and that such a law to prevent infanticide must be constructed in the United States of America at all.

Many Americans have no idea that babies can even live through abortions and are often left to die. But this does happen. I know this because I was born alive in an abortion clinic after being burned in my mothers womb for 18 hours.

My medical records clearly state the following: Born during saline abortion, April 6, 1977, 6 a.m., two and a half pounds. Triumphantly, I entered this world.

Apart from Jesus himself, the only reason I am alive is the fact that the abortionist had not yet arrived at work that morning. Had he been there, he would have ended my life by strangulation, suffocation or simply leaving me there to die.

Instead, I lived and have the gift of cerebral palsy as a direct result of lack of oxygen to my brain while surviving an abortion.

And cerebral palsy, make no mistake, is a tremendous gift. I dont know if any of you understand  maybe you do  what a tremendous honor it is to have to lean on the strong arm of Jesus all the way to heaven. It is my honor, in a country that doesnt wish to speak his name, I will.

By the grace of God, in my case, a nurse called an ambulance and had me transferred to a hospital. That nurse saved my life and I am profoundly grateful to her for this.

Those who wish to justify such unspeakable evil, such as leaving a baby without proper medical care to die, have become masters of the manipulation of language, intimidation and defaming their opponents to achieve their wicked aims.

As a nation, we are continuously exchanging the truth for a lie. We have neglected our soul. What will it take for us to awaken from our numbness and indifference regarding this? Will we ever wake?

I am confounded as well by the passivity so often demonstrated by otherwise good and just men; by the fact that we must plead with those in power to give the most vulnerable infants among us, even one moment of their attention.

This is a bipartisan issue, and I think its important for the American people to weigh at this hour, whether or not they wish to elect someone to the highest office in the land that favors infanticide. Because that is what we are speaking of here, a child, exactly as I was, that had the audacity to live through her mothers abortion and needed immediate and proper care.

So I would like to ask Mr. Trump to tell me, and you, where he specifically stands on this issue, and I ask the same of Mrs. Clinton.

I would also like to ask Senator Mitch McConnell to force a vote on the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act before the end of this September.

I have faced the consequences of our choices as a nation (as evidenced by my cerebral palsy.) So if you choose to do nothing, I believe I at least deserve to know why you find this abhorrent practice tolerable, and I would respectfully ask that you tell me directly.

It seems in some ways, we have lost our way in this beautiful nation. But it neednt be so. We have only to remember that we are lent each breath, that we are all engraved upon the hands of God, and therefore, cannot for a single moment, be forgotten by him. We need only to remember Jesus, who took me from my mothers womb, to be his own.

Thank you.



By Lindsey Beve r September 30Twelve months ago, Gianna Jessen testified against Planned Parenthood, saying during a congressional hearing that her biological mother was seven and a half months pregnant when she was advised to undergo an abortion by saline  which burns the baby inside and out, blinding and suffocating the child, who is then born dead, usually within 24 hours.Instead of dying, Jessen said on Capitol Hill, after 18 hours of being burned in my mothers womb, I was delivered alive in an abortion clinic in Los Angeles on April the 6th, 1977.Doctors, she said, did not expect me to live.I did.Jessen would become a leading anti-abortion advocate, speaking around the world and meeting with American lawmakers about abortion policy. Her most recent activism has focused on federal funding protocols for abortion, a central point of contention during the presidential campaign, as well as born-alive infants rights.In fact, Jessen was in Pennsylvania in 2002 when President George W. Bush signed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which grants legal protection to babies born alive after attempted abortions. Its important that youre here, to send a signal that youre dedicated to the protection of human life, Bush said to Jessen and others at the signing ceremony.On Sept. 23, the 39-year-old activist returned to the Hill for a subcommittee hearing on abortion. The focus of the discussion: The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would expand Bushs act to ensure the babies receive the same medical care as any other born at the same gestational age, and the Hyde Amendment, which, for the past 40 years, has generally barred the use of federal Medicaid money to pay for abortions.Apart from Jesus himself, the only reason I am alive is the fact that the abortionist had not yet arrived at work that morning, she said.Jessen says she has cerebral palsy due to a lack of oxygen to her brain during the abortion attempt.And cerebral palsy, make no mistake, is a tremendous gift, she said. I dont know if any of you understand  maybe you do  what a tremendous honor it is to have to lean on the strong arm of Jesus all the way to heaven.The Hyde Amendment, which first was approved by Congress in 1976 and has since been attached as a rider to annual appropriations bills, states that federal funds cannot be used for abortion services, except in instances in which a womans life is in danger, or in instances of rape and incest.This years Democratic Party platform vows to oppose  and seek to overturn  federal and state laws and policies that impede a womans access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has condemned it as well as other policies for making it harder for low-income women to exercise their full rights.In a recent letter to anti-abortion rights leaders, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump slammed his Democratic opponent for wanting to repeal the Hyde Amendment and promised to make it permanent law to protect taxpayers from having to pay for abortions.Reproductive rights werent discussed at the presidential debate Monday  but the topic was on the minds of many voters: According to Google Trends, abortion was the second most-searched issues for both candidates.Amid the contentious debate, Jessen explained Friday in Washington how she lived through an attempted abortion.Here is her testimony, which veers from her prepared statement at times:Jessen, who was put into foster care and later adopted, said earlier this year that she has been sharing her story despite the fact that some wont listen.They just try to ignore me, Jessen said, citing the media, according to LifeNews.com. Because I dont think they can really say anything to me  so their strategy has been, Were just gonna not talk to her pretty much at all.But I still get around.When Trump wins, all them folks who want government's nose in women's pants're in for a heck of a shock.
A three-vehicle injury accident in the early afternoon of Sept. 26 landed two Cass County residents in the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

The accident occurred just before 2 p.m. Monday when Isaac Fichter, 18, of Randolph, Iowa, was driving north in a white 2012 Chevrolet Silverado pulling a black 2014 H&H trailer.

John Herz, 58, of Plattsmouth, was also driving north on Highway 75 in a red 2003 Ford F150 pulling a black 2004 H & H trailer.

Herz stopped on Highway 75 to make a left turn onto Wiles Road.

According to a press release from Cass County Sheriffs Office, Fichter allegedly failed to see the stopped vehicle and swerved to miss it.

Fichters trailer struck the trailer being pulled by Herzs vehicle. Fichters vehicle crossed the center line and struck a southbound 2009 Kia Sportage, driven by Mary Workman, 50, of Bellevue.

Murray Rescue Squad transported Workman to UNMC, and Plattsmouth EMS transported Workmans passenger, Elizabeth Klein, 18, of Murray, to UNMC.

Deputies issued Fichter a citation for driving left of center.

Seatbelts were in use by all occupants and alcohol is not believed to be a factor.

In addition to the sheriffs deputies, Murray rescue and Plattsmouth EMS, Plattsmouth Volunteer Fire Department also responded to the accident.
HYDERABAD: Investments up to Rupees two lakh crore is expected in India in the electronics system design and manufacturing space within the next four years, says industry body IESA.

IESA (India Electronics and Semiconductor Association) president M N Vidyashankar said applications cleared at the Central and state level are worth about 1.5 lakh crore over the last two-and-half years, under various programmes in the ESDM (Electronics System Design and Manufacturing) space.

"As per industry estimates, up to Rupees two lakh crore is expected to be invested in India in the ESDM sector in the next three to four years, making use of policy dispensations available at the Central and state levels," he told PTI in an interview.

Vidyashankar said IESA, the trade body representing the ESDM industry in India, would set up front offices in Taiwan (Taipei) by December and Japan (Fukoka) soon to attract investment.

IESA is also mulling opening offices in the US and South Korea.

"People need not come to India to get info on the most preferred location and all policy related issues will be available in the proposed Front offices," he said, adding "We are also thinking of opening front offices in the Silicon Valley in the US and Seoul, South Korea."

On the impact of GST on ESDM industry, he said GST would introduce an element of certainty with the rate becoming same/uniform all over India, adding, it's a huge positive.

"The kind of mad rush that we are seeing with states engaged in one-upmanship to offer lower rates to attract investment will be a thing of the past. Now, comparative advantage and a level-playing field will come into force. Investors will go to states with natural/comparative advantages," he said.

Vidyashankar also said that a lot of things are happening on the ground which is conducive for the ESDM sector to grow.

"Today, private sector is playing a complementary role in providing land and related infrastructure with plug and play environment. They are developing and selling/leasing land on terms as required by market and investors. Host of private business parks have come up in different states. Things are taking shape in the product development space," he said.

He said automobile sector also saw a similar phase of growth.

"They (automobile sector) took about 20 years to become what they are today. Starting from mid-1990s when Toyota came to India, and subsequently Honda, Scania and Volvo, we are today one of the best global players in the automobile sector. That's what we are going to replicate in ESDM sector. Not in 20 years, but in less than half that time," he said.

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Goballogic Opens New Facility In Hyderabad
BENGALURU: The Indian Army in midnight of 28 September conducted surgical strikes on the terrorist launch pads across the LoC. Lt-Gen Ranveer Singh, Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) in a press conference confirmed that our soldiers carried out the strikes on the Wednesday night. It caused a heavy damage to terrorist camps and many terrorists are killed in the operation. As reported by The Economic Times, this strike is a reaction to the terrorist attack happened in Uri on 18th September.

The defense ministry and ministry of external affairs along with Lt-Gen Ranveer Singh announced it during the joint briefing to the media personals. DGMO informed that the option of the surgical strike is taken to counter the increasing number of infiltration bids. Many terrorists are gathered along the LoC for the clear intention of crossing the border and spreading cross-border terrorism across India. Therefore, the surgical strike is conducted by Para commandos to neutralize them.

A surgical strike is a military operation carried by the armed forces to enter the territory of another country, hit enemy installations and targets, and come back to the own place with a lightning speed and limited causality. It not only needs to detail a full-scale and detailed planning, but it is necessary to carry out with absolute precision and completing the objective of destroying all targets with minimal self damage.

Indian army in June 2016 conducted a similar operation where they went inside Myanmar border and killed 38 Naga insurgents within a course of 40 minutes. Globally many other military forces across the border have conducted such strikes to eliminate threats. The most famous being the American force, killing Osama Bin Laden in a surgical strike in Abbottabad. Israel Defense Force conducted the highly acclaimed hostage rescue mission at Entebbe airport, Uganda in 1976 where they conducted most clinical surgical strikes in worlds history.

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WASHINGTON: India-US military relationship is the "closest it has been ever" and the two countries are exercising together by air, land and sea for the first time, America's Defence Secretary Ashton Carter has said.



He underlined that the two great democracies have done a strategic and technological "handshake".

"America's regional partnerships are growing in number and strength. The US-India military relationship is the closest it's ever been. Great nation, large democracy," Carter in his remarks aboard the USS Carl Vinson in San Diego yesterday.



"Through our strategic handshake with America's reaching west in our re-balance and India reaching east in what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi calls his Act East Policy, our two nations are exercising together by air, land, and sea."



Never did that before, he noted.



"There is also a technological handshake between the United States and India. The US-IndiaDefence Technology and Trade Initiative grasps hands with Prime Minister Modi's Make in Indiacampaign, helping our countries move toward more diverse defence co-development and co-production of weapons systems," Carter said.



Noting that Asia-Pacific is the most consequential region for America's future, he said the US is managing "historic change" in the area.

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WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is leading Republican rival Donald Trump by 4 pct after their first televised debate, according to a poll.

The poll published by the Public Policy Polling (PPP) institute on Thursday showed Clinton received the support of 44 pct of the 933 voters consulted in telephone or online interviews, EFE news reported. The poll was conducted between Tuesday and wednesday.

Trump, meanwhile, received the backing of 40 pct of the voter sample.

Fifty-four pct of those surveyed said that Clinton beat Trump in the first prime time presidential debate on Monday at the Hofstra University on Long Island, New York.

Thirty-one pct of those polled said that the billionaire emerged as the winner of the contest, the most-watched such event in U.S. history, according to the PPP poll, which has an error margin of 3.2 pct.

According to the RealClearPolitics Web site, which prepares an average of all voter surveys conducted in the country, Clinton is leading Trump by 3 pct on the national level.

The former secretary of state and the New York businessman will face off in the second debate on October 9 at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

The third and final debate will take place on October 19 in the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

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Clinton And Trump Spar Over Each Other's Foundations

Source: IANS
The communities connected by the Lincoln Highway were established long before the route was created. Many were influenced by the presence of the Union Pacific Railroad.

The village of Shelton was named in honor of an auditor for the Union Pacific Railroad, Nathan Shelton. I like the idea of giving a shout-out to the unsung heroes of the accountant offices. If I could name a town after my brother, Dale, who is a CPA in Fremont for Erickson and Brooks, I would do it in a heartbeat.

As I drove through Shelton, I noticed a sign attached to an old bank building. It was for a visitor center about the Lincoln Highway.

Thats pretty cool, I thought. I want to see this.

It was 7 oclock on a Friday evening. Taped to the door window was a list of people and phone numbers to call.

The first name and number on the list was for Cyndy Ryan.

I called her number and she answered.

Hi, my name is Dean Jacobs and I am exploring the Lincoln Highway in Nebraska. Could you open the visitor center?

Sure, Ill be right down, Ryan replied.

Only in small town Nebraska can you call someone on a Friday evening who is happy to come open a visitor center.

Ten minutes later, Ryan unlocked the door and explained the purpose of the visitor center. The room was filled with artifacts, signage and photos about the Lincoln Highway.

Ryans family has been in the Shelton area for several generations.

I think its important to celebrate and know our history, Ryan explained. This is why I got involved with the historical society. We need to preserve the stories.

One story Ryan shared was a tale her grandfather told her about when he was young.

My grandfather used to tell me they knew when they could play with the Indians based on how they beat the drums. If they sounded a certain way, then it wasnt a good time to go play with friends, she said.

I was so grateful my curiosity of the Lincoln Highway provided the chance to hear such an interesting story. It had me wonder what other stories were waiting to be told along the Lincoln Highway.

The Lincoln Highway started in eastern Nebraska, following the same route as the Mormon Trail. Along the way it met with the California Trail, the route that led the gold seekers looking to strike it rich.

In Kearney, the Lincoln Highway connected with the Oregon Trail. This convergence of trails created a super highway, the Great Platte River Road. It was here in Kearney where around 350,000 people traveled through on their way to the West Coast.

After years of driving underneath it, I finally stopped at the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument Arch that is three miles east of Kearney.

The Arch celebrates the mass human migration westward. Inside, you go back in time and into the story of this history. The hour-long visit shed some deeper appreciation of the Lincoln Highway.

Also while in Kearney, I made a stop at an auto museum called Classic Car Collection. I wanted to see some of the autos that would have been driven on the Lincoln Highway.

It must have been some kind of adventure to drive the Lincoln Highway in a Model T.
Burglary.jpeg

Police arrested a male suspect committing a burglary at 503 Cary Ave. in West Brighton.

(Staten Island Advance/Anthony DePrimo)

Officers arrested the culprit while responding to a 911 call at 4:51 a.m. of a commercial burglary in progress at 503 Cary Ave., according to a spokesman for the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.

Public records indicate that Mulvihill Electrical Contracting Corp. is located at that address.

The identity of the male arrested was not immediately available.
By EDDIE D'ANNA

and BILL LYONS

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A female pedestrian is fighting for her life after she was struck by a car while crossing Bay Street in Stapleton Friday afternoon.

The woman, 60, was crossing Bay Street around 12:15 p.m. when she was struck by a 2011 Hyundai, driven by a 76-year-old male, police said.

The Hyundai was traveling eastbound on Canal and struck the woman while attempting to make a left onto Bay, police said.

The woman was unconscious when she was transported to Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton, according to an FDNY spokesman.

Her injuries are life-threatening.

It was not immediately clear if the woman was in the crosswalk when she was struck. Not charges have been filed at this time, police said.

The investigation continues.

Bay was roped off from Canal to Water Street in front to Tappen Park.

Police have reported four fatal crashes involving pedestrians on Staten Island so far this year.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A former cop from New Brighton who was undergoing court-ordered drug treatment may have blown her last chance to stay out of jail.

A justice on Friday issued a bench warrant for Stacey Staniland, 30, after prosecutors said she had been kicked out of her third drug treatment program.

Assistant District Attorney Melissa O'Leary said Staniland was accused of bringing drugs into the treatment facility and distributing them to others.

Defendants who leave drug-treatment programs voluntarily or involuntarily are required to appear in court the next day. Staniland did not show up in state Supreme Court, St. George, Friday morning resulting in Justice Wayne Ozzi issuing a bench warrant for her arrest.

However, she appeared in court later in the afternoon and was to be remanded to jail, said her lawyer, Kevin McKernan.

She's expected to appear before a judge again on Wednesday, said McKernan.

"When she returns (to court) on the bench warrant, we'll see what the further proceedings will bring," McKernan said. "We want to continue to thank Judge (Stephen J.) Rooney for his efforts in this matter."

Six weeks ago, Justice Stephen J. Rooney who is presiding over Staniland's criminal case, said he would, at the recommendation of the city Probation Department, give Staniland "one last chance," to straighten out her life in a long-term residential drug treatment program.

Staniland had previously been convicted of felony drug charges. She has a history of "opiate abuse and dependence," according to statements previously made in court.

Rooney also said he'd sentence Staniland to up to four years in prison if she failed treatment.

Prosecutors opposed the latest placement, saying Staniland had "absconded" from one prior program and failed to complete treatment in another.

In a statement then, District Attorney Michael E. McMahon said he was sympathetic to the "immense challenges" addicts face when entering into a drug treatment program.

Staniland, however, had "repeatedly demonstrated her unwillingness to participate in her own rescue and continues to recklessly endanger her life and the lives of others with illegal drugs," McMahon said at the time.

In March, Staniland pleaded guilty to a felony count of third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance to satisfy all charges in an indictment against her.

The defendant admitted she sold heroin to an undercover cop on Sept. 15 of last year. As part of her allocution, she also admitted to possessing heroin with the intent to sell on Sept. 18, Oct. 2 and Nov. 17 and 27.

The conviction was Staniland's fourth by plea covering the preceding five months.

She had previously pleaded guilty in Staten Island Criminal Court to misdemeanor drug and theft charges in connection with separate, unrelated arrests in the borough.

Staniland had also pleaded guilty in Brooklyn Criminal Court to misdemeanor drug possession stemming from a May 13, 2015 arrest in that borough while on duty.

Staniland was suspended from the force after that arrest and later quit the NYPD.

She was initially arrested on Dec. 18, 2014, based on a probe by the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau.

Then assigned to the 122nd Precinct in New Dorp, the defendant was accused of breaking into the home of her boyfriend's mother, snatching jewelry and hocking it.

She was charged with burglary, stolen-property possession and petit larceny.
Peres and Lamberti composite.jpg

Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, left, met with then-Borough President Ralph Lamberti during Lamberti's trip to Israel in 1985.

(Advance composite photo)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- It was 31 years ago that former Borough President Ralph Lamberti traveled to Israel and met Prime Minister Shimon Peres, but he recalls the details like it was yesterday.

Peres, also the country's former president, died Wednesday at age 93 and was laid to rest Friday.

As Israel and its allies mourned the loss of the leader, Lamberti recalled his one and only visit to the Holy Land in 1985 with a handful of others on a trip organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council.

He met Peres, shook his hand, took a photo and the two had a conversation.

"He was just an outstanding individual," Lamberti said. "He had a vison, he was not in any way intimidated by what was happening around him."

Running a country constantly under threat, Peres was both a bold leader and a sensitive listener, Lamberti recalled.

"You could tell in the eyes he was strong and no one was going to intimidate him and no one was going to push him around even though he really needed America's support," he said.

"Nothing has really changed there. The problems that were there 31 years ago still exist. Here they were, this small little country, then with 4 million people, surrounded by potentially 40 million people that were opposed to them."

Peres and Lamberti connected on a number of things, not the least of which was that the prime minister knew of Staten Island.

"It shocked me," Lamberti said.

In 1985, upon returning from his trip. Lamberti wrote a lengthy piece on his experience, published in two parts in the Advance.

He detailed what set Israel and America apart from one another (the food, Israel's minimalist lifestyle compared to America's overabundance) and what they had in common (rampant patriotism). But Israelis have a patriotism that Lamberti said America only saw during WWII.

In that writing, Lamberti explained how visiting Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, and seeing the names of 6 million people murdered in the Holocaust, had an impact on him.

Speaking Friday, Lamberti called it "an emotional experience."

In America, the Holocaust "eventually just becomes a number," but when you go to Yad Vashem, you see the names, the ages of the children.

"All of a sudden it becomes a whole different thing," he said.

It was so profound that the Roman Catholic began speaking to Jewish groups on Staten Island about his trip, his better understanding of the Holocaust and the plight of Israel.

"The Jewish people kind of adopted me," he said.

He still gets involved in events with Young Israel of Staten Island, including its annual event for Holocaust survivors.

Every year, Lamberti tells his story about going to Israel and how it "had such an impact on me."

He continues to this day. "It touched me," he said. "The country itself, what they accomplished, what they did."

He was struck during his visit by the way Israelis view everyday life.

In America, everyone's stressed out, worrying about things they can't control. Not there.

"The little things bother us here. We get caught in a traffic jam and all of a sudden we're bugged, we're nervous, we're yelling," he said. He attributed Israel's calmness to "love, love of country and they put up with an awful lot. We are so spoiled here."
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Numerous Fremont residents gathered Thursday evening inside of Fremont Opera House to be part of a town hall meeting focusing largely on how over-industrialization of agriculture is not only hurting independent farmers, but the environment as a whole.

The event, attended largely in part by advocates against the Lincoln Premium Poultry and Costco Wholesales proposed poultry plant, listened to two speakers from Iowa discuss how independent hog farmers in Iowa  and across the country  have been forced out of business by larger hog corporations.

Chris Petersen, an independent family farmer and past president of the Iowa Farmers Union, spoke at length about the problem.

Petersen spoke about how independent farming has been his entire life. Both great-great grandparents on both sides of his family were farmers  one side was from Ireland and one side was from Denmark.

Thats how far back family farming goes for me  forever, the Clear Lake, Iowa, native said. I just need to say that with the world the way it is today, Im proud of rural America. Im really proud to be part of it. Im proud of our heritage, our culture and our traditions. But with that being said, rural and independent family farms are completely at risk going forward in the world we live in today.

According to Petersen, 94 percent of independent pig farmers are now gone, replaced by a top-down industrial model of farming.

Thats where the problem starts, he said. The locals are no longer in charge, they are no longer in control. We are being mined We are doing a great deal of the work for less and less (money), and thats called contract farming. I am telling you right now that Nebraska doesnt need to follow in Iowas footsteps.

Petersen said that thanks to John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, Nebraska has held back the wave of over-industrialization of agriculture through legislation, making Nebraska one of the last remaining states not to crack, he added.

In-part because of the large-scale factory operations, Petersen said that Iowa is 49th or 50th in terms of overall water quality. So much water is required at these operations, and a great deal of it flows directly back into Iowas rivers.

In my mind Iowas being turned into a toilet, and our rivers are the flush handles, he said. And all these heavy rain sure do help, he added sarcastically.

In terms of the proposed poultry operation, Petersen said that Nebraska could find itself in a similar predicament as Iowa if these large-scale operations move in. Petersen believes it hurts small farmers, and that the ramifications could be severe.
Sensitivity training

Posted on 30 September 2016 by Andy Skuce

This article was originally published online at Corporate Knights Magazine and will appear in the publication's Fall 2016 hard-copy magazine.

Climate scientists are certain that human-caused emissions have increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 44 per cent since the Industrial Revolution. Very few of them dispute that this has already caused average global temperatures to rise roughly 1 degree. Accompanying the warming is disruption to weather patterns, rising sea levels and increased ocean acidity. There is no doubt that further emissions will only make matters worse, possibly much worse. In a nutshell, that is the settled science on human-caused climate change.

What scientists cannot yet pin down is exactly how much warming we will get in the future. They do not know with precision how much a given quantity of emissions will lead to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. For climate impact it is the concentrations that matter, not the emissions. Up until now, 29 per cent of human emissions of carbon dioxide has been taken up by the oceans, 28 per cent has been absorbed by plant growth on land, and the remaining 43 per cent has accumulated in the atmosphere. Humans have increased carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere from a pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million to over 400 today, a level not seen for millions of years.

Theres a possibility that the 43 per cent atmospheric fraction may increase as ocean and terrestrial carbon sinks start to become saturated. This means that a given amount of emissions will lead to a bigger increase in concentrations than we saw before. In addition, the warming climate may well provoke increased emissions from non-fossil fuel sources. For example, as permafrost thaws, the long-frozen organic matter contained within it rots and oxidizes, giving off greenhouse gases. Nature has given us a major helping hand, so far, by the oceans and plants taking up more than half of our added fossil carbon, but theres no guarantee that it will continue to be so supportive forever. These so-called carbon-cycle feedbacks will play a big role in determining how our climate future will unfold, but they are not the largest unknown.

Feedbacks

Atmospheric physicists have long tried to pin down a number to express what they refer to as climate sensitivity, the amount of warming we will get from a certain increase in concentration of greenhouse gases. Usually, this is expressed as the average global warming, measured in degrees Celsius that results from a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations. The problem is not so much being able to calculate how much warming the doubling of the carbon dioxide alone will cause  that is relatively easy to estimate and is about 1 degree C. The big challenge is in figuring out the range of size of the feedbacks. These are the phenomena that arise from warming temperatures and that amplify or dampen the direct effects of the greenhouse gases that humans have added to the atmosphere.

The biggest feedback is water vapour, which is actually the most important single greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Warm air holds more water vapour. As carbon dioxide increases and the air warms, there is plenty of water on land and in the sea available to evaporate. The increased amount of vapour in the air, in turn, provokes more warming and increased evaporation. If temperatures go down, the water vapour condenses and precipitates out of the atmosphere as rain and snow. Water vapour goes quickly into and out of the air as temperatures rise and fall, but the level of carbon dioxide stays around for centuries, which is why water vapour is considered a feedback and not a forcing agent. Roughly speaking, the water vapour feedback increases the sensitivity of carbon dioxide alone from 1 to 2 degrees C.

Another feedback results from the melting of sea ice in the Arctic. Ice reflects the suns energy back out into space, whereas oceans that are free of ice absorb more of the suns radiated heat. As warming temperatures melt the sea ice, the Earth absorbs more solar energy and the surface warms faster. The loss of sea ice is a major reason that Arctic temperatures are increasing about twice as fast as the rest of the globe. The Antarctic has gained rather than lost sea ice over recent decades due to the effects of ocean currents and other factors. But this gain is much smaller than the Arctic ice loss, so the overall effect of all polar sea ice on the climate is to amplify the global response to increased carbon dioxide concentrations.

The least well-defined feedback is the effect of clouds. The quantity and distribution of clouds is expected to change in a warming climate, but exactly how is not yet fully known and is debated. High clouds tend to keep more heat in, while low clouds tend to reflect more sunlight back into space, providing a cooling effect. Most experts estimate that clouds, on balance, will have anywhere from a slight cooling feedback to a significant warming feedback.

On top of the variance in the estimates of the feedbacks, the size of the human and natural factors that drive climate change, apart from carbon dioxide, also have a wide range. Greenhouse gases like methane play a big role in warming, while sulphate-particle pollution from coal-burning plants actually cools the planet by blocking the sun. Land-use changes  clearing forests, for example  also affect climate by either reflecting or absorbing more of the suns energy. Natural ejections of reflective particles from volcanoes can also influence the climate in significant, but unpredictable ways.

This years model

An early estimate of climate sensitivity was made in 1979 by the American scientist Jule Charney. He based his estimate on just two sets of climate calculations  or models  that were available at that time. One set of models predicted a sensitivity of 2 degrees, the other, 4 degrees, which he averaged to get a mean value of 3 degrees. Rather arbitrarily, he subtracted or added half a degree from the two model estimates to produce a minimum-to-maximum range of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees. Despite the shakiness of this approach, Charneys estimate has proved remarkably durable.

The five Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports produced between 1990 and 2013 drew upon the results of many more climate models that were also much more sophisticated. Nevertheless, all of the reports came up with estimates of the minimum, maximum and most likely sensitivities that were within half a degree of Charneys rough estimate. In 2007, the fourth assessment report (AR4) provided a climate sensitivity range of 2 to 4.5 degrees C, with a most likely value of 3 degrees C. The latest report, AR5 in 2013, estimates the likely range of sensitivity at 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C, exactly the range Charney provided 34 years earlier with his educated guesswork.

It is worth noting that climate sensitivity is not an input factor into the climate models but a calculated result.

In the past few years, some scientists have made calculations based on recent temperature measurements and simple energy-balance climate models. This approach has tended to produce an estimate of a most-likely climate sensitivity number around 2 degrees, which is significantly lower than the previous best estimate of around 3 degrees from more complex climate models. Taking account of this work, the IPCC adjusted its lower estimates downward in the 2013 AR5 report and, because of the newly increased range, opted not to settle upon a most-likely central value. These new, lower values suggest that the average, complex climate models may be predicting too much warming.

However, a recent publication in the journal Nature Climate Change by NASA scientist Mark Richardson and his colleagues has exposed flaws in those simple, low sensitivity models. One problem is that the simple calculations took ocean temperatures measured just below the surface (which is the common measurement made by climate scientists) and compared them to the calculated air temperatures near the Earths surface that is output by climate models. Since air above the ocean warms more than the water, the comparison is not valid over the oceans. Richardson and his colleagues also factored in the effect of retreating Arctic sea ice on temperature measurements, and the lack of measured historical data in some regions. They then checked the calculations again, and as Richardson explained to Corporate Knights:

Once you do a fair test then you get the same result from both the simple calculation using real-world data and from complex climate models. We took model water temperatures when the measurements are of water temperatures, and didnt use model output when and where there were no measurements. This matters because fast-warming areas like the Arctic, where there is now less summer sea ice than in at least 1,450 years, have not historically been measured by thermometers. All of the effects combined in the same way; they hid warming. This is the main reason that climate models looked like they were warmed a bit too much since 1861.

Additional recent research from a NASA team led by scientist Kate Marvel took a hard look at some other simplifying assumptions made in the low-sensitivity calculations. Marvel and her colleagues modified the inputs to more complex climate models to explore how much certain factors, like sulphate pollution or land-use changes, affected the climate when modelled in isolation. They found that these agents are more effective in causing temperature changes because they tend to be located in the northern hemisphere and on land where they carry a bigger punch than if it is simply assumed that their effect is distributed evenly across the planet, as some of the simpler, low-sensitivity studies have done.

Combining the Richardson and the Marvel results brings estimates of climate sensitivity back to, or even a little above Jule Charneys estimates. To the non-specialist, all of this may seem like a rather pointless process where we end up where we started from, still stuck with a stubbornly wide range of a factor of 3 or so from minimum (1.5 degrees) to maximum (4.5 degrees). But as Gavin Schmidt, director of NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Scientific American last year: We may be just as unsure as before, but we are unsure on a much more solid footing.

Uncertainty provides no comfort

Climate sensitivity estimates are not just estimated by climate models using modern data. Scientists also have observations of how the Earth behaved in periods of past climatic change. From the ice-age cycles that occurred over the past 800,000 years there are samples of past atmospheres trapped in gas bubbles in ice cores that reveal the chemical mix of the air and the temperatures at the time.

Scientists can look back much further in time, many millions of years ago, when the Earth was in a hot-house state. In those times there was little ice even at the poles and sea levels were several tens of metres higher than they are today.

These observations of the geological past have their own considerable ranges of uncertainty, but, taken together, they produce estimates of climate sensitivity that are broadly consistent with the range calculated by climate models of the modern era. This consilience, which is to say, different approaches pointing to the same general result, explains why climate scientists are so confident that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases lead to increased warming, even if nobody can yet be sure how much the human-induced warming will be over this century and beyond.

One thing we do know with great confidence is that if we continue to emit greenhouse gases at the current rate, then sometime in the second half of this century we will have doubled the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The last time concentrations were that high, 30 million years ago, there was no ice on Greenland and little on Antarctica.

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The ACT's nursing and midwifery union has called on all political parties contesting the election to guarantee staff-to-patient ratios, after no party has met the union's demands.

While each of the three main parties have all told the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation ACT branch they were committed to safety, none have promised a specific, legislated ratio.

Jenny Miragaya (second from left), with other union representatives Dean Hall (CFMEU), Glenn Fowler (AEU) and Stephen Darwin (NTEU) outside Canberra Hospital. Credit:Graham Tidy GGT

The Queensland government in May introduced legislation to mandate ratios of one nurse to every four patients during day shifts and one nurse to every seven patients at night.

ANMF ACT branch secretary Jenny Miragaya said the union was particularly concerned a shortage of nurses and midwives was not being effectively managed, with nurses "becoming exhausted because of the need to do extra shifts and overtime".
Auditor-General Maxine Cooper has highlighted questionable payments to a consulting firm, poorly justified land purchases and a "manipulated" document released under Freedom of Information, in a damning report into the activities of the Land Development Agency.

The agency's purchases of land in Glebe Park and two lakeside businesses lacked transparency, accountability and rigour, and their integrity and probity could not be demonstrated, she said.

Dawes has announced his departure from the public service. Credit:Graham Tidy

The agency had manipulated a document after receiving a freedom of information request for valuations on the Glebe Park purchase in late 2015. A senior manager of the agency, now an executive, had provided a document created only after the FOI request. The document's title had been changed by the principal of Colliers International from "discussion paper" to "valuation advice", and was used as justification for the payment of $3.8 million plus GST to developers Barry Morris and Graham Potts for their land in Glebe Park.

In a report released on Friday, Dr Cooper also questioned $2.66 million in payments to consultants Elleven, payments made without competitive quotes. She pointed to one payment of $90,000 for a month's work, at a rate of $165 an hour. That equated to about 545 hours of work, impossible for one person to do in a month, she said.
The experience remained with him all his life and would have a profound influence on his work  he often referred to this experience as the beginning of his enduring passion for colour. While it would take some years for the full strength of Moje's colour language to emerge, once it did he never let go.

In 1966, after driving over 3000 kilometres from Germany to Amman, Jordan to work on a stained glass restoration project, Klaus Moje made a short detour south to do some diving at the coastal town of Aqaba on the northeastern tip of the Red Sea. Moje remembered the piercing blue of the sky against the harsh desert landscape. But most astounding for him was the explosion of colour he found just below the water's surface in the teeming reef life laid bare to him with the simple use of goggles and flippers.

Klaus Moje's Ablaze 2015. Credit:Rob Little

Moje's ability to keep faith with the vision was the mark of a great artist. He also kept the flippers: perhaps a talisman but more likely they just never wore out. Moje went on to become one of the most influential artists working in glass both in Australia and internationally, with his achievements recognised through many substantial awards and an AO in 2006.

It was not until Moje's solo shows in Berlin and Frankfurt in 1981 and 1982 that the full impact of his colour work began to make itself known on the European scene. Nothing quite like it had ever been seen. In fact there were no direct roots or influences one could point to. Quite literally Moje had arrived there through his own endeavours in a process which he described as "sehnsucht" or searching for something that was as yet unknown. The path had by no means been clear cut. By the age of 19 he had completed an apprenticeship in his father's small glass grinding business and won a scholarship which gave him a small stipend and the chance to complete a masters course at the vocational glass school in Hadamar. It was a sound technical education which he valued highly, but not one that fed the soul or the intellect. Again Moje did that for himself, first with second hand books on glass from the specials bin at Dr Wohlers Bookshop and then with increasing breadth to Shakespeare, Homer, Schiller, Brecht, Hesse and many others in which he found the thrill of drama and the discipline of structure.

By the time Moje's work appeared in the Berlin and Frankfurt exhibitions it was evident he had travelled quite a different path to that of his contemporaries. This was seen first in his use of the mosaic technique which he developed using glass cane rods from the domestic button and jewellery trade  this alone set him apart from the cast crystal and clear blown work of the major European design houses - and second for his alarming disregard for toning down the colour. While critic and curator Edgar Kaufmann had actually praised a 1979 international survey of contemporary glass at Corning for its artists' colour palette of "clarified fog"  Kaufmann seemed to intend no irony  Moje had embarked on a completely different palette in which vibrant blues, reds and yellows hurtled across the flat surface of his large bowl forms. It was enough to have his work rejected from the prestigious Frankfurt Triennale in 1978. Later, former director of the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Axel von Saldern, who had known Klaus' work in the early Hamburg years, teased him for becoming even more "bundt", or gaudy, as the years progressed.

Collectors, galleries and museums were however taking notice both in Europe and the United States where he had become known through his teaching and exhibitions. Through his own workshop gallery he had introduced many American artists to Germany; he had developed international contacts through his work as a director for the World Crafts Council and had established contact with the American company Bullseye which succeeded in producing a new glass specifically for his mosaic technique. He had had three retrospectives  unusual for that time in Europe  and was represented by the major commercial glass galleries in New York and Michigan. This is when Udo Sellbach, then director of the Canberra School of Art, invited Moje to establish the School's glass workshop: it was the right offer at the right time. Moje and his second wife Brigitte, a ceramicist, arrived in Canberra in August 1982 having ditching the pre-booked Sydney to Canberra flight in order to travel by car and enjoy the Australian landscape.
More than $2 million worth of illicit drugs were found hidden in a safe behind a false wall of a home in Canberra's north on Thursday, according to police.

Members of ACT Policing's Criminal Investigations Crime Targeting Team raided the home in Palmerston about 6.30am.

ACT police say they found ice and heroin with a combined street value of over $2 million in this safe hidden behind a false wall.

They found the hidden safe which say they contained two kilograms of methamphetamine (ice) and 1.5 kilograms of heroin, with a combined street value of over $2 million.

More ice and cocaine was allegedly found within the residence, in addition to stolen property and ammunition.
A Hawker man who has denied raping three sex workers in two separate incidents in the ACT earlier this year has been refused bail in court.

Ahmed Al-Abbasi, 31, pleaded not guilty to three charges of rape and two sexual assault offences when he faced the ACT Magistrates Court.

Detective Sergeant David Crowe said earlier this month that at least six female sex workers had been violently sexually assaulted by a gang of men. Credit:Katie Burgess

ACT Policing said in a statement, released on Friday, the man had been charged as part of an extensive investigation into multiple reports of violent sexual assaults targeting female sex workers across Canberra.

The court heard Al-Abbasi committed the alleged offences against two separate women and in the company of two other men on March 12 this year.
How did the venerable banking giant  the largest bank in Europe, flagship of its most stable economy  get into this situation? What sparked Deutsche Bank's problems? Most observers point to the Libor scandal, for which the bank was fined $US2.5 billion in April 2015. This involved a handful of Deutsche Bank employees  traders, managing directors and a vice-president across Europe, North America and Asia  who were charged with rigging the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) between 2004 and 2015. Libor is the rate banks charge each other for short-term loans, and is set by a panel of 16 global banks. It is tied to trillions of dollars in securities and loans. For a period of 11 years, these Deutsche Bank employees artificially inflated the rate to boost the value of their trading books. This was a helpful racket, because the bank was actually hiding $US12 billion in losses to avoid a government bailout following the global financial crisis. While the rest of the world watched in horror as Lehman Brothers collapsed, Deutsche Bank's then CEO Josef Ackermann announced the bank had plenty of capital to withstand the shocks.

The share price remained steady, but just to be on the safe side, the bank in 2013 raised 3 billion with a rights issue. At the time, it said no additional funds would be needed. Then in 2014 the bank raised another 1.5 billion, and after that, another 8 billion. The prosecutions are ongoing, but in October last year the bank incurred a $US2.5 billion fine for the Libor scandal. How many times has Deutsche Bank been fined? Almost three, if you count the most recent demands from the US government Two weeks after the Libor scandal at the end of last year, the German bank was fined again for doing business with countries that were under US sanctions between 1999 to 2006.

Countries including Iran, Libya, Syria and Sudan were severely restricted because of Iran's nuclear program and widespread human rights abuses in the region. The United States had also prohibited doing business in countries it deemed havens for possible terrorist financing. Using "non-transparent methods and practices", Deutsche Bank conducted more than 27,000 transactions in US dollars, valued at over $US10.86 billion, for parties within all of the restricted countries. And rather than an isolated group of rogue employees, the New York Department of Financial Services found that bank employees were encouraged to conduct transactions for these countries and indeed had written a training manual for new employees on how to avoid detection when processing these transactions. On November 5, 2015, the bank was charged $US257 million for those dealings. With hindsight, they appear now to be like the beginning of the end, setting off Deutsche's downward spiral. What happened to the share price?

After the two fines at the end of last year, the share price fell 40 per cent and spiralled out of control throughout the year. Deutsche Bank kicked off 2016 by announcing a record loss of 6.8 billion for the year prior. Investors took one look at that figure and fled. Co-CEO John Cryan then went on a "PR binge" and declared the bank "rock solid". The company announced it was cutting 9000 jobs across the business and pulling out of 10 countries. The market sort of believed the streamlining would help the bank, and the share price remained fairly well supported. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble also chimed in, saying he had "no concerns" about Deutsche Bank. But things took a turn for the worse when it became public that Deutsche had 40 times more debt than assets on its books, holding a derivatives portfolio worth about $US46 trillion at the end of last year  about 12 per cent of the total notional value of derivatives worldwide.

Derivatives are a product that base their value on another asset, like a commodity, currency or security. Deutsche Bank's portfolio is the world's largest. In June, the Brexit decision hit Deutsche Bank hard and its shares fell further. The bank is the largest European bank in London and receives 19 per cent of its revenues from the United Kingdom. Following that, the International Monetary Fund announced the bank "appears to be the most important net contributor to systemic risks" and, one day later, the US Federal Reserve said Deutsche failed its stress test "due to 'poor risk management and financial planning'." Its shares are now just worth 8 per cent of their highs of May 2007. Does it have enough money to pay its way out of this new fine?

Maybe. But it's not a very strongly capitalised bank at the moment. The European Central Bank requires Deutsche to hold enough capital to cover a potential loss of about 10 per cent of its assets (which are the loans and trades it makes). Losses, including the legal costs, eat into its capital base. So far, Deutsche Bank has about $US3.3 billion to cover the latest looming fines, and most analysts are saying any final settlement over $US4 billion could force it to sell more shares or bonds (again), which is why the stock price is falling now. But in a twist, German law limits the amount of new shares a company can issue in a year to 50 per cent of the outstanding total. At the market level of this week, that is about 8 billion. Where do the CoCo bonds fit into this?

This was a popular financial instrument invented after the GFC in 2008. After watching the vicious collapse of Lehman Brothers and the outrage from taxpayers asked to bail out the Royal Bank of Scotland, regulators created "contingent convertible bonds". CoCos are issued as a bond, meaning the bank promises to pay the investor a fixed rate for a fixed period of time. The major difference from traditional bonds is that CoCos can stop paying interest and automatically convert into shares, or be written down in value if the bank is in trouble and its capital falls below a certain level. Needless to say, Deutsche Bank has issued a lot of CoCos: it has about 1.75 billion worth on its balance sheet. Loading As of yet, the bonds haven't converted into shares, but their trading volumes has soared in September to levels more than seven times those in August. So people are passing them around, just in case the bank's capitalisation falls below the required level that would trigger their conversion into shares.
Buying bargain-bin coal mines amid the worst commodity slump in a generation has turned into a savvy bet as prices of the fuel surge.

Stanmore Coal bought the Isaac Plains metallurgical coal mine in Queensland from Brazil's Vale and Japan's Sumitomo Corporation for just $1 in July 2015, when the price of met coal, used to make steel, averaged the lowest in about a decade and just three years after the mine was valued at $860 million.

ASIC alleges that Rio Tinto knew within four months of completing the 2011 Riversdale acquisition that its coal resource assumptions were ''materially" overstated. Credit:Glenn Hunt

"It seems like we did get our timing right in this instance," said Stanmore's chief executive Nick Jorss. "When we bought Isaac Plains, hard coking coal was in the $US70s. We've had pretty substantial movement since then."

Coking coal prices have surged more than 150 per cent this year as output from China, the world's biggest miner, tumbles under pressure from the government to cut overcapacity even as demand from steelmakers surges.
Mr Parry, an adviser on the sale of the Edgecliff Centre in Sydney's inner east with JLL, which was bought by the private Longhurst Group for $138 million, said he expected the demand to continue.

According to Knight Frank's head of institutional sales James Parry there is unprecedented demand for secondary markets.

It has been a very busy year for commercial property, retail, industrial and office, with more than $18 billion of assets changing hands as investors seek out higher-yielding bricks and mortar.

"The demand for secondary markets is driven by the low cash rate at 1.5 per cent  the lowest in our history  as well as improvements in leasing fundamentals and rental growth," Mr Parry said.

"Investors are willing to pay more as rents are going to rise. This is evidenced by the recent sale of 28 O'Connell Street for a record price of $14,896 per square metre. With the cost of debt, accelerated rental growth and lack of investment opportunities, we expect most sales over the next 12 to 24 months will continue to break records."

He said a distinct lack of stock and improved leasing fundamentals will ensure the market remains tight. CBD assets expected to be traded over the next 12 months include 55 Clarence Street, 362 Kent Street, 66 Goulburn Street and 92 Pitt Street.

JLL's preliminary figures for commercial property investment volumes at the third-quarter mark, although preliminary, reveal lower volumes than the record years of 2015 and 2014. It is a symptom of less product as opposed to less capital targeting Australian commercial real estate.

The firm's preliminary figures show commercial property markets recorded $18.1 billion of sales, of properties worth more than $5 million individually, across the office, retail and industrial sectors over the first nine months of 2016. This figure is lower than the $22.4 billion of transactions finalised in the first nine months of 2015, reflecting a lowering of supply.
The Swansea Hotel in NSW's Lake Macquarie region has sold for around $13 million to the Laundy hotel group. The CBRE Hotels team of Daniel Dragicevich and Ben McDonald sold the property off market to Laundy Hotels, which counts venues such as the Watsons Bay Hotel and the Woolwich Pier Hotel among its stable. The Swansea Hotel is at the gateway to Lake Macquarie and on a 3235-square-metre site.

Daniel Dragicevich, national director, CBRE Hotels, said there had been a noticeable increase in investment recently in assets outside Sydney by traditionally metro buyers and the high- profile Laundy hotel group has been among those leading the charge. "We have sold seven NSW regional and coastal assets worth nearly $50 million this year alone as appetite continues unabated for these opportunities," said Mr McDonald, manager CBRE Hotels.

Laundy Hotels has snapped up the Swansea pub for around $13 million. Credit:Troy Sinclair

Novotel expands

Challenger Investment Partners, on behalf of the owners, has appointed AccorHotels to manage its Surfers Paradise hotel, which is now operating as Hotel Grand Chancellor. AccorHotels will take over management of the hotel from Saturday, October 1, and re-brand the hotel to the group's Novotel brand. Novotel Surfers Paradise will be the 30th Novotel in Australia and AccorHotels' fourth hotel on the Gold Coast, joining Sofitel Gold Coast Broadbeach, The Sebel Coolangatta and Mercure Resort Gold Coast. It comes at a time of unprecedented growth in the Gold Coast tourism market in the lead-up to the 2018 Commonwealth Games
Office landlords are in clover as the market supply comes under increasing pressure which has led to double-digit rental growth in the past year.

And as more buildings go under the wrecking ball, tenants are willing to pay over the odds for short-term space, while they look for suitable, longer term options.

241 Castlereagh Street has been leased by short-term tenants.

According to Knight Frank's latest research report Sydney CBD Office Market Overview: September 2016, the Sydney CBD is entering a period of unprecedented stock withdrawals, with 539,099 square metres earmarked for permanent withdrawal over the next four years.

The stock withdrawal has been triggered by the Sydney Metro construction, residential conversion and re-development. In the first half of 2016, 110,731 square metres were withdrawn from the market, more than half of which was withdrawn permanently.
Demand is growing rapidly across the country for development sites being sold in one lot as residents can reap a higher return and the buyer gets a property without any strata issues.

One of the latest is a development site at 48A Oxford Street, Epping, which has a value of about $17 million.

48A Oxford Street, Epping,

The 1603 square-metre property comprises 14 apartments with the strata owners selling in one line.

This has become a trend across Sydney and was boosted last year by a sale in St Leonards that reaped the vendors an average $9 million apiece.
Thousands of households and businesses in South Australia remained without electricity on Friday as emergency crews sought to re-establish the network after a statewide blackout following extreme weather on Wednesday afternoon.

High-voltage network operator ElectraNet said crews were seeking to restore power to Port Lincoln and have begun inspecting transmission lines linking the state's far north, with SA Power Networks estimating as many as 10,000 users remained without power.

The prolonged outage has prompted a fierce political debate about the role of renewable power and the state's energy security.

The South Australian government has already set aside funds to look at establishing a link with the electricity grid in NSW to help avert future power interruptions, with this move sparked by threats to power supplies in July when renewable energy sources were not generating at a time of high demand but with the availability of only limited energy from Victoria.
Did you know that classical Athens didn't have an economy? If you find that hard to believe, you should - because it's not possible.

But if you read the many hundreds of books written about Athens in the classical period, you could be forgiven for imagining that all those philosophers, poets, artists, politicians and generals existed in a world where the mundanities of making a living and raising a family didn't exist.

Economic growth in Greece was up to 0.9 per cent a year, twice as fast as in England and Holland before the Industrial Revolution. Credit:Hulton Archive

This may be because the authors of those books thought that, beside the glories of Athens' literature, art, architecture and history, mere economics wasn't worth mentioning. Soo boring, darling.

Or it may be that, in the minds of the authors of earlier centuries - maybe even in the minds of the Athenians themselves - an association with "trade" carried a social stigma. Like going to the lavatory, it was a necessary evil not to be mentioned in polite society.
Wait times for people seeking help with their financial stress has increased from a fortnight to six weeks. Credit:Simon Bosch Lights turning off One by one, and section by section, the lights are being switched off across the colossal Ford factory in Melbourne's Broadmeadows. A shop floor once filled with hundreds of vehicles every day is now stripped bare. October 7  this Friday  is set to go down as one of the industry's darkest days yet. Ford, Australia's oldest car maker, will shut both its plants in Melbourne and Geelong, putting 630 employees out of well-paid jobs and triggering thousands more redundancies in the national supply chain.

Simultaneously, in Adelaide, Holden ends production of the Cruze model at its Elizabeth plant, a move which has forced about 270 employees out of work. My car basically goes by itself. Next Monday when I wake up, I'm not going to know what to do. Ford worker Paul Boulous. The slow death of Australia's 90 years of car making has well and truly gone up a gear. "We will be losing substantial economic activity, jobs and productive investment," says Tom Chappell, the head of the Federation of Automotive Products Manufacturers. "The fact that the industry has had three years to prepare for this closure does not diminish the significance of this event."

Victoria hit Industry Minister Wade Noonan predicts one-quarter of suppliers will close. Credit:Jason South In Victoria alone, Ford's closures risk wiping out as many as 6500 jobs across the economy, according to the latest government modelling. Industry Minister Wade Noonan says more than 50 per cent of state's 137 auto parts suppliers have so far failed to diversify away from cars, and, for many, it's already too late. "About half of them will go on an trade without there being any reduction in staff, and in some cases there will even be expansion," he says.

"About a quarter will be downsizing in some way but staying in business, and another quarter have an uncertain future  either they have closed already or will close at the end of assembly production later next year." Mr Noonan says this Friday will be a sad day for the car industry, retrenched workers and the communities they have operated in for decades. Front-line hardship The old Ford Plant on Princes Highway greets drivers as they head into Geelong. Credit:Darrian Traynor Front-line social services are already reporting significant hardship in the regions where the bulk of the nation's car sector jobs are located.

At a financial counselling clinic in Geelong, where Ford has its historic engine plant, wait times for people seeking help with their financial stress has increased from a fortnight to six weeks before their first appointment. Rene Ploegmakers, a financial counsellor at Diversitat, says a rising number of his clients are blue-collar workers who have previously earned good wages but are now struggling with irregular or not enough employment, and a lack of income security. "More and more we are seeing professional, or highly-skilled trades people with significant assets where their employment position has changed and are unable to secure work in time to avoid significant financial hardship," he says. "Work that is available is often casual, with no minimum hours, leading to unpredictable income for the household." Forecasts improving

Credit:Arsineh Houspian In early 2014, the Productivity Commission estimated that the end of local car manufacturing would cost a staggering 40,000 jobs across the nation, fanning fears of an unemployment crisis and a possible recession. But latest forecasts from economists paint a less troubling picture of future employment trends in Australia's auto manufacturing states. The Commonwealth Bank projects unemployment in Victoria will drop to 5.2 per cent in the coming two financial years, while South Australia will drop to 7 per cent in 2016/17 and 6.3 per cent the year after. "There is going to be enough growth in a whole lot of other industries ... in services, education, health, tourism, accommodation, and that should more than offset the aggregate level of job losses coming out of the car closures," CBA senior economist Gareth Aird says.

"A lot of people employed in the industry have been preparing for this, so it's very different from someone turning up to work one day and finding out you don't have a job." But despite the sunnier statewide forecasts, Aird shares government concerns that specific communities  like Adelaide's north, Melbourne's north and Geelong  will face a painful period of decline. And the problem of under-employment will continue to swell. "We are able to generate enough jobs to absorb new entrance into the labour market, but the quality of those jobs will be more in the part-time space  fewer hours  while a lot of car manufacturing jobs are full-time," he says. "We are not going to be able to generate enough full-time jobs to replace them." Living standards

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union state secretary Steve Dargavel. Credit:Arsineh Houspian Flinders University, in 2006, launched a study into the fates of workers who were laid off after Mitsubishi closed its Adelaide engine plant two years earlier. It found a third of retrenched workers were in full-time employment, a third were out of the workforce or unemployed, and a third were under-employed  that is, working in part-time and casual positions and not working as much as they would like to. The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union says most ex-auto workers typically had six months of unemployment, before moving into casualised employment, on vastly less pay and often irregular hours, "lowering the standard of living for working-class Australians". Steve Dargavel, the union's state secretary, says political leaders have drastically failed to grasp the economic and social value of local manufacturing, and had effectively abandoned the industry. "All advanced economies with automotive industries have actively supported them, because it's in their interest," he says.

"Australia has provided the least amount of support to their automotive industry compared to any other country ... and we also have the most open market for imports compared to any other country." Dargavel says high-quality, working-class jobs that meant non-university graduates could secure a decent life and raise a family are crucial to national economic wellbeing. "So much of the rhetoric now is around innovation, but that appeals to folks who are not these folks in the car industry," he says. Sticking with manufacturing Credit:Wayne Taylor

The preliminary results of fresh research from the Australian Catholic University highlights a pressing need for government and business to generate job opportunities in manufacturing, not just services. The study of 400 workers from the big three car makers and their supply chains found nearly 50 per cent intended to stay in the same or a similar occupation in the future. Forty-five per cent left school before reaching year 12, while 48 per cent don't have a trade qualification. Pushing the "reset" button after you've spent, on average, 19 years in a stable and reliable career was never going to be easy. The union, Ford and Auto Skills Australia have developed the Ford Transition Project to help the hundreds of remaining employees move into the next phase of their working lives.

It offers one-on-one career counselling, and has been taken up by the majority of Ford staff, since it was established in 2013. "When we started, we had Holden and Toyota still breathing, so people were wanting to stay in auto manufacturing," says project co-ordinator Vince Panozzo. "After they announced their departures, too, this focus changes dramatically. Now we have a list of other industries that have absorbed our people. We have cases of people going from pressing sides of cars moving to soft-tissue therapy. Someone from Geelong who wanted to work in the medical space found a vacancy in a hospital operating theatre as a technician, so we facilitated the training." Skills transfer Credit:Wayne Taylor

Mr Panozzo says auto workers' skills are broad and transferable, despite common misconceptions. "As we speak right now, case managers in Broadmeadows and Geelong are diligently going through the back end of the program to ensure people are engaged." Beyond the end of Australia's car making, the auto industry will continue to be a large employer. Ford will continue to employ about 1500 staff in development, engineering and design, located at Broadmeadows, its research and development centre in Geelong and its Lara testing ground. Holden, too, will retain a strong design and engineering workforce of hundreds of employees and Port Melbourne and its Lang Lang testing ground, after it exists local manufacturing.

Ford, the federal government and state government have poured tens of millions of dollars the Geelong Region and Melbourne's North Innovation and Investment Funds. Mr Noonan says the Andrews government has funnelled $135 million of targeted taxpayer assistance into grants, programs and training for businesses and staff from the auto industry. He called on the federal government to make more funds readily available for supply chains to create new opportunities. "The Commonwealth government has now stood back, and I don't think that's acceptable," he says. Opportunity for some

Credit:Wayne Taylor One components manufacturer, Dolphin Products, is based in a double-storey building in Heidelberg West. There is no large smokestack or any other giveaway signs that inside its walls is a very busy factory. With about 36 employees hard at work, Dolphin is in the business of making things  just like they have done for decades. Most of what it produces here  about 40 per cent  are parts for cars: seatbelt components, door-handle assemblies, drink holders and wheel-nut caps. But with a blueprint for the future and a focus on grants, the plastics manufacturer is in the process of expanding. Dolphin has managed to "diversify" away from cars, and now, it also makes drink bottles, food containers, clothes line pegs, medical equipment and even grenade cases for the military.

"We've gone from four different areas to probably about 20," managing director Mario Turcarelli says proudly. And the company recently landed a major contract with explosives giant Orica for the production of booster shells, which, by next year, will make mining the biggest slice of Dolphin's work and plug the gap left by automotive. "It's a major step into large-scale mining and construction as Dolphin Products gears down its automotive production," Mr Turcarelli says. "It will create additional employment opportunities as we ramp up from two to three shifts next year and go to 24-hour-per-day operation." Commonwealth support

The first Ford Falcon rolled off the Broadmeadows line in June 1960. The Turnbull government says Ford's decision to close Broadmeadows and Gezelong was made in 2013 "despite government funding of around $7 billion" since 2000. Federal Industry Minister Greg Hunt says the government's focus is working with the industry and the Victorian government to help workers move into new jobs. "We recognise the future of advanced manufacturing in Australia lies in value-adding activities from product concept, research and development, design and efficient production systems, to distribution and after-sales service," he said "We have already put in place important measures to support this transition over a number of years."

Mr Hunt says the government has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to support for supply chain firms, create jobs in the hardest-hit regions, and encourage innovation and expansion in the manufacturing sector. Mr Boulos wears his age pretty well. You wouldn't know he has spent the better part of four decades in manual labour at Ford Broadmeadows, starting off in spray-painting, detailing, and "worked through almost every job there". Loading "I'm so used to getting up every morning and getting to work by 7.30am ... from Coburg to Campbellfield, I start it, and my car basically goes by itself," he laughs.
The bleak conclusion of Enemy Within, Don Watson's latest Quarterly Essay, is that the American malaise has more to do with the mindset of the people than the quality of the country's leadership, or the capacity of Donald Trump to exploit fear and hate and insecurity for political gain.

It was Jimmy Carter who first drew attention to this condition, in a speech in 1979, when he spoke of "a crisis of confidence" that struck at the very heart and soul of the national will. "The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America," he declared.

John Updike explored the phenomenon a decade later when he identified dozens of things that made Americans feel bad about themselves, including poverty, crime, industrial decline, racial and generational discrimination, obesity and environmental squalor.

More recently, another American writer, Richard Ford, addressed it in the context of Trump's improbable tilt at the presidency. "It's we who're guilty of not having something better on our minds. It's our national malaise with life that's become the problem," he wrote.
Times are tough for narcissists on the public stage  the ascension of The Donald has created so much noise and bedazzlement that you have to work a lot harder to get noticed.

Trump is a large, orange object who eclipses the sun for everyone else on the sociopathic spectrum, forcing them into a kind of arms race of outrageousness.

Home-grown narcissist Salim Mehajer, so textbook that psychiatry students could easily dispense with the chapter on personality disorders and just follow his Instagram account instead, has been trying very hard this week to grab attention.

So hard that one nearly feels sorry for him, except that is exactly what he wants.
Donald Trump might be wreaking havoc with all the traditions of United States presidential politics but that's apparently nothing compared with what's happening on the home front, where planning to vote for the Republican candidate is increasingly becoming a relationship ender.

The US media, mainstream and social, have suddenly honed in on stories about couples who can no longer tolerate the other's political preference. In some cases, it's leading to sexual friction: "If there were a sexual position called the Trump, it would be the one where you don't have any because you're too angry from fighting about Trump," writes Mandy Stadtmiller, who documents her marriage in her regular New York magazine column Unwifeable.

For other couples nothing short of divorce will deal with the irreparable rift that Trump has brought into relationships that once could work things through.

In mid-August the New York Times reported that Dr Kerry Maguire had told her husband of 20 years: "If you vote for Trump, I will divorce you and move to Canada."
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and ALP National Secretary George Wright during the ALP National Conference last year. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "The big story of the last three years is that Bill and Labor have been consistently underestimated," Wright tells me. "It's always been, 'the other side have got their shit together', but every time the challenge came we rose to it. Illustration: John Shakespeare "The Liberals' essential proposition was, 'we have the better prime minister'. Their campaign was heavily centred on Turnbull. Everything they put on air was him. It was 'Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm'.

"Our proposition was that we have a very good alternative prime minister and there are some things that need to change to protect what's important to you." He's referring to the Labor campaign against the government's alleged cuts to health and education, notably the "Mediscare" effort. And the election result showed that "the voters were not clearly saying that 'we want you guys to be in government right now'. It was, 'we are worried and concerned and anxious about the other mob'." The people who run the big parties, rarer than prime ministers, aren't entirely captive of the party leaders and can be pretty influential in their own right. The Financial Review's annual listing of Australia's most powerful people published on Friday ranked Wright not on the list of overtly powerful people, a list headed by Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, but on the list of those wielding "covert power".

And on this list, led by Turnbull's cabinet secretary, Arthur Sinodinos, George Wright ranked number eight. Just ahead of him was the Liberals' pollster, Mark Textor. That ranking put Wright ahead of the most powerful corporate bosses and the billionaires, which may seem a little cheeky to his new employer, the BHP chief, Andrew Mackenzie. Because he's moved on, the publicity-shy Wright is not even giving the post-election analysis that the secretaries of both major parties traditionally deliver at the National Press Club. So he won't be responding to the accusation of his Liberal counterpart, Tony Nutt, in his recent Press Club performance that Labor's campaign depended on "a cold-blooded lie". So I put it to him. "I absolutely refute that it was a lie," says Wright. "If the taskforce wasn't looking at privatisation of Medicare, why did they get rid of it?" The government had assembled the taskforce to look at privatising some of the back-office processing for Medicare. Why did it disband it? Mainly because its existence allowed a whiff of fact for Labor to work into a maelstrom of fright. Nutt said the Labor campaign preyed on vulnerable people, especially older people, by frightening them into voting against the government. He conceded that it had been effective. And he demanded that Labor promise never to repeat the tactic: "You've got to draw the line somewhere. Are we really saying that taking an absolute lie, a cold-blooded lie and shoving it down the throats of vulnerable people in their 70s and 80s, is acceptable?"

Wright's rejoinder: "Their policies have people worried about the future of the health system." It's true that the scare campaign could only really work because the Abbott government proposed a $7 Medicare co-payment, an idea that died in the Senate. Turnbull conceded after the election that the Liberal Party had lost a great deal of public trust on Medicare; he promised to try to win it back. While negative campaigning worked for the Labor Party, Turnbull and Nutt and Textor have come under heavy censure within their own party for failing to go negative themselves. George Wright says that negative campaigning does work, but only when balanced with positive. "We opened up positive on education and 100 positive policies. People mightn't think it'll win a Cannes award but you have to introduce your candidate as potential prime minister, not just Opposition Leader. That was important.

"In the middle we went on education and did quite a bit on the cuts from the 2014 budget, and then a strong focus on Medicare, positive and negative. We ran spots on what our opponents were doing and the consequences and what we were going to do. We were always going to close on Medicare and the cuts." In a bit of a professional compliment to his rivals, he says Turnbull's "jobs and growth" mantra was "effectively communicated, but didn't have as much traction as ours." Wright is a believer in the adage that repetition is the soul of propaganda. "All the successful campaigns I've worked on"  and while working for the ACTU he was an architect of the Your Rights at Work campaign that so devastated the Howard government  "have had message discipline". He concurs with one of his predecessors, Tim Gartrell, who advocated the "vomit principle". That is, when a politician has repeated himself so often that he feels like he'll vomit if he has to say it one more time, the public is only just beginning to hear it. "A poor message effectively communicated," says Wright, "is better than a good message poorly communicated."

Wright is leaving because, he says, he's "exhausted". When he took the job 5 years ago, he and his wife had exciting renovation plans ready to go for their house in Melbourne's Richmond. But the job was so all-consuming that after 5 years, "nothing". "In some ways I have indulged my professional passion extravagantly and it's time to balance that up." Besides, he's proved a point to himself: "I had a burning thing in my guts to prove myself  I thought we achieved a lot in 2013" with Rudd vs Abbott "but it was principally tarring over leaks in the boat." With this year's campaign, he feels he has satisfied his need to run a successful campaign, even if it didn't win. But he leaves with the great political problem of the time unsolved. How to stop the constant coups, to stop the revolving door of the prime ministership from spinning? When Labor was plunging itself from one leadership crisis to another, Wright tried to be "the point of stability in the middle of it" staying uninvolved. He was well placed as the first factionally non-aligned secretary Labor had ever had. But it made his job, and the great national need for problem-solving, nigh impossible. He's earlier described it as a "gothic horror story". The Liberals, of course, caught the political bloodlust and went into internecine paroxysms of their own.

George Wright recounts the story of how Labor was preparing for the by-election in the West Australian seat of Canning in 2015 after the incumbent MP, Don Randall, died suddenly. "We had printed the bunting for all the polling booths  about 10 kilometres of it  with 'Reject Abbott' across the top and then the candidate's picture and 'Vote Keogh' across the bottom. The Liberals changed leaders 10 days out. We had to cut all the bunting in half", excising Abbott "with a pair of scissors. So volatile has Australian politics become that you can't even print your materials 10 days ahead." This phase began with the coup against Rudd in 2010. But how to solve it? "Stopping the revolving door of leadership is the big challenge and the big prize in federal politics today. The party that can re-establish the tolerably predictable groove of government that voters felt they experienced through the Hawke-Keating and Howard era  at least till WorkChoices  will deliver great benefit to the country. "And a huge political dividend to themselves  the potential for multiple election victories. This is what voters want and they'll handsomely reward the leader and the party that delivers it for them."
In the 116 years since, the High Court has ruled on only the first two of those four elements  mainly because no government has been silly enough to impose any requirement for religious worship or religious tests. But in Hanson's fantasy world, a ban or restriction on Muslim immigration it would surely run into constitutional strife. Residency and citizenship have sufficient elements of "public trust" that it would be struck down as an unacceptable religious test to require the applicant be any religion but Islamic. In other cases, the court has unfortunately held that state aid to religious schools and chaplaincy programs do not offend the non-establishment clause; and that any number of claims for exemptions from ordinary law on religious grounds would not fly. It could have given more teeth to the separation of church (mosque) and state but did not. But Australians saw the wrong of religious preference and discrimination in Britain from the country's earliest days. We inherited an enormous amount of political, cultural and institutional fabric from Britain, so it is significant that we specifically rejected the idea that one religion (or one branch of it)  Anglicanism  could have a privileged position and those who did not practice it would be discriminated against. They were called Nonconformists. So, far from tolerance of Muslims being somehow a threat to the Australian way of life, it is, in fact, the very expression of one of the longest-standing elements of that way of life.

The American and Australian rejection of religious discrimination is instructive although, of course, whatever the words of the constitution they did not prevent discrimination on the ground. Catholics were discriminated against until the 1970s, and Australia was the poorer for it. The important point is societies that discriminate against religious minorities, women, the disabled, or because of sexual orientation deny themselves the talents of great segments of their population. Scandinavia is a classic example. Its early weeding out of sexual discrimination resulted in half its population reaching fulfillment and greatly improving economic output. Andrew Inglis Clark is another good example. In Britain, as a Unitarian Nonconformist he would have been excluded. In Australia he was one of the main architects of our constitution. There is another, and perhaps more important, point about a constitutional guarantee for religious toleration. Enshrining religious toleration in law helps prevent one of the fundamental evils of religion. Nearly all religions say they are the one true way and their ultimate aim is to have everyone on earth observe their religion. Ultimately, that leads to enslavement. However, in a state that guarantees freedom for all religions, that cannot happen. A state that tolerates all religions respects none. It says, "None of you is superior, better or the one true way. You all are as silly as each other and we will tolerate you all."

It is a great irony: by tolerating all religions a society ensures it is never enslaved by any one. Toleration is terrific, but it should not extend to outright promotion of religion. And this is where Section 116 and the High Court's interpretation of it have failed. The High Court has allowed state aid to religious schools and wasteful ($200m and counting) programs to put chaplains into schools. No-one has challenged the compulsory Christian prayers at the beginning of parliamentary sessions. No-one has challenged the tax-exempt status of religious bodies. Sure, secular charities have a case for exemption, but if a big part of the brief is to convert people to your religion why should there be tax exemptions for that business? But at least the High Court got it right in the early 1980s when it held that the "Church" of Scientology was entitled to the same tax relief as the Anglican Church  more or less saying that one person's cult is another person's religion. All religious idiocies are equal in the face of the tax authorities.
"It's all local, organic and non-GMO," Ben's sister Harper announces, plonking the rotisserie chook on the table as though this pass-agg authenticity will bridge the chasm in her grieving family. It doesn't. The chasm isn't about food. It's about the overarching question of truth. What would it take to live truly?

Captain Fantastic, the new Viggo Mortensen release, may be the year's best cast and scripted film. It's also the worst named  being emphatically not a superhero movie  and most widely misunderstood. Most reviewers pigeonhole it as a cute little indie flick about the necessary compromises of parenting or the difficulty of living off-grid. In fact it's about truth. Where Little Miss Sunshine meets Robinson Crusoe the core question is what living true means and, more touchingly, what it costs.

Illustration: Simon Bosch

You might think the question too abstruse or simply too Edward-Snowden-hard. But in a "post-fact" world whose most powerful individual may soon be an openly and clumsily deceitful real-estate buffoon, and where an $88 billion merger is about to concentrate global control of seed  food and life itself  in three or four conscienceless mega-corporates, the question of truth has never been more urgent.

The movie opens on a grazing deer; spring fronds, velvet nibbling, dappled light, leafy forest. The serenity lasts until a mud-faced youth leaps from the undergrowth, grapples the deer and slits its throat. The others appear, children small and large, and the man, Ben. There's no triumph. Just a solemn recognition of facts: death, sacrifice, and the quotidian need to sling the carcass home, hang it, bleed it, skin it, butcher it.
After introducing the GST in 2001, John Howard, watching his party losing election after election at state level and he himself facing electoral obliteration, said: "We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come. This piece of nonsense precipitated a nightmare that has been wrecking Australian politics ever since. It has seriously damaged national debate, it has ethically corrupted several federal government departments, and what it has done to our two leading political parties is beyond bewildering.

As a Victorian, I can never insist "whoever moves into the house next door, it must not be a Queenslander". I suspect everyone grasps the principle involved here. I simply want to point out globalisation makes exactly the same thing true on the international level.

Of all the critical freedoms our political traditions are based on, free flow of information, freedom of choice, the international financial freedoms we have seen introduced in past years (Malcolm Turnbull rightly points out Australia has been an outstanding beneficiary of these) arguably the most important of all is the freedom to live where we want to live. The defining characteristic of this freedom I suggest is that no one can ever choose their neighbour.

There is a penalty to be paid for ditching freedoms. Inconsistency in upholding principles flows straight into inconsistency in the application of the law. In Australia's instance, after 15 years of this corrosive nonsense we now find we are treating people fleeing terror and persecution with greater severity than with which we punish rapists, murderers and paedophiles. We squander dollars in the billions destroying the lives of people who have done nothing wrong. An open society relies on respect for the law, and to earn this respect the law must be consistent. If our law becomes chaotic then, really, everything is up for grabs. That is why I am saying as soon as we embarked on this path we were opening ourselves up to appalling consequences. And finally, for goodness sake, let's please not be sidetracked by the lame excuse "strong borders save lives". This proposition is preposterous. If every country "saved lives" the way Australia does, then refugee movement would indeed be impossible, but these people would die on their streets and in their homes instead, in far, far greater numbers though.

There is no way Australia can lecture the world on the value of globalisation unless we accept the responsibilities globalisation brings. Politics is the art of the possible, for sure, but political arguments must sit firmly within a framework of principles. We can legitimately argue and lobby for effective international action to resolve problems in troublespots those that might generate refugee movement. We can do this for all sorts of reasons: practical (ameliorating the convulsions associated with large movements of peoples) as well as humanitarian. These aims are consistent with maintaining fundamental freedoms, however no way can we argue that closing down borders and making travel impossible is a solution.

What's especially dismaying is that this nonsense has been dogging our history for generations now. In this regard, Australia has a lot to answer for. Think of the bloody anti-Chinese riots on the gold fields in the 1860s, the stultifying White Australia policy running for generations, fear in the 1960s of being swamped by Asians (which is what the Domino Theory essentially was) something that drove the Vietnam War for more than a decade costing 3 million lives and three countries devastated. Now we are paralysed to hysteria by the weird idea the entire world wants to up-stakes, come here and overwhelm us. Let's face it, this is as ridiculous as suggesting we should close down interstate travel because, otherwise, every Australian will inevitably end up living in Melbourne.

If it's any encouragement, there's a straightforward business case to be made for dealing sensibly with this issue. The same business arguments our prime minister uses to promote free trade also hold true for freedom of movement. For instance, it has been estimated freeing up borders would double the world's GDP in very short order. (See Alex Tabarrok's excellent article in The Atlantic, October 10, 2015.) And of course free movement of people would also be a catalyst, an early safety valve if you will, to alleviate population movements from trouble spots in the first place. It's simply a matter of having systems in place to deal with problems as they eventuate.

The advantages of globalisation are inarguable, and it's certainly the only way we will deal with the appalling problems of climate change and ecological collapse that promise to destroy the world of our grandchildren. And there are other advantages. I'm sure violence and low-level terrorism will always be around (if anyone thinks terrorism is new, try looking at London in Queen Victoria's time) however globalisation will make nation-state warfare implausible I suggest, and rather quickly impossible. This would free up resources to deal with those more serious issues.
There was a Wyatt Colonial Roy, who once was an MP

He ruled the seat of Longman, from Caboolture to Ningi,

He backed the Turnbull challenge lest T. Abbott did destroy,

The hopes of second termage for the Wyatt Colonial Roy.

He thus became a minister whose future seemed assured,

But advice he gave James Ashby didn't seem quite above board.

When asked of Peter Slipper he became extremely coy,

When chatting to the AFP, the Wyatt Colonial Roy.

To his good fortune all the scandal seemed to gently die,

Yet Roy was dumped from power by his voters in July.

And so he grew a manly beard to look less Fauntleroy,

And set off to Iraq last month, the Wyatt Colonial Roy.

And sure, Iraq's a war zone, as Australians well know,

The government advises it's a stupid place to go,

But if you want to show that you're a grown up, not a boy,

Then why not do it anyway, young Wyatt Colonial Roy?
1. Chopped

Chopped, a festival celebrating the power and beauty of cars from the 1950s and '60s, unfolds this weekend at the old Newstead Racecourse on the outskirts of the historic central Victorian town. This three-day bash draws car lovers from across the nation  and even the globe  to admire hundreds of buffed and shiny vehicles hurtling down the drag strip at eye-watering speed. Headlining the music stage is Reverend Horton Heat, from the US, with his brand of country punk. Take a drag-side seat in the Tiki Palace or sip hard liquor at the Ole Smoky Moonshine Cabin Shack. chopped.com.au

The Newstead butcher makes the best bull-boar sausages in Australia. Credit:Richard Cornish

2. The Sausage

The bull-boar sausage is recognised by the international Slow Food movement as an endangered product. This banger is made of beef and pork seasoned with spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and garlic-infused red wine. The recipe was introduced to the goldfields around Newstead in the 19th century by Italian-speaking migrants from the Ticino region of Switzerland. The sausage has been described as smelling like "a meaty hot cross bun". Perhaps the best commercial version is made by Newstead butcher Shane McNabb. He also makes less traditional bull-boar burger patties and sells bull-boar pies from the local bakery. Come here also for his excellent old-fashioned corned beef.
Brussels: European Union countries on Friday agreed to fast-track joint ratification of the Paris accord to combat climate change, pushing the landmark global pact to the brink of reality.

The 2015 Paris deal will guide a radical shift of the world economy away from fossil fuels. Friday's agreement by environment ministers from all EU 28 member states marks a rare political breakthrough for the bloc at a time of uncertainty over Britain's departure and discord over the migration crisis.

"What some believed impossible is now real," tweeted European Council President Donald Tusk, whose home country Poland had been the main state resisting such a swift accord.

European Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete hailed a "historic" decision and said the deal answered criticisms that the EU had lost leadership on climate change. "In difficult times, we get our act together," he said.
The United Nations has banned global trade in highly endangered pangolins, a scaly animal with the dubious distinction of being the world's most poached mammal.

Member states of the UN's Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, known as CITES, voted in Johannesburg on Wednesday to place the eight species of pangolin on the convention's "Appendix I", which prohibits any cross-border movement in the animals or their body parts for commercial purposes.

Safety net: A pangolin carries its baby at a zoo in Bali. Credit:AP

"Giving pangolins full protection under CITES will eliminate any question about legality of trade, making it harder for criminals to traffic them and increasing the consequences for those who do," Ginette Hemley, of conservation group WWF, said.

Like other illicit wildlife commodity pipelines, such as elephant ivory and rhino horn, Africa is the main source of pangolin supply, while the demand comes from Asia.
It is the chocolate they miss the most, the families, burdened with restless children and the anger of seeing their crops washed away, stranded for up to a month on inland islands in the middle of NSW.

In all 181 families have now been isolated after the biggest floods in decades hit the central west of NSW this week, with no road access, limited communications and dwindling supplies.

Among them is Michelle Alcorn and her family of four plus three dogs, who are now set to be isolated for the next month after already enduring a week stranded on their farm in Jemalong, 30 kilometres south of Forbes.

"It gives you a really eerie feeling. I haven't had any tears yet, but we are pretty close," Mrs Alcorn said as she looked towards the flood plains from her kitchen window.
Clean energy providers, including market giant AGL, have called for more certainty in government policy amid warnings the fight over renewables between the Turnbull Government and Labor states will drive investment out of Australia.

The category-five political storm unleashed by this week's statewide blackout in South Australia worsened on Friday, with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews accusing Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of peddling "ignorant rubbish" by linking Wednesday's failure with that state's aggressive embrace of renewable energy.

Mr Turnbull returned serve, accusing Mr Andrews' government of "distorting the electricity market" through ambitious targets at the expense of energy security.

The Prime Minister, who noted that his Point Piper home had a "roof full of solar panels" and was a supporter of renewables, said business in South Australia was struggling to maintain investment growth and jobs due to the most expensive wholesale electricity.
If you don't like how the table is set, turn over the table.

That's the iron law of politics according to Frank Underwood, the House of Cards protagonist played by Kevin Spacey.

This week Education Minister Simon Birmingham unleashed his inner Underwood by saying on live TV that some private schools are over-funded and may need to take a trim under a new funding deal.

With this plot twist, Australia's school funding debate - usually a predictable and partisan affair - became a lot more interesting.
A Touch of Class former madam Zara Powell (pictured in 1989). In Kings Cross, 16 Kellett Street, a lurid neon pink terrace house, has been converted from a bordello into a boarding house with nine studios fetching $350 a week in rent, while another brothel on Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills has been converted into a boutique apartment building, with all the units selling before completion, prompting the owner of the brothel next door to consider selling their site to developers too. But it was A Touch of Class that had intrigued Sydneysiders since opening in 1972. The Sydney property boom is leading some brothels to cash in. In January, Sydney Morning Herald journalist Anne Davies wrote that despite penning the book Memories of a Touch of Class: Life in Australia's best-known Bordello in 1987, Zara Powell, its most famous madam, took to her grave the secret of who owned the establishment.

Rumours flourished that it was owned by a colourful Sydney business figure and that late billionaire Kerry Packer had a secret share. According to the tycoon's unauthorised biographer, Paul Barry, while there was no evidence to support this rumour, Packer once hired the entire place for the night so his polo-playing mates could enjoy a romp with "some good, clean girls". Eddie Hayson falls at the first hurdle Eddie Hayson could do with some good PR. Credit:Louise Kennerley When it comes to chronic gambler Eddie Hayson and his media relations, it is pretty clear that his publicist Max Markson has his work cut out for him. For starters, instead of hosting comical press conferences, Max might want to confiscate Eddie's well-thumbed mobile phone.

Last Sunday afternoon Fairfax Media investigative reporter Kate McClymont's mobile started pinging when she received an unsolicited SMS from Hayson's mobile number, which said: "Race 5 port Macquarie no 2 urban prince. Get on it". To which McClymont cheekily responded: "We are set at ten large". Realising his message had presumably not been delivered to its intended recipient, Hayson responded: "If you had any brains you would be." McClymont returned serve, doing a little research of her own on the race in Port Macquarie to tell Hayson: "I think you would be better to look at Before You Think". Failing to find anything funny in the situation, Hayson responded: "I'm a serious person Kate not like you. I don't play games with people's lives for fun. You should try doing the same."

And that's where the good humour came to an end, with McClymont pointing out: "You don't play games with people's lives you just fleece them", which resulted in a few more barbs being traded between the pair. As for Urban Prince, well it wasn't such a sure thing after all, coming in at third spot. Thankfully McClymont didn't actually bet "ten large" of anything on the horse, though we can't be certain if Hayson had made an equally judicious call. McClymont pointed out Hayson's dud tip following the race, to which the former brothel owner - who declared himself insolvent with debts of $52 million in 2014 - texted back to McClymont: "you got the jockey to pull it up didn't you". Reality bites for Richie Alex Nation and Richie Strahan after Nation was named the winner of

Three weeks ago, the media couldn't get enough of Richie Strahan, this year's pretty, blue-eyed sacrificial lamb on the dating slaughterhouse that is Channel Ten's hit show The Bachelor. Paparazzi were making $10,000-plus sales for photos of the handsome blond as the series reached its crescendo and he ultimately selected Alex Nation, the single mother who, with the aid of great lighting, a cheesy score, a few over-bedazzled frocks and impeccable hair and makeup, stole his heart. So fierce was the media competition that Who weekly threatened to sue one pap who dared take photos of Strahan and Nation during a sexy swimsuit shoot the magazine conducted at a rented mansion in Darling Point. PS hears the cheeky pap offered his set of shots, taken from a neighbouring property, to Who, only to be slapped with a stinging legal threat. The images were splashed across the Daily Mail this week, but PS understands the sale was for much less than the sort of money being being touted just a few weeks ago. One pap, Jonathan Marshall, who has followed the couple across Australia and Bali over past few months, told PS that today: "I'd be lucky to get $20 for a shot ... the steam has gone out of it, I just don't think Australia likes them as much as they did the other couples from the show." Indeed, in today's click-and-you'll-miss-them world of instant celebrities, three weeks can be an awfully long time in the spotlight and fame can be an especially cruel mistress the longer she seduces you.

Strahan lashed out at another magazine, Woman's Day, when it ran a cover story claiming he and Nation had already split on September 19, while rival New Idea's cover featured the couple with the headline "Wedding Day Announcement" and "We're Having A Baby!". This week, still bruised, Strahan told Popsugar  that oracle of celebrity tittle-tat  his old friends at Woman's Day had "thrown [them] under a bus" after they posed for exclusive photos during a "holiday" the magazine had organised and paid for in Bali, for which Strahan and Nation were paid a rumoured $20,000 each. But according to Strahan: "It was like we'd bent over backwards to help them, and then it was a massive stab in the back. We were just frustrated." However, the Australian public wasn't buying the love story. PS can reveal Woman's Day's shock-split cover far outsold New Idea's wedding-day-announced edition. Given the couple's flagging celebrity stocks, Strahan might be returning to his former gig as a "rope technician" sooner than he anticipated.

Roxy prison-visit coverage misses an angle 'exclusive' of Roxy Jacenko visiting her husband in jail. The tarmac at Cooma's Snowy Mountains Airport is not the usual place one would find the paparazzi lurking, but there he was, a lone snapper in position to capture Roxy Jacenko as she touched down aboard a private plane she chartered from Bankstown to make her first visit to convicted insider trading husband Oliver Curtis who is behind bars at the local jail. And the same photographer, Canberra-based Telegraph staffer Gary "Rambo" Ramage who is more at home covering global war zones than documenting Sydney socialites, managed to also get more "exclusive" shots of Jacenko leaving the jail. Indeed PS has learned that the good folk at Rupert Murdoch's Telegraph bunker had received a "tip-off" that Jacenko would be flying down to Cooma on Saturday morning, which just happened to be on the day PS had revealed Jacenko had been spotted out and about with her former boyfriend, millionaire property developer Nabil Gazal.

While it is not clear if the actual tip came from Jacenko herself or via an intermediary who was well versed in her flight schedule and Cooma timetable, there is no question Jacenko is adept in the black arts of media manipulation and image control, and regularly tips off photographers and select reporters when it comes to her celebrity clients. Though when it comes to her own PR, admittedly her efforts have delivered mixed results, but she had reason to celebrate this week with what appeared to be her final radiation treatment for breast cancer, a moment she uploaded on Instagram. Insiders at the Murdoch tabloid, and not those who have forged strong ties with Jacenko courtesy of truckloads of freebies, flowers and designer frocks she has sent them over the years, agreed with PS that it was strange the paper made no mention of the Gazal revelations. However, Sunday Telegraph editor Mick Carroll assured PS there had been no censorship in the piece in return for striking a deal with Jacenko, but blamed a lack of "manpower" on the weekend to cover the Gazal angle thoroughly. Phew! A tipsy tilt at quaffing queen
Border authorities have made more than a dozen interceptions of asbestos since a department shakeup last year, amid fears lax enforcement is allowing the killer substance to flood into the country from overseas.

Australian Border Force has made 13 seizures of the banned building material since its establishment in July last year, according to figures obtained by Fairfax Media.

The Australian Border Force has made more than a dozen seizures of banned building material asbestos. Credit:AAP

The disclosure comes after asbestos was discovered in Chinese-sourced materials at a string of construction sites this year, casting doubt on the enforcement of an import ban introduced in 2003.

Since July, the deadly fibre has been found at Perth Children's Hospital, a smelter redevelopment project in Port Pirie, South Australia and the Queensland state government's new Executive Building in Brisbane. Sixty-nine sites around the country connected to the supplier, Chinese builder Yuanda, are now being examined for contamination. Among the 11 sites being looked at in Victoria are the ANZ Centre and the Vogue building in Melbourne.
In the lead-up to her violent death, a Sydney hairdresser known to friends as Nasrin Abek, 35, was allegedly stalked by her husband.

And on Wednesday he allegedly finally caught up with her and killed her inside their Potts Point unit.

Fairfax Media understands Amir Darbanou, 42, was growing increasingly angry with Ms Abek, and believed she had been unfaithful.

Ms Abek and Mr Darbanou were originally from Iran but had been living in Australia on bridging visas for the past four years, police said.
One of NSW's most dangerous criminals Bassam Hamzy has been caught with a mobile phone within the state's highest security jail for the second time in two weeks.

Hamzy, an extremely high-risk inmate who founded the notorious street gang Brothers 4 Life while in prison, was caught with the phone in his cell at Goulburn SuperMax on Thursday night.

Hamzy attempted to flush the mobile phone down his cell toilet. Credit:Corrective Services NSW

The discovery of another phone in SuperMax has raised questions about how contraband continues to make its way into NSW prisons and has led Corrective Services to announce the introduction of mobile phone jamming at the high-security facility.

It is understood Hamzy was using the phone when corrective services officers raided his cell on Thursday night. He tried to flush the phone down the toilet but the officers had cut the water to his cell in anticipation of this.
Accountant Curtis Cheng took pride in working at Police Headquarters at Parramatta as he felt his job was making a contribution to society.

And, almost 12 months after the father-of-two was shot dead in an act of terrorism as he left work for the weekend, that building has been named in his honour.

Selina Cheng at the memorial for her late husband Curtis Cheng. Credit:NSW Police

His widow, Selina Cheng, and children, Alpha and Zilvia, were present at the building on Friday as Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione and Premier Mike Baird unveiled a plaque renaming it the Curtis Cheng Centre.

Alpha Cheng said his father, a police accountant for 17 years, never saw coming to work as the "daily grind".
Queenslander Peter Maitland was involved in a serious crash in Cambodia. He had an enduring love of Asia after travelling to Beijing to see his brother compete in the Olympics and studying at a University in Malaysia. While on holidays in Cambodia before moving there he met his now-fiancee Elena, and after travelling back to Australia together he was able to convince her to move there with him. "Cambodia is a beautiful country," he says. "After working in south-east Asia I always wanted to live there, so when the opportunity came up to work in Cambodia I really wanted to take it.

"I just bought a big block of land that I was going to build a resort on down south on the coast. My fiancee had moved down there already to start preparing things. I was going to join her in a week." But all Mr Maitland's plans changed on September 16 when the car emerged from the dark and changed his life forever. "I was screaming and shouting and cursing and making a good old racket," he says. But even through the pain, he saw exactly why he loved the region so much. "Being in my local area, I knew all the tuk tuk drivers and they took off after [the driver] for me," he said.

"The tuk tuk drivers led the police to the car driver and they arrested him on the spot which is remarkable, that doesn't happen very often. Cambodia doesn't have the most effectual police department." It was the first of many examples of the kindness of the community he lived among in Cambodia. Mr Maitland suffered serious injuries in the crash, including severing an artery in his leg. He lost almost half his blood on the side of the road. When he arrived at the hospital, stocks of his blood type, A negative, were low. So he put out a call for help on Facebook. "Within about 20 minutes of putting a Facebook message on, I had about 15 volunteers lined up at my hospital door wanting to donate their A negative blood," he says.

"It's times like that you realise people really care. "These countries, they get a bad rap among a lot of people, but it's tough times like that that bring good people together. "In these countries there's more good people than bad people, bad people make the headlines more often." Mr Maitland found people from his local community were prepared to go to great lengths to help him in any way they could. "These are people with nothing who were prepared to give everything," he says.

Eventually doctors in Phnom Penh acknowledged they didn't have the expertise to treat Mr Maitland's extensive injuries and he was flown to Bangkok for further treatment. From there he has undergone multiple operations in an attempt to save his severely damaged leg. "They have taken great care of me, they have been able to answer questions, do all the surgery, minimise my pain, the nurses are great," he says. "As it stands, my right foot, the severely injured one, I have been guaranteed I will lose my five toes and I have been pretty much assured I will lose at least half my foot." Remarkably, Mr Maitland is relatively upbeat about his plight.

"I used to be a lifesaver, I have played a lot of sport, I have seen some pretty gruesome things," he says. "I have quite a strong stomach so I don't get too fazed by things, and I am treating it as I am alive and anything beyond that is a bonus." On Saturday, Mr Maitland was due to be transferred back to Australia for more treatment and the inevitable rehabilitation he will need to undergo to begin walking again. His flight was due to leave Bangkok at midnight on Friday, getting him back to Australia just in time for a very important event in his life. "My flight should be getting into Australia around midday and I will go straight from the plane, into an ambulance and to the hospital," he says.

"There I hope to find a television which is playing the AFL grand final, and if I can't I will be taking a doctor and a nurse across the road to the pub to watch it." Despite his ordeal, Mr Maitland hopes one day to return to Cambodia and he hopes his story doesn't frighten people off visiting. "People shouldn't be scared off by stories like this," he says. "My story is horrible, I'm not trying to dodge that. "But I don't think I would have got the support from the community in Australia as I received in Cambodia."
A man is facing a string of charges after allegedly strangling two people in a domestic incident west of Brisbane.

Police say a woman and a man, aged 44 and 45, were strangled at a Redbank Plains home on Thursday morning before their alleged attacker fled in a car.

A man who allegedly strangled two people has been arrested. Credit:Glenn Hunt

Officers intercepted the driver, who was allegedly driving dangerously and at high speeds, and took him into custody about two hours later.

A 21-year-old man has been charged with various offences including three counts of strangulation in a domestic relationship and will face the Ipswich Magistrates Court on Friday.
Letter mail-outs to residents are responsible for a Brisbane MP blowing-out her electorate office allowance.

Labor member for Bulimba Di Farmer spent $82,307.70 through her electorate and communication allowance in the past financial year, which was higher than any other Queensland MP.

Member for Bulimba Di Farmer exceeded her electorate allowance for 2015-16. Credit:Glenn Campbell

Of that amount, $43,850.34 was for production, publication and distribution services.

The office expenditure for most MPs lingered around the $60,000 mark in 2015-16.
Queensland's criminal drug manufacturers are being run out of business as cheaper, higher quality narcotics flood through the state's borders, police say.

On Friday, they hailed a decline in meth lab busts in the state that was once infamous for having the highest rate of the dangerous scourge in the country but pointed to a concerning explanation.

Drug labs are becoming less popular in Queensland. Credit:QPS

Local manufacturers simply couldn't compete with the cheap, pure drugs from overseas.

"We've seen a major downturn of that in Queensland. We used to be the leader in Australia in the detection and charging of people in that kind of activity and there's reasons for that," Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said.
Brisbane City Council's chief auditor has been sacked following a damning independent report into how fraudsters fleeced ratepayers of more than $450,000.

The report by international auditing firm Deloitte found systemic failures on the council's part that allowed fraudsters to change banking details of an existing council contractor.

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk says the report findings are 'unacceptable'. Credit:Glenn Hunt

That change resulted in $450,904.96 being transferred into the wrong account between July 14 and August 5. Just $42,276.60 of that money had been recovered and the council considered it unlikely any more would be seen again.

"We found a number of inconsistencies in the supporting documentation provided in the bank account change request that were not identified by BCC as part of the processing of the request," the report found.
Seriously ill people are being put at grave risk in overcrowded emergency departments where paramedics are still regularly stuck in long queues, doctors warn.

Nearly two years after the Labor party vowed to fix Victoria's ambulance service, leaked data indicates there has been no improvement in ambulance "ramping" and that this month hundreds of patients waited longer than an hour to get into an emergency department while under the care of paramedics.

The man is in a critical condition. Credit:Paul Rovere

The queues are tying up paramedics when they should be free to respond to urgent cases. Doctors say the problem persists because hospitals are too full.

The leaked Ambulance Victoria data shows that during the first two weeks of September, there were 10 days when one in 10 patients arriving at Melbourne hospitals via ambulance were stuck in a queue for more than an hour because emergency department staff did not have enough resources to accept them.
A man who holed himself up in an apartment in Toorak for five hours has been taken to hospital.

Police had been negotiating with the man, who was behaving erratically and refusing to come out of the apartment on Toorak Road, Toorak, near Tintern Avenue.

Police were called to the incident in the exclusive suburb about 2.30pm on Friday.

The man was taken to hospital in a stable condition at 7.50pm.
A Perth man suing Uber says he discovered he had been sacked as a driver only when he was unable to log into his account one day last November.

Nigerian-born Mike Oze-Igiehon, 40, has accused the billion-dollar global ride-sharing service of deactivating his account with no notice or explanation, based on a couple of passenger complaints he was not told about and the truth of which he disputes.

Mr Oze-Igiehon does not have a lawyer and is representing himself against Silicon Valley-based Uber and Dutch-based Uber holding company Rasier Operations, which had three lawyers in the District Court of WA on Thursday.

Uber's lawyer, Alan Hershowitz, said Mr Oze-Igiehon was being untruthful and had been told about multiple complaints against him, including that he had been falling asleep at the wheel while driving.
A company has been fined $110,000 over the death of a worker at a mine in Western Australia's East Pilbara region.

Heavy duty mechanic Philip Kitching was carrying out maintenance work on a bulldozer at the Woodie Woodie manganese mine when he was crushed by the machine's belly plate on January 20 last year.

Philip Kitching died while working at the Woodie Woodie mine site in the Pilbara. Credit:Nick Cubbin

The Department of Mines and Petroleum found the dozer had modifications, damage and missing parts that contributed to the incident.

XOW Nominees Pty Ltd, which trades as Rod Mitchell's Transport and Exploration Services, was charged with failing to provide a safe working environment and fined $110,000 in the Perth Magistrates Court on Friday.
A young gay woman directing traffic at the Royal Show is distraught after someone posted anti-marriage equality stickers on the signs she was standing in front of.

Jasmine Andersen shared a picture of a massive sticker with the words "keep marriage man and woman", on a sign where she was directing traffic on Second Avenue outside the show on Thursday.

The traffic sign with the anti-marriage sticker on it. Credit:Facebook

"Does anyone by any chance know who is responsible for this hatred?," she said.

"I'd love to speak to them."
Police have charged a man with animal cruelty and assault, having found two dead cats in his home after he allegedly assaulted two people with a metal pole on the streets of Roeburne in the Pilbara.

Police arrested the man on Sholl Street early on Thursday morning after reports he was walking in the street and assaulting people with a metal pole.

It will be alleged he seriously assaulted a man on Sherlock Street and another in a separate incident on Sholl Street.

"It will be further alleged when police attended the man's house, officers located two deceased cats," a police spokesman said.
Sofia: Bulgaria's parliament on Friday banned the wearing of face veils in public in a move tha drew immediate criticism from Amnesty International.

The "burqa ban" law, pushed by the nationalist Patriotic Front coalition echoes similar measures in western European countries such as France, the Netherlands and Belgium, which all have laws banning the wearing of either niqab full-face veils or burqas in some public places.

People who do not comply with the ban in Bulgaria face fines of up to 1,500 levs ($1,115), as well as suspension of social benefits.

The ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms refused to take part in the vote, which followed full-face veil bans in public in several Bulgarian towns. It said the ban would incite ethic and religious intolerance.
Miami: A US woman is suing a sheriff's deputy after he allegedly shot her with a stun gun then apologised with a cake that said "Sorry I tased you" in blue icing.

The cake did not cut it for Stephanie Byron, who brought the suit against former Escambia County, Florida deputy Michael Wohlers in May.

A Taser. Credit:File

The complaint, which was filed in federal court in Pensacola, Florida, alleges Wohlers violated Byron's civil rights, committed battery against her and caused her hardships, including physical injuries, monetary loss, medical expenses, humiliation and mental anguish.
Beijing: Rescuers have pulled 15 people alive from a landslide that slammed into a village in China's eastern Zhejiang province after it was hit by a typhoon Megi but 32 people were still missing on Thursday night.

Heavy rains brought by the remnants of Megi caused the landslide to crash into Sucun village on Wednesday.

The massive typhoon made landfall in eastern China, a day after carrying strong winds over Taiwan and killing at least four people and injuring more than 523.

It weakened to a tropical storm after hitting the coastal city of Quanzhou before dawn on Thursday, packing winds of up to 118 kilometres an hour.
Ministers already resigned from their positions --- PM Marlin.

PHILIPSBURG:--- The leader of the National Alliance William Marlin and their members along with the leader of the United Peoples Party Theodore Heyliger along with his members told members of the media on Thursday that they will do everything in their power to maintain a stable government that will last for the next four years.

The leader of the National Alliance and Prime Minister William Marlin went back in time and explained that in 2010 the National Alliance obtained 7 seats but was left out of government while in 2014 they only mustered four seats and was also not part of a government. Marlin said during those years the National Alliance worked with other factions in parliament and formed a government, likewise the UPP but they never worked together as a team, therefore there are several questions as to why that happened now. Marlin said over the years both parties had seven seats in different elections but this time around the voters have decided to award the two parties the same amount of seats, 5 seats to each party. He said following the results the two political parties have analyzed the results and by 6am the Tuesday morning they signed an agreement in the Rice Hill area.

Marlin said just after the results were given out some persons went ahead of themselves and said that they already had an agreement as to the formation of the government. Further to that Marlin said rumors had it that one member of the National Alliance had declared himself independent which also not true. He assured that the NA MP who was present at the press conference did not object to anything neither is he going anywhere.

Marlin said even though announcements were made within the past days, the press conference called on Thursday was to formally announce to the people of St. Maarten that the National Alliance and the United Peoples Party have come together and signed an agreement to govern the country for the next four years.

The leader of the UPP Theodore Heyliger in his statements said that called the outcome a historic moment. Heyliger said he worked with Marlin and they worked well. He said this time around the keyword from the people was stability. Heyliger said the meeting held with the National Alliance on Tuesday morning was cordial especially regarding the future of the country and what needs to be done in the interest of the country and most importantly they need to put aside their differences and work in the best interest of St. Maarten is the common ground. Heyliger further stated that he will ensure that this coalition government work for the full four-year term since this is for the people of St. Maarten. When asked by SMN News if he spoke to his members and if he could assure the people of St. Maarten that there will be stability within the government. Heyliger said over the past two days both political parties spoke with their members as for the UPP they met their board, supporters, and members and they gave them the full explanation as to what transpired and thus they have decided to hold a joint press conference. Heyliger that was the reason they remained quiet until they spoke to their membership. He said ever since it was made known that the two political parties came together he got positive feedback from the people and membership of the UPP. The leader of the National Alliance William Marlin also stated that the National Alliance went through the same process and indeed some of the National Alliance members asked questions as to why he made that choice, he said after an explanation was given to his membership everyone from the National Alliance got on board. Marlin said NA board and their 23 candidates and they got full support, he said even voters contacted him and they also stated that they were satisfied. Marlin said the National Alliance campaigned on the need for stability in the country since St. Maarten cannot continue on the same trend since the country obtained its status. He said St. Maarten simply cannot afford to change government every time because the people are sick and tired. Marlin said they cannot guarantee that people will not get disgruntled at times but there is absolutely no reason for him to doubt his members. Marlin further stated that all the Ministers that will be appointed by the NA will come from their slate since they also campaigned on that also. He said they informed the people that what they see on the National Alliance slate is what they will get and for him, the formation of this coalition can be considered a broad-based government since they have 10 seats and such they could pass any legislation and provide a stable government for the next four years.

Marlin said he already met with the governor and he informed him that a coalition agreement is in place and the governor already met with the leaders already and in the very near future will appoint a formateur, after which they will submit the candidates for Ministerial candidates for screening.

Also asked by SMN News how he intends to strengthen the justice chain and deal with the problems of the Pointe Blanche prison and reviving the economy since most of the cruise ships are heading to the BVI. Heyliger said that the first thing he has to do is appoint the Ministers and after that, he will work on how he will deal with the issues in the justice chain and also how to revive the economy of St. Maarten.

Marlin was asked what happened during the negotiations with the other two political parties, he said that the campaign is over and now is not the time to throw stones but instead it's time to deal with the affairs of the country. He did say that signing an agreement was just as difficult as appointing a pope to the Vatican. He said they are always smoke and fires in different sizes but by Tuesday morning there was white smoke coming out of the Rice Hill area where the agreement was signed between the UP and NA, he said that is what matters right now, for him all that transpired in the past is irrelevant. Marlin said during the election campaign lots was said about each other and he insisted that the campaign is over and right now the main thing now is to govern the country and how they will they move the country forward. He said there is no blueprint on how they will fix the various areas is not yet in place.

Click here to view more photos from the press conference held on Thursday.
Oranjestad:--- During its visit to Aruba on September 28 and 29 the Board of financial supervision Aruba (CAft) advised to ensure by means of a 2016 budget amendment as announced by the government as well as a Modification Memorandum, that the 2016 and 2017 budgets will remain within the deficit norm in conformity with the National Ordinance on temporary financial supervision (LAft). This in light of the economic growth figures that are lower than previously expected. Recent Aruba Central Bank figures show that both the real and the nominal economic growth have been stagnant for some time. The promised 2016 budget amendment will have to offer deeper insight as to how far the positive effects of the re-opening of the oil refinery shall compensate the negative effect of the adjusted income growth. The Board has taken notice that the recommendations of the CAft and the Advisory Council for a downward adjustment of the income figures in the 2017 draft budget will have to be further observed in the Modification Memorandum. In its final advice on the adopted 2017 budget, the Board shall evaluate whether this budget is in compliance with the LAft norms.

Visit CAft

During the visit of the CAft to Aruba, the Board met with the Governor, the Minister of Finance and Government Organization, the Council of Ministers and the Parliamentary Committee on Finance, Economic Affairs, and Government Organization. Amongst others, the execution of the 2016 budget, the state of affairs with regard to the draft 2016 budget amendment and the draft 2017 budget as well as the forthcoming re-opening of the refinery were discussed. The Board also visited the General Audit Chamber.

Challenges budget execution 2016

In its reaction to the execution report on the realization in the first six months of 2016 Cft has indicated that based on the figures provided, Aruba appeared to be on schedule to comply with the LAft-norm as per the end of 2016. At the same time, the Board found that the realization in the first six months of 2016 was mostly due to windfalls resulting from the payments on the returns of profit tax (VAS), which was introduced end 2015, while the income from other forms of taxes was lagging behind. The progress of the government income therefor was - together with the refinery  one of the main subjects of the talks the Board had on Aruba. Also the savings in staff costs which are falling behind require a targeted approach in the opinion of the Board, as this constitutes a significant impediment to achieving sustainable public finances in the long term. As a consequence of the downwardly revised GDP figures the debt ratio has raised in 2016 to up to 86% of GDP due to the so-called denominator effect. This again underscores the need to persist in the agreed improvement path.

According to the agreements reached the CAft will soon receive the draft 2016 budget amendment, in which the financial and economic implications of the reopening of the refinery as projected by the CBA are accounted for and explained. It was also agreed that the Board additionally will receive a financial risk analysis performed by Aruba in order to identify the short- and long-term risks which the reopening of the oil refinery may represent for the budget. Furthermore, the government has put in motion a process to prepare an environmental impact report. It is expected that this process will take some time.

Progress 2017 budget and 2015 accounts

In recent months, both the CAft and the Advisory Council have issued their advice on the draft 2017 budget of Aruba. The legally stipulated term for the submittal of the draft budget to Parliament - prior to September 1st - was met. Because of the timely submittal to Parliament, it is expected that the adopted 2017 budget will be submitted to the CAft in accordance with the provisions of the LAft, which is not later than December 15th, 2016. During its visit to Aruba, the Board has advised the government to adjust the 2017 budget in view of the downward adjustment of economic growth rates of 2015 and 2016 by the CBA. The CAft expects therefore that the size of the Aruban economy will be about AWG 5.0 billion next year, while the draft 2017 budget assumes a size of over 5.3 billion AWG. This means that the estimation of the government revenues was too optimistic, as the Board already set forth in its previous advice. The CAft will issue a final opinion on the 2017 adopted budget, in which it will assess whether this meets the standard maximum deficit of 0.5% of the projected GDP for 2017. Without further adjustment, it is unlikely that the Board will be able to give a positive assessment.

Beginning this week the CAft received the 2015 financial statements of Aruba, and it expects to shortly receive the report the General Audit Chamber has prepared on the basis of said financial statements. Based on these documents the CAft will advise upon the responsibility of the State for the financial year 2015. The Board observes that Aruba is tackling the improvement of its financial management expeditiously. The Board welcomes the intention of the government to request the Central Audit Agency to draw up a realistic timetable and a plan of action which will result in an unqualified auditors report on the financial statements.
GREAT BAY (DCOMM):--- Ministry of Public Housing, Environment, Spatial Development and Infrastructure (Ministry VROMI), announces that as of Friday, September 30th, the entrance to the St. Peters main road, from the L.B. Scott road will be closed during the weekend for the next three weeks.

The entrance to the Cupper drive will also be closed during the week of the school break from September 30th until October 10th, to enable the Contractor Designers Choice N.V. to connect the St. Peters road main sewage line and Cupper drives onto the existing sewage line on the L.B. Scott road.

The execution of the works will commence Friday evening at 9:00 pm with the closure of the St. Peters main road and Cupper drive. During the execution of the works, residence residing on the St. Peters main road will have access to their homes by means of a detour via the Messaple road. Cupper drive will be completely closed to all traffic.

During the execution of the project the detour from St. Peters to L.B. Scott road and vice versa will be directed thru the Mesapple road. Marigot Hill road will remain a one-way road to the L.B. Scott road as is the present situation.

The overall objective of the project is to connect the homes alongside the main road of St. Peters and Cupper drive to the main sewage line on the L.B. Scott road which will further transport the waste water to the Waste Water Treatment Plant, located on the A.T. Illidge road.

With the connecting of the homes to the main sewerage lines, the existing issues of running sewerage water on the main road of St. Peters will be eliminated and will be something of the past.

During the execution of the project the residents of St. Peters and motorists that utilize the St. Peters road and the L.B. Scott road will experience some inconvenience.

Further information about the Project St. Peters House Connection can be obtained at Ministry of VROMI, Department of New Projects Development and Planning, tel. 542-4289, Project Manager, ing. Bako Maynard, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and/or Department Head New Projects Development and Planning, ing. Kurt A. Ruan, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Ministry VROMI apologizes for any inconveniences this may cause.
GREAT BAY (DCOMM):--- The St. Maarten Tourist Bureau staff recently attended a workshop on guest/customer services.

The facilitator for the training was Glen Yeung of SXM Hospitality Educational Institute, located at Backstreet 172, Philipsburg.

Yeung certification program is part of the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute.

The workshop focused on seven main points in achieving good customer service, which was Authenticity, Intuition Empathy, Champion, Delight, Delivery, and Initiative.

Minister of Tourism and Economic Affairs Ingrid Arrindell and Glen Yeung presented the staff with their certificates.
MCPHS AskMolly Crowned Best Student Startup at Massachusetts Largest Collegiate Pitch-Off

Posted by Publisher Hardware

CAMBRIDGE, MA  (Marketwired)  09/29/16  Eleven student teams gathered last night at Hatch Fenway to present their entrepreneurial dreams to a standing-room-only crowd of business leaders, influential media and seasoned investors at the Next Generation of Ideas, featuring the fourth annual .

When the dust had finally settled, from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Science (MCPHS) was named the winner. AskMolly is a real-time, authoritative database of illicit substances that provides unique drug information resources for pharmacists, healthcare professionals, and first responders. Co-founder Shivani Shah shared that she was inspired to create AskMolly for her senior capstone business project after being overwhelmed on her clinical rotations by the number of patients who were using illicit drugs and receiving inadequate care due to the lack of reliable resources about those substances and their interactions with prescription medicines.

Second place went to Babson Colleges for its online search directory connecting military veterans and families with high impact, independent benefits in areas such as healthcare, education, employment and job training, finance and business. Boston Colleges took third place with its mobile and web application that turns every smart device into a personal DJ booth by enabling two or more users to play a song at the exact same time.

Assuming the role of venture investors for the night, the 300+ Beantown Throwdown audience members determined the winners by investing millions of dollars of MITEFMoney in the companies of their choice. Schools and their teams included:

/Babson College

Berklee College of Music

/Boston College

/Boston University

/ Harvard University

/MCPHS

/MIT

/ Northeastern University

/ Tufts University

/UMass Boston

/UMass Lowell

/Wentworth Institute of Technology

Congratulations to AskMolly for capturing the audiences attention and money with your mission to empower healthcare professionals with knowledge on illicit substances, said Katja Wald, Executive Director, MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge. This promises to be an important tool for healthcare professionals and first responders dealing with rampant opioid abuse and other effects of drug use. All of the teams deserve celebration  their hard work and creativity inspires. We encourage them to keep pursuing their entrepreneurial dreams here in Bostons innovation community.

The evening kicked off with a fireside chat about entrepreneurship moderated by Boston Globe Innovation Economy columnist and a panel of local innovation community luminaries, including Elsa Sze, Founder and CEO of ; Frederick Townes, Co-Founder and COO, ; Rebecca Liebman, Co-Founder, ; and Maia Heymann, General Partner, .

Sponsored by and showcasing the highest number of Massachusetts colleges and universities at a single entrepreneurial student business pitch competition, the Next Generation of Ideas, featuring the Beantown Throwdown was a signature event during . Hosted by MIT, Harvard University, The Boston Globe, and Mass General Hospital, the week-long, city-wide festival celebrates ideas and innovation in the Boston area.

The winning teams will all receive prize packages from Beantown Throwdown sponsors , , , , , and that include in-kind legal and marketing services, and the opportunity to pitch for additional funding.

The MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge is the founding chapter and one of comprising the . Offering more than 40 programs and events annually that inspire innovation, MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge initiatives facilitate critical one-on-one mentoring while providing team services that increase the skills and expertise necessary for entrepreneurs to succeed.

HUBweek is a festival for the future. A first-of-its-kind civic collaboration between The Boston Globe, Harvard University, MIT, and Mass. General Hospital, HUBweek engages the Greater Boston community to celebrate innovation and creativity at the intersections of art, science, and technology. In 2016, over 130 organizations have come together to celebrate the future in Boston and will explore three themes at HUBweek: inclusive innovation, ideas to impact, and intersections. From hands-on workshops, full-day summits, and a massive Demo Day to open studios, film festivals, and even beer brewed from the Charles, HUBweek will showcase the most creative and inventive people making an impact in Boston and around the world.

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Carro Halpin

CHEN PR for MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge

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Pythian Now Offers Google BigQuery Services to Its Enterprise Customers

NEW YORK, NEW YORK  (Marketwired)  09/29/16  Strata + Hadoop World  Pythian, a 400-person global IT services company that helps companies adopt disruptive technologies to better compete, announced today that it now offers expert consulting and managed services for Google BigQuerys cloud data warehouse.

Pythian is equipped to plan, implement and manage enterprise migrations to Google Cloud Platform and help enterprises take advantage of BigQuerys capabilities, utilizing Google Cloud Platform Qualified Solutions Developers and Data Analysts. Pythians latest white paper, outlines a process, areas to consider, as well as frequently asked questions and concerns when undertaking a project of this nature.

BigQuery opens up many new opportunities for big enterprises to extract more value from their data quickly and helps remove adoption barriers, said Alex Gorbachev, Pythians Chief Digital Officer. As its different from traditional infrastructure- as-a-service cloud solutions we bring expertise and experience to help bridge the gap for companies so they can use everything Google has to offer, wherever they are in their cloud journey.

Recently, one of Pythians retail customers needed to ingest and process a stream of live in-store visitor location data from more than 2,500 stores worldwide, with more than 4,000 daily visitors in each location. Gorbachev described the solution Pythian built as a cost-effective real-time data pipeline on Google Cloud Platform with BigQuery at its center serving analytical queries.

Pythian has collaborated on a number of Google Cloud Platform service launches. Pythian was one of a select group of recommended partners for Kubernetes, as well as Google Cloud Dataproc, Google Cloud Bigtable, Google Cloud SQL and Google Cloud Dataflow. Earlier in the week, at HbaseCon East, Pythian presented an integrated solution of OpenTSDB with Google Cloud Bigtable.

Visit Pythian for more on its solutions for Google Cloud Platform. Pythian will be sponsoring Google NEXT in London, UK, on October 20, 2016.

About Pythian

Pythian is a global IT services company that helps companies compete by adopting disruptive technologies such as , , , , and to advance innovation and increase agility. Specializing in designing, implementing, and managing systems that directly contribute to revenue growth and business success, Pythians highly skilled technical teams work as an integrated extension of our clients organizations to deliver continuous transformation and uninterrupted operational excellence.

Contacts:

Media Contact:

Lynda Partner

613-794-8474
Cherubim Interests, Inc. Subsidiary Sub-Contracts Roofing Work From Insurance Restoration GC

DALLAS, TX  (Marketwired)  09/29/16  Victura Roofing LLC, (VR) a subsidiary of Cherubim Interests, Inc. (OTC PINK: CHIT) (the Company), an expansion-stage alternative construction and real estate development company, announces that it has begun providing turnkey roofing services for Cherubim Builders Group LLC. (CBG), a well-seasoned Insurance Restoration General Contractor in the DFW- Metroplex.

CBG is a wholly owned subsidiary of Victura Construction Group Inc., (OTC PINK: VICT). CBG has three wholly owned subsidiaries in its umbrella: Watermasters Restoration, Inc.; Metroplex Home Repair Inc. dba Gregg Construction, and Designer Lane, LLC. The Companies each are organized for the purpose of providing general contracting services within the residential and commercial construction industry. The companies also provide residential water, fire and storm restoration and reconstruction services for multiple nationally recognized insurance providers. Designer Lane specializes in design services and product sales for residential and commercial reconstruction and remodeling, specializing in custom kitchens, cabinets, counter-tops, built-ins, bathrooms and outdoor living areas.

We are excited about the relationship with CBG, states CHIT CEO Patrick Johnson. Victura Roofing is excited to be a single-source roofing subcontractor for a well-seasoned organization. We expect the two entities to feed off one another as they each focus on separate insurance-industry restoration subsets. Victura Roofing will provide roofing services for CBG, but will also be a great source of other general construction opportunities in the restoration industry that CBG can benefit from due to their ability to manage restoration projects under insurance contractor program guidelines. Most times in catastrophic situations such as extreme hail events, roofing companies encounter additional work that needs to be performed on damaged homes. These additional work opportunities can be then subcontracted back to CBG when applicable, states Johnson.

Victura Construction Group, Inc. (OTC PINK: VICT), is a holding company focused on strategic acquisitions within the construction industry that service both residential and commercial sectors in new development and construction projects, insurance restoration and re-build following any covered loss or catastrophic event and materials supply opportunities within the industry.

Victura operates with excellent business practices and management expertise, sound ethics, financial resources as applicable, and utilizes strategic industry relationships to help add to the success of any acquired company(s).

CBG has three wholly owned subsidiaries in its umbrella that provide general contracting services within the residential and commercial construction industries and also provide residential water, fire and storm restoration and reconstruction services for the insurance industry.

The companies can be found at

Victura Roofing is led by industry professionals with a 20-year track record of success and a well-established platform for market business opportunities in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex.

The company can be found at:

Cherubim Interests specializes in alternative construction projects, as well as covering the entire spectrum of real estate development: due diligence, acquisition, planning, construction, renovation, and management; providing complete beginning-to-end development programs for mixed use, single, and multifamily projects and properties.

For more information, visit

This release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E and/or 27E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that are based upon assumptions that in the future may prove not to have been accurate and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties, including statements as to the future performance of the company and the risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in reports filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Statements contained in this release that are not historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain. Although the company believes that the expectations reflected in its forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations or any of its forward-looking statements will prove to be correct. Factors that could cause results to differ include, but are not limited to, the companys ability to raise necessary financing, retention of key personnel, timely delivery of inventory from the companys suppliers, timely product development, product acceptance, and the impact of competitive services and products, in addition to general economic risks and uncertainties.

Cherubim Interests, Inc.

Patrick J. Johnson

Chief Executive Officer

(844) 842-8872
Simlatus Receives Purchase Order From Link Electronics

GRASS VALLEY, CA  (Marketwired)  09/29/16  Simlatus Corporation (OTC PINK: SIML)

Simlatus is an audio/video commercial equipment revenue generating company; it develops, manufactures, markets and owns proprietary technology for the commercial broadcast and audio-video industries worldwide. Selling millions of dollars worth of equipment over the past 18 years to companies like CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, ESPN and DirecTV, the Company is now entering the $150 Billion Immersive Technologies Device Industry, with its new Immersive Broadcast Studio (IBS) to be introduced in late 2017, while at the same time introducing its new SyncPal to the 10,000 TV Studios with a potential $30M revenue stream in sales. SyncPal will be introduced the first quarter of 2017.

Chairman Bob Stillwaugh stated, We received a purchase order this week from Link Electronics (LEI) to purchase our 161 Analog Video/Audio Routing Switchers. LEI has been purchasing our systems under their private-label LINK for the past 15 years. Link Electronics was founded in 1989 on a principle of developing quality products at a competitive price for the broadcast industry. From the beginning LEI developed state of the art products for both audio and video applications.

Chairman Stillwaugh further stated, The Company continues to receive purchase orders and will deliver more products this week for its other private-label, Ensemble Designs. As equally important, the company will be filing an 8-K in the next few weeks to announce a material event regarding the introduction of our newest product, Immersive Broadcast Studio, for the Immersive Technology markets. We plan to capitalize on strong relationships we have with our existing global distribution and with the major studios that are using our technology, in order to fast-track our sales of this product. The new technology will allow the studio engineers the availability to use our AVR Headset to virtually access the inside of their studio, and with our augmented software, control the Simlatus products from any where in the world. This will be a major break through for studios, mobile studio units and management which will improve studio quality controls.

The company auditor has completed the amended audit ending March 31, 2014 pursuant the request from the Securities and Exchange Commission. This audit will be filed and satisfy this matter.

:

manufactures Broadcast Equipment that has been sold over the past 18 years through its 55 distributors to companies such as CBS, FOX, NBC, ESPN, ABC and DirecTV. In the past several months the company has sold products to FOX News, and DirecTV, as well as to one of the largest nuclear plants in the country using Simlatus products for their surveillance systems.

This news release includes forward-looking statements. While these statements are made to convey to the public the companys progress, business opportunities and growth prospects, readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements represent managements opinion. Whereas management believes such representations to be true and accurate based on information and data available to the company at this time, actual results may differ materially from those described. The Companys operations and business prospects are always subject to risk and uncertainties. Important factors that may cause actual results to differ are and will be set forth in the companys periodic filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Investors:

Chris Hoffman

Simlatus Corporation

(800) 390-8446
Ultra-Broadband Forum 2016 Paves the Way Towards A Better Connected World

FRANKFURT, GERMANY  (Marketwired)  09/29/16  The Ultra-Broadband Forum 2016 officially opened today in Frankfurt, Germany. With the theme of UBB 2020, Towards A Better Connected World, the forum is focusing on three hot topics, including Broadband Network Development, Video Industry and Business Innovation in the Cloud Era and attracted over 600 industry elites, technology experts, opinion leaders and partners to exchange their viewpoints on the development trend of ultra-broadband industry and the new business opportunities for telecom operators.

An intelligent world is forming and the need for ultra-broadband networks is growing at an unprecedented pace. There are currently 350 deployed Gigabit network projects across the globe, and it is now well accepted that the ultra-broadband network is going to be the cornerstone of the intelligent world.

Houlin Zhao, Co-Vice Chair of the Broadband Commission, ITU Secretary-General, said in his opening speech: I firmly believe that the ultra-broadband networks as well as relevant services and applications are going to provide numerous unprecedented opportunities in the field of healthcare, education, employment, transportation, agriculture, trade and governmental services, and greatly promote the growth of the global economy. In the 21st century, broadband networks surely will become an indispensable infrastructure like roads, railways, drinking-water and electricity supply networks.

In order to support the ultra-broadband industry development to accommodate the intelligent world, Huawei continues to drive the development of ultra-broadband technology, and to optimize its ultra-broadband strategy so as to support telecom operators current and future business needs.

Huawei believes that video services are the most important business opportunity for telecom operators today. Eric Xu, Deputy Chairman of the Board, Rotating CEO, Huawei, said: Telecoms who are doing well in video have embraced it as a strategic core offering for boosting ARPU, subscriber base, and overall broadband business. For them, video is far more than a value-added service. At the forum, Huawei executives and technology experts articulate Huaweis video strategy which is designed to enable operators to position video services as their basic business and eventually achieve business success in video industry.

Looking forward, Huawei believes that the industrys digital transformation is another strategic opportunity for operators. Operators should rethink their positioning and business scope in both B2C, B2B as well as IoT markets. As enterprise customers require integrated ICT services which can provide the R.O.A.D.S experience instead of basic communications services, operators need to cloudify and transform themselves into cloud service providers, and only then will they be able to meet enterprise customers ever-growing demand for digitalization.

Ryan Ding, Executive Director and President of Products & Solutions, Huawei, said that, Customers needs for Gigaband have been growing exponentially. The ultra-broadband network is going to be the cornerstone of the intelligent world. While the ultra-broadband forum is in its third year, Huawei, as the core initiator of it, firmly believes that the ultra-broadband network is going to enable customers business success across the globe. With the efforts of all parties, we will surely co-create a healthy and sustainable eco system of ultra-broadband industry.

Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. Our aim is to enrich life and improve efficiency through a better connected world, acting as a responsible corporate citizen, innovative enabler for the information society, and collaborative contributor to the industry. Driven by customer-centric innovation and open partnerships, Huawei has established an end-to-end ICT solutions portfolio that gives customers competitive advantages in telecom and enterprise networks, devices and cloud computing. Huaweis 170,000 employees worldwide are committed to creating maximum value for telecom operators, enterprises and consumers. Our innovative ICT solutions, products and services are used in more than 170 countries and regions, serving over one-third of the worlds population. Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company fully owned by its employees.

For more information, please visit Huawei online at or follow us on:

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Miranda Liu
Report Generator combit List & Label Will Face its Competition at the EMEA PUG Challenge

Posted by Publisher Software

At this years EMEA PUG Challenge in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, Head of Development Jochen Bartlau will present the List & Label reporting tool in a Vendor Battle. A number of international Progress user groups will participate in the conference Oct 05  Oct 07, 2016. In the Reporting Vendor Battle several manufacturers will respond to critical questions from the community on available commercial and open source reporting components.

Especially for developers working with Progress, it is often not easy to find a reliable and flexible reporting tool for their application, explains Jochen Bartlau. I am pleased that we component manufacturers can provide a thorough overview to the community in this battle, to assist them in their development projects. The 90-minute event will be held on Wednesday Oct 05, 2016 at 03:15 PM at Grand Hotel Huis ter Duin in Noordwijk.

Additional information and registration for the EMEA PUG Challenge:
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Deputy Platte County Attorney Elizabeth Lay appeared before senators again Wednesday to say serious problems with emergency mental health treatment has not changed in more than a year.

Lay appeared before the Task Force on Behavioral and Mental Health, chaired by Lincoln Sen. Kate Bolz, to talk about the need to solve the problem of what to do for violent and dangerous people with mental illness who are picked up by police.

She gave the same speech a year ago to the Judiciary Committee.

Were still having problems, a lot of problems, finding placement for these people who are violent and combative, that private hospitals dont want to take, she said.

To get into the Lincoln Regional Center a person has to have a mental health board commitment, she said. So counties are having to find loopholes in the system to get people off the streets, like sending them to the overcrowded (Department of Correctional Services) Diagnostic and Evaluation Center for evaluations.

Some of them end up in prisons or jails, even though thats far from the best place for them.

We want to make sure were doing the fairest possible thing for this person. We want to make sure were treating the primary cause of the problem, whether it be criminal in nature or mental in nature, Lay said. Its very important to distinguish those two things, and treat the cause of the problem.

A behavioral needs assessment, presented to the task force by Shinobu Watanabe-Galloway, associate professor with the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, showed mental health disorders are widespread and chronic in the state.

But access to treatment, combined with peoples willingness to seek treatment, is low.

The study showed women report poorer mental health status and experience depression more often than men. People who have lower incomes and less education have poorer mental health.

Poverty has been increasing in the state since 2010, she said. And in 2015, more than one in 10 people had no health insurance.

The study also showed one-fourth of high school students reported feeling depressed in the past year, and about 15 percent reported they considered suicide.

In 2015, 43 percent of young adult Nebraskans reported binge drinking within the past month, with the overall rate for all adults being one of the highest in the country.

Also, about half of Nebraska adults reported at least one adverse childhood experience, including abuse, neglect and a range of dysfunction in the home.

Medical issues often accompany mental illness, Watanabe-Galloway said, including heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

There is a severe shortage of behavioral health providers in Nebraska, she said. Only 12 counties have psychiatrists. And many of them are nearing retirement age.

Watanabe-Galloway said without enough treatment available, the wait for community-based treatment averages about 20 days. The average wait for people needing substance abuse treatment is 37 days.

Researchers and public health officials say there needs to be a campaign to raise awareness that mental health issues are as important as chronic medical issues, she said. Awareness is still low in this state, and most people dont know how to access care.

A lot of times people who are experiencing problems in family members do not recognize the signs of mental illness, she said. And if they do not recognize the signs of mental illness, they do not seek care.

And the issue of access to care also needs to be addressed.

Were losing services in our community faster than we are gaining services in our community, Deputy Platte County Attorney Lay said.

Adding to the problems are low provider rates, said Annette Dubas, executive director of the Nebraska Association of Behavioral Health Organizations. A long-range, comprehensive review and rebuilding of rates would be a huge step in creating stability in the system, she said.

Without adequate rates we cant build capacity. And without capacity it will impact access, Dubas said.

The task force of seven members, created this year, grew out of a Legislative Performance Audit report that found the need for additional study of ways to reduce behavioral and mental health care service gaps in the state.

A report by the task force to the Legislature is due Dec. 1.
A senior U.S. official says an international conference scheduled for next week in Brussels is expected to bring pledges totaling more than $3 billion in development support for Afghanistan through the year 2020.

Richard Olson, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, made the remarks on September 29 at a forum in Washington.

Olson said the U.S. government would seek through Congress to maintain U.S. assistance to Afghanistan at, or near current levels during the next four years.

The European Union and Afghanistan are hosting the donor conference on October 4-5 in Brussels to seek support for reforms needed to develop and stabilize the country.

Representatives from some 70 countries and 30 international organizations and agencies are scheduled to attend the donors conference.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AP
ALGONA  An Algona man accused of sexually exploiting a child for pornographic purposes is due in federal court next week.

Adam Perry, 44, was indicted on charges of sexual exploitation of a child and possessing child pornography.

A hearing to discuss conditions of his incarceration will be held Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Sioux City

Perry is accused of using a juvenile on May 14 to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions of the activity, according to the indictment.

The indictment also accuses him of possessing child pornography on May 16.

The Algona Police Department searched Perrys home in Algona earlier this year.

Perry was being held without bond Thursday at the Woodbury County Jail in Sioux City.

 Molly Montag.
5 seats up for election on St. Joseph County Council, majority at stake

Five of the nine seats on the St. Joseph County Council are up for election
MASON CITY  Anne Holton, wife of Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine, gave a rousing endorsement of Hillary Clinton Friday and stressed the importance of a high voter turnout.

Holton spoke to a crowd of 75 at the Cerro Gordo County Democratic headquarters.

Its going to be a close race, she said. I know it makes no sense but thats the way it is.

She said her husband, who she said is her best political adviser, said close elections are won at the grassroots level. And grassroots are even more important this time, said Holton.

She said the campaign season has been noisy and that often makes people tired of it and thinking their vote doesnt matter. When we convince people their vote matters, democracy works, said Holton.

She never mentioned Donald Trump by name during her 20-minute talk but said Clinton is the most qualified candidate  qualified in temperament, qualified in experience  adding, and we get to break the glass ceiling.

Rather than touting Clintons professional experience, Holton zeroed in on more personal qualities.

She is the person in the room who is worried about everybody (in the room), thinking about everybody.

When she is on a bus, she worries about the bus driver. When she is around me, she worries about me, Holton said.

She is a multi-tasking mom extraordinaire. What she wants for her children and grandchildren she wants for all children.
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MASON CITY | The annual Remember My Name event honoring Iowans who lost their lives as a result of domestic violence will take place Oct. 7 at the Mason City Public Library.

The event will take place from noon to 1 p.m. in the Mason City Room.

A free lunch will be provided at noon with a program beginning at 12:15 p.m.

More than 270 Iowans have been killed in domestic violence-related homicides between Jan. 1, 1995, and March 31, 2016.

Remember My Name is sponsored by the North Iowa Domestic Assault & Sexual Abuse Community Coalition.
The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft crash-landed on its target Comet 67P, shown in this artist's illustration, on Sept. 30, 2016, ending a historic 12-year mission to explore and land on a comet.

DARMSTADT, Germany  For the last two years, the Rosetta spacecraft has danced around a comet. Today, it finally made contact with the icy body  and sent its last signal.

This screenshot from ESA's broadcast of the Rosetta spacecraft's crash on Comet 67P shows the signal confirming the crash at 7:19 a.m. ET. on Sept. 30, 2016 at the Rosetta Mission Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. Read our full story here. (Image credit: ESA)

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Rosetta probe ended its historic mission with a controlled descent to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko early this morning (Sept. 30). Scientists here at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) received the confirmation of landing from the spacecraft at about 1:19 p.m. local time (7:19 a.m. EDT/1119 GMT).

"I can announce the full success of this historic descent," said Patrick Martin, Rosetta mission manager, as he declared mission operations ended. "Farewell Rosetta, you've done the job. That was pure science at its best." [Photos: Europe's Rosetta Comet Mission in Pictures]

Comets are primitive cosmic objects, left over from the time our solar system was just starting to take shape 4.6 billion years ago. Exploring the structure, composition and activity of these icy bodies could shed light on the evolution of our solar system, and help scientists write a more comprehensive history of how the building blocks of life were first delivered to Earth.

Previous robotic expeditions have made close encounters with comets. NASA's Stardust mission even captured dust from the cloud around Comet Wild 2 and returned the sample to Earth in 2006. But Rosetta was the first to orbit a comet, the first to follow one around the sun and the first to send a probe to thesurface of a comet's nucleus.

Rosettas OSIRIS narrow-angle camera captured this image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at 08:18 GMT from an altitude of about 5.8 km during the spacecrafts final descent on 30 September. (Image credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA)

Today's landing marks the end of an ambitious 1.3-billion-euro ($1.46 billion) mission that spanned more than a decade. The Rosetta spacecraft launched in March 2004, and after a 10-year cruise through the inner solar system covering a distance of 4 billion miles (6.5 billion km), it rendezvoused with Comet 67P in August 2014. Three months later, Rosetta deployed its surface probe Philae. But instead of anchoring to the comet's surface as planned, Philae bounced twice before coming to a stop against a cliff face in the Abydos region. Rosetta only spotted the final resting place of Philae earlier this month.

First observed in 1969, the 2.5-mile-wide (4 km) Comet 67P circles the sun every 6.5 years between the orbits of Earth and Jupiter. Right now the comet is heading back out toward the orbit of Jupiter, and Rosetta, which is solar-powered, wouldn't have enough energy to keep up, so the mission had to come to an end. The spacecraft will stop sending data as soon as it touches down, meaning mission scientists won't know if it tumbles or bounces like Philae did after it lands. [Rosetta Probe's 'Death Dive' Into Comet 67P Visualized]

The two-part Rosetta spacecraft is designed to orbit and land on the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November 2014. See how the Rosetta spacecraft works in this Space.com infographic (Image credit: by Karl Tate, Infographics Artist)

ESA has already released the final images that Rosetta collected on its way down to the comet's surface.

"It's really great," said Holger Sierks, the principal investigator for Rosetta's OSIRIS camera, as he presented some of the probe's final views. "It' exciting. Its working like a charm."

Comet 67P is very porous with low gravity, so Rosetta's landing likely looked more like a slow-motion collision than a violent crash. The spacecraft executed its final maneuver around midnight local time (6:00 p.m. EDT; 2200 GMT) yesterday (Sept. 29) and began a 14-hour, 12-mile (20 km) drop to the comet's surface. ESA officials had calculated that its speed upon impact would be about walking pace, or 2 mph (3.2 km/h).

The controlled impact was designed to give ESA scientists a closer look at surface features they had only spied from afar.

"We got pretty close to the comet recently with the orbits we were doing," Matt Taylor, Rosetta project scientist with ESA, told Space.com. "We got within about 2 kilometers [1.2 miles] from the surface. But this plummet into the surface gets us in below 2 kilometers. It gets us within the acceleration region, where the comet coma grows and starts being thrown off."

The death dive was also an opportunity for Rosetta's suite of instruments to take measurements as it passes through the layer where the phase transition occurs between ice and gas.

Rosetta's final resting place is a smooth patch in the so-called Ma'at region on the "head" of the rubber duck-shaped comet.

This particular spot has a number of dust-spewing pits  some 330 feet (100 m) across and 165 feet (50 m) deep  that scientists wanted Rosetta's instruments to observe before the mission ended. The walls of these pits appear dotted with "goosebumps" that could be signatures of early comet building blocks known as cometesimals.

The mission has already produced a number of surprising discoveries  that the Comet 67P has big grains of water ice on its surface, molecular oxygen in its coma, diverse landscapes and a fluffy core, just to name a few. But Rosetta scientists still have reams of data to pore over. So, even with today's finale, the work isn't over.

"We have 80,000 images to look at," Mohamed El-Maarry, a postdoctoral researcher with Rosetta's OSIRIS team, from the University of Bern in Switzerland, told reporters yesterday. "It's going to keep us busy for years to come."

Follow Megan Gannon @meganigannon, or Space.com us @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebookand Google+. Original article on Space.com.
On the morning of Sept. 30, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft crash-landed on the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, ending a 12-year mission to study a comet like never before. Launched in 2004, the Rosetta spacecraft visited asteroids before arriving in orbit around Comet 67P in August 2014. In November of that year, Rosetta's lander Philae made a historic landing on Comet 67P  a major space feat.

Main story: Goodbye, Rosetta! Spacecraft Crash-Lands on Comet in Epic Mission Finale

Artist's illustration of Europe's Rosetta probe ending its mission by touching down on Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Sept. 30, 2016. (Image credit: ESA/ATG medialab)

Photos, Video & Infographics

Full Coverage

Friday, Sept. 30

Parting Shots: The Rosetta Spacecraft's Last Photos of Comet 67P

Rosetta captured its last view of Comet 67P on Sept. 30, 2016 from an altitude of about 65 feet (20 meters).

Death of a Spacecraft: Bittersweet Mood as Rosetta Crash-Lands on Comet

Today (Sept. 30) marks the end of operations for the European Space Agency's (ESA) historic Rosetta mission, and the mood felt almost funereal as the postlanding celebration began.

Goodbye, Rosetta! Spacecraft Crash-Lands on Comet in Epic Mission Finale

The Rosetta probe drifted down to the surface of Comet 67P today (Sept. 30) and ended its 12-year mission.

Rosetta Comet Spacecraft Is About to Plunge to Its Death

At around 6:40 a.m. EDT (1040 GMT) today (Sept. 30), Rosetta is scheduled to crash-land intentionally on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, ending the European spacecraft's epic 12-year mission.

Thursday, Sept. 29

'Ambition: Epilogue' Pays Tribute to Rosetta's Final Comet Days

The European Space Agency has commissioned a sequel to the short film "Ambition," honoring a historic mission that's about to come to a dramatic end.

Rosetta's Final Day: Scientists Await Comet Probe's Crash

Europe's Rosetta spacecraft will end its mission Friday (Sept. 30) by landing on the comet it's been orbiting for the last two years.

Rosetta and Its Kin: A History of Comet and Asteroid Missions

As Rosetta closes out its dramatic mission with a descent to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the European orbiter joins a long list of cometary and small-body missions that have helped us learn more about the early solar system.

The two-part Rosetta spacecraft is designed to orbit and land on the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November 2014. See how the Rosetta spacecraft works in this Space.com infographic (Image credit: by Karl Tate, Infographics Artist)

Wednesday, Sept. 28

How to Watch Europe's Rosetta Comet Mission Finale on Thursday, Friday

Europe's history-making Rosetta comet mission is coming to an end, and you can watch the grand finale live Thursday and Friday (Sept. 29 and Sept. 30).

Rosetta Probe's 'Death Dive' Into Comet 67P Visualized

The European Space Agency's Rosetta probe will meet its demise on September 30, 2016 when a maneuver is performed to make it crash into Comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko. This visualization shows the descent, but stops short of it crashing.

Tuesday, Sept. 27

First Comet-Orbiting Spacecraft Set to Crash-Land Friday

The first spacecraft to orbit a comet will end its historic mission on Friday (Sept. 30) with a crash landing.

Rosetta Probe's 'Death Dive' Into Comet 67P Coming - Mission Highlights

The European Space Agency's Rosetta probe will plummet it into the surface of comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko on Sept. 30th, 2016, putting an end to the mission. Take a look back at the historic mission through the lens of ESA and Euronews.

Mission Milestones

Rosetta Spacecraft's Last Move: A Daring Dive Toward Comet Pits

Philae Lander's Grave on Comet Found at Last After Nearly 2-Year Search

Rosetta Probe's Complicated Orbit Of Comet 67P Visualized - 2 Year Time-Lapse

Goodbye Philae: Comet Lander Comm Link Switched Off

Comet Probe Will Be Destroyed - Incredible Records and Discoveries Explained

Rosetta's Comet Is Fluffy Dust to the Core

Rosetta's Philae Comet Landing: November 2014

Main Landing Story: European Spacecraft Lands on Comet in Historic Space Feat

After 10 years and 4 billion miles, humanity's first spacecraft to land on a comet has reached its destination. The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission has landed its Philae probe on the surface of Comet 67P/C-G.

Google Doodle Celebrates Europe's Comet Landing

Scientists and space fans aren't the only ones excited for ESA's historic comet landing. See how Google joined the celebration.

Here's What a Comet 317 Million Miles Away Looks Like to a Landing Spacecraft

This is the view you would have seen if you could have taken a ride on Europe's Philae lander as it descended to the surface of a comet.

1st Comet Approach Photos from European Spacecraft

The first photos are out of ESA's unprecedented comet landing attempt. See photos of Philae lander's departure from its Rosetta mothership here.

Special Report: Rosetta Mission's Historic Comet Landing: Full Coverage

More Resources

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It can be hard to put some space missions into words. Though our robotic emissaries are built from metal and computer chips, their exploration of the solar system takes us on an emotional voyage. The satellites, probes, landers and rovers develop their own personalities as they observe and sample some of the most dangerous regions in our solar system.

So when these missions come to an end, it is a poignant time. And a historic mission is about to come to a sudden, dramatic end. The European Rosetta mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko will carry out a controlled descent to the comet's surface on Friday morning at around 10:40 a.m. GMT (6:40 a.m. ET), ending its 12 year space odyssey to chase down a comet and become the first mission in history to remain in orbit.

RELATED: 'Ambition' Beautifully Blends Science, Art and Fantasy

Before Rosetta arrived in orbit about 67P in 2014, the European Space Agency commissioned a beautiful, futuristic short film about the purpose of Rosetta and humanity's nature to explore. It was called "Ambition." As we prepare to say farewell to Rosetta, ESA has released a second film called "Ambition: Epilogue," starring Aisling Franciosi, who also starred in the first film alongside Aidan Gillen.

It's brilliant.

"After her long, arduous training, our young Apprentice is now a fully fledged Master of cosmic origins, exploring an alien planet rich with water and life. But something familiar crosses her mind. Memories from her training, and Rosetta's historic journey to catch a comet. She returns to the archives..."

And in case you want to remember the first installment, watch the original "Ambition" here:

Recent Rosetta news:

Originally published on Discovery News.
Earth's moon during a waxing crescent phase. When the moon's Earth-facing side is entirely in shadow, it is known as a new moon.

Even though it will be nearly invisible to skywatchers, a rare Black Moon will be in North American skies today (Sept. 30).

A Black Moon is a newer term that refers to the second new moon in a month. The moon goes through regular phases because of its changing alignment with the Earth and the sun. The new moon phase occurs when the sun is completely illuminating the far side of the moon, making the Earth-facing side completely dark and nearly impossible to see.

But just like the term Blue Moon  which refers to the second full moon in a month  the term Black Moon has no scientific significance, at least not usually. The exception is when the new moon blocks the disk of the sun in the sky, producing a solar eclipse. [Black Moon 2016: What It Is & Why You Can't See It]

The fact that humans know about the phases of the moon, including the invisible new moon, "shows off how smart we are," Dean Regas, an outreach astronomer for the Cincinnati Observatory who also co-hosts the PBS program "Star Gazers," told Space.com. " Even though we can't see it, we know it's there."

Regas added that the proliferation of new terms about moons in the past few years  such as Black Moon and super moon  produces mixed feelings in him, because there's a danger of creating false events that don't have any significant astronomical significance. But he says he was"won over" by the super moon concept, which refers to a full moon that takes place when the moon is at its closest point to Earth in the year.

"It's a great way to get the public interested," he said of the super moon. "It's something that they can relate to and they can go out and actually see."

New moon usefulness

While the new moon doesn't produce a spectacular sight in the night sky, the fact that the moon is not lit at all is a boon for stargazers. The moon's light, especially after it reaches the half-full stage, can interfere with observations of fainter objects in the sky, like distant stars and galaxies.

One example of an excellent "new moon" activity is trying to observe an occultation, which occurs when the moon passes on top of another celestial object from the perspective of Earth. These occultations are tricky to find, and are often only visible over a small geographic area.

"Sometimes there will be an event where there's a bright star, or a cluster of stars, or a planet, or something. The moon happens to block them out," Colin Haig, director of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC), told Space.com.

Haig advised using a publication such as the RASC's Observer's Handbook to search for occultation locations. A full list of lunar occultations is also available at the International Occultation Timing Association.

If an occultation isn't happening in your area at a particular time, of course there are plenty of other things observers can look at, he said. Get as far away from light pollution as possible, and use a pair of binoculars or a telescope and look for galaxies or nebulas. In late September, thenorthern hemisphere is still facing the brightest part of the Milky Way galaxy, providing a wealth of objects for people to look at.

"The new moon is of course the best time to take a trip to see a dark sky," Tony Cook, the astronomical observer at the Griffith Observatory near light-polluted Los Angeles, told Space.com. He estimates that the city lights have increased ambient brightness by two to three times since 1987, when he took a picture of the night sky that shows faint objects that are invisible today.

"At the phase of new moon, the moon is near the sun in the sky, so it rises and sets with the sun and therefore is not visible at night at all," he added. "It makes for the best natural viewing conditions to see faint objects."

Slooh Community Observatory will host a webcast Monday, Oct. 3 at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) to show live views of the young moon, viewable on their website and also on Space.com. The webcast will feature discussion with special guests including Slooh's spiritual correspondent Helen Avery, who will discuss the Black Moon's significance to pagan religion, and there will also be a discussion of how to define the Black Moon when dealing with multiple time zones.

Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
The first people who fly with SpaceX to Mars should be OK with the possibility that the decision could cost them their lives, company founder and CEO Elon Musk said.

SpaceX aims to ferry 1 million people to the Red Planet over the next 50 to 100 years using the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), a rocket-spaceship combo that Musk unveiled Tuesday (Sept. 27) during a talk at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Guadalajara, Mexico. (Well, he unveiled the ITS in concept; neither vehicle has been built yet.)

Musk painted a picture of a not-too-distant future in which 1,000 or more ITS spaceships, each loaded up with 100 or 200 settlers, zoom off toward Mars simultaneously from Earth orbit. But it's naive to expect that everything will work perfectly from the start, he said. [Images: SpaceX's Interplanetary Transport for Mars Colonization]

"I think the first journeys to Mars are going to be really very dangerous. The risk of fatality will be high; there's just no way around it," Musk said at the IAC, adding that, for this reason, he would not suggest sending children on these flights.

"It would be, basically, 'Are you prepared to die?' If that's OK, then, you know, you're a candidate for going," he said.

Musk said he'd like to go to Mars, but it's unclear if he'll be among the Red Planet vanguard. In a teleconference with reporters Tuesday after the IAC talk, he said he wasn't sure if he'd be aboard the first-ever Mars colony ship, which may be called "Heart of Gold" after a vehicle in Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

"I would definitely need to have a very good succession plan, because the probability of death is quite high on the first mission, and I'd like to see my kids grow up and everything  so, some pros and cons there," he said.

Musk has long said that he founded SpaceX in 2002 chiefly to help humanity colonize Mars. Becoming a multiplanet species would serve as an insurance policy, minimizing the risk of humanity's extinction should something terrible happen on Earth, he has said.

Musk reiterated that argument during the IAC presentation Tuesday. But he also put forth another reason why settling Mars is worth the trouble and the treasure and the risk.

"It would be an incredible adventure; it would be the most inspiring thing that I can possibly imagine," he said. "Life needs to be more than just solving problems every day. You need to wake up and be excited about the future, and be inspired and want to live."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
The last image Rosetta transmitted to Earth before it touched Comet 67P's surface on Sept. 30, 2016. The European probe took the photo when it was just 65 feet (20 meters) from the icy body.

DARMSTADT, Germany  Before ending operations, Rosetta stared down her final resting place.

The European Space Agency (ESA) released the last images that its Rosetta spacecraft captured before making a death dive into Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Friday (Sept. 30).

The last image Rosetta transmitted to Earth before it touched Comet 67P's surface on Sept. 30, 2016. The European probe took the photo when it was just 65 feet (20 meters) from the icy body. (Image credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA)

"That's the end of Rosetta," said Holger Sierks, the principal investigator for Rosetta's OSIRIS camera, as he showed reporters here at the European Space Operations Centre the final image snapped from an estimated altitude of about 65 feet (20 meters). [See all of Rosetta's last photos of Comet 67P]

The view is slightly blurry  Sierks said his team still has to sharpen the images  but the gravelly surface of the comet is clearly visible.

The scale of the image is about 5 mm/pixel (0.2 inches/pixel), and it measures about 7.6 feet (2.4 m) across, according to ESA.

Rosettas OSIRIS narrow-angle camera captured this image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at 0120 GMT from an altitude of about 16 km above the surface during the spacecrafts final descent on Sept. 30, 2016. The image scale is about 30 cm/pixel and the image measures about 614 meters across. (Image credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA)

Rosetta, which had been orbiting Comet 67P for the last two years, was not designed to survive a landing. But when it came time for the 12-year mission to end, ESA officials decided to send the probe on a collision course with the comet so the spacecraft could collect some last-minute, up-close data on this icy cosmic body.

The landing site was a region called Ma'at on the smaller of the comet's two lobes, sometimes called the "head" because the comet is shaped like a rubber duck. This region was chosen because it has several active pits, some over 330 feet (100 m) wide, where the comet's jets of gas and dust emerge. Mission managers said they had been hoping Rosetta could peer inside one of the pits dubbed Deir el-Medina. The walls of these pits also have "goose bumps" that scientists said they wanted to study in greater detail, because these lumps could represent the comet's internal building blocks.

Rosettas OSIRIS camera captured this image of Comet 67P at 0818 GMT from an altitude of about 5.8 km during the spacecrafts final descent on Sept. 30, 2016. The image scale is about 11 cm/pixel and the image measures about 225 meters across. (Image credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA)

"They give us clues about the origin of cometary nuclei," said Sierks.

The images haven't been fully analyzed yet, but Sierks said already it seems like the views inside the pit show some of the details the scientists are after.

Follow Megan Gannon @meganigannon, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebookand Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
Launch pad 1 is seen at the Tanegashima Space Center (TNSC) on Monday, Feb. 24, 2014 in Tanegashima, Japan. A Japanese H-IIA rocket carrying the NASA-Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory is planned for launch from pad 1 on Feb. 28, 2014.

The Tanegashima Space Center is Japan's biggest rocket-launching facility. It is located on an island in Kagoshima, the southernmost prefecture (or district) of the country. The site is mainly responsible for launching missions for the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, also known as JAXA.

Major launches take place from the Yoshinobu Launch Complex, including larger missions such as cargo runs to the International Space Station. Other facilities on site include spacecraft test and assembly buildings, and a range control center.

[Japan's Spaceport: Photos from Tanegashima Space Center]

Origins and layout

The island itself is associated with the introduction of firearms to Japan (from Portugal) in 1543, according to JAXA. Construction of the rocket facility began in 1966 and space missions started lifting off there in 1969.

Tanegashima was selected for several reasons. Its latitude of 31 degrees made it close to the equator, which makes it easier to launch missions because of the Earth's rotation. It was relatively remote, would cause "minimum interference" for Japan's fishing industry, and also had access to land, communications, water, electricity and public transportation.

"It was extremely difficult to find a place that fulfilled all the above-mentioned criteria, especially since some of the criteria contradicted each other," JAXA wrote. "During the search and review of the candidate sites, the current site on Tanegashima Island was found to be the most ideal."

There are many facilities in and around the center for launching rockets, and it also includes a press site and a museum. Not all of the facilities are in use; for example, the Takesaki Range used to send small rockets aloft to test them and to foster their development. JAXA said the testing was no longer required after the Takesaki series finished, allowing for missions to start launching to the International Space Station.

The Osaki Launch Complex was retired in 1992 after being used to launch N-I, N-II and H-1 launch vehicles. This leaves the current launch facility as the Yoshinobu Launch Complex, which has two launch pads, a firing test facility and various buildings to assemble and track spacecraft.

HTV launch program

Japan launches cargo missions to the International Space Station roughly once a year, under the HTV launch program. (HTV stands for H-II Transfer Vehicle; the program is also called Kounotori, or "white stork." The rockets leave Tanegashima and are snagged by astronauts, using the robotic Canadarm2, once the spacecraft arrive at the ISS.

The spacecraft can carry about 6,000 kilograms (13,000 lbs.) of supplies to the ISS, in both pressurized and non-pressurized environments. Astronauts can unload part of the spacecraft, while other parts of it are accessible to the Kibo robotic arm for experiments outside of the space station.

Some of the notable payloads in this program include the JEM Small-Satellite Orbital Deployer, Cubesats, a replacement water pump assembly catalytic reactor (to replace one that broke in orbit), a high-tech aquarium to house small fish, Kirobo (a robotic companion), and a small jet backpack for emergency use during spacewalks called Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue (SAFER).

As of September 2016, five missions have launched successfully from Tanegashima in the preceding seven years. Four more flights are planned in each of the years from 2016 to 2019.

Notable missions

Other notable recent missions launched from Tanegashima include:

Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS, also known as Daichi): This launched in 2006 and operated for five years. Its notable contributions include observations after the 2011 tsunami hit Japan.

SELENE (Selenological and Engineering Explorer), also known as Kaguya. This was a lunar mission that ran between 2007 and 2009. Among its achievements include a detailed gravity map of the moon's far side, and better lunar global topography maps.

Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT, also known as Ibuki): This launched in January 2009 to measure greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide and methane.

The Venus Climate Orbiter (also known as Akatsuki and Planet-C): It was launched in May 2010 but failed to reach orbit at Venus as planned, in December 2010. The spacecraft continued to orbit the sun for five years until it was put into an alternative orbit in December 2015. It is examining items such as Venus' atmosphere and clouds.

IKAROS (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun): An experimental solar-sail spacecraft launched along with the Akatsuki mission. It was the first to test out solar sails in interplanetary space, which included passing by Venus in December 2010.

Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM): A joint mission between JAXA and NASA to look at the Earth's precipitation with an eye to better forecasting hurricanes and other extreme events. It launched in 2014 and is still operational.

Hayabusa 2: This asteroid sample spacecraft launched in December 2014 en route to 162173 Ryugu. It is expected to stay at the asteroid for a year and a half after arriving in July 2018, including deploying a few spacecraft on the surface. It will leave in December 2019 and return to Earth in December 2020.

ASTRO-H (also known as Hitomi and New X-ray Telescope, or NeXT). This mission was supposed to be an X-ray satellite to look at items such as dark matter, galaxy clusters and cosmic rays. It launched on Feb. 17, 2016, but experienced several problems with its attitude control system, leading to a loss of contact on March 26.

Additional resource

JAXA: Tanegashima Space Center
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MASON CITY  The City Council reached consensus Thursday night on a plan to contend with emerald ash borers, beetles that kill trees.

The borers are not in Mason City yet but have been reported as close as Waverly. Operations and Maintenance Manager Bill Stangler has told the council it is not a matter of if but when and the time is drawing closer.

There are nearly 3,000 ash trees on city property, said Stangler. The council favors Stanglers proposal to purchase an aerial basket truck, fully equipped, for an estimated cost of $210,000 and to hire three additional employees at a cost of about $55,000 per employee.

No formal vote can be taken at work sessions in which council members gather information for decisions at regular council meetings.

Delivery time on the truck is six to nine months, said Stangler. The new employees will have to be trained, and the training can be done while the city awaits the delivery of the truck, he said.

Stangler said the process will take at least six to eight years to complete. Id like to have everything in place by next spring.

Alternatives would be for the city to hire an outside firm to do all of the work or for an outside firm to do some of the work, leaving the rest to the city.

The council opted to hire the personnel and purchase the equipment with the possibility of hiring outside help if a situation called for it.

Stangler pointed out that outside firms might be extremely busy with customers on private property. There are about 10,000 ash trees on private property in Mason City, he said, and the city is not responsible for taking care of those.
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SPIEGEL: You have been queen for more than 44 years, years in which the world, and Europe, have changed significantly. What can the monarchy do to counteract growing skepticism over Europe?

Margrethe II: I believe that all the euphoria about Europe has led many of us to forget that Europe is a conglomerate of different entities and countries. But if you don't love your own entity, if you don't know your roots and can no longer relate to them, you will also have problems with the rest of Europe. A tree without roots will fall over, whereas a tree with roots eventually becomes part of a forest. I believe that many people have forgotten what their roots are. This is one of the advantages of countries with a monarchy. The monarch offers identity across generations, and is a part of these roots and this native country.

SPIEGEL: The queen as a stabilizing factor?

Margrethe II: We, the monarchs, are undoubtedly constants in a constantly changing world. Because we have always been there, but also because we do not get involved in everyday politics. We are aware of the political changes in our societies, but we don't comment on them. This is where we assume a unique position. None of my counterparts in Europe interferes in politics.

SPIEGEL: What do you do when you do want to take a political position?

Margrethe II: We have a wonderful tradition for that: the queen's New Year's address. I prepare this address together with the office of the prime minister. It is not a harmless event, nor is it an announcement of trifling matters. It is about values, as well as positions. There are indeed ways for a queen to say what she thinks.

SPIEGEL: Women in leadership positions still have a difficult time of it in the world out there. In monarchies, people became accustomed to women early on. Britain's Queen Elizabeth has reigned since 1952, and you have been the queen of Denmark since 1972.

Margrethe II: That is true, but we didn't have to fight for that. It was a matter of biology. My father had no sons, so I became queen. The only thing I had to do was perform the role. I am not a career woman, and I would never have become one in normal life, because I am not ambitious enough for that.

SPIEGEL: Is it easier for a woman to be a monarch than a man?

Margrethe II: I believe that it is indeed easier for a woman who follows a male monarch, as it was in my case. There was no role model I had to measure up to. It was clear from the beginning that many things would be different, and that helped. And I hope that the same thing will help my son, Crown Prince Frederik, when he becomes king one day.

SPIEGEL: Are there plans for when you will relinquish the throne to him?

Margrethe II: He will become king when I am no longer here.
The former Air Force colonel shares Trump's view that American foreign policy needs to strictly prioritize national interests, not the handed-down alliances of the postwar period: "We're not about to spill one drop of blood or spend one more dollar unless we know exactly what the outcome is going to be or at least have some notion of what the predictability is," Clovis has told a group of European diplomats and experts.

Relationships in Jeopardy?

Central to the attempts to learn more about Trump's true plans is the fear that, for the first time since World War II, an American president might terminate the trans-Atlantic alliance. Trump has described NATO as "obsolete" and announced that he would at the very least seek to renegotiate its framework. Countries like Germany, Trump has said, have to pay more of the costs for their own security in the future. Otherwise, the US would withdraw its troops.
SPIEGEL: How can you prevent WikiLeaks from being taken advantage of in the global war of information?

Assange: Our editorial criteria are public and they have been the same for about eight years. If a source gives us material that is of political, diplomatic, ethical or historical significance that has not been published before and is comprised of official documents or recordings, then we will publish it. Is the majority of our material in English? Yes. But that is a resource constraint. Most of our submissions are in English because most of our readers speak English.

SPIEGEL: On Oct. 4, 2006, you registered the domain name www.wikileaks.org. What have you accomplished since then?

Assange: WikiLeaks has published over 10 million documents in 10 years. Most have been published over the last six years, during which time I have been illegally detained, without charge, in the United Kingdom.

SPIEGEL: You have received political asylum from the government of Ecuador, but have been stuck in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for the last four years. British authorities would like to arrest you and extradite you for interrogation to Sweden. Hasn't this situation handicapped WikiLeaks?

Assange: While many of the established media make losses or go bankrupt, WikiLeaks has survived a major conflict with a superpower, including an unlawful economic blockade by its banks and credit card companies and the detention of its editor. We have no debts. We have not had to fire staff. We have never lost a court case related to our publishing. We have never been forced to censor. Adversity has hardened us. We're 10 now. Just wait until we're teenagers.

SPIEGEL: What has been WikiLeaks' most important publication?

Assange: The most important publication of WikiLeaks is that it has published more than 10 million documents. The most important single collection of material we have published is the US diplomatic cable series . We started with 251,000 in 2011, but are up to 3 million now and have more coming.

SPIEGEL: What have been the shortcomings of WikiLeaks? What would you like to improve?

Assange: Resources. Has WikiLeaks been forced to do one thing rather than another in response to resource constraints? Yes. Constantly.

SPIEGEL: For example?

Assange: For example, resource constraints forced us to deal with politically compromised publications like the New York Times in order to harness their distribution networks.

SPIEGEL: Do you regret the fact that you no longer have a cooperation with established papers like the New York Times or the Guardian -- and that WikiLeaks is even criticized by liberal papers?

Assange: We have subsequently worked with journalists from both papers. Liberal papers are not necessarily liberal. We have excellent relations and contracts with more than 110 media organizations from all over the world. We aggressively enforce our agreements.

SPIEGEL: Your source Chelsea Manning, a US soldier, was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Edward Snowden is stuck in Moscow. And you are stuck here in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. How can whistleblowers come to terms with such setbacks?

Assange: Let us not compare Edward Snowden's situation with that of Chelsea Manning or Jeremy Hammond, who is also imprisoned in the United States. As a result of WikiLeaks' hard work, Edward Snowden has political asylum, has travel documents, lives with his girlfriend, goes to the ballet and earns substantial speaking fees. Edward Snowden is essentially free and happy. That is no coincidence. It was my strategy to undo the chilling effect of the 35 year Manning sentence and it has worked.

SPIEGEL: Given all the pressure that you and those you work with are facing, how do you keep going?

Assange: We believe in what we are doing. It's very satisfying. It's extremely interesting intellectually. Sometimes great moments of justice come out of it. In one case, a man falsely accused left prison thanks to a publication of ours. A lot of people who work for WikiLeaks have the same instinct as me: If you are pushed you push back.
Algiers, Sept 30, 2016 (SPS) - Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Guillaume Long said Thursday in Algiers that his country remained faithful to its position for the support of Sahrawi people, who are struggling for the independence of their country.

"It is Ecuador's position for many years. It is a decision of support and relations with the brotherly Sahrawi people. We know that recent changes have occurred in the region hence the importance of our visit to the region, in order to reaffirm our brotherly relations with the Sahrawi people," he said at the end of his discussions with Minister of State, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Ramtane Lamamra.

He added that he would visit, for the first time, Western Sahara, adding that he planned for it several months ago.

Western Sahara, the last colony in Africa, has been occupied and then annexed by Morocco since 1975, after the withdrawal of the Spanish troops, and has been considered by the United Nations as territories that must be decolonized in accordance with the international law

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Some 76 percent of 2016 University of Connecticut graduates found jobs or were involved in academic programs within four months of earning a degree, according to data released this week by the university.

Presented Thursday to the universitys board of trustees, the new numbers show the universitys effectiveness in preparing students to enter the workforce by providing a range of career-readiness services, university officials said.

Im extremely satisfied with that number, said Jim Lowe, assistant vice provost and executive director of UConns Center for Career Development. Thats a number were really shooting for at the six-month mark. To be realizing it at the four-month mark is very exciting.

The university had not previously reported four-month placement statistics, as it releases a more extensive analysis of alumni destinations six months after graduation. But Lowe said that the scheduling of the trustees meeting provided an opportunity to share some early numbers.

A number of factors explain why the other quarter of recent graduates are not working or in academic programs, Lowe said. About 2 percent of graduates join the military or go into social-service programs. Some take more time to find a job because they are looking for specific positions or want to work in certain companies or particular locations. Others have gotten off to a late start in their job searches.

Some students just never give a thought to when they graduate that they need a job, Lowe said. We continue to work with students post-graduation; its not like we say see you later. We continue to work with them through phone, email or personally with career consultants to understand exactly where theyre looking to go.

Almost 80 percent of the new alumni landing jobs in Connecticut were residents of the state before attending UConn. Thirty percent of the graduates who came to UConn from other states ended up staying in Connecticut for jobs.

A number of the states largest employers are hiring UConn graduates, a list that includes United Technologies, Travelers, Cigna, General Dynamics/Electric Boat, The Hartford, Aetna and Deloitte.

Wide use of career services

The Center for Career Development has significantly expanded its reach and programming in recent years to focus on students career preparation throughout their college careers, not just in their senior years, university officials said. The centers services are available to all UConn students, including those enrolled at the Stamford campus.

Some 52 percent of 2016 graduates reported using in-person services offered by the center in their senior years, and two-thirds of those who said that they had positive career outcomes completed at least one internship before graduating.

Lowe said that he was satisfied with the percentage of students using career services. Many of the graduates who did not use those sources of support in their final year at the university did so in earlier years or found equivalent support from professors and administrators.

In the 2015-16 school year, the center conducted at UConns main campus in Storrs about 400 career-related presentations, with approximately 8,800 students attending. Regular events at the Center for Career Development cover internships, resume preparation, interviewing, networking and career fairs.

We continue to grow and innovate, Lowe said. Were doing a lot of really creative things, and I think our students are the ones benefiting.

pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschott
WESTPORT  Despite being a registered Republican, Westporter Melissa Joan Hart is throwing her support behind Gary Johnson, presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party.

Hart, who starred in Clarissa Explains It All and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, told People she was tabbed as the Connecticut chairwoman for Johnsons campaign.

I want to break away from this two-party system, and I think its important for people to know that theres another candidate out there who really toes the line between Democrat and Republican, Hart told People. I mean hes Libertarian. But socially hes liberal, but fiscally conservative.

Johnson, a former Republican governor of New Mexico, is joined on the Libertarian ticket by another former Republican governor, William Weld, of Massachusetts. Both were two-term governors.

According to the New York Times average of national polls, Johnson is sitting at around 8 percent. He was left out of Mondays debate because he did not meet the 15 percent polling requirement.

Governors, I love, because they already ran their state as like a little president, Hart told People. So he gets the way, you know, things run. The politics of it all.

Earlier this month, Johnson faced an avalanche of doubt about his capability to grapple with foreign policy issues, most notably, the conflict in Syria that has left over 500,000 people dead and millions displaced, creating an enormous refugee crisis. When Johnson was asked on MSNBC how he would handle the refugee crisis in the ravaged Syrian city of Aleppo, he responded, What is Aleppo?

@chrismmarquette/cmarquette

@bcnnew.com
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STAMFORD  The two accused accomplices in the killing of a mother of five in Lione Park last year will face more severe charges.

Senior Assistant States Attorney Paul Ferencek, who had been considering increasing the charges, announced on Friday defendants DeShawn Hayes, 24 and Morris Joel Moore Jr., 24, will now face accessory to commit murder and criminal possession of firearm charges for the killing of Maxine Gooden.

Jhonel Telemin-Valerio, 21, of Lafayette Street, has been charged with murder after witnesses said he shot the 43-year-old woman in the park last November, police said. Telemin-Valerio has not entered a plea in the case.

Gooden, a nurse who also sold her homemade food at the park, was a bystander who was struck in the stomach with a stray bullet.

Moore and Hayes have been jailed since their arrests on conspiracy to commit murder charges, which carry a maximum jail sentence of 20 years. The two pleaded not guilty to those charges.

But the new charges Ferencek announced on Friday carry up to 60-year sentences. They also face up to 10 years in prison for the firearm charges.

Ferencek had said during an August court hearing that he was considering increasing the charges after receiving DNA results from the gun that was found stashed in the dashboard of the getaway car. Ferencek has declined to say what the test results have revealed.

Moore and Hayes are now entitled to a probable cause hearing where their attorneys can call witnesses such as police or witnesses from the park to determine if there is enough evidence to support the new charges.

Moores attorney, Francis OReilly, declined to comment if he was planning to request a probable cause hearing for his client.

My client maintains his innocence and looks forward to fighting these new charges at trial, OReilly said.

Hayes attorney, Darnell Crosland, said he was disappointed Ferencek increased the charges.

I think it is really disappointing when the government sits in front of a computer and starts pulling out charges they think will be indefensible, even when the charges they now have pending arent appropriate, Crosland said. It creates a scenario where you are forced to defend charges that dont fit the factual basis of the crime.

Crosland said there is no proof Hayes was involved in an intentional killing, which is required by a charge of murder.

I think it is my responsibility to have a probable cause hearing, because this case isnt based on probable cause and seeing that the court would be able to drop these charges, Crosland said.

The three defendants are due back in court on Nov. 9.

jnickerson@scni.com
Heres another test for the Democratic Party: How firmly can it reject the irresponsible accusation by former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean that Donald Trump was sniffling during the debate because he was using cocaine?

Dean his claim on Monday night and then stuck with it.

More is at stake here than one might think.

The temptation to embrace or tolerate irresponsible attacks is a constant for all political parties. And, contrary to what many liberals believe these days, theres nothing about conservatives that makes them uniquely susceptible to conspiracy-mongering. Go back a decade or so, and youll find plenty of liberals and leftists who trafficked in conspiracy theories about voting machines, just to cite one example.

Its especially tempting to indulge in such behavior when partisans see the other side doing it and, it seems, being rewarded for doing so. Dean may feel that the despicable rumor-mongering about Hillary Clintons health that the Republicans and the Trump campaign have participated in makes it necessary to fight fire with fire.

Yet whatever the short-term rewards, the long-term consequences to both party and nation are dangerous.

Just look at the Republican Party. For decades, its leaders have worked to train rank-and-file voters to think the media lies to them. And Republican-aligned talk shows and other conservative media have blared out that mainstream conservative Republican politicians are betraying the cause.

This drumbeat has promoted any number of wild fabrications. In the last few years, weve had the birther lie, the false claim that Barack Obama cant speak without a teleprompter, blarney about Benghazi  the list goes on.

Not all Republican leaders participated in promulgating these myths, but plenty did, and very few in the party had the spine to challenge them.

This decades-long effort to train Republican voters into believing things that werent true wasnt the only reason the party wound up with Trump, a candidate without proper qualifications for the presidency or devotion to conservative ideas. But it was one reason, and maybe even a necessary condition. And Trump isnt the only consequence. This strategy nurtured the dysfunction in the Republican Congress as well.

The Democratic Party has done a much better job of pushing back against such temptations. Its leaders basically tossed former Rep. Cynthia McKinney out of the party for peddling conspiracies. The anything-goes brawler Alan Grayson was just defeated for nomination to a U.S. Senate seat. Now they need to act again.

Im not talking about hard-hitting attacks on opponents or even excessive spin, which is normal and can even be healthy. Campaigns should inform voters about the differences between the parties and their candidates. But inventing slurs is not normal or healthy. It can lead to poor governing, which means the whole nation suffers.

I dont believe Hillary Clinton has an obligation to denounce Howard Dean. But as the leader of her party, she would be wise to do so.
What happened in America on Monday night was that two famous people went door to door, dropping in to visit with more than 84 million people who had mostly known them only from afar, having watched occasionally as they were being praised and cheered or vilified and caricatured.

In a real sense, millions of Americans got to know Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton a lot better after spending an hour and a half with them.

Those of us who cover these quadrennial rituals traditionally get carried away by our collective chatter about how we think the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees did in the first debate of every fall campaign. But, of course, what we think doesnt matter. And what the candidates designated spinners and pooh-bahs say (about what they want us to think they think) matters even less.

The only thing that really does matter is what Americas potential voters are thinking after their up-close and personal exposure to the two major party candidates.

And so, after watching the extensive time-wasting coverage by all network and cable TV news organizations and most print and online media, it was genuinely instructive to see one news organization actually add significantly to our insight about what had really happened Monday night.

It came not from a lesser-known news outlet (often where the most innovative news-thinking occurs) but from a front page report in Wednesdays New York Times. Correspondent Trip Gabriel interviewed a number of undecided women in the suburban community of West Chester, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia.

Undecided suburban women voters have become the swing voters who decide whether the Republican or Democrat will win elections in this era where Republicans have been decisively capturing white male votes in suburbs of the key battleground states.

The Times article began: Donald J. Trump badly needed to make an impression on women like Nancy Groux in Mondays presidential debate. And it turned out thats how Trump made his impression  badly. At least among the independent women in this sampling of suburbanites who really wanted to like him and vote for him.

I truly want to like him, Groux told the Times. I keep looking for something in him. But I cant have my children grow up and look at him as someone to respect.

She thought Clinton seemed presidential but Trump seemed like a bull in a china closet.

Pollster alert: There is nothing scientific in this or any other reporters sampling of voters. Yet, the interviewer has focused on individuals who were genuinely undecided; most interestingly, women who arent enamored of Clinton, who hoped to be impressed by Trump but werent. And who then explained why. Their thinking can provide insights that are far more valuable than mere polling numbers.

Gabriels article quoted Republican women who wanted to vote for Trump but couldnt after seeing the faces he made  he rolled his eyes, as one said. Several who wanted to support Trump were troubled by the fact that he seemed so unprepared and lacking in ideas and understanding of the crises we face.

Groux was among those who didnt like the fact that Trump wont release his taxes. Indeed, when Clinton pounced on that, suggesting that perhaps Trump is trying to prevent Americans from discovering he didnt pay any income taxes, Trump interrupted  but not to deny it. That makes me smart, Trump interjected.

Clinton also struck a chord that resonated with these women when she confronted Trump directly about his name-calling abuse of a former Miss Universe who had gained weight. He called her Miss Piggy and, apparently because she is of Latin American heritage, Miss Housekeeping.

That is embarrassing, Trump supporter Kim Gray told the Times. I have a daughter. I have a son whod never speak like that.

With two more debates ahead, Trump has time to cram enough to perhaps fake preparedness and repeat solutions given to him by experts. But what he cannot fake  and cannot hide  is his history of bullying a beauty pageant winner for gaining weight and amusing a rally crowd by ridiculing a physically handicapped journalist.

As Francesca Yabraian, a wise woman who is herself an American with a disability, once told me, He is a soulless man.

And Trump cannot cram enough or fake enough or pay enough back taxes to ever make us un-remember that fatal flaw that every caring Republican knows deep-down should disqualify him from ever being our commander in chief.
I f theres one thing bank bosses, central bankers and governments should have learned through the financial crisis, its this: you cant beat the markets.

Despite Deutsche Banks repeated efforts to reassure investors that it doesnt need a bailout, that theres nothing to see here, investors and counterparties are increasingly taking their own view: we dont believe you.

Its hardly surprising: even without Deutsches derivatives liabilities and looming multi-billion dollar fine from the US, investors just dont trust European banks solvency claims.

Besides, who, hearing Deutsches declarations of strength, is not reminded of the identical statements from the banking giants in the days and weeks before they fell in 2007 and 2008?

Only a strong pledge of financial support from the German government will stem this damaging tide of speculation before it reaps serious damage on the real economy.

Reversal of fortune

Despite all the hullaballoo around Deutsche, there was only one topic exciting Londons mining community today  the sensational fall of investment tycoon Michael Cohen. Few rode the African commodities boom as high as the Och-Ziff London hedge fund boss, and, in US papers filed in the small hours of this morning, few can have suffered such a reverse.

As head of Och-Ziffs European office, Cohen was one of the many fund managers tempted by the huge riches on offer in Africa. The deals he did in those heady days brought him hundreds of millions of dollars and a 930-acre Hampshire estate once home to the Duke of Wellington.

Last night, the US Securities and Exchange Commission gave an insight into how those deals came about, with corruption allegations against Och-Ziff that read like the script of a thriller.

Och-Ziff Employee A, head of the European operation, as the SEC puts it, either knew about, or was wilfully blind to a host of major bribes.

These included $3 million (2.3 million) in bungs to high ranking Libyan officials through an agent; illicit payments to officials in multiple African countries; loans to diamond billionaire Dan Gertler used for bribery in the Democratic Republic of Congo (allegations Gertler denies); the list goes on.

Och-Ziff has struck a deferred prosecution deal and paid $400 million, but US authorities continue to investigate Cohen, who denies wrongdoing, and others.

Back in the day, after meeting one of Colonel Gaddafis sons in Vienna to discuss Libyas oil wealth, Cohen declared: I havent been this excited in a while.

Today, it must be dread, not excitement, that Cohen feels.
T he opening next week in London of this countrys new National Cyber Security Centre represents an important step forward in the battle to protect business, government and the public from the increasing threat posed by the malign activities of hackers, both here and abroad.

The centres 700 staff, many of whom will operate from a headquarters in Victoria, will include some of Britains most talented IT experts and work to find new ways of blocking the virus, malware and phishing attacks which are being carried out daily and seem certain to increase as the role of technology in our lives becomes even greater.

Such a response is essential. Cyber attacks are perhaps the greatest and most pervasive threat of the modern age as rogue states, organised crime gangs and individual hackers and crooks seek to exploit online weaknesses to steal money, personal data, national secrets and intellectual property.

At best, the impact of such attacks can be embarrassing or inconvenient as photos and private messages suddenly become public. That is bad enough, as the Sony Pictures and Ashley Madison hacks showed.

But at worst, in an age when hospitals, power stations, rail networks, airports, banking systems, the City, and almost every other part of our national infrastructure rely on complex IT systems to operate, the damage caused by a future cyber attack could be catastrophic. A major loss of life and serious economic disruption are potential consequences.

It is reassuring, therefore, to see GCHQ, which will be in charge of the new centre, acting to bolster our national defences in such a comprehensive manner. It is also a testament to the skills of Londoners that this city, already a world-leading centre of technological innovation, has been chosen as the site for this critical new venture. Much of its future success is likely to remain hidden but its work will certainly benefit us all.

Mrs Mays challenge

After Labours efforts to paper over the cracks of disunity at its conference in Liverpool, all eyes turn now to the Conservative gathering in Birmingham, which begins on Sunday.

It will be the first opportunity for Theresa May to speak to the party faithful since becoming Prime Minister.

Most obviously, she will be expected to tackle the issue of Brexit. The Prime Minister remains in a strong position, having been a moderate Remainer who nonetheless has made it clear she will act firmly on the result of the EU referendum.

Even so, there are increasingly loud voices calling for a clearer sense of direction. Parroting the Brexit means Brexit line wont be enough for much longer. Indeed, while the shambolic state of the Opposition has given the Prime Minister a degree of breathing space, she needs to affirm the unity among her own ranks. The faultlines of the Brexit debate could reopen more easily than some suspect.

Mrs May will also be under pressure to give more detail about her wider agenda: how she will tackle the big issues of immigration, security, infrastructure development  including airport expansion  and economic growth, while demonstrating a confident style of leadership that can reassure, if not inspire, the country at this challenging time. All eyes will be watching.

Free theatre tickets

The Donmar Warehouse is to address concerns about the expense of going to the theatre by encouraging better-off customers to buy extra tickets which can then be given free to young enthusiasts.

This is a brilliant idea: getting young people through the doors is vital to the long-term prosperity of Londons theatres. Encore!
S eventy years ago today, on the morning of September 30, 1946, the judges at Nuremberg handed down their judgment. Twenty-one Nazi defendants walked from their prison cells to Courtroom 600 at the Palace of Justice, where they would learn their fate, the culmination of a historic trial.

This was the first time in human history that the leaders of any country were tried for international crimes of war and aggression. They were also indicted for two new crimes, coined in summer 1945: crimes against humanity  the killing of individual civilians on a massive scale  and genocide, the destruction of groups. By the end of the following afternoon three defendants had been acquitted, seven sentenced to various periods of imprisonment, and 11 told that they would hang two weeks later. The Nuremberg trial opened the door to a new possibility, an era of international justice.

Among the crimes with which they were charged, one was entirely new. The term genocide was invented by Rafael Lemkin, an amalgam of the Greek word genos (tribe or race) and the Latin word cide (killing). A former Polish prosecutor who worked with the prosecutors at Nuremberg, it was only late in the trial that he learned that one of those he was prosecuting for genocide  Hans Frank, formerly Hitlers lawyer  was involved in the murder of most members of his family.

The Nuremberg judgment deeply disappointed Lemkin, for it made no mention of genocide, and he described the day as the blackest in his life. Yet he didnt give up: he spent two years lobbying for a new international agreement. In December 1948 governments adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. It is now backed by 147 countries.

Despite these good intentions the killings havent stopped. For more than 50 years little happened under the 1948 Convention. It took the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda to catalyse new efforts to respond to acts of genocide. In July 1998 the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established. Three months later Jean-Paul Akayesu became the first person to be convicted by an international court for the crime of genocide, for the slaughter of Tutsis in Rwanda.

A month after that former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London, on charges of genocide. In May 1999 Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic became the first serving head of state to be indicted for genocide, for the killings at Srebrenica, Bosnia.

In September 2007 the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled Serbia had violated the conventions obligation to prevent genocide in Srebrenica, the first such condemnation of a state. In March 2009 Sudans President Omar al-Bashir became the first serving head of state to be indicted for genocide by the ICC.

In August 2014, Islamic State took control of Sinjar in northern Iraq. Within days reports circulated about beheadings, enslavement and torture carried out against members of the Yazidi community. Stories emerged of women and girls being raped and sold into slavery, in their thousands. Some were as young as eight. I have spent time with some of these extraordinary young women and girls, offered refuge in Germany under a programme run by the state of Baden-Wurttemberg on the initiative of Dr Jan Kizilhan, who is himself Yazidi.

The Yazidis I have spent time with ascribe a particular importance to Britain, given its role in the war in Iraq that led to the horrors they have faced

The youngest person I examined was eight, he tells me, taken with her mother to Mosul then to Raqqa. She was sold eight times, raped more than 100 times over a period of 14 months.

Over hundreds of interviews Kizilhan has identified a programme of systematic abuse. They come to the villages, collect people in schools, take money and valuables, then start to execute the males. Women with children were taken to one place; the unmarried, and especially, virgin girls, to another. There they are repeatedly raped then sold on. Children between eight and 14 are taken for training in Islam and turned into child soldiers.

The children go to Mosul, and are collected at the Galaxy cinema  guys come from all over. Its like a slave market: you look at the girls, buy them, take them away. Kizilhan says some have disappeared to countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.

The rapes were an act intended to destroy, in whole or in part the Yazidis, meeting the 1948 conventions definition of genocide, making it impossible for victims to feel they could again be fully integrated into their community. Kizilhan says many have committed suicide, yet he remains hopeful about those in his care.

The idea of justice, and the legacy of Nuremberg, is at the heart of his programme: They want the possibility of justice, which offers hope. In this way the law becomes significant, as does the proper characterisation of the crimes.

Kizilhan welcomes the endorsement of the European Parliament, the US Congress and the Obama administration. Calling it a genocide, he says, recognises the groups identity, whats being done to it, and its right to exist. Yet the British Government has refused to use the word. When Parliament debated the issue last April the Government urged MPs not to call the crimes a genocide. Parliament rejected that call, and did so unanimously in a vote.

Last week Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson joined calls at the UN for action and justice against IS. He tweeted about rape and enslavement but  like the judges at Nuremberg 70 years ago  failed to use the word genocide. This rankles with the Yazidis I have spent time with, who ascribe a particular importance to Britain, given its role in the war in Iraq that led to the horrors they have faced.

Today is the anniversary of the most famous international judgment in history. The legacy of Nuremberg tells us that it is time for the British government to end a silence that is wrong, without justification, and shameful.
Feminism and the world of luxury fashion do not make for comfortable bedfellows.

Not least because there are some among fashion's ranks who assume that a woman's worth hinges on the visual contribution she makes to society but because men have long been positioned in its driving seat. The latter is certainly true of Christian Dior which today, seventy years after its inception, unveiled its first collection under the direction of a female creative director.

Maria Grazia Chiuri, an Italian and previously co-creative director of Italian luxury super force Valentino, was appointed in the role widely considered to be the most important in fashion earlier this year. She replaces Belgian designer Raf Simons who quit last October citing a desire to step away from the hamster wheel that is the french fashion circuit.

Accordingly, the excitement that surrounded today's occasion was palpable with Kate Moss and Rihanna among those who waited patiently to see if Grazia Chiuri's careful eye for elegance could translate for the Dior consumer.

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty

While few could have been disappointed by the punkish romance that ensued, there were many surprised as the designer delivered a collection of fencing jackets, bejewelled sweaters and transparent tulle gowns that were far removed from her usual repertoire.

Curation and the idea that a collection can be made by borrowing aesthetics from a whole smorgasbord of sources is in the zeitgeist at the moment. Grazia Chiuri unveiled her on take on this movement with everything from logo trimmed pool slides to slick interpretations of the classic Dior bar jacket on offer today.

Speaking backstage, Grazia Chiuri put this breadth of choice down to the idea of empowering the consumer. "Each woman comes to find something that works for her. What I really love is to give a woman the choice. She decides how to wear it and what to mix it with. It's important that I use this opportunity to propose a wardrobe'.

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty

And it is this notion of selection that could be crucial to the new era of Christian Dior - not only so the Dior customer can decide if she wants to wear a broderie lace gown with a pair of Christian Dior emblazoned boxer shorts or layered under a oversized trench coat, but so she can stamp her own identity onto her clothes.

A series of t-shirts printed with the phrase "We should all be feminists" served as a blatant method of communicating this message as did a speech by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie which played out alongside Beyonce as the models took their turn on the catwalk. This was Grazia Chiuri's own feminist manifesto.

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty

From fencing harnesses worn layered over tulle dresses to neat capri pants worn layered over beaded knitwear, the ideas came thick and fast.

While many in her position would have dug deep into the Dior archive in order to produce a debut collection, Grazia Chiuri celebrated Christian Dior in all of its guises and noted "Monseiur Dior was only here for ten years, it's important that people remember all the other incredible designers who have worked at the house".

Referencing a bee motif, favoured by Monsieur Dior and agin by Hedi Slimane duing his time in charge of Dior's menswear line, the designer harked back to another glory era for the brand and set out to achieve the same result with 'J'adoir' printed kitten heels and t-shirts which echoed the logo heavy days of the early Noughties.

Grazia Chiuri also praised former creative director John Galliano whom she said had been a "huge reference".

With Dior yet to announce any plans to shift its calendar to the buy now model, the powers that be at Dior will have to wait six months to see if Grazia Chiuri's approach is going to entice customers to act with their wallets. Certainly, there's something in this woman's world for everyone.
Fashion designers have long looked to the art world to inspire the visual artist within. This morning, Jonathan Anderson unveiled a collection that served as a celebration of the unbreakable connection between the two cultures.

In his latest showcase for Spanish luxury label Loewe, the designer - lauded for his intellectual approach to design - transformed Paris's UNESCO building into a gallery filled with contemporary works of art.

Citing a video by artist Magali Reus, which played on screens lining the walls of the show venue, as the anchor for his SS17 collection, Anderson further sought to further blur the line between where art ends and fashion begins.

Anderson is a craftsman as well as a creative and accordingly, the most accomplished creations on offer in Anderson's latest exhibition were the clothes.

EPA/Etienne Laurent

Renowned as the thinking woman's fashion designer, Anderson delivered a collection that was clever in its construction and big on ideas. Famed for his innovative use of fabric, Anderson manipulated pleating, stitching and fraying to create interesting textural finishes.

"It's an idea of overt craft," said the designer backstage, speaking of the loose threads which were left dangling from exposed seams. "Sometimes things can never be finished."

From the patchwork lab coat to paint splattered skirts, these were clothes designed to be as comfortable in an artist's studio as they were on the catwalk.

The designer also subverted conventional femininity with the use of an exaggerated silhouette, featuring elongated balloon sleeves and box-waist belts.

EPA/Etienne Laurent

For Loewe, a 170-year-old luxury label which was founded by a cooperative of leather artisans in Madrid, handbags form the bread and butter of its business.

To this end, Anderson grounded every look on offer today in its accessories. Among the new styles on offer for next spring include a round trapeze Canoe bag and a version of the popular Flamenco style which featured carpet embroidery crafted from suede.

Other conversation-starting accessories included a ceramic bat necklace and cuff bracelets featuring leather Calla lilies.

EPA/Etienne Laurent

Since his arrival at the house in 2014, the 32-year-old from Magherafelt in Northern Ireland has succeeded in pushing the reset button on the heritage luxury leatherwear brand and transforming it into one of Paris Fashion Week's hottest tickets.

Anderson, who divides his time between Paris and his home in Dalston - where he designs his eponymous London Fashion Week label - is renowned for his unfailing ability to infuse his collections with an injection of cool.

Under his direction, the LVMH-owned brand has flourished. And the revamped house is showing no signs of slowing down. Last week, Loewe appointed Celine's former executive Vice President Pascale Lepoivre as chief executive officer - a sign that the company has ambitions to build Loewe into a global fashion superforce.

One of Anderson's most unique qualities as a designer is his power to distil many abstract concepts into an collection which is wearable and crucially, sellable. Keen to satisfy fashions new appetite for the see now buy now model, four looks from the collection are also available to pre-order immediately after the show.
A s the weather turns colder London is looking to the Mediterranean to lift its spirits.

The masters of mixing at London Cocktail Week, which starts on Monday, have identified Italian-inspired concoctions as the biggest trend, with traditional ingredients such as bergamot and basil, and heritage spirits such as the digestif Amaro and the rose liqueur Rosolio becoming staples. LCW director Siobhan Payne puts the interest in all things Italian down to a demand for lower-alcohol drinks (spritzes and beer cocktails are a good way to keep your units down) as well as the brilliant Italian talent currently mixing up a storm behind Londons bars.

She says: Theres been a fantastic influx of creative talent from Italy into the London bartending scene in recent years, with world-class mixologists such as Simone Caporale leading the charge. It seems that Brexits not dampened Londons thirst for European flair then.

Caporale will be mixing up beer infusions at the House of Peroni LAmare Italia pop-up near the events Spitalfields hub. He has form. He trained for five years under Alex Kratena at Artesian, the multi-award-winning cocktail bar at The Langham hotel.

He will be joined by an impressive line-up, including his one-time sidekick at Artesian Rudi Carraro, as well as Davide Zanardo of Chiltern Firehouse, Luca Missaglia of Aqua Shard, Gabriele Manfredi of Oriole, Maurizio Palermo of 45 Park Lane and Simone Spagnoli of Mr Foggs. They all joined Caporale on a trip to Venice last month to find inspiration for new recipes.

The best bars in London 1 /64 The best bars in London Scarfes Bar at Rosewood London 252 High Holborn, WC1V 7EN, rosewoodhotels.com/london

The Rosewood is doubly wonderful for drinkers, as theyve two fine spots. In the modern Dining Room, sit at the gin bar, which outstocks anywhere else in London, with more than 400 gins and 27 tonics. Trying to choose is impossible, but what a lovely impossibility to have. The bar staff clearly had one hell of a tasting session as they know the list perfectly. Across the way is Scarfes Bar, a brilliant, brilliant bar gladly shaken free from all the stuffiness usually found in hotel bars. The drinks are stunning, theyve often live music, it gets wonderfully busy and crackles with laughter. Go a little later and its busier, people drink more, everything is better. Bar Americain 20 Sherwood St, W1F 7ED, brasseriezedel.com

As the name suggests, this is a classic American bar, and done near perfectly. One can become very fond of Bar Americain and very quickly: passing through Piccadilly Circus, it acts as a magnet  a quick negroni becomes a temptation impossible to resist. Its a very beautiful place, calling to mind grand Parisian hotels of the 20s and 30s, bottles winking from the bar, staff floating through with their finery and litres of charm. Youre here to drink the classics: theyve a killer Clover Club and a straight-down-the-line Manhattan. But ask: the bartenders know their stuff and bring their A-game to any challenge  tell them what you like, and theyll bring you something new. They often have specials on, as well. Top marks for the attentive staff, bringing plenty of water and bowl after bowl of popcorn  both essential after a few here. Oriole Smithfield Markets, E Poultry Ave, EC1A 9LH, oriolebar.com

The team behind Nightjar took their winning formula, gave it a bit of a shake up and created Oriole. Theyve live music throughout the week  from Wednesday to Saturday, theres a charge per person, so watch out for that  which gives any night here a bit of zip. This is a strictly seated spot, so be sure to book: once inside, its a whirlwind tour of the world, with fine details from across the globe, both in the styling and the drinks and so much cheaper than booking a holiday. Drinks are excellent, whether youre into New Orleans style classics or something from the depths of Asia: explore the menu (split into Old World, New World and The Orient) and expect something unusual and faintly brilliant, with a touch of the Tiki. Put it this way: Oriole is ideal whether you prefer drinking from a crystal tumbler, a teacup or, er, a silver crocodile. Piano Works 113-117 Farringdon Road, Farringdon EC1R 3BX, pianoworks.bar

Full credit to this fun Farringdon spot: theyve worked hard to make the place better and better since opening, which is pretty good going for what was already a decent spot to begin with. The Piano Works sounds like a quiet jazz bar but instead is a hell-raising house of sound, splendidly raucous, where a house band take requests and belt out your favourite songs. The more you get involved, the more fun it is, and the place heats up the later it gets. Wine starts at 16, house cocktails are 8, but they've tons of terrific deals during the week  including cocktails for a fiver (!!) Drink lots, dance lots and leave in the early hours with someone you shouldnt do. Thats what we did. Hawksmoor, Spitalfields 157A Commercial St, E1 6BJ, thehawksmoor.com

Its hardly surprising the bar snacks are a highlight here  have the oxcheek nuggets with a side of chips, then call the waiter over to order them over again  given how good the steak upstairs is. The drinks and setting, though, match them pound for pound. The old tube tiles on the walls, the beautiful parquet floor, the copper tops and silvery black ceiling make the large space a place to settle in for the night no matter your seat, while the cocktails come with oodles of thought in each one: the new menu has homemade bitters, shrubs and syrups, and its bloody obvious everyone behind the bar is more than a little nerdy about building drinks. Shaky Petes Ginger Brew is the classic, so have it, but follow up with the Shadow Boxer, a mix of scotch, sherry and Fernet-Branca. Odd, oddly delicious. Its also a cracking place to sit for a bottle of wine. Andrew Edmunds 46 Lexington St, W1F 0LP, andrewedmunds.com

Perhaps better than its ever been, Andrew Edmunds recently won The Good Drinking prize in our Restaurant Awards, and for good reason. Its a small spot, cramped to the point that coming here on a first date feels like youre being very forward indeed , with the best tables upstairs and not much to look at  just settle for being distracted by someone beautiful. The food, French-ish/English-ish, is fine, but its the wine that's extraordinary. And youre here for wine: forget cocktails, they have. What a list, and so quietly marked up that youre getting a steal with almost every bottle  indeed, the more expensive the better the deal. Having been going 30 years, those who knew old Soho say its one of the last bastion of such things. Drink too much gorgeous wine and come back often. The Connaught Bar Connaught, Carlos Place, W1K 2AL, the-connaught.co.uk

A bar for the impossibly beautiful, a bar of high heels and glimmering lights, of perfume and leather. Aside from oddly thumping music, the Connaught is wonderfully detached from the world  a place of its own, cosy and winter warm when it needs to be, light and summer when desired. The drinks, naturally pricey, are well put together and while classic in tone, come with crackles of theatre: washes in perfume bottles, branches as garnishes, smoke, the lot. Still, the martini trolley is what theyre famed for, so its only right to indulge. Afterward, head to the Champagne Room: sadly the law stops it being the cigar haven it once was, but it's still gorgeous: romantic and charming with its fireplace, dramatic with its glass ceiling and sculpture swan diving. Treat yourself to the Ruinart blanc de blanc. Damned good olives, too. Milk & Honey 61 Poland St, W1F 7NU, mlkhny.com

You know a bar is good when local bartenders love it, and Milk & Honey has long been a Soho favourite for those in the know. Hidden in plain sight this terrific bar has been doing its thing for just shy of 15 years. The talent hasnt diminished, and neither has the care put into the drinks. Cocktails are strong and proper and happily, they're updating the list soon to freshen things up. At around 10 a drink, M&H is also a bargain for central London, and the quality outstrips the price. It functions as a members bar, but non-members can book up until 11pm  though going earlier in the week means youre more likely to score a table. Milk & Honey is civilised, without the crushing formality. Next door is the Blind Pig, another top 'hidden' spot. Mark's Bar HIX Soho, 66- 70 Brewer St, W1F 9UP, hixrestaurants.co.uk

The bad: you might not get in. If its busy, they dont squeeze people into this basement, so either be there early, or bamboozle them with charm, or dazzle them with your brilliant wit. Were kidding: just take someone hot. The good: pretty much everything else. Naturally, the bar snacks are distractingly tasty, but the drinks list is excellent, and unusual too, with a few historical recipes brought back to life. Attention to detail is everything here, so if youre not sharing one of the big old Chesterfields, head to the bar and sit and watch  theres something about it thats like seeing a cardmaster turn tricks. And have a Hix Fix, just to say you have. The Beaufort bar and the American Bar at The Savoy The Savoy, Strand, WC2R 0EU, fairmont.com

Glitz, glamour and lots of gold: both Savoy bars are wonderfully opulent. The world-famous American bar, recently revamped, is still up there as one of the best bars on our humble planet. The bartenders bible, Harry Craddocks The Savoy Cocktail Book, was written here, and the cocktails served today remain as finely tuned as they ever were. Whereas as other bars try to recreate the glamour of such places, The Savoy neednt pretend: everything is genuine. The palatial Beaufort is absurdly romantic, and drinks are extravagantly presented: it works for the most special of special occasions, and theres something undeniably grand about sipping away in the same place Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel and Ernest Hemingway all did. If youre planning a few drinks, either be rich or take someone rich  seriously. Artesian 1C Portland Pl, W1B 1JA, artesian-bar.co.uk

Artesian won its accolades for its team, Alex Kratena and Simone Caporale, who ran the place for eight years and earned its reputation as the best bar in the world. Theyve sadly departed, but have left the place in capable hands, and the feel is much the same as it ever was, which is chic, glamorous, and not taking itself too seriously. While the beautiful and the rich rub shoulders, the bartenders are mixing up excellent but often slightly silly drinks  but its their mischievousness that makes them so winning. Seriously impressive. Les Compagnie Des Vins Surnaturels 8-10 Neal's Yard, WC2H 9DP, cvssevendials.com

Call it CVS and your night becomes considerably easier to pronounce. Sat in Neils Yard, it is one of Londons finest wine bars. Thoroughly French, of course: New World wines barely get a sideways glance, while even Italys finest is only begrudgingly given a little space on the considerable menu. This doesn't mean there is a lack of choice  to the contrary, it is almost overwhelming, though they have a short by-the-glass list, and the charming staff are both well informed and passionate about what to have. In the summer, sit outdoors, in the winter, cosy up by the bar. Wherever you are, try the mystery wine; if you guess it, youll win a bottle. Have food  small plates made to share, and terrifically good  and drink plenty, so the bill doesnt hit as hard. The Shrub & Shutter 336 Coldharbour Ln, SW9 8QH, theshrubandshutter.com

This Brixton bar felt new in the area, taking a little of east London and bringing it down south. Theyve a pleasingly patchwork approach to decor: there are jars and bottles and shakers everywhere, which gives the place a kitchen feel. The cocktails, lovely to drink on their own, are made better with the food, which is designed to match what youre drinking. The pairings initially sound a little gimmicky  crayfish with vodka, venison on the side of The Deerhunter (an old fashioned, basically)  but they work, so drop that sceptical streak for a moment. It gets busy, so book up, get in early, and stay late. Theyve a license until 3am, so itd be rude not to. Sky Pod at the Sky Garden 1 Sky Garden Walk, EC3M 8AF, skygarden.london

The truth of it is, you come for the view, but good God it's a great view, and 360-degrees at that. Up 35 floors, if you can think of a London icon, you can probably see it. When the weather's good, get outside for some fresh air. With completely free entry and minimal security fuss, its worth making a reservation, though if youre ok to queue, theyll have you in. Cocktails arent torturously expensive, at around 11.50, and are very enjoyable  the cognac-chocolate-caramel-port mix that is Black and Gold is particularly good so it doesn't feel like they're relying on the sights.

Theres a sense of special occasion, and all the more so with live music on Thursday, Friday and Saturdays. Theyre hoping for jazz on Wednesdays, too. If youre tempted to eat, Fenchurch and the Darwin Brasserie are well worth trying  Fenchurch is particularly good for veggies. The Gilbert Scott St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, Euston Rd, NW1 2AR, thegilbertscott.co.uk

Given the golden hue here, where luxury hangs in the air like perfume, its remarkable that wine starts at as little as 5 a glass. Wine is its strong point, and likeable head sommelier Joris Beijn is a man worth knowing: he is passionate about his list, knowledgeable and accommodating. The bar is flexible, in that it is by turns ideal for a date, or a catch up with old friends, or a pre/post dinner drinks. The room is a stunner: high painted ceilings, dramatic red walls, great big bells as art, marble bar top and crystal glasses catching the light. Cocktails come in at around 14, and err on the light side: lots of gin and floral concoctions. The restaurant, next door, isnt to be missed, either, just be prepared to get an Uber home: invariably, youll stretch and tease out the evening to stay just a little longer. Gerry's Club 52 Dean Street, W1D 5BJ, gerrysclub.com

A word of warning: this is technically a member's club, but you'll probably be fine if you flirt enough  and don't ask for Gerry, he's long since passed. Michael looks after this place now. We've only been once  very late, very drunk and with very good friends. Most old-school Soho drinking dens are dead, but this hub of actors and writers is what remains of 'Old Soho'. If you're boring, steer clear: it is a place to drink wine and beer and tell stories, to laugh uproariously and to give yourself a monumental hangover in a faintly discreet way. 68 and Boston 4-5 Greek St, Soho, W1D 4DD, 68andboston.com

Boston, the bar upstairs, looks like glamorous train carriage from the golden age of cocktails but plays it a little bit safe. Wine bar 68, downstairs, is the real gem, with a wonderful way of pricing: every bottle on the list is 20, so choose what you like, not what you can afford. Better yet, if you don't fancy a bottle, they're served by the carafe (14) or glass (5.50). Wines are well picked and Denise Medrano, wine blogger and lover found behind the bar, is always working to update the list  so go back to try something new. Youll probably end up getting drunk here: the pull of another bottle at just 20 is monumentally hard to resist, but hey, thats what Soho is for. If you fancy drinking something more upscale, ask  theyve a few hidden wines kept hidden away for those in the know. Thats you, now. The Pink Chihuahua at El Camion 25-27 Brewer St, W1F 0RR, elcamion.co.uk

Forget house infusions and drinks that take half an hour to make: sometimes a good night needs tequila and dancing. The Pink Chihuahua is built for it: theyre providing the tequila  more than 300 different types of it, in fact  youre there to drink it down and dance it up. Theyve all sorts of twists on Margaritas and Daiquiris, and, given youre downstairs from Mexican restaurant El Camion, plenty of bar food to indulge in too. Lots of fun, and if youre feeling more in the mood just to sit back and sip something slowly, ask about their choice of Mezcal. There's real talent here, but fun too. The Gibson 44 Old St, EC1V 9AQ, thegibsonbar.london

Given the dearth of decent cocktails in Farringdon, the tiny Gibson is a God-send. Its a parlour pitched somewhere between Edwardian and Art Deco, and drinks arent simply poured here, theyre tended to, built, thought about, adored. All unsurprising, really, given the team learnt their trade at the likes of Nightjar and The Connaught.

This place is doing more creatively to push bartending forward than any bar that's opened up in a while, so ask the team for recommendations and youll be presented with something magic. Youll need to ask, actually, as the menu is a novel and theres the risk of wasting the evening reading instead of drinking, and that simply wouldnt do at all. Peg+Patriot Patriot Square, E2 9NF, talentedmrfox.com

The Talented Mr Fox, Matt Whiley, offers is a nice blend of things here: while the menu takes a sophisticated trip around London, with each cocktail a column of flavour, some managing chameleonic taste all within the space of a sip, the actual bar is surprisingly spare and understated. The effect is such that while drinks are upmarket, one doesnt feel obliged to sit demurely to enjoy them. Relax, have a few  you might want to, as the serves arent huge. It should be said that these cocktails are among Londons most interesting, rather than Londons best: they are talking points, oddities, they put flavours together in a way that isnt available elsewhere. If youre big on trying new things, different experiences, seeing what a cocktail can do, come, its a must. If its just something reliably delicious you fancy, elsewhere may be better. Worship Street Whistling Shop 63 Worship St, EC2A 2DU, whistlingshop.com

One presumes the staff here have night vision, otherwise its a complete and utter mystery how they see customers, let alone their ingredients. Still, they must do, for the output is pretty much excellent through and through at this dark spot. Its Victorian-inspired, which sounds tired and not a little tacky, but the gang from Purl have done it properly. Drinks are busy  lots of fusions, blends, gasses and pressure and all sorts  so its appropriate they come out of a lab. Still, all this engineering seems to be worth it, as the drinks slip down easily, the alcohol often hidden away. Make sure to take a seat in the Dram Shop, and pop in to the Gin Closet too, which operates as an honesty bar. Kansas Smitty's 63-65 Broadway Market, E8 4PH, kansassmittys.com

Below bar Off Broadway  a long way off, its Mexican  sits this glorious den of jazz and juleps. It is a speakeasy for 2016: that is to say, it has none of the contrived mannerisms of bars which proclaim to be speakeasies, it just happens to actually be one: youll need to knock to get in, the music raves loud and hot, and the place is so crowded strangers become family after a drink or two. The house band, for which the place is named, have envy-inducing talent, and the bar has fairly recently overhauled its drinks list, and the results are good. Youll be absorbed by the music, and stay afterwards to ride the buzz of the crowd. GONG 52, Shangri-La Hotel, the Shard, SE1 9QU, .gong-shangri-la.com

Gong is in the Shard, so youre there for the view alone. View it certainly does: at 52 floors up, its by far Londons highest spot to drink: consequently, sipping on a martini, one feels a little like a Bond villain pondering all thats below. Its not a huge bar, but that somewhat adds to the sense of exclusivity. Prices are, naturally, sky high: expect to pay at least 18. The drinks have plenty about them to compete with the view: presentation is everything. Theyve not skipped on the spirits making the mix, either: expect the likes of Zacapa 23 rum (heavenly stuff), Talisker scotch and Tanqueray 10 for the gin. All top drawer stuff. If this all sounds a bit intimidating, bear in mind they operate a no reservations policy, so youve as good a chance of getting in as anyone else. Mr Fogg's Salon 58 St Martin's Lane, Theatreland, WC2N 4EA, mr-foggs.com

Downstairs is a pretty decent pub, busy from theatreland. Upstairs, the salon is quieter, but only a little. The walls are a glittering ballgown of 19th century curiosities, unsubtle nonsense winking away. Head to a chaise longues with a couple of friends or a date and take in something from each one of the five acts which split the menu. Drinks seem to smell especially good here, rich, relying heavily on the likes of rum, cognac and sherry. Gin lovers need not despair: theyve a room with 300 different types next door. Come elegantly dressed. Bar Termini 7 Old Compton St, W1D 5JE, bar-termini.com

Do Bar Termini right and youll love it: do it wrong, and you may be underwhelmed. Tony Conigliaro, cocktail chap par excellence, and coffee maestro Marco Arrigo have built a revolving-door of a place: dont come here to linger. Expect a night of cocktails and youll leave disappointed: instead, love it in the day for the 1 espressos, and swing by in the evening for a negroni (6). Theyre small, but some of the best in the capital. One swishes in and out here, and that way, it adds a touch of Italian glamour to any evening. Trisha's (New Evaristo Club) 57 Greek St, Soho, W1D 3DX



Drinks dont make a bar, and thank goodness, as the stuff served at Trishas  named for its owner  is uniformly pretty awful: red and white wine youd consider an insult if a friend served it at supper, prosecco wildly overpriced, terrible spirits ecetera ecetera. At more than 70, the club is Sohos oldest, and while nobody who goes there can ever remember anything changing  its often quite hard to recall much about Trishas in crystal detail, as it happens  nothing needs to. The bad wine and expensive mixers and paint stripper spirits are all part of the point: its a glorious drinking den, and marvellous, marvellous fun. There are characters here: the last time we were in, we sat being scared witless by an old East End gangster who said hes known the Krays. Tremendous. Long may this place live. The Fumoir Claridge's, 49 Brook St, W1K 4HR, claridges.co.uk

The Fumoir will confuse you, as youll be torn between shouting about it and keeping it all to yourself. This plush purple and leather spot, deco decadence with a touch of welcome pomp, is hidden away behind a secret door at Claridges. Tiny and glitzy enough to feel like a Hollywood dressing room from the Golden Age, its little surprise the likes of Christina Hendricks adore it. For such a small place, they squeeze an awful lot in: plenty of wines, classic cocktails given a stern shake up, buckets of gin, a lovely choice of armagnac and a magnificent scotch list, gleaming with rarities. 69 Colebrooke Row 69 Colebrooke Row, N1 8AA, 69colebrookerow.com

Once known as the bar with no name, henceforth they shall be called the bar with Bernards watch, as there is no other explanation for the speed with which their finely mixed cocktails arrive. Another bar from Tony Conigliaro, its earned its reputation for turning out hit after hit: the drinks list is endlessly tempting. The piano is a nice touch; that is gets played a much nicer one, and make sure to order the Prairie Oyster  fun to drink, and one even for those who cant eat seafood. Bear in mind its a small spot, so youre close to your neighbours, and if you dont like strong drinks where the booze kicks, this wont be for you. Happiness Forgets 8-9 Hoxton Square, N1 6NU, happinessforgets.com

Dont expect frills and fuss or the rest of it here: Happiness Forgets is cocktail bar distilled down to its very essence, and done very well  their tag High End Cocktails/Low End Rent sums it up best. The bartenders are all top drawer, and their creations impeccable. Unsurprisingly, this Hoxton space has its regulars, so the crowd is always good. Tables can be booked, but half are always kept for walk-ins: try your luck, its worth it. Dry Martini by Javier de las Muelas Melia White House Hotel, Albany Street, NW1 3UP, melia.com

Come to this one to brag: Dry Martini is known as Barcelonas best cocktail bar, and has been rated the fifth best bar in the world by the Worlds 50 Best Bars panel. Renowned bartender Javier de las Muelas has bought over his concept to us lucky Londoners, and with it, finely mixed and classic cocktails. No prizes for guessing that the Dry Martini is the house special  if you dont think you like them, heres a place to change your mind. With more than 80 gins on the list, you could easily lose a week here. Gordon's 47 Villiers St, WC2N 6NE, gordonswinebar.com

Gordons seems to get more and more crowded with each passing day, but perhaps rightly so: the beloved Embankment institution is made for knocking back bottles of wine in. Eat a few cold bites and chat into a long, unwinding evening. The wine list is good enough, but youre really here for the atmosphere: in summer, the terrace, buzzing, in winter, the caves indoors, crammed with noise, spilt wine, and joy. Social bar at City Social 25 Old Broad St, EC2N 1HQ, citysociallondon.com

Youd think youre at City Social, up 24 stories of Tower 42, to eat, but if you stop in the bar, theres a good chance you wont make it to your table. The drinks come as something of a surprise: theyre so much better than one expects from a restaurant bar, inventive, put together carefully but not staidly, retaining a sense of fun. And, crucially, damned tasty. Its a dark room, and full of city types, but perfect for a few late night cocktails soaking up the view, which is really quite wonderful. Bloody pricey, but thats part of it. Ladies and Gentlemen 2 Highgate Rd, NW5 1NR, twitter.com

William Borrells bolthole transcends its gimmick (which, if you hadnt guessed, is that its a converted public loo), with the help of some very handy bartenders, and its house-brewed gin, Highwayman, of which twelve bottles a day get distilled. Ladies & Gents manages well as a place for a quiet drink, or better yet, a place to quietly get roaringly drunk. Convenient indeed. The drinks are strong, very interesting, and theres plenty of odd sods on the wall to keep your conversation up. It maintains a veneer of being somewhere faintly upmarket, but youll probably end up reading from one of the books scattered around or trying to dance to the live music. Perfect for a date that gets out of hand. Bull In A China Shop 196 Shoreditch High Street, E1 6LG, bullinachinashop.london

Truth it, youll need to catch this place on a good night, as weve been in often enough to know it has its good nights and its meh nights. But when the place is on, its really cooking, and easily one of the best bars in town. The cocktail list is short, but thought through, and care is taken in even the small things: they even make sure the water glasses are chilled. The chamomile and charcoal Old-Fashioned is a must, and any whisky lovers should get chatting to the bar staff, as theyve bottles which arent available anywhere else in the capital. Sager + Wilde Arch, 250 Paradise Row, E2 9LE, sagerandwilde.com

Wine lovers rejoice, wine bores look elsewhere. Sager + Wilde admirably keep things unpretentious: the exposed brickwork sets the tone: theyre keeping things low key. The specials list changes regularly, and always with interesting choices introduced. Some of the wines are exclusive to this place, so youre all but guaranteed to try something new. Have a SHE + T (sherry with tonic, delicious), and absolutely do not leave without having the grilled cheese sandwich. 7 Tales at Sosharu 64 Turnmill St, EC1M 5RR, sosharulondon.com

Underneath Jason Athertons Sosharu is this sexy, seedy Japanese drinking den, where youll find the hazy, debauched glamour of Tokyo after dark. Unlike so many bars underneath restaurants, 7 Tales doesnt feel like a holding pen, and drinks are precision made, with flavours leaning beyond the usual  think rice-washed gin, sake, infusions of sesame, snacks like tempura. Bar snacks are an irresistible must. Callooh Callay 65 Rivington St, EC2A 3AY, calloohcallaybar.com

Eccentric doesnt seem to quite cover it: enter the surreal world of Callooh Callay through an old Victorian wardrobe, catch sight of a throne and order punch out of a gramophone from a menu thats more of a sticker book. It sounds a bit ridiculous, but the bartenders really know their stuff, so for all the quirks, drinks are fundamentally pretty excellent. On the weekends, its a party bar, and DJs spin music to match: youre here for a good time. Any detectives in your gang will find there are two extra rooms in Callooh Callay to explore  theyre hidden away, too, naturally. If youre good, you might even get an invite upstairs to the Jub Jub Room, where the 10-long cocktail list changes every three weeks. Fans should also head to their new offering in Angel, Little Bat. Dukes Bar Dukes Hotel, 35 St James's Pl, SW1A 1NY, dukeshotel.com

Dukes is known for one reason: martinis. The St Jamess hotel was a favourite haunt of James Bond author and (very) keen drinker, Ian Fleming, who supposedly came up with the shaken, not stirred line here. Their martinis are exceptionally strong, and very large: theres a reason they wont serve you more than two. But look, break the mould: theyre a classic hotel bar, they serve a fine range of classic cocktails. Theres also a cognac and cigar garden, if youre so inclined. NOLA 1st Floor, 68 Rivington Street, EC2A 3AY, nola-london.com

It would be too easy to miss this place, so do your homework and saunter in: its must more attractive than sweatily asking anyone if theyve seen the place. Drawing inspiration from the home of proper cocktails, New Orleans, the bar loves traditional drinks, builds them properly and serves them in a den of music and laughter. Unlike some places specialising in old school serves, NOLA is a place for fun: sure, it seems to say, you could have a quiet drink  but why would you want to? Theres a cracking cigar terrace too, small enough that everyone talks before heading back in for one hell of a Vieux Carre. Call Me Mr Lucky 11 Southwark St, SE1 1RQ, twitter.com

All the hidden bars at the Breakfast Clubs around the capital are popular, with perhaps The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town being the best known. Call Me Mr Lucky, on Southwark Street, happens to be our favourite. Once youve flirted with the staff  ask to get lucky  youre taken through the restaurants kitchens to a lively bar decorated like some twisted take on a kids party. Have a go on the wheel of fortune, where youll really want to get lucky, and win a free shot, and then work your way through the cocktail list. Like any good-time bar worth its salt, this place is big on tequila, and the drinks are light-hearted fun, but  here we go getting lucky again  along with the quirks comes quality. By the of the evening, before youre porured back onto the street, youll swear tequila is your new favourite drink, and youll be singing the party hits they play all the way home. K Bar at The Kensington 109 - 113 Queen's Gate, SW7 5LP, townhousekensington.com

K bar feels majestic  and there is no other word for it  because drinking here is a little like being in the captains quarters of the Titanic, albeit without the sinking feeling. There is glamour here: a kind of place to be seduced in. Cocktails wise, bar manager Ben Manchester is the man to ask for, but theres a fine list to choose from. It avoids stuffiness, and just needs to be packed out to really get cooking. Nightjar 129 City Rd, EC1V 1JB, barnightjar.com

Nightjar has fame which means writing about it is redundant: people think it marvellously good, and theyve live music most of the week. Its seating only and worth booking: just be sure not to cancel, or theyll charge a steep 10 per person. They do the speakeasy theme, but well enough that it isnt too tired yet, and have plenty of old school style on the list. Pick up a pack of cards from the bar on your way out. Reverend J W Simpson 32 Goodge St, W1T 2QJ, revjwsimpson.com

Bourne and Hollingsworth run this rather lovely little bar, downstairs from a small doorway on Goodge St. Service is friendly and speedy, it's comfortable, and drinks more than hold their own  there's both obscure traditional mixes and modern serves made with fresh, seasonal ingredients. Luckily, with good drinks come good people, and it's a loud, happy place. Albertine 1 Wood Ln, W12 7DP, albertinewinebar.co.uk

Albertine hasnt changed much since the day East Enders was commissioned there. A wine bar through and through, youll struggle to get anything else (though there are a couple of ales on the menu.) Its a place with spirit, which draws a regular, devoted crowd. They sell everything they serve, and its well worth splashing out: the mark-up gets less and less as the bottles get more expensive, meaning you can get an absolute bargain at the top end of the list. Its also the kind of wine bar you go to to overindulge. First Aid Box 119 Dulwich Rd, SE24 0NG, firstaidbox2015.com

This place really is worth travelling to Herne Hill to, which must be saying something. The team behind Shrub & Shutter have thickly laid on the pharmacy theme here, with cure-all drinks. Its not an idea which sounds like it should work, and yet, how much better life would be if they were one of the emergency services. Expect saline drips, syringes, and the likes of plastic lungs  their take on thirst aid  but rest assured, flavours arent medicinal in the slightest. At 8 - 10 a drink, its reasonable for London, and wonderful to see a bar really trying something new. Bravo. Media Wisdom Photography - Giles Christopher Nam Long Le Shaker 159 Old Brompton Rd, SW5 0LJ, namlong.co.uk

It gained fame for its celebrity fans, which include Mick Jagger and Prince Harry, but Nam Long has held on longer than most A-list haunts: its been going 30 years, and recently was given an overhaul. Its quite possibly the most Chelsea place imaginable  there are literally MIC cast members floating about  and its a go-to spot to drink far too much and party. The upstairs area is bright, airy, and well looked after by the excellent bartenders, while downstairs  "the Opium Den"  is as it sounds (though there was no opium available when we asked... ) The drinks upstairs were made with more care, but downstairs is more intimate, opulent, and better for a small groups. Some of those Chelsea types who go really are the very worst, and the drinks are outrageously expensive, but hey, its a laugh. The Vault at Milroy's 3 Greek St, Soho, W1D 4NX, shop.milroys.co.uk

A bar through a bookcase: were sold. Better yet, its underneath one of Sohos finest whisky shops  with stiff competition from The Vintage House  so if youre taken with something downstairs, buy it on your way out. Its a simple little bar and the service is decidedly so-so, but its usually pretty busy, they play good music and have an excellent range of spirits. The menu is changed regularly, but its a good place to cram into with friends or on a date. You mightnt spend the entire night here, but for a couple of drinks on the way somewhere, or on the way back, it fits the bill perfectly. Bounce 241 Old St, EC1V 9EY, bouncepingpong.com

There are two Bounce bars, one on Old Street and one on Holborn. The Old Street spot is a little more fun, graffiti adorning the walls,the Holborn spot somewhat more upmarket. Still, they both deserve a mention, and for the simple reason theyre damned good fun. Drinks here are good, with a decent spirit selection at both (and a huge number of gins in Farringdon) and a respectable selection of beers. Food is fine, simple. Still, you come to play ping pong. Theyve tables everywhere. Theres little to fault with Bounce: its a laugh, and sometimes thats all somewhere needs to be.

Caporale explains his methods. Using beer in cocktails is an opportunity to expand the main flavours of a drink. The characteristics of Peroni Nastro Azzurro work very well with the fragrant notes of Mediterranean citrus and also herbal liqueurs. At The House of Peroni I have been working with a wide range of flavours and ingredients from the library, including vermouth, berries, citrus sorbet and macerations of fruit and flowers  people love the flavours.

Giuseppe Gallo, an Italian spirits expert and creator of Italys hippest new liqueur Italicus, adds: Theres a huge demand for Italian drinks in the city right now, from refreshing, low-alcohol spritzes to the comeback of traditional spirits such as Amaro and Rosolio. And the beer cocktail is being taken to a new level by Peroni Nastro Azzurro working with master mixologists to create sophisticated and intriguing infusions that can appeal to a different kind of drinker. But London still has the edge, as Gabriele Manfredi, the head bartender at Oriole in Farringdon, says: London is still the best city in the world to be making cocktails.

drinkup.london, @peroniuk

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A great story, galumphingly told. Essentially a biopic that starts during the US Civil War, it stars the usually impressive Matthew McConaughey as Newt Knight,a Confederate medic from Mississippi who realises that fighting against the Union is a mugs game  rich whites buy their way out of the carnage; poor whites are mown down on the battlefield or have their farms looted by Johnny Rebels.

You want to feel involved as Newt meets compassionate black house slave Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, glowing) and sets up a camp in the swamps, where blacks and whites can co-exist and wage effective guerrilla warfare against their enemies.

It helps that Mahershala Ali and Sean Bridgers are excellent as Newts friends, two brave men caught up in an extraordinary moment.

Several skirmishes are re-created with panache and its commendable that director Gary Ross works so hard to remind us that racism in the South wasnt routed by Abe Lincolns victory. Unfortunately, audiences will have to work hard to stay awake.

The narrative becomes increasingly reliant on chunks of on-screen text, a plot thread involving Newts grandson is ridiculously skimpy and there are zero surprises as far as Newt himself is concerned. Hes wily, good with a gun and super-brave. At the end we see a photo of the real Newt Knight. Sitting next to his mixed-race son he looks electrified by self-doubt. Now theres a moving image.

Cert 15, 140 mins

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A trip to see the spectacular Northern Lights is on the bucket list of many travellers  but now time-pressed Londoners need go no further than Marylebone.

Next month restaurant Texture is hosting a series of events at which diners can enjoy its Michelin-starred Scandinavian-inspired cuisine under the bright lights of the Aurora Borealis.

For its Sense-ation Series, the venue has invested 35,000 in technology that projects the flickering, colour-shifting Northern Lights onto the ceiling of its private dining room, which seats just 16 people. A menu of Icelandic cuisine is served.

Guests sit at a long table made from Icelandic oak while sheep furs cover chairs, volcanic rock is strewn around the room, birch trees surround the table and live moss covers the walls.

The sounds of the Icelandic countryside can be heard and the tables are adorned with bowls containing water from the islands famous naturally heated Blue Lagoon. The bowls also hold volcanic rock and dry ice simulates the steam that rises from the lake.

London restaurants with 2 and 3 Michelin stars 1 /16 London restaurants with 2 and 3 Michelin stars The Araki, Mayfair ** 3 Michelin stars Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, Chelsea *** 3 Michelin stars Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester, Mayfair *** 3 Michelin stars Claude Bosi at Bibendum, Chelsea ** 2 Michelin stars Patricia Niven Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, Knightsbridge, London ** 2 Michelin stars Le Gavroche, Mayfair ** 2 Michelin stars Greenhouse, Mayfair ** 2 Michelin stars Helene Darroze at The Connaught, Mayfair ** 2 Michelin stars The Ledbury, Notting Hill ** 2 Michelin stars Marcus, Belgravia ** 2 Michelin stars Sketch (The Lecture Room & Library), Mayfair ** 2 Michelin stars Umu, Mayfair ** 2 Michelin stars

Chef patron Agnar Sverrisson, who opened Texture a decade ago with sommelier Xavier Rousset, said the menu celebrated his home country and its culinary excellence.

This is about Iceland, yes, he said. All of this food is stuff from my childhood and is very typical. The Icelandic delicatessen to start is all foods that I ate when I was young.

There are a lot of challenges getting produce from Iceland to the table here in London but it is worth it to celebrate my country and its cuisine.

Diners first enjoy an Uggi cocktail, made from powerful Icelandic aquavit Brennivin, lemon juice, sugar, Saint Germain liqueur, seaweed powder and egg white. They then tuck into a five-course menu starting with the delicatessen and followed by dishes including langoustines on a bed of seaweed served on dry ice, and reindeer with chocolate sauce, served on a charcoal barbecue. For dessert, skyr  a fat-free yoghurt  and blueberries are served in traditional bowls made by Icelandic artist Olafur Sveinsson. And to finish there is a surprise that will challenge any adventurous diner to their limits.

Texture, in Portman Street, was awarded a Michelin star in 2010. The Sense-ation Dinner costs 300 per person. The event has been created in partnership with Blue Lagoon and Visit Iceland and at the end guests receive a goodie bag of lava salt, skyr and beauty gifts from the lagoon.

@LizzieEdmo

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How do we heal?" asks Dorthy Hepperly in a letter to the editor. The healing in our community will be challenging.

Hepperly apparently feels that it is therapeutic to encourage Janet Solberg to "hold her head up high" for calling our community racist. Her repulsive charge has been proven false. Hepperly also feels the healing begins by praising our mayor and Councilman Travis Hickey.

Both made egregious and insulting statements after the Prestage defeat. None of these individuals has expressed any apologies, remorse or regret for their statements. ls that just being human, as Hepperly states, or just arrogant and imperious behavior?

Hepperly has written that Mason City could have had so much more with the Prestage slaughterhouse. Does she really believe that once the slaughterhouse was built that our young people would not leave the community?

Mason City is saturated with job opportunities. As one example, if you drive through Industrial Park, you will see that six companies have hiring signs up.

North Iowa needs to understand and realize it is not the lack of work that holds us back economically, but the depressed wages. Prestage would have only contributed to more wage stagnation and turnover to an already disheartened labor force. Its pay scale stated that if workers stayed for three years they would still make less than $15 an hour, and that is absolutely disgraceful. The community would have 500 workers struggling on low and oppressive wages.

The culturally diverse work force that was to be brought in would certainly have been welcomed. However, what does it say about our community, our City Council and our economic development board when we encourage a company such as Prestage to exploit and abuse them with such a low pay scale for extremely grueling work?

Phillip R. Sanchez, Mason City
A new addition to the Shoreditch food scene, Basque restaurant Sagardi will look pretty fresh-faced to most Londoners but this latest outpost is in fact the restaurant groups 11th branch worldwide.

Dont necessarily assume thats a bad thing, though  Sagardi is far from being a cynical global chain. In fact, nine of these other restaurants are in Spain and the only other in Hispanic Buenos Aires. Surely its a good sign that the group is well-versed in serving Spanish food to the Spaniards?

That said, it must be noted that the restaurants are split between Barcelona, Madrid, Seville and Valencia rather than any of the cities in the Basque region, from where the food it serves hails.

The menu serves numerous tapas-style small plates  including rather beautiful marinated anchovies, robust-tasting jamon, excellently crisp-out-gooey-in croquettes and impeccably cooked guindilla peppers (a lot like padron peppers) that are sweet and blistered from the pan  before launching into what it is really all about: the Basque Country steak.

Meat and greet: Mikel Vinaspre, who founded Sagardi with his brother Inaki

The best of this is Galician, and made from cows  usually ex-dairy  that are older than most bred for their meat ever get to be. The steaks are gutsy affairs, with heavy marbling of fat and phenomenal flavour. At their best, they are easily among the finest in the world.

Sagardis version of these steaks does not disappoint. It is juicy, rich and tender with a seductively deep, meaty flavour and plenty of delicious, melting fat. The nature of the cuts mean it is necessary to buy 800g of it at a time, which means a minimum of two must commit to ordering it  and that each of those two must commit to eating a fair amount of it.

At 12 per 100g, it also makes the minimum price for this kind of steak 96. That isnt so terrible if theres a group of you to split it, and cheaper not-so-aged cuts are available, but for a restaurant that focuses so strongly on this steak, it feels like its missing a trick not to offer smaller portions.

Its also worth noting that Sagardi isnt the first place to serve these steaks in London. Both Lurra and Kitty Fishers in Marylebone specialise in them, and actually do them slightly better. Those of several others we have tried, Sagardi is the pick of the bunch.

Steaks aside, what Sagardi really has going for it against its meaty rivals is that it offers the complete package. Like many restaurants in Spain it has a large list of G&Ts, you can get rustic-style morcilla cooked with peppers as a starter, theres Basque cider available, the bar area offers pintxos, and theres the fun of being offered Spanish wine by the porron. There is nowhere else in London that offers all of that alongside Galician steaks.

No, this Shoreditch site is not a patch on the eateries of San Sebastian or Bilbao, but for now its probably the closest youre going to get without catching a flight.

Sagardi, Shoreditch: The Lowdown

Final flavour: A bit of the Basque Country settles down in Shoreditch.

At what cost? Steaks start at 6 per 10g and go up to 12 per 100g, while other dishes are far more reasonable.

Visit if you like: Lurra, Kitty Fishers, Morada Brindisa.

Find it: 95 Curtain Road, EC2A 3BS; sagardi.com

Follow Ben Norum on Twitter @BenNorum

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O ver beers in a Waterloo bar last week a banker friend was pondering his well-paid career: I have been so unbelievably lucky, he declared.

I went from university straight into Big Bang, and have been making a fortune for decades. No generation ever had it so good.

You hear similar comments from many fifty-something City types but, 30 years on, for many outside the world of finance the expression Big Bang remains a mystery. We know it meant hoorays and Essex boys suddenly becoming millionaires, wearing red braces and frequenting lapdancing clubs, but the details are sketchy.

In Crash Bang Wallop, journalist Iain Martin aims to explain to the layman and financial whizz exactly why it was so hugely important, setting it in its historical context between the dawn of the City of London in the 1500s and the current uncertainty of Brexit.

First he entertainingly rattles, Peter Ackroyd-like, through the innovations and scandals of the Citys early days, kicking off with his energetic financier-hero Thomas Gresham bailing out the cash-strapped Tudor monarchy. Then he describes the Square Miles development into a bustling international trading hub, chock-full of markets whose ghosts whisper down the centuries in todays thoroughfares of Poultry, Bread Street, Milk Street and Pudding Lane.

The First World War brought all this globetrotting success to a halt. According to Martin, the war led the City to bring in protective practices and become inward-looking, until Martins second great hero, Margaret Thatcher, arrived.

Thatcher, he explains, actually had little to do with the nitty-gritty City reforms for which she is so famous. But her ministers, taking her free-market cue, objected to the London Stock Exchanges closed shop, where restrictive practices and outdated technology were the norm.

Using interviews with leading City characters of the time Martin describes in detail  perhaps too much  the haggling between the toffs in the Stock Exchange and Thatchers ministers during the early Eighties. Unfortunately, he doesnt spell out clearly enough what the reforms which resulted  Big Bang  were, and why they were so vital.

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Instead they get mixed in with other factors  the relaxation of foreign exchange controls, the booming London market for trading European companies debts, the invasion of banks from the US and Japan  which combined to revitalise the City and bring trillions of dollars of deals back to London.

Such muddying is a fault in a book supposedly about Big Bang but the current of Martins narrative picks you up and carries you along anyway, as he gallops with rosy-cheeked, Tory delight through the glory days of privatisation and Porsches.

Criticism of Eighties greed and materialism by alternative comedians (his quote marks, not mine) is dismissed as the silly hypocrisy of public-school Lefties. For all Martins breathless praise of the era, though, I suspect many readers of Crash Bang Wallop from outside the City will feel the joke was on them.
D oes anybody want to know any more about men, especially old men? After Donald Trumps little turn, perhaps not. Away with them!

But obligingly theyre on the way out anyway. There is this awkward fact: men die younger. Universally. More males than females die even as infants. By the time weve reached the ages of 15 to 24 the male death rate is nearly three times higher (the greatest causes being accidents, killings, suicides  risky behaviours, in other words). But mortal disparity continues much later in life too. A third more men die aged 65-74 than do women. In US figures from 2005, some 37.7 per cent of women died aged 85 or over, whereas only 20 per cent of men made it to that age.

In his previous book, Men: Evolutionary and Life History from 2006, Richard Bribiescas, a professor of anthropology and evolutionary biology at Yale, tackled these facts, this apparent male dysfunctionality.

The basic evolutionary precept behind the phenomenon, that natural selection favours the development of bodies, brains and behaviours that maximise lifetime reproductive success, rather than longevity or prolonged health, is familiar enough. But he refined this approach by also using life history theory, examining changes over a lifetime as well as within a broad evolutionary framework, to show how, for example, testosterone brings advantages at certain stages of life (muscularity, aggression, enhanced metabolic rates, libido) at a later cost (obesity, baldness, prostate hyperplasia, cancer).

Now, in a slim volume, Bribiescas develops the theme, partly motivated by going grey himself, he freely admits. Like other anthropologists he does that peculiar thing of universalising his observations and deductions by verifying them through comparisons with the one specific group of people he has studied in the field, in this case the hunter-gatherer Ache of Eastern Paraguay, who number fewer than 2,000. So this is an unusual form of writing, much footnoted and couched as scientific and academic but actually argumentative, speculative, even personal.

Once more, he observes: As a population ages, men become scarce. A visit to virtually any retirement facility will reveal that there are many more women than men, and the mortality disparity between the sexes becomes even more apparent with time. He laments, with perhaps a little personal inflection, that even if a man has survived his unruly teens, visits his physician regularly, does not smoke, refrains from drinking alcohol, and lives a relatively healthy life, he will still pay more for health insurance compared to women since he is more likely to become ill and die before women born at the same time.

However, he also notes that the human lifespan is altogether much longer than evolutionary factors would predict: Lifespan is usually correlated with female reproductive lifespan; that is, when females cease reproducing it is usually a signpost that mortality is imminent. Yet, uniquely, in humans about a third of female life is post-reproductive. How did this ever happen?

The most commonly cited evolutionary explanation, eagerly adopted by feminism, is the Grandmother Hypothesis, originally proposed by Kristen Hawkes and also developed in the field, among the Hadza foragers of Tanzania. Early in our evolution, prior to the emergence of extended lifespan, grandmothers who invested in the care and provisioning of their grandchildren enabled their daughters to have more children.

More book reviews 1 /24 More book reviews Recovery by Russell Brand Will Russells brand of self-help prove quite so addictive? By Nicholas Lezard. Read review A Life in Questions by Jeremy Paxman Paxo refuses to answer all the really good questions, says David Sexton. Read review Politics: Between: The Extremes by Nick Clegg The basis of this book makes it impossible not to warm to Clegg, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review Serious Sweet by A L Kennedy Thank heavens for London in this tale of self-obsessed lovers. Read review The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth by Anna Keay Born a kings b****** and destined for a traitors death. Read review Man Up: Boys, Men and Breaking the Male Rules by Rebecca Asher Getting to the bottom of why boys will be boys. Read review The Course of Love by Alain de Botton A philosophical novel that does run smooth, says Johanna Thomas-Corr. Read review The Tree Climbers Guide: Adventures in the Urban Canopy by Jack Cooke How I gave this book a proper test and ended up with a broken ankle. Read review Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre Brontes classic tale in the imaginations of other writers, says Claire Harman. Read review Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran Caitlin comes clean about politics  the world according to our funniest feminist. By Rosamund Urwin. Read review Spark Joy An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying by Marie Kondo Theres no messing wih Marie, says Katie Law. Read review Cockfosters Stories by Helen Simpson After 50, a womans life gets better not worse. By Katie Law. Read review Stalins Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess by Andrew Lownie Joker in the spying pack. By Richard Bassett. Read review Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin The darkness that lies at the heart of the novel is offset by a lightness of touch, says Mark Sanderson. Read review Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello Elvis proves not quite so lyrical on the page, says Nick Curtis. Read review The Importance of Elsewhere: Philip Larkins Photographs by Richard Bradford His poetry paints better pictures than any camera, says David Sexton. Read review Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith Morality wins out over macabre murders, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review The Grownup by Gillian Flynn Calling all Flynnies: the con girl whos like gone girl. Read review

But Bribiescas suggests that men may be as much  or more?  responsible for our extended human lifespan than women. There is the revolting fact that men can remain fertile past 50, and they may actually be better providers when older, even though less physically capable. (Among the Ache hunter-gatherers mens hunting returns are highest, due to skill and experience, long after their physical strength and fitness peak, says Bribiescas, complete with a chart of kilograms of meat acquired per unit of time  Donald Trump would be so cheered).

Then again, mens declining testosterone may actually have benefits for their offspring, if costs for themselves. Bribiescas suggests a new concept which he bravely calls the Pudgy Dad Hypothesis: increased adiposity, including fat deposition that is facilitated by age, was leveraged during human evolution to increase parental survivorship, mitigate mate-seeking behaviours and promote a hormonal milieu that supported parental care.

He even suggests that female longevity may be primarily a fortunate by-product of these useful extended male lifespans. Men struggle on with reproduction well past their apparent sell-by date and, thanks merely to belonging to the same species, women have accidentally copped a free ride into old age as a result.

Could it be true? It hardly matters. This is better than science-fiction!

Bribiescas, grizzled and speccy himself, ends the book with some genial Final Thoughts. With regard to ageing, all men face the prospect of having to adjust to the biophysics of physical deterioration Prostates swell, muscles diminish, younger men challenge you and naps become ever more attractive. Evolutionary biology can inform us about the origin of age-associated heath issues in men Yet despite these challenges, the humanity in older men provided other evolutionary alternatives that made the human condition a bit more tolerable and maybe even improved it, such as the emergence of fathers caring for children, pudgy bellies for cats and grandchildren to snooze on and perhaps a few more years for everyone to enjoy the wonderful absurdity of life.

Cats! Final Dreams, perhaps. Or a novel, almost. A memoir, most certainly.
A Google search for "mooning" pulls up expected results: some news articles about protestors pulling down their pants, and the formal dictionary definition of said act  "to expose one's buttocks to (someone) in order to insult or amuse them." Even Urban Dictionary, that harbinger of culturally relevant (and often NSFW) terms, refers to "mooning" as a butt-baring action.

But a whole new mooning meaning has developed that has nothing to do with naked butts: It has, instead, to do with your iPhone. When you moon someone or a group of people, you effectively silence the texting conversation by putting it in Do Not Disturb mode. But it's being called mooning in reference to the light grey moon that appears to the left of the conversation in your Messages folder, signifying that thread's Do Nod Disturb status.

Mooning someone is easy enough: All you have to do is press the "i" icon at the top right of the text message thread, toggle "Do Not Disturb" to the right, and then you won't receive notifications for their messages until you turn it off. The messages will still be there, but they won't cause your phone to light up every two seconds, which can be annoying during a meeting or when you're trying to fall asleep.

"It's the way we must negotiate our lives, since many of us are inundated with texts," says Diane Gottsman, national etiquette expert and owner of The Protocol School of Texas. "It's easier for us to moon people than to block them. Blocking feels more aggressive  you don't want to block your mother."

If blocking is one extreme and ghosting, an intentional disappearing act associated with dates gone wrong, is another, mooning occupies the grey area in between  you're staying present in conversations, but just taking a break.

"I have multiple group texts with the same five to six people, and my friends are popping off most of the day with what they ate and how their dates went and their general stream of consciousness," says Sara Sowell, 24. "Mooning helps me focus while at work and prevents me from waking up in the middle of the night. When I am walking to the train in the morning or feel like I need to be supported by my friends, I catch up and engage with them."

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Other women I spoke with mentioned similar reasoning behind their "mooning," although a few said that they've mooned OkCupid dates who couldn't take a hint, putting them in a sort of text-message purgatory. Some women moon friends who live on opposite coasts and have a tendency to text in the middle of the night. Others moon family members who boost their stress levels at unwelcome times.

"My sister tends to like planning and will text me about planning things at all hours," says Erin, 24, who asked that her name be changed for this piece so that her sister isn't clued in to her silencing. "I do not want to read these texts one hour before I go to bed because they make me nervous, so I moon her  out of love."

Mooning is rarely a hostile act  that's what blocking is for  but Gottsman points out that you want to think carefully about whom you moon. You wouldn't, for example, want to moon your boss or an important work connection, since doing so could have direct consequences on your job.

But, as long as you remember to turn the Do Not Disturb switch back off and catch up on the conversation at some point, mooning is harmless. Although you might want to refrain from admitting to your mooning, unless you know the person on the other end of the line won't take offence.

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A fter the Brexit vote and two leadership elections what the Labour Party needs now, says MP Tristram Hunt, is a bit of a laugh. There are quite a few people on the moderate side of the party who are a bit bruised, he says. They needed a chance to be rumbustious at conference.

At Sundays Progress rally, the historian-turned-politician injected some exuberance into proceedings with a spirited speech that verged on stand-up comedy. He joked about Labour Amazonians who once upon a time were held hostage by a far-Left party. Now he says: At my first conference 20 years ago the old Lefties told incredibly rude jokes about the leadership. With Jeremy and John McDonnell in charge the Progress rally has become the dissenting space. Everyone gets jumpy about making jokes about the leadership so that was probably the last hurrah.

Hunt has returned from Liverpool in high spirits, pronouncing it in an unashamedly terrible Merseyside trill and lamenting not having made it to the Labour LGBT disco. He is 42, wears a white shirt with the collar undone and has the sort of lantern jaw, blond thatch and confidence usually reserved for Tories  indeed many have wondered if he is too traditionally handsome to be in the Labour party.

We meet in his Westminster office, a prime spot overlooking Parliament Square: Sad story: I inherited it from the former leader of Scottish Labour, Jim Murphy. Scottish Labours collapse freed up a lot of real estate. There are books about JMW Turner and the purges in Stalins Russia on the table and more history tomes line the shelves, alongside Union Jack flags in a jug by Emma Bridgewater, whose factory is his constituency of six years, Stoke-on-Trent Central.

Hunt voted for Owen Smith to take over as leader and was on a list of 14 Labour MPs who Corbyns campaign team said were undermining the party. Today he is obedient but with the air of a child who knows its not worth their while to be naughty just now. In quasi-serious tones, a glint in his blue eyes, he says: Jeremys been elected once and twice so if you want a Labour government you have to support the leader. Everyone keeps talking about unity, which is good, he says. But the unity we need is a slightly more unified relationship with the British public with policies for what we used to call hardworking families. If Theresa May comes and eats our lunch on minimum-wage, apprenticeships, education and social mobility, which are our core terrain, and were still talking about elections to the NEC then well be in difficulty.

MANY of Labours problems crystallise around the EU and Hunt says it was weird and bad that delegates voted not to discuss Brexit at conference. That seems like quite a biggie to thrash out. One of the biggest things about Brexit was the countrys relationship with London, the extraordinary investment in it, which is needed, but also the sense of the rest of the UK not enjoying the same riches. Labours powerful in London now so its a good vehicle to think about it. He looks animated at the thought of a challenge.

Can Corbyn win a general election? We can win it, he says in a feeble tone. European politics is in total flux but the mistake in the UK was to think everyone will go Left because theyve seen the crisis of capitalism. In fact they hold on to what they have. If you want them to go on a radical journey they also need to feel trust and confidence, which is why the only person who has done it is old smiley Trudeau out in Canada because he had that name, tradition and bankability but with it quite a radical anti-austerity programme. Its sort of brilliant. On the other side theres The Donald, although Hunt doesnt rate him.

Over here, the Left had lost an election and thought, we might as well have some of that old-time religion. He calls Momentums approach algorithm politics, influenced by tech-savvy idealists. Its like how on Amazon they find what you like and give you more of it  theres no countervailing voice, so you work yourself up into more righteousness: all Tories are evil, Blairites are wrong.

It isnt sustainable, though. To win a general election you have to get a lot of people who voted Tory to vote Labour and if youre telling them theyre bastards thats not a very inviting way to think about pursuing a different future. If we think we can only win by getting non-voters and Green voters to vote Labour then were not going to achieve it. You win politics from the centre ground and then move it when youre in power.

He continues: Having been a member of the Labour Party for more than 20 years what gets my back up is people having just joined telling us were Tories and should leave and everything is our fault. They think they have ownership of the party when actually Labour has gone through many forms.

History gives Hunt perspective. There is a disturbing socialist tradition of if youre not with us in pure socialism you are against us  and even Marx and Engels were more pluralist than some members of Momentum. But what you learn is that these revolutions eat their own children. They think they are the purest at the moment but they wont find themselves so pure soon.

Anti-Semitism in the Labour party is worrying. The Shami Chakrabati inquiry was a missed opportunity. It was a lightweight report. There are deep problems  in student unions and at Labour Party conference. You have to be unequivocal about anti-Semitism and understand it is not the same as racism and there is a class element  people assume members of the Jewish community are wealthy so the Labour party can put them to one side, and they also regard Israel as a colonial force so therefore we are against it. He also sympathises with colleagues who have faced misogyny and an ugly strand in hard-Left politics.

Still, Hunt is sticking with it. Hes indignant when I ask if hed consider founding a new party. No. Its deep within the blood. This is my party. Labour goes in waves but you make your case within the party. He proudly says his father was a Labour councillor and his great-aunt did great early years work in the GLC.

Is he the man to save the party? He doesnt say no to becoming leader one day. The partys heading in a slightly different direction to that. Globally, the centre-Left is up against austerity economics, the financial crash and the politics of the European Union. Its pretty hardcore and going to take some heavy lifting and time.

Since he was elected Hunt has been held back by his name and background. He went to private school, UCS in north London, then Trinity College Cambridge, where he was in Footlights with Sacha Baron Cohen. This means hes sympathetic to the far-Left when they are accused of being upper-middle-class and out of touch: I am vulnerable as Tristram Hunt. I come from a privileged background so Id never throw stones in glass houses. Youre born into a family but its how you live your life.

Hes been mistaken for Zac Goldsmith and told to buck my ideas up if I wanted to be mayor. Still, he wouldnt change his name. His children, Digby, Margot and Lydia, go to the local state primary in Finsbury Park. Ive no intention of sending them to a private school but every parent does the best for their child and its a huge struggle in London.

His wife, Juliet Thornback, works three days a week at her homewares design business so does the majority of childcare but they box and cox. He even has some terrible Tory friends  Im not as tribal as some.

When shadowing Michael Gove as Education Secretary he grew to respect him. Its a sort of secret, says Hunt in a low voice. But there were talks before the election about how myself, David Laws and Michael could agree not to throw up in the air things like the primary school curriculum. But then Michael got purged and Nicky Morgan didnt want to do that.

He appears to be chomping at the bit to make practical change on a grand scale. Theres a great charity called West London Zone which focuses on early years, sport and the bits around education. In Stoke-on-Trent weve raised a million quid to hire maths teachers  wouldnt it be great if we could roll that out across the country? Being in opposition is frustrating because you want to get stuff done.

Is he tempted to return to a quieter life in academia? Im endlessly behind on the books Im meant to be writing but there are moments I slip into the archives in Stoke and that recharges my batteries.

Right on cue, the bongs of Big Ben sound. Politics is fun, and you have that, he says gesturing at the view. But you want to be achieving things, not just protesting and holding to account  and thats where we have to get to. Its a profound privilege being an MP but you want to have Labour in charge. Thats what were here for.

Follow Susannah on Twitter @susannahbutter
T he reborn R53 Mini arrived in 2001 and wooed buyers from the outset with its cute modern-retro looks and BMW-honed mechanicals. The best model of all was the supercharged Mini Cooper S, which arrived a year later to stoke the excitement even more.

More than a decade and a half later, the enthusiasm for this thrilling 163bhp hot hatch continues  indeed, with prices starting from just 1750, its in a way even more appealing today.

OK, the 0-62mph time of 7.2sec doesnt sound amazing by modern standards, but an official John Cooper Works tuning kit quickly sorted that: a boost to 200bhp cut the 0-62mph time to 6.4sec. It became more powerful and faster still a year later; look for the oval badge on the bootlid or engine cover.

All Cooper S are a blast to drive, with a responsive engine and snappy six-speed gearbox. Its more comfortable than you may expect, with a good quality interior, although seat adjustment isnt great for taller drivers and its minuscule both in the rear and the boot.

Although it has the range-topping Mini, equipment wasnt lavish. You needed the Chili option pack to get air con, xenon headlights, half-leather seats and leather steering wheel. Mini started the craze for factory-fit body decals: today, these can crack, and peeling them off to replacement is harder and more expensive than you think.

Mini offered a choice of either 16in or 17in wheels. 17ins look better but make the ride super-harsh; they had run-flat tyres from new but many owners will have now swapped them for better-riding conventional rubber. Talking about tyres, check the wear pattern; the Cooper S has fancy multi-link rear suspension that only gives its best with full four-wheel alignment.

An option most owners went for is the TLC all-inclusive servicing pack. This means most Minis will have had plentiful servicing earlier in their life; seek out models with a good set of stamps after that, as this is a car that thrives on attention.

Dealers love em. John Cornhill from Masterdriver says they still look and go great, and depreciation has made once-expensive options a bargain today. No two cars are the same though: he tells us we should look for the Chili pack, full leather and a panoramic sunroof.

There are few pitfalls either, reckons Cornhill. They can leak oil and suffer from dodgy power steering, but buy on condition rather than age and youll be right. Considering a 100,000-miler? Do so without fear, he says  any niggles will have been ironed out ages ago.

Other things to look out for include worn driveshafts, which slow full-lock turns should quickly show up with a rattle of clatters. Suspension bushes and track rod ends can wear, engine mounts can crack and the handbrake is sometimes dodgy. Dont worry about noisy superchargers though: they all whine, sir.

And so, prices. Excitingly, from just 1750 will buy a 2002-2004 car with 100,000 miles on the clock and even a bit of service history: tidier 2004-2005 cars will cost from 2600-3400 and up to 4000 is enough to secure the pick of the R53 Cooper S range. Have a healthy budget of over 4000? Expect only the best. Its such a blast, you may just think its worth it.
A room with a breathtaking view is a must in Santorini. Featuring some of the best outlooks on the island, Canaves is the epitome of luxury...

Where is it? Perched on the cliffs of Santroni's most exclusive area, Oia. Overlooking the picturesque Caldera and dramatic volcano, the setting could not be more beautiful.

Design details: Carved out of caves, the suites offer a special blend of traditional architecture with calming blue and white interiors. Minimal but warm, this is a chic palette which oozes Mediterranean charm. Adding to that layer of luxury, there are private plunge pools on every balcony overlooking the neverending sea views.

Is there a pool? In addition to the hot tubs in the guest rooms, there is also a shared pool next to the bar and restaurant area in the Suites. The neighbouring hotel also has an infinity pool so there there are several options for taking a dip.

Which room? It is worth splashing out on the suites for extra space and privacy. The Superior range offer amazing views and can accomodate up to three people.

On the menu: Kick off the day with a Champagne breakfast at the Petra restaurant. Then head back there for dinner under the stars with Mediterranean dishes and an excellent Satnorini wine list. The Infinity Pool restaurant is a great spot for cocktails.

Is there a spa? Yes, the newly opened spa is a must. Tucked away in a 17th century wine cave, it is a hidden gem. The spa menu includes the famous Rasul and a great range of Elemis treatments. The facials come highly recommended. Billed as a Spa with a Santorini Soul it is a fitting part of the tranquil experience. There is a gym on site too.

Best for: A relaxing break in a wonderfully luxurious setting. Nothing is too much trouble for the excellent staff in this hotel who do their utmost to ensure guests have a wonderful, stress-free experience.

When to go: Although the summer season is the busiest for Santorini, a late September/early October trip can also offer great weather and refreshingly quiet streets.

Price: From around 300 per night depending on dates.

Book: Visit canaves.com.

When in town

Dine at Catch

The new hotspot in town, Catch is a lively restaurant with cool decor and delicious dishes.Greek flavours blend with an international bar menu and fabulous wine list. In fact, this is where Greece's only female sommelier works; a real treat as she knows her stuff.

Try the spinach pie, scallops or sea bass to start then Mediterranean cod or Langoustines for main. Don't miss out on the 3 Ways Chocolate dessert. Book a late table and stay on for drinks. As the night goes on the DJ gets louder and the ambience shifts from sophisticated to sassy.

Concrete floors, rustic tables and a striking wooden installation above the bar all contribute to a design conscious space with trendy clientele, catchrestaurant.gr.

Pop into Poniros

The House of Poniros has been handcrafting timeless jewellery creations for more than 60 years and continues to make a mark on the international jewellery couture scene. Designer and certified GIA Gemologist Yiorgos Poniros, the third generation of the Poniros Company, is now at the helm. His styles are inspired and infused with the colours of Santorini.

The signature is the Volcanic Flower Collection, a tribute to the ancient Greek flower fresco of Santorini appraised by poets and historians. Angelina Jolie is among the luxury brand's VIP clientele.

Yiorgos can often be found with his friendly team in the Oia shop and guests of Canaves are given a welcome gift if they pop in, poniros.com.

Follow Amira Hashish on Twitter @amiranews and Instagram @thedesigneditor
A disgraced doctor who built up a stash of extreme pornography including a man having sex with a snake today walked free from court.

GP Cyprian Okoro, 55, was lucky not to have been jailed over his library of obscene videos sent to him via WhatsApp which betrayed his profession, a judge said.

The sick clips included women having sex with dogs, a woman having sex with a horse and a man having sex with a snake, the court heard.

Okoro, of Cameron Place, Streatham, also had an indecent video of a two-year-old boy, which among images moved to a password-protected vault app on his phone.

The defendant denied five charges of possessing extreme pornography and one of possessing an indecent image of a child but was found guilty at the Old Bailey of all but two extreme pornography charges.

Following the verdict, the jury was told that it was the second time Okoro had been convicted in what the judge described as a "quite unusual case".

The Court of Appeal ordered a retrial after he was sentenced to nine months' jail suspended for 18 months at Norwich Crown Court in 2014.

He had also been ordered to sign the sex offenders' register for 10 years, complete an internet sex offenders' programme, do 200 hours of unpaid work and be subject to 18 months of supervision.

The court also heard how in April 2000, Okoro was found guilty by a General Medical Council panel of serious professional misconduct relating to "inappropriate comments of a sexual nature" at work.

He was suspended for 18 months, extended for a further 12 months in 2001, the court was told.

Okoro came to the attention of police after a woman made an allegation of sexual assault against him, but no further action was taken over the claim.

In mitigation, Stephen Akinsanya said it was "regrettable" that such a man had lost his good character and possibly his career.

He told the court: "His biggest regret is he did not delete the material the moment it arrived and did not seek to cut off the ties with those who sent the material to him."

Mr Akinsanya said it was through "reckless stupidity" he had risked his whole career and it was unlikely Okoro would be able to work in the UK again.

He said the GP had been "traumatised" by the stigma attached to his conviction but insisted he was not a paedophile.

He had never posed a danger to his own children or those he interacted with through his work, the court heard.

Sentencing, Judge Richard Hone QC told Okoro: "You have betrayed the high standards of conduct required by your profession."

The judge said he had to allow for the fact the defendant had completed the unpaid work, supervision requirement and most of the sex offenders' programme.

Although he was "constrained" by the earlier sentence, he echoed the appeal court judge by saying Okoro had been "fortunate" he had not been sent immediately to prison before.

Okoro qualified as a doctor in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1986, and received an interim suspension by the General Medical Council in September 2013.
A n elderly woman and her male accomplice stole a 1,000 electric scooter from outside a church  while its disabled owner was at Bible class inside.

Sarah Dougall, 75, said she has been left housebound after the thieves took the motorised chair.

The mother of six has had several operations on her legs and struggles to walk. She said: Im absolutely heartbroken. Its taken away my freedom. I feel useless and cant even go to the shops on my own.

The theft, which took place under cover of darkness at 8pm on Thursday September 8, was captured on CCTV cameras attached to Kingdom Hall in New Cross Gate.

Footage shows the duo  who are now being hunted by police  approaching the burgundy Revo SCUK64 wheelchair in its parking spot behind an industrial bin, where Mrs Dougall had hidden it an hour earlier before attending the class.

Getaway: the pair make their escape

The female suspect, who walks with a stick and wore a distinctive patterned jacket, shines a torch on the vehicle as her friend spends several minutes inspecting it before reaching underneath to disable the lock.

She eventually climbs onto the seat and is pushed along by the man in a low-speed getaway.

Mrs Dougall, a retired catering assistant at Kings College Hospital who has nine grandchildren and four great grandchildren, discovered the theft as she left the church at about 9pm. She said: I did a double-take and said, My scooters gone. Just like that. I felt so upset. I was really shaken by what happened. I didnt know what to do.

'Shocked': Sarah Dougall, who had her mobility scooter stolen / Nigel Howard

One of the nice ladies with a car took me home. I called my son and the police. The hall told us they had CCTV and my son went down with his friend to collect it.

When I saw it I was just shocked. I didnt expect to see old people. I thought they might be some youngsters who might want to sell it or joyride in it.

Mrs Dougalls family have launched an online appeal to raise 1,000 for a replacement, as the chair was not insured. She said: I dont like relying on other people and I just want it back. How could anyone steal from somebody my age? Its obviously for an elderly person.

Sizing up: the pair try out the scooter for size

Mrs Dougalls son Jonathan Dougall described her as a kind-hearted and generous person who was dependent on the scooter.

Mr Dougall, 40, a musician from Deptford, said: When you take the key out it automatically goes into lock down. It wont move  you could leave it on a hill.

You have to know what youre doing and you can see on the video they were there for over eight minutes. Its not easy to do. Almost certainly they must have owned one or done it before.

A Met spokesman said: Police received a call at 10pm on September 8 concerning the theft of a mobility scooter.

It is alleged to have taken place at 8pm that day. There are two suspects, one male and one female, who are both described as white and of large build.

Anyone with information is asked to call police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

To donate to Mrs Dougalls fundraising page visit justgiving.com/crowdfunding/sarahs-scooter
A millionaires son has admitted mowing down and killing a 10-year-old boy and his aunt while fleeing from police.

Joshua Dobby, 23, crashed into young actor Makayah McDermott and his aunt Rozanne Cooper, 35, as they walked to the park in Penge, south east London in August.

Dobby lost control of a Ford Focus in Lennard Road on August 31, ploughing into the family before striking a tree.

Makayah and Ms Cooper died from their injuries, while the boys twin sisters, Niyah and Yahla, 13, and cousin Eva, 8, were also injured in the crash.

At the Old Bailey this morning, Dobby pleaded not guilty to two counts of manslaughter but admitted causing death by dangerous driving.

He also pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving over injuries to Yahla.

Admission: Joshua Dobby

Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay told the court Dobby will still stand trial on the manslaughter charges.

After his arrest, it emerged Dobbys father Mark lives in a 2.7m house in Kent, and runs a pet food wholesale company as well as an investments company and a property lettings agency.

Dobby, who is of no fixed address, appeared at the Old Bailey via videolink from HMP Highdown this morning to enter the pleas.

Wearing a cross around his neck, he pleaded not guilty to two counts of manslaughter but guilty to causing death by dangerous driving, and guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

Rozanne Cooper, the aunt of the children, also died / Facebook

Following the deaths, relatives and friends paid tribute to Ms Cooper and Makayah, who had just earned his big break as a child actor in a production of the Wizard of Oz.

He, along with his sisters and cousin, were all talented actors and models, having appeared in magazine shoots, TV commercials, and on book covers.

Makayah himself had starred in an advert for Asda and was auditioning for the lead role in a TV series when he died.

Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC, the Recorder of London, remanded Dobby in custody until a manslaughter trial on February 27 next year.

The court also heard Dobby is accused of dangerous driving four days before the crash in a separate incident.

He has not yet entered a plea on this charge.

Robin Ghosh, representing Dobby, said: "He wishes it to be noted that he fully acknowledges the utterly incomprehensible pain and suffering caused to the families involved."
Hillary Clintons faith is seldom discussed in this election, perhaps because it is the kind to be put into practice and not the show-off kind.

She has always been a social justice-focused Methodist shaped by John Wesleys mantra: Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.

When Clinton spoke to the United Methodist Women Assembly, she shared that her faith has guided her to be an advocate for children and families ever since she was mentored by her youth pastor in Park Ridge, Illinois.

Once, when asked about why she thought God allows suffering she quickly answered, The existence of suffering calls us to action.

Time Magazines book, Hillary: An American Life, contains a chapter called Anchored By Faith that shows how her beliefs have inspired private devotion, prayer and reflection as well as public service.

Critics may decry her political aspirations, but an examination shows that her faith has consistently driven her to pursue a higher calling.

David Mansheim, Parkersburg
T wo teenagers have been charged with GBH after a video of a young boy being punched to the ground emerged online.

The boys, both aged 17, are accused of assaulting a 15-year-old in a park in Romford, east London.

They have been bailed to appear at Barkingside magistrates court on October 19.

The victim was taken to hospital after the attack in Raphael Park on July 21 but has since been discharged, police said.

A third boy, also aged 17, was arrested on Wednesday in connection with the incident.

He remains on police bail.
T wo famous Vincent van Gogh paintings stolen from a museum 14 years ago have been discovered in Italy.

The paintings were taken from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2002 after thieves used a ladder to climb in.

Over a decade later, they have been found by Italian police as part of a massive investigation into the Naples mafia.

Seascape at Scheveningen (1882) and Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen (1885), both worth millions, were among priceless assets seized in the investigation.

After specialist organised crime officers discovered the art, a curator was brought in who verified they were the missing paintings.

Stolen art: 'Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen' is one of the two paintings worth millions (Van Gogh Museum)

They are both missing their frames and have been slightly damaged due to not being preserved correctly but remain in relatively good condition.

Axel Ruger, director of the Van Gogh Museum, said the museum owes a great debt of gratitude to Dutch and Italian officials.

After all those years you no longer dare to count on a possible return, he said.

The paintings have been found! That I would be able to ever pronounce these words is something I had no longer dared to hope for.

It is not yet certain when the works will come back to Amsterdam. But I fully believe that we can, once more, count on the unconditional support of the Italian authorities."

When they were stolen, neither paintings were insured and were on loan to the museum from the Dutch government.

The theft led to accusations that security was not of a high enough standard at major art museums around the world.

The paintings will remain in Italy for the time being in order to be used as evidence in the criminal case against the suspects.
T he number of Londoners renting privately at risk of having to move home if they become jobless or lose their income due to sickness has soared to nearly 600,000, a new study warned today.

The analysis by leading insurer Royal London found the number of households in the capital in such a precarious financial position had more than doubled in just over a decade.

These renters at risk include many families whose children could have to change school if they were forced to move home.

The study, by former pensions minister Steve Webb who is now director of policy at Royal London, highlighted three main factors behind this toxic cocktail threatening working Londoners.

The number of renters has risen sharply as buying a home has become so expensive, employment has hit a record high and there have been cuts to housing benefit.

Latest figures show the number of working adults in London who could be affected by these factors, if they lost their income, rose to 867,000 in 2014/15, from 338,000 in 2003/04.

It would have reached 963,000 in 2016/17 if as expected the number has continued to rise at least in line with the trend over the past decade.

Some 790,000 of them are calculated to be renting in the private sector, with the remaining people in housing association or council homes.

Around three quarters of the 790,000 - or 592,000 - would run out of money for rent and other bills, according to the analysis, after three to six months.

The age breakdown of these renters at risk includes 44,000 under 25, 314,000 25 to 34-year-olds, 142,000 aged 35-44, 84,000 45 to 54-year-olds, and 8,000 aged 55 or over.

The study warns private renters could be affected in at least four ways:

* Couples who need both their salaries to pay the rent, and lost one of them, would in many cases not quality for housing benefit given its sharp earnings taper.

* Single people under 35 would usually only be entitled to housing benefit at shared accommodation rate.

* People with spare bedrooms, according to welfare rules, finding housing benefit not covering their actual rent.

* Housing benefit rates only meeting rent levels in the cheaper parts of an area.

Mr Webb said: More needs to be done to help families living in rented accommodation to think through the implications of the very limited state safety net on which they might be relying.

Unless they are able to resume paid work quickly, approaching 600,000 working people renting in the private sector in London could be at risk of not being able to pay the rent and having to move to cheaper accommodation, if they could find it.

London and housing minister Gavin Barwell, MP for Croydon Central, has recognised more focus needs to be put on helping renters.

A Government spokesman said: Were creating a bigger, better private rented sector with up to 10 billion in Government-backed guarantees to attract more institutional investment in quality homes for rent.

Unemployment and sickness benefits ensured a strong safety net for the most vulnerable, he added.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has also outlined plans for a London Living Rent, a new type of tenancy for newly-built affordable homes aimed at low and middle-income households, typically earning between 35,000 and 45,000 and currently renting privately, to help them save for a deposit by offering them a below-market rent.
B ritain's war against the soaring number of cyber attacks is to be led from a new HQ in the centre of London, the Standard reveals today.

The National Cyber Security Centre, close to Victoria station, will be tasked with bolstering security against the growing online threats from around the globe.

It will be the front line in the UKs battle to protect itself from cyber attacks emanating from countries including China and Russia as well as from terrorists and criminal gangs.

Some of Britains best technological minds will break new ground in the bid to develop defences for the Government to block malware and phishing emails automatically.

The HQ will be located in property giant Land Securities ultra-modern Nova development  including offices, shops, restaurants and bars  off Victoria Street and close to Buckingham Palace.

Specialist teams for the City, Whitehall, intelligence and security services, energy, telecoms, other parts of the critical national infrastructure and businesses will help them fight against and respond to general and more specific threats to their sectors.

War on cyber terror: NCSC chief executive Ciaran Martin moves from GCHQ,

The NHS, universities and local government will be offered more support to protect the huge amount of data they hold and to guard against intrusions.

The NCSC will have 700 staff, more than half based at the new HQ.

It will be an operational centre whose focus will be defensive work to combat increasingly sophisticated as well as more routine attacks on London and other parts of the UK. If needed, it will be able to call on offensive cyber capabilities developed by GCHQ and the Ministry of Defence.

NCSC chief executive Ciaran Martin, who moves from being GCHQs director general of cyber security, said: Our role is helping to make the UK the safest place to live and do business online. So well tackle the major threats from hostile states and criminal gangs.

But well also work tirelessly to protect people automatically from those smaller scale and deeply damaging attacks.

NCSC chief executive Ciaran Martin / Getty

The threat is growing, with 200 major cyber incidents a month  double the rate last year  say sources.

The NCSC will open on Monday as an organisation and staff will move into the new office later this year and at the start of 2017. It will be part of GCHQ, whose main centre is the spy listening hub in Cheltenham. But it will be more open and outward-facing  given that it will need to interact with businesses, Government, other organisations and the public to boost cyber defences.

Cabinet Office minister Ben Gummer said: London leads the world in many ways already so it is only right that we establish the countrys first cyber security centre in the heart of the capital as Britain continues at the forefront of tackling this global issue.

The NCSC, believed to be a world first with its links to the intelligence service, will have four key tasks:

Respond to cyber security attacks to limit their damage, help with recovery and learn lessons to reduce the risks of recurrence. For very serious incidents, messages may have to be issued on how the public can protect themselves.

Cut risks to the UK by working with public and private sector organisations to beef up their cyber security.

Understand the cyber security environment, share knowledge and use that expertise to identify and address systemic vulnerabilities.

Build Britains cyber security capability and provide leadership on critical issues by identifying threats and technology trends.

The Government has signed a lease for two floors at Nova. Agents Knight Frank and Cushman & Wakefield advised on the letting for the newly built offices where rents range from 72 to 87.50 per sq ft.

Land Securities has a 2.2 million sq ft development plan for Victoria and is investing 2 billion in an exciting period of transformation.

Employees will have a range of restaurants at the complex, including Aster by D&D London  the restaurant chain behind Bluebird and Quaglinos  Jamie Olivers Barbecoa and Shake Shack.
T he body of a Heathrow airport worker was recovered from the Thames months after he was granted UK citizenship.

Mateusz Dajnowicz, 30, of Brentford, was found in the water near Kew Pier on September 22, a day after he went missing.

It is believed his body was spotted by a member of the public. Mr Dajnowiczs friends, who had appealed online for help to find him, said he was last seen on CCTV leaving his flat, near Kew Bridge, on his own.

His family flew in from Poland this week to identify his body and police are not treating his death as suspicious.

Mr Dajnowicz, who moved to London a decade ago, was working as a manager for the airports cleaning contractor team after completing an apprenticeship in hospitality six months ago.

He had visited Brighton and Paris this summer. His friend Cassandra Hutchinson said: He was such a nice lad, very hard-working and he really enjoyed his work. We all cant believe it and are just in shock.

Another friend, Gul Din, said: He was just such a lovely soul and very fun-loving. If he ever saw a karaoke stand, he would be up there singing without a care in the world.

Mr Dajnowicz had just started another course at work with the help of Anita Gomez, his assessor at HIT Training college, who said he would have gone on to do great things.

He had one of the cutest smiles and would always have a joke for you, she added. He had just got his British citizenship about three months ago. He was so happy. It meant everything to him.

For confidential support on mental health call the Samaritans on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org or attend a local Samaritans branch.
L ondon home buyers paid a record 3.37 billion in stamp duty to the Treasury last year following a series of swingeing rises in rates, official figures reveal today.

They show the total collected from the capital was up 11 per cent on the previous year and accounted for almost half the 7.31 billion raised nationally.

It means the average home purchase now costs 21,000 in tax while first-time buyers pay an average of 13,000

Official statistics for the year to April from HM Revenue & Customs show that London is contributing a higher share than ever before. The nine highest paying local authority areas are all in London with Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster both contributing more than 500 million, or seven per cent of the national total, each.

The 1.27 billion paid in the two boroughs last year was a higher total than for Wales, Northern Ireland and the North and Midlands combined. Scotland has scrapped stamp duty and has its own system of property taxes.

Andrew McPhillips, Yorkshire Building Societys chief economist, said: While residential sale levels increased modestly compared to the previous year, total stamp duty intake in London rose by 11 per cent to 3.4 billion.

This was mainly due to the impact of higher stamp duties levied on more expensive homes following the governments changes in 2014 and continued house-price growth.

The huge rises in stamp duties imposed by former chancellor George Osborne since 2012 have been blamed for a sharp fall in homes on the market and a drop in housebuilding.

Rob Perrins, chief executive of the housebuilder Berkeley, said: The housing market is an eco-system  you cant just bash one end without damaging the whole thing.


A fashion blogger was mugged live on camera while documenting her morning commute to work in London.

Rebecca Casserly was broadcasting part of her live daily coffeescope outside Highbury and Islington Tube station when a thief snatched the phone out of her hand.

The 28-year-old can be heard screaming, while more than 3,000 viewers, including her mother, watched live on Periscope.

She told the Standard: "I do a morning blog where I go to get coffee on the way to work and talk about what I'm doing for the day.

Live stream: Rebecca Casserly was on her way for coffee / Periscope/Boopfashionista

"A few minutes into it this thug on a bike just snatches my phone and cycled off. But my phone was still recording so all the viewers could hear me scream.

"It's scary because you don't expect it early in the morning when there are lots of people around."

Live: Ms Casserly's viewers saw her mugging live on Periscope / Facebook

Ms Casserly wrote that she had reported the incident to the police and had used Find My iPhone to erase the device.

But she added that she was disappointed that nobody stopped to help her, after she apparently yelled that man took my phone.

The incident has also affected the way Ms Casserly will blog, as she no longer feels safe to live blog from the street.

She said: I don't feel safe having my phone out in public anymore, they must have just seen me as a victim.

Apparently mine was the third phone that guy had taken that morning.

But the blogger, from Galway, Ireland added that she would still be blogging every day

She added: I'm just looking for a different format.

"It's important for me to talk to my community."
T he man in charge of Tower Bridge today said there was no choice but to close it for three months because the road surface was falling apart.

Drivers and cyclists have been warned to brace themselves for chaos from tomorrow when the Victorian landmark shuts to traffic until the new year for repairs.

Chris Earlie, head of Tower Bridge, said decades of wear on the surface of the bridge had left a patchwork quilt of cracks. Repairs will include resurfacing and waterproofing the road and replacing the timber decking underneath that has reached the end of its life.

Wood is used so that the bascules  the ramps that raise to let ships pass  are lightweight enough to be lifted.

Tower Bridge closure October 2016 1 /8 Tower Bridge closure October 2016 Chris Earlie, Head of Tower Bridge Lucy Young Chris Earlie, Head of Tower Bridge in the control room Lucy Young Lucy Young Lucy Young Lucy Young Lucy Young

Other maintenance will include removing rust and repairing the mechanics from the bridges heavy lifting mechanisms.

Iconic: Tower Bridge at sunset / Jeremy Selwyn

More than 40,000 vehicles and pedestrians cross the 122-year-old bridge daily. During the works, northbound traffic will be diverted over London Bridge and Southwark Bridge will take south-bound traffic.

Mr Earlie said: The work needs doing as it has not been done in about 40 years. Weve considered the potential chaos that could be caused and weve ensured that there will be pedestrian access throughout.

The City of London Corporation said the works were being undertaken now because it is a quieter period on the Thames. Chris Hayward, the Citys planning and transport committee chairman, said: This is a three-month window and we have to take it. If were to keep this iconic bridge as a major crossing point we have to do this work now.

Transport for London said the 11.50 daily congestion charge would be waived for drivers using signed diversion routes that push them into the paid zone. But cabbies warned that even the shortest river crossing could take up to 30 minutes longer at peak times and drivers are preparing for gridlock.

Road users will suffer a double whammy from the east-bound closure of Tooley Street, due to Network Rails upgrade of London Bridge station.

Pedestrians can still access Tower Bridge, except for three weekends in November and December, when it will close between 8am and 10pm and a free cross-river ferry will operate.

Bus routes 42, 78 and RV1 will also be affected during the works, but the bridge will continue to open for boats. Van driver Pavitar Dhillon, 30, who was stuck in traffic on Tower Bridge yesterday, said: The traffic is going to be double what we have right now. Im going to have to leave early and finish late, and be stuck in traffic for a couple of hours.

The corporation refused to reveal how much the works  paid for through the Bridge House Estates charity  will cost.
A young motorcyclist from London who died at the scene of a horror smash was today described by friends as always happy.

Ollie Sherwood, from Eltham, was killed when his blue Yamaha motorbike collided with a car in Shepherds Lane, Dartford, on Thursday.

Police are yet to formally identify the rider but friends confirmed his death through a stream of online tributes.

A female pillion passenger suffered serious injuries as a result of the crash and was airlifted to a London hospital.

"Always happy": Ollie Sherwood (right) with his younger brother Jack / Lucie Pearse/GoFundMe

Friends today paid tribute to Mr Sherwood, a father of three, who was described as a popular family man who loved life.

Lucie Pearse, 23, of Eltham, who was a close family friend to Mr Sherwood along with her boyfriend Conor McSweeney.

She said: We grew up together. I will just remember him as someone who was always happy. He always made everyone laugh and he loved life.

When I heard I couldnt believe what had happened. It didnt feel real. It was so upsetting and such a shock. He has three young children as well so its very sad.

Miss Pearse also set up a GoFundMe page to help Mr Sherwoods family towards funeral costs.

The page reads: Please will everyone help raise money for funeral costs and family support for Ollie Sherwood was sadly taken on 29/09/16 a very much loved son, brother, dad and a friend to many who will all sadly miss but remember all the laughs and memeories (sic) made RIP OLLIE.

Kent Polices serious collision investigation unit is investigating the incident which took place just before 5pm and has asked for any witnesses to contact them.

Anyone who saw the collision or the vehicles prior to the collision who have not yet spoken to police are asked to contact the witness appeal line on 01622 798538 or email sciu.td@kent.pnn.police.uk quoting 29-0936
T housands of businesses across central London face a doubling of their business rates in a massive kick in the teeth for the capitals economy.

Owners of shops, restaurants and bars in areas such as Marylebone, Brixton and Bond Street, which have already seen huge rent increases, will be hit hardest, with their rates going up by more than 100 per cent.

The West End will also see catastrophic increases of 60 to 80 per cent, adding an estimated 125 million to its costs.

The Victorias Secret flagship store on Bond Street will see its bill going up from 1.55 million this year to 2.33 million next year. By April 2018 the cost will have risen to 3 million.

The new rate bills, which follow the first revaluation since 2010, will start coming into force next April. So-called transitional relief arrangements mean that the increases will be phased in over two years. The vast majority of the money raised will go to the Treasury, with little staying in London.

John Webber, head of rating at property consultants Colliers International, said: Its been seven years since Londons business owners received their last rates valuation. The effect of the delay is something akin to a stamp duty holiday in a housing boom: at some point the music has to stop. Lets be clear, that moment has come. Some parts of central London retail can now expect triple-digit business rates hikes.

However, there was better news for some other parts in outer London, where high streets have suffered in recent years and where rates will actually go down. They are set to fall by 32 per cent in Barnet and 25 per cent in Enfield, according to analysis by Colliers International:

Mayor Sadiq Khan said: The one thing London businesses dont need post-Brexit is a business rates hike. This will serve as a real kick in the teeth for tens of thousands of companies in the capital who are still digesting the recent vote to leave the European Union.

London is the beating heart of the UK economy and the danger is that this revaluation may hamper growth at a time when the Government should be focussing its efforts on supporting business and bolstering the nations finances. It reflects the Governments failure to reform business rates over many years. I support business in seeking a transitional period, as any changes in bills must be phased in more slowly than the Government is planning.

I will also be lobbying for the additional tax that the Government will force London businesses to pay to be kept in the capital.

Peter Miller, chief operating officer at Westfield UK, said: Business rates and the rating system as a whole needs to be reviewed as a priority to ensure the retail industry is sustainable for the long-term.

Brian Bickell, chief executive of West End landlords Shaftesbury, said: London businesses already make a disproportionately large contribution to the national business rate levy and the revaluation makes matters even worse. Worryingly the proposals on transitional relief could potentially further penalise large space occupiers, who are the bedrock of Londons economy. London deserves fairer treatment.

Colin Stanbridge, head of the London Chamber of Commerce, said: Caps and transitional relief can only delay  not soften  increases of tens of, or hundreds of thousands of, pounds. Our primary concern is that businesses may cut back, decide to relocate out of London  or even go to the wall.
A group representing victims of child abuse has slammed the national probe into historic allegations as cumbersome and said it will not work in its current format.

The Shirley Oaks Survivors Association (SOSA) said victims need to be convinced the Government-led inquest is not just a circus following the resignation of a senior lawyer in the case.

It comes after the Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was thrown into disarray on Thursday when Ben Emmerson QC stepped down, prompting calls for it to be broken up.

This latest development was labelled a "disaster" for the problematic inquiry that has been blighted by resignations and is on its fourth chairwoman.

SOSAs Raymond Stevenson, called for a meeting with Home Secretary Amber Rudd and suggested the inquiry be split up into smaller, separate ones with their own chairman.

Mr Stevenson, whose group represents those affected by abuse at children's homes in Lambeth, said: "We don't see it (the inquiry) working in its current form.

We didn't see it working two years ago. It was never going to work, it's too cumbersome.

Timeline of inquiry into child sex abuse July 7, 2014 - Public inquiry announced to investigate institutions' protection of children from sexual abuse July 9 - Chairwoman Baroness Butler-Sloss faces calls to quit due to a potential conflict of interest over a family connection. July 14 - Baroness Butler-Sloss steps down. September 5 - Dame Fiona Woolf is appointed as the new chairwoman of the inquiry. October 31 - Dame Fiona quits following questions over her suitability for the role. February 4, 2015 - Inquiry disbanded and replaced with one headed by New Zealand High Court judge Dame Lowell Goddard. July 9 - Dame Lowell officially opens the inquiry, saying it will be "the most ambitious public inquiry" ever undertaken in England and Wales. August 4 - Dame Lowell becomes the third chairwoman to resign. August 11 - Former senior social worker Alexis Jay, who led a previous inquiry into sexual exploitation in Rotherham, is named as the inquiry's fourth chairwoman. September 6 - Dame Lowell calls for the inquiry to be overhauled, saying "there is an inherent problem in the sheer scale and size". September 28 - Ben Emmerson QC, counsel to the inquiry, is suspended from duty. September 29 - Ben Emmerson resigns, saying "it is now time for someone else to take the helm".

"It's almost like it was set up to fail. People don't want the truth to come out."

Labour MP Chuka Umunna backed Mr Stevensons criticisms of the inquiry and said it was "simply not credible" to say it was functioning properly.

Speaking on BBC Two's Newsnight, Mr Umunna said: "This is a dysfunctional inquiry and we need urgent reassurance by the chair that she is getting a grip of the situation.

Mr Umunna has also recommended that the 13 separate strands of the inquiry be split and given their own chairman who reports to an overarching investigation.

Mr Emmerson was suspended on Wednesday night amid reports he was about to resign.

His departure was announced just hours after it was revealed his junior colleague Elizabeth Prochaska had also left her role.

Following his departure, the inquirys chairwoman Professor Alexis Jay said there was no truth in suggestions Mr Emmerson resigned due to a difference of opinion with me about the next steps for the inquiry."

In his resignation letter Mr Emmerson wrote that he remained "totally committed to securing a fair and just result for those who matter most, the victims and survivors of childhood abuse".

But he said: "It has become clear to me that I am not the person to take this review forward.

"It is now time for someone else to take the helm with a different leadership of the counsel team.

In a statement following the resignations the inquiry said it was aware that recent events were "unsettling, particularly for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse and all those who are engaged with the inquiry's work" but denied that it was in crisis.

It added: "This is simply not the case, and the chair and panel are united in their determination to see this important work through to a conclusion."

The inquiry has been dogged by controversy since it was set up by Mrs May in 2014 and is already on its fourth chairwoman.

The inquiry, expected to take five years, will look at various institutions and public figures and scrutinise the police, Crown Prosecution Service, Labour Party and the security and intelligence agencies, as well as people of public prominence associated with Westminster.
B BC News presenter Kate Silverton broke down in tears today as she presented the story of a baby girls heroic rescue in war-torn Syria.

Ms Silverton was unable to hold back tears as dramatic footage showed how a Syrian rescue worker pulled the baby from the rubble of a bombed-out building in Idlib on Thursday.

The 30-day-old girl was recovered safely by White Helmets volunteer Abu Kifah after two hours of desperate digging in the search for casualties following air strikes.

Mr Kifah broke down in tears himself after he took the baby, covered in dust and blood, to a nearby ambulance.

Rescue: The 30-day-old girl was pulled from the rubble of a building in Idlib / Syrian Civil Defence/YouTube

Ms Silverton started to present another story following the distressing scenes but tears were seen running down her cheek as viewers took to Twitter to praise her delivery.

She later tweeted: To all of you sending thoughts  thank you  no words really  my job to be inscrutable & impartial but I am also human #syria @BBCNews

One man tweeted: Demonstrating utmost poise & professionalism following an extremely distressing piece on Syria. Kudos, Kate.

At least six people were killed as air raids targeted Idlib and the town of Jarjanaz on Thursday, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The group said the Russian air campaign against Syrian rebels has killed 3,800 civilians in the past year, as well as more than 5,500 jihadist and insurgents.
F rench jets set off to launch air raids on Islamic State in Iraq today as the war against the terror group intensified.

Up to 24 took off from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in the eastern Mediterranean and headed for Mosul, ISs main stronghold in the country.

The city has been under IS control since 2014 but Iraqi troops are planning an offensive to recapture it.

An officer on board the carrier was quoted as saying the jets would take part in an attack on Mosul.

However, a French defence official said the mission was in no way the start of a battle for the city  adding that the ministry would not give details of the operation for security reasons.

French aircraft have flown 32 missions over the past week  with Rafale jets destroying four targets and backing up Iraqi ground forces, according to the military.

The operations are aimed at sending a clear message to terrorists carrying out attacks in mainland France in the name of IS, such as the murder of 130 people in Paris in November last year.

A military source in the French capital said: France will not stop until this organisation is defeated. It has targeted France and will pay the price.

There are thought to be up to 5,000 IS operatives in Mosul.

They have dug tunnels and filled moats with oil to try to keep back attackers  but the bombing has been intense.

US Colonel John Dorrian said: They have built a hell on earth around themselves.
A mother killed in a train crash that injured more than 100 people in New Jersey had recently moved to the US and was house-hunting when tragedy struck, her family revealed today.

Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, from Brazil, was looking to settle down with her husband and their eight-month old baby when she was killed by falling debris at the terminal.

The mother of Mrs de Kroon, 34, a corporate lawyer, paid tribute to her beautiful girl inside and out who was focused on her career but adored her family.

She was the sole fatality in the crash which injured another 114 people when the packed commuter train barrelled through the buffers at the end of the line.

The train came to a halt in a covered area between the station's indoor waiting area and the platform / AP

Witnesses said it was going so fast that it shot 30ft into the air and destroyed the stations roof, sending concrete and steel pillars falling to the ground.

The engineer has been identified as Tommy Gallagher, 48, a veteran New Jersey Transit driver, who was found unresponsive at his controls.

He was treated in hospital and released and was said to be cooperating with police and crash investigators.

Mrs de Kroons husband Daan was out of town on business when the accident happened yesterday at 8.45am.

Before she got on the train Mrs de Kroon dropped off her daughter Julia at a daycare centre.

Globetrotting: Fabiola Bittar de Kroons last trip was a Thursday morning jaunt to the Hoboken Terminal.

Speaking from Santos, Brazil, her mother Sueli Bittar said: She loved being social, going out for meals, hanging out with friends.

She and her husband were such a great couple to be with because they had such synergy together.

Mrs Bittar said she understood her daughter was going into Manhattan to look for apartments with a good school district for Julia when the train crashed.

A friend told the New York Daily News that the couple were overjoyed to have had a child.

The friend said: They recently made the decision to have a child and I know that was really big for them. When the baby arrived it was hugely important to Fabiola.

New Jersey train crash 1 /9 New Jersey train crash Train staff survey the New Jersey Transit train Getty Images Passengers rush to safety Getty Images People are treated for their injuries outside the station Getty Images Emergency vehicles outside the station REUTERS People are treated for their injuries outside after a train crashed into the platform at Hoboken station Getty Images The train came to a halt in a covered area between the station's indoor waiting area and the platform AP The roof collapse after the train crashed into the platform Getty Images

Prior to their current home in Hoboken the couple had lived in Miami and Sao Paolo.

Mrs de Kroon had worked for the software company SAP in its legal department in Brazil until earlier this year when she moved to New Jersey after her husband got a job with an international liquor company.

A spokesman for SAP said her ex-colleagues were profoundly saddened by her death.

Among the others on the train were Alexis Valle, 24, who is five months pregnant and was sitting in the front carriage.

I thought we were going to die. I didnt think we were going to get out, she said.

Investigators are looking into whether the driver was distracted or suffered a medical event, or if there was a mechanical failure.

* This article previously repeated a report from another outlet that Mr de Kroon had a son from an earlier relationship. The Standard understands that in fact this is not the case. We apologise for the error.
P hilippines president Rodrigo Duterte has caused outrage after comparing himself to Adolf Hitler and vowing to slaughter three million drug addicts.

The outspoken president appeared in a press conference in Davao where he promised to tackle the countrys drug problem.

Comparing himself to the Nazi leader, Mr Duterte said he would be happy to slaughter all the countrys drug addicts.

If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have..., he said, pausing and pointing to himself.

Hitler massacred three million Jews ... theres three million drug addicts.

"There are. Id be happy to slaughter them.

According to official figures, more than 3,000 people have been killed in police operations or by vigilantes since Mr Duterte gained power in June.

He has previously stated that he would be willing to kill 100,000 criminals to reduce crime in the Philippines.

But his comments have been widely criticised by Jewish groups around the world.

Todd Gutnick from the Anti-Defamation League described Mr Dutertes comments as "baffling".

He said: The comparison of drug users and dealers to Holocaust victims is inappropriate and deeply offensive.

"It is baffling why any leader would want to model himself after such a monster."
W orld leaders paid their respects to Shimon Peres today as the Israeli statesman was laid to rest amid tight security in Jerusalem.

Dignitaries from 70 nations converged on Israels national cemetery Mount Herzl for the service.

Mr Peres, Israels ninth president, died on Wednesday of complications following a stroke. He was 93.

Current president Reuven Rivlin hailed his predecessor as a man of deeds as he delivered the first of a string of eulogies.

Britain's Prince Charles attends the ceremony / Getty Images

He said Mr Peres strove to reach the pinnacle of the Zionist dream  an independent, sovereign state, existing in peace with our neighbours.

In the front row was Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who shook hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the ceremony began.

Former US President Bill Clinton said Mr Peres was Israels biggest dreamer.

Former US President Bill Clinton / Abir Sulan/ Getty images

In a eulogy, he called Mr Peres a wise champion of our common humanity.

In the final eulogy, US President Barack Obama said Mr Peres showed that justice and hope were at the heart of the Zionist ideal.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin speaks during the funeral / Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images

Earlier, a military honour guard took Mr Peres casket from the parliament building and escorted it, with his family, to a vehicle. The guard recited Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead.

The casket made the short journey to Mount Herzl, Israels national cemetery, where Mr Peres was buried alongside most of the countrys past leaders.

Dignitaries included Prince Charles, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, French president Francois Hollande and German president Joachim Gauck.

Foreign Minister Boris Johnson at the ceremony / Thomas Coex / Getty Images

Also present were former prime ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron.

Mr Abbas greeted Israeli officials, hugging some members of Mr Peres family and shaking hands with officials and mourners.

In contrast to an outpouring of grief from Western leaders, Arab leaders have remained largely silent over Mr Peres death.

He shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for attempting to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mr Abbas shook hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the ceremony got under way.

Long time, long time, Mr Abbas told Mr Netanyahu and the prime ministers wife Sara.

Welcoming Abbas, Mr Netanyahu said of his attendance: Its something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people and on behalf of us.
H alf the fun of making cocktails is figuring out what youve got left in the cupboards and liberally adding a hint of this or a dash of that and hoping for the best.

But one too many mixologist mishaps may encourage to hit the manuals and perfect a few key classic recipes or dig deeper into wild concoctions to discover your new favourite drink.

When inspiration is not striking, theres a whole world of cocktail recipe books out there devoted to solving this specific problem. You could be looking for a way to spice up your usual G&T or wondering exactly which botanicals will take your long drink to the next level. Theres a book for both of the above as well as literally any other concoction-based query that springs to mind.

We could now break down everything you should keep in mind when mixing up a batch of mojitos or delicately decorating a fancy spritz. But that would defeat the object of recommending the books below, so well leave it to the experts and let you get straight to it.

Summer Drinks: Over 100 Refreshing Recipes to Enjoy in the Sunshine by Ryland Peters Product image A quick flick through Ryland Peters lengthy summer cocktail recipe book and youll find yourself desperate to mix up a round of drinks, even if the weathers dreary and theres no inkling of sunshine in sight. Bringing together more than 100 of the best punches, cocktails, mocktails and slushies with easy-to-follow recipes and easily accessible ingredients, its a must-have book for British summer time. Organising a BBQ? Youll need this book. Getting ready to head out for balmy evening drinks? Have a scroll through this book. Boring afternoon when the suns (finally) shining? You heard: crack open the book. An ice-blended wine Frose or a Strawberry Daiquiri is calling your name. Buy now  9.99 , Waterstones {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} The Curious Bartender: Cocktails At Home by Tristan Stephenson Product image Buy this book for the budding bartender in your life: the friend who takes charge when it comes to cocktail creation who always seems to have a well-stocked bar cart and all the fancy equipment. Inside, you'll find 75 different cocktail recipes, bringing together all of the classics as well as some lesser-spotted mixes. Written by Tristan Stephenson, drinks industry consultant, bar owner, restaurateur and mixer-of-great-cocktails, you'll discover industry secrets as well as those little extra steps that'll take your cocktails to the next level. Next time you're out for drinks, you'll find yourself asking for a Martinez or maybe an Aviation. Dont be surprised if you get a few puzzled looks. Buy now  14.53 , Amazon {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} The Savoy Cocktail Book by Harry Craddock Product image Do you know your Slings from your Smashes or your Fizzes from your Flips? Nope? Buy The Savoy Cocktail Book and you'll be more than familiar with the most impressive and well-loved cocktails from the Dirty Thirties. The Savoy Cocktail Book was actually first published in 1930 and, with more than 750 recipes inside, it's remained one of the most varied and inclusive books for close to 100 years. As well as a huge variety of London's most famed cocktails, it's filled with beautiful Art Deco illustrations and handy tips and guidance. The updated version even comes with a new introduction from The Savoy. Buy now  17.91 , Amazon {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Gin OClock by Craft Gin Club Product image You've guessed it: Craft Gin Club's cocktail book is all about, well, gin. Called "A year of ginspiration", it's the ultimate gift for the gin-lover in your life who's maybe got a little bored with the same old G&T recipe. While the core of the book is recipe focused (with more than 70 varieties included), it also encompasses a lot of extra details about the world of gin, including interviews with amazing distillers, tips on how to host your own gin tasting evening and even a few edible rather than drinkable gin recipes. The only thing missing? The bottle of gin you're somewhat morally obliged to pair with it when gifting. Buy now  9.80 , Amazon {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Cocktail Codex by Alex Day Product image Cocktail Codex is more than just a cocktail recipe book: it's a beautiful, oversized coffee table book in hardback form that deserves to be admired even by teetotallers. Some cocktail books might push the boundaries of the industry with unusual creations and odd ingredients. Cocktail Codex does the opposite, bringing the art of mixology back to its basics and stripping out anything unnecessary. It offers a step-by-step manual from some of the industry's leading experts to lay the foundations of creating a great drink from scratch. A great reference book for anyone looking to learn more about the cocktail world, it focuses around six "root recipes," and breaks down the how's, what's and why's of each family drink. Buy now  17.79 , Amazon {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart Product image The Drunken Botanist is a cocktail book that takes things one step further, looking into not only the recipes for the liquid component of each drink but also its root substances. Hitting the midpoint between mixology and botany, The Drunken Botanist breaks down the details of over 150 plants, flowers, trees, fruits, and fungi to explain exactly how they've all been turned into alcohol (or other substances) over the years. If ever you've picked up a plant or leaf and wondered "what would happen if I consumed this?" then The Drunken Botanist is for you. Along with 50 drinks recipes, you'll get growing tips, funny anecdotes and gorgeous, vintage style pages. It's as much a joy to read as it is to admire. Buy now  14.72 , Amazon {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} The Aviary Cocktail Book by Grant Achatz Product image Completed all the basics and ready to take your cocktail recipes to the next level? Look no further than The Aviary Cocktail Book, arguably the most prestigious, challenging cocktail recipe book around. It might also be the most expensive, but within those prized pages are beautifully illustrated pictures complete with recipes so intricate you'll scratch your head at least once or twice while making them. It's by no means a quick fix: if you're looking for short and sweet recipes to make up in a quick batch, look away. But if you're serious about mixology and want to elevate your talents, The Aviary Cocktail Book is a must-have. Buy now  140 , Amazon {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Cocktails of the Movies by Stacey Marsh and Will Francis Product image Lovers of film and lovers of cocktails can celebrate together with Cocktails of the Movies. This illustrated guide covers 75 of the most famous movie star cocktails including Marilyn Monroe's Manhattan in Some Like It Hot, The Dude's White Russian in The Big Lebowski and New Orleans' staple Hand Grenade in Girls Trip. Each recipe comes accompanied by a quick synopsis of each famous scene along with a history of the drink and a method to perfectly pour it. And, because it's movie-focused, it also comes full to the brim with colourful illustrations on every other page. Buy now  9.99 , Waterstones {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} The Infused Cocktail Handbook by Kurt Maitland Product image The Infused Cocktail Handbook is a game changer for elevating standard cocktail recipes with a unique touch. As its name suggests, this book breaks down individual infusions best suited for a large number of famous cocktails and explains which ingredients go best with each spirit. Disregard the idea of mixing a simple rum and coke or gin and tonic: once you've read The Infused handbook cover to cover you'll replace underwhelming ingredients with the likes of Earl Gray tea, lemongrass and cardamom. There are also a few more unusual recipes in there - if you've ever wondered how to make cocktails with gummy bears and bacon, you'll find the answers here. Buy now  12.99 , Amazon {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} The Spirits: A Guide to Modern Cocktailing by Richard Godwin Product image The Spirits: A Guide to Modern Cocktailing is the best all-rounder in the cocktail recipe book. Designed as a larger, more varied and detailed version of Richard Goodwin's popular newsletter (The Spirits), this stylish recipe book covers a lot of ground with hilarious anecdotes, essential recipes and easy to follow methods. Bringing together a mix of the old and the new, A Guide to Modern Cocktailing provides you with all the skills necessary to become the unofficial mixologist of your friendship group, highlighting all of the core features in a compelling way. It also looks a little further back to the golden days of cocktails, bringing in interesting historical facts and stories along the way. Buy now  12.06 , Amazon {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}} Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist by Tim Federle Product image The same way "Cocktails of the Movies" links alcohol with films, Tequila Mockingbird provides a delicious link between cocktails and literature. The ultimate cocktail book for the literary obsessed, it's almost as fun to read as it is to put into practise, bringing together 65 book-infused recipes with historical commentary along the way. Even if you're not an avid reader or wouldn't consider yourself a big fan of the classics, you'll likely enjoy this recipe book. Open it up on an evening with friends and decide whether you'd prefer a Pitcher of Dorian Grey Goose, a Romeo and Julep, A Rum of One's Own, or The Last of the Mojitos. Intrigued? You should be. Drinking games, food pairings and illustrations guide you from start to finish. Buy now  9.99 , Waterstones {{#hasItems}} Price comparison {{/hasItems}} {{#items}} {{ merchant }} {{ price }} Buy now {{/items}} {{#hasItems}} {{/hasItems}}
F oodie

This week I re-invented my love of two amazing restaurants that I am so excited to share with you.

Firstly I had the most divine healthy breakfast at the Sanderson Hotel curated by Danielle Copperman, founder of Qnola.

The smoked salmon and eggs with avocado are out of this world. The flavor is incredible!

Eating healthy: Rosie dined out for breakfast at the Sanderson Hotel / Rosie Fortescue/ Instagram

My next recommendation this week is Bluebird. I often go for just drinks, but the restaurant upstairs has just re-launched and I was blown away. The food was beyond delicious and the profiteroles are utterly heavenly.

I am already planning my next trip!

Heavenly: Our columnist couldn't resist the profiteroles / Rosie Fortescue/ Instagram

The big freeze

I also tried out 111 Cryo this week in Harvey Nichols. There is such a buzz at the moment about it, I just had to try! I didnt know how I felt about being in minus 92 degrees for three minutes but honestly, it was totally manageable!

It was the perfect post London Fashion Week re-boost that my body needed! I seriously recommend it!

Feeling chilly: Rosie tried out 111 Cryo after a hectic London Fashion Week / Rosie Fortescue/ Instagram

Fashion showcase

This weekend I had a stand at London Fashion Weekend for four days for my jewellery brand Rosie Fortescue Jewellery. It was such an unbelievable experience. It was amazing to meet all of my customers, and to be showcasing my jewellery alongside people that I admire.

Roll up roll up: Rosie has been busy promoting her jewellery line / Rosie Fortescue/ Instagram

Coming up

This week I am looking forward to going to Dublin to a super exciting photoshoot and to host two Style Sessions at Arnotts.
Alabama Justice Tom Parker Appeals Speech Restriction and Removal Provision

Contact: Liberty Counsel, 800-671-1776, Media@LC.org, Press Kit



MONTGOMERY, Ala., Sept. 30, 2016 /Standard Newswire/ -- Last night, Justice Tom Parker of the Alabama Supreme Court appealed his challenge to the speech restrictive Canon 3 and the Alabama Constitution's automatic removal provision that requires judges be suspended when the Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC) issues a charge.

A complaint against Parker was filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), claiming comments he made on the American Family Radio talk show regarding the U.S. Supreme Court's marriage opinion violated Canon 3(A)(6) of the Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics. Canon 3(A)(6) purports to prohibit Alabama judges from making "any public comment about a pending or impending proceeding in any court," even if such a proceeding is not pending before the judge making the comments, and even if the judge's comments do not have a reasonable likelihood of affecting the outcome or impairing the fairness of that proceeding. The provision is so broad it prohibits a judge who teaches law school students from commenting on any case pending in any court anywhere in the country. The American Bar Association has stated this broad speech restriction violates the First Amendment.

Parker is not charged by the JIC; but if charged, he would be suspended. Liberty Counsel filed a federal lawsuit challenging Canon 3 and the automatic removal provision. Federal Judge Keith Watkins acknowledged "the First Amendment issues that arise when the SPLC, in a political season, attempts to use an agency of state government to suppress speech with which the SPLC disagrees," but he chose to "abstain" from deciding the issue, saying that Parker can raise these claims in the JIC or, if charged, in the Court of the Judiciary. He did not rule on the merits of the case. Liberty Counsel immediately filed an appeal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

"Justice Parker should not have to wait to be charged and suspended in order to challenge an unconstitutional restriction on his speech," said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. "The judicial canon that prohibits judges from commenting on any case anywhere in the country is patently unconstitutional. Every judge who teaches law school students is silenced by this broad restriction on speech. This speech restriction and the automatic removal provision must be struck down. We will now take this case to the court of appeals. This urgent matter affects every judge," said Staver.

Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.
NEWPORT NEWS, Va., Sept. 29, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Huntington Ingalls Industries (NYSE:HII) announced today that its Newport News Shipbuilding division was awarded a multiple-award indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract to assist with repairs on in-service, nuclear-powered submarines, special mission submersibles, moored training ships and submarine support facilities.



A multiple-award indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract is a base contract that is issued to multiple awardees. The contract establishes the scope of services or goods that can be ordered against it, the order requirements and the maximum cost allowance during the life of the contract. This contract has a cumulative ceiling value of $400 million and is valid through Sept. 30, 2021. The contract includes overhaul, maintenance, repair, modernization upgrades, technical engineering support, supplies and services, and nuclear-related support.

We are proud to continue our support of the U.S. Navy by providing them with a submarine fleet that is second to none, said Matt Needy, Newport News vice president, submarines and fleet support, and we appreciate the Navys confidence in Newport News Shipbuilding providing them with reliable submarine modernization in a timely and cost-effective manner.

Newport News is one of only two U.S. shipyards capable of building nuclear-powered submarines and has a long history of performing ship repair projects for the U.S. government, ranging from paint repair to complete hull and machinery renovation.

Huntington Ingalls Industries is Americas largest military shipbuilding company and a provider of engineering, manufacturing and management services to the nuclear energy, oil and gas markets. For more than a century, HIIs Newport News and Ingalls shipbuilding divisions in Virginia and Mississippi have built more ships in more ship classes than any other U.S. naval shipbuilder. Headquartered in Newport News, Virginia, HII employs nearly 35,000 people operating both domestically and internationally. For more information, visit:

HII on the web: www.huntingtoningalls.com

HII on Facebook: www.facebook.com/HuntingtonIngallsIndustries

HII on Twitter: twitter.com/hiindustries

Statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these statements. Factors that may cause such differences include: changes in government and customer priorities and requirements (including government budgetary constraints, shifts in defense spending, and changes in customer short-range and long-range plans); our ability to obtain new contracts, estimate our future contract costs and perform our contracts effectively; changes in government regulations and procurement processes and our ability to comply with such requirements; our ability to realize the expected benefits from consolidation of our Ingalls facilities; natural disasters; adverse economic conditions in the United States and globally; risks related to our indebtedness and leverage; and other risk factors discussed in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. There may be other risks and uncertainties that we are unable to predict at this time or that we currently do not expect to have a material adverse effect on our business, and we undertake no obligations to update any forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements that we may make.
MISSISSAUGA, Ontario, Sept. 29, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- DataWind Inc. (TSX:DW), the leader in delivering Internet access to emerging markets, announces the board of directors has appointed MNP, LLP as its successor auditor and entered into an engagement letter, effective immediately.



Forward-Looking Information

This press release includes certain forward-looking statements that are based upon current expectations, which involve risks and uncertainties associated with our business and the environment in which the business operates. Any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements, including those identified by the expressions anticipate, believe, plan, estimate, expect, intend and similar expressions to the extent they relate to the company or its management. The forward-looking statements are not historical facts, but reflect managements current expectations regarding future results or events. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations. The company does not undertake or accept any obligation to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect any change in the companys expectations, except as prescribed by applicable securities laws.

No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved the contents of this press release/media advisory.

About MNP, LLP

MNP is one of the largest national accounting, tax and business consulting firms in Canada and a member of Praxity, a global alliance of leading business advisory firms. Founded in 1945, MNP has grown to more than 70 offices and over 3,700 team members. In addition to tax and accounting expertise, MNP delivers a diverse range of advisory services, including consulting, enterprise risk, corporate finance, valuation and litigation support, succession planning, estate planning, insolvency and restructuring, investigative and forensic accounting, cross-border taxation and more. For more information, visit www.mnp.ca.

About DataWind

DataWind, Inc. is a leader in providing affordable mobile Internet connectivity in emerging markets. The company's patented, cloud-based technology reduces up to 97% the amount of data needed for web browsing, providing a broadband experience on any network -- even on legacy 2G networks that are still prevalent in developing countries. DataWind also provides economical smartphones and tablets that come bundled with one year of unlimited Internet access, making it the largest tablet provider in India. DataWind's unique solution offers broad social and economic benefits for the billions of people around the world for whom an Internet connection was previously out of reach. DataWind is traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX:DW). For more information, visit www.datawind.com.
WILMINGTON, Del., Sept. 30, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rigrodsky & Long, P.A.:

Do you, or did you, own shares of Northern Oil and Gas, Inc. (NYSE MKT:NOG) ?





(NYSE MKT:NOG) Did you purchase your shares between March 1, 2013 and August 15, 2016, inclusive?





Did you lose money in your investment?



Rigrodsky & Long, P.A. reminds shareholders of Northern Oil and Gas, Inc. (Northern Oil or the Company) (NYSE MKT:NOG) of an upcoming deadline involving a securities fraud class action lawsuit commenced against the Company. A complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of all persons or entities that purchased the common stock of Northern Oil between March 1, 2013 and August 15, 2016, inclusive (the Class Period), alleging violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 against the Company and certain of its officers (the Complaint).

The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, defendants made materially false and misleading statements, and omitted materially adverse facts, about the Companys business, operations and prospects. Specifically, the Complaint alleges that the defendants concealed from the investing public that: (1) Northern Oils compliance policies with respect to SEC regulations and the Companys Code of Business Conduct and Ethics were inadequate to detect and/or prevent misconduct by the Companys officers; (2) consequently, the Companys Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Defendant Michael Reger (Reger), was able to engage in illegal stock manipulation during his tenure at Northern Oil; (3) Reger was consequently unfit to serve as Northern Oils CEO; and (4) as a result of the foregoing, Northern Oils public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. As a result of defendants alleged false and misleading statements, the Companys stock traded at artificially inflated prices during the Class Period.

If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than October 17, 2016. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. Any member of the proposed class may move the court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member.

If you purchased shares of Northern Oil during the Class Period, or purchased shares prior to the Class Period and still hold Northern Oil, and wish to discuss this action or have any questions concerning this notice or your rights or interests, please contact Timothy J. MacFall, Esquire or Peter Allocco of Rigrodsky & Long, P.A., 2 Righter Parkway, Suite 120, Wilmington, DE 19803 at (888) 969-4242; by e-mail to info@rl-legal.com; or at: http://rigrodskylong.com/investigations/northern-oil-and-gas-inc-nog.



Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
FRISCO, Texas, Sept. 30, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HRchitect, the leading provider of end-to-end HCM technology consulting services, announced today that Jacqueline Kuhn, Executive Vice President of HCM Consulting Services, is celebrating 8 years of service with the company.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8b193593-1fb1-4cb8-b12c-2c1cb12f1529

Wed like to offer our sincere congratulations and gratitude to Jacqueline for 8 years of dedicated service at HRchitect. Jacqueline is not only a tremendous asset to our management team, but to our clients as well. With over 30 years of experience with HR systems, her knowledge in this space is unparalleled and we are also very proud of her as one of the most successful women making an impact in the HCM technology world, commented President & CEO Matt Lafata.

Upon joining HRchitect in September 2008, Kuhns primary focus has been around directing the companys front end consulting services focused on assisting clients in the technology strategy, evaluation & selection, and change management practices. Under Kuhns leadership and continued expansion of HRchitects client base, these practice areas have grown substantially as HRchitect has experienced tremendous growth in 2016 alone.

In recent years, Kuhn has embraced an expanded role which includes managing several strategic alliances, serving as HRchitects primary speaker, and proponent of research in regards to thought leadership initiatives. Over the past year, Kuhn has also delivered over 10 presentations at industry conferences and events such as the LEHRN HR Tech Expo, PeopleTech, HR workshops presented by Ultimate Software, and the SHRM Georgia State Conference, as well as numerous webinars. Her expertise continues to be in high demand by leading HR technology conferences and vendors throughout our industry.

Kuhn is an integral part of HRchitects stable and tenured management team which has a combined 54 years of service with HRchitect, and over 100 years of experience in the HCM technology space.

Kuhn works alongside President & CEO Matt Lafata, Executive Vice President of Implementation Services, Brian Kimball, Vice President of Consulting Services, John Hinojos and Vice President of Finance and Operations, Erin Cavender who have all recently celebrated notable service anniversaries. Kimball and Hinojos celebrated 16 year service anniversaries earlier this year. Cavender recently celebrated 4 years of service and Lafata will celebrate 12 years of service this December.

This announcement comes at a time of exponential growth and continued success for HRchitect, which will celebrate 20 years in business next year and was recently certified as a Great Place to Work .

Were looking forward to celebrating our 20th year of business in 2017. Coincidentally, HRchitect has been operating as long the HR Technology Conference and Exposition has been in existence! In my nearly 12 years with the company, it has been a truly rewarding experience to lead such a strong organization with an employee-first culture, said Lafata.

When asked about the companys expected growth in coming years, Lafata added, We will continue to grow our consulting teams in response to perpetual increased demand for strategy, selection, and implementation services in this ever-evolving HR technology space. The company has changed tremendously in the past few years and we expect tremendous change in the coming years as well as we always look to further our enviable leadership position, while never losing sight of what got us here. One thing that will never change is our commitment to HRchitect being a great place to work and that starts with the incredible management team we have in place.

Please visit HRchitect in Booth 739 at the 19th Annual HR Technology Conference & Exposition being held October 4-6, 2016 at McCormick Place in Chicago to congratulate Jacqueline Kuhn on her service anniversary and learn more about HRchitect.

About HRchitect

As the leader in HCM Systems strategic consulting, we offer end-to-end HR technology consulting services focused around strategic planning, evaluation and selection, change management, implementation, project management and ongoing support of HCM systems of all types including Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, Benefits, Core HR/Payroll, and more. Over the past two decades, working on thousands of successful engagements for clients of all sizes and industries across the globe, our experience is vast and unsurpassed. We have expertise around all major HCM systems including Benefitfocus, WorkForce Software, Ultimate Software, Oracle, Taleo, SAP, SuccessFactors, Saba, IBM Kenexa, and more. HRchitect is a name you can trust for all of your organizations HCM technology-related consulting needs.
SOUTH WINDSOR, Conn., Sept. 30, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ticket Clubs blog went live yesterday after a rapid development cycle over the course of a single week.



In a comment, Ticket Club Director Tim Keefe stated, We are excited to welcome both our current members and those who are interested to our new blog. We heard that our members wanted a blog to discuss upcoming events and to go to for support, and we did everything possible to get it to them as fast as possible. We hope everyone is as delighted with the results as we are.

Ticket Club is a membership website similar to Costco, Sam's Club, or Amazon Prime. Memberships entitle users to purchase tickets without any service fees  all members pay for is the price of the ticket and shipping. In the secondary ticket industry, most companies add service fees during checkout which inflate the price of the tickets by 10% to 30%.

Currently, Ticket club lists more than 400,000 tickets to more than 84,000 different events.

About Ticket Club: Ticket Club is an online marketplace specializing in hard-to-get tickets with a membership option to eliminate service fees. Members have access to a large selection of tickets to concerts, sports, and theater events. Ticket Club lists event tickets through the TicketNetwork Online Exchange, which lists more than $1 billion in real-time ticket inventory.

For more information on Ticket Club, visit www.ticketclub.com, or email customersupport@ticketclub.com.
LINCOLN  At least six candidates for the Nebraska Legislature have signed a pledge promising to never vote for an increase to the state gas tax.

A Facebook posting by Concerned Conservatives of Nebraska includes a second pledge to support open votes for speaker and committee leadership. Those votes have traditionally been by secret ballot, a policy that some Republicans believe helps Democrats win leadership roles despite a conservative numbers advantage in the officially nonpartisan Legislature.

Concerned Conservatives of Nebraska has not filed with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission nor has it listed a contact name on the page, prompting speculation about who is behind the pledges. Late Wednesday, former Lancaster County Republican Party Chairman Matt Innis came forward in response to inquiries by The World-Herald.

We get a lot of people who talk about transparency and holding the line on taxes, and then they get in office, and they dont, Innis said, adding that he was working alone.

Although Gov. Pete Ricketts has endorsed most of the Republican candidates who have signed the pledges, he had no role in the group, said Taylor Gage, the governors spokesman. While the governor vetoed a 2015 measure that raised the gas tax  a veto overridden by lawmakers  Ricketts has not taken a public position on legislative leadership elections, Gage added.

The governor had never heard of this group, he said Wednesday.

Innis said he knows the governor and talks to him from time to time, but their conversations involve the Chicago Cubs. Innis said hes a longtime fan of the professional baseball team thats owned by the governor and his family.

Such pledges are nothing new for politicians.

Perhaps the most well-known is an anti-tax promise signed by nearly every Republican in Congress sponsored by Grover Norquist, the founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, an organization that opposes tax increases. Nebraska Right to Life has long circulated an extensive survey before it decides which candidates to endorse.

Those whove signed the Concerned Conservatives pledge so far are all Republicans, although Innis said he has emailed it to every candidate with a campaign website.

Those whove signed so far: Mike Hilgers in northwest Lincolns 21st District, Suzanne Geist in east Lincolns 25th District, Gregg Neuhaus in Grand Islands 35th District, John Lowe in Kearneys 37th District and Karl Elmshaeuser and Steve Erdman, both in western Nebraskas 47th District.

Ian Swanson, a Republican challenging Democratic incumbent Sen. Rick Kolowski to represent a portion of southwest Omaha, said Wednesday that he intends to sign the pledge even though he didnt know who was behind it. Given that the wording of those two are relatively straightforward, its a lot easier for me to say yes, he said. A good idea is a good idea.

Neuhaus also said he wasnt sure who drafted the pledges, but that didnt discourage him from committing to positions that he supports. Neuhaus said he thinks the gas tax is a real burden on lower- and middle-income Nebraskans, and he believes that all votes of state senators should be open to public scrutiny. I dont think its a bad idea to lock yourself into something you believe in, he said.

Not only does the Concerned Conservatives pledge call for no future increases in the gas tax, the signers must also agree that they would have voted against the increase approved by lawmakers in 2015.

A number of Republican senators joined in the vote to override the governors veto to raise Nebraskas gas tax by 6 cents a gallon over four years. Proponents argued that it was the best and fairest way to provide additional funding for highway construction and bridge maintenance.

Last week, Ricketts touted a plan to spend at least $340 million of future gas tax revenues on roads and bridges. He has said he still opposes the gas tax hike, but its best to make sure that its spent to benefit the motorists who will pay it.

Sen. Jim Smith of Papillion, the sponsor of the gas tax bill and the legislation for new highway spending that was supported by the governor, defended his colleagues who voted for the bills. The alternative would have involved competing for general fund tax dollars in order to pay for critical transportation improvements.

I know it doesnt make for good sound bites, but it makes for good policy, he said.

World-Herald staff writer Emily Nohr contributed to this report.
This page is archived. Data published after 5 April 2022 can be found on the renewed website. Go to the new statistics page

Published: 30 September 2016

General government debt decreased by EUR 4.8 billion in the second quarter of 2016

General government EDP debt, or consolidated debt at nominal prices, decreased by EUR 4.8 billion in the second quarter of 2016 and stood at EUR 130.3 billion at the end of quarter. These data derive from Statistics Finland's statistics on general government debt by quarter.

General government debt by quarter

During the second quarter of 2016, central government debt diminished by EUR 4.4 billion, and stood at EUR 111.8 billion at the end of the quarter. The decrease in central government debt in the second quarter was mainly due to the amortisation of bonds issued by central government. The stock of short-term debt securities diminished by EUR 0.6 billion and the stock of short-term loans by EUR 0.3 billion. The stock of long-term loans remained on level with the previous quarter. Local government debt decreased by EUR 0.2 billion and totalled EUR 17.9 billion at the end of the quarter. The debt of social security funds also diminished by EUR 0.5 billion during the quarter.

From the beginning of 2016, specified information has been available on cash collateral related to employment pension schemes' derivative contracts and securities lending. These items were previously included in other accounts payable. Now cash collateral is transferred to short-term loans. At this point, the time series revisions concern the years 2012 to 2016. The time series may change more later on.

General government EDP debt describes general governments debt to other sectors of the national economy and to the rest of the world, and its development is influenced by changes in unconsolidated debt and internal general government debts. Consolidated general government gross debt is derived by deducting debts between units recorded under general government from unconsolidated gross debt. For this reason, general government debt is smaller than the combined debts of its subsectors.

The EDP debt of general government differs conceptionally to some extent in the case of central government, from the central government debt published by the State Treasury. Central government's EDP debt includes loans granted to beneficiary counties by the European Financial Stability Facility EFSF, received cash collateral related to derivative contracts, the capital of the Nuclear Waste Management Fund, debts generated from investments in central government's PPP (public-private partnership) projects, coins that are in circulation, and the deposits of the European Commission. In National Accounts, central government is also a broader concept than budget and financial economy (http://www.stat.fi/meta/luokitukset/_linkki/julkisyhteisot.html). The valuation principle for both debt concepts is the nominal value, where the effect of interest-rate and currency swaps is taken into account.

Source: General government debt by quarter, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Timo Ristimaki 029 551 2324, Henna Laasonen 029 551 3303, rahoitus.tilinpito@stat.fi

Director in charge: Ville Vertanen

Publication in pdf-format (211.1 kB)

Updated 30.09.2016

Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): General government debt by quarter [e-publication].

ISSN=1799-8034. 2nd quarter 2016. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 31.10.2022].

Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/jyev/2016/02/jyev_2016_02_2016-09-30_tie_001_en.html
This page is archived. Data published after 5 April 2022 can be found on the renewed website. Go to the new statistics page

Published: 30 September 2016

Households net financial assets increased in the second quarter of 2016

Households financial assets grew by EUR 3.7 billion during the second quarter of 2016 amounting to EUR 282.0 billion. In turn, households debts increased by EUR 1.6 billion during the second quarter of 2016 rising to EUR 149.5 billion. As a result of these changes, households' net financial assets increased by EUR 2.2 billion to EUR 132.5 billion. Net financial assets refer to the difference between financial assets and liabilities. These data derive from Statistics Finlands financial accounts statistics.

Households financial assets

A majority of the total increase in households financial assets, EUR two billion, is explained by holding gains received by households from shares and other investments.

Households' net investments increased by EUR 1.8 billion during the second quarter of 2016. More funds flowed especially to deposits, altogether EUR 2.4 billion. Measured in net, slightly more funds were also invested in equity funds. Net investments in debt securities and quoted shares decreased.

Households loan debts increased by EUR 1.4 billion during the second quarter of 2016 rising to EUR 139.6 billion. Households' indebtedness ratio increased by 1.2 percentage points from the previous quarter to 125.6 per cent. Households' indebtedness ratio is calculated as the ratio of their loan debts at the end of a quarter to their total disposable income during the preceding four quarters.

Non-financial corporations debt financing declined by EUR 5.5 billion during the second quarter of 2016 falling to EUR 221.5 billion. Debts in the form of debt securities remained unchanged at EUR 33.0 billion, so the entire change was caused by a decrease in loan debts. The new level of loan debts is EUR 188.5 billion. Debt financing refers to the total of loan debts and financing in the form of debt securities.

Source: Financial accounts, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Peter Parkkonen 029 551 2571, Henna Laasonen 029 551 3303, rahoitus.tilinpito@stat.fi

Director in charge: Ville Vertanen

Publication in pdf-format (252.5 kB)

Updated 30.9.2016

Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Financial accounts [e-publication].

ISSN=1458-8145. 2nd quarter 2016. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 31.10.2022].

Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/rtp/2016/02/rtp_2016_02_2016-09-30_tie_001_en.html
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Bunuel wrote:

In the morning, Chris drives from Toronto to Oakville and in the evening he drives back from Oakville to Toronto on the same road. Was his average speed for the entire round trip less than 100 miles per hour?



(1) In the morning, Chris drove at an average speed of at least 10 miles per hour while travelling from Toronto to Oakville.

(2) In the evening, Chris drove at an average speed which was no more than 50 miles per hour while travelling from Oakville to Toronto.





Kudos for a correct solution .

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

Statement 1

Statement 2

Takeaway: If your average speed is s for a certain trip, your average speed for half the distance must be more than s/2.

We know that the question involves average speed. The case involves travelling at a particular average speed for one half of the journey and at another average speed for the other half of the journey.So average speed of the entire trip will be given by 2ab/(a+b)But the first problem is that we are given a range of speeds. How do we handle at least 10 and no more than 50 in equation form? We have learnt that we should focus on the extremities so lets analyse the problem by taking the numbers are the extremities:10 and 50: In the morning, Chris drove at an average speed of at least 10 miles per hour while travelling from Toronto to Oakville.What if Chris drives at an average speed of 10 mph in the morning and averages 100 mph for the entire journey? What will be his average speed in the evening? Perhaps around 200, right? Lets see.100 = 2*10*b/(10 + b)1000 + 100b = 20b1000 = -80bb =  1000/80How can speed be negative?Lets hold on here and try the same calculation for statement 2 too.: In the evening, Chris drove at an average speed which no more than 50 miles per hour while travelling from Oakville to Toronto.If Chris drives at an average speed of 50 mph in the evening, and averages 100 mph, lets find his average speed in the morning.100 = 2a*50/(a + 50)100a + 5000 = 100a5000 = 0This doesnt make any sense either!What is going wrong? Look at it conceptually:Say, Toronto is 100 miles away from Oakville. If Chris wants his average speed to be 100 mph over the entire trip, he should cover 100+100 = 200 miles in 2 hrs.What happens when he travels at 10 mph in the morning? He takes 100/10 = 10 hrs to reach Oakville in the morning. He has already taken more time than what he had allotted for the entire round trip. Now, no matter what his speed in the evening, his average speed cannot be 100mph. Even if he reaches Oakville to Toronto in the blink of an eye, he would have taken 10 hours and then some time to cover the total 200 miles distance. So his average speed cannot be equal to or more than 200/10 = 20 mph.Similarly, if he travels at 50 mph in the evening, he takes 2 full hours to travel 100 miles (one side distance). In the morning, he would have taken some time to travel 100 miles from Toronto to Oakville. Even if that time is just a few seconds, his average speed cannot be 100 mph under any circumstances.But statement 1 says that his speed in morning was at least 10 mph which means that he could have traveled at 10 mph in the morning or at 100 mph. In one case, his average speed for the round trip cannot be 100 mph and in the other case, it can very well be. Hence statement 1 alone is not sufficient.On the other hand, statement 2 says that his speed in the evening was 50 mph or less. This means he would have taken AT LEAST 2 hours in the morning. So his average speed for the round trip cannot be 100 mph under any circumstances. So statement 2 alone is sufficient to answer this question with No.Answer (B)_________________
A woman found living with 90 cats inside her Mooresville home was found guilty of animal cruelty on Tuesday in Iredell County District Court.

Catherine Gayle Craig, 60, initially faced one count of animal cruelty for each cat found. Eighty-six counts were dismissed, and she was found guilty of four counts by Judge Edward Hedrick.

The four counts were consolidated for judgment 18 months of supervised probation.

As a result of the conviction, Iredell County Animal Services & Control representatives will periodically visit Craig to make sure she isnt keeping any animals and is compliant with her probation, according to court records.

In March, Iredell County Animal Control Officer Albert Deal went to the home on Pinewood Circle to check up on the well-being of a dog, according to reports.

While Deal was outside, he noticed a strong odor of cat urine coming from the house.

After Deal seized the dog, he reported the smell to Iredell County Animal Services Field Operations Supervisor Teri Somnitz, who then contacted the Mooresville Police Department to help with a search and seizure warrant, reports said.

Somnitz knew there was a problem when she saw one of the cats in the window, she said at the time.

Somnitz tried to talk to Craig initially, but the woman refused to let her in to check on the animals, according to reports.

Authorities arrived with a search warrant and animal control workers removed the 90 cats from Craigs 3,800-square-foot house, reports said.

Two cats were dead and another had to be euthanized due to medical issues. Some of the cats also had behavioral issues or other illnesses.

Somnitz described the living conditions of the cats as absolutely deplorable, at the time. Some of the cats were caged, while others roamed freely in the house.

After the cats were seized, representatives of the Dutchess County SPCA came to Iredell County to collect 31 of the cats, reports said. The cats were then brought to Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

From there, the cats were nursed back to health and relocated to permanent homes, according to reports.
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The Pirelli plant in southern Slatina is an example of the good co-operation between Romania and Italy in economic field, on Friday said Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos.

"Italy is not only an opportunity for the Romanians who have chosen to work there, at least temporarily, but there - Italy is investing in Romania, creating jobs for the Romanians, here, at home. So, Italy is not only a very important commercial partner to Romania, but also an economic investment partner," said Ciolos upon a visit to the southern Slatina-based Pirelli plant.He specified that the Pirelli investment in Slatina reveals that the economic and investments environment of Romania evolved a lot."(...) the economic and investments environment becomes more attractive not only for greenfield investments, but also for developing such investments. The fact that Pirelli is already during its fourth development and investments stage shows that the Romanian economic milieu is enough attractive not only from the cost, the workforce point of view, but also from the viewpoint of its quality, that has improved lately, and also from the legislative and economic predictability's point of view, since the economic growth perspectives attract more investors to Romania," stressed Ciolos.The Prime Minister is accompanied in his visit to the Pirelli plant by the Public Finances Minister, Anca Dragu and the Labour Minister, Dragos Pislaru. AGERPRES
European Commissioner for Regional Policy Corina Cretu on Friday called on Romania's Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu to speed up the completion of documents for the construction of three regional hospitals in Romania.

On a visit to the Cardiovascular Institute of Iasi on Friday, Cretu said that if works on the reginal hospitals fails to start by 2018, there will be a risk of the allocated funds being lost.

"One year passed since the decision to build three regional hospitals was okayed by the European Commission and the locales for them are still not in place. Mr Minister explained that some steps are to be taken that require time, and also feasibility studies. Hopefully the actual construction starts by the end of 2018, or else we cannot see any physical possibility for the hospitals to be ready by 2020. We are very much interested in the three regional hospitals being built, because our estimates show that the three hospitals will provide higher quality services to nearly one million people from around Romania (...). Any delay means in fact delaying the start of the investment and running the risk of losing the European funds allocated throughout 2020," said Cretu.

She added that the funds allocated for the construction of the regional hospitals in the Romanian counties of Iasi, Craiova and Cluj are standing at 150 million euros.
People who live there go out of their way to support and help each other.
As St. Louis prepares to host the next presidential debate, the citys breweries are gearing up with debate-themed beers.

As of Friday, Schlafly Beer was pouring Potus (aka President of the United States) at its Tap Room downtown and Bottleworks brewery in Maplewood. The limited release American lager also is available at a few other bars and restaurants.

Schlafly, St. Louis largest craft brewery, plans to have the beer available at its Pints for Potus debate viewing party at Bottleworks on Oct. 9, the day Washington University will host the next presidential debate.

Customers can purchase Schlafly beer glasses for sale with Donald Trumps and Hillary Clintons faces to show their support  or a neutral glass that supports local beer.

We believe that beer is truly bipartisan and wanted to let our patrons thirst be heard, Schlaflys CEO James Pendergraft said in a statement.

Anheuser-Busch, which has its U.S. headquarters based in St. Louis, also is brewing up debate-themed beer. A-B, an official sponsor of the nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates since 1996, plans to have hospitality tents with food and beverages for debate attendees on the grounds of Washington University next Sunday.

On Friday, A-B invited media to taste the special release beer it plans to serve for the debate.

Travis Moore, senior brewmaster of A-Bs St. Louis brewery and Rob Naylor, research pilot brewery brewmaster, developed Lillys Lager, the debate beer that will be served at a biergarten outside the debate. Its also available at the brewery south of downtown until supplies run out.

The beer brewed with Hallertau hops from Germany and A-Bs hop farm in Idaho is a nod to the brewers German and American roots and local workforce.

We have over 3,000 employees in St. Louis that work hard every day to make beer with the highest quality, Naylor said.

Lillys Lager is named after a daughter of its co-founder, Eberhard Anheuser, and wife of co-founder Adolphus Busch.

We call her the first lady of our company, because she was the first female influence on our company becoming Anheuser-Busch, said director of marketing Tom Kraus.

A-B will have a full hitch of its Clydesdales at the debate site, arriving on the campus for a parade planned for 1:30 p.m. on Friday.
CHICAGO  Wells Fargo & Co. faces possible bans from doing business with the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois in the wake of its sales scandal that erupted earlier this month.

Alderman Edward Burke, who heads the Chicago City Council's finance committee, introduced an ordinance on Friday that would suspend the bank from acting in several capacities, including as a municipal depository, bond underwriter and financial adviser.

"The city council should not engage in any business for the next two years with this institution that has deceived, defrauded and duped its customers," Burke said in a statement.

Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs set a Monday news conference to announce "plans to suspend billions of dollars in investment activity with Wells Fargo," according to an advisory from his office on Friday.

Wells Fargo staff opened checking, savings and credit card accounts without customer say-so for years to satisfy managers' demand for new business, according to a $190 million settlement with regulators reached on Sept. 8. The bank said it fired 5,300 employees over the issue.

On Wednesday, California State Treasurer John Chiang announced a sweeping suspension of the state's business relationships with Wells Fargo for the next 12 months. The bank is also under pressure from Oregon's treasurer to reform its management structure and executive compensation.

U.S. lawmakers called on Thursday for Wells Fargo chief John Stumpf to resign and a top House Democrat demanded the bank be broken up because it is too big to manage.

Chicago's finance committee is scheduled to take up the proposed ordinance on Wednesday. The city has paid Wells Fargo $19.45 million in fees since 2005, according to the committee.

The bank served as senior underwriter on five Chicago bond issues totaling nearly $969 million since 2006, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Wells Fargo made the list of 15 senior underwriters tapped by Illinois this month for bond sales over the next three years. A spokeswoman for Gov. Bruce Rauner declined to comment on whether his office is rethinking Wells Fargo's selection.
Young girls may be discarding their princess wands for superhero capes this Halloween, but not so in the canine world.

The glass ceiling appears to be firmly in place at PetSmart, where career costumes labeled "male" include firefighter and police officer, while female dogs can choose between a pink cowgirl costume and pink loofah.

On the site BaxterBoo.com, options for your female pooch include "sweet heart nurse" or French maid. "Any tidy girl dog will look adorable wearing this French Maid Dog Costume," the site's description reads. "Whether your pup is a clean freak or a messy mutt, she will enjoy playing 'dress up' in this fun costume."

The choices for male dogs, meanwhile, include fireman, mob boss and doctor (suggested pairing: "match up with a girl friend with the Sweet Heart Nurse Dog Costume.")

"It seems silly on the surface, but this is part of a larger message we're sending, that there are certain jobs for men, and certain jobs for women," said Scott Lawrie, 36, who co-hosts a podcast, 'She will not be ignored,' about gender issues. "The career options for women  and dogs  need to go beyond pink loofahs and pink cowgirls."

Lawrie, who plans to dress his two dogs as the cop duo Cagney and Lacey, says he did a double-take when he saw PetSmart's police officer costumes marked for "males." He clicked around and noticed a pattern: Career-related costumes were often explicitly marked "male" and "female." (A number of other costumes, however, ranging from lobsters to pumpkins and dinosaurs, bear the "male/female" label.)

"I thought surely there was some reason behind this: maybe the pets needed to relieve themselves a certain way, or something like that," said Lawrie, who lives in San Francisco. "But all of the costumes are identical."

Representatives for PetSmart and Baxter Boo did not respond to requests for comment.

National retailers have begun taking steps to eliminate gender labels from their products. Target last year announced it would stop separating girls' and boys' toys in its stores. Wal-Mart, Toys R Us and Amazon.com have taken similar measures.

"We never want guests or their families to feel frustrated or limited by the way things are presented," Target said in a 2015 news release. "Over the past year, guests have raised important questions about a handful of signs in our stores that offer product suggestions based on gender. In some cases, like apparel, where there are fit and sizing differences, it makes sense. In others, it may not."

Last year, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs found that items marketed to girls and women are routinely marked up an average 7 percent compared to items for boys and men. The discrepancies included a 48 percent markup for hair products, such as shampoo and conditioner.

"It's a double whammy," DCA Commissioner Julie Menin told The Washington Post, "and it's not just happening in New York. You see in the aisles the issue is clearly applicable to consumers across the country."

It turns out those mark ups aren't limited to humans, either. At Party City, Supergirl and Wonder Woman doggie costumes were priced 30 percent higher than Superman costumes ($16.99 versus $12.99). Batgirl costumes, meanwhile, were selling for $19.99, a 33 percent premium on Batman's $14.99 price tag.

Pet costumes have been gaining popularity in recent years, with 16 percent of Americans saying they'll dress up their dogs, cats and bunnies for Halloween this year, according to the National Retail Federation. The most popular costumes for pets were gender-neutral pumpkins, hot dogs and bumblebees.

As for Lawrie, he has yet to buy costumes for Harry and Brody. The dogs already have wigs, but Lawrie says he's waiting for PetSmart to remove its labeling before he makes his purchase.

"Even if it's just on principle, this is important," he said. "I'm waiting until they fix it."
Nordanda Aluminum Holding Corp. said Friday it has received bankruptcy court approval to sell its New Madrid aluminum smelter and related facilities to ARG International.

The purchase price is $13.7 million, Noranda said.

ARG International, based in Zug, Switzerland, was founded in 2013 by Matt Lucke, a former aluminum trader with Glencore, according to Reuters.

An alumna refinery in Gramercy, La., and bauxite mining operation Jamaica were not included in the sale, the Franklin, Tenn.-based company said.

Noranda filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in St. Louis in February and idled its 900-employee smelter in the Missouri Bootheel the next month, the casualty of plunging commodity prices and a series of accidents that affected production levels.

In June, the company said it planned to sell off its businesses, including the smelter, which had by far been Ameren Missouri's largest customer.

Noranda won court approval in August to sell its downstream aluminum rolling mill businesses to Sweden's Granges AB for $324 million.
Four days after Schnucks union employees voted to authorize a strike against the grocer, the union said Friday that negotiations are ongoing and a strike isnt imminent.

Local 655 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents more than 4,500 checkers, stockers and other Schnucks employees, recommended a week ago that employees reject a contract proposed by Maryland Heights-based Schnuck Markets Inc. and authorize a strike. The union contends the contract proposed by Schnucks offers wage increases that dont keep up with the cost of living and that the contract could cut 133 full-time jobs and threaten health benefits.

In a statement last week, Schnuck Markets Chairman and CEO Todd Schnuck said the contract proposal meets the needs of our teammates while keeping our business competitive against non-union grocers and stores that sell food, which includes some of the worlds largest companies.

Monday night, 89 percent of the 2,194 Schnuck Markets employees who are members of Local 655 voted to reject the contract and authorize a strike. Local 655s contract covers Schnucks employees in 52 St. Louis area stores in Missouri.

The union must notify Schnucks five days before a strike begins, and the union has not yet given the grocer five days notice of a strike, Local 655 president David Cook said in a Facebook post Friday morning.

Thursday we had a bargaining session with Schnucks and Federal Mediation, Cooks post stated, adding more dates are scheduled next week to work to attain an acceptable proposal.

Local 655 also represents Shop n Save and Dierbergs employees.
Making Babies, a new podcast from the Post-Dispatch, features experts exploring scientific innovations and medical trends for pregnancy and childbirth.

As podcast host  and expecting my second child  I know that advice about pregnancy is easy to find whether you want it or not. In this series of podcasts, we wade through the noise to provide answers and support in a scientific and medically accurate way. The conversations in the podcast offer some humorous stories, poignant moments and important lessons.

Here are the topics:

Episode 1: Infertility treatments. Dr. Sherman Silber, a pioneer in the field who performed the first ovary transplants, talks about why uterus transplants are probably not going to catch on in the U.S. The operation is risky and expensive, and surrogate mothers are a more viable option.

Silber, director of the Infertility Center of St. Louis, also delves into the highly controversial world of three-parent embryos. However, he bristles at the term he says was created by the media. Silber explains that babies who are conceived with parts of the egg from two mothers and sperm from one father actually receive unique, identifiable genetic material from just one of the mothers.

When talking about the high cost of infertility treatment, Silber blasts state lawmakers for being shortsighted. If insurance companies were required to cover the treatments, then doctors wouldnt have to take risks with implanting multiple embryos into a womans uterus. Pregnancies with twins or triplets are more expensive and bring a higher risk for complications for mother and babies. LISTEN

Episode 2: Drinking while pregnant. Billboards around town proclaim that no amount of alcohol is safe during pregnancy and urge women to avoid even one sip of liquor. Dr. Shayna Conner, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University, explains why the public health message is so unforgiving, and what she advises her own patients. She also discusses the phenomenon that those most likely to imbibe during pregnancy are college-educated women. LISTEN

Episode 3: Immunizations for Mom. Dr. Christina Meddows-Jackson of Mercy Clinic talks about the importance of getting the whooping cough and flu vaccines during pregnancy. Since newborns cant get the shots themselves, immunizing the mother while shes pregnant offers some protection for the new baby. Pregnant women are also at high risk for developing severe cases of flu that can lead to hospitalization and even death. The vaccine is the best form of prevention against flu. LISTEN

Episode 4: Too many checkups? Elizabeth Cook, director of the Mercy Birthing Center, talks about an experiment where doctors give moms their own blood pressure and fetal heart rate monitors to keep at home. They dont have as many scheduled doctors appointments, but does the practice really cut back on new moms anxiety? LISTEN

Episode 5: Obesity and pregnancy. Pregnant women have not avoided the countrys obesity epidemic. More than half of American women are overweight or obese when they get pregnant. Dr. Raul Artal, former director of the SLUCare Bariatric Pregnancy Center, discusses the issue.

Dr. Artal is famous for helping obese women maintain and even lose weight during pregnancy. He brings a powerful personal message to the podcast when he talks about his passion for the issue. Artal was born healthy in a German concentration camp, where his mother was starved during her pregnancy. LISTEN

Episode 6: Waiting too long? More mothers are waiting to get pregnant and have babies once their careers are established. But pregnancy after age 35 comes with some risks. Dr. Alison Cahill of Washington University discusses the trend toward older moms and what it means for women and childrens health. LISTEN

Episode 7: Cutting the cord. Cutting the umbilical cord is highly anticipated after the birth of a baby, but how soon is too soon? More doctors are waiting a minute or two before calling Dad over to make the cut to help baby soak up the iron-rich cord blood. Elizabeth Cook of the Mercy Birthing Center discusses this new trend. LISTEN

Episode 8: Drug-addicted newborns. Health reporter Michele Munz joins the podcast to talk about babies born to drug-addicted mothers and how hospitals are changing the way they care for newborns as the opioid crisis reaches the nursery. LISTEN

Episode 9: Postpartum depression. Maternal care does not end when the baby is born. For the final installment of the podcast, Dr. Matthew Broom, a SLUCare pediatrician, and Dr. Katherine Mathews, a SLUCare OB/GYN, discuss how to recognize and get help for postpartum depression. LISTEN

If you have any suggestions for future Making Babies podcast topics, please contact me.
I did a double take while driving by the group of protesters at the corner of a busy intersection near a strip mall.

Quick, take a picture, I told my daughter, whom I was driving to a theater class. About 10 people were standing on either side of a large Black Lives Matter banner. They were holding signs that said: Racism is not patriotism. Pro-black does not mean anti-white, We stand with Charlotte, Stop killing children and White Silence = Violence.

All the protesters were white.

I was in a predominately white, affluent area that votes deep red. This is Todd Akin country, home base of the Republican representative who lost a Senate race to Claire McCaskill when he said that women who are victims of so-called legitimate rape rarely get pregnant.

Its also within 10 minutes of the neighborhood where a Ballwin police officer was shot in July.

Its the last place Id expect to see anyone demonstrating in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Later, when I examined the picture my daughter had taken, I found a link to the groups Facebook page: West County Community Action Network  We Can. Who were these fish-out-of-water and what were they trying to accomplish?

Turns out, the group formed nearly two years ago when members at Emerson Unitarian Universalist Chapel in Chesterfield felt compelled to act after Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager.

I got woke, said Jake Lyonfields, 24, a health care consultant who was raised in the county and worships at Emerson. He marched in the streets of Ferguson, but he realized he wanted to speak out in his own community.

One of the organizers, Lauren Lyerla, 51, of Maryland Heights, says the group has been holding vigils weekly in various parts of west St. Louis County since October 2014. There are about three dozen active members in the group, which has expanded beyond the church, and about a dozen show up for the weekly protest.

It can be really painful to hear every week the racist things being said to us, Lyonfields said. They estimate that about one quarter of the reaction is negative. People might make an obscene finger gesture or yell at them as they drive by. Only a few people have gotten physically in their faces with insults.

My favorite is when they say, All lives matter, a-hole!  Lyerla said. Others question why they are even trying to raise the issue in their outlying suburban communities. They think, Im far enough out west that I dont have to look at it or think about it,  she said.

But the dedicated activists also hear some supportive comments. Some people bring them hot chocolate in the winter and Gatorade in the summer. Others, like Nicole Greer, a plant engineer in Creve Coeur, sees them and feels compelled to say more.

When Greer, who is African-American, first spotted the group, she told her daughter, Syndi Jackson, they had to go express their gratitude.

These people are out here going hard for us, she told her daughter. Their interaction led to both of them joining as volunteers and now leaders within the group. She said a passer-by shouted white power at her when she joined a vigil.

The members decided to take their activism beyond the street and started doing research on local police departments and school districts, reading up on policies and disciplinary data. They attend school board meetings to advocate for ways to break the school-to-prison pipeline, which begins with black and brown students being disproportionately suspended from school.

Ferguson is everywhere, Lyonfields said. The data shows it.

Greer said that her daughter was a top-performer in a predominately white school district, and they had to deal with issues related to race.

I know there are issues because we have lived them for the past 12 years, she said.

Group members have had several meetings with local police departments, one of which has agreed to include implicit bias training in the training protocol for its officers.

Most white people in West County were entirely ready to let the race question drop once the nonindictment announcement came, Lyerla said. People asked her why they were still out there. She said that an aspect of her own privilege is that other white people may listen to her more than they will people of color.

I have access to a persons attention, she said. She sees her job as continuing to listen to African-Americans experiences and amplify their voices.

We provide some discomfort to some people who are entirely too comfortable in their white privilege, she said. And maybe we provide some hope to those who agree with us and felt entirely alone out here.
MEXICO, Mo.  A high school band director in Missouri has been charged with inappropriately touching a student.

Robert Cortez, 43, of Mexico, Mo., was charged Thursday in Audrain County with two counts of having sexual contact with a student. His attorney, James Clampitt, declined to discuss the case with The Associated Press.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that Cortez has been the band director at Mexico High School.

The Mexico Public Safety Department said in a news release that a student reported Tuesday having been touched inappropriately by Cortez on Monday. The student also reported incidents on other occasions and in several jurisdictions, but never on school property or at a school event.

Cortez has been placed on administrative leave during the investigation.
ST. LOUIS  A second man charged with using a stolen credit card at a gas station has been identified as a suspect in the Sept. 14 killing of a Laclede Cab driver in the Central West End, court records say.

A search warrant for Savion Smiths cellphone data was unsealed Wednesday in St. Louis Circuit Court and identifies him as a suspect in the robbery and fatal shooting of Timothy Grice. Grice was killed in his parked taxi between 2 and 3 a.m. Sept. 14 in the 4900 block of Laclede Avenue, near Forest Park.

Smith and another man, Jerry D. Reese, both 19, each were charged last week with a felony count of receiving stolen property for allegedly using a stolen Commerce Bank credit card at the QuikTrip at 904 South Vandeventer Avenue about 9:20 p.m. on Sept. 12, two days before Grice was killed.

The credit card was taken in an armed robbery in the 4300 block of Wyoming Street about an hour before Smith and Reese were seen on QuikTrips surveillance cameras with the card, charges say.

The search warrant that names Smith as a suspect in Grices death seeks data from Smiths cellphone. Police also obtained search warrants for Reeses cellphone data and his DNA.

No charges have been filed in the killing of Grice. Search warrants say Grices iPhone had been taken from his pocket and that detectives found DNA evidence at the crime scene along with a .380-caliber shell casing. A .380 bullet was recovered from Grices body during his autopsy.

Surveillance cameras in the Central West End recorded video of a silver Chevrolet Impala with an Illinois temporary license plate that approached Grice before the shooting, search warrants say. Video obtained by police shows several people running from Grices cab to the Impala.

On Sept. 18, police detained Smith and Reese after stopping the car seen in the video. They seized a .380-caliber handgun found hidden under a rear seat where Reese was sitting, a search warrant says. Smith was driving. Reese was in the back seat. They both denied any involvement in Grices shooting death.

Smith and Reese were each being held on a $50,000 cash-only bail.

The search warrant says the pistol found in the car matched up with ballistic evidence from a nonfatal shooting in St. Louis on July 4. A police summary of that incident says a 17-year-old male argued with a man in the 2400 block of Laflin Street and shot him before fleeing in the victims rental car. Police said the shooter and victim knew each other. Police sought charges against the 17-year-old but prosecutors elected not to file them.
LINCOLN COUNTY  A Lincoln County man has been arrested after he allegedly failed to register as a sex offender for the second time this year.

Louis Edward Combs Jr., 46, of Troy, Mo. first gave officials a false home address in January, according to the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office.

He was sentenced to 3 years in prison but received a suspended execution of sentence and was placed on probation.

Combs gave officials another false address in September, according to the sheriff's office. Detectives discovered the false address during a compliance check Sept. 12 after Combs failed to register his employment.

Combs originally had been charged with first degree rape, forcible oral sodomy and first degree rape through the use of instrumentation of a nine-year-old in Oklahoma in 2004, according to the sheriff's office. The charges were amended to assault with intent to commit a felony after prosecutors accepted a plea deal.

Combs was being held at the Lincoln County Jail Thursday night with bail set at $10,000.
A man who was critically injured after being beaten outside his home in the Gravois Park neighborhood on Sunday has been released from the hospital, friends said.

Rob Ludwig, 38, and his girlfriend, 34, saw a group of young men or boys harassing a teenage girl outside her apartment across the street on the 3700 block of Virginia Avenue about 6 p.m.

The girlfriend tried to intervene by yelling for the group to stop. Soon after that, a woman who was with the group of youths began to argue with the couple, she told police.

The woman used a tree limb to hit her on the head several times, and the youths used their fists and other items to assault the couple. The attackers fled before police arrived.

No criminal charges have been issued in the case.

A friend of Ludwig has started a GoFundMe page to help with his medical bills.

Shannon Howard, a friend of Ludwig who is organizing the fundraising effort, wrote:

"Rob is no stranger to fighting for his life, he fought cancer (lymphoma) and WON...he fought heart complications from the chemotherapy..and WON...he fought end stage renal disease, years of dialysis and 2 kidney transplants...and WON. Rob is a HERO to many of us that know him and a vicious attack by 15 cowards is NOT going to stop him, especially when he was trying to help out a fellow neighbor. What is our society coming to! He will recover and he will WIN again...because that's how HEROs roll.

Hats of to you Rob, I am honored to be able to call you friend!"
COLUMBIA, Mo.  Mizzous campus was calm Thursday. Students lounged on the quad enjoying the warm sun or scurried between classes.

Days after two black students reported that a group of white students had aimed racial insults at them, others reflected on the incident in the context of last years racial protests on campus, which garnered national attention and led to the downfall of top school leaders.

University of Missouri-Columbia sophomore Michaela Morgan said it feels like the campus was getting riled up again.

But she said she was glad the community continued to have conversations about the incident in the days to follow.

I know for me personally, it really hurts to hear that these kind of things are still happening, but at the same time, I think we need to be aware that this is not new, Morgan said. This is stuff thats been happening. But its good that its been more broadcast, so that more people actually know about it.

Morgan, who is majoring in special education, said the universitys College of Education held an open discussion for students who wanted to share their experiences and talk about what had happened.

They werent the only ones. One Mizzou graduate student, who asked not to be named because of her role teaching an English course to undergraduates, said she broached the subject with her class that morning, resulting in a conversation that lasted more than an hour.

Some of my students of color were saying that they maybe didnt feel as safe as they wanted to on campus, which is problematic, she said. (They were) wondering if the protests were going to start back up, a little bit of fear about that, definitely.

A police report with details from the incident Tuesday night shed more light on the issues the campus faces as leaders talk about healing new wounds.

The report, obtained Thursday through a records request, includes different accounts of events that led up to and included a gathering of students outside of a Mizzou fraternity house that night. The perspectives of several officers are included, but the names of students are redacted.

Even so, a basic narrative emerges.

The incident began when a group of students from the Legion of Black Collegians left an event on campus. According to the report, they told police that when later walking near the Geological Science Building, they saw other students knocking over trash cans.

The black students told police that when they passed the other students, who appeared drunk, at least one said, look how those (n-words) are looking at us.

One black student told the police officer that the comment came from a white woman.

Police became involved in the incident when a group of students approached a police officer near Tiger Avenue and Rollins Street.

By that time, a group of students had gathered in front of the Delta Upsilon fraternity house where a confrontation was taking place.

The accounts from four officers suggest that a group of students in front of the fraternity were arguing with those inside of the fraternity.

Some of the students outside alleged they heard racial epithets coming from inside the fraternity house, though none of the police officers said they personally heard the statements. One officer did say he heard members of the group outside make disparaging comments toward the group inside, including the term cracker.

At least one fraternity member played rap music though a speaker in a window pointed toward the group. He later told police that someone yelled a racially charged threat at him.

At the scene, police continued to question people about the original hate speech allegation described by the Black Collegians when they were crossing campus.

Police interviewed a woman who allegedly said the slur. She told police that she had no intentions of that, one officer writes in his report.

An officer who conducted a separate interview with the same woman and her friends said the students were very intoxicated. The woman told police she and her friends were walking home when they came into contact with the Black Collegians. She said the groups walked together and when they got to the Delta Upsilon house, a Black Collegian member was upset she was called a racial slur and started yelling.

Onlookers who were nearby, told police several subjects from the Delta Upsilon house began shouting obscenities toward Black Collegian members, including racial slurs. The onlookers declined to identify who said the slurs to police for fear of getting them in trouble, according to a police narrative.

Police accounts show how the situation became heated at different points. At one point, a student outside the Delta Upsilon house told an officer, If you dont get it together, I will set this school on fire. Do you understand?

Ongoing inquiry

The university has a policy of not discussing disciplinary actions or investigations of students. So while the university has taken action against the Delta Upsilon fraternity, its unclear if any specific students are under investigation or have been disciplined.

The Office of Civil Rights and Title IX does not respond to inquiries regarding reports or investigation for confidentiality purposes, Mizzou spokesman Christian Basi said.

Eight students, two of whom are black and six of whom are white, were identified by police as subjects involved in the incident. All student names were redacted from the five-page police report.

Mizzou administrators declined to comment Thursday.

According to the report, at least four Mizzou police officers were wearing body cameras that were recording. The University of Missouri System said more time was needed to process a Post-Dispatch request for about five hours of video footage.

It never went away

On campus Thursday, freshman Jonathan Driver questioned the suspension of Delta Upsilon.

I guess its supposed to scare them into not doing it again. So I guess it wasnt serious enough for an expulsion, Driver said.

Others questioned if Greek life at Mizzou was inclusive enough. Freshman Anthony Spivey said he had thought about rushing at one point but didnt plan to anymore. On top of the most recent incident, Spivey said he and other students of color hadnt always felt welcome at parties held at Mizzous fraternities.

Still, he said, he hoped the issues could be resolved without unrest.

I feel like the protests on campus are making a hostile environment (between) white and black students, he said.

For others, like Mizzou senior Kyle Michaels, its clear the university has more work to do after last year.

We need to go back and retrace our steps, he said.

Driver, even in his first year at Mizzou, agreed that what happened last year is still on students minds.

I figured something like this would happen at one point of time, he said. It calmed down, but it never went away.
BRANSON  The two major party candidates seeking to become Missouris next governor stuck mainly to their talking points during their first debate Friday, scuffling over the issue of experience versus the need for new blood in state government.

Republican Eric Greitens, a former Navy SEAL who is running for office for the first time, took aim at Democrat Chris Koster throughout the debate, attacking the two-term attorney general for being in office too long.

Chris Koster has been in politics for over 20 years, Greitens said. If he was going to make a difference, he would have done so already.

Koster, by contrast, tried to show his knowledge of state government and said voters should not support a political newcomer who would need training wheels on the day he takes office.

The comments came during an hour-long forum in Branson sponsored by the Missouri Press Association. Along with Greitens and Koster, three third-party candidates shared the stage: Libertarian Cisse Spragins, Independent Lester Turilli Jr. and Don Fitz for the Green Party.

It was part of a double-header of debates, with candidates for the U.S. Senate talking during a later, hour-long forum.

Among the governor candidates, the sparks between Greitens and Koster dominated the debate.

Greitens repeatedly went after Koster, but offered up few specifics on how he would run state government.

Were being held back by career politicians, Greitens said.

Koster, who was a Republican until eight years ago, said his experience is what is needed at the helm of state government at a time when the Legislature is controlled by Republican super majorities.

I know these two political parties perhaps as well as anybody in the state of Missouri, Koster said.

Koster touted his endorsements from the agriculture community, teachers and the National Rifle Association as proof he can bring the state together.

The two disagreed on most issues, including a proposed law that would make Missouri a right-to-work state, which opponents say would weaken labor unions and hurt the middle class.

Right-to-work laws forbid union contracts from requiring employees to pay union dues as a condition of employment.

I would veto a right-to-work bill, Koster said. It would drive down wages. Im running for governor to help working people.

We need more jobs and higher pay, Greitens said. Im going to sign right-to-work legislation.

Greitens also used the debate to continue to hammer on Koster for a vote he took during his tenure in the Missouri Senate that he says would have helped victims of rape. Koster says he voted no because of other provisions of the measure.

Youre lying about whats in the bill, Greitens said. You need to apologize to the women of Missouri.

The two also differed on Medicaid expansion, with Koster saying the state could leverage federal money to help pay to cover more Missouri residents.

If you want more Obamacare  you should vote for Hillary Clinton and Chris Koster, Greitens said.

On transportation funding, Koster criticized Greitens for offering no solutions to pay for road and bridge construction. Koster supports an increase in the motor fuel tax.
ST. LOUIS  Mayor Francis Slay again called for a more streamlined government structure between the city and the county, calling the current divide bad for the region.

Friday's speech at the annual Mayor's Business Celebration Luncheon was not the same fiery address he gave in front of the St. Louis Regional Chamber in August, but it had similar themes including the city-county divide, the benefits of a north-south MetroLink expansion and the need for improved race relations in the area.

Slay came back to those themes on Friday but also touted what he calls the multi-billion construction boom the city has seen over the past several years.

That boom, he said, has made St. Louis a more attractive place to live, particularly among young people.

Speaking to a room full of business leaders, Slay defended the multi-year tax incentives the city has awarded different developers. Opponents argue those tax breaks siphon millions of dollars away from city schools and public institutions that could better use the money.

Slay said the developments built because of those tax breaks - mixed-use shopping centers and apartments - benefit the city in the long run, as people move to those areas and pay sales and property taxes.

This year marked Slay's last turn as the featured speaker at the event. As he closed his remarks, he told the hundreds of people in attendance that he is "proud and honored" to have served as mayor.

He left the stage to a standing ovation.
UNIVERSITY CITY  Inside a large brick home here on Yale Avenue, theres a writers study illuminated by natural light. A cartoon, ripped out of a magazine, hangs on a bookshelf. In it, a woman yells down the stairs to her husband, who has been huddled over a typewriter too long.

Finish it? the husband asks. Why would I want to finish it?

The cartoon resonated with Albert Lebowitz, who started a book project decades ago about U.S. presidents who were attorneys. Consumed by the research, hed even quiz his two young children at the dinner table about related trivia.

Who was the shortest president?

Who was the tallest?

Who had the biggest hat? son Joel, now 52, recalled. Or was that a joke?

The manuscript reached 1,000 pages and the intended publisher ultimately rejected it before Mr. Lebowitz shelved the project  another endeavor in his double life as a lawyer and writer.

Mr. Lebowitz died Saturday (Sept. 24, 2016) of heart problems after a six-day stay at St. Lukes Hospital in Chesterfield, his family said. He was 94.

He was a card-carrying member of that University City gang of intellectuals and writers and professors who really enjoyed being together, either sitting around talking about books or playing poker, said Robert Duffy, former cultural editor at the Post-Dispatch.

Stanley Elkin and Howard Nemerov, both writers who have stars mounted in the sidewalks along Delmar Boulevard in the Loop, were among his pals. Nemerov, a U.S. poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner, immortalized Mr. Lebowitzs backyard with the poem: By Al Lebowitzs Pool.

Mr. Lebowitz cut a different profile, though. He took one creative writing class, worked hard and was encouraged by his wife, Naomi, an author who taught world literature at Washington University more than 40 years.

It restores my faith to know that the road to writing success can still be paved with rejection slips, a writer said in a 1966 Post-Dispatch article about Mr. Lebowitz.

Albert Lebowitz was born June 18, 1922, in St. Louis. He grew up poor on the north side, the son of a tailor, with extended family from Russia and Poland around. He attended Washington University a few years before enlisting in the Army. Stationed in Italy with the 15th Air Force, he saw combat while serving on bombers.

Other than the fruits of the GI Bill, which put him through Harvard Law School, family said the war wasnt a formative experience for him. They said it only seemed to come up when the former aviation navigator was ribbed for getting turned around in St. Louis.

He had a brilliant mathematical and logical mind, but also really appreciated the arts and books, said his daughter, Judith, 50.

Random House published two of his novels in the 1960s. The New York Times described Labans Will as an ambitious and brilliant first novel. The other, The Man Who Wouldnt Say No, was about an attorney whose life shifts after his wife dies.

His writing was playful and sharp, with a lot of breathing room, said Naomi, his wife of 62 years, to whom Labans Will is dedicated. He gave life to the atmosphere.

She said her husband was foremost an attorney addicted to the research necessary for solving legal problems.

In the 1970s, Mr. Lebowitz dove into a case that helped the city of St. Louis get reimbursed at least $15 million from the Missouri Highway Commission. According to a newspaper clipping, an appeals court ruled that the commission unlawfully exceeded its powers in requiring St. Louis to pay for a share of right-of-way acquisitions for the likes of Interstate 70 and Highway 40.

Al created the theory that all that was paid under duress and against the constitutional provisions, said Donald Schlapprizzi, 81, who described his former legal partner as a mental giant. I was the trial guy. He was the guy who had the creativity.

At some point, Mr. Lebowitz cut back to working three days a week as a lawyer. He spent the rest writing.

Late in life, he revisited some of his early short stories that didnt get published.

Mr. Lebowitz also took another stab at his opus, which he finished in 2012. The Legal Mind and the Presidency ended up at 207 pages. Naomi said he didnt want to bother shopping it around. He shared the self-published book with friends interested in the subject.

He wrote in the book: A constitutional republic, just as it cannot afford to rely much longer upon the inexperience, naivete, and unadulterated morality of a non-lawyer, has little margin of error in entrusting to great lawyers the nations peace and a citizens individuals rights  the two most precious things for a president to protect and preserve.

The book cover seems odd yet fitting given the personal relief of finally finishing the project. Theres a picture of a man in a swimsuit, jumping for joy on the beach before a low hanging sun.

A reception will be held in Mr. Lebowitzs honor for friends and family from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday at Whittemore House, 6440 Forsyth Boulevard in Clayton.
ST. LOUIS  The forecast for Thursday, Sept. 29, 1927, was for rain. It was cloudy and 72 degrees at noon. In Central High School, 1,750 students tended to their studies.

The barometer fell steadily at the Weather Bureau office downtown in the Railway Exchange Building, where forecasters went upstairs for a look. To their west was a low, black thunderstorm charging to the northeast. Sudden torrents of rain chased them inside.

They couldn't see the tornado churning through the heart of the city. In barely five minutes, it killed 78 people and seriously injured an additional 550 along a seven-mile path.

The tornado touched down hard shortly before 1 p.m. in the industrial district near Manchester Avenue and Kingshighway, killing three men at a brick works, two in a pipe yard and three at an ice house. It bored into the mansions along West Pine and Lindell boulevards near the New Cathedral.

Gaining power, it shattered whole blocks along Westminster Place, Sarah Street, Garfield Avenue, Page Boulevard, Cote Brilliante Avenue and other streets. At Central High, at North Grand Boulevard and Finney Avenue, it toppled a large ornamental tower into the auditorium, just missing the busy cafeteria. But principal Stephen Douglas' head count came up short.

All night, beneath the glow of acetylene lamps, rescue workers dug into the wreck of Central. They uncovered the bodies of five girls, ages 13 to 17, who had taken refuge in a biology lab.

The storm heavily damaged six other schools, including West Belle School, where an 11-year-old girl was killed by a collapsed wall.

The tornado ripped up the pavilion at Sportsman's Park, at North Grand and Dodier Street, and mangled the Hyde Park neighborhood before crossing into Illinois, where eight more people died, including Venice Police Chief Michael Clifford and six men scalded by molten metal in a Granite City foundry.

The Missouri National Guard opened its armory at 3676 Market Street to the dispossessed. Among them was O.W. Bevan, who didn't want to impose upon relatives, "My six children are mischievous," he said.

Frustrated by jams of sightseers, Police Chief Joseph Gerk threatened, "We will give them a shovel and put them to work." On Oct. 2, a dog named Tiddles led searchers to his master, William Farnoff, whose body was found beneath two feet of broken brick at 4222 McPherson Avenue.

More than 460 homes were destroyed and an additional 800 heavily damaged in the city. Streetcar service didn't resume for four days. Central High later was moved to Natural Bridge and Garrison avenues.

The storm was the second deadliest in St. Louis, behind only a massive tornado that killed 255 in 1896. In 1959, another tornado closely followed the 1927 path, killing 21 people.
There are excellent defense and geostrategic arguments supporting the Obama administrations approval of Boeing warplane sales to Kuwait and Qatar, but lets be honest: For St. Louis, this boils down to economic stability and jobs  thousands of them.

The St. Louis area has been in a holding pattern for the past two years, with the future of Boeings assembly plant in north St. Louis County in question as the company awaited approval of the two packages, with a total value of $7 billion. Qatar wants to buy 36 to 72 F-15 fighters, and Kuwait needs 28 F/A-18 Super Hornet attack jets. The two deals would keep the St. Louis plant churning at least into the early 2020s.

The interaction between commerce here and events in the Persian Gulf region underscore why its important for our readers to keep abreast of world events. What happens over there truly matters here in tangible ways. We ignore developments in distant lands at our peril.

Consider, for example, Boeings proposed $17.6 billion sale of 80 passenger jets to Iran. The very mention of Iran raises hackles for those concerned about Tehrans nuclear program or those who still have fresh memories of Islamic Republics involvement in Middle Eastern upheaval since the late 1970s.

State Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Glendale Republican who now is running for state treasurer, opposes the passenger jet sale and wants to punish Boeing by canceling tax breaks that help ensure the company doesnt leave Missouri. Schmitt clearly wants to garner headlines and burnish his hardliner credentials. But the damage he seeks to inflict could have long-range, serious consequences.

If Boeing doesnt compete for this sale, Iran will almost certainly turn to Boeings competitor, Europes Airbus. It would help Iran replace a badly aging fleet of passenger jets that have gone poorly maintained after years of punishing international economic sanctions. This is a civilian safety issue.

The Obama administration has negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran that, while imperfect, at least has delayed Irans ability to produce fissile material for several years. During that time, diplomacy and dialogue will be essential if theres any hope of extending the nuclear agreement. The Boeing sale absolutely is a part of that diplomacy. Schmitt and his Republican cohorts are meddling in ways that promise to inflict far more damage than good.

The Qatar and Kuwait sales underscore the long-term, beneficial effects from such deals. To keep these machines flying, both countries will need to ensure steady supplies of spare parts and maintenance expertise, which require U.S. government approval. That means both governments must maintain cooperative diplomatic ties with Washington. One relationship feeds off the other, increasing the likelihood that additional job-creating deals could come in the future.

Schmitt must rethink this short-sighted political ploy.
So my question is, if the department is defunded, and low pay continues, what will happen the next time the police are desperately needed and only a handful of them are available?
When chambers of commerce and labor leaders come together against a legislative proposal in Missouri, its because the proposal will make the state more hostile for business and lead to the loss of many good-paying jobs.

That is why we strongly oppose state Sen. Eric Schmitts recent threat to pull tax incentives linked to Boeing Co.s operations and facilities in Missouri. Sen. Schmitt, R-Glendale, who is running for state treasurer, is responding to the possibility of a deal to sell Boeing commercial airplanes to Iranian airlines.

Boeing directly employs more than 14,000 people in the state  many in the St. Louis area. These are good-paying jobs designing and building the best military products to keep our country safe. At a time when fewer St. Louisans are employed making things, these jobs are more valuable than ever. The company also spends $830 million a year with more than 540 Missouri suppliers and vendors. What Sen. Schmitt and other critics dont realize is that Boeing does not operate in a Missouri silo.

The fact is that state tax incentives are one of the factors that has made Missouri a thriving and attractive home for the aerospace manufacturing industry generally. According to a 2016 report by PwC, Missouri is now a top five state for aerospace manufacturing attractiveness. The Missouri Partnership reports that in addition to having over 79,000 Missourians currently employed in aerospace and defense manufacturing jobs, Missouri grants 4,000 degrees in engineering-related fields annually at nearly 140 degree-granting institutions and has numerous knowledge centers for the aerospace manufacturing industry around the state. And if this Iran proposal becomes Missouri law, we can expect a steady exodus of aerospace companies and their employees to states that arent putting a target on the back of their own workers and businesses.

The discomfort with the Iran deal is understandable, given that Iran continues to be an oppressive and de-stabilizing regime in the Middle East. Yet moral indignation combined with political opportunism rarely makes for good policy. The reality is, due to the lifting of sanctions following the recent nuclear agreement, Iranian airlines will spend tens of billions of dollars buying new commercial airplanes from someone. At issue is whether those contracts should all go to Airbus in Europe (and possibly Russian and Chinese aerospace companies), or whether American workers should benefit as well.

Targeting Boeing will do nothing to change the behavior of the Iranian government. But it will put at risk tens of thousands of jobs supported by Missouris growing aerospace industry  not just at Boeing, but in its statewide supply chain and the families and the associated businesses and workers they support.

While most of Boeings work in Missouri has for years focused on defense products for use by the U.S. military, Boeing has also announced plans to expand commercial airplane manufacturing in the state. This commitment to Missouri can be measured in more than words; next month, Boeing is set to unveil a massive expansion of its St. Louis facility to accommodate this additional commercial work in the state.

In a political season rife with hot rhetoric, proposals like this may fit right in but make no mistake: What Sen. Schmitt is suggesting would have tangible consequences for Missouri families. It would also send a very dangerous signal to the business community that our agreements  and the jobs attached to them  are subject to the political interests of state officials.

Sen. Schmitt has a political disagreement with a U.S. foreign policy decision that opened up legal, commercial trade with Iran. He shouldnt take it out on Missouri workers.

On behalf of the members of the St. Louis Regional Chamber and the St. Louis Labor Council, we urge candidates for state and local offices to stay out of foreign affairs and, instead, focus on policies that drive economic development and create good jobs  recruiting and retaining businesses, advocating for business-forward infrastructure investment and development, and investing in our growth sectors to better position our region and our state for a 21st century global economy.

Joseph Reagan is president and CEO of the St. Louis Regional Chamber of Commerce. Pat White is president of the Greater St. Louis Labor Council, AFL-CIO.
Identical twin brothers beat a woman unconscious and punched her boyfriend in the head earlier this month inside the Grand Concourse 4 train station in the Bronx, according to the NYPD. One of the brothers, Darnell Brown, was arrested Thursday and charged with assault and gang assault. Cops are still seeking his brother, Terrell.

Police said that the Brown brothers began harassing a 28-year-old woman on the 149th Street Grand Concourse platform shortly before 6:00 a.m. on Monday, September 5th. The woman's boyfriend intervened, and one of the Brown brothers allegedly put the 21-year-old man in a headlock, while the other punched him "numerous times" in the head and torso. The girlfriend then attempted to stop the assault, according to the police, prompting one of the Browns to punch her in the face. The woman fell to the ground unconscious, and sustained face lacerations. Her boyfriend sustained facial fractures. Both were treated at Lincoln Hospital.

In the below graphic video of the assault, Darnell is wearing braids and a T-shirt with "No Bad Vibes" written across the front. Terrell, who remains at large, is about 5-feet-10 and weighs 165 pounds.

Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential.
05 August 2016

African countries reaffirm commitment to eradicate cluster munitions

The workshop participants, 4 August 2016, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia @ISUCCM

African states commit to eradicate cluster munitions and end the suffering they cause by stepping up efforts to universalize the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions and to strengthen the norm against cluster munitions use by condemning all such use.

On 4-5 August 2016 the Africa Regional Workshop on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions brought together Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Madagascar, Mauritania, Namibia, Nigeria, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe to discuss challenges and solutions to joining the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Participants of the workshop adopted the bold Addis Ababa Commitment Paper on Universalization and Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions reiterating their commitment to free Africa from the scourge of cluster munitions and strengthen the global norm against these weapons. By supporting the commitments made under the 2015 Dubrovnik Action Plan, the African states attending the workshop highlighted the importance of enhancing the norm against cluster munitions and the need to condemn incidences of documented use of cluster munitions.

The representatives of signatories to the Convention and non-signatories attending the workshop promised to accelerate the process of ratification or accession. Angola, Djibouti, Madagascar, Namibia, Nigeria, Tanzania, The Gambia and Uganda, countries that have already signed the Convention, reported that they are working on ratification processes of these at least five promised to provide an update at the 6th Meeting of States Parties on actions towards this end [link to 6MSP page]. Non-signatories such as Ethiopia and Gabon have indicated that they will reinitiate the accession process soon.

The Cluster Munition Coalition and its members from Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda and Zambia who were present at the meeting urged the African signatories and non-signatories to take concrete action on ratification and accession of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. States Parties to the Convention were encouraged to make concrete progress on their treaty obligations and towards the objectives of the Dubrovnik Action Plan.

Mr. Bekele Gonfa (right) delivering CMC's statement at the opening of the workshop, 4 August 2016. @CMC

Zambia, the Conventions co-coordinator on universalization, along with Ecuador, strongly encouraged all African countries that have not joined the Convention to join as soon as possible. Representatives of States Parties to the Convention such as Ghana and Mauritania also called on African signatories and non-signatories to take action and ratify or accede as soon as possible.

African states attending the regional workshop on universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions demand the African Union and sub-regional bodies to take greater roles in helping African countries to adhere to and implement the Convention and eradicate cluster munitions.

Forty-three of 54 African countries have joined the Convention, demonstrating the continents strong commitment to a region free of cluster munitions. 14 African signatory-states have yet to ratify with only 10 African states yet to accede. Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic cannot accede to the Convention on Cluster Munitions due to its political status, but has expressed its support for the ban on cluster munitions. In 2015, the first United Nations General Assembly resolution (70/74) in support of the total ban on cluster munitions was supported by 139 countries. Forty-three African states, including eleven signatories and six non-signatories to the Convention on Cluster Munitions from the region voted in support of the resolution.

The CMC delegation at the workshop, 5 August 2016 @CMC

Final report of the workshop is available on the Convention's secretariat website.
The Bronx house explosion that killed a fire chief this week was caused by a gas main that had been tampered with. NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill told reporters that a spark ignited the leaking gas and caused the explosion that killed Battalion Chief Michael Fahy on Tuesday.

"So far as for the crime scene, it is active as of right now. We have recovered an enormous amount of material, pipes and meters that will be taken to Maryland under the ATF and examined for tampering," NYPD Chief of Department Robert Boyce said at the press conference.

Police have arrested Garibaldi Castillo, 32, and Julio Salcedo Contrer, 34, in connection with the blast. Castillo is facing marijuana possession charges, and the authorities are looking into whether the house was being used to grow weed commercially. Prosecutors are also weighing whether to charge Castillo with murder. Contrer, who was arrested in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, was wanted for questioning, and has waived extradition to New York, speeding up the process of moving him here.

Castillo is being held without bail. Bronx prosecutors accuse him of being at the Kingsbridge home the day of the explosion, and dumping a cellphone linked to the address immediately afterwards.

Castillo's lawyer, Francisco Serrano, argued at a bail hearing that the state has not established anything concrete tying Castillo to the house. He also said the pot plants were too young to be smokeable.

"They haven't said that he owns that place, that he rented that space, that he put water into these plants, that the plants are mature," Serrano said.

Prosecutors say Castillo was arrested with the house's front door key in his pocket.

Inside the house, police found marijuana seedlings in the basement, and larger plants on the ground and second floor of the two-story brick house, along with heaters, liquid fertilizer, and tanks of helium, according to an assistant district attorney who spoke in court. The fertilizer is highly flammable. It's not clear if the alleged gas line tampering was connected with the alleged weed-growing operation, but it could have been. As NY1 reports:

Law enforcement sources tell NY1 that tampering with the gas line would enable a grower to avoid suspicion that a lot of gas is being used and avoid paying a high gas bill.

Firefighters responded to the house around 6:30 a.m. after a 911 call came in about a gas leak at the address, 300 West 234th Street. Smelling gas, and seeing the plants, they called police and Con Edison. Salcedo tried to flee on foot, and in his car, according to prosecutors.

The explosion occurred about 40 minutes later, as Fahy was leaving the house with officers. He was struck in the head by falling debris and died, according to the fire department.

"The explosion had so much force that it blew the roof completely over the power lines and over the tops of trees to land in the middle of the street," prosecutor Christine Scaccia told the judge.

Mourners gathered for Fahy's funeral on Thursday in Yonkers. The FDNY has posthumously promoted him to the rank of deputy chief, the highest civil service promotion in the department.
STRATFORD'S Masters rowers completed their final regatta of the summer in style with a trip to the 2016 World Rowing Masters Regatta.

The event, which is held on the international course at the beautiful Lake Bagsvaerd just outside Copenhagen, attracts a quality field from all over the globe with many ex-Olympians from London 2012 and former internationals among the competitors.

Amongst the best performing competitors were crews from as far afield as Argentina, Russia and Australia.

With almost 10,000 rowers competing over four days, racing was thick and fast, every three minutes throughout the day, with up to three races on the 1000m course at any time.

The Stratford-upon-Avon crew of Kjersti Woolley (stroke) and Tomas Doherty (bow), competing in the mixed masters E double sculls, had their work cut out in a race against crews from The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Russia, Switzerland, and France.

Despite getting off to a shaky start which saw them a length down over the first 250 metres, the crew settled into a good rhythm and fought back to overtake several crews finishing in a time of 4 minutes and 25 seconds in a race won by an excellent former champion Netherlands double.

Woolley said: It was a great experience to take part in such a high profile event and, as a Norwegian, to beat a crew from Norway was an added bonus!

Next year Stratford will be hoping to take a larger contingent to the event, which takes place at Lake Bled in Slovenia.

Closer to home, Stratfords junior squad were in action at the weekend on the Thames at the opening head race of the new season.

Wallingford Long Distance Sculls, held over 4.25km, attracts top level scullers from around the region with Stratford fielding crews across the age range.

Of particular note were third placings for the J15 double scull of Khloe Curnock and Autumn Keil, J16 double scull of Ellie Gray and Lauren Willis and the J16 coxless quad of Amy Neville, Lara Davies, Issy Marsden and Maddie Winsper.

On the shorter 1.5km course, Stratford J14 crews triumphed with all three boats winning their events.

The mixed coxed quadruple scull of Max Griffiths, Daniel Cox, Nixie Brunt, Mya Kenny and Mimi Hill recorded the fastest time of the coxed quadruple sculls entered whilst the Womens crew of Jasmine Mountney, Mili Wilcock, Maiya James, Alice Baines and Sophie Neville overhauled Maidenhead to win their event.

To close the day, a gutsy performance from Fred Tyler in the single scull saw him take the victory in the J14 category.

suabc-wallingford-september-2016-j14-1x-finish

Not to be outdone by their colleagues in the masters and junior squads, Stratfords off midweek beginners squad had a successful Explore Regatta at Birmingham Rowing Club.

This time, Stratfords B crew found their form and narrowly missed out to a Bewdley mixed crew by winning an overall equal first place with Upton.

Rosie Stone, crew captain, said: Were all looking forward now to the Stratford Explore Regatta at the end of October and so were now into serious but fun training!
(Updated - September 30, 2016 7:25 AM EDT)

Lexmark (NYSE: LXK) disclosed CFIUS approval for the Apex deal in an U.S. SEC filing on Friday:

Item 8.01 Other Events.



In connection with the pending acquisition of Lexmark International, Inc., a Delaware corporation (the Company), by a consortium of investors led by Apex Technology Co., Ltd. and PAG Asia Capital (the Consortium), the parties filed a joint voluntary notice under Section 721 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended (DPA), with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) that was accepted on July 15, 2016.

CFIUS conducted a statutorily mandated 30 day review, and an additional 45 day investigation, of the transaction. During the review and investigation, the Company and the Consortium provided CFIUS extensive information relating to the transaction and their respective businesses and operations. Following the review and investigation, CFIUS found that there are no unresolved national security issues associated with the Consortiums proposed acquisition of the Company.

The Company and the Consortium today announced that they have received clearance from CFIUS to proceed with the proposed transaction.

As a precondition to CFIUS clearance of the transaction, CFIUS required that the Company and the Consortium enter into a National Security Agreement with the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security.

The merger remains subject to approval from Chinas State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) and other customary closing conditions. The parties continue to expect the transaction to close in 2016.
Onlookers view a New Jersey Transit train that derailed and crashed through the station in Hoboken, New Jersey, U.S. in this picture courtesy of Chris Lantero taken September 29, 2016. Courtesy of Chris Lantero via REUTERS

By Frank McGurty and Amy Tennery

HOBOKEN, N.J. (Reuters) - A commuter train plowed into a station in New Jersey at the height of Thursday's morning rush hour, killing a woman on the platform and injuring more than 100 people as it brought down part of the roof and scattered debris over the concourse.

Witnesses described terrifying scenes as the front of the train smashed through the track stop at high speed and into the Hoboken terminal, toppling support columns and creating chaos at one of the busiest transit hubs in the New York City area.

"We have no indication that this is anything other than a tragic accident but ... we're going to let the law enforcement professionals pursue the facts," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said at a news conference in Hoboken alongside New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Train #1614 originated in the town of Spring Valley in New York state and was at the end of its hour-long journey when it crashed.

The train's engineer, or driver, was injured and taken to hospital but later released, officials said, without providing details.

Media identified the engineer as Thomas Gallagher, citing unnamed sources, and said he was cooperating with investigators.

U.S. National Transportation Safety Board vice chairman Bella Dinh-Zarr told a separate news conference in Hoboken that investigators would retrieve the event recorder, which tracks speed, braking and other data, from the rear of the train on Thursday night.

She said the train was operating in a "push-pull configuration" in which locomotive-hauled trains can be driven from either end. The train had an engine that was pushing four cars including the controlling, or cab, car in front, officials said.

"Our investigation will continue here on scene for seven to 10 days," Dinh-Zarr said.

The train was on track five when it hit the Hoboken terminal building at about 08:45 a.m. (1245 GMT).

The New Jersey medical examiner's office identified the victim as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, of Hoboken. The woman was a former employee in the Brazilian legal department of SAP, the technology company said in a statement. Her LinkedIn page said she was a corporate lawyer who attended Florida International University.

Broadcaster NBC New York reported de Kroon had recently moved from Brazil to New Jersey with her husband and child.

Christie told CNN 114 people were injured. The Chinese Consulate General in New York told Xinhua news service at least one of the injured was Chinese.

Cuomo said it was obvious the train came into the station too fast, but it was unclear why. The cause could be human error or technical failure, Cuomo said. He added that it was too early to say whether an anti-collision system known as positive train control (PTC) could have prevented the crash.

PTC is designed to halt a train if the driver misses a stop signal and advocates cite it for helping to combat human error.

The crash renews focus on the mandatory anti-collision system that has been plagued with lengthy, contentious delays. According to a report by NJ Transit to the Federal Railroad Administration for the first half of 2016, the public transport system does not have PTC in operation on its 326-mile network.

New Jersey Transit ranked second for the most train accident reports nationwide for commuter railroads from January 2007 through June 2016, behind Amtrak.

New Jersey Transit had 271 accidents, or 18 percent of the total, compared with Amtraks 44 percent, according to data from the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration Office of Safety Analysis.

Mike Larson, who works as a machinist for NJ Transit, was 30 feet away from the train just before it slammed into the platform. He told The Journal News of Westchester County, New York, that the train's speed appeared to be about 30 mph (48 kph).

The speed limit in the station is 10 mph (16 km) per hour, the NTSB's Dinh-Zarr told reporters.

The terminal, listed on the New Jersey Registry of Historic Places, was designed in the Beaux Arts style and construction finished in 1907. It is on the Hudson River's west bank across from New York City. Its station is used by commuters traveling into Manhattan from New Jersey and New York state.

Hoboken is the last stop on the lines it serves.

A couple of hundred emergency workers spent the morning shuttling in and out of the station, some carrying the injured on stretchers to ambulances. Federal investigators later began examining the wreckage.

Linda Albelli, 62, from Closter, New Jersey, was sitting in one of the train's rear cars and described how she had felt something was wrong a moment before the impact.

"I thought to myself, 'Oh my God, he's not slowing up, and this is where we usually stop'," Albelli said. "'We're going too fast,' and with that there was this tremendous crash."

'RUNAWAY TRAIN'

As investigators searched for clues to the cause of the accident, some said it could have been prevented.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a Democrat on a senate committee that includes transportation matters, said the crash was "hauntingly similar" to past tragedies involving insufficient or unsafe practices or equipment. Blumenthal has advocated for the roll out of the anti-collision system.

"This catastrophe was caused by a runaway train  traveling too fast and out of control. There is no excuse," Blumenthal said in a statement. He said there was an urgent need for better safety technology, new equipment and improved training.

The historic green-roofed Hoboken Station is served by NJ Transit commuter trains connecting much of New Jersey with the country's largest city, as well as the Port Authority Trans-Hudson subway-like system known as PATH, a light rail service and ferry service to New York.

In May 2011, a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey train crashed at Hoboken station, injuring more than 30 people. An investigation by the NTSB determined excessive speed was the main cause of the accident.

An NTSB official said the agency would look at similarities between that crash and Thursday's.

The crash was the latest in a string of fatal train crashes in the United States. The worst in recent years involved an Amtrak train that crashed in Philadelphia in May 2015, killing eight people and injuring more than 200.

(Reporting by Frank McGurty, Amy Tennery and Robert MacMillan; Additional reporting by Laila Kearney, David Ingram and Joseph Ax in New York, Catherine Ngai in Jersey City, Curtis Skinner in San Francisco, and Susan Heavey, Tim Ahmann and David Shepardson in Washington; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Grant McCool, Frances Kerry, Bill Rigby, Toni Reinhold)
The office building of health insurer Anthem is seen in Los Angeles, California February 5, 2015. REUTERS/Gus Ruelas/File Photo

By Diane Bartz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The judge who will rule on whether the government may stop health insurer Anthem (NYSE: ANTM) from buying competitor Cigna (NYSE: CI) said Friday that she was considering splitting the trial into phases.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said that she was mulling hearing separately about the effect of the merger on the national market in one phase and on local markets in a second phase with a potential decision after the first set of arguments.

The Justice Department argues that the deal would reduce competition and raise prices for consumers.

"My initial reaction is that it's better," said Christopher Curran, who is arguing the case for Anthem. "If we're going to lose and we lose quickly, that's better for everyone."

The trial in the case is to begin on Nov. 21, with a conclusion by Dec. 30.

The government also alleged that the merger would give the new, combined company too much power to set the rates of health care providers, essentially a monopsony case. That could be argued with either phase, said Jon Jacobs, who argued for the Justice Department.

"I'm going to think about this. I think it's more complicated than I had thought," the judge said, adding that she still believed it would be beneficial to hear arguments in phases.

Cigna's lawyer, Charles Rule, asked if he would be allowed to object to questions from Anthem, referring to the contentious relationship between the two companies.

"I'm not sure exactly what will come up," said Rule. "(But) there may need to be an objection."

The judge responded with surprise. "I'm not going to tell you that it's prohibited but I find it highly extraordinary," she said.

Anthem had sought a ruling by the end of the year on whether the government could stop the deal because the insurer said it needed time to wrap up merger reviews by state insurance commissioners by April 30, a deadline the companies set to complete the deal. Anthem has said failure to meet the deadline could prompt Cigna to pull out.

The Justice Department filed lawsuits on July 21 asking a federal court to stop two huge healthcare mergers: Anthem's planned $45 billion purchase of Cigna, as well as Aetna Inc's (NYSE: AET) $33 billion planned acquisition of Humana (NYSE: HUM). The trial on the Aetna deal is set for Dec. 5.

If both mergers go through, No. 1 U.S. insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc (NYSE: UNH) would rank second after Anthem. Aetna would be No. 3.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Universal Technical Institute (UTI) announced a three-year agreement with Bass Pro Shops to supply boats and accessory equipment to support the marine technician training program at UTI's Marine Mechanics Institute (MMI) campus in Orlando, Florida.

Through the agreement, Bass Pro Shops will supply seven fully loaded boats and related accessory equipment for use as training aids and will collaborate with MMI to enhance the curricula of the Capstone and Rigging courses in its Marine Technician Specialist program.

The new partnership gives students the opportunity to train on the latest models of fiberglass and aluminium boats as well as a pipeline to employment opportunities at 97 Bass Pro Shops Power Pro Service Centers across North America.1

"Bass Pro Shops is widely recognized as the leading retailer in recreational boating and fishing, and we are thrilled to partner with them to help train the next generation of marine technicians," said John Dodson, vice president, business alliances at UTI.

"Interest in recreational boating continues to grow and we are experiencing strong demand for marine technicians at Bass Pro Service Centers across the country," said Wayne Stokes, director of retail operations for Bass Pro's Tracker Boat Center. "Collaborating with MMI to enhance the learning environment and introduce students to the excellent career opportunities at our Service Centers helps ensure that we can keep our customers' boats operating at peak efficiency for years to come."

The National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) reports boat sales are strong for the $35.9 billion U.S. recreational boating industry. An estimated 238,000 new powerboats were sold in 2015, an increase of 8.5 percent compared to 2014. NMMA anticipates sales of new powerboats to increase as much as 7 percent in 2016.

The U.S. Department of Labor reports there will be more than 1.2 million jobs in the diesel, automotive, motorcycle and marine industries in the United States by the year 2024. To reach that total, the transportation industry will have to fill more than 37,000 technician job openings on average every year.2

"Adding the nation's premier boating retailer to our team of marine engine manufacturer partners gives our students the opportunity to train on state-of-the-industry equipment from stem to stern and will further enhance their ability to deliver value to employers the moment they step into the shop," said Steve McElfresh, campus president of Universal Technical Institute, Motorcycle Mechanics Institute and Marine Mechanics Institute in Orlando.

About Bass Pro Shops Bass Pro Shops, which specializes in outdoor fun, operates 99 retail locations and 97 Tracker Boat Centers across America and Canada that are visited by more than 120 million people every year. Bass Pro Shops stores, many of which feature restaurants, offer hunting, fishing, camping and other outdoor gear while their catalogs and website serve shoppers throughout the world. The company's Tracker Marine Group (http://www.trackermarine.com), a leading brand of fishing boats for more than 37 years, manufactures and sells a variety of boats for fishing and cruising. Family fun is on tap at Bass Pro Shops resort Big Cedar Lodge (http://www.bigcedar.com), voted by Travel + Leisure as one of the top 50 Best Hotels for Families in the U.S. For more information, visit http://www.basspro.com. To request a free catalog, call 1-800-BASS PRO. Follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bassproshops.

About Universal Technical Institute, Inc.: Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Universal Technical Institute, Inc. (NYSE: UTI) is the leading provider of postsecondary education for students seeking careers as professional automotive, diesel, collision repair, motorcycle and marine technicians. With more than 200,000 graduates in its 51-year history, UTI offers undergraduate degree and diploma programs at 12 campus locations across the United States, as well as manufacturer-specific training programs at dedicated training centers. Through its campus-based school system, UTI provides specialized post-secondary education programs under the banner of several well-known brands, including Universal Technical Institute (UTI), Motorcycle Mechanics Institute and Marine Mechanics Institute (MMI) and NASCAR Technical Institute (NASCAR Tech).

For more information, visit www.uti.edu. Like UTI on www.facebook.com/UTI or follow UTI on Twitter @UTITweet, @MMITweet and @NASCARTechUTI.

For information about our graduation rates, the median debt of students who completed the program and other important information, visit our website at www.uti.edu/disclosure.

1 MMI cannot guarantee employment or salary. 2 Based on data compiled from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2014-2024), www.bls.gov, viewed December 8, 2015.

Media Contacts: Jody Kent Tanza Smith Universal Technical Institute, Inc. Bass Pro Shops Phone: (623) 445-0872 Phone: 417-873-5059 [email protected] [email protected]

Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413621

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bass-pro-shops-partnership-to-enhance-technician-training-at-marine-mechanics-institute-300337026.html

SOURCE Universal Technical Institute, Inc.
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Fitch Ratings has affirmed 19 classes of J.P. Morgan Chase Commercial Mortgage Securities Trust (JPMBB), series 2014-C24 commercial mortgage pass-through certificates. A full list of rating actions follows at the end of this release.

KEY RATING DRIVERS

The affirmations are due to the overall stable performance of the pool's underlying collateral. The pool continues to perform as expected at issuance. The pool's aggregate principal balance has been reduced by 0.70% to $1.267 billion from $1.276 billion at issuance. There are no specially serviced loans, and Fitch has not designated any loans as Fitch Loans of Concern. There are two loans (0.73% of the current balance) on the master servicer's watchlist due to deferred maintenance. The transaction remains concentrated, as the top 10 loans represent 60.2% of the pool, and the top 20 represent 80.2%.

The largest loan in the pool, the Mall of Victor Valley (9.1%), is secured by a 574,723 square foot (477,384 sf of collateral) regional mall located in Victorville, CA. The property was originally built in 1986 and renovated in 2013. The largest tenants include JCPenney, which represents 19.2% of net rentable area (NRA) with a lease expiring in September 2032, Sears (16.4% of NRA, expiry October 2019), and Cinemark Theatre (13% of NRA, expiry November 2021). The property has maintained high levels of occupancy and stable performance throughout its operating history. As of the June 2016 rent roll, the property was 98% occupied. The servicer-reported net operating income (NOI) debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) of 2.57x as of year-end (YE) 2015.

The next largest loan in the pool, the Grapevine Mills (9.1%), is secured by a 1.625 million sf (1.337 million sf of collateral) regional mall located in Grapevine, TX. The subject is located 10 miles north of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and contains a mix of traditional mall tenants as well as outlet tenants. The tenants include Burlington Coat Factory (7.5% of NRA, expiry January 2018), Neiman Marcus (3.3% of NRA, expiry April 2018, and Bed Bath & Beyond (3% of NRA, expiry January 2017). As of the March 2016 rent roll, total mall occupancy was at 94%, with in-line occupancy of 89%. The servicer-reported NOI DSCR was 3.25x as of YE 2015. The transaction interests represent the A-3 and A-4 notes and are pari passu with A-1 and A-2 notes securitized in JPMBB 2014-C23 and A-5 and A-6 notes in JPMBB 2014-C25.

The third largest loan in the pool, the Columbus Square Portfolio (7.6%), is secured by a portfolio of five retail/community facility units and an underground parking garage, totaling 494,244 sf. The collateral is located between 97th and 100th streets on Columbus and Amsterdam avenues in the Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan. The largest tenants include Quik Park (16.9% of NRA, expiry May 2029), Whole Foods Market (12.6% of NRA, expiry September 2029), and Mandell School (8.9% of NRA, expiry March 2030). Occupancy has dropped slightly at the property year-over-year to 96% as of YE 2015 from 100% as of YE 2014. As a result, NOI DSCR was reduced to 1.37x YE 2015 from 1.51x YE 2014. The transaction interests represents the A-4 note and are pari passu with the A-1 note included in WFRBS 2014-C22, the A-2 note included in JPMBB 2014-C23, and the A-3 note securitized in WFRBS 2014-C23.

RATING SENSITIVITIES

The Rating Outlooks for all classes remain Stable. Due to the recent issuance of the transaction and stable performance, Fitch does not foresee positive or negative ratings migration until a material economic or asset level event changes the transaction's overall portfolio-level metrics.

USE OF THIRD-PARTY DUE DILIGENCE PURSUANT TO SEC RULE 17G-10

No third-party due diligence was provided or reviewed in relation to this rating action.

Fitch has affirmed the following ratings:

--$27 million notes A-1 at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;

--$184 million notes A-2 at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;

--$41 million notes A-3 at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;

--$190 million notes A-4A1 at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;

--$75 million notes A-4A2 at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;

--$297.3 million notes A-5 at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;

--$66.6 million notes A-SB at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;

--$76.2 million notes A-S at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;

--$76.2 million notes B at 'AA-sf'; Outlook Stable;

--$47.7 million notes C at 'A-sf'; Outlook Stable;

--$200.2 million notes EC at 'A-sf'; Outlook Stable;

--$81 million notes D at 'BBB-sf'; Outlook Stable;

--$25.4 million notes E at 'BBsf'; Outlook Stable;

--$14.3 million notes F at 'Bsf'; Outlook Stable;

--$957.3 million* notes X-A at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable;

--$76.2 million* notes X-B1 at 'AA-sf'; Outlook Stable;

--$81 million* notes X-B2 at 'BBB-sf'; Outlook Stable;

--$25.4 million* notes X-C at 'BBsf'; Outlook Stable;

--$14.3 million* notes X-D at 'Bsf'; Outlook Stable.

Class A-S, B, and C certificates may be exchanged for class EC certificates and class EC certificates may be exchanged for class A-S, B, and C certificates. Fitch does not rate the X-E, NR, and ESK certificates.

*Notional amount and interest only

Additional information is available at www.fitchratings.com.

Applicable Criteria

Counterparty Criteria for Structured Finance and Covered Bonds (pub. 01 Sep 2016)

https://www.fitchratings.com/site/re/886006

Criteria for Rating Caps and Limitations in Global Structured Finance Transactions (pub. 16 Jun 2016)

https://www.fitchratings.com/site/re/882401

Global Structured Finance Rating Criteria (pub. 27 Jun 2016)

https://www.fitchratings.com/site/re/883130

U.S. and Canadian Fixed-Rate Multiborrower CMBS Surveillance and U.S. Re-REMIC Criteria (pub. 13 Nov 2015)

https://www.fitchratings.com/site/re/873395

Related Research

JPMBB Commercial Mortgage Securities Trust 2014-C24 -- Appendix

https://www.fitchratings.com/site/re/787809

Additional Disclosures

Dodd-Frank Rating Information Disclosure Form

https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/press_releases/content/ridf_frame.cfm?pr_id=1012505

Solicitation Status

https://www.fitchratings.com/gws/en/disclosure/solicitation?pr_id=1012505

Endorsement Policy

https://www.fitchratings.com/jsp/creditdesk/PolicyRegulation.faces?context=2&detail=31

ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: HTTPS://WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM/UNDERSTANDINGCREDITRATINGS. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEB SITE AT WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM. PUBLISHED RATINGS, CRITERIA, AND METHODOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THIS SITE AT ALL TIMES. FITCH'S CODE OF CONDUCT, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AFFILIATE FIREWALL, COMPLIANCE, AND OTHER RELEVANT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE CODE OF CONDUCT SECTION OF THIS SITE. FITCH MAY HAVE PROVIDED ANOTHER PERMISSIBLE SERVICE TO THE RATED ENTITY OR ITS RELATED THIRD PARTIES. DETAILS OF THIS SERVICE FOR RATINGS FOR WHICH THE LEAD ANALYST IS BASED IN AN EU-REGISTERED ENTITY CAN BE FOUND ON THE ENTITY SUMMARY PAGE FOR THIS ISSUER ON THE FITCH WEBSITE.

Copyright  2016 by Fitch Ratings, Inc., Fitch Ratings Ltd. and its subsidiaries. 33 Whitehall Street, NY, NY 10004. Telephone: 1-800-753-4824, (212) 908-0500. Fax: (212) 480-4435. Reproduction or retransmission in whole or in part is prohibited except by permission. All rights reserved. In issuing and maintaining its ratings and in making other reports (including forecast information), Fitch relies on factual information it receives from issuers and underwriters and from other sources Fitch believes to be credible. Fitch conducts a reasonable investigation of the factual information relied upon by it in accordance with its ratings methodology, and obtains reasonable verification of that information from independent sources, to the extent such sources are available for a given security or in a given jurisdiction. The manner of Fitch's factual investigation and the scope of the third-party verification it obtains will vary depending on the nature of the rated security and its issuer, the requirements and practices in the jurisdiction in which the rated security is offered and sold and/or the issuer is located, the availability and nature of relevant public information, access to the management of the issuer and its advisers, the availability of pre-existing third-party verifications such as audit reports, agreed-upon procedures letters, appraisals, actuarial reports, engineering reports, legal opinions and other reports provided by third parties, the availability of independent and competent third- party verification sources with respect to the particular security or in the particular jurisdiction of the issuer, and a variety of other factors. Users of Fitch's ratings and reports should understand that neither an enhanced factual investigation nor any third-party verification can ensure that all of the information Fitch relies on in connection with a rating or a report will be accurate and complete. Ultimately, the issuer and its advisers are responsible for the accuracy of the information they provide to Fitch and to the market in offering documents and other reports. In issuing its ratings and its reports, Fitch must rely on the work of experts, including independent auditors with respect to financial statements and attorneys with respect to legal and tax matters. Further, ratings and forecasts of financial and other information are inherently forward-looking and embody assumptions and predictions about future events that by their nature cannot be verified as facts. As a result, despite any verification of current facts, ratings and forecasts can be affected by future events or conditions that were not anticipated at the time a rating or forecast was issued or affirmed.

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Fitch Ratings

Primary Analyst

Zachary Johnson

Associate Director

+1-646-582-4815

Fitch Ratings, Inc.

33 Whitehall Street

New York, NY 10004

or

Committee Chairperson

Britt Johnson

Senior Director

+1-312-606-2341

or

Media Relations:

Sandro Scenga, New York, +1 212-908-0278

Email: [email protected]

Source: Fitch Ratings
-- Finalists and winner for Genome magazines Code Talker Award announced and honored at the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) Annual Education Conference --

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- At the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) Annual Education Conference in Seattle, Allison Goetsch, MS, CGC, genetic counselor at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Childrens Hospital of Chicago was announced as the winner of the inaugural Code Talker Award. The Code Talker Award, sponsored by Invitae Corporation (NYSE: NVTA), was established by Genome magazine to recognize the impact genetic counselors have on the health and lives of patients.

Also honored at NSGC were Amie Blanco, MS, LCGC, genetic counselor and acting director at the UCSF Cancer Genetics and Prevention Program, part of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center in San Francisco, and Anna Victorine, MS, CGC, genetic counselor at Provenance Healthcare in Las Vegas, who were both named as finalists. Chosen from scores of nomination essays submitted by patients and clinicians around the country, the winner and two finalists all illustrate the impact genetic counselors make in navigating the complexities of genomic medicine.

Allison Goetsch was nominated by her patient, Melissa Bruebach, who spent her life under the cloud of a genetic condition that somehow could never be properly diagnosed. As Melissa was giving up all hope of receiving answers, Allison became a driving force for getting Melissa a diagnosis.

Amie Blanco was nominated by her patient, Selena Martinez, for her dedication in helping Selena and her family understand the genetic connections among a cluster of cancers in their family.

Anna Victorine was nominated by her patient, Brooke Johns, who experienced the tragedy and heartbreak of a pregnancy marked by serious abnormalities. Anna supported Brooke throughout the ordeal, understanding the medical and emotional implications that genetic testing can produce.

Patients with certain genetic conditions face many daunting challenges when trying to uncover the underlying causes of their diseases, said Susan McClure, publisher of Genome. We established this award to honor the work of these finalists and all genetic counselorsthey serve as translators, interpreting complicated medical information in an understandable way at critical moments for patients.

The Code Talker Award was presented on Thursday at the 2016 National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) Annual Education Conference (AEC).

In some circumstances, genetic information can be hard to understand and using it to make informed health decisions is not always simple or straightforward. The advice of genetic counselors who can help interpret results and provide support to patients and their families can be invaluable when navigating the journey through diagnosis and treatment of hereditary disease, said Kate Lynch, MS, LCGC, genetic counselor at Invitae. Invitae is grateful to be able to support this program and recognize the important contributions of genetic counselors to patient care.

In addition to honoring the three finalists, Genome unveiled a book with a collection of essays at the NSGC annual meeting. The Code Talker book presents stories that vividly illustrate the expertise and empathy genetic counselors provide to patients grappling with health decisions influenced by genetics. The book is available at the conference and by contacting Invitae.

Genetic counselors provide personalized care to patients by interpreting genetic information to help them make informed health decisions. With genetics making important contributions to so many diseases, access to trained genetic counselors is essential, said Jehannine Austin, MSc, PhD, CCGC, CGC, NSGC President. We are pleased to see our members honored for their commitment to patients and hope their exemplary work continues to shine a light on the important role genetic counseling plays in healthcare.

About the Code Talker Award

The Code Talker Award was inspired by the American Indian code talkers who served during World Wars I and II. These brave individuals communicated vital and often life-saving messages in their native languages, or special codes based on those languages, to the battle lines. Their legacy of leveraging knowledge to decode essential information inspired the essay contest and award. Genome invited patients, families, and clinicians to submit an essay describing the compassion, expertise, and helpfulness a genetic counselor demonstrated and the resulting impact that the care had on a patient or his or her family. Essays were reviewed and judged by the magazines editorial team. Finalists, the essayists, and their guests receive round-trip airfare and a two-night stay in Seattle, where they will be honored at an awards ceremony at the conference.

For more information about Genomes Code Talker Award, visit genomemag.com/codetalker.

About Genome magazine

Genome is a national consumer magazine (300,000+ circulation) that explores the complexity of genomics and personalized medicine along with the associated ethical, social, and legal issues  in a relevant and easy-to-understand manner for a lay audience. Its quarterly publication is for the public at large: patients, family, caregivers, and healthcare professionals on the education frontlines. Genomes mission is to empower readers to make informed health decisions that will help them live better and longer. For more information visit genomemag.com.

About the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC)

NSGC is the leading voice, authority, and advocate for the genetic counseling profession, representing more than 3,000 healthcare professionals. The organization is committed to ensuring that the public has access to genetic services. For more information visit NSGC.org.

About Invitae

Invitae Corporation's (NYSE: NVTA) mission is to bring comprehensive genetic information into mainstream medical practice to improve the quality of healthcare for billions of people. Invitaes goal is to aggregate most of the worlds genetic tests into a single service with higher quality, faster turnaround time, and lower price than many single-gene and panel tests today. The company currently provides a diagnostic service comprising hundreds of genes for a variety of genetic disorders associated with oncology, cardiology, neurology, pediatrics, and other rare disease areas. For more information, visit our website at invitae.com.

NOTE: Invitae and the Invitae logo are trademarks of Invitae Corporation. All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005150/en/

Invitae Corporation

Laura DAngelo, 314-920-0617

[email protected]

Source: Invitae Corporation
This week, Gothamist is running excerpts from The Brooklyn Wars, a new book from journalist Neil deMause about the social, economic, and political forces that have radically reshaped Brooklyn over the past four decades. This five-part series, the Bushwick Wars, traces the story of Bushwick from the 1970s to the present day.

By the end of the 2000s, Bushwick was in the midst of drastic changes. According to Census data crunched by the city's Department of City Planning, Bushwick experienced a net in-migration of 9,155 non-Hispanic whites from 2000 to 2010, more than tripling the previous population for the neighborhood. During that period, almost 20,000 black and Hispanic residents had moved out.

After a brief pause during the economic crash of 2008, Bushwick's flood of newcomers kept on coming, accompanied by a spate of condo towers, each trying to outdo the next in announcing itself fit for urban pioneers. On DeKalb near Bushwick Avenue, one new industrial-gray modernist condo building adopted the name Colony 1209 and equally over-the-top rhetoric, declaring itself "Brooklyn's new frontier" and announcing it would be marketing itself to "like-minded settlers."

Local realtors no longer needed to put "East Williamsburg" on their listings: Bushwick had become an internationally known brand, with a company offering an artisanal Bushwick-scented candle for the slim price of $81 ("scent highlights include terpentic notes of drying oil paint on canvases"), and Saturday Night Live officially ushering Bushwick stereotypes into the comedic mainstream with a sketch parodying neighborhood black youth talking trash about their gelato purchases.

Bushwick housing advocates soon reported an intensification of the harassment and eviction techniques that had been rampant before the downturn. "The first thing they say is 'This building is 100 years old, I'm going to demolish the building,'" said Angel Vera of Make the Road New York. "They also say, 'I'm the new owner, you have to leave'and some tenants who don't know their rights of being rent-stabilized, they move. Some landlords threaten new immigrants with calling immigration, or ACS, the children's agency, because they live in bad conditions."

Another tactic, said Vera, was "to hire local people, who are Latino, to harass tenantsthey go there in order to fix the boiler, they leave without service for a couple of days."



Make the Road housing march. (Scott Heins)

At Make the Road's bustling headquarters in a Grove Street storefront, Joel and Maria Najera, who ten years earlier had moved from East New York to a rent-stabilized apartment on DeKalb Avenue in search of better schools for their kids, said they watched as their landlord, through a combination of offering tenants cash to move and persistent harassment, cleared out four of the apartments in their six-unit building. "People came and said the landlord said, 'You need to get out this week'three times, different people," said Joel. One of these, said Maria through a translator, told them they had to leave, "because he was going to burn the building."

Without a leasethey had had one previously, but their landlord had stopped providing them four years earlierthe Najeras were left to battle for their home in court. Their neighbors, meanwhile, had mostly left by then, some taking buyouts of as much as $15,000 to move out, though even then finding affordable space elsewhere remained a challenge. "Another family, he moved them to another apartment" nearby, said Maria. "After four years, the rent rose too high and they couldn't pay it." Priced out a second time, that neighbor ended up moving to Jamaica, Queens. They were all replaced, she said, with groups of new tenants willing to pay as much as $3,000 to share a two-bedroom apartment that previously rented for less than half that amount.

It was a fate the Najeras feared would soon befall them. If they couldn't find a new apartment nearby, they worried, they would be forced to return to East New York, which they had left for Bushwick in the first place in search of better schools and less crime. Without her apartment, explained Maria, "I would have to move to a place where there are gangs, where my kids won't be safe."

One reason families were being forced to leave the neighborhood, numerous residents reported, was that Bushwick landlords wouldn't rent to families with childrensomething that remained a common practice even though it's illegal under the federal Fair Housing Act. "When you call the number and ask, 'Do you have an apartment for rent?' the first question he asks is if you have children," said Diana Zarumeno, who along with her husband and three pre-school-age kids was evicted from her Bushwick apartment; they ended up having to move across the Queens border to a more expensive apartment in Ridgewood. When she called realtors to ask about available apartments, she said, the answer was always, "'If you have children, then no, the apartment is already rented.'"

Maria Najera concurred that with two teenage kids, looking for a new space in Bushwick had proven absolutely impossible. Her landlord, she said, told her, "he would rather rent to a white man with a dog than to me with my kids."



McCarren Park. (Scott Heins)

Where families like these were ending up was a mystery that no one, including city housing agencies, seemed equipped to answer. The U.S. Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey asks residents where they have moved from since the previous yearbut it only tracks that to the county level, making it impossible to separate those who relocate from Bushwick from those who migrate from Park Slope or Coney Island. (The Internal Revenue Service likewise keeps records of who moves where, but only by county.) The city Department of Education, which could examine school registration records, said it doesn't release information on the movement of school-age children between districts. Only the Department of City Planning had attempted to investigate migration from New York City's gentrifying neighborhoodsand because it did this by crunching the Census data, no detailed migration information was available.

This left only anecdotal accounts from Bushwick residents and tenant advocates, who painted a picture of former neighbors scattered to the four winds. "When I hear from families, a lot of them are moving to Rockaway and East New York and Elmhurst," said Akchin. "No one is particularly tracking it, and I find that kind of concerning." Bushwick Housing Independence Project organizer Yolanda Coca added that some longtime residents were leaving the city entirely. "It's a very tough situation," she said. "I see people getting crazy looking for another place to move out when the landlord is pushing them out." When she called one recent client to invite her to a meeting, she said, she was told that she was now living in Philadelphia.

And with their friends and neighbors scattering, displaced Bushwick residents were losing something else as well: the community ties that had slowly re-knit the neighborhood after the devastation of the 1970s. Coca, who had returned to her old neighborhood in 2005 to work at the Bushwick Housing Independence Project in part because she was a longtime parishioner at St. Joseph's, the Wilson Avenue church where the project was located, noted that even Bushwick residents who were able to relocate couldn't bring with them their churches, their favorite stores, their friends. "Your church, it's a very important piece of your life," said Coca, who had counseled both Maesa and Colon during their housing battles. "My church is my second homehalf of my life is here. And people been losing all of that."

The face of neighborhood's commercial corridors had also changed drastically. In the blocks south of the Jefferson Street L station, the first early signs of changea Thai restaurant, a new coffee bar whose owner eagerly waved over any white passersby in hopes of bringing in kindred spiritshad exploded into a panoply of bars, gourmet hot dog stands, and realtors with cutesy names.



(Scott Heins)

On the street, white faces were now a common sight. And stepping into certain stores was like a trip to central Williamsburg: On a typical day inside the City Fresh Market across from Maria Hernandez Park, the clientele was 90 percent white.

"The Latino bodegas, they're disappearing," worried Coca. It was a shift that had repercussions even for those, like her, who were lucky enough to own their homes, or to have leases (or landlords) shielding them from sudden eviction. "Sometimes people say, 'Well, I don't have a problem with my apartment.' And I say, you do have a problem, because gentrification is affecting everybody, because everything goes up. I hate when people say, 'I'm not getting affected by the change here.' I say, you do. In one way or another, you do."

Neil deMause has covered New York City development issues for the Village Voice, City Limits, and Metro New York. He is the co-author of Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money Into Private Profit. The Brooklyn Wars is now available.
FRANKFURT, GERMANY -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- The Ultra-Broadband Forum 2016 entered its second day with intelligent discussions around "Business Innovation and Network Enablement in the Cloud Era". Huawei and leading global telecom operators, including BBF, Telefonica, TIM, KPN, Orange, du, as well as the Linux Foundation shared their viewpoints about the next steps in the development of Ultra-Broadband.

An intelligent world, in which all things are connected, smart and can be sensed, is coming towards us. As a result, telecom operators' business is fundamentally changing. David Wang, President of Huawei Network Solutions, said: "In the intelligent world, telecom operators should rethink their role and business model in the B2C, B2B and IoT markets. Huawei believes that telecom operators' core business proposition should be centered on the concept of FMC 3.0. By building up a ubiquitous, experience-driven, agile and on-demand ultra-broadband network, telecom operators will be able to monetize the business opportunities created by vertical market digital transformation."

The emergence of Gigaband connectivity is an accepted trend. The industry is witnessing the accelerating growth of 4K and VR along with large-scale enterprise digitalization and cloudification and the deepening development of industry IoT. The ultra-broadband all-connected network is going to be the major driving force of the emergence of all things sensing and all things connected and the fundamental building blocks of the intelligent world.

From telecom operators' point of view, FMC 1.0 was more about the broadband connection services which converged the fixed and mobile broadband networks. FMC 2.0 focused on the monetization of UBB through continuous optimization and development of content services, which are positioned as the basic service. On top of FMC 1.0 and 2.0, Huawei now releases the FMC 3.0 concept to facilitate operators redefining the scope of their business:

In B2C markets, operators need to position video as the core basic service to fulfill their customers' continuously growing expectations in user experience.

In B2B markets, since enterprise customers require integrated ICT services which can provide the "R.O.A.D.S" experience instead of basic communications services, operators need to cloudify themselves completely so as to meet enterprise customers' ever-growing demand of digitalization.

In addition, operators need to use IoT as an entry point into the digital transformation of vertical markets.

Based on the FMC3.0-centric business proposition, Huawei defines three directions for the development of telecom operators' ultra-broadband network:

Beyond human beings, connect everything: forging a network that compels the business success of the Smart Home and the Agile IoT by extending network coverage from "the last mile" to "the last inch".

Beyond bandwidth, focus on user experience: engineering the unified bearer transport network to enable the best possible experiences for families, individuals and enterprise customers.

Beyond network, embrace the cloud: building an end-to-end agile on-demand network which not only meets customers' needs of agile VPN and customized cloud services, but also enables operators to monetize the new cloud-based services.

The UBBF is jointly organized by the UN Broadband Commission and Huawei, to create a platform for communications between carriers, content providers, consumer electronics vendors, Internet service providers, and regulatory agencies worldwide. Through discussion of the future developments of ultra-broadband, the Forum promotes the commercial success of all industry members and the sound and sustainable development of the ultra-broadband industry ecosystem.

About Huawei

Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. Our aim is to enrich life and improve efficiency through a better connected world, acting as a responsible corporate citizen, innovative enabler for the information society, and collaborative contributor to the industry. Driven by customer-centric innovation and open partnerships, Huawei has established an end-to-end ICT solutions portfolio that gives customers competitive advantages in telecom and enterprise networks, devices and cloud computing. Huawei's 170,000 employees worldwide are committed to creating maximum value for telecom operators, enterprises and consumers. Our innovative ICT solutions, products and services are used in more than 170 countries and regions, serving over one-third of the world's population. Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company fully owned by its employees.

For more information, please visit Huawei online at www.huawei.com or follow us on: http://www.linkedin.com/company/Huawei http://www.twitter.com/Huawei http://www.facebook.com/Huawei http://www.google.com/+Huawei http://www.youtube.com/Huawei

Media Contact Miranda Liu [email protected]

Source: Huawei Technologies
NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Following the success of their July 1 2016 concert in the magical setting of Piazza Santa Croce in Florence, Italy, IL VOLO release their new album Notte Magica  A Tribute to The Three Tenors with special guest, the legendary Placido Domingo. Available now, the new album gives fans around the world the chance to re-live and experience this once-in-a-lifetime event.

In support of the new album, IL VOLO performed "Nessun Dorma" during the live finale of Season 11's America's Got Talent (NBC). They earned a standing ovation, along with heartfelt compliments from Simon Cowell and record viewer ratings. Plus, People.com just premiered IL VOLO's new live video "Granada"  view it here.

For Notte Magica, Maestro Domingo conducted the orchestra of the famous Teatro Massimo di Palermo in eight pieces, and he also joined IL VOLO to sing "Non ti scordar di me." Maestro Marcello Rota alternated with Maestro Domingo as the conductor. The members of IL VOLO  Piero Barone, Ignazio Boschetto and Gianluca Ginoble  performed songs that encompassed popular Neapolitan, Italian, and international music, blending in complete harmony with songs from famous musicals and renowned classical opera arias.

On July 7, 1990, Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti sang together for the very first time in one of the most evocative temples of opera, the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome  giving life to the biggest classical music project of the century: The Three Tenors. Twenty-six years after this debut appearance by The Three Tenors, and fresh from a triumphant worldwide tour, IL VOLO paid tribute to this event and the three Maestri. They delivered the same experience and emotions as the original performance to a new, younger audience, and with the full support and attendance of Pavarotti's widow Nicoletta Mantovani and the Luciano Pavarotti Foundation.

"A tribute to such artists and such an event could be considered presumptuous, but in fact it is not, as we have not the slightest thought of comparing ourselves to our idols, our artistic inspirations," say IL VOLO.

"I am very happy to be with Piero, Ignazio and Gianluca conducting them in this magical night under the stars in such a beautiful city: Florence! I really love these guys. They are performing such a great repertoire around the world  some of the music my colleagues and I performed in our own concerts," says Placido Domingo.

"IL VOLO is carrying on what Luciano started, and that is bringing Opera to the masses. I think he would be so happy!" says Nicoletta Mantovani, widow of Luciano Pavarotti.

IL VOLO will kick off their world tour in the U.S. performing songs from their new album beginning in March 2017.

Since forming in 2009, the success of IL VOLO's critically acclaimed PBS-TV Specials resulted in touring with legendary songstress Barbra Streisand and performing across the world's greatest stages. To date, the vocal trio have released four albums, charted on the top 10 of Billboard's Top 200, won two Billboard Latin Music Awards (2014  "Latin Pop Albums Artist of the Year, Duo or Group", "El Pulso Social") and received four nominations, plus two Latin GRAMMY nominations (2011 - "Best New Artist", "Best Pop Album by a Duo or Group"). IL VOLO have appeared on major television programs including The Tonight Show, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Talk, American Idol, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Rachael Ray Show The Daytime Emmy Awards, as well as appearing in the final episode of HBO's smash hit series Entourage.

NOTTE MAGICA  A TRIBUTE TO THE THREE TENORS Tracklisting 1. Turandot: Nessun Dorma (Live) 13. 'O surdato 'nnammurato (Live) 2. Granada (Live) 14. Mamma (Live) 3. Mattinata (from "West Side Story") (Live) 15. Cielito lindo (Live) 4. L'elisir d'amore: Una furtiva lagrima (Live) 16. En aranjuez con tu amor (Live) 5. La danza (Live) 17. La tabernera del puerto: No puede ser (Live) 6. Tosca: E lucevan le stelle (Live) 18. Non ti scordar di me (Live) (with Placido 7. Torna a surriento (Live) Domingo) 8. Core 'ngrato (Live) 19. Sole mio (Live) 9. 'O paese d'o sole (Live) 20. La Traviata: Libiamo ne' i calici (Live) 10. Maria (from "West Side Story") (Live) 21. Ave Maria, Mater Misericordiae (Live) 11. My Way (Live) 22. Adeste Fideles (Live) 12. Tonight (Live)

IL VOLOWebsite: ilvolomusic.com Facebook: @ilvolomusicTwitter: @ilvolo Instagram: ilvolomusicYoutube: ilvoloVEVO

Buy Notte Magica here:Amazon: http://smarturl.it/iv-nottemagica-cd iTunes: http://smarturl.it/iv-nottemagica

Listen to Notte Magica here:Spotify: http://smarturl.it/iv-nottemagica-str

Press Contacts: Sony Music: Angela Barkan / Larissa Slezak:[email protected] / [email protected]212-833-8575 / 6075

Varela Media | Victoria Varela212-332-3485 | [email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160930/414082

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/il-volo-with-special-guest-placido-domingo-release-new-album-notte-magica---a-tribute-to-the-three-tenors-available-today-300337550.html

SOURCE Sony Music Masterworks
KYOTO, Japan, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- OMRON Corp., based in Kyoto City, will introduce to the world on October 3, 2016, a total of 15,583 models, in 7 categories, as the second wave of factory automation (FA) control devices built on a common design platform for unified product specifications.

Based on a wide range of products, OMRON has been continuing to work for the innovation of making control panels which house and control FA devices on the production front line. OMRON unified the design and size of FA devices, and introduced products in April 2016 which are built with the company's proprietary wiring technology "Push-In Plus Terminal Block" for device and control panel makers in need of "downsizing and space-saving" of FA devices and control panels, "expedited delivery," and "response to globalization."

They have been adopted on the front line of manufacturing by more than 3,000 global companies and received high evaluation. The expansion of the FA devices built on the unified design platform will have a great combined effect achieved by providing a wide variety of devices. OMRON aims at innovating control panels for customers.

In particular, we applied the common platform to A22N-P/A30N-P Pushbutton Switches, M22N-P Indicators, and KM-N3 Power Monitors which are FA devices mounted on the front of control panels, P7SA-PU Sockets for Relays with Forcibly Guided Contacts and NX1P Machine Automation Controllers which are safety components. Also, the 240-/480-W models of S8VK-S, the world's smallest class of Switch Mode Power Supplies, are made under the common platform as well.

OMRON is working on the innovation of manufacturing on the front line of production by the "3-i" automation in the "integrated," "intelligent" and "interactive" spheres. OMRON currently has the most comprehensive automation product portfolio in the world that spans the spectrum of ILO+S (input, logic, output+safety) and robotics, providing the foundation for the innovation of manufacturing by the "3-i" automation.

With a wide range of FA devices with the unified design platform, OMRON will continue to work with manufacturers for the innovation of manufacturing by meeting a variety of challenges in manufacturing control panels.

For product details, please visit:http://www.ia.omron.com/solution/panel/

New products to be sold and their features:

World's smallest-class (*1) switch mode power supply series: S8VK-S (high-capacity models)The S8VK-S Switch Mode Power Supply has a compact body with 50% less volume than previous OMRON products for 480-W models, made possible by using OMRON's unique technologies. The S8VK-S high-capacity models allow side-by-side mounting in close contact on DIN rails to reduce the footprint, which helps downsize control panels.

It also meets a broad scope of certification standards and ensures stable operation in a wide range of environments with greater environmental resistance such as a wide operating temperature range of -40 to 70 degree Celsius.

(*1) According to OMRON survey in September 2016.

Specifications:- Connection method: Push-In Plus terminal blocks- Power rating: 240 W, 480W- Dimension (WHD): 240 W type: 38 mm/124 mm/117.8 mm 480 W type: 60 mm/124 mm/117.8 mm

(Photo1: http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M102197/201609294819/_prw_OI1fl_L7wJ79Bw.jpg)

Push-In Plus terminal block relay series: (Sockets for Relays with Forcibly Guided Contacts)

Sockets for G7SA Relays with Forcibly Guided Contacts (P7SA-PU, 4 poles and 6 poles) joined the Push-In Plus Terminal Block Relay Series introduced in April 2016. Featuring the push-in mechanism on Sockets for Relays with Forcibly Guided Contacts unifies the wiring method of the whole control panels. It also reduces wiring when used together with Safety Controllers which also have push-in terminals.

Moreover, the 6-pole sockets are slimmer than the previous screw type sockets (the industry's slimmest design (*2)) and control panel sizes can be kept to a minimum. Short bars are available for crossover wiring of contact terminals in the same socket. This helps further work reduction.

(*2) According to OMRON survey in July 2016.

Series:P7SA-PU (Sockets for G7SA Relays with Forcibly Guided Contacts)

Specifications:- Connection method: Push-In Plus terminal blocks- No. of poles: 4 poles, 6 poles

(Photo2: http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M102197/201609294819/_prw_OI2fl_BS1px2Z2.jpg)

Pushbutton switches with Push-In Plus terminal blocks and indicators: A22N-P/A30N-P/M22N-P- The A22N-P, A30N-P, and M22N-P are Pushbutton Switches and Indicators with mounting holes of 22.0 dia. and 30 dia. using Push-In Plus terminal blocks. OMRON's proprietary technologies reduced the depth drastically and the volume by 20% to 30% in comparison with the previous models.- Lighting Units were difficult to shorten their bodies, but their size is reduced in the same ways as Contact Blocks.

* For 4 to 6 contacts, the previous depth of 66.8 mm is reduced down to 55 mm. Push-In Plus terminal blocks with rear insertion eliminate the need for securing side space. It also saves space which was difficult with the screw terminal block type. This helps reduce workability and increase the freedom in design.

Specifications:- Connection method: Push-In Plus terminal blocks- Size (inside depth including the panel): 39.5 mm (for 1 to 3 contacts, same size when using Lighting Units)55 mm(when a double-contact unit is mounted)41.6 mm (Indicators)

(Photo3: http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M102197/201609294819/_prw_OI3fl_7W34674l.jpg)

Globally applicable (*3) power monitor series: KM-N3- The KM-N3 is an on-panel installation type of KM-N2 Power Monitors, for in-panel installation. The use of general-purpose CTs (current transformers) enables the power monitor to be used at a variety of manufacturing sites as well as KM-N2. The wide-range design including single-phase to three-phase 4-wire power monitors is compatible with power supplies around the world, and provides measurements of up to four circuits in one unit.- The power monitor also features precise measurements (IEC class 0.5S), reduction of installation work thanks to the detection of incorrect wiring, easy setting, and large, easy-to-read, white and green LCD characters, thus offering solutions from designing to startup.

(*3) VTs are required in some regions. UL pending.

(Photo4: http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M102197/201609294819/_prw_OI4fl_27fNFj3V.jpg)

Specifications:- Applicable phase-wiring methods: Single-phase two-wire, single-phase three-wire, three-phase three-wire, three-phase four-wire systems- Maximum number of measured circuits: Single-phase two-wire system: 4 circuits; single-phase three-wire or three-phase three-wire system: 2 circuits; three-phase four-wire system: 1 circuit- Connection method: Power supply terminals, communication and pulse output terminals: Push-in Plus terminal blocks; others: M3 terminal screws

Machine Automation Controller: NX1P- The NX1P is the Sysmac (*4) entry level controller which integrates EtherNet/IP and EtherCAT connectivity, motion control, and I/O in a compact package, bringing advanced motion control and IoT to small-middle size machines.- Electronic cam and interpolation functions increase machine speed and precision, which leads to improvement in productivity and quality. Data collected from devices via the built-in EtherCAT port and mounted IO-Link master unit can be shared between machines via the built-in EtherNet/IP port. This helps reduce machine downtime and increase productivity.

Specifications:LD instruction execution time: 3.3 ns, program capacity: 1.5 MBBuilt-in EtherNet/IP port, EtherCAT port, and SD memory card interfaceUsed real axes: Up to 8 axes (including up to 4 axes of motion control)NX Units connectableConnection method: Push-in Plus terminal blocks

(Photo5: http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M102197/201609294819/_prw_OI5fl_stO3qcyt.jpg)

(*4) Sysmac automation platform:

OMRON's integrated automation platform is dedicated to providing complete control and management of an automation plant under one unit of software. Programming based on global standards and global open networks allows for building the globally standardized system. At the core of this platform, the machine controller series offers synchronous control of all machine devices and advanced functionality such as motion, robotics and database connectivity. This multidisciplinary concept allows you to simplify solution architecture, reduce programming and optimize productivity.

- Sysmac is a trademark or registered trademark of OMRON Corporation in Japan and other countries for OMRON factory automation products.- EtherCAT (R) is a registered trademark and patented technology, licensed by Beckhoff Automation GmbH, Germany.- EtherNet/IP (TM) is a trademark of ODVA.

About OMRON Corporation

OMRON Corporation is a global leader in the field of automation based on its core technology of sensing and control. OMRON's business fields cover a broad spectrum, ranging from industrial automation and electronic components to automotive electronic components, social infrastructure systems, healthcare, and environmental solutions. Established in 1933, OMRON has over 38,000 employees worldwide, working to provide products and services in more than 110 countries and regions. In the field of industrial automation, OMRON supports manufacturing innovation by providing advanced automation technologies and products, as well as through extensive customer support, in order to help create a better society. For more information, visit OMRON's website at: http://www.omron.com/

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/omron-to-introduce-15583-models-in-7-categories-to-world-second-wave-of-fa-devices-built-on-common-design-platform-300337098.html

SOURCE OMRON Corporation
CLANTON, Ala., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- St. Vincent's Chilton hospital held a blessing, ribbon cutting and open house at its new location on September 30. Local officials and representatives joined St. Vincent's associates in the grand opening event.

The new hospital, located at 2030 Lay Dam Road in Clanton, is a part of St. Vincent's Health System and Ascension's growing footprint in Alabama. Ascension is the nation's largest not-for-profit health system and the world's largest Catholic health system.

"St. Vincent's Health System is thrilled to be expanding our presence in Alabama, as we continue to provide compassionate, personalized care to more patients throughout the state," said Neeysa Biddle, FACHE Senior Vice President, Ascension Health & Birmingham Market Executive of St. Vincent's Health System. "St. Vincent's is dedicated to the future of healthcare in Chilton County."

The hospital is located on 40 acres situated near the intersection of Highway 145 and Interstate 65 in Clanton. St. Vincent's Chilton Hospital is a full-service community hospital providing general acute care and outpatient services, including a 24/7 emergency department, diagnostic imaging, surgery, intensive care, wellness services, lab and gastroenterology services. It also includes advanced imaging and diagnostic services, encompassing x-ray, MRI, CT, fluoroscopy, ultrasound, nuclear medicine, mammography and bone density.

"This new hospital is bringing more than 100 jobs to Chilton County," said Suzannah Campbell, Administrator for St. Vincent's Chilton. "We look forward to providing a variety of services at the hospital for our patients, as well as wellness services and educational programming for those in the area."

The new facility will also include:

Physical Therapy

Surgical Services

Gastroenterology Services

30 Inpatient Beds

Outpatient Care

Other Medical Specialty Services

The hospital is pleased to report they had a successful licensure survey by the Alabama Department of Public Health. The new hospital will open later, with the exact date to be announced after the licensure certificate is received. Upon opening, St. Vincent's Chilton Hospital will provide inpatient, emergency and hospital services.

About St. Vincent's Health System:

St. Vincent's Health System was founded in 1898 by the Daughters of Charity. Since then, it has grown to include a regional network of healthcare services and facilities, together dedicated to improving the health and well-being of all persons, especially those most in need. The system includes four hospitals, a health and wellness facility, outpatient surgery and diagnostic centers, home health and hospice, home medical equipment services, behavioral health, wellness services, corporate health services and specialized care. The system employees approximately 4,700 associates and has more than 800 physicians serving on medical staffs. For more information about St. Vincent's Health System, please visit our website at www.stvhs.com.

About Ascension:

Ascension (www.ascension.org) is a faith-based healthcare organization dedicated to transformation through innovation across the continuum of care. As the largest non-profit health system in the U.S. and the world's largest Catholic health system, Ascension is committed to delivering compassionate, personalized care to all, with special attention to persons living in poverty and those most vulnerable. In FY2016, Ascension provided more than $1.8 billion in care of persons living in poverty and other community benefit programs. Approximately 160,000 associates and 36,000 aligned providers serve in 2,500 sites of care  including 141 hospitals and more than 30 senior living facilities  in 24 states and the District of Columbia as part of Ascension's Healthcare Division. Through its Solutions Division, Ascension subsidiaries provide a variety of services and solutions including physician practice management, venture capital investing, investment management, biomedical engineering, clinical care management, information services, risk management, and contracting through Ascension's own group purchasing organization.

CONTACT: Allison Crotwell St. Vincent's Health System (205) 410-9128; [email protected]

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160930/414022

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/st-vincents-chilton-hospital-hosts-ribbon-cutting-event-300337480.html

SOURCE St. Vincents Health System
By Manuel Mogato and Benjamin Kang Lim

MANILA/BEIJING (Reuters) - Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte travels to China next month on a visit that could redraw alliances in East Asia after his incendiary comments about the United States and active courting of Washington's chief rivals.

The friendly relationship between the Philippines and the United States has been one of the pillars of Washington's strategic military rebalance to Asia under President Barack Obama. But the alliance has been under strain since Duterte came to power three months ago and chafed at U.S. criticism of his bloody war on drugs, which has led to the killing of more than 3,100 alleged drug users and dealers by police and vigilantes.

He has insulted Obama and then made it clear the Philippines will pursue a much more independent foreign policy than it has in the past.

That has included the Philippines extending an olive branch to China, despite the two countries being locked for years in a bitter territorial dispute in the South China Sea. Duterte has also spoken of reaching out to Russia.

"Ever since President Duterte took office, China and Philippines have been engaging in friendly interactions, which have yielded a series of positive results," Zhao Jianhua, the Chinese ambassador to Manila, said at a Chinese National Day reception at the embassy this week.

"The clouds are fading away. The sun is rising over the horizon, and will shine beautifully on the new chapter of bilateral relations," Zhao said.

Duterte plans to visit Beijing from Oct 19-21, and hold talks with both President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang.

Diplomatic and business sources in Manila have said he will be accompanied by about two dozen businessmen, which could lead to deals being forged that could underpin any improved bilateral ties.

But key to a successful visit will be an understanding of how to approach the dispute over the South China Sea. Beijing has angrily rejected a decision by an international court in July that ruled China's claims to the waterway were invalid, after a case was brought by the Philippines.

Duterte wants China to abide by the ruling and allow access to the Scarborough Shoal, a traditional fishing ground for Chinese, Filipino and Vietnamese fishermen. But he has not insisted on the ruling being implemented and said he would like to negotiate on the row.

"Duterte giving us face means we have to rethink our policy," a source with ties to China's leadership and the military told Reuters. "We have to reciprocate his courtesy."

FISHING RIGHTS

Getting Filipino fishermen access to the Scarborough Shoal would be a major win for Duterte and add to his already sky-high domestic popularity. According to a recent survey, he has a record high approval rating of 92 percent even as he faces international opprobrium for the killings.

"When Duterte visits China next month, his agenda will focus on trade, investments and fishery cooperation with China, including access to Scarborough," a Philippines foreign ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Zha Daojiong, an international relations professor at China's Peking University, said a deal over renewed Philippines access to Scarborough Shoal could be expected at the visit. But he said it would be a verbal rather than written agreement to avoid formally acknowledging the international court's ruling, which upheld the historic fishing rights of both states.

"There's many ways this meeting could be productive...even if there is likely to be some caution on both sides," Zha said.

Officially, Beijing has yet to confirm Duterte's visit, but the foreign ministry has said it welcomes a visit by him at an early date.

The Global Times, an influential tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, said in an editorial last week it could lead to a new chapter in ties.

"A new, positive interaction between China and the Philippines, starkly different from the Aquino era, may be unveiled," it said, referring to the previous Philippines president, Benigno Aquino.

"Duterte shows stark differences from his predecessor in diplomacy and style. He seems to prefer more balanced diplomatic relations with other countries rather than being too reliant on the U.S."

HITLER

Duterte has this month struck at the heart of ties with the United States by saying the two countries would not hold any joint naval patrols during his six-year tenure and calling for the withdrawal of U.S. special forces stationed in the restive south of the country. On Friday, he outraged Jewish groups by appearing to compare himself to Adolf Hitler, which could heap more pressure on Washington to publicly turn against him.

Despite the uncertainty, U.S. officials have maintained that all remains well.

"As it has been for decades, our alliance with the Philippines is ironclad," Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Thursday, speaking to American sailors aboard the U.S.S. Carl Vinson at its home port in San Diego.

But analysts think damage has already been done.

"Officials in Washington must now be seriously worried about the trajectory of U.S.-Philippine relations," said Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore's ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute.

"Especially military-to-military issues such as joint exercises and U.S. access to Philippine bases, and whether Duterte will try and cut a deal with Beijing over the South China Sea that will allow China to advance its maritime claims."

But not everyone in China is rushing to embrace Duterte, because of his extreme unpredictability. Last month, despite the new-found bonhomie, the Philippines said at a summit of Asian nations in Laos that it was "gravely concerned" about Chinese boats preparing to build structures at the disputed Scarborough Shoal.

"We have to see what he actually does," said Luo Liang, a researcher at the Chinese government-backed National Institute for South China Sea Studies in Hainan. "Although the signals from Duterte are good, we still need to wait and see."

(Additional reporting by Martin Petty in Hanoi, Greg Torode in Hong Kong, Ben Blanchard in Beijing, Marius Zaharia in Singapore and Yeganeh Torbati in San Diego; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Martin Howell)
A woman wearing U.S. flags passes a sign at Wells Fargo Center at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. July 25, 2016. REUTERS/Charles Mostoller

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE: WFC) faces possible bans from doing business with the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois in the wake of its sales scandal that erupted earlier this month.

Alderman Edward Burke, who heads the Chicago City Council's finance committee, introduced an ordinance on Friday that would suspend the bank from acting in several capacities, including as a municipal depository, bond underwriter and financial adviser.

"The city council should not engage in any business for the next two years with this institution that has deceived, defrauded and duped its customers," Burke said in a statement.

Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs set a Monday news conference to announce "plans to suspend billions of dollars in investment activity with Wells Fargo," according to an advisory from his office on Friday.

Wells Fargo staff opened checking, savings and credit card accounts without customer say-so for years to satisfy managers' demand for new business, according to a $190 million settlement with regulators reached on Sept. 8. The bank said it fired 5,300 employees over the issue.

On Wednesday, California State Treasurer John Chiang announced a sweeping suspension of the state's business relationships with Wells Fargo for the next 12 months. The bank is also under pressure from Oregon's treasurer to reform its management structure and executive compensation.

U.S. lawmakers called on Thursday for Wells Fargo chief John Stumpf to resign and a top House Democrat demanded the bank be broken up because it is too big to manage.

Chicago's finance committee is scheduled to take up the proposed ordinance on Wednesday. The city has paid Wells Fargo $19.45 million in fees since 2005, according to the committee.

The bank served as senior underwriter on five Chicago bond issues totaling nearly $969 million since 2006, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Wells Fargo made the list of 15 senior underwriters tapped by Illinois this month for bond sales over the next three years. A spokeswoman for Governor Bruce Rauner declined to comment on whether his office is rethinking Wells Fargo's selection.

(Reporting by Karen Pierog; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
Workers clean the body of a Garuda Indonesia Airbus A320 aircraft inside Hangar 4 of PT Garuda Maintenance Facility (GMF) Aero Asia at Soekarno-Hatta airport in Jakarta, September 28, 2015.

By Allison Lampert

MONTREAL (Reuters) - Garuda Indonesia's , the country's national carrier, expects its return to the United States next year with three flights a week to generate about 5 percent of the airline's top-line passenger revenue for 2017, its chief executive said.

The airline is now negotiating rights to start service from Jakarta to Los Angeles via Japan, Chief Executive Officer Arif Wibowo said in an interview. He said the new flights would be a "milestone" for Garuda, which reported $3.81 billion in total operating revenues in 2015.

Garuda's plans follow an August announcement by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that Indonesia's aviation safety performance now meets international standards, allowing its carriers to fly to the United States.

The FAA removed the ability of the country's carriers to fly to the United States in 2007. The southeast Asian nation has struggled with a patchy aviation record.

Garuda is also considering a route to New York via Europe, where it flies to Amsterdam and London.

"What we are aiming is to ... grab market between Indonesia and the U.S.," Wibowo told Reuters late Thursday on the sidelines of a United Nations aviation assembly in Montreal.

"We can start from three flights per week. Eventually we are also aiming to become a daily flight."

Traffic between the United States and Indonesia is about 400,000 passengers a year, he said.

Garuda is publicly traded but the Indonesian government is its largest shareholder with a 60 percent stake.

The fast-growing carrier is in negotiations with planemaker Boeing Co (NYSE: BA) and rival Airbus Group SE (NYSE: AIR) for at least 22 widebody planes to replace A330s that the carrier has on an operating lease, Wibowo said.

(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
By Rina Chandran

MUMBAI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Textile workers from Bangladesh to Turkey are using cellphones to report child labor, delayed wages and trafficking - a trend rights groups say shows the promise of technology in tackling abuses in the garment industry.

Two mobile services, both by U.S.-based companies, encourage workers to call toll-free numbers to anonymously log violations they see around them.

The idea is to give big brands early warning of problems at the furthest ends of their supply chains as they seek to comply with tougher legislation against labor exploitation and modern slavery.

"One of the big challenges for companies in locations far from their suppliers is: How do you hear from workers directly?" said Sarah Labowitz, co-director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at the NYC Stern School of Business in New York.

"When it comes to issues such as discrimination, harassment and abuse, workers have a role in flagging these problems. And as with a lot of social problems, we often look to technology for solutions," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The two systems, Laborlink and LaborVoices, are similar. Workers call and answer simple questions, pressing 1 for "yes" and 2 for "no".

Questions are along the lines of: Are you being treated fairly? Are wages paid on time? Are fire exits locked? Have you seen a child worker?

An analysis of calls to LaborVoices from more than 5,000 workers in Bangladesh in the first half of the year showed almost a fifth of factories had a "high risk" of child labor, Ayush Khanna, a LaborVoices director, said.

"Mobile-phone penetration in developing countries is more than 90 percent today, so it's an obvious technology to use to increase the transparency and accountability of the supply chain," he said in a phone interview.

"The system gets around many of the limitations of traditional audits, which are slow, occasional and may be inaccurate because workers are afraid."

Bangladesh, which ranks only behind China as a supplier of apparel to Western countries, relies on garments for more than 80 percent of its exports and about 4 million jobs. Workers earn a minimum monthly wage of $68, compared with $280 in China.

Low wages and poor working conditions have plagued the country's $26 billion garment export industry. Bangladesh had one of the worst industrial accidents in 2013, when more than 1,000 people were killed in the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex.

In May this year, three workers were killed in a fire at a textile factory near Dhaka.

Since the Rana Plaza disaster, legislation has been introduced for greater supply-chain transparency and improved rights and safety for workers. But progress has been slow.

The 5,239 workers who called LaborVoices in the first half of the year worked in 85 factories in Dhaka and Chittagong, which supplied more than 30 global brands including Walmart, Target, Zara, Adidas, H&M and Levi's, Khanna said.

LaborVoices is also tracking abuse of Syrian migrant workers in Turkey's garment industry, seeking evidence of forced labor and trafficking, Khanna said.

Laborlink has reached more than 500,000 workers in 16 countries from China to Colombia, the company says.

But while technology can help flag abuses in the supply chain, it cannot single-handedly solve them, Labowitz said.

"Calls from workers is a good system to have, but it is not a substitute for audits and checks," she said. "You need both to tackle the issues in the supply chain."

(Reporting by Rina Chandran @rinachandran, Editing by Timothy Large. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org to see more stories.)
The reconstructed wreckage of the MH17 airplane is seen after the presentation of the final report into the crash of July 2014 of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine, in Gilze Rijen, the Netherlands, October 13, 2015. REUTERS/Michael Kooren

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian Foreign Ministry will summon the Dutch ambassador in Moscow on Oct. 3 to explain Russia's reasons for not accepting the findings of an investigation into the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the ministry said on Friday.

A team of international investigators on Wednesday presented findings showing that the missile launcher used to shoot down MH17 over Eastern Ukraine in 2014 came from Russia and was returned there afterwards - despite Russian denials of involvement in the conflict in Ukraine.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry summoned Russia's ambassador in The Hague for a diplomatic rebuke on Friday after Moscow made remarks critical of the MH17 investigation

The ministry, citing spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, said that Moscow will explain its reasoning for not accepting the methods of the international investigation, which took the probe "in a wrong direction".

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
The logo of Boeing (BA) is seen in Los Angeles, California, United States, April 22, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

By Andrea Shalal

BERLIN (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday began notifying lawmakers that it has approved $7 billion in long-stalled sales of Boeing Co (NYSE: BA) fighter jets to Kuwait and Qatar, and more than $1 billion in Lockheed Martin Corp (NYSE: LMT) jets to Bahrain, sources familiar with the decision said.

The sales had been pending for more than two years amid concerns raised by Israel, Washington's closest Middle East ally, that arms sold to Gulf Arab states could be used against it, and criticism of Qatar for alleged ties to armed Islamist groups.

U.S. officials began notifying lawmakers informally about the sale of 36 Boeing F-15 fighter jets to Qatar valued at around $4 billion, and 28 F/A- 18E/F Super Hornets, plus options for 12 more, to Kuwait for around $3 billion, the sources said.

They also told lawmakers about plans to sell 17 Lockheed F-16 fighter jets to Bahrain, plus upgrades of up to 20 additional aircraft.

The deals will be formally announced once the 40-day informal notification process has ended. Then lawmakers will have 30 days to block the sales, although such action is rare.

Reuters reported earlier this month that the U.S. government was poised to approve the long-delayed sales to Kuwait and Qatar.

The State Department said it could not comment on any ongoing government-to-government arms sales.

Delays in the process had caused frustration among U.S. defense officials and industry executives, who warned that Washingtons foot-dragging could cost them billions of dollars of business if buyers grew impatient and sought other suppliers.

The approval of the fighter jet sales comes as the White House tries to bolster relations with Gulf Arab allies who want to upgrade their military capabilities. They fear the United States is drawing closer to Iran, their arch-rival, after Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers last year.

Sources said officials at both the State Department and Pentagon had largely agreed to the deals some time ago, but had been awaiting final approval from the White House.

Qatar, home to the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East, and Kuwait have ramped up military spending after uprisings across the Arab world and amid rising tensions between Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states and Iran, the region's Shi'ite power.

Both Qatar and Kuwait are part of a 34-nation alliance announced by Saudi Arabia in December aimed at countering Islamic State and al Qaeda militants in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan.

The sales will boost fighter production for both companies.

Boeing's F-15 line is set to close in 2019 after Boeing completes work on a large order for Saudi Arabia, unless a follow-on order is approved.

As orders slow, Boeing is increasingly relying on technology upgrades and services sales to maintain its revenue stream from fighter jets, Shelley Lavender, president of Boeing's military aircraft division, said in an interview.

The company is adding new technology to the F-15 and F/A-18 and other aircraft, and is refurbishing them on the same assembly lines use to build new aircraft, she said.

When the current fighter jet lines end, that loss of revenue will be offset by upgrade efforts. "We're blurring the traditional lines of new aircraft builds and sustainment," Lavender said.

Boeing's broad portfolio from commercial derivatives rotocraft, autonomous vehicles, fighters and weapons "will allow us to remain healthy for the decades to come," she said.

Byron Callan with Capital Alpha Partner said he expected all three sales to be approved.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal in Berlin and Rachel Nielsen in Seattle; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Tom Brown)
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SANAA (Reuters) - Two senior members of al Qaeda's Yemen branch were killed in a suspected U.S. drone strike in the central province of Bayda, local officials told Reuters on Thursday.

The strike, which took place in al-Ridaa district, was the third in central Yemen in a week. Previous strikes targeted regional commanders in Bayda and nearby Maarib province.

The United States acknowledges using drones to combat the Islamist militant group in Yemen, regarded as one of al Qaeda's most dangerous branches, but does not comment publicly on attacks.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has exploited Yemen's civil war to carve out a foothold in the impoverished country. Several leaders of the group have been killed by drone strikes in recent years.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Katie Paul; Editing by Dominic Evans)
UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D.C. 20549 FORM 6-K REPORT OF FOREIGN PRIVATE ISSUER PURSUANT TO RULE 13a-16 OR 15d-16

OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 For the month of September, 2016 Commission File Number: 333-210261 Fortis Inc. Fortis Place, Suite 1100

5 Springdale Street

St. Johns, Newfoundland and Labrador

Canada, A1E 0E4 (Address of Principal Executive Office) Indicate by check mark whether the registrant files or will file annual reports under cover of Form 20-F or Form 40-F: Form 20-F o Form 40-F x Indicate by check mark if the registrant is submitting the Form 6-K in paper as permitted by Regulation S-T Rule 101(b)(1): o Indicate by check mark if the registrant is submitting the Form 6-K in paper as permitted by Regulation S-T Rule 101(b)(7): o

EXHIBITS Exhibit Description 99.1 Fortis Inc. Press Release, dated September 30, 2016. 2

SIGNATURES Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized. Fortis Inc. (Registrant) Date: September 30, 2016 /s/ David C. Bennett By: David C. Bennett Title: Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary 3

Exhibit 99.1 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: St. Johns, NL (September 30, 2016): Fortis Inc. Announces Pricing of US$2.0 Billion Notes Offering Fortis Inc. (TSX: FTS) (Fortis or the Corporation) announced today that it has priced its previously announced US$2.0 billion notes offering. The Corporation priced US$500 million of notes due 2021 at 2.100% and US$1.5 billion of notes due 2026 at 3.055%. The offering is expected to close on October 4, 2016. Fortis intends to use the net proceeds from the notes offering to finance a portion of the cash consideration for the previously announced acquisition of ITC Holdings Corp. The notes will only be offered to qualified institutional buyers in the United States pursuant to Rule 144A under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act), and outside the United States pursuant to Regulation S under the Securities Act. The notes will not be registered under the Securities Act, or the securities laws of any state or other jurisdiction, and may not be offered or sold in the United States without registration under the Securities Act or pursuant to an applicable exemption from such registration. The notes will not be offered or sold in Canada. This announcement does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security and does not constitute an offer, solicitation or sale of any security in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. About Fortis Fortis is a leader in the North American electric and gas utility business, with total assets of approximately CAD$29 billion as of June 30, 2016 and revenue of CAD$6.7 billion for fiscal year 2015. As of June 30, 2016, the Corporations asset mix is approximately 94% regulated (69% electric, 25% gas), with the remaining 6% comprised of non-regulated energy infrastructure. The Corporations regulated utilities serve more than 3 million customers across Canada, the United States and the Caribbean. Fortis shares are listed on the TSX and trade under the symbol FTS. Fortis includes forward-looking statements in this press release within the meaning of applicable securities laws including the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements included in this press release reflect expectations of Fortis management regarding future growth, results of operations, performance, business prospects, and opportunities. Wherever possible, words such as anticipates, believes, budgets, could, estimates, expects, forecasts,
UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549









FORM 8-K









CURRENT REPORT





Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of

the Securities Exchange Act of 1934





Date of Report (Date of Earliest Event Reported): September 27, 2016









Accuride Corporation

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in Charter)









Delaware 001-32483 61-1109077 (State or Other Jurisdiction

of Incorporation) (Commission File Number) (IRS Employer

Identification No.)





7140 Office Circle, Evansville, IN 47715 (Address of Principal Executive Offices) (Zip Code)





Registrants Telephone Number, Including Area Code: (812) 962-5000

(Former Name or Former Address, if Changed Since Last Report)





Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions (see General Instruction A.2. below):





 Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425)





 Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12)





 Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b))





 Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c))

Item 8.01. Other Events.





As previously announced, on September 2, 2016, Accuride Corporation, a Delaware corporation (the  Company ), entered into a Merger Agreement (the  Merger Agreement ) with Armor Parent Corp., a Delaware corporation ( Parent ), and Armor Merger Sub Corp., a Delaware corporation and wholly owned subsidiary of Parent ( Merger Sub ), providing for the merger of Merger Sub with and into the Company (the  Merger ), with the Company surviving the Merger as a wholly owned subsidiary of Parent. The consummation of the Merger is conditioned upon, among other things, the expiration or termination of any waiting periods applicable to the consummation of the Merger under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (the  HSR Act ).





On September 27, 2016, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission notified the Company that early termination of the waiting period under the HSR Act was granted, effective immediately.





The consummation of the Merger remains subject to adoption of the Merger Agreement by the Companys stockholders and the satisfaction or waiver of the other closing conditions set forth in the Merger Agreement.





Important Additional Information:





A special meeting of the stockholders of the Company will be announced as promptly as practicable to seek stockholder approval in connection with the Merger. The Company expects to file with the SEC a proxy statement and other relevant documents in connection with the Merger. The definitive proxy statement will be sent or given to the stockholders of the Company and will contain important information about the proposed transaction and related matters. INVESTORS OF THE COMPANY ARE URGED TO READ THE DEFINITIVE PROXY STATEMENT AND OTHER RELEVANT MATERIALS CAREFULLY AND IN THEIR ENTIRETY WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMPANY, PARENT, MERGER SUB AND THE MERGER. Investors may obtain a free copy of these materials (when they are available) and other documents filed by the Company with the SEC at the SECs website at www.sec.gov, at the Companys website at www.accuridecorp.com or by sending a written request to the Company at 7140 Office Circle, Evansville, Indiana 47715, Attention: General Counsel and Corporate Secretary.





Participants in the Solicitation:





The Company and its directors, executive officers and certain other members of management and employees may be deemed to be participants in soliciting proxies from its stockholders in connection with the Merger. Information regarding the persons who may, under the rules of the SEC, be considered to be participants in the solicitation of the Companys stockholders in connection with the Merger will be set forth in the Companys definitive proxy statement for its special stockholder meeting. Additional information regarding these individuals and any direct or indirect interests they may have in the Merger will be set forth in the definitive proxy statement when it is filed with the SEC in connection with the Merger. Information relating to the foregoing can also be found in the Companys definitive proxy statement for its 2016 Annual Meeting of Stockholders (the  2016 Proxy Statement ), which was filed with the SEC on March 18, 2016. To the extent that holdings of the Companys securities have changed since the amounts set forth in the 2016 Proxy Statement, such changes have been or will be reflected on Statements of Change in Ownership on Form 4 filed with the SEC.





2

Forward-Looking Statements:





This Current Report on Form 8-K and Exhibit 99.2 hereto contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. securities laws, including Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Exchange Act, including statements regarding the proposed transaction and the ability to consummate the proposed transaction. These forward-looking statements generally include statements that are predictive in nature and depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, and include words such as believes, plans, anticipates, projects, estimates, expects, intends, strategy, future, opportunity, may, will, should, could, potential, or similar expressions. Statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on current beliefs and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. Actual results could differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement as a result of various factors, including, without limitation: (1) the Company may be unable to obtain stockholder approval for the proposed transaction; (2) the conditions to the closing of the proposed transaction may not be satisfied and required regulatory approvals may not be obtained; (3) the proposed transaction may involve unexpected costs, liabilities or delays; (4) the business of the Company may suffer as a result of uncertainty surrounding the proposed transaction; (5) the outcome of any legal proceedings related to the proposed transaction; (6) the Company may be adversely affected by other economic, business, legislative, regulatory and/or competitive factors; (7) the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstances that could give rise to the termination of the Merger Agreement; (8) risks that the proposed transaction disrupts current plans and operations and the potential difficulties in employee retention as a result of the proposed transaction; (9) the failure by Parent or Merger Sub to obtain the necessary debt and equity financing arrangements set forth in the commitment letters received in connection with the proposed transaction; and (10) other risks to consummation of the proposed transaction, including the risk that the proposed transaction will not be consummated within the expected time period or at all. If the proposed transaction is consummated, the Companys stockholders will cease to have any equity interest in the Company and will have no right to participate in its earnings and future growth. The foregoing review of important factors that could cause actual results to differ from expectations should not be construed as exhaustive and should be read in conjunction with statements that are included herein and elsewhere, including the Companys filings with the SEC, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 and recent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K filed with the SEC, which are available on the SECs website at www.sec.gov. Except as required by applicable law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, or to make any other forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. The Company does not intend, and assumes no obligation, to update any forward-looking statements. The Companys filings with the SEC, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, the 2016 Proxy Statement and recent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K filed with the SEC, which are available on the SECs website at www.sec.gov.



3

SIGNATURE





Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized.





ACCURIDE CORPORATION By: /s/ Stephen A. Martin Name: Stephen A. Martin Title: Senior Vice President / General Counsel Dated: September 30, 2016




Filed pursuant to Rule 433 Registration Statement Nos. 333-202913 and 333-180300-03 FINANCIAL PRODUCTS FACT SHEET (K734)

Offering Period: September 29, 2016  October 25, 2016

Digital Buffered Notes due April 30, 2020

Linked to the Performance of the Russell 2000 Index

Product Terms  Digital Buffered Notes due April 30, 2020 linked to the performance of the Russell 2000 Index.  If the Final Level is equal to or greater than the Initial Level or is less than the Initial Level by not more than the Buffer Amount, you will be entitled to an amount equal to the principal amount of the securities you hold multiplied by the sum of one plus the Fixed Payment Percentage.  If the Final Level is less than the Initial Level by more than the Buffer Amount, you will be exposed to any depreciation in the Underlying beyond the Buffer Amount.  Any payment on the securities is subject to our ability to pay our obligations as they become due. Issuer*: Credit Suisse AG (Credit Suisse), acting through its London branch. Trade Date: Expected to be October 26, 2016. Settlement Date: Expected to be October 31, 2016. Underlying: The Russell 2000 Index Fixed Payment Percentage**: Expected to be between 17.50% and 20.50%. Redemption Amount: Principal amount of the securities you hold x (1 + Underlying Return). Underlying Return: If (a) the Final Level is equal to or greater than the Initial Level, or is less than the Initial Level by not more than the Buffer Amount, then: the Fixed Payment Percentage; (b) the Final Level is less than the Initial Level by more than the Buffer Amount, then: [(Final Level  Initial Level) / Initial Level] + Buffer Amount. Buffer Amount: 20% Initial Level: The closing level of the Underlying on the Trade Date. Final Level: The closing level of the Underlying on the Valuation Date. Valuation Date: April 27, 2020 Maturity Date: April 30, 2020 CUSIP: 22548QKA2 Fees: Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and any agent (the Agents) may receive varying discounts and commissions of up to $32.50 per $1,000 principal amount of securities and will forgo fees for sales to fiduciary accounts. The Agents may re-allow some or all of the discount on the principal amount per security on sales of such securities by other brokers or dealers. *As used in this document, references to "we" or "our" are to Credit Suisse AG, as Issuer.

** To be determined on the Trade Date. Certain Product Characteristics  If the Underlying does not depreciate beyond the Buffer Amount, you will be entitled to an amount equal to the principal amount of the securities you hold multiplied by the sum of one plus the Fixed Payment Percentage, which is expected to be between 17.50% and 20.50%**.  Full downside participation in the depreciation of the Underlying from the Initial Level to the Final Level beyond the Buffer Amount.  Buffer Amount of 20%.

Hypothetical Returns at Maturity Percentage Change from the Initial Level to the Final Level Underlying Return (1) Redemption Amount per $1,000 Principal Amount(1)(2) 50.00% 19.00% $1,190.00 40.00% 19.00% $1,190.00 30.00% 19.00% $1,190.00 20.00% 19.00% $1,190.00 10.00% 19.00% $1,190.00 0.00% 19.00% $1,190.00 10.00% 19.00% $1,190.00 20.00% 19.00% $1,190.00 30.00% 10.00% $900.00 40.00% 20.00% $800.00 50.00% 30.00% $700.00 (1) Assumes a Fixed Payment Percentage of 19%** (the midpoint of the expected range). (2) The hypothetical Redemption Amounts set forth above are for illustrative purposes only and may not be the actual returns applicable to you. The numbers appearing in the table have been rounded for ease of analysis. Certain Product Risks  Your investment may result in a loss of up to 80% of the principal amount of the securities you hold. The Redemption Amount will be less than the principal amount of the securities you hold if the Final Level is less than the Initial Level by more than the Buffer Amount. In such case, you will be exposed to any depreciation in the Underlying beyond the Buffer Amount.  The value of the securities and the payment of any amount due on the securities are subject to the credit risk of Credit Suisse.  The securities do not pay interest.  The Underlying Return will not exceed the Fixed Payment Percentage regardless of the appreciation in the level of the Underlying, which may be significant. (See  Additional Risk Considerations  on the next page.)

FINANCIAL PRODUCTS FACT SHEET (K734)

Offering Period: September 29, 2016  October 25, 2016

Digital Buffered Notes due April 30, 2020

Linked to the Performance of the Russell 2000 Index

Additional Risk Considerations

 Prior to maturity, costs such as concessions and hedging may affect the value of the securities.

 Credit Suisse currently estimates that the value of the securities on the Trade Date will be less than the price you pay for the securities, reflecting the deduction of underwriting discounts and commissions and other costs creating and marketing the securities.

 Liquidity  The securities will not be listed on any securities exchange. Credit Suisse (or its affiliates) intends to offer to purchase the securities in the secondary market but is not required to do so. Many factors, most of which are beyond the control of the Issuer, will influence the value of the securities and the price at which the securities may be purchased or sold in the secondary market. For example, the creditworthiness of the Issuer, including actual or anticipated downgrades to the Issuers credit ratings, may be a contributing factor.

 Potential Conflicts  We and our affiliates play a variety of roles in connection with the issuance of the securities including acting as calculation agent and as agent of the Issuer of the securities, hedging our obligations under the securities and determining the estimated value of the securities. The agent for this offering, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (CSSU), is our affiliate. In accordance with FINRA Rule 5121, CSSU may not make sales in this offering to any discretionary accounts without the prior written approval of the customer.

 The securities will be affected by a number of economic, financial, political, regulatory, and judicial factors that may either offset or magnify each other.

 As a holder of the securities, you will not have voting rights or rights to receive cash dividends or other distributions with respect to the equity securities comprising the Underlying.

The risks set forth in the section entitled Certain Product Risks on the preceding page and this section Additional Risk Considerations are only intended as summaries of some of the risks relating to an investment in the securities. Prior to investing in the securities, you should, in particular, review the Certain Product Risks and Additional Risk Considerations sections herein, the Selected Risk Considerations section in the preliminary pricing supplement and the Risk Factors section of the product supplement, which set forth risks related to an investment in the securities.

Additional Information

You may revoke your offer to purchase the securities at any time prior to the time at which we accept such offer on the date the securities are priced. We reserve the right to change the terms of, or reject any offer to purchase the securities prior to their issuance. In the event of any changes to the terms of the securities, we will notify you and you will be asked to accept such changes in connection with your purchase. You may also choose to reject such changes in which case we may reject your offer to purchase.

This document is a summary of the terms of the securities and factors that you should consider before deciding to invest in the securities. Credit Suisse has filed a registration statement (including preliminary pricing supplement, product supplement, underlying supplement, prospectus supplement and prospectus) with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, for the offering to which this offering summary relates. Before you invest, you should read this summary together with the Preliminary Pricing Supplement dated September 29, 2016, Underlying Supplement dated May 4, 2015, Product Supplement No. I dated May 4, 2015, Prospectus Supplement dated May 4, 2015 and Prospectus dated May 4, 2015, to understand fully the terms of the securities and other considerations that are important in making a decision about investing in the securities. If the terms described in the applicable preliminary pricing supplement are inconsistent with those described herein, the terms described in the applicable preliminary pricing supplement will control. You may get these documents without cost by visiting EDGAR on the SEC Web site at www.sec.gov . Alternatively, Credit Suisse, any agent or any dealer participating in this offering will arrange to send you the preliminary pricing supplement, product supplement, underlying supplement, prospectus supplement and prospectus if you so request by calling toll-free 1 (800) 221-1037.

This fact sheet is a general description of the terms of the offering. Please see the full description in the applicable preliminary pricing supplement:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1053092/000095010316016668/dp69063_424b2-k734.htm








UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

SCHEDULE 14A

Proxy Statement Pursuant to Section 14(a) of the Securities

Exchange Act of 1934

Filed by the Registrant x

Filed by a Party other than the Registrant 

Check the appropriate box:

x Preliminary Proxy Statement  Confidential, for Use of the Commission Only (as permitted by Rule 14a-6(e)(2))  Definitive Proxy Statement  Definitive Additional Materials  Soliciting Material Pursuant to 240.14a-12

Alimera Sciences, Inc.

(Name of Registrant as Specified In Its Charter)

(Name of Person(s) Filing Proxy Statement, if other than the Registrant)

Payment of Filing Fee (Check the appropriate box):

x No fee required.  Fee computed on table below per Exchange Act Rules 14a-6(i)(1) and 0-11. (1) Title of each class of securities to which transaction applies: (2) Aggregate number of securities to which transaction applies: (3) Per unit price or other underlying value of transaction computed pursuant to Exchange Act Rule 0-11 (set forth the amount on which the filing fee is calculated and state how it was determined): (4) Proposed maximum aggregate value of transaction: (5) Total fee paid:  Fee paid previously with preliminary materials.  Check box if any part of the fee is offset as provided by Exchange Act Rule 0-11(a)(2) and identify the filing for which the offsetting fee was paid previously. Identify the previous filing by registration statement number, or the Form or Schedule and the date of its filing. (1) Amount Previously Paid: (2) Form, Schedule or Registration Statement No.: (3) Filing Party: (4) Date Filed:























6120 Windward Parkway

Suite 290

Alpharetta, Georgia 30005





SPECIAL MEETING OF STOCKHOLDERS

TO BE HELD NOVEMBER 16, 2016





, 2016





Dear Stockholder:

You are cordially invited to attend a Special Meeting of Stockholders of Alimera Sciences, Inc. (the Company) to be held on Wednesday, November 16, 2016 at 9:00 a.m. local time (the Special Meeting). For your convenience, the Special Meeting will be a completely virtual meeting, which will be conducted via live audio webcast. You will be able to attend the Special Meeting online, vote your shares electronically and submit your questions during the Special Meeting via a live audio webcast by visiting [www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/Alimera]. Be sure to have the control number that appears on the proxy card or voting instructions that you have been provided in order to join the meeting. This proxy is solicited on behalf of the Board of Directors of the Company.

The only matter scheduled to be considered at the Special Meeting is a proposal to amend the Companys Restated Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of common stock, par value $0.01 per share, from 100,000,000 shares to 150,000,000 shares. The Board of Directors recommends the approval of the proposal being presented at the Special Meeting as being in the best interests of the Company and its stockholders.

We will mail our stockholders the proxy materials beginning on or about [ ], 2016.

I hope that you will be able to join us. Your vote is important to us and to our business. I encourage you to vote by telephone, over the Internet, or by marking, signing, dating and returning your proxy card so that your shares will be represented and voted at the Special Meeting, whether or not you plan to attend. If you attend the Special Meeting, you will, of course, have the right to revoke the proxy and vote your shares in person.





Sincerely,





Jeffrey Burris

Secretary of the Company





















6120 Windward Parkway

Suite 290

Alpharetta, Georgia 30005





NOTICE OF A SPECIAL MEETING OF STOCKHOLDERS

TO BE HELD NOVEMBER 16, 2016





, 2016





To the Stockholders of Alimera Sciences, Inc.:

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that a Special Meeting of Stockholders of Alimera Sciences, Inc. (the Company) will be held Wednesday, November 16, 2016 at 9:00 a.m. local time (the Special Meeting), for the following purposes:

1. To approve an amendment to the Companys Restated Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of common stock, par value $0.01 per share, from 100,000,000 shares to 150,000,000 shares; and

2. To transact such other business as may properly come before the Special Meeting or any adjournment or postponement thereof.

For your convenience, the Special Meeting will be a completely virtual meeting, which will be conducted via live audio webcast. You will be able to attend the Special Meeting online, vote your shares electronically and submit your questions during the Special Meeting via a live audio webcast by visiting [www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/Alimera]. Be sure to have the control number that appears on the proxy card or voting instructions that you have been provided in order to join the Special Meeting. The foregoing items of business are more fully described in the Proxy Statement for Special Meeting of Stockholders accompanying this notice. Only stockholders of the Company of record at the close of business on October 13, 2016 are entitled to notice of, and to vote at, the Special Meeting and any adjournment or postponement thereof.

We will make available a list of stockholders ten days prior to the Special Meeting at the Companys executive offices, 6120 Windward Parkway, Suite 290, Alpharetta, Georgia 30005. In addition, during the Special Meeting such list of stockholders will be available for examination at [www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/Alimera].

All stockholders of the Company are cordially invited to attend the Special Meeting via the Internet. However, to ensure your representation at the Special Meeting, you are urged to vote by telephone, over the Internet, or by marking, signing, dating and returning your proxy card. You may revoke your voted proxy at any time prior to the Special Meeting or vote electronically during the Special Meeting.





By order of the Board of Directors,

/s/ Jeffrey Burris

Jeffrey Burris

Secretary of the Company

Alpharetta, Georgia

Date: , 2016

IMPORTANT: WHETHER OR NOT YOU PLAN TO ATTEND THE SPECIAL MEETING, YOU ARE REQUESTED TO VOTE YOUR SHARES AS PROMPTLY AS POSSIBLE. IN ADDITION TO VOTING IN PERSON, STOCKHOLDERS OF RECORD MAY VOTE VIA A TOLL FREE TELEPHONE NUMBER OR OVER THE INTERNET AS INSTRUCTED IN THESE MATERIALS. YOU MAY ALSO VOTE BY MARKING, SIGNING, DATING AND MAILING THE PROXY CARD PROMPTLY IN THE RETURN ENVELOPE PROVIDED. THIS PROXY STATEMENT AND OUR ANNUAL REPORT ARE AVAILABLE TO STOCKHOLDERS AT WWW.PROXYVOTE.COM.























ALIMERA SCIENCES, INC.





PROXY STATEMENT

FOR A SPECIAL MEETING OF STOCKHOLDERS

TO BE HELD ON NOVEMBER 16, 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS























ALIMERA SCIENCES, INC.









PROXY STATEMENT FOR THE SPECIAL MEETING

OF STOCKHOLDERS TO BE HELD ON NOVEMBER 16, 2016





INFORMATION CONCERNING SOLICITATION AND VOTING





General





The Board of Directors (the Board or the Board of Directors) of Alimera Sciences, Inc. (the Company) is soliciting proxies to be voted at the Special Meeting of Stockholders of the Company (the Special Meeting) to be held on Wednesday, November 16, 2016 at 9:00 a.m. local time, for the purposes set forth herein and in the accompanying Notice of Special Meeting of Stockholders of the Company (the Notice). For your convenience, the Special Meeting will be a completely virtual meeting, which will be conducted via live audio webcast. You will be able to attend the Special Meeting online, vote your shares electronically and submit your questions during the Special Meeting via a live audio webcast by visiting [www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/Alimera]. In this proxy, unless the context requires otherwise, references to we, our, or us refer to the Company.





The proxy materials are being distributed and made available on or about [ ], 2016. This proxy statement contains important information for you to consider when deciding how to vote on matters brought before the Special Meeting. Please read it carefully.





Purpose of the Special Meeting





The purpose of the Special Meeting is for the Companys stockholders to consider and vote upon: (i) the proposal to amend (the Amendment) the Companys Restated Certificate of Incorporation (the Certificate of Incorporation) to increase the number of authorized shares of common stock, par value $0.01 per share (Common Stock), from 100,000,000 shares to 150,000,000 shares and (ii) any other business that is related to the approval of the Amendment, including matters incident to the conduct of the Special Meeting, such as any motion for adjournment or postponement. The changes to the Company's Certificate of Incorporation that would be enacted if the Amendment is adopted are set forth in Appendix A to this proxy statement.





Upon receiving stockholder approval, the Amendment will become effective upon the filing of a Certificate of Amendment of the Certificate of Incorporation (the Certificate of Amendment) with the Delaware Secretary of State.





Householding





If you are a beneficial owner, your bank or broker may deliver a single proxy statement, along with individual proxy cards, or individual Notices to any household at which two or more stockholders reside unless contrary instructions have been received from you. This procedure, referred to as householding, reduces the volume of duplicate materials shareholders receive and reduces mailing expenses. Stockholders may revoke their consent to future householding mailings or enroll in householding mailings by submitting your request to the address or phone number that appears on your proxy card.









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Record Date, Outstanding Voting Securities





Only stockholders of record at the close of business on October 13, 2016, the record date for the Special Meeting, will be entitled to vote at the Special Meeting. On the record date, there were [ ] shares of Common Stock and 600,000 shares of the Companys Series A Preferred Stock outstanding. All of these outstanding shares are entitled to vote at the Special Meeting (one vote per share of Common Stock and one vote per share of Common Stock underlying the Series A Preferred Stock on an as-converted basis (based on a deemed conversion price of $2.95 per share resulting in 8,135,593 votes for the Series A Preferred Stock) as of the record date) in connection with the matters set forth in this proxy statement. Additionally, on the record date, 8,416.251 shares of our non-voting Series B Preferred Stock were outstanding but are not entitled to vote on any matters presented at the Special Meeting.





Quorum





A quorum of stockholders is necessary to conduct business at the Special Meeting. Pursuant to our amended and restated bylaws, a quorum will be present if a majority of the voting power of outstanding shares of the Company entitled to vote generally in the election of directors is represented in person or by proxy at the Special Meeting. On the record date, there were [ ] shares of Common Stock outstanding and entitled to vote and 8,135,593 shares of Common Stock underlying the outstanding Series A Preferred Stock (based on a deemed conversion price of $2.95 per share) entitled to vote. Thus, [ ] shares must be represented by stockholders present at the Special Meeting or represented by proxy to have a quorum. The holders of the Common Stock and the Series A Preferred Stock (on an as converted basis based on a deemed conversion price of $2.95 per share) vote together as a single class for the proposals in this proxy statement. Our Series B Preferred Stock is non-voting and is not included for the purposes of the calculations above.





Your shares will be counted towards the quorum only if you submit a valid proxy (or one is submitted on your behalf by your broker, bank or other nominee) or if you attend the Special Meeting virtually and vote at that time. Abstentions and withheld will be counted for the purpose of determining whether a quorum is present for the transaction of business. If a quorum is not present, the chairman of the meeting or holders of a majority of the votes present at the Special Meeting may adjourn the Special Meeting to another date.





Required Vote

Proposal One (as defined below) regarding the Amendment requires the affirmative vote (FOR vote) of a majority of the issued and outstanding shares of Common Stock, so a failure to vote your shares is effectively a vote AGAINST the proposal. You may vote for, against, or abstain on the Amendment. Abstentions from voting will be considered shares present and entitled to vote on the Amendment and, since approval of the Amendment requires a majority of the issued and outstanding shares of Common Stock, will have the same effect as a vote AGAINST the Amendment.





Non-Routine Proposal





Stockholder of Record: Shares Registered in Your Name. If you are the stockholder of record of your shares and you do not vote by proxy card, by telephone, via the Internet electronically during the Special Meeting, your shares will not be voted at the Special Meeting.





Beneficial Owner: Shares Registered in the Name of Broker or Bank. Brokers or other nominees who hold shares of our Common Stock or preferred stock for a beneficial owner have the discretion to vote on routine proposals when they have not received voting instructions from the beneficial owner at least ten days prior to the Special Meeting. A broker non-vote occurs when a broker or other nominee does not receive voting instructions from the beneficial owner and does not have the discretion to direct the voting of the shares. Under the rules that govern brokers who are voting shares held in street name, brokers have the discretion to vote those shares on routine matters but not on non-routine matters. Proposal





2









One is a non-routine matter. As such, your broker does not have discretion to vote your shares on Proposal One. We encourage you to provide instructions to your bank or brokerage firm by voting your proxy. This action ensures your shares will be voted at the Special Meeting in accordance with your wishes.

No stockholder shall be entitled to cumulate votes. Broadridge Corporate Issuer Solutions, Inc. (Broadridge) will receive and tabulate the proxies.

Board of Directors Recommendation

The Board of Directors recommends a vote FOR the proposal to amend the Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of Common Stock from 100,000,000 shares to 150,000,000 shares (Proposal One).

How to Vote

If your shares are registered directly in your name with the Companys registrar and transfer agent, American Stock Transfer & Trust Company, you are considered a stockholder of record with respect to those shares and the Notice was sent to you directly by the Company. As the stockholder of record, you have the right to grant your voting proxy directly to the Company or to vote electronically during the Special Meeting.

If your shares are held in a brokerage account, bank, broker-dealer, trust or similar organization, you are considered the beneficial owner of those shares held in street name and the Notice was forwarded to you by that organization. As the beneficial owner, you have the right to direct your broker or other intermediary how to vote your shares and you are also invited to attend the Special Meeting.

Your vote is very important to us and we hope that you will attend the Special Meeting. However, whether or not you plan to attend the Special Meeting, please vote by proxy in accordance with the instructions on your proxy card or voting instruction form (from your broker or other intermediary). There are three convenient ways of submitting your vote:

 By Internet  If you have Internet access, you may submit your proxy by going to www.proxyvote.com and by following the instructions on how to complete an electronic proxy card. You will need the 16-digit control number included on your proxy card in order to vote by Internet.





 By Telephone  If you have access to a touch-tone telephone, you may submit your proxy by dialing the toll-free telephone number noted on your proxy card and by following the recorded instructions. You will need the 16-digit control number included on your proxy card in order to vote by telephone.





 By Mail  You may vote by mail by requesting a proxy card from us, indicating your vote by completing, signing and dating the card where indicated and by mailing or otherwise returning the card in the envelope that will be provided to you. You should sign your name exactly as it appears on the proxy card. If you are signing in a representative capacity (for example, as guardian, executor, trustee, custodian, attorney or officer of a corporation), indicate your name and title or capacity.

Revocability of Proxies

If you are a stockholder of record, you may revoke your proxy and change your vote at any time before the Special Meeting by: (i) delivering a written notice of revocation to our Secretary at our principal executive offices; (ii) voting again over the Internet or by telephone (only your latest Internet or telephone proxy submitted prior to the Special Meeting will be counted) or, if you requested and received written proxy materials, by signing and returning a new proxy card with a later date; or (iii) by attending the Special Meeting and voting electronically during the virtual Special Meeting.





3









If you are a beneficial owner, you may revoke your proxy and change your vote at any time before the Special Meeting by: (i) submitting new voting instructions to your broker or other intermediary; or (ii) if you have obtained a legal proxy from your broker or other intermediary, by attending the Special Meeting and voting electronically during the Special Meeting.





Solicitation

The cost of soliciting proxies will be borne by the Company. The Company will reimburse brokerage firms and other persons representing beneficial owners of shares for their expenses in forwarding solicitation material to such beneficial owners. In addition to solicitation by use of the mail or via the Internet, proxies may also be solicited by certain of the Companys directors, officers and regular employees, without additional compensation, personally or by telephone, facsimile or letter.





4









MATTER TO BE CONSIDERED AT THE SPECIAL MEETING

PROPOSAL ONE





APPROVAL OF AMENDMENT TO CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION TO INCREASE AUTHORIZED SHARES OF COMMON STOCK





The Board of Directors recommends that stockholders of the Company approve an amendment to Article IV of the Companys Certificate of Incorporation to increase the Companys authorized Common Stock from 100,000,000 to 150,000,000 shares. As of October 13, 2016, there were [ ] shares of Common Stock issued and outstanding, no shares held as treasury stock, and an aggregate of [ ] shares reserved for issuance under our existing equity compensation plans. As of October 13, 2016, approximately [ ] shares remain available that could be authorized for future issuance.





The reason for the Amendment is to permit the Company to issue additional shares of Common Stock, or securities convertible into or exercisable for Common Stock, for general corporate purposes such as facilitating future stock splits or stock dividends, financings, compensation plans, business acquisitions, issuing warrants to lenders in connection with any refinancing of existing credit facilities or any new credit facility that the Company may obtain in the future and such other purposes as the Board may approve from time to time. For example, additional shares must be authorized in order to continue to provide for the automatic annual increase in the aggregate number of shares of Common Stock issuable under the Companys 2010 Equity Incentive Plan. Unless required by applicable law or stock exchange rules, no further vote of the stockholders will be required.





The additional shares of Common Stock for which authorization is sought would be identical to the shares of Common Stock the Company now has authorized. Holders of Common Stock do not have preemptive rights to subscribe to additional securities which may be issued by the Company.





The Board of Directors has not proposed the increase in the amount of authorized shares with the intention of discouraging tender offers or takeover attempts of the Company. However, the availability of additional authorized shares for issuance may have the effect of discouraging a merger, tender offer, proxy contest or other attempt to obtain control of the Company.





If the Amendment is approved by the stockholders at the Special Meeting, the Certificate of Amendment will be filed with the Secretary of State of the State of Delaware to effect the Amendment as soon as practicable after the Special Meeting. The form of the Certificate of Amendment that would be enacted if the Amendment is adopted is set forth in Appendix A to this proxy statement.





Approval of the Amendment to increase the number of authorized shares of the Common Stock to 150,000,000 shares requires the affirmative vote of a majority of the outstanding shares of Common Stock entitled to vote thereon. If a stockholder abstains from voting or directs the stockholders proxy to abstain from voting, such shares are considered present at the Special Meeting for purposes of the Amendment, but, because they are not affirmative votes for the proposal, they will have the same effect as votes against the proposal.





Under the Delaware General Corporation Law, our stockholders are not entitled to appraisal rights with respect to the Amendment.





THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS BELIEVES THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT IS IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE COMPANY AND ITS STOCKHOLDERS AND RECOMMENDS THAT THE STOCKHOLDERS VOTE FOR THE AMENDMENT TO THE CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION.









5









SECURITY OWNERSHIP OF CERTAIN BENEFICIAL OWNERS AND MANAGEMENT

The following table provides information concerning beneficial ownership of our Common Stock and preferred stock as of September 27, 2016, by:

 each stockholder, or group of affiliated stockholders, known to us to beneficially own more than 5% of our outstanding Common Stock and preferred stock;

 each of our named executive officers;

 each of our directors; and

 all of our current executive officers and directors as a group.

The table below is based upon information supplied by directors, executive officers and principal stockholders and Schedule 13Gs and 13Ds filed with the SEC through September 27, 2016.

The percentage ownership is based upon 64,659,253 shares of Common Stock outstanding as of September 27, 2016.

The column in the table below entitled Number of Shares of Common Stock Beneficially Owned includes (a) shares of Common Stock subject to options or warrants to purchase Common Stock that are currently exercisable or exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016 and (b) shares of Common Stock issuable upon conversion of shares of Series A Preferred Stock and directly or indirectly issuable upon exercise of warrants to purchase shares of Series A Preferred Stock. The column in the table below entitled Percentage of Shares of Common Stock Beneficially Owned deems the shares of Common Stock set forth in clauses (a)  (b) of the prior sentence to be outstanding and to be beneficially owned by the person holding the options, Common Stock warrants, Series A Preferred Stock or Series A Preferred Stock warrants for the purpose of computing the percentage ownership of the holder thereof, but such securities are not treated as outstanding for the purpose of computing the percentage ownership of any other person. Our Series B Preferred Stock is non-voting and is not included for the purposes of the calculations above.

The column in the table below entitled Number of Shares of Series A Preferred Stock Beneficially Owned includes (1) shares of Series A Preferred Stock outstanding as of September 27, 2016 and (2) shares of Series A Preferred Stock issuable upon exercise of warrants to purchase shares of Series A Preferred Stock exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016. The column in the table below entitled Percentage of Shares of Series A Preferred Stock Beneficially Owned deems the shares of Series A Preferred Stock issuable upon warrants held by the holder thereof to be outstanding for the purpose of computing such holders percentage ownership, but such securities are not treated as outstanding for the purpose of computing the percentage ownership of any other person.

Pursuant to the terms of the Series A Preferred Stock, the Series A Preferred Stock votes together at the Special Meeting with Common Stock on an as converted basis based on a deemed conversion price of $2.95. As such, the columns in the table below entitled Number of Voting Shares Owned and Percentage of Voting Shares Owned include outstanding shares of Common Stock as of September 27, 2016 and shares of Common Stock issuable upon conversion of shares of Series A Preferred Stock assuming a deemed conversion price of $2.95.





6









Name and Address of Beneficial Owner(1) Number of Shares Beneficially Owned Percentage of Shares Beneficially Owned Number of Shares of Series A Preferred Stock Percentage of Shares of Series A Preferred Stock Beneficially Owned Number of Voting Shares Owned Percentage of Voting Shares Owned 5% Stockholders (other than our executive officers and directors) Palo Alto Investors, LLC 470 University Avenue Palo Alto, California 94301 14,743,433 (2) 19.3% 780,000 (22) 100.0% 11,149,703 15.3% Intersouth Partners 102 City Hall Plaza Suite 200 Durham, North Carolina 27701 4,877,480 (3) 7.5%   4,877,480 6.7% BAVP, LP 950 Tower Lane, Suite 700 Foster City, California 94404 3,998,718 (4) 6.2%   3,998,718 5.5% Domain Associates, L.L.C. One Palmer Square Princeton, New Jersey 08542 3,625,838 (5) 5.6%   3,625,838 5.0% Great Point Partners, LLC 165 Mason Street, 3rd Floor Greenwich, CT 06830 3,245,000 (6) 5.0%   2,287,218 4.5% Deerfield Management Company, L.P. 780 Third Avenue, 37 th Floor New York, NY 10017 14,294,266 (7) 19.6%   5,878,015 8.1% North Run Capital, LP One International Place Boston, MA 02110 3,500,000 (8) 5.4%   3,500,000 4.8%

Directors and Named Executive Officers



Philip Ashman, Ph.D. 418,230 (9) *    * Glen Bradley, Ph.D. 118,380 (10) *   10,047 * Mark J. Brooks 103,333 (11) *    * Richard S. Eiswirth 1,137,956 (12) 1.7%   34,974 * Kenneth Green, Ph.D. 923,240 (13) 1.4%   92,353 * Brian K. Halak, Ph.D. 3,730,863 (14) 5.8%   3,627,530 5.8% David Holland 658,594 (15) 1.0%   106,418 * Garheng Kong, Ph.D. 88,333 (16) *    * James R. Largent 108,333 (17) *    * C. Daniel Myers 2,056,233 (18) 3.1%   89,984 * Peter J. Pizzo, III 123,333 (19) *   7,500 * Calvin W. Roberts, M.D. 425,944 (20) *   342,611 * All current directors and executive officers as a group (12 persons) 9,892,772 (21) 14.1%   4,311,417 5.9%





* Represents beneficial ownership of less than one percent of our outstanding Common Stock.





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(1) Unless otherwise indicated, the address for each beneficial owner is c/o Alimera Sciences, Inc., 6120 Windward Parkway, Suite 290, Alpharetta, Georgia 30005.

(2) Represents 129,011 shares of Common Stock and an aggregate of 420,301 shares of Common Stock issuable upon conversion, and exercise, as applicable, of Series A Preferred Stock and a warrant to purchase Series A Preferred Stock held by Palo Alto Investors, LLC (PAI LLC), as an investment advisor and general partner of other funds; 1,216,685 shares of Common Stock and an aggregate of 6,789,323 shares of Common Stock issuable upon conversion and exercise, as applicable, of Series A Preferred Stock and a warrant to purchase Series A Preferred Stock held by Palo Alto Healthcare Master Fund, L.P. (Healthcare Master); 1,668,414 shares of Common Stock and an aggregate of 4,519,699 shares of Common Stock issuable upon conversion and exercise, as applicable, of Series A Preferred Stock and a warrant to purchase Series A Preferred Stock held by Palo Alto Healthcare Master Fund II, L.P. (Healthcare Master II). Palo Alto Healthcare Fund, L.P. (Healthcare) and Palo Alto Healthcare II, L.P. (Healthcare II) hold shares of Common Stock indirectly through Healthcare Master and Healthcare Master II. Dr. Patrick Lee and Dr. Anthony Joonkyoo Yun co-manage PAI LLC. PAI LLC, Healthcare Master, Healthcare Master II, Healthcare, Healthcare II, Dr. Lee and Dr. Yun (collectively the PAI Investors) filed a Schedule 13G jointly, but not as members of a group, and each of them expressly disclaims membership in a group. Each of the PAI Investors disclaims beneficial ownership, except to the extent of that PAI Investors pecuniary interest therein. In addition, Healthcare Master, Healthcare Master II, Healthcare and Healthcare II should not be construed as an admission that any of them is, and each disclaims that it is, a beneficial owner of any of Common Stock, Series A Preferred Stock or a warrant to purchase Series A Preferred Stock.

(3) Represents 73,590 shares held by Intersouth Affiliates V, L.P.; 1,605,743 shares of Common Stock held by Intersouth Partners V, L.P.; 2,053,381 shares of Common Stock held by Intersouth Partners VI, L.P.; and 1,144,766 shares of Common Stock held by Intersouth Partners VII, L.P.

(4) The general partner of BAVP, LP is Scale Venture Management 1, LLC (SVM I). Mark J. Brooks, a member of our Board of Directors, is a member of SVM I; however, voting and investment power with respect to these shares of Common Stock is shared only by the managing members of SVM 1, Kate Mitchell and Rory ODriscoll. Ms. Mitchell and Mr. ODriscoll disclaim beneficial ownership with respect to the shares of Common Stock held by BAVP, LP, except to the extent of their respective pecuniary interest therein, if any. Mr. Brooks is also a member of Scale Venture Management I-A, LLC, which serves as the management company for BAVP, LP and SVM I; however, SVM I maintains the ultimate responsibility for the voting and investment power with respect to these shares of Common Stock.

(5) Represents 3,590,931 shares of Common Stock held by Domain Partners VI, L.P. and 34,907 shares of Common Stock held by DP VI Associates, L.P. The managing members of One Palmer Square Associates VI, L.L.C., the general partner of Domain Partners VI, L.P. and DP VI Associates, L.P., share voting and investment power with respect to these shares of Common Stock. Brian Halak, Ph.D., a member of our Board, is a member of One Palmer Square Associates VI, LLC, but has no voting or investment power and disclaims beneficial ownership of these shares of Common Stock, except to the extent of his pecuniary interest therein.

(6) Biomedical Value Fund, L.P. (BVF) is the record owner of 821,191 shares of Common Stock (the BVF Shares). Great Point Partners, LLC (Great Point) is the investment manager of BVF, and by virtue of such status may be deemed to be the beneficial owner of the BVF Shares. Each of Dr. Jeffrey R. Jay, M.D. (Dr. Jay), as senior managing member of Great Point, and Mr. David Kroin (Mr. Kroin), as special managing member of Great Point, has voting and investment power with respect to the BVF Shares, and therefore may be deemed to be the beneficial owner of the BVF Shares. Biomedical Offshore Value Fund, Ltd. (BOVF) is the record owner of 1,183,568 shares of Common Stock (the BOVF Shares). Great Point is the investment manager of BOVF, and by virtue of such status may be deemed to be the beneficial owner of the BOVF Shares. Each of Dr. Jay, as senior managing member of Great Point, and Mr. Kroin, as special managing member of Great Point, has voting and investment power with respect to the BOVF Shares, and therefore may be deemed to be the beneficial owner of the BOVF Shares. Class D Series of GEF-PS, LP (GEF-PS) is the record owner of 322,610 shares of Common





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Stock (the GEF-PS Shares). Great Point is the investment manager of GEF-PS, and by virtue of such status may be deemed to be the beneficial owner of the GEF-PS Shares. Each of Dr. Jay, as senior managing member of Great Point, and Mr. Kroin, as special managing member of Great Point, has voting and investment power with respect to the GEF-PS Shares, and therefore may be deemed to be the beneficial owner of the GEF-PS Shares. GEF-SMA, LP (GEF-SMA) is the record owner of 917,631 shares of Common Stock (the GEF-SMA Shares). Great Point is the investment manager of GEF-SMA, and by virtue of such status may be deemed to be the beneficial owner of the GEF-SMA Shares. Each of Dr. Jay, as senior managing member of Great Point, and Mr. Kroin, as special managing member of Great Point, has voting and investment power with respect to the GEF-SMA Shares, and therefore may be deemed to be the beneficial owner of the GEF-SMA Shares. Notwithstanding the above, Great Point, Dr. Jay and Mr. Kroin disclaim beneficial ownership of the BVF Shares, the BOVF Shares, the GEF-PS Shares and the GEF-SMA Shares described above, except to the extent of their respective pecuniary interests.

(7) Represents an aggregate of 5,878,015 shares of Common Stock, 8,416.251 shares of Series B Convertible Preferred Stock convertible into 8,416,251 shares of Common Stock held by Deerfield Special Situations Fund, L.P., Deerfield Special Situations Fund International Limited, Deerfield Private Design Fund II, L.P., Deerfield Private Design International II, L.P. and Deerfield Private Design Fund III, L.P., of which Deerfield Management Company, L.P. is the investment advisor. The provisions of the Series B Preferred Stock beneficially owned by the reporting person restrict the conversion of such securities to the extent that, upon such conversion, the number of shares of Common Stock then beneficially owned by the holder and its affiliates and any other person or entities with which such holder would constitute a Section 13(d) group would exceed 9.98% of the total number of shares of Common Stock of the Issuer then outstanding (the Ownership Cap). Accordingly, notwithstanding the number of shares of Common Stock reported, the reporting person disclaims beneficial ownership of the shares of Common Stock issuable upon conversion of such preferred stock to the extent beneficial ownership of such shares would cause all reporting persons hereunder, in the aggregate, to exceed the Ownership Cap.

(8) Represents 3,500,000 shares of Common Stock held by North Run Advisors, LP. Todd B. Hammer and Thomas B. Ellis are the principals and sole members of North Run Advisors, LLC and North Run Advisors LLC is the general partner of North Run Advisors, LP.

(9) Includes 418,230 shares of Common Stock issuable upon exercise of options exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016. Excludes 231,770 shares of Common Stock subject to options that are not exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016.

(10) Includes 108,333 shares of Common Stock issuable upon exercise of options exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016. Excludes 11,667 shares of Common Stock subject to options that are not exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016.

(11) Includes 103,333 shares of Common Stock issuable upon exercise of options exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016. Mr. Brooks is a member of Scale Venture Management 1, LLC, the general partner of BAVP, LP. Mr. Brooks is deemed to hold the options for the benefit of Scale Management, LLC and disclaims beneficial ownership of these shares of Common Stock, except to the extent of his pecuniary interest therein, if any. Excludes 11,667 shares of Common Stock subject to options that are not exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016.

(12) Includes 1,102,982 shares of Common Stock issuable upon exercise of options exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016. Excludes 470,906 shares of Common Stock subject to options that are not exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016.

(13) Includes 830,887 shares of Common Stock issuable upon exercise of options exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016. Excludes 321,989 shares of Common Stock subject to options that are not exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016.





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(14) Dr. Halak is affiliated with Domain Associates L.L.C. Dr. Halak disclaims beneficial ownership of the shares of Common Stock held by the entities affiliated with Domain Associates referenced in footnote (5) above, except to the extent of his pecuniary interest therein. Includes 1,692 shares of Common Stock owned directly by Dr. Halak. Includes 103,333 shares of Common Stock issuable upon exercise of options exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016. Excludes 11,667 shares of Common Stock subject to options that are not exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016.

(15) Includes 552,176 shares of Common Stock issuable upon exercise of options exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016. Excludes 212,771 shares of Common Stock subject to options that are not exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016.

(16) Includes 88,833 shares of Common Stock issuable upon exercise of options exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016. Excludes 11,667 shares of Common Stock subject to options that are not exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016.

(17) Includes 108,333 shares of Common Stock issuable upon exercise of options exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016. Excludes 11,667 shares of Common Stock subject to options that are not exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016.

(18) Includes 1,966,249 shares of Common Stock issuable upon exercise of options exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016. Excludes 747,230 shares of Common Stock subject to options that are not exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016.

(19) Includes 115,833 shares of Common Stock issuable upon exercise of options exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016. Excludes 11,667 shares of Common Stock subject to options that are not exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016.

(20) Includes 83,333 shares of Common Stock issuable upon exercise of options exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016, 40,587 shares of Common Stock held by Calvin W. Roberts MD PC Pension Plan, 6,389 shares of Common Stock held by Calvin W. Roberts IRA. Includes 295,435 shares of Common Stock held in a number of trusts with indirect ownership and 200 shares of Common Stock held by the spouse of Dr. Roberts in the Andrea C. Roberts IRA. Dr. Roberts disclaims beneficial ownership of the shares of Common Stock held in trust. Excludes 11,667 shares of Common Stock subject to options that are not exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016.

(21) Includes 5,581,355 shares of Common Stock issuable upon exercise of options exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016, 40,587 shares of Common Stock held by Calvin W. Roberts MD PC Pension Plan, 6,389 shares of Common Stock held by Calvin W. Roberts IRA, 295,435 shares of Common Stock held in a number of trusts with indirect ownership and 200 shares of Common Stock held by the spouse of Dr. Roberts in the Andrea C. Roberts IRA and 144,764 shares of Common Stock held in joint tenancy by an executive and his spouse. Dr. Roberts disclaims beneficial ownership of the shares of Common Stock held in trust. Excludes 2,066,335 shares of Common Stock subject to options that are not exercisable within 60 days of September 27, 2016.

(22) Includes 21,500 shares of Series A Preferred Stock and a warrant to purchase 6,450 shares of Series A Preferred Stock held by PAI LLC, 231,200 shares of Series A Preferred Stock and a warrant to purchase 69,360 shares of Series A Preferred Stock held by Healthcare Master; and 347,300 shares of Series A Preferred Stock and a warrant to purchase 104,190 shares of Series A Preferred Stock held by Master II. For further information regarding PAI Investors, see footnote (2) above.









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INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE

The SEC allows us to incorporate by reference the information we file with it, which means that we can disclose information to you by referring you to those documents. The information incorporated by reference is deemed to be part of this proxy statement, except for any information that is superseded or modified by information contained directly in this proxy statement or in any other subsequently filed document that is also incorporated by reference herein. This proxy statement incorporates by reference the information set forth in the Companys Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, which the Company filed with the SEC on March 15, 2016 and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2016, which the Company filed with the SEC on August 5, 2016.





OTHER MATTERS

As of the time of preparation of this proxy statement, neither the Board nor management intends to being before the meeting any business other than the matters referred to in the Notice of Special Meeting and this proxy statement. If any other business should properly come before the meeting, or any adjournment thereof, the persons named in the proxy will vote on such matters according to their best judgment.









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CONTACT FOR QUESTIONS AND ASSISTANCE WITH VOTING

If you have any questions or require any assistance with voting your shares or need additional copies of this proxy statement or voting materials, please contact:

Investor Relations

Alimera Sciences, Inc.

6120 Windward Parkway,

Suite 290

Alpharetta, Georgia 30005



or

Call CG Capital

(877) 889-1972

It is important that your shares are represented at the Special Meeting. Whether or not you plan to attend the Special Meeting, please vote by using the Internet or by telephone or, if you received a paper copy of the proxy card by mail, by signing and returning the enclosed proxy card, so your shares will be represented at the Special Meeting.

The form of proxy and this proxy statement have been approved by the Board of Directors and are being mailed or delivered to stockholders by its authority.

The Board of Directors of Alimera Sciences, Inc.

Alpharetta, Georgia

[ ], 2016









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APPENDIX A





CERTIFICATE OF AMENDMENT TO THE

RESTATED CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION OF

ALIMERA SCIENCES, INC.





Alimera Sciences, Inc., a corporation organized and existing under and by virtue of the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware (the Corporation),

DOES HEREBY CERTIFY:

FIRST : The name of the Corporation is Alimera Sciences, Inc.

SECOND : The date on which the Certificate of Incorporation of the Corporation was originally filed with the Secretary of State of the State of Delaware is June 4, 2003, under the name of Alimera Sciences, Inc.

THIRD : That the Board of Directors of the Corporation duly adopted a resolution setting forth a proposed amendment to the Restated Certificate of Incorporation of the Corporation (the Restated Certificate), declaring said amendment to be advisable and in the best interests of the Corporation and its stockholders, and authorized the appropriate officers of the Corporation to solicit the approval of the stockholders therefor, which resolution setting forth the proposed amendment and restatement is as follows:

RESOLVED , that the first paragraph of Article IV of the Restated Certificate be amended and restated to read in its entirety as follows:

The Corporation is authorized to issue two classes of stock to be designated common stock (Common Stock) and preferred stock (Preferred Stock). The number of shares of Common Stock authorized to be issued is one hundred fifty million (150,000,000) par value $0.01 per share, and the number of shares of Preferred Stock authorized to be issued is ten million (10,000,000), par value $0.01 per share.

FOURTH : That thereafter said amendment was duly adopted in accordance with the provisions of Section 242 of the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware by written consent of the stockholders holding the requisite number of shares required by statute given in accordance with and pursuant to Section 228 of the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware.

* * * * *

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, this Corporation has caused this Certificate of Amendment to the Certificate of Incorporation to be signed by its President and Chief Financial Officer this ____ day of ___________ 2016.

Richard S. Eiswirth, Jr.

President and Chief Financial Officer








The woman who died in Thursday's Hoboken train crash had just dropped her 1-year-old daughter off at day care and was reportedly on her way to Manhattan to search for a new apartment when she was killed in the station.

Officials confirmed that Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, was (so far) the sole fatality resulting from yesterday's devastating crash, which injured over 100 others and caused extensive damage to the Hoboken New Jersey transit station after a train failed to stop and allegedly "flew through the air" before careening into the station during the busy morning commute.

De Kroon's mother, Sueli Bittar, described her as "very, very happy" in an interview with the Times, telling the paper she had worked as a lawyer and was married to a Dutch man. The couple had moved to New Jersey earlier this year.

De Kroon had worked in Brazil at the legal department of SAP, a software company, before relocating to the U.S. "She was dropping off the daughter," daycare director Carlos Magner told NBC. "We had a good talk for like a minute. And she said she was in a rush."

As the train barreled into the Hoboken station, part of the ceiling was knocked loose and fatally struck de Kroon where she had been standing, according to the NY Post.

The train engineer involved in the crash that killed de Kroon has been identified as 48-year-old Thomas Gallagher of Morris Plains, N.J. At a press conference yesterday, Governor Chris Christie noted that Gallagher had been cooperative with crash investigators, and NBC NY noted there was no record of him having prior medical problems, criminal history, or other infractions.

"We were thrown off our feet. The train just didnt stop," one commuter who had been on the train told the Times. "It just kept going and going and going."

Grieving friends of de Kroon remembered her as a happy mother with high hopes for her family's future. She and her husband married several years ago and they spent a long time fostering a beautiful relationship, a former classmate of de Kroon's told the Daily News. They recently made the decision to have a child and I know that was really big for them. When the baby arrived it was hugely important to Fabiola." De Kroon's family is currently making plans to have her body returned to Brazil in preparation for her funeral.
The homelessness rate in New York City reached a new record this month. On Wednesday, September 28th, 59,948 adults and children slept in city shelters. The official count is expected to hit 60,000 in a matter of days, up from 51,470 in January 2014, when Mayor de Blasio took office. And that's excluding specialized services for veterans, and drop-in centers like the one recently pitched for Bedford Avenue in Bed-Stuytaking these beds into account, the advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless tacked the count at 60,456 back in July.

Then there's the slippery street-homeless count. The city estimates north of 2,500 individuals, while Coalition for the Homeless maintains that "there is no reliable measurement."

Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Steven Banks did his best on Thursday to put a positive spin on New York City's homelessness crisis, making the case that, if not for Mayor de Blasio's homelessness prevention policies, the situation would be even more dire.

"This is the high point," Banks told reporters. "But it's the lower point than what we were projecting."

"7,000 FEWER NEW YORKERS IN SHELTER THAN PROJECTED," blares a press release from DHS, which goes on to detail the measures this administration has taken to combat what New York City renters are up against: a housing crisis, stagnant wages, and the void left behind when Governor Andrew Cuomo and former mayor Michael Bloomberg eliminated the Advantage rental assistance program in 2011 (according to the city, the homelessness count spiked more than 5,000 per year between 2011 and 2014).

For one, Mayor de Blasio has pledged to phase out cluster site housinga Bloomberg legacy that resulted in homeless families being placed in sordid apartments at high cost to the cityby the end of 2018. His administration has also allocated $1 billion for preventative services like emergency rental assistance, free legal help for tenants facing eviction, and a rental voucher to replace Advantage.

But cluster sites still have a significant footprint in NYC. According to the city, they currently house 11,400 adults and children. In an effort to cut back, DHS argued this week, the city has had no choice but to implement a "stop-gap"rent out commercial hotel rooms as temporary shelter. Hotel shelters, not unlike cluster sites, have a reputation for inadequate services and poor security. After a triple stabbing murder at a hotel shelter on Staten Island last winter, Mayor de Blasio pledged to phase them out.

"We intend to use hotels less and less, and, as quickly as possible, stop using them," he said at the time. "However, we may have to use them going forward when there is a need."



DHS says that more shelters are necessary as the homelessness count in NYC continues to increase (Scott Heins / Gothamist)

The de Blasio administration has also faced opposition as it attempts to open brand new shelters across the city. In Maspeth, Queens, residents have accused DHS of mismanaging a crisis, diminishing their quality of life and endangering their families in the process. DHS has countered that it needs the capacity, and that neighborhood shelters have the benefit of keeping homeless families close to their last known addresses.

"The City is opening new shelters across the City to ensure that families and individuals can maintain the community connections that will help them leave shelter as soon as possible," Commissioner Banks said in a statement this week.

But advocates say that the de Blasio and Cuomo administrations need to do more on the affordable housing front if the city hopes to see any marked dip in the homelessness count. Despite laws prohibiting landlord discrimination against rental voucher holders, for example, that practice is still rampant.

And while Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio agreed late last year to build 35,000 units of supportive housing over the next 15 yearsdoubling the current amountonly $150 million in starter funding of the governor's $2 billion commitment had been lined up by the end of this year's legislative session. (A spokeswoman for the Governor's office stressed that the ball is in the legislature's court. Nonetheless, NYC advocates awaiting returns on promised state fundingsound familiar?)

"The response must match the scale of need," said Coalition for the Homeless Policy Director Giselle Routhier in a statement. "Albany needs to immediately finalize and implement its $2 billion housing plan, and the City must use a greater share of public housing and HPD resources for homeless households."

The advocacy group Picture the Homeless conducted a count of vacant properties in 20 NYC neighborhoods in 2011, and estimated that the buildings they found could house 199,981 people. While the city doesn't currently maintain a registry of vacant city properties, a collection of bills known as the Housing, Not Warehousing Act was discussed in a public hearing earlier this month. The next step, advocates say, could be passing those properties to nonprofit developers committed to building housing that low-income New Yorkers can afford.

A report last fall from the Independent Budget Office estimated the price tag for shelter services for 2015 at $976 million, up from $604 million in 2007a 62% increase.

"There's no magic bullet here," John Krinsky, a professor of political science at City College, told us earlier this year. "But with some of the money we spend on homeless shelters, if we use that to subsidize some housing that would be permanently affordable, that could not be speculated on but would remain a permanent part of NYC's affordable housing stock, that would be money much better spent."

[Update 5:00]: The Department of Housing Preservation and Development issued the following statement in regards to the potential of NYC's vacant buildings:
The Manhattan mother of a 5-year-old boy who was mistakenly put on the wrong international flight by himself has rejected a $10,000 "gift" offer from JetBlue and is instead suing their airline for negligence. In a lawsuit filed today, Maribel Martinez is seeking unspecified damages after her son Andy was placed on the wrong flight leaving the Dominican Republic and ended up at Boston's Logan Airport when he was supposed to arrive at JFK.

"I thought he was kidnapped," Martinez, 38, told the Daily News earlier this month. "I thought I would never see him again." After it became clear that Andy was not on his intended flight, a panicked Martinez alerted JetBlue staff, demanding to know where her son had gone. The airline's staff then reportedly presented her with a different young boy who was carrying her son's passport. The child was a stranger to Martinez.

In her lawsuit, Martinez describes her experience as one of emotional distress, extreme fear, horror, mental shock, mental anguish and psychological trauma."

It took three hours until the mix-up was solvedMartinez's son and the other young boy were mistaken for one another at Cibao Airport in Santiago, and Andy was ultimately found safe in Boston. Following the incident, JetBlue launched an internal investigation into how the mistake took place at the request of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Attorney Sanford Rubenstein, who is representing Martinez, told the News his client's lawsuit was filed out of a lack of faith of the company's own self-inquiry and aims to shine a light on what occurred to prevent it from happening again."

"Any parent can understand the terrifying fear a mother goes through knowing that her child is missing," Rubenstein told the tabloid in a previous interview. "This never should have happened and the JetBlue employees should be ashamed of themselves."

When asked about the incident, a spokesperson for JetBlue told Gothamist the company does not comment on pending litigation.
29-year-old Kryzie King pleaded guilty yesterday to abusing and murdering 4-year-old Myls Dobson in 2014. The toddler had been left in her care by his father; when he was taken to St. Luke's Hospital after King found him unresponsive on January 8th, he was "burned, bruised, emaciated, and severely dehydrated."

Myls was left in King's care at her Midtown apartment from December 17th until his death. During that period, King admitted to binding his hands and feet, whipping him with belts and electrical cords, locking him half-naked on her outside patio in subfreezing weather, and burning him on a toaster oven rack. In 2014, investigators also found King starved the child, reportedly giving him a last "Christmas meal" on December 16th. Myls apparently lost 14 pounds in the few weeks he lived with King.

The Post reports that prosecutors revealed King waited a full day before calling 911 after beating the child to death. She had Myls Dobson in her apartment dead for at least 24 hours before notifying the authorities, Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg said in court yesterday.

Myls had reportedly suffered a lifetime of abuse. His mother, Ashlee Dobson, was arrested and charged with child abuse in 2011, after his grandmother brought him into a local medical center to treat bruises on his head and body. Dobson lost custody of Myls, who was given over to his father, Okee Wade. Wade had apparently been in a relationship with King; he left Myls in King's care to briefly go out of town, but was arrested on December 18th in New Jersey on an outstanding warrant for bank fraud.

Myls's death highlighted policy holes on the part of the Administration for Childrens Services, whose lack of oversight may have contributed to the tragedy. The agency was unaware that Myls's father, Okee Wade, was incarcerated from September 2012 to February 2013, and though they visited Myls on nine separate occasions once he was in Wade's care, he was "doing well in the care of the woman Mr. Wade was dating at the time, who reported to ACS that Mr. Wade was at work," according to a 2014 report from ACS. "Should we have done something differently? Yes, we should have," ACS commissioner Gladys Carrion told reporters at the time.

King pleaded guilty to charges of murder in the second degree, assault in the first degree, attempted assault in the first degree, and assault in the second degree. She is expected to be sentenced on October 21st; by agreeing to a judge's deal and pleading guilty, the Post reports that she faces 22 years to life, instead of the 25 years to life that prosecutors had pushed for.
National MP Paula Bennett was the guest of honour at a luncheon celebrating women in leadership held in Tauranga this afternoon.

The luncheon, which doubled as a fundraiser for the National Partys Tauranga branch, was the second of two speaking engagements for Paula today after she addressed a large crowd attending the National Maori Housing Conference at ASB Baypark Arena this morning.
At dawn tomorrow, the New Zealand White Ensign flown by the Royal New Zealand Navy will be hoisted on the Auckland Harbour Bridge for the first time.

Transport Minister Simon Bridges has given permission for the New Zealand White Ensign to fly from the bridge on Saturday to mark the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the Royal New Zealand Navy on October 1, 1941.

The flag will be hoisted on the bridge on October 1 every year in future to mark the Navys anniversary.

Chief of Navy Rear Admiral John Martin says the White Ensign symbolises the Navys historic contribution to the peace and security of our country and people, and its ongoing mission to advance New Zealands interests from the sea.

He says its an honour to have the White Ensign fly on such a well-known landmark, within sight of Devonport Naval Base  the home of the RNZN.

Our Navy patrols the fourth-largest Exclusive Economic Zone in the world and our work stretches from Antarctica to the Middle East.

In this, our 75th year, it is wonderful to celebrate our countrys acknowledgement of their Navy in such a way.

The flag raising is part of a year of celebrations, culminating with the International Naval Review, which will feature warships from a number of nations entering Auckland Harbour in spectacular formation on November 17.

The four-day review will allow the public to take a look around ships from different Navies, meet the sailors and find out what navy life is all about.
Have you got what it takes to shake, shimmy, and keep a hula hoop up?

Today is World Hoop Day, so even if you havent picked up a hula hoop since you were about seven-or-so, head over to Mount Drury for a day of free hooping fun.
Education Minister Hekia Parata has represented New Zealand at the state funeral for former president, Shimon Peres, extending her education visit to do so.

It was a privilege to mark the passing of a national and international leader whose long life was committed to the service of his country, and to the relentless pursuit of peace, Ms Parata said.

Ms Parata wrapped up discussions with education leaders and experts in Israel, which reinforced that New Zealands education is highly-regarded on the world stage.

Ms Parata joined other policy makers at the Global Education Industry Summit in Jerusalem, to examine the topic Educating for Innovation and Innovation in Education.

We are all focussed on building education systems that prepare young people to meet the challenges of a 21st century economy, says Ms Parata.

New Zealands work on digital technologies in schools, including our recent announcement to explicitly strengthen digital technologies in the national curriculum, was of particular interest to many of the international experts at the Summit.

Ms Parata also met with Google Israel and the Centre for Educational Technology, both of whom were particularly interested in the establishment of Communities of Online Learning.

It was great to share the development of our Communities of Online Learning and our discussions emphasised that companies like Google and CET have a lot to offer our education system.

Ms Parata was in Israel when former Israeli President Shimon Peres passed away at the age of 93. She extended her stay to represent New Zealand at his state funeral in Jerusalem.

The Minister is now making her way back to New Zealand.

SOURCE: Office of Hekia Parata
The recently embattled Carnegie Deli will retire its monstrous sandwiches and close at the end of the year, just shy of the iconic eatery's 80th birthday. The shutter, first reported by the NY Post, comes after a tumultuous couple of years at the restaurant that included a divorce, lawsuits and a temporary shutter following an illegal gas hookup.

"At this stage of my life, the early mornings to late nights have taken a toll, along with my sleepless nights and grueling hours that come with operating a restaurant business," Marian Harper Levine, whose family has owned the business since 1976, told the Post.

The restaurant's 60 employees were allegedly informed just this morning about the closure. "They called us all in, but not everyone showed," a porter told DNAinfo. "They just said they were gonna close Dec. 31. They didnt give us a reason."

Though Levine owns the building that's housed the restaurant since 1937, it's likely financial burden from recent legal entanglements played a role in the shutter. Multiple lawsuits had been filed regarding wage theft, recipe theft, and ultimately a divorce from Levine's husband Sandy, who had allegedly been having an affair with a waitress at the restaurant.

In the spring of 2015, Con Edison inspectors discovered improper gas piping installed in the Midtown eatery's basement, which closed Carnegie down for nine months and left residents in the building without heat and gas for nearly as long.

In the future, Hillary Clinton would have to travel to the Las Vegas or Pennsylvania outposts of Carnegie, which will remain open, to watch Stephen Colbert eat cheesecake. Others in search of mediocre, overpriced and overrated food will have to look elsewhere in midtown.
Speaking to Superyachts.com at the 2016 Monaco Yacht Show, Stefano di Vivo, Executive Director Of CRN, began by discussing these current projects in greater depth.

We are now building four yachts in the yard and they range from 50  80 metres, and hopefully next year were going to see a couple of them here at the show. A 74-metre should be here, and we are picking up new orders, which is always good. In May we just sold a new 62 metre which will be built in three years time" explains Stefano di Vivo.

We finished our first refit at the beginning of this year, its been a learning curve. This was the first time we were doing a lot of interior refits and re-cabling and redoing a yacht, it was very nice, an owner we know very well bought a second hand CRN, ten years after it was first launched, and decided he wanted to give the yacht a new life."

And he decided to come to us and together with him and his wife who has an architects studio and we helped him and his family give it a new life and its sailing and apparently they are super happy."

You can watch the full interview in the video above this article and also keep up to date with all of our Monaco Yacht Show news on Facebook,Twitter and Instagram.
We sat down with Daryl Wakefield, President of Westport, to discuss the companys heritage and how they continue to strive for success.

Weve got a lot of employees that have been there longer than the ownership. Theres a number of them that have been there nearly 40 years. Its a great group of people, a great dedicated crew, I cant say enough about their enthusiasm. Especially about new product, which is always exciting, so were very fortunate," he says.

Weve always been pretty conservative in our styling and were reaching out a little bit now with some of the new stuff, but all in all its important to us we want the yacht to remain timeless, so getting too advanced or even too traditional sort of date stamps it, and we dont want to do that. We want it so that any time you look at the boat it leaves a question in your mind, is that new or is that old?

You can watch the full interview in the video above this article and also keep up to date with all of our Monaco Yacht Show news on Facebook,Twitter and Instagram.
Nobel Prize winner considers Malaga alongside Dallas and Shanghai for a 200-million-euro anti-ageing project that could employ 500 experts

The Mutageneisis delegation meets Junta officials in Malaga. :: SUR

Malaga is one of only three cities worldwide in the running to be the site of a major new 200-million-euro genetic research laboratory.

Junta de Andalucia officials have met representatives of Mutagenesis Corp, the American-based company that is behind the idea, to offer their support.

The lab, which could employ 500 people in its first phase, will explore ways to lengthen lifespan and improve quality of life through DNAmutation.

The investment project is led by Dr Bruce Beutler, a past winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Beutlers business partner is Malaga-born Javier Romero.

The two other cities under consideration are Dallas and Shanghai, where Beutler and Romero have their respective current bases.

Despite Romeros loyalty to Malaga, he said that, the decision [on the winning city] will be taken with objective business criteria.

The delegation also visited possible sites for the future laboratory in Malagas Parque Technologico.
Pablo Raez went along to thank all those who registered as bone marrow donors. :: JOSELE-LANZA

For a few days, Pablo Raezs situation had the whole of Spain on tenterhooks. From his hospital bed in Malaga, using social media, this young man from Marbella raised awareness in thousands of people about the importance of donating bone marrow to combat the illness from which he is suffering, leukemia. He was very ill at the time, having suffered a relapse, but looked much stronger the other day when he was photographed as he went to thank those who had answered his call for people to register as donors. In fact, 267 people turned up at the Quiron clinic to donate bone marrow, thanks to the messages Pablo had been posting on Facebook.

He was released from hospital a few days ago, but he still needs a compatible bone marrow donor so he can continue to fight his illness. He has now found an army of people who are prepared to help him win his battle and continue with his one million challenge campaign, which he posts using the hashtag #retounmillon.

The 20-year-old was astounded to see how many people had turned up to register. The numbers speak for themselves, because the National Transplant Organisation (ONT) says that on average there are 120 donations a day in Spain as a whole. In Marbella the other day, there were more than twice that number.

Although Pablo Raezs main objective is to find a compatible donor for himself, from his room at the Carlos Haya Hospital in Malaga he flooded social media with messages urging people to become donors not just for his benefit, but to help everyone who needs a similar transplant. That is why he set the challenge of obtaining one million donations, well above the present figure of about 230,000.

To give us an idea of how vitally important this is, last year in the world more than 54,000 bone marrow transplants were carried out, says Agustin Hernandez, who is a specialist in haemotology at the Quironsalud hospital in Malaga.

Compatibility

The reason so many bone marrow donations are needed is that it is so difficult to match a donor with a recipient. There is only a one in 40,000 chance of finding a viable transplant, because the body activates its defence system against unknown agents and if the transplant is of stem cells, a high degree of compatibility is needed in the genetic component so the donors immune system does not realise that it has been transplanted.

Tests are carried out to see whether there is compatibility between the donor and a receiver. A small amount of blood is extracted from the donor and registered with REDMO, the Bone Marrow Donor Register. If the donor is found to be compatible with someone, they are contacted so that the donation process can be carried out.

To carry out bone marrow transplants, we need to obtain the stem cells. That is easily done, and there are a couple of different ways, explains Dr Hernandez. The first is by surgery. The haemotologists extract the marrow from the hip bones with special needles, he says. More commonly, the patient is injected with fine needles to stimulate the donors stem cells and so they pass from the bone marrow to the blood. Then we proceed with the donation, and hope that someone will make all the difference in overcoming the illness which Pablo Raez and many other people are battling, he explains.
Chief Minister Fabian Picardo described the inauguration of the unit as ?a red letter day? and a ?huge step forward? for cancer patients in Gibraltar

Fabian Picardo (left), Margaret Ayling and Dr John Cortes. :: SUR

The new chemotherapy unit at St Bernards Hospital was officially opened by chief minister Fabian Picardo on Wednesday, and is now open for patients who need this form of treatment to combat cancer.

At the inauguration the Minister for Health, Dr John Cortes, said he was delighted that Gibraltar was able, for the first time ever, to deliver this kind of treatment: There is no doubt of the benefits to Gibraltar patients for the repatriation of chemotherapy treatments to St Bernards Hospital. Patients presenting with solid malignant tumours no longer need travel to another country such as Spain or the UK in order to receive their chemotherapy treatment. This removes the stress of travel and dependence on others for transport. The new unit also means local, in-house support for cancer patients and family members, he explained.

Dr Cortes and Mr Picardo both expressed their appreciation of the philanthropic gesture by Mrs Margaret Ayling, who funded the capital works and equipment in memory of her late husband Leslie and her parents, Anthony and Lucia Buttigieg. The new facility has been named the Ayling-Buttigieg Chemotherapy Unit.

The chief minister described Wednesday as a red letter day for Gibraltar and said the new chemotherapy unit was a huge step forward.

The unit contains five clinical couches, a consultation room, a drugs preparation room with gowning area, and a waiting and reception area. It will be run by the commissioned clinical oncology team from the Xanit hospital in Benalmadena, where some cancer patients from Gibraltar have previously had to go for treatment.
The duo were joined by other bikers at the start of the trip. :: SUR

The British duo of Dave and Mitch Bull are attempting a journey of epic proportions along the coastline and borders of Spain. The father and son will cover nearly 400 kilometres by motorcycle per day, all the while raising money and awareness for the AECC, the Spanish cancer charity, and Samaritans in Spain.

Having started on Tuesday from Gran Alacant (Alicante), the 23-day challenge will see them travel some 7,500 kilometres and allow them to visit some of Spains best-known locations. They expect to reach the Costa del Sol on 14 October.

In order to keep costs to a minimum, the pair will allow themselves just five euros each per day for food and drink and will endeavour to find a campsite in which they can pitch their tent for free.

This is the second time they have attempted such a feat, having kayaked 52 kilometres from Murcia to the coast at Guardamar (Alicante) last year, raising over 3,000 euros for charity. This year, all of the costs of the trip have been covered by sponsors, both businesses and private individuals, which has humbled the pair. As Mitch explained, We just want to do our bit and with a member of our family being treated for cancer we felt that we needed to do something.

The bikers struggled during the first few days on account of torrential rainfall, which slowed them significantly. A 170-kilometre stint to Barcelona to make up time left them in a bad state. As Dave stated, We were hurting everywhere, and sitting down on a chair, without a special cushion from a chemist, is going to be difficult for the foreseeable future. For more information visit www.motorbikechallenge.es
A surgical technique to correct presbyopia costs up to 6,000 euros and another procedure which uses lasers is still being developed

One of the stands at the recent ophthalmology conference in Malaga. :: FERNANDO GONZALEZ

Presbyopia, or eyestrain, is a common vision problem. It is an anomaly or defect in the eye which makes it impossible to see objects clearly at close proximity and it occurs as a result of rigidity in the lens. The symptoms usually start around the age of 45 and most people who suffer from it wear glasses when reading. However, eyestrain can be corrected through surgery.

Is it a good idea, though, to have an operation to return your sight to normal before the quality of close-up vision is completely lost?

The answer is that, although the principal technique used to counteract presbyopia is effective, not many people are opting for this procedure, partly due to the cost. This ranges from 2,500 to 3,000 euros per eye, so the patient ends up paying between 5,000 and 6,000 euros.

This was one of the subjects which was discussed at the 92nd conference of the Spanish Ophthalmology Society, which has been taking place in Malaga this week and was attended by about 2,350 ophthalmologists.

The president of the Spanish Cataract Society and head of the ophthalmology service at the University Hospital Complex of Orense, Ramon Lorente, explains that the operation consists of substituting the lens of the eye with a multifocal one. The operation takes between eight and ten minutes and is done in an operating theatre, just like surgery for cataracts. The lens which is placed in the patients eye is equally as effective for close vision, at a medium distance or from afar. Patients are eligible for this surgical procedure when they are over the age of 50, but there is no maximum age limit.

There is also another technique to correct eyestrain by using a laser on the patients cornea. This procedure is still being fully developed, however, so the results are not as predictable. Dr Lorente describes it as a technique which is still evolving.

No more spectacles

You have to bear in mind that although we are operating on a person who is not ill, by correcting their presbyopia through surgery, their quality of life is improved and they will no longer need spectacles to see properly, says Dr Lorente. In fact, the patient begins to see better just a day after the operation.

After one eye has been operated on, it is normal to wait three days to a week before the second eye is done. Ten days after the second operation, the person is able to work at full capacity again. People really like this type of surgery, says Dr Lorente.

The lens which is placed in the patients eye costs around 1,000 euros, but the equipment which is needed to carry out the procedure is extremely expensive.

Although the patient pays 5,000 to 6,000 euros, you have to remember that the opthalmologists dont make a great deal of money out of it because all the equipment they use costs so much, he explains.
The talk will take place at the La Cala town hall at 7.30pm. REUTERS

The Mijas Foreigners Department, headed by councillor Roy Perez Vlerick, launched an appeal on Tuesday for foreigners living in the municipality, especially Brits, to attend an informative talk at the La Cala town hall tonight, Friday, from 7.30pm.

It is organised jointly by Brexpats in Spain, the first association set up in Spain in the wake of the Brexit vote, and the Foreigners Department (pioneer in Spain, looking after over 23,000 people per year).

The talk will inform people about getting on the local residents register (padron), it will address legal issues pertinent to the foreign population, and it will also offer information about language workshops.
Where to stay, what to do and what to eat in the Sacred Valley

Hiking the Inca Trail. :: FORBES

Carved through the Andes by the Urubamba River, Perus remarkable Sacred Valley was at the heart of the Inca Empire. This fertile region lies between the city of Cusco, and the countrys most iconic attraction, the imperial Inca city of Machu Picchu.

For generations it has been popular for hiking; visitors exploring the famous Inca Trail that takes in the valleys fascinating villages and towns and the many exceptional archaeological sites. In recent years it has also emerged as a luxury holiday destination, with upscale resorts and mountain lodges opening along the established rail route from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, the nearest town to Machu Picchu.

STAY:

Most of the visitor accommodation is within a 30 - 45 minute transfer from the train stations of Urubamba and Ollantaytambo on the line that runs through the valley from Poroy (west of Cusco) to Machu Picchu.

A truly unique experience, these transparent sleeping pods (7.5m x 2.5), complete with loo, are suspended 400 metres above the valley, secured to the face of the mountain! The views are clearly panoramic, but access is not for the faint-hearted, as one has to climb up and down using metal steps, the Via Ferrata. Available to rent through Natura Vive, who also offering zip-line adventure activities.

This is a new upscale hotel, operated by the world-class hospitality group, Belmond. Built in the style of an Andean village, the resort offers luxury accommodation including 11 suites, 10 rooms and 2 villas. There is a spa, indoor and outdoor pools, and childrens activities for family visitors.

This Luxury Collection property is exceptional. Located on the river Urubamba, the Tambo del Inka offers beautiful accommodation built with local materials and decorated in a contemporary style with Andean fabrics. Theres an impressive spa, a fine-dining restaurant and an elegant bar where one should try Perus famous cocktail, the pisco sour. The hotel also boasts its own private train station on the route to Machu Picchu.

Built on the banks of Vilcanota River, about half an hour from the train station in Ollantaytambo. In addition to the resorts wellness spa, the property also features a Peruvian museum and art gallery.

This family run hotel offers private bungalow casita accommodation. The propertys philosophy is to respect and integrate with the local environment and community. The hotel can arrange excursions in the valley, including horse-riding.

EAT:

Peruvian cuisine is superb, embracing both homespun country dishes and fine-dining. The main places to eat other than in ones hotel or lodge are in the towns of Ollantaytambo and Urubamba.

This charming, welcoming period property is home to a restaurant that over the years has developed a reputation for a creative menu, created by owner and chef Pio Vasquez de Velasco. Dishes fuse local produce with Mediterranean and Asian influences.

This organic farm offers accommodation and a restaurant. Each day the restaurant offers a traditional Pachamanca lunch, where the meat is prepared on hot stones. Dishes are served with Andean sweet potatoes as well as a local drink called chicha morada, made from purple maize.

Well positioned for guests of the Tambo del Inka and Hotel Rio Sagrado, this fine-dining restaurant created by chef Ricardo Behar is a celebration of both modern and traditional Peruvian cuisine. Choose roast dishes from the wood-burning oven; seasonal vegetarian dishes; or indulge in the tasting menu.

DO:

One of the most famous hiking routes in the world, the Inca Trail runs through the valley to Machu Picchu. It is now strictly limited to 500 people a day including guides, cooks, porters etc. So its important to plan ahead and book a permit with the regional cultural department or an approved agent.

This tourist ticket offers entrance to cultural and archaeological sites in the Sacred Valley and also in Cusco. You can buy it at the tourist office in Cusco or at any of the participating sites and it makes a good way to take in the rich cultural, historical and archaeological wonders of Cusco and the Sacred Valley, including the fascinating Pisac ruins; the remarkable citadel at Sacsayhuaman (built with intricately cut boulders); the terraces and temple at Ollantaytambo; and the amazing walls found in the mountain village of Chincheros. Many of the sites are near historic villages and towns where one finds interesting cafes, restaurants and markets. The ticket is presently around 45 euro.

This luxury train with its beautiful vintage Pullman-style carriages, offers a unique way to reach Machu Picchu. Named after the American explorer, who in 1911, guided by local indigenous farmers, rediscovered the citadel, the train offers a gourmet brunch on the way to the citadel, and then fine dining on the way back at the end of the day.

PeruRail operates this special train service, with carriages with panoramic glass windows including the roof, affording spectacular views of the valley as it heads to Machu Picchu.

Andean artisan market

Visiting a local market is a must-do in the Sacred Valley. Pisac is one of the best known, but just be sure what you are buying is local or at the very least Peruvian. There can be factory-made, imported fabrics on sale disguised as artisan.

Las Salinas de Maras

The terraced salt mine evaporation pools found at Maras date back to Inca times. Salt has been collected from the mineral rich water of these valley hills for thousands of years and the many salt pits here remain in use; although it seems that the salt works now earn far more from tourism than from the unique salt they produce.

Moray archaeological terraces

Access to these fascinating terraces is not included in the general tourist ticket, but is well worth it.

Not re-discovered until the beginning of the 20th century, this UNESCO World heritage Inca site, considered one of the New Seven Wonders of the World escaped damage by the imperial Spanish conquistadors. Its all here to explore; the Inti Watana, Temple of the Sun, the Temple of the Three Windows, and more. Although visited by thousands of people each day, the site is vast, so somehow it doesnt feel too crowded. The setting, upon a 2,430-metre-high ridge is breathtaking, surrounded by tropical forest.

The train arrives at Aguas Calientes, a touristy town in the valley. First impressions are not great  with tacky publicity and overly-assertive sales people on each street corner offering everything from massages to fast-food meals. From here one can take the mini buses up to the Inca city  a scary ride up the narrow, stony road. The alternative is to hike the last bit up through the forest.

All the effort to get to Machu Picchu is more than rewarded by the experience.
It's supposed to rain this weekend and I am reading a very good book, so I do not plan to leave the confines of my bedroom. You, however, might feel compelled to brave the outside, and if you do, note that public transportation will do its usual weekend dance. Live free and prosper, but do not expect the 2 or 3 train to help you in that quest.

Here's what's on tap this weekend:

2 trains will not operate in either direction between 96 St and Wakefield-241 Street, starting at 11:30 p.m. Friday and ending at 5 a.m. Monday.

3 trains will not operate at all from 11:30 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday.

4 trains will operate to/from New Lots Av from 11:30 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday.

5 trains will not run in either direction between Eastchester-Dyre Av and E 180 St from 11:30 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday.

Hudson Yards-bound 7 trains will run express from 74 St-Broadway to Queensboro Plaza from 6:45 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

A trains will not run in either direction between 168 St and Inwood-207 St from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday.

All A trains will reroute along the F line from W 4 St-Wash Sq to Jay St-MetroTech from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. All trains will run local between W 4 St-Wash Sq and 59 St-Columbus Circle starting at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday, and they will also run local in both directions between 168 St and 145 St during that period.

C trains will not run in either direction between 145 St and 168 St from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Trains will run along the F line between W 4 St-Wash Sq and Jay St-MetroTech from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

All E trains will reroute along the F line from 21 St-Queensbridge to W4 St-Wash Sq from 11:45p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. Manhattan-bound trains will run express from 71 Av to 21 St-Queensbridge, with that change in effect from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 7 a.m. Sunday, and again from 11:45 p.m. Sunday to 5 a.m. Monday. Manhattan-bound trains will skip Briarwood and 75 Av from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday.

Manhattan-bound F trains skip Sutphin Blvd, Briarwood and 75 Av from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday.

Manhattan-bound J trains will run express from Myrtle Av to Marcy Av from 3:45 a.m. Saturday to 10 p.m. Sunday.

M trains will run every 20 minutes from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, and from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday. Manhattan-bound trains will run express from Myrtle Av to Marcy Av during this time.

Manhattan-bound R trains will run express from 71 Av to Queens Plaza; that change is in effect from 6:30 a.m. to midnight on Saturday and Sunday.

The 42nd Street S shuttle will run overnight from 12:01 a.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Monday.
Business

Here's how this free app turned amateurs into UAE's top professional stock market traders

Going into business without first having some basic knowledge of how the market works and the tools at our disposal increases your risk of getting into trouble. Simulators provide learning platforms for people who want to start learning how to invest.
Bruegger's Bagels

Bruegger's Bagels is pictured at 731 S. Crouse Ave., Syracuse, N.Y. in this Google Maps screenshot.

(Google Maps screenshot)

Bruegger's Bagels on the Syracuse University Hill has closed.

An employee at the restaurant, located just off Marshall Street at 731 S. Crouse Ave., confirmed the permanent closure to SU student newspaper The Daily Orange.

No reason was given, but owner Flour City Bagels filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March. The Fairport-based company, which operates more than 30 Brugger's Bagels in Upstate New York, filed a voluntary petition for reorganization to address "certain financial challenges" while continuing to operate its business.

Bruegger's said all its New York-style bagel shops would remain open at the time. However, the Syracuse restaurant now joins recently shuttered locations at College Town in Rochester and at Madison Ave. and South Allen St. in Albany, also owned by Flour City Bagels.

Bruegger's website still lists two other locations operating in Syracuse (Erie Boulevard East, Nottingham Road) as well as restaurants in North Syracuse, Manlius and Liverpool. All five are owned by Flour City Bagels.

Flour City Bagels employs more than 400 people across its Upstate NY restaurants. The company said in March it planned to use current and anticipated cash flow to pay its expenses during the restructuring process, but did not anticipate any changes for customers.

The Bruegger's name appears on more than 275 bakeries in 26 states, Washington, D.C. and Canada.
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Markets - Are we at the bottom?

After a couple of weeks of sluggish VLCC activity, the situation appears to have changed.

Increased activity in all the major routes managed to balance out the oversupply of tonnage in most areas, Fearnleys reported. However, the steady supply of newbuildings and the older ships was still a burden for the MEG/East market. For MEG/West and West Africa/East, modern, approved tankers were thinner on the ground, a fact not unnoticed by owners. Rates have therefore corrected upward, particularly West Africa/East, which also owned much to soaring Suezmax rates (see story above). The bullish sentiment that was evident in the West Africa Suezmax market continued last week. Charterers tried to secure ships for 2nd decade but the tonnage availability still proved to be tight, resulting in rates increasing even further. At time of writing (Wednesday), it seems rates in West Africa have peaked at around WS105 level and the consensus is for a slower market going forward, and with potential cancellation of ships/barrels in Nigeria, Fearnleys thought that rates could quickly correct downward. However, rate pressure remained for Suezmaxes being traded in the Med and Black Sea. The great tonnage absorption seen lately has created a small vacuum in the area giving charterers no choice but to pay up. After a quiet end to last week in the North Sea and Baltic, rates finally moved up a good WS20 points this Tuesday. With several cargoes to cover in the natural fixing window, and only a few prompt ships available, this market could easily firm further. Some of the threats to this market moving forward are the Suezmaxes combining stems at cheaper rates and Aframaxes ballasting in from other weaker markets. After a couple of very busy weeks, the Med and Black Sea market has calmed down again and dropped to mid WS90s. As highlighted above, the northern market has been exceptional this week, which again could help prevent the Med market from falling further. For the week to come, we expect stabilisation at low WS90s, as we do not expect to see a rush of cargoes hitting the market, Fearnleys concluded. In the lacklustre newbuilding market, there were only a few small chemical tankers ordered, including Sirius Shippings two 7,999 dwt Evolution class Tier III chemical tankers, designed in conjunction with FKAB and contracted at Avic Dingheng. On 24th September, 2016, at Avic Dingheng, Swedish chemical tanker owner Terntank named the Tern Sea and the Tern Ocean, the last two in a series of four 15,000 dwt chemical tankers fitted with dual-fuel 2-stroke engines. The vessels are still under construction and will be delivered later this year and at the beginning of the next year, according to Terntank. Elsewhere, Ocean Yield has agreed to acquire two 2013-built 45,000 dwt IMO II chemical carriers for $35 mill per vessel in combination with 12-year hell and high bareboat charters to Navig8. The purchase price included a seller's credit of $6 mill per vessel, which will amortise to zero over the charter period and carries no interest. Navig8 Group will have certain options to acquire the vessels during the charter period, with the first option exercisable after five years. TEN has announced the delivery of its second 74,200 dwt LR1 - Sunrise - from South Korea, which will immediately enter a five year contract with profit sharing and extension options to a European oil major that could generate gross revenues of $40 mill. General Dynamics Nassco has delivered the fourth of five MRs to American Petroleum Tankers (APT). Like her sisters, the Jones Act Bay State is LNG conversion ready. Sovcomflot completed the acquisition of nine Ice Class tankers from Primorsk International Shipping (Prisco) on 26th September. The companys subsidiary SCF Tankers purchased the tankers through an auction procedure as the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, which is handling PRISCOs bankruptcy case, approved the auction results on 12th July. The nine vessels, built in 2008 and 2009 at Hyundai Heavy Industries and STX Offshore & Shipbuilding, were acquired by SCF Group for $215 mill en bloc. They included an Aframax, three LR2s and five MRs. Meanwhile, brokers reported the sale of the 2007-built Aframax Lion City River for a reported $20.5 mill to undisclosed interests. The 2008-built MR sisters BLS Liwa and BLS Ruwais were reported sold to undisclosed buyers for $38 mill en bloc, while the 2007-built MR Nord Observer was believed sold to Product Shipping & Trading for $14.2 mill. The Handysize 2004-built Torea was said to have been sold to Middle East interests for $12 mill, while BP Shipping reportedly sold the 2003-built Handies British Esteem and British Explorer to Soechi for $10.5 mill each. Another report suggested that the Chinese controlled 2001-built VLCC Xin Ping Yang had been sold to Chinese breakers on private terms. Returning to the charter market, brokers reported that Petrobras had fixed the two Springfield managed VLCCs Olympic Lion and Olympic Legend for 12 months at $30,250 per day. Solal was said to have taken the 2010-built Aframax Leyla K for 12 months at $17,500 per day, while Mena Energy was said to have fixed the 2009-built MR FS Sincerity at a rather low $12,250 per day.




Suezmaxes lead market resurgence

The crude tanker markets have moved on from the worst of the August slump with Suezmaxes trading out of West Africa leading the way, Gibson Shipbrokers said in its weekly report.

In early September Shell lifted force majeure on Bonny Light exports, with loading scheduled to reach 220,000 barrels per day in October. The Qua Iboe exports, the biggest Nigerian crude stream (estimated at over 300,000 barrels per day before the force majeure) were also expected to re-start as early as late September. Finally, shipments of Forcados crude were anticipated to resume soon, with a preliminary October loading programme reported at 230,000 barrels per day. More crude from Nigeria has led to a rebound in Suezmax rates out of the region, with the TCE earnings for West Africa  UK/Continent rising from just under $5,000 per day in mid-August to around $35,000 per day last week. There is possibility of more barrels loading in the Mediterranean as Libyas National Oil Company is in the process of re-opening Zueitina, Ras Lanuf and Es Sider oil terminals. The company has said that it hoped to triple domestic crude output by the end of this year. So far, the success has been mixed. Government officials have said that one Aframax loaded and departed Ras Lanuf, but loading operations have been temporarily halted due to military clashes. More evidence supports the view that crude exports out of the Black Sea will increase. CPC exports are scheduled to rise in October, with further gains planned towards the end of this year and throughout 2017 amid rising offshore and onshore production in the Caspian Sea region. The combination of higher volumes out of the Black Sea, coupled with positive sentiment, offered further support to the tanker market. Despite firming rates and earnings in a number of regional trades in the West, the VLCC MEG market remained weak, with spot earnings for Middle East  Japan barely covering fixed operating expenses. On a more fundamental level, there was a growing opinion between oil industry practitioners that oil markets are likely to remain oversupplied well into 2017. There are a number of reasons for that, including growing prospects for Nigerian, Caspian and Libyan crude production, Gibson said. The resilience of the US shale industry has prompted a number of leading oil consultancies to revise upward their expectations for US crude oil production. The IEA has also voiced concerns of slowing demand growth in key markets, which together with anticipated increases in crude output, points to a sizeable excess in supply over demand at least through the first half of 2017. If these forecasts are correct, the impact on the tanker market will largely be positive, at least in the short term. Tanker demand will benefit from incremental growth in crude exports, while oversupplied oil markets increase the likelihood of continued operational and forced tanker storage. Yet, as is always the case with forecasts, there are uncertainties. One of the most immediate risks is a possible crude oil production freeze deal between a number of crude exporters, with a decision expected this week. The question is whether countries such as Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Libya, where the near term prospects for production gains are the strongest, agree to participate, Gibson concluded.




Teekay to provide shuttle tankers for North Sea FPSO

Teekay Offshore Partners has been awarded three-year shuttle tanker contracts of affreightment (CoA), plus extension options, with BP, Shell and OMV Group.

The tankers will ship crude oil produced from the new Glen Lyon FPSO, which is part of the Quad204 development located west of Shetland in the North Sea. The CoAs are expected to commence in the first half of 2017 with the requirement for about two shuttle tankers. Teekay said that it expected to service the CoAs with its existing CoA shuttle tanker fleet. "We are pleased to announce these new strategic shuttle tanker contracts, which further builds on the Partnership's leading market position in the North Sea," commented Peter Evensen, Teekay Offshore's CEO. "These contracts further enhance our CoA contract portfolio and are expected to add future cash flow through higher shuttle tanker fleet utilisation without the need for incremental capital expenditures. Looking ahead, the shuttle tanker market in the North Sea is expected to remain tight supported by a combination of more lifting points from new fields coming on-line and limited fleet growth with no uncommitted shuttle tanker newbuildings on order," he said.




Thome addresses cyber security issues

Thome said that it was continuously monitoring the groups cyber security protocols.

There has been a lot of publicity recently about the need for the shipping industry to wake up to the very real threat of malicious cyber attacks, the company said. Thome claimed that it takes cyber security very seriously and continuously monitors its protocols and procedures to keep up to date with the ever changing cyber threats and technological advances in cyber security. A significant portion of cyber threats arrive in the form of email so we have invested in a layered approach in our network security systems to weed out these increasing sophisticated attacks, said Claes Eek Thorstensen, President of the Thome Group. Communication to our personnel on the potential dangers is also key. We educate crew in best practise protocols and emphasise the importance of every individual to exercise due diligence when online either during the course of their working day or relaxing when off-duty. Moving forward, additional security measures, such as USB control, are being introduced without compromising our day-to-day business operational efficiency, he added. Meanwhile, shipowners and managers will gather in Singapore next week to discuss concerns about the global terrorist threat, either physical or across the internet. Taking place at the Singapore headquarters of law firm Reed Smith on 3rd October, the International Shipowning & Shipmanagement Summit (ISSS) will take the theme: Is your ship as safe as it should be in today's dangerous world? Aspects, such as how well do you know your crew and is enough being done to protect them, the ship, as well as the cargo will be debated. Organised by Shipping Innovation, organisers of the London International Shipping Week and European Shipping Week, ISSS is being held in association with InterManager and will be chaired by its secretary general, Capt Kuba Szymanski.




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In an update to its Galaxy Note7 recall, Samsung announced that more than 500,000 new replacement devices would be available for exchange at U.S. retail outlets on Wednesday.

The company also announced the rollout of a software update that will display a green battery icon on the screens of new Note7 devices to distinguish them from those subject to recall.

Working hand in hand with the CPSC, we are delivering as promised and moving quickly to educate consumers about the recall and make new Note7s available, said Tim Baxter, president of Samsung Electronics America.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission late last week issued a recall of 1 million Galaxy Note7 phones. Samsung previously had initiated a global recall effort, following reports that more than 90 phones had overheated  some exploding and some erupting into flames  due to a lithium-ion battery flaw.

Haste Makes Waste

Samsungs brand image took a new round of hits earlier this week. Reports that it rushed the Galaxy Note7 into production were compounded by concerns that the battery fire risk had expanded into the Chinese market.

Samsung rushed the Galaxy Note7 into production in order to get a jump on the relatively tame iPhone 7 that was scheduled to come to market, and its haste may have allowed a flawed battery design to creep into the flagship Galaxy Note7 production cycle, a Bloomberg report suggested.

Top Samsung executives, including D.J. Koh, who runs the Samsung mobile business, signed off on a plan to accelerate production of the Galaxy Note7 in an effort to outmaneuver Apple, according to the report.

At the time, there was a widespread perception that the iPhone Apple planned to launch in September would not excite the market. The Galaxy Note7, introduced in August, sported a number of major new features, including iris-recognition security, a wraparound screen, and  most important in this scenario  a new battery that would charge rapidly.

Samsung reportedly pushed suppliers to speed up the production cycle, which may have led to the design problems that caused some batteries to overheat and combust.

Although its possible to review the companys actions in the run-up to the launch, its motivations may not be as clear as the Bloomberg piece suggests.

Did Samsung rush the Galaxy Note7? asked Michael Jude, a program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.

Clearly they did, because the device is having issues, he told the E-Commerce Times. Did they do it to beat the iPhone 7? Probably not exclusively. They were trying to capture the high ground on all upscale smartphone devices  not just Apples.

China Crisis

Samsung has pushed back on social media and local press reports suggesting that battery-related fires had occurred in Galaxy Note7s in the critical Chinese market.

As of Wednesday, Samsung reportedly had received reports of three Note7s catching fire, and its investigations of two of them attributed the cause to external sources of heat rather than faulty batteries. The consumer who owned the third Note7 that reportedly caught fire refused to turn it over for inspection.

Despite the reported setbacks, its likely that if Samsung upholds its end of the bargain during the recall process, it should be able to repair its customer relationships over time, said Tuong Nguyen, principal research analyst at Gartner.

The issue seems to be closed out in the sense that consumers are clear on what the next steps are, he told the E-Commerce Times. That having been said, its really hard to predict consumer sentiment and reaction to anything.
UPCOMING EVENTS

Therapeutic music demo Saturday

Mary Stevens, of Harp for Healing, LLC, will present a lecture and demonstration of therapeutic music in ministry and healthcare settings at St. John's Lutheran Church, 1000 Helena Ave., on Saturday, Oct. 1, from 1-3 p.m. The presentation will include information on the history, types, and science of therapeutic music, the use of therapeutic music in ministry, and training options for therapeutic musicians. The presentation will include a generous number of musical demonstrations played on the harp.

Following the lecture/demonstration, will be an opportunity for attendees to actually play a harp. Participants are invited to bring their own harp if they have one. Participants will play the harps together in a group setting.

There is no cost to attend, but pre-registration is requested by contacting the church at helenastjohns.org or call 442-6270.

***

Walk to End Alzheimers Saturday

The Alzheimers Association Walk to End Alzheimers is a movement to reclaim the future for millions. Walk to End Alzheimers will take place on Saturday, Oct. 1, at the Touchmark, 915 Saddle Drive, at 10:30 a.m.

Those participating in the walk will complete a 2-mile wheelchair, stroller, and family-friendly walk, and will learn about Alzheimer's disease, advocacy opportunities, clinical studies enrollment and support programs and services from the Alzheimers Association.

***

Art show reception at Real Food

Artist Leah Lambert has created a portrait series called "Thanks for the Melodies" honoring The Seldom Paid Jammers -- a group of musicians who play at nursing homes and facilities each Monday evening. The reception will be Saturday, Oct. 1 from 2-4 p.m. at the Real Food Store, 1096 Helena Ave. The artwork will be on display until the end of October.

The Seldom Paid Jammers will also be playing throughout the day on Saturday, Oct 8, from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Real Food Store.

***

Heart of Compassion presentation

Lama Padma Gyatso will give a teaching on The Heart of Compassion: A Teaching on Bodhicitta on Oct. 9 at the lower level choir room of St. Pauls Methodist Church, from 3-6 p.m. Gyatso is resident Lama at Rigdzin Ling in northern California and was ordained in 1996, and has been teaching and practices with study groups and meditation centers around the world. All welcome.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Legislative candidates to speak

Helena's Democratic Action Club will host four local Democratic legislative candidates on Tuesday, Oct. 4, from noon-1 p.m. at the Lewis & Clark Library, 120 S. Last Chance Gulch. Incumbent representatives Janet Ellis and Mary Ann Dunwell will join candidates Kim Abbott and Merlyn Huso to talk about what they want to accomplish in the 2017 legislative session. A Q&A will accompany this discussion. Free and open to all. For more information, call Bob at 449-6039.

***

Event features court candidates

On Tuesday, Oct. 4 at 4 p.m., the League of Women Voters Helena Area will presend a forum for the candidates vying serve on the Montana Supreme Court: Kristen Juras and Dirk Sandefur, at HCTV studio, 1015 Poplar St. LWVHA co-president is the moderator. Everyone is invited.

***

Flu vaccines available at VA

VA Montana is preparing for flu season at Fort Harrison on Tuesday, Oct. 4, with the annual Fall Health Festival and Drive Thru Flu Clinic. This event offers health and wellness information and easy access to flu shots, at no cost, for veterans enrolled in VA healthcare and VA employees. The event will run from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Visitors can follow signs and directions from volunteers to the clinic next to Building #141 in Parking Lot A. Veterans need only to show their VA identification card to receive the shot. VA employees can present their official VA identification card.

The Lewis & Clark County Health Department will also be on hand that day, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., to administer flu vaccinations to family members of veterans and VA employees. Medicare or other health insurance information will be required or individuals can pay a cash fee of $30.

***

Fraud is topic at 'Lunch 'N Learn'

Join us Wednesday, Oct. 5, at noon, to gather information on how to avoid and report fraud in Montana. Tim Summers the AARP Montana state director will lead this discussion and equip you with the tools and information that can help you avoid becoming a victim. The presentation is being offered by the Bridges Lunch N Learn education series and is free. Registers for the free lunch provided by Chili O'Brien's by Monday, Oct. 3, at 1-877-926-8300. Lunch is served at noon and the presentation begins at 12:30 at Covenant United Methodist Church located at 2330 E. Broadway.

***

AARP, United Methodist present estate program

On Thursday, Oct. 6, at 6 p.m., Helena United Methodist Ministries in collaboration with AARP Montana continues its Estate Planning program series with Marsha Goetting, PhD, Montana State University Extension Services. Goetting continues her exciting series "Wildflower Reflections" that combines her passion for Montana wildflowers and original photographs with the various aspects of estate planning. Goetting reminds us that most Montanans do not have wills and thus have no specific plans for how their assets will be used to support family members and favorite charities. The two-hour program is free, and open to the public. However, in order to reserve space and refreshments, please register with AARP no later than Monday, Oct. 3, at 877-926-8300. My Destiny is a program of Bridges -- a community outreach program for Helenans who are experiencing the second chapter of life. My Destiny programs are hosted by Covenant United Methodist Church, 2330 E. Broadway. For information call 442-6501 or AARP at 325-7712.

***

AARP driver safety classes planned

AARP driver safety will hold a Saturday and a weekday class in Helena in October. Participants receive updates on the rules of the road and learn driving strategies to adapt to the effects of aging and to reduce chances of having a crash. The course was developed for participants age 50-plus, but is open to all ages. The course fee is $20 ($15 with AARP membership card). Auto insurance companies in Montana provide a multi-year discount to participants 55 years of age and older.

Saturday, Oct. 15, at St. Peters Hospital, 2475 Broadway, 9 a.m. until about 1:30 p.m.

Monday, Oct. 24, at First Interstate Bank, 2021 N. Montana Ave., from noon to about 4:30 p.m.

To register for a class, call 457-4712.

***

STUDENT NEWS

Laura Lopach, daughter of Dennis and Sheila Lopach of Helena, earned her Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Utah on Aug. 5. Lopach also recently acquired board certification in behavior analysis. She earned her M.A. in School Psychology from the University of Montana in 2012. She is 2005 graduate of Helena High School.

***

Daniel J. Held, of Helena and a senior at Oregon State University, has been named to the honor roll for the summer term.

WITH THE COLORS

U.S. Air Force Airman Willow V. Huddle graduated from basic military training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, San Antonio, Texas.

The airman completed an intensive, eight-week program that included training in military discipline and studies, Air Force core values, physical fitness, and basic warfare principles and skills.

Airmen who complete basic training also earn four credits toward an associate in applied science degree through the Community College of the Air Force.

Huddle is the daughter of Christina and Daniel Andrews of Helena.

She graduated in 2016 from Capital High School, Helena.

***

U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Joshua J. Berns graduated from basic military training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, San Antonio, Texas.

The airman completed an intensive, eight-week program that included training in military discipline and studies, Air Force core values, physical fitness, and basic warfare principles and skills.

Airmen who complete basic training also earn four credits toward an associate in applied science degree through the Community College of the Air Force.

Berns is the son of Coralee Berns of Helena.

He is a 2005 graduate of Helena High School.

***

MY STUDENT IN NEED

Visit www.mystudentinneed.org to learn how you can help students in the Helena-area.

Current needs

A first-grade female student, age 6, is in need of underwear and socks, size 6-8 kids. These items must be new and in the original packaging. If you would like to help with this need you can either donate new socks and underwear or you can make a donation of $30 to My Student in Need and we will purchase a gift card so the teacher can take the student shopping. The identification number is: Helena Broadwater School #1789.

A first-grade male student, age 6, is in need of underwear and socks, size 6-8 kids. These items must be new and in the original packaging. If you would like to help this need, you can either donated news socks and underwear or you can make a donation of $30 to My Student in Need. The identification number is: Helena Broadwater School #1790.

A kindergarten girl, age 6, is in need of size 6-7 winter clothes. This include, sweatshirts, sweatpants, jeans and sweaters. New or gently used items are wonderful. If you would like to help with this need you can either donate gently used items or you can make a donation of any amount up to $125 to My Student in Need. The identification number is: Helena Broadwater School #1791.

If you can help with any of these needs, call us at 406-750-2542.

Other ways to help a Student in Need

If you would like to help, visit www.mystudentinneed.org and scroll down to the list of schools. The number next to the school represents the number of current need requests at that specific school. The needs can change every day. Find a need request and click on the Fulfill This Need Request button. Or you can call 406-750-2542. If you wish to fulfill a financial need request you are asked to make your donation payable to My Student in Need. You can make a donation online or send financial donations to the State Office of My Student in Need: 525 Central Ave., #M-2 Great Falls MT 59401. Your donation is tax deductible.
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted to update the rules governing Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) in an effort to make them more useful.

The system, designed to alert citizens on their mobile devices of emergency-type situations or events, was most recently on display earlier this month when New Yorkers were warned of a dangerous bombing suspect on the loose.

As The Washington Post recounts, the suspect was eventually apprehended following a shootout with police. The alert that was pushed out to the public wasn't terribly informative; in fact, the publication likened it to a text message that a teenager might send to a friend. What's more, the alert lacked helpful information that might have led to his apprehension sooner such as a photo.

Authorities would no doubt have preferred to issue a more detailed alert but simply weren't able to do so due to limitations of the WEA system. As such, the message that went out was ripe with abbreviations and didn't include a picture of the suspect.

Thanks to today's FCC vote, future alerts should be much more robust.

Under the new rules, authorities will have up to 360 characters at their disposal - up from just 90 currently and far less than even Twitter's 140-character limit. Furthermore, authorities will be able to send alerts with greater geographic accuracy which means you'll be less likely to receive an alert about a tornado that may be many miles away.

Future messages will also be available in Spanish and will cover additional events, we're told.
Google was originally expected to release the next major version of Android Wear late this year, however a recent post from the company has revealed the smartwatch operating system has been delayed until early 2017.

The Android Wear 2.0 developer preview program will continue throughout the rest of this year and in to 2017, with watches set to get the final build early next year. Google announced the availability of the third developer preview several days ago, and the company says another developer preview will be released before the update is sent to OEMs.

In the third developer preview, Google has added the Play Store to Android Wear 2.0. It may seem a little cramped, however users can now browse and install apps directly from their watch, rather than using the equivalent app on their smartwatch. Searching for apps is as easy as using voice commands, the tiny Android Wear keyboard, or handwriting.

The Play Store on Android Wear also allows you to install only the watch app, provided the app supports this feature of Android Wear 2.0. This prevents apps you only use on your watch from clogging up the app tray on your smartphone.

The choice to delay Android Wear 2.0 until next year seems to fit with the plans of major Android Wear OEMs such as LG, Motorola and Huawei, who decided to hold off releasing any new smartwatches during the fall. In early 2017 we could see a major relaunch of Android Wear complete with new devices running the updated operating system.
A report from Chinese site Zol, as spotted by TechPowerUp, suggests that Nvidia could be preparing the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti for launch at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2017.

The GTX 1080 Ti would be the second graphics card to use Nvidia's Pascal GP102 silicon, which was first used in the Titan X. This new report suggests that for the GTX 1080 Ti, 26 of 30 SMs will be enabled, leaving the card with 3,328 CUDA cores and 208 TMUs. In contrast, the Titan X has 28 SMs enabled for 3,584 CUDA cores.

The GPU will reportedly come with a base clock of 1,503 MHz and a boost clock of 1,623 MHz. As for the memory interface, we're expecting to see 384-bit GDDR5X providing 480 GB/s of bandwidth, attached to 12 GB of VRAM.

With this sort of specification sheet, the GTX 1080 Ti will be an expensive graphics card, especially considering the GTX 1080 already retails for $599. There's no word on exact pricing just yet, but it could end up costing $700-800 in Nvidia's current line-up. The Titan X, which is Nvidia's most powerful graphics card, already retails for a huge $1,199.

Between now and CES 2017, Nvidia is expected to launch the GTX 1050 and, if a new report is correct, the GTX 1050 Ti. Both cards will slot beneath the $250 GTX 1060 in Nvidia's mid-range and entry-level line-up. The GTX 1050 Ti will reportedly pack 768 CUDA cores, while the GTX 1050 will use 640, down from 1280 cores in the GTX 1060.
Google's express delivery service, Google Express, has expanded to much of the U.S. East Coast, including all of New York State and New Jersey, in an attempt to compete with current express delivery champion, Amazon Prime. In a move meant to acquire new customers for the service, Google Express is now offering a three-month free trial to all customers.

Google Express offers express delivery of eligible items from some of the biggest retailers in the country, including Costco, Kohl's, The Vitamin Shoppe, PetSmart and Whole Foods. The service has now expanded its delivery area and is available in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.

"Our goal with Google Express is to offer a great shopping experience and connect people with their favorite stores," said Brian Elliott, General Manager of Google Express.

Members pay a $95 per year fee to belong to the service, or can opt for a $10 monthly charge instead. Membership entitles users to receive free express delivery of certain items from all participating retailers. Deliveries may be received the same day, the following day, or at the latest, in two days depending on the item and the location from which it was ordered.

If that sounds a lot like the terms of Amazon's Amazon Prime delivery service, it's because it is similar in many aspects. Amazon offers almost identical payment options and prices of either $99 annually or $11 per month.

While Amazon customers are ordering from a single company, Google Express website instead features eligible items from participating retailers. While most of those retailers are national for now, some local stores also participate, for example sporting goods stores Paragon and Road Runner, and electronic goods retailer Adorama in Manhattan, where the service has been available since 2014. As the service grows, it plans to add additional local retailers.

In order to entice new customers, Google is offering a generous free trial of three months for all members who subscribe using the code WELCOME.

Amazon's free trial offer for new members of Prime only lasts for one month before customers begin being charged. After the Google Express free trial is over, members will automatically be charged on an annual or monthly basis, depending on the preference they choose when joining.

Membership, however, can be canceled at any time, so those who do not wish to pay for the service can cancel before the trial is up and not be charged. The Google Express free trial offer is available through Jan. 31, 2017.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
My truck bears all the marks of a land-based life form: Baling twine, mud, scratches where a horse amused himself scraping his teeth across the tailgate.

There was a time, however, when I spent my workdays above 30,000 feet, blond-haired and mini-skirted, serving meals and endless cups of coffee to planes full of military men.

Forty-four flights to the Far East in the late 1960s acquainted me thoroughly with the cabins of 707s and DC-8s, but I never had a desire to become a pilot.

I was, however, fascinated by navigation, which seemed much more interesting. I would occasionally deadhead (no passengers to tend), and one of our navigators showed me how to determine our position with LORAN. It was quite a thrill to be the (carefully overseen) navigator from Alaska to Japan. Fortunately, a Seaboard World plane got six minutes off course and was forced down in the Kuril Islands by the Russians, after which my tutor figured hed better do the navigating from then on.

I say fortunately, because if Id switched careers, Id have been out of work when computers took away that job.

Despite the circumstances, it was a pretty peaceful job. Only one page of my log book shows anything out of the norm, and although I didnt realize it at the time, it was an important date: It was a night landing in Bien Hoa, and I was bagging up extra fresh milk and cookies for the men on the base. Abruptly, the lights went out and a thunder of feet told of the unceremonious exit of our cockpit crew. We knew there were bunkers alongside the airfield, so the cabin crew went in search of them. I brought along the milk and cookies which were happily received when we found a bunker (the cockpit crew had taken refuge in a ditch!) and when we got the all-clear, we picked up our new passengers and flew back to Kadena AFB, Okinawa. The date was Feb. 18, 1968, and the Tet Offensive had begun.

I only worked for Flying Tigers for another year and a half, but I still enjoy flying. Light planes dont appeal much, but when I joined the National Park Service I was assigned for a time to Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco. One of my duties was to patrol the area alongside Crissy Field, a former U.S. Army airfield, and one day a San Francisco police helicopter set down a little ways off. I jokingly stuck out my thumb in the time honored way of hitchhikers and to my delight, they waved me aboard.

Its amazing what you can see from a helicopter. The pilot pointed out a car (not a suspect in anything -- just a car) and showed how you could read the plate from the air. Then we followed it as it winded its way through the citys busy streets. Some years later I managed to hitch a ride on a Forest Service helicopter and flew over the area where the line crew Id worked with the day before had toiled up a slope. It was faintly alarming to see that fire had burned over much of our work.

Im not sure how effective my outstretched thumb would be in ordinary hitchhiking (and Im just wise enough not to try to find out), but it has certainly been effective in other circumstances.

One day I noticed a hot air balloon basket in the back of a truck, and my outstretched thumb led to a flight over Deer Lodge the next day. We descended on the pasture where our cows and calves had gathered and they stood, wide-eyed until we just touched the ground, whereupon they bolted off in every possible direction, bellowing to beat the band.

Not all my rides have been aloft: I thumbed a ride in the engine of a freight train between McMinnville and Willamette, Oregon, and the engineer even taught me the hand signals used to slough off cars.

My only other outstanding hitch was on a Coast Guard buoy tender out to the Farallon Islands, nearly 30 miles out the Golden Gate from San Francisco (the food onboard was great!).

In a flight of fancy, I once imagined hitching a ride on the Space Shuttle, but luckily, it retired, and my thumb has retired too.

Lyndel Meikle lives in the Deer Lodge area.
HP has issued an apology for the software update that blocked third-party ink cartridges from being used with the company's printers.

To fix the issue, HP will soon release an optional update that will remove the restriction on the usage of third-party ink cartridges, which are usually less expensive than the official cartridges that HP offers to customers.

In a blog post, HP chief operating officer Jon Flaxman clarified that the recent firmware update that caused the problem affected the procedure of authenticating ink cartridges in several HP printers. The update was done to prevent counterfeit ink cartridges that do not come with an original security chip from compromising the user's printing experience, introducing potential security risks and infringing upon HP's intellectual property.

After the update was released though, it was met with severe backlash from owners of HP printers, with calls to reverse the move being backed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

HP customers expressed their anger and frustrations over their third-party ink cartridges suddenly not working on social media and online forums. The EFF claimed that consumers should be able to purchase an HP printer without worrying that artificial limitations will be eventually placed on how the printer would be used.

Users who are vocal against the update that HP implemented suggested that the basis behind the prevention of the usage of third-party ink cartridges was not security, but rather so that the company would be able to protect the significant profit margins that are added on the official ink cartridges for HP printers.

However, Flaxman admitted that HP should have done a better job in communicating to customers regarding the new authentication procedure, especially as the update caused some third-party ink cartridges with cloned security chips to not work with printers, despite previously functioning well.

The firmware update that HP will be rolling out to bring things back to how they previously were will be removing the dynamic security feature that came with the previous update. Customers can expect the optional update to be released within two weeks, with the details to be provided by HP once ready.

EFF's Elliot Harmon said that the group was happy to find out about the optional update that HP is preparing, but there were questions that remain, such as how the company intends to inform owners of the printers regarding the update.

EFF is also looking for a promise from HP to never again limit the features of its products through a future update.

In related news, HP has reached a deal to acquire the printer business of Samsung for an amount no less than $1.05 billion.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
LG may not be spilling the beans on the U.S. release date of its latest flagship, but retailer B&H Photo has listed the LG V20 for preorder, revealing the handset's arrival date in the country.

On Sept. 28, B&H Photo put up the preorder listing for the LG V20 and while initially the pre-purchase date was shown as Oct. 2, the retailer later updated its listing and changed the date from this Sunday to Oct. 17 at 12 a.m. instead. For those wondering by when the handset will be shipped to them, the retailer does not mention any estimated shipping window.

Interestingly, while B&H Photo has revealed the preorder date for the LG V20, its listing does not share the price of the handset. However, the popular online retailer has the unlocked variant of the LG V20 up for grabs. The listing "NEW ITEM - COMING SOON" also shows that the LG V20 on offer is the "North American variant," which will be compatible with CDMA, GSM and LTE.

This basically means that the unlocked model for sale from B&H Photo will work with any major U.S. network operator and, therefore, those keen on buying it can breathe easy and need not worry about carrier compatibility.

B&H Photo has the 64-GB model of the LG V20, which boasts a secondary display, up for preorder in two hues: Silver and Titan.

At the time of launch on Sept. 6, LG only revealed that the release window for the V20 in the U.S. would be "over the course of the next several weeks." Rumors have hinted at an Oct. 21 release date for the LG flagship in the country.

Interestingly, U.S. carrier T-Mobile also listed the LG V20 as "coming soon" a week ago, suggesting that the device's release is just around the corner.

The LG V20 has hit the South Korean shelves on Sept. 29 and with it being made available in the company's home country, consumers would be hoping that the first-ever Android 7.0 Nougat powered handset graces U.S. shores soon.

While B&H Photo did not share the pricing of the unlocked model of the LG V20, we estimate that the handset will be priced around $600 The phone is being sold for approximately $800 in South Korea, but the prices there are usually higher in comparison to North America.

With B&H Photo giving us a peek into the LG V20's arrival date in the U.S., here's hoping that other retailers and carriers follow suit and offer more details.

If you want to preorder the LG V20 in Silver or Titan from B&H Photo on Oct. 17, make sure you snag yours timely before stocks run out!

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
According to sources, Microsoft executive Qi Lu will be leaving the organization due to health reasons. The medical concern has stemmed up from a bicycle incident which happened months ago.

Rajesh Jha, the Corporate Vice President in charge of Microsoft's Outlook and Office 365 projects, will be taking over Lu's functions. The outgoing executive has led the Bing Search department before climbing the ladder to head the company's applications and services division which oversees Bing Apps, MSN, Skype, Sharepoint, Exchange and Yammer. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2008, he has been with Yahoo for a decade.

Before coming to Yahoo, Lu has been a staff member at IBM's Almaden Research Center in Silicon Valley. He has also held positions at China's Fudan University and the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University.

It has been known that Qi Lu is a favorite associate of top boss Satya Nadella. Under the Nadella, Lu has been instrumental in the transition of the Office program from a desktop suite into a system of apps and services that run on iOS and android in mobile devices.

"We want Office to be a habit," said Lu in a 2014 interview.

Qi Lu's involvement in Office 365 is a vital one considering that the program he led and helped organize has integrated artificial intelligence (AI) functions into its system. This means that the software will have a cloud-based AI guiding or assisting in various tasks.

For instance, a QuickStarter feature from PowerPoint and Sway provides outlines for subjects to be tackled or discussed. In a busy world, this actually saves users from the trouble of making a presentation structure from scratch. For Word and Outlook, simple taps will activate relevant information about a topic. In Excel, there are functions that will translate raw geographic data into Bing-based maps.

Office 365 goes beyond the bots and digital assistants. The software has been wired with an intelligence structure that presents significant information. In a sales transaction, for example, representatives will be directed to seal a deal through the utilization of essential pointers.

Upgrades in the machines are not merely about making the lives of people easier and more convenient. For Microsoft, integrating machines with intelligence software is key to a faster and more efficient manifestation of service. It is astounding to note that in its call centers across the United States, Microsoft has AI agents in place to assist company staffs in addressing queries.

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The latest "smart" messaging app from Google dubbed Allo is finding favor with Android users and has notched up a whopping 5 million downloads on the Play Store in just a week since it was made available.

The 5 million downloads for Allo is only for Android, which if combined with the installations for iOS could result in a higher number.

Earlier on Sept. 24, we reported that Google's Allo app had hit the milestone of 1 million downloads in the Google Play Store as users hurried to download the latest messaging app with nifty features despite privacy concerns.

The milestone made Allo a part of the million downloads club, joining the ranks of video messaging app Google Duo, which was released in August and has raked in over 10 million downloads.

The popularity of Allo is evidenced by the fact that it was the top free Android application in the United States over the last weekend.

Five million installations in barely a week of release is impressive to say the least and could perhaps be a sign of good things to come. However, the million dollar question is: can Allo sustain this growth or the spike in downloads is just a flash in the pan?

The fact that Allo ranked number one in the Top Charts on the Play Store five days ago and is now sitting pretty at number eight is reflective of the fact that perhaps it was anticipation and excitement for the messaging app that fueled users to download the smart messaging mobile app.

Interestingly, the fast growth and declining interest pattern for Allo is comparable to that of Google Duo. When the video messaging app from google launched, it quickly captured the number one spot in just two days of the rollout. In a matter of nine days, Google Duo had amassed 5 million downloads. Allo, on the other hand, also took two days to climb to the number one rank on the Play Store. However, it reached the magical 5 million downloads mark in seven days instead of nine.

If this trend is anything to go on, then by the time Allo attains 10 million downloads like Google Duo, it would have slipped to number 127 on the Top Charts.

While users may be pleased with Google Assistant's inclusion in Allo, making it a smarter messaging app, the privacy concerns (as highlighted by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden) could overshadow its popularity in the long term.

Moreover, considering Allo is already number eight on the Top Charts in five days, the future doesn't look too bright for the Google messaging app. If you wish to add to the five million downloads, you can get Allo from the Play Store.

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Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming one of the hottest scenes in the tech world, and Microsoft is all in with a new Microsoft AI and Research Group.

Just one day after forming an AI partnership with heavyweight player such as Google, IBM, Amazon and Facebook, Microsoft leveled up with even more ambitious endeavors of its own.

The company just announced a new AI business unit called the Microsoft AI and Research Group, appointing veteran Microsoft Research EVP Harry Shum at the helm.

"We live in a time when digital technology is transforming our lives, businesses and the world, but also generating an exponential growth in data and information," says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. "At Microsoft, we are focused on empowering both people and organizations, by democratizing access to intelligence to help solve our most pressing challenges. To do this, we are infusing AI into everything we deliver across our computing platforms and experiences."

At the helm of this new AI group, Shum will be overseeing 5,000 computer scientists, engineers and other professionals working on all aspects of artificial intelligence.

Shum points out that although Microsoft has been present on the AI scene since the early days of Microsoft Research, it's only started scratching the surface of what AI can really do.

With its new Microsoft AI and Research Group, the company reiterates its commitment to deploy smart technology and make use of AI to improve people's lives.

Microsoft wants to up its game and expand its efforts so that its tools, software, services and computing capabilities enable people and companies to achieve more. As part of this effort, Microsoft Research will merge with the new AI group, taking things to the next level.

Microsoft already made some headway when it comes to employing AI in mass market apps such as Cortana, but it wants to go deeper. The new AI unit will include far more products such as Cortana and Bing, Information Platform, as well as Ambient Computing and Robotics teams spearheaded by David Ku, Derrick Connell and Vijai Mital, respectively.

According to Microsoft, the new AI and Research Group will cover not only AI product engineering, but also new Experiences and Technologies (NExT) and basic and applied research labs.

Microsoft will focus on four main areas  Agents, Applications, Services and Infrastructure  to increase AI efforts and results.

For those who would like a piece of the action, Microsoft is hiring.

Microsoft is not the only one with ambitious AI dreams, as other big players such as Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook are all heavily invested in artificial intelligence. It remains to be seen what will come of it, but the future of AI definitely looks exciting.

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Ford has decided to improve the F-150 Raptor by shedding some of its weight and adding more power to the engine. This should make for a better vehicle moving forward.

The Detroit auto company has confirmed the new pickup truck will have 450 horsepower along with 510 pound-foot of torque. Ford enthusiasts will be able to see this for themselves when the F-150 Raptor finds its way to showrooms later in the year.

The engine is a twin-turbo V6 and can hold up to 3.5 liters of fuel. Furthermore, the engine comes with its own turbochargers and oil-cooled pistons along with other cool upgrades.

Compared to the old V8 engine that was in the previous Raptor, which sits at 411 horsepower, this new engine is a massive improvement.

When it comes down to fuel efficiency, one should keep in mind that the new F-150 Raptor was never designed to save fuel. This is mainly due to its huge tires and heavy weight. Fuel economy now sits at 16 miles per gallon. Not to mention, the truck has 4x4 wheels and 10 driving modes to keep things interesting.

The 2017 Raptor weighs less when compared to the 2014 version. The weight loss should improve shift performance, so Ford did a great thing here.

It doesn't matter if you're interested in driving to places where there are mud and rocky areas  the F-150 should be a great bet. If you prefer regular street driving, then the Raptor can also deliver on that front.

"Raptor was designed to be a no-compromise, off-road performance machine," says Matt Tranter, Ford Performance engineering supervisor. "That is why we made the switch from the cast-iron V8 to the aluminum block, high-output GTDI V6 EcoBoost engine that our team tuned to add 39 horsepower and 76 lb.-ft. of torque for today's Raptor."

The Ford F-150 Raptor will go on sale later this year starting at $49,520.

Ford also has other plans for the future. The company says it is moving to sell affordable autonomous cars by the year 2025. This might be interesting to industry observers since autonomous vehicles might not take off in a big way unless most people can afford to purchase them  and unless car manufacturers, which are all racing to the finish line of driverless technology, can convince the greater public to trust self-driving cars.

As Ford gears up for the ambitious plan of autonomous driving, it is taking things slow on others. The American car manufacturer decided to skip the Paris Motor Show 2016 because it wants to host its own auto show.

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Health officials in the United States issued Thursday a new travel advisory for pregnant women visiting 11 countries in Southeast Asia amid the "uncertain" threat of Zika virus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) listed the countries as follows: Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Current Situation In Southeast Asia

In a statement, the CDC recommended pregnant women to consider postponing non-essential travel to these countries due to the risk of Zika virus infection.

The health agency emphasized that the level of risk is still unknown and may likely be lower than in regions where the virus is newly introduced and spreading widely.

Recent variations in the number of cases have been reported in the area, the CDC said, and although locals may likely be immune, travelers from the U.S. may not be.

Zika has been present in Southeast Asia for many years, with several countries reporting small or occasional outbreaks, according to the CDC.

Outbreaks of the mosquito-borne virus have been reported in other parts of Asia, including Singapore and South Korea, where cases have risen to 82 and six, respectively.

The Zika virus is spread mostly by the bite of an infected Aedes Aegypti mosquito. Once infected, only about 20 percent of patients display symptoms, which include red eyes, rash, fever and joint pain.

Health officials are focusing more on advising pregnant women because Zika has been found to cause birth defects in babies, such as microcephaly, a condition where a baby is born with an abnormally small head.

Zika has also been linked to the Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological condition in which the immune system attacks the peripheral nervous system. One of the symptoms is a tingling sensation or weakness in the legs.

How To Protect Yourself Against Zika Virus

As of writing, no vaccine or medicine against Zika has been approved yet. Because of this, travelers  especially pregnant women  can protect themselves by doing the following:

1. Wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants to cover exposed skin.

2. Apply EPA-registered insect repellents that contain picaridin, oil of lemon eucalyptus, DEET, or IR3535. Pregnant and breastfeeding women are advised to use all EPA-registered products, including the ones that contain DEET. Most repellents such as DEET can be used on kids aged 2 months old and above.

3. Remain in places with window and door screens, as well as air conditioning.

4. Use a mosquito bed net if air conditioning or screened rooms are not available, or if you are sleeping outdoors. Use mosquito netting in strollers, carriers, cribs for babies to protect them from mosquito bites.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Iceland's capital Reykjavik basked in the beauty of one of nature's spectacular light shows as Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis glowed around the city Wednesday night.

But in order to watch the stunning Aurora Borealis display well, the City Council switched off all street lights and advised residents to do the same in their homes.

"The spectacle of Aurora Borealis requires dark and partly clear skies," the Icelandic Met Office posted on its website.

By doing so, residents reduced the level of light pollution to a minimum, making the view of the Northern Lights much better than ever.

The Icelandic Met Office, which releases daily forecast of the Northern Lights, predicted that it would appear in the city at about 9 or 10 p.m. local time.

Beforehand, the city council announced that street lights would be switched off in multiple sections for a one-hour blackout and reminded residents to drive safely.

However, the spectacular light show was off to a slow start, so lights were switched off by 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. until midnight. According to NPR, some residents were initially annoyed when the Northern Lights did not begin on schedule.

At the same time, Icelandic Police had warned residents to be careful while watching the Northern Lights, emphasizing the dangers that might befall them if they observed the phenomenon in a car parked in the roadside or while in the middle of the street.

Both residents and tourists alike posted photos of the beautiful Northern Lights on social media.

The lights were really strong in the last two nights," said 18-year-old Florian Schade who has been living in Reykjavik for two months. "It was unbelievable."

Reykjavik  a city with a population of 120,000  prides itself on the frequent displays of Aurora Borealis in its night sky.

Although Reykjavik is a small city, the light pollution in it is visible in previous photos of Northern Lights, appearing as a pink or orange glow on the horizon.

Aurora Borealis occurs when electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the atmosphere of the earth collide, producing a lasting vivid display.

The phenomenon is routinely visible in the circumpolar region, and forecasts reveal good conditions for the Northern Lights over much of Alaska on Thursday night.

In early March, a space weather scientist at NASA founded a new citizen science project that aims to gather information about Auroras online. The crowdsourcing project is known as "Aurorasaurus."

Watch the videos below to get a glimpse of the beautiful Aurora Borealis in Iceland.

Photo: Balint Foldesi | Flickr

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Chinese state broadcaster CCTV has accused Samsung of discriminating against local consumers over the global Galaxy Note 7 recall.

The South Korean smartphone maker had to recall its newest phablet as many owners complained that their Galaxy Note 7 caught fire or exploded while charging. About 2.5 million potentially faulty units were recalled all over the world, but Samsung was swift to get defective units replaced with new ones.

In mid-September, Tim Baxter, the President and COO of Samsung Electronics America, also issued a video message to American consumers addressing the issues surrounding the Galaxy Note 7 battery. During the video, Baxter also apologized for the entire Galaxy Note 7 fiasco.

Although Samsung has apologized for the problems customers faced with the faulty Galaxy Note 7, CCTV suggested that Samsung's behavior during the recall was "full of arrogance."

CCTV added that Samsung may have properly handled the Galaxy Note 7 recall in other parts of the world, especially the U.S., but the company handled the phablet recall very poorly in China. While Samsung issued a formal apology to the U.S., the company issued a statement in China saying most of the units didn't need replacement.

The broadcaster also slammed Samsung saying that the Galaxy Note 7 maker offered various return, exchange and refund options to customers in the U.S. but didn't offer similar benefits to consumers in China. It added that such behavior from Samsung is deemed discriminatory and has caused discontent from Chinese consumers.

Samsung has recalled less than 2,000 units in China. The company claims that most of the Galaxy Note 7 units in China were not affected by the global recall, as the battery provided in these phablets were procured from a different supplier. However, it's worth noting that several cases of Galaxy Note 7 phones catching fire have been reported in China as well.

The Galaxy Note 7 recall has cost Samsung more than $1 billion. Moreover, it has affected Samsung's reputation in the entire world. The Korean company is trying hard to bolster its position in the global smartphone market but it seems that it will only be distracted by the CCTV report on the company's discriminating policy over Galaxy Note 7 recall in China.

According to the International Data Corporation, Samsung is the leading mobile phone vendor in the entire world. However, the company is facing stiff competition in China by local rivals such as Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and more.

The remarks made by CCTV may affect Samsung's sales as well as reputation in China. Samsung has not yet released a statement to address CCTV's remark over the smartphone recall.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
After Phones, Samsung's Washing Machine Explodes In The US | TechTree.com

Just when Samsung is having tough time dealing with the exploding Note 7 fiasco, reports of its self-destructive machines have left the Korean company red faced. According to Melissa Thaxton, who witnessed one of such incident stated that: "It was the loudest sound. It sounded like a bomb went off in my ear. There were wires, nuts, the cover actually was laying on the floor. I just remember covering my head and leaning towards my son and just screaming this scream that I didnt even know I could scream."



Reports suggest that there have been multiple instances where Samsung's top-loading washing machines exploded in owner's house. These consumers have filed a case against Samsung in New Jersey. The South Korean company is facing regulatory action from the US authorities. If the problem is found to be widespread, Samsung may have to recall a certain batch of washing machines. In response, Samsung has released a statement noting that the company is in active discussions with the CPSC to address potential safety issues related to certain top-load washing machines manufactured between March 2011 and April 2016. It has also urged the consumers with affected models to use the lower speed delicate cycle when washing bedding, bulky or water-resistant materials.







On a related "note", Analysts estimate that Samsung has already lost billions replacing the faulty Note 7 units. The self destructing machines is the last thing they needed at this time. While money won't be a big issue for Samsung, tarnished brand image will surely give them sleepless nights.

TAGS: Samsung
On July 4, 1894, the Lewis and Clark County Commission invited the Rocky Boy and Little Shell tribes to perform a Sun Dance at the county fairgrounds.

At that time, Montana Gov. John E. Rickards had issued a proclamation prohibiting such events and ceremonies by vagabond Indians.

There was a lot of conflict about the presence of landless Indians, such as the Little Shell, in Montana communities at that time, said Daniel Pocha, a Little Shell member who grew up in Helena.

He, with the help of historian Nicholas Vrooman, has been a prime mover in creating a plaque commemorating the 1894 Sun Dance and the county commissioners support of the landless Indians.

The metal plaque, which has a colorful border painted by local artist Louise Ogemahgeshig Fischer, was just installed in the Exhibit Halls west entrance Thursday.

On Friday, Sept. 30, at 2 p.m., a public ceremony will be held at the fairgrounds to mark the event. A smudging ceremony is planned, and a presentation by historian Nicholas Vrooman on the history of the tribe.

The Lewis and Clark County commissioners will also be invited to say a few words, said Pocha. Staff from the states Congressional delegation are also scheduled to speak.

Pocha believes that a historic photo of a Sun Dance was likely taken at the July 4, 1894, Sun Dance at the fairgrounds, (or possibly one that followed on its heels in Butte). It shows a Sun Dance priest being raised in the air in an eagle nest, lifted by huge lodgepoles pushed in place by tribal members. The priest dressed in regalia raises a ceremonial rattle in his right hand.

Surrounding the crowd that is raising the eagle nest are tribal members and a few whites, with several teepees in the background.

It was very spiritual to the dancers, Pocha said of the Sun Dance. It took many members to get that priest up in the air -- it took the whole community.

The tribe also performed a Sun Dance in 1908 in the park that now stands across from Helena Middle School, said Pocha.

The county commission would allow the tribe to hold the Sun Dances as a way to raise money from onlookers, which supported tribal members and the whole tribe, Pocha said.

Following the 1908 Sun Dance, Little Shell chiefs Little Bear and Rocky Boy led a procession to Congressman Thomas Carters home on Dearborn Avenue and held a council outside. They requested a reservation.

The Little Shell, to this day, remain landless Indians and are still seeking federal tribal recognition from both the U.S. Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said Pocha.

The Sun Dance, plaque and its ceremony are about education, said Fischer, a wise woman from the Anishinaabe (Minnesota Chippewa) tribe who will do the smudging ceremony on Friday.

The Sun Dance was a time of sharing, she said. Another significant thing about the Sun Dance is its a time of purification and reinstatement of who you are -- how you become a whole person. The Sun Dance was a renewal of the whole person. It was a way to renew life and become whole.

This dedication recognizes they had a wonderful ceremony here, she said of the Helena community. And their descendents still live here. That is a beautiful thing that it be acknowledged.

On display Friday only will be two skulls -- one buffalo and one Texas longhorn -- that Fischer has used as a canvas to paint the history of the Landless Indians of Montana -- often called Little Shell, Metis or Michif.

On the longhorn skull, painted in golds, greens and blues, Fischer depicts tribal members coming west from Minnesota with their distinctive large-wheeled, wooden Red River carts. It also shows the buffalo the tribes relied on being vanquished into the sky.

Above them the Little Shell ancestors are shown entering the swirling land of the Northern Lights.

Prominently featured on the bison skull, painted in earth tones, are portraits of Little Shell chiefs Little Bear and Little Shell and Nez Perce Chief Joseph -- all of whom were American Indian leaders in this area.

The Little Shell are a culturally rich poly-ethnic aboriginal group of Chippewa, Cree, Assiniboine, French and Scottish heritage, said Vrooman, who has written a history of the tribe. One of the things that makes them different is they held both European and indigenous traditions and seamlessly mixed the two.

The plaque dedication ceremony will coincide with the launch of this years Last Chance Pow Wow, which begins Friday evening.
Xiaomi Announces Price Cuts On Its Popular Handsets | TechTree.com

Xiaomi has announced significant price cuts on its products in India. The move comes as the nation prepares for the Diwali festival. The Chinese company's offers spread across e-commerce websites including Flipkart, Amazon, and Snapdeal.



For instance, offers on the Mi 5, Mi Max, Mi 4, Redmi 3S, 3S Prime, Redmi Note 3 will be live on Flipkart during Oct 3-6. On the other hand, you can avail offers on the Redmi Note 3, Mi Max, Mi Band, Mi power banks on Amazon from October 1 to 6. Snapdeal will also join the party with discounts on the Redmi Note 3 and Mi Max during first week of October.



Xiaomi's current flagship Mi 5 receives a biggest cut with a new price tag of Rs 20,000. That's Rs 3000 less than its last month's cost. The Mi Max's cost has gone down by a grand as it is now pegged at Rs 14,000. The Redmi 3S Prime, which we recently reviews, gets a discount price of Rs 8500. For the full list of offers, check out the image below:





TAGS: Xiaomi
Privacy : This Page Lets You Disable a Lot of Googles Activity Tracking

Its an open secret that Google probably knows more about you than you. The search giant probes all your online activities by tracking lots of your data. Some people may be comfortable with Google tracking them but a majority of Internet users who use Googles search/mail/browser/Apps may not be happy with continuous tracking that goes on behind their back. If you are one of such privacy oriented individuals, it can be a pain to figure out how to turn Googles tracking off. Fortunately, for such people, Google has made an all encompassing settings page where you can disable a lot of it.

Earlier this year, Google created a timeline of your activity that you can browse to see just what the company knows about you and delete it if you want. Be warned that the timeline only handles the data that Google already has. If you want to stop it from getting that data in the first place, follow these steps:

Head to this link to find your My Activity page. Click the menu button (three vertical dots) at the top-right of the page. Click Activity Controls.

On the My Activity page, you can scroll through a selection of different kinds of Google tracking, including web activity, location history, voice recordings, and YouTube history. You can select the tracking feature to disable from here and disable as many of these as you want.

Do remember that disabling data tracking creates obstacles in Google serving its optimum services to you. You might lose some Google features. For example, disabling voice recording will probably remove Ok, Google from your phone.

But once you have disabled Googles data tracking, Google may stop tracking that part of data from your online surfing. However, Google has other ways and means to a lot about you, as Google may still collect anonymized data, but it at least wont be tied to your name.
Israeli company claims it has developed CatchApp tool which can siphon encrypted WhatsApp data from a distance

You may have seen in many Hollywood movies in which the main protagonist, an agent from the CIA or FBI placing his/her mobile besides the victims smartphone and copying data from it. Up to now, siphoning data from any smartphone just by being in its proximity was considered fiction but now an Israeli cyber surveillance company claims it has developed a sophisticated tool called CatchApp which can siphon off all WhatsApp chats, including encrypted communications, from phones within close proximity of a hidden Wi-Fi hacking device in a backpack.

Haifa-based Wintego has released brochures for its CatchApp tool which it calls as a WhatsApp interceptor.

Wintego promises that the Catchall App has an unprecedented capability to break through WhatsApp encryption and grab full data from a targets account. It does so through a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack; in theory, the traffic is intercepted between the app and the WhatsApp server and somehow the encryption is decoded by the device, though that may not be possible with the latest upgrades to the softwares cryptography.

The company did not elaborate on how its CatchApp tool manages to decode/decrypt the WhatsApp encryption but Forbes has noted that the tool works on most versions of WhatsApp. The company has released the brochures of the App to advertise it to different police and law enforcement agencies around the globe.

The CatchApp tool is a part of larger Wintego arsenal called WINT. According to the company, WINT hacking tool can fit into backpack. The company calls WINT a data extraction solution and says that it can can obtain the entire contents of your targets email accounts, chat sessions, social network profiles, detailed contact lists, year-by-year calendars, files, photos, web browsing activity, and more just by being near the victims PC/laptop/smartphone. It does that by acquiring login credentials for distinct accounts and then silently downloads all the data stored therein.

Wintego claims WINT first gains access to a device by intercepting Wi-Fi communications, whether theyre open or private encrypted networks. WINT uses four separate Wi-Fi access points so it can track multiple targets and high-gain antennas to catch those at a distance. Its small enough to fit into any backpack, said Wintego, so is ideal for stealthy operations.

The details about Wintego dealings are top secret but reports indicate that it was founded by alumni of Verint, another Israeli firm. Verint itself was the top cyber surveillance tools supplier for Americas National Security Agency (NSA). According to Forbes, Yuval Luria acts as the face of the company, promoting the kit at major surveillance shows. He recently presented at the ISS World Training event in Prague (also known as the Wiretappers Ball), giving a talk on A Hybrid Tactical-Strategic Approach for Extracting Cyber Intelligence. Nhevo Kaufman appears to act as company chief, having set up the firms website back in 2011.

Both the above tools are for sale only to police, law enforcement and spy firms but it is nowhere stated that the same cant be bought by rogue actors.
Samsungs bad time continues; after Galaxy Note 7, its washing machines explode in the U.S.

It looks like Samsungs woes are just beginning to pile up. The worlds premier smartphone maker and one of South Koreas biggest consumer electric maker is going thorugh a really rough patch. First, it was Samsungs Galaxy Note 7 smartphones that were exploding due to defective batteries. Now, it is their washing machines, which are exploding.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has issued a warning to owners in regards to certain top-loading Samsung washing machines after fielding several complaints about the machines exploding.

More than a month after the federal class-action lawsuit was filed by the customers claiming their machines exploded during use, the warning was finally released on Thursday.

In a statement released on its website, CPSC said it is actively and cooperatively working with Samsung to address safety issues related to certain top-load washing machines made between March 2011 and April 2016.

While the lawsuit did not specify which models are potentially dangerous, it alleged that there were at least 11.

The lawsuit, filed in New Jersey, alleges that customers machines had blown apart and exploded in owners homes.

It was the loudest sound. It sounded like a bomb went off in my ear, said Melissa Thaxton, one of the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit. There were wires, nuts, the cover actually was laying on the floor. I just remember covering my head and leaning towards my son and just screaming this scream that I didnt even know I could scream.

Leiff Cabraser, who is representing the plaintiffs, said: Beyond damage to the washing machines themselves, reports include descriptions of glass and other machine parts being shot across garages and laundry rooms at distances of over 15 feet, with consequent damage to other appliances, water heaters, and homes.

In a statement released by Samsung, it said, We are in active discussions with the CPSC to address potential safety issues related to certain top-load washing machines manufactured between March 2011 and April 2016. In rare cases, affected units may experience abnormal vibrations that could pose a risk of personal injury or property damage when washing bedding, bulky or water-resistant items.

Samsung is recommending that consumers with affected models use the lower speed delicate cycle when washing bedding, bulky or water-resistant materials. There have been no reported incidents when using this cycle. It is important to note that Samsung customers have completed hundreds of millions of loads without incident since 2011.

CPSC and Samsung are working on a remedy for affected consumers that will help ensure there are no further incidents. We will provide updated information to the public as soon as possible on this website.

Consumers can determine if they have an affected appliance by entering in your serial number here.
The winner of the Brazilian presidential elections on Sunday, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2011), assured that he would work to put his country back on the international... | Read More
Toxic stress in children is a topic Montanans are beginning to hear more about.

Researchers have been discovering that children raised with certain traumas -- known as Adverse Childhood Experiences -- can suffer lifelong impacts.

Traumatic experiences such as neglect or emotional, physical or sexual abuse cause the childs brain to flood with cortisol, a chemical the body releases as part of its fight-or-flight response when threatened.

When the brain floods with cortisol, it affects the biology of brain development.

One way to counter the impacts of toxic stress is fostering resilience in kids.

This was the main focus of a talk Thursday by keynote speaker, author and pediatrician Kenneth Ginsburg at a two-day ChildWise Institute conference opening Thursday morning at the Best Western Great Northern Hotel.

The most protective things in anyones life are unconditional love and high expectations, said Ginsburg, whose specialty is adolescent medicine.

The fundamental question of adolescence is -- who am I? he said. They are looking for their identity.

If adolescents are seen as dangerous or thoughtless, then adolescents become that. If we see them as idealistic and caring and committed, they rise to those expectations.

When kids have an adult who really, really sees them and holds them to that sense of morality and high expectation, kids rise, he said.

Lift people up, recognize what they bring to the table -- their compassion, their sensitivity.

The negative behaviors kids develop have a cause, he said. And a behavior, such as smoking marijuana, may feel good to them, which is why they do it. They are not yet at a stage where they are aware of consequences. Nor can they hear an adult who lectures them about it.

Adolescents are capable of healing, Ginsburg advised the crowd of 350 attendees. Dont give up on them.

He also emphasized not treat these kids like they are damaged. Rather than fixing them or lecturing them, listen to them.

In their pain and emotionality is also their strength.

Ginsburg has spent more than two decades assisting youth in developing their own solutions to problems. An award-winning researcher, he also directs Covenant House in Philadelphia, which serves runaway, homeless and trafficked youth.

What are some common mistakes parents make with youth?

People forget that parenting begins with breastfeeding, he said. Its giving kids nurturance. Giving kids a sense they can rely on somebody. Giving kids a sense they are really valued and cherished by another human being. Its not only celebrating kids, its also reading to kids and spending time with kids.

It doesnt stop with adolescence," he said. Adolescents crave the very same attention that children do.

As kids grow older, parents tend to spend more time correcting kids rather than just being with their kids.

We are role models for kids. Be ... the kind of person you want to see reflected in your childs eyes.

While the first part of Ginsburgs talk focused more on the science of trauma, the second part was sharing insights on helping kids to build their strengths and resilience.

Some of the kids most at risk of facing ACE stresses, he said, are those who are black, brown, American Indian or gay, because of the structural racism in U.S. society, poverty and homophobia.

Not only is there a societal cost for the emotional damage ACE stresses cause on children, but there is growing scientific evidence of the physical health impacts this stress has on people as they grow older, such as hypertension, obesity and diabetes.

Another aspect researchers are looking into is the impact ACE stresses have on multiple generations of a family because of how stress influences which genes are turned on and expressed.

The ChildWise conference opened with the screening of the documentary film, Resilience, by award-winning filmmaker James Redford and Karen Pritzker. The film highlights successful early childhood programs and family supports that protect children from toxic stress.

A Helena chapter of Elevate Montana is working to get more Helena people involved in ACE awareness. Its holding a Community Cafe meeting at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 27 at St. Paul United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall. For more information, call Trina Filan at United Way, 442-4360.

For more information about ChildWise visit childwise.org.
BUTTE -- A group of "organized," "belligerent cheaters" overwhelmed several classes at Montana Tech this summer.

The spate of academic dishonesty, which resulted in the expulsion of 15 students, appears to have been far more systematic and widespread than previously reported.

Montana Tech professors and proctors were confronted by dozens of out-of-state Middle Eastern students blatantly cheating through a variety of methods, including smuggled cell phones, earpieces, fake calculators, smart watches, hand signals, mass bathroom breaks, fake IDs, old exam copies and at least one diversionary fake fainting episode, according to documents attached to a Faculty Senate report.

The report, authored by Montana Tech professors and proctors, details a summer-long escalation of cheating and resultant crackdowns culminating in students intimidating and threatening faculty members teaching general engineering courses, which were populated at up to 10 times their typical class size. The documents, obtained by The Montana Standard, were not published online on the senate's web site.

General engineering lab director Matt Egloff said the situation escalated as cheaters became aggressive when their academic dishonesty was exposed throughout the summer.

Faculty and staff proctoring these tests were outnumbered about 10:1 by these belligerent cheaters for all of these tests. Most of the proctors and faculty are old, small, etc.  in other words not people trained to handle a fight with a single 20-year-old let alone 100 of them. Had these angry belligerent cheaters decided to riot, we would have been overwhelmed, Egloff said in the report.

Summer enrollment for out-of-state undergraduate students grew this summer by 122 percent, with 130 students compared to last summers 59, according to the Montana University Systems summer 2016 enrollment report.

In terms of enrollment, It was a very good summer, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Doug Abbott said.

Abbott said his office received reports of academic dishonesty concerning 46 students this summer. Some students were caught multiple times, with 62 individual reported cases of cheating. The faculty senate report lists dozens more cases. Montana Techs academic dishonesty policy does not state how many infractions result in expulsion, but Abbott said he maintains a two-strike policy.

Six courses were named in the report as affected by cheating, most of them engineering prerequisites. According to the registrars office, summer enrollment for each of those 3-credit courses added up to 486 seats.

With the cost of nonresident summer tuition for three credits $2,457 a head, Montana Tech counted around $1.2 million in tuition from the six courses highlighted for cheating this summer. Abbott said the dishonest students, including those expelled, were not reimbursed.

While instructors clarified in the Faculty Senate report that not all students in the summer general engineering courses cheated, most did. The final course average of the 56 students in Nathan Hufts general engineering 201 statics class was 37 percent, an F grade, despite extra credit for bonus questions, attendance quizzes and exam corrections. Only about 10 percent passed.

Cheating was so rampant that Huft and other instructors were unable to keep track of every instance. By finals week the problem was still extreme.

Faculty gave final exams like they were the high security test that licenses professional engineers, completely controlling the testing environment. As many faculty as could be found were brought in to proctor final exams for the general engineering classes.

Egloffs requests to hold exams for larger classes in Techs gym and station police on campus during finals week were denied by administrators.

I did not think it was necessary nor a good idea to have uniformed police occupy our campus, Abbott said in an email to the Standard. When is it a good idea to have uniformed police officers occupy a campus?

Police had to show up anyway after students ejected for cheating began screaming at instructors, calling them racist and filming them with their phones.

Female employees were singled out for verbal harassment, and one female student was tripped as she walked through a large group of ejected students, according to the report.

The report said ejected students mobbed instructors. Security guards extricated some instructors and locked others inside the engineering building after shoving the mob out the door.

One proctor received threatening messages on his phone after the tests.

Many faculty and staff expressed concern for their personal safety during and after these classes, Egloff said in the report.

Bottom line: Faculty, staff, and students were put in serious danger all summer long from this group of belligerent cheaters, the report ended.

Provost Abbott declined to disclose what schools the students came from, citing student privacy concerns, and said that the schools werent informed of the cheating.

Evidence points to the students coming from Idaho State University, including suspicious doctors notes from Pocatello, an email allegedly sent out to faculty, and a cheating scandal at ISU involving Middle Eastern students as reported by the New York Times in March.

ISUs associate dean of science and engineering David Rodgers told the Times 80 to 90 percent of cheating reported in recent semesters in his department involved the universitys roughly 1,500 foreign students, of whom Saudis and Kuwaitis make up 77 percent.

If any of Montana Techs cheaters did come from Pocatello, Idaho State University isnt rushing to claim them.

Idaho State University will not comment on alleged infractions committed by former students at other colleges and universities that are unrelated to our institution, said associate vice president of marketing and communications for ISU Stuart Summers in a statement.

Many of Idaho States Saudi students study under the same Saudi government program as the 36 Montana Tech students implicated in a bribery and grade-changing scandal in 2012. Those students paid tuition courtesy of the $6 billion King Abdullah Scholarship Program, which sponsors up to 90 percent of Saudi students studying abroad.

The number of Saudi students studying at American universities has grown sharply under the program, but falling oil prices have the Kingdom restricting scholarships to top schools, as reported by Moodys Investors Services in February. Montana Tech and Idaho State may lose a lucrative source of tuition dollars, but the Saudi embassy has stayed mum on the issue.

Whether Montana Tech finds itself in this problem again, Faculty Senate has dug in, meeting on a weekly basis to decide best how to revise the academic dishonesty policy so it best reflects instructor and student needs.

Egloff called the summer overwhelming, but was proud the faculty kept cheaters from getting away with it.

It was ugly, but it was a success, Egloff said. Lets make it not ugly next time.
In the recent article on the Western Governors Forest and Rangeland Management confab, Governor Bullock and USFS Chief Tidwell warmly congratulated each other on at last creating agreement on forest policy between timber mills, government, and environmentalists.

The challenge was getting anyone outside that room to pay attention to the solution proposed, which was -- hey, surprise! -- cutting down a lot more trees.

That would include you, me, groups who take defense of our remaining forests seriously, and the entire population of the United States to whom Federal Forests belong.

Putting us all aside, though, the partners -- including collaborating environmental groups -- find themselves joyously united in a new push to get out the cut. Not surprising, since thats what they came there to do.

To represent it as an end to timber wars, however, is -- as Mark Twain said of reports of his death -- premature. The wars this cozy cadre of get-out-the-cutters deplore, and whose end they assiduously seek, will never stop until the Forest Service obeys the laws that govern its operation.

You see, unless the FS and phony, money-driven pols like Bullock can get our corrupt farce of a Congress to rescind the few laws that inadequately protect our National Forests, theyll be obliged to follow them.

Its tiresome jerking the chain of the braindead FS bureaucracy again and again only to have them -- after so many losses -- persist in re-shooting themselves in the foot. Theres no fixing stupid, but heres the deal one more time, guys: break the law and we will sue and you will lose.

And joining hands and hearts with timorous, sold out, mock enviros eager to be loved for the plasticity of their principles wont make breaking laws any more successful.

The pathetic charade under which this End of The Timber Wars is hyped, is that fire-saleing our forests will revivify rural Montana. Even in their fondest dream, in which our last forests are liquidated and bankrupt mills run full bore, the number of jobs and associated benefits to Montanas economy would be statistically insignificant.

Face it: the Days of Wine and Roses for extractive industry in Montana are over forever, and good riddance. Our Last Best Place is too wondrous, too wonderful, to be made a vast Third World sacrifice zone and Superfund site, and our citizenry is beginning to understand that.

Youd think our politicians might follow where we lead. But no, the money of industrial rapers, polluters and exploiters buys them every time. Its a sad thing to sell your soul, but sadder yet if you dont have one to sell.

Paul Edwards

Helena
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STARRING: Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez, Dylan O'Brien and Kate Hudson

DIRECTOR: Peter Berg

NOW SHOWING: At AMC Baton Rouge 16, AMC Mall of La. 15, Cinemark Perkins Rowe and XD, Movie Tavern Citiplace, Malco Gonzales Cinema, The Grand 14 (Lafayette), The Grand 16 (Lafayette), and Celebrity Theatres Broussard 10 (Lafayette).

RUNNING TIME: 1 hr., 39 mins.

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WHY IS THIS MOVIE RATED PG-13? For prolonged intense disaster sequences and related disturbing images, and brief strong language.

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In a response to the racially charged tragedies that rocked Baton Rouge this past summer, LSU is hosting a two-day symposium to discuss the impact that the shootings had on race relations, the media and the democratic process.

The event titled "Moment or Movement: A National Dialogue on Identity, Empowerment and Justice for All," begins Monday on LSU's campus.

The keynote speaker of the event will be civil rights pioneer Norman Francis, the former president of Xavier University and the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Francis was the first African-American to enroll at both Loyola University in New Orleans and Loyola University Law School.

The symposium will also feature CNN reporter and Baton Rouge-native Don Lemon who will discuss the event through the lens of the media. Lemon's event will also feature LSU President F. King Alexander, a representative for Gov. John Bel Edwards, and community leaders like the Rev. Raymond Jetson.

Other programs within the forum will explore issues like gender, business and law enforcement.

U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, will speak about government leadership and the role of voting.

Representatives from historically black universities will also be invited to speak at the event.

This summer Baton Rouge found itself at the center of two national news stories that have stoked racial tensions throughout the nation. First, a 37-year-old black man named Alton Sterling was shot by police officers. Officers say Sterling had a gun on him, but videos of the shooting taken by witnesses drew criticism about whether the shooting could have been avoided. The event prompted weeks of protests, where law enforcement officers were again criticized for a militarized response. About 200 people were arrested in the protests.

Then, a man from Missouri, angry about the shootings, came to Louisiana and shot six law enforcement officers, killing three of them.
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A Baton Rouge man was found guilty Thursday in the 2014 slaying of a 21-year-old man shot in the back while running for his life from the armed robber.

Hardy Allen, 23, faces a mandatory term of life in prison when state District Judge Lou Daniel sentences him Oct. 14 for the second-degree murder conviction in the killing of Calvin Chrisentary.

Baton Rouge man indicted in Madison Avenue fatal shooting on Oct. 13 A Baton Rouge man was indicted Thursday in the Oct. 13 shooting death of a 21-year-old man o

Chrisentary's mother, Harmika Chrisentary-Payne, shed tears of joy outside the courtroom shortly after the 11-1 verdict by the jury of eight women and four men was announced. The East Baton Rouge Parish panel deliberated three hours.

"I am happy beyond words," she said. "It's been really hard. I'm glad it turned out with justice being served. At least we can have closure."

Prosecutor Lauren Corkern told jurors earlier Thursday that Chrisentary was walking down Madison Avenue near North Foster Drive on Oct. 13, 2014, with headphones on when Allen approached him, armed with a .40-caliber pistol.

"(Allen) saw a target," she said. "He wanted to go rob him."

Corkern said Chrisentary punched Allen in the jaw during the struggle and then "ran for his life." Chrisentary's headphones were found a short distance from his body, she said.

A shell casing discovered at the scene matched a .40-caliber pistol found in Allen's home, Corkern said. Allen's fingerprint also was located on the gun's magazine, she noted.

+8 Arrest made as community mourns slaying of 21-year-old Within hours of friends and family lighting candles at the site of a slain Baton Rouge man, 

Allen's then-girlfriend told police Allen admitted to her that he killed Chrisentary after trying to rob him.

Allen's attorney, Jason Hessick, told the jury that Allen is a "good man  caught in some dreadful lies."
Fentanyl has caused at least 13 overdose deaths in Lafayette this year, more than quadrupling the number of people killed last year by the dru
Five candidates in the crowded race for Louisiana's open U.S. Senate seat have been invited to take part in a debate hosted by the Council for a Better Louisiana ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

Of the 24 candidates on the ballot, Republicans U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany, Public Service U.S. Rep. John Fleming and state Treasurer John Kennedy and Democrats Commission Foster Campbell and attorney Caroline Fayard met the criteria needed to receive invitations. Benchmarks included campaign organization, polling and fundraising markers.

The debate is scheduled for 7 p.m. Oct. 18 at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston and will air on Louisiana Public Broadcasting channels across the state.

Here's the official criteria CABL says it used to winnow the field down to five:

Have established a campaign committee with a treasurer and campaign staff, and filed campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission prior to the debate AND

Polled at least 5% in a nonpartisan or news media poll recognized by CABL released after qualifying AND

Raised at least $1 million in campaign funds prior to the debate. Since the next deadline for campaign finance filing is not until October 15, candidates who meet the polling criteria and send CABL an affidavit certified by an official with the campaign that they have raised the required campaign contributions will be invited to participate pending the filing of the official report.

Candidates who didn't make the cut include retired Air Force Col. Rob Maness, former Congressman Joseph Cao and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, all Republicans.

The election is to replace U.S. Sen. David Vitter, a Republican who isn't seeking re-election. A runoff will take place on Dec. 10 if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote in November.
In 2009, Cayce Badeaux McDaniel had just finished college at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and was living what people would consider a normal life. Things were going fine.

It all changed when she broke her neck in a car wreck  an injury that would send her into a spiral of addiction to painkillers.

"Before I even knew it, I was buying it off the street. I was using benzos, and then I used alcohol  basically anything that would make me feel different than I did," McDaniel said.

For the next five years it was a cycle of drugs, car accidents, arrests.

She describes the time as: "Pain and sorrow and disappointment after disappointment of my family and of everybody around me who truly loved me."

Today, she's in recovery and serves as an addiction counselor herself.

But McDaniel's addiction story is a familiar one in Louisiana, a state that has been hit particularly hard by a national opioid crisis that health leaders say is largely driven by the abuse of prescription painkillers.

Louisiana has the seventh-highest opioid pain reliever-prescribing rate in the country, and the drug overdose rate outpaces the national average.

"We've got so many people dying because of drug use," said Dr. Rochelle Head-Dunham, executive and medical director of the Metropolitan Human Services District. "It is absolutely an epidemic."

A new task force, formally called the Commission on Preventing Opioid Abuse, is working to come up with a set of recommendations for short-term and long-term efforts that can be made to address prescription opioid and heroin abuse and addiction in Louisiana. The 38-member task force, created during the legislative session earlier this year, includes representatives from the medical, pharmaceutical, insurance and law enforcement communities, among others.

"It's a significant issue and it's something that needs to be addressed," said state Rep. Helena Moreno, a New Orleans Democrat who has emerged as a key voice in addressing opioid issues in the Legislature. "We are losing too many lives to opioid abuse."

Head-Dunham said that drug usage tends to go through cycles. Whereas a decade ago methamphetamine was considered an epidemic, the cycle has turned to opioids.

"This is where we are," she said.

She said that there is a common thread for many people suffering from opioid addiction: Often it begins with pain medications for legitimate ailments.

When users aren't able to get more prescriptions for the painkillers that they crave, they turn to illicit drugs like heroin or get their pills illicitly.

DEA: Scourge of fentanyl gripping New Orleans region, fueling fatal overdoses The rash of fatal overdoses attributed to the designer drug fentanyl continues to grip the N

At the same time, opioid addicts also build tolerance to the drugs and then increase their usage. It escalates to the point where they go to deadly limits to satisfy their cravings and stave off withdrawal symptoms.

"It's a vicious cycle that the person gets into," Head-Dunham said.

The state Legislature has adopted laws that, among other things, have made naloxone, a nasal spray that can be used to treat opioid overdose in emergency situations, easier to obtain. The state also has an aggressive Prescription Monitoring Program. But leaders say the problem continues to plague the state, with overdoses of heroin, fentanyl, oxycodone and other opioids all too common.

"There's still so much more to do," Moreno said.

The federal government has invested more than $2 million over the past year to aid Louisiana in the fight against opioid abuse.

Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who took office in January, has ramped up the state's nearly dormant Drug Policy Board as well.

Edwards was one of 46 governors earlier this year to sign the National Governors Association's compact to increase efforts to fight the opioid epidemic. The agreement suggests that states work to reduce inappropriate prescribing, raise awareness and increase treatment options.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that in 2012 there were more opioid prescriptions than there were people in Louisiana, with 118 prescriptions for every 100 people.

The CDC has called the rise in prescription opioid and heroin-related deaths "alarming," and encouraged states to address the "emerging threat to public health and safety."

The Louisiana Department of Health also has been working to spread awareness of treatment and recovery options. LDH offers assistance through the state's local Human Services Districts.

"It's never too late," said Dr. James Hussey, assistant secretary of LDH's Office of Behavioral Health.

Barack Obama: A commitment to treatment for opiod addictions Last fall, I listened as a mother named Cary Dixon told her familys story at a forum I conv

For McDaniel, it was her son, Christian, who finally convinced her that she needed to seek help.

"I knew that I needed to get sober," she said. "I had this child and I knew that everybody would say, 'If you just loved your child enough, you would stop using.' I would look at my child and say, 'But I do love him,' I just could not stop using."

She entered detox when her son was 10-months old, then entered a residential treatment program.

"It was the beginning of a new way of life for me," she said.

Candace Blood, the director of clinical services at Longleaf Hospital in Pineville and a friend of McDaniel, will soon mark 12 years of sobriety.

"I never really was able to grasp what freedom meant," Blood said. "I just love that's what I've been given in my recovery: Freedom. Freedom from my addictions. Freedom from the worries and the pain. Freedom from worrying about what everyone thinks about who I was or what I did. Freedom from mistakes that I made. Just freedom to move forward and love life and appreciate how beautiful it is."
BILLINGS - An archery hunter shot and injured a bear during an encounter Tuesday night near Hebgen Lake prompting Forest Service officials to caution other visitors to the area.

"An injured bear, like any injured animal, is more dangerous than a healthy one," said Andrea Jones, Fish, Wildlife and Parks information officer in Bozeman.

The incident occurred near the Johnson Lake Trail, close to the trailhead. The trail is about 12 miles north of West Yellowstone. Forest officials were unsure if it was a black bear or grizzly bear that was injured or the extent of the injury to the bear.

Warning signs have been posted at Johnson Lake Trailhead, Whits Lake Trailhead, Red Canyon Trailhead and on Tepee Creek Road. Forest officials along with Montana FWP personnel are searching for the bear. There are no closures at this time.

The incident comes on the heels of two recent bear maulings of archery hunters, one on Saturday in the Cabin Creek area of Hebgen Lake, which is about 11 miles west of Johnson Lake, and the other on Sunday in the Tom Miner Basin in the southern end of the Paradise Valley.

Hikers are reminded that when visiting bear country they should avoid hiking alone; never let small children run ahead or wander; make noise by talking, clapping and singing to avoid startling a bear; stick to the trail.

Hunters are encouraged to carry bear spray and not hunt alone.

Fall is the time that bears are attempting to put on fat before hibernating for the winter. Consequently they spend a lot of time feeding and searching for food.

For additional information please contact the Hebgen Lake Ranger District at 406-823-6961.
In an escalating feud, Gov. John Bel Edwards filed a lawsuit Friday against Attorney General Jeff Landry over Landry's refusal to approve state contracts that protect gays and lesbians from workplace discrimination.

"I believe he is on the wrong side of the law and the wrong side of history on this issue," Edwards told reporters.

In a separate press conference moments later, Landry defended his stance and said he is representing the will of the Legislature.

The attorney general said that, on six occasions, state lawmakers have declined to carve out special protections for gays and lesbians.

"It is hard to defend something that the Legislature as a whole does not want to protect," Landry said.

The action followed an hour-long, closed-door session between the two state officials, who have battled over budgets, hiring practices and other issues since both took office in January.

In addition, Republican Landry is considered a possible challenger to Democrat Edwards in the 2019 race for governor.

The latest flareup involves Landry's decision to reject at least 40 state contracts because they include protection for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees against workplace discrimination.

+3 Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry rejects contracts that include workplace protections Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry rejected 31 state contracts because they included lan

In each case, his action conflicted with an executive order issued by Edwards earlier this year that bans firms that contract with the state from discriminating against any employee based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

The attorney general views the language as outside of state law.

Edwards said that, in his meeting with Landry, the attorney general made his position clear.

"When we had that talk he basically told me that if I wanted him to approve those contracts, I would have to sue him," the governor said. "I am going to oblige him on that."

The challenge is focused on delays in the hiring of private attorneys for numerous state agencies, including the state Department of Insurance, state Department of Transportation and Development, Division of Administration, Department of Natural Resources, Office of Elderly Affairs and others.

In his lawsuit, which was filed with the 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge, Edwards said Landry's action is the sole holdup keeping the agreements from winning final approval.

"The Commissioner of Administration has approved all of these contracts," the lawsuit says. "All of the lawyers and law firms who are parties to the contracts meet, and generally far, exceed the minimum qualifications ..."

"Yet, defendant (Landry) has refused to perform his ministerial duty of approving the contracts and appointing these attorneys," according to the petition.

Ministerial duties apply to reviews aimed at ensuring technical legal requirements are met.

The lawsuit, which was assigned to 19th Judicial District Court Judge Don Johnson, asks for a court order directing Landry to approve the contracts.

"It just lays out his role in this process, my role in this process and the fact that he is not free to substitute my judgement with his own," Edwards said of the lawsuit.

Said Landry, "I look forward to defending the Legislature and their priorities and their wishes."

Landry said earlier this year the Legislature turned down a bill to provide special protections for gays and lesbians. "That legislation was rejected in bipartisan fashion," he said.

Asked about Edwards' comment that he is on the wrong side of history and the law the attorney general said: "Well, I am on the right side of the Legislature and they created the law. So we will have to see. That is why we have the court system."

Dylan Waguespack, managing director of Equality Louisiana, praised the governor's decision to file a lawsuit.

"Attorney General Jeff Landry has reached a new low in obstructing the state's work so that he can punish people for refusing to discriminate against LBGT Louisianians," Waguespack said in an emailed statement.

The governor and attorney general said they made progress on two other issues.

One involves the attorney general's office having enough money to defend abortion-related lawsuits.

The other stems from Landry's bid to expand the state's Medicaid Fraud office.

Edwards, asked about the value of the meeting, said his relationship with Landry is not the problem.

+2 Spat over cars latest insight into Edwards admin-AG Landry tension, Dardenne says Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry asked for state approval for both a car allowance of 

"I think there are differences in our position on the issues," he said.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Foster Campbell on Thursday picked up the endorsements of the Sierra Club and 22 of Louisianas best known environmentalists.

"We are confident that Foster Campbell will work to protect Louisiana families health, air and water, to build an energy economy that works for our state," said Woody Martin, chair of the Delta Chapter of the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club is the nations largest member-led environmental organization, with 2.4 million members, 4,000 of whom live in Louisiana.

Campbell, a member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission, is one two dozen candidates seeking to succeed Republican Sen. David Vitter, who is stepping down at the end of his term. The election is Nov. 8 with a runoff, if necessary, on Dec. 10.

As a state senator, Campbell sponsored legislation creating the Louisiana Black Bear and Bobwhite Quail license plates to fund preservation efforts, restricting billboards on Interstate 49, and giving incentives to landowners to protect wildlife.

Campbell said Thursday he has long backed the idea of suing oil companies for the damage created in seeking and producing oil and natural gas in the coastal marshes of south Louisiana. The state Legislature passed laws in 2014 that retroactively spiked such a lawsuit.

Board votes to continue appeal in coastal erosion lawsuit As a New Orleans-area levee authority on Monday reaffirmed its intention to go forward with 

New Orleans writer John Barry, one of the chief instigators of the legal action, announced Thursday he was backing Campbell.

Every politician talks a good game about it, but few have the courage to do something about it, said Barry, author of Rising Tide, a book about the 1927 flood. In this race Foster Campbell has proven he has the guts to do the right thing, and not just talk the right thing."

Nonprofit groups sue PSC over energy program vote Three nonprofit organizations sued the Louisiana Public Service Commission in Baton Rouge on

Barry is one of 22 environmentalists backing Campbells candidacy. The list includes Casey DeMoss, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy; wildlife artist Don Edwards; and Marylee Orr, Baton Rouge, founder and executive director of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network.
President Barack Obama speaks at the Pentagon, Monday, Dec. 14, 2015, about the fight against the Islamic State group following a National Security Council meeting. The president said the U.S. military and allied forces are hitting the Islamic State group harder than ever. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Advocate staff photo by JOHN McCUSKER -- Bad smells and faulty plumbing at the new Bethune Elementary school in Gentilly has gotten the attention of state DHH.
Charges by the angry wife of Republican U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany defending him against prostitution allegations raised in a new book, sparke
In 2009, Cayce Badeaux McDaniel had just finished college at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and was living what people would conside
New Orleans makes drug for heroin overdoses available over the counter at second pharmacy
The Lonsdale Street traders are having a special "after dark" party to celebrate fashion in the Ori building.

The party is going down on Thursday, October 6, from 5.30pm. Head to the shops for late night trading, live music, special offers and refreshments, including what's billed as "an unmissable spread of edible delights from our friends at Woodbrook catering". Frugii Dessert Laboratory will offer one-off ice cream flavours for the night, such as Negroni icypoles, while you browse homewares from Handsome Pretty and jewellery from Hive and itrip iskip.

Alicia Xyrakis inside her store, Rebel Muse Credit:Rohan Thomson

Three local fashion outlets, bespoke menswear store Braddon Tailors and fashion boutiques Rebel Muse and Assemblage Project, presented shows at Canberra's local fashion weekend.
Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying has threatened to sue a popular local newspaper over "vicious and malicious" accusations of corruption surrounding a multi-million dollar payment he received from Australian firm UGL months before taking office.

Mr Leung issued a legal letter to Apple Daily on Thursday over an editorial it published earlier this month, saying its campaign urging newly-elected lawmakers to pursue the leader over the controversial $7 million payment made in 2011 had potential to jeopardise his chances of re-election.

Details of the payment were first revealed by a Fairfax Media investigation during the height of Hong Kong's citywide pro-democracy protests in 2014, heaping further pressure on the embattled leader and attracting high-level scrutiny in Beijing.

Mr Leung has yet to confirm whether he will seek re-election during next year's chief executive election, but the legal letter is the strongest indication yet he is considering doing so.
FULL LIST BELOW

More than 150 private schools are being over-funded by hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars each year at the expense of other needy students, according to a new analysis that details the distortions and inequities in Australia's school funding system.

The analysis by Fairfax Media reveals some wealthy schools are over-funded by $7 million a year while many schools in both the public and private sectors remain significantly underfunded.

Federal and state governments would have more than $215 million extra a year to distribute to needy schools if they stopped funding others above what they are entitled to under the Gonski formula, the analysis shows. Schools deemed to be over-funded by the federal government receive more than $1 billion a year in taxpayer funding.
Emily Blunt has revealed her least favourite word in Hollywood, and it's one that might surprise.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the release of her new film, The Girl on the Train, the British-born actor said the word which turns her off often appears in a character's description.

Emily Blunt in London, England. Credit:Getty

"With so many movies, women are held to what a man considers a feminine ideal," Blunt told the publication. "You have to be pretty. You have to be 'likeable', which is my least favourite bloody word in the industry."

Blunt went on to say that the word, which those who have read the Paula Hawkins novel on which the film is based will know does not really apply to Blunt's character, protagonist Rachel, is used to perpetuate a gendered double standard.
The cost of acquiring properties for the second stage of the Sydney Metro rail line is expected to hit $1.8 billion, with less than one-quarter of 187 anticipated transactions completed to date.

It means the NSW government is expected to spend more than $3.3 billion on property acquisitions for the Sydney Metro City and Southwest and the WestConnex motorway.

The opposition said the numbers highlight the government's failure to release a landmark report, delivered more than two years ago, by David Russell, SC, on how to make the compulsory acquisition system fairer.

The figures, obtained by Labor under access to government information laws, reveal 39 "freehold acquisitions" had been completed for the Sydney Metro City and Southwest by September 1.
Dean Reid kissed his wife and kids goodbye and went to work in May last year, just like any other day.

But a workplace accident, in which both his hands were mangled in a roller, changed Mr Reid's life forever.

Dean Reid's big toe was attached to his hand to create a new thumb. Credit:Cameron Atfield

Many surgeries later, Mr Reid lost both ring fingers and now has his big toe where his right thumb once was, as surgeons attempted to restore at least some function to his hands.

"The very first day that I saw my toe on my hand was quite a spin-out, actually, but now I've started calling it my thumb," he said.
If you plan on taking advantage of the long weekend in the sun, you may want to centre your activities around Sunday.

With the Queen's Birthday public holiday upon us and the weather finally returning to normal temperature programming, no doubt hordes of Queenslanders will be hitting the beach.

This weekend's weather will be ideal for beach activities before the rain arrives on Monday.

But if Bureau of Meteorology forecasters are right, the sun will only be shining on Sunday.

The mercury is expected to make its way up to 28, with a gentle westerly breeze to ensure optimum outdoor comfort as it makes its way in a north-westerly direction.
Brisbane City Council's Labor opposition has demanded the finance chairman resign over systemic failures that saw ratepayers defrauded of more than $450,000.

A damning Deloitte report delivered to the council this week identified a series of failures that allowed fraudsters to change banking details of an existing council contractor, resulting in the loss of $450,904.96.

Labor has called on finance chairman Krista Adams to resign. Credit:Glenn Hunt

As a result of that report, Lord Mayor Graham Quirk announced the dismissal of the council's chief auditor on Thursday.

Labor opposition leader Peter Cumming said the buck stopped with elected officials and not a council bureaucrat.
PRYOR  In Crow Indian mythology coyotes are from the Black Hills of South Dakota, cougars are natives of the Musselshell River valley and magpies consider the Ashland country their home.

The black-footed ferret, my clan uncle told me, is from the Platte River, Casper area, said Marlin Not Afraid, director of the Crow Fish and Game Department. On each side of the Platte River is cattails. He said thats his homeland.

So to welcome 18 black-footed ferrets transplanted to the Crow Reservation on Wednesday, Not Afraid placed a cattail next to the first burrow where he released a female ferret. The cattail was meant to signify to the ferret this was its new home. Not Afraid also spoke to all of the ferrets in his native Crow language, welcoming the small mammals to his wild homeland.

Welcome back to Crow Nation, little ferret! yelled Kristy Bly, the enthusiastic cheerleader of the project and a biologist for the World Wildlife Fund, after Not Afraid cautiously released the first chattering ferret from its pet carrier.

They are always very chatty when we release them, said Jessica Alexander, of Little Dog Wildlife LLC, who helped map prairie dog colonies on the reservation this summer. One earring she wore looked like a little prairie dog, the other resembled a small ferret.

Slow start

Last year 29 of the ferrets were released on the nearly 5,000-square-mile Crow Indian Reservation, located south of Billings. Only a couple survived.

Unfortunately it takes three successful years before we get good reproduction, said John Hughes, a biologist who trucked the ferrets to the reservation in a minivan from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center in Colorado. Thats where captive ferrets are bred for release to the wild.

Such low survival rates are not unusual for the species, which has been listed as endangered since 1967. The ferrets face a variety of challenges, not the least of which is finding suitable prairie dog habitat  the ferrets main food source.

Whats amazing about the Crow is their allegiance to the wild, Bly said. You have a very complete ecosystem here, from the prairie to the mountains.

We didnt know anything about prairie dogs in the beginning, said Clayvin Herrera, a tribal fish and game officer and Crow Nation black-footed ferret recovery team leader.

But Alexander has uncovered colonies spread across more than 3,000 acres of the arid sagebrush land east of the Pryor Mountains. Herrera called her the prairie dog mapping guru.

The Crow have lots of habitat, prime, prime prairie habitat, Bly said.

Crow land

Wednesdays release site was deep in the heart of Crow Country, down rutted and muddy farm roads, past grazing cattle and fields of bowing sunflowers to a prairie dog town spread across a hillside above a small pond. In a wild aerial salute 100 geese lifted off the pond as the convoy of vehicles containing about 30 people arrived.

Prairie dogs peering from their burrow mounds sounded a chirping alert, unaware that the vehicles would bring a species to live in their burrows and dine on their relatives. A cottontail rabbit seemed unconcerned until one of the curious ferrets slinked close enough to make it nervous. Three antelope ran past at full tilt, rounding out the menagerie.

Its prairie dog heaven out here, Bly said.

We want to build it up, Herrera said. We started with sage grouse and mapped their leks. We keep moving one species at a time until all the wildlife is managed in a healthy and prosperous way.

One of many

The Crow ferret release site is the 26th in the nation since 1991 and the sixth tribal location. Other places in Montana where the ferrets have been released include the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in north-central Montana, the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge and the U.L. Bend Wilderness.

For the ferrets to be removed from the endangered species list there needs to be 10 populations each consisting of 30 breeding adults. Thats no small task considering that biologists estimate each breeding female defends about 1,000 acres of a prairie dog colony.

The biggest threat to that recovery goal has been sylvatic plague outbreaks that can kill prairie dogs and ferrets. Attempts to reduce the fleas using pesticides has resulted in some fleas building up an immunity. Vaccinating ferrets is time consuming, so the latest hope is being placed in baits containing a plague vaccine that can be distributed in colonies. To avoid often muddy conditions, small drones are being tested as a way to deliver the baits.

It may not be a silver bullet, but it may be a brass bullet, or a lead bullet, joked Pete Gober, the USFWS ferret recovery coordinator.

Another new possibility that Gober sees holding hope, which was outlined in an August National Geographic magazine article, is the possibility of using genomic technology to edit the ferrets DNA to be plague resistant.

These animals have a high reproductive rate, Gober said. Their population could jump in a quantum leap. They can expand quite rapidly.

He called the recovery goals modest. Yet despite tens of millions of dollars and years of reintroduction work the species still clings to the edge of extinction. Places like the Crow Indian Reservation, with large and intact prairie dog towns, will hopefully help restore the black-footed ferret to a more robust population.

Long range

Gober doesnt foresee the ferrets being delisted before he retires in a few years, but he said recovery is possible within the next decade.

How long did it take us to get into this situation? he said, noting that the species once covered the West before it was driven nearly to extinction by poisoning and habitat loss over the past 100 years.

The goal is to preserve these animals that are so emblematic of the West, he said. Over time weve moved from benign management of wildlife to a European model of how much can we afford and where do we have it.

Tribal perspective

Not Afraid said Crow people used to rely on their natural resources to survive  from game like deer and bison for their meat and hides, to berries and roots.

Today, were not really dependent on natural resources because of the IGA down the street, we can run to the supermarket, he said.

But maybe a return to focusing on natural resources  wildlife like the black-footed ferret  could help the tribe rediscover itself in a world that has been so unalterably changed.

Maybe if we introduce the black-footed ferret, and they multiply, it will get rid of all the bad stuff we have here, like the meth and alcohol, he mused.

Im going to stay optimistic, Herrera said. Well keep plugging away till they are a self-sufficient animal. Im invested in this.

The only way this took off is by building partnerships, he added. This couldnt happen without the World Wildlife Fund, Wildlife Services and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Councils should be given more authority over poker machines in their communities, a survey of local government candidates has found.

Local governments have argued for some time that community concerns about new poker machine venues, or venues adding more pokies, are not being listened to by the state's gaming regulator.

Councils have been unable to make strong contributions to the process before the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation.

The Andrews government has asked a committee to examine ways of improving the process to include social impacts and council concerns.
Detectives from the missing person squad have descended on the home of a missing woman in Melbourne's north-east.

Police hold concerns for Humevale woman Debra Barbu, 57, who was last seen leaving the Northern Hospital about 5.15pm on Sunday.

They believe she may have gotten on a bus at the Pacific Epping shopping centre bus terminal on High Street, Epping.

Channel Seven reported police in unmarked and marked cars attended the home as police tape guarded the front driveway on Friday afternoon.
Some sought-after schools with large international student cohorts have knocked back the siblings of existing students if they live just outside the enrolment zone.

There has been a 60 per cent increase in international students enrolled at Victorian state schools over the past four years.

Cate Hall, a spokeswoman for public school lobby group Our Children Our Schools, said she was concerned overseas students were displacing local students at full schools.

"While there are no doubt two-way cultural and financial benefits from having international students in our schools, the sharp increase in numbers needs to be looked at further in light of the capacity issues in many of our public schools," she said.

There are currently 4352 international students studying at Victorian state schools, with the majority of these students coming from China, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, India and Korea.

East Doncaster Secondary College has the most international students, with 118 enrolments, while Balwyn High, Northcote High School, Kew High School, Strathmore Secondary College, Camberwell High School, Brighton Secondary College and Elwood College all have between 70 and 94 overseas students. Many of these schools have strict enrolment zones because they are so popular.



One parent, who did not want to be named, said her first child had been accepted into a school just outside their zone but her second child had not.
A man caught driving almost 70 kilometres per hour over the speed limit in Melbourne's east is expected to be charged on summons.

Police clocked the driver travelling 168 kilometres per hour on the Eastern Freeway in a 100 kilometre zone just after 8pm on Friday night.

Police are looking for footage taken by a couple who may have witnessed the alleged bashing.

He was driving a Subaru WRX and was nabbed while driving through Kew East.

Police spokeswoman Amelia Penhall said the driver, a 26-year-old Heidelberg man, is expected to be charged with exceeding the speed limit and speeding dangerously.
Italy: A Rome university has established a scholarship for Indigenous Australians in honour of a teenage boy who died in the abbey attached to St Paul's Basilica 163 years ago.

The Australian Catholic University, which established a campus in Rome last year, has set up the annual scholarship in memory of Francis Xavier Conaci, who was brought to Italy in 1849 from the Benedictine-founded New Norcia abbey 132 kilometres from Perth.

A scan of a drawing of John Dirimera, left, and Francis Conaci from the Archives of the Benedictine Community of New Norcia. Credit:Miriam Rudolph

In the decade from 1848, five Aboriginal boys and one girl were sent by Australian Catholic authorities to undertake further study in Italy, with the boys possibly meant for the priesthood.

Francis and his friend John Dirimera were taken to Europe by missionary Rosendo Salvado. According to Salvado's memoirs, the boys begged to go with him, and did so after Salvado obtained their parents' consent. John was about 14, Francis is believed to have been younger (some reports put them at 11 and 7 respectively).
TROY, Mich., Sept. 29, 2016 -- School has started, after-school activities have started and that means an increase in bacteria and germs starting formation inside your vehicle. A study conducted by Queen Mary University showed that an average of 700 different kinds of bacteria lurk within the interior of your car. In comparison, the average public toilet harbors only 60. Ziebart Corporation (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ziebart International Corporation) recognizes the importance of maintaining a clean and healthy vehicle for your family, and as the vehicle protection experts, they also know how to protect your family against the harmful germs inside your vehicle that can cause a variety of illnesses.

Bacteria can form from your typical coffee stains, crumbs from your breakfast on-the-go, dirt from extracurricular activities, after school snacks and drinks, and the germs that your family is exposed to when coming in contact with others that don't wash their hands. Ziebart's anti-bacterial interior detailing removes 99% of bacteria found inside your vehicle. And, when you add Ziebart Germ Defender to an interior detailing, you create a germ free environment inside your vehicle for an EPA approved minimum of 90 days.

Ziebart Germ Defender protects your family against the harmful germs inside your vehicle that can cause a variety of illnesses such as MRSA, Staph, Type A Influenza, E. coli, Ringworm, Mold, Mildew and H1N1 (Swine Flu).

"Keeping up with cleaning the interior of your car is important on so many levels," said Larisa Walega, Director of Marketing, Ziebart International Corporation. "Our trained professionals understand both the importance of appearance, and the many health concerns that come with a dirty vehicle. That's why we make it a priority to go above and beyond when removing those germs and stains with our factory trained technicians, proprietary best-in-class products and multi-step cleaning process. It's not just about removing the germs, it's about protecting vehicles so that they don't come back! "

Ziebart International Corporation is the worldwide leader in vehicle appearance and protection services. Since 1959, our company has served the automotive enthusiast with valuable product and service offerings. Headquartered in Troy, Michigan, U.S.A., the Ziebart franchise has grown to an international network including approximately 400 licensed locations in 33 countries with over 800 service centers worldwide. For more information, visit ziebart.com.
Auto Lab LIVE From NYC - Saturday October 1, 2016; 7-9 AM (EDT) Radio Call-in Show







The Auto Lab Radio Show is Broadcast Saturday's 7 to 9 AM On New York City's WNYM Radio AM 970 and Streamed Worldwide On The Auto Channel

Broadcast Date: October 1, 2016

Car Question or Concern? Call Toll Free 888-692-7234

Auto Lab is a 28 year old interactive automotive-focused New York area radio call-in show hosted by Professor Harold Wolchok. Each week a cadre of experienced hands-on automotive experts are in-studio with advice for the New York area's 12 million people, providing listeners with honest, practical and street-smart car repair and buying advice.

Auto Lab is also about the automotive industry, its history, and its culture, presenting the ideas and advice of leading college faculty, authors, and automotive practitioners in a relaxed, conversational interactive format.

Listeners can hear the past 18 years of archived Auto Lab shows as simulcast on www.theautochannel.com.

Listen - Auto Lab Page (Includes Audio-on-Demand Archives, Auto Programs at Community College Database, Guests Pictures

Auto Answers - Maintenance, How To's, Safety, Used and New Car Buying, Ombudsmen Suggestions. From These Auto Lab In-Studio Experts

Broadcast Date: October 1, 2016;

Harold Bendell- Major Auto

Bruce Bendell- Major Auto

Fred Bordoff-Bronx Community College, CUNY

Tim Cacace-Master Mechanix

Joseph Guarino-Joe Guarino's Auto Repairs

Joanne Porcelli, Esq

Michael Porcelli - Central Avenue Auto Repairs & I-CAR

Nicholas Prague- MTA and Rockland Community College, SUNY

Jose Ramirez - Ramirez and Sons AAA Auto Repair

Auto Lab Correspondents Report Auto Safety News, New Car Reviews, Technology and Latest Auto World Information That May effect You!

Broadcast Date: October 1, 2016

Robert Erskine, Senior European Correspondent, Suffolk England

BAGLESS CARS? YES CERTAINLY NOT !- DYSON AT PARIS AUTO SHOW

Sharon Sudol & John Russell Senior Correspondents

NISSAN ALTIMA 2.5

Russ Rader, Vice President Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

NEW CADILLAC SUV EARNS TOP SAFETY PICK + AWARD

Robert Sinclair-AAA Northeast

CURRENT STATUS OF GASOLINE PRICES
New Honda Civic Type R Prototype unveiled at 2016 Mondial de LAutomobile in Paris

Paris September 30, 2016; The new Honda Civic Type R Prototype has been revealed at the 2016 Mondial de LAutomobile in Paris, offering an insight into the styling of the next-generation Civic Type R which will be officially unveiled in 2017.

Based on the low and wide proportions of the new Civic hatchback, the Type R Prototype is enhanced by muscular body styling and modifications to aid aerodynamic performance. The exterior is clothed in a highly reflective, finely-grained brushed aluminium-effect finish unique to the show car.

At the front, the aggressive bumper is accentuated with a winged carbon fibre splitter and sporty red accent line. Additional slatted ducts add width to the bumper, and diamond-mesh inserts fill the sculpted air intakes.

Hondas famous red ?H badge  which adorns all Type R models  sits above a new air vent at the nose of the car. There is also a new intake on the bonnet, with an air scoop sited centrally in a trapezoidal recess. Smoked lenses for the LED headlights, indicators and side repeaters reflect the Type R Prototypes more aggressive character.

Carbon fibre side skirts run the length of the wheelbase, between 20-inch piano black alloy wheels with red accents and 245-section high-performance tyres. Enlarged arches accommodate the new wheels.

A substantial carbon fibre diffuser runs below the wider rear bumper, which frames three fully-functional tailpipes with a pair of directional strakes at each side. The central tailpipe is of a smaller diameter and is highlighted in bright metallic red. Unique peaks at the roof flanks point backwards towards a dramatic, visually striking rear wing.

The next-generation Civic Type R was engineered within the same development programme as the other members of the Civic family, and will be officially unveiled in production form next year. It will be produced at Honda of the UK Manufacturing (HUM) in Swindon  the global manufacturing hub for the five-door hatchback, with sales expected to begin in Europe during the second half of 2017.

The Type R will be exported to markets around the world, including the US  which will mark the first time that any Honda-badged Type R has been officially sold in North America.

The Type R will be officially unveiled at 14:30 on the Honda stand, located in Hall 3.

Prototype marked out by wide, aggressive bumpers, extended wheel arches and dramatic rear wing Bespoke ?brushed aluminium wrap provides eye-catching finish Car officially unveiled at 14:30 on the Honda stand in Hall 3
2017 Honda Civic Hatchback and Type R Prototype Take Center Stage at Paris

New European-built Civic Hatchback receives public debut at 2016 Mondial de LAutomobile in Paris European specification Civic Sedan debuts in Europe Honda surprise crowds with the global premiere of the Civic Type R Prototype Prototype highlights design direction for next generation high-performance hatchback Honda sales continue to increase in 2016 with the brand continuing to lead mainstream manufacturers as the fastest growing in Europe

Following the successful launch of a refreshed automobile range in 2015, Mondial de LAutomobile 2016 has seen Honda unleash its latest salvo of new products for Europe. President and Chief Operating Officer of Honda Motor Europe, Katsushi Inoue, and Senior Vice President, Philip Ross, unveiled the new Civic Hatchback and Civic Type R Prototype, whilst celebrating a year of strong European sales growth for the Japanese marque.

Speaking at this afternoons press conference, Inoue-san commented, In 2016, Honda in Europe has posted strong sales growth with an increase of 31% compared to 2015.That makes Honda the fastest growing mainstream car brand in Europe. Just as encouraging is the broad base of our growth, with strong sales increases in the 5 largest European markets [UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and France]. Whats more, 60% of these buyers are new to the Honda brand.

New Civic Hatchback New Civic Hatchback Engineered for Europe, built at Hondas UK manufacturing plant in Swindon* and exported globally, the new Civic Hatchback sees Honda take a step change in the quality of its compact segment offering.

A new exterior design incorporating a wider, longer and lower silhouette marks out the car as a departure from the last generation. Inside, improved materials give a premium feel with a sportier seating position (lowered by 35 mm compared to the current model).

Under the body, Hondas new range of VTEC TURBO powertrains give a responsive and exciting driving characteristic, while maintaining the strong efficiency Honda is renowned for. Ride and handling are improved by a totally new suspension set up including the adoption of an independent multi-link system at the rear.

The new car further incorporates next generation advanced technology with a revised Honda CONNECT infotainment system, complete with Apple CarPlay and Google Android Auto functionality. In a first for Hondas C-sector offering, the SENSING suite of active safety features are specified as standard on all trim levels.

The new Civic Hatchback goes on sale in Europe from Spring 2017.

New Civic Sedan New Civic Sedan The new hatchback was partnered on Hondas stand by the European version of the new 4-door sedan model. Built at Hondas production facility in Gebze, Turkey, the new sedan has already been warmly received by customers in other markets, particularly the US where it has been on sale since late 2015.

The European version will be available across all mainland Europe markets from Spring 2017, initially available with a 1.5-liter VTEC TURBO engine and a choice of 6-speed manual or CVT automatic transmissions. Later in 2017, a 1.6-liter i-DTEC engine will also be on sale.

New Civic Type R Prototype Alongside the new C-sector challenger, Honda sprung a surprise by unveiling the prototype version of the new Civic Type R. The prototype previews the aggressive design direction for the mass production Civic Type R, scheduled for a European launch in the second half of 2017.

At the front, the aggressive bumper is accentuated with a winged carbon fibre splitter and sporty red accent line. Additional slatted ducts add width to the bumper, and diamond-mesh inserts fill the sculpted air intakes.

Hondas famous red ?H badge  which adorns all Type R models  sits above a new air vent at the nose of the car. There is also a new intake on the bonnet, with an air scoop sited centrally in a trapezoidal recess. Smoked lenses for the LED headlights, indicators and side repeaters reflect the Type R Prototypes more aggressive character.

Carbon fibre side skirts run the length of the wheelbase, between 20-inch piano black alloy wheels with red accents and 245-section high-performance tires. Enlarged arches accommodate the new wheels.

A substantial carbon fibre diffuser runs below the wider rear bumper, which frames three fully-functional tailpipes with a pair of directional strakes at each side. The central tailpipe is of a smaller diameter and is highlighted in bright metallic red. Unique peaks at the roof flanks point backwards towards a dramatic, visually striking rear wing.

During the unveil of the Type R Prototype, Senior Vice President Philip Ross said, Type R epitomizes Hondas racing DNA, our challenging spirit and the highest levels of performance engineering. Coming to Europe during the second half of 2017, were now set to embark on the next chapter of the ?race car for the road.
Buick Announces Luxury Sub-brand Based On Avenir Concept +VIDEO







Concept car-inspired models will join global portfolio in 2018 model year

DETROIT September 30, 2016; Across continents, a growing set of new customers are discovering unexpected and attainable luxury experiences from Buick. Soon, those customers will be introduced to a new Avenir sub-brand designed to grow with the needs of future luxury buyers.

The Avenir sub-brand is inspired by Buicks evolving customer base. The brand has grown quickly with female buyers, and one in two Buick customers today are coming from competitive brands. Theyre expecting a high-end experience and premium quality. For example, 90 percent of Enclave buyers purchase one of the top two trim levels.

This year, an unprecedented number of new global products such as the Envision compact SUV and the 2017 LaCrosse sedan offer an elevated luxury experience thats encouraging new car buyers to reassess what they know about Buick.

Through the first half of 2016, Buick has been the industrys fastest-growing major international brand, and Avenir is key to future growth and delivering on the high expectations of new customers coming to our showrooms, said Duncan Aldred, vice president of Global Buick Sales, Service and Marketing. Avenir will be Buicks signature. The highest expression of the luxury experiences were delivering now and in the future.

Avenir vehicles will add distinct touches to Buicks timeless, sculpted designs, including a three-dimensional mesh grille, large-diameter wheels, and unique trim finishes. Inside, Avenir models will enhance the brands quiet, inviting environment with unique seat details, modern trim materials and Avenir script identification.

The name Avenir, French for future, is taken from the award-winning concept sedan from 2015. That concept and this years Avista coupe concept  from which the new sub-brand borrows its grille pattern  have served as guideposts for designers sketching and modeling Buicks future.

Stretching the Buick brands international appeal and potential has been a major focus of exploration in our design studios, said Helen Emsley, executive director of Buick Global Design. Concept cars stretch the boundaries of what is possible and every new Buick is benefitting from this vision work. As the Avenir concept expressed the prestige vision for the portfolio, the addition of an Avenir sub-brand illustrates an important piece of future direction.

Additional Avenir details and product specifics will be announced later.

Buick is an international modern luxury brand offering vehicles with sculpted designs, luxurious interiors and thoughtful personal technologies, along with responsive-yet-efficient performance. Buick is attracting new customers with its portfolio of award-winning luxury models in North America and China.

COMMENTS:

From Steve Purdy Senior Editor Michigan Bureau The Auto Channel:

(At 2015 Detroit Auto Show) "I was about to give the worst car name award to the concept on the Buick stand called Avenir until I talked to the designer. He reminded me that Buick tends to use French names and revealed Avenir is French for ?future. It is an impressive car. The rear-wheel drive, full-size Avenir is purely a concept at this point and is meant to represent a flagship sedan for Buick. And, what a knock-out it is. Cadillac has been hinting at a similar car for themselves for a couple years now so we assumed an association. Not so.

From Rebecca Lindland, senior analyst for Kelley Blue Book:

The Avenir will provide Buick shoppers with that extra feeling of luxury, potentially keeping current owners in the brand longer and attracting new buyers with added features and expressive craftsmanship without a luxury price.

From Michelle Krebs, senior analyst for Autotrader:

The question is what vehicles will get an Avenir designation? If it is Buicks cars, I would expect minimal success. Cars, and even luxury cars, arent the fashion these days. Sales are down and incentives are up. Denali is phenomenally successful for GMC because it has been applied to SUVs and trucks, categories that have headroom for premium pricing.

From Michael Harley, analyst for Kelley Blue Book:

This isnt big news for Americans, as the Buick brand isnt going to automatically add any cachet with an Avenir badge on the rear deck. However, in other markets  especially China  the new premium designation will allow GM to further increase the status of the popular brand and increase margins on its hot-selling Buick models.
if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi...
Monday 05 September, 2016 Reliable information reaching Biafra writers desk has it that the life of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indi...
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Hospital offers safe option to dispose of meds, narcotics Los Robles Health System is working to crush the opioid drug crisis by raising awareness about the dangers of opioid misuse and the importance of safe and proper disposal of unused or expired medications. Crush the Crisis will take place...

Alzheimers Foundation to host free conference The Alzheimers Foundation of America will host a free virtual educational conference from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tues., Nov. 15. The event is part of the foundations 2022 national Educating America Tour. The conference, which is free and open...

Authorities warn about rainbow fentanyl Victims often arent aware theyre taking it

The Ventura County Office of Education and state health officials have issued a warning to schools and families about rainbow fentanyl, a form of the potentially fatal synthetic opioid that comes in bright colors. Rainbow fentanyl can be found in...

Cancer support community to host remembrance event Cancer Support Community Valley/Ventura/Santa Barbara invites family members and friends of those who have died from cancer to attend the second annual Evening of Remembrance from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thurs., Nov. 3 at Cancer Support Communitys Garden of Hope,...
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, a pharmaceutical company, develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes generic medicines, specialty medicines, and biopharmaceutical products in North America, Europe, and internationally. The company offers sterile products, hormones, high-potency drugs, and cytotoxic substances in various dosage forms, including tablets, capsules, injectables, inhalants, liquids, transdermal patches, ointments, and creams. It also develops, manufactures, and sells active pharmaceutical ingredients. In addition, it focuses on the central nervous system, pain, respiratory, and oncology areas. Its products in the central nervous system include Copaxone for the treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis; AJOVY for the preventive treatment of migraine; and AUSTEDO for the treatment of tardive dyskinesia and chorea associated with Huntington disease. The company's products in the respiratory market comprise ProAir, QVAR, ProAir Digihaler, AirDuo Digihaler, and ArmonAir Digihaler, BRALTUS, CINQAIR/CINQAERO, DuoResp Spiromax, and AirDuo RespiClick/ArmonAir RespiClick for the treatment of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Its products in the oncology market include Bendeka, Treanda, Granix, Trisenox, Lonquex, and Tevagrastim/Ratiograstim. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited has a collaboration MedinCell for the development and commercialization of multiple long-acting injectable products, a risperidone suspension for the treatment of patients with schizophrenia. The company was founded in 1901 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel.
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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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.
OPKO Health, Inc., a healthcare company, engages in the diagnostics and pharmaceuticals businesses in the United States, Ireland, Chile, Spain, Israel, Mexico, and internationally. The company's Diagnostics segment operates BioReference Laboratories that offers laboratory testing services for the detection, diagnosis, evaluation, monitoring, and treatment of diseases, including esoteric testing, molecular diagnostics, anatomical pathology, genetics, women's health, and correctional healthcare to physician offices, clinics, hospitals, employers and governmental units; and a novel diagnostic instrument system to provide blood test results in the point-of-care setting, as well as 4Kscore prostate cancer testing services. Its Pharmaceutical segment offers Rayaldee to treat secondary hyperparathyroidism in adults with stage 3 or 4 chronic kidney disease, and vitamin D insufficiency; OPK88004, an orally administered selective androgen receptor modulator; OPK88003, a once-weekly administered peptide for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and associated obesity that is in Phase IIb trials; and hGH-CTP, a once-weekly human growth hormone injection that completed Phase III clinical trial in partnership with Pfizer, Inc. This segment develops and commercializes longer-acting proprietary versions of already approved therapeutic proteins. The company also offers specialty APIs; develops, manufactures, markets, and sells pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, veterinary, and ophthalmic products; commercializes food supplements and over the counter products; manufactures and sells products primarily in the generics market; and imports, markets, distributes, and sells pharmaceutical products in a range of indications, including cardiovascular products, vaccines, antibiotics, gastro-intestinal products, hormones, and others. In addition, it operates pharmaceutical platforms in Ireland, Chile, Spain, and Mexico. The company was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in Miami, Florida.
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Freight train engineer William Blaine was just looking up at the menu in the Dunkin Donuts at the Hoboken train station when he heard a loud noise such as brings to mind one word in these days of terror.

Bomb, he later said. The first thing youre going to think is terroristsomebody blew it up.

Blaine turned back into the station and looked to his right. The scene he beheld at 8:35 a.m. Thursday was just what he might have imagined after an explosion. Debris. Blood. People fleeing.

He then looked to the left and saw something he would have never expected. New Jersey Transit train 1614 had plowed on past the bumper at the end of a track and crashed into the stations wall.

I knew it wasnt a bomb, he said.

He understood that the train must have been traveling considerably faster than the 10 mph limit for entering the station.

I would say at least 30 miles an hour, Blaine said. It had to have jumped at least 5 feet.

He noted that the train had been on Track 5, which he had walked past just 30 seconds before. He now saw a man in a blue suit with a serious head wound try to stand only to collapse and try again to rise, only to collapse again.

Blaine moved to help the man, but others got there ahead of him. Blaine started toward the wrecked train and stepped over something, only to realize it was a brown haired young woman who was sprawled on the platform with catastrophic injuries. He had not witnessed such trauma since his time as a New York City cop, when his partner was killed in East Harlem. But he understood she was beyond saving.

Blood under her head, she wasnt breathing, he would recall. She was gone.

He saw that seemingly everybody who was not injured was doing all they could to assist the 114 people who were. More debris threatened to come down, but rather than seek safety, people were unhesitatingly risking serious injury themselves for the sake of strangers.

Here was magnificence in the face of horror, as was witnessed on a monumental scale when it was terrorism just across the Hudson River, at the World Trade Center on 9/11, 15 years and 18 days before.

Just beautiful, people running to help, Blaine said of the aftermath of Thursdays wreck. When something happens, we get down to it to help the best we can. Everybody was trying to help.

Beautiful indeed. America the Beautiful in all its many manifestations, not divided as it has too often seemed of late, but suddenly one.

Everybody, Blaine said. Every creed and color.

Somebody asked about the engineer who had been running the train. Blaine went with a New Jersey Transit official and peered up into the control cab at the end of the train. He could see the blue shirt of the engineer, who appeared slumped over.

Deceased, the official decided.

But engineer Tom Gallagher was alive when he was extracted and proved to be in good enough condition to be released from the hospital later in the day. Blaine remained at the station, where he had arrived at Track 2 just before the wreck. He figured aloud that if his fellow engineer had become incapacitated or dozed off, that should have triggered a standard device known as an alerter, which begins to beep, beep, beep with increasing volume if the person at the controls is idle for more than 25 seconds. The engineer then has 15 seconds to respond before the alerter stops the train.

This train was being pushed by a locomotive at the back, with the engineer in a control cab in the front. The cab may not have been equipped with an alerter, as was the case in the 2013 crash of a New York commuter train that killed four.

The alerter may have been beeping in the locomotive but not in the cab with the engineer.

Or the engineer may have simply been going too fast at the point of the journey that demands the most care and attention. Or there may have been some kind of mechanical trouble. Blaine has been an engineer for 19 of his 53 years, and he figured he would likely have noticed the grating sound of brakes had they been applied in the moment before the big boom.

Im pretty good at hearing it, he said. Were trained to.

Whatever happened with the engineer or with the trains mechanics, whether or not an alerter was in the cab, however the train came to be going that fast when it should have eased to a stop, one thing seems indisputable: The accident would not have occurred if New Jersey Transit was equipped with a Positive Train Control system such as the U.S Congress mandated for all railways with the Railroad Safety Enhancement Act of 2008, after a crash involving a Metrolink train killed 28 in Southern California.

PTC simply halts a train if it exceeds a speed restriction or runs a red signal. That includes when the train is arriving at its destination. No matter what the operator is or is not doing.

The deadline was supposed to be January 2016, but railroads begged for more time late last year. New Jersey Transit said it might otherwise have to shut down. Congress extended the deadline nationwide until 2018.

But in the meantime, Metrolink finished putting PTC in place systemwide over a year ago. A Metrolink spokeswoman Thursday had no doubt what PTC would have done had the New Jersey Transit train been equipped with it that morning.

It would bring it to a stop, the spokeswoman said. Absolutely.

That would have made all the difference for 34-year-old Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, the woman whom Blaine had seen dead on the platform. She was reported by NBC to have had a child in day care when she was killed by falling debris.

First responders who surveyed the scene afterward were amazed that she was the lone fatality considering the extent of the damage at the height of rush hour.

But there almost certainly would have been no deaths at all with PTC. The minutes of a May 2016 meeting of the New Jersey Transit board indicate that the railroad is pushing ahead with PTC. But eight years after the initial congressional mandate they are still apparently at least two years from completion. The minutes were submitted along with a cover letter to the man who is ultimately in charge, and therefore ultimately responsible.

Dear Governor Christie, the letter begins.

On Thursday afternoon, Chris Christie visited the crash scene along with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was there because this particular train had originated in his state. Christie reminded everybody that he was once a U.S. attorney and had a background in law enforcement. He noted that he had learned to hold off making conclusions until the investigation was complete.

Let law enforcement do its job, Christie said.

One question is why Christie had not been doing his own job and pushing for quicker installation of PTC. He has instead been running around the country, first to promote himself as a presidential candidate and now pushing for Donald Trump. Christie has been deriding all that is PC when he should have been worried about PTC, among other important state responsibilities that require actual attention and work.

The Christie administrations most notable effort in transportation has been the 2013 lane closures for five days at the George Washington Bridge in an act of political vengeance against the Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee for not supporting Christie for reelection. It was hard to listen to Christie extoll first responders on Thursday and not remember that he is said to have stood with his flunky, David Wildstein, at Ground Zero during the memorial for the 12th anniversary of 9/11 and laugh about not returning Sokolichs frantic calls. Sokolich had been worried that the traffic jams resulting from the lane closures would prove a threat to public safety in delaying cops and firefighters and paramedics from responding to emergencies.

Too bad there was no political payback to be had in PTC.

Christie and Cuomo both spoke outside the Hoboken station of the remarkable spirit extraordinary ordinary people had once again shown amid catastrophe. But as we have proven again and again, we do not need politicians to lead us during attacks such as 9/11 or catastrophes such as the train wreck in Hoboken. We follow what is good in ourselves, and that is what leads us to come together and help each other even if it means placing ourselves at great risk.

In an ideal nation, politicians would touch the good in us and help bring us together between horrors. They should at least worry less about promoting themselves and concentrate more on doing what we elect them to do in the first place.

In other words, do their jobs.

We need them to stop the nonsense and take their proper part in what extraordinary ordinary people in Hoboken reminded us on Thursday is truly America the Beautiful.

And say a prayer for Fabiola Bittar de Kroon and her family.
At least one person was killed when a New Jersey Transit train crashed into the Hoboken commuter station Thursday morning during the heart of rush hour. The accident injured 114 others, while many passengers were reportedly trapped inside train cars.

The crash occurred just before 9 a.m., one of the busiest times of the day inside the major New York transit hub. Dozens of North Jersey commuters were believed to be trapped inside one of the front train cars, which slammed through inside the station as the train itself was apparently unable to stop. As many as 250 people were on board.

In a statement after the crash, NJ Transit said the train was traveling from Spring Valley, N.Y., on the Pascack Valley Line. It struck the terminal at approximately 8:45 a.m., the rail service said, and confirmed multiple critical injuries. According to officials, the individual who was killedlater identified as 34-year-old Fabiola Bittar de Kroon of Hobokenwas standing on the platform at the time of the crash.

New Jersey Transit and the PATH train system immediately suspended service in and out of Hoboken. NJ Transit said it was honoring train tickets on its buses, while the New York Waterway ferry also began accepting train tickets at its other New Jersey stations along the Hudson River.

The roof of the station appears to have collapsed where the crash occurred. Police told NBC New York that they expect mass casualties. Early reports indicated three people were killed, but officials and various outlets have since reduced that figure to just one confirmed fatality. None of the injuries are believed to be life-threatening.

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the trains engineerlater identified as 48-year-old Thomas Gallagherwas critically injured and is fully cooperating with investigators. Gallagher was released from the hospital on Thursday evening. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was launching a probe and sending officials to the crash site. Christie said there is no indication that this is anything other than a tragic accident.

A woman who was on the train told reporters that it never felt like the train was slowing down as it approached the Hoboken terminal. The front cars were super-packed, jammed with standing-room-only passengers as it rammed the station. She said she saw a man who she identified as a conductor emerge bloodied after the train eventually came to a stop and screams filled the station.

John Minko, a WFAN radio station anchor who witnessed the crash, reportedly told New York radio station 1010-WINS that the train simply did not stop. He added , it went right through the barriers and into the reception area.

Another witness told NJ.com , They were walking out limping, people were helping them, laying them on the ground, that type of thing.

Bhagyesh Shah, who was a passenger on the train, told NBC 4 New York that the crash lasted for a couple seconds, but it felt like an eternity and that the train was plowing through the platform.

I saw a woman pinned under concrete, Shah said. A lot of people were bleeding; one guy was crying.

CBS Evening News executive producer Steve Capus, who said he saw the aftermath, told 1010-WINS that a triage was set up in the area.

I can tell you there are scores of people here, many of them with bloodied shirts, clothing, head injuriesI saw one person with what appeared to be a broken leg, Capus said. They are also bringing more severely injured people out on stretchers.

The Hoboken terminal sees around 55,000 passengers daily, and NJ Transit itself conducts more than 200 million train and bus trips per year. The Beaux Arts-style terminal on the riverfront is more than 100 years old and underwent a major renovation in the past 10 years. North Jersey commuters jam the train cars in order to transfer to trains and ferries to take them to Lower Manhattan, often standing the train vestibules in order to quickly hop off to sprint to connect to trains on their way to work.

A glass canopy was added to the station during the overhaul, and was seen as adding a perception of open air for commuters skittish after the Sept. 11 terror attacks struck just across the water at ground zero. On Thursday morning, several of those injured were hurt by shattered glass falling from that roof.

The past few years have been peppered with train crashes across the U.S., some fatal, including the May 2015 Amtrak crash in Philadelphia that killed eight people and left 200 injured. In 2013, a Metro-North accident in the Bronx killed four people and injured another 60. But none in recent history have come close to the deadliest train crashes in U.S. history, which include a 1951 derailment caused by excessive speed that left 85 dead in Woodbridge, New Jersey, and a 1918 accident in a Brooklyn tunnel that left 102 dead.

More recently, rail officials have pushed for U.S. passenger systems to add what is known as positive-train control, a technology that can shut down a moving train if safety sensors for speed or collisions are triggered. New Jersey Transit has struggled to install the systemand the train line in Hoboken crash didnt have itbut has said it would be implemented by 2018.
Countless films and novels over the years have pushed the fable of a person deliberately setting about to find themselves with a dramatic journey, a complete reinvention, or a cathartic scream into an infinite abyss.

Justin Vernon, founder and leader of Bon Iver, himself has played a role in this mythology.

Before his debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago, Vernon experienced a painful breakup, dissolved a few bands, contracted pneumonia, mononucleosis, and fought off a liver infection. To fight the despair, he went to live in his fathers remote hunting cabin during the harsh Wisconsin winter. And out came the music.

But that was ages ago. And Vernon didnt necessarily find himself in that cabinjust a sound that worked.

As he revealed in interviews previewing his third full-length, 22, A Million, musical success doesnt necessarily mean hes gotten any closer to understanding himself.

Following the runaway success of the bands Grammy-winning sophomore record, Bon Iver, Bon Iver, Vernon experienced waves of panic and self-doubt. He took a solo trip to Europe to find clarity, but all that did was exacerbate his woes.

Dont go to the Greek islands off-season, by yourself. I was trying to find myself. Did not, he explained this month. And so goes the truth about those finding yourself narratives in pop culture: There are no easy answers; and life is not a movie.

As such, 22, A Million is a 35-minute exploration of that search for self-understanding and the realization that it doesnt come as willingly as youd expect. Growing into your own soul takes patience and painand you definitely cant plan it.

During an existential crisis, all you can do is step out of the dust cloud and hope it might be over soon. As Vernon roamed Greek islands alone, feeling helpless, he began humming those exact wordsIt might be over soonuntil it became something of a mantra. And then the basis for the albums heartrending opener, 22 (OVER SN).

Atop an elegiac, slow-burn chord progression, Vernon coos that line over and over again, as if to pacify the raging storm inside his mind. Within a rise there lies a scission, he admits of his ascent to fame; but never mind the troubles, it might be over soon.

Perhaps scaling back from Bon Ivers grandiose, heavily orchestrated second album, Vernon resists overindulgence here. Just as the refrain becomes an anthemic gospel chant, begging for Krishna-like repetition, the song ends.

A maudlin string arrangement carries listeners to 10 d E A T h b R E a s T  , a meditation on insecurity led by distorted drums and occasionally pitched-up vocals (bonus points for inventing the word fuckified).

The song is a reminder that along Vernons rise to music stardom, he was plucked out of the indie world to work with Kanye West on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. That studio time with Yeezy clearly had its impact on Bon Iver: The jarringly primal drums on the second song, along with the pulsing bass synth on standout track 33 GOD, are reminiscent of production from Wests punk-rap opus Yeezus.

Likewise, 29 #Strafford APTS is a dreamy folk ballad in the vein of Bon Iver, but then Vernon tosses in some pitched-down harmonies and some pitched-up bridge vocals to obscure its simplicity.

And in that song is where listeners can better understand what the band meant when they said the album would contain contexts of intense memories, signs that you can pin meaning onto or disregard as coincidence.

Sharing smoke in the stair up off the hot car lot, Vernon wistfully croons to open the song. Such details of a shared experience with another human may seem prosaic, but set against vivid instrumentationevoking a mumblecore films understated climaxit becomes revelatory.

The journey to self-understanding and recovery, the album suggests, is neither obvious nor instantaneous; its made up of countless experiences and memoriesmundane or notthat shape how we view ourselves and the world around us.

That attitude toward finding oneself is never more present than in 22, A Millions sublimely gorgeous final two ballads.

8 (circle) is the spiritual successor to Beth/Rest, the sax-and-synth-drenched closer to their previous album. Across both torch songs, Vernon channels Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel for an iconic 80s film soundtrack-like sound.

Im standing in your street now / And I carry his guitar, he sings as ethereal brass and bass swoon in the background. You can almost imagine John Cusack in his trench coat, boombox hoisted overhead with this particular Bon Iver tune blaring.

And then, after a subdued interlude, we come to the albums spiritual core in closing track 00000 Million.

Over plaintive and intimate acoustic piano reminiscent of Tom Waitss best bawlers, Vernon delivers a hymnal for the neurotics; a sermon for those whove yet to see the light at the end of their tunnel.

I worried bout rain and I worried bout lightning, Vernon says. But I watched them all off to the light of the morning.

In other words: It will be over soon.

And with a proud resignation, Vernon delivers the albums central lesson: dont be afraid. After all, life is one long struggle against changebest to wave the white flag sometimes.

Well if it harms me, it harms me, he boldly declares. Ill let it in.
A couple of things in the news recently have got me thinking about Bob Ruarks wife.

Ruark, a he-man syndicated American newspaper columnist of the he-manniest sort, back when that sort was thick on the ground, had a wife who was no shrinking violet herself. Mama, as he called her in print (her name was Virginia Webb), was a fully grown adult who could take care of herself and didnt like people pretending otherwise.

What got me thinking of her was reading about Paul Freedmans new book, Ten Restaurants That Changed America, which devotes a chapter to Schraffts, a restaurant chain designed specifically to appeal to women diners.

Now, Schraffts was all well and good, but its restaurants didnt have bars. So what if, like Virginia Webb-Ruark, you liked to have a drink or two before your veal cutlet or French onion soup? And what if your husband was away? What if he was off in the Navy, as Ruark was during World War II, escorting convoys of war supplies to Murmansk through seas infested with Nazi U-boats and dive bombers and torpedo boats? You might really need that drink.

But in the 1940s, most respectable full-service restaurantsones, that is, with barsplaced severe restrictions on unescorted women, if they allowed them at all. They could only sit at tables, they could stand at the bar but only until 6 oclock, they couldnt come in in groups smaller than three, etc. All of this was supposedly precautionary lest they prove to be hookers on the prowl.

In Ruarks 1948 compilation of columns, I Didnt Know It Was Loaded, he recorded Mamas thoughts on the subject in a discussion she was having with a female friend. Im going to let her run for a bit, as I never believe in stopping a train when its got a full head of steam and clear tracks ahead:

When my husband was away, I used to get tired of staring at myself over a sandwich and a glass of milk, and I would occasionally call up a girlfriend and go out someplace fancy for a few drinks and a good dinner. I was thrown out of more places than the average bum. You walk in, ask for a table for two, and the headwaiter says, Im sorry, but we do not serve unescorted ladies here, modom [sic], and turns away. What am I, a B-girl?By damn I am a nice girl and I love my husband and I refuse to be classed as a bad woman in the eyes of a headwaiter because I am unaccompanied by some jerk in pants, from choice, because my husband is often away. It makes you feel like you came there on purpose to arrange a pickup and in a democracy I resent it It seems that it is all right to get crocked if you are accompanied by a dreat big stwong mans, but it is a sin for a lady to take one standing [alone at the bar], even on the doctors prescription for low blood pressure.

Fortunately, those days are long gone. Orwell, thats the other thing that got me thinking about Mama. The Washington Posts Carrie Allan recently wrote a column about women bartenders in craft cocktail bars and the particular needles they have to thread, including dealing with all the common forms of sexual harassment. It wasnt the column itself, which I found balanced and intelligent (and Im not just saying that because Im quoted in it), that brought me to Mama. It was, sigh, the comments. I know about reading the commentsdont @ me, as they say. But I read them anyway, all 360 of them at this writing.

Like working a short-order griddle, tending a modern cocktail bar is a job for quick thinkers and hard workers. It requires one to be an on-the-fly systems engineer, processing multiple variables and coming up with a plan of action even as youre already placing that plan into execution. If you dont believe that its a serious and challenging job, try to make five complex, precision-measured, six- or seven-ingredient drinks, perfectly portioned and garnished, in six minutes, without cursing, eye-rolling, or breaking things. Ill bet you cash money you cant even come close. Ill even spot you the curses, eye-rolls, and breakage.

So, Ive always thought that the mostly young women I encountered behind bars of this sort were there because they were capable of doing a challenging and strenuous job with skill and verve and stamina. Certainly thats been my experience with them, no different from the mostly young men who do the same job.

Silly me. Apparently, according to a great many of the comment posters, I am mistaken. The young women were hired, it turns out, essentially to be just B-girls, their primary responsibility being to flirt with and flatter and gratefully field sexual advances from their customers. Its a friggin compliment, ladies, as one gentleman wrote.

And now they have the nerve to complain! As another of these gentlemen patiently explained to the internet, Now that theyve taken all the jobs away from males by using the woman-as-sex-object card, they want to play the woman-as-sex-object-who-can-have-it-all card to have all the respect males had for actually earning their positions. If these young women want to earn that respect legitimately, yet another of these mighty hunters points out, they will get an education and get a job thats respectable. (Here I should point out that most of the craft cocktail bartenders I know, male and female, did in fact go to college, and chose high-end bartendinga far more ancient and useful American profession than, say, filing TPS reports.)

In fact, best get them out of the bar all together: If I wanted to talk to a woman, quoth yet another (albeit with slightly worse grammar), Id go straight home after work. (He is fortunate that he has a bar to which he regularly goes where only men work, as is his wife.)

This is where I really started thinking about Virginia Webb-Ruark and daydreaming of turning her and her friends loose on these drum-circle philosophers. What the hell has happened to American men, I must ask. When Robert Ruark heard his wifes complaints, he printed them. When these guys hear similar complaints, they fall all over themselves to be the headwaiter that Mama was complaining about.
Suspicion is mounting about Donald Trumps ties to Russian officials and business interests, as well as possible links between his campaign and the Russian hacking of U.S. political organizations. But GOP leaders have refused to support efforts by Democrats to investigate any possible Trump-Russia connections, which have been raised in news reports and closed-door intelligence briefings. And without their support, Democrats, as the minority in both chambers of Congress, cannot issue subpoenas to potential witnesses and have less leverage to probe Trump.

Privately, Republican congressional staff told The Daily Beast that Trump and his aides connections to Russian officials and businesses interests havent gone unnoticed and are concerning. And GOP lawmakers have reviewed Democrats written requests to the FBI that it investigate Trump before they were made public.

But the lawmakers in both chambers have declined to sign on to them. Republicans have no appetite to launch inquiries into their partys presidential nominee, and they continue to believe the FBI flubbed its investigation into Clinton and her aides, who should have been charged with mishandling government secrets, the staffers said.

Instead Republican lawmakers appear far more interested in probing Hillary Clintons use of a private email server, nearly three months after the Justice Department declined to press charges against her or her aides. FBI Director James Comey has been called to testify to Congress three times about the email investigation, and Republicans have launched a separate inquiry into whether the former secretary of State committed perjury when she testified before Congress about her unorthodox communications system.

As a result, Clinton is likely to face relentless grilling on Capitol Hill from now until Election Day, but Trump can rest assured that his fellow partisans will go easy on him.

Trump has made no secret of his affection for Russian President Vladimir Putin and came to his defense in the first presidential debate this week when he dismissed the assertion that Russian government hackers were behind intrusions at the Democratic National Committee. Although its practically the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community that the Kremlin is seeking to undermine the presidential election through cyberattacks and leaks, Trump said, I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China, it could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed who weighs 400 pounds, OK?

Democrats are left shaking their heads.

I cant say that I was surprised to hear Trump say that because he has been such an apologist for the Kremlin, Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told The Daily Beast. Its once again great propaganda for Putin.

He has no idea the kind of damage that he does, Schiff said of Trump. Hes a human wrecking ball, the lawmaker said, noting that the leader of Hezbollah, which the United States considers a terrorist organization, endorsed Trumps assertion that Clinton and Barack Obama co-founded ISIS.

Democrats have implored the FBI to look deeper into Trumps dealings with Russia and those of his aides, including former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who worked for the pro-Russian government of Ukraine, and Trump foreign-policy adviser Carter Page, who met with Russian government officials in July, including one believed to be connected to the gathering of information about the upcoming U.S. election, according to Yahoo News.

But GOP lawmakers wont sign on to the Democrats requests.

At a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) complained that his Republican colleagues werent pressing Comey on the Trump campaign. Instead, I believe that the focus of this hearing will be more of the same: an attack on you, and your team at the Department of Justice, for declining to recommend criminal charges against Secretary Hillary Clinton, Conyers said.

In the past month, the top Democrats on four House committeesincluding those that have most strongly pursued questions about Clintons emailhave written to the FBI director asking him to investigate whether connections between Trump campaign officials and the Russian government may have contributed to hacks against the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations (PDF).

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, meanwhile, asked the FBI to investigate, among other things, the meetings between Russian officials and Page. Reid was prompted to write to Comey after an intelligence briefing about the hacks on the DNC and Russian efforts to interfere with the election, two individuals with knowledge of the matter told The Daily Beast. (Page denies the meetings ever happened.)

Republican leaders decision not to investigate Trump represents an ironic turn for a party that only four years ago was being criticized for being too hawkish on Russia. Now, its Democrats who are being accused of using McCarthyite tactics.

Of course, theres no great love for Russia and Putin in the Washington GOP establishment. House Speaker Paul Ryan has called the Russian president a devious thug. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), the chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, says Putin is a dictator and that he personally disagrees with Trumps praise of Putin as a strong leader.

But Chaffetzwho has doggedly investigated whether Clinton jeopardized national security through her use of a private email server, and has reminded witnesses that his committee enjoys a broad writ to investigate all sorts of mattersmaintains theres nothing for the committee to investigate when it comes to Trump. Chaffetz has argued that the nominee isnt a federal employee, and that his campaign staffers purported involvement in Russian affairs doesnt have a clear link to matters that concern the oversight committee, like Clintons possible mishandling of classified information does.

His position hasnt changed, Chaffetzs spokesperson told The Daily Beast.

Obviously, Democrats will get no help from fellow lawmakers in their pursuit of Trump. But its not clear whether the FBI is investigating the GOP nominee.

Comey, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee this week, refused to confirm or deny if the bureau has taken Democrats up on their requests, noting that as a matter of policy the FBI doesnt comment on its own investigations.

That didnt stop Democrats from trying to draw him in.

In a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee this week, Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) pressed the director on whether the FBI would investigate an American citizen who met with senior Russian government officials for a possible violation of the Logan Act, which bars private individuals from conducting foreign policy on behalf of the United States. Deutch didnt initially mention Page, but Democrats want to know if he made promises to lift U.S. sanctions on Russia in a future Trump administration when Page was in Moscow last summer.

I dont think its appropriate to answer that, Comey said. That gets too close to confirming or denying whether we have an investigation. Seems too close to real life, so Im not going to comment.

Remarks like that came tantalizingly close to at least suggesting the FBI might be looking into Trump. But it also prompted Democrats to accuse the law-enforcement agency of a double standard when it comes to Trump versus Clinton.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) noted that the FBI not only publicly confirmed its investigation of Clintons email but publicly released interview notes and its final report to the Justice Department recommending that she and her aides face no charges.

Comey insisted the Clinton investigation was an extraordinary case, and that considering the high-profile nature of the investigation, it was important that the FBI be more transparent than usual.

Nadler wondered why the same wasnt true for the Republican nominee for president.

It is a dangerous violation of federal law if Donald Trumps adviser Carter Page is engaging in freelance negotiations with Russia, Nadler said.

Referring to his Republican colleagues, Nadler said, I assume we all agree the allegations are very serious.

Its not clear that they do.
Everyones got a favorite movie quote and heres mine: Just because you are a character doesnt mean that you have character. That line was dispatched with effortless cool by Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction while playing the ultimate fixer, Winston Wolf. It comes to mind a lot in life and business, especially in this surreal election season, when clownish self-absorption seems to be a political asset.

So when I saw Keitel at an IQ Squared debate viewing party this week, I couldnt help but sidle up to the man and ask him what he thought of Trump vs. Clinton. This was not a partisan lay-up. After all, Keitel is a proud Brooklyn-born former Marine in his seventies. Acting aside, his demographic slice of the pie is more inclined to vote for Donald than Hillary. Heres what he said:

I served three years in the United States Marine Corps and we learned what leadership is through the problems we had to solve and the obstacles we had to endure. You have to have your boots on the ground to understand what Im talking about, really. Leadership is a quality of a person. You look at their behavior, character, how they behave, what their values are. In observing Mr. Trump, for me, he is no leader. I dont think hes qualified to be the commander in chief of our armed forces.

So, is Hillary Clinton qualified to be commander in chief? From what shes done and accomplished, from a young woman on, yes. Yes. That yes doesnt have to be qualified in my book.

It was minutes after the end of the first debate and Keitel seemed to be steaming about the now-infamous Miss Universe as Miss Piggy incident as well as his overall treatment of women and constant interruptions of Hillary. We were taught that above all a Marine is a gentleman, Keitel said. Mr. Trump, in my opinion, has not conducted himself as a gentleman. First of all, a gentleman respects women. Thats No. 1.

Beneath the Marines old-school gravitas, there was a hint of social justice. As Keitel explained, our concern was always to protect those who didnt have the wherewithal, the skills, the resources they needed to protect themselves. And that perhaps is also why Keitel gravitates to Clinton. Shes always immersed herself in concern for social justice, for the underdog, for the people who didnt have good jobs, the people who were suffering poverty while the wealthy were walking away with most of Americas money and shes continued that work all of her career.

Perfect isnt on the menu in this or any election. People will make mistakes and she has courageously owned up to them, which is another mark of leadership, he said.

Speaking of owning up to mistakes, this week Keitels Pulp Fiction character, Winston Wolf, was suddenly back in the limelight, courtesy of the Bridgegate abuse-of-power trial. It seems that Gov. Christie christened one of his cronies, David Wildstein, Mr. Wolf. But instead of fulfilling Wolfs signature promise as a fixer (I solve problems), Wildstein seems to have specialized in causing problems on his bosss behalf, targeting the town of Fort Lee for traffic trouble in retribution for its Democratic mayors refusal to endorse Christies re-election.

After the call for traffic problems in Fort Lee came down, another aide, Bill Baroni, texted Wildstein an image of Mr. Wolf, as he was heading to testify in Trenton about the lane closures. In this case, it seems as though obscuring the truth was considered a sign of courage, ignoring Wolfs larger lesson: Just because you are a character, doesnt mean that you have character.

Actors shouldnt be expected to answer for their characters impact, and Keitel declined to weigh in on Mr. Wolfs sudden re-emergence in the news, instead invoking one of his favorite quotes: If politics is the business of the city, then theater is the soul of the city, adding, Perhaps these people need to see more theater.

In politics, you often see operatives playing tough. But true toughness doesnt need to parade itself for show. It doesnt need the spectacle because its inner-driven. And thats why theres perhaps nothing truly tougher than a Marine-turned-artist.

Theres an unexpected artists insight that affects Keitels assessment of phony-tough Trump.

I do not recognize any poetry in Mr. Trump, he says. While I respect his children, that theyre loyal to their father, and I respect Mr. Trump as a parent, theres not much poetry in the man or his campaign. When I pushed him to build that out just a bit more for a dim-witted journalist, Keitel explained, In the poetry of things, in any of the artsand the art, if you will, of the theatre of warthere is the unknown, not just the intellect at work. Theres intuition, instinct, being touched with deeper realities. Which is why we turn to the arts.

This kind of talk is liable to provoke more lane closures, but Keitel grounded it in practical military experience. I would ask my fellow Marines to consider the people theyve come to respect during their tours of duty as being leaders able to deal with conflict, able to make decisions under pressure. They will have a sense of poetry about themselves to know when its proper to engage in the terrible art of war if need be.

It all comes back to character for Harvey Keitel. [Trump] hasnt demonstrated that he can conduct himself in the manner that, for me, would represent the character of the American people and the Marines I served with I dont think Mr. Trump is an example of the face of America and as to how we regard women and other belief systems, other religions, he said. Our armed forces are fighting for the character of America. And Mr. Trumps face and behavior cannot be the flag that we hoist when we hoist up the American flag. Its not the character of America.
Documentary filmmaker Craig Atkinson wants everyone to know he doesnt hate cops.

Far from ithes the loving son of a cop.

My perception of law enforcement was always very favorableand I still have a favorable opinion of police officers, he told The Daily Beast. I have great respect for my father. Growing up, I had a very biased view of my dad as an officer, and I knew he had a great deal of integrity as an individual. I assumed that all police officers operated in the same way he did.

Yet Atkinsons new movie, Do Not Resistopening Friday at New Yorks Film Forum and later nationwideshows that actually they dont. It depicts local police departments deploying military-grade equipment, in many cases armored vehicles gifted by the Homeland Security and Defense departments direct from Iraq and Afghanistan, while using brute force to control, and occasionally abuse, economically depressed minority communities.

Atkinsons movie is especially timely as the Black Lives Matter movement continues to protest this years spate of police shootings of African American menfrom Ferguson to Tulsa to Charlotte to, most recently, the suburbs of San Diego, where on Tuesday night cops shot Alfred Olango, an unarmed mentally ill person who was wandering in traffic.

The film also covers the police capacity to spy on law-abiding citizens with aerial surveillance technology and face-recognition software, and use demographic and sociological data to predict that certain people, even before theyre born, are likely to become hardened criminalsa disquieting innovation reminiscent of the pre-crime unit in the 2002 sci-fi movie Minority Report.

And the documentary explores a cop culture thatat least with many of the officers that Atkinsons camera follows on ride-alongs, drug and gun busts, street protests and shoot-em-up training sessionsrevels in high-tech weaponry and adrenalin rushes, and celebrates violence over First Amendment and privacy rights.

You fight violence. What do you fight it with? Superior violence! Righteous violence, eh? retired Army Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, the inventor of an area of study he calls Killology, is caught on camera exhorting his trainees in one of the hundreds of seminars he conducts each year for local and federal law enforcement organizations. Violence is your toolYou are men and women of violence. You master it, or it will destroy you.

A charismatic showman with a flair for the outrageous, Grossman cant help adding that after a day of fighting bad guys, his students will have the best sex theyve ever had.

Very few perks come with this job. You find onerelax and enjoy it.

In an early scene of Do Not Resistthe end of a rain-soaked, lightning-punctuated night of tear-gas choked demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri, 10 days after a black teenager, Michael Brown, was shot and killed by Officer Darren WilsonAtkinsons camera catches two helmeted cops in full riot gear, a man and a woman, comparing notes on the evenings adventures as they walk to their vehicles and head home.

Did you have fun? the man laughingly asks the woman, who answers in the affirmative.

Shield bump? he suggests, and the two raise their plexiglass antiriot shields in an after-action toast.

Atkinson was his own cinematographer, and he and a colleague acquired Israeli Defense Force surplus gas masks after breathing the noxious vapors from canisters fired by the cops into peaceful protests during the August 2014 Ferguson drama.

He also risked life and limb to record the fires and looting of the riot that exploded after St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch announced, late on a November night, that Officer Wilson would not be indicted.

A native of the northern Detroit suburb of Oak Park, Michigan (with an ethnically and racially diverse population of around 30,000), the 34-year-old Atkinsonthese days an artsy-bearded, slightly-built denizen of Brooklyngrew up assisting in the work of his dad Steven Atkinson, a SWAT team leader who retired with the rank of lieutenant after 29 years on the Oak Park police force.

He was forming the SWAT team, and sometimes they would need people to help with training, Craig said, noting that he and his older brother Daniel participated in mock SWAT operations over the objections of their mother Paula. My dad brought my brother and I along, and at first we would be hostages. So there would be a hide-and-seek scenario.

As I got older, around 15, I would more often be an armed assailant. Id have a revolver shooting blanks. It was very realistic training. The SWAT team would be coming after me in a factory, and judging by their tactics, I would position myself to see if I could take them out before they could take me out.

Burnishing his pro-cop bona fides, Atkinson cited a cousin whos a state trooper in Massachusetts and a close childhood friend whos a police officer in Hawaii. He added that other than parking tickets, hes never had a scrape with the law.

Cops kids know how to get away with everything, he confided. Thats the real reason.

Atkinson said his moviewhich won the Best Documentary prize at this years Tribeca Film Festivalhas so far received positive reviews from law enforcement officers, especially at a recent screening at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where members of New York Police Department were in the audience.

An active duty guy stood up and publicly thanked me for making it, Atkinson recounted, and he said he was really encouraged that the whole idea was not to condemn officers but to point out areas that need fixing immediately in police work.

Atkinson said his 63-year-old dad, meanwhile, was devastated when he screened the film, especially a scene in which a SWAT team on their way to a gun bust in an MRAP (as Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected military vehicles are nicknamed) initially had the address wrong, and had to search for it on a smartphone.

He just couldnt believe it, Atkinson said, adding that his father remarked that if he were still a SWAT supervisor, he probably would have ordered disciplinary action.

Whats more, Atkinson added, he was embarrassed that he had just purchased one of Dave Grossmans books and given it to a friend.

Atkinson pointed out that Jeronimo Yanez, the Minnesota police officer who last July shot and killed a black man named Philando Castile as he reached for his ID during a traffic stop, had attended a seminar at which Dave Grossman was an instructor.

This is an officer who said afterward, I dont know why I shot him,  Atkinson said. He just automatically resorted to using his gun.

It probably goes without saying that the 60-year-old Grossman, who more often than not is flying around the country to his law enforcement training seminars, is equally unappreciative of Atkinson and Do Not Resist.

He may say, I support cops, Im the son of a cop, but that doesnt matter, Grossman told The Daily Beast, noting that he had not yet seen the film but was basing his comments on the trailer, in which hes presented as wrong-headed and trigger happy. That video will be feeding the cop haters, and by feeding the cop haters, the blood of those cops who are killed will be on his hands.

Grossman, who complained that the trailer take his remarks out of contextsuggesting that he was speaking about how police should interact with communities when he was actually talking about ISIS and other terroristspredicted many more people will see the trailer than watch the entire documentary, and that it will continue to feed the war on cops, and more cops will be murdered as a result.

Already this year, 93 have died, 40 by gunfire, one by stabbing and 10 by vehicular homicide, according to the Officer Down Memorial web site, which tracks police deaths.

Atkinson, who said he filmed six hours of a Grossman training session and obviously doesnt believe he will be responsible for the deaths of men and women like his father, fired back in an email to The Daily Beast: What we put in the trailer and in the film is by no means the most offensive messaging in Dave Grossman's training. The material that we included in the film speaks for itself. Dave Grossman's comments are not mischaracterized or taken out of context.

Indeed, Grossman, who told The Daily Beast that a 9/11 magnitude terrorist attack is coming soon, gets the last word in Atkinsons movie.

We are at war, and you are the front line troops in this war, he is shown exhorting his charges. And folks, I want you to understand something. When they [the terrorists] come to murder the children, the individuals who try to disarm our copspresumably a veiled reference to critics like Atkinsonthey will be hunted down and across the nation they will be attacked, they will be spit on, they will be driven deep into their slimy little holes, so they never come out again. In the very near futurethe idiots trying to disarm our cops.

Grossman adds: Folks, there ain't nobody in Mexico right now complaining about the militarization of police. There ain't nobody in Russia complaining about militarization of police. They will look like the biggest idiots the world has ever seen and we will staple a sign to their forehead that says idiotnever listen to this fool again. In the very near future, you will be vindicated.

For the moment, however, it seems like Craig Atkinson is doing just fine.
With a relatively unpopular Democratic presidential candidate and an even more unlikable Republican one, the narrative surrounding Vice President Joe Biden this year has been that hes kicking himself for deciding not to run.

Im a fan, so go easy on me, Biden said when he sat down with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show Thursday night. That was not going to be a problem. After ruffling Donald Trumps hair and handing literal softballs to Hillary Clinton, Fallon sent Biden off with matching aviator sunglasses and ice cream cones.

Fallon estimated that hes probably made 347 jokes about Biden, who seemed like an easy target for late-night comedians until Donald Trump came along. The Trump phenomenon has given Biden a chance to rise above the fray, as he demonstrated by reciting an Irish poem by Seamus Heaney to Fallon from memory.

Theres a stanza in this poem that I think describes where we are now, if were smart, Biden said. He says, History teaches us not to hope on this side of the grave, but then once in a lifetime, that longed-for tidal wave of justice rises up and hope and history rhyme. I really think were at that place in American history, if we just have the nerve to seize the moment.

Without mentioning Trumps Make America Great Again slogan directly, Biden said, I wish we would stop talking about what trouble were in. We are in a better position than any country in the world to own the 21st century, we really are.

When Fallon brought up this past weeks presidential debate, Biden crossed himself and said, Bless me Father, for Im about to sin.

For a while there I thought, Ive never quite seen anything like that, Biden said. Ive never seen anybody who knew as few facts, he added, and this is coming from a man who debated Sarah Palin in 2008. As Fallon continued to joke around with the vice president, Biden said, Ill be serious for just a second here and maybe thats dangerous to do on this show.

What amazes me about Donald Trumpand hes probably a decent guybut its his lack of sensibilities, Biden said. On Trumps assertion that he was rooting for the housing market to fail, he said, Thats not business, thats callous. On Trumps admission that paying no taxes makes him smart, he said, What does that make the rest of us? Suckers?

Can you think of any president, any president youve studied, read about, or knew who would say anything like that? Biden asked the audience. Name me one president who would do that. It angers me quite frankly. He added later, I mean, just pay your fair share, for Gods sake!

The vice president said it doesnt surprise him that some people are taking so long to make up their minds on who to vote for, but it does surprise him that Trump got this far in the first place. Ive never known of a candidate who knows as little about the world as this man does, he said. I dont even think he understands how much damage he does, by what hes already said, Biden added, noting that he has had to travel abroad to assure our allies that NATO will remain intact.

Its almost like the guy didnt really intend to do this, Biden said, exasperated. He thought that maybe this was a lark and it will go somewhere and my God, here we go, guys.

But Biden reserved perhaps his strongest burn for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, who this week struggled to name even one world leader. He thought Aleppo was a dog food or something, Biden joked.

All of this, naturally, brought Biden back to Clinton. Hillary is one of the brightest people Ive ever known, has an incredible amount of experience, and I think shes going to win and I think well be in good hands, he said. Look, nobodys perfect. Everybody, you know, wants the ideal candidate.

By the way, I learned how to become the ideal candidate, Biden added. Announce youre not running for president.
When Marvels Luke Cage brings the ruckus, its unstoppable, like a bulletproof black man, hoodie up, striding through gunfire untouched.

There are shades of Shaft in that walk, and a bit of John Wayne, too. But make no mistake, the Luke Cage now starring in his own Netflix show, 44 years after his comic-book debut, is unmistakably a superhero for today.

This is a black hero from Harlem with soulful eyes and a tragic past, who was thrown in prison for a crime he didnt commit, then tortured and bestowed with the power to hurl men through walls. Hes built like a mountain, immovable and vast. Hes indestructible; bullets pierce his clothes, but not his skin. His only costume is a hoodie; when its up, he wears it like a cape.

Four years and too many hashtags after the killing of Trayvon Martin, the significance of that hoodie, and of Marvel TVs first black, bulletproof superhero is undeniable.

All black art is always judged to illuminate our experience and prove that our stories and our history and our lives matter, says Cheo Hodari Coker, executive producer and showrunner of Luke Cage. And that goes back to Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, take your pick. Telling this kind of story is no different.

It was important to me that we have a hero that was blackand he didnt just happen to be black, he continues. His identity is a part of him.

Harlem, black history, and the traditions of Westerns, hip-hop, blaxploitation, and superhero comic books run deep through Luke Cages veins, influencing a hyperliterate superhero drama unlike anything else on TV. There are villains, like Mahershala Alis rising crime lord Cottonmouth and his scheming politician cousin Mariah (Alfre Woodard). And there are good cops like popular Marvel heroine Misty Knight (Simone Missick), here making her onscreen debut.

And there are boisterous action scenes of righteous destruction, soundtracked with hip-hop deep cuts and 70s soul and funk. (Coker is a former music journalist). There are bitter references to slavery, gentrification, and racism. There are flashes of doomed romance, as we meet Lukes ex-wife while witnessing his prison origin story. And, not long into the first episode, there is the Marvel Cinematic Universes first-ever mention of the N-wordthe first of many times its used throughout the show.

The Daily Beast talked to Coker about his influences in making Luke Cage, how he pulled off the years best hallway fight scene, why our culture needs a bulletproof black hero, and the magnificence of Mike Colter, who plays Luke.

This is Marvels first show starring a black hero and it seems to acknowledge that significance through all the musical, political, and literary history woven throughout. Was there a sense of that significance on set and did it come with any pressures?

You know, we lean into the drama more than the quote-unquote superhero moments. I unfortunately read every single review. I live and die by every review, and one of them said basically that when youre watching the show, you dont really see all the stuff you expect from a superhero story, and they were kind of disappointed. But for me, that was criticism that I was actually happy about. I wanted the show to feel different because now that superhero stories are the new Western, you kind of expect every motif. Theres this notion that, OK, if you have a superhero story, the hero has to appear and get his powers in the first five minutes. And we didnt do that with this. Because everybody knows its Marvel, everybody knows what a superhero story is.

So why not take the audience on a journey, let them know Harlem, let them know what it is to be around this place. Let them see MikeI cant separate the two, in my mind Mike Colter and Luke Cage are the same persontrying to figure his way out after everything hes been through. Then we come to the end of the first episode and he finally does use his powers, and thats the moment of truth. If youve done that, rather than making another superhero show, what youve really done is youve remade Unforgiven as a superhero story, motif and all, with elements of Shaft and other blaxploitation films. So its kind of a mixture between blaxploitation and Western, for me.

Definitely. The first time Shades and Cottonmouths goons walk into Pops barbershop felt like that moment in old Westerns when bad guys walk into a saloon. I actually did forget all about the superpowers until the end of that first episode, too.

Thats funny because for me, I always wanted the show to work without the powers. Its like anything else, we gotta make sure were not falling into the oh my God, were running out of plot. Lets explode something! I always wanted the reverse: I wanted the powers to be an enhancement to the storytelling because in my mind, weve created a drama that can compete with anything else out there. And the fact that its also a superhero show and a deep-meaning show just enhances everything else.

Was there anything about Luke Cages history you particularly wanted to bring out? You obviously reference his blaxploitation roots and got in a great moment where we see Luke in his comic book costume, with the tiara and yellow shirt.

Its interesting because you see different iterations of Luke [in comics history]. Theres the belligerent Luke of the blaxploitation era, cause the Marvel powers that be first interpreted him as essentially a bulletproof Shaft, and Shaft was not really known as the most polite person in the world. So when he came on the scene, he had a certain urgency and belligerence. His thing was like, All this superhero stuff is great but I need to get paid. So theres that attitude.

And then Heroes for Hire was always more playful because you have him and Iron Fist and the various villains that they fought on a per-issue basis. But I think the character began to carry a more serious weight when Brian Michael Bendis reintroduced him more recently in Alias, which is what Jessica Jones is based on. So what I saw was the new Luke, without the tiara and without the cape, who was a more brawny and sensitive dude. That gave us the opportunity to really translate it into live-action, as long as you could find the right actor.

And Marvel definitely found him in Mike Colter.

Mike is the best casting to my mind since Sean Connery was first cast as James Bond. Hes such a perfect mixture of intelligence and levity. He has a light way of doing off-the-cuff humor, but when its time to put the hoodie up and go all out, you can totally buy him as a kickass superhero. Thats the hardest thing when youre talking about the depiction of African Americans, especially African-American men: You either see the brawn or you see the sensitivity, but you never see both in the same character. I wanted to prove that you can have someone thats 6-foot-3, 235 pounds that can kick down a door but, at the same time, also have this intelligence and be warm and be a lot of things. Because what happens is people look at you and they think one thing, but you can be a bunch of other things.

He contains multitudes. And the show doesnt shy away from that, nor from real-life issues like gentrification or racism. It also references Black Lives Matter both explicitly and symbolically, through Lukes hoodie. Superhero stories are often crafted as commentary on current events, but what did it mean to you to do that through Luke Cage?

One of my biggest influences is the Chris Claremont graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills, because thats really the graphic novel that introduces the fact that Magneto is a Holocaust survivor with a very militant, never-again attitude about being a mutant that represents, to a certain extent, a Malcolm X point of view about, Why are we gonna turn the other cheek when they hunt us? And Professor Xavier represents a more inclusive, Martin Luther King Jr.-like, Lets assimilate with humans and show that even though were mutants, were just like everybody else. I think Stan Lee and Chris Claremont and everybody else recognize that through superheroes and superpowers, they could help people understand prejudice and fear in ways that you couldnt with just politics and history alone.

And so with this show, you have the opportunity to kind of use it as a Trojan horse with which you can introduce a host of other issues besides it being a superhero story. Cause my opinion is, I kind of view the show like a Bob Marley record. When you listen to Burnin or Catch a Fire or Survival or any of Bobs records, theyre just beautiful music and you nod your head and its mellow, but if you really, really listen? Theres so much politics and so much history, so much about the condition of black people. It works on two different levels. It isnt a polemic. And I really think that with this kind of show, you can do both. What I wanted to prove is that you can enjoy a superhero show and still be part of whats happening in the world.

When I talked to Simone Missick, who plays Misty Knight, she talked about how Eric Garner was killed while the show was shooting in New York, and how you cant tell a story about a black person in America without it being political because a black persons very existence is political.

Heres the thing: My grandfather was a Tuskegee airman. He flew for the 100th Squadron. And he would say that when youre one of the first black pilots, theres a lot of pressure because if you mess up, its gonna have a direct effect on how black people are treated back in the States. Theyre already saying that there are certain things you cant do because of the color of your skin, so you have a responsibility to be a good pilot but youre also on kind of a social mission at the same time. But the one thing he used to say is, All thats well and good, but when you're getting shot at, you cant forget to fly the plane.

What I take that as is that with all these things happening in the world, added to the pressure of just trying to create a piece of art that will stand up to everything else thats out there, you try to be true to the story. You dont necessarily think about the significance of what youre doing at the time. But when it comes back, you realize that you have just collectively absorbed everything and put it into your art and youre kind of surprised with how it belongs to this continuum.

Sometimes people will ask a question like, Is this the Black Lives Matter hero show? And what I would say about that is all black art is always judged to illuminate our experience and prove that our stories and our history and our lives matter. And that goes back to Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, take your pick. Telling this kind of story is no different because the pressure of being black, no matter what else youre doing, is you have the history of your ancestors on your shoulders. And so in this case, it was important to me that we have a hero that was blackand he didnt just happen to be black. His identity is a part of him.

The show also deals head-on with how different people use the N-word. Luke abhors it. When a kid who uses it tries pointing a gun at Lukes head, he goes, Im not tired enough to let nobody call me that word. Why did it feel important for him to take a definitive stance on that?

People take that word for granted. The thing about that word is that its used so much today and it has no meaning. Its here in all these different songsI dont care if its Drake, I dont care if its Lil Wayne. The N-word is almost used for rhythm. Its like a cadence almost and the significance of the word is lost. So because the show is inclusively black and a deep dive into black culture, my approach to the storytelling was, in my mind, no different than Scorsese in Casino and Goodfellas or Woody Allen in Manhattan: You basically are letting the audience eavesdrop in on a culture. The characters are talking amongst themselves and no one else is listening. And if we are eavesdropping on black people talking about the use of the N-word, everybody has a different opinion of it. Older people tend to not like that word, because they know the history of it. Its real for them. Younger people are gonna have different viewpoints because in some cases, having listened to hip-hop and everything else, the word has a different kind of meaning. Its almost like this weirdly positive negative.

I wanted to basically show all the different opinions that people have of this word. Mariah, in episode one, despises the word. By episode six, as shes becoming more of a criminal, she uses it. Luke, like Pop, is about positive images. So for him to be standing in front of a building named after one of Americas greatest heroes [Revolutionary War martyr Crispus Attucks], hearing this kid use that word toward him, with the day that hes had, it goes from this teaching moment to this wellspring of emotion. And then he uses the word out of frustration.

Meanwhile, Cottonmouth...

And then you have Cottonmouth. For him, that word represents this is what people think about me, but I dont give a fuck because Im powerful in my own way. He says, Its easy to underestimate a nigga. They never see you coming. So its all these different viewpoints. I wanted it to be in there because it makes you think every single time you hear it about whats being said and where that character is and what they stand for. I always thought that it would be more offensive for people to tell me when I cant use the word, as opposed to using the word in a way that I think illustrates both its power and how we as a community have such a conflicted viewpoint on it.

Lets talk about the hallway fight scene in episode three, when Wu-Tangs Bring the Ruckus plays and we get that image of Luke walking imperviously through bullets. It calls to mind that famous fight in Daredevil, except here Lukes fighting style demands a different approach. What were some of the challenges in putting that scene together?

Guillermo Navarro, who directed that episode, is an Oscar-winning cinematographer. He shot Desperado for Robert Rodriguez and also shot Jackie Brown. So hes a master at using a practical location and making the claustrophobic nature of a hall become its own world. When we got to the location and saw all those steps, we were like, Should we actually build a hallway where we could do things we wouldnt here? Guillermo just went to the location and was like, No. Were gonna make this thing work. We basically shot that whole sequence over three days.

Luke cant really punch or kick the kind of ass that Daredevil does because with his strength, he would kill people. So what Matt Owens captured in the script and the rest of the team captured in that whole shoot, is what I call Smack Fu. So youll notice that when hes putting people through walls, its almost like hes picking up a toddler and putting them up on a counter or something. Its like, Here you go. Get out of my way. I need to get to here. Its that kind of thing. Whats great about Mike is that as soon as we explained Smack Fu, he was able to just coordinate his movement and make that look real. We saw it like, Oh my god, theres an energy to the way that hes doing this.

Thats kind of how the music works, too. Knowing that Luke is bulletproof, and knowing how this effort is going to be different than the Daredevil hallway fight, which was more about how relentless Matt Murdock is and how exhausted he is in that iconic second episode, my take on this thing was that this is gonna be Lukes workout, and thats why hes wearing the headphones. He knows that he cant be shot, so this is gonna be him working off steam while he basically has to put Cottonmouth temporarily out of business. A lot of that is him being, Let me put my music on and Im gonna smack my way down the hallway.

Then theres Misty Knight, whos really the shows breakout character. Comic book Misty was inspired in part by Pam Grier and blaxploitation, so shes a detective but she also knows martial arts (and has a bionic arm). What was your vision for how to bring her to the screen?

I wanted Misty to be a real woman. I wanted her to be assured and confident and a character that wouldnt necessarily be self-conscious. Someone that could be a good detective but at the same time could also be sensitive about what it means to be a detective in a place like Harlem. Sometimes what they say about cops is that if youre a cop, youre not black or whiteyoure blue. I wanted to show someone that was a lot like some of the detectives that I met while I was writing Southland, who were people deeply connected to their community, but at the same time deeply connected to being a policeman or woman.

So with Misty, you have someone who is dedicated to her job, and as the series goes on, begins to question what it is to be inside that system and to see the limitations of it. She kind of resents the fact that Luke is able to do things without any rules. Its also important just to have somebody that isnt a secondary character, but a fully fleshed out character with emotions and different feelings and her own story. This is the biggest influence of The Wire on me: McNulty and Bunk and the rest of the cops have their own world and their own vision, but when theyre on the criminal side, those characters are also fully fleshed out. So youre able to be a part of this world and understand all these perspectives.

Alfre Woodards Mariah is also an update on the character Black Mariah, who was a much flatter, more stereotypical figure in the comics. In the show, shes like a real-life villain: shes this beloved face of a community who appropriates the language of movements like Black Lives Matter for her own political and criminal gain.

That was the thing about Alfre. I remember when [Marvel TV head] Jeph Loeb and I had come out of our first meeting with her. Of course, with Alfre, youre kind of nervous cause shes won all these Emmys and shes just such an incredible actress. And when you meet her outside of her character, shes so maternal; shes such a warm presence that you wonder, well, can she play a villain? But there was something she said over that lunch that in my mind cemented who her character was. She said, I love my family. If anybody come after my family, Ill cut a motherfucker. (Laughs) So when she said that, I said, Okay. Wow. Underneath this, she has that edge.

That allowed us to build somebody who uses the language of politics, but ultimately really values power. For her, its not so much about keeping Harlem black as it is about keeping her family in the green, as she says. Its kind of cynical in terms of the politics, but that was the difference. We took some liberties in making Cottonmouth and Mariah related and have it be a family crime story. That way, youre able to talk about the things that are happening in Harlem that make Harlem seem all the more real. But then as she evolvesMariah really begins to take a deeper turn into almost a Michael Corleone-type character. She begins to realize that she's much better at this than she ever anticipated.

Theres such great character work in the show, Mariah included. Does it worry you that the conversation about the show has mostly revolved around politics?

I think the main thing, honestly, is that we embrace the politics of the moment, we embrace the fact that because Luke is the first superhero show since M.A.N.T.I.S. to have an African-American lead, that its important. But then at the same time, this is a fun show. And its an adult show. I know theres gonna be people like, Oh, I cant wait for my kids to watch it. Im like, Would you want your kids to play a DMX record?
While schools implement programs educating students about affirmative consent and stricter sexual misconduct policies, a number of lawyers and law professors have been vocal in their criticism of university kangaroo courts, arguing that the system is failing both campus sexual assault victims and the accused.

The University of Pennsylvania is the latest school to be hit with a Title IX civil suit, by a male senior who claims the school botched a sexual assault investigation that found him responsible for raping a fellow student.

The plaintiff, known only as John Doe, has accused the school of sex discrimination and racial bias in its sham investigation. The lawsuit argues that the school perpetuated the stereotype of a young African American male as aggressor in its final investigative report, which recommended his expulsion.

It also states that John Doe only learned about his accusers version of events when he received the final report and that a university investigator changed language in the accusers original statement to make Doe look more guilty.

Doe is seeking more than $600,000 in damages and has asked the court to stop ongoing disciplinary proceedings and to destroy all relevant materials from the original investigation.

A final disciplinary hearing for Does case was scheduled to take place Thursday at the university, according to court documents.

Filed last Friday, Does lawsuit is the most recent in a series of complaints against universities alleging gender bias against male students accused of sexual assault.

In the past four months, similar suits have been filed against Hobart and William Smith Colleges, University of Colorado Boulder, and Denison, Columbia, and Yale universities, with male students pursuing sex discrimination claims under Title IX. (Dozens more have been filed in the last two years.) Title IX bars gender discrimination by schools receiving federal funds and was originally enacted in 1972 to protect womens rights on college campuses.

In 2011, the Education Departments Office of Civil Rights (OCR) demanded universities enforce Title IX to help prevent sexual assault and harassment on campuses.

But the spate of lawsuits filed by male students claiming Title IX protection suggests universities may be overcompensating after years of failing to protect alleged victims of sexual misconduct.

On Monday, the University of Pennsylvania filed a response to John Does complaint asking the court to allow the disciplinary process to play out before allowing Doe to move forward with his lawsuit.

There has not even been a hearing at the university yetlet alone a final decisionand [Doe] already wants a do over, the filing reads. There cannot be any irreparable harm when we do not even know what the outcome is, let alone whether it is harmful.

Though the final investigative report recommended Does expulsion, the university noted that he has not yet been kicked out and may be found not responsible in the final hearing.

If he is found guilty of sexual assault, he can appeal that decision, at which point the university could reverse its decision or reduce his punishment.

The university also asked the court to deny Does request that it operate like a criminal court, which requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, when adjudicating sexual assault or misconduct cases. (The same argument has been made in other Title IX lawsuits filed by male students, since most universitiesincluding UPennuse a preponderance of evidence standard instead.)

The university cited a separate but relevant case in the U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which remarked several weeks ago that [A]n educational institutions authority to make disciplinary decisions without having to resort to court intervention is a substantial public interest, and that mandating judicial intervention would substantially weaken the institutions legitimate disciplinary authority among its students.

The university did not, however, dispute multiple claims in Does suit that the investigation into his alleged sexual assault was sloppy and biased.

Among them are that the investigative team misinterpreted the universitys Sexual Violence Policy in determining Doe had sex with his accuser without her consent.

Though the policy defines consent as an affirmative decision to engage in mutually agreed upon sexual activity and is given by clear words or actions, the universitys investigative team concluded that Jane hadnt consented because she never said yes, was never asked, and never initiated sexual contact.

On June 8, 2016, the morning after Doe and his accusera fellow seniorhad sex after meeting at a bar, the young woman returned to her dorm and, when asked by her roommate where shed been all night, replied that she was at some assholes place.

She told university investigators that she then went into her room to charge her phone and saw that her roommate, who had returned in the middle of the night from a semester abroad, had been stranded outside their room for hours while she was sleeping at Does and had texted that she was gonna kill her.

The roommate later found Does accuser crying and asked if shed been raped, to which she replied yes.

She went to the university Womens Center and to the police. That same day, a detective searched Does apartment and informed him of the allegations made by his accuser.

It is not clear whether Doe was ever criminally charged, though court documents state that he passed a lie detector test. (Does lawyer did not return The Daily Beasts request for comment.)

Doe was interviewed by a university investigator on July 6 and was informed two days later that hed been charged with sexual assault.

When the university delivered a report on Aug. 22 that found him responsible, Doe discovered discrepancies between what his accuser told university investigators and what she told police.

The latter was much more violent: Outside his apartment, Doe had grabbed me by my hair, arm, and neck at point [sic] while pulling me into the house. Speaking to the university investigator, she said Doe had gently pulled her toward his house and led her upstairs to his bed. The Aug. 22 report omitted the word gently.

Doe submitted a letter disputing many details in this initial report, none of which were countenanced in the final report he received Sept. 8.

The investigative team wrote that they had asked Does accuser about her contradictory statement to police and that she told them Doe had pulled her into the house while holding her hand and using his other arm to hold her around her neck, head, and hair.

This particular account was not recorded in the universitys interview summary, and an investigator acknowledged he had not put pen to paper after this conversation.

Instead of owning up to their sloppy reporting, the investigative team changed the facts in a blatant attempt to paint John as a violent aggressor and to support at any cost the teams conclusion that John was guilty, Does complaint reads.

A UPenn hearing panel will determine whether to expel Doe or modify the investigators conclusion.
In Mosul, members of the Islamic State extremist group that control the city know full well that they can expect it to be attacked soon by those who oppose them. Rumor has it the fight for Mosul, ISISs last large stronghold in Iraq, could begin as soon as October.

As a result, they are preparing night and day to try to defend the city they have controlled for more than two years now. Residents say that for the past two weeks, the noise from large vehicles and construction equipment hasnt stopped.

Trucks owned by the Mosul city council have been moving large concrete barriers to the outskirts of the city, one local, who could not be named for security reasons, told Niqash. Large cranes are unloading these and they are being arranged in a similar way to how the Iraqi military used to arrange them when they controlled Mosul.

Eyewitnesses in the city confirm that at the southern end, around the neighborhoods of Mamoun, Tal al-Rumman, and Mansour, members of the extremist group have completed a three-meter-high wall. Farther ahead is the town of Qayyarah, which ISIS recently lost.

Other locals confirmed that there is a similar wall at the eastern end of the city near the neighborhoods of Somar, Dumez, and Falastin, as well as in the Kokajli and Shamali areas, where pre-fab buildings are located, in order to prevent the Iraqi Kurdish military from laying siege to that part of the city.

However, because Mosul is so largeits known as Iraqs second city after Baghdad, and was home to over 2 million peoplethere is no way to construct a complete wall around it. Thats why theyre only building walls in areas near the main entrances to the city and in parts where they expect their enemies to attack.

Locals say all this is somewhat ironic. When ISIS first entered the city in mid-2014, it boasted about the fact that it was removing all the concrete barriers that the Iraqi army had placed around Mosul because they were no longer needed. Security would prevail under their rule, it claimed.

At the same time as the barriers are being moved, there has also been a major campaign to convince locals of ISISs strength and, one imagines, keep citizens on its side.

War is coming and the survival of the caliphate will depend on the steadfastness of Mosul in confronting the infidels, one young man, a preacher in his thirties, recently told all of those praying in the Umar ibn al-Khattab mosque in Mosuls Nahrawan neighborhood.

Did you hear about the battle fought by Muslims, led by the Prophet Muhammad, in [627AD]? he asked worshippers. Do you know how they won that battle? The people followed their leader and they did not betray him. That is why the sons of Mosul should be patient and why they should tolerate hunger, thirst, and fear. They should support the caliphate and prevent the infidels from entering the city!

The battle the preacher was talking about was known as the Battle of al-Khandaq, or the Ditch (or Trench) in English. During this fight, Muhammad and his supporters dug a ditch around the city of Medina in Saudi Arabia and stayed inside while thousands of enemies laid siege outside. Members of ISIS have been using the same comparison online, on social media.

The walls that ISIS is building in Mosul also include a trench, measuring two meters in depth and width, on one side of the concrete barriers. This trench has already been completed in the eastern and northern parts of the city; extremists used municipal roadwork vehicles to dig the pits.

In the past ISIS had tried to dig trenches around 10 kilometers away from the citys borders but they were stopped after repeated air strikes by planes belonging to the international anti-ISIS coalition destroyed many of their vehicles.

Just like the walls, the new trenches do not surround the whole city.

The trenches are also supposedly connected to a network of secret tunnels ISIS is building. This is being done in case the terror group is forced to fight a guerrilla war inside the city; the high population densitystill an estimated 1.5 million residentswill also be used in this fighting.

In the end though, it is clear to everyoneeven those living in Mosulthat in this day and age, whoever controls the airspace controls the battle. Fences and trenches wont be able to stop armed forces from entering the city if they have air support and the best that ISIS could achieve is to extend their stay in the city by weeks, or possibly months, if they are lucky.

Thats why Mosul locals will be looking toward their southern suburbs when the time comes. ISIS fighters are expected to escape in that direction and head to safehouses in Syria, as they did in previous fighting in Fallujah and Tikrit.

This article is adapted from one originally published in Niqash, a trilingual website (Arabic, English, Kurdish) on politics, media and culture in Iraq.
While every obituary marking Shimon Peress death mentioned his age, 93, the more significant number may be 68, the age of Israel, the country he helped establish. Peres was the last of the founders. As the protege of Israels first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, Peres helped conquer the southern port of Eilat, establish the Israeli navy, supply the Israeli air force, and launch the Israeli arms industry, all before his 30th birthday. Even more than any particular achievement, this Polish-born shepherd, who lost relatives in the Holocaust and wooed his wife, Sonia, by reading her excerpts from Karl Marxs Das Kapital, while sitting in a kibbutz he started, came to personify the New Jew that Zionisms founders first envisioned. He became Israels Mr. Security. He went on to become the Nobel Prize-winning, peace-seeking president of Israel. In so doing, Peres embodied the flourishing of the state from a fragile, embattled Jewish Hail Mary pass to an established democratic home to millions. He typified the generation of larger than life pioneers who are now gone.

When Szymon Perski was born in Wiszniew, Polandtoday Vishnyeva, Belaruson Aug. 2, 1923, a Jewish State was an impossible ancient dream, not todays robust reality. Although the Jews working the land in Palestine were starting to change their reputations, the image of the Jew was as a passive, bookish, ultra-religious victim, the wandering Jew, the beaten-up Jew, the Yiddish writer Shalom Aleichems wise but weary Tevye. David Ben-Gurion would explain that while most revolutions rejected the dominating regime or colonial power, the Zionist revolution had a double challenge. In addition to freeing Palestine from the British empires grip, Zionists had to liberate themselves from that debilitating self-image and create a new Jew. These pioneers aggressive secularism, idealistic socialism, and gruff physicality reflected their personal revolutions as the first steps toward national salvation.

Peres, who never lost his Polish accent, would struggle to become a true Israeliand never fully achieve it, even as he became the representative Israeli to millions abroad. The grandson of a prominent rabbi, Peres immigrated to Tel Aviv with his family in 1934. His true Zionist transformation began in 1935, when he moved to the agricultural village at Ben Shemen. There, at Kibbutz Geva, and at Kibbutz Alumot, which he helped found, this bookish Polish child modeled himself on the brawny sabras around himthe nickname for New Jews born in the Promised Lands rich but rocky soil, who, like the prickly pear, were bristly on the outsidebut sweet on the inside.

While working as a dairy farmer and a shepherd, Shimon Persky, as he was now known, began to look like a pioneer, bronzed by the sun, toughened by the work. Peres and his peers embraced agricultural life and communal living, disavowing the weakness of the ghetto, the selfishness of the city, the decadence of bourgeois life. They delighted in Jewish nationalisms particularity, rhapsodizing about the Promised Land as it revived, delighting in hikes following biblical trails, turning Hebrew from the heady language of prayer and study into the daily language of work and play. But at the same time, their Zionism was universalistic. They offered their synthesis of socialism with liberal nationalism as a model for others, especially after World War II when Israel became the poster child for the post-colonial nations, a rare new country that developed a stable, prosperous, liberal democracy.

Of course, Peress generation were not able to luxuriate in their high-minded ideals. They had to fight the British who first refused to leave and the Arabs who didnt want the Zionists to stay. In the 1940s, Europeans, who had long yelled go back to Palestine, were now slaughtering their Jews en masse; so when Arabs yelled go back to Europe the Jews in Palestine became even more determined to fight for their national rights in their ancestral homeland. They had nowhere to go; this had been and was now their only home.

Thus, while any Perskis remaining in Poland were being butchered, Shimon Persky was learning to fight. He met Ben-Gurion, already functioning as the leader of the state that had not yet been declared. Ben-Gurion sent him on a secret mission into the Negev desert, scouting out future settlement sites, only to be arrested. Persky joined the Haganah and entered the shadow world of arms dealers, procuring weapons for an army still outlawed by the British yet being attacked daily by Arabs, especially after November 1947, when the United Nations declared there would be a Jewish State. All the intrigues of what he recalls as this new world of mysterious missions and anonymous agents, appealed to Persky, who, for all his attempts at self-transformation, remained far more closed, wily, and elegant than his rough and tumble friendsand rivals.

After the British left and Israel emerged in May 1948, Ben-Gurion appointed Persky assistant defense secretary for naval affairs. My naval experience, he later recalled drily, consisted of a moderate proficiency at breaststroke and one childhood attempt to build a raft and launch it off the coast of Tel Aviv. Nevertheless, he completed his mission efficiently and honorably, securing frigates and torpedo boats, organizing the fledgling service. During this difficult fight, when Israel barely had enough fuel to survive, let alone train men on functional munitions, Peres served the military effort but did not serve in the military. That distinction alienated him from his peers and harmed his political career. General Yigal Allon, who, with Yitzhak Rabin and Moshe Dayan, would go from fighting in the 48 war to fighting each other to lead the country, would grumble, In the trenches where I was, I never saw Shimon Peres. A leading poet would dismiss him as one of those who heard gunfire only on the telephone.

The critique was particularly unfair considering the tremendous contributions to the nations defense made by Persky, who now christened himself Peres, to be more Israeli. In 1952, he became deputy director-general of the ministry of defense. In 1953, before his 30th birthday, he became the ministrys director-general. While purchasing arms from abroad, he also established some Israeli self-sufficiency by manufacturing weapons. He was instrumental in solidifying relations with the French, Israels main arms supplier until 1967, and in developing the Dimona nuclear reactor.

In 1959, he began the political career that would make him world famous. Over the decades he would fill key posts in 12 cabinets, serve as prime minister twice and as interim prime minister twice, and evolve from the architect of Israels military infrastructure into Israels leading pursuer of peace. Yet, in half a century in politics, despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize, he never fully clicked with the Israeli public, or the sabra politicians around himespecially his archrival and co-Nobel peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin.

The Peres-Rabin rivalry polarized the Labor Party for years, and wasnt fully resolved until Rabin was assassinated in 1995 with Peres just steps away. Peres then played the role elegantly of Rabins brother and successor. He explained that when fighting to defend Israels existence, he had no choice but to be a hawk, now, however, the time had come to be a dove. His vision of a New Middle East, not only respected Palestinian national aspirations, but envisioned broad regional cooperation that would bring prosperity and democratic dignity, not just peace, to Arab and Jew alike. Peres, however, failed to get elected as Hamas started undermining the Oslo Peace Processand his credibilityby blowing up Israeli busses.

Peres lived long enough to become the Last of the Zionist Mohicans, finally achieving the iconic status among Israelis he had long sought. Serving as president from 2007 to 2014, retiring at the age of 91, Peres now became Mr. Israel at home and abroad. In the 21st century, beyond being the living link to the founding heroes, he helped articulate a new Zionist vision, now that being a New Jew and having a Jewish State were old stories. His celebration of Israeli technological derring-do, his wry toasts to the Jewish dissatisfaction gene as the source of both creativity and kvetching, charmed the nation and the world. Building on the practical dream-making of Zionisms founder, Theodor Herzl, Peres quipped For me, dreaming is simply pragmatic and taught youre as young as your dreams not as old as the calendar.

If some of Peress peacemaking and his refusal to acknowledge the Oslo failures once were annoying, now his optimism renewed faith in HaTikvah, the title of the Israeli national anthem, the hope. If some of his European ways once were off-putting, now his cosmopolitanism boosted confidence that the New Jews could function in the modern worldwhile making him the most popular Israeli abroad. And if some of his can-do optimistic pronouncements once seemed terribly naive, now they were reassuringly charming.

And so, as Israel, the Jewish people, and democratic idealists throughout the world eulogize Shimon Peres, they are also celebrating Israels miraculous survival, its inspiring post-Colonial example, and its tremendous potential to create the new peaceful, prosperous Middle East, this Polish-born pioneering Zionist not only envisioned but came close to creating. Peres advised young people to find a cause thats larger than yourself and then give your life to it. The late Shimon Peres found that great causeZionismand fulfilled his life through it.
When federal investigators descended on a Colorado home for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, asking about alleged abuse, staff members had an easy answer.

Paranormal activity.

Amid allegations of abuse in March 2015, the Colorado Department of Human Services deployed investigators to conduct wellness body audits of residents of the Pueblo Regional Center. Body audits are strip searches of a patient to search for evidence of physical abuse.

The state-led body audits were reported to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment by a third party raising concerns about consent for the body audits. The Department of Health Care Policy and Financing then notified the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which came in to investigate the audits and the alleged abuses further.

Now an August 2016 CMS report, first obtained by the Denver Post, details abuses and infractions at the PRC, the latest iteration of allegations of abuse and mismanagement. And it highlights the vulnerabilities of developmentally and intellectually disabled adults, who sometimes fall through the cracks of oversight systems.

The alleged abuses at the PRC include several male residents having words scratched on their backs and chests, according to a copy of the CMS report obtained by The Daily Beast. It appears that words were scratched into the individuals using a fingernail.

The words included the terms die, kill, no, Im back, and No J.

When The Daily Beast attempted to get the Pueblo County Sheriffs Office records for the alleged scratching incident, a woman in the records department said it would be almost impossible to find the incident without more specific information.

The official estimated there are between 10 and 12 incident reports filed with the sheriffs office per month relating to the PRC facility.

The words were scratched into patients with significant intellectual disabilities, some of whom cannot communicate verbally, according to the federal report. It notes that the Sheriffs Office substantiated that incident of abuse.

But staff members told investigators they had no part in the mysterious scratches, although they shared them on social media, the report says. Instead they blamed the abuse on paranormal activity, though other staffers say they havent seen any evidence to support this claim.

I havent heard nothing about that, Gabriel Jiron, who is still a health care technician at the PRC, told The Daily Beast. He would not comment on the alleged abuse.

One former staff member told The Daily Beast that there might be a more earthly answer: a staff prank.

A licensed psychiatric technician, whom well call Cathy because she asked to remain anonymous, worked at the PRC for four years and knows many people who still work at the center.

They were trying to play a prank on one of the male nurses, she said. On one of those residents they had written Go away, referring to a male nurse.

The report only cites an inscription of No J. But Cathy says the nurse did not find this prank funnyand quickly quit. (The Daily Beast was not able to independently verify this account, and a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Human Services said she could not comment on personnel issues.)

But quitting was a course of action common for the more conscientious employees, according to Cathy.

I saw physical abuse. A lot of physical abuse. And when we reported it, nothing was ever done, she said. They still kept the ones that were abusive even though we turned them in plenty of times.

Scott Moore, who worked at a nearby mental health facility and had several children work at the PRC, echoed Cathys sentiments.

One of his sons resigned, signing a nondisclosure agreement. But I didnt, Moore said.

Theres a lot of alleged abuse going on there, he said. But is it true?

In some cases yes, in most cases no, Moore said. In other cases, theres alleged abuse to run employees out.

Other abuses cited in the report include two residents dying of bowel obstructions because the PRC staff treated them only with melted butter and prune juice, rather than medications. Another patient died because staff members thought he had a do not resuscitate order when he did not, according to the report.

Non-lethal abuses included staff burning a patient by using a blow dryer on her legs to raise her body temperature and locking a resident out of the group home in the cold for two hours as a means to punish him. Another allegation said a resident performed a sexual act on a PRC staff member in exchange for a soda.

Some of the incidents were exposed during a state audit in 2015 but covered in more detail in the CMS report.

Many of the individuals in the PRCs care are nonverbal and rely on staff care and attention. But the investigation found a high employee turnover rate and frequent reports of people being asked to work back-to-back double shifts. The annual turnover rate was nearly 40 percent, compared to the CMSs recommended 20 percent or lower.

Theyre exhausted because theyre working double shifts. And back-to-back double shifts, Stephanie Garcia, the executive director of the Arc of Pueblo, an advocacy organization that has legal guardianship of some of the residents, told The Daily Beast. How did somebody else not see this? And then not report it until this finally came to a head in April 2015?

Garcia first became aware of the allegations that spring, after the state Department of Human Services performed body auditsstrip searcheson patients.

We were told they did that because there were serious allegations of abuse at the Regional Center, she said. And the reaction of the state was to go in and abuse people again by doing strip searches.

Systems that shouldve been protecting residents failed. All the way around, she said.

Eleven people were placed on administrative leave after the body audits. But KKTV reports that eight people were fired during the federal investigation and eight others disciplined.

The CMS ruled that current staffing for PRC is not adequate to serve additional clients and suggested that the center put a moratorium on new clients. It also demanded reimbursement for federal funds.

At the moment, the state is contesting our findings, Mark Fierberg, a spokesman for the CMS, told The Daily Beast.

CMS, which oversees federal dollars spent at PRC, has recommended that we do not admit new residents at PRC until staff turnover is reduced, the Colorado Department of Human Services said in a statement. CMS also may disallow Medicaid expenditures at PRC from November of 2014 to November of 2015, a move that could require the state to refund to the federal government the Medicaid dollars spent there during that timeframe. The state is considering appealing both of these recommendations.

Meanwhile, the department said it has submitted a plan to address the other concerns in the report.

We are confident that all of the changes that PRC has made since the uncovering of abuse and neglect will result in a better environment for both our staff and our regional center residents, the statement said. We have made a lot of progress in regional center operations and we look forward to working with our state and federal partners to continue our improvement efforts.
Dogs! the bearded fighters shouted.

American agents!

No to the Christian coalition!

Down with America and all the countries that side with America!

Pigs!

These were just some of the choice epithets hurled at U.S.-backed Syrian forcesand U.S. advisors among themas their convoy passed through the border town of al-Rai in Aleppo province earlier this month.

An unnamed man in a black mask threatened, We are going to slaughter you. You will not have a place among us. We will kill those who are fighting with you.

A video of this incidentwhich pitted the shouting partisans of an anti-Assad Islamist rebel group known as Ahrar al-Sharqiya against the passing convoy of a rival rebel brigade backed by the U.S.was posted on YouTube on Sept. 17. It quickly got picked up in both English and Arabic language media. And it seemed to show the humiliation of the United States and its chosen paladins in the war against ISIS.

The BBC, no less, wrote that Free Syrian Army rebels appeared to chase U.S. special forces out of the northern Syrian town of al-Rai, calling them infidels in Arabic.

There have been so many embarrassments for Americas proxy warfare in Syria, and this looked like another one. Given the overheated U.S. political season, and at a time when the Syrian war is sinking into ever deeper circles of hell, this smelled like a potent symbol of Obama administration failure.

But a fortnight later, both U.S. Central Command and a rebel eyewitness in al-Rai have told The Daily Beast that, far from being run out of Dodge, the U.S. commandos were hardly even aware of the demonstration, much less threatened by it. And further analysis suggests it may have been a set-up with backing from Washingtons ostensible allies, the Turks.

According to the eyewitness, the entire spectacle was staged to brand an American-backed Sunni Arab militia as hirelings of a despised superpower.

The Daily Beast has seen photographs showing U.S. Special Forces embedded in al-Rai with rebels belonging to the Pentagon-backed Liwa al-Mutasim.

What I can tell you is these [American] forces did conduct a routine planned movement which followed a meeting with partnered force leadership in the area, U.S. Army Maj. Josh T. Jacques, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, told us. He noted that Ahrar al-Sharqiya never posed any violent or physical threat to those soldiers.

On the second day of the offensive, in the morning, we passed by one of the main streets of al-Rai, said the Free Syrian Army fighter who saw the protest and has asked to be called Abu Faris for this article.

This was where the video you saw was filmed, he said. It showed a rally of rebels with a passionate hatred of the Americans. We tried to explain to them why the Americans were there. We are fighting ISIS, we said. They are our biggest enemy. But it didnt work. There is absolutely no trust of the Americans now.

That Washington is not popular in Aleppo province is a fact. But what was the scale of this event?

The video shows over a dozen Ahrar al-Sharqiya members taunting an inscrutable convoybut not, curiously, any U.S. Special Forces or Turkish soldiers. In fact, Abu Faris said, the Americans didnt really know what was going on. They were removed from the rally. There was no violence or gunfire. Just shouting.

After the protest, Mutasim returned to the scene and asked Ahrar al-Sharqiya to leave. They did. Al-Rai, as of this writing, is held by multiple U.S.- and Turkish-backed rebel groups, including Mutasim, whose role is providing logistical support to Turkish tanks and target-scouting for U.S. warplanes.

Ahrar al-Sharqiya tried to get a lot of media attention, Abu Faris told The Daily Beast. And the Arab media helped them along. Its just a game theyre playing. And the central player has a very dubious history.

According to Charles Lister, a Syria analyst at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, Ahrar al-Sharqiya is a front for the broader ambitions of a man named Abu Mariya al-Qahtani, a former ISIS operative from Mosul who joined the Syrian al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra after it split from its former Iraq-based patron organization two years ago.

In August 2015, Qahtani was marginalized from Nusra, which recently rebranded itself, implausibly, as an ex-al Qaeda franchise. When Qahtani and his Nusra cohort were forced out of the southeastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor, which is now largely in ISIS hands, he fled south and allegedly sent some of his opposition followers north to embed themselves in Aleppo dynamics, according to Lister.

Ahrar al-Sharqiya, then, is more accurately described as a jihadist spinoff than a moderate or mainstream Free Syrian Army faction.

Into this confusing morass of affiliations and multiple loyalties stalks the Obama administration, which, as Abu Faris put it, faces an inordinate amount of hatred in northern Syria from jihadist and non-jihadist Sunni Arabs owing to its empowerment of a Kurdish paramilitary force known as the Peoples Defense Units, or YPG.

The YPG is a wholly own subsidiary of the Democratic Union Party, the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party, a blacklisted terrorist organization, according to the United States itself (which has chosen to ignore this awkward fact in the war against ISIS).

There is unlimited [U.S.] support to the Kurds against the Arabs and Turkmen of Aleppo, said Abu Faris.

Lately, the YPG militias have fought under the broader and supposedly more ethnically integrated banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, although Kurdish political predominance and numerical superiority within that outfit remains.

All of which makes Liwa al-Mutasim, one of the few Sunni Arab proxies of the United States, widely perceived by Syrian revolutionaries as the local equivalent of Uncle Toms. The brigade was recently made the subject of a death sentence fatwah by al Qaedas affiliate in Syria. And long before that, it had a tempestuous relationship with the U.S. Department of Defense, as The Daily Beast has chronicled in detail.

Eighteen months ago, Mutasims then-future political director Mustafa Sejari told The Daily Beast that he and about 1,000 loyalists were ready to withdraw their application from the Pentagons train and equip program owing to the contractual condition that any skills or armaments they might receive would only be used in the coalition war against ISIS, and not against the regime of Bashar al-Assad or his manifold, Iranian-built proxies.

Then came news that the faction was facing imminent overrun by ISIS, which had besieged the Aleppine town of Marea in June, prompting CENTCOM to airdrop ammunition and materiel to an Arab proxy for the first time since Operation Inherent Resolve, as its called, got underway. That resupply proved decisive, and Mutasim was able to fend off an advancing column of around 1,000 ISIS jihadists, plus sack a few more ISIS-held villages in Aleppo.

Finally, Sejari told The Daily Beast that as a result of middling and intermittent American backing even after the breaking of the Marea siege, Mutasim was considering an offer made by the Russian Defense Ministrylikely via Turkish intermediariesto switch sides in the conflict and become an asset of Moscow. That interview caused the brigade no small amount of aggravation from both anti-Assad rebels and activists, who assailed it as traitorous in opposition media circles. It also led to a moratorium on U.S. resupplies and salary payments to Mutasims vetted conscripts, according to brigade insiders.

Now, however, following Turkeys unannounced invasion of northern Syria a month ago, which apparently blind-sided Washington, the Obama administration is evidently looking to rehabilitate its disillusioned counterinsurgents. The hope is that they will partner with Turkey, a wary and often-antagonistic NATO ally, fresh off a near-run coup attempt.

So far, Turkish soldiers, abetted by various rebel groups, have cleared about 90 kilometers of Syrian borderland, expelling the landlords of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and depriving ISIS of its transnational land crossing. And the Turks are poised to press farther into southern Syria in order to establish a safe zone for rebel rule, which not coincidentally would also rob the Kurds of the SDF of their capacity to construct their own semi-autonomous statelet, known in Kurdish as Rojava.

Marginalized Arab allies, such as Mutasim, are therefore an indispensable credibility markerone might uncharitably call them a fig leaffor U.S. efforts to curry favor with the Turks and ensure that its march on ISIS continues unabated, particularly in the weeks leading up to the U.S. presidential election in November.

It is widely assumed that President Barack Obama is looking to deliver a major hammer blow to the jihadist menace fanned out across two countries in the region before Americans go to the polls and his presidency is rendered lame-duck.

A source within Mutasim told The Daily Beast that salaries were paid again for the first time on Aug. 29, contingent on the rebels participation in clearing an ISIS-held village in Aleppo called Tal Alin. Mutasim lost 10 fighters in that operation, including its chief battalion commander, Abu Ali. The battle for Tal Alin ended on Aug. 26; three days before the U.S. reactivated payment to Mutasim fighters, though the same source said that new stocks of ammunition have yet to arrive.

At times baited or strung along by Washington, as U.S. needs must, still Mutasim faces frailty within and hostility without.

Charles Lister, the Syria watcher, noted that Ahrar al-Sharqiya, which has headquartered itself in the Aleppo border town of Azaz, was one of the few semi-Nusra units to remain in the north after Nusra as a whole withdrew in 2015, in protest against impending Turkish plans to establish a safe zone.

Their fitful presence in al-Rai therefore strongly suggests that Ahrar al-Shariqiya has some level of a supportive relationship with Turkey, Lister said, as all rebel factions enjoined in Operations Euphrates Shield are, in effect, Turkish proxies.

As if to demonstrate the point in word and deed, a similarly named and closely linked Salafist faction, powerful Ahrar al-Sham, which has often walked a knife-edge between mainstream rebels and al Qaeda, last week issued a fatwah authorizing opposition forces to collaborate with Turkeys ongoing military campaigna dispensation that Nusras newly formed Jabhat Fateh al-Sham has explicitly repudiated.

And while there is no evidence that Ankara might be behind Ahrar al-Sharqiyas provocation against U.S. forces in al-Rai, which can have been wholly spontaneous and organized by disgruntled jihadists, it would not be the first time since Turkeys incursion into Aleppo put its own assets dangerously at odds with Americas. When Mutasim, for instance, was in extremity in Marea three months ago, it was actually besieged on two sides: by ISIS from the east, and by the SDF from the west, where Kurdish fighters would not permit ground access, necessitating the airdropped U.S. supplies. Since then, the SDF has fought repeatedly with rebels seconded for Euphrates Shield lead. But this would be the first time that Turkish assets have directly threatened to kill American soldiers.

Euphrates Shield is a Turkish-led operation and any questions regarding this operation or who they may or may not be partnering with should be directed to the Turkish government, Maj. Jacques emailed The Daily Beast in response to that question. However, The United States will remain closely engaged with Turkey, our NATO ally, and with the [Kurdish-dominant Syrian Democratic Forces] and other coalition-supported actors on the ground in Syria to facilitate de-confliction and unity of effort.

An advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not respond to The Daily Beasts request for comment. But the CENTCOM spokesmans sanguine appraisal belies the animosity that still exists between Ankara and Washington.

Erdogan is still smarting from the abortive coup against him in July, allegedly conceived and waged by loyalists of U.S.-based Islamist cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose extradition and international isolation is not only sought by Ankara but constituted a main plank of Erdogans address Tuesday at the UN General Assembly in New York.

Even before the failed coup, Obama described Erdoganwho has clamped down on press freedoms and civil society over his decade-long reign and is now engaged in a paranoid dragnet against suspected Gulenists in all agencies of the Turkish governmentas a failure and an authoritarian, in an interview with The Atlantics Jeffrey Goldberg. Obamas appraisal stood in marked contrast to his earlier embrace of the then-Prime Minister Erdogan, during the formers first term in office, as his favorite foreign leader.

Erdogan has since slighted Obama in kind.

Turkeys invasion of northern Syria was mounted without so much as a phone call to the White House, as The Wall Street Journal reported last month, and its strategic purpose was not only to combat ISIS but to preempt Kurdish designs on establishing a contiguous fiefdom on the countrys southern doorstep, an act which Erdogan and whatever remains of his military and security establishment consider as much a terrorist threat as the so-called caliphate.

The Anatolian goal is to snare the United States in a joint campaign against both Kurdish and ISIS expansionism in northern Syria. Turkey is looking for this safe zone to be a haven for acceptable opposition actors, Lister said. Theres talk of eventually sending in the Syrian Opposition Coalition the U.S.- and Turkish-recognized representative of the Syrian people, and interim government figures to establish a de facto political opposition presence in the countryside.

The next target of Euphrates Shield is said to be al-Bab, the last remaining ISIS stronghold in Aleppo and also the headquarters of its amn al-kharjee, or foreign intelligence branch, responsible for overseeing all acts of overseas terrorism including the Paris, Brussels, and Istanbul massacres. If Turkey can dismember the Kurdish statelet and install friendly Arabs and Turkmen to govern a buffer zone, it will have scored two national security victories in one campaign.

In a sense, this is proving to be a test of mainstream opposition forces, Lister said. Whos willing to put aside their anger at the U.S. and its perceived failure to protect the revolution, for the sake of short-to-medium term objectives. Its a gamble, but theres much to be gained if this all works out.

And much to be lost if it doesnt.
On Thursday night, while Joe Biden roasted Donald Trump on Jimmy Fallons Tonight Show for bragging about paying little to no federal income tax, and Stephen Colbert pleaded with his viewers not to throw their votes away by backing Gary What Is Aleppo? Johnson, The Daily Show went after The Donald for his glowing endorsement of stop-and-frisk during the first big presidential debate.

You see, Trump is a New Yorker despite his status as a pampered, draft-dodging real-estate heir who hasnt donated a dime of his own money to 9/11 charities. He also exploited a loophole to claim $150,000 in recovery funds for the terror attack; bragged that his building was now the tallest mere hours after the Twin Towers fell; and didnt even visit the 9/11 Memorial until needing to curry favor with voters ahead of the 2016 New York primary. During his first presidential debate with former New York Sen. Hillary Clintonwho actually did plenty to help New York heal in the wake of the 9/11 attacksTrump made a plea for a return to stop-and-frisk: the (proven racist) policy of police stopping and frisking suspicious people in public.

Well, first of all, Secretary Clinton doesnt want to use a couple of words, and thats law and order, said Trump during the debate, stealing an old Nixon campaign catchphrase (just as he trademarked Make America Great Again even though it originated with Reagans 1980 presidential campaign). He later added, You have to have stop-and-frisk.

Cue The Daily Shows Trevor Noah, who on Thursday proceeded to break down exactly why stop-and-frisk wasand isso damn problematic.

Think of it like the TSA. You know when youre at the airport and youre getting patted down? Now imagine if instead of patting, theyre violently going through your pockets, throwing you against the wall, cursing you out in front of everyone. Oh, and on top of all that? There are no flights, said Noah.

The comedian then ran a montage of innocent peoplealmost all people of colorrecounting traumatic stop-and-frisk incidents in their past, including having guns pointed at their heads, their heads slammed against a pole, and, in one particularly egregious exchange, police throwing a black man onto the ground for simply asking why he was being frisked in a local barbershop while shouting, Im not resisting!

You know, whenever you see a video like this you cant help but wonder how many earlier incidents we will never know about because people didnt have camera phones back then, said a solemn Noah.

But the reality is that while Trump sang the praises of stop-and-frisk under the mayoral tenure of his paid campaign surrogateand fellow thrice-married New YorkerRudy Giuliani, it remains highly debatable whether the program even had a direct effect on crime numbers.

Crime is affected by many factors, and New Yorks decline in crime mirrored the decline in many other major cities at the time. Moreover, crime was declining for four years before Giuliani took office, and it continued to decline for 14 years after he left, reported The Washington Post, also providing statistics for how crime has declined in New York City under the de Blasio administration since doing away with stop-and-frisk. The paper awarded Trumps debate claim Three Pinocchios.

And on top of all that, its racist. Now you may be thinking, Oh, well who cares? Those guys are criminals, so they got whats coming,' said Noah. But heres the thing that Trump and many stop-and-frisk supporters seem to gloss over: At its peak in New York, there were almost 700,000 stop-and-frisk searches. Eighty-eight percent of those searches turned up nothing. That means in one year there were 605,000 stops when people had done nothing wrong. Whats even worse is that many of these were teenage kids.

Its especially problematic to say that its going to heal the racial divide, Noah added, when you consider that, between 2004-2012, of the 4.4 million people stopped in New York City for stop-and-frisk, 87 percent were black or Latino. In Chicago, nearly three-quarters of all stop-and-frisk incidents targeted people of color.

Although stop-and-frisk is supposed to be applied equally, in reality, most of the time it only affects people of color, said Noah, like rhythm.
Donald Trump might not be learning much for his latest campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, but it seems as though she might be learning something from him. The typically unshakable Conway seemed a bit rattled by the end of her sit-down with the hosts of The View on Thursday morning, especially after she admitted that Trump did illegal business in Cuba.

So, like her candidate, she went on Twitter and trashed the show.

I don't want to sound braggadocio, but this is huge for The View, co-host Joy Behar said Friday morning, after playing the clip in which Conway confirms that Trumps company paid money in 1998  a minimum of $68,000, according to Kurt Eichenwalds Newsweek report  as part of a potential deal to expand his business there.

As Conway made those comments on the show, Eichenwald tweeted his assessment in real time.

Conways characterization of The View as less than hard news seemed to particularly set off co-host Jedediah Bila, who shot back at her, I come from hard news, Kellyanne, so don't tell me about hard news from The View. You want some hard news from The View, we'll give you hard news from The View.

Why was he talking about how great the embargo was to people trying to get votes while he was behind the scenes going through a consulting firm to try to figure out if he could make money there? Bila continued. Is that enough hard news for you?

Any Latinos that are thinking about voting for Donald Trump, I hope that they saw that interview, I hope that they're watching now, Sunny Hostin added. After everything Trump has said about Mexican immigrants and building a wall and now apparently violating the Cuba embargo, she asked, If you're a Latino, what would possess you to vote for Donald Trump?

For Bila, it all came down to hypocrisy on Trumps part. If you're out there saying, I support the embargo because I don't support what this regime stands for, she said, and you're investigating a way to make money under that regime, you are a hypocrite.
Actor George Blagden remembers studying the 17th century period in which King Louis XIV moved his royal court outside Paris to the opulent Palace of Versailles. The lessons were brief, but there was one unshakable takeaway: there was a hell of a lot of sex.

I studied this period for all of about three lessons in school, and even in those three hours one of the major things that one remembers from this time was that sexual politics was rife in this building and this court, says Blagden, who plays King Louis in Ovations new drama series about that time, Versailles.

You cant fault a splashy, expensive serieswhich has already aired in France on its Canal+ channel and in the U.K. on BBC2for trying to make a mark on a fledgling American cable channel for leaning into that lesson, with boobs, bums, and bed-hopping as rampant in the early episodes of Versailles as blood, dismemberment, and brotherly bickering.

Liberty reigns in France, of course, so when it aired there not a lash was batted at the content of the show, about the power struggle between King Louis, a notorious ruler about whom many have strong opinions, and his younger brother Prince Phillipe (played by Alexander Vlahos in Versailles), a formidable military leader whom Louis all-but wrote out of his self-documented history. Oh, and, at least as portrayed in Versailles, Phillipe was a bisexual crossdresser.

But when the show premiered in the U.K., British sensibility had critics clutching their pearls, branding the show as raunchy, saucy, steamy, and filthyfour racy scenes in just 17 minutes, along with gay sex, crossdressing and nudity galore," fretted The Daily Mailall the while marveling at its monster viewership ratings.

How hilarious, then, that as Versailles geared up for its American debut this Saturday, the press, perhaps drawing parallels among British actors in fancy garb at grandiose estates, ventured that it might fill the void that Downton Abbey left for fans of period drama.

Its the complete opposite of Downton Abbey, Vlahos laughs. It wont be filling any void. The Dowager Countess is gasping at the very notion now.

While the premiere episode features no less than seven sex scenes and some unflinching gore, to boot, the cast and creative team saw no other way to accurately reflect the power plays taking place at the pivotal time in French history. After all, this is a show in which the based-on-history female lead Henriette, played by Noemie Schmidt, is married to Prince Philippe but having an affair with King Louis, all while Philippe is shedding his womens clothing to have his knob polished by another man.

Blagden remembers his first meeting with the creative team and wondering how theyd ever be able accurately reflect the seediness that underwrote the Machiavellian glamour of this world, and being reassured that they were going to be bold and not censor it. He then went and had a pow wow with Mathieu da Vinha, the shows historical consultant who had spent his career studying the brothers and the people around them. He asked da Vinha for his take, and he said, In the script Ive seen, youre not showing the half of it.

It was reassurance that they were never sensationalizing anything, Blagden says of having da Vinha on set nodding along to a fight scene where Philippe is in a dress, stabbing someone in the eye, knowing thats only half as graphic as what might have really happened.

And while there is, in the grand tradition of, well, every show on TV, a stark imbalance in terms of female and male nudity, Vlahos insists that it does equal itself out as the series goes on. Season two, which is already in production, began with the news that Canal+ would now also allow full frontal male nudity on air. That was wonderful news for me, he jokes. My opening shot in season two was a lot of male nudity.

But Versailles offers more than just bodies to ogle at. In addition to being the most expensive French TV production everreported at roughly $31 million, more than twice the cost of Downton Abbey, if were comparingthe Palace of Versailles and the Chateau of Versailles cooperated with production. The landmarks, as any tourist knows (or frustratingly finds out) are closed to visitors every Monday, so the cast and crew were allowed to use that date to film there on a weekly basis.

The first day Blagden shot at Versailles he was filming a dream sequence of sorts, in which Louis gives a speech to a camera about his vision for the palace: this idea of light and beauty and luxury and power. The entire day was grey and overcast, but with about six minutes left to shoot, the sun suddenly dipped under the clouds and an orange light flooded in, giving him just enough time to deliver his monologue.

Oh, and it happened to be the 200th anniversary of Louiss death, too.

Self-conscious of coming across as some sort of New Age spiritual, Blagden swears that meant something: being someone like him, in this place that he created, at a magical moment like that.

Over the course of the shoot, which kicked off in the summer of 2014, the two actors playing these historical brothers realized they had very distinct acting challenges. Everyone Blagden encountered on set had an opinion about the kind of person Louis was and how the actor should play him, all mined from tidbits of trivia, lore, and previous representations theyd seen of him on screen.

I suppose Daniel Radcliffe was too young when he took on Harry Potter, Blagden says, trying to liken the experience to another example of a famous character. We all read the books, but Im sure when we all went to see those Harry Potter films a lot of people were like, Thats not the Harry Potter that was in my head!

Vlahos had the opposite problem. Or maybe it was a freedom. There was no one who said, Philippe wouldnt do that, or, This is how he acted. So many books are written about Louis, sure, but a great number of them are based on writings Louis made himself, and Philippe is an appendage or an epilogue in most of those writings, if not erased completely.

I kind of went down a path and no one really told me to stop, Vlahos says. I remember looking back thinking, I cant believe Im getting away with some of the stuff that Im doing.

That became a tricky journey when it came to playing the characters crossdressing and bisexual tendencies. Sure, never once is the word gay ever uttered to describe Philippe, but when you see him giving a blow job and bragging about his fancy dress wardrobe, inferences are made.

Actors instinct, Vlahos says, when asked how he toed the line of camp and even offensiveness in his portrayal, particularly when Philippe is given catty throwaways like, Well, you havent seen the shoes, when Louis criticizes his flamboyant outfit. I think I delivered that line five different ways, he says.

Theres an amazing portrait both actors saw, though, that they say really helped in defining their relationship, which, really, is the crux of the series, for all the talk about its so-called racy content. Its of a battle in the Spanish Netherlands. Louis is front-and-center, sitting proud amount a horse. Philippe is so obscured in the background that you wouldnt even know he was in the portrait if someone didnt tell you.

It was Philippe who actually won that battle. Louis was never even at that war.

Theyre brothers in one room at one second, squabbling over spilled porridge or whatever it is, Vlahos says. Then they walk out of the room and he becomes king and Philippe has no say. Thats the dynamic of the show, the public and the private. And also, its fair to say, a lot of boobs.
Donald Trump is an early riser. Around 5:30 a.m. Eastern Time Friday he went on one of his famous tweetstorms, attacking former Miss Universe Alicia Machado as disgusting, a con, and even making references to a sex tape. How did those 16 Republicans lose to this guy again?

Easy. By not knowing they had the antidote in hand the whole time. It isnt Trump University or his failed casinos or his personal piggy bank of a foundation. His supporterseven the white Evangelical onestruly dont care what he has done or to whom hes done it. Trumps real Achilles heel, and the thing most likely to keep him out of the White House, is his brazen contempt for women (plus his lack of impulse control and inability to stay off his Android phone).

Know that if Kellyanne Conway batch deletes those tweets by noontime, the screenshots will live forever, probably in campaign ads by 12:30. And its not just the manic tweeting.

Three times now, women in debates have forced Trump to confront the ugly things he has said over the years about women he doesnt deem beautiful enough, fit enough or compliant enough for his gilt-laden standards. And three times, Trump flailed: onstage with Carly Fiorina, whose face he had insulted; facing off last August against moderator Megyn Kelly, who had challenged Trump for calling women fat pigs, dogs, and more; and again this week in that sniffle-filled, verbal Kamikaze mission against Hillary Clinton.

Indeed during Monday nights kick-off presidential debate, Clinton skillfully exposed and exploited Trumps seeming inability to control his boorish attitude toward women.

Of all of the preparation Team Clinton did, purportedly including drawing up a psychological profile of the erratic businessman, perhaps the most valuable thing it did was memorizing that moment from the first Republican debate. Hillary Clinton threw roughly the same punches Monday night that Kelly did, and Trumps retort as he interrupted Clintonsomething he did more than 50 times in 90 minutessounded familiar.

Trump took Clintons bait over and over in the debate. Responding to Lester Holts reminder that he claimed Clinton doesnt have that presidential look, he spat out: she doesnt have the look, she doesnt have the stamina; repeating the word stamina over and over again as if he was auditioning for a Viagra ad.

And when Clinton dropped a clearly planned anecdote about his shaming of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado for gaining weight after winning the beauty contest in 1996, Trump seemed to come undone. He sputtered and spattered and demanded to know, Whered you find her? Turns out the Clinton team had an online ad about Trumps berating of Machado up by the time the debate wrapped. And then of course Trump compounded matters Tuesday morning to his pals at Fox & Friends.

Trumps woman trouble is not exactly surprising. Hes running against the potential first woman president. And despite the intractable nature of Clinton Derangement Syndrome in a big chunk of the American electorate, Clinton is exceeding normal Democratic polling among white women, particularly white college -educated women, while holding Democrats traditional and huge margins among women of color. Mitt Romney carried white women by 14 points in 2012, and George W. Bush racked up an 11-point margin in 2004. John McCain, saddled with Sarah Palin, did less welljust 7 pointsbut he still won.

Clinton is currently up 16 points in the new ABC/Washington Post poll with white women (versus being down 13 points with white men), and she leads among white college-educated women by a whopping 31 points. Clinton even leads among white women without a college degree, by 8 points. If those numbers hold, Clinton would be the first Democrat to carry a majority of white women since her husband did so in 1996.

Even without the euphoria of yes we can, Hillary Clinton is to white women what Barack Obama was to African-Americans. She represents the opportunity to see a like image in the Oval Office for the first time. That has to be tempting even for Republican women who would never support a Democrat, let alone a Clinton, and Trumps demeanor and debate performance is making it easier for white independent and even Republican women to cross over.

And Trump is uniquely vulnerable because his record of insulting and demeaning women is as long as his love of Putins Russia is deep. According to the documentary Trump: Whats the Deal, he verbally harassed first wife Ivana, before dumping her for Marla Maples, whom he resisted marrying in a most public and embarrassing way, only to dump her and marry Melania before reportedly berating her for not losing her baby weight fast enough after giving birth to their now-10-year-old son Baron. The most effective Clinton ads this season have been the ones showing women and girls listening to Trumps cruel words in his own voice.

Trump is at further risk due to his almost limbic inability to control himself when attacked, particularly by a woman. Consider that theres no one who gets under his thin skin the way Elizabeth Warren does. She and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd have shared the sobriquet goofy as stars of Trumps infamous Twitter tiradesthough Warren has the smear Pocahontas all to herself.

During the campaign, Trump has gone after white women, Latinas (Machado and Susana Martinez, the governor of Mexico), Asian-American and Muslim women (Gold Star Mother Ghazala Khan). His Fox News chest thumping at a black Flint, Michigan pastor, Faith Green Timmons, came a day after he sheepishly backed down when she stopped him from politicking in her pulpit. Interestingly, he has yet to have a go at Michelle Obama, who just cut a national ad for Hillary Clinton. One can only imagine how that might go.

The one woman Trump does seem to totally respect is his daughter from his first marriage, Ivanka, on whom he heaps constant, effusive, at-times borderline creepy praise and physical affection. Trump has given Ivanka extensive control over both his business and his campaign, even agreeing to put a mothers-only parental leave plan into his campaign plank at her behest. When allegations of sexual harassment beat a path to his door, it was Ivanka who was sent out to publicly refute them.

Team Trump clearly understands his vulnerabilities. Its no coincidence that while Hipster Nazi stenographer Steve Bannon was named the campaign CEO, the campaign manager and public face is Kellyanne Conway, a respected pollster who reportedly got the job by speaking softly to Mr. Trump, and giving him bad news in the way a mother might cajole an obstinate child. Team Trump deploys a small army of female spokespeople, including Katrina Pierson, Hope Hicks and Apprentice alum Omarosa Manigault to flack for him on TV.

Despite that, he is likely to get his proverbial clock cleaned at the hands of women in November, meaning hell need to run up historic margins with white men in order to get to 270.

Democrats have arguably underplayed questions of Trump stiffing the little guy, from employees to contractors he has done business with. And clearly, Trump is extremely vulnerable to questions about his wealth, which is why Team Clinton trolled him by putting confirmed billionaire Mark Cuban in the audience at Hofstra.

But Trump has telegraphed his real weak spot over and over again. He is incapable of reconciling his relationship with women to the modern world. He cannot stop himself from lashing out at female rivals, and he cannot hide his disrespect for half the human population.

To be sure, Hillary Clinton needs to add an affirmative case for herself to the negative case against Trump, including with womenyounger women and women of color in particularwho might not be as motivated to vote as Trumps eager followers. But with just weeks to go before Election Day, and with women typically voting in larger numbers than men, Democrats have a Trump trigger they can pull again and again.
CHICAGO (AP)  Screenwriters for three Hollywood movie blockbusters and several television shows will be among the speakers at the DePaul University School of Cinematic Arts' annual Courier 12 Screenwriting Conference.

The one-day conference is scheduled Oct. 8 at DePaul's Daley Building in Chicago. Panels will cover project development, strategies for emerging writers and writing for diversity. The conference is named "Courier 12" for the font used for screenplays.

Screenwriter Jack Epps Jr.  known for "Top Gun" and "Legal Eagles"  and writer and producer Steven de Souza  known for "Die Hard"  will discuss screenwriting for big Hollywood films. Other panelists include "Friday Night Lights" producer Aaron Rahsaan Thomas and "Law and Order: SVU" screenwriter Kam Miller.

Admission is free and the event is open to the public.
Devon Alexis Williams December 21, 1999 - September 25, 2016 Devon Alexis Williams left this mortal world on September 25, 2016 in College Station, Texas at the age of 16 years old. Born December 21, 1999 in Bryan, Texas, she was a junior student at College Station High School and, previous to that, attended High School at John H. Guyer High in Denton, Texas. Devon had an intense love for her family, her animals, her friends and her art. She found joy in working with horses, spending time with family and friends, listening to music and sculpting. She was an accomplished and blossoming artist, winning high school awards with several sculpturesone of which was placed on display in a Denton art gallery. Devon's enduring love for horses was exhibited in her personal horse training and riding and the true joy she found attending and volunteering at GRIT Therapeutic Horsemanship in Flower Mound, Texas. Devon's indomitable spirit reflected in her sense of humor, her contagious laugh and her smile. Through her years she brought her family together through love and prayer. The light she brought to this world dimmed with her passing but will continue to serve as a beacon of love, inspiration and devotion to family for all who knew her. Devon is survived by her grandmother, Jackie Layman; her mother, Barbara Williams; her father, Charles Williams; step-mother, Melissa Williams; siblings, Halle Ledet, Andrew Williams, Blythe Williams, Charles Williams and Chae Ledet; loving aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and her pets, Spyro, Milo and preceded by her horse, Beau. Services will be held this Saturday, October 1st at Cole Funeral Home 1113 West 5th Street, McGregor, Texas at 12:00pm. Graveside services at Post Oak Cemetery, Oglesby, Texas to immediately follow. In lieu of flowers or gifts, the family asks that you consider making a donation to GRIT Therapeutic Horsemanship through their website: http://www.grittherapy.org/?page_id=36
The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) filed a lawsuit today against ExxonMobil for its endangerment of communities along the Mystic River.

It's the first lawsuit of its kind in the nation since revelations last year about the corporation's decades-long campaign to discredit climate science.

Today's filing comes several months after CLF submitted a formal letter of intent to sue ExxonMobil, a development that was announced at a press conference in May.

The suit focuses on Exxon's violations of both the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), laws designed to protect the health and safety of waterfront communities in the face of climate change.

Exxon 'put communities in danger' for profit

"For more than three decades, ExxonMobil has devoted its resources to deceiving the public about climate science while using its knowledge about climate change to advance its business operations", said CLF president Bradley Campbell.

"Communities were put in danger and remain in danger, all to cut costs for one of the most profitable corporations in the world. It's time to make Exxon answer for decades of false statements to the public and to regulators and ensure that its Everett facility meets its legal obligation to protect thousands of people and the Boston Harbor estuary from toxic water pollution."

CLF's trial team for the case will include nationally renowned attorney Allan Kanner of the Louisiana-based Kanner & Whitely, whose firm has represented states and other plaintiffs in landmark cases against major oil companies, including claims arising from BP's Deepwater Horizon spill.

Damali Vidot, Chelsea City Councilor-At-Large, commented: "As a mom and a representative of my community, I feel I have a responsibility to protect my kids and those I serve against the impacts of pollution in our water. I'm standing with CLF today because I believe Exxon must be held accountable for its actions."

More actions certain to follow

In March of this year, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey joined a coalition of 17 attorneys general seeking to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for campaigns to deceive customers, shareholders, and the public about climate risk.

While CLF is the first organization officially to begin a civil lawsuit against ExxonMobil for this deceit, many other legal actions are likely to follow - and not just against ExxonMobil, says Gillian Lobo, a lawyer with London-based legal charity ClientEarth working on energy and climate issues:

"The impacts of climate change, particularly from storm surges, are increasingly clear. Companies with high-risk operations must make sure their safety planning is robust and follows the latest science on climate impacts.

"Reducing risks to human health, local communities and the environment is the only way to avoid legal action, and protect people and the planet."

Oliver Tickell is contributing editor at The Ecologist.
NEW YORK  Norman Lear, a show business legend and full-throated humanist, set out last spring to rent a modest apartment in the Bronx.

The landlord welcomed this incognito white man with a couple of offers.

Not so lucky was an African-American man who had come to him the day before. The landlord, insisting nothing was available, brusquely turned that man away.

This undercover mission, as well as Lear's subsequent blowing the whistle on the landlord, was filmed for "America Divided," a star-driven, eye-opening probe into systemic inequality in the U.S. today not only in housing but also education, health care, labor, criminal justice and voting rights.

The five-week docuseries, which premieres today at 8 p.m. on Epix, employs the 94-year-old Lear (armed with a hidden camera) as one of its correspondents as well as an executive producer.

"I'm happy to have reached the 1 percent," said Lear, back in New York, where he spent part of his childhood, to shoot his report, "but I started as a kid in the Depression whose father was serving (prison) time. But what was wonderful about America was it offered me opportunity. And it promised that opportunity to everybody else, regardless of the color of their skin. After all these years, that promise has yet to be delivered on. I care about that."

Others who care include:

 Hip-hop artist and actor Common, who explores disparities in the criminal justice system in his hometown of Chicago in the aftermath of the 2014 police killing of teenager Laquan McDonald.

 Rosario Dawson travels to Flint, Mich., to probe how the government poisoned its own citizens, a mostly African-American underclass.

 "Grey's Anatomy" star Jesse Williams heads to St. Petersburg, Fla., where he finds an educational and criminal-justice divide resulting from what some call "re-segregation."

 America Ferrera, whose parents and siblings emigrated from Honduras, travels to Texas' Rio Grande Valley to report on the plight of Central American refugees.

 Zach Galifianakis examines the nation's deepening political divisions as evidenced in his native state of North Carolina.

 Amy Poehler ventures into the world of the invisible immigrant women who help keep the California economy afloat: domestic workers.

 And Peter Sarsgaard looks at the addiction crisis in Dayton, Ohio, where the shuttering of America's factories and rampant unemployment exemplifies a heartland epidemic of drug- and alcohol-related deaths.

However unsettling, each story stands as more than a cry of distress. The narratives not only expose wrong-doers and bear witness to victims, but also highlight dedicated reformers.

In Lear's housing segment, viewers meet Fred Freiberg, executive director of New York's Fair Housing Justice Center, which flushes out discriminatory housing practices, then sues the offenders. It is Freiberg's agency that dispatches Lear and his African-American counterpart on their landlord-busting mission.

"With every story, we tried to show causes of inequality and the impacts of inequality, but we also tried to provide models of social action," says Solly Granatstein, a creator of the "America Divided" series. "We try to show that there are solutions and there is work being done, that it's not just simply a problem."

For the series, Granatstein, a nine-time Emmy-winning former producer at ABC News, NBC News and CBS' "60 Minutes," joined forces with Richard Rowley, whose credits include the 2013 Oscar-nominated documentary "Dirty Wars," and Lucian Read, with whom Granatstein teamed on their previous docuseries, "Years of Living Dangerously," which addressed the threat of climate change. (Their Divided Films produced the series in association with RadicalMedia.)

For this new venture, the trio set out to look at what Granatstein calls "the OTHER existential threat to our society and culture."

For this, they enlisted Lear, drawing on his show-business gravitas and his history of social activism. Common, too, signed on as a correspondent-executive producer, while TV hitmaker Shonda Rhimes ("Grey's Anatomy" and "Scandal") came aboard as a behind-the-scenes exec producer.

Then the task began to settle on stories and recruit star-correspondents to report them.

"There's no shortage of stories that we could have done," says Granatstein with a wan smile. "But we were looking for geographical and demographic diversity, and where there were heroic individuals and groups who were struggling to heal the divide, whatever that divide might be."

The project, in the works for more than two years, was timed to air during the home stretch of this election season, when issues from the series might help inform the campaign dialogue.

"If you get people attuned to these issues," said Granatstein, "then, eventually, there could be a whole societal shift."

It's a long slog, noted Lear, whose own crusade to stir the public reaches back to his socially conscious sitcoms like "All in the Family" nearly a half-century ago.

"But I don't want to wake up the morning I don't have hope," he declared. Boasting 34,000-plus mornings and counting, Lear persists among the hopeful on "America Divided."
A Franklin County judge Thursday dismissed all counts against three men who had been charged with hazing in connection with the alcohol-related death of a 20-year-old Ferrum College student in April.

Three other men also charged with hazing entered into agreements with the commonwealth's attorney through which the charges could be dropped in one year.

The six men were charged after the April death of Michael Anthony Walker. All were members at the time of the college's Sigma Alpha Kappa fraternity, and Walker was a newly inducted pledge.

After Commonwealth's Attorney A.J. Dudley presented the evidence, defense attorneys for Adali Jonathan Cano, Nicholas Jordan Hoxter and Michael Lewis Satterwhite made motions to strike the evidence. Hoxter also was charged with purchasing or providing alcohol for someone under the age of 21.

At lease five of the six men charged were officers in the fraternity. Dudley argued that, as such, they had an obligation to prevent behavior that could endanger or cause bodily injury to another person.

Defense attorneys said the prosecutor failed to show that their clients forced Walker to drink or cause him harm. Aaron Houchens, who represented Cano, said there was no "corporate responsibility" here as Dudley suggested. The fact that some of the men acknowledged they attended the party did not make them responsible, attorneys argued.

Though he commended Dudley for his efforts, Circuit Judge Clyde Perdue ultimately agreed with the defense attorneys and all charges against the three men were dismissed.

Trevin Wayne Clark, David James Creedon and Michael Richard Rucinski reached agreements with the prosecutor in which they will serve some time in jail and complete 30 hours of community service. The cases will be continued for a year, at which point the charges against them could be dismissed, provided they remain out of trouble.

Clark will serve five days in jail, Creedon will serve four and Rucinski will serve 30. Though these are misdemeanor charges, each of the men will serve the full number of days they agreed to, Dudley said.

Clark and Creedon entered not guilty pleas. Rucinski did not enter a plea on the charge of hazing.

He was also charged with purchasing or providing alcohol for someone under the age of 21. On that charge, Rucinski pleaded no contest. His driver's license will be suspended for six months. He'll be eligible to have that dismissed in a year as well.

Perdue warned the men they'd be "under a microscope."
Plan your week ahead in SE Iowa with these local events: music, art, more

Your guide to getting off the couch and out the door this week in Southeast Iowa.
DECATUR  Students at Our Lady of Lourdes School have been praying for first responders throughout September.

We want to show our appreciation for all of you, said the Rev. Rick Weltin at a special Mass on Thursday, attended by several of those first responders with ties to the school and church. We are all grateful you are willing to make sacrifices and do that job for us.

The chancel was decorated with uniforms, and during the service Weltin spoke of the archangel St. Michael, who is the patron saint of first responders and whose feast day was Thursday. Michael is said to be the head of God's army and the angel who escorts believers to heaven after death.

You represent St. Michael in this world, Weltin said. He said he'd seen news reports on TV of firefighters working in weather so cold that the water from their hoses froze, and he particularly appreciates their willingness to go out in all kinds of weather to help people in need.

Children took turns reading prayers for first responders, and the children and adults present all extended hands toward the ones in attendance for a blessing at the end of the service.

Some of you may not know this, but I spent 10 years as a volunteer firefighter in three stations in the Peoria area, Principal Chris Uptmor said. We all remember that one call. The first time we did CPR. The first time we had to work on a precious child. The first tragedy. When I pray, I ask for strength for you for those moments.

Macon County sheriff's deputy Chad Wayne sat through the service next to his 9-year-old son, Jack, who attends Lourdes. He said it makes first responders feel good to know they're appreciated.

We don't get a lot of thanks when we're doing our job, and it's nice to have people thank us, he said.

Mike Delatte, whose aunt Faith Carr teaches at Lourdes, comes from a long line of first responders. His father, Rick, is retired from Decatur Fire Department, his younger brother, Jeff, serves with the New Orleans Fire Department, his great-grandmother was a secretary for that department and his great-great-grandfather not only served with the New Orleans Fire Department, he died in the line of duty. Mike Delatte is a volunteer firefighter with the Harristown department.

I've lived in Decatur all my life and been a volunteer firefighter for 14 years, Delatte said. We've done a lot of cold, nasty calls, but we love it.

After the service, first responders were invited to a reception at the school with coffee and doughnuts and given bags of candy.

Each kind of candy stood for an attribute: Life Savers, for saving lives; Starburst, for the burst of energy they need; Payday, because they don't do it for the money; Hershey kisses, to show the students' love; gum, to help them stick together; Tootsie Rolls, to help them roll with the punches; Peppermint Patties, to help them stay cool under pressure; Snickers, to remind them to keep their sense of humor; Mounds, for the mounds of courage they need; and Kit Kats, because everyone deserves a break.

The themed candy bags were the idea of Aiden Over Contreras. It helps them do that stuff, said Aiden, a fourth-grader.
NORWALK  Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) announced Friday that a compromise has been reach between the Department of Transportation (DOT) and two Norwalk businesses affected by the planned replacement of the Walk Bridge.

Originally, DOT planned for Coastwise Boatworks and the Maritime Rowing Club to vacate their current location at 11 Goldstein Place by the end of the year. Duff brought the DOT and the businesses together to produce a compromise that will allow the Maritime Rowing Club and Coastwise Boatworks to stay in their current locations until March 31, 2017. The additional time will help both businesses as they relocate, Duff said.

The DOT is undertaking the Walk Bridge Program to address the deteriorating railroad bridge over the Norwalk River in Norwalk. As one of the oldest movable bridges in the country, the Walk Bridge is a critical transportation link on the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C., New York City, and Boston, carrying four tracks of Metro-North Railroad, Amtrak and freight service. The WalkBridge carries 200 trains and 125,000 passengers a day in the Northeast Corridor.

This extension is extremely helpful for the continued success of these businesses and I want to thank the DOT for their ongoing dialogue with me, my office and the affected businesses," Duff said in a statement. "I will continue to work with the DOT and area businesses to minimize the impact that the project will have on their operations.

It is tremendously helpful that the Department of Transportation has extended the time that we can stay on the property until the end of March, added Matt Condon of Coastwise Boatworks. This extension will help facilitate our move off of the property. We appreciate the work of the DOT and their continued negotiations with Coastwise to make this transition easier and we look forward to continuing to work with them on our move from the property. I want to thank Senator Duff for his support on our behalf during these ongoing negotiations with the DOT.

We would like to thank the DOT for helping the Rowing Club remain on the property until March 31st, said Roman Vengerovskiy, business manager for the Maritime Rowing Club. The extra time will allow the club to move our business to a new location without any interruption. Equally as important, this extension will mean that there will be no disruption of the training process for our rowers. We greatly appreciate Sen Duffs help in making sure local Norwalk businesses were represented in this process.
NORWALK  A motor vehicle stop by narcotics officers resulted in the arrest of a Hamden man on a host of drug-related charges Wednesday afternoon.

Police said that at around 4 p.m. in the area of North Taylor Avenue, the officers observed the driver of a vehicle make a turn without using a signal. A motor vehicle stop was initiated on Connecticut Avenue. Police reported a strong odor of marijuana emanating from the car.
NORWALK  He was the first native Norwalker to become principal of a local high school when he took over Brien McMahon in 1979, and James J. Forcellina, subsequently set such a standard in the role that he was named Connecticut and New England Principal of the Year and among seven finalists for National Principal of the Year, all in 1994.

That and other achievements during a 41-year career in public education here will lead to installation to the Norwalk High School Wall of Honor at the 22nd annual awards dinner sponsored by the NHS Alumni Association at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16, in the Norwalk Inn & Conference Center.

Forcellina was a high honor graduate with the NHS Class of 1949 and subsequently took honors while obtaining bachelors and masters degrees from the University of Connecticut sandwiching a two-year stint with the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He then took a sixth-year education certificate from Fairfield University and a doctorate from Nova University after three residential summers at the Florida institution.

His interest in teaching was inspired by Jesse Pollard, a Latin teacher at NHS.

Jesse was on my case early, Forcellina said this week. He convinced me to concentrate on foreign languages.

Teachers who also made an impression on him in high school were history specialist and later Norwalk Community College President Everett I. L. Baker, English instructor Muriel Flaherty and Helen Ratchford, foreign language teacher.

Soon after returning in 1956 to teach in Norwalk, his organizational leadership manifest itself as a member of the Norwalk Teachers Association where he rose quickly to the presidency. A front-page Hour photo shows him signing a multi-year contract with the Norwalk Board of Education in the 1960s. He also started the Teacher Credit Union. He would later head the Connecticut Association of Schools (1991-93) and still later the Association of Norwalk School Administrators (1993-97).

After a decade of teaching Latin, Spanish and French at Benjamin Franklin Junior High School until 1966, he was named assistant principal of Ponus Ridge Middle School and two years later a housemaster at BMHS. He succeeded Principal Joseph C. DeVita in 1979 as BMHS principal. As both housemaster and principal he utilized his doctoral thesis on the education of Hispanic youth as well as his Spanish fluency to inspire high achievement among that population. He and the late William Jassey, Ph.D., onetime foreign language chairman in Norwalk, established the Center for Japanese Studies at BMHS which has since become the Center for Global Studies available to all students in Fairfield County. He also re-established the U.S. Navy Junior ROTC program.

A career highlight was the surprise naming of the McMahon auditorium for him just before his retirement in 1997 after 18 years at the helm.

I was totally stunned by that, he recalled.

Forcellina has used a cane for much of his adult life after suffering a debilitating hip injury from a fall on icy pavement while serving with the U.S. Army in Japan. A double hip replacement operation in 1992 helped considerably. More recently, a kidney ailment has required thrice weekly dialysis therapy. His physical health is abetted with twice weekly swims at the New Canaan YMCA.

The honoree was raised on Laura Street in South Norwalk, the son of the late James Forcellina, retired foreman of a local manufacturer, and the late, Rose Forcellina, a homemaker. Three siblings are sister Mary Ann Wehrheim, retired from the McMahon faculty, and two brothers, Dominic Forcellina, a retired insurance agent of Colchester and Robert Forcellina, a building contractor of Fairfield. The retired principal and his wife, the former Linda Brown, a Norwalk native and retired BMHS English teacher, have lived for several years on Betmarlea Road. A daughter, Alyse Forcellina, is a Yale College graduate and health care consultant in New York City, and their son, Christopher Forcellina, is a South Florida University alumnus and computer materials sales manager in Chicago.

Tickets for the full course dinner at $50 each may be obtained by calling Charles Yost, NHSAA president, at 203-856-7391 or Pat Street at 203-858-0916.
Years ago, Stanford professor Guadalupe Valdes observed that many students from immigrant families often become trapped in dysfunctional English as a Second Language programs and rarely find their way out.

"In the current context in which anti-immigrant sentiment is at an all-time high, newly arrived children are routinely accused by the general public of not wanting to learn English and failing to profit from the education that the state is giving them at great cost," Valdes wrote in "Learning and Not Learning English," published in 2001, adding that "immigrant children are relegated to inadequately trained teachers working in ill-equipped classrooms. These children wind up having to fend for themselves, most often doing a poor job of it."

U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. said much the same during a recent telephone briefing about changes to how English learners are taught in public schools. King said that the new guidance is vitally important because, "In too many places across the country, English learners get less access to quality teachers, less access to advanced coursework, and less access to the resources they need to succeed."

English learners are estimated to represent nearly 10 percent of the nation's K-12 population, according to King, who also said that about 45 percent of these students are Hispanic. And though education for them still needs a lot of improvement, it's a lot better than it was a decade ago when the tide started turning away from segregating English-learning students from their mainstream peers for "sheltered instruction."

Today, a combination of Department of Education regulations and a let-a-thousand-flowers-bloom approach to helping English learners has yielded an environment in which rigor and accountability for language acquisition are no longer a joke.

"We have a new opportunity with ESSA [the Every Student Succeeds Act, the 2015 successor to No Child Left Behind] to seize the moment to make the right policy decisions and engage all stakeholders," King said. "We have come a long way in recognizing that speaking more than one language is a strength and an asset and not a weakness."

Wow!

Hearing the secretary of education say that a non-English home language is an advantage that states and their schools should nurture and then capitalize on is nothing short of amazing to all the former English learners out there who had their families pressured into speaking only English at home -- a practice now known to be counterproductive to the learning of a second language.

King suggested that states and school districts should be looking to leverage native languages to support academic success through a variety of methods and strategies. Students should be encouraged and given tools to become truly literate in both their home language and English. King noted that dual-language programs that combine native English and native Spanish speakers, which have become increasingly popular across the country, have been shown to speed bilingualism among both groups.

Best of all -- from the perspective of someone who has taught English learners and seen programs that were doing more harm than good -- the new guidance calls for states to establish entrance and exit procedures for these students.

(New research from the University of Oregon recently found that designating early elementary students who are close to being proficient in English as "English learners" may increase stigmatization, keep them from accessing higher-level scholastic resources and generally impede academic success.)

Additionally, and crucially important, states will now have to disaggregate their data on English learners to uncover how well students with disabilities are performing and being served -- and how better to address the issue of "students who have been in programs for several years and are still not getting it," as King put it.

There is hope that this shift in policy will make a difference. Not only has the Department of Education recently announced $22 million in grants for teacher preparation programs to provide professional development for school staff who work with English learners, but new data show that the educational attainment of newly arriving immigrants is steadily increasing.

This means that parents and schools will be better able to help their students not only maintain their native language, but actually push them toward mastery of reading, writing and speaking their home language and English, too -- a win-win situation.
WILTON  Local police officers are right there on the forefront of the battle against domestic abuse, and too often theyve seen first hand the brutality and cruelty that these cases can entail.

While the crusade against the domestic violence has intensified over the past decade, according to the National Coalition against Domestic Violence, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner throughout the United States.

Domestic violence is a national issue, but not one that our small community of Wilton is immune to, Lt. Robert Cipolla, who also serves as the departments domestic violence liaison, said.

To help combat domestic abuse, the Wilton Police Benevolent Association will partner with the Riverbrook Regional YMCA to host an second annual Zumba and Spinning event just in time to prepare the town for Octobers Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

The fundraising classes will be held from 6:30-8 p.m. at the Wilton Family YMCA on Oct. 14. Those wishing to participate in either the Zumba or spinning class can register for the event by logging on to wiltonymca.org/class-registration/register-for-a-class, and search for the keyword DVCC.

A minimum donation of $25 per individual and $35 per family can be paid online at the time of registration.

Proceeds from the event will be donated to the Domestic Violence Crisis Center (DVCC), which serves the communities of Wilton, Norwalk, Stamford, Darien, Weston, New Canaan and Westport.

The DVCC and the police department take a collaborative effort in dealing with domestic violence cases. Obviously any support that we can give them, which allows them to do their job, helps us as a police department, but more importantly it helps the victims of domestic violence in our community, Cipolla said.

Wilton police officers will also be wearing purple ribbon pins on their uniforms for the entirety of October, as a show of solidarity against domestic abuse. The Wilton Police Benevolent Association and the Riverbrook Regional YMCA also ask that the public joins them in raising awareness and funds for the DVCC.

If you would like more information on the event or would like to learn what you could do to support the DVCC, contact Sgt. David Hartman or Cipolla at 203-834-6260. For questions related to registration for the event, contact Mary Ann Genuario at magenuario@riverbrookymca.org.

ptomlinson@hearstmediact.com; 203-354-1046; @Tomlinson_PE
BROKEN BOW  New housing opportunities are in the works for Broken Bow.

Custer Campus Inc. closed on land last week to build new homes in the town.

This is a big deal for our area on so many fronts, said Deb McCaslin, executive director of the Custer Economic Development Corp.

Through a pilot program initiated by the Nebraska Investment Finance Authority (NIFA), Broken Bow aims to build up to 10 new homes and a duplex.

The uniqueness of the program is its cornerstone. The local partners who on multiple levels have joined forces to make this happen, McCaslin said.

In addition to the local contractors, the homes will be constructed using locally purchased building supplies, appliances, flooring and cabinetry. Dollars spent to build and eventually purchase the homes will stay at home. Bruning State Bank, Custer Federal State Bank and Nebraska State Bank & Trust Co. worked together to finance the project.

The three local banks are proud to be a partner in this project and invest back in the community, said Stuart Fox, president of Nebraska State Bank & Trust Co.

Local commitment continues with Mo Hunsberger of Ideal Realty volunteering to help sell and show the houses at no commission.

This is a great opportunity for Broken Bow residents to have new construction at a reasonable price. Many of their businesses are giving of time and talent with no financial benefit to them or their company, and I wanted to be one of those businesses in our community, Hunsberger said of her offer.

The NIFA Workforce Housing Pilot Project is just what it says. As a pilot program, projected outcomes changed as the entities worked together to see what was needed. Broken Bow and two other communities were selected following the initial application process. Construction will start with three houses, with plans to add additional houses as homes are sold.

Affordable housing is needed in our community, and these three new homes will help, said Jim Scott, Bruning State Bank Broken Bow Branch vice president and lead banker for the project.

A newly released Economic and Demographic Trends study prepared by Nebraska Public Power reported that, of Custer Countys workforce, only 67.8 percent live in the county. This means that 32.2 percent (or roughly 1,300 people) live elsewhere.

The single-family homes are designed with 1,286 square feet of ground-level living space, featuring three bedrooms, two full baths, an open living room/dining room/kitchen concept and E-rated appliances. In addition, there will be a full unfinished basement, two-car attached garage, driveway, sidewalk, covered front porch and in-ground sprinkler system. Durable Hardiboard is planned for the exterior walls. The homes will be all electric, with heat pump/forced air energy efficiencies.

Broken Bow is on the move when it comes to housing  thanks to the community recognizing a need and going after the need, McCaslin said. When we can take empty lots, put them back on the tax rolls and create nice places for people to live, it adds to the value of the community, and this in turn helps our businesses attract the workforce it needs for the community to prosper.

Im so proud of all of the work these fine folks put into the project, she said. Without the commitment of the city of Broken Bow, local contractors, local suppliers and especially our local bankers, this couldnt happen.

For additional information on the NIFA Housing Project homes, call Hunsberger at Ideal Realty at (308) 870-1406. For additional information on Custer Economic Development Corp. and its ongoing projects, contact McCaslin at custerdevelopment@gmail.com or (308) 870-2909 or (308) 870-5012
Porter is getting to umpire his second World Series

Alan Porter is working his second World Series as an umpire. He'll be behind home plate if the Phillies and Astros need a Game 7.
Join WSIE 88.7 FM on Sunday, October 2, at 9 a.m., as SIUE Chancellor Randy Pembrook, PhD, kicks off his Segue hosting career by welcoming SIU System President Randy Dunn to the booth. A conversation yielding a wealth of information, the Randys discuss role differences between chancellor and system president, and budgetary expectations for the 2016-17 academic year. They also delve into differences in the SIU Systems sister institutions, future initiatives for the SIU System, and why students, parents and staff should consider SIUE as a premier option for their higher education.

Dunn started as president of the SIU System in May 2014. His prior administrative experiences include serving as Illinois state superintendent of education, president of Murray State University, president of Youngstown University and an administrator in Illinois school districts. Dunn also served as a professor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where he published and conducted research.

The administrators explain that while the differences between chancellor and president can be confusing, the major difference is that SIU chancellors support campus initiatives, such as academic programs and student support services, while the system president takes charge of centralized back-office operations and services that support all system campuses, such as legal, internal auditing and technology transfer. Dunn shares that for the future, the SIU System hopes to undertake further services, such as procurement and compliance work, in order to avoid duplication of efforts.

In many ways, the systems role is to support the work that each campus is doing, Dunn says.

When asked about budgetary expectations as the SIU System enters the 2016-17 academic year, Dunn jokingly states, I can predict everything but the future. He explains that the system will likely take one of four paths - one path being the completion of a state budget in January during the lame duck session, and the others being various plans on continuing stop gap budgetary efforts.

As they say, That is no way to run a railroad, Dunn says. In the current situation, its almost impossible to do any planning beyond a month at a time. It puts many state universities into this limbo where it is very much staying in stasis.

The good news is SIUE has a very good path. We carefully look at cash flows for all of the system campuses, and the ability of each to carry its own debt. The situation at SIUE is strong - in large part due to good stewardship by you [Chancellor Pembrook] and your predecessors, and solid enrollment growth for some number of years.

But we cant get complacent. We have to watch carefully, and keep revenues and expenditures in line, in the event that we dont see more state money for a while.

As budgetary difficulties loom, many state citizens are anxious about the current condition of Illinois higher education, with many questioning the sustainability of institutions and academic programming over time. In response, Dunn emphatically states, Come to SIU!

We are not in existential crisis, he shares. While we are going to have careful budget navigation because the state is not fulfilling its support the way it should be, were not going to close our doors.

Were going to stay in business and keep doing what we do. Does that mean were going to continue making cost reductions where we can? Yes. But were going to maintain academic programs, if appropriate. We are always adding new programs and omitting others to respond to what students and the marketplace want from us.

We will continue to provide student services. When you have 14,000+ students all gathered in one place, were going to provide counseling services and health services, and were going to provide career support to make sure they get jobs when they leave.

There are state-wide concerns from families on whether a major will continue at a university. We are required - morally, ethically and by our accreditor - to teach out every program. So, if a student starts in program X, and because enrollment is challenged or its difficult to maintain numbers or faculty, or just market forces change and nobody studies program X anymore, we must be responsive to that and make decisions accordingly. But we guarantee, every student admitted to program X or department X will earn that degree - that will not change.

These combined messages lead me to say, Absolutely come to SIU! Whatever campus, whatever program - were going to be here. We have a way to navigate through this, and if youre looking for a solid, high achieving, high performing state school, you need to be looking at SIU. We offer outstanding education at very reasonable rates, and were going to be here.

Pembrook shares a recent story on how his higher education administration background provided unique information to a faculty in need, to which Dunn responds, Having lived through that experience ourselves gives us sensitivity to peoples challenges and needs. We have goals to accomplish - not just our professors and staff, but even campus support services, such as grounds crew and food service. All of these units are invested in the mission we have.

When youre in a human capital enterprise that you can relate with, you have a sensitivity for that professor trying to build a tenure record, for that first generation student whos trying to figure out how to go to school because their parents maybe couldnt guide them - they hadnt had that experience. That type of high touch relationship - theres value in that.

They continue conversation by discussing similarities and differences between the SIU System campuses.

Every institution has a different landscape, Dunn explains. From afar, the contours are very similar and theres a commonality there. But when you look closely at each institution, they have a very unique and defined landscape. The challenge then becomes leadership, and having people work at institutions with the mindscape to match that landscape theyre in. That really is the art of leadership - being able to figure out that landscape and guide a university forward.

To say we see Carbondale as the research university and Edwardsville as the public service university - weve kind of gone away from that now. Actually, SIUE has a high research profile and is very successful in terms of research dollars generated as a public masters, public comprehensive, and public regional institution.

Carbondale - which many think of as the research institution, given the number of doctoral degrees and approximately $75 million annually in contract work - in many ways, by virtue of its geographic location, is still a large, regional school servicing the deep southern counties of Illinois. So, I get away from those qualifiers and different ways of thinking.

Were SIU. We have slightly different focuses and missions, but in that, theres more that makes us common than different.

Discussion concludes with Dunn providing insight on future initiatives for the SIU System, including the development of a new SIU Board of Trustees strategic plan and the enhancement of shared system services.

Tune in to WSIE 88.7 FM every Sunday at 9 a.m. as weekly guests discuss issues on SIUEs campus.

By Logan Cameron / SIUE Marketing & Communications
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Linkedin Taufiq Hanafi (The Jakarta Post) Leiden  Fri, September 30, 2016

In the preface to the textbook Sejarah Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National History, 1990), historian and former education minister Nugroho Notosusanto draws a comparison between the coming into being of Indonesian standardized history and the growth of a single majestic tree.



He argues that it is deep rooted in the past and can gradually provide a shade of truth for the nations future. Furthermore, its objective and scientific nature will create nothing but balance and harmony in the process of national development.



His analogy, however, is knotty (pun intended). It is knotty especially at the notion that history is singular, which could imply that other versions of narratives must not chime in and disrupt the telling of the great national tale.



Mind you, that proud Sundanese would object to and feel saddened by Mohammad Yamins historical narrative of Gajah Mada, the prime minister of the Majapahit Empire, who he constantly glorified as a national hero, peacemaker and unifier of the Nusantara archipelago.



Sang Mokteng Bubat, a historical roman dubbed factual by many Sundanese, deals with this issue of singularity, mainly in the constantly avoided history about relations between Sunda and the Majapahit kingdom.



It argues that Gajah Madas unification was actually the origin of colonial rule imposed by non-Europeans in the archipelago. But no matter how historicalSang Mokteng Bubat might be, this tale disrupts the official written history and is, thus, skipped over.



Similarly, the bleakest moment in our history is passed by in silence.



Almost all Indonesian written history in Indonesia skips over the mass killings of the communists and left-wing sympathizers after the aborted coup blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in 1965.



Take the obligatory read, Pendidikan Sejarah Perjuangan Bangsa (the History of the National Struggle) for example. We were so accustomed to this that we thought the historical events presented in the book were all thorough, truthful and, most importantly, heroic.



I can clearly recall when my fifth grade teacher had my classmates and I role play, assuming the roles of heroes in an ongoing plot to crush the villainous communists.



We were instructed to show admiration for the Army and the people for their outstanding success in crushing the September movement of the PKI and to believe that the anti-communist purge was the right thing to do in order to support the national struggle and to march toward a just and prosperous society under Pancasila.



We were also instructed to believe that Soeharto was a hero who had so much love and respect for his people and his country.



This was all clearly stated in the book. As for the massacre, the book remains silent.



Never did we learn from history books that the purge meant the butchering of more than half a million of our brothers and sisters.



Had I known that crushing the communists could mean plucking out their nails with pliers, slitting their throats and guts, like what happened to Adi Rukuns brother in the movie Look of Silence, I would not have taken the role of the heartless heroes.



Clearly, I was misinformed about this, and about many other things. And clearly, I was not alone.



It was only years later, when I resorted to reading fiction, that I found our history textbook was principally used to justify the evil of the regime and served as a tool to ascribe onto others all wickedness that it did not wish to recognize in itself.



The history book was so cleverly crafted that readers were in constant denial about the genocide.



Furthermore, readers even became nostalgic about the regimes heroism and never found it necessary to unearth the atrocities that it had buried.



This could be one of the many reasons that reconciliation among us is never within easy reach.



In fiction, however, the killings are made clear. Ahmad Tohari in the Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk (Dancer of Paruk Hamlet) trilogy narrates a description of the mass killings in Central Java and the close cooperation between the army and paramilitary groups.



I personally never knew about this political cooperation until years after Soeharto fell.



Mencoba Tidak Menyerah (Trying not to Surrender) by Yudhistira ANM Masardi vividly portrays the systematic massacre and politics of fear through the eyes of a small boy who is searching for his father after he was made to disappear due to his affiliation with the communists.



This too was a piece of information that actually took place but was never widely studied in schools.



Ashadi Siregar centers his novel on students who were annihilated by the army after the aborted coup, while Umar Kayam questions how society has been dehumanized for not having the courage to address the issue.



There seems to be a little bit more freedom in literature to speak about these topics that must not be spoken of. I am now more than interested in finding the reason that Indonesian fictional works could actually do this.



But in the beginning, upon finding out things that I had not known before, I was in some sort of denial.



I thought there was no way that that fiction could speak the truth and be historical. But as I read more and more narratives other than the standardized history, I finally came to the realization that fiction, to some extent, actually did.



Literature, according to Hoadley ( 2005 ), can reveal the coercion and violence exercised by the state over its citizens that has been denied in the nations written history. Fiction replaces the role of history.



But this does not suggest that the official history, which is dubbed central, objective and scientific, be sidelined.



I just find it compulsory that the peripheral, subjective and fictional be taken into account and analyzed accordingly, because that was the only access that most Indonesians living under the New Order regime had.



It could be true that fiction did not serve as a reliable source of historical information, but neither did Indonesian historical writings. Our historical writings and fictional works are, anyway, in so many ways equally fictional.



If writing history, as suggested by Nugroho Notosusanto, is similar to growing trees, then let there be more trees and let people learn to choose which tree gives better shade.

***

The writer lectures at the School of Arts, Padjadjaran University in Bandung and works as a researcher at the Graduate School of Humanities, Leiden University in the Netherlands.

---------------

We are looking for information, opinions, and in-depth analysis from experts or scholars in a variety of fields. We choose articles based on facts or opinions about general news, as well as quality analysis and commentary about Indonesia or international events. Send your piece to community@jakpost.com. For more information click here.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin Masajeng Rahmiasri (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

Indonesia will participate in Germanys Frankfurt Book Fair slated for Oct. 19-23 and plans to display around 300 titles.

Head of national books committee Laura Prinsloo told Antara news agency that the selected books included the works of Laksmi Pamuntjak, Eka Kurniawan and Seno Gumira Ajidarma.

Last year Indonesia was a guest of honor at the fair and Laura said last year's recognition had allowed Indonesian writers to promote their work on a global stage.

"We were invited to participate again this year due to our accomplishments last year," she added.

(Read also: New book digs deeper into history of Indonesian cinema)

Two years ago, up to 60 Indonesian books were reportedly bought by foreign publishers. This number doubled in 2015.

The Frankfurt Book Fair is an annual event that has been held since 1949. (kes)
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Linkedin Rendi A. Witular (The Jakarta Post) Bitung/Manado/Jakarta  Thu, September 29 2016

Spearheaded by firebrand Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, the far-reaching and never-ending war against illegal fishing has gone on for almost two years now, garnering praise domestically and internationally for its triumphs.

However, the war has taken a toll on an unintended victim: the local fish-processing industry, which employs thousands of largely manual workers.

Mid-size fishing companies, which have never been involved in illegal fishing, employ Indonesian crews only, source all their boats from domestic shipyards and receive capital for investment from state-run banks, have also fallen victim.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, September 29 2016

President Joko Jokowi Widodos recent decision to disband the National Committee on Zoonosis (Komnas Zoonosis), whose functions have now been taken over by the Coordinating Human Development and Culture Ministry, is expected to improve the nations ability to control zoonotic diseases such as bird flu and Zika.

The ministrys health development deputy, Sigit Priohutomo, said the ministry would start working once the President issued a presidential regulation on the committees disbandment.

We are still waiting for the Perpres, he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday, adding that the committees functions would remain intact with the existing panel of experts expected to remain.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, September 29 2016

The Public Works and Public Housing Ministry has urged residents to file reports on any damage to pedestrian bridges or other public infrastructure in their neighborhoods to the city administration.

Drajad Hudayanto, a member of the ministrys Bridge and Tunnel Safety Commission (KKJTJ), said on Wednesday that the responsibility for providing information on such issues was regulated in Law No. 18/1999 on construction services.

It is impossible for us to know everything [that needs to be repaired]. We have limited resources, Drajad said as quoted by kompas.com.

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Linkedin Rendi A. Witular (The Jakarta Post)  Thu, September 29 2016

Transshipment is a practice in which a fishing boat transfers its catches in the middle of the sea to a transport vessel for delivery to other places, ideally to local ports or fish processing units (UPIs).

It has been blamed in the past for widespread poaching because through transshipment, transport vessels pool the catches and ship them directly to Thailand, China, Taiwan and the Philippines without first being processed in Indonesia.

But the system is required particularly for mid-sized to large fishing boats sailing more than 16 kilometers offshore so that they do not have to return to their ports of origin once their holds are fully loaded as they can transfer the catches to the transport vessels.

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Linkedin Ruslan Sangadji (The Jakarta Post) Palu, Central Sulawesi  Fri, September 30, 2016

The Operation Tinombala task force has returned a 16-year-old boy to his family after he was arrested by security personnel in Tamanjeka Village of Poso regency, Central Sulawesi, as he headed to Mount Biru to join the remaining members of the East Indonesia Mujahidin (MIT) terrorist group.

Security officials returned the boy to his family in Ampe Angke subdistrict of Agam regency, West Nusantara, on Tuesday, Tinombala task force spokesman Adj.Sr.Cmr. Hari Suprapto said on Thursday.

The teenager went to Poso after being invited by a friend, whom he knew from social media, Hari added.

He was arrested on Sept. 18 on his way to Mount Biru to join the notorious guerillas hiding in the mountainous forests of Poso. After learning about his motive, the task force decided to release him and returned him to his parents.

"He is very young, it would be better to try to understand why he did what he did," Hari told The Jakarta Post.

From the arrest, Tinombala task force confiscated the boy's clothes. No identity card was found on him and he told security personnel that his ID card had been taken by someone who admitted to being a former member of MIT. He also was found with Rp 86,000 (US$6.6), which he said he had received from the same man who took him to Poso.

Mount Biru is known as the hideout and military training place of the MIT terror network, which was led by the now deceased Santoso, aka Abu Wardah. Security personnel believe the group is getting weaker and that only around 11 remaining members are still hiding in Poso after a series of offensives launched by the Tinombala task force since January. (rin)
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Linkedin Annabel Tanya Nugent (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30 2016

Close interaction: The jazz duo and the band Elfa impressed the audience with their "nu-jazz" sounds, inspired by a mixing of genres ranging from hip-hop to reggae.

Acclaimed jazz duo Saskia Laroo and Warren Byrd recently performed alongside Indonesian band Elfa in a concert so enjoyable and engaging, the audience did not want it to end.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30 2016

The Philippine government is considering ordering a medical support ship from state-owned shipbuilder PT PAL Indonesia after previously procuring two ships of the Strategic Sealift Vessel (SSV) class, an Indonesian Defense Ministry official said on Thursday.

Philippine National Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana held talks on the defense industry with the Indonesian delegation on the sidelines of the 2016 Asian Defense & Security (ADAS) exhibition in Manila.

The Secretary of National Defense and the Philippine Navy chief of staff are impressed with the medical support vessel that will be fit for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief [HADR] operations, the head of the Indonesian delegation, Brig. Gen. Jan Pieter Ate, told The Jakarta Post from Manila over the phone.

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Linkedin Taufiq Hanafi (The Jakarta Post) Leiden, The Netherlands  Fri, September 30 2016

In the preface to the textbook Sejarah Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National History, 1990), historian and former education minister Nugroho Notosusanto draws a comparison between the coming into being of Indonesian standardized history and the growth of a single majestic tree.

He argues that it is deep rooted in the past and can gradually provide a shade of truth for the nations future. Furthermore, its objective and scientific nature will create nothing but balance and harmony in the process of national development.

His analogy, however, is knotty (pun intended). It is knotty especially at the notion that history is singular, which could imply that other versions of narratives must not chime in and disrupt the telling of the great national tale.

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Linkedin Prima Wirayani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

It might have been a once-in-a-lifetime sight: hundreds, nearly a thousand, people flocking to the Taxation Directorate Generals headquarters in South Jakarta to register for the governments ambitious tax amnesty program.

Some groups of people were seen taking wefies as if they were having a gleeful holiday. Some others were placidly browsing the internet on their mobile phones to dispel their boredom.

The tax office even provided two big screens in its auditorium to entertain the taxpayers. Marvels blockbuster Captain America was being screened when The Jakarta Post observed the room.

For Thursdays registration, which was the penultimate day of the amnestys first phase, the tax office prepared 2,000 queue numbers for amnesty participants, the highest since the program was launched in July.

A security officer at the auditorium said the office usually served as many as 700 applicants daily prior to Thursday. People have been waiting to submit their tax amnesty applications since 5 a.m., while the tax office only opens at 8 a.m., he said.

Yeti Satriati, an employee of a fragrance company in Pulogadung, East Jakarta, said she was asked by her boss to submit the latters personal tax application. She said she had been waiting since 6 a.m., only to be listed as the 803rd applicant.

Yeti was not the only employee sent by her boss on the mission. On the same day, her colleague waited in a queue at the Pluit tax office in North Jakarta for the same purpose. But the office was so crowded that my friend couldnt get a number, Yeti said.

The public only has until Friday to enjoy the lowest penalty rates of 2 percent and 4 percent of the first phase, as opposed to 3 percent and 6 percent in the second phase and 5 percent and 10 percent in the final phase.

Thursdays heavy turnout was not actually surprising, as Indonesians usually wait until the 11th hour to make a decision. However, the tax office appeared unprepared and the turnout impelled four tax offices to implement force majeure measures.

We have declared force majeure conditions at the Directorate General of Taxation headquarters, the Medium Tax Office in Gambir [Central Jakarta], the Large Taxpayers Office in Sudirman [South Jakarta] and the Kalibata Special Tax Office in Kalibata [South Jakarta], Ken told reporters after attending a working meeting with the House of Representatives Commission XI overseeing financial affairs.

After a two-month period that saw a lukewarm response and confusion among taxpayers, who claimed the amnesty procedures were too convoluted, the amount of money generated from the program has unexpectedly surged in recent days.

The government hopes the tax amnesty  which aims to widen the countrys notoriously low tax base  can generate Rp 165 trillion (US$12.74 billion) in redemption payments to plug this years state budget deficit, preventing the deficit from touching the legal limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product.

It is also targeting Rp 4 quadrillion in declared assets and Rp 1 quadrillion in those brought back home from overseas.

According to data from the tax office, the amount of redemption payments stood at Rp 79.4 trillion as of Thursday evening, almost half of the target. At the same time, Rp 3.18 quadrillion worth of assets had been declared, equal to 79 percent of the target.

The repatriated funds amount is the only figure that is lacking, as statistics show that only Rp 130 trillion in assets have been brought back, or only 13 percent of the target.

Bank Indonesia (BI) is also providing support for the tax amnesty program by extending its payment system and clearing operational time for 60 minutes on Thursday and Friday.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that thousands of workers from various unions still marched to the Presidential Palace in Central Jakarta on Thursday to protest the governments amnesty, saying it unfairly pardons wealthy noncompliant taxpayers.

We, workers, have diligently paid our taxes, but these rich people and big corporations are being pardoned for not paying their taxes, Said Iqbal, head of the Confederation of Indonesian Workers Union (KSPI), said. (mos)

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30 2016

JAKARTA: The Tourism Ministry is poised to adopt the concept of a floating hotel, a ship converted into a 200-room hotel and lying off shore, to boost maritime tourist destinations across the archipelago next year.

Last year, the ministry and state-owned ship operator Pelni launched a pilot project by modifying six of Pelnis passenger ships into cozy floating hotels, equipped with hotel-standard rooms. Next year, the project will be expanded by involving other state-owned enterprises.

But that is not enough. We have a lot of maritime tourist destinations. Aside from Pelni, were also pushing state-run port operator Pelindo to contribute. The market is captive and high-end, Tourism Minister Arief Yahya told The Jakarta Post during the Hotel Indonesia Group (HIG) launch in Jakarta on Wednesday.

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Linkedin Nethy Dharma Somba, Apriadi Gunawan and Agus Maryono (The Jakarta Post) Medan/Jayapura/Cilacap  Fri, September 30 2016

In a place like Papua where communal conflicts are common, it takes unusual courage to even express a different opinion. And, of course, the stakes are even higher for an outsider challenging Papuans in the local elections.

Defying opposition from Papuans, a Chinese-Indonesian woman is running for a top post in the Jayapura regency in the Feb. 15 poll. Yanni is not the only woman who will contest the local elections as there are two other female candidates running for the poll. But, she is the only non-Papuan to contest the local election in the region where tribal sentiment is extremely strong.

When Yanni, along with her running mate Zadrak Afasedanya, registered with the Jayapura General Elections Commission (KPUD) as a regent candidate, a group of local women protested her candidacy simply because she is not a native Papuan.

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Newly appointed Armenian Minister of Agriculture Ignaty Arakelyan told reporters today that he is drafting a strategic program whereby the government would be facilitating ways to help villagers engaged in farming.

I have said that villagers must engage in business. We are drafting a program and will try to include donors that will assist in financing those businesses and organizing training sessions, Arakelyan told reporters after todays government cabinet session.

The minister accepted that villagers today couldnt create business models on their own given the lack of financial resources.

Arakelyan said that the ministry is trying to satisfy the demands rural residents are placing on the ministry.
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30 2016

(JP/Arief Suhardiman)

JAKARTA: Indonesian chefs will join forces to make sure soto soup shines as the countrys culinary star on the worlds stage.



Head of the Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf), Triawan Munaf, said that soto had been selected to be featured at the Frankfurt Book Fair next month.



Indonesia has countless varieties of soto but the broth is always rich in herbs and spices.



Almost every region in Indonesia has its own version of soto, he said at a press conference on Indonesias participation at the book fair on Thursday.



Soto will be promoted with a tagline A Cup of Comfort for four straight days at the book fair, the worlds oldest.



During last years festival, promoted Indonesian food ranged from nasi goreng (fried rice) sold from a humble gerobak (food cart) in front of Frankfurts historic city hall to a five-course dinner at a fancy restaurant.  JP

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Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan, North Sumatra  Fri, September 30, 2016

Three high-ranking government officials in North Sumatra registered for the tax amnesty on Thursday.

Besides North Sumatra Governor T. Erry Nuradi, North Sumatra Police chief Insp. Gen. Raden Budi Winarso and Bukit Barisan Commander Maj. Gen. Lodewik Pusung, two North Sumatra Representatives Council (DPD) members from the province, Parlindungan Purba and Dedi Iskandar Batubara, also registered for the tax amnesty, which aims at not only boosting tax revenue but also expanding the tax base.

They all went to the North Sumatra Directorate General of Taxation I office to register their participation in the tax amnesty on Thursday afternoon. They each handed over an asset statement letter (SPH) to tax officers, witnessed by the office's chief, Mukhtar.

We came here to register our participation in the tax amnesty and to hand over our SPHs. Its a government program that must be supported by all parties. Moreover, President [Joko] Jokowi [Widodo] visited Medan to introduce the amnesty, said Erry after submitting his SPH.

The governor later encouraged all North Sumatra residents, especially businesspeople with undeclared assets, to immediately avail of the tax amnesty. The earlier they participate in the program, the lower the redemption fee, he explained.

Until the end of September, the redemption fee is only 2 percent. In October, the redemption rate increases to 3 percent. So lets immediately report our assets, said Erry. (ebf)
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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

House of Representatives Speaker Ade Komarudin registered for tax amnesty in Jakarta on Friday, right on the deadline of the program's first phase.

Ade said he would participate in the tax amnesty program to settle a misunderstanding.

By Ades account, a revised policy in the past created a different perception between him, as house speaker and a taxpayer, and the Taxation Directorate General, leading to incomplete annual tax reports (SPTs) in previous years.

Therefore, he will use the opportunity afforded to him by the program to settle the matter by declaring several assets that did not include in previous tax reports.

"This is my intention as a citizen who is responsible for paying tax. The tax amnesty program should be successful. It is a matter of national interest," he said in a press statement on Friday in Jakarta.

Ade, a Golkar Party politician, further called on Indonesian citizens, particularly legislators at the House, to use this chance to support the interests of the nation. (ags)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30 2016

Better cooperation between all ASEAN member states is needed to combat transnational human trafficking as perpetrators have benefited greatly from the lack of coordination in fighting the crime in the region, the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) said on Thursday.

Indonesia, the regions largest country, and several other nations need to ratify the ASEAN convention on trafficking, said Jose Tavares, the foreign ministrys director general for ASEAN cooperation.

Dinna Wisnu, Indonesias representative for the AICHR, said perpetrators exploited the weakness of the existing system in the region, which is still fragmented.

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Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

Indonesia and the Philippines continue to monitor the return of Indonesians who have been accused of illegally going on the haj through Manila by using quota spots left over in the latter country, an Indonesian official has said.

"The legal processes in Indonesia and the Philippines have already begun after dozens of Indonesians were detected," the Foreign Ministry's director for the protection of Indonesian nationals and entities abroad, Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, told reporters on Thursday.

Iqbal said the Philippines is entirely responsible for the identification of any illegal haj pilgrims. Undetected pilgrims would subsequently not be processed by Indonesia, he added.

A special team from Jakarta has been stationed in Manila to ensure identified pilgrims would have access to proper treatment and legal assistance.

The majority of the Indonesians who allegedly had previously passed through immigration on their way to Mecca are largely those who are familiar to the Filipino language and culture, Iqbal revealed, saying that this had allowed them to go undetected since they blended in.

They include citizens who resided in areas near the Philippines, such as Sabah in Malaysia and Sebatik in North Kalimantan.

Following discussions with the Philippines, Iqbal said it was estimated that around 700 of them were Indonesians who had posed as Filipino pilgrims. The remaining number are alleged to have been pilgrims from Malaysia and Singapore, both of which also have long waiting lines created by quota limitations. (bbn)
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Linkedin Herdaru Purnomo and Yudith Ho (Bloomberg) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

Google Inc.s Jakarta office was raided by Indonesian authorities after they warned the company for refusing a tax audit.

Officers visited Googles office in central Jakarta many times in the past two weeks to collect data and repeatedly sought meetings with senior company officials, Muhammad Haniv, the head of special taxpayers at the Finance Ministry, said in a phone interview Thursday. Google has paid all applicable taxes in Indonesia, Taj Meadows, a spokesman, said by e-mail, adding the company is cooperating with the government.

Everyone must comply, whoever they may be, Haniv said. If you refuse to be audited, then we will keep chasing you. The government had earlier written to the company warning it for refusing a tax audit, which can result in criminal punishment, he said.

President Joko Widodos government is following in the footsteps of European authorities in pushing Google to pay more taxes as it steps up efforts to earn more revenue from internet companies. Hes under pressure to do so as this years state revenue is set to suffer an estimated 218 trillion rupiah ($17 billion) shortfall, while earnings from a tax amnesty program are set to miss his target.

Indonesia May Block Websites of Tech Companies Avoiding Tax

Indonesia has been asking internet companies to set up permanent local entities for tax purposes since as early as April. Its also promising lower rates compared to the 30 percent corporate income tax and 25 percent value-added tax that would otherwise apply to Googles sales of advertisement to local companies, according to Haniv.
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Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo is keeping a close watch on the progress of the highly anticipated mass rapid transit (MRT) and light rail transit (LRT) systems to ensure their uninterrupted development.

"We want the development to always be monitored and for there to always be progress," Jokowi told reporters during a visit to the construction site of an MRT station in Dukuh Atas, Jakarta, on Friday.

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo inspects on Sep. 30 the route map of the light rail transit (LRT) project that will be developed through four main cities: Jakarta, Bogor, Depok and Bekasi. (Antara/Widodo S. Jusuf )

The President pointed to the progress of the station, which now consists of three floors and a tunnel.

"I think the progress is very good and, Insya Allah (God willing), the southern line to the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle from Lebak Bulus will be finished by 2019," he said, noting that commuters would be able to travel the 15.7-km distance in less than 30 minutes.

The Jakarta City administration's LRT project was also expected to begin by October after the signing of contracts, Jokowi said.

The President said he would insist on monitoring the progress to avoid any delays, as well as to be able to detect any hindrances early, whether related to funds or technical problems. (dan)
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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

EU Ambassador to Indonesia Vincent Guerend has expressed support for Indonesia's commitment to eradicating corruption, saying that the most important aspect is to push for transparency in the judicial system.

Since a judicial system is vital to any democratic nation, Indonesia should promote good governance through an accountable judiciary that is free of corrupt practices in order to gain public trust, Guerend said.

"The key here is to restore confidence [in judicial institutions]. Increase transparency of the system and it will increase the trust of Indonesian citizens," Guerend told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

As the highest court, the Supreme Court in collaboration with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) should raise awareness among all judges so they have a good understanding of the importance of shunning corruption, said Guerend.

In line with accountability and the public's right to information, both judiciary and law enforcement bodies should publish all decisions and promote the importance of decision-makers revealing their assets, said Guerend, who spoke at the launch of the Supreme Court's online Whistle-Blowing System in Jakarta on Thursday .

Meanwhile, Clare Wee, head of the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) Office of Anticorruption and Integrity, said aside from restoring public trust by improving the system, senior figures of Indonesian judiciary had a more important task of pushing for accountable practices and act as role models of integrity. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

The Finance Ministrys director general of taxation, Ken Dwijugiasteadi, said that labor is not among the taxpayer groups that are targeted for participation in the tax amnesty program.

Ken explained that members of labor unions across the country usually had monthly incomes below the taxable level, or less than Rp 4.5 million (US$345) per month. The minimum wage of workers in Jakarta is Rp 3.1 million, while their in Bandung, West Java, it is Rp 2.6 million.

Thus, labor is exempted from the tax amnesty program, he told journalists in response to a rally launched by the labor confederation on Thursday against the tax amnesty program, which they called "unfair".

Labor groups from the Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI) and the Confederation of Indonesian Workers Unions (KSPI) staged a rally in front of Constitutional Court in Jakarta, and several other cities, demanding the annulment of the Tax Amnesty Law.

They argued that the law was unethical as it benefits tax evaders whose sources of wealth are unknown and not obedient taxpayers such as workers who pay their income tax every month. It is unfair, KSPI chairman Said Iqbal said in Jakarta. (rez/ags)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

Oil baron Arifin Panigoro was the most recent tycoon to apply for a tax amnesty in Jakarta on Thursday, one day before the deadline of the program's first phase ended.

Arifin is the owner of energy giant Medco Group, with oil and gas firm Medco Energi as its core business. The company has diversified into other sectors, such as agriculture (Medco Agro) and finance (Bank Woori Saudara).

Referring to himself as a good taxpayer, Arifin said his participation in the tax program was merely aimed at improving the tax filing of his personal and group's assets. The taxation system for the oil business is more complicated than for any other business, he said.

Usually, oil and gas companies pay a share of profits to the government instead of taxes, Arifin said in Jakarta on Thursday, refusing to elaborate on the value of his undisclosed assets.

According to forbes.com, Arifin ranks 48th among Indonesia's richest people, with his wealth estimated at US$450 million last year.

This year, Medco Energi secured a business deal worth $2.6 billion to take over copper mining company Newmont Nusa Tenggara. Meanwhile, Medco Agro expanded its business to establish a 248-hectare farm in Merauke, Papua, last year. (rez/ags)
On September 29, 2016 the Organic Agriculture Support Initiative (OASI) presented the 18 successful applicants which were granted with funding and announced additional support to Armenian small farmers and farmer groups.

In his speech the Minister of Agriculture Mr. Ignati Arakelyan noted that Armenia has a great potential for the development of organic agriculture. Supported by the Austrian Development Agency and the European Union the Organic Agriculture Support Initiative aims at promoting the development of small and medium-sized producers and processors through Grant Scheme and technical assistance. The project will also promote the development of local market and expansion of export opportunities.

It is small farmers in particular that are the backbone of organic agriculture. By providing input supplies and technical support with European funding, we hope to convince more and more farmers to go organic, added Mr. John Barker, International Aid/Cooperation Officer of the EU Delegation to Armenia. The SFS will be implemented throughout Armenia, where small-scale farmers, farmer groups and small-scale/home based processors will be involved. Applications are due by 31 October 2016.

Earlier this year 72 Grant Applications for funding were received, out of which the best 18 projects were selected for an overall funding of more than EUR 800,000. These projects funded within the OASI Grant Scheme comprise all regions of Armenia. Tasty organic honey, fruits, berries, herbs, olives and wine will inspire others to produce organically, Dr. Martin Ledolter, Managing Director of the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) stated.

About the OASI Project

The Organic Agriculture Support Initiative (OASI), a project funded by the European Union and co-funded and implemented by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the operational unit of the Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC), aims at further developing organic agriculture in Armenia. The initial success of the organic products on domestic and international markets will be enhanced by improving the policy and regulatory framework and providing comprehensive marketing support. The total budget is EUR 3.3 Million.

The OASI project establishes linkages with Armenian buyers and interested European and other international companies. In addition, Armenian organic producers get a chance to participate in international organic trade fairs. Support functions, i.e. extension and certification services will be further developed through demand-driven trainings and strengthening of existing local organizations. Financial support, training and input supply for farmers' groups, cooperatives, and processing units as well as other actors along the value chain is being provided, leading to a significant increase of organic actors and volumes.

About the Donors

EU assistance to Armenia has reached over  500 million since 1992, with annual support growing progressively over the years. The Austrian Development Agency has been supporting Armenia since 2011 as a priority country for development cooperation with a specific focus on improving the agricultural sector.
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Linkedin Lita Aruperes (The Jakarta Post) Manado  Fri, September 30 2016

Increasing numbers of sex offenses against underage victims have been reported lately in some areas in North Sulawesi. Not long ago, the head of a government office in Manado was reported to police for alleged molestation.

Recently, the police in North Sulawesi arrested a man, identified as Sam, at his house in West Langowan district, Minahasa regency, for allegedly making his own daughter his sex slave for the last six years.

North Sulawesi Polices general crime director, Sr. Comr. Pitra Ratulangi, claimed the victim, now 14 years old, had been forced to have sex with her father when she was a third grader in elementary school and that the acts continued for the next six years.

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Linkedin Wahyoe Boediwardhana (The Jakarta Post) Surabaya, East Java  Fri, September 30, 2016

Oil and gas producer PT Saka Energi Indonesia (SEI) has announced the discovery of new oil and gas reserves amounting to 300 million barrel oil equivalent (BOE) on the Sidayu-4V exploration well in its wholly owned offshore Pangkah block in Gresik, East Java.

SEI CEO Tumbur Parlindungan said the state-owned gas producer PT Perusahaan Gas Negaras (PGN) subsidiary he led needed only around seven months to discover the new reserve since it began preparing to drill the well.

This was one of fastest drilling processes in the world because usually, it takes between 1 and 1.5 years from preparation to actual drilling activities, he said in Pangkah, Gresik, on Thursday.

This achievement cannot be separated from the fact that all preparation processes have been conducted in parallel and all our field officers are young people aged no more than 35 years, he went on.

Tumbur further said the exploration was a follow up to the discovery of an oil and gas reserve in the Sidayu-3ST1 exploration well last year. The discovery of the new reserve on the Sidayu-4V exploration was the last stage of the Sidayu structure exploration, after which it was expected East Java could become a major new energy producer in Indonesia.

Tumbur said PT SEI was set to submit its plans of development to the Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Special Task Force (SKKMigas) in the middle of next year.

If everything can run along with our plan, the new reserves can be in production in 2019. In the initial stage, it will produce 2,500 barrel of oil per day [bopd]. Hopefully, this figure can continue to increase. (ebf)
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Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

The government says it has not paid a ransom to secure the release of Indonesian sailors taken hostage by Philippine militant group Abu Sayyaf.

"The process is costly, however, the basic principle is that the government will never pay a ransom," the Foreign Ministry's director for the protection of Indonesian nationals and entities abroad, Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, told reporters on Thursday.

Iqbal was responding to media questions about funds the Abu Sayyaf group reportedly received to let the Indonesian citizens go. He said the government did not engage directly in any transactions with terrorists.

"Rumors always circulate whenever similar cases occur," Iqbal said.

The Abu Sayyaf group released four Indonesian crewmen last week after holding them as hostages for more than a month. Another five sailors, all crewmen of the Indonesian-operated tugboat Charles, remain in captivity with the militant group.

The government was continuing efforts for the release of the five men through an intelligence operation across the Philippines and Malaysia, Iqbal said.

He noted that the process for the release of the sailors, who were abducted in southern Philippine waters in late July, was taking longer than in earlier hostage cases due to a more complex situation. The hostages were held by two militant sub-groups, and a complicated political situation in the field exacerbated the situation, he added.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi maintained close contact with a top Philippine negotiator involved in the rescue effort and continued to closely monitor the situation, Iqbal said. (rin)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

A large outdoor TV screen displayed what appeared to be a Japanese adult movie in South Jakarta to the shock and consternation of residents and passersby on Friday afternoon.

The 24-square-meter LED jumbotron screen, located near the South Jakarta mayors office on Jl. Iskandarsyah showed a video of a woman and a man involved in sexual intercourse. The video played for a few minutes before the power was turned off.

South Jakarta Communications and Information Agency head Lestari Ady Wiryono said her office, with the help of local people, cut the power to the LED screen at 2:45 p.m. following reports about the indecent footage.

The jumbotron is owned by private company PT. Matapena Komunika Advertama, which sub-contracts the content of the display to PT. Transito Adiman Jati Transito Adverstising.

"The South Jakarta administration takes this matter seriously," Lestari said in a press statement adding that her office in coordination with the South Jakarta tax office and the Cyber Crime unit of the Jakarta Police visited PT. Transito's office for information on the content display.

There are 58 LED screens in South Jakarta with various sizes of monitors, according to data from the South Jakarta administration.

A 2015 gubernatorial decree stipulates that all billboard displays must comply with public ethics, aesthetics, public order, decency, security and the environment. (rin)
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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

Businesspeople are not the only group to be enthusiastic about joining the tax amnesty program, as a police officer, politician, and preacher have come out publicly to apply for the tax pardon in the program's first phase.

National police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar and House of Representatives Commission XI member Donny Imam Priambodo came at the same time to the Directorate General of Taxation office. They said they left applying to the last day of the programs first phase because of daily work commitments.

"From my own motivations, Ive come here to contribute to this program. Three weeks ago, we already led an intensive campaign on tax amnesty in the National Police corps. I hope other members can participate as well," Boy said at the tax office in Jakarta on Friday.

Previously that morning, Muslim preacher Yusuf Mansur also came to the tax office, saying that he intentionally chose the last day to avoid political issues, as his name was among possible candidates for the Jakarta gubernatorial election in June.

"If I had come earlier [before candidates had been nominated], people would assume that I was campaigning. My intention to participating in the tax amnesty program is to learn about filing tax," he said.

Yusuf, a young preacher, is known for preaching altruism and has called on Muslims to donate to charities. In 2013 he managed an investment fund by collecting donations from his followers but then received warning from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for alleged licensing issues. (ags)
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Linkedin Vidhyandika D. Perkasa (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30 2016

In this dynamic, rapidly changing world, it is worth observing how the state (government) places the complexity of Papua an its domestic agenda. In reality, the issue of China and disputes in the South China Sea have seemed to dominate the states international affairs lately due to possible security threats. Even though Papua is, in fact, a domestic affair, it has seized international attention, and the government cannot neglect or belittle the matter.

In a multi-stakeholder discussion held by TIFA Foundation and The Institute for Social and Economic Research late last month, it was acknowledged that the Papua issue is becoming increasingly international. The issues that raised international concern focused on human rights violations, the spirit to free Papua from Indonesian colonization and the legitimacy of Papuan integration into Indonesia under the Free Choice Law in 1969. Therefore, an international solution is needed to these problems.

The actors of the movement are the Papuan diaspora in exile, the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), who found support from the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), Pacific Island Forum (IPF), the International Parliament for West Papua (IPWP) and members of parliaments in Europe and Pacific countries.

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Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

The tax amnesty program has surpassed the government's expectations with the final day of the first period marked by overwhelming numbers of taxpayers participating, Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung said on Friday.

Pramono said the government had collected over Rp 100 trillion (US$7.7 billion) in redemption fees and more than Rp 3,500 trillion in assets had been declared, adding the figures reflected the growing trend based on data from Friday morning.

"To be honest, this has surpassed any expectations or hopes, because this is still only the first period, there's still the second and third period [to look forward to]," Pramono told reporters at the Presidential Office on Friday.

(Read also: Labor not subject to tax amnesty, govt says)

The system was overwhelmed on the final day of the first three-month period, which officially ended on Sep. 30, he added, saying no official numbers were yet available.

He claimed the success of the program was due to the dedication of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, the team at the Finance Ministry and the officials at tax offices, who had all successfully built public trust in the matter.

"If we see these numbers, then we are number one anywhere in the world, whether in repatriation, declaration or percentage of GDP," Pramono said, adding that the government would continue to monitor Friday's developments.

He expressed the hope that the subsequent periods would see improvements as a result of lessons learned from the first round. (dan)
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Linkedin Brge Brende, Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Nasser Judeh, Retno Lestari Priansari Marsudi, Claudia Ruiz Massieu and Hanna Serwaa Tetteh (The Jakarta Post) The United Nations  Fri, September 30 2016

As the world is undergoing rapid demographic, economic, social, environmental, technological and geopolitical transformation, the only constant is the desire to move forward towards something different, something better.

The pace of change gives rise to both opportunities and threats. Today, we are experiencing many different crises  including poverty, wars, violent extremism, migration, climate change and organized crime  that have global consequences. Seventy-one years ago, the United Nations was the institution that rose from the ashes after World War II and it has helped us to manage conflict ever since.

Today, the UN must be prepared to adapt to the new circumstances and be a driver of change. Last year, major agreements were reached by all UN member states, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. This year, the New Urban Agenda will be adopted.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

The Kendari Immigration Office in Southeast Sulawesi detained three Chinese nationals for alleged immigration violations, an official said on Friday.

The three Chinese men, identified as Wang Chou, Zhou Hui and Lou Wenshuai, were arrested in South Konawe regency on Sept. 28, Kendari Immigration spokesman Letehina said. The three allegedly violated immigration regulations by conducting activities that were not in accordance with their visas.

"The three Chinese men were detained for allegedly conducting soil measurement activities for the construction of a smelter," he said as reported by Antara news agency.

The three men were arrested in a joint operation by the immigration office, the Southeast Sulawesi Manpower and Transmigration Agency, the military's Strategic Intelligence Agency (BAIS) and the Haluoleo Military Resort Command.



"This was based on intelligence on the presence of foreigners who rented a house from local people in South Konawe regency," he said.

The three are being detained at the Kendari Immigration Office for further investigation.

Directorate General of Immigration data reveals that 1,180 Chinese nationals were detained for immigration violations from January to July. The violations included working in the mining sector on tourist visas. The government has stepped up the monitoring of foreigners following the implementation of the free visa policy, which was introduced last year, to prevent the misuse of visas. (rin)
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Linkedin Ina Parlina and Hans Nicholas Jong (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

As prison sentences and hefty fines have failed to deter people from corruption in the country, legal experts have mulled on introducing social sanctions for graft convicts.

But can Indonesians really be shamed?

Erika Widyaningsih, a netizen who was involved in #SaveKPK, a campaign supporting the national antigraft body during a standoff with the police in early 2015, says shaming convicts could work since the shame of receiving social punishment publicly might discourage them from repeating the crime.

For instance, having the authorities officially publish the names of those found guilty of graft in newspapers and distributing the announcement to local administrations offices would allow people from across the country access to [this information], Erika said, adding that such a move would help educate people wanting to use their democratic right to vote in elections.

The idea of imposing social sanctions reached new heights as a number of renowned legal experts and antigraft activists suggested it to President Joko Jokowi Widodo during a dialogue at the Palace last week. The proposed sanctions include putting convicts in flashy-colored uniforms and slapping them with forced labor on public works like daily street maintenance and sweeping.

Former Constitutional Court justice Harjono, who was among Jokowis guests that day, said such social punishments could serve as a more effective tool to deter graft convicts as those who attended the dialogue agreed that imprisonment had yet been successful in rooting out corruption.

The idea of shaming graft convicts is actually not new and has been voiced in recent years. Even a call to have Muslim clerks not perform prayer for deceased graft convicts, as a form of social sanction, surfaced five years ago. In 2008, the Finance Ministry once initiated a plan to impose social sanctions, in which officials caught receiving bribes had to apologize by reading aloud a statement of regret before all Finance Ministry officials.

However, no concrete regulations have been issued to actually shame corruption convicts, where some--who have not had their political rights revoked--have still been able to run in elections to become or regain legislative or regional head positions, after completing their sentences.

Social sanctions have actually been implemented by state-owned train operator PT KAI Commuter Jabodetabek (KCJ) to discourage crime. Pickpockets on trains, for example, who are directly caught by security personnel, have their shirts stripped and must stand in a crowded train station with Im a pickpocket signboard hanging on their chest.

Lawyer Maqdir Ismail, who on several times has represented graft convicts, expressed his support for imposing forced labor on graft convicts. A [convicted corrupt] public official must be ashamed with his or her punishment like sweeping the street, he said.

But, not everyone finds the idea sufficient, as Gadjah Mada University sociologist Sunyoto Usman believes that social sanctions will not be enough to deter corrupt people because in general they are individuals who have no shame and are permissive of corruption.

How can you make someone ashamed if they already have no shame? Sunyoto said. What will happen is that people will only think how can someone be so stupid to get caught in a graft case? People will [then] think that those who commit corruption but dont get caught are clever people.
Hakob Avagyan, president of Armenias Small and Medium Sized Business Cooperation Association, complained that the countrys new tax code was drafted without any feedback from the business community.

Avagyan said the code, passed yesterday by the parliament, was basically the creation of the finance ministry and there was no discourse with NGOs nor the business sector in order to highlight the tax issues they face and to ask for solutions.

While Avagyan conceded that he hasnt had time to peruse the entire new tax code, a complicated task in itself, entrepreneurs have raised a number of concerns.

Each person has read sections of the code related to their field and are telephoning our organization, asking what such and such a passage means. There are many incomprehensible passages in the code.
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Linkedin Allan Nawal (Philippine Daily Inquirer) Davao City, Philippines  Fri, September 30, 2016

President Rodrigo Duterte said the US must stop criticising him, particularly in connection with the extrajudicial killings tied to his war on drugs and stressed that it should not pretend to be the moral conscience of the world.

Do not be the policeman because you do not have the eligibility to do that in my country, he stated.

Earlier, US Senator Benjamin Cardin of Maryland said in a dialogue with Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont that in advocating and endorsing what amounts to mass murder, Duterte has adopted the wrong approach in dealing with the illegal drugs problem.

Senator Leahy is absolutely right when he said that a lack of respect for the rule of law and democratic governance breeds instability, distrust and sometimes violence, Cardin said.

However, Duterte said the US was being a hypocrite and urged it to stop it.

Why are you shooting the black people there when they are on the ground?" he questioned.

He pointed out that the US and its allies, such as the Great Britain, also violated the human rights of other countries, such as when they invaded Iraq on the flimsy excuse that there was a weapon of mass destruction there.

Theyre only good at criticising, he said, calling them pea-brained.

Duterte said the criticism has been going on for years now.

In all these years, not a single case has been filed against me. Its only talk up to now, he said, adding that the criticism dated back to the time when he was the mayor here.

Duterte also went on to say that his critics are peabrained, i***** by criticising him for threatening criminals.

When you have to charge me, you have to find out if the penal laws of this land will make a mayor liable for threatening or intimidating criminals. Read all the penal laws of this land, and you will find nothing, he remarked.

Duterte also admitted he was now piqued by the criticism that he was even portrayed to be some cousin of Hitler.

But they did not even bother to investigate. Things like this. Look, US, (EU), you can call me anything, but I am never into hypocrisy like you, he said.

Hinting at the EU, Duterte said it had allowed migrants escaping from the Middle East to rot at sea in the middle of winter.
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Linkedin MIKE STOBBE (AP) NEW YORK  Fri, September 30, 2016

US health officials are advising pregnant women to postpone travel to 11 countries in Southeast Asia because of Zika outbreaks in the region.

The advisory issued Thursday targets travel to Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Zika has been in some areas of Southeast Asia for years, and some residents may be immune. But a number of U.S. travelers have become infected there in the last year, so there is a danger to visitors.

Most infected people suffer a mild and temporary illness, at worst. But infection during pregnancy can causes severe brain-related birth defects. The virus is spread primarily by bites from infected mosquitoes.
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Linkedin Jessicha Valentina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, September 30, 2016

Three Indonesian destinations have been recognized at the Global Green Destinations Day event held as part of the World Tourism Day celebration in Ljubljana on Tuesday.

Plataran L'Harmonie Menjangan in northwest Bali was included on the 2016 Top 100 Global Green Destinations list, while Misool in Raja Ampat, West Papua, and Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara were among the Top 100 Global Destinations.

(Read also: Laid-back places to enjoy sunsets outside of south Bali)

The Tourism Ministry's head of ecotourism acceleration, David Makes, told tempo.co that the accomplishment was quite pleasing as the list only featured destinations in 46 countries.

"Plataran Lharmonie Menjangan indeed deserves recognition, since it always highlights the preservation of nature, such as by using artistic wooden sign boards and constructing roads using rocks instead of asphalt," he said, adding that visitors could expect to encounter tame deer and monkeys while strolling around the area.

The ministry currently focuses on developing ecotourism, which is not an easy task for a developing country, since it requires meeting many specific criteria. (kes)
When I was an aspiring fiction writer fresh out of grad school, I won a fellowship to spend a month at an artists colony in Montauk, at the very tip of Long Island. Known as the Edward F. Albee Foundation, the colony was founded and funded by its namesake, renowned author of Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and many other wonderful plays, who recently passed away.

The Albee fellowship was the biggest thing that had happened to me early in my career as a writer, a label I still felt uncomfortable wearing. In fact, during my first week at the colony, I happened to overhear another of the artists on the phone, a playwright, who was explaining to a friend who else was in residence: Theres a poet, a sculptor, a painter from Japan, and a novelist from New York.

My ears perked up. A New York novelist? Where? Who was it? Someone famous? In my head, I started to rattle off the names of my favorite writers.

It took me a minute to realize he meant me. I was the novelist. I was a novelist.

Besides the sense of validation it brought, one of the perks of being a fellow at the Albee Foundation was how we got our mail. Since the colony had no regular postal delivery, all our letters came to Albees P.O. Box in town, which Edward Albee himself, who had a summer home nearby, would pick up and then drop off for us.

Yes, for one month, Edward Albee, arguably Americas greatest living playwright, was our mailman.

The aspiring playwright Id overheard calling me a novelist  lets call him Joe  had known even before arriving at the colony about this Edward-Albee-is-our-mailman arrangement, and because of this, hed ordered everyone he knew to write him letters at the colony. That way, Joe figured, the great playwright would see his name so often on the return address that it would stick in his mind.

It turned out that Albee was an elusive kind of mailman. Hed drive up to our house, quietly drop off the mail on the kitchen counter, and slip away. At first we thought he didnt like us. Later, we learned from the colonys caretaker this was because he didnt want to disturb us at work.

When Joe figured this out, he began doing his writing at a picnic table in front of the house, right next to the kitchen, and thats where hed sit all day, waiting for Albee to show up. You should try it, he told me. Theres another picnic table out there you can have. Its a bit further away, but you know, its there.

To further cement our bond with Edward Albee, Joe decided that we should host a dinner and invite our benefactor to come join us socially. We did, and Albee accepted the invitation. I was tasked with making the dessert, which was a challenge because Albee, who had diabetes, did not eat refined sugar.

The dinner was a great success. Albee arrived with his partner Jonathan, broke bread with us, and complimented the sugar-free summer fruit cobbler with a biscuit topping that Id made especially for him. Throughout the dinner, he maintained a polite unassuming presence, as if he were just a neighbor wed happened to invite to join us rather than a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

I was astounded when Albee mentioned that he remembered from my application that I was working on a story collection about Prague. He told me about when hed visited that city before the fall of the Iron Curtain. I attended a party where no one was there, he said ironically. All the other guests, dissident writers and artists, had been sentenced to internal banishment, declared non-existent entities by the Communist government.

After the great man left, Joe went around high fiving us all, whooping, jumping up and down. He suggested we all go to the one bar in town that was still open at that late hour and celebrate.

So we all piled into Joes car: me, the poet, the sculptor, and the painter from Japan, whose English was not the best, but certainly far superior to any of our Japanese. Along the way, we were all saying Edward Albee this, and Edward Albee, that. And suddenly the Japanese painter broke into the conversation because there was something he did not understand. He said, Joe, I keep hearing you mention this Mr. Edward Albee. Who is Edward Albee?

We explained that in addition to being, well, Edward Albee, he was the guy whom the colony was named after, the guy paying for us all to stay here. The guy who, despite all the fuss wed made over him, had maintained such a quiet, dignified reserve that our Japanese friend had had no idea of his extraordinary reputation.

Over the years, I have thought back many times to my time at the Albee Foundation, and specifically the comportment that Edward Albee had modeled for me, for all of us who want to pursue careers in the arts. Without words, he was letting us know, I am just like you. Writing is the work I do, not who I am. As a writer, he was famous. As a person, he was just the guy who brought us our mail, another guest at our dinner table. His calm and quiet good manners seem all the more extraordinary in our current day and age, when writers take to social media with the regularity that most people brush their teeth.

Several months after my first book came out, I got a letter in the mail, forwarded to me by my publisher. It was a handwritten note on heavy cream-colored stationary. I looked at the return address and realized it had come from Mr. Albee.

Dear Mr. Hamburger: he wrote, I just finished reading The View from Stalins Head. Such good work! Congratulations! Whats next? Regards, Edward Albee

I still have that note. And every once in a while, when I have trouble believing Im a real writer, I take out that piece of paper and then quietly get back to work.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
Happy New Year! January 2nd is a good day to talk about New Year's resolutions. Most of us are back to work or school and our ability to make changes for t...

8 years ago
Some well loved productions are rearing their heads once again in the West End over the autumn season. We've popped together a selection of the best revivals coming in the next few months, including how you can get your hands on some tickets for what are going to be the most popular shows in town.

Amadeus

Peter Shaffers acclaimed play Amadeus is coming to the Olivier Stage at The National Theatre. The play was first performed in 1979 and tells the tale of the lives of composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Slieri.

When it was first performed at The National Theatre it won multiple Olivier and Tony awards, and after 37 years the play is finally returning to its home. It stars Adam Gillen (Fresh Meat, Benidorm, and Prisoners Wives) as Mozart and Lucian Msamati (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) as Salieri.

Directed by Michael Longhurst (Constellations), the play is set to run from 19th October until 26th January 2017. The National Theatre is renowned for creating accessible, brilliant theatre; hundreds of tickets will be released at 15 for every show.

Tickets can be purchased here: https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/tickets/6635

The Libertine

Terry Johnsons version of The Libertine will return to The Theatre Royal Haymarket on 27th September and will run until 3rd December.

The revival stars Dominic Cooper as the Earl of Rochester. Set in London in the 1670s, this period piece follows John Wilmot (Dominic Cooper), a headstrong poet with an appetite for excess, as he meets an actress at the Playhouse who makes him change the way he thinks and feels.

Based on true events, the play premiered at the Theatre Royal Bath, where it got rave reviews. The Swindon Advertiser described Coopers performance as faultless and Listomania Bath said its a clever satire, outrageously funny

www.theatreroyal.org.uk Prices start from 24.50. For full details either visitor call 01225 448844.

The Dresser

Written by Academy award winning author, Sir Ronald Harwood, The Dresser will return to Londons Duke of York Theatre this October, starring Ken Stott and Reece Shearsmith.

The Dresser, set in World War II, follows a troubled classical actor known as Sir. His dresser, Norman, is challenged with getting him to return to the stage in King Lear.

The play explores the relationship of the two characters, both of whom are (reluctantly) dependent on one another.

The Dresser has been nominated for Tony Awards, Olivier Awards and an Academy Award for the screenplay of the film.

https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/show/the-dresser Tickets start from 15 and can be purchased here:

An Inspector Calls

Probably the most anticipated revival of the autumn, JB Priestleys classic thriller is returning to The National Theatre.

The story follows Inspector Goole as he arrives at the Birling home in Brumley to investigate the death of a young woman. The family are questioned about their connections to the death, and ultimately the audience are challenged to question their own conscience. The play has been seen by more than four million people worldwide.

An Inspector Calls is returning to The Playhouse London on 10th November and will be running until 4th February. Tickets can be purchased here: http://www.playhousetheatrelondon.com/an-inspector-calls/#ctt_search-2

The Mountaintop

Written by Katori Hall, Roy Alexander Weise directs the revival of this Olivier Award-winning play.

Set during the American Civil Rights Movement in 1968, the play follows Dr Martin Luther King Jr. as he spends his last day living. It focuses on the quieter moments of his life, looking at his legacy and legend and questions its impact on society.

Set to be poignant and heart-felt, the play will fun from 7th October until the 29th October at The Young Vic.
Were worried about Donald Trump and rightly so, but hes not the only right wing powerhouse with potential to wreak-havoc in world politics at present. Somebody else has an even darker agenda is already underway...

recent press conference Rodrigo Duterte, the President of the Philippines, spoke at aand asserted that If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have he tailed off and pointed to himself.

In-front of the assembled media at Davao he said Hitler massacred three million Jews. Theres three million drug addicts. There are. Id happily slaughter them.

Not only is this just about the vilest thing the politician could have said, it also immensely plays down the extent of the Holocaust and the scale of suffering it inflicted on Jewish people. Estimates range from six million to over 10 million Jewish deaths during the Nazis brutal and inhumane programme of extermination which they called the final solution.

incited violence This isnt the first time Duterte hasin his war on crime. After his election in May, while being sworn in as President, the 71-year-old told those in attendance If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful.

Dutertes career is also littered with such politically sensitive statements as Fuck you UN and on one occasion he called the Pope a son of a whore.

encouraging vigilantes He has been accused ofto kill criminals at will, but in some cases this actually garnered him more support as communities began to feel empowered in the face of organised crime. One resident of Davao told The Guardian that before Dutertes election there was criminality, a lot of chaos in the city.

revolutionary Government Seemingly then some have greeted the insensitive, ignorant authoritarian with open arms and indeed the Philippines have suffered at the hands of organised drug crime in the past. However Dutertes caricature version of governance has already gone too far and threatens to go still further. Duterte has in-fact previously threatened to create ain order to pass further authoritarian reform.

My victims - I would like them to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country was another stark reminder of Rodrigo Dutertes un-compromisingly fascist outlook. That particular statement, viewed next to his keen willingness to compare himself to Hitler, cant help but attract comparison to the Nazis wartime policy of giving Jews in Germany a Star of David which they had to wear in public at all times as a mark of their religion.

This sort of forceful creation of societal divisions has been historically, and still is, a powerful tool for those desirous of the creation of hatred for a given group. In this case drug addicts are criminalised, despite in many cases essentially being victims of criminals themselves.

Russel Brands Consider this in stark comparison to - for example -argument (which is supported by quite a lot of research,) that drug addiction is an illness rather than a crime.

The star of stage and screen who has himself overcome drug addiction describes it as an illness in his semi-autobiographical, political work Revolution. He has also been involved in advising MPs on the subject, and argues more understanding is necessary to really address the problem of addiction.

Previously stating to a drug addict, the legal aspect is irrelevant. If you need to get drugs, you will, Brand has been branded as overly liberal but is far from a proponent of illegal drugs.

He argues that drug addicts become drug addicts because of the prevailing, unpleasant and unavoidable conditions in their lives. They are forced towards drugs rather than actively seeking them as a leisure pursuit or lifestyle choice. Consider then the thousands of drug addicts who have already reportedly been killed by Dutertes heavy-handed police force. Consider the fact he actively desires comparison with Adolf Hitler, the man who oversaw one of Europes largest genocides. Consider also that he was willing to call those he was killing and persecuting his victims - does that terminology not imply some sort of awareness that he is in fact not in the right?

Duterte is a beacon of hatred in the politics of the modern world. Hes the sort of figure that reminds us that the reality of Donald Trumps electoral promises in America (though they thankfully arent as extreme as those of the ageing Filipino) could be so, so divisive and as a result, so dangerous.
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New Phuket Governor Chockchai arrives

PHUKET: The islands new governor, Chockchai Dejamornthan, arrived at Phuket International Airport along with his wife, Ms Raweewan, this morning (Sept 30) to be warmly received by a host of Phuket high-ranking officials.

politicsculture

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Friday 30 September 2016, 01:23PM

New Phuket Governor Chockchai Dejamornthan arrived on the island this morning (Sept 30) and made paying homage to the islands famed two Heroines his first priority. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

New Phuket Governor Chockchai Dejamornthan arrived on the island this morning (Sept 30) and made paying homage to the islands famed two Heroines his first priority. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

New Phuket Governor Chockchai Dejamornthan arrived on the island this morning (Sept 30) and made paying homage to the islands famed two Heroines his first priority. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

New Phuket Governor Chockchai Dejamornthan arrived on the island this morning (Sept 30) and made paying homage to the islands famed two Heroines his first priority. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

Gov Chockchai arrived at 11:30am and made his first stop at the Heroines Monument to pay homage to and to be bestowed blessings from the spirits of the islands historical saviours for his new post in Phuket.

At 5pm, Gov Chockchai will join devotees at Jui Tui Shrine in Phuket Town for the lantern-pole raising ceremony to mark the beginning of this years Phuket Vegetarian Festival.

On his first official day as Governor of Phuket, Gov Chockchai tomorrow (Oct 1) will meet with local officials and residents at Provincial Hall at 10am.

Phukets outgoing Governor, Chamroen Tipayapongtada, left the island yesterday to take up his new post as Governor of the Southern Thailand province Nakhon Sri Thammarat after a formal farewell to officials and local residents at Provincial Hall yesterday afternoon.
One dead, 114 hurt as New Jersey train crash causes major damage

UNITED STATES: A speeding commuter train that plowed into a New Jersey station during morning rush hour Thursday (Sept 29), killing one person and injuring 114, has caused major destruction at the transport hub and gateway to Manhattan.

accidentstransport

By AFP

Friday 30 September 2016, 08:56AM

Passengers rush to safety after a NJ Transit train crashed in to the platform at the Hoboken Terminal on September 29, 2016. Photo: AFP

The train entered the Hoboken station at a high rate of speed and "crashed through the barriers, bringing it into the interior wall of the terminal, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said.

A 34-year-old resident of Hoboken, who state medical examiners identified as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, was standing on the platform when she was hit and killed by debris from the crash, Christie told CNN. She was the sole confirmed fatality.

The trains engineer was treated at a local hospital before being released and was cooperating with an investigation into the crash, he said.

We have no indication that this is anything but a tragic accident, Christie said.

Was it a system failure? Was it human error? Was it a medical emergency involving the engineer? We don't know.

Video and photos on social media showed serious damage to the transit choke point just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, with the train tangled in wires and debris from what appeared to be caved-in portions of the roof.

The Hoboken terminal is a major transfer point for New Jersey trains and buses as well as ferries and the PATH commuter train that take passengers to New York.

Difficult times

Kenneth Garay, chief medical officer at Jersey City medical centre, said surgeons were all hands on deck treating patients with broken bones, internal injuries and lacerations.

None at this point are life-threatening, he said on CNN. Theyre critical and stable and being carefully monitored.

A total of 114 people were injured, Christie told the station. Of those, 55 were treated by emergency responders, while another 22 were transported to hospitals and 37 were walk-ins.

He said he had been contacted by the White House and was working with federal, state and local authorities to make sure this investigation is seamless and coordinated.

Structural damage and the possible presence of asbestos had prevented investigators from accessing the train cars, Bella Dinh-Zarr, vice chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters.

Investigators would spend seven to 10 days on site, she added, saying they hoped to find the trains event recorder  which would contain information about speed and braking  later in the day.

Horrible accident

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she was terribly upset this morning.

Its a horrible accident, the former New York senator said at a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa. I just want to send our thoughts and prayers.

Donald Trump also expressed his sympathies with the victims on Twitter.

My condolences to those involved in todays horrible accident in NJ and my deepest gratitude to all of the amazing first responders, the Republican candidate said.

Appearing alongside Christie was New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who cancelled a trip to Israel for the funeral of former president Shimon Peres.

These are difficult times over these past weeks and months, between terrorist attacks and natural disasters, Cuomo said, referring to a recent string of bombings in New York and New Jersey.

Pretty chaotic

Train 1614 was arriving from Spring Valley, New York when it struck the Hoboken terminal building around 8:45am (1245 GMT), the New Jersey Transit agency said in a statement.

Passengers described a scene of chaos with dazed and bloodied people making their way to safety.

We crashed and the lights went out. A few people screamed, Leon Offengenden told CNN.

It was pretty chaotic, he added. And people just in shock and everybody has photos and cameras out and iPads. It was pretty intense.

Passengers described the train  which was carrying around 250 people  ramming full speed into the bumper at the end of the track.

We never slowed down, Jim Finan, a commuter from New Jersey, told Fox News. We ploughed, I mean, right through the bumper.

Investigators will be looking for similarities to a 2011 PATH commuter train crash at Hoboken that injured several dozen people, Dinh-Zarr said.

Christie said engineers were examining the structural integrity of the Hoboken terminal, which underwent lengthy repairs after being hit during Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

The last major train crash in the United States took place in May 2015, when an Amtrak train linking Washington to New York derailed in Philadelphia, killing eight and injuring 200.

In December 2013, a New York suburban train derailed in the Bronx while travelling at several times the speed limit, leaving four people dead and more than 60 injured.
11AAA semis will be awesome and more from HS football quarterfinals
By Jon Sundby

sundbyjo17@grinnell.edu

Throughout his long career, the modern sculptor Alexander Archipenko, moved quite a bit  both physically and artistically. Born in Ukraine in 1887, Archipenko traveled to Paris and Berlin at the turn of the 20th century to discover cubism. Later, he found himself in New York, attempting to combine his modernist art with the new technology of the era. And as the years floated by, he ended up in the woods of upstate New York, teaching art and working on a new wave of avant-garde sculptures. And now his work is on the move once again, this time settling in Grinnell for a semester long installation at Faulconer Gallery.

While still modern, Archipenkos exhibit is a departure from past installations at Faulconer due to its age and style. Usually, the gallery hosts artists that are still in their artistic prime, and rarely do they bring in sculpture. Yet, Lesley Wright, Director of Faulconer Gallery, and Daniel Strong, Associate Director, were excited to change the usual lineup, and have been waiting on this show to come to Grinnell for three years now. Brought here by the Archipenko Foundation, the exhibit is on a long tour that has stopped at Penn State and Jacksonville, Fl., and will soon be off to Denmark and Sweden.

We have a very active sculpture program here, and we havent shown a whole lot of it. We also dont collect it  so Im hoping that when students come in theyll see things that they cant see elsewhere on campus and they havent seen a whole lot in the 17 years weve been here, Strong said.

When students do come into the exhibit this Friday, theyll be greeted by one of Archipenkos most famous statues, Dancers, right as they pass through the doorway. Distinguishing itself from the rest of the artists work through its incorporation of movement, the thin forms are portrayed as if midway through a step, which leads to an illusion of the figures pushing themselves away from the pedestal. The rest of Archipenkos collection, in contrast, is comprised of still, abstract figures that rest on a singular focus.

He [always] remains faithful to the subject matter, the female form Strong said. Milton Severe, director of exhibition design, was a little blunter in this regard, He liked girls, Severe said with a laugh.

While his muse stayed the same throughout his life, Archipenko rearranged his style often. He was always interested in the newest trends in the art world and would constantly experiment with materials and forms. As one walks through the exhibit, which is largely organized chronologically, it is easy to see how a new boldness infused with his work towards the end of his life. The artist that used to focus on rendering the body so accurately, eventually created statues that represented the human figure in metaphor only. This lifelong commitment to experimentation has won Archipenko the distinction of being a divisive artist whose work draws passionate responses from both admirers and critics. Yet, despite the mixed reactions to his art, Archipenkos real legacy lies in his teaching ability and the characteristics and passion that he transmitted to his students.

I think his legacy comes in all these other people being willing to experiment and take that into the future, said Wright. Hes not so influential by what he did, but rather than by who he was and how he taught, added Strong.

Archipenko: A Modern Legacy opens today and will run until Dec. 11. An opening reception will be held from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in Faulconer Gallery.
By Michael Cummings

cummings@grinnell.edu

While Grinnell students who live on the coast frequently complain about Iowas distinct lack of water, the state has just enough water to cause trouble. Over the past couple of weeks, heavy rainfall has led to severe flooding in the northeastern parts of the state, including Cedar Rapids, Iowas second-largest city.

Although many people have been displaced and much property has been destroyed, this is not the worst flood in Iowa history. Many across the state, particularly in eastern Iowa, remember the flood of 2008, which racked up over 60 billion dollars in damages.

The one in 2008 was 31.12 feet, which was the highest in recorded history, said Greg Buelow, public safety spokesperson for the City of Cedar Rapids, before adding that the current flood is not as bad. This one ranks number two. It topped out at right around 22 feet, so again, that would be the second largest crest in the history of the Cedar River since they started keeping track.

While there was some damage in Cedar Rapids, the toll was not nearly as bad as it was in 2008. Buelow attributes that to better planning and preparedness.

Back in 2008, we had 10 percent of the community that was impacted by actual floodwaters, Buelow said before explaining their preparation techniques this time around. We have a temporary flood protection system that consists of earthen berms, levees and Hesco barriers  that were put in place, and it seems like it kept out the damage significantly.

Buelow noted that their efforts have paid off.

I mean we have hardly any homes that have been impacted by water other than a handful of businesses that were on the wet side of the temporary flood protection, he said. But the temporary flood protection measures held, and it was a remarkable achievement. They were built over the course of 48 to 72 hours with city employees, contractors and volunteers who just worked around the clock and built this temporary flood protection, and it was a remarkable achievement. It held the waters back.

Another mark of Cedar Rapids preparedness was the coordination of the citys various emergency response crews.

Our police and fire departments more or less established an instant command post, and what it is is the equivalent of an emergency operations center where they coordinate all their responses, Buelow said. They get all the different departments that are going to be directly involved in responding to a potential flood, and what they do is they coordinate, they plan and then they prepare their response.

City departments werent the only ones responding to this flood. In Cedar Rapids and the other affected communities, Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department (HSEMD), a state office responsible for responding to natural disasters, has been hard at work.

We utilize state resources to supplement any response efforts that are going on down at the local level, said John Benson, a spokesperson for HSEMD. So if a county or city at the local end have a specific resource need that they dont have available to themselves, or some type of expertise, we have resources at the state level that we can provide.

While much media attention has been given to the Cedar Rapids area, Buelow clarified that Cedar Rapids was far from the only area affected.

You need to focus on a couple of river basins. The first ones obviously going to be the Cedar River basin, which runs all the way from Charles City [in northern Iowa]  into the Mississippi. Were also interested in whats going on in the Wapsipinicon [River] basin, which is in roughly that same type of area, Buelow said.

While the affected areas are relatively far from Grinnell, according to Buelow, there are plenty of opportunities for concerned Grinnellians to help. He encouraged anyone who wants to make a difference to visit the United Way of east central Iowas website at www.uweci.org.

Above all else, Buelow expressed gratitude for the many volunteers who have stepped up to the plate.

This really is a testament to how great this state is, Buelow said. We have people from all over, donating personnel, equipment, coming in to fill sandbags. We have four-year-olds filling sand bags.
By Mira Berkson

berksonm@grinnell.edu

McIntosh Woods State Park in Ventura, Iowa has temporarily added 40 furry, adorable and hard-working helpers to its ecosystem: goats. The goats are good for much more than their looks and charming demeanor; they were placed in the state park to graze and eat invasive species, which increase diversity of the plants in the park and allow for more native species to thrive. Aaron Steele, co-owner of Goats on the Go, the company that provides the goats, explained the goats purpose.

The main benefits of using goats are that they offset the use of herbicides and mechanization, Steele said. The goats are very light-footed and dont cause much in the way of erosion, and they replace a lot of human labor working in dangerous conditions like steep slopes and thick woods and lots of poison ivy. Goats just thrive in those conditions.

Tammy Domonoske, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) park ranger for McIntosh, elaborated on why she turned to goat labor.

Since I had been working on my ecosystem management plan for many years and never being able to get ahead of the invasive species problem, Domonoske wrote in an email to The S&B, I decided I would try prescribed grazing to devour the nuisance vegetation faster and to see results quickly.

Goats on the Go isnt the company to pilot this innovative and environmentally-friendly way of combating problem vegetation. Steele spoke of how there are goat providers across the United States, especially in the west.

[Goats on the Go] saw very few providers in the Midwest, and none in Iowa, Steele said.

They kick started their Ames-based company by raising just a few goats, and now they have about 300 goats, with plans to expand even further.

We use the goats for conservation land management, so for state parks, county conservation boards, managing brush and woodlands. That typically tends to be larger scale projects, Steele said.

Bigger projects can use goats by the hundreds, so even the seemingly large project thats happening in McIntosh is considered small compared to other undertakings that the company has tackled. Forty goats can eat an acre in about three to five days, according to Steele.

Over the course of several grazing seasons and with other techniques along the way, my goals are to eliminate most of the invasive species such as common buckthorn, honeysuckle, autumn olive, Virginia creeper and grapevine that have taken over the woodlands, Steele said.

[The] long term goal would be to create an oak savanna forest and a much healthier, more diverse native woodland within McIntosh Woods State Park.

In addition to all of the environmental benefits of the creatures, the goats are adorable and are likely to melt the hearts of any passerby, making for a great way to engage the public.

This project has been a rewarding, positive experience. It has drawn people outside into the state park and the great outdoors that wouldnt necessarily visit, and from many miles, just to view the working goats! Domonoske wrote. In the process, they discovered new elements that they did not know existed, whether that be the wildlife viewing blind in the wetland, a bridge over a small creek, the scenery or the yurt cabins.  They all have been eager to hear and see the story about how the goats are assisting us with natural resource management.

McIntosh is a public park, so Grinnell students and community members can visit to see the goats in action, though these hooved and horned friends will only be at McIntosh for a couple more weeks before they are off on their next eating endeavor.

However, anyone can scroll through the Iowa DNRs Facebook page for a GoatPro video to get a goats-eye-view of the park.
Everyone reading this article is (probably) a human. But what exactly does that mean? On Thursday, sociologist John Evans gave a talk on campus on what it means to be human. This week, the S&Bs Cassidy Hilburn talked with Evans about his research.

The S&B: How would you describe your presentation? What is your visit encapsulating?

John Evans: So theres this basic concept of human rights, freedom from torture, freedom from starvation, people have expanded this into broader ways  freedom of education, etc. but these are the basics. To think of a human as having human rights, you have to think of that person of having unlimited worth of some kind, some sacred status  Philosophers have long been looking for a reason as to why you would treat an individual as sacred. For the past hundred years, philosophers, social scientists and various humanists have been concerned that a lot of things like biomedical technology and the like are slowly making us think of a new definition of what a human is and moving away from definitions of the human that allow for the sacredness and into thinking of humans as more like objects.

The S&B: What is your background? What led you to this topic of research?

JE: I was an undergraduate at one of your rivals, Macalester College, and I was a political science and philosophy double major. I then went to graduate school and I have a PhD in sociology, but focusing on the sociology of religion. Im a card-carrying sociologist of religion  My entire career has been dedicated to identifying the parts of those humanistic traditions that are actually, secretly, implicitly, social science questions and trying to examine them. So an earlier book I did was on what people think of reproductive technologies. Bioethicists would say religious people would be opposed to genetically modifying the human species, but the answer is thats not correct: There are certain people who are completely against the destroying of embryos, but moving beyond that there are certain people, very limited population, who believe that any reproduction that happens outside of the body is wrong, but the majority of ordinary religious people in America arent opposed to genetic modification per se, but the difference between secular and religious people are that secular people say we should decide what these modifications should be and religious people say what would God want us to do? And typically, its that God would want us to cure these horrible diseases. So again, its taking these theological, bioethical debate and saying what can a social scientist contribute to this? And this book is in that same vein.

The S&B: What do you gain from your interdisciplinary discipline  that is, applying a sociologists lens to issues generally studied by philosophers, theologians or bioethicists?

JE: I think its incredibly exciting be doing something thats really novel and new, yet based upon existing ideas that have been around for a hundred years. For example, in theology  Christian theology, more than Judaism or Islam  they debate between are we created by God, co-creators with God, co-created creations with nature  That said, theres a downside to this, which is that disciplines do not take timely to interlopers. Theres no way, no matter how prepared I am, that I have a PhD level understanding of philosophy, of theology, etc. I dont. So someone will always say, you arent characterizing the problem properly, or you dont understand what we mean by this. And when I say, I totally accept that  I dont have a PhD in philosophy but Im doing my best. That interdisciplinary conversation, especially across what I would call a normative empirical divide is very difficult. But I think its of critical importance, its like all social science is only relevant if its at least implicitly connected to some humanistic concern.

The S&B: What are the potential effects of the finding of your research on the changing perceptions of humans is on society?

JE: A lot of the concern by bioethicists and sociologists and feminist critics of technology over the past 50 years has been about what is called geneticization, which is thinking of the human as a sequence of genes that lead to certain capacities. The concern is that the more people who talk about human in genetic terms, the more you are teaching the public this genetic version of the human which is theorized to have pernicious effects on how you view regular, walking around humans you interact with. The genetics revolutions in reproduction is essentially accelerating, with all these new technologies like CRISPR-Cas9 and different ways of interfering with genetic sequences. People are going to be hearing more and more about designer babies or things of that nature, and this is not a joke  you can already design a baby  at present I think most of the design were taking of, people would morally approve of.

The S&B: What was the process of writing this book, and what came out of it that surprised you?

JE: The process was that I conducted 90 in-depth interviews with Americans and a 3,000 person public opinion poll and matched that data together. A couple things surprised me. One is that I was frankly surprised that I did find evidence of this effect, that thinking of a human in particular ways would lead to thinking of humans like an object  Another was, I saw inductively in in-depth interviews the rise of type of perspective on the human that doesnt exist in humanistic literature at all which is that humans are those we decide are humans. That has some potentially negative ramifications, so socially on the one hand thats probably exactly how it work; we in a social group, collectively, have decided that dogs are not humans and are currently in the process of reevaluating chimpanzees and such, and we have decided that the people around us are humans. But to take that on as your normative position, that thats the way it should be, raises issues like what if we collectively decided that that person is not a human?  So, it worried me that there was a subset of the population that endorsed this view of human, not that theyre going to go out and commit genocide but it seemed to me a very dangerous and touchy aspect of my research.
Natalie Rothman, associate professor of history at the University of Toronto, visited Grinnell last Monday night to share the story of a torrid love affair in early modern Istanbul. Rothmans presentation analyzed a same-sex relationship between a dragoman, or Ottoman translator-diplomat, and Venetian barber in the sixteenth century Venetian embassy. By means of this microhistory, Rothman makes a case that the affair speaks to the role of domesticity and transimperialism in early modern diplomacy. The S&Bs Emma Friedlander sat down with Rothman to discuss her research, historical gender roles and the modern invention of East and West.

The S&B: What is significant about this particular case study in early modern Istanbul?

Natalie Rothman: The paper revolves around a case study or microhistory of a love affair between two young men working for the Venetian representative in Istanbul in 1588. Its based on a transcript that I found of the Venetian representative  the bailo  interrogating 16 men who were current or previous resident employees of his house to testify about the nature of this love affair, what they had seen, what they knew. I was trying to use this case as a lens on broader questions about early modern diplomacy, about interactions between local Ottoman subjects and people coming from Venice all living and working together in the house, about different perceptions of sexuality and tensions around authority.

The S&B: You were trained as a historical anthropologist. What does that mean and how does it inform your approach to history?

NR: The program I was trained in was trying to give us grounding both in social theory and anthropological approaches and methodologies.  Most importantly, always thinking of questions of scale and the relationship between different units of analysis.  To give an example related to my research, not to assume that because the case is taking place in Istanbul then everything we need to know only takes place in Istanbul. People are always connected in all sorts of ways to broader processes and also broader temporalities.  We might identify as belonging to a certain religious community, to a certain gender, to a certain race, those kinds of things. What anthropology allows me to do as a historian is to always ask about the genealogies of these categories.

The S&B: You stressed in your talk that when studying transnational history, its important to understand context as a multidirectional process rather than as a binary. Why is this especially important when looking at the early modern Middle East?

NR: I think its especially important because you quickly realize that there is no such thing as the early modern Middle East. The Middle East is really an invention of modern imperial dynamics. What you have in the early modern period is an Ottoman empire that controls three-quarters of the Mediterranean and is very much integrated economically and culturally, I would argue, with its neighbors, whether its to the west, or what we now understand as the West or Europe and which is of course itself an invention of the precise same period, or in the East  Of course, thats part of the legacy of imperialism, that we find it very difficult to imagine a world where there is no such thing as East versus West. These categories simply are not useful for studying periods prior to the 18th century. It doesnt work in any sense.

The S&B: Youre not a historian of sexuality, but sexuality does of course play a significant role in this case study. What did the additional layer of sexuality and gender roles add to your greater study of transimperialism or diplomacy?

NR: I started this detective work of finding the women in records that were always ostensibly about men. I found this particular transcript that talked about this love affair and immediately began to wonder, given everything we know about diplomacy in this period and just how excluded women are from these spaces of diplomacy, how to think of homosociality, the gendered practices of living in segregated spaces, as something that is significant to this love affair. Its not so much about causality or arguing that because there are no women, there is a love affair between men. I think thats ridiculous. But it is about thinking of both the implications of the case and the kinds of understanding of the body and of the self in this homosocial space that might be relevant for how the protagonists understood themselves, how we can explain the fact that one of them is very strongly punished and sent to exile basically while the other one is sent home for a while and then brought back and goes on to have a wonderful long career in the service of the Venetians. Gender is very important there precisely because one of them is so plugged into this patronage network that is essentially about women, where women are very dominant in the political and economic underpinnings of Venetian diplomacy.

The S&B: Wheres your research headed from here?

NR: This is one of the opening chapters of a book Im hoping to finish very soon, which gives the history of dragomans, these diplomatic interpreter-translators, working for the Venetians as well as for other embassies in early modern Istanbul.

The S&B: What draws you to the dragomans as a subject?

NR: I think they do play an important role in the genealogy of orientalism  but allow us to move away from a model of orientalism as something that hapless Europeans impose on the silent Middle East out of their own misunderstandings and misconceptions and malevolent will to power, and rather understands orientalism as something that emerges out of very intense interactions between political and intellectual elites from different places.
By Steve Yang

yangstev17@grinnell.edu

The Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers (UGSDW) has voted to support a tentative agreement that would raise the hourly base wage from $8.50 to $9.25 for all student employees of the Marketplace Dining Hall and provide an additional 75 cents per hour based on hours of experience. The agreement will go into effect on Oct. 1, following President Kingtons official submission of approval. The agreement will provide 265 employees  both students and full time workers  with a 9 percent wage increase.

I am pleased that with this agreement, students will finally have an easier time contributing to their education, wrote union President Cory McCartan 19 in a press release. He cited rising tuition and stagnant wages as erod[ing] the relative value of work-study wages by over 25 percent.

McCartan began investigating wages paid at Grinnell versus industry standards after he noticed that approximately one in six shifts were not covered at the dining hall and then decided to establish a union for students. The union was formed in March of this year and received recognition from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after a month-long process.

The cards  authorize the union to represent [students], McCartan said. Thirty percent [of the student workers signing] is sufficient, and [we] got about 45 percent to sign. We went to the [NLRB] in mid-April, notified the College and board about gaining enough interest to get a certification and an election was held on May 5. With a 91 percent margin [in favor], the union was  recognized by the board seven days after the vote.

Student workers who were asked about representation in the union were initially hesitant to sign their name onto the union authorization cards, citing concerns about retaliation, unions themselves, paying dues or spending time in meetings. McCartan and union Secretary Rachel Bass 19 dispelled these notions, leading to a swift influx of new members.

People would say, I dont want to get fired, I like my job as it is, and thats understandable. But union activity is protected by federal labor laws, McCartan said. Because Iowa is a right-to-work state, you cant require people to pay dues or join unions. Were entirely worker run, and there are no dues. Once we decided to go that direction, it was easy for people to see a lot of upside with minimal downside.

Another concern was fairness for career staff, as some students suggested the union was too student-focused and should allow for non-student workers as well.

It was hard to explain that career staff jobs and student jobs are in different units, and we cant be the ones to organize them, Bass said. Some people were against the union because it wasnt inclusive enough, but for legal reasons we cant do that.

McCartan said that he felt students assuming the career staff also wanted to unionize would be presumptive, and that the unions formal position was to avoid actively encouraging other staff to unionize, unless there was support and interest from those employees. He also criticized the notion that the students unionization process would be detrimental to any attempts by non-student workers to unionize should the latter group choose to do so.

Career staff and student staff wage raises are not zero sum. They have a different set up  and we didnt feel it was our place to make a judgment on that, McCartan said. Also, our unionizing now does not make it harder for them to unionize later. In fact, it could make it easier, as our own union shows cooperation from the College and would make it easier for others to follow.

Union members brought a bevy of different issues to the table, including better training, health safety and overall job security. After numerous calls with The College over the summer, negotiations sped up surrounding McCartans wage goal: students working an average of ten hours a week should make 5 percent of a schools tuition in fees, a wage that comes out as $10.12 an hour.

The whole process was give and take, as negotiations usually are. Nobody walked in expecting $10.12, but we didnt want to approach negotiations  with no overlap for cooperation, McCartan said.

Eventually, student dining hall workers reached an agreement through a vote on Sunday, Aug. 25. In addition to the new base wage being set at $9.25 an hour, students who commit 110 hours a semester will get back pay at the end of the semester for $0.25 per hour. A second semester working 110 hours will result in an additional $0.50 per hour of back pay and a third semester will result in $0.75 per hour, the upper limit. Student shift leaders will also enjoy bonus pay and make $10.00 an hour under the new policy.

Bass added that the College was extremely cooperative with the union, even proposing the tiered bonus system without prompting.

Knowing we had support was really valuable, Bass said. Im grateful to the school for not shutting us down when we were five or seven members.

She added that the union negotiations have made her feel less cynical about the power of groups working together to get things done and optimistic about extending the unions achievements towards including the interests of Spencer Grill and catering workers as well.

We didnt initially make it that way because it was difficult enough to get it started for the Marketplace, Bass said. I would like to see us include all three components of Grinnell dining.

McCartan remarked that the union will be in charge of re-negotiating the payment contract every year and that union representatives are being trained for the new negotiation process set to begin again next April.

This article was originally published on Tuesday, Sept. 27. An update was published on Thursday, Sept. 29.
Stage Four, the fourth full length release from the LA Post-Hardcore quintet Touche Amore, is an album like no other experienced since the emergence of the Washington D.C.-based Hardcore movement. On this new album, Amore transgress the boundaries of both genre and lyricism, creating an end product with the melodic satisfaction of artists like The Smiths intertwined with the unhinged passion of Jeremy Bolms vocal delivery.

Bolms lyricism has been a major part of the groups dynamic ever since their debut release, To the Beat of a Dead Horse. He is able to write with sentiment and raw emotion, similar to that of Sufjan Stevens on his beautiful 2015 release Carrie and Lowell, while also applying it to harsh post-hardcore instrumentation provided by guitarists Clayton Stevens and Nick Steinhardt, bassist Tyler Kirby and drummer Elliot Babin. The group formed in 2007 and have consistently toured ever since, quickly becoming known for their hyper-energetic live sets as well as their introspective lyrics.

On Stage Four, the dense lyrics compound to form a fitting eulogy to Bolms mother, Sandra, who passed away from cancer in 2014. The title of the album takes on a double meaning, reflecting both where the band is sonically (this is the bands fourth full-length album) and also the stage of cancer Bolms mother suffered from. Often artists find it difficult to tackle such heavy subjects, preferring to use metaphors and impersonal, third person narratives to present ideas and emotions. However, this is not the case at all for Bolm, who gives us full access into the pain and anguish he had been suffering since his mothers passing.

The album begins with the song Flowers and you, a sentimental apology from Bolm to his late mother for not taking better care of her through her illness. The song finishes with the line:

Ive kept it bottled up and to myself in the cellar/ Kept for my ever changing mental health

Through these lyrics, Bolm demonstrates how suppressing emotions, especially grief and depression, is not the way to cope with loss. Instead, he has chosen to share his experience with the whole world as a better means of dealing with the pain he felt.

The chords billowing within the intro of the next song, New Halloween, release an energy thats reminiscent of an early The Story So Far with its mix of raw intensity and pure melody. As Bolm cries Somehow it has already been a year, the bright guitars and driving drum and bass crescendo, adding to the pace and intensity of the track. The contrast between the introspective lyrics and upbeat tempo demonstrates the chaos of a tumultuous year in which Bolm is trying to come to terms with his loss.

On Eight Seconds, he sings passionately: She passed away an hour ago while you were on stage living the dream. This line perfectly encapsulates the forces at work throughout the whole album  Bolms constant search for redemption as a result of not being there for her throughout her illness. He explores his own selfishness and admits his own mistakes, an accomplishment very few artists can be recognized for.

The album reaches its climax with the closing track Skyscraper, on which Julien Baker guests with her eloquent and heart-wrenching vocals, adding a layer of optimism against a backdrop of snarling pain. This song adds a sense of closure to the record, with Bolm finally coming to peace with himself while reminiscing about the time he spent with his mother wandering the streets of New York City. Bolm forces the listener to recognize that we mustnt only focus on the negatives of a given situation, but rather remember the whole picture and ultimately allow ourselves to make mistakes and learn from them.

Touche Amore are currently on a US Tour and are set to play Des Moines, IA on Oct. 14. The album Stage Four is out now on Epitaph Records.
John Krasinski and Margo Martindale star in "The Hollars," which Krasinski also directed.
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New Jersey Transit workers lay down pallets and boards for commuters to walk on a flooded hallway adjacent to the site of a train crash at the Hoboken Terminal, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, in Hoboken, N.J. Commuters are using alternative travel in and out of Hoboken a day after a commuter train crashed into the rail station, killing one person and injuring more than 100 people. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
But the tribe has a long way to go
Sri Lanka on Friday expressed its unwillingness to attend the upcoming Saarc Summit in Islamabad, saying the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the summit.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Colombo, in a statement, said that the Saarc Charter requires that decisions at all levels are taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States as well.



"Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia. As a founding member of Saarc, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensure our region's peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation," it said.



Sri Lanka condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, and stresses in this regard, the need to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region in a decisive manner, the statement said.



Sri Lanka's unwillingness to attend comes three days after India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan wrote to Nepal the current Chair of Saarc, conveying they are pulling out of the Saarc Summit, citing rising terrorism in the region.



With this, five members of the eight-member South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation have pulled out of the summit.


Artist and curator Bose Krishnamachari doesnt seem ruffled by the daunting task of curating the first biennale in Yinchuan, the capital of the Ningxia province of China. On the first day of the biennale which is titled For An Image, Faster Than Light and is taking place from September 9 to December 18, I see him loping about the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), where it is taking place, in a leisurely fashion, often with his arm around a friend, occasionally pausing to oblige a shutterbug or a reporter, always with a smile on his face. I ask him whether he was nervous.

No, I wasnt nervous, he says. Although putting up such a large project in 18 days was a challenge.

A curated show is like a nerve system, he says. You need to understand exactly where to place a work and how to decide what work goes next to it. Understanding lighting and space is very important, he says. I was also interested in the detailing. When you conceptualise such a project, the architecture is dominating. You need to overcome that domination within the structure itself. I have treated it almost like the flow of a river; focusing on the fluid nature of the architecture and interiors.

There are two qualities which distinguish Krishnamachari. Hes fully committed to the projects he takes on, whether it is in Kochi or Yinchuan. I have had to give up many things but I dont regret any of it, he says. I have a wonderful family but I dont spend much time with them. This is a kind of sacrifice Ive had to make. He is also a highly futuristic thinker, right from the beginning when he put up a show called AmUseuM in Mumbai in 1992, piling up books in sculptural forms and burning them, at a time when people didnt spend much on art productions. He focuses not just on the product but also on the process, ideating on interesting themes. In his show De-Curating, for example, he spent three years travelling across India, meeting and interacting with Indian artists and creating a canon of 94 sketches and paintings of them.

From a village in Kerala, where he says he lived like the proverbial frog in the pond, thinking he knew everything, he moved to Mumbai in 1985 to study at the J.J. School of Art and thats where his journey started. He calls Mumbai the university of his life. I used to go to Jehangir Art Gallery and watch all the exhibitions, good and bad, and occasionally help artists like Nalini Malani and Vivan Sundaram put up their shows, he says.

Art for arts sake: Yang Hongwei is displaying a panel of wood engraving.

But perhaps his biggest achievement was curating the first Kochi-Muziris biennale in 2012 in which more than 75 artists took part. One might call it the stepping stone to Yinchuan, as it was at a talk he gave about the Kochi biennale in Tokyo that Suchen Hsieh, artistic director of the MOCA, approached him about curating a biennale in Yinchuan. Always ready for a challenge, he took on the project, bringing together more than 70 artists from 34 countries.

Yinchuan is a city in the northwest of China and the capital of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. It was originally founded more than 1,300 years ago and is inhabited by many ethnic groups like Han, Hui, Manchu and Mongolian people. It also has a considerable Islamic population and used to be a stop in the silk route. Upon your first glimpse of Yinchuan, en route to the museum, it seems bleached of character, full of tree-lined avenues, wide roads and identical sky scrapers. It could have been a city anywhere in the world.

As Damian Christinger, a gallerist and freelance exhibition organiser from Zurich, said: Here is a museum in the middle of nowhere. In 10 years, it could be the centre of a new city. Usually, museums come up to capture the atmosphere of a city. Here, it is the other way around. Youre starting a city with a museum.

I would have been inclined to agree with him if we hadnt got a chance to explore the city by night. We went downtown, to a square surrounding the drum tower, about an hour from the museuman area full of pagodas, pavilions and mosquesa wonderful amalgam of traditional Chinese and Islamic architecture. The place was brimming with life: a shaggy street musician strumming soulful numbers, a man drawing portraits by a sausage stall, two flash dances with middle-aged men and women sashaying down the pathway and, a little way off, a traditional street play with the drumbeats reminding me of a Kathakali performance.

Window to the soul: Chinese artist Song Dongs sculptural installation.

The MOCA, encompassing 15,000 square metres, is situated along the western banks of the Yellow River and surrounded by natural wetlands. The museum, with its clean lines, smooth planes and minimalistic interiors, looks a little like a spaceship from a Star Trek flick stationed in an organic paddy field. It is the first contemporary art museum along the Yellow River in northwest China. The biennale consisted of a diverse mix of artworks ranging from science-related projects to prints, new media works, photographs, installations, videos and sculptures. Most of the pieces were highly conceptual. Australian artist Tim Silver, for example, exhibited a striking nude of timbermate woodfiller with accompanying photographs. Lisa Reihana, a multi-disciplinary artist of Maori descent, showed a dark video installation of 14 minutes called Tai WhetukiHouse of Death Redux, which delineated Maori and Pacific cultural practices pertaining to death and mourning. Some works were autobiographical, like that of Boedi Widjaja, an artist from Singapore. In his work, Lay down your weapon, follow me, he created an installation of 28 pecis (a type of cap worn in Indonesia and popularised by Sukarno as a symbol of nationalism) arrayed on a vintage camera tripod and custom brass support. He had to leave his family in Indonesia because of ethnic tension in 1984. The peci is used as the symbol of an identity he was supposed to have.

A residency programme for artists ran concurrently with the biennale at MOCAs international artists village with many artists creating site-specific works. My idea was to show that human imagination is faster than light, says Krishnamachari. For that, we used both the indoor and outdoor spaces. The juxtaposition of Yoko Onos installation of 100 coffins in front of the museum made a strong ecological statement on how people treat the land. I was interested in how artists use language. Cristiana de Marchi [who translated 30 articles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights into Braille to show how humankind is blind to human rights violations], for example, created images originating from a dark space. I wanted to show that, in a way, darkness carries light.

Perhaps the most striking work was that of a Chinese artist called Mao Tong Qiang. With a mix of wood, mirror, furniture, audio, neon light, hallucinogen, fruits and the garbage of KTV, he created a room bathed in red light with dusty furniture mimicking the living space of a cocaine addict and juxtaposed it with images of Chairman Mao Zedong visiting the red guards for the first time in 1966. The work represents a combination of the highest points in the artists political and personal situation, his translator explains to me. When I point out the scarcity of political works by Chinese artists in the biennale, he tells me that everything is related to politics anyway. My work represents the confusion of the living condition in China; the desire for freedom of speech, movement and conducting free and fair elections.

Love is blind? Cristiana de Marchi wanted to show that humankind is blind to human rights violations.

Out of the works of 12 artists from China who exhibited at the biennale, Qiangs was one of the few with overtly political overtones. When it comes to art, it is better not to use images of important political figures, says Yang Hongwei, another Chinese artist who is displaying a panel of wood engraving of scenes from 21st century global history, from the Iraq War to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the twin towers. You have to be smart when it comes to politics, which you can represent in an indirect way, he says. It is meaningless to get into a fight with the government. He makes an oblique reference to Chinese celebrity artist Ai Weiwei and says he admires people who can criticise the government but not if it is for fame and money. Avant-garde art in China fell because it compromised to capitalism, he says. As for him, he believes in transforming his relationship to society through his work and, through the process, reality is turned into something spiritual.

Artist Riyas Komu, who co-curated the Kochi biennale with Krishnamachari, feels that with the exception of a few Chinese artists who are making remarkable interventions into Chinese history and politics, the rest are mostly image makers whose work revolves around a certain kind of symbolism. In India, because were democratic and free, that spirit is reflected in art, he says. Indian art is continually evolving. Obviously, we dont have an Ai Weiwei but we still have a diverse context of languages.

Despite this fundamental difference, the styles of some artists from China and India might be comparable, says London-based curator and writer Shaheen Merali. Take the works of Sudarshan Shetty and Song Dong at the biennale, he says. Both are architectural structures made of recovered wood with immersive spaces you can walk through. The fact that theyre placed next to each other highlights such similarities.

Dong exhibited a piece made from old windows discarded by different families which were used to represent a wall. You can stand on either side of the wall, he says. Through my work, I wanted to show the importance of breaking down walls between cultures and countries. The blood of art is freedom. For me, my life has become my art and my art has become my life. The wall seems to be a favourite motif with the Chinese artist. He came to India in 1999 and did a performance piece called Song Dong Came Here and Faced the Wall, in which he imitated the great Indian monk Dharma, quietly sitting on a bed and facing the wall for 10 days.

The ideologue: Riyas Komu with his work.

Other than Dong, a few Chinese artists have made interesting forays into Indian territory and vice versa. One of them, Li Huasheng, went to the Himalayas in the 1990s and lived in Buddhist monasteries, which changed his perspective on art. Instead of landscapes, he tried to depict the state of mind of the artist experiencing the landscape. This led to a fascinating series of ink art consisting of vast grids of horizontal and vertical lines, like an embodied EKG of his being in time. One of the notable works by an Indian artist in China is that of Tushar Joag. In 2010, the artist drove a motorbike for 55 days from Mumbai to Shanghai via the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Madhya Pradesh and the Three Gorges Dam in Hubei province in China, two controversial development projects. The resulting paintings and photographs threw light on the harm being done to the people of both countries as a result of the projects.

Other than such individual expeditions, there have been very little cultural exchange between the two nations in recent times. I remember curating a show called 11th Hour in Beijing in 2010, featuring the work of 12 artists from India including Shilpa Gupta, Sudarshan Shetty and Tejal Shah, says Merali. I called it the 11th Hour because I wanted to revive the cultural exchange that took place between the two countries earlier. And then it seemed to stop. Here we are in a networked society where few Chinese artists have shown in India despite a lot of international work coming from the country.

Art is life: Boedi Widjaja created an installation of 28 Indonesian caps arrayed on a camera tripod.

When I attended the sixth edition of the India Art Fair in Delhi in 2014, it was the first time a delegation of Chinese artists and collectors were coming to the fair. I think the day when the art world was centred around New York and London is long gone, Philip Dodd, chairman of the company Made in China (UK) Ltd, told me then. The world is moving east. The only people who dont know that are people in the east. He told me that we were at the grand zero of what might be the relationship between India and China. According to Jonathan Stone, chairman and international head of Asian Art, Christies, there was a pan-Asian movement between India, Japan and China before World War II and the rise of fascism in Japan. I think that has been forgotten today, he told me. We need to revive that.

Mao Tong Qiang juxtaposed the personal with the political in his work.

Komu says that Krishnamachari being invited to curate the biennale at Yinchuan might be a sign of confidence and the emergence of interest in India. The invitation coming from China is a good thing as we can make use of the better infrastructurean activated museum spaceto make the Indian experience visible in a global arena, says Komu. Boses curation of the Yinchuan biennale shows that if youre given sophisticated infrastructure, you can operate much better than western curators, he says. Krishnamachari can easily consider the success of the biennale a personal victory. After all, as someone said, good networking and connections alone cant ensure the success of a show. It takes honesty and integrity to do that.
The response of the Director-General of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel is that the Finance Ministrys report on the cost of kashrus in Israel is cut off from reality. The report claims that kashrus costs NIS 2.8 billion annually.

The words headline of the report is The Effect of kashrus on the cost of living and the significance of the Chief Rabbinate being the only entity granting kashrus. The report was ordered by the Finance Ministry budgeting officials in the hope of determining the cost of kosher certification on the economy. According to the Walla News report, officials in the Chief Rabbinate were not pleased with the report, which they insist points to the ignorance of kashrus matters by those involved in preparing it.

The report states kashrus costs the state NIS 2.8 billion annually, of which NIS 600 million is to pay for operations of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and the costs associated with granting kosher supervision. Chief Rabbinate Director-General Moshe Dagan told Walla The report was not done professionally to put it mildly and the facts presented are cut off from reality.

Dagan feels causes for this include a lack of basic knowledge of kashrus and along with a lack of familiarity with several areas connected to it that are contained in the report. No differentiation is made between the cost of wanting to have kashrus and the cost associated with kashrus policy. He adds the recommendations contained in the report are not doable and they will not result in a reduction in the increase in prices of items.

He concludes As a responsible government body, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel feels it is an important value to reduce the price increases associated with kosher food for as long as it does not interfere with adhering to regulations for kashrus as laid out by the Chief Rabbinate Council from time-to-time.

The Neemanei Torah VAvodah organization expresses agreement with DG Moshe Dagan, adding that anyone in the know realizes that unfortunately, some of the demands associated with kashrus as the system operates today do in fact drive up the cost of a product and the lack of competition also negatively impacts the quality [of the kosher supervision]. The organization is waiting for the report to be submitted by Tel Aviv Chief Rabbi Micha Levy, a report that evaluates the system and will be making recommendations as to how to improve the system and establish competition towards lowering costs and most off towards returning the trust that used to be associated with a sign reading kosher.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
[PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]

In the accompanying photos one can see a Hamas mini-parade in Rafiach on Monday 23 Elul in which the terrorists exhibit their weapons of destruction to area residents.

Loaded on the vehicles are mobile rocket-launchers that are regularly used to launch rocket attacks into Israel. The terrorists are hopeful that by using mobile launchers, the IAF will not succeed in targeting and retaliating against the launchers in a retaliatory strike.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Residents of the Shomron community of Ofra protested outside the Prime Ministers Office on Tuesday morning 24 Elul, demanding a resolution to the problems of many homes in their community, as well as nearby Amona and many other homes throughout Yehuda and Shomron. Joining the protestors were the communitys rav, Rabbi Avi Gisser, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, MKs Moti Yogev and Yehuda Glick and local and regional officials.

Shaked was among the speakers, all carrying the same message, that Ofra after 41 years is still working to legalize some of its homes as became a news item when the government refused aid for a disabled IDF veteran because his home is illegal, Yehuda Hayisraeli.

The message was a clear one, that the government is compelled to find a long-term all-encompassing solution and not continue dealing with individual cases of damage control as the nations High Court of Justice feels razing Jewish homes is the only solution.

Yogev and others stressed Israel and the yishuvim are not occupying anyones land, but rather we have returned home to settle the land.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Sentencing has been rescheduled for an Ohio man accused of plotting to attack the U.S. Capitol in support of the Islamic State group.

Twenty-two-year-old Christopher Lee Cornell pleaded guilty last month to three charges stemming from his January 2015 arrest.

Sentencing for Cornell had been set for Oct. 31. Cincinnati federal Judge Sandra Beckwith on Thursday set a new date of Dec. 5.

Prosecutors have said they will seek a maximum of 30 years in prison.

FBI agents arrested Cornell in the parking lot of a gun shop near Cincinnati, saying hed just bought two M-15 assault weapons and ammunition.

Cornells father has said his son was misled and coerced by a snitch.

(AP)
[PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]

Agudath Israel of Americas Torah Projects and Daf Yomi Commission hosted an inspiring and informative yom iyun to a rapt audience at Agudath Israel Bais Binyomin in Flatbush, with thousands more participating by phone or live-streaming.

The event, Emes and the Law, was introduced by Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, and featured four speakers: Rav Yaakov Perlow, the Novominsker Rebbe, Rosh Agudath Israel; Rav Moshe Tuvia Lieff, rov Agudath Israel Bais Binyomin; Rav Ari Marburger, director of the Business Halacha Institute; and Mr. Avi Schick, Esq., noted attorney and president of Agudath Israel Zichron Chaim Zvi of Madison.

EMUNAH: TWO SIDES OF A COIN

Rabbi Zwiebel in his introductory remarks noted the media spotlight on alleged wrongdoing in the frum community. He recalled the final message Rav Pam ztl gave to Klal Yisroel on the topic of ehrlichkeit, in which the manhig hador expounded on the question that greets a person in beis din shel maalah when his earthly journey is over: Nososa venosata bemunah? Rav Pam cited two dual meanings of the word emunah; integrity in business dealings and faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. A true baal emunah, he said, is by definition ehrlich; faith in Hashems mastery of the world makes him incapable of taking what doesnt belong to him.

Rabbi Zwiebel recalled that Rav Pam noted the placement of the Torahs injunction, vlo sechalelu es shem kodshi vnikdashti besoch bnei Yisroel, immediately following the words, Ushemartem mitzvosai vasisem osom. The Torah is addressing shomrei Torah umitzvos, leaders, askonim, the cream of frum society, individuals one would think are above chilul Hashem, Rabbi Zwiebel paraphrased Rav Pam. Yet with public scrutiny focused on our community and certain media outlets only too eager to publicize any alleged offense, the admonition of lo sechalelu has never been more relevant.

THE AVOS BUILT KLAL YISROEL INTO A NATION OF YESHORIM

The evenings first speaker, the Novominsker Rebbe, pointed out that making a kiddush Hashem should not be a persons driving force. Ones actions should rather be inspired by vosisa hatov vehayoshor  wanting to do the right thing because its right.

Hashem is melech oheiv tzedaka umishpot; its a mitzvas asei to emulate Him, veholachta bedrochov, the Rebbe stressed. Just as we strive for madreigos in avodas Hashem and hiddur mitzvah with tzitzis and tefillin, matza and lulov, so too we must strive for madreigos in bein odom lachaveiro.

He quoted the Netziv in his pesichah to Haamek Dovor who cites the

Gemorah in Avodah Zorah that Sefer Hayoshor mentioned in Novi is Sefer Beraishis, because the avos hakedoshim, besides being tzadikim and chasidim, were yeshorim.

Bilam envied them for being yeshorim, praying that Tomus nafshi mos yeshorimWe see how upright the avos were even with ovdei kochavim, says the Netziv. Avrohoms conduct with Efron Hachiti, Yitzchoks dealings with Avimelech and Yaakovs dealings with Lovon Hoarami exemplify this yashrus.

Sefer Bereishis shows how the avos built Klal Yisroel into a nation of yeshorim, noted the Rebbe, quoting the Netziv. We must make yashrus the cornerstone of our lives as well.

He urged all listeners to take the purpose of the kinus to heart. Leiv yodeiya moras nafsho, each one knows the pain of their own failings, he said. We are all trying to be ehrliche Yidden and hoping for siyata dishmaya. May Hashem be makabel our teshuva berachamim uveratzon.

THE GRANDEUR OF AN ORDINARY STREET VENDOR

Rabbi Leiff took the theme of a nation of yeshorim further, citing instances in the Gemara that illustrate a remarkable level of yashrus. One incident involved Shimon ben Shetach who purchased a donkey from a non-Jew, discovering afterward it was carrying a diamond. When urged by his students to keep the diamond, he resolved to do just the opposite and return it. My tachlis is not to become rich from someone elses diamond, he said. My tachlis is that umos haolom should say Yidden are unbelievable.

In another place the Gemara discusses whether charoses on Seder night is a separate mitzvah or merely a tavlin  a remedy to offset the bitterness of maror. The Gemara cites one opinion that charoses is a tavlin. But another tanah rejected this position, noting that Jewish street vendors would call out to people before Pesach, Come buy charoses! Its a mitzvah! So upright and trustworthy were these ordinary street vendors that no one suspected them of false advertising to drum up business.

Their sales pitch was considered so reliable it was used by one opinion as a rayah in deciding halacha lmayseh, marveled Rav Lieff. These are our ancestors, this is the legacy they passed down. Honesty and integrity are part of our DNA; we are Shimon ben Shetach Yidden

What is the avodah of the Yomim Noraim? he asked. The Gemorah in Yuma says the avodah is to refrain from chilul Hashem. Do nothing that would make your fellow Jews embarrassed to be a frum Jew Rambam in Yesodei HaTorah goes further. He describes what goes into making a kiddush sheim shomayim. Keep your word. Pay immediately. Greet everyone in a cordial manner

BEWARE OF NEGIUS

Rav Ari Marburger commented that yashrus in human interactions is not always a simple matter. People feel they can rely on common sense to be an ish yoshor, he said. But the issue of genevas daas, misleading others, pervades many social and business situations in ways people dont even realize. A person needs to learn the sugyos to get a full grasp of this prohibition, he said.

He discussed the issur of hachzokas tova bchinom, misrepresenting oneself so that someone thinks you did them a favor when you didnt. Instilling in someone an unfounded sense of gratitude is a form of geneivas daas even when no words are exchanged and not a single penny changes hands.

He cited the Gemaras discussion of whether one can send his non-Jewish friend a piece of non-kosher meat. If the meat contains the gid hanosheh, he may do so. But if the gid hanosheh has been removed, making it appear to be kosher meat, a Jew is forbidden to send it to a non-Jew as the recipient will assume the gift is more valuable than it is. That, says the Gemora, is a form of geneivas daas.

Modern-day variations of geneivas daas abound, said Rav Marburger. A

baal simcha refills a bottle of expensive liquor with a cheaper brand, impressing guests with his largesse as he offers one and all a generous toast. Or a person sells someone a car without informing the buyer that the air conditioner is broken. Inasmuch as its winter, it doesnt occur to the buyer to check it out.

In halacha, the rule of thumb, said Rav Marburger, is not Buyer, beware! as it is in our culture; it is rather, Seller, beware! Negius can lead to geneivas daas.

LIVE A BROADER LIFE, NOT A DOUBLE LIFE

The last speaker, Mr. Avi Schick, startled listeners with his introduction: Im a partner in a large law firm that assists people who are under criminal investigation for white collar crimeSeven years ago I didnt have a single frum client. Today a large part of my practice consists of frum Yidden. Whats responsible for this tragic situation?

He discussed what he sees as the practice among many frum businessmen of living life on a dual track, where Torah and mitzvos govern ones behavior at home whereas in business, the arbiter of right and wrong is whatever you can get away with.

He described a scenario in his office in which a non-Jewish secretary, trained not to extend her hand in greeting to a religious male client and to order food for them only from certain restaurants, marveled at a religion that has so many restrictions, but seemingly no rules about the conduct that brought these clients here in the first place!

Mr. Schick recounted another incident where a colleague in the firm turned to my client who was under criminal investigation, commenting, You know, I often hear you say, G-d runs the worldG-d will take care of things. But if He really runs the world, why do you think you need to help Him out by taking money thats not yours?'

My client was mortified. I, too, was embarrassed recalled the speaker. Living a double life where were careful about kashrus but cavalier about yashrus should be as incomprehensible to us as it is to outsiders.

He cited the advice Rav Hutner, ztl, gave to a student who felt he was drifting spiritually to strengthen the connection between his job and his inner identity as a ben Torah. Dont live a double life but a broader, more unified, authentic life. Import the kedusha of your learning and tefilla to the workplace, the rosh yeshiva urged. Consciously infuse your commercial life with yeshiva values and sensitivities.

Those words still ring with truth today, Mr. Schick concluded.

(Debbie Maimon  YWN)
Above, a lab worker with Cellular Dynamics International works on the development of brain cells at the company's offices on Science Drive.
Russian officials accused the U.S. on Thursday of siding with terrorists in Syria, in a sign of escalating tensions between Moscow and Washington amid the battle for the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.

U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirbys warning that the collapse of U.S.-Russian cooperation in Syria could lead to a rise in extremism and potential attacks against Russia drew Moscows anger.

The Russian Foreign and Defense Ministries both cast it as U.S. encouragement of terror attacks on Russia.

We cant assess those statements as anything else but a call, a directive for action, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing.

Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Kirbys statement amounted to the most frank confession by the U.S. side so far that the whole opposition ostensibly fighting a civil war in Syria is a U.S.-controlled international terrorist alliance.

What makes Kirbys statement particularly shocking is that the scale of direct U.S. influence on terrorists activity is global and reaches as far as Russia, he said.

The remarks by Russian officials have shown a degree of mistrust and strain between Moscow and Washington after the collapse of the U.S.-Russia-brokered truce and the Syrian army onslaught on Aleppo backed by Russian warplanes. The growing friction makes it increasingly unlikely that the cease-fire could be revived.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that Washington is on the verge of ending Syria talks with Moscow because of days of deadly bombings of Aleppo by Russian and Syrian planes.

Kirby, asked Wednesday what the consequences would be for Russia if cooperation with the U.S. in Syria collapsed, said that extremists and extremists groups will continue to exploit the vacuums that are there  which will include, no question, attacks against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities, and Russia will continue to send troops home in body bags.

Konashenkov interpreted Kirbys statement as a direct threat to the Russian military in Syria. He said Russia remains open for dialogue with Washington on Syria, but added that the U.S. needs to exclude even a hint at threatening our military and Russian citizens.

Russian President Vladimir Putins spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Thursday that Moscow still wants to cooperate with Washington on the Syrian crisis, but blamed the U.S. for a failure to deliver on its pledge under the Sept. 9 agreement to encourage moderate opposition to sever ties with al-Qaidas branch in Syria.

Our colleagues from Washington have tried to cover up their inability to fulfill their own obligations with verbal attacks on Russia, he said.

Russia on Friday is marking the one year since it launched its air campaign in Syria in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad. In light of that, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a warning to Russians abroad about possible provocations, urging them to exercise caution.

(AP)
White House staffers, if you want to avoid a headache next year, take our advice and dont imitate Bill Clintons team on your way out.

Were referring to transition pranks, a tradition embraced most energetically by Clintons staff when handing the reins to George W. Bush in 2001. (Youve probably heard about the missing W keys on White House keyboards.) Theres a reason President Barack Obamas senior aides are already setting expectations for a no-nonsense changeover in January 2017, no matter whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton takes over.

Not only do problems generate bad press, but they can also bring out the most neurotic tendencies of everyone involved.

Take this little-known Government Accountability Office report from June 2002, which comprises 220 pages of back-and-forth between the Bush White House staff, the Clinton White House staff and the General Services Administration about, in essence, who stole what doorknob.

So, in the interest of saving everyone from that kind of craziness, here is what White House staff should not do on its last day:

Scatter bumper stickers. Record obscene voice-mail greetings. Damage furniture. White-out computer keyboards. Smear Vaseline over desks. Unplug refrigerators. Write on walls. Take cellphones, TV remotes or presidential medallions. Glue telephones or drawers. Abandon holiday decorations. Smash locks.

Clintons team did all of this, and at Congresss request, the scene was meticulously reconstructed through nearly 200 after-action interviews by the GAO. Did you know Al Gore accidentally took a bust of Abraham Lincoln home, only to return it after Dick Cheney made a fuss? Now you do.

The report also includes anecdotes such as this one:

A former employee . . . said that on his last day of work at the end of the administration, he left a voice mail greeting on his telephone indicating that he would be out of the office for the next 4 years due to a decision by the Supreme Court, and he provided his home telephone number.

And insights like this:

Staff [described] the office space as being extremely filthy or trashed out and [said] that a certain room contained a malodorous stench or looked like there had been a party. . . . Three of the [GSA] team leaders said that they saw personal items left behind, such as unopened beer and wine bottles, a blanket, shoes, and a T-shirt with a picture of a tongue sticking out on it draped over a chair.

In one case, the Secret Service actually took fingerprints from a door where a 12-inch presidential seal had been removed without permission. No suspects were identified, the GAO writes.

Lets be clear: Only 108 of the then-roughly 1,200 rooms in the White House complex were affected, and only a fraction severely. But if you think the GAO was overdoing it, consider this: attorney-general-to-be Alberto Gonzales, then Bushs White House counsel, complained its efforts were insufficient  in a 76-page letter.

The President and his Administration had no interest  and have no interest  in dwelling upon what happened during the 2001 transition, Gonzales wrote.

Well let readers decide whether the Trump or the Clinton administration will be more exacting about pranks.

But regardless, a final word of advice to Obamas staff: If you do steal a presidential seal on your way out, try not to leave any fingerprints.



(c) 2016, The Washington Post  Elise Viebeck
The White House lashed out at Congress on Thursday, a day after Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly overrode President Barack Obamas veto of a bill to allow families of the 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia. The White House turned to mockery as top GOP leaders expressed buyers remorse and vowed to fix the bill.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both said the measure, the only law enacted over Obamas veto in his eight years as president, needed repairs. McConnell said the law may have unintended ramifications, while Ryan said there may be some work to be done to make sure it doesnt lead to U.S. service members overseas being sued.

Everybody was aware of who the potential beneficiaries were but nobody really had focused on the downside in terms of our international relationships, McConnell told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference.

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. Courts would be permitted to waive a claim of foreign sovereign immunity when an act of terrorism occurred inside U.S. borders.

Supporters said the families of 9/11 victims should be able to pursue justice against Saudi Arabia for its alleged backing of the attackers. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudis. Nearly 3,000 people in New York, the Washington, D.C., area, and Pennsylvania died in the terror attacks.

The White House had long raised concerns about the law, warning that it could have a chilling effect on Saudi Arabias cooperation with the U.S. in fighting terrorism. Senior national security officials also argued that it could trigger lawsuits from people in other countries seeking redress for injuries or deaths caused by military actions in which the U.S. may have had a role.

But top lawmakers said the White House didnt press those warnings until it was too late and the popular bill was already barreling its way through Congress. Other lawmakers acknowledged that they didnt pay much attention to the bill.

That earned McConnell and others a scathing response from the White House, which said lawmakers didnt know what they were voting for.

Whats true in elementary school is true in the United States Congress: Ignorance is not an excuse, said spokesman Josh Earnest.

With enough blame for the White House and Congress to go around, both sides engaged in finger-pointing.

Earnest said the president had publicly discussed the bills potential negative impact in April. The Senate passed the bill by voice vote in May. The president, administration officials and other national security experts wrote letters detailing concerns in recent weeks  though many of the letters came after the House backed the bill on Sept. 9.

I think what weve seen in the United States Congress is a pretty classic case of rapid onset buyers remorse, Earnest said.

McConnell, R-Ky., said the White House was too slow to warn about the potential consequences of the measure. Both the House and Senate overwhelmingly overrode Obamas veto of the measure on Wednesday.

McConnell said he told the president recently that the 9/11 victims bill was an example of an issue that we should have talked about much earlier.

McConnell said the dynamic involving the bill  in which it picked up unstoppable election-year momentum  was what happens when there is failure to communicate early about the potential consequences of a piece of legislation that was obviously very popular.

Other top Republicans and Democrats such as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., are already working on proposed fixes to the law.

We want to make sure that the 9/11 victims and their families have their day in court. At the same time, I would like to think there may be some work to be done to protect our service members overseas from any kind of  any kind of legal ensnarements that could occur, any kind of retribution, Ryan said.

(AP)
While yesterdays Nevada Supreme Court decision striking down the states Education Savings Account program was disappointing to the approximately 8000 scholarship applicants, it offered them a glimmer of hope. The ESA program would have deposited up to $5,700 each year in a savings account for parents who opt out of a public school education for their child. The funds could then be used for educational expenses such as tutoring, therapies, virtual school fees, and private school tuition.

Agudath Israel of America was gratified to see that the court rejected all of the opponents arguments against the constitutionality of the program. The court concluded that the Legislature has the right to encourage other methods of education outside of traditional public schools and more importantly, that funds placed in education savings accounts belong to the parents and are not public funds. Unfortunately, the court found that the funding of ESAs must be via an appropriation bill and that the appropriation bill passed after the passage of the ESA bill did not explicitly mention ESAs.

As Nevada Attorney General Paul Laxalt said in a statement, there is only one step left to take in order to make the vision of educational choice a reality for thousands of Nevada families. The Nevada Legislature can, and must fix the funding technicality as soon as possible.

The court decision vindicates the supporters of school choice, including Agudath Israel of America, who have repeatedly argued in state and federal courts that providing funding to parents to choose the best educational option for their children is, in fact, constitutional, said Agudath Israel of Americas national director of state relations, Rabbi A. D. Motzen.

Agudath Israel has been a longtime advocate for school choice and will continue to work with its constituents and coalition partners in Nevada to expand educational opportunities for all families.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for the Five Towns Jewish Times

New scientific developments always bring up new halachic questions.

Yesterday, a New York Times article revealed that a boy with three genetic parents was born in the United States using a controversial new method that relies on DNA from two women and one man. Since the procedure is not legal in this country, the team of U.S.-based doctors performed the procedure in Mexico.

The couple was a Jordanian couple, who underwent the procedure in order to prevent their child from developing a fatal disease carried by his mother.

The childs mother carries the genes for Leigh Syndrome, a disease that affects the cells mitochondria. Previously the couple had four miscarriages.

Dr. John Zhang and a team from New York Citys New Hope Fertility performed the procedure in Mexico, where there are no rules, Zhang said.

The procedure created a new egg that took the nucleus from the Jordanian mothers egg with the disease-free mitochondrial DNA from a donor mothers egg, by taking the outer nucleus of the donors egg  through a process called spindle nuclear transfer. That egg was then fertilized with zera from the father.

A U.S.-based doctor, Jacques Cohen, had previously developed a similar procedure back in the 1990s. However, some of the fetuses from that procedure were missing X chromosomes. The FDA stopped the procedure in 2002.

So the questions are what is the halachic status of this baby, if both of the mothers were Jewish? What if one of the mothers was non-Jewish? Does it make a difference which mother was the non-Jewish one? Does it matter if one of the mothers was married to someone else?

In this particular case, the baby received most of its genetic DNA from the Jordanian mother, and the mitochondrial DNA from the donor mother, via the outer egg. If the Jordanian mother was Jewish would the child be Jewish since, at the end of the day, she had the embryo implanted in her uterus and gave birth to the child?

In the Sefer entited, Refuah Metzius vHalacha (p. 289) the author, Rabbi Mordechai Halperin, cites four possibilities in regard to the halachic status of a child who had a surrogate mother deliver it, but received an egg from a different mother. However, this list may need to be updated to reflect eight halachic possibilities:

 Halachically it is only the birth mother who is the mother

 It is only the donor of the majority genetic DNA material that is the mother

 It is only the donor of the visible outer egg who is the mother

 The child has no halachic mother

 The child has 2 halachic mothers (majority DNA and the birth mother)

 The child has 2 halachic mothers (visible outer egg donor and the birth mother)

 The child has 2 halachic mothers (visible outer egg donor and the majority DNA donor)

 The child has 3 halachic mothers (all of them).

The Nishmas Avrohom Vol. II Even hoEzer Siman 2:2 cites Rav Elyashiv ztl that the birth mother is the halachic mother in such cases and not the donor mother. This is also the view of Rav Eliezer Yehudah Waldenberg, author of the Tzitz Eliezer (Vol. XV #45). However, in recent years, Rav Avrohom Sherman has been disputing that this was, in fact, Rav Elyashivs position. He stated that Rav Elyashiv held that it was just the DNA mother.

Rav Moshe Shternbuch, however, in his Teshuvos vHanhagos Vol. IV Siman 284 concludes that such a child has no halachic mother.

Why might we consider the visible outer egg donor even though she did not give the majority of the DNA? The egg is the largest human cell that there is  visible even to the naked eye. It is 100 microns wide, similar to a human hair. It could be that we would follow such a view, especially when some aging and disease traits are in fact determined by the mitochondrial DNA.

For a discussion of the various earlier four possibilities see Encyclopaedia Halachtis Refuis Vol. II pages 855-870.

Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach remarked that our generation is in need of a Ramban or a Rashba that could answer these deep technological questions, but until then we should treat everything as a doubt.

Since we have no less than eight possibilities here, it is most prudent to act in accordance with the view of Rav Auerbach ztl. This is a topic that should not be ruled upon by individual Poskim or Rabbonim, but rather the leading geolim of the generation should be consulted. Following Rav Auerbachs advice, it would mean that any non-Jewish involvement would require geirus out of a safaik. If any one of the parents were to be a married woman, it could perhaps be considered safaik mamzeirus.

May Moshiach come soon and reveal the answers to these questions.

The author can be reached at [email protected]
State Debate: In Journal Sentinel column, Tim Cullen says state needs to stop sacrificing schools for highways
Natalie Murphy testified in her own defense Thursday morning during her homicide trial at the Juneau County Justice Center in Mauston.

Murphy, 23, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide for the shooting death of Andrew Dammen just after midnight on Feb. 12, 2015.

Dammen and Murphys 2-year-old child was in the apartment at the time. Murphy claims the shooting was an accident.

Murphys testimony about the day before the night of the shooting lined up with other testimony -- she and Dammen went out, played pool and spent time at the Vets Hall in Necedah before picking up their child and returning to her house. She drank alcohol, Dammen did not as the designated driver.

However, Murphy's description of the shooting was different than anything heard prior at the trial.

She described coming home, disrobing, and then having Dammen walk into the room and say, Oh, so youre naked already?

She said this hurt her and she said something snappy back as he left the room.

According to her testimony, when he returned to her room he was holding her gun, which she claimed he had borrowed earlier in the day because he had forgot his own gun. She said he always liked to have a gun on him.

She said when he entered the room he said, I cant do this anymore.

Murphy testified she started asking him what he couldnt do and wanted to get him to put away the gun so they could talk. She said he then told her, What are you going to do? Shoot me.

She claims he then repeated Why dont you just shoot me?

According to her testimony, Dammen leaned over the bed, and while holding the gun barrel in his right hand, slapped it into her hand. She said everything happened so fast, she wasnt sure what had happened, but the gun must have gone off.

Prosecutor Christopher Liegel questioned why Murphy never told the police on the scene anything about Dammen leaning over the bed and forcing the gun into her hand.

Murphy admitted she told police the gun was in the night stand and she took it from Dammen, saying, Give me my gun. Its my (explicative) gun.

She claims she was referencing how the gun was found earlier, but has since been able to recover memories she couldnt from the initial shock.

Dr. David Ogren, a psychologist and trainer in EMDR therapy, testified he treated Murphy. He claimed EMDR therapy, which uses audio, touch and visual stimulation to help those suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, often brings back memories of a traumatic incident.

Ogren said he is not a memory expert, and his therapy is for treating PTSD, not specifically for bringing back memories.

Liegel brought up the fact Dammen was still wearing his jacket, implying he was going to leave, as he had been texting Clara Haldeman -- the woman he was living and expecting a child with. Murhpy had only recently become aware Haldeman was pregnant with Dammens child.

After Murphys testimony, Dr. Michael Stier, who performed Dammen's autopsy, was recalled as a rebuttal witness. The defense had not yet rested its case, but Stier was allowed to testify out of order due to obligations in another county Thursday afternoon.

Stier said while he would never call anything impossible, he said it was nearly impossible for Dammen to have been holding the barrel of the Glock.

He said the model of the gun in questions would leave soot all over a person's hand. In addition, there would be burn marks, and the hand would be damaged by the lever action and sight on the gun.

Other than injections from therapy, (Dammens hands) are pristine, Stier said. I cant imagine that he was holding the barrel.

After Stiers testimony, the defense rested its case.

The prosecution called one rebuttal witness, Deputy Cody Simon who also testified Tuesday. He took the video of Murphy shortly after the shooting, and it confirmed Murphy said she took the gun from Dammen.

Also in the video, Murphy asked if Dammen has a pulse and then said, "If he doesn't have a pulse I'm going to jail. I'm going to prison for life."

The trial will resume with closing arguements at 8:30 a.m. Friday at the Juneau County Justice Center.
So Brexit sent the worlds major stock markets into a bit of tiz and has floored the pound. But for the AIM market it is as if the June 23 leave vote never happened.

In the last three months the AIM All Share has risen a creditable 15 per cent, outperforming the FTSE 100 (up 9.5 per cent).

And while some of the big IPOs, such as the re-privatisations Lloyds Banking Group have been put on hold, the junior bourse welcomed 10 new companies since late June. Not bad at all.

Research: Shares in cancer drug developer Sareum soared 80 per cent

At the same time investors were more than willing to back the UKs growth companies with existing AIM-listees raising over half a billion in fresh capital.

The AIM market took the EU referendum vote in its stride with July and August proving to be relatively busy months for the market, said Allenby Capitals Matt Butlin.

Over the past week, however, the momentum slowed a little with the AIM All Share marking time. The Footsie by contrast fell 0.8 per cent.

The big loser of the day (down 41 per cent) and in the top three for the week was Independent Oil & Gas, which while discovering oil, appears to have found the wrong type of crude.

Its Skipper Field is host to whats called heavy oil, which is viscous, difficult to lift and hard to market. It usually has to be blended with lighter oils to pipe it.

To say this was a surprise to poor old Independents management, led by Mark Routh, is probably understatement.

The initial oil analysis results are incompatible with our observations, therefore we are now reviewing our strategy to establish the commerciality of Skipper, the company said in a brief statement.

Sticking with the oil theme, in fact the heavy oil theme, its been another disastrous week for investors in Xcite Energy, which has seen the shares crushed a further 33 per cent.

The owner of the Bentley heavy oil field said on Tuesday that a planned debt-for-equity swap would leave existing investors with just 1.5 per cent.

Troubled waters: Xcite Energy has seen the shares crushed a further 33 per cent

Dr Dougie Youngson, oil companies analyst at the city broker finnCap, said theres no certainty the restructuring will be supported.

I dont think weve got any visibility as to whats going to happen next, he told Proactive Investors.

If you look at the various retail investor bulletin boards theyre all adamant theyre going to vote no, which means that the company will go into administration.

Xcite shareholders feel quite hard done by. They are going to get wiped out regardless of which way they vote.

If the two beleaguered oilers have endured the week from hell, it has been a different story for cancer drug developer Sareum, whose shares have sky-rocketed more than 80 per cent.

The blue touch-paper was lit on Tuesday when it was announced its checkpoint inhibitor, a new and potential revolutionary way of treating the disease, had been licensed out to an American firm.

Sareum, valued at 30million, will receive an immediate 1.5million and payments totalling 68million if its discovery achieves certain development milestones.

Fellow druggie Valirx has also had a decent trot of late (up 30 per cent) after it updated on the progress of its two potential cancer treatments, one of which is being reformulated to help treat a disease of the uterus.

Finally, GW Pharma, AIMs third-largest company with a market capitalisation of 2.6billion, has enjoyed another stellar five trading sessions (in which it advanced 21 per cent).

The catalyst was some very encouraging results from a late stage clinical trial of its cannabis-derived treatment for an acute form of childhood epilepsy.

Numis analyst Paul Cuddon called it the most convincing data so far. It is expected GW will make a new drug application early next year.

Earlier this month investors were put on bid alert after a report suggest the company had multiple potential suitors.

The Reuters story also said GW had appointed Wall Street heavyweight Morgan Stanley to oversee the potential beauty parade.

The interest was very firmly rooted around Epidiolex (the aforementioned epilepsy drug), which analysts reckon has the potential to deliver annual sales of around US$800million.
British Airways is scrapping free meals on short haul flights in economy class, instead offering a selection of Marks & Spencer salads and sandwiches.

Prices will include 1 for hand cooked crisps, 3 for a cheddar cheese ploughman's sandwich and 4.95 for a spiced chicken with quinoa and rice salad.

BA claimed the move is in response to customer feedback.

British Airways is scrapping free meals on short haul flights in economy class, instead offering a selection of Marks & Spencer salads and sandwiches

Passengers are currently given a light snack, such as a bacon roll, and a soft drink.

BA's chairman and chief executive, Alex Cruz, said: 'We know our customers expect a great experience with British Airways.

'They've told us we are experts in flying and service, but when it comes to catering on short haul flights, they want to choose from a wider range of premium products.

'Like British Airways, Marks & Spencer is a well-known, premium British brand that is respected and trusted, so it's an ideal partnership, providing our customers with a choice of products they recognise and value.'

Low cost airlines such as easyJet and Ryanair already offer small snacks for sale on their flights, but Mr Cruz claimed BA's offering 'sets a new standard in short haul catering'.

The M&S food selection will be updated four times a year.

It will replace free snacks on short haul and domestic flights from Heathrow and Gatwick from January 11 2017 and from London City and Stansted by next summer.

Business class customers will continue to be offered a full, complimentary menu.

Aviation expert Julian Bray said BA has been engaged in a battle to 'catch up' with its competitors who have made inroads into its traditional market.

The M&S food selection will be updated four times a year

He said: 'Passenger loyalty is a thing of the past with business travellers now seeking the most cost efficient deal and essentially the most attractive headline price.

'Many passengers are already picking up a gourmet premium price in-flight meal pack from the airport terminal prior to their flight, so this would seem to be a logical development.'

Andy Adcock, director of food at M&S, said: 'We're proud to be supplying a great British brand with a reputation for quality and customer service that mirrors our own.
On the same day a federal judge ordered the state of Wisconsin to investigate whether Division of Motor Vehicles employees gave incorrect information to people seeking voter identification cards, the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal appellate judge to overturn the state's voter ID requirements.

The ACLU on Friday filed a motion in a challenge before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals alleging the state is not giving voting credentials to people who apply for them.

The group is asking the court to either overturn the voter ID law or allow voters without the proper ID to cast a ballot with an affidavit.

ACLU attorneys argue the Division of Motor Vehicles' "constantly changing procedures" don't undermine their argument for overturning the law.

Lawyers accused the state of engaging in an "endless cat-and-mouse game of issuing new DMV procedures every time a court is about to issue a decision in this ongoing voter ID case, doing untold collateral damage to vulnerable voters in the process."

"These voters should not be at the mercy of the States constant tinkering with the machinery of DMVs cumbersome bureaucracy," the attorneys wrote.

The group claims that people haven't adequately been informed about the ID petition process and have, in some cases, been prevented from entering the process.

A Department of Justice spokesman said DOJ is currently reviewing the ACLU filing.
State Sen. Bob Wirch is resurrecting his idea to sell the governor's mansion, this time to help pay for road construction.

Wirch, D-Somers, who represents part of Racine County, has floated selling the executive residence multiple times since 2002. With Gov. Scott Walker proposing to delay several road projects, including Interstate 94 work in Racine County, Wirch said savings and proceeds from the sale could help Wisconsin's transportation budget.

The state's transportation deficit is projected at nearly $1 billion. Operating costs for the governor's house are about $250,500 each year, plus another $322,700 for maintenance and operations such as lawn care and snow removal, according to a press release from Wirch's office.

The combined value of the building and land is believed to be more than $2.5 million, according to the release.

While shedding the governor's mansion alone wouldn't go far toward fixing the road funding woes, Wirch said it would be a start.

"There's 132 legislators up here, all voting on the budget. If each one of them comes up with an idea to save two to three million," the savings would be significant, he said.

"I do my part and let others find their part. There's not one silver bullet to deliver 100 million dollars ... they're always looking for areas to cut, and this is an area where you could cut without affecting state services."

Wirch said he would propose giving the governor a housing allowance if the property was sold. The governor could entertain guests in the state Capitol, Wirch added.

A spokesman for the governor's office did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

The house sits on 3.7 acres along Lake Mendota in the Village of Maple Bluff. It has been a frequent target of Wirch, who first proposed selling off the home after Gov. Jim Doyle's election in 2002. He also introduced the proposal during state budget deliberations in 2013 but was voted down.

While the idea hasn't gone anywhere, Wirch continues to believe selling the property is "the right thing to do."

"The governor should set an example by doing that," he said.
The Boeing Company is the worlds largest manufacturer of airplanes and commands more than 50% of the market in some channels and categories. The company and its family of subsidiaries design, develops, manufacture, sell, service, and supports commercial jetliners, military aircraft, satellites, missile defense, human space flight, and related services worldwide. The company operates through four segments including Commercial Airplanes; Defense, Space & Security; Global Services; and Boeing Capital providing products and services to end-users in 150 countries.

Boeing got its start in 1910 when William E. Boeing developed a love for aircraft. Soon after he takes his first plane ride which leads him to build a hangar and begin construction of his first plane. The onset of WWI helped spur the companys growth but business was cut drastically in its wake. The start of WWII was another milestone for the company and one that led to its current position of dominance. The company was incorporated in 1916 and is based in Chicago, Illinois. Boeing employs over 140,000 people in 65 countries making it one of the most diverse employers on the planet.

The Commercial Airplanes segment is built around the iconic 7-series which includes the 737, 747, and 787. The segment provides commercial jet aircraft for passenger and cargo requirements, as well as fleet support services for regional, national, and international air carriers and logistics and freight companies. In terms of global volume, the company estimates about 90% of all air freight is carried aboard one of its jets. This segment also includes the Dreamliner family of planes. The Dreamliner is a game-changing airplane for many carriers as it opens up the potential for new one-stop destinations because of its capacity and range.

The Defense, Space & Security segment develops and manufactures a range of systems including manned and unmanned aircraft, missiles, missile defense systems, satellites, communications equipment, and intelligence systems for governments. Among the many iconic brands within this segment are the AH-64 Apache, Air Force One, B-52, C-17 Globemaster, Chinook, F/A-18, and the V-22 Osprey VTOL aircraft used by the Marines.

The Global Services segment offers a range of products and services that include supply chain and logistics management, engineering, maintenance, upgrades, conversions, spare parts, pilot and maintenance training, technical and maintenance documents, and data analytics to its commercial and defense customers.

Boeing is also a leader in innovation, leveraging its many decades and avenues of experience to further aerospace and defense technology. Among the many innovations is the MQ-25 Stingray which will be the worlds first autonomous aircraft. The Stingray is only one of many areas of research that also include drones and undersea vehicles.
VeriFone Systems, Inc. provides payments and commerce solutions at the point of sale (POS) worldwide. It offers countertop solutions that accept payment options, including contactless, NFC, mobile wallets, and EMV; PIN pads that support credit and debit card, EBT, EMV, and other PIN-based transactions; and multilane consumer facing commerce devices. It also provides portable payment devices, including small, portable, and handheld devices that enable merchants to accept electronic payments wherever wireless connectivity is available; and mobile solutions that attach to and interface with iOS or Android based smartphones and tablets. In addition, it offers integrated electronic payment systems that combine electronic payment processing, fuel dispensing, and ECR functions, as well as secure payment systems for integration with petroleum pump controllers; unattended and self-service payment solutions designed to enable payment transactions in self-service, high-transaction volume, and public transportation environments; and network access solutions. Further, it provides installation, deployment, training, and application development and delivery solutions; project management, client education program, and consulting services; helpdesk support, equipment repair and maintenance, and software post-contract support services; and application libraries and development tools. Additionally, it offers omnichannel commerce, terminal management, and security solutions; and cloud-based managed, transaction payment, and other value added services. It sells its products directly; and through third party and channel partners. It serves financial institutions, payment processors, government organizations, and retailers; petroleum, transportation, and healthcare companies; and quick service restaurants. The company was formerly known as VeriFone Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to VeriFone Systems, Inc. in May 2010. VeriFone Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Jose, California.
RACINE  Jennifer Kahle knows it might take years before her little girl Brooke says I love you, Mommy.

But for the Racine resident and mother of two daughters, the wait will be well worth it.

Brooke was born with childhood apraxia of speech, a rare neurological speech disorder. Children with CAS have problems saying sounds, syllables and words; not because of muscle weakness or paralysis, but because the brain has problems planning to move the body parts needed for speech.

She knows what she wants to say, but she just cant get it out, Jennifer said. For her to form words means going through a multistep process. She has to go through the steps.

While the exact number of CAS cases is difficult to determine, experts generally agree that about one child in every thousand has CAS.

Watching Brooke tumble and roll, grin and play with her younger sister Taylor in the familys living room on Racines north side, one would be hard pressed to detect anything amiss with her.

Shes a kid, Jennifer said. She knows all her numbers, her letters, her shapes, and she will show you. She loves learning.

But learning is a slow and arduous process for Brooke and for most children with CAS. Extensive speech therapy is one of the few treatments for the disorder, but such services can be infrequent and expensive.

To help the cause and raise awareness of CAS, Jennifer is leading a team of walkers, dedicated to Brooke, at the Southeast Wisconsin Walk for Children with Apraxia in Mukwonago this weekend. The walk runs from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at Field Park, at Highways 83 and NN, about 10 miles north of Waterford.

Its the only apraxia walk in Wisconsin, Jennifer said.

Money raised at the event will benefit the nonprofit CAS Association of North America. They provide workshops for children and parents and a variety of services for affected families, Jennifer said. They do a lot.

Diagnosing the issue

The Kahles, who moved to Racine about 10 years ago, noticed Brooke wasnt talking at regular developmental milestones. Tests with experts at Childrens Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa confirmed the diagnosis. Brooke started speech therapy soon after.

Therapy involves a lot of drills, including saying the same word over and over. Sometimes Jennifer uses a mirror so Brooke can see what her mouth looks like when she tries to say certain words. Brooke also uses smartphones, iPads and some sign language to learn and communicate.

She gets a lot of it, but its so hard, Jennifer said. The rate of progress is very, very slow. We have been working on up and mom for almost two years.

Brooke attends kindergarten at Red Apple Elementary School, 914 St. Patrick St. She gets 10 minutes of speech therapy four days a week and one 20-minute session for a total of 60 minutes a week. She also participates in a research study at Marquette University, where she gets an additional 30 minutes two times week.

Brookes condition doesnt slow down the family at all. They like to visit the Racine Zoo, participate in the Color Run, and go on vacation. Other children interact with Brooke all the time, Jennifer said.

Were so proud of who she is. Other little kids play with her and talk with her. Sometimes they ask why she doesnt really answer them and we explain it, Jennifer said.

To increase her own knowledge of CAS, Jennifer, an early childhood teacher in Kenosha, this summer attended the national conference on the disorder in Chicago. She learned that Brooke certainly isnt alone, and that children improve as they get older.

Jennifer listened to a panel of several young adults who have CAS. For some of them, you would never know the difference, she said. You know its a long road, but they gave me hope.
Cardinal Health, Inc. operates as an integrated healthcare services and products company in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and internationally. It provides customized solutions for hospitals, healthcare systems, pharmacies, ambulatory surgery centers, clinical laboratories, physician offices, and patients in the home. The company operates in two segments, Pharmaceutical and Medical. The Pharmaceutical segment distributes branded and generic pharmaceutical, specialty pharmaceutical, and over-the-counter healthcare and consumer products. The segment also provides services to pharmaceutical manufacturers and healthcare providers for specialty pharmaceutical products; operates nuclear pharmacies and radiopharmaceutical manufacturing facilities; repackages generic pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter healthcare products; and offers medication therapy management and patient outcomes services to hospitals, other healthcare providers, and payers, as well as provides pharmacy management services to hospitals. The Medical segment manufactures, sources, and distributes Cardinal Health branded medical, surgical, and laboratory products and devices that include exam and surgical gloves; needles, syringe, and sharps disposals; compressions; incontinences; nutritional delivery products; wound care products; single-use surgical drapes, gowns, and apparels; fluid suction and collection systems; urology products; operating room supply products; and electrode product lines. The segment also distributes a range of national brand products, including medical, surgical, and laboratory products; provides supply chain services and solutions to hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, clinical laboratories, and other healthcare providers; and assembles and sells sterile, and non-sterile procedure kits. The company was incorporated in 1979 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ohio.
Telefonica, S.A., together with its subsidiaries, provides telecommunications services in Europe and Latin America. The company's mobile and related services and products comprise mobile voice, value added, mobile data and Internet, wholesale, corporate, roaming, fixed wireless, and trunking and paging services. Its fixed telecommunication services include PSTN lines; ISDN accesses; public telephone services; local, domestic, and international long-distance and fixed-to-mobile communications; corporate communications; supplementary value-added services; video telephony; intelligent network; and telephony information services, as well as leases and sells handset equipment. The company also provides Internet and broadband multimedia services comprising Internet service provider, portal and network, retail and wholesale broadband access, narrowband switched access, high-speed Internet through fibre to the home, and voice over Internet protocol services. In addition, it offers leased line, virtual private network, fibre optics, web hosting and application, outsourcing and consultancy, desktop, and system integration and professional services. Further, the company offers wholesale services for telecommunication operators, including domestic interconnection and international wholesale services; leased lines for other operators; and local loop leasing services, as well as bit stream services, wholesale line rental accesses, and leased ducts for other operators' fiber deployment. Additionally, it provides video/TV services; smart connectivity and services, and consumer IoT products; financial and other payment, security, cloud computing, advertising, big data, and digital telco experience services; virtual assistants; digital home platforms; and Movistar Home devices. It also offers online telemedicine, home insurance, music streaming, and consumer loan services. The company was incorporated in 1924 and is headquartered in Madrid, Spain.
South-central Wisconsin will see a cloudy, cool and likely wet start to the weekend, with not much sunshine until next week, according to forecasters.

The National Weather Service said the flood warning for the Baraboo River likely will end Friday afternoon as the river was at 16.8 feet, just above the flood stage of 16 feet, at 4:15 a.m. on Friday and falling.

In Madison on Friday, theres a 30 percent chance for showers, mainly after 2 p.m., with cloudy skies, a high near 62 and northeast winds around 10 miles per hour.

Overnight, the chance for showers is 70 percent, mainly after 3 a.m., with possible totals of less than a tenth of an inch, as the low falls to around 56.

On Saturday, the chance for showers is 60 percent, mainly before 8 a.m., with possible totals of less than a tenth of an inch, cloudy skies, a high near 62 and northeast winds at 5 to 10 mph, the Weather Service said.

Overnight Saturday into Sunday, theres a 50 percent chance for showers, mainly before 8 p.m., as the low edges down to around 55.

Sunday should be mostly cloudy, with a high near 67 and north winds around 5 mph.

The Weather Service said chances for showers and thunderstorms return at 30 percent Wednesday, and 40 percent Wednesday night and Thursday.

Skies over Madison should be mostly sunny Monday and Tuesday, and partly sunny Wednesday and Thursday, with highs near 69, 72, 72 and 68, and lows Sunday night through Wednesday night around 53, 54, 55 and 55.

27 Storm Track meteorologist Star Derry forecasts a few sprinkles and/or showers, especially in the afternoon, on Friday; isolated showers Saturday; possible storms Wednesday; and a few showers and thundershowers Thursday.

Derry said skies over Madison should be cloudy Friday, mostly cloudy Saturday, mostly cloudy to partly sunny Sunday, mostly sunny Monday through Wednesday, and mostly cloudy Thursday and next Friday, with highs near 64, 65, 68, 70, 73, 76, 69 and 62, and overnight lows around 54, 52, 48, 52, 55, 58, 49 and 44.

Thursdays high in Madison was 72 at 2:15 p.m., 6 degrees above the normal high and 18 degrees below the record high of 90 for Sept. 29, set in 1953.

Thursdays low in Madison was 51 at 5:30 a.m., 7 degrees above the normal low and 26 degrees above the record low of 25 for Sept. 29, set in 1949.

No precipitation was recorded at the Dane County Regional Airport on Thursday, leaving Madisons September and meteorological fall (September through November) precipitation total (rain plus snow converted to liquid) at 8.37 inches, 5.32 inches above normal. The 2016 total stayed at 36.61 inches, 8.74 inches above normal.

Madisons record precipitation for Sept. 29 is 2.03 inches in 2015.
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.
Banco Santander Mexico, S.A., Institucion de Banca Multiple, Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico provides various banking products and services in Mexico. The company operates through Retail Banking and Corporate and Investment Banking segments. It offers various deposit products, such as current accounts, savings accounts, and time deposits, as well as certificates of interbank deposits; and payroll loans, personal loans, credit cards, mortgages, and insurance brokerage services. The company also provides cash management, working capital solutions, and trade finance; structured credit and debt products, project finance, and asset based finance; financial and strategic advisory services for mergers and acquisition; solutions and services for investing and hedging; and Internet and mobile banking services. It serves individuals, private banking clients, small and medium-sized enterprises, middle-market corporations, government institutions, and corporate and institutional customers. As of December 31, 2021, it operated through a network of 1,346 offices; 9,498 ATMs; and 2,540 contact center positions. The company was formerly known as Banco Santander (Mexico), S.A., Institucion de Banca Multiple, Grupo Financiero Santander and changed its name to Banco Santander Mexico, S.A., Institucion de Banca Multiple, Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico in September 2012. The company was incorporated in 1932 and is headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico. Banco Santander Mexico, S.A., Institucion de Banca Multiple, Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico is a subsidiary of Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico, S.A. de C.V.
Phillips 66 operates as an energy manufacturing and logistics company. It operates through four segments: Midstream, Chemicals, Refining, and Marketing and Specialties (M&S). The Midstream segment transports crude oil and other feedstocks; delivers refined petroleum products to market; provides terminaling and storage services for crude oil and refined petroleum products; transports, stores, fractionates, exports, and markets natural gas liquids; provides other fee-based processing services; and gathers, processes, transports, and markets natural gas. The Chemicals segment produces and markets ethylene and other olefin products; aromatics and styrenics products, such as benzene, cyclohexane, styrene, and polystyrene; and various specialty chemical products, including organosulfur chemicals, solvents, catalysts, and chemicals used in drilling and mining. The Refining segment refines crude oil and other feedstocks into petroleum products, such as gasolines, distillates, aviation, and renewable fuels at 12 refineries in the United States and Europe. The M&S segment purchases for resale and markets refined petroleum products, including gasolines, distillates, and aviation fuels primarily in the United States and Europe. This segment also manufactures and markets specialty products, such as base oils and lubricants. The company was founded in 1875 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
GSK plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the creation, discovery, development, manufacture, and marketing of pharmaceutical products, vaccines, over-the-counter medicines, and health-related consumer products in the United Kingdom, the United States, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Pharmaceuticals, Pharmaceuticals R&D, Vaccines, and Consumer Healthcare. The company offers pharmaceutical products comprising medicines in the therapeutic areas, such as respiratory, HIV, immuno-inflammation, oncology, anti-viral, central nervous system, cardiovascular and urogenital, metabolic, anti-bacterial, and dermatology. It also provides consumer healthcare products in wellness, oral health, nutrition, and skin health categories. The company offers its consumer healthcare products in the form of nasal sprays, tablets, syrups, lozenges, gum and trans-dermal patches, caplets, infant syrup drops, liquid filled suspension, wipes, gels, effervescents, toothpastes, toothbrushes, mouthwashes, denture adhesives and cleansers, topical creams and non-medicated patches, lip balm, gummies, and soft chews. It has collaboration agreements with 23andMe; Lyell Immunopharma, Inc.; Novartis; Sanofi SA; Surface Oncology; Progentec Diagnostics, Inc.; Alector, Inc.; and CureVac AG., as well as strategic partnership with IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc. and Vir Biotechnology, Inc. The company was formerly known as GlaxoSmithKline plc and changed its name to GSK plc in May 2022. GSK plc was founded in 1715 and is headquartered in Brentford, the United Kingdom.
The following companies are subsidiares of Accenture: 2nd Road, ?What If!, ?What If! China Holdings Limited, ?What If! Holdings Limited, ?What If! Limited, ACN Consulting Co Ltd, AD.Dialeto (Digital Agency acquired by Accenture), AFD.TECH, AGS Business and Technology Services Limited, AIG Shared Services Business Processing Inc, ASM Research Inc., ASM Research LLC, ATAN, Accenture (Botswana) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (China) Co. Ltd., Accenture (Shenzhen) Technology Co. Ltd., Accenture (South Africa) Pty Ltd, Accenture (UK) Limited, Accenture 2 Business Process Services S.A., Accenture 2 LLC, Accenture A/S, Accenture AB, Accenture AG, Accenture AS, Accenture Africa Pty Ltd, Accenture Agencia Interativa Ltda, Accenture Australia Holding B.V., Accenture Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture B.V., Accenture BPM Operations Support Services S.A., Accenture BPM S.C.R.L., Accenture BPS Services S.p. z o.o., Accenture Branch Holdings B.V., Accenture Bulgaria EOOD, Accenture Business Services for Utilities Inc, Accenture Business Services of British Columbia Limited Partnership, Accenture Business and Technology Services LLC, Accenture C.A., Accenture Canada Holdings Inc, Accenture Capital Designated Activity Company, Accenture Capital Inc, Accenture Central Europe B.V., Accenture Chile Asesorias y Servicios Ltda, Accenture Cloud Services GmbH, Accenture Cloud Software Solutions Limited, Accenture Cloud Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions LLC, Accenture Cloud Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd, Accenture Co. Ltd, Accenture Communications Infrastructure Solutions Ltd, Accenture Company Ltd, Accenture Consulting Pty Ltd, Accenture Consulting Services Ltd Tanzania, Accenture Consultores de Gestao S.A., Accenture Consultoria de Industria e Consumo Ltda, Accenture Consultoria de Recursos Naturais Ltda, Accenture Credit Services LLC, Accenture Customer Services Distribution SASU, Accenture Customer Services Ltd, Accenture Danismanlik Limited Sirketi, Accenture Defined Benefit Pension Plan Trustees Limited, Accenture Defined Contribution Pension Plan Trustees Limited, Accenture Delivery Poland S.p. z o.o., Accenture Dienstleistungen GmbH, Accenture Digital Holdings GmbH, Accenture East Africa Limited, Accenture Ecuador S.A., Accenture Egypt LLC, Accenture Enterprise Development (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Accenture Federal Services LLC, Accenture Finance II Limited, Accenture Finance Limited, Accenture Finance and Accounting BPO Services S.p.A., Accenture Finance and Accounting Services S.r.l., Accenture Financial Advanced Solution & Technology S.r.l., Accenture Flex LLC, Accenture GP LLC, Accenture Global Capital Designated Activity Company, Accenture Global Engagements Limited, Accenture Global Holdings Limited, Accenture Global Services Limited, Accenture Global Solutions Limited, Accenture GmbH, Accenture HR Services S.p.A., Accenture Healthcare Processing Inc, Accenture Holding Brasil Ltda, Accenture Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Accenture Holdings (Iberia) S.L., Accenture Holdings B.V., Accenture Holdings France SASU, Accenture Hungary Holdings Kft, Accenture Inc, Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company, Accenture Industrial Software Solutions Kft, Accenture Industrial Software Solutions SA, Accenture Insurance Services B.V., Accenture Insurance Services LLC, Accenture International B.V., Accenture International LLC, Accenture International Limited, Accenture Japan Ltd, Accenture Korea B.V., Accenture LLC, Accenture LLP, Accenture Lanka (Private) Ltd, Accenture Limited, Accenture Lithuania UAB, Accenture Ltd, Accenture Ltda, Accenture Maghreb S.a.r.l., Accenture Managed Services SRL, Accenture Management GmbH, Accenture Marketing Services LLC, Accenture Marketing Services Limited, Accenture Middle East B.V., Accenture Minority I B.V., Accenture Mozambique Limitada, Accenture Mzansi Pty Ltd, Accenture NV/SA, Accenture NZ Limited, Accenture Nova Scotia Unlimited Liability Co., Accenture OOO, Accenture Operations GmbH, Accenture Operations S.p. z o.o., Accenture Operations Services Private Limited, Accenture Operations Services Sdn Bhd, Accenture Outsourcing S.r.l., Accenture Outsourcing Services S.A., Accenture Oy, Accenture Panama Inc, Accenture Participations B.V., Accenture Participations II Limited, Accenture Peru SRL, Accenture Post Trade Processing SASU, Accenture Post-Trade Processing Limited, Accenture Process (Mauritius) Ltd, Accenture Pte Ltd, Accenture Puerto Rico LLC, Accenture Qiyun Technology (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd, Accenture S.C., Accenture S.L., Accenture S.R.L., Accenture S.p. z o.o., Accenture S.p.A., Accenture SASU, Accenture SG Services Pte Ltd, Accenture SRL, Accenture Saudi Arabia Limited, Accenture Sdn Bhd, Accenture Service Center SRL, Accenture Services (Mauritius) Ltd, Accenture Services AB, Accenture Services AG, Accenture Services AS, Accenture Services GmbH, Accenture Services Morocco SA, Accenture Services Oy, Accenture Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Services S.p. z o.o., Accenture Services SRL, Accenture Services and Technology S.r.l., Accenture Services s.r.o., Accenture Single Member S.A. Organization Information Technology & Business Development, Accenture Solutions Co. Ltd, Accenture Solutions Private Limited, Accenture Solutions Pte Ltd, Accenture Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Solutions S.p. z o.o, Accenture Solutions Sdn Bhd, Accenture State Healthcare Services LLC, Accenture Sub II Inc, Accenture Sub III Inc, Accenture Sub LLC, Accenture Systems Integration Limited, Accenture Sarl, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Accenture Technology Solutions (Dalian) Co. Ltd., Accenture Technology Solutions (HK) Co. Ltd., Accenture Technology Solutions (Thailand) Co. Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas S.A., Accenture Technology Solutions GmbH, Accenture Technology Solutions Oy, Accenture Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions S.A. de C.V., Accenture Technology Solutions S.r.l., Accenture Technology Solutions SASU, Accenture Technology Solutions SRL, Accenture Technology Solutions Sdn Bhd, Accenture Technology Solutions Slovakia s.r.o., Accenture Technology Ventures B.V., Accenture Technology Ventures SPRL, Accenture Tecnologia Consultoria y Outsourcing S.A., Accenture Uruguay SRL, Accenture Vietnam Co. Limited, Accenture Zambia Limited, Accenture do Brasil Ltda, Accenture plc, Accenture s.r.o., Acceria, Acquity Group, Adaptly LLC, Adaptly UK Limited, AddVal Technology, Adqptly, Advantium Inc., Advoco, Agilex Technologies Inc., Alfa Consulting, Allen International, AlphaBeta Advisors, Altevie Technologies S.r.l., Altima, Altima (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Altima Asia Ltd, Altitude, Altitude LLC, Altius Consulting Limited, Altius Data Solutions Private Limited, Analytics 8 LP, Analytics 8 Pty Ltd, Analytics8, Aorui Advertising (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Apis, Apis Group Pty Ltd, Appaloosa Technology SASU, AppsPro, AppsPro, Arca, Arca Ingenieros y Consultoria S.L., Arca Telecom S.L., Ariba - BPO, Arismore, Artio People (Payroll) Pty Ltd, Artio People Pty Ltd, Aspiro Solutions (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Automation Partners Pty Ltd, Avanade (Guangzhou) Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd., Avanade Asia Pte Ltd, Avanade Australia Pty Ltd, Avanade Belgium SPRL, Avanade Canada Inc, Avanade Consulting Poland S.p. z o.o., Avanade Denmark A/S, Avanade Deutschland GmbH, Avanade Europe Holdings Limited, Avanade Europe Services Limited, Avanade Finland Oy, Avanade France SASU, Avanade Holdings LLC, Avanade Hong Kong Ltd, Avanade Inc, Avanade International Corporation, Avanade Ireland Limited, Avanade Italy S.r.l., Avanade Japan KK, Avanade Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avanade Middle East Limited, Avanade Netherlands B.V., Avanade Norway AS, Avanade Poland S.p. z o.o., Avanade Schweiz GmbH, Avanade South Africa Pty Ltd, Avanade Spain S.L., Avanade Sweden AB, Avanade UK Limited, Avanade do Brasil Ltda , Avanade Osterreich GmbH, Avenai, Avieco, Axia Ltd., BABCN LLC, BCS Consulting, BCT Solutions, BCT Solutions Pty Ltd, BENEXT, BPO Servicos Administrativos Ltda, BRIDGE Energy Group, BRIDGEi2i, Beacon Consulting Group Inc., Beijing Genesis Interactive Technology Co. Ltd., Beijing Zhidao Future Consulting Co. Ltd, Benext, Berico Technologies LLC, Bionic, Bionic Solution LLC, Blue Horseshoe, Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications, Bow & Arrow, Bow & Arrow Limited, Brand Learning, Brand Learning Group Limited, Brightstep AB, Byte Prophecy, Byte Prophecy Private Limited, CAS, CRMWaypoint, CS Technology (Australia) Pty Ltd, CS Technology (UK) Limited, CS Technology Group LLC, CS Technology LLC, CadenceQuest Inc., Callisto Integration Europe B.V., Callisto Integration Europe Limited, Callisto Integration LLC, Callisto Integration Ltd, Capgemini - North American health practice, Capital Consultancy Services Inc, Certus Solutions Consulting Services Limited, Certus Solutions Ltd, ChangeTrack Research Pty Ltd., Chaotic Moon Studios, Chengdu Mensa Advertising Co. Ltd., Cimation, Cirrus Connect Australia Pty Ltd, Cirrus Connect Limited, Cirruseo, Clarity Insights, ClearEdge Partners, Clearhead, Clearhead Group LLC, ClientHouse GmbH, Cloud Sherpas, Cloud Sherpas (GA) LLC, Cloud Sherpas Japan G.K., Cloud Sherpas New Zealand Limited, Cloudeasier SAS, Cloudpoint Limited, Cloudsherpas Inc, Cloudworks, Cloudworks Consulting Services Inc, Cloudworks Technology LLC, Computer Research and Telecommunications LLC, Concrete Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Ltda, Concrete Solutions, Concrete Solutions Ltda, Context Information Security, Context Information Security LLC, Context Information Security Limited, CoreCompete LLC, CoreCompete Limited, CoreCompete Private Limited, Corliant Inc., Creative Drive LLC, Creative Drive US LLC, CreativeDrive, CreativeDrive Digital Content Services (Shenzhen) Co Ltd., CreativeDrive EMEA Limited, CreativeDrive Singapore Pte Ltd, CreativeDrive UK Group Limited, Cutting Edge Solutions Limited, Cygni AB, Cygni Norrsken AB, Cygni Stockholm AB, Cygni Syd AB, Cygni Vast AB, Cygni Ost AB, Cygni Ostersund AB, DAZ Systems Inc, DAZ Systems LLC, DAZSI Systems (India) Pvt. Limited, DI Futures Corporation, Data Essential SARL, Davies Consulting, DayNine Consulting, DayNine Consulting (New Zealand) Limited, DayNine Consulting LLC, Declarative Holdings LLC, Decora Marketplace LLC, Decorado Marketplace Ltda-EPP, Defense Point Security, Deja vu Security, Design Strategy and Research de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Designaffairs LLC, Digiplug S.A.S., Digital Results Group LLC, Double Digit Limitada, Double Digit Pty SA, Droga5, Droga5 LLC, Droga5 Studios LLC, Droga5 UK Limited, Duck Creek Technologies, ESR Labs, ESR Labs AG, EdenOne Solutions Limited, Edenhouse ERP Holdings Limited, Edenhouse Solutions Limited, Enaxis Consulting, Enaxis Consulting LP, End to End Analytics LLC, End-to-End Analytics, Endorphin Medici (M) Sdn Bhd, Energuia Web S.A., Energy Management Brokers Limited, EnergyQuote JHA, Enimbos, Enimbos Global Services S.L., Enkitec, Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions LLC, Enterprise System Partners, Enterprise System Partners B.V., Enterprise System Partners Bilisim Danismanlik Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Enterprise System Partners Global Corporation, Enterprise System Partners Limited, Enthusian Pty Ltd, Entropia, Entropia (M) Sdn Bhd, Entropia Holdings Pte Ltd, Entropia Intercraft Sdn Bhd, Epylon, Ergo, Espedia S.r.l., Ethica Consulting Group, Ethica Consulting S.p.A., Evopro Group, Exactside Limited, Experity, Exton Consulting, Exton Consulting Spain Strategy&Management S.L., Exton Germany GmbH, Exton International SAS, Exton Italia S.r.l., Exton SAS, FGM LLC, Fairway Technologies Inc, Farah BidCo Limited, Farah MidCo Limited, Farah Topco Limited, Filmproduction ApS, First Annapolis Consulting Inc., First Annapolis Consulting LLC, Fjord, Focus Group Europe, Formicary, Founders Intelligence, Fruendo S.r.l., FusionX, Future State Consulting LLC, FutureMove (Beijing) Automotive Technology Co. Ltd., FutureMove Automotive, FutureMove Automotive Co. Ltd., GRA Supply Chain Pty Ltd, Gagel Group S de R.L. de C.V., Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda, Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda., Genfour, George Group Consulting L.P., Gestalt LLC, Gevity, Gren utvikling AS, H.B. Maynard and Co. Inc., HRC Retail Advisory, Hagberg Consulting Group, Hahntel Ltda, Halo Partners LLC, Hamilton Holding Company S.A, Hangzhou Aiyunzhe Technology Co. Ltd., Happen, Happen GP Limited, Happen Limited, Headspring, Hjaltelin Stahl, Hjaltelin Stahl A/S, Hjaltelin Stahl K/S, Hytracc Consulting AS, Hytracc Consulting AS, Hytracc Consulting Malaysia Sdn Bhd, IBB Consulting, ICM.S S.r.l., IMJ Corp, IMJ Corporation, INSITUM, IQSP Consulting LLC, IT One Company Limited, ITBS Servicios Bancarios de Tecnologia de la Informacion SL, Icon Integration, Icon Integration (NZ) Limited, Icon Integration Pty Ltd, Imagine Broadband (USA) Limited, Imagine Broadband USA LLC, Imaginea Inc, Imaginea Technologies LLC, Industrie IT (Hong Kong) Ltd, Industrie IT (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Industrie IT Group Pty Ltd, Industrie IT Pty Ltd, Industrie&Co, Infinity Works Consulting Limited, Infinity Works Holdings Limited, Infinity Works Management Limited, Infinity Works Midco Limited, Informatica de Euskadi S.L., Innotec International EAD, Innotec International S.p. z.o.o., Innotec Marketing GmbH, Innotec Marketing International Ireland Limited, Innotec- Marketing Spain S.L, Insitum Consultoria Argentina SRL, Insitum Consultoria S.A. de C.V., International Biometric Group LLC, International Biometric Group UK Limited, Intrepid, Intrepid Futureworks Sdn Bhd, Intrigo Systems Inc, Intrigo Systems India Pvt. Limited, Intrigo Systems LLC, Inventor Technology Ltd, InvestTech, Investtech Systems Consulting LLC, ItSafer Continuity Services S.L., JKD Consulting LLC, Javelin Group, K Comms Group Limited, KSC Studio LLC, Kaper Communications Limited, Karma Communications Debtco Limited, Karma Communications Group Limited, Karma Communications Holdings Limited, Karmarama, Karmarama Comms Limited, Karmarama Limited, King James Group, Knowledge Rules Inc., Knowledgent, Knowledgent Group LLC, Kogentix, Kogentix LLC, Kogentix Limited, Kogentix Singapore Pte Ltd, Kogentix Technologies Private Limited, Kolle Rebbe, Kolle Rebbe GmbH, Kream Comms Limited, Kunstmaan, Kurt Salmon, Kurt Salmon Canada LTD, Kurt Salmon US LLC, LEXTA, LINKBYNET, LINKBYNET Indian Ocean (L.I.O) Ltd, LabAnswer, Lexta GmbH, Lexta UK Limited, Lien par le reseau Inc, Lien par le reseau infrastructures Inc, Lin Bo (Shanghai) Network Technology Co. Ltd., Link By Net SAS, Link By Net SRL, Link By Net Vietnam Company Limited, Linkbynet East Asia Ltd, Linkbynet Singapore Pte Ltd., Loud & Clear Creative Pty Ltd, Lumenup S.A., MAXIM Systems Inc., MCG US Holdings LLC, Mackevision CG Technology and Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Mackevision Japan Co. Ltd., Mackevision Korea Ltd, Mackevision LLC, Mackevision Medien Design, Mackevision Medien Design GmbH, Mackevision Singapore Pte Ltd, Mackevision UK Limited, Maglan, Maglan Information Defense Technologies Research Ltd, Maihiro, Matter, Maud Corp Pty Ltd, Maxamine International, Measuretek LLC, Media Audits Ltd., Media Hive, Mediasenz Pty Ltd., Meredith Specialty LLC, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing LLC, Meridian Informed Purchasing Ltd., Mindtribe, Mistral Wind Operations  Servicos Empresariais Unipessoal Lda., MobGen, Mortgage Cadence LLC, Mortgage Cadence an Accenture Company, Most Champion Ltd, Mudano, Mudano Limited, Myrtle Consulting Group LLC, N3, N3 (Dalian) Business Consulting Co. Ltd., N3 Brazil Consultoria em Marketing Ltda, N3 Germany GmbH, N3 LLC, N3 North America LLC, N3 Results Australia Pty Ltd, N3 Results Ireland Limited, N3 Results Japan G.K., N3 Results Limited, N3 Results Malaysia Sdn Bhd, N3 Results Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., N3 Results S.A.S., N3 Results Singapore Pte Ltd, N3 Results Unipessoal Lda, NYTEC, Nanjing Demeng Advertising Co. Ltd., Nashco Consulting, NaviSys Inc., Nell'Armonia Israel Ltd, Nell'Armonia SAS, Nell'Participation SAS, NellArmonia, Neo Metrics Analytics S.L., Neo Metrics Chile S.A., New Content, New Content Editora e Produtora Ltda, New Energy Group, News Imaging LLC, NewsPage, NewsPage (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, NewsPage Pte Ltd, Northstream, Novetta Holdings LLC, Novetta LLC, Novetta Solutions LLC, Novetta Topco LLC, OCTO Technology, OPS Rules Management Consultants, Octagon Research Solutions Inc., Octo Technology Pty Ltd, Octo Technology SA, Odgaard ApS, Olikka, Olikka Pty Ltd, Olympus Systems Corporation, Openmind, Openmind S.r..l., Openminded, Openminded SAS, Operaciones Accenture S.A. de C.V., OpusLine, Orbium, Orbium AG, Orbium Consulting Limited, Orbium Inc., Orbium Ltd, Orbium Pte Ltd, Orbium Pty Ltd, Origin Digital, PCO Innovation, PLM Systems S.r.l, PRION GmbH, PT Accenture, PT Asta Catur Indra, PT Kogentix Teknologi Indonesia, PacificLink Group, Paja Finanssipalvelut Oy, Parker Fitzgerald Inc, Parker Fitzgerald International Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Limited, Parker Fitzgerald PTY Ltd, Parker Fitzgerald Services Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Solutions Limited, Pecaso Ltd., Pegasus Production A/S, Pegasus Production K/S, Phase One Consulting Group, Pillar Technology, Pollux, Pollux Automation Mexico S.A. de C.V., Pollux Canada Inc, Pollux S.A.S., Pollux USA LLC, Pragsis Bidoop, Pragsis Bidoop UK Limited, Pramati Technologies Europe Limited, Pramati Technologies Private Limited, Presence of IT Workforce Management North America LLC, PrimeQ, PrimeQ Australia Pty Ltd, PrimeQ Ltd, PrimeQ NZ Pty Limited, Procurian Inc., Prof. Homburg GmbH, Proquire LLC, PureApps Ltd., Qi Jie Beijing Information Technologies Co. Ltd., RBCP Fund 1-A Vapor Blocker LLC, RBCP Platform Vapor Blocker I LLC, REPL Consulting LLC, REPL Consulting Limited, REPL Digital Limited, REPL Group K.K., REPL Group Pty Ltd, REPL Group Worldwide Limited, REPL Pte Ltd, REPL Software Limited, REPL Technology Limited, Radiant Services LLC, Random Walk Computing Inc., Reactive Media Pty Ltd., Real Protect, Realworld OO Systems Ltd., Redcore, Redcore (New Zealand) Limited, Redcore Group Holdings Pty Ltd, Redcore Pty Ltd, Revolutionary Security, RiskControl, Root LLC, Rothco, Rothco Limited, S3 TV Technology Ltd., SALT Solutions GmbH, SEC Servizi, SOPIA Corp., Sagacious Consultants, Salt Solutions, Sandbox Studio LLC, Sapling Bidco Limited, Sapling Midco Limited, Sapling Topco Limited, Schlumberger Business Consulting, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace (UK) Limited, Seabury Consulting, Seabury Corporate Advisors LLC, Seabury Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Search Technologies BPO Inc, Search Technologies International LLC, Search Technologies LLC, Search Technologies Limited, Securiview SAS, Sentelis, Sentor Managed Secuirty Services AB, Servicios Tecnicos de Programacion Accenture S.C., Seven Seas Business Ventures LLC, Shackleton, Shackleton Chile S.A., Shackleton S.L.U., Shanghai Baiyue Advertising Co. Ltd., Shun Zhe Technology Development Co. Ltd., SigInt Technologies LLC, Silveo, Silveo Consulting India Private Limited, Simian Pty Ltd, SinnerSchrader, SinnerSchrader AG, SinnerSchrader Content GmbH, SinnerSchrader Deutschland GmbH, SinnerSchrader Praha s.r.o., Sirvart S.A., Sistemes Consulting S.L., Skylink SAS, Soltians Limited, Solutions IQ LLC, SolutionsIQ, SolutionsIQ India Consulting Services Private Limited, Somers Ventures Ireland Limited, Somers Ventures LLC, Spacelink SAS, Storm Digital, Structure Consulting Group LLC, Sutter Mills, Synership LLC, Systor AG, T.A. Cook, TXF LLC, Tambourine, TargetST8, Tech - Avanade Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Tecnilogica Ecosistemas S.A., Tecnilogica, The Brand Learning Partners Limited, The Callisto Integration Corporation, The Monkeys, The Monkeys Pty Ltd, The Myrtle Group, Total Logistics, Tquila, Trivadis, Trivadis AG, Trivadis Austria GmbH, Trivadis Denmark AS, Trivadis Germany GmbH, Trivadis Holding AG, Trivadis Partner AG, Trivadis Services AG, Trivadis Services SRL, Troop Studios Pty Ltd, VanBerlo, Vector Acquisition Company LLC, Vector Topco LLC, Verax Solutions, Vertical Retail Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd, Vertical Retail Consulting Ltd, Vivere Brasil Servicos e Solucoes SA, Vivere Brasil Solucoes De Credito Ltda., Wabion GmbH, WaveStrike LLC, White Cliffs Consulting LLC, Wire Stone, Wire Stone LLC, Wise Partners SAS, Wolox, Wolox Colombia S.A.S, Wolox LLC, Wolox Mexico S.R.L de C.V., Wolox S.A., Wolox SpA, Workforce Insight, Workforce Insight LLC, Yesler, Yesler LLC, Yesler Limited, Yesler Singapore Pte Ltd, Zag, Zag Australia Pty Ltd, Zag Limited, Zag USA LLC, Zebra Worldwide Australia Pty Ltd, Zebra Worldwide Group Limited, Zebra Worldwide Media Pty Ltd, Zenta, Zenta Global Philippines Inc, Zenta Mortgage Services LLC, Zenta Recoveries Inc, Zenta US Holdings Inc, Zestgroup, Zielpuls, Zielpuls (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zielpuls GmbH, avVenta, designaffairs, designaffairs Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., designaffairs GmbH, designaffairs group China Co. Ltd., dgroup, i4C Analytics, iDefense, solid-serVision.com GmbH, and umlaut.

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Three Madison startups have landed cash, two of them in the health IT (information technology) field.

Meanwhile, Monona-based SHINE has lined up office space in downtown Janesville, close to its future moly-99 plant, and gener8tor has an agreement to work with the University of Minnesota to boost campus-related startups there.

Funding additions

Catalyze, HealthMyne and BDS Mobile are the latest young companies to announce they have added to their coffers.

Catalyze has received $6.5 million from venture capital firms.

Catalyze deals with cloud computing for the health care industry, offering services such as storing records and facilitating communication between health electronic records system providerslike Verona-based Epic Systems Corp.  and other digital health companies.

The new funding will help Catalyze develop products and services to help hospitals, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies get more data so they can analyze the effectiveness of the health care their customers receive, said Catalyze vice president of marketing Kris Gosser.

The market is rapidly changing for all these enterprises, and making data more useful and actionable is a big deal, said Travis Good, Catalyze CEO and chief privacy officer.

Catalyze has about 30 employees, more than half at its offices in the 316 Building, 316 W. Washington Ave.

We are planning to grow the team, said Gosser, but said specific numbers have not been determined yet.

Catalyze has received more than $12.5 million from investors. Lewis & Clark Ventures, St. Louis, led the latest funding round, and past investors  Arthur Ventures, Fargo, North Dakota; Baird Capital, Chicago; and Chicago Ventures  took part, as well.

HealthMyne brought in $6.9 million, part of a planned $8 million funding round. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation is the latest participant along with past investors, including Venture Investors and 4490 Ventures, both of Madison.

HealthMynes technology collects data from tumor images to help radiologists identify and track cancerous tumors. Already cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the companys products are being piloted at UW-Health, Madison and the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida.

The new funding will let HealthMyne bring its Quantitative Imaging Decision Support platform to the commercial market, Praveen Sinha, co-founder and vice president-business development, said.

It brings total funding for HealthMyne, at 918 Deming Way, to $12.2 million. The company has 25 employees.

BDS Mobile has raised $685,000 from family and friends, led by Badger Tech Investors, raising its total funding to nearly $2 million.

BDS Mobile, formerly called Bad Donkey Social Co., has developed an emoji mobile messaging platform.

SHINE to move offices

to downtown Janesville

SHINE Medical Technologies will shift its headquarters from Monona to downtown Janesville before the end of 2016.

SHINE will take over the top floor of Janesvilles Prospect 101 building, about six miles north of the plant the company is building near the Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport in Janesville.

SHINE will produce molybdenum-99, which decays into technetium-99m, an isotope used in millions of medical procedures in the U.S. each year  mainly stress tests to diagnose heart disease and bone scans to check for cancer.

As of February, when SHINE got the OK from U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the factory, the company had 25 employees. It is expected to grow to more than 60 workers in 2017, the company said, and will employ 150 when the plant is running.

gener8tor works

with U of Minnesota

The Madison- and Milwaukee-based accelerator, gener8tor, said in June that it will open an office in the Twin Cities. Now, gener8tor says it will work with the University of Minnesotas Office of Technology Commercialization to help that schools entrepreneurs.

In a public-private partnership, gener8tor will handle the campus Venture Centers Discovery Capital Investment Program, choosing companies to get matching seed capital.

Madison serial entrepreneur Mark McGuire, managing director of gener8tor Minnesota, will administer the universitys program.

We also anticipate that a fair number of those companies will be participants in our gBETA and gener8tor programs taking place in Minneapolis, gener8tor co-founder Troy Vosseller said.
If popular culture is to be believed, time machines come in several forms.

In Back to the Future, a DeLorean automobile sped through time and space; in Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure, the vessel was a phone booth. The Time Machine, as H. G. Wells imagined it, was a mechanism of nickel, ivory, and quartz, with two levers: one to go forward, to the future, and one to go to the past. The island was responsible for characters spatial and temporal shifts on Lost; and a short-circuiting toaster teleported Homer to the time of the dinosaurs, but his actions there always altered his present day.

Preserving history as we know it is the goal of Timeless, whose time machine, a creation of the U.S. government, resembles a giant eyeball. The NBC drama, premiering Monday, is one of two time-travel offerings this season; the other, Making History, a Fox comedy set to air midseason, imagines a giant duffel bag as its traveling vehicle.

The big question with time travel seems to lie in the so-called butterfly effect, which holds that even tiny changes in a system can result in future, large-scale consequences (like when Homer sneezes on a T. rex, he returns to a world where doughnuts dont exist). So in Timeless when criminal mastermind Garcia Flynn (Goran Visnjic) steals the time machine to change historys mishaps  for example, not letting the Hindenburg crash and burn  he inadvertently alters the future.

A crack team of saviors is hot on his trail, though, using the prototype of the stolen machine, nicknamed the lifeboat. History professor Lucy Preston (Abigail Spencer), Delta Force Master Sgt. Wyatt Logan (Matt Lanter), and African-American scientist Rufus Carlin (Malcolm Barrett) are a time-traveling mod squad, following Flynn as he hops from one significant historical event to another.

Of course, to jump back in time is to experience prejudices that havent been chased out of everyday life, and Rufus, as a black man, encounters more than his share of ill will and bigotry; no doubt Lucy will run into a fair amount of sexism along the way, as well. That the show doesnt gloss over historys ugly sides serves as a reminder that things may have changed, but the scars and memories are still there.

Our villain, Flynn, seems to have a master plan behind his machinations, one that involves Lucy and her role in the (as-yet undetermined) future; its all very shrouded in a mystery that perhaps only time will uncover. Timeless premieres at 9 p.m. Monday on Ch. 15.

Wild wild Westworld: In 2009, a show called Dollhouse imagined technology that could implant a persons mind with personality traits and behaviors, even memories, and then erase said traits once they were no longer needed  a temporary operating system for the brain, carried out by its human form. Those humans were then used by clients for any number of reasons: romance, fantasy fulfillment, or just plain companionship. The series lasted only two seasons, but the idea of programming humans  or humanoids  continues to crop up. Westworld, a new HBO drama starting Sunday, also takes the idea of implanting behaviors into a human form, only here, the forms have been constructed and programmed by scientists to serve the public in a theme park of indulgences. Based on the 1973 film written and directed by Michael Crichton, the android hosts of Westworld have been created to offer visitors whatever experience  noble, depraved, wild, violent  they desire. Anthony Hopkins stars as Dr. Robert Ford, the chief programmer and creator of the western-themed park; Ed Harris is The Man in Black, an embodiment of pure evil who eventually attempts to seek out the secrets of Westworld. Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Jeffrey Wright, Thandie Newton, and Luke Hemsworth also stare in this futuristic mash-up of sci-fi and western. Westworld premieres at 8 p.m. Sunday on cable Ch. 401.

The following new shows premiere this week: Monday: Timeless, 9 p.m., Ch. 15; Conviction, 9 p.m., Ch. 27. Tuesday: No Tomorrow, 8 p.m., Ch. 15.2. Wednesday: Frequency, 8 p.m., Ch. 15.2.

The following returning series premiere this week: Sunday: Americas Funniest Videos, 6 p.m., Ch. 27; Madam Secretary, 8 p.m., Ch. 3; Elementary, 9 p.m., Ch. 3. Monday: Scorpion, 8 p.m. (two-hour episode), Ch. 3. Tuesday: The Flash, 7 p.m., Ch. 15.2. Wednesday: Arrow, 7 p.m., Ch. 15.2.
Pizza. In many ways, it is the perfect food.

It contains all the main food groups. Its almost as delicious cold as it is hot. Kids adore it, adults crave it and college students basically live on it.

Beginning with three basic ingredients  crust, sauce and cheese  pizzas have developed a near-infinite number of variations.

And I dont just mean the now-familiar Thai-duck pizza, the Canadian-bacon-and-pineapple pizza or even the Brussels-sprouts-and-pancetta pizza. Im talking about pizza with smoked reindeer meat, which you can get in Iceland. Im talking about baked beans pizza, which is a British thing.

Actually, baked beans pizza sounds kind of good. And I wouldnt turn up my nose at smoked reindeer pizza, but I wouldnt go to Iceland to try it.

Pizza is available on practically every corner, and a phone call or app brings it to your house in a half-hour or less. So why would you even think of making it yourself?

For one, homemade pizza is better than nine-tenths of the stuff that is commercially available. And it is almost certainly going to surpass anything that is delivered to your door. The time it takes for delivery and the aroma of a cardboard box take their toll on even the best of pizzas.You can customize a homemade pizza to be exactly the way you like it, and it is less expensive than store-bought pizza. If you dont make the crust yourself, it is faster, too.

But try making the crust yourself. You can buy premade crusts that are just fine  and some that are better than fine  and many pizzerias will sell you their dough, which is better still. But there is something special about a crust you made yourself. Call it a pride of craftsmanship.

Though the crust I make is simple, it has a nice, robust flavor that complements the toppings rather than competes with them. It makes the perfect backdrop for everything that is to come.

Particularly the sauce. The crust may be the part of a pizza that you notice the most, but the heart of a pizza is its sauce.

Some people like their sauce sweet. I dont. Some like it spiced with a lot of herbs. I dont. Some go the other way and want it bland, the better to focus on the toppings.

I dont.

A few years ago, my wife and I experimented to try to create the best homemade pizza sauce we could make. The one we came up with is, to our taste, just right. Its got enough flavor to stand up to cheese and crust and toppings, but it does not overwhelm.

One of the secrets of our sauce is stolen directly from Mario Batali, who makes his out of nothing but Pomi brand strained tomatoes right out of the box. That feels a little bit like cheating (They charge money for that?), but the Pomi strained tomatoes do make an excellent beginning.

So I start with the boxed strained tomatoes and add a bit of oregano, garlic and crushed red pepper. But the other two ingredients make our sauce truly stand out. The first is shredded Parmesan cheese stirred right into the sauce, which gives it extra heft and a shock of salt that is very much needed. And the other is a single anchovy fillet.

I know that many people roll their eyes and make little gagging sounds at the very thought of anchovies, but this sauce does not leave even a hint of anchovy flavor. You wont even know it is there. Even so, it adds an essential complexity to the sauce that really brings it to life. Once you have the crust and the sauce, all you need is the cheese. I have a tip about the cheese, too. This one comes from my favorite pizza at pretty much my favorite restaurant: Put the cheese under the sauce. Self-proclaimed pizza aficionados will object. I dont care. Its better this way. The cheese keeps the sauce from making the crust soggy, and the sauce keeps the cheese from browning or burning.

Its the best way to keep the perfect food perfect.
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By Patrick Donachie

The state is giving the Long Island Rail Road $64.9 million to build a new platform and tracks at the Jamaica Stationan attempt to update the hub for the growing number of commuters who pass through it.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the cash injection Sept. 24. The improvements will offer better, faster and more reliable train service for commuter train passengers, he said.

Time and time again, transportation investment has a ripple effect of progress and economic growth on the surrounding community, he said.

The Jamaica Station improvements will make it easier to re-route trains and also to take them in or out of service between Jamaica and Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn.

The new platform will include wi-fi, USB charging stations for phones, and heated waiting areas.

After work is completed, shuttle trains will depart every 7.5 minutes between Atlantic Terminal and Jamaica during peak hoursand every 15 minutes during off-peak hours, according to the state. The work will reduce time commuters spend waiting, according to the head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the LIRR.

More tracks and platforms mean fewer delays. This award for Phase I of the project, which is funded by the Capital Plan, is great news, said Thomas Prendergast, the chairman and CEO of the MTA.

The revenue comes as part of a massive, $442-million investment into Jamaica Station in order to modernize the tracks for the 200,000 commuters who use them every weekday. The passengers include people commuting to and from Manhattan for work, as well as travelers heading to the city via the Air Train from John F. Kennedy International Airport, which stops in Jamaica.

The refurbishing work will help improve track configurations, which have remained mostly the same since the station was first built in 1913. The total funding for the states investment is coming from a combination of the MTAs 20102014 capital plan and the 20152019 capital plan.

On Tuesday, Cuomo also announced the plans to transform the James A. Farley Post Office on 8th Avenue in Manhattan into a home for LIRR and Amtrak trains currently utilizing Penn Station. The latter station will be completely renovated with higher and brighter corridors, as well as a concourse that will connect the to the new Moynihan Train Hall. According to Gov. Cuomo, the state aims for the new train hall to be ready for use by 2020. The new train hall will span 250,000 square feet, 50 percent larger than Penn Stations current size. Additionally, the subway stations enclosed in Penn Station, including the A,C,E and 1,2,3 lines, will be entirely renovated. Cuomo said the total cost of the project will be $1.6 billion.
Recent shooting incidents in an East Side neighborhood have residents calling for the closure of a nearby gas station that police have described as almost an open-air drug market.

The Mobil gas station at 3019 E. Washington Ave. has become a home base for sellers and buyers of marijuana, heroin and crack, resulting in a rise in violence and drug activity in the nearby neighborhood, Madison police officers told community members Thursday night at a meeting to discuss the recent violence and ways to improve the neighborhoods safety.

The Mobil is a problem. The Mobil is driving (the activity), said Capt. Tom Snyder.

Snyder said police and the city have used search warrants, drug abatement projects and threatened civil action against the business.

Things need to change, he said. And if that doesnt change, the rest of the neighborhoods problems, I dont think, are going to change.

Farooq Shahzad, owner of the gas station and others in Madison, did not respond to an email sent Thursday night seeking comment.

Lambert Twizeyimana, 30, has been working nights at the Mobil station for two months. He said he heard gunfire from a vehicle passing by the gas station the night of Sept. 24 and sees kids hanging around the gas station doing what could be drugs or selling drugs, but he cant tell from his post inside the building. Twizeyimana said he talks to police about potential criminal activity often.

Sgt. William Quast said the department is adding extra police officers to patrol the area on weekends and during late-night and early-morning hours.

The city also plans to convert the block immediately south of the gas station on Marquette Street, between Darbo Drive and Hauk Street, into a one-way street heading north toward East Washington, to deter vehicles exiting the gas station from entering the nearby neighborhood, said Lt. Tim Peregoy. Peregoy said most of the buyers arent from the neighborhood.

But Twizeyimana doesnt agree.

These people live around here, he said. Sometimes they are here, sometimes they are at McDonalds. I dont think if they shut it down its going to stop the (drug problems).

Ald. Marsha Rummel, 6th District, said the city has issued a drug abatement plan to Shahzad, which puts forth improvements  such as added security cameras and security personnel  for business owners to comply with or face closure, a plan that could take two years to complete.

But residents at the two-hour meeting with police and Rummel expressed frustration over what they describe as a slow city response to what police have identified as a source of criminal activity in the neighborhood.

Im not frustrated with the police. But its been two years, Im tired of writing letters, said Chris Welch, owner of Trixies Liquor at 2929 E. Washington Ave. Welch, along with other residents at the meeting, said the gas station must be closed for the shootings and drug activity to decrease.

Will Green, director of the Mentoring Positives youth mentoring program, said hes been working in the area for 12 years and the progress in reducing criminal activity in that time has practically disappeared in recent months as recreational and mentoring programs for youth have decreased.

He said when youths have idle hands, thats when problems begin. Finding more opportunities for youth and ways to engage residents of the Darbo neighborhood are key in finding ways to decrease criminal activity, he said.

Jason Waller, who lives in the 2900 block of Union Street, wrote a letter to Shahzad in 2015 following a shooting incident in July of that year on North Marquette Street.

The gas station is not the root cause of crime in this neighborhood, it simply serves as a convenient place to engage in criminal activity. It also serves as a important community gathering spot for youth on this side of town and the significance of this fact has not been overlooked, Waller wrote in the letter sent Sept. 11, 2015. Nor has the fact that as a business owner, you cannot be held responsible for the actions of patrons after they leave your premises. You do however have some control over the type of activity on the premises in the first place.
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.
Two West High School students were arrested Thursday afternoon after an officer stationed at the school took a BB gun from one of them, Madison police said.

The students, both 14-year-old boys, were outside the school on Regent Street at 1:25 p.m. when the officer took the gun away from them, Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain said.

After the officer took the gun, the students ran to the high school and tried to get in, but the door was locked, police said. One student broke a window after punching it while trying to get in.

School administrators ordered students to remain in their classrooms while the incident was under investigation, Principal Beth Thompson wrote in an email to parents.

I want to reassure you that school safety was not compromised and staff responded quickly and appropriately to help manage the incident and to re-direct students, Thompson wrote.

The student who allegedly broke the window was arrested on tentative charges of criminal damage to property and resisting arrest. The other student was arrested on tentative charges of resisting arrest and possession of a BB gun.
Odd Duck Coffee offers more than 20 types of coffee from all over the world. The company only sells from farms that are certified organic and fair trade.

SHARE Odd Duck Coffee offers more than 20 types of coffee from all over the world. Owners Ted and Andrea Klopf set up weekly at the Wichita Falls Downtown Farmers Market. They only sell from farms that are certified organic and fair trade. Odd Duck Coffee owner Ted Klopf holds daughter Addilynn as they sell coffee products at the Wichita Falls Downtown Farmers Market. Klopf roasts the coffee himself, using only organic and fair trade beans. They offer more than 20 types of coffee from all over the world. Contributed photoS Odd Duck Coffee owner Ted Klopf checks a batch of coffee beans that he freshly roasted. Klopf offers coffee that is organic, fair-trade and goes from tree to roaster in a matter of months. They offer more than 20 types of coffee from all over the world. A batch of fresh coffee beans goes from green to dark brown roast in about 10 to 13 minutes. Odd Duck Coffee offers more than 20 types of coffee from all over the world.

By Claire Kowalick of the Times Record News

Eight years ago, Ted Klopf never dreamed his dogged determination to replicate a great cup of coffee would turn into his life passion. Now, winding down a successful Air Force career and starting a growing business, Klopf, owner of Odd Duck Coffee, says the future tastes great.

Klopf and wife Andrea, originally from the northern Midwest, were vacationing about eight years ago in the costal Mexican town of Zihuatanejo. Walking through the bustling market one day, they smelled freshly roasted coffee for the first time. One taste and Klopf was hooked, determined to reproduce that richly nuanced flavor once they returned home.

"Before that, I thought coffee was coffee, you know. I drank Folgers, or whatever, like everybody else," he said. "But that sent me down the rabbit hole to recreate what I tasted in Mexico," he said.

There was a long period of trial and error before he realized there is more to roasting coffee than just heating up some beans. First he tried putting green, unroasted beans in a popcorn popper, but that batch tasted awful. After watching some tutorial videos online, Klopf learned that a regular popcorn popper will not get hot enough to roast the beans properly.

Next  and he definitely does not recommend trying this at home  he ripped out the thermostat in the popper and was able to get more favorable results. A small home coffee roaster was next in line and then he moved up to a commercial roaster after receiving dozens of requests from friends and family for his special brew.

Klopf learned that each coffee variety is unique and must be handled differently. One variety may need to be roasted lightly so it does not get to bitter. Another, just enough to bring out the fruity notes. Other beans may take a darker roast to enhance earthy or chocolate flavors. All of this exact chemistry is achieved with an unforgiving roasting time of only 10 to 13 minutes.

When considering a name for his business, Klopf wanted to honor his favorite former pet, Darrell the duck. Like the coffee business, Klopf never thought he would have a pet duck, but on Dec. 27, 2010, he and Andrea were walking around downtown Oklahoma City, where he was stationed at the time, when they saw a baby duck that was struggling in a pond, fighting for its life.

"I remember the date because it was me and my wife's anniversary. The duck had been released into the water and baby ducks don't have the right feathers yet and cannot swim, so he was going to drown," he said.

Klopf scooped up the freezing bird, put him in his pocket, raced to the car and placed the duck by the heater to warm up. Once the duck recovered, Klopf said the waterfowl looked at him and figured he was his new mommy, and the two were inseparable. Darrell came to live with the Klopfs for about a year and even got along with the couple's two dogs.

When Klopf's commanders heard about his unusual pet, he earned the nickname "Odd Duck Guy." Sadly, Darrell met an early end at the hands  claws  of a neighborhood cat, but Klopf never forgot his feathered companion.

Klopf, Andrea and their 3-year-old daughter, Addilynn, moved to Wichita Falls about three years ago when he was assigned to Sheppard Air Force Base as a KC-135 crew chief instructor. While he has enjoyed his Air Force career, Klopf said the family would like to stay in Wichita Falls and grow the Odd Duck business when his time is up.

A very important aspect of the business for Klopf, he said, is that the beans come from organic, certified fair-trade farms.

"It's what I believe in personally. I may be paying five times more and my margins are smaller than big businesses. But it's what is fair," he said.

Odd Duck offers more than 21 varieties of coffee beans and Klopf knows the back story to each of these single-origin small farms. By purchasing the unroasted beans directly, he said he can guarantee they are as fresh as possible  going from tree, to roaster, to a coffee cup in a couple months. Each bag of Odd Duck Coffee is stamped with the date the beans were roasted, usually within the past two weeks.

As more and more businesses aim to call themselves "fair-trade," the market has broadened the definition of the term in ways Klopf believes is not so fair. He said other companies can sneak under the radar because an entire region can be considered fair-trade, even if only 20 percent of the farms actually use the practice. In the future, Klopf said he would like to take it one notch further and do direct trade, where he works with coffee growers face-to-face and can be more confident the farms are getting their fair share.

And as for that magical taste and aroma from their trip to Mexico, "Yes, we were able to get beans from that area and, yeah, I think we nailed it," he said.
USA800

SHARE File photo The Wichita Falls Economic Development Corp. will release its lien on equipment and infrastructure put into this facility located at 2236 Airport Dr. The improvements were part of an incentive package for WDS Global to open a call center in Wichita Falls in 2010. The WFEDC decided against buying the build, and removing the equipment, which was an agreement with the owners of the building, would not have made financial sense.

The WFEDC approves $3.4 million incentive package for USA800 call center

Call center company USA800 is looking to hire 300 employees for a new location in Wichita Falls within the next 30 days, that is if the Wichita Falls City Council officially approves an economic development incentive package for the Kansas City, Missouri-based business.

The Wichita Falls Economic Development Corp. approved a $3.4 million incentive package Friday morning to help bring the additional primary jobs to the area. The package includes about $2.6 million in cash-for-jobs, and another roughly $800,000 for training.

Its definitely a good feeling to know the economic development board approved this, but at the same time, weve got to wait until the city council approves it, so well see what happens, said USA800 CEO Tom Davis. But were very optimistic and this, I think, definitely gives me the confidence to move forward with the assumption that it will move forward because we need to.

The company is aggressively going to be hiring 300 employees within 30 days by hosting a couple multi-day job fairs in the near future, and possibly up to 600 by June 2018. Davis said applicants for positions in the Employee Stock Ownership Plan company  a business in which the employees get stock in the company  can also submit applications through their website at usa800.com.

He shared the story of one USA800 employee who left the company after 11 years, sold her employee stock back to the company and received a check for $225,000.

Davis told WFEDC board members that USA800 call centers primarily handle inbound phone calls from customers, but very small portions of their daily services include some outbound calls, Internet chats, email management and social media. Customer agents are able to assist with sales, customer care, tech support and retention.

The CEO said Wichita Falls has what its looking for in its fifth and largest call center.

Were very excited about Wichita Falls for several reasons, he said. We really like the marketplace, the skilled labor thats here, the availability of skilled labor. The site itself, as Ive said before, is a very nice site and almost move-in ready.

Davis said the company has a nonbinding letter-of-intent agreement with the owner of the building at I-44 and Airport Drive that was occupied by WDS Global, a Xerox Company, until August 2015. He said they will proceed with plans to open a center here and they have a technical team in town to assess the facility to see what will be needed to get it ready for its operations.

Dick Bundy, chairman of the WFEDC, said USA800 is not like other call centers around the country that can set up in a hurry in leave just as fast. In fact, he said, USA800 was ranked No. 7 among inbound call centers among CUSTOMER magazines top 50 in 2016.

Whats also impressive is they are an employee-owned company, which means local people will have a local stake in USA800, offers good paying jobs and retirement, medical and other benefits, all of which are hallmarks of what the WFEDC is wanting to invest in.

The thing thats very impressive to us is what really encouraged them to come here was a building full of a lot of fixtures, furnishings and equipment that we gave back to the owner of the building because we didnt want the expense of having to move that and liquidate it, Bundy said. That incentive is what got them very interested in our community because it really is plug-and-play ready.

Henry Florsheim, president and CEO of the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce & Industry, said the labor force here has plenty of folks who have the customer service and basic computer skills needed to meet USA800s desire to have 300 people hired within 30 days. He said the benefits as well as the company being an ESOP will be attractive for people in this area.

The economic impact of USA800 is estimated to be about $70 million in five years. Thats the type of project for which the WFEDC was made.

Were talking possibly upwards of 600 jobs paying decent wages plus the possibility of owning part of the company, and thats what economic development is about, Florsheim said. Its about providing better opportunities for the citizens of Wichita Falls while bringing in revenues from outside the area.

City councilors will consider the incentive package at their Oct. 18 meeting.

Follow John Ingle on Twitter at @inglejohn1973.
Contributed image Author and photographer Traer Scott, whose latest book is "Finding Home: Shelter Dogs and Their Stories," will be the guest speaker at Airmen for the Animals Oct. 6 at the Stone Palace.

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By Richard Carter, Special to the Times Record News

The third Airmen for the Animals brings pet-lovers together with an award-winning photographer, adoptable dogs on runway, a live auction and a catered pulled-pork dinner.

The event, which begins 6:30 p.m. Oct. 6 at downtown's Stone Palace, is the annual fundraiser for the nonprofit Humane Society of Wichita County.

"We had a very nice event last year, and we hope it repeats in 2016," Humane Society Director Cheryl Miller said.

Guest speaker will be Traer Scott, author, photographer and former shelter worker. She is the author of "Finding Home: Shelter Dogs and Their Stories" (2015) and "Shelter Dogs" (2006).

"I'm excited to meet her and get ideas to help save some of our dogs and cats," Miller said.

One of the Humane Society's board members read Scott's book and recommended her.

A live auction will feature items donated by businesses such as Raising Cane's, Spa Bella and Looking Good Spa.

"There will be pet and dog grooming, and we're hoping to have Jimmy Fallon tickets again. We're still getting items."

Also, Monarch Catering will serve a pulled-pork meal.

Adoptable dogs will walk the runway, too, led by airmen volunteers.

"We really enjoy involving Sheppard Air Force Base because the base is such a large part of the community, and the enlisted men and women do such a great job of volunteering here. The airmen will handle the dogs and tell our guests about the pets. We also will showcase some military dogs and explain to people what they do at the base."

The Humane Society of Wichita County has been around for more than 30 years.

"We take in homeless animals and even owner-surrender animals and place them in adoptable, loving homes. We take in strays, abused, neglected animals as well, and we try to nurse them back," Miller said.

For the past two years, the Humane Society shelter has been classified as a no-kill shelter because it met its goal of a euthanasia rate of less than 10 percent. Dropping that rate was one of the organization's goals, Miller said, and the organization is proud of accomplishing it.

Also, "Last year in 2015, we adopted 1,145 dogs and cats."

The nonprofit is in the process of approving a contract with the county so that any time a sheriff seizes a horse or livestock, the animals will start coming to the shelter.

"We are excited about the evening and are hoping for a good turnout," Miller said.
Lauren Roberts/Times Record News

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By Christopher Collins of the Times Record News

An investigative report produced by an engineering consultant concludes, in part, that a contractor at the city of Wichita Falls wastewater treatment plant is not responsible for the deaths of two workers there in July.

Despite that, Archer Western Construction LLC is a defendant in a wrongful-death lawsuit brought this month by the widow of city mechanic Daniel Arredondo. The city also is being sued in the death of Arredondo and his supervisor, David Sheppard, who were killed after being exposed to lethal volumes of hydrogen sulfide gas.

Sharla Arredondo alleges in the lawsuit that both the city and Archer Western were negligent in bringing about the death of her husband  or at least not doing enough to prevent it.

Her complaint contains little information regarding why the construction company should be held responsible, save that it was on site at the treatment plant in the same time frame the incident occurred, and that it reportedly was using chemicals "including but not limited to sulfate."

Following the deaths, the city launched an internal investigation, along with hiring engineering consulting firm Freese and Nichols Inc. to look into the matter.

The firm explored four theories as to what had caused the rapid buildup of hydrogen sulfide gas in the treatment plant's basement. One was that Archer Western construction crews at the plant had pumped sulfate-ridden groundwater into the facility, where it interacted with bacteria and produced the gas.

Archer Western was hired by the city this year to make $16 million in improvements to the municipal wastewater treatment plant, part of a water reuse project that is projected to pump millions of gallons of treated wastewater to from the facility to Lake Arrowhead.

The work, which includes treating wastewater with chemicals to remove phosphorous and ammonia before the water is piped to the lake, began in May. The project also involves building an "effluent filter," which reportedly requires the excavation of a large pit in the center of the treatment plant.

After the deaths, the Freese and Nicols probe found that Archer Western had been pumping groundwater containing high volumes of sulfates into the plant.

"From a microbiology perspective, it seemed plausible that adding more sulfate from the groundwater to the headworks could accelerate hydrogen sulfide formation ..." the report states.

But after running a test, Freese and Nicols concluded that the construction company's groundwater pumping was not the cause of the gas buildup. Still, the city directed Archer Western to begin pumping the groundwater into the storm sewers, where it won't come into contact with sewage.

Messages left with the Archer Western's corporate and Texas locations Thursday were not returned.

In his report, the Freese and Nicols consultant wrote that the most likely cause of hydrogen sulfide buildup in the plant is a combination of a reduction of water use by city residents, a higher concentration of gas-producing bacteria and hot summer temperatures.
FILE - This undated file image posted on a militant website on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2014, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, shows fighters from the al-Qaida linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), now called the Islamic State group, marching in Raqqa, Syria. The Islamic State group has killed dozens of its own members over the past weeks in a hunt for spies and informants after U.S.-led coalition airstrikes hit a number of high-level jihadis. (Militant Website via AP, File)

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By The Baltimore Sun

What is happening in Syria is heartbreaking. The short-lived cease fire brokered by the U.S. and Russia two weeks ago collapsed ignominiously before it was even fully implemented. Meanwhile, Russian and Syrian government aircraft are back in the skies dropping incendiary weapons and bunker-busting bombs on beleaguered civilian populations in Aleppo and other cities. Residents say the savagery of the aerial assault is the worst they have seen during Syria's five-year civil war.

Yet it's clear the extent to which the U.S can alleviate the suffering of ordinary Syrians is limited. Short of toppling the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, there may be no way of swiftly ending the fighting. The events of the last two weeks have shown that Russia can't be trusted to honor a truce in any meaningful way. And it would be a mistake to get ourselves more deeply embroiled in a chaotic conflict with partners whose allegiances are constantly shifting in a country where the U.S. has no direct national interest at stake beyond what we're already doing to degrade and destroy the so-called Islamic State.

Among all the available options, the least bad may be to continue pressing Russia and Assad to allow humanitarian aid to reach rebel-held areas in east Aleppo and other parts of the country where the fighting has left tens of thousands of civilians without access to food, fuel, medicines and electricity. The United Nations has called on the Syrian and Russian governments to stop the bombing and shelling of schools, hospitals and residential areas, which are being systematically destroyed and where the death toll among civilians reportedly has reached 100 a day.

Washington and Moscow continue to trade accusations over which side was responsible for breaking the Syrian truce, but at this point the argument is academic. Russia is an unreliable partner with an agenda at odds with U.S. goals. Our main objective in Syria is the destruction of the Islamic State in order to prevent it from exporting jihadist militants to destabilize other countries in the region or to attack targets in Europe and the U.S. How much longer Assad can cling to power is a secondary issue, however much we might wish to see him gone.

The resumption of fighting in Syria has prompted calls for the U.S. to take stronger action against the Assad regime, but none of the alternatives put forward seem likely to advance our vital national interest there within a reasonable time frame or at an acceptable cost. Some have suggested giving U.S.-backed rebel groups anti-aircraft weapons to defend themselves and exact a toll on Russian and Syrian planes and pilots; others  including Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton  want the U.S. to use its air power to create safe zones for Syrian refugees or set up buffer zones along the country's borders with Turkey and Iraq.

But giving shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to rebel groups could easily backfire if those weapons were lost, stolen or otherwise fell into the hands of rival fighters who could then use them to down a U.S. warplane or a commercial airliner. There've been too many cases in which weapons intended for U.S.-backed forces on the ground ended up being used against us or our allies. Likewise, the problem with safe zones is that enforcing them risks U.S planes coming into conflict with Syrian or Russian aircraft in the country's crowded airspace, and possibly setting off an international incident that makes an already bad situation worse.

The U.S. can try to lower the impact of the violence on ordinary Syrians by backing local cease fires wherever possible to allow humanitarian aid to reach areas besieged by the government, and when it does its assistance should be unstinting. It can also shore up support for strategic allies in the region like Jordan and urge restraint by Turkey in its feud with the Kurds, who have been among the most effective fighters against the Islamic State. But above all the U.S. needs to keep pounding the Islamic State in order to bring about its swift demise. That, at least, is within our power to achieve.
People walk on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Marcus Scarbrough, Iowa Park

The Supreme Court just passed a regulation giving government agencies the legal authority to access our computers, cell phones, e-mail and land line phones without a court order.

Amendment IV of the Constitution states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly, describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Therefore, the Supreme Court has violated the Constitution.

Article 1, section 1 of the Constitution reads, "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."

The Court issued the regulation, (by definition a regulation is law) with the provision that Congress has until December 1, 2016 to override their decision.

Since the Supreme Court doesn't have constitutional authority to create law, they should have presented the regulation to Congress in the first place.

Congress would have to amend the Constitution's Amendment IV deleting the requirement for a court order before passing the regulation. Seems the Supreme Court has no regard for our privacy or the Constituion.
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Donald Trump scored a gentleman's "C'' in his first debate with Hillary Clinton. She was programmed, like one of those androids from the film "Westworld," spewing out well-rehearsed sound bites, smiling (sometimes condescendingly), and even tossing in a few wiggles. It was all designed to make her look warm and wonderful.

As the saying goes, if you can fake sincerity, you can fake anything.

Trump did best when he didn't focus on himself and this is the pattern he should follow in the next two debates.

As a seasoned debater, who has taken on professors and liberal thinkers on campuses from Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale in the east, to the University of California, Davis in the west, I think I can say without too much hubris that I know how to destroy a bad argument.

Let's start with the race issue. Hillary Clinton slammed Trump for comments she regards as racist. If she tries that again, Trump should extend the road he began to walk down Monday night. He was right to say that his opponent and her party have had decades to repair the racial divide (which President Obama suggested he would do), but that chasm has only widened over the last eight years. Real racism, Trump should say, is refusing to allow minority children in failing public schools to escape them in favor of better ones simply because many teachers' unions oppose school choice and contribute significantly to the Democratic Party.

Trump should take on the issue of poverty and propose a public-private partnership with churches and religious institutions that would be assigned an individual in need of help. These churches then would do all that was necessary to help that person escape poverty, including offering financial advice, access to education or even baby-sitting services so that this person could go to school. Retiring baby boomers could find new purpose in life by helping someone become independent of government programs, which have cost a lot, but have done little to reduce the number of poor.

Trump should ask Hillary Clinton why she thinks government is the answer to so many of the nation's problems when in reality it has too often caused or contributed to this country's ills. She wants to grow government even more, spending additional billions in borrowed money, mortgaging the futures of generations to come. Remember when Democrats decried debt? That was when a Republican occupied the White House.

Again, during Monday's debate, Trump started to make the case for success in business and in life, but he made it more about himself than others. Americans are inspired by stories of people who have overcome obstacles and Trump should not only tell their stories, he should start featuring them in his political ads and on stage with him  as he has done with veterans. Inspiration has always been the fuel that ignites economic and personal growth.

One subject we didn't hear discussed in the first debate was the Constitution. Hillary Clinton said she believes in a "living Constitution," meaning it is open to interpretation by liberal judges to fit the times. What does Trump believe about our founding document?

On nuclear weapons, Trump needs to embrace Ronald Reagan's view (and that of President Obama) that they need to be reduced, especially in rogue regimes. Talk of using such weapons is irresponsible, though our adversaries must believe we would use them if attacked. The prospect of mutually assured destruction during the Cold War ensured nuclear weapons would not be used. Extremist regimes, like Iran, do not appear to fear a nuclear apocalypse.

Lastly, how about appealing to personal accountability and responsibility in the second debate? Let's hear about entitlement reform, entitlements being the main driver of debt. As I have argued, government should be a last resort, not a first resource  a safety net, not a hammock.

More than missing emails and Hillary Clinton's character (which is already fixed in the minds of most people) voters want to hear about subjects that will affect their lives. It's about us, more than them. If Trump can close that deal, he is likely to score a "B'' in the next debate. If he scores higher, he just might win in November.

Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.
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Donald Trump's supporters see a potential Hillary Clinton victory in November as the end of any conservative chance to restore small government, constitutional protections, fiscal sanity and personal liberty.

Clinton's progressives swear that a Trump victory would spell the implosion of America as they know it, alleging Trump parallels with every dictator from Josef Stalin to Adolf Hitler.

Part of the frenzy over 2016 as a make-or-break election is because a closely divided Senate's future may hinge on the coattails of the presidential winner. An aging Supreme Court may also translate into perhaps three to four court picks for the next president.

But the model of the imperial Obama presidency is the greater fear. Over the last eight years, Obama has transformed the powers of presidency in a way not seen in decades.

Congress talks grandly of "comprehensive immigration reform," but Obama, as he promised with his pen and phone, bypassed the House and Senate to virtually open the border with Mexico. He largely ceased deportations of undocumented immigrants. He issued executive-order amnesties. And he allowed entire cities to be exempt from federal immigration law.

The press said nothing about this extraordinary overreach of presidential power, mainly because these largely illegal means were used to achieve the progressive ends favored by many journalists.

The Senate used to ratify treaties. In the past, a president could not unilaterally approve the Treaty of Versailles, enroll the United States in the League of Nations, fight in Vietnam or Iraq without congressional authorization, change existing laws by nonenforcement, or rewrite bankruptcy laws.

Not now. Obama set a precedent that he did not need Senate ratification to make a landmark treaty with Iran on nuclear enrichment.

He picked and chose which elements of the Affordable Care Act would be enforced.

Rebuffed by Congress, Obama is now slowly shutting down the Guantanamo Bay detention center by insidiously having inmates sent to other countries.

Respective opponents of both Trump and Clinton should be worried.

Either winner could follow the precedent of allowing any sanctuary city or state in the United States to be immune from any federal law found displeasing  from the liberal Endangered Species Act and federal gun registration laws to conservative abortion restrictions.

Could anyone complain if Trump's secretary of state were investigated by Trump's attorney general for lying about a private email server  in the manner of Clinton being investigated by Loretta Lynch?

Would anyone object should a President Trump agree to a treaty with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the same way Obama overrode Congress with the Iran deal?

If a President Clinton decides to strike North Korea, would she really need congressional authorization, considering Obama's unauthorized Libyan bombing mission?

What would Americans say if President Trump's IRS  mirror-imaging Lois Lerner  hounded the progressive nonprofit organizations of George Soros?

Partisans are shocked that the press does not go after Trump's various inconsistencies and fibs about his supposed initial opposition to the Iraq War, or press him on the details of Trump University.

Conservatives counter that Clinton has never had to come clean about the likely illegal pay-for-play influence peddling of the Clinton Foundation or her serial lies about her private email server.

But why, if elected, should either worry much about media scrutiny?

Obama established the precedent that a president should be given a pass on lying to the American people.

Congress has proven woefully inept at asserting its constitutional right to check and balance Obama's executive overreach. The courts have often abdicated their own oversight.

But the press is the most blameworthy. White House press conferences now resemble those in the Kremlin, with journalists tossing Putin softball questions about his latest fishing or hunting trip.

One reason Americans are scared about the next president is that they should be. In 2017, a President Trump or President Clinton will be able to do almost anything he or she wishes without much oversight.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and author. Email him at author@victorhanson.com.
Albany

A power struggle among Albany County Democrats this week has resulted in a new chairman  who was then fired from his Board of Elections job  and new worries for the future of the county's long-dominant party.

On Thursday, Jack Flynn, Albany's Eighth Ward councilman, was elected to a two-year term as chairman over incumbent and Common Council President Carolyn McLaughlin, by a 185-82 vote at the Polish Community Center on Washington Avenue Extension.

When it came time to endorse the party's reappointment of Democratic Board of Elections Commissioner Matt Clyne, Flynn's supporters tried to table it. Referring the matter to a committee was seen as laying the groundwork to Flynn's appointment as elections commissioner.

It caused an uproar from the floor as supporters of Clyne, himself a former county chairman, argued he was nominated and unopposed. The committee then voted for Clyne and his name was sent to the County Legislature, which the Democrats control, for appointment.

Fallout came Friday, as Flynn was fired over the telephone from his job, which carries a $46,387 salary, as an election education specialist, according to party sources.

Flynn and Clyne did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

The dispute over the chairmanship, the Capital Region's traditionally most powerful political post, shows the fractures in the county Democratic organization.

The post has legendary connotations stretching back to party boss Dan O'Connell in the as he built the organization in the first half of the 20th century and consolidated power as chairman.

For a chairman to be fired from a political job would have been unimaginable until it happened Friday morning.

"It's totally unprecedented," said retired Assemblyman Jack McEneny, a historian of Albany and its politics.

"We're really good at fighting among ourselves instead of building the party," said Cohoes Chairman and county Legislator Gil Ethier, who has been active since O'Connell's days.

Ethier saw Albany's mayoral struggles as hurting the party.

"There's a battle going on in Albany," Ethier said. "Our party is not going to get stronger when our chairman changes every two years."

Flynn's rise to the chairmanship came as a preview of Albany's 2017 mayoral race as McLaughlin, a potential challenger to Mayor Kathy Sheehan, was voted out as chairwoman.

Asked about the apparent move to cripple a mayoral run, McLaughlin said, "Ask Dan McCoy."

McLaughlin said pushing her out of the county chair would not discourage her, but would strengthen her resolve.

County Executive McCoy, a Sheehan ally, watched from the back of the meeting as Flynn's election played out.

"The party spoke for itself. I congratulate Carolyn for the job she's done," McCoy said.

Flynn led a slate into committee offices that reflected strong ties to county government. Flynn drew support from the towns and cities outside Albany, as well as most of the uptown wards in the city. McLaughlin's votes came from the downtown wards and other parts of the city with scattered votes from the suburbs.

"The committee spoke," County Legislature Majority Leader Frank Commisso said.

McLaughlin, the highest ranking African-American in city government and the second to lead the county committee, emphasized her success "to diversify the court system in Albany County in the last two years."

She also pointed out that she revived the committee's finances so that there's $40,000 on hand instead of nothing in the coffers. She said she raised the party's stature at the state level.

McLaughlin took a parting swipe at the committee for not being more racially inclusive.

"This room should be a lot more diverse than it is," McLaughlin said.

She openly criticized the Colonie Democratic Committee for having just three minority members before the meeting. McLaughlin diversified the ranks by appointing 14 new committee members Thursday at the start of the meeting.

"Slapped around," Colonie Chairwoman Ellen Rosano said about McLaughlin's remarks.

Rosano, who's been the town leader for a week, said she had spoken to McLaughlin about adding more minorities to the town committee. She said McLaughlin's appointees increased the minority representation to 17 of 122 committee seats.

Flynn said he would make committee operations transparent, the first step being to put the bylaws on the committee website.

Tim O'Brien contributed. kcrowe@timesunion.com  518-454-5084  @KennethCrowe
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Hoboken, N.J.

A rush-hour commuter train crashed through a barrier at the busy Hoboken station and lurched across the waiting area Thursday morning, killing one person and injuring more than 100 others in a grisly wreck that renewed questions about whether long-delayed automated safety technology could have prevented the tragedy.

People pulled chunks of concrete off pinned and bleeding victims, passengers kicked out windows and crawled to safety, and cries and screams could be heard in the wreckage as emergency workers rushed to reach the injured in the tangle of twisted metal and dangling wires just across the Hudson River from New York City.

The New Jersey Transit train ran off the end of the track as it was pulling in around 8:45 a.m., smashing through a concrete-and-steel bumper. As it ground to a halt in the waiting area, the train knocked out pillars, collapsing a section of the roof.

"The train didn't stop. It just didn't stop," said Tom Spina, who was in the terminal and rushed to try to help the victims.

Ross Bauer was sitting in the third or fourth car when the train entered the historic 109-year-old station, a bustling hub for commuters heading to New York City.

"All of a sudden, there was an abrupt stop and a big jolt that threw people out of their seats. The lights went out, and we heard a loud crashing noise like an explosion" as the roof fell, he said. "I heard panicked screams, and everyone was stunned."

The engineer was pulled from the mangled first car and hospitalized, but officials said he had been released by evening. He was cooperating with investigators, Gov. Chris Christie said.

A woman standing on the platform  identified as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, of Hoboken, a former employee in the legal department of the business software company SAP in Brazil  was killed by debris, and 108 others were injured, mostly on the train, Christie said. Seventy-four were hospitalized, some with serious injuries that included broken bones.

"The train came in at much too high rate of speed, and the question is: 'Why is that?'" Christie said. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said investigators will determine whether the explanation was equipment failure, an incapacitated engineer or something else.

Some witnesses said they didn't hear or feel the brakes being applied before the crash. Authorities would not estimate how fast the train was going. But the speed limit heading into the station is 10 mph.

The National Transportation Safety Board planned to pull one of the black-box event recorders Thursday evening from the locomotive at the back of the train. The device contains information on the train's speed and braking.

But it wasn't safe enough yet for investigators to extract the second recorder from the engineer's compartment because of the collapsed roof and the possibility of asbestos in the old building, NTSB Vice Chairwoman Bella Dinh-Zarr said.

Investigators will examine the engineer's performance and the condition of the train, track and signals, among other things, she said. They also plan to look into whether positive train control  a system designed to prevent accidents by overriding the engineer and automatically slowing or stopping trains that are going too fast  could have helped.

None of NJ Transit's trains is fully equipped with positive train control, which relies on radio and GPS signals to monitor trains' position and speed.

The NTSB has been pressing for some version of the technology for at least 40 years, and the industry is under government orders to install it, but regulators have repeatedly extended the deadline at railroads' request.

The target date is now the end of 2018.
A telephone scam cost an 82-year-old Madison woman $6,000 Wednesday, money the woman thought would be used to get her grandson out of jail, according to Madison police.

When the caller reached out to the woman, he identified himself as her grandson and told her he had injured another motorist while he was driving drunk. The caller told her she could send bail money to his lawyer, police said.

The woman provided her credit card number to who she thought was her grandson's lawyer. While the woman was talking to the lawyer, money was withdrawn from her bank account and used, along with her credit card, to buy more than 30 gift cards. The purchases totaled more than $6,000.

When the woman's credit card company denied a transaction, the woman called her grandson and realized it was a scam.
New York

Donald Trump says he took the moral high ground at the first presidential debate by not mentioning the infidelities of former President Bill Clinton. But he hinted at them, talked about them immediately afterward and then sent his campaign's top backers out to do the same.

"An impeachment for lying," Trump said Thursday at a campaign rally in New Hampshire, referring to the effort to remove Bill Clinton from office for lying about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. "Remember that? Impeach."

The Republican nominee's decision to dredge up the former president's sexual history is a risky move in his campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton, whose own team isn't fazed by the attack line. Clinton was asked whether she has an obligation to speak out if Trump brings up her husband's infidelities. Her answer was a terse "No."

Trump critics say it all could backfire, elevating Clinton in the eyes of female voters and motivating her base.

"The whole notion of trying to get Hillary Clinton to pay for Bill Clinton's infidelities is just strategically a bad choice," said Katie Packer, a longtime Republican strategist opposed to Trump's candidacy. Women in particular, she said, see it as cruel.

Republican pollster Frank Luntz said Trump's reference to Bill Clinton's indiscretions was his low point Monday night among the group of voters with whom he watched the debate. "They were laughing about it because they thought that was Trump at his worst," Luntz said, adding that undecided voters are especially turned off by personal attacks.

The effort also risks drawing attention to the thrice-married Trump's own unflattering history with women. His first marriage ended following a well-publicized affair, and two of his top advisers, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have had their own infidelities. The three have had nine wives combined.

Trump first touched on Bill Clinton's sexual past the weekend before the debate, threatening to seat Gennifer Flowers in the front row. She has said she and Clinton had an affair and he has admitted to one sexual encounter. She didn't appear.

Trump did not directly mention Bill Clinton's affairs on stage with the Democratic nominee, but did make a veiled reference. "You want to know the truth? I was going to say something extremely rough to Hillary, to her family, and I said to myself: I can't do it. I just can't do it," he said on stage.

Moments after the debate ended, Trump raised Bill Clinton's affairs unprompted, in response to a question about Hillary Clinton's performance.

"I'm very happy I didn't mention Bill's indiscretions because that's out of respect," he told The Associated Press, adding that he'd held his tongue because the Clintons' daughter, Chelsea, was in the audience.

That restraint didn't last. In talking points later distributed by the campaign and obtained by the AP, Trump supporters were advised that "Mr. Trump has never treated women the way Hillary Clinton and her husband did when they actively worked to destroy Bill Clinton's accusers." The document mentions Flowers, Lewinsky and Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state worker who sued Clinton for sexual harassment. The former president eventually agreed to an $850,000 settlement with Jones, but acknowledged no wrongdoing.

Trump supporters are advised to say they are not "blaming Hillary for Bill's infidelities," but rather are pointing out that she has "been an active participant in trying to destroy the women who has come forward with a claim."

His backers got the message. Giuliani said Bill Clinton "disgraced this country with what he did in the Oval Office."

As for Hillary Clinton, Giuliani said, "After being married to Bill Clinton for 20 years, if you didn't know the moment Monica Lewinsky said that Bill Clinton violated her that she was telling the truth, then you're too stupid to be president." That was in an interview posted by a reporter from the news website Elite Daily.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge told MSNBC on Wednesday, "If we want to dig back through the '90s on comments made about women, we can certainly look to Secretary Clinton referring to Monica Lewinsky as a neurotic loony toon."

While Hillary Clinton's aides aren't thrilled about having her marriage back in the spotlight, they argue Trump's new focus prevents him from making an affirmative case for his candidacy and only underscores the concerns some voters have with his temperament.
The first indication we wouldn't be flying to London came from a late-arriving couple who said they'd been told our departure had been delayed an hour.

"But the displays all say we're on time," we countered.

Then came the announcement. Thunderstorms at O'Hare had delayed and canceled flights. If we had a connection leaving before 10:15 p.m.  ours was scheduled for 9:05 p.m.  we were out of luck, the agent said.

Travelers are facing a whole series of new challenges, thanks to severe weather, mechanical issues and computer system failures.

More Information IMPROVING THE ODDS -- Allow plenty of time for connections: Our two-hour connection wasn't enough. Three hours may be better. -- Don't book the last flight of the day: We knew we weren't going to make it to London because there were no more flights out of O'Hare that night. -- Be flexible: We moved our plans to the next day, returned home and went out for pizza. See More Collapse

In August, they even faced false reports of shots fired at Kennedy International Airport and later, at LAX. The ensuing panic snarled air traffic for hours.

While the Kennedy and LAX incidents would be nearly impossible to prepare for, travelers sometimes can minimize the disruption caused by storms, although airline computer problems, such as those experienced by Delta and Southwest earlier this year, can be a bit more challenging.

One big problem: When your flight is scrubbed, it's become more difficult to find a seat on another carrier, as airlines back away from accepting one another's tickets.

What's a traveler to do?

First, be flexible. That means having alternatives if your original plans fall through. This can mean not taking the last flight of the day, and leaving as much as three or four hours for a connection.

On our London trip, we were booked on the final flight of the day from O'Hare, with little more than an hour for our connection from Albany. That flight would end up departing more than two hours late.

Like many travelers, I've grown accustomed to having my boarding pass on my smartphone. But when Delta's computer systems failed, passengers couldn't retrieve their boarding passes online.

Those with paper printouts appeared to have an easier time rebooking on what flights were available.

Delta's computer failure was troubling because it sent out incorrect information. Airport displays showed Delta flights operating on time, which of course wasn't the case at all.

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And as airlines increasingly refuse to accept other carriers' tickets, stranded travelers face fewer options.

There is the train, however. Amtrak serves the airport in Newark, a hub for United Airlines. Or you can take the train to Penn Station and the Long Island Rail Road to Jamaica, where you can catch the Air Train to Kennedy, where Delta, JetBlue and American have extensive operations.

Had we allowed more time, that could have been an alternate route to London for us, although we would have had to pay for our own train tickets.

As it was, we ended up calling the 800-number for reservations at United while still at the Albany airport terminal. An agent quickly rebooked us on a flight the next morning to O'Hare and then onto London.

We had booked a nonrefundable hotel room, and while we lost a night's sleep, our new flight arrived at 5:55 a.m. Sunday. For once, we knew our hotel room would be ready.

After stepping off the Heathrow Express, we had a leisurely breakfast at the Paddington Hilton, then slept for a few hours.

Refreshed, we made the most of our remaining days in London.
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Kim Swidler of East Greenbush

Top five places you've visited:

1. New York City: The world's best art, culture and cuisine are drawn to this magnetic and exciting destination.

2. Iceland: It's less than a five-hour flight from New York City, but once you leave Keflavik International Airport to start traveling down the lava-lined road to Reykjavik, you feel as if you've entered a different world filled with natural wonders including geysers, volcanoes, glaciers, and the magnificent Northern Lights.

3. Key West: This "Floridian New Orleans" has so much to offer all ages including romantic sunset cruises, wonderful Cuban cuisine, historical homes, and treasure hunting adventures.

4. Hong Kong: After the cool experience of flying direct from New York City over the North Pole, you arrived at an exotic land that, after three visits, still fascinates me.

5. Florence: Amazing views and outstanding art in the heart of Tuscany. And, although Italy is the mecca for pasta, this beautiful destination has the most delicious selection of gluten-free food that my daughter and I have ever experienced.

Top three travel tips:

1. Stress buster: Travel is fun but it can also be stressful. So making sure that all of my travel documents are printed and organized in sequential order helps relieve this stress by giving me a greater sense of control over my trip. Plus, I have everything at my fingertips if there's a problem without any cell phone concerns.

2. Amtrak refunds: So many of us in this area frequently travel via Amtrak. So I'm constantly amazed how few of us know that if your train is more than an hour late to and from places such as New York City, you can receive a refund in the form of a travel voucher.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter.

3. Global Entry: This has saved me hours of wait time when coming back from international trips. And, because it has the benefits of TSA Pre, you can move more quickly through domestic TSA lines.

Best meal you ever ate away from home: I've had many great meals during my travels, but my husband and I really loved the wonderful Cuban cuisine served at Key West's El Meson De Pepe.

Where to next: I have a great love for train travel, so I'm thrilled to be heading to Missoula, Montana where my husband and I will be boarding a special train comprised of beautiful, private passenger rail cars. From there, the train continues west through rugged Montana over mountain passes and along the Clark Fort towards Spokane, Washington.
THE ISSUE:

Oversight of the state Canal Corp. has moved to the New York Power Authority.

THE STAKES:

Although it runs a deficit, the canal system remains a valuable asset. It's a simple lesson in government economics  if you have an agency running a deficit and another racking up surpluses, put them together. And if you can, do it all off-budget.

More Information To comment: tuletters@timesunion.com or at http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion See More Collapse

Former Gov. Mario Cuomo pulled off that budget-balancing trick in 1992 when he moved the money-losing barge canal system out of the Department of Transportation and into a cash-rich Thruway Authority. Thruway tolls were supposed to end a few years later, once the highway's construction bonds were retired. Instead, tolls were kept and used to maintain the highway and cover its new canal component.

Fast-forward to March 2016, when, in the waning hours of the Legislative session, Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed through the transfer of the Canal Corp.  still losing money  from the Thruway Authority to the New York Power Authority, another cash-flush entity. The millions in annual Thruway tolls will no doubt now help the state repay the billions it borrowed to replace the aged Tappan Zee Bridge.

This week, the Power Authority reported that an anticipated $43 million surplus is now a $46 million paper loss, thanks to the cost of Canal Corp. debt. NYPA's CFO is optimistic it can still turn that deficit around in 2017, but it won't hit the $80 million originally projected. That ultimately could affect taxpayers, taking a big bite out of NYPA's contribution to the state's general fund.

The Canal Corp., which operates the Erie and Champlain canals and other historic waterways across upstate, certainly presents a challenge for state bean counters. The nearly 200-year-old waterway, once a major shipping route that transformed upstate's economy, is today a mainly recreational asset. Though it has little income of its own, it does help the economies of communities that line its shores. Watercraft, from canoes and kayaks to major touring boats, fill the river from spring through fall, launching from hundreds of locations, many in scenic parks and flourishing commercial marinas.

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And it still gets some limited use from shipping. Last week, GE moved a giant turbine built in Schenectady through the Eric Canal. But long-overdue dredging has stymied commercial use of the Champlain Canal, in the Hudson River between Waterford and Fort Edward. The state needs to pressure GE, which had disposed of tons of toxic PCBs into the river there, to pay its fair share for a cleanup needed as part of the dredging project.

All this seems to be a foundation on which the state can build.

To thrive, the canal must be permanently anchored. NYPA may be a good fit, as both share the mission of economic development. NYPA also operates some hydropower plants in the canals, offering potential savings by combining some operations and maintenance.

The canal system may never be a money-maker again, but that doesn't make it a liability. It's as great a resource as any major park or historical site. With stability, leadership and vision, it can still be an enormous asset for the state and its economy.
Public Affairs Specialist

A Texas horned lizard, equipped with a tiny tracking device, checks out his surroundings at the Wildlife Expo. Members of the Natural Resources team attach the transmitters to the lizards with temporary adhesive, then release the lizard back into the grasslands on Tinker. The lizards dont stray far, but their camouflage and small size make locating them a learned feat for researchers. (Air Force photo by April McDonald)
[September 30, 2016] Avast Closes Acquisition of AVG Technologies

Avast Software, the leader in digital security products for consumers and businesses, today announced it has acquired a majority stake in AVG Technologies after completing the initial offering period of its tender offer for all of the outstanding ordinary shares of AVG Technologies (News - Alert) N.V. (NYSE: AVG). Therefore, they will operate as a single company as of Monday, October 3, 2016. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005293/en/ Avast CEO Vince Steckler signing AVG contract (Photo: Business Wire) Vince Steckler is named the chief executive officer of the new Avast, overseeing more than $700M in revenue for 2016 for the newly-combined entity. Avast has transformed into a full service security company with the largest Consumer installed base in the world, and with significant Mobile, SMB and Mobile Enterprise businesses. As of the completion of the initial offering period of the tender offer, AVG's CEO Gary Kovacs (News - Alert) will be departing, but will be available on a consulting basis throughout the transition. "The combined company now has over 400 million users, more than 40% of the world's consumer PCs outside of China and the largest consumer security installed base in the world. If they were a country, we would have the 3rd largest population in the world," said Vince Steckler, chief executive officer. "The US is now our number one market with 58 million users. We truly have global reach and are proud to be the most popular choice for security in the world." "We now have the technical breadth to provide superior protection for our customers. For example, our combined threat labs will have teams dedicated to emerging threats affecting consumers. These include social engineering threats, which are commonly used to target IoT devices, and ransomware, which we are fighting with machine learning technology. We believe we are now better equipped than ever to outsmart those who want to do harm to people online." By acquiring AVG, the new Avast has stronger protection for its customers. Avast now: Has the largest threat detection network in the world with more than 400 million endpoints that act as sensors, providing information about malware to help detect and neutralize new threats as soon as they appear

Has what is probably the world's largest security-focused cloud and machine learning network comprising over 9,000 servers and supporting 50 million simultaneous connections to provide instantaneous protection to its users

Prevents around 1 billion malware attacks per month

Blocks more than 500 million malicious URLs per month

Blocks around 50 million phishing attacks per month

Processes 9 million new executable files every month, 25% of which are malicious, giving Avast even faster and deeper insights in the threat landscape With the acquisition, Avast expands its SMB business and adds AVG's strong reseller base, enabling Avast to support more and larger organizations. Avast is also gaining Location Labs and its carrier business, which Avast plans to invest in and expand overseas. Due to the closed infrastructure of mobile operating systems, mobile security and privacy protection technology is stronger when embedded in the carrier infrastructure. The Location Labs technology essentially provides a cloud-based solution to customers, bypassing the inefficiencies and insecurities of running within the mobile operating system. Avast plans to create more and better products that will defend against the growing number of threats in the market. The company will continue to offer both the AVG and Avast branded products for the foreseeable future and to support all customers and partners for both product lines. "We want our customers to be reassured that whether you use an AVG product or an Avast product, we will continue to support you. We are nothing without our customers and partners who have helped us get to where we are today," said Vince Steckler. As a result of the acquisition, Avast holds approximately 87.3% of AVG's outstanding shares acquired upon the closing of the initial offering period for the tender offer. Avast also announced that it has commenced a subsequent offering period to provide AVG shareholders who have not yet tendered their shares the opportunity to do so. The subsequent offering period is scheduled to expire at 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on October 14, 2016, unless extended. As described below, Avast plans to voluntarily delist AVG's shares from the New York Stock Exchange promptly following the subsequent offering period. The Transaction On July 29, 2016, Avast Software B.V. and its parent company, Avast HoldingB.V., commenced a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding ordinary shares of AVG Technologies N.V. at a purchase price of $25.00 per share in cash, without interest and less applicable withholding taxes or other taxes. The initial offering period for the tender offer and withdrawal rights expired at 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on September 29, 2016. Based on information provided by the depositary for the offer, a total of 44,543,555 shares, representing approximately 87.3% of the aggregate number of shares outstanding, had been validly tendered and had not been properly withdrawn as of the initial expiration of the offer (excluding 2,809,498 shares, representing approximately 5.5% of the aggregate number of shares outstanding, tendered pursuant to guaranteed delivery procedures that have not yet been delivered in settlement or satisfaction of such guarantee). Avast Software B.V. and Avast Holding B.V. have accepted for payment all shares that were validly tendered and were not properly withdrawn from the offer, and payment for such shares will be made promptly in accordance with the terms of the offer.



Avast Software B.V. and Avast Holding B.V. also announced today the commencement of a subsequent offering period scheduled to expire at 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on October 14, 2016. Avast may extend the subsequent offering period to provide for a minority exit offering period of up to 10 business days to provide AVG shareholders who have not yet tendered their shares the opportunity to do so. All shares validly tendered during the subsequent offering period will be immediately accepted for payment, and tendering holders will thereafter promptly be paid the same form and amount of offer consideration as in the initial offering period. The procedures for tendering shares during the subsequent offering period are the same as those applicable to the initial offering period, except that (i) the guaranteed delivery procedures may not be used during the subsequent offering period and (ii) no withdrawal rights will apply to shares tendered during the subsequent offering period. As more fully described in the offer to purchase, if the number of shares purchased during the subsequent offering period (including, if applicable, the minority exit offering period), together with the shares purchased during the initial offering period, is equal to at least 95% of the outstanding ordinary shares of AVG, Avast expects to acquire the ordinary shares of AVG that were not tendered into the tender offer through the compulsory share acquisition process under Section 2:92a/2:201a of the Dutch Civil Code. If the number of shares purchased during the subsequent offering period (including, if applicable, the minority exit offering period), together with the shares purchased during the initial offering period, is less than 95% of the outstanding ordinary shares of AVG, Avast plans to effect an asset sale pursuant to which Avast will acquire substantially all of the assets, and assume substantially all of the liabilities, of AVG promptly following the tender offer. Following the completion of the asset sale, AVG will be liquidated and the remaining minority shareholders of AVG will receive cash distributions with respect to each ordinary share owned by them equal to the per share cash consideration paid in the tender offer less any applicable dividend withholding tax or any other taxes.

As soon as practicable following the completion of the subsequent offering period (including, if applicable, the minority exit offering period), AVG intends to voluntarily delist its shares from the New York Stock Exchange. AVG also intends to deregister its shares under the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (as amended, the "Exchange Act") and to suspend its reporting obligations under the Exchange Act, but will only be eligible to do so upon satisfaction of the applicable requirements for deregistration. AVG has submitted written notice to the New York Stock Exchange of its intent to voluntarily delist its shares from the New York Stock Exchange in connection with the tender offer. AVG intends to file a Form 25, Notification of Removal from Listing and/or Registration under Section 12(b) of the Exchange Act, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to delist its shares promptly following the subsequent offering period. Delisting from the NYSE is expected to become effective 10 days after the filing date of the Form 25. The AVG shares will not be listed or registered on another national securities exchange. Delisting is likely to reduce significantly the liquidity and marketability of any AVG shares that have not been tendered pursuant to the tender offer. Advisors Jefferies International Limited is acting as exclusive financial advisor, and White & Case LLP and De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek N.V. are acting as legal advisors to Avast. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC is acting as financial advisor to AVG, Bridge Street Securities, LLC is acting as financial advisor to the supervisory board of AVG, and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP and Allen & Overy LLP are acting as legal advisors to AVG. About Avast Avast Software (www.avast.com), the global leader in digital security products for consumers and businesses, protects over 400 million people online. Avast offers products under the Avast and AVG brands, that protect people from threats on the internet with one of the most advanced threat detection networks in the world. Avast digital security products for Mobile, PC or Mac are top-ranked and certified by VB100, AV-Comparatives, AV-Test, OPSWAT, ICSA Labs, West Coast Labs and others. Avast is backed by leading global private equity firms CVC Capital Partners and Summit Partners. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking information that involves substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terms such as "anticipate," "estimate," "believe," "continue," "could," "intend," "may," "plan," "potential," "predict," "should," "will," "expect," "are confident that," "objective," "projection," "forecast," "goal," "guidance," "outlook," "effort," "target," "would" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terms. There are a number of important factors that could cause actual events to differ materially from those suggested or indicated by such forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. These factors include risks and uncertainties related to, among other things: general economic conditions and conditions affecting the industries in which Avast and AVG operate; the uncertainty of regulatory approvals; AVG's delisting from the New York Stock Exchange and suspension of AVG's reporting obligations under the Exchange Act and to consummate the transactions and their plans described in this press release; and AVG's performance and maintenance of important business relationships. Additional information regarding the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements is available in AVG's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including AVG's Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2015. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release and neither Avast nor AVG assumes any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events and developments or otherwise, except as required by law. Additional Information and Where to Find It This press release does not constitute an offer to purchase or a solicitation of an offer to sell any securities of AVG. The solicitation and offer to purchase ordinary shares of AVG is being made pursuant to a tender offer statement on Schedule TO, including an Offer to Purchase, a related letter of transmittal and certain other tender offer documents, filed by Avast with the SEC (News - Alert) on July 29, 2016 (as subsequently amended, the "Tender Offer Statement"). AVG filed a solicitation/recommendation statement on Schedule 14D-9 with respect to the tender offer with the SEC on July 29, 2016 (as subsequently amended, the "Solicitation/Recommendation Statement"). AVG shareholders are urged to read the Tender Offer Statement and Solicitation/Recommendation Statement, as they may be amended from time to time, as well as any other relevant documents filed with the SEC, carefully and in their entirety because they will contain important information that AVG shareholders should consider before making any decision regarding tendering their securities. The Tender Offer Statement and the Solicitation/Recommendation Statement are available for free at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Copies of the documents filed with the SEC by AVG will be available free of charge on AVG's website at investors.avg.com. ### View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005293/en/

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[September 29, 2016] Hotwire PR Acquires Eastwick Communications to Strengthen US Presence and Secure its Position as Top Ten Technology Agency in North America

Hotwire PR, the global PR and communications consultancy, today announced it has acquired Eastwick Communications, an award-winning technology communications agency. This investment fuels Hotwire's (News - Alert) ambition to offer a truly global client and employee centred alternative to behemoth multinationals. This acquisition further strengthens Hotwire's reach and expertise as a large multinational with the service ethos and deep connections that only a local agency can offer. The investment for the acquisition came from Hotwire's parent company, Enero Group Limited (ASX: EGG), a boutique network of marketing and communications businesses. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929006427/en/ Barbara Bates, CEO, North America and Brendon Craigie, Global CEO at Hotwire PR celebrate the acquisition of Eastwick Communications to strengthen US presence. (Photo: Business Wire) Both Barbara Bates and Heather Kernahan of Eastwick will remain in their roles as CEO, North America and President respectively within the new Hotwire US business, overseeing offices in both San Francisco and New York. Barbara will report into Hotwire's Global CEO Brendon Craigie. All leadership team members from Hotwire and Eastwick remain in place. Together, the new team brings Hotwire's headcount in the US to 70, 42 in San Francisco and 28 in New York. Founded in 1991, this year Eastwick celebrated its 25th anniversary. The company has continued to innovate with programs such as its CMO-in-residence and the addition of its Digital Brand Lab. Eastwick has been widely recognized and awarded s a premier technology agency for clients ranging from startups to the world's largest enterprises. In 2015, Eastwick received the 2015 North America Technology Agency of the Year award and has twice been recognized on the Inc. 5,000 fastest growing companies, this year ranking 4,053 on the list.



"We are focused on helping clients seize the global digital and technology opportunity, and working towards our vision to build the best agency you'll ever work with," said Brendon Craigie, Global CEO, Hotwire PR. "Joining forces with Eastwick will catapult Hotwire into the top ten of technology PR agencies in the US. Not only will this give us insider access to the technology hub of the world, but it will also put a big bold question mark against the traditional multinational PR agency model." "I've always had huge respect for Hotwire's work and the award-winning reputation that it has across the world. Joining with Hotwire will allow us to multiply the impact of our creative thinking, helping our clients to accelerate their reputation and growth not only in North America, but across the globe," said Barbara Bates, newly appointed CEO, North America, Hotwire PR.

This acquisition opens up huge opportunities in North American, EMEA and APAC markets with the additional reach, expertise and close relationship between all Hotwire offices. For clients, this means that Hotwire can better support their ambitions of global expansion, from North America out to EMEA and APAC and vice-versa. This positions Hotwire as the communications agency that can scale for clients to support their business ambitions beyond home countries, while still retaining detailed local knowledge and experience. The agencies have been partners for more than a decade. Synergies between them already existed with both companies investing heavily in the creation of their own Digital Brand Labs teams to drive integrated communications programs. Adding Eastwick's Brand Labs team to Hotwire adds US specialists across a range of services including insights and analytics, brand messaging and creative services to content marketing, website development, SEO/SEM, demand generation and nurture campaigns. "Hotwire and Eastwick have been great independently, and now we're going to be even stronger than ever. We are all committed to this shared vision that will ultimately deliver against our brand promise: to be the best agency you'll ever work with," ended Craigie. For additional photos, please download here. For a video announcing the news, please watch on YouTube (News - Alert) here. About Hotwire Hotwire is a global PR and communications agency dedicated to helping ambitious companies change their game, build their reputation, and stand out from the crowd. Our communications experts provide clients with in-depth knowledge and experience across a number of market categories. From Sydney to San Francisco, we're a team business, with a 'one office' mentality. Our international team works across our 22 locations, including the UK, US, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Australia, together with co-branded partners Yellow Communications in the Netherlands and Belgium, Active in the Middle East and VIANEWS in Brazil, as well as other affiliate partners. We bring the best of our knowledge, skills and experience to all of our clients wherever they are in the world. Hotwire is wholly owned by Enero Group Limited, a company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX:EGG). The Enero Group is a boutique network of marketing and communications businesses that include BMF, CPR, Dark Blue Sea, Frank PR, Hotwire, Naked Communications, OB Media, Precinct, The Digital Edge and The Leading Edge. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929006427/en/

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[September 30, 2016] LEO Pharma Expands Partnering Presence with LEO Science & Tech Hub in Boston

LEO Pharma, a global healthcare company dedicated to helping people achieve healthy skin, today announced the official inauguration of the LEO Science & Tech Hub in Boston by Her Royal Highness, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark. The event, which also includes participation from the Danish Minister for Business and Growth Troels Lund Poulsen, brings together members of the Boston life science community to explore opportunities for partnership and innovation. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005376/en/ (Graphic: LEO Science & Tech Hub) The Hub aims to catalyze early-stage collaborations in science and technology in order to advance the treatment of skin diseases and is the first of its kind to focus on dermatology in the Greater Boston area, the world's leading life science cluster. "With the establishment of the LEO Science & Tech Hub at the epicenter of this world-leading biotech supercluster, LEO Pharma is poised to foster novel collaborations that can lead to significant advances in science," says Kim Kjoeller, Executive Vice President, Global Research & Development, LEO Pharma. "By creating alliances with industry and academia here in the region, we hope to change the treatment paradigm in dermatology and improve the quality of life of people with skin diseases." The LEO Science & Tech Hub will build early-stage collaborations with academic centers, entrepreneurs and companies in the United States - and support collaborators in validating novel targets in skin diseases and advancing technology towards commercialization. The Hub team has access to full deal-making capabilities and can provide support in terms of seed investments and co-development, including access to LEO Pharma's global network of dermatology expertise. Collaborators can access LEO Pharma's preclinical and clinical expertise as well as the digital healthcare expertise of LEO Innovation Lab. "The LEO Science & Tech Hub wants to join forces with life science innovators in the US to change the treatment paradigm for people with skin diseases and take the first steps towards precision medicine in dermatology," says Michael Sierra, Vice President, LEO Science & Tech Hub. "By offering our ollaborators access to funding and a unique global network of dermatology expertise, we want to act as catalysts for innovation and help bring new science and technology to the next stage."



The Hub's team of science experts will engage with partners in three areas: cognitive computer learning, imaging, and biomarkers. For example, the Hub will explore the use of smart phones to help patients monitor their disease and track treatment progress. The Hub will also explore advanced imaging technologies as a valid and reliable alternative to skin biopsies. The overall aim is to enable patients and doctors to monitor, diagnose, and treat skin diseases in a more effective and less invasive way. The LEO Science & Tech Hub is located in the heart of the Kendall Square innovation district at the CIC in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"We congratulate LEO Pharma on the opening of the new LEO Science & Tech Hub in Kendall Square," said Robert K. Coughlin, President & CEO of MassBio. "We know that LEO Pharma's collaborative spirit will cultivate new partnerships in the Hub that will advance precision medicine in dermatology and ultimately speed the development of innovative treatments for patients around the world." "LEO Pharma's new dermatology-focused LEO Science & Tech Hub is a welcome addition to the many life sciences centers of excellence that are operating and innovating in and around Boston and Cambridge," said Travis McCready, President & CEO of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center. "Skin diseases are more common than one might expect - every year one in four Americans consult their primary care physician regarding a skin concern. We look forward to collaborating with LEO Pharma as they put down roots and form partnerships within the world's leading ecosystem for life sciences innovation and growth." "We are excited for LEO Pharma to join Massachusetts' thriving life sciences ecosystem, bringing the first center focused exclusively on dermatology to the Commonwealth," said Charlie Baker (News - Alert), Governor of Massachusetts. "This new facility will advance research and the development of new treatments in the field of dermatology, while opening up new opportunities for collaboration between the life sciences communities in Massachusetts and Denmark." About LEO Pharma LEO Pharma helps people achieve healthy skin. By offering care solutions to patients in more than 100 countries globally, LEO Pharma supports people in managing their skin conditions. Founded in 1908 and owned by the LEO Foundation, the healthcare company has devoted decades of research and development to delivering products and solutions to people with skin conditions. LEO Pharma is headquartered in Denmark and employs around 5,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit www.leo-pharma.com

Subscribe to our YouTube (News - Alert) channel: www.youtube.com/leopharmaglobal

Follow us on Twitter (News - Alert): www.twitter.com/leohealthyskin

Visit us at LinkedIn (News - Alert): www.linkedin.com/company/leo-pharma About LEO Science & Tech Hub LEO Science & Tech Hub explores cutting-edge science and technology opportunities with relevance to dermatology. By partnering with public and private institutions, the LEO Science & Tech Hub acts as a catalyst that transforms early-stage innovations and technologies into solutions that will improve the quality of life for people with skin diseases. LEO Science & Tech Hub is part of LEO Pharma, a global healthcare company dedicated to helping people achieve healthy skin.

www.leo-scitech.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005376/en/

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[September 30, 2016] Remitly Announces Additional $38 Million in Financing as It Expands into Latin America

Today Remitly, the largest independent mobile remittance company in the United States, announced it received $38 million in new equity and debt financing from IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, and Silicon Valley Bank, the bank of the world's most innovative companies and their investors. The financing will help the company expand its ability to deliver international fund transfers quickly, efficiently, and at a low cost to consumers. "Remitly is driving important innovation in the peer to peer global payments arena," said Minh Le, Market Manager for Silicon Valley Bank's Washington and Western Canada region. "It is our pleasure to play a part in supporting Remitly's growth during this exciting time of expansion." Concurrently, Remitly also announced its expansion into seven countries throughout Central and South America, where international remittances greatly contribute to the regional economy. As the global economy becomes more connected, migrants around the world are looking for new ways to transfer money to their loved ones - a flow of funds that topped $600 billion last year. Historically, the rmittance process has been slow, expensive, and lacked transparency - leaving customers in the dark not knowing when their recipient will receive the money. Remitly's proprietary global transfer network, enabled by its industry-leading mobile app, makes sending money faster, easier, more transparent, and less costly.



IFC investment supports Remitly's objective of expanding low-cost remittance services around the world "Today's announcement adds to the momentum around Remitly's expanding global mission," said Matt Oppenheimer, CEO of Remitly. "We are especially pleased to be backed by IFC and the World Bank Group who for many years have actively worked towards trust and transparency around global remittances - the two core values at the heart of our business."

"Remitly's mission is perfectly aligned with IFC's long-standing objective of helping the private sector find solutions that benefit the world's poor," said Kai Schmitz, who leads IFC's Fintech investments in Latin America. "Transfers by migrants to their home countries is a proven way to improve the lives of families and support emerging market economies. The World Bank is actively working with the G20 and other partners to increase choice for senders and lower the cost of remittances. Remitly is a great example how technology can be used to achieve these objectives." Success in Mexico set the stage for expansion into Central and South America Remitly's entry into Mexico last year makes further Latin American expansion a natural next step. Latin Americans living in the United States are responsible for sending over $17 billion in annual remittance volume to the seven countries Remitly is expanding into, and those on the receiving end boast the largest smartphone consumption rate of any other demographic group. The seven new countries that Remitly now serves are Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua in Central America, along with Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru in South America. For those receiving a Remitly money transfer, the company has built a network of more than 8,000 partners including major banks and popular retailers in the region that can facilitate cash pickup and direct deposits into bank accounts. Remitly also has a dedicated customer service center in Nicaragua to better serve Spanish-speaking customers in their native language. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005127/en/

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[September 30, 2016] RF IDeas Announces In-Region Distribution Partnership with Plankomat SA (Pty) Ltd.

RF IDeas, Inc., the leading innovator and manufacturer of in-building identification and access control readers, today announced a partnership with Plankomat SA (Pty) Ltd, one of the leading value added distributors for card and cash operating systems. Plankomat SA will provide in-region distribution in Africa, with an emphasis on SADEC countries including Nigeria and Ghana. In addition to Plankomat's knowledge of the Multi-Function Printing (MFP) market, Plankomat SA distributes to channels in the enterprise vertical, allowing RF IDeas to expand its presence across the fast-growing Sub Saharan region. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005845/en/ "When looking to expand our international presence, we often turn to trusted distributor brands in-region," said Ian Bayly, Director of Sales, EMEA, RF IDeas. "Plankomat SA has a proven track record of strategic distribution in Africa, specifically within SADEC countries. We look forward to continuing that success with the addition of more than 100 RF IDeas products now available to our in-region customers through the Plankomat SA channel." "With many years in the industry and possessing deep knowledge of the RFID products, we are excited t partner with a leading global entity such as RF IDeas, Inc.," said Peter Plank, Managing Director, Plankomat SA. "The RF IDeas vast product range will complement our existing MFP and Point of Sales (POS) portfolio, while also creating untapped opportunities within our emerging markets. Africa is hungry for leading-edge technology and coupled with local sales and support, we envisage significant growth in this region."



With more than 40 years of distribution experience, Plankomat SA caters to clients looking for solutions for control and revenue earning. Located in Johannesburg, South Africa, the company specializes in card and cash operating systems and has extensive knowledge in MFP technology. Visit the Plankomat SA website for more information on the company and a complete list of its product offerings. About RF IDeas

RF IDeas, Inc. is a leader in the employee badge and card reader space for healthcare, manufacturing, government and enterprise. Partnering with leading technology companies, RF IDeas readers enable innovative solutions for single sign-on, secure printing, attendance tracking and other applications that require authentication. RF IDeas is a subsidiary of Roper Technologies. For more information about RF IDeas solutions, visit the Knowledge Center at https://www.rfideas.com/knowledge-center. RF IDeas and pcProx are registered trademarks of RF IDeas, Inc. All other trademarks, service marks and product or service names are property of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005845/en/

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[September 29, 2016] Connected Health And Wellness Devices Market Analysis By Type By Product By End-Use And Segment Forecasts To 2024

NEW YORK, Sept. 29, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The global connected health and wellness devices market is expected to reach USD 612.0 billion by 2024, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. The demand for wearable medical devices and remote patient monitoring systems is anticipated to increase over the forecast period due to the shifting consumer preferences towards a healthier lifestyle thus driving the market growth in the coming years. In addition, the increasing incidences of lifestyle-associated diseases requiring continuous health monitoring, which is expected to lead to an upsurge in the demand for connected health devices over the forecast period. In addition, the advantages associated with its usage and the availability of advanced products, such as remote sensors, adapters, and connected mobile communication devices are the factors further augmenting the market growth.



Moreover, the rising demand for greater access to patient health information is the key factor contributing towards the market growth. In addition, the raised awareness levels as a result of the supportive initiatives undertaken by government and non-profit organizations, such as Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), are anticipated to serve this industry with future growth opportunities. The rising emphasis on the development of advanced healthcare solutions coupled with the sufficient availability of funds is expected to boost the R&D investments in the connected health & wellness devices market. For instance, the government organizations, such as Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), offer funds to expand the health information systems in the U.S., which is expected to further fuel the industry growth in this region.



Further key findings from the study suggest:



The healthcare analytics segment is expected to show lucrative growth over the forecast period owing to the rising pressure on hospitals to curb the spiraling healthcare costs, the availability of big data analytics, and the penetration of electronic health record systems in medical settings. The growing need to improve value-based outcomes in the healthcare sector and theadoption of the patient-centric approach are the factors propelling the segment's growth.







The wellness product segment is anticipated to grow lucratively at a CAGR of 23.8% due to the availability of advanced products, such as GPS smart watches, which help in the monitoring of various parameters including physical activity, respiratory rate, and pulse rate and are additionally equipped with cloud connectivity.



In addition, the introduction of technologically advanced personal medical devices is expected to contribute towards the growth of the overall market in the next seven years. For instance, the advanced ECG monitors launched by Aerotel Medical Systems Ltd. in February 2014 , is a 3G cellular module, which is incorporated to enable the seamless transmission of patient ECG records directly to the doctor's email account.





The individual consumer segment is anticipated to grow profitably to reach over USD 200 billion due to the increasing preference for personal medical devices so as to reduce hospital stays, costs of the treatments, and enable continuous health monitoring. In addition, the rise in the preference of geriatric patients towards home healthcare creates the demand for connected health & wellness devices over the forecast period



In 2015, North America held a substantial share of the overall market at over 38.6%, which is attributed to the presence of favorable reimbursement policies and a large population using wearable medical devices. Moreover, the following changes in the demographic trends including the growing geriatric population and unhealthy lifestyles are anticipated to drive the industry growth.



Asia Pacific is presumed to grow at the fastest CAGR of around 27.0% over the forecast period due to the increasing government initiatives targeting the improvisation of the healthcare infrastructure.



Some key players of the market include Omron Healthcare, Inc., McKesson Corporation, Philips Healthcare Company, GE Healthcare, Inc., Draeger Medical Systems, Inc., Fitbit, Inc., St. Jude Medical, Inc., Medtronic Plc, Aerotel Medical Systems Ltd., Boston Scientific Corporation, Body Media, Inc, Garmin International, Inc., Microlife Corporation, Masimo Corporation, AgaMatrix, Inc., and Apple, Inc.



These market players are focusing on the development of cost efficient & technologically advanced devices, which offer comfort to the users. New product development and strategic alliances including partnership agreements, promotional activities, and acquisitions are instrumental in keeping market rivalry high.



For instance, in May 2016 , Philips Healthcare announced an eHealth initiative, which offers care to patients with chronic diseases across the European region to create awareness amongst consumers and generate revenue. The aforementioned factors are expected to contribute towards the growth of the connected devices industry in the coming years. Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04144268-summary/view-report.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



http://www.reportlinker.com



__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/connected-health-and-wellness-devices-market-analysis-by-type-by-product-by-end-use-and-segment-forecasts-to-2024-300337009.html SOURCE Reportlinker

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[September 29, 2016] Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) 2014-2024: Forecasts, Technologies, Players

NEW YORK, Sept. 29, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The WSN business is set to become a multibillion dollar activity but only if there is major progress with standards and technology. This techno-marketing report scopes over 140 manufacturers and developers and looks closely at the impediments to rollout and how to overcome them. For example, today's power sources often stand in way of the desired 20 year life so the report looks closely at how energy harvesting can help and profiles 40 relevant power source manufacturers. Ten year WSN forecasts are made based on the very latest information.



Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) - self organising, self healing networks of small "nodes" - have huge potential across industrial, military and many other sectors. While appreciable sales have new been established, major progress depends on standards and achieving twenty year life.



The new IDTechEx report "Wireless Sensor Networks 2012-2022" draws lessons from many successful installations in the last year. It looks at the complex standards scene with particular focus on WirelessHART that is the key to applications in the process industries in the short and medium term and it shows how the alternative ISA 11.11a has some way to go but may prove useful over a wider field of application and eventually subsume WirelessHART. It examines recent successes of the various backers of ZigBee-related solutions, who is behind the alternatives and how they see the future.IDTechEx research has found that the WSN market will grow to $1.8 billion by 2024. These figures refer to WSN defined as wireless mesh networks, i.e. self-healing and self-organising. Wireless Sensor Networks will eventually enable the automatic monitoring of forest fires, avalanches, hurricanes, failure of country wide utility equipment, traffic, hospitals and much more over wide areas, something previously impossible. It has started already with more humble killer applications such as automating meter readings in buildings, and manufacture and process control.



The WSN business is set to become a multibillion dollar activity but only if there is major progress with standards and technology. This echno-marketing report scopes manufacturers and developers and looks closely at the impediments to rollout and how to overcome them. For example, today's power sources often stand in way of the desired 20 year life so the report looks closely at how energy harvesting can help and profiles the relevant power source manufacturers. Ten year WSN forecasts are made based on the very latest information.







Standards

This new report draws lessons from many successful installations in the last year. It looks at the complex standards scene with particular focus on WirelessHART that is the key to applications in the process industries in the short and medium term and it shows how the alternative ISA 11.11a has some way to go but may prove useful over a wider field of application and eventually subsume WirelessHART. It examines recent successes of the various backers of ZigBee-related solutions, who is behind the alternatives and how they see the future.



US ahead but Asia catching up

The USA dominates the development and use of WSN partly because of the heavier funding available there. US industry sits astride the computer industry thanks to companies such as Microsoft and IBM and WSN is regarded as a next wave of computing, so US industry is particularly interested to participate. Add to that the fact that the US Military, deeply interested in WSN, spends more than all other military forces combined and creating and funding start-ups is particularly easy in the USA and you can see why the US is ahead at present. IDTechEx has profiled the main players in WSN, and their location by country is shown below.





Power

The challenge of excessive power consumption of these nodes, that have to act as both tags and readers, is addressed. For example, progress has been good in getting the electronics to consume less electricity, by both improved signalling protocols and improved circuitry.



As for batteries, lithium thionyl chloride single-use versions have twenty year life in certain circumstances but, for many applications, energy harvesting supplying rechargeable batteries is more attractive. That said, where is the rechargeable battery guaranteed for 20 years in use? What are the most promising battery technologies coming available in the next ten years? What are the alternatives to batteries? Which of the favourite energy harvesting technologies should be used - photovoltaic, electrodynamic, thermoelectric or piezoelectric? When are they usable in combinations and what are the results so far? Which applicational sectors of WSN have the most potential and what lies in the way for each?



The new report addresses these issues and provides a wealth of analysis of WSN projects and development programmes including the creating of improved WSN components, plus profiles of many suppliers, governments, standards bodies and investors. Benchmark your success and failure and optimise your future approach based on measured evidence. It is all here.

Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04155786-summary/view-report.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



http://www.reportlinker.com __________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wireless-sensor-networks-wsn-2014-2024-forecasts-technologies-players-300337014.html SOURCE Reportlinker

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[September 30, 2016] First Live London/Riyadh Hackathon Sees Enterprising Youth Start Up Tech Innovations to Aid World Health

LONDON, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Expert global leaders in the fields of technology, innovation, creative business and health, and leading female entrepreneurs, today announce plans to partner with Saudi Arabia's MiSK Foundation by hosting the first ever dual-nation Hackathon to dream up and develop tech solutions to the world's most challenging health and medical problems. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413416 )

Funded by MiSK and supported by global and local partners within technology, innovation and health, the event will be broadcast live as mixed gender teams collaborate in tandem across the two nations on 25-27 November in London and Riyadh. Themed 'The Medical Internet of Things' the contest will bring together the most inventive British and Saudi young minds, challenging them to change the world and save millions of lives in 48 hours by developing an innovative new tech health invention. Individuals can register and apply at www.miskhackathon.com Comments Badr Al-Asakir, MiSK Foundation Secretary General: "Youth empowerment and entrepreneurialism, health and wellbeing are the life blood of a prosperous, diverse and thriving economic future. With life expectancy, health issues and service costs all escalating and becoming a global challenge, we believe that finding timely and innovative solutions to these problems are critical. The Hackathon is designed to contribute to these goals." Supported by world-leading mentors and specialists, up to 400 participants will work in mixed teams and pitch their life-changing idea to an expert panel. The winning team will receive the tools and means to bring their tech health concept to market, including ongoing training and mentoring, and a USD $10k investment. Supporting the event, Hashim Alawadi, Vice-Chair, Saudi British Joint Business Council, said: "Today, with technology the driver of global progress, great innovation can come from anyone and anywhere. Effective, affordable and sustainable health provision is increasingly one of humanity's greatest challenges.



"As an investor and entrepreneur we look to invest in products that will drive huge change globally, and improve human lives. By bringing together the best young minds across different nations, ages and genders, we can create change." Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer in Intensive Care Medicine at Imperial College London, Francesca Rubulotta, welcomed the timeliness of the initiative, saying: "With increasing health care needs and expectations placing even more demand on an accelerating NHS deficit, relying solely on current health provision is no longer a viable or sustainable option. Thanks to new and emerging technologies, breakthrough solutions can be tested and implemented. New ways of sharing information and knowledge are needed as well, especially working in emergency or intensive care medicine at the front line of new pandemics or conflicts. Initiatives such as this will genuinely optimise the use of current resources and potentially save millions of lives around the world."

The initiative is part of a long-term programme to drive transformative change in Saudi Arabia by building entrepreneurs within cultural innovation, business creativity and technology & leadership. Young talent nurtured by programmes such as these will return significant knowledge capital to Saudi Arabia as part of the Deputy Crown Prince's ambitious Vision 2030 economic blueprint. His Royal Highness comments: "By applying our sovereign wealth to invest in technology, diversify our economy through knowledge and intellectual capital, and bring about healthcare improvements not just for the kingdom, but for all of mankind, we are setting the stage for our next generation and our future." The initiative has also been applauded by senior female figures for its ambition to reach, empower and inspire millions of young females into technology innovation and creative business within the UK and Saudi Arabia. Comments Jan Ward, former UK Female Entrepreneur of the Year and founder of energy business, Corrotherm: "As the first cross-cultural, mixed gender event designed to provide health solutions to world problems, it's an important and progressive step forward. I'm a huge champion of empowering more young men and women into business and leadership roles, and want to see more programmes like this which have my full support." Contact:

[email protected]



Notes to editor:

About MiSK Hackathon 2016

MiSK Hackathon 2016 takes place on 25-27 November in London (ILEC Conference Centre, Fulham) and Riyadh. The contest is open to all young Britons and Saudis aged between 18 and 32 years. Participants can find more information and register at www.miskhackathon.com Closing date for entry is 18 November.



About MiSK Foundation

Established in 2011, the MiSK Foundation cultivates learning and leadership to define a new talent for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Foundation focuses on the country's youth, fosters talent, develops creative potential, and generates innovation. In this way, MiSK advances Saudi society in business and technology, and provides equal opportunity for women and men. MiSK, under the leadership of HRH Prince Mohammed bin Salman, pursues these goals by establishing partnership programmes with diverse local and global organisations.

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A federal judge says the state must investigate reports that Division of Motor Vehicles employees gave false information to a person who applied for an ID to vote in the upcoming election  in possible violation of a court order.

A DMV spokeswoman said Friday a review was underway.

Judge James Peterson issued the order Friday, shortly after a report earlier in the week by The Nation raised questions about whether Gov. Scott Walkers administration is complying with instructions Peterson gave earlier this year, as part of a court challenge to Wisconsins voter ID law.

The Nation report focused on audio recordings of exchanges with employees at a Madison DMV office in which they appear to rebuff efforts by a Madison man, Zack Moore, to obtain an ID to vote in November.

Peterson, who is presiding over a legal challenge to Wisconsins voter ID law, ruled in July that the state must promptly provide voter ID credentials, valid in the November election, to people who request them  even if they lack some of the underlying documents needed to obtain an ID.

In his order Friday, Peterson, a federal judge in Wisconsins Western District, said the Nations reporting raises the question of whether the DMV is following his instructions.

These reports, if true, demonstrate that the state is not in compliance with this courts injunction order from July, Peterson wrote.

Petersons order instructs the state to investigate these allegations and provide a report to the court by Oct. 7, which would include any corrective action to be taken.

Comments by DMV staffers in the audio recording, taken by the group VoteRiders, also contradict what state Attorney General Brad Schimel told Peterson in a report to the court on Sept. 22  the same day the recording was made, according to VoteRiders spokeswoman Molly McGrath.

DMV is carefully administering the process to ensure that anyone who is eligible for the IDPP will have a valid ID for the November general election, Schimel wrote.

IDPP refers to a petition process created by the state for those like Moore who lack both IDs and the documents needed to get an ID. Peterson found the process to be unconstitutional, leading to the order he issued in July.

It is very unusual for a judge to issue an unprompted order of this type, said election law expert Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California-Irvine. But Hasen noted that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals told the Western District Court in a previous decision to monitor the states compliance with its July ruling.

Walkers office did not respond Friday to requests for comment on Petersons order.

State Department of Transportation spokeswoman Patty Mayers, in a statement, called actions cited in the Nation report concerning and not consistent with DMV protocol. Mayers said the DMV already has begun an investigation and intends to investigate and report to the court as ordered.

DMV remains committed to working with all eligible voters to ensure they receive free identification, as required for voting, Mayers said.

Moore moved to Wisconsin from the Chicago area last year, McGrath said. Though he still has an Illinois ID, Moore lacks the type of ID that meets Wisconsins voter ID requirement  which is among the strictest of any state. Moore also lacks access to his Illinois birth certificate, one of the underlying documents that can be used to obtain a Wisconsin ID, McGrath said.

The audio recording, a copy of which was provided to the Wisconsin State Journal by VoteRiders, captures Moore explaining his situation to DMV officials.

DMV employees can be heard telling Moore if he enters the petition process, its possible he might not get voting credentials in time for the election.

McGrath said information collected by VoteRiders suggests DMV misinformation about the process is not limited to one office in Madison. She said VoteRiders representatives traveled to 10 other DMVs across the state and were given contradicting  and at times, inaccurate  information.

The court challenge over which Peterson presides was brought by the liberal group One Wisconsin Institute. Another legal challenge to the law, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, is pending in federal court in Wisconsins Eastern District.
[September 30, 2016] Rosegal Rolled Out New Plus-Size Section for Its Full-Figured Patrons

SHENZHEN, China, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Rosegal is a fashion e-commerce giant looking to deliver the latest fashion products at an affordable price. The company understands that fashion is often the first way people are judged by those around them and that it is essential to always look nice. The combination of high quality products and cheap prices has helped Rosegal ascend to the top of the fashion E-commerce world. Today the company is proud to announce the launch of a new plus sized section. Rosegal understands that different regions of the world can have different body sizes based off genetics and the company is looking to make sure every person can find products suitable for them. The new plus sized section of Rosegal is now available and is tailored for those needing larger clothes. The new plus sized section will have 5 sub-sections, providing an array of diferent style products for customers. These sections include plus size tops, plus size dresses, plus size swimwear, plus size bottoms, and plus size outerwear. Rosegal is just using this as a starting point for customers and a way to test if demand is there. Unlike other sites that offer plus size sections, Rosegal maintains the same variety standards. Among the 5 sub-sections, there are 2,214 styles of clothing with more being added daily. In subsequent weeks and months, Rosegal will be adding more sub-sections to ensure every kind of style is accessible, regardless of the person's size.



With the new plus sized section, Rosegal understands that there may be confusion about product sizes, to mediate the issue the company is launching an update to its size conversion guide. The new guide will help customers seamlessly convert inches to cm and vice versa. This will ensure that customers do not need to do any calculations themselves and that every measurement is given correctly. Rosegal, a subsidiary of Globalegrow, is based in Shenzhen, China. Like sister sites Zaful and SammyDress, Rosegal is committed to providing customers with the utmost satisfaction. The new plus sized section is just the beginning and the company invites users to keep checking back to see the newest updates and add-ons to the site.

Related link: http://www.rosegal.com/

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[September 30, 2016] Lifetime VIP Member of Strathmore's Who's Who, John F. McKlosky, to be Honored With a Times Square, New York City Appearance.

FARMINGDALE, N.Y., Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- John F. McKlosky of Seattle, Washington, has attained recognition in Strathmore's Who's Who for his achievements and accomplishments in the field of Fiber Optics. To acknowledge his accomplishments, Strathmore's Who's Who will honor him with a special Times Square, New York City appearance on Friday, September 30, 2016. John F. McKlosky is the Fiber Network Specialist at the University of Washington. He is responsible for designing, provisioning and managing a multitude of large fiber networks and connectivity both on and off campus. Mr. McKlosky is a nationally recognized expert in the fiber optics industry with 30 + years of experience. He works with a number of entities including Pacific North West Giga Pop (PNWGP) which provides connectivity to global organizations around the world, K-20 Educational Network, the Community Connectivity Consortium (C3) in King and Pierce Counties, in the medical field is the UW Medical Center, Northwest Hospital, Harborview Medical Center, Valley Medical Center and dozens of UW clinics throughout the state. Mr. McKlosky' expertise lies in supporting networking/data center locations in Seattle, Tacoma, Bothell, Olympia, Yakima, Spokane and Portland, Oregon. In addition, he has supported/maintained the fiber network aboard the UW's Thomas G. Thompson Oceanographic Research Vessel. Previous to his association with the University of Washington, he was the owner of MON-ARC Fiber Optic Services for 6 years. He provided high level expertise for fiber network installation, testing and emergency restoration services. He also spent 8 years with GRCC Technical Education where he was the Training Director of the Fiber Optics Program. During this time, he was contracted to do fiber optic training of military personnel at the Yong Sang Army Base in Seoul, South Korea and at the Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan spending 2 weeks at a time at each location. Mr. McKlosky actually founded the fiber technical training programs which provided a variety of accredited/certified hands-on courses to various communications companies and individuals nationwide. Strathmore's Who's Who has also honored him as a Professional of the Year and a Roundtable Member.



The Times Square honor is of particular significance because of the high visibility it offers. This visual celebration of John F. McKlosky's career will appear at regular intervals on two monitors attached to the landmark skyscraper at 3 Times Square, #1, New York, NY 10036. This structure is situated in what could be considered the busiest area of Manhattan. Strathmore's Who's Who is pleased to honor him for his exemplary career in Fiber Optics. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lifetime-vip-member-of-strathmores-whos-who-john-f-mcklosky-to-be-honored-with-a-times-square-new-york-city-appearance-300337216.html

SOURCE Strathmore's Who's Who

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When to trick or treat around Indianapolis this Halloween
Gov. Scott Walker held his first Facebook Live event Friday morning, drawing more than 6,700 views by the time the 30-minute session ended, though there were never more than 400 viewers watching simultaneously.

The segment can be viewed at www.facebook.com/governorscottwalker/

The seven questions he selected to answer, one of which came from state Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville, were focused primarily on taxes, the state budget and the economy. A question about whether Walker would support funding worker cooperatives in Madison elicited a response about his budget priorities, which included covering the rising cost of Medicaid, putting more money into K-12 education with savings from the state self-insuring its employees and increasing University of Wisconsin System funding with performance pay.

Walker noted that the state's rainy day fund is 165 times larger than when he took office. However, a Pew Charitable Trusts report this week found Wisconsin's reserves could fund state government for 6.5 days, the sixth shortest amount among the 50 states and below the national median of 29.2 days.

He skipped over a question about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

UW-Madison journalism professor Mike Wagner said the Facebook format gives Walker an opportunity to provide "relatively unfiltered messaging to the public." The feed included real-time comments from Walker fans and foes alike.

"On one hand its a nice opportunity for voters to hear from their governor, on the other hand its tightly controlled and managed and doesnt allow for follow-up," Wagner said. "I think well see more and more of this type of behavior from politicians, looking for more and more ways to go around news media."
The chairwoman of the state Ethics Commission posted a photo of her presidential election ballot online Friday, which is illegal under state law.

Former Democratic Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager posted on her Facebook page a photo of her granddaughter next to her ballot showing a vote for Hillary Clinton with the message "this is what (her) grandma did for her today."

Contacted by the State Journal, Lautenschlager said she didn't know taking a photo of her ballot was illegal and that she has seen other people posting photos of their ballots on social media. She said she would take it down immediately.

During the fall primary election, Republican Congressional candidate Paul Nehlen, who lost a challenge against House Speaker Paul Ryan, posted a photo of his ballot online. The town of Delavan Police Department has issued subpoenas in that case and is still reviewing evidence, Chief Ray Clark said this week.

According to the state Elections Commission, Wisconsin banned photographing ballots long ago to prevent the practice of voters being paid to vote a certain way and then using a photograph of the ballot as evidence.

Other states also prohibit so-called "ballot selfies," though recently courts have struck down such laws in Indiana and New Hampshire on First Amendment grounds.

Commission spokesman Reid Magney said it would be up to a district attorney to determine what action to take regarding someone who posts a ballot selfie.

"We are aware of several cases in which no action has been taken if an individual removes the post after being advised of the potential issue," Magney said.

The photo was no longer posted on Facebook shortly after Lautenschlager spoke with the State Journal.
The Slovenian water cooling manufacturer EKWB has been working hard on pumping out different shapes and sizes of its Predator series all-in-one water cooling units, and today the company announced that three new units are available worldwide. These include a 280mm variant with quick disconnects, and two 140mm flavors: one with, and one without the quick-disconnect system.

The idea behind the EK-XLC Predator series is that although they come pre-filled from the factory, ready for easy installation, theyre actually made entirely from high-end liquid cooling components, unlike almost all other all-in-one water cooling solutions. Such a solution has a handful of benefits, including superior performance, better reliability, and expandability.

The EK-XLC Predators with the Quick Disconnect (QDC) system are the easiest to expand thanks to the medical-grade CPC quick disconnect couplings. These couplings have a zero-drop design, so they enable you to open up the loop and add a graphics card block without needing to drain and refill the fluid in the process.

EKWB built its Predator units with its CoolStream radiator design, Supremacy MX water block, a 6W EK-SPC pump, and EK-Vardar fans. The fittings also come straight from its custom liquid cooling line and screw into the industry-standard G1/4 threads.

All these factors combined make the EK-XLC Predator system an ideal starting point for users who want to get into custom water cooling, but for whom designing and building their own custom loop is still a tad too intimidating. With the QDC system, expanding the loop is extremely easy, and when you reach the point when youre ready to expand the loop beyond the quick-disconnect offerings, youre still able to disassemble the entire system and use the parts in your own custom loop.

Prices for the units start at $151.95 and end at $209.95, and all three are available immediately directly from EKWB's webshop. If youve already pre-ordered one of these units, EKWB will have put it in the mail today.
Were a dysfunctional band, confesses drummer David Lovering. But when you get older, its not that you get wiser, its just that you learn how to put up with everyones shit a little better!

Its that fragmented dynamic yet timeless sound which has infused every record from the Boston rockers since forming back in 1986. Their sixth effort is no exception. Yet looking back, the bands future was certainly up in the air after the group split in 91, following the release of fourth album Trompe le Monde.

25 years later and the beloved four-piece have dropped their highly anticipated follow-up to 2014s Indie Cindy, finished in merely three weeks. While recording demos in Toronto, the group met English producer Tom Dalgety (Royal Blood, Ghost), soon hiring him over dinner.

This was a new venture for The Pixies, breaking away from long-time producer Gil Norton (Foo Fighters, Jimmy Eat World) in what guitarist Joey Santiago describes as the need to get out of our comfort zone. We had to find a tough audience per se, and that means a different producer.

The band may have characterised the record as directly transitioning from their fifth release from two years ago. Yet it also has surprising flecks of their debut record Surfer Rosa which give a subtle, if perhaps subconscious nod to what bassist Paz Lenchantin calls their beautiful past.

This is no more apparent than on the drum-driven album-opener and title track, sonically telling the tragic story of Christian martyr and saint Denis. Its the melody which really harks back to Surfer Rosa track Bone Machine, along with its catchy riff, a medium tempo and Santiagos signature high wailing guitar.

Its quickly apparent that the group have long-since nailed the art of crafting short yet timeless tunes, with Classic Masher bringing back the vibe of an 80s movie soundtrack. Then Baals Back serves as an early highlight, paying homage to the ancient deity on a bed of infectious riffing, while Black Francis showcases his guttural side.

Might As Well Be Gone is the first track on the record though to bring the ominous vibe that screams The Pixies. A sick drum intro from Lovering and the gloomy yet clear guitar sound hammer in that melancholy, while Francis harmonies with Lenchantin also shine through.

This carries seamlessly over to Oona, subtly reminiscent of Gigantic from Surfer Rosa, with the bassists voice mimicking the chugging guitar intro. Its on this tune and the most raucous track on the album, Talent, where her bass lines truly glue the group together. Its also here where Francis makes a rhymed, cheeky nod to prolific American actor Jack Palance.

Cuts like Tenement Song and All I Think About Now speak to the albums emotional core without living too much in the past. Featuring Lenchantins ethereal yet hard-hitting vocals, while the latter song is the simplest on the album instrumentally, its this exact thing that renders the track so powerful. From Lenchantins two-year tenure, its clear that she has both respected the path that shes (Kim Deal, long-time bassist) given me, and added her own unique dimension to this current Pixies era.

Um Chagga Lagga, invoking visceral imagery of the rural roadside prostitution in France and Belgium, brings a great change in pace and energy. Francis delivers his crudest vocals on the album to an amplified, lo-fi sound reflective of times spent recording a band on tape while banging in a garage. Then Plaster of Paris, admittedly stepping off the gas a little, is still fairly upbeat. Santiago also uses a variety of textures well, contrasting his classic clean sound with a twangy tone.

Its then a big bass drum sound which drives the slow closing track All the Saints, and the vocals take a backseat here. However, while theres a good combination of distorted and acoustic guitar, its ultimately a disappointing end to a stellar record, with things ending too abruptly for any kind of resolution.

Despite an underwhelming finale, Head Carrier proves that, 30 years later, The Pixies still have plenty left to give.

Score: 8 / 10

Go for a nostalgia trip while celebrating this new Pixies era with Head Carrier, available here. Otherwise, find out where the rock legends are playing near you when they head down early next year, dates below.

PIXIES AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES

Thursday, 2nd March  Riverstage, Brisbane

Saturday, 4th March  Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne

Tuesday, 7th March -Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
In an effort to stop thieves from installing illegal credit card skimmers on Madison gas pumps, a city alderman is proposing a requirement that station owners improve the locks on their pumps or face fines.

Ald. Mike Verveers proposed ordinance, which he plans to introduce at Tuesdays City Council meeting, comes after a sixth skimming device was found in Madison inside a gas pump at a BP station at 699 S. Gammon Road on Sept. 23, the second time a skimmer was found at that station.

This is common-sense consumer protection, Verveer said.

Kyle Bunnow, supervisor of Weights and Measures for the citys Building Inspection Division, said inspectors are spending a lot of time checking on gas pumps in the city because of the rash of card skimmer discoveries.

The devices, which can be placed over the slot in an automatic credit card reader on the outside or hardwired into the inside of a pump, copy account details from magnetic strips of credit and debit cards.

All of the pumps in the city have been looked at twice already, Bunnow said. This ordinance would allow us to resume a normal inspection schedule.

The city has about 2,000 gas pumps, Bunnow said.

Verveer said much of the problem stems from the fact that pumps from the same manufacturer have similar locks, which can be opened with a universal key.

Most of the pumps are built by one company, Gilbarco, and they are all keyed alike, Verveer said. That key can be purchased on the internet for about $4.

A thief could open a gas pump and install a card skimming device in less than two minutes, Verveer said.

Verveers proposal would require all gas station owners to install unique locks on each pump at a cost of about $20 per pump.

Bunnow said some stations in Madison already have changed their locks.

At least one owner, Kelley-Williamson, already did it, Verveer said. Kelley-Williamson has a half-dozen Mobil stations around the city.

Fines for failure to swap out the locks would run to $187 for a first violation and $313 for a second.

Verveer said he hoped the full council could act on the ordinance at its Nov. 1 meeting.

It would be appropriate to have a measure in place to prevent easy access to the pumps, Bunnow said. Stations that are already doing it are getting a lot of positive feedback.

The Wisconsin State Journal contacted several gas stations in Madison Thursday but all declined to comment.

Some gas stations place security seals on the pump, covering the gap between the pump and door; if the seals been broken, someones been inside.

But there is no security seal requirement in Madison, Bunnow said.

Weights and Measures does place an accuracy seal on each pump each year, next to the gallons display, to assure consumers that a gallon of gasoline being purchased is an actual gallon of gasoline, he said.
Lewis Diuguid, a longtime member of The Kansas City Stars editorial board, will be departing the paper along with veteran Yael Abouhalkah, who was laid off this week.





The Kansas City newspaper old school is almost completely gone at the largest daily newspaper in town.Take a look at this headline from a couple of minutes ago . . .Longtime readers were hoping for this move which now leave the Star with nearly no minority representation and with only one member of the editorial board . . . The new publisher/hatchet man who inspired the mass exodus.Whilst some might tout this as good sign of editorial renewal . . . Other critics of the newspaper might argue that none of this newsprint drama will tear people away from their mobile phones.You decide . . .
"She was shot in her back on her right side, and all on her face right here. Her eyes were open. She was looking at me. She was trying to tell me something but I couldn't understand her there was too much blood," Danielle said, crying. Police don't know who, or why someone shot up the family's small, second floor apartment.
KANSAS CITY INSIDERS CELEBRATE THE HOUSING BOOM OUT NORTH AND CRUNCH NUMBERS TO REVEAL A SHIFT IN THE LOCAL BALANCE OF POWER NOW UNDERWAY!!!

"I'm assuming that there were no local winners because all of our local self-proclaimed, car-free urban planning "experts" were too busy taking selfies on the streetcar. Our scruffy hipster friends might want to wake-up . . .





They are projecting 25,000+ new homes in this area which will result in new council and legislative districts and will for at least a generation, shift the balance of KC power to the Northland.





"On the other hand, if there WERE several local entries as a result of the online begging for same from the city, then the Mayor might have some 'splaining to do with his shirttail groupies in the Crossroads."

Right now we want to share a look at Kansas City's future for residents who are really paying attention to population trends and local development beyond all the Downtown streetcar hype.To wit . . .Whilst everybody else is busy collecting consulting checks and spinning the company line about all the empty luxury condo, loft and apartment space in and around the loop . . .A recent design competition for Twin Creeks inspired a second look from our blog community The winners havethat's mostly about spending time trapped between a multitude of fast food options all while navigating through strip malls and gas stations.Still, the bigger, better Northland taking shape inspires a moment of contemplation.Here's the word . . .Like it or not, hipsters moving into exposed brick wall overpriced housing subsidized by their parents doesn't compete with this ongoing mass exodus from urban life.Accordingly, we await the new redistricting process and how local government will compensate for dwindling 3rd District population coupled with this mass movement of diverse communities throughout Kansas City desperately searching for the good life across the bridge.Developing . . .
"The fact that both Cincinnati and KCs systems are more popular on weekends seems to support one of the fundamental arguments against them: Theyre more tourist toys than transportation systems used by residents and commuters. Too slow and short to function as bona fide people-movers, theyre just expensive downtown amenities for out-of-towners, opponents say, gobbling public dollars that should be devoted to more useful forms of public transit."

KC Biz Journal: Streetcar Authority will add vehicles, study extension to riverfront





Newspaper Propaganda: Kansas City streetcars are so crowded that system needs more vehicles





NBC Action News: Kansas City streetcar on track to expand

Throughout the nation there's a push back among metro areas against expensive tech streetcar that hasn't lived up to hype about the economic renaissance they would spark.Take a look at thislink suggestion from our blog community . . .Money line . . .Sadly, because Kansas City elected leaders stopped counting votes and now just listen to their consultants and donors, warning of dire financial circumstances doesn't resonate among the cabal pushing outdated transit on 12th & Oak.Take a look:Developing . . .
Recep Tayyip Erdogans sudden questioning of the Treaty of Lausanne raises many issues. In trying to decipher his motives, however, we should not rule out the possibility that with this statement Erdogan simply made a grave error; perhaps he was misled by his arrogance after his victory over the coup plotters last July, perhaps he is blinded by his rush to revise history and to shape the new Turkey according to his wishes. If Ankara does move to revise the Treaty of Lausanne, however, this will set in motion unpredictable forces and could cost Turkey dearly.

The Treaty of Lausanne established not only Turkeys borders with Greece but also with its eastern neighbors  Syria and Iraq. Those borders divided the territory in which the three countries Kurds live. At a time when the Kurdish issue is at the forefront because of the war against the so-called Islamic State, Syrias disintegration and the renewed fighting with Kurdish separatists in Turkey, a responsible government would not dare to broach the issue of border changes. The clashes of interests (from local tribes to superpowers) are so complicated and developments so fluid that no government would want to undermine its states very foundations.

On July 24, in a statement commemorating the signing of the Lausanne Treaty in 1923, Erdogan himself had called the agreement the title deed of our newly founded state. The treaty was signed, on behalf of Turkey, by Foreign Minister Ismet Pasha (Inonu), who later succeeded Kemal Ataturk in the presidency, and by the representatives of the British Empire, France, Italy, Japan, Greece, Romania and the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. After the Turkish victory over Greek and other forces, and the scrapping of the Treaty of Sevres (1920), which had been bad for the Ottoman Empire, the Lausanne Treaty was presented as a victory by the Turkish leadership and established the borders of the Republic of Turkey. (It also referred to another convention which set out the exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece.)

Erdogan now projects himself as a new Ataturk in the place of Mustafa Kemal. The attempted coup of July 15, he said Thursday, is the second War of Independence for the Turkish nation. Let us know that. They [threatened] us with Sevres in 1920 and persuaded us to [accept] Lausanne in 1923. Some tried to deceive us by presenting Lausanne as a victory. In Lausanne we gave away the islands that we could shout across to, he said, according to Hurriyet Daily News. We are still struggling about what the continental shelf will be, and what will be in the air and the land, he said. If this coup had succeeded, they would have given us a treaty that would have made us long for Sevres, Erdogan added.

In his effort to control everything in Turkey, Erdogan is unpredictable and dangerous. But however much we neighbors may worry, it is his compatriots who should be more frightened.

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
Greece ranks fifth in Europe in the absorption of Juncker Plan funds, according to European Commission figures, Economy, Development and Tourism Minister George Stathakis

Greece ranks fifth in Europe in the absorption of Juncker Plan funds, according to European Commission figures, Economy, Development and Tourism Minister George Stathakis.

Speaking in Parliament, in response to a question by opposition deputy Yiannis Maniatis on the absorption and projects of a Juncker Plan, Stathakis underlined that: "European Investment Bank is present in Greece with an accelerating rate of agreements and shows very strong confidence on the Greek economy". He stressed that the Greek economy was exploiting all available funding tools and will create new ones with the aim to maximize their efficiency for the economy. He particularly mentioned funding of small- and medium-sized enterprises and noted that new funding tools have been launched. Funding includes very large sums and it is estimated that funds allocated for SMEs will surpass 2.5 billion euros in the next few months.

By the end of 2016, Greece will have absorbed around 2.0 billion euros from the Juncker Plan. In the long list of projects agreed with EIB for direct funding, there are three very significant development plans:

a fourth line in the Athens Metro (with a budget of 1.5 billion euros of which 75 pct funding from EIB and the other 25 pct from EU support funds)

electricity interconnection of Crete-Peloponese (with a budget of 330 million euros, of which 50 pct in loans and 50 pct from EU support funds

expanding natural gas grid in 16 cities (with a budget of 280 million euros).

EIB has already signed an agreement with the Greek state, worth 180 million euros, to fund the Greek Research and Innovation Foundation, and was at an advance stage of signing another contract, worth 135 million euros, to implement a large program of university campus facilities.

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
Australia has selected US defence company Lockheed Martin Corp as its preferred bidder to supply the combat system for its new $38 billion fleet of submarines, the country's defence industry minister said on Friday.



Lockheed Martin beat out competition from US rival Raytheon Co, which built the system for Australia's existing Collins-class submarines.



Australia chose French naval contractor DCNS Group in April to build 12 new submarines in a deal worth A$50 billion ($38 billion) - one of the world's most lucrative defence contacts.



France beat out offers from Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine and Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries.



Japan's bid had been seen as an early frontrunner, helped by a view that the US wanted to cement security ties between regional allies Japan and Australia to counter China's growing assertiveness in the South China Sea and beyond.



The decision to select Lockheed Martin will see Australia share the same weapons system provider as the US Navy, offering greater interoperability between the two allies.



"By partnering with an Australian-based company with strong links to the United States, we will ensure that we get the best Australian and US technology, while ensuring that our sensitive technology is protected," Minister for Defence Industry Christopher Pyne said in a statement.



The value of the contract was not disclosed.



Pyne also announced Australia had signed the first contract with DCNS to commence the design work for the new submarines.



DCNS, which is 35 per cent-owned by defence electronics giant Thales SA, was criticised last month after more than 22,000 pages outlining details relating to submarines it is building for India were published in an Australian newspaper.



The leak sparked concerns about DCNS's ability to protect sensitive data and drawing a warning from Australian defence officials.



The new fleet of submarines is a key element of Australia's increased defence spending, which will rise to A$195 billion, or 2 per cent of GDP, by 2021-2022.



In addition to the submarines, Australia is buying new equipment including frigates, armoured personnel carriers, strike fighter jets and drones.



But Canberra's defence plans have riled Beijing, with the Foreign Ministry expressing "dissatisfaction" with Australia's "negative" remarks on the South China Sea and its military development.  Reuters
The Saudi Arabian market for commercial vehicles is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 9 per cent during 2016  2021, according to report by TechSci Research, a research based global management consulting firm.



The report, titled "Saudi Arabia Commercial Vehicles Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2021", revealed that market growth is on account of robust infrastructural developments coupled with growing logistics requirements arising from construction and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) sectors.



Moreover, the increasing number of smart city projects and growing population coupled with growing government's focus on promoting energy efficiency are some of the other major factors anticipated to positively influence the Saudi Arabia commercial vehicles market over the next five years, added the report.



On the basis of vehicle type, the market of commercial vehicles in Saudi Arabia has been segmented into four categories, namely, buses, light commercial vehicle (LCV), medium commercial vehicle (MCV) and heavy commercial vehicle (HCV), it said.



Among these categories, LCV segment dominated the country's commercial vehicles market in 2015, and the same trend is anticipated to continue over the next five years as well. However, in terms of growth, the bus segment is forecast to outpace LCV segment during 2016-2021.



Tourism industry in Saudi Arabia is cyclical and is largely restricted to religious pilgrimage. In August 2015, for over 200,000 pilgrims arrived in Jeddah and Madinah, and approximately 17,700 buses were deployed for these pilgrims.



In order to address increasing transportation needs to accommodate the huge number of pilgrims during Hajj, the Saudi Arabian government is importing new buses with advanced technology that can be operated even in harsh climatic conditions, consequently aiding the country's commercial vehicles market, said the report.



"In order to accommodate growing vehicle fleet demand of the kingdom, Saudi Arabia General Investment Authority (Sagia) plans to increase investments towards strengthening and expanding the country's road infrastructure, said Karan Chechi, research director with TechSci Research.



As per the 9th Five Year Plan, which was introduced in 2010, the Ministry of Economy and Planning announced an overall spending of about $27.06 billion for improving and expanding the country's road infrastructure, he said.



These developments are anticipated to drive sales of commercial vehicles market during next five years, he added.



The report has evaluated the future growth potential of Saudi Arabia commercial vehicles market and provides statistics and information on market size, share, trends and forecasts for commercial vehicles in Saudi Arabia.



The report is intended to provide cutting-edge market intelligence and help decision makers take sound investment evaluation. Besides, the report also identifies and analyses emerging trends along with essential drivers, challenges and opportunities available in Saudi Arabia commercial vehicles market, it added.  TradeArabia News Service
BARABOO  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 picked 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 (on American Idol).

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 and went to the moon 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. Though the consumer advocate got fewer than 100,000 votes, Democrats blame him for stealing just enough votes from Al Gore 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 only because it makes Fanta Mango & Passionfruit.
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Traveler Travis DeRose filmed himself moonwalking across 27 landmarks in Europe. The guy from California uploaded a 29-second video which features him dancing in several locations with some bystanders watching him.

Earlier this year when DeRose decided to backpack throughout 13 European countries and do something unique.

The Huffington Post wrote that he recorded himself while moonwalking through some of Europe's best destinations such as Paris, Rome, Iceland and Prague.

In his YouTube account, he stated something about his inspiration in doing moonwalk.

"A few months ago I took a 2 month trip to Europe. My friends and I visited 13 countries, saw 22 cities and rode 21 trains," he said on his YouTube description.

"The idea for this video started on a previous trip to Ireland. I was getting my photo taken in front of a castle or something and I was just standing there awkwardly," he added.

"Out of pure instinct, I decided to fight the awkwardness by moonwalking. The photo actually turned out pretty cool so I started moonwalking everywhere when I began this big Europe trip."

According to Daily Mail, DeRose learned how to moonwalk because of watching Michael Jackson on YouTube. He filmed and edited his travel diary using an iPhone.

Here are some of Travis DeRose's moonwalk locations.

Reykjavik, Iceland

Skaftafell National Park, Iceland

A hot spring in the countryside, Iceland

Hverfjall Volcano, Iceland

Dynjandi Waterfall, Iceland

A 100-year-old abandoned ship, Iceland

Valdis Ice Cream, Reykjavik, Iceland

Canal Ring, Amsterdam

Berlin Wall, Berlin

Old Town Hall, Prague

Mala Strana, Prague

Szechenyi Thermal Bath, Budapest

Historic Centre of the City, Salzburg

Sound of Music Tour, Salzburg

Lucerne, Switzerland

Disneyland Paris

The Louvre, Paris

Eiffel Tower

Alcazar of Seville

Toulon, France

Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Italy

Colosseum, Rome

Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Norwegian Spirit Cruise Ship

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
Young traveller Siobhan Jones tells Traveller Australia about her batik horror story during her travel to Yogyakarta, one of Indonesia's busiest tourist destinations, taking a close second to the island paradise of Bali, located in Indonesia's Western territories. Yogyakarta, in the center of Java, is known as one of its historic centers for tradition and education.

According to Jones, she and a colleague were in Yogyakarta for a business trip, and when they had some free time, they decided to go to Jalan Malioboro (Malioboro St.), a 24-hour shopping street and one of the city's best tourist attractions. Jalan Malioboro is a known bazaar, famous for delling souvenirs, t-shirts, jewelry, handicrafts, and other souvenirs and crafts.Of course, Jalan Malioboro offers batik, Indonesia's famous patterned cloth, something the city of Yogyakarta, in particular, is famous for.

Jones and her colleague were eager to buy some batik that they could bring home, and they ventured through many long and narrow alleys, enamored by the plethora of colorful fabrics surrounding them. Within just minutes, a broad-grinned man had approached them, asked them where they came from, and offered to lead them to some of the best batik stalls in the area.The man pointed to many other stalls and dubbed them "too expensive", the man also said, "My friend is an artist, he receives money from the government to teach batik. Come visit his gallery. I would like you to see real batik."

Despite the fact that he was leading them towards some backstreets, and straight to an unmarked shack, they trusted him because it was a tourist area, and they felt this would be a great cultural experience from a well-meaning guide.

When they went inside the shack, the artist was indeed there, and showed them the wax and dye used in creation of the batik, as well as his own creations. Jones and her colleague were given a list of prices for the artworks and display and were encouraged to take their time. They were even offered some complimentary water bottles, so they felt they had to really buy something. A pattern with cats caught Jones' eye, and she felt it might cost about $30, but she had a hard time making sure because of the currency conversion involving thousands of rupiah.

Eventually, the man allowed her to pay half price, and when she didn't have enough cash, even offered to accompany her at the ATM. Later on, after she had returned to hotel, she realized that she had spent more than $100, a huge sum compared to the cost of other things in Indonesia.In addition, she looked up Jalan Malioboro again and saw, "Beware of Batik scam". Based on what she had gone through and what the guide said, this was a common practice, and it was likely that the batik she bought was a screen-printed fake.

Currently, she came home from this ordeal with the mindset of always doing your research beforehand, being skeptical of people who appear too helpful, and familiarizing oneself with the currency conversion. She also came home with her cat-patterned batik which hangs on her wall.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
With headlines galore signaling the coming of the driverless car, the federal government has done what it does best. It has announced a plan to regulate.

In Washington, this is not exactly big news. The gleaming Department of Transportation complex on New Jersey Avenue houses hundreds of people who have come to Washington for essentially one reason: to regulate.

Show them an innovation as juicy as the driverless car, and they begin salivating like hungry dogs. They cant resist.

The first steps have been carefully laid out in a 112-page document prepared by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It provides guidance as to how the industry should go about launching the autonomous car and its many related technologies.

The NHTSA document makes it clear the federal government will be taking an aggressive regulatory posture when it comes to autonomous vehicles.

In his discussion of the document, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx spoke of giving the NHTSA additional authorities for evaluating the technology before it comes to market.

The problem with government approvals is they are frequently misguided. When federal officials take a liking to a certain technology, for example, they bestow that technology with great advantages over its competitors.

Its very possible in this selection process that a self-driving technology with long-term promise will get the short-end of the governments stick, while another will receive favorable treatment based on bureaucratic judgments.

This isnt right.

Car companies are at their most efficient when they can develop products on their own and under their own budget. It is still early in the driverless era, but not too early to consider cost. On the government side, the autonomous car will mean more committees, studies and experts  and taxpayers will pick up the tab.

Another contentious aspect of the plan is the governments desire for companies to share their development data with each other.

Hearing this, one has visions of Thomas Edison being told to share his plans for an electric light bulb with his competitors. Or Bill Gates being asked to share his early computer designs with other tech pioneers.

But, of course, this is the Obama administration at its anti-competitive best. Everybody should know what everyone else is up to. That way, no one will feel left out.

Its a shame life doesnt really work that way. When incentives are removed, so is the motivation to do better than your competitors. When achievement is discouraged and everyone gets a trophy, what you wind up with is the Postal Service.

With all their futuristic appeal, truly autonomous vehicles are probably a long way off. All the major companies are working in the general area. And some driverless features can already be found in todays modern car.

But some daunting questions remain: How will the driverless cars mix with the 250 million vehicles currently being driven in the U.S. by humans? And who among us wants to sit in a driverless car on icy or rain-slick roads?

So yes, the driverless car is coming. Were just not sure as to exactly when it will arrive.

When the French futurist Jules Verne published his fictional From the Earth to the Moon in 1865, the whole world was abuzz with talk of actually traveling to the moon. Every young boy imagined himself a pilot of a spacecraft, and a century of science fiction was created overnight.

But it was 104 years before Neil Armstrong actually stepped down on the dusty lunar surface.

Similarly, the driverless car has captured our imaginations. And the hundreds of scientists and engineers at work on autonomous technologies are the best indication something really good is coming.

Until then, the federal government should do us all a favor and let the driverless era come to life with as few rules and regulations as possible.

The driverless car holds great promise for the future. But it shouldnt be restrained by the heavy hand of government.
Jermaine C. Wright



Shantillya Sands

PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas (September 29, 2016) - Comfort Suites Paradise Island has appointed Jermaine C. Wright as its new General Manager and promoted Shantillya Sands to the position of Assistant General Manager, reporting to Wright.

Wright, a seasoned tourism and hospitality professional, brings to his new post 23 years of experience working with airlines, hotels and resorts. Prior to this new role, he held various positions at the historic British Colonial Hilton in downtown Nassau for 15 years. During his tenure at Hilton, Wright received multiple awards for Sales Performance, RevPAR Growth and Hospitality Leadership. He successfully completed the Hilton Worldwide's SHINE 4D program in 2011 and a development and training program for general managers in 2014.

Wright received The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism's 2007 Cacique Award for Sales Executive of the Year and was a finalist for the 2013 and 2014 Bahamian Icon Awards for Tourism. He holds a Master of Management degree in Hospitality and Tourism from Revans University in Vanuatu, where he graduated with distinction as the Cohort's Salutatorian in 2011.

Active within the local hospitality industry, Wright is a Director of the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association and a Director of the Downtown Nassau Partnership. He was appointed one of the Directors on the Nassau Paradise Island Promotion Board. He is also President of Hands for Hunger, which assists with efforts to eradicate hunger in the Bahamas.

Sands joined Comfort Suites Paradise Island in 2011 as Sales Manager. Her expertise in strategic management led to increased sales and to her promotion to Director of Sales, where she was also responsible for overseeing the hotel's marketing and advertising strategies.

A veteran hospitality industry professional, Sands began her career in management positions at Clarion Resort South Ocean and Atlantis Paradise Island in The Bahamas. She began her tenure at Atlantis in the Food and Beverage Department, and rose to Manager of The Marketplace Restaurant, an experience that helped her to play a pivotal role in repositioning Comfort Suites Paradise Island's Crusoe's Restaurant as a full-service dining option.

With a degree in English and Communications from the College of The Bahamas, a Hospitality Sales Certificate from Cornell University's Professional Development Program, and a Specialization in Food and Beverage from the American Hotel and Motel Association, she is also the recipient of the prestigious 2015 Cacique Award for Sales Executive of the Year.

"The appointments of these outstanding professionals will be instrumental in helping to position Comfort Suites Paradise Island as the premier option for discerning, value-conscious travelers visiting our destination,'' said William Naughton, owner and managing partner of the property.

The Choice Hotels International Caribbean portfolio currently includes hotels in Aruba, The Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Guyana, Puerto Rico and St. Maarten. For further information, visit www.comfortsuitespi.com and www.choicecaribbean.com
The Connecticut Beer Trail is home to an array of award-winning craft breweries, each with something different to offer. If you cant set aside time to explore the entire trail, stop by one of the below brewpubs for a taste of the local flavor.

Two Roads Brewing Company, in Stratford, Conn., opened for business four years ago. Stop by for one of their seven year-round beers and a bite. Food trucks operate on the premises every day of the week except Mondays.

New England Brewing Company is open WednesdaySaturday in Woodbridge. Named a Top 20 brewery in the country, it was one of the first to offer craft brews in a can.

A photo posted by Thimble Island Brewing Co (@thimblebeer) on Sep 14, 2016 at 12:18pm PDT

Head to Thimble Island Brewing Company for 11 different and original ales, lagers and more on tap. Youll additionally find the brews in bars, restaurants and grocery stores all over the state. Offering what they call aggressively laid-back beer, Stony Creek Brewery is a great place to enjoy the spacious indoor/outdoor bar and taproom space. Food trucks are nearly always around for a bite to eat, and youll also find the occasional yoga class, which comes with a beer or glass of wine. Pawkatuck is home to Cottrell Brewing, operating since 1997. The Cottrell family running the place takes great pride in their longstanding Yankee history, tracing their lineage all the way back to the 1600s. The flagship brew is, appropriately, named Old Yankee Ale.

A photo posted by Cottrell Brewing Co. (@cottrellbrewing) on Aug 18, 2016 at 11:14am PDT

In Plainville, Relic Brewing is open for tastings ThursdaySaturday. Its been named the best small brewery and most underrated brewery in the state, and its Tropicale IPA is called the top essential New England beer. Find a handful of beers on tap any time you stop by.

Willimantic Brewing Co. operates in tandem with Main Street Cafe, so you can enjoy both a bite and a brew. The building itself is worth a look  its the towns 1909 U.S. Post Office, which closed in 1967 before being reclaimed by the brewing company and restaurant in the 1990s.

Olde Burnside Brewing Company offers traditional ales created with a Scottish flair. The specialty malt is imported from England and the six available beers each offer a distinctive and unique character.

A photo posted by Thomas Hooker Brewery (@hookerbeer) on Sep 16, 2016 at 1:50pm PDT

While it takes pride in its Connecticut heritage, Thomas Hooker Brewery operates on a national scale. Just because its not a small operation, though, doesnt mean it shouldnt earn a spot on your beer trail excursion. Every first and third Friday night during the month, the brewery hosts an open house event, where guests can take a tour and enjoy happy hour for only $10.

Located in an architectural landmark in Hartford, City Steam Brewery has been serving up the flagship Naughty Nurse amber ale since 1997. The brewery offers a hefty menu, as well as a Sunday brunch.
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I am Kerry Burgess. This is what I think.
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 30

The infrastructure sector recorded a growth rate of 3.2% in August up from 3% in the previous month. Analysts said there is nothing much to cheer about and it is indicative of the sluggish nature of industrial activity.

The growth rate of the eight infrastructure sectors  coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement and electricity  in August 2015 was also 3.2%.

The core sectors, which contribute 38% to the countrys total industrial production, had expanded by 3% in July.

As per data released by the government, the cumulative growth of the sector during April-August period of the fiscal was 4.5% against 2.4% in the same period last fiscal.

Sunil Sinha, Principal Economist, India Ratings, said overall there is nothing to cheer about so far as the core sector data of August is concerned and it is indicative of sluggish nature of industrial activity in the economy.
Gagan K Teja

Tribune News Service

Patiala, September 29

On September 29, 1982, as many as 22 children, including nine girls and 13 boys, lost their lives in a tragic boat accident in Nangal. The memories of their loved ones are still fresh in the minds of their families as this correspondent spoke to them at Children Memorial School, here today.

My daughter Anandani was the youngest of the children who lost their lives in the boat tragedy. Had she been alive, she would be 44 years old. Though I have two sons, it is impossible to forget the small little details of her that once lightened up our lives, Atul Malhotra, father of Anandani.

My brother Tejinder Pal Nakai had missed his bus. Had he not forced my father to follow his bus till Sirhind to join his classmates for the trip, he would have been with us today. Destiny had other plans and nothing is above gods will, said Tajinders younger brother Karamjit Singh.

My heart still freezes whenever I think about the incident. Both my children were on the boat that capsized, and while my daughter was saved, my son Sameer Khosla drowned. I didnt know whether I should thank god for saving my daughter or cry my heart out for my son, said Sameers father Vinod Khosla.

These heart-rending stories have come straight from the family members of the children who lost their lives in one of the biggest tragedies 34 years ago when over 100 students of Class VI of Our Lady of Fatima School went to pay their obeisance at Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib.

On their way back to Nangal Dam, few of the children insisted to come back by boat, but tragically, the boat capsized and 22 of the 65 children who were aboard drowned.

While remembering his only daughter, Atul Malhotra said Though 34 years have passed, we are still trying to come to terms with our daughters death. Girls are always more loving and caring. Our two sons are living abroad but we missed the warmth of a daughter and this hollowness in our lives will stay till our last breath.

Kanta Goel, mother of Vivek Goel, says her son continues to live in his dreams. One of my sons classmates came to me with her parents few days after the incident and told me that Vivek had saved her life but lost his life. She told me that she was drowning and she requested him to save her. He didnt know what to do and extended his hand. While she climbed the boat, Vivek fell into the water and drowned. Though the pain is unbearable, it gives me immense pride that even at that tender age, my son died saving his friends life, said the inconsolable mother.

Dr Charu Khosla, associate professor at Chitkara University was lucky enough to survive but lost her elder brother Sameer Khosla in the tragedy. Though she has moved on in life but the memory of the incident continues to haunt her. She was hardly 11 but remembers every bit of the incident that changed her life altogether.

All those memories are engraved on my soul. Even after so many years, I cannot forget those crying faces. Unfortunately, I lost my brother and my classmates in the incident. I remember how I was literally struggling to grab anything that could save my life and it was in the third attempt that I succeeded in holding someones plait and was rescued along with her, she added. Mohan Lal Chugh and Sandeep Sahni, who lost their sons in the accident, said they have committed themselves to the school in order to ensure that education of children should not suffer.
Ishrat S Banwait

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, September 30

Security has been doubled at the Mansa Devi temple for the Navratra festival, beginning tomorrow, in the wake of Indias surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads in the PoK. As many as 800 security personnel would be deployed for the fest, said Deputy Commissioner of Police Anil Dhawan.

The shrine board said last year, 400 security personnel were deployed, but this year it had asked for more security. Around 80,000 people are expected to visit the temple tomorrow while the number could swell to 1.25 lakh on Sunday. The security arrangements include six metal detectors, 16 manned nakas and 48 CCTV cameras of which 16 will be installed in the parking areas.

This year, the chances of a Bollywood celebrity performing at the fest are bleak. Chief executive officer of the temple VC Goyal said, We are in talks with many celebrities, but it appears they dont even want to cross Delhi. He confirmed that Hema Malini wont be attending the fest.

Sources said invites had been sent to many union ministers, but none of them had confirmed their participation and they were unlikely to do so. The Navratra festival will be inaugurated by Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki while Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar will be the chief guest on October 10.
Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, September 30

The reported dengue outbreak at Nandanpur, which has left the entire village ailing, is underscored by the losses of two families of the deceased, which are mourning the loss of a 15-year-old girl Lovepreet Kaur, and a woman, Shobha.

The village, which wears a pensive silence post the deaths, has been hit with a dengue outbreak which  thanks to lack of awareness and no testing being conducted by villagers  hasnt even been officially conceded as one by the health authorities so far.

However, the very first two houses of the Abhinandan Nagar locality  which have grieving groups of men and women sitting in them  tell most of the tale.

The first house lost a daughter. Lovepreet Kaur, of United Christian School, Suranussi, died due to dengue. Her parents, who prided on her being a brilliant student, carried a photograph of her being awarded a prize by CPS KD Bhandari in sixth standard when she stood first in the class.

While her younger sister, Navpreet, is also down with fever, her father, Bachittar Singh, who works as a driver with a rice mill, said, The government talks about Nanhi Chhaan but our sarpanch or MLA havent even met us.

Lovepreet fell ill a few days after a woman in the Abhinandan Park locality, Shobha (the neighbour of Bachittar) died. Bachittar said while the family got her treated from a local private hospital, Lovepreets health deteriorated until she lost the battle last morning.

Next door, the family of David Masih also grieves Shobhas death. While David pursues employment as a labourer at Doha (Qatar), the family, for a long time, hid the information of Shobhas ailment from him. But finally, he was informed of his wifes demise. Within days of reaching the village, he was also taken ill and had been to the hospital for a week. Shobha is survived by a daughter and two sons.

While both Bachittar and David have modest houses and barely manage to make ends meet, the deaths have further thrown their households in disarray. They blame their sickness to sewage ponds both in front and in the back of their houses.

Sanitation woes

The three sewage ponds in the village are a cause of fights among villagers. While Sarpanch Kiranjit Kaur says only 10 per cent of the village sewage is being dumped in one of the sewage ponds on 6-7 kanal land, the majority is being dumped on the 3 kanal sewage pond, which has choked it and given way to diseases. She said the villagers refuse to listen to their requests to maintain proper sanitation in the area.

On the other hand, villagers say despite repeated requests, the sarpanch or the MLA havent ensured cleaning up of the ponds. Bachittar said, The sewage from the other Nandpur pond is being routed to the one at the back of our house. This is just a shamlat land which has been forcibly converted to a sewage pond.

Harpreet Kaur, whose husband Nirmal Singh was also down with viral fever, said the sewage ponds had caused a spate in illness and allergies in the village. Even the village grocer, Mukhtaar Masih, and his elder son, had been down with fever and a reduced platelet count. Residents said the sewage pond also caused cracks and crevasses in most of the nearby houses.

Finally, villagers approached CPS KD Bhandari for allocation of land for the sewerage about two months ago. On September 25, CPS Bhandari laid the inauguration stone for the sewerage work but the work on the pipeline is only going to begin in the coming months.

Lack of awareness

Since villagers are mostly from modest families, the lack of resting being conducted for dengue has kept both the health authorities and villagers in dark about the true status of their disease. While Sarpanch Kiranjit Kaur, her husband and majority of the residents of Nandanpur and Abhinandan Park have been suffering from fever and reduced count, most of the residents whom The Tribune questioned today said they had not got dengue tests done.

The lack of testing is causing hundreds of residents to be in the grey area as far as dengue is concerned with them being conveniently ruled out as suspects.

While health teams conducted a medical camp yesterday and spraying today in the area, even today, no medical camp was held at Nadanpur. The health authorities said the primary reason for that was the lack of official dengue suspects.
Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain

It is not as if it is all over bar the cheering. In fact the successful surgical strikes across the LoC by the Indian Army is an event which may be considered the trigger for a new phase of confrontation between India and Pakistan, possibly characterised by wholly new strategies which will be tested over time and refined. However, for now we first need to compliment the Army and the political leadership for the bold decisions, apt information handling, slick execution and effective post-event management.

As one writes, the doubts about the veracity of the Army's claims have started gathering weight. Specific questions are being asked and Pakistan's experienced Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) is sparing no efforts in projecting that it is all a hoax. ISPR has good reasons to do so. The Pakistan Army Chief, General Raheel Sharif retires in six weeks and the strong man cannot be seen to go in disgrace. This may well be a trigger for Raheel to extend himself in office or do something spectacular before he bows out, if he does decide to go. Whatever ISPR is doing is to give the Pakistan leadership time to contemplate and see through the maze of complexity.

There is no reason for us in India to disbelieve our Army. Those who know the LoC well will confirm that undeclared trans-LoC operations have continued since many years, with or without sanction of the Government of India. This time it was necessary for the Government to be transparent in its sanction to the Army as the messaging was not military alone but politico-strategic. That can't be without a holistic government involvement because the escalation is likely to be much higher than when a deniable surgical strike is launched for only military retribution. Two to three kilometers ahead of the defenses in any defensive system is considered in military terms as the area of influence. Tactical commanders are routinely armed with maximum intelligence on topography and layout of the adversary's defences as also the information about the population within the area of influence.

The conduct of a raid is part of military teaching but when the degree of success has to be fool proof reliance is placed on Special Forces (SFs), with total support of the local troops through whom the launch is executed. September each year is also about enhanced attempts at infiltration which involves concentration of a larger quantum of terrorists at terror launch pads. There is a regular flow of intelligence on this. The possibility of the US providing India useful information gained by satellite surveillance is also there. The credibility of the Indian Army's claims will be finally cemented if there is a credible Pakistani response. Even without that, India's act of retribution for Uri will remain well recognised.

The muted international response is not because of credibility of claims. It is just that it is a new domain to transparently see robust Indian action. The world is not in a hurry and will take time to understand the future dynamics of possible escalation in a zone which it is fully aware has nuclear weapons with both sides.

While all are advising the Indian leadership on the possibility of a Pakistani response it is being taken for granted that such an action will be launched; a quid pro quo. From experience one can recount that the most likely action will be by a Border Action Team which is a mix of regulars and well-trained terrorists. A single action will not meet the requirement of this response where the benchmark has been set much higher. Will the deep state wish to keep it deniable or transparent; the latter more likely following the loop of escalation. Action against the Indian Army posts on the LoC itself is always an option for the BATs but the casualties they will suffer in a state of high alert will be high.

However, building overwhelming strength to smother a smaller LoC post is always a feasibility and many such posts exist without much mutual support. To avoid casualties on themselves BATs are more likely to target patrols and logistics parties by day. Predictability about these is difficult and chances of the adversary gaining surprise are extremely high. If such a set of actions is launched as response we may well witness a phase where the cross-border exchange of small arms, mortars and artillery fire may be replaced by more frequent trans-LoC raids. The chances of escalation from such situations are much higher. That confirms the belief that we can ill afford to go slow in the paradigm of diplomacy just because one element of the military option has been played. In fact, the need for even more robust diplomacy is now felt and the same must not be restricted to New Delhi itself. This is the time to undertake a campaign with high-profile emissaries reaching out to important capitals of the world to in bring to bear India's influence in their thinking and isolate Pakistan.

As we wait and watch the unfolding of events over the next few days and both sides go into huddles on the next response the one area which is finding itself the news focus is the Kashmir hinterland. Kashmiri leaders have expressed their reservations about the actions by the Army because an escalation harms the border population and takes the focus away from Kashmir's other myriad other problems. For the current, as the durbar prepares to move to Jammu the LoC and the border are taking the attention away from the stone throwers and the curfew. The Army, to its credit, is concentrating on both fronts very deftly, as its operations for moral domination in South Kashmir progress, the sanctity of the LoC is being ensured and now retribution becomes a new paradigm.

The writer, a former General Officer Commanding of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps, is a Fellow with the Delhi Policy Group.
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 29

On a day when Indian Army revealed how terrorists across the LoC in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir were planning terror strikes on major cities in the country, Lt. Governor Najeeb Jung today reviewed law and order and crime situation of the national Capital.

The meeting at the Raj Niwas was attended by Commissioner of Police, Spl. Commissioners of Police (Law and Order), Joint Commissioners of Police (All Ranges) and Deputy Commissioners of Police (All Districts).

Observing that crime against women must climb down with concerted efforts, Jung directed the officers to adopt a zero tolerance policy for such crimes and issued instructions for activation of local committees as also directed SHOs to actively engage with local NGOs working with women in their areas. He also instructed that patrolling be intensified, particularly in vulnerable and crime hot spots.

The Lt. Governor instructed that not only must the police isolate elements trying to disrupt peace and communal harmony and deal with them strictly but also directed the SHOs to intensify their engagement with peace committees and regularly engage with people in their areas.

In the meeting, Jung drew attention towards the problems faced by people from the northeast states residing in Delhi and cautioned them to be wary of any targeted crime particularly against girls/women.

"Individual responsibility of officers, including SHOs of the area, will be fixed if there are crimes against people from the northeast states residing in Delhi," said Jung in a stern message.

The Lt. Governor also highlighted the issue of growing incidents of vehicle thefts and snatching and directed all ranges and districts to work concertedly towards bringing crime down through greater intelligence gathering.

In addition, the Lt. Governor directed the DCPs to ensure that the conduct of SHOs and their subordinate staff is of the highest standards and they are sensitive while dealing with public.

The meeting ended with the Lt. Governor stating, "There can be no substitute for honesty and hard work. Please remember the two most sacred books for you are the Constitution of India and the CrPC."
Indias careful buildup and Pakistans unusual bumbling have helped contain any international fallout from the Indian Armys surgical strikes on terrorist camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). In retrospect, the scaffolding for containing adverse international reaction was built brick by brick. Prime Minister Narendra Modi went against the grain of a world summit of 20 economically most powerful countries to point the finger at one country in South Asia that was sheltering terrorist organisations. The diatribe was followed by a series of gestures that no government had contemplated earlier such as revoking a river water sharing agreement, pulling out of a regional summit and a no-holds-barred attack at the UN. The government then came out with a calibrated response but withheld video recordings and satellite imagery of the operation to refresh the celebratory domestic mood later.

The reality is that the world doesnt get shaken by one incident of cross-border violence mainly because there is so much of gore on a daily basis. Such cross-border spats take place in one part of the world or other such as Turkish strikes against PKK in Iraq or Colombias cross-border operation in Ecuador. What the world doesnt want is the N-word to enter the realm of military calculations by both countries. The US in any case cannot openly complain after its strike against Osama bin Laden. Now what after the Indian Armys operation robbed Islamabad of its sangfroid and the Pakistan armys headquarters in Rawalpindi of its cockiness?

Pakistan has been on a diplomatic overdrive ever since Burhan Wani was killed in early July and the Kashmiris took to the streets. Its political managers have been buttonholing any politician who would listen to their side of the story on the violence in Kashmir. With a weak economy and a medium-sized army, Pakistan has survived for three decades and survived the wrath of more resourceful Western armies by persevering with the craft of sub-conventional warfare. The evacuation of border villages foretells an ominous Indian response if Pakistan tries to get even. But if Kashmir remains unpacified, the world may not keep its counsel.
Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 30

The State Election Commission today debarred 217 candidates who contested elections for various municipal corporations, councils and committees of the state between 2010 and 2014 from contesting any poll for the next three years following their failure to furnish a statement of expenditure incurred in the elections.

The commission had issued show-cause notices to 1,134 candidates, who contested elections to 24 different municipal corporations, councils or committees under 16 different districts of the state for not furnishing expenditure statements.

The State Election Commission has already held meetings in six districts  Faridabad, Panchkula, Ambala, Panipat, Rohtak and Bhiwani  and heard replies of 265 candidates.

Of these, replies filed by 40 candidates were found satisfactory and were accepted, while 217 others had been debarred from contesting any election for the next three years under the provisions of the Haryana Municipal Act, said Dr Dalip Singh, State Election Commissioner, Haryana.

Among the candidates debarred from contesting polls, 65 were from the Faridabad Municipal Corporation, 45 from Ambala, 19 from Panchkula, 38 from Panipat, two from Loharu (Bhiwani), 14 from Siwani (Bhiwani) and 34 candidates from the Kalanaur (Rohtak) Municipal Committee, he said.

Under the Haryana Municipal Corporations Act, 1994, and the Haryana Municipal Act 1973, candidates contesting the poll could spend Rs 75,000 in the election for corporation, Rs 50,000 for council and Rs 35,000 for the municipal committee in 2010.

In 2011, the expenditure limits were increased to Rs 1.25 lakh, Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000 respectively, which was again raised to Rs 1.75 lakh, Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000, respectively, in 2013.

Candidates have been giving different kind of excuses like lack of knowledge and illiteracy as reasons for not furnishing information.

I have no idea of any rules. My husband asked me to sign nomination papers and I became a candidate, said a woman candidate from Panipat.

Dr Dalip Singh said, With the state government having prescribed educational qualification for candidates, I am sure illiteracy will no longer remain an excuse in future.
Ambala, September 30

Development in Haryana has come to a standstill and an atmosphere of despondency is prevailing among people, who are fed up with the present BJP government in the state, which has failed on various fronts, former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda alleged on Friday.

He also claimed that the Centre was imposing its crop insurance scheme on the farmers and money was being deducted from their accounts even if they were unwilling to implement the scheme.

The two-time former chief minister, who was accompanied by state Congress leaders, including HS Chattha and Phool Chand Mullana, led a protest march here before handing over a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner which described the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana as anti-farmer.

A number of farmers participated in the protest march and demanded that the scheme be withdrawn.

Its Kisan Loot Yojna (rob the farmers scheme), Hooda said and asked the government to pay the premium amount if it considered itself a well-wisher of the farmers.

Slamming the Manohar Lal Khattar-led government, which is scheduled to complete two years in office next month, the Congress leader claimed that development in the state had come to a standstill, the law and order situation had worsened and an atmosphere of despondency prevailed among the public who were fed up with the incumbent regime.

I have never seen such bad days which Haryana has gone through in the last two years, Hooda said.

He claimed the farmers were in a bad shape as they were not even getting remunerative price for their produces and, in some cases, were forced to sell their crops at a rate even lower than the Minimum Support Price (MSP).

Hooda claimed that the Chief Minister had no control over administration and the state government kept effecting frequent transfers of bureaucrats, police officers and other officials.

It seems, he (Khattar) is yet to find the right combination, he said, adding that these frequent transfers demoralised officers who would stop taking interest in their work.

Hooda also accused the state government of targeting political opponents by slapping false cases to divert the attention of the public from its own failures on various fronts.

He alleged that the government was looking at every official with an eye of suspicion and thus, the latter always lived in the fear that their phones were being tapped.

A state of undeclared emergency prevails in the state, Hooda said.

He took a jibe at the Khattar government saying while it had no achievements to its credit, it was quick to change the names of places such as Gurgaon to Gurugram.

He claimed that the names of schemes launched by the previous Congress government in the state were also being changed by the current dispensation.

Hooda claimed that during his 10-year tenure as chief minister, he never targeted anybody and never believed in political vendetta, yet he was the target of both the BJP and the main opposition in Haryana, the INLD.

Those in the BJP consider me a hurdle in their way. They think that if they can have me out of their way, nobody will be left to raise the peoples voice. But, they are grossly mistaken and this dream of theirs will never be fulfilled. I will continue to fight for the people by raising their voice, said Hooda.

The former chief minister has been claiming that the BJP government has unleashed political vendetta against him after its action in various cases, including the one related to Panchkula industrial plots allotment.  PTI
Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, September 30

Aiming at making the procurement process hi-tech and transparent, the e-National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) and e-Kharid have failed to provide desired results due to poor arrangements.

The e-NAM was started in the Karnal Grain Market on April 14 to provide a platform to farmers to sell their produce anywhere in the country at competitive rates. Under the project, a lot number is allotted to the farmer to sell his produce when he enters the grain market.

When The Tribune team visited the Karnal Grain Market, it found that several farmers had entered the grain market without obtaining the lot number and weighing their produce on the weighing machines installed at the entry gates of the market.

The server of e-NAM, which issues lot numbers, was running slow, which led to long queues of tractor-trailers at each gate of the market. As computers failed to generate slips, lot numbers were inscribed on hands of farmers. I have been waiting for the past one hour, but could not get the lot number. The government should make arrangements before initiating any step, said Saravjeet Singh, a farmer from Darar village.

Rajesh Kalyan, a farmer from Kutail village, said that he could not get the lot number for the past one hour as the server was not working properly. An employee of the grain market said that the server was not running properly since yesterday. Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan launched e-Kharid on September 27, but it is yet to get into operational mode. No login ID and password were given to the procurement agencies and commission agents. Besides, no J-form, which carries information about the produce and rate, had been issued to farmers even after starting of procurement in Karnal.

A commission agent said that they were not going with the system and were giving the J-form manually to the farmers. He alleged that the entry of tractor-trailers without the lot number was to encourage illegal trading in the grain market.

Login ID and password are being given to them. From October 1, all J-forms would be generated through this system, said J Ganesan, Chief Administrator, HSMB. Chander Parkash, Secretary, Market Committee, said that no procurement would be done without the lot number.
Tribune News Service

Shimla, September 30

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today flagged off the 11th edition of the peace march of the Global Youth Peace Festival (GYPF) - 2016 here today to celebrate the spirit of global citizenship and universal peace as preached by Mahatma Gandhi in which over 200 delegates from 33 countries participated. The peace march also comprised 19 members Girl for Peace Delegation from Pakistan who had brought Indo-Pak Friendship Cards with them.

Welcoming the initiative, the Chief Minister said it was a great effort in spreading the message of love and fraternity and the youth from over 30 countries were sharing a common platform to spread peace, preaching human values and creating a more just world.

It pains me to see the people being divided on race, region, religion and nationalities and such programmes will go ahead disseminating the message as how to live above racial and religious discrimination, he said.

Bernie Meyer, popularly known as American Gandhi presented a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi and his book, Gandhi Universal Inspiration to the Chief Minister.

Virbhadra Singh appreciated the efforts of Rajinder Rana, Vice-Chairman State Disaster Management Authority, for organising the event and Yuvsatta - an NGO with a motto Youth for Peace- is continuing its crusade for a humane and peaceful world.

Delegates from Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brazil, Fiji, France, Indonesia, India, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Liberia, Malaysia, Motswana, Mauritius, Nepal, Palestine, Syria, Senegal, Taiwan, Uganda, the USA, Zambia and Zimbabwe participated in the peace march. Dr Markandey Rai, Senior Adviser, United Nations Human Settlements Programme, welcomed the Chief Minster.

He said it was a unique youth campaign to spread Mahatma Gandhis message of peace and harmony.
Tribune News Service

Shimla, September 30

Himachal Pradesh University has appointed 60 teachers and succeeded in persuading the SFI to end its 153-day chain hunger strike ahead of the visit of National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).

The university is hopeful of a fruitful outcome. It has implemented RUSA, nominated the Students Central Association (SCA) and has signed an MoU with various organisations for the improvement of grade.

Preparations are in full swing for the four-day visit of the 13-member NAAC team from October 3. All departments have been asked to highlight their achievements, said Vice-Chancellor Prof ADN Bajpai.

Listing Kulgeet (university anthem), Mangalacharan (morning prayer), Navonameshi Patrika (magazine), news letter, research journal and monograph as new innovations, he said the university had 2,378 research publications, 52 monographs, 55 edited books and 64 books with the Indian Standard Book Number (ISBN).

Bajpai said the HPU was the first university in the country to introduce the semester system under RUSA for undergraduate courses. We have been able to create congenial and conducive academic atmosphere on the campus by scrapping the direct elections to the Students Central Association (SCA) and replacing the same by nominated bodies. We have recruited 60 teachers and 54 non-teaching staff members, he said.

An MoU has been signed with the Central Potato Research Institute (CPRI), Central Research Institute (CRI), Kausali, Army Training Command, Himachal Pradesh Police, North East Himalayan Study Centre and Bath Spa University, the UK.

The government grant has been increased from Rs 50 crore to Rs 90 crore in the past five years and no pension case or medical reimbursement bill is pending and as of today. The university has a corpus of Rs 120 crore, said Bajpai.

Expansion plans of the university are in place and the second campus is coming up at Ghanahatti near Shimla and about 230 bighas of government land has been transferred. A regional centre is being set up at Mohal in Una district.
Arteev Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, September 30

Violating the ceasefire again, Pakistani troops opened fire from small arms along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmirs Akhnoor district.

This is the fifth ceasefire violation in the month of September and the third in the past 36 hours.

There was small arms firing (from Pakistan on forward posts) along the LoC in Pallanwala, Chapriyal and Samnam areas of Jammu district during the night, Jammu Deputy Commissioner Simrandeep Singh said.

He said the firing started at 0030 hours and ended at 0130 hours.

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There was no loss of life or injury to anyone in the firing, he said.

On Thursday, Pakistani troops had resorted to firing in Balnoie area of Mendhar sector, but there was no casualty.

On September 28, the Pakistan Army had violated the ceasefire by opening fire on Indian Army posts along the LoC in Sabzian area Poonch sector.

Pakistani troops had fired on Army posts along LoC in Poonch sector on September 6.

On September 2, Pakistan troops had violated the ceasefire by firing on forward Army posts along the LoC in Akhnoor sector.

Last year, 16 civilians were killed and 71 others injured in 405 incidents of cross-border firing by Pakistan, the officer said. With PTI
Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Londi (IB), September 30

Even as ceasefire violation was reported only in the Akhnoor sector of Jammu district, the whole border belt of Samba and Kathua district wore a deserted look as the authorities have persuaded border inhabitants to move to safer places to avoid any human loss.

The authorities have reasons to advise people living within 5-km radius of the border to shift to safer places, because Pakistan, on the other side, has already vacated all its villages situated near the international border (IB).

Samkal is a Pakistan village, situated just opposite Londi village on the order side of the IB. Every Friday we used to observe hectic activities in the local mosque of Samkal village. Aazan from the mosque was earlier audible here, but today there is no activity, which substantiates that the Pakistani authorities have vacated all the villages situated on the IB, said Puran Chand, sarpanch of the local panchayat comprising four border villages. The sarpanch said Amar Chak and Sukh Chak villages across the IB were already got vacated by the Pakistani authorities.

Through naked eyes one can easily see Samkal village of Pakistan from Londi village, but there is no activity on other side of the border which is an indication that Pakistani authorities have already vacated their areas.

After the Army conducted surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday, the authorities had asked border residents to move to safer places following tension. Whole population of the border belt has shifted to safer places on Thursday evening but this morning youth returned to their native place to feed cattle and to look after crops, Ravinder Sharma, a resident of Manyari village of Hiranagar, told The Tribune, adding, children and aged persons have already been shifted to safer places.

Putting their lives at stake, border youth seem to be not ready to leave their homes and hearths at this point of time. Agriculture is the only source of livelihood for us. Harvesting season is approach, so we have no other option but to stay here to look after our crops and feed our cattle, Suram Singh of Londi village said, adding, if we shifted to safer places, our crops will be destroyed.

The authorities on the other hand have persuading people to move to safer places for the time being. As a precaution we have asked people to shift to the nearby safer places. We know that the harvesting season is going to start but our priority is to save human lives, Deputy Commissioner, Samba, Sheetal Nanda said. She said due to their persuasion border residents had moved to the houses of their relatives.

Deputy Commissioner, Kathua, Ramesh Kumar said 10 camps had already been established to accommodate border residents. We have already deputed naib tehsildars and other officers to convince the border residents not to live in their houses during night, he said.

Meanwhile, violating the ceasefire, Pakistani troops opened small arm fire along the LoC in Akhnoor district. This is the fifth ceasefire violation in September and the third in the past 36 hours.

Deputy Commissioner, Jammu, Simrandeep Singh posted on the social media that there was small arm firing (from Pakistan on forward posts) along the LoC in the Pallanwala, Chapriyal and Samnam areas of Jammu district during the night. He said the firing started at 0030 hours and ended at 0130 hours. There was no loss of life or injury to anyone in the firing, he said.

On Thursday, Pakistani troops had resorted to firing in the Balnoie area of the Mendhar sector, but there was no casualty. On September 28, the Pakistan army had violated the ceasefire by opening fire on the Indian Army posts along the LoC in the Sabzian area of the Poonch sector.
Ludhiana, September 29

Ten more people tested positive for chikungunya today, while 21 people tested positive for dengue. With this, the total number of chikungunya patients has reached 15 and the total number of dengue patients from Ludhiana city has reached 231.

The Health Department has advised people not to let water stand near their houses and wear full sleeves shirts and pants to avoid mosquito bites.

The treatment and test of chikungunya and dengue is done for free at the Civil Hospital so patients are advised to visit the hospital in hour of need, said Dr Ramesh, District Epidemiologist.TNS
Manav Mander

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, September 29

The World Heart Day was celebrated at various hospitals across the city. Experts laid stress on choosing an active lifestyle for a healthy heart.

Office of Civil Surgeon, Ludhiana, held a function on the premises. Civil Surgeon Renu Chhatwal, while addressing the gathering, said stress was the major cause of heart diseases. One should try to make life easy, keeping stress and worries at bay, Chhatwal said.

Dr Varinder Singh, a city-based cardiologist, said, Be mindful of calories consumed and calories burnt, especially after the age of 35 as body metabolism slows down. A heart-friendly grocery cart includes fresh fruits, vegetables, whole-grains, millets, whole-pulses, lentils, lean meat and fish. Make sure you dont consume more than half litre of oil per family member, per month. Ditch processed food over fresh food. Salt intake should not be more than one tablespoon daily. Stay physically active throughout the day. Exercising for 30 minutes a day can reduce risk of heart disease.

The World Heart Day was also celebrated at other hospitals.

Kulwant Heart and Vascular Centre

To mark the World Heart Day, Kulwant Heart and Vascular Centre, Kitchlu Nagar, organised a heart and health check-up camp. In all, 80 patients attended the camp. The patients were provided with the free of cost facilities for blood sugar and cholesterol check. Medicines, consultancy, electrocardiography (ECG) and a follow-up consultancy were also provided free of cost. Dr Kulwant Singh, managing director of the centre, said one should control unhealthy eating habits. Eat large portion of low-calorie, nutrient-rich food such as fruits and vegetables and smaller portion of high-calorie, high-sodium food such as fast-food and food cooked in refined oil, he said.

The experts said heart diseases cause about 7 million deaths per year, nationwide. By the year 2020, heart diseases are projected to be more prominent as the population ages steadily. More recently, it has emerged from statistics that even younger generation or young-adults are prone to the risk of heart diseases. This is due to global rise in associated risk factors which are both environmental and genetic.

Pancham Hospital

Dr RP Singh, chief cardiologist and managing director, on the launch of World Heart Day camp, said, We aim to educate the masses about impending diseases pertaining to heart through our community outreach programme. We aim to emphasise upon the importance of early detection of heart diseases. Harmanpreet Singh, director, operations, Pancham Hospital, said, We are lowering the cost of our complete heart checkup which includes tests that can help us detect and delay the onset of heart diseases. This can be our modest contribution to protect people from imminent threat of heart diseases and related complications.

To-do list for a healthy heart

Sugar: Excess sugar intake is a major risk factor for cardio vascular diseases, as it is linked to weight gain and diabetes. With these associated conditions, risk of developing heart diseases has increased by 30%

Salt: Table-salt contributes to about 40% of daily sodium intake. High-level of circulating sodium is linked extensively to hypertension, a potential cause of heart diseases

Saturated fats: Saturated fats increase the level of cholesterol in blood, particularly the low-density lipoprotein or 'bad cholesterol'. Cholesterol tends to deposit in inner walls of the arteries and makes them narrow and coagulated. This reduces the efficiency of blood-flow and can potentially lead to a fatal heart attack

Smoking: Smoking also damages inner walls of the arteries and leads to reduced flexibility. Nicotine induces hypertension and high adrenaline levels increase the load on heart's pumping capability

Sedentary behaviour should be avoided: Lack of physical activity is associated with greater propensity for blood clots, stroke, heart attack and hypertension

Stress should be kept away: Stress not only affects brain, but also heart and overall health. Stress reduces the amount of 'feel good' hormones and increases the exposure to persistently high-level of stress

Sleep: It is essential to have six to eight hours of sleep daily to ensure that the body is energised for the next day. Poor sleep is linked to increased risk of high blood pressure and weight gain, both of which can potentially turn into cardiovascular complications
Beijing, September 30

China apprehends that India will deploy the 36 nuclear-capable Rafale fighter jets to be acquired from France in the border regions of China and Pakistan to enhance its deterrence capability, a media report here said.

India will deploy the new French-made fighters in the disputed areas bordering Pakistan and China, state-run Global Times reported quoting Shenzhen Television.

A recent report by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said India is the largest arms importer in the world, the newspaper said.

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Increased arms imports into the Asian region are primarily due to the unstable security environment in the Middle East and concerns from Chinas neighbours over its rise.

The Rafale fighters in flyaway condition carry tactical nuclear warheads, and this means Indias nuclear deterrence capability will be greatly improved, Shenzhen Television reported.

India also wants to purchase the Rafale technology from Dassault but France refused, meaning France has no intention to help India promote its military industrial system, Zhao Gancheng, director of South Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies said.

While India is rapidly expanding its military capabilities spending an estimated $100 billion on new defence systems, many other countries with an advanced military industry are also competing for Indias market, such as Russia, the US and Israel, the daily quoted SIPRI report as saying.

Zhao said before this deal with France, India was also considering the US-made F-16s.

India picked French-made jet fighters because they are cheaper and have a nuclear-deterrence capability, he said.

SIPRIs list of the top 10 arms importers for 2011-2015 has nine Asian or Asia-Pacific countries.

Many of Chinas neighbours are also on the list of top 10 importers, such as Vietnam, South Korea and India, he said.

Due to the South China Sea dispute and the increasing power of the Chinese navy, countries like Vietnam and the Philippines are very concerned, but the US is not helping China solve the problem peacefully, said Song Zhongping, a Beijing-based military expert.

The US government and media are hyping the China Threat Theory, trying to convince countries in Asia that China is on the offensive, he said.  PTI
New Delhi, September 30

Afghanistan on Friday backed Indias surgical strikes on terror launch pads in PoK, terming it an act of self-defence and in a strong message to Pakistan asserted that the time had come to take tough and risky decisions to deal with the menace of terrorism.

Afghanistans Ambassador to India Shaida Abdali said his country did not make distinction between terrorist groups and was against all such organisations that pose a danger and threat to any country in the world.

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When asked about Afghanistans stand on the surgical strikes undertaken by India in PoK, Abdali said, We hope that no one will allow its territory as a safe haven for terrorists to be used against neighbouring countries.

If terrorist groups continue to exist without action, no wonder self-defence against such terrorist groups will be in the form of action that we saw, he said.

Abdali said it was high time we take tough decisions and they may be risky but are needed to be taken to end terrorism.

After India, Afghanistan was among three other countries which pulled out of the SAARC summit to be hosted by Pakistan.

The Afghan envoy said he could see Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking bold decisions and emphasised that there was a need for the leaderships in the region and the governments to take bold decisions and risks in order to free ourselves (from terrorism) for good.

Asked about the situation in Balochistan and the human rights violations there, Abdali said, We have a problem of terrorism and Balochistan is our neighbour. We are being affected from our neighbourhood. Terrorism exists and at the same time people suffer there.

We want to fight terrorism for the sake of all of us. For the sake of the common people of Pakistan, for the Balochis there and for all others living there, especially the Pashtuns. So we would like to end the atrocity, the wars in whatever forms there may be in order for the people to live freely, the Afghan envoy said.  PTI
Vijay Mohan & Sanjeev Bariana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 30

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today directed Central security agencies to be on high alert, especially in border areas. The direction came after he reviewed the security situation in the wake of anti-terror strikes by Indian Special Forces in PoK. Several key issues, however, continue to affect effective border management.

Several projects initiated to enhance sanctity of the border are plagued with time and cost overruns and some stretches remain vulnerable to cross-border infiltration.

The BSF initiated a project to install 45 laser walls to check intrusions three years ago. However, only 12 such systems have been installed so far.

Out of 553 km international border that runs through Punjab, 489 km is fenced. The remaining 64 km could not be effectively fenced due to riverine terrain. The aim was to plug such ingress routes using laser walls, sources said.

A review after the terror strike on the Pathankot air base in January this year revealed several shortcomings in border management. Parliaments Standing Committee on Home Affairs had, in May this year, taken a serious view that only Rs 3,777.4 crore had been allocated to the Border Management Department against its projected demand of Rs 5,045.70 crore for 2016-17.

While the Home Ministry is considering the construction of 1,426.7-km lateral and 752.48-km axial roads along the border in Punjab and Rajasthan, ongoing border road construction work is lagging, with 265 km out of the sanctioned 473 km being completed at the end of the last fiscal.
Colombo, September 30

In another setback to Pakistan, Sri Lanka on Friday pulled out of the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad, becoming the fifth country to do so after India expressed its inability to participate in the summit.

Sri Lanka regrets that the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement here.

The General Provisions of the SAARC Charter require that decisions at all levels be taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States as well, it said in the brief statement.

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The statement made no reference to the current tension between India and Pakistan, but it condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

It stressed the need to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region in a decisive manner.

Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia.

As a founding member of SAARC, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensure our regions peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive to the pursuit of regional cooperation, the statement added.

Besides India, three other Saarc members--Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan--have pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding of the meet.

That development came after tensions ran high between India and Pakistan after militants stormed an Indian Army base in Uri on September 18, killing 19 soldiers. The militants belonged to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist group.

Founded in 1985, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) currently has Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as its members. PTI
Beijing, September 30

Expressing concern over the continuous confrontation and tensions between India and Pakistan, China on Friday called on both parties to exercise restraint and refrain from escalation of tensions.

As a shared neighbour and friend to both India and Pakistan we are concerned about continuous confrontation and tensions between India and Pakistan, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Sheung said.

We call on all relevant parties to exercise restraint and refrain from actions that would escalate tension, he said replying to a question on Indian surgical strikes on the launching pads of the terrorists along the Line of Control.

He said China hopes that both parties would properly address their differences though dialogue and consultation and deescalate tensions as soon as possible.

Since there has been tensions between India and Pakistan, China has been in communication with both the countries to exercise restraint, enhance communication and properly resolve differences, he said, adding that China will continue to work on the two sides for peace talks.

Yesterday before the news of Indias surgical strikes broke out, Geng had said China was in touch with India and Pakistan through different channels to bring down their tensions, urging them to properly deal with their differences and work jointly to maintain peace and security of the region.

Asked at what level China was in touch with both the countries, Geng said China maintains frequent engagement at different levels with both India and Pakistan.  PTI
Washington, September 30

Asserting that Washington is following the situation closely over the surgical strikes conducted by the Indian Army on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC), US State Department spokesperson John Kirby said his country understood that Indian and Pakistani militaries had been in communication and believed that continued communication was obviously important to reduce tensions.

Speaking at the daily press briefing, Kirby maintained that the US continued to urge actions to combat and delegitimize terrorist groups.

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Weve repeatedly expressed our concerns regarding the danger that terrorism poses to the region. And we all know that terrorism, in many ways, knows no border. We continue to urge actions to combat and delegitimise terrorist groups like LeT and the Haqqani Network, Jaish-e-Mohammad. So this is something that were obviously keenly focused on, Kirby said.

On being asked if there was prior consultation between the United States and India before the surgical strikes, the spokesperson replied, I can confirm that the Secretary (John Kerry) spoke earlier this week with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and reiterated his strong condemnation of the September 18 Uri attack. He condemned terrorism in all its forms and he cautioned against any escalation in tensions.

Responding to the question on what specific steps have been taken to strengthen cooperation on fighting terrorism between New Delhi and Washington over the second US and India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue held last month, Kirby said, Were always trying to get better at combatting terrorism in the region. And there are many ways you can do thatthrough information-sharing regimens and increasinglike we said, increasing communication between all parties involved.

When asked that Secretary Kerry had cautioned against escalation and was the surgical attack an escalation, Kirby said he is not going to characterise it and instead called the Uri attack horrific.

Kirby maintained that Washington wanted to see increased cooperation against shared common threat for both India and Pakistan.

Well, look, again, weour message to both sides has been the same, in terms of encouraging them to increase communication to deal with this threat and to avoid steps that escalate the tensions.what we want to see is increased cooperation against what is a very shared common threat for both countries, and to see steps being taken to deal with it by all sides, he added.

On being asked that there is a strong coordination between India and the US on counterterrorism issues and was there any coordination on surgical strikes conducted by the Indian Army, Kirby replied, I just dont have anything for you on that. And as you know, I dont talk about the specifics of military matters. Kirby declined to comment when asked if Kerry got any indication that India was going ahead with the strike when he spoke to Swaraj.

He, however, said he had seen reports of two calls, adding, There was a technical issue on the first call, so they had to arrange a second call to complete it. So were there two calls? Yes, there were two calls, but it was really one conversation.

On being asked if Ambassador Richard Verma who had to rush back to Delhi was carrying any message from the Secretary or from the state building, Kirby said, My understanding is that he believed that it was appropriate for him to go back. And I mean hes got a big job, theres a lot of responsibilities that come with it, and obviously its a very dynamic situation, and he felt it was prudent to go back.

When asked if he has any message for Pakistan after the reporter quoted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis remarks that Pakistan is supporting terrorism, India is supporting ITs, engineers, and doctors around the globe and that Pakistan still has camps inside its country which are attacking India, Kirby replied, I mean, we understand that both militaries are in communication; we encourage that weve expressed repeatedly our concerns about the danger of terrorism, cross-border terrorism, as well, in the region, and we continue to urge actions to combat and de-legitimise groups like LeT and the Haqqani Network and Jaish-e-Mohammad.

When asked that about the India-US relationship, Kirby said Washington remained deeply committed to the bilateral relationship with India and to advancing it onacross virtually all sectors of public and private enterprise.

The Indian Army conducted surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the LoC on Wednesday night.

Speaking to media on Thursday, Director General of Military Operations Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh said the motive of the operation was to hit out at the terrorists who were planning to infiltrate into the Indian territory.

Lt General Singh said significant casualty was caused to terrorists during the operation. ANI
Washington, September 30

The Indian surgical strike inside Pak Occupied Kashmir (PoK) against terrorist planning to sneak into India for terrorist activities was carefully measured, a top American think-tank said on Friday, adding that the onus for escalation lay purely on Pakistan.

This Indian response was indeed coming; both as a signal to Pakistan and as reassurance for Indian domestic audiences. Modi could not let the outrage at Uri go unanswered, Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a top American think-tank, said.

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The Indian action was carefully measured: striking at terrorist launch pads was meant to signal that India has not lost its freedom to retaliate, but puts the onus of further escalation on Pakistan, Tellis told PTI.

Responding to a question, Tellis said the US would counsel restraint, but unless the administration was willing to turn the screws on Pakistan--which was unlikely--India would be guided by its own interests, not American pleas for forbearance.

I think Pakistan has its hands full right now, it is unlikely to respond to the Indian action militarily, but the larger sub-conventional war against India will continue, Tellis said.

Rick Rossow from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recalled the hint of such strikes as a possible tool last year, when the Indian Army initiated an attack against militants in Myanmar.

India has also shown other new tools in its confrontation with Pakistan, such as withdrawing from the upcoming SAARC summit, building stronger ties with other South Asian nations, and using closer security ties with the US as a hook to press for reduced military cooperation with Pakistan, he said.

This will likely keep Islamabad on its toes, though when employing new tools in such a struggle, clear messaging is the key, so both sides know the others intentions. This will guard against unanticipated escalation, Rossow said.

According to him, following a number of recent provocations that India has linked to Pakistan-based militant groups, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has employed a different set of tools to respond to these incitements.

These tools may not be altogether new, but the fact that they have been the focus of Indias response to Pakistans incitements marks a different approach, he said.

Rossow said while the Indian Ministry of Defence has stated it does not plan additional strikes, it is not clear whether the current tensions between India and Pakistan will escalate further.

There is certainly little expectation that Pakistani militants, under varying degrees of control by Pakistans military, will be deterred from initiating further attacks. But the costs to Islamabad of supporting terrorism are increasing, and taking different forms than before, Rossow said.

Jonah Blank, from the RAND Corporation think-tank, said that after the Mumbai 2008 attacks, Indias patience had reached its limit.

Pathankot was the breaking point. It was probably unrealistic to expect that the Uri attack would fail to bring a military response, he said.

The phone call between Ajit Doval and Susan Rice accomplished two important things: First, it enlisted the US to help prevent a Pakistani counter-strike. Second, it avoided jeopardizing the India-US relationship by having Washington find out about the attack from Islamabad or the media, he noted.

There was never much likelihood that the US would condemn the attack. After an American surgical strike against Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, any criticism of India for a cross-border action would have seemed hypocritical, Blank said.

The outcome, limited Indian strike, limited Pakistani response, was probably as good as could have been desired. A stronger Indian strike, or a Pakistani escalation into full warfare, would not have served either nations interest, he said. PTI
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 30

Despite the government order that villages within 10 km of the border with Pakistan be evacuated, most residents of Punjab's border belt have chosen to stay put. Farmers say their paddy crop is at the harvesting stage and they will not move out.

Residents of Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Taran Taran, Ferozepur and Fazilka villages, who had moved to houses of kin or to relief camps in schools and other government buildings, have returned to their homes.

However, a large number, mostly women and children, went back to the camps in the evening fearing they could be caught in cross-fire. "People kept moving in and out of the relief camps all day long. We are not forcing anybody to evacuate," said Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal.

Apart from serving food, the government carried out a fumigation drive at the camps to prevent the outbreak of dengue and chikungunya. Punjab Revenue and Public Relations Minister Bikram Singh Majithia visited the border areas in Amritsar and took stock of the make-shift arrangements for the residents.

Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader HS Phoolka criticised the government for "creating unnecessary panic", pointing out that no such evacuation had been ordered in Gujarat and Rajasthan villages sharing border with Pakistan.

Hundreds of villages along the border in Jammu and near the Line of Control in Kashmir are also being evacuated. "Our top priority is to move women and children to government buildings, guest houses and marriage halls," said Nirmal Singh, Deputy CM of Jammu and Kashmir.
Siwan, September 30

With the Supreme Court cancelling his bail in a murder case, controversial RJD leader Mohammad Shahabuddin was on Friday back in jail after 20 days and lashed out at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, saying his supporters will teach him a lesson.

Hours after the apex court order, Shahabuddin, who had walked out of jail on September 10 amid much fanfare after 11 years of incarceration, came pillion riding a motorcycle with his face hid under a helmet and surrendered in the court of First Class Judicial Magistrate Sandeep Kumar.

My supporters will teach him (Kumar) a lesson in the next election, Shahabuddin, who is considered close to RJD President Lalu Prasad, said amidst clapping by his supporters in the court premises where he sat on a chair arranged by his aides .

I stand by the truth I had said about him (a chief minister of the circumstances).... I do not have any problem about speaking the truth today, Shahabuddin told reporters before appearing in court.

Bihar government had in the apex court opposed granting liberty to Shahabuddin, a four-time MP from Siwan from 1996 to 2008.

He was sent to judicial custody for 14 days by the CJM today. The district police led by district magistrate Mahendra Kumar and Superintendent of Police Saurabh Kumar Sah took Shahabuddin into custody. He was then taken to Siwan divisional jail.

Earlier, the district administration team led by the DM and the SP rushed to Shahabuddins home at Pratappur village to take him into custody in accordance with the apex courts order but could not succeed.

Shahabuddin gave them the slip and pillion rode a motorcycle with a helmet on his head to the Siwan court and surrendered.

As the news of Shahabuddins presence at the court spread, a large number of his supporters gathered there.

The RJD leader is facing over 36 criminal cases and had been released from Bhagalpur jail only on September 10 last.

The Patna High Court had granted him bail on September 7 in the 2014 murder case of Rajiv Roshan, a witness in the brutal killing of his two brothers by bathing them in acid in Siwan ten years ago.

Asked about the Supreme Court order cancelling his bail, Shahabuddin said he respects the judiciary.

What can I say on a judicial decision. My lawyer can speak on it, he said.

High alert was sounded in Siwan as soon as the Supreme Court pronounced its order on Shahabuddin earlier in the day.

Additional police was deployed at the residence of father of the three brothers who were killed and other sensitive areas in Siwan.  PTI
Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 30

Home Minister Rajnath Singh today reviewed the security situation in the country, taking stock of the forces preparedness along the western border in view of yesterdays surgical strikes by the Army on terror launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Edit: After the strikes

During hour-long deliberations, the top security brass briefed Rajnath about the steps being taken to foil any Pakistani design to attack Border Security Force posts. They also elaborated on the measures taken to ensure the safety of civilians living in border areas.

Sources said Rajnath directed officials to be on high alert. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and top officials of security and Intelligence agencies attended the meeting. Meanwhile, the MHA has issued a countrywide alert, asking states to heighten vigil to foil any attempt by Pakistan-based terror groups to carry out attacks, especially in metropolitan cities. The border states of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat were also directed to remain vigilant.

Rajnath told reporters that all attempts were being made to secure the release of an Indian soldier who had inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan. He said the government had taken note of the reports that stated that an Indian soldier was in Pakistans captivity.

Sources in the MHA, however, said the minister had not spoken to anyone in Pakistan to secure the release of the soldier in captivity, but they went on to add that the ministry would soon make moves in that regard.

Army sources yesterday said, One soldier from 37 RR with a weapon has inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control. Pakistan has been informed by the DGMO on the hotline. Sources said the incident was not related to the surgical strikes in PoK.
New Delhi, September 30

In view of intelligence inputs that some Pakistan-based terror groups may carry out attacks in various parts of the country, the Central Government on Friday issued a nationwide alert and directed states to heighten vigil to foil any such attempts.

In an advisory, the Union Home Ministry conveyed to the states that additional forces should be deployed in all sensitive places, strategic installations, markets, religious places and other key areas to ensure security, an official source said here.

The Centre also directed that metropolitan cities should be particularly asked to be extra vigilant.

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According to sources, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujaratfour states bordering Pakistanhave been asked to be extra vigilant as there are reports that some terrorists and suicide attackers might have crossed over to India during the last one month or so, and could act now as part of their retaliation to the surgical strikes by the Indian Army across the Line of Control (LoC).

The directives came close on the heels of Home Minister Rajnath Singh reviewing the national security scenario with National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, top officials of the Home Ministry, and the top brass of various Central security organisations, including the Border Security Force (BSF).

Elements in Pakistan and terror groups may try to carry out attacks in India, including in some vulnerable installations in the metropolis, to avenge the surgical strikes that left significant casualties both among terror groups and regular Pakistan Army, a source said.

The surgical strikes by the Army came 10-11 days after Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists had attacked an Army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir which left 19 Indian soldiers martyred.

Earlier during the day, Home Minister Singh reviewed the security situation in the country, particularly along the border with Pakistan in states like Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, and directed Central security organisations to be on high alert.

The BSF and other central police organisations functioning under the Home Ministry have been put on high alert along the India-Pakistan border, an official source later said.

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) top brass have been asked to intensify security at all industrial units, airports and other locations wherever they are deployed. All BSF units deployed along the international border in Jammu, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat have been directed to step up vigil.

The BSF has been ordered to increase the number of personnel deployed at sensitive posts along the Pakistan border, the sources said.

Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and top officials of security and intelligence agencies also attended the review meeting. Rajnath Singh also held separate meetings with the chiefs of important central security forces, including National Security Guard (NSG), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and CISF.

Singh met CISF Director-General O.P. Singh, NDRF Director General R.K. Pachnanda and NSG chief Sudhir Pratap Singh and discussed general preparedness.

These were routine meetings but were significant in the wake of the armys surgical strikes across the LoC, sources added.  IANS
Bamako, September 30

In the wake of the surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the LoC, India on Friday asserted that international and cross-border terrorism should be dealt with in a comprehensive manner and called for early adoption of a global treaty on terrorism.

Noting that terrorist actions cannot be justified on any grounds, Vice-President Hamid Ansari said India face the threat of terrorism from across its borders.

India condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and is of view that international and cross-border terrorism should be dealt in a comprehensive manner. We feel that with a view to strengthening international normative regime on terrorism, an early adoption of the CCIT (Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism) is essential, he told the National Assembly of the Republic of Mali.

Seeking Malis cooperation in this regard, he said, As we move forward, individually and together, to build a better future for our people and societies, we must also reckon with the impediments to development.

Foremost among them is the scourge of terrorism, regionally and globally. The spreading tide of extremism and terrorism is a threat we both face, he said.

Ansari said as the world becomes more globalised and inter-connected, the salience of global cross-cutting issues is rising and these issues cannot be resolved by a handful of powerful countries or even through regional efforts.

They include issues such as climate change but also global public health challenges, drug-trafficking, trafficking of humans, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism. There are newer domains of cyber security and space security.

Terming Mali as an ancient seat of learning and a nation that was for centuries a melting pot of cultural traditions and influences, and home to great scholars, musicians and historians, he said in recent years we have sought to close the distance that separates us physically.

He said his visit, the first high-level one to Mali from India, takes place at a time of excellent bilateral relations between the two countries.

My visit comes at a time when the world is acknowledging the India growth story. This economic growth provides India more resources not just for its own development, but also more financial leverage in expanding the scope of its engagement with emerging growth poles of the world like Africa.

It comes at a time when Africa, awash with the spirit of democracy, has consolidated its control over its resources and accelerated its march towards securing a prosperous future for its people.

Ansari said India and Mali neither has a transactional partnership nor does New Delhi merely return to Africa what was earlier robbed from it.  PTI
Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, Sept 25

Following the Army strikes on launchpads of terrorists in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) across the Line of Control, tension at the border persists. But there is no overt movement and no Operation Parakram kind mass deployment on the Indian side, as this is not required.

The Indian Army, the Air Force and the Navy have their launchpads fully stocked. Missiles such as the BrahMos  with a range of 300 km  are forward located. These can shoot and scoot. Artillery guns with various ranges are deployed all along the border with Pakistan, some embedded at pre-designated fortifications.

Three of the four strike corps of the Army, backed by tanks, face Pakistan. Frontline fighter jets such as the Sukhoi 30-MKI, each one of which carry a weapons load of nine tonnes, are stationed at bases in Halwara, Punjab, and Sirsa in Haryana. The Soviet-era flying machine, the MiG 29, is based at Adampur in Punjab.

Specialised planes, such as the IL-76 fitted with high-resolution radars, can pick up movement across the entire breadth of Pakistan and direct fighter jets to launch missiles or provide information to ground-based troops for an attack.

The forces have their own dedicated satellite that provides live feed to forward locations. The Cold-start doctrine has been tweaked over the past one decade. This does not require the armed forces to make any visible preparations to move. The doctrine was established following Operation Parakram launched in December 2001 after the terror attack on Parliament.
Islamabad, September 30

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawz Sharif condemned what it called cross-border firing and Indian aggression on Friday and warned of retaliation, even though it continued to deny claims of it having been a surgical strike.

At a Cabinet review meeting he chaired, Pakistans Prime Minister Nawz Sharid said the government would do all it could to protect its people and territorial integrity against any act of aggression from across the Line of Control.

He claimed that "Indian agression" posed a threat to the region, The Express Tribune reported.

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"No one will be allowed to cast an evil eye on Pakistan," Sharif said, adding that it was also fully capable of executing surgical strikes. "The nation is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the valiant armed forces to defend the motherland."

Sharif also called Kashmir unfinished agenda of the partition and said India "atrocities in the state were unacceptable.

Sharif also demanded investigation into September 18s terrorist strike at Kashmirs Uri in which 19 Indian soldiers were killed and said Indias blaming Pakistan for engineering it was beyond comprehension.

'Befitting response'

Pakistan's Army chief General Raheel Sharif has warned that any "misadventure" by India will be met with the "most befitting response".

Expressing operational preparedness of the Pakistan Army, Gen Sharif said: "Any misadventure by our adversary will meet the most befitting response from Pakistan. Pakistan can't be coerced through any amount of malicious propaganda." According to an Inter-Services Public Relations statement, Gen Sharif while talking to troops exhorted all commanders to lay more emphasis on combat readiness. He emphasised that training in peacetime is the only guarantor of averting war and winning it if imposed.

Gen Sharif also said that "highest" state of vigil was being maintained along the LoC and all along the International Border.

Indian Army said on Thursday it conducted military strikes across the border on seven terrorist launch pads on Thursday, claiming there were significant casualties.

Pakistan however dismisses the claims, calling it cross-border firing, a fabrication of the truth and Indias quest for media hype.

The strikes by India came in the wake of the Uri militant attack.  Agencies
Islamabad, September 30

Pakistan on Friday postponed the SAARC Summit to be held here next month after India along with four other member states of the regional grouping decided against attending the meet.

Pakistan deplores Indias decision to impede the SAARC process by not attending the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad on November 9-10, 2016, the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.

It claimed that the spirit of the SAARC Charter is violated when a member state casts the shadow of its bilateral problems on the multilateral forum for regional cooperation.

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Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was looking forward to welcome the SAARC leaders for their participation in the summit. All preparations had been made for successful holding of the summit, the statement said.

It alleged that decision by India to derail the summit effectively contradicts Prime Minister Narendra Modis own call to fight against poverty in the region.

Indias decision to abstain from the summit on the basis of unfounded assumptions on the Uri incident is a futile effort to divert attention of the world from the atrocities by India in Kashmir, the Foreign Office said.

Pakistan attaches great importance to regional cooperation under the umbrella of SAARC ... therefore, Pakistan remains committed to hosting the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad at the earliest so that the objectives of regional cooperation under the SAARC umbrella can be pursued more vigorously, it said.

The Foreign Office said a new set of dates for holding of the summit in Islamabad will be announced soon, through Nepal, which is currently the SAARC Chair.

Accordingly, we have conveyed the same to the Prime Minister of Nepal, it said.

Besides India, three other SAARC members  Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan  pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding of the meet.

Sri Lanka also pulled out of the SAARC Summit today, becoming the fifth country to do so.

Citing continuous cross-border terrorism by Pakistan, India had announced earlier this week that in the prevailing circumstances, the Government of India is unable to participate in the proposed Summit in Islamabad. SAARC member states include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.  PTI
Patna, September 30

In a setback to the Bihar Government, the Patna High Court on Friday quashed the government notification banning liquor in the state, saying it was ultra vires to the Constitution.

A division bench of the court comprising Chief Justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari and Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh quashed the April 5 notification of the state government to stop consumption and sale of alcohol in the state.

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The April 5 notification is ultra vires to the Constitution, hence not enforceable, the court said in its verdict.

The same bench had on May 20 reserved its order on a batch of writ petitions filed by Liquor Trade Association and many individuals challenging the liquor law in Bihar brought by Nitish Kumar government with stringent penal provisions.

The Nitish Kumar-led Grand Secular Alliance government had first banned the manufacture, trade, sale, consumption of country-made liquor since April 1, but later imposed a blanket ban on all types of liquor including foreign liquor in the state.  PTI
Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 30

Pakistan today announced that the SAARC Summit to be held in Islamabad next month stood postponed. It said it deplores Indias decision to impede the SAARC process by not attending the summit.

Earlier in the day, Sri Lanka announced that it would not be able to attend the summit as the prevailing atmosphere was not conducive for it. The move further isolated Pakistan diplomatically and made Sri Lanka the fifth country to boycott the summit.

Backing India, Afghanistan said it was time to take bold action.

US State Department spokesman John Kirby said, We continue to urge action to combat and de-legitimise terrorist groups like the LeT and Haqqani Network, Jaish-e-Mohammad."

Russia said: We expect that the Government of Pakistan should take effective steps in order to stop activities of terrorist groups in its territory.
New Delhi, September 30

A row broke out today over remarks by Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, director Anurag Kashyap and Shyam Benegal that boycotting Pakistani artistes in Bollywood is no solution to terrorism.

Salman said artistes came to Bollywood with proper visa and work permit. His comments came in the wake of Indian Motion Picture Producers Associations resolution to ban Pakistani actors from the industry following the terror attack on an army camp in Uri.

Raj Thackeray-led MNS had also issued an ultimatum to Pakistani artistes and actors, including Fawad Khan, to leave India.

Filmmaker Shyam Benegal said: The actors are here because they have been invited to act in Indian films. If they were representing their government, then clearly they should go back. They are here as individual artistes. I dont see why they should be asked to go away. Anurag questioned whether banning Pakistani artistes would solve the problem.

Filmmaker Ashoke Pandit slammed Salman and Benegal for their comments.  PTI
R Sedhuraman



Legal Correspondent



New Delhi, September 30

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a PIL for banning or containing consumption of alcohol in the interest of peoples health and quality of living.

It is not for the court to say liquor should be banned or not. It is for the government to decide, a Bench comprising Justices AK Sikri and NV Ramana told advocate-petitioner Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay.

The petitioner persisted with his plea as it was judiciarys duty to protect peoples health by restraining them from consuming liquor which was hazardous.

How do you say it is hazardous? It poses problem only when taken in excess. Even medicines have side effects, the Bench remarked.

The petitioner pleaded that studies had shown liquor was a health risk, irrespective of the quantity consumed.

Unconvinced, the Bench said studies had thrown up conflicting findings and some had even suggested that red wine was good for health. It was not for the judiciary to identify the correct studies.

These are policy matters which are better left to executive, the Bench remarked while dismissing the plea. Kerala had banned arrack, it noted.

The PIL had maintained that judiciary was supposed to protect the living standard as mandated under Articles 21 (right to quality life) and 47 (liquor prohibition) of the Constitution.

In the petition, he had extensively cited instances of ruined families and people getting cancer and various other life threatening ailments due to addiction to liquor. He had provided news items from The Tribune and other newspapers to highlight the need for enforcing at least part prohibition.

Article 47 prohibited consumption of alcohol except for medicinal purposes, he pleaded. The state governments should be asked to create health awareness by declaring the first Sunday of every month as Health Day for educating people about the ill-effects of cigarettes, tobacco, liquor and other intoxicants.

There should be a chapter in the school curricula for educating children in the 6-14 age group on the health and economic problems arising from substance abuse.
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, September 30

The Supreme Court today cancelled the bail granted to gangster-turned-RJD leader Mohd Shahabuddin by the Patna High Court and directed the Bihar Government to arrest and put him back in jail immediately.

A Bench comprising Justices PC Ghose and Amitava Roy set aside the September 7 bail order, holding that the HC had failed to take note of the 60-odd criminal cases pending against Shahabuddin, who had been an MLA four times and an MP twice.

Earlier, the court grilled the state government for letting Shahabuddin come out of jail by getting bail in so many cases. You came out of slumber after Shahabuddin was finally out despite the fact that he was sentenced to life in two cases and awarded a cumulative jail term of another 30 years, the Bench had told the state.

Despite being in jail since 2005, he kept on committing heinous crimes, Bihar pleaded.
Lahore, September 30

Pakistan Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Friday termed the Simla Agreement signed by India and Pakistan after the 1971 war a big mistake as it hurt the Kashmiri freedom struggle.

Shahbaz is the brother of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. His statement evoked sharp criticism from the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), whose then chairman and Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his Indian counterpart Indira Gandhi signed the pact in 1972. Someone should teach the CM what foreign policy is, tweeted PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

The agreement resulted in the release of some 90,000 Pakistani soldiers imprisoned by India following the 1971 war.  IANS
R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, September 30

The Supreme Court on Friday cancelled the bail granted to gangster-turned RJD leader Mohd Shahabuddin by the Patna High Court and directed the Bihar government to arrest and put him back in jail immediately.

A Bench comprising Justices PC Ghose and Amitava Roy set aside the September 7 bail order, holding that the High Court had failed to take note of the 60-odd criminal cases pending against Shahabuddin, who had been an MLA four times and an MP twice.

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Earlier, the Court had grilled the state government for letting Shahabuddin come out of jail by getting bail in so many, and then seeking to put him back behind the bars.

You came out of slumber after Shahabuddin was finally out of jail despite the fact that he was sentenced to life in two cases and awarded a cumulative jail term of another 30 years in eight other cases, the Bench had told the state.

Despite remaining in jail since 2005, Shahabuddin kept on committing heinous crimes which indicated the extent of his influence over criminal elements in Siwan district and in other parts of the state, Bihar had pleaded.

Arguing for another petitioner Chandrakeshwar Prasad, whose three sons were allegedly murdered by Shahabuddin, senior counsel Prashant Bhushan pleaded that he should be sent to Tihar Jail here and the trial in about 25 pending cases be conducted through video conferencing.
Sat Singh

Tribune News Service

Bhiwani, September 30

Nine pilgrims were killed and 14 others injured when a pick-up vehicle carrying them was involved in an accident with two heavy vehicles at Sainiwas village in this district on Friday morning.

The deceasedeight men and a womanwere residents of Machhiwara near Ludhiana.

Police said the pick-up vehicle carrying the pilgrims rammed into a truck moving ahead and then was hit from behind by another heavy vehicle.

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The accident took place around 12.15 am. The injured have been admitted to the civil hospital at Bhiwani.

Bhiwani Civil Surgeon Dr Randeep Singh Poonia said, Twenty-one patients were brought to Government Hospital, Siwani, of which nine were declared brought dead. Additional staff was deployed and the best possible treatment was given to the injured. Later, the patients were referred to hospitals in Hisar and Bhiwani. The bodies were shifted to the Bhiwani hospital for post-mortem.

Deshraj, one of the injured, said they were coming back from Gogamedi in Rajasthan and were asleep at the time of the accident.

Gogamedi is a village of religious importance in Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan.

As many as 29 pilgrims had been killed in a similar manner at the same place in 2012.
Kulwinder Sandhu

Tribune News Service

Moga, September 30

Amid escalating tensions between India and Pakistan after surgical strikes in PoK by the Indian Army, people living along the Indo-Pak border in Ferozepur district who were shifting to safer places said they were not willing to bear the cost of another war with Pakistan.

In the wars of 1965 and 1971 we lost our homes, cattle and lives, villagers said.

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Gurmej Singh Sidhu of Nambardar Chugge Kishor Singh village, located in Mamdot town, said the situation had changed a lot in the last 40 to 45 years. People had constructed pucca houses and got settled permanently. During the earlier wars there was hardly any pucca house in the border villages, he said.

We have worked hard to make the barren sandy land fertile. The governments were least cooperative. Now, suddenly displacing the border people within 24 hours is terrible for us, he added.

Kulwant Singh of Pojoke village said thousands of panic-stricken people had left behind their belongings and cattle at home and went to their relatives. Who would take care of the cattle and the standing paddy crop, which was almost ready for harvesting, he questioned.

Major Singh of Chak Bhange Wala village, who was still at his home along with his family, said that it was difficult for them leave their houses with all their belongings while their crop was ready for harvesting.

Villagers also fear theft of their belongings. The state government must ensure the security of our houses and belongings before asking us to leave the houses in the border areas, Manjit Singh of Bareke village, located near Hussainiwala border, said.

Gurmej Singh further said the residents of border villages in Pakistan also seem to have started moving to safer places. He reported that lights were not seen across the border yesterday. It could be a sign of possible migration or blackout, he said.

Recalling the harrowing tales of previous wars, the ones who suffered the pain do not want another war with Pakistan. The times have changed. The issues between the two nations should be solved through dialogue taking a cue from other war-torn countries, Mukhtiar Singh, said.
Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Thakur Pur (Gurdaspur), September 30

As villages in the border states clear out for the fear of a retaliation from Pakistan a day after the Army conducted surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, police in Gurdaspurs Thakur Pur village have a dilemma.

Although the government has ordered villages within 10 km of the India-Pakistan border to be cleared, Thakur Purs residents have refused to leave their homes, telling the police that they would only go when firing actually begins from across the border.

Residents of some 100 villages in Dorangla, Behrampur, Dinanagar, Narot Jaimal Singh and Baimal blocks had a long night of anxiety as they waited for sounds of gunfire to rattle their peace. When none came, they changed their minds about leaving.

Many who left on Thursday also returned saying their paddy crops needed harvesting, leaving shelters especially marked to house the evacuees already wearing a deserted look.

Villagers reason that if a night like that could pass peacefully, there is nothing to fear. Some even drew parallels with the war of 1971. Jodh Singh, an ex-serviceman from the village, said the village could hear sounds of gunfire for nearly a week during the war.

This time, apart from high decibel sounds being made by the administration, nothing much is happening. Yesterday night was the right time if the enemy wanted to attack us. That particular time period has passed peacefully and now we see no threat.

Villagers stubborn refusal to change their minds has left authorities floundering.

On the first day yesterday, we managed to evacuate some people. But today everybody seems to be stubborn. All our efforts are turning out to be futile, said an SP-rank officer.

Gurdaspur SSP Jasdeep Singh admitted that his force had trouble convincing people to leave.

We are telling them that a strike is possible. However, they tell us that strike or no strike, they will not go anywhere, he said.

Villagers of Thakur Pur are not alone in their thinking. Reports of people refusing to leave have come from other hamlets in the district, as well as those from neighbouring Pathankot.

Meanwhile, BSF has stopped farmers from crossing the wire fencing between the two countries to till their lands  a task that, until Thursday, 85 farmers from Thakur Pur would carry on each day with the BSF guarding them.

Since Thursday afternoon, we have locked the gate. We are not allowing anybody to cross over, said the two jawans manning the post.
Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 29

Just a few hours after India announced it had carried out surgical strikes across the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir to eliminate terrorists, Punjab on Thursday started the exercise of evacuating thousands of villagers residing near the Pakistan border and shut down schools as a precaution in case of any retaliation.

About 1,000 villages up to 10 km from the International Border were asked to be evacuated and Punjab Police were deployed in the border districts to assist the paramilitary forces and the Army in the second line of defence. DGP (Law and Order) Hardeep Dhillon, besides senior bureaucrats, would camp at Amritsar.

Though there was no exchange of fireor visible Army build-up, for the civilians it was akin to a warlike situation.

Reports from Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur and Fazilka said hundreds of villagers had moved to relief camps set up in the district headquarters. People were seen transporting household goods and livestock in scenes reminiscent of the 1965, 1971 and Kargil wars. The Retreat ceremonies at Wagah, Hussainiwala and Sadiqi were held without public presence.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said these were precautionary steps to prevent civilian loss in case of any misadventure from across the border. He said the Centre had asked for the safety of villagers. Badal has released Rs 1 crore for each border district.
Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Thakur Pur (Gurdaspur), September 30

The evacuation drive launched by the administration in border villages yesterday took a hit today as some residents told the police that they would not leave their homes till firing starts from across the border.

Scores of shelters designated by the administration wore a deserted look as those who shifted yesterday returned home today.

Those who came back included residents of about 100 villages of Dorangla, Behrampur, Dinanagar, Narot Jaimal Singh and Bamial blocks.

The official statement said 30 per cent of the villagers were evacuated on Thursday. However, in reality just 5 to 10 per cent of the people had gone to their relatives homes in safer places yesterday. Today, they too returned with many saying their paddy crop had ripened and hence they could not afford to stay away.

At the Thakur Pur village Observation Post (OP) of the 12 Battalion of the BSF, security men were seen telling the villagers to leave. However, nobody seemed to be listening and residents nonchalantly kept on attending to their daily chores.

Gurdaspur SSP Jasdeep Singh said, We are telling them that a strike is possible. However, they tell us that strike or no strike they will not go anywhere.

Residents of the neighbouring hamlets of Srirampur, Jainpur, Kana and Behrampur too have refused to toe officials diktat. Today people paid little heed to police gypsies making announcements.

Similar reports filtered in from other places in Gurdaspur district. Likewise, police officials admit that in neighbouring Pathankot district too people are not willing to relocate. SSP Rakesh Kaushal admitted that the policemen were having a torrid time convincing the locals.

Meanwhile, the BSF has stopped farmers from moving across the wire fencing to till their land. At the Thakur Pur OP, till yesterday around 85 farmers, accompanied by BSF jawans, used to cross over daily to till their land. Since Thursday afternoon, we have locked the gate. We are not allowing anybody to cross over, said the two jawans manning the post.

Govt ordered evacuation in haste: Villagers

Abohar: Most families with whom Congress MLA Sunil Jakhar interacted on Friday, during a visit to border areas and camps, questioned the decision of the authorities of getting villages evacuated. Gurdial Singh of Pucca Chishti village said residents had to vacate their village due to wars in 1965 and 1971, floods in 1988 and then following the Kargil war. We rebuilt houses thrice despite inadequate resources. Five or six families are staying back as it is not convenient to shift cattle, he said. Many villagers questioned that when the government in neighbouring Rajasthan did not ask border residents to vacate villages, what compelled the Punjab to order evacuation. OC

Special steps for paddy procurement

Chandigarh: The state on Friday said it had made special arrangements for the procurement of paddy sown near the border. As soon as the farmers bring their crop, it will be lifted. The growers should not worry about their crop, Agriculture Minister Tota Singh said. A committee of four ministers has been set up to ensure that farmers living near the border do not face any problem in selling their produce. This committee comprises Tota Singh, Food and Civil Supply Minister Adaish Partap Singh Kairon, Finance Minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa and Industries Minister Madan Mohan Mittal. PTI
Legal Correspondent



New Delhi, September 30

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to suspend the Punjab and Haryana High Court judgment quashing the appointments of 21 Chief Parliamentary Secretaries (CPSs). The Punjab government had moved the apex court, challenging the High Court order.

A Bench comprising Justices MB Lokur and RK Agrawal, however, issued notice to Jagmohan Singh Bhatti and HC Arora who were instrumental in getting the appointments quashed by the High Court.

Seeking a stay order, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi pleaded that there was a Constitutional provision for such posts which the High Court had failed to appreciate. However, the Bench was not convinced.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

On August 12, a Division Bench of Justice SS Saron and Justice Ramendra Jain of the HC had delivered the verdict on two petitions by advocates Bhatti and Arora. The ruling had caused a major embarrassment to Punjabs SAD-BJP government.

In his petition filed more than four years ago, Bhatti had sought directions for declaring as illegal and unconstitutional the holding of Chief Parliamentary Secretaries posts by MLAs in Punjab.

Bhatti had pleaded that the appointment of Chief Parliamentary Secretaries and Parliamentary Secretaries in Himachal Pradesh had been quashed by the Himachal Pradesh High Court.
Anirudh Gupta

Ferozepur, September 30

Evacuation is nothing new for these border villagers. Its the loss of their belongings, livestock and crops that hurts.

For us, its like one step forward and 10 steps backwards. Every time such a situation occurs, we tend to lose whatever little assets we have acquired, said Resham Singh of Tindiwala village.

We have seen it all in the 1965 and 1971 wars, besides the months after the Kargil conflict, he added. However, despite the fear and uncertainty, these people do not intend to shift permanently.

Neither do we have the resources nor any intention of leaving this place, said Gurdev Singh, adding that they have lived here since ages and will die here too.

Why doesnt the government arrange a permanent shelter for us? Every time, we have to look out for safer places to shift or be at the mercy of officials in relief camps, said Resham Singh.

In Tendiwala village, half of the 200-odd families have evacuated. The same is the case with the adjoining villages of Hajara Singh Wala, Jhugge, Chandiwala, Gatti Rajoke and others falling within a radius of 10 km from the border.

Meanwhile, Principal Secretary R Venkatratnam and Bathinda Zone IG S Asthana, along with senior civil, police and military officers, held a meeting to take stock of the evacuation process and the arrangements being made for the residents. Venkatratnam instructed the officials to ensure the residents safety and provide them support for board and lodging. Later, Deputy Commissioner DPS Kharbanda and his staff conducted a tour of border villages.
Praful Chander Nagpal

Our Correspondent

Fazilka, September 30

Border area villagers are in a dilemma whether to shift to safer places or no after the district administration told them to leave their villages as a precautionary measure after a surgical strike by India against Pakistan on Wednesday night.

A survey conducted by The Tribune reveal that most of the villagers whose villages are located up to 10 km from the international border are not keen to abandon their standing paddy crop, livestock and houses.

We have sent our women folk and children to our relatives place. But, we will stay here to take care of our crops and livestock, said Surinder Singh of Kadar Baksh village.

Our main concern is that our standing paddy crops will be damaged if not allowed to harvest in the coming few days. We will have to face financial losses at this juncture, said Satnam Singh of Mumbeki village.

Complete calm prevailed in the border district of Fazilka till today evening.

Official sources said nearly 2.25 lakh villagers in 151 villages situated along the Indo-Pak border in 10 km periphery in Fazilka district have been adversely affected and told by the administration to shift to safer places as a precautionary measure.

Nearly 40,000 people have left their respective villages out of which only about 2,000 have reached 31 relief camps set up by the administration in the district, said Additional Deputy Commissioner Charandev Singh Maan.

He added that most of the villagers residing in border villages in the Jalalabad subdivision of Fazilka district have refused to shift.

Principal Secretary (Power) A Venu Prasad has visited the relief camps along with Deputy Commissioner Isha Kalia and assured the evacuee villagers of every possible help.
Recently, John Abraham, Sonakshi Sinha and Tahir Bhasin were present at the trailer launch of their upcoming action film, Force 2. As expected, a lot of media as well as Johns fans turned up at the event which was held at a suburban theatre in Mumbai. But little did they know that the event would not end on a pleasant note as John allegedly ended up slapping a fan.

Post the trailer launch, John was heading towards his car. A group of fans was waiting to catch a glimpse of their favourite star. In their enthusiasm, one of them grabbed Johns arm and pulled him for a selfie. This didnt go down well with John and he slapped him.

However, recounting the incident, an onlooker shared a different story. He said, A die-hard fan in attempt to grab Johns attention scratched him and grabbed his t-shirt. In a knee-jerk reaction, John turned around to grab hold of the fan and pulled him up for his irresponsible behaviour, post which he proceeded to his car.

When contacted clarified John Abrahams spokesperson, The episode has been blown out of proportion.
Ashis Dutta Roy

That drones had really started worrying the powers that be more than ever was on display sometimes last year in a boring government briefing room in Arlington in the US state of Virginia.

Just days before a 400-dollar quadcopter landed on the White House grounds, the reasons why the mightiest country was unnerved lay on dark wood tables as exhibits for everyone to see.

A buffet of low-cost consumer drone models had been converted into simulated flying bombs. Among these were common models like DJI Phantom 2, strapped to 3 pounds of explosive.

Security snafu

Difficult to regulate and uncommonly easy to fashion, drones have increasingly grown into the bane of security agencies worldwide.

In 2014, just as the consumer drone fad was spreading over India, a Mumbai Pizza outlet decided to deliver a pie into the balcony of a high-rise as a publicity gimmick, posting the adventure in a video online.

The number of oohs and aahs it garnered was uncertain but it certainly stirred Mumbai Police into action and the pizzeria took a litany of questions. Consequently, the city has introduced some of the toughest rules for drones and these are all but forbidden baring some designated places.

But the threat of terror, in the shape of explosives or guns strapped to drones, is not the only problem bogging them down from an unrestrained take-off.

Privacy problem

The question of privacy perhaps fuels a fiercer debate involving the airborne gizmos. Just last month in Virginia, a 65-year-old woman took a shotgun and swatted a drone out her backyard making headlines everywhere and bringing the topic to the fore once again.

For now, laws in most countries worldwide do not recognise the concept of aerial trespass. Last year, a pilot in California, filed a lawsuit against a neighbour who shot down his drone and won.

Though historically, the air above a property was usually considered to be part of that property, in the 1950s, the US declared anything higher than 500 feet public airspace.

Those regulations were triggered in part by a 1946 Supreme Court case in which a chicken farmer sued the government to limit military flights over his property.

But even then, there is little clarity about airspace usage rights under 400 feet, the altitude limit for most small-drone operators.

A legal way

But that may change within a few weeks when a court in the States hears the case of a small town American roofer who took legal action against a neighbour for shooting down his drone.

The incident dates to July of last year when Kentuckys William Merideth spotted a drone flying near his property and blew it to smithereens with his shotgun.

While Merideths neighbour, David Boggs has filed a claim for damages in Federal court, an unrepentant Merideth says it was hovering over his property and his daughter.

Regardless of the outcome of one of the most anticipated court cases at the intersection of technology and law, the debate over drones remains as controversial as it is exciting.

First to fly

A host of organisations are waiting, teed only by apprehensions about law enforcement. Here are some that are waiting to take off when the good wind blows:

Amazon

The online shopping giant has been the most prolific in pushing for regulated use of drones. Their dream? Unmanned aerial package delivery. The company has expressed interest to deliver packets to doorsteps using flying robots in the US, UK and India.

Dominos Pizza

Pizza from heaven may be a real thing if Dominos has its way.

Kaziranga National Park

Indias Kaziranga National Park has taken to testing drones to prevent rhino poaching. Their drones keep a watch in places difficult to access. The model may soon be replicated in other national parks.

News Media

BBC and Al Jazeera are among enterprising media outlets who have dappled into covering news events with drones  albeit to find themselves tangled in the hair of authorities at times.

DHL

Logistics firm DHL has also been working on drone deliveries using its own custom-made Parcelcopter.

EasyJet

Budget airline easyJet has begun testing the safety inspections of flights using drones.
Tribune News Service

Haridwar, September 30

Members of the BJPs women wing has hailed the Armys surgical strikes on terrorists in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). The BJP women workers held a meeting at Shivalik Nagar here today.

Rita Chamoli, president of the district BJP women wing, said India had shown patience for decades despite repeated incursions and attacks on the Indian soil by Pakistan-sponsored militants from the PoK.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this time, gave a nod for surgical strike by taking into confidence all the political parties, friendly nations and United Nations. Several terrorist camps were destroyed and around 40 militants were killed. This has boosted the morale of the soldiers as well as the people, she said.

Referring to the important role of National Security Adviser Ajeet Dobhal, who hails from Uttarakhand, district BJP vice-president Anamika Sharma said, India has found an expert adviser in Dobhal, who has shown his defensive, political and strategic acumen.

Poonam Chauhan, Renu Sharma, Rajani Verma, Anita Dayal, Manu Rawat, Mkuradhu Uniyal, Meenakshi, Rajani, Moni Thakur, Sulakshana, Sonia Arora and Geeta Bhatiya were present at the meeting.
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, September 30

The state Cabinet today gave approval for naming of the Uttarakhand Assembly building after freedom fighter Veer Chandar Singh Garhwali.

Chief Minister Harish Rawat, while briefing mediapersons about the Cabinet decisions, said, besides naming the Assembly building coming up at Gairsain, a inter college at Maso village (Tahlisain block) in Pauri would also be named after Garhwali.

Later, the Chief Minister apprised Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal of the decision.

In another decision, the Cabinet approved the constitution of a five-member committee headed by Lt Gen TPS Rawat (retd) to study the problems being faced by defence personnel and their families. The committee would also seek resolution of their grievances.

The Chief Minister said the government would provide Rs 2 crore for the war memorial coming up at Cheerbag in Dehradun and Rs 1crore for a war memorial at Pithoragarh.

Earlier, the Cabinet saluted the Indian Army for their recent heroic act of carrying out surgical operation against terrorists inside the Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
Manila: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte appeared to liken himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Friday and said he would be happy to exterminate 30 lakh drug users and peddlers in the country. In a rambling speech on his arrival in Davao City after a visit to Vietnam, Duterte told reporters that he had been portrayed to be some cousin of Hitler by critics. He said: There are three million drug addicts. Id be happy to slaughter them. Reuters

Japanese politicians wear pregnancy vests

Tokyo: Fearless In Japan, where women do five times as much housework as men, three male politicians have donned pregnancy vests in a campaign urging men to help out more at home. The three, all governors of southwestern prefectures, put on a 7.3-kg vest that simulates a woman who is seven months pregnant. The video hopes to encourage Japans notoriously workaholic men to adopt a more balanced life and share household chores. Reuters

No Mona Lisa smile on passports: Court

Paris: A French court has ruled out against smiles, including a Mona Lisa smile, in passports. A civil servant sued the French authorities after his passport application was rejected for a smile in the picture. The court ruled that he grinned in that photo. He insisted its just a smile with ones mouth shut while keeping a neutral expression, like what Mona Lisa does in that famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci. IANS

2 major stolen Van Gogh works recovered

Amsterdam: Italian police have recovered two paintings by Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh in Naples. The paintings, stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2002, had been removed from their frames but appeared largely undamaged. The works, Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuene and View of the Sea at Scheveningen, are both from relatively early in Van Goghs career. Reuters
Sofia: Bulgarias parliament approved on Friday legislation outlawing face-covering Islamic veils in public, joining a small number of EU countries as debate rages across Europe about religious freedoms. The law bans wearing in public clothing that partially or completely covers the face, referring to the burqa or the more common niqab. Infringements carry a fine of 200 leva ($114) for the offence. afp
Washington, September 30

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the possibility of Pakistans nuclear weapons falling into the hands of jihadists, which she said was a threatening scenario, according to a media report.

Pakistan is running full speed to develop tactical nukes in their continuing hostility with India, the former secretary of state told a close door fundraiser in Virginia in February, The New York Times reported, citing 50-minute audio being hacked from the Democratic Partys computers.

But we live in fear that theyre going to have a coup; that jihadists are going to take over the government, theyre going to get access to nuclear weapons and youll have suicide nuclear bombers. So, this could not be a more threatening scenario, the daily quoted Clinton as saying in the audio that appeared on The Washington Free Beacon website.

During the fund raiser, responding to a question on modernisation of nuclear weapons, the daily said, Clinton went beyond the question to warn of an emerging nuclear arms race, naming Russia and China as well as Pakistan and India.

This is one of the most dangerous developments imaginable, Clinton said.

Such remarks from the former secretary of state gains significance in view of an interview of Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif to a local TV channel in which he threatened to unleash nukes against India.

If our safety is threatened, we will annihilate them (India), Asif had said.

The United States appears to have taken a strong note of Asifs recent statements on use of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear capable states have the responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities, a state department official told PTI when asked about the statements being made by the Pakistani leader.

Earlier, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had said while India has generally shown responsible behaviour with nuclear technology, China conducts itself professionally, nuclear weapons in Pakistan are entangled in history of tensions.

Meanwhile, in an opinion Consequences of Pakistani Terrorism: Raids signal that India wont tolerate more attacks in Kashmir, The Wall Street Journal warned that Pakistan increasingly risks becoming a pariah state if it continues with policies.

It said if Pakistan wants to prevent an escalation of violence it needs to shut down the terror groups it continues to support.

That should start with Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two major jihadist groups that operate openly in Pakistan and are prime suspects in these attacks, it said.

Both groups are supported by its military despite being on United Nations lists of terrorist organisations, the daily said in the hard-hitting opinion piece, a day after India carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir against terrorists planning to sneak into the country.

The Journal noted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently offered closer economic and diplomatic ties to Pakistan as long as it stops supporting terrorism.

Pakistan, it argued, needs a new vision centered on improving the lives of its people.  PTI
Aden, September 30

A drone strike has killed two suspected members of Al-Qaeda in central Yemen, a local government official said on Friday.

The two were lying under a tree in Rada, Bayda province, on Thursday when they were hit by an air strike, the official said.

Washington is the only government to operate drones over Yemen, but the United States only sporadically releases statements on its long-running bombing campaign against the country's powerful Al-Qaeda branch.

On Wednesday, it acknowledged conducting drone strikes against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula last week, killing four members of the group  two of them in Bayda.

The United States considers Al-Qaeda's Yemen-based franchise  Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)  to be its most dangerous.

"US Central Command continues to protect the US, its allies and partners from these threats by denying Yemen as a haven for AQAP," Army Major Josh Jacques, US Central Command spokesman, has said.

AQAP and the Islamic State group have exploited a power vacuum created by the conflict between the government and Iran-backed Huthi rebels to expand their presence in Yemen.

A Saudi-led Arab military coalition that backs the government against the Huthis and their allies has also turned its sights on AQAP, targeting it with air strikes.

More than 6,600 people, including civilians, have been killed in the Yemeni conflict since the coalition began its air campaign in March 2015, the UN says.  AFP
Washington, September 30

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the possibility of emergence of nuclear suicide bombers from Pakistan if jihadists get access to the country's atomic weapons, a media report has said.

We live in fear that they're going to have a coup, that jihadists are going to take over the government, they're going to get access to nuclear weapons, and you'll have suicide nuclear bombers. So, this could not be a more threatening scenario," the New York Times said, quoting Clinton as saying in an audio being hacked from Democratic Party's computers.

"Pakistan is running full speed to develop tactical nukes in their continuing hostility with India," the former secretary of state told a close door fundraiser in Virginia in February, the paper reported, citing 50-minute audio that appeared on the website of The Washington Free Beacon.

During the fund raiser, responding to a question on modernisation of nuclear weapons, the daily said, Clinton went beyond the question to warn of an emerging nuclear arms race, naming Russia and China as well as Pakistan and India.

"This is one of the most dangerous developments imaginable," Clinton said.

Such remarks from the former secretary of state gains significance in view of an interview of Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif to the local TV channel in which he threatened to unleash nukes against India.

"If our safety is threatened, we will annihilate them (India)," Asif had said. The United States appears to have taken a strong note of Asif's recent statements on use of nuclear weapons.

"Nuclear capable states have the responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities," a state department official told PTI when asked about the statements being made by the Pakistani leader.  PTI
Istanbul, September 30

Israel has paid Turkey $20 million in compensation for the deadly storming of an aid ship in 2010, a key pillar of a deal to normalise ties after a six-year rift, a Turkish official said on Friday.

The money has been transferred to the account of the Turkish justice ministry, a foreign ministry official said, asking not to be named.

Turkey and Israel signed a deal three months ago to restore ties that hit an all-time low after the 2010 raid by Israeli commandos on a Gaza-bound aid ship that left 10 Turks dead.

The Turkish government is due to pass on the compensation money to the families of the victims in due course.

The compensation was one of the three key demands by Turkey for normalising ties with Israel, along with an apology and an easing of the blockade on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

While the blockade remains in place, Ankara has been able to resume delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians through Israeli ports under the deal.

A final key element is the exchange of ambassadors, who were pulled out of Ankara and Tel Aviv in the wake of the crisis even though diplomatic ties were never fully severed.

The official said that a Turkish ambassador to Israel would be appointed "soon".

Ankara did not issue an official statement in response to the death of former Israeli premier and president Shimon Peres, who was laid to rest Friday, but outgoing Turkish foreign ministry number two Feridun Sinirlioglu attended his funeral.

The normalisation agreement had been urged by the United States, which is keen to see its NATO ally, overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey, resume its previously tight relationship with Israel. AFP
Washington, September 30

The United States is on the verge of ending its Syria discussions with Russia over continued bombings in Aleppo city, in which at least 400 persons have been killed in the last eight days.

The US and Russia have been trying to negotiate a ceasefire in the war-torn nation, but Secretary of State John Kerry said the bombing of Aleppo right now is inexcusable, NBC news reported.

Russia is sending more warplanes to Syria to further ramp up its campaign of air strikes, a Russian newspaper reported on Friday, as Moscow defied global censure over an escalation that Western countries say has torpedoed diplomacy.

In a statement issued by the White House, US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the Russian and Syrian bombing of Aleppo as "barbarous".

The development comes amid reports of Syrian army and rebels waging fierce battles in Aleppo, the strife-torn countrys largest city.

I think we are on the verge of suspending the discussion because its irrational in the context of the type of bombing taking place, Kerry said at an event in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

Lavrov said the US needed to fulfil its role under the deal of ensuring moderate opposition groups stick to the ceasefire, NBC reported.

Western countries accuse Russia of war crimes, saying it has deliberately targeted civilians, hospitals and aid deliveries in recent days to crush the will of 250,000 people trapped inside Aleppo's besieged rebel-held sector.  Agencies
This Load Max gooseneck trailer, laden with block and stone, weighed 29,960 pounds, a Ford engineer said. The F-450 easily handled it. Photos: Tom Berg

Trailer towing is a big deal for some pickup-truck owners, and Ford says its next-generation 2017-model SuperDuty pickups are more capable than ever. Tow ratings have gone up and weight has come down, as weve previously reported.

Ford showed reporters how good the new SuperDuties are at a demonstration in and near Denver in late July. Three waves of magazine writers, including me, traveled to the Mile High City (its official altitude really is 5,280 feet, but you probably knew that) to experience the new trucks. We got to pull several types of trailers with pre-production F-250, 350 and 450 pickups.

The heftiest trailer was a Gladiator Load Max gooseneck utility, loaded with eight pallets of concrete blocks and decorative limestone. A Ford engineer told us they were very close in weight, one scaling at 29,900 pounds and the other at 29,960 pounds. Each was hitched to an F-450 pickup, whose emphasis is on towing rather than hauling (thats the F-350s role), though the 450 will carry a lot, too.

Gross combination weight of this tractor-trailer was about 40,000 pounds, the F-450s former maximum GCW rating. Its now 41,800 pounds, thanks to higher torque (925 lb-ft, up from 860) of the revised, second-generation PowerStrike diesel. Those of us with commercial drivers licenses were encouraged to take one for a spin, and I was the first to climb behind the wheel. Three other people, including that Ford engineer, also piled in (raising our GCW closer to the new maximum).

I headed out of the hotels parking area and onto wide boulevards that climbed up and down rolling hills in the upscale, hotel and office-populated neighborhood west of Denver. The PowerStroke diesel ably propelled the truck and trailer up the hills, some of them with grades of about 5 and 6%. On downhill stretches, the exhaust brake kept the rigs speed in check, almost rendering the large disc brakes redundant.

With the Tow/Haul mode switched on, the 6-speed TorqShift transmission automatically downshifted two or three gears to raise engine revs and maximize the exhaust brakes effectiveness. That happened when I touched the brake pedal, signaling a need for more retardation. It was quite impressive, though competitors powertrains can do that, too.

Now, sooner or later every trailer has to be backed up. That can be tricky for drivers who havent done it, so Ford now offers a Reverse Guidance system. It displays views of the trailer in the dashboard screen via rearward-facing cameras. Graphic arrows tell a rooky which way to turn the steering wheel to keep the trailer heading where he or she wants it. If the trailer is turning in either direction, colored lines show where its going  up a curved driveway, toward a cliff, whatever  like the backup picture in your cars screen (if youve got that).

Reverse Guidance tells inexperienced drivers which way to swing the steering wheel to keep the trailer heading in the desired direction.

I appreciate the engineering and graphics design that went into this system. But I found it of little use because over the years Ive learned to back trailers the old fashioned way, using the mirrors and remembering that swinging the bottom of the steering wheel right or left moves the trailer in the same direction.

SuperDuty's multiple cameras give a 360-degree view around the truck and to the rear of the trailer. A pressure monitoring system for trailer tires is also available.

For me, there are other, more useful options for the SuperDuty, such as an extra camera placed on the trailers rear to see whats behind the rig  small child, fire hydrant, cop with a citation book, etc.

And theres a pressure monitoring system for trailer-tires that broadcasts PSI values to an in-cab display. Sensor/transmitters must be installed on the wheels inside the tires for this to work. A contractor might do that on his own trailers tires, but not on someone elses. This is something I'd want to have if I towed regularly.

Competitors have, or are planning, similar features, imitating equipment and capacities of todays big rigs. In fact, Fords publicists referred to the previous 40,000-pound GCW rating as half an 18-wheelers. Now they can say, less than half.
The new X12 from Cummins is based on the global ISG platform. Its not a rebranded ISX12. Photos: Jim Park

Are smaller displacements the engine trend of the future? Cummins seems to think so and is hedging its bets on the question. The Columbus, Ind.-based global engine manufacturer now has very capable engines at both ends of the Class 8 spectrum: the 14.9-liter X15, and a brand new engine platform, the 11.8-liter X12.

Recent introductions from other engine makers suggest theres an appetite for smaller block engines that can deliver Class 8 power for regional and urban applications as well as the vocational market. With ratings up to 475 horsepower and 1,700 lb-ft of torque, the X12 will be running with the big boys. But the X12 is nearly 1,000 lbs lighter than the X15, so weight-sensitive fleets will be looking very closely at this engine.

The X12 is derived from the ISG platform first introduced in 2013 as a global engine platform. It made its first appearance a year later in a joint venture with the worlds largest independent engine maker, Beiqi Foton Motor Co. Ltd. of China. Foton now uses the ISG diesel in a new truck series developed with Daimler of Germany.

Cummins says the engine in ISG trim already has more than a billion miles under its belt and is ready to take on North America. We will see it here in 2018 as the X12.

This is not a rebranded ISX12. The diesel version of that engine will be sunsetted at the end of 2018, although Cummins will continue to stock parts and cover service for decades, and production of the natural gas version will continue into the foreseeable future.

Instead, the X12 is a clean-slate design from the oil pan up. It was engineered to be a robust, lightweight, high-output engine using composites and advanced structural concepts to provide the needed strength without adding unnecessary weight.

The X12 was designed from the ground up to reduce weight wherever we could while maintaining superior dependability, said Jim Fier, Cummins vice president of engineering, speaking at the X12 unveiling in July at the Transportation Research Center in central Ohio. The block uses minimal material but is reinforced by an innovative network of supports. They have even eliminated unnecessary material from the flywheel housing to reduce weight.

The X12s innovative architecture results in a remarkably low dry weight of just 2,050 pounds. Substantial weight savings are also achieved by the use of high-strength composite materials for the oil pan and valve cover.

A static display of a short-hood Cascadia day cab shows the X12 fits neatly into the space, with enough room to prevent skinned technician knuckles.

Its more than 150 pounds lighter than its closest competitor, and 600 pounds lighter than the average competitive engine in the 10- to 13-liter space, Fier said. The engine offers fleets that much more payload without any trade-off in power or durability.

Mechanically, the X12 features a single-cam in-head design with a roller valvetrain along with high-efficiency intake and exhaust ports and the latest version of the Cummins variable geometry turbocharger. The Cummins Xtra-High Pressure Injection (XPI) fuel system boasts injection pressures of 29,000 psi at all engine speeds and its capable of multiple injection events for quieter, more efficient combustion. The engine brake is integrated into the exhaust rocker levers and is said to produce up to 50% more braking horsepower than typical bleeder-type compression brakes.

The X12 comes off the assembly line ready to incorporate Cummins Adept, Smart-Coast and Predictive Cruise Control functions. It will come from the factory wired for Cummins Connected Calibration and Connected Tuning applications, along with Connected Diagnostics to improve serviceability and reduce downtime.

For vocational and emergency truck applications, the X12 offers front and rear power take-off drives and a side-mounted drive. It will use Cummins patented Single Module aftertreatment system, and its factory-compliant with Phase 1 greenhouse gas and fuel-efficiency standards.

The X12 we drove was installed under a ProStar hood, with lots of room to spare.

First impressions

The X12 is quiet. Really quiet. And it doesnt sound European. When you crank it over and it comes to life, it sounds like any other Cummins  but quieter.

We had the chance for a single lap around the 7-mile oval track at TRC, which isnt much to formulate an impression. The trailer was empty as well, so I really couldnt gauge its performance except to say it felt pretty peppy. With the powertrain in the truck, we cruised at 65 mph at 1,125 rpm, and up to 72 mph at 1,250 rpm, which suggests a degree of downspeeding designed into the drivetrain. Most of the upshifts in the lower gears during the launch sequence took place in the 1,400-1,600 rpm range.

The performance of the engine brake is notable, and the programmed downshift points are timed to keep the engine revs in the higher range for optimum retarding power. This may be an optional parameter, but it downshifted all the way into 3rd gear when we had completed our lap.

Cummins had a Daimler Cascadia daycab (113 in. BBC) at the launch with an X12 installed. The engine fit neatly under the hood and it didnt appear that routine maintenance would be too tight a squeeze. I didnt tip the hood on the ProStar I drove on the track, but there likely would have been enough room for two X12s under that hood.

I can hardly make a pronouncement based on a single 7-mile lap around a track, but from what I saw, I suspect Cummins will have a full slate of orders for the X12 by the time it hits the streets in 2018. It will be manufactured at Cummins Jamestown, N.Y. engine plant.
The Hanson brothers are apparently involved in the redevelopment of a Brady Arts District building, proposed to include a brewery, studio, retail and office space, according to Tulsa Development Authority documents.

The deal involves multiple privacy stipulations, binding the authority from immediately sharing details of the project despite the use of public funds, according to documents on the authoritys website.

In a redevelopment agreement, the TDA agreed in August to give a low-interest $2 million loan to Mayfield LLC, the listed developer, to go toward purchase of the LA King building property, 320 N. Boston Ave.

A resolution approving the agreement was signed Aug. 4, according to TDA documents.

O.C. Walker, executive director of the TDA, said the development agreement is with Mayfield LLC.

In essence, what were talking about doing is a $2 million loan over six years with 2.5 percent interest, Walker said. Its a really low-interest loan to facilitate development.

Walker said the details of the project came out of proposals previously heard by the authority, but he directed further questions to Walker Hanson, father of the trio of musical brothers.

The redevelopment agreement stipulates that Walker Hanson is the contact for any inquiries regarding the development.

The group put out a statement in response to questions about the development Thursday.

We have always been invested in Tulsa, and it continues to be our goal to bring attention and commerce to the city, the statement says. Were excited to further our development efforts. Next year is Hansons 25th anniversary, and we look forward to a world tour, releasing new music, and the continued expansion of our beer business.

Walker Hanson did not return requests for comment, and a person who answered the phone at his provided number said he had no further comment.

An unsigned redevelopment agreement available on the TDA website, apparently the document referenced in an approved August resolution adopting the agreement, has several privacy clauses.

According to the agreement document, TDA is barred from disclosing any information from the developers proposal to third parties.

TDA shall  not disclose any such information to any third party without developers prior written consent, according to the document. In the event the TDA becomes legally compelled  pursuant to the requirements of the Oklahoma Open Records Act  TDA agrees that prior to such disclosure it will provide the developer with advance written notice and a copy of the documents and information relevant to such legal action so that the developer may seek a protective order  to protect its interests.

The redevelopment agreement, attached to the approved resolution, references the proposal presented by the developer to the TDA on March 10, 2016 and March 24, 2016.

Walker declined to discuss when the proposals were made, offering that the project has been on several agendas. Theres a good chance it will be on the Oct. 6 agenda, the date of the groups next monthly meeting.

However, neither the citys website nor the development authoritys website lists agendas or minutes for March 10 or March 24.

Walker did not respond to follow-up calls or an email Wednesday afternoon requesting information about the nature of the referenced proposal meetings or whether a quorum of authority members was present. Without a properly posted agenda, a quorum of a board, commission or authority, such as the Tulsa Development Authority, cannot legally meet to discuss public business under the Oklahoma Open Meetings Act.
The Minister of Local Government.. says when the local government legislation comes into effect.. regional corporations can better service their communities. He made the remark.. during the San Juan Laventille Corporation's interfaith service and military parade.. as the corporation turns 30 years.
Filming is underway on the second season of Doctor Foster and released a first photo of returning star Suranne Jones.

After 10.1 million viewers tuned in for the first season finale, the show became the biggest new UK drama of 2015.

Created and written by Mike Bartlett and produced by Drama Republic, the new series will be directed by Jeremy Lovering (Sherlock  The Empty Hearse).

Five more episodes will feature in S2, to screen in Australia on BBC First in 2017.
Pete Evans and Manu Feildel will have plenty on their table, now set to host My Kitchen Rules New Zealand.

The duo will replace NZ hosts Ben Bayly and Gareth Stewart, who have fronted two seasons for TVNZ.

The third season will also be produced by its originators, the Seven Network. The format is licensed through EndemolShine Ltd.

I love New Zealand  there are so many beautiful places to visit, and so much local produce and flavours to cook with. I look forward to seeing what the Kiwis can cook up for Manu and me! said Evans.

Ill be looking for some great Kiwi flavours and seeing what this countrys home cooks have to offer. I havent spent a lot of time in New Zealand personally, so itll be great to get around the country and meet some incredible people and try their food, Feildel added.

TVNZs General Manager of Commissioning, Production and Acquisitions, Andrew Shaw says: We are teaming up with format-owners and producers Seven Productions, to turn up the heat on MKR NZ and serve to 2 viewers in 2017.

We could not be happier to have legends Pete Evans and Manu Feildel joining the series to travel our country and dish up the drama to a bunch of new Kiwi home cooks.

Localised MKR exist in the United States, United Kingdom, Serbia, Russia, Denmark, Belgium, Canada, Norway and Lithuania while the Australian version is seen in more than 150 territories around the world.

Commenting, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Seven West Media, Tim Worner, said: We are very excited with this latest development for My Kitchen Rules. We are also delighted about our expanding presence in international markets. We are making significant progress with Seven Productions along with our two joint venture businesses  7 Wonder and 7 Beyond  and our strategic investment in Slim Film + Television in securing significant commissions. There is an increasing international demand for our ideas, and our owned and created content and concepts.

Commenting, Therese Hegarty, Sevens Director of Content Distribution and Rights said: We are now creating more content than at any time in our history. We are expanding our presence in international content production with the formation of new international production companies. The success of these new businesses in garnering key commissions over the past twelve months, and the expanding presence of Seven Productions underline a key part of our strategy for today and in the future: the expansion of our leadership in the production of content.

Kiwis who fancy a shot at MKR NZ can apply at mkrnz.co.nz
Working Dogs upcoming adult animation series Pacific Heat has been sold to Netflix, for territories outside Australia.

The series will still have its world premiere on Foxtels Comedy Channel, which commissioned the show in 2014.

Netflix will premiere in the US, Canada and UK on December 2nd, while Foxtel advises it will confirm a date for late 2016 soon.



Pacific Heat is an animated comedy series based on the exploits of a dynamic unit of undercover police investigators working on the glitzy Gold Coast of Australia. This glamorous, sophisticated, and sun-drenched paradise masks a hot-bed of crime; everyone from drug smugglers and biker gangs to eco-terrorists and the person who invented frozen yogurt. In order to tackle this seedy underbelly police authorities established PacificHeat. This covert squad of highly trained operatives technically does not exist (although they do have their own Facebook page), but when criminals strike, Pacific Heat will be there; unconventional, uncompromising and unafraid to operate outside the law  provided at least one of them is wearing a fluorescent safety vest. PacificHeat was created by the award-winning Working Dog team of Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner and Rob Sitch.
ABC summer series Back Roads will be back in the final week of November and is planning a live radio broadcast event in Yackandandah, south of Albury / Wodonga.

Presenter Heather Ewart will attend the broadcast from Yackandandahs High Street and launch a new Back Roads digital initiative that is inviting submissions from across regional Australia.

Back Roads returns to ABC on Monday November 28.

Back Roads Digital project

We know there are many more regional back roads and entertaining local characters than can fit into the new season of the program, so were putting the callout to all regional communities to show us the best places and people from where they live by contributing to the new user-generated-content initiative My Back Roads.

To share a story about where they live, audiences just need to take a photo or make a short video about a local place or unique face and publish it on the Back Roads website (or simply add the hashtag #backroads to their photos on Instagram). The collection of My Back Roads stories will be available on the Back Roads website and via social media for everyone to enjoy.

Save the Date: Back To Yack. 3-10:30pm. Friday 25th November 2016, Yackandandah VIC. No ticket required, all welcome.
Mondays Four Corners is from special guest reporter Peter Greste, China Rising on the challenges for Australia as China and the US struggle for supremacy in the Asia Pacific region.

Australia sits at the intersection of these two great powers. The problem for us is the historical forces driving each of them are far greater than anything we can possibly control, so we need to find out how those forces might play out.  Peter Greste

In interviews with key players from the world of diplomacy and strategic affairs, the program explores how Australia is trying to balance two competing interests.

This is the first time in our history where our biggest trading partner is a strategic rival of our principal ally, so this introduces a whole level of complexity into our strategic situation weve never known as a country before.  Strategic Analyst

Greste and a Four Corners team travelled to the South China Sea to investigate the rising tensions caused by Chinas rapid military expansion.

The assertion of military power in the past decade, the building of nuclear submarines and now at least two new aircraft carriers, I think (is) devoted to this goal of at least minimising American influence in the Asia Pacific region.  Sinologist

As the standoff intensifies, the program examines the growing pressure on Australia to take sides.

We count on Australian mates being there when serious issues are at stake.  Retired US Admiral

Monday 3rd October at 8.30pm on ABC.
Russian-backed militants launched 33 attacks on the Ukrainian positions in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) in eastern Ukraine over the past day, the press center of the ATO headquarters reports.

In Luhansk direction, 12 ceasefire violations were recorded. Terrorists shelled Novooleksandrivka, Novozvanivka and Popasna using grenade launchers, machine guns and small arms. Moreover, Russian-backed militants used 82-mm caliber mortar and air defense gun shell the Ukrainian positions in Novooleksandrivka.

In Mariupol direction, 10 ceasefire violations were recorded. Militants used small arms, grenade launchers and machine guns to shell Marinka, Talakovka, Starohnativka, Shyrokyno, and Pavlopil. In addition, terrorists shelled the Ukrainian soldiers Pavlopil using armored personnel carrier.

In Donetsk direction, terrorists violated ceasefire 11 times. Militants used small arms, grenade launchers, machine guns to shell the Ukrainian troops in Avdiivka and Novhorodske. Also, in Avdiivka, the enemy used 82-mm caliber mortar in Avdiivka, and sniper fire was recorded in Verkhnyotoretske

Also, in the ATO zone near Stanitsa Luhanska, and in Luhansk direction, one remotely piloted vehicle was recorded.

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The Finance Ministry expects to receive EUR 600 million of macro-financial assistance from the European Union by the end of the year, but Ukraine needs to perform some specific requirements.

Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk said this at a press briefing, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"There are legislative changes that must be done in order to get the tranche," he said.

He noted that "when all the requirements are introduced, we can get this tranche. We expect to receive it this year in the amount of 600 million euros."

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The U.S. Embassy has turned three mobile laboratories over to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry to conduct virus and bacteriological research.

The ceremony took place in Kyiv, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

Oleksiy Barazyuk, the evacuation department chief at the Defense Ministrys military and medical department, said that after tests these cars will be sent to the ATO zone.

"They will be directed to the east of Ukraine in 3-4 months, after we see that they can work in the field conditions. They will work on the principle: two cars in the ATO, one in rotation." Barbazyuk said.

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Iryna Friz, the head of the permanent delegation of the Ukrainian Parliament in the Parliamentary Assembly of NATO has held a meeting with NATO PA Secretary-General David Hobbs.

Writing on her Facebook page, she said that "during our meeting I told Mr Hobbs about the latest developments in the security situation in the east of Ukraine as well as the features of talks within the framework of the Normandy and Minsk processes."

According to her, the meeting stressed the constancy of the stance of the NATO PA to support Ukraine in its fight against illegal and aggressive actions by Russia and the militants it supports.

"The readiness of NATO PA for further strengthening of support has been shown. It was in this context that the issue of holding a meeting of the Inter-parliamentary council of Ukraine-NATO in one of the eastern regions of Ukraine in the near future was discussed," she said.

She also noted that the meeting agreed the schedule of interaction till the end of the current year and the format of participation of the Ukrainian delegation to the NATO PA autumn session to be held in Istanbul.

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Since the end of the "Cold War" Ukraine has reminded the world that it has its own place in European history as a sovereign nation and state whose territorial integrity should be respected.

This is what German President Joachim Gauck said at events to commemorate the victims of Babyn Yar, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"With the end of the Cold War Ukrainians reminded us that they have their place in European history. They reminded us that Ukraine today and in the future has a place in the family of nations as a sovereign nation and state, whose territorial integrity should be respected," said Gauck.

According to him, in Germany they have seen Ukrainians as fighters for freedom, democracy and statehood, and therefore - as part of the "European community of values." "We learned a lot about Ukraine as a nation and something about our own role and responsibility," he added.

He noted that perhaps the Holodomor, with its numerous victims, is more strongly imprinted in the collective memory of the Ukrainian nation than the crimes committed at Babyn Yar.

"But I, as president of Germany, stand here still in despair and sorrow because of the disgusting crimes carried out by other Germans in another time. But a look at the past improves my view of the present. When I bow my head before all the victims of those times, I stand shoulder to shoulder with all people who now call their name injustice, help the persecuted and intercede relentlessly for the rights of those who are denied human rights, the president of Germany said summing up.

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The 67th session of the Executive Committee of the High Commissioners Programme will meet in the General Assembly Hall of the Palais des Nations in Geneva next week, from 3 to 7 October.

The opening session and general debate will be open to accredited media, and webcast on the ExCom page www.unhcr.org/excom2016

The opening session will begin on Monday (3 October) at 10:00, and include a statement by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, to be followed by the general debate.

The Nansen Refugee Award Ceremony and Reception will take place at Batiment des Forces Motrices in Geneva, on 3 October from 18:30 to 22.30. The ceremony will honour the heroic achievements of Greek volunteers during the 2015 refugee crisis. For more information on the ceremony and the 2016 winners, visit www.unhcr.org/nansen.

At the conclusion of ExCom, High Commissioner Grandi is expected to give a press conference on Friday 7 October at 11.30. Further details will be announced.

For further information on UNHCRs ExCom, visit: www.unhcr.org/excom2016



For more information on this topic, please contact:
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is increasingly concerned for the safety and well-being of some 100,000 people trapped in Yei, South Sudan  a town situated in Central Equatoria State, about 150 kilometres south-west of Juba.

According to the town church, more than 30,000 people have been displaced into Yei from surrounding areas, following deadly attacks on civilians and looting of private property on 11 and 13 September. They joined several thousand others displaced from nearby Lainya County since mid-July, and up to 60,000 town residents who remain in Yei with no means to leave and who are now in as much need as those displaced by the conflict.

Until now, Yei has been largely spared from the violence and attacks that have plagued the country since December 2013. UNHCRs presence there has been limited to providing protection activities and assistance to refugees from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who live in Yei town and nearby Lasu settlement.

The security situation in Yei deteriorated rapidly after renewed conflict broke out in Juba in early July and came to a head earlier this month, forcing thousands of civilians to flee their homes. This is the first time that the population in Yei  primarily farmers living on commercial and subsistence agriculture  has become a direct target of violence, and on suspicion of their belonging to opposition groups. They urgently need humanitarian assistance.

An inter-agency mission to Yei, led by UNHCR on Tuesday 27 September, observed that tens of thousands of displaced are sheltering in abandoned houses and smaller numbers in church compounds and are facing a serious shortage of food and medicine.

Terrorized men and women spoke of horrific violence against civilians before and during their flight, including assault, targeted killing, mutilation, looting and burning of property. Several civilians have been hacked to death, including women and infants. There are reports that many young men, aged between 17 and 30, have been arrested on suspicion of siding with the opposition.

Displaced people need food, household items, medicines and the children need access to schools. Food prices are skyrocketing, with basic commodities quickly disappearing from the market. Many internally displaced people have reported that their food stocks have been looted. Two local hospitals are functioning at reduced capacity. Lack of high-energy food for malnourished children and breastfeeding mothers is becoming critical. As information continues to be gathered, there are indications of increasing sexual and gender-based violence, and unaccompanied and separated children. The population is unable to leave the town due to limited freedom of movement and lack of resources. With farmers unable to reach their fields, harvests are rotting and the risk of missing the upcoming planting season is very high. This means that people may have no crops next year.

Back in Juba, humanitarian partners are mobilizing to respond to the situation in Yei, including provision of food, non-food items and drugs. A date for access is still not certain.

Deteriorating security in South Sudan has forced more than 200,000 people to flee the country since 8 July 2016, bringing the number of South Sudanese refugees in neighbouring countries to over 1 million. In South Sudan, more than 1.61 million people are internally displaced and another 261,000 are refugees from Sudan, DRC, Ethiopia, and Central African Republic.

For more information on this topic, please contact:
Egyptian Army personnel stand guard at a Naval station in Rashid, Egypt, beside the wreckage of an Egyptian fishing boat that recently capsized off the coast killing at least 202 people.  UNHCR/Scott Nelson

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt  As a fishing trawler packed with hundreds of people flipped and sank off the coast of Egypt last week, Somali Abshiro* suddenly found herself in the water as those drowning clawed at her life jacket.

I have been fighting for my life in the water, not just because I didnt know how to swim, but because people were trying to take my lifejacket. I was bitten in my hand, Abshiro told UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in an interview following the tragedy.

Ruthless smugglers had crammed up to 500 people onto the trawler, which was bound for Italy from Egypt when it capsized and sank off the coast of Rashid, Egypt, on September 21. Twenty-one-year-old Abshiro was among 164 survivors who included Egyptians, Sudanese, Eritreans, Ethiopians and a Syrian.

So far 202 bodies have been pulled from the water. Thirty-three were recovered from the sunken boat itself, including two children and a woman trapped as it filled with water and sank.

Egypt has a long history of providing asylum to refugees and at the same time is a traditional route of irregular migration to Europe by sea.

Speaking to survivors, several described how the overcrowded boat started rocking and people began to feel scared. A fight broke out and led to the capsizing, pitching hundreds of men, women and children into the water, many without lifejackets and unable to swim.

"Many didnt have life jackets. People were pulling each other down trying to stay afloat."

I cant forget the bodies. I was clinging to one trying to stay afloat, says Achan,* a 35-year-old lawyer from Darfur, Sudan, who was making her fourth attempt to cross to Europe when the boat foundered.

Many didnt have life jackets, so a lot of fighting was happening in the water. People were pulling each other down trying to stay afloat. This made the whole situation even worse, she recalls.

As the boast tipped, the crew and passengers started calling the police and the Navy and sending distress signals, survivors said. Some managed to jump and swim away from the boat while others were trapped.

I couldnt swim, even though I had my life jacket on, recalls Abrihet,* a 33-year-old Eritrean who relied on others in the water to pull her clear.

A UNHCR staff member talks with Egyptian fishermen near the retrieved wreckage of an Egyptian fishing boat in Rashid, Egypt, on September 28, 2016.  UNHCR/Scott Nelson

Since 2014, there has been a steady increase in the number of interceptions of refugees and migrants trying to leave Egypt in an irregular manner, UNHCR has reported. Some survivors said they had made previously made unsuccessful attempts to reach Europe before the tragedy.

While the total number of Mediterranean crossings so far this year is 42 per cent lower than during the same period last year, the number of people reported dead or missing so far this year (3,498) remains high.

Following the fatal sinking, the Egyptian government has arrested at least four of the boats crew members. They remain in custody and may face charges, including human trafficking and wrongful death.

An Egyptian man found his youngest child dead. He kissed him and put him back in the water."

In fresh insights into the deadly trade, survivors told how they paid the smugglers US$1,000 to US$1,700 to make the crossing. Assigned a meeting point, they were collected on minibuses and taken to a warehouse, and then ferried out to the vessel at night in smaller fishing boats.

The majority of those aboard the boat were Egyptians. Survivors say that about 100 African nationals were in two rooms on the lower deck, and women and children were in three other rooms on the middle and top decks.

In the wake of the tragedy, UNHCR and its partners responded immediately to assess the conditions and protection needs of the 43 foreign survivors, and to provide humanitarian assistance. It has also given medical attention and much needed psycho-social support to survivors struggling to deal with the horrors they witnessed.

An Egyptian man was calling his childrens names in the dark. He found his youngest child dead. He kissed him and put him back in the water, says Amir,* a Somali survivor who teared up as he spoke, visibility upset and angered by all he had been through.

The Egyptian government has arrested nearly 5,000 foreign nationals for irregular departure from its north coast this year, and has followed a policy of releasing all those who are registered as asylum-seekers and refugees with UNHCR in Egypt.

UNHCR has confirmed the detainees registration status to the authorities and is advocating for their prompt release, while continuing to provide support and assistance during their detention.

The refugee agency will continue to monitor the situation of the detainees closely, particularly given the increased government scrutiny of this incident, and to advocate for the protection of all persons of concern to UNHCR.

*All names have been changed for protection reasons.
Children attend class at the Primary Mohammed School of Zongo, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in November 2015. Half the students are refugees from Central African Republic.  UNHCR/Colin Delfosse

GENEVA  At the high-level UN Summit in New York on September 19, the governments of 193 countries committed to enhance protection for millions of people who have been forcibly displaced and are otherwise on the move around the world. The Summit Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants brought together government and UN leaders and representatives of civil society to better safeguard the rights of refugees and migrants and share responsibility on a global scale. It adopted key commitments that became known as the New York Declaration. On his return from the Summit, Volker Turk, UNHCRs Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, discussed with Senior Communications Officer Ariane Rummery how the Declaration would impact the 21.3 million refugees displaced by persecution and conflict worldwide.

What do you see as the main value of a political declaration such as the New York Declaration?

The New York Declaration for refugees and migrants offers a once-in-a-lifetime chance; if you go back to 1948 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it was adopted as a political declaration a bit like the New York one. At the beginning people thought, Well, this is just an aspirational document; it doesn't have such value, but what it did was revolutionize human rights. We hope that the New York Declaration will do the same, that it will revolutionize the way that the international community engages with refugees.

UNHCR protection chief Volker Turk explains how the New York Declaration will impact the international community's engagement with refugees and migrants.

Watch a longer version of the video interview with Volker Turk.

How does the new Comprehensive Refugee Response framework set out in the Declaration differ from what UNHCR is already doing in refugee situations?

It is true that the Comprehensive Refugee Response framework contains a lot of practices that we have been involved in for decades. But there are some new things in there, as well. For instance, the focus on refugees and host communities; the fact that the development actors have to come in much earlier; the fact that international financial institutions have to come in much earlier; and the fact that it's not just about a piecemeal approach to health, education, or host community support, but actually requires a comprehensive approach. It also means a strategic shift in the way that the international community engages with refugees, with host communities, and with host countries. It is people-oriented. It is oriented towards those directly affected, and it promotes the machinery thats required to ensure that refugees get support.

Where will refugees see the benefits of this new approach first?

Refugees will see that they are at the centre of political attention  that they are the centre of a priority setting on the part of international community. This will hopefully secure quicker funding so that humanitarian organizations and the whole of society can actually deal with, and respond to, refugees needs and find ways to address them. We also hope  and that's still not clearly not spelled out in the Declaration  that there will be a sea change in the way that resettlement places are made available, that family reunification is possible, and that humanitarian pathways are opened. Weve seen some of this in the subsequent meeting that US President Barack Obama convened on September 20th, where some concrete resettlement commitments were put forward. We hope that it generates a lot more support for refugees  not just on the financial material side, but also on resettlement and the legal pathways side.

How might an average refugee family in Uganda or Ecuador, or Lebanon, or Pakistan benefit from this new framework?

Only 50 per cent of refugee children go to primary school, and only about a third go to secondary school, with huge dropout rates for girls in particular. Only one per cent of refugees have access to tertiary education, and this is well below the average for nationals in any country in the world. So we hope that through this declaration, through more partnerships, we have more engagement in education. That there will be a real difference, and that these statistics will actually work in favour of supporting refugees so that there are more children that can have access to both primary and secondary education and that there are more adolescents and young refugees who can have access to tertiary education at universities.

I think also on the health side, that we manage to do much more early on with boosting the capacity of local providers in order for refugees health needs to be met. The same goes for unemployment  for employment to open up the possibilities both for host communities but also for refugees. So there will be very concrete benefits if it doesnt just remain on paper but is actually implemented in practice.

Who will be UNHCRs key partners in developing the new framework?

First and foremost, UN Member States. We have some good examples  Uganda is one. Uganda provides plots of land to refugees who have just fled from South Sudan, over 100,000 of them. They include them in their national development programme. So Member States are key.

We also clearly need civil society actors. In fact, the novelty of the New York Declaration is that it talks about a whole-of-society approach to respond to refugee issues and to the needs of refugees. And that's great because it actually reflects reality. It's the host communities that often provide the first support. It's the local authorities; it's the mayors of cities. It is the local civil society organizations, the local institutions that are particularly confronted and need support. So it actually goes into quite some detail of who our partners are.

And it is clear that, apart from the Member States, it is also the international NGOs; from the international organizations, some of our key partners are the World Bank, UNICEF and WFP. It is all the UN actors who work tirelessly with us and together with us on refugee issues. So they will be very, very key. We got lots of words of support from our key partners, both from government and the international organizations, but also from civil society actors, and we need to build on this.

What are the next steps for UNHCR in putting all of this into practice?

We need to identify very quickly a couple of situations where we can see how the comprehensive refugee response works, and how it can make a difference. We are currently looking at a number of country situations. Obviously the one that comes to mind is the influx of South Sudanese into different countries. There are a number of protracted situations that we need to look into, as well. We need to see how we change the business-as-usual approach as a result of the New York Declaration. We will need to consider in each and every area of our work what it is that the Declaration changes for us, in terms of engagement with Member States, as well as with partners and refugees themselves. So there is a lot of work ahead. At some stage, we will engage in formal discussions with Member States and civil society partners and other stakeholders on the so-called Global Compact that we have to develop in 2018 and present to the UN General Assembly then.

You have only got two years left to do that. Is that long enough?

Actually we have got less than two years. It will be tight, but I think with the goodwill and the enthusiasm that we have and need, we should be able to do that.
A South Sudanese woman prays at Emmanuel Cathedral compound in Yei, South Sudan. She was displaced due to violence in the outskirts of Yei in September 2016.  UNHCR/Rocco Nuri

YEI, South Sudan  Ongoing military operations in a previously peaceful part of South Sudan have trapped an estimated 100,000 people in a town that is facing a humanitarian crisis, raising concerns for civilians' safety.

More than 30,000 people fled into Yei, in the country's far south, following deadly attacks and looting in nearby villages during September, church leaders in the town told a high-level mission led by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. UNHCR says it is "increasingly concerned" over the fate of these people trapped in the town in Central Equatoria State, about 150 kilometres south-west of Juba.

"They are slaughtering innocent people like animals."

They joined thousands of others who fled fighting in July. The displaced communities are now living alongside Yei's population of 60,000. These civilians have no means to leave and face increasing acts of violence against them.

"They are slaughtering innocent people like animals," said one young woman too frightened of reprisals to give her name. "This is brutal. I don't understand why we have suddenly become a target. I thought wars were fought between armies. We are citizens of this country. I feel hopeless. I can't do much but pray for peace."

Several civilians have been hacked to death, including women, children, and babies, witnesses told the UNHCR-led multi-agency mission on September 27. Uniformed men were said to have detained many young men accused of supporting forces opposed to the government. Many others were assaulted and their property looted or burnt.

We cant leave this place, not even to go to our farms."

Until recently, Yei had largely escaped the effects of the primary conflict in South Sudan. But political tensions had begun emerging late in 2015, and security deteriorated rapidly after a new conflict broke out in Juba, South Sudan's capital, in July.

We cant leave this place, not even to go to our farms," one 50-year-old farmer told UNHCR. "There are military personnel and checkpoints all around the town. Our harvest is rotting. We need to start planting now, otherwise we wont have any food next year."

Displaced people need food, household items and medicines, and children need to be able to go to school, UNHCR said. Food prices are skyrocketing, local hospitals are functioning at reduced capacity, and there are indications of increasing sexual and gender-based violence, and unaccompanied and separated children.

"UNHCR condemns these acts that have caused death, fear and suffering of innocent people," said Ahmed Warsame, UNHCRs Representative in South Sudan. "We urge the Government of South Sudan to protect the lives of civilian populations and ensure their freedom of movement and access to safety. We highly commend the local church for providing shelter and protection to people in need."

Refugees as well as South Sudanese citizens have become caught up in the conflict. Armed groups have repeatedly entered a refugee settlement called Lasu, firing shots, assaulting refugees, and looting and destroying humanitarian goods and property, refugee leaders told the UNHCR mission to Yei. A young Congolese refugee was killed, leaving two children orphaned.

Thousands of internally displaced people gather at Emmanuel Church Compound in Yei, South Sudan, during a high-level mission from Juba in September 2016.  UNHCR/Rocco Nuri

"It is unacceptable that a place conceived to provide sanctuary to people fleeing war and persecution has now become the target of senseless acts of violence." Warsame said. "We urge all the parties to respect the civilian and humanitarian character of asylum and refugee settlements."

David Lokonga Moses, the Governor of Yei River State, assured the multi-agency delegation in a meeting that the government and local authorities were making major efforts to restore peace and security for the population in Yei.

In Juba, humanitarian partners are responding to the situation by readying food supplies, non-food items including shelter and emergency household items, and medicines.

Deteriorating security in South Sudan has forced more than 200,000 people to flee the country since July 8, bringing the number of South Sudanese refugees in neighbouring countries to over 1 million.

In South Sudan, more than 1.61 million people are internally displaced and another 261,000 are refugees from Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and the Central African Republic.
SANAA, 28 September 2016  UNICEF and its partners have completed an ambitious drive to reach children and women in Yemen with critical health and nutrition services to save lives as the conflict continues.

The 24-29 September nation-wide campaign reached more than 600,000 children under the age of five and over 180,000 pregnant and breastfeeding mothers with a package of health and nutrition services that include vaccination, vitamin supplementation, deworming, screening for malnutrition and treatment for childhood infections as well as antenatal and postnatal care for women.

Over 34,000 health workers supported by 880 supervisors and monitors spread across Yemens 333 districts using over 10,000 vehicles and other means of transportation such motorcycles, donkeys or simply walking long distances on difficult terrains to reach children and women in far flung corners of the country.



We have increased our geographical reach to all parts of the country as well as increased the number of times we do the integrated outreach. This has resulted in delivering medical assistance to the most hard-to-reach communities especially those most affected by the conflict, said UNICEF Yemen Representative Julien Harneis.



This health drive comes at a critical time as Yemens conflict has left the health and nutrition system in tatters putting the lives of millions of children and women at risk.

With the health system hanging in the balance, such outreach programmes are helpful but are not sustainable in the long run. Outreach campaigns alone cannot address the medical needs of the population; the health system needs to be back on its feet urgently, Harneis said.

Recently, the Ministry of Health announced that it has run out of basic operational costs for the primary health care system. This means it wont be possible to transport medical supplies including medicines from stores to far flung health units; there will be no fuel and electricity for powering refrigerators for storage of temperature-sensitive vaccines and medicines and health centres will have no light.

The numbers of children at risk in Yemen are staggering; 2.5 million children are at risk of diarrhoea, 1.3 million at risk of acute respiratory tract infections and 1.5 million are malnourished, 370,000 of them suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

UNICEF is scaling up its response but the humanitarian needs are enormous. Since January, UNICEF has supported the vaccination of over 4.6 million children against Polio, the treatment of over 133,000 children against severe acute malnutrition and over 168,000 pregnant and breastfeeding mothers received support during and after pregnancy including knowledge on how to care for their babies and of themselves.



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SHANGHAI, China, 29 September 2016  The cooperation between Chinese small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and SMEs from other BRICS countries through e-commerce was the topic of a workshop held today in Shanghai.

It was co-hosted by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries are among the fastest growing as well as among the largest emerging markets economies in the world. In 2015, BRICS countries accounted for a total nominal GDP of approximately 16 trillion, an equivalent of 23.1 per cent of the world GDP. Their territories are home to some 3 billion inhabitants (around 40 per cent of the world population). Their exports amounted to USD 3.48 trillion in 2014. Imports in that same year amounted to USD 3.03 trillion. Since 2001, the BRICS have more than doubled their share of world exports.

UNIDO gives great emphasis to enhancing its collaboration with the BRICS and has developed extensive technical cooperation programmes with each BRICS country.

At the same time, tangible efforts have been made to elaborate a more purposeful and broader approach to engagement with the BRICS as a group, and to develop a diversified range of strategic cooperation activities with these countries.

In addition, UNIDO has a solid ground for increasing its cooperation with the BRICS countries based on its mandate that focuses on promoting inclusive and sustainable industrial development. This includes a technology transfer platform, established with the support from Russia and Brazil.

In February 2016, the permanent missions of BRICS countries to UNIDO in Vienna reconfirmed their commitment to develop a joint initiative on SMEs promotion and e-commerce. As a result, a project cooperation between SMEs in China and other BRICS countries has been developed with a special focus on e-commerce. It aims to help overcome current bottlenecks hindering SMEss access to global markets. Furthermore, the establishment of an e-commerce SMEs alliance among BRICS will also be explored.

The workshop in Shanghai brought together experts and counterparts including from the New Development Bank, as well as from the Alibaba Group, and a number of other e-commerce platforms in China to discuss cooperation.

The workshop helped raise awareness of the importance of e-commerce for promoting SMEs development and cooperation between partner companies.

For more information, please contact:

Zhen Wang

Chief, Asia and the Pacific Regional Division

email
Stanford University physicists were able to figure out how to make low-light microscopy clearer without risking damage on light-sensitive specimens. This is helpful for the research on proteins and internal structures.

According to Stanford University's official website, researchers were limited by low-light imaging for fear of damaging light-sensitive specimens. As a result, they only get photos filled with "shot noise," which is the effect that causes these grainy images.

Apparently, Stanford physicists have solved this problem through multi-pass microscopy. In a paper for "Nature Communications," multi-pass microscopy allows researchers "to form an image of enhanced contrast by re-imaging a pulse of light m times onto the sample."

"If you work at low-light intensities, shot noise limits the maximum amount of information you can get from your image," Thomas Juffmann, co-author of the research and a postdoctoral research fellow in Stanford Professor Mark Kasevich's research group, said. "But there's a way around that; the shot-noise limit is not fundamental."

Basically, the researchers have discovered that they actually get better results if each photon interacts with the sample several times, even when there is low-lighting. This is implemented with a microscope by repeatedly reflecting the image back onto the specimen instead of just sending light through the specimen and capturing the image.

Co-author Brannon Klopfer, a graduate student in the Kasevich group added that it is just like taking a picture of the object multiple times. "You first take an image of the specimen, you then illuminate it with an image of itself, and the image you get, you again send back to illuminate the sample," he said. "This leads to contrast enhancement."

It was also noted that multi-pass microscopy is not the only way to overcome the shot noise limit. Another technique is quantum microscopy that uses entangled photons to get the same results. The latter, however, is reportedly more challenging to carry out.

Stanford University has recently nabbed the top spot in The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education's Top College Rankings list. According to WSJ, students who want a school that will engage their minds, with a diverse student body and a school that has plenty of resources for their education should head to this school.
Stanford University still took the first place as the top college in California, according to a list by College Factual. This comes after the institution has nabbed the top spot in The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education's best colleges list.

According to College Factual's official website, Stanford University is the top college in the state of California. It is followed by Harvey Mudd College, which is based in Claremont. The California Institute of Technology (CalTech) took the third place in the list.

USA Today College reported that Harvey Mudd is a small, private liberal arts college which focuses on science and engineering as well as arts and humanities. It has focused programs, a low student to faculty ratio as well as high graduation rates. It is also a part of the Claremont University Consortium which allows cross-registration and social interactivity between its 5 undergraduate and 2 graduate college campuses.

CalTech recently nabbed the top spot as the best university in the U.S. as per Times Higher Education's report. Stanford came in second place while the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) placed third. Ivy League universities Harvard and Princeton complete the top five.

Claremont McKenna College and Pomona College got the fourth and fifth spots in College Factual's list, respectively. University of Southern California (USC) got sixth place while University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA), which is one of the colleges that got the most applications for fall 2015, was in seventh place. Soka University of America, University of California - Berkeley and UC - San Diego completed the top 10 list.

UC - San Diego is selective yet affordable for students with a low student loan default rate. Its popular majors are psychology, economics, political science, biology and computer science.

The rankings were based on 11 factors including the student body caliber, educational resources, degree completion and post-graduate earnings. College Factual aimed to measure the quality of education that a student will receive at a certain college in comparison to other colleges in the United States.
The Wall Street Journal revealed which colleges and universities have the most diversity on its campuses. Spoiler alert: public, urban schools take the top spots.

According to WSJ, public institutions in inner cities have continued to struggle with state funding cuts. This does not stop them, however, from having the most multicultural learning environments.

The environment score of the rankings go above several measures to measure a school's inclusiveness. It ranges from the percentage of first-time college graduates and Pell Grant recipients to the diversity of an institution's students and staff. The percentage of international students also affects the schools' scores.

It was noted that systems such as the City University of New York and the California State University have campuses that are among the leaders in supporting students and staff from various socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds across the nation.

Moreover, a lot of small private schools with religious affiliations are also leaders in diversity, even if they placed low in the overall rankings. Private Seventh-day Adventist school, La Sierra University, based in Riverside, CA, is no. 1 in for environment even if it was not able to nab a spot in the top 600 overall.

About 40 percent of La Sierra students are Hispanic U.S. residents while 16 percent are foreign students. The school's poor performance in the overall rankings is partly caused by poor loan repayment rates and limited research output.

City College of New York comes at second place for environment. The school, which has around 16,000 students, took the 305th spot in the overall rankings. More than half of its undergraduates received Pell Grants, a government subsidy for low-income students. According to recent federal data, one-third of its student body consisted of Hispanics, 21 percent were Asian and 17 percent were black.

Urban public schools in California also have diverse student bodies, each having a large proportion of non-native students. The University of California - Irvine got the eighth spot for environment while UCLA got 10th place.
Attached to a SEAL team in 1987, one Airman began what was to be a normal parachute training out of a Marine CH-46 helicopter at 13,000 feet. Free falling around 3,500 feet watching vast Virginia state scenery; the Airman opened his chute, everything was clear until another Airman pummeled through his parachute.



The Air Force Pararescue staff sergeant woke up in the hospital several days later with no recollection of what happened.

(Ret.) Master Sgt. Scott Gearen poses for a portrait in the National Cryptologic Museum Baltimore, MD on August 18, 2016. Gearen was the 69th Air Force Birthday Ball guest speaker for the Ft. Meade and Andrews Air Force Base, Md as an extension to the 70th ISRW family. Guests that attend the event will have a chance to meet and hear his story after 29 years of resiliency through tough times, and his inspiring journey as an American Airman. (U.S. Air Force photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Alex Montes) The memory I have of the actual event is very limited to the physical aspect, the things that happened were described to me, retired Master Sgt. Scott Gearen said. The mind blocks out a lot of the pain, so I don't remember much prior to being on the airplane and jumping and then two or three days later I knew I was severely hurt.



Gearen sustained major injuries to the point where he was unrecognizable. Doctors found that he had fractured his skull in multiple places along with several bones and sockets shattered.



For three months of his recovery, Gearen knew he was in good hands and was very confident of being taken care of and everything would be ok. Having family, friends and Airmen around him pushed Gearen to remain in the service. His drive to stay on active duty was only a few of the reasons he continued to serve.



I wanted to finish in my Pararescue career on my terms rather than having an incident like that cause me to have an injury that I couldn't recover from. I was blessed and lucky enough that my injuries were something that I could overcome. It was a matter of the willpower and the will to survive and the desire to want to continue being a Pararescuemen.



Lying in the hospital bed, Gearen began to think about the positives of his current situation. He started to recollect of being in technical school at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico and hearing about the commandant at the time, Senior Master Sgt. Donald Baehr, with similar experiences. Which pushed him to recover faster.



He's had two parachute malfunctions and had severe injuries on both of them and came back in the career field as a Pararescuemen. I was thinking I only had one parachute malfunction ... I can't quit yet unless I have least three. If he can't quit, I can't quit.



As his recovery progressed, Gearen remembers it being a team effort to help support the recovery. With some thinking that he may never come back, they still supported his goals to stay a Pararescuemen. To him another motivator to prove that he was still a strong and able Airman. Gearen mentions it was an overall team effort, which helped him put his situation in perspective and continued to jump 18 months after the accident.



Gearen gave a few words of advice for Airmen, mentioning that everybody is going to have tough times, some more than others, good day and bad days.



You find something deep inside you that is going to make you want to continue to pursue your job or your goal and you just don't quit. You just keep going until you succeed, he said.



From his experience, Gearen has made an effort since to reach out and continue being an Airman, to share his message on resilience.



After hearing about Gearen's heroic journey, and knowing that he is a part of our 70 ISRW family, we knew he would be a true Hero Among Us' to represent at this year's Air Force Birthday Ball, Capt. Aaron Morphy, 707th Communications Squadron.



This year, as an extension to the 70th ISRW family, he will be the guest speaker for the Fort Meade and Andrews Air Force Base, Md., 69th Air Force Birthday Ball. Guest that attend the event will have a chance to meet and hear his story of 29 years of resiliency through tough times, and his inspiring journey as an American Airman.



Gearen notes to always do your best because you never know how the choices you make today may impact your tomorrow. By U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Alex Montes

Provided through DVIDS

Copyright 2016 Comment on this article
Published: September 30, 2016

Analyst to Speak at UT on Oct. 6 About Contemporary Sentencing Issues

Ashley Nellis, a senior research analyst with The Sentencing Project, will speak at UT about contemporary sentencing issues as a part of larger criminal justice reform in the United States in the 21st century.



Nellis presentation will be held on Thursday, Oct. 6, at 7:30 p.m. in Fletcher Lounge in Plant Hall on campus. Admission to this event is free, and it is open to the public.



The presentation is sponsored by the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the College of Social Sciences, Mathematics and Education.



For further information, contact David E. Krahl, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice, at (813) 257-5035 or dkrahl@ut.edu.



Founded in 1986, The Sentencing Project works for a fair and effective U.S. criminal justice system by promoting reforms in sentencing policy, addressing unjust racial disparities and practices, and advocating for alternatives to incarceration.
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On Thursday, May 29, 2014Dujour Magazines Jason Binn hosted an opulent evening and welcomed Ivanka Trump as she curated her jewelry collection at Tryst at the luxurious Wynn Las Vegas (Photo credit: Scott Harrison).

Photo credit: Scott Harrison.

Guests got a close look at her unique jewelry line valued at 1 million dollars for the perfect weekend out on the townVIVA Las Vegas!

Photo credit: Scott Harrison.

DuJour Magazine is a quarterly lifestyle publication for the highly affluent, chronicling the vibrant worlds of the wealthiest and most inspiring subjects in the world. The magazine, available in print to an audience of 250,000, online at www.dujour.com, and mobile to members of Gilt, the ground-breaking retail site, and at Hudson Media newsstands in select markets nationally.

Photo credit: Scott Harrison.

Photo credit: Scott Harrison.

Photo credit: Scott Harrison.

Photo credit: Scott Harrison.

Photo credit: Scott Harrison.


Flemings Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar will celebrate the romance of Valentines Day with four evenings of decadent specials and a unique Valentine gift for couples dining on Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday, February 14-17.

To enrich the occasion, Executive Chef Russell Skall has created two enticing entrees, perfect for Valentines dinner that will be available in addition to Flemings popular a la carte menu.

Valentines Day is always such a special celebration for our guests, remarked Chef Skall. We created a unique menu to make the evening a truly memorable one. There is nothing more romantic then savoring the pleasures of a delicious dinner and wine with someone you love.

Roasted Lobster Tail and Chateaubriand with Crab Glacage will be offered, each at $69.95. For an intimate evening, couples can order one of each and share  steak and lobster  creating memorable romance. A dessert for two, Chocolate Budino, is $9.95*. Wine Director Maeve Pesquera has crafted two seductive cocktails for the holiday: the Venetian Valentine is a romantic sparkler with Quady Elysium, St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur and Mionetto Prosecco for $10.95*; and the Mint To Beis prepared with Gentleman Jack Tennessee Whiskey, Domaine de Canton Ginger Liqueur, POM Wonderful juice with fresh mint garnish, served on the rocks for $11.95. Suggested wine pairings to toast the evening include Schramsberg, Blanc de Blancs North Coast, 2009/10 and Catena, Malbec Mendoza Argentina, 2010/11.

To give guests another reason to celebrate, Flemings is offering each couple dining February 14-17 a complimentary $25 Flemings Dining Card* to use toward a future rendezvous with their sweetheart. Reservations are recommended and may be made by visiting www.FlemingsSteakhouse.com .

The Valentines Celebration Menu offers:

Heirloom Tomato & Housemade Burrata



Baby red and golden beets, arugula, lemon-pistachio vinaigrette

Citrus Marinated Salmon Tartare



Capers, parsley, meyer lemon oil, with pickled cucumber, smoked jalapeno aioli, served with herbed crostini



Choice of Entree:

Roasted Lobster Tail



Split in the shell, vanilla lemon butter, mac and cheese with crispy pancetta



Chateaubriand with Crab Glacage



Center cut tenderloin, creamy jumbo lump crab, madeira sauce, asparagus spears

Dessert

Chocolate Budino



Rich chocolate tartlet, salted mascarpone whipped cream, olive oil drizzle and cocoa nibs $9.95

Suggested Wines for Romance:



Schramsberg, Blanc de Blancs North Coast, 2009/10

Catena, Malbec Mendoza Argentina, 2010/11

*$25 Valentines Card offer is for visits occurring on 2/14/13, 2/15/13, 2/16/13 and 2/17/13 only. Limit one Valentines Card per couple. Valentines Card will be delivered at the end of the dinner and will be valid through March 30, 2013. **Does not include tax, gratuity or wine pairings.


Empolyees of the Sai Gon Alcohol, Beer and Beverages Corporation (Sabeco) operate a beer production line. The State now holds 90 per cent of the charter capital in Sabeco.-VNA/VNS Photo Manh Linh

Earlier this month, the Government reported on the Prime Minister's decision to withdraw State capital from Sabeco and Ha Noi Beer Alcohol and Beverages Corporation (Habeco). The Government asked representatives of the State's capital at the two companies to list the companies' shares at the earliest.

The State now holds 90 per cent of the chartered capital in Sabeco, and its divestment will be conducted in two phases.

Nearly 53.4 per cent of the State's ownership in Sabeco, equal to VND24 trillion (US$1.1 billion) will be sold by the end of this year, and the remaining of 35.6 per cent or VND16 trillion will be transferred next year.

Sources familiar with the deal told local media that Sabeco was close to signing a contract with Maybank KimEng Securities Co Ltd, a consulting firm with a good reputation and experience in the securities industry, about carrying out the share listing.

The State also plans to sell its 82 per cent stake of the Habeco by the end of this year, the Ministry of Industry and Trade said in its statement.

The State's share of the chartered capital equals VND9 trillion, after selling nearly 16 per cent to the Danish brewer Carlsberg and nearly 1.9 per cent to the employees when the company was equitised in 2008.

The northern brewer is now looking for a financial institution that can help with procedures and documents on the stock listing.

Brewer shares soar

The news of Sabeco's listing sent the share prices of beer producers on Viet Nam's securities market up in recent trading days.

The offer price for Sabeco shares on the OTC market has been over VND110,000 per unit since September 20, when the Ministry of Industry and Trade officially responded to Sabeco's listing proposal, up from VND80,000-90,000 per unit.

The capitalisation value of Sabeco shares on the OTC reached VND71 trillion, including VND63 trillion owned by the State.

Meanwhile, the price of Habeco on the OTC market has moved a little higher to VND47,000-48,000 per unit.

Other listed brewers are Sai Gon-Phu Tho Beer JSC (BSP), Sai Gon-Mien Trung Beer JSC (SMB) and Sai Gon Beer Western JSC (WSB) on the Unlisted Company Market (UPCoM), and Chuong Duong Beverages JSC (SCD) on HOSE.

BSP's value has nearly doubled since being listed on the UPCoM in early August to end yesterday at VND29,700. SMB and WSB have gained a quarter and a third each during the same time to close yesterday at VND30,100 and VND49,500, and SCD has surged 52 per cent to finish at VND37,300.
Aircrafts land in the a Nang International Airport. The central city asked Chinese Taipei to open a direct flight between Kaohsiung International Airport and Da Nang in boosting investment and tourism from Chinese Taipei. - VNS Photo Cong Thanh

Tran Van Mien, vice chairman of the central city's people's committee, said this in a meeting with the head of Ha Noi-based Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, Shi Rui Qi, recently.

Mien said the flight would help increase investment and cooperation in hi-tech, agriculture and information and technology from Taiwan to Da Nang in the near future.

He said the city would create smooth conditions for investors from Taiwan in the Da Nang Information Technology Park and in education and hi-tech farm projects.

According to the city's Investment Promotion Centre, Chinese Taipei has invested in 20 projects worth US$188 million.

Shi Rui Qi said Da Nang would be a favourable destination for investors and tourists from Chinese Taipei as the city hosted 4.6 million tourists, including 1.25 million foreigners, last year.

The central city, which is situated at the end of the East-West Economic Corridor that links Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Viet Nam, hosts 24 direct international flights and 14 chartered flights daily.

Da Nang has attracted 423 foreign investment projects worth $3.68 billion till date.
Foreign tourists enjoy a city tour by cyclos in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Photo by AFP/Hoang Dinh Nam

The countrys largest cities were among 20 names that have been climbing quickly up the global tourism map.

Hanoi ranked 13th on the global list with foreign arrivals growing on average 11.64% since 2009. Ho Chi Minh City ranked 18th with 9.22% annual growth.

Japans Osaka topped the list with visitors growing 24.15% a year thanks to arrivals from China and the Republic of Korea. Chengdu in China came second followed by Abu Dhabi in the UAE.

The Vietnamese cities are among four Southeast Asian representatives on the list. Indonesia's capital Jakarta came in at 11, followed by Bangkok, which was recently named the worlds most visited destination of 2016 with an estimated 21.47 million tourists.

Ho Chi Minh City is a popular destination as a modern commercial center, but also has a lot of history that can be seen at places like the War Remnants Museum and the Independence Palace. Around 2.1 million foreigners visited the city in the first five months of this year, the closest month for which data was available.

Up north, Hanoi has become a highly recommended travel destination with its thousand-year-old charm. The city has been named the cheapest destination in the TripIndex report for the past three years. It received nearly 1.2 million foreign arrivals in the first half of 2016.

Last year, Lonely Planet named Hanois Old Quarter among the places to see at least once in a lifetime, while the visual social network Pinterest ranked the capital the third most-pinned location of all time.

Vietnam attracted an estimated 7.3 million foreign visitors in the first nine months this year, up 25% year-on-year.
General Director Tokunaga Mikie of Meitoku Engi neering said this is the first overseas factory of Meitoku Engineering, pledgi ng using advanced technologies to produce quality products and protect the environment, thus contributing to the development of Ha Nam province and Viet Nam in general.

Ha Nam Province's Party Committee Secretary Nguyen Dinh Khang stated the importance of the factory in creating more jobs and improving locals living conditions, he said, affirming that Ha Nam will continue creating the best posdible conditions for Japanese enterprises and others investing in the province.

Mr. Khang also suggested Meitoku Engineering Viet Nam strictly maintain investment commitments in compliance with Viet Nams policies and laws, in addition to effectively implementing internal rules during its operation and caring for local workers.

The plant, covering an area of 19,100 sq.m, has a total investment of US$5 million.
An oil drilling platform. (Photo: AFP/Andy Buchanan)

Following a meeting that included Russia, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries stunned markets on Wednesday by saying it planned to trim total production by some 750,000 barrels per day.

This followed talks in Algiers on how the cartel could prop up prices that have plunged from US$100 in mid-2014 to below US$30 at the start of 2016, mainly owing to excess supplies.

Exact details of the deal remain to be agreed and analysts said markets will now wait to see how other major producers react.

Earlier this year Russia had expressed its support for an output freeze. But on Thursday Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said that his country intends to keep oil production at current levels.

The cartel's announcement of a first official reduction in eight years sent crude prices surging six per cent on Wednesday, while energy firms across the globe have seen their share prices soar.

At the end of six hours of negotiations and weeks of horse trading, OPEC said it would cut production to 32.5-33 million barrels per day from around 33.5 million in August.

But the market gains moderated early Thursday. The US benchmark, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in November, added 78 cents to settle at US$47.83 a barrel. In London, Brent North Sea crude for November rose 55 cents to US$49.24 a barrel.

IRAN EXEMPTION

Yet analysts were dubious that a deal would have much real impact on the supply-demand equation in the market.

"We are confident that OPEC countries will not stick to the agreement," commented Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch.

Even if they do, he said, exemptions from cuts granted to Iran, Nigeria and Libya mean that "the problem of surplus will not be solved if these countries take full advantage of their capacities again".

Wednesday's deal came after OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia allowed bitter rival Iran to be exempted from the cutbacks, as the Islamic Republic recovers from years of sanctions on its oil exports.

"It is Saudi Arabia who has clearly blinked first, allowing Iran, its main rival, to ramp up production," said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at Oanda trading group.

"These two don't see eye-to-eye on anything so this is a huge concession by Saudi Arabia to 'lubricate' the process," he told AFP.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency called the agreement "an important development for the oil market", but it also cautioned that it was too early to tell how it would actually affect market balances.

"The IEA continues to believe that oil prices should be determined by market fundamentals," it said.

French bank Societe Generale said in a note to clients that the deal gave a stronger boost to oil-sensitive stocks and currencies than it did to crude oil itself.

"Time will tell whether oil prices will trend higher (after a knee-jerk rally), and the market will first wait to see how the cuts are divvied up between members," to be decided at the November OPEC meeting.

Another question is how the new move will affect US output. The Saudi strategy of flooding the market was directed particularly at US high-cost shale producers, with Riyadh hoping to drive them out of business.

The impact was clear: US oil production fell by 12.5 per cent, or 1.2 million barrels a day.

But the plunge in oil revenues hurt everyone. It left Saudi Arabia with a record deficit, prompting sharp cuts to spending and salaries.

"Saudi Arabia have perhaps reassessed their dumping oil strategy to put US shale out of business as the pressure on their budgets has clearly reached a tipping point as well," Halley said.
A commuter train barrelled into the New Jersey rail station during morning rush hour, killing one person and injuring 108. The train came to a halt in a covered area between the station's indoor waiting area and the platform. (photo source: Twitter User @Cephster via AP)

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said the train entered the station at Hoboken "at a high rate of speed" and "crashed through the barriers, bringing it into the interior wall" of the terminal.

A woman who was standing on the platform was hit and killed by debris from the crash, Christie told the news conference. She was the only confirmed fatality.

The train's driver was in serious condition and being treated at a local hospital but was cooperating with the crash probe, he said.

"We have no indication that this is anything but a tragic accident," Christie said, adding that an investigation was underway.

Video and photos on social media showed major damage to the transit choke point just over the Hudson river from Manhattan, with the train tangled in wires and debris from what appeared to be caved in portions of the roof.

The Hoboken terminal is a major transfer point for New Jersey trains and buses, as well as ferries and the PATH commuter train that take passengers to New York.

'DIFFICULT TIMES'

Kenneth Garay, chief medical officer at Jersey City medical centre, said its surgeons were "all hands on deck" as they treated patients suffering from broken bones internal injuries and lacerations.

"None at this point are life-threatening. They're critical and stable and being carefully monitored," he told CNN.

Garay said that another 40 people were transported from the train station by bus to be treated for "walking types of injuries."

Christie said he had been contacted by the White House and was working with federal, state and local authorities to "make sure this investigation is seamless and coordinated."

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she "was terribly upset this morning."

"It's a horrible accident," the former New York senator said at a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa. "I just want to send our thoughts and prayers."

Donald Trump also expressed his sympathies with the victims on Twitter. "My condolences to those involved in today's horrible accident in NJ and my deepest gratitude to all of the amazing first responders," the Republican candidate said.

Alongside Christie was New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who cancelled his trip to Israel for the funeral of Peace Prize Winner Shimon Peres.

"These are difficult times over these past weeks and months, between terrorist attacks and natural disasters," said Cuomo, referring to a recent string of bombings in New York in New Jersey.

'PRETTY CHAOTIC'

Train #1614 was arriving from Spring Valley when it struck the Hoboken terminal building at around 8.45am (8.45pm Singapore time), New Jersey Transit said in a statement.

Emergency vehicles converged on the scene in response to the crash.

Passengers described a scene of chaos with dazed and bloodied people making their way to safety.

"We crashed, and the lights went out. A few people screamed," Leon Offengenden told CNN. "It was pretty chaotic. And people just in shock and everybody has photos and cameras out and iPads. It was pretty intense," he said.

Passengers described the train - which was carrying around 250 people - ramming at full speed into the bumper at the end of the track.

"We never slowed down," Jim Finan, a commuter from New Jersey, told Fox News. "We ploughed, I mean, right through the bumper."

Michael Larson, a transit employee, told reporters he heard a "bomb-like explosion" as the train hit the concrete bumpers with such force that it went airborne. "It went up and over the bumper block, through the depot ... and came to rest at the wall by the waiting room."

Investigators will be looking for similarities with a 2011 PATH commuter train crash at Hoboken that injured several dozen people, Bella Dinh-Zarr, vice chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters. "We are going to hit the ground running," she said.

Christie said engineers were examining the structural integrity of the Hoboken terminal, which underwent lengthy repairs after being hit during Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

The last major train crash in the United States was in May 2015, when an Amtrak train linking Washington to New York derailed in Philadelphia, leaving eight dead and 200 injured.

In December 2013 in New York a suburban train derailed in the Bronx while travelling at several times the speed limit, leaving four people dead and more than 60 injured.
PVTex came in to commercial operation in May 2014 with a capacity of 236 tonnes of polyester fibre and yarn per day, equalling 48 per cent of its designed capacity. However, the factory had to suspend its operation numerous times due to unsold products piling up.

PVTex leadership confirmed that the factory is running losses due to higher-than-expected costs and uncompetitive products. Notably, according to the pre-feasibility study, the annual expenditure on electricity would be $4.69 million, while chemicals and equipment would cost an additional $500,000, however, in reality, the figures were up to $12 million and $11 million, respectively. Besides, materials and labour expenditures turned out to be 1.5-3 times the expected costs.

In particular, the factory expected to recover its investment capital nearly nine years, however, according to the latest calculation, it would take almost 23 years to break even.

According to a report published by PetroVietnam, as of June 2016 PVTex incurred a cumulative loss of VND3.008 trillion ($135.4 million). In 2015 alone, the figure was VND1.2 trillion ($53.8 million), up VND120 billion ($5.38 million) on-year. PVTexs poor financial standing made it impossible to pay off its total bank debts of $221.3 million, including $70.7 million in short-term loans.

In March, PVTex requested the Vietnamese government for an additional $34 million loan with a 23-year payback time, instead of the nine years stipulated by a previous loan. PetroVietnam also proposed that the government adopt tariff barriers against imported fibres from China and Thailand, and asked for help in selling the factory's products to local garment-makers.

In late April, PetroVietnam appointed a new general director cum chairman of the board of directors to stop the continuous losses within six months. However, as of now, the business results have been rather bleak.
An overview of Lien Chieu Port. - Photo baogiaothong.vn

Vice chairman of the citys Peoples Committee, Nguyen Ngoc Tuan, said the study will run until February with the support from Japan and Yokohama City.

He said a Nang has been seeking funds of US$200 million from the official development fund for the project and plans to redevelop the port on a public-private partnership model.

Lien Chieu port will be designed as a deep sea cargo port in the ASEAN region, serving Thailand, Myanmar and Laos in the East-West Economic Corridor No 2. Lien Chieu port, which currently can handle 50,000 deadweight tonnage container ships, will be able to handlle 100,000-tonne ships and cargo ships with a loading capacity of 8,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEUs) from 2025.

According to the ministry of transport, a Nang will handle 29 million tonnes of cargo by 2030.

Viet Nams seaport system development plan to 2020 designates a Nang Port as a major commercial port and one of the key gateways to the East Sea from the sub-Mekong region.

In March, a Nang and Japans Yokohama agreed on an extension of the Memorandum of Understanding on technical co-operation in urban development to 2016-19, boosting co-operation between the two cities in investment promotion, urban management, eco-city development, sustainable urban development.
The launch was followed by a panel discussion on how Vietnam was guaranteeing economic and energy security while also facilitating a lower carbon energy system with a strong focus on the role of the private sector.

Through online survey and direct interview, the report collates the opinions of various players actively involved in energy-related investments, infrastructure as well as policy development from both the private and public sectors in Southeast Asia.

The study was not only to gauge the attitudes of relevant industry players towards the climate policies in the region, but also, the role that the private sector could play in it.

Result of the study reinstates the fact that energy demand in the top six ASEAN economies continues to increase and as a consequence emissions are rising rapidly.

Active participation outside government circles and collaborative partnerships between governments and private sector companies is reported as key to successful mitigation of emissions in the region.

Sixty-four per cent of the survey respondents shares that the promotion of renewables would be the most efficient way of de-carbonizing energy systems while around 40 per cent of them expects the private sector to play a primary role in mitigating climate change.

In Vietnam, emissions have been rising at robust rate over the last decade. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), between 2006 and 2015 Vietnams energy-related CO2 emission has risen by an annual average of 10 per cent due to rapid growth in its economy and in energy consumption.

Vietnams INDC (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) includes both a mitigation and adaptation component. With international support Vietnam has pledged a 25 per cent reduction in emissions from its BAU (business-as-usual) scenario by 2030.

The study reveals that the ability of Vietnam to do so will also depend on their capacity to attract a sufficient level of investment from the private sector.

All five key panelists in the panel discussion, including president and CEO of Siemens Vietnam Pham Thai Lai, highlighted the need for the private sector to step up in the fight against climate change.

Siemens is committed to combating climate change and we aim to be the worlds first major industrial company to achieve a net-zero carbon footprint by 2030.

The company plans to cut its carbon dioxide emissions  which currently total about 2.2 million metric tonnes a year  in half by as early as 2020.

To achieve these goals, Siemens will invest some 100 million ($112 million) over the next three years in order to reduce the energy footprint of its production facilities and buildings, said Lai.


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The government on Thursday increased the minimum wage for garment workers from $140 to $153 per month, concluding three months of negotiations with labor groups and industry representatives.

However, the figure fell far short of the $171 per month requested by unions.

The 28-member Labor Advisory Council met on Thursday afternoon to choose between the unions suggestion, the $147 proposed by employers, and the governments recommendation of $148.

The council settled on the governments figure, which was then increased by $5 per month by the intervention of Prime Minister Hun Sen. The new wage will come into effect in January 2017.

Following the closed-door vote, Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng said the decision struck a fair balance between the demands of workers and employers.

I call on all to accept the proposal because it has become the norm and we all have to implement it and call for enterprises and establishments to implement it from January, he said.

Nang Sothy, a representative of the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia, said he hoped workers would be satisfied with the decision.

I believe that with each years growth employers in the textile and footwear industries will be happy with it and next year we will increase it more, he said.

However, union representatives were not as pleased, saying the rise was not in line with increases in living costs.

Ath Thorn, president of the Cambodian Labor Confederation, said that while his union would accept the decision, he could not speak for the countrys more than 600,000 garment workers.

I think workers who want to protest will have some difficulties because recently we have seen restrictions from employers and the authorities, he said.

Prior to violent garment strikes in 2013, which saw at least five people killed by government forces, the minimum wage was set at $100 per month.
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said the United States-Philippines military relationship is ironclad, despite the Philippine president recently stating that U.S. special forces at Filipino bases should leave.

Carter was speaking aboard the USS Carl Vinson at port in San Diego, California, before meeting defense ministers from the Philippines and nine other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Hawaii.

Thursday marked the first meeting between Carter and Filipino Defense Minister Delfin Lorenzana since President Rodrigo Duterte said his country would pursue an independent foreign policy, adding that as long as we stay with America, we will never have peace.

But that was immediately walked back by the defense minister, Gregory Poling, Director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA.

Clearly the military brass in the Philippines does not feel the same way as (President) Duterte, he added.

WATCH: South China Sea, N. Korea, Islamic State on ASEAN agenda

To date, U.S. officials tell VOA there has been no movement toward actually pulling American forces out of the southern Philippines.

A senior defense official said the U.S.-Philippines relationship has survived its ups and downs for more than 60 years.

Well be engaging President Duterte further, the defense official said. I expect well get through this.

The U.S. and Filipino governments have a joint exercise planned in early October, but defense officials say they are uncertain about additional joint exercises beyond that one.

Secretary Carter will use the meeting to try to figure out how the Filipino military wants to move forward on the subject.

Weve heard different messages from the Philippines. Were going to seek to clarify what their position is, and well take it from there, a defense official said.

The American and Filipino militaries have conducted three joint patrols in the South China Sea this year: one in March, one in April and one in July.

The U.S. also simultaneously deployed two aircraft carriers to the region during the first half of this year to demonstrate the U.S. commitment to maintaining peace and security there.

South China Sea

Carter called the Asia-Pacific region the most consequential region for Americas future, stressing that the U.S. must continue to work with its allies to improve maritime security in the East and South China Seas.

Gregory Poling of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the South China Sea is going to be one of the most persistent security dilemmas that the region faces.

There are no good answers, he added.

China has claimed the vast majority of the South China Sea, which includes an international waterway that is used for an estimated $5 trillion in trade each year. Several other countries, include Vietnam and the Philippines, have overlapping claims.

An international tribunal ruled in July that China cannot legally claim ownership of 90 percent of the sea, but China has said it does not recognize the ruling.

A senior defense official said the U.S. considered the tribunal ruling a great victory for international law and a rules-based order in the region. Earlier this month, President Barack Obama called the decision binding.

Carter criticized Beijing for wanting to pick and choose which principles it wants to benefit from and which it prefers to try to undercut.

For example, the universal right to freedom of navigation that allows Chinas ships and aircraft to transit safely and peacefully is the same right that Beijing criticizes other countries for exercising in the region, he said.

Carter said the inclusive Asian-Pacific security network allows any nation to contribute its capabilities and experiences to fighting coercion, terrorism and other transnational threats.

No one is excluded, and by the way, that includes China and its military, Carter said. And we hope China doesnt exclude itself.

Islamic State

Defense against Islamic State attacks has also become increasingly important to the region and will be a big part of the ASEAN meetings in Hawaii, according to Poling.

U.S. defense officials estimate that the number of radicalized South Asians who have returned to the region is in the low hundreds.

Local governments certainly are very concerned are about the possibility of a rise in ISIL-related violence, a senior defense official said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

The number of Southeast Asians in Syria and Iraq probably doesnt exceed 1,000, but those fighters are expected to return to the Asia-Pacific region over time.

Defense officials say the U.S. will be looking for opportunities to conduct counterterrorism training with Indonesians, Malaysians, the Philippines and Singapore in the future.

The U.S. will also seek ways to help Malaysia with counter-messaging against IS. Malaysia established a new regional counter-messaging center that became operational earlier this year.
The United Nations warns that conditions in Central Africa's Lake Chad basin are threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, among them many children. Food is short throughout the region, which has been ravaged by the Boko Haram insurgency.

Millions of people living in the basin are in the grip of an ever-deepening humanitarian crisis brought on by violent conflict, abject poverty and climate change.

More than 20 million people live in areas around the lake in four countries  Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria. The United Nations says nearly half of them are in need of emergency aid.

Toby Lanzer, U.N. assistant secretary-general and regional humanitarian coordinator of the Sahel, said an estimated 6.5 million people in the region are food insecure  barely surviving on one meal a day.

He said the ever-growing number of severely malnourished children is of particular concern. Across Lake Chad, he notes, there are 568,000 severely malnourished children, the bulk of them in northeast Nigeria.

We know that in the next 12 months, 75 [thousand] maybe as many as 80,000 children will die in the northeast of Nigeria unless we can reach them with very specialized therapeutic food.



Lanzer told VOA the violence perpetrated by Boko Haram militants in northeast Nigeria and in the region is the single biggest factor in creating this emergency.

People were displaced, forced from their land. They could no longer tend to their livestock. This has really paralyzed things for the population across the region," he told VOA. "Trade itself was stopped because of the security operation to counter Boko Haram ... Ive worked in many crises settings, [and] the scale and the depth of suffering that I have seen is unparalleled in my experience.

Lanzer said U.N. operations in the Lake Chad basin are in a deep financial hole and the international community must come up with the money to support humanitarian activities.

He said U.N. agencies are seeking $739 million to deal with the crisis. But the response has been tepid with only $197 million  less than one third of the total needs  has been raised.
Bulgaria's parliament on Friday banned the wearing of face veils in what in what was deemed to be an attempt to boost security in the wake of Islamist militant

attacks in Europe.

The "burqa ban" law, pushed by the nationalist Patriotic Front coalition, echoes similar moves in other western European countries such as France, Netherlands and Belgium who have banned the wearing of burqas or niqabs in public.

People who do not follow the ban face fines of up to 1,500 levs ($857.14) as well as suspension of social benefits.
After El Cajon, California, police shot dead an unarmed black man said to be mentally ill, they released a photo from a bystander's cellphone video, showing the man in a "shooting stance" against the officers.

The image does not show clearly if Alfred Olango, 38, was holding anything, and officials had no police body camera video showing the officers' view of the shooting. Police said they recovered a vape smoking device, not a gun, from the scene.

Officials voted months ago to purchase body cameras for police in the city of 100,000 residents 15 miles (24 km) northeast of San Diego. They have not yet been delivered, the police department said in a statement.

After controversial police killings in several cities including Ferguson, Missouri; North Charleston, South Carolina; and Chicago, pressure has mounted for the nearly 18,000 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies across the United States to issue the cameras to their officers.

Yet the rollout has been slow.

About 95 percent of U.S. law enforcement agencies had a camera program or intended to adopt one, according to a December 2015 survey conducted jointly by the Major Cities Chiefs Association and Major County Sheriffs Association.

To speed things along, the U.S. Justice Department on Monday granted a total of $20 million to 106 law enforcement agencies to help purchase body cameras. But even that sum would cover just a sliver of what it would take to outfit all police officers in the United States, experts said.

Suspicion of cameras

Some localities have resisted body cameras, citing the cost of storing data, distrust of how video will be used or lack of research into its usefulness.

"The technology is just not there yet, and the cameras show only a small point of view," said Shannon Martin, a city council member in Port St. Lucie, Florida. The city is among those that have debated cameras but not bought them.

In Madison, Wisconsin, mistrust between residents and police is high enough that some residents were concerned that police would manipulate video content and use it against marginalized communities.

"I don't think it would resolve the issues we're facing. It would give the police another tool to harm the community," said Veronica Lazo, who co-chaired an advisory committee on the subject in Madison.

Pros, cons for police

Many police departments support body cameras, saying videos will vindicate officers in the vast majority of cases.

A video can be a "tremendous asset" that gives context to an officer's actions, said Martin Mayer, a California lawyer who specializes in defending government agencies including police departments.

"What it does provide in many instances is not only the perspective of the officer, but also what leads up to the use of force," Mayer said.

Pockets of police continue to resist. Some unionized police officers have sued cities over being required to wear cameras.

Others worry body cameras may make officers too inhibited, constantly watching what they say.

"The industry shoved this down everybody's throat, and political people threw up their hands and said, 'We've got a panacea here,'" said Eugene O'Donnell, a former New York City police officer who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Footage is often inconclusive or subject to interpretation, especially for those not trained on what to look for.

In Charlotte, protesters this month demanded to see videos taken at the scene when a police officer shot dead Keith Scott.

Local police initially resisted releasing the video, saying it would not be conclusive. When they did, it failed to settle the question of whether Scott had been holding a gun.
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said the United States-Philippines military relationship is ironclad, despite the Philippine president recently stating that U.S. special forces at Filipino bases should leave.

Carter was speaking aboard the USS Carl Vinson at port in San Diego, California, before meeting defense ministers from the Philippines and nine other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Hawaii.

Thursday marked the first meeting between Carter and Filipino Defense Minister Delfin Lorenzana since President Rodrigo Duterte said his country would pursue an independent foreign policy, adding that as long as we stay with America, we will never have peace.

But that was immediately walked back by the defense minister, Gregory Poling, Director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA.

Clearly the military brass in the Philippines does not feel the same way as (President) Duterte, he added.

WATCH: South China Sea, N. Korea, Islamic State on ASEAN agenda

To date, U.S. officials tell VOA there has been no movement toward actually pulling American forces out of the southern Philippines.

A senior defense official said the U.S.-Philippines relationship has survived its ups and downs for more than 60 years.

Well be engaging President Duterte further, the defense official said. I expect well get through this.

The U.S. and Filipino governments have a joint exercise planned in early October, but defense officials say they are uncertain about additional joint exercises beyond that one.

Secretary Carter will use the meeting to try to figure out how the Filipino military wants to move forward on the subject.

Weve heard different messages from the Philippines. Were going to seek to clarify what their position is, and well take it from there, a defense official said.

The American and Filipino militaries have conducted three joint patrols in the South China Sea this year: one in March, one in April and one in July.

The U.S. also simultaneously deployed two aircraft carriers to the region during the first half of this year to demonstrate the U.S. commitment to maintaining peace and security there.

South China Sea

Carter called the Asia-Pacific region the most consequential region for Americas future, stressing that the U.S. must continue to work with its allies to improve maritime security in the East and South China Seas.

Gregory Poling of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the South China Sea is going to be one of the most persistent security dilemmas that the region faces.

There are no good answers, he added.

China has claimed the vast majority of the South China Sea, which includes an international waterway that is used for an estimated $5 trillion in trade each year. Several other countries, include Vietnam and the Philippines, have overlapping claims.

An international tribunal ruled in July that China cannot legally claim ownership of 90 percent of the sea, but China has said it does not recognize the ruling.

A senior defense official said the U.S. considered the tribunal ruling a great victory for international law and a rules-based order in the region. Earlier this month, President Barack Obama called the decision binding.

Carter criticized Beijing for wanting to pick and choose which principles it wants to benefit from and which it prefers to try to undercut.

For example, the universal right to freedom of navigation that allows Chinas ships and aircraft to transit safely and peacefully is the same right that Beijing criticizes other countries for exercising in the region, he said.

Carter said the inclusive Asian-Pacific security network allows any nation to contribute its capabilities and experiences to fighting coercion, terrorism and other transnational threats.

No one is excluded, and by the way, that includes China and its military, Carter said. And we hope China doesnt exclude itself.

Islamic State

Defense against Islamic State attacks has also become increasingly important to the region and will be a big part of the ASEAN meetings in Hawaii, according to Poling.

U.S. defense officials estimate that the number of radicalized South Asians who have returned to the region is in the low hundreds.

Local governments certainly are very concerned are about the possibility of a rise in ISIL-related violence, a senior defense official said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

The number of Southeast Asians in Syria and Iraq probably doesnt exceed 1,000, but those fighters are expected to return to the Asia-Pacific region over time.

Defense officials say the U.S. will be looking for opportunities to conduct counterterrorism training with Indonesians, Malaysians, the Philippines and Singapore in the future.

The U.S. will also seek ways to help Malaysia with counter-messaging against IS. Malaysia established a new regional counter-messaging center that became operational earlier this year.
Not everyone who is infected with HIV goes on to develop AIDS.

A tiny fraction of HIV-positive adults holds the line against AIDS by mounting a very strong immune response; but, research has found that such an approach often contributes to the development of other illnesses, such as heart disease and cancers.

Scientists at Oxford University looked at so-called pediatric non-progressors, the 5 to 10 percent of children infected with HIV who don't develop AIDS, even without treatment. Their study of 170 HIV-positive South African children revealed that their immune systems were behaving differently than adults'. Like non-human primates that harbor the simian version of HIV without becoming sick, there was very low immune activation even with high levels of the virus in their blood. Lead researcher Philip Goulder said, "(The) lack of HIV disease here seems to result from avoiding making strong immune responses against HIV."

Experts said the findings, published in Science Translational Medicine, could be the first signs of people co-evolving with HIV and eventually lead to new therapies for all patients infected with the AIDS virus.
Human rights organizations in Kenya have raised questions over the September 11 killings of three girls at a police station in Mombasa.

Authorities say the young women were Islamic State terrorists who attacked the officers with a knife, a suicide vest and a fuel bomb, and that one officer was injured. Human rights organizations say the story is a cover-up for police abuses.

Days after the incident, a video emerged showing the events unfolding in the police compound. The video begins with one of the girls writhing in pain, followed by seven gunshots.

Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI) chairperson Khelef Khalifa says the girls, two of whom were sisters, did not pose a threat to the officers and should have been arrested, not killed.

"In the videos, it shows very clearly that one of the ladies was alive and there were two officers  in turns, they were shooting at her several bullets, and to us that was wrong, Khalifa said. They could have arrested these girls, taken them to court, but they didn't. The other video emerges inside the police station  she was still alive 'til a quarter to one and the incident happened around 10 o'clock."

Police spokesman Charles Owino disagrees.

"Dead people don't tell tales, but if the situation is such that there is no alternative but to have them die in order to protect the majority of the people, then it happens, but it happens with a very heavy heart; it happens without us having intentions to particularly have them dead," Owino said. "We would want them, every suspect, to be caught alive."

Kenyan media report a postmortem examination revealed two of the girls died from bullet wounds in the head and chest, while the third girl died from burns.

Khalifa says the father of the two sisters testified that he wouldn't hold anyone responsible for their deaths.

"This man, we met him at the mortuary, so we demand there must be a proper autopsy, Khalifa said. He came with an affidavit signed by a lawyer that he doesn't want an autopsy to be done because he is a Muslim, but when you read that affidavit that he is absolving the police from any blame to us, that was made under duress. He was forced to do that because people are scared. Even if the parent doesn't want it, the human rights organizations will take [it] forward, as we are doing it now."

An investigation of the Sept. 11 events is underway, according to Dennis Oketch, spokesman of the Independent Police Oversight Authority.

"We have since deployed a rapid response team from our investigation directorate, who are on the ground following on that with the view of establishing what exactly happened in this case, Oketch said. If the police were justified in using the force that they used, and if there are any logical alternative means [they] would have used."

So far, seven people have been arrested in connection with the incident in Mombasa, including Hania Sagar, the widow of slain radical cleric Aboud Rogo.

Sagar is alleged to have been in frequent contact with one of the girls.

Three suspects are accused of failing to provide authorities with information that could have prevented the incident. They have denied the allegations.

Kenya has been a target of terror groups for its involvement in supporting the Somali government and fighting Islamic State inside Somalia.
An international conference next week is expected to pledge more than $3 billion a year in development support for Afghanistan, but the money will be dependent on reforms and countering corruption, a senior U.S. official said Thursday.

Richard Olson, U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told a Washington forum the U.S. government would seek via Congress to maintain U.S. assistance at or near current levels until 2020.

The European Union and Afghanistan will host a donor conference Oct. 4-5 in Brussels to seek backing for reforms to stabilize and develop the country. Some 70 states and 30 international organizations and agencies will attend.

The conference comes at a time of a greatly scaled-back U.S. and international military presence in Afghanistan and is aimed at helping the Kabul government become more self-reliance.

However, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry would be ready to indicate clearly American intentions to maintain a strong leadership role within the broad coalition of allies and partners engaged in Afghanistan, Olson added.

Olson stressed that the aid was not a blank check and would be dependent on Afghan progress in carrying out reforms, including countering corruption. He said he expects the Afghan government to announce ambitious medium-term plans to wean itself of donor support and stimulate economic growth.

Earlier this month, U.S. senators warned that failure to address corruption could cause them to rethink the billions the United States spends in Afghanistan each year.

A September 14 report from the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction strongly criticizing Washington for pouring billions of dollars into Afghanistan with so little oversight that it fueled corruption and undermined the U.S. mission.

The United States spends $5 billion a year in Afghanistan, about $4 billion for defense and national security and another $1 billion in civilian assistance, plus billions more for the thousands of U.S. troops and military contractors there.

Olson said the goal is to strengthen Afghan security forces and institutions to allow them to gradually defeat the Taliban insurgency. He said he hoped the bipartisan consensus on this would survive under the next U.S. administration after the November 8 U.S. election.

Earlier this month, India promised $1 billion in aid to Afghanistan during a visit to New Delhi by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
The United States called "troubling" Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's comments likening himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and said they marked a "significant departure" from the core value in human dignity shared between Washington and Manila.

Duterte said he would be "happy" to kill 3 million drug users and criminals as one way to "finish the problem" earlier.

"Words matter, especially when they are from leaders of sovereign nations," State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said Friday, adding Washington was "deeply concerned" about reports of Manila's extrajudicial killings.

Toner said America's long partnership with the Philippines "has been based on a mutual foundation of shared values, and that includes our shared belief in human rights and human dignity."

Duterte, who has asked the Senate for an extension of his war on drugs, previously said human rights investigations would not stop him from continuing to crack down on addicts.

"Hitler massacred 3 million Jews. Now, there are 3 million drug addicts.  I'd be happy to slaughter them," Duterte said in Davao City after an official visit to Vietnam.

He said critics had portrayed him as a "cousin" of the Nazi leader. Duterte added that if Germany had Hitler, then the Philippines would have him.

"You know my victims. I would like [them] to be all criminals and to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition," he said.

During the speech, Duterte said the United States and Europe could call him anything, but he was never "into hypocrisy like you," referring to countries that turn back Syrian refugees.

"You close your doors. It's wintertime. There are migrants escaping from the Middle East. You allow them to rot and you're worried about the death of about 1,000 or 2,000 or 3,000?" he asked.

Duterte took office June 30 after winning a presidential election in May. He has vowed to end corruption and drug abuse in the country of 100 million people.

Reports say that since Duterte took office, more than 3,000 people have been killed by police and vigilantes for alleged drug use or peddling.
European Union environment ministers in Brussels have unanimously approved the ratification of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change. The EU needs to sign off on the deal so it can have a seat at the table during climate discussions scheduled for November in Marrakech, Morocco.

The European Parliament will vote on the climate accord Tuesday. The action will be followed by a fast track procedure to obtain written approval from heads of state.

For the climate deal to take effect, 55 countries that collectively produce 55 percent of global greenhouse emissions must sign on to it. After one month, the agreement would go into force.

Miguel Arias Canete, the EU commissioner for climate action and energy, told journalists after Friday's meeting that the unanimous decision does not undermine parliamentary votes in member states. In view of the risk of the Paris agreement entering to force without the European Union, we have been taking this decision by unanimity. Ratifications by national parliaments are fully respected.

The 28-member EU was eager to prove it could effectively address important issues as it faces several crises at the same time. Commissioner Arias Canete said Europes reputation was at stake.

Because remember that they said that Europe is too complicated to agree quickly. They say we have too many obstacles, they say we were all talk and they even started to question whether our heart was really in it. Today clearly showed we mean business, Canete said.

EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker highlighted the importance of quick ratification for the EU during his State of the Union speech in mid-September, saying, Dragging our feet on ratification affects our credibility and makes us look ridiculous.



Stepping up to next level

Claude Turmes, a green energy spokesman for the green parties in the EU parliament, said in a statement that urgent action is needed after ratification.

The EU must step up to the next level and make sure it does its fair share toward reaching the objectives of the Paris agreement," Turmes said. "In particular, we will need to see much greater ambition on energy efficiency and renewables, without which we will simply not be able to honor the deal agreed last year."

The regional grouping is usually seen as a front-runner when it comes to environmental issues, climate protection and reducing emissions. So far only seven countries, including France and Germany, have approved the Paris climate deal.

Ulriikka Aarnio of Climate Action Network Europe, the largest European coalition of climate and energy organizations, says the EU will have more than just a reputation problem if it does not manage to approve the accord by next week:

I think the biggest problem is of course that the EU would not be a party but an observer at the first meeting. There are lots of issues that are important to the EU, such as the rules and how to revise the targets where the EU of course would want to be a full decision-making party, Aarnio said.

The 61 countries that already have signed on to the deal, including the United States, China and Brazil, represent about 50 percent of total greenhouse gas emitters. The U.S. and China alone are responsible for 38 percent of global emissions.

India is the fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases and is set to ratify the deal in the coming days, meaning the 55 percent threshold of greenhouse gas emitters could probably be reached even without the EU on board.

During the United Nations climate change conference in Marrakech, implementation policies of the Paris accord will be set.

The Paris deal is intended to reduce carbon emissions and keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It is the first legally binding global climate agreement.
A brother of the late Burkina Faso President Thomas Sankara says the family has come one step closer to getting justice for Sankaras death during a 1987 military coup led former President Blaise Compaore.

On Monday, the new Burkina Faso government issued an international arrest warrant for former president Compaore for his alleged role in the killing of Sankara. Compaore fled into exile earlier this year after he was overthrown by a popular uprising and is believed to be living either in Morocco or Ivory Coast.

Earlier this month, authorities also brought charges against General Gilbert Diendere, a former Compaore chief of staff, for his suspected role in the death of Sankara.

Paul Sankara, the younger brother of Thomas Sankara, said he hopes the government of Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara will extradite Compaore if he is in the country.

The Sankara family has accused late Ivory Coast President Felix Houphouet Boigny of complicity in the overthrow and assassination of Thomas Sankara.

Its the question of the future of the two countries. The best diplomatic approach of the government of Ivory Coast should be to may be have a negotiations in order to keep the good relationship between the two countries. Im pretty sure that the government of Ivory Coast, for the sake of the historical relationship between the people of Ivory Coast and the people of Burkina Faso, the government in the Ivory Coast, the government of Ivory Coast will have a positive reaction will have a positive reaction to the request to send Blaise Compaore back to Burkina Faso, he said

Sankara hopes Burkina Fasos new President Roch Marc Christian Kabore will continue to fight for justice. Otherwise, Sankara said the Burkinabe people whose agitation brought him to power will return to the streets to protest.

I will say that the new elected government were part of the 27 years regime of Blaise Compaore. At the same time, they have something more powerful than what Blaise Compaore may represent, which the people of Burkina Faso. The people of Burkina Faso, especially the youth and civil society will work until they get the truth and justice for Thomas Sankara, Sankara said.

He added that the Sanakara family is pleased that after requests for probes into the death of Thomas Sankara were ignored during the time Compaore was in power, the transitional government that followed him has been working to investigate the killing.

Also on Monday, the Sanakara family said a police lab determined that the state of the remains of Sankara made it impossible to detect any DNA. Sankaras body and those of 12 former aides were exhumed in October for an autopsy to determine how they died.

It had been hoped that DNA tests could confirm that the remains were indeed those of Sankara, whose death certificate stated that he died of "natural causes."
A former Ghanaian first lady and opposition National Democratic Party (NDP) presidential candidate has chosen Michael Kojo Mensah Sosu as her running mate ahead of the December 7 general election.

Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings officially filed her nomination papers as a presidential candidate Thursday  a day before the deadline.

Sosu is to appear before party supporters in the coming days at an event in Ghana's Volta region.

The candidates are required to pay $12,505  while parliamentary candidates pay $2,501  in nomination fees, in addition to meeting other requirements, according to Eric Dzakpasu, spokesman for the electoral commission.

"A key requirement for the processing of the nomination forms to make it valid for the filing is that each presidential candidate should be able to get two registered voters [signatures] per each district assembly administrative area in the country, Dzakpasu said. We have about 216 of the districts, so the requirement is that you would be getting 432 signatories across the country to endorse your candidature."

Mohammed Frimpong, general secretary for the NDP, told VOA that the party is confident ahead of the elections. Sosu will help the party's drive to get youths to vote, he said.

Nana Rawlings, wife of former President Jerry John Rawlings, was unable to run in the 2012 presidential election after failing to file her nomination documents. She blamed officials of the electoral commission and the ruling party of sabotaging her efforts to wrest power from President John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress.

NDC officials rejected the accusations.

Frimpong says things are different this time, after the NDP implemented measures to prevent any planned sabotage.

"This time around, those she trusted [who] had been treacherous in the assignment given to them have all been virtually gotten rid of, he said, and new sets of national executive committee are very dedicated and we are committed to the cause of the National Democratic Party.

Critics say the NDP wants to create mischief, and that it is apparent the party plans to form an alliance with other opposition groups before the elections.

The top leaders of the NDP, including Rawlings, defected from the ruling party after a major falling out. Both the NDC and the NDP say they are social democrats.

Ghanaians will choose a new president, parliament and local representatives in the December elections.

Incumbent president Mahama is expected to face a stiff challenge from main opposition leader Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party.
Attorneys general from four U.S. states have filed a lawsuit to stop the Obama administration from handing over control of the internet to an international governing body.

The White House had planned to officially hand the reins of the internet address system over to a group of international stakeholders on October 1, but the states fears the move could be unconstitutional threatens to block one of Obamas top tech initiatives.

The attorneys general for Arizona, Oklahoma, Nevada and Texas all signed on to the lawsuit this week that argues the Obama plan to hand over control of the internet in an illegal transfer of U.S. government property, and any such giveaway would require congressional approval.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a non-profit group that handles oversight of internet domain names. Since its creation in 1998, ICANN has been under the control of the U.S. Department of Commerce, but the Obama administration began plans in early 2014 to relinquish that control, with the process coming to completion Friday.

ICANN is the authority that controls domain names for websites and individual IP addresses for internet users. Opponents of the transfer fear that it will lead to censorship of the internet, should countries with poor free speech records like Russia or China somehow gain control.

Trusting authoritarian regimes to ensure the continued freedom of the internet is lunacy, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. The president does not have the authority to simply give away Americas pioneering role in ensuring that the internet remains a place where free expression can flourish.

Supporters of the transfer say it is a bipartisan initiative thats been in the works for years, and any last-minute attempts to block it would be seen by the international community as an act of bad faith.

Assistant Secretary of Commerce Larry Strickling said at a conference earlier this year the best way to preserve internet freedom is to relinquish control from the U.S. government to those stakeholders who use and operate the networks that comprise it.

Free expression is protected by the open, decentralized nature of the internet, the neutral manner in which the technical aspects of the Internet are managed and the commitment of stakeholders to maintain openness, said Strickling.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz began pushing back against the ICANN transfer months ago, but - despite receiving recent support from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump - failed to muster much backing among his congressional colleagues.

Cruz tried to block the internet transfer with an attachment to a high-profile spending bill, but with another potential government shutdown looming, the Senate chose not to include Cruzs plan in a budget deal approved Wednesday. Members in the House of Representative also chose to pass on Cruzs plan.

In the lawsuit filed Wednesday, the attorneys general allege the Obama administrations plans violate the U.S. Constitutions Property Clause, which says that only Congress has the power to dispose of property belonging to the U.S. The plan also violates the free speech amendment by chilling free speech," the suit says.

The states "will lose the predictability, certainty, and protections that currently flow from federal stewardship of the Internet and instead be subjected to ICANN's unchecked control," the lawsuit alleges.

The suit is asking for a court order to block the transfer, but no hearing date has yet been set.

So far, no federal judge has issued a ruling that would stop the plan from taking effect Friday.
Opposition leader and former foreign minister Jean Ping pushed again Thursday for the Gabonese people to reject the authority of President Ali Bongo Ondimba, calling him "an impostor with blood of the Gabonese on his hands."

Ping insists he won the Aug. 27 presidential poll and accuses Bongo, the son of Omar Bongo, who ruled the oil-producing Central African nation for over four decades, of rigging the results.

Ping said he does not intend to take part in the political dialogue that Bongo called for shortly after he was declared the winner. Bongo was sworn in Sept. 27 as Gabon's president for a second seven-year term.

"I will not associate myself to this vain attempt to legitimize the abuse of authority that the Gabonese people denounce," Ping said. "I'm calling every Gabonese to an active resistance until it ends."

Ping declared Oct. 6 as a national day of mourning for the victims of post-election violence, and announced a "national dialogue" under his own terms to "reconcile" the population.

Ping, a former ally of Bongo's father who fell out with the current president a couple of years ago, has also called for the international community to step in.

International response

Bongo's re-election received a lukewarm acknowledgement from most of the international community, including the European Union, who has expressed doubts about the fairness of the poll.

Ping said he is asking for the international community to impose targeted sanctions "against the people responsible for this electoral coup."

The opposition leader asked Amnesty International and the International Criminal Court, or ICC, to investigate alleged human rights violations and killings committed during the deadly unrest following the disputed elections.

Earlier Thursday, the ICC announced it is opening a preliminary probe into the unrest, but at the request of the Gabonese government which, in turn, accuses Ping's supporters of incitement to genocide and crimes against humanity.

The ICC will determine whether there is enough evidence to launch a full investigation.
India's decision to conduct new trials on the worlds first leprosy vaccine is eliciting hope it will help eliminate the dreaded disease from the country.

Following a declaration by the World Health Organization (WHO), India has been officially counted as a leprosy-free country since 2005, meaning less than one person in 10,000 people is afflicted with disease. Many experts, however, say the true rate of infection is much higher, accounting for more than 60 percent of the worlds new cases.

Indian authorities recently announced they would soon roll out an advanced field implementation trial of the vaccine Mycobacterium Indicus Pranii, or MIP.

In the early field trials of the MIP, the vaccines protective efficacy was found to be quite encouraging, with 68.6 percent of people being protected for four years and 59 percent being protected for eight years.

This vaccine also expedites cure rates to people already infected with the disease, said Dr. Utpal Sengupta, a leading New Delhi-based leprosy researcher, who has worked in the field for more than four decades. It has the ability to bolster Indias new campaign, which aims to eliminate leprosy as a public health problem by 2020.



Field trial to start soon

The soon-to-be-launched field trial in five high-endemic districts of Bihar and Gujarat will be administered to people with leprosy and those in close physical contact to them, in combination with the common anti-leprosy drug Rifampicin.

In a statement, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research, which is working with the government on the rollout of the MIP trial, said the government has embarked on a multi-pronged attack on leprosy.

He added the campaign will increase active case detection, saying it could be the key to eliminating the disease, hopefully in the next five to 10 years.



India still hotbed

Modern medical advancements have largely diminished the impact of leprosy, mostly eliminating the disease globally but India still accounts for a majority of the worlds new cases.

Pointing to the last available data released in 2013, when India had more than 135,000 new cases, experts warn that new infections are rising.

In the 1980s, Indian researcher Gursaran Prasad Talwar developed the MIP vaccine at Indias National Institute of Immunology.

In 2005, the results of a field trial in northern India were found to be extremely promising, but with the WHO declaring India leprosy-free that year, the MIP soon went out of focus.



Infections rise after WHO declaration

Some believe the 2005 WHO declaration ended up triggering a rise in the number of new cases.

Before India was declared leprosy-free, in the country there was a dedicated system to detect the leprosy cases and provide medical care to them. But, after 2005, when the leprosy treatment was integrated into the general health care services, the process of active case search was abandoned, said Dr. Helen Roberts, superintendent of the Leprosy Mission Trust India Hospital.

Since the designated system for leprosy virtually became dysfunctional after 2005, the cases of new infections in the country have gone up and cases remaining untreated for years, we have seen a rise in physical disabilities.



Need for awareness campaign

Dr. Jerry Joshua, a surgeon at the Leprosy Mission Trust India, said that a strong awareness campaign is needed to help detect the infections early and get them treated.

Early detection actually hinges upon getting people to know what the disease is all about. Its about spreading the knowledge about the disease and the knowledge that leprosy should be detected early. People should know what are the signs and symptoms of leprosy, what are dangerous symptoms and what are the diseases early signs and symptoms, Joshua told VOA.

Experts agree that many private doctors and clinics do not provide data on leprosy patients to the health authorities, so the true figure on infections does not show up in statistics.



Stigma suppressing real numbers

"Fearing stigma, which is attached to the disease, many leprosy patients maintain secrecy about their infection in India," Subhash Chandra Ghosh, who runs a leprosy care NGO in a leprosy-endemic area of West Bengal's West Midnapur district, told VOA.

"They avoid visiting government-run other special leprosy care hospitals where, they fear, the information of their infection would become public. They choose to go to private clinics and fall off the radar of the health authorities," Ghosh said.

"The actual number of leprosy infections in India could be in fact three or four times higher than the figures provided by the authorities. Unless the government take some solid strategic steps to uncover this hidden leprosy population, fight to eliminate leprosy will be an uphill task."


Iran opened a military theme park this week designed to teach children as young as 8-years-old how to fight in a war and fire weapons at its perceived Western enemies.

Located in a western suburb of the city of Mashad, the Park of the Revolutions Children marks Sacred Defense Week," an annual commemoration of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, according to a park brochure.

The participant children are trained in shooting virtual fixed and moving targets including moving objects decorated with the U.S. and Israeli flag, Hamid Sadeghi, the managing director of Children and Future Cultural House, which supervises the activities of this park, told Raja News.

The conservative Raja media outlet is affiliated with Irans elite Revolutionary Guards, which has thousands of troops fighting in Syria on behalf of the government of Bashar al-Assad. The opening ceremony of the park held this week featured several speakers including the family of a high-ranking Revolutionary Guards commander killed in Aleppo this month.

Sadeghi did not respond to calls from a VOA reporter seeking comment.

In a photo essay released the state-run Iranian News Agency, children at the park are pictured carrying weapons in field drills, navigating an obstacle course and gathering around bonfires while wearing military apparel similar to Revolutionary Guard uniforms.

The children learn how to defend a sacred monument that resembles a Shiite holy site in Damascus that Iran says it is protecting in Syrias civil war, Sadeghi told Raja News.

Children divide into groups of eight to 10 upon their arrival to the park and one picks a group leader, he said. They say goodbye to a model shrine at the beginning and engage in war games, training and teaching and will defend the Syria shrine at the end of this 40-minute track.

Human rights activists in the city say they are quietly trying to dissuade families from allowing their children to participate in park activities.

But since we do not carry any weight in terms of authority, our efforts are not very fruitful and we can be face hardship if we push more, one activist leader told VOA.

We urge international organizations to take these issues more serious as it may contribute to the future of extremism. Their propaganda is very strong and targeting low budget and uneducated families . This can really twist childrens future and push them toward violence and make them keen to display violence.

The activist asked for anonymity fearing retribution from authorities if her name became public.

Roya Boroumand, executive director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, which monitors and tracks human rights in Iran, called the theme park a dangerous incitement and misuse of childrens emotions.

They are playing with the future and fate of these kids by seeding the excitement of war in them which might affect them all their life and their decisions in the future, Boroumand said in an interview with VOA.

Boys are inherently interested in war games and consider this as a game but do not know what is waiting for them in war zones. Enticing them with these kind of games is despising and not acceptable.

The Iranian government often glorifies war and its alleged military might.

State-run television released a propaganda video in April aimed at encouraging young people to join Iranian forces in Syria.

The video showed children taking up arms and singing a song about martyrs who defend the sacred shrine.
Mauritanian anti-slavery activists jailed last month have been tortured in detention and transferred to a remote desert location in an intensification of repression by the state, a leading campaigner said.

The West African nation in August jailed 13 members of the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA) for up to 15 years for their role in June protests by residents of a slum in the capital Nouakchott, many of whom are former slaves.

Slavery is a historical practice in Mauritania, which became the last country worldwide to legally abolish it in 1981.

Today some 43,000 people  or at least one percent of the population  live as slaves, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index. Yet other estimates put the number as high as 20 percent in a country that is a focus of activism by the modern anti-slavery movement.

The 13 activists have been tortured and were this week moved to the desert north where they are cut off from their families, doctors, and lawyers, according to members of the IRA in the northern town of Zouerate who were informed of the relocation.

Mauritanian government officials did not respond for requests to comment.

This intensification of repression is equal to the intensification of the fight [against slavery], Biram Dah Abeid, head of the IRA and an opposition politician, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Dakar, Senegal.

Our colleagues suffered physical and psychological harm, he said, adding that people cannot even visit the prisoners' families for fear of being watched by the government.

The activists said they were not present at the protests and that the trial was an attempt by the state to discredit the IRA.

Anti-Slavery International called the sentences a devastating blow to the Mauritanian anti-slavery movement.

A European Union delegation said last month it was concerned by credible allegations of torture and violations of legal procedures in the case against the activists, and urged the Mauritanian authorities to investigate.

The Haratin, who make up Mauritania's main slave caste, are descended from black African ethnic groups along the Senegal river. They often work as cattle herders and domestic servants.

The West African nation criminalized slavery in 2007 and a new law passed last year makes the offense a crime against humanity and doubles the prison term for offenders to 20 years.

The jailing of two slave-owners in May and the release of Abeid and activist Brahim Bilal, who had been in prison for 18 months after taking part in an anti-slavery march, were hailed as a turning point in the fight to end the practice.

But Abeid, who has been jailed several times and came a distant second in a 2014 presidential election, said the moves were merely an illusion of progress.
If asking Google about how to register to vote translates to votes, the search giant has good news for Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.

According to Google, the amount of searches for the Spanish phrase registrarse para votar, or register to vote, spiked by 2,200 percent over the past week. Register to vote in English only saw a 430 percent jump.

This would suggest Hispanics are at least interested in possibly voting, and if they do, the large majority will likely vote for Clinton.

A poll conducted last week by the Wall Street Journal, NBC News and Telemundo found that Clinton enjoys a 48-point lead over her rival, Donald Trump, among likely Hispanic voters. Put another way, 65 percent of likely Hispanic voters support the Democrat.

Republicans struggled with the Hispanic vote in 2012 when Mitt Romney got 27 percent of the vote.

The Washington Post reports that peak interest in registrarse para votar came during Mondays presidential debate and was the third most popular search item in the U.S., behind two search terms related to a shooting in Houston. Google said the search volume was highest in the key swing state of Florida.

Google is actively pushing more Americans to register to vote, with particular emphasis on Hispanic voters.

Were doing our part to encourage American voters to get registered for the 2016 election, the company wrote. We've already added in-depth information in Search for registration and how to vote, and now we're adding this same information in Spanish.
U.S. President Barack Obama said Shimon Peres' determination to coexist with Palestinians is "in the hands of Israel's next generation and its friends," during a eulogy at the funeral for the late Israeli leader.

Obama praised Peres as one of the "giants of the 20th century," and likened him to other iconic world leaders like Nelson Mandela and Britain's Queen Elizabeth. Obama hailed Peres for his dedication to trying to solve the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and called for a renewed commitment to that cause now that the "last of the founding generation is now gone."

"Even in the face of terrorist attacks, even after repeated disappointments at the negotiation table, he insisted that as human beings, Palestinians must be seen as equal in dignity to Jews and must therefore be equal in self-determination," Obama added.

WATCH: Obama on Peres' optimism

Abbas attends funeral

At the beginning of his eulogy, Obama pointed out Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who was sitting in the front row, and hailed his presence at the funeral as a "gesture and a reminder of the unfinished business of peace." Abbas shook hands and shared a few words with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the funeral began.

In attending the funeral, Abbas hopes to "send a strong message to Israeli society that the Palestinians are for peace, and appreciate the efforts of peaceful men like Shimon Peres," a senior Palestinian official said.

Abbas had not visited Jerusalem since 2010 and was the first Arab leader to express sorrow over Peres' death Wednesday. Jordan's King Abdullah expressed his condolences to Israel Thursday. Peres' death was met with official silence in most Arab countries, reflecting their longstanding opposition to Israel.





Bill Clinton, Kerry among US delegation

Obama led a delegation of 32 U.S. officials, including former president Bill Clinton, Secretary of State John Kerry, Democratic Senator Bob Casey and Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives. Clinton also spoke at Friday's funeral.

Clinton hosted Peres for the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords, which were supposed to bring about a new period of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

"As it has been said, his critics often claimed he was a naive, overly optimistic dreamer. They were only wrong about the naive part. He knew exactly what he was doing in being overly optimistic. He knew exactly what he was doing with his dreams. He never gave up on anybody," Clinton said.

Netanyahu praises Peres as 'man of vision'

Peres suffered a severe stroke two weeks ago and died Wednesday at the age of 93 in a hospital in Tel HaShomer.

He held nearly every major Israeli political post during his long career, including prime minister twice, the presidency, defense minister and foreign minister. He was the longest serving member of parliament in Israeli history, holding a seat in the Knesset for 48 years.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said Peres devoted his life to the sovereignty of the Israeli people.

"As a man of vision, his gaze was aimed to the future," he said. "As a man of security, he fortified Israel's strength in many ways, some of which even today is still unknown. As a man of peace, he worked until his final days toward reconciling with our neighbors for a better future for our children."

President Obama shared Peres' vision for a two-state solution to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Obama awarded Peres the Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor, in 2012, saying "Shimon teaches us to never settle for the world as it is.''



In turn, Peres bestowed the Medal of Distinction on Obama, making him the first sitting U.S. president to receive Israel's highest civilian honor.
Pakistan has announced it will postpone a November meeting of the heads of South Asian countries, blaming arch-rival India for derailing the process of regional cooperation.



The move Friday comes amid escalating border and diplomatic tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi over allegations Pakistan was behind a deadly assault earlier in September on an Indian army base in the divided Kashmir region.

India earlier decided not to attend the summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or SAARC, citing what it called cross-border terrorism, charges the Pakistan government rejects.



Pakistan, which was to host the summit, said it deplored India's decision not to attend, according to a foreign ministry statement issued in Islamabad.



"The spirit of the SAARC Charter is violated when a member state casts the shadow of its bilateral problems on the multilateral forum for regional cooperation," it said.

UN urges calm

The United Nations on Friday said it was deeply concerned about the increase in tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is urging both sides to exercise maximum restraint and take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation, according to a statement issued in New York



"He calls on the Governments of Pakistan and India to address their outstanding issues, including regarding Kashmir, peacefully through diplomacy and dialogue. His good offices are available, if accepted by both sides."

Diplomatic isolation



India has vowed to try to diplomatically isolate Pakistan for its alleged support of Islamist groups on its soil, groups India says are behind terrorist attacks in neighboring countries. Staying away from the SAARC meeting appears to be part of Indias efforts.



Three other members of the group, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan, have pulled out of the summit, backing Indian concerns.



The rivalry between India and Pakistan, the two largest members of SAARC, has long been blamed for keeping the organization from becoming an effective forum to deal with the challenges facing the poverty-stricken region.



"The decision by India to derail the summit effectively contradicts Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi's own call to fight against poverty in the region," the Pakistan foreign ministry statement said.





While New Delhi blamed the September 18 attack on Pakistan-based militants, Islamabad denied any role and called it an attempt to deflect attention from alleged human rights abuses by Indian security forces in the disputed Himalayan region.

Tensions on the rise



Tensions escalated further Thursday when the Indian military said its soldiers crossed into Pakistani Kashmir and conducted predawn strikes against terrorists there.



Islamabad swiftly rejected Indias claims as "falsified, concocted and irresponsible statements" and said the Indian strikes are another incident of cross-border firing in which two Pakistani soldiers were killed while nine more were wounded.

Exchange of fire across the Kashmir frontier broke out again early Saturday and continued for several hours, the Pakistani military said, blaming India for initiating the incident. There were no reports of casualties.



The border skirmishes have raised fears of another conflict over Kashmir.

The region is claimed by both countries and has sparked two of the three wars between India and Pakistan since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.
Thailand is cracking down on migrant workers from neighboring countries, saying they are "stealing jobs from Thais," amid fears that anti-immigrant sentiment is rising as Southeast Asia's second-largest economy stagnates.

In an operation led by the Thai labor department, police and troops on Wednesday raided a fresh produce market in Bangkok and arrested 14 people, most of them from neighboring Myanmar.

"We have received many complaints about illegal immigrants working in markets including Vietnamese and even South Asians who were stealing jobs from Thais," Thai immigration police chief Nathorn Phrosunthorn told Reuters.

"They should be doing the jobs that Thais don't want to do like work as house cleaners," he said.

Under the terms of a 2015 memorandum of understanding Vietnamese citizens are restricted in their employment in Thailand and can work only as manual labourers in Thailand's fishing or construction sectors.

Cambodians also have been nabbed in the raids, along with people from Myanmar and Vietnam.

Anti-immigration feelings

More than 3 million migrants work in Thailand, the vast majority from neighboring Myanmar, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Thailand became wealthy compared to its neighbors when its economy boasted annual growth rates of over 7 percent in the 1980s and 1990s, drawing migrant workers from across the Greater Mekong Delta region and other parts of Asia. They mostly did jobs Thais tend to spurn, including backbreaking work in the fishing and construction sectors.

But, more than two years after the military government seized power and with Thailand's economy on shaky ground, rights groups also see rising resentment against immigrants in Thailand, mirroring such sentiment elsewhere in the world.

"There seems to be a surge of national sentiment in Thai immigration policy claiming migrants from Vietnam, for example, are taking jobs that are reserved for Thai nationals," Sunai Phasuk from Human Rights Watch told Reuters. "We haven't seen this kind of rise in anti-immigrant sentiment for decades. This has a lot to do economic concerns."

Sanit Choklamlert, a shopkeeper in Bangkok's Silom business district, said migrants are seen as competitors for some Thais.

"There are too many Myanmar people here now and they're fighting for the same jobs as us," he said. "We need to send some back."

Human trafficking

Thailand's economy is on course to grow 3.0 percent in 2016 after expanding 2.8 percent in 2015 and only 0.7 percent in 2014. Nathorn said the crackdown was not driven by an anti-immigrant policy.

"We still need migrant labor. We just want to keep some order," he said.

The raids have targeted fresh markets, restaurants, supermarkets and shopping malls. Around 153 immigrants were rounded up between Sept. 1 and Sept. 26, according to labor department figures. Those caught face up to five years in prison, a fine of up to 3,000 baht ($100) or deportation.

Migrants are often at risk of falling into the hands of human trafficking rings, who sell them into virtual slavery on plantations, timber mills and fishing boats, human rights groups say.

Thailand was removed from the bottom rung of the U.S. State Department's annual list of worst human trafficking offenders this year despite what the department described as "widespread forced labor" in the country's vital seafood industry.
The risk posed by the Zika virus to developing fetuses is likely far greater than current estimates suggest, a top U.S. health official said Thursday.

Microcephaly, a rare birth defect in which babies develop abnormally small heads, is one of many Zika-associated problems increasingly being seen in children born to mothers infected during pregnancy with the Zika virus.

Other birth defects include seizures, deafness, blindness and a range of neurological and developmental abnormalities.

Earlier this year, a U.S. analysis estimated the risk of microcephaly at 1 to 13 percent when a mother is infected with the virus during the first trimester of pregnancy.

That figure does not include the overall risk of birth defects, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a panel discussion on Zika.

If youre talking about any congenital defect, I think its going to be much higher than 13 percent, he said. I think were going to see something very disturbing.

The panel was presented by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in collaboration with Reuters.

WHO declares emergency; Congress OKs funding

The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency over Zikas link to microcephaly in February. The mosquito-borne virus has spread rapidly through the Americas, with Brazil hit hardest so far. On Wednesday, the U.S. Congress approved $1.1 billion to fund research and efforts to contain Zika.

Speaking on the same Zika panel Thursday, Dr. Marcia Castro, an associate professor of demography at Harvard, said physicians in Brazil are studying the initial wave of babies affected by Zika who are now reaching their first birthday.

In addition to seizures, agitation and frequent crying, these children also exhibit a severe type of reflux that prevents them from eating, she said, adding that it is unclear how long these children will live.

Another study with mice shows Zika also affects the brain of an adult, she said, potentially affecting long-term memory and depression.

Virus spreads in the Americas

As of Sept. 17, Brazil had confirmed 1,949 cases of microcephaly linked to Zika, mostly concentrated in the countrys northeast region. Another 3,030 cases are under investigation. In the United States, the virus has infected tens of thousands of people in Puerto Rico.

The spread of the virus in Miami, where a handful of locally transmitted cases emerged, has been limited through aggressive mosquito control.

Puerto Rico is going through a terrible situation and we have to help them right now, Fauci said.

With new Zika funding in hand, Fauci said the first priority will be to move forward clinical trials of five potential vaccines.
The Rosetta spacecraft's 12-year mission studying a comet came to an end Friday when it crash-landed on the surface as planned, snapping photos along the way.

Rosetta, the first space probe to circle a comet, was ordered to fire its thrusters for 208 seconds, slipped out of orbit and collided onto the icy surface of the "67P" comet. Mission controllers said it was traveling about 90 centimeters per second on impact, about a walking pace.

Before it crashed, Rosetta collected and transmitted a final collection of data and photos, including some close up images of the comet's surface.

The spacecraft, which was launched by the European Space Agency in 2004, sent a probe named Philae onto the surface of the comet in November, 2014. The mission was considered the agency's most ambitious.

Data collected from the probe has shed light on the composition of comets and eventually could reveal clues about the formation of the solar system. Comets are considered to be the untouched leftovers from the formation of the solar system.

One of the big early findings from the mission is the presence of molecular oxygen on the comet, which could have ramifications for how researchers look for possible alien life.

The probe also snapped more than 80,000 photos of the comet, which is about 730 million kilometers from Earth, focusing in particular on some deep holes on the comets surface.

Rosetta also discovered water on the comet, but its not the same water as we have on Earth, researchers said, adding that it potentially could change the theory that water was brought to Earth by comets.

But even bigger discoveries may lie ahead, despite Rosettas demise.

"The best thing is we still haven't gone through all our data," said Mohamed El-Maarry, a researcher at the University of Bern, Switzerland.
It has been a productive 12 years for the Rosetta space probe, but the end of the mission is near.

The spacecraft, which was launched by the European Space Agency in 2004, is set to crash onto the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, ending a mission that saw part of the probe, known as Philae, land on the comet in November 2014.

Rosetta will receive its final course change from the ESA's operations center in Darmstadt, Germany, leading up to an expected impact around 1040 GMT Friday.

Data collected from the probe has shed light on the composition of comets, and eventually could reveal clues about the formation of the solar system. Comets are considered to be the untouched leftovers from the formation of the solar system.

One of the big early findings from the mission is the presence of molecular oxygen on the comet, which could have ramifications for how researchers look for possible alien life.

The probe also snapped more than 80,000 photos of the comet, which is about 730 million kilometers from Earth, and will take more as it heads toward its end, focusing in particular on some deep holes on the comet's surface.

Rosetta also discovered water on the comet, but it's not the same water as we have on Earth, researchers said, adding that it potentially could change the theory that water was brought to Earth by comets.

But even bigger discoveries may lie ahead, despite Rosetta's demise.

"The best thing is we still haven't gone through all our data," said Mohamed El-Maarry, a researcher at the University of Bern, Switzerland.
The Russian air force's bombing campaign in Syria marked its first anniversary Friday, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying there was no "time frame" for the operation.

The Kremlin has officially declared the main objectives of its air campaign in Syria to be eliminating radical Islamic extremists in Syria and protecting Russia from the spread of international terrorism. However, independent experts and other observers both inside and outside Russia say that Moscow is using any means necessary to keep the regime of Bashar al-Assad in power.

The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights reported Friday that about 3,800 civilians, almost a quarter of them children, had been killed in Russian airstrikes in Syria since the start of Moscow's air campaign. Kremlin spokesman Peskov dismissed the observatory's casualty estimates as unreliable.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said Russian and Syrian government bombardment of rebel-held eastern Aleppo had killed 338 people, including 106 children, over the past week alone.

'Goal' questioned

In an interview with VOA's Russian service, Alexei Malashenko of the Carnegie Moscow Center recalled that at the outset of the air campaign in Syria a year ago, Moscow declared that its goal was "victory over ISIS," an acronym for the Islamic State group.

"On June 30, ISIS celebrated the second anniversary of its existence," Malashenko said. "Therefore, the question arises: Who was the operation directed against after all? The answer is obvious: It was an action in support of Bashar al-Assad."

In Malashenko's view, Russia's military campaign in Syria has achieved almost nothing.

"Yes, Bashar has survived," he said, noting that before Russia launched its air campaign in Syria, 50 percent of the personnel in Assad's army had "run off" and 60 percent of its armored vehicles had been destroyed.

"What is different now?" he asked. "Imagine for a second that the [Russian] operation were suddenly curtailed. Where would Assad be?"

Malashenko said the Assad regime was "pathologically weak" and "capable of absolutely nothing without the support of Russia," while "Moscow does not know what to do next."

"To support Assad eternally is impossible," he said. "There are also no prospects for establishing some kind of post-Assad, pro-Russian lobby in Syria."

The situation in Syria looks good only when looked at in Kremlin propaganda reports, Malashenko added.

"By the way, if you count as I have, the number of militants who the [Russian] national [TV] channels say have been killed [in Russian airstrikes in Syria], there shouldn't be any left at all," he said. "Then who's fighting?"

No disincentives seen for Russia

Still, Nikolay Kozhanov, an associate in the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House, a London-based international affairs think tank, said neither the growing number of civilian casualties in Syria nor the growing losses among its personnel there would push Russia to curtail its military operation in Syria.

Kozhanov told VOA that he didn't foresee a situation in which the Russian army would suffer "intolerable losses, at least when it comes to the officially declared troops there." He noted that these personnel consist mainly of a relatively small number of jet pilots, unmanned drone operators and missile crews.

Kozhanov added that losses among Russian servicemen fighting in Syria under the guise of being "volunteers" would have no impact on Moscow's will to continue its operation there.

He also said he thought the Russian propaganda machine would be able to succeed in justifying any such casualties.

"Any such losses will be presented as holy sacrifices that prove the righteousness of this war, or they will simply be covered up, as has happened before," he said.
Sporadic clashes between rebel groups in several villages in the Central African Republic are threatening the nations fragile peace process.

Three weeks ago, about 30 people were killed in fighting in Kouango, about 160 kilometers east of the capital, Bangui, on the Ubangi River, regional MINUSCA spokesperson Vladimir Monteiro told VOA.

Two more people were killed in Kaga-Bandoro and four in Domete in clashes between ex-Seleka rebels, a group that rose to power in 2013, and the anti-balaka, a vigilante group that opposes the Seleka. Ex-Seleka rebels attacked in retaliation for the killing of a young Muslim man, according to local news reports.

Radio France Internationale reported that 3,500 people were displaced by the fighting in Kouango. However, Monteiro said, peacekeeping forces have been able to maintain a strong presence in affected areas to send a message to the armed groups that they will not be able to disrupt stability.

Peacekeepers preventing violence

The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic has deployed its Pakistani contingent in Kaga-Bandoro to prevent violence from spreading. The mission also has deployed peacekeepers from Burundi and Gabon, who were based in the capital to reinforce their presence in Kaga-Bandoro and Domete, north of the capital.

In Koui, located in the northwest, Cameroonian peacekeepers have been deployed and the situation is under control, Monteiro said, but five people have died in the clashes.

Speaking to VOAs French to Africa service, C.A.R. President Faustin-Archange Touadera said his nations military could play a greater stabilizing role if the arms embargo imposed on his country were lifted.

We are putting in place democratic institutions, and we cannot have an army without weapons, he said.

In 2013, the United Nations Security Council placed a ban on weapon supplies entering the country. Since then, the embargo has been extended until January 31, 2017.

In addition, the government has launched a Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Program (DDR), a post-conflict process to ensure a peaceful transition and give former combatants incentives to lay down arms and learn job skills. All armed groups should take advantage of this important process, Monteiro said.

We are trying to mobilize resources, he added. We are trying to sensitize all groups to participate in this DDR process.

Dialogue as a way forward

The U.N. mission in the country says that security efforts must go hand in hand with dialogue for the country to move forward.

On November 17, C.A.R. governmental leaders are scheduled to meet with international partners at a donors conference in Brussels to discuss priorities in order to stabilize the country in the next three to five years.

We want to break this cycle of crises every 10 years to lay a solid foundation in Central African Republic, Touadera told VOA. He said the conference with the European Union will focus on sustainable development in the country.

Monteiro said the conference signals a new chapter of reconciliation for the country and it cant afford to risk any backsliding.

These incidents are taking place at a moment where the country is preparing for an important meeting in Brussels with its partners. We can not allow these groups to jeopardize all the work that is being done, he said.
In the basement office of his Southeast Asian Community Center in a gritty neighborhood of downtown San Francisco, Philip Nguyen runs down a list of issues he says matter to Vietnamese Americans like himself.

Lack of good jobs. Rising health care costs. Skyrocketing housing prices. In other words, things any American would care about come election time.

But at the mention of China, Nguyens eyes light up.

This is my favorite subject, said the 70-year-old, who came to the United States after the fall of Saigon during the Vietnam War. Like many Vietnamese Americans, Nguyen has little love for his former countrys communist government.

Nguyen still feels great pride for his old country, and that feeling surfaces when he talks about Chinas aggression in the South China Sea, where Beijing has territorial disputes with Vietnam and several other Southeast Asian countries.

Do we as Vietnamese Americans have a concern about the South China Sea dispute? We do, Nguyen said firmly. I can tell you almost 100 percent of the people here, we are concerned. This is a No. 1 topic right now in our community.

The South China Sea has emerged as a major election issue, not only for many of the 1.6 million Vietnamese Americans, but also for the 2.6 million Americans from the Philippines, which is also in a dispute with China.

Differing approaches

Leading presidential candidates, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, each vow to be tough on China.

As secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, Clinton took a vocal stance against Chinas actions in disputed areas of the South China Sea. She was one of the main architects of the White Houses policy of rebalance to Asia, which is largely seen as a way to contain China.

Clinton undoubtedly has a hawkish reputation in Asia, especially China, said Steven Lewis, an Asia expert at Rice University. I think we can expect more of the same from her in the future.

Trumps record on Asia is more complicated. While he has made criticism of China a centerpiece of his campaign, he has mostly focused on trade. He has also threatened to pull U.S. troops out of Asia, raising questions of whether he would cede regional influence to Beijing.

Despite the tough talk from U.S. politicians, China has moved to assert control over the disputed maritime area, transforming reefs and rocky outcroppings into artificial islands that can support military installations and airstrips.

Little Saigon

Vietnamese Americans have been especially vocal on the South China Sea, at times protesting Beijings actions in front of the Chinese embassy in Washington or other consulates.

California has the biggest population of Vietnamese Americans. Many live in the Bay Area, including San Francisco, where they are concentrated in the rundown but vibrant neighborhood known as the Tenderloin District.

A two-block stretch of the hilly district was officially designated Little Saigon in 2004 and is complete with Vietnamese-owned restaurants, coffee shops and grocery stores. A pair of traditional Vietnamese lion statues stand guard at the entrance.

It is one of the few areas in the city where its possible to rent an affordable apartment, said Nguyen, executive director of the Southeast Asian Community Center, which, among other services, offers citizenship classes and provides assistance for low-income immigrants.

We are Americans now, but many people still have a lingering eye toward Vietnam, he said, explaining his communitys concern about China. We understand the reason China has to expand. But if they expand at our expense, then we have to worry about it.

Influential vote

Presidential campaigns typically do not make much of an attempt to reach out to immigrant populations in states such as California, which has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every general election since 1992.

But the Southeast Asian vote could play a pivotal role elsewhere, including Florida, Nevada and Virginia, all states that could vote either Democratic or Republican on November 8.

Sipping iced coffee at an outdoor patio of a Vietnamese-owned cafe in Falls Church, Virginia, Lam Nguyen is blunt about his feelings on the South China Sea dispute.

I dont like China, said Nguyen, who works as a driver. I would like the U.S. military to stop China in the South China Sea.

Sitting nearby is Keith Lee, a local union organizer. He, too, says he doesnt like that China is aggressive toward Vietnam, but is skeptical that anyone can do anything to stop it.

The big guy always tries to claim the chunk of the pie, Lee said. This is the real world.

About 150,000 Vietnamese and Filipino Americans live in Virginia. While thats a small percentage of the 8.3 million people who call the state home, in some years that would be more than enough to swing an election.

Just ask Senator Mark Warner, a U.S. senator from Virginia, who won his seat in 2014 by 17,000 votes. Warner, a Democrat, reached out to Asian Americans and won their votes by a 2-to-1 ratio, giving him enough Asian votes alone to put him over the top.

A decade earlier, another Democratic U.S. senator from Virginia, Jim Webb, won his seat by just 9,000 votes, also in part by reaching out to Asian Americans.

Preference unclear

I think Trump will be tougher on China, but I dont know, really, said Binh Tran, who owns and manages a bakery in Falls Churchs Eden Center, a strip mall filled with Vietnamese-owned shops.

As a whole, Asian Americans are becoming more liberal and largely do not like Trump, according to a poll conducted in May by a group of Asian American advocacy groups.

But Asian Americans do not vote uniformly. For example, Vietnamese Americans traditionally have leaned Republican, in part because they were seen as being tougher against communists.

Also, Trumps support among Filipino Americans could suffer from his putting the Philippines on his list of terrorist countries from which he would bar immigration.

That situation is further complicated by recently elected Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes criticism of Manilas military ties with the U.S. Duterte is also seen as moving the country closer to China.

Outreach

Both Clinton and Trump have made efforts to reach out to Asian Americans.

In January, Clintons campaign rolled out the Asian American and Pacific Islander Voters for Hillary group. Earlier this week, Trump announced the formation of an Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee to support and strengthen ties with the community.

But its not clear whether the candidates will use the South China Sea issue to try to win votes. Lewis, the Rice University professor, said it could be a risky strategy.

Clinton would be wise to be cautious in approaching increased military ties to either Vietnam or the Philippines, given our own complicated history with these countries, he said.
At 1 a.m. Friday, weary members of several Congolese opposition parties emerged from a meeting that lasted almost 12 hours. Political talks in the Democratic Republic of Congo have resumed after being suspended early last week, following two days of deadly protests on the streets of Kinshasa.

But it is unclear whether the talks can be productive. A larger coalition of opposition parties  known as the Rassemblement, or the Assembly  still refuses to participate. The highly influential Catholic Church  known as CENCO  has also withdrawn, saying it will only return if the Rassemblement joins the talks.

"Without CENCO and the addition of new opposition parties, the dialogue will lack credibility, said Stephanie Wolters of the Institute for Security Studies Africa. There are two very difficult issues that have to be worked out: notably, the date of the elections and the explicit language in the accord  which isn't in there now  about [President Joseph] Kabila not standing for another term. If we see an accord signed by the parties participating which doesn't include language about Kabila not standing or puts the date of elections in 2018, we'll be right back at zero. No one is going to accept that."

The Rassemblement argues that the talks are simply a means for Kabila to delay elections, which were slated for November, and stay in power beyond the constitutionally defined two-term limit.

The government says the talks are aimed at reaching an agreement on how the DRC should proceed to credible elections.

An opposition faction led by Vital Kamerhe is taking part. The faction says Kabila can remain in power, leading an interim government, until the next presidential election but insists that he must not stand as a candidate in it.

Protesters targeted

Meanwhile, Congolese authorities appear to be continuing their crackdown on those who participated in the protests Sept. 19 and 20, during which the U.N. says more than 50 people were killed.

Georges Kapiamba, the president of the Congolese Association for Access to Justice, says more than 1,800 people were arrested throughout the DRC during and after the protests, and 110 have been given sentences ranging from 45 days to 25 years. In addition, he says, the accused were convicted in trials lasting only 40 minutes, and their lawyers were not given time to become acquainted with the cases against them.

At least 34 children have been detained and are being kept in cells with hardened criminals, including murderers, according to Kapiamba.

The United States this week imposed sanctions on two Kabila aides it accuses of repressing human rights and blocking the organization of elections.
On Thursday, Ukraine marked the 75th anniversary of the worst single massacre of civilians in World War II and one of the bloodiest war crimes in human history  the 1941 slaughter at Babi Yar.

Nazi SS forces and Ukrainian collaborators murdered nearly 34,000 Jewish men, women and children over two days in a Kyiv forest.

Almost all of the victims were killed by automatic weapons and their bodies dumped into a pit. Those who were only wounded were shot again in the ravine or buried alive among the corpses.

Only a handful managed to survive.

Babi Yar is a tragedy for the whole of mankind, but it took place right here, on Ukrainian land, Ukraines President Petro Poroshenko said Thursday in Kyiv after a moment of silence. Thats why a Ukrainian has no right to forget about it, just like a Jew has no right to forget it because Babi Yar is our common tragedy.

With the daily deaths of civilians in Syria, European Council President Donald Tusk urged people not to be silent.

We need to remember that it is our daily duty to cry out at the top of our voice and act always when innocent people are killed, when the strong attack the weak, when children become the target of warplanes and rockets, he said.
The United Nations refugee agency reports that 100,000 people are effectively trapped by violence in the South Sudanese town of Yei. With no one allowed in or out, it warns, the town could soon face a food shortage.

Until recently, Yei  located in Central Equatoria state  has been largely spared from the violence and attacks that have gripped South Sudan since December 2013.

But, the UNHCR says, conditions for the inhabitants of Yei and surrounding areas have deteriorated since renewed conflict between government and rebel forces broke out in July.

UNHCR spokesman William Spindler says the situation came to a head earlier this month when more than 30,000 people in surrounding areas flocked to Yei, following deadly attacks and looting of property.

He tells VOA that government forces are surrounding the town.

"They are restricting access into the town and also preventing people from leaving  presumably because they suspect them of siding with opposition forces, Spindler said. Now people are not allowed to leave to go and tend to the fields and the crops. And this potentially could be disastrous."

If farmers are unable to reach their fields, Spindler says, harvests will rot, the upcoming planting season is likely to be missed and there will be no crops next year.

He says the displaced already are feeling the sting of having had to abandon their homes, with food prices soaring as commodities disappear from the market.

"Many internally displaced people have reported that their food stocks have been looted, Spindler said. Two local hospitals are functioning at reduced capacity. Lack of high-energy food for malnourished children and breastfeeding mothers is becoming critical."

Aid agencies in Juba are responding by gathering food, non-food items, drugs and other essential supplies, he says. However, the operation is stalled as agencies wait to be granted access to Yei.

The situation adds to the humanitarian crisis in South Sudan, where some 2.5 million people have been displaced from their homes since the conflict began.
One by one, key Islamic State terror group leaders are getting caught in the crosshairs of U.S. and coalition aircraft, and they are being removed from the battlefield as Iraqi forces prepare for a final assault on the IS-held city of Mosul.

Operation Inherent Resolve said Thursday that its airstrikes had killed 18 IS officials in the past 30 days, 13 of them in and around Mosul, "softening their grip" on Iraq's second-largest city.

The targeted killings have been, in part, the result of good intelligence that has allowed the U.S. to steadily target and eliminate "high-value" individuals, like IS spokesman and external operations planner Abu Muhammad al-Adnani and chief information officer Wa'il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayyad.

Many of the more recent strikes have taken out lower-level but tactically important IS officials in Mosul, including three Chechen foreign fighter commanders, the deputy military emir, a military commander and a police commander, military officials said.

And the pace of such operations is likely to pick up as coalition-backed forces advance on the city.

"We're going to try to get after it and get after it quickly," Colonel John Dorrian, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, told Pentagon reporters via a video link.

Intelligence surge

Dorrian also emphasized that a significant number of the 615 U.S. personnel being sent to Iraq for the battle for Mosul are intelligence experts, saying the deployment announced Wednesday could be seen as an intelligence surge.

"This additional capability is going to give us a lot of insight into Daesh networks, not just in Iraq and Syria, but also give insight into how they export terror around the world," he said, using the Arabic acronym for the terror group.

"We expect for our intelligence professionals, cooperating with the Iraqis, to get a treasure trove of intelligence information," Dorrian added.

U.S. military officials expect the amount of intelligence to rival or surpass the amount of information contained in the more than 20 terabytes of data recovered from computers and other devices after operations to expel IS from their hub in Manbij, Syria.

Some of that intelligence is thought to have allowed the U.S. to penetrate IS communications, enabling coalition forces to track several "high-value" officials before finally pulling the trigger on the strikes that killed Adnani and Fayad.

Additional intelligence recovered from Manbij has also been distributed to security services across Europe, though coalition officials refused to share additional details.

The U.S. is also hoping its intelligence efforts will benefit from improvements planned as part of the latest troop deployment to Iraq. Both Qayyarah Airfield West, south of Mosul, and Al Asad Airbase in Anbar province are expected to get upgrades to allow for more reconnaissance flights and also nighttime flight capabilities.

"Across the board, these forces are providing a lot of logistical capability, supply capability," Dorrian said. "Just supersized."
U.S. health authorities are urging men to wait six months before trying to conceive a baby with their partner if they have traveled to an area with the Zika virus, which can cause devastating birth defects.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday extended the time recommendation for men from eight weeks to six months, after researchers found the virus can linger in semen for months.

The agency recommended men use condoms or refrain from sex for at least six months after returning from a Zika-hit area, even if they show no symptoms of the virus.

Zika causes only mild symptoms in adults, including fever, rash and red eyes  and some people experience no symptoms. However, pregnant women who are infected with the virus risk giving birth to babies with microcephaly, a birth defect that leads to abnormally small heads.

Earlier Friday, officials in Thailand confirmed two cases of babies with microcephaly that were caused by the Zika virus, the first confirmed causes of the condition linked to the virus in Southeast Asia.

The World Health Organization urged countries in the region to take stronger measures to combat the virus. Mosquitoes are already a big concern in Thailand because they also transmit malaria and dengue fever.

While the Zika virus has been present in Southeast Asia for years, health officials say there has been an increase in the number of cases in recent months.

On Thursday, U.S. health officials recommended that pregnant women postpone non-essential travel to 11 Southeast Asian countries, including Thailand, because of the ZIka risk.
The U.S. State Department has issued a travel warning for the Democratic Republic of Congo and has ordered families of government personnel stationed there to leave.

The travel warning said, "The potential for civil unrest is high in parts of Kinshasa and other major cities." Kinshasa is the DRC capital.

"As a result of the deteriorating situation," the warning said, "family members of U.S. government personnel have been ordered to leave the country beginning September 29. Most official U.S. government travel to the DRC has been halted."

Deadly clashes have broken out in the country over the presidency of Joseph Kabila. His last day in office is supposed to be December 19. He has ruled for two terms, beginning in 2001. The constitution bars him from seeking a third term. However, the nation's electoral commission says it will not be able to hold elections until late 2018.

Kabila has not said publicly what he will do. Critics say he is stalling to stay in power.

Violent protests over the delay have raised fears that this Central African nation might become yet another one enveloped in chaotic political crisis. Diplomats say the nations neighbors need to step up and encourage dialogue to end the impasse. Rights groups say the DRC government has acted to suppress dissent by imprisoning activists and violently putting down protests.
Assuming the 2016 U.S. presidential election remains close, Virginia is one of a handful of states that could decide whether the next president is Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump. And if you want to know which way Virginia will vote November 8, you might want to keep tabs on what happens in Loudoun County, in northern Virginia.

For years, Loudoun County was reliably Republican, helping Virginia support Republican presidential candidates from 1968 through 2004. But in 2008, Democrat Barack Obama put Virginia back in the Democratic column, and he did it again in 2012, thanks in no small part to a winning margin of victory in Loudoun.

Influx of high-tech workers

In recent years, Loudoun County has seen an explosion of growth driven to a large extent by the expanding high-tech industry, which values northern Virginias proximity to Washington, D.C. High-tech companies have hired thousands of highly skilled workers from abroad, especially India, and the changing demographics are driving political shifts that have turned Virginia into a classic battleground state.

So all of this was just wide-open farmland, Loudoun County Democratic activist Craig Green told VOA from the middle of a major new town center development called One Loudoun, where retail shops, restaurants and condos have risen out of what used to be a rural landscape.

And now, as you can see, weve got this big retail-residential thing going on, Green said. There are data centers all around us.

Those data centers dot the horizon like futuristic behemoths, windowless warehouses through which a large percentage of the worlds internet data passes.



WATCH: Related video report by Jim Malone:

Demographic Shifts

Green says the economic expansion coupled with demographic changes in Loudoun are a boon to Democrats and present a challenge for Trump.

I went canvassing this weekend, and pretty much universally it was, Oh, that Trump guy, there is no way I could vote for him, Green said. No matter what we had to say about anything else, it was, you know, That guy just doesnt make sense.

Green said Loudoun is quickly becoming a model of diversity. Recent Census Bureau data shows Asians now make up nearly 15 percent of Loudoun Countys population.

You just see people from India and people from China and people from Africa, there are a lot of Africans here ... a big diaspora going on of people coming for opportunity, he said. And they are very skilled people, and they are very smart people, so its an incredible vibrant place to live right now.

Everybody is really equal

Software engineer Sri Amudhanar emigrated from India nearly 30 years ago. He has lived in Ashburn, Virginia, since 1998 and is becoming active in Democratic Party politics in the county.

Amudhanar said the influx of immigrants and resulting demographic changes have made them a force to be reckoned with.

They take an oath of citizenship when they become Americans, and that is a very solemn process, he said recently on a hill overlooking Ashburn. It is a very moving process, and we have all gone through that, and that binds us to America very, very strongly and to its values, and one of the values is that everybody is really equal.

Amudhanar predicts the demographics will be an obstacle for Trump given some of his controversial statements about Muslims and Mexicans.

Immigrants are more tolerant of other lifestyles and other opinions and other religious persuasions and so on. So youll find that immigrants in general want a fair, even playing field for everybody.

Trump: got to finish it off

Despite the demographic changes, Trump is making a serious bid to win Virginia, and plenty of supporters turned out for a recent rally in Ashburn where he urged them to work harder in Loudoun County.

What we are doing is one of the great political phenomena of all time, Trump said to cheers. But very importantly, it is one of the great movements of all time. We have got to finish it off. We have got to finish it off.

Trumps theme of making America great again has struck a chord with Leesburg businessman Bryan Crosswhite. Crosswhite hosted a Republican unity event recently at one of his restaurants in Leesburg, and he predicts a close battle in Loudoun.

I believe [Trump] resonates with Americans, normal Americans, who have traditional values in our country, Crosswhite said, describing real estate moguls appeal. He resonates because he is a straight-talker. He speaks the truth whether you like it or not. Hes going to tell you what he thinks.

Trump loyalists are active in Loudoun, and Green, a Democrat activist, acknowledges the race will be close. He also said that Clinton supporters have a challenge to persuade undecided voters that the race is not simply one of choosing the lesser of two evils.

New Battleground

More than 150 years ago, Virginia was the epicenter of the American Civil War, and battle monuments are plentiful throughout the state, including the statue of a Confederate soldier on the grounds of the Loudoun County courthouse in Leesburg.

Today, Virginia is a battleground of a different sort, a mix of the traditional and the new, where changing demographics and shifting political outlooks have turned this once reliably Republican enclave into a state that is now competitive for both parties, and one that could play a pivotal role in deciding the next president on November 8.
Syrian and rebel forces continued to clash Saturday in the besieged city of Aleppo, where some 250,000 people, including many children, remain trapped.

Syrian forces have been moving to retake parts of Aleppo run by rebels, who fire on government-controlled sections of the city. Casualties continue to mount on both sides.



The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for the immediate evacuation of hundreds of sick and wounded people from eastern Aleppo.

The WHO estimates children comprise about one-third of the hundreds of civilians killed and wounded over the past two weeks.

The situation really is unfathomable," said Rick Brennan, WHO director of humanitarian emergencies. "According to health officials there, there have been 338 deaths in the last couple of weeks due to the bombardment, including 106 children. Eight-hundred-and-forty-six other individuals have been injured, again almost a third children - 261 children.

US condemnation

U.S. President Barack Obama has strongly condemned the "barbarous Russian and Syrian regime airstrikes" on civilians in eastern Aleppo.

The White House says Obama spoke by telephone Thursday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Both agreed that Russia and the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad bear a "special responsibility" for stopping the fighting and letting in humanitarian aid.

Secretary of State John Kerry said earlier the United States is "on the verge" of suspending diplomatic talks with Russia because of Moscow's continued bombing of rebels in eastern Aleppo.



A monitoring group said Friday Russian airstrikes across the country in the past year have killed more than 9,000 people, including many civilians. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said many more civilians were wounded by the airstrikes.

Kerry called it irrational to keep talking and take things seriously after Russia vowed to continue the airstrikes.



Its one of those moments where were going to have to pursue other alternatives for a period of time, said Kerry. He added he is extremely concerned about the future of the Syrian people.

Kerry's spokesman told reporters the State Department is in "active" contact with the Kremlin, but is still prepared to step away "barring some significant steps by Russia."

"We are still prepared to enact that kind of a suspension and we're in consultations right now inside our own government, and of course, with [Russian] Foreign Minister [Sergei] Lavrov, John Kirby said Thursday.



The United States is pushing Russia to pressure its close ally, President Assad, to honor a cease-fire and let U.N. relief convoys into Aleppo.

Russia and the Syrians say they are targeting "terrorists" - their term for the rebels aiming to topple the Syrian government.

Raw grief

The U.S. says Russia and Syria are hitting hospitals, refugee camps and such critical sites as water and power plants. The U.S. says the bombs are indiscriminate and that the Russians make no effort to specifically hit their stated target - Islamic State fighters.

U.N. humanitarian aid chief Stephen O'Brien told the U.N. Security Council Thursday that what is happening in Aleppo fills him with "raw grief, dismay, intense sadness, frustration and an unquenchable anger."

"Besiegement is not a weapon of war. It is a flagrant, unjustifiable breach of the law. One day there will be no hiding place for the individuals and institutions callously, cynically perpetrating these war crimes."

O'Brien also had harsh words for U.N. diplomats for their perceived inaction in Syria.

"The only remaining deterrent it seems is that there will be real accountability in the court of world opinion and disgust. Goodness knows, nothing else seems to be working to stop this deliberate and gratuitous carnage."



U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Friday announced an investigation into an incident on September 19 involving a relief operation by the U.N. and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Humanitarians came under fire in Urum al-Kubra, when 31 trucks were delivering life-saving assistance, leaving at least 18 people dead.

The White House has said President Obama keeps pressing his security team to come up with better options in Syria.

Russia said it supports a 48-hour cease-fire in Aleppo, but not a longer truce proposed by the U.S.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted Moscow still wants to reach a deal to renew the September 9 cease-fire, but said, "We have unfortunately taken note of the rather unconstructive character of the rhetoric from Washington over the past few days."

The United Nations calls the plight of Aleppo desperate. Officials say medical evacuations are needed and food stocks are running low.

VOA's Mary Alice Salinas contributed to this report from the White House, Lisa Schlein - from Geneva.
Three Zimbabwean students, who have become an overnight sensation after they protested in front of President Robert Mugabe at a graduation ceremony, say they sacrificed their lives to highlight unemployment problems being faced by thousands of graduates leaving colleges and universities every year.

The students  Tonderai Dombo, Thembinkosi Rushwaya and Alexander Mukamba  never thought they would come out of the protest alive following the recent brutalization of public protesters by state security agents.

Dombo, who was doing a Bachelor of Applied Arts General in History and Strategic War Studies and will undergo further studies at the same university doing another course, told VOA Studio 7 that when we did that (protest) I wasnt expecting to be alive today.

  I did not think that I will be alive today. I actually knew that it might be the last thing to do before I join my ancestors (dead great grandfathers and mothers)  In the end I have already lost, so for me to be afraid of dying thats the least thing I can be afraid of because I constantly leave in fear of what I will do tomorrow. Will I be able to send my children to school if I am to get married?  And if I get married how will I look after my wife and where will I get money to pay rent?

He said they were determined to protest as most youth have been disempowered through lack of jobs. In the end our future has been devastated as the youth. So, the future is full of stress and you dont know what will happen tomorrow.

According to Dombo, who wrote a winding 791 word manifesto on his Facebook page before staging the protest, they were dragged out of the graduation ceremony by the Presidential Guard at the University of Zimbabwe, harassed and taken to Harare Central Police Station where they spent the night before criminal nuisance charges were laid against them. Each paid an admission of guilt fine of $10.

Higher Education Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo lambasted the protesting students saying their actions were ill-conceived.

Professor Moyo tweeted, Just because one is Mr Dombo does not mean they should throw stones everywhere anytime. Disrupting a graduation ceremony can cost a degree!

Universities and colleges produce more than 20,000 students per year into the job market in Zimbabwe where independent economists say the unemployment rate has reached almost 90%.

Some Zimbabweans, including unemployed university and college graduates, individuals, civic groups and opposition political parties, have since July this year been staging protests against President Mugabe's government demanding jobs and his resignation for allegedly failing to properly run the country.

Mr. Mugabe's government has descended heavily on the protesters he is accusing of being allegedly sponsored by the West to topple him.
Zambian President Edgar Lungu has appointed eight women to his Cabinet in a decision that one women's group in the country has welcomed as a positive step forward.

In a statement, Lungu said there was a need to encourage more women to become involved in politics.

"Ministerial positions are not about appeasing. The appointment of ministers is a  prerogative of the president. ... It's about getting the best to deliver," said Lungu, who opens parliament Friday.

He also warned that he will not hesitate to fire disloyal and under-performing ministers. His recent comments came after he expressed concern about the low representation of women in parliament.

The portfolios for the new Cabinet appointees include higher education, agriculture, gender, community development and social welfare, and lands.

Juliet Chibuta, executive director of the advocacy group Zambia National Women's Lobby, said the inclusion of the women is an achievement worth mentioning, but added there is room for improvement.

Positive impact

In an interview with VOA, Chibuta said the women's inclusion in leadership positions will have a positive impact on Zambia's national development.

"Zambia is a signatory to many international instruments on gender, which promotes gender equality," she said. "So, when we saw that the president was making appointments and included women, for us we thought it was very progressive, because as a country, we need to adhere to the laws and policies on gender and also to the international instruments that we have ratified.

"The fact that we call ourselves a democracy, we need to ensure that we are inclusive of both men and women in the leadership of this nation. So the idea of including women in the Cabinet was not only progressive, but it also puts the country at a point whereby we all agree that it has gender equality," Chibuta added.

Some civil society groups say the appointment of Cabinet ministers should be based on qualifications and competence, rather than gender. They acknowledged, however, that Lungu has the power to appoint whomever he chooses for his Cabinet, regardless of gender or political affiliation.

Question different standards

While welcoming of the new appointments, Chibuta said a different standard applies to women.

"We have women who are well-qualified, and I think most of the women that have been appointed, they are qualified for the job in terms of educational qualification and in terms of experience," she said. "Aside from that, why is it that when it comes to the appointment of men, no one asks about the qualification, no one asks about whether they are competent or not?

"But when it comes to a woman, people would always ask whether that woman is qualified or whether the woman is able to do the work that she has been appointed to do," Chibuta said.

The Zambia National Women's Lobby also supported women who contested the August 11 presidential, parliamentary and local elections. Chibuta said the performance of some of the women at the polls was an improvement over previous elections.

"It's an achievement and also a significant step forward if you compare our 2011 results and how many women were elected and now," she said.

"In 2011 ... we had 17 women being elected, but now we have 26 women who were elected to parliament, meaning that at least we have managed to move a step forward," Chibuta said, crediting efforts such as giving support to women interested in running and urging political parties to encourage women to run for office.
A Zimbabwean organization taking care of womens needs says police, who brutalized four female political activists recently, must be removed from the police force.

Maureen Kademaunga, national spokesperson of WomenforWomen, said one of the policemen linked to the brutal attacks has been identified as Assistant Inspector Noel Magwenzi, who was not immediately available for comment.

Assistant Inspector Magwenzi must pay for the brutal assault of four female activists. The four women, Beatrice Rutsvara, Virginia Chimbeku, Esther Mutsigiri and Gladys Musindo who were brutally assaulted by police were recently discharged from hospital and are now in the safety of their homes.

However, we are shocked that Assistant Inspector Noel Magwenzi of Glen View Police Station who is on record for admitting that he gave the instruction for the four women to be brutalized is still reporting for duty as an officer of law. Assistant Inspector Mangwenzi is a criminal who must not be trusted one day longer to carry out duties as an officer of law.

She said in a statement that the newly-formed organization will be visiting police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba's office, to demand the immediate sacking of Magwenzi.

The women were assaulted together with other political activists who staged a nationwide protest against lack of electoral reforms under the banner of the National Electoral Reform Agenda, comprising several opposition political parties.
Woman Is the Something of the Something is a smart, funny, brilliantly written half-hour of television. That would be true no matter when it aired, but the fact that it comes near the end of a week dominated by the Trump-splained presidential debate and an ongoing conversation about the Republican candidates misogynistic behavior gives it an extra shot of timeliness.

Better Things has already established itself as a comedy told from a distinctly female point of view, and Woman Is the Something of the Something offers its most pointed commentary so far on the sexism that creeps into every aspect of Sams existence, even in ways she doesnt always see or hear. Every scene  co-written by star Pamela Adlon and Louis C.K. and directed, like last weeks episode, by Nisha Ganatra  reflects the impossible-to-achieve standards women are expected to meet on a daily basis, from Sams demoralizing visit to a plastic surgeon (apparently a fresher face and neck costs $95,000), to that recording session where Sam is asked to be more cheerful while describing the side effects of erectile dysfunction medicine (when discussing boner pills, always smile, ladies!), to the smoke detector that brings the fire department to Sams house while her daughters loudly note that their dad would be more equipped to handle the situation. What a great metaphor for what it feels like to be a parent: You spend tons of time trying to figure out which alarm is beeping, and in the end, you just wind up causing more noise while being told that the other parent is better than you.

Every scene keeps piling on the gender biases until they feel totally crushing, which, hi, by the way, is how it often feels to be a woman. Sam cant even steal a few quick minutes for a nap in her minivan without a homeless woman reminding her that, in addition to being a good mother, she also needs to make sure she remains a sexual being. You gotta sometimes be a lady, the woman says, with a man putting his full weight on you, making you feel good. She means well, this woman. But given that her three supposedly wonderful children seemingly abandoned her, shes also a walking cautionary tale. They take everything, the woman says of her kids, after accepting a pair of shoes and a coat from Sam. Then youre like me, hoping you find some nice lady to give you a jacket.

Women helping other women is also an omnipresent theme in this episode, particularly in the primary story line in which Sam skates extremely close to being cast as the lead in a high-profile network comedy. Jen (Deborah S. Craig), who represents show creators Danny and Zach (Danny Pudi and Zach Woods), and Sams manager Tressa (Rebecca Metz) both play key but non-influential roles in the long negotiation that ultimately results in Sam being dumped for Rachel McAdams. (Just as in the audition scene that featured Julie Bowen, its the blonde who wins the part.) Through every step of that process, its clear how jaded both women have become about seeing an older actress like Sam actually get such a big role. Neither of them thinks its actually going to happen  and of course, it doesnt.

And so Tressa does the Hollywood equivalent of giving Sam a jacket: She doesnt tell her any of the details, knowing she should wait until its really a done deal so she doesnt crush her spirits. (Even the smallest bits and pieces of the Tressa scenes are great, including the fact that we see her meeting with an actress who could pass for a younger version of Sam.)

Jens situation is a bit more complicated, as illustrated by her deceptively straightforward meeting with the network executives.

Sam Fox is funny and thats our bottom line, Jen tells Charles, the head of the unnamed TV behemoth poised to green-light Danny and Zachs new show. Youve got cute all over the network and theres cute in the show. But Sam Fox is like real people.

On one hand, just as Tressa did, this is an example of a woman protecting another woman. Its also a sharp portrait of what it looks like when a woman is hung out to dry by her male colleagues in a staff meeting. Danny and Zach are extremely enthusiastic about Sam, yet in the meeting with top brass, all the talking on Sams behalf falls to Jen.

Theres a third element at work here, too: the fact that one woman feels compelled to preemptively undercut anothers appearance because shes been trained to believe thats the best way to persuade a powerful man. Basically what Jen is saying to Charles is this: Before you point out that Sam is kind of old and not pretty, Ill acknowledge it first, then note that those qualities actually make her relatable to many old, unattractive TV viewers! Theres something particularly cutting about Jens choice of words: Sam Fox is like real people, as opposed to an actual person.

Right away, Jen knows shes hurt her credibility with Charles and also has a feeling that, even though he said he would cast Sam, he probably wont. Which he doesnt. So Jen loses status points, and all she gets in return from her boys is an accusation, via Zach, that shes a gender traitor. Being a woman: It really is the best.

Despite all of this, the episode closes on an optimistic note via a grand feminist finale, set against a rally that Sam attends with Frankie.

Were not misandrists but the patriarchy must be stopped, announces one of the speakers, while Frankie, wearing a pink sticker that says Stop the Hate and War on Womens Bodies, informs her mom that, Woman is the n of the world, marking the second week in a row that the show has invoked the N-word in an attempt to highlight the specter of casual white racism.

The preteen is quoting a controversial feminist anthem that, like Mother, the Better Things theme, was recorded by John Lennon, but Sam isnt sure her daughter understands what shes saying or the context of those words.

Sam admonishes Frankie for using such an ugly word and for implying that womens struggles are inherently the same as those faced by African-Americans. She also makes a point of noting that Lennons song was inspired by a passage from Zora Neale Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God, which specifically refers to the oppression of black women. Frankie, perhaps more enlightened than she sometimes appears, seems to know all this and get it. To the credit of the writing and the performances by Adlon and Hannah Alligood, who I love more with each passing episode, the entire conversation flows with a natural lightness that makes it sound authentic but also doesnt undermine the subtext of it, either. Thats an awfully tough thing to do, given how they touch on weighty subjects like intersectionality and cultural appropriation. The broader point is made, in this moment and in the title of this episode: Women are definitely the something of the something.

Instead of leaving us with an image of Sam bemoaning that fact, the episode ends with a frame filled practically from corner to corner with the color pink, as Sam, Frankie, and a bunch of pink T-shirted feminist ralliers dance side by side. They all look like real people, the kind of nice ladies willing to give their jackets to other women if the need arises. Inevitably, it will.
Photo: Franziska Krug/Getty Images

Set phasers to vote for Hillary Clinton. The cast and crew of Star Trek have signed an open letter endorsing Hillary Clinton for president and denouncing the candidacy of Donald Trump. Star Trek cast and crew members from the current movie franchise including J.J. Abrams, Justin Lin, Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, Zachary Quinto, and John Cho joined Trekkies from the past like Kate Mulgrew, George Takei, and family members of the deceased Leonard Nimoy and creator Gene Roddenberry to urge people to vote for Clinton over Trump or even a third-party candidate. (The Borg-eyed among you will note that there are some notable absences including William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, and Avery Brooks.) In a Facebook group called Trek Against Trump they write:



Star Trek has always offered a positive vision of the future, a vision of hope and optimism, and most importantly, a vision of inclusion, where people of all races are accorded equal respect and dignity, where individual beliefs and lifestyles are respected so long as they pose no threat to others. We cannot turn our backs on what is happening in the upcoming election. Never has there been a presidential candidate who stands in such complete opposition to the ideals of the Star Trek universe as Donald Trump. His election would take this country backward, perhaps disastrously. We need to elect a president who will move this country forward into the kind of future we all dream of: where personal differences are understood and accepted, where science overrules superstition, where people work together instead of against each other.

And no, voting for a third-party candidate wont do! Trekkies are realistic people, after all, and they argue that a protest vote for a Libertarian or Green Party candidate would be illogical and inaccurate. (Is that you, Spock?) Read the full letter below:


Simon McBurney in The Encounter. Photo: Tristram Kenton

In 1969, a National Geographic photographer named Loren McIntyre made what was supposed to be a three-day expedition to Brazils Javari Valley in search of the Mayouruna, an indigenous, itinerant Amazonian tribe. He found them, or they found him, and over the course of several months of quasi-captivity (they seemed to regard him as both a god and a danger) he suffered near-starvation, hallucinatory delirium, and a subcutaneous infestation of maggots. You can skip the starvation and the maggots, if you like; to experience McIntyres existential odyssey at close range all you need is a ticket to The Encounter. The new play from Complicite  conceived, directed, and written by the companys artistic director, Simon McBurney  opened incongruously on Broadway tonight in a production billed as the last word in immersive theater.

Immersive it is. Each theatergoer is provided with headphones through which nearly the entire play  a 110-minute monologue  is performed using audio technology that makes it seem as if sounds are emanating from real locations around you. The illusion, a kind of trompe loreille, is uncanny; you reflexively turn toward the apparent source of mosquito buzzings, monkey cacklings, even a childs singing before your consciousness reminds you that its all happening in what McBurney calls the 2.6 pounds of electrified pate between your ears. That pate can process more aural information than you might imagine; as the chaos of McIntyres experience grows, the sound design (by Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin) becomes so layered you may feel a kind of auditory nausea.

This is thrilling in its way, but as you begin to adjust to the tech tricks you also begin to wonder how relevant and expressive they really are. The story, adapted from a 1992 account of McIntyres journey called Amazon Beaming, trades heavily in the slightly stoned and gassy sense of wonder you might experience in a freshman anthropology course. The Mayouruna, we learn, have a different concept of time than ours. They are radically anti-materialistic and practice a form of wordless communication that McIntrye calls beaming and that we might call telepathy. McBurney tries to connect these themes  well, not the anti-materialism; the sound equipment must be expensive  to the technology at hand, noting that most of what we call reality is a fiction constructed, like the shows soundscape, from bits of information and shared assumptions. For McIntyre, those assumptions collapsed in his months with the Mayouruna, as dissociated, primal thoughts crept out of the gaps formerly filled with guesses.

Hence the audio illusions. But even if you buy the connection, and groove to the mystical musings of this South American Heart of Darkness, you may find the spell wearing off well before the story does. Its immersive, yes, but not so much theater: Its more like watching a radio show in a studio, with special kudos to the Foley artist. Even McBurneys exhausting efforts to bring the story to gestural life (hes spelled for two performances a week by Richard Katz) are undercut by the sound; privileging the ears so exclusively diminishes other aspects of the dramatic experience. Theres not much to see, for instance, in Michael Levines set design, and the lighting by Paul Anderson is in any case quite dim, which is probably why several people around me shut their eyes and dropped off. The Encounter may be happening in your head but, ultimately, its someone elses trip.

The Encounter is at the John Golden Theatre through January 8.
Westworld. Photo: John P Johnson/Courtesy of HBO

How fitting that Westworld, a science-fiction drama set at a Wild West theme park staffed by hyperrealistic robots, would run on HBO. Almost 20 years ago, the cable channel premiered The Sopranos, an intellectualized gangster saga that perfected the idea of the novel for television. This new megaproduction has been marketed as if it were the next Game of Thrones  itself a Sopranos-dark sword-and-sorcery epic, based on an actual series of novels  but it turns out to be something much richer and slipperier, and in some ways more off-putting: a meticulously constructed, obsessively self-analyzing show, tailor-made for a pop-culture era dominated by TV and discussion of TV. Westworld is an adults-only drama with characters who seem a bit abstract and thin in the first couple of episodes but who grow more complex the longer you spend in their company. But it is also an adults-only drama about the idea of an adults-only drama  a show that scrutinizes itself from so many different angles that all the recaps and think pieces its sure to generate might end up seeming redundant. Created by J. J. Abrams and the married production team of Jonathan Nolan (The Dark Knight, Interstellar) and Lisa Joy (Pushing Daisies), Westworld is inspired by the late novelist and filmmaker Michael Crichtons 1973 movie about a Wild West theme park where theoretically servile robots blow a gasket and attack the guests.

Evan Rachel Wood plays Dolores Abernathy, a blonde, apple-cheeked frontierswoman. James Marsden plays Teddy Flood, a dimpled gunfighter whos sweet on Dolores. Ed Harris plays the Man in Black, a menacing figure whose ensemble evokes Yul Brynners proto-Terminator in the original Westworld, and who comes across as one of those Shakespearean villains who know theyre in a play and are determined to decode its rules. Thandie Newton is Maeve Millay, the British-accented madam of Westworlds brothel. Ben Barnes plays a decadent rotter who only wants to get laid; Jimmi Simpson is his brother-in-law-to-be, whos not the least bit ashamed of being a do-gooder. When you watch the pilot and the next four episodes, you will immediately realize that many of these descriptions are wildly misleading; part of the fun as well as the allure of Westworld lies in discerning not just which character is a robot and which a person, but what, if anything, such distinctions mean in a universe where human creators have programmed robots minds with memories, experiences, and gestures drawn from their own lives (as screenwriters and filmmakers might do); and whether the improvisations of actors (be they robots or guests) amount to embellishments of that deeply personal material or a wholesale hijacking of it.

The visitors and hosts are watched via surveillance cameras by the parks staff. Their ranks include Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins), Westworlds creative director, though perhaps we should call him a showrunner; Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright), the head creator of artificial people, who seems increasingly inclined to emphasize the second word in that phrase (he might be a sort of creatively powerless coexecutive producer); and Theresa Cullen (Sidse Babett Knudsen), an operations leader who watches the schedule and the bottom line and advises shutting down any experiment that might damage property or injure guests. At first there seems to be a clear separation between the park and the staff that creates, maintains, and supervises it. Ford, Lowe, Cullen, and other characters are constantly making large and small decisions that affect the visitors experiences and inflict physical and emotional wear and tear on the nonhuman hosts  everything from unveiling new story lines to implanting the robots with fleeting but meaningful physical gestures called reveries.

The scripts draw on theories of simulacra, spectatorship, life-as-performance, and the late-capitalist consumer as both royal and serf; leaven them with an almost spiritual yearning for redemption (expressed by robot and human alike); and fold it all into a series of recursive situations, like loops in a computer program or levels in a video game. Visitors adopt different moral stances depending on what they hope to gain from an experience, secure in the knowledge that if the story doesnt satisfy them, they can always come back and be someone else next time. Some visitors never leave the Westworld arrival set, a dusty frontier town, and hang out there as if it were a very expensive version of Las Vegas or Bangkok, getting drunk and bedding synthetic but physically realistic sex workers (the most popular HBO dramas feature brothels, and Westworld seems keenly, at times disapprovingly, aware of this fact), but others go on adventures in the surrounding deserts and canyons that test their capacity to resist corruption and cruelty or tempt them to release it in atavistic bursts of assault, thievery, rape, and murder. The show all but demands that we ask certain questions of ourselves, and of Westworld, as we watch. Theres quite a bit of HBO-brutal sexual assault (offscreen, thankfully) and casual nudity  both male and female robots are examined backstage without their garments, as if they were automobiles with open hoods  but is it exploitative? These are not people; theyre nonhumans played by people. Ditto the violence, which poses the same conundrum as the wanton destruction of zombies on The Walking Dead; in both series, were watching actors playact getting shot, stabbed, burned, and torn apart in a fantasy context, but is this really so different from watching human characters who never existed being treated as if they were talking piles of meat? What is bad, what is good, and are the binary categories embraced by the parks directors ironic or sneakily sincere?

Westworld owes as much to postmodern fiction and television criticism as it does to any post-Sopranos drama you can name, even as its situations resonate backward through TV history, echoing everything from UnREAL and The Prisoner to Fantasy Island, The Twilight Zone, and Abramss Lost, stirring in fragments of Blade Runner, Dark City, and The Truman Show. Its not a Western, nor is it about the prominence of the Wild West in the American imagination, although it does touch on the notion of the frontier as a simultaneously liberating and horrifying imaginative space. I cant think of another recent series thats so aggressively about what its about while also being about storytelling, especially the 21st-century TV variety. This story line will make Hieronymous Bosch look like he was doodling kittens! crows the parks narrative director, Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman), debuting an adventure thats little more than a compendium of horrors, including vivisection and cannibalism; not since The Good Wifes show-within-a-show, Darkness at Noon, has an American TV series so witheringly sent up cables quest for the next outrage generator. Of course, the laughs are tempered by our awareness that Westworld the show is forever eating its cake and having it, too. The naked actors are still naked even as castmates decry their nudity; the blood still looks like blood, whether its spilling from robots or humans; the sex-worker characters that bemoan their lot in life are still in Westworld (and on Westworld) to get guests (and viewers) rocks off. But in a hall of mirrors this immense, such contradictions come to seem like intentional touches, not sloppy mistakes. The wry-grim tone of the show invites you to go looking for notes of hypocrisy or cynicism, then ask whether Westworlds self-awareness complicates, obscures, or evades them.

Most startling of all are the bursts of feeling that bloom inside Nolan and Joys puzzle-box narrative structures. These, too, regard themselves with two minds. They are great TV moments but also comments on the act of watching TV, a medium whose long-form stories eventually thaw even the iciest viewers hearts, whether they think the show in question is good or bad, ambitious or merely pretentious.

You know why this beats the real world? asks the Man in Black. The real world is just chaos. Its an accident. But in here, every detail adds up to something.

*This article appears in the October 3, 2016, issue of New York Magazine.
Photo: Universal Pictures

Mark Wahlberg has been in more than 40 films, and in almost every one of them, including Lone Survivor, he survives. That would be less impressive if he starred in movies that had kittens on the posters, but Wahlberg is like Bostons very own Jason Statham: Hes got comedic range (I Heart Huckabees, The Other Guys, Ted), but for the most part he sticks to variations on the Mark Wahlberg Saves the Day conceit. Sometimes that means saving it from Decepticons (Transformer: Age of Extinction), other times from corruption (Broken City, Shooter, The Corruptor, The Yards), and in the new Deepwater Horizon, he does his best to save the crew of an oil rig that exploded off the coast of Mexico in 2010.

Wahlberg doesnt always make it  RIP Ryan Westerberg from The Substitute, Bobby Shatford from The Perfect Storm, and Norman from Mojave, and good riddance to you, David McCall from Fear. But he has weathered being shot in the face, blown up, beaten relentlessly, chop blocked by the Starship Enterprise, and so, so many shootouts. Who else do you know that would take on a helicopter with a Mini Cooper? So to celebrate his latest instance of heroic self-preservation, we look back at 31 unique ways hes evaded the icy hand of death.

Drug addiction.

A gang beating.

Exploding cars.

Being inside an exploding building.

A car-chase shootout.

Hand to hand combat with a bipedal ape general.

Spending minutes submerged in frozen-over water.

ODing on super-soldier enhancement drugs.

Carrying massive gambling debts with three separate criminals. Photo: Paramount Pictures
Woodway Public Safety Association will have its 43rd annual Police and Firefighter barbecue fundraiser from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at Woodway Elementary School, 325 Estates Drive.

Tickets for the all-you-can-eat barbecue, catered by Viteks BBQ, cost $13 for adults or $10 for ages 4 to 12 and can be purchased at the event or in advance at the Woodway Public Safety Department, 925 Estates Drive.

For more information, call Amy Tillotson at 772-4470 or email atillotson@woodwaymail.org.

Free health care day

Providence Healthcare Network is having a free Health Day event from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Waco Convention Center, 100 Washington Ave.

The event will offer McLennan County residents free medical and vision services for adults and children and free dental services for adults only.

Services will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis.

Patients should bring a list of their prescriptions. Insurance is not needed.

For more information, visit www.providence.net/medicalmission or call 751-4000.

Anti-violence march

Voices 4 All, All Women Marching for Hope and Bellmead Police Department will have the fourth annual March Against Domestic Violence from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday starting at 1700 Dallas Circle.

The march will finish at the Doris Miller gravesite, 4800 Bellmead Drive.

For more information, call Carolyn Thomas at 733-5749 or 817-228-1323.

Valley Mills gathering

The Gathering in the Valley, a community outreach event, will be from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at Santa Fe City Park in Valley Mills.

The family event will include live music, a chuck wagon, barbecue plates, a bounce house, a dunking booth, face painting, a cake walk and a bike show.

All food and activities are free for this alcohol-free event. Attendees are encouraged to bring lawn chairs.

For more information, call 932-6273.

Robinson benefit

A benefit for Tommy Robinson will be from 11 a.m. to midnight Saturday at Geneva Hall, 720 S. Connally Drive in Elm Mott.

The event will include live music, a car show, a bake sale, barbecue plates, a silent auction, raffles, a washers tournament, a bounce house and other activities for children.

Proceeds will help to cover Robinsons medical expenses as he battles lung cancer.

For more information, call 717-1965.

Robinson food pantry

Shepherds Heart Robinson Food Pantry, 106 W. Lyndale Drive, will be open from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday for residents in need of supplemental food.

All clients, new and existing, must be prepared to complete a new registration form and show proof of residency, which could include a drivers license, state ID or water bill with clients name.

For more information, call 307-7225.

Submit items for Briefly to Briefly, P.O. Box 2588, Waco 76702-2588; fax to 757-0302; or email to goingson@wacotrib.com.
Care Net Pregnancy Center of Central Texas was honored Sept. 9 in Orlando, Florida, at the Care Net National Conference with the Critical Client Care Award.

It is Care Nets highest recognition among suburban pregnancy centers for serving women and couples making pregnancy decisions.

Deborah McGregor, chief executive officer of Care Net Pregnancy Center of Central Texas, expressed her appreciation for the recognition.

It is an awesome responsibility that God has given us  to provide unaltered truth in the face of a crisis, and then trust him for the results, she said.

In the last year, 2,686 clients received support in making healthy choices about pregnancy, relationships and family formation, according to Care Net in Waco officials.

Care Net recently opened a facility that includes a support center and guesthouse. The guesthouse has provided more than 1,200 days and nights to women and their children.

Care Net in Waco is among more than 1,100 pregnancy centers in North America affiliated with the national Care Net organization.

Care Net held its annual Celebrate Life Banquet on Sept. 20 with guest speaker Matt Chandler, an author and pastor of Dallas- based The Village Church.

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Deborah McGregor (center), CEO of Care Net of Central Texas, accepts the Critical Care Award at Care Nets national conference. With her are Roland Warren (left), president of Care Net National, and Jennifer Joy Morgan, affiliate care and content coordinator.

Care Net photo
Four area school districts are investigating possible social media threats made in a two-day period by what district officials are calling creepy clowns.

Waco, Robinson, Connally and Gatesville Independent School Districts have increased security presence on campuses and around schools after receiving information about social media posts stating an intent to harm students. This isnt the first rash of incidents involving terrorizing clowns, but the incidents are some of the first reported in Texas.

The impulsive nature of adolescents, combined with poor judgment and the lengthy cultural history of using innocent or happy objects to frighten people may be playing into the spate of clown incidents across the nation, said Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist based in California who consults on criminal and civil cases across the country.

I think of the Chuckie horror movies and the Children of the Corn movies, Meloy said. The shock of the benign becoming dangerous is very frightening. The joyful ocean beach vacation becomes a predators hell: Jaws. 

Waco ISD police and district officials have been investigating a social media threat made on Facebook Thursday night by someone dressed as a clown in their profile picture saying they plan to harm students at Waco High and University High on Friday.

Kill everybody

First we going to Waco high then we going to university and we gone kill everybody, the post states. It also shows a profile picture of a clown holding a knife.

Waco ISD police were questioning two people Friday morning who investigators believe have knowledge of the source of the threat, but they have since been released, Waco ISD spokesperson Bruce Gietzen said. One of the two questioned is a student, but Gietzen could not confirm whether the other is also a student.

He said district police have been working since about 9 p.m. Thursday to identify the source of the threat but have not found the person responsible as of noon Friday.

We take every threat against our schools and students very seriously, and even though we have no indication that this one was credible, our officers went on alert status and increased presence and patrols today at those two campuses and in nearby areas, Gietzen stated in a press release. The threat was similar to a series of creepy clown hoaxes around the nation recently. Many of those targeted schools, and to our knowledge, in every case those turned out to be false.

However, across the nation, students and adults have been arrested in connection to the growing trend in clown- related threats and attacks, according to multiple media reports.

Robinson ISD Assistant Superintendent Tim VanCleave said the district was alerted to a similar creepy clown threat about 7 a.m. Friday. Its unclear whether the threat may be connected to the one with Waco ISD, but it mentioned the two Waco schools and Robinson ISD, VanCleave said. The district has been working all day with school resource officers and local law enforcement to investigate the matter and make sure campuses are safe, he said.

At this time we havent found any credibility behind it, and we take all these situations as seriously as we can and we look into it and see what we can find out, VanCleave said.

A local agency notified Connally Police Department of the threats to other schools, but there was no direct threat made to Connally ISD on Friday morning. But, the district took a proactive approach as a precaution and Connally ISD police officers are actively working with other local law enforcement agencies to investigate the posts, Connally ISD spokesperson Anna Sanchez said.

At this time, the district has not received any credible information to facilitate a lockdown of CISD campuses, a Connally ISD Facebook post read. Connally ISD police will remain diligent in their investigation to find the origin of the posts. Student safety is a high priority for Connally ISD, and we will do everything possible to protect our students and staff.

Incidents and scary clown sightings have been reported in at least 10 other states, according to USA Today. Some involved clowns hiding in wooded areas near apartment complexes in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, the article states.

Another recent incident came from Corpus Christi on Thursday when a middle school student was removed from a campus after making a social media threat encouraging others to dress as clowns and commit acts of violence, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Scaring and being scared can deviate into threats that spread like contagion due to poor judgment, Meloy, the forensic psychologist, said. Dont ever underestimate the impulsivity of adolescent and young adult males.

Meloy said the imitation of others behavior is part of normal development and plays a role in cases like the threats seen in Waco. Meloy is an expert on personality disorders, psychopathy, stalking, narcissism, criminality and targeted violence.

Gatesville ISD

Just outside McLennan County, Gatesville Independent School District officials were made aware of reports Friday of a scary clown abducting individuals, the district posted on its Facebook page.

We are monitoring the situation and patrolling the area in conjunction with local police, the post states. At this point all reports are unsubstantiated. Please contact the schools or local authority if you see anything suspicious.

Some parents have expressed concern and taken students home early for the day, Gietzen, of Waco ISD, said. Others, including local attorney Melissa Waden Wray, said she let her daughter continue the day as normal because she trusts district officials to be on top of the incident and take appropriate steps. Wrays daughter alerted her to the post Friday morning on the way to school and she was concerned, but not panicked, she said.

I am aware that these types of threats are typically not carried out, and the school shootings that have occurred in recent years were not, to my knowledge, preceded by threats, Wray said. I told her to report it. She did, and the district was already aware of it and investigating. It appears the district is doing everything it can to secure the campus and protect the students.

For Robin McDurham, a Waco ISD assistant superintendent and former professional clown, the situation sends a chill down her spine, she said. McDurham became a professional childrens entertainer to help her pay for college, often attending birthday parties and hospitals as a clown or fairy princess before she moved to Waco 16 years ago, she said.

Its all over the place, and its unfortunate. Its like Chuckie or the little bizarre dolls or the things related to childhood, or in my case, celebrations, get twisted and turned around, McDurham said. It gets attention. Clowns get attention, and its unfortunate because schools have to take every threat seriously. Weve had our folks working on this, and it puts a chill down your spine anytime theres a threat. Its not funny. Its criminal and its not OK.

Waco ISD will have an increased security presence on the campuses until the issue is resolved, Gietzen said. Its possible whoever posted the threat may have seen a viral clown post district officials were already aware of, involving a clown standing under a street sign from Waco, Kentucky, he said. The person may have spotted the Waco, Kentucky, clown post and used it as an opportunity to bring the creepy clown hoax to Waco, Texas, he said.

We want to assure parents our campuses are safe, and we are taking extra steps to make sure that continues. Again, we strongly believe this threat was part of this online series of hoaxes, Gietzen stated. This is a prime example of the power of social media, and that power is not always used in a good way and can create fear and uncertainty. There have been arrests in some of those earlier threats, and that could be true in our case, too, along with criminal charges.

Gietzen said the district will keep parents informed on this case and any other necessary information through social media and the districts website.
Most of the McLennan County commissioners said this week the countys nondiscrimination policy should not include sexual orientation and gender identity since state and federal law dont require it.

Within the next month, commissioners will consider adopting a new county employee handbook after staff spent the past year updating the 2002 document. The countys human resource director, who was hired in part for her progressive thinking, originally planned to include sexual orientation and gender identity in the document until she says she faced backlash from commissioners.

She planned to include the phrases as an explanation of sex, which state law prohibits employers from using as a basis for discrimination, human resources director Amanda Talbert said.

During the interview process for a new HR director, county leaders repeatedly stated they wanted someone who could help bring the county into the future after the head of the department retired after 16 years. The county hired Talbert in March 2015.

Talbert took the countys direction to become more progressive in part to include updating the countys nondiscrimination policy. Not long after being hired, she added sexual orientation and gender identity to the countys nondiscrimination list on job applications to further explain what sex meant, she said at the time of the change. Texas law prohibits discrimination in employment based on a persons race, religion, sex, national origin, age, color or disability.

Shortly after the Tribune-Herald published a story on the addition of sexual orientation and gender identity to the countys policy, each commissioner told Talbert to change the wording back or it would be a reflection in my performance review, Talbert said recently.

Each commissioner approached her individually and asked her to remove the phrases, Talbert said. She was disappointed because that was an action she had felt strongly about, she said.

Several commissioners this week said they remembered asking her to remove the phrase but nothing about her performance review. Most of the commissioners said they asked her to remove the words because she changed the wording on the document without their approval.

Last year, County Judge Scott Felton told the Tribune-Herald the county was working toward bringing several departments up to date, which included updating the nondiscrimination policy. At the same time, Commissioner Ben Perry said he didnt see the addition of sexual orientation and gender identity facing any barriers from commissioners, as inclusion of the language was standard practice.

Felton said Thursday he might have said the policy needed updating but hes sure he didnt detail in what way it needed to be revised. Felton said he no longer thinks the policy needs an update.

I dont believe that the commissioners court discriminates. Im not saying discrimination doesnt happen. The basic thing we want to know is what does the law say we need to be doing, he said.

Perry also said Thursday he doesnt think the policy needs an update any more.

Honestly, at the time I had that conversation I thought we were going to be mandated to have it, Perry said.

Texas law does not allow counties to pass employment protections countywide. However, county leaders can pass protections for county employees. Cities with populations of more than 5,000 can pass protections that apply to all employers in their jurisdiction.

Dallas, Austin and Fort Worth have had protections in place for at least a decade. In June 2014, the city of Waco added sexual orientation and gender identity as categories protected under the citys internal nondiscrimination policy, barring discrimination against city employees who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

Equality Texas is working to create a statewide nondiscrimination policy specifically covering sexual orientation and gender identity.

In August, Equality Texas, among others, launched an education campaign to fight LGBTQ discrimination. The educational series is especially needed now as politicians across the country target the transgender community, according to Equality Texas website.

All Texans should have the right to provide for themselves and their families, the website states. Businesses need a stable workforce and clear guidelines in order to recruit and maintain the best employees. Adopting a single, statewide standard of employment nondiscrimination is good for Texans and good for Texas businesses.

Drawing the line

Commissioner Kelly Snell asked if the county starts adding protection clauses to the nondiscrimination policy, when would they draw the line and stop? Snell said someone could then want to include purple and white zebras in the countys nondiscrimination policy.

If its not a law, I would leave it off, just for the simple reason its not a requirement, Snell said. You cant cover everything. I think a good stopping place is whats required by law.

Snell said county employees dont need to worry about discrimination.

Snell said he doesnt remember the phrases added to the job application, the Tribune-Herald story, or having any discussion with Talbert about removing the phrases.

Mike Dixon, a Waco attorney who represents McLennan County, said hes taking his time working through the updated employee handbook.

Every time I go back I remember something that should be in there. Its a process, Dixon said.

Dixon said he expects the draft document to go to commissioners for review in about a month. Once the draft is complete, he said, they can talk to commissioners about any specific questions that come up during the process about what to include and make changes at the courts request.

Felton and Perry said Talbert should have gotten approval from commissioners before making adjustments last year to the countys job application document. They said county leaders hired Talbert to make improvements to the office, but those changes need individual approval from them first.

Theres areas I guess where theres changes made, not commas, anything that changes the message of how we want to operate or have others act or operate in processes, those need to be explained as we go through this approval process, Felton said.

Commissioner Will Jones said he remembers asking Talbert to remove the phrases but not in connection with her job performance.

Jones said he didnt know the changes to the countys job application had been made until he read about it in the Tribune-Herald.

Nowhere in the law does it say that we have to have it on there, Jones said.

If the court wants to include the phrases, it needs to be debated during a meeting, he said.

Perry said if Talbert feels strongly about the wording, she should bring it before commissioners during a meeting for discussion.

My gut feeling is, is that I think everybody was waiting to see if it would be mandated or optional action, Perry said.

He said if there were a discrimination problem in the county, he would be open to adding the additional protections. But he doesnt think the county has ever had that problem since no one has come forward, Perry said.

It wouldnt hurt anything to add the extra wording, but then again, what purpose does it serve if you put it in there if youre not experiencing a problem? Perry said.

Snell said while he hasnt seen the draft employee handbook he has heard there have been a lot of changes. A revision to the handbook has been a long time coming, he said. Snell said when he received the manual eight years ago after he was elected it was small and not well put together. The human resources office was way behind when Talbert took over, he said.

Snell said he commends Talbert and Dixon for taking the time to update the handbook.

He is requesting Talbert keep the countys employee handbook online and not permit printed copies, Snell said. He said that ensures the latest version of the document is always available and no one relies on an outdated printed version, plus the financial benefits.

Itll save us thousands of dollars in printing, he said.

Commissioner Lester Gibson could not be reached for comment.
The polling has drawn ever closer. More and more people wonder if those of us conservative Christians who are NeverTrump should finally yield, knowing that we can beat Hillary Clinton. I am in an odd position.

I am mindful that should Donald Trump win, the Republican establishment will blame conservative Christians for giving rise to Trump. I know if Trump loses, the Republican establishment will blame people like me for giving rise to Trump and Trump supporters will blame people like me for his loss. I am in a no-win position.

With Trumps rise in the polls and the increasingly competitive nature of the race, it is time to heavily weigh my opposition to Trump. After all, I also view Clintons candidacy as anti-American.

I realize saying Clintons candidacy is, in my view, anti-American offends some or comes off as hyperbolic, but I think her candidacy is fundamentally anathema to and in opposition to basic historic American values. I believe the Founders of this country recognized individual liberty as negative liberty. It was not what individuals could do if government helped them that made this country great. It was what individuals could do if government left them alone.

Clintons vision of a leviathan nanny state runs counter to those ideals. She would expand the government, engage the government in social experimentation and advance the agenda of the sexual revolution against the church. I am under no delusions. With Clinton as president, the church in this country will be in for a difficult time, besieged from the outside.

At least with Trump we might, might get a better Supreme Court. We might get better Cabinet picks. In fact, in terms of my view of the country the odds are pretty great that my side has a greater chance of prevailing with Trump than Clinton. What most would identify as my side would have control of the executive branch and its critical powers of appointment and regulation.

Un-American

So I should at least here and now, as the race draws close, reconsider my opposition to Trump. Ive been doing it in conversation with friends, in prayer and in quiet time dedicated to considering the future. But in so doing, I have to admit that while I may view Clintons campaign as anti-American, I view Trumps campaign as un-American.

The American spirit eschews the idea of a strong man in Washington fixing all our problems. We are supposed to be against the imposition of values set by Washington and instead should embrace our heterogeneity as a people. Not only does Trump not do that, but his views pervert the liberal order of things as much as Clintonian illiberalism. Clinton offers neither safety nor freedom and Trump offers safety at the expense of freedom. While I see Clinton as having no virtue, I see Trump corrupting the virtuous and fostering hatred, racism and dangerous strains of nationalism.

More importantly, while I think Clinton will do long-term damage to the country, I believe Trump will do far more damage to the church, which must be my chief priority. A Clinton administration may see the church besieged from the outside, but a Trump administration will see the church poisoned from within.

I see it happening even now. This past Friday I debated the merits of Trump and sat next to a Christian who argued that because God chose sinners, we should choose Trump. She argued that a bunch of other presidents were terrible, immoral people so we should be OK with Trump. She argued that God chose Abraham, Samson and David, so we should choose Trump.

Bragging about affairs

I do not recall John F. Kennedy writing books bragging about his affairs. I do not recall Bill Clinton telling a television audience he wanted to have sex with his daughter. How far a Christian must fall to justify the low morals of one man by tearing down the reputations of others in sometimes exaggerated manners! And I do recall God choosing Abraham, Samson and David and all of them repenting of their sins. That repentance stands in studied contrast to Donald Trump, who has three times said he never had to ask for forgiveness and only recently said his advance of the church, if he is elected, might be the only thing that gets him into heaven.

When I see Christians defining deviancy down to justify a political decision, I see a real problem for the church. When I see Christians saying we have license to choose bad men because God chose bad men, I see the sparks of apostasy. Many of my friends have turned themselves over to the anger Trump displays. I see friends on Twitter in meltdown, tweeting profanity at others, spending their time on radio attacking friends by name for refusing to yield. Not only is this not healthy, it reeks of desperation.

The level of fear many of my friends have toward what a Clinton administration may bring has turned to desperation and desire for a protector. But we already have one and neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

So many pastors who email me to beg me to reconsider and so many others who write do so because they think this is the last best chance to get this nation right. They think we will turn a corner after which we cannot turn back. While I concede they may be right, what I see is a level of desperation causing them to place their trust in one strong man instead of God. And, in truth, I do not concede they are right but have concluded we are already past the point of redemption when the best either party can do is offer up Clinton or Trump. The seriousness and virtue of the voter is in the grave already and my Christian brethren for Trump yearn for an idolized past that never existed in a future that is not theirs but Gods to shape.

Seeing men like Wayne Grudem and others beclown themselves trying to justify support of a man like Trump makes me weep for the shallow faith of a church more wrapped up in its Americanness than its godliness. I have to say I was truly blown away by having a Christian sit next to me on Friday and argue that we should support an immoral adulterer who had never asked for forgiveness because of what he might do for Christians.

Hypocrisy on grand scale

Just read Grudems own attack on Rudy Giuliani in 2012 to see his hypocrisy derived from desperation now:

So it seems to me that if evangelicals dont support Romney in a significant way, Giuliani will be the Republican candidate. So then we will have a pro-abortion, pro-gay rights candidate who is on his third marriage and had a messy affair prior to his divorce from his second wife. Then we will lose any high moral ground and the enthusiasm of the evangelical vote (many of whom will just sit it out), and the difference between Giuliani and Clinton will be only one of degrees as he shifts leftward in the general election to appeal to the middle.

How now can Grudem advance his witness to questioning unbelievers? He now praises an unrepentant man both guilty of and proud of the very sins he attacked Giuliani for. Even Giuliani never wrote a book bragging about his affairs with married women or boasting of taking advantage of others through strategic bankruptcy filings and shorting laborers. One can hardly escape the conclusion that had Giuliani been the nominee, Grudem would be chastising Christians for not wanting to vote for the man.

That I see so many Christians justifying Trumps immorality, defining deviancy down, and turning to anger and despondency about the future tells me I cannot in good faith support Trump because his victory would have lasting, damaging consequences for Christianity in America. We harm our witness by embracing the immoral, unrepentant strong man. We harm our American virtue by buying into the idea that one man can make America great again.

I think Hillary Clinton will do lasting damage to the country. I cannot vote for her.

I think Donald Trump will do lasting damage to the witness of the Church in America and I therefore cannot vote for him.

I am without a candidate.

Erick Erickson is one of Americas foremost conservative activists. He hosts Atlantas Evening News with Erick Erickson and previously served as editor-in-chief of the conservative political blog RedState. He appeared at the Texas Lyceum convention at Baylor University in 2013.
WAHOO  It was a good day to be a Warrior alumni Saturday, as about 325 people attended the Wahoo Public Schools All Class Reunion.

This was the third All Class Reunion, and the first one hosted by the Wahoo Public Schools Foundation.

The evening at Starlite Ballroom was punctuated with lots of reminiscing, dinner, a silent auction and performances by the high schools choir and jazz band.

The Foundation also used the evening as an opportunity to hand out two special awards.

The Charlie Divis Distinguished Service Award was started several years ago. Foundation Board Member Bill Reece said the award, named after the former school principal, is not given every year, but is meant to go to those special people who dedicate themselves to the district and the community.

Dr. John Hansen and Willard Hunzeker both received a Charlie Divis Distinguished Service Award Saturday.

After completing his military service in 1958, Hansen was looking for a place to set up his family practice and raise his young family, which included wife, Helen, and three children.

The Hansens came to Wahoo.

Soon after arriving, Doc began his work with Wahoo Public Schools, Foundation Member Eric Gottschalk said. The current team physician, Dr. Hinrichs, didnt care too much for it and the Young Dr. Hansen was more than willing to help out.

For the next 40 plus years, Dr. Hansen would be a constant fixture on the Wahoo Warrior sidelines. I, for one, remember the feeling of comfort knowing Doc was just steps away at all times.

In addition to his service to the school district, the long-time Wahoo physician was also a member of the Wahoo Volunteer Fire Department. He served as both fire chief and squad leader during his 50 plus years on the department.

Gottschalk pointed out the service to the school was not just limited to Doc.

Helen also served our school district as a Wahoo School Board member for two terms in the 1980s, he said.

Willard Hunzeker brought his family, including wife, Marjorie, and two sons, to Wahoo in 1971. Prior to that, the Pawnee City native had already served as educator and a superintendent in several communities.

In his years with the Wahoo district, Willard oversaw widespread changes, Gottschalk said. The second year here, he instituted a new concept of operating a middle school, grades sixth through eighth rather than the current junior high system of seventh and eighth grades.

That novel concept in 1972 is widely used today.

Hunzeker also oversaw in

1972 the work to build a new high school/middle school building, the one that is still in use by the district.

The new 2.75 million dollar project was passed on its first vote and the new school opened its doors in the fall of 1976, Gottschalk added.

Since his retirement in 1985, Hunzeker has stayed active with the First Presbyterian Church, the Wahoo Lions Club and the Wahoo

Masons.

Hunzeker is also a World War II veteran, serving with the Air Corp Reserves in the European Theater. He flew 33 missions over enemy territory.

Last weekends all class reunion was for all Wahoo High School graduates. The earliest class represented was 1941. Andy Murren of Colon was present to celebrate his 75th anniversary of graduation.
RAYMOND  Voters in Raymond Central School Districts Ward 1 will choose between two candidates to replace an outgoing board of education member this November.

With current Board Member Mark Christensen not filing for re-election, his seat is up for grabs. Brad Breitkreutz and Cindi Wolfe have both tossed their hats into the ring for the open spot on the board.

Both offer a new perspective to the board of education.

Breitkreutz has lived in the district for 25 years and is actively involved in the day-to-day operation of the schools. He started working for the district 14 years ago as a part-time bus driver and began working as a para at Valparaiso Elementary in 2006.

He said that experience could be valuable to the board.

Being a bus driver and a special ed para, I could just bring a different perspective to the board, Breitkreutz said. Since they dont have anyone on the board in my position.

Part-time district employees are not prohibited from serving on the board of education, unlike full-time faculty and administrators.

Breitkreutz also has one child currently enrolled in the district, a daughter in her junior year.

Wolfe has lived in the Raymond area since 2010 and has a first grader and fourth grader enrolled at Valparaiso Elementary.

Having younger students enrolled in the district would allow her to bring a different perspective to the board, she said.

I feel that we have a lot of our residents care a lot about our education, but I do feel like I have the energy and our passion to work hard for our children, she said.

And though she doesnt have experience in the district, Wolfe does have experience in politics. While in college, she interned for an Illinois senator in Washington, D.C. She said she worked with the senators staff on promoting agricultural issues, such as ethanol, in the nations capital.

Seeing the internal workings of the political machine was interesting, though she never thought she would run for office.

There was not a huge desire to run for office or anything, she said. Just a desire to get involved in the system and democracy and watching it work.

When she moved to Kearney with her husband, she worked with the citys chamber of commerce.

That actually probably sparked my interest in serving on committees and community organizations, she said.

Since moving to Nebraska, shes become a stay-at-home mom and volunteers with church and school groups.

Breitkreutz was recently elected president of the Raymond Central Educational Foundation, where he works with other members to raise money for scholarships and other district needs.

We believe weve made a difference, he said. Helping teachers and, ultimately, students.

Breitkreutz decided to run for the board of education to continue the districts work.

Im proud of them for doing that and I just want to be a part of it and keep that momentum going, he said.

Wolfe became interested in the board soon after her daughter began school, she said. She attended meetings to speak about her concerns with bus routes. After becoming more familiar with the district, she thought she could serve patrons well.

I am big into volunteering and making a difference where I can, she said. I feel like I have a lot of energy that I could lend to the board. I just want to help out where I can.

Both candidates said the property tax burden for patrons is a big issue in the district.

I want to keep costs down and taxes down and still balance the quality of education, Breitkreutz said. Lowering the levy is one way to do it, that helps keep all our taxes down. We obviously have to balance that against salaries and things like that.

Wolfe sympathized with other patrons, and said she too pays hefty property taxes.

Were taxed pretty heavy, she said. I certainly wouldnt want to raise taxes,

She said she would delve into state law to find possible solutions.

Wolfe would like to take advantage of her communications background to help increase the districts presence.

Over the last 10 months or so I think the school board has done a magnificent job, she said. I think we can do a better job at putting on a great face at what we have to offer students and just telling our story.

Both candidates approved of the sixth grade and preschool addition to the junior-senior high school.

Two other seats on the board of education also expire next year. Incumbent Scott Black is running unopposed in the Ward 3 race. No one has filed for the Ward 5 seat, which Brad Peterson will vacate next year.

The 2016 General Election takes place Nov. 8.
The media landscape in the next decade will involve Facebook becoming a real news provider, rather than an accidental one, says CNN anchor and correspondent Hala Gorani.

The Emmy-award winning journalist will be giving a speech at the Women World Changers Summit in Melbourne and Sydney later this month about the crucial role of journalists as media transforms in the digital age.

"The media landscape will look very different in 10 years," she tells Fairfax Media in an interview by phone from London.

Gorani, who is currently based in London as host of CNN's The World Right Now program, says Facebook may have not set out to be a news service, but it inevitably it will be.
A 35-day delay to ship capping technology to Australia in the event of a major oil spill has prompted warnings the Great Australian Bight could suffer an environmental disaster to rival the 2010 Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

Tourism, fisheries and environmental groups have pledged to continue to fight plans by oil giant BP to dig two new wells of up to two kilometres deep in waters off the South Australian coastline, saying the project risks pristine oceans and vulnerable marine life.

Environmental assessments presented to the federal government's offshore oil and gas regulator show in the event of a major oil spill from the wells, about 600 kilometres west of Port Lincoln and 350 kilometres south-west of Ceduna, BP plans to bring an oil well capping stack from Singapore, taking about five weeks.

BP says buying a new capping stack to be based in the region would cost at least $15 million but require up to a year in construction and testing time, while a facility and experts to complete regular maintenance and testing are not currently available in Australia.
What is new is the introduction, by our current prime minister, of the same-sex marriage plebiscite legislation to Parliament. In doing so, he clearly stated that "Australian society would be stronger if more people were married". There is a range of strong opinions on this issue. But one specific issue has yet to receive much attention at all. A plebiscite would offer up a widely used psychological assessment method known as "two-alternative, forced choice". This is most often used to test someone's speed of response to a particular stimulus; and it can be very useful in certain contexts. But the real question here is: does forced decision making leads to the best decisions? Probably not.

Studies suggest that, when faced with two options, decision-makers tend to take more extreme positions than they otherwise would. And it's not hard to imagine how these more extreme positions could lead to more extreme reactions  and levels of abuse. Which is exactly what Jensen Byrne wrote about experiencing during the Irish referendum on marriage equality in 2015. Ireland ultimately voted "yes" but, as noted by Byrne, the "victory was hard-fought and painful to those on both sides of the debate ... [it was also incredibly] divisive". This is what Adam fears. "One of my main concerns," he said, "is that this will provide an opportunity for hate groups to voice their opinions for all to hear." Opinions, it's worth noting, that are often ill informed, bigoted and potentially very harmful. It may also force those young people who're still unsure about their sexuality to rush a decision, or perhaps feel pressured into taking a more extreme position. Many experts in recent times, however, have argued sexuality is far from a binary construct. Michele, to whom I referred earlier, gradually grew to be a more confident and mature young adult. He is, however, very concerned for those who, like him, took some time to understand their own sexuality. "How would you feel," he asks "if the nation was voting to decide whether you had the legal right to marry the person you loved? How is it their decision?"

Consider that more than 50 per cent of those who identify as gay or lesbian hide their sexuality due to fear of abuse or violence. It's pretty safe to say that this won't be helped in any way by a "debate" that "forces" people to take more extreme views. It's also pretty safe to say that this will have an even greater impact on the mental health of those directly experiencing this than it's already having. Consider the following research findings. In 2010, a Columbia University School of Public Health study examining the effects of institutional discrimination on the psychiatric health of LGBTI individuals found an increase in psychiatric disorders, including a more than doubling of anxiety disorders, among the LGBTI population living in states with bans on same-sex marriage In December 2011, the Australian Psychological Society called for marriage equality for those in same-sex relationships, on health and wellbeing grounds. The unanimous decision was based on psychological evidence showing the mental health benefits of marriage, and the harm caused by social exclusion and discrimination arising from not having the choice to marry.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, right, as NZ PM John Key watches, in Paris last year. Credit:AP Her daughter, Shifra Hoffman, 30, a business woman, said it was hard to contemplate an Israel without Peres. "There was a feeling that he would always be there," she said. "Now that he's gone, you feel emptiness." That Abbas would come was not a given. Already under fire from Palestinians who consider his authority too close to the Israelis, Abbas risked political damage at home by agreeing to attend. Hamas, the rival Palestinian group that controls Gaza, has excoriated Peres since his death this week, calling him a war criminal, not a peacemaker. Then: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, right, clasps hands with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in 2001. Credit:AP While Egyptian and Jordanian leaders attended the funeral of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the other author of the Oslo Accords, after his assassination in 1995, neither country's top leader has said he will attend on Friday. But Egypt will send Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who visited Jerusalem over the summer and met with Netanyahu, illustrating a recent improvement of ties with Cairo.

Among the others who plan to attend the funeral on Friday at Mount Herzl, the national cemetery, are President Barack Obama, US Secretary of State John Kerry, French, President Francois Hollande and other world leaders.Australia's Governor-General Peter Gosgrove will also attend. In addition to Obama, speakers will include Netanyahu; Israel's president, Reuven Rivlin, and parliamentary speaker, Yuli Edelstein; and Peres' three children. Altogether, the Israeli authorities said they expected 60 major guests from around the world who would require security, including 20 presidents, 15 foreign ministers and five heads of state. The government began flooding Jerusalem with 8000 security officers and made plans to shut down major roads, including the highway linking Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Some schools and businesses will close on Friday given the expected disruption. The 12-hour visitation on Thursday drew a cross section of Israelis, some who had known of Peres their whole lives and others born after some of his most notable accomplishments and actions. "Shimon Peres is kind of like the embodiment of everything that I believe in in Israel - working for peace and acceptance of everybody and everything, and looking to the future," said David Weiner, 62, who described himself as self-employed.

"He was just this kind of towering figure and national statesman," agreed his nephew, Joel Weiner, 24, a university student. But the deterioration of Peres' dream of a lasting peace shadowed the day. "He never gave up, but he did not achieve it, and that's really too bad," Joel Weiner said. "He worked his whole life for it and never achieved it, which in that sense is tragic." A group of students from Brigham Young University studying in Israel for a semester also paid respects. "This is their George Washington," said Matthew Jellen, 21, a junior. "This is their Thomas Jefferson. This is their John Adams." But Odiel Malchi, 31, a mortgage banker, said he could not help noticing that many of the visitors on Thursday were foreigners, suggesting that Peres was to some extent appreciated more abroad than at home. "He was able to see the bigger picture," Malchi said. "He was able to communicate what he thought would be best for the nation. People at home sometimes had a hard time understanding and respecting that."

His passing was met with scorn by many in the Araba world who view him as a key architect of destructive Israeli policies toward Palestinians. In Saudi Arabia's Sabq newspaper, the headline of his obituary read, "President of Israeli Colonialism Peres Dies". On the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network's Arabic-language website, Peres was described as: "The butcher of Qana who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace" - a reference to the Israeli bombardment that killed scores of civilians in the village of Qana during the 1996 war in Lebanon. Peres was prime minister at the time. The starkly different reactions to Peres's death underscored the deep divides over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the plight of the Palestinian people, as well as the wide gulf in perceptions between the West and Arab countries. Even as President Obama and other leaders paid tribute to his legacy as a peacemaker, obituaries across the Middle East on Wednesday described Peres as playing a central role in Israeli assaults against Palestinians, dispossessing them of their lands and rights. "To the West, Shimon Peres is the 'Nobel laureate' and the 'tireless dove' who has been widely respected for his 'achievements' regarding the peace in the Middle East," said an obituary on the website of Al-Manar, the television station of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite Islamist militant group and political party. "However, behind this image Peres - who died on Wednesday - represents the real face of the bloody and colonial policies adopted by the Zionist regime."

The vitriol appeared louder and more widespread than after the 1996 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat following the Oslo peace accord in 1994. Statesmen from nine Muslim countries - including Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Qatar - attended Rabin's funeral, which was widely seen as a tribute to his efforts to build peace in the region. Abbas was given permission to attend the service by Netanyahu after sending a formal request to Israeli Major General Yoav Mordechai, the military chief of the occupied West Bank. Social media erupted with catcalls, damning Abbas as a weakling and begging him to cancel his appearance. After Abbas sent a public letter of condolence to the Peres family, calling the Israeli leader a brave man and expressing his sorrow, his bitter rivals in the Islamist militant movement Hamas accused Abbas of ignoring the suffering of the Palestinian people. According to aides, Abbas was undeterred.
Washington: US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has again disparaged former Miss Universe Alicia Machado's character during an early morning tweet storm on Friday, accusing her of having a "sex tape."

Trump's attack on Machado, which appeared to be based on rumours circulating on the internet, came amid an ongoing controversy over his comments about her weight gain in the months after she won the Miss Universe pageant in 1996.

His refusal to back away from his attacks on the Venezuelan-born Machado threaten to damage his already weak standing among women and Hispanics. He already faces a backlash from Cuban-Americans over allegations he tried to set up deals with Cuba under the American embargo.

In a series of tweets sent from his Twitter account on Friday morning, Trump called Machado "disgusting," a "con" and raised questions about her past.
The 11th annual WCO PICARD Conference, which ran from 27 to 29 September 2016 in Manila, Philippines, ended on a high note after three days of thought-provoking presentations by invited speakers, followed by dynamic discussions among participants.

The annual PICARD Conferences have positively impacted the work of Customs since 2006, providing a platform for informed dialogue between Customs administrations, universities, and research institutes on topics relevant to Customs and international trade.

Hosted by the Philippine Bureau of Customs, the Conference kicked off with opening remarks by WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya, the Commissioner of the Philippine Bureau of Customs Captain Nicanor Faeldon, and the Undersecretary of the Department of Finance of the Philippines Antonette Tionko.

The Conference welcomed over 250 participants from 54 countries, representing Customs administrations, academic and research communities, international and regional organizations, and the private sector.

In his address, Secretary General Mikuriya expressed his gratitude to the Philippine Bureau of Customs for hosting the PICARD Conference, extended a warm welcome to the participants, and thanked the Korea Customs Service (KCS) for supporting the participation of some speakers.

Mr. Mikuriya noted that research activities and discussions on topics relating to Digital Customs, revenue matters, illicit trade, and security, the four focus topics for this years Conference, greatly support the Customs community and its stakeholders in their daily work and decision-making processes.

Commissioner Faeldon noted that, The Philippines Bureau of Customs is proud to have been given the opportunity to bring to fruition an idea that was first conceived some five years ago; to bring the premier international conference on Customs and academic matters to the capital Manila. It has been our distinct pleasure to welcome delegates from 54 countries to explore Manila, and the many new ideas and concepts generated during the Conference that will underscore the development of Customs-related policy going forward.

The Conference benefited from an interdisciplinary approach to research and policy analysis on Customs matters, international trade, and borders.

A keynote address on tobacco control and taxation was given by Luk Joossens from the Belgian Foundation against Cancer and Association of European Cancer Leagues. The keynote was followed by a panel on tobacco control consisting of Ulysses Dorotheo (the FCTC Program Director of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance in Manila), Emma Teodoro (the President of CAI-STA Philippines Inc.), and Caroline Miller (the Director of Population Health Research at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute).

The Conference concluded with a Youth Forum, enabling students from universities across China, the Philippines, Russia and Ukraine to discuss topics integral to Customs as well as future career possibilities in Customs and in the international trade arena.

In closing the Conference, Robert Ireland, the Head of the WCO Research Unit, expressed his gratitude to the Philippine Bureau of Customs for their outstanding hospitality and efforts in making the 11th PICARD Conference a great success and paraphrased the writer David Simon by saying that the PICARD Conference is building something here, and all the pieces matter.

The WCO was proud to celebrate the 11th anniversary of the PICARD Conference in Manila, once again providing an opportunity for Customs officials and academics to meet, network and exchange ideas, thereby supporting decision-making processes in Customs and border management.
The WCO East and Southern Africa (ESA) region held a second regional Workshop on the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement from 20 to 23 September 2016 in Gaborone, Botswana. The Workshop was coordinated by the WCO and ESA Regional Office for Capacity Building (ROCB) through the kind sponsorship of UK DFID and hosted by the Botswana Unified Revenue Service (BURS). About 50 participants including 19 ESA Member administrations and other regional stakeholders were in attendance  Regional Economic Communities (RECs), the private sector and development partners.

This Workshop focused above all on discussions related to the practical implementation of the TFA measures under Articles 1 to 12 of the WTO TFA, and the WCO instruments and tools available to support governments with uniform implementation of the TFA. The importance of establishing National Committees on Trade Facilitation (NCTF) and the critical role that this Committee plays as an obligatory national body was well discussed. The experiences shared by Members on the implementation of the TFA enhanced the cross-fertilization of ideas on the challenges as well as on successful policy measures which could be adopted by Member administrations to support national TFA implementation programmes.

In his opening address, Mr. B. M. Mudongo, General Manager of the Customs Division of BURS welcomed the participants on behalf of the Commissioner, BURS. He noted the importance of using the Workshop as a good opportunity to take stock of the work undertaken collectively by the WCO, its Members and partners in terms of support for implementation of the WTO TFA. He also pointed out that the Agreement requires an inclusive government implementation approach.

The ESA region through the ROCB evaluated the discussions and outcomes of this second Workshop and concluded that implementation of the TFA remained critical to the region, especially in light of the low levels of intra-regional trade in East and Southern Africa. Considering that only 7 out of 24 countries in the region had ratified the TFA, Members were urged to influence, to the best of their abilities, their respective national processes towards ratification. The WCO, ROCB and the RECs were encouraged to find synergies to support the needs identified by Members with technical assistance, notably in the following areas: the establishment of NCTFs, accession to the WCO Revised Kyoto Convention (RKC) and the development of road maps for implementation of the TFA. The region also agreed on the need for a strong monitoring and evaluation framework to report on the implementation and progress of the TFA in the region.

The WCO representative expressed clearly the WCO commitment to assist its Members in the Region to further enhance the implementation of TFA by using the WCO instruments and tools, and reiterated the consistent support of the WCO for the regional efforts in putting the process forward.

The Workshop was successfully concluded and the outcomes of will provide valuable inputs for the development the ESA Region Strategy and Implementation Plan 2017 - 2022.
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.
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.
The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission (LWFC) approved resolutions to add land to the Peason Ridge and Tunica Hills Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) during its monthly meeting in September in Baton Rouge.

Peason Ridge WMA will add 23,300 acres and Tunica Hills WMA 627 acres.

The Peason Ridge WMA acreage addition increases the WMAs size to more than 74,000 acres. Peason Ridge WMA is located 18 miles north of Leesville and in Vernon, Sabine and Natchitoches parishes.

Tunica Hills WMA will grow to more than 6,500 acres with the added land, being provided by the Office of State Parks. Tunica Hills WMA is composed of two separate tracts lying northwest of St. Francisville in West Feliciana Parish.

Peason Ridge WMA is owned by the U.S. Army and maintained by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF). Hunting, fishing and trapping are permitted on the WMA. Camping is not permitted but is allowed on adjacent U.S. Forest Service lands.

Game species available for hunting include deer, squirrel, rabbit, quail, woodcock, dove and turkey. Bow hunting is allowed for deer. Trapping is allowed for raccoon, fox, bobcat, skunk, opossum, mink and coyote. All hunters and trappers must obtain an annual permit from the U.S. Army and daily check-in is required.

Tunica Hills WMA, owned by LDWF and Department of Recreation and Tourism, Office of State Parks, is open to a variety of outdoor recreational activities, including hunting, trapping, birdwatching, hiking, horseback riding, bike riding, sightseeing and photography. Hunting is allowed at specified times for deer, turkey and small game. Trapping is allowed for coyote, fox, bobcat, raccoon and opossum. A tent-only camping area is located off of Parker Road on the South Tract.

For more information on Peason Ridge WMA, go to http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/wma/2792 or contact the LDWF Lake Charles field office at 337-491-2575.

For more information on Tunica Hills WMA, go to http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/wma/2752 or contact Forest Burks at fburks@wlf.la.gov or 985-543-4781.
Even with 5-0 lead, Verlander can't get 1st World Series win
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Sep. 29, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 29, 2016 | 03:58 PM | PADUCAH, KY

Two women were arrested Wednesday afternoon on drug charges during a prostitution investigation.



The McCracken County Sheriff's Department says detectives were investigating alleged prostitution and spoke to a woman who went by the name Riley on the phone and via text message. The woman agreed to travel to Reidland to meet the detectives.



Deputies said the woman, later identified as 28-year-old Kristy L. Wingham of Brookport, IL arrived in a vehicle driven by another woman, 39-year-old Melanie N. Jones of Jackson, TN. The vehicle reportedly had a false Tennessee registration and Jones did not have insurance.



Detectives said they found heroin, heroin paraphernalia, and prescription medication during a search of the vehicle, and that both women had track marks on their arms from suspected drug use.



Jones and Wingham were arrested and booked into the McCracken County Jail. Both women were charged with possession of heroin, possession of drug paraphernalia and third degree possession of a controlled substance.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 29, 2016 | 08:45 PM | LEDBETTER, KY

A Ledbetter man has been arrested on methamphetamine and gun charges.

According to Kentucky State Police, 48-year-old Gregory S. Sallee turned himself in to police on Thursday. Sallee had warrants for numerous drug trafficking and firearm related charges.

Late last week, police executed a search warrant at Sallee's Ledbetter home in reference to an ongoing investigation involving large amounts of methamphetamine trafficking. During the search, detectives found over four ounces of crystal methamphetamine, a semi-automatic handgun, an assault rifle and a large amount of cash believed to be proceeds from drug trafficking. Also found were numerous types of drug paraphernalia and prescription medications.

Sallee was charged with trafficking methamphetamine, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of a handgun by a convicted felon, trafficking in marijuana less than 8 oz., possession of drug paraphernalia and trafficking in controlled substance.

Sallee was lodged in the McCracken County Regional Jail.
By The Associated Press Sep. 29, 2016 | 09:29 PM | FRANKFORT, KY

State Auditor Mike Harmon says a review of the Department of Criminal Justice Training and the public fund that supports it has revealed unnecessary and excessive spending along with improper contracts with a public university designed to circumvent state law.

The department provides training to law enforcement officers throughout the state. It is paid for by the Kentucky Law Enforcement Foundation Program Fund, which is comprised of a 1.8 percent assessment on property and casualty insurance premiums.

Harmon said the assessment was set too high, which led to surpluses in the fund that were used for purposes other than law enforcement needs. He also said the department used a contract with Eastern Kentucky University to get around state procurement laws.

In its official response, Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary John Tilley blamed the prior administration.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Sep. 30, 2016 | FRANKFORT, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 30, 2016 | 08:33 AM | FRANKFORT, KY

I would strongly suggest that you get your house in order. Your office is becoming an increasing embarrassment to the Commonwealth.



Attorney General Andy Beshear says that's the text message he got from Governor Matt Bevin this week. Beshear's office released the text to the media, and through a spokesman, said sending the text was "beneath the office of governor".



Bevin says Beshear's release "conveniently and intentionally" left out an included link to a news story about accusations that an attorney general's office investigator made "patently false and misleading statements" to a grand jury in Boyle County in a Medicaid fraud case. The judge threw the case out, based on the investigator's conduct.



Beshear has sued Bevin three times already this year over the governor's actions, including education funding. Recently, the state Supreme Court ruled against Bevin in that, and against Bevin in his re-appointing the U of L board.
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The National Youth Theatre's annual West End season coincides this year with the company's 60th birthday. There are three shows running in rep across the next few weeks  a Teddy-boy Romeo and Juliet, a staging of Dennis Kelly's DNA and this adaptation of Stephen Kelman's Booker-shortlisted novel Pigeon English.

A gut-punching story about some of the real people behind the words gangs' and gang culture', the piece follows ten year-old boy Harri from Ghana, who is living with his family on an estate in London. It is a hard-hitting, but often funny portrait, one which tries to unpack some of the stories and reasons - some of the truths - behind why young people get caught up in knife crime.

Harri's narrative dips in and out of the lives of others on his block: Never Normal Girl is the weird quiet one who, rumour has it, is being abused by her grandfather; Jordan lives next door but never goes to school and everyone is being intimidated by the gang of three older boys. Dean is Harri's best friend and together they embark on a quest to find out who stabbed a boy outside their local chicken shop. All around these young people is mindless violence, fear, hatred and neglect. The one male father figure in Harri's life gives him advice that is telling: "The only friends a man needs are a bat and a drink."

Gbolahan Obisesan's adaptation struggles somewhat with the many narrative strands of the original. It's long, and it doesn't focus. What we do get is a sense of the young boy Harri (played beautifully here by Seraphina Beh); his vulnerabilities and the way he finds the world around him so incomprehensible. "Why can't babies be born only in the daytime?" Harri says, exasperated, when his midwife mother is called to work a night shift.

Anna Niland's muddled direction doesn't help matters much and the odd decision to flag up each scene with one of the characters announcing the setting is distracting. But the performances are strong, with Beh giving a convincing portrayal infused with youthful energy and naive confusion. Arianna Beadie is also good as the grotesque Maquita, who is violent and troubled and, in a horribly unsettling scene, sexually abuses Harri. The rest of the ensemble are tight, too.

The NYT rep season isn't, really, about the writing. It's about showcasing the talent of the future. And watching these young actors, I'd say the future looks bright.

Pigeon English runs at the Ambassadors Theatre until 22 November, in rep with DNA (9 to 25 November) and Romeo and Juliet 1 to 23 November.
U.S. and Canada-based Native American tribes are expected to sign a treaty on Friday that urges protections be maintained for grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park.The treaty is the latest sign of growing American Indian activism tied to tribal rights and the environment, and just the third such cross-border agreement in 150 years, tribal members involved said.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said earlier this year that Yellowstone-area grizzlies had come back from the brink of extinction and it proposed stripping U.S. Endangered Species Act protections from the population of about 700 bears.The move would open the way for hunting bears that roam outside the park's borders in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.The treaty, expected to be signed by Piikani Nation and other tribes in the western Canadian province of Alberta on Friday, declares support by more than 50 tribes for protecting grizzlies from random killing and preserving their habitat against development.The planned ceremony comes two days before representatives of other tribes mostly in and around the U.S. Rocky Mountain West are expected to sign the same treaty during a ceremony in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.The Canada-based tribes are signing the measure to show solidarity with tribes based in the United States, as they are all united by cultural and religious ties to grizzlies.Chief Stanley Grier of the Piikani Nation and representatives from such tribes as the Blackfeet Nation in Montana and the Shoshone-Bannock of eastern Idaho, argue grizzlies are too sacred and culturally important to be killed by hunters."There should be no doubt that delisting and trophy hunting the grizzly bear on ancestral tribal and treaty lands threatens irreparable harm to those sites and to tribal sovereignty and religious freedom," Grier said.Tribal members also say the U.S. government failed to engage in "meaningful consultation" before decisions were made about delisting grizzlies.Serena Baker, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the agency had sought since 2014 to reach out to about 50 tribes  through letters, phone calls and emails  about Yellowstone grizzlies."The service has and is continuing to offer government-to-government consultation with Native American tribes west of the Mississippi," she said on Thursday.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the cause of the largest marine oil spill in history, the floating oil rig Deepwater Horizon has become synonymous with corporate recklessness trumping environmental concerns.

A filmmaker had a few ways to go in making a movie about the disaster that predicated the oil spill. Director Peter Berg takes a page from the big studio moneymakers of the 1970s and frames the Deepwater story as a disaster movie, albeit one with an underlying critique. Think particularly of the star-studded Irwin Allen-produced 1974 opus The Towering Inferno, in which a deluxe skyscraper proves to be the worlds tallest firetrap on the day of its opening due to the corner-cutting of a craven capitalist developer (William Holden).

Berg tells the story of the Deepwater Horizon disaster from the perspective of Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg), the chief electronics technician of the installation. Williams is a conscientious guy, and we share his unease when he is obliged to report on the rigs technical shortfalls due to a nickel-and-diming policy on the part of the rigs leaser, British Petroleum, miffed Deepwaters mission is behind schedule and over-budget.

ELEVATION PICTURES Mark Wahlberg in Deepwater Horizon.

Williams immediate supervisor is offshore installation manager Jimmy Harrell, a.k.a. Mr. Jimmy (Kurt Russell), another decent guy insistent about proper inspections being carried out  an unnecessary expenditure in the eyes of money-conscious BP company man Donald Vidrine (John Malkovich).

Vidrine relents when Harrell insists on pressure tests to ensure the integrity of the oil well some five kilometres under the ocean surface off the coast of Louisiana. Berg, working from a script by Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand, has already explained the basic dynamics of oil drilling in the films prelude, in which Williams young daughter helpfully shows off her school project on the subject. If its a transparent bit of exposition, Berg succeeds in making an illustrative upside-down soda pop can feel decidedly ominous.

So when hell breaks loose, and the rigs safety precautions unilaterally fail, the stage is set for calamity involving geysers of flame, flying glass and more crashing metal than a Transformers film festival.

The initial cataclysm catches our two heroes off guard  Mr. Jimmy is taking a shower and Williams is mid-Skype conversation with his wife (Kate Hudson). Of the main characters witnessing the explosion as it happens, it is 23-year-old rig worker Andrea Fleytas (Gina Rodriguez) who tries to rise to the occasion, only to be told by her supervisor (David Maldonado) she doesnt have the authority to issue a Mayday emergency call.

(If the scene feels like an on-the-nose Hollywood depiction of a young woman suffering the arrogance and condescension of an older male superior, well, that is how it happened according to a Wall Street Journal story.)

ELEVATION PICTURES Caleb Holloway (Dylan OBrien, top) and Don Vidrine (John Malkovich, bottom).

Even if the rig failure took the lives of 11 people, a disaster movie about a real-life disaster doesnt means there wont be some degree of dramatic embellishment (as in a climactic moment when Williams employs drastic measures to get Fleytas off the burning rig).

But unlike The Towering Inferno, thankfully, director Berg doesnt feel the need to populate the cast with big, glamorous stars. He chooses actors who project a certain blue-collar veracity, chiefly Wahlberg and Russell, both manfully trying to keep their characters grounded in the industrial-workplace setting.

Berg doesnt always feel the need to clarify whats going on in some of the films hairier scenes of destruction, but given that it augments the sense of ground-level chaos, it may actually serve the story in its way.

It is estimated nearly five million barrels of oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico in the 87 days it took to cap Deepwater Horizons well. It is understandable the ecological cost ultimately overshadowed the loss of life on the oil rig itself.

Bergs film offers something of a corrective portrayal of corporate greed trumping regard for human life, with a massive Hollywood set functioning as his soda can.

randall.king@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @FreepKing

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ELEVATION PICTURES Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg, left) and Jimmy Harrell (Kurt Russell, right) in DEEPWATER HORIZON.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer, if one of those bottles should happen to fall no problem, theres plenty more where that came from.

Wayne Leaf is a founding member of the Great White North Brewerianists  a Winnipeg collectors club dedicated to all manner of suds-related paraphernalia, including labels, advertising material and tap handles. The 36-member troupes 28th annual show and sale takes place today, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at Anavets Assiniboia A.N.A.F. Unit 283, 3584 Portage Ave. Admission and parking is free.

In addition to a basement annex stacked floor to ceiling with aluminum beer cans, Leaf, a territory manager for Pratts Wholesale Limited, has dozens of vintage compact bottles, more commonly referred to as stubbies, which are handsomely displayed on homemade, wooden shelves in his rec-room bar area.

I usually bring a few (stubbies) to our show, every year, he says, wiping a film of dust off an unopened bottle of Cool Spring, a Labatts product that was popular in the mid-1970s, when it was produced in New Westminster, B.C.

It never fails. Ill have a couple of (stubbies) on the table in front of me and some young person will wander by, stop in his tracks and ask, Uh, whats that?

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Wayne Leaf shows off a pair of collectible stubbies.

Good question; in their book 300 Years of Beer: An Illustrated History of Brewing in Manitoba, co-authors and self-described beer geeks Dave Craig and Bill Wright devote an entire page to the stubby, which they describe as an icon of the industry and as Canadian as maple syrup.

Not to knock other collectors groups, but if Im outside on a hot summer day and Ive just finished mowing the lawn, I cant see myself coming inside and licking a stamp. -Wayne Leaf

It all started in the late 1950s when the consolidation of the Canadian brewing industry was nearly complete, the pair writes. The Dominion Brewers Association felt the need for a standardized bottle that could be interchangeable between all breweries.

According to Craig and Wright, not only were stubbies 25 per cent lighter than their long-neck counterparts when they hit the market in 1961, they didnt break or chip as easily.

Also, the bottles glass was tinted amber, which protected the contents from ultraviolet rays.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. In 1983, after the stubbys 21-year-run as Canadas national beer bottle, ale sales in Canada were as flat as last nights Bud Light.

Marketing experts blamed the decline on the stubby, labelling its portly shape as passe. By switching to a sleeker design, they hoped their industry would get the shot in the arm it needed. (In a Globe and Mail eulogy to the vessel, columnist P.T. Jensen wrote, Stubby was unpretentious. No glamour, all function. Stubby was egalitarian. Millionaire or mooch, you got your brew in a stubby.)

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS At one time, Wayne Leaf's collection included as many as 800 stubby beer bottles. The "national beer bottle" was phased out in 1993 after marketing experts determined it was responsible for stale suds sales.

Leaf began his hobby in 1978, during a high school trip to Europe. The two-week excursion was drawing to a close, he recalls, and although hed already picked up mementoes for members of his family, he hadnt bought any souvenirs for himself, yet.

We were at a train station in Italy and there was this guy standing there with a tray of beers, kind of like those cigarette girls that used to walk around in restaurants, he says.

I bought a couple (of beers) off him, threw them in my luggage and, after I got home, decided to keep the cans. Later, when my brother started going to the States with his buddies, he always brought beer back with him. I started keeping the most interesting-looking of those (cans), too.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Leaf's collection isn't limited to bottles. His menagerie includes hundreds of bottle caps.

Leaf joined an American-based beer can collectors club in 1983, after receiving a beer-can price guide for Christmas. Five years later, he and Rob Horwood, whom Leaf met after running a newspaper ad looking for other collectors in Winnipeg, formed the Great White North Brewerianist Club.

At first, Leaf was content to swap doubles with members of the group. But after reaching a point where there were fewer and fewer cans he wanted and/or needed, he moved onto other trappings.

At one time I had as many as 800 stubbies but Ive whittled it down some, he says.

In the beginning it was all about quantity, not quality I wanted everything. Even now, somebody will see my bottles of Uncle Bens and say they all look the same. But if you look closer youll see that one label says it was brewed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, another will say it was brewed in Transcona, Manitoba, while another will say Prince George, B.C. The differences are subtle, for sure, but theyre there.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Wayne Leaf with the Labatt's Blue Pete Langelle bottle.

Leaf laughs when he recalls a private collection of three dozen or so bottles he lucked into, years ago. A womans husband had died and she contacted Leaf, wondering if hed be interested in his cache.

They were on display behind the bar not in the usual fashion. They were hanging in the air after being pushed through the material in the suspended ceiling. I thought I had seen it all; it took me hours to clean the gunk off the necks, but it was well worth it.

In terms of monetary value, Leaf isnt counting on his stubbies to make him rich, any time soon. Molson Canadian and Labatts Blue bottles are a dime a dozen, he says. Furthermore, their value doesnt increase that much if theyre still full.

A couple of years ago I had about 50 stubbies with me at the show  priced between $2 and $3  and there were next to no takers. The funny thing was, after I got home from that show, I took a bunch of the bottle caps off (the bottles), put those up for sale and was suddenly getting $6, $7 and $8 a piece.

(I poured it down the drain, Leaf says, when a scribe asks he did with the brew that was in the bottles. There was a bunch of sludge at the bottom  they wouldnt have been drinkable  but it still smelled pretty good.)

While not everybody who collects beer-related products enjoys the taste of a cold one, Leaf says that definitely doesnt apply to him.

Not to knock other collectors groups, but if Im outside on a hot summer day and Ive just finished mowing the lawn, I cant see myself coming inside and licking a stamp, he says, taking a swig of his Fort Garry Pale Ale.

For more information on the Great White North Brewerianist Club, go to http://www.gwnbeercollectors.ca.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS A small part of Wayne Leaf's stubbie collection.
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This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE first attempt to kick-start First Nations involvement in Manitobas northern mining industry may have already stalled after only one year in existence.

First Nation Mining Economic Development Inc. was formed last year after it was determined more needed to be done to allow First Nations to become involved in the mining industry, which is the largest employer of indigenous people in the country.

With $250,000 in funding, the company laid the groundwork for what could become a series of limited partnerships that would be qualified to bid on service work for mining operations.

But the groups executive director, Glenn Sanderson, said there has been no funding renewal from provincial or federal governments, and he is on the verge of shutting the doors.

Weve laid the groundwork and this year we were going to go out and aggressively market as an aboriginal corporation, Sanderson said. But were going to be have to shut our doors the third week in October because there is just no more money left.

Provincial Growth, Enterprise and Trade Minister Cliff Cullen acknowledged a funding proposal from the company was being reviewed.

As Manitobas new government, we have an objective to maximize value for money in the delivery of government services. The government has committed to ensuring that we fully engage with indigenous communities who have indicated an interest in participating more fully in the benefits related to mineral exploration and mining operations within their traditional resource, said Cullen.

The company is an offshoot of Manitobas Mining Advisory Council, a collaborative organization co-chaired by chiefs Ron Evans of Norway House Cree Nation and Donovan Fontaine of Sagkeeng First Nation to help address barriers and ensure responsible mineral resource development.

Sandersons group was to assist in the creation of commercial undertakings, something deemed necessary and embraced by industry, government and the nine First Nations involved.

We want the industry to thrive. We want jobs just like everyone else, Sanderson said. The whole point was to get some momentum, but we have stalled at this point.

Among other things, the company has agreements for potential limited partnerships with trucking and catering operations owned by the Lac La Ronge Indian Band in northern Saskatchewan.

Their work was being done especially with an eye to potential new mining operations in Lynn Lake.

Alamos Gold Inc. recently announced it will conduct a feasibility study on its two potential open-pit gold mine sites in Lynn Lake. While there is no guarantee it will lead to construction of a mine, there is plenty of optimism from the company development could occur.

That would still be at least a couple of years in the future, and Sanderson believes thats why its crucial for his organization to continue its work so commercial entities can be formed to have the chance to successfully bid on jobs, and enough training can take place so local workers can be hired.

The whole purpose of creating FNMED was so we would work aggressively to make sure we get the contracts and put our people to work, he said.

The intention was to build capacity so there would be a pool of enterprises staffed by people from the region, and eventually a skilled workforce would be developed capable of operating in demanding workplaces such as the open- pit mines contemplated in Lynn Lake.

The companys funding proposal to the province is for $108,000 for 2016-17 and a little more than that for the next year. Its also made pitches to the federal government for smaller amounts.

Sanderson said when the organization was formed by the former NDP government there was no commitment in writing for funding past its first year.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  If northern Manitoba leaders and residents present a case for nationalizing the Port of Churchill the federal government will look at it, Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains said during a trip to the northern town Friday.

Bains was there to announce $4.6 million in immediate funds for community-driven economic development projects including tourism, health care, education and infrastructure. But it is the longer-term prospects for the port, which was suddenly shuttered by Omnitrax in July, that most people wanted to talk to him about.

Bains wouldnt commit to eventual government ownership of the port  which it sold to Omnitrax almost 20 years ago  but said if the community comes up with a plan then Im more than willing to engage my colleagues on it.

Port of Churchill

These are discussions that are just starting to happen, he said.

Both Churchill Mayor Mike Spence and the union representing port workers want Ottawa to resume ownership of the Port and turn it into a port authority that would be operated by an arms-length government-appointed board of directors working to attract new investors.

A Probe Research poll conducted for the Free Press in September found two-thirds of Manitobans were in favour of government reclaiming ownership of both the port and the Hudson Bay Railway, a lifeline for the towns 800 residents and people living elsewhere in the area. Omnitrax cut the twice-weekly service to Churchill to a single train.

Spence could not be reached Friday for comment.

NDP MP Niki Ashton who represents Churchill Keewatinook Aski in the House of Commons, said Friday its time to nationalize the port to ensure its long-term viability.

A consortium of First Nations, led by Mathias Colomb Chief Arlen Dumas, made an offer to Omnitrax to take over the port last winter but needs federal funding to make the purchase.

Bains expressed frustration this week with the actions of Omnitrax leadership, whom he said have been nearly impossible to engage since announcing the closure of the port in July. He said Friday he doesnt have all of the details on the process if Ottawa decided to nationalize the port, but indicated Omnitrax could be a possible barrier.

(The community members) understand Omnitrax is going to be a challenge to deal with going forward, he said.

Bains said the governments main goal is to ensure any decisions about economic development in the North are driven by the communities.

The money provided Friday will be disbursed by Western Economic Diversification.

We need this money to go out as soon as possible to create as many jobs as possible, he said.

The government has asked the community to bring forward proposals for using the money, which is available not just to Churchill, but all communities along the Hudson Bay Railway.

Bains daylong visit did not include sightings of polar bears or Omnitrax officials but in addition to Spence, he met with the mayors of Thompson and The Pas and some Churchill residents. He participated in a conference call with union leaders.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Starting today, if you dont have a licence for your dogs and cats, it could cost you $250 and possibly a whole lot more.

A five-week-long amnesty period for owners of unlicensed pets is over, and the citys zero-tolerance policy goes back into effect.

The policy, which has been in the Responsible Pet Ownership Bylaw since 2011, requires owners to license dogs and cats  even designated indoor felines  older than six months.

MELISSA TAIT / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES The amnesty is over: license your dog to avoid having it sent to dog jail.

If an unlicensed animal is impounded by animal services officers, the owner will have to pay those fees ($56 to $253), along with boarding fees ($28 per day) in addition to the fine and the cost of a licence to take their pet home.

This policy will be enforced through the regular course of duties of animal services officers, the city said in a statement Friday. If animal services officers make contact with a pet owner with an unlicensed pet, they will be subject to a $250 fine. Animal services officers will also follow up on reports of suspected unlicensed pets received through 311.

The city said it ran a comprehensive advertising campaign over the past few months in newspapers, online and on the streets with Winnipeg Transit vehicles to get the word out.

Impounded unlicensed animals not claimed after three days will be put up for adoption or sent to a rescue for adoption.

The citys bylaw states pets must wear licence tags. Cats not able to wear collars can be excepted provided the animal has a tattoo or an embedded microchip registered with animal services.

Animal services officers operate both at dog parks and in our communities, and when making contact with pet owners, they will verify compliance with pet licensing, the city said.

Some volunteers on the front lines of animal rescues applaud the citys efforts to get owners to take responsibility for their pets.

Theyve had plenty of time to prepare for this, and theres no excuse to not have a dog licensed and fixed, said Katie Powell of Save a Dog Network Canada, referring to spaying and neutering to reduce the number of unwanted animals.

People should be saving the money so the appropriate actions are taken to protect those animals.

It costs $36 to license a spayed or neutered dog and $71 if they are intact. Cat licences are $15 but jump to $50 if the animal hasnt been spayed or neutered.

DArcy Johnston of DArcys A.R.C. said he supports pet registration but said the city should make it more affordable.

Our shelter deals with homeless animals  98 per cent of the animals that come through here dont have any identification something that identifies who owns this pet, Im all for, Johnston said. I just find the whole process of licensing your animal is extremely difficult and cumbersome now. Now you cant even find a convenient place to pay your licence, theyre all city (locations), Monday to Friday, 9 to 5; who can get there? People work. Theyre trying to push 311 and renewing online, but not everybody has credit cards.

Previously, licences could be purchased from veterinarians and animal rescues, but the city has limited sales to its website, calling 311, mail and four in-person locations: the Animal Services Agency at 1057 Logan Ave., the Bilingual Service Centre at 170 Goulet St., the Community By-law Enforcement Services Division at 18-30 Fort St. and the 311 customer service counter at 510 Main St.

Jessica Hansen, the Manitoba Underdogs Rescue executive director, agrees with Johnston.

If the city is going to take such a hard stance on licensing, they need to provide more reminders for responsible pet owners who want to comply and easier payment options for those who may have a hard time affording the fee, she said.

The city said renewal notices are sent out to addresses the agency has on file in the month before a licence expires. But the city says its the owners responsibility to keep the licence current; claiming you didnt receive a renewal notice doesnt get you off the hook.

Licensing revenue is expected to help fund pet services, including housing and care for lost animals, reuniting them with their owners, attending house fires, car accidents and police incidents to help in the removal and care of animals, operation of a pet adoption program, supporting low-cost community spay-and-neuter programs and educating the public about responsible pet ownership.

Non-residents visiting with unlicensed dogs or cats are not subject to the policy.

However, they must be able to provide proof of where they live and be able prove they own the animal.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Fewer youth cases are moving through courts across Canada, but the decline is slower in Manitoba, say new data from Statistics Canada.

The federal statistical agency released its 2014-15 youth court statistics Thursday, showing an overall drop in the number of youth cases being resolved in the courts.

Across Canada, theres been a nearly 40 per cent decrease in youth cases since 2010. Manitoba, meanwhile, has seen a nearly 25 per cent decrease, the data show.

In Manitoba, the top five most common criminal youth cases are breaking and entering (10 per cent) failure to comply with a court order (10 per cent), major assault (seven per cent), theft (seven per cent) and weapons (six per cent). Across Canada, the top five were: theft (11 per cent), common assault (eight per cent), breaking and entering (eight per cent), failure to comply with an order (seven per cent) and mischief (six per cent).

Youth were slightly more likely to go to court for property crime than for violent crime in Manitoba. Of all youth cases in the province, 28 per cent were property-crime-related and 25 per cent were for crimes against people. Nationally, those figures were 33 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively, in 2014-15.

Charges involving the administration of justice, including breaches of probation and court orders, accounted for 13 per cent of all youth cases in Manitoba and 10 per cent nationally.

The majority of cases resolved in Manitoba youth court result in a guilty verdict (73 per cent) and a subsequent sentence of probation.

About 50 per cent of youth found guilty of a crime last year were handed probation, while 14 per cent were sentenced to time in custody and about nine per cent were ordered to do community service.

For more information, visit Statistics Canadas website: http://wfp.to/2T1.
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This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In an event dubbed the Oscars for museums, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights won the international award for the Best Soft Power Cultural Organization at a ceremony Friday at the Langham Hotel in London, England.

The CMHR was chosen by a jury of the 2016 Leading Culture Destination Awards, a London-based organization with a designated mission to offer unique experiences for cultural explorers, global nomads, people collectors and art lovers. The Winnipeg museum prevailed over two other institutions shortlisted for the award, including the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland, and the Bamiyan Womans Community Centre in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Other award categories at the annual ceremony included exhibition, museum architecture, museum restaurant and leading culture destination of the year.

The soft power designation is an expression coined by political scientist Joseph Nye in 1991 to describing the exercise of influence through attraction, persuasion and agenda-setting rather than military or economic coercion, says Gail Lord, a Toronto-based museum developer who consulted on the CMHR and attended the ceremony.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES The Canadian Museum For Human Rights

It fell on Angela Cassie, CMHRs vice-president of public affairs and programs, to go to London and accept the prize, an assignment that compelled her to sum up the museums mission and its future goals in an acceptance speech limited to 90 seconds.

In a phone interview, Cassie noted winning the award in London could pay off with an influx of cultural explorers from Britain coming to town, especially given a newly established direct flight from Gatwick Airport to Winnipeg via WestJet.

It puts Winnipeg on an international stage and represents a tremendous opportunity, Cassie said of the award.

CMHR president and CEO John Young could not attend the ceremony because of a prior commitment but asserted the award recognized the museum as a global cultural destination alongside the most prestigious museums and galleries in the world.

This award will encourage more visitors from around the world to make the trip to Winnipeg and experience for themselves the cultural and architectural marvel that is the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Young said.

This award will encourage more visitors from around the world to make the trip to Winnipeg and experience for themselves the cultural and architectural marvel that is the Canadian Museum for Human Rights  CMHR president and CEO John Young

Mayor Brian Bowman had a hand in the proceeding. At the behest of the museum, he nominated the CMHR for the award and got to celebrate its win.

As a city, were thrilled to have such an important cultural icon that has the ability to inspire current and future generations, he said in a prepared statement. From the subject matter to the effect on Winnipegs skyline, the CMHR commands the attention of the beholder.

The CMHR has already won three other awards this year, including an International Architecture Award from the prestigious Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design as well as two awards for educational initiatives from the Canadian Museums Association.

randall.king@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @FreepKing

SUPPLIED Angela Cassie and Gail Lord
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This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The University of Manitoba has taken contract negotiations with professors out into the open, posting an offer on its website that would increase wages by seven per cent over four years.

Junior faculty still qualifying for incremental raises would get 17.5 per cent over four years, in a deal retroactive to March 31 of this year.

Its at least the second time that the U of M has publicly laid its cards on the table.

The university denied Friday that posting its contract offer on the university website constitutes bargaining in public  the U of M insisted it is being open and transparent.

The U of M Faculty Association president Prof. Mark Hudson said Friday that professors are disappointed by the universitys move. UMFA has scheduled a general membership meeting Tuesday evening, at which Hudson said the union may ask its 1,250 faculty members for authorization to conduct a strike vote within two weeks.

That would give the union the authority to call a strike if bargaining did not succeed.

We dont want to bargain in public  were disappointed the university has gone public with this, said Hudson, who said UMFA had been unaware ahead of time that the university had planned to make any details of its contract offer public knowledge.

Hudson said late Friday that during bargaining earlier in the day, at UMFAs request, the university agreed not to post a link laying out its entire offer until after Tuesdays meeting. The university had planned to make that link available Friday.

The U of M deal is roughly the same as the 7.5 per cent increase over 54 months reluctantly accepted by the University of Winnipeg Faculty Association during the summer. Before voting on the deal, UWFA told its members that although the offer wasnt great, the U of W had no more money to offer and a strike would be over quickly because the Pallister government would legislate them back to work.

Even U of M officials were acknowledging privately Friday that the universitys offer is better than the provinces new eight per cent deal over five years with its engineers  a contract that Finance Minister Cameron Friesen said was too rich, given the provinces financial situation.

While professors do not negotiate with the province, the university depends on the government for the majority of its operating budget.

Late Friday afternoon, Friesens office issued a statement through his press secretary : Manitobas New Government has inherited significant fiscal challenges, and future negotiations will require fresh perspective to protect the services Manitobans depend on in a sustainable way moving forward. Labour relations must be reflective of Manitobas ability to pay; this will require the cooperation of all public sector employers and employees. We will be actively monitoring the situation against this broader expectation. Offsetting savings may have to also be explored in that context.

In an interview with Free Press reporter Larry Kusch Thursday, Friesen said he had to honour the engineers deal, which had been negotiated with the previous government during the election campaign.

But, said Friesen, It doesnt mean, somehow, that now government is going to continue in that way, shape and form on a go-forward basis.

Were expecting to lead the nation in terms of economic performance with a year-over-year growth of less than 2.5 per cent. And if youre negotiating (wage increases) north of two per cent it makes it a huge challenge (fiscally) to go in the right direction, he said.

The main points of the offer on the U of M website include improved benefits, provisions for a more collegial atmosphere and a greater say for professors in how promotions and tenure are determined.

The universitys offer can be seen at

http://news.umanitoba.ca/u-of-m-presents-comprehensive-offer-of-settlement-to-umfa/

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

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This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The newspaper you hold in your hands today? Savour it. Consider yourself lucky to even have a newspaper to read. Perhaps you are reading this on a tablet, or more likely a phone. Good for you. At least you have access to local journalism, for which you should consider yourself lucky.

Journalism in Canada is in trouble. At a time when it is becoming harder and harder to make sense of our world, whole swaths of Canada now lack access to one of the most important pieces of civic infrastructure all democracies need: good journalism.

As the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy has stated, news and information are as vital to the healthy functioning of communities as clean air, safe streets, good schools and public health. Yet in Canada, thousands of journalists have lost their jobs over the past decade. Broadcasters can barely compete with cheap, often free content on the Internet. Venerated newspapers, some as old as Confederation, have shut their doors.

Within a decade, says Mathias Dopfner, CEO of Europes largest newspaper publisher, Axel Springer, newspapers will exist only as a kind of vintage item, much like vinyl records. In Canada, that future is fast approaching. Ken Goldstein, a leading media business analyst, says by 2025, It is likely there will be few, if any, printed daily newspapers and there might be no local broadcast stations in the country. Paid newspaper circulation, as a percentage of Canadian households, fell from just under 50 per cent in 1995 to 20 per cent two years ago. At current rates, that could be as low as five per cent within a decade.

Were such drastic declines to occur in other basic civic infrastructure  if our roads and bridges were collapsing, if we lost thousands of police or firemen, if our sewers no longer worked or no one picked up the garbage  there would be a loud public outcry. So how is it journalisms decline has gone largely unheeded in Canada?

To some extent, journalists themselves are to blame. Canadas media collapse has gone largely unreported, other than the occasional death watch report on Postmedia in the business pages. To be fair, newspaper publishers probably dont see it as being much in their self-interest to chronicle the weaknesses in their own products.

We are long overdue for an honest conversation in this country about media assets, be they in public or private ownership, that are essential to the proper functioning of our democratic institutions. When our media suffer, the country suffers. Our public square is shrinking, just as the complexity of issues confronting our country is growing.

Of course some of this  a lot of it actually  is attributable to the lightning speed with which digital media have come to dominate our information channels. Sadly, Canada has been slower than most countries to adapt to the digital revolution, at least when it comes to journalism. That is changing, and we are finally seeing some experiments in digital native journalism platforms that are offering credible alternatives to daily newspapers. That said, emerging media confront the same basic challenge legacy media do: how do you pay for good journalism in a world awash in free content?

There are no easy answers. There is surely a role for government to change our charitable laws so that, as in America and elsewhere, philanthropy can support good public-interest journalism. Governments can also provide tax incentives for investors in new digital-media products. The CBC can and should be retooled to be more service-oriented, using the impressive channel infrastructure Canadians have already paid for to bring new and diverse voices into the Canadian conversation. It is especially urgent that, in our reconciliation era, we invest heavily in ensuring our indigenous peoples voices are amplified and properly honoured in our public discourse. So too, the voices and views of our remarkably diverse immigrant and refugee communities.

Something else needs to happen, too, which is Canadians have to stop taking their media for granted. In Winnipeg, you are fortunate to have a newspaper, this one, that has a better than odds-on chance of surviving the seismic changes shaking Canadas media to their core. The Free Press isnt immune to the complex challenges confronting newspapers everywhere, although at least it isnt owned by an offshore hedge fund. The Free Press is trying new things, such as an experiment (unique in Canada) with micro-payments for digital media. It even has a downtown cafe, maintaining a face in the community that is likewise unusual among metropolitan dailies. The owners of the Free Press seem to have remembered one critical thing the conglomerates forgot, which is they owe a duty of care to their community. Will the Free Press survive? Who knows? It might come down to a matter of trust. Winnipeggers, like all Canadians, need media they can trust to help make sense of their world. Whether on paper or online, they should be prepared to pay for an essential public service, without which our cities and our country will operate in the dark.

Ian Gill is president of Discourse Media and the author of a new book, No News Is Bad News: Canadas Media Collapse  And What Comes Next (Greystone Books). He appears at the Millennium Library at 4:30 pm Friday in the Big Ideas segment of the Thin Air 2016 writers festival.
Opinion

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This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  Maryam Monsef was a shining star when she was elected last year as the MP for Peterborough-Kawartha.

She, her mother and two sisters came to Canada in 1996 as Afghan refugees when Monsef was 11 years old. Her story was compelling, particularly at a time when Canada was opening its doors to 25,000 Syrian refugees.

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed her to his cabinet as the minister for democratic institutions last November, the appointment was rife with symbolism.

ADRIAN WYLD / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef, believed to have been born in Afghanistan, was actually born in Iran.

Monsefs inexperience has been clear as she attempts to manage this file, but her performance as a minister has nothing to do with why there are people now asking for her head  and her passport  on a platter.

That is because somehow the Globe and Mail found out Monsef was not born in Afghanistan. She was born in Iran.

Every other detail of her life story seems on point. Her family moved back and forth between Mashhad, Iran and Herat, Afghanistan as the civil war raged. Her father was killed when she was four years old. In 1996, when the Taliban took over the government of Afghanistan, Monsefs mother took her three young daughters and fled. Their journey  via donkey and camel, across Iran, Pakistan and Jordan, before finally securing passage on a plane to Canada  is the stuff of movies.

They claimed refugee status. They moved to Peterborough, Ont. She flourished.

This is a story and a person to be celebrated. While Canadian-born kids were dancing to the Spice Girls and trading Pokemon cards, Monsef was fleeing for her life, arrived in Canada with almost nothing and built herself into a community leader.

Why does it matter now that she was born 400 kilometres away from where she thought?

Anyone who has knowledge of that part of the world has pointed out her lack of knowledge of her birthplace is not impossible or even unusual. The laws in Iran and Afghanistan at the time of her birth meant even though she was born in Iran, she was born as an Afghan citizen. She was not and has never been an Iranian.

Monsefs mother always told her kids they were born in Afghanistan, and Monsef told of an emotional scene with her mother and sisters after she was approached by a reporter asking about her birthplace. The main part of the story that is not yet clear is whether her mother lied to Canadian officials when the family arrived in this country. There are many who seem to think its impossible Monsef could not have known the truth.

An even better question is why on earth Monsef would lie about her birthplace at all? Being born in Iran, as her family tried to stay alive in a part of the world devastated by civil war and totalitarian governments, does nothing to diminish her life story. It would have not affected her refugee claim or her application for citizenship.

Monsef is now potentially facing the loss of her citizenship because the previous government passed Bill C-24 in 2014, which allows Canada, without a hearing, to strip the citizenship from naturalized Canadians if they obtained their citizenship through fraudulent means.

Citizenship laws have always allowed for the removal of citizenship for fraud, but C-24 and its aftermath leave the decision entirely in the hands of the minister. The Liberals had a chance to fix this last February when they introduced legislation to eliminate the component of C-24 that strips citizenship from convicted terrorists. They didnt. When the NDP attempted an amendment to that bill to reintroduce due process, it was ruled out of order.

An independent senator is trying to do it with a bill she introduced in the Senate, and Immigration Minister John McCallums office said they would support it. Their lack of action on this, however, is going to come back to haunt them with the Monsef situation.

More than 200 people have been stripped of their citizenship under C-24; some of them arrived in Canada as child refugees, just like Monsef. Like her, they did nothing wrong, yet they are paying the price for politically motivated legislation the B.C. Civil Liberties Association argues is unconstitutional. It filed a legal challenge over the entire bill earlier this week.

The witch hunt against Monsef over her birthplace is downright nasty. Her own governments inaction on this file has left her in limbo as she works every day to try to improve a democratic system she may soon be no longer eligible to vote in.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The passing of Shimon Peres marks the end of an era, not only in Israel, but also beyond Israels borders, too.

Peres, who died recently at the age of 93, was the last of Israels founding fathers.

Few can match his remarkable legacy. Though he never served a day in the army, Peres massively impacted the Israel Defense Forces by securing critical weaponry for the fledgling Jewish state. Though he never showed any real interest in business and found politics through socialism, Peres championed Israels nanotechnology industry and took great pride in Israels commercial success. Though he turned Israel into a nuclear power, Peres also dreamed of real peace with its Arab foes.

SUSAN WALSH / The associated Press files U.S. President Barack Obama presents Shimon Peres with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on June 13, 2012. Mr. Peres died earlier this week.

This diverse legacy  you might say this paradoxical legacy  ensured Peres was alternately vilified and beloved at different times of his extraordinary career.

As he grew older, though, these paradoxes became a source of political strength, rather than weakness. By the time he became president of Israel  when he was already in his mid-80s  Peres was able completely to reimagine the role, transforming it from a dusty Israeli sinecure into an important centre of public diplomacy.

Under Peres, it suddenly mattered what the president of Israel said and did  it mattered inside Israel and beyond. With each scholarly press conference, each tight embrace of a grieving family and each hilarious YouTube video, Peres embodied an Israel in which nearly all could take pride and even joy.

As president, Peres could connect with all Israelis, Jews and Arabs alike, with dignity and sincerity, something that is remarkable in any country, much less in Israel. He cared about Israel and Israelis, Jews and Judaism. And if you met Peres, as I did on a couple of brief occasions, he really made you feel like he cared about you, too. Frankly, I think he did.

In this way, Peres the paradox gradually became Peres the unifier. It was easy to find something in his vast legacy to admire, and it was easy to like a man who was, at his core, kind and wise.

Peres passing, therefore, marks the end not just of the era of Israels founding fathers. It also marks the end of a rare and precious global public figure who provoked admiration and respect across all but the extreme edges of the political spectrum.

Contrast that with today. The biggest political story on the planet is a contest of two people trying to win an election by being the second-least likable person in America. The shrillness of the American campaign, and of Donald Trumps extraordinarily ugly vulgarity in particular, is a massive exercise in politics at its worst.

This sorry state of affairs is not restricted to our southern neighbours. In the United Kingdom, a nation prepares to withdraw from the European Union in a conscious act of national self-harm. In the Philippines, a strongman uses extrajudicial lethal violence on his own people while calling the president of the United States a son of a whore. Across the Arab world, ruthless despots vie for power by pulverizing their opposition. I could go on and on.

Here in Canada, to his credit, Justin Trudeaus sunny ways take a page out of Shimon Peres book. It was not long ago we were in a fraught conversation about prohibiting the niqab and barbaric cultural practices. Today, one of Stephen Harpers would-be successors continues this odious approach in calling for immigrants to be tested for compatibility with Canadian values, whatever that means.

Globally, our era is perfectly captured by the slogan Build That Wall. Anger, fear and xenophobia drive todays politics. Fringe candidates are succeeding, not by moving to the centre, but by attracting the centre to them. Meanwhile, Syria falls further into the abyss, the promise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership fades, and we all move deeper and deeper into the echo chambers our social media construct for us.

Its hard to imagine a unifying, dignified leader such as Shimon Peres succeeding today, even though this is precisely when we need him most. We need leaders like Peres who are comfortable with paradox, who can bridge great divides with ease and delight and who can see the best in everyone.

Leaders such as Shimon Peres come only once in a generation, if were lucky. But man, could we use one today.

Benjamin Shinewald is a former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau signalled it utterly rejects the disrespect for aboriginal rights shown by the former Conservative government of Stephen Harper. This was seen in May when Canadian ministers turned up at the United Nations in New York and announced Canada now fully supports and would sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

The former government refused to sign. It feared the documents requirement for informed consent to development on indigenous lands would give native people power to veto projects. The new government is trying to make a new beginning in relations with native peoples. Signing the declaration was a first step.

As a practical matter, however, development on indigenous lands seems to be happening under the Liberals pretty much the same as it happened under the former government  with or without the high principles.

ROBIN ROWLAND / THE CANADIAN PRESS files Lelu Island, near Prince Rupert, B.C.

In July, on the Friday of the August long weekend, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans issued, as unobtrusively as possible, a permitting document authorizing British Columbia Hydro to build a $9-billion dam and power station at a location known as Site C on the Peace River in northeastern B.C. The dam will fill a reservoir 83 kilometres long and flood 5,340 hectares of land covered by Treaty 8.

The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs objected to the federal green light. Treaty 8 First Nations were awaiting an appeal-court ruling on their lawsuit opposing the hydro project. Other owners of affected land are also opposed.

This week, the government announced its approval  with a long list of conditions  for the Pacific Northwest LNG project. The $36-billion project includes a pipeline through the mountains to Prince Rupert, B.C., to be built and operated by TransCanada Corp. and a natural gas liquefaction and export facility to be built on Lelu Island near Prince Rupert. Petronas, the Malaysian national oil company, would be majority owner of the plant.

The local First Nations communities have not consented to the project. The Skeena Corridor Nations issued a statement warning Ottawa that providing a green light for this project at this time will only lead to protracted litigation. The group includes the Lax Kwalaams band, whose territory surrounds Lelu Island.

The Liberals plan was to avoid the kind of obstacles and delays that blocked the Northern Gateway bitumen pipeline through the mountains to Kitimat, B.C. They meant to make sure that, aside from formal approval through research and public hearings, development projects on aboriginal lands would have social licence. They meant to consult First Nations and the public so carefully and sensitively all parties would recognize their concerns had been heard and understood.

The Liberals plan has not yet failed, but it hasnt succeeded, either. The First Nations affected by the Site C dam and the Lelu Island LNG plant may or may not have the power and determination to block these projects. Courts will have to decide whether the quality of consultation for the two projects should pass muster. The governments calculation, apparently, is the broad public will not be much impressed with the objections. If the opponents can win wide public sympathy for their case, then the government may pay a political price for approving megaprojects that run roughshod over the ancient rights of native people.

That, finally, may be what social licence comes down to. Once the proponents have made their case and the opponents have expressed their objections, the government makes a political judgment about what the country will accept. If they judge the electorates mood correctly, the First Nations interest is overruled. If they misjudge, then the governments parliamentary majority may be at risk. Thats not what the UN declaration says, but thats the way were doing it.
Five years after they started, the people who run the health-minded nonprofit Live Well Winona can find evidence of their work across the city.

Watkins has made its facilities tobacco-free.

Thern has started a pre-shift stretching program for its employees.

Blooming Grounds Coffee House has added Live Well, Eat Well logos to its menu items that meet Live Well standards for calorie, fat and sodium content.

And thats just to name a few. There are also new wellness programs, stronger promotion of ongoing community activities and events, and other initiatives already completed or in the works.

Thats work thats been very rewarding and impactful, said Janneke Sobeck, Live Wells community wellness director and one of its founding members. Weve spent a lot of time researching what will work in this community.

Sobeck and others started Live Well in 2011, hoping to inform businesses and schools about programs that promote healthy living, and to help start programs where there are gaps here.

On Thursday, they will hold an open house, a five-year anniversary celebration from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Live Well offices on Huff Street.

When we first started, it was a challenge, Sobeck said. We did not have a roadmap, so we talked with similar organizations in other communities, trying to figure out what we could do here.

People in this community werent sure who we were at first, or what we were trying to do, but theyve really latched onto us.

Every year the group hosts the Live Well Winona Community Challenge, a several-day Olympics-style event involving teams from local businesses and organizations.

Live Well also helps put on the annual Way to Wellness Expo and the ongoing Mississippi Medley Run/Walk Series.

Deb McClellan, the groups community wellness operations manager, said nearly every factor that contributes to the health of this community falls under their purview.

Live Well promotes intellectual, spiritual, social, physical and occupational health  and works with other health and wellness groups in the area to make sure the community is not duplicating efforts.

Sobeck said the work is sometimes difficult and slow. It took three years, she said, to find a restaurant willing to add those logos to its menus.

One of the groups biggest ongoing endeavors  reducing hunger among local children  is not proving to be much simpler.

Were trying to improve the culture of our community, Sobeck said. We need to make changes to our stores, our schools and our restaurants  the places we work, live and play.

Were trying to improve the culture of our community. We need to make changes to our stores, our schools and our restaurants  the places we work, live and play. Janneke Sobeck, Live Well Winona
My name is Steve Baumgart, and I am the mayor of Goodview and a retired deputy sheriff for the Winona County Sheriffs Department. My reason for writing this letter is to ask the citizens of Winona County and the surrounding counties to please vote for Judge Carmaine Sturino, who is currently serving as judge in Houston County. The 3rd Judicial District, which includes several counties in southeast Minnesota, will have judges on the Nov. 8 ballot, some of whom you have not heard of.

I have personally known Judge Sturino for approximately 20 years, and when she was an assistant county attorney, I interacted with her many times. She is compassionate, patient and very honest. Carmaine had a great reputation as being very fair and went out of her way to help clients when she was in private practice. It is my personal belief that Judge Sturino is very qualified to continue serving Houston County as a judge.

I ask you to please vote for Judge Carmaine Sturino on Nov. 8. Carmaine is a great mom, wife and goes out of her way to help people.

Steve Baumgart,

Goodview
History buffs and railroad enthusiasts who live near the Canadian Pacific railroad line that runs between Chicago and St. Paul are in for a treat this fall. The American Passenger Rail Heritage Foundation, a non-profit railroad history organization, is partnering with a private railcar operator to give the public a rare opportunity to experience riding in a historic railroad full-length dome car from the 1950s, while enjoying the fall colors.

The excursion, organized by Zephyr Route of Saint Charles, Ill., is scheduled to feature ex-Great Northern full-length dome car Prairie View. Built to show off the panoramic views of the Rocky Mountains in Glacier National Park, passengers on the excursion will enjoy sweeping views of Chicago and its northern suburbs, Milwaukee, the rolling hills and coulees of central and western Wisconsin, and more than 100 miles along the Mississippi River in Minnesota from the glassed-top car. There are no more railcars of this type in regular passenger revenue service, so this is truly a rare opportunity. This excursion is offered as part of a three-day getaway package to the Twin Cities.

Passengers will board the train on Friday, Oct. 7, at one the following times: Chicago Union Station, 2:15 p.m.; Glenview, Ill., 2:39 p.m., Milwaukee, 3:45 p.m.; Columbus, 5:02 p.m.; Portage, 5:31 p.m.; Wisconsin Dells, 5:49 p.m.; Tomah, 6:27 p.m.; La Crosse, 7:11 p.m.; Winona, Minn., 7:47 p.m.; or Red Wing, Minn., 8:49 p.m. Passengers are scheduled to arrive at St. Paul Union Depot at 10:03 p.m. and will spend two nights at the St. Paul House Hotel.

On Saturday, Oct. 8, travelers can explore St. Paul and Minneapolis on their own, or join an optional group tour (for a nominal fee) to see the beautifully restored St. Paul Union Depot, then on to the James Hill Mansion and St. Paul Cathedral.

On Sunday, Oct. 9, passengers will reboard the Prairie View in St. Paul, Minn., at 7:43 a.m., and head back to their starting city, with scheduled arrivals at the following times: Red Wing, Minn., 8:54 a.m.; Winona, Minn., 10:11 a.m.; La Crosse, 10:47 a.m.; Tomah, 11:26 a.m.; Wisconsin Dells, 12:08 p.m.; Portage, 12:27 p.m.; Columbus, 12:57 p.m.; Milwaukee, 2:07 p.m.; Glenview, Ill., 3:12 p.m.; or Chicago, 3:55 p.m.

The $775 per person double hotel occupancy package price from Chicago includes train fare, three traditional dining car meals cooked fresh on the train, two nights accommodation at the St. Paul House Hotel, all transfers, and narration of the route from the APRHF Rail Rangers program. Special reduced pricing is available from other boarding locations besides Chicago.

Riding along with the travelers will be Robert and Kandace Tabern, who have written a 300-page guidebook about the route called Outside the Rails: A Rail Route Guide from Chicago to St. Paul, Minn. Autographed copies will be sold on the train for $35; they are also available online at www.outsidetherails.com. Proceeds from book sales will be donated to Zephyr Route and APRHF Rail Rangers.

The Taberns, who also serve as executive directors of the APRHF Rail Rangers program, plus interpretive guide Dave Poole, will interact with passengers and provide narration.

We are really excited to be partners with Zephyr Route for these trips on the old Milwaukee Road line, Robert Tabern said. Many of the towns along the route were founded because of the railroad. We look forward to bringing the many interesting stories along the railroad line to life for everyone. There may appear to be just corn and soybeans out the train window to the untrained eye, but as we say, not really knowing what youre seeing out your window is like watching the Travel Channel with the audio turned off. We are there to explain what everyone is seeing.

APRHF Rail Rangers plan to tell the story of the founding of great Midwestern cities like Chicago and Milwaukee, how the last Ice Age formed much of the landscape like kettle hills and marshes seen in Wisconsin, and interesting river tales about a few Mississippi River towns. Docents also use props to share stories with train passengers -- including a jug of muddy Mississippi River water, a stuffed animal Sandhill Crane and Bald Eagle, and various products from trackside industries  like a can of Franks sauerkraut (from Sturtevant), Necco wafers (formerly made in Pewaukee), and 3M Products (Cottage Grove). Passengers also pass through the Ice Age National Historic Trail and the Mississippi National River, two units of the National Park Service.

The APRHF Rail Rangers program was founded in July 2015 and is one of many affiliates of the non-profit American Passenger Rail Heritage Foundation in the SilverRails Country region of La Plata, Missouri.

For more information or for tickets, contact APRHF Rail Rangers Executive Director Robert Tabern at railrangers@rtabern.com, or leave a voicemail message with the group at (847) 271-1979.
Columbus residents can get in the Halloween spirit by decorating their homes and entering the city Rec Departments Holiday House Decorating Contest.

The contest is open to city of Columbus residents only; homes must be within the city limits. There is no fee to register.

To enter this contest, simply decorate the exterior of your home and yard in decor that stands alone (i.e. the decorations are not part of your costume). Entries can be ones personal residence, a neighbors home or a friends home. Judging will be based on originality, creativity and the overall wow effect.

Winners will be selected for each voting district. First place will be awarded a $50 Visa git card, and second place will be awarded a $25 Visa gift card. There will be three first-place winners and three second-place winners.

Judges will view entries during the week of Oct. 17 through Oct. 21. The exterior of the homes should be illuminated between 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. on these nights. Photos will be taken of all entries, and winners will be notified at the Community Bonfire being held at Kiwanis Park on Friday, Oct. 28 at 8 p.m. Entries will also be posted on Facebook and listed in the Columbus Journal.

To enter, submit your name, address, home phone number, cell phone number and email address to: Holiday Home Decorating Contest, CRD, 229 E. School St., Columbus, WI 53925. Entries can also be submitted via email to recreation@columbuswi.us or in person at the Recreation Department located at 229 E. School St., Columbus.

Entries must be received by noon on Monday, Oct. 10.

For more information, call Amy Jo at 623-5936.
Accident  Wednesday at 7:39 a.m., a 17-year-old boy was involved in a vehicle accident with a 16-year-old boy near the York Street and Norris Street.

Accident  Wednesday at 1:03 p.m., a 53-year-old man was involved in a vehicle accident near the Walnut Street and North University Avenue intersection.

Suspicious  Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., a woman reported seeing a suspicious item left in the corner of American National Bank, 115 Front St. The item appeared to be pills in a leather case.

Accident  Wednesday at 2:37 p.m., an employee at Kwik Trip, 1504 N. Center St., told police that a vehicle hit a gas pump.

Disorderly conduct  Wednesday at 8 p.m., a mother reported that a 20-year-old man in the 100 block of Knaup Drive strangled her 19-year-old daughter. Police were unable to locate the 20-year-old man, but are referring him for domestic disorderly conduct and strangulation/suffocation.

Theft  Wednesday at 8:58 p.m., a 76-year-old woman reported that credit cards were stolen from her wallet while she was at the YMCA of Dodge County, 220 Corporate Drive.

Misc.  Thursday at 1:03 a.m., a 51-year-old woman in the 100 block of Lakecrest Drive told police that she thinks her neighbor is stealing her cable and providing it to ISIS.
U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy said Friday he expects Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to begin advertising in Wisconsin as polls reflect a tightening race.

Duffy, one of Trump's most steadfast supporters in the state, also said he doesn't think voters care about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's attacks during the first debate this week or how Trump responds to them. The Wausau Republican was asked about Trump's comments targeting a former beauty pageant winner who has spoken out about Trump mocking her weight.

"What I think people care about is the economy," Duffy said. "Mr. Trump has masterfully navigated the politics."

The Clinton campaign responded to Duffy's comment with a statement from state Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, who said "Wisconsin women care about Donald Trump's offensive and hurtful comments."

"We deserve more than hurtful bombast and bluster from anyone seeking to be our President," Shilling said.

Duffy said he expects Trump to advertise in Wisconsin because he has to win at least one or two states that have been leaning toward Clinton. He noted that Trump is leading by five points in Iowa, which President Barack Obama won twice.

"We see the movement happening here too," Duffy said. "We welcome the campaign to Wisconsin. Bring it on."

Duffy said he expects the next Marquette Law School Poll will show the race continuing to trend in Trump's favor based on internal polls he has seen after the first presidential debate.

The last Marquette poll showed him trailing Clinton among likely voters by two points head-to-head and three points when including third-party candidates. After the Democratic National Convention she was leading the state by 15 points among likely voters.

Clinton has yet to visit the state, though on Friday her daughter Chelsea stopped in Green Bay. Trump has visited the state three times since winning the nomination, including a rally Wednesday in Waukesha.
It was "disingenuous" for Gov. Scott Walker to request an alternative transportation funding proposal from Assembly Republican leaders who disagree with his proposal, Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told reporters Thursday.

Vos also pushed back on Walker's suggestion, made last week, that a "significant number" of Assembly Republicans support the transportation budget proposal unveiled by Walker's administration earlier this month.

"We have had multiple caucus discussions on this topic," Vos told reporters after a WisPolitics luncheon with Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha. "The governor has the luxury of looking in the mirror and having a discussion with himself on any topic, because he doesnt have to get consensus. Hes the governor. My job as the speaker is to generate consensus among 62 other people, and I think weve done that."

Vos noted that Republican members of the Assembly have not been publicly critical of his position, adding that legislators are "quick to criticize their leadership" when they disagree.

"You have not seen that, because I think most of our members want us to have a long-term solution, and they want to follow the same strategy were talking about: find all the savings, wait for the audit, hear what's in the governors budget and then figure out whats reasonable for us to solve the problem long-term," Vos said.

Assembly GOP leaders have been sparring with Walker since he introduced his administration's initial proposal for the 2017-19 transportation budget. GOP leaders including Vos say the plan is a political solution that doesn't do enough to address a projected $1 billion shortfall.

Walker later called on the critical lawmakers to offer their own plan, and told reporters last week he thinks the proposal has "significant" support outside the handful of Republican senators who have publicly praised it.

Vos called that suggestion "disingenuous" on Thursday, arguing that the governor has the ability to direct the Department of Transportation to assemble a proposal that meets specific criteria, while a legislative leader like Vos lacks matching resources.

Still, Vos said he's "optimistic" lawmakers will be able to work with the governor to find a solution.

Barca, on the other hand, said he is "very pessimistic" anything will be done to positively address transportation funding, cautioning voters not to believe "Republican rhetoric."

The Democrat accused Walker of kicking "a bigger can down a longer road that has potholes in it."

The primary focus in addressing the funding shortfall should be on cutting costs, Vos said, but beyond that, there may need to be a consideration of revenue-increasing measures. However, he said, that doesn't necessarily mean increasing the gas tax is the most logical solution.

Walker has warned lawmakers that he will veto any changes made to the budget that would "add to the overall burden of the taxpayers of the state."

The plan released by Walker's administration would cut funding for state highway programs while providing more money for local roads and existing highways, delay some major projects and authorize $500 million in new bonding.

Walker has stressed that the plan focuses on safety and maintenance while keeping bonding "at a reasonable level" and not raising taxes or fees.

The proposal would cut $447.4 million from state highway programs while offering an additional $69.7 million for maintenance and an additional $65 million for local roads.

Vos argued Democrats and Republicans share responsibility for the state's transportation woes.

"Gov. (Jim) Doyle raided, Gov. Walker borrowed. Both are equally problematic in the long run," he said, adding that he accepts a share of the blame for voting in favor of budgets that funded projects through bonding.

Barca argued that Democrats have offered solutions that Republicans have rejected.

"You're still blaming Gov. Doyle? Give me a break," he said.

"I think theres enough blame to go around," Vos countered. "Its pretty hard to reach your hand out and say lets work together while at the same time youre saying how much you suck."
A Randolph man was sentenced to probation Thursday for theft by contractor with another theft case and a charge of child enticement being dismissed.

Columbia County Circuit Court Judge Alan White ordered a withheld sentence for Ryan Braker, 36, and placed him on two years of probation. The probation could be discharged early in the event of successful progress, the judge ruled, including payment of restitution within one year.

The cases stem from incidents in the spring and summer of 2014, beginning in April with the charge of theft by contractor, of between $2,500 and $5,000. In August, another incident resulted in Braker being charged with theft by contractor of between $5,000 and $10,000.

That June, Braker was contacted by the 16-year-old daughter of a woman he had dated four or five years earlier, who was visiting from Illinois, and was interested in getting together again. According to court documents, the initial contact and ensuing messages were innocuous, that changed following a run-in between Braker, the woman and her daughter at the Beave Dam Wal-Mart. but following a run-in, with Braker meeting the woman and her 16-year-old daughter at the Beaver Dam Wal-Mart. On June 13 messages between Braker and the girl continued and became more suggestive with references to his hot tub and suggestions of sending photos to each other.

On June 24, when Braker was approached by a Columbus police officer, he denied sending the messages, but then after seeing the messages said, I dont even remember sending them, I was ____ up, telling the officer that he felt bad and was embarrassed by the messages.

The defendant does have some prior criminal history, said Assistant District Attorney Crystal Long during Thursdays hearing, pointing to charges of theft, disorderly conduct, obstructing an officer, and possession of cocaine between 2002 and 2011. As you can see by the victim impact statements, both victims are interested in getting their money back and the way for them to get their restitution is for Mr. Braker to be out working.

A reason for the delay in wrapping up the case, Long said, was the time Braker spent in jail for a 2012 Dane County case in which he was charged with operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated as a second offense, operating a vehicle without owners consent and eluding an officer.

Your honor, Ive worked on both sides of contractors, defending them and prosecuting them, said defense attorney Steven Sarbacker, and I know that over years a lot of them can get caught up in robbing Peter to pay Paul, and thinking that they will make it up on the next job.

The breakdown for Braker happened, according to Sarbacker, when he went to jail and was compounded by his girlfriend at the time having access to the account with his clients money. With Braker working again, but unable to be licensed as a contractor, the situation was largely on track to be resolved in the long term, Sarbacker said.

A priority in sentencing, said White, should be making victims whole again, making the recommendation a reasonable one, in which Braker would be back working in construction, but barred from bidding or personally managing contracts.

Braker entered a plea of no contest to the August 2014 case of theft by contractor, while the other was dismissed, but read into the record. The charge of enticement was dismissed, as Long explained that over the course of the case, the District Attorneys Office had lost contact with the mother of the alleged victim, eliminating a key witness.

Your attorney has said that you got caught in too many things at the same time, and I can certainly understand that, said White. This could be the kind of thing that a person would not be absolutely aware of, but you should be aware of now.
WYOCENA  In all likelihood, most of the approximately 60 attendees at Thursdays Turnout For Transportation got there by driving over some pretty bumpy roads.

Whether they were talking about state highways like Highway 33 or 22, Columbia County highways like A near Doylestown or V near Lodi, or town roads in any of the countys 21 towns, there was no one expressing disagreement with the evenings catchphrase: Just Fix It.

The meeting at the Columbia County Highway Department was one of 71 similar sessions held Thursday throughout Wisconsin, in partnership with the Wisconsin Counties Association, the Wisconsin Towns Association and the League of Wisconsin Municipalities.

The devil, as always, was in the details  mainly, where to find the money.

Steve Rubert, chairman of the town of Fountain Prairie, contended that its not possible to aim, simultaneously, for low taxes and well-maintained infrastructure.

At the state level, theyre not putting money into roads, he said. The roads are becoming dangerous. We have a higher accident rate on town roads. We have potholes all over the place, and we cant fix the shoulders.

Jim Foley  who is both chairman of the Columbia County Boards Highway Committee and chairman of the town of Leeds  cautioned participants against making political statements, yet acknowledged that state government has a key role in addressing problems with the infrastructure.

Ill tell you right now, Foley said, theres not a town road good enough to carry 124,000 pounds.

Foleys allusion to 124,000 pounds expanded on an observation made earlier in the session by Columbia County Highway Commissioner Chris Hardy: That sometimes federal transportation regulations, over which state and local officials have no control, can adversely affect local roads. For example, he said, federal law allows milk trucks weighing up to 124,000 pounds to travel on roads  even town roads that arent built to handle that much weight.

Hardy painted a grim picture of Columbia Countys road maintenance and replacement needs, versus the amount of money needed to fulfill those needs.

Columbia County should be replacing its deteriorated roads on a 30-year schedule, he said, but with available revenue, what the Highway Department is working with is closer to a 50-year schedule.

And the longer the road waits, Hardy said, the more it costs.

Cities like Portage also face challenges in keeping their streets in good repair, said Portage City Administrator Shawn Murphy.

He showed a color-coded map of Portages city streets (there are 55 miles of them), with more than half of them needing reconditioning or resurfacing. And that doesnt count the roads whose surfaces are in relatively good shape, but which may have water and sewer pipes under them that have been there, unchanged, for a century or more, he said.

Meanwhile, state money available to local communities for road work has been mostly flat over the last several years  though the costs of road repair, including materials such as asphalt, have climbed.

The costs havent been flat, as you know, Murphy said. Were getting farther and farther behind.

Wayne Emerson, a trucker who lives in Wyocena, observed that Portage has been a bottleneck for transportation since its inception, when 17th- and 18th-century French fur traders had to get out of their canoes and portage between the Wisconsin and Fox rivers  the source of the citys name.

Today, Emerson said, that bottleneck includes Highway 33 through downtown Portage. People often complain about large semi-tractor-trailers going through downtown, but Emerson said truckers dont like to use that road, either.

Where is the money going for transportation? he asked. I think youll see that, if we dont improve our roads, were going to throttle the future economy.

Hardy noted that the sources of money for road repairs, in Wisconsin, consist mainly of revenue from per-gallon fuel taxes and proceeds from vehicle registration.

State Rep. Keith Ripp, R-Lodi, chairman of the Wisconsin Assemblys Transportation Committee, noted that the Legislature, under the previous administration of Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, had raided the transportation fund to balance the states budget. (That also happened under the administration of Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson.)

Ripp said he disagrees with the transportation funding proposal for the 2017-19 biennial budget, which includes:

No increases in taxes or fees;

$6.5 billion in transportation spending (compared to $6.8 billion in the current biennium);

Bonding (borrowing) of $500 million, which would $350 million less than current levels;

An increase in local transportation aids totaling $65 million and

A cut of $46.3 million in capital expenditures in the highway program.

More needs to be done for roads, Ripp said, but he reminded attendees that the current situation was years in the making.

Murphy said several municipalities, including Portage, are considering a wheel tax for transportation purposes. This is a local fee, paid at the time of vehicle registration, that affects most cars and trucks that weigh 8,000 pounds or less.

One thing to be cautious of, said Dekorra Town Chairman Mike Dorshorst, is borrowing.

If a municipality borrows a great deal of money for a road project, he said, then in future years it has to put its revenue toward repaying the debt, leaving less available to care for the municipalitys other roads.

Hardy urged attendees to make their voices heard by contacting their state lawmakers. Also, he pointed to an interactive Internet site, where people can pinpoint, on a map, areas of roads that need repair, and specify whats wrong with the road. Go to www.tdawisconsin.org/just-fix-it-wisconsin/, and click on Share Your Story.
Remember when we fretted about space junk from Skylab raining from the sky? Well, spacecraft flotsam is all set for a return engagement. Only this time, blame the Chinese.

Chinese officials acknowledge that they have lost control over their first space laboratory, a 34-foot, 9-ton craft thats now orbiting the earth 200 miles overhead. Scientists expect the lab, Tiangong-1, to plummet to Earth sometime in late 2017. Much of it will burn up in the atmospheres upper strata, but larger pieces, jagged shards weighing more than 200 pounds, could survive re-entry. Exactly when this volley from the heavens will happen  and where  no one knows.

So, will Earths inhabitants again find themselves nervously craning necks upward now and then, watching for hunks of fiery steel?

Weve always been a nation of worriers. And weve always had something seemingly cataclysmic to stoke our anxieties: killer bees in the 70s, mad cow disease in the 90s, Y2K chaos at the turn of the century. Skylab exposed our preoccupation with one of our most innate worries: something big and heavy conking our heads. As the day of landfall grew closer (July 11, 1979) scientists regularly put out forecasts on what swath of territory was in peril. The Justice Department set aside two lawyers who were prepared to jet to any spot on the planet to size up whatever damage Skylab inflicted. Maryland and Virginias emergency preparedness officials worked up Skylab disaster plans. Washington, D.C. set up a command center.

The people with the right preparedness plan were the ones who had none at all. Instead of running for cover, they riffed. One company sold paper Skylab helmets at $2 a pop. There were T-shirts emblazoned with the phrase, Skylab missed me. Stores sold Skylab Repellent and Skylab Impact Balm. People threw Skylab crash parties and painted huge bulls-eyes on their streets.

Where did Skylab finally land? A bit of it plopped into the Indian Ocean, but most of the wreckage fell onto a deserted stretch of Australia, where the population density was less than one person per square kilometer. No one got clobbered. Buildings and cars suffered nary a dent.

Space junk falls all the time, without any consequence. The European Space Agency estimates that there are 170 million pieces of man-made space debris a millimeter or larger orbiting the Earth, and 29,000 pieces 10 centimeters or larger. Bit by bit, that stuff falls  quietly and harmlessly.

The odds of a human getting struck by a piece of the Tiangong-1 or any other space debris are about 1 in 3,200, according to space.com. What are the odds that you will be that person? One in several trillion.

So the Chinese shouldnt necessarily wring hands over the possibility of hunks of cosmic trash felling bystanders out for their morning jogs. Losing a grip on their first space laboratory is a bit embarrassing, but overall their space program has made considerable headway since its inception in the early 1990s. China launched its first astronaut in 2003, and in 2013 it put a rover on the moon.

If nothing else, they can take solace in the meager price the U.S. was asked to pay for Skylabs fall from the sky. The Australian town that Skylab shards fell near slapped a $400 fine on the U.S. for littering. If Tiangong falls somewhere between Bangor and Fresno, we can send the summons to the Communist Partys Central Committee in Beijing.
There is big money in pain, which is why the makers of prescription painkillers seem so interested in ensuring that doctors keep prescribing opioids despite an addiction crisis that has claimed 165,000 lives in the United States since 2000.

An investigation by The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity, published last week in the Journal Sentinel and other newspapers, showed that even as drug makers claim to be fighting the prescription drug epidemic, they are using a 50-state strategy and handing out millions of dollars in campaign donations to weaken or outright kill legislation to limit the use of drugs such as OxyContin, Vicodin and fentanyl.

The AP and the center found that between 2006 and 2015, Big Pharma spent more than $880 million nationwide on lobbying and campaign contributions. That was far more than advocates for a crackdown on prescription drugs could spend; it dwarfed what the gun lobby doled out over the same period.

The findings mirror reporting since 2011 by the Journal Sentinels John Fauber and MedPage Today, which found that money from drug makers was a pervasive influence.

The solution is for legislators and physicians to show courage in the face of these pressures. Legislators and Congress should take appropriate action to ensure that the drugs are available to those who need them but arent overprescribed. And physicians, knowing the risk, should be more reticent in prescribing these drugs.

There is plenty of evidence that doctors have been overprescribing.

Sales of prescription opioids rose fourfold from 1999 to 2010, the investigation found. Purdue Pharma, which makes OxyContin, had about $2.4 billion in sales from opioids last year alone, AP and the center report. And, all the while, deaths by overdose rose.

Opioids undoubtedly have a place in a sensible medical landscape, especially for cancer patients or end-of-life care. But studies show little evidence that opioids are effective for treating routine chronic pain. One study cited by the AP and the center from a hospital system in Pennsylvania found that about 40 percent of chronic non-cancer pain patients who received opioids showed signs of addiction.

You can create an awful lot of harm with seven days of opioid therapy, David Juurlink, a toxicology expert at the University of Toronto, told reporters. You can send people down the pathway to addiction when they never would have been sent there otherwise.

Lawmakers and physicians need to confront this scourge.
FLEETCOR Technologies, Inc. provides digital payment solutions for businesses to control purchases and make payments. It offers corporate payments solutions, such as accounts payable automation; Virtual Card, which provides a single-use card number for a specific amount usable within a defined timeframe; Cross-Border that is used by its customers to pay international vendors, foreign office and personnel expenses, capital expenditures, and profit repatriation and dividends; and purchasing cards and travel and entertainment cards for its customers to analyze and manage their corporate spending. The company also provides employee expense management solutions, including fuel solutions to businesses and government entities that operate vehicle fleets, as well as to oil and leasing companies, and fuel marketers; lodging solutions to businesses that have employees who travel overnight for work purposes, as well as to airlines and cruise lines to accommodate traveling crews and stranded passengers; and electronic toll payments solutions to businesses and consumers in the form of radio frequency identification tags affixed to vehicles' windshields. In addition, it offers gift card program management and processing services in plastic and digital forms that include card design, production and packaging, delivery and fulfillment, card and account management, transaction processing, promotion development and management, website design and hosting, program analytics, and card distribution channel management. Further, it provides other products consisting of payroll cards, vehicle maintenance service solution, long-haul transportation solution, prepaid food vouchers or cards, and prepaid transportation cards and vouchers. The company serves business, merchant, consumer, and payment network customers in North America, Brazil, and Internationally. The company was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc. provides early education and child care, back-up care, educational advisory, and other workplace solutions services for employers and families. The company operates through three segments: Full Service Center-Based Child Care, Back-Up Care, and Educational Advisory and Other Services. The Full Service Center-Based Child Care segment offers traditional center-based child care and early education, preschool, and elementary education services. The Back-Up Care segment provides center-based back-up child care, in-home child and adult/elder dependent care, school-age camps, virtual tutoring, and self-sourced reimbursed care services through child care centers, school-age campuses, and in-home caregivers, as well as the back-up care network. The Educational Advisory and Other Services segment offers tuition assistance and student loan repayment program administration, workforce education, and related educational consulting services, as well as college admissions advisory services. As of December 31, 2021, it operated 1,014 child care and early education centers in the United States, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, and India. The company was formerly known as Bright Horizons Solutions Corp. and changed its name to Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc. in July 2012. Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc. was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts.
InterXion Holding N.V. provides carrier and cloud-neutral colocation data center services in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. The company enables its customers to connect to a range of telecommunications carriers, cloud platforms, Internet service providers, and other customers. Its data centers acts as content, cloud, and connectivity hubs that facilitate the processing, storage, sharing, and distribution of data between its customers. The company offers colocation services, including space and power to deploy IT infrastructure in its data centers; a range of output voltages and currents; connectivity services that enable its customers to connect their IT infrastructure to exchange traffic and access cloud platforms; and systems monitoring, systems management, engineering support, and data backup and storage services, as well as installs and manages physical connections running from its customers' equipment to the equipment of its telecommunications carriers, Internet service providers, Internet exchange customers, and other customers. It provides its services to telecom operators, Internet service providers, and content delivery networks; content and cloud providers; and enterprises through direct sales forces, as well as through tradeshows, networking events, and industry seminars. As of December 31, 2018, it operated 51 carrier and cloud neutral colocation data centers in 13 metropolitan areas in 11 countries. The company is also involved in real estate management/holding businesses. InterXion Holding N.V. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Hoofddorp, the Netherlands.
Flowserve Corporation designs, develops, manufactures, distributes, and services industrial flow management equipment in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Flowserve Pump Division (FPD) and Flow Control Division (FCD). The FPD segment offers custom and pre-configured pumps and pump systems, mechanical seals, auxiliary systems, replacement parts, upgrades, and related aftermarket services, including installation and commissioning services, seal systems spare parts, repairs, advanced diagnostics, re-rate and upgrade solutions, retrofit programs, and machining and asset management solutions, as well as manufactures a gas-lubricated mechanical seal for use in high-speed compressors for gas pipelines. The FCD segment provides engineered and industrial valve and automation solutions, including isolation and control valves, actuation, controls, and related equipment, as well as equipment maintenance services for flow control systems, including advanced diagnostics, repair, installation, commissioning, retrofit programs, and field machining capabilities. This segment's products are used to control, direct, and manage the flow of liquids, gases, and fluids. The company primarily serves oil and gas, chemical and pharmaceuticals, power generation, and water management markets, as well as general industries, including mining and ore processing, pulp and paper, food and beverage, and other smaller applications. The company distributes its products through direct sales, distributors, and sales representatives. Flowserve Corporation was incorporated in 1912 and is headquartered in Irving, Texas.
Suburban Propane Partners, L.P., through its subsidiaries, engages in the retail marketing and distribution of propane, fuel oil, and refined fuels. The company operates in four segments: Propane, Fuel Oil and Refined Fuels, Natural Gas and Electricity, and All Other. The Propane segment is involved in the retail distribution of propane to residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural customers, as well as in the wholesale distribution to industrial end users. It offers propane primarily for space heating, water heating, cooking, and clothes drying in the residential and commercial markets; for use as a motor fuel in internal combustion engines to power over-the-road vehicles, forklifts, and stationary engines, as well as to fire furnaces, as a cutting gas to the industrial customers, and in other process applications; and for tobacco curing, crop drying, poultry brooding, and weed control in the agricultural markets. The Fuel Oil and Refined Fuels segment engages in the retail distribution of fuel oil, diesel, kerosene, and gasoline to residential and commercial customers for use primarily as a source of heat in homes and buildings. The Natural Gas and Electricity segment markets natural gas and electricity to residential and commercial customers in the deregulated energy markets in New York and Pennsylvania. The All Other segment sells, installs, and services a range of home comfort equipment, including whole-house heating products, air cleaners, humidifiers, and space heaters. As of September 25, 2021, the company served approximately 1.0 million residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural customers through 700 locations in 41 states primarily in the east and west coast regions of the United States, as well as portions of the Midwest region of the United States and Alaska. Suburban Energy Services Group LLC serves as a general partner of Suburban Propane Partners, L.P. The company was founded in 1945 and is headquartered in Whippany, New Jersey.
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.
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.
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.
The following companies are subsidiares of Emerson Electric: A.P.M. Automation Solutions Ltd., AE Valves, AGI Mexicana S.A. de C.V., ALCO CONTROLS spol. s.r.o., APM Automation Solutions, ASC Investments Inc., ASCO (Japan) Company Limited, ASCO L.P., ASCO Numatics (India) Private Limited, ASCO Numatics Holding Inc., ASCO SAS, ASCO Valve (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ASCO/JOUCOMATIC s.r.o., ATX SAS, Advanced Protection Technologies, Aegir Norge Holding AS, Alliance Compressors LLC, American Governor, Aperture, Apple JV Holding Corp., Appleton Electric LLC, Appleton Electric S.A. de C.V., Appleton Group, Appleton Group Canada Ltd., Appleton Grp LLC, Appleton Holding Corp., Appleton Holding Sarl, Artesyn Embedded Technologies, Artesyn Hungary Elektronikai Kft., Artesyn Technologies, Asco AB, Asco Controls AG, Asco Controls B.V., Asco Joucomatic Ltd., Asco Joucomatic ZA B.V., Asco Magnesszelep Kft., Asco Numatics GmbH, Asco Numatics S.A., Asco Numatics Sirai S.R.L., Asco Numatics Sp. z o.o., Ascomatica S.A. de C.V., Ascomation (NZ) Ltd., Ascomation Pty. Ltd., Ascotech S.A. de C.V., Ascoval Industria e Commercio Ltda, Automatic Switch Company, Aventics, Aventics, Aventics AB, Aventics AG, Aventics AS, Aventics ApS, Aventics B.V., Aventics Corporation, Aventics Holding S.A.S., Aventics Holding S.a.r.l., Aventics Hungary Kft, Aventics Inc., Aventics India Private Limited, Aventics Limited, Aventics Ltd., Aventics Oy, Aventics Pneumatics Equipment (Changzhou) Co. Ltd., Aventics Pneumatics Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Aventics S.A.S., Aventics S.R.L., Aventics Services Germany GmbH, Aventics Singapore Pte. Ltd., Aventics Sp. z.o.o., Aventics Spain S.L., Aventics spol. s.r.o., Avtron LoadBank, Bannerscientific Limited, Beckman Industrial B.V., Beijing Rosemount Far East Instrument Co. Ltd., Bettis Canada Ltd., Bettis Holdings Limited, Bettis UK Limited, Biffi Italia S.r.l., Bioproduction Group, Branson Korea Co. Ltd., Branson Ultrasonic S.A., Branson Ultrasonics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Branson Ultrasonics B.V., Branson Ultrasonics Corporation, Branson Ultrasonics a.s., Branson Ultrasonidos S.A.E., Branson Ultrasons SAS, Branson Ultrasuoni S.R.L., Branson de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Bray Lectroheat Limited, Bristol Babcock Limited, Bristol Inc., Buehler Europe Limited, Buehler UK Limited, CR Compressors LLC, CSA Consulting Engineers Ltd., California Emerson LLC, Cascade Technologies, Cascade Technologies Holdings Limited, Cascade Technologies Limited, Chemat GmbH Armaturen fur Industrie - und Nuklearanlage, Chloride Koexa S.A., Componentes Avanzados de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Computational Systems, Computational Systems Incorporated, Conception et Representation de Technologies de Controle C.R.T. Controle SAS, Control Products Inc., Controles de Temperatura S.A. de C.V., Cooligy Inc., Cooper-Atkins, Cooper-Atkins Corporation, Cooper-Atkins Pte. Ltd., Copeland Access + Inc., Copeland Compresores Hermeticos S.A. de C.V., Copeland Corporation, Copeland Corporation LLC, Copeland Limited, Copeland Redevelopment Corporation, Copeland Scroll Compresores de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Copeland de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Copesub Inc., Crosby Valve LLC, Damcos A/S, Damcos Holding A/S, Daniel Automation Company, Daniel Europe Limited, Daniel Industrial Inc., Daniel Industries, Daniel Industries Canada Inc., Daniel Industries Inc., Daniel Industries Limited, Daniel International Limited, Daniel Measurement Solutions Private Limited, Daniel Measurement and Control Inc., Daniel Measurement and Control S. de R.L. de C.V., Danmasa S.A. de C.V., Dar Ibtikar Al Iraq for General Services and General Trade LLC, Decision Management International, Dieterich Standard Inc., Digital Appliance Controls (UK) Limited, Dixell North America Inc., Dixell S.R.L., Do+Able Products, E. Business Development E.B.D.Com Ltd., E.G.P. Corporation, EECO Inc., EGS Comercializadora Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., EGS Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., EGS Private Ltd., EMERSON CLIMATE TECHNOLOGIES s.r.o., EMR (Asia) Limited, EMR (Mauritius) Ltd., EMR Emerson Holdings (Switzerland) GmbH, EMR Europe Holdings Inc., EMR Foundation Inc., EMR Holdings (France) SAS, EMR Holdings Inc., EMR Worldwide B.V., EMR Worldwide Inc., EMRSN HLDG B.V., EMRSN Process Management Morocco Sarl, ENPDOR2012A Limited, ENPESNA Inc., EPM Tulsa Holdings Corp., EPMCO Holdings Inc., ETC International Holdings Ltd., Easy Heat Europe SAS, Easy Heat Inc., El-O-Matic B.V., El-O-Matic Valve Actuators (F.E.) Pte. Ltd., Electrische Apparatenfabriek Capax B.V., Emerald Advanced Technology Limited, Emerson (Philippines) Corporation, Emerson (Taiwan) Limited, Emerson (Thailand) Limited, Emerson Arabia Inc., Emerson Argentina S.A., Emerson Asia Pacific Private Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Actuation Technologies Holdings Inc., Emerson Automation Solutions Actuation Technologies Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Sichuan) Co. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Taiwan) Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Thailand) Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Africa (Pty) Ltd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Australia Pty Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Czech Republic s.r.o., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Denmark A/S, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control France SARL, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Germany GmbH, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Hong Kong Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Hungary Kft, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Italia S.r.l., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control LLC, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Middle East FZE, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Netherlands B.V., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Polska Sp. Z.o.o., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Sales Australia Pty Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Sales Holding LLC, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Singapore Pte. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control UK II Ltd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control UK Ltd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control US LP, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Emerson Automation Solutions GmbH, Emerson Automation Solutions Intelligent Platforms (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Intelligent Platforms Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Intelligent Platforms Private Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Intelligent Platforms do Brasil Ltda, Emerson Automation Solutions Ireland Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Isolation Valves Inc., Emerson Automation Solutions SSC UK Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions UK Limited, Emerson Beijing Instrument Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Services LLC, Emerson Climate Technologies (India) Private Limited, Emerson Climate Technologies (Shenyang) Refrigeration Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, Emerson Climate Technologies (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies (Suzhou) Trading Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies - Solutions (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies - Transportation Solutions ApS, Emerson Climate Technologies Arabia Limited Co., Emerson Climate Technologies Australia Pty. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies FZE, Emerson Climate Technologies GmbH, Emerson Climate Technologies Inc., Emerson Climate Technologies Limited, Emerson Climate Technologies Mexico S.A. de C.V., Emerson Climate Technologies Refrigeration S.A., Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions Europe S.R.L., Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions Inc., Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions UK Limited, Emerson Climate Technologies S.A., Emerson Climate Technologies S.R.L., Emerson Climate Technologies Sarl, Emerson Commercial & Residential Tools LLC, Emerson Commerical & Residential Asia Limited, Emerson Comres de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Emerson DHC B.V., Emerson Dietzenbach GmbH, Emerson Dominicana Srl, Emerson Egypt LLC, Emerson Electric (Asia) Limited, Emerson Electric (China) Holdings Co. Ltd., Emerson Electric (M) Sdn Bhd, Emerson Electric (Mauritius) Ltd., Emerson Electric (South Asia) Pte. Ltd., Emerson Electric (Thailand) Limited, Emerson Electric (Tongling) Co. Ltd., Emerson Electric (U.S.) Holding Corporation, Emerson Electric (U.S.) Holding Corporation (Chile) Limitada, Emerson Electric (Zhuhai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Electric CR Limitada, Emerson Electric Canada Limited, Emerson Electric Company (India) Private Limited, Emerson Electric Company Lanka (Private) Limited, Emerson Electric Holdings (Switzerland) GmbH, Emerson Electric II C.A., Emerson Electric International Inc., Emerson Electric Ireland Limited, Emerson Electric Korea Ltd., Emerson Electric Nederland B.V., Emerson Electric Overseas Finance Corp., Emerson Electric Poland Sp. z o.o., Emerson Electric U.K. Limited, Emerson Electric de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Emerson Electric do Brasil Ltda, Emerson Energy Systems (UK) Limited, Emerson FZE, Emerson Final Control US Holding LLC, Emerson Finance LLC, Emerson Fusite Electric (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Emerson Gabon SARL, Emerson Hazardous Electrical Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Holding Company Limited, Emerson Holding Sweden AB, Emerson InSinkErator Appliance (Nanjing) Co. Ltd., Emerson Industrial Automation USA Inc., Emerson International Holding Company Limited, Emerson Japan Ltd., Emerson Junkang Enterprise (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Korea Limited, Emerson LLC, Emerson LLP, Emerson Machinery Equipment (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Emerson Mexico Finance S.A. de C.V. SOFOM ENR, Emerson Middle East Inc., Emerson Network Power DHC B.V., Emerson Paradigm Holding LLC, Emerson Process Management (India) Private Limited, Emerson Process Management (South Africa) (Proprietary) Ltd., Emerson Process Management (Tianjin) Valves Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management (Vietnam) Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management A/S (Denmark), Emerson Process Management AB, Emerson Process Management AG, Emerson Process Management AS, Emerson Process Management Angola Lda, Emerson Process Management Arabia Limited, Emerson Process Management Australia Pty Limited, Emerson Process Management B.V., Emerson Process Management Chennai Private Limited, Emerson Process Management Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Distribution Limited, Emerson Process Management Europe GmbH, Emerson Process Management Flow B.V., Emerson Process Management Flow Technologies Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management GmbH & Co. OHG, Emerson Process Management Holding AG, Emerson Process Management Holding LLC, Emerson Process Management Kft., Emerson Process Management LLLP, Emerson Process Management Lda, Emerson Process Management Limited, Emerson Process Management Ltda, Emerson Process Management Magyarorszag Kft., Emerson Process Management Manufacturing (M) Sdn Bhd, Emerson Process Management Marine Solutions Korea Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Marine Solutions Singapore Pte. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Marine Systems (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management NV, Emerson Process Management New Zealand Limited, Emerson Process Management Nigeria Limited, Emerson Process Management Oy, Emerson Process Management Power & Water Solutions (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Power & Water Solutions Inc., Emerson Process Management Power & Water Solutions India Private Limited, Emerson Process Management Qatar W.L.L., Emerson Process Management Regulator Technologies Inc., Emerson Process Management Regulator Technologies Tulsa LLC, Emerson Process Management Romania S.R.L., Emerson Process Management S.A., Emerson Process Management S.A. de C.V., Emerson Process Management S.L., Emerson Process Management S.R.L., Emerson Process Management SAS, Emerson Process Management Shared Services Limited, Emerson Process Management Sp. z o.o., Emerson Process Management Ticaret Limited Sirket, Emerson Process Management UAB, Emerson Process Management Valve Automation (M) Sdn Bhd, Emerson Process Management Valve Automation (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Valve Automation Inc., Emerson Process Management Verwaltung GmbH, Emerson Process Management d.o.o., Emerson Process Management de Colombia SAS, Emerson Process Management del Peru S.A.C., Emerson Process Management s.r.o., Emerson Professional Tools (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Puerto Rico Inc., Emerson Retail Services Europe GmbH, Emerson S.R.L., Emerson Sales UK Limited, Emerson Saudi Arabia LLC, Emerson Scroll Machining (Thailand) Limited, Emerson Sice S.R.L., Emerson Sweden AB, Emerson TOV, Emerson Technologies GmbH & Co. OHG, Emerson Technologies Verwaltungs GmbH, Emerson Tool Company de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Emerson Tool and Appliance Company S. de R.L. de C.V., Emerson Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson UK Trustees Limited, Emerson USD Finance Company Limited, Emerson Valves & Controls Japan Co. Ltd., Emerson Ventures Inc., Emerson Vulcan Holding LLC, Emerson Xi'an Engineering Center, Emersub 1 LLC, Emersub 10 LLC, Emersub 11 LLC, Emersub 12 LLC, Emersub 14 LLC, Emersub 15 LLC, Emersub 16 LLC, Emersub 3 LLC, Emersub 4 LLC, Emersub 5 LLC, Emersub 7 LLC, Emersub 8 LLC, Emersub 9 LLC, Emersub CII Inc., Emersub CV Inc., Emersub Italia S.R.L., Emersub LXXXIV Inc., Emersub LXXXVI Inc., Emersub Mexico Inc., Emersub Treasury Ireland Unlimited Company, Emersub XLVI Inc., Emersub XXXVI Inc., Emirates Techno Casting FZE, Emirates Techno Casting Holding Limited, Emirates Techno Casting LLC, Enardo, Endura-Greenlee Tools, Energy Solutions International (India) Private Limited, Energy Solutions International GP LLC, Energy Solutions International Ltd., Energy Solutions International SAS, Energy Solutions International Sub LLC, F-R Tecnologias de Flujo S.A. de C.V., FC QSF LLC, FMC Technologies, Fiberconn Assemblies Morocco Sarl, Fincor Holding LLC, Fire & Safety Group.Com Ltd., Fisher Controles de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Fisher Controls International LLC, Fisher Jeon Gas Equipment (Chengdu) Co. Ltd., Fisher Regulators (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Fisher Sanmar Limited, Fisher-Rosemount Systems Inc., Flow Control Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Flow Control Holding Verwaltungs GmbH, Flow Control US Holding Corporation, Francel SAS, Fromex S.A. de C.V., Fusite B.V., Fusite Corporation, Fusite Land Company, GSEG LLC, General Equipment and Manufacturing Company Inc., Generale de Robinetterie Industrielle et de Sytemes de Surete, GeoFields, GeoFields Inc., Greenex Ltd., Greenfield (UK) Limited, Greenlee, Greenlee Communications, Greenlee Tools Inc., Gulf Valve FZE, Gustav Klauke GmbH, H.T.E. Engineering Limited, HD Electric Company, HTE Engineering Services Limited, Hindle Cockburns Limited, Hiross India Private Limited, Hiter Industria e Comercia de Controles Termo-Hidraulicos Ltda., Humboldt Hermetic Motor Corp., Hytork International Ltd., I Solutions Inc., ICC Intelligent Platforms GmbH, ISE-MagTech, Industrial Controls Canada ULC, Industrial Group Metran JSC, Instrument & Valve Services Company, Intelligent Platforms LLC, Intellution, International Gas Distribution SA, Intrinsic Safety Equipment of Texas Inc., JCF Fluid Flow India Private Limited, JSC Metran-Export, Joucomatic S.A., K Controls Limited, Keystone Germany Holdings Corp., Keystone Valve (Korea) LLC, Keystone Valve (U.K.) Limited, Klauke, Klauke (Jiangsu) Electrical Connection Technology Co Ltd., Klauke France SARL, Klauke Handelsgesellschaft mbH, Klauke Iberia S.L., Klauke Polska Sp. z.o.o., Klauke Slovakia s.r.o., Klauke UK Ltd., Knurr, Liebert, Liebert Swindon Limited, Locus Solutions LLC, Locus Traxx Worldwide, Locus Traxx Worldwide Europe BVBA, MDC Technology Limited, MDC Technology Trustees Limited, METCO Services Limited, MYNAH Technologies, Management Resources Group Inc., Mecafrance (Deutschland) GmbH, Metallurgical Services Laboratories Limited, Metaserv Limited, Metco Services Venezuela C.A., Micro Motion Inc., Mobrey Group Limited, Motores Hermeticos del Sur S.A. de C.V., NetworkPower Ecuador S.A., Nippon Fisher Co. Ltd., Novel Environmental Technologies Ltd., Novel Extinguishing Agent Technology Ltd., Numatics Incorporated, Nutsteel DHC B.V., Nutsteel Industria Metalurgica Ltda, O.M.T. Officina Meccanica Tartarini S.r.l., Open Systems International, P I Components Corp., PT Emerson Solutions Indonesia, PT. Emerson Indonesia, PT. Paradigm Geophysical Indonesia, Pactrol Controls Limited, PakSense, PakSense Inc., Paradigm, Paradigm (UK) Holding Limited, Paradigm B.V., Paradigm France S.A., Paradigm Geophysical (India) Private Limited, Paradigm Geophysical (KL) Sdn. Bhd., Paradigm Geophysical (Nigeria) Limited, Paradigm Geophysical (U.K.) Limited, Paradigm Geophysical B.V., Paradigm Geophysical Corp., Paradigm Geophysical Italy SRL, Paradigm Geophysical LLC, Paradigm Geophysical Limited, Paradigm Geophysical Pty Ltd, Paradigm Geophysical S.A., Paradigm Geophysical Sdn. Bhd., Paradigm Geophysical Spain S.L., Paradigm Geophysical de Venezuela C.A., Paradigm Geophysical do Brasil Ltda., Paradigm Geoservices Canada Ltd., Paradigm Geotechnology (Egypt) S.A.E., Paradigm Kazakhstan LLP, Paradigm Middle East FZ-LLC, Paradigm Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Parex Industries Limited, Pentair Valves & Controls, Pentair Valves and Controls India Private Limited, Permasense, Permasense Asia Pacific Sdn Bhd, Permasense Limited, ProSys, ProTeam Inc., Progea, RAC Technologies (Israel) Ltd., RIDGID Inc., RPP Europe GmbH, RPP LLC, Rey-Lam S. de R.L. de C.V., Ridge Tool (Australia) Pty. Ltd., Ridge Tool Company, Ridge Tool Europe NV, Ridge Tool GmbH, Ridge Tool GmbH & Co. OHG, Ridge Tool Manufacturing Company, Ridge Tool Pattern Company, Ridgid France SAS, Ridgid Italia S.R.L., Ridgid Online Inc., Ridgid Scandinavia A/S, Ridgid Werkzeuge AG, Rosemount China Inc., Rosemount Inc., Rosemount Measurement Limited, Rosemount Nuclear Instruments Inc., Rosemount Specialty Products LLC, Rosemount Tank Gauging India Pvt. Ltd., Rosemount Tank Gauging Middle East SPC, Rosemount Tank Gauging North America Inc., Rosemount Tank Radar AB, Rosemount Tank Radar Properties AB, Roxar, Roxar AS, Roxar Flow Measurement AS, Roxar Flow Measurement Sdn Bhd, Roxar Limited, Roxar Maximum Reservoir Performance W.L.L., Roxar Saudi Co., Roxar Services AS, Roxar Services OOO, Roxar Software Solutions AS, Roxar Technologies AS, Roxar Vietnam Company Ltd., Roxar de Venezuela C.A., Rutherfurd Acquisitions Limited, S.F.T. Group Ltd., SABO-Armaturen Service GmbH, Safety Systems UK Pte. Ltd., Sakhi-Raimondi Valve (India) Limited, Scroll Compressors LLC, Scroll Mexico LLC, Sempell GmbH, Shanghai Virgo Valves Technology Consulting Co. Ltd., Sherman + Reilly, Soluciones 0925 C.A., Spectra-Tek Holdings Limited, Spectra-Tek International Limited, Spectra-Tek UK Limited, Spectrex, Spectrex Inc., Spectronix Ltd., Spensall Engineering Limited, Steel Support Systems Limited, Stratos Lightwave, System Plast International B.V., System Plast Ltda, System Plast USA de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., TDM-avtomatizatsiya, TV&C GP Holding LLC, Taiwan Valve Co. Ltd., TechnipFMC, Termocontroles de Juarez S.A. de C.V., Tescom Corporation, Tescom Europe GmbH & Co. KG, Tescom Europe Management GmbH, The Automation Group Inc., The J.R. Clarkson Company LLC, Therm-O-Disc Europe B.V., Therm-O-Disc Incorporated, Thunderline Z Inc., TopWorx UK Limited, Tranmet Holdings B.V., Tranmet Holdings Limited, Verdant Environmental Technologies, Vilter Manufacturing LLC, Virgo Valves & Controls (ME) FZE, Virgo Valves and Controls Sdn Bhd, Von Arx AG, Vulsub 1 Limited, Vulsub Brasil Holding, Vulsub Brasil Ltda., Vulsub Chile SpA, Vulsub Gulf Holding Limited, Vulsub Holding III (Denmark) ApS, Vulsub Holding Ltd, Vulsub Holdings A LLC, Vulsub Holdings B LLC, Vulsub Holdings C LLC, Vulsub Holdings D LLC, Vulsub Italia S.r.l., Vulsub Middle East Holdings LLC, Vulsub Peru S.A.C., Vulsub Property Holding LLC, Vulsub Property Limited, Vulsub S.A., Vulsub South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Vulsub VZ C.A., Westinghouse Electric Pvt. Limited, Westlock Controls Limited, Westlock Equipamentos de Controle Ltda., Woodstock Land Company LLC, epro GmbH, iSolera Inc., iSolutions Private Limited, and intelliSAW.

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Carter's, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, sources, and markets branded childrenswear under the Carter's, OshKosh, Skip Hop, Child of Mine, Just One You, Simple Joys, Carter's My First Love, little planet, and other brands in the United States and internationally. The company operates through three segments: U.S. Retail, U.S. Wholesale, and International. Its Carter's products include babies and young children products, such as bodysuits, pants, dresses, knit sets, blankets, layette essentials, bibs, booties, sleep and play products, rompers, and jumpers; and OshKosh brand products comprise playclothes, such as denim apparel products with multiple wash treatments and coordinating garments, overalls, woven bottoms, knit tops, and bodysuits. The company also provides products for playtime, travel, mealtime, bathtime, and homegear, as well as kid's bags and diaper bags under the Skip Hop brand. In addition, it offers bedding, cribs, diaper bags, footwear, gift sets, hair accessories, jewelry, outerwear, paper goods, socks, shoes, swimwear, and toys. The company operates 18,800 wholesale locations, including department stores, national chain stores, and specialty stores. As of December 31, 2021, it operated 980 retail stores. The company also sells its products through its eCommerce websites, such as carters.com, oshkoshbgosh.com, oshkosh.com, and skiphop.com, as well as other international wholesale accounts and licensees. Carter's, Inc. was founded in 1865 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
Forum Energy Technologies, Inc. designs, manufactures, and distributes products serving the oil, natural gas, industrial, and renewable energy industries in the United States and internationally. It operates through three segments: Drilling & Downhole, Completions, and Production. The Drilling & Downhole segment designs, manufactures, and supplies products, and provides related services to the drilling, well construction, artificial lift, and subsea energy construction markets, including applications in oil and natural gas, renewable energy, defense, and communications. This segment offers drilling technologies consisting of capital equipment and a line of products consumed in the drilling process; well construction casing and cementing equipment, and protection products for artificial lift equipment and cables; and subsea remotely operated vehicles and trenchers, submarine rescue vehicles, specialty components and tools, and complementary subsea technical services. The Completions segment offers hydraulic fracturing pumps, cooling systems, high-pressure flexible hoses, and flow iron for pressure pumping, hydraulic fracturing and flowback services markets; wireline cable and pressure control equipment for well completion and intervention service markets; and coiled tubing strings and coiled line pipe. The Production segment designs, manufactures, and supplies products, and provides related equipment and services for production and infrastructure markets. This segment offers engineered process systems, production equipment, specialty separation equipment, and various industrial valves for oil and natural gas customers, power generation, renewable energy, and other general industrial applications. The company was formerly known as Forum Oilfield Technologies, Inc. and changed its name to Forum Energy Technologies, Inc. in August 2010. Forum Energy Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
World Fuel Services Corporation engages in the distribution of fuel and related products and services in the aviation, marine and land transportation industries worldwide. Its Aviation segment supplies fuel and related products and services to commercial airlines, second and third tier airlines, cargo carriers, regional and low-cost carriers, airports, fixed based operators, corporate fleets, fractional operators, private aircraft, the U.S., foreign governments, intergovernmental organizations, and military customers. This segment also offers fuel management, price risk management, ground handling, dispatch services and trip planning services, such as flight planning and scheduling, weather reports and overflight permits. Its Land segment offers fuel, heating oil, propane, natural gas, lubricants and related products and services to petroleum distributors and retail petroleum operators, as well as industrial, commercial, residential and government customers. This segment also offers management services for procuring fuel and price risk management; advisory and fulfillment solutions related to power, natural gas and other energy products; consulting, renewable fuel products, carbon management and renewable energy solutions and card payment solutions; and transaction management and commercial payment programs. Its Marine segment markets fuel, lubricants and related products and services to international container and tanker fleets, commercial cruise lines, yachts and time charter operators, offshore rig owners and operators, the U.S., foreign governments, and other fuel suppliers. Its marine fuel-related services include management services to procure fuel, cost control, quality control, and claims management services. This segment also engages in the fueling of vessels, transportation and delivery of fuel and fuel-related products. World Fuel Services Corporation was incorporated in 1984 and is headquartered in Miami, Florida.
State Street Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides a range of financial products and services to institutional investors worldwide. The company offers investment servicing products and services, including custody; product accounting; daily pricing and administration; master trust and master custody; depotbank services; record-keeping; cash management; foreign exchange, brokerage and other trading services; securities finance and enhanced custody products; deposit and short-term investment facilities; loans and lease financing; investment manager and alternative investment manager operations outsourcing; performance, risk, and compliance analytics; and financial data management to support institutional investors. It also engages in the provision of portfolio management and risk analytics, as well as trading and post-trade settlement services with integrated compliance and managed data. In addition, the company offers investment management strategies and products, such as core and enhanced indexing, multi-asset strategies, active quantitative and fundamental active capabilities, and alternative investment strategies. Further, it provides services and solutions, including environmental, social, and governance investing; defined benefit and defined contribution; and global fiduciary solutions, as well as exchange-traded fund under the SPDR ETF brand. The company provides its products and services to mutual funds, collective investment funds and other investment pools, corporate and public retirement plans, insurance companies, foundations, endowments, and investment managers. State Street Corporation was founded in 1792 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.




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US DOE awards depleted uranium contract

30 September 2016

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The US Department of Energy (DOE) yesterday awarded Mid-America Conversion Services, a joint venture of Atkins, Fluor and Westinghouse, a $318 million five-year contract to operate facilities to convert depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) at its plants at Paducah, Kentucky and Portsmouth, Ohio.

Under the contract, the Atkins-led joint venture will operate the facilities to convert the DOE's inventory of about 765,000 tonnes of DUF6, a produced alongside enriched uranium at the DOE's former gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment operations at the sites, to depleted uranium oxide for possible future re-use, storage or disposal. Aqueous hydrofluoric acid, which can be re-used in industrial processes, is a co-product of the conversion of DUF6.

Mid-America Conversion Services was selected from five proposals received by DOE in response to its contract solicitation. The joint venture will also be responsible for selling the aqueous hydrofluoric acid produced in the operation as well as for reusing or transporting and disposing of end-products and wastes, and providing surveillance and maintenance services for the DUF6 cylinder inventory.

Alan Parker, president and project manager of Atkins' Energy Americas business, said the nuclear services company was looking forward to bringing its extensive experience in nuclear operations and high-level waste management to the facilities. "We've been involved at the Portsmouth and Paducah sites for over ten years and managed construction of the DUF6 plants. We're pleased to resume our involvement in these important projects," he said.

Westinghouse said the contract signalled its intent to re-enter the government services marketplace. CEO Jose Emeterio Gutierrez said: "This DOE contract award is the start of the next chapter in Westinghouse's long history of managing nationally strategic resources. We are excited to return to this important arena. Westinghouse has much to offer to government customers, and we look forward to creating real value for them through our technologies and our constant focus on safety, quality and excellence in all operations."

Continuity assured



Alongside the announcement of the contract, the DOE's Office of Environmental Management announced that it was extending its existing contract with BWXT Conversion Services (BWCS) for operations of the Portsmouth and Paducah DUF6 conversion facilities for a period of up to four months.

Previously extended for nine months to accommodate the competitive procurement process for the new DUF6 operations contract, BWCS's contract period had been due to expire today. DOE said the new extension, worth about $35.8 million, will accommodate the transition to the new contract without interrupting ongoing services.

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News





Related topics
Afghanistan is a country in Central Asia covering an area of 652,230 square kilometers, housing a population of 32,564,342 people according to 2015 figures. Kabul is both the capital and the largest city in Afghanistan. The city developed along the banks of River Kabul to become the most influential and modern city in the country. The following is a list of the biggest cities in Afghanistan, with data from the 2015 Afghan Cities Report by the United Nations.

Kabul - 2,970,713

Kabul has a population of 2,970,713, although this is a low estimate. The city may have a population of upwards of 4 million individuals. Dari, a form of Afghan Persian, is the formal language. As the capital city, the countrys cultural and economic activities center on Kabul. In the last decade, Kabuls economy has tracked its way up to being the fifth fastest growing economy in the world. Kabul dates back to the 2nd Century CE. The prime city location along the trade routes of central and south Asia has contributed a great deal to its prominence. Kabul became a local seat of the government as early as the 8th Century.

Herat - 673,425

The ancient city of Herat has a population of around 673,425. According to the National Demographics of 2003, 85% of these residents are Tajiks, 10% are Pashtu, 2% are Hazaras, 2% are Uzbeks, and 1% are Turkmen. Persian is the lingua franca, the native language, and the local dialect of Herat. Pashto is the second most widely spoken language. Sunni Muslims are the majority. The history of Herat dates back to Avestan times as wine producing city. It became the Pearl of Khorasan in the middle ages. The Hotaki forces invaded the city in 1717, but the Afsharids drove them out in 1736. The Soviet War also had a significant impact on the city.

Mazar-i-Sharif - 582,113

Mazar-i-Sharif is the third largest city in Afghanistan. It had a population of around 582,113 in 2015. The city is multilingual and multicultural. The Dari language dominates among the city dwellers, Uzbeki and Pashto are also the largest groups. Most of the people are Sunni Muslims. According to the National Demographics in 2013, 60% are Tajiks, 10% Hazaras, 10% Pashtu, 10% Turkmen, and 10% Uzbeks. Occasion ethnic violence has been reported between the Pashtuns and other ethnic groups. Mazar is the trading center in the northern parts of the country. Trade, agriculture, and the Karakul sheep farming dominate the local economy. There are also small-scale gas and oil companies contributing to the economy.

Kandahar - 464,265

Kandahar, the fourth-largest Afghanistan city, has a population of 464,265. Pashtun make up 70% of the people there, while 20% are Tajiks, 6% are Hazaras, 2% are Balochis, and 2% are Uzbeks. As a result, the city forms the major cultural center of the Pashtun people. Pashtun is the official language and Persian is spoken among government official and the educated. Alexander the Great founded the city in 329 BC around the ancient town of Arachosian. The strategic city location along the trading routes from Herat to Central Asia, to Kabul and India, has made Kandahar a prominent city. In 1747, the city became the first capital of a united Afghanistan. In the Afghan war, it became the center of the Afghan rebels fighting the Soviet invasion forces.
Less than 100 miles from Port Sudan, the area provides a sanctuary for dugongs and other marine species. The isolated islands almost untouched by human activities have retained their integrity and authenticity as one of the most natural conserved islands in the Red Sea. The biodiversity flourishes on the developed biosystems of mangrove swamps, lagoons, bays, and rock beaches and mountain ranges. The remoteness of the site also makes it difficult for tourism and other developments to take place. This lack of protective measures puts the ecosystem and marine life of the area in a dangerous position of over-exploitation by people in the shark or pet trade.

5. Description -

The Dungonab Bay and Mukkawar Island lies 25km north of Port Sudan. The Cape of Abushagara is a large lagoon extending for more than fifty miles. Coves, rocks, and sandy bays with mangrove swamps characterize the Islands. It experiences daily high tides, winds, and currents that magically change the islands and beaches. Small white sandy hills appear and disappear and reappear. The island of Mesharifa forms the largest home for the manta rays. The ecosystem sits at the southern most end of the vast lagoon. On the northern side of this site lies a lonely planet of turquoise water, flocks and flights of birds, and solitude. The whole coastline is a series of mountains that are ever changing depending on the light. The site offers the best sunsets. The Dugongs graze in the bay. During winters the manta rays migrate to the northern parts. Aside from mountains, there are also many small islands surrounded by bushes or pearls of beautiful white sands, lapped by blue, green, and turquoise waters. The mangrove swamps edge some coves mixing colors to give the national park a mixture of mud and white sands.

4. History-

The Red Sea has one of the best coral reefs in the world. The entire Sudanese coastline is part of the central part of the Red Sea. The area provides optimal conditions for the formation and growth of corals and thus harbors the most diverse reef organism. Therefore Dungonab Bay and Mukkawar Island lie at the center of the most diverse marine ecosystem in the world. The reefs of the sites also have an overall excellent condition since the area is almost untouched by human activities and have high species richness and a large number of flagship bio life. The site has no immediate resident population thanks to its remoteness the geographical position is not a major fishing ground. Since the early 1980's, the islands have attracted the world's attention for the biodiversity, but it was not internationally recognized until 2004 when it gained the world heritage status.

3. Role in Sudan's Economy -

The shark market is a lucrative business. Shark fishing in the area has attracted attention from outsiders harvest the rare but nonetheless valuable sea creatures. The site has also been a center of focus from the conservation and wildlife agents around the world. The site has also received attention from the undergraduate scientific researchers from the Red Sea University who come to the country to pursue higher degrees thus opening Sudan to modern laboratories and advanced research. Even though tourism is minimal, the national parks still chip in the economy of Sudan with the few people who love nature and exploring new sites. Sudan has also received international recognition for harboring one of the most natural ecosystems for whale sharks and the threatened turtle species. Soon that attention might bring more scientists and research bodies giving the economy a boost concerning foreign investment.There are two villages in the site; Mohammed Qol and the Dungonab villages. The area is home to these communities who fish and live from the biodiversity of the region.

2. Habitat and Biodiversity -

The area consists of the highly diversified ecosystem of coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangrove, beaches, and islets. Populations of seabirds, fish, marine mammals, sharks, turtles, manta rays, the national park provides critical nesting areas for water birds and sea turtles. Also several groups of mantar rays unique to the eastern coast of the Indian Ocean nest here too. Rare species of the whale sharks and baleen whales, Rorchals, are also live here. The Rorchals are also seen in the northern parts of Abushagara and south of Mukkawar Island. The mangrove swamps also provide habitats for herons. The Hawksbill turtles are common in the north end of Dungonab Bay, and green turtles thrive in almost every sector. The Hammerhead sharks occupy the areas around the Sanganeb Atoll, Shaab Rumi, and the reefs of Dungonab Bay. On the western side of the Mukkawar Island have a small number of small reefs sharks. The mangrove forests occupy the southern end of the Dungonab Peninsula, Mukkawar Island, and Mersa Inkefal mainland.

1. Environmental Threats and Conservation Efforts -

The area is uncontaminated. However controlled fishing and proposing fishing reserves or season regulations are among the various initiatives put forward to protect the area. The biggest problem facing the ecosystem is that the raised conservation and protection strategies exist only on paper and in preliminary studies. None of the initiatives have been implemented. The primary threat facing the area is shark fishing. Sharks fins have been in demand for a long time, and their sale though illegal is lucrative. Fishing becomes a problem in that when at sea, there is no regulation or control on fishing. Also, future threats to the area include human disturbances, exploitation, the introduction of invasive species, and habitat destruction. The immense isolation of the property makes protection difficult. The city faces a limited development of tourism, challenging flight connections, and lack of diving or residential units. Currently, the Wildlife Administration and fisheries regulations conserve the Dungonab Bay. If these conservation strategies are not acted upon, the Bay might suffer the negative impacts affected by the two villages at the coast.
South Africa is the southernmost African nation, and the only one bordering both the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. It has its capital in Pretoria and Johannesburg is the largest city. There are eleven official languages spoken there, including Afrikaans, English, and Zulu. Black Africans (80.2%) are the demographic majority, followed by the so-called "Colored" population (8.8%) and whites (8.4%). The Asians constitute to only 2.5%. The country ended its practice of racial apartheid in 1994. This nation produces more than 50% of the gold in the world. Most of the interior land in South Africa is a plateau. The eastern part of this Great Escarpment is known as the Drakensberg. This mountain range stretches for over 600 miles and hosts some of the highest peaks in South Africa. In this article, we will discuss some of the highest peaks in South Africa.

Mafadi Mountain

The Mafadi peak is the highest point in South Africa at a height of 11,320 feet. The mountain is located at the border South Africa and Lesotho, with Lesotho having another higher peak in the same mountain, Thambana Ntlenyana, at 11,424 feet. The name Mafida is translated to mean the mother to Fida, and is disputed by the Sotho who assert that Ntheledi, meaning makes me slip, is more relevant and correct. The name Ntheledi refers to a nearby stream. The mountain is very popular with hikers and receives thousands of adventure seekers on an annual basis. The mountain drains into the Atlantic Ocean and Orange basin.

Champagne Castle

It is 11,079 feet above sea level and is located in the KwaZulu-Natal region. It is mainly composed of basalt rock. The first person to Ascent the mountain was a Reverend Stocker in the early 20th Century. It has a series of subsidiary peaks with the four topmost peaks being Cathkin Peak (highest), Sterkhorn, Monks Cowl, and Dragons Back. The name the champagne castle is said to have originated when two mountaineers, David Gray and Major Grantham climbed the peaks up to the highest point, the Cathkin Peak and decided to celebrate the occasion by popping champagne. The guide, unfortunately, dropped the bottle on a rock and the name Champagne Castle was born.

Popple Peak

It is one of the mountains in the Drakensberg Range. It has an elevation of 10,928 feet and is located in KwaZulu-Natal in between the border of South Africa and Lesotho. Locally this peak is known as a Khulu which refers to a peak above 10,000 feet and not within the range of a kilometer from another Khulu. The peak was named by a mountaineer known as Barry Anderson after John Poppleton. They had climbed together up to the peak in 1946 but on arrival to the top, a heavy thunderstorm came up. Poppleton was concerned for their safety and therefore left the summit. Anderson later sent the survey of the summit with the elevation and suggested it be named as "Popple Peak". On average, the wind blows at a speed of sixteen miles per hour, and there is an average Seventeen Degrees Celsius daytime temperature with night temperatures dropping as low as Three Degrees.

Cathedral Peak

It is also known as Mponjwana by the local Amangwane ethnic group. It is 9,856 feet high mainly made up of basalt rock. The first ascent was by Basset Smith and R.G. Kingdon in 1917. It is an easy mountain for hikers, and one can use only one day using the easiest route. This peak is part of the cathedral range with other peaks in the range, including the Twins, the Bell, the Outer and Inner Horns, the Chessmen, and the Miter Peak.

Mont-Aux-sources

The mountain forms one of the highest portions of the Drakensberg Range. It is a basalt plateau with an average elevation of around 10,000 feet, with the highest point being a 10,768 feet. The name Mont-aux-sources is a French word meaning fountains mountain and came from French missionaries who visited the area in 1836. Several rivers originate from this mountain, including the Tugela, the Caledon (which is the main tributary of the Orange River), the Seati, and the Elands.
5. Description and History

The Tsodilo Rock Art is located in the Tsodilo Hills in the Ngamiland District in the country of Botswana in Africa. The Tsodilo Hills is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Tsodilo Hills area consists of four chief hills, of which three are known as the Male Hill, Female Hill, Child and Hill. The other hill does not have a name. The Tsodilo Hills is made up of rock shelters, caves and depressions, but what makes it a World Heritage Sites and an important locations is the ancient rock art located in the area. The ancient rock art paintings in the area are mostly in the caves, although some are out in the open air. The paintings are either done in white or red, the white paintings are attributed to the Bantu people, while the red paintings are attributed to the San people. The notable cave locations at the site for tourists to see and archaeologists to study are the Rhino Cave, the White Paintings Rock Shelter and the Depression Rock Shelter Site. Archaeologists have also excavated charcoal. shell fragments, stone artifacts made mostly from quartz or jasper, prepared projectile points, bone samples, jewelry and other objects that date from either the African Iron Age, Later Stone Age and Middle Stone Age. There has also been more recent objects from the last few centuries found at the site, like nylon buttons and European glass beads.

4. Tourism

About 40 kilometers (24 miles) away from the Tsodilo Hills site is the small town of Shakawe, which is usually used as a staging point for tourists who want to visit the Tsodilo Hills. The Tsodilo Hills can be reached via car from the town of Shakawe or via small airplane as the managed campsite that sits between the the tallest hills has a airstrip for planes to land. The campsite at the area as a small museum for tourists to go through and learned about the history of the site, as well as showers and toilets for the tourists to use. The major draw for tourists to visit the site is that the Tsodilo hills has some of the highest concentrations of rock art on planet Earth. In the 10 square kilometer area (3.86 square miles) there are over 4,500 rock paintings that span the vast history of humanity.

3. Uniqueness

One of the important reasons that the Tsodilo Hills are unique in Botswana is that they are only one of the two UNESCO World Heritage Sites in all of Botswana, along with the Okavango Delta. The Male Hill at the site is also one of the tallest hills in all of Botswana, standing at a height of 1,400 meters (4,593 feet) above sea level. The Tsodilo Hills area holds a great cultural and spiritual importance to the San people who live in the Kalahari Desert. The site at Tsodilo Hills is believed to have been used as a location that people have lived, painted and performed rituals for thousands of years. UNESCO even estimates the hills have about 500 different individual sites that represent the thousands of years of humans living in the area. Some of the rock art paintings at the site have been date to possibly be about 24,000 years old, while others are as recent as the mid 1800s. The area is also unique for having uncovered the oldest mongongo nuts that have ever been found in archaeologically, which were discovered in the Rock Shelter Depression site. At two of the archaeological sites at the Tsodilo Hills, called Nqoma and Divuyu, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of Early Iron Age metal artifacts. This had led archaeologists to concludes that these two sites might have been iron smelting areas and the sites are one of the few in southern Africa where evidence of metal working from the Early Iron Age has been found.

2. Nature, Sights, and Sounds

In the Rhino Cave on Female Hill the cave is named after the notable white rhino paining on the wall, since it is the only white painting in this cave. Next to the rhino painting is a painting of a red giraffe and around the giraffe and the rhino are varied paintings of geometric shapes that are in red. Across from these paintings is a number of depressions and grooves that archaeologists believe where ground into the rock using hammer stones from the Later Stone Age period since hammer stones have been found in the area. Also on Female Hill is the Depression Rock Shelter Site which is named after the man-made depressions on the sites walls. The site also has red paintings of cattle and more geometric shapes. On Male Hill is where the White Paintings Rock Shelter, which true to its name is the location where most of the white paintings and a few red paintings are located at the Tsodilo Hills site. The white paintings in these cave show domestic and wild animals, as well as humans. Some of the human in the paintings are on horseback, which indicates that these are newer, since horses were not introduced to the region until the middle of the 19th century.

1. Threats and Conservation

Due to the Tsodilo Hills remote location, lack of humans in the general area and the quartzitic rock that has a great resistance to erosion that area is in a great state of preservation. The archaeological work at the site must be done in accordance with the national legislation of Botswana and any hole done during archaeological work are made sure to be refilled once the work is completed so that the strata and deposits are intact for the future, Over the years the amount of visitors and tourists to the Tsodilo Hills has increased, but since there are mandatory guided tours in place there have been a limited number of incidents of graffiti or vandalism at the site. The largest challenge for the site to deal with currently in handling the threat of increased litter that comes with the increasing number of tourists to the site.
Litigation adds to the mounting woes of the beleaguered internet giant

Last week Yahoo revealed that over 500 million users had been affected by one of the largest data breaches in history. Disgruntled users in Illinois and California have already filed class-action lawsuits aimed at holding the struggling internet giant responsible.

The lawsuits are not only related to Yahoos ineffective information security measures. They also relate to the amount of time it took the company to reveal the data breach. Some plantiffs contend that by failing to announce the breach immediately, cyber criminals had time to exploit data before users were able to take simple protective measures.

These plaintiffs specifically cited a study conducted by the Ponemon Institute identifying 191 days as the average amount of time necessary to detect and announce a data breach affecting public users. In the case of the Yahoo data breach, the company took two years to detect and announce the breach.

Yahoo has blamed the attack on a state-sponsored group of hackers but has declined to point a finger at any specific nation. Some have questioned whether the the attack was actually state sponsored or whether Yahoo is making that claim to hide the embarrassment of being breached by a less sophisticated group of cyber criminals.

The data breach included included names, addresses, dates of birth, passwords, and in some cases security questions and answers. Users of the companys email, fantasy sport, and finance sites were all affected.

Yahoo reportedly launched the investigation into the breach beginning in July. The initial focus, however, was on a suspected data breach that occurred in 2012. At the start of the investigation Yahoo was negotiating with Verizon so sell of its core internet business for $4.8 billion. The breach was not immediately disclosed, and some have reported that it could reduce the sale price significantly.

The findings of security experts bolster the plaintiff claims that Yahoo misrepresented the safety of its systems and services. A company that specializes in securing cryptographic keys found several troubling flaws after auditing external Yahoo websites. More than a quarter of the certificates audited had not been updated since 2015, a serious lapse of security best practices. This lapse may not contributed to the data breach named in the lawsuits, but does indicate a corporate culture that failed to adequately prioritize data security.

If the number of lawsuits increases, it could continue to lower the sale price of Yahoo. The information revealed within these lawsuits could also reduce the already dwindling numbers of Yahoo users.
A young man wanted to make a point about racism in the United States, but his plan backfired when he was exposed for a liar by police. 20-year-old Khalil Cavil of Texas was working at the Saltgrass Steak House in Odessa when he claimed he was discriminated against because of his Muslim name. Cavil took
Philip Longbottom

By: Tanya Malhotra

A businessman and scouts leader was arrested on a charge of rape after being accused of raping multiple children and a 19-year-old man, according to police in the United Kingdom.

Now, 67-year-old Philip Longbottom of Shipley, has been sentenced to serve up to life in prison after pleading guilty to a total of 43 counts.

According to the criminal complaint, Longbottom sexually assaulted 12 victims. He has been charged with child sex abuse, rape and buggery.

He also charged with rape and sexual assault of a 19-year-old man. Longbottom was a respected member of the community and a wealthy businessman.

Longbottom was a scout and sea cadet leader, and helped at the church CB radio club. He systematically abused young boys for over 30 years.

Longbottom used his wealth and status to befriend and then systematically abuse young boys for over 30 years, in what amounted to a campaign of rape against multiple victims.

He groomed his victims by showering them with lavish gifts, money, foreign holidays and camping trips. He plied them with drugs and alcohol, assaulted and raped them, abusing their trust in him in the most obscene manner.
Kate Nield

By: Feng Qian

(Scroll down for video) A woman was arrested on a charge of assault after being accused of biting off a piece of her friends cheek, according to police in the United Kingdom.

Now, Claire McCluskey, 30, of Southport, has been given two years suspended sentence of pleading guilty to assault.

According to the police investigation, McCluskey had been drinking with the woman and a few other friends in a house and the atmosphere had been friendly for most of the evening.

However, later in the evening, the victim thought that McCluskey was too drunk to stay and suggested that she leave, and she did.

McCluskey returned, and there was an argument between the two. McCluskey punched the victim and then bit a chunk of her cheek.

The victim was taken to the Southport Hospital, where the injury was dressed and she was referred to the Whiston Hospital.

Two days later, a skin graft was done by taking tissues from her upper right arm and grafting this onto the injury. Doctors estimated her recovery would take around nine months and the injury could leave her with permanent scarring.

McCluskey was ordered to pay 1,000 pounds ($1,296) in compensation and do 180 hours of unpaid community work.

Kate Nield, 27, told the court that she is reminded of the assault everytime she gets up in the morning and looks in the mirror.
Gym Friends Conquer 100k Challenge & Raise Thousands For Wales Air Ambulance

This article is old - Published: Friday, Sep 30th, 2016

A group of friends from Wrexham have raised enough money to fund over three lifesaving helicopter missions across Wales after taking on a gruelling 100k trek for charity.

Alex Maggs, Rachel Wykie, Paula Tudor and Vicky Warburton, who are gym friends from Wrexham completed the 100k South Coast Challenge in aid of Wales Air Ambulance.

The group of friends walked day and night from Eastbourne to Arundel, following the South Downs Way, to collect donations for the Welsh helicopter charity.

Their fundraising has raised in excess of 4,800 for the charity, enough to fund several of their lifesaving missions across Wales.

Vicky said: It was an amazing personal journey, beating the odds on what was the hottest August Bank Holiday weekend for some time.

We suffered blisters, heat exhaustion, fatigue and pain, but we all supported each other.

The best part was, without a doubt, the feeling of achievement, elation and immense pride as we all crossed the finish line together as a team.

We all managed to cross together to grab a well-earned glass of fizz and a finishers medal.

Each of Wales Air Ambulances lifesaving missions costs around 1,500 and the charity needs to raise 6 million every year to keep its helicopters flying.

On the August bank holiday, the group tackled the rough terrain of the trail, trekking for 27 hours to raise lifesaving donations for the charity.

They were put to the test on the undulating path along South Downs Way, walking for 100k through stunning scenery to collect sponsorship for Wales Air Ambulance.

Mark Stevens, Wales Air Ambulance Fundraising Manager, said: We would like to say a huge thank you to Alex, Rachel, Paula and Vicki, for their outstanding support.

We would not be able to complete our missions if it werent for the dedicated support of people like Alex, Rachel, Paula and Vicky.

Only through kind donations are we able to keep our services running, and we are incredibly touched that they would take on such a huge challenge in aid of WAA.

Their fundraising is enough to fund several missions, meaning that we can be there for the people of Wales in their hour of need.

More information on the work carried out by Wales Air Ambulance and how you can donate to the charity can be found on its website.
Welsh Gov Announce Support As Business Rates Draft List Released  Winners & Losers In Wrexham

This article is old - Published: Friday, Sep 30th, 2016

The Valuation Office Agency has released its draft list of revaluations of commercial property, with some winners and losers in Wrexham  and Welsh Government announcing more support.

The Revaluation is carried out by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) and reassesses all rateable values in Wales and England based on their open market rental value on a fixed date. This is the first such revaluation in Wales since 2010.

From today, businesses can find out their rateable value for 2017 by visiting the VOAs website here.

Looking at some sample buildings in the town we have noticed a range of winners and losers, with the new Marks and Spencer address on Eagles Meadow rising from 367,500 to 510,000. Elsewhere on Eagles Meadow rates have dropped, with Debenhams going from 560,000 to 500,000. Other addresses such as 5 & 6 Eagles Meadow are down to 174,000 from 216,000, whereas the Next store has increased from 277,000 407,500.

The old Marks and Spencer store, now QD Stores on Hope Street, has its rates chopped from 200,000 to 150,000. Ten other sampled properties on Hope Street have also seen a significant reduction in their rates.

The large Primark store on Regent Street sees their rates down from 175,000 to 132,000, again a sample of ten properties on the street all show a reduction.

As you would expect the supermarkets have larger areas  so Tesco on Crescent Road is the biggest winner we have spotted in town so far, down from 2,120,000 to 1,660,000. Sainsburys on Plas Coch was 2,040,000 and down to 1,850,000.

We have also had it flagged to us that Waterworld carpark was rated at 57,500 and is now up to 125,000.

Further out Wrexham Industrial Estate appears quite static on samples looked at, with Kellogs for example moving from 1,160,000 to 1,140,000.

Looking at some independent local businesses there is a mix, with Emz Cakes on Chester Street has gone from 5,200 to 8,000 , La Baguette has gone from 8,200 to 9,100. The Anise is up from 20,500 to 21,250.

Regent House of Flower has stayed the same, with Try Thai reduced from 11,000 to 9,000. The old Hoffi Koffee could become a more attractive proposition, down from 16,750 to 12,750. King Street Coffee in the bus station is down from 10,200 to 8,300 along with other units for example No. 2 down 9,200 to 7,700.

There has been issues with the VOA website this morning, and ongoing problems as people check out their revaluations  with this error message popping up for a few queries as we try to check some properties.

Just after midday Local Government Secretary Mark Drakeford announced plans for a new scheme to support small businesses affected by the revaluation of business properties

The release says the 10m scheme will come into effect from April 2017 and is in addition to a 100m tax cut (or was it? article here) previously announced for small businesses in Wales.

Some small businesses whose rateable value has increased as a result of revaluation will receive less support from the Welsh Governments Small Businesses Rate Relief (SBRR) scheme as a consequence.

To reduce the impact of revaluation on these small businesses, the Welsh Government will step in to provide extra support to help them meet the cost of their rates.

Professor Drakeford said: Two weeks ago, I announced that we would be extending our current Small Business Rates Relief scheme for another year and introducing a new permanent scheme in 2018.

While the revaluation itself is out of our control, we know it may affect some small businesses eligibility for our rates relief scheme and thats why we want to offer this extra support.

This transitional relief scheme will mean 7,000 more small businesses will now get support in paying their rates.

This scheme will be fully funded by the Welsh Government rather than being financed by capping reductions for those whose rateable value falls following the revaluation.

With the introduction of this scheme, more than three-quarters of ratepayers in Wales will receive some form of support next year and the Welsh Government will be providing more than 200m of relief in total.

Has your business been potentially affected by the draft rating list (good or bad!) today  please drop us a message by emailing news@wrexham.com and we can include your comments in this article.
On September 28, the Chicago Teachers Union delegates set an October 11 walkout date if no agreement is reached with Chicago Public Schools before then. Chicago teachers have been without a contract now for 15 months, despite the union leaders reassurances that negotiations are going well behind closed doors.

For more than a year, teachers have been threatened almost monthly with layoffs, pay cuts, and school budget cuts, amid state and municipal budget crises that are being used to drive down spending and condition public sector workers to accept further cuts. One thousand teachers and staff were laid off in August.

A second strike authorization vote in 10 months was taken last week in the schools, with a reported 95.6 percent approval and 90 percent turnout of Chicagos 30,000 teachers and staff.

An earlier decision to strike was made in December 2015, with about the same level of support as the recent vote. The following month, the CTU bargaining committee was handed a tentative agreement endorsed by CTU negotiators and President Karen Lewis. But details of the contract were leaked, and in response to an outpouring of teacher opposition to the concessionsincluding a de facto 7 percent pay cut to cover pension costs, and hikes in health care coststhe committee was forced to vote it down. According to CPS, no substantial changes in the offer have been made in the nearly 10 months since.

CTU President Lewis and Vice President Jesse Sharkey, a member of the pseudo-left International Socialist Organization, have pledged to conclude an agreement on the terms demanded by the Rahm Emanuel administration in order to avoid a strike. The sweetener CTU leaders say they are trying get from the city is a promise of additional funds to the district from the citys tax increment financing (TIF) districts.

After the walkout date was set Wednesday evening, Sharkey spoke to the media from a position of abject prostration: Were asking for some simple assurances that the public schools themselves will be defended against further cuts.

That same day, Lewis attended a school board meeting, where she reportedly appealed to board members on the basis of a shared set of problems and the need for a quick settlement before asking for a commitment of TIF funds to stave off further cuts.

What the experiences of teachers have shown is that guarantees to fund schools from the administration of Mayor Emanuel, who has publicly committed himself to the corporate reform of public education, are worthless. What teachers must also recognize is their class enemy in the CTU, which is collaborating with Emanuel.

At every turn the CTU has blocked teachers from mounting a fight, while engaging in secret negotiations with the Emanuel administration behind the backs of the teachers and the working class. Amid threats of thousands of teacher layoffs through the spring, the union pulled a stunt one-day walkout on April Fools Day, widely criticized by teachers for being an unserious and ineffective response to the citys demands for cuts.

The unions efforts to block a fight by teachers to defend public education are of a piece with the CTU leaderships entire record, going back to the betrayal of the teachers strike 2012 and its support in 2011 for legislation eroding tenure and other workplace rights.

While negotiations have been ongoing, teachers complain they are not kept informed and have not seen any contract language.

Eighth grade teacher Jim Macchione expressed his anger with the blackout in the negotiations to local public television station WTTW: My complaint all along has been to treat the teachers like the professionals you claim that we are. Even if they say nolike with the contract the BBT [Big Bargaining Team] voted no onthe members should be able to read the contract. Most of us have masters degrees, most of us know how to read a document. So even if the Big Bargaining Team voted unanimously for it to be no, why isnt there more transparency?

The central aim of the CTU is to contain this anger and prevent it from developing into a political conflict with the Democratic Party, which has spearheaded the attacks on public education in Chicago and at the national level for the last eight years. The CTU and its parent American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has endorsed the Democratic Partys presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

One of the most grotesque features of Democratic Party politics in the CTU is its constant use of racialist demagogy to cover the anti-working class policies of privatization of public resources, above all public education with its 3 million teachers nationwide.

The CTU and its pseudo-left backers paint the attack on public education as an issue of racism against black and brown teachers and students, in Chicago and elsewhere, even as the corporate reform of education has been led at the national level by the first black president, who began his political career in Chicago, and whose Race to the Top program has undermined public education in major cities all over the country.

In recent weeks concessions contracts have been rammed through for teachers in Detroit and Cleveland. A contract was reached after nearly a day of secret negotiations in Cleveland at the end of August, just ahead of a planned visit by Hillary Clinton. In Detroit, where teachers had defied their union in a series of sickouts, AFT President Randi Weingarten was herself intimately involved in the negotiation of the contract with the school districts emergency manager Steven Rhodes. In both Detroit and Cleveland, what little has been pledged to teachers in the agreements is dependent on tax hikes that affect the majority of the population, rather than targeting the profits of the super-rich.

Teachers who are looking for a way out of the traps set by the Emanuel administration and the Chicago Teachers Union must build their own organizations of struggle, separate from and opposed to the CTU, the Democratic Party and the capitalist system they defend.
India carried out multiple surgical military strikes inside Pakistan over a five-hour period Wednesday night, bringing South Asia perilously close to an all-out war with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Not only would a war between India and Pakistan be the first-ever war between nuclear-armed states; it could rapidly draw in the United States and China on opposed sides.

In anticipation of a Pakistani counterstrike (or so as to provide cover for Indian war preparations), Indian authorities on Thursday ordered the evacuation of all those living within 10 kilometers of the Pakistani border in the Indian states of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif denounced Wednesdays night attack as unprovoked and naked Indian aggression and called an emergency meeting of his cabinet for today to discuss Islamabads response.

India says it attacked seven terrorist launching pads on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control that separates Indian- and Pakistani-held Kashmir; that its forces penetrated up to 3 kilometers inside Pakistani territory; and that they inflicted significant casualties on terrorists and those trying to shield them.

The military has been tight-lipped about the operation. But Indian media reports, based on official sources, said Indian commandos had crossed into Azad or Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir both on the ground and in helicopter gunships and that their kills were in the double-digits.

India and Pakistan have passed through repeated war crises over the past quarter-century and in 1999 fought an undeclared war in the remote Kargil region of Indian-held Kashmir. However, New Delhi has not publicly admitted to carrying out military action inside Pakistan for decades for fear that this could trigger a rapid escalation to war and even nuclear-war.

Yesterdays attack came ten days after anti-Indian Islamist militants attacked the Indian military base at Uri, in the Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir, killing eighteen Indian soldiers. Without so much as a cursory investigation, Indias Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government held Islamabad responsible for the attack and vowed it would punish Pakistan.

Indias media, opposition parties, and a long list of retired military officers all joined in the clamour for India to bloody Pakistan.

At a celebratory press conference yesterday, the Indian Armys Director General of Military Operations, Lt. General Ranbir Singh, said the surgical strikes had been aimed at terrorist teams positioned across the Line of Control for launch into India.

India, Singh claimed, has no further plans for cross-border actions. However, he continued ominously, the Indian Armed Forces are fully prepared to deal with any contingency which may arise.

Pakistans military, meanwhile, is vehemently denying that India mounted any surgical cross-border attacks, calling the claim an illusion and fabrication of truth promoted by India to create false effects.

The Pakistani military does concede two of its soldiers were killed and nine others wounded Wednesday night, but is attributing the casualties to cross-border artillery and gunfirea regular occurrence across the Line of Control (LoC). In its statement challenging Indias claims, the military said that Pakistan has made it clear that if there is a surgical strike on Pakistani soil, it will be strongly responded to.

Both sides are clearly spreading disinformationa further sign of how dangerous the situation is.

Take New Delhis claim that yesterdays attack was aimed at preventing the imminent dispersal of terrorist squads into India. It is a transparent, trumped-up pretext for a reckless act of aggression.

The World Socialist Web Site has no brief for Pakistans reactionary, communalist ruling elite and its military, which have time and time again trampled on the democratic rights of the Pakistani people and served as a satrap for US imperialism. Having been schooled in the stratagem by the CIA, which enlisted Islamabad as its junior partner in its covert war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Pakistan has used Islamist terrorists in pursuing its military-strategic rivalry against India, particularly so as to politically suppress and divert the popular opposition to Indian rule in Kashmir along communal lines

But why would Pakistanwhich has repeatedly voiced alarm over the military-strategic gap between it and India, a country with a six times greater population and seven times bigger economymass terrorists to strike India when New Delhi is already on a war footing?

Rattled by the falling off of Indians growth rate after 2010, the India bourgeoisie brought Narendra Modi and his virulently right-wing BJP to power to intensify the exploitation of the working class and assert its great-power ambitions on the world stage. In pursuit of the latter aim, India has integrated itself ever more completely into Washingtons war drive against China and, bolstered by US support, sought to impose itself as the regional hegemon.

While the Indian elite paints the country as an innocent victim of Pakistani terrorism, the BJP government has pursued confrontation with Pakistan. Soon after taking office it instructed the military to adopt a more aggressive posture on the LoC, resulting in 2015 in the most prolonged cross-border shelling in a decade. More than a month before the Uri attack, Modi announced that India would leverage the ethno-nationalist insurgency in Pakistans southwestern province of Balochistan against Islamabad, effectively threatening Pakistan with dismemberment.

Yesterdays attack was meant to show that New Delhi is ready to take greater risks in advancing its strategic interests and that vis a vis Pakistan it will no longer be bound by the so-called policy of strategic restraint.

As for Pakistans claims that there were no cross-border strikes, they are simply not credible. Various Pakistani government officials and political leaders have made statements that implicitly or explicitly contradict the militarys version of events. Among these is Defense Minster Khawaja Muhammad Asif, who declared, If India tries to do this again, we will respond forcefully.

By denying that India has carried out a military raid inside Pakistan, Islamabad is seeking to avoid further escalation, without having to make a public and, from the reactionary standpoint of capitalist geopolitics, humiliating admission that it wont make good on its repeated threats to answer any Indian cross-border thrust with a military strike of its own.

This stance however is likely only to encourage the Modi government and the most bellicose sections of the Indian elite who will hold it up as proof of how weakened Pakistan is. Yesterday, the entire political establishment, including the Congress Party and the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) joined forces, including at an all-party meeting convened by the BJP, to celebrate the aggression against Pakistan. The media, meanwhile, went into overdrive to hail the military strikes, amplifying the governments claims that they were proof of a bolder, more powerful India, and trumpeting the military as veritable heroes.

The strategic rivalry between India and Pakistan, which today threatens the people of South Asia with a nuclear holocaust, is testament to the failure of bourgeois rule. It is rooted in the 1947 communal partition of South Asia into an expressly Muslim Pakistan and a predominantly Hindu India, which was implemented by the Congress Party and the Muslim League, the rival parties of the South Asian bourgeoisie, in conjunction with the subcontinents departing British colonial overlords.

That said, a huge factor stoking the war danger is Washingtons more than decade-long drive to transform India into a frontline state in its strategic offensive to isolate, encircle and prepare for war with China. Under Modi, India has lined up with the US in the South China Sea dispute and developed closer strategic bilateral and trilateral ties with the USs key Asian-Pacific allies, Japan and Australia. Last month, Modi agreed to allow US warplanes and battleships to make routine use of Indian military bases.

Under George W. Bush and Obama, the US has lavished strategic gifts on India, giving it access to its most advanced weaponry and creating a special status for it in the world nuclear regulatory regime that has the effect of allowing New Delhi to concentrate the resources of its indigenous nuclear program on nuclear weapons development.

Invariably the strengthening of the Indo-US alliance has been associated with the downgrading of Washingtons ties with Pakistan, which throughout the Cold War was the principal US ally in South Asia.

Islamabad has warned that Washington has overturned the balance of power in South Asia, and that its ever-closer strategic partnership with New Delhi is emboldening India, and fuelling an arms and nuclear arms race, but all to no effect.

Fearing strategic isolation, Pakistan has drawn closer to its long-time ally China. But that has only increased its estrangement from Washington and fuelled its rivalry with India.

Eager to placate New Delhi, Washington likely gave it the green light to punish Pakistan, although the Obama administration, which still relies on Pakistan to provide crucial logistical support to the US occupation forces in Afghanistan, has denied it.

Obamas National Security Adviser Susan Rice called her Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, Wednesday evening just hours before the Indian surgical strike, purportedly to give condolences for the Uri attack and express support for Indias fight against terrorism. Press reports suggest Rices call was precipitated by concerns over growing complaints in India that Washington has been insufficiently supportive, including for failing to label Pakistan as responsible for the Uri attack.

What is incontrovertible is that US government officials have refused to condemn yesterdays surgical strikes on Pakistan, although they were patently illegal and highly provocative. Instead they have issued ritualistic calls for both sides to show restraint and move toward dialogue.

The US is playing a most dangerous and incendiary game. In pursuit of its anti-China alliance with New Delhi, it is encouraging Indias government, now led by the communally toxic BJP, to pursue an aggressive, but supposedly calibrated, policy of diplomatic, economic and military action against Pakistana country with which it has fought four wars and that has threatened to meet any large scale Indian attack with the speedy use of its recently deployed battlefield or tactical nuclear weapons.
At a recent extraordinary meeting of the supervisory board of Kaisers Tengelmann, the owner of the retail chain Karl-Erivan Haub, arrogantly declared that he would give the negotiating parties just two weeks before he begins the breakup of the company.

Haub is among the 30 richest Germans and has amassed a personal fortune of more than four billion euros through the extreme exploitation of the workforce in his stores. His autocratic announcement is a direct result of his close collaboration with Frank Bsirske, leader of the Verdi trade union. Haub knows he has nothing to fear from Verdi.

On September 22, Bsirske invited the owners and top managers of Kaisers Tengelmann, and other retail chains Edeka, Rewe and Markant AG to Frankfurt for confidential discussions. In addition to Haub, Marius Mosa (Edeka) and Alain Caparros (Rewe) also came. To prevent any employees from protesting outside, Bsirske kept the venue of the meeting secret.

These clandestine negotiations are part of the unions efforts to find the best way to push through job losses and keep those affected quiet for as long as possible. Verdi has taken on the task of enforcing the winding up of Kaisers Tengelmann against the workforce.

In North Rhine Westfalia alone, eighty branches are threatened with closure and 3,000 out of 4,000 jobs are at risk. The Birkenhof meat plants in Viersen are to be closed. Lucrative Kaisers Tengelmann branches in Berlin and Munich will be sold off individually. The group currently has approximately 15,650 employees in its 430 stores.

After the supervisory board meeting and the announced time limit, union officials sought to present an optimistic picture. There is no breakup, works council member Manfred Schick claimed. Without providing any further details, he continued, There is a hope, and there is a real chance to survive. That is important. This was the only thing that was said. All details of the arrangements and agreements have been kept secret.

Now Verdi wants to continue the roundtable talks with the bosses, and the upcoming discussions are to be kept confidential and free of protests. It must be clearly said: Verdi is organizing a veritable conspiracy against the workforce. Its officials on the Kaisers Tengelmann supervisory board have, of course, been given all the information. They have known about the closure and redundancy plans for a long time, but knowingly keep workers in the dark.

Verdi knows the mood that exists in the workforce very well, and knows how much anger has accumulated over the years. Jobs in retail are among the worst paid, are the hardest and most stressful ever. So-called mini-jobs and temporary jobs are commonplace. Every moment of workers time is strictly controlled. Arbitrary sackings are not uncommon.

This was shown clearly eight years ago in the Emmely case. The Kaisers cashier Barbara Emme, called Emmely, was sacked in 2008 after working for the company for 31 years, for allegedly having redeemed two coupons worth 1.30 euros, which a customer had left. Emmely rejected all the accusations made against her and fought for her job for years, finally being successful in court. She died of heart failure at the age of 57 last year.

Kaisers Tengelmann staff work hard every day, while their conditions have been deteriorating for years. Five years ago, Verdi agreed to waive 50 percent of Christmas bonus and holiday pay, on the grounds this would secure jobs.

Growing competition in the retail sector is mercilessly passed onto the employees. According to industry experts, bricks and mortar trade could shrink by around 40 billion euros because of the growth in online shopping and shrinking purchasing power by 2020. The Kaisers Tengelmann chain, which does not enjoy the same economies of scale as the giant retail corporations Edeka, Rewe, Lidl and Aldi, has suffered losses running into millions for years.

By selling off the chain, corporate chief Haub hopes to get rid of the loss-maker. Simultaneously, he is speculating that Edeka will integrate the Kaisers Tengelmann branches into its Netto subsidiary, where again Haub himself is involved.

The union officials are concealing this naked profit grubbing and use their positions to keep all protests under control and to ensure smooth business operations.

Frank Bsirskes colleague, Stefanie Nutzenberger, plays a special role, responsible for Verdis national executive for retail trade. She herself sits on the supervisory board of Rewe. In the roundtable talks, she would be able to ensure Rewe was given an opportunity to buy up thriving Kaisers Tengelmann branches for a song.

Meanwhile, the Berlin works council chairman Volker Bohne is spreading the illusion that all the threatened jobs could be saved in a buyout. Speaking on Berlin radio station RBB, he said he still hoped for a full takeover of the group by Edeka: The fact that the participants have said they will meet again, is a positive sign.

In reality, the originally planned sale of the entire chain to Edeka has long been moot. Initially, the Monopolies Commission spoke out against it, and the anti-trust agency exercised a veto. When Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel (Social Democratic Party, SPD) set aside the prohibition through a ministerial decree, Rewe and Markant AG complained and obtained the suspension of the decree before the Dusseldorf Higher Regional Court.

At present, Gabriel is seeking to enforce his ministerial approval before the Federal Supreme Court, although Haub no longer wants to wait for this.

Gabriels priority is not the interests of the cashiers and other workers, but rather strengthening the union. If the ministerial authorization is upheld, all decisions on the fate of the Kaisers Tengelmann branches and their employees would be subject to approval by Verdi and works council representatives in the retail sector for the next five years. These have already negotiated new contracts with Edeka in recent weeks in which they had agreed to transfers, a deterioration of conditions and the closure of the Birkenhof meat plants in Viersen.

Gabriel wants to boost the unions, because he sees them as important partners of a potential SPD-Left Party-Green Party federal government following next years general election, which would continue the policy of welfare cuts and military buildup that began 15 years ago with the SPD-Green Party government led by Chancellor Gerhard Schroder.
On Wednesday, the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) into the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine issued its much-awaited report on the horrific crash.

The loss of MH17 and the unsolved murder of all 298 people aboard over separatist-held eastern Ukraine, on 17 July 2014, set off an explosive confrontation between NATO and Russia, as US and European officials and media charged that Moscow had shot down the jetliner. In August 2014, the NATO investigation was handed over to the JIT. The JIT included officials of several countries who lost citizens in the crashHolland, Australia, and Belgiumand from the far-right CIA-backed regime in Ukraine.

From the outset, the JIT was beset by scandal and evidence of bias. It first excluded Malaysia, then relegated it to a secondary role as a provider of information. Then, Dutch news magazine Elsevier revealed that JIT proceedings are controlled by a secret pact giving each member, Ukraine included, veto power over what is revealed. The Dutch state invoked the state secrets privilege to block inquiries into this matter.

The report, which produced little new evidence and drew heavily on Ukrainian sources likely to be biased, was greeted with reservation by sections of the European press. But in the United States, the media, led by the New York Times, charged that the report presented damning and irrefutable evidence of Russian complicity in the downing of MH17.

With meticulous detail, working with cellphone records, social media, witness accounts, and other evidence, the prosecutors traced Russias role in deploying the missile system into Ukraine and its attempts to cover its tracks afterward, the New York Times wrote.

The day after the reports publication, the Times seized upon its findings to declare Russia an Outlaw State in its lead editorial. Denouncing the unconscionable behavior of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Times hinted that the Obama Administration is preparing to take a more directly confrontational stance toward Russia, particularly in Syria.

The JIT report, issued on the website of the Dutch public prosecutor, shows that MH17 was shot down by a mobile Buk surface-to-air missile battery. This is now the consensus view of NATO and Russian officials, but in and of itself it proves little, since both Ukrainian and Russian forces are armed with Buk missiles.

Specifically, the JIT alleges that the Buk launcher involved in the attack came from Russia but crossed into Ukraine for a day, firing a missile at MH17 from the village of Pervomaiskyi, near the town of Snizhne. This contradicts Russian claims that the Buk was fired by Ukrainian forces from a Ukrainian-held town, Zaroshchenskoye.

Based on the results of the criminal investigation, it may be concluded that flight MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014, by a 9M38-series missile from a Buk missile launcher [that] was brought from the territory of the Russian Federation and, after launch, subsequently returned to the Russian Federation territory, said Dutch National Police official Wilbert Paulissen, introducing the report.

The materials published by the JITa brief, two-page report and six short YouTube videosdo not, however, provide sufficient evidence to substantiate its accusations. Indeed, in the course of two years of work, the JIT did not obtain any independent information that it saw fit to publish yesterday.

The JIT neither released data from MH17s black boxwhich was taken from Malaysian authorities two years ago and sent to Britain, where it has not been heard from sincenor radar data on eastern Ukraine provided by Moscow. Nor did it publish US radar and satellite data on the area. Instead, it relied on wiretaps, photos and a few brief videos posted by unidentified users to Ukrainian social media and apparently collected by Ukrainian intelligence.

The JITs six YouTube videos are all made up of computer-generated images produced by the JIT to illustrate what it alleges took place. Every so often, the CGI video is interspersed with unidentified social media pictures or a few brief videos. In short, the JIT videos are not credible or independent evidence on who fired the Buk that brought down MH17.

The JIT claims to have tracked the launcher that shot down MH17 and identified approximately 100 people involved in guarding, transporting, and controlling it. To this effect, the JIT cites cellphone data and several wiretapped phone calls, apparently between unidentified separatist officials, who discuss moving vehicles and express confusion and concern over the MH17 shoot-down.

The JIT report does not, however, identify them, establish what motive or order they would have had to destroy MH17, or indeed assign any broader political responsibility for the MH17 attack.

Paulissen himself tacitly acknowledged the weakness of the JIT report, saying that the JIT was not blaming the Russian state or Russian individuals for the attack. We have determined that the weapons came from the Russian Federation. Having established this, we do not make statements about the participation of the Russian Federation as a nation or people from the Russian Federation, he said.

Significantly, reports emerged that the Dutch government itself lacks confidence in the conclusions it is itself drawing in the JIT report. If Dutch authorities are prudent and refuse to draw any conclusions, its also because the most conclusive evidence found til nowthe recordings of conversationscome from the SBU, the Ukrainian intelligence service, wrote Le Monde. The daily cited a diplomat in The Hague: This organization [the SBU] served the old regime and changed its loyalties to the new regime without changing its methods.

Russian officials criticized the JIT report. Instead of [working together], international investigators suspended Moscow from comprehensive participation in the investigative process, allowing our efforts only a minor role. It sounds like a bad joke, but at the same time they made Ukraine a full member of the JIT, giving it the opportunity to forge evidence and turn the case to its advantage, said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

Russian officers had previously maintained their allegations that Ukrainian forces were responsible for shooting down the plane. The Ukrainian side has air situation data in the area of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 crash from both civilian and military sources. The fact that Ukraine has not published radar data leads us to the conjecture that the missile, if it was a Buk, was launched from territory under the control of the Ukrainian military, said Andrey Koban, the head of Russian Air Force radar operations.

At present, all that can be said is that the question of who shot down MH17 remains unresolved, primarily due to blatant interference in the investigation by the NATO powers.

From a political standpoint, however, there is no doubt as to where responsibility for the MH17 shoot-down lies: it is squarely with Washington and its European allies. In 2014, these countries backed a violent, pro-European putsch in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev that brought to power far-right and pro-fascist parties hostile to the Russophone population of eastern Ukraine. This broke Ukraine apart, as far-right militias began attacking civilians and provoking armed resistance in eastern Ukraine, which was then supported by Moscow.

Without this flagrant intervention in Ukrainian affairs, the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine would not have emerged, and the fighting in eastern Ukraine which led to the destruction of MH17 would not have begun.
The Obama administration announced on Wednesday it will send an additional 615 American troops to Iraq, increasing the number of US forces in the country to over 5,200. The deployment has been directly linked to advanced preparations for a US-directed assault to recapture the city of Mosul from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after talks with US and Iraqi officials on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, told a meeting of business figures on September 25 that an attack on Mosul would kick off on October 19.

Mosul fell to ISIS in June 2014. It was an utter debacle for Washington and the US puppet regime in Baghdad. A few thousand Sunni Muslim extremists routed tens of thousands of Iraqi government troops and captured an array of armoured vehicles, light vehicles, artillery, small arms, ammunition and even helicopters. Over $500 million was taken from Mosul banks. On June 29, 2014, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared in the citys Grand Mosque and bombastically declared an Islamic caliphate.

Mosul has been under regular aerial attack by US and allied aircraft and Predator drones since late 2014. Hundreds of ISIS fighters and unknown numbers of civilians have been killed, but the city remains in the hands of the Islamist movement. The estimate of how many ISIS fighters are in Mosul ranges from 5,000 to 20,000. The estimate of the number of civilians who are effectively trapped in the city also varies widely, from 500,000 to more than 1.2 million, with up to another 800,000 in surrounding towns and villages.

Whatever the precise numbers, what is looming is a bloodbath and humanitarian catastrophe. Mosul is under a virtual economic blockade, hospitals lack medicine and staff and food and fuel supplies are low. According to a range of reports, ISIS has rigged multiple buildings, structures and vehicles with explosives, developed intricate underground tunnel networks, built anti-tank berms on the key approaches into the main urban areas and dug trenches filled with oil that will be ignited to block a ground assault. ISIS has murdered hundreds of civilians for allegedly supporting the government or refusing to join its forces, and executed dozens of its own fighters for deserting their positions.

An attack will be spearheaded by two US- and Australian-trained Iraqi Army divisions, numbering up to 30,000 troops, which are currently deployed some 50 kilometres to the south of the city. The government forces are being assisted by American, British, French and Australian air power and US Marine and French artillery units. Some 6,000 police, overwhelmingly Sunnis, along with several thousand Sunni tribal militia members aligned with the government, have been readied to move into the city if it falls.

An unknown number of Shiite fighters, loyal to the fundamentalist political parties that dominate the US-backed Iraqi government, are also in the Mosul area, accompanied by Iranian officers and advisors. The militias, which were blamed for widespread sectarian killings when the largely Sunni cities of Ramadi and Fallujah fell to government forces, will reportedly not enter Mosul but function as a rearguard for the military units.

The autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) has at least 10,000 of its Peshmerga troops holding defensive positions 30 kilometres to the north and east of the city, supported by German and Italian military trainers. Kurdish commanders say they will push forward against ISIS to support a government offensive, but not take part in fighting inside the city itself. An anti-ISIS, largely Christian militia, the Nineveh Plains Protection Unit, with possibly as many as 1,000 troops, is fighting alongside the Kurds.

Justifications have been given in advance for the slaughter of every person labelled a member of ISIS and for large numbers of civilian casualties. Kurdish military chief of staff General Jamal Mohammad Omer asserted last week that ISIS will fight to the death. Figures ranging from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to representatives of the US military have alleged that ISIS is using civilians as human shields.

A brief prepared for the KRG and obtained by the British Observer in August stated: It is highly likely that hundreds of thousands of people will be displaced, trapped, stranded, injured and killed. Those who will be able to escape will leave all of their possessions behind and will solely depend on humanitarian assistance.

Relief agencies are warning that the preparations for the human consequences of an offensive are woefully inadequate.

Its a nightmarea disaster heading our way, Alex Milutinovic, the director of the International Rescue Committee in Erbil, told New Yorker magazine correspondent Dexter Filkins. The Iraqi government is determined to destroy ISIS, but it is impossible to accommodate the number of refugees the military operation is going to produce.

Filkins, after visiting the Debaga refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan where some 40,000 people live in squalor and desperation, wrote on September 23: To accommodate the million additional refugees who are expected, the UN and other aid agencies operating in northern Iraq would have to build twenty-five camps just like Debaga, in 30 days. There is little evidence anywhere that anyone has even started. Indeed, the plans described so far are almost comical in their emptiness: 250,000 refugees are supposed to be sent, by bus, to the city of Tikrit, where they are to be dispersed among the homes abandoned by others who have fled the fighting there.

Aid agencies lack sufficient food, tents, medical supplies and other essentials for the sheer scale of the displacement they are expecting. Only half of $240 million in assistance that has been pledged by various governments has actually been paid.

As with the recapture of the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah from ISIS, the US-led assault on Mosul is likely to reduce large parts of the city to rubble. ISIS fanatics have already reportedly destroyed priceless artifacts dating back over 3,000 years to the Assyrian empire. They have vandalised Christian churches, blown up Sufi and Shiite mosques and shrines, and ransacked the citys library, destroying thousands of irreplaceable books and newspaper collections. The intensity of the aerial and artillery bombardment that will accompany the entry of government forces into the city will cause irreparable damage to numerous more cultural treasures of humanity.

The destruction being prepared by US imperialismalong with its European and Australian allies and its Iraqi and KRG puppet governmentsunderscores the hypocrisy of its condemnation of the brutal assault being carried out by the Syrian government and Russian forces on Islamist rebel-held areas of Aleppo in northern Syria. Even as the Obama administration asserts that Russia is responsible for barbarism, it is overseeing plans for even greater crimes in Iraq.
On Wednesday, a Louisiana judge ordered the release of a body-cam video showing police officers firing 18 bullets into a parked SUV, severely injuring unarmed Chris Few and instantly killing his six-year-old son, Jeremy Mardis.

The incident occurred almost one year ago on November 3, 2015 in Marksville, Louisiana. Norris Greenhouse Jr. and Derrick Stafford, the two deputy marshals who fired upon Fews SUV, were both moonlighting as state marshals the night of the shooting.

According to multiple media reports, Chris Few and his girlfriend had gotten in a fight prior to the shooting at a nearby bar. Upon leaving the bar, the couple separated, at which point Few was spotted by Greenhouse and Stafford, who then pursued him until he was penned in by the officers two miles away. They were then joined by officer Jason Brouillette and Sgt. Kenneth Parnell.

The recently released video, taken from Parnells body-cam, shows officers getting out of their vehicle and approaching Fews parked car with guns in hand. Few is seen multiple times raising his hands up outside the drivers side window. Moments later, his car is fired upon. The time passed between the officers exiting their cars to the exiting of multiple bullets from their pistols is only a few seconds.

Minutes later, Few is seen crawling out of his car, bloodied and injured. Not a single officer is seen providing any help to Few in the video. As officers approached the car, they discovered six-year-old Jeremy Mardis. Audio from the video reveals a short conversation between Parnell and Stafford. Is he hit at all? Stafford asks Parnell. Who? replies Parnell. The driver, says Stafford. Yeah, responds Parnell. I never saw a kid in the car, man, Stafford says. I never saw a kid, bro.

Paramedics are later seen announcing six-year-old Jeremy Mardis is dead. Five bullets had torn through his head and chest. A haunting moment is seen in the video where Parnell prods Jeremys body in hopes of a sign of life. There was none.

According to the Washington Post, investigators found 14 shell casings that matched with Staffords semiautomatic handgun, while another four shells matched Greenhouses gun. Four of the five bullet fragments taken from Jeremys body matched with Staffords weapon, while the last could not be sourced to either.

Stafford and Greenhouse both await trial for second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder charges respectively.

Defense attorneys have argued that both officers acted in self-defense. Few, they claim, endangered officers as they pursued him whilst, they allege, he drove recklessly on a two-mile chase. Moreover, they then claim Few rammed his car into Greenhouses vehicle.

Christopher Few was a suspect before they knew that child was in the car, argued Christopher LaCour, a defense attorney for Stafford. However, Court Judge William Bennett, who is presiding over the case, stated, That car was not being used as a deadly weapon at that time. I daresay it was not even close to being used as a deadly weapon at that time.

The killing of six-year-old Jeremy Mardis is neither an isolated nor a random event. So far in 2016 police have killed at least fourteen people under the age of 18, including 13-year-old Tyree King, shot to death by police earlier this month in Columbus, Ohio. Mardiss killers, moreover, are not anomalies. The 858 people murdered by police so far this year, as reported by killedbypolice.net, point to the exact opposite.
Amid mounting public threats that the US is preparing an escalation of its military intervention in Syria, the New York Times Thursday published a lead editorial branding Russia as an outlaw state.

This ratcheting up of rhetoric that has grown increasingly hysterical in regard to Russia is a response to the debacle suffered by US imperialism in its over five-year-long proxy war for regime change in Syria. Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air power, appear to be on the brink of retaking all of the eastern portion of Aleppo, the last major bastion of the US-backed rebels, composed principally of Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamist militias.

Secretary of State John Kerry issued an ultimatum to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov Wednesday: either Russia grounds both its own and the Syrian governments warplanes, or Washington will break off all negotiations with Moscow on Syria.

The significance of this threat was further spelled out in a press briefing by State Department spokesman John Kirby, who told reporters that as a consequence of Russia failing to bow to US demands, extremists and extremist groups will continue toexpand their operations, which will include, no question, attacks against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities, and Russia will continue to send troops home in body bags, and they will continue to lose resourceseven, perhaps, more aircraft.

The provocative and utterly reckless character of Kirbys remarks was no accident. That Washington intended to communicate a threat to unleash CIA-sponsored terrorism against Russia was underscored by a Washington Post column by Philip Gordon, who until last year was the White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf. The piece, which warned in its headline that Russia will pay the price, used almost identical language, stating that continued Russian action in Syria could very well result in terrorist attacks against Russia.

Gordon went on to warn that the Obama administration could take actions to increase costs on Russia, adding, Arming the opposition with shoulder-fired missiles capable of hitting Russian and Syrian planes over Aleppo is among the options.

The ex-White House aide finally cautioned Moscow that if Hillary Clinton becomes the next U.S. president, Putin could be facing a U.S. leader who has long supported a no-fly zone in Syria and robust support for the opposition, has expressed skepticism about Russias intentions in Syria, and will be looking to more clearly reassert American leadership in the Middle East.

It is evident, however, that the question of whether an escalation of the US intervention in Syria can wait until after the US election of November 8 has become the subject of heated debate within the US ruling establishment.

The Reuters news agency cited unnamed senior officials as saying that the Obama administration is considering tougher responses to the Russian-backed Syrian government assault, including military options, including the provision of heavier weaponry to the Al Qaeda-linked rebels and air strikes on Syrian government positions. (This second option was already put into practice with the September 17 US bombing that killed and wounded close to 200 Syrian troops near Deir Ezzor, which Washington claimed was an accident.)

With its editorial denunciation of Russia as an outlaw state, the New York Times is effectively weighing in on the debate within America ruling circles over the US intervention in Syria. It wants a military escalation and it wants it nowagainst Russia.

The Times writes: President Obama has long refused to approve direct military intervention in Syria. And Mr. Putin may be assuming that Mr. Obama is unlikely to confront Russia in his final months and with an American election season in full swing. But with the rebel stronghold in Aleppo under threat of falling to the government, administration officials said that such a response is again under consideration.

To bolster its case, the Times throws in unsubstantiated charges made in an investigation driven entirely by evidence supplied by the Ukrainian secret police that Russia was responsible for the July 2014 shootdown of a Malaysia Airline jet over the war-torn Donbass region.

Putin, the newspaper declares, is guilty of butchering civilians in Syria and Ukraine, annexing Crimea, computer-hacking American government agencies, and crushing dissent at home.

Putins government represents Russias ruling oligarchy, which enriched itself through the theft of state property during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism. Its intervention in Syria, though of a defensive character, in response to US attempts to encircle and isolate Russia, represents the interests of this oligarchy and provides no progressive solution to the catastrophe unleashed by imperialism on Syria and the broader Middle East.

That being said, the crimes of Putin pale in the face of those carried out by successive US administrations, all of them with the complicity and propaganda support of the New York Times.

The US government is responsible for over a million deaths in Iraq and hundreds of thousands more from Afghanistan to Libya and Yemen. It instigated the regime-change operations in both Ukraine and Syria that gave rise to the butchery in those countries, much of it inflicted with weapons supplied by the CIA.

Moreover, even as the Times attacked the Russians butchery in Syria, the Pentagon announced that it is sending another 600 US troops to Iraq to prepare for a siege of Mosul, which, like the previous assaults on Fallujah and Ramadi, will entail massive crimes against the civilian population.

As for Russian computer hacking, the Times speaks on behalf of the US government, which, through the NSA, engages in the most massive spying operation the world has ever seen. And as for crushing dissent at home, the US, it should be recalled, is a country where the police murder over 1,000 people every year and the so-called "justice system" keeps some 2 million people behind bars. In brief, the Times editorial is a piece of war propaganda.

The term outlaw state was first put into official use by Ronald Reagan. It was later rendered as rogue state under Bill Clinton and, then, under George W. Bush, became the axis of evil. Invariably, these terms were used to describe oppressed, semi-colonial countries targeted by US imperialism for war and conquest: Nicaragua, Grenada, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, North Korea, Iran, etc.

Now, in the pages of the New York Times, the term is used to describe Russia, a country of 146 million people armed with nuclear weapons. The implications could not be more ominous.

While the motivations of the Times editors may include short-term political considerationsthe possibility of an October surprise in Syria boosting the prospects of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clintonthe anti-Russia propaganda campaign that the newspaper is leading has far deeper roots in the crisis of American capitalism and the protracted drive by US imperialism to overcome its historic decline through the instrument of militarism.

If words have any meaning, the Times editorial is a warning: behind the backs of the people of the United States and the entire planet, the preparations for a third world war are advancing rapidly.
On Wednesday afternoon, half of the Federal Executive of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) resigned, in an inner-party putsch aimed at forcing the installation of a new right-wing government. The violent infighting now tearing apart the PSOEa key instrument of capitalist rule in Spain, which has governed the country for 25 of the 38 years since the end of the fascist Franco regimetestifies to the historic character of the countrys current political crisis.

It has been nine months since Spain last had a government; the December 20 and June 26 elections both produced hung parliaments. On Wednesday, former Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez denounced current PSOE General Secretary Pedro Sanchez for refusing to back the installation of a minority, right-wing Popular Party (PP) government and pledged to abstain from voting against it when such a government was proposed in parliament.

While visiting Chile, Gonzalez denounced Sanchezs line, warning that it threatens to provoke a crisis of rule in Spain. I feel cheated by Sanchez, he told me [previously] he would abstain in the second vote on a PP government, Gonzalez said, adding that Sanchez had frustrated him.

If he has changed positions, since then he has not explained them to anyone, and he will have his reasons. I do not understand them, declared Gonzalez. A third set of elections would be madness, it could bring about a crisis of the system.

As reports of Gonzalezs statements emerged in Spain, 17 members of the PSOE Federal Executive resigned. These included former Defence Minister Carme Chacon, PSOE President Micaela Navarro, PSOE spokesman Carlos Perez, and a variety of regional officials from the PSOE stronghold of Andalucia, as well as Madrid, Catalonia, Valencia and Castilla-La Mancha.

Sanchez, for his part, said that he respects the opinions expressed about the current political situation by Gonzalez, but added, It is the PSOE Federal Committee that sets the PSOEs line on the matter of the investiture of [PP Prime Minister Mariano] Rajoy.

The anti-Sanchez faction, which is apparently drawn primarily from the top PSOE bureaucracy, have launched a bid to take over the party. They claim that the 17 resignations, plus 3 previous vacancies in the 35-seat Federal Executive, mean that Sanchez is no longer general secretary and that the PSOE should be handed over to a caretaker leadership.

In fact, Article 36 of the PSOEs Federal Statutes specify that when the vacancies in the Federal Executive affect the General Secretariat, or half plus one of its members, the Federal Committee must call for an Extraordinary Congress to elect the new Federal Executive.

Yesterday, Sanchez therefore went on to call an extraordinary congress.

Conflicts inside the PSOE continued to escalate, however, as pro- and anti-Sanchez factions both claimed to control the party, and protests erupted outside PSOE headquarters in several cities. Andalucia PSOE chief Susana Diaz sent PSOE Federal Executive Committee President Veronica Perez to PSOE headquarters in Madrid, where Perez claimed she was now the sole authority in the PSOE. Pro-Sanchez officials barred her from entering the building, however, while PSOE members outside the building shouted traitor at her.

Most of the regional PSOE federations came out against Sanchez, while Catalonia, the Basque Country and Navarra came out in favour, with Catalan PSOE leader Miquel Iceta announcing plans to bus PSOE members to Madrid to defend Sanchez.

Pro-PSOE daily El Pais, which has issued increasingly vitriolic denunciations of Sanchez in recent days, called him an unscrupulous fool. It explained that Sanchez was breaking with the commitments to his party colleagues, who subordinate any internal move to the formation of a governmentthat is, a regime of the PP and Rajoy.

Gonzalez, El Pais, and the various PSOE factions fighting to install a PP government are trampling on the views of PSOE supporters and voters. A recent poll conducted by Metroscopia showed that 50 percent supported Sanchezs no to Rajoy, while 43 percent preferred that the PSOE abstain and return the PP to power. This underlies both the hysterical tone and the contempt for legal procedures with which the anti-Sanchez faction is conducting their power grab.

It is highly significant that the power grab was launched by Gonzalez, the PSOEs main founder in the post-Franco era. Gonzalez not only led the reconstruction of the party, with aid from German and French social democratic parties, but spearheaded the 1979 campaign during which the PSOE officially renounced Marxism and pledged its loyalty to capitalism.

The PSOE, like social democratic parties across Europe, is a party of bourgeois order. It has been discredited by years of austerity policies conducted by PSOE Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who participated in the war in Afghanistan and launched deep attacks on the working class at home, especially in the years after the 2008 Wall Street crash.

Gonzalezs remark that he fears a crisis of rule in Spain reflects the growing anxiety gripping the Spanish and other ruling elites over the political situation in Europe. The European Union (EU) has not dared impose further austerity measures while Spain has no government, due to the EUs growing unpopularity. Britains recent vote to exit the EU not only highlighted this unpopularity, but also made EU officials more reluctant to proceed quickly, given fears that politically explosive opposition could soon emerge.

They are determined, however, to obtain detailed pledges for more social cuts from Spain and Portugal at a conference slated for October. The PSOE would be more than happy to issue such pledges.

From the standpoint of workers, however, the war and social policies of Sanchez are indistinguishable from those of Gonzalez and the rest of the PSOE machine. He is simply pursuing a different tack to try to prevent a total collapse of the PSOE. He orients more to the pseudo-left Podemos partythe Spanish ally of the Syriza government in Greece, which is now infamous for its massive social cuts.

This manoeuvre is an attempt to give the PSOE a false image as a left opponent of the PP. It is, in fact, nothing of the sort, as its history shows. Moreover, it rapidly became clear yesterday that the political offensive launched by Gonzalez had been coordinated with the PP. Yesterday, reports surfaced indicating that the PP caretaker government had known of plans to remove Sanchez as PSOE general secretary since last week, and that they were closely following the conflict inside the PSOE.

Details allegedly were passed on between caretaker Prime Minister Rajoys chief of staff Jorge Moragas and Gonzalezs former chief of staff, Jose Enrique Serrano. Caretaker Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo has also boasted of his close ties with Gonzalez and Zapatero.
On Wednesday, the US Congress overturned President Obamas veto of legislation that would permit victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks and their families to sue Saudi Arabia. Declassified documents released this year confirm the involvement of Saudi intelligence agents in the funding, organization, and planning of the attacksfacts which were covered up for years by the Bush and Obama administrations.

The vote, 97-1 in the Senate and 348-77 in the House of Representatives, represents the first and only congressional override of Obamas presidency. Under the US Constitution, the presidents veto can be overturned only by a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of Congress.

The Obama administration and the military and intelligence agencies, backed by sections of the media, including the New York Times, have vigorously denounced the legislation. Obama personally, together with Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford among others, have all publicly opposed the bill.

In a letter to Congress opposing the legislation, Obama warned that the bill would threaten to erode sovereign principles that protect the United States, including our U.S. Armed Forces and other officials, overseas.

In a lead editorial on Wednesday, the New York Times similarly warned that if the bill becomes law, other countries could adopt similar legislation defining their own exemptions to sovereign immunity. Because no country is more engaged in the world than the United Stateswith military bases, drone operations, intelligence missions and training programsthe Obama administration fears that Americans could be subject to legal actions abroad.

In other words, the bill would set a precedent for families of victims of American aggression abroadsuch as the tens of thousands of victims of targeted killings ordered by Obama personallyto file lawsuits against US war criminals in their own countries courts.

Obama denounced the vote with unusual warmth on Wednesday. It's an example of why sometimes you have to do what's hard. And, frankly, I wish Congress here had done what's hard, Obama declared. If youre perceived as voting against 9/11 families right before an election, not surprisingly, that's a hard vote for people to take. But it would have been the right thing to do ... And it was, you know, basically a political vote.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, Sir Walter Scott famously wrote, When first we practice to deceive! As the tangled web of lies surrounding the September 11 attacks continue to unravel, one senses that the American ruling class and its representatives do not see a clear way out of the dilemma.

Openly torpedoing the legislation is tantamount to an admission of guilt. Indeed, the Obama administration, the military and intelligence agencies, and the New York Times are publicly working to cover up a crime perpetrated by Al Qaeda and its backers in Saudi Arabia, which in turn is an ally of the United States. The mere fact that Obama vetoed this bill constitutes an admission that the US government is hiding something with respect to the September 11 attacks.

The alternative, from the standpoint of the American ruling class, is also fraught with risks. Court proceedings initiated by the families of September 11 victims will inevitably expose the role played by the Saudi monarchy, an ally of both Al Qaeda and the United States, in the September 11 attacks. This, in turn, will highlight long and sordid history of American support for Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East, which continues to the present day in Syria and Libya.

Perhaps most dangerously of all, a full public accounting of the roles of Saudi intelligence agents in the September 11 attacks will once again raise questions about the role of the American state in the attacks. Why did US intelligence agencies ignore the activities of Saudi agents before the attacks, based on Saudi Arabias supposed status as a US ally? Why did the US government deliberately cover up the Saudi connection after the fact, instead claiming that Afghanistan was a state sponsor of terrorism and that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction? Why was nobody prosecuted?

The New York Times, for its part, simply lied about the evidence of Saudi complicity. The legislation is motivated by a belief among the 9/11 families that Saudi Arabia played a role in the attacks, because 15 of the 19 hijackers, who were members of Al Qaeda, were Saudis, the editors wrote. But the independent American commission that investigated the attacks found no evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials financed the terrorists.

In fact, at least two of the hijackers received aid from Omar al-Bayoumi, who was identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a Saudi intelligence agent with ties to terrorist elements. Some of the hijackers were paid for work in fictitious jobs from companies affiliated with the Saudi Defense Ministry, with which Al-Bayoumi was in close contact. The night before the attacks, three of the hijackers stayed at the same hotel as Saleh al-Hussayen, a prominent Saudi government official.

These and other facts were confirmed by the infamous 28-page suppressed chapter of the 2002 report issued by the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001. After 14 years of stalling, the document was finally released to the public this summer.

Yet the New York Times continues to describe the Saudi monarchy, the principal financier and sponsor of Islamic fundamentalist groups throughout the world, as a partner in combating terrorism.

The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, passed Wednesday, is a direct reaction to these revelations of Saudi complicity in the September 11 attacks, under pressure from organizations of survivors and families of victims. The law amends the federal judicial code to allow US courts to hear cases involving claims against a foreign state for injuries, death, or damages that occur inside the United States as a result of. .. an act of terrorism, committed anywhere by a foreign state or official.

Although the bill nowhere names Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government has threatened massive retaliation, including by moving $750 billion in assets out of the country before they can be seized in American legal proceedings. This reaction alone confirms the monarchys guilt.

During Wednesdays session, many of the statements on the floor of the Senate were nervous and apprehensive. Casting his vote in favor of the bill, Republican Senator Bob Corker declared, I have tremendous concerns about the sovereign immunity procedures that would be set in place by the countries as a result of this vote. More than one legislator noted that if the bill had unintended consequences, it would be modified or repealed.

The anxious comments of legislators and the crisscrossing denunciations within the ruling elite reflect the significance of this controversy for the entire American political establishment. For 15 years, the American population has been relentlessly told that the events of September 11, 2001 changed everything, warranting the elimination of democratic rights, the militarization of the police, renditions, torture, assassinations, totalitarian levels of spying, death and destruction across the Middle East, and trillions of dollars of expenditures.

The collapse of the official version of that days events shows that American politics for 15 years has been based on a lie.
TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) - The Florida A&M University Board of Trustees has approved the contract for its interim president.

The decision to make Larry Robinson interim president was made Thursday afternoon in a special meeting via conference call. The board officially offered him a one year contract that started Sept. 15, the same day that Elmira Mangum's contract was terminated.

The terms of the contract stated that Robinson will be paid an annual base salary of $385,000 by the university's foundation and other available resources. He will also get a $3,500 monthly housing payment to live in a private home and a $1,200 car allowance per month.

After the contract is up, Robinson can take a sabbatical for six months and if he chooses to return to FAMU as a faculty member, he can do so for his previous salary of $230,000 as a distinguished services professor.

By November 1st, Robinson has to provide a list of proposed goals and objectives for the year. His agreement will continue until the Board of Governors appoints a permanent president.
TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) - After lawyers requested for a change of venue for the trial of one the suspects in the murder of FSU law professor Dan Markel, a judge denied the motion on Thursday.

Luis Rivera's lawyers filed for the trial to be moved out of Leon County on Wednesday.

Rivera is one of the suspects accused in the murder of Markel.

No such motion has been filed for Sigfredo Garcia, the other man charged in the death of Markel.
TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) - Voters will once again be able to decide whether to legalize medical marijuana during the November 8th election.

Amendment 2 on the 2016 ballot would allow pot usage by a wide range of patients. Two years ago, a majority of citizens voted to approve a similar constitutional amendment, but the ballot initiative narrowly failed to reach the 60 percent approval.

Proponents of the bill said that the wording on the ballot of this year's amendment is stricter than it was in 2014, They also said that more medicinal options are needed for sick Floridians.

United for Care spokesman Reggie Garcia said the amendment is necessary because the legislature is not acting fast enough on the issue.

"In our judgment, the legislature didn't go far enough. That's why they'll see Amendment Two on their ballot, to amend the Constitution. Frankly, it's just that much more permanent," said Garcia.

However, opposition to amendment two has come on several fronts.

"We are certainly moved with compassion for those who are sick and suffering. We have given a lot of thought to that, as we look at Amendment Two. At the same time, we do have concerns for how the amendment would affect our broader society and the state of Florida," said Micheal Sheedy, executive director at the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops.

A poll released this week by the Florida Chamber of Commerce showed that more than 70 percent of voters supported amendment 2.

25 other states have already legalized medical marijuana and the issue is also on the ballot in two other states this year.
TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) - A witness in one of the the trials involving the murder of an FSU law professor has been scheduled to arrive in Tallahassee at the end of October.

Imran Hussain was in the custody of the Florida Department of Corrections prior to FSU professor Dan Markel's murder according to court documents. However now Hussain will be moved to the capitol city to serve as a witness for Luis Rivera, one of the men accused of killing of Markel.

The court document said that Rivera's attorneys need Hussain as a witness for the case.

Hussain is currently being held at South Bay Correctional Facility and will be transported to the Leon County Courthouse on October 26th, the day of Rivera's jury trial.

He will be returned to South Bay following the conclusion of Rivera's trial that is scheduled for November 2nd.
Despite accepting a $500,000 settlement, the sister of a man shot and killed by a Yakima police officer in 2014 is disappointed the city of Ya
Two sockeye are seen in Cooper River above Lake Cle Elum on Wednesday, where a record number of fish are expected to spawn this year. Photo courtesy of the Department of Ecology.
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Many people mocked Shimon Peres . They called him the dreamer, like Joseph in the Book of Genesis. But Joseph in the Book of Genesis was not just a dreamer. He was also a person who got a large state back on its feet after a serious crisis.

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Shimon Peres had a rare and valuable quality: the ability to change. People who have reached the age of 60 dont usually change. When I met Shimon Peres after the Yom Kippur War, he was still (in my eyes) a banal hawk, supporting settlers, in love with settlers, a person who put security first, the more land the better, the more power the better.

Peres. Being a 'dreamer' may be a recipe for a difficult life, but there is no reason to envy someone who has lost the power to dream (Photo: AP)

The man changed before my eyes, discovered the boundaries of power, and although he never disregarded the power of force, he began believing that there was a need for compromise, for dialogue and for peace involving concessions. Israeli-Palestinian peace and Israeli-Arab peace.

Many talk about Peress optimism, which knew no limits. In fact, behind this optimism hid a stubborn hope that the wisdom, the words and the effort would change the face of reality. It was sometimes a naive hope, but I find it a thousand times better than the shrewd cynicism.

Peres was not a great politician. Although he had tricks, slyness and intrigues attributed to him, he was basically a rather innocent person who many times fell into traps, but he stumbled because his eyes were fixed on the stars.

He was a pretty mediocre politician, but a great statesman: He saw didn't just see reality through todays eyes, or tomorrow mornings eyes, or the eyes of the primary elections and the party convention, or the next electionsbut through the eyes of the next decades and even the next generations.

He was enthusiastically keen on anything that had to do with the future. I often asked him to talk about the past, about David Ben-Gurion, about the War of Independence, about the alliance with France, about things that he was more involved in than anyone else. But he would forcefully pull me towards completely different issues: nanotechnology, brain research, the era that will follow the electronic age, medicine that will improve humanity.

Yes, the man was an unmistakable dreamer, both innocent and sophisticated, but his dreams came true many times more than the skepticism of many others. Being a dreamer may be a recipe for a difficult life, but there is no reason to envy someone who has lost the power to dream. The man was full of curiosity, he was intriguing, and I loved him.
It was a boring afternoon in the Jordanian city of Petra. In the shadow of the ancient view of the Red Rock, a group of Nobel Prize laureates wearing ties gathered for an academic discussions about issues in the marginal news. The events patrons, King Abdullah and the late Elie Wiesel, tried to calm down the nervous media which were looking for headlines.

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And then came the two stars: Shimon Peres , Israels foreign minister at the time and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate himself, and his warmongering Egyptian colleague, Amr Moussa. The moment they got on the stage, everything got heated. Moussa raised the issue of the conflict with the Palestinians and wouldnt stop: Settlements, the right of return, Jerusalems division, prisoners, roadblocks and the foot-dragging on the Israeli side. Peres did not give up, and hit back at Moussa at Yasser Arafats expense. They lashed out at each other, and the journalists had a ball. When the cameras were turned off, Moussa sat down at the VIP table and Peres insisted on whispering in his ear: No matter what you say, I won.

Peres (C) receives the Nobel Peace Prize with Yitzhak Rabin (R) and Yasser Arafat. He was not very fond of the Palestinian leader (Photo: Yaakov Sa'ar, GPO)

I met Peres in Morocco, Cairo, Doha, on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea, and in the royal palace in Amman.

At midnight we took a stroll - to the security guards discontent - along the noisy Corniche in Alexandria. Peres was desperately looking for young people to share their dreams and frustrations with him. He wanted to outline a new Middle East for them, but the opponents of normalization (with Israel) got in his way and prevented him from creating economic cooperation and workplaces. When people explained to him that the trade unions in Egypt were strong and more threatening than the leaders, Peres got angry that his plans were being sabotaged. He was an optimist and not a naive one. He was stuck in a dream about the new neighborhood that could be formed here  if only his plans would be adopted.

Peres paid a heavy political price for a sentence said by Hosni Mubarak. In an interview to Yedioth Ahronoth, the former Egyptian president said: When Peres calls and asks to come over, I immediately agree and invite him, because I will forever be in his debt. According to Mubarak, If it werent for Peres personal involvement and his pressure to stop the legal battles over Taba, and his determination to move it to Egyptian sovereignty, I would have cancelled the peace treaty.

Peres pursued peace with all his might. When the door was slammed in his face, he searched for a window. When the window was closed, he tried to squeeze through a narrower gap. He had 101 solutions to every issue. But the other side did not miss an opportunity to give him a hard time and shatter his dreams.

On Friday, we will see who of the second generation of the neighborhoods leaders will show up to pay their last respects to him. After all, Peres fingerprints can be seen in Morocco, in Egypt, in Jordan, in the Persian Gulf emirates and in Ramallah. Mainly in Ramallah, where Mahmoud Abbas  who shared Peres secret in the moves which led to the Oslo Agreements  resides.

Yasser Arafat, it should be noted, was someone Peres was not very fond of. One night, in Cairo, he initiated a Yedioth Ahronoth interview in order to send some tough signals to Arafat. He scheduled the interview for 2 am at his suite.

When I entered, he ordered a cup of coffee for me, because she looks tired. I pulled out a pen and a notebook and began asking my questions. Several minutes later, a silence fell upon the room. Peres, who was exhausted from his tight schedule, had fallen asleep. Before the bodyguard had a chance to jump, I slightly kicked his leg. Peres sat up in his armchair and, to my astonishment, continued from the exact point he had left off. The interview was successful, and Ramallah took the hint. We never discussed that event again. I apologize for the kick.
DAKAR- The European Union should help countries in Africa's Sahel region tackle a population boom if it wants to stop more migrants coming to its shores, a senior UN official said.

Toby Lanzer, Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, said governments there were already struggling to provide enough jobs, schools and food for the growing numbers that, the United Nations estimates, could treble to more 300 million by 2050 at current rates.

"The challenge across the region is gigantic," Lanzer said in an interview on Wednesday.

"In the coming 10-20 years we will see an ever-increasing number of migrants until the countries of Europe ... have a very frank conversation with each country about demography," he said, adding that the EU should also discuss measures on trade and security to curb migration.
Israels mission to the United Nations held a memorial ceremony at 9am local time in the UN headquarters to commemorate Shimon Peres, the ninth president of the State of Israel who died early on Wednesday morning at the age of 93.

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Israels Permanent Representative to the UN Amb. Danny Danon, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, US Amb. Samantha Power and ambassadors from more than 40 countries gathered to show their final respects for the man who often represented Israel on the global stage over the past sixty years, also serving as prime minister, foreign minister, defense minister and a handful of other portfolios.

The Israeli Mission also opened a condolence book for the ambassadors to share their thoughts in memory of Peres, which will later be available to the general public.

L-R: Ban Ki-moon, Danny Danon & Samantha Power stand in silent commemoration alongside a portrait of Shimon Peres

"After years of representing the true face of Israel to the world, today the parliament of nations has gathered to pay their respects. We will remember him as he lived his life until his last days, full of energy and a willingness to work for a better future for Israel. President Peres will continue to inspire us all. May his memory be a blessing."

Ban addressed the ceremony, saying, "I join in the sorrow for loss. I had the privilege to benefit from his wisdom. His leadership will be missed as someone who worked to realize the dream of security and peace for Israel."

Ban Ki-moon signs book of condolence as Danny Danon looks on

Power spoke of Peres's involvement in the establishment of the State of Israel and his hope for the future, commenting, "He made it his personal duty to ensure that othersparticularly the younger generationswould not feel despair. He never lost his own youth. I had the privilege of seeing President Peres in February in Israel. And he said what worried him most about the region was that so many young people had lost their hope. This, he understood, was perhaps the greatest threat to peace. And he understood that a future without the prospect of peace was a horizon without light."

Peres was famously keen on working , and the American ambassador ended by highlighting his devotion to his country, saying "To his last day, he never gave up on his belief that the greatest service to both was working to make the dream of peace a reality. He saw that the pursuit of peace was the highest form of patriotism. May his vision of Israels future long define Israels present."

Peres, who laid in state before the Knesset on Thursday, is to be buried on Friday. His funeral is being attended by representatives from some 90 countries , including US President Barack Obama, former US President Bill Clinton, French President Francois Hollande, and Spanish King Felipe VI.
The internet and the social media sites are part of the the daily activities in the lives of young people in Israel but the internet is also rife with many dangers: from criminal activities such as pedophelia, distribution of illicit sexual content, ostracism and shaming.

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Not all of these common features of conduct on the internet are defined as criminal. However, they can have a devastating effect on the lives of young people. In light of the accompanying dangers, the government is expected to embark on a new strategy to counter cyber threats.

Photo illustration (Shutterstock)

Last Tuesday, the government approved a national initiative to protect children and young people on the internet. Known as the prevention of violence and crime on the internet the initiative will involve the operations of 131 policemen and civilians and will be allocated an annual budget of NIS 50 million. The national initiative will also operate an emergency center 24/7 and will include dedicated police units.

The initiative will be lead by the Internal Defense Ministry and will be composed of permanent representatives from a number of ministries and the Israel Police. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan praised initiative, saying it would constitute a digital iron dome which will protect children in Israel on the internet.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

The Israeli plan is based on the British model which has also been forced to find ways of coping with violence and abuse prevalent on the internet. Indeed, Erdan even visited London in order to learn the various methods which Israel might employ against the phenomenon.

One of the central goals which I set in place was the creation of a national initiative which would provide an answer to threats and dangers on the internet, Erdan told Yedioth Ahronoth on Saturday night.

The initiative, which is a new model and a breakthrough, will operate toward the goal of leading a strategic change in the State of Israel, to create a safe environment on the internet and to strengthen feelings of personal security for the public.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shook hands and exchanged brief words at the funeral on Friday of Shimon Peres, the former Israeli leader who won international acclaim for peacemaking with the Palestinians.

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US President Barack Obama and other world leaders gathered for the burial in Jerusalem's Mount Herzl cemetery, two days after Peres, a former president and premier, died at the age of 93.

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"Long time, long time," Abbas told Netanyahu and the prime minister's wife Sara, after shaking his hand before the start of the state ceremony.

Mahmoud Abbas shakes PM Netnayahu's hand at Peres funeral

Welcoming Abbas, as participants recorded the encounter on their cell phones, Netanyahu said of his attendance: "It's something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people and on behalf of us."

Abbas was given a front-row seat between European Council President Donald Tusk and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Obama briefly greeted the Palestinian leader with a kiss on each cheek before walking down the line to stand next to Netanyahu.

Peres, who died two weeks after a stroke, jointly won a Nobel Prize for his peace efforts with the Palestinians in the 1990s, landmark talks that have failed to achieve a final land-for-peace agreement.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gets emotional at Shimon Peres's funeral (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

However, with time short between the end of the funeral and the start of the Jewish sabbath at sundown, no plans were announced for any diplomacy on Friday. Obama and Netanyahu, who have had a testy relationship, last held talks on Sept. 21 in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Peres will be buried in a Jewish religious ceremony, in a plot between two former prime ministers, Yitzhak Rabin and Yitzhak Shamir. Rabin was assassinated by an ultranationalist Israeli in 1995 over the interim peace deals that he and Peres reached with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"A light has gone out," Obama said in a statement after Peres died in a hospital near Tel Aviv on Wednesday, two weeks after suffering a stroke.

Outside Israel's parliament on Thursday, an estimated 50,000 Israelis filed past Peres's flag-draped coffin as it lay in state.

Former US President Bill Clinton, arriving in Israel a day before the burial, visited the plaza in front of parliament to stand, head bowed, in front of Peres's casket.

Mahmoud Abbas with his Palestinian entourage (Photo: Idan Arbel)

Obama was leading a delegation of 33 US officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leader in the House of Representatives.

Britain's Prince Charles, French President Francois Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former British leaders David Cameron and Tony Blair were also on a long list of foreign dignitaries attending the funeral.

Israel laid on heavy security, deploying some 8,000 police and intermittently closing the main highway between Tel Aviv's airport and Jerusalem for Obama's motorcade.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been frozen since 2014 and Netanyahu and Abbas, deeply divided over Jewish settlement on land Palestinians seek for a state and other issues, have not held face-to-face talks since 2010.
Over 30 former and present heads of state and government joined ambassadors, foreign mayors, governors and ministers and most of Israel's political echelon on Friday to bid farewell Israel's ninth president Shimon Peres in what may be the largest gathering of international dignitaries in Israel in the state's history.

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Wreaths laid on Peres's grave (Photo: AP)

Family members lay wreaths on Peres's grave (Photo: Reuters)

Peres's fresh grave.

Israel's President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein all spoke at the funeral.





President Rivlin (Photo: Reuters)

President Rivlin (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

President Rivlin (Photo: AP)

Prime Minister Netanyahu (Photo: AP)

Prime Minister Netanyahu (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Prime Minister Netanyahu (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Supreme Court President Miriam Naor sitting next to French President Hollande. Israel's two chief rabbis, David Lau and Yitzhak Yosef, center, sitting next to Jerusalem Mayor Barkat (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Police Comissioner Roni Alsheikh (Photo: Idan Arbelly)

In total, some 90 delegations from 70 countries were in attendance.

US President Barack Obama led the American delegation, which also included Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton and Congressmen from both sides of the aisle.

Prime Minister Netanyahu talks to US President Obama, with President Rivlin and Mrs. Netanyahu flanking them (Photo: AFP)

US President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu.

US President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu (Photo: AP)

US President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu (Photo: Gil Yohanan)





US President Obama standing next to Prime Minister Netanyahu and Mrs. Netanyahu (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

US President Obama embraces Chemi Peres as Prime Minister Netanyahu and Mrs. Netanyahu look on (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Obama offers his condolences to Peres's family (Photo: EPA)

US President Obama hands Chemi Peres a handkerchief (Photo: Koby Gideon, GPO)

US President Obama (Photo: Reuters)

US President Obama (Photo: AP)

US President Obama (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Former US President Clinton arrives at the funeral (Photo: AFP)

Former US President Clinton sits next to Peres's daughter, Dr. Tsvia Walden, and Knesset Speaker Edelstein (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Former US President Bill Clinton comforting Chemi Peres (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Former US President Bill Clinton (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Former US President Bill Clinton (Photo: AFP)

Former US President Bill Clinton (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Former US President Bill Clinton (Photo: AFP)

Former US President Bill Clinton (Photo: Reuters)

The UK sent an especially large delegation to the funeral, which included: Prince Charles, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, President of the Board of Jewish Deputies Ephraim Arkush and former Prime Ministers Tony Blair, David Cameron, and Gordon Brown.

Prince Charles (Photo: AFP)

British Prince Charles speaking to French President Hollande (Photo: AP)

Prince Charles (Photo: Reuters)

Prince Charles (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Former British Prime Ministers Blair and Cameron sitting next to Britain's Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Former British Prime Minister Blair (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

British Foreign Foreign Secretary Johnson (Photo: AP)

The Palestinians sent a four-member delegation, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, PLO Executive Committee Secretary-General and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, Chief of General Intelligence Maj. Gen. Majid Faraj, and Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh.

Palestinian President Abbas shakes Prime Minister Netanyahu's hand (Photo: GPO)

Palestinian President Abbas leading the PA delegation to the funeral (Photo: Idan Arbelly)

Palestinian President Abbas, center, flanked by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, right, and President of the European Council Donald Tusk (Photo: AP)

Palestinian President Abbas at the funeral (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Palestinian President Abbas (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Many other heads of states, both past and present, attended.





Candian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Photo: AP)

Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, center (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

French President Hollande, with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy behind him (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

The funeral was also attended by author Amos Oz, a close friend of Peres, who also eulogized him.





Author Amos Oz (Photo: AFP)

Author Amos Oz (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Peres's daughter, Dr. Tsvia Walden (Photo: Reuters)

Peres's daughter, Dr. Tsvia Walden with former US President Bill Clinton (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Peres's daughter, Dr. Tsvia Walden (Photo: Reuters)

Chemi Peres at his father's casket (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Chemi Peres at his father's casket (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Other members of Peres's family (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Israeli-American media proprietor Haim Saban (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Peres's casket being carried (Photo: AP)
PARIS- French warplanes are flying over Iraq after the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier rejoined the U-led fight against ISIS extremists -- and as the coalition prepares to try to take back the key city of Mosul.

France, which has suffered repeated attacks at home from IS-linked extremists, is ramping up its military presence in Iraq ahead of the offensive in Mosul, the largest city held by the extremists. The Iraqi government has been gearing up with support from the United States and other allies for the mission, which could mark a turning point in the fight against ISIS.

A French defense official said Friday's mission "in no way" constitutes the beginning of the battle for Mosul. The French official, speaking anonymously in line with defense policy, said preparations are still underway with the US and other partners to coordinate the Mosul offensive. She would not provide details of Friday's operation for the security of the pilots.

French planes have flown 32 missions over the past week, with Rafale jets destroying four targets with airstrikes and backing up Iraqi ground forces, according to a French military statement.
BELGRADE- Serbian police say they have arrested two migrants after they fled from detention at Belgrade airport.

Police said Friday that the two Tunisians face charges of illegal border crossing and people-smuggling. They say the men escaped Thursday from temporary detention facilities at the airport.

Police gave no more details, but local media have reported migrants arrived on a plane from Tunisia and were not allowed into Serbia. Reports say they broke through the detention room wall.
CAIRO (AP) -- An international rights group expressed alarm Friday over the fate of hundreds of Libyan and foreign nationals trapped for months amid fighting in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Amnesty International said that nearly 130 families and hundreds of foreigners in the southwestern Benghazi neighborhood of Ganfouda have been cut off from the outside world, with dwindling food and fuel supplies.

"Time is running out for civilians in Ganfouda, who are being left to die trapped by the fighting," said Magdalena Mughrabi, deputy director of Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa Program.

The fighting has raged in Benghazi since 2014 when forces commanded by powerful military commander Khalifa Hifter began a campaign against militants there, including branches of al-Qaida and ISIS. Hifter, supported by British, French, and American military advisers and special forces, has managed to take control over much of the city. Ganfouda is one of the few districts where the militants have put up fierce resistance against Hifter's National Libyan Army forces.
SOFIA - Bulgaria's parliament on Friday banned the wearing of face veils in what in what was deemed to be an attempt to boost security in the wake of Islamist militant attacks in Europe.

The "burqa ban" law, pushed by the nationalist Patriotic Front coalition, echoes similar moves in other western European countries such as France, Netherlands and Belgium who have banned the wearing of burqas or niqabs in public.

People who do not follow the ban face fines of up to 1,500 levs ($857.14) as well as suspension of social benefits.
After two years of proceedings, the Ministry of Defense has accepted the appeals of the Ben-Tzion family, ruling that family father Avraham was murdered due to nationalistic motives.

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In December 2014, Avraham Ben-Tzion (who was also known by the nickname Avi), a 63-year-old father of four and grandfather of five, was murdered by three Palestinian attackers at the Alon Junction in the West Bank.

Ben-Tzion, a resident of the West Bank settlement of Netiv HaGdud, was sprayed with tear gas, and as he stepped out of his car, was then run over by one of the culprits. Ben-Tzions vehicle was stolen by the three, who fled the scene. he later died of the injuries he sustained during the attack.

Three suspects were later arrested for the attack, residents of the West Bank village of Qabalan, and their trial is currently underway.

Avraham Ben-Tzion. Recognized as a terror victim.

The (Israeli) Judea and Samaria police determined that the act was motivated by regular criminal intent, and that nationality or ethnicity were not significant motives. The Ben-Tzion family disagreed, and appealed to the Defense Ministry so that the state would recognize the murder as a terrorist incident.

Their appeal was granted, meaning the family will be eligible for benefits given to the families of victims of terror acts.

Ben-Tzions widow, Niva, responded to the decision by saying, I (am pleased with) the decision. Justice has seen the light of day. Now we will be able to mourn in peace. This isnt so much closure as it is the possibility to be in grief without struggle. A kind of quiet.
In total 450 jail inmates jails, including 90 surrendered Naxalites of Maharashtra jails to appear for 'Gandhi Peace Exam' on October 2.

By India Today Web Desk, Press Trust of India: While propagating the values of the Father of Nation, Mumbai Sarvodaya Mandal will be conducting an examination named 'Gandhi Peace Exam' for jail inmates of Maharashtra on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

Set up in 1952 during the Bhudan Andolan (land gift movement) of Acharya Vinoba Bhave, the Sarvodaya Mandal has been engaged in conducting seminars, workshops, meetings, youth camps etc.

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(Read: Uri Attack: Ajmer institution withdraws student-exchange programme with Pakistan )



Exam details:

As per reports, 450 jail inmates from Chandrapur, Akola, Yervada, Bhandara, Nagpur and Byculla jails, including 90 surrendered Naxalites will appear for the examination

Also, about 1.7 lakh students will be appearing to mark the 147th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi

The exam will consist of objective type questions

Further, the trust has already requisite literature on Gandhiji well in advance to study

"Gandhiji believed in change of heart. While inculcating Gandhi's ideology among the youth, it is essential to help bring about a change of heart amongst the jail inmates and make them responsible citizens," the mandal's managing trustee Tulsidas Somaiya said.

In order to conduct the examination, the mandal has got permission from the state's Inspector General of Prisons

Not only this, the trust has already announced to sell the books written by Mahatma Gandhi or those penned on him at 50 per cent discount beginning from October 2.

Further, the statement said, this exam is being conducted to give the prisoners an opportunity to evoke a sense of remorse through inculcation of moral values in their minds and make them realise the power of truth and non-violence.



Read: India lost out by 'keeping women as slaves': Says Prakash Javadekar

Read: Maharashtra board lagging behind CBSE and ICSE

Read: Indian professionals returning to Indian premier institutes



Click here for more education related news.

For more details, follow India Today Education or you can write to us at education.intoday@gmail.com.



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A Colombian peace accord ending a half-century of war is widely tipped for the Nobel Peace Prize next week, returning the award to its roots after a run of wins for organizations including the European Union.

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The prize might be shared by President Juan Manuel Santos and Marxist FARC rebel leader Timochenko - the nom de guerre of Rodrigo Londono - after they signed a deal on Sept. 26 to end a war that killed a quarter of a million people.

"The agreement ... is one of the most obvious peace prize candidates I've ever seen," said Asle Sveen, a historian who tracks the awards. Still, he said a prize may hinge on a "Yes" to the agreement in a referendum in Colombia on Sunday.

Colombian President Santos (left) and RARC leader Timochenko, at the signing ceremony. (Photo: AFP)

It would be the first award for Latin America since Guatemalan human rights activist Rigoberta Menchu won in 1992.

Other candidates for the 8.0 million Swedish crown ($934,000) prize include Svetlana Gannushkina, a Russia campaigner for human rights and refugees, Syria's White Helmets, a civilian group that seeks to rescue victims of air strikes, or Greek islanders who have aided Syrian refugees.

Others tips include negotiators of a deal over Iran's nuclear program or former US spy contractor Edward Snowden who leaked details of US surveillance.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the signing. (Photo: Reuters)

Kristian Berg Harpviken, head of the Peace Research Institute, Oslo, puts Gannushkina as his favorite, with Colombia second, saying such a prize would be an overdue rebuke to President Vladimir Putin.

"Ten years into the future there's a risk that it will be seen as major omission by the Nobel Committee," he said of a lack of criticisms of Russian restrictions on human rights and the annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014.
Palestinian Authority (PA) Pressident Mahmoud Abbas was one of many world leaders and dignitaries to attend the funeral of former Israeli president Shimon Peres on Friday. Following the event, Abbaas was heavily criticized in the Palestinian and Arab world media. Hamas media partners specifically kept a vigilant eye on the Fatah leaders actions, among them handshakes with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin.

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One of the criticisms had to do with Abbas attending the event on the 16 anniversary of the death of Muhammad al-Durrah. Al-Durrah was a 12-year-old Gazan boy who was killed by crossfire when he and his father were caught in the middle of a battle between Israeli and Palestinian forces during the second day of the Second Intifada. He subsequently became a symbol for that intifada, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at large.

Abbas. Heavily criticized for tearing up. (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

The handshake bwetween Abbas and Netanyahu. (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

Hamas has called for Abbas to renounce his participation in the funeral. When he was shown crying during the ceremony, he was further derided. A hashtag was spread on social media calling the condolences for Peres death treasonous, and one of the Hamas-affiliated twitter accounts uploaded a post that read, What makes you cry, Abbas? Is Peres departure so painful?

Abbas Fatah party responded, saying that the PA presidents participation was a message of peace to the world. The participation is part of the responsibilities placed on Abu Mazen (Abbas nickname. -ed) as the Palestinian president, due to the attention the world gave the funeral, and part of the action to stop the Netanyahu governments scare campaign against the Palestinian Authority and the attempts by Israel to convince the world that we believe only in violence, a Fatah statement said.
Army Air Corps 1st Lt. Robert McIntosh, 27th Fighter Squadron pilot, was honored Sept. 29 with a flyover in Tipton, Indiana by a formation of F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft.McIntosh was a fighter pilot during World War II whose plane, a P-38 Lightning, disappeared in Italy on May 12, 1944.McIntoshs sisters, Jeannine Baker-McIntosh and Patricia Talley, both said that they were happy to have closure about what happened to their brother and are very glad the Air Force did so much to honor his memory and sacrifice.We are so pleased that he finally made his way home to us, said Baker-McIntosh. We are a military family from the word go and our mother and father would be so happy to know what happened to him. Mom had hope that his remains would be found until the day she died.We are ecstatic that the Air Force is putting forth all this effort for our brother, said Talley, echoing her sisters thoughts. We are amazed by the deep respect that is being shown by the Air Force.The Raptors selected to perform the flyover were from the same 27th FS McIntosh flew with. The 27th FS is now based out of joint base Langley-Eustis, Virginia and flying the F-22.Capt. Justin Lennon, 27th FS pilot, one of the pilots who performed the flyover, said he was honored to participate in the event.Its awesome we have the opportunity to give him the respect that he deserves, said Lennon. We have the privilege of being the oldest fighter squadron in the Air Force. All of that history makes me proud of my job, my squadron, Lieutenant McIntosh for his sacrifice and proud of the Air Force and what we do.A KC-135R Stratotanker from Grissom helped support the flyover by refueling the F-22s enroute to the ceremony and flyover site in Tipton.We are happy to play a small part in honoring a fallen aviator, said Col. Larry Shaw, 434th Air Refueling Wing commander. Aviators, whether they be past or present, are a fraternity of brothers and we are pleased to play a role in his memorial.McIntoshs plane was the last in a formation that was returning to base following a mission. Due to the poor weather conditions at the time the formation was told to fly up over the storm however McIntosh never made it above the clouds, his plane was last seen diving through the storm.In September 2013, the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (now DPAA) received information from private citizens regarding the partial excavation of a crash site in Santa Cristina, Italy. The citizens found evidence which confirmed this was McIntoshs crash site.In August 2015, a DPAA recovery team helped excavate the crash site.To identify McIntoshs remains, scientists from DPAA and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA analysis, which matched two sisters, as well as dental and anthropological analysis and circumstantial evidence.The 27th Fighter Squadron has been active since World War I, at the time called the 27th Aero Squadron, flying various aircraft. Most recently the 27th FS has been given the task of flying the F-22 Raptor.The F-22 Raptor entered service in December of 2005 and was designed to be an air superiority fighter. The F-22 is considered critical to tactical air power by the Air Force. The F-22 Raptor fact sheet is available here The 434th ARW is the largest KC-135R Stratotanker unit in the Air Force Reserve Command . Men and women from the Hoosier Wing routinely deploy around the world in support of the Air Force mission.Stay connected with the 434th ARW on Facebook and Twitter
By PTI: New Delhi, Sep 30 (PTI) Chinese handset maker Coolpad today said about 95 per cent of its smartphones sold in the country are assembled locally.

The company, which competes with the likes of Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo in India, is also working on expanding its offline presence to boost sales in the country.

"We started manufacturing in India in partnership with Videocon and now 95 per cent of the devices are now Made in India. Only the first batch when we launch a device, say 10,000-15,000 units only come from China. After that the devices are made here itself," Coolpad Group Vice President Luo Zhongsheng told reporters here.

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Coolpad India CEO Syed Tajuddin said the companys manufacturing capacity (through Videocon) is about 250,000-300,000 units a month.

Earlier this year, Coolpad had partnered Videocon to assemble its handsets in India at the latters Aurangabad facility.

The company today launched its new smartphone -- Note 5 -- priced at Rs 10,999. It will be available on sale from mid-October on Amazon.in.

The device features a 5.5-inch display, 4GB RAM, 32 GB internal storage (expandable to 64GB), 13MP rear and 8 MP front camera and with LED Flash and 4010 mAh battery.

Talking about the companys offline retail plans, Tajuddin said Coolpad has conducted a pilot with Amazon.in to sell its handsets to retailers in Karnataka.

"The pilot will be extended to Delhi and Tamil Nadu in the next 15-20 days. By next Diwali, offline retail should be about 30 per cent of our sales (from almost zero right now)," he added.

Unlike rivals like Xiaomi and Motorola that are partnering physical retail stores and distributors to sell their devices, Coolpad palns to continue working with Amazon.in for its offline play.

Amazon, under its wholesale business, supplies bulk orders to retailers.

Coolpad, which is looking at expanding its play in the premium smartphone category, also plans to line up three more devices this year.

"The launch of these three handsets will depend on when the testing gets completed and certifications come in. These phones will be a mix of high-end and mid-range price points," he said. PTI SR MR

--- ENDS ---
Ahead of the 2017 assembly elections in Gujarat, party workers donning the signature AAP cap groove to a garba titled "Gujarat Ma Aavshe Kejriwal.

By India Today Web Desk: After the foot-tapping Paanch Saal Kejriwal track composed by musician Vishal Dadlani comes another groovy Garba tune composed by party workers ahead of the upcoming 2017 assembly elections in Gujarat.

In the viral video, a group of party workers wearing the AAP cap, dance to the song titled, "Gujarat Ma Aavshe Kejriwal ( Kejriwal is coming to Gujarat).

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'Kejriwal Kejriwal Gujarat me aayenge Kejriwal, Delhi me Kamal ke baad Gujarat me kamal karenge Kejriwal,' the lyrics glorifies Delhi Chief Minister saying, after the victory in Delhi, he is most certainly headed for a win in next year's assembly elections too.

Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal will address a rally in Gujarat on October 16. The rally by AAP, which is trying to make inroads in the state held by BJP for 15 years, comes at a time when the ruling party is battling the unrest emanating out of quota stir by the Patidar community and atrocities on Dalits.

Watch the video below:



'Kejriwal in Gujarat' garbo(song) getting famous in Gujarat! Must listen once! pic.twitter.com/7eN509MmOQ Safin ? (@HasanSafin) September 28, 2016

--- ENDS ---
As much as 12.2% of houses and 19.9% of units in regional markets were sold below their previous purchase prices, continuing the loss-making resale trends that started in the August 2015 quarter for houses and the February 2016 quarter for units.

Meanwhile, capital city houses resold at a loss increased from 5.7% in the March quarter to 5.9% in the three months to June. 9.5% of units were also resold at a loss. The proportion of loss-making resales over the quarter increased across each capital city with the exception of Melbourne and Canberra.

In spite of these figures, CoreLogic head of research Cameron Kusher said that these numbers are still considered to be low historically.

While loss-making resales increased over the quarter, historically, most cities are still seeing quite a low instance of homes reselling at a loss, said Kusher.

However, Perth and Darwin are the exceptions, with the proportion of loss-making resales at, or close to, historic highs.

As much as 20.1% of Perth homes were resold at a loss, while Darwin registered 24.2%  the highest proportion since December 2002.

Units sold at a loss were also higher in number compared to houses across capital and regional markets. Only Sydney had a lower proportion of units reselling at a loss compared to houses.

Houses have typically recorded a superior rate of capital growth to that of units and those houses reselling at a profit tend to record a much greater profit than units. These factors go some way to explaining why units are recording a much higher proportion of loss-making resales than houses, said Kusher.
As a homeowner, you probably already know that you should be working to maintain your home. But, chances are, you Read More
Dobra, k. Szczecina 900 m2

40 miejsc parkingowych



Atut: Dodatkowe dochody z paczkomatow InPostu, a juz niedugo i z myjni samoobsugowej.



Tradycyjny zakup nieruchomosci, mozliwosc wykupienia uzytkowania wieczystego.
Living Section

Somerton, Arizona - Got apps? On Wednesday, October 12th, the Somerton Library will host Learn Through Play at 1:00 p.m. for parents, caregivers, and educators. Learn how to turn your iPad into a learning center for your child using fun, educational apps! The Science Station iPad Project at the Somerton Library will also be discussed.

There is no charge to attend. iPads and other devices welcome!



The Somerton Library is located at 240 Canal Street in Somerton, AZ. For more information, call (928) 627-2149.
Afghanistan has defended India's surgical strikes across the Line of Control in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, where elite commandos of Indian army destroyed seven terror training camps and killed 50 terrorists on Thursday.

By Maha Siddiqui: Afghanistan on Friday backed Indian army's operation in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, where commandos of two elite units destroyed seven terror training camps and killed at least 50 terrorists. Afghanistan has termed it as an act of self-defence by India.

Extending support to India, Afghan ambassador Shaida Abdali said, "If terror groups are allowed to continue without any action against them, then self defence in the form we saw will continue."

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"We had terror camps (in Afghanistan) and even though it was in our own country we could not do much to eradicate," he said.



READ| How Indian para commandos crawled through enemy territory to kill 50 terrorists in PoK

'THERE IS NO GOOD TERRORIST'



Afghan ambassador to India made it clear that his country did not distinguish between one set of terrorists from the other. "Afghanistan does not make a distinction in terrorism. We are against terrorism. We have suffered. We understand how difficult it is to see continued violence against innocent people," Abdali said.

Pakistan has been supportive of terror outfits operating out of its soil with an objective to target India, even as it took punitive measures against terror groups, which targeted its army and official establishment.



READ| Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike

'SAARC MEET IS MEANINGLESS'

Abdali supported India's stand to pull out of SAARC summit, scheduled to be held in Pakistan. Afghanistan has also made it clear that it will not participate in SAARC summit under the prevailing circumstances.

"The situation will become much worse if we do not act. Being selective against terrorism can make us reconsider whether we want to continue to engage like SAARC," the Afghan ambassador said before adding, "SAARC should be the basis for peace. Unless the situation improves, the meeting in the next two months will have no meaning."

READ| Claims denied: How Pakistan media is treating India's surgical strike

'THERE ARE NO NON-STATE ACTORS'

On a question pertaining to Pakistan's continued denial of supporting terror outfits acting against India, Abdali said, "State sponsorship of terrorism exists. There are no non- state actors. We need to ensure that state sponsored terrorism must end."

"The fact of deniability has been there for a long time. The deception of war against terrorism should not be accepted anymore. Time has come to act against terrorism based on evidence given," Abdali categorically said.

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"There is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan. But, without any doubt there is a double standard approach vis-a-vis terrorism. There is a need to come out clean on how we deal with terror," he said.

The Afghan ambassador said that business as usual will harm all of us. It is high time we take tough decisions, Abdali said.





ALSO READ:

Who strategised the Indian Army's surgical strikes across the LoC?



Social media being monitored for hate content, rumours day after Indian Army's surgical strikes

Watch how India carried out military operation in PoK



--- ENDS ---
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said that all attempts are being made to secure the release of Indian soldier who had inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan.

By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said India will take up with Pakistan the release of the soldier who strayed into Pakistani territory "inadvertently" on Thursday and was captured.

Speaking to reporters, Singh said, "Government has taken note of the media reports which say our soldier is in Pakistan captivity."

All attempts are being made to free the 22-year-old soldier, Chandu Babulal Chauhan from Pakistan's captivity.

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The news that Chauhan who hails from Maharashtra is in Pakistan's captivity came hours after India announced that it conducted surgical strikes on Wednesday, attacking seven terror launch pads in PoK.



CROSSING OVER NOT RELATED TO SURGICAL STRIKES



As the revelation ratcheted up tension between the neighbours, Pakistan newspaper Dawn reported that eight Indian soldiers had been killed in the strikes and one was caught alive.

The Indian Army denied the death reports, asserting that the special operation forces who crossed the Line of Control for the strikes returned with "not one scratch".

Chauhan, a soldier of the Rashtriya Rifles, did not take part in the surgical strikes, the army said, adding in a statement that he had "inadvertently crossed the Line of Control from the army post where he was on duty."

Another top official said, "Government is ready to explore and exhaust all options to secure the release of the Indian soldier."

The DGMO and MEA are also expected to take up the case of the soldier with Pakistan.

Also read:

Revenge factor: How Ghatak platoons from units attacked in Uri helped commandos in surgical strike

Surgical strikes in PoK: How Indian para commandos killed 50 terrorists, hit 7 camps

India hits Pakistan back with surgical strikes across Line of Control, 38 killed

Surgical win: Did Rajnath mock Pakistan's defeat to India in U-18 hockey match?

Surgical strikes effect: Terror chiefs told to lie low in Pakistan



--- ENDS ---
Niamey: Niger`s Army said Friday that 14 of its soldiers and scores of Boko Haram fighters had been killed during a multi-month sweep operation in the nation`s southeast.

Defence ministry spokesman Colonel Moustapha Ledru told state television that "123 terrorists" had been killed and "a large quantity of arms recovered from the insurgents."

It was not possible to independently verify this number.

Ledru said 14 soldiers were killed and 29 wounded in the joint operations with Chad`s military took place between July and September 28.

They targeted the Diffa region, which lies just across the border from the Islamists` stronghold in northeastern Nigeria.

Ledru said the "terrorists" who had been killed had "infiltrated" into Diffa from Nigeria, adding that two fighters had been captured.

Boko Haram`s seven-year insurgency has left at least 20,000 people dead in Nigeria and border areas of neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, and made more than 2.6 million homeless.

Attacks in Niger`s Diffa region began in February 2015.

In late July this year a multinational force, drawn from Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, was formed to tackle the Islamic insurgents and clear them out of towns and villages.

Ledru said operations had led to four strategic localities being taken back from Boko Haram control.
Washington: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the possibility of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of jihadists, which she said was "a threatening scenario", according to a media report.

"Pakistan is running full speed to develop tactical nukes in their continuing hostility with India," the former secretary of state told a close door fundraiser in Virginia in February, The New York Times reported, citing 50-minute audio being hacked from the Democratic Party's computers.

"But we live in fear that they're going to have a coup, that jihadists are going to take over the government, they`re going to get access to nuclear weapons, and you`ll have suicide nuclear bombers. So, this could not be a more threatening scenario," the daily quoted Clinton as saying in the audio that appeared on The Washington Free Beacon website.

During the fund raiser, responding to a question on the modernisation of nuclear weapons, the daily said, Clinton went beyond the question to warn of an emerging nuclear arms race, naming Russia and China as well as Pakistan and India.

"This is one of the most dangerous developments imaginable," Clinton said.

Such remarks from the former secretary of state gain significance in view of an interview of Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif to the local TV channel in which he threatened to unleash nukes against India.

"If our safety is threatened, we will annihilate them (India)," Asif had said.

The United States appears to have taken a strong note of Asif's recent statements on the use of nuclear weapons.

"Nuclear capable states have the responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities," a state department official told PTI when asked about the statements being made by the Pakistani leader.

Earlier, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had said while India has generally shown responsible behaviour with nuclear technology, China conducts itself professionally, nuclear weapons in Pakistan are entangled in the history of tensions.

Meanwhile, in an opinion 'Consequences of Pakistani Terrorism: Raids signal that India won?t tolerate more attacks in Kashmir', The Wall Street Journal warned that Pakistan increasingly risks becoming a "pariah state" if it continues with policies.

It said if Pakistan wants to prevent an escalation of violence it needs to shut down the terror groups it continues to support. "That should start with Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two major jihadist groups that operate openly in Pakistan and are prime suspects in these attacks," it said.

"Both groups are supported by its military despite being on United Nations lists of terrorist organizations," the daily said in the hard-hitting opinion piece, a day after India carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir against terrorists planning to sneak into the country.

The Journal noted that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently offered closer economic and diplomatic ties to Pakistan as long as it stops supporting terrorism.

Pakistan, it argued, needs a new vision centered on improving the lives of its people.
Beijing: A man has confessed to killing 19 people in a village in southwestern China after an argument with his parents over money, official media said Friday.

The suspect, named Yang Qingpei, confessed to murdering his parents after returning to his hometown village of Yema in China`s mountainous Yunnan Province and asking them for money, Xinhua news agency cited local police as saying.

He then proceeded to kill 17 neighbours, including children, to prevent them discovering and reporting the murders, it said.

Yang, who was born in 1989, was arrested in the provincial capital of Kunming, some 200 km (124 miles) away, after 33 hours of "arduous investigation", a statement on the official social media account of the Yunnan police showed.

Earlier reports showed the villagers were found dead at their homes on Thursday morning.

A list with the victims` names circulating online showed they included 11 males and eight females, with the youngest a three-year-old girl and the oldest 72.

Four names were minors under 18, the list showed.

Yunnan officers have verified the list and the news release, Beijing News reported, adding that the police have said there was no link to terrorism.

The Ministry of Public Security sent a working group to oversee the case and manage local authorities in the investigation, reports said.

Video footage circulating online reportedly from the village showed swarms of police and heavily armed officers in fatigues walking the streets and a young man in jeans handcuffed on the ground.
Islamabad: Pakistan`s cabinet met on Friday to review the situation on the Line of Control (LoC) in the wake of surgical strikes by the Indian Army.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif chaired the meeting, which is expected to put across the collective response of the nation to the challenge thrown by the latest events, Radio Pakistan reported.

The meeting comes in the wake of the surgical strikes that India carried out on terrorist launch pads across the LoC on Wednesday night. Pakistan has denied that no surgical strike took place and that there were only firing and artillery shelling between the two armies across the LoC that killed two of its soldiers.

In their remarks before the meeting, the cabinet members reiterated resolve of the government to defend the nation at all costs.

Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said support to the struggle of the Kashmiri people would remain Pakistan`s main priority.

He said India was "indulging in diversionary tactics in a bid to deflect attention of the international community from its brutalities against Kashmiris."

He said Pakistan would confront India diplomatically but "our armed forces are also fully prepared to defend the country."

Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif reiterated that Pakistan does not want escalation of tension but it was ready to meet any eventuality.

He said Pakistan would respond befittingly to any firing across the LoC.

The Defence Minister said India was displaying irresponsible attitude and trying to playing with the galleries in a bid to hoodwink its public opinion. He said India cannot suppress legitimate aspirations of Kashmiri people.

Minister for Commerce Khurram Dastgir said India was creating artificial tension in its attempt to divert attention of the world from its atrocities against Kashmiris. He said Pakistan`s defence is in strong hands and the country would continue to raise voice for rights of Kashmiris.

Minister for Kashmir Affairs Barjees Tahir said the world pledged right to self-determination through UN resolutions decades back and now fifth generation of Kashmiris is protesting for this right. He said Indian policy of suppression of legitimate struggle of Kashmiris would neither benefit India nor the region.

Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Syed Riaz Hussain Pirzada regretted that instead of giving right of self-determination to Kashmiris, India was resorting to terrorism against Pakistan. He said the world community should take notice of India`s belligerence.

Secretary Foreign Affairs will brief the Cabinet on Kashmir issue and tensions between Pakistan and India.
The makers of Anbanavan Asaradhavan Adangathavan have revealed actor Simbu's second look in the upcoming romantic comedy film.

By India Today Web Desk: After a decent comeback with Idhu Namma Aalu, Simbu is currently shooting for Anbanavan Asaradhavan Adangathavan aka AAA, which is directed by Adhik Ravichandran of Trisha Illana Nayanthara fame.

AAA will see Simbu playing triple roles for the first time in his career.

ALSO READ: Ilayathalapathy Vijay and Kajal Aggarwal to reunite for Vijay 61?

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ALSO READ: Enthiran 2- Thalaivar Rajinikanth to shoot song sequence in Chennai

Earlier, the makers unveiled the first look of Simbu as Madurai Michael, one of the characters he plays in the film.

Now, Adhik Ravichandran took to Twitter and shared the second character of Simbu, which became an instant hit on social media. Going by the poster, Simbu plays Ashwin Thatha in the film.



According to reports, Simbu will be donning an aged father makeover in the film, which will have his twin sons. The plot of the film is centered around these characters and the challenges faced by each of them.

AAA is touted to be a romantic comedy, made on the lines of the director's earlier film Trisha Illana Nayanthara.

Bankrolled by Michael Rayappan under Global Infotainment, the film also stars Tamannaah Bhatia and Shriya Saran in pivotal roles.

The film has music by Yuvan Shankar Raja and expected to hit the screens next year.

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Patna: In a huge blow to the Bihar government, the Patna High Court on Friday quashed the government notification scrapping the total liquor ban in the state, saying it is ultra vires to the Constitution.

A division bench of the court comprising Chief Justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari and Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh quashed the April 5 notification of the state government to stop consumption and sale of alcohol in the state.

The April 5 notification is ultra vires to the Constitution, hence not enforceable, the court said in its verdict.

The same bench had on May 20 reserved its order on a batch of writ petitions filed by Liquor Trade Association and many individuals challenging the liquor law in Bihar brought by Nitish Kumar government with stringent penal provisions.

The Nitish Kumar-led Grand Secular Alliance government had first banned the manufacture, trade, sale, consumption of country-made liquor since April 1, but later imposed a blanket ban on all types of liquor including foreign liquor in the state.

Earlier this month, the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Bill, 2016, was formally approved by Governor Ram Nath Kovind.

Last month, both houses of the Bihar legislature passed the bill with voice vote amidst boycott by the Opposition.

The Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party dubbed it a "black law" and a "draconian" measure. The party introduced a series of amendments, but all were defeated by voice votes in the Assembly during the discussion.

Nitish Kumar recently announced that the new excise law would formally come into effect from October 2.

According to experts, the new law has stringent provisions for ensuring a total ban on consumption of liquor in the state. If it were implemented, all adult members of the family would be arrested if liquor is found stored in any household.

The Chief Minister had said the new legislation was required to plug gaping holes in the previous act that facilitated the liquor ban in the state with effect from from April 1.

The CM had taken up the cause of prohibition on a mission mode and has been continuously monitoring the implementation of the alcohol ban in the state.

Kumar has also toured many places in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab championing the cause of prohibition.

(With Agency inputs)
Patna: Mohammad Shahabuddin on Friday surrendered before Siwan court and was later sent to divisional jail after the Supreme Court set aside the Patna High Court order granting bail to the controversial RJD leader in a murder case.

Talking to reporters before surrendering, Shahabuddin said: "I respect the judiciary, I don't care about what people say."

On Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, he said, "I stand by what I said earlier. My supporters will show them in the upcoming elections."

Earlier in the day, the apex court had ordered that either the gangster-turned-politician should surrender or the Bihar Police should take him in custody "forthwith".

A bench comprising Justice PC Ghose and Amitava Roy directed the state government and the lower court to ensure that the trial in the Rajiv Roshan murder case is concluded "expeditiously as contemplated under the law".

Meanwhile, the court issued notice to Shahabuddin and Bihar government on another plea seeking cancellation of bail granted to him in a murder case of two brothers of Roshan.

Shahabuddin has been awarded life imprisonment in the twin murder case and the Patna High Court had granted him bail in this matter as well.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court will pronounce on Friday its order on appeals challenging the grant of bail to controversial RJD leader Mohammad Shahabuddin in the Rajiv Roshan murder case.

The apex court bench comprising Justices PC Ghose and Amitava Roy will pass its order after lawyers representing Shahabuddin and others wrapped up their arguments in the case.

The September 7 order of the Patna High Court granting bail to Shahabuddin was initially challenged by one Chandrakeshwar Prasad, whose three sons -- third one being Rajiv Roshan -- were killed allegedly by Shahabuddin's henchmen.

The apex court on Wednesday had come down heavily on Bihar government for not placing facts before the Patna HC which granted bail to Shahabuddin in a murder case and asking the state "were you in slumber till he got bail?"

Shahabuddin's counsel Shekhar Naphade told the court that although cognizance of the case was taken on February 25, 2015, he had not been served the charge-sheet to date, despite its being a mandatory requirement under criminal law.

Naphade on Thursday told the court that it was the Bihar government that was delaying the trial, and the shifting of Shahabuddin from Siwan to Bhagalpur Central Jail on May 18, 2016, was also a ploy to that end.

Counsel Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for Chandrakeshwar Prasad, said that cognizance of charge-sheet was taken on February 25, 2015, thereafter Shahabuddin challenged the order of cognizance. He moved the court thrice for grant of bail, but he never aired the grievance that he had not been given the copy of the charge-sheet, he pointed out.

Bhushan asked that even if there was delay of nine months, could it be the basis for grant of bail to a criminal who had been convicted in 10 cases, awarded life imprisonment in two cases, 10-year sentence in one and also facing charges under the Arms Act.
Brussels: The EU extended on Friday by six months the sanctions against the head of Libya`s internationally recognised parliament as well as two former officials, for blocking peace efforts by failing to get behind the UN-backed unity government.

Libya has had rival administrations since mid-2014 when a militia alliance took over Tripoli, setting up its own authority and forcing the recognised parliament to flee to the remote east.

But in a blow to the Government of National Accord (GNA) supported by the United Nations and Western powers, the internationally recognised parliament headed by Aguila Saleh gave it a no confidence vote in August.

The other two ex-officials facing a new round of sanctions are Khalifa Ghweil and Nuri Abu Sahmein -- both former top figures in an unrecognised authority that has since ceased to function.

The sanctions, which have been in place since April and were rolled over on Friday to April 2017, ban travel in the European Union for the three men and a freeze on any of their assets in the EU.

The European Council, which groups the 28 EU leaders under former Polish premier Donald Tusk, said in a statement it "remains concerned by the situation in Libya and in particular the acts that threaten peace, security and stability of the country."

Libya is facing "political impasse" and "hazardous military developments", the UN envoy to the North African country Martin Kobler warned on Tuesday, highlighting the impact of violence on civilians.

The nation has been ravaged by unrest since the fall and death in 2011 of dictator Moamer Kadhafi and has also seen the jihadist Islamic State group establish a foothold.

Libya has Africa`s largest oil reserves, estimated at 48 billion barrels, but production and exports have slumped dramatically after years of crisis.

France will host an international meeting on Libya next week featuring several countries in the region including Egypt and Gulf states.

The aim is "to see how we can advance the cause of achieving the necessary unity in Libya", French government spokesman Stephane Le Foll said Wednesday.
Chandigarh: At least nine pilgrims were killed and 14 others were injured when their vehicle collided with a truck in Haryana, nearly 275 km from here, police said on Friday.

The accident took place near Siwani town of Bhiwani district early on Friday.

The injured were rushed to hospital in Bhiwani.

Police said that the vehicle, in which the pilgrims from Punjab were travelling after offering prayers at a shrine in Rajasthan, collided with a truck coming from the opposite direction.

The vehicle was further smashed as another truck hit it from behind.
Colombo: In a big diplomatic blow to Pakistan, Sri Lanka on Friday became the fifth country to pull out of 19th SAARC summit, scheduled to be held in Islamabad on November 09 and November 10.

Colombo said the environment was not conducive for holding the summit.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Colombo, in a statement, said that the SAARC Charter requires that decisions at all levels are taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States as well.

"Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia. As a founding member of SAARC, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our region`s peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation," it said.

Sri Lanka condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, and stresses in this regard, the need to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region in a decisive manner, the statement said.

Nepal, the present Chair of the SAARC, meanwhile, said that the summit of the South Asian regional grouping cannot take place if even one member country notifies its inability to participate in the event.

In a statement after India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan pulled out from the summit, Nepal said it is clear that the summit cannot take place even if one member notifies of its inability to attend the event.

The Foreign Ministry of Nepal's remarks came in the wake of various ambiguous media reports about the upcoming summit.

Earlier, in its first statement, the ministry had urged all the member countries to create an environment conducive for the summit by ensuring their participation.

Pakistan is the rotational host (in alphabetical order) of the upcoming summit whose future is hanging in balance after five countries pulled out their participation from the event.

That development came after tensions ran high between India and Pakistan after militants stormed an Indian Army base in Uri on September 18, killing 19 soldiers. The militants belonged to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist group.

Founded in 1985, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) currently has Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka as its members.
New Delhi: After India's successful operation against terrorists on the Pakistani soil, India is considering a series of measures to further squeeze Islamabad.

Besides keeping up a military vigil on its border to check any misadventure by the Pakistani army, New Delhi will also step up economic and diplomatic measures to isolate Pakistan in the coming days.

Describing the new approach adopted by India to contain Pak-sponsored terror, a top security official said that New Delhi has moved from a "defensive posture to defensive offence", which works on the vulnerabilities of Pakistan.

The new strategy will target the economy, internal security as well its global image by portraying Pakistan as an unstable nation that provides safe haven terrorist groups.

According to an NDTV report, Options under consideration include choking of trade with Pakistan that takes place through third countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), even though it is limited and in India's favour.

In 2014, official trade between India and Pakistan was stood at $2.6 billion, although informal trade is estimated to be close to $5 billion.

India's imports from Pakistan through informal channels include textiles, dry fruits, spices and cement.

It is believed that some former members of Pakistani military are actively involved in informal trade and action against them would help build pressure.

Thursday's surgical strikes on terrorists launch pads in Pakistan-occupied-Territory (PoK) have been hailed as a historic moment, since it marks the first ever anti-terror operation by India's special forces in PoK.

The raids were a direct response to the Uri terror attack on September 18 in Jammu and Kashmir. The assault killed 19 soldiers.
New Delhi: It is not yet clear when the army actually received "specific and credible" inputs about terrorists gathering at "launch pads" behind the Line of Control (LoC), but the plan to take these out was well in place by Wednesday -- a day that saw a flurry of high-level activity involving the brass as well as their civilian masters.

The mission to strike behind the LoC+ was actively monitored by senior officers in the army's 'operations room' at the Ministry of Defence in South Block, sources told IANS.

They said Chief of Army Staff Gen Dalbir Singh himself was in the operations roomon Wednesday night as Special Forces Para Commandos from the 4th and 9th Battalions of the Northern Command prepared for the assault that was launched around midnight. The operation concluded around 4.30 Thursday morning.

The sources said the commandos were air-dropped close to the LoC and they struck at seven terrorist launch pads around 2km to 3km inside Pakistan territory -- across the LoC in the Poonch and Kupwara sectors.

The sources confirmed that the terrorists -- who were planning strikes in Kashmir as well as several metros -- suffered "significant casualties". Although no details were released by the army, some reports said the number of terrorists killed was 38.

Earlier on Wednesday, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar met the three Service chiefs at his office around 5 pm. He later went to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the sources said.

Modi had met the army and air force chiefs and the Vice Chief of the navy on Saturday, September 24. He also visited the operations room on Monday, September 26, the sources said, though it is not clear whether plan to launch the surgical strikes had been firmed up by then.

There have been a series of high-level meetings in the government following the terror attack in Uri earlier this month that killed 18 soldiers. India has blamed the terror attack on terrorists who infiltrated from Pakistan.
Beijing: Expressing concern over the "continuous confrontation and tensions" between India and Pakistan, China on Friday called on both parties to exercise restraint and refrain from the escalation of tensions.

"As a shared neighbour and friend to both India and Pakistan we are concerned about continuous confrontation and tensions between India and Pakistan," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Sheung told media briefing here today.

"We call on all relevant parties to exercise restraint and refrain from actions that would escalate tension," he said replying to a question on Indian surgical strikes on the launching pads of the terrorists along the Line of Control.

He said China hopes that both parties would properly address their differences though dialogue and consultation and deescalate tensions as soon as possible.

"Since there have been tensions between India and Pakistan, China has been in communication with both the countries to exercise restraint, enhance communication and properly resolve differences," he said, adding that China will continue to work on the two sides for peace talks.

Yesterday before the news of India's surgical strikes broke out, Geng had said China was in touch with India and Pakistan through different channels to bring down their tensions, urging them to properly deal with their differences and work jointly to maintain peace and security in the region.

Asked at what level China was in touch with both the countries, Geng said China maintains frequent engagement at different levels with both India and Pakistan.
Islamabad: Funeral prayers for a Pakistani soldier killed in the cross-border surgical attacks by India were held in Faisalabad, Pakistani media reports said.

The soldier, Naik Imtiaz Ahmad, was one of the two soldiers killed in the Bhimber sector of LoC.

He was laid to rest with full military honours in his village in district Faisalabad. Besides Army officers, relatives, and friends, hundreds of people attended the soldier`s funeral and chanted slogans in favour of the military, Geo News reported.

At the funeral, Ahmed`s father said he had five sons and three daughters and Ahmed was the youngest among them. "He was a very obedient son and we all loved him very much," he said.

According to a statement issued by the military, Naik Imtiaz Ahmed is survived by a wife and three children.

The surgical attacks on Wednesday night on terrorist launch pads across the LoC killed two Pakistani soldiers.

The attacks were a retaliation to the September 18 Uri army base camp attack in Jammu and Kashmir, which killed 19 Indian soldiers.
By PTI: From Zafri Mudasser Nofil

Bamako, Sep 30 (PTI) Vice President Hamid Ansari tonight left for home after concluding his five-day visit to Nigeria and Mali during which he met top leaders of the two countries and also participated in a number of events.

He was seen off at the Malian airport by Prime Minister Modibo Keita.

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Earlier in the day, he addressed the National Assembly, the Parliament of Mali and met President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Prime Minister Keita, CEOs of Indian-origin and Indian companies and also Indians posted in the West African country under United Nations Mission.

He also participated in the Friday prayers at the Grand Mosque here with the Prime Minister and hundreds of other devout.

Two MoUs were also signed between India and Mali, one on standards and the other on cultural exchange.

Ansaris was the first high-level visit by any Indian leader to Mali.

Nigeria was the first stop for Ansari. In Nigerian capital Abuja, he held talks with President Muhammadu Buhari and his counterpart Yemi Osinbajo, addressed members of the Nigerian and Indian industry and also the Indian community besides delivering a speech at the National College of Defence.

From Abuja, he reached Nigerias largest city of Lagos where he met members of the Indian community and also delivered a speech at the University of Lagos.

An agreement was signed on standards in Nigeria. Besides a letter of intent on agreements on health, customs, transfer of sentenced persons, and new and renewable energy was signed.

The two countries held discussions on a range of issues including cooperation in the field of security, defence, ICT, culture, oil and gas, concessional credits, bilateral air services agreements, power, IT, telecom, infrastructure and fight against terrorism. PTI ZMN ASK ASK

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Beijing: China apprehends that India will deploy the 36 nuclear-capable Rafale fighter jets to be acquired from France in the border regions of China and Pakistan to enhance its deterrence capability, a media report here said.

India will deploy the new French-made fighters in the disputed areas bordering Pakistan and China, state-run Global Times reported quoting Shenzhen Television.

A recent report by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said India is the largest arms importer in the world, the newspaper said.

Increased arms imports into the Asian region are primarily due to the unstable security environment in the Middle East and concerns from China's neighbours over its rise.

The Rafale fighters in flyaway condition carry tactical nuclear warheads, and this means India's nuclear deterrence capability will be greatly improved, Shenzhen Television reported.

"India also wants to purchase the Rafale technology from Dassault but France refused, meaning France has no intention to help India promote its military industrial system," Zhao Gancheng, director of South Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies said.

While India is rapidly expanding its military capabilities spending an estimated USD 100 billion on new defence systems, many other countries with an advanced military industry are also competing for India's market, such as Russia, the US and Israel, the daily quoted SIPRI report as saying.

Zhao said before this deal with France, India was also considering the US-made F-16s.

"India picked French-made jet fighters because they are cheaper and have a nuclear deterrence capability," he said.

SIPRI's list of the top 10 arms importers for 2011-2015 has nine Asian or Asia-Pacific countries.

Many of China's neighbours are also on the list of top 10 importers, such as Vietnam, South Korea and India, he said.

"Due to the South China Sea dispute and the increasing power of the Chinese navy, countries like Vietnam and the Philippines are very concerned, but the US is not helping China solve the problem peacefully," said Song Zhongping, a Beijing-based military expert.

"The US government and media are hyping the 'China Threat Theory,' trying to convince countries in Asia that China is on the offensive," he said.
Washington: The Indian surgical strike inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) against terrorist planning to sneak into India for terrorist activities was "carefully measured", a top American think-tank said on Thursday, adding the onus for escalation lies purely on Pakistan.

"This Indian response was indeed coming. Both as a signal to Pakistan and as reassurance for Indian domestic audiences. Modi could not let the outrage at Uri go unanswered," Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a top American think-tank said.

"The Indian action was carefully measured, striking at terrorist launch pads was meant to signal that India has not lost its freedom to retaliate, but puts the onus of further escalation on Pakistan," Tellis told PTI.

Responding to a question, Tellis said the US will, counsel restraint, but unless the administration is willing to turn the screws on Pakistan--which is unlikely--India will be guided by its own interests, not American pleas for forbearance.

"I think Pakistan has its hands full right now, it is unlikely to respond to the Indian action militarily, but the larger sub-conventional war against India will continue," Tellis said.

Rick Rossow from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recalled that the hint of such strikes as a possible tool last year, when the Indian Army initiated an attack against militants in Myanmar.

"India has also shown other new tools in its confrontation with Pakistan, such as withdrawing from the upcoming SAARC summit, building stronger ties with other South Asian nations, and using closer security ties with the US as a hook to press for reduced military cooperation with Pakistan," he said.

"This will likely keep Islamabad on its toes, though when employing new tools in such a struggle, clear messaging is key so both sides know the others' intentions. This will guard against unanticipated escalation," Rossow said.

According to him, following a number of recent provocations that India has linked to Pakistan-based militant groups, the government of prime minister Narendra Modi has employed a different set of tools to respond to these incitements.

"These tools may not be altogether new, but the fact that they have been the focus of India's response to Pakistan's incitements marks a different approach," he said.

Rossow said while the Indian Ministry of Defence has stated it does not plan additional strikes, it is not clear whether the current tensions between India and Pakistan will escalate further.

"There is certainly little expectation that Pakistani militants, under varying degrees of control by Pakistan's military, will be deterred from initiating further attacks. But the costs to Islamabad of supporting terrorism are increasing, and taking different forms than before," Rossow said.

Jonah Blank, from the RAND Corporation think tank said

that after the Mumbai 2008 attacks, India's patience had reached its limit.

"Pathankot was the breaking point. It was probably unrealistic to expect that the Uri attack would fail to bring a military response,"he said.

"The phone call between Ajit Doval and Susan Rice accomplished two important things: First, it enlisted the US to help prevent a Pakistani counter-strike. Second, it avoided jeopardising the India-US relationship by having Washington find out about the attack from Islamabad or the media, he noted.

"There was never much likelihood that the US would condemn the attack. After an American surgical strike against Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, any criticism of India for a cross-border action would have seemed hypocritical," Blank said.

"The outcome, limited Indian strike, limited Pakistani response, was probably as good as could have been desired. A stronger Indian strike, or a Pakistani escalation into full warfare, would not have served either nation's interest," he said.
Islamabad: Pakistan`s UN Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi is set to meet UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday to inform him about the "surgical strikes" that India carried out on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC).

On Thursday, Lodhi met with New Zealand`s UN Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who is the current president of the 15-member Security Council and urged him to informally brief the body on the escalating tension along the border, Radio Pakistan reported.

Talking to the media after the meeting, Lodhi said she brought to his attention the dangerous situation that was building up in "our region as a result of Indian provocation".

She said, "our call to the international community is to avert a crisis before there is one."

Lodhi said Pakistan was "showing maximum restraint but there were limits to our restraint if India continues with provocations."

An unspecified number of terrorists and Pakistani troops were killed in the late Wednesday operation across Jammu and Kashmir`s Kupwara and Poonch sectors as the army moved Special Forces into Pakistan-held Kashmir.

Pakistan, however, insisted that no "surgical strike" took place and that there were only firing and artillery shelling between the two armies across the LoC that killed two of its soldiers and left some others wounded. Pakistan threatened to repel any Indian attack.

Pakistani media said one Indian soldier, identified as Chandu Babulal Chohan, 22, from Maharashtra, had been captured and eight others had been killed.
New Delhi: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday held separate meetings with the chiefs of important central security forces including National Security Guard (NSG) and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).

According to an official source here, these were routine meetings but were significant in the wakeof the surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army across the Line of Control (LoC).

Rajnath Singh met with CISF DG O.P. Singh and NSG DG Sudhir Pratap Singh, sources said.

The meetings were to ensure security in airports and various industrial units across the country.

The Home Minister also met R.K. Pachnanda, Director General of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and discussed about general preparedness.

Rajnath Singh is also likely to interact with top officials of other forces like Indo-Tibetan Border Police and Border Security Force.

In his North Block office, Rajnath Singh along with Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju, other senior officials and intelligence agencies chiefs reviewed the overall security situation in the country and especially along the International Border in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Meanwhile, Rajnath Singh will also brief Prime Minister Narendra Modi at areview meeting on the situation at the LoC and the international border with Pakistan, sources said.

The Prime Minister will chair a meeting of Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) later in the day.
New Delhi: In a big diplomatic blow to Pakistan, after India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, Maldives on Friday became the sixth state to pull out of the 19th SAARC summit in Islamabad, according to media reports.

However, there is no official confirmation this regard as yet.

Earlier, Sri Lanka pulled out of 19th SAARC summit, scheduled to be held in Islamabad on November 09 and November 10.

In a statement sent to Nepal, current SAARC chair, Colombo said the environment was not conducive for holding the summit.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Colombo, in a statement, said that the SAARC Charter requires that decisions at all levels are taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States as well.

"Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia. As a founding member of SAARC, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our region`s peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation," it said.

Sri Lanka condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, and stresses in this regard, the need to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region in a decisive manner, the statement said.

Nepal, the present Chair of the SAARC, meanwhile, said that the summit of the South Asian regional grouping cannot take place if even one member country notifies its inability to participate in the event.

In a statement after India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan pulled out from the summit, Nepal said it is clear that the summit cannot take place even if one member notifies of its inability to attend the event.

The Foreign Ministry of Nepal's remarks came in the wake of various ambiguous media reports about the upcoming summit.



Earlier, in its first statement, the ministry had urged all the member countries to create an environment conducive for the summit by ensuring their participation.

Pakistan is the rotational host (in alphabetical order) of the upcoming summit whose future is hanging in balance after five countries pulled out their participation from the event.

That development came after tensions ran high between India and Pakistan after militants stormed an Indian Army base in Uri on September 18, killing 19 soldiers. The militants belonged to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist group.

Founded in 1985, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) currently has Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka as its members.
New Delhi: A major economic summit will likely be held in India within the next two months to attract investment from across the globe for the strategic Chabahar port in Iran which would give India access to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan, Afghan Ambassador to New Delhi said on Friday.

Referring to the meeting between Shipping, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abbas Akhoundi and Afghanistan's Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation Mohamadullah Batash on Wednesday, Afghan Ambassador to India Shaida Abdali said its purpose was to expedite the implementation of the Chabahar transit and trade agreement and there were some "very good decisions" taken within that framework.

"We are going to address some of the technical issues involved in the Chabahar agreement and within the next two months we will -- in India or Iran, but more likely India -- call a major economic summit where all the industries will participate from India, Afghanistan, Iran and from beyond," the Abdali told reporters here at The Foreign Correspondents' Club of South Asia.

Abdali said the ministers met in order to deal with the technical issues that are still left to be addressed and the decision was made that India, Afghanistan and Iran will have a secretariat each to deal with those.

"Within a month, the three secretariats will meet again and we will have a technical team sitting again before the major summit that we have. All issues pending will be resolved. Procedures for others to invest will be made clear. We will be fully ready for foreign investers...To start business," he said.

Abdali's remarks came after Gadkari, following the meeting on Wednesday had said India, Iran and Afghanistan are keen on expediting the tripartite transit agreement on Chabahar port, which will give India access to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan.

Abdali, while talking about the ambitious project, said, "Our purpose is not to concentrate on the three countries' business and economic relations but to involve and engage all other neighbours, especially the neighbours in Central Asia and South Asia."
New Delhi: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, Friday, thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for going ahead with a surgical strike inside Pakistan to neutralise terrorists.

Speaking to people during his roadshow in Uttar Pradesh, Rahul Gandhi said, I want to thank him (PM Modi) that for the first time, in two and a half years, he has taken an action that is of the stature of Prime Minister.

My party and I stand with PM Narendra Modi. What he has done is right, he added.

Rahul comments come a day after Congress president Sonia Gandhi said a "strong message" has been sent with the surgical strikes by Army against terror bases across the Line of Control (LoC) and insisted that Pakistan bears a "great responsibility" in the continuing cross-border attacks in India.

Offering the party's support to the government in the battle against terror, Gandhi said in a statement that "this is a strong message that conveys our country's resolve to prevent further infiltration and attacks on our security forces and our people".

The Congress too hailed the surgical strikes carried out by Army.

"We congratulate the Indian army for undertaking surgical strikes on terror launch pads. We stand completely behind our Armed Forces," Ahmed Patel, political secretary to Congress President, tweeted.

Echoing similar feelings, party's chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, "INC wholeheartedly supports the surgical strike on terror pads in PoK by Indian Army. Salute the valour of our armed forces."

India conducted surgical strikes on terror launch pads last night across the Line of Control (LoC) and inflicted significant casualties and heavy damages.
New Delhi: A day after India stunned Pakistan by carrying out "surgical strikes" on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Friday chair the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meet here.

The officials will today discuss the situation in the wake of the "surgical strikes" that inflicted massive casualties and dramatically heightened tensions in the region, informed sources said.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh will also meet senior officials from both Home and the Defence.

Modi also chaired a CCS meeting to consider the situation along the LoC yesterday.

An unspecified number of terrorists and Pakistani troops were killed in the early Thursday operation across Kupwara and Poonch sectors as the Army moved Special Forces into Pakistan-held Kashmir, officials said.

Pakistan had, however, insisted that no "surgical strike" took place and that there were only firing and artillery shelling between the two armies across the LoC that killed two of its soldiers and left some others wounded. Pakistan threatened to repel any Indian attack. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has called a cabinet meeting today.

Pakistani media said one Indian soldier, identified as Chandu Babulal Chohan, 22, from Maharashtra, had been captured and eight others had been killed.

Indian Army sources said one soldier inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan but denied he was part of the surgical strike. They insisted that the Indian military suffered no casualties.
Washington: Ambassador Richard Verma, who was in the US, is rushing back to India in the wake of the Indian Army`s surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.

At his daily press briefing here on Thursday, US State Department spokesperson John Kirby said that Verma rescheduled an event he was to attend at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and would be rushing back to New Delhi.

"He (Verma) did have to reschedule his event at the Wilson Centre and, as far as I know, he`s returning to New Delhi," Kirby said.

"My understanding is that he believed that it was appropriate for him to go back," he said.

"And I mean, he`s a - he`s got a big job, there`s a lot of responsibilities that come with it, and obviously it`s a very dynamic situation, and he felt it was prudent to go back."

The Indian Army on Wednesday night carried out surgical strikes across the LoC on terror launch pads inflicting "significant casualties", according to Indian Director General Military Operations Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh.

This action came after the September 18 cross-border terror attack on an Indian Army garrison at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir that claimed the lives of 19 soldiers.

India has blamed the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed for the attack.
By PTI: According to the Vice President, who will conclude his

According to the Vice President, who will conclude his five-day, two-nation tour of Nigeria and Mali today, the African impact on India is found in "our genetic make-up, cultural and linguistic traditions, our artefacts, gastronomic choices, and our common world view".

He said the purpose of his speech is not to talk "about our glorious past but to share with you a vision of the future, a future that is peaceful and prosperous and where India and Africa stand shoulder to shoulder claiming their rightful destinies and justice for our peoples".

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As two countries that have demonstrated their commitment to democratic values, India and Mali share unique bonds of trust and mutual understanding, he said, adding "Our shared values and synergies have translated into longstanding friendship and fruitful cooperation."

He expressed happiness that democracy has been restored and the democratic institutions are being strengthened.

"As a friend and partner, we are aware of the recent challenges faced by the government and people of Mali. We have been a strong votary for restoration of constitutional order in the Republic of Mali and preservation of its territorial integrity.

"We welcome the signing of the Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation, and hope that it will lead to unity, preservation of territorial integrity, lasting peace, development and prosperity. My government appreciates the wisdom of Malian leadership that facilitated the signing of the agreement.

"In India, we believe that political issues should be resolved through ballot and not bullet. We encourage all stakeholders to eschew violence and to embrace peaceful and democratic means to resolve political issues," he said.

He assured the House that India firmly supports the unity and territorial integrity of Mali and is committed to supporting Mali in its reconstruction and developmental efforts under democratic governance.

"We see ourselves as a partner in Mali?s reconstruction, economic development and growth. Government of India has extended 7 Lines of Credit, worth USD 353 million to Mali. A large project of USD 150 million for power transmission, connecting Bamako and Sikasso via Bougouni, is being finalised."

"However, trade and investment levels are still below the immense potential that exists. We are confident that continued stability and peace would encourage Indian companies to look at Mali as an attractive investment destination for the mutual benefit of peoples of our two countries."

He thanked Mali for its support to Indias proposal for commemoration of an International Day of Yoga in the UN.

"We look forward to enhancing our cooperation and exchange in the culture and educational sector with Mali. We were deeply pained when some extremist elements tried to desecrate and destroy the cultural treasures in the famed and historic city of Timbuktu.

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"The government of India strongly condemns the destruction of heritage sites and places of immense cultural value to entire humankind by extremists and is ready to support Malis efforts to revive and restore the rich glory of Timbuktu," Ansari said. PTI ZMN NSA

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Washington: Sending a strong message to Pakistan that it needs to act against UN-designated terrorist groups, the White House on Thursday called for de-escalation of tension between India and Pakistan.

"What I can tell you is that we have seen some reports from the region. Those reports include that Indian and Pakistani militaries have been in communication with one another and we encourage continued discussions between India and Pakistan to avoid escalation," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters at his daily news conference.

Earnest said the US National Security Advisor Susan Rice spoke to her Indian counterpart Ajit Doval yesterday and asked to "combat and delegitimise" UN-designated terrorist entities, including LeT and JeM.

"Ambassador Rice made it clear that the United States continues to be concerned by the danger that cross-border terrorism poses to the region. The United States fully expects that Pakistan will take effective action to combat and delegitimise UN-designated terrorist individuals and entities," he said.

The US, he said, is firmly committed to its partnership with India, and to their joint efforts to combat terrorism. We are prepared to deepen collaboration on UN terrorist designations," Earnest said.

At the same time, US continues to be in close contact with Pakistan and value the important partnership that they have formed with them on a range of issues, including security, the press secretary said.

Meanwhile a State Department official called for de-escalation of tension.

"We urge calm and restraint on both sides," the official said.

"We understand that the Indian and Pakistani militaries have been in communication, and we believe continued communication is important to reduce tensions," the official added.

The US has repeatedly expressed its concerns regarding the

danger that cross border terrorism poses to the region, including the recent attack in Uri.

"We continue to urge actions to combat and delegitimise terrorist groups like Loakshar-e-Tiba, Haqqani Network, and Jaish-e-Mohammed," the official said.

India has blamed Pakistan-based terror outfit JeM for the attack in Uri. In the backdrop of the heightened tension with Pakistan over Uri terror attack, India on Tuesday announced its decision to not participate in the SAARC Summit, citing increased "cross-border" attacks.

Other Pakistan-based terror group LeT has been accused by India of attacking military and civilian targets in the country, including the 2001 Parliament attack and the 2008 Mumbai attack.

India wants UN to impose sanctions on JeM chief Masood Azhar. Hafiz Saeed, a co-founder of LeT and the chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawah, carries a bounty of USD 10 million on his head for his role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack in which 166 people, including six Americans, were killed.
New Delhi: In a clear signal that its patience with Karnataka's defiant stand on the release of water to Tamil Nadu is close to getting over, the Supreme Court on Friday asked the Siddaramaih government to follow its orders immediately.

The bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit said that the SC warns Karnataka government to follow its orders because one doesn't know when the wrath of law will fall.

The bench said, "The State of Karnataka should not be bent upon maintaining an obstinate stand of defiance."

The observations came after the apex court directed the Karnataka government to release 6000 cusecs of Cauvery water from Oct 1 till Oct 6.

The court also directed the government of India to constitute Cauvery Water Management Board by Oct 4 and to study the ground realities that the Cauvery issue faces.

The states party to the conflict  Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry  were also asked to give names of members for the Board by tomorrow.

Meanwhile, in a big setback for Karnataka's defence in the Supreme Court, legal luminary Fali Nariman, who has been representing Karnataka in the Cauvery case, has reportedly written to Chief Minister Siddaramaih saying won't argue till SC order complied with.
Jammu: The Pakistani troops on Friday resorted to indiscriminate firing at Indian positions along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir's Akhnoor district., a day after India carried out "surgical strikes" on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control, inflicting massive casualties.

This is the fifth ceasefire violation in the month of September and the third in the past 36 hours.

"There was small arms firing (from Pakistan on forward posts) along the LoC in Pallanwala, Chapriyal and Samnam areas of Jammu district during the night," Deputy Commissioner, Jammu, Simrandeep Singh said.

He said the firing started at 0030 hours and ended at 0130 hours.

No loss of life and property has been reported as yet. The situation so far is normal.

Yesterday, Pakistani troops had resorted to firing in Balnoie area of Mendhar sector without any casualty.

On September 28, the Pakistan Army had violated the ceasefire by opening fire on Indian Army posts along the LoC in Sabzian area Poonch sector. The Pakistani troops had fired on Army posts along LoC in Poonch sector on September 6.

On September 2, Pakistan troops had violated the ceasefire by firing on forward Army posts along the LoC in Akhnoor sector.

Notably, people residing in Akhnoor sector have been asked to be ready to evacuate their homes in the wake of the "surgical strikes" carried out by India on terror launch pads across the LoC last night.

An unspecified number of terrorists and Pakistani troops were killed in the late Wednesday operation across Kupwara and Poonch sectors as the army moved Special Forces into Pakistan-held Kashmir, officials said here on Thursday.

Pakistan had, however, insisted that no "surgical strike" took place and that there were only firing and artillery shelling between the two armies across the LoC that killed two of its soldiers and left some others wounded. Pakistan had further threatened to repel any Indian attack.
Srinagar: Authorities have imposed curfew-like restrictions in Srinagar to foil the march by separatists on Friday towards the city`s centre in Lal Chowk.

The police and CRPF jawans have been deployed at vital places to stop protests.

Meanwhile, shutdown continues for 84th day which has crippled the life of local residents.

The Valley is also on high alert after India carried out surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) on Wednesday night.

Villages in the bordering areas are being evacuated and locals are being moved to safer locations.

Meanwhile, the death toll of Army personnel in the deadly Uri terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir rose to 19 today, as another solider succumbed to his injuries.
New Delhi: One more soldier, who was critically injured in the attack at an Army base in Uri on September 18, died of his wounds on Friday.

The toll in the Uri attack stands at 19 now.

The soldier, identified as 35-year-old Raj Kishore Singh, was undergoing treatment at Army's Research and Referral Hospital here.

Raj Kishore Singh hailed from Piparpati village of Bihar`s Bhojpur district, 75 kms west of Patna. He was the youngest of three brothers.

He is survived by his wife Kanchan Devi and two children, 12-year old daughter, Suhani Kumari and 10-year old son, Hemant Singh.

Raj Kishore Singh`s niece told news agency IANS that the family received the news around 3.30 am.

His elder brother Ashok Singh is also in the Army, while the eldest Deni Madhav Singh, a former soldier retired three years ago.

Hemant Singh, the son of the martyred soldier, said that if given the opportunity, he too would join the Army and serve the nation.

The Uri Army base was attacked by heavily-armed Pakistani terrorists.

India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the Line of Control on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, seen as a reprisal for the Uri attack.

An unspecified number of terrorists and Pakistani troops were killed in the late Wednesday operation across Kupwara and Poonch sectors as the Army moved Special Forces into Pakistan-held Kashmir, officials said here on Thursday.

(With Agency inputs)
Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Assembly today unanimously passed a resolution extending support and congratulating the Indian Army for its surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC.

The resolution moved by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, said, "The House congratulates the Army for taking steps to protect the country and people and fully supports its action".

The resolution said talks at the diplomatic and political level have to be taken forward to avoid further worsening of the tense situation and to find solution to the problem.

The House also asked the Centre to take necessary vigilant steps to prevent similar attacks like Pathankot and Uri and at the same time continue efforts to find a solution to the problem at the diplomatic level.

In a brief speech, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala while extending full support to the government motion, said, "I salute the Indian Army for their brilliant action".

"Pakistan has been exporting terrorism to India for a long time," he said adding the Indian Army's reply to Pakistan was laudable.
New Delhi: Kader Khan, the main accused in the Park Street gang-rape case where an Anglo-Indian woman was the victim in 2012, was finally arrested in Uttar Pradesh's Greater Noida on Thursday night.

The Anglo-Indian woman -- then 40 years old, a divorcee and mother of two -- was beaten up and gang-raped by five men at gunpoint inside a moving car and then thrown off the vehicle near a city intersection on the night of February 05, 2012.

Besides Khan, an accomplice named Ali was also arrested by a special team of Kolkata Police in a joint operation with Delhi Police from Alpha one in Greater Noida last night.

"We had certain intelligence about their movement and had kept them under surveillance for the last six months. Working on a tip-off, we were able to arrest them around 4 am on Friday," a senior police official told IANS.

They would be presented before a court in Kolkata later on Friday.

Acting on a tip-off that Khan, absconding since the incident, sleuths of Kolkata Police started tracking his mobile calls, an officer said.

Soon after he was located somewhere near New Delhi, sleuths started zeroing on him.

On Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar's instruction, a special team was formed to nab Khan.

"We had information that Khan has returned to the country and was having regular interaction with his family members in Kolkata over phone. We started tracking their numbers and found that calls from a particular number from Ghaziabad were made... We started tracking it and found that it was Kader's," the officer said, adding that Khan had rented the apartment in Ghaziabad under a pseudo name.

It was learnt that Khan was hiding in Bangladesh and after running out of cash he returned to Delhi through Nepal.

After keeping him under surveillance for almost a week, a joint team of Delhi Police and Kolkata Police team raided his hideout last night and arrested him, the IPS officer said.

A few days later when the victim filed her complaint, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had termed the incident as "sajano ghatana" (fabricated case), triggering a controversy.

Damayanti Sen, the then Kolkata Police Joint Commissioner (crime) had pursued the case and identified the five accused. She was later shunted out from her post.

Three of the five accused were arrested and two including prime accused Kader Khan absconded.

Nine months after the victim died of meningitis in March 2015, the city sessions court had convicted the accused persons - Ruman Khan, Naser Khan and Sumit Bajaj - and sentenced them to 10 years rigorous imprisonment.

The victim, Suzette Jordan, passed away in March 2015.

(With PTI inputs)
Bhubaneswar: Four railway workers were suspended for their gross negligence which led to the train accident in Odisha, an official of the East Coast Railway (ECoR) said on Friday.

The accident at Kathajodi passenger halt in Cuttack claimed two lives and injured around 25 passengers on Thursday.

ECoR said in a statement it had suspended a guard, driver, assistant driver and loco-inspector for negligence.

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Thursday ordered a thorough probe into the accident.

"Ordered immediate probe into the accident of Bhubaneshwar-Badrak train, negligence will be punished severely," the minister tweeted.

According to officials, Bhubaneswar-Bhadrak DMU train collided with a stationary freight train from the rear around 6.30 pm.

The injured persons were admitted to Shrirama Chandra Bhanj medical college and hospital in Cuttack.
Chandigarh: Putting all speculation to rest, ousted Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) member Sucha Singh Chottepur finally resigned from the party on Friday.

The sacked Punjab convener of the party, Chhotepur, is expected to launch his new political outfit soon.

Several AAP volunteers, including the seven zonal chiefs, who have been with Chhotepur, are expected to join the new outfit.

The party - Apna Punjab Party (APP) - would be registered as a state party with the Election Commission and would either field or support candidates in all 117 seats in the forthcoming assembly polls in the state and Chhotepur would head the party.

The party is collaborating with the fourth front of suspended AAP MP Dr Dharamvira Gandhi.The APP will have to show the membership of 100 men as is the requirement of the Election Commission of India for registration purposes.

The AAP, however, chose to distance itself from several leaders, considered close to Chhotepur, including a founding member of the party, Pavittar Singh.

The party, however, maintained silence on the status of Chhotepur, who claimed to have sent his resignation by post to AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal on September 16.Earlier in August, Sucha Singh Chhotepur, who was sacked from the post of party`s Punjab convener following allegations of seeking bribe for allotting party tickets, demanded a CBI probe, insisting that the Arvind Kejriwal-led party could defame him if he is guilty.

Talking to ANI, Chhotepur said he was very surprised by the party`s decision."A transparent system should have been framed. A committee is formed after my removal. A standard process is that a committee is formed first and then the decision is taken. But it was not the case with me," Chotepur said."I want to tell them that the people whom they have included in the committee were recommending my removal. I yesterday said this and I reiterate that if I had done any wrong deed, then there should be a CBI inquiry. If I am found guilty, they can defame me," he added.

Amid sharp criticism following accusations of him taking bribes for assigning constituencies to party candidates for the assembly elections in Punjab to be held early next year, an extremely disappointed Chhotepur told media that Kejriwal did not trust Punjabis.

Holding AAP leader Durgesh Pathak responsible for the "conspiracy", Chhotepur claimed that his opponents were defending him, while his own party was conspiring against him.
Baloch activists will sit for protest in front of the Chinese embassy till October 1. The campaign aims to protest the China-Pakistan 'nexus' in Balochistan to 'loot the natural resources of Baloch nation'.

By Mail Today Bureau: A week-long protest has been planned by the Free Balochistan Movement outside the Chinese and Pakistani missions in London to protest against the China-Pakistan Economic corridor.

The protestors will sit in front of the Chinese embassy till October 1. The campaign aims to protest the China-Pakistan 'nexus' in Balochistan to 'loot the natural resources of Baloch nation'.

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Activists allege that for several decades, China has been continuously looting the natural resources of 'occupied' Balochistan with the help of Pakistan. The Saindak Gold and Copper Project is the biggest example of loot and plunder that China started in 1995 in Chagai district of Balochistan. At present, China has intensified its efforts to consolidate its permanent grip over Balochistan's Gwadar coast and other areas where in 2001 it sought to anchor its military outpost in the name of Gwadar deep-sea port project," a statement by the group said.

"Pakistan knows well that it cannot hold up Balochistan under its occupation any longer. This is why it has sought China's help to contain the Baloch freedom movement. China has deployed the the People's Liberation Army for the security of Chinese workers who are working with Pakistani authorities in Gwadar district and other strategic military projects," the statement added.

The Free Balochistan movement's statement further said, "China has now become the 21st century East India Company in Balochistan. Its expansionist designs are well known. Its neighbouring country Vietnam is the prime example of Chinese diabolical nature which endured 17 Chinese military invasions. Today we can see that it doesn't respect international laws over the South China Sea."



Also Read:



Stronger India-China economic engagement can trump China-Pakistan security ties: Panagariya

China says in touch with India, Pakistan; hopes for improvement in ties





--- ENDS ---
Coimbatore: Four crude bombs were allegedly hurled near a place of worship and some houses at Podanur area here early today, leading to tension, police said.

Police quoted people as saying they woke up to a loud noise and found the remains of what looked like petrol filled bottles connected with wicks.

On receiving information, police rushed to the spot and found empty liquor bottles and wicks of two more such bombs at the residences of two persons, about 20 metres away from the place of worship.



A large number of police personnel have been deployed in the area as a precautionary measure following the incident, they said.

An uneasy calm already prevails in and around the city, following the September 22 murder of a Hindu Munnani Functionary, C Sasikumar, which triggered violence during his funeral procession the next day.
Paris: French fighter jets took off from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle on Friday for an operation against the Islamic State group in its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul, an officer said.

Eight jets took off from the carrier in the eastern Mediterranean, an AFP photographer on the flight deck reported.

The Charles de Gaulle is on its third mission since February 2015 in support of the US-led coalition fighting IS in Iraq and Syria.

It was not immediately clear whether the French jets were to carry out air strikes or were on a reconnaissance mission.

IS seized Mosul along with other areas in June 2014, but Iraqi forces have since regained significant ground from the jihadists and are readying for an assault to retake Iraq`s second-largest city with coalition air and artillery support.

French President Francois Hollande announced in July that the Charles de Gaulle, which carries 24 Rafale jets, would be sent back to the region for bombing raids on IS targets.

The vessel`s latest mission is planned to end in late October, according to Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
Beirut: More than 9,300 people, including around 3,800 civilians, have been killed in one year of Russian air strikes in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad, a monitoring group said Friday.

The toll also includes more than 5,500 fighters from the Islamic State jihadist group and various rebel factions, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Britain-based monitoring group had initially given an estimate of around 10,000 killed but later issued a detailed breakdown.
Bhiwani (Haryana): At least nine people were killed and 12 others injured in a gruesome road accident in Haryana`s Bhiwani district. The incident took place last night after a Bolero car collided with a truck.

The deceased-eight men and a woman-were residents of Macchiwara near Ludhiana. As soon as the administration got the information about the accident, they rushed to the spot.

The accident took place around 12.15 am. The injured have been admitted to the civil hospital at Bhiwani.As per reports, the persons sitting in Bolero car were going to Rajasthan`s Gogamedi village. Gogamedi is a village of religious importance in Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan.As many as 29 pilgrims had been killed in a similar manner at the same place in 2012.
Jerusalem: US President Barack Obama and other world leaders gathered in Israel on Friday for the funeral of Shimon Peres, the former Israeli prime minister and president whose pursuit of an elusive peace with the Palestinians won international embrace.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also planned to attend the burial, which will be held in the "Great Leaders of the Nation" section of Jerusalem`s Mount Herzl cemetery.

Abbas`s rare visit to the city, a short drive through Israeli military checkpoints from Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, seemed unlikely to yield anything more than handshakes with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama.

Peres, who died on Wednesday aged 93, jointly won a Nobel Prize for his peace efforts with the Palestinians in the 1990s.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been frozen since 2014 and Netanyahu and Abbas, deeply divided over Jewish settlement on land Palestinians seek for a state and other issues, have not held face-to-face talks since 2010.

Obama and Netanyahu were to deliver eulogies at the cemetery, which overlooks the Jerusalem forest and a verdant valley, in what could be an opportunity for the president to encourage Israelis and Palestinians to revive peacemaking.

US officials have held open the possibility of Obama making another formal effort to get peace negotiations back on the agenda before he leaves office in January, possibly via a UN Security Council resolution.

With time short between the end of the funeral and the start of the Jewish sabbath at sundown, no plans were announced for any diplomacy on Friday. Obama and Netanyahu, who have had a testy relationship, last held talks on Sept. 21 in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Peres will be buried in a Jewish religious ceremony, in a plot between two former prime ministers, Yitzhak Rabin and Yitzhak Shamir. Rabin was assassinated by an ultranationalist Israeli in 1995 over the interim peace deals that he and Peres reached with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"A light has gone out," Obama said in a statement after Peres died in a hospital near Tel Aviv on Wednesday, two weeks after suffering a stroke.

Outside Israel`s parliament on Thursday, an estimated 50,000 Israelis filed past Peres`s flag-draped coffin as it lay in state.

Former US President Bill Clinton, arriving in Israel a day before the burial, visited the plaza in front of parliament to stand, head bowed, in front of Peres`s casket.

The leaders of Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel, were not on the roster of participants issued by Israel`s Foreign Ministry. But the Egyptian foreign minister was scheduled to attend and King Abdullah of Jordan sent a telegram of condolences.

Obama was leading a delegation of 33 US officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leader in the House of Representatives.

Britain`s Prince Charles, French President Francois Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former British leaders David Cameron and Tony Blair were also among a long list of foreign dignitaries attending the funeral.

Israel laid on heavy security, deploying some 8,000 police and intermittently closed the main highway between Tel Aviv`s airport and Jerusalem for Obama`s motorcade.
Hawaii: Pentagon Chief Ashton Carter met Friday with Southeast Asian defense ministers to discuss regional security issues and reassure them America`s "rebalance" to Asia will continue under the next US administration.

The rebalance -- or "pivot," as it is sometimes called -- has been a cornerstone of President Barack Obama`s foreign policy, with a shifting of focus away from the Middle East and toward the Asia-Pacific region.

In opening remarks at an informal summit in Hawaii, Carter told defense ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that the United States would reaffirm its commitment to strengthen cooperation on the shared security challenges in the region, including the return of hundreds of jihadists from Iraq and Syria.

"And we`ll make plans to further catalyze the Asia-Pacific`s principled and inclusive security network," he said.

Key among these is China`s growing reach across the South China Sea.

Beijing has in recent years rapidly expanded its physical presence in the strategically vital waterway, turning small maritime features, islets and reefs into much larger islands capable of holding military facilities.

Carter, who was expected to speak to the press later Friday, has repeatedly stressed that the US military will ignore Beijing`s contentious South China Sea claims, and keep operating in waters and airspace surrounding the islands.

"The United States would like to help all our nations see more, share more, and do more to keep Southeast Asia`s vital waterways open and secure," Carter said.

A senior US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was confident America would retain its Asia focus whatever the result of November`s presidential election.

"We`ve got a good thing going," he said.

"There are a lot of opportunities left over. And we want to make sure that our position in the region is solid for the next president."

The Pentagon chief was due to meet privately with all 10 defense ministers, including the Philippines` Delfin Lorenzana.

The dialog comes after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte this week vowed to end joint military exercises with the United States.

The firebrand leader`s comments were just the latest in a string of attacks against America. He has called Obama a "son of a whore" and extended overtures to China, potentially upsetting a strong US-Philippine alliance dating back more than 60 years.

Duterte won elections in May in a landslide after a campaign dominated by his pledge to eradicate drugs in society by killing tens of thousands of people.

On Friday, he drew parallels between his campaign to wipe out the drug problem and Adolf Hitler`s genocidal drive, saying he`d be "happy" to slaughter millions of drug addicts.
Manila: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte appeared to liken himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Friday and said he would "be happy" to exterminate three million drug users and peddlers in the country.

In a rambling speech on his arrival in Davao City after a visit to Vietnam, Duterte told reporters that he had been "portrayed to be some cousin of Hitler" by critics.

Noting that Hitler had murdered millions of Jews, Duterte said: "There are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I`d be happy to slaughter them.

"If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have...," he said, pausing and pointing to himself.

"You know my victims. I would like (them) to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition."

Duterte was voted to power in a May election on the back of a vow to end drugs and corruption in the country of 100 million people. He took office on June 30 and over 3,100 people have been killed since then, mostly drug users and peddlers, in police operations and in vigilante killings.
Manila: Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte appeared to liken himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Friday and said he would "be happy" to exterminate three million drug users and peddlers in the country.

His comments triggered shock and anger among Jewish groups in the United States, which will add to pressure on the US government to take a tougher line with the Philippines leader. Duterte recently insulted President Barack Obama and in a series of remarks he has undermined the previously close relationship between Manila and Washington.

In a rambling speech on his arrival in Davao City after a visit to Vietnam, Duterte told reporters that he had been "portrayed to be a cousin of Hitler" by critics.

Noting that Hitler had murdered millions of Jews, Duterte said: "There are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I`d be happy to slaughter them.

"If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have...," he said, pausing and pointing to himself.

"You know my victims. I would like (them) to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition."

Duterte was voted to power in a May election on the back of a vow to end drugs and corruption in the country of 100 million people. He took office on June 30 and over 3,100 people have been killed since then, mostly alleged drug users and dealers, in police operations and in vigilante killings.

His comments were quickly condemned by Jewish groups.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center`s Digital Terrorism and Hate project, called them "outrageous".

"Duterte owes the victims (of the Holocaust) an apology for his disgusting rhetoric."

The Anti-Defamation League, an international Jewish group based in the United States, said Duterte`s comments were "shocking for their tone-deafness".

"The comparison of drug users and dealers to Holocaust victims is inappropriate and deeply offensive," said Todd Gutnick, the group`s director of communications. "It is baffling why any leader would want to model himself after such a monster."

Two days before the Philippines election, outgoing President Benigno Aquino had warned that Duterte`s rising popularity was akin to that of Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s.

"I hope we learn the lessons of history," Aquino said in widely reported remarks. "We should remember how Hitler came to power."

Duterte has been scathing about criticism of his anti-drugs campaign and has insulted the United Nations and the European Union, as well as Obama, at various times in recent weeks.

On Friday, reacting to critical comments on his war on drugs by US Senators Patrick Leahy and Benjamin Cardin, Duterte said: "Do not pretend to be the moral conscience of the world. Do not be the policeman because you do not have the eligibility to do that in my country."

He also reiterated there will be no annual war games between the Philippines and the United States until the end of his six-year term, placing the longstanding alliance under a cloud of doubt. It also may make Washington`s strategy of rebalancing its military focus towards Asia in the face of an increasingly assertive China much more difficult to achieve.

Still, US Defence Secretary Ash Carter, speaking before the latest remarks from Duterte, said Washington had an "ironclad" alliance with Manila.

A senior US defence official, also speaking earlier, told reporters that the United States had a long enduring relationship with the Philippines regardless of who was president.

"It`s going to continue to survive based on what we think are strong US-Philippines common security interests, so well be engaging President Duterte further," the official said.

Malcolm Cook, a senior fellow at Singapore`s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, said the US-Philippines alliance was not necessarily at risk, but Washington could seek to focus on ties elsewhere in the region.

"We are all in some sense becoming, by necessity, desensitised to Duterte`s language," he said.

"Diplomatically, the US would say they`ll continue to work with him and the alliance is strong. But it`s whether they`ll continue to strengthen that alliance or not."
Washington: Republican nominee Donald Trump today claimed the first presidential debate with Hillary Clinton was "rigged" after political analysts said his Democratic rival won the debate.

Addressing his supporters at an election rally in New Hampshire, 70-year-old Trump said the first debate was a "rigged deal".

Trump, 70, said he had to fight with moderator Lester Holt on "everything I said".

Political analysts said Clinton, 68, won the debate with her emphatic performance and put the reality television star on defensive on crucial issues.

"Then I had to put up with the anchor and fight the anchor on everything I said. What a rigged deal, I tell you, we are in such a rigged system ? it is terrible. What's going on in this country is so sad. But it will change. Remember November 8," Trump said.

Trump said he would work hard over the next 40 days to win the White House.

"We are going to take on the special interests, the lobbyists, and the corrupt corporate media that have rigged the system against everyday Americans. We are going to create millions of new jobs for our people, trillions in new wealth for our communities, and rising wages for every working American. We are going to create a new government that serves you, your family, and your country," he said.

According to the real estate mogul from New York, his campaign is going to end Clinton's corruption and restore dignity and honesty to government service.

"Hillary Clinton is an insider fighting only for herself and for her donors. I am an outsider fighting for you," he said.

The large corporations who support terrible trade deals that offshore jobs they are donating to Clinton, he said, adding that the Wall Street investors who have rigged the regulations against the middle class ? they are donating to Clinton.

Trump also alleged that the special interests who want open borders are donating to Clinton.

"In her campaign for President, Hillary Clinton has received USD 100 million dollars in contributions from Wall Street and the hedge funds. She and Bill Clinton were paid USD 150 million for speeches since Bill left the Oval Office. The same groups paying Bill and Hillary for their speeches were lobbying the federal government," he said.

Alleging that Clinton put the office of Secretary of State up for sale, Trump said if she ever got the chance, she would put the Oval Office up for sale too.

"She deleted and bleached 33,000 emails after a Congressional subpoena. 13 phones missing, several destroyed with a hammer. Her staffers taking the fifth amendment, and her ringleaders getting immunity deals.

We're going to call them the FBI Immunity 5. Foreign enemies with easy access to hack her server. Lies to Congress, under oath, about turning over her work-related emails," he said.
Kathmandu: Nepal, the present Chair of the SAARC, said on Friday that the summit of the South Asian regional grouping cannot take place if even one member country notifies its inability to participate in the event.

In a statement after India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan pulled out from the 19th SAARC Summit that was scheduled to be held in Islamabad, Nepal said it is clear that the summit cannot take place even if one member notifies of its inability to attend the event.

The Foreign Ministry of Nepal`s remarks came in the wake of various ambiguous media reports about the upcoming summit.

Earlier, in its first statement, the ministry had urged all the member countries to create an environment conducive for the summit by ensuring their participation.

It also said that indefinite postponement of the summit would not be in the interest of any country and that Nepal expected the host nation would take necessary initiatives to hold the regional meet.

Pakistan is the rotational host (in alphabetical order) of the upcoming summit whose future is hanging in balance after four countries pulled out their participation from the summit as tension arises at India-Pakistan border.

"As a Chair of the SAARC, Nepal is ready to play its role. And, as a Chair, Nepal has already urged the member states to create conducive environment to hold the event as soon as possible," the Foreign Ministry said.
The protest was held by Baloch women and children against CPEC and Pakistan in Balochistan.

By Anil Kumar: The Baloch women and children staged a protest today against the increasing involvement of China in Balochistan with the help of Pakistan Army.

The people under the banner of Free Balochistan Movement, protested at a road way and blocked it also. The protesters burnt the flags of China and Pakistan. Free Balochistan Movement had organised the protest against the occupation and exploitation of projects on Baloch territory by Pakistan and China.

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Also read: Pak forces kill rebel outfit leader in Balochistan



The protesters also raised the slogans like Stop war crimes in Balochistan, Stop Baloch genocide. One of the protestor who didn't want to be named said, "We are here to support Free Balochistan Movement. We strongly condemn the way China-Pakistan is looting Baloch resources from many years."



EFFIGIES BURNT



In the first of its kind, this protest demonstration in the province of Balochistan saw large number of people together. The demonstrators were carrying banners and placards in their hands. The Free Balochistan Movement protesters burned the effigy of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan Army Chief Raheel Sharif during the protest.

Also read: Double whammy for Pakistan; Iran fires mortars into Balochistan



The Baloch activists accused China of helping Pakistan in committing atrocities and human rights violations in Balochistan. An activist talking to India Today said, "This rally is against the atrocities on children, women and civilians in general. We are here to protest against the CPEC."





--- ENDS ---
Riyadh: Shelling from Yemeni rebels killed a Saudi border guard and wounded three civilians including a Bangladeshi, the interior ministry said on Friday.

The Tuwal district of Jazan, on the Saudi frontier with Yemen, came under fire on Thursday afternoon, wounding the border guard corporal, a ministry statement said.

He died on the way to hospital.

Two Saudis and a Bangladeshi national were wounded by Huthi rebel shelling of Tuwal the same day, the Civil Defence agency said in a separate statement.

More than 100 civilians and Saudi Arabian soldiers have died in strikes and skirmishes along the frontier since a Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen on the side of the internationally-recognised government in March last year.

The coalition began air strikes after the Huthis and their allies, troops loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, overran much of the country.

Riyadh feared the Huthis would take over all of Yemen and move it into the orbit of Shiite Iran, Sunni Saudi Arabia`s regional rival.

In Yemen, more than 6,600 people have been killed, most of them civilians, according to the United Nations.

Riyadh faces mounting international scrutiny over civilian casualties in its Yemen air campaign.

it/lyn/pg
Jerusalem: Leaders from 70 countries, including US President Barack Obama and Arab politicians, gathered here today to bid farewell to one of the last leaders of Israel's founding generation and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres as his funeral began amid unprecedented security.

As two-time prime minister, minister of defence, foreign affairs, finance and transportation; and, until 2014, as president, Peres did more than anyone to build up Israel's formidable military might and the country's nuclear programme.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Peres as a "great man of the world".

"He soared to incredible heights. He was a great man of Israel; he was a great man of the world. Israel grieves for him, the world grieves for him, but we find hope in his legacy, as does the world," Netanyahu told mourners at Mount Herzl national cemetery where Peres would be buried alongside other prominent leaders of the Jewish state.

In what is the largest gathering of foreign dignitaries in the history of Israel, President Obama, French President Francois Hollande, German President Joachim Gauck and scores of other world leaders are attending the funeral.

Obama, who awarded Peres the presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, is one of the speakers at the ceremony. He arrived in Israel this morning. He wore a black Jewish skullcap as he took his seat at the ceremony.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was also among attendees. He was seated in the front row.

Abbas, who is on his first visit to Israel since September 2010 when peace talks broke down, shook hands and spoke briefly with Netanyahu upon arrival.

Abbas, who signed the Oslo accords along with Peres, has called him a "brave" partner for peace.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Jordanian Prime Minister Jawad Anani were also in attendance.

Jordan's King Abdullah II yesterday sent a condolence letter to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in which he highlighted Peres' efforts to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians as part of a two-state solution.

Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel.

Israel's President Reuven Rivlin in his eulogy at the funeral ceremony credited Peres with ensuring the State of Israel "as an indisputable fact".

"Like you, I was also born into the Zionist Movement in those decisive years between vision and fulfillment. I was fortunate to look up to you as a partner in the building of the State of Israel from its very foundations," Rivlin said.

"However, with much thanks to you Shimon, for our sons and daughters, for our friends ? and yes for our opponents ? the State of Israel is an indisputable fact," he said.
Beirut: Syrian regime forces advanced in the battleground city of Aleppo on Friday, backed by a Russian air campaign that a monitor said has killed more than 3,800 civilians in the past year.

The Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity accused Syria`s government and its ally Moscow of provoking a "bloodbath" in the city, saying the eastern rebel-held portion had become "a giant kill box".

Syria`s army was advancing on two Aleppo fronts, as talks between key players Washington and Moscow -- which back opposing sides in the war -- appeared close to collapse.

Damascus`s bid to recapture all of the divided northern city prompted the UN to warn of "a humanitarian catastrophe".

UN chief Ban Ki-moon announced he is setting up an internal board of inquiry to investigate the September 19 bombing of an aid convoy in Syria that killed 18 people.

The UN panel will report to Ban, who will "decide what further steps to take", a UN statement said.

US officials have said Russian planes attacked the 31-truck convoy bringing aid to a town west of Aleppo. Moscow has denied the accusation.

Just over a week after Syria`s army announced an operation to recapture all Aleppo, it was advancing both in northern and central Aleppo Friday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor and state media.

In the north, it recaptured the Handarat former Palestinian refugee camp, as well as the old Kindi hospital, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Rebels had held the hospital since 2013, and capturing it allows government forces to threaten the opposition-held Heluk and Haydariyeh neighbourhoods.

The Observatory said at least 15 people, including two children, were killed in strikes on Heluk and other eastern districts Friday.In central Aleppo, meanwhile, fierce clashes shook the Suleiman al-Halabi neighbourhood, divided by the frontline separating the rebel-held east and regime-held west.

The army is seeking to capture the opposition-held sector of the district and advance to the main water supply station for the government-controlled part of Aleppo which is in the neighbourhood.

State television said 15 civilians had been killed and 40 wounded by rocket fire into the government-held part of Suleiman al-Halabi and neighbouring Midan district.

Since the army operation began, Damascus and Moscow have pounded east Aleppo with air strikes, barrel bomb attacks and artillery fire, killing at least 216 people, including more than 40 children, according to the Observatory.

The assault has levelled apartment blocks and put hospitals out of service, creating a humanitarian catastrophe in opposition areas besieged for most of the past two months.

It has been some of the worst violence since the March 2011 beginning of Syria`s conflict, which has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced over half the population.

Outside Damascus, meanwhile, air raids on several rebel-held towns in the Eastern Ghouta region killed at least 17 people including eight children, the Observatory said.

On Thursday, US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Washington was "on the verge" of suspending talks with Russia on Syria because of the Aleppo assault.

Moscow, a key ally of President Bashar al-Assad, began a military campaign to bolster his forces in September 2015 that has so far killed more than 9,300 people, the Britain-based Observatory says.That figure includes 3,804 civilians and more than 5,500 jihadists and rebels, it says, adding that at least 20,000 civilians have been wounded.

The Observatory says it determines what planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

"We do not consider as reliable the information... coming from this organisation, which is based in the United Kingdom," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Kerry`s Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Friday accused Washington of protecting a jihadist group in its effort to overthrow Assad`s regime.

Lavrov told the BBC that Washington had vowed, under a failed truce deal, to "take as a priority an obligation to separate the opposition" from the former al Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front, once known as Al-Nusra Front, but that it had not done so.

"We have more and more reasons to believe that from the very beginning the plan was to spare Nusra and to keep it just in case for Plan B or stage two when it would be time to change the regime," Lavrov said.

Moscow said Thursday it would continue its campaign, despite Washington`s threat and international concern about Aleppo.

"Bombs are raining from Syria-led coalition planes and the whole of east Aleppo has become a giant kill box," MSF director of operations Xisco Villalonga said in a statement on Friday.

"The Syrian government must stop the indiscriminate bombing, and Russia as an indispensable political and military ally of Syria has the responsibility to exert the pressure to stop this," he said.
Kabul: At least 15 civilians were killed and another 13 wounded in a US drone strike in eastern Afghanistan, the United Nations said late on Thursday, calling for an independent investigation into the incident.

The airstrike occurred in the early morning on Wednesday, hitting what US officials said was an Islamic State target in Achin district of Nangarhar province.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said some militants may have been killed in the strike, but many of the victims were civilians, including students, a teacher, and members of families considered to be "pro-government".

"UNAMA reiterates the need for all parties to the conflict to adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law," the United Nations said in a statement.

"UNAMA calls on the government and international military forces to launch a prompt, independent, impartial, transparent, and effective investigation into this incident."

The civilians had gathered in a village to welcome the return of a local elder who had completed the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and were sleeping when the strike occurred, according to witnesses.

The US military command confirmed it conducted an air strike in Achin aimed at Islamic State militants, but said it is gathering information on the allegations of civilian casualties.

"We take every possible measure to avoid civilian casualties in these operations, and will continue to work with Afghan authorities to determine if there is cause for additional investigation," US forces said in a statement.
Jerusalem: World leaders bid farewell to Israeli elder statesman and Nobel Peace laureate Shimon Peres at his funeral in Jerusalem Friday, with US President Barack Obama hailing him as a giant of the 20th century.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was among the mourners at the city`s Mount Herzl national cemetery and was seated in the front row, reportedly at the request of Peres`s family.

Abbas knew Peres well and negotiated with him. In an extremely rare move, he shook hands and spoke briefly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon arrival.

Security forces were on high alert, with roads closed and thousands of officers deployed.

Some 70 countries were represented, with the range of leaders illustrating the respect Peres gained over the years in his transformation from hawk to committed peace advocate.

"In many ways, he reminded me of some other giants of the 20th century that I had the honour to meet: men like Nelson Mandela, women like Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth," said Obama, who wore a black Jewish skullcap.

Peres`s death on Wednesday at the age of 93 drew tributes from around the world for Israel`s last remaining founding father.

An estimated 50,000 people filed past his coffin as it lay in state outside parliament in Jerusalem throughout the day on Thursday.

Former US president Bill Clinton was among those who paid their last respects there, appearing moved as he stood in silence before the coffin.

Clinton had helped usher in the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s, which resulted in the Nobel prize for Peres.

He also spoke at the funeral, giving a warm eulogy in which he said Peres`s "critics often claimed he was a naive, overly optimistic dreamer. They were only wrong about the naive part."

Netanyahu, in his eulogy, called Peres a "great man of the world."

The two men had been political rivals, and Netanyahu recalled a late-night discussion on Israel`s future with Peres in which they discussed security and peace.

"There will be peace, Shimon, dear man, exceptional leader," he said. "I tell you that from the bottom of my heart."

Obama, who has had a testy personal relationship with Netanyahu, however, made a point of mentioning Abbas at the start of his eulogy and said his "presence here is a gesture and a reminder of the unfinished business of peace."

The funeral took place under a white canopy in the leafy national cemetery, where many Israeli dignitaries are buried.

Around 8,000 police were deployed for the commemorations. Preventative arrests of both Jews and Palestinians were made ahead of the funeral to avoid potential disruptions, police said.

The last time such an event was held in Israel was the 1995 funeral of Yitzhak Rabin, Peres`s rival in the Labour party but a partner in negotiating the Oslo accords.

Eulogies were completed before midday and Peres`s coffin was lowered into his grave next to Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish extremist opposed to the accords.In a career spanning seven decades, Peres held nearly every major office, serving twice as prime minister and as president, a mainly ceremonial role, from 2007 to 2014.

He won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for his role in negotiating the Oslo accords, which envisioned an independent Palestinian state.

He was also an architect of Israel`s nuclear programme, with the country now considered the Middle East`s sole nuclear-armed nation, though it has never declared it.

While Peres is hailed in the West as a peacemaker, many in the Arab world, including among the Palestinians, regard him a "war criminal".

They have cited his involvement in successive Arab-Israeli wars, the occupation of Palestinian territory and his support for settlement building before his work on Oslo.

He was also prime minister in 1996 when more than 100 civilians were killed while sheltering at a UN peacekeepers` base in the Lebanese village of Qana fired upon by Israel.

Islamist movement Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, condemned Abbas for offering condolences to Peres`s family, saying it "disregards the blood of the martyrs and the suffering of the Palestinian people".

Abbas, who signed the Oslo accords along with Peres, however, called him a "brave" partner for peace.

There have been very few tributes from Arab nations, though Egypt was represented by Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Jordan too sent a minister.

They are the only two Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel.Born in Poland in 1923, Peres emigrated to what was then British-mandated Palestine when he was 11.

He joined the Zionist struggle and met David Ben-Gurion, who would become his mentor and Israel`s first prime minister.

Peres became director general of the nascent Defence Ministry at just 29.

After leaving office as president, he had sought to maintain an active schedule, particularly through his Peres Center for Peace.

He was hospitalised in January for heart trouble but said he was eager to return to work upon leaving.

In March, he met British supermodel Naomi Campbell at his Peres Center for Peace during an event linked to International Women`s Day. On the same day, he met visiting US Vice President Joe Biden.

Despite his reputation as a statesman, Peres never managed to outright win a national election. Many in Israel opposed to the Oslo accords also blamed him for what they saw as their failure.

But in later life, especially during his time as president, he came to be widely embraced.
Jerusalem: World leaders from US President Barack Obama to Prince Charles were expected in Israel on Friday for the funeral for ex-prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres.

Security forces were on high alert for the funeral at Jerusalem`s Mount Herzl national cemetery, with roads closed and thousands of officers deployed.

Some 70 countries were to be represented, with the range of leaders illustrating the respect Peres gained over the years in his transformation from hawk to committed peace advocate.

His death on Wednesday at the age of 93 led to an outpouring of tributes worldwide for Israel`s last remaining founding father.

An estimated 30,000 people filed past his coffin as he lay in state outside parliament in Jerusalem on Thursday.

Former US president Bill Clinton was among those who paid last respects there, appearing moved as he stood in silence before the coffin.

Clinton had helped usher in the Oslo peace accords of the 1990s, which resulted in the Nobel Peace Prize for Peres.

After Peres`s death, he called him "a genius with a big heart".

Obama is expected to arrive on Friday morning and depart after the ceremony.

In a rare visit to Jerusalem, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who signed the Oslo accords and negotiated with Peres, will also attend the funeral.

Around 8,000 police were being deployed for the commemorations.

"We are dealing with an operation on an unprecedented scale," said police chief Roni Alsheikh.

The last time such an event was held in Israel was the 1995 funeral for Yitzhak Rabin, Peres`s rival in the Labour party but partner in negotiating the Oslo accords.

Peres will be buried next to Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish extremist opposed to the accords.In a career spanning seven decades, Peres held nearly every major office, serving twice as prime minister and as president, a mainly ceremonial role, from 2007 to 2014.

He won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for his role in negotiating the Oslo accords, which envisioned an independent Palestinian state.

He was also an architect of Israel`s undeclared nuclear programme, with the country now considered the Middle East`s sole nuclear-armed nation, though it has never declared it.

While those in the West and within Israel have hailed Peres as a peacemaker, many Palestinians and those from Arab nations have called him a "war criminal".

They have cited his involvement in successive Arab-Israeli wars, the occupation of Palestinian territory and his support for settlement building before his work on Oslo.

He was also prime minister in 1996 when more than 100 civilians were killed while sheltering at a UN peacekeepers` base in the Lebanese village of Qana fired upon by Israel.



Islamist movement Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, condemned Abbas for offering condolences to Peres`s family, saying it "disregards the blood of the martyrs and the suffering of the Palestinian people".

Abbas however called Peres a "brave" partner for peace.

There have been very few tributes from Arab nations, though Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry is due to attend the funeral.

Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries with peace treaties with Israel.Born in Poland in 1923, Peres emigrated to what was then British-mandated Palestine when he was 11.

He joined the Zionist struggle and met David Ben-Gurion, who would become his mentor and Israel`s first prime minister.

Peres became director general of the nascent defence ministry at just 29.

After leaving office as president, he had sought to maintain an active schedule, particularly through his Peres Center for Peace.

He was hospitalised in January for heart trouble, but said he was eager to return to work upon leaving.

In March, he met British supermodel Naomi Campbell at his Peres Center for Peace during an event linked to International Women`s Day. On the same day, he met visiting US Vice President Joe Biden.

He had given a speech on September 13, the day he suffered a stroke. He never recovered and died two weeks later.

Despite his reputation as a statesman, Peres never managed to outright win a national election. Many in Israel opposed to the Oslo accords also blamed him for what they saw as their failure.

But in later life, especially during his time as president, he came to be widely embraced.
Under the law, all adult members of the family could be arrested if liquor was found stored in any household.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: The Patna High Court today struck down Bihar government's controversial Prohibition of Liquor Act, calling it "illegal". In April this year, the Nitish Kumar government had imposed total prohibition on liquor in the state.

The Bihar Hotels and Bars Association had filed a petition before the High Court asking it to scrap the ban.

Soon after the Bihar Excise (Amendment) Act, 2016 was passed in March, total prohibition was imposed in Bihar because of which consumption and selling of liquor in the state had become illegal.

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MORE DRACONIAN LAW COMING?



However, the High Court's scathing observation and scrapping of the law pertains to the first prohibition law passed in March this year. After scrapping of the law, there is a possibility that the Nitish Kumar government may hold back the implementation of the new law from October, which is more draconian in nature.

The liquor law in Bihar was made more stringent last month after the Assembly passed the Bihar Excise and Prohibition Bill with voice vote. The Opposition boycotted the passage, with the BJP calling it a "black law".

Under the new law, all adult members of the family could be arrested if liquor was found stored in any household, a provision that Kumar had a hard time defending. Also, there is a provision of imposing collective fines on villages and localities which are found repeatedly flouting prohibition law.



Since its passage, Nitish Kumar was seen repeatedly assuring his people that no innocent person will be harassed.

Also read: Is Bihar's campaign against liquor losing steam?



The statewide ban on liquor in Bihar was widely slammed last month following a hooch tragedy in Gopalganj, where 16 people died and three were blinded after consuming spurious liquor.

The incident exposed that despite total prohibition on liquor consumption, alcohol is available in the black market.

Also read: Patna Police arrests man who used to sell liquor in guise of woman



THE AFTERMATH

A large number of people, including alcoholics, had started thronging toddy shops after the government banned "desi" or, country-made liquor as well as foreign made liquor.

Later, the state government also banned the sale of toddy, which was opposed by the people, including by Lalu Prasad as well as the opposition BJP and its allies.



--- ENDS ---
Schoolgirls in Bihar have taken a unique pledge to not waste money on cosmetics until they get toilets at home. Almost 17 million households are forced to defecate in the open in the state.

By India Today Web Desk:

Girls at a school in Bihar have taken a pledge to not waste money on cosmetics and ornaments until they manage to get a toilet at home.

They took the 'vow' in the presence of a senior district official when he was visiting their school on Tuesday as part of his surprise inspection.

When the official asked those students to raise their hands who don't have toilets at their homes, many hands were up in the air.

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The schoolgirls are enrolled at Girls High School, Chausa, in Buxur district, some 130 km west of Patna.

It was then when the students pledged to not use cosmetics until they get a toilet at their places.

"Once reaching home, we will hand over our lockets to our fathers and ask to sell them if they don't have money for constructing toilets at home," one of the shcoolgirls Kumari Jyoti told the officer.



STRUGGLE IS REAL

According to the girls it's a traumatic experience every day since they have to go out in the open to meet nature's call.

"We requested our parents for toilets but they didn't our request seriously," they said.

Senior additional district magistrate Anupam Singh said, "I was both shocked and surprised to hear such things from the girls. Shocked to know that we can't even arrange for a toilet for our darling girls upon whom we spend a lot for their make-up. They have themselves said they wouldn't have their make-up until they get toilets at home".



PLANS AND STATS

Bihar state government headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has announced to make the state free from open defecation by 2019.

According to an official report, around 16.5 million households out of over 110 million populations in Bihar currently do not have toilets in their homes as they are forced to defecate in the open, according to a Gulf News report.

The state government claims so far that 308 villages out of 44,000 have been declared free from open defecation and the rest will also be taken care of soon.



--- ENDS ---
Strong results from US rivals like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase have put pressure on Deutsche Bank to show it can defend its share of the market

Deutsche Bank is near a deal with US officials to slash a huge fine over its dealings prior to the 2008 financial crisis, a source said Friday, sparking a dramatic rally in the German giant's shares.

Stock in Germany's biggest lender closed at 11.57 euros ($13), up 6.39 percent on Thursday's close after a flurry of last-minute buying activity following the news the bank had negotiated a much lower fine than expected with the US Department of Justice.

Deutsche Bank is close to settling the fine over its sales of toxic mortgage bonds transacted ahead of the financial crisis for $5.4 billion, well below the government's initial $14 billion demand, a person familiar with the talks between Deutsche and the DoJ told AFP.

An agreement could be announced in the next couple of days, the source said. The final amount of settlement could also be slightly different.

Deutsche Bank and the DoJ declined to comment, as did the German finance ministry.

The bank's tumble as the Frankfurt stock market opened saw shares fall by more than 9.0 percent at one point, hitting a historic low of 9.90 euros.

This sparked fears that a banking meltdown reminiscent of the 2008 crisis was in the making, dragging other European banks and global markets down with it.

The rush to sell started after a group of hedge fund clients had cut their exposure to Deutsche Bank on Thursday.

Concern had been mounting all week over the DoJ demand and conflicting reports in German media on whether Berlin would come to the troubled bank's aid if necessary, which have sapped the bank's market valuation since Monday.

But by the afternoon a statement from Deutsche chief executive John Cryan lifted the mood on markets and saw the price move modestly back upwards, before a rush for the shares in the final minutes of trading in Frankfurt.

"At no time in the last two decades has Deutsche Bank been as safe as it is today," Cryan wrote in a memo to his staff, pointing to the bank's 215 billion euros ($241 billion) in liquidity reserves, ongoing restructuring and a 1.0-billion-euro operating profit in the first half.

Story continues

- Bailout less likely -

The new total of $5.4 billion is just shy of the total Deutsche has set aside in provisions for its thousands of outstanding legal actions, and "may make a rights issue more palatable and makes a government bailout much less likely," CMC Markets analyst Jasper Lawler wrote in a note.

Investors had been spooked by signs that Deutsche's "sophisticated clients are feeling the same twitchiness as investors," he went on, causing "a mass crisis of confidence."

Bloomberg News reported on Thursday that about 10 hedge funds that clear trades with Deutsche Bank withdrew some excess cash and derivatives holdings and moved the assets to other firms this week, citing an internal bank document.

AFP sources knowledgeable of the situation confirmed that 10 hedge funds had pulled funds out, including Millennium Partners, Capula Investment, and British fund Rokos Capital Management.

Bloomberg said that the "vast majority" of the bank's clients have made no changes to their exposure at the bank, a position echoed by Deutsche itself when it insisted that some 800 remaining customers trusted in its "stable financial position."

Deutsche has repeatedly said that it will not have to pay the full amount demanded by the DoJ over its role in the devastating subprime mortgage crisis, pointing to US banks that negotiated much lower settlements.

But investors feared that the fine could still be large enough to wipe out the $5.5 billion in provisions the bank has set aside for legal entanglements.

The subprimes case is just one of 8,000 burdening Deutsche Bank, with an investigation by New York regulators over allegations of money laundering at its Moscow office looming on the horizon.

Deutsche was among the worst performers in a European Banking Authority stress test of large banks whose results were released in July, although Cryan insisted the exercise had demonstrated the institution's resilience to future crises.
Spanish multinational corporation Abengoa has sought to reduce its size by 30 percent in 2016 to avoid bankruptcy

Spain's debt-laden energy giant Abengoa on Friday posted a 3.7-billion-euro ($4.2-billion) net loss in the first half of 2016, as it seeks to seal a deal with creditors to ward off bankruptcy.

A "general slowdown in business" contributed to the result, the Seville-based group said in statement, which compares to a 72-million-euro profit at the same time last year.

The renewable energy firm has until an October 25 deadline for creditors and investors to sign off on a debt restructuring agreement it finalised in August that would see it receive a cash injection of 650 million euros.

The group announced last year that it was filing for preliminary protection from creditors following years of frenzied, unsustainable expansion worldwide.

Abengoa's mammoth financial difficulties have affected several of its projects around the world, which it has either been unable to keep constructing or operating.

In the statement, the group singled out bioethanol plants in the United States and Europe, solar power facilities in Chile and South Africa, and electricity transmission lines in Brazil.

It added that overall turnover reached 1.2 billion euros in the first half of the year, close to three times less than the same time in 2015.
Deutsche Bank has seen its shares fall by more than 40 percent

US and eurozone shares pushed higher Friday in volatile trade driven by Deutsche Bank's negotiations to settle US charges over its sale of toxic mortgage bonds before the financial crisis.

News that Deutsche Bank was close to a much lower settlement than expected -- $5.4 billion instead of $14 billion -- with US officials on the long-standing case sparked a rally on Wall Street, with large US banks leading the broader market as worries of a Lehman-style collapse receded.

The German DAX also finished solidly higher, while the euro gained on the dollar.

Global stocks had been under pressure following a Bloomberg News report Thursday that a handful of hedge funds had withdrawn some money from Deutsche Bank due to worries about its capital position.

The US Department of Justice had targeted the German bank to pay $14 billion to settle the case concerning allegations the German bank knowingly sold toxic mortgage-backed securities between 2006 and 2008 that helped lead to the financial crisis.

But on Friday, a person familiar with the matter told AFP that the German bank is near an agreement to pay a much more manageable $5.4 billion to resolve the case.

"That is low enough that the bank is not likely to have significant capital needs," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial. "$5.4 billion dollars they could live with, and so stocks came back up."

The broad-based S&P 500 climbed 0.8 percent, with large US lenders Bank of America and Citigroup both climbing more than three percent.

Other strong stocks in the US included retailers Costco Wholesale and Wal-Mart Stores, and the oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron.

Frankfurt reversed early losses, finishing up 1.0 percent following a stunning reversal in Deutsche Bank shares.

Frankfurt-listed shares of the German bank finished up 16.1 percent at 11.71 euros after earlier falling to an historic low of 9.90 euros.

The CAC in Paris advanced 0.1 percent, while the FTSE in London lost 0.3 percent.

Story continues

Earlier, Asian markets had fallen sharply on worries about Deutsche Bank, with Japan's Nikkei sliding 1.5 percent.

- Key figures at 2100 GMT -

New York - DOW: UP 0.9 percent to 18,308.15 (close)

New York - S&P 500: UP 0.8 percent to 2,168.27 (close)

New York - Nasdaq: UP 0.8 percent to 5,312.00 (close)

London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.3 percent at 6,899.33 (close)

Frankfurt - DAX 30: UP 1.0 percent at 10,511.02 (close)

Paris - CAC 40: UP 0.1 percent at 4,448.26 (close)

EURO STOXX 50: UP 0.4 percent at 3,004.67 (close)

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 1.5 percent at 16,449.84 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng: DOWN 1.9 percent at 23,297.15 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.2 percent at 3,004.70 (close)

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1240 from $1.1223 late Thursday

Dollar/yen: UP at 101.37 yen from 101.04 yen

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2974 from $1.2968


Officer Jeff Thompson of the Little Rock Police Department arrested Arkansas state Representative John Walker for recording their treatment of a black man who had been put in handcuffs during a traffic stop.

Watch video!

Officer Thompson told Rep Walker he had to stop recording or face arrest. Rep Walker said, "Arrest me." Officer Thompson did. Police later dropped charges against Rep Walker, but are continuing with the prosecution of his colleague, civil rights lawyer Omavi Shukur.

Arrest for filming are actually becoming less common, said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the ACLU. "The long time that it took police officers to recognize this right was in many ways an indictment of police management. It also shows that photography is a form of power," he told the Intercept.

Lawmaker Who Pushed Bill to Protect People Filming Police Arrested for Filming Police [Naomi LaChance/The Intercept]
Canadian securities regulators haven't made up their minds on whether to ban payments by mutual-fund companies to salespeople, according to a senior Ontario Securities Commission official.

"No decision has been made to proceed with a ban on embedded commissions," John Mountain, director of the OSC's investment funds and structured products branch, told a panel discussion at the annual Investment Funds Institute of Canada conference on Sept. 29.

Mountain also told IFIC delegates that the regulators' position paper on fund fees is to be released in late December, but before Christmas. "You can expect to see a concept document, an aspirational statement."

He added that while the Canadian Securities Administrators is trying to be respectful of the research it has conducted into embedded fund commissions, it is also seeking a "reasoned discussion" with everyone who would be affected by a ban.

Mountain acknowledged that proposals to ban fund-company payouts to brokers and dealers are contentious, "even internally" within the Canadian Securities Administrators, representing regulators in all provincial and territorial jurisdictions across Canada. He said CSA members have agreed to publish the concept document scheduled for release in December, "but that's the only place there has been complete agreement."

Among those remaining to be convinced is fellow panelist David Linder, executive director of the Alberta Securities Commission. Linder says investors should have a say in how their advisors are compensated, and he is "not necessarily in the camp" of those who favour banning embedded commissions.

Efforts to implement a ban have been led by the OSC, whose chair Maureen Jensen spoke to a business audience 771790 earlier this week about how pay-related conflicts of interest have been detrimental to the outcomes of fund investors. Jensen said it was up to the industry to propose alternatives to eliminate conflicts of interest.

Meanwhile, IFIC remains adamantly opposed to a ban. IFIC chair John Adams told the conference that there are biases in any compensation structure in any industry. "Regulators need to assess how serious this conflict is before they decide to cast the industry and investors into uncharted waters," said Adams, CEO of Primerica Life Insurance Co. Canada, whose operations include one of Canada's largest mutual-fund dealers.

Adams called on regulators to develop and implement solutions that eradicate conflicts "without taking extreme measures that would negatively impact investor choice, access and affordability."
Tejaswi said it was important to know what is the economic status of people from different castes and which profession were people most involved in.

The deputy chief minister said even the Sacchar Commission report had suggested that condition of Muslims both social and economical was poor.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav has demanded that Centre should make the caste census public at the earliest. Tejaswi said it was important to know what is the economic status of people from different castes and which profession were people most involved in.

MAKE CASTE CENSUS PUBLIC

"The caste census which the Centre had got done should be made public. It will help in preparing budget for them. The downtrodden and neglected section of the society can be brought back into the mainstream with help of caste census", said Tejaswi Yadav.

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Also read: Deputy CM Tejaswi Yadav slams Katju for insulting Bihar



The deputy chief minister said even the Sacchar Commission report had suggested that condition of Muslims both social and economical was poor.

MUSLIMS ARE UNEMPLOYED

"Sacchar report says that Muslim youths do not go to school or leave their studies mid way. These youths are also unemployed. It's duty of the government to do something for these youths", said Tejaswi Yadav.

Ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections even Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) President Lalu Prasad pressured the Centre to release the caste census.



Also read: Nitish is better PM material than Rahul or Modi, says Tejaswi Yadav





--- ENDS ---
THURSDAY, Sept. 29, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- The vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, which doctors believe causes most cases of cervical cancer, appears even more effective than believed, a new study finds.

"After eight years of vaccination, the reduction in the incidence of cervical neoplasia [abnormal growth of cells], including pre-cancers, have been reduced approximately 50 percent. This is greater than what was expected -- that's pretty exciting," said lead researcher Cosette Wheeler. She is a professor of pathology and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque.

The study also showed that the protection appears to occur even when only one or two of the recommended doses of the vaccine are given.

"Right now, the recommendation is three doses for girls and boys before the 13th birthday, so that you are protected before you become exposed," Wheeler explained.

"People thought that three doses of vaccine were necessary, but there's a lot of people who are getting one and two doses, and people are getting protection from one or two doses," she said.

On average, 40 percent of girls aged 13 to 17 in New Mexico had received all three doses in 2014, the researchers found. But, Wheeler said, "It may be that two doses are sufficient."

Protection from HPV is also coming from what's called herd immunity, which increases as more people are vaccinated and reduces the spread of HPV, Wheeler said. "Herd immunity means that the probability of getting infected decreases for everybody, even the people who aren't vaccinated," she explained.

Moreover, the vaccines protect against more types of HPV than they were designed to do, she added.

Although this is not the first report to show the effectiveness of the vaccine, it's the first to show declines in precancerous lesions across a large population, Wheeler said. The researchers also found that the reductions in the number of precancerous lesions were greater than anticipated.

This study even took into account changes in Pap test screening over the last 10 years.

In 2009, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology said most women under 21 do not need Pap test screening and recommended longer times between screening. In 2012, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said women, regardless of age, do not need to get screened more than every three years, Wheeler said.

If these changes were not taken into account, the effect of the vaccine would appear even greater than it already is, because it would assume that more women were being screened than actually were, she said.

"Parents and doctors should pay attention. These vaccines are highly efficacious," Wheeler said.

It's up to doctors to be sure kids are vaccinated, she said. "It's their job, just like other vaccines, to provide them to their patients. They are the key to get this done," Wheeler added.

In addition to cervical cancer, HPV can cause genital warts in men and women, and some head and neck cancers.

Although cervical cancer can take decades to develop, it's important to protect children before they become sexually active and risk getting infected with HPV, which is why Wheeler strongly recommends: "Get your kids vaccinated -- both your boys and your girls -- before their 13th birthday."

For the study, Wheeler and colleagues collected data on young women tested for cervical cancer with Pap tests from 2007 to 2014, who were part of the New Mexico HPV Pap Registry. New Mexico should be considered representative of the whole country, Wheeler said.

One expert said the findings make the case for HPV vaccination even stronger.

"These data highlight and provide even more evidence as to the efficacy of the vaccine in preventing HPV infections and related diseases," said Fred Wyand, a spokesman for the American Sexual Health Association/National Cervical Cancer Coalition.

Increasing HPV vaccination rates "goes back to the importance of health care provider's recommending the vaccine to parents and patients," he said. "Provider recommendation carries much weight, and parents are far more likely to have their child vaccinated if the provider encourages it."

Another approach to increasing vaccination rates is to "normalize" HPV vaccines, he said. "Rather than treat it as something exotic, it should just be offered as part of the routine adolescent vaccine program," Wyand said.

Dr. Metee Comkornruecha, an adolescent medicine specialist at Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami, agrees that the vaccine "is effective, and parents should have their sons and daughters vaccinated."

The report was published online Sept. 29 in the journal JAMA Oncology.

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on the HPV vaccine.
ADLER (Krasnodar Territory, Russia) (Sputnik)  Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov dismissed as rumors on Friday suggestions of air traffic restoration with Egypt next month.

"These are indeed rumors, although I can say that our Egyptian colleagues have done a lot. This is a big step toward establishing international aviation security standards," Sokolov said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 broadcaster.

Russia grounded flights to and from Egypt after an Airbus A321 plane flying to St. Petersburg crashed soon after taking off from Sharm El-Sheikh on October 31, 2015. All 224 people aboard died as a result of what was classified by the investigation as a terrorist attack.
Australia's batsman George Bailey (right) plays a shot during the first One Day International (ODI) match against South Africa in Centurion on September 30, 2016 (AFP Photo/Gianluigi Guercia) (AFP)

Johannesburg (AFP) - George Bailey and John Hastings dug Australia out of a trouble with a 79-run seventh wicket stand in the first one-day international against South Africa at SuperSport Park on Friday.

Australia made 294 for nine after being sent in to bat but they had been in danger of not batting out their overs when they slipped to 192 for six in the 29th over.

All-rounder Andile Phehlukwayo, 20, took four for 44 in his second one-day international, taking three top-order wickets in a frenetic first half of the Australian innings.

Bailey (74) and Hastings (51) steadied the innings, with Hastings going to a maiden international half-century before he became Phehlukwayo's fourth victim when he was caught on the long-off boundary.

It was a remarkable performance by the medium-paced Phehlukwayo, who was hit for 16 runs in his first over by Aaron Finch but came back strongly on a day when more experienced seamers, including Dale Steyn and Kagiso Rabada, took heavy punishment.

Phehlukwayo had Finch caught at backward square leg and Australian captain Steve Smith leg before wicket in his second over. He followed up with the wicket of Mitchell Marsh, caught by a diving wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock.

With David Warner setting the tone with 40 off 36 balls, Australia scored rapidly but kept losing wickets before Bailey and Hastings came together.

Bailey hit 74 off 90 balls with seven fours and a six, while the tall Hastings faced 56 deliveries, hitting six fours and two sixes.
Spanish multinational corporation Abengoa has sought to reduce its size by 30 percent in 2016 to avoid bankruptcy (AFP Photo/Cristina Quicler) (AFP/File)

Madrid (AFP) - Spain's debt-laden energy giant Abengoa on Friday posted a 3.7-billion-euro ($4.2-billion) net loss in the first half of 2016, as it seeks to seal a deal with creditors to ward off bankruptcy.

A "general slowdown in business" contributed to the result, the Seville-based group said in a statement.

It had only posted a loss of 340 million euros in the first quarter, while in the first six months of 2015, the group made a 72-million-euro profit.

The world player in solar and wind power, biofuels and water management announced last year that it was filing for preliminary protection from creditors following years of frenzied, unsustainable expansion worldwide.

It has launched a recovery plan that includes the sale of biofuels assets and other non-strategic holdings, as well as job cuts -- it has already shed at least 11,000 jobs since the end of last year -- and finalised a debt restructuring deal in August.

The group now has until October 25 for creditors and investors to sign off on the deal, which would see it receive a cash injection of 650 million euros on top of loans already granted to the company.

Abengoa's billions-strong debt has affected many of its projects around the world, which it has either been unable to keep constructing or operating.

In the statement, the group singled out solar power facilities in Chile and South Africa and electricity transmission lines in Brazil.

Its bioenergy sector was particularly hard-hit, with several bioethanol plants in the United States and Europe "paralysed" by bankruptcy proceedings.

The group added that overall turnover reached 1.2 billion euros in the first half of the year, close to three times less than the same time in 2015.

A family-owned company founded 75 years ago, Abengoa rose from being a local electrical firm, fixing installations damaged in Spain's 1936-1939 civil war, to a major player in solar energy and other renewables.

But risky bets on biofuels and Spain's cuts to renewable energy subsidies during an economic downturn pushed the company to the edge of bankruptcy.
The BSF headquarters has issued orders to all its units along the IB in Jammu, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat to step up vigil and bolster their numbers at the posts by bringing in all reserve personnel as well, sources said.

By Mail Today Bureau: The Border Security Force (BSF) has put all its units along the International Border (IB) on high alert in the wake of surgical strikes by India on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC).

The BSF headquarters has issued orders to all its units along the IB in Jammu, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat to step up vigil and bolster their numbers at the posts by bringing in all reserve personnel as well, sources said.

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Also Read: BSF may get its own air wing to prevent another Uri-like terror attack

Meanwhile, as a precautionary measure, people living within 10 km of the border with Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab have been asked to shift to safer places and schools have been ordered to remain shut till further notice.

In order to ensure their safety, civilians will not be allowed to witness the Attari-Wagah border retreat ceremony either.

Officials said the BSF has restricted civilian movement along the borders with Pakistan. The border guarding force, they said, has also been asked by the Centre to provide manpower to the local administration to help evacuate people from the border villages to safer locations.



Also Read: Army and BSF jawans arrest two Jaish guides in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri

Officials said the border units have been asked to undertake special patrols and conduct ambushes. The force has also been asked to augment the number of personnel and officers who work under the operational command of the Army at the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.

"We have asked villagers living along the IB and LoC to shift to safer areas as a precautionary measure," deputy commissioner, Jammu, Simrandeep Singh, said. All people living within 7-8 km of the India-Pakistan border have been asked to move to safer areas and schools within 10 km have been ordered to remain shut till further notice, he said. These directions have been passed on to people living along the IB in Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts and along the LoC in Rajouri and Poonch, the officials said.

In some areas of RS Pura, residents have already started moving to safer places. "We have directed them to move to safer places and some of them have started shifting to their relatives' places in safer locations," a police officer said. The Army has started evacuating people living in the adjoining areas in Noushera belt of Rajouri in anticipation of a possible retaliation by Pakistani troops, officials said.

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Also Read: Border talks between India, Bdesh to begin next week in Delhi

In Punjab too, people residing in villages within 10 km of the IB were asked to shift to safer places. Six districts of the state share borders with Pakistan.

Schools in the border areas have also been asked to remain shut until further orders, officials said. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has put the entire government and political machinery in an emergency mode, an official spokesperson of the state government said in Chandigarh.

The surgical strike at the terror launch pads was carried out by the Indian Army about 2-3 kms across the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir.

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English Icelandic

Reykjavik, 2016-09-30 15:47 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Orkuveita Reykjavikur (OR; Reykjavik Energy) and Magma Energy Sweden, the parent company of HS Orka, have reached an agreement on changes to a bond, scheduled to mature in its entirety in December 2016. The value of the bond is approximately USD 72 million. The agreement stipulates a payment of one-half of the bonds outstanding principal and issuance of a new bond to mature in H1 2018. The agreement is subject to ORs Boards approval. Interests of the new bond will be 5%.

These changes will be considered by the Central Bank of Iceland.
PANACA, Nev., Sept. 30, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- U.S. Rare Earth Minerals, Inc., (PINK:USMN) announced today that its team scheduled to represent USMN at the Saudi Agriculture 2016 Saudi Agro Food/Food Pack October 2nd through the 5 that the Riyadh International Convention & Exhibition Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia will not attend due to a delay in obtaining visas in a timely manner. Instead, the USMN team will be represented by its Belgium distributor and his associates, all of whom are well versed in the benefits of EXCELERITE.



D. Quincy Farber, President and CEO of USMN expressed his disappointment about the visa delay saying, This unfortunate circumstance is out of our control. We were looking forward to the trip as representatives of one of the few USA companies attending the Expo. We will, however, be well represented by our Belgium associates. We hope to receive daily communications and photos and intend to post them on our website.

U.S. Rare Earth Minerals, Inc.

U.S. Rare Earth Minerals, Inc. (USMN) is engaged in the sales and distribution of products derived from the Companys mining activities in Nevada relating to certain natural mineral deposits and other natural rare earth minerals. Products of USMN consist of natural minerals for animal consumption as well as agricultural products sold under the brand name EXCELERITE. USMN is headquartered in Reno. The company maintains a web site at: www.us-rem.com.

This press release contains statements that may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of U.S. Rare Earth Minerals, Inc., and members of management as well as the assumptions on which such statements are based. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect changed assumptions, the occurrence of unanticipated events or changes to future operating results.
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
The "burqa ban" law, pushed by the nationalist Patriotic Front coalition, echoes similar moves in other western European countries such as France, Netherlands and Belgium who have banned the wearing of burqas or niqabs in public.

By Reuters: Bulgaria's parliament on Friday banned the wearing of face veils in public in a move which supporters said would boost security in the wake of Islamist militant attacks in Europe.

The "burqa ban" law, pushed by the nationalist Patriotic Front coalition, echoes similar measures in western European countries such as France, Netherlands and Belgium which have various laws banning the wearing of burqas or niqabs.

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People who do not follow the ban in Bulgaria face fines of up to 1,500 levs (Rs 57,074) as well as suspension of social benefits.

BAN WOULD INCITE ETHNIC, RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE



The ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms refused to take part in the vote, which followed full-face veils ban in public in several Bulgarian towns. It said the ban it would incite ethic and religious intolerance.

The ruling centre-right party said the ban has nothing to do with religious outfits but only aimed at boosting national security and allowing better video surveillance.

"The law is not directed against religious communities and is not repressive," ruling GERB's senior lawmaker Krasimir Velchev said. "We made a very good law for the safety of our children."

According to the law, clothing hiding the face may not be worn in government offices, schools, cultural institutions and places of public recreation, but exceptions are allowed for health or professional reasons.

EUROPEANS FEEL THREATENED BY BURQAS



A minority of Muslim women in Europe cover their faces, but their veils have become symbols for some Europeans troubled by security, immigration and Muslim integration.

Muslims make up about 12 per cent of Bulgaria's 7.2 million population and most belong to a centuries-old community, largely ethnic Turks.

AFRAID OF RELIGIOUS TAKE OVER



Muslim women in the country traditionally do not wear niqabs or burqas, except for a small group in the Roma community who have recently started, sparking tensions in the city of Pazarzhik.

Many Bulgarians are concerned that the migrant inflows into Europe may pose a threat to their predominantly Orthodox Christian culture and help radicalise part of the country's long-established Muslim minority.

Also Read: Sharia-enforcing ISIS bans the burqa in Iraq and you wouldn't believe why

Hindu students protest against burqa on campus in Karnataka





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The criminals disclosed that they were drug addicts and resorted to burglary in order to fund their drug habits. They said they sold off the stolen property to passers by at a very low price.

By Tanseem Haider: Delhi Police have arrested four 4 burglars identified as Raju, Manish, Karamvir and Kuldeep from Khanpur, Delhi. Police recovered stolen LCDs, laptops, I-Pads, 2 mobile phones and two motor cycles. With the arrest of these four, 41 cases of burglary have been solved by the Delhi police in total.

SPURT IN BURGLARIES

In view of a recent spurt in incidents of Buglury in South Delhi, the police team studied the pattern of theft cases reported over the last few months, compiled data using CCTV footage and any other evidence available.

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The data compiled was sued to establish a pattern which helped in identifying the accused, Karamvir who was involved in a burglary incident in Malviya Nagar Police station. He was identified through the Tattoo marks (Dragon and Snake) on both his wrists.

DATA HELPED NAB CRIMINALS

Details of released criminals who were previously involved in such burglaries were scrutinized and finally the team was able to zero in on Raju, resident of Sangam Vihar who was released from jail in February 2016.

Information about Raju was collected and it was found that after his release from jail, his family wasn't aware of his whereabouts and he was often spotted with his associate Manish.

On 28th September, the police team received information about the Raju's movements along with his associates in Delhi. The police team kept sharp vigil in the area and found that two motorcycles were parked near an under construction building at Balmiki Chaupal Devli Road. Intensive search for the accused was launced and the above mentioned four accused were apprehended. After interrogating the accused persons, stolen LCD, laptop, I-Pad, 2 mobile phones and 2 motor cycles were recovered.

They were involved in more than 45 cases of burglaries according to police reports. They disclosed that they were drug addicts and resorted to buglury in order to fund their drug habits. They said they sold off the stolen property to passers by at a very low price.

MODUS OPERANDI

The accused persons divulged that they usually took one juvenile with them to identify locked houses and then broke in to steal the valuables at early hours in the morning. To avoid any suspicion, they said they rode around in a auto rickshaw.



ALSO READ:

6-yr-old Indian girl braves axe-wielding robber in NZ burglary

Delhi: 6 burglars arrested, 6 pistols, 11 cartridges recovered

Bengaluru: Burglar arrested for raping techie in PG centre





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By PTI: From Youssra El-Sharkawy

Cairo, Sep 29 (PTI) A senior Egyptian judicial official today survived an assassination bid when a car bomb went off near his house here, injuring three persons.

The bomb exploded in New Cairo, eastern suburb of Cairo, injuring two civilians and a policeman, security officials said.

The explosion took place only 200 meters from the vila of General Prosecuters assistant Zakaria Abdel Aziz.

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The bomb was targeted at Aziz and was described by officials as an assassination attempt.

The bomb disposal team immediately reached the site of the explosion to search for any more bombs.

The injured were transferred to hospital and were said to be in a critical condition.

Egypt has witnessed a series of terrorist attacks that targeted policemen, judges and military personnel in different parts of the country.

The attacks began after the 2011 revolution that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak and increased after the removal of Islamist ex-president Mohamed Morsi. PTI YES ASK ASK

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The Supreme Court slammed Karnataka for refusing to follow its orders and directed it to release 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu from tomorrow onwards.

By Anusha Soni: After a defiant Karnataka refused to follow its earlier order, the Supreme Court today again asked the state to release 6,000 cusecs of water from the Cauvery river to Tamil Nadu every day from October 1-6.

The apex court pulled up Karnataka, saying the "wrath of law will fall upon" the state if it defies its order on Cauvery.

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"Karnataka is flouting order and creating situation in which the majesty of law is dented," an angry Supreme Court noted.

Also Read: Cauvery water row: After Supreme Court order, Karnataka has these options before it



SUPREME COURT ALSO ISSUES DIRECTIVE TO CENTRE

The apex court also issued a directive to the Centre asking it to form a Cauvery Water Management Board by October 4. It asked Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry to give names of members for the board by tomorrow.

The order came a day after the meeting between the states moderated by the Centre on sharing the Cauvery water remained inconclusive.

Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti on Thursday said both the states have been asked to jointly propose a solution to the Supreme Court. She added that she would be willing to participate in an indefinite hunger strike if tensions rose again over the issue.

Also Read:

Cauvery water row: PM Modi, not Uma Bharti should chair meeting of chief ministers, says Karunanidhi

Cauvery crisis: Karnataka opposition says don't release water to Tamil Nadu

Centre intervenes to settle Cauvery dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu

Cauvery row: Karnataka welcomes Supreme Court's directive to hold talks with Tamil Nadu

Supreme Court to Karnataka: Release Cauvery water for 3 more days





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Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton today expressed concern over possibility of Pakistan's nuclear arms falling into the hands of jihadists.

By Press Trust of India: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the possibility of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of jihadists, which she said was "a threatening scenario", according to a media report.

"Pakistan is running full speed to develop tactical nukes in their continuing hostility with India," the former secretary of state told a close door fundraiser in Virginia in February, The New York Times reported, citing 50-minute audio audio being hacked from the Democratic Party's computers.

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"But we live in fear that they're going to have a coup, that jihadists are going to take over the government, they?re going to get access to nuclear weapons, and you?ll have suicide nuclear bombers. So, this could not be a more threatening scenario," the daily quoted Clinton as saying in the audio that appeared on The Washington Free Beacon website.

During the fund raiser, responding to a question on modernisation of nuclear weapons, the daily said, Clinton went beyond the question to warn of an emerging nuclear arms race, naming Russia and China as well as Pakistan and India.

MOST DANGEROUS DEVELOPMENTS



"This is one of the most dangerous developments imaginable," Clinton said.

Such remarks from the former secretary of state gains significance in view of an interview of Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif to the local TV channel in which he threatened to unleash nukes against India.

"If our safety is threatened, we will annihilate them (India)," Asif had said.

The United States appears to have taken a strong note of Asifs recent statements on use of nuclear weapons.

"Nuclear capable states have the responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities," a state department official told PTI when asked about the statements being made by the Pakistani leader.

NUKES IN PAK ENTANGLED IN TENSIONS



Earlier, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had said while India has generally shown responsible behaviour with nuclear technology, China conducts itself professionally, nuclear weapons in Pakistan are entangled in history of tensions.

Meanwhile, in an opinion Consequences of Pakistani Terrorism: Raids signal that India won?t tolerate more attacks in Kashmir, The Wall Street Journal warned that Pakistan increasingly risks becoming a "pariah state" if it continues with policies.

It said if Pakistan wants to prevent an escalation of violence it needs to shut down the terror groups it continues to support. "That should start with Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two major jihadist groups that operate openly in Pakistan and are prime suspects in these attacks," it said.

BOTH GROUPS SUPPORTED BY MILITARY



"Both groups are supported by its military despite being on United Nations lists of terrorist organizations," the daily said in the hard-hitting opinion piece, a day after India carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir against terrorists planning to sneak into the country.

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The Journal noted that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently offered closer economic and diplomatic ties to Pakistan as long as it stops supporting terrorism.

Pakistan, it argued, needs a new vision centered on improving the lives of its people.

Also read:

How 25 Indian commandos crawled through enemy territory to kill 38 terrorists in PoK

Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike

India hits Pakistan back with surgical strikes across Line of Control, 38 killed





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A petrol bomb was hurled at a place of worship in Coimbatore in protests following the death of Hindu Munnani leader.

By Akshaya Nath: Following the unrest in Coimbatore after the murder of Hindu Munnani leader Sashikumar, a petrol bomb was hurled at a place of worship in Coimbatore today.

Sashikumar was murdered a week ago following which widespread protests were witnessed in Coimbatore. Many buses were burnt and areas populated by other communities were attacked. A senior party official also said that there will be another Gujarat like scenario if attack on Hindu Munani party workers were not stopped.

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The terrible situation also saw Sashikumar's wife attempting suicide yesterday. Though she was rushed to a hospital in critical condition, she has now returned home.

Also read: Communal tension in Coimbatore, mobs on looting spree, petrol bombs hurled at shop



Coimbatore in the past week has seen many high level party members visiting the place. BJP leaders like Pon Radhakrishnan, Tamilisai Soundarajan and H Raja visited the deceased leader's family and offered their support.

The police officials who have been monitoring the city have already arrested more than 200 Hindu Munani workers for the attacks carried out on last Friday. The police officials stated that the investigations to track down the killers of Sashikumar were underway.

Also read: Coimbatore: Tensions rise as Hindu Munnani leader hacked to death





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Jeremy Corbyn has been re-elected as Leader of the Labour party, with 61 per cent support of 600,000-plus members. He was the unlikely winner of the leadership election (mandatory after each general election) last year. He did not win over a majority of the MPs, but he did win among trade union members and ordinary members by a large majority. That led to a challenge from another MP-then, for a second time, Jeremy Corbyn won. Labour MPs still do not support Corbyn by a majority. The struggle will continue.

Meghnad Desai

The contrast with the Congress is striking. Here are two parties, more than a century old - coming out of the same tradition of social democracy - which have ruled their nations but are now stuck in opposition. The Congress does not conduct contested elections for leadership; not since Nehru had Tandon removed from the post of party president back in the early 1950s. Since Nehru's death, the party has lost such democratic credentials as it had. Now, leaders are not elected in a contest voted on by all members. If some naive member dares to stand as rival candidate, as H.N. Bahuguna did against Indira Gandhi, he is quickly reduced to being a non-person. Only the Family can be leaders. They are crowned in a family succession. Even with coronation, the young prince is reluctant to take office or allow someone else to take over the job he does not want. The idea that ordinary members of the party could vote for leadership, and someone (not a dummy candidate) could offer a rival platform, is alien to the Congress. It is not alone. But following its example, it would be hard to find any Indian political party with an internal democratic structure.

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Labour has had a continuous relationship with India. Keir Hardie, its first leader, supported India's cause in the years even before the party was formally founded in 1900. Charles Bradlaugh was another early supporter. Being an atheist, he refused to take an oath, and had to get re-elected several times to persuade the House of Commons to change the law. Gandhiji went to his funeral while he was studying to be a barrister in London. Ramsay MacDonald travelled to India and wrote about his impressions. Clement Attlee was a member of the Simon Commission, and went on to be the Prime Minister who moved the India Independence Bill in the House of Commons, weeks before August 15, 1947. Indian independence was a promise in the Labour Party's manifesto in the 1945 general election.

There were many contacts between the two parties before 1947. Nehru knew Stafford Cripps, who invited many politicians to meet him at his country residence when Nehru was occasionally in UK in the years before independence. This continued after independence. Aneurin Bevan, the firebrand Welsh MP, was another personal friend of Nehru's. Indira Gandhi had a good friendship with Michael Foot, who led the Party in 1980-83. There are fewer contacts nowadays of the same intimacy. David Miliband, the former foreign secretary, did spend time with Rahul Gandhi when he came to India, but no one has come since.

The Congress took a lot of ideas from the Labour movement. Harold Laski, LSE professor and Chairman of the party in 1946, was so influential that it was said a seat was kept for him at meetings of the cabinet in India. Fabianism was at the heart of Nehru's political philosophy, and it shaped his economic policy. It helped India that Labour was in power in the UK during the early years of independence, between 1947 and 1951.

Even so, seventy years down the line, both these parties are in trouble. Congress had thirty uninterrupted years in power from 1947-77, and returned to power in 1980-89, and then in coalitions from 1991-96 and 2004-14. The Labour party held power from 1945-51, 1964-70, 1974-79 and 1997-2010. Now, Labour has lost two successive elections and has only 231 seats in a 650-member Parliament. The Congress has done much worse, with 44 out of 545 seats in the May 2014 election. Labour has a popularly elected leader who does not command the support of a majority of Labour MPs. The party has been infiltrated by left-wing factions-Trotskyists, Communists, Anarchists. These members have no time for elections and coming to power. They want a revolution. By all accounts, despite the largest number of members, Labour is unlikely to increase its share of seats, much less come to power.

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The Labour party is split between the moderate parliamentary wing, which wants to win power, and the membership, which rejects the current political set-up and wants fundamental radical change. Even if polls are grossly wrong sometimes, it is unlikely, on present opinion poll evidence, that Labour will come to power anytime soon. Of course, the party has often been out of power in its 116-year history. Also, each term in office leads to a lot of criticism of the leadership, as the high ideals are never realised. After each defeat, the party has a long and adversarial debate as to where it went wrong and why the leadership is to blame. Then new leaders get elected. After losing four general elections between 1979 and 1992, it moved from radical left to dead centre under Tony Blair, and went on to win three elections in succession, for the first time ever. But again, after the loss in 2010, the party rejected Blairism and ventured leftwards into election-losing territory. That leftward journey has not ended yet.

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By coincidence, Congress is in the same boat, but for very different reasons. If Labour is having an ideological war, Congress is drained of all ideology. For many years, Congress has been the arrangement for coming to power and holding it. It does not know what to do out of power, nor how to articulate its policy. Indeed, it has not even had a serious debate (even an inner party report A.K. Antony submitted has not seen the light of day) on why it suffered the biggest defeat ever by any party in India that had ruled before the election. The only mantra was: 'It is not Rahul or Sonia's fault'.

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So the Congress is drifting from day to day, waiting for Rahul to take his inheritance seriously. There is no discussion in the party on policy issues, except to shout "Priyanka lao, Congress bachao". Over the years, various promising members have seen the impossibility of moving the Family out and formed their own factions. The NCP and TMC are two examples. No doubt others with ambition will also realise that Congress is a closed shop as far as the top job is concerned.

Thus, Labour has problems of a hyper-active membership and constant ideological debates, in a world that has moved away from the social democratic agenda. Congress has a dormant membership and somnolent leadership. The country is hungry for decisive leadership, as Narendra Modi showed by his campaign and the stunning victory that followed. In the Congress, there is no debate, no policy initiative, no hunger for power. If Labour has too much internal party democracy, Congress has too little.

Hence by 2020, both parties will be where they are, if not further down. Congress has been reconciled to playing a junior role in multi-party coalitions, as Bihar shows. It has no ambition left. It just hopes that the country realises its mistake and restores to Rahul his due Prime Ministership. It will have no such luck. Congress will not lead the anti-Modi coalition in 2019.

Labour MPs know now that the die is cast. They will have to either split the parliamentary party, and form a new party with 150/170 members out of 231, or else face mass slaughter in 2020. Most likely, the instinct for survival will win out, and the party will split. There is a lot to play for yet. There is life after death.

Congress will not change. Perhaps more members will leave and form regional parties with 'Congress' in the title. That is the most likely scenario, unless, somehow, the Family renounces its hold. But this is unlikely. There is no life after death for the Congress party.

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By PTI: Mumbai, Sep 30 (PTI) In a drive against hotels, restaurants and roadside food stalls flouting civic norms, the BMC has seized about 3,405 illegal LPG cylinders after raiding a total of 26,270 eateries here in last seven months.

"Out of the 3,405 illegal cylinders seized, we have handed over 1,495 cylinders to HPCL and 1,455 cylinders to BPCL," a senior official of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said.

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The rest 455 illegal cylinders would be handed over to petroleum companies in the coming days, he said.

Following the fire at a hotel in suburban Kurla, in which eight persons were charred to death in October last year, the BMC had launched a crackdown on the eateries which run their establishments using illegally procured LPG cylinders.

From March to September this year, the civic body carried out raids against roadside food stalls and hotels.

"Our teams comprising fire officials and designated officers are visiting each ward, checking the eateries for irregularities and if found flouting the norms, we seize their cylinders as well as other belongings," BMCs deputy superintendent of license (western suburb) Prakash Jadhav said.

"We levy the fine as per laid down procedures and return their belongings, but confiscate their cylinders and handcarts. We return the cylinders to petroleum companies and crush the carts," Jadhav said.

Before kick-starting the crackdown against eateries which flout norms by using illegal cylinders, BMC chief Ajoy Mehta had sent a letter to senior officials of the petroleum companies and asked them to follow extra caution before selling the LPG cylinders to non-bonafide users.

"It seems that petroleum companies are not cross-checking the details of cylinder buyers and the sale of cylinders to non-bonafide customers is very rampant," a senior official of the BMC alleged.

"The distribution of gas cylinders is very important as well as critical, but these are being misused which is putting peoples lives under threat," he said.

The crackdown team of the civic body also faced stiff opposition during raids at some eateries.

"Few days back, when our team was carrying out its raid, few food stall owners attacked us and our men got injured," Jadhav said, adding that a case was filed with Kandivali police and the offenders were booked under relevant IPC sections. PTI APM GK SRY

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The accused had escaped from Howrah Police last month and was arrested in Delhi with the help of Kalkaji police.

By Tanseem Haider: Howrah Police succeeded in arresting a criminal namely Rahim Ali wanted in more than one and half dozen criminal cases of dacoity and robbery, with the assistance of Kalkaji police station. The criminal had escaped from custody of Howrah Police on August 26, 2016, during police remand.

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Ali, a resident of DC Dey Road, Kolkata was arrested by the Howrah Police in a case on September 1, 2015. On August 24, 2016, he was taken in police custody but he managed to escape.

Also read: Delhi on high alert after Indian Army carries out surgical strike across LoC



DELHI POLICE HELPED



A team of Howrah Police came to Delhi and sought the help of Kalkaji police station to look for the accused. In view of the gravity and nature of the offence committed by him, a team of police in Delhi started investigating.

On the basis of technical surveillance and local sources, both the teams finally found out the hideout of the accused and succeeded in arresting in front of Kalkaji Mandir Metro Station.

Also read: Kolkata Park Street rape case: Main accused Kader Khan arrested from Delhi





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During search, 24 iPhone 7 pieces, four iPad pros,30 pieces of iPod touch, 661 grams of gold, among other valuables were recovered from the accused.

Rs 50 lakh worth iPhone 7s were seized from the smuggler apprehended at the Hyderabad airport. Photo: Reuters

By Ashish Pandey: Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of customs at RGIA, Hyderabad seized Rs 50 lakh worth iPhone 7s, gold and other valuables from a passenger.

SMUGGLER ARRESTED

The passenger arrived from Dubai by Air India flight (AI 952), was arrested under the Customs Act.

As per reports, the AIU sleuths detained the person for questioning early on Thursday after he walked towards the 'green channel'.

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VALUABLES SEIZED



During search, 24 iPhone 7 pieces, four iPad pros, eight iPhone 7 battery cases, 30 pieces of iPod touch, 661 grams of gold, 5.2 kilos of saffron (Iranian origin), 2880 foreign manufactured cigarettes and 700 RMD brand gutkha packets were recovered from the accused.



Later the person revealed that he was smuggling the gadgets for his Mumbai based customers.

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The national capital has been put on high alert in the aftermath of the surgical strike by the Indian Army across the LoC.

A security personnel outside the India Gate. (Picture for representation).

By India Today Web Desk: A day after Indian Army's surgical strikes across the LoC, the national capital-Delhi- has been put on high alert.

The Delhi police has stepped up security across Delhi with the police having been asked to remain alert and increase patrolling at market places and tourist spots.

Also Read: How 25 Indian commandos crawled through enemy territory to kill 38 terrorists in PoK

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SECURITY BEEFED UP, PATROLLING INCREASED

Vigil at important spots like bus terminals, foreign embassies, railways stations, IGI airport and metro stations has been stepped up.

Emergency response vehicles, bomb squads, SWAT teams and anti-terror unit have been asked to be on guard.

Security and surveillance around India Gate, Chanakyapuri, Connaught Place and areas under Parliament street police sation have been beefed up.

The Delhi police is making sure that CCTVs are properly working, particularly the ones located at crowded places.

It is not just Delhi Police, but also CRPF, railway police and linesmen who have been asked to stay on alert. There will also be patrolling throughout the city for few days.

Also Read: Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike

THURSDAY MEETING ON SECURITY SITUATION IN THE AFTERMATH OF SURGICAL STRIKES

On Thursday afternoon, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh met CISF Director General OP Singh and MoS Kiren Rijijy to discuss the security situation in the aftermath of the surgical strikes by the Indian Army.

Following the meeting, on Thursday evening, senior police officers met with the intelligence agencies' officials and discussed the possible threats and the steps to be taken.

Later, barricades were placed at major roads, with the Delhi police keeping a tab on every vehicle.

Delhi Police said that the security was beefed up also keeping in mind the festive season. Officials said with Dusshera, Durga Puja and Diwali round the corner, the threat perception was naturally higher.

Delhi was also put on high alert after the Uri attacks and the threat is greater after the surgical strikes carries out by the Indian Army.

Also Read:

After India's surgical strike, Pakistan violates ceasefire yet again

India hits Pakistan back with surgical strikes across Line of Control, 38 killed

Indian Army strikes as they unfolded across Line of Control

Who strategised the Indian Army's surgical strikes across the LoC?



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Pro-IS Telegram Channel Names "Apostates" to be Killed in Germany and All Over the World
If he had had better eyes, John Baekelmans would have been a pilot. But as Chief Technology Officer at Cisco, the Porsche fan flies higher than anyone. And sees far into the future.

He likes to talk about the Internet of Things and the connectivity of tomorrow. Preferably at the wheel. The Porsche 911 Cabriolet is just the thing. The eyes behind the rimless spectacles are wide awake. A broad smile carves deep lines in his face. Anticipation is written all over John Baekelmans face. Its early in the morning, and the first rays of sunshine are peeking through a few stray clouds. In Antwerp, Belgiums second-largest city, little is happening at this hour. Baekelmans likes that. He is alone with his thoughts, the city, and the 911 Cabriolet. He, the great 911 aficionado. And then theres his fascination for Carmine Red: Magnificent! And its no wonder: he, like so many, wanted to be a fireman; memories of that youthful passion have stuck with him.

He also had to give up on another dream job from the fantasies of his youth: My eyesight was not good enough for a pilots license, so I thought, Ill build planes instead. In the end, Baekelmans became an engineer, but instead of jet airplanes he opted for streams of data. The 47-year-old Belgian rose at Cisco, one of the worlds largest network companies, to the position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Today he leads hundreds of engineers and programmers. Hes responsible for the Internet of Things, also referred to as Industry 4.0. Why him? I have the gift of explaining complex things in a simple way.

Today cities are extremely complex ecosystems

The Internet of Things is a gigantic network in which everything is connected to everything else. Far from being a process that will happen sometime in the vast future, it is happening now, and we are all a part of it. It took thirty years to connect 17 billion smartphones, laptops, and other devices with one another, says Baekelmans. In four years it will be around 50 billion. Currently there are approximately 2.5 million apps, and every week another 15,000 are added. Yet for all the fascination with the endless possibilities of the connected reality, Baekelmans is always thinking about people first. I want to improve society, he says, albeit without much in the way of hippie undertones. And what better place to begin than in our cities?

John Baekelmans in front of his Porsche 911 Cabriolet in Antwerp

For Baekelmans, cities today are extremely complex ecosystems that are in vigorous competition with each other. People are drawn to places where mobility and security are paired with a green environment. Intelligent cities understood that long ago and are acting accordingly. Cities like London, Baekelmans present home. He moved there when his company was commissioned to provide the technology and connectivity capabilities for the 2012 Olympics. That was quite a challenge with four billion spectators, the threat of terrorism, and no second chance.

Through the Flemish city in the 911

While he regards London as a clever example of a connected city, in his home country of Belgium he sees many missed opportunities. John Baekelmans grew up in Antwerp, in the region of Flanders. As he drives through the Flemish city in his 911, he bemoans the mobility options available to the citys just over half a million inhabitants. Suddenly he changes the subject: We should perhaps start by having some Frietjes somewhere. Why not? He knows a place. The best Frietjes in the cityand the universe. The grin returns to his face.

Beyond its Frietjes, Antwerp is world-renowned for the processing of diamonds and the trade in gemstones. The city also has one of the largest ports in Europe and a noteworthy medieval centeryet its mobility problem is massive. Not one single bridge spans the river Scheldt. There are a scant two tunnels for cars and trucks, and one more for pedestrians. People looking for parking account for 30 percent of total city traffic. If all free parking spaces were equipped with a sensor, says Baekelmans, an app could easily direct the driver to the nearest free parking spot. That could help people save a huge amount of time, energy, and frustration.

The completely connected urban project Songdo

He speaks from experience. In Hamburg, he and his people have succeeded in connecting the shipping companies with the port and the trucks. Satellite navigation systems forecast potential congestion, software indicates the best detour and specifies the ideal loading time. More asphalt is a very old-fashioned solution, says the IT expert as hea mere stones throw from the Port of Antwerpsurveys the latest hot spot in the city: Het Eilandje has wonderful museums and popular restaurants. Its just not connected.

Digital mind: Baekelmans talks about the Internet of Things.

With connectivity, the options available to city planners seem all but unlimited. And nowhere has it been as aggressively implemented as in Songdo, South Korea, home to the worlds first smart city. Conceived on the drawing board, the city 40 kilometers southwest of the capital Seoul includes 400 connected buildings housing some 75,000 families and more than half a million workers. Every aspect of daily lifework, sports, leisure, school, shoppingcan be reached from the residents homes in 12 minutes or less by foot. And at least half of the pedestrian route goes through green areas. Street cameras are used to ensure security and monitor compliance with speed limits. The heat in the buildings turns on automatically when cold weather arrives so that residents on their way home are greeted by pre-warmed rooms. And those who wish to improve their English skills can book remote language instruction with qualified American teachers via the Internet.

This extremely efficient orientation isnt lively enough

With this greenfield development, they were able to start from the ground up, enthuses Baekelmans. In cities like Antwerp, however, which has grown organically since the Middle Ages, urban planning is much more difficult. Still, for all his enthusiasm for the completely connected urban project, Baekelmans wouldnt want to live in Songdo over the long term: This extremely efficient orientation isnt lively enough for me. But he does admire the courage, resolve, and pioneering spirit of the South Koreans. We Europeans are too afraid of making mistakes, so many times nothing happens at all. But if we dont change and continuously develop innovations, well be left behind, and much more quickly than we might imagine today, he says.

He relentlessly extols the courage to enact change in conversations with governments and mayors throughout Europe, practically pleading with them. Yet he pays no attention to the lout who cuts in line at the Frietjes stand: Total waste of energy. You have to choose your battles. Privately, some time ago he took up the fight against a few extra pounds he was carrying around. Ive lost 15 kilos since I started running 80 kilometers a week, and gained a huge amount of vitality. But as much as I enjoy running, I love cars like this, he rhapsodizes as we leave the stand and he slides behind the wheel of the 911.

The fire department: Still seen as a mans world

The route takes us out of Antwerp on the E19 heading south towards Kontich. The city of 20,000, says Baekelmans during the short drive, is perhaps not the most exciting destination. But it plays a central role in his life. For the past 21 years, the techie has been a member of the volunteer fire department. Ill tell the boys in a minute that this is their new fire engine, he quips. What connects a globally active software engineer so intimately with such a down-to-earth activity?

The Porsche 911 Cabriolet in Carmine Red

The fire department is unquestionably mostly still seen as a mans world, says Baekelmans. Jokes, hugs, and pats on the shoulder are daily fare, he says. Admiration too. For the worldly visitor. For the Porsche. But not for his profession and career. Our connection is on a different level, explains Baekelmans. We have saved lives together. Weve seen people die. We completely depended on each other. This pure, unsullied experience helps him in his business life. If youve ever had to make life-and-death decisions within seconds, the decision for or against a multimillion dollar business deal seems relatively straightforward.

Getting people to change their lives

At some point, John Baekelmans was actually offered the position of leading the Antwerp professional fire department. He turned it down. My wife knew that it wouldnt be the right job for me, he says during the drive back to Antwerp. I have to think in unconventional ways, stay innovative. Im very happy among creative people and happy when people confront me with seemingly insoluble problems. He pauses for a brief moment. Then Baekelmans says, Theres one thing Im very good at: getting people to change their lives. He smiles, broader than ever.

Info Text first published in the Porsche customer magazine Christophorus, No. 378 Text: Bart Lenaerts // Photos: Sven Cichowicz
DOL Rule Directs Federal Contractors to Provide Paid Sick Leave

The agency said it means up to 56 hours of paid leave per year will be offered to an estimated 1.15 million employees, including 594,000 workers who currently receive no paid sick leave.

The U.S. Department of Labor published a final rule Sept. 29 that directs federal contractors to provide paid sick leave -- but the rule says only "new" contracts are covered by the new rule. A contract awarded on or after Jan. 1, 2017, is "new," unless the federal government issued a solicitation for the contract prior to Jan. 1, 2017. To eligible, an employee must be working on or in connection with a covered contract in order to accrue and use paid sick leave under the rule. "That means you are covered if you are doing the work called for in the contract or you are doing work necessary to the performance of the contract even if it is work not specifically called for in the contract," according to DOL, which added that the paid sick leave rule does not apply to contracts for the manufacturing or furnishing of materials, supplies, articles, or equipment to the federal government (contracts that are subject to the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act) and applies only to contracts, or portions of contracts, with the federal government performed within the United States (defined as the 50 states and the District of Columbia).

Employers that must provide sick leave are required to inform employees in writing at least at the end of each pay period or each month of the amount of paid sick leave they have available; DOL said the rule means up to 56 hours of paid leave per year will be offered to an estimated 1.15 million employees, including 594,000 workers who currently receive no paid sick leave.

Eligible workers will be able to use paid leave if they are sick, need to take care of a sick family member, must see a doctor or take a family member to a medical appointment, or for reasons related to domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking. "Part of the basic bargain of America is that if you work hard, you should be able to take care of your family," said U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez. "Paid sick leave helps workers recover from illness or be there for their families, whether it's to take an elderly parent to the doctor or to stay home with a young child with a fever. It allows working families to focus on what really matters most without having to worry about the next paycheck."

The final rule implements Executive Order 13706, which was signed by President Obama on Sept. 7, 2015. DOL reported the rule gives employers latitude in how to best adapt the paid sick leave requirement. For example, they can allow workers to accrue leave over time or to frontload leave for ease of administration.

About 22 percent of the American workforce is employed by companies that do business with the federal government.

For more details, a fact sheet, and Frequently Asked Questions, visit http://www.dol.gov/whd/govcontracts/eo13706/.
FCC Revamps Wireless Emergency Alert System

"We applaud the Federal Communication Commission for voting to approve changes to the Wireless Emergency Alert system, including expansion of the character limit from 90 to 360, support of embedded URLs and phone numbers, improved geotargeting, support of transmission of alerts in Spanish, and the creation of a new alert classification for public safety messages," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said after the FCC acted.

The Federal Communications Commission on Sept. 29 adopted rules to update and strengthen the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system used to deliver critical warnings and information to Americans on their cell phones, with the agency said the rules will promote the wider use and effectiveness of the service, especially for state and local authorities.

The rules will:

Increase the maximum length of WEA messages from 90 to 360 characters for 4G LTE and future networks

Require participating wireless providers to support inclusion of embedded phone numbers and URLs in all WEA alerts, including WEA AMBER alerts

Require participating providers to deliver the alerts to more granular geographic areas

Create a new "Public Safety Messages" class of alerts to convey essential, recommended actions that can save lives or property (for example, emergency shelter locations or a boil water order)

Require participating providers to support transmission of alerts in Spanish

Make it easier for state and local authorities to test WEA, train personnel, and raise public awareness about the service

The commission noted the public safety benefits of including thumbnail-sized photos and symbols in Wireless Emergency Alerts and, in a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, asked for comments on how to achieve this in public safety messages in particular.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, for one, welcomed the changes. "We applaud the Federal Communication Commission for voting to approve changes to the Wireless Emergency Alert system, including expansion of the character limit from 90 to 360, support of embedded URLs and phone numbers, improved geotargeting, support of transmission of alerts in Spanish, and the creation of a new alert classification for public safety messages," he said in a statement released after the FCC acted. "These new rules will improve our public safety officials' ability to send critical information to the public during an emergency. But there is still more work to do. We will continue to advocate for further improvements  supporting more languages, embedding photos and multimedia, and more accurate geotargeting for WEA messages  to ensure these alerts are as effective, efficient ,and life-saving as they have the potential to be."

WEA was launched in 2012. The new rules update the technical and procedural requirements FCC adopted for WEA in 2008.

For more information on WEA, visit www.fcc.gov/guides/wireless-emergency-alerts-wea.
In a viral video, an accused black magician is seen shaking a leg to the famous Bollywood song 'I am a disco dancer' in front of the Charminar MLA and police who sit back and enjoy the performance.

By India Today Web Desk: The scamster, known as 'Disco Baba' is one among the 16 people who have been arrested in Hyderabad for extorting money from scores of people by claiming they had 'divine powers' that can salvage them for suffering.

But the arrest did not deter an accused named Anwarullah Khan aka Disco Baba to shake a leg in front of the police and MLA at a police station in Hyderabad.

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The self proclaimed unani doctor duped Syed Iftikar Hussain off Rs 35 lakh, claiming that he found a 'treasure trove' inside his house after performing black magic. The Deccan Chronicle reports that 'Disco Baba' conned the man by tactfully placing fake gold biscuits and diamonds to extort money from the man.

In the viral video, Disco Baba is seen dancing in front Charminar MLA Syed Ahmed Pasha Quadri and police officers.

According to the New Indian Express, the accused donning the dazzling white outfit claimed that he was a close relative of Charminar MLA Quadri and requested the police to free him of charges. The report adds that the legislator and police forced him to dance just to prove that he was a dancer who preformed for stage shows.

But the police denied any such claims and said that local reporters present at the station forced the accused to put up a show. The Deccan Chronicle quoted south zone DCP V Sathyanarayanaas saying, 'After a press conference some journos asked the suspect why his name was Disco Baba and why his dress was so flashy. Then he replied that he was a disco dancer. Since he had been cheating people the journos asked him to prove what he said. Then he danced to a song. Police never compelled him to dance. It was done as per the request of the journo.(sic)'







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Level of happiness seen to deteriorate further by 3%.

Where job happiness indices are concerned, Singapore ranks last when compared with her six neighbours, a survey by JobStreet.com has found.

The Philippines comes in first place, with Indonesia in second and Thailand in third. Hong Kong, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore take the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh places respectively.

A 10-point scale rating, the Job Happiness Index reveals candidates sentiment ratings and future outlooks as to how happy and satisfied they are and will be with their jobs. Singaporeans averaged a score of 5.09.

A total of 67,764 participants across 7 countries were surveyed last June.

Respondents are a good mix of position levels ranging from fresh graduates to supervisorial and managerial positions and even top management, from all around the country, having stayed in their current jobs for varying lengths of time, and representing various specializations and industries. The survey clues in companies on the factors that make employees leave or stay in a company and the programs and systems they can create to establish a better working environment.

Vietnamese were found to be among the most optimistic with the nations Job Happiness Index expecting a 15% increase from the score of 5.48 to 6.30 in the next 6 months. Prominent regional financial centers such as Hong Kong and Singapore are expecting a 5% and 3% drop respectively in the next 6 months.

According to the survey, convenient work location, having good colleagues and company reputation are three key factors underpinning job happiness. This points to the importance of building a strong company culture and assembling the right team of talents who work well with one another.

Other reasons for employee happiness are salary, benefits, leadership, career development, job security, culture, corporate values, trainings, work schedule, and immediate superior.

Conversely, a lack of training and career development and poor leadership were identified as the causes of unhappiness. For top management, this underscores the need to invest in employees and their long-term career advancement. It is also necessary to place competent and well-respected employees in leadership positions and further groom them so they can undertake their new responsibilities.

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To increase job happiness, Singaporean respondents recommend getting a new job (30 percent), desire a higher salary (19 percent), and receiving recognition from the company (9 percent).

Among the Singaporean respondents, fresh graduates (5.3) are found to be the happiest employees in the Singapore workforce. This is in contrast to the lowest-scoring C-suites, who averaged a 4.4. Personnel working in the sciences, hotels and restaurants as well as admin/human resources sectors are found to be the happiest.







More From Singapore Business Review


(Bloomberg) -- Vietnams TTC Group, a sugar, energy and real estate conglomerate, is stepping up production of the sweetener and seeking new investors as it gears up for a Singapore listing of one of its sugar units in five years that would raise about $600 million.

Ahead of the planned share sale, the groups Thanh Thanh Cong Tay Ninh SC or TTC Sugar, will merge with another sugar company to create a combined entity worth $200 million and Vietnams largest sugar company, group officials said in an interview. TTC Vice Chairwoman Dang Huynh Uc My, who has relocated to Singapore to spearhead the sugar units listing, declined to identify the local merger partner but said the deal would be completed early next year.

We aim to become a global player, thus we wanted to list in Singapore, Chief Executive Officer Thai Van Chuyen said in an interview in the companys headquarters in Ho Chi Minh City. The company has already expanded its sugar operations beyond Vietnam to Cambodia and soon to Laos, he said.

A supplier to Vietnam Dairy Products JSC and Kido Group Corp., TTC Group is already moving to increase sugar production. The company is buying a sugar mill with a designed annual capacity of 70,000 tons and a 6,000-hectare sugarcane plantation from HAGL JSC, with the $100 million deal expected to close in October. The mill will start operations in December and production at the plantation is expected to increase five-fold, with one third of output shipped to Europe in the next five years, said My.

TTC Sugar is among the 10 sugar units owned by the conglomerate that contributed 53 percent of its pre-tax profit last year. The group expects its sugar business to generate $35 million of its 2016 pre-tax income of $62 million. My said the parent conglomerate will invest an additional $600 million in its sugar business through 2020.

Global Player

The company is also targeting a 2.5-fold expansion in its Cambodian sugarcane plantation to 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres). The expansion will lower production costs by one-fifth, making Vietnamese sugar products more competitive with imported and black-market sugar products in the country, she said.

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Compared to regional rivals such as Thailand, Vietnams sugar industry has been hobbled by a lack of scale, said Bui Nguyen Cam Giang, an analyst at Ho Chi Minh City Securities Corp. Giang values TTC Sugars total assets next year at $327 million and has an underperform rating on the company.

The group is also seeking to boost TTC Sugars foreign ownership to 35 percent from 11 percent during the first quarter of next year, said CEO Chuyen.

TTC Sugar shares rose 0.3 percent Thursday in Ho Chi Minh City. The stock has surged 28 percent this year, compared with the benchmark VN Indexs gain of 19 percent.

Although it hosts over 70 companies from neighboring Southeast Asia countries on its stock exchange, Singapore has yet to have a listing from a Vietnam-domiciled company. VietJet Aviation Joint Stock Co., Vietnams only private airline, has said it plans an overseas listing in either Singapore or Hong Kong after its initial public offering this year.

--With assistance from Jonathan Burgos and Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen To contact the reporter on this story: Mai Ngoc Chau in Ho Chi Minh City at cmai9@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Boudreau at jboudreau3@bloomberg.net, Sebastian Tong, Phoebe Sedgman

2016 Bloomberg L.P.
AFP News

Ukraine's maritime grain exports were halted Sunday after Russia suspended its participation in a landmark agreement that allowed the vital shipments, blaming drone attacks on its ships in Crimea. The July deal to unlock grain exports signed between Russia and Ukraine and brokered by Turkey and the UN, is critical to easing the global food crisis caused by the conflict. The agreement had already allowed more than nine million tonnes of Ukrainian grain to be exported and was due to be renewed on November 19. On Saturday, Russia said it was halting its participation after its army accused Kyiv of a "massive" drone attack on its Black Sea fleet, which Ukraine labelled a "false pretext". US President Joe Biden called the move "purely outrageous" while Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Moscow was "weaponising food". The centre coordinating the logistics of the deal said in a statement that no traffic was planned for Sunday. "A joint agreement has not been reached at the JCC for the movement of inbound and outbound vessels on 30 October," it said. "There are more than ten vessels both outbound and inbound waiting to enter the corridor." Ukraine and the UN have urged that the agreement remains in force. "I call on all states to demand that Russia stop its hunger games and recommit to fulfilling its obligations," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the Russian move "an absolutely transparent intention of Russia to return the threat of large-scale famine to Africa and Asia". "Just today, more than two million tons of food are in the sea. This means that access to food has actually worsened for more than seven million consumers," he said in his nightly address. Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said: "It is vital that all parties refrain from any action that would imperil the Black Sea Grain Initiative which is a critical humanitarian effort". - 'Peddling false claims' - Sevastopol in Moscow-annexed Crimea has been targeted several times in recent months and serves as the headquarters for the Black Sea fleet and a logistical hub for operations in Ukraine. The Russian army claimed to have "destroyed" nine aerial drones and seven maritime ones in an attack on the port early Saturday. "In light of the terrorist act carried out by the Kyiv regime with the participation of British experts against ships of the Black Sea fleet and civilian vessels involved in the security of grain corridors, Russia suspends its participation in the implementation of the agreement on the export of agricultural products from Ukrainian ports," the Russian defence ministry said on Telegram. Moscow's forces alleged British "specialists", whom they said were based in the southern Ukrainian city of Ochakiv, had helped prepare and train Kyiv to carry out the strike. In a further singling out of the UK -- which Moscow sees as one of the most unfriendly Western countries -- Russia said the same British unit was involved in explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines last month. Britain strongly rebutted both claims, saying "the Russian Ministry of Defence is resorting to peddling false claims of an epic scale". Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Saturday Moscow would raise the blasts and the alleged drone attack at the UN Security Council. Moscow's military said ships targeted at their Crimean base were involved in the grain deal. The United Nations Coordinator for the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Amir Abdulla, reported that Russia had notified him earlier Saturday of "its concerns about the safety of movements of merchant vessels" under the agreement. Russia had recently criticised the deal, saying its own grain exports have suffered due to Western sanctions. - 'Massive' attack - Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, said Saturday's drone attack was the "most massive" the peninsula had seen. City authorities said the harbour was "temporarily" closed to boats and ferries and urged people "not to panic". Attacks on Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, have increased in recent weeks, as Kyiv presses a counter-offensive in the south to retake territory held by Moscow for months. Moscow-installed authorities in Kherson, just north of Crimea, have vowed to turn the city into a fortress, preparing for an inevitable assault. In early October, Moscow's bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland -- personally inaugurated by President Vladimir Putin in 2018 -- was damaged by a blast that Putin blamed on Ukraine. The Russian fleet stationed in the port had also been attacked by a drone in August. Russia's allegations Saturday came as the Ukrainian army reported fighting in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions in the east, including near Bakhmut -- the only area where Moscow's forces have advanced in recent weeks. Pro-Russian separatists fighting alongside Moscow also announced a new prisoner exchange with Kyiv, saying 50 will return home from each side. bur-gw/bfm/caw/mca-yad/dva
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  More than 100,000 people in the South Sudanese town of Yei urgently need humanitarian aid amid renewed fighting in the country, UN Refugee Agency spokesperson William Spindler said at a press conference on Friday.

"This is the first time that the population in Yei  primarily farmers living on commercial and subsistence agriculture  has become a direct target of violence, and on suspicion of their belonging to opposition groups," Spindler said. "They urgently need humanitarian assistance."

The security situation for Yei's 60,000 residents deteriorated after violence broke out in the capital city of Juba in July, Spindler explained.
However, the bill could establish other precedents allowing plaintiffs to sue the US government as well, he said.

"I see this as a positive development. It could allow victims of US terror, particularly US drone victims, an avenue to pursue some form of justice," Gottinger stated.

Gottinger pointed out that increased scrutiny within the United States of the Saudi role in supporting the Daesh, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups was long overdue.

"Saudi Arabia has long supported jihadists in the Middle East and Saudi's strict Wahhabi ideology has significantly poisoned Sunni Islam. There is a notable similarity between what the Islamic State [Daesh] teaches in its schools and what one finds in Saudi textbooks."
However, Walsh observed that the legislation would make it more difficult for US diplomats and senior officials to openly participate in the destabilization and overthrow of other governments.

"If a US ambassador or politician is caught in the midst of a regime change demonstration, as in Ukraine in 2014 or in Syria, he or she could be in serious trouble."

The legislation therefore has the potential to restrain or curtail the increasingly open US meddling in the internal affairs of other nations, Walsh explained, proving "very problematic for the US empire."

Independent Institute Center for Peace and Democracy Director Ivan Eland also welcomed the new legislation.

"This bill is a good development. Americans should have the right to sue foreign governments if responsible for harmful behavior that adversely affects them," Eland said.
To carry out this procedure, the scientists removed the DNA from a donor egg, leaving the "white part" full of healthy mitochondria. They then took DNA, the "yellow part," from the baby's mother and inserted it into the donor egg. The resulting egg was then fertilized with sperm from the father to produce an embryo.

"The important thing to note is that we are not modifying the DNA of the either of the donor women. We're just exchanging the material and that's very important because when we talk about three-parent DNA, the woman who's donating the egg only transmits about 0.1 percent of DNA to that resulted child," Fishel said.

"What is very important also to mention, is that not only do we have a child that will outlive the parent, but that child will no longer have to worry about passing on the disease to its children. It's been eradicated from that family, which they may have been suffering from for generations."

Testing on animals and other studies appear to show that the procedure is a safe one. However, the first human experiments carry risks that won't be fully understood until after many years of observation have passed, and must be carried out in a regulated environment in order to properly understand the effects.

"When you're talking about a process that involves eggs, sperm fertilization and the very beginnings of human procreation, we actually won't know the real answer (regarding) the effect on health for many years."
There seemed to be little prior public indication that their marriage was experiencing difficulties, yet it's official, the stars are getting divorced. Now the question many are asking, is just how much the financial settlement will reach compared to some of the most high profile and expensive divorces in showbiz history.

Fellow Hollywood actor Johnny Depp is also going through a simultaneous split from his estranged partner, actress Amber Heard.

As one of Hollywood's most loved power couples, Forbes magazine estimates their combined wealth from the time of their marriage at US$117.5 million, however the total amount since 2004 could be well in excess of US$555 million.
The teen faced two charges of failing to show up at a police station, and six charges for intending to wound the feelings of Muslims and/or Christians, Straits Times reported.

The prosecution argued that though Yee is young, he is aware that his video and photo blog postings are offensive to some.

In one of his videos, he declares, Muhammad, bless his child f*cking soul, and discusses the prophets child bride.
Elections in Uttar Pradesh have always demanded national attention. The most populous state in the country sends 80 MPs, or 15 per cent of all legislators, to the lower house of Parliament-the highest of all states. It has given India eight of its 14 prime ministers. It has been the political home to India's first family, the Nehru-Gandhi clan. It also has India's largest population of Dalits, who have come to replace minorities as the swing factor in India's new electoral dynamics.

Yet the significance of Uttar Pradesh is not limited to its size, its intimidating numbers, or its political legacy. It occupies a central position by virtue of its ability to define, regulate and change the political landscape of the country. The failure of the country's two national parties-the Congress and the BJP-to maintain a steady grip on the state in the past two decades has resulted in the evolution of coalition politics at the Centre. The narrative changed to single-party dominance in 2014 when the BJP and its allies swept 73 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.

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The post-Mandal era has been dominated by two caste-based formations-the Samajwadi Party, which espouses the cause of OBCs, and the Bahujan Samaj Party, formed to give Dalits a voice. This works perfectly with the arithmetic of a state that has 44 per cent OBCs and 22 per cent Dalits. However, the political success of these parties has not translated into any significant improvement in the socio-economic status of the caste groups they claim to represent. The Dalits continue to face atrocities and discrimination, and nearly 40 per cent of OBC sub-castes have never been represented in the state assembly. What's more unfortunate is that the state has remained a laggard on almost all socio-economic indicators and often makes headlines for the criminalisation of politics. In the run-up to elections so far, development has rarely become a part of the campaign vocabulary, eclipsed as it was by talk of caste and sops. Many argue that the BJP's sweeping victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls was a mandate for development. But there is a counter-argument that the catalyst was the Muzaffarnagar riots, which polarised the electorate along religious lines.

What is indisputable, however, is that the state is set to witness a pitched triangular contest for the first time this century. If Congress supporters are to be believed, this could even become a four-cornered contest. What is at stake this time is not just Uttar Pradesh but the future political landscape of India. If either Mulayam Singh Yadav or Mayawati wins, they can take centrestage in the search for an Opposition leader who can challenge the BJP in 2019 as part of a federal front. If Rahul Gandhi can overturn the odds and spring a surprise, it will rekindle his political career. And if the BJP can storm to power, it will believe that another five-year term is Modi's for the taking. But there is a flip side as well. Defeat for the regional satraps could spell their political oblivion. For Rahul, it could raise the clamour for a change in leadership in the Congress. And for Modi, it could lead to the sharpening of knives, both outside the party and within. There is also the possibility of no party getting a clear majority, which could result in strange bedfellows forming a coalition government.

Our cover story scrutinises the strategies of all four big players. Our team of reporters, who tracked the leaders across the state, explain where the parties stand, where they want to go, and what they need to do to get there.

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Although there are still five months to go for the UP elections, the campaigns are on in full swing, which shows how desperate the parties are to claim the biggest prize of all. Even for the state, this is an election like no other. What it decides today could have a huge impact on what India decides tomorrow.

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The US and its Pacific allies have objected to Beijings construction of a series of artificial islands in the South China Sea, concerned that they may be used to establish an air defense zone. China maintains it has every right to build within its own territory and that the islands will be used primarily for humanitarian purposes.

The US Navy has conducted a number of provocative freedom of navigation patrols within the 12-mile territorial limit of these islands.

Earlier this month, Japans recently appointed Defense Minister Tomomi Inada indicated strong support for the Pentagons operations in the region.

"Japan, for its part, will increase its engagement in the South China Sea, for example, Maritime Self-Defense Force joint training cruises with the US Navy and bilateral and multilateral exercises with regional navies," she said.
The world knows well stories of the hardships and sacrifices North Korean defectors endure to escape the secluded state.

Another desperate attempt to flee Kim Jong-Un's regime was reported on Thursday by the South Korean military.

A North Korean soldier successfully crossed the military demarcation line running through the demilitarized zone dividing the North and the South. He reportedly was unarmed, and no exchange of fire took place.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Naik Raj Kishor Singh, who was receiving medical assistance at the armys Research and Referral Hospital in New Delhi, succumbed to his injures on Friday, according to the Hindustan Times newspaper.

A group of militants, that attacked India's base in Uri, according to New Delhi crossed into India-administered northern Kashmir territory from Pakistan. In the wake of the attack, Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh called for isolation of Pakistan from the international community as a state supporting terrorist groups avoiding direct allegations of Pakistani involvement in the Sunday attack. Islamabad claimed to be not implicated in the attack.

On Thursday, the Indian forces conducted "surgical strikes" against suspected positions of terrorists in the disputed areas of Kashmir region under the Pakistani control.
BANGKOK (Sputnik)  A 31-year old female petrol station employee was shot dead by four gunmen on motorcycles at around 12:40 p.m. local time [17:40 GMT] in the province's Khok Pho district on Thursday. When police officers arrived to inspect the scene around 20 minutes after the killing, two bombs  one in a cooking gas cylinder, another in metal pipe  exploded injuring four policemen, two paramilitary ranger volunteers and one civilian, the Nation news website reported.

On Thursday morning, another deadly attack in deep South occurred, when 10 insurgents opened fire on three defense volunteers at Ban Luboh Luasong School in Narathiwat's Sungai Kolok district, killing one person and injuring others.

The bombings in Thailand's top tourist destinations, including Narathiwat, Pattani, and Yala provinces, threaten a vital source of income for tropical Thailand.
An expert at Russia's Pacific Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry in Vladivostok told RIA Novosti that although the situation is hardly dangerous for the whole Seto Inland Sea, the harbor waters environment could be damaged.

The reaction between sodium hydroxide and the water is quite strong, as the disassociation of the sodium and hydroxide ions and the hydration of those ions releases heat, and may cause burns and blindness if gets into eyes. The use of this chemical in concentration which exceeds the limit of 5 percent is regulated by a low in Japan.
Pakistan's military denied any incursion, but did confirm two of their soldiers were killed in clashes with Indian troops, and promised a "forceful response" if there were any repeat operations. The country's foreign ministry also issued a statement, accusing India of "deliberately" escalating tensions.

India maintains the operation took place, and was backed up by credible intelligence that militants were planning to carry out attacks on cities in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. Some reports suggest a number of villages along the border are being evacuated.
Duterte's outburst came as he bristled at warnings he would face questioning by the US president at their scheduled meeting over his war against drugs in the Philippines. In September, human rights groups estimate that more than 2,400 have been killed since Duterte took was sworn in on June 30.

The diplomatic faux pas was widely mocked in US media.

US Ambassador

One month earlier, Mr. Duterte used a homophobic slur to denounce the US Ambassador, Philip Goldberg.

"As you know, I'm fighting with (US Secretary of State John Kerry's) ambassador. His gay ambassador, the son of a whore. He pissed me off," Duterte said.

Goldberg had publicly criticized Duterte for some of his more offensive comments during the presidential campaign trail.

The Pope

In November 2015, Duterte cursed Pope Francis for the traffic his Papal visit to the capital Manila, in January 2015, had caused

"It took us five hours to get from the hotel to the airport. I asked who was coming. They said it was the Pope. I wanted [to say] Pope, son of a whore, go home. Don't visit any more."

Duterte, who was raised as a Catholic, did apologize however.

Apparently the Pope, US, EU and Australian rape victim arr not enough to satisfy Duterte he decided to hit on the Jews now. Wow  Kae Briones (@KaeOfficial) September 30, 2016

Journalists

In June, just weeks after being elected, Duterte spoke at a press conference about the Philippines's record as having a high murder rate for journalists.

"Just because you're a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you're a son of a bitch."

At least 75 journalists have been murdered in the country since 1992.

Duterte's response:

"Most of those killed, to be frank, have done something. You won't be killed if you don't do anything wrong."

Just days earlier, Duterte had said he would pardon himself for mass murder. How?

"Pardon given to Rodrigo Duterte for the crime of multiple murder, signed Rodrigo Duterte," said Mr. Duterte.

Criminals

In June, Mr. Duterte pushed his support for the revival of the death penalty, which he said, would serve as "retribution" for those who committed crimes.

"Do not destroy our children, because I will kill you, simply. Do not destroy my country, or I will kill you," Duterte told international journalists.

As part of his presidential election campaign, Duterte had promised to "kill 100,000 criminals" in his first six months in office, and dump so many bodies in Manila Bay that the "fish will grow fat.

He has also boasted that as Mayor of Davao, he officially sanctioned extra-judicial death squads to kill approximately "1,700" people.

"A leader must be a terror to the few who are evil in order to protect the lives and well-being of the many who are good."

"If I become president, I advise you people to put up several funeral parlor businesses. They will be packed. I'll supply the dead bodies."
Apart from trade relations, travel services between the countries also remain unaffected. Train services between Delhi and Lahore are running on schedule as of now. People on both sides of the border are using the trans-national bus services as usual.

Meanwhile, India cancelled a high level meeting scheduled on Thursday to review its Most Favored Nation status granted to Pakistan.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Afghanistan supports recent surgical strikes carried out by Indian forces across the border with Pakistan, Afghan Ambassador to India Shaida Mohammed Abdali said on Friday.

On Thursday, the Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, India's army director-general of military operations, said that India carried out surgical strikes against suspected positions of terrorists in the disputed areas of Kashmir region under the Pakistani control.

"Pakistan can't stay in a constant state of denial and cannot remain unanswered," the Afghan ambassador was quoted as saying by NDTV.
BEIJING (Sputnik)  As many as 2.09 million people were caught in the disaster area in China caused by Typhoon Megi, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China (MCA) said on Friday.

According to the ministry, 16 towns and 107 counties in the provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian and Jiangsu were damaged by the typhoon. The ministry added that 656,000 people from the affected areas were immediately evacuated, 1,200 houses have been destroyed and about 10,000 building were damaged.

The direct economic loss is estimated at 5.53 billion yuan ($829 million).
By PTI: New Delhi, Sep 30 (PTI) Google will open a new Cloud Region in Mumbai that will help the tech giant offer its cloud platform services to developers and enterprise customers in India.

Expected to be live in 2017, the local region in India will help make Google cloud platform services even faster for Indian customers, Google said in a statement.

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The announcement was made at the Horizon event in San Francisco. However, the company did not disclose any financial details. The business-to-business (B2B) based Cloud services have also been re-branded as Google Cloud.

With more than one billion end-users, Google Cloud has gained significant traction in India and across the world. Its global customers include Snap Inc (formerly SnapChat), Niantic Labs (Pokemon Go), Telus International, and Evernote, among others.

"In India too, we have seen great customer momentum with thousands of customers including major brands like Wipro, Ashok Leyland, Smartshift by Mahindra & Mahindra, Dainik Bhaskar Group and INshorts.com building on Google Cloud Platform," it said.

The move is expected to help the American company catch up with bigger rivals Microsoft and Amazon Web Services in the cloud marketplace in the country.

Setting up of a local data centre within India will also help the company cater to a larger number of customers, especially in government or financial services sectors that often have regulations that do not permit data to be transmitted outside the country. Brian Stevens, Vice President of Google Cloud said that by expanding to new regions, Google will be able to deliver better performance to customers.

"In fact, our recent expansion in Oregon resulted in up to 80 per cent improvement in latency for customers. We look forward to welcoming customers to our new Cloud Regions as they become publicly available throughout 2017," he added.

The company has announced locations of seven new Google Cloud Regions -- Singapore, Sydney, Northern Virginia, So Paulo, London, Finland and Frankfurt -- that will come online through 2017, like the one in Mumbai.

Google has also rebranded its Google Apps for Work as G Suite that will comprise apps like Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Hangouts, and others that are designed for workplaces. PTI SR SVK JM

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One of the Pakistani sources told Sputnik that the hype around the surgical strike had been created just to stop Prime Minister Modi's popularity receding especially after the Kashmir unrest which has gone out of control.

Pakistan believes that the 'surgical strike' is nothing but a political gimmick by the Indian establishment to divert attention from the Kashmir problem, Pakistani government sources told Sputnik.

Sushil Pandit, a Kashmiri activist and expert on Kashmir told Sputnik, "There is no migration from the villages along the border areas after the India's surgical strike as they have nowhere to go. But the people of bordering villages have prepared bunkers in case of war or heavy firing from Pakistan. Panic has gripped the bordering villages on the Indian side of Kashmir. The Indian Border Security Force is on alert. Movement of air force planes has increased. But the fact is that the people of Kashmir are not in favor of another war."

Kashmir, a disputed territory, is the bone of contention between India and Pakistan ever since the partition of the country. But tensions are high on both the sides after the surgical strike by the Indian army.

"the Kashmir situation can only be solved by dialogue. The surgical strike by the Indian Army will definitely weaken the morale of terrorists but for how long. Ultimately we should sit on the table to find a solution," Indian defense expert, P K Hoon told Sputnik.
Afghanistan is in a state of political and social turmoil, with government forces fighting the continuing Taliban insurgency, while other extremist groups, such as the Daesh group, outlawed in many countries including the United States and Russia, have also expanded their activities both in the country and in neighboring states. The instability has persisted in the country since the 2001 US-led invasion to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda.
The output ceiling was set at 32.5-33 million barrels a day for the whole cartel. The date of oil output freeze is expected to be presented at the cartel's upcoming meeting in November. OPEC also decided to establish a technical committee to identify the production volume of individual member-states.

Global oversupply and stagnating demand have caused oil prices to plunge from $115 per barrel in June 2014 to less than $30 per barrel in January 2016. Prices recovered amid Nigerian, Canadian and Venezuelan output outages and growing demand in May, reaching a peak of over $50 per barrel in early June.

Crude prices are currently fluctuating between $40 and $50 per barrel.
"The Algeria agreement reflects the tireless efforts of Venezuela for nearly two years to search of a consensus to stabilize the oil market and reduce the negative effects of financial speculation and futures markets in hydrocarbon production and revitalizes the role of OPEC in the balance of economic and geopolitical forces involved in the global economy," a Thursday statement, released on Venezuelas official presidential website says.

Global oversupply and stagnating demand have caused oil prices to plunge from $115 per barrel in June 2014 to less than $30 per barrel in January 2016. Prices recovered amid Nigerian, Canadian and Venezuelan output outages and growing demand in May, reaching a peak of over $50 per barrel in early June.
As part of the proposed plan, the bank intends to merge its subsidiary, "Mittelstandsbank", which focuses on originating loans to medium-sized German enterprises, with its corporate and markets division. Such a decision might reflect the recent slowdown in the German economy, accompanied by sliding exports, entailing lower demand for credit even despite the European Central Banks (ECB) ultra-accommodative monetary policies.

Commerzbank is also intending to downsize its investment banking operation, with the current level of exposure to financial markets perceived as too risky.

The lender also warned it is expecting a greater amount of loan losses due to the ongoing weakness in the shipping markets. Subsequently, the announced measures will result in 700 mln euros in losses and write-offs in 3Q16 alone.

We have long talked about the need for Commerzbank to cut costs given the benign revenue environment, Nicholas Herman and Andrew Coombs of Citigroup, wrote on Thursday. Were encouraged by these developments. However, the profit targets are ambitious and Commerzbank has a poor track record of delivering.

The banks stock slumped 38 percent this year thus far, and indeed, its track record in overcoming financial challenges to its performance is hardly encouraging. In 2008, Commerzbank acquired Dresdner Bank, and the entailing debt burden resulted in an 18 bln euro bailout. The bank is still partially owned by the German government, having not yet fully recovered from the past crisis.

In 2016, the bank aims to earn 9.8 bln euros in revenue; the figure is expected to increase to 10.3 bln euros by 2020. The return on equity would be 6 percent by late 2020, the bank said.
Michael Poulsen, oil analyst at Global Risk Management Ltd, spoke with Radio Sputnik, calling Wednesday's sharp rise a "kneejerk reaction," after a previous attempt by OPEC to reach an agreement in April in Doha failed amid a disagreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, two of the cartel's biggest producers.

"A lot depends on Nigeria and Libya; how much they're going to bring to the table in terms of increased output since it's mainly some of the other countries that are cutting. If Nigeria and Libya increase their production, the cut will be a little less than what's currently on the cards," Poulsen said.

In addition, it appears that Saudi Arabia has agreed to grant Iran its main condition, of continuing to increase its production to pre-sanctions levels following the lifting of economic and financial sanctions associated with its nuclear program in January.

Last month the energy ministers of Saudi Arabia and Russia met at the G20 summit in Beijing, and agreed to work together to try to stabilize oil prices. If Russia were to join the production freeze, "we could see another leg upwards in prices," Poulsen said.
"China is important to us. We even plan to expand our representative office in China while making layoffs in some other offices abroad," Gorkov told reporters on the sidelines of the International Investment Forum Sochi-2016.

Currently VEB's mission in China is staffed with just two people, he added.
Researchers at the Norwegian Veterinary Institute are teaching horses how to communicate. Twenty-three horses at farms south of Trondheim were taught to "tell" people if they were hot or cold. The Norwegian researchers proved that with a little training horses are able to express whether they are willing to wear clothes or not.

It took behavior therapist Turid Buvik a fortnight to train 23 horses to express themselves on the matter of clothing by pointing the muzzle in three different symbols. A sign with a horizontal black streak meant "horsecloth on," while a sign with a vertical black line meant "horsecloth off." A blank white sign meant no change.

"All horses understood symbols. It is quite unique that all 23 of our horses managed this," Cecilie Marie Mejdell, a senior scientist at the National Veterinary Institute told Norwegian national broadcaster NRK.
KIEV (Sputnik)  The statement comes following the meeting between EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malstrom and Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman that was held Thursday in Kiev.

"European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom announced the decision of the European Commission to improve access to the European market of some positions of Ukrainian goods in addition to a deep and comprehensive free trade area for three years, the statement said.

In July, Groysman said that the additional trade preferences that the Commission was considering at the time concerned critical product categories, such as poultry, agricultural products of animal origin, flour, fruit juices, as well as electrical goods and aluminum products.
PARIS (Sputnik)  The French authorities have decided to strengthen the security at the residence of President Francois Hollande  the Elysee Palace  due to the potential threat of new terrorist attacks, local media reported, citing an internal Paris police order.

Intelligence agencies have reported a serious risk of terrorist attacks on the Elysee Palace, the order said, as quoted by the RTL radio station.

According to the media, the potential attack could be carried out by suicide bombers.
By PTI: Washington, Sep 30 (PTI) Humans occupied South America 14,000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought, according to the recent discovery of ancient artifacts found at an archaeological site in Argentina.

About 13,000 years ago, a prehistoric group of hunter-gathers known as the Clovis people lived in Northern America, said scientists led by Gustavo Politis from National Scientific and Technological Research Council (CONICET) and the Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires in Argentina.

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Previous research suggests that the Clovis culture was one of the earliest cultures in the Americas.

However, more recent research from the Pampas region of Argentina supports the hypothesis that early Homo sapiens arrived in the Americas earlier than the Clovis hunters did.

The evidence for earlier human arrival in the Americas comes from a rich archaeological site in southeastern South America called Arroyo Seco 2.

At Arroyo Seco 2, the researchers excavated ancient tools, bone remains from a variety of extinct species, and broken animal bones containing fractures caused by human tools.

They used radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the mammal bones and analysed the specimens under a microscope.

The analysis showed the presence of limb bones from extinct mammals at the site, which may indicate human activities of transporting and depositing animal carcasses for consumption at a temporary camp.

The bones of some mammal species were concentrated in a specific part of the site, which could indicate designated areas for butchering activities.

Microscopic examination also showed that some bones contained fractures most likely caused by stone tools.

The remains were dated between 14,064 and 13,068 years ago, and the researchers hypothesise that Arroyo Seco 2 may have been occupied by humans during that time.

This timeline, along with evidence from other South American sites, indicates that humans may have arrived in southern South America prior to the Clovis people inhabiting the Americas, but after the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum, the last glacial period, which took place 19,000 to 20,000 years ago.

While the characteristics of some of these archaeological materials could be explained without human intervention, the combination of evidence strongly suggests human involvement.

Humans arrival in southern South America 14,000 years ago may represent the last step in the expansion of Homo sapiens throughout the world and the final continental colonisation.

The research was published in the journal PLOS ONE. PTI SAR SAR

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BERLIN (Sputnik)Police found materials that could be used to make improvised explosive device in a car with refugees detained on Friday on the border between Germany and Austria, local media reported.

"There were objects similar to components for making an explosive device, the decision was made to secure and cordon off the area. The experts established that the objects did not pose an immediate danger, however, the fact remained that the objects found in the car look like materials for an explosive," a spokesman for the local police said as quoted by Bayerischer Rundfunk broadcaster.

The suspicious car with a Polish license plate and a Polish driver was detained on its way from Austria's federal state of Tyrol to Germany. According to the broadcaster, the car carried three Africans from Ivory Coast and Guinea, the driver could not explain purpose of their travel to police.
Asked what compelled him to file his suit, Jung explained that his motivation was deeply personal. "I was born and raised in this region. The air base is located two kilometers from my home. I worked here as a schoolboy and a student, and since the time of the Vietnam War, have felt that a great deal of harm has come from this base. I was born in 1928, and came to know the experience of war, as a child, for myself. For this reason I have always been against war and for peace."

Ramstein, the activist recalled, plays a crucial role in US operations in North Africa and the Middle East, as well as Afghanistan. The base features a satellite relay station (SATCOM), through which all communications between pilots and drone operators in the US and the drones themselves takes place.

"All the data, including video, is transmitted to the US through Ramstein. Without this station, the US drone war would not be possible in its present form," he noted.

Meanwhile, Jung said, "the federal government pretends not to know anything. It points to President Obama's statement that drones do not fly out of German territory  that they are not operated from here. And this is true, but that's not the point. The issue lies in the base's indirect use via the satellite communication station, located on German territory, and without which the drone war would be impossible. But our government shrugs this off, saying that 'we know nothing about this', and 'we trust the words of the US president'."


MOSCOW (Sputnik)The Belgian authorities may include passenger registration for international trains as well as other means of transport in the new security program being elaborated by the government, Belgium newspaper Le Soir reported, citing unnamed sources.

According to the newspaper, The Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER) have already written to Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, Interior Minister Jan Jambon, and Minister of Transport Francois Bellot, to question the practicality of the registration for the railways and its negative effect on the attractiveness of this means of transportation.

The government decided to consider new security measures after a series of blasts hit Brussels Airport and a metro station located near the EU institutions in the center of the city on March 22, killing 32 and injuring over 300 people. The Islamic State jihadist group, outlawed in many countries including Russia, claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Commenting on the matter, Rekas pointed to political and economic repercussions of the fact that about five million Ukrainians currently work in Poland on a permanent basis.

Rekas described the number as a huge minority, constituting almost 13 percent of all Polish residents.

"We are dealing with a classical colonization, which will damage Poland both politically and economically," he said, referring to cheap labor force from Ukraine, which will hamper Poland's economic development but which is supported by the country's political and economic elites.

As a political example, Rekas mentioned the latest developments in Poland, where the money allocated for the financing of Ukrainian schools were used by these schools for popularizing ultra-nationalist ideas related Ukraine's pro-Nazi WWII-era leader Stepan Bandera, who is associated with the ethnic cleansing of Ukraine's Polish minority.

With the planned liberalization of the visa regime, more Ukrainians "already infected with Bandera fluids" will arrive in Poland, "and we will get about 15 percent of the minority harboring anti-Polish sentiments," according to Rekas.

"It seems that no other state has ever made such a total blunder as Poland is trying to commit by supporting Brussels's deadly idea [on Ukraine's visa liberalization]. The history of Polish-Ukrainian relations over the last years will be the history of the largest suicide of the 21st century," he said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The mayor of Oersdorf, a small town in northern Germany, was assaulted by an unknown individual and police suspect that the incident might have a xenophobic background, media reported on Friday.

On Thursday evening, the 61-year-old mayor, Joachim Kebschull, received a blow on his head as he was leaning towards his car parked outside of the town hall, which led him to loose consciousness, the attacker fled the scene afterwards, local police said, according to The Local newspaper.

According to the police, the mayor has received multiple letters of threat since July, due to his plans to allow refugees to move into the town of less than 900 people.
"The outcome of the Referendum itself is not legally binding and for the current or future Prime Minister to invoke Article 50 without the approval of Parliament is unlawful. We must make sure this is done properly for the benefit of all UK citizens. Article 50 simply cannot be invoked without a full debate and vote in Parliament."

October Hearing

A two-day judicial review will be held in the High Court before the Lord Chief Justice on October 13/14 to clarify the constitutional process necessary to trigger Article 50. Gina Miller, the co-founder of wealth management company SCM Private, is the lead claimant in a judicial review claim against the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, David Davis.

"This case is not an attempt to subvert the outcome of the referendum or to keep Britain in the EU. It is about ensuring for the future of this country that the legally correct process for leaving under the UK constitution is followed. There is only one opportunity for this to be carried out and it should be undertaken in accordance with our laws," Miller says.

"If we do not have clarity over the correct legal way to trigger Article 50, it could result in significant legal disputes and uncertainty over the validity of the notification. My case argues that the executive, i.e. Government, should be held to account by ensuring full Parliamentary scrutiny  and a vote by both houses of Parliament on the required Act  before Article 50 is triggered," Miller adds.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The European Union is going to expand trade opportunities for Ukrainian agricultural goods boosting the duty-free export from the country, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said on Friday during her visit to Kiev, according to a press release.

"In Kyiv, Malmstrom is announcing the EU's readiness to offer further market openings to Ukrainian agricultural and industrial products, on top of what is already offered under the Association Agreement. The European Commission is proposing to increase the quantities of duty-free imports from Ukraine for agricultural products such as honey, cereals and processed tomatoes," the European Commission said in a statement.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  No significant changes are expected in oil production in the Danish part of the North Sea amid OPEC agreement to freeze daily oil output, the Danish Energy Agency spokesman Ture Falbe-Hansen told Sputnik on Friday.

On Wednesday, OPEC oil producing countries agreed a preliminary deal on the sidelines of an international energy forum in Algiers, Algeria. The output ceiling was set at 32.5-33 million barrels a day for the whole cartel. The date of oil output freeze is expected to be presented at the cartel's upcoming meeting in November. OPEC also decided to establish a technical committee to identify the production volume of individuals member countries.

"We do not expect that the OPEC agreement will cause significant changes as to the level of production of oil and gas or the level of activity in the Danish part of the North Sea," Ture Falbe-Hansen said.
It's difficult to imagine President Rivlin's long-expected visit to Kiev going any worse for Ukrainian authorities. Arriving late to the official ceremony to meet with President Petro Poroshenko, forcing him to stand around waiting aimlessly, Rivlin then moved on to make a cardinal mistake: to criticize the history of radical Ukrainian nationalism.

Speaking at a special session of Ukraine's parliament, the Rada, the Israeli president pointed out that wartime nationalists from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and other militias collaborated with the Nazis in crimes against Ukrainian Jews.

"About 1.5 million Jews were killed on the territory of contemporary Ukraine during the Second World War," Rivlin said. They died "at Babi Yar, and many other placesMany Ukrainians were accomplices in this crime. Among those who stood out were fighters from the OUN [OUN-UPA, the Ukrainian acronym for the force], who tortured Jews, killed them, and in many cases, handed them over to the Germans."
The long-awaited final signing of the agreement to build a new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point, in southwest England, has come after huge problems financing the deal and major safety issues associated with two other new nuclear plants using the same design.

Two power stations based on the same design as that proposed at Hinkley, in Flamanville, France and Olkiluoto, Finland, have been beset with technical difficulties and are both over budget.

UK government admits renewables are cheaper than #Hinkley https://t.co/s3IV4uNOHP via @energydesk  Keith Taylor MEP (@GreenKeithMEP) September 30, 2016

EDF has been struggling to get building underway at Hinkley Point because the sheer cost of building the plant has been a major sticking point, with British taxpayers being forced to back the deal by providing a guaranteed price of generated electricity from the plant.
Deadline for declaring undisclosed income has expired. The Income-Tax department has collected black money worth more than Rs 65,000 crore from across the country. Andhra Pradesh has topped the list at Rs 13,000 crore.

By Virendrasingh Ghunawat: The bold decision of a surgical strike taken by the Modi government against terrorists from Pakistan has left a strong impact on the mindset of Indians, especially the tax evaders.

Deadline for Indians to disclose their hidden black money under Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) 2016 is over. Sources in the Income Tax department have told India Today that according to the final figures, black money to the tune of above Rs 65,000 crore has been collected from across the country.

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Also read: Income Tax department to intensify crackdown on tax defaulters post Sept 30

The department will recover tax worth around Rs 30,000 crore in its kitty (at 45 per cent) on the declared amount.





MUMBAI RANKS SECOND



Andhra Pradesh has surprised taxmen by beating financial capital city Mumbai to become the state from where the maximum black money has been declared till now. "In the last few hours, an individual in Hyderabad came with a declaration of Rs 10,000 crore, taking the total amount of black money declared in Andhra Pradesh to Rs 13,000 crore", an official said.

Till the afternoon, Mumbai was topping the list, but now stands second with a declared sum of Rs 8,500 crore black money. In fact, sources say two to three declarants till Friday evening came forward with a four-digit amount.



Interestingly, Delhi and Gujarat are closely contesting for the number three position, as both states have recovered an amount of Rs 6,000 crore. As much as Rs 4,000 crore has been collected from Kolkata.



Also read: Income Tax department looks at 14 lakh high-value transactions made without PAN

It is important to note that these are approximate and not exact numbers, and the figures could change after midnight when the deadline of IDS gets over. The official data of black money declared in the country would get released by Saturday morning.



JAITLEY TO HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE

Central Board of Direct Taxes or CBDT will issue a press statement on Saturday with specific numbers and details on the collection of black money. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will hold a press conference on the same subject at around 3 pm and is likely to highlight the success of the Income-Tax department and the Modi government in collecting black money on such a large scale.

However, these figures are much higher than expected, especially when the IDS is being compared with the earlier amnesty scheme of 1997. The then government was able to attract black money disclosure of Rs 33,000 crore with 30 per cent tax and no penalty.

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CARROT AND STICK POLICY



The fact of the matter is the 'carrot and stick policy' of the Income Tax department has really worked on the ground. In the whole of September, at least 20-30 random surveys were conducted by the department on a per day basis across cities. The authorities directed tax evaders to participate in the IDS by luring them with benefits or threatening them with prosecution and penalty after the scheme gets over.

This instilling of fear by the I-T department in the minds of tax evaders has clicked and helped the Centre collect black money at this level.

--- ENDS ---
Weds 5th Oct | LAUNCH PARTY | @pfgtoast October #popup | 50% off 6-9 " DJ til 12 | beer pairing from @BeavertownBeer pic.twitter.com/cOMwsnvU0R  Machine No.3 (@MachineNo3) September 29, 2016

Pretty F****** Good Toast will be based in Homerton for most of October serving toast. And to be fair, it does sound pretty tasty.

Sea salt butter, asparagus, Marmite, melted Lincolnshire Poacher, rose petals, optional pa https://t.co/oofLBNfpPa pic.twitter.com/Qb1N8jaril  P F G Toast (@pfgtoast) September 28, 2016

Toppings range from thyme butter, dark chocolate, water celery, sea salt butter, goat's cheese, wild carrot flowers, sea lettuce Okay, you get the picture! It's no bread and dripping kind of joint, it's more cured beetroot and watercress.

But it's still a cafe selling toast and it joins a growing list of other daft  or maybe unique cafes that have popped up in East London.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)On September 27, five boys aged between 12 and 16 were detained, while they carried plastic toy guns in the Greek capital of Athens. During the detention, police had reportedly ill-treated children because allegedly they were members of "an armed group."

"The alleged ill-treatment of five Syrian refugee children who say they were detained, beaten and forced to strip naked by Greek police for carrying plastic toy guns in the street is a deeply disturbing incident that must be properly investigated," Amnesty International said.

According to the watchdog, during the detention one child was reportedly thrown against a wall and the other one was slapped on the back his neck, all the boys were not allowed to contact their family.
He told the World Nuclear News media outlet that it was an important milestone for the whole project and pointed out that the license meant that both Hungarian and EU standards were met.

"In accordance with the relevant regulation, an international environmental impact assessment procedure was also carried out as part of the environmental impact assessment procedure of the Paks II project," Aszodi said.
The same day, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters "The battle for Mosul has not started yet. [The operations today] are the extension of our support for the coalition." He said that Paris is in talks with the US and other parties to organize the offensive.

"There will soon be the main attack," he said. French Rafale jets flew 32 missions in the past week, supporting Iraqi troops and destroying four targets.

In the area around Qayara, about 30 miles south of Mosul, there are four Caesar artillery systems and about 150 members of the French military, along with logistic and medical teams. The Defense Ministry stated that they are training Iraqi troops and performing tactical missions, but not yet actively engaging in combat.
Two works of Dutch painter, "Seascape at Scheveningen," and "Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen," previously stolen from the Van Gogh Museum of Amsterdam in 2002, have been recovered at a mansion in Naples that belonged to members of an organized crime family, according to International Business Times.

According to a museum statement, the paintings, dated 1882 and 1885, "were recovered during a massive, continuing investigation commissioned by the Italian Public Prosecutions Department, conducted by a specialized Guardia di Finanza team, the team investigating organized crime."

The FBI reportedly assigned the paintings a combined value of $30 million in 2005.
He told Forces TV, "Everyone understands the challenges we have across the country for engineers, particularly. But right now I've got 650 sailors on board the ship all beavering away they're all very excited. We just want to get the ship out to sea, actually!"

When Kyd first arrived on the Queen Elizabeth in May he called captaining the vessel is "without doubt the pinnacle of my career," according to the Royal Navy Website.

Part of the decision to deploy American fighter jets from British warships is based on funding issues the Royal Navy has in acquiring the number of aircraft needed to mount a respectable strike force. Eight F-35Bs have been acquired so far, and another batch is in the process of being purchased.

Kyd said, "We are constrained by the F-35 buy rate even though that was accelerated in Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) in 2015, so initial operating capability numbers in 2020 are going to be very modest indeed. We will flesh it out with helicopters, and a lot depends on how many USMC F-35s come on our first deployment in 2021. But by 2023 we are committed to 24 UK jets onboard and after that its too far away [to say]."
PARIS (Sputnik)  On Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that a number of opposition groups urged to hold rallies after Friday prayers across the globe to protest against reinvigorated hostilities in Aleppo.

"The embassy was informed on a possible protest of Syrian opposition representatives that disagree with Russia's policies. In this regard the French side decided to boost police presence to strengthen security," Anna Shlychkova told RIA Novosti.

The Syrian nationwide ceasefire deal forged by the United States and Russia, which came into force on September 12, was shattered by numerous violations, triggering escalation of hostilities between the Syrian army and militants in the city of Aleppo.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with government forces loyal to President Bashar Assad fighting numerous opposition factions and extremist groups such as the Daesh and Jabhat Fatah Al-Sham (formerly, the al-Nusra Front), both outlawed in Russia and a range of other states.

Citizens of Slayeb Turkman (Latakia province) have received 2.24 tonnes of food (sugar, flour, rice, tea, canned meat and fish). Citizens of Kairun (Hama province) have received 1 tonne of flour. Posts with hot meal and essentials continue their work for civilians who leave the districts of the Aleppo city, which are under control of terrorist armed groups, the bulletin said.
"Terrorists have destroyed the homes of my neighbors, killing many people. They are not Muslims," Sheikh Mohammed Aboud told journalists.

The Bani Zeid neighborhood of Aleppo was liberated from militants several months ago, but it remains a volatile area as extremists consider it key for securing their positions in the eastern part of the city and are doing everything possible to prevent local residents from returning to the liberated areas.
He recalled that last month, the US and Peshmerga forces reached an agreement on the Mosul operation, a deal that stipulates supporting Peshmerga with money and weapons.

"The countries of the international coalition will provide air support for the operation, which we hope will wrap up in a few months," he said.

Mamuzini added that Iranian troops will not take part in the operation because of Washington's reluctance to see them fulfilling this mission.

He also mentioned the Turkmen forces currently trained by Turkish instructors and the Sinjar Resistance Units, a non-political Yazidi militia formed in Iraq in 2007 to protect the Yazidi community in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan.

"The liberation of Mosul may be followed by the sides being at odds over who should be at the helm of Mosul. It is necessary to take relevant measures beforehand in order to avoid a conflict on the issue, Mamuzini concluded.

Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that a joint campaign between the Iraqi army and Kurdish Peshmerga forces to liberate Mosul could begin on October 19.
India will deploy the new French-made fighters in the disputed areas bordering Pakistan and China according to a report.

By Press Trust of India: China apprehends that India will deploy the 36 nuclear-capable Rafale fighter jets to be acquired from France in the border regions of China and Pakistan to enhance its deterrence capability, a media report here said.

WHAT THE REPORT SAYS

India will deploy the new French-made fighters in the disputed areas bordering Pakistan and China, state-run Global Times reported quoting Shenzhen Television.

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A recent report by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said India is the largest arms importer in the world, the newspaper said.

Increased arms imports into the Asian region are primarily due to the unstable security environment in the Middle East and concerns from Chinas neighbours over its rise.

Also read:

Rafale to give Indian Air Force edge over Pakistan



AK Antony slams NDA govt over Rafale deal, says Make In India is gone

India, France ink Rafale deal for 36 fighter jets worth Rs 58,000 crore



WHAT RAFALE JETS ARE



The Rafale fighters in flyaway condition carry tactical nuclear warheads, and this means India's nuclear deterrence capability will be greatly improved, Shenzhen Television reported.

"India also wants to purchase the Rafale technology from Dassault but France refused, meaning France has no intention to help India promote its military industrial system," Zhao Gancheng, director of South Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies said.

While India is rapidly expanding its military capabilities spending an estimated USD 100 billion on new defence systems, many other countries with an advanced military industry are also competing for India's market, such as Russia, the US and Israel, the daily quoted SIPRI report as saying.

Zhao said before this deal with France, India was also considering the US-made F-16s.

"India picked French-made jet fighters because they are cheaper and have a nuclear deterrence capability," he said.

SIPRIs list of the top 10 arms importers for 2011-2015 has nine Asian or Asia-Pacific countries.

Many of Chinas neighbours are also on the list of top 10 importers, such as Vietnam, South Korea and India, he said.

"Due to the South China Sea dispute and the increasing power of the Chinese navy, countries like Vietnam and the Philippines are very concerned, but the US is not helping China solve the problem peacefully," said Song Zhongping, a Beijing-based military expert.

"The US government and media are hyping the China Threat Theory, trying to convince countries in Asia that China is on the offensive," he said.



--- ENDS ---
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russia's military operation in Syria made the US-led international coalition accelerate its counter terrorism efforts in the Middle East and launched real international campaign against the Islamic State (ISIL or Daesh) jihadist group in the region, Samir Aita, a member of the Syrian Democratic Forum opposition party, told Sputnik.

Direct and massive Russian intervention had led to the acceleration of the US support to the forces combating ISIL: the Iraqi army, the Kurdish-Iraqi peshmergas and the Syrian PYD. Then, even without a strong official cooperation between Russia and the US, the Russian intervention marked the beginning of a real international effort to stop the expansion of ISIL. In a year, the possibility was reached for an end of ISIL domination on territories in Iraq  if Mosul is effectively liberated before the end of 2016  and of its weakening in Syria, Aita said.

He underlined that today Syria is mired in a parallel proxy war between regional forces with an immense cost for its population that has become a victim to the conflict.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russian President Vladimir Putin has never voiced any estimates or assessments regarding the duration of the operation in Syria, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.

"The supreme commander of the Russian Federation, president Putin has never voiced any estimates or assessments regarding the duration," Peskov told reporters.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The Russian anti-terrorist operation in Syria, launched a year ago Friday, strengthened Damascus but prevented its evolution toward a compromise with rebels, the opposition's High Negotiations Committee (HNC) spokeswoman told Sputnik.

"It [the Russian operation] is extending the conflict by giving people around Assad the message that the regime is there and Assad will not fall. I mean to people who are hesitant and who are watching closely whether they should continue to support Assad or whether there are indications that he is weakening, and therefore they should go for a compromise," Bassma Kodmani said.

Spokeswoman of the Riyadh-backed opposition group also believes the Russian operation "pushed the moderate groups to use more radical defense in certain areas to protect themselves."
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The Russian campaign in Syria has weakened Islamic State (ISIL or Daesh), but the Wests continued support of "moderate" rebels can reverse stabilization processes underway in the country, German lawmaker Alexander Neu told Sputnik on Friday.

"Islamic State was weakened, but not irreversibly Hence, [whether] Russias intervention has prevented Syria from becoming Iraq or Libya is not yet decided. The West and Turkeys interest in supporting the insurgents and terrorists still exists," Neu, a member of a parliamentary defense committee said.

With no political settlement in sight, Syria runs a considerable risk of collapse of its statehood, Neu, of the far-left Die Linke party, said.
"Sergey Lavrov has said that it isn't worth waiting for the Western coalition to decide on a peace deal, that we should be decisive and persuade the Syrian government to agree to a peace deal. However, unfortunately, the terrorists won't allow the establishment of a truce."

Sheikholeslam said that Russia's aerial anti-terror operation was a key turning point in the fight.

"We all know that the Syrian army's aerial equipment is old and wouldn't be able to carry out so many precise airstrikes. Russian aviation has provided support from the air, clearing the way for the government ground troops and the Syrian resistance."

"The Russian air operation was an undoubted success, particularly given that the Americans provided support to the terrorists, and advocated a no-fly zone in fear of losing their air corridor. It is clear that the US initiative to create a no-fly zone is aimed against the Russian Aerospace Forces and the Syrian Air Force, and not their coalition aircraft."

Sheikholeslam said that Iran's decision to allow Russia to use its air base during the course of carrying out anti-terror operations is testament to Tehran's resolute opposition to terrorism.

"Iran has approved and welcomed the participation of the Russian Aerospace Forces in the anti-terror operation in Syria since the beginning. We offered the Russian air force our technical assistance for carrying out flights, and welcomed the initiative to turn the Hmeimim base into a permanent Russian base."

"No NATO members have provided their military airports for the Russian Aerospace Forces to carry out the anti-terror operation, and Iran did (the Hamadan base). After all, we have one aim  the fight against terrorism. That's why we will show support and help Russia under any circumstances," Sheikholeslam said.
At the end of the day, it says, the first-hand command on the ground was carried out by Damascus while the Russian operation was only "assisting" and "supporting."

However it was clear from the very beginning that without control over the ground operation any aerial bombing loses its sense.

This is the main reason for the failure of the US and NATO efforts, which relied heavily on their advanced technologies which failed to prevail over the supposedly weaker adversary.

Besides, the newspaper notes, over time the military actions had been aligned with the political targets which, in turn, modified the overall aims, at times even in the middle of the military operation. The website cites as an example the ongoing operation in Aleppo.

Some of the tasks, achieved in full, were not set beforehand but were developed on-the-fly.

Amongst these successes is the rejuvenation of the Syrian Army, which, upon the launch of the Russian aerial campaign was in dire state.

On three of its major frontlines it was all about the physical survival of the country: in the Lattakia Governorate, where the militants were planning an assault from the mountains on the coastal plain and the cities of Lattakia and Tartus which would have resulted in the loss of the largest agricultural area and access to the Mediterranean Sea.

Secondly, the Aleppo Governorate, which was cut off from supplies and was being defended by a rag-tag resistance force of bleeding and encircled government army units and local self-defense forces.

The loss of one of its largest cities could have overturned the political situation in Syria and the neighboring area.
Paying a visit to the Syrian capital, RIA Novosti correspondent Rafael Daminov noted in his report that in Damascus, "one might forget that this is a frontline city. Cozy restaurants are beautifully illuminated, people are shopping, traffic controllers strictly enforce traffic rules, and a fragrant aroma floats through the city, strongly reminding us that in the Arab world, Damascus is called the 'City of Jasmine'."

"You ask me about the attitude in Damascus toward the support provided by the Russian military to our army," a 40-year-old Syrian man named Hadi, the owner of a famous local cafe, told Daminov.

"Well picture this; a year ago, after it was announced that your country would be supporting the Syrian army, I saw the following scene: a street trader walking down the street with his cart of drinks, and out of the blue loudly crying: 'Allah, take care of Russia and give it eternal strength!' That is how people here reacted to Russia's support in the fight against terrorism!" the cafe owner exclaimed.
Russia is taking all necessary measures to avoid civilian hardship in Syria amid an ongoing military campaign there, Sergey Lavrov said.

"We are taking all the necessary precautions to avoid civilian casualties. Collateral damage was caused not by us, but you know who. At the same time, as I said we are doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties in any scenario. If that happens, we are very sorry about this, but each charge should be thoroughly investigated," Lavrov said in an interview with the BBC World.
Jose Maria Gil, counter-terrorism expert at the Madrid-based International Security Observatory noted the transparency and logic of Russia's actions in Syria.

"The Russian operation in Syria has definitely played a positive role in the Syrian conflict," he told Sputnik.

"Russia's actions in the country are transparent and logical. Their main purpose is to eliminate terrorism. One of the major changes which happened due to Russia's interference into the conflict is that other countries, and the US and its allies in particular, have been forced to act more transparently and efficiently," the expert said.

Jose Maria Gil also noted that through diplomacy only, Russia forced Turkey to resort to a more restrained policy in Syria.

While commenting on the failures to cease the hostilities on the ground, the expert said that these issues should be addressed, first of all, to the western coalition which is "extremely unwilling to cooperate with Russia."

"Until all the players unite their efforts to fight against terrorism, the bloodshed will continue. However I hope that common sense will prevail," he said.

Rafael Gonzalez Crespo, Spanish Colonel, writer and expert in Eastern Europe however told Sputnik that while Russia's aerial operation is a "step in the right direction, it is not enough to succeed in the fight against terrorism."

"There is a need for a ground operation in Syria. However there will be no stability in this Middle Eastern country until there is a consensus between all the parties to the conflict, which so far pursue absolutely different purposes," he said.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)The recent agreement on ceasefire in Syria, brokered by Russia and the United States, collapsed last week because Washington was from the very beginning unwilling to implement it, the Syrian Defense Ministry told Sputnik on Friday.

We think that the supreme humanitarian interest requires any cooperation and coordination among all the countries and powers with the aim to combat terrorism What is important here, is that different sides express seriousness and credibility regarding the resolution of this issue, the things that were absent in the implementation of the last Russia-US-brokered deal, where the US side was not serious and was reluctant to carry out the agreement, the ministry's press office said.

The ministry urged Russia and the United States to finally work out a full-fledged and lasting agreement that would put an end to the suffering of Syrian people.
Top commanders, from the Army and the Air Force, have confirmed to India Today that they actually went in without giving any name to the operation.

By Jugal R Purohit: What was Operation (Op) Cactus Lily? What does Op Neptune Spear denote to you? While the first depicts the finest hour in India's military history when the armed forces acted to create Bangladesh by breaking up Pakistan in the 1971 war, the second stands for the daring, cross-border raid by United States Navy SEALs which killed Osama Bin Laden inside Pakistan, in May 2011.

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It is only natural to ask the name India gave to the unprecedented surgical strikes it carried out on Pakistani soil in the early hours of September 29. Top commanders, from the Army and the Air Force, have confirmed to India Today that they actually went in without giving any name to it. "Honestly, we did not give any name to this mission. I don't want to go into the details but there was no name. It is not a necessity if you ask me," said a senior commander.

PERPLEXED?

Major General Dhruv Katoch (Retd) who headed the Indian Army's think-tank, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) in the national capital reasoned, "I am hardly surprised. There is a good reason for this. The essence of this operation was in its stealth and speed. Thus it must have been a word-of-mouth exercise which only a handful of individuals would have known about". Typically, Katoch said, it is the planning staff the decides what name to lend to an operation. With the concurrence of the commander, the choice is frozen. While the name need not always have a reason or rationale, sometimes it may just, in odd ways. "To give you an example, we named the invasion of Hyderabad in 1948, which led to the Nizam's surrender and the state's integration into India, Op Polo. This was because Hyderabad had a lot of polo grounds then," he stated.

Also read:

After surgical strikes, Pakistan mobilises its reserves; India readies matching response

'Most aggressive action from India in years': What international media said about surgical strikes



How Ghatak platoons from units attacked in Uri helped commandos in surgical strike



However it was also added that a name may actually be provided now. "These troops deserve to be felicitated and thus a file will be made and all processes will be done so we assume a name may just be given," said a source.

Another reason why no name was provided, Katoch said, could be because this was a high risk operation. "Attacking multiple launch pads in an alien territory is not easy, no matter what training you undergo. There are chances of things going awry and may be India wanted to maintain deniability, just in case things went wrong," he said.



FAMOUS OPERATIONS IN INDIA

Among the more famous operations in India, rank Op Blue Star which saw the Indian Army breaking the siege of the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984, Op Black Tornado which saw multiple operations to decimate terrorists in Mumbai during the November 2008 attacks and Op Vijay which was used for the integration of Goa into the Indian mainland in 1961 as well as the Kargil war in 1999. Internationally, Op Desert Storm was the code for a US-led mission to evict Iraq from Kuwaiti soil in 1991, Op Enduring Freedom remains the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan against Al Qaida and the Taliban among others.

--- ENDS ---

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By sticking up for the Syrian government, Russia has strengthened its influence in the country and in the wider region, Renad Mansour, a former adviser to Iraqi Kurdistans Regional Government and currently fellow with Carnegie Middle East Center, said.

"Russia has gained considerable leverage in Syria and the Middle East more generally, as Putin has outplayed Obama," he told Sputnik.

"It also has shown to the United States and its coalition of terrorist sponsoring countries that Russia is a major player in international community," Lajos Szaszdi agreed.

MOVING FORWARD

Although the immediate threat to the Syrian statehood has been averted, the outlooks for its future remain uncertain after the recent nationwide ceasefire effectively collapsed. The White House warned Moscow earlier this week that it was close to ending cooperation with Russia on Syria amid resurgence in violence.

"Only if the big powers involved come to an agreement the situation can be stabilized," Heinz Gaertner, academic director at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs, told Sputnik. "You cannot leave the negotiations to the militias, and the Syrian government for that matter."

Renad Mansour said that compromise between external actors was a likely solution. This would probably mean that President Bashar Assad would have to stay, an outcome that is certain to anger the opposition.

"That may not be perceived as great by some Syrians. You will have close to 1 million dead and millions more displaced, only to try to go back to how it was at the start in 2011," he said.
The city of Homs which served as a militants stronghold for many years and even was regarded by many as the capital of the uprising, finally capitulated in the face of the irresistible advance of the Syrian army.

The militants defending the city were offered a choice: lay down their weapons and surrender in exchange for amnesty or leave the city with their families and travel to other militant-held areas. It should also be noted that such evacuees were allowed to retain their small arms.

As of now, a total of 130 militants accompanied by their family members have left the area and headed for the town of El-Dara El-Habira, located in the northern part of the Homs region.


DAMASCUS (Sputnik)The Castello road is the last remaining access route to Aleppo. According to the ceasefire deal brokered by the United States and Russia, which came into force on September 12, the Syrian army and militant groups agreed to withdraw simultaneously from the Castello road.

"It was hard. We had been discussing it for a long time, but at last they [the Syrian government] agreed. They implemented their part of Geneva agreements relating to the Castello road issue," Kinshchak said.

Syria has been mired in a civil war since 2011. The country's government is fighting a number of opposition forces as well as radical Islamist militant organizations, including Daesh, that has gained control of large swathes of land in the country. Daesh is outlawed in many countries including Russia and the United States.
"All this gave the Syrian Army many successes in its anti-terrorist operations in many regions of Syria. to The Russian army has a great military history, Russian officers have a lot of experience which (we can) learn from," the general explained.

"The Syrian army also has experience of fighting a defensive war. In this way, there is an exchange of experience during reconnaissance and military flights, in defense operations and in battles (in different circumstances)  at night, during the day, in towns, mountains, the desert and the forest," Hudur said.

Over the past year the Russian Aerospace Forces have carried out more than 15,000 sorties, RIA Novosti reported on Friday.

Russian airstrikes have killed 28,000 Islamist terrorists belonging to Daesh and al-Nusra Front, 2,000 of whom came from Russia. They also destroyed more than 200 oil processing facilities under the control of Islamist militants, as well as more than 2,000 delivery vehicles used to illegally smuggle oil across the border to Turkey.
The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism (JASTA) legislation could potentially put the key US ally at risk for tens of billions of dollars in liability.

Speaking after Congress' vote, President Obama decried the decision as "a mistake."

He said that it set a "dangerous precedent" for individuals around the world to also try and sue the US government.

CIA Director John Brennan agreed that the bill carried "grave implications" for national security.

"The downside is potentially huge," he added.

The Saudis have lobbied furiously against the bill but to no avail. On Thursday, they warned the US of "disastrous consequences" for relations between the allies.

Yet, less than two weeks ago, the US Senate approved a US$1.15 billion weapons deal with Saudi Arabia, despite widespread allegations that the Saudis are using western-bought weapons to kill civilians in the ongoing conflict in Yemen.

However, political commentators see a shift in the way the decades long US-Saudi relationship is seen publicly. More than ever, politicians are being more vocal about their discomfort over some of the elements of the relationship  including on human rights, as well as allegations of complicity in global terror.

Never before have so many Senators gone on record supporting a rethink of the US-Saudi relationship. Didn't win, but a strong message.  Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) September 21, 2016

Democrat Senator Chris Murphy, lambasted the connection before the weapons deal vote, earlier this month: "There is a U.S. imprint on every civilian death inside Yemen, which is radicalizing the people of this country against the United States."

The YouGov poll also asked Brits whether they think the UK too, should rethink its official ties with Saudi Arabia.

Again, almost a 1/3, 32%, said that the UK should be "less friendly" with the Saudi regime.

However, 35% said they were happy for the relationship to remain as it is. That's despite numerous allegations from human rights groups throughout 2016, that UK weapons sold to the Saudis are being used to kill civilians in the Yemen.

"When human rights abuses are noted we will suspend arm sales  starting with Saudi Arabia" #Lab16  Jeremy Corbyn for PM (@JeremyCorbyn4PM) September 28, 2016

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said during the Labour Party conference this week, that if elected, he would drastically change the relationship.

"I make it clear that under a Labour government, when there are credible reports of human rights abuses or war crimes being committed, British arms sales will be suspended, starting with Saudi Arabia," Mr. Corbyn announced.

For the families of those who were killed in 9/11, the announcement that they now have the right to sue Saudi Arabia may seem like progress. However, with the Saudis furiously denying any involvement, it's unclear whether the families will ever see a penny of compensation from the regime.


DAMASCUS (Sputnik)Russias information assistance to Syria helps to unveil the truth about the continuing conflict in the country against the "forgery and falsification" in the world and Arab media, Syrian Information Minister Mohammed Ramez Turgeman told Sputnik Friday.

"Russias help [is] not only logistic, military and humanitarian, it also includes information sphere. Syria is facing the misrepresentation of facts in world and Arab media and media empires, which are engaged in forgery and falsification of what is happening in Syria. Therefore, Russias information assistance has come in order to demonstrate the truth, and played a very important role in this area. It is necessary to thank Russia, its government and people for the moral support in combating this extremist idea," Turgeman said.

Russia has been conducting an aerial campaign against terrorists in Syria since September 30, 2015 at President Bashar Assad's request. Russian military aviation had conducted more than 9,000 sorties by March 2016, which have significantly reduced or even stopped terrorists' efforts to sell oil from the occupied territories, destroying hundreds of terrorists' oil facilities and thousands of petroleum carriers.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Some 5,262 US troops will be in place to support Iraqi forces in the upcoming battle to capture the city of Mosul from the Daesh terrorist group, the US Army said in a press release on Friday.

The number includes the 615 additional forces deployed by President Barack Obama earlier this week, the release explained.

"The addition of more than 600 additional troops in the coming weeks will bring the force management level to 5,262 US troops," Director of US Department of Defense Press Operations Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said in the release.
Having destroyed its initial set of targets, including terrorist command centers, communications, weapons caches, oil depots and IED labs, the Aerospace Defense Forces switched its focus, hitting Daesh-controlled oilfields, pipelines and refineries, as well as oil trucks carrying stolen Syrian oil to Turkey.

Late Winter/Spring Surprise: Putin Calls for Cessation of Hostilities

In February, Vladimir Putin made an appeal to halt the fighting between Syrian Army forces and the US and Gulf State-supported 'moderate rebels'. A ceasefire was agreed on February 22, stepping into force on February 27 and applicable to all forces except Daesh, Nusra, and other groups listed as terrorists by the UN.

The ceasefire resulted in a severe drawdown of Russian operations in the country, with Moscow even ordering the Ministry of Defense to begin to withdraw Russian forces starting in mid-March. Journalists soon remembered that the Russian president had hinted at such an eventuality in advance. In October, shortly after the start of the operation, Putin had stated that Russia's task was "to stabilize the legitimate government and establish conditionsfor political compromise." With the Syrian ceasefire, that process seemed to have begun.

On March 17, Alexander Prokhorenko, a Russian Spetsnaz officer tasked with locating targets for airstrikes in the Palmyra area, was killed after ordering an airstrike on his position when he realized he was surrounded by Daesh forces. For this feat he was posthumously awarded the title Hero of Russia.

Two weeks later, the Syrian Army and allied militia, supported by Russian airpower, completely liberated Palmyra, which had been captured by Daesh in May 2015. In April, Russian sappers were then sent to the UNESCO World Heritage site to defuse nearly 19,000 mines, booby-traps and IEDs. In this way, Russia not only played an important role in helping to save the priceless artifacts from being further defiled, but in cutting off Daesh's profits from the sale of antiquities to black market dealers.

Scorching Summer: Aerospace Defense Forces Deliver Aid, Continue Pinpoint Attacks

In May, Evgeny Lukyanov, deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, summed up the state of the Russian operation, calculating that of the estimated 80,000 militants in Daesh and al-Nusra's ranks, 28,000 (35%) had been killed by the Syrian Army and Russian air attacks since September, with the US-led coalition eliminating another 5,000 over the previous two years.

The late spring and early summer were filled with rumors that Saudi Arabia and/or Turkey were on the verge of intervening in the conflict. Accordingly, Russian forces maintained their presence in Syria, launching selective attacks, most actively in the northern region of Aleppo, where Syrian forces eventually succeeded in surrounding the terrorist-held portions of the city of Aleppo, Syria's second city.

In late July, Syria and Russia launched a massive humanitarian operation in the city, including humanitarian corridors meant for the evacuation of civilians, and a special one for militants wishing to leave the city. Russian and Syrian forces paradropped and drove in food, medicine, and other essentials to civilians in the militant-held portions of the city.

In August, the Russian Black Sea Fleet joined the operation, launching missile strikes on al-Nusra (which renamed itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham).

Meanwhile, aircraft were deployed to Iran's Hamadan Airbase to hit Daesh positions in Deir ez-Zor, a city which has been besieged by the terrorists for over two years. Finally, Turkish forces entered northern Syria, ostensibly for an operation to liberate the Daesh-controlled city of Jarabulus from the terrorists. Syria and Russia signed an agreement to make the deployment of Russian air power in Latakia permanent.

September: Ceasefire Hangs in the Balance

Just prior to its one year anniversary, analysts summarized that the Russian military operation in Syria. Aerospace Defense Forces jets, bombers and helicopters flew over 15,000 combat missions, destroying thousands of enemy strongpoints and assets, and killing nearly 30,000 militants, including 2,000 terrorists with Russian passports, 17 commanders among them.

Unfortunately, the Russian military has also paid a heavy human cost. 20 servicemen lost their lives  including five who died in an attack on Mi-8 military transport helicopter in August.
He also pointed out that it would be impossible to implement a so called Libyan scenario in Syria, and if the US did try and repeat it, it wouldve brought about an "even greater chaos than we see in Libya today".

"Libya and Syria are two different animals, theyre two different circumstances. You cannot do with a no-fly zone in Syria because of the locations of various factions and groups. It just doesnt work, as opposed to Libya where there was a line being drawn between Benghazi and Tripoli. But that is not the case here in Syria," Maloof explained.

He further remarked that the events which transpired during the last few weeks serve as a perfect example of how difficult it is to work out a strategy to resolve the Syrian crisis, pointing out that the US appears to be unable to control the so called NATO rebels which operate in lockstep with Nusra and ISIS (Daesh)  the fact that US State Department John Kirby recently had to admit.

"What happens now is that you have other elements like Saudi Arabia which is so upset with the United States over what just occurred in Congress on the 9/11 vote that any kind of cooperation we can get from them in trying to control not only the terrorists but their financing We can expect Saudi Arabia and Qatar to increase arms (shipments) to those groups, particularly ground-to-air missiles so they can shoot down aircraft. And thats probably what Kirby was alluding to the other day about body bags going back to Russia and talking about the threat to Russian aircraft," Maloof surmised.
ALEPPO (Syria) (Sputnik)  At least 18 people were killed and more than 60 people were injured in a Friday mortar attack carried out by militants in the Syrian northern city of Aleppo, a medical source told RIA Novosti.

Earlier in the day, the radical extremists shelled Aleppo's residential areas, including the city's districts of Midan, Azizia and Villat.

"By the moment 18 people are killed. Over 60 civilians are injured," the source said, speaking about the casualties.
India is on high alert after the Army announced that it carried out surgical strike across LoC on Thursday. We bring to you six possible ways in which Pakistan may retaliate.

By India Today Web Desk: After the Indian Army's successful surgical strikes across the LoC on Thursday, New Delhi is readying for any possible retaliation by Pakistan.

Although Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif denied any surgical strike, India's envoy officially informed Islamabad about the operation. In fact, Pakistan's UN ambassador Maleeha Lodhi is set to meet UN chief Ban Ki-moon today to inform him about the "surgical strikes".

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With tensions high between the two countries, the Indian government has readied contingency plans.

Also Read: Surgical strikes in PoK: How Indian para commandos killed 50 terrorists, hit 7 camps

Here's a look at six possible scenarios of Pakistan retaliating:

SCENARIO 1

Terrorist strike in India's hinterland



Rationale: Pakistan is keen on spectacular 26-11 style attack to avenge the surgical strike

Fallout : Attack on civilians will draw international condemnation and global isolation

Probability: High



SCENARIO 2

Terror strike on military installations in Jammu and Kashmir



Rationale : High deniability for Pakistan Army. This will again highlight Kashmir problem globally

Fallout : Indian forces on highest alert after surgical strike

Probability: Very high



SCENARIO 3

Pakistan Army opens heavy fire along different LoC sectors

Rationale: Easiest form of retaliation, low risk of further escalation

Fallout : LoC firing will not be seen in Pakistan as revenge for Indian strike

Probability: Extremely high



Also Read: Day after India's surgical strikes Pakistan violates ceasefire in J-K's Akhnoor sector



SCENARIO 4



Tit-for-tat retaliatory strike by Pakistan special forces

Rationale: Pakistan Army keen on showing nation it's ability to defend against Indian attacks

Fallout: Indian forces on highest alert, covert operation can go wrong

Probability: Moderately high



SCENARIO 5

Massive influx of terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir

Rationale: To exploit ongoing unrest in Kashmir valley

Fallout: Terrorists can be intercepted by Indian Army

Probability: Can't be ruled out



SCENARIO 6

Attack on Indian interests in South Asia



Rationale: Pakistan has deep terror inroads in Afghanistan and Bangladesh

Fallout: Seen as a low risk option by Pakistan

Probability: Very high



Also Read:

India hits back: 5 reasons why Army's surgical strikes were historic, by Shiv Aroor

Watch how India carried out military operation in PoK

Claims denied: How Pakistan media is treating India's surgical strike

Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike



--- ENDS ---
On September 19, a UN-Syrian Arab Red Crescent convoy carrying humanitarian aid for Aleppo province was hit by a strike, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). As a result, 18 of 31 trucks were destroyed and at least 21 individuals were killed. A number of US military officials claimed that Russia was responsible, while Moscow called for a thorough investigation into the incident.

The incident took place amid intensified fighting in Aleppo escalating after nationwide ceasefire regime valid since September 12 broke down.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  He added that about 600 people will likely be sent to complete alternative civil service.

"In the fall of this year, 152,000 people will be drafted for military service and sent to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, as well as other troops, military formations and bodies, to complete it," Col. Gen. Vasily Tonkoshkurov told reporters.

According to Tonkoshkurov, in the spring of 2016, 155,000 people were drafted for military service in Russia and 332 people were sent for alternative civil service.
"Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training is being awarded a $10,861,910 previously awarded contract for fiscal 2016 production of AN/SQQ-89A(V)15 Surface Ship Undersea Warfare Systems," the release stated on Thursday.

The contract involves foreign military sales to Japan, the release also noted.
"Syrians do not want to be invaded and dictated to by foreigners," Todd said on Thursday. "That would be worse than existing under the [Syrian President Bashar] Assad regime for all but a few Syrian opportunists who seek personal gain."

The death and destruction inside Syria is already bad enough, Todd explained, as a result of foreign interference by countries like Turkey and the United States, who have backed anti-government insurgents collaborating with the al-Nusra Front terror group.
Previously, Saab received a major order from the Swedish government to build two new model A26 submarines while upgrading two Gotland-class submarines currently in use, with a total price tag of around 10 billion SEK ($1.2 billion). Both are regarded as technically challenging projects that take several years. Additionally, there is a major risk of ballooning costs. This may ultimately become a burden for Swedish taxpayers. Alternatively, crucial elements within the armed forces may face severe cutbacks.

Saab is expected to deliver by 2024, which means that the new submarines will not be put into service until 2025. Meanwhile, it's nearly time to start working on the development of the next major update of the submarines. In order to ease the burden for the tax-payers, the Swedish government pins its hopes on signing partnerships with other countries to share the cost.

So far it has not gone so well. Norway, one of the prospective buyers, made it clear in April this year that it no longer considers Swedish submarines a viable option. Instead, Norway opted to buy submarines from fellow NATO countries, which in practice means either Germany or France.

Saab's board of directors repeatedly tried to play down the importance of the Norwegian refusal. Two weeks ago, Saab CEO Hakan Buskhe told Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet that he personally never expected Norway to become a buyer.
A network of 50 Norwegian organizations, including Save the Children, the Christian Council of Norway, Red Cross Norway and the Norwegian Peace Association, demanded a thorough investigation of Oslo's weapons sales to countries that engage in the Yemeni civil war. Their demand was supported by the Liberal Left Party, whose spokesman Bard Vegar Solhjell also called for a complete halt of sales to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Egypt, all of which are bombing Yemen.

"I see no reason at all why Norway should go on with its weapons exports to some of the countries that are at war, and Yemen war is very brutal, with documented violations of international humanitarian law identified by the UN and other organizations," Bard Vegar Solhjell told Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.

Norwegian export control rules state explicitly that Norway "will not allow the sale of weapons and ammunition to areas where there in an ongoing war or a threat of war, or to countries where a civil war goes on." According to regulations, military equipment will not be exported in case of an obvious danger of weapons being used for repression. Previously, Norway stopped its weapons sales to Israel and Colombia, as well as Egypt and Bahrain during the Arab Spring.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)The representatives of the Russian Defense Ministry and US Department of Defense's (DoD) Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency (DPAA) held a meeting on Friday in the Russian Defense Ministry Central archive, the ministry said in a statement.

"A meeting of representatives of the Russian Defense Ministry and US Department of Defense's Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency (DPAA) was held in the Russian Defense Ministry Central archive. The US delegation was headed by Army Col. Chris Forbes, director of the Europe-Mediterranean regional directorate," the statement said.

The statement added that the servicemen of the two nations had discussed cooperation to define the destiny of the fallen and commemoration activities.
The new invention, developed by OceanPribor Concern and the Krylov Research Center under the auspices of the Foundation for Advanced Research Projects, is essentially a polymer membrane designed to cover the entire hull of a submarine. These new antennas are expected to be installed both on the next generation submarines and on the submersibles that are already employed by the Russian Navy.

A source in the Defense Ministry privy to the development of the new antenna told Russian newspaper Izvestia that the work is proceeding as planned, and that testing is expected to begin soon.

"Were talking about a polymer membrane based on lead, titanium and zirconium oxides that can both absorb and transmit a signal. Essentially, this piezorubber coating transforms the submarines entire hull into a hydroacoustic antenna," the source explained.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Earlier in September, the US House of Representatives approved the draft law On Support of Stability and Democracy in Ukraine, which stipulates enhancing sanctions against Russia and allowing supplies of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine.

"If Russia continues to destabilize eastern Ukraine, time has come to consider the delivery of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine, so that Ukraine would be better able to defend itself," Rasmussen stated on Thursday.
"The erosion of sovereign immunity will have a negative impact on all nations, including the United States," the ministry said in a Thursday statement, as quoted by The Daily Star.

White House spokesperson Josh Earnest told reporters on Wednesday that the US Senate vote to override Obama's veto of the bill was "embarrassing."
This is the first time India has publicly acknowledged such an attack in an indication of the Narendra Modi government's muscular approach to dealing with terror and other security threats.

By Mail Today Bureau: The Indian Army's elite commandos crossed the Line of Control hit terrorist launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir with "surgical strikes", killing 38 jihadis and two of their handlers on Thursday morning in an unprecedented retributive response to this month's deadly attack on the Uri military base.

This is the first time India has publicly acknowledged such an attack in an indication of the Narendra Modi government's muscular approach to dealing with terror and other security threats.



NATIONWIDE ALERT

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The daring synchronised raid triggered a nationwide alert for retaliatory strikes by Pakistan even though the neighbouring country denied that Indian troops crossed the LoC but admitted that two of its soldiers were killed in intensive cross-border firing.

Analysts see the move as a massive departure from India's previous policies of "strategic restraint". The dramatic strikes turned out to be a carefully planned and well-executed operation in which maximum damage was inflicted in a covert offensive action that lasted barely four hours. It started shortly after midnight and was over by 4am, before the break of dawn.

WHAT HAPPENED

The retaliatory response came around 10 days after 18 Indian Army soldiers were killed in a predawn raid by Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists carrying incendiary ammunition in Kashmir's Uri town on September 18.

Sources said Pakistan got alerted only by the end and launched a counteroffensive by opening heavy mortar and artillery fire which continued till 7am. By that time, Indian army commandos had accomplished their task and returned safely. The LoC was crossed at seven locations in four sectors in PoK- Bhimber, Kel, Tatta Pani (Hotspring) and Leepa. Around 25 commandos split in small groups were flown close to LoC in army's Dhruv helicopters and they sneaked across the fence to strike at the terrorists waiting to enter Jammu and Kashmir.

Armed with M4 assault rifles, grenades, smoke bombs, Under-Barrel Grenade Launchers (UBGLs), night-vision devices and helmet cameras, the Indian commandos struck the targets with precision, highly placed military officials said. The attack, which took place around three kilometers inside PoK, caught the jihadis by surprise. Sources said the entire operation was recorded on camera. The footage could be made available later, said officials.

Also Read: Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike

WHY NOW

The army's response came days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a speech that many saw as a call for restraint even as the government went ahead with diplomatic means to isolate Pakistan. R&AW and military intelligence officials had been keeping a sharp eye on the terror launch pads and militant movements across the LoC for almost a week, sources said. A flurry of activities followed the strike, which was made public in the afternoon at an unprecedented briefing addressed by the Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Ranbir Singh.

"Based on receiving specific and credible inputs that some terrorist teams had positioned themselves at launch pads along the LoC to carry out infiltration and conduct terrorist strikes inside Jammu and Kashmir and in various metros in other states, the Indian army conducted surgical strikes at several of these launch pads to pre-empt infiltration by terrorists," he said, adding that the operation was focused on ensuring that these terrorists do not succeed in their design. Singh said he had also spoken to his Pakistani counterpart and expressed concern over the infiltration attempt.

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Also Read: Claims denied: How Pakistan media is treating India's surgical strike

The announcement was made after Prime Minister Modi chaired a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) where the DGMO gave a detailed presentation of the operation.

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar, national security adviser Ajit Doval and army chief Dalbir Singh monitored the whole operation at a war room in South Block. They kept briefing the PM about the developments. A nationwide alert was sounded as the government anticipated retaliation by Pakistani forces. The border areas were vacated and the air force and navy were put on standby.

Also Read: Will Pakistan hit back? Villages close to border being evacuated, leaves of soldiers cancelled



HISTORY IN THE MAKING

India had not crossed the LoC even during the 1999 Kargil war, exercising restraint. But this time the government had given a clear mandate to the army to go across the border and attack.

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The Indian Army maintained that the targets of the strikes were terrorists and asked the Pakistan army to cooperate. The Pakistan foreign office summoned Indian high commissioner in Islamabad Gautam Bambawale and registered a protest against cross-border firing killing two Pakistani soldiers. "Our intent for a peaceful neighborhood should not be mistaken as our weakness," Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a statement. "Our valiant forces are fully capable of defending the territorial integrity of the country."

India's bold move has given new dimension to the tactical operations. Sources said the idea was to make a statement and send a strong message that any strike against India will no longer go unpunished.

--- ENDS ---
Asked how the US-Russia dynamic will change if the two powers are no longer partners in seeking a way forward in Syria, Blinken stated, "That is really up to them, that is up to Russia."

Moscow has pointed to the September 17 US airstrike on a Syrian Army position in the eastern part of the country as a breakdown point in the latest ceasefire.

Last week, UN Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura blamed both, the United States and Russia, for failing to deliver on their commitments under the September 9 ceasefire.

De Mistura claimed Russia was unable to ensure humanitarian access to government-held areas, and the United States was unable to disentangle the armed opposition from al-Qaedas Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front.
On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives voted to override Obama's veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which would allowing Americans to sue foreign governments believed to be sponsors of terrorism.

"Most of the people who were alleged to have been the hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi Arabian," Sheehan pointed out.

Sheehan said she believed the proposed legislation would open the way through action in US law courts to reveal aspects of the September 11 plot that had never been revealed to the US public.

"I hope this paves the way for accountability for the crimes of 9/11 and I hope the families do get justice and some peace."
Both leaders urged the parties to continue respecting the cease-fire, begin the disengagement of forces along the line of contact as quickly as possible, and provide international monitors unfettered access to the entire conflict zone, the release stated on Thursday.

Obama, the release continued, expressed strong support for the ongoing efforts of the Normandy Group to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements to resolve the Ukraine crisis.
"But in more concrete terms, I would have to raise with them Crimea, eastern Ukraine, Georgia, all the other Russian violations of international law."

In 2014, Relations between Russia and the West deteriorated in 2014 amid the crisis in Ukraine, where Kiev forces are fighting pro-independence militias in the country's southeast.

The United States and the European Union imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russia over Moscow's alleged meddling in the Ukrainian conflict and Crimea's secession from Ukraine and reunification with Russia.

Russia has repeatedly refuted the accusations, and warned that the sanctions are counterproductive and undermine regional and global stability.
"That means Iraq, where Human Rights Watch has documented child recruitment by government-backed militia groups, will likely receive billions of dollars in arms and military assistance that could be subject to child soldier restrictions next year, with no strings attached," the watchdog stated, adding that a similar message has been sent to Myanmar and Nigeria.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, South Sudan and Rwanda can get US military training and peacekeeping support but not military financing and arms sales despite alarming situation with using children in military purposes, the activists recalled.

"During President Obamas tenure in office, the number of governments using child soldiers has grown from six to ten. Thats a terrible legacy," the group emphasized.
"There are many outside patrons and we've urged some restraint over the years, but I think it is going to be difficult to restrain the outside supporters of various groups in Syria from doing more," Blinken said on Thursday, when asked if Washington was considering arming Syrian factions if the joint deal falls apart.

Moscow has repeatedly called on Washington to delineate terror groups and moderate opposition armed forces in Syria and warned about the dangerous consequences of providing weapons to Syrian factions.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russia pursues only one goal in Syria and it is countering international terrorism, the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

"In Syria, Russia is pursuing only one specific goal, it has been determined and announced  it is the fight against the international terrorism," Zakharova told Russia's Govorit Moskva broadcaster.
Norwegian authorities agreed that parts of the 200-meter-long fence will be taken down and moved between one and fifteen centimeters. Police blame moist marshy soils and misplaced border marks.

Last week, it became known that parts the border fence with a price tag of 4 million NOK ($500,000) had been set up in violation of Norway's border agreements with Russia. According to the convention that regulates the 196-kilometer-long national border between Norway and Russia, neither state is allowed to build anything within the four-meter-wide zone on either side of the boundary line.

"This [faulty placement of the fence] is a combination of different factors. We have not taken time to apportion blame or liability. We have only ascertained facts and agreed on where the border should go. Now we are about to take technical measures and make an adjustment to the lower part of the fence," Robert Lalla, Senior Advisor with the border and immigration section of Norway's Police Directorate, told Norwegian state broadcaster NRK.
TBILISI (Sputnik)  Pope Francis arrived Friday in Georgia where he is going to meet President Giorgi Margvelashvili to discuss the countrys territorial integrity and boosting the bilateral cooperation, Tengiz Phaladze, the presidents adviser on foreign affairs, said.

Georgia and Vatican as states have common international agenda. One of the most important topics for us is its [Vaticans] position during the 2008 conflict. Of course, we will consider issues of boosting our cooperation Vaticans support for the Georgian territorial integrity and sovereignty is especially important for us. Along with that the popes visit is a great message of peace to the whole region, Phaladze said.
'Tracing the US Military's Presence in Africa'

While the Agadez base will seemingly become the Pentagon's second most important drone site in Africa after Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, the US military presence in the continent is not limited by these two sites.

Back in 2013 John Reed of Foreign Policy magazine called attention to "a handful" of US drone bases "scattered across the [African] continent and the dozens of exercises involving hundreds, if not thousands, of American troops."

According to Reed, there are at least eight reported US drone bases deployed in Africa, which include Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti; a drone base in the Seychelles; Entebbe Airport on the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda; a reported US drone base at Arba Minch, Ethiopia; a drone base in Lamu, Kenya; a reported drone base in Nzara, South Sudan; a Niamey base, Niger; and a US military hub in Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso.

Reed emphasized that the US' regular military activities routinely take place in more than a dozen African states  "from Cape Verde in the West to the Seychelles in the East and Morocco in the North."

In February 2016 The Intercept reported about yet another African drone site established by the Pentagon in Garoua, Cameroon.

For their part, US academics Adam Moore and James Walker of the Department of Geography at the University of California in Los Angeles highlighted that the US has been steadily extending its military presence in Africa since the early 2000s.

"Knowledge of the extent and aims of US military activities in Africa remains murky," they pointed out in their research entitled "Tracing the US Military's Presence in Africa."
From Amitabh Bachchan to Shah Rukh Khan, many Bollywood stars took to Twitter to applaud the Indian Army for their action against terrorism.

By India Today Web Desk: India strikes back. Indian Army conducted surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir on terrorist hideouts in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and killed several terrorists on Thursday (September 29).

ALSO READ: India is very tolerant, we should have done this earlier, says John Abraham

India gave a befitting reply to Pakistan after PoK-based terrorists attacked an Indian Army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri area earlier this month, killing 18 Indian soldiers.

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And this action against terrorism has got the Indian Army the much-needed applause from all quarters of life. And even Bollywood wasn't far behind in showering praises on the Indian Armed Forces.

From Amitabh Bachchan to Shah Rukh Khan, many stars took to Twitter to applaud the Indian Army.

If Big B said, "Don't mess with the Indian Army", SRK thanked soldiers for their action against terrorism.

Here's what they said:



Proud of the Indian Army for successfully carrying out the anti-terrorism operation.Glad the Government took this bold step,was about time! Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) September 29, 2016

Thnx Indian army for the action against terrorism.V should all pray for safety & well being of our Indian soldiers. pic.twitter.com/7gltoNP937 Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) September 29, 2016

Hats off to the Indian army for proving that every Indian life matters.#SaluteToTheArmy Ajay Devgn (@ajaydevgn) September 30, 2016

T 2394 - "Don't mess with the Indian Army" !! Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) September 29, 2016

Salute to the Indian army,we once again stand united for war against terror #ProudIndian Sidharth Malhotra (@S1dharthM) September 29, 2016

Namaskar. Mujhe garv hai hamare veer jawano pe,hamare pradhan matri ji aur raksha mantri ji pe. Jai Hind !Vande Mataram ! Lata Mangeshkar (@mangeshkarlata) September 29, 2016

Congratulations to the indian government and proud of our army for taking the fight to the terrorist #CountryFirst #JaiHind. Varun dhawan (@Varun_dvn) September 29, 2016

Proud of our Indian Army & many Congratulations to our Indian Government for their effective steps against terrorism. #IndiaFirst #JaiHind Riteish Deshmukh (@Riteishd) September 29, 2016

In full support of the Indian Army and its effort to root out terrorism. #respect https://t.co/nzQeZXCi4p Farhan Akhtar (@FarOutAkhtar) September 29, 2016

--- ENDS ---
In this way, they inflamed the conflict by imposing so-called responsive measures, which have become a stumbling block for further negotiations on the Syrian crisis.

It is therefore the Americans who destroyed the trust between the Syrians who longed for peace, and there were many of them, between Bashar Assad and his government, between Russia and the US, he explained.

The politician further suggested that there is another reason behind the attack on Deir ez-Zor.

"We can suggest that there is no unity within the Obama administration and within the US Democratic party on how to strengthen the positions of its presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in her presidential race against Donald Trump," he told Sputnik.

"Thus they need to do something unconventional. What happened in Deir ez-Zor and Aleppo are examples of such unconventional moves which the Americans have made intentionally in support of Clinton's campaign," he said.

The politician further suggested that Obama has lost the control over the situation in the country, which was taken by the "party of war" in the US, which embraces a considerable part of the Democratic party and the country's military and industrial complex which, in turn, supports the Republicans.

Hence there is a conflict between the US State Department and the Pentagon, which can't agree on the Syrian issue. The reason why the two institutions fail to agree, the politician said, is down to the unorthodox actions taken to bolster Clinton's position in the presidential race.

The same reasoning, he said, now defines US foreign policy. For the sake of strengthening Clinton's position, Washington is sacrificing all the agreements between the US and Russia and undermining the peace process in such a complicated geopolitical conflict, he finally said.
The Arctic region that has already become the focus of worldwide attention may soon turn into an apple of discord between NATO and Russia, Mike Scrafton, a retired Australian senior defense official, suggests in his op-ed for The National Interest.

Following the collapse of the USSR "Russia has lost its dominant positions in the Baltic and Black seas and its secure access to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic," Scrafton points out.

"In addition, the maritime approach to St. Petersburg, its second city, is threatened by NATO. Russian access to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic is now susceptible to blockade by NATO. Access to the Atlantic through the Barents Sea for the Russian Northern Fleet at Severomorsk is also vulnerable to encirclement and interdiction by NATO," the former defense official argues.
"This is, indeed, the definition of irony: approving a billion dollar weapons contract with Saudi Arabia, the very same country that lawmakers have now decided is worthy of being sued for crimes related to terrorism. It's more than ironic, it's irrational in every meaning of the word," the American analyst insists.

Commenting on the issue, Jennifer Hunt of the National Security College, Australian National University, warned in her op-ed for The National Interest that "the bill establishes a dangerous precedent of allowing victims to hold liable a state for the actions of its citizens."

"If other nations pass reciprocal measures, the United States could face politically motivated legal retaliation from foreign governments," she claimed.

She echoed CIA Director John Brennan who warned Wednesday that the new legislation will open the door for the other nations to detain American officials.

"[JASTA] will have grave implications for the national security of the United States. The most damaging consequence would be for those US government officials who dutifully work overseas on behalf of our country. The principle of sovereign immunity protects U.S. officials every day, and is rooted in reciprocity," Brennan stressed as quoted by The Washington Free Beacon.

"If we fail to uphold this standard for other countries, we place our own nation's officials in danger. No country has more to lose from undermining that principle than the United States-and few institutions would be at greater risk than the CIA," the CIA chief underscored.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova couldn't help but get the sense that this may very well be the case. In a Facebook post on Wednesday, she noted that all this "ventriloquism about 'body bags', 'terrorist attacks in Russian cities' and 'loss of aircraft' sounds more like a 'get 'em' command, rather than a diplomatic comment."

Speaking to Svobodnaya Pressa, Alexei Filatov, a retired FSB Lieut. Col. and vice president of the International Association of Veterans of the Alpha Anti-Terror Unit, suggested that first and foremost, it's necessary to understand that "terrorism has long been a business." Accordingly, "terror attacks and the threat of terror attacks have been used to deal with many serious economic and political issues."

This reality of global geopolitics began to emerge with the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, which eventually mutated into the Taliban, "not without the participation of foreign 'investors', including the United States," and also includes terror groups al-Qaeda and Daesh, the analyst explained. "I believe that even Daesh was a direct consequence of policy pursued by NATO countries, led by Washington."

In the current situation, Filatov suggested that any Russian action in Syria will necessarily result in a reaction. "Only a blind man cannot not see the connection between the beginning of our campaign in Syria and the destruction of the Russian Airbus A321 over the Sinai Peninsula. I think, unfortunately, that these are related events. The explosion onboard the aircraft was [Daesh's] response to our active participation in the Syrian conflict. Moreover, I think that the more serious our participation, the higher the probability that various attacks against Russian citizens will be planned."

With regard to Kirby's remarks, the FSB officer suggested that "they sound like a direct threat. I have good reason to suppose that some terrorist acts planned by Daesh or the remnants of the Caucasus Emirate can take place with a certain level of participation by US agencies responsible for fighting terrorism."

"In the best case, these US structures will not react to signals about imminent terror attacks on Russia; at worst they may even fund such activities. Again, I cannot exclude the possibility our foreign colleagues becoming involved in the preparation of terrorist attacks on Russian territory."
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During Monday nights first presidential debate, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton brought to light a little-known incident from Trumps past. As the owner of the Miss Universe pageant, the billionaire reportedly chastised former contestant Alicia Machado for gaining weight after winning the crown.

For a candidate who already has some trouble courting female voters, the anecdote could have a negative impact on his campaign. Trumps best move, one might think, would be to apologize and then let the story fade away.

Thats not exactly the billionaires style, however. Not only has he doubled-down on his criticism of Machados weight, hes also adding more fuel to the fire.
"I dont know what he [Lavrov] means by itbut it is absurd," Toner commented.

The Syrian nationwide ceasefire deal, forged by the United States and Russia, went into effect on September 9. It was shattered by numerous violations, triggering escalation of hostilities between the Syrian army and militants in the city of Aleppo.
He stressed that the United States needs to weigh pressuring Russias economy with the ability for the two countries to work together in Syria.

"[That] is another valid option, one among many that were looking at," Toner told reporters when asked if Washington would put new sanctions against Russia over the situation in Syria.
Then, not even two weeks later, everything changed. CNN reported that  US, British, Danish and Australian aircraft may have incorrectly assessed intelligence and targeted a site that killed more than 60 Syrian (Syrian Arab Army soldiers) near Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria. Thats right. Although it is unknown as to why it actually happened, the fact remains that it did happen. And although mistakes do sometimes happen, it also just so happens that the Islamic State was able to capitalize on this mistake, as they launched an attack immediately afterwards. And of course, this meant that the ceasefire was dead.

Immediately afterwards, several things may or may not have happened. Sputnik reported that The Syrian intelligence possesses an audio recording of conversation between Daesh terrorists and US military prior to the Washington-led coalition's airstrikes on the government troops near Deir ez-Zor. While Farsnews reported that-Russian warships fired three Caliber missiles at the foreign officers' coordination operations room in Dar Ezza region in the Western part of Aleppo near Sam'an mountain, killing 30 Israeli and western officers. Several US, Turkish, Saudi, Qatari and British officers were also killed along with the Israeli officers. The foreign officers who were killed in the Aleppo operations room were directing the terrorists' attacks in Aleppo and Idlib. Get that? Foreign officers, from countries that, at least on paper are fighting the Islamic State, were directing the terrorist attacks in Syria. So, who exactly ARE the bad guys?

And hidden among all of this, there are rumors that America has now established up to 7 bases in Northern Syria. Of course, Reuters reported back in March that  The United States has nearly finished setting up an air base in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria and was proceeding with the construction of a second base for dual military and civilian use, so, this isnt new news. But, the fact that America has boots on the ground is troubling, considering that in 2013, President Obama said  He did not foresee a scenario in which (there would be American) boots on the ground in Syria. And yet, here we are. So, why is this important?

Well, according to The Express  US special forces are encircling a jihadi stronghold in Syria claimed by ISIS to be in old Islamic prophecy as the site of the final battle  triggering the apocalypse. The article goes on to note  Dabiq  a tiny town in northern Syria  will see a "Major apocalyptic showdown with the armies of the infidel" that will result in the collapse of civilization.and Turkish troops backed by American commandos are understood to be just three miles from the town. Thats right. In fact, the town is so important that  ISIS even named its terrorist propaganda and recruitment magazine after the settlement. Jihadists believe the Prophet Mohammed remarked that "the last hour will not come" until an army vanquishes the Romans at "Dabiq or Al-A'maq". Romans, in this case, could arguably be Americans, or westerners, or even Christians.

But, it isnt just Islamic prophecy at play here. Christianity also notes that Syria plays a role at the end of times. Damascus is the oldest continuously inhabited city on the planet, and has witnessed at least five thousand years of human history. An unfulfilled biblical prophecy notes that-The city of Damascus will become a heap of ruins, utterly destroyed. Few, if any, buildings will be left standing. And as crazy as that sounds, just search for images of the cities of Syria to see what they look like. In fact, the final battle is called Armageddon and according to the bible  the [kings of the world] will meet and fight at place called Meggido, which apparently is in Northern Israel and is only an 8 hour drive from Dabiq.

Religious prophecies aside, there is a third prophecy about end times that could be about to come into play. Albert Pike, author of Morals and Dogma, an esoteric philosophical book about Freemasony, allegedly predicted three world wars and wrote about them in a letter back in the 1870s. He wrote  The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the 'agentur' of the 'Illuminati' between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion.

As news events continue to come at a faster pace, maybe we should take a moment to appreciate the gravitas of the situation. Deutsche Bank may be the new Lehman Brothers, kicking off the next round of a financial meltdown that could bleed over into the real economy, thus leading to more people not working and more difficult times for the average man. The armies of the world are not only gathering, but are fighting in one, very small country. Not against each other, at least not yet. Terrorist attacks and general uprisings are starting to become an everyday news item, not only in America, but in Europe as well. All of these things, and more, are also mentioned by end of times biblical prophecies.

So, what do you think dear listeners  Have the End Times begun?

We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.com
Our second topic of the week is the referendum that just passed in Bosnias Republika Srpska and the significance that this holds for Balkan stability. Afterwards we talk about how India is mulling whether to pull a Tibet by granting a Pakistani Baloch separatist leader political asylum and citizenship, and possibly even recognizing him as the leader of a government-in- exile. Next up is how Iranian President Rouhani expressed eagerness for his country to take part in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and revolutionize Eurasian geopolitics. Finally, our lead story of the week is the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and how each of the candidates fared on their big night.

We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.com
In 1990, a Pakistan army brigadier listed three reasons for his country's enduring conflict with India: hatred, Kashmir and water. The hatred was visceral, he noted in his thesis at the prestigious Royal College of Defence Studies in London. The second and third reasons were linked. Pakistan, he reasoned, needed to control Jammu and Kashmir not just for territory but because of the country's water that flowed through it. The officer was General Pervez Musharraf. In December 2001, within a week of a sensational attack on Parliament carried out by Pakistan-based terrorists, Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee considered options to make Pakistan pay for its perfidy. The Indian army was mobilised along the border and one of the other punitive measures studied was the Indus Water Treaty of 1960 (IWT). "Officials were called in, presentations made and scenarios drawn up, but in the end, nothing came of it. It lapsed as soon as the military deployment was called off," says one expert who was part of the process.

The Modi government has not ruled out a military response to the September 17 attack on an army camp in Uri in which 18 soldiers were killed. The IWT is also on the table but in quite an unprecedented way. On September 26, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a review meeting on the Indus Water Treaty at his 7 Lok Kalyan Marg residence. "Blood and water cannot flow simultaneously," Prime Minister Modi said at the meeting. The government also decided to expedite construction of the Pakul Dul dam, Sawalkot dam and Bursar dam, all located on the river Chenab in Himachal Pradesh.

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Re-examining the treaty is one of a raft of options being explored by the government to pressurise Pakistan for the September 17 attack on an army camp in Uri where 18 soldiers were killed. The IWT review took place hours before foreign minister Sushma Swaraj attacked Pakistan in the UN General Assembly in New York for its complicity in cross-border terrorism. It was also a day before the MEA announced that PM Modi would not be going to Islamabad for the SAARC summit in November. A review of the Most Favored Nation (MFN) status granted to Pakistan in 1996 is also on the cards. But it is the proposed review of the 66-year-old IWT, that is causing acute consternation within Pakistan.

"Between the two countries, revocation of the treaty is an act of war," Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's foreign policy advisor Sartaj Aziz said in a September 26 briefing to the National Assembly. Revoking the treaty could harm India's standing at a time when it is trying to build a global consensus to isolate Pakistan over its state sponsorship of terrorism. What New Delhi seems to be contemplating, however, are ways to fully utilise its award of waters and thereby hold out a threat of reduced water flow into Pakistan.

The 1960 Indus Water Treaty split six rivers between the two countries-the 'eastern rivers' Ravi, Beas and Sutlej to India and the 'western rivers' Indus, Jhelum and Chenab to Pakistan. India is allowed to draw 3.6 million acre feet from the three western rivers flowing into Pakistan, which it has never utilised because of inadequate storage capacity.

"Water is the only tool of leverage India has over Pakistan," says Brahma Chellaney of the Centre for Policy Research, who authored a paper for the Vajpayee-led government on IWT options. "We are only talking of India reasserting its basic rights for the development of states like J&K, which doesn't have sovereignty over its own water resources."

Water is an extremely sensitive topic in Pakistan. It is one of the reasons they have consistently objected to almost every project undertaken by India. "They are a one-river nation. If you stop the Indus, there is nothing there," says a former bureaucrat.

"If you try to stop the waters of Pakistan, you will escalate the conflict to a very serious level," General Musharraf said, warning of 'nuclear war' in an interview to india today television on September 27.

Pakistan is finding even the existing award of nearly 80 per cent of the Indus waters insufficient. On March 8 this year, Pakistan's upper house, the Senate, passed a resolution urging the government to review the IWT by inserting new provisions enabling Pakistan to get more water. A minor reduction in the supply of water to Pakistan could have catastrophic effects on the agriculture-dependent country.

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Water paranoia has caused it to repeatedly challenge even 'run of the river' dams allowed by the IWT and built by India. In the last such verdict in January 2014, the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague arbitrated in India's favor on the issue of the Kishanganga hydroelectric power project near Bandipore in J&K.

"Our diplomatic initiative is to separate the people of Pakistan from jehadi elements. Stopping water could prove counter-productive because it will actually fan anti-India sentiment within Pakistan," says Uttam Kumar Sinha of the defence ministry-run think-tank, the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).



THE HYDROLOGICAL CHALLENGE

If the government is to make good on its promise of creating massive storage facilities to store its share of the Indus river, it will need to create roughly the equivalent of one-third of India's largest reservoir, the Indirasagar on the Narmada (9.8 lakh acre feet). This promises to be an uphill task going by the glacial pace of big dam construction in India, the huge costs involved and the displacement of people. Experts say it will be at least a decade before solutions like the completion of the three dams on Chenab bear fruit.

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Agricultural economist Sucha Singh Gill from the Chandigarh-based Centre for Research in Rural & Industrial Development (CRRID) says the government's announcement has the makings of a 'mega misadventure' and 'grandstanding'. "India has neither the capacity to divert nor store the waters of the Indus river system. Developing capacities to regulate river flows needs years."

It's one of the reasons why former Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh believes the NDA's move on the IWT is deflection. "(It) is an evident and desperate attempt to draw public attention away from the Uri terror attack. What is being contemplated would be hugely detrimental to India. Barring water-scarcity during the winter harvest, it would be suicidal for India to block the natural flow of the rivers into Pakistan. Without the requisite infrastructure, we would end up flooding our own hinterland," he says.

The most doable measure in the short run is the Tulbul Navigation Project, which the government has resolved to speed up. The project, called Wullar Barrage by Pakistan, was put on hold after objections in 1987. The project aimed at increasing water levels in the Jhelum river to allow for round-the-year navigation between Anantnag, Srinagar and Baramulla. A decision to restart it was taken in 2009 but the file remained stuck at the Prime Minister's Office.

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Water experts doubt the current measures will work. Himanshu Thakkar, convenor SANDRP (South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People), Delhi, equates the government's dam-building tool with punishing Pakistan by "cutting your nose to spite your face in Kashmir, which is already bleeding away". But ex-water resources secretary Dhruv Vijai Singh says, "It's a step in the right direction but the water should be utilised for the benefit of the people and not as a political tool."

Wahid Para, PDP spokesman in Srinagar, seems to sense an opportunity in Modi's implicit plan to make Pakistan pay by regulating riverine flows. Para echoes the long-standing discourse of mainstream political parties in the Valley-that "Kashmiris have suffered the worst damage in the IWT between India and Pakistan. Pakistan has always cited Kashmir as a disputed territory, yet it signed the IWT which involved rivers flowing out of the state!" Clearly, a case where Pakistan kept its own interests at heart over that of Kashmir's.

--- ENDS ---
After the breakdown of the ceasefire, Russia says the U.S. failed to separate moderate rebels from terrorists, as the U.S. rattles the saber and alludes to a military intervention.

President Obama will send 600 more U.S. troops to Iraq in the last months of his presidency. 13 years after its murderous invasion of Iraq, over 5,000 troops remain in the country, managing the sectarian bloodletting that the U.S. occupation instigated. Becker speaks with Iraqi-American journalist Raed Jarrar about why Obama is sending more troops into the country while not referring to them as "boots on the ground."

The resistance to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline continues at Standing Rock as the government intensifies its repression. 21 were arrested this Wednesday during a peaceful protest, but activists are showing no signs of going anywhere despite the brutal tactics from military style law enforcement. Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement in 1968 and 2016 Vice Presidential candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party in California, discusses the protests and history of Standing Rock resistance.
The DEA is running a confidential sources program that is vulnerable to abuse and fraud. Meanwhile, the FBI has decreased its use of a certain surveillance authority since the Edward Snowden revelations. Those stories in a Classified Session

An update on the status of every American leftists favourite Englishman. Jeremy Corbyn won the challenge to his leadership, and well be talking about the Labour Party with British Writer and Journalist, Sam Kriss.

And its Friday, so someone is going in the Garbage Can. This weeks edition has a special theme related to the Wells Fargo scam. A Republican Member of the House Financial Services Committee is going in the Can.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  According to Izvestia, the Russian Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor) does not support the initiative of the working group, but has offered an alternative option of having banks obtain certain information without getting the personal data of a phone company client.

Roskomnadzor spokesman Vadim Ampelonskiy told the newspaper that banks could ask for information on whether there was a recent ownership change of certain phone numbers.

"The development of modern technology forces us to improve the legislation  a bank needs to get information on the status of a client from the mobile operator for the timely prevention of fraud It could be information about the change of a SIM-card, the presence of a lock, the geolocation of the device. Roskomnadzor [country's telecommunications watchdog] prohibits all that under the current legislation," member of the "Internet+Finances" working group Ekaterina Lobnova told the newspaper on Friday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Over a half of Russian nationals are ready to entrust a woman with the post of prime minister, a third would vote for a female presidential candidate, while the majority support appointing females to policy-making positions in the social sector, a poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) revealed on Friday.

"As many as 55 percent would entrust a woman with the post of prime minister, while 59 percent with leading a fraction or a committee in the State Duma. But the Russian nationals are not totally ready for a female president with only 31 percent supporting this, while 61 percent would oppose a female candidate," VTsIOM said in a statement.

A total of 89 percent of respondents said that women should head the ministries of health, education and social protection.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)Russia's S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation (RSC) Energia will devise within five years a new carrier rocket for the Sea Launch (Morskoi Start) floating space pad project, the corporation's director said Friday.

"This symbiosis, I am sure, will allow us to to create a new launch vehicle in absolutely short deadlines. I myself see a reference point of five years," General Director Vladimir Solntsev told reporters.

Sea Launch was formed in 1995 as a consortium of four companies from Norway, Russia, Ukraine and the United States, and was managed by US aerospace giant Boeing. The project aimed to use a floating launch site to place rockets on the equator  the best possible location for launch  which gives the rocket additional speed on lift-off thanks to centripetal force caused by Earth's rotation.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)Russia does not plan to limit new oil fields in the event that it reaches an agreement with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on capping output, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Friday.

"This [discovery of new fields] does not contradict [the possible agreement on oil output limit], we plan to introduce new fields," Novak said.

He explained that the flow of supplies from unlocked oil fields would set off a drop in crude oil production at depleted ones.
However, the Ford Focus had simply fallen victim to a technical error in the system, which often records violations of traffic rules incorrectly, the General Prosecutors Office reported.

Earlier, a roadside camera in Tatarstan detected a Hyundai going above the pokey speed limit of 22 km per hour. The interesting thing about this incident is that the car was actually driven by a tow truck, making it impossible for the car to move at all.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)Russias United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) is ready to start building analogues of French Mistral-class helicopter carriers and will start construction if the Defense Ministry has such plans, USC President Alexei Rakhmanov said on Friday.

"The question is very simple. When the Defense Ministry makes decision, includes that in its program, we will make all that," Rakhmanov told RIA Novosti.

The Russian Krylov State Research Center developed an alternative to the Mistral helicopter carrier called the Lavina with a water displacement of 24,000 tons. The ship will have capabilities to sail 5,000 miles at 18 knots without service calls and a maximum speed of 22 knots. The vessel will carry 320 crew members and can take on an additional 500 troops or 50 armored vehicles.
The group, officially named the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society, or just Partnership on AI, is dedicated to address potential problems the rapid development of machine intelligence can raise, before those problems appear. The group encourages the sharing of ideas and research related to AI, as each multinational tech giant has its own AI prototype.

The group states that it is dedicated to working with the public, to both educate about the benefits of the technology and to hear concerns, varying from job loss to  potentially  robot uprisings.

The group will have corporate and non-corporate members in its projects and discussions, with research organizations, including the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, included. Funds and logistical support will be provided by the tech giants.
Around 550 humans have been sent into space so far, only four of who have spent more than a year in space. Most recently, astronauts Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko returned to Earth in March after spending 340 days aboard the International Space Station, in an experiment which aimed to find out more about the human body's reaction to long-duration spaceflight.

Kashin explained that SpaceX receives funding from investors and contracts from the US government, but is not forthcoming about its finances. He thinks the bold declaration about colonizing Mars is just a way for Musk to attract more investment.

"The financial performance of SpaceX is not transparent because it's a private, non-public company. Available data suggests that SpaceX depends on two factors for survival: inflating estimates of its value which allows it to raise capital on favorable terms, and receiving government contracts from organizations like NASA and the Pentagon," Kashin explained.

"Propaganda plays a crucial role in solving these two issues. Musk presents his company as an 'effective private enterprise' which is a good alternative to old corporations, state agencies, and satellite launch services provided by non-Western countries," he said.

"However, Musk hasn't expressed any intention of issuing an IPO in the near future, which would require a complete disclosure of the company's financial performance. There isn't any reliable information on whether SpaceX receives any profit from its extremely low ($4,654 per kilogram into low Earth orbit) prices for launching satellites."
After India's major surgical strike, Pakistan again violated ceasefire for the fifth time today.

Villagers living close to the border with Pakistan sit in a bunker after authorities asked them to leave their villages for safety reasons in R.S Pura near Jammu on Thursday. (Photo: PTI)

By India Today Web Desk: Pakistan has violated ceasefire yet again in Phallanwallan sector in Akhnoor region of Jammu and Kashmir. This is the fifth ceasefire violation in the last 48 hours. The ceasefire was violated sometime between 12 am to 2 am on Friday.

Pakistan Rangers restored to indiscriminate firing at Indian positions on the International Border (IB).



The police said Pakistan Rangers violated the ceasefire agreement by firing without any provocation at Border Security Forces (BSF) positions in Phallanwallan area.

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According to sources, there is no loss of life to the Indian side. Pakistani soldiers used small arms while Indian army too retaliated with cross fire. Sources said that situation is under control.

"Pakistan Rangers used automatics and small arms to target BSF border outposts," the police said, adding "Firing exchanges started at 12.30 a.m. and lasted until 1.30 a.m."



The fifth ceasefire violation comes a day after a massive surgical strike which was undertaken by Indian army to annihilate terror launchpads in PoK. Indian army commandos crossed the LoC to carry out surgical strikes in PoK.

The army commandos dismantled terror camps in PoK and killed 38 terrorists. Defence Minister, NSA and army chief monitored the entire operation from army headquarters.

On Thursday, Pakistan Army violated a ceasefire agreement and resorted to indiscriminate firing along the Line of Control (LoC) in north Kashmir's Kupwara district. Indian Army responded to the violations with punitive strikes killing two Pakistani soldiers.





Also read:

How 25 Indian commandos crawled through enemy territory to kill 38 terrorists in PoK

Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike

India hits Pakistan back with surgical strikes across Line of Control, 38 killed

Indian Army strikes as they unfolded across Line of Control



--- ENDS ---
"We have a very broad cooperation in the sphere of science; we have all major German scientific institutions with their programs present here in Russia. We also have a very extensive program of German language and literature throughout the country," he said.

On Thursday, the German Embassy in Moscow in partnership with Merck pharmaceutical company awarded three interpreters from German into Russian with the German Translation Award for making Russian readers familiar with German literature works.

Another important area of German-Russian scientific cooperation is innovations.

"More than 5,500 German companies have invested in Russia. Present here, we have investment growing, and many of them do not only create employment in Russia and growth and well-being, but also stir innovation, scientific engagement," the ambassador said.

Earlier in September, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel visited Moscow and met with top Russian officials. He said the German business was interested in "new strategies and plans for economic development" and expressed hope that the economic cooperation between the two countries would deepen.

Germany is one of the major trade partners of Russia, but the two countries' trade turnover in 2015 decreased by about a third to some $45.8 billion, according to the Russian customs statistics, given the political differences over the Ukrainian crisis, and continued to decline in 2016.
According to Sloan, following the events of 9/11, many advocates for war appeared in the news, agitating people for an invasion of Iraq, preparing the populace by branding the incipient violence as a War on Terror.' The hawkish post-9/11 atmosphere resulted in widespread antiwar expression, including the creation of the "anti-imperialist" ANSWER movement, formed to organize those who seek a peaceful resolution to conflict.

The first steps of ANSWER's anti-war actions, according to Becker, who took part in the group's activities, saw people afraid to protest the upcoming Iraq invasion because they feared persecution by the FBI. Sloan acknowledged that many of those ready to protest against an IMF/WTO meeting backed out out of a fear of domestic oppression.

According to Sloan, as the months passed, more and more people joined the movement, thanks largely to the violent aggression of the Bush/Cheney administration.

"The Bush administration was so aggressive, so open about their desire to carry out endless interventions and occupations around the world, they used those extreme formulations about the endless war,' it sort of took the mask off of the imperialist nature of the US government, so more and more people started to join the movement," she explained.

As millions joined the movement, it became easier to attract a greater percentage of the population, and Bush's popularity plunged, from about 90 percent directly after the 9/11 attacks, to single digits at the end of his presidency.

Presidential administrations are now constrained by anti-war voices, Becker noted, explaining that those voices are the primary reason for the "airstrike only" strategy the US has attempted to uphold in the Middle East in recent times.
"I never did business in Cuba. Theres this guy who has very bad reputation as a reporter. You see what his record is, he wrote something about me in Cuba," Trump told NH1 broadcast on Thursday night, as quoted by Politico, stressing "No, I never did anything in Cuba. I never did a deal in Cuba."

A former executive told Newsweek on condition of anonymity that a team of business consultants was sent to the island nation in a bid to gain foothold there in case Washington loosened economic sanctions.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The embassy said the terrorist threat could be linked to the current situation in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

"We have increased security measures. We have also posted Russian Foreign Ministry's advisory on the official website of the embassy. We ask citizens to stay away from crowded places, exercise caution and follow the Foreign Ministry's advisory," Melnik announced on Thursday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Michelle Baldanza, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon, confirmed that the United States is ready to pay for a new airstrip, associated pavements, facilities and infrastructure in Agadez, the BBC reported.

Baldanza said that the cost of the military air base is estimated at $50 million, in contrast to The Intercept website, which reported on Thursday, citing formerly secret documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, that the base would cost $100 million and will be built in 2017.

The United States already stations its MQ-9 Reaper drones and supports Frances anti-jihadist force, Operation Barkhane, in the countrys capital of Niamey. The new base is expected to enhance the ability of the US to target Islamist extremists in surrounding countries, including Mali, Libya and Nigeria.


WASHINGTON (Sputnik)The United States should establish a National Service Reserve made up of volunteers that can be called upon to help with natural disasters or for other local needs, US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said at a rally in Fort Pierce, Florida on Friday.

"Lets do something like that [military reserve] in the civilian space," Clinton stated. "Lets call it the National Service Reserve."

People who join the program would receive basic training, and "then when your city or state needs you, you'll get the call," Clinton added.
Nobody really had focused on the potential downside in terms of our international relationships," McConnell told USA Today. "I think it was just a ball dropped."

McConnell, in a backhanded form of dodging responsibility, also went so far as to blame Obama for not expressing his concerns with the current wording sooner.

"I hate to blame everything on him. And I don't," he said. "But it would have been helpful had we had a discussion about this much earlier than last week."

Immediately following the vote, the White House called the override the most embarrassing thing the US Senate has ever done.

The White House also responded to the late concerns about consequences by pointing out that ignorance is no excuse.

"I think what we've seen in the United States Congress is a pretty classic case of rapid onset buyer's remorse," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said. "It's hard to take at face value the suggestion that somehow they were unaware of the consequences of their vote. But even if they were, what's true in elementary school is true in the United States Congress, ignorance is not an excuse, particularly when it comes to our national security and the safety and security of our diplomats and our service members."
The technology could also be used to manufacture spare parts for the Corps aging vehicles.

"Where production has been done for 20, 30 years, and they dont even assign [national service numbers] to some of these parts because they dont expect them to ever be replaced because they dont plan for that piece of equipment to go beyond that life cycle," Wood said.

"Rather than using duct tape and coat hangers and gum and all these other things, which literally occurs in the battlefield, we have this new design tool we can use."

While 10 Marine Corps units have already been given 3D printers, the technology is far from perfected and probably wont see real use for another decade at minimum.

"General Danas insight was, most of my capabilities development takes 10 to 20 years," Wood said.
She didnt hear the gunshot, didnt hear the sirens coming up behind her just prior to the shot, Wood told the Star Advertiser. And its not only a common phenomenon described in literature, but its the No. 1 perceptual distortion by people I have represented who have been involved in shootings  diminished sound or complete auditory exclusion.

Wood noted that Shelbys legal defense will not depend on her awareness of what was happening around her, but he believes that it is important for jurors to know what she experienced at the time of the shooting.

Its just one of the many facts that have happened, and I dont think our defense turns on whether or not she knew they were there, Wood said.

The auditory exclusion phenomena is commonly claimed by officers involved in shootings. David Klinger, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and a former Los Angeles police officer who himself once shot a suspect, interviewed over 80 police officers who shot civilians. Klinger found that 82 percent reported diminished sound perception at the time.

Other researchers have documented the phenomenon of muted sound or full auditory exclusion where you dont hear anything in a variety of circumstances outside of policing, Klinger told the Star Advertiser.

Shelby, if convicted, faces from four years to life in prison. She is currently free, awaiting trial, on $50,000 bond.
Police Chief Jeff Davis had stated that Olango rapidly drew an object from his front pants pockets, placed both hands together on it and extended it rapidly toward [one] officer, taking what appeared to be a shooting stance. At this point, another officer standing nearby fired a taser at him, while the officer whom Olango confronted with the object fired his gun.

It turned out that the object Olango was holding was a vape pen, but officers released a still frame from a witness video which confirmed that he was holding it in a shooting stance, appearing as if he were holding a gun.

Police Chief Davis claims that footage of the incident backs up the officers stories, though none of the officers in the department wear body cameras. Olangos sister maintains that the officers knew he had psychiatric issues and should have brought the departments medically-trained crisis team to deescalate the situation.

Olangos death sparked protests in the city, a suburb of San Diego, as activists demanded that police release the entire video of the incident and for a federal investigation into the shooting.

 Will Carr (@WillCarrFNC) September 29, 2016

For three nights straight, activists have gathered in occasionally violent protest.

 agitator in chief (@soit_goes) September 30, 2016

On Tuesday, the first night of protests, police used pepper balls to disperse crowds as angry demonstrators broke windows and threw glass bottles at officers.

 John Gibbins (@JohnGibbinsSDUT) September 28, 2016

By Thursday evening, tensions had escalated further, as 50-75 people marched through the streets blocking intersections until bean bag rounds and pepper balls were used by police again. Several fights broke out between protesters and drivers stopped in traffic. Multiple drivers who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time had their windows broken, and another man attempting to pass through was thrown from his motorcycle.

 agitator in chief (@soit_goes) September 30, 2016

Olango moved to the United States in 1991, and had been ordered to be deported twice, after being convicted of selling cocaine and for a federal firearms conviction in Colorado, for which he served four years in prison. He was released from the immigration detention after Uganda refused to take him back.

San Diego has a co-responder team of mental-health professionals who can travel with officers and respond to situations involving psychiatric breakdowns. Despite the fact that this program is specifically aimed at helping people like Olango, and after three phone calls detailing the victims specific needs, mental health co-responders were not brought to the scene.

 ABC15 Arizona (@abc15) September 30, 2016

The city of El Cajon has advised all local businesses to close early for their own safety, citing concerns that the footage will spark more violent protests.
And while the sun shines on the tiger, this other cat - utterly beautiful and graceful - lurks in the shadows. Rarely spotted in its natural lair, the elusive leopard more often than not enters our mindscape when it's making news as a 'menace' on the prowl, presumably bloodthirsty. And stoned, beaten, burnt for the sheer audacity of being in spaces that were once forests, but are now the gated domains of Homo sapiens. And in one such city that I endured (I cannot honestly say lived in), I know the leopard did too; the wonder of its presence contained in the soft impressions on sand, and in the terror-stricken whine of my dog. I wiped off the pugmark, held the secret close to my heart, along with a prayer for its invisibility.

For a visible leopard is likely a dead leopard; if 'lucky', it will be 'rescued', and carted off in barred cage-and denied its freedoms forever.

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And so, when I look at the gorgeous coffee-table book that lands on my table, I take a deep breath, revelling in the fact that this Undercat has got its place in the sun; and is being celebrated in word and in art in JAWAI: The Land of the Leopard. The book is an experiential journey to Jawai, a tiny village in Rajasthan earlier off the map, now a huge draw for 'big cat' aficionados. It's authored in lush photographs , delicate sketches and crisp text.

JAWAI is a stunning visual gallery of leopards and their seemingly casual coexistence with the most vibrant of India's rural folk-the nomadic rabaris and villagers of Rajasthan. The landscape of the ancient 850 million-year-old outcrops of Godwar is raw, stark; the people and the wildlife provide the life and the colour. It's very Incredible India. The region is a mosaic of forests, fields, reservoirs and supports an array of biodiversity such as wolves, flamingoes, cranes, hedgehogs, foxes, rusty-spotted cats, scorpions etc.

FROM JAWAI'S ROCKY RECESSES (Photo: Sujan and Yusuf Ansari)

The author-photographers' resort in Jawai has redefined elegant luxury in wildlife tourism, and as you turn the pages, you might find shades of self-indulgence. But it is a luxury well-afforded, since the authors and their camp are now part of the story being scripted in Jawai. Therein lies the real value of the book. Jawai is a crucial link in a leopard stronghold comprising the Kumbalgarh National Park, the jungles of Mount Abu and the hills of Jalore. Jawai is unprotected, it is tolerance and veneration that has shielded the leopard since time immemorial. But as the winds of change blow through this hitherto remote region, a new order which brings in the economic advantages of wilderness may show a new way forward to nurture such coexistence, and conserve. Not just for Jawai, but other such hidden wild landscapes as well.

The author is an award-winning journalist, wildlife conservationist and a former member of the National Board for Wildlife

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Conducted from August 23 to September 2, the poll noted differences of opinion on the death penalty across lines of gender and race. "Even as support for the death penalty has declined across nearly all groups, demographic differences remain: Men are more likely to back the use of the death penalty than women, white Americans are more supportive than blacks and Hispanics, and attitudes on the issue also differ by age, education and along religious lines," Pew reported. The study reported only a modest difference of opinion across lines of age.

Unsurprisingly sentiments differed greatly between the two mainstream US political parties, as only 34 percent of Democrats approve of the death penalty, opposed to 72 percent of Republicans.
When investigators arrived to look into the allegations, they found "a box filled with vials and tubes that [Lin] was using to make his own vaccinations, in an unsterile and disorganized office, according to the report.

Patients who were given the unapproved vaccines included a seven-day-old infant.

Lin admitted to investigators that he had been making his vaccination blend using vodka and cat saliva for patients with allergies.

Its unclear whether or not the saliva was from Dr. Lins own cat, or random cats he found for the purpose of collecting their spit, the Influence, a news site covering medicine, noted.

Lin is set to appear before the Medical Disciplinary Board on October 11.
"They [critics] say one year isnt right for Turkey. Lets wait and see, maybe 12 months wont be enough," he said. The state of emergency was first declared July 20, and Erdogans statements come just a day after Turkeys National Security Council, made up of military and political leaders, recommended that it be extended another three months.

The council concluded that the extension was necessary "to take measures to protect the rights and freedoms of citizens."
SOCHI (Sputnik)  Oil output stabilization rules in Russia should be drawn up by the Ministry of Energy and regulated by a protocol signed by national oil companies in line with the latest agreement reached by major global producers, Lukoil President Vagit Alekperov said Friday.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed on Wednesday to cut its oil production for the first time in eight years. The output ceiling was set at 32.5-33 million barrels a day, with further details of the deal to be unveiled at the groups meeting in November.

"If we want to participate in the process, we must take a proactive stance and, like them, stabilize production through a common protocol for a certain date signed by all companies under the auspices of the Ministry of Energy. Our company is ready for it," Alekperov told reporters.
"This is a very nasty and vindictive law that is targeting many countries, but mostly Saudi Arabia," Abdul-khaleq Abdullah said.

He made it plain that this law will most likely weigh heavily on the financial aspects of the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

"This is a greedy law in the sense that it really targets billions of dollars of Saudi Arabian investment in the United States," he said, adding that Riyadh is almost certain to react by reconsidering its US investment policy.

Also, given that many see the bill as a sign that an anti-Saudi Arabian campaign is in full swing in the United States, we can expect a scaling down of Riyadh's cooperation with Washington on many issues, including those related to fight against terrorism, according to him.

" So this is a bad law both for Saudi Arabia and the United States, and this document is not aimed at addressing grievances of relatives of 9/11 victims," Abdul-khaleq Abdullah added.

He said that the law may finally lead to Saudi Arabia totally reviewing its 70-year special relationship with the United States, including issues pertaining to the use of petrodollars and the countries' military partnership.

Saudi Arabia: US 9/11 law will erode principle of sovereign immunity, affecting all nations and may cause "serious unintended consequences"  BNO News (@BNONews) 29  2016 .

Following the Wednesday vote, White House spokesman Josh Earnest called the Congressional decision the most embarrassing thing US lawmakers have done in several decades.

Congress insists to punish Saudi Arabia, US policies will be tough in region, JASTA undermines trust between Arabs and US #_  Abd El-Monem Halawa (@monemhalawa) 29  2016 .

Earlier this week, the White House argued that the bill could create a dangerous precedent, and that other countries could be allowed to sue the United States for its actions abroad.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Russia will not attempt to make any contacts or negotiate with the Daesh and Nusra Front militant groups, even if they lay down their arms, Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov said.

"These are terrorist groups, we shall not make any contacts with them. There will never be a discussion on the rights of terrorists, on preconditions. Russia will not negotiate with them," Syromolotov told RIA Novosti.

Both Daesh and Nusra Front, which renamed itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham this summer, are banned in Russia.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Moscow calls for a common set of rules of conduct for countries to tackle the spread of terrorism, Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov said.

"There needs to be a clear approach. In Russia's view the information and communication space, the internet need to serve the cause of peace, not the spread of terrorist ideology. We need to establish rules for the countries to behave responsibly online. There is no escaping this," Syromolotov told RIA Novosti.

He underscored that counterterrorism efforts not only include a military approach, "but countering terrorist financing, countering the drug threat that feeds it, combating organized crime and information security."
"We are well aware that weapons are deployed one way across the border while oil, artifacts, etc., move in the opposite direction. Smuggling flourishes," Syromolotov said.

The diplomat further noted the ambiguous nature of Turkey's month-long Euphrates Shield campaign aimed both against the Daesh and Kurdish fighters.

"Everything is too mixed up across an array of factors We cannot unequivocally state now that the border is closed," he stressed.
ADLER (Krasnodar Territory, Russia) (Sputnik)  Russia's airport safety inspections in Egypt proved to be constructive, with at least one additional review on the agenda, Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said Friday.

"We held constructive talks with the minister, the team of involved agencies responsible for aviation and transportation security, i.e. anti-terrorist safety facilities. Out large delegation inspected all three Egyptian airports and appreciated their readiness and compliance with international requirements as of the end of September. Our team of experts will once again fly to Egypt for a final inspection to assess the state of readiness of each of the three airports. There will certainly be least one more visit," Soklov told reporters.
"So it is safe to assume that the Bosnian Constitutional Court just implements tasks ordered from the outside, seeking to remove President Dodik from politics, which in turn paves the way for Bosnia and Herzegovina joining NATO," he said.

This is why it's not surprising that the West does not react to the bellicose rhetoric of Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosniak member of the tripartite Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who pledged that Dodik will share the fate of Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, according to Vlajki.

He said that the apart from Washington's efforts to tell Sarajevo how to deal with Republika Srpska, the White House seems to be adding to the Islamization of the Balkans.

"Since 1992, they have helped Muslims and actually brought the Mujahideen to Bosnia and Herzegovina. They allowed the direct transfer of weapons and the Mujahideen through Croatia. I obtained the documents that prove that former Croatian President Franjo Tudjman was furious about all this, but he had no other choice because he was afraid of losing US support," Vlajki said.

He warned of the deterioration of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, saying that "the US's ultimate goal is to create a unitary state in Bosnia which will be both a Muslim and a Sharia nation".

According to him, there are about 100,000 Wahhabis in Bosnia and Herzegovina who are so Islamized that they can serve as an excellent tool for provocations, such as potential shooting incidents.

"And I do not exclude that in case of a possible conflict, the Presidency in Sarajevo will ask NATO to intervene so as to stabilize the situation," he said.

Commenting on the European Parliament's statement that Moscow's support for the referendum shows that Russia allegedly wants to expand the confrontation, Vlaicu said that the desire to take possession of Russia's vast natural resources is still there.

In this vein, he referred to Aesop's fable the Wolf and the Lamb, in which the wolf muddies the waters but blames the lamb.

"Russia can do what they want, and they can do nothing, but all the same they will face accusations," he said.
Margaret Trudeau--a social worker, TV host and author was furious when a Canadian hospital in 1971 did not allow her Late husband Pierre Trudeau to witness Justin's birth.

By Mini Dixit: That Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is admired by many, is neither a secret nor a surprise.

An eminent political figure and a firm believer of LGBTQ rights, Trudeau's stand on feminism has raked in attention on more than one occasions. And honestly, it doesn't come as a surprise, considering his mother, Margaret Trudeau was why men were first allowed in delivery rooms.





Click here to Enlarge Margaret Trudeau's stand on men being allowed in delivery rooms was a rather historic one. Picture courtesy: Instagram/ Justin Trudeau

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According to a paragraph in 44-year-old Trudeau's memoir, Common Ground, Margaret Trudeau--a social worker, author and former television host insisted on men being able to witness the birth of their child--something that was unheard in the 1970s.

Also Read: A family vacationing in Canada bumps into a very shirtless Justin Trudeau

"In 1971, the Ottawa Civic Hospital still excluded husbands from accompanying their wives in the delivery room. My mother was furious. If her husband couldn't be at her side in the hospital when she gave birth, she would have the baby--that was me--24 Sussex," Huffington Post quotes the Canadian PM as saying in his memoir.





Click here to Enlarge Trudeau with mother, Margaret Trudeau. Picture courtesy: Instagram/ Justin Trudeau

Also Read: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is Marvel's latest superhero, and the cover is out!

Where feminism continues to be misconstrued and often ignored even today, Margaret's stand on men and child birth was nothing short of historic for that day and age.





A photo of Trudeau and siblings. Picture courtesy: Instagram/ Justin Trudeau

"During the 1960s, most hospitals, under pressure from birthing women, laymen, the women's movement, and childbirth reform groups, admitted men into labor rooms, but not until the 1970s -- and in some hospitals the 1980s -- were the doors to the delivery room open to men," author Judith Walzer Leavitt says in her book Make Room for Daddy: The Journey from the Waiting Room to the Birthing Room.

Not just Canada, US too held a similar stand on fathers being allowed in delivery rooms, which was done away with after facing protests from activists.



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SOCHI (Sputnik)Likhachev said Wednesday that Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev was scheduled to meet Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci in Istanbul on October 8-9.

"We are ready to move on mutually advantageous terms in this area. We too have a lot of questions toward Turkey, there are a lot of questions," he told reporters.

The official pointed out that the issues mainly concern Turkey's bans on Russian milk and meat imports.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The major part of Islamic State (ISIL or Daesh) militants will leave Syria, including the city of Aleppo and its stronghold of Raqqa, and relocate to Libya until the end of the year, Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISS) Director Leonid Reshetnikov told Sputnik on Friday.

"I think that within this year the majority of militants will leave for Libya. They will flee from Aleppo and Raqqa. They would have to leave for Libya, maybe some of them will stay in Iraq," Reshetnikov said in an interview.

Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with government forces loyal to President Bashar Assad fighting numerous opposition factions and extremist groups, including Daesh and Nusra Front, a Syrian division of al Qaeda that has changed its name to Jabhat Fatah al Sham, which are outlawed in many countries including Russia.
The United Nations Population Division, which issues statistics worldwide, placed Georgia among countries whose population is projected to decrease between 2015 and 2050.

"The United Nations has put Georgia on the list of 'Dying Nations' and 'Dying Languages', Zviad Tomaradze warned adding that according to the UN experts, in 2050 the Georgian population would decrease by 28 percent, while among the ethnic Georgians the depopulation will amount to 50 percent.

Tomaradze partially puts the blame for the plunging population crisis on an uncontrolled influx of liberal ideology and mainstream media propaganda in Georgia after the Soviet Unions breakup.

Western liberal ideology means more individualism, more consumerism that together with completely unrestricted grow of content in media pornography and all sorts of hedonistic components of life automatically mean less children, Zviad Tomaradze said.

In 2014, the Georgian parliament passed a law making it illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of their sexual orientation.

The UN forecasts are based on a level of birth in a particular country among other indicators.

According to the UN Population Division statistics, as of today, Georgias total fertility rate at 1.8 children per women, significantly lower than 2.1, the number of children women must have on average in order for the population to replace itself.

Tomaradze believes that the demographic crisis in Georgia should be also blamed on the economic hardships. People have started feeling it is harder for them to have more children because they have limited means for existence, he stressed.

However, Tomaradze notes that worldwide statistics speak of the opposite as the wealthier societies of the western world tend to have less children.

The head of Georgia's Demographic Society also points on the indirect link between demographic problems and activities of former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili.

During 9 years of his rule, he put through jails as much as 330,000 people. For the country, like Georgia, with a little less than 4 million, that is a huge number. Every third Georgian man of working age went to jail in Georgia, he noted adding that some of them spent two horrible weeks, being prosecuted and extorted  money in exchange for settlement, some of them have spent years within the system.

Saakashvili, a fugitive from prosecution in his homeland Georgia, was granted Ukrainian citizenship and appointed the governor of Odesa Region last year. He served as Georgia's president between 2004 and 2013 and left for the Unites States just days before his presidential term expired, and has been living outside Georgia ever since.
SOCHI (Sputnik)  Not all the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) member states, which agreed to a deal to limit oil output in Algiers, will be fully committed to the agreement's implementation, former Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Friday.

"I think that not everyone will be fully committed to the agreements. For a certain period, 1-2 years, it will stabilize the prices," Kudrin told journalists speaking at the Sochi International Investment Forum 2016.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)Finland's participation in the probe into the Malaysian Airlines MH17 crash in 2014 in southeastern Ukraine will not put a strain on the relations between Helsinki and Moscow, Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini said on Friday.

"Finland and Russia are constantly engaging in bilateral talks and relations between both countries are good. I dont believe that anything exceptional will emerge between Finland and Russia that hasnt so far cropped up," Soini said as quoted by Yle broadcaster.

On Wednesday, Finnish authorities confirmed, that secret missile tests were conducted in Finland two years ago as part of the ongoing investigation into the MH17 crash. According to the country's officials, a Buk missile had been detonated by the local experts to compare the fragments with the debris which were found at the site of MH17 catastrophe. The tests results reportedly claimed, that the rocket in question was a Russian Buk.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)The Kremlin welcomes a reported summons of the Russian ambassador to the Netherlands over the MH17 crash report as an opportunity for the envoy to outline Moscow's views, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.

"This is generally positive news. Dialogue is always good," Peskov told journalists immediately following reports of the Dutch government summoning Ambassador Alexander Shulgin.

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) tasked with probing the crash announced on Wednesday that the MH17 airliner was downed by a Buk missile system which was brought from Russia and consequently returned there. Furthermore the investigation believes that the missile was launched on July 17, 2014, leading to the death of all 298 people on board MH17 from the territory controlled by the Donbas militias.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)The World Energy Congress, bringing together energy ministers and leaders from business, finance and academia, will be held in Istanbul on October 9-13.

Our aim, set for us by the authorities, is to prepare and agree on the relevant document before the start the International Energy Congress, Novak said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 broadcaster.

Russian experts are currently discussing with their Turkish colleagues an intergovernmental agreement project on the Turkish Stream and a roadmap  an annex to this agreement, the minister added.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)At least 10 human rights organizations filed a lawsuit against London and Washington against the backdrop of their mass surveillance programs with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), one of the groups said in a press release on Friday.

"Legal Resources Centre, Privacy International and eight other human rights organizations have lodged submissions with the European Court of Human Rights challenging both the UK Government's mass interception program, and its access to US mass surveillance programs. Together, these programs violate the privacy of millions of people around the world," South Africa's Legal Resource Centre said in the press release on its Facebook page.

Legal Resource Centre added that the submission was lodged by the human rights groups from Canada, Ireland, Hungary and Egypt among others in the context of the facts revealed by former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden.


DAMASCUS (Sputnik)There is still a chance to revive the Russia-US deals on Syrian settlement, Russian ambassador to Syria Alexander Kinshchak told Sputnik.

"I believe that there is a chance to reanimate these agreements. This needs to be addressed," Kinshchak said.

Moscow considers the agreement it reached with Washington on Syrian settlement the most optimal plan to achieve reconciliation in this country, Russian ambassador to Syria said.


MOSCOW (Sputnik)Malaysian IOI Group, which is one of the biggest world's producers of palm oil and which exports its production to the European Union, is related to deforestation processes and violations of labor law in Indonesia, Greenpeace's Energydesk said on Friday.

"One of the worlds biggest palm oil companies has been linked to rainforest destruction and labour violations through its suppliers in Indonesia Suppliers of Malaysias IOI Group are accused of violating the companys own sustainable palm oil policy, which prohibits human rights abuses and environmental destruction, among other things," the statement said, adding that IOI Group's palm oil was exported to the EU member states.

The statement added that the deforestation was caused by the so-called slash and burn practice, which resulted in destruction of swathes of rainforest, which were cut and burned, in order to create new plantations for palm oil producers.
Mom-to-be superstar Kareena Kapoor arrived at a B-town birthday bash of aunt and late Raj Kapoor's younger daughter Reema Jain, in true diva style on Wednesday night.

By Mail Today Bureau: Celebrating pregnancy with a designer finesse, mom-to-be superstar Kareena Kapoor arrived at a B-town birthday bash in true diva style on Wednesday night, hijacking all limelight.

The occasion at a south Mumbai five-star was the 60th birthday party of Kareena's aunt and late Raj Kapoor's younger daughter Reema Jain, and present were bigwigs including Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, and Anil and Tina Ambani. What set off frenzy among the gathered shutterbugs, though, was Bebo's baby bump fashion. As she emerged with hubby Saif Ali Khan, the media went on an excitement overdrive.



WHAT WAS KAREENA WEARING

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So much so, Saif looked visibly surprised. Kareena nailed it with a one-shoulder, olive-hued chiffon gown from Deme by Gabriella. The loose-flowing designer wear accentuated her appeal with a thighhigh slit on one leg. She accessorised the dress with a Roland Mouret clutch and a Bvlgari watch. Completing the look were her nude tieup sandals and pink lips.

The royal touch to her ensemble was rendered by a gorgeous neckpiece that belonged to Saif's great grandmother.

Posing by his better half, Saif too looked stylish as ever. He made a traditional statement in white kurtapyjama and Nehru jacket, worn with dark designer boots.

WHO ELSE CAME TO THE PARTY

Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan arrived with daughter Shweta Nanda. Filmmaker Karan Johar was spotted giving quick photoops, though he avoided talking on the MNS threat to his Diwali biggie Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, over the inclusion of Pakistani actor Fawad Khan in the cast.

Sridevi and Boney Kapoor, director David Dhawan and wife Karuna, a sexily decked-up Amrita Arora, Suniel Shetty with daughter Athiya and wife Mana, Chunkey and Bhavna Pandey, and former Union minister Praful Patel were also on the guest list.

The Kapoor khandaan turned up in force. Seen toasting their sister's special day were Randhir, Rajeev and Rishi Kapoor, who came with wife Neetu Singh. Karisma Kapoor was there too, as were Shashi Kapoor's sons Karan and Kunal. Birthday girl Reema Jain was seen posing with hubby Manoj Jain and actor-son Armaan. Kareena and Saif are expecting their baby in December, and she is expected to start work on Anil Kapoor's next production, Veere Di Wedding, soon afterwards. The film, co-starring Sonam Kapoor, is said to have accommodated Kareena's date in a way that she can shoot March onward. Kareena, rubbished rumours that she will play a pregnant woman.

Also Read

With Kareena and Aishwarya wearing her designs, Tanieya Khanuja's all set to showcase at Paris Fashion Week



--- ENDS ---
He recalled that during Putin's previous visits to Turkey, priority was given to bilateral trade and economic relations, while this time "the main topic of bilateral talks will be the situation in Syria and the future of this Arab country."

Also on the table will be restoring former cooperation in the trade, economic and energy sectors as well as the deteriorating situation in Europe, the shift of the center of gravity of world politics towards Eurasia and the upcoming elections in the United States, according to Mugisuddin.

Commenting on the ongoing full-fledged restoration of Russian-Turkish cooperation, he remained upbeat about further development in bilateral ties.

"First of all, I want to say that many in Turkey, including me, are very happy with this rapidly growing development of our relations, something that is a quite natural situation," according to him.

"In contrast, the period of the crisis in our relations should be considered an abnormal situation which was created artificially, by certain external forces. The fact that we are neighbors with deep historical ties implies the need to establish close contacts in all key areas. In Turkey we are very pleased that the artificially created crisis period is already behind us," Mugisuddin said.

Russian-Turkish relations deteriorated after the downing of a Russian Su-24 bomber by a Turkish fighter jet in Syria on November 24, 2015.

Moscow imposed a number of restrictive measures on Turkey in response to what Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned as a "stab in the back."
Kerrys remarks came amid the breakdown of the Russian-US ceasefire deal of September 9 shattered by numerous violations, which resulted in intensified fighting between the Syrian government and militants in Aleppo.

"Aleppo is in a catastrophe, eastern Aleppo is now under intense warfare, and its 250,000 people that are endangered; the vast majority of them are civilians who are not involved in the conflict," Hehenkamp added.

He explained that the local doctors in eastern Aleppo supported by MSF are now having very limited capacities and struggle to help people to survive.

"This is where I would be hopeful and expecting the Russian authorities to do the utmost in order to persuade the government of Syria to take as much care of civilians as possible. At the moment, the care is not being taken, and Russia is in the position and responsibility to make sure the Syrian government abides by the rule of war," Hehenkamp concluded.

The Syrian Army launched an offensive in the city of Aleppo after declaring an end to the ceasefire last week following the US airstrike on a Syrian Army position on September 17 that killed some 60 people.

The United States has condemned the renewed violence and blamed Russia and the Syrian government of Bashar Assad for the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Aleppo.

Syrian officials have argued that the military offensive in Aleppo is aimed at liberating the city from terrorist presence.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stressed that the United States had failed to carry out the key priority of the September 9 agreements, which was to separate terrorist groups from moderate opposition armed forces.
"There is a drive to again defame Russia in front of the whole world, and therefore they search for a formal pretext to put Moscow in the pillory although all the proof provided by former Lufthansa pilot Peter Haisenko, not to mention the Russian experts, indicate that Russia is not to blame," she said.

She also referred to a piece of the plane body which she said was found on Ukrainian territory and which was removed and "not shown to the press at all."

According to her, there is a specialist in Russia who, in the wake of the MH17 plane crash, heard a conversation in which was unequivocally confirmed that the plane was shot down by "quite different people."

"The JIT did not take into account the standpoint of this expert. Therefore, I believe that Russia should not be upset about the fact that the investigation is being conducted by the so-called experts who claim the opposite," she said.

She added that a person who knows how to compare the facts simply cannot come to a conclusion that will differ from the one announced by Russian experts and witnesses.

"Additionally, there is evidence based on the radar data. The United States also has this information, but Washington did not publish it because it would show a completely different picture. The facts speak in favor of Russia, not against it," Queck pointed out.

Flight MH17 crashed with 298 people on board on July 17, 2014 in eastern Ukraine, while en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, leaving no survivors.

In contrast with JIT allegations, Russia insists that the Buk missile was launched from an entirely different point, namely from the area near the village of Zaroshchenskoye, which was controlled by Ukrainian armed forces at the time.


WASHINGTON (Sputnik)The defense team for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko has officially asked the Russian Justice Ministry to request the US authorities for his transfer to Russia, Yaroshenko's lawyer Alexey Tarasov said Friday.

"We sent the request to the Russian justice and foreign ministries acting on Konstantin's instructions," Tarasov told RIA Novosti.

"We are asking the Russian Justice Ministry to sent an official request to the US authorities for the transfer of Konstantin Yaroshenko in accordance with the 1983 Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons," Tarasov said.
According to former Japanese Foreign Ministry official Kazuhiko Togo, the peace treaty would be beneficial to both countries.

"The two countries have a historic chance to reach a deep understanding. Economic relations between the two countries could be called an engine of their bilateral cooperation," the former diplomat told the newspaper.

"However It is very important that everything which has been agreed upon between Russia and Japan is not directed against third countries," he added.

Valery Kistanov, head of the Center for Japanese Studies at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences pointed out how the Japanese tactics over the territorial dispute have recently changed.

"Previously, Japan was associating the Kurils issue with politics. Now that emphasis has shifted towards the economy," he expert told the newspaper.

He further noted that now economic cooperation and investments are coming to the forefront. The Japanese leaders want to create a favorable atmosphere which will be noticed by Russia.

The expert also noted that the Japanese Prime Minister is betting on his personal relationship with President Putin, something which he is not hiding.

Kistanov said that the activation of the dialogue on the Kuril Islands is connected first of all with the upcoming Japanese elections. September 2018 will mark the end of Shinzo Abe's term as prime minister.

His view is echoed by Vasily Molodyakov, Professor of the Japanese Takushoku University, who says that Abe, as an ambitious politician, is hoping that this approach will, if not solve the solution, will at least make considerable progress towards the eventual resolution.

"The Japanese Prime Minister is trying to demonstrate that he undertakes enormous efforts. And even if he is not successful, he would be able to say that he has done his utmost," the expert said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The United Nation Human Rights Council adopted a resolution to set up a special commission tasked with an investigation of human rights violations in Burundi, the European Union delegation to the United Nations said Friday.

"EU-led resolution on #Burundi at @UN_HRC establishes Commission of Inquiry to investigate into human rights violations & report back to #HRC," the EU delegation to the United Nations said on its official Twitter account.

EU-led resolution on #Burundi at @UN_HRC establishes Commission of Inquiry to investigate into human rights violations & report back to #HRC  EU at UN in Geneva (@EU_UNGeneva) September 30, 2016


Earlier in the day, the Wall Street Journal reported that Washington agreed to support the repeal of United Nations Security Council sanctions on two Iranian banks on the same day in January that Tehran freed US nationals from detention and received $1.7 billion in cash.

"These additional secret concessions directly jeopardize our national security, and cast further doubt on this flimsy agreement," Ryan stated.


New Delhi (Sputnik)Demonstrating its strong commitment to fight terrorism, the Russian foreign ministry issued a statement on the developing situation between Pakistan and India in disputed Kashmir.

"We are concerned with the aggravation lately of the situation along the line of control between India and Pakistan. We are calling on the parties not to allow any escalation of tension and to settle the existing problems by political and diplomatic means through negotiations," reads a statement issued by Russian Foreign Ministry in connection with the aggravating situation along the Line of Control between India and Pakistan.

It has further added, "We expect that the Government of Pakistan to take effective steps in order to stop the activities of terrorist groups in the territory of the country."


WASHINGTON (Sputnik)The inclusion of the Chinese currency renminbi, also known as yuan, into the International Monetary Funds (IMF)Special Drawing Right (SDR) currency basket acknowledges Beijings reform progress, the IMF said in a release on Friday.

"Effective October 1, the IMF is adding the Chinese renminbi (RMB) to the basket of currencies that make up the Special Drawing Right, or SDR," the release stated. "Move recognizes and reinforces Chinas continuing reform progress."

The IMF said the inclusion of the yuan is an important milestone in integrating the Chinese economy into the global financial system.
An aerial view of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System with Tower 3 in the foreground, Tower 2 in the middle and Tower 1 in the background. Located in the Mojave Desert 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas, The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is a solar thermal power project, currently under construction, with a planned capacity of 392 megawatts gross, enough to power approximately 140,000 houses. It will deploy 173,500 heliostat mirrors spread over approximately 3,500 acres, focusing solar energy on boilers located atop three solar power towers, generating steam to turn a conventional steam turbine. The project  owned by NRG Solar, Google and BrightSource Energy  is currently the largest solar thermal plant under construction in the world. The project is being constructed by Bechtel. Credit: Gilles Mingasson/Getty Images for Bechtel

(Tech Xplore)China has made it known to the world that it plans to move from coal-fired powered plants to those based on renewable resources as quickly as possiblethe smog from coal plants and the huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions the country produces have generated bad press for the country over the past several years. Now, there is new evidence that the country's leaders plan to make good on those pledges.

The country's state-run utility announced recently that it had awarded a contract to U.S.-based BrightSource Energy to build a massive solar mirror farm in Qinghai province. Solar mirror farms differ markedly from their paneled cousinsthey consist of thousands of mirrors that follow the sun and reflect the light toward a central boiler that powers a turbine. The new plant will be a copy of the plant BrightSource built at its Ivanpah plant near Las Vegas, Nevada, which produces 392 megawatts of electricity. BrightSource will also provide the Chinese utility with molten salt tanks that can store the heat generated during the day, allowing for production of power at night or during overcast days.

China is also investing heavily in traditional solar powerBloomberg recently announced that a Chinese-based company has been building a mammoth solar farm in the country's Ningxia region. It is located on a barren parcel covering 4,607 hectares, will have 6 million panels and be capable of producing 2 gigawatts of power, making it the largest in the worlda single plant capable of producing more power than the total solar power production for some countries such as Thailand. The announcement also highlighted another of China's ambitionsto become a big player in building the plants that make the power.

The company building the new power plant in Ningxia, China Minsheng Investment Corp is just two years old and already has plans to invest 100 billion yuan over the next five years. They expect to increase solar power generation to 12 gigawatts in that time frame. Notably, total solar power produced in the U.S. by the end of the current year is expected to be just 41 gigawatts. The new solar plant is reportedly at near the halfway point in its construction but is already producing electricity and sending it to the grid.

Explore further Google invests $168 million in solar power plant

 2016 Tech Xplore
By India Today Web Desk: Ranbir Kapoor rang in his 34th birthday on the sets of Anurag Basu's Jagga Jasoos on Wednesday (September 28). While the pictures of him cutting the cake went viral, but his co-star and ex-girlfriend Katrina Kaif was nowhere to be seen. Many expected that the Baar Baar Dekho actor must not be present at the film sets on Ranbir's birthday. However, a report in Pinkvilla suggests otherwise.

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ALSO READ: Ranbir Kapoor rings in his 34th birthday on the sets of Jagga Jasoos

ALSO READ: Katrina was the most influential entity in my life, says Ranbir Kapoor



According to the website, Katrina was very much present on the film sets on Kapoor's birthday. But she decided to skip the cake-cutting ceremony and left the film sets as soon as the shooting for the day was wrapped up.

However, the ex-girlfriend did wish Ranbir before leaving the film sets.

A source present on the film sets was quoted as telling the website, "As soon as the shoot got over, Katrina wrapped up her work and headed home. All expected her to wait but that didn't happen. Though she wished Ranbir before leaving."

"Katrina didn't want things to turn awkward and hence decided to leave before Ranbir ringed in his birthday. But she made it a point to wish her ex-flame," added another source.

Despite the ugly break-up, Ranbir and Katrina have remained thorough professionals. The ex-lovers have continued shooting for Jagga Jasoos, which is set to hit the screens some time next year.



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Former CS Fred Matiang'i Retreats to Nyamira Home to Rest and Farm Days after Handing over Power

Former Interior Cabinet secretary Fred Matiang'i has retreated to his Manga farm in Nyamira days after he handed over power to his successor Kithure Kindiki.
Global Poker Index: Fedor Holz Extending Lead over Nick Petrangelo, Jason Mercier

September 30 2016 Martin Harris

Each week, the Global Poker Index releases a list of the top tournament poker players in the world using a formula that takes into account a player's results over six half-year periods. For a look at the entire list, visit the official GPI website. Here's a look at the rankings as of Sept. 28, 2016.

2016 GPI Player of the Year

Rank Player GPI Score Change 1 Fedor Holz 3637.69 - 2 Chance Kornuth 3336.54 - 3 Paul Volpe 3192.20 +1 4 David Peters 3097.44 -1 5 Adrian Mateos 3045.89 - 6 Nick Petrangelo 3008.21 - 7 Ivan Luca 2992.47 - 8 Jason Mercier 2931.51 - 9 Connor Drinan 2926.70 - 10 Dominik Nitsche 2875.65 -

Fedor Holz retained the top spot in the 2016 Global Poker Index Player of the Year race for a 16th-straight week where still enjoys a comfortable lead over Chance Kornuth in second position.

The rest of the top 10 was quiet as well, with only Paul Volpe nudging ahead of David Peters to move into the third spot in the rankings. It was a 20th-place and cash in the recently completed World Poker Tour Borgata Poker Open Main Event won by Jesse Sylvia that netted Volpe some POY points to move up.

Looking below the top 10, two other players who cashed in the WPT Borgata Poker Open Main Event were able to move closer to the upper part of the POY leaderboard. John Racener finished ninth in the event, helping him go from No. 58 to No. 33 and William Foxen took 13th which gave him points to go from No. 57 to No. 29.

GPI 300 Top 10

Rank Player GPI Score Change 1 Fedor Holz 4885.33 - 2 Nick Petrangelo 4392.22 - 3 Jason Mercier 4304.04 +1 4 Steve O'Dwyer 4295.30 -1 5 Byron Kaverman 4247.25 - 6 Connor Drinan 4183.95 - 7 Anthony Zinno 4022.11 +1 8 Bryn Kenney 3992.68 +1 9 David Peters 3977.75 -2 10 Erik Seidel 3872.57 +1

Holz remains the overall top-ranked tournament player in the world for a 16th-straight week as well, and in fact managed to increase the distance between himself and everyone else thanks to the small adjustments that happen each week as player's' earlier scores get affected by the GPI Aging Factor.

Nick Petrangelo remains in second position while others in the top 10 shuffled slightly and Erik Seidel rejoined the list at No. 10, pushing out Adrian Mateos who slipped from No. 10 to No. 12.

Welcome to the GPI Top 300

Rank Player Total Score 245 Matt Waxman 2027.04 259 Corey Hochman 1997.98 270 Scott Davies 1962.63 282 Cord Garcia 1928.83 290 Roman Valerstein 1917.10 296 Vineet Pahuja 1895.38 297 Rumen Nanev 1893.06 298 Antonio Esfandiari 1891.11 300 David Stefanski 1888.04

Nine players joined the top 300 following the latest update, with Matt Waxman the highest-ranked of the group after moving up from No. 328 to No. 245. Waxman also made a deep run in that 1,179-entry WPT Borgata Poker Open Main Event, finishing 11th. Waxman's previous career-high GPI ranking has been No. 7, achieved back in February 2012.

Each of the other eight newcomers have been in the GPI top 300 before. Among that group, Antonio Esfandiari had the highest previous ranking at No. 14, achieved in late June 2013.

Biggest Gains

Rank Player Total GPI Score Change 245 Matt Waxman 2027.04 +83 270 Scott Davies 1962.63 +80 300 David Stefanski 1888.04 +79 231 Dorian Alejandro Rios Pavon 2047.50 +67 147 Ian O'Hara 2304.94 +59

Waxman's jump up puts him atop the list of biggest gainers this week (among those in the top 300), followed closely by 2014 World Series of Poker Asia Pacific Main Event winner Scott Davies who elevated from No. 350 to No. 270. Davies finished runner-up to Jermaine Gerlin in the Heartland Poker Tour Daytona Beach Main Event last week to help get him back into the top 300.

Biggest Drops

Rank Player Total GPI Score Change 210 Ludovic Geilich 2085.82 -53 256 Andrew Chen 2010.80 -45 257 Diego Zeiter 2009.19 -38 196 Pascal Hartmann 2138.44 -34 173 Thomas Muehloecker 2206.08 -28

Finally, looking at players inside the top 300 who are moving in the downward direction, Ludovic Geilich slipped the furthest after going from No. 157 to No. 210.

What to Expect Next Week

The 2016 Wynn Fall Classic got started yesterday in Las Vegas, the WPT National Valkenburg series is already underway in the Netherlands and the World Series of Poker Circuit is currently making an international stop in Berlin.

Also, the 2016 PMU.fr World Poker Tour National Marrakech festival is underway, with Day 2 of the High Roller event in action today and the Main Event running through the weekend. The PokerNews live reporting team is on hand for those two events, so be sure to check the live updates to see who is playing and winning in Morocco.

To view the GPI overall rankings in their entirety, visit the official GPI website. While you're at it, follow the GPI on Twitter and its Facebook page.

Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!

Sharelines Fedor @CrownUpGuy Holz leads the overall @GPI again ahead of Nick Petrangelo and @JasonMercier.

@MagicAntonio Esfandiari rejoins the @GPI top 300 this week, led once more by Fedor @CrownUpGuy Holz.
By PTI: Itanagar, Sep 30 (PTI) Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu chaired a review meeting of the department of hydropower development to restructure and improve policy decisions including the functioning of the department to overcome various hurdles in development of hydropower in the state and made introspections.

Though Arunachal with its 58,000 MW power generating capacity, boasts of being the emerging ?power house? of the country, the state?s own hydropower generation was a meagre 15-16 MW, the chief minister observed during the meeting held here last night, an official communiquA informed here today.

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?It?s a matter of shame that we failed to make optimum use of the generous funding,? he said.

?Public are true in asking -- if we are unable to manage small projects, how do we with big projects?? said Khandu and noted that the government today is unable to reply to people on this matter.

The chief minister observed that policy deficiencies, slow decision making process and lack of pro-active measures by state government had caused delay in hydropower development.

He also observed that execution of hydel projects took serious beating due to inefficiency in the department.

Taking serious view of such setbacks, Khandu issued strict directive that henceforth funds utilization for development of all hydel projects will be strictly monitored.

He asked the department officials to conduct proper feasibility study and proper site selection so that the site has the required power generating capacity and is safe from flood water or erosion.

The chief minister also asserted that the government wouldl not hesitate to take action against any misappropriation or erring officials.

?Unless people?s cooperation is guaranteed, we cannot go ahead with projects. It should be in full confidence of the people and agreeable to them,? he said and announced that the state government will revisit and revise the hydropower policy to assure maximum benefit to the local people.

Parliamentary Secretary for Hydropower, Phosum Khimhun also spoke on the occasion, the communiquA added. PTI UPL SUS SUS

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By Samonway Duttagupta: There's no place better than Kolkata if you want to experience the real charm of Durga Puja. We would all agree to that. It is the same reason why a lot of travellers come to Kolkata just to experience this Bengali festival. While you are there in the city during the Durga Puja, here are a few things you must experience.

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Pandal hopping

That goes without saying, right? If you are in Kolkata during the Durga Puja and you don't do pandal hopping, your entire trip is a waste of time. But prepared to walk a lot and to face a lot of crowd. Trust us, it's worth going through all that. Durga Puja pandals in Kolkata are known to display some of the most vivid forms of art. Each pandal is tastefully decorated--there's a full fledged competition between the Durga Puja committees to win the coveted award of being the best in the city. Right from using waste materials to steel, a lot of creativity and hard work goes into the making of a pandal. And what you get to see as a result is a theme-based pandal and a Durga idol to match the same. Once you start exploring these beauties, time will fly and your camera memory will be full before you know it.

Picture courtesy: Flickr/Ramakrishna Reddy Y/Creative Commons

Picture courtesy: Flickr/Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay/Creative Commons

Not-to-miss pandals:

Jodhpur Park

Bosepukur

Kumartuli

Badamtala Ashar Sangha



Eat!

Bengalis are known to be one of the biggest foodie communities in the country. Bongs need an excuse to eat. The reason why you will get plenty of opportunities to sample some of the best flavours you can imagine. Right from the street food, including the fuchkas (golgappas), and the egg and chicken rolls, to the mishtis (sweets like roshogolla and authentic mishti doi) to the full fledged Bengali cuisine restaurants serving the all-time favourites like maachher jhol, and luchi-kosha maangsho, Durga Puja is the best time to be explore the entire Bengali cuisine.

Egg rolls being made. Picture courtesy: Instagram/dhantalabeauty

Traditional Bengali food. Picture courtesy: Instagram/kanjaniamrita

Not-to-miss eateries:

Bhojohori Manna

6 Ballygunj Place

Ice Berg roll joint at Golpark

Also read: 5 Indian destinations every foodie would love to visit



Participate in Dhunuchi Naach

Dress yourself in the traditional Bengali attire--dhoti-kurta for men and white saree with red border for women, and participate in this frenzied yet graceful dance that takes place only during the Durga puja. When the evening aarti is done on Ashtami, earthen pots called Dhunuchis are filled with coconut shells and lit up to serve as incense burners. These are used by devotees dressed in the traditional Bengali attire to do the Dhunuchi Naachi, a form of dance that is done to the beats of that dhaks (drums). The dance acts as a form of worship to Goddess Durga while the aarti is being done by the priest. Although it's a lot of fun in doing this, devotees often get into a frenzy while expecting their faith towards the worship in the form of a dance.

Picture courtesy: Vinod Chopra Films Picture courtesy: Vinod Chopra Films

Picture courtesy: Facebook/Durga Puja - Maa Aschen

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Durga Puja celebrations held in the Bonedi Baaris of Kolkata is something that you just can't afford to miss. Bonedi Baari refers to the heritage Bengali houses that are there in the city. These houses are ancient and are known to have housed some of the biggest families of Bengal. If you want to see Durga Puja in its most authentic form, you must visit these houses. The puja done here is based on centuries of tradition and is closely attached to the roots of Bengali culture. Entire family trees become one in these houses every year during the Durga Puja celebrations. Right from the attire to the rituals, Durga Puja is done in its truest form in the Bonedi Baaris.

The Shobhabazar Raj Baari. Picture courtesy: Facebook/SITI Cable

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Not-to-miss Bonedi Baaris:

Shovabazar Raj Bari

Chatubabu Latubabu Baari



Participate in the Bhashaan rituals

Bhashaaan is the Bengali world for Visarjan or immersion ceremony. Done on the day of Dashami or Dussehra, this ceremony is held in order to mark the end of the Durga Puja festivities. Married women dressed in traditional Bengali sarees follow a ritual called shindoor khela, a ceremony very similar to Holi, wherein vermillion is used instead of colours. When the Durga idol is taken to the bank of river Ganga for immersion, it turns into an altogether different kind of celebration. Right from the time the idol is lifted from the pandal to the time it is immersed at the riverbank, people tirelessly dance to the beats of the drums. The kind of enthusiasm that goes into the dancing clearly shows that everyone wants to make the most of the last few moments of Durga Puja, which happens to be the celebration for Bengalis. Take time out to join the procession and dance all your worries away--there can't be a better to celebrate life.

Picture courtesy: Pen India Limited/Boundscript Motion Pictures/Viacom 18 Pictures

Picture courtesy: Aajtak

Picture courtesy: Facebook/Durga Puja Live

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By Indrajit Kundu: A special team of Kolkata police on Thursday night arrested Kader Khan, the main accused in Park street rape case in Kolkata. Kader was arrested from Delhi's Greater Noida area along with an accomplice named Ali.

"We got information that these people had taken shelter in Delhi and its adjoining areas, which is why we formed a special team for this purpose. On the basis of specific input we conducted a raid in a particular address in Greater Noida under Kasna polcie station... And were successful in arresting the two accused," informed Deputy Commisisoner of Kolkata police (South Division) Murlidhar sharma.



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Khan had been absconding ever since the incident took place in February 2012 on Kolkata's iconic park street area. A team of Kolkata police was in Delhi after receiving specific information about Kader's presence in the city. Police had been looking for the prime accused in the high profile case for four years and an Interpol notice had also been issued against Khan. Kader is being brought to Kolkata today on a transit remand from Delhi.

The other three men named in the case - Ruman Khan, Nasser Khan and Sumit Bajaj have already been convicted of gangrape. Last year, a city court in Kolkata pronounced its verdict and sentenced all three to ten years' rigorous imprisonment. Unfortunately, the victim, Suzette Jordan, a 34-year old mother of two who famously came out in the open disclosing her identity after refusing to be known as the "Park Street rape victim" died of encephalitis in March last year.

On the night of February 6 in 2012, five men had gangraped the victim at gunpoint in a moving car and threw her out on Park Street in south Kolkata. The audacious crime at one of Kolkata's most iconic locations had shocked the city. Soon the case turned high profile with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accusing the victim of faking the incident. Infact, IPS officer Damayanti Sen, the then joint commissioner of Kolkata police who had been proactively investigating the case was promptly transferred after she claimed that the crime was genuine, thereby refuting the chief minister's initial claim.

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By PTI: Colombo, Sep 30 (PTI) In another setback to Pakistan, Sri Lanka today pulled out of 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad, becoming the fifth country to do so after India expressed its inability to participate in the summit.

"Sri Lanka regrets that the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement here.

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The General Provisions of the SAARC Charter require that decisions at all levels shall be taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States as well, it said in the brief statement.

The statement made no reference to the current tension between India and Pakistan, but it "condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations".

It stressed on the need to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region in a decisive manner.

"Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia.

"As a founding member of SAARC, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our region?s peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation," the statement added.

Besides India, three other SAARC members - Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan - have pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding of the meet.

That development came after tensions ran high between India and Pakistan after militants stormed an Indian Army base in Uri on September 18, killing 18 soldiers. The militants belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist group.

Founded in 1985, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) currently has Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka as its members. PTI CORR ZH AKJ ZH

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The Federal Council

Bern, 30.09.2016 - Today, the Federal Council transferred the dispatch on the revision of the Federal Act on International Monetary Assistance to Parliament. The consultation on the proposal revealed that the revision is largely supported. The legislative revision should ensure that Switzerland can continue to reliably participate in measures to stabilise the international monetary and financial system.

The Federal Council requested a revision of the Federal Act of 19 March 2004 on International Monetary Assistance with the proposal. The revision should ensure that account is taken of the changes in the global economy and in the international financial system. Two major changes are being sought: an increase in the maximum term for monetary assistance in systemic crisis situations, bringing it from seven to ten years, and the explicit definition of the involvement of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) in monetary assistance for individual countries. An extension of the federal decree of 11 March 2013 on international monetary assistance (monetary assistance decree) is also being requested with the dispatch.

The global crises of recent years have resulted in major changes in the international financial architecture. Monetary assistance, particularly in the context of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is also concerned. Switzerland's monetary assistance is closely geared to IMF instruments.

Switzerland's reliability with respect to monetary assistance measures contributes to its standing in the international financial system and allows it to present its position on financial stability issues in a convincing and effective way in international bodies.

As an open economy with an important financial centre and its own currency, Switzerland is reliant upon a stable international financial and monetary system. Switzerland has long been involved in international aid measures and in recent years received requests time and again to provide monetary assistance.

Address for enquiries

Beat Werder, Head of Communications, State Secretariat for International Financial Matters SIF

Tel. +41 58 469 79 47, beat.werder@sif.admin.ch

Publisher

The Federal Council

https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start.html



Federal Department of Finance

https://www.efd.admin.ch/efd/en/home.html




We can help you make sense of the agribusiness industry, extending from chemicals and fertilizers used as inputs into agriculture, to the commodities, food and by-products that are an output to farming, with policy and regulation applied at every step of the value chain.
Ares Management is reportedly seeking to raise more than $45bn for its latest batch of funds.
By PTI: *

Mahindra Two Wheelers Ltd (MTWL), today launched the Mahindra MOJO Tourer edition motorcycle priced at Rs 1.86 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). Commenting on the launch, MTWL Senior General Manager ? Sales, Marketing & Product Planning Naveen Malhotra said the MOJO Tourer Edition is aimed at those who have a passion for touring and for whom exploring new terrain is a way of life. The new motorcycle offers a wide range of accessories, including a magnetic tank bag equipped with four rare earth magnets to provide superior grip along with a 13 litre storage capacity, mobile holder and fog lamp and mount to be used in adverse weather conditions, among others. * * * * * * Gateway Brewing in talks to raise USD 3 mln funding * Gateway Brewing Co, a startup in the food & beverages segment, is in advanced talks with investors to raise USD 3 million in its series A round.

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The money would be used to initiate its bottling operations for distribution of their beer pan-India, the company said in a statement.

Commenting on the development GBC Co-founder Navin Mittal said: "The funds raised will be used for capital expenditure, marketing and brand building. We have already been in talks with certain funds and angels to close this round. Gateway Brewing Co. has engaged Ashika Capital Limited, an investment bank based out Mumbai to advise it on the transaction." * * * * * * SMT to establish R&D and Innovation centre in Ireland *

Indian Medical devices company Sahajanand Medical Technologies (SMT) today said it is establishing its European headquarters in Ireland, which will have a state-of-the-art Research & Development and Innovation Centre.

SMT is largest developer and manufacturer of minimally invasive coronary stent systems in India and supplies to around 60 countries in Europe, Asia, MENA and Latin America. The company has received numerous awards for its breakthrough innovations and quality that have led to more thinner and flexible DES with good long term clinical results.

The project is supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation through IDA Ireland. (MORE) PTI RKL KRH AP MR

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The Maldives however declined to boycott the SAARC summit and instead appealed to the other nations to engage in dialogue through the summit in order to sort out all the issues including terror.

By Mausami Singh: The Maldives today conveyed its intention to attend the SAARC summit to be held in Islamabad and appealed to all member states to participate in the crucial summit so that critical issues facing the region can be discussed.

Maldives also pointed out how the summit can only be convened if all the heads of state participate and urged them the do so.



PAK ISOLATION

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After the Uri attacks, the Indian government has been using all possible avenues to try and isolate Pakistan diplomatically. As a part of that strategy, the Indian Government had refused to attend the SAARC summit in Islamabad and is lobbying its other neighbors to do the same.

So far, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka have all agreed to follow India's lead and boycott the summit much to Pakistan's embarrassment and frustration.

The Maldives however declined to be the fifth country to do so and instead appealed to the other nations to engage in dialogue through the summit in order to sort out all the issues including terror.

Here is the full statement that the Maldives communicated to the SAARC secretariat:

As the Secretariat will be aware, the SAARC Summit can be convened only with the participation of Heads of State or Governments of all the Member States of SAARC.

The above referred Note from the Secretariat conveys decisions by a number of Member States inability to attend the 19th Summit as per schedule.

The Government of Maldives urges Member States to create an environment conducive for holding the 19th Summit, that would give a valuable opportunity for the Leaders of SAARC to discuss critical issues facing the region, including the menace of terrorism, which poses a threat to regional and international peace, security, and democracy.

The Maldives has always condemned international terrorism, especially those originating from outside, defeating and eliminating which requires international collaboration and cooperation in good faith.

The government of Maldives hopes that the required measures will be taken by relevant Member States to convene the Summit at an early date.

ALSO READ:

SAARC: As Pakistan faces boycott from 4 nations, chair Nepal seeks new venue for summit

SAARC summit: Sri Lanka joins India, 3 others in boycott; Pakistan isolated

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By India Today Web Desk: We already know how beautifully sassy Michelle Obama is. Yet, she keeps finding ways and means to reiterate our beliefs.

Take this video with Superwoman Lilly Singh, for instance. Lilly has been trying to her #GirlLove campaign, and she got to do the same with the First Lady sitting right by her side. Lilly's campaign is all about ending girl-on-girl hate, and promoting the idea of women supporting and loving each other--something as basic as that. But as many of us know, girl-on-girl hate is a sad reality. Michelle Obama, however, sportingly took part in Lilly's little game, where she asked the First Lady to shower compliments on some of the people she knew.

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The main motto of Lilly doing this video with the First Lady was to promote higher education among youngsters, which they did by playing a game called Heads-Up with each other and two other students from Howard University.

Watch the video here:

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By India Today Web Desk: In an interview with a leading daily tabloid, Mirzya director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra spoke about how he changed the climax of one of his more famous movies Rang De Basanti, a week before its theatrical release. The director said the original climax was supposed to show thousands of students thronging the streets in a funeral procession of the dead students.

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ALSO READ: Couldn't imagine ANY established actors as Mirza-Sahiban, says Mirzya director Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra



ALSO READ: At 16, I predicted that Anurag Kashyap would change Bollywood films, says Mirzya actor Harshvardhan Kapoor

After a few test screenings suggested that the audience wasn't coming out with the happiest of emotions, Rakeysh Mehra was prompted to call up his friends at NDTV, and film student reactions across 7-8 cities which took about 4 days. And even though there wasn't time to watch it before release, Mehra relied on his instincts.

It became the climax of the movie and everyone came out with a burning passion for the country, along with a hint of sadness. However, it did give us that last frame of Sidharth and Aamir's character laughing when the commandos walk in and the screen freezes to black and white.

The climax still gives us goosebumps, and we have director Mehra to thank for that. Mirzya, written by Gulzar, directed by Mehra and starring Harshvardhan Kapoor and Saiyami Kher as the leads will hit the screens on October 7th.

Watch the epic climax here:





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The HRB Clinical Research Coordination Ireland (HRB-CRCI) was officially launched yesterday.



It is hoped the hub will be central to building Irelands reputation as a preferred location to conduct clinical trials.

For the past decade, the HRB has been pursuing a very deliberate and strategic approach to develop Irelands clinical research infrastructure to ensure new research discoveries lead to improvements in peoples health, patient care and health service delivery.



To date, there has been 137 expressions of interest from Irish sites to participate in clinical trials, enabling Irish sites to be considered for study participation. HRB CRCI collates responses from all sites and provides a single national response to the trial sponsor.

There has been active promotion of the HRB CRCI service to more than 53 companies and engagement with 25 clinical research networks. The HRB CRCI has provided Clinical Industry Liaison support for 240 companies or projects from product concept to commercialisation.



Chair of the senior management team of HRB CRCI, Professor Joe Eustace said, "Our long term goal is to systematically address the barriers that limit the ability of Irish patients to access multicentre clinical trials and to ensure that Ireland is recognised internationally as a preferred location for such trials."

Director Lifesciences and Food at Enterprise Ireland, Deirdre Glenn added, "As co-funder of the HRB-CRCI, Enterprise Ireland recognises the need to bolster the Clinical Trial infrastructure in Ireland to benefit both indigenous and multi-national companies. The HRB-CRCI will establish quality standards and practices enabling companies to undertake trials in Ireland leading to new product development."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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Modified On Sep 30, 2016 05:20 PM By Tushar for Volkswagen Ameo

Having launched the Ameo petrol in June this year, Volkswagen India has finally introduced the diesel version of the compact sedan. The diesel Ameo is available with both, manual and automatic transmissions that come paired with a 1.5-litre diesel engine.

Heres a look at the variant wise ex-showroom Delhi prices:

Manual

Trendline  Rs 6,33,600

Comfortline  Rs 7,35,150

Highline  Rs 8,16,900

Automatic

Comfortline  Rs 8,50,150

Highline  Rs 9,31,900

The Ameos 1.5-litre, 4-cylinder TDI engine produces 110PS of power at 4,000rpm and 250Nm of torque at 1,500-3,000rpm. The motor comes paired with a 5-speed manual gearbox as standard, and an optional 7-speed DSG automatic gearbox that offers a claimed fuel efficiency of 21.73kmpl. The 1.2-litre petrol engine, on the other hand, is a 3-cylinder motor that makes 75PS of power and 110Nm of peak torque and is only offered with a 5-speed manual gearbox.

The compact sedans feature list includes many segment firsts such as rain-sensing wipers, static cornering lights, cruise control, a front centre armrest and anti-pinch power windows at the front and rear. Safety features include ESP and hill-hold (DSG variants only), dual front airbags and ABS (standard across the range), a rear-view camera and rear parking sensors.

(Ameo petrol pictured)

The feature-kitty goes on to include a touchscreen infotainment system with Mirror link, i-pod connectivity and a phonebook/SMS viewer, automatic climate control with a dust & pollen filter, electrically adjustable & foldable wing-mirrors with integrated LED turn indicators and a cooled glove box. Thats not all, you also get an auto-dimming interior rearview mirror, a steering wheel that can be adjusted for rake and reach and rear AC vents too.

The addition of the diesel engine puts the Ameo in a stronger position to go head-to-head against rivals like the Maruti Swift Dzire, Ford Figo Aspire, Hyundai Xcent, Tata Zest and Honda Amaze.

Read More on : Ameo 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: In Atlanta, Soyia Ellison, soyia.ellison@cartercenter.org



ATLANTA  An article published in Al Akhbar, a Moroccan newspaper, on Sept. 21, makes false allegations against Moroccan preacher Oustada Naima Ben Yaich, who was a participant in a Carter Center workshop earlier in the month. The Carter Center strongly refutes the false allegations in the article entitled, The preacher Ben Yaich incites international jurists against Moroccan Security Services in a Countering Daesh workshop in Switzerland.

On Sept. 7-9, The Carter Center organized a workshop in Switzerland on countering Daesh recruitment propaganda with religious and community leaders from Morocco, Tunisia, France, and Belgium. Daesh uses social media tools to persuade youth to join them and strike at countries like Morocco. The Carter Center has a commitment to wage peace, and works collaboratively with religious and community leaders to delegitimize Daesh narratives and protect vulnerable youth from its propaganda. The Carter Center workshop mentioned in the article served this purpose by helping participants address religious violent extremism and Islamophobia  two sides of the same coin.

The workshop urged a multi-pronged approach for preventing violent extremism. Youth, women, and religious leaders were highlighted as a critical constituency in preventing and countering violent extremism. As positive agents of change, they need to be continuously and meaningfully engaged.

Mrs. Ben Yaich was an essential participant in this project. At no time did she engage in criticism of the Moroccan government or any other institution, official or unofficial. The Carter Center, Mrs. Ben Yaich, and all workshop participants were focused on the singular goal of combating Daesh recruitment propaganda and its malicious manipulation of religion for violent political ends.

Morocco has been an international leader in combating violent extremism. The Carter Center and Mrs. Ben Yaich share that same goal. False allegations against Mrs. Ben Yaich only serve political interests designed to cause rifts between workshop participants. We reject in the strongest terms Al Akhbars false account of her activities at the Carter Center workshop.

Translation

         



###

"Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope."

A not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization, The Carter Center has helped to improve life for people in over 80 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity; preventing diseases; and improving mental health care. The Carter Center was founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, in partnership with Emory University, to advance peace and health worldwide.
How are credit unions using digital signs? Anywhere and everywhere! In their branches, in conjunction with community partners, on external signs and other stand-alone locations. But digital signage does not have to cost a lot of money.

Kiosk & Display Company, Atlanta, offers complete digital signage programs for $550-$3,000 per branch, depending on screen size, number of locations, content zones, local wiring requirements and other factors. Additionally, iPads and tablets are gaining meaningful purpose as online banking demonstration screens, lobby queue management systems and even a place to keep the kids busy while mom or dad sign the mortgage paperwork. So they can add to the overall cost of the program but also increase the scope of screens in branches.

The exponential growth in digital signage installations is a direct result of the lower cost of both displays and the technology that powers them, explains Doug Braun, senior vice president of CUES Supplier member inLighten , Clarence, N.Y. Today, flat screen TVs are a fraction of the cost they were as little as five years ago, and theyve gotten lighter and more reliable as well. Corresponding advances in the digital media players used to deliver content to screens has also made it possible to present higher-quality content and integrate an ever-increasing variety of video, graphics, web content and social media sources that can be combined into dynamic presentations that can be revised and updated more easily than ever. Where once cable TV was seen as a less costly alternative to a customizable digital signage solution, today the most robust digital signage solutions available oftentimes cost less than the monthly price for basic cable.
The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday agreed to hear Hair Design v. Schneiderman, a case in which retailers are challenging a New York statute that prohibits merchants from imposing a surcharge for using a payment card but does not prohibit cash discounts. The case has potential impact on a number of surcharge-related cases around the country, including several that CUNA is involved in.

CUNA has filed amicus briefs in similar cases in California, Texas and Florida. In the briefs, CUNA argues that allowing surcharging shifts the costs of using electronic payments to consumers and financial institutions, while allowing merchants to continue to receive the benefits of participating in the system.

In Texas, the 5th Circuit rendered an opinion favorable to credit unions, reversing a ruling to allow surcharges in the former and upholding the no-surcharge law in the latter state. However, in the Florida case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit struck down Floridas no-surcharge law in November of 2015.

Credit unions also saw a victory in a similar case in New York, where the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an anti-surcharging law was not a violation of free speech.
Muller Milk and Ingredients (MM&I) has raised its standard milk price by 1.5p/litre. However, producers can expect less from their retailer supplement.

The supplement, paid by Aldi, Lidl and Morrisons is estimated to be 2p/litre for November  a 0.894p/litre drop on what was paid in July.

The price increase, which affects the 800 producers of the Muller Milk Group and the 650 ex-Dairy Crest-owned Direct Milk DPO producers, means non-aligned dairy farmers will receive 20.94p/litre for their November milk before the supplement.

See also: Milk contracts: what farmers need to check

The announcement completes the price harmonisation of MM&Is two farmer groups whose prices had differed by 0.371p/litre in October.

This is the second consecutive rise from MM&I, which will also raise its October milk price by 1p/litre.

Lagging behind spot prices

Although farmgate milk prices are rising across the board, they are far outpaced by spot milk prices, and the average dairy farmer is still paid 4p/litre below the cost of production.

We will continue to reflect improved returns within our business, said Lyndsay Chapman, agriculture director for MM&I.

But its important to stress that we must be competitive in comparison to other organisations who offer their farmers different levels of milk price returns, or choose to retain rather than pass on the extra supplements they are receiving from retailers.

This approach helped to protect our farmers during the worst of the downturn and we intend to ensure that we maintain our milk price track record as the market picks up.
The Scottish government has come under fire for another blunder in its farm support system that could affect hundreds of farmers and crofters.

Letters have been issued outlining payments under a new national loan scheme, which has been set up due to problems with the 178m IT system for delivering direct payments.

The 300m loan scheme is being offered to about 17,000 of the 18,300 farmers and crofters who have applied to 2016 CAP support schemes.

See also: 300m loan pot created for BPS 2016 in Scotland

It will offer applicants 80% of the support farmers would expect to receive, with the loan due to be paid in the first few weeks of November. NFU Scotland has welcomed the introduction of the scheme.

However, it has emerged that the information used to calculate the sums is wrong in many cases. For hundreds of farmers and crofters, not all the Region 3 land they included in their claim has been included in the loan calculations.

The Scottish government has acknowledged the error  but only after the letters had been printed and sent for distribution.

Now staff need to phone each individual farmer or crofter who has been affected to say that they will be granted an extra week for their loan payment to be dealt with.

Hundreds affected

NFU Scotland understands that hundreds of farmers and crofters are affected. They will receive new loan offer letters and will be given an extra week (until 19 October) to respond.

The latest blunder emerged as an Audit Scotland report showed the loan system carried a number of risks, which could include overpayment and delays to other loans in the Scottish budget.

Scott Walker, chief executive at NFU Scotland, said: The loan scheme is a recognition of the fact that the IT system would not deliver 2016 CAP monies in good time.

The Scottish government saw the car crash this would have had on the rural economy and pre-empted it by introducing a loan scheme to help ensure that finances in the rural economy would keep moving.

To hear that another IT flaw has caused problems for the loan scheme is deeply disappointing. Once again farmers and crofters will justifiably be asking when this system will ever be fit for purpose.

We regret miscalculation

A Scottish government spokeswoman said: Clearly we regret this miscalculation  which has nothing to do with the new IT system.

We have acted very swiftly to address it and to ensure it doesnt affect the timetable for getting the loan payments to farmers.
By India Today Web Desk: There's a picture of Amitabh Bachchan's granddaughter Navya Naveli Nanda doing the rounds of social media, showing her let her hair down in a party with friends. Navya is seen in a blue-striped top acing the nerdy look. It's remarkable how much she's started to resemble her mother Shweta Nanda, Amitabh Bachchan's daughter.

ALSO READ: Amitabh Bachchan's letter to granddaughters Navya, Aaradhya is a must-read

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Navya is seen in company of many friends, just about to hit the dance floor. She was recently in news ahead of the release of Pink, when Amitabh Bachchan chose to write a letter to both his granddaughters Navya and Aaradhya. In the letter he asked them to stand up to the patriarchy in the society and grow up with independent thoughts.

Navya, was also recently in the news for her apparent fondness for Shah Rukh Khan's elder son Aryan, who she went to high school with in London. They were seen holidaying across Europe and also throwing cruise parties along the way.

She's quite famous on social media handles, and everyone is just waiting for her to make her Bollywood debut. And from the pictures on her Instagram, everyone's quite certain she has all the makings of a superstar like her Shahenshah granddad.



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TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - September 29, 2016) - Gran Colombia Gold Corp. (the "Company") (TSX: GCM) (OTC PINK: TPRFF) announced today that the civil situation in Segovia and Remedios in the Department of Antioquia, Colombia, has come to a peaceful conclusion following extensive discussions between representatives of the national and regional governments, the Company and the local mining collective that instigated the civil strike last week which impeded the Company's workers from safely reporting to work. To resolve the situation, the parties agreed to create a Mesa Institucional, a roundtable with representatives from all parties, to analyze and propose solutions to improve social and economic matters in Segovia and Remedios. In addition, the Company will continue its negotiations with each of the illegal mines located within the Company's mining title at its Segovia Operations to enter into contractual relations similar to those it has with 41 other mining cooperatives working within its mining title. The first set of negotiations, supported by USAID and/or the government of Antioquia acting as moderator, will commence in the second week of October with representatives of the Cogote mine.

Commenting on the news, Lombardo Paredes, Chief Executive Officer of the Company said "we are pleased to see this civil unrest come to an end. We appreciate the support we have received from the various levels of government and from our employees who remained at the mine site during the past 10 days to provide essential support in our mines, the plant and the camp to enable us to return to normal operations today. We believe that our contract mining model, under which more than 2,500 miners in Segovia and Remedios are currently working with the Company, is fully aligned with the requirements of the mining regulations in Colombia, including health and safety, environmental management, tax and royalty obligations, and is beneficial to the historical mining communities in which we operate."

The impact of this disruption on Company's production in September is still being fully assessed but is not expected have a significant effect on the Company's total production for the year.

About Gran Colombia Gold Corp.

Gran Colombia is a Canadian-based gold and silver exploration, development and production company with its primary focus in Colombia. Gran Colombia is currently the largest underground gold and silver producer in Colombia with several underground mines in operation at its Segovia and Marmato Operations. Gran Colombia is currently advancing a project to develop a modern, large-scale, gold and silver mine at its Segovia operations.

Additional information on Gran Colombia can be found on its website at www.grancolombiagold.com and by reviewing its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information:

This news release contains "forward-looking information", which may include, but is not limited to, potential strategies for the Company's future. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Gran Colombia to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements are described under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Information Form dated as of March 30, 2016, which is available for view on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this press release and Gran Colombia disclaims, other than as required by law, any obligation to update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, results, future events, circumstances, or if management's estimates or opinions should change, or otherwise. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Sept. 30, 2016) - Gray Rock Resources Ltd. (the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:GRK) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a binding letter agreement (the "Agreement") with DeCoors Mining Corp. ("DeCoors") to acquire the Surprise Lake Property, located near Atlin, British Columbia, consisting of 32 mineral claims, and covering an area of 5,144 hectares, more or less. The Agreement also includes six other early-stage mineral exploration properties comprising a further 55 mineral claims, all located in British Columbia. In consideration of the acquisitions, the Company will issue to DeCoors for the Surprise Lake Property 4.0 million common shares (the "Gray Rock Shares"), and reimburse DeCoors for its location and exploration costs on the Surprise Lake Property up to a maximum of $30,000. The other properties will be acquired for only nominal consideration. In addition, DeCoors will retain a 1.5% NSR on each of the purchased properties, until the Company has paid $2.0 million under the NSR of any property placed into commercial production. Each NSR will be subject to the Company's exclusive option to purchase all of any part of the NSR at any time at the rate of $666,667 for every one-third of a NSR (i.e., 0.5% NSR), or $2.0 million in the aggregate for the total NSR.

The Surprise Lake Property covers two documented mineral occurrences on file with the British Columbia Geological Survey (Surprise and Cabin Silver), and the recent discovery in July, 2016 of visible gold in bedrock along Otter Creek. The gold is hosted by quartz vein stockwork and variably pyritic pale green and graphitic phyllite wall rock, proximal to the northerly trending Otter Creek Fault. Studies of this bedrock are currently underway by the BC Geological Survey to determine the age, petrology and geochemical associations. The extent of this mineralization is the primary focus of the current property exploration.

"With the improved market conditions, we have set out to build a solid portfolio of well-located projects in British Columbia," said Gray Rock President and CEO David Wolfin. "The Surprise Lake Property represents an exceptional opportunity for the Company and Gray Rock will be able to pursue exploration with field crews already in place."

The Surprise Lake Property is partly underlain by the Atlin Ophiolitic Assemblage, which is composed of a sequence of mid Jurassic, relatively flat-lying, thrust slices of metabasalt and lesser ultramafic rocks. Placer gold deposits in the Atlin camp, situated in stream valleys occurring within erosional windows through the carbonatized, relatively flat lying thrust faults within the ophiolitic assemblage, are considered to be derived from auriferous quartz lodes originally hosted by the ophiolitic crustal rocks. Large parts of the Surprise Lake property are situated within the drainage basins of several prolific gold placer streams including Pine, Spruce and Otter Creeks.

The scientific technical disclosure relating to the Property in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Jean Pautler, P. Geo., a Qualified Person within the context of NI 43-101.

In addition to the consideration described above, DeCoors will have the right to nominate up to two (2) directors to the board of the Company; one at the closing of the Agreement and another at the next annual general meeting of the Company.

The Gray Rock Shares will be subject to a four month and one day hold period from the date of closing of the Agreement.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

David Wolfin, President & CEO

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This release contains statements that are forward-looking statements and are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning the specific factors disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in the Company's periodic filings with Canadian securities regulators. Such information contained herein represents management's best judgment as of the date hereof based on information currently available. The Company does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Sept. 29, 2016) - Irving Resources Inc. (CSE:IRV) ("Irving" or the "Company") is pleased announce that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Irving Resources Japan GK, has secured a 62.18 sq km land position encompassing the past producing Omui Au-Ag mine and surrounding areas on the island of Hokkaido, Japan. Irving recently announced the purchase of a 298 hectare (2.98 sq km) mining right, the Omui mining license (please see press release dated August 29, 2016 for further details). Provisional title transfer for this purchase has recently been received from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry ("METI"), Hokkaido Bureau.

To augment its land position, Irving recently filed 17 prospecting licenses covering an additional 58.20 sq km of prospective ground in the vicinity of the Omui mine and including another past producing Au-Ag mine, Hokuryu, situated about seven km west of Omui. Applications for rights to alluvial materials were filed at the same time. Acceptance of all prospecting and alluvial applications was recently granted by METI, and a multi-step review now begins for final approval. Mitusi Mineral Development Engineering Co, Ltd ("MINDECO") is assisting the Company throughout the process.

"We are excited to acquire our second precious metals project in Japan," commented Akiko Levinson, President and CEO of Irving Resources Inc. "Our new Omui project encompasses two past producing mines, Omui and Hokuryu, each of which produced significant amounts of gold and silver in the early 1900s. Little work has been done here since. We look forward to commencing our first work program here in early October."

Irving's Omui project covers an area underlain by Tertiary aged volcanic and sedimentary rocks deposited in a rift setting situated near the north end of Hokkaido. Very young, Tertiary or perhaps Quaternary, hot spring activity locally deposited bonanza grade Au and Ag along a series of east-west trending epithermal veins. In places, high densities of sheeted, parallel veins are observed and may be related to doming caused by deep, late-stage rhyolite plugs. Such a setting is present at the world class Hishikari Au-Ag mine on the island of Kyushu, Japan.

Staff from Irving recently collected grab samples from a surface outcrop of the Omui main vein and another from a subordinate parallel vein situated immediately north. An assay of the main vein sample returned 192 gpt Au and 5,240 gpt Ag while one from the subordinate vein returned 6.9 gpt Au and 1,345 gpt Ag. Both samples display distinct bands of fine-grained silica alternating with electrum and sulfide minerals, a texture referred to as "ginguro", which is a product of fluid pulsing in a boiling hot spring environment. Vein material is also typically brecciated suggesting vigorous boiling and venting occurred at the time of its formation. Remnants of siliceous sinter terraces that formed in hot spring pools are scattered across the area suggesting very little erosion has occurred here since the time of hydrothermal activity.

Deposition of bonanza grade Au and Ag mineralization like that sampled at Omui is sometimes a product of processes associated with boiling in hot spring environments. Boiling profiles can extend to depths of over 200 m in such systems. Because of strong evidence of a vigorous boiling system, the presence of bonanza Au and Ag grades, and an apparent lack of significant erosion, Irving thinks that there is good potential for discovery of significant epithermal Au-Ag mineralization at depth at Omui and surrounding areas. To better understand this potential, Irving plans to undertake reconnaissance level prospecting and mapping across the Omui property in October.

"We are highly encouraged by bonanza grade gold and silver results recently returned from samples taken from Omui," commented Dr. Quinton Hennigh, director and technical advisor to Irving Resources Inc. "Coupled with compelling field evidence including the presence of siliceous sinter and extensive hydrothermal brecciation, we think we are at a high level in a hot spring system that experienced vigorous boiling and mineral deposition. Therefore, we think Omui has good potential for discovery of high grade epithermal Au-Ag veins."

The two grab samples discussed in this news release were submitted for assay to ALS Minerals Laboratory in Sparks, Nevada. Au and Ag were determined utilizing a 30 g charge subjected to fire assay with a gravimetric finish.

Quinton Hennigh (Ph.D., P.Geo.) is the Qualified Person pursuant to National Instrument 43-101 responsible for, and having reviewed and approved, the technical information contained in this news release. Dr. Hennigh is a technical advisor and director of Irving Resources Inc.

About Irving Resources Inc.:

Irving is a junior exploration company searching for opportunities in certain countries, including Japan. Irving also holds, through a subsidiary, three Project Venture Agreements with JOGMEC for joint regional exploration programs in the United Republic of Tanzania, the Republic of Malawi and the Republic of Madagascar. JOGMEC is a government organization established under the law of Japan, administrated by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, and is responsible for stable supply of various resources to Japan through the discovery of sizable economic deposits of base, precious and rare metals.

Additional information can be found on the Company's website: www.IRVresources.com.

Akiko Levinson, President & Director

Forward-looking information

Some statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and, as such, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the statements. Such factors include, without limitation, customary risks of the mineral resource exploration industry as well as Irving having sufficient cash to fund any planned drilling and other exploration activities.

THE CSE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS RELEASE.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Sept. 29, 2016) - IDM Mining Ltd. (TSX VENTURE:IDM) ("IDM" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the 30-day public consultation period will commence shortly for the Red Mountain Underground Project (the "Project") draft Application Information Requirements (dAIR) document. The public comment period, managed by the BC Environmental Assessment Office (EAO), will run from October 5, 2016, to November 4, 2016, with an EAO-led public open house in Stewart on October 12, 2016. IDM will host two additional open houses in the Nisga'a communities of Gitwinksihlkw on October 13, 2016, and Gitlaxt'aamiks October 19, 2016.

"Entering into the dAIR public consultation period is an important step in the environmental assessment of the Project," said Michael McPhie, Executive Chairman of IDM. "The EA process and regulatory review timeline remains on track for the Company, and we look forward to engaging with local and regional stakeholders in the coming weeks."

EAO has issued a formal notice of the public open house and opportunity to comment, and IDM has made this notice available to community members through publication in newspapers, as well as hardcopy and online distribution through community bulletin boards, websites, and social media.

Status of the Environmental Assessment and Engineering of Red Mountain

In addition to the Project's progress through the EA, the Company is in the process of completing more than two and a half years of environmental baseline studies that will form the foundation of the work that will be documented in the subsequent environmental assessment of the project by both BC and Canada. A Project Application report will be filed with both the BC EAO and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) in early 2017 that will meet all of the requirements of the BC and Canadian Environmental Assessment Act's.

The EA and permitting work at Red Mountain is being led by Falkirk Resource Consultants Ltd. and supported by a team of highly regarded consultants and specialists with specific knowledge and experience in all the key technical issues and environmental, socio-economic, health and cultural considerations associated with the project and the region.

Feasibility level engineering of the Project is also well underway, under the direction of JDS Energy and Mining Ltd. with support from several technical and specialist consulting engineering groups. This feasibility work includes all aspects of mine design, water and waste management, transportation, logistics, milling and processing, labor needs, scheduling, and financial analysis. A bankable level Feasibility Study (BFS) of the Project is scheduled for completion in early 2017. The BFS will also inform the content of the Application/EIS being prepared by IDM.

ABOUT IDM MINING LTD.

IDM Mining Ltd. is a mineral exploration and development company based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The Company's current exploration and development activities are focused on precious metals in British Columbia and Yukon, with a primary focus on the high grade underground Red Mountain Underground Gold Project which has entered the BC and Canadian environmental assessment processes. Further information can be found on the Company's website at www.IDMmining.com and on the Project's website at www.RedMountainProject.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD of IDM Mining Ltd.

Robert McLeod, President, CEO and Director

"Neither the 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."

Forward-Looking Statements: Some statements in this news release contain forward-looking information or forward-looking statements for the purposes of applicable securities laws. These statements include, among others, statements with respect to the proposed exploration and development activities, and their timing, resource estimates and potential mineralization, completion of the EA Application and bankable level feasibility study. These statements address future events and conditions and, as such, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the statements. Such factors include, among others and in addition to those described elsewhere in this release, timing and success of future exploration and development activities, exploration and development risks, delays in obtaining or inability to obtain required government or other regulatory approvals, permits or financing, the risk of unexpected variations in mineral resources, grade or recovery rates, of failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated, of accidents, labor disputes, and unanticipated delays in completing other development activities, the risk that estimated costs will be higher than anticipated and the risk that the proposed mine plan and recoveries will not be achieved, equipment breakdowns and bad weather, the timing and success of future exploration and development activities, exploration and development risks, mineral resources are not as estimated, title matters, third party consents, operating hazards, metal prices, political and economic factors, competitive factors and general economic conditions. In making the forward-looking statements, the Company has applied several material assumptions including, but not limited to, the assumptions that: required regulatory approval, permits and financing will be obtained; the proposed exploration and development will proceed as planned; with respect to mineral resource estimates, the key assumptions and parameters on which such estimates are based; that the proposed mine plan and recoveries will be achieved, that capital costs and sustaining costs will be as estimated, and that no unforeseen accident, fire, ground instability, flooding, labor disruption, equipment failure, metallurgical, environmental or other events that could delay or increase the cost of development will occur, and market fundamentals will result in sustained metals and minerals prices. The Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise except as otherwise required by applicable securities legislation.
VANCOUVER, BC--(September 30, 2016) - Brixton Metals Corporation (TSX VENTURE: BBB) (the "Company" or "Brixton") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a purchase and sale agreement with Agnico Eagle Mines Limited ("Agnico Eagle") dated September 30, 2016 (the "Acquisition") to acquire 100% control over certain additional real property adjoining the Company's Langis Property.

Chairman and CEO of Brixton, Gary R. Thompson stated, "The acquisition of the Penna lands are both patented surface and mineral rights which cover the lands over shaft number 7 filling in our Langis mine holdings. This area has been where our most recent drilling has taken place."

Upon completion of the Acquisition, Brixton will pay Agnico Eagle $200,000 and assume environmental and mine closure liabilities in the amount of approximately $56,000. Agnico Eagle retains a 2.0% net smelter returns on any future production from the property, subject to Brixton's right to purchase from Agnico Eagle one-half of such royalty for $500,000. The Acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and the discharge of encumbrances.

About Brixton Metals Corporation

Brixton Metals is an Canadian exploration company focused on the advancement of its gold and silver projects toward feasibility.

The Langis project is located 500 kilometres north of Toronto, Canada near Lake Timiskaming. The high-grade silver mineralization occurs as steeply-dipping veins within any of the three main rock types: Archean volcanics, Coleman Member sediments and Nipissing diabase. The Cobalt camp has historically produced over 500 million ounces of Ag. Brixton owns two past producing mines in the Cobalt-silver camp, the Langis and Hudson Bay mines. The Langis mine produced 10.4Moz Ag at 25 oz/t Ag and the Hudson Bay mine produced 6.4 Moz Ag at 123 oz/t Ag.

The wholly owned Thorn Project is located in northwestern British Columbia, Canada, approximately 105 km ENE from Juneau, AK. The Thorn project hosts a district scale Triassic to Cretaceous volcano-plutonic complex with many styles of mineralization related to porphyry and epithermal environments. Targets include sediment hosted Au-Ag, Ag-Au-Pb-Zn diatreme-breccia, Au-Ag-Cu veins; and volcanic hosted structurally controlled Au-Ag. Brixton has established a maiden inferred resource of 21.5Moz AgEq from 7.4 Mt at 89.75 g/t AgEq based on limited drilling. Further information regarding the resource estimates, can be found on the in the Company's technical report prepared by SRK Consulting dated December 12, 2014 and filed on SEDAR. Read more at http://brixtonmetals.com/thorn-technical-reports/

Brixton Metals Corporation shares trade on the TSX-V under the ticker symbol BBB. For more information about Brixton please visit our website at www.brixtonmetals.com.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Mr. Gary R. Thompson, Chairman and CEO

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Information set forth in this news release may involve forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are statements that relate to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", and "intend", statements that an action or event "may", "might", "could", "should", or "will" be taken or occur, including statements that address potential quantity and/or grade of minerals, potential size and expansion of a mineralized zone, the proposed closing of the Acquisition, the discharging of encumbrances by Agnico Eagle, proposed timing of exploration and development plans, or other similar expressions. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein including, without limitation, statements regarding the exploration potential of the Langis property based on historical information resources estimates on the Thorn Project are forward looking statements. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following risks: the need for additional financing; operational risks associated with mineral exploration; fluctuations in commodity prices; title matters; and the additional risks identified in the annual information form of the Company or other reports and filings with the TSXV and applicable Canadian securities regulators. Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by applicable securities laws. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.
Ruling Saenuri Party floor leader Chung Jin-suk, center, attends a party meeting at the National Assembly in southern Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap



By Yi Whan-woo

Whether or not a political standoff will continue is at a crossroads, as rival parties are attempting to establish dialogue to normalize the malfunctioning National Assembly.

The Assembly is under fire for "wasting" the first five days of the 20-day government audit that kicked off on Monday in the wake of the ruling Saenuri Party's boycott of its sessions against an opposition-backed motion to dismiss the new agriculture minister, Sept. 25.

On Friday, Saenuri Party floor leader Rep. Chung Jin-suk proposed holding talks with his two counterparts _ Reps. Woo Sang-ho of the MPK and Park Jie-won of the minor opposition People's Party _ in order to normalize the Assembly.

Both Woo and Park are optimistic about Chung's offer, according to party officials.

However, it is speculated that hardliners at the Saenuri Party and MPK could disrupt the possible dialogue among the three floor leaders.

Saenuri Party Chairman Lee Jung-hyun and several other party members have been calling for National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun to resign.

They claim that he violated political neutrality by siding with the MPK in the passage of the motion against Minister Kim Jae-soo and that they will join the audit only if the speaker steps down.

Although Chung Sye-kyun is currently an independent, he was an MPK member before being appointed as Assembly speaker in June and left the party as stipulated by law.

The MPK lawmakers have been refuting the Saenuri Party's demands against the speaker and pushed ahead with the audit as scheduled.

Under such circumstances, Park Jie-won urged the Saenuri Party, MPK and the National Assembly speaker to cooperate to "prevent a catastrophe at the National Assembly."

"I hope they use all necessary means as the most senior Assembly officials to avoid the worst scenario," Park said.

He also apologized for criticizing Lee for going on a hunger strike in protest of Chung Sye-kyun's alleged favor of the MPK.

It is speculated that the parties will also need to break the political deadlock before Chung Sye-kyun will embark on a trip to Australia, Monday.

He is scheduled to attend a joint meeting among parliamentary speakers from MIKTA, a group of five middle-power countries named after their first letters of Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, Turkey and Australia.

Before visiting Australia, the speaker initially planned to visit New Zealand on Sept. 29 upon invitation of David Carter, speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives.

But he scrapped the plan to settle the legislative stalemate here first.

"Any further cancellation of his itinerary may be considered as a diplomatic gaffe and might mar the reputation of our country," a MPK official said. "The parties must arbitrate before his departure."
Kim Eun-jung, design director of ObjetOgam, and Goh Hoon-a, creative director, stand for a photo in their workspace at the Seoul Women's Venture Plaza in southern Seoul, Sept. 22. / Korea Times photo by Kim Se-jeong



By Kim Se-jeong

Kim Eun-jung works as a design director at ObjetOgam, a small startup she and her colleague established to make and market jewelry and interior design items.

This is not the first time that she has been engaged in business. She had to fold her previous entrepreneurial venture in 2008 due to high rent and other hurdles she could not overcome alone.

"I couldn't handle bills that I had to pay every month, including rent," Kim said during a recent interview in her new workspace inside Dogok Subway Station in southern Seoul.

On top of the rent issue, Kim had other challenges  filing tax returns and meeting the right people to sell her products to.

"I was alone and I had too much to take care of."

She still has a lot to do now, but says her stress feels much lighter now because of the help from Seoul Women's Venture Plaza.

Located inside the subway station, the plaza, run by Seoul Metropolitan Government, is specifically designed for women who start handicraft businesses like Kim.

The extent of assistance is broad, ranging from affordable office rent to training sessions for filing tax returns and copyrights, and lectures on marketing and trade basics.

The photography session was particularly helpful, she said, because she had to take photos and edit them for online sales in China. The plaza also runs a small market inside the subway station every other Friday where she sells her products.

"I can save a lot by not paying so much for rent," Kim said. She pays 84,000 won monthly for the space of 21 square meters, plus utilities.

Kim is among 15 young entrepreneurs who are renting space at the plaza.

The help center was founded in 2013 in line with the city government's policy to encourage female city residents with handicraft skills to start their own businesses. The city runs 23 such places, with a similar range of services.

"What we found is that handicrafts are where women could excel and distinguish themselves from others," said Kwon Jin-young from the city's Women and Family Policy Affair Department. Also, there was strong support from Mayor Park Won-soon, said Kwon.

The city's support focuses on sustaining the new startups for three years. "The first three years are the toughest period in business, and our programs are particularly aimed at their survival during that time," Kwon said. Kim who rented the space early this year can also stay there three years.

Korea is a tough place to work for women. Maintaining a balance between career and family life is a daunting task. Many quit their jobs after having babies. Many never go back, and those who wish to do so are discouraged because of the hostility of the corporate environment for female employees with families.

A project like this is one of many efforts the central and local governments are using to improve the situation and to get women back into the workforce.

With the help of the city, Kim's business is making progress, slowly.

Since July, her jewelry has been selling on a Chinese luxury online shopping mall, called www.secoo.com. She managed to get her products onto a couple of other domestic online venues for handicraft items. "We're more hopeful that our brand gets its name out, and we will have good sales," Kim said.

There are other success stories.

Kim Mi-mi is also successfully running RUBLUM, a jewelry brand. She is supplying her products to Alibaba.com, a leading Chinese e-commerce site, prominent department stores and gift shops at the Korea National Museum and the National Assembly. As her business grew, Kim left the plaza at the end of last year and is expanding her business on her own.

The door for support is open for any woman, but competition is fierce. The first round of competition is the women venture handicraft contest which the city organizes every year. Only the winners of the annual contest can apply for the space and training sessions at the plaza.

This year's contest will take place in mid-October. Those who want to get more information about the city's support, visit https://wrd.seoulwomen.or.kr.
Pakistan was in a denial mode on the surgical attacks and Sharif warned that the country's intent for peaceful neighbourhood should not be mistaken as its weakness.

By Mail Today Bureau: Pakistan was in a denial mode on the surgical attacks carried out by the Indian Army. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said the country's armed forces are fully capable of defending the territorial integrity of the country.

Sharif also warned that Pakistan's intent for peaceful neighbourhood should not be mistaken as its weakness, Radio Pakistan reported. He said Pakistan can thwart any evil design to undermine its sovereignty. He strongly condemned the unprovoked aggression of the Indian forces along the Line of Control. Meanwhile, the Pakistan military said two of its soldiers were killed in a ceasefire violation by India along the LoC. Sharif paid rich tributes to the soldiers who have been reportedly killed in the firing.

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Also Read: Nawaz Sharif's security men misbehave with woman for clicking his photo at London's Harrods



SHARIF REVIEWS PAKISTAN'S DEFENCE

Prime Minister Sharif reviewed Pakistan's defence preparedness, holding talks with Army chief Raheel Sharif and other top aides. Sharif and Raheel had a telephonic conversation during which they discussed situation at the Line of Control, local media reported. Raheel apprised Sharif over the incidents at the LoC, the reports said, adding that the Army chief told him that Indian claims of surgical strikes were baseless.

Sharif told the Army chief that the entire nation had high morale and was committed to defend the motherland along with the armed forces.

Sharif has convened a cabinet meeting on Friday, his office said in a statement. Agenda item number one of cabinet meeting will be discussion on present Kashmir situation, UNGA visit and bilateral meetings of the PM in New York. Foreign secretary (Aizaz Chaudhry) will brief the cabinet before the discussion, the statement said.

Sharif was also briefed on the LoC situation by National Security Adviser (NSA) General Nasir Janjua after Indian Army carried out surgical strikes against terror bases across the LoC. The NSA submitted a comprehensive report on the LoC situation to Sharif, the Prime Minister's Office said. It added the prime minister was briefed regularly on the situation on the LoC by the security institutions.

Also Read: India can't decide unilaterally on Indus Waters Treaty, says Pak PM Nawaz Sharif



SHARIF RESPONDS TO CROSS-BORDER FIRE

While denying the Indian Army action, Pakistan on Thursday said that Indian troops had responded to "crossborder fire" from the Indian side that killed two soldiers and injured nine more. There has been no surgical strike by India, instead there had been crossborder fire initiated and conducted by India which is an existential phenomenon, Pakistan Army said in a statement.

As per rules of engagement, it was strongly responded by the Pakistani troops. "The notion of surgical strike linked to alleged terrorists bases is an illusion being deliberately generated by India to create false effects. This quest by Indian establishment to create media hype by rebranding crossborder fire as surgical strike is fabrication of truth," it said.

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Also Read: US lawmaker slams Sharif for praising Wani in his UN address



Pakistan has made it clear that if there is a surgical strike on Pakistani soil, it will be strongly responded, the statement said.

Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said India's claim was not true. India violated LoC and only used light weapons in the firing, he said, adding that Pakistan forces gave befitting reply to Indian firing. Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has also rejected India's claim of surgical strikes. Pakistan is ready to respond to any such strikes, PAF said in a statement.

Earlier Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif strongly condemned the aggression by India along the LoC. Sharif also warned that Pakistan's intent for peaceful neighbourhood should not be mistaken as its weakness. "Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has strongly condemned the unprovoked and naked aggression of the Indian forces resulting in martyrdom of two Pakistani soldiers along the LoC," the statement said.

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: From Zafri Mudasser Nofil

Bamako, Sep 30 (PTI) In the wake of the surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the LoC, India today asserted that international and cross-border terrorism should be dealt with in a comprehensive manner and called for early adoption of a global treaty on terrorism.

Noting that terrorist actions cannot be justified on any grounds, Vice President Hamid Ansari said India face the threat of terrorism from across its borders.

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"India condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and is of view that international and cross-border terrorism should be dealt in a comprehensive manner. We feel that with a view to strengthening international normative regime on terrorism, an early adoption of the CCIT (Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism) is essential," he told the National Assembly of the Republic of Mali.

Seeking Malis cooperation in this regard, he said, "As we move forward, individually and together, to build a better future for our people and societies, we must also reckon with the impediments to development.

"Foremost among them is the scourge of terrorism, regionally and globally. The spreading tide of extremism and terrorism is a threat we both face," he said.

Ansari said as the world becomes more globalised and inter-connected, the salience of global cross-cutting issues is rising and these issues cannot be resolved by a handful of powerful countries or even through regional efforts.

"They include issues such as climate change but also global public health challenges, drug-trafficking, trafficking of humans, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism. There are newer domains of cyber security and space security."

Terming Mali as an ancient seat of learning and a nation that was for centuries a melting pot of cultural traditions and influences, and home to great scholars, musicians and historians, he said "in recent years we have sought to close the distance that separates us physically".

He said his visit, the first high-level one to Mali from India, takes place at a time of excellent bilateral relations between the two countries.

"My visit comes at a time when the world is acknowledging the India growth story. This economic growth provides India more resources not just for its own development, but also more financial leverage in expanding the scope of its engagement with emerging growth poles of the world like Africa.

"It comes at a time when Africa, awash with the spirit of democracy, has consolidated its control over its resources and accelerated its march towards securing a prosperous future for its people."

Ansari said India and Mali neither has a transactional partnership nor does New Delhi merely return to Africa what was earlier robbed from it. PTI ZMN NSA AKJ NSA

--- ENDS ---

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After weeks of will-they-or-won't-they speculation, the 14 OPEC nations released an announcement Wednesday from Algiers, Algeria stating they'd reached an agreement "cutting" oil production. Slightly. Or maybe not even noticeably. Possibly not at all when you consider a broader perspective. But they reached an agreement, and that was better than investors anticipated, resulting in Energy stocks and oil prices leaping higher on the day. Now, if you are someone who's been paying attention to oversupplied energy markets, you might see this as quite bullish news. But there are a huge number of caveats, asterisks and reasons to doubt the lasting impact of this news. In our view, this isn't nearly a significant enough development to change our view that Energy prices likely remain weak for the foreseeable future-weighing on Energy firms' profits and returns.

Since August 8's announcement of a September OPEC powwow, nary a day has passed without some sort of OPEC meeting-related rumor or article hitting the wires. Recently, the flip-flopping has been intense. On September 18, OPEC head Mohammed Barkindo said no deal would be reached in Algiers. The same day, Venezuelan thug Nicolas Maduro claimed a deal to freeze (not cut) production was at hand. The next day, OPEC was said to delay the meeting by a day, and confirmed it was a meeting to discuss a potential meeting at which they may pare back production.[i] Every morning since, there has been a sort of do-si-do in which certain OPEC members claim a deal is at hand, others reject it and the media throws their collective hands up and wonders what it all means. Meanwhile, Energy stocks floundered-lagging the MSCI World in the last three months by about 5 percentage points.[ii]

All this back and forth after months of similar speculation-that proved fruitless-left the punditry and investors skeptical OPEC would do anything at all. No freeze. No cut. Nothing. But Wednesday, they actually did hold that meeting, and in the resulting press release, they announced a production target range of between 32.5 and 33.0 million barrels per day. That's down from the 33.2 million barrels per day OPEC is estimated to have pumped in August.[iii] A cut! Of between 200,000 and 700,000 barrels per day. The market reaction, in the incredibly, ridiculously, almost comically short-term of Wednesday afternoon was that Brent crude oil rose 5.9% and the MSCI World Energy sector jumped 3.2% for the day.[iv]

But this move isn't a statement of what's to come, in our view. It's all about the mismatch between expectations (maybe a freeze, more likely nothing) and reality (a small cut) in the same comically short-term period.

The "cut" brings OPEC production back down to levels last seen ... before the summer. In May. You see, Saudi Arabia usually ramps production up during the summer months-did so this year-and this cut likely results from them agreeing to curtail production in a manner consistent with typical behavior. Moreover, Russia announced the same day it had pumped 11.1 million barrels per day in September-a post-Soviet record, and a rise of 400,000 barrels per day from August. Unsurprisingly, talk of non-OPEC cooperation Wednesday was muted. In case you're keeping score, that's a big chunk of OPEC's projected "cut."

But also, that's all these cuts are: projected. OPEC's targets have often been breached in recent months because the member nations simply can't get on the same page. Venezuela (and others similarly desperate for cash) pump as much as possible. Saudi Arabia, historically the "swing producer"-the OPEC country that would dial up or down production to near overall targets-has eschewed the role since 2014, opting to battle for market share regardless of prices. In this latest deal, who cuts and by how much hasn't even been decided-won't be until November. Who cuts has been the crux of the cartel's issues over the past two years. If they haven't gotten along and followed guidelines thus far, why believe they'll do so now?

None of this even touches on the US, where production gains since 2009 have massively increased supply. While oil prices' steep decline certainly hit the industry hard, firms have been very slow to materially reduce production. In June 2016 (the latest data available), the Energy Information Administration estimates US oil firms pumped 8.7 million barrels per day. (Exhibit 1) That's down from April 2015's shale-era peak of 9.6 million. But that is only a 9.6% reduction, putting US production where it was in June 2014. Ironically, June 2014 is the month the steep, more than 50% oil-price decline began. Point being: US output reduction hasn't been sufficient to offset the big increases elsewhere. And, now, oil prices rallying from the mid-$20s per barrel in January are spurring renewed activity in US shale fields. The Baker Hughes rig count has been rising for months now, as producers aim for some revenue. (Exhibit 2)

Exhibit 1: US Oil Production, Millions of Barrels Per Day

Source: Energy Information Administration, as of 9/28/2016. June 2009 - June 2016.

Exhibit 2: Baker Hughes Rig Count - Oil Only

Source: Baker Hughes, Inc., as of 9/28/2016. June 26, 2009 - September 23, 2016. Data are weekly.

If OPEC and non-OPEC producers want higher prices, there will need to be lower production than this agreement provides for, assuming producers even adhere to it. Now, it's possible this is merely an OPEC overture to Russia, an olive branch declaring an end to Saudi Arabia's effort to maintain market share at oil prices' expense. Maybe it's the tip of the iceberg, and the Saudi budget's oil-related stress has them seeking higher prices from here, too. All possible. But right now, the fundamental factors are aligned against a sustained rise in oil prices and Energy sector outperformance. We see little in Wednesday's announcement to suggest the change is so major.

CORRECTION: This article originally stated that US oil production peaked in April 2016. This was a typographical error; the peak was in April 2015. Hat Tip: CL.
By Devarsi Ghosh: India-Pakistan relations have hit an all-time low following the unprovoked terror attacks in Uri on September 18. In retaliation, the Indian Army struck back at terror camps along the LoC (Line of Control) in PoK (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) on Wednesday night (September 28) and in this period, there have been cries for war from the citizens, media and opinion-makers of both countries.

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India and Pakistan have been involved in armed skirmishes along the LoC which separates Kashmir reclaimed by India from PoK, also known as Azad Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan. The conflict blew into the Kargil War of 1999. Ever since, Pakistan has repeatedly tried to make 'Kashmir' an international issue and at present, Indo-Pak relations are rather tense.



ALSO READ: These films will show why nuclear war between India and Pakistan is stupid

ALSO READ: 5 films in which India struck Pakistan and came out successful

The Indo-Pak conflict over Kashmir is perfectly explained by the 1952 short film Neighbours, directed by Scottish-Canadian filmmaker Norman McLaren.

The film shows two men living peacefully on a plot of land in their respective houses, that are identical. Suddenly, a beautiful small flower grows the two houses. Both the men are enamoured by the beauty and fragrance of the flower. However, both of them want to have the flower all to themselves.

Soon, one of them fixes a fence on the plot to demarcate his house from his neighbour's. And of course, he keeps the flower to himself. But his neighbour won't have it that way. He too wants the flower to himself. Soon begins a fight which ends in both men killing each other and their families.





Neighbours was originally envisioned as an anti-war film by director Norman McLaren, who was influenced by his experience of witnessing Mao Zedong's revolution in China. The film was, interestingly, nominated for the Academy Awards under two categories, Short Subject (One-reel) and Best Documentary (Short Subject), but it is in the documentary category that the film won the Oscar.

Indian Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore was vehemently against the idea of Nationalism and he believed that creating national boundaries results in unnecessary, unwarranted suspicion between people. Tagore was quoted as saying, "Each nation has its own history of thieving and lies and broken faith, therefore there can only flourish international suspicion and jealousy, and international moral shame becomes anemic to a degree of ludicrousness."

In the film Neighbours, the two men are seen to be co-habiting peacefully on a piece of land, but their individual greed for the flower leads them to draw boundaries between themselves and hurt each other to death. The metaphor of the film and how it can be seen in the context of India and Pakistan, especially today, simply writes itself.

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( The writer tweets as @devarsighosh )



--- ENDS ---
Editor's note: On Saturday October 1, 2016, Nigerians, at home and in the Diaspora, will roll out the drums to celebrate 56 years of independence from the colonial rule. Nigeria was born in 1914 when the Southern and the Northern Protectorates were amalgamated by the then Governor General of Nigeria, Lord Fredrick Lugard. Legit.ng's Austin Oyibode looks at the historical and political development of Nigeria.

Nigeria's first prime minister, Tafawa Balewa was killed in the first military coup

The beginning of colonial rule in Nigeria

That was the beginning of friendship ties that bonded the North, a Muslim dominated region and the South, a predominantly Christian zone. Nigeria was then governed by series of British officials who decided what obtained in the country while Nigerians were only left to do the bidding of the whites.

They exported their policies and principles of life into the country. They altered the lifestyle of the people of Nigeria.

They conquered the nation through various means and subjugated the traditional institutions under their whims and caprices. They made decisions for Nigeria and determined the living conditions of the Nigerian people.

But while the British rule lasted, Nigerians felt deprived and relegated to the background and hence fought through media and with nationalists as Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Anthony Enahoro and a host of others who hazarded their lives for the liberation of the nation from the British imperialists.

In the days when the British ruled, they siphoned the wealth of the nation to develop the British Empire while Nigerians felt shortchanged in their home country.

READ ALSO: INVESTIGATION: Culture of death: Twins murder and infanticide in the FCT (video)

There was evident marginalization as the British took the great jobs and offices while treating Nigeria nationals as second class citizens and inferior beings. They plundered the nation, placing their nationals into juicy offices even as they never mixed with Nigerians following their perceived superiority to the black race of Africa.

Nigerians at previous independence celebrations

Hence, the Nigerian media rose, fought and demanded for self-government and sovereignty. The demand was eventually granted on October 1, 1960 when the British flag was lowered and the Nigerian flag hoisted signaling the beginning of self-rule, self-government and self-determination.

The independence of Nigeria

At the independence in 1960, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa became the first Prime Minister of Nigeria. He was the first indigenous leader of the Nigerian nation. He ruled through to 1963 when the nation became a republic when the national constitution was adopted where Nnamdi Azikiwe became president while he remained as Prime Minister.

The days when the duo ruled, Nigeria was good. Even in the succeeding administrations, Nigeria fared well and the economy boomed. Nigerians worked with a united mind, putting aside religious, tribal and political affiliations to develop the young but promising nation.

They were all interested in building the young independent nation to grow and become a great and successful nation in the world. There was neither segregation, disunity nor agitation for personal or regional aggrandizement.

READ ALSO: So sad! In Buharis government, see families begging for food

All sectors of the economy experienced boom and national life was better for all Nigerians. Agriculture and education were specially given attention since these were observed to be the plank upon which the development of the nation rested.

Educational institutions were far better and products from them were given due recognition unlike what obtains now. Facilities in the institutions were standard and students then were well trained. The agricultural sector was given due attention so as to provide food for the teeming Nigerian populace.

Jobs were available for Nigerians. The competition between the whites and black Africans had given way to a completely black world where friction was no more. Peace reigned and there was food for all. That was the good old days, the post independent years in Nigeria.

The advent of oil boom

But as the oil boom came, the agricultural sector began to suffer loss and abandonment. The masses and the government diverted attention to the oil economy and that was the beginning of the fall of agriculture in Nigeria.

The discovery of oil brought so much money to Nigeria until a particular government told Nigerians that the national problem was not money but what to do with the money.

Nigeria became an import-dependent nation. Items from industrial machines to toothpaste, toothpick and orange juice were some of the items being imported to the country.

The few industries inherited soon became moribund, and the residual multinational companies inherited after Independence and the ones that came to partake in the oil boom started closing shop one after the other because they had been abandoned for foreign products.

READ ALSO: Buharis corruption fight is a good one  Delta state PDP chairman

Instead of long term investments in productive sectors of the economy, Nigerians opted for the easiest and quickest way of making wealth through contracts, commissions, foreign exchange deals, drug trafficking, and oil bunkering, among others.

This is the beginning of the get- rich- quick- syndrome that is still affecting the psyche of Nigerians till date.

General Yakubu Gowon

And as the successive governments moved from one to the other, massive corruption and looting followed. The military came into the national politics, given excuse of corruption among politicians and overthrew the political settings.

With the continuous overthrow of civil administrations, the military governments held Nigerians hostage with their draconian rules.

From General Yakubu Gowon to Olusegun Obasanjo through to Muhammadu Buhari and ending in Sani Abacha, Nigeria became the stronghold of military dictatorship and authoritarianism.

But again with the activities of the media which criticized the military rule, the military administration gave way to a democratic government on May 29, 1999.

This ushered in a new era for the Nigerian political space. Beginning from Olusegun Obasanjo through Umaru Musa YarAdua, Goodluck Jonathan and the President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria is now enjoying a true democracy.

The gains of independence

But what are the gains from the independence of Nigeria. Undermining the oil crisis which is causing ripples in the country, Nigeria has remained a united nation.

This is an indisputable fact. Despite calls from various sections for the disintegration of Nigeria, successive leaders have kept the country united with a singular voice.

Olusegun Obasanjo

The nation has made significant progress in the development of Africa. It is the most populous nation in Africa and the leading voice in the continent.

It has Africa as its centre piece and plays great roles in the unity of Africa. Its self-government has led to establishment of various institutions that wouldnt have been possible under the colonial rule. Since independence, great leaders had risen from the country.

In all fields of study of study, banking, law, medicine, engineering and a lot of others, Nigeria has made significant contribution to the international community.

The military government established most of the federal airports, built roads and highways and established institutions for the overall good of the nation.

The post independent leaders established academic institutions but which standards were eroded by the succeeding governments due to neglect.

READ ALSO: Bukola Saraki is a corrupt man  Oyedepo alleges

The democratic government has, to a great extent, brought about political stability in Nigeria, although very shaky. This is because of the volatility of the system and the daredevil craze for power among the politicians.

The raw nature of electoral violence and the long litigations that follow the elections have made political success in the country to pale into insignificance.

Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida

Many overnight billions have been made while the poor get poorer in Nigeria. This is the irony of the democracy in the country. While the few wallow in uninterrupted wealth, the masses groan in want and penury.

Although Nigerians have been fully involved and participating in the decision for national development, the decisions are partly geared towards personal gains among those who wield state powers.

However, Nigeria at 56 has made progress. But the progress is being punctuated regularly by violence from insurgents in the North East and the Niger Delta regions.

But with the doggedness of stakeholders and the willingness of all Nigerians to make national development and interest a priority, there is a future for Nigeria. All hail Nigeria at 56.

Source: Legit.ng
The beauty of a standard library is the richness of its archive, contents and other relevant academic reading materials.

Apart from the availability of reading materials, a library must have a conducive reading environment to enhance the assimilation process. This article shows 7 of such Nigerian university libraries:

1. University of Calabar E-library

This institutions library started with a collection of 3000 volumes, including 756 volumes of reference and monographic holdings in 1976. It has a seating capacity of 3,000 readers with 1,600 seats, 16 staffs offices, lighting and ventilation, security and fire extinguisher and generating set.

It was refurbished to an electronic learning centre few years back has made the building to house over one million volumes of book with a total of 22,746 square meter floor space with seating capacity of 2,046 readers.

2. Centre for Learning Resources, Covenant university (CU)

Covenant University's library, Ota is known as Centre for Learning Resources (CLR). It provides 40 state of the art laptops in the E-library for access to electronic resources with high speed internet connectivity, printers, projector webcam facilities, CDROM facilities.

These facilities allow easy access to electronic books, journals, web-based literature, conduct online literature searches for their projects/theses, access collection of other reputable libraries. It also provides opportunity for tele-conferencing and online discussion groups.

READ ALSO: 9 absolutely elegant Nigerian university gates (photos)

3. Nimbe Adedipe library, federal university of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB)

The magnificent library at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB). Photo credit: Buzz Nigeria

The 'Nimbe Adedipe library has engaged students, colleges, and campus leadership in dynamic, user-centered processes for planning, delivering programs, services, and information resources.

The Library was named Nimbe Adedipe library to honour the first vice-chancellor of the university, Professor Nurudeen Olorunnimbe Adedipe. This ultra modern library building can accommodate 1000 users at a time, its total collection of books at present is 75,622 titles.

4. Hezekiah Oluwasanmi library, Obafemi Awolowo university (OAU)

The central library is known as Hezekiah Oluwasanmi library, it consists of two multi-storey wings located in the heart of the campus. It has a seating capacity of 2,500 with the availability of internet access to books and journals.

The library collection is over 300,000 titles and 762,000 volumes of monographs, government publications, thesis and audio-visual material, in addition to the subscription of over 1,000 journals in hard format.

Its librarys circulation services are fully computerized, with 297,352 records been converted to electronic format as well as the digitization of its newspaper collection.

5. Nnamdi Azikiwe library, university of Nigeria (NSUKKA)

The university system is made up of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Library as the main library in Nsukka campus, as well as other faculties library. The resources in the library consist of information resources, electronic resources print resources, physical resources and human resources.

More so, the library also has special collection documents published by the various governments of Nigeria, like the Biafrana collection (publications on the Nigeria Civil War) and African Collections.

6. University of Ilorin library

The University of Ilorin library formally commenced its services on October 25, 1976 with a wide range of services. The library also has hardware facilities for consulting audio-visual and e-resources.

The institution's undergraduate students get detailed instruction in library use as part of the general studies programme while advanced bibliographic courses are for final year students, postgraduate students and staff preparing for long essays dissertations and research.

7. Babcock university library

Babcock university is one of the Nigerian university library owned by the Seventh-day Adventist church of Nigeria. The university library is known called Laz Otti memorial liberia.

The library hall is well segmented and well equipped with journals and other academic related materials to aid its student's means of learning.

Source: Legit.ng
By PTI: New Delhi, Sep 30 (PTI) Shares of NHPC rose nearly 5 per cent today after the company signed a power purchase pact with Rajasthan as well as Inox Ltd for a 50 MW wind power project in the state.

The stock gained 4.93 per cent to Rs 25.50 on BSE.

At NSE, shares of the company went up 2.46 per cent to Rs 24.95.

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"...a wind power purchase agreement has been singed among Rajasthan Government, NHPC and Inox on September 28 for a 50 MW wind power project in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan," NHPC said in a filing to BSE yesterday.

As per the PPA, Rajasthan government will purchase the power generated from the project, the filing said.

During 2015-16 fiscal, NHPC power stations achieved generation of 23,404 million units. PTI SUM ANU

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While the Supreme Court cancelled the bail of Shahabuddin after castigating the state government's lackadaisical approach on the matter, the Patna High Court scrapped the liquor ban imposed by Nitish on April 1.

By Kumar Shakti Shekhar: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar received a double whammy today. While the Supreme Court cancelled the bail of mafia don Mohd Shahabuddin after castigating the state government's lackadaisical approach on the matter, the Patna High Court scrapped the liquor ban imposed by Nitish on April 1.

Nitish was under attack ever since Shahabuddin had been granted bail by the Patna High Court on September 7. His government was seen as not having taken a strong stand against the bail application filed by Shahabuddin. This resulted in the convict criminal getting bail.

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Shahabudin would not have got bail had the state government taken a sincere and tough stand on the issue. Hence, cancellation of bail by the Supreme Court means immense embarrassment for Nitish.

Also read:

Shahabuddin sent to Siwan jail after Supreme Court cancels his bail

My supporters will reply to Nitish Kumar in the next elections, says Shahabuddin before going back to jail

Shahabuddin, a former MP of Lalu Prasad's RJD, has a number of cases pertaining to heinous crimes, including murder, attempt to murder and kidnapping pending against him in courts. The prosecution, which functions under the state government, was accused by the BJP of deliberately presenting a weak case in the Patna High Court to ensure that the goon-cum-politician got bail.

SUPREME COURT'S JIBE ON BIHAR GOVERNMENT

This fact was highlighted also by the Supreme Court while hearing the Bihar government's petition on September 28 challenging the Patna High Court's order. It mocked the state government's "extreme urgency" in pursuing its petition, asking if it was so serious then why it did not challenge the order in the first instance.

Lalu's RJD is a senior partner in the Grand Alliance governing Bihar which also includes the JD(U) which is headed by Nitish. While RJD won 80 seats, the JD(U) bagged 71 of the 243 Assembly seats in the 2015 state election. Survival of the Nitish government depends solely on the RJD's support. Due to Shahabuddin's close proximity to Lalu, the state government is believed to have taken a lenient view of the convicted criminal's bail plea.

The bench of Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Amitava Roy reprimanded the state government's counsel when he said "it's a matter of extreme urgency and we are pursuing the matter seriously". The bench said the government should have acted before and challenged the Patna High Court's judgment.

The observation by the apex court's bench is quite significant. The Bihar government challenged the grant of bail to Shahabuddin only after Chandrakeshwar Prasad - the father of three brothers who were allegedly killed on the goon's directions - approached the Supreme Court.

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The lack of seriousness on the part of the Bihar government can also be gauged from the fact that it moved the Supreme Court only after senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan requested the court to stay the Patna High Court's order. Bhushan appeared for Chandrakeshwar Prasad in the court.

LIQUOR BAN

As far as Nitish's prohibition policy is concerned, it had also earned notoriety for being draconian in nature. Not just being in possession of liquor was punishable with life imprisonment but also the community fine was too harsh and irrational. Apart from these, imposing fine on all the households of a village even if a group of people were caught drinking appeared illogical.

Also read:

Bihar liquor ban illegal, says Patna High Court



Nitish has suffered a personal blow with the Patna High Court scrapping of the prohibition law and terming it "illegal". The Bihar chief minister had made the liquor ban his USP in politics. In his over zeal, he had pushed other states such as Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand to follow suit and ban liquor.

Also read:

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Nitish managed to keep Shahabuddin inside jail only under BJP-JDU tenure

The Bihar chief minister had even mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi on International Yoga demanding liquor ban throughout the country. He had said if Modi was serious about promoting, then he should ban liquor first.

But Nitish has suffered a personal blow with the Patna High Court scrapping Bihar's prohibition policy. He had sought to garner the support of women through his liquor ban. However, today's development is sure to disappoint his main constituency.

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- More than a hundred of Boko Haram terrorists have been killed by the Niger's army

- Four strategic localities have been reportedly taken back from Boko Haram control

Nigers army is reporting on scores of Boko Haram militants killed during an opeartion that has taken place in the nations southeast for several months. However, the exact number is yet to be verified.

Colonel Moustapha Ledru, the spokesman for the defence ministry, has told the state television on Friday that "123 terrorists had been killed, two fighters were captured and a large quantity of arms recovered from the insurgents."

READ ALSO: Shocking! 75,000 children will die in Nigeria by 2017  Report

According to Mr Ledru, 14 soldiers were killed and 29 wounded in the joint operations with Chad's troops between July and September 28. The eliminated terrorists infiltrated into Diffa region (on the northeastern border of Nigeria) from Nigeria.

Operations reportedly resulted into successful recapture of four strategic localities from Boko Haram group.

Only a few years ago, Diffa was mainly known as a trade region. Since February 2015 however, the deadly Boko Haram incursions have drastically changed the lives of local residents, more than 280,000 people have been displaced.

The strict curfew, closing of markets and the suspension of trade has led to an economic downturn, resulting in a humanitarian crisis.

READ ALSO: CRISIS: 6 things that will destroy Nigeria

According to the United Nations, the people of Diffa are arguably the poorest on earth, living in the least developed region in the least developed country of the world.

Refugees from Nigeria fleeing violence from Boko Haram are living with local populations in the Diffa region. By October 2015 the number of refugees in the region had risen up to 150,000.

Source: Legit.ng
Corn mazes can get frustrating. Best to have a beer while you work it out. This weeks craft beer news roundup takes us to a possibly sudsy quagmire in British Columbia and introduces us to beer knobs in Ireland. And, it just might give you reason to applaud your local lawmakers

The Mississippi Brewers Guild and the Mississippi Beer Distributors Association announced that a bill would be put forward for the 2017 Mississippi State Legislative Session advocating for the allowance of on-premises sales at breweries. The action is another step geared at breaking down some of the states more draconian beer laws. Its a tall order considering that it wasnt until 1966 that Mississippi threw in the towel on prohibition, 30 years after President Franklin Roosevelt tossed cold beer in the face of the temperance movement. The state did not legalize homebrewing until 2013.

Though the current presidential nominees might be about as polarizing as weve ever seen, theres one issue that is bringing both sides of the aisle together: craft beer. A majority of senators have expressed support for the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act, a bill that will reform burdensome laws regulating Americas brewing industry, according to the Brewers Association. Specific provisions include a reduction of federal excise taxes, expanding the list of ingredients allowed in beer without federal approval and increasing the ability of small brewers to collaborate and transfer beer. Its been 40 years since excise tax has been reformed for American brewers, said Bob Pease, President and CEO of the Brewers Association. Now is the time for change. View supporters in the Senate and House.

The annual pilgrimage to pick out the perfect carving pumpkin just a got a little more beer-y in British Columbia. Along with advanced and novice corn labyrinths, Roadsides latest maize maze features four beer tasting stations pouring local brews from the likes of Old Abby Ales, Old Yale Brewing, Field House Brewing and Ravens Brewing Co. The dog-friendly maze is approximately 1.8 miles and patrons will receive four tickets, good for a single three-ounce pour at each of the stations. Better the corn in a maze than in a beer.

Beer geeks are not confined to the domestic craft consuming population. Across the pond, the Irish have a name for it too: Beer knob. In a fitting compliment to Nacho Punchs Hipsters Love Beer video, Eries Foil Arms & Hog have created Craft Beer Knob. In it, a hipster-esque beer enthusiast talks about his new favorite underground beer bar where the staff has attitude problems and a vintage ambulance in the vaping section serves great pulled pork. His skeptical friend is encouraged to try a Devils Scrotum at 78% ABV and 98% hops.

Grain producers and therefore grain buyers are facing the prospect of decreased quality crops due to heavy rains in Canada, France and Germany. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the global barley yield is expected to decrease for the second time in three years meaning a higher cost for ingredients necessary for brewing. This in turn could necessitate breweries saddling the consumer with the cost of some of those increases. Or we all start drinking more cider.
Media Contact

David Levy, Editor

***@edvisors.com

702-777-8464 David Levy, Editor702-777-8464

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-- There are several major changes in the new 2017-2018 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), including an earlier filing date. To guide students and families through the 2017-2018 FASFA, available Oct. 1, Edvisors has published the fourth edition of its popular book,. This book provides step-by-step instructions to completing the FAFSA, with extensive tips and advice about increasing the amount of aid eligibility, avoiding common errors and dealing with special circumstances."The new timeline for filing the FAFSA comes with significant impacts. For example, by moving the FAFSA submission date 3 months earlier, the financial aid and admission timelines will be more aligned for students planning to attend college in the 2017-18 academic year. Additionally, some colleges may supply families with financial aid offers (which now typically arrive in March or April) earlier in the student's high school senior year," says David Levy, Editor of Edvisors. "As a result, families will have more time to review and compare award packages before deciding on which school to attend."Available forat https://www.edvisors.com/ fafsa-book has been updated to reflect the following 2017-2018 changes:, on October 1, 2016 instead of January 1, 2017. The 2017-18 FAFSA has switched from prior-year income and tax data to prior-prior year data from the 2015 federal income tax returns. This allows more families to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool to complete the FAFSA. This will reduce the number of FAFSAs selected for verification. The IRS Data Retrieval Tool will become available on October 1, 2016 as well, instead of the first Sunday in February.that can trigger eligibility for the Simplified Needs Test and Auto-Zero EFC. Simplified Needs causes all assets to be ignored on the FAFSA. Auto-Zero EFC sets the applicant's EFC to zero. The income thresholds remain unchanged at $50,000 for Simplified Needs and $25,000 for Auto-Zero EFC.for student information and purple for parent information.. Spanish forms are now sent to the same address as English forms. There have been many wording changes on the FAFSA, to help clarify the questions.Edvisors publishes free web sites to help students and families plan and pay for college. Every year, millions of students and their families turn to the company's flagship site, Edvisors.com, for timely, accurate information, advice and tools that help them confidently make the best decisions about paying for college. Additionally, Edvisors owns ScholarshipPoints.com, where students earn points and enter scholarship drawings (the site has awarded more than $750,000 to date); StudentScholarshipSearch.com, a large free online database of scholarships with an easy-to-use scholarship matching tool; and PrivateStudentLoans.com, which helps students find private loans that are right for them. Founded in 1998, Edvisors is based in Las Vegas, Nevada. More information can be found at www.edvisors.com.
By PTI: Mumbai, Sep 30 (PTI) On the heels of allowing options trading in commodities, market watchdog Sebi today said the process will begin with one agri and one non-agri product.

"We will begin options trading in one agri and one non-agri product. Options could be helpful to the farmers and producers in their price protection and hedging needs," chairman U K Sinha told reporters here on the first anniversary of commodities regulation under the Sebi.

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The regulator, however, did not offer a timeline for the introduction of these items.

Exchanges will have to design the product for option keeping in mind various parameters, including risk parameters and then send it for Sebi approval, Sinha added.

On September 28, Sebi had extended options trading in six new products in its push to deepen the commodity derivatives market. So far, only future contracts are permitted in the commodity derivatives trading space.

The regulator had added six new products -- diamond, tea, eggs, cocoa, pig iron and brass -- into option trading list, taking the total number of permitted commodities on the notified list to 91.

Exchanges, investors and other market participants have been demanding options trading as also new products for a long time and they welcomed the move taken by the government and Sebi, which now regulates the commodities market as well. Sinha said a well-run commodity derivatives market will bring in price security to farmers.

To ensure security of investments, he said, Sebi will take a number of measures so that more and more hedging can take place including for those non-agri items as whenever india, facing shortfalls, had to go to the global markets, prices used to get destabilised.

"So how to hedge requirements of the nation, in a manner that do not create undue price destabilisation, is our objective," he said.

He also said that "due to better risk management guidelines and warehousing guidelines we now have reasonable confidence levels to handle the market".

The turnover of commodity exchanges stood at Rs 67 trillion in 2015-16, up 9 per cent from the preceding fiscal. PTI SSM BEN NP MKJ RDS

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Mango Avenue makes it easy to find the best coupons and discounts from the top online stores in the Philippines. Plus, $.25 USD of each sale contributes to micro loan projects that assist Filipino entrepreneurs.

Contact

Rays of the Sun Media

***@raysofthesun.com Rays of the Sun Media

End

-- With the Christmas season kicking off, Rays of the Sun Media is pleased to announce the launch of Mango Avenue. The latest addition to its network of money-saving deal sites, Mango Avenue will give Filipino online shoppers access to exclusive deals when they shop on their mobile devices or computers.Similar toin the United States, users of Mango Avenue can expect to find the best selection of discounts and voucher codes. As the newest deal site in the Philippines, Mango Avenue is constantly expanding its hand-picked inventory from a growing list of popular online retailers in the Philippines, including Lazada, Zalora, Penshoppe and Travelbook.ph, as well as globally-recognized brands, such as Sephora, Hotels.com and Under Armour.Mango Avenue aims to be more than just another deal site by providing educational resources, including buyer's guides and how-to articles that cover steps on how to buy, the best time to buy and how to get the biggest savings. By helping to make smart and savvy online shoppers, Filipinos everywhere can shop with confidence everything from travel deals, laptops, women's fashion, beauty care and more.Here's how they intend to accomplish their vision: During a time when many deal sites are saturated with automated (or user-submitted)deals that are not vetted for discounts, expired, or flat out don't work, Mango Avenue personally selects and tests every deal published on their site to not only ensure it's valid but also guaranteed to deliver a 5% (or greater) discount. By hand-picking and testing each coupon, online shoppers save valuable time instead of wasting time searching for deals that work. Mango Avenue understands that shopping online is still a relatively new convenience in the Philippines. Although the time-saving benefit of not going to the mall (or a physical store) is clear, shoppers are met with new decisions which may pose as barriers to this convenience, including payment options, delivery methods, confusing terms and conditions language, and duty tariffs and taxes.Fortunately, Mango Avenue solves this knowledge gap by providing helpful assistance via their website and Facebook company page. Mongo Avenue online shopping concierges help first-time shoppers and long-time savers choose the right deal based on their budget, payment method and delivery needs, as well as, find the best voucher codes, sales and promotions, weekly deals and flash sales. As a "Philippines First" company, when shoppers find the best deals online, they're also helping the Philippines economy grow. One of Mango Avenue's primary initiatives is to give back by creating a brighter future for the Philippines. This is why $.25 USD of each commissioned sale is donated to a US-based micro loan portfolio to empower Filipino entrepreneurs to launch their own business dreams and foster a stronger Philippine economy.As the time-saving convenience of shopping online grows throughout the Philippines, Mango Avenue ( http://mangoave.wondealand.com ) aims to be the guide to online shopping and saving for Filipinos everywhere. Stay connected with the growing community of savers on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.###Rays of the Sun Media an online travel services firm with extensive marketing experience driving online demand to business and consumer technologies. The Filipino-American company was founded in July 2013 and proudly operates from Seattle, Wash.
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-- Sierra Nevada Cosmetic + Laser Surgery will be hosting an informal, informational event this evening, September 29, 2016, at their office in Reno, Nevada from 5:30-7:00PM. The SkinPen by Bellus Medical and PRP Micro-Needling method will be discussed. This will be the fourth event that the business has hosted this year. Complimentary refreshments and appetizers will be available for attendees starting at 5:00PM.The SkinPen activates your skin's natural ability to repair itself by stimulating collagen and elastin to reproduce healthier, younger-looking skin. For the PRP, a small amount of blood is drawn and "processed" into Platelet Rich Plasma. PRP acts like a matrix that promotes your own collagen to grow, regenerates tissue, and naturally smooths and tightens skin. When the SkinPen and PRP are used together they reverse years of sun damage, improve scars, and minimize fine lines and wrinkles.Located conveniently in the heart of Reno in the Plumgate Shopping Center, Dr. Yamamoto and his staff are excited to help give each patient a personalized experience. To schedule a complimentary consultation, contact the office at (775) 525-1712, or visit their website at http://www.sierracosmeticsurgery.com
By: Emerge Interactive

Media Contact

Jonathon Hensley

jon@emergeinteractive.com

503.922.3483 Jonathon Hensley503.922.3483

End

-- Emerge Interactive, Inc., a leading provider of business strategy, user experience, web and mobile solutions, today announced it has joined the Meridian Engage Partner (http://www.arubanetworks.com/products/mobile-engagement/meridian-engage-partners/)program powered by Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, is a leading provider of next-generation networking solutions for enterprises of all sizes, worldwide. The new technology partnership between Emerge and Aruba provides customers with a comprehensive end-to-end mobile and IoT solutions offering  one that enables businesses to deliver innovative wayfinding and location-aware applications that leverage the Aruba Meridian Mobile Engagement (http://www.arubanetworks.com/products/mobile-engagement/) platform."We're proud to become a Meridian Engage Partner," said Jonathon Hensley, CEO of Emerge Interactive. "Together, our technologies significantly simplify the process of delivering mobile apps that include next-gen wayfinding and location-based solutions for brands and community destinations. The technologies are a perfect fit."Emerge envisions the integration of the Mobile Engagement platform will further drive the adoption of mobile apps within retail, healthcare, enterprise, and large public venues of all types. Once the Aruba Mobile Engagement platform is built into these apps, brands and community-based epicenters will be able to provide guests with real-time, indoor navigation  whether to nearby amenities, products, or points of interest. In addition, the Meridian mobile app platform will enable mobile apps to send personalized push-notifications based on a customer's on-premise location and opt-in preferences."There's a growing demand for personalized experiences  especially in retail, healthcare, and enterprise organizations,"explained Trent Fierro, Director of Software Marketing at Aruba. "Partnering with Emerge Interactive will allow us to provide customers with an experienced app-developer that understands our technology and can help client ventures connect with their guests in new and innovative ways."Additional perspective can be found in Emerge News ( http://www.emergeinteractive.com/ insights#news ).About Emerge Interactive, Inc.Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Portland, Oregon, Emerge provides premium digital experiences that help brands scale in an always-on world. Emerge delivers web and mobile solutions that are born from a powerful combination of business strategy, experience design, and technology.Read Insights ( http://www.emergeinteractive.com/ insights ), and follow Emerge on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/72059?trk=tyah&trkInfo=clickedVertical%3Acompany%2CclickedEntityId%3A72059%2Cidx%3A3-1-4%2CtarId%3A1475010430191%2Ctas%3Aemerge%20inter), Twitter (https://twitter.com/HaveYouEmerged), and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/EmergeInteractive/?fref=ts) to gain the latest news and thinking about innovation and solutions that are integral to scaling business.To learn more, visit Emerge Interactive at http://www.emergeinteractive.com.
Medical Park Pharmacy, serving Gainesville and surrounding Northeast Georgia area, now offers Crutcheze innovative line of crutch, walker and rollator accessories.

Annoucing Crutcheze New Dealer Medical Park Pharmacy

Contact

Amy Vicioso

***@crutcheze.com Amy Vicioso

End

-- Medical Park Pharmacy is a family owned pharmacy and home medical supply that has been proudly serving the community of Gainesville, Hall County and surrounding Northeast Georgia area for over 30 years. Known for fast, accurate and friendly service Medical Park is a one-stop shop for prescriptions, home medical equipment and repair, flu shots and immunizations, diabetic foot care, long term care services, over the counter medicine, vitamins, first aid items and much more."We differentiate ourselves among other pharmacies by incorporating the passion and principles of a small-town pharmacy with state-of-the-art technology to ensure prescriptions are filled properly and efficiently,"said Renee Coughlin, Medical Park DME Specialist. "Additionally, we offer a wide array of services and products that cannot be found anywhere else in the area and we are very pleased to have Crutcheze products as part of our DME offering.""Medical Park Pharmacy is a trusted business with over 30 years of service to the Gainesville community," said Amy Vicioso, Crutcheze founder. "The team at Medical Park genuinely cares about their customers. This caring coupled with the fact that they have a passion to continuously innovate and provide their customers the very best quality products for their medical needs makes them an ideal Crutcheze dealer."Medical Park Pharmacy offers a full service pharmacy and home medical supply that covers a full range of medical needs. Serving the community of Gainesville and surrounding Northeast Georgia for over 30 years, Medical Park has gained a great reputation as a one-stop source for prescription drugs, helpful pharmacists to answer your questions and discuss your medications, mail delivery, flu shots, immunizations, over-the-counter medications, oral health products, feminine hygiene products and first aid items. Medical Park also carries a complete selection of home medical equipment and supplies, such as wheel chairs, walkers, canes, crutches, lift chairs, power scooters, hospital beds, bath aids, compression stockings and more. These products are from industry leaders, such as Invacare, Golden Technologies, Pride Mobility, Drive Medical and Crutcheze. For driving directions, store hours and additional information, use the contact information below.Crutcheze is the flagship brand of Zoetic Technologies, a leading manufacturer and online dealer of innovative crutch and walker accessories located in Broomfield, Colorado, USA. We have been in business since 2003 manufacturing and selling durable medical equipment accessories, such as padded crutch covers, crutch bags, walker padded hand grips and walker bags that are considered to be exceptionally comfortable, stylish and affordable. We use the most innovative materials and technology to produce our high quality products, which are designed by healthcare professionals and tested by independent testers to ensure the highest standards resulting in thousands of satisfied customers around the world. Crutcheze orthopedic products are sold online and through a worldwide dealer network of hospitals, medical clinics, pharmacies and medical supply stores.Interested in learning more? Please use the following contact information:Contacts:Medical Park PharmacyRenee Coughlin770-535-8860CrutchezeAmy Vicioso877-871-8989 ext 81amy.vicioso@crutcheze.com
By: Popertee

Media Contact

Lucinda Kelly

CEO/ Founder Popertee

lucinda@popertee.com Lucinda KellyCEO/ Founder Popertee

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-- Popertee, Ireland's leading marketplace for pop up shop rentals, has just released an in-depth exploration of Amazon's pop up shop strategy, with interviews and analysis from experts in the retail, marketing, technology, and data sectors.Amazon has repeatedly refused to comment on its strategies or plans, which has done nothing but add fuel to the fire where speculation is concerned. In the latest publication, Popertee presents information from numerous sources, including experts across various fields as well as private sources close to the company. Notables include Retail Systems Research Managing Partner and Forbes contributor Nikki Baird, Business Insider tech reporter Eugene Kim, consultant, strategist, and Forbes contributor Rob Salkowitz, and many more."We have been watching Amazon's strategy develop," says Popertee founder and CEO Lucinda Kelly. "We already knew pop up shops are powerful, but learning how and why Amazon is implementing them is inspiring. What they're doing is truly groundbreaking."Recently, Amazon's profits have soared, but only after years of flatlining. Most sources seem to concur that the current pop up shops are not generating any revenue, which makes their process and decision to invest as they have into the platform all the more intriguing."In these early days it's all about learning, rather than trying to earn a lot of revenue," CEO Jeff Bezos explained earlier this year, but what they're in the process of learning is arguably the most interesting part.Read "The Real Reason Amazon Launched Pop Up Shops (Hint: It isn't Fast Revenue)" on LinkedIn today: www.linkedin.com/pulse/real-reason-amazon-launched-pop-up-shops-hint-isnt-fast-lucinda-kellyPopertee is an online marketplace that helps connect commercial property owners with short-term tenants. Although beneficial to retail entrepreneurs, the concept is wildly popular with those raising awareness for a cause, demos, market testing, and people in need of business space as well. For more information or media inquiries, visit https://popertee.com/ or contact Lucinda Kelly directly.
The Haitian Heritage Museum Co -Celebration of the opening of the Smithsonian National African American History and Culture Museum Historic Event

Hosts Sandra Justice & Genji Jacques

Contact

Eveline Pierre

***@comcast.net Eveline Pierre

End

-- The Haitian Heritage Museum co Celebration of the African American History and Culture event was a huge succes. The young and the old came, with over 100 plus attenedees to the exhibtion "A Place for All People". All the guests were able to witness history take place in this signature event at the Haitian Heritage Museum. The poster exhbition evoked the power of oration and freedom stories, the briallance of artistic achievement and the soaring heights of cultural expression, philosphy, sports, and politics. Our hosts Genji Jacaques and Sandra Justice ushered us in to this most important celebration in the history of African American Museums."The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the 19th museum of the Smithsonian Institution and is located at the foot of the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The museum provides for the collection, study, and establishment of programs and exhibitions related to African American life, history, art, and culture. It is a place where people can learn about the richness and diversity of the African American experience; it is a place of meaning, memory, reflection, laughter, and hope."Founded in 2004 to commemorate Haiti's Bicentennial, the Haitian Heritage Museum (HHM) is a 501c3 organization that is committed to highlighting and preserving Haiti's rich culture and heritage globally. Our goal is to provide a cultural Mecca for Little Haiti where individuals outside of our community and within our community boundaries can come to enjoy beautiful Haitian art, historic artefacts, ethnic sounds of Haitian music, view Haitian films and enjoy a collection of Haitian literary works.Sponsors: American Airlines, Walmart, Godz Sun Productions, Comcast and Greater Mami Convention & Vistors Bureau Art of Black.Please visit our Facebook page for pictures of the event: https://www.facebook.com/ haitianheritagemuseum/ posts/1202...
Brothers Fire & Security Offers Simple Suggestions to Make Sure Companies Are Up To Code

By: Brother's Fire & Securtiy

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-- Running a business comes with a built-in headache or two. Fire alarms should not fall into this category. Fire alarms exist across most business properties, but how often, outside of the occasional fire drill, does a company have their fire alarms looked at? Existing for the purposes of protecting assets, customers and employees are kept safe against the outbreak of fire. Fire alarms of this day and age are usually connected to a monitoring service or directly to the proper authorities. To make sure they do what they are supposed to when called upon, Eden Prairie area fire alarms (http://www.brothersfire.com/fire-alarms-eden-prairie/)need to be inspected and tested from time to time.Reasons that business should have their fire alarms inspected:False alarms do occur but they can be kept at a minimum by having them inspected and tested. False alarms bring out the fire department (and other authorities), often coming with a bill, fee or even a fine (in the event of repeated false alarms). Regular testing of fire alarms will help keep false alarms from emerging in the first place.Many insurance companies require a fully functional fire alarm on-site. Should your alarm be in disrepair you may well be in violation of the terms of your insurance policy, putting your business at risk. If a real fire were to actually break out and your fire alarms do not go off, your business will likely be held liable for any injuries or property damaged that occurred. Many insurance companies require proof of inspection and testing annually.Per the terms set forth by NFPA 72 (National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code), some level of inspection and testing is required by law. Your fire alarms should be tested at least once per year to guarantee that they are working and up to code.Allowing fire alarms within a business to exist without the aid and benefit of regular inspection and testing can be costly. It is a very good practice to test and maintain your fire alarms yearly to keep the insurance company pleased.Brothers Fire & Security has been in the commercial fire suppression business for more than 20 years. They specialize in designing, installing, maintaining, repairing, servicing and monitoring fire suppression and security systems. For additional information on fire alarms in Eden Prairie and nearby locales, visit http://www.brothersfire.com
Contact

DC Media Connection

***@dcmediaconnection.com DC Media Connection

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-- On Saturday, October 1, 2016, Women Veterans ROCK! will participate in the first conference tailored to Women Veterans in Eastern Kentucky.Women Veterans ROCK! State President, Robyn Stuart, who is also owner and CEO, DB Bourbon Candy is slated to speak this Saturday at the event."Women Veterans ROCK! is proud of the strides that our new collaborative partner, Kentucky Department of Veteran Affairs, is taking to provide resources to women veterans in a community that wants local access to veteran resources, services, and camaraderie"says Deborah Harmon-Pugh, Women Veterans ROCK! Chairman.Find out more about the conference at: http://veterans.ky.gov/Pages/Eastern-Kentucky-Women-Veterans-Regional-Conference.aspxConference admission is free, but registration is required. Register at: http://veterans.ky.gov/Pages/Eastern-Kentucky-Women-Veterans-Regional-Conference.aspxEastern Kentucky Women Veterans Regional ConferenceSaturday, October 1, 20168am - 1pmHazard Community and Technical College,1 Community College Dr."Women Veterans ROCK!" is a Coalition of Women Veteran Organizations and Women Advocacy Organizations Supporting Women Veterans & Military Families. Women Veterans ROCK! Advocacy Campaign is sponsored by The Healthy Caregiver Community Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community organization headquartered in Philadelphia, PA. Visit: www.WomenVetsRock.org.
Act quickly to take advantage of great savings on move-in ready homes this fall!

Media Contact

Valerie Sheets

valerie.sheets@ lennar.com

9492830202 Valerie Sheets9492830202

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-- As we begin the fall season, Lennar Colorado is offering great savings on move-in ready homes with up to $40,000*, HOA fees paid for one year, free pumpkins and more! Interested buyers are encouraged to act quickly as homes must be purchased by October 31 and closed by the end of November to qualify for the Fall Home Sales Event."We have a great variety of move-in ready homes located all around the greater Denver area," said Carrie Castilian, Marketing Manager for Lennar Colorado. "Some of our most popular floorplans are available and there's definitely a wide enough variety that any family, regardless of size, can find their perfect fit!"Fifteen different communities, ten of which include solar homes, offer quick move-ins for sale. Located across eight cities, these fifteen communities are located throughout Thornton, Centennial, Aurora, Parker, Castle Rock, Golden Arvada, Erie and Denver. Lennar's popular Next Gen  The Home Within A Home is also available in ten communities across the eight cities.Designed to accommodate dual and multigenerational living situations, Lennar introduced the Next Gen line of homes as a way to address a growing trend in American living. These homes include an attached suite that has a private entrance, bedroom, living room, kitchenette and laundry area in a way that allows for as much direct access to or from the main home as is desired.Thanks to Lennar's Everything's Included program, homebuyers no longer have to compromise on the features they love because they come included at no additional cost! Residents enjoy granite kitchen countertops, front yard landscaping, stainless steel GE appliances, hardwood floors through some of the main living areas per plan, solar packages per plan, kitchen islands, coffered ceilings in the master bedroom per plan, full unfinished basements, air conditioning and so much more!For more information on new homes for sale across the Greater Denver area, visit: www.lennar.com/ denver With hundreds of communities nationwide and homes designed for first-time, move-up and luxury homebuyers, Lennar has grown to become one of the nation's leading and most respected homebuilders and proudly remains steadfast in their commitment toward quality, value and integrity. Lennar has a longstanding history of building exceptional homes in only the most well planned and desirable locations throughout the country.*Offer available on select homes as determined by Lennar, for fully executed purchase agreements dated between 10/1/16 and 10/31/16, and you must close and fund no later than 11/30/16. Offers, incentives and seller contributions are subject to certain terms, conditions and restrictions, which may include the use of designated lenders and closing agents. Certain incentives could affect the loan amount. Offer good for a limited time only. Lennar reserves the right to change or withdraw any offer at any time.
Minister Requests Names of SMU Students to Receive Free Laptop Computers

By: Saint Monica University

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-- Saint Monica University (SMU): The American International University today announced that it has received a letter from the Ministry of Higher Education informing the University that will benefit from the Cameroon E-National Higher Education project.The information was contained letter signed by the Minister of Higher Education, Professor Jacques Fame Ndongo, and addressed to the SMU founder and president, Professor Januarius J. Asongu. The letter requested the University to submit its enrollment data for the 2016/17 academic year to enable SMU students benefit from the free laptop computer program to be provided by the Cameroon government.The project is part of the "Special Youth Plan" worth 75 billion Frs CFA (XAF) that was announced by the Head of State of Cameroon on February 10, 2016. The money will provide 500,000 free laptop computers to Cameroonian university students amounting to 50 billion Frs CFA (XAF), while 25 billion Frs CFA (XAF) will be used to construction, equipment and training of personnel at public universities in the country. Financing for this project has been provided by the Export-Import Bank of China."We are excited that students of Saint Monica University will benefit from the Cameroon E-National Higher Education project, which provides free laptops to Cameroonian university students," said Ms. Regina Berka Lukong, Associate Vice President of Distance Education and Learning Resources (AVPDELR) at SMU. "SMU believes that it is important for every student to have a personal computer and had required that of all its students right from the inception of the University. This initiative of the Government of Cameroon will surely be welcomed by every SMU student."SMU is encouraging qualified students to enroll quickly into SMU programs at the HND as well as bachelor's and master's degree levels in order to benefit from this national program.Founded in 2012 in the United States of America, Saint Monica University (SMU) is a leading private university in Cameroon. It is an American-style non-ecclesiastical Catholic institution, offering career-focused programs that are at the intersection of the liberal arts, science and technology. It is dedicated to providing educational opportunities for the intellectual, social, entrepreneurial and professional development of a diverse student population. SMU is focused on the student experience and helping our students achieve their educational and career goals, and contributing to a more sustainable society. We offer various certificates and diplomas as well as bachelor's and master's degrees through the School of Arts, Education, & Humanities (SAEH); School of Business & Public Policy (SBPP); School of Health & Human Services (SHHS); and School of Science, Engineering & Technology (SSET). SMU is accredited in the United Kingdom by the Accreditation Service for International Schools, Colleges, and Universities (ASIC) with Accreditation No: AS22357/0614 and is listed on the UK Register of Learning Providers (UKRLP) with the UK Provider Reference Number (UKPRN): 10048183. SMU is also fully accredited in Cameroon by the National Commission on Private Higher Education at the Ministry of Higher Education (MINESUP) with the Ordinance of Creation No: E14/0028/MINESUP/SG/DDES and the Ministerial Letter No: 15-09643/L/MINESUP/SG/DDES/ESUP/SDA/MM authorizing SMU to offer over 50 undergraduate and graduate diploma and degree programs. SMU is a member of many international academic organizations including the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), Global Universities In Distance Education (GUIDE), and the Talloires Network. For more information about SMU, visit our website: http://www.smuedu.org or write to us at admissions@smuedu.org.
By PTI: From Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, Sep 30 (PTI) Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali has cancelled his visit to India next month, citing "present conditions", media reports said today.

Jamali has refused to attend the global conference slated to be held in India from October 21-23, Radio Pakistan reported.

In July, Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale had personally invited CJP Jamali to the conference on national initiative to strengthen arbitration and enforcement.

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In a letter to the Indian Supreme Court, Jamali said that in the "present conditions" he could not attend the meeting, the News International reported.

The decision was made due to tense situation between the two countries, the report said.

A senior Supreme Court official said that though the Foreign Office recommended that the CJP may attend the conference, Jamali has refused to visit India in light of prevailing circumstances, the Express Tribune reported.

Jamalis decision comes after heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, particularly after India carried out surgical strikes against terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control.

Earlier this week, India officially pulled out of the upcoming South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) conference to be held in Islamabad. PTI SH AMS AKJ AMS

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Contact

Christy Choi

Phone: 630-876-5720

***@pioneerclubs.org Christy ChoiPhone: 630-876-5720

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-- For the first time in its 77-year history, Pioneer Clubs, a Christian publishing company that produces children's curriculum and develops church-based kids' club programs, has launched programs in a communist country. Children's ministry leaders from 30 churches across Cuba, representing 750-1000 kids, participated in a week-long training program this past July led by Brian Ondracek, President/CEO of Pioneer Clubs. Originally a student ministry started as "Girls Guild" on the campus of Wheaton College in 1939, Pioneer Clubs is branching out into unexpected territories.Accompanied by a team of ten people and with Pioneer Clubs' Spanish language curriculum in tow, Ondracek traveled to Cuba in July. Pioneer Clubs not only provided much needed curriculum, but also led a week-long seminar to train children's ministry leaders. Pastors and teachers journeyed from all across Cuba by trains and buses, some over 15 arduous hours, and attended what is considered the first national children's conference in Cuba since the revolution. Cuba, one of five communist countries in the world, allows limited and heavily monitored internet access for the public at large. Therefore, it's a challenge for ministry leaders to acquire the training and curriculum they need. That's where Brian and his team came in.Plans for Pioneer Clubs' partnership with Cuban churches include future visits to train more leaders and help Los Ninos Pinos churches reach more than 6,000 children all across Cuba.Pioneer Clubs is a Christian publishing company that writes, produces, and distributes children's curriculum to churches running Pioneer Clubs programs all across the U.S., Canada, Guam, Aruba and now, Cuba. A church-sponsored midweek club program, Pioneer Clubs provides boys and girls, preschool to sixth grade, with application-oriented Bible study and fun activities. Led by adult Christian leaders, Pioneer Clubs meetings provide kids with a safe and welcoming place to learn about faith, fun, and fellowship.To schedule an interview with Brian Ondracek or for more information, please contact:Christy ChoiPhone: 630-876-5720
By: South Shore Young Professionals

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-- The South Shore Young Professionals, an affiliate of the South Shore Chamber of Commerce (www.southshorechamber.org)is pleased to announce that it is presently accepting applications for the annual SSYP Foundation Grant.From now through October 31, applications will be accepted from businesses looking to relocate, hire or expand on the South Shore. Businesses can be either non-profit or for-profit and must have a brick and mortar location on the South Shore or provide services with the South Shore being the primary target audience. Applicants must also be a member of the South Shore Young Professionals and willing to actively participate in the grant program throughout the year and to support future grant candidates.Grant applications are available online at www.southshorechamber.org/pages/SSYP. (http://www.southshoreyoungprofessionals.com/)Applications must be completed by October 31and include a business plan executive summary and a letter of recommendation from a South Shore business or business leader. Application fee of $50 includes a one-year membership to the SSYP. Applicants will be considered and selected by an anonymous committee with finalists contacted for concluding interviews in November.The winner(s) of the 2016 SSYP Foundation Grant will be announced at The SSYP Holiday Party in December.The SSYP Foundation Grant has a mission to support entrepreneurship and fuel the economic development of the South Shore through a program that fosters ideas and innovations. Past recipients are G Force Shipping, Friendship Home, Shockyard Fitness, Ananya, Inc. and Rustic Marlin Designs.Since 2008, the South Shore Young Professionals has been serving those seeking to build a successful career and well-balanced life in south eastern Massachusetts. With a mission to serve as the leading resource for the personal and professional development of the individual by means of community involvement, SSYP provides networking, education, information, resources and opportunities to young professionals and businesses on the South Shore. For additional information about the South Shore Young Professionals, please call 781-421-3911.The South Shore Chamber of Commerce has long been recognized throughout the state as one of the most active and forceful advocates for the business community, and numbers among the larger Chambers of Commerce nationally. The South Shore Chamber is a not-for-profit association of businesses in the communities south of Boston. It is committed to helping its members grow their businesses and to improve the business climate in the region. Members range in size from major international corporations headquartered on the South Shore to small local firms and sole proprietorships. For additional information on the Chamber, please visit www.southshorechamber.org or call 781-421-3911.
The clothing company LPP SA, owner of brands such as Reserved, Tallinder, Mohito, House, Crops and Sinsay, decided to move into the Waterside building in Gdansk by leasing an office of more than 1,000 sqm. Knight Frank, sole agent, acted on behalf of the property owner  the Deka Immobilien

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Jeep is one brand, many off-roading enthusiasts have always looked up to. So when the brand was finally launched in India a few months ago, there was a huge segment of buyers who were eagerly waiting to get their hands on one. But the excitement was short lived, thanks to the high price tags. The most affordable Jeep is priced at no less than INR 80 lakhs in India.

So if you too are disheartened and could not get your hands on your dream car, here is a cheaper alternative. Thanks to one Prasad Chowdary from Kerela, we now know that you can modify a Mahindra TUV300 to atleast look like a Jeep!

Yes. The car you seen in the images has gone through extensive mods, just so that it can look like a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which costs more than INR 1 crore on road in India.

Changes carried out by Prasad includes a completely new face with new Jeep grille, Jeep logo, projector headlamps with LED DRLS from Audi Q3, new bumper, and revised bonnet. Rear now features a clean design with the spare wheel gone.

The engine has been left untouched. It features the same a 1.5-litre three-cylinder mHawk engine which is mated to a 5-speed MT or AMT, driving the rear wheels. This engine delivers 84 bhp power and 230 Nm torque.

Developed at an investment of INR 1,200 cr, the TUV300 is based on a new platform. In the initial months, Mahindra TUV300 was a roaring success, registering monthly sales of about 5,000 units. In fact, in the first two months, the ladder frame sub-4 metre SUV managed to outsell the Ford EcoSport. But since the last few months, the sales have declined to about 2,000 units a month.
Pune-based startup Tork Motorcycles has successfully launched Indias first electric motorcycle, the T6X. The Tork T6X is the production version of the companys fifth prototype and is aiming to revolutionize the vast Indian two wheeler market.

The Tork T6X is claimed to have top-speed of 100 kmph and a range of 100 km on a full charge. The company has set up six public charging stations so far (in Pune and Lonavala) but is hoping to have 100 charging stations in its target cities (Pune, Bangalore, Delhi) in its first phase of operations. Yes, only three cities will get the new Tork T6X motorcycle as of now. They are Pune, Bangalore and Delhi.

Second phase of operations will see the company venture into Hyderabad and Mumbai. Shilke said that the manufacturing facility at Chakan is almost complete. He also added that the company is adequately funded to commence production. The company aims to sell 5,000 to 10,000 units each year for the next three years.

The startup is partly funded by entrepreneur and mechanical engineer Kapil Shelke and his father. Rest of the funding comes from angel investors Ankit Bhati and Bhavesh Agrawal of Ola Cabs (from their personal funds). The financial details of the company have not been made public but Shelke stated that there is no foreign technology or investment. Save for the lithium battery pack, the components will be sourced within India.

The launch event took place in Bangalore earlier today, at the Tech Sparks 2016 event. This is the second such launch event in Bangalore, as the new Ather S340 electric scooter was also launched in the same city. Though, deliveries of none of the scooters have started as of now.

Built after extensive research and testing of 7 years, some of the noteworthy highlights of the new Tork T6X are full digital display, quick charge and superior acceleration, DRL, ABS, CBS, anti-theft, geo-sensing, Front and rear disc brakes, 17-inch tubeless tyres etc. Weighing 130 kgs, the battery delivers a peak torque of 27 Nm. The battery pack is IP67 certified water and dust resistant. You can find more details in the specs sheet in the gallery below.
Vijay Mallyas vintage cars were put up for auction in an attempt to reduce company debt by global liquor giant Diageo, which controls United Spirits Limited. The online auction was held on August 25, 2016 and was the first of its kind in India.

Bidders clambered to get hold of these rare models which also included a 1903 Humber, said to be the oldest car in India which is still in running condition. This was also the oldest car in the selection and was picked up for INR 1 crore.

Apart from this, a vintage British Lancaster sold for INR 2 crores while other cars in the collection included a Rolls Royce, Lancia and Wolseley along with a Bentley Turbo R, 2010 Rolls Royce Phantom while even a 2010 Maruti Suzuki Ritz was among this princely collection.

The auction was conducted by organizer Quippo Valuers and Auctioneers. Mallya is said to possess over a 100 cars of which 30 were put up for auction. These cars were parked in Mumbai, Goa, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata. They are in pristine condition and came with all relevant documentation.

The online auction which commenced at 2.00 pm on 24th August was extended to 4 am on the next day due to aggressive bidding by various collectors each trying to get their hands on the tycoons vintage cars. The bidders were from a close knit circle of vintage and supercar collectors, some of whom were also known to Mallya.

Vintage cars are the best performing investments especially for high net worth individuals. A study conducted by New World Wealth, a global wealth intelligence and marketing research company, during the period 2007 to 2015, price of classic models has seen an increase of 163%.

via Team-BHP
Researchers have long known that emotional disorders have a lot in common. Many often occur together, like depression and social anxiety disorder. Treatments also tend to work across multiple disorders, suggesting shared underlying elements. But perhaps the most common shared characteristic is that almost all emotional disorders involve persistent negative thinking.

In an analysis of existing studies that used MRI images to study the brain's white matter, researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago describe common brain abnormalities found in multiple emotional disorders. Their findings are published in the journal NeuroImage: Clinical.

"This study provides important insights into mechanisms shared across multiple emotional disorders, and could provide us with biomarkers that can be used to more rapidly diagnose these disorders," says Dr. Scott Langenecker, associate professor of psychiatry and psychology in the UIC College of Medicine and senior author of the paper. Those disorders, he said, can sometimes take many years to be diagnosed accurately.

The most common difference in white matter structure that Langenecker's group found -- present in every emotional disorder they looked at -- was disruption in a region of the brain that connects different parts of the "default-mode network," which is responsible for passive thoughts not focused on a particular task. That area is the left superior longitudinal fasciculus. The superior longitudinal fasciculus, or SLF, also connects the default-mode network and the cognitive control network, which is important in task-based thinking and planning and tends to work in alternation with the default-mode network. The constant negative thoughts or ruminations associated with most emotional disorders appear to be due to a hyperactive default-mode network, Langenecker said.

"If the part of the brain that helps rein in the default-mode network isn't as well-connected through the SLF, this could explain why people with emotional disorders have such a hard time modulating or gaining control of their negative thoughts," he said.

The researchers systematically searched the scientific literature for studies that performed whole-brain "diffusion tensor" imaging on adults with major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, social anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or posttraumatic stress disorder, as well as healthy control participants. Thirty-seven studies met those criteria and included a combined 962 participants with emotional disorders and 892 healthy control subjects.

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The researchers then performed a meta-analysis to determine which white-matter alterations may be common across multiple mood disorders and which are unique for a particular mood disorder. White matter includes the long nerve fibers called axons that transmit electrical signals.

Diffusion tensor imaging, or DTI, measures the degree to which water molecules move in one direction rather than randomly diffusing in all directions. It provides "an indirect measurement of the microstructure of white matter, and can give information about connectivity of different parts of the brain," said Lisanne Jenkins, postdoctoral research fellow in psychiatry in the UIC College of Medicine and first author on the paper.

"If you think of white matter as the highways of the brain, connecting all the different regions and networks," Jenkins said, an area with highly directional water movement "could be a major superhighway where all the cars are moving along quickly with little traffic." An area with less-directed water movement could be "a two-lane road, with several exits and stop signs, maybe even some potholes, which slow down traffic."

Brain regions connected by these slower pathways "may not communicate as well as they would in someone where this road looks more like a superhighway," said Dr. Olusola Ajilore, associate professor of psychiatry in the UIC College of Medicine and a co-author on the paper.

In the 37 studies the researchers looked at, participants with emotional disorders had less directed water movement in their white matter compared to participants who did not have emotional disorders. One of the most surprising findings to Langenecker was that people with obsessive-compulsive disorder shared the most brain abnormalities with people with other emotional disorders.

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"We would have expected  OCD to look very different from other emotional disorders, because the symptoms are so unique and distinct," Langenecker said. "But this kind of flips how we see OCD, which clearly has more in common with other emotional disorders than we think."

The traditional diagnosis for OCD, he said, is repetitive thoughts about specific objects or tasks -- thoughts that pertain to the world outside the self. The thoughts can also be internally-directed.

"Other emotional disorders, like depression, social anxiety, and panic disorder -- the repetitive thoughts are directed at the self," Ajilore said. "So our finding that OCD is more like the other emotional disorders makes sense, and we may now be able to further examine commonalities between these disorders that could improve our treatment of them individually."

The disorder that stood out and shared the fewest white-matter characteristics with the others was post-traumatic stress disorder.

PTSD is triggered by a traumatic event and involves being reminded of that event at unwelcome times, not unlike the repetitive negative thinking in other emotional disorders. But people with PTSD had several areas of low white-matter connectivity that weren't seen in the other emotional disorders, Langenecker said.

"While milder forms of trauma is common in other conditions, like major depression or generalized anxiety, it is possible that the brain regions we saw that were distinctly affected in PTSD participants are related to the experience of severe trauma or the re-experiencing of that trauma," he said. In bipolar disorder, characterized by periods of both depression and mania, the researchers saw generally decreased water-directionality in the right side of the brain, including the right SLF, the area that connects the default-mode network and the cognitive control network.

"All emotional disorders had disruptions more so in the left hemisphere, but for bipolar disorder, we saw disruptions in white matter in both the right and left sides of the brain," Langenecker said.

Older studies of stroke patients have shown that abnormalities in the right hemisphere are associated with externally-focused symptoms, like mania, while left hemisphere involvement -- which the current study found in most emotional disorders -- was more often associated with inwardly-focused symptoms, like depression. Langenecker said the bilateral changes his team observed in bipolar disorder may reflect vulnerability to mania and to depression and anxiety. Alyssa Barba, Miranda Campbell, Melissa Lamar, Stewart Shankman and Dr. Alex Leow, all of UIC, are the remaining co-authors on the paper.
A study by Eawag and Zurich University researchers using a new imaging method has revealed that, surprisingly, cocaine accumulates in the eyes of zebrafish. The findings indicate that chemicals -- especially psychoactive drugs -- need to be assessed quite differently with waterborne exposure than, for example, when pharmaceutical substances are tested in mice. In particular, the uptake mechanisms and effects of cocaine in fish cannot simply be transferred to mammals or humans.

Zebrafish larvae a few days old are frequently used in toxicology tests -- e.g. to study the behavioural effects of drugs -- in order to avoid experiments in mammals. Taking the example of cocaine, researchers at Eawag, together with colleagues at Zurich University, have now shown that the uptake and distribution patterns and the effects of the drug in zebrafish differ in many ways from those in mammals. In their study, a complex imaging method (MALDI MSI[i]) was used for the first time to determine where cocaine accumulates in zebrafish. After being exposed to a defined concentration of the drug for eight hours, the larvae were euthanized and frozen. Tissue samples a few micrometres thick were then imaged by laser scanning.

The images show that the greatest accumulation of cocaine is to be found, not in the brain, but in the eyes, where concentrations over 1500 mg/kg were measured -- compared to around 300-400 mg/kg in the trunk and brain. This finding is striking: while increased concentrations have been observed in the head region in other fish studies, the highest concentrations were assumed (without more precise measurements) to occur in the brain. In addition, compared to mammals, these levels are very high: in mice, concentrations 100 times lower are generally lethal, and in humans, 1000 times lower. Environmental toxicologist Kristin Schirmer, who co-led the project with Thomas Kraemer of the Zurich Institute of Forensic Medicine, cannot yet fully explain their findings. It is, however, clear that cocaine is taken up rapidly and continuously by zebrafish larvae, which at this early stage have not yet a fully developed blood-brain barrier.

Schirmer and her team found other major differences between the fish tests and the patterns observed in mammals: while cocaine has a stimulatory action and causes hyperactivity in mammals, it suppresses locomotor activity in zebrafish. The effects of cocaine on peripheral nerves -- due to rapid uptake through the skin and gills -- thus appear to override any potential effects on the brain. In contrast to mammals, the elimination process is delayed as a result of the accumulation of cocaine in zebrafish eyes: 50% of the cocaine was eliminated after eight hours in clean water, and 30% still remained after 48 hours.

According to Kristin Schirmer, the study shows that fish tests need to be further refined if the results are to be transferable to mammals, or if they are to be used for water quality assessment: "If we want to have a better knowledge of the effects of such chemicals on the ecosystem, we need a more detailed understanding of the processes of uptake through water -- they're quite different from when drugs are inhaled or injected."

[i] MALDI MSI = Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry imaging
Citing security sources, Dawn newspaper said that the capture and killings occurred when the Indian army opened fire across the border, killing two Pakistani soldiers.

India has denied Pakistan military's claims that it has killed eight Indian soldiers and captured one while retaliating to India's firing at the first line of defence at the Line of Control (LoC) at Tatta Pani, a media report said today.

Citing security sources, Dawn newspaper said that the capture and killings occurred when the Indian army opened fire across the border, killing two Pakistani soldiers.

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"The dead bodies of the Indian soldiers are still to be recovered by the Indian forces as they lay unattended at the LoC. Security sources say the Indian army has yet to recover the bodies for fear of coming under fire from Pakistan," the paper claimed.

The paper identified the captured soldier as 22-year-old Chandu Babulal Chohan son of Bashan Chohan from Maharashtra.

It said he has been shifted to an undisclosed location.

However, there was no official word on the report.

A Pakistan army statement said "an exchange of fire between Pakistani and Indian LoC troops began at 2:30am and continued till 8:00am in the Bhimber, Hotspring, Kel and Lipa sectors" and added that "Pakistani troops befittingly responded to Indian unprovoked firing on the LoC."

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Although rare, sudden cardiac death in young athletes raises serious concerns, especially because most victims report no warning symptoms. Pre-participation screening aims to identify children, adolescents, and young adults at risk, but there is not yet consensus regarding the best way to accomplish this. A new report in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology sheds light on this controversial topic by describing a new screening protocol that offers advantages over American Heart Association (AHA) recommendations and shows that the electrocardiogram (ECG) is the best single screening method.

Cardiologists from the University of British Columbia Vancouver Coastal Health, Vancouver, BC, Canada, compared their own innovative screening protocol to that recommended by the AHA. Both protocols use 12-lead ECGs and questionnaires. However, one problem associated with the AHA questionnaire is the high rate of false positives (identifying someone as having a serious condition when he does not). A false-positive result requires extensive further testing and consultation with a cardiologist, leading to worry, secondary testing, and higher costs. The researchers' new evidence-based questionnaire was designed to better differentiate between symptoms indicative of serious cardiac disease and those related to more benign conditions. The AHA method also involves a physical exam conducted by a physician that includes listening to the heart (auscultation).

Investigators screened more than 1400 young competitive athletes ages 12-35 years. Approximately half underwent the AHA recommended screening, and the other half the experimental protocol. Seven participants were found to have serious heart conditions, and six were identified by ECG. Only two of the seven would have been detected as the result of a medical history and physical exam.

"The current study provides further evidence to support the use of the ECG as an important tool in the screening of young competitive athletes," explained lead investigator James McKinney, MD, MSc, of the Division of Cardiology of the University of British Columbia. "The ECG is more sensitive in detecting heart muscle problems (cardiomyopathies) and potentially life-threatening electrical disorders such as Wolff-Parkinson-White and long QT syndrome."

"An Achilles heel of pre-participation screening has long been the unacceptably high false-positive rate and the costs associated with screening large numbers of athletes," noted co-investigator Saul Isserow, MBBCh, of the Division of Cardiology of the University of British Columbia. In the study, the false-positive rate of the new protocol was less than half that of the AHA protocol (3.7% vs. 8.1%).

Investigators found that the physical examination was unhelpful and costly. The physical exam prompted further evaluation in 10 athletes without identifying any of the athletes who actually had heart disease and contributed to higher false-positive rates. "This is not surprising because cardiac auscultation requires years of experience and conditions during mass screening are not ideal for meticulous cardiac auscultation," commented Michael Papadakis, MBBS, MD, and Sanjay Sharma, MBChB, MD, of St. George's University of London in an accompanying editorial.

The research indicates that a screening protocol that includes a more specific questionnaire and ECG, but excludes a physical examination, eliminating the need for an on-site physician, would be desirable to optimize efficiency and produce important cost savings. The researchers calculate that eliminating physician costs would result in huge reductions in per person screening costs ($14.42 for new protocol vs. $97.50 for AHA protocol) and costs per diagnosis ($3,822.70 vs. $41,320.49, respectively).

"A large proportion of sudden cardiac deaths in young athletes are secondary to inherited or congenital cardiac diseases that are detectable during life and for which several therapeutic options are available to minimize the risk of death. Pre-participation screening is widely used to detect athletes at risk of exercise-related sudden cardiac death, but the optimal approach remains elusive," added Dr. Papadakis and Dr. Sharma.

The results of this study indicate the need to harmonize the results of research findings with current practice. Still to be determined is the important question of whether screening saves lives.
Year-long study of almost 2,000 officers across UK and US forces shows introduction of wearable cameras led to a 93% drop in complaints made against police by the public -- suggesting the cameras result in behavioural changes that 'cool down' potentially volatile encounters.

Body-worn cameras are fast becoming standard kit for frontline law enforcers, trumpeted by senior officers and even the US President as a technological 'fix' for what some see as a crisis of police legitimacy. Evidence of effectiveness has, however, been limited in its scope.

Now, new results from one of the largest randomised-controlled experiments in the history of criminal justice research, led by the University of Cambridge's Institute of Criminology, show that the use by officers of body-worn cameras is associated with a startling 93% reduction in citizen complaints against police.

Researchers say this may be down to wearable cameras modifying behaviour through an 'observer effect': the awareness that encounters are recorded improves both suspect demeanour and police procedural compliance. Essentially, the "digital witness" of the camera encourages cooler heads to prevail.

The experiment took place across seven sites during 2014 and early 2015, including police from areas such as the UK Midlands and the Californian coast, and encompassing 1,429,868 officer hours across 4,264 shifts in jurisdictions that cover a total population of two million citizens. The findings are published in the journal Criminal Justice and Behaviour.

The researchers write that, if levels of complaints offer at least some guide to standards of police conduct -- and misconduct -- these findings suggest that use of body-worn cameras are a "profound sea change in modern policing."

"Cooling down potentially volatile police-public interactions to the point where official grievances against the police have virtually vanished may well lead to the conclusion that the use of body-worn cameras represents a turning point in policing," said Cambridge criminologist and lead author Dr Barak Ariel.

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"There can be no doubt that body-worn cameras increase the transparency of frontline policing. Anything that has been recorded can be subsequently reviewed, scrutinised and submitted as evidence."

"Individual officers become more accountable, and modify their behaviour accordingly, while the more disingenuous complaints from the public fall by the wayside once footage is likely to reveal them as frivolous.

"The cameras create an equilibrium between the account of the officer and the account of the suspect about the same event -- increasing accountability on both sides."

However, Ariel cautions that one innovation, no matter how positive, is unlikely to provide a panacea for a deeply rooted issue such as police legitimacy.

Complaints against police are costly: both financially and in terms of public trust, say researchers. In the US, complaints can be hugely expense -- not least through multimillion-dollar lawsuits. In the UK last year, the IPCC reported a continuous rise in complaints across the majority of forces.

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Ariel worked with colleagues from RAND Europe and six different police forces: West Midlands, Cambridgeshire, West Yorkshire, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and Rialto and Ventura in California, to conduct the vast experiment.

Each trial was managed by a local point of contact, either an officer or civilian staff member -- all graduates of the Cambridge University Police Executive Programme.

Every week for a year, the researchers randomly assigned each officer shift as either with cameras (treatment) or without (control), with all officers experiencing both conditions.

Across all seven trial sites during the 12 months preceding the study, a total of 1,539 complaints were lodged against police, amounting to 1.2 complaints per officer. By the end of the experiment, complaints had dropped to 113 for the year across all sites -- just 0.08 complaints per officer -- marking a total reduction of 93%.

Surprisingly, the difference between the treatment and control groups once the experiment began was not statistically significant; nor was the variations between the different sites.

Yet the before/after difference caused by the overall experimental conditions across all forces was enormous. While only around half the officers were wearing cameras at any one time, complaints against police right across all shifts in all participating forces almost disappeared.

Researchers say this may be an example of "contagious accountability": with large scale behavioural change -- in officers but also perhaps in the public -- seeping into almost all interactions, even during camera-less control shifts, once the experiment had introduced camera protocols to participating forces.

"It may be that, by repeated exposure to the surveillance of the cameras, officers changed their reactive behaviour on the streets -- changes that proved more effective and so stuck," said co-author Dr Alex Sutherland of RAND Europe.

"With a complaints reduction of nearly 100% across the board, we find it difficult to consider alternatives to be honest," he said.

Critically, researchers say these behaviour changes rely on cameras recording entire encounters, and officers issuing an early warning that the camera is on -- reminding all parties that the 'digital witness' is in play right from the start, and triggering the observer effect.

In fact, results from the same experiment, published earlier this year, suggest that police use-of-force and assaults on officers actually increase if a camera is switched on in the middle of an interaction, as this can be taken as an escalation of the situation by both officer and suspect.

"The jolt of issuing a verbal reminder of filming at the start of an encounter nudges everyone to think about their actions more consciously. This might mean that officers begin encounters with more awareness of rules of conduct, and members of the public are less inclined to respond aggressively," explained Ariel.

"We suspect that this is the 'treatment' that body-worn cameras provide, and the mechanism behind the dramatic reduction in complaints against police we have observed in our research."
Wind turbines are known to kill large birds, such as golden eagles, that live nearby. Now there is evidence that birds from up to hundreds of miles away make up a significant portion of the raptors that are killed at these wind energy fields.

Using DNA from tissue and stable isotopes from the feathers of golden eagle carcasses, researchers from Purdue University and the U.S. Geological Survey found that golden eagles killed at the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area in northern California can come from hundreds of miles away. Golden eagles are a species of conservation concern, so understanding population-level differences and how individuals interact with turbines is key to meeting a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service target of no net loss to their populations.

The APWRA is one of the oldest wind farms in the country and one of the largest in the world originally with around 5,000 turbines. Worldwide, such facilities have been responsible for the deaths of 140,000 to 328,000 birds and 500,000 to 1.6 million bats, raising questions about their effects on population sustainability.

"Eagles tend to use that habitat around the turbines. It's windy there, so they can save energy and soar, and their preferred prey, California ground squirrels, is abundant there," said J. Andrew DeWoody, a Purdue professor of genetics in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources. "As they soar, these eagles are often looking straight down, and they fail to see the rapidly moving turbine blades. They get hit by the blades, and carcasses are found on the ground under the turbines."

Collaborator David Nelson, a stable isotope ecologist with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, tested the birds' feathers for stable hydrogen isotopes, which can be used to determine where the birds likely grew their feathers. The research team determined that about 75 percent of the 62 birds were from the local population. The remaining 25 percent likely migrated into the area before they were killed.

Isotopes are atoms of an element that have different molecular weights. As precipitation moves inland, water with the heavier form of hydrogen falls out first, which creates predictable patterns of the stable isotopes ratios of precipitation across continents.

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"When a bird drinks water or eats animals in a particular place, the hydrogen isotope ratios of precipitation in that area get recorded in its tissues," Nelson said. "You can use these hydrogen ratios in the feathers to determine the approximate place that the bird grew its feathers."

A genetic analysis revealed that golden eagles from the western U.S. have gene pools similar to those killed at the APWRA, which reflects the capacity of these birds to disperse widely.

"The population models we built confirm that the age structure of the eagles killed at Altamont is difficult to replicate without substantial immigration," said co-author Todd Katzner, a wildlife biologist with the USGS. Katzner said these findings suggest that environmental assessments of alternative energy facilities like Altamont Pass should take into consideration that animal populations affected by wind turbines might not be just local.

"If you only consider local birds in an environmental assessment, you're not really evaluating the effect that facility may have on the entire population," Katzner said.

DeWoody said that wind energy generators can receive permits that allow a certain number of unintended bird deaths. But if that number is too large, the companies could be fined. And knowing that a large percentage of the birds killed are from neighboring states could muddy the management waters.

"The golden eagle fatalities at this one site have demonstrated consequences that extend across much of the range of the species across North America," DeWoody said.

The golden eagle population is a concern for several state and federal agencies, DeWoody added. He said future research could include looking at more bird species affected by turbines.

The study was published in Conservation Biology.
Using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and other facilities, an international team of scientists has found the first gamma-ray binary in another galaxy and the most luminous one ever seen. The dual-star system, dubbed LMC P3, contains a massive star and a crushed stellar core that interact to produce a cyclic flood of gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light.

"Fermi has detected only five of these systems in our own galaxy, so finding one so luminous and distant is quite exciting," said lead researcher Robin Corbet at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Gamma-ray binaries are prized because the gamma-ray output changes significantly during each orbit and sometimes over longer time scales. This variation lets us study many of the emission processes common to other gamma-ray sources in unique detail."

These rare systems contain either a neutron star or a black hole and radiate most of their energy in the form of gamma rays. Remarkably, LMC P3 is the most luminous such system known in gamma rays, X-rays, radio waves and visible light, and it's only the second one discovered with Fermi.

A paper describing the discovery will appear in the Oct. 1 issue of The Astrophysical Journal and is now available online.

LMC P3 lies within the expanding debris of a supernova explosion located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small nearby galaxy about 163,000 light-years away. In 2012, scientists using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory found a strong X-ray source within the supernova remnant and showed that it was orbiting a hot, young star many times the sun's mass. The researchers concluded the compact object was either a neutron star or a black hole and classified the system as a high-mass X-ray binary (HMXB).

In 2015, Corbet's team began looking for new gamma-ray binaries in Fermi data by searching for the periodic changes characteristic of these systems. The scientists discovered a 10.3-day cyclic change centered near one of several gamma-ray point sources recently identified in the LMC. One of them, called P3, was not linked to objects seen at any other wavelengths but was located near the HMXB. Were they the same object?

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To find out, Corbet's team observed the binary in X-rays using NASA's Swift satellite, at radio wavelengths with the Australia Telescope Compact Array near Narrabri and in visible light using the 4.1-meter Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope on Cerro Pachon in Chile and the 1.9-meter telescope at the South African Astronomical Observatory near Cape Town.

The Swift observations clearly reveal the same 10.3-day emission cycle seen in gamma rays by Fermi. They also indicate that the brightest X-ray emission occurs opposite the gamma-ray peak, so when one reaches maximum the other is at minimum. Radio data exhibit the same period and out-of-phase relationship with the gamma-ray peak, confirming that LMC P3 is indeed the same system investigated by Chandra.

"The optical observations show changes due to binary orbital motion, but because we don't know how the orbit is tilted into our line of sight, we can only estimate the individual masses," said team member Jay Strader, an astrophysicist at Michigan State University in East Lansing. "The star is between 25 and 40 times the sun's mass, and if we're viewing the system at an angle midway between face-on and edge-on, which seems most likely, its companion is a neutron star about twice the sun's mass." If, however, we view the binary nearly face-on, then the companion must be significantly more massive and a black hole.

Both objects form when a massive star runs out of fuel, collapses under its own weight and explodes as a supernova. The star's crushed core may become a neutron star, with the mass of half a million Earths squeezed into a ball no larger than Washington, D.C. Or it may be further compacted into a black hole, with a gravitational field so strong not even light can escape it.

The surface of the star at the heart of LMC P3 has a temperature exceeding 60,000 degrees Fahrenheit (33,000 degrees Celsius), or more than six times hotter than the sun's. The star is so luminous that pressure from the light it emits actually drives material from the surface, creating particle outflows with speeds of several million miles an hour.

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In gamma-ray binaries, the compact companion is thought to produce a "wind" of its own, one consisting of electrons accelerated to near the speed of light. The interacting outflows produce X-rays and radio waves throughout the orbit, but these emissions are detected most strongly when the compact companion travels along the part of its orbit closest to Earth.

Through a different mechanism, the electron wind also emits gamma rays. When light from the star collides with high-energy electrons, it receives a boost to gamma-ray levels. Called inverse Compton scattering, this process produces more gamma rays when the compact companion passes near the star on the far side of its orbit as seen from our perspective.

Prior to Fermi's launch, gamma-ray binaries were expected to be more numerous than they've turned out to be. Hundreds of HMXBs are cataloged, and these systems are thought to have originated as gamma-ray binaries following the supernova that formed the compact object.

"It is certainly a surprise to detect a gamma-ray binary in another galaxy before we find more of them in our own," said Guillaume Dubus, a team member at the Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics of Grenoble in France. "One possibility is that the gamma-ray binaries Fermi has found are rare cases where a supernova formed a neutron star with exceptionally rapid spin, which would enhance how it produces accelerated particles and gamma rays."

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.
The first Zika virus-related death in the continental U.S. occurred in June of this year, but even now, months later, two aspects of this case continue to puzzle health experts. First, why did this patient die? It is quite rare for a Zika infection to cause severe illness in adults, much less death. Second, how did another individual, who visited the first while in the hospital, become ill from Zika? This second patient did not do anything that was known at the time to put people at risk for contracting the virus.

Researchers at the University of Utah School of Medicine and ARUP Laboratories in Salt Lake City begin to unravel the mystery in a correspondence published online on Sept. 28 in The New England Journal of Medicine. Details from the two cases point to an unusually high concentration of virus in the first patient's blood as being responsible for his death. The phenomenon may also explain how the second patient may have contracted the virus by touching the tears or sweat from the primary patient, the first such documented case.

"This rare case is helping us to understand the full spectrum of the disease, and the precautions we may need to take to avoid passing the virus from one person to another in specific situations," says corresponding author Sankar Swaminathan, M.D., Chief of Infectious Disease and Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine. He collaborated with coauthors Robert Schlaberg, M.D., M.P.H., Marc Couturier, Ph.D., and Kimberly Hanson, M.D., M.H.S. from ARUP Laboratories, and Julia Lewis, D.O. from the University of Utah School of Medicine. "This type of information could help us improve treatments for Zika as the virus continues to spread across the world and within our country."

From the letter in NEJM, a story unfolds. Last May, Patient 1, a 73-year-old man, traveled to southwest Mexico, a Zika-infected area. Eight days after returning, he started having abdominal pain and fever, and by the time he was admitted to the University of Utah hospital he also had inflamed, watery eyes, low blood pressure and a rapid heart rate. Despite the medical staff's best efforts to stabilize him, his condition declined rapidly. During this time, Patient 2 came to visit and reported wiping away Patient 1's tears and helping to reposition him in the hospital bed. It wasn't long before Patient 1 slipped into septic shock, and his kidneys, lungs and other organs started to shut down. He died shortly thereafter.

Even though it's well known that Zika can cause severe brain damage in unborn babies, symptoms are typically mild in adults. Only nine other Zika-related deaths have been reported worldwide, says Swaminathan. Despite the odds, tests performed after Patient 1's death revealed that he had Zika. Patient 1 was initially identified as being potentially infected with Zika virus during validation of a real time PCR test for Zika virus that is currently under development at ARUP Laboratories, and was subsequently confirmed as positive by both the Utah Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Further investigation using Taxonomer, a tool developed by scientists at University of Utah and ARUP Laboratories, that rapidly analyzes all genetic material from infectious agents in a patient's sample, showed there were no other infections that explained his illness. It also found that the Zika virus that infected the patient was 99.8 percent identical to that carried by a mosquito collected from southwest Mexico, the same region that Patient 1 had visited a few weeks prior.

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Seven days after Patient 1's death, Patient 2 was meeting with Swaminathan to talk about what had happened when the doctor noticed that his visitor had red, watery eyes, a common Zika symptom. Tests confirmed his suspicion, but in contrast to Patient 1 this patient only had mild symptoms that resolved within the following week.

Like Patient 1's death, Patient 2's diagnosis was unexpected. The species of mosquito that carries Zika had not been found in Utah and Patient 2 had not traveled to a Zika-infected area. A reconstruction of events ruled out other known means of catching the virus.

"This case expands our appreciation for how Zika virus can potentially spread from an infected patient to a non-infected patient without sexual contact or a mosquito vector," says Couturier. "This and any future cases will force the medical community to critically re-evaluate established triage processes for determining which patients receive Zika testing and which do not."

The authors believe that the reason behind the unusual nature of the case lies in yet another anomaly. Patient 1's blood had a very high concentration of virus, at 200 million particles per milliliter. "I couldn't believe it," says Swaminathan. "The viral load was 100,000 times higher than what had been reported in other Zika cases, and was an unusually high amount for any infection." The observation opens up the possibility that the extraordinary amount of virus overwhelmed the patient's system, and made him extremely infectious.

Still, what led to the unusually severe infection in the first place remains unknown. Was there something about Patient 1's biology or health history that made him particularly susceptible? There were small differences in the virus' genetic material compared to other samples of Zika virus, did they cause the virus to be exceptionally aggressive?

"We may never see another case like this one," says Swaminathan. "But one thing this case shows us is that we still have a lot to learn about Zika."

The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
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This cat? That pipe? The friendly folks who came to the rescue? Nope. Never happened.

Well, that's what this too-curious kitty seems to be thinking, at least. For reasons that aren't entirely clear (as is often the case with cats), the foolhardy feline decided to climb inside a large piece of metal piping on the ground in Shizuishan, China. Getting out, evidently, wasn't so easy.

Only his little head was able to poke through.
While people in the border areas are living in fear of shelling from Pakistan side, the infiltration threat also looms large after the tensions grew on both sides of the border.

By Manjeet Sehgal: Pakistan has lost its cool after India carried out surgical strikes to destroy the terror launch pads in PoK. Feeling ashamed, the confused Pakistani army is now resorting to ceasefire violations.

EPICENTER OF CONFLICT

India Today on Friday reached a village called Makdi which is located very close to the Line of Control. Pakistan occupied Kashmir is located at a distance of a few hundred meters from this village.

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Highly places sources told India Today that the surgical strikes were carried out from a forest located close to this village. Out of a total of eight launch pads which were destroyed during the surgical strikes, two were located close to this village in Kotli and Bhimbhar areas in PoK. The terror launch pads were located in Mirpur, kotli and Bhimbhar areas.

This is Makdi village is the last human settlement on Indian side in Bhimbar Gali area. This village is also a victim of indiscriminate firing firing from the Pakistani side.

A local resident Bimla Devi, whose daughter was seriously injured in 1999 when shells from mortars had hit their home, told us about the heavy financial loss her family had to incur since bullets from the cross-firing killed four buffaloes and two oxen. She said the firing at the Naushera sector had caused panic among the residents of the village. She like so many residents of the village is spending sleepless nights after the tensions gripped both sides of the border.

PAK SHOWING ITS TRUE COLOURS

Meanwhile Pakistan has started showing its true colours as its Army indulged in ceasefire violations from Thursday onward. While some have already left their homes, those who chose to stay are trapped indoors. Nearly 300 families in Naushera sector alone have approached the local administration pleading for a safe evacuation of them and their families.

Naushera Kalal and Baba Khodi villages were targeted by the Pakistani forces on Thursday morning as the forces indulged in heavy shelling for over three hours. Firing continued on Friday morning too.

The panicked locals are now contacting local administration and public representatives who have assured them assistance in evacuation but the administration is not prepared to accommodate large numbers of evacuees at once.

INCREASED ACTIVITY ON THE BORDER

Meanwhile the Indo-Pak border has been rife with increased activity over the last few days. Army vehicles are patrolling important highways and the link roads connecting army establishments. The security agencies are not taking any chances and have deployed a large number of forces on the border.

An alert has already been sounded in the border districts across Jammu and Kashmir. While people are living in fear of shelling from Pakistan side, the infiltration threat also looms large after the tensions grew on both sides of the border.

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ALSO READ:

Terrorists plotting 'spectacular strike' to avenge surgical strikes, fear intelligence agencies



Surgical strikes effect: Terror chiefs told to lie low in Pakistan

--- ENDS ---
When the farmer saw the baby fox in his field, he went to his neighbor's house to borrow their gun so he could shoot the animal. Luckily for the fox, the neighbor wasn't home, so the farmer called a local rescue group to remove the fox instead.

European red foxes were introduced in Australia in the mid-1800s, and they're now considered a "pest" as they're responsible for killing a host of native wildlife. Instead of humanely removing foxes, the Australian government enacted a threat abatement plan, which includes baiting and shooting programs. The government also encourages individuals to kill any foxes they encounter on their private properties.

The baby fox in the field, however, got a second chance at life with Sydney Fox Rescue, a non-governmental organization that rescues and rehomes baby foxes, called "kits." Sydney Fox Rescue will neuter, vaccinate and microchip the foxes, then keep them in special enclosures, and never release them back into the wild. When the baby fox - named Willa - arrived, the team at Sydney Fox Rescue treated him for tick paralysis, then re-homed him and another kit, Athena, at Sugarshine Sanctuary, an animal haven in northern New South Wales, Australia.

Dodo Shows Dodo Heroes Woman Devotes Her Life To The Stray Dogs Of Bali

A few days after the two kits arrived at Sugarshine, Athena was tragically killed by a python snake. Willa was lonely after this happened, and he started following Isabel (a.k.a. Izzy) the resident greyhound around the sanctuary.

Like Willa, Isabel had dodged death. She was a failed racing greyhound, and since she was no longer valuable to the racing industry, her owner had taken her to the vet to euthanize her. A woman overheard the owner talking to the vet staff - she stepped in, insisting on taking Isabel to a rescue group. After being rescued, Isabel was adopted by Kelly Nelder, the co-founder of Sugarshine Sanctuary.

Isabel took an immediate liking to Willa, and their friendship bloomed. "Isabel has a very gentle and tolerant nature," Nelder tells The Dodo. "She'll let Willa jump all over her, steal her food and snuggle against her tummy."

On Willa's first trip to the beach, he was initially quite scared. As Nelder explains, foxes like hiding undercover, so being out in the open would have been frightening. But Isabel stayed by Willa's side and made sure her friend enjoyed the beach. "Isabel's a very fast runner, but she slowed her pace right down and walked near Willa," says Nelder. "Soon after that, they were digging holes in the sand together and frolicking in the dunes."

Willa loved his beach adventure with Isabel, but his favorite activity is sneaking up on Isabel and trying to steal her tail. "It holds endless fascination for him," says Nelder. "He sneaks behind her, stares at her tail for awhile, then pounces. If he gets hold of her tail he tries to take it to his hidey spot with his toys. He doesn't seem to realize that Isabel's permanently attached!"

As payback, Isabel loves putting Willa's entire head in her mouth and gently holding it there, especially when Willa gets overexcited.

When they're not roughhousing inside Willa's enclosure, Willa and Isabel snuggle together, and Isabel licks her fox friend's head and tummy.

Willa isn't the only fox living at Sugarshine - there's also Blossom, Toffee and Custard. "Foxes are funny, curious and mischievous creatures," Nelder says. "Our foxes think it is very funny to try and steal visitors' shoes off their feet and to sneak up under the benches in the enclosure and nip people on the bottom! Foxes poo and wee on things they like so I was very flattered when Willa spent a night inside and I woke up with him weeing on my head at 2 a.m."

A pest control order has now made it illegal for individuals to keep foxes as pets in New South Wales, and other Australian states have similar policies. Fortunately, Willa was registered as a pet prior to the ban, so he's exempt and can continue living at Sugarshine Sanctuary. But the new pest control order is bad news for other foxes - not only is it now illegal to rescue and rehome a fox, but any injured or orphaned foxes are required to be euthanized.

And sadly, Willa can no longer go to the beach with his best friend Isabel.
You probably already know that the demand for elephant ivory is driving one of the world's most majestic animals to extinction - but you may not have heard about a bird who lives deep in the rainforest who is hunted for his own kind of ivory.

The highly unique helmeted hornbill has a call that sounds like laughter, eats figs and nests in coves in some of the oldest trees in the forests of Indonesia and Malaysia. But the bird's red beak (or "casques") is sold as "red ivory" on black markets in Asia, where it is carved into luxury decorations - and sells for even more than elephant ivory.

Confiscators in the region have been finding the heads of helmeted hornbills turning up more and more in wildlife markets. In just two years, they found 2,100 heads in Indonesia and China, and they estimate that up to 6,000 of these birds are being killed every year.
Nam Phon's life used to be riddled with hardship and difficulty, but you'd never be able to tell by how she loves to splash around in the water these days.

Nam Phon | Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

Nam Phon was one of the first elephants to retire at the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT) Elephant Refuge in 2004 after spending most of her life carrying tourists around at various elephant camps. According to WFFT, she more than likely was poached from the wild as a baby before being sold into the logging then tourism industries.

Nam Phon's "home" at her old trekking camp | Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

Dodo Shows Faith = Restored Rescued Animals Melt Into This Woman's Arms When She Sings To Them

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

It wasn't until March 2016 that Nam Phon was finally rescued for good from a trekking camp in west Thailand. After negotiating with her owner for years, WFFT was able to bring their gentle lady back home. Nam Phon, who enjoys the company of both humans and elephants, has since found an especially close friend in Jele, another senior female who was rescued from death after she was found chained to a tree.

Nam Phon and Jele | Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

When Nam Phon isn't spending time with her best friend, whom she loves to "hold hands" with using her trunk, she thoroughly enjoys her daily walks and physiotherapy swim lessons. Her previous life, filled with hard labor, has left Nam Phon's back legs slightly lame. Recently, Nam Phon suffered from a collapsing episode and was unable to stand for several days.

Nam Phon's collapsing | Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

A specially made hoist was placed on her body to help her stand on all four feet again.

Nam Phon standing strong again | Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

She's been able to walk on her own since then, but the hope is that her continued rehabilitation and therapy will prevent another incident like that from happening.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

"She currently goes into the specially created medical pool once a day and spends however long she wants to in the pool," Tom Taylor, assistant director of WFFT, told The Dodo.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

"The daily swimming sessions will strengthen her muscles, as well as giving her something to smile about," he said.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

As for what motivates Nam Phon to get in and out of the water?

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

"Food, food and more food, and lots of words of encouragement," Taylor said.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand

You can keep up with Nam Phon and her friends on Facebook.

Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand
<p><a href="https://www.edgarsmission.org.au/" target="_blank">Edgar's Mission</a><span></span></p>

"You can't make a movie about the survival of Wilbur, and not care about the animals who played Wilbur." These are the words of Bernie Williams, the executive producer of the 2006 movie "Charlotte's Web." Based on E.B. White's book by the same name, "Charlotte's Web" is the tale of a piglet named Wilbur who's rescued from slaughter by a little girl named Fern. Fern's parents allow her to keep Wilbur for a short period, but they eventually force her to send Wilbur to the Zuckerman farm, where he's supposed to be fattened up and eaten. But Wilbur befriends a spider named Charlotte, who helps Wilbur save his own life.

No fewer than 46 piglets took turns starring in the role of Wilbur. The production team got the piglets from local factory farms near Greendale, Australia, where the movie was filmed. When it came time to rehome the pigs after the production, Williams turned to Animals Australia, a leading animal protection organization, asking them for help.

Animals Australia made sure all 46 piglets found loving homes around Australia. The piglets (all female) traveled to different locations, including Queensland, Tasmania and Flinders Island. Two lucky piglets - Lily and Daisy - ended up at Edgar's Mission, a well-known animal refuge in Victoria, Australia.

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"Both girls arrived at Edgar's Mission on the same day," Pam Ahern, founder of Edgar's Mission, told The Dodo. "They were pretty chuffed about their new home, but I was way, way more excited."

Ahern was especially excited for Lily's arrival based on her reputation for being a star. "I was told Lily was the head pig trainer's favorite pig, and I wondered just what incredible things she would've been taught for the movie," said Ahern. "Nothing! Lily was one very determined pig who clearly the word 'pig headed' was modeled off. She did exactly what she wanted to do and only occasionally what I wanted, but I couldn't have loved her any more."

While Lily was pig-headed, Daisy was the opposite. "Daisy was one of the sweetest natured piggies you've ever met," said Ahern. "She was never any trouble. All throughout her life she was such a dear girl, and yes, you guessed it, I couldn't have loved her any more too."

Then Daisy and Lily got a surprise. Two months after they arrived at Edgar's Mission, another pig from "Charlotte's Web" came along - this time, it was the sow who'd played Wilbur's mother in the film. The reason the sow didn't come earlier is because she'd gone back to the factory farm where she'd come from to nurse her latest litter of piglets. After the piglets had been weaned, the sow was due to be slaughtered since she'd reached the peak of her productive years.

"When the mother arrived at the sanctuary, she was just a shell of a creature," said Ahern. "Her sad eyes and frightened nature coupled with the physical cuts and abrasions to her body told us life hadn't been very kind to her. In fact, the first time she saw grass was the day she arrived at the sanctuary and the pig farmer pushed her out of his trailer. He even astonishingly remarked, 'oh my, that's the first time she's seen grass and look at her go.'" Ahern named the pig "Alice" after Alice Walker, who famously said, "The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men."

It took many, many months for Alice to let Ahern anywhere near her, let alone touch her. But eventually, Alice learned to love people. Alice also loved Edgar, the resident pig, whom the sanctuary was named after. But Edgar wasn't keen on her. "Alice would head off each day to find Edgar and he'd hide in his stall hoping Alice would go away," Ahern said with a laugh. "Edgar was terrified of other pigs!"

"Alice also loved branches, despite never having seen them before she came to Edgar's Mission," Ahern explained. "She'd seek them out daily and find the largest one she could, seizing it in her teeth and then marching off proudly with it to her straw bed. Then she'd fashion it into a nest just like her wild cousins would do. Such a hardwired behavior had lived with this poor girl all those years, and she was never ever able to satisfy that desire until now."

While it's uncertain whether Alice was the actual mother of Daisy and Lily, she formed a particular closeness with Daisy. They chose to sleep in the same house, snuggling up as close as they could.

All the pigs have passed away now due to old age. As Ahern explains, factory farmed pigs succumb to old age earlier than pigs who haven't been born into the commercial pig industry. "We loved giving the 'Charlotte's Web' pigs the life they deserved - a life free of pain and suffering," says Ahern. "But it was Alice who had the biggest effect on me. Alice finally found freedom from enslavement under my care, and that's something I'll cherish forever. I'm truly honored and proud to have known such a noble creature."
Earlier this week, when Montreal mayor Denis Coderre defended the Canadian city's newly passed pit bull ban, he claimed he was just protecting citizens. Just not all citizens.

When the ban comes into full force next March, any pit bull owner who hasn't passed a criminal background check, purchased a muzzle and forked over the $150 fee for a permit, will lose their pet.

Coderre's legislation will inflict a lot of heartache and pain on dog owners, but perhaps more heavily on homeless or low-income citizens who own pit bulls, or dogs who resemble the banned breed. "We think a lot of people who aren't going to be able to afford or even understand how they can obtain a special permit will not be able to keep their dogs," Alanna Devine, advocacy director at the Montreal SPCA, tells The Dodo. Besides sentencing to death thousands of so-called pit bulls who are already in shelters - on October 3 they can no longer be adopted - the legislation is poised to bring even more dogs into the shelter system for economic reasons.

Dodo Shows Adoption Day Hairless German Shepherd Puppies Find The Perfect Families

Under the new law, people who own a dog authorities deem to be a pit bull will only be allowed to keep their pets under a strict set of conditions. They will need to clear a criminal background check, for which they will pay around $100. Then they'll need to purchase a new muzzle, since their dogs will only be allowed in public while wearing one. And they'll have to obtain a special leash - the new rules require dogs to be on a 4-foot tether when outside of their home. In all, the Montreal SPCA estimates owners who want to keep their dogs will have to pony up around $650.

What's more, the city appears to be making it as difficult as possible for dog owners to even leap through those hoops. In October, each of Montreal's 19 boroughs will host very narrow time slots during which pit bull owners can register for the required permit. Devine says it's just a 3-hour window in the middle of the workday. "To say that there's only a 3-hour window that you can go and get this permit is going to mean the difference between life and death for your animal," she says. "And if you can afford all of the necessities that you need to have in order to obtain it." "And if your criminal background check comes back clean. And if you happen to think you're dog is subject to legislation," she says. And, well, you get the idea.

Additionally, many people who own stocky dogs with big heads, which might be confused for the banned breed, may not even know they're harboring a fugitive pit bull. "We're inundated with calls from people who say, 'I don't know what kind of dog I have,'" Devine says.

If there's any doubt the definition of a pit bull is vague, consider what many say sparked this legislative blitz in the first place. In June, a Montreal woman was attacked and killed by a neighbor's dog. Police said the dog was a pit bull. But registration documents later showed the dog to be a boxer. And if it's that easy to call a boxer a pit bull, imagine how wide the net cast by a breed ban will be.

"The legislation allows the city to come to your door, search your house and determine if your dog is a pit bull-like dog," Devine says. "Then go get a warrant. Then seize and euthanize your dog." Would officers actually do that? The trouble is that the wording of the legislation, Devine notes, is so murky, it allows for that possibility. And having that happen even once is once too often. The law simply doesn't provide enough specifics to keep any dog resembling a pit bull safe. Indeed, the vagueness of the new law has not only baffled Devine, a trained lawyer, but many others who haven't been able to glean the city's definition of a pit bull. In the end, the devil may very well be in those lack of details. "The way the bylaw is written," Carolynn Williams, of One Last Chance Animal Rescue Team (OLCART), tells The Dodo. "there's not a single dog who's safe."

There are, however, a few ways concerned parties can step up for these dogs and their owners. The Montreal SPCA needs support to keep the pressure on lawmakers and fund its legal campaign challenging the law. You can make a donation here. The organization is also scrambling to find homes for hundreds of pit bulls in shelters who have until Monday before the law makes them unadoptable. If you think you can help, get in touch with Tammie Benoit of the Montreal SPCA at tbenoit@spcamontreal.com.
PepsiCo Inc.s push into healthier fare is invigorating its sales.

Products such as Sabra hummus and guacamole, Naked cold-press juices and Lipton Pure Leaf tea bolstered results last quarter, chief financial officer Hugh Johnston said. That helped the company beat profit estimates last quarter and raise its forecast for the year.

The health kick is part of a makeover for a company that made its fortune from sugary soft drinks and salty chips. PepsiCo says shoppers are looking for new options  and dont mind shelling out more to get them.

When you launch new and innovative products  more of which are healthier than anything else  consumers are willing to pay a premium, Johnston said in an interview. Thats whats enabling us to drive the growth.

Excluding some items, earnings were $1.40 (U.S.) a share in the third quarter, which ended Sept. 3, the company said Thursday. Analysts had estimated $1.32, on average. PepsiCo now expects profit of $4.78 a share this year, compared with a previous forecast for $4.71.

The shares rose as much as 2.2 per cent to $109.71 in New York Thursday. Purchase, N.Y.-based PepsiCo had been up 7.5 per cent this year through Wednesdays close.

While revenue fell 1.9 per cent last quarter, the companys sales of $16 billion still topped the $15.8 billion estimated by analysts. And excluding currency effects, revenue would have grown 4.2 per cent.

The Frito-Lay division led the way, with revenue climbing 3.4 per cent to $3.68 billion. Sales in the North America Beverages unit, PepsiCos largest business, rose 2.9 per cent to $5.52 billion, helped by Mountain Dews Kickstart energy drink. Revenue fell in all of PepsiCos other units, except for the Asia, Middle East and North Africa division, where it gained less than 1 per cent.

Frito-Lay and North America Beverages also turned in the strongest profit performances of the companys divisions. Both units were helped by lower raw-material costs and increases in productivity spurred by chief executive officer Indra Nooyis cost-cutting push. Operating profit in the snacks division rose 5.8 per cent to $1.15 billion, while earnings in the drinks business increased 5.1 per cent to $904 million.

Johnston said the company plans to invest the savings from its improved productivity, as well as the benefit its reaping from having an extra week in the current fiscal year, into measures to maintain sales increases.

We want invest to continue the growth into next year and beyond, he said. So its all going to be around growth-driving types of initiatives, whether its marketing or research and development of products.

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Philip Morris International Inc. said its boosting investment in cigarette alternatives to expand sales to as many as 35 countries next year, aiming to lead the tobacco industry in the development of reduced-risk products that it says will eventually replace traditional smokes.

The Marlboro maker has increasing confidence that it will reach the upper end of its forecast for that business to add $700 million to $1.2 billion (U.S.) ($915 million to $1.6 billion Canadian dollars) to earnings by 2020, chief executive officer Andre Calantzopoulos said at an investor presentation in Lausanne, Switzerland Thursday. It plans to spend an additional $100 million this year on so-called next-generation products, taking the total to $1.2 billion.

Philip Morris is throwing more money behind its iQOS heat-not-burn tobacco device to outdistance its rivals, British American Tobacco Plc and Japan Tobacco Inc. Philip Morris expects to end this year with the product on store shelves in 20 markets. With $1.5 billion earmarked for development of reduced-risk products next year, the tobacco maker is betting that smokers will prefer heat-not-burn to e-cigarettes because it feels more like smoking.

We are more confident than ever that these products have the potential to fundamentally transform our business, Calantzopoulos said.

The iQOS is a rechargeable electronic device that heats tubes of tobacco called HeatSticks, which resemble a cigarette cut in half. Philip Morris said it will produce more than 32 billion HeatSticks next year, up from 7 billion this year, and could manufacture 50 billion by 2018. HeatSticks have advantages over cigarettes as theyre new and some countries tax them at a lower rate, the CEO said. The cost to produce them is in line with that of conventional cigarettes, and the next-generation business should approach break-even in 2017.

More than 1 million smokers have converted to iQOS in test markets across Japan and Italy, according to the company. We are still in very, very early days, the Philip Morris CEO said.

As smoking rates decline in developed countries, the race for a hit product to replace cigarettes is putting pressure on the tobacco industry. Philip Morris estimates global cigarette consumption in the industry is dropping 2 per cent to 2.5 per cent each year.

Its not clear which product or which category will ultimately win, Rupert Wilson, an industry analyst who advises tobacco investors, said Wednesday at a nicotine conference in Brussels. Someone will eventually bring a product out thats a quantum leap. Whos going to do it? I dont know.

The industrys slowdown could prompt consolidation, with Britains Imperial Brands Plc being the most likely target, analysts said at the conference. Imperial is one of the few cigarette companies that has said the heat-not-burn market doesnt look attractive, and is focusing on e-cigarettes instead. Its also the smallest among the four tobacco companies that operate on a global basis, although it has expanded in the U.S. by acquiring the Winston and Kool brands. Imperial said Thursday that its on track to meet full-year profit targets.

Imperial have the weakest set of cards, so youd have to say they are the most likely to be acquired, Jonathan Fell of London-based investor Ash Park Capital said at the conference.

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PARISRenault has reached a deal with Irans government to open a plant making at least 150,000 vehicles a year, as European companies race for a share of Irans market now that international sanctions have been lifted.

The French carmaker announced the deal with the Industrial Development & Renovation Organization of Iran on Friday, during the Paris auto show.

The plant in a Tehran suburb will produce Duster and Symbol cars starting in 2018. Renault will be majority shareholder, and have its own distribution network in Iran for the first time, according to a company statement. Financial details were not released.

Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said Iran could have demand for 2 million cars in 2020, making it a market with undeniable potential.

The Iranian government wants to attract foreign investment in the Iranian car industry to bring competitive new products benefiting Iranian customers with respect to standard, quality and safety, Industry Minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh said in the statement.

He said Renault was chosen because it has been in the country for 12 years, though activities were frozen while Iran was under sanctions over its nuclear program.

The deal is in addition to a joint venture between Renault and Iran signed earlier this year to revive production at a plant where Renaults activities had been suspended.

Renaults crosstown rival PSA Peugeot-Citroen was especially active in Iran before the sanctions, and has also revived activities this year.

The Iranian minister visited the Peugeot-Citroen stand at the Paris auto show, and CEO Carlos Tavares said the company will produce 150,000 vehicles this year and wants to double that in 2017.

Irans automobile industry builds some 900,000 vehicles a year, though authorities hope to build 3 million annually by 2025. Over 90 per cent of market share is controlled by two local companies: Iran Khodro, which assembles Peugeot-branded vehicles from kits, and SAIPA, which has made Citroens and Kias. Both manufacturers also build Renaults.

Since Iran reached a landmark deal with international powers to curb its nuclear program, analysts have predicted the auto industry would grow if Irans economy improves. However, the trickle-down effect of the accord has yet to be seen in the streets, as unemployment remains high.

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NEW YORKThe president, impeccable in his blue suit, strides into the Oval Office in fine spirits. Hes got a paper cup of coffee, a bit unpresidential but in keeping with his casual style.

He takes his seat at his impressive desk, facing a camera where he will deliver an address about a foreign-affairs flare-up.

Now looking grave, he is about to begin speaking when he glances at his desktop and sees his coffee cup still sitting there.

You dont want this, he chuckles to the man behind the camera, and sets the cup out of camera range.

Welcome to the Oval Office of Keith Carradine, who plays President Conrad Dalton on the CBS political drama Madam Secretary, which returns for its third season Sunday at 9 p.m. on Global, as they film a scene for a future episode not at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., but on Stage F at Silvercup Studios East in Queens, N.Y.

Its one of many Oval Offices for TV presidents: they are sprinkled from just beyond the Beltway in Baltimore (where Kevin Spacey holds office on Netflixs House of Cards as conniving Francis Underwood) and just beyond the border in Toronto (where Kiefer Sutherland presides on ABCs new Designated Survivor), all the way to Hollywoods Sunset Gower Studios (where Tony Goldwyn is bad boy President Fitzgerald Grant on ABCs Scandal) and, just a few blocks away, the Paramount lot (home to HBOs zany Veep, with Julia Louis-Dreyfus as addled President Selina Meyer).

Thus does television offer viewers something real-life democracy could never provide: a president for every taste.

Carradine is proud of his Oval Office. No wonder. Since the first Oval Office was installed a century ago for U.S. president William Howard Taft, it has reigned as a symbol of the presidents business.

But President Dalton didnt have an Oval Office the first season of Madam President. As a recurring cast member, Carradine performed his presidential duties in scenes located elsewhere (including White House corridors that actually belonged to Manhattans Waldorf Astoria hotel).

His Oval Office set, introduced for Season 2, is appropriately elegant.

The desk is a replica of the one that JFK used, Carradine tells a reporter between shots, made from the timbers of a famous frigate in the 1850s.

The 67-year-old Carradine is no stranger to playing real-life American heroes. In the HBO series Deadwood, he was Wild Bill Hickok. On Broadway, he portrayed the rope-twirling, wisecracking title character in Will Rogers Follies.

But, plopping himself in a wing chair near the Situation Room once the scene is finished, he says he has no president in mind in his depiction of Dalton.

Im just looking at the elements that Im given, he explains, and then imagining myself in each situation to find the truth of how this character would behave.

One of the essentials of good drama is conflict, he adds, and on this show you have to understand that our Madam Secretary is the driving force. What makes the show compelling is the obstacles that she has to face and overcome  and one of those obstacles is me!

But even if President Dalton is a supporting character to Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord (Tea Leoni), hes a leader with presidential gravitas thanks to Carradine.

On the set, I dont necessarily put that on, as much as I have it put on me, he insists. This is a really fun workplace for the actors and the crew, with Tea setting the tone and everybody playing make-believe.

That includes giving their proxy president a show of hail-to-the-chief respect.

It adds immeasurably to my sense of who I am as this character, Carradine says.

Meanwhile, he keeps his distance from his fellow pseudo presidents.

There are a lot of us out there and I dont seem to have the time to catch what everybody else is doing, he says. But I do think it would be fun to have all of us engaging in a presidential debate.

He grins at the thought.

But maybe its best to leave well enough alone and stay in my own universe. My own Oval Office.

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BOSTON, MASS.-You can spend a whole weekend here within sight of the water, but getting to really know the city will involve travelling outside the old downtown, and sometimes up the Charles River, where its history is hidden. These are a few places that will make you feel more Bostonian:

Boston Public Market: Opened last year in a building near the top of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, this non-profit indoor foodie destination combines farmers market with food hall and cooking school, with a priority on showcasing local growers, bakers, cooks, producers, fish and flowers. Merchants feature everything from smoked fish and hand-cut smoked meat to Hopsters, which specializes in craft beer and spirits produced in New England, and Red Apple Farms cider and doughnuts. Details: bostonpublicmarket.org

SRV: This airy restaurant at the top of Bostons South End is named for the Serene Republic of Venice and features northern Italian cuisine. Chefs Mike Lombardi and Kevin ODonnell have put exceptional flavour into everything on their menu, from the little meatballs you order with your aperitifs to a rich dish of handkerchief pasta with fava beans and lamb sausage. Say hello to them in the kitchen and theyll tell you all about how they did it. Details: srvboston.com

Boston Society of Architects: When it moved into its new headquarters on Congress St. by the water five years ago, the BSA decided to open up its home to the public, turning its halls and meeting rooms into exhibition spaces. Architects complain all the time about how the public doesnt understand what we do, says foundation chair Mike Davis. This move aims to address that complaint, with regular exhibitions rotating through the offices. A recent show of local custom bike designers packed 800 people into the place. Details: architects.org/bsaspace

Bodega: Up front it looks like your standard convenience store, right down to the cans of beans and cleaning products, but with a nod from the cashier the front of the Snapple machine slides away and youre in a slick showroom featuring rare collectible sneakers and sportswear. The store sells limited-edition lines from big-name brands, such as Adidas and Carhartt, alongside imported boutique designs from Japanese and European labels, such as Cav Empt and Filling Pieces. Prices range from $50 to $850 (U.S.) There are some brilliant marketing stunts, such as wares hidden in geochached locations. Details: shop.bdgastore.com

Inman Square: Located between Harvard and MIT in Cambridge, Mass., this up-and-coming neighbourhood is the kind of place youd want to live, if only so you could make a restaurant like Bisq (bisqcambridge.com) your local, with its fusion of North and South America with Portugal and other points on the globe. The wine list is good and the meat dishes are stellar. If the evening is still young, you have your choice of an Irish pub (The Druid) a well-loved dive bar (Trinas Starlite Lounge) and a jazz club (Ryles).

MIT Museum: On an early summer weekday, this school museum is full of parents taking their kids on tours of their possible future alma mater. Its hard not to be impressed  this fun two-floor celebration of MIT educates you about its founding, as well as past luminaries, such as photographers Harold Edgerton and Berenice Abbott, and Arthur Gansons wild, weird kinetic sculptures. Rotating exhibits showcase work being done by current and recent students, at a level that assumes youre up on your cutting-edge engineering and information theory. Details: web.mit.edu/museum

Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation: If you want a quick day trip out of the city to learn more about the Boston areas history of innovation, this museum in an old mill complex next to the upper Charles River is a must. The funky, retro vibe isnt an accident  the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation is a steampunk hot spot and hosts an annual festival in May. Exhibits focus on the area  and the buildings  past as a centre for textiles and watchmaking, and as a manufacturing centre for Polaroid. It also hosts a concert series featuring everything from bluegrass to experimental music, and is only a short walk from the Waltham stop on the Fitchburg line of the MBTA commuter line. Details: charlesrivermuseum.org

Rick McGinnis was hosted by the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism, which didn't review or approve this story.

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Pakistan's UN ambassador will meet UN chief Ban Ki-moon today to inform him about the surgical strikes carried out by India.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Pakistan's UN Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi is set to meet UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday to inform him about the "surgical strikes" that India carried out on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC).

On Thursday, Lodhi met with New Zealand's UN Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who is the current president of the 15-member Security Council and urged him to informally brief the body on the escalating tension along the border, Radio Pakistan reported.

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Talking to the media after the meeting, Lodhi said she brought to his attention the dangerous situation that was building up in "our region as a result of Indian provocation".

She said, "Our call to the international community is to avert a crisis before there is one."

Lodhi said Pakistan was "showing maximum restraint but there were limits to our restraint if India continues with provocations."

TERRORISTS AND PAKISTAN TROOPS WERE KILLED



An unspecified number of terrorists and Pakistani troops were killed in the late Wednesday operation across Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara and Poonch sectors as the army moved Special Forces into Pakistan-held Kashmir.

Pakistan, however, insisted that no "surgical strike" took place and that there were only firing and artillery shelling between the two armies across the LoC that killed two of its soldiers and left some others wounded. Pakistan threatened to repel any Indian attack.

Pakistani media said one Indian soldier, identified as Chandu Babulal Chohan, 22, from Maharashtra, had been captured and eight others had been killed.

Also read:

Surgical strikes in PoK: How Indian para commandos killed 38 terrorists, hit 7 camps

Day after India's surgical strikes Pakistan violates ceasefire in J-K's Akhnoor sector

Delhi on high alert after Indian Army carries out surgical strike across LoC



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VANCOUVERTaquerias may be all the rage in Toronto, but the taco trend came early to Vancouver. Starting out as a humble food truck in Tofino, B.C., Tacofino has evolved into one of Van Citys hottest properties, recently opening up its third stand-alone restaurant.

It all came about through a series of coincidences. Toronto native Jason Sussman and now-wife Kaeli Robinsong found a food truck for sale on Craigslist, which set the wheels in motion, so to speak. Getting into the food truck business gave them an excuse to move from Victoria to Tofino in 2009, where they could also spend more time near the pounding surf.

We spent so many years on and off in Mexico, said Sussman, who previously worked as a tree-planter and cook, heading south to California, Mexico and Costa Rica to surf in the wintertime. No one (here) was really doing tacos at the time, so it made sense.

Baja-style fish tacos  an ode to California surf culture  were an obvious fit for the food truck, but the co-founders decided to take tacos in another direction.

Asian food is my first love  quite often I try to add Asian flavours into things, Sussman said. With made-from-scratch tacos using local, sustainable ingredients, Tacofino quickly developed a loyal following  so much so that entrepreneur Ryan Spong and hedge-fund manager Matt MacIsaac wanted to bring the brand to Van City, where the Tacofino food truck debuted in 2010.

Truthfully, running trucks is hard, its like running a restaurant on steroids  all the restaurant stuff plus your truck breaking down, generators breaking down, and you cant sell alcohol, Sussman said.

That led to the opening of their first stand-alone restaurant on Hastings St., called Tacofino Commissary, in 2012. Its success led to the opening of a Gastown location  officially called Taco Bar and Burrito Bar, with a fast-service burrito bar off Cordova St. and a 60-seat dining room and 20-seat bar off Blood Alley. But the locals refer to it as Tacofino Gastown  a name that just seems to stick. Earlier this summer, they opened their newest location: Tacofino Yaletown.

Food trucks have limited menus, so the restaurants allow Sussman to expand  and experiment with  his menus. Each restaurant has a different seasonal menu, though the ever-popular fish taco is always available.

In Tacofino Commissary, Sussman was inspired by the idea of Japanese sharing plates. The space, designed by Omer Arbel, is decked out with long, communal tables and hand-blown glass lights strung like patio lanterns across the ceiling.

The Gastown location is different. Designed by Vancouverite Shiloh Sukkau, the restored heritage building was inspired by the surf culture of Tofino, Baja and SoCal, with graphic tile work and beachy accents alongside heritage brick.

The menu is also different. I wanted to take . . . traditional Mexican dishes that I was inspired by and make them our own, Sussman said.

In addition to classics such as the al pastor taco, the Gastown location is serving up quirky combinations such as a lamb birria taco with arbol chili and pickled nopals, and a spicy kabocha squash and pickled cauliflower tostada that packs a punch.

The cocktail menu offers much more than the requisite margarita, with inspired creations such as Mula Borracha, with mescal, pressed ginger and turmeric shrub; and Gold Rush, with pisco, triple sec and cava. Plus, there are tequila and mescal flights.

Tacofinos newest location in Yaletown is different still. In Yaletown, I took a lot more inspiration from surf and skate culture in California, in design as well, Sussman said. The counter-service restaurant has a bar and patio with 80s-inspired SoCal surf-punk decor. Also designed by Sukkau, the bar is constructed from powder-coated steel mesh, with a floor-to-ceiling mural thats meant to conjure images of Venice Beach.

The menu here has a heavy focus on burritos  Sussmans latest culinary obsession  with varieties such as smoked tuna and beef brisket barbacoa.

Sussman has pondered the idea of setting up shop in Toronto, but has no plans at this point. Once I go further (than B.C.), it definitely is going to change my lifestyle, he said. I surf a lot less these days. And that may be a deal-breaker.

Vawn Himmelsbach was hosted by Tourism Vancouver and its partners, none of which reviewed or approved this story.

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OTTAWAThe civilian watchdog committee that oversees Canadas spy agency is giving a cautious thumbs-up to CSIS for its exercise of newly acquired anti-terror powers under Bill C-51, the controversial law passed last year that the Liberal government says it will amend.

Pierre Blais, chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), said in an interview that CSIS appears to have used in a responsible manner its warranted and unwarranted powers of threat disruption and information-sharing.

Under Bill C-51, passed by the previous Conservative government in 2015, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) was given wide-ranging ability to disrupt or reduce threats to Canadas national security, inside or outside Canada.

The only limits on the new power are that CSIS must not cause death or bodily harm, obstruct justice, or violate an individuals sexual integrity. If any steps that CSIS proposes to take might violate Canadians charter rights, the spy agency is required to go to court to seek a judicial warrant for the activity.

In its 2015-16 annual report, tabled Thursday in Parliament, SIRC said CSIS has put in place appropriate policies, procedures, and mandatory training to guide its agents on intervening to disrupt threats  however this is still a work in progress.

The report recommended that CSIS formalize consultation with other affected departments, such as Global Affairs, when threat reduction activity could overlap their areas or raise concerns for their operations.

The watchdog examined all 24 instances to date where CSIS acted to disrupt perceived security threats, and said all complied with the CSIS Act, ministerial direction and operational policies. It reported no judicial warrants were issued, and no applications for such warrants were refused.

However, it also urged CSIS develop a mechanism for tracking best practices and/or lessons learned for all threat reduction activities.

While overall the SIRC annual report is positive, it raised a red flag about the way in which CSIS routinely collects, retains and uses bulk data sets about Canadians or perceived national security threats.

It said CSIS collects two kinds of information in bulk. The first type is referential  information used primarily to enable identity verification. Referential data sets contain information on a large number of people and locations. CSIS also has non-referential data sets which contain bulk information on a wide variety of individuals; however these can be retained only if they are assessed as being relevant to an ongoing, mandated investigation.

SIRC found in the latter case, the collection and retention of bulk data does not meet the strictly necessary test set out in the CSIS Act, and it recommended an immediate halt to that kind of data acquisition.

SIRC said CSIS itself had documented a risk of over-collecting. The report said a governance framework was drafted two years ago, but that it had not yet been finalized.

SIRCs recommendations are non-binding.

Yet CSIS director Michel Coulombe issued a written statement saying CSIS is acting to strengthen its rules around such information gathering.

SIRC said CSIS uses bulk data sets in many ways, cross-checking it with information already connected to a potential threat  such as an address, phone number or citizen identification number  and using it to search for hits in the data.

CSIS, in an emailed reply to the Star late Thursday, said the SIRC report uses the term bulk data with respect to CSISs collection of data sets to assist in our mandated investigations  data sets like maps, foreign telephone directories, and airport codes. This is separate and distinct from CSIS warranted collection of information about suspected security threats.

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TORONTO  Bojana Sentaler is quickly learning just what it means to feel the full force of the Kate effect.

Barely 24 hours after the Duchess of Cambridge appeared in a coat by the Toronto-based fashion designer, the grey alpaca garment and many others from the Sentaler brand sold out online, with orders coming in from around the world.

It was incredible, said the 31-year-old Sentaler, whose eponymous brand features luxury outerwear. The Kate effect, for my brand, was an instant brand awareness around the entire world.

Kate and Prince William, along with their two young children, are currently on a weeklong visit to British Columbia and Yukon. The outfits worn by the duchess have been closely tracked by royal watchers and fashion enthusiasts.

Speculation has swirled over whether she would opt for any homegrown designs. It happened Wednesday in Carcross, Yukon, when Kate appeared in the Sentaler wrap coat, giving the Canadian brand  which launched in 2009  an immediate boost.

At first I thought it was a joke and then I went on Twitter and I saw the picture, said Sentaler, who first learned of her coat being worn when someone tagged her brand on social media. I feel extremely blessed and honoured that she chose to wear my coat during her Canadian tour.

While seeing Kate in the coat was a surprise, Sentaler had been quietly hoping the royal might showcase one of her designs.

Her brand had been contacted by someone she later believed was the stylist for the duchess, although there was never any official indication one of her coats was being purchased for Kate.

We got an email asking do you ship to the U.K.? so we thought it was a customer and we said yes, of course ... there was nothing that gave away that it was for Kate or anyone in the Buckingham Palace, Sentaler explained. It was only after we kind of put two and two together, we looked up her name on the Internet and realized it was Kate Middletons stylist.

With her brand now being mentioned in global reports about the fashion choices of the duchess, Sentaler hopes the recognition that comes with the Kate effect will help her brand as it tries to expand in international markets.

A lot of retailers that we will be wanting to talk to will now know the brand, we wont have to introduce it, she said. Also, customers are more likely to buy now because they know the brand.

Sentaler isnt the only Canadian brand benefiting from the royal touch.

Shelley Macdonald, a jewelry designer living in Whitehorse, says earrings she designed were worn by Kate in Yukon, leading to a significant amount of orders.

For a Canadian brand in particular, being chosen by Kate is a boon in a wildly competitive international market, said Sentaler.

Its very hard to be recognized or even be noticed amongst all the other amazing brands that are out there, she said. When something like this happens ... it just speeds everything up. So rather than waiting a couple of years for everybody to find out about your brand, everybody can find out about your brand just by the duchess herself wearing my coat.

Canadian style expert Jeanne Beker agreed.

Our designers dont have those international marketing budgets that their American and European counterparts have for the most part, she explained. Any time you can get an international figure of that profile and magnitude and calibre strutting something Canadian, the whole industry I think is just buoyed.

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It was a warm Saturday afternoon at Grundy Lake Provincial Park.

By Sept. 17, the maples that adorn the nearly 2,500-hectare park 100 km south of Sudbury were just starting to turn, flecks of yellow and red dotting the leaves.

It was quieter now that the summer hordes were back at school. And camping fees were lower in the late season; the Prevost family  parents Bernard and Claire with four young children getting by on a miners wages  often came this time of year from their home in Blezard Valley, near Sudbury.

That Saturday in 1966, Bernard, then 25, stood on the government dock that stretched out from shore near the parks Red Maple campground. His fishing line was in a tangle.

Just down the beach, his three older children searched for frogs at the waters edge with Claire; his parents rested at the nearby campsite.

His youngest child, two-year-old Diane  three feet tall topped with light brown curls and moody dark eyes played in the sand 50 metres from shore. She was frightened of water; she wouldnt go near the lake. She wore red plaid pants and a blue checkered top with red cuffs and collar  she was always insistent that her clothes match.

At 4 p.m. she asked her father to take her back to the campsite. Bernard told her he would, just as soon as he unsnarled the fishing line. He looked away for a moment to see to it. When he looked back, Diane was gone.

He spent the rest of his life looking for her.

Bernard rushed to the campsite to see if she had gone back alone. She wasnt there. The family began to search; other campers pitched in to help. They called police. Local officers were soon joined by constables from surrounding detachments, the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Mounties, hordes of volunteers. Bernard, convinced someone had kidnapped his daughter, pleaded with authorities to set up checks on the highways, at the border. But police refused, certain Diane was in the park.

Some 60 volunteers showed up that first week, groups walking slowly along search lanes marked out with tape tied to trees. Tracking dogs scoured the area; Claire handed over some of Dianes items so the hounds could learn her scent. Police boats trawled the lake; scuba divers combed the depths.

Nothing.

Bernard didnt go back to work for six months, returning to Grundy Lake again and again to keep looking.

For years afterward, he would make the trip each year on the anniversary of her disappearance. Claire never went back.

For years, they kept Dianes belongings, her clothes. They were overprotective of their remaining children, as well as Richard, born later. The family no longer went to provincial parks, public beaches, anywhere crowded; the kids were not allowed to ride a bus alone or go downtown. Later, when Dianes siblings had their own children, they found themselves similarly fearful.

Its always fresh in your mind, says Lise Nastuk, Dianes older sister who was just 3 in 1966.

Decades later, the Prevosts lost all their belongings to a fire. The family contacted police in hopes of getting back those items of Dianes turned over so many years ago, so that they might have something, anything, of her. But they learned her file had disappeared. Police opened another, but much of the information  and her things  were gone.

Dianes case wasnt listed in any of the online databases to highlight missing people, either. Nastuk decided to reignite the search. In November 2008, the forensics department at Laurentian University, where Nastuk works, organized a search of the Grundy Lake area, assisted by police and cadaver dogs. Nothing turned up.

The family launched a website with information about Dianes case.

It brought the first glimmer of hope in more than 40 years when a woman living in Washington got in touch. She was looking for her family; her similarity to Diane was striking, from her fear of water to her scars. The woman drove up to Ontario to meet them.

There was a lot of connection there, says Nastuk. We were all so hopeful, we thought for sure it was her.

But a DNA test revealed that it wasnt. It was a little like losing her all over again. After that, Nastuk stopped telling her parents when someone came forward who could be Diane. The family remains close with the woman from Washington.

Bernard passed away last year in June. His daughter doesnt think he was ready to go. He had unfinished business. He had promised his wife that he would find Diane.

Now, his family is trying to keep the story alive, jog someones memory somewhere. They are trying to find answers, find closure.

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A young Montreal man suspected of having gone to Syria and adhering to extremist Islamist ideologies was able to keep his firearms licence for years and to legally purchase semi-automatic rifles while he was the subject of a terrorism investigation by the RCMP, a La Presse investigation has found.

The case of Samy Nefkha Bahri raises numerous questions about the control of firearms in Canada and the communication between police forces.

The police believe that the man went to Syria to participate in terrorist activities in 2012. Nefkha Bahri said, rather, that he left Canada because he was sick of the surveillance.

I was literally being recorded everywhere I went, he said in an interview.

Before his departure, a judge authorized a search warrant for his parents home as well as a wiretap on the telephone line. To obtain authorization for the search warrant, the police had to demonstrate that they had serious reasons to believe that their target was involved in terrorism. It would still take two and a half years for authorities to revoke his right to own weapons in January 2015.

The Montrealer has not been charged with any terrorism offences. Last year, he was charged with intimidating a Crown prosecutor assigned to a terrorism case. A publication ban prevents reporting of any details in that case. He is awaiting trial.

He has attempted to contest the revocation of his firearms licence before the courts. Its a question of principle because he feels that he has been treated unjustly, according to his lawyer Kaven Morasse. He maintains that he is non-violent, never intended to use his guns for malicious purposes and never encouraged or supported a terrorist group.

Nefkha Bahri appeared on the RCMP radar around 2012, according to several sources close to the case, who are not authorized to speak publicly. He was part of the same wave of departures that year as the young man who was photographed in December 2015 with Justin Trudeau.

At the time, his speech was judged to be radical and his marked interest for firearms caught the attention of the authorities. He obtained his firearms licence without any restrictions in January 2012, at the age of 23, according to judicial documents at the Montreal courthouse viewed by La Presse.

The next month, the young man legally purchased is first long gun: a Simonov SKS semi-automatic. He then began training with a group of friends at a firing range in the Montreal area.

I had been intending to hunt for several years, he said. I never had the time to go because I had too many things going on at the same time.

In June 2012, the RCMP conducted a search warrant at his parents home. Nefkha Bahri was arrested and questioned, but never charged. He retained his gun and his firearms permit.

The young man was also put under surveillance. He confirmed this himself. The police had to justify this intrusion into his private life by establishing serious reasons to believe he was linked to terrorism. But there were no steps taken to remove his guns. The firearms controller, a Surete du Quebec inspector who manages gun licences in Quebec, wasnt advised of the investigation.

A short while later, Nefkha Bahri left on a trip. It was a months-long trip during which he visited several countries, including Turkey.

I was always interested in Turkey and the country was really calm, he explained in the interview.

Did he visit Syria? Nefkha Bahri refused to answer the question.

A police source confirmed that terrorism investigators suspect he crossed the border into Syria, but authorities have not been able to prove it.

Upon his return to Canada, he was able to keep his rifle.

Several months later, the young man decided of his own volition to get rid of the weapon. He called 911 and asked to have Montreal police officers come to his parents home.

It was months after having come back and its just that the gun was rusting, he said.

On Jan. 15, 2014, at 12:15 p.m., a 25-year-old citizen called us because he wanted to hand in his firearm. The police officers arrived and took possession of the long gun. There was nothing criminal about the matter, said Sgt. Manuel Couture, a spokesperson with the Montreal police. The weapon was registered to the young man, who had a valid licence, police said.

Shortly after, he returned to purchase two long guns: another SKS semi-automatic; and a rifle of another model. Nefkha Bahri also requested that his gun licence be modified to include restricted weapons. This category includes handguns and some models of semi-automatic rifles.

The firearms controller refused the request, even though there was no knowledge at the time of the RCMPs terrorism investigation. Nefkha Bahri was still able to keep the permit he had obtained in 2011 as well as the two guns he had just purchased.

It took until January 2015 for the authorities to intervene. The firearms controller, provincial police Insp. Isabelle Boudreault, wrote personally to the young man to advise him that his gun licence was being revoked. The RCMP had just advised the provincial police force of their investigation into the man.

According to information provided by police sources, it appears that you share the ideologies of extremist Islamist groups, wrote Boudreault in a letter obtained by La Presse.

The next week, a new search warrant was executed at the home of Nefkha Bahris parents. His weapons were confiscated.

As soon as we are made aware of information that could compromise public security, we intervened to revoke the licence. Thats what happened here, said Lt. Martine Asselin, a spokesperson for the Quebec provincial police.

Why did it take two and a half years for the information about Nefkha Bahri to be transmitted to the provincial police when the RCMP said as early as 2012 that it had reason to believe that their subject was linked to terrorism?

The RCMP refused to provide an answer.

The questions touch on investigations that are ongoing, so we cannot provide any information or comment, said RCMP spokesperson Camille Habel.

Its only when there were the attacks between October 2014 and January 2015 that the RCMP started thinking of taking away my guns. In fact, it didnt seem to bother the RCMP that I had guns back when they had an (undercover agent) hanging around me and proposing that I go to the firing range with him, he said.

They encouraged me to use them.

The issue of information-sharing between police forces in the matter of the fight against terrorism has long been the subject of debate in Canada. Quebec has created a structure of police management against terrorism where officials from the RCMP, the Montreal police and the Surete du Quebec exchange information on the subject. Officers from Montreal and the provincial force are also loaned to the RCMPs Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams.

The exchanges are much more between federal authorities. The firearms controller with the Surete du Quebec doesnt have top secret clearance to have access to all the information in a terrorism case, explained Paul Laurier, a former provincial police anti-terrorism investigator who works now as a private security consultant.

Nefkha Bahris lawyer said that his client like many other Muslims, is horrified and disgusted by the abuses committed by terrorist groups around the world.

Finally, Mr. Nefkha Bahri wishes to add that he loves his country and he believes that one of the most marvelous things that Canada has is the rule of law. It stipulates that an individuals freedoms can only be limited for reasons that are reasonable and not discriminatory. He believes this is clearly not the case here, Morasse said.

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OTTAWA  The secret short list of judicial candidates for a controversial Supreme Court of Canada nomination has five names on it  including two from Atlantic Canada.

Darrell Samson, a Nova Scotia MP in Justin Trudeaus caucus, blurted out information at a public meeting Thursday night that the Liberal government had previously refused to divulge, according to two people who were there.

Samson also told a crowd in his riding that the government received 50 applications from across the country, including eight applicants from Atlantic Canada, according to Kevin Deveaux, a lawyer and former NDP MLA from Nova Scotia who attended the meeting.

The tightly held shortlist is a hot-button issue because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, promising to increase diversity on the top court, has dismissed a convention of reserving a seat for Atlantic Canada and invited applications from functionally bilingual candidates across Canada.

A vacancy was created when Justice Thomas Cromwell from Nova Scotia retired.

The Supreme Court Act requires that three justices be appointed from Quebec. Traditionally, the government appoints three justices from Ontario, two from the West, and one from Atlantic Canada.

Samson, reached at his Sackville -Preston-Chezzetcook constituency office, insisted Friday he had no insider knowledge, but gleaned the numbers from comments made by the government in the House of Commons.

I can tell you those numbers are entirely wrong, said PMO spokesperson Kate Purchase in an email to the Star. Purchase said the government is not ready to make an announcement today, but I can assure you there are a significant number of Atlantic Canadians on the list.

The government has not revealed how many candidates were recommended by an advisory board tasked with coming up with three to five names for the short list, and has refused to divulge that and any other information in response to specific questions from the Star. The short list was submitted last Friday.

Sean Casey, parliamentary secretary to the justice minister, told the Commons only that the list of qualified candidates developed by an advisory board includes candidates from Atlantic Canada and they are perfectly capable of competing in a national competition.

The decision to seek applicants from outside Atlantic Canada has prompted an uproar in legal and judicial circles. Governments in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia have protested the move. The Canadian Bar Association wrote the justice minister to object. A group of trial lawyers from Atlantic Canada are seeking a court order to preserve the regions seat on the top court. And Liberal MPs are feeling the heat.

On Tuesday, the entire Liberal caucus voted to support a non-binding Conservative motion that supported the idea of regional representation on the top court  a move widely seen as foreshadowing a government climbdown from its previous position to expand the pool of judicial candidates.

Samson told the crowd the Liberal Atlantic caucus has been lobbying hard against it, according to journalism student Matt Stickland who was there. Stickland recalled the MP responding to a questioner: We know that the list that was given to Trudeau has five names, two of which are from Atlantic Canada.

At which point, buddy said, Will you resign if the SCC (Supreme Court of Canada) recommendation isnt from Atlantic Canada? And he (Samson) said No, thats ridiculous. 

Deveaux said Samson said I personally told the prime minister that I think this is a bad idea, and I can tell you that they narrowed it to five candidates and two of them were from Atlantic Canada, and he was hoping one of them would be picked.

Deveaux recalled Samson saying that Trudeau wants a broader spectrum of people to apply.

Deveaux said he almost spoke up in the meeting to tell Samson that if this were Quebec or Ontarios opportunity for their judge, we wouldnt be having this conversation.

Deveaux, who does parliamentary legal work for the UN and the World Bank, among others, said he assumed Thursday night that Samsons numbers were either public knowledge or at least it was inside-Ottawa knowledge that he was sharing with us.

It came during a town hall on electoral reform that Samson held at the local Lions Club in his Sackville-area riding where he fielded questions from about 40 constituents, which Stickland and Deveaux say appeared to be a cross-partisan crowd.

Stickland said that during the heated meeting regional representation was raised, and Samson faced a question near the end about the brouhaha over the upcoming top court appointment.

As an Atlantic Canadian and as a lawyer, Deveaux said, I do believe the position should remain an Atlantic Canadian appointment. So I was glad to hear that . . . but I also thought well lets see where things lie when they actually make the appointment.

Deveaux said while it is not a pocketbook issue, the judicial appointment is seen as an indication that the Liberal government takes the region for granted.

I think in Atlantic Canada its starting to have some resonance.

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Two teenagers are facing second-degree murder and manslaughter charges after a 15-year-old boy was stabbed to death at the Scarborough Town Centre RT station last Friday evening, Toronto Police confirmed.

The teenage victim, identified as Kareem Deerr, was found with stab wounds in the upper torso after a fight broke out at the station with two groups of men, all younger than 18, investigators said.

Deerr was rushed to the hospital and succumbed to his injuries there.

Help us bury our little brother, reads a GoFundMe page set up by Deerrs family.

Im sure he is up there looking down at everyone who helped and he is smiling, a family member wrote on the page. This means so much to my family.

About 50 to 100 people were in the area during the fatal altercation, police said.

Desmond Lincoln Williams, 18, of Toronto has been charged with second-degree murder.

A 14-year-old has also been arrested and charged with manslaughter. The identity of the teen is protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Both are scheduled to appear in court on Friday, Sept. 30.

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A beloved and iconic symbol for Beach residents  a giant weeping willow that stood for 97 years at Ashbridges Estate  fell during Thursdays gusty rainstorm.

A photograph of the majestic tree, which towered between the Jesse Ashbridge house at 1444 Queen St. E. and the Duke of Connaught Jr. and Sr. Public School, showing it draping over the lawn near the school, was shared to the neighbourhood Facebook group.

Its a very sad day, neighbour Diane Walton told the Star. We loved that tree.

First planted in 1919, as recorded in a diary entry retrieved by the city from the Ashbridge family, the tree was a joy to those who grew up next to it.

When my daughter was younger, she used to look out the school window and see the tree, resident Robert Miller said. She called it the mountain tree.

Miller, an active member of the Ashbridges Bay community, said people were always swept away by the size and the beauty of the willow when he led Janes Walks around the area.

Ive been living here since the 1980s; this neighbourhood is my backyard, he said. [The tree] has always been a symbol of the neighbourhood.

Despite the loss, there is a silver lining, Miller said. A baby willow growing directly in front of the fallen one is beginning to take the height and size of its parent tree.

Its coming back  its more like a teen, he said, marvelling at the size of the new tree.

The Ashbridges Estate has been preserved by Ontario Heritage Trust since the family donated it back in 1972. The willow, slated several times for removal by the city, has been preserved by arborists with Urban Forest Innovations.

Its a huge tree it must have been weak inside, Walton said. It must have been the wind.

In 2011, the Star spoke to Matt Pickett, the step-grandson of Dorothy Shaver Ashbridge Bullen  the last family member to live in the home, across from the Connaught streetcar yard. He remained there until 1992.

It was almost like a little oasis in the middle of the city, he said. There was just a calmness in that place when youd walk in.

Miller is hopeful that the new tree will cement the legacy of the weeping willow that has given so many great memories to the community.

The young tree will carry on the legacy of its parent, he said.

With files from Star staff

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The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has lost a $1 million donation due to issues of accountability.

Philanthropist Andrew Faas, the founder of The Faas Foundation, withdrew the grant to CAMH because the organization was unable to demonstrate that the first installment of the donation was used in accordance with his foundations goals.

We deeply regret that things have come to this point with CAMH. We awarded the funds in good faith and expected results that were in keeping with the guidelines we agreed upon, Faas said in a statement three months ago.

The Faas Foundation, established in 2005, aims to support not-for-profit organizations involved in creating psychologically safe workplaces by helping employees deal with the stress and emotions of their jobs.

Faas, a former executive with Shoppers Drug Mart and Loblaws, noted that the foundation has awarded many grants in its history, but that this is the first time in our 11 years that we have lost confidence in a grantee.

The grant was to be used for CAMHs Well@Work program, an initiative to provide Canadian workplaces with training to identify risks of mental illness and strategies to support employees in need.

In a statement provided to the Star, CAMH said the program was on hold due to the funds being pulled. The organization stated it provides donors with accountability reports, timelines and updates on donor-supported projects.

It said the plan was to develop and roll out the Well@Work program over three years and that it stands by the progress made in the first year.

We continue to work towards re-establishing Mr. Faas satisfaction as to the value of his gift and in the work undertaken with his support, says the statement. We believe that, once completed, the initiative has the potential to positively influence workplace mental health across Canada.

Faas said his foundation is only able to award a limited amount of funding each year.

It is important that there be demonstrable accountability from the institutions that receive these funds, so that we can be confident that the funds have been applied towards our objectives, he stated. We are not satisfied that that was done in this case, which is unfortunate, because other groups could have benefited from these funds.

CAMH said in its statement that the organization had looked forward to improving workplace mental health initiatives for its own employees through the Well@Work.

In July, CAMH pleaded guilty to a workplace safety charge related to the 2014 beating of a nurse by a patient. The hospital was ordered to pay an $80,000 fine for violating the Occupational Health and Safety Act by failing to develop, establish and put in place measures and procedures to protect the health and safety of workers.

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Its the most wonderful time of the year. Well, almost.

Theres about three months to go until Christmas, but those who cant wait that long are in luck.

Half of the bottom floor at Hudsons Bay on Queen St. W. and Yonge St. has been decorated for Christmas. The space is decked out with Christmas trees, twinkling lights, reindeer, festive nutcrackers, and a life-sized Santa in a sleigh full of presents.

On Thursday afternoon, customers paused to look through the stores selection of Christmas goods, but many just wanted to snap a quick picture.

One of those patrons was Kristin Bernhoft, a flight attendant from Iceland only in Toronto for the night.

Im taking a picture of it for a friend, she said. I think its so beautiful and I want her to experience it.

Star Poll

Tanner Murrant, a student at Ryerson University, says he heard the decorations were up so he rushed over during a break between classes.

They set up different styles of little houses and I get information for my own house decorations, Murrant said. I love Christmas. I start decorating on the first of November.

Greg Karlovsky, who is in town from Australia visiting his daughter, came to Hudsons Bay specifically to find Christmas merchandise, on his daughters recommendation. Hes looking for something small (so it doesnt break in a suitcase) and not wooden, because he says that would be seized by customs.

But most importantly, he thinks the displays are great.

Some are a bit less joyous about Christmass early arrival. For Ramya Mann, the display is bittersweet. Shes a big fan of Christmas but does not like it encroaching on Halloween time.

On Nov. 1 at 6 a.m. I put up my tree and send jingle bells to all my friends, but until then I hold it in, she said. Halloween doesnt get enough excitement. Theres not enough fanfare.

Stephanie Gonyea is happy with the decorations for now, but she worries shell tire of them.

We still have three months until Christmas, and when we go into the beginning of Christmas Im half sick of it. Its like: OK, Ive been there for three months. Hurry up,  Gonyea said. But right now its exciting! Its going to get old, though.

And while Travis Ahearn has only good things to say about the festive displays, he believes Hudsons Bay has ulterior motives.

Its one of the most money-making times, he said. So to make more money, they drag it out.

A Hudsons Bay Company spokesperson said that with many customers excited for the opportunity to begin their holiday planning and shopping early, we are happy to provide them with an exceptional selection of holiday and winter decor and gift items.

Hudsons Bay isnt alone in its pre-emptive Christmas spirit.

Reports of festive decorations at Costco and Walmart have surfaced on Twitter. Company representatives werent available to comment on their plans for Christmas displays.

Others have yet to jump on the bandwagon. Nordstrom and Sporting Life confirmed they dont have Christmas displays up yet.

We will not be in Christmas mode until Christmas season gets here, Jean Paul Corbeil, director of marketing and advertising for Sporting Life, said in an email. Right now we are in cant wait for winter mode.

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According to reports, Kishwer Merchant has replaced Parag Tyagi as the new Brahmarakshas.

By India Today Web Desk: Ekta Kapoor's hit show Brahmarakshas is all set to take an interesting turn. According to recent reports, Brahmarakshas (Parag Tyagi's character) will be killed in an upcoming episode of the show.

Yes, this really is happening. The news is quite shocking as Parag's portrayal of Brahmarakshas has gotten a lot of rave reviews.

Apparently, now Kishwer Merchant will be essaying the role of Brahmarakshas.

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Also read:5 reasons Brahmarakshas is everyone's favourite show right now



Kishwer, who was earlier playing Aparajita, is quite excited about playing the titular character.

"I had played a vampire in one of my earlier shows Pyaar Kii Yeh Ek Kahaani, so I have a fair idea what I have to do. Of course, it will take a lot more effort to scare people, but I have seen how Parag does it. However, he is huge and I am a girl, so that difference will be there. Right now, I am trying out different looks for the part," DNA quoted the actress as saying.

Parag himself was quite taken back when he heard the news.

"He has no idea what happened, but feels that it's a creative call," DNA quoted the source as saying.

Kishwer's Brahmarakshas will be half-human, and half-beast who will be provoked by a number of things, including gulaal, dhol, and Kaali maa ki murti.



--- ENDS ---
Just four days after arriving in Canada, a Syrian refugee found himself saving the day for one Ontario bride.

Jo Du was getting ready for her wedding in Guelph when the zipper of her dress broke. Of course there was a tiny bit of panic, but photographer Lindsay Coulter says the women were surprisingly calm.

Du and her now-husband, Earl Lee, had decided to rent a home to house their friends and family visiting from China, where the couple is originally from. No one knew what to do or where to go.

The group began calling dress shops to see what they could do to get it fixed.

Everyone was speaking Mandarin but I could feel the tension, Coulter said.

Coulter sent a bridesmaid to a nearby neighbour to see if someone could supply pliers to help fix the snagged zipper tooth. But they did better.

A very nicely dressed woman in a bridesmaid dress came running up the street, asking for our help, David Hobson recalled to CTV News.

Hobson, who had just welcomed a family of Syrian refugees from Turkey into his home, knew there was someone who could help.

Ibrahim Halil Dudu happened to have been a master tailor for 28 years in Syria. He arrived with a sewing kit in hand after the groups attempts failed.

There were two ways to deal with the broken zipper, said Coulter: replace it completely, which there was scant time for, or  He basically sewed her right into the dress, she said.

It was like a sigh of relief that, yes, someone is going to fix this.

There was a lot of gratitude in the room. The bridesmaids and families all bowed to Halil Dudu in thanks.

Du went back to Hobsons home the next day to thank Halil Dudu once again.

As for Halil Dudu, he was happy to lend a hand.

I was so excited and so happy (to) help Canadian people, like other people helped (me), he told CTV through a translator.

Coulter posted photos of the event on her Facebook page and shared her own thoughts on the experience.

Every weekend I take photos of people on the happiest days of their lives, and today one man who has seen some of the worst things our world has to offer came to the rescue, she wrote.

I am so proud to live in Canada, a country who has opened our doors to refugees countless times ... I'm inspired by the resilience of the Syrian people. We are truly blessed.

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Mohamed Lachemi has officially been instated as Ryerson Universitys president and vice-chancellor.

The ceremony Friday afternoon, attended by Ryerson administration and student union staff, marked a formal handover; Lachemis appointment was announced in March.

This is a very significant and important event for the university where the president is formally endowed with the powers and responsibilities of office, read a statement by Ryerson University released Friday.

Its an honour to serve Ryerson University as president, Lachemi said at the ceremony, according to a student reporter.

Lachemi started at Ryerson as a civil engineering professor back in 1998, and later joined the universitys administration. When his appointment was announced, Lachemi was serving as Ryersons vice-president academic.

The university said Friday that hed announced a plan at the ceremony to work with Ryersons partners in order to ensure access to education for those in greatest need.

Ryerson Students Union vice-president of education Victoria Morton also took to the stage, praising Lachemi for his past work with students.

"In my many meetings with President Lachemi, he made one thing clear: students always come first!" Morton said.

Lachemi replaced former president Sheldon Levy, who left Ryerson in Dec. 2015 to become the deputy minister of the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.

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Forgiveness is never easy, but Julian Carvajal feels thats what his fellow Colombians must do as they cast their votes on their homelands first-ever peace deal with one of the worlds most notorious guerilla groups.

A si vote for the peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as FARC, could open the door to an end to the conflict that has plagued the South American country for more than five decades, killing more than 220,000 people and displacing millions.

It is hard to forgive those who killed, but we have to bury the past, said Carvajal, 30, a Toronto marketing and event planner who sought asylum here in 2006.

When I look at the peace process, I think of my 3-year-old nephew, Matias. I think of his future. We cant do this any longer. This deal gives us a beginning so we can start building a better future for him and a new generation.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos government has been negotiating the peace pact with FARC leaders for four years in Havana. The deal, signed Sept. 26, is now up for a vote by the countrys 30 million eligible voters in a plebiscite this Sunday.

There are 100,000 Colombians in Canada, 18,000 of whom will be eligible to vote, including some 6,000 in southern Ontario. Theyll file into five Colombian consulate offices in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary to have their say.

It is a historic agreement, Nicolas Lloreda, Colombian ambassador to Ottawa, told the Star. Every Colombian should vote with their soul and what their minds tell them to do. We owe it to our children with the possibility of peace.

The peace deal will be validated by a simple majority, provided that 13 per cent or more of the 30 million registered voters cast ballots.

The Colombian government has been pushing for the yes vote, promoting the plebiscite in Spanish-language media and by email and social media.

Under the deal, FARC members are offered the opportunity to reintegrate into the community and form a legitimate political party in exchange for disarmament and demobilization. FARC members who have surrendered will also receive stipends as well as training and education opportunities.

Lloreda stressed there wont be a blanket amnesty for perpetrators, though they wont get jail time and only face restrictions of liberty for five to eight years if they come clean and confess their crimes. Those who refuse to confess can still face imprisonment for up to 20 years.

Opponents of the deal, however, take issue with the leniency or impunity for the guerrillas.

These are the worst killers ever. They raped girls and forced them to abort, and we have to say We will forgive you or see them be the next senators of Colombia, said Gustavo Abello, 53, who fled to Canada for asylum in 2008 via the United States.

They kidnapped and murdered people, and are not required to spend a day in jail but receive salaries from the government. There is no justice. Whats the message were sending to our next generation? This deal destroys our morals.

Lloreda acknowledged that not everyone is happy with the peace accord but asks voters for understanding.

There is always going to be a gap between ideal peace and possible peace, he said. This is a long time coming. We dont want to miss the big opportunity to terminate the long conflicts in Colombia.

According to Lloreda, once the peace accord is passed, a contingency of international soldiers and police assigned by the United Nations will monitor the rebels disarmament and demobilization before the administration begins its massive infrastructure development through a 10-year plan.

The Canadian government has already committed to $57.4 million in development funding for five projects to support the peacekeeping, security and development initiatives in Colombias peace and reconciliation implementation.

The peace accord, however, only applies to FARC, while at least two other rebel groups  the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and the Popular Liberation Army, or EPL  are still active in the country.

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VOICES OF COLOMBIANS

Gustavo Abello , 53, fled Colombias FARC rebels and arrived in Toronto in 2008 via the United States.

A computer system engineer, the businessman lived a comfortable life in Barranquilla and was viewed as an oligarch by the guerillas and hence targeted.

He said he is going to vote against the peace deal because it is only binding to the 7,000 FARC members in the country, leaving out the other groups such as the ELN and EPL, as well as the drug cartels and paramilitaries.

You must offer peace based on justice. This is going to be ineffective, said Abello, who was granted asylum in Canada in 2010 and now works in IT in Toronto. The guerrillas committed all these crimes, and we tell them you will be set free and we will give you money to sit in the parliament. Colombia will see its worst day of history after the peace agreement with FARC.

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Julian Carvajal, born and raised in Cali, grew up amid violence between rebels and drug cartels, and witnessed bloodshed and murder around him.

As a kid, we saw news of people being kidnapped, raped and murdered. I was traumatized. As a 13-year-old, I saw someone on a motorcycle gunning down a guy across the street. When I was in Grade 7, going to school, a mother of twins was gunned down and fell on her daughters lap, said Carvajal, 30, who came here in 2006 as a refugee and is now a Canadian citizen.

We have had 10 different peace processes under five different presidents. We are just eager for peace in our country. This vote is significant because, unlike before, this is the first time the people of Colombia are asked to vote on a peace deal, if we would accept it.

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Maria Olaya, a former radio journalist, said Colombians she met during a recent trip to Bogota are excited for the Oct. 2 vote. Although most people would like to think the peace deal would bring in a new era for their homeland, many also have reservations.

The agreement looks hopeful and great on paper, but there are many issues with its implementation, said the 43-year-old Toronto woman, who came to Canada for asylum in 2002 and is now a Canadian citizen.

Will the guerrillas disarm? The campesinos (peasants) were the most affected by the conflicts. There are 6 million displaced Colombians. How are we going to help them go home, settle down and find a job?

Olaya, who now counsels abused women and children, said she still vividly remembers hiding at home when the M-19 Marxist guerilla group fired its cannons on the nearby Palace of Justice, the Supreme Court of Colombia, in 1985, killing almost half of its 25 justices.

We deserve a country of peace for our kids and the next generation. People talk about impunity (of the guerrillas) and we have the choice to vote no, but we need to learn about forgiveness. Those of us abroad have an important role to play. We need to follow the peace process and make sure the government and the guerillas do what they say they will do.

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Not so long ago, the Canadian political world would have been seriously shaken by the announcement that BlackBerry was ceasing to make its addictive devices.

But political life carried on this week with barely a glance at the end-of-an-era announcement about the winding-down of phone manufacturing from BlackBerry.

This column is that glance  a backward one, at just how big a role the little devices played in the political ups and downs of Ottawa a decade or so ago.

I believe I was the first reporter on Parliament Hill to own a BlackBerry. I was having an email conversation in early 2001 with David Herle, one of the most senior strategists in the Paul Martin camp of the then fractious Liberal party. He told me he was writing to me from a plane he had just boarded.

How was that possible? I asked him. Herle, an early adopter as the tech folks say, said he had one of these new gadgets, called a BlackBerry, and said I should go get one  they were extremely handy.

That very day, I went and picked one up from the local Bell store. It looked like a pager with a tiny keyboard. It had the reassuring weight of a small river stone and was curved at the back to fit into the palm of the hand.

Within days, it had changed my working life. I was no longer chained to my desk if I wanted to communicate with people on Parliament Hill. I could glance at incoming messages while doing interviews or having lunch or talking on the radio.

A year later, more and more MPs had them. Politicians were making regular pilgrimages to the BlackBerry plant in Waterloo, to pay tribute to the makers of the wondrous device. The media was slower to catch on, but as colleagues started to see it was possible to talk to politicos while in meetings  even caucus meetings  my BlackBerry started to look less like an eccentric accessory.

The watershed moment for BlackBerry in Canadian politics came in early June 2002, when the simmering Liberal battle between Paul Martin and Jean Chretien finally boiled over. I was at the union hall in Toronto, BlackBerry in hand, on the Friday night when Martin announced he was thinking about leaving Chretiens cabinet.

The editor of the Ottawa Citizen, where I was then writing a thrice-weekly column, asked how quickly I could file a story  how long it would take me to get to my computer to write, or a phone to dictate, if necessary. I had a better idea: Id write the story on my BlackBerry while sitting in the car taking me back to the Liberal gathering at a hotel near Pearson airport, where Chretien was due to speak.

As far as I know, this story was the first Canadian political report ever written on a BlackBerry. There would be many, many more, even in the next weeks, as the Chretien-Martin battle was going public. Soon, all of Ottawa seemed to be thumb-typing their way through the drama.

Mike Duffy, then the host of a much-watched nightly politics show on CTV, started to punctuate his broadcasts with updated bulletins from his BlackBerry, reading aloud messages sent by sources inside closed meetings. That practice, entirely in keeping with the Duffy whom Canadians got to know better through the Senate saga, would result in a ban on MPs bringing BlackBerrys into caucus. Im not sure that ban ever worked  we all still managed to keep in touch with MPs in the tumultuous weeks and months ahead in the Liberal party.

Still, the Ottawa media lagged behind the politicians in picking up the BlackBerry habit. Even by the election of 2004, it took a lot of persuading to get media organizations to issue the devices to reporters, and it was initially on a temporary basis. I recall having to argue with flinty managers at the Star that, no, we couldnt function with just one BlackBerry in the bureau, to be used by all on a sign-out basis.

Now, of course, Canadian political coverage revolves around reporters and their hand-held devices, used for email and also shooting pictures and videos to be filed quickly online. Very few of those devices are BlackBerrys, though  iPhones are the preferred, ubiquitous gadgets, as is the case with the public at large.

Im still carrying a BlackBerry, though  a Classic, with a keyboard, of course. Ill probably keep carrying one, even if it will soon be manufactured by some other company.

BlackBerrys future may remain uncertain, but these little devices changed how politics on Parliament Hill was covered  and conducted. In fact, if youre reading this column on a hand-held device, you probably have BlackBerry to thank for it.

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Frozen out by PC leader Patrick Brown, social conservatives are putting the squeeze on prominent Tory MPP Monte McNaughton over the partys sex-education flip-flop.

Parent activists are turning on one-time ally McNaughton because they feel let down by Brown after his office secretly negotiated  and then reneged on  a pledge to scrap the health curriculum during the recent Scarborough-Rouge River byelection.

The Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP, a champion of social conservative causes, sent in the final weekend of the Sept. 1 byelection campaign a fundraising appeal tied to eliminating the sex-education lesson plan.

For his trouble, McNaughton on Thursday received a blistering letter from Tanya Granic Allen, president of Parents As First Educators (PAFE), which opposes curriculum implemented by Premier Kathleen Wynnes Liberals.

The last time I heard from you was via a mass emailer you sent out on Saturday, Aug. 27 entitled A PC Government would scrap Kathleen Wynnes sex-ed changes, wrote Granic Allen.

In that email, you told the recipients that earlier this week, Ontario PC Leader Patrick Brown circulated a letter to parents across Ontario and you further explained that in this letter, Patrick firmly committed to scrapping the Wynne-Liberals new sex-ed curriculum upon the election of a PC government,  the activist continued.

You also asked us to make a financial donation to Raymond Chos campaign, the candidate in the Scarborough-Rouge River byelection.

Of course, since then, Patrick Brown has scrapped this very commitment to Ontario parents and he now essentially supports Kathleen Wynne and her sex-ed agenda.

McNaughtons fundraising email was sent to coincide with 13,000 letters  in English and Chinese and signed by Brown  distributed in Scarborough-Rouge River, where sex education was a hot topic in the byelection won by Cho.

After blowback, the PC leader claimed he had nothing to do with the missive bearing his signature and announced that if he becomes premier in 2018 he would not repeal the updated syllabus.

This despite the fact that both Browns chief of staff, Nicolas Pappalardo, and PC party president Rick Dykstra were aware of the letter.

McNaughton was away from Queens Park on Thursday and was not available for comment. His office was dark when a Star reporter visited.

Conservative sources, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal matters, said the MPP was encouraged to send out the fundraising email far and wide by senior party officials.

Brown, who has distanced himself from social conservatives since the byelection debacle, insisted didnt know anything about the email.

I havent seen any of these emails from Tanya or Monte. Our position is clear: I support the updated sex education curriculum. Were building a modern, inclusive PC party, he said, adding the response from Tories to his renouncing of social conservative policies has been positive.

They were key backers of McNaughtons Tory leadership campaign last year, and when he dropped out to support Brown, many of them followed him to the eventual winner.

I voted for Patrick Brown. The new Canadians are socially conservative  that is a story that most miss, evangelist Charles McVety told the Star at the May 9, 2015 Tory convention, praising Brown for making inroads into cultural communities.

McVety has since accused the Tory leader of betraying the people who elected him.

Poor Patrick. He cant remember what he has promised and to whom, so he cant keep his stories straight, he said last week.

In her open letter to McNaughton, Granic Allen said parents still want to know what was Patrick Browns role in this process?

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BEDFORD, N.H.Donald Trump abruptly resurrected Bill Clintons impeachment on Thursday, adding the former presidents infidelities to the already-rancorous 2016 campaign. Trump warned voters in battleground New Hampshire that a Hillary Clinton victory would bring her husbands sex scandal back to the White House.

It was Trumps latest effort to bounce back from Monday nights debate performance, which has been widely panned as lacklustre. In contrast, Clinton has delivered a mostly positive message in the days since her debate performance re-energized her candidacy.

Clinton is stressing that her plans will solve the kind of kitchen-sink problems facing American families  the high cost of child care, mounting student debt burdens and unpaid family leave. Trump, though promising lower taxes and jobs, jobs, jobs for American workers, has intensified the dire warnings and personal attacks that have defined his outsider presidential bid.

He took it a step further on Thursday.

The American people have had it with years and decades of Clinton corruption and scandal. Corruption and scandal, Trump charged. An impeachment for lying. An impeachment for lying. Remember that? Impeach.

That was a reference to Bill Clinton. After an investigation by an independent counsel, the House approved formal impeachment charges in late 1998 in connection with President Clintons testimony about his affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, and other matters. He was acquitted of the impeachment charges by the Senate.

Trumps team said he had been prepared to bring up the Lewinsky scandal during Monday nights debate but decided otherwise because the Clintons daughter, Chelsea, was in the room. Trump did not bring up Lewinsky by name on Thursday.

Shortly before Trumps remarks, Clinton offered a more optimistic message to supporters in Iowas capital city.

I want this election to be about something, not just against somebody, she said in Des Moines.

Asked Thursday about the possibility that Trump would raise her husbands infidelities, Clinton said, He can run his campaign however he chooses. Thats up to him. Im going to keep talking about the stakes in this election.

Her aides argue that a summer barrage of attack ads against Trump, along with the candidates own controversial statements, have driven his negative ratings to historic levels, leaving them little ability to do more. That leaves her the choice of trying to win over undecided voters and Republicans concerned about Trump by emphasizing a positive vision for America.

Indeed, at her Des Moines rally, Clinton offered a hopeful message to contrast with the doom-and-gloom themes that have been staples of Trumps campaign. As she often does, she recounted her own background of working on childrens issues and her fathers struggles as a small-business man.

I know so much of this campaign has been about, you know, whatever my opponent said and who he attacked and who he denigrates  and the list is long, Clinton said. But its not about that, its about you. Its about your families and your future, and each of us should be telling you what we intend to do in the job.

With Election Day less than six weeks away, early voting already is underway in Iowa and some other places. Trump and Clinton remain locked in a tight contest.

Trump has included hopeful lines in his own remarks. But the New York businessman has not deviated far from his aggressive approach defined by insults that helped him win a crowded Republican primary election.

In recent days, Trump and his supporters have raised anew a number of deeply personal attacks against Clinton, questioning her role in her husbands infidelities and casting her as a corrupt tool of political donors and special interests. Trump has also assailed a 1996 Miss Universe pageant winner for her weight gain  an incident Clinton used in this weeks debate to portray Trump as sexist.

The Clintons are the sordid past. We will be the bright and very clean future, Trump declared in New Hampshire.

Trump and Clinton meet again on the debate stage in 10 days, this time in St. Louis.

In a nod to the concerns expressed by some Trump allies that he was insufficiently prepared for the first faceoff, Trumps campaign and the Republican National Committee released a survey intended to engage supporters online. It asks whether he should use the second debate to criticize Clinton for her policies on terrorism, economics and trade. Absent is any inquiry about whether Trump should bring up her husbands infidelities.

In another reminder of how far this years campaign has veered into baffling territory, third-party candidate Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, was being ridiculed after he was unable, in a television appearance, to name a single world leader he admired. The awkward moment drew immediate comparisons  including by Johnson himself  to his Aleppo moment earlier this month when he didnt recognize the besieged city in Syria.

Perhaps no state knows Clinton better than Iowa, where she campaigned on Thursday, but she has consistently struggled to connect.

Her campaign is banking on the states in-person early voting, which started on Thursday, reflecting the premium that Democrats are placing this year on trying to get their voters to turn out long before Nov. 8. Democrats are concerned that a lack of enthusiasm will keep their voters from showing up in the same numbers that led to Barack Obamas victories in the past two elections.

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The story out of El Cajon, Calif., a San Diego suburb, had an eerie familiarity: The police respond to a person exhibiting some kind of disturbing behaviour, but the subject  perhaps lost in his own, altered world  does not comply with the usual commands, does not heed the standard warnings, acts in a way that seems to invite danger, and ends up dead.

An officer in El Cajon fatally shot a man identified as Alfred Olango on Tuesday, after Olangos sister called 911 for help because he was acting erratically. The police released a still frame from a bystanders video showing Olango, 30, mirroring the shooting stance of the officer facing him  feet apart, hands clasped and pointed at the officer. But one man had a gun and the other, it turned out, did not.

I called for help; I didnt call you guys to kill him, the sister wailed on a Facebook video recorded by a bystander.

Far too little is known about what happened in El Cajon to judge the officers conduct, law enforcement experts and advocates for mentally ill people say. But the police use of force  sometimes lethal  against those with diminished mental capacity is distressingly common in the U.S. The experts and advocates say that while training and practices have improved in the last generation, officers in many agencies still receive little or no education in how to recognize and deal with people who may not behave rationally.

Like other police uses of force, confrontations involving people with diminished mental capacity have increasingly been caught on video and turned into national news. In July, officers in Sacramento shot and killed a man who was walking and running in the street, gesticulating wildly, and who refused to obey orders to drop the knife he was holding or to lie down.

Days later, after an autistic man sat in a street in North Miami, Fla., playing with a toy truck the police may have mistaken for a weapon, an officer tried to shoot him  and instead, accidentally shot and wounded the mans therapist, who had sat down next to him to try to coax him away.

There are hundreds of thousands of times when officers are helpful, but far too often, people in crisis end up being Tasered, beaten, arrested and even shot, and a lot of families are very scared to call the police, knowing something like that can happen, said Laura Usher, criminal justice and advocacy manager at the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

The underlying problem is there arent enough crisis services so people turn instead to 911 but there also needs to be a lot more police training.

The Justice Department has looked into several police departments in recent years for their use of force. The investigators have reported finding that excessive force was routinely used with people whose ability to understand or follow commands was impaired  whether by mental illness, developmental disabilities or intoxication  in Baltimore, Seattle, Albuquerque and other cities.

Officers, especially the majority who are not specially trained on this issue, do not use appropriate techniques or de-escalate encounters with individuals with mental illness or impaired faculties to prevent the use of force and, when force is used, officers do not adjust the application of force to account for the persons mental illness, the department wrote in its 2014 report on the Cleveland Police Department.

Law enforcement training teaches officers to be forceful, to take charge of a situation and to physically control anyone who might be a danger. In the last two decades, there has been a growing trend to teach officers to de-escalate tensions, particularly with troubled people, but experts say there is a long way to go before the techniques reach every department and every officer, and really sink into the law enforcement mindset.

The tactics can involve the officer keeping a distance, coaxing rather than commanding, and maintaining a quiet, conversational tone of voice.

Yelling commands at someone whos agitated and maybe delusional is not going to help, said Jim Bueermann, the president of the Police Foundation, a policy research group, and a former police chief in Redlands, Calif.

Some cities have gone further, establishing crisis intervention teams, with a large number of patrol officers receiving more intensive education, and getting to know mental health professionals, local advocacy and social service groups, and families of people with mental illness.

That way, when you have a group of two, three, four officers on the scene, one of them is going to be a CIT officer, and that officer is going to be the leader, said Sam Cochran, the former chief of the crisis intervention team in Memphis, which pioneered the approach in the 1980s. Its not just about the subjects safety; its about the officers safety.

More than 3,000 state and local law enforcement agencies have created similar teams of varying strengths, out of about 18,000 forces nationwide, said Cochran, a consultant to agencies around the country. We still have a tremendous amount that is lacking, he said.

It is a lot to demand from officers that they know how and when to alternate between aggressiveness and a gentler approach, but it is necessary, said Hassan Aden, a former police chief in Greenville, N.C., and the senior adviser on policing at the Vera Institute of Justice, a research and advocacy group.

We see these situations where a family member calls the police, and the situation, once the police arrive, turns into a deadly force situation, he said. De-escalation training is something that every officer  every officer  should get.

Advocates and law enforcement agencies commonly cite an estimate that at least one in 10 calls to the police involves a person experiencing some sort of mental health crisis or diminished capacity.

A 2013 study by the National Sheriffs Association and the Treatment Advocacy Center, a non-profit group that supports expanded access to treatment, estimated that half of all the people shot and killed by the police in the United States were mentally ill. An analysis last year by The Washington Post put the figure at about one in four. In addition, researchers say that emotionally disturbed people account for a high proportion of attacks on officers, and that those who are killed by the police are often suicidal.

Even when a department provides advanced training, advocates say, there are many places where the system can break down. Callers to 911 do not always make it clear that a persons behaviour might indicate mental illness; emergency dispatchers do not always communicate the information to the officers headed to the scene; and those officers do not always call for a crisis intervention officer, even when one is available.

Calling in the CIT should always be the first choice, Usher said, but merely having the team is not enough. The key is that every officer has enough awareness to recognize when there might be a mental health issue involved, and to call for specialized backup.

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PENSACOLA, FLA.A Floridas womans lawsuit says a deputy shot her with a stun gun, then apologized with a cake that said, Sorry I Tased You in blue frosting.

The cake didnt cut it for Stephanie Byron. She sued former Escambia County sheriffs deputy Michael Wohlers in May.

On Monday, the countys Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission announced it had reviewed the case and placed Wohlers on a one-year probationary period from serving at any law enforcement agency in Florida.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Pensacola, alleges Wohlers violated Byrons civil rights, committed battery against her and caused her hardships, including physical injuries, monetary loss, medical expenses, humiliation and mental anguish.

Wohlers attorney wouldnt comment Thursday but denied the allegations in a court document.

The incident happened in June 2015 when Wohlers stopped by an apartment complex where Byron was working.

According to court documents, Wohlers was in his full uniform and used his apparent law enforcement authority to intimidate, harass, and threaten Byron about her personal life. The lawsuit says Wohlers took Byrons tea, and when she went to retrieve it he fired his stun gun at her. She said she was knocked to the floor and the court document says Wohlers jumped onto Ms. Byron, kneeing her in the chest. He then removed the stun gun prods from her body and left.

The lawsuit also says Wohlers told his employer that he accidentally discharged his device into a pillow at his house.

Sometime after that, Wohlers baked Byron a cake. Byrons attorney entered a photo of the cake as an exhibit into the court file.

The cake Wohlers baked provides his version of the encounter and clearly shows a person Wohlers firing the Taser at Ms. Byron. It also reads Sorry I Tased You, the complaint reads. The cake depicts two stick figures in frosting, with one aiming something with black wires at the other.

Wohlers resigned from the sheriffs office in July 2015.

Wohlers attorney denied the allegations in a written response to the complaint. The response also said Wohlers is protected by qualified immunity  rights that can shield government officials from civil liability lawsuits if the official did not knowingly violate a citizens rights while performing their duties.

Byron is seeking compensatory damages, costs, expenses and reasonable attorneys fees.

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MANILA, PHILIPPINESPhilippine President Rodrigo Duterte raised the rhetoric over his bloody anti-crime war to a new level Friday, comparing it to Hitler and the Holocaust and saying he would be happy to slaughter 3 million addicts.

Duterte issued his latest threat against drug dealers and users early Friday on returning to his hometown in southern Davao city after visiting Vietnam, where he discussed his anti-drug campaign with Vietnamese leaders and ways for their governments to fight transnational crimes, including illegal drugs.

Duterte has said his public death threats against drug suspects are designed to scare them into stop selling drugs and to discourage would-be users. But his latest remarks took that crime-busting approach to a different level.

He said he had been portrayed or pictured to be a cousin of Hitler, without elaborating.

Moments later he said, Hitler massacred 3 million Jews ... theres 3 million drug addicts. There are. Id be happy to slaughter them.

He was referring to a Philippine government estimate of the number of drug addicts in the country. Historians say 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis under Hitler before and during the Second World War.

During the presidential election campaign earlier this year and during the three months he had held office, the tough-talking Duterte has threatened to drown drug suspects to fatten the fish in Manila Bay. He also threatened to execute drug traffickers by hanging  because he didnt want to waste electricity on them  until their heads were severed from their bodies.

While Hitlers victims were innocent people, Duterte said his targets are all criminals and that getting rid of them would finish the (drug) problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition.

Germanys government slammed Dutertes comments as unacceptable. It is impossible to make any comparison to the unique atrocities of the Shoah and Holocaust, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer in Berlin.

World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder said Dutertes remarks were revolting and demanded that he retract them and apologize.

Drug abuse is a serious issue. But what President Duterte said is not only profoundly inhumane, but it demonstrates an appalling disrespect for human life that is truly heartbreaking for the democratically elected leader of a great country, Lauder said in a statement issued from Jerusalem, where he was attending the funeral of former Israeli leader Shimon Peres.

The U.S. State Department, which is looking to sustain its long-standing alliance with the Philippines, called the comments troubling.

Words matter, especially when they are from leaders of sovereign nations, especially sovereign nations with whom we have long and valued relations with, spokesman Mark Toner told reporters. He repeated U.S. calls for Philippine authorities to investigate any credible reports of extra-judicial killings.

U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was more blunt.

It is reprehensible and frankly disgusting that a democratically-elected leader is talking about the mass murder of his own people, with Hitlers Holocaust as his inspiration no less, he said in a statement.

Philippine Rep. Teodoro Baguilat wondered if the president was suggesting that its open season now for all addicts, no more rehabilitation, just kill them systematically like what the Nazis did with the Jews. He expressed fears that Jewish businesspeople might boycott the Philippines.

Also critical was Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director for Human Rights Watch, who said it was baffling why anyone would want to compare themselves to one of the largest mass murderers in human history.

Robertson said that in todays context, Hitler would be accused of crimes against humanity, charges that often end up at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Is that what Duterte wants? Does he want to be sent to the international criminal court? Because hes working his way there, Robertson said.

A spokesman for Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem-based world centre for Holocaust research and commemoration, declined to comment on Dutertes remarks.

Dutertes campaign promise to end corruption and crime, especially illegal drugs, within six months of taking office on June 30 carried him to an overwhelming victory in Mays presidential election.

Since the vote, more than 3,000 suspected drug dealers and users have been killed and nearly 700,000 others have surrendered in his crackdown. Duterte has asked for a six-month extension to finish the job.

His supporters and many Filipinos exasperated with widespread crime have welcomed his tough approach, but a growing number of critics, including UN officials, the European Union and the United States, have voiced concerns over the widespread killings and human rights violations.

He reacted Friday by calling critics from the European Union a group of idiots in the purest form.

Duterte lashed out at the U.S., his countrys longtime treaty ally, and the E.U. for finding fault with his methods, saying European countries were hypocrites for not doing enough to help the large numbers of refugees fleeing from the violence in the Middle East.

There are migrants escaping from the Middle East. You allow them to rot and then youre worried about the deaths of about 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 (people in the Philippines), he said.

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CHICAGOFourteen-year-old Malik Causey loved the way gangs took what they wanted from people on the street, the way members fought for each other, the way they could turn drugs into cash and cash into $400 jeans.

His mother tried to stop him. She yanked him out of houses where he didnt belong. She cooked up a story about Malik punching her so the police would lock him up to keep him safe for a while.

Then on Aug. 21, Monique Causey woke to discover that her son had sneaked out of the house. Before she could find him, someone ended his life with a bullet to the back of his head a few blocks away.

I went to him and cried and told him he wouldnt make it, Causey said. But this fighting, jumping on people . . . this is all fun for them. This is what they like to do, you know, so how can you stop them?

Malik Causey was one of 91 homicide victims in Chicago in August, the deadliest month in the city in two decades and the latest milestone for a metropolis becoming known for its murder rate. Already, killings here have jumped 46 per cent over the same period last year, climbing past the 500 mark  a total about 10 times larger than Toronto, a city with a roughly equal population.

An analysis of the August toll shows more clearly than ever whos dying in the Chicago slaughter and whats behind it: surging violence in a handful of the citys most impoverished neighbourhoods, which are riven by loosely organized street gangs.

Young African-American men are the chief victims. In a city thats one-third black, the overwhelming majority of those murdered in August  71  were, like Malik, black. Another 11 had Hispanic surnames. Almost half were in their teens or early 20s.

And more than 70 per cent of those shot to death appeared on the Chicago polices Strategic Subject List, which includes 1,400 people considered likely targets of violence based on gang involvement or criminal record.

To those outside Chicago, the rising murder toll might suggest a city wracked by widespread violence, but August portrays a much narrower picture of constant tit-for-tat attacks among gang members, with bystanders sometimes caught in the crossfire.

People are arguing on Facebook over the colour of some girls hair, real simple things . . . and they carry guns and when they finally catch each other, thats how it be, said Derrick House, 51, a former gang member and ex-convict who now works trying to prevent violence. When they see the person they looking for, they dont care who else is out there, old people and kids, they just start shooting.

Ronnie Hutchen, 28, was one of the months first victims. An acknowledged member of the Traveling Vice Lords, he was a veteran of the gang scene in the Austin neighbourhood on the citys west fringe, which is dotted by boarded-up houses and of knots of men and teens standing around in the middle of the day. Most of those with jobs or options have fled.

Police dont know why someone thrust a knife into Hutchens chest. But he had been in many scrapes with rival gangs, and had 56 arrests over the years, mostly in drug and weapons cases. Also, according to his court file, hed told a judge that hed worn a wire so federal agents could listen in on a cocaine buy.

The Englewood neighbourhood on the south side was a particular hot spot for August murders. Its one of the citys poorest areas, with more than 40 per cent of the residents living below the poverty level. This year, homicides there are up 171 per cent over the same time last year.

Englewood is among four out of Chicagos 22 police districts that accounted for about a third of Augusts murders.

One Englewood victim was Denzell Mickiel, 24, who was shot in the face on Aug. 8 over what police suspect was a gang dispute. At the time he died, Mickiel was awaiting trial for allegedly firing shots at a group of people in 2014.

Tuesday, Aug. 23, provided a particular glimpse of how the citys murder toll steadily grew.

On that day, Victor Mata, 22, a member of a faction of the Satan Disciples, was found dead in the front yard of a house. It was the fourth time he had been shot in recent years.

Christopher Hibbler, 42, who belonged to the Black P Stones, a leading black street gang, died when people in a car sprayed gunfire at the corner where he was standing.

Tykina Ali, 20, was shot when someone opened fire on her boyfriends car.

Johnell Johnson, a 37-year-old member of the Black Gangsters on the citys West Side, was found dead in the street, shot in the face.

According to community activists, the eagerness to kill wasnt as great years ago when these neighbourhoods were dominated by larger, more organized gangs that concentrated on carving out and defending drug turf.

Now, I dont hear much about Gangster Disciples against the Vice Lords, said Marshall Hatch, a minister in the East Garfield Park neighbourhood where Causey lived. I hear block against block.

Abner Garcia was born into the gang-dominated Back of the Yards neighbourhood and knew what could happen to him. He joined the Army after high school, then upon his discharge volunteered at a YMCA program to help young men steer clear of gangs.

On Aug. 13, he was driving down the street when someone inside a van flashed gang signs at him, according to police. Words were exchanged before someone in the van shot Garcia in the head.

In Chicagos deadliest neighbourhoods, a young man can be assumed to be in a rival gang just by being there.

Arshell Dennis III, 19, the son of a Chicago police officer, came home from college in New York to visit his family and was sitting on their porch when a man walked up and killed him with a bullet to the chest on Aug. 14.

We think it was a case of mistaken identity and he was killed by someone who thought he was in a gang, said police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.

Today, Monique Causey, who works for a company that makes pizzas, thinks her son might still be alive if only shed been able to move him someplace safer.

After he died, she discovered, still in the package, a pair of $400 jeans in her sons bedroom. She knows where the money came from  the same place that killed her son.

The streets, she said.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) today to review the situation post surgical strikes conducted by the Army in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on September 29.

PM Modi had also chaired a CCS meeting to review the situation along the Line of Control (LoC) on Thursday.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) today to discuss the situation in the wake of the surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.

PM Modi had also chaired a CCS meeting to review the situation along the Line of Control (LoC) on Thursday.

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The Army, sources said, targeted seven terrorist launch pads two kilometres across the LoC and that "scores of terrorists were killed".



--- ENDS ---
BEIRUTA year of Russian airstrikes on areas outside government control in Syria have killed more than 9,000 people, displaced tens of thousands and caused widespread destruction, an opposition monitoring group said Friday.

On Sept. 30 last year, Russia began an air campaign backing the ground forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, turning the balance of power in his favour in many areas  including the northern province of Aleppo and the suburbs of the capital Damascus.

Opposition activists have blamed Russia for most of the recent airstrikes against rebel-held neighbourhoods of east Aleppo city that have killed more than 320 civilians in the past two weeks and demolished many buildings.

The anniversary came as violence in different parts of Syria claimed more lives Friday, mainly in Aleppo city where at least 12 people were killed and dozens more wounded.

A Syrian opposition monitoring group that tracks Syrias civil war said a year of Russian airstrikes have killed 9,364 people in the war-torn country.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead include 3,804 civilians, among them 906 children. The dead also include 2,746 members of Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL) and 2,814 from other rebel and militant groups, including Al-Qaedas affiliate in Syria.

Russia on Friday is marking one year since it launched its air campaign in Syria in support of Assad. In light of that, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a warning to Russians abroad about possible provocations, urging them to exercise caution.

A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russias involvement in Syria is justified by the fact that militants have not managed to capture the capital, Damascus. Marking the 1st anniversary, Dmitry Peskov said that Putin never gave a timeline for how long the bombing mission might last and still wont.

Russias declared goal was to support the Syrian government of Russias long-term ally Assad, and Peskov insisted that in that respect, the operation has been a success.

If it wasnt for the Russian involvement, Daesh and other terrorists would have been sitting in Damascus, he told reporters.

Regarding figures cited by the Observatory on casualties as a result of the airstrikes, he said he would not comment on reports by a group based in the U.K. The Observatory relies on a network of activists on the ground inside Syria.

Also Friday, Russias Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow is doing all it can together with the Syrian government to help the UN arrange weekly pauses in Aleppo to deliver humanitarian goods. Its the Nusra-controlled people in eastern Aleppo who refuse, he said referring to the Al-Qaeda-linked Fatah al-Sham Front, which used to be known as the Nusra Front.

Speaking to BBC about his countrys military operations in Syria, Lavrov said: We are not using any munition which is prohibited by the United Nations. I can assure.

The backers of the opposition blasted the Russian intervention.

Russia claims to be committed to a political solution in Syria, yet since its military intervention, the brutal Assad regime still clings to power. Russias action has not curbed the regimes atrocities, said Britains special representative to Syria, Gareth Bayley. Russia has proved to be either unwilling or unable to influence Assad and must bear its responsibility for the Assad regimes atrocities.

A video posted on the oppositions Shaam News Network described Russias military operations in Syria as a year of crimes. It said that after a year of airstrikes, Russia has not been able to defeat the insurgents.

Russia continues to blame the U.S. government and U.S.-backed insurgents for the collapse of a ceasefire earlier this month after only one week.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in a phone call Friday that Washington must force the factions it supports to split from the Fatah al-Sham Front, according to Lavrovs office. The front is deeply intertwined with multiple other factions regarded by Washington as moderates.

The State Department has threatened to end all diplomatic discussions with Moscow on Syria if the assault on Aleppo continues. On Friday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters that the threat remains on the table.

Were on the verge because we have not yet seen them take the type of actions we are looking for them to take, Toner said.

This is on life support, he said of U.S.-Russian diplomacy. But its not flat-lined yet.

A year after the airstrikes began, Syrian troops pushed into rebel-held eastern Aleppo, a move that was highly unlikely before the Russian airstrikes began.

The Observatory said government forces captured a hospital in the city a day after regaining control of a nearby Palestinian refugee camp.

The Syrian military said government forces are strengthening their positions in the largely abandoned Handarat refugee camp, and took control on Friday of the Kindi hospital, an unused structure that has been damaged by years of war.

The Observatory said the hospital is on the northern edge of the city, just two kilometres from a major intersection north of Aleppo known as the Gondol roundabout.

State TV also reported intense fighting in the central Suleiman al-Halaby area where it said troops captured several buildings. The area is home to a main water station that supplies Aleppo, Syrias largest city and former commercial centre, with drinking water.

The Local Coordination Committees, another monitoring group, said eight soldiers were killed in clashes with rebels near the water station.

Syrian government forces have been on the offensive in Aleppo for days under the cover of intense airstrikes. State news agency SANA said rebels shelled the government-held part of Aleppo, killing 20 and wounding 55.

The Civil Defence volunteer first responder forces said airstrikes in Aleppo killed 24 people, adding that search operations are continuing to recover more people trapped under the rubble. The Observatory said Fridays airstrikes on several rebel-held neighbourhoods in the city killed 12, adding that the death toll was expected to rise.

The UN health agency decried an unfathomable situation for medical care in rebel-held parts of Aleppo, pleading for a halt to the violence that has prevented aid and support from entering.

Dr. Rick Brennan, emergency risk director for the World Health Organization, said the security situation is too dangerous for outside medical personnel to enter rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

Speaking Friday to reporters in Geneva, Brennan appealed for permission to evacuate the sick and injured. He said 846 people have been wounded, including 261 children, in the last couple of weeks.

He said fewer than 30 doctors doing work thats beyond heroic are now in eastern Aleppo, where at least 250,000 people live under siege.

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WASHINGTONDonald Trump suggests in a newly released videotaped deposition that his presidential campaign could boost business at his hotels and increase the value of his personal brand.

A court on Friday released video of Trumps deposition in June following requests filed by news organizations. Though a transcript of Trumps testimony was previously filed publicly, his lawyers asked a Washington Superior Court judge to seal the video.

Trumps company sued Geoffrey Zakarian last year after the restaurateur withdrew from a lease to operate a high-end eatery in the newly opened Trump International Hotel in Washington hotel after the candidate characterized Mexicans as being criminals, drug dealers and rapists.

Trump testified he didnt think his widely criticized comments were so bad because he went on to win the Republican presidential nomination.

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ROMEPolice investigating suspected Italian mobsters for cocaine trafficking discovered two Van Gogh paintings hidden in a farmhouse near Naples, masterpieces that had vanished in 2002 during a nighttime heist at Amsterdams Van Gogh Museum, authorities said Friday.

The two paintings were considered among the artworks most searched for in the world, on the FBIs list of the top 10 art crimes, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said.

They were found in a farmhouse near Castellammare di Stabia as Italian police seized some 20 million ($29 million Canadian) worth of assets, including farmland, villas and apartments and a small airplane. Investigators contend those assets are linked to two Camorra drug kingpins, Mario Cerrone and Raffaele Imperiale, according to a statement by prosecutors Giovanni Colangelo and Filippo Beatrice.

The recovered masterpieces, propped up on easels, were unveiled for reporters Friday at a news conference in Naples. Museum director Axel Rueger said Italian investigators contacted the museum earlier in the week and art experts determined the paintings were authentic.

Needless to say, its a great day for us today, Rueger told Sky TG24 TV. We hope they are soon back where they belong.

With their frames removed and covered by cotton cloths, the paintings appeared to be in relatively good condition despite their long odyssey, the museum said.

One of the paintings, the 1882 Seascape at Scheveningen, is one of Vincent Van Goghs first major works. It depicts a boat setting off into a stormy sea, and the thick paint trapped grains of sand that blew up from the Dutch beach as Van Gogh worked on it over two days.

The other is a 1884-85 work, Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen, which depicts a church in the southern Netherlands where the artists father was the pastor. Experts believe it was done for Van Goghs mother.

Despite the wishes of the museum, the paintings are not leaving Italy anytime soon. They are evidence in an investigation of whether gangsters from the Camorra crime syndicate were behind the original theft or might have become involved with the artworks later.

The Camorra is one of Italys three largest organized crime syndicates, with the Calabria-based ndrangheta by far the most powerful. The Camorra consists of many crime clans, based in Naples as well as many of the Campania regions small towns.

Financial Police Col. Giovanni Salerno said investigators looking into the syndicates cocaine trafficking operations got a tip that the Camorra might have the Van Gogh artworks.

One of those being investigated made some significant comments about their illegal investments made with earnings from drug trafficking, and he indicated two paintings of great value that supposedly were purchased by Imperiale. They were the result of a theft carried out in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam almost 14 years ago, Colangelo, the chief prosecutor in Naples, told reporters.

When renowned masterpieces are stolen, its usually a theft commissioned by a private collector who has already agreed to buy them, since its virtually impossible to sell them in the legitimate art market.

The Camorra and other Italian crime syndicates, awash in illegal revenues from drug trafficking, designer-goods counterfeiting and toxic waste dealings, are increasingly looking to launder their dirty profits and make even more money in the process.

Salerno said a person at the farmhouse when the paintings were found didnt say a word about how they wound up there. He declined to elaborate, saying the case is still under investigation.

The museum said the paintings, inspected by a curator, do show some damage. Authorities dont know where the paintings were kept in the 14 years since they were stolen by thieves who broke into the museum overnight and made off with the works from the main exhibition hall, where dozens of Van Gogh paintings were on display.

The seascape painting had some paint in the bottom left corner broken away, while the other painting had a few minor damages at the edges of the canvas, a museum statement said.

Police who arrived at the Amsterdam museum on Dec. 7, 2002, discovered a 4.5-metre ladder leaning against the rear of the building.

The thieves had apparently climbed up to the second floor using a ladder and broke in through a window, according to Dutch police at the time. Within a year, Dutch authorities had arrested two suspects, but the paintings whereabouts remained a mystery  until Italian authorities searched the farmhouse.

After all these years, you no longer dare count on a possible return, Rueger said. The paintings have been found! That I would be able to ever pronounce these words is something I had no longer dared to hope for.

More on thestar.com:

Do you look like Vincent van Gogh? Douglas Coupland could give you $7K END

Mystery of van Goghs ear solved, author argues in new book END

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All Ryan Turk wanted was his carton of milk.

The Virginia teenager says he had forgotten to grab the drink the first time through the line at the Graham Park Middle School cafeteria, so he headed back. A recipient of free lunches at the school, Ryan felt he was just doing what he did every day.

But a school resource officer said he spotted the teen cutting in line and accused him of stealing the 65-cent milk. When Ryan didnt co-operate with a trip to see the principal, authorities say, he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and petit larceny. Ryan turned down an offer of nonjudicial punishment and, this week, a Prince William County judge set a trial date in November for the Dumfries teen, who is now a freshman in high school.

He will face the criminal charges just days after his 15th birthday.

Ryan and his mother, Shamise Turk, acknowledge that he did take a carton of milk on that day last school year, but they say he was entitled to it and did nothing wrong. They, and their lawyer, allege that Ryan was discriminated against, targeted because he is a black teenager who didnt want to go along with a police officer who they believe was being unfair.

No one needs to be punished for stealing a 65-cent carton of milk, said Emmett Robinson, a lawyer who is representing the family and said Ryans arrest was related to institutional racism. This officer treats kids like theyre criminals, and guess what happens  theyre going to become criminals.

The case of the allegedly stolen milk is an example of the challenges students, schools and school resource officers face when it comes to the issue of discipline, especially when it involves students who are minorities and living in poverty. Studies show that black students are subject to more frequent  and harsher  discipline than their peers, and that biases against them that begin as early as pre-kindergarten classes. Black students in Richmond, Va., recently filed a civil-rights complaint against their school district, alleging that discipline practices there are unfair.

Ryan is black and is eligible for free lunches in Prince William County. The officer and the principal involved also are black, something the county noted in responding to the claims that the student was targeted by race.

Phil Kavits, a Prince William County schools spokesman, said he could not comment on the specifics of the incident, but he said it is not a race-related issue.

All the key parties involved, including the principal and the police officer, are African American, Kavits said in a statement. The staff members are well-known in our highly diverse community for their dedication and caring approach to all students.

Robinson said the race of the people involved does not matter, that racial profiling can come from anyone.

Its not the players, its not the people who discriminate, its the whole system, Robinson said, noting that his client has not been in trouble before. The system is set up now so that school resource officers get to determine the impact on a persons life.

The Washington Post generally does not identify minors charged with misdemeanour crimes, but he and his family opted to speak publicly to bring attention to the matter.

The alleged theft happened on May 10, during the schools regular lunchtime. Ryan said he forgot to grab milk when going through the line and then returned to get a carton.

The school resource officer told authorities that Ryan cut in the lunch line, took a carton of milk and concealed it. The officer confronted the student, and he reported that the student threw the milk back. When the officer suggested that the student needed to speak with the principal, he became disorderly, police said.

Sgt. Jonathan Perok, a Prince William police spokesman, said the middle schooler leaned back and pushed against the officer, and then as the pair approached the principal, the teen tried to push past the officer to get away.

The familys account differs. Shamise Turk, who works for the school district, said she saw surveillance footage of the incident and said it shows that her son didnt conceal the carton of milk at all. She said he simply didnt get one the first time he went through the line and went back to grab one.

Ryan says that after he got his milk, he sat down and was confronted by the officer. He said he put the milk back, but the officer told him to pick up the carton and take it to the principal. The teen said the officer grabbed him by his neck.

Its just unfair, Ryan said. Other people did that. One boy, I told him to get one for me before. But when I do, I get in trouble.

The officer handcuffed the student at the school and ultimately placed the two charges against him. Both misdemeanours, the charges initially were going to be handled nonjudicially through a diversion program, but Ryan and his family declined that option, and the matter will be going to court.

The teens mother said shes hoping that what actually happened that day will come to light in the courtroom. She said the family declined a nonjudicial punishment because her son is innocent.

My son is not going to admit to something he did not do, she said.

The student was quiet as he waited for a court hearing on Tuesday, his mom fluffing his curly hair while he took turns opening and closing the zipper of a sweatshirt and staring at his highlighter-colored sneakers. Robert Stanley, who works with the Prince William County branch of the NAACP, sat a few seats away.

Our black boys are going from high school to prison, Stanley said, referring to what is commonly known as the school-to-prison pipeline. He noted that the school resource officer involved in the arrest had several other juvenile hearings scheduled on Thursday, causing him some real concerns.

Kavits, the schools spokesman, said the officer works at the school daily and is an important member of the community, ensuring the safety of students and staff.

He is well-known to students, Kavits said, adding that county school resource officers strive to befriend students, to keep things positive, and to solve problems.

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Shimon Peress longevity as a central figure in Israeli, Middle Eastern, and global politics was no accident. He was ambitious, cunning, and tough. Talleyrand was once asked what he did in the French Revolution: I survived, he answered.

Starting out as an assistant to David Ben Gurion, Peres quickly made his way to the Labour Party list for general elections, and was the boy wonder of Israeli governments in the 1950s. He was instrumental in the disastrous pre Suez discussions with France and Britain (he spoke French) and remained at the centre of events until his retirement from the presidency a year ago.

He was always a figure to be reckoned with in Israeli politics, but it would be wrong to say he was revered. He twisted and turned. He was a compromiser. But he was also a supreme realist, and while on occasions eloquent, he was not a romantic. Nor was he an ideologue. He left the Labour Party to form Kadimah together with Ariel Sharon and Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert.

I met with Peres on many occasions, both in Israel and Canada. Two meetings in particular stand out.

When I was interim leader of the Liberal Party he came to Canada as President of Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, his political opponent, had visited Ottawa just a few short weeks before. Prime Minister Netanyahu had only one issue on his agenda, Iran. That country was an existential threat, its path to nuclear capacity had to be stopped, its word could not be trusted, and sanctions were not working. A military intervention might be required, and if the United States was not prepared to act, Israel was ready. It was a moral imperative because Israels survival was at stake. Any suggestion of a negotiation strategy was derided as the Munich option.

When President Peres came to Ottawa shortly after I asked him about my conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu. I see things a little differently, he said. So we bomb Iran on day one. What happens on day two, or three? To act without the Americans makes no sense for us. It would leave us even more isolated, even more vulnerable, and our intelligence and defence experts tell us there would be absolutely no assurance we could stop the Iranians.

We then began to chat about two ways of seeing and understanding politics. Always think about the consequences of your actions, even when youre sure youre right.

The second chat was in Jerusalem, shortly before his retirement as president. He wanted to talk about neuroscience, the brain, and the extraordinary possibilities of the future. It was a tour de force, age neither defined nor limited the range and precision of his thinking.

He came into his own as President of Israel, a post he held in his 80s and early 90s. He spoke for the nation and was able to use his vast international network to the benefit of the country.

The response to his passing is a reflection of the simple truth that maintaining a thoughtful perspective on the vagaries of politics, and continuing to look to the future rather than endless recriminations about the past made him a better, wiser, and stronger person. We are all the richer for having known him.

Bob Rae is a partner at Olthuis Kleer Townshend LLP and teaches at the University of Toronto.

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Toronto has been going through an incredibly difficult time over the last two decades, where working families have seen their wages stagnate while living costs soar, theyve felt frustration from a transit system that is lagging and city services that are constantly decreasing accessibility.

Earlier in June, city council directed its staff and agencies to cut their budgets by 2.6 per cent. A directive that would see social housing standards decline, wait lists for city programs grow and increased precarity among the front line workers who deliver the helping hands to Torontonians.

The city is at an impasse, where we can either collectively increase expectations of what living in Toronto should feel like or ask residents to live with less. It isnt a secret to anyone that after the provincial government downloading of programs and amalgamation, the city has experienced tremendous constraint. This squeeze is not because of a bloated bureaucracy  as some would have you believe, but because the cost of running a city, like anyones home, has increased and yet our base for revenues has remained static.

Toronto needs new revenues  to build subways and fix roads but also to increase social programs that prevent gun violence, increase access to child care and provide safe recreational opportunities to young adults and children. We need to prioritize the value of social investment just as much as we need to prioritize physical infrastructure. Imagine what financial shape the city would be in without the land transfer tax  it has been the saviour of programs and services that are crucial to the well-being of Toronto.

Toronto City Council will need to act on new avenues for bringing income to the city budget, and we need to look at what can create the greatest amount of public good with the least amount of burden upon residents. There are a wide variety of options being discussed. Some raise a lot of money, others just a few million. There is no escaping the fact that if we want a world class city we will have to pay for it. It would seem obvious that those who have the most must step up and pay a fair share.

Torontos real estate has become some of the most valuable in the world, and commercial land owners have benefited lucratively from a booming real estate market. Creating a commercial parking levy for malls and major office buildings could raise anywhere from $171 million up to $535 million depending on the rate set. If the parking lot owners can charge $30/day for parking downtown they can pay a small fee to the city for maintaining the roads which their customers drive on, their sidewalks and other infrastructure.

There should be exemptions for small strip malls where independent local stores are located. But when the giant malls are making massive increases in sales in one year  anywhere from 18 per cent for Yorkdale; 8 per cent for Fairview and the Eaton Center; to 33 per cent for the Royal Bank Plaza  they can surely afford to ease the burden of property tax on people with modest or fixed incomes.

Almost all of the options for new revenues were rejected by City Council during the Mayor Rob Ford days. There is a process to review them again, but road tolls are highly controversial and the province has not agreed to give the city power to apply income or sales tax. A hotel room tax, which the McGuinty government refused to allow Toronto to utilize, is well overdue.

There is no doubt that the massive corporations who would contribute to a commercial parking levy would launch a fierce lobby of City Hall. They did last time, and will again. But these are the same entities that have benefitted richly from the deep cuts to corporate tax rates at both the federal and provincial levels over the past decade. And as every chart will illustrate, its the 1 per cent who have appropriated all of the increased wealth since the 2008 meltdown, leaving everyone else with stagnant wages and the next generation with precarious jobs.

We all have a choice  we can be resigned to expect a city that does less and provides less, or we can advocate for a city that creates opportunities and ensures equity of access and development. Working families deserve something better, and we urge council to make the tough decisions to invest in our future and make the tax system more fair in the process.

Maureen OReilly is the chair of the Municipal Committee of the Toronto & York Region Labour Council and President of the Toronto Public Library Workers Union. John Cartwright is President of the Labour Council.

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Lo Taasok Sachir Ani (Deuteronomy 24:14)  Dont withhold the wages of the poor worker

The Jewish New Year Rosh Hashana starts on Sunday evening. It is a time for reflection where we evaluate our lives and assess how we could have done better in meeting our highest ideals. We seek forgiveness for our sins. We fast on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

We are conscious that we cant be forgiven by our Creator until we have earnestly sought forgiveness from those whom we have not treated properly. We reflect on the words of the prophet Isaiah that the Creator is less interested in our observance of rituals and more interested in how consistent we have been in assisting the disadvantaged. The title phrase of this opinion comes from the Torah and has been interpreted to require that every worker be provided with a living wage.

These lofty ideals have a practical application. This year we take cognizance of the Changing Workplaces Review  the initiative of the Ontario Government to amend the Employment Standards Act and the Labor Relations Act to better protect those in precarious employment, without decent pay, benefits or adequate hours.

As Jewish clergy, we join with our colleagues of other faiths in welcoming this initiative. As our sage Maimonides stated over 800 years ago, the highest form of Tzedakah  righteous living, commonly referred to as charity  is to help the disadvantaged become self-sufficient. Amendments to these pieces of legislation will give the working poor the tools to come closer to this goal.

It is for this reason that we support the Campaign for $15 and Fairness. This campaign is calling for a $15 minimum wage for all workers and meaningful changes to legislation that will improve working conditions for millions in Ontario.

We want to focus on a few of the many inadequacies in current laws that we expect will be remedied through the governments review.

Jewish history is replete with the reminder that we were slaves and that, because of this experience, we learned the obligation to treat everyone justly. Currently laws do not require that work schedules be posted sufficiently in advance. As well, posted schedules can be changed without the workers consent and with minimal notice. In effect, workers have no control over their time. They are continuously at the beck and call of employers. Workers need scheduling protections so that they are provided with guaranteed free time away from work where they can look after family concerns and be involved in the community.

Right now there is an Employment Standard giving many workers the right to have up to 10 days without pay away from work to deal with personal or family emergencies. This right, however, is limited to workplaces having at least 50 workers. The right should be extended to all. Personal illness or deaths in the family, for example, are not restricted to workers who are employed in larger workplaces. We need to close this loophole to allow all workers to meet their family obligations.

As well, some employers are seeking to segregate the 10 days so that, for example, only three days will be available for personal sick leave, three days for bereavements and four days for looking after children's needs. However, not all workers have identical needs. Some workers may have young children and may need the full 10 days to deal with those needs while older workers may have elderly parents and other family members with completely different needs. The law should not interfere in a paternalistic way to define and limit how the 10 days should be allocated.

Finally, as clergy, we believe that all human beings are equally valued by the Creator. This sense of equality affects how we believe people should be treated in all aspects of life. For this reason we support changes that treat workers equally in respect of compensation practices. In other words, full-time, part-time, casual and temporary employees performing identical work for the same ultimate employer, whether directly employed or through an employment agency, should receive the same hourly pay and equitable treatment in respect of benefits.

Our prayers regularly call for Divine inspiration for our elected representatives. In this season we pray that they will follow through on this initiative and help raise millions of workers from poverty by enacting the reforms set out in the Campaign for $15 and Fairness.

For more information or to get involved in the campaign, visit www.15andFairness.org

Rabbi Shalom Schachter is the Toronto Board of Rabbis (TBR) representative on the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition. Other signatories are Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl, Senior Rabbi Beth Tzedec Congregation Toronto; Rabbi Lawrence Englander  Rabbi Emeritus, Solel Congregation of Mississauga; Rabbi Tina Grimberg  Congregation Darchei Noam Toronto; Rabbi Elizabeth Bolton  Or Haneshamah Ottawas Reconstructionist Community; and Rabbi Michael Satz  Associate Rabbi Holy Blossom Temple Toronto.

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One could be excused for believing that the sale of electronic cigarettes that contain nicotine is legal in Canada. After all, you need only stroll to your local vape shop to purchase e-cigarettes with cartridges containing nicotine-infused e-juice to get a hit.

But despite their wide availability in hundreds of brands and thousands of flavours, e-cigarettes with nicotine are not legal in Canada. No brand of e-cigarette has been approved for sale by Health Canada, though it has not been enforcing the ban for years.

Now Ottawa is set to corral the Wild West of e-cigarettes with welcome, enforceable amendments to the Tobacco Act. Health Canada says the changes are designed to balance the need to protect young people from nicotine addiction while allowing adult smokers to legally use vaping products to stop smoking or as a potentially less-harmful alternative to tobacco.

It appears Ottawa is getting the balance right after years of debate world-wide about the safety of e-cigarettes, including those that do not contain nicotine.

For too long children under 19 have had easy access to the addictive nicotine-delivering e-cigarettes because of a lack of enforcement. Indeed, one study in the Niagara region found that 10 per cent of Grade 9 students had used e-cigarettes.

Thats dangerous because kids can get hooked on nicotine. And some health specialists believe that leads them to take up smoking. At the same time, there is wide debate among medical experts on whether or not vaping any type of liquid is safe.

Thats why Ontario was smart to ban the sale of all types of e-cigarettes to anyone under 19. Experts believe e-cigarettes containing flavoured-only liquids lead to kids trying out the nicotine-laced ones and becoming addicted to them.

At the same time, theres wide support for legalizing e-cigarettes with nicotine for adult smokers who can use them to try to stop smoking, as they would a nicotine patch, or at least use a product that isnt as unhealthy as cigarettes.

If legalizing e-cigs with nicotine can help people stop smoking, or at least not smoke cigarettes, it will be a good thing. Smoking is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death in Canada.

And there are other benefits to Ottawa regulating the sale of e-cigarettes. Right now theres no way for consumers to know whether product labels are accurate. A strong vetting and approval process by Health Canada for all nicotine-delivering devices would mean vapers would at last know how much nicotine they are getting from which brands and flavours.

The amendments will also allow the government to regulate the advertising of e-cigarettes, as they do tobacco products. Already they are too often aimed at hooking young kids.

The quicker these changes are introduced and enforced, the better.

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Canadas chief electoral officer has added his expert voice to those urging Ottawa to consider being more democratic when changing the voting system. Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus government should heed this sensible advice.

The Liberals have promised to dump the existing first-past-the-post election system and replace it with something better in time for the next vote in 2019. An all-party committee is now studying options for reform, with a final report due by Dec. 1.

Unfortunately, theres no sign of consensus on this vitally important issue. To meet their self-imposed next-election deadline, theres a real danger the Liberals will simply push though any changes they want using their parliamentary majority.

That kind of unilateral action would undermine public confidence in election reform and raise an unavoidable suspicion that the system was being rigged in the ruling partys favour.

In his final report to Parliament before retiring, Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand calls for greater cooperation. I urge parliamentarians as much as possible to collaborate and seek a broad consensus when it comes to (election) changes, he wrote. Our democratic system will be best strengthened when amendments reflect the views of a large number of political participants.

Mayrand cites New Zealand as a particularly useful model. Changing that countrys voting system requires the support of 75 per cent of MPs or a majority of votes in a national referendum. I believe this is something that parliamentarians should consider, Mayrand wrote.

His view is another good reason for the Liberals to pause before making any attempt to ram their chosen voting system through Parliament. Not only because Mayrand is a highly respected authority on election reform  but because hes right.

Options under discussion include replacing first-past-the-post with a ranked ballot, which many experts believe would benefit a centrist party like the Liberals, and proportional representation, variations of which have been rejected by voters at the provincial level on several occasions.

Before any new system is brought in, consent from a majority of Canadians should be obtained either through a broad consensus of elected MPs or a national referendum. Since Parliament appears hopelessly divided, a referendum seems the more realistic of these alternatives. But that doesnt fit the Liberals timetable for reform.

Given the long lead-time necessary for Elections Canada to prepare for a new voting system, necessary legislation must be enacted by May, Mayrand reported earlier this year. But a special referendum would take six months to organize, leaving its verdict too late to implement in time for the 2019 federal contest.

Given these options, Trudeaus best move would be put election reform to a national vote and let Canadians chose the system they want, even if it means breaking a promise to do away with first-past-the-post during his first term in office.

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Re: Unifor-GM deal drives stake in pensions' heart, Sept. 21

Unifor-GM deal drives stake in pensions' heart, Sept. 21

So here we have a new contract at GM with a strike avoided and a future for auto assembly in Oshawa. Here we have a company that recently shed its debt burden through bankruptcy and has returned to record levels of profitability across North America. It seems like the perfect opportunity for a win- win scenario to gracefully unfold.

But even in the glow of all this lucrative success GM has the ability to demand and receive substantial financial concessions from its workforce. The defined benefit pension plan will be eliminated for newer workers in the most exquisite example yet of capitalism on steroids in the Canadian context.

As news of new product allocation arrives in the coming months so too will news of taxpayer subsidies. The same citizens who recently bailed out the old, debt-ridden GM will be asked to provide incentives to subsidize the new, mega-profitable GM when new product is committed to Oshawa.

Here we have the most perfect example of the impacts of suicidal trade deals like NAFTA. To keep the jobs from going to Mexico the next generation of young workers will lose their pensions and our governments will succumb to corporate extortion by handing over our hard-earned tax dollars.

Never has the message been more clear for citizens and workers that without meaningful trade borders we are at the mercy of our corporate masters.

Our auto industry and all the wealth it has generated was built by the Auto Pact trade agreement and a historic sense of national autonomy that allowed us to stand up and say - If you want to sell it here then damn well build it here.

Lets be really blunt. Going forward there is no logical reason for any company to build in Canada when products made in perpetually low-wage Mexican factories are guaranteed unfettered access to our market.

Thomas Walkom ends his editorial with the question But if even the autoworkers cant protect their defined-benefit company pension plans, who can?

If Canada continues to be reduced to the level of a geographic market rather than a sovereign state then we should expect and accept more of the same heavy handed treatment by transnational corporations.

Mainstream competitors like Nissan, Mazda, Hyundai/Kia and VW build in Mexico with no Canadian production and no restriction on Canadian market access. Therefore companies like GM, Ford, FCA, Honda and Toyota will naturally feel disadvantaged by the burden of paying middle class Canadian wages under our current system of perverse incentives.

It is highly likely that companies producing domestically will increasingly seek concessions from workers and subsidies from taxpayers as the price of staying in Canada.

GM's spectacular decoupling of corporate success from citizen/worker success ought to serve as lurid warning of the end effects of ideologically pure macroeconomic policy. We need pragmatic, practical trade policies that work for real people in the real world for the overall benefit of our economy.

The disastrous folly of corporate driven and corporate written trade policies that serve only the investor class has rarely been more evident than in GMs case.

They say that after your house, your car is the most expensive thing you will ever buy. Are we as citizens going to wait for our houses to be assembled in a low-wage factory in some far off corner of the world before we realize what we are losing?

We have already lost a third of auto production and already face a huge net deficit in auto trade when component values are added to the equation.

GM is doing what is best for its own very narrow corporate interests. Unifor, virtually all Canadian industrial workers as well as the people and communities who depend on them are up against the wall.

It is time for citizens and our political leaders to reassert what is best for our long-term national interests. We have had ample time and ample evidence to assess the disastrous effects of our decades long experiment with free trade.

Mike Vorobej, Ottawa

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By Ajay Kumar: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has launched the Progressive Panchayat in Haryana's Mewat district as a measure to counter the negative perceptions over the 'beef biryani' controversy that erupted here besides flagging the law-and-order issues. The panchayat was launched by Union minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi-the prominent minority face of the party. The event was held at Bichore village under Punhana tehsil.

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Naqvi was accompanied by his Cabinet colleague Rao Inderjeet Singh, besides state Public Works Department minister Rao Narbir Singh.

According to Naqvi, the panchayat had nothing to do with the vote-bank politics, rather to promote the development agenda of the Narendra Modi government. BJP will host 100 such panchayats across the country to spread awareness on the development agenda.

"I was informed by my Cabinet colleague that a large number of antinational elements had taken shelter here. Today is such a day (in the context of surgical strike in PoK) when we have to fight together in home to defeat these forces. Our PM is working round the clock and is capable of protecting national integrity and sovereignty," Naqvi said.

MEWAT: A BACKWARD DISTRICT

Mewat is one of the most backward districts of Haryana which hit the headlines for wrong reasons-controversy over 'beef biryani' and gang rape of women. When asked about the beef biryani controversy, Naqvi said: "The controversial beef issue can be termed as unfortunate. He also added that the Modi government's agenda is only development.

Also read: Outreach: With eye on UP polls, BJP to hold panchayats in Haryana's Muslim-dominated areas



In Bichore village, there's scarcity of water supply and people have to walk at least two kilometres to reach a hand pump. "Our living standard has not changed despite change in governments. We get electricity for just about three hours every day. We walk kilometres to fetch water needed for cooking and washing clothes," said 41-year-old Sabina Khatoon.

Rao Inderjeet Singh blamed previous Congress government for the problems which the people in this minority-dominated district are facing. "Drinking water is a problem here and we have proposed the development of Kotla lake. We want the planning board to acquire land for this purpose and develop the lake," he said.

"We would like to connect Mewat with Rajasthan's Alwar district using the vast rail network. "This has been our dream for the last several years. The proposal has been passed but the work is yet to start," Singh added.

--- ENDS ---
Re: Canadian values' conceals Canadian violence, Opinion Sept. 22

Re: How Canada should engage China on human rights, Sept. 23

Canadian values' conceals Canadian violence, Opinion Sept. 22

Azeezah Kanji said exactly what I was thinking all along. It is stunning that every six days a woman is killed by a partner in Canada. The term Canadian values is an empty one. It has no meaning because there are many variations between what we think it says and what actually happens.

Russell Williams, the murdering soldier, was considered an epitome of Canadian values until he was caught. How would anyone have tested him? Russell, do you respect women, salute the flag, promise to not join terrorist organizations, take part in honour killings, etc? Yes Sir/Maam: I love this country and am bound to protect Canada.

Good Canadian cild abusers?

As a psychotherapist, practicing for about 40 years, the question: Have you ever been abused physically or sexually in your childhood? is now a usual assessment question because it is so common. Is it Canadian values to rend Native children from their homes and make their culture disappear?

By reading the Star, I understand that the youths suspected of terrorist ties are actually Canadian-born or naturalized. In fact, a few of them were watched and released from observation for lack of evidence. It is the height self-deception that we think that we can judge the existence of Canadian values in anyone.

It is the height of vanity to think that we can judge others and that people fleeing bombs, wars, rapes and political prison need to prove themselves to be something that many Canadians are not.

Eva Saphir, Toronto

How Canada should engage China on human rights, Sept. 23

Reading Professor Wenran Jiangs article convinced me of one thing: yes human rights are important, but not as important as trade relations, at least for now. The article took us to the history when our present prime ministers father recognized the Peoples Republic of China and the author reminded us that the senior Trudeau chose to engage with China because of its strategic importance for Canada and the rest of the world, ignoring the bad record of human rights violation.

Canada today is very different from yesterdays Canadaespecially when we see our neighbor and other major democratic nations are on the verge of disaster: morally and spiritually. The article seems, at least to me, like one of those propagandistic pieces you often see in state-sponsored newspapers. Canada today represents a hope to the people around the world who once believe that as we grow democratically and economically, we concede our mistakes and strive for a better world. Canada should never compromise our valuesvalues that are enshrined in our constitutionwhen dealing with a country which has a worst record of human rights violation in the world.

Rinzin Ngodup, Toronto

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Re: Ward boundaries spark fierce debate at city hall, Sept. 27

Ward boundaries spark fierce debate at city hall, Sept. 27

Insisting on a single representative for each electoral ward or district inevitably leads to a continuing problem of readjustment of boundaries as populations change.

A simpler solution to fair representation by population is to draw boundaries using either traditional lines, such as the boundaries before amalgamation, or to use natural boundaries such as ravines and major highways like the 401 (not main streets which unite, not divide, communities).

The number of representatives in each district can then easily be adjusted to match the population as necessary with no change in boundaries.

This has the added advantage of providing voters with a much more diverse group of representatives who can relate to different views and cultures within their district.

Helen Riley, Toronto

While I sympathize with Mayor John Torys desire to keep costs down, it is false economy to do so at the cost of good government. While voter parity is important, both the Supreme Court of Canada and Elections Canada are on record as recognizing that important factors such as geography, community interests and community history are more important. Voter parity must not be implemented where it destroys neighbourhood identity and interests.

And thats what the 44 ward option does to my community, Leaside. It contradicts the Citys consultants own guidelines by dividing Leaside into two separate wards, with two separate councillors, ignoring Leasides historical, geographic and social connections, established since 1913 and continuing to the present day. It would inflict damaging results on our community, and possibly throughout the city.

The alternate option, which calls for 47 wards, preserves proper representation by preserving us as a single community within one ward. We strongly support this option.

You quote Councillor Pasternak, whose ward would also be harmed by the 44 ward option, as saying, To just erase the ward as if theres no history and meaning there is terribly misguided.

He is right. The value of the 47 ward option far outweighs its cost.

Carol Burtin Fripp, co-president, Leaside Property Owners Association, Ltd.

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The news keeps getting better for aerospace giant Boeing (BA) , ensuring that its order book remains brimming with lucrative contracts for decades.

Buy this blue chip ahead of what is expected to be a robust third-quarter earnings report.

First came this week's green light from the Obama administration for the company's $17.6 billion deal to sell various models of passenger airliners to Iran. The agreement is one of the most significant economic results of the international nuclear agreement with Iran that took effect in January.

Another windfall shortly followed, when it was reported Thursday that the White House has approved the long-delayed sale of Boeing combat jets to Kuwait and Qatar. Both deals should keep Boeing's production lines busy, regardless of the ups and downs of the broader economy or stock market.

This double shot of good news for Boeing positions the stock for market-beating growth.

The military mega-deal calls for 36 Boeing F-15 fighter jets, valued at about $4 billion, to be sold to Qatar. Kuwait would purchase 28 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets with the option for 12 more for about $3 billion.

The deal had been delayed by U.S. officials' worries over Qatar's alleged ties to armed Islamist groups, as well as concerns raised by Israel. Boeing management allayed those concerns.

Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with the Teal Group and one of the most widely followed experts in the aerospace/defense sector, put it succinctly: "The F-15 could conceivably live to see a half-century."

Boeing has been refurbishing the F-15 and F/A-18 with new technology, especially in the cockpit.

The U.S. generates more foreign sales of weapons systems than any other nation. One of America's fastest-growing military export niches is aircraft.

Middle Eastern nations, in particular, are clamoring for American-made combat aircraft that feature highly advanced technology. This demand will more than compensate for anticipated NATO belt-tightening.

Several developing countries are eager to defend themselves against age-old antagonists and homegrown dissent. The oil-rich Gulf States will remain loyal customers for Boeing, especially for its F-15s and Super Hornets.

Both planes are among the most popular fighter jet exports in the world and serve as the "aerial workhorses" for air forces around the world.

While it reaps a bonanza in military sales, Boeing's commercial business is enjoying boom times from economic recovery and rising consumer confidence.

Demand remains strong for Boeing's game-changing Dreamliner 787, a composite-built passenger aircraft. Aircraft made from composites enjoy reduced weight, improved fuel burn, and better resistance against corrosion and damage.

Boeing's fuel-efficient aircraft should enjoy even greater demand in the months ahead, as oil prices rise in the wake of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' deal in Algeria on Wednesday to curtail production.

The company is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings on Oct. 26. The average analyst consensus estimate is for earnings of $2.62 a share, compared with $2.52 a share a year earlier.

Boeing's trailing 12-month price-earnings ratio is 24.37, about in line with the trailing P/Es of peers Lockheed Martin (21.02) and Northrop Grumman (19.53).

Shares of Boeing are trading at more than $131 apiece. The average analyst one-year price target is $147.88, would represent a gain of nearly 12%.

---

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John Persinos is an editorial manager and investment analyst at Investing Daily.

He also serves as an aerospace analyst at the Teal Group consultancy.

At the time of publication, Persinos owned stock in BA.
PHILADELPHIA -- Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, fired off last year about the presidential race, saying "Donald Trump and I are kind of antithetical." Bogle wrote a book called Enough, about how readers should consider financial success in light of larger personal success. Meanwhile, Never Enough is the title of a biography of Donald Trump by Michael D'Antonio.

But at this year's Bogleheads meetup -- a gathering of Bogle admirers who get together to talk about index funds and visit the Vanguard headquarters -- "the T-word" was banned as a topic by the moderators. (And a few attendees wore pins saying "Jack Bogle for President" -- a prize from a prior Bogleheads meetup.)

Bogle still had plenty of opportunity to skewer other financial companies, however, and to lay out his solutions for what he called a retirement crisis.

The Wells Fargo Scandal

Wells Fargo (WFC) is being raked over the coals by Congress after it created bank and credit accounts without customer authorization. The scandal is tainting Wells Fargo's reputation; the bank was previously seen as quite ethical.

Bogle, a crusader for little-guy investors, talked about the scandal in a speech and question-and-answer session at the Bogleheads meeting Thursday.

Bogle said that, when he started out at Vanguard, "I did my best to disrupt an industry that was sadly in need of disruption." The unique mutual ownership structure of Vanguard -- in which shareholders are actually the owners of the funds -- incentivizes lower and lower fees. Bogle said that Vanguard has grown to hold $3.5 trillion in assets, and its funds comprise 22.8% of the mutual fund industry.

But, Bogle said that in the larger investing industry, "expense ratios haven't gone down the way you'd think they'd go down" with economies of scale. Instead, the other mutual fund companies have "taken all the economies of scale and have arrogated them to their own benefit." It's a "terrible flaw" of the industry, he said. "No man can serve two masters," he quoted from the Bible. In his view, mutual fund companies that operate for profit can't also fully serve the interests of investors.

The Wells Fargo scandal highlights "the role of integrity," Bogle said. Wells Fargo's employees were rewarded for creating new accounts, and 5,300 of those employees were fired for creating an estimated 2 million accounts without customer authorization. Wells Fargo's CEO John Stumpf has forefeited $41 million in unvested stock awards over the scandal, and he says he is abolishing the sales targets as of Oct. 1.

Bogle condemned the idea that financial institutions should reward creating new accounts. When he started Vanguard, he said, "We didn't have any incentives for selling more."

"I can't imagine anything that's more idiotic, that's more cutting to your integrity," he said.

The Retirement Crisis

In a question-and-answer session, Bogle was asked if there is a retirement crisis. "No, not at all -- there are three," he said.

The first crisis is in Social Security, he said. It's underfunded. Although fixing the shortfall is a "politically sensitive" task, Bogle called for an increase in the level of income that is taxed for Social Security. Currently, the first $118,500 earned by a taxpayer is taxed at 6.2% to pay for Social Security; any earnings above $118,500 are not taxed for Social Security. Bogle said that if the first $150,000 of income were taxed instead, that would go a long way toward solving the shortfall.

"We're all -- or at least I am -- living far longer than our expectations," Bogle said, and it's essential to support Social Security.

The second crisis Bogle identified is in pension funds. Both corporate and state and local pension funds have serious shortfalls, he said. "They're 35% behind the eight-ball," he commented, referring to the magnitude of the average shortfall.

Pension funds are making wrong assumptions, he said: "They're idiotically assuming they'll get a 7% or 8% return" on their assets, he said. But those returns are probably unrealistically optimistic.

Why are pensions underfunded? "Corporations are very stingy," Bogle said. They're unwilling to pay enough into the funds to fix the problem, he said.

And "state and local pensions are really in a bind" because they are constitutionally required to pay what they've promised, Bogle pointed out. "If there's no money left in the till, there's no money to pay the benefits," he said. "They're skating on thin ice," because states and municipalities will need to raise taxes to pay their bills. And nobody likes that.

The third crisis is in defined contribution plans -- like 401(k)s. "That's the worst problem of all," Bogle declared. "The teachers in this country are victimized by this."

Bogle said such plans are afflicted by high fees on the funds and large commissions paid to salespeople. "That's just not right," Bogle said. "That's where the fiduciary standard may help."

New regulations from the Obama administration and a Supreme Court decision have recently supported a fiduciary standard for these kind of plans, meaning that financial advisors will need to recommend plans that put investors' interests first.

"That's the death knell for high-cost plans right there," Bogle said. "Indeed, I would -- in my tough way -- say if you touch a penny of other people's money, you have to put their interests first."

"It's a question of morality," Bogle said.

Oh, and one other thing -- "People aren't putting money away" to have enough in their retirement accounts either, Bogle said.

Bogle on Hamilton

Bogle doesn't just work. (He's at least nominally retired, but he seems busier than ever.) Even he has fun sometimes.

Somehow Bogle managed to see Hamilton, the smash Broadway musical about the first Secretary of the Treasury, while Lin-Manuel Miranda was in the cast.

Bogle said he admired Miranda and has been thinking about something he said at the White House in 2009. Then, Miranda described the musical that he was writing. He said he admired Hamilton's remarkable rise from an illegitimate birth in the West Indies to become a founding father of the U.S. How did he do it? "All on the strength of his writing," Miranda said of Hamilton. "I think he embodies the word's ability to make a difference."

Bogle, who has written prolifically for a popular and academic audience, and who still pugnaciously defends index funds, also believes in the power of writing to change minds.

"If you're a missionary and have missionary zeal," you can go far, he said. "We investors are pretty stupid as a group" and love chasing returns. But with some discipline and a commitment to low fees, Bogle argued, investors can succeed. His Bogle on Mutual Funds was updated and rereleased in 2015 to help push investors toward lower-fee options. He's still preaching the same message as when the book was released more than 20 years ago.

Bogle on Bogle

Bogle mentioned that both billionaire Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) and Yale Chief Investment Officer David Swensen have supported his indexing and low-cost strategies. Buffett will leave 90% of his wife's inheritance in Vanguard index funds. And Swensen has recommended index funds, and Vanguard in particular, for investors.

"If I've got Swensen and Buffett on my side.... who can be against us?" Bogle asked.

Other stories on Bogleheads:

Meet the Ordinary People Vanguard's Jack Bogle Made Rich

Why Are These Vanguard 'Bogleheads' so Crazy for 'Saint' Jack Bogle?

Jack Bogle on Warren Buffett, Bill Gross and How to Invest in a Volatile Market

A Visit to the Vanguard Mothership With the 'Bogleheads'

Retirement Isn't a Pipe Dream -- and Here's How to Make It Happen

If You're a 'Boglehead,' Being Cheap Is the Way to Get Rich

Jack Bogle: Trump Is Wrong, ETFs Are Bogus and Foreign Investing Is Useless

Beware Risks That Aren't Priced Into Stocks: Vanguard's Gus Sauter
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Petrobras (PBR) were falling in mid-afternoon trading on Thursday after the Federal Union Party rejected the company's contract offer and began preparing to strike, Reuters reports.

The union planned to meet again with Petrobras at 1 p.m. EDT and has not called for workers to walk off the job.

Petrobras said the union's decision has not affected normal operations today, according to a company statement.

But several workers at the energy company's headquarters in Rio de Janiero blocked a heliport used to access the company's offshore oil fields in the Campos basin, Reuters notes.

Last week, Petrobras offered employees a 4.97% salary increase in exchange for no overtime wages and reduced work shifts, Reuters notes.

The company is currently struggling under $125 billion in debt and CEO Pedro Parente has recently vowed to cut costs, according to Reuters.

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 rated this stock as a "sell" with a ratings score of D+.

The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its generally high debt management risk, disappointing return on equity, weak operating cash flow and feeble growth in its earnings per share.

You can view the full analysis from the report here: PBR
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Tesla Motors (TSLA) were up in early morning trading on Friday after the electric vehicle maker said that a recent crash of one of its cars in Germany was not caused by the company's controversial autopilot feature, Reuters reports.

On Wednesday in Ratzeburg, Germany, a driver in a Tesla vehicle collided with a bus. The car's driver suffered minor injuries in the crash and no one on the bus was injured.

Although the driver said he was using Tesla's autopilot feature when the accident occurred, Tesla said his use of the system was "unrelated" to the accident.

The Palo Alto-based company said that the crash was unavoidable because the bus swerved into the driver's lane, and that "Autopilot was functioning properly" at the time, Reuters added, citing a company spokesperson.

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 rated this stock as a "sell" with a ratings score of D+.

The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its deteriorating net income, generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself and feeble growth in its earnings per share.

You can view the full analysis from the report here: TSLA
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Vectrusundefined were plunging 44.73% to $15.27 on heavy trading volume late Friday afternoon after the company's contract proposal was rejected by the U.S. Army.

The Colorado Springs-based company applied to offer comprehensive support services to the U.S. Army facilities in Kuwait.

Vectrus was the incumbent contractor providing the services under the Kuwait Base Operations and Security Support Services contract which runs through Dec. 28, the company said in a statement.

Vectrus is reviewing the Army's decision and will determine its impact as additional information is provided.

The company provides various logistics and supply chain management services to the U.S. government.

More than 2.33 million of the company's shares have changed hands so far today vs. its average volume of 111,148 shares per day.

Recently, 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 Vectrus as a Hold with a ratings score of C. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its increase in net income, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and attractive valuation levels. However, as a counter to these strengths, it also finds weaknesses including weak operating cash flow and poor profit margins.

You can view the full analysis from the report here: VEC



VEC

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Dianne Harrison, left, and Cynthia M. Clarke work on designs at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Hyattsville, Md., for their business, Copiosity, which sells internationally themed wrapping papers and greeting cards. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Dianne Harrison was out jogging in 2009 when she came up with an idea for a business.

The country was eking its way out of a recession. All around her, people were dealing with what seemed like a never-ending cycle of bad news.

But the greeting card industry had yet to catch up. Where, she wondered, were the cards and gift wrap bearing hopeful messages that African Americans, Latinos and people of other cultures could relate to? What could she send to a friend who was battling cancer or had just been laid off?

For people who are losing homes, losing jobs, losing all kinds of things, you dont want to say, Have a good day with a card with a smiley on it, Harrison, 56, said. You want to be able to send something that recognizes the gravity of the situation but you want it to be uplifting as well.

The stay-at-home mom partnered with a friend, Cynthia M. Clarke, 58, to create Copiosity, a Silver Spring-based business that specializes in offbeat wrapping paper and cards. Six years in, the companys products have landed in Whole Foods Markets, CVS stores and most recently, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which sells a line of wrapping paper called tapestries in its gift shop.

But the path to success has been a gradual one, fueled by small spurts of investments and incremental growth. The company, which expects to make about $100,000 this year, has yet to turn a profit. Harrison and Clarke remain its only employees.

Copiosity is at a crossroads as Harrison and Clarke wait to hear back from a number of national chains, including Walmart, Lowes and Giant Foods, about whether they will stock the companys products. It is a crucial time for the fledgling business, said Bruce Gitlin, a retired executive who works with Harrison and Clarke as part of the nonprofit Score Association, which provides mentoring for entrepreneurs.

Theyre on the runway, their wheels are up and theyre close to serious takeoff velocity, said Gitlin, a longtime Xerox executive and former chief executive of the technology firm ContentGuard. But theyre not that far off the ground yet. Theyre at a critical stage where theyve got to gain altitude and expand the business.

The key, Gitlin said, is to secure large-scale national deals. In a business like theirs, the more volume, the better.

At the beginning, for example, when Harrison and Clarke were ordering 1,000 rolls of wrapping paper at a time, they paid $1.20 per roll. Today, they pay about 80 cents apiece, with plans to sell about 60,000 rolls this holiday season. If they could scale up to about 400,000 rolls, that cost would drop to 30 cents per roll.

Harrison and Clarke got started by pooling their savings, borrowing from family and friends, and running up credit card bills. It took $50,000 to create their first line of prototypes. They spent months researching the market and testing ideas.

They had an idea, but the challenge was, how do you turn that idea into a business? Gitlin said. Does it make sense to do this? Will people want to buy your products? It took awhile to get going.

They incorporated Copiosity in April 2010. Two-and-a-half years later, they got their break when Whole Foods Markets agreed to stock wrapping paper and gift cards at a dozen area stores.

They decided to start where there was the most demand: holiday gift wrap. But instead of traditional Christmas patterns, they came up with whimsical prints such as cracked candy canes, as well as Kwanzaa-inspired designs in black, purple and gold.

That first holiday season, they sold $12,000 worth of wrapping paper in three weeks.

We went about it in a very methodical way, developing our product, testing it for years, Harrison said. Were both over 50, so we dont have room for major mistakes. Weve got to get this right the first time.

Today, their products are sold at 25 Whole Foods stores. The State Department and the Navy have placed orders for gift wrap. Among the companys best sellers is Nifty Wrap, a line of wrapping paper that comes with decorative stickers and stick-on googly eyes and feathers. Rolls of gift wrap typically sell for $5 to $7, while handmade cards cost $3.50 to $12 apiece.

Typically, most designs you find in other wrapping paper are tired, boring prints that you see every year, said Bill Gwynn, a buyer for Whole Foods Mid-Atlantic Region. The designs on Copiositys wrapping papers feature fun, playful prints that really set them apart.

The company is testing a line of bereavement cards for children and young adults, and it has a line of 30-day journals to help people reflect on big life changes. Among its wrapping papers are prints featuring pinatas and African textiles, as well as a contemporary Hanukkah line laden with silver-and-blue stripes and polka dots. A line of color-it-yourself cards includes greetings such as Feliz Navidad and Happy Kwanzaa.

Harrison and Clarke often collaborate with retailers for new products. The duo, who work out of the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Hyattsville, say it takes about six months to create each new design. It can take another year to 18 months for products to hit shelves.

In the case of Walmart, for example, meetings began more than two years ago. Harrison and Clarke flew to the companys Arkansas headquarters in July to present their products to buyers. Theyll meet again in October to make a final decision on products and designs.

If Walmart decides that it would like to stock the companys wrapping paper, Harrison and Clarke will design packaging that works for the stores shelves. From there, it will take another year to manufacture the items and send them across the country, in time for next holiday season.

Its a process, Clarke said, adding that each retailer asks for specific tweaks based on their needs.

Representatives for the home improvement chain Lowes, for example, told the duo to simplify their designs and scale back to two colors. Meanwhile, Ahold  the parent company of Giant Food  asked that they make their products more ethnic.

Our goal was to have broad appeal. Do we let Ahold go or do we try and do a couple of designs that appeal to them? Harrison said. Thats the question we have to answer. We havent decided yet.

There will be other questions to consider, too. So far, Harrison and Clarke have focused on selling to national retailers instead of individual consumers. It makes more sense, they say, to chase five- and six-figure deals than to sell wrapping paper by the roll. Eventually, that might change, which means they will have to figure out where to store excess inventory and how to ship items across the country.

If it all works out  if they score a couple of big contracts and get in at Walmart  Harrison says the company could rack up $5 million in annual revenue by 2018.

But after a seven-year slog to get their business off the ground, Clarke says she knows to be patient. We spent our first three-and-a-half years doing nothing but researching the market, she said. We dont have a problem taking our time.
Congo DongFang Mining/Huayou Cobalt: Huayou Cobalt, parent company of Congo DongFang Mining, admits to having insufficient awareness of supply chain management. It says it did not know that buying artisanal cobalt would increase directly or indirectly child labor and human rights risks. It has hired an outside company to conduct supply-chain due diligence, with a report on this topic expected later this year. It is also working with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters to develop guidelines for responsible mineral supply chains. The company said that to just avoid artisanal cobalt is actually an irresponsible business act, which would very possibly aggravate the local poverty in cobalt mining regions and worsen the livelihood of local legal artisanal miners.

Apple: The company said it is committed to working with Huayou to clean up the supply chain and to addressing underlying issues such as extreme poverty. Apple plans to increase scrutiny of how its cobalt is obtained but does not want to find remedies aimed at just making the supply chain look pretty. Starting in 2017, Apple will internally treat cobalt as a conflict mineral, requiring all cobalt refiners to agree to outside supply-chain audits and conduct risk assessments. The company also will soon, for the first time, include cobalt in an annual update of due-diligence efforts for its conflict-minerals supply chain. This goes beyond what current OECD guidelines call for. Apple also supports adding cobalt to the U.S. conflict-minerals law, which currently requires American firms to try to verify the source of tin, tungsten, titanium and gold used in their products.

LG Chem: The battery maker said that one of its suppliers, L&F Material, stopped using Huayous Congo-sourced cobalt in mid-2015. The company also has strengthened the code of conduct for LG Chem suppliers, especially for tracking down the origin of raw materials. The company now requires certificates of origin for some cobalt shipments. Today, Huayou supplies cobalt mined in New Caledonia, instead of Congo, for cathodes used by LG Chem. In response to a question expressing analysts doubts that the cobalt supply in New Caledonia was sufficient to replace what had been coming from Congo, LG Chem did not answer directly, replying in part that LG Chem has requested L&F to submit Certificate of Origin on every purchase they have supplied and we are checking the certificates on a routine basis. Also, the company said, based on contract terms and conditions between LG Chem and supplier, if a supplier does not show any improvements including submission of certificate etc., LG Chem will plan to cut off transactions with that supplier.

LG: Company said LG Chem, its main battery supplier, has responded to your questions directly.

Ford: Its battery supplier, LG Chem, has indicated that the batteries they supply Ford do not have a history of cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

General Motors: Its battery supplier, LG Chem, has instituted a process with its tiered cobalt supplier to prevent the use of cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo in GMs battery production. The GM battery plant in Holland, Mich., is owned by LG Chem, and LG Chem has told GM that the plant does not use products with Congo-sourced cobalt. We require our suppliers to comply with local and regional environmental laws and regulations and to be fair, humane and lawful employers, and to enforce similar requirements from their sub-suppliers.

Samsung SDI: Our ongoing investigation has not shown any presence of questionable cobalt in our suppliers supply chain. The company said it does use Congo-sourced cobalt and is aware of DRC sourcing risks, given the political instability and the poverty of DRC. Our investigation is also showing the incapacity of the government and of upstream players to keep an effective chain of custody on cobalt. . . . Samsung SDI does not tolerate any form of child labour or health and safety issues into its supply chain.

Samsung: The company did not address specific questions, instead issuing a statement that noted, in part, Samsung strives to improve human rights and avoid environmental degradation by establishing responsible and ethical supply chain management and encouraging its suppliers to participate.

BMW: It is correct that the BMW Group purchases battery cells from its supplier Samsung SDI. . . . Only some of the cobalt for BMW Group battery cells originates from the Democratic Republic of Congo. . . . We have established a process with these companies to ensure that all cobalt supplied by them is free from human rights abuses.

Amazon.com: The company did not respond to specific questions. It issued a statement noting, in part: We are committed to ensuring the highest standards in all areas of production and manufacturing. We work closely with our suppliers to ensure they meet our standards, and conduct a number of audits every year to ensure our manufacturing partners are in compliance with our policies. 

Pulead: We have asked our suppliers to adhere to their commitments and certify to us that they will not use child labor in their supply chain and no product that they sell to us is linked to illegal labor practices. Pulead called this a very complex issue that cannot be solved by a simple embargo against artisanal cobalt, as it would hurt Congolese miners. The company supports increased awareness, as everyone is monitoring everyone else along the supply chain.

Amperex Technology Ltd. (ATL): In response to a request for information about the companys role in the battery supply chain, a spokesperson for a subsidiary of TDK, the company that also owns ATL, wrote that TDK and ATL have replied that they would not take this interview as some information may not be disclosed to the publics.

L&F Material: Did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Hunan Shanshan: Did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

[Read story: Tracing the path from deadly hand-dug mines in Congo to consumers phones and laptops]
A Falcon 9 rocket set to take a satellite into space on Labor Day weekend exploded during testing days before. Courtesy of http://www.uslaunchreport.com/. (USLaunchReport)

A Falcon 9 rocket set to take a satellite into space on Labor Day weekend exploded during testing days before. Courtesy of http://www.uslaunchreport.com/. (USLaunchReport)

The long-running feud between Elon Musks space company and its fierce competitor United Launch Alliance took a bizarre twist this month when a SpaceX employee visited its facilities at Cape Canaveral, Fla., and asked for access to the roof of one of ULAs buildings.

About two weeks earlier, one of SpaceXs rockets blew up on a launchpad while it was awaiting an engine test. As part of the investigation, SpaceX officials had come across something suspicious they wanted to check out, according to three industry officials with knowledge of the episode. SpaceX had still images from video that appeared to show an odd shadow, then a white spot on the roof of a nearby building leased by ULA, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

The SpaceX representative explained to the ULA officials on site that it was trying to run down all possible leads in what was a cordial, not accusatory, encounter, according to the industry sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

The building, which had been used to refurbish rocket motors known as the SMARF, is just more than a mile away from the launchpad and has a clear line of sight to it. A representative from ULA ultimately denied the SpaceX employee access to the roof and instead called Air Force investigators, who inspected the roof and didnt find anything connecting it to the rocket explosion, the officials said.

The interaction between SpaceX and ULA has not been previously reported. It is the latest odd development in the mystery surrounding the explosion of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Sept. 1. The rocket blew up while it was being fueled ahead of an engine test fire, creating a huge fireball that charred the launchpad and rattled buildings miles away.

1 of 14 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  12 of the most stunning SpaceX photos View Photos From launch to floating in space, a look at SpaceX through the years. Caption From launches to floating in space, a look at SpaceX through the years. Feb. 6, 2018 The SpaceX Falcon Heavy launches from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida The worlds most powerful rocket, SpaceXs Falcon Heavy, blasted off on its highly anticipated maiden test flight, carrying CEO Elon Musks cherry red Tesla roadster to an orbit near Mars. Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue.

Elon Musk, SpaceXs founder and chief executive, has called the failure the most difficult and complex the company has ever had. About a week after the explosion, he pleaded with the public to turn in video or audio recordings of the blast and said that the company has not ruled out sabotage as a factor.

Particularly trying to understand the quieter bang sound a few seconds before the fireball goes off, he wrote on Twitter. May come from rocket or something else.

Since then, SpaceX, which is leading the investigation with help from the Air Force, NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration, said it is narrowing down on the cause of the explosion, focusing on a breach in a second-stage helium system.

At a conference in Mexico this week, Musk said that finding out what went wrong is the companys absolute top priority, but he said what caused the explosion is still unknown.

Weve eliminated all of the obvious possibilities for what occurred there, he said. So what remains are the less probable answers.

He didnt say what those might be.

The Air Forces 45th Space Wing, which is helping SpaceX with the investigation, declined to comment because the investigation is ongoing.

A SpaceX statement said that the Accident Investigation Team has an obligation to consider all possible causes of the anomaly, and we arent commenting on any specific potential cause until the investigation is complete.

SpaceX and ULA are heated rivals that are competing over national security contracts that together are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. For nearly a decade, ULA had a monopoly on those contracts as the only launch provider certified by the Air Force.

But in 2014, SpaceX sued the Air Force for the right to compete. Last year, the parties settled and SpaceX was finally granted its certification. As a result, ULA fired its chief executive and hired a new one who vowed to compete with SpaceX.

This week, 10 Republican House members, many friendly to ULA, told NASA that SpaceX should not be leading the investigation and that authority should be turned over to the federal government.

Even though the investigation continues, SpaceX has said it intends to return to flight as soon as November, a timeline that has drawn industry skepticism.
Q. Are you satisfied with the public response to your Kisan Yatra?



RG: Purpose of this yatra is to bring attention towards farmers' distress across India. This yatra is an expression of that idea. It is designed to make Mr. Narendra Modi aware of what a great injustice he is doing to our country, not just to poor farmers. The response to the yatra has been hugely positive because farmers are in deep pain. The farmers are crying out for help and no one is listening to them. Congress Party and I have only given expression to their voice.



Q. Are you not inspired to promise farm loan waiver because the Congress tasted massive success in 2009 General elections following a Rs 52,000 crore loan waiver in 2008?



RG: Several economists have told me that the 2008 loan waiver, coupled with schemes such as MGNREGA and remunerative MSP, propelled India to a healthy economic growth during the tenure of UPA government. It is not a slogan to gain electorally. It is the demand of the farmers and I speak to draw attention of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi to this yearning of farming class. I am making an appeal to the government. Modi government must pay attention to the demands of farmers and waive the loans of distressed farmers. If they will not do so, Congress will continue to provide alternative narrative for farm sector as a responsible opposition.



Q. But many argue that such populist promises threaten to derail the growth process in the country.



RG: If this is true, would offering loan waiver to select industrialists help the country to grow? Modi government has granted loan waiver to 15 big industrialists to the tune of Rs.1,10,000 crore. If Modiji is so generous to the rich, why is he merciless to poor farmers? I am not against development or industrialists. I am not even saying that government must not help industrialists. Let it do so. But it must not be discriminatory or at the cost of farmers and small traders. There should be a balance. Only then, India's growth can be truly inclusive.



Q. It is a State election and Samajwadi Party is in power in the State. Why are you then targeting Prime Minister Modi only holding him accountable for these issues?



RG: For me and the country, farmers' distress is a national issue. Cheap inputs as also remunerative MSP for agriculture produce are national issues. I am trying to attract the Prime Minister's attention to these issues. I am trying to remind him of his promises of giving 'cost + 50% profit' as Minimum Support Price of farmers' produce. I have every right as an Indian to seek accountability from him. As a Leader of Opposition, it is my duty to take the people's problems to the government.



Q. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Akhilesh Yadav has described you as a good boy. Will you like to return the compliment?



RG: At a personal level, I respect Akhilesh. He is a gentleman. As the Chief Minister of the State, he has failed to meet the expectations of the people. It makes me sad that a young leader like him elected by people was unable to deliver and wasted five important years.



Q. As you both like each other, can we expect to see an alliance between Congress and SP?



RG: We want to give a new vision to Uttar Pradesh. We want to build a new path of development and change for people of the State, especially the youth. On the other hand, SP government has failed to fulfill the aspirations of people of U.P. As I said, I am particularly disappointed that Akhilesh Yadav did not take a strong stance against corruption and goondaism. Hence, I believe that Congress Party's vision is the only answer for U.P.'s problems.



Q. Can we see an alliance after the polls?



RG: I have already answered the question. Congress Party is fighting the polls alone, based on its ideology and a new vision of development for Uttar Pradesh.



Q. Can we expect any form of alliance with the BSP? You have avoided attacking Mayawati in your speeches.



RG: Let me say again, Congress Party is fighting an electoral as also ideological battle. If you listen to my speeches carefully, I have pointed out the shortcomings of every political party, including SP, BSP and BJP. I believe that the compromises made by Mayawati ji after she became Chief Minister, have deeply hurt Uttar Pradesh as also the ideology of BSP. Let me also point out that currently, BSP is not in power. It is BJP and SP that are in power in Centre and State respectively.



Q. Why did you choose Sheila Dikshit as CM candidate? Are you trying to woo Brahmin voters?



RG: Caste was not a factor behind her selection. Congress Party stands for inclusive development, not development of any particular caste or religion. Dikshit ji has a proven track record of 15 years in Delhi. Congress and her symbolized development as also transformation for Delhi. She has her roots in Uttar Pradesh. So she was a natural selection.



Q. But she also had an inglorious exit in Delhi.



RG: Any government, which remains in power for 15 years, is bound to face certain amount of anti-incumbency. No government is perfect. But nobody can challenge her and Congress Party's performance in Delhi. In fact, people of Delhi are already comparing the systematically planned development under Congress for 15 years to the paralysis of governance that exists in Delhi today in a tug of war between Arvind Kejriwal and Narendra Modi.



Q. Unlike in the past, this time Congress has remained a united house in the State before the elections. What's the secret behind this unity? How have you kept it united till now?



RG: Perhaps, I have started to understand the Congress better. The Congress believes in accommodating diverse thought processes without compromising on its basic principles. Unlike the RSS or BJP, we don't believe in imposing one uniform thought. We respect the diversity of India. That is the reason Congress has remained the central force in India's social and political landscape for so long.



Q. Maybe this unity the consequence of the professional management of the campaign by election strategist Prashant Kishor.



RG: Kishor is not the strategist for the party. The strategy is devised by the Central and State leaders of the Party. Kishor executes the strategy. He looks after the operational part of it.



Q. You mean to say Kishor is the event manager?



RG: That is the Prime Minister. Kishor helps us in taking the strategy to its logical conclusion. It is a professional help. It is the Congress Party that takes political decisions.



--- ENDS ---

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Ahhh, how great to be back in Seattle, to the most precious and lampoonable version of that city as seen through the worried eyes of Eleanor Flood, the narrator and antiheroine of Maria Semples inventive third novel, Today Will Be Different.

Eleanor is chronically disappointed in herself, in her versions of wife- and motherhood; in her degrees of kindness, friendship, organization, pet ownership and yoga attendance. She is a graphic artist the way Bernadette of Semples genius second novel was an architect: in the past, with baggage and regrets. Clearly talented  not her boast  shed once been the artistic director of an animated television series, Looper Wash, about four girls in 60s-style pinafores and tangled hair who have an unconscious fear of puberty.

After almost a decade in dumpy Washington State, a fish out of New York waters, and about to turn 50, she is trying hard to be her better self despite a constant low-grade state of confusion. Her fallback is The Trick, so labeled by one of the nine shrinks shes seen in the past 20 years who handed me back my check and wished me luck. Its manifestation: If I see you about to criticize me, I leap in and criticize myself . . . so afraid of rejection that I turned every interaction into a life-or-death charm offensive.

Shouldnt baby steps toward self-improvement be as easy as a Sunday drive, she wonders? No. Then that prankster Reality appeared in the pickup truck ahead of me and started tossing watermelons out the back.

[Review: Whered You Go, Bernadette, by Maria Semple, is a Seattle sendup]

Among the goals shes not meeting is sex more often with her husband, Joe, a famous yet modest hand surgeon. We love him, too, this man who treats everyone the same. As Eleanor points out, Youd have to draw him a picture to explain why its cooler to save the pinkie of a Cy Young Award-winning pitcher than the wrist of a checkout lady with carpal tunnel.

Semples descriptions  no surprise to her fans  are loopy, deeply and darkly funny, and brave. Watch out, Seattle, which gets it from both sides: A restaurant has ebony walls, industrial ceiling, fabulous bursts of geometric music, and whimsical, but not too whimsical, chandeliers. A state fair, on the other hand, horrifies the native New Yorker with its parolee vibe.

Among the novels most endearing wiseacreage falls between Eleanor and her third-grader son, Timby, whose transgender inclinations secure instant admission to the Galer Street School and its fervent embrace of everything. (Galer Street was daughter Bees ruinously expensive private school in Whered You Go, Bernadette.)

Mommy time, the pediatrician recommends and Eleanor tries out on Timby, who is more familiar with his mothers impatience and anxiety, best experienced at a safe distance.

 Mommy time? he said, not unafraid.

Dont be nervous when I tell you that Today Will Be Different takes place over the course of a single day. This is Semple at the wheel with dialogue-perfect Timby in the back seat, racing from drop-off at school, to breakfast with Alonzo Wrenn (her regular Thursday-morning poetry tutor, hired with the hope that memorizing poems will improve her vocabulary and lucidity); back to school to get Timby (alleged stomachache); to the pediatrician; to her husbands office, where his absence feels maritally ominous; then lunch with a passive-aggressively grateful ex-Looper Wash employee; to the Olympic Sculpture Park; and onward to a destination that might reveal Dr. Joes new obsession.

Almost exactly halfway through the novel there is a return, novella-like, to Eleanors past and the love she has lost, that of her younger sister, Ivy. The interloper and villain is Ivys husband, Barnaby Bucky Fanning, a spoiled, red-faced, bullying only child of two of New Orleans finest families.

Author Maria Semple (Elke Van de Velde)

It is Eleanors wedding present, a hand-drawn scrapbook titled The Flood Girls, that offends the impossible Bucky and causes the shameful estrangement of the sisters. Inevitably, because of Eleanors New York City/non-Southern manners and alleged faux pas, Bucky turns Ivy, a near-Stockholm-syndrome wife, against her adoring older sister.

This New Orleans section switches to the third person. Wisely, Semple doesnt leaven the heartbreak with her trademark black comedy. How does she do in that more somber tone? Beautifully. Of course, she cant wholly abandon wryness: A girl comes, unforgivably, to a party at Buckys on the arm of her boyfriend, a film major, last name Geisler. Not German Catholic.

Ivys rejected wedding gift is ours to see. The novel includes 16 pages of beautiful illustrations, proof of Eleanors sherbet-colored aesthetic. If only she wasnt eight years past the deadline and the assigning editor hadnt switched careers, The Flood Girls could be expanded into a graphic novel.

Eventually, we find out whats up with Joe, whose unexplained absences beg the question: Was there someone else? Despite an upping of the activity from frenetic to madcap, the reveal to some may be underwhelming. The sentences that get us there are not. Semple is a master of the social skewer, boldly impolite and impolitic, illustrating the agita surrounding one normal day of white-people problems. Tomorrow could be different for our antiheroine. Shell initiate sex, look people in the eye and at least try to score tickets to see the pope, whos heading Seattles way. Eleanor is as sharp and Semple-esque as they come, which is to say a delightful danger to herself and others, sympathetic, and so very smart.

Good luck, Eleanor Flood. Were rooting for you.

Elinor Lipmans 11th novel, On Turpentine Lane, will be published in February.

On Nov. 3 at 7 p.m., Maria Semple will be at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington.
It has become increasingly clear that U.S.-born, Dublin-based Tana French is the most interesting, most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years. Now, with the publication of her sixth novel, The Trespasser, its time to recognize that Frenchs work renders absurd the lingering distinction between genre and literary fiction  the notion that although crime novels might be better plotted and more readable, only literary fiction, supposedly blessed with superior writing, characterizations and intellectual firepower, deserves the respect of serious readers.

"The Trespasser," by Tana French (Viking)

French pointedly rejects that dichotomy. Ive never been much for the artificial divide between literary fiction and genre fiction, she said in a recent interview. Ive never seen why audiences should be expected to be satisfied with either gripping plots or good writing. Why shouldnt they be offered both at once? All she is asking, for herself and other of the best crime writers, is that they not be denied critical recognition simply because they write about murders. For Gods sake, Hamlet is about a murder.

[Review: Tana Frenchs The Secret Place]

Frenchs new novel brings back the two young detectives from the Dublin Murder Squad, Antoinette Conway and Stephen Moran, who solved the prep-school slaying in her 2014 offering, The Secret Place. Conway narrates The Trespasser, and with her anger, intelligence and toughness emerges as Frenchs finest character yet. (Or would that still be Frank Mackey from Faithful Place? Hard to say.)

Conway and Moran are assigned to investigate the murder of a young woman found dead in her Dublin home. Her boyfriend is the initial suspect, which leaves the two less than thrilled to have the case, because it looks like a routine domestic killing and solving those carries no glory. Because the case against the boyfriend is circumstantial, Conway and Moran shift their attention to another suspect, only to have more senior detectives pressure them to arrest the boyfriend. The partners begin to fear that their colleagues have some agenda other than the truth.

Conway, the lone woman on the Murder Squad, has for months been a target for abuse. Her colleagues make ugly comments about her looks and presumed sex life; they steal documents from her desk; once she discovers that someone has spit in her coffee. She stubbornly refuses to bow to the sexism, because she loves being a detective. When its right, this job is the hit that speed freaks throw their lives away hunting, she says. Still, the hazing is tough, and shes starting to wonder if she should quit.

Tana French (Kathrin Baumbach)

As the investigation continues, French increasingly focuses on the Murder Squad itself, on the kind of men the detectives are and how they do their jobs. Many fine writers have written well about police work  Michael Connelly and the late, great Ed McBain leap to mind  but I dont recall any novel that digs more deeply into police culture, the tricks of the trade, the ugly side and the heroics, too, than French does here.

[Review: Tana Frenchs Faithful Place]

My only reservation about The Trespasser came when French had one character carry out a highly elaborate and dangerous scheme to inflict revenge on another. I felt much the same when French, in The Likeness, had a female detective impersonate a murdered woman who had been her virtual twin. I thought both events unlikely  but not impossible  and ultimately the skill and conviction of Frenchs narrative won me over.

Starting in 2007 with In the Woods, which won an Edgar Award and a slew of other prizes, all of Frenchs novels have been international bestsellers. The books have achieved this success because theyre unfailingly intelligent and beautifully written, and because they are never lurid  theres little sex or gratuitous gore in them. Their magic lies less in the crimes themselves than in the distinct new worlds French creates to showcase each of them. Readers understand and embrace her work; its time for more of the people who review books and award prizes to rethink the cliches about genres and recognize the excellence  the literary excellence  of her work.

Patrick Anderson regularly reviews mysteries and thrillers for The Washington Post.


Jonathan Monaghan, Imperial Genitals (2014), on view in the Mothership exhibition at Spagnuolo Gallery, Georgetown University. (Jonathan Monaghan)

The veneer of luxury fascinates and repels Jonathan Monaghan. The local artists computer-animated videos, two of which are in Spagnuolo Gallerys Mothership, depict gleaming fantasy worlds of space-age vehicles, ornate historical architecture and the sort of decorative items peddled on exclusive shopping streets. But grafted onto these fancy facades are body parts not generally acknowledged in polite society. Sacs, sphincters and such are integral elements of Monaghans compositions, and their presence suggests the influence of Matthew Barneys Cremaster films.

The show is made up of large color prints, black-and-white sketches and videos whose narratives spin in ceaseless loops. (All are produced with commercially available software.) The title piece is more explicit in its representation of a branded universe. Corporate logos abound, and Monaghan comments on both their ubiquity and their blankness: A spaceship carries the erstwhile AA insignia of American Airlines alongside one for another AA  American Apparel. Logos vary and shift but always promote a cycle of consumption as perpetual as those roundabout video scenarios.



Jonathan Monaghans Mothership, on view at Spagnuolo Gallery. (Jonathan Monaghan)

The longer and more recent Escape Pod centers on a duty-free shop that would fit a Pixar remake of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Although some of Monaghans creations incorporate fleshy bits, no full humans appear. Here the protagonist is a deer  mobile as if alive, yet glittering like pure gold. The animal arrives via floating pod, explores the extraterrestrial shopping mall and later reappears, amusingly, in a section of the tale set in what appears to a model upscale apartment in outer space. The deer resembles a piece of jewelry come to life, but its also one of the few things in Escape Pod that doesnt proceed with the stately, lumbering motion of an intergalactic ocean liner. The creature offers the possibility of spontaneity in a programmed cosmos.

Thats an illusion, of course. Every 20 minutes, our golden friend will pop out from the exact same hiding place, as reliable as a post-holiday sale.

Mothership: Animation and Digital Prints by Jonathan Monaghan On view through Oct. 16 at Spagnuolo Gallery, Georgetown University, 1221 36th St. NW. 202-687-9206. art.georgetown.edu/galleries.



HANDOUT IMAGE: Khadijah Wilson. "Practices of Looking," on view at the District of Columbia Arts Center. (Khadijah Wilson/District of Columbia Arts Center)

Public Displays of Privacy

The NSA has nothing to do with Public Displays of Privacy, a show of work by four young Washington women at the District of Columbia Arts Center. Whats private in these paintings, photographs and installations is female African American identity, represented both as an idea and by physical attributes.

Two of the paintings in Adrienne Gaithers Eye Dont See Color series are built from blocks of various flesh tones; in the third, blues and reds bracket solid black-and-white, metaphorical but not literal skin hues. Gaither also furnished a corner of the gallery with items from her home, including books and an African mask. Attached to the wall are Post-it notes scrawled with questions and exhortations.

Danielle Smiths skillful paintings depict young girls in old-fashioned white dresses and upscale surroundings. In a precise oil, a child hides behind fancy pillows. The artist switches to watercolor for looser renderings of the girls having a pillow fight. The kids are self-portraits of a sort, Smith writes, revealing a privileged black womans feeling of being neither here nor there, belonging but displaced.

Khadijah Wilson displays two handmade headpieces, connected by a strap and including mouth gags, as well as her photos of female models wearing them. The artist writes that the linked women represent the self and community, but some viewers may feel the images evoke subjugation.

There are no faces in Nakeya Browns playful photos, which represent black women through their hair and related appliances. Locks are set afire or dunked in a large pot, and a hair dryer takes the place of the receiver on an retro pink phone. The six images here dont exhaust Browns observations on the topic; she has four more hair pictures in Transformers Defy/Define, a nine-artist show that ponders a wider spectrum of identities.

Public Displays of Privacy On view through Oct. 16 at District of Columbia Arts Center, 2438 18th St. NW. 202-462-7833. dcartscenter.org.



HANDOUT IMAGE: Nicole Salimbene, "Mending," on view at Flashpoint. (Nicole Salimbene/Flashpoint)

Nicole Salimbene

The white-walled rectangle that is Flashpoint Gallery has been transformed into many things in the past few years. Currently, its a combination of workshop and Zen temple, where visitors are encouraged to sit or kneel at low tables and thread needles. The results of this interactive undertaking are not the only stitchery in Nicole Salimbenes Mending. There are also elaborate needle-and-thread installations on the walls and a long tangle of black thread stretched across one of those tables. Most striking visually is a series of primarily white paintings, burned and smoked with matches, whose blackened wounds have been stitched together.

A note explains that Salimbene intends to combine the art of mindfulness practice and the act of threading a single needle  Buddhism meets what was long considered womens work. But the D.C. artist also incorporates soil from Santuario de Chimao, a Roman Catholic shrine in New Mexico whose clay supposedly has healing powers. And Mending suggests the Jewish idea of tikkun olam, repairing creation through good works. For Salimbene, stitching is both a metaphor for improving the outer world and an activity that quiets the inner one.

Nicole Salimbene: Mending On view through Oct. 15 at Flashpoint Gallery, 916 G St. NW. 202-315-1305. culturaldc.org/visual-arts/flashpoint-gallery.

HANDOUT IMAGE: Antonia Ramis Miguel, "White Horses," oil 60" x 48"; on view at Watergate Gallery & Frame Design. (Antonia Ramis Miguel/Watergate Gallery & Frame Design)

Antonia Ramis Miguel

In Antonia Ramis Miguels previous show at the Watergate Gallery, her paintings of streetscapes were more persuasive than those of living things. But some of the strongest pictures in her Constructivism: The Structure are of horses, partly disassembled into planes of white, tan and brown. Perhaps Miguel would reject the division between animate and inanimate. One of her large horse paintings is neatly flanked by two small ones of chess pieces, including knights. In these parallel equine portraits, form trumps function.

The selection includes some near-abstracts, rendered in the Soviet constructivist-derived style Miguel adapted from Uruguays Joaquin Torres Garcia. The Spanish artist, who lives part time in Washington, also offers views of Madrid and Barcelona, most of them rendered more conventionally. Of the city scenes, the most compelling is Cathedral Interior, whose stained glass window complements Miguels penchant for fragmenting the image. Its an apt subject for an artist who often depicts the world as panes of color.

Antonia Ramis Miguel: Constructivism: The Structure On view through Oct. 15 at Watergate Gallery, 2552 Virginia Ave. NW. 202-338-4488. watergategalleryframedesign.com.


Shelter from the cosmic storm: Sarah Marshall and Tom Story rehearsing Angels in America at Round House Theater, which is collaborating on the two-part drama with the Olney Theatre Center. (Bill O'Leary)

The great work begins, declares the angel crashing into the drama of Millennium Approaches, the first installment of Tony Kushners two-part, seven-hour opus, Angels in America.

For Round House Theatre and Olney Theatre Center, the work began 18 months ago on a joint production that would bring a rare epic scale to Kushners acclaimed marathon. Rehearsals began July 12 at Round House, where the show is being presented in partnership with the troupes Montgomery County colleagues at Olney. Millennium Approaches started performances Sept. 7.

[Peter Marks reviews the first part of Angels in America]

Now comes the hard part: Perestroika, the involved, fantastical, theoretical conclusion thats so daunting, some companies dont even try it, even though that leaves the story literally hanging in midair.

Its more complex, Round House Artistic Director Ryan Rilette says of Perestroika, his half of the venture, which began previews Sept. 27. (Olney head Jason Loewith directed Millennium; the shows will run in rotating rep through October.) Momentum builds in Millennium and splinters in Perestroika; its about putting the pieces back together again. Because the magic in this is so big and so spectacle-filled, that helps push it along.

Kushners agonizingly personal play about political opportunism and the AIDS epidemic had a famously complicated birth, with early productions both small (at San Franciscos Eureka Theatre) and large (on Broadway). For all its acclaim  Rilette reasonably calls it one of the five greatest plays of the 20th century  Angels hasnt been seen on a large scale since the 1995 tour at the Kennedy Center.

Still, it was the first title Rilette and Loewith thought about when they brainstormed what their theaters might do together, especially when they considered what might take the strength of two troupes to do. The companies have pooled resources to buy extra time, top Washington-area talent and even technical equipment to make their Angels big.



Round House Artistic Director Ryan Rilette, left, and Olney Theatre Center Artistic Director Jason Loewith. (Bill O'Leary)

To do both plays for any one company is draining and exhausting, Loewith says, sitting in the Round House balcony with Rilette during a break in Perestroika technical rehearsals. To devote two season slots to this is an enormous risk. What if the first play doesnt do as well as we hoped? That will affect the second play. But if we lose money, were not going to lose as much, because well share that loss.

Combining audiences is one aim of the partnership; apparently theatergoers dont often commute between the two outfits. (That narrow selection seems to be a citywide issue.) Rilette says that Round House, which is practically on top of Metros Bethesda stop, experiences more audience crossover with downtown troupes than it does with Olney.

The artistic directors conspired to be timely: We thought very much about the fact that this was going to be right before the election, Rilette says. I dont think that either one of us would have guessed that Donald Trump was going to be the nominee at that point, but in a weird way the play has become more urgent because of that. There are parts of this play that feel even more relevant than when they were written.

The demands of going big

Kushners story demands enormousness, and when Loewiths Millennium leaps to a snowy Antarctica, the emptiness feels frigid and vast.

Rilette says of his stage: This is a big space. If you do an epic play in a big space, and you do it in a minimal way, it doesnt feel like it fits right.

Set designer James Kronzer provided projections designer Clint Allen with a massive, fairly neutral structure as a canvas for the shows encompassing video imagery. A grand staircase leads to a wall of industrial windows, which Allen sees as a vague train station  apt for a tale about struggling to move forward.

He also sees the design as a membrane between Heaven and Earth, with projections as key to creating the cosmic enchantment. When, for instance, Jon Hudson Odom enters as the character Mr. Lies (a figment of another characters imagination), audiences see a video image of him on the sets second level. With a split-second whoosh of Joshua Horvaths sound design and a blur of York Kennedys lights, Odom suddenly appears at ground level, as if whisked by a supernatural elevator.

The angel is an increasingly visible and noisy presence even before the winged figure, played by Dawn Ursula, finally appears. Projections shimmer and sound rumbles when heaven quakes; Allen shows how areas of pink light wobble like Jello at the edge of a scene.

Its activated, Allen says. Its alive.

Flat recorded imagery can be distracting behind live actors, Allen thinks. This makes it more believable, he says of projections swamping the stage. The actor is enveloped in it.

Amplifying the effect, Round House has a trap door, a lift under the stage and some new motorized machinery that Olney doesnt have, which is largely why the show is in Bethesda. For $4,000, the team rented a $50,000 projector, the same sort employed by the dazzling design of Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (which uses four of the devices).

The cost to replace a lightbulb: $1,500.

Oh, and theres also the traditional yet complicated stage flying for the angel, which required specialized gear and training, and takes four people to operate  not including Ursula.

Two directors: Better than one?

Rilette and Loewith not only had to agree on casting and design; they also had to figure how  and if  they would share a vocabulary.

Rilettes example: For Perestroika, did he really want to use the same sorts of projections and sound Loewith was coming up with to punctuate acts in Millennium? Would different choices wreck the tone of the saga?

In the end, he didnt, but not because he couldnt. He simply liked Allens idea.

Jason and I come at things differently in some cases, but were always trying to get the same solution, Rilette says. He adds that the most difficult part has been the math  working around a trapdoor thats often open (it doesnt have a sun roof, meaning a slide that closes when the floor has been lowered), and keeping track of which characters are associated with certain areas of the wide two-level set.

Political roles of a lifetime

The commitment to Angels has tied up the casts in-demand actors longer than usual, but they see at least three payoffs: juicy roles, extra time to master the daunting script, and the buzz of being in the most politically relevant play around town.

There are really great arguments to be had no matter who you are in this play, says Mitchell Hebert, the shows bete noire as the hyperaggressive, closeted gay lawyer Roy Cohn, a historical figure whose connections to Donald Trump have been noted lately. The immersion, the amount of time were allowed to spend in this, is pretty great.

[Roy Cohns influence on Donald Trump]

I dont know how I could have understood this play  the seven hours of it  without having that amount of time to work on it, says Tom Story, who plays AIDS patient and Angels centerpiece Prior Walter. Its emotionally demanding, vocally demanding, intellectually demanding and technically demanding. It doesnt feel normal. And it feels like a prophecy sometimes. Were talking about America right now.

Hebert says: In Perestroika I say, The lawyers are the high priests of America. We alone know the words that invented America out of thin air, and we alone know how to use those words. And we heard Trumps speech at the convention: I alone . . . 

Story mentions a famous line from the gay black nurse Belize about the word free in the national anthem being pitched so high no one can reach it. Talking about the national anthem as an African American man? Story says. Just turn on the news.

Ursula adds another pungent line: I dont have to love America. I have to live in it.

There is still so much work to be done for all people who are not straight white men, Story says. No offense to those in the room.

Hebert, grinning wickedly and putting on his strident Roy Cohn squawk, barks: None taken!

Angels in America, by Tony Kushner. Directed by Jason Loewith (Part I: Millennium Approaches) and Ryan Rilette (Part II: Perestroika). Through Oct. 30. 4545 East-West Hwy., Bethesda. Tickets $30-$61, subject to change. Call 240-644-1100 or visit roundhousetheatre.org.


Actress Marg Helgenberger of CSI fame is starring in Arena Stage's "The Little Foxes." She is pictured in a rehearsal room at the theater. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Youd think after two celebrated network TV series and an Emmy Award, Marg Helgenberger could pretty much waltz onto a Broadway stage. But the silos of showbiz dont bend quite that accommodatingly. Sure, her roles on China Beach and, even more prominently, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, earned her respect and quick entree to important people, but she has still had to wait in line for the right part.

In spring 2012, soon after leaving CSI, she had meetings with theater people in New York, just to let them know, Hey, here I am, Im going to be available.  The reception was encouraging: Wed love to have you, they told her. Still, the mechanics of securing a part  coming in from the West Coast to audition, for instance  were a problem. So the offers didnt exactly flow.

There are a lot of people who are established as stage actors, and, you know, they tend to go for the ones they know, the ones where they know what theyre going to get, she says. And I get that. I really do.

All of which explains, in a sense, how Helgenberger, in late summer, came to be flying from her home in Los Angeles to Washington to begin work at Arena Stage on a monster of a role in a great American play. Work at a regional theater might be a half-step less risky, but it is nevertheless a high-stakes assignment for an accomplished 57-year-old actress seeking to pivot to the next phase of her career. The job presents her with the most volcanic stage challenge of her professional life. The performance also could bolster this Northwestern University graduates credibility as she tries to segue to other theater work and widen the variety of roles shes thought of for. And all at an age that, fairly or not, amounts to a challenging turning point, even for actresses of Helgenbergers caliber.



Marg Helgenberger as Regina Giddens in Lillian Hellmans The Little Foxes, running Sept. 23-Oct. 30 at Arena Stage. (C. Stanley Photography)

Regina Giddens, the ruthless Alabama schemer of Lillian Hellmans scalding family drama, The Little Foxes, is the mountain Helgenberger is scaling. Although the actress is quick to note that the 10-character 1939 play requires a strong ensemble  her castmates at Arena include Edward Gero, Jack Willis, Isabel Keating and Greg Linington  Hellmans best-known play historically rises or falls on the strength of its Regina.

The list of powerhouse actresses who have played her attests to this truism: Tallulah Bankhead in the original Broadway production, which started at Washingtons National Theatre; Bette Davis in the 1941 film version, directed by William Wyler; Elizabeth Taylor in a 1981 Broadway revival. Next spring, there will be yet another incarnation of the play at Broadways Manhattan Theater Club, with Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon alternating in the roles of Regina and her alcoholic sister in-law, Birdie Hubbard, a part being played at Arena by Keating.

I have to be the one thats the eye of the hurricane, Helgenberger cheerfully observes, sitting in a sleek Arena conference room on a warm morning before the days rehearsals begin.

I keep coming back to the brilliance of the writing. Hellman crafted it in a way that the characters are so complex, Im sure that if I were doing this for six months, Id be saying, Ohhh  thats what she meant! 



Design inspirations for Helgenbergers role as Regina are posted on the theaters rehearsal room wall. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Molly Smith, Arenas artistic director, thought of Helgenberger when she was putting together what would become the companys Lillian Hellman Festival, an event bookended by The Little Foxes and later this season, Hellmans World War II thriller, Watch on the Rhine. And Smith had a sense, she says, that the actress would be eager to sign up.

Theater is seen as a pinnacle for an artists work, because of the rehearsal period, the literary nature of the theater, and because an actor needs to drive through a 2 -hour performance, Smith says. There is a hunger to be in front of a live audience. Its the ground on which we stand.

It was Helgenbergers television work, which saw her in roles with sordid underpinnings  as a tough, troubled, sometimes heroin addict on the Vietnam War drama China Beach, and an exotic-dancer-turned-FBI-criminalist on the long-running CSI  that made her seem a good match for conniving Regina. (She also once upon a time played murder victim Jon-Benet Ramseys mother, Patsy, in a television miniseries.) Regina is a strong woman forced in the hidebound South of the early 20th century to rely on cunning, and despite the personal cost, to outmaneuver her greedy brothers in the familys ongoing financial warfare.

I knew she could pull off the glamour, the steeliness, the iciness, says director Kyle Donnelly, whose myriad previous assignments for Arena have been as diverse as Garson Kanins Born Yesterday and Jon Robin Baitzs Other Desert Cities. She and Helgenberger first got together in Southern California, where they both live, to talk about the role. They hit it off, in part because the director recognized in the actress aspects of her personality that television didnt always take advantage of.

Were both mothers; we both have kids, Donnelly says. What I look for with someone is where they are from, what are their roots. Thats a big deal to me, because people can access things you wouldnt see on the surface. The actresss middle-American origins  shes from a small farm town in Nebraska  meant a lot to me, the director says. That Midwestern openness came through in ways suggesting to Donnelly a Regina whos also a mother, and one who wouldnt be one-dimensional.

The trap in this play is that the good guys could just be good guys and the bad guys, bad guys, she says. But the good guys have to have their faults, and bad guys, vulnerabilities. Some of that, she saw in Helgenberger. That makes it to me, Donnelly adds, a much more interesting play.

Marg Helgenberger. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

Helgenbergers career hopes evolved, it seems, without a trace of Reginas guile. After two years at a state college in Nebraska, she transferred to Northwestern to study drama, at the urging, she says, of her then-boyfriend, who wanted to pursue a medical degree in Chicago. (She got in; he didnt.) She was never completely convinced, though, that she could earn a living as an actress, because I didnt know anyone who had a career as an actor in Nebraska.

At Northwestern, she played Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire and Kate in The Taming of the Shrew; her Petruchio was Bruce Norris, who later would write the Pulitzer Prize-winning Clybourne Park. She was in other shows, including a production of The Threepenny Opera with another student by the name of Julia Louis-Dreyfus. It just so happened that an agent saw her in Shrew, and that led to a screen test for a soap opera, Ryans Hope, that was shot in studios in New York City.

Cast a couple of weeks out of school as Siobhan Ryan, the youngest of the blue-collar Ryan clan, she moved to New York and embarked on an actors life that, with only a few dry spells, would keep her steadily employed on network TV from 1982 until her departure from CSI almost 30 years later. I want to say it was $375 an episode, with a guarantee of two episodes a week, she says, recalling her starting salary on the soap. To calculate her reported wages on CSI, raise that figure somewhere into the hundreds of thousands.

China Beach, an ABC series that debuted in 1987 and was based on the experiences of Vietnam War veterans, was a ratings-challenged critics darling starring Dana Delaney (and winning Helgenberger her Emmy). It didnt have the best ratings, right? So ABC started moving it [on the weekly schedule]. Thats a surefire way of killing your audience. Especially in those days. VCRs existed, but very few people knew how to program them!

CSI, she says was the complete opposite: It premiered [in 2000] to, I think, 18.9 million viewers. With little fanfare. The audience clearly was thirsty for a 21st-century Sherlock Holmes-type show.

Helgenberger notes that she was one of the few actors who actually watched an autopsy to help her with the authenticity of her portrayal of her character, blood splatter specialist Catherine Willows. (She tells an absorbing story about following on her rounds a Las Vegas criminalist on whom her character was loosely based, and arriving with her at the scene of a fresh crime scene investigation.) To explore Regina, though, she turned to books  Hellmans 1973 memoir, Pentimento, among others  and a fuller immersion in the story of the Hubbards, based on the playwrights own family.

I still feel like Ive got so much more to learn, Helgenberger says of the craft she has pursued for decades. Her 25-year-old son, Hugh, with actor Alan Rosenberg (theyre now divorced), is off teaching English in Japan. She has a dog she misses, too, back in California, but shes enjoying the companionship forged through the family of Foxes.

A lot of the actors on the show, theyve done so much theater, and I sit there and listen to them talk about what this production or that one was like. she says. Its like music to my ears. I love the theater. And so I feel like a kid again.

The Little Foxes, by Lillian Hellman. Directed by Kyle Donnelly. Tickets, $65-$100. Through Oct. 30 at Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St. SW. Visit arenastage.org or call 202-488-3300.
The couple, Patricia Raspberry, center left, and Renee Raymond, center right, pose with their wedding party on Sept. 17 at Arena Stage in Washington. The two were introduced through a mutual friend in June 2011. (Valerie C. Robinson)

In June 2010, after ending a long-distance relationship, Renee Raymond decided to take a sabbatical from dating. It was time to let destiny take its course.

I needed to be very clear with myself, and the universe, about what I wanted, who I was, and what worked for me and what didnt work for me, which is not something I had done in a meaningful way before, says Renee, 56. It was like, Let me take a minute and pause for my cause. 

Little did she know that 700 miles away, in Chicago, her future wife, Patricia Raspberry, was doing the exact same thing.

Having recently ended a long-term, long-distance relationship, Patricia similarly decided that a year-long dating hiatus was the best course to help ensure her happiness.

I got very specific about what it was that I wanted in, and from, a relationship, says Patricia, 47. She began journaling and listing all of the characteristics she hoped to find in a partner, including quirky, super smart, intuitive, spiritual and humble.

Patricia Raspberry sits in the audience with her bridesmaids. (Valerie Robinson of Photography by Valerie)

Luckily, fate, in the form of a mutual friend, intervened. She was relentless! Patricia recalled. She kept saying, I believe that a higher spirit is telling me that you two have to meet. 

[Are you getting married in the Washington region? Tell us why we should feature your nuptials here]

In June 2011, while Patricia was in Washington helping to plan her sisters wedding, the friend arranged a group dinner at Oyamel in Chinatown. And, as she suspected, the connection and chemistry between Renee and Patricia was immediate and palpable.

Renee says she knew then and there that she would marry Patricia, if given the chance.

I was completely floored with how beautiful she was, says Renee, a magistrate judge in the D.C. superior court system. When she spoke, and this deep voice came out of this beautiful face, I started getting dizzy and physically became clumsy.

(Thats not an exaggeration. Weeks into dating, Renee says, she bought a balance bracelet to help level her. Meeting her really shifted my entire internal axis, she says.)

After dinner, they left the group and moved their discussion to Room 11, where they continued talking for hours. They were shocked at how similarly they approached life  religion, careers, even music.

Patricia Raspberry and Renee Raymond pose on a balcony at Arena Stage in Washington on Sept. 17. (Valerie Robinson of Photography by Valerie)

We interpret music the same way. We really feel it, in the same moment, the same sound, Patricia says. We will listen to a song and at the very same beat, well both just go, Mmm. I mean, it happens so often now, we just laugh.

They each left with the others number, and a feeling of hope and confidence.

It was like we had literally put out in the universe, This is what I want. Im ready! and it went, Okay, here you go,  Patricia says, laughing.

Over the next few weeks, they saw each other frequently, going to concerts and dance clubs and driving around Rock Creek Park.

Things progressed rapidly, and, by the end of June, Patricia had invited Renee to a family brunch at her parents house in Washington the weekend of her sisters wedding.

Renees in the kitchen, rolling up her sleeves and helping out with everything, Patricia says. And at one point, I see shes carrying a plate of cobbler. I ask, Where are you going with that? She says, Im taking it to Ma! 

In December, Renee flew to Chicago, helped Patricia pack up her cats and her belongings, and moved her into her home in Washington.

It didnt feel fast. It felt completely right, Renee says. Like it just made sense.

Shortly after the move, Patricias father, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist William Raspberry, asked, or rather insisted, that Patricia invite Renee to dinner with the family and his close friends at his home in Washington.

Hours later, after a night of laughter and good conversation, Patricia found herself getting emotional. I got in the car and started crying, she recalls. I remember thinking, This is what I always wanted and at one point I thought I might never have it.  She stopped the car, ran back into the house and gave her father a huge hug.

Soon, they were spending every Sunday night at Patricias parents house. A year later, William Raspberry died of prostate cancer.

He was setting the stage so that she and my mom would be closer, and that we would be okay when he was no longer here with us, Patricia says. It was beautiful.

They keep up the tradition today, sharing dinner every Sunday with Patricias mother, Sondra, whom Renee still calls Ma.

Her profound love for my family is so deep, true and natural, says Patricia, a social psychologist and founder of Black Raspberry Consumer Insights, a D.C. qualitative research firm. There are no in-laws in our family. We are really just a big family.

Both were convinced they had found their perfect match. A friends partner once told me, Youre going to have to let go of this whole notion that you can have someone who is funky, cool and super smart, all wrapped up in one package. Its never going to happen for you,  says Patricia. I never forgot it, because I never believed her. And when I met Renee, I thought, I finally got it. 

[She saw her first love on the 11 oclock news. Four months later, they were engaged.]

In March 2014, during a three-week trip to Bali for Patricias 45th birthday, Renee proposed. Not wanting to risk losing the engagement ring, she presented Patricia with a makeshift, sand-grass ring at Kuta Beach.

We later read that kuta means our,  Renee says. It was literally just us on our beach, Patricia adds.

Intimidated by wedding preparation, the couple put off planning specifics for some time. But after the landmark Supreme Court decision in June 2015 that affirmed same-sex marriage as a constitutional right, they felt lucky and privileged to be able to share the wedding with their loved ones when, where and how they wanted.

All of our friends and family were absolutely ecstatic [with the news]. You could just feel this energy, Renee says. It must have felt like when the 13th or 14th Amendment was passed. It was like we were beginning to be seen, really seen.

It also increased the excitement  and pressure  for the couple to pick a wedding date. As soon as the Supreme Court said, Its all right, you can get married now, then people really began [asking], So, when are you getting married?  Renee says.

And it became not cool to keep saying, I dont know!  Patricia added.

On Sept. 17, Renee and Patricia were married at Arena Stage in Washington. The brides, meeting from opposite sides of the theater, walked down one of the aisles together, hand in hand.

Many of the 230 guests became misty-eyed as the couple exchanged personalized vows.

The moment I met you, my entire life shifted and I knew that neither it, nor I, would ever be the same, Patricia said. My soul exhaled because I had finally found you.

More from On Love:

A fender bender brings a couple back together after 33 years

She was told 50 first dates was the key to relationship success. He was No. 98.

Wedding trends: Enough with the white dresses

Are you getting married in the Washington region? Tell us why we should feature your nuptials here at wapo.st/weddings.
Toll roads mean trouble for frequent travelers, especially when theyre surprised by fees charged by rental-car companies for using their electronic toll-pay systems. The Posts Christopher Elliott shares some tips on how to avoid additional expenses on toll roads. (Erin Patrick O'Connor,Dani Johnson/The Washington Post)

Toll roads mean trouble for frequent travelers, especially when theyre surprised by fees charged by rental-car companies for using their electronic toll-pay systems. The Posts Christopher Elliott shares some tips on how to avoid additional expenses on toll roads. (Erin Patrick O'Connor,Dani Johnson/The Washington Post)

Car-rental companies are collecting millions in toll fees  from their customers.

When he crossed the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge in Northern California, James Kaiser expected Avis to bill him for the $5 toll. It did, then it added a convenience fee  of $19.75.

I had no idea Id be charged that much, says Kaiser, a photographer and guidebook author who had been on assignment in Yosemite National Park. No one explained how the system worked.

To Kaiser, the fees seem excessive, and he wonders where all the money is going. It turns out that there are a lot of motorists like him who are also looking for answers.

They recently got one, courtesy of suits and countersuits between BancPass and Highway Toll Administration (HTA). In case youre just tuning in, BancPass makes a smartphone app for paying tolls; HTA is a company that offers electronic toll-payment services for several large car-rental companies. BancPass claims HTA interfered with its business when it pressured Apple and Google to remove PToll from its app stores in 2014.

[A pending bill would prohibit retribution for negative TripAdvisor and Yelp reviews]

Court documents suggest that car-rental customers pay millions in combined fees and tolls every year. David Centner, HTAs chief executive, says that most of the money collected covers tolls, not fees. Even so, the courtroom revelations bring up an important question: How do you avoid these fees the next time you rent a car?

Public court filings and statements made in open court by HTAs lawyers indicate that the fees beyond actual tolls collected by car-rental companies could be as high as $250 million annually, with at least half of that going directly to the companies. Thats the conclusion of Glenn Deitiker, president of BancPass, who said he believes tolls and the related fees are a massive profit center for car-rental companies.

That is why the car-rental industry came down so hard on us, he said.

Centner, however, says that HTA is not making hundreds of millions of dollars on this program.

Rental car tolls and fees have been something of a mystery for years. Avis explains the system Kaiser encountered, called e-Toll, as an electronic toll-collection program that makes road travel more convenient. The transponders, which come preinstalled in vehicles that are used where toll roads are common, offer an optional way to pay for tolls, according to the company.

Kaiser could have paid his bridge toll in cash and avoided the fees  but if a camera caught a glimpse of his plate in a noncash lane, then he would have automatically enrolled himself in the program. And the program is not cheap. Avis charges a convenience fee of $3.95 for each day of the entire rental period, including any days on which e-Toll is not used, up to a maximum of $19.75 per rental month, plus any tolls at the maximum prevailing rates posted by the toll authority.

Other car-rental customers are frustrated by the fees, too. When Jen Coken rented a car from Enterprise in Rockville, Md., recently, she asked if she could also rent a toll transponder. They told me to just go through the tolls and they will bill me later, recalls Coken, a voice-over actor who lives in Rockville. What they didnt share was that they would be charging me an extra fee on top of the tolls.

Cokens bill shows that Enterprise charged her $3.95 per transponder usage day plus the amount of the tolls. When she called the company to complain about the charges, it promptly refunded them.

[The too-good-to-be-true prices in glossy travel brochures are often just that]

Ms. Coken, when she initially rented the vehicle, either got some bad information from a very confused employee or she misunderstood how the program works, says Laura Bryant, an Enterprise spokeswoman. Our toll program was never set up to do anything more than just break even. Just the opposite: We, along with the rest of the car-rental industry, have had to figure out how to help frustrated customers when manned toll booths went away.

Shes right. As the number of toll roads multiplied, rental-car companies found it increasingly difficult to bill customers for the toll penalties they incurred while driving rental vehicles. Years ago, before electronic tolling, it wasnt uncommon to see toll bills with processing fees that exceeded the cost of the rental cars. The reason? Each bill had to be manually matched to the renter, a time-consuming process.

Billing policies for toll roads vary widely. For example, Hertz charges $4.95 per day for PlatePass, its electronic tolling product, up to a maximum of $24.75 per rental, but it keeps charging you by the day even if you dont incur a toll. If you dont opt in to Sixts proprietary tolling program (rates vary by state), and do not pay tolls with cash or a credit card, you are automatically enrolled in its pay-per-use program, which is the cost of the toll plus a $5 administration fee per toll.

Whether these tolling systems are a source of profits or not, one thing is clear: Theyre pretty confusing.

Consider what happened to Harvey Moshman, a television producer from Chicago, when he recently rented a car from Advantage in Orlando. It charges $7 per day for Pay-By-Plate, its tolling program.

Pay-By-Plate is not explained to you at the counter, he says. On the rental agreement, it states that any manned or unmanned toll that you violate during the rental period will result in a $25 administrative fee per toll violation. To me, violate means willfully deciding not to pay  to blow through a tollbooth.

But he didnt willfully commit any toll violations. Rather, he used toll roads that didnt have any booths, not realizing that doing so without a payment device would incur a penalty. There was no opportunity to pay, he says.

[When travel companies sell their mailing lists, junk mail becomes an unwanted souvenir]

Total damage: $77.38 for three tolls.

Advantage may not have told him about the fees verbally, but his rental agreement and the company website are clear. Advantage promotes its system as one that offers speed and convenience for customers, explaining that drivers will pay the cash or pay-by-mail toll rate as published by the toll authority, whichever is higher, plus a service fee per rental day or a maximum monthly fee. The fees vary by location.

Is there a better way? Certainly, having an app or another way of settling your toll could help consumers. Its hard to imagine HTA fighting a company like BancPass unless a lot of money is at stake. Hundreds of millions of dollars a year, maybe.

In the meantime, if youre renting a car, and are considering using a bridge, tunnel or toll road, make sure you study the rental agreement carefully. If youre not sure of the fees, choose an alternate route  just to be safe.

Elliott is a consumer advocate, journalist and co-founder of the advocacy group Travelers United. Email him at chris@elliott.org.
Donte Crawford, 18, was acquitted of first-degree murder Friday in the stabbing death of Ananias Jolley at Renaissance Academy High School in Baltimore. (N/A/Baltimore Police)

Before Donte Crawford was accused of stabbing a classmate in the heart at their West Baltimore high school, he had been bullied for months, he and his relatives told a Baltimore jury.

Crawford, now 18, testified Friday at his trial for first-degree murder that 17-year-old Ananias Jolley and some of his friends had been tormenting him, according to the Baltimore Sun. They attacked him after school, he said, and ridiculed him about his mother, who would show up at Renaissance Academy High School intoxicated.

One of Crawfords cousins testified that he was there when the teenager was kicked and punched repeatedly, the Sun reported. Another cousin told the jury that the family tried to remove the teenager from Renaissance because he was being threatened.

Relatives said they went with Crawford to Jolleys house to try to make peace. But Jolley, a senior who dreamed of becoming an architect, wasnt home.

[He wanted to be an architect, but a knife pierced his heart before he could finish high school]

Nikkia Rowe, the head principal at Renaissance Academy High School, keeps of photo of Ananias Jolley on the shelf behind her desk at Renaissance Academy in West Baltimore. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

Crawford cried on the witness stand as he described the threats that were made against him on the day of the attack  Nov. 24, 2015. He acted that day in self-defense, he said.

I felt somebody was going to do something after school, he testified. I just didnt know what.

Instead of waiting to be beaten up, he told the jury, he went into the classroom to confront Jolley. The two began to fight, and Crawford said he feared that he would be killed: I tried to fight him back. I just got scared and started jabbing. I had a small pocketknife and just started jabbing. I was trying to get him off of me. I had no intention of hurting him.

But prosecutors argued that Crawford had arrived at Renaissance intending to stab Jolley.

Teacher Wanda Quick testified that Crawford knocked Jolley from a stool and then got on top of him as they struggled on the floor, according to the Sun.

Surveillance video from that day showed Crawford pacing outside the biology class before entering the room. In the next images, Crawford ran out, followed seconds later by Jolley, who stumbled into the hall and fell into the arms of his school mentor.

On Friday, the jury had to decide whether Crawford, charged as an adult, was guilty of murder in Jolleys death. They found Crawford not guilty, eliciting screams from the slain teens mother, Tiffany Jolley, the Sun reported. The jurors also considered second-degree and manslaughter charges, but did not convict Crawford of those.

Rochelle Ritchie, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore states attorneys office, issued a statement Friday night calling the killing an absolutely tragic incident that did not have to happen, especially in a school where our children attend with the expectation of learning and not being killed. We send our deepest condolences to the victims family, who should not have had to bury their son at such a young age.

Both Crawford and Jolley attended Renaissance, a public high school one mile from the intersection that exploded in riots last year after the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who was injured while in police custody. Jolley was the first of three Renaissance students lost to violence during the 2015-2016 academic year.

The teens were part of an innovative mentor program that has garnered national attention. The program, called Seeds of Promise: Transforming Black Boys into Men, pairs young men who have been flagged as needing guidance with African American men who come from similar backgrounds.

The programs success can be seen in graduates such as Khalil Bridges, who after being featured in a Washington Post article about his struggles, is now attending community college.

[A Baltimore teen comes of age in a city coming apart]

Bridges and Crawford shared the same mentor, Antwon Cooper.

Before the stabbing, Cooper said he had seen improvements in Crawford, who was learning to read and coping with a troubled home.

He was a kindhearted kid, Cooper told The Post earlier this year. He was making such progress and trying to become a better person. He was becoming a better kid.

John Comer, who works at the school though the nonprofit organization Communities United, said he once saw Crawford in a counseling circle, crying. Later the same day, he saw him again, this time standing outside the school, posturing with flexed muscles as a group of teenagers taunted him across the street.

Crawford was featured in video the Sun published of students discussing their community. In it, he describes what it means to survive in West Baltimore.

Try not to get killed before youre, like, 21, he says. Or get locked up until youre, like, 30. Thats about it.

[Try not to get killed: A Baltimore teens words weeks before stabbing]

About a month after that video, authorities charged Crawford in Jolleys slaying. Jolley had died a month after the stabbing, just before Christmas.

In response to a devastated school community, Renaissance Academy Principal Nikkia Rowe turned the slain teens name into a motivational mantra. Rowe gave students T-shirts that read Graduate for Jolley.

And many did. Among the 60 students who walked the stage in June was Jolleys brother, Santonio Jolley, 20, who had dropped out but reenrolled after the death. When Santonio accepted his diploma, he carried an empty cap and gown on a hanger for his brother.
September 15. 2.17 pm. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has just completed a three-hour-long roadshow in an open mini-bus, snaking around the crowded streets of Allahabad, braving the scorching heat and occasional cloudbursts and delivering impromptu speeches. A vanity van is waiting which will take him to Kaushambi, 50 km away, where he will address a khat sabha of farmers, part of his nearly month-long Kisan Yatra, which started from Deoria on September 6 and will culminate in Delhi on October 2. The 2,500-km-long yatra will touch 39 districts, 55 Lok Sabha constituencies and 223 assembly constituencies.

Once inside the van, a sweating Rahul asks an aide to arrange a new kurta for him. "I'll go out for the meeting even if it rains but I don't have a spare kurta. Please get me one," he says. He hears his assistants whispering that the journalists following him in an open truck are upset over the lack of refreshments. The Congress vice-president heads to the kitchen, pulls out several packets of biryani, bundles them in a polybag and tells his security in-charge to hand it over to the scribes. "They must not go hungry," he instructs the man and then gets engrossed in a briefing about the work of local Congressmen for the next stopover. At the end of the conversation, Rahul zeroes in on one Aslam Bhai as the best party worker from Murat Ganj where, 10 minutes later, he addresses a gathering of about 300 people from the steps of the bus. He gives a shout-out for Aslam who gets a chance to travel with him to the next stopover and chat about local issues and his choice of leaders from the constituency.

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It's this attention to local detail that defines the Congress party's campaign for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, scheduled for early next year. It's a clear departure from the past; the structured mass contact programmes, the show of a united house, it has all infused fresh life into the party. "To get all the top leaders to travel across the state in buses, and often in groups together... it was previously unimaginable," says a UP Congress leader.

The party has already declared a chief ministerial candidate, the former Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit, appointed actor-turned-neta Raj Babbar as new state president and restructured the top order of its state machinery with a focus on equal representation to all castes and communities. Congress president Sonia Gandhi held a grand roadshow in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency, on August 2, Rahul had an interactive session with party workers in Lucknow (July 29), and 75 raths, with state leaders onboard, will be flagged off from Lucknow in October to spread the party message across all constituencies. And, according to a close associate of Prashant Kishor, the party's election strategist for the UP polls, Priyanka Gandhi will be the "party's Brahmastra", to be launched as part of the final assault.

Indeed, assault is the new buzzword for a party which has been out of power in the state since 1989. So Rahul's five public speeches in Allahabad have revolved mostly around attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi (so much so, that at one point he takes the PM's name three times in a span of 30 seconds). The message is clear-the Modi government promotes big industrialists while the Congress stands for farmers and small traders. The trademark rolling up of sleeves is there, but the vocabulary has changed, the speeches are short, and there is a constant effort to engage with the crowd. In Allahabad's Netram Chowk, dominated by small sari shop-owners, he alleges that Modi has waived Rs 1,10,000 crore worth of loans to big industrialists but has done nothing for small traders. At the Kaushambi khat sabha, he accuses the Modi government of helping Vijay Mallya flee the country while farmers are not shown any mercy.

The attention to body language is evident. When a young boy hands over a piece of paper with some demands, he pauses and reads it in full public view. Atop the open bus, the SPG men offer to hold his water bottle, but he refuses any such assistance. As the sky becomes overcast, he asks the bikers riding alongside to take shelter so that they don't get drenched.

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Behind these informal engagements, of course, there seems to be a well-orchestrated script. The idea is to debunk the perception that Rahul Gandhi is not a 24x7 politician. "Several senior Congressmen were apprehensive about Rahul spending a month in UP doing a roadshow. But he was very excited right from the start. The direct contact with the masses will help in spreading the word that he is no isolated politician in an ivory tower. When required, he can be consistent," says a member of the Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC), Kishor's outfit.

For Rahul's close aides, this yatra isn't even an election campaign, but a journey to revive awareness about a party that has been fading in the public psyche for a long time now. Indeed, for them, it's already a success. "The media may be talking about farmers stealing khats but we see it differently. People have dumped the cycle and are taking home khats," says one of his office members, the reference is obviously to the ruling Samajwadi Party's symbol.

In Deoria, when Uttar Pradesh in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad asked Rahul to be careful about an open electrical wire hanging overhead on his path, Rahul grabbed the opportunity to turn it into an attack against the SP. "I don't have to worry. Everyone knows the wires in Uttar Pradesh don't carry electricity," he quipped amid thunderous applause. In Mirzapur, he took a dig at the SP family spat: "Samajwadi ke cycle ka tyre puncture ho gaya aur Akhilesh ne tyre ko theek nahi kiya...unhone pahiya hi ukhad ke phek diya (The SP's cycle has punctured its tyres. And Akhilesh did not fix the puncture...he threw away the whole wheel)."

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Political experts believe the thrust on farmers' woes-Rahul has already promised loan waivers to UP's farmers, a 50 per cent cut in electricity bills and better minimum support prices for crops-is the logical consequence of the party's success in the 2009 general elections following a Rs 52,000 crore farm loan waiver across the nation. Kishor's associates say it's all part of the assault strategy. "It's a tectonic shift in the Congress campaign. Earlier, the party struggled to defend its core, the minorities and Dalits. Now we are taking the fight to the opposition camp. Who are the farmers in UP? The upper castes and some backward classes. They either support the BJP or the SP. We are targeting them," says a Kishor aide.

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It's also one reason why Rahul went to Hanuman Garhi temple in Ayodhya, met Hindu sants and held roadshows in Gorakhpur, a place he had never visited earlier. "It's not soft Hindutva. It's to explain that though we don't believe in the RSS model of Hindutva, the Congress is not anti-Hindu. The party has finally understood that minority appeasement doesn't mean cultivating an anti-Hindu image," says an IPAC member.

A scrutiny of the party's past performance among upper castes explains the renewed focus on traders and farmers. Between the 2007 and 2012 assembly elections, the party saw a significant rise among upper caste voters (see table) who have traditionally sided with the BJP. In fact, at 21 per cent, Vaishyas were the biggest supporters among all groups backing the Congress. That's the reason small traders have been a regular highlight of Rahul's speeches. With a Brahmin as CM candidate, the party hopes to corner support of that community too (13 per cent of voters).

The importance of Brahmin votes lies not in their size but their ability to influence public discourse and voter mood. While their support propelled Mayawati to power in 2007, they played a key role in the BSP's demolition by the SP five years later. The Congress can emerge a serious player if it makes inroads among Brahmins and Thakurs (8 per cent of total voters) while consolidating a traditional votebank, the Muslims (20 per cent).

And with Mayawati cornering the Dalit vote (the recent community upsurge against the BJP across the country should help), if the Congress can make a dent in the saffron party's traditional upper caste votebank, it could emerge as a potential ally in government formation.

Rahul denies that caste played a role in the selection of Dikshit. But Kishor's team is candid that her Brahmin roots are not incidental. "In a battle against stalwarts like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati, we needed someone like her. Her stature has kept the UP Congress a united house. Delhi's growth in the last 15 years is visible to the urban, aspiring youth of UP. Dikshit can make them believe that it can happen in UP as well," says a Kishor aide.

Meanwhile, there's another major move under way in trying to revive the party's organisational wings. Congress sources say nearly 7,000 party workers sought tickets for the 403 assembly constituencies in the state. Every candidate was asked to prove support of at least 10 legitimate voters in every booth, which were later randomly verified by IPAC members. This exercise itself halved the number of aspirants who were then asked to distribute loan waiver forms, called Kisan Maang Patra (KMP), to 10,000 households in every constituency. Every farm household the party contacts will have a receipt mentioning the family head's name and his/her agricultural loan. Next to the loan amount will be a Congress seal with the words 'loan waived' in bold. The receipt is the KMP counterfoil, which the party will keep. "Ticket seekers may try to fudge the process. So there will be checks by us," says an IPAC member. In the first week of October, Rahul will meet the first 100 candidates who were able to distribute KMPs to 10,000 households. "It will help us screen the candidates and create direct contact with voters," says Randeep Singh Surjewala, communication in-charge of the party.

But among the many positives, on the ground the party has been facing a crisis of another sort-a severe shortage of funds. "The campaign budget is much less than the oft-touted figure of Rs 400 crore. The party has defaulted in paying Rs 1.5 crore to maintain the monthly operational costs of our team working across the state," says an IPAC member. india today discovered that many IPAC staffers were stuck in hotels over non-clearance of bills, and that taxi services are now refusing to rent out vehicles to them.

The campaign continues meanwhile. And wooing the urban voter is a big part of it. While Dikshit's appointment was a significant plank of the party's urban strategy, a more elaborate plan will be unveiled in the next phase. However, when Rahul reached Lucknow on September 23 and travelled across the city, his speeches were still about farmers. For the urban youth seeking employment opportunities, Rahul did not have anything to offer except reminding them that Modi had failed to generate jobs in the past two years. If the Congress vice-president is to win over Uttar Pradesh, he needs to add more content and spice to his script.





Follow the writer on Twitter @KDscribe

--- ENDS ---
Vincent B. Orange, who resigned from the D.C. Council on Aug. 15, did not break ethics rules, the D.C. Board of Ethics and Government Accountability said. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

Former D.C. Council member Vincent B. Orange (D-At Large) did not break ethics rules when he accepted a job leading the D.C. Chamber of Commerce while still in office, according to an opinion released this week by city ethics officials.

Orange sought an opinion from the D.C. Board of Ethics and Government Accountability in early August, when he planned to finish the rest of his term while also serving as president and chief executive of the Chamber. He quickly abandoned that plan, resigning Aug. 15 after critics said he could not simultaneously represent the interests of both the business community and the public. His term was to expire in January.

[Orange resigns from council over fury over Chamber of Commerce job]

Oranges early departure rendered some of the ethical issues moot  but officials still examined whether he had a conflict of interest while negotiating employment with the Chamber as a sitting council member during the summer.

The opinion offers new details on the timeline of Oranges job search: A Chamber official reached out to him about the job on July 8 and he interviewed on July 12 while the council was still in session. He had his second interview almost two weeks later and formally accepted his job on July 27, after the council had recessed for the summer on July 15.

There are no laws that bar council members from holding outside employment. But ethics laws prohibit government officials from participating in matters that directly affect an organization where they are employed or where they may be seeking a job.

The opinion said none of the bills that came before the Committee on Business, Consumer and Regulatory Affairs chaired by Orange on July 14 were directly focused on the Chamber, meaning he did not need to recuse himself.

The opinion did not mention the Fair Scheduling Act, which would require major employers to set more predictable schedules for retail workers. It was sponsored by Orange but opposed by the Chamber.

[Fair Scheduling bill dies in D.C. Council]

Orange sought a July 12 vote on the bill  the same day as his first interview for the Chamber job  but the bill was tabled. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said the decision was his, not Oranges.

The opinion also examined whether Orange violated a provision of the councils code of conduct, which urges elected officials to avoid perceived conflicts of interest.

Ethics officials credit Orange for telling the councils general counsel about his new job.

We understand that some on the Council, as well as others in the public, raised government ethics issues that may have arisen had you undertaken your job with the Chamber during the remainder of your term, the opinion says.

However, we cannot be concerned here with what might have been. The fact is that you resigned, and all the information available to us indicates that you received advice and counsel before doing so. Consequently, we cannot find that you, at any relevant time, took any action creating the appearance of impropriety.

The ethics opinion also describes restrictions on Oranges lobbying activities as a former council member.

[White is the new Orange: Robert White appointed to Council vacancy]

He is prohibited from lobbying his former staffers on behalf of the Chamber for one year, although a bill under consideration would expand that ban to include trying to influence council members, too.

Orange did not return a request for comment about how he plans to abide by the restrictions laid out in the opinion.
Prince Georges County Public Schools chief Kevin M. Maxwell speaks to reporters earlier this year. Behind him is Prince Georges County Board of Education Chairman Segun Eubanks. (Mark Gail/for The Washington Post)

Prince Georges County school officials announced Friday that they will retain control of their troubled Head Start early-education program for this school year but will operate it without a federal grant, rename it Early Start and pay for it with $5.5 million in local funds.

The plan follows negotiations with federal officials that go back to August, when school officials learned that their Head Start grant was being terminated amid a failure to correct problems that included alleged staff misconduct and child abuse.

The school board ultimately voted to relinquish the federal grant of more than $6 million, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (ACF) tapped a Denver-based organization to step in on an interim basis to continue services to prekindergarten students in the Maryland suburb.

But discussions about how that organization  Community Development Institute Head Start (CDI)  would operate the program for economically disadvantaged children ended this week without an agreement, according to district officials. The county could not get guarantees that the 855-student program would continue at its current size, that all staff would have jobs or that each student would be in the same location, with the same teacher.

District officials also said that although CDI was interested in hiring district staff, the union-covered employees would have had to resign from the district, losing seniority and retirement benefits.

Schools chief Kevin M. Maxwell said the new plan achieves the districts main goals: no disruptions for students and families, no reduction of services and the use of certified teachers. The program has a staff of 102, including 51 teachers.

Those things were very important to us, and this program accomplishes that for us, Maxwell said. Every child that we started with, well continue with, and they will all have a highly qualified, degreed teacher.

Theresa Mitchell Dudley, president of the Prince Georges County Educators Association, said the reaction among Head Start staff has been relief. Why should innocent people have lost their jobs? she said.

[Outside organization to run Pr. Georges troubled Head Start program]

School officials said they would compensate for losing the $6.4 million federal grant by eliminating 19 of their 20 central-office positions for Head Start, at a savings of $2.6 million, and by imposing a hard freeze this school year on hiring for central-office vacancies, which would cut $2.9 million. The district has received $900,000 in federal grant funds as negotiations were in progress, school officials said.

Were assuming this responsibility so our children get what they need and our families get what they need, Maxwell said.

School district officials said the new Early Start would be in place just for this school year and that they expect Head Start to go on in Prince Georges.

Federal officials voiced similar sentiments Friday about the future of Head Start, saying they remain committed to continuing their annual $6.4 million grant to the county.

CDI is already in the county, getting set up as the interim provider of Head Start services, with plans to serve children from birth to 5 years old, said Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for the Administration for Children and Families. Plans are in the works for a competitive process to identify a permanent provider.

School officials said they will work with county government and others in the community to develop a strong application. Because they relinquished the grant, they are allowed to apply again.

Segun Eubanks, chairman of the Prince Georges school board, said he is satisfied that the district is moving in the right direction.

There will probably be more students receiving early-childhood services than there otherwise wouldve been, which is a silver lining to a very unfortunate situation, he said.

Eubanks said at least one board member, and sometimes more, was involved in meetings with federal officials and CDI. The board was totally engaged in this process, he said.

[How a Maryland school system lost its Head Start grant]

Federal authorities reported in August that a Prince Georges Head Start teacher forced a 3-year-old who wet his pants to mop up his own urine in front of the class. The teacher texted a photo to his mother, writing LOL. He worked that mop tho! In another incident, a teacher made two children who played during nap time hold heavy boxes over their heads for an extended period, according to federal findings. The teacher added more weight and time to the punishment if the children moved or dropped items.

In a separate incident, a 5-year-old child wandered away from her school unsupervised and walked home, unmonitored for 50 minutes.

Maxwell said the school system has stepped up measures to ensure safety. Six employees have been removed from the program, with three terminated and three recommended for termination, he said.

[Prince Georges takes disciplinary action against staff in troubled Head Start program]

Staff members are being re-interviewed for their jobs, with updated background checks. They have been trained in positive-discipline practices, he said, and the county is creating a monitoring board to review parent concerns, staff responsiveness, training and other issues.

We have done what we believe is the appropriate work to make sure that nothing like that happens again, Maxwell said. If it does, we are going to take quick, appropriate action against anybody who hasnt behaved in the way that we believe that they should. But we do believe that with the additional training weve done, with the additional monitoring and supervision, that parents should feel its safe and appropriate for their children to be in school. 

The districts Early Start program will seem much like Head Start, with the same staff, curriculum, bus services, meals, vision and hearing screening, and learning assessments, said Monica Goldson, deputy superintendent for teaching and learning. There also will be new mental-health supports, she said.

District officials said all children in Early Start will be offered a space in the districts full-day pre-K or kindergarten programs next year.
A middle school student who is accused of cutting in line to steal milk is scheduled to stand trial for disorderly conduct and petit larceny. (Adrian Brockwell/Getty Images/iStockphoto)

All Ryan Turk wanted was his carton of milk.

The teenager says he had forgotten to grab the drink the first time through the line at the Graham Park Middle School cafeteria, so he headed back. A recipient of free lunches at the Virginia school, Ryan felt he was just doing what he did every day.

But a school resource officer said he spotted the teen cutting in line and accused him of stealing the 65-cent milk. When Ryan did not cooperate with a trip to see the principal, authorities say, he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and petit larceny.

Ryan turned down an offer of nonjudicial punishment, and, this week, a Prince William County judge set a trial date in November for the Dumfries teen, who is now a freshman in high school.

He will face the criminal charges just days after his 15th birthday.

Ryan and his mother, Shamise Turk, acknowledge that he took a carton of milk on that day last school year, but they say he was entitled to it and did nothing wrong.

They, and their lawyer, allege that Ryan was discriminated against, targeted because he is a black teenager who did not want to go along with a police officer who they say was being unfair.

No one needs to be punished for stealing a 65-cent carton of milk, said Emmett Robinson, a lawyer representing the family who said Ryans arrest was related to institutional racism. This officer treats kids like theyre criminals, and guess what happens  theyre going to become criminals.

[Yale study suggests racial bias among preschool teachers]

The case of the allegedly stolen milk is an example of the challenges students, schools and school resource officers face when it comes to discipline, especially when it involves students who are minorities and living in poverty. Studies show that black students are subject to more frequent  and harsher  discipline than their peers and that there are biases against them that begin as early as prekindergarten classes. Black students in Richmond recently filed a civil rights complaint against their school district, alleging that discipline practices there are unfair.

[Black students file civil rights complaint against Richmond schools over discipline practices]

Ryan is black and is eligible for free lunches in Prince William County. The officer and the principal involved are also black, something the county noted in responding to the claims that the student was targeted by race.

Phil Kavits, a Prince William County schools spokesman, said that he could not comment on the specifics of the incident but that it is not a race-related issue.

All the key parties involved, including the principal and the police officer, are African American, Kavits said in a statement. The staff members are well known in our highly diverse community for their dedication and caring approach to all students.

Robinson said the race of the school employees involved does not matter and that racial profiling can come from anyone.

Its not the players, its not the people who discriminate; its the whole system, Robinson said, noting that his client has not been in trouble before. The system is set up now so that school resource officers get to determine the impact on a persons life.

The Washington Post generally does not identify minors charged with misdemeanor crimes, but Ryan and his family opted to speak publicly to bring attention to the matter.

The incident occurred May 10, during the schools lunchtime. Ryan said he forgot to grab his milk when going through the line and returned to get a carton.

The school resource officer told authorities that Ryan cut in the lunch line, took a carton of milk and concealed it. The officer confronted him, and he reported that Ryan threw the milk back. When the officer suggested that he needed to speak with the principal, he became disorderly, police said.

Sgt. Jonathan Perok, a Prince William police spokesman, said that the middle-schooler leaned back and pushed against the officer and that as the pair approached the principal, the teen tried to push past the officer to get away.

The familys account differs. Turk, who works for the school district, said that she saw surveillance footage of the incident and that it shows her son did not conceal the milk.

Ryan says that after he got his milk, he sat down and was confronted by the officer.

He said that he put the milk back but that the officer told him to pick up the carton and take it to the principal. The teen said the officer grabbed him by his neck.

Its just unfair, Ryan said. Other people did that. One boy, I told him to get one for me before. But when I do, I get in trouble.

The officer handcuffed Ryan at the school and placed the charges against him. The misdemeanors initially were going to be handled nonjudicially through a diversion program, but Ryan and his family declined that option.

Turk said she hopes that what happened that day will come to light in the courtroom. She said the family declined a nonjudicial punishment because her son is innocent.

My son is not going to admit to something he did not do, she said.

[School lunch worker quits after being forced to refuse hot meal to poor student]

Ryan was quiet as he waited for a court hearing Tuesday, his mom fluffing his curly hair while he opened and closed the zipper of his sweatshirt and stared at his highlighter-colored sneakers.

Robert Stanley, who works with the Prince William branch of the NAACP, sat a few seats away.

Our black boys are going from high school to prison, Stanley said, referring to what is known as the school-to-prison pipeline.

He noted that the school resource officer involved in the arrest had several other juvenile hearings scheduled Thursday, causing him some real concerns.

Kavits, the schools spokesman, said the officer works at the school daily and is an important member of the community, ensuring the safety of students and staff.

He is well known to students, Kavits said, adding that county school resource officers strive to befriend students, to keep things positive, and to solve problems.
A company run by David Trone, the Potomac wine magnate who was a candidate for Congress in Marylands 8th District this year, made more than $250,000 in illegal contributions to political candidates between 2011 and 2014, state prosecutors say.

Trones attorney said the company admits no wrongdoing, but agreed to pay a $5,000 fine for each illegal contribution, totaling $60,000.

Before he mounted the most expensive self-funded congressional campaign in history  spending more than $13 million in his Democratic primary loss to state Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D)  he was best known as a major-party fundraiser, hosting President Obama, Hillary Clinton and a long list of other political figures at his home.

The Maryland State Prosecutors Office announced Friday that it had issued 12 citations to Retail Service and Systems Inc. (RSSI), charging that the company or its subsidiaries violated what was then the $4,000 limit on giving to a single candidate. It has since been raised to $6,000.

According to an affidavit from the prosecutors office, the improper contributions were made by Trones companies to the 2014 gubernatorial campaign of then-Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown (D), his running mate Ken Ulman, and the 2014 reelection campaign of State Comptroller Peter Franchot (D).

[Money continues to flow in Maryland 8th District]

From Aug. 18 to Sept. 30, 2014, RSSI and 24 wholly owned subsidiaries made a total of $124,000 in over-contributions to Brown, according to the affidavit. Franchots campaign received $62,000 in illegal donations from RSSI and its affiliates from Jan. 4, 2012, to Dec. 29, 2014. The campaign committee of Ken Ulman, the former Howard County executive, received $82,000 in excess donations from May 5 to Oct. 31, 2014.

Contributions from Trone-owned companies to candidates across the country became an issue in the congressional primary. Trone said in an interview that he made the payments to buy access in states where his chain of retail beer and wine stores, Total Wine & More, was doing business or planned to expand. Trone was outspoken in his criticism of Maryland regulations that limited Total Wine to two operating licenses.

Contributions of hundreds of thousands of dollars, given at the direction and under the control of a single entity, could result in the appearance of undue influence on the part of the contributors, Maryland State Prosecutor Emmet C. Davitt said in a statement.

Davitt added that the state had no evidence that the over-contributions were made knowing that the act was unlawful.

[For Trone, House race is unfinished business]

The contributions were made while the LLC loophole was still on the states books. Business owners who wanted to enhance their influence could make contributions through each of their subsidiaries. That practice was outlawed after the 2014 election.

RSSI general counsel Robert Shaffer said in a statement late Friday that the terms of the civil settlement include no fine, no penalty, and no admission of any wrongdoing or liability.

Shaffer said the company had a strong case for challenging the state but ultimately decided it is in our best interest to accept the terms of this settlement and close this matter rather than pursue litigation.

The prosecutors announcement was first reported by the Baltimore Sun.
Critics of the system say it is easy for impostors to use stolen credentials to request absentee ballots or for cyberthieves to hack in and retrieve data about who is requesting ballots. (Seth Perlman/Associated Press)

Cybersecurity experts are warning that Marylands online absentee-ballot system is dangerously vulnerable to tampering and privacy invasions, both growing concerns in a year when hackers have breached the Democratic National Committee and attempted to access boards of elections in at least two states.

The system allows voters who request an absentee ballot to access the form online and send back a printed hard copy, with their votes marked by hand or with a new online tool that allows users to mark the document with the click of a mouse or the touch of a keyboard, then print it for mail delivery. Until this year, in large part because of security concerns, the latter option was available only to people with disabilities.

Critics say it is easy for impostors to use stolen credentials to request absentee ballots or for cyberthieves to hack in and retrieve data about who is requesting ballots or details of votes that were marked online.

[FBI: Hackers attempting more intrusions into voter databases]

All registered voters in Maryland are allowed to request an absentee ballot, regardless of whether they will be away from their polling station on Election Day.

With less than six weeks before Election Day, officials say they have taken steps to safeguard their online system, which was required as part of a 2013 law designed to increase voter participation and make voting more accessible. The board voted 4 to 1 on Sept. 14 to certify broad use of the online marking tool.

The issue of electronic-ballot delivery is resolved, Nikki Charlson, deputy administrator of the Maryland State Board of Elections, said Thursday. The General Assembly has made its policy decision, and without a repeal of the statute, it is what it is.

A group of computer scientists and cybersecurity experts wrote to the board two days before its vote and urged it not to certify the system, saying the setup would make Maryland one of the most vulnerable states in the U.S. for major election tampering.

Save Our Votes, a voting-integrity group, says the state board shouldnt have certified the online marking tool, arguing that Maryland law prohibits the panel from greenlighting any voting program until it can ensure the secrecy of ballots.

No information transmitted over the internet can be considered private or secure, the group said in an August letter to the board.

[More than 30 states have online voting; experts say it is not secure]

Michael Greenberger, a University of Maryland law professor and director of the schools Center for Health and Homeland Security, told the board in a letter that any online ballot-delivery system would be far too vulnerable to hacking by bad actors who seek to compromise the integrity of American elections.

Charlson said the elections board has implemented numerous safeguards, including software that tries to identify and exploit potential vulnerabilities, regular monitoring for suspicious behavior and the use of best practices for information technology. She said the panel has no plans to take additional action.

During the boards meeting on Thursday, members met in a private session to discuss the security of the online system but did not share details of that conversation.

Chairman David J. McManus Jr. (R) and Vice Chairman Patrick J. Hogan (D) said that the state had adequately tested the system and that no online program could be completely secure.

I felt comfortable, based on briefings that we had from our information-technology staff as well as the contractors, Hogan said. Based on the continued work that is going on, its as secure as it can be. The idea that any system is 100 percent secure  there is no such thing. If you took that attitude, you would never have any system.

Kelley A. Howells (R), the board member who voted against certification, said she was worried by some of the writings of people at major universities saying stay away from the Internet.  But she said she feels confident with the work of the boards information-technology team.

Charlson said that the state had sent out about 10,000 emails to voters who wanted to access absentee ballots as of Thursday and that 4,200 of those accounts had been logged into. Among those users, 2,500 had chosen to mark their ballots by hand, while 1,800 had chosen to use the online tool to mark their ballots.

The 2013 law requires online delivery of absentee ballots for all voters who request the service. It says the state board had to certify that the online ballot-marking system would ensure privacy before deploying it.

After a divided board refused to certify the marking tool in 2014, advocates won a federal court order that required the state to make the option available for the disabled anyway.

The 2016 presidential election will be the first time the state has offered the online ballot-marking system to all absentee voters.

More than 30 states use some form of electronic system for ballot delivery.

Alaska and Washington are the only other states that allow all voters to obtain absentee ballots from personal computers. Unlike Maryland, both of those states use a signature-verification process. Alaska also allows ballots to be submitted online.

Very little information is required to impersonate a voter and request an online absentee ballot, Save Our Votes said in its letter.

North Dakota permits electronic ballots for overseas citizens and military members, while Missouri provides them only for members of the military serving abroad.

At least 20 other states and the District will allow certain voters living overseas to return their absentee ballots via email or fax in the upcoming election.

The threat of cyberattacks against electronic-voting systems has caused alarm within the Obama administration. Last month, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said the federal government should consider designating electronic-ballot-casting systems as critical infrastructure, meaning that, like the nations power grid, they would require enhanced protections.

Very little polling has been conducted on support for online voting systems. But a 2007 ABC-Facebook poll found that 54 percent of respondents opposed allowing people to vote on the Internet even if it could be made secure from fraud, while 67 percent thought it would take many years to make an Internet voting system secure from fraud.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said voters who request an absentee ballot could receive the form by email. The form can be accessed online, but is not sent out by email.

Sari Horwitz and Scott Clement contributed to this report.
Doris Simms, 91, was issued a $75 littering citation by the District's Department of Public Works in July because an inspector had found several stuffed trash bags outside her rowhouse on 12th Street NE. But Simms has been living at a nursing home for the past year and couldn't have left the garbage out on the sidewalk, so her brother Warren Simms is fighting the ticket at an administrative hearing in November. (Family Photo)

Say this about the garbage monitors of the nations capital: No one  no matter how old  can escape their scrutiny.

In late August, the Districts Public Works Department issued a citation to 2-year-old Harper Westover, who lives in Northeast Washington, over a wayward piece of mail with her name on it, only canceling the $75 ticket after an online uproar.

The citys new target: Doris Simms. She is 91. She has dementia. And she lives in a nursing home in suburban Maryland  not at her rowhouse in Northeast Washington, where an inspector (in fact, the very same one who went after Harper) found five garbage bags in front of her homes sidewalk.

Doriss brother Warren Simms, a retired D.C. elementary school principal who co-owns the rowhouse and visits it daily, said he called Public Works and explained that the trash belonged to his sisters neighbors, who were doing a construction project. He described his sisters new residence at a Montgomery County nursing home and argued that Doris couldnt have produced the garbage at her Northeast rowhouse.

But city officials were not sympathetic, Warren said. Rather than erase the $75 ticket, the District is forcing him to make his case before an administrative law judge in November. Warren argues the same point as the parents of 2-year-old Harper: How can the city issue littering citations without proof that the alleged litterers actually littered?

Harper Westover, 2, displays her D.C. citation for littering, with a $75 fine, at her home Friday in Washington. (Theresa Westover/Family Photo)

[D.C.s little litterbug: 2-year-old cited for littering]

It outrages me, said Warren, who has his sisters power of attorney. I want to emphasize how ridiculous the whole situation is. They sent me a packet at least 10 pages long for the administrative hearing. They could barely fit it into a legal-size envelope. Theres no way Doris or I could have generated the trash. The house is vacant. It was obvious that there was construction going on next door. The city is not targeting the right people. They are picking on the innocent.

A message left Thursday for Cheryl Satchell, the city inspector who issued the tickets to Doris and to Harper Westover, was not returned.

In a statement, Zy Richardson, director of communications for the Public Works Department, said the agency was working with Simmss family to minimize hardship and that it recognizes the case has special circumstances and that investigating sanitation violations is not a perfect science.

She added that department employees work tirelessly to investigate litterers so the city can be kept clean. She also said the agency will continue to monitor our internal review process to decrease unmerited citations and improve quality control of our citation process.

The three-bedroom rowhouse has been in the Simms family since the late 1920s, when Warren and Doriss parents purchased it. After their parents died decades ago  their father was a U.S. Postal Service letter carrier; their mother, a housewife  the deed eventually transferred to Warren, Doris and their nephew, who works for the Department of Homeland Security. But Doris, who never married and had lived there since she was 3, moved to the Althea Woodland nursing home in Silver Spring in July 2015.

The three Simms relatives still co-own the semi-attached house, but it is Warren who tends to it daily, bringing in Doriss mail, keeping the grass cut and, he said, making sure that theres no litter.

So, Warren was a little more than surprised when he sifted through his sisters mail in early August and found a violation notice issued in her name. The date of offense: July 11. The nature of the violation: Failure Maintain Abutting Public Space. The inspector attached two photographs of five overstuffed garbage bags on the sidewalk in front of the Simmss rowhouse.

When Warren called the Public Works  explaining that the trash was put out by their neighbors and that Doris has been living in a nursing home, cant walk and therefore wouldnt have been capable of hauling heavy trash bags  he got nowhere.

The city official said on the phone that it didnt matter, that shes registered as the houses resident and it was the responsibility of the resident to make sure theres no litter out front, Warren recalled.

Warren said his neighbors acknowledged to him that it was their trash and offered to pay the $75 ticket to make the matter go away. But he refused. He said the neighbors told him they put the garbage out for collection but it was never picked up.

Its the principle, Warren said. I hate to use the term police state, because thats extreme, but it almost feels like it sometimes.

He wrote a letter to the city denying responsibility and outlining his case. He also wrote that the photos of the garbage bags looked staged. The family has received repeated offers from real estate agents and developers who would like to buy the property.

Constant pressure has been received to sell the house. If this violation was called in by a third party, this could very well have been initiated by them to facilitate their goal, he wrote.

The city has scheduled a Nov. 17 hearing to settle the matter.

I havent mentioned this to Doris at all, Warren said. Shed be terribly upset. She never smoked. Never drank. Never cursed. Went to Calvary Episcopal on Sixth Street every Sunday. She was a very neat person. It was one of the things we inherited from our father. He was ultra neat.
When the FBI searched Andrew Workmans computer they say they found pornographic videos of girls as young as 3 years old. A federal judge in Colorado ruled this month that the computer hack that helped the bureau uncover the videos should never have been allowed.

Why? Because the search warrant permitting the hack was issued by a magistrate judge in Virginia  outside the judicial district in which Workman lived  and in an apparent violation of federal criminal rules.

But a shift in federal rules set to go into effect in December says that a judge in one district can approve a warrant to hack computers outside that district in cases where the computers location is shielded.

The change would aid the government in its sweeping national investigation into child porn on the dark Web, a universe of sites that are off Googles radar, where pedophiles using special technology can operate in anonymity.

The government contends that the change  which was approved by the Supreme Court in April and will go forward unless Congress opposes it  is necessary to clear up a loophole created by technology. Because investigators cannot know in advance where a target computer is physically located if a suspect is using tools to mask his or her location, it is impossible to seek a search warrant in the district in which the target is located, officials say. They add that the change does not create any new authority, and would still require a showing of probable cause before a warrant is issued.

It really just gives us the ability to go in front of a [single] judge and get a warrant to do a search, Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell said. Otherwise we could find ourselves in a situation where we knew child-exploitation activity was happening in a lot of different places, but we wouldnt know exactly where the computers were located and we wouldnt have a judge to go to.

[This is how the government is catching people who use child porn sites]

But privacy advocates and some lawmakers contend that the amendment to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure would legally sanction mass hacking, in which federal law enforcement, with one warrant, can hack thousands of computers whose locations are unknown. And they argue that the rule change would allow prosecutors to seek out judges they feel would be more sympathetic to their warrant application.

If the rule change goes through, and if the government can show probable cause, the FBI gets the authority to hack anywhere in the world, said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union. We desperately need to have congressional hearings and investigations into the use of this technology before it becomes the tool of choice of law enforcement.

Google, Paypal and several other technology companies have also lobbied against the change to the rule, calling it dangerously broad.

In the case that ensnared Workman, the FBI took over a child-porn site called PlayPen and surreptitiously installed software on it that enabled investigators to identify computers of users who went to the site. Since then, the government has obtained Internet protocol addresses of at least 1,300 computers in the United States, identified at least 38 children subject to sexual abuse, and brought about 200 cases.

Critics say that allowing the government to use such hacking software potentially endangers the computers of law-abiding citizens who have nothing to do with pedophiles.

A bungled government hack could damage systems at hospitals, on the power grid, in transportation or other critical infrastructure, said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who is part of a bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers seeking to block the Rule 41 change.

Caldwell dismissed such assertions, saying that investigators work closely with private-sector computer security experts.We do a lot of testing to make sure that the software were using is not going to have harmful, unintended consequences, she said.

She also noted that the proposed rule change is the result of three years of extensive review and public testimony involving two committees consisting of academics, judges and defense attorneys.

The change to Rule 41, the government says, will help settle what has become a confusing area for judges and prosecutors.

Since the warrant used to hack Workmans computer was issued in February 2015, there have been 24 challenges to it. Nineteen judges who reviewed the warrant concluded it was not properly issued on venue grounds. Of those, four, including the judge in Colorado, threw out the evidence as a result. The other 15 ruled that the violation was not serious enough to suppress the evidence. And the remaining five found the warrant was properly issued.

Any change to Rule 41 would not automatically apply to the pending cases. But the Justice Department could request that each individual court apply the new rules.

Even if the change goes through, defense lawyers say they will continue to challenge the hacking warrants on other grounds. For instance, they have argued that the hacking constitutes a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Judge R. Brooke Jackson, who decided to suppress the evidence in Workmans case, said he was aware that his ruling might free a guilty man.

This is particularly difficult to stomach where the crime at issue is something as reprehensible as the possession of child pornography, he wrote in his decision. On the other hand, this ruling might serve as a reminder to . . . be attentive to something as basic as who can issue a warrant. 
Lynne Cox was a teenager when she came home from a party to find her mother stabbed to death in their Southeast Washington home. It was New Years Day 1984.

It took more than 30 years for police to catch the killer. And on Friday, Cox, 51, was finally able to confront him directly.

You took my mother away from me, Cox told 58-year-old Joseph Barber. You had no right. Nobody else should go through what I am going through.

The emotional hearing in D.C. Superior Court brought an end to a case that remained cold for decades, until DNA evidence led police to a suspect. Judge Robert E. Morin on Friday sentenced Barber of Woodbridge, Va., to 20 years to life in prison for the murder of Rachel Cox.

In June, following a week-long trial, a jury found Barber guilty of first-degree murder while armed and other charges.

Convicted murderer Joe Barber is shown in this 1984 mugshot. ( U.S. attorney's office)

During the emotional trial, Morin had to order a brief recess as Lynne Cox began to hyperventilate on the stand as she described finding her mothers body. Rachel Cox had been raped, authorities said, and stabbed a dozen times.

This crime was horrendous. The cruelty is beyond description, Morin said Friday. Barber will not be eligible for parole for 20 years.

Cold cases are traditionally the most challenging for prosecutors. And because there were no witnesses, no sign of forced entry to Coxs apartment and no murder weapon found, this case was even more difficult.

But in 2013, evidence found on Coxs body that had been stored in the D.C. police evidence archives was retested using advanced DNA technology. Barber was identified as a suspect.

[New Years Eve 1983 slaying hinges on DNA]

During interviews with homicide detectives in 2013, Barber, who then worked as a warehouse laborer, repeatedly denied knowing Cox. After he was told his DNA was found on Coxs body, he then said he and Cox had a consensual relationship at the time Cox was killed. Authorities were skeptical because no one in Coxs family knew about such a relationship and that at the time, she was 43 and he was 25.

Prosecutors said Coxs murder was part of Barbers life of violent crime. He pleaded guilty in 1985 to threatening a woman with a knife during an attempted robbery of her purse and was sentenced to between a year and three years in prison. Prosecutors say Barber was out on bond and was awaiting trial in that robbery case when he killed Cox.

Months after Cox was killed, Barber was also convicted of raping a 10-year-old girl who lived in the same neighborhood as Cox. He spent 19 years in prison.

And years earlier in 1979, according to prosecutors, Barber was dishonorably discharged from the Army after he burglarized and then set fire to his commanding officers quarters.

Before the judge issued his sentence, Barber, his ankles and wrists in shackles, stood. He looked to the back of the courtroom at Coxs daughter and reiterated his innocence.

I understand the pain of losing a loved one. Everything I did in my past I pleaded guilty to and I will never forget what I have done. But the tragedy that happened to your mother, I did not do. I did not do, Barber said. Barbers court-appointed attorney said his client plans to appeal his verdict.

The defense asked for leniency, noting, among other things, that Barber hoped to continue a relationship with his own daughter, Julia. In 2005, she was charged in the drowning death of her 6-year-old son, Donmiguel. Julia Barber, now 39, was found not guilty by reason of insanity in her sons death and remains housed at St. Elizabeths Hospital, the Districts psychiatric facility.

[D.C. woman admits to drowning young son, court orders psychological evaluation]

After the sentencing, Lynne Cox said she accepted the judges sentence in her mothers murder.

Im glad to finally be over this so we can all heal, she said. But he is going to have to answer to God for this and for so much of what he has done.
Rahul Gandhi praised Narendra Modi for the first time in two-and-half- years, for the surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army.

By India Today Web Desk: In a major departure from political rivalry, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi praised Prime Minister for the surgical strikes in Pakistan.

Rahul, who is on his Kisan Yatra, said, "For the first time in two-and-a-half years, Modi ji has taken an appropriate action. What he did yesterday is praiseworthy."

Also Read: Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike

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RAHUL PRAISES MODI FOR THE FIRST TIME

In fact, this also for the first time that Rahul has praised Modi. Otherwise, he has been one of the most vociferous critics of the prime minister.

The Congress vice president has been criticising Modi's policies, be it the Jan Dhan Yojana or the move to bring back black money back to the country. He has also been mocking the PM, for instance by coining the catchphrase 'suit-boot ki sarkar', 'fair and lovely' and 'arhar Modi'.

But in break from the competitive politics, Rahul praised Modi's step of giving a nod to conduct surgical strikes in the wake of the September 18 Uri terror attack.

Rahul's mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi and leaders of other political parties have also lauded Modi and the Indian Army for the bold step.





Also Read:

Indian Army's surgical strikes should make Pakistan think twice before trying another Uri

Nawaz Sharif calls for peace, then praises terrorist in UN speech

All you need to know about Pakistan's nastiest weapon: Tactical nukes

Rahul Gandhi vs RSS: Congress leader appears before Guwahati court in defamation case Rahul blames BJP, RSS for shoe attack, says he's not afraid of such assaults



--- ENDS ---
Train personnel survey the New Jersey Transit train that crashed into the platform at the Hoboken Terminal.

Sept. 29, 2016 Train personnel survey the New Jersey Transit train that crashed into the platform at the Hoboken Terminal. Pancho Bernasconi/Getty Images

Travelers on the platform and inside the train rushed to safety at the Hoboken station.

Travelers on the platform and inside the train rushed to safety at the Hoboken station.

Travelers on the platform and inside the train rushed to safety at the Hoboken station.

As federal investigators continue efforts to figure out the cause of Thursdays fatal train crash in Hoboken, N.J., they have encountered problems retrieving and accessing information necessary to help determine what led to the accident that killed one woman and injured more than 100 people.

Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board were able to remove the trains event recorder from the rear locomotive, but they said they could not download some information  including critical data on the trains speed in the moments before the crash, as well as when, or if, the trains brakes and throttle were applied.

Now officials are sending the device to the manufacturer for assistance, NTSB Vice Chairman Bella Dinh-Zarr said at a news conference Friday. Without access to the information on the recorder, officials cannot determine what may have caused or contributed to the crash, she said.

Once the NTSB has a successful download, investigators will use that to validate speed, Dinh-Zarr said.

[Federal investigators launch investigation into fatal New Jersey train crash]

The trains second event recorder, at the front in the cab car, continues to be inaccessible because of debris that fell from the station canopy as the train barreled off the tracks and onto the platform. Investigators have not been able to get close to that end of the train largely because of the piles of concrete and twisted metal. Contractors are working to clear the area of the debris.

There are also concerns about asbestos in the air and exposed high-voltage wires that must be removed by New Jersey Transit staff.

I want to emphasize, there is no perishable evidence aboard this train, Dinh-Zarr said.

The trains engineer was released from a hospital Thursday night and declined to give an immediate interview to investigators because he was heavily medicated after the crash, according to an official with knowledge of the investigation,

But Dinh-Zarr said Friday that the engineer and other crew members are cooperating with the investigation.

The one whos injured  were just doing it at their convenience, Dinh-Zarr said of the trains crew, after she was asked by a reporter about the engineer. But theyve been very cooperative.

NTSB officials are planning to interview passengers and crew members in the coming days. Officials have also sent workers toxicology reports to a lab in Oklahoma City.

Dinh-Zarr said she expects that the on-site investigation will take at least seven to 10 days; she did not know when the station would be able to reopen for service.

Investigators have been able to make some progress on several fronts: For instance, theyve secured the hard drives for the 22 surveillance cameras in the station and are downloading videos that will offer images of the moments before and after the crash.

[Safety tool Congress asked for 8 years ago might have prevented Hoboken train wreck, officials say]

Dinh-Zarr said the two dozen NTSB on-site team members are keeping busy in the meantime: A laser-modeling team is in the process of scanning the station to create a three-dimensional model of the train. Drones and walking crews will be used to inspect the tracks approaching the station.

And officials will be poring over records related to the employment history, performance and training records of the trains engineer, conductor and brakeman, as well as inspection reports and other documents about the train itself.

The New Jersey Transit commuter train had been traveling from Spring Valley, N.Y., along the Pascack Valley Line, into Hoboken Terminal, a major transportation hub that serves more than 60,000 people on an average weekday.

As the train passed through the rail yard and approached the station, passengers began to notice that it wasnt slowing down. Instead, the train zoomed into the station, where it struck a crash-absorbing barrier at the end of the tracks, jumped onto the concrete platform and continued plowing through the concourse until it struck the side of the main station building.

[It didnt slow down. It didnt brake: Witnesses describe deadly New Jersey train crash]

In the process, the train blasted through the structural beams that had been holding up a permanent metal canopy. Metal and concrete collapsed onto the concourse, landing on the front of the train, and also causing the incidents one fatality: Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, of Hoboken, was struck by falling debris.
Train personnel survey the New Jersey Transit train that crashed into the platform at the Hoboken Terminal.

Sept. 29, 2016 Train personnel survey the New Jersey Transit train that crashed into the platform at the Hoboken Terminal. Pancho Bernasconi/Getty Images

Travelers on the platform and inside the train rushed to safety at the Hoboken station.

Travelers on the platform and inside the train rushed to safety at the Hoboken station.

Travelers on the platform and inside the train rushed to safety at the Hoboken station.

Federal investigators are assessing whether equipment failure, an incapacitated operator or other factors could have caused a packed commuter-rail train to barrel into Hoboken Terminal and slam into the station in a Thursday morning rush-hour crash that killed one person and injured more than 100 others.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said the operator of the train, who was hospitalized and later released, was cooperating with the investigation. He will be interviewed by National Transportation Safety Board officials in coming days.

[It didnt slow down. It didnt brake: Witnesses describe deadly New Jersey train crash]

Christie said the crash appeared to be accidental.

Officials declined to speculate on a cause, but one thing was clear: The train was traveling far too fast as it entered one of the busiest transportation terminals in the New York area, crashed onto the concrete platform, destroyed the metal canopy over the platform, and finally came to a rest when it crashed into the station building.





When you see the destruction up close, the silver lining is that theres only been one fatality, said New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D). Because the destruction is significant. And the power of the train coming in is obviously devastating in its impact.

Bella Dinh-Zarr, vice chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the speed limit on the track entering the station is 10 mph.

Dinh-Zarr, who is part of the NTSB team in Hoboken, said one question investigators will be examining is whether positive train control (PTC), a federally mandated technology designed to automatically apply emergency brakes to runaway trains, could have prevented the crash. The NTSB has advocated for the technology for 40 years, she said. Railroads were required to adopt PTC by last December, before Congress passed a law allowing railroads to delay installation for three to five years.

New Jersey Transit has not installed PTC on any of its trains, according to data maintained by the Federal Railroad Administration.

Safety experts said the crash also raised questions about how the trains basic safety systems functioned.

New Jersey Transit said earlier this year that its entire network is equipped with an Automatic Train Control system. Such systems are meant to slow or stop a train in certain circumstances.

People have to look and see exactly how New Jersey Transit has implemented that system on that track and how far it extends into the terminal, said Steven Ditmeyer, a former Federal Railroad Administration official.

Such Automatic Train Control systems are a blunter and less sophisticated tool than the newer PTC systems.

Ditmeyer noted, however, that its hard to know precisely how PTC would have worked in this case. The Federal Railroad Administration rules on positive train control grant an exemption for terminals, he said, though they are notoriously complicated environments.

[Safety tool Congress asked for 8 years ago might have prevented Hoboken train wreck, officials say]

The train had been traveling from Spring Valley, N.Y., to Hoboken Terminal, a bustling transit hub that serves four different passenger rail systems, along with a water ferry.

Several witnesses to the commuter train crash in Hoboken, N.J., share what they saw when the train crashed into a platform during morning rush hour on Sept. 29. ( / The Washington Post)

Passengers described the moments before impact, as they looked out their trains window at around 8:45 a.m. and realized that the train  which usually slows to a crawl as it enters the stations  hurdled through the railyard and into the terminal.

Accountant Jim Finan was sitting toward the rear of the first car when he realized the train was coming in much too fast.

We were getting to the platform, but we were still at full speed, Finan, 42, said. The train didnt slow down at all.

Then, Finan recalled, there came a loud boom as he felt the train hit the barrier, burst onto the platform, blast through the support beams holding up the platforms metal canopy and careen toward the station building.

We were just bouncing as we went across the concourse, he said. The only thing that stopped the train is the fact that it slammed into the building.

An average of 60,000 people travel through the station every day.

Alex Moaba of Millburn, N.J., was on a Hoboken-bound train that pulled into the terminal minutes after the crash, before emergency personnel had arrived. He said part of the ceiling was dangling  the first indication that something had gone wrong.

We were just piecing together what had happened, he said. I thought to myself maybe a display board had fallen. I looked a little closer and saw that a train was literally in the middle of the station, off the tracks.

It was kind of eerily quiet and calm, he added.

Videos and photos taken by passengers from the moments after the collision showed a nightmarish scene: The platform was covered in twisted metal and debris from the collapsed roof as station staff peered into the train and passengers and bystanders began yelling and shrieking, some of them trapped under the wreckage.

People were bleeding profusely from cuts to their head, Finan said, and one man seemed to be holding his severed thumb in place. Others had cuts on their hands. Finan pulled off the rubber around an emergency-exit window, and another man pushed the window out. They both helped two women crawl out of the train before New Jersey Transit workers began opening the doors.

The New Jersey State Medical Examiner identified the crash victim as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, of Hoboken. She was standing on the platform at the time of the crash and was killed by the debris that fell from the metal canopy, Cuomo said.

The NTSB dispatched a team of two dozen people, with specialties ranging from mechanics and track signal systems to train operations and survival factors. The head of the Federal Railroad Administration and New Jerseys attorney general are also investigating the crash.

Dinh-Zarr said investigators have so far been prevented from accessing the cab car at the front of the train because metal debris from the canopy has fallen onto the front part of the train. Because of the age of the building, there are also concerns about asbestos.

I want to emphasize that we will only proceed to inspect the cars when its safe to do so, Dinh-Zarr said. It may be tomorrow afternoon before we can safely do that.

Once the debris is clear, they intend to retrieve event recorders and video cameras installed in the front and the back of the train. The event recorder will provide information on the trains speed in the moments before the crash, as well as whether the operator activated the brakes.

They will also be investigating whether the alerter in the cab of the train was activated in the moments before the collision. The device automatically sets off an audible or visual alarm after a predetermined number of seconds go by with no activity detected from the trains operator.

[NTSB: Engineer in deadly 2015 Philadelphia Amtrak derailment lost track of where he was]

There was a bumper at the end of the stations tracks designed to absorb the impact of a train that has overrun the tracks, but it probably would not have done much to halt the speeding train.

Even if you have an energy-absorbing system, its going to be designed for 5 to 7 miles per hour, said Allan Zarembski, director of the Railroad Engineering and Safety Program at the University of Delaware. If youre going 15 to 20 miles per hour, that would be beyond the speed capability for any end-of-track device.

Dinh-Zarr said investigators will examine similarities between this and a similar crash in May 2011 involving a PATH commuter-rail train that hit the bumpers and injured more than 30 people, including the engineer and the conductor.

After that incident, an NTSB investigation determined that the engineer failed to slow down as the train entered the station. It wasnt until two seconds prior to the collision that the engineer applied the brakes. Investigators estimated the train was going 13 mph when it hit a barrier that is intended to stop trains.

The NTSB concluded that PTC could have prevented the crash.

NTSB investigators also determined that positive train control could have prevented a May 2015 Amtrak wreck, in which eight passengers died and 159 were injured outside of Philadelphia. In that case, the technology had not yet been activated on that stretch of track.

Under the technology system, computer software can automatically apply the brakes to a train if an operator is unresponsive, or if the train exceeds the speed limit along a certain segment of the tracks. It is costly and complicated to install, which has led to feet-dragging from passenger train systems and freight railroads around the country.

[Train in deadly 2015 Amtrak derailment had safety equipment that could have prevented it]

PTC has been one of our priorities, Dinh-Zarr said Thursday, moments before she boarded an NTSB airplane to fly to the crash site. We know that it can prevent accidents. Whether it is involved in this accident, that is definitely one of the things that we will look at carefully.

Lori Aratani, Katherine Shaver, Faiz Siddiqui and Ashley Halsey III contributed to this report.
Then-New York Gov. Franklin Delano Roosevelt poses with two of his grandchildren, Anna Eleanor Dall, left, and Curtis Roosevelt Dall, in 1932. (AP)

Curtis, or Buzzie, as he was called, was 3 when his parents separated. So his mother moved back in with her parents, taking Buzzie and his older sister from New York to Washington.

Buzzie settled easily into his new surroundings. He got a lot of attention, not only from his doting grandfather but also from reporters and photographers whose coverage of their new home  at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue  made the towheaded moppets instant media darlings of the 1930s.

Buzzie was formally Curtis Roosevelt Dall, the oldest grandson of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. His sister was Anna Eleanor Dall, known as Sistie. And their highly choreographed, highly conspicuous adventures as first grandchildren living in the White House during the Depression generated myriad stories for a country in desperate need of escapism.

Minus the enviable curls, they were the Shirley Temples of Washington news coverage.

Buzzie  known as Curtis Boettiger after taking his stepfathers surname for many years and then as Curtis Roosevelt soon after reaching adulthood  spent a lifetime wrestling with aspects of his identity.

Roosevelt grandchildren  Sistie and Buzzie Dall  at play on the White House grounds. (Harris & Ewing Collection/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

In a 2008 memoir, Too Close to the Sun, he wrote about the bewildering public adoration and scrutiny that followed him in childhood and the self-consciousness that followed him for decades of measuring up to such formidable grandparents.

He became an administrator in the United Nations Secretariat and retired initially to Majorca off Spain, where he made pottery, and ultimately to Southern France. He died Sept. 26 at 86 at his home in Saint-Bonnet-du-Gard, France. The cause was an apparent heart attack, said Michele Slung, his literary executor.

Buzzie, Sistie and their mother, also named Anna, lived at the White House from 1933, the year of his grandfathers inauguration, until 1935. They remained frequent guests during the next decade, and it was again their home address when the president died in April 1945.

As Mr. Roosevelt later described it, his time at the White House was variously regimented and carefree. He saw it, as any child might, as a playground but with very serious people milling about. He liked to romp around the basement and its many unoccupied rooms.

He recalled hopping on his grandfathers bed some mornings and having the president read the comics to him. My grandfather seemed to savor the few moments of silliness, he would write in his book.

He adored his paternal great-grandmother, Sara, who with Franklin were the only two who made me feel loved. They lavished affection. He was less enamored of the first lady, whom he found over the years to be distant, harshly judgmental and preoccupied with causes. He often called her a better grandmother to the world than to her own grandchildren.

Buzzie and Sistie were often trotted out for public ceremonies at the White House. They hosted a Christmas Party for 60 other children in 1933. At the 1934 Easter Egg Roll, Buzzie reportedly went agog when a magician known as Thurston pulled a live white rabbit from the childs shirt. They had fleeting encounters with celebrities of the day, among them child star Shirley Temple.

Curtis Roosevelt, grandson of FDR, in 2008. (Helayne Seidman/For The Washington Post)

Articles were written when Buzzie and Sistie got colds or when they had a sip of champagne at a soiree. Balancing the frivolous coverage was an undercurrent of menace directed at such prominent youngsters.

Not long after the baby of aviator Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped and killed, Buzzie and Sistie were also the target of threats. A former Navy officer wrote an extortion letter to the first lady demanding that unless she gave him $168,000, he would harm the children. Haplessly and fortunately, he left a contact number and was soon arrested.

Buzzie found his life upended again in 1935 when his mother married John Boettiger, a former reporter who had just been named publisher of a Seattle newspaper.

Crestfallen to leave the White House, Curtis later said he felt like a bit of a freak in his new public school setting and was often lonely with two busy parents. He was eventually sent to a military school.

As Curtis Roosevelt  a name he took after his stepfather killed himself in 1950  he served a stint in the Army and worked in advertising and public relations, among other jobs.

In 1964, around the time he received a masters degree in government and public law at Columbia University, he switched to a civil service career in the United Nations. He spent two decades with the world body, focusing on strengthening ties to non-governmental organizations.

In the 1970s, he spearheaded an effort to preserve Eleanor Roosevelts Hyde Park, N.Y., cottage  and the surrounding property known as Val-Kill  from residential development. Now the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, it is managed by the National Park Service.

Curtis Roosevelt Dall was born in Manhattan on April 19, 1930. His father, Curtis Bean Dall, was a stockbroker. His mother was the only daughter of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

For much of his youth, Curtis Roosevelt was estranged from his father, who found a second calling on the political fringe. He spent decades at the head of the Liberty Lobby, an activist group that raised money for segregationist politicians and promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. He also wrote a polemic called F.D.R.: My Exploited Father-In-Law.

Around the time he joined the U.N., Curtis Roosevelt told the New York Times he had a cordial relationship with his father, even though our politics differ considerably.

Mr. Roosevelts marriages to Robin Edwards, Ruth Sublette and Jeanette Schlottmann ended in divorce. In 1985, he married Marina Jones, who survives, along with a daughter from his first marriage, Julianna Roosevelt of Long Beach, Calif.; a sister, Anna Eleanor Seagraves of Bethesda, Md.; a half-brother, John Boettiger of Mill Valley, Calif.; and a grandson.

Mr. Roosevelts memoir appeared just as Barack Obama, the father of two young daughters, was elected president, and interviewers asked for his take on Obamas children and what they might expect.

I get the sense of two people who are good parents, he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The girls reflect that. The children are older than I was, which is better. . . . Although there is a lot of scrutiny already, it will be worse. The White House is, for lack of a better term, a goldfish bowl. Its inevitable that they will be affected.
Four-time RJD MP Mohammad Shahabuddin again slammed Nitish Kumar today before going back to Siwan jail in Rajiv Roshan murder case, saying his supporters will reply to the Bihar CM in the next elections.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: Before going to jail after cancellation of his bail in the Rajiv Roshan murder case, four-time RJD MP Mohammad Shahabuddin again slammed Nitish Kumar, saying his supporters will give the Bihar Chief Minister a reply in the coming elections.

Shahabuddin, who was already in Siwan town in a mosque to offer Friday prayers, reached the judicial magistrate court and surrendered amid protests from his supporters. Shahabuddin himself drove a motorbike to the court to surrender.

advertisement

SIWAN DM, SP REACH PRATAPPUR VILLAGE



The district administration was caught unawares of Shahabuddin's surrender as the DM and SP of Siwan were at his village Pratappur to take him into custody but the don had already left for court.

Speaking to the media ahead of surrendering in the court, Shahabuddin said he was a law-abiding person and therefore came to surrender.

Also read: SC rebukes Bihar government for hiding facts against Shahabuddin, asks how he was allowed bail



"I came on a bike to surrender. I was offering Friday prayers at a mosque and came to the court straightaway from there. I always respect the verdict of the court," said Shahabuddin.

Before going to jail, Shahabuddin attacked Nitish Kumar again, calling him "a CM due to circumstances".







#WATCH: Mohd Shahabuddin says his supporters will reply to Nitish Kumar in the next elections. pic.twitter.com/F9PGYYs83s ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

LALU IS A MASS LEADER



"Lalu is a mass leader. Nitish is paristhithiyon ( circumstances) ke CM. First he became CM on the crutches of BJP and now on the crutches of RJD", said Shahabuddin.

Chandrakeshwar Prasad, the petitioner who challenged Shahabuddin's bail in the apex court, expressed satisfaction at the judgment.

Also read: Nitish managed to keep Shahabuddin inside jail only under BJP-JDU tenure



"We are happy that he is being sent back to jail. Siwan was living under fear. I was also living under fear and there was a threat to my life. I want Shahabuddin to be hanged for his crimes. The Bihar govt's lackadaisical approach facilitated his release but the apex court has heard our plea", said Chandrakeshwar Prasad.

--- ENDS ---
HEALTH

Push to cut hospital infections gets boost

Federal health officials on Thursday injected another $375 million into a years-long effort to reduce infections and other harm to older patients in hospitals and prevent them from needing to be readmitted soon after they leave.

The officials also set new

goals to improve Medicare patients safety. By 2019, the 16 collaborative networks receiving the new grants must try to reduce instances of patient harm by 20 percent from 2014 levels while lowering preventable readmissions by 12 percent.

The initiative addresses such problems as adverse drug events, falls, pressure ulcers, surgical site infections and urinary tract infections associated with catheters.

 Amy Goldstein

KANSAS

State, ACLU reach deal on voter registration

The Kansas secretary of state and the American Civil Liberties Union have reached a temporary agreement over the states

voter-registration laws, keeping Kansass chief elections officer from facing a contempt-of-court hearing, according to court documents filed Thursday.

The deal between Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) and the ACLU comes six weeks before the U.S. presidential election.

The two sides have been at odds over a Kansas law requiring people to prove U.S. citizenship if they want to register to vote while applying for drivers licenses. Critics say this requirement disenfranchises voters, especially minorities.

The deal will allow those who registered as voters at motor-vehicle offices, or with a federal form, without providing citizenship documents to vote

in the Nov. 8 election with the standard ballot rather than being required to use a provisional ballot, the ACLU and Kobach said in a status report filed Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson had ordered Kobach to explain by Thursday why he should not be held in contempt for failing to obey a federal order issued in May. That order required him to register people who applied to vote at motor-vehicle offices or with a federal form without proof of citizenship.

Robinson canceled the contempt hearing scheduled for Friday, citing the agreement.

 Reuters

NEVADA

School-choice program blocked by court

The Nevada Supreme Court has ruled that the states voucher-style Education Savings Accounts  seen as the broadest school-choice program in the country  have an unconstitutional funding mechanism and that the program should remain blocked.

Justices issued a 4-to-2 ruling Thursday striking down the program  which has never disbursed funds to families as intended  but upholding some of its key underpinnings.

Parties on both sides of the hotly debated issue claimed victory from the 35-page decision.

Lawmakers passed a Republican-backed bill on a split vote last year to create the program. It would allow parents to use funds allocated for their childrens public schooling to

pay private-school tuition or other qualified education expenses.

The ruling says the program authorized last spring by the Nevada legislature did not have its own dedicated funding source and contradicts the Nevada Constitution by drawing on money allocated for public schools in the states Distributive School Account.

But justices affirmed some key arguments from the proponents. They agreed that public money transferred to accounts for parents discretion is no longer public funds that cannot be used for sectarian purposes, such as religious schools.

They also affirmed that the legislature can use its power to encourage other methods of education and that the Education Savings Account program does not violate the legislatures duty to provide for a uniform system of common schools.

The program has been on hold since last winter as two lawsuits against it made their way through the courts.

 Associated Press

MILITARY

7 Afghans training in 4 states disappear

Seven Afghan military students in four states have been absent without leave since earlier this month, officials said Thursday.

The Ledger-Enquirer of Columbus, Ga., reported that U.S. Navy Defense Press Operations Cmdr. Patrick L. Evans said in an email Thursday that four students left their posts without leave over the Labor Day weekend. Two of the students were at Fort Benning in Georgia, one was at Fort Lee, Va., and the other in Little Rock.

Evans said three other students  two at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and one at Fort Gordon, Ga.  were discovered missing the weekend of Sept. 17.

Evans said most Afghan military students who train in the United States return to their country, but officials have in the past uncovered some students plans to go AWOL.

 Associated Press

Islamic school settles lawsuit against Mich. township: An Islamic school has settled a federal lawsuit against a Michigan township that denied zoning for a new school building. The Michigan Islamic Academy will get $1.7 million and can build a school and housing on the land in Pittsfield Township, near Ann Arbor. Township officials approved the settlement Wednesday. The academy sued after the township rejected its 2011 request to build. Officials also settled a Justice Department suit that cited a violation of a bar on imposing land-use rules that put an undue burden on religious exercise.

 Associated Press
Human brains arent any bigger than they were a few hundred years ago, but the amount and complexity of knowledge now available  and often necessary  for them to absorb has grown exponentially. How to get people engaged with modern science? Heres an example:

Michael A. Strauss, a professor of astrophysics at Princeton University, is trying to explain how the universe is expanding and how we can use the rate of expansion to calculate how many years its been since the big bang. (About 13.8 billion.) On one page of Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour, he introduces this equation, which he calls simple:

t=d/v=d/(H0d)=1/H0

Got that? On the next page, he reproduces an old Calvin and Hobbes comic strip in which Calvin wants to rename the big bang the Horrendous Space Kablooie.

Okay! And on the next page, he explains, The Big Bang was not an explosion. . . . It is not like a bomb. Because the universe has no edge, there is no empty space out there for it to expand into. It is the space itself that is expanding. In other words, the narrative veers from physics to humor to text thats pretty easy to comprehend.

(Courtesy of Princeton University Press)

Thats a style employed by all three astrophysicists who collaborated on this book: Strauss and J. Richard Gott, who is also a Princeton professor, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, author, television personality and director of the Hayden Planetarium. Their laudable goal is communicating vast, cosmic ideas in ways that are accessible without being simplistic.

Gott, writing a chapter about Einsteins general theory of relativity, compares the curvature of space-time to the curvature of the Earth  and illustrates it with photos of little toy trucks being pushed along a classroom globe.

Tyson, in a chapter about searching for LAWKI (life as we know it) elsewhere in the galaxy, references not just Star Trek (of course) but also the stopwatch on 60 Minutes, a New Yorker cartoon involving dinosaurs and the Jodie Foster movie Contact.

The book is simultaneously daunting, at least for those of us who never quite got calculus, and surprisingly understandable. And it cheerfully keeps inviting us to at least try to catch on: After all, as Gott notes, This is a funny universe, operating in surprising ways, but it seems to be the universe in which we live.
SOUTH CAROLINA

Boy, 14, charged with murder in shootings

A 14-year-old South Carolina boy was charged as a juvenile Friday with murder and three counts of attempted murder after authorities say he killed his father and opened fire on students at a school playground, wounding three people.

The boy did not show any emotion as he walked into the courtroom wearing a yellow jumpsuit. He was unrestrained, not wearing handcuffs or leg shackles, as required by state law in most juvenile cases.

His lawyer, Frank Epps, noted that the teen has given a statement to law enforcement and asked that investigators not question him again without his lawyer present. The judge agreed to that, and ordered the teen to be held in jail.

The boys mother sat on the front row during the brief hearing and left the courtroom sobbing and leaning on another woman.

The Washington Post and the Associated Press typically do not identify juveniles charged with crimes.

Authorities say the teen shot his father, Jeffrey Osborne, 47, at their home on Wednesday afternoon before driving a pickup truck three miles down a country road to Townville Elementary. The teen crashed the truck at the school, got out and started firing during recess. Bullets struck two students, critically injuring one of them, and a first-grade teacher. The teacher and one injured student were treated at a hospital and released. The other wounded student, Jacob Hall, 6, remained on life support in a hospital, relatives said.

 Associated Press

IMMIGRATION

More Cubans boating to U.S. being stopped

The number of Cubans intercepted at sea while trying to reach U.S. shores has risen even higher amid Washingtons increasing contact with Havana, the U.S. Coast Guard said Friday.

Authorities encountered 7,358 Cubans risking sea crossings to U.S. soil in the fiscal year ending Friday, the Coast Guard said in a statement. That is a nearly 65 percent increase from 4,473 tallied in the previous year.

A surge of Cubans has been fleeing the island over the past two years. Migrants fear the end of a policy allowing Cubans reaching U.S. soil to stay. Those found at sea generally are returned to Cuba.

The Coast Guard said 232 Cubans have been repatriated since Sept. 22.

 Associated Press
A white police officer charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of Terence Crutcher pleaded not guilty in court on Sept. 30. ( / Reuters)

Officer Betty Jo Shelby was arraigned Friday morning on first-degree manslaughter charges here for the death of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man who, police video showed, was holding his hands in the air shortly before he was shot in the chest next to his vehicle two weeks ago.

The 42-year-old officer, who pleaded not guilty, was shielded by a wall of Tulsa police officers as she left the courtroom.

Shelby became emotionally involved to the point where she overreacted and shot Crutcher, who was not obeying her commands, according to a police affidavit.

Friends who served with Betty Jo in two Tulsa law enforcement agencies since 2007 say this is the last place they expected her to be: in the middle of a national story focused on policing and race.

Her attorney described Shelby, as extremely soft-spoken and not imposing by any stretch. (Court records state she is 5-foot-5.)



Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby arrives for her arraignment at Tulsa County Courthouse in Tulsa, Okla. on Sept. 30. (Richard Rowe/Reuters)

If you sat down and had lunch with her and then you had to say, Okay, guess what she is? I would guess a fourth or fifth grade schoolteacher, not a police officer, attorney Scott Wood said.

Dramatic videos from a police helicopter and a dashboard camera show the officer leveling her Glock at the towering man with his hands up walking slowly away from her. Crutcher, 40 and a father of four, falls to the ground next to his SUV and blood begins to soak his white T-shirt. Shelbys shrill voice over the dispatch radio pierces the silence: Shots fired!

Instead of checking Crutcher to see whether he survives the .40-caliber bullet through his chest wall, Shelby walks slowly back to the rear of a patrol car, falling to her knees while another officer tries to comfort her.

[Should police officers be required to provide medical aid to people theyve shot?]

Thats Betty down, the pilot says to the officer riding with him. We need to go back, man, if you need to.

Shelbys husband, a 55-year-old Iraq War veteran, is a member of the departments helicopter crew.

No, Im all right, David Shelby responds. Big girl, man. Got my job to do, too.

The videos prompted outrage here. Hundreds of people turned out in Tulsas Greenwood district  where the deadly 1921 race riot occurred  for a rally and march featuring the Rev. Al Sharpton.

The Tulsa Police Department is not only being criticized for the shooting of an unarmed man, but also for how long it took to provide him with first-responder care after he was shot. (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)

Fellow officers have rallied to Shelbys side, starting a defense fund, a Facebook page and holding two rallies.

Reached at her mothers home last weekend, Shelby seemed remarkably calm and courteous for a woman facing nationwide scrutiny, the loss of her job and a prison sentence of four years to life. She spoke briefly with The Washington Post about the support from her fellow officers, saying, Ive felt the love and its wonderful.

She is the second Tulsa law enforcement officer charged with an on-duty shooting in less than two years. The other officer, volunteer Tulsa County Sheriffs reserve deputy Robert Bates, was convicted of second-degree manslaughter in the death of Eric Harris.

Bates, a wealthy friend of the sheriffs, was allowed to serve with an undercover drug task force when he shot Harris during a gun sting April 2, 2015. Bates claimed he meant to use his Taser instead, and the fallout over the shooting ended in the sheriffs indictment and resignation.

In both cases  Batess and Shelbys  public pressure to charge the officers was intense, fueled by national media attention, marches and angry social media posts with the requisite hashtags.

Anger over Batess case was magnified by officers actions after Harris was shot and the role of pay-to-play policing. The video of Crutchers hands up before he was shot sparked instant condemnation throughout the city, state and country.

Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler, a 27-year veteran prosecutor elected in 2014, filed charges against both law enforcement officers. Though charging officers for on-duty shootings is highly unusual, Kunzweiler rejects any explanation beyond the simple truth.

When the facts demonstrate a violation of the law, he said, its my duty to uphold those laws. Its my job and it is what I am required to do.



Tulsa District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler, center, stands with Tulsas deputy sheriffs before a news conference on Sept. 22. (Ian Maule/Tulsa World via AP)

Fatal police shootings by the Tulsa Police Department are relatively rare. In the past decade, officers have killed a total of 24 people  none last year and four so far this year.

Of those killed by Tulsa police, 29 percent were black, according to the Tulsa World; African Americans make up about 8 percent of the citys population.

Tulsa does have a history of federal intervention surrounding the issue, however. The U.S. Justice Department investigated the department in 2001 to determine whether it had a pattern of racially biased policing. In 2002, the city settled a federal lawsuit by a group of black officers alleging discrimination in hiring and promotion, agreeing to collect data, install dash cams and change employment practices.

Two former law enforcement officers who worked with Shelby at the sheriffs office  where she worked for about five years before joining the police department  described her as likable and hard-working with a tendency to panic under pressure.

Shes not the first person Id choose to go into battle with, one said. Both former officers spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing criticism from fellow law enforcement officers.

Wood, her attorney, said he has heard the same description of Shelby but rejects it.

Shes kind of been characterized as somebody who overreacted and choked. Thats not the Betty anyone else knows thats worked with her on the police department, he said.

Though she was already a certified law enforcement officer, Shelby had to take the same training any new officer takes.

During the 16-week academy, officers receive de-escalation training. Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan has emphasized the need for officers to avoid escalating an already tense situation into one that could require deadly force.

Dan Smolen, the attorney for Crutchers wife, Frenchel Johnson, said based on the departments version of events, he was de-escalating the encounter by having his hands in the air.

Smolen called on the department this week to release more information about Crutchers shooting, including whether any additional video exists. He said he believes race played a role in the shooting similar to other killings of black men by white police officers across the country.

I dont think this woman killed Mr. Crutcher because she wanted to kill a black man, he said. I think she killed Mr. Crutcher because she was afraid of black men.



Pallbearers wheel the casket of Terence Crutcher out of the church following funeral services in Tulsa, Okla. on Sept. 24. (Sue Ogrocki/AP)

An unlikely path

Shelby took an unlikely path to the police department. She was born in Poteau, Okla., a town of about 8,000 people 130 miles southeast of Tulsa that boasts it has the Worlds Tallest Hill!

After a stint in the Oklahoma Air National Guards training program, ended by a knee injury, Shelby became a teaching assistant in 2001. She left to pursue a college degree and joined the Tulsa County Sheriffs Office in 2007.

In her application letter to the sheriffs office, she acknowledges dabbling in marijuana at parties and describes an incident in 1993 in which she struck her boyfriends car with a shovel during an argument. (They filed dueling protective orders against each other and then agreed to dismiss them.)

She and an ex-husband waged a two-year custody battle, and in 2002, his new wife filed a request for a protective order, claiming Shelby made harassing phone calls to their home. After Shelby gathered evidence to combat the request, the judge saw that I was not guilty of the accusations made against me and her request for the protective order was denied.

Betty and David Shelby have been married 16 years, and Betty Shelby has two children  ages 20 and 21  from a previous marriage as well as one grandchild.

Her minister, Benjamin Williams, said Shelby called him after the shooting and asked whether she should stay home from church.

She said it again this Sunday when she did come, he said, that she was concerned about any distraction that it would cause.

Williams said the congregation prayed for her and her family and the Crutcher family during a Sunday evening service.

We would like this to be reconciled as peacefully as possible, he said. . . .We want God to strengthen her.
Konstantin Kakaes is a fellow at New America and author of The Pioneer Detectives: Did a Distant Spacecraft Prove Einstein and Newton Wrong?

If this book were an isolated undertaking, it would be simple enough to ignore it. But even if it becomes only a marginal cultural artifact in the United States, it was a bestseller across Latin America. It is reflective of a more generalized whitewashing of the celebrity drug lord Pablo Escobar. There is a thriving business in Escobar-tourism in Medellin, the Colombian city that served as his stronghold. Narcos, a television series on Netflix that parallels many of the stories in the book, portrays Escobar as a lovable rogue. That show is an insult to the dead; suffering as entertainment only enables brutality.

Now the drug kingpins son Juan Pablo Escobar, who also uses the name Sebastian Marroquin, has written this moral train wreck of a memoir of his fathers life and times. Published in Spanish in 2014, Pablo Escobar: My Father has been newly translated into English. It is reasonable to ask why. The younger Escobar dwells on the indignities of his own life, and revels in the luxuries of his adolescence (a $10,000 wristwatch he wore when he was 13), although he claims not to want to brag. He glides over the deaths his father orchestrated; if Juan Pablo, the man, feels the tragic weight of his inheritance, Juan Pablo, the writer, lacks the skill to convey it.

Juan Pablo Escobars father made the Forbes magazine list of the worlds richest people on the strength of his expertise in cocaine arbitrage. That expertise was realized in the form of an organized campaign of violence against rival drug traffickers, the Colombian state and the Colombian people. The elder Escobar was killed in a shootout with Colombian police in 1993. Nobody, to my knowledge, has tallied up the total death toll that he was personally responsible for. Any reasonable estimate would reach into the tens of thousands.

Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, a Colombian minister of justice, was killed at his orders. So, too was Luis Carlos Galan, who probably would have been elected president had he not been gunned down in 1989. Avianca Flight 203, from Bogota to Cali, was bombed at his orders, killing more than 100 people on board. His men detonated a truck bomb outside of Colombias Administrative Department of Security, a sort of analogue to the FBI, killing dozens. More than 100 people, including nearly half of Colombias 25 supreme court justices, were killed in a 1985 attack by M-19 guerrillas against the Palace of Justice. During Escobars years of peak influence in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Medellin became one of the most violent cities on Earth. Not all of this violence can be blamed on Escobar. But by everybodys account  including his sons  he was central to it.

"Pablo Escobar: My Father," by Juan Pablo Escobar (Thomas Dunne)

Juan Pablo Escobar delineates his view of his father in the opening pages of the book: From the day I was born till the day he died, my father was my friend, my guide, my teacher, and my trusted advisor. This does not square with his ostensible intention to honor the memories of his fathers victims, with all my heart. There is no honor in this book; sprinkling pro forma cliches of regret into the text at random intervals is a lazy, abortive attempt at absolution.

The younger Escobar was 17 when his father died. Although that couldnt have been easy, it is not an excuse for the narrative decision he made as a grown man to segue directly from a promise to honor his fathers victims to a blow-by-blow account of a dispute with his fathers siblings about his inheritance. This acute dislocation recurs repeatedly in the book. He complains that after his father orchestrated Laras assassination, we moved to an old, damp, stifling house in the historic section of the city. It was awful. . . . For the first week, the only thing we ate was chicken from KFC.

It may be true that, after his father kidnapped half a dozen journalists and prominent Colombians, it was annoying that he kept changing the channel on the television, looking for news of his hostages. But it is difficult for the reader to share the younger Escobars relief when his father resolves the situation by buying a television with picture-in-picture functionality: That way, he could watch multiple channels and turn on the sound for whichever program he wanted.

The scant virtues of the book are limited to a few passages when the Escobar family, on the run, is at its most beleaguered. Mostly, the narration of these times is suffused with cloying self-pity. But now and again, a note of lyricism stumbles through. At one birthday party, in hiding, the food tasted like uncertainty. The party took place after the family fled from the authorities: Our relationship with the rain was different than that of most people. For us, the rain was a protective blanket that allowed us to move through the city. In the rain, we traveled more easily. Often, rain became a signal that it was time to leave.

Pablo Escobar consciously aimed to portray himself as a sort of Robin Hood-esque figure, erratically dispersing alms around Medellin and surrounding areas. Ought that real, if scattershot, charity atone for some share of his numerous sins? This indolent and immature book sheds little light on this question. A smattering of chintzy truisms about peace, forgiveness and reconciliation fail to obscure the basic truth that this book is an exercise in trading on Pablo Escobars celebrity that implicates the author in his fathers crimes, an accessory after the fact.
Carla Anne Robbins is a former New York Times editor and Wall Street Journal reporter. She is now an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a clinical professor at Baruch Colleges Marxe School of Public and International Affairs.

It is no surprise that so many Americans mistrust Hillary Clinton. Her Republican presidential rival Donald Trumps puerile attacks (Crooked Hillary) are undoubtedly driving those numbers. But so are reports about her private email server, the Clintons $100 million-plus in speaking fees, and former president Bill Clintons chummy relations with billionaire philanthropists who may or may not be special pleaders.

The puzzle is why the Clintons have been willing to cast doubt on lifetimes of public service, and Hillarys presidential aspirations, by operating so blithely and so messily in the gray areas. Joe Conasons Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton may provide an answer  albeit unintentionally.

The book enthusiastically chronicles Bills philanthropic efforts since he left the White House: slashing the cost of AIDS treatments; improving health systems in Africa; getting sugary drinks out of American public schools; rallying the great and the near great at the annual Clinton Global Initiative to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to their own charitable projects. Much of this has been covered in more lively and skeptical reporting in this newspaper and others, and at a time when the Clinton Foundations many good works are dismissed as merely pay to play, Conasons hagiography wont correct the record.

"Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton," by Joe Conason (Simon & Schuster)

The real contribution comes from watching Conasons exertions as he tries to justify the Clintons more dubious actions. Im convinced that he must be channeling their denial, injured pride and conviction that the ends not only justify the means, but anyone who questions their means is part of a right-wing conspiracy or, in the case of the news media, a tool of those conspirators.

In just one such flight, Conason describes Bill Clintons lashing by his adversaries in politics and the media after his parting pardon of financier Marc Rich. If anything, the compulsion to pursue their old quarry seemed to be swelling, now that he was no longer the leader of the free world but just another defenseless citizen.

This is ground Conason has trod before in his 2000 book with Gene Lyons, The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton, and in columns in the political newsletter and website National Memo, where he is editor in chief.

Consider a few of this books arguments/rationalizations:

The Rich pardon had nothing to do with campaign and library contributions from Richs former wife, all of which she had given months and years before she approached him on behalf of her ex-husband. Bill was doing a favor for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who had asked him to consider the case because of Richs service to Israel.

Other former presidents have been paid big bucks for speeches, and for Bill Clinton, haunted by the specter of debt, the money was a necessity, given the couples post-White House mortgages and massive legal fees  incurred as a result of prosecutorial abuse  in the Whitewater and Monica S. Lewinsky investigations.

Hillary Clintons decision to use a private email server while secretary of state was confirmed by advice from a predecessor, Colin L. Powell, at a dinner party in early 2009.

A 2008 New York Times investigation of Bills relationship with Frank Giustra, a major Clinton Foundation donor who sealed a uranium mining deal in Kazakhstan soon after the two men dined with its despotic leader, is dismissed because, Conason says, the deal was completed well before Clinton left New York; it was with two private firms, not the Kazakh government; and Bill (there to sign an AIDS agreement) did not fly in on Giustras plane  as the Times reported  just out. Giustras visit coincided with Clintons and he seized the chance to travel on with him through Asia.

A 2015 Times report on how foundation donors (former Giustra partners) made millions selling the Russians their stake in American and other uranium mines is dismissed because the Hillary-led State Department, had only one vote out of nine on the U.S. committee that had to approve the deal. The report is also dismissed because some of the information came from Peter Schweizer, the right-leaning author of Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. The Washington Post also got a pre-publication look at Schweizers book. To anyone in the Clinton camp who remembered the Whitewater scandal . . . this collaboration between the two leading print outposts of the liberal media and hostile Republican sources looked all too familiar.

On this narrative of victimization by the media, Conason and the former president are completely in sync. After the Timess Michiko Kakutani described his 2004 autobiography as sloppy, self-indulgent, and often eye-crossingly dull, Bill complained that it was because I pointed out the level of dishonesty in their coverage of Whitewater.

At this point, I should note that I spent more than five years as the deputy editorial page editor at the Times (which may make me complicit in their view) and was a member of the editorial board that endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.

What most stretches the imagination  are politicians this clueless?  is Conasons too-good-for-this-world explanation for why the Clintons keep tripping themselves up. Describing Hillarys struggle to rebut criticism of her Wall Street speaking fees (not out of line with the level of her celebrity), he writes, Like her husband, she felt such confidence in her own probity that she was unable to imagine how others might view her acceptance of enormous sums of money from special interests.

For all the roiling, there is no proof of wrongdoing by either of the Clintons. Still, it is impossible to assess Conasons rebuttals, because he offers only the Clinton camps perspective and, despite his access, there is no sign that he pressed any of them, including either of the Clintons, to reexamine their decisions. 

This is especially frustrating when he does present an anecdote that might have given us important insight into Hillarys decision making. According to the book, she was reluctant to vote to authorize the 2003 Iraq War when she was a senator:  I just dont trust Bush, her husband recalled her complaining. The former president advised her to vote yea,  arguing,  we dont want to leave Saddam with that stuff  meaning chemical and biological weapons  if hes got it.  But we never hear from Hillary, the Clinton now running for president. Why did she follow her husbands advice?

Conason then recounts how President Clinton, at the behest of Britains Tony Blair, tried to rally support from the leaders of Chile and Mexico for a second U.N. resolution that would have given weapons inspectors more time and possibly headed off the war. Washington objected and the resolution died. Lest anyone miss this attempt at dual absolution, Conason writes that Hillary Clinton, on record in support of Bushs war resolution, would shoulder a substantial share of blame for its catastrophic consequences. It would not matter that her husband, who urged her to vote for the resolution, had tried to prevent the war.

More than anything, Conason is a master of deflection. Yes, the right is out to get the Clintons. Yes, other presidents have given high-priced speeches. Yes, other charities have accepted Saudi cash. Yes, it would be tragic if the Clinton Foundations programs were ended. But what he never acknowledges is that the foundation isnt just any charity and Bill Clinton isnt just any former president. Since he left the White House, his wife has either been a senator, the secretary of state or twice a candidate for president. The standards  for the sake of the systems credibility, if not their own  have to be different.

Like all the Clinton aides who apparently never warned them (or warned them loudly enough) about the potential damage from that server, or the speaking fees, or the road trips with donors, Conason does the Clintons no favor. Someone needs to tell them what they should have figured out long ago: Probity is as probity does.
By Devarsi Ghosh: Shah Rukh Khan was (and perhaps is, still) the undisputed king of romance. While Rajesh Khanna and Rishi Kapoor defined what Bollywood romance was for the '60s, '70s, and the '80s, SRK did that for the '90s and the 2000s.

But like all good things have an expiry date, so did King Khan, as Bollywood's Number One Romantic Hero. Quite contrary to the cliched adage that romance is timeless, romance, frankly, as a business commodity and a capitalist magnate (hence the term, 'commercial film') is the domain of the youth.

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So, in 2016, while the Bollywood bazaar is filled with new and upcoming stars, where SRK is 50-plus and at a time, when romance is not as coy as it was in the much simpler '90s, the time is right for someone to replace SRK.



But the heart of romance has always remained the same; like Ranbir Kapoor says in his film Tamasha, "Wahi kahani phir ek baar ... Majnu ne liye kapde phaad ... maar tamasha beech bazar." So, regardless of how the cosmetics change i.e the time period, the ease with how people bed each other these days, the unsentimental treatment of emotional situations and so on, the 21st century romantic hero is not that different, but also very different, from the ones that came before.

ALSO READ: Can Karan Johar make the best Karan Johar film?

SEE PICS: Ranbir Kapoor rings in his 34th birthday on the sets of Jagga Jasoos



ALSO READ: Is Ranbir Kapoor at 34 a legend in the making?



Ranbir Kapoor stars as the lead romantic hero, pining for one woman, and later moving on to another, only to feel conflicted about what his heart wants in Karan Johar's upcoming film Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. The Karan Johar-hero was a template that Shah Rukh Khan, time and again, found himself to fit into perfectly, similar to how Martin Scorsese always went back to Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio to play his narcissistic, hyper-masculine, self-destructive protagonists.





In many ways, Ranbir seems to have filled SRK's shoes of the romantic hero. Perhaps, it all goes back to his debut film, 2007's Saawariya. If romance is about passion and not marketing (looking at films with Ishq wala love), then no actor in Ranbir's age bracket started off with such a tumultuous, near-nihilistic love story. Ranbir's eyes as he gazed at Sonam (at her most graceful in this film) reminded one of a deer stuck in front of headlights, as if love, love and love is what he was all about.





As he later moved on to urbane, contemporary films, he played the romantic hero in a slapstick comedy like Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (2009) and as the tortured lover in the grittier Rockstar (2011).

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But his claim to SRK's throne was established by Ayan Mukerji's Wake Up Sid (2009) and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (2013)

Ayan's heroes (Sid from Wake Up Sid and Kabir from YJHD) are self-centered but jovial man-children who realise the inadequacies of their character when they come across a softer, wiser woman. This character-type is a throwback to the Rahul archetype Karan established in KKHH. There, SRK plays the dumb jock, loved by everyone, who is twice schooled about the ways of love and life by Rani Mukerji and Kajol in the first and second halves respectively.



On the same note, both Konkona (in Wake Up Sid) and Deepika (in YJHD) are built on the same premise as that of Kajol's characters in KKHH and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. Both actors play the NOT-damsel-in-distress but an unconventional woman who soon falls for the charming idiot but is unable to express their feelings for him.

Once established that Ranbir Kapoor can shoulder all the responsibilities of the Bollywood romantic hero and portray all the different facets (the goofy roadside romeo of APKGK and Barfi!, the tortured lovers of Rockstar and Tamasha, the casual loverboy of Ayan Mukerji's films) in the contemporary romantic film, his choice as the new Karan Johar hero starts to feel like the only rational option to replace Shah Rukh Khan.

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( The writer tweets as @devarsighosh )



--- ENDS ---
Donald Trump is a strange standard-bearer for Republicans. He espouses few of the partys traditional positions and disavows most of its icons. Almost every important conservative publication  National Review, the Weekly Standard, Commentary  opposes him, as do most leading conservative pundits, from George Will to David Brooks to Bret Stephens. Of the five previous Republican nominees for president, three will not publicly affirm that they would vote for Trump and I would bet that a fourth (John McCain) will not in the privacy of the voting booth. And yet, amazingly, in polls, Trump has received around the same level of support from Republicans as previous GOP nominees  so far. The election might well hinge on one simple issue  whether Republicans prove to be rational or tribal.

The last time so many Republican leaders defected was in 1964, and Barry Goldwater was wiped out in a landslide. But polarization is so intense in the United States today that a cardboard cutout with an R on it would get about 43 percent of the vote, and one with a D would get about the same.

[Charles Krauthammer: When facts, logic and history dont matter]

For months now, many conservative intellectuals have hoped that the campaign would reveal that Trump was neither Republican nor qualified. It has, on several occasions, most recently at Mondays debate. Public opinion polls showed that Hillary Clinton won by a huge margin. But when Republican and Republican-leaning likely voters were asked in an NBC News poll whether the debate had improved their opinion of Clinton, only 4 percent said yes. When the same group was asked whether it had worsened their impression of Trump, just 6 percent agreed. (Those numbers were 50 percent and 46 percent, respectively, among Democrats and Democratic-leaners.) Watching the same lopsided debate, people on both sides simply reaffirmed their pre-debate perspectives on the candidates.

These dynamics have reminded me of Jonathan Haidts seminal book, The Righteous Mind. Haidt, a social psychologist, used exhaustive evidence to explain that our political preferences are not the product of careful analytic reasoning. Instead, they spring from a combination of moral intuition (instinct) and a tribal affiliation with people who we believe share these instincts. We use reason, facts and analysis to affirm our gut decisions.

Donald Trumps campaign praised him for not bringing up former president Bill Clintons past scandals during the first presidential debate against Hillary Clinton. (Video: Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post;Photo/Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

If you think this is true of other people and not you, consider the example of Peter Thiel, a billionaire technology entrepreneur and investor who co-founded PayPal and funded Facebook. He is an extremely intelligent and well-read person, with mostly libertarian views. He strongly supports Trump, for a truly bizarre reason. He asserts that Trumps most significant statement during this campaign, revealing his worldview, was to declare that government health care can work. He quoted Trump praising the Scottish and Canadian systems  one a nationalized system, the other a single-payer network  as proof of his remarkable willingness to think heretically and challenge Republican dogmas about government.

[Donald Trumps foundation of fakery]

Now, another interpretation of Trumps remark would be that it was a stray comment, thrown off the top of his head, signifying almost nothing. Remember that Trump took five different positions on abortion in three days. NBC News calculates that he has changed his position 124 times on 20 major issues since the campaign began. In Mondays debate, he took two contradictory positions on the no first use policy of nuclear weapons in 30 seconds. And most important, after that offhand reference, Trump backed down from his support for government health care, instead only reciting Republican orthodoxy about the evils of Obamacare.

So an intelligent libertarian has chosen to support a man whose main  and utterly consistent  public policy positions are anti-free trade and anti-immigration and who has promised to appoint socially conservative judges to the Supreme Court because he is convinced that Trump is actually a closet admirer of Britains nationalized health-care system. I cannot think of a better example of Haidts thesis that we come to a decision first and reason our way to it afterward.

Paul Ryan has managed similar acrobatics. Ryan is opposed to all of Trumps major policy proposals  the wall, mass deportations, ending birthright citizenship, unilateral tariffs against China, renegotiating NAFTA, total opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership  and has even publicly condemned many of them. And yet, the speaker of the House says that Trump is his man.

The signs to look for are whether Trump is losing any support among Republicans. That would indicate that politics is about more than tribal loyalty to a team. It would be heartening on many levels. After all, democracy depends on the ability to look at evidence and argument, to use reason and judgment, and to take seriously our roles as citizens of a great republic.

Read more from Fareed Zakarias archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Only 19 percent of Americans trust the federal government to do whats right most of the time, according to the Pew Research Center. And its hard to blame them, given that our Congress has just extended a 25-year-old visas-for-investment immigration scheme that has accomplished essentially nothing except to foster corruption, risk national security  and subsidize real estate developers.

The EB-5 program reserves up to 10,000 permanent residency slots each year for foreign nationals who invest in the United States. Congress enacted it in 1990 on the superficially plausible theory that trading green cards for capital would boost the economy, as a similar plan in Canada had reportedly done.

Before 2008, however, EB-5 produced more than 1,000 investor immigrants per year only once, due to competition from Canada, bureaucratic hassles and a lack of business opportunities fitting the programs minimum requirements  $1 million invested and 10 jobs created. When admissions did go above 1,000, in 1997, the program was temporarily suspended amid concerns that fraud caused the spike.

Subsequent Congresses, and administrations of both parties, responded  by relaxing standards. Now visa seekers may invest passively in existing U.S. firms rather than start their own. They get credit for indirect job creation. They may put up as little as $500,000 if they do so in needy targeted employment areas  gerrymandered to include hot urban real estate markets. The government empowered an army of politically connected promoters, known as regional centers, to guide investors through the U.S. market for a fee.

EB-5 applications have surged; in fiscal 2015, 9,764 investors and their family members got visas. Much of their money flowed into developments such as Hudson Yards, a $25 billion office, retail, residential and park project in Manhattan that has so far attracted $600 million via EB-5. The program enables developers to raise mezzanine financing (the portion not accounted for by a mortgage or the developers own equity) at the equivalent of a 10 percent discount, according to Gary Friedland of the NYU Stern School of Business. EB-5 investors are in it for the visa, not the rate of return.

Most projects could have proceeded without the subsidy, Friedland argues, but if not, so what? Thered be less market distortion.

Some 85 percent of EB-5 investors in fiscal 2015 were from China, which is problematic, given the risk of money laundering: Its hard to establish the ultimate source of investible funds emanating from that notoriously nontransparent economy. A 2015 Government Accountability Office report found that the Department of Homeland Security lacked the capacity to vet EB-5 applicants from China and elsewhere. DHS has detected people with possible intelligence connections to Iran attempting to access EB-5.

Alert Trump Tower: Inadequately vetted foreigners and their U.S.-based enablers are exploiting our porous immigration rules!

Then again, Donald Trumps son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, may be an expert on EB-5 already: His company is building a luxury, Trump-branded apartment building in Jersey City with $50 million raised in large part from Chinese EB-5 applicants.

In Vermont, meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission has recently accused developers of bilking EB-5 investors out of hundreds of millions supposedly destined for a ski resort and other projects. A similar scandal erupted in Chicago in 2013.

EB-5 expansion spawned an EB-5 lobby, spreading campaign donations and boosterish information around Capitol Hill  such as a study commissioned by the regional centers showing that EB-5 investors contributed $3.58 billion to U.S. output and created more than 41,000 jobs in fiscal 2013.

Even if not hyped, these figures amount to less than 0.1 percent of gross domestic product and 1.9 percent of all jobs created that year. More to the point, they do not account for growth and jobs that might have occurred if all the American resources being poured into EB-5-stimulated projects had been deployed elsewhere.

EB-5 costs taxpayers nothing! the lobby cries. True  it amounts to a valuable gift to the private sector, in the form of influence over the governments heretofore exclusive authority to admit immigrants.

For the government, EB-5 isnt an unseemly business  selling visas  as critics sometimes protest. Its a stupid business  giving them away and letting someone else sell them.

For the past year, Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) tried to reform the EB-5 program or kill it, using as leverage the impending Sept. 30 expiration of the overall federal spending law to which EB-5s key legal authorities had been attached.

But the lobby and its Capitol Hill allies successfully resisted, and the legal authorities were extended as part of the must-pass spending measure that passed Wednesday and expires on Dec. 9. EB-5 could well survive via similar maneuvering for years.

This might not happen in a country that legislated according to regular procedure, and on merits  a country like, say, Canada, which in 2014 terminated the investor visa program upon which Congress patterned EB-5.

It provide[d] limited economic benefit, an official statement noted, demonstrating that Canadas government possesses yet another quality ours lacks: an ability to admit its mistakes.

Read more from Charles Lanes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
At the first presidential debate, Republican nominee Donald Trump repeatedly insisted that the United States was losing jobs to foreign countries, which plays well to an audience sympathetic to the fact that globalization has adversely impacted this country in ways that are clear and verifiable (such as shuttered factories). But Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton should have noted that what the United States lost from trade-based globalization it has more than offset through financial globalization.

Since the onset of the financial crisis in 2008, foreign investments into the United States have been slightly more than double American investments abroad. Foreign investments through direct and portfolio funds have helped stimulate U.S. economic growth, supported the housing market and generally served to cushion the impact of the crisis. The downside to globalization can show up in stark ways, and its benefits are often hidden.

Dev Kar, Oakton

The writer, a retired senior economist at the International Monetary Fund, is chief economist at the Global Financial Integrity think tank.

The Sept. 27 news article Moderator Holt largely stays out of fray  sometimes to debates detriment, about Lester Holts performance, failed to address the moderators role in ensuring that candidates respond to the question asked. This should be a requirement that is evenhandedly enforced.

Donald Trump, in particular, is notorious for evading questions and using any opportunity to rant about whatever he chooses. Two obvious examples in the debate were on bringing jobs back from overseas and his reference to Hillary Clintons look. On the former, he instead talked about not letting jobs go overseas and, on the latter, he instead talked about stamina.

The moderator should insist on an answer and, failing to get one after a couple of tries, note clearly for all to hear that the candidate failed to answer the question. Such a role for the moderator should be inarguable and would provide some discipline to the debate.

Buzz Guroff, McLean

Whatever ones take may be on the winner of Mondays debate, how terribly sad that we have come to the point where the last question asked by the moderator is whether the two candidates will abide by the results of the election.

Thanks to Donald Trump for making the United States look like a fledgling Third World democracy.

Peter J. Levine, Potomac

The presidents greatest power is acting as commander in chief. During the debate, Hillary Clinton exposed one of the most frightening dangers of a Donald Trump presidency: She recited his statement that he would blow Iranian ships out of the water if their crew members made gestures (not firing shots) at our destroyers.

In response to her claim that this could start a war, Mr. Trump said it would not happen. This statement can only be interpreted as Mr. Trumps confidence that Iran would not respond to this act of war by the United States.

Such mindless arrogance and recklessness are shocking. Not only would this embolden the hard-liners, undermine any moderates and jeopardize our nuclear agreement with Iran, but also it is naive to think that this would not likely lead to U.S. military and civilian deaths.

Doug Davidson, Alexandria

The Sept. 28 news article New attacks by Trump a bad dream for former Venezuelan beauty queen recounted Hillary Clintons setup and attack of Donald Trump regarding former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. Ms. Clinton had the trap ready and sprung it, and Mr. Trump stepped right into it.

But this isnt about an incident in the late 1990s (what Ms. Clinton would call old news). This is about how a veteran, establishment politician attempted to become president through a gotcha stunt.

If people had a hard time trusting Ms. Clinton before this, this strategy should give them pause to consider what she would do once they vote to give her the almost unlimited power of the presidency.

James Kout, Bowie
THE PRESIDENTIAL candidacy of Libertarian Gary Johnson raises many questions. None of the answers are flattering to him.

Did Mr. Johnson learn much from his two terms as governor of New Mexico, or from his previous national presidential campaign? Does he prepare for major interviews  let alone for being president? First, Mr. Johnson flubbed a question on the slaughter in Aleppo, Syria  What is Aleppo? he asked. An isolated moment of confusion might be understandable. But Mr. Johnson had what he called another Aleppo moment Wednesday. Asked to name his favorite world leader, Mr. Johnson flailed for nearly a minute. Though interviewer Chris Matthews tried to help him, he failed to produce a single name. The next day, Mr. Johnson attempted to brush off the incident with what his campaign called a joke, tweeting, Its been almost 24 hours . . . and I still cant come up with a foreign leader I look up to. No matter how you interpret this, it is not good. As New York Post columnist John Podhoretz asked, could he not come up with lifelong Burmese freedom fighter Aung San Suu Kyi? Did the name Angela Merkel ring no bells?

Which raises questions for Mr. Johnsons supporters: Do ideological libertarians really want this man to represent their movement? Does his loopy campaign bring credibility to their political philosophy?

To those who support him out of disgust with the system  or, perhaps, because of his stand favoring marijuana legalization  do you know what else he stands for? He opposes strong federal action to address climate change. He supports the Supreme Courts Citizens United ruling, which stands at the core of Sen. Bernie Sanderss (I-Vt.) criticism of the system. Mr. Johnson opposes the national minimum wage. He opposes federal aid for college students. He opposes government involvement ensuring universal health-care coverage. He opposes rudimentary gun regulations. His views do not, as some might suppose, represent a sensible, reality-based combination of fiscal reason and social tolerance; he favors less government even where government is badly needed.

Heres another question: Does Mr. Johnsons running mate, former Massachusetts governor William Weld, who is much sharper, really want to help Donald Trump win  and be remembered as the Ralph Nader of 2016? Mr. Johnson takes more support from Hillary Clinton in three- and four-way polls than he does from Mr. Trump. He could swing Colorado or New Hampshire into the Trump column. How could Mr. Weld, who acknowledged the danger Mr. Trump poses in an interview with us in July, live with his complicity in electing the Republican nominee?

How, indeed, could anyone? This is not a case of having to choose head over heart, and vote strategically. Mr. Johnson is good-natured but wholly unprepared  and unwilling or unable to learn. In this case, head and heart should come to the same conclusion.
Dan Zak is a reporter for The Washington Post and author of Almighty: Courage, Resistance and Existential Peril in the Nuclear Age, a book about nuclear weapons and anti-nuclear activism.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump agreed on one thing at this past Mondays presidential debate: Nuclear weapons are the single greatest threat to U.S. security. The candidates concerns diverged from there. Clinton praised the controversial nuclear deal with Iran and worried about nuclear terrorism. Trump said that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is not keeping pace with Russias. Nukes have been shrouded in myth since they were credited  improperly, many say  for ending World War II by destroying two Japanese cities. Seventy-one years later, and decades after the end of the Cold War, these weapons continue to bedevil diplomacy, discourse and the planet itself.

Myth No. 1

Nuclear weapons havent been used since Nagasaki.

In 2008 Cambridge University Press published a book titled The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons since 1945 by international relations scholar Nina Tannenwald. The suggestion  that nuclear weapons havent been used whatsoever since the bombing of Nagasaki  has made its way into textbooks and magazines, with one 2014 Boston Review article wondering nuclear weapons havent been used since 1945. Is the persistence of the arsenal really a problem?

Although nuclear weapons have not been used again in combat, theyve been detonated 2,055 times since Aug. 9, 1945, mostly by the United States and the Soviet Union. These tests have been both demonstrations of force, and experiments with weapon design and effectiveness. From 1946 to 1958, for example, the United States exploded the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day in the Marshall Islands to study the weaponry and intimidate Moscow; the USSR wrought similar devastation near the Arctic Circle and in present-day Kazakhstan.

[GRAPHIC: Every nuclear detonation since July 1945]

In September, North Korea  the only nation to test nuclear devices in the 21st century  conducted its fifth underground detonation to assert its position in geopolitics and to coerce its enemies. And although the United States doesnt conduct full-scale testing, Pentagon officials like to say that American nukes are used every second of every day, as a deterrent.

Across the Atlantic, were refreshing NATOs nuclear playbook to deter Russia from thinking it can benefit from nuclear use in a conflict, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Thursday.

Myth No. 2

Nuclear weapons keep the peace.

The sensible path to peace starts with the realization that peace can be secured only through strength, Robert Spalding, a military fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in The Washington Post in 2013, adding that nuclear weapons represent that strength. In 2009, Jonathan Tepperman, then deputy editor of Newsweek International, argued that nuclear weapons ensure peace by making the costs of war obvious, inevitable, and unacceptable.

Yet Richard Nixons madman theory  that he should be viewed as crazy enough to unleash nuclear weapons in the Vietnam War  neither curbed bloodshed nor cowed Moscow and the Viet Cong. The Cuban Missile Crisis did not result in nuclear war, but John F. Kennedy made decisions that mightve led to one:

If fear of nuclear war prevents leaders from taking steps that might lead to nuclear war, and if Kennedy knew that blockading Cuba might result in nuclear war, then why wasnt Kennedy deterred? Ward Wilson wrote in his book 5 Myths about Nuclear Weapons.

[The Marshall Islands: A ground zero forgotten]

Indeed, nuclear weapons have helped instigate conflict without even existing. The mere rumor of a nuclear program in Iraq  and the thought of Saddam Hussein supplying his nukes to terrorists  was enough to send the United States into a costly war, now in its 14th year, that has upended the Middle East.

Myth No. 3

Nuclear terrorism is likely to happen.

President Obama calls nuclear terrorism the most serious threat to global security and peace. Former defense secretary William Perry says we are closer to nuclear catastrophe today than at any point during the Cold War, in large part because of terrorist ambitions. At a 2015 security conference the State Departments top arms-control official, Rose Gottemoeller, proposed thatnuclear terrorism is the most immediate and extreme danger facing our nation.

In reality, though, thats a high-consequence, low-probability event, retired Los Alamos chemist Cheryl Rofer told the Arms Control Association earlier this year. There have been a number of articles that talk about a market in nuclear materials. Now in order to have a market, you need a seller and a buyer. And as far as I am aware, there are not any buyers out there. . . . In any case, if a terrorist group could get, say, sufficient enriched uranium to make a bomb, would they be able to make it? There are lots of things that can go wrong.

A non-nuclear explosion laced with radioactive materials (a dirty bomb) is a more likely and far less destructive scenario: Since 1995 there have been 2,889 confirmed cases of lost, stolen or misused nuclear or radioactive material, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Also more likely: a major nuclear accident. From 1950 to 1968, at least 1,200 nuclear weapons were involved in significant incidents in the United States, according to Eric Schlossers book Command and Control, which details a 1980 explosion at an Arkansas missile silo that threw a thermonuclear warhead into the sky. And from 2009 to 2013 there were 1,500 reportable incidents involving U.S. nukes or the systems that manage them, according to the anti-nuclear nonprofit Global Zero.

Regardless of the odds, Harvards Project on Managing the Atom still sounded an alarm in March: Terrorist use of nuclear weapons may not be a high probabilitybut the global economic, political, and social consequences would be so severe that even a low probability should be enough to motivate an intense focus on steps such as nuclear security to reduce the risk.

[How an 82-year-old nun broke into the Fort Knox of Uranium]

Myth No. 4

The United States is not modernizing its nuclear forces like Russia and other countries are.

Russia has a much newer capability than we do, Trump said of Americas nuclear arsenal during Mondays debate, adding that we have not been updating and we are not keeping up with other countries.

This is not true. There are nine nuclear-armed nations  Israel has not acknowledged its arsenal but is alleged to have 80 warheads  and each one is modernizing its nuclear forces in some fashion. North Korea is testing missiles that could deliver a warhead to the United States. China, India and Pakistan are actually enlarging their arsenals. Russia and the United States have embarked on major modernization plans of their nuclear triad: the aircraft, submarines and missiles that launch or carry warheads to their target.

Russia did start its modernization effort earlier than the United States, but thats because Russia builds warheads and delivery systems that dont last as long as their U.S. counterparts, says Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association. Washingtons current and planned investment in nuclear forces is unrivaled, and is estimated to cost $1 trillion over the next 30 years, according to the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

No U.S. military commander would trade the U.S. nuclear arsenal for Russias, Reif says.

Myth No. 5

Nuclear proliferation can only continue.

During a CNN town hall in March, Trump suggested that its only a question of time before countries like Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia obtain nuclear weapons. Trumps position is that since so many countries already have nuclear weapons, its more or less impossible to turn back their spread.

Yes, the number of countries with nuclear arsenals has grown over time, but the volume of warheads has been slashed over the past 30 years through intense negotiation by diplomats and hard work by nonproliferation experts. There are around 15,000 nuclear warheads on the planet right now, down from a historical peak of 60,000-plus in the mid-1980s. Material for nuclear weapons has been eliminated from 30 countries. An entire category of nuclear weapon was banned by a 1987 treaty signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. After the dissolution of the USSR, Russians and Americans worked together to secure and dispose of loose fissile material and warheads. Last years Iran deal has at least delayed the entry of a 10th member into the nuclear club. Last week, the Obama administration backed a UN resolution that reaffirms the ban on nuclear tests  a move to badger North Korea back into compliance.

[Nervous about nukes? Heres what you need to know about the button]

So progress is possible. Obama, though, has eliminated fewer warheads than his three predecessors did. This slowdown in disarmament, coupled with nuclear modernization plans, has spurred activists and nations to advocate for a new treaty to ban nukes outright. Just this past Wednesday, six countries submitted a resolution to the UN that calls for the negotiation of a ban treaty next year  an attempt to turbocharge nonproliferation.

As you might guess, the U.S. government  whose nuclear arsenal is the bedrock of its national security policy  is not in favor of the ban, viewing it as both unrealistic and potentially harmful to the long, grinding process of disarmament. As Secretary Carter said Sept. 7 in Oxford: Were going to have nuclear weapons as far into the future as I can see.

zakd@washpost.com

Five myths is a weekly feature challenging everything you think you know. You can check out previous myths, read more from Outlook or follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.
The pathway to compromise is never easy to find, at home or abroad, but it was visible in Colombia this week in the peace agreement that ended a 52-year guerrilla war. What opened this route was good political leadership.

President Juan Manuel Santos asked Colombians who had suffered from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, insurgency to forgive those they regarded as terrorists. FARCs leader, Rodrigo Londono, asked for forgiveness, in turn, for any pain we have caused in this war. The cycle of rage and recrimination paused long enough to get a deal, which the Colombian public is expected to ratify in a referendum Sunday.

Now contrast this exercise in responsible government with the political potshot taken by the U.S. Congress on Wednesday in overriding President Obamas veto of a bill to allow families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for damages. Voting for 9/11 families and against Saudi Arabia proved an irresistible package in an election year, as the 97-to-1 Senate vote showed.

Saudi Arabias refusal to admit its mistakes helped create this congressional car wreck. What a difference it would have made if the Saudis had expressed regret  not for the 9/11 attacks (theres no credible evidence the government was responsible), but for tolerating the Sunni religious extremism from which the jihadists emerged. That would have signaled a new day in Saudi Arabia.

But this bill should never have come to a vote, let alone a veto override. In its feel-good, retroactive retaliation against the Saudis, Congress has compromised the principle that governments cant be sued in foreign courts. If other countries follow suit, American soldiers and diplomats abroad could be at risk every time they enter a country that believes the United States has killed its citizens unjustly or committed war crimes.

Obama and CIA Director John Brennan practically begged Congress to refrain from the override, to no avail. Senate leaders said they might consider legislation limiting the bills scope if it provoked strong foreign reaction. Perhaps we have become a country where Congress has to go over a cliff before it thinks about a parachute. That has been the case with budget issues, and now foreign policy.

Lets return to Colombia for a lesson in how politics and good policy can sometimes converge. The key to the FARC peace deal was Santoss ability to create space for reconciliation with FARC rebels, rather than insist on their capitulation. As any negotiator knows, successful deals are the ones that allow each side to preserve its dignity and self-respect. Politicians too often insist on the purity of seeking total victory, even if the practical result is a continuing impasse.

Santos, a former defense minister, felt strong enough to ignore the usual political calculations and offer the insurgents seats in Colombias parliament and a chance to claim land in a process of transitional justice. Some Colombians dont feel so generous. Former president Alvaro Uribe has rejected the deal, and millions of Colombians will probably vote against it Sunday. But Santos understands how wars end.

America figures in Colombias reconciliation story in ways that remind us of what good foreign policy looks like, even as Congress is showing the worst face. The United States has been helping Bogota suppress the FARC insurgency since the 1990s, when the Clinton administration launched Plan Colombia. Steadfast support for an ally, through three different administrations, weakened FARC to the point that peace was possible.

Colombia has been the opposite of the Middle East roller coaster: It was a sustained, consistent, limited approach that used all the tools of U.S. power, overt and covert, to get the right result.

Obama facilitated the final stages of negotiation by reconciling with Cuba. FARCs rebellion had been sustained for more than a half-century in part by an anti-Americanism engendered by U.S. sanctions against Fidel Castro. When Obama dismantled sanctions against Cuba, he made reconciliation possible for the Colombian left. Its no accident that the Colombia peace talks took place in Havana.

Traveling this week in Latin America with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Ive seen how the U.S. opening to Cuba has created more space, paradoxically, for centrist politicians. Officials in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia have explained that its easier to support free-market reforms when anti-Americanism has receded. Obama has taken away the leftists oxygen.

Good policy is impossible when politicians play to public fears and prejudice. The virtuous cycle of reconciliation and reform that were seeing in Colombia benefits everyone once it gains momentum. But first, strong leaders have to defy the politics of expediency  the popular but shortsighted approach demonstrated this week in Congress.

Read more from David Ignatiuss archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
ONE OF the most disturbing aspects of the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump is the legitimization it has provided for extremist discourse. Rhetoric that properly has been taboo in this country for a generation  overt racism, sexism, anti-Semitism  has begun to seep back into politics, with Mr. Trump and his closest associates providing cover. A telling example appeared this week in the form of a personal attack on the website Breitbart, whose executive chairman is Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trumps campaign chairman. Its subject was Anne Applebaum, who is one of The Posts most distinguished opinion columnists, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and  as the item repeatedly and gratuitously pointed out  a woman of Jewish origin.

Nominally a response to Ms. Applebaums writings about populist movements in Europe and their resemblances to the Trump campaign, the piece was written by an obscure Polish American writer who has an agreement with the foreign ministry of Polands right-wing nationalist government to assist with communications. He described Ms. Applebaum as manipulating a shadowy global network of journalists and commentators (including this editorial page) in order to slander the current regime in Warsaw, which has been accused by the European Commission, the Council of Europe and the Obama administration of endangering democratic checks and balances.

Hell hath no fury like a Polish, Jewish, American elitist scorned, proclaimed the Breitbart article. Anyone who doubts the intention of the Polish foreign ministrys chosen propagandist in using those terms need only read the comments beneath the article, which  uncensored by Breitbart staff  reek with anti-Semitic slurs.

We sought Mr. Bannons reaction to his websites publication of the article, and in particular to its identification of Ms. Applebaum as Jewish. The only response from an aide was that the Trump campaign chairman was on leave from the website. In other words, Mr. Bannon has no objection. Expect more openly anti-Semitic rants at his website  and, if Mr. Trump is elected, in the United States at large.
AN ASSAULT by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces on Mosul, the largest stronghold of the Islamic State, is expected within weeks  far sooner than seemed likely a few months ago. Unfortunately, the acceleration is not good news. The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is rushing the operation forward even though it lacks a strategy to secure and govern the multiethnic city of roughly 1 million people once the terrorists are driven out. It is recruiting sectarian militia forces that have a record of abusing civilians and seizing territory for themselves. Plans for protecting refugees, who may number in the hundreds of thousands, are sketchy.

In short, the Mosul offensive is setting the stage for a potentially catastrophic Day After problem. Though the United States has painfully experienced what such poor preparation can lead to, in Baghdad in 2003 and Libya a decade later, it is pushing the Abadi government to move still faster.

Military experts are more concerned about the aftermath than the fight itself. Brig. Gen. William F. Mullen, who was deputy commander for U.S. operations in Iraq until June, predicted last week that Islamic State defenses in Mosul could collapse quickly. And then what? he asked at a forum at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The Iraqi governments plan, he said, amounts to chips will fall and well sort it out when we get to that.

Thats not a good plan, Mr. Mullen said. This is going to be ugly.

Its not hard to foresee where the ugliness will come from. Though the Mosul attack is expected to be led by U.S.-trained Iraqi counterterrorism units, Mr. Abadi has said Shiite militia forces also will participate. Iraqi Kurdish units may also move in from the north. Controlled by Iran rather than the Baghdad government, several of the Shiite militias were accused of atrocities during and after operations in the Sunni cities of Ramadi and Fallujah. There is ample reason to fear similar abuses against Sunnis in Mosul.

Once the Islamic State is vanquished, the various forces may turn on one another. Kurdish and Shiite fighters already have sparred in nearby Diyala province. Turkey has threatened to intervene on behalf of ethnic Turks in the city. Though a Sunni police force is being trained, it is a fraction of the size needed to prevent human rights abuses and factional fighting.

Plans for governance are equally threadbare. Iraqi leaders reportedly want to restore the former provincial governor and council, but that could be contested by another former governor with his own Sunni force. More important, the Baghdad government has taken no serious steps to resolve long-standing disputes with Sunni and Kurdish leaders over territory, revenue and the delegation of powers to local governments.

Though the absence of such political solutions facilitated the rise of the Islamic State, the Obama administration is not pushing for them. It is not using its considerable leverage  U.S. air support will be vital to liberating Mosul  to insist on better political preparations or the exclusion of Shiite militias. Instead, eager for the operation to begin before President Obama leaves office, it has been encouraging Mr. Abadi to speed up the Mosul offensive, while leaving the Day After problem to the Iraqis. That is a highly risky course.
The recent decline in test scores at two highly regarded D.C. high schools opens a window onto the meaning of test scores and how we use them.

D .C. Public Schools laid the blame for the recent decline in test scores at Wilson and School Without Walls mainly on students who supposedly tanked the standardized tests in order to focus on Advanced Placement tests.

But that is only part of the story.

Last spring, DCPS directed many students at these schools to take the annual reading and math tests in classes in which they werent enrolled. Some 12th-graders had to take tests in subjects they had not studied in four year  and had never studied at the school to which their scores would be attributed. This made no sense  and clearly would result in scores that also made no sense. School officials, parents and I asked DCPS and the Office of the State Superintendent of Education to fix the problem.

Officials acknowledged that the testing assignments were nonsensical and blamed each other for this happening. But they didnt solve the problem.

In their refusal to act, DCPS and OSSE officials gave the impression that the usefulness and integrity of the tests werent important, that the valuable time that students and teachers would devote to meaningless tests didnt matter and that fixing the bureaucratic blunder wasnt worth their effort. Not surprisingly, many students refused to take the tests as seriously as in the past.

Already unhappy with overtesting, many parents supported their children.

For its part, implicitly acknowledging that the wrong tests were being used, DCPS provided exemptions to some parents who requested them; unfortunately, the school system didnt publicize this, so all parents and students didnt have the same chance to get exemptions.

The result? Because some students were exempted, some purposely tanked, some took tests in long-ago-studied subjects and some really tried on the tests, the students who took the tests in the spring were different from those who participated the year before in meaningful ways that we cant fully understand or measure. When thats the case, we cant draw meaningful conclusions from comparing the test scores from one year to the next. These results should have been released only with a disclaimer that they are meaningless.

But this incident illuminates a bigger problem. At Wilson and Walls, the incomparability of the two groups is clear and egregious. But consider this example (and there are many others):

DCPS students take English and math assessments in every grade from third through eighth and once in high school. High schoolers usually take them while studying English 2 and Geometry, which is usually in 10th grade. The percentage of students who reach the proficient level is reported, and schools have been evaluated mainly by how many reach proficient or higher.

Lets say that in High School A, 50 percent of the test-takers reach the proficient level in English while only 25 percent at High School B do. Is School A better? Should School A get rewarded? Should School B be penalized?

But what if 75 percent of the students at School A had scored proficient in English in eighth grade, their last assessment, before they ever set foot in School A? And what if only 10 percent in School B had? Which school is better?

Given the way we measure and report test scores, the achievement gains (or losses) that these schools might have produced are invisible. The most important measurement  the actual progress of actual students  goes unseen.

So, as we consider the incomparability of scores between last years and this years test-takers at Wilson and Walls, lets understand that the scores at other high schools are also riddled with these and other complexities. Maybe schools with low or high scores  or big losses or gains  are particularly ineffective or strong. Or, maybe not. The combination of misassigning, misreporting and real anomalies in how we use and report scores means that these scores, especially in high school, dont paint as accurate a picture of school effectiveness as many people think.

PARCC, the test used in the District, is a very good assessment, capable of providing data that we can use to support and improve education. But garbage in, garbage out. For the data to be meaningful, we have to administer, report, analyze and interpret wisely. The scores from Wilson and Walls as presented tell us very little about the quality of those schools.

Its time to understand how little the data may tell us about the quality of other schools as well. Thanks to a change in federal law, OSSE and the D.C. State Board of Education must develop revised rules for how we evaluate schools and hold them accountable. The silver lining of this incident could be that it helps us all understand how important our rules are  and how they can illuminate or obscure changes in student achievement.

The writer represents Ward 3 on the D.C. State Board of Education.
New American citizens are sworn in during a special naturalization ceremony in honor of Citizenship Day and Constitution Day on Ellis Island in New York on Sept. 16. (Kena Betancur/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

The Sept. 20 front-page article Suspects family life shadowed by financial troubles, violence characterized the suspected New York City and New Jersey bomber as living the typical life of an immigrant son. One hopes this is not now the norm.

Millions upon millions of immigrants entered the United States in the mid- to late 1800s and helped shape this country into what made it great. My father  and scores of others in this country  represent the true definition of the typical immigrants son. This particular immigrants son was one of the very first volunteers for the U.S. Navy Seabees (an honored unit that exists today). He married shortly after Pearl Harbor, spent a brief time with his new bride and entered the military service of the United States one month to the day after they wed.

He spent more than a year and a half in North Africa during World War II, immediately after the Torch Landings of 1942. Upon return to the United States a few days after D-Day, he spent a year on a Rhode Island naval base and from there was mobilized to Guam in preparation for the invasion of Japan. However, two days after my father crossed the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean on the attack transport USS Sitka, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, averting the planned invasion.

After three years and 13 days of service, my father returned to his bride on Nov. 6, 1945. He spent the rest of his life disabled from his service to our country, and never once did I hear him complain about his injuries. He worked seven days a week for 40 years in the restaurant he built, creating a future for his children. He died 20 days into the new millennium of complications from his service injuries, as the veins in his legs finally failed to function.

He, and millions of others, are typical immigrants sons. Please do not insult me, my father or the rest of this country by suggesting that the suspected bomber is anywhere near the caliber of my dad.

Frank Calcagno Jr., Herndon
Actor Sivakarthikeyan, who is gearing up for the grand release of Remo, says he accepted the role of a nurse with pride and gusto.

Sivakarthikeyan talks about Remo and his character in the film

By India Today Web Desk: Sivakarthikeyan, who plays a female character in Remo, didn't have any inhibitions playing a nurse. He says he accepted the role with pride and gusto.

Speaking about the role, Sivakarthikeyan said, "The role made me realise how special it's to be a woman, especially after shooting for a scene where I play a nurse and I'm handed over a newborn. We didn't try to make the scene dramatic, but the minute I held the baby, I had tears in my eyes."



ALSO READ: Mahesh Babu's next with AR Murugadoss titled Abhimanyu?

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However, the scene made Sivakarthikeyan realise the torment women undergo while delivering a baby.

"That instant when I held the baby, I thought about the women in my life - my mother, sister, wife and my daughter - and their contribution to my career. When I look back at the experience of working in Remo, I feel proud to have played a woman," he said.

Remo, which is touted to be a romantic comedy, is directed by debutant Bakkiyaraj Kannan.

The film will see Sivakarthikeyan collaborating with Keerthy Suresh for the second time after the duo's successful outing in Rajini Murugan.

Remo has music by Anirudh Ravichander and the songs are smash hit among the fans, especially the song Senjitaley.

Produced by RD Raja under his banner 24AM Productions, the film is slated to release on October 7, on the occasion of Dussehra.



--- ENDS ---
Hillary Clinton is presenting her extensive government experience as a major rationale for her presidential candidacy. In last Mondays debate, she countered Donald Trumps questioning of her stamina with the riposte: Well, as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a cease-fire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina.

Clintons campaign hopes that her long proximity to the presidency, her years as secretary of state and her two Senate terms put her in a dominant position compared to Trump, who has no government experience. President Obama has said, I dont think theres ever been someone so qualified to hold this office. Comedian Sarah Silverman has joked that Clinton is the only person ever to be overqualified for a job as the president.

A look back at history, though, shows that lengthy experience in government hardly guarantees a magnificent presidency. Not even a good one. In fact, some of the worst presidents have been extremely qualified for the position  and some of the best, the least.

In the former category, take, for instance, James Buchanan. Buchanan had probably the lengthiest governmental resume of anyone who has ever run for president. He was first a Pennsylvania state legislator, then a member of the U.S. House and, later, the U.S. Senate. He also served as U.S. ambassador to Russia and Britain and as secretary of state. When he finally received the Democratic presidential nomination in 1856, he was 65, the second-oldest man to run for president up to that time. His backers emphasized his vast experience, especially when compared with that of his main opponent, John Fremont of the newly founded Republican Party.

Buchanan won in a walkaway, but his presidency was a disaster from the beginning.

Just before he was elected, Buchanan persuaded two Northern Supreme Court justices to go along with the Southern jurists in the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, which came out two days after his inauguration. Dred Scott held the Fugitive Slave Act to be valid and said the Constitution did not give any state the right to restrict slavery. The decision effectively paralyzed the nation after what had been a 20-year economic expansion, driven primarily by the railroads and the human and manufactured cargo it transported. Business owners worried that if they opened operations in formerly non-slave states, they could at any moment be out-competed by businesses using slave labor. Thus, businesses swiftly stopped expanding. Railroads declared bankruptcy and many large firms went out of business. Every bank in New York essentially shut down, refusing to honor scrip, but only gold and silver. The Panic of 1857 came on quickly and precipitously, and Buchanans answer was only that it was the fault of speculators, and that American grit would solve the problem. It eventually did, when the need for armaments for the Civil War revived manufacturing.

At the end of Buchanans term  he said during the campaign that he would serve only one  he refused to support his major-party rival, Stephen Douglas, and the Democratic Party split into three, ensuring Republican Abe Lincolns election. In the interim before Lincolns inauguration, six states seceded. Buchanan said the Constitution gave them no right to do so, but he as president couldnt stop them, thus setting the stage for the Civil War.

Buchanan may be the worst president, but he is hardly the only one whose deficiencies manifested in office despite an extensive resume of government experience. John Quincy Adams is another good example. As a boy, Adams went to Europe with his father as an aide in many of the countrys first foreign negotiations. He went on to serve as a senator, minister to four countries and secretary of state. The five presidents before him all valued his experience, and his father, John Adams, and even his rival, Thomas Jefferson, relied on his advice. Yet his one term as president was so dismal that Andrew Jackson won 68 percent of the electoral votes when Adams tried for a second term. Adams was viewed as an anachronistic remnant of the Founders generation who thwarted westward expansion, while the new generation wanted to push the country on to the distant coast. He became the only former president to go back to the House, where he had a distinguished run for 10 more years.

Two other presidents who most often land in the bottom spots in historians surveys, Franklin Pierce and Richard Nixon, also had outstanding resumes. Pierce was a member of the New Hampshire legislature, rising to speaker, then a congressman and senator. He then refused President James Polks move to make him attorney general and became a Mexican War private, rising to brigadier general, all before age 43. The disastrousness of his presidency, though, was only short of Buchanans in that it did not result in a civil war. Pierce suffered by being a Doughface: a Northerner who favored the South. He wavered over whom to support in the battle over whether Kansas should be a slave state or free, and then pushed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which complicated the issue of slavery in the territories. Later, he supported the Ostend Manifesto (which was, ironically enough, written by his minister to Britain, James Buchanan), which promoted buying Cuba to be a slave state. His own party vilified him for that move and then refused to re-nominate him.

Then there was Nixon, who was a congressman, senator and vice president from 1947 to 1961, before becoming president. He had some good moments  getting the Environmental Protection Agency started and opening up China for trade  but instead of Waterloo, he had Vietnam, and then became the only president to resign in disgrace, over Watergate.

Meanwhile, many of our best-known and most beloved presidents entered office with fairly scant resumes. Consider George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. While Washington had little opportunity to have a governmental resume  though he did lead the Continental Congress and the Continental Army  Lincoln and FDR had bare minimums. Lincoln had a few terms in the early Illinois legislature and one term in Congress, but he famously lost his run for Senate against Douglas and fell short in trying to become Fremonts vice presidential running mate in 1856. FDR had one term as a state senator and another as governor of New York, but was also an electoral loser  in a Senate primary and, in 1920, as a vice presidential candidate.

Although it is true that these three faced some of the greatest crises in the nations history, so their presidential skills had the best chance of a grand result, each still succeeded in performing those executive miracles. They did not need to hark back to some experience in the legislature or a foreign mission to decide what to do. They relied instead on their personalities and their leadership skills.

Studies that have looked systematically at the relationship between experience and presidential success have found that most forms of experience touted in a candidates favor  legislative and diplomatic experience, leadership roles in the private sector and other forms of federal service  are not particularly useful when it comes to predicting positive terms in the White House. One study, by political scientist John Balz, even produced weak evidence that a stint in Congress may damage a presidents abilities in office, echoing the common sentiment that time spent as a Washington lawmaker may do more harm than good for presidential hopefuls. Some experience does appear helpful, however: Former governors, for instance, tend to finish their time in the White House with higher approval ratings than non-governors, and tend to perform better as presidents.

The presidency is a unique post, and it requires a combination of skills and talents that isnt reflected in any other position. Experience as a senator or a Cabinet member or an ambassador may test a persons problem-solving skills and negotiating skills and diplomatic skills, but it doesnt necessarily provide opportunities for office holders to lead decisively, making momentous decisions mostly on their own. Even the most predictive of positions, such as gubernatorial posts, still fall short of the gravity and scope of the Oval Office.

Hillary Clinton has an impressive resume of government service. But while her experience may help her win the White House, it doesnt tell us much about how great a president she would be once she got there.

outlook@washpost.com

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I take issue with Robert J. Samuelsons statement in his Sept. 26 op-ed, The wrong immigration debate, that we need an immigration system that gives priority to skilled over unskilled workers.

My maternal and paternal grandparents were unskilled and uneducated immigrants to the United States from Poland and Ireland, respectively. They came in the wave of immigration in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many of their children fought for the United States and led productive lives as public servants or in business. The same is true in my generation and that of my children and grandchildren.

Thus, literally hundreds of productive citizens (and, from Mr. Samuelsons standpoint, consumers) resulted from the ability of my grandparents to immigrate to the United States. There were more than 20 million others during that same period. Do the math. Clearly their contribution and that of their offspring to society far exceeded any drain on society.

Let us not forget, particularly during this time of immigration debate and anti-immigrant fervor, that all of us are immigrants or descended from them.

William E. Kennedy, New Market

Robert J. Samuelson concluded his generally positive op-ed with the words But the underlying realities will not retreat no matter how much we wish they would. If we cannot maneuver immigration to our advantage, it will almost certainly work to our disadvantage. He was writing solely in terms of our economy. There are other considerations.

In 1960, when I was in college, the population of the United States was 180 million; teachers could afford to live near the schools where they taught; police officers and firefighters could likewise afford to live near where they worked; and almost no one outside Los Angeles was required to endure frustrating commutes on packed roads. Now the opposite is true because of population growth driven largely by legal immigration. And its going to get worse, much worse. The Census Bureau projects our 2060 population to be 417 million  237 million more than when I was in college.

There is a terrible quality-of-life cost with such population growth. When do we stop?

Edwin Stennett, Montgomery Village
Earlier this year, when Aditi Hardikar stepped down as the Obama administrations primary liaison to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, Valerie Jarrett praised Hardikars work in a statement by saying it showed that change is possible when you are dedicated to something larger than yourself. You almost expect banality in statements of this kind, but still I wondered: Does anyone really need to be told that non-solipsistic behavior can produce beneficial results?

In recent years, our politicos and media personalities have begun to rely heavily on some version of the phrase larger than the self. The words evoke selfless devotion to a cause or way of living that isnt primarily concerned with self-advancement. It shows up in politics more than anywhere else. As a candidate in 2008, for instance, Barack Obama told graduates of Wesleyan University that thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs, betrays a poverty of ambition. Because its only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role that youll play in writing the next great chapter in the American story. Heidi Cruz, similarly, speaking this year on CNN about husband Teds decision to run for president, remarked that any time you are doing something thats so much greater than yourself, its incredibly humbling.

Well, okay. I guess college students are well advised to think about something other than themselves, as Obama says, and seeking the presidency is in some sense greater than any one persons or familys career goals, as Cruz says. But people whove achieved high levels of success for themselves are perhaps not in a position to counsel others on the importance of selfless aspirations.

Almost all uses of the phrase involve that indefinite pronoun something, and indeed there is a notable indefiniteness about whatever it is thats supposed to be larger or greater or bigger than the self. So is that something just anything?

Often it seems to signify nothing more than belief or conviction. Thus Geraldo Rivera, speaking in April to Bill OReilly on the latters Fox News show, sought to explain young peoples interest in the presidential candidacy of Bernie Sanders. To me, Rivera said, it is a longing among the millennial generation for the kind of activism we had when we were their age, Bill. Where there was the antiwar movement, the civil rights movement. There was a questing for something larger than self. Some meaning.

Here the larger-than-self something could mean protesting injustice, or simply supporting a candidate one perceives to be uniquely critical of injustice. Even weaker is Charlie Roses version. Rose was interviewing the actress Olivia Wilde in a segment of his PBS show that aired in June. Wilde said shed learned that no major life decision should be made without really understanding who you are, and this prompted Rose to remark: As I often say to people all the time, you know, with whatever wisdom I learned, it is this notion of first to understand yourself and then understand something larger than yourself.

I am not sure what that means, or if something larger than is different from something other than yourself. Rose clarified his observation a few seconds later when Wilde commented that becoming a parent makes you better. Yes, he agreed, when you think of something larger than yourself, all of a sudden its not about me, its about him, meaning her child. According to this discussion between two highly successful television personalities, then, taking care of your own child counts as noble self-abnegation.

The whole larger than self idea works best, I think, as a kind of low-level religion in which youre counted as good as long as youre not utterly self-obsessed. Almost everybody cares about something that can reasonably be thought of as larger than self  a cause, an ideology, a hobby, a sport, a job, a company that produces useful things. Even if youve spent your career libeling competitors and stepping on colleagues to get ahead, you did so for the sake of something larger than self, so youre okay, morally. And in fact theres no reason that working for a goal larger than yourself cant include torture and slaughter. Working for a larger-than-self project is precisely what appeals to many aimless young men wishing to join the Islamic State.

The phrase isnt new, but it has achieved much wider currency in the past decade. Its popularization has occurred in tandem, curiously, with the ascendancy of hyper-individualism in American society and politics  an outlook in which no law or convention can have any legitimacy so long as it limits individual self-fulfillment or self-expression in any way. So maybe larger than self is just a weak rhetorical gesture in the opposite direction. Maybe its just our way of acknowledging that theres something greater than self  we just dont know what it is.
The GOP presidential nominee is out on the trail ahead of the general election in November.

The GOP presidential nominee is out on the trail ahead of the general election in November.

And now, less than six weeks from the election, what is the main event of the day? A fight between the Republican presidential nominee and a former Miss Universe, whom he had 20 years ago called Miss Piggy and other choice pejoratives. Just a few weeks earlier, we were seized by a transient hysteria over a minor Hillary Clinton lung infection hyped to near-mortal status. The latest curiosity is Donald Trumps 37 sniffles during the first presidential debate. (People count this sort of thing.) Dr. Howard Dean has suggested a possible cocaine addiction.

In a man who doesnt even drink coffee? This campaign is sinking to somewhere between zany and totally insane. Is there a bottom?

Take the most striking  and overlooked  moment of Trumps GOP convention speech. He actually promised that under him, the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon  and I mean very soon  come to an end.

Not be reduced. End.

Humanity has been at this since, oh, Hammurabi. But the audience didnt laugh. It applauded.

Speaking at a rally in Melbourne, Fla., Sept. 27, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said there are only "41 days to make possible every dream you've ever dreamed." (The Washington Post)

Nor was this mere spur of the moment hyperbole. Trump was reading from a teleprompter. As he was a few weeks earlier when he told a conference in North Dakota, Politicians have used you and stolen your votes. They have given you nothing. I will give you everything.

[Fareed Zakaria: Can Republicans be rational?]

Everything, mind you. I will give you what youve been looking for for 50 years. No laughter recorded.

In launching his African American outreach at a speech in Charlotte, Trump catalogued the horrors that he believes define black life in America today. Then promised: I will fix it.

How primitive have our politics become? Fix what? Family structure? Social inheritance? Self-destructive habits? How? He doesnt say. Hell will it. Trust him, as he likes to say.

After 15 months, the suspension of disbelief has become so ubiquitous that we hardly notice anymore. We are operating in an alternate universe where the geometry is non-Euclidean, facts dont matter, history and logic have disappeared.

Going into the first debate, Trump was in a virtual tie for the lead. The bar for him was set almost comically low. He had merely to (1) suffer no major meltdown and (2) produce just a few moments of coherence.

He cleared the bar. In the first half-hour, he established the entire premise of his campaign. Things are bad and shes been around for 30 years. You like bad? Stick with her. You want change? Im your man.

It cant get more elemental than that. At one point, Clinton laughed and ridiculed Trump for trying to blame her for everything thats ever happened. In fact, thats exactly what he did. With some success.

[Eugene Robinson: Trump falls into Clintons artfully laid trap]

By conventional measures  poise, logic, command of the facts  she won the debate handily. But when it comes to moving the needle, conventional measures dont apply this year. What might, however, move the needle is not the debate itself but the time bomb Trump left behind.

His great weakness is his vanity. He is temperamentally incapable of allowing any attack on his person to go unavenged. He is particularly sensitive on the subject of his wealth. So central to his self-image is his business acumen that in the debate he couldnt resist the temptation to tout his cleverness on taxes. To an audience of 86 million, he appeared to concede that he didnt pay any. That makes me smart, he smugly interjected.

Big mistake. The next day, Clinton offered the obvious retort: If not paying taxes makes him smart, what does that make all the rest of us? Meanwhile, Trump has been going around telling Rust Belt workers, on whom his electoral college strategy hinges and who might still believe that billionaires do have some obligation to pay taxes, that I am your voice.

When gaffes like this are committed, the candidate either doubles down (you might say that if you can legally pay nothing, why not, given how corrupt the tax code is) or simply denies he ever said anything of the sort. Indeed, one of the more remarkable features of this campaign is how brazenly candidates deny having said things that have been captured on tape , such as Clinton denying she ever said the Trans-Pacific Partnership was the gold standard of trade deals.

The only thing more amazing is how easily they get away with it.

Read more from Charles Krauthammers archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Hillary Clinton speaks in New York while her husband, former president Bill Clinton, applauds.

Nov. 9, 2016 Hillary Clinton speaks in New York while her husband, former president Bill Clinton, applauds. Melina Mara/The Washington Post

Hillary Clinton returned to the difficult political ground of Iowa Thursday with hopes of banking early presidential votes in a battleground state trending firmly toward Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Iowas lengthy early-voting window makes it the first battleground state to begin recording ballots this year, and it is among only a few states that allow weeks of in-person voting ahead of Election Day. Democrats hope to use an advantage in organizing power to return the state to their column.

We are starting to vote today in Iowa, Clinton said. We have 40 days to win an election thats going to affect the next 40 years of our country.

She urged supporters to go directly from the outdoor rally where she spoke to an early-

voting station nearby. Democrats had organized transportation to several sites.

Republicans have conceded that early and absentee voting is not their top priority in Iowa.

Speaking at a Des Moines rally Sept. 29, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton slammed opponent Donald Trump for what he has said about his tax payments. (The Washington Post)

The Republican National Committee said its staff collected over 250 absentee-ballot applications during a Trump event this month in Clive, Iowa and nearly 300 at a Wednesday rally in Council Bluffs. The RNC said it has 63 staff members in the state.

The Trump campaign declined a Wednesday interview request with state director Eric Branstad. In a written statement, Branstad said the Trump campaign has been working to encourage supporters to vote early.

But Branstad, who is the son of Republican Gov. Terry Branstad (R), recently told the Des Moines Register: While absentee ballot-early vote is not our main focus, the Trump team is working to win early votes from Iowans by communicating Donald Trumps messages of jobs, growth and opportunity to them broadly across the state and encouraging them to vote early if they can.

Still, that the Republican nominee has kept the race tight reflects the structural challenges that Clinton faces among liberal primary voters and white voters without a college degree.

Clintons razor-thin caucus victory over Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa made clear that she would struggle to energize young and disaffected voters. She won the caucus vote largely on the strength of a massive turnout operation, but is struggling now to close a gap against Trump of about 5 points in the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls.

She has spent very little time in the state since the caucuses.

Dennis Goldford, a professor of political science at Drake University, said that Trump is performing better in Iowa than other battleground states for a variety of reasons: It is the fifth-whitest state in the nation; manufacturing is still a significant sector of the economy; and there is a large rural working-class population without four-year college degrees.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held a rally in Des Moines Sept. 29, the first day Iowa residents could vote early in the general election. (The Washington Post)

Democrats are making a counterintuitive argument in Iowa. Less-reliable voters, including the young, are the targets of Democratic outreach to encourage early voting. The theory, Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon said, is that voters with less history of voting or greater challenges to voting on Election Day can be rallied to vote now, while more-reliable Democratic voters are a safer bet to show up Nov. 8.

The campaign is mounting heavy early-voting efforts in Iowa, North Carolina and Nevada, all battlegrounds. More than half of votes were cast early in North Carolina and Nevada in recent elections. In 2012, nearly half of Iowas electorate voted early.

Theyre the folks who only come out in presidential cycles and they dont come out every presidential cycle, said Scott Brennan, former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party. So you can identify them and the question is, how do you get them out? It requires a lot more contact and persuasion.

Early voting is seen as a solution for voters with unpredictable schedules, including lower-wage workers who are more likely to vote Democratic. This year, Clinton also hopes it is an antidote to a lack of enthusiasm among some Democrats, including onetime Sanders supporters who remain cool to Clinton.

Early voting is also seen by Democrats as Clintons best hope to eke out victories in red states such as Georgia and Arizona.

Clinton will campaign in Ohio on Monday with an emphasis on encouraging voter registration and early voting. Former president Bill Clinton is also traveling through economically depressed areas of Ohio next week, making the same case. Registration closes on Oct. 11 in Ohio, and early voting opens the following day.

As Hillary Clinton spoke here, the campaign mounted other early-voting rallies in cities across Iowa, including Waterloo, Sioux City and Davenport.

Even with a microphone, Clinton raised her voice to be heard over the shouts and boos of Trump supporters across the street from the open-air venue in downtown Des Moines.

The crowd was modest and Clinton was more subdued than she has been in other campaign outings this week, as she celebrated positive reviews of her debate performance against Trump on Monday night.

She joked that she, at least, will study for the next debate next week.

The election will be close, but we can win Iowa, Clinton said in closing.

The states notable transparency with election data allows campaigns to track virtually every ballot until it is counted, giving them a clearer picture of their performance before polls open Nov. 8.

Clintons campaign said registered Democrats hold a nearly 3-to-1 advantage over registered Republicans in vote-by-mail requests across the state.

But Republicans argued that she is underperforming compared with President Obama in 2012, when more than 4 in 10 Iowa voters cast early ballots.

That year, the push for Obamas reelection campaign to snare early voters began in April. Democratic strategists said that the party has found that an earlier effort to encourage voters to request early ballots didnt guarantee that they would all be returned.

As a result, the Clinton campaign delayed an intense push until slightly later  and fewer early-vote ballots have been requested compared with 2012 for all parties  in an effort to better ensure that requested early ballots are actually cast.

At the end of the day, we were scrambling to try to get those votes in when it turned out either the people have moved or they had just thrown up their hands, said Brad Anderson, Obamas Iowa state director in 2012. I do think a more targeted approach to early voting is smart, especially when you have the resources that the Clinton campaign does.

Historically, early voting has advantaged Democrats more than Republicans, who in the 2012 presidential election devoted few resources to the effort. In the 2014 midterm elections, Republicans changed course and matched or exceeded Democrats performance with early voters, Anderson said.

This year, it is less clear how much the Trump campaign is pushing for early voters.

During a Wednesday campaign rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Trump accused Clinton of wanting to put the Oval Office up for sale as he sought to increase the urgency to vote early.

We cant let that happen. Thats why you have to go and vote on Nov. 8, Trump said. And early voting in Iowa starts tomorrow. Get out. Dont take a chance.

Phillip reported from Washington. Sean Sullivan in Washington and John Wagner in Chicago contributed to this report.
Monica Lewinsky and President Bill Clinton are shown in an official White House photo taken on Nov. 17, 1995. (Office of Independent Counsel/AP)

Donald Trump and his allies are dredging up the past marital infidelities of Hillary Clintons husband  a move of questionable benefit that is bewildering even some of his staunchest supporters.

The Republican nominee and his surrogates, under pressure to boost his standing with female voters and respond to Hillary Clintons accusations that he is a misogynist, are turning to an attack that has been tried repeatedly by the Clintons foes.

On Thursday, Trump spoke of the Clintons sordid history and made a reference to Bill Clintons impeachment, which stemmed from his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. A campaign memo circulated the day before urged associates to mention Lewinsky and other women with whom Bill Clinton has been widely reported to have had affairs.

Trump supporter Newt Gingrich, who as House speaker led the charge to impeach Bill Clinton on perjury and obstruction charges, expressed dismay over the Trump campaigns effort to revive the controversy.

Its totally the wrong direction to go, Gingrich said. He should not let them bait him into a swamp where they can revel in the mud.

Donald Trump regularly attacks Bill Clinton over his past sex scandals, but it turns out Trump had some harsh words for one of Clinton's accusers in the past. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Nor does it speak to the broader question of where Trump would take a country that is thirsty for a change from the status quo.

This stuff isnt critical to the campaign or even relevant to the people we need to be winning, said Carl Paladino, the hard-charging former New York gubernatorial nominee who is the Trump campaigns co-chairman in that state.

Im not sure anyone gives a hell about Monica, Paladino added.

Trump  whose own extramarital affair and resulting divorce were laid out in lurid detail by the circa 1990 New York tabloids  has said he has been mulling whether to bring up Bill Clintons affairs in the next presidential debate.

Meanwhile, in the talking points sent around Wednesday, there were suggestions to frame Hillary Clinton as complicit in smear campaigns against the women involved.

Mr. Trump has never treated women the way Hillary Clinton and her husband did when they actively worked to destroy Bill Clintons accusers, according to one of the talking points, which were first reported by CNN.

In a Thursday interview on The View, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said, Im not advising him to go there.

1 of 17 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Memorable quotes from Clinton and Trumps first presidential debate View Photos Here are some memorable quotes from the presidential debate in Hempstead, N.Y. Caption Here are some memorable quotes from the presidential debate in Hempstead, N.Y. Wait 1 second to continue.

But she defended the strategy. Its fair game to think about how Hillary Clinton treated those women after the fact. She called Monica Lewinsky a loony toon.

Conway was referring to comments in a private conversation that Clinton had with her friend, political science professor Diane Blair, which Blair recorded in papers that were donated after her death to the University of Arkansas library.

Others on the right also brought up old allegations. Conservative filmmaker Dinesh DSouza tweeted Thursday: Do young people know that in an admission of sexual abuse, Bill Clinton paid Paula Jones an $800,000 settlement? (Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, had filed suit claiming that Clinton had sexually harassed her when he was governor; Clinton did not apologize or admit guilt in paying the out-of-court settlement, which was actually $850,000.)

Conway replied, also on Twitter: Probably not. But Millennials dont like Hillary anyway.

Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, an influential adviser who has been among those raising the subject of Bill Clintons sex scandals, defended bringing them into the 2016 campaign.

What Ive said is that he can point out all of the questions around them and one of those questions is how Bill Clinton lied under oath, was one of two presidents ever impeached, and how Hillary didnt stand up for an intern in the Oval Office, Giuliani said. Instead, she condemned her and called her all kinds of names. She says she stands up for victims of sexual predators, but she didnt do it then. That was no victory for feminism.

Clinton campaign officials theorized that Trumps latest gambit reflected his own impulses, rather than a calculation on the part of his campaign high command.

Were convinced that very few people on his campaign actually think this is a smart strategy, said Hillary Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon. Its another case of the candidates impulsive, erratic instincts becoming the strategy.

Resurrecting Bill Clintons sex scandals is a defensive move  and, some Trump allies worry, a desperate one  in the wake of Trumps weak performance Monday in his first debate with Hillary Clinton.

One of the debates most memorable moments came when she attacked Trump for a history of insensitive comments about women, including humiliating Miss Universe Alicia Machado for gaining weight after she won the 1996 title of the Trump-owned beauty pageant.

After the debate, Trump said he had considered bringing up the Lewinsky affair then, but was constrained by the presence of the Clintons daughter, Chelsea, in the audience.

But at a rally on Thursday in Bedford, N.H., Trump brought up Bill Clintons impeachment several times.

The American people have had it with years and decades of Clinton corruption and scandal. Corruption and scandal. And impeachment for lying. Impeachment for lying. Remember that? Impeach, Trump said. The Clintons are the sordid past. We will be the very bright and clean future.

There is also a real possibility that bringing up Bill Clintons transgressions could backfire, by once again casting his wife in the role of a wronged spouse.

At the height of the Lewinsky scandal, the then-first lady rode a wave of public sympathy. Her favorability topped 65 percent in some polls, the highest she ever reached.

Bill Clintons own job approval reached 73 percent in the Gallup poll  its highest point  the week that he was impeached by the House, an indication in part that the public saw the punishment as a politically motivated move by the Republicans who controlled Congress. He was subsequently acquitted by the Senate.

Hillary Clinton, asked by reporters aboard her campaign plane whether she was concerned about Trumps threat to bring up the darker chapters of her marriage, said it did not matter to her.

He can run his campaign however he chooses. Thats up to him, she said. Im not going to comment on how he runs his campaign. Youll be able to see, we have two more debates, what he says and what I say.

Anne Gearan in Chicago and Jenna Johnson in Bedford, N.H., contributed to this report.
The updated Victorian-style house at 4101 Queensbury Rd., Hyattsville, Md., is on the market for $515,000. It has four bedrooms, two bathrooms and 1,770 square feet. (Photo by Mark Podger)

Montgomery County and Prince Georges County both may be suburbs of Washington, but the two housing markets are very different by nearly every measure, including home prices, the pace of sales and the amount of new construction.

Montgomery County and Prince Georges County are like mirror images of each other, says Nela Richardson, chief economist for Redfin real estate brokerage in Washington.

Prices are significantly lower in Prince Georges, where the median home price from January to August 2016 was $250,000, up 8.7 percent from that same period in 2015, according to Rockville-based multiple-listing service MRIS. In Montgomery, the median sales price for that same period was $410,000, up 2.5 percent from 2015.

When you can find homes of similar size in Prince Georges County at half the cost of homes in Montgomery County, consumers need to think carefully about where they want to live, says Richardson. Theres beginning to be some consumer sentiment questioning whether the Montgomery County school system is really worth paying that much of a premium in housing expenses.

[Home sales in the D.C. area havent been this high since 2006]

Inventory remains extremely tight in Montgomery, says Jonathan Hill, vice president of marketing and communications for MRIS, with demand continuing to exceed the supply of homes for sale. Current months supply of inventory is only 2.6 months. A balanced market usually has between four and six months of available inventory.

Hill says listings in Montgomery have declined dramatically, with single-family home listings down 15.8 percent, townhouses down 28.4 percent and condos down 6.6 percent in August 2016 compared to August 2015. Single-family home listings are down 14.4 percent in Prince Georges, and condo listings declined 17.0 percent in August 2016 compared to August 2015., Townhouse listings are up slightly, just a 0.6 percent increase over last year.

By the numbers

One measure of demand for houses is to compare the list price to the actual sales price. In Prince Georges, the ratio of list price to sales price was 100 percent in July, meaning that on average sellers are getting their full asking price, says Hill. In Montgomery, that same ratio in July was 92 percent, meaning competition is somewhat weaker there than in Prince Georges.

Prince Georges County is really experiencing more demand because the prices are much more affordable there and yet neighborhoods are still within commuting distance of the city and Alexandria, says Richardson. Price constraints and the desire for more square footage makes people more interested in that county.

[A taste of Manhattan in Bethesda]

The number of homes sold in Prince Georges rose 13.6 percent, from 5,173 in July 2015 to 5,876 in July 2016. In addition, Hill says, the number of pending sales, a leading indicator that counts signed contracts that have yet to go to settlement, has exceeded the number of active listings every month in the county since February 2012.

Prince Georges County was slower to recover from the housing crisis, but now there are far fewer distressed sales on the market there, says Hill. The number of available distressed properties declined by 32 percent between July 2015 and July 2016.

The price range with the most listings in Prince Georges for detached single-family homes and attached townhouses is $200,000 to $300,000, says Hill. For condos, the price range with the most listings is $100,000 to $150,000.

Even though prices are rising faster in Prince Georges County than any other local jurisdiction, they are still more affordable there than anywhere in the D.C. area, says Hill. Thats what makes them so attractive to buyers.

By contrast, the price range with the most single-family home listings in Montgomery is $1 million to $2.5 million. However, the price category with the most listings of both attached townhouses and condos in that county is $200,000 to $300,000.

[Montgomery County architecture to be highlighted on bus tour]

Low inventory and a lack of new construction are keeping the pace of sales a little slower in Montgomery than in Prince Georges, too. In Montgomery, the number of homes sold January through July rose by 7.8 percent, while in Prince Georges, the number of homes sold increased by 13.6 percent, says Hill.

New construction

The contrasts between the two suburban Maryland counties extends to new construction.

Prince Georges County is one of the two top counties in Maryland for new construction, just slightly behind Anne Arundel County, says Ben Sage, director of Metrostudys Mid-Atlantic Region in Chantilly, Va.

Sage says construction started on 1,338 new houses in Prince Georges during the first two quarters of 2016, while 1,343 were started in Anne Arundel during that same period.

In Prince Georges, 750 of those new properties were single-family homes, while 522 were townhouses and 66 were condos. Sage says the heart of the new construction market, with the most houses available in that price range, is $400,000 to $500,000 for single-family homes and $300,000 to $400,000 for townhouses.

A lot of buyers are interested in the new townhouses in Prince Georges County because they are almost the same price as a small 20-year-old single-family house but they have the design that people want today, says Richardson.

Sage says the majority of new construction in Prince Georges is taking place in Upper Marlboro, particularly in the large Westphalia development. Other big developments include Fairwood East in Bowie and Woodmore Towne Centre in Glenarden. He says some additional new construction is underway in College Park and Capital Heights.

In Montgomery, construction began on 1,105 new homes during the first two quarters of 2016.

Montgomery County used to be a top county for new construction, but land is expensive in the county, says Sage. Some builders are going past Montgomery to Frederick County to build homes there.

Sage says that since January, the majority of construction in Montgomery has been townhouses, particularly those priced between $400,000 and $500,000. Most of the new single-family homes in Montgomery are priced between $500,000 and $800,000, although single-family homes close to the city, near Metro stations and in downtown Bethesda are far more expensive.

Buyers looking for more affordable homes will find more available in Prince Georges than in Montgomery and may want to expand their search territory to Frederick, Anne Arundel, Howard and Charles counties, depending on where they work and their willingness to commute.
1 of 15 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Where We Live | College Heights Estates in Prince Georges County View Photos With its cul-de-sacs and large lots, this community has been appealing to families for nearly 80 years. Caption With its cul-de-sacs and large lots, this community has been appealing to families for nearly 80 years. College Park Estates in Prince Georges County is bounded roughly by Adelphi Road to the west, Windsor Lane and Hunters Lane to the north, Baltimore Avenue (Route 1) to the east and Wells Parkway, Woodberry Street and Pineway to the south. Amanda Voisard/For The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

Christopher Oehrle and his wife, Joanne Rotondi, were looking for a house in the Washington area while renting a condominium in the Pennsylvania at 658 Pennsylvania Ave. NW in the District.

They considered a number of neighborhoods, including Arlington Ridge in Arlington County and Takoma Park in Montgomery County, but neither met their needs. Price and the structure of the house were important to them.

I like my houses built really solid, Oehrle said. Besides, prices were really zooming up at the time. So when a real estate agent took them on a tour through University Park in Prince Georges County in 2001, they bought their first house there.

They were mostly satisfied with their home, but by 2006, with their son almost a year old, they were keeping their eyes open for a bigger house. While going to open houses, they saw a five-bedroom house built in 1957 with a big picture window in the living room and a garden room thats all glass in an adjacent neighborhood called College Heights Estates, Oehrle said. Their second child, a daughter, was born after they moved.

They decided it would be a great place to raise their family. We love the house, the size of the almost half-acre lot, he said. Its perfect for raising a family and having dogs.

The family now has two poodle puppies.

[D.C.s Trinidad neighborhood sheds its troubled past]





Automobile suburb: A Maryland-based real estate company called College Heights Estates, founded by Arthur H. Seidenspinner, E. Pauline Seidenspinner and Clara S. Shepherd in 1937, developed the neighborhood between 1938 and 1960, according to the National Register of Historic Places.

The original 18 plats, part of the Eversfield farm in unincorporated Prince Georges, became what was known as an automobile suburb, just two to three miles from the D.C. line. The houses and the lots were larger than those in surrounding areas.

Each house, whether created by the real estate development company or by architects who collaborated with property owners, was approved by Arthur Seidenspinner, who lived in the neighborhood, according to the National Register of Historic Places.

The neighborhood has mostly cul-de-sacs or dead-end streets designed to separate the homes from the main business arteries in the area. This is such a pocketed community, most people looking for houses dont even know were here, said Ron Blunck, longtime resident and president of the College Heights Estates Association.

About 10 to 15 years ago, as the original owners died or left because they could no longer maintain their homes independently, younger families with children began to buy the houses. The trend has continued.

We really like the community, said Oehrle, 52, an attorney with the federal government. University Park and College Heights Estates do a lot of things together, and many of the elementary school-age children from both neighborhoods attend University Park Elementary School, a public school, although others attend private schools.

[Nature and neighborliness in Fairfaxs Raymondale neighborhood]

Change is coming: People who grew up in College Heights Estates sometimes are drawn back to live in the neighborhood. Blunck and his wife, Rosemary, have lived in two houses in the neighborhood since 1978. The one they live in now was built by her parents. Blunck worked in information technology management at the Geico insurance company in Bethesda for 33 years before retiring. He founded the College Heights Estates Association in 1994. Prior to that there was no collective voice for the community, he said.

Through the years, several University of Maryland presidents have lived in College Heights Estates, including the current one, Wallace D. Loh, along with tenured university professors and university administrators.

College Heights Estates has residential properties only; residents shop nearby in Hyattsville and Riverdale Park.

We have to go out of the community for any services, said Beverly Silverberg, who served as president of the association for a decade and has lived with her husband, Robert, in the neighborhood for 42 years. They raised their daughter there.

With a new mixed-use development in the works on Baltimore Avenue (Route 1), change is in the wind. A Whole Foods Market is scheduled to open next year at Riverdale Park Station. Other businesses that have signed leases include Old Line Bank, Bella Beach Spa, Burtons Grill, Jersey Mikes submarine sandwich shop, the Habit Burger Grill and District Taco, according to H&R Retail, a real estate brokerage firm.



A Maryland-based real estate company called College Heights Estates developed the neighborhood between 1938 and 1960, according to the National Register of Historic Places. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

Living there: College Heights Estates is bounded roughly by Adelphi Road to the west, Windsor Lane and Hunters Lane to the north, Baltimore Avenue (Route 1) to the east and Wells Parkway, Woodberry Street and Pineway to the south.

The community relies on Prince Georges County for refuse collection and snow plowing. Houses in the Reserve at College Heights Estates are also part of the neighborhood of approximately 200 homes. The College Heights Estates Historic District includes properties within unincorporated College Heights Estates as well as some in the town of University Park.

In the past year, 11 properties sold in College Heights Estates, ranging from a five-bedroom, four-bath rambler for $453,500 to a four-bedroom, four-bath Colonial for $872,013, according to Jean Bourne Pirovic, a real estate agent with Long and Foster Real Estate.

There are five properties on the market, ranging from a four-bedroom, three-bath split-level for $549,000 to a six-bedroom, six-bath Cape Cod for $745,000.

Transit: The area is served by the Prince Georges Plaza and College Park Metro stations on the Green Line and the F4 Metro bus.

Schools: University Park Elementary, Hyattsville Middle, Northwestern High, College Park Academy, Eleanor Roosevelt High.

Crime: According to the Prince Georges County Police, in the past year, there were two burglaries reported within the College Heights Estates Association boundaries.

 To see more photos of College Heights Estates, go to washingtonpost.com/realestate.
Pakistan on Friday formally postponed the SAARC Summit, initially scheduled for November in Islamabad. Sri Lanka became the fifth nation after India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan to boycott the event.

By Smita Sharma: Pakistan on Friday formally postponed the SAARC Summit, which was initially scheduled to be held in November in Islamabad. This after India and four other member states of the regional grouping decided to boycott the event, with Sri Lanka becoming the latest nation to pull out.

SRI LANKA JOINS BOYCOTT LIST



Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan had pulled out of the summit earlier, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which was not conducive for the successful holding of the meet.



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Islamabad has blamed New Delhi for the development, saying casting bilateral shadows violates the spirit of the SAARC charter. Pakistan, however, did not say anything about the other countries that pulled out.

Also read: India strikes back: 6 ways Pakistan could retaliate after surgical strike



"Pakistan deplores India's decision to impede the SAARC process by not attending the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad on 9-10 November 2016," the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.



INDIA VIOLATED SPIRIT OF SAARC: PAK



It claimed that the spirit of the SAARC Charter was "violated" when a member state cast the shadow of its bilateral problems on the multilateral forum for regional cooperation.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was looking forward to welcoming the SAARC leaders for their participation in the summit. All preparations had been made for the "successful" holding of the summit, the statement said.



Islamabad has alleged that the decision by New Delhi to "derail the summit" effectively "contradicts" Prime Minister Narendra Modi's own call to fight against poverty in the region.



URI ATTACK ALLEGATIONS UNFOUNDED



"India's decision to abstain from the Summit on the basis of unfounded assumptions on the Uri incident is a futile effort to divert attention of the world from the atrocities carried out by India in Kashmir", the Foreign Office said.

Also read: After surgical strikes, Pakistan mobilises its reserves; India readies matching response



"Pakistan attaches great importance to regional cooperation under the umbrella of SAARC. Therefore, Pakistan remains committed to hosting the 19th SAARC Summit at Islamabad at the earliest so that the objectives of regional cooperation under the SAARC umbrella can be pursued more vigorously," it said.



PAK TO ANNOUNCE NEW DATES



The Foreign Office said a new set of dates for holding of the summit in Islamabad will be announced soon through Nepal, which is currently the SAARC Chair.

"Accordingly, we have conveyed the same to the Prime Minister of Nepal," it said.

Citing continuous cross-border terrorism by Pakistan, India had announced earlier this week that "in the prevailing circumstances, the Government of India is unable to participate in the proposed Summit in Islamabad."

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Also read: Uri attack: Another soldier succumbs to injuries, death toll rises to 19



SAARC member states include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

--- ENDS ---
Three Chinese fishermen probably died of smoke inhalation after a fire erupted when South Korean coast guard officers threw flashbang grenades into their boat, which had been fishing illegally, officials said Friday.

The latest violent clash between South Koreas coast guard and Chinese fishing boats venturing farther from their increasingly barren home waters occurred Thursday when a South Korean vessel tried to stop the Chinese boat from suspected illegal fishing about 45 miles from an island off South Koreas southwestern coast.

The boat, which carried 17 fishermen, initially resisted and fled before South Korean officers managed to board the boat and threw flashbang grenades into its locked steering room, the coast guard said in a statement. Flashbang grenades are nonlethal devices that produce a blinding flash and a loud sound.

A fire erupted on the boat, and three fishermen found lying in the boats engine room later died, the statement said.

Coast guard officers said that the three probably died after inhaling toxic smoke but that autopsies were planned to find the exact cause of their deaths. Authorities also will investigate whether the flashbang grenades caused the fire.

The 14 surviving fishermen were taken to a South Korean port for questioning, according to the coast guard.

Beijings Foreign Ministry said Friday that China had asked for consultations on the incident and for assistance to the survivors and families of those killed.

We have asked the South Korean side for an urgent dialogue on this matter, and we have urged a fair and thorough investigation to be conducted, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said.

Earlier Friday, Seouls Foreign Ministry expressed regret over the deaths but noted that the Chinese boat was fishing illegally and had tried to flee to avoid an inspection.

The incident came at a time when generally cordial relations between Beijing and Seoul have suffered a sharp downturn over South Koreas decision to deploy an advanced U.S. missile defense system that China says threatens its security.

Chinese fishing boats have been going farther afield to feed growing domestic demand for seafood as catches have decreased in waters closer to Chinas shores.

Chinese boats have regularly had violent clashes with South Koreas coast guard, and in 2014, a South Korea coast guardsman fatally shot the captain of a Chinese fishing vessel who was violently resisting an inspection.

In 2012, a Chinese fisherman died after being hit by a rubber bullet fired by a South Korean guardsman. A year earlier, a South Korean coast guard officer was killed in a clash with Chinese fishermen.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte speaks as he displays a picture of a Glock 30 pistol, received as an award, during his visit at the Philippine Marines headquarters in Taguig city, south of Manila. (Francis R. Malasig/European Pressphoto Agency)

If you could sum up the U.S. response to President Rodrigo Duterte in one phrase, it might be something like, For real?

Duterte swept to power in July, promising to ride a Jet Ski through the South China Sea and kill 100,000 criminals in six months. At his first big summit, he lashed out at President Obama, using a slang term that translates, roughly, as son of a whore.

In the weeks since Obama canceled a meeting with him, Duterte has made big announcements on bilateral ties, including Wednesdays promise to cancel U.S.-Philippine military exercises after next year, and his call for U.S. Special Operations forces to leave Mindanao, only to have his Foreign Affairs Department back off the news right away.

The flip-flops have the press in a whirl. Its like Keeping Up With the Kardashians,  joked Richard Javad Heydarian, an assistant professor of political science at Manilas De La Salle University.

But stories about Dutertes antics misread the man and the stakes. The president of the Philippines is very much for real and presents a real diplomatic challenge to Washington as it pursues its turn toward Asia, and China pushes back.

[Duterte: Hitler killed millions of Jews, I will kill millions of drug addicts]

At stake are plans for a greater U.S. military presence in the Philippines under a new defense agreement that came into force this year.

Duterte said Wednesday that joint military exercises scheduled next month between the Philippines and the United States will be the last because he does not want to upset China. On Thursday, Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay said he had not heard the comment and insisted Duterte would respect the Philippines commitment to cooperate with the United States.

Earlier in the week, Duterte vowed to cross the Rubicon in terms of U.S. ties by deepening his relationships with Russia and China  a comment that Yasay called dramatics.

The tone has diplomats on edge. U.S. officials are quite concerned, said Jose L. Cuisia, the Philippines former ambassador to the United States. And so are my colleagues at Foreign Affairs.

To understand whats driving Dutertes behavior, consider two things: He is wildly popular at home, and he plans to visit China in October.

He has the support of millions of Filipinos. He campaigned for president on a promise to kill all the countrys criminals. Since he took office three months ago, at least 3,300 suspects have been killed, either shot in police operations or gunned down by plainclothes assassins.

1 of 28 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Scenes from the latest raids in the Philippines War on Drugs View Photos The Philippines president launches an extensive operation targeting illegal drugs in the country. Caption The Philippine president launches an extensive operation targeting illegal drugs in the country. Oct. 5, 2016 Filipino men with zip ties on their wrists are rounded up following a police raid at an alleged drug den as part of the continuing War on Drugs campaign of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte near the Payatas dumpsite in Quezon City, Philippines. Aaron Favila/AP Wait 1 second to continue.

[Before Duterte was the Philippines president, he was the Death Squad mayor]

The United States, the European Union and the United Nations have spoken out against the violence, but many crime-weary citizens support the war on drugs, and Duterte has high approval ratings.

Dutertes popularity and political acumen have helped him quickly build alliances in Manila. As the Senate and the House fall in line, he is gaining the political support necessary to push ahead with his platform  and the cost of crossing him grows.

Analysts say they think Duterte will continue to consolidate power. Hes the only game in town right now, said a senior Western diplomat in Manila who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to speak to the media.

There is nobody else.

That clout makes it tougher for the United States and others to take public stands against the president or his policies.

Though the vast majority of Filipinos have a positive view of the United States, calling out perceived U.S. hypocrisy seems to serve Duterte well, bolstering his image as a political outsider who challenges the status quo.

Realizing this, perhaps, Washington has thus far responded cautiously, stressing long-term stability in ties. Our relationship with the Philippines is broad, and our alliance is one of our most enduring and important relationships in the Asia-Pacific region, said Molly Koscina, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Manila.

Though Duterte is seen by some outsiders as irrational, his anti-American rhetoric may be a deliberate bid to build trust with Beijing, analysts said.

His predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, took a hard line on China, angering Beijing by challenging its South China Sea claims at an international court.

Duterte wants to improve ties; during his campaign, he said he would consider shelving the South China Sea dispute if Beijing built a railway on the island of Mindanao.

On his first visit to China as president, in the third week of October, he is expected to focus on the South China Sea, where Chinese boats are blocking Filipino fishermen from waters off the Scarborough Shoal.

If he has any hope of getting Filipino boats back to those fishing grounds, Duterte will need to show China goodwill without totally alienating the United States.

De La Salle Universitys Heydarian ventured that promising, say, to move the annual military exercises from disputed waters to a different coast could do just that.

He is signaling to China that he is a different Philippine president, an independent sovereign leader, and that [he] is willing to tinker with certain aspects of the U.S.-Philippine relations to please the Chinese, Heydarian said.

He is not saying he will downgrade relations with the U.S.  just that hes willing to tinker.

Read more

The son of a whore story is about so much more than Dutertes dirty mouth

With China pressing south, U.S. ships return to the Philippines Subic Bay
Jordanian protesters chant slogans during a demonstration against a government agreement to import natural gas from Israel, in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 30, 2016. (Muhammad Hamed/Reuters)

Thousands of Jordanians rallied in downtown Amman on Friday to protest a recently inked natural-gas deal with Israeli investors, accusing the government of supporting enemy occupiers of Palestinian land.

Carrying signs reading No to supporting terrorism and No to stolen gas, a crowd of about 3,000 Jordanians chanted The people want an end to Wadi Araba, a reference to the kingdoms 1994 peace treaty with Israel.

The protest, which was led by leftists and pro-Palestinian activists, was the fourth against the new deal in as many days. Activists said that for Jordanians, who rarely hit the streets, it was a barometer of widespread frustration.

All of Jordan agrees, we do not want to be dependent on an entity that occupies Palestinian land, said Yasser Baz, 53, who attended the rally.

Under the $10 billion agreement, which was signed Monday, a U.S.-Israel consortium will supply Jordan with 1.6 trillion cubic feet of gas from the Leviathan gas field in the Mediterranean. Jordan has no oil reserves of its own and relies on imports for 96 percent of its energy needs.

The government says that by securing stable energy prices for the next decade, it can reduce a $530 million annual budget deficit caused by subsidized electricity prices.

[Reinvention of Jordans Muslim Brotherhood involves women  and Christians]

Jordan relied on subsidized oil from Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq during the 1990s and later natural gas from Egypt under strongman Hosni Mubarak in return for the kingdoms political support.

With Mubarak gone, Jordan has faced skyrocketing costs but has refused to raise electricity prices, fearing Arab Springinspired protests. As a result, the state-run NEPCO utility has racked up $7 billion in debt since 2012.

Proponents of the deal, which will provide Jordan with 40 percent of its energy needs, say it will prevent a debt crisis, and NEPCO maintains that it will save the country $600 million a year.

But the agreement is so politically sensitivity that not a single Jordanian government official was willing to comment on it publicly until a week after the signing.

Critics are concerned that billions of dollars in taxes and revenue will go back to the Israeli government and might help fund the Israeli military, its occupation of the West Bank and its wars in Gaza against Palestinian militants. Palestinians and their descendants make up about half of the Jordanian population.

While Noble Energy, a U.S.-based firm, is a 40 percent shareholder in the Leviathan gas field, critics point out that its partners are Israeli companies Delek Drilling, Ratio Oil Exploration and Avner Oil Exploration.

We dont want to help the Israeli economy, to help the Israeli government buy more guns to point and shoot at Palestinians, said Maymona Omer, a 29-year-old nurse, as she walked with her twin daughters.

Many also are worried that by depending on Israeli gas, Jordan will be compromised as an advocate for the rights of Palestinians, a broker for a two-state solution and a custodian of the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Under a special agreement between Israel and Jordan, Jordans King Abdullah II has custodianship of Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.

If they dont like our politics, so critics say, they can simply turn off the tap, said Daoud Kuttab, a commentator and director general of the Amman-based Community Media Network.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Jordans largest opposition group and the most powerful party in the parliament, vowed it would work to repeal the agreement.

We will advocate at all levels to end a deal which is putting Jordanian taxpayers money in the hands of an occupying force they object to, said Ali Abu Sukkar, deputy head of the Islamic Action Front, the Brotherhoods political arm in Jordan.

At the end of the day, we consider this stolen Palestinian gas, and the revenues should be going to the Palestinian people, not used against them, he said.

Jordans parliament voted against the gas deal in 2014. But the government says it does not need parliamentary approval because the agreement is between two companies rather than sovereign nations.

The government played a dirty game. They arranged for this signing while there was no parliament, so the people couldnt have their voices heard, said Mohammed Darwish, 35, a protester. We wont let them off the hook.

Oil was hovering around $80 when Jordan began talks with Noble Energy. Oil has since plummeted to around $45 a barrel, deal opponents and lawmakers point out.

This deal is no longer in the best interest of Jordanians economically, energy-wise or morally, said Jammal Gamou, head of the parliaments energy committee and an opponent of the deal.

Despite the fury, observers say the agreement is all but set in stone.

The opposition is loud, but will they be able to stop it? Unlikely, Kuttab said. It is a done deal, and with the numbers involved, the government is sending the message that it will not be challenged.

But the impact on Jordanians  and their trust in the government  may be lasting.

We do not get to pick the government, and the government forces on us an agreement that all of us, including our parliament, refuses, said Fadhel Abbas, 29, an architect and protester. The will of the people will be respected, if the regime is willing to listen or not.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said that Jordans parliament voted against a gas deal with Israel in 2014 similar to one the government recently signed. It was the same deal.

Read more:

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Sri Lankan ministry of Foreign Affairs, in official communication sent to SAARC chair Nepal said, 'Sri Lanka regrets that the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad on November 9 and 10 2016'.

By Smita Sharma: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Afghanistan and now Sri Lanka. The Indian campaign to isolate Pakistan in the aftermath of Uri attack has worked with Sri Lanka becoming the fourth country today confirming that it will not participate in the annual SAARC summit which is scheduled in November this year in Islamabad.

Sri Lankan ministry of Foreign Affairs, in official communication sent to SAARC chair Nepal today said, "Sri Lanka regrets that the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad on November 9 and 10 2016.



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DECISIONS BASED ON UNANIMITY



The General Provisions of the SAARC Charter require that decisions at all levels shall be taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States as well.

Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia. As a founding member of SAARC, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our region's peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation.

STRESSES NEED TO FIGHT TERROR



Sri Lanka condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, and stresses in this regard, the need to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region in a decisive manner".

Sri Lanka conveyed its decision to not attend the SAARC summit was conveyed just days ahead of its PM Ranil Wickremesinghe's visit to India.

Wickremesinghe will be in New Zealand on an official visit from October 1-3 and to India from October 4-6.



A SAARC summit can take place only when leaders of all member countries are present.

INDIA'S DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS



India, the largest member of the eight-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), announced its decision to pull out hours after Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit was summoned to South Block and handed over Pakistan's "proof of cross-border origin" of the September 18 Uri terror attack.

India is also planning to revoke the Most Favoured Nation status to Pakistan in trade, in another punishing measure.

India has been increasing its diplomatic offensive against Pakistan over the past few days for its open backing of the Kashmir unrest and specially after the terror attack on an army camp in Uri on September 18 that left 19 soldiers dead.



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--- ENDS ---

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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, center, attends the funeral of former Israeli president Shimon Peres on Friday at Mount Herzl national cemetery in Jerusalem. (Stephen Crowley/AFP/Getty Images)

It was the elephant in the tent at the funeral of Israeli statesmen Shimon Peres on Friday, a ceremony that eulogized his life as a peace builder.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that is.

It emerged before the funeral in the brief, but much-talked-about, handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. It was a rare moment of possibility and hope, if imagined, that Peres would have applauded. But that swiftly vanished when Netanyahu walked past Abbas at the funeral without acknowledging him. The slight was reinforced when Netanyahu noted in his eulogy the presence of world leaders, even the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, but failed to mention Abbas or the word Palestinian.

[The world mourns Shimon Peres as Israel considers his legacy]

The absence of Arab leaders at the ceremony illuminated the shadow cast by the conflict. At the 1995 funeral of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for signing the Oslo Accords two years earlier, nine Muslim nations dispatched their representatives. They included then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordans King Hussein. Both their nations had inked peace deals with Israel.

Those agreements are still intact, but the current heads of state of Egypt and Jordan did not appear on Friday, preferring to send senior officials instead. It was an unsubtle testament to the divisions between Arabs and Israelis and their different perceptions of Peress legacy in the Middle East. And it shed light on the extent to which Peress aspirations for peace remain distant, perhaps even unattainable.

Indeed, at moments, Fridays ceremony seemed like a eulogy to his long and elusive quest to create a secure Israel neighbored by a Palestinian state. Among all the Jewish leaders, Peres was the one who most sought a two-state solution to the decades-long conflict between the Arabs and Jews.

The ceremony was also a plea to complete Peress unfinished dreams.

There are some who say that peace is not possible. But peace is not only possible, it is an ineluctable necessity, Amos Oz, the Israeli novelist and close friend of Peres, declared in his eulogy. He added that since the Israelis and the Palestinians cant become one big happy family now, they cant simply hop into a conjugal bed and embark on a honeymoon together. So there is no choice but to divide this home into two apartments and turn it into a two-family house.

In their heart of hearts, almost everyone, on all sides, knows this simple truth. But where are the leaders with the courage to come forward and bring it to pass? Where are the heirs of Shimon Peres?

The only speaker to acknowledge Abbas, seated to the far left of the podium, was President Obama, who said his presence here is a gesture and a reminder of the unfinished business of peace.

Obama, who made finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a key foreign policy goal, sought to reinforce Peress vision of both sides living together as equals, saying that he refused to believe Peres was naive, as his critics have suggested.

Even in the face of terrorist attacks, even after repeated disappointments at the negotiation table, he insisted that as human beings, Palestinians must be seen as equal in dignity to Jews, and must therefore be equal in self-determination, Obama said.

Because of his sense of justice, his analysis of Israels security, his understanding of Israels meaning, he believed that the Zionist idea would be best protected when Palestinians, too, had a state of their own.

And even though the region is turbulent, and threats are ever present, Obama said that Peres did not stop dreaming, and he did not stop working.

[Shimon Peres, Israeli statesman and Nobel Peace Prize winner, dies at 93]

The question on many minds  American, Israeli and Arab  is whether Peress vision for a peaceful Middle East is now buried alongside him.

In his eulogy, Netanyahu acknowledged his deep-rooted disagreements with Peres on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially the question of what is most important for Israel  security or peace.

Peres, he said, argued that peace is the true security. But he told Peres that security is essential for achieving peace and maintaining it.

We were both right, Netanyahu told the mourners. In a turbulent Middle East in which only the strong survive, peace will not be achieved other than by permanently preserving our power. But power is not an end in itself. Its a means to an end. That goal is to ensure our national existence and coexistence.

The presence of Abbas on Friday also threatens to work against him at home. Palestinians were deeply divided over Peres, with many viewing him as a key engineer of the conflict and the loss of their lands and rights. At a time when peace talks have all but faded, some Palestinians took to social media, declaring that paying respect for Peres death is a betrayal while others called him a sellout.

What are you crying for Abbas? read one tweet alongside a televised image of him in a solemn moment at the funeral. Is Peres passing this painful?

William Booth and Ruth Eglash contributed to this report.
In the year since Russia began conducting airstrikes in support of the Syrian government, the intervention has worked to secure two of the most important Russian objectives.

No longer is President Bashar al-Assads hold on power in Damascus seriously challenged by the five-year-old rebellion against his rule. Russias role as a regional and global power, a vital player in any effort to resolve the Syrian war, has also been assured.

A third key goal remains elusive. The military support to Assad has not yet proved sufficient either to defeat the anti-Assad rebellion or to force a settlement on Russian terms.

But there is no suggestion yet that Russia is finding itself in the quagmire President Obama predicted would ensue when the intervention first got underway a year ago, nor is Moscow showing any sign of tiring of the military engagement.

Rather, Russia now appears to be doubling down on its military support for Assad, with the violence escalating and no end in sight.

1 of 41 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Scenes from Aleppo View Photos The Syrian government has dropped two chlorine bombs in the past month on the besieged, rebel-held city. Caption Images from inside the Syrian city. Dec. 19, 2016 Syrians evacuated from Fuaa and Kafraya, two Shiite villages under rebel siege, are welcomed by pro-government forces as they arrive in Jibrin, on the eastern outskirts of Aleppo. George Ourfalian/AFP/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue.

Negotiations with the United States for a cease-fire have collapsed amid angry recriminations, casting into doubt whether cooperation between Moscow and Washington on Syria can work to provide a way out of the conflict.

Russian warplanes are backing a fierce assault to recapture eastern Aleppo, the bloody epicenter of the struggle for control of Syria. The bombs rained down with renewed ferocity on Friday, including banned phosphorus and cluster bombs that struck residential neighborhoods and two more hospitals, according to medical workers and residents of the city.

[Darkness and fear in Aleppo as the bombs rain down]

The World Health Organization said Friday that 338 people have been killed in the airstrikes that began last week, more than 100 of them children.

Altogether, more than 3,000 civilians have been killed in Russian airstrikes in the year since they were launched, human rights monitors said Friday. They gave slightly differing numbers, with the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights putting the toll at 3,804 and the Syrian Network for Human Rights at 3,624.

It seems certain to rise. On Friday, the Kremlin indicated that Russia has no intention of winding down its involvement in Syria, saying that President Vladimir Putin has put no time frame on an intervention Moscow had initially indicated would last three months.

If you remember exactly, Russian Supreme Commander-in-Chief and President Putin never voiced any tentative time frameworks after he made the decision to begin this operation of the Russian Aerospace Forces, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow, when asked whether Russia had expected the military engagement to last so long.

The intervention has worked, Peskov said, because the terrorist groups the Islamic State and the al-Qaeda affiliate formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra have not succeeded in capturing the capital, Damascus.

One thing can be stated: Considering that ISIL, al-Qaeda and Nusra are not seated in Damascus, this is probably the main positive result of the support our aviation has been giving to the legitimate Syrian Armed Forces.

Progress against the anti-Assad rebellion has been slower elsewhere in the country. Battles to reclaim territory in the northwestern province of Latakia went well earlier in the year but have stalled short of the Turkish border. The effort to impose a complete siege on the rebel-held portion of Aleppo, an objective of the Syrian government ever since rebel fighters seized control of the eastern half of the city in 2012, has dragged on for most of the year. It came at the cost of hundreds of lives among Syrian army troops and the Iranian-backed Shiite militias from Iraq and Lebanon that are providing much of the manpower for the offensive.

[Russia says U.S. criticism of its actions in Aleppo disagrees with reality]

As the noose on Aleppo has tightened, the rebels have been making significant gains in the province of Hama, seizing a string of villages and moving within six miles of the city of Hama, once the biggest center of the peaceful protests against Assad until they were quelled five years ago.

That calls into question whether Syrias government will ever be able to fully vanquish the rebellion, even with Russian support. The Syrian effort is like putting a handkerchief on a plate, said Salman Shaikh, a consultant who is participating in second-tier negotiations between regime and rebel supporters. You can move the handkerchief, but you will never cover the plate.

It may, however, be an objective Russia supports, said Jeff White of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. An outright military victory is a long way off, but incrementally they seem to be aiming at that, he said. The position of the military opposition hasnt improved at all since the spring of 2015, and the regime hasnt suffered any drastic setbacks in that time.

A U.S. policy predicated on the assumption that Russia would realize it cant win the war and would therefore negotiate a settlement is meanwhile seriously in doubt.

If the Obama administration believes Russia will become stuck in Syria and will want to get out, that moment does not appear to have arrived, said Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria who is now at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

The Russian footprint in Syria remains relatively light, and though it includes advisers on the ground, is mostly confined to airstrikes. It is costing the Kremlin an estimated $3 million a day, a small fraction of its $55 billion annual defense budget. Though Syria might well be a quagmire, Ford said, it is a sustainable quagmire.

[U.S. accuses Russia of barbarism and war crimes in Syria]

Russias intention may be at least to take Aleppo before engaging in serious negotiations with the United States, Shaikh said. Losing Aleppo would be a severe blow to the rebels, depriving them of a foothold in any major Syrian city, he said. Russia would then be in a position to negotiate a settlement more favorable to Assad with the United States and its allies in the opposition  perhaps after a new administration takes office in Washington.

Military preparations for an all-out assault on the city appear to be intensifying. Iraqi Shiite militia reinforcements have been converging on the outskirts of Aleppo to bolster the front lines. Akram al-Kaabi, the leader of the biggest of the militias, Harakat al-Nujaba, visited them in person this week. A Russian aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, will arrive in the Mediterranean this month, which will give the Russian air force additional capacity to wage airstrikes.

Russia has already been deploying new and heavier weaponry in the assault on Aleppo, including the phosphorus, cluster and bunker buster bombs that have deepened the misery in the city over the past week, according to eyewitness accounts and allegations by senior U.S. and U.N. officials.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied on Friday that Russia has deployed such weapons, whose use U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said earlier this week would constitute a war crime.

But photographs posted on social media by activists in eastern Aleppo suggested otherwise. They showed clusters of glowing fires illuminating the deserted streets, ignited by the bombs incendiary components. Several blazed outside the Al Zahra hospital, eastern Aleppos last remaining maternity hospital, which was among the locations hit on Friday.

Zakaria Zakaria in Istanbul contributed to this report.

Read more:

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Aleppo is being burned: Residents cope with an onslaught of airstrikes

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
On a cloudless blue morning, an honor guard brought the flag-draped coffin of Shimon Peres to the Mount Herzl national cemetery Friday as 100 world leaders and dignitaries from 70 countries bid farewell to the former Israeli leader and Nobel laureate whose dream of a lasting peace with the Palestinians remains elusive.

President Obama, who was the last to give a eulogy, said that the contribution made by Peres to Israel was so fundamental, so pervasive, it can sometimes be overlooked.

A younger generation will probably remember him for a peace process that never reached its end, Obama said, noting that critics on the left wanted Peres to acknowledge Israels failings, while those on the right believed he refused to see the true wickedness of the world and called him naive.

[Shimon Peres, Israeli statesman and Nobel Prize winner, dies at 93 ]

I dont think he was naive. He understood from hard-earned experience that true security comes from making peace with your neighbors, he said, comparing Peres to South African President Nelson Mandela. He believed that the Zionist idea was best protected when the Palestinians have a state of their own.

1 of 17 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  World leaders assemble to bid a final farewell to former Israeli leader Shimon Peres View Photos A hundred world leaders and dignitaries from seventy countries gathered to bid a final farewell to the former Israeli leader and Nobel laureate. Caption A hundred world leaders and dignitaries from 70 countries gathered to remember the former Israeli leader and Nobel laureate. Sept. 30, 2016 President Obama touches the coffin of Israeli leader Shimon Peres after delivering his eulogy at Peress funeral at Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem. Pool photo by Abir Sultan/via AP Wait 1 second to continue.

Both Obama and Israeli novelist Amos Oz sought to push forward Peress goal of an Israel living side by side in peace and security with a Palestinian nation. Both men spoke of the need for a two-state solution and urged current Israeli leaders to fulfill Peress vision for the region, even after almost 50 years of military occupation.

But where are the leaders with the courage to come forward and bring it to pass? Oz asked. Where are the heirs of Shimon Peres?

Former president Bill Clinton praised Peres as a leader who experienced crushing setbacks  in politics, in his efforts for peace  and woke up to seize the possibilities of each new day.

Clinton knew Peres intimately over a quarter-century. Alongside former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the four of them hammered out the details of the Oslo Accords, the frame that launched the now-stalled peace process. Peres, Arafat and Rabin shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.

Speaking in a rough voice, Clinton said Peres started life as Israels best student, became its best teacher and ended his life as its greatest dreamer.

The former president said it is not easy to move past defeat. It must have been hard for him to do this, he said. First he had to master his own demons, forgive himself for his own mistakes and get over his own disappointments.

This monumental effort required that he grow his heart to be bigger than his brain.

Clinton urged listeners to keep his gifts alive.

When the road ahead comes to a dead end, when the hand of friendship meets only a cold stare, remember his luminous smile. Then Clinton paused. And imagine.

As the mourners began to take their seats, there was one moment of surprising diplomacy when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met and shook hands.

Long time, long time, Abbas was quoted as saying to Netanyahu. The Israeli leader responded: Its something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people and on behalf of us.

[In rare encounter, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders shake hands]

The two men, despite nine months of peace talks in 2014, rarely meet face to face. When they do appear on the same world stage, they rarely reach out to the other, maintaining instead a frosty distance. Their last direct encounter was last year.

Netanyahu gave his eulogy in a mixture of Hebrew and English, and said Peres soared to incredible heights. He was a great man of Israel and a great man of the world. We find hope in his legacy, as does the world.

There is no secret that we were political rivals, but over the years we became good friends, Netanyahu added. Shimon and I disagreed about many things but that never overshadowed many warm discussions. Our friendship deepened with every meeting. In our discussions of a fundamental issue, security versus peace, Shimon told me: Bibi, peace is the true security. If there will be peace, there will be security. I told him security is essential for achieving peace and maintaining it.

[Q&A with Peres in 2014]

Netanyahu continued: We went back and forth for hours. I came from the right, he from the left, I came again from the right, he again from the left. Like two prize fighters we put down our gloves. I saw in his eyes and he saw in mine the deep-seated beliefs to ensure the future of Israel.

The state funeral for Peres is one of the largest in Israel since the 1995 burial of Rabin, the prime minister who was assassinated by a Jewish extremist who opposed the efforts of Rabin and Peres to make peace with the Palestinians.

Peres was buried beside Rabin.

Peres, the former prime minister and president, died at 93 at a Tel Aviv hospital before dawn Wednesday from complications of a massive stroke suffered two weeks earlier. Until the stroke earlier this month, Peres was keeping a full schedule, meeting with visiting U.S. senators, schoolchildren and high-tech innovators. He was still enjoying the occasional glass of wine and working on a book. On his 93rd birthday, he joined Snapchat.

The ceremony took place on the hilltop, with large television screens set amid the pine trees. Translation was provided for the guests in Arabic, Spanish, French, Italian and other languages.

After the eulogies, his body was lowered into the ground and covered with sand. Peress three children recited the kaddish, the traditional mourners prayer. Contrary to Orthodox Jewish tradition in Israel, which dictates that only male relatives recite the prayer, Peress daughter Tsvia Walden also participated.

As Walden, Peress oldest child, spoke the verses, she added her own ending. Where the prayer calls to create peace for us and for all Israel, Walden, a psycholinguist, called for there to be peace for all people.

Following prayers recited by Israels military rabbi, Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders laid wreaths along the graveside. But it was perhaps the image of Peress eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren that was most poignant for Israelis, reminding them that this legendary leader was also a loving grandfather.

More than 8,000 Israeli police officers were deployed Friday amid tight security. The main road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was closed for hours to allow members of 90 delegations from 70 countries to come and go.

From the Arab world, Jordan sent its deputy prime minister and former chief peace negotiator Jawad Anani. Jordans King Abdullah II sent a note of condolences, but no member of the royal family attended. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry came, but not the president, Abdel Fatah al-Sissi.

The somber day also became a working event of sorts for world leaders. Among those hosted by Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, were Clinton and E.U foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. The meeting with Clinton also included Israels acting national security adviser and head of the National Security Council, retired Brig. Gen. Jacob Nagel, who recently signed a $38 billion military aid agreement with the United States.

Netanyahu held a series of separate diplomatic meetings, including with Britains Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to Netanyahus office.

Read more:

The world mourns Shimon Peres as Israel considers his legacy

West pays tribute to Shimon Peres as many Arabs recall his legacy of destruction

Shimon Peress life in photos

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Europe

One-day strike by French power workers

Workers employed by the power grid operator RTE held a one-day strike last week to oppose plans to privatize the company. They are members of the CGT trade union.

The government plans to sell a 49 percent stake in RTE to private capital. Currently RTE is 100 percent owned by the state power company EDF, but is not operated by EDF.

RTE power workers have held a series of strikes this year over diverse issues, including the threat of privatization, closures, and against the reactionary labour law changes pushed through by the Socialist Party government.

Protest by Belgian Caterpillar workers over redundancies

Employees working for the Caterpillar construction machinery plant near the Belgian city of Charleroi recently protested after the company announced its closure. On September 16, up to 10,000 workers and their supporters demonstrated in the centre of Charleroi against the closure.

Caterpillar announced September 2 that it plans to close the plant by 2017, making over 2,000 staff redundant. As part of cost-cutting measures, some of the production will be transferred to Grenoble in France.

The closure threat follows a 1,600 cut in jobs in 2013. At the time, workers were given a commitment that the plant would remain open until 2020.

UK rail staff announce further round of strikes

Rail staff working for the private Govia Thameslink railway company, Southern Rail, are to hold a series of further strikes in their long-running dispute over the increased use of Driver Only Operations (DOO).

The introduction of DOO would mean eliminating the role of guards on trains. The Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) has announced two sets of three-day strikes in October, a three-day and a 48-hour strike in November and two 24-hour strikes in December.

The current boss of Southern Rail, Dyan Crowther, has stood down. Nick Brown, the former managing director of London Underground, is taking her place. His appointment was welcomed by Mick Cash, general secretary of the RMT, who said it opens the door to the real possibility of a new approach and new talks over the threat to the role of the guards

Rail staff to strike UKs East Coast route

Rail staff working for Virgin East Coast, which runs passenger services between London and the northeast of Britain, are to strike for 24-hours beginning midnight Sunday.

The RMT union is taking action over plans by Virgin to cut operating costs it says could lead to 200 jobs being cut, with the remaining staff having to cover their roles. A previous planned strike was suspended by the RMT, with the union claiming there was the basis for talks to reach a settlement.

Virgin only took over the running of the East Coast franchise 20 months ago. Railway industry monitors consider Virgin paid too much for the franchise and now need to cut their costs at the expense of employees.

London cinema staff hold strike to win London Living Wage

Staff at the Ritzy cinema in the Brixton borough of London struck midday on Saturday September 24, returning to work the following day at 5 a.m. They are members of the BECTU union.

The low-paid staff are demanding to be paid the London Living Wage (LLW), currently standing at 9.40 an hour. They also seek improvements in sick and maternity pay. The workers voted by a 93 percent majority to strike.

Two years ago, the staff held a series of 13 strikes in an attempt to secure the LLW. Their struggle won wide support, including from media personalities.

The cinema agreed to increase wages towards the LLW figure over a two-year period. The company was due to enter into negotiations with BECTU, in talks mediated by the government conciliation service ACAS beginning in June this year. According to BECTU, the company has refused to negotiate or attend at ACAS.

BECTU members at the Hackney Picturehouse, part of the same group, are currently balloting staff for industrial action over the same issue. The ballot closes on October 6.

Work to rule action by journalists in London

Journalists working for Newsquest, which owns several local newspapers in the London area, began a work to rule on Thursday.

The National Union of Journalists is taking the action in response to Newsquests proposals to make most of the newsroom staff redundant. They are also protesting health and safety concerns, staff shortages and excessive workloads.

Refuse collectors in Sheffield, England to hold one-day strike

Refuse bin collectors in the northern city of Sheffield are due to strike for the day on October 5 in a pay dispute.

The workers, members of the GMB union, are employed by the multi-national company Veolia, which is contracted by Sheffield City Council to provide the service. The collectors had originally pushed for a 5 percent pay rise, with Veolia offering 1 percent. Now the GMB is asking for a 2 percent rise while the company is offering 1.5 percent over two years.

Georgian fertilizer factory employees protest wage arrears

Staff working for Georgian fertilizer company Azot held a demonstration outside the offices of the company September 15. The protest was organised by the Trade Union of Metallurgy, Mining and Chemical Industry Workers of Georgia.

Azot ceased production at its factory on July 27 and has been paying its 2,000 staff less than half their normal wages since that time.

The protesters demanded the resumption of production, payment of arrears of wage shortages and a pay increase. Following the demonstration, the owner promised to restart production but as of September 22, he was still to honour the promise.

Middle East

Saudi construction staff strike

Around 500 workers from the Philippines, India and Pakistan, employed by the Saudi construction firm United Seemac, have been protesting outside the company offices over the nonpayment of wages arrears. The workers have held two strikes. Some have not been paid for over a year.

The protests and strikes took place despite such action being illegal in Saudi Arabia.

They are also protesting declining living conditions at their company-supplied accommodation in Riyadh. Workers report a lack of water in the toilets and washrooms. The company responded by telling them that if they want to get back their passports, they must sign papers relinquishing their rights to the arrears of pay.

United Seemac is facing growing financial difficulties resulting from the collapse in oil revenues in the country.

Foreign hospital staff in Saudi Arabian hospital continue fight for pay arrears

Foreign workers, mainly Indian and Pakistani staff working at a privately run hospital in the Eastern province, are continuing protests to be paid wages arrears going back more than seven months. The hospital is owned by the Saudi construction firm, the Saad Group.

On Tuesday, some staff blocked a main road running through the Eastern Province. On Monday, a second hospital in the province also took strike action after not receiving wages since May. Foreign medical and nursing staff blocked the hospital corridors demanding their back pay.

Africa

Kenyan medics continue to fight for wage arrears payment

Nairobi County medics held a protest outside Nairobi City Hall in Kenya last week demanding six months of wages arrears. Nairobi state officials said they would hold meetings Thursday and Friday this week to try to resolve the strike by doctors.

Across the country, around 2,000 medics are out on strike in Migori, Kakamega, Nakuru and Nyeri counties.

In a separate development, the Kenya National Union of Nurses has threatened to call a nationwide strike in November.

South African platinum miners strike

Around 500 platinum refinery workers, members of the National Union of Mineworkers at the Impala Platinum Holdings refinery, struck on Tuesday.

They walked off the job at the mine, some 20 miles east of Johannesburg, following the breakdown of talks over pay and benefit entitlement. The refinery workers also seek improved housing and shift allowances, as well as other benefits.

Nigerian airline baggage handling staff threaten strike

Staff working for the Skyway Aviation Handling Company in Nigeria have threatened a nationwide strike. They are members of the National Union of Air Transport Employees. The workers have given the company a two-week ultimatum for a review of the conditions of service.

Strike of university lecturers and students in Niger

University lecturers and students across Niger began a weeklong strike this week. Bakasso Sahabi, the head of Nigers union of teachers and researchers, told the africanews web site: We have begun a seven-day strike to demand the payment of salary arrears and research grants.

University students also boycotted lectures, demanding the payment of outstanding student grants. They also demand that more lecturers are recruited to deal with the shortage.
Rhode Island became the latest state to cut its exposure to hedge funds in its state pensions, slashing it by $500 million.

State Treasurer Seth Magaziner appeared on CNBC's "Power Lunch" on Thursday and said the new "back to basics" plan would reallocate hedge fund money into more traditional asset classes over the next two years. The last straw, he said, has been the under-performance by some hedge fund managers during periods of market volatility.





"They did not perform well and they did not provide protection during the periods of volatility that we've had over the last year, and that protection is a big part of the rationale for why many of these managers exist," he said.

Magaziner said since he took office in January of 2015, the state has made $400 million in investment gains on the $8 billion fund. He said they have also had positive performance for the last six months and have beaten internal benchmarks, despite hedge funds being "a lag."

The state investment commission approved a new asset allocation on Wednesday, he said. Magaziner explained the state would be "bumping up" its treasuries to help in the next market downturn. He also expects to gradually increase the state's investment in private equity, adding he wants to remain diversified in a way that "de-emphasizes the role of the hedge funds."

Once the plan is completed, 40 percent of the $8 billion pension will be allocated to low-fee index funds. The state's investments are up 5.6 percent this year.

 CNBC's Kate Kelly contributed to this report.




By Dmitry Solovyov and Ellen Francis MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Russia is sending more warplanes to Syria to ramp up its air campaign, a Russian newspaper reported on Friday, as the United States said diplomacy to halt the violence was "on life support" but not dead yet. Fighting continued to intensify a week into a new Russian-backed Syrian government offensive to capture rebel-held eastern Aleppo and crush the last urban stronghold of a revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that began in 2011. Moscow and Assad spurned a U.S.-Russian brokered ceasefire agreed to this month and launched attacks on rebel-held areas in Aleppo in potentially the most decisive battle in the Syrian civil war. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by telephone for a third straight day, with the top Russian diplomat saying Moscow was ready to consider more ways to normalize the situation in Aleppo. But Lavrov criticized Washington's failure to separate moderate rebel groups from those the Russians call terrorists, which had allowed forces led by the group formerly known as the Nusra front to violate the U.S.-Russian truce agreed on Sept. 9. The United States made clear on Friday that it would not, at least for now, carry through on the threat it made on Wednesday to halt the diplomacy if Russia did not take immediate steps to halt the violence. "This is on life support, but it's not flat-lined yet," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters. "We have seen enough that we don't want to definitively close the door yet." In a 40-minute discussion with Syrians, diplomats and others on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York last week, Kerry said the administration had failed to make any threat of military force that give him leverage with Russia. "I think you're looking at three people, four people in the administration who have all argued for use of force, and I lost the argument," Kerry told the group, according to a recording of the session obtained by The New York Times. NO ALTERNATIVE TO DIPLOMACY? U.S. officials and analysts argued the White House has few alternatives. "If we do walk away from this diplomatic process, as ... moribund as it is, what are the options?" Toner asked. "They can't afford to," said Chas Freeman, a retired U.S. ambassador. "You can't do international business with silence and ostracism." The White House put on hold for now proposals to end the talks despite the possibility that continuing them would erase whatever credibility Washington has on Syria, risk encouraging Assad and his Russian backers to continue the carnage, and prompt Saudi Arabia and other Assad opponents to arm rebel groups with better weapons without consulting Washington. It also would leave the United States vulnerable to attacks that it failed to intervene to halt war crimes, proponents of ending the diplomacy argued, according to officials familiar with the internal discussions. According to the tape, however, Kerry told the Syria group last week that as the bombing of Aleppo had escalated, "There's a different conversation taking place."CIA director John Brennan said in an interview on Friday that Russia's actions in Syria over the last several weeks have shown that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not been serious about negotiating a political solution to the conflict. "I think that pushing back against a bully is appropriate," Brennan told Reuters. "I think that is very different than rushing in and bombing the hell out of a place." Military options that administration officials say are still being discussed include providing more sophisticated arms, logistical support, and training to Syrian rebel groups, though not shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, either directly or via Gulf Arab states or Turkey, these officials said. Another idea, they said, was first to attempt humanitarian relief flights over Aleppo or other embattled areas, escorted by fighter jets, to see how the Russians and Syrians respond. Further down the list would be launching an air or cruise missile strike on a Syrian base, with a tentative list already drawn up of what one official said was "slightly more than a dozen" Syrian airbases, barrel-bomb factories and other targets. However, senior officials concluded there is no alternative to leaving the door open to talks for now because any immediate action would risk provoking an open conflict with Russia. According to the tape of his meeting with the Syrian group in New York, Kerry warned that if the U.S. started using muscle, "then everybody ups the ante, right? Russia puts in more, Iran puts in more; Hezbollah is there more and Nusra is more; and Saudi Arabia and Turkey put all their surrogate money in, and you all are destroyed." SU-24 AND SU-34 AIRCRAFT Western countries accuse Russia of war crimes, saying it has targeted civilians, hospitals and aid deliveries in recent days to crush the will of 250,000 people trapped inside the besieged rebel-held sector of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city before the war. Moscow and Damascus say they have targeted only militants. Russia joined the war a year ago, tipping the balance of power in favor of Assad, who is also supported by Iranian ground forces and Shi'ite militia from Lebanon and Iraq. The Kremlin said on Friday there was no time frame for its military operation in Syria. The main result of Russian air strikes over the past year is that "neither Islamic State, nor al Qaeda nor the Nusra Front are now sitting in Damascus", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Russia's Izvestia newspaper reported that a group of Su-24 and Su-34 warplanes had arrived at Syria's Hmeymim base. The Su-25 is an armored twin-engine jet that was battle-tested in the 1980s during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. It can be used to strafe targets on the ground, or as a bomber. Russia's defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment. The U.S. State and Defense Departments declined comment on the Izvestia report. Syrian government forces and rebels fought battles on Friday in the city center and north of Aleppo, where government troops had recaptured a Palestinian refugee camp on Thursday that already had changed hands once since the start of the attack. The sides gave conflicting accounts of the outcome of Friday's fighting. North of the city, the military said it had captured territory around the Kindi hospital near the refugee camp. Rebel sources denied the army had advanced there. (Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Angus McDowall, Lisa Barrington in Beirut; David Alexander, Eric Beech, Arshad Mohammed, David Rohde and John Walcott in Washington, Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow; writing by Peter Graff and Arshad Mohammed; editing by Peter Millership and Tom Brown)
TransUnion TRU remains focused on making significant investments to modernize its infrastructure and facilitate the seamless transition to the latest Big Data and analytics technologies. This enables TransUnion to expand its business and improve its cost structure. The company recently entered into a strategic partnership with SavvyMoney, wherein both entities will work mutually to enhance their financial data analytical offerings to the customers.

Headquartered in Pleasanton, CA, SavvyMoney is a leading provider of credit information services. It works toward empowering its customers to take full control of their finances by providing easy to understand actionable advice about their credits. The company provides free ongoing access to their credit score, as well as explains the factors that impact it, and recommends actions to improve it.

This deal will help TransUnions consumers get personalized credit information services using SavvyMoneys highly advanced credit system.

The company acquired RTech (Healthcare Revenue Technologies, Inc) as it aims to enhance its healthcare business by leveraging data, technology and analytics to help healthcare providers make the most of its lucrative business potential. In June, the company had also acquired Auditz, LLC, another leading healthcare services organization.

TransUnion is poised on organic and inorganic growth to enhance its portfolio. Such enhancements will enable the company improve its top line, going ahead.

TRANSUNION Price

TRANSUNION Price | TRANSUNION Quote

Headquartered in Chicago, IL, TransUnion is a consumer information services company that offers data and analytics solutions, particularly in credit risk management. The company is one of the three largest credit reporting agencies in the U.S. What sets TransUnion apart is its distinctive and comprehensive datasets, next-generation technology and its analytics and decision-making capabilities that enable it to deliver insights across the complete consumer lifecycle. TransUnion boasts rich domain proficiency across a wide range of industry verticals, including insurance, healthcare and financial services. It also caters to verticals like wireless, real estate and general commercial/business information.

TransUnion currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the industry include LifeLock, Inc. LOCK, National Research Corp. NRCIB and S&P Global, Inc. SPGI. All three stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

LifeLock belongs to the Business Information Services space. The company beat estimates on every occasion in the trailing four quarters.

National Research belongs to the Business Information Services space. The company has positive average earnings of 7.8%, beating estimates twice in the trailing four quarters.

S&P Global is part of the Business Information Services space. The company has a healthy earnings history, beating earnings all four times in the last trailing quarters.

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In the not-so-distant past, there were two main options when it came to skin care: Things that were backed by scientific studies to prove they work and those that were natural, but unproven. Of course, you also had all the muck in the middle: formulas with a mishmash of ingredients that may work, but werent able to back up their claims with cold, hard science. Thankfully, a lot has changed with the former two options and more and more brands are taking a scientific approach to studying and harnessing natural ingredients. Leave it to the French to be on the forefront of that movement.



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Last year, French skin-care brand Caudalie launched an anti-aging line called Resveratrol Lift, rooted in science finessed in Harvards labs by esteemed life-extension scientist Dr. David Sinclair. Nicknamed the Longevity Guru for his research in reversing aging and dubbed byTime as one of 100 Most Influential People in the world, you likely know his famous quote: The first person to live to 150 has already been born.This past week, Caudalie has unveiled the newest piece to the puzzle: A soft cream that feels as luxurious as ones much higher in price that harnesses the power of the science its named for. Bonus: It also acts like a primer, blurring imperfections and leaving behind a matte finish perfect for layering under makeup. We know, we know lets get back to what makes it so great. But first, a little background.

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Mathilde and Bertrand Thomas family vineyard in Bordeaux, France.



It Started Where All Good Things Do: With Wine

To understand this story, you first need a little background on Caudalie. You probably know the brand from its addictive facial spray, skin-smoothing body scrubs, and maybe even its chain of deeply relaxing spas  but theres science behind the line that may surprise you. It all started during a wine tour in 1993 of Mathilde Thomas family vineyard in Bordeaux, France, and a chance encounter with Professor Joseph Vercauteren, who was visiting from Montpelliers University of Pharmacy in France.

Story continues

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He said our wine was very good, but we were throwing away the most interesting parts: the grape seeds, Thomas says. Vercauteren was already studying the benefits of grapes on health  and the resveratrol that can be harvested from them. Say it with me: Res-ver-ah-trol. That little ingredient found in red wine is the most important part of this story.



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Fast-forward a few years: Mathilde and her husband, Bertrand, are working with the professor, as well as a team of their own, to research and create skin-care based around vineyard grapes. After all, they had the grapes. Within a few years, they had patents for their work with the anti-aging, dark spot-reducing resveratrol. Namely, finding the best resveratrol (it was hiding in the stalk and the vines) and linking that molecule with fatty acids to make it stable enough to actually do good for your skin. Think of resveratrol as your drunk friend: fun, but maybe they also need a slice of pizza at the end of the night. So a skin-care line based on science and natural ingredients was born.

Enter: The Harvard Brain Trust

Caudalie had already pushed forward the research on the power of grapes. Then, in the early 2000s, it heard about another great mind working on the cause on another continent.

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Professor Vercauteren and I had been working together for years when he told me about this professor at Harvard Medical School, Dr. David Sinclair, who was on the other side of the planet studying resveratrol, as well, she says. So she called up the good doctor and asked if they could compare notes. As expected, Dr. Sinclair is approached frequently to work with cosmetic companies, but it wasnt until now that the ethos truly aligned, he says.

Compared with all the hoopla surrounding many anti-aging products and methods, Dr. Sinclairs approach is quite simple: How do we get product we know is good for the body deep enough into the skin so it can mimic what fillers do  only without the needle? (For the record, he says injections freak him out.) Now, we doubt anyone questioned whether or not he could get product into the inner layers of the skin, but what would it do when it got there?

Weve learned vineyard stalks house the best natural resveratrol.



They wanted to create a moisturizer with two missions: strengthen the collagen fibers in the skin ("The network that keeps the skin up and prevents it from sagging, Dr. Sinclair says.) and improve hyaluronic acid levels. (Which is what keeps the water in the skin, he explains.) Read: firm, plump, and hydrate. That was the challenge, he continues, to slow this [aging process] down and try to reverse [it].



Simple, right? Well, kind of  but luckily, the principals he and his team at Harvard operate under give them the freedom to make breakthroughs at a molecular level through vigorous genetic testing. Thats what we have been doing at Harvard to try to reverse aging in the entire body, to treat diseases like cancer and heart disease and Alzheimers disease, he says. [Its the] the same technology, the things that we discovered control the aging process [in the body] are also in the skin; weve used that knowledge in this product. Our motto is that we need to teach the skin to act young again.

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After a few years of playing around with all-natural resveratrol from Caudalie and an endless supply of hyaluronic acid, researchers found something  something big. We had a breakthrough just last year, he says with a smile. The patent came soon after, filed jointly between Caudalie and Harvard.



A Brief Note On Hyaluronic Acid

So why all the talk about hyaluronic acid (or HA, for short) when the whole line is based on resveratrol? Well, its important to know that as we age, our bodies stop making as much hyaluronic acid  the natural molecules that hold onto water and make our skin look youthful and wonderfully hydrated.

Tons of products on the market are packed with hyaluronic acid, but getting it into the skin and encouraging your dermal layers to hold onto it for long enough to make a difference is the challenge many skin-care brands try to tackle. But its not just an issue with creams  hyaluronic acid is the main ingredient in most dermal fillers. Even when shot into the skin with a needle, the HA is still metabolized within a few months, which is why most lip injections only last between three and six months. Translation: HA doesnt like to stick around for long  its not in its nature. The Breakthrough: Say Bonjour To The HAS2 Gene.

Remember when Dr. Sinclair said that he wanted to try to get the skin to act young again? The breakthrough that accomplished this came when he and his team started playing with RNA sequencing. The goal? To isolate genes that reacted to a unique blend of resveratrol and HA.

There are more than 20,000 genes in a cell. We used the latest in genetic technology to see which of these [reacted the most], he explains. It allowed us to measure every gene. One gene in particular, which we all have, stood out. Its name is HAS2.

Think of HAS2 as the friend whose eyes perk up when wine is passed around  this was thegene that loved resveratrol and now researchers knew exactly how to turn it on. They just had to find the right blend to do the most good. [Ed. note: Anyone else feeling like theyd be fast friends with HAS2?]

At this point in the discussion, you may be falling asleep. But know that Sinclairs eyes are lighting up and hes getting really excited  because it gets even better, so stay with us. Playing with blends and mixtures of molecules powered by Professor Vercauterens original science, Sinclair and his team found a mix of molecules that, quite literally, made the HAS2 gene tell the body to make more hyaluronic acid, something genes dont want to do under normal circumstance. Its almost like they got HAS2 drunk; in its stupor, it started making tons of hyaluronic acid.A few words on the nitty-gritty of how it goes down: The resveratrol goes in and turns on the HAS2 gene, Dr. Sinclair explains. With the right mircomolecules of hyaluronic acid mixed in, they saw more than a 200% increase in [the production of HA in] this gene.



You may be asking: How drunk was HAS2? Pretty drunk: HAS2 now makes this protein, an enzyme, that sits on the surface of skin cells and captures the micro hyaluronic acid that carries the product. Heres where it gets really wild: During this process, the HAS2 gene actually starts squashing the hyaluronic acid, which in turn, traps it in the skin. Awesome? Yes  and no one saw it coming: [The process] makes them long, and when theyre long, they get stuck down in the skin naturally, they spread out, and that holds the water in, he says. Talk about getting the blend just right.



The final challenge? To make it work outside of the lab. Getting molecules into the skin is difficult. Most will just sit on top, Dr. Sinclair explains. [But] it was formulated so we could get both of the key ingredients deep into the dermis. The results out of the lab translated: In 84 days, the test group found increased firmness and more lifted skin.







Its All In The Details

Naturally, they didnt just load the new ingredients into any old cream or serum. The French never overlook the importance of details, from the texture (Thomas describes the Soft Cream like cashmere  and shes not far off.) to packaging and scent.

I wanted this scent to be all-natural and very addictive, she explains. Many would describe it a bit like herbal tea: Its a blend of red thyme, lavender, basil, orange blossom, and sage, she says, and its also oil-free and 94% natural.

Theres a caveat for this day cream, however: it doesnt have SPF, which was a thoughtful move, since SPF could muck up the efficacy of the formula. But it was formulated so it would penetrate fast, so you can layer your SPF moisturizer over it, Thomas says.

Speaking to Thomas, its clear that the Soft Cream is her favorite, but she notes that the line's serum actually has the highest percentage of the resveratrol. The day cream, however, checks more than one box: priming for makeup and delivering soft, comfortable hydration in one easy step. They both ring in at under $100, as opposed to brands that compete with this kind of science whose creams can run double or triple that.

It was a real breakthrough, Dr. Sinclair says, "but Im sure there will be more.





By: Lexy Lesback
A man who was found alive days after he and his mother disappeared when their boat sank during a recent fishing trip has denied having anything to do with it.



Officials say the woman is likely dead and have launched an investigation into the incident, according to multiple reports.



"I know I wasn't responsible for the boat sinking. I know that I wasn't responsible for anything that resulted from the boat sinking. I know I wasn't responsible for my mom's death," 22-year-old Nathan Carman told ABC News.



U.S. Coast Guard officials launched a search for Carman and his 52-year-old mother, Linda Carman, after they failed to return home from a fishing trip in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Rhode Island, on Sept. 18.







Carman was found drifting on a life raft a week later  but his mother's whereabouts remain unknown, and authorities believe she could not still be alive.



Soon after Carman was found safe, police reportedly searched his Vermont home, seizing several items.



Although he has not been charged with any crime, Carman told the Associated Press that the suspicion surrounding his missing mother only adds on to his grief: "What happened on the boat was a terrible tragedy that I am still trying to process and that I am still trying to come to terms with," he said.



"I don't know what to make of people being suspicious," he said. "I have enough to deal with."



A search warrant noted that Carman is under investigation for reckless endangerment, with police suspecting that he took his mother out on the boat even though it needed mechanical repairs, according to ABC News. Police also suspect he took Linda to a "different location than what were his mother's intentions and understanding."



The warrant's supporting affidavit alleges "the investigation revealed that Nathan's boat was in need of mechanical repair and that Nathan had been conducting a portion of these repairs upon his own volition which could have potentially rendered his boat unsafe," according to ABC News.



Police were looking for evidence of the planned fishing trip to support a charge of "operating so as to endanger, resulting in death," according to the Hartford Courant. Authorities sought information about the trip's planned route and destination and evidence of the boat repairs.



 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.





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Man Found Safe Days After Disappearing with Mom on Fishing Trip Says, 'I Know I Wasn't Responsible'| Crime & Courts, Murder, True Crime, True Crime





How the Boat Sank

Carman said he was in the front of the 32-foot aluminum fishing boat and his mother was in the cockpit when it began to sink. He told the Coast Guard that almost immediately before, he heard a "funny noise in the engine compartment."



"The whole time, from when I saw water in the boat to when the boat sank, was probably three to five minutes," he told ABC News. "I did not see or hear my mom."



Carman told the AP that when he no longer saw his mother, he swam to the boat's life raft and desperately called out for her for hours.



"I was yelling, 'Mom! Mom!' " he said. "I loved my mother, and my mother loved me."



"I feel like I was responsible for my mom and I being out there and in the situation," Carman told ABC News. "If I hadn't asked my mom to go fishing with me that weekend, she would still be alive with me today."



The boating investigation and Carman's statements come as reports surfaced that he was once a suspect in the unsolved 2013 slaying of his grandfather John Chakalos.



His estate was worth more than $42 million  and he left it to his four daughters, including Carman's mother, according to the AP.



But Carman told the AP that he had nothing to do with Chakalos' death either. PEOPLE was not immediately able to reach him or investigating officials in the boating incident for comment.



"My grandfather was like a father to me, and I was like a son to him," Carman told the AP. "He was the closest person in the world to me, and I loved him and he loved me, and I had absolutely nothing to do with his death."



Carman's father agreed, telling the Courant, "He was a suspect because he was the last one to see my father-in-law alive. The kid was so devoted to him. There were only two people in his life, his mother and his grandfather. There was no motive. There was nothing to gain with John dying, he had everything to lose."
Get all the details on Salman Khan's newest offering for his fans.

By Hemul Goel: After giving his fans an opportunity to wear a piece of Salman Khan approved style through his Being Human line of apparel, the actor has come up with another strategy to spread some love.

Also read: Awwdorable: You wouldn't want to miss these pics of Salman Khan cuddling his nephew

It was only after the massive success of his Bajrangi Bhaijaan pendant that the actor hit the realisation that the jewellery business could be an exciting space for him to explore.

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Collaborating with Style Quotient Jewellery to bring his fans baubles inspired by his charity, Being Human's core values including love, care, share, joy, help and hope, Salman Khan unveiled the pieces in the Capital in the presence of his family, mother Salma Khan, sister Arpita Khan Sharma and nephew Ahil Sharma.

The collection will be divided into two broad sections, with one being the lower priced, fashion jewellery line while the GSI (Gemological Science International) certified gold, diamond and black diamond fine jewellery line will cater to the more moneyed section, with the range varying between Rs 5000 to Rs 50,000.

Also read: Salman Khan to shine brighter; Being Human to venture into jewellery, says sister Arpita

The bling will be sold through retail jewellery stores across the country, with Amazon being the exclusive online partner. While the primary campaign images unveiled at the launch star him and his Kick co-star Jacqueline Fernandez, it was also revealed that each piece of jewellery would be accompanied with a personal message from Salman, thanking people for their purchase.

Also read: Would you wear jewellery that repels mosquitoes?

With the fan following Bhaijaan commands in the country, we can already see his jewellery line receiving massive support.

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The last time he had a public playdate, Prince George was eight months old and already a future king in the making.



Now, two years after that memorable outing Down Under, 3-year-old George and his nearly 17-month-old sister Princess Charlotte met the children of military families in Victoria, Canada, on Thursday morning as part of the royal family's week-long tour of Canada.



George and Charlotte were the center of attention as Prince William and Princess Kate joined other parents at the special reception at Government House  where the family is based during their stay.













And Charlotte gave her parents quite the workout as she excitedly took off towards a giant balloon archway. The littlest royal couldn't get enough of the colorful balloons, she was even overheard shouting, "pop pop!" reports. Charlotte also called Prince William, "Dada."









Meanwhile, George was busy getting into a little mischief of his own, reportedly squirting his little sister and dad with an orange fish-shaped bubble gun.





Prince George and Princess Charlotte attend children's party for military families during their parents' Canada tour https://t.co/mayKKziI6O a Sky News (@SkyNews) September 29, 2016





The royal siblings also enjoyed playing with some of the animals at the party. George sat on one of the two ponies at the party and  not to be outdone  Charlotte sat on a dog named "Moose."





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The Surprising Things You Wouldn't Know About How the Royal Family Travels!





"A group of military families have been invited to share what should be a really lovely morning with plenty of surprises for the children," the couple's spokesman explained before the tour began.





Princess Charlotte Speaks Her First Public Word at Canada Playdate!| The British Royals, The Royals, Kate Middleton, Prince George, Prince William, Princess Charlotte



It is likely to be the only time that the royal children will be seen in public, apart from their grandstand arrival on Saturday and their departure this weekend.



 Want to keep up with the latest royals coverage? Click here to subscribe to the Royals Newsletter.



Since they were introduced at the bottom of the steps of the Canadian air force jet plane on September 24 ( no high-fives from George!), the children have spent most of their time in the grand old home, looked after by their nanny Maria Turrion Borrallo. Each evening, apart from when William and Kate headed to Whitehorse, Yukon overnight Tuesday, the couple returned to Victoria to see the children.



The young family will spend the rest of Thursday privately together, aides said.
Weeks before Joe Giudice began his 41-month prison sentence for mail, wire and bankruptcy fraud, the reality star gave viewers a glimpse into how he was really handling the realities of leaving his family by engaging in a tense altercation with his wife, telling her to "shut the f--- up" on an episode of The Real Housewives of New Jersey.



Now, Teresa Giudice is coming to her husband's defense explaining how that argument made her feel, why Joe lashed out and how his prison sentence is affecting their relationship.



"I didn't take that to heart because that's not how Joe normally talks, he really doesn't," the 44-year-old tells PEOPLE exclusively. "You see, he passes out right after. He went to go lay down and he passed out. And when he woke up I said to him, 'Hon, why'd you say that?' And he said, 'What?' He didn't even remember what he said."



She continues, "I know how Joe talks, I've known him my whole life. I think there's going to be a surprise on the show. They're going to show stuff that you guys are going to see really how long I know Joe. I've known him a long time, I know his language. Everyone deals with things differently and he was nervous that he was leaving his wife and his four daughters."







He was so nervous that he even picked a fight with his 15-year-old daughter Gia, telling her that he's still going to discipline her from jail.



"I'll have every say  every way  in there or out," he threatened. "Oh believe me  I'll be stronger in there than I am here. Remember how mom was in there and she controlled everything? It's gonna be the same way."



As her husband continues his sentence, Teresa says the distance is actually benefiting their relationship.



"We've always been close but when you go through things like this either it can break you or make you stronger as a family or as a couple, and obviously it's doing that for us," she says. "We both know in our hearts that he didn't try to hurt me in any way and I know I didn't try to hurt him in any way. If anything, you know what they say, when you're away from each other it makes the heart grow fonder? It's definitely doing that for us.



The Real Housewives of New Jersey airs Sundays (8 p.m. ET) on Bravo.
Kazakhstan has submitted Satybaldy Narymbetov's historic drama Amanat to the Oscars in the best foreign-language film category.

A story that spans three periods in Kazakh history, it links mid 19th century struggles against the Russians to two 20th century episodes revolving around the fate of former political prisoner Ermukhan Bekmakhanov, who was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for writing historical books about Kazakh national hero Kenesary Kasymov and his national liberation movement.

Kazakhstan's annual international film festival, Eurasia, the 12th edition of which closes Friday in Almaty, where the film is screening in a regional section, noted the film brings to life "the forgotten names of the true sons of the Kazakh peopledesignating the true parameters of the spiritual power of the people."

Amanat premiered in Kazakhstan in May and was produced by Arman Asenov and Kazakhfilm Studios.

Kazakhstan produces around 15 features a year. Last year, 344 features were released across the country's 89 cinemas and 246 screens, most of them Hollywood and international productions. Box-office receipts last year were $47 million, with domestic films accounting for $3.3 million of that, according to figures released earlier this week at the Eurasia IFF's industry sidebar Eurasia Spotlight.

Kazakhstan first submitted a film to the Oscars in 1992 and has done so annually since 2006. Sergei Bodrov's Mongol made the shortlist in 2007, making it the only Central Asian country so far to have been nominated for a foreign-language Oscar.

Read more: Oscars: Kazakhstan Selects 'Stranger' for Foreign-Language Category
Halfway through Obamas first presidency, the mainstream tilted in such a way it seemed that indie musicthat long-beloved genre of fops and sensitiveswas actually and authentically reaching the masses. Arcade Fire canonized middle class anguish and were rewarded with a Grammy for Album of the Year; Vampire Weekends sophomore record debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts. And then there was the absurd little moment where Bon Ivers Justin Vernon was deemed famous enough to be mocked by Justin Timberlake on live TV, the unofficial Prince of Pop donning a slick bald-piece to attack the crime of appearing delicate.

Vernon was elevated to such an honor by the runaway success of 2011s Bon Iver, a statement album encapsulating all of his fragile thoughts about his and the Earths death, presented within sparse acoustic sketches scaled into spirit-stirring, yacht-y triumphs. He won the Grammy for Best New Artist as a result, though as a mild-mannered Midwest folkie, he hardly looked like a natural fit for network televisions. SNL parodies and single-serving Who is Bonnie Bear Tumblrs didnt lieVernon was simultaneously a part of and apart from celebrity culture. Yet as a suddenly visible stand-in for the white, obscure, rustic, craft-brewed ethos once known as indie, Vernon became increasingly politicized in a really, really boring way, his prominence somehow infuriating people because of how readily he was reduced to the stereotype of every precious mayonnaise boy. Ironically, an artist canonized in year-end lists for disappearing to the woods in order to record an insular, emotionally unadorned masterpiece couldnt escape his social context.

To paraphrase Neil Young, Bon Iver put Vernon in the middle of the road; traveling there was becoming a bore, so he headed for the ditch. His subsequent public gestures came off like earnest attempts to refocus his standing within the wider world, instead of calling it quits and moving back to a cabin for good. Rather than drive up expectations for a follow-up record, he purposely said he was taking a break and palled around with his other bands. Instead of making big money on the corporate festival circuit, he launched a grass-fed music festival with tiny sponsorsthe local Subaru dealership, not the international brand. He appeared severely guilty about once taking money to appear drunk on camera, a mea culpa to all Pitchfork readers who mightve cried sell out.

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In August, he announced 22, A Million, his first new album in five years. At a hotel in his native Eau Claire, he staged a press conference and answered questions from the media as though he was Dont Look Back Bob Dylan. He gave almost no separate interviews; he shied away from showing his face in press photos. The analog contrast to the modern publicity cycle mightve foretold a back-to-basics album, in the vein of 2008 breakthrough For Emma, Forever Agoarea man with guitar and old four-track.

Bon Iver is still concerned with stately, majestic beauty: 22, A Million has the familiar sounds of piano and acoustic guitar, and familiar endorphin rushes of build-and-release epics like Perth and Holocene. But 22, A Million pushes forward as only an artist could. Its a weirder record, foregrounded with decayed, pulsating electronics, warped vocals, and instruments invented by Vernon and his friends. Paranoia and claustrophobia shade the sound, but its still territorially and emotionally expansivea night-time detour through unknown and welcoming land.

Vernons voice, holy yet earthly, was the main selling point of the Bon Iver project; its also what made him a cliche as an every overly tenderized crooner. He doesnt exactly distance himself from his trademark voice, but he stretches it in directions far more extreme than previous experimentations. Never before did he sound like he was recorded background vocals for Death Grips, as on the cluttered, unpronounceable 10 d E A T h b R E a s T  . At the press conference, he spoke about the necessity of breaking the beautiful things hed created. Since he collaborated with Kanye, its tempting to call this Bon Iver by way of Yeezus, as though Yeezy was the first popular artist to ever get really into Nine Inch Nails.

Still, Vernon also spoke about how Kanye imbued him with the confidence to keep putting himself out there, which gave him inspiration as he suffered artistic anxiety ahead of the records completion. The permission to get messy and experimental goes hand-in-hand with the incorporation unexpected techniques, such as a revelatory usage of sampling. He speeds up a Stevie Nicks YouTube deep cut and loops it over the opening of d E A T h b R E a s T; he concludes a mournful saxophone solo in 22 (OVER SN) with a screamed Mahalia Jackson line that rejuvenates the sunken feeling. 666 , the albums most stunning track, is richly textured with booming, Collins-esque drumming and meditative synthesizer programming, as Vernon exerts himself singing about the amount of work that goes into learning something new.

Experimentation is all relative, and 22, A Million is still a Bon Iver record; it isnt like hes chugged ayahuasca and attempted to play electric guitar with a buzzsaw. He does break new ground, mostly via liberal use of the Messina, an instrument created by the engineer Chris Messina. The contraption allowed Vernon to play a melody, and untangle individual harmonies from the soundwave, layering them on top of each other in real time. (I visualized it working like a chef making a spaghetti by hand, separating loopy strands from dough.)

The hypnotizing 715  CRKS was recorded entirely using the Messina, creating the peculiar mirroring of Vernons typically ethereal voice against its drugged-out counterpart. _____45______, a gorgeous, glitchy gospel song, uses it to bend warped saxophone leads around Vernons incantatory singing, as he dissolves and reforms into something new. Album closer 00000 Million was recorded on The Jeanette, an upright acoustic piano hooked up to pedals and gear, allowing Vernon to create a haunting, hymnal effecta ghost at his machine, a one-man chorus.

Vernons wordplay remains poetic and opaquethe Genius annotations should be a riot. The titles on Bon Iver referred to constructed cities (Hinnom, OH) and states of being (Beth/Rest, which he described as a place of paradise), evoking a sense of displacement. Meanwhile, the titles on 22, A Million seem so inscrutable as to exist solely to annoy listeners by having to type them out. (This probably isnt the case, though itll nevertheless led him to once again be angrily rejected as hipster bullshit.)

Even so, meanings are made tangible here and there. The title of 715  CRKS refers to a Wisconsin area code; on 33 (GOD) he stays at the Ace Hotel, an artistically fertile but socially hollow trap for influencers. There are repeated reference to 22, Vernons favorite number because of its ellipticity, as well as the title of a psalm in which a meek narrator seeks salvation. The emotional and physical wanderlust in the writing isnt new, but here, it feels inspired by a more worldly perspective. In the five years between albums, his victories allowed him to literally go over the earth in search of answers. (Indeed, in the press conference he spoke of an awful trip to Greece, where he failed to find himself.) There are mantras both diagnostic and restorative, a return to that Bon Iver missiona cowed reckoning at ones place on this sublime, fracturing planet.

Whispering was maybe the thing before, Vernon said at the press conference, before hitting a discordant note on a keyboard in order to emphasize his new direction. But the wonder of 22, A Million is how beautifully he melds the disparate formsinside and outside, acoustic and digital, past and future, ground level and interstellar. Its a stunning record, well worth the wait, fresher and richer than the staid stereotype Bon Iver came to represent. The world was opened up to Vernon, and he found a way to stay himself while pushing on. It harms me, it harms me, it harms me, he repeats on 00000 Million, before whispering but Ill let it in.
Geneva (AFP) - The United Nations warned Friday that around 100,000 people were trapped in the South Sudanese town of Yei, where they were facing serious shortages of food and medicine.

Yei is situated some 150 kilometres (93 miles) southwest of Juba, near the borders with Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and until recently had been spared much of the violence plaguing the world's youngest nation.

But the security situation there has deteriorated rapidly since July.

The UN refugee agency said now around 100,000 people -- many of whom had fled into the town in search of safety -- could no longer leave after government troops surrounded the area.

"The government forces are surrounding the town and they are restricting access into the town and also preventing people from leaving, presumably because they suspect them of siding with opposition forces," UNHCR spokesman William Spindler told reporters.

He pointed out that more than 30,000 people had fled into Yei from surrounding areas following deadly attacks on civilians and looting of private property earlier this month.

They joined several thousand displaced people who had arrived since mid-July, and as many as 60,000 town residents, he said.

UNHCR and other UN agencies had visited the town on September 27, discovering that tens of thousands of displaced people had taken refuge in abandoned houses and church compounds, Spindler said.

"Terrorised men and women spoke of horrific violence against civilians before and during their flight," the refugee agency said, pointing to killings, mutilations and the looting and burning of property.

In Yei, the displaced "are facing a serious shortage of food and medicine," Spindler said.

He said humanitarian workers were hoping to soon bring desperately needed aid into the town, but acknowledged that the timeframe for such a delivery remained unclear.

South Sudan, which gained independence in July 2011, descended into war just two and a half years later when President Salva Kiir in December 2013 accused his former deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup.

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Numerous attempts to shore up a fragile truce have failed, and in a major setback to peace efforts, fresh clashes erupted in Juba on July 8 this year between Kiir's guards and troops loyal to Machar.

Since the fresh violence in July, more than 200,000 people have fled South Sudan, sending the number of refugees from the war-scarred nation past the one-million mark, UNHCR said.

Another 1.61 million people are displaced inside the country, it said.
Niamey (AFP) - Niger's army said Friday that 14 of its soldiers and scores of Boko Haram fighters had been killed during a multi-month sweep operation in the nation's southeast.

Defence ministry spokesman Colonel Moustapha Ledru told state television that "123 terrorists" had been killed and "a large quantity of arms recovered from the insurgents."

It was not possible to independently verify this number.

Ledru said 14 soldiers were killed and 29 wounded in the joint operations with Chad's military took place between July and September 28.

They targeted the Diffa region, which lies just across the border from the Islamists' stronghold in northeastern Nigeria.

Ledru said the "terrorists" who had been killed had "infiltrated" into Diffa from Nigeria, adding that two fighters had been captured.

Boko Haram's seven-year insurgency has left at least 20,000 people dead in Nigeria and border areas of neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, and made more than 2.6 million homeless.

Attacks in Niger's Diffa region began in February 2015.

In late July this year a multinational force, drawn from Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, was formed to tackle the Islamic insurgents and clear them out of towns and villages.

Ledru said operations had led to four strategic localities being taken back from Boko Haram control.
Amid all the talk of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, theres a side race mounting. First name: ballot. Last name: initiatives. And whether theyre about future funding or decisions about health care, retirement or energy, theyre just more reasons to get out in November and vote.

Sure, Mary Jane which has been off and on the ballot for decades now in one form or another  is back again and among the most burning, wide-sweeping subjects around. But there is even more interesting work afoot; in a presidential year, ballot initiatives are primed for an outsize effect. Weve seen it in the past: George W. Bushs 2004 re-election bid enjoyed an extra conservative push due to ballot initiatives in 11 states to ban gay marriage. And the peoples vote has already roused change this year  were looking at you, Brexit. So lets dive into some of the roughly 165 initiatives on the American ballot that thus far have been approved and could spell a large, impending national conversation.

Retriggering a Debate

The 1999 Columbine High School shootings triggered a big shift in this country. President Bill Clinton took a hard line, going on national TV to discuss the issue and calling for restrictions on large-capacity ammunition clips that make a mockery of our assault weapons ban. He also noted, We really cant do what we need to do until there is national legislation. But public opinion was divided; since then, ballot initiatives have come up often and mainly targeted a background check increase  with only some that have passed. This time around, Maine and Nevada will be voting on background checks. It seems like a standard approach, but if folks in more rural, gun-owning parts of these states go for it, that message might be a canary in a coal mine for the NRA: Support could become harder to find.

Meanwhile, California seems to be revisiting Clintons argument by offering up Proposition 63, which includes a proposal to limit large-capacity magazines, or magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. Whats most interesting is that a number of states have already banned these types of ammunition clips  including California. Yet the issue remains up for vote because if the ballot measure passes, then it will be protected by Californias rules about ballot measures  that they can only be repealed by another popular vote, unless the initiative itself says that the Legislature can amend it.

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NRA hates ballot initiatives because they know they cant intimidate voters like they intimidate Congress. Vote YES on Prop 63 #SafetyForAll  Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) July 14, 2016

Earmarks the Spot

Taxing a good to set aside money for a service  earmarks  are back in season. While these revenue measures are often popular with voters, they make some economists cringe: Promising funds for one particular service hamstrings the flexibility of elected officials to prioritize issues over time, critics argue.

This year, though, theres the smoke-flavored variety. A handful of states, including California, Colorado and Missouri, are going after Big Tobacco. Back in 1988, California raised taxes on cigarettes and earmarked the money for other purposes. Who tried to help block a tax hike on cigs back then? None other than former Fox CEO and Chairman Roger Ailes, the New York Times reported. The argument against: Gangs would increasingly be tempted to smuggle tobacco. Still, these earmarks are typically popular since nonsmokers outnumber smokers at this point by about 5-to-1.

But wait, there are other kinds of earmarks  including some that fund learning  like in Oregon, which will vote on whether to dabble in an earmark to help prevent dropouts.

Voting on How We Vote

In Maine, this could be a wild turn of events. Theyll get out the vote on ranked-choice voting, where preferences are taken into account in the election of local and state reps. In a state that doesnt easily fall left or right and has opted for a third party (Sen. Angus King, for instance), this might just pass. It would be the largest experiment of its nature in the U.S., though other countries employ ranked-choice voting already. In the U.S., Oakland, California, uses the system for its mayoral race. Not everyone went with it, though. When I figure out how ranked-choice voting works, Ill tell you who else Ill vote for, California Gov. and Oaklandite Jerry Brown reportedly said.

Big news: Alaska voters could pass automatic voter registration, adding up to 70,000 residents to the voter rolls pic.twitter.com/NylZqnIXnb  U.S. PIRG (@uspirg) August 2, 2016

Then theres an initiative in Alaska to automatically register voters when they sign up for the Permanent Fund Dividend, which provides a $1,000 to $2,000 kickback annually. This is creative thinking and smells of the motor voter act. A report has found that approximately 70,000 Alaskans qualify for the PFD, but are not registered to vote. Thats about 13 percent of the voting public. You can bet on a bluer state disposition if wider voter registration passes  so keep watching this one.

Payday for the Millennials

The minimum wage debate is contentious. Seattle, which is putting into effect a $15 per hour minimum in the next few years, has some economists worried about unemployment. A handful of states will have the minimum wage question on the ballot, and its likely many increases will go into effect. There may be more incremental changes than Seattle, for one, which could help abate some negative consequences.

As a result of #DCs #MinimumWage hike, 1400 restaurant jobs were cut in 1st 6 mos of 2016 - biggest drop in 15 yrs pic.twitter.com/QI5aFgKI0G  Prof. Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) September 2, 2016

In South Dakota, though, a lowering of the minimum wage for youth workers is up for a vote. The idea: having an $8.50 an hour floor for teens hurts their chances of being hired and diminishes their attractiveness to businesses. Could a two-tiered minimum wage take off in the U.S. like it has in Australia? This might be a key test.

Which ballot initiatives will you be watching? Which are you passionately for? Against? Shoot an email to carlos.watson@ozymandias.com or respond in the comment section below.

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Do you want to be where the people are?

What makes a city a great place to live isn't just about where people wish they lived or where the most jobs are -- it's also about considering where people are actively choosing to live. We examined population growth by net migration for the 100 largest metro areas in the U.S. from 2010 to 2014, based on U.S. Census Bureau data, and ranked them based on the difference between people relocating there and those who move away. Read on to discover the 20 best places people are actually moving to across the U.S.

20. Seattle

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 7

Metro Population: 3,557,037

Median Home Price: $362,468

Median Annual Salary: $57,370

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 3.98 percent

As the fifth most desirable and fifth most fun place to live in the U.S., it's no wonder people are moving to this Pacific Northwest hub. A healthy job market certainly spurs migration to a metro area, and Seattle's ranking as the fifth best place to find a job adds to its appeal. And Seattle's wealth of parks, restaurants and shopping opportunities make its residents' free time more enjoyable.

19. Des Moines, Iowa

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 11

Metro Population: 590,741

Median Home Price: $169,550

Median Annual Salary: $46,600

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 3.99 percent

With just under 4 percent growth due to net migration over a five-year period, Des Moines is not only attracting a high number of people, but it also maintains an unemployment rate of just 3.2 percent. Iowa's capital may be the only Midwestern city on the list, but its growing tech industry and low cost of living make it an attractive option to more and more people.

18. Tampa, Florida

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 42

Metro Population: 2,851,235

Median Home Price: $173,750

Median Annual Salary: $43,420

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 4.33 percent

The first of seven Florida cities on the list, Tampa saw a population growth from net migration of 4.33 percent from 2010 to 2014. Tampa's warm climate is a big draw for seniors looking to retire in a place with ample beaches and a laid-back vibe -- both of which this Florida locale has.

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17. Dallas-Fort Worth

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 21

Metro Population: 6,703,020

Median Home Price: $202,121

Median Annual Salary: $47,670

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 4.39 percent

The largest metro area in Texas is also the biggest in the top 20 Best Places People Are Moving to in the U.S. As the No. 21 Best Place to Live, Dallas-Fort Worth residents skew younger, with a median age of just over 34 years, due in part to its healthy job market and sizable family-friendly suburbs attracting young professionals.

16. Lakeland, Florida

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 70

Metro Population: 617,323

Median Home Price: $145,350

Median Annual Salary: $38,370

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 4.41 percent

Lakeland's convenient location gives it easy access to tourism hot spots like Tampa and Orlando. Despite maintaining a low profile compared to the two cities it's sandwiched between, Lakeland experienced 4.41 percent growth due to net migration over a five-year period. With a median home price of just $145,350 and average monthly rent of $870, the cost of living is low compared to national averages.

15. Daytona Beach, Florida

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 84

Metro Population: 597,824

Median Home Price: $163,075

Median Annual Salary: $36,400

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 4.55 percent

Daytona Beach is the next Florida city on the list, and it is a particularly attractive one for retirees, as the metro area has a median age of 46.4 years. This city on Florida's eastern coast also draws in tourists looking to escape colder weather up north, fish off the east end of the Daytona Beach Pier or take in a NASCAR race at Daytona International Speedway.

14. Boise, Idaho

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 6

Metro Population: 639,616

Median Home Price: $232,500

Median Annual Salary: $41,550

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 4.55 percent

Boise's capital and largest city comes in at No. 14, tied with Daytona Beach at 4.55 percent growth between 2010 and 2014. As the No. 6 Best Place to Live, Boise attracts residents with its solid job market and low cost of living compared to the median annual income.

13. Fayetteville, Arkansas

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 3

Metro Population: 483,396

Median Home Price: $177,200

Median Annual Salary: $42,410

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 4.76 percent

Moving down south, Fayetteville earns a spot for its five-year net migration rate of 4.76 percent. As the No. 1 city on the Best Affordable Places to Live in the U.S. list, Fayetteville is the fastest-growing metro area in Arkansas and boasts a healthy job market with Fortune 500 companies such as Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods Inc. and J.B. Hunt Transport Services headquartered in the area.

12. Nashville, Tennessee

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 22

Metro Population: 1,730,515

Median Home Price: $192,200

Median Annual Salary: $43,950

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 4.77 percent

In the categories contributing to the Best Places to Live rankings, Nashville gets its highest score for net migration. The metro area has grown by 4.77 percent between 2010 and 2014. Tennessee's capital also ranks highly for value, with a median home price of just $192,200, which is much lower than the national average of $218.867.

11. Charlotte, North Carolina

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 15

Metro Population: 2,298,915

Median Home Price: $184,600

Median Annual Salary: $48,290

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 4.8 percent

Thanks in part to a relatively low cost of living compared to the area's median annual salary, Charlotte is growing rapidly. The area grew 4.8 percent from net migration alone between 2010 and 2014. The Queen City also receives solid marks from Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which ranks the Charlotte area residents' satisfaction according to their purpose, social, financial, community and physical well-being.

10. Miami

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 93

Metro Population: 5,775,204

Median Home Price: $228,650

Median Annual Salary: $43,950

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 5.02 percent

Miami rounds out the top 10 Best Places People Are Moving to in the U.S. with more than 5 percent growth from 2010 to 2014. Cost of living for residents in the Miami area is high compared to many other parts of the country, but that doesn't appear to deter people from seeking out the South Florida city as their next hometown.

9. Denver

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 1

Metro Population: 2,651,392

Median Home Price: $301,300

Median Annual Salary: $53,060

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 5.05 percent

The No. 1 Best Place to Live also has the ninth highest net migration rate out of the 100 largest metro areas in the country. Denver's red-hot job market and close proximity to prime outdoor attractions make it a great place to move, and the area has become a particularly desirable place for millennials to start calling home.

8. Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 4

Metro Population: 1,714,629

Median Home Price: $215,730

Median Annual Salary: $47,430

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 5.35 percent

With big-name schools like Duke University, University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, Raleigh-Durham attracts a large number of college students. But the area is also bringing in a significant number of new permanent residents as well. Raleigh-Durham has a hot job market and is widely recognized for its high-quality health care.

7. San Antonio

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 23

Metro Population: 2,239,222

Median Home Price: $161,900

Median Annual Salary: $41,870

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 5.36 percent

Home to the Alamo, San Antonio comes in at No. 7 with 5.36 percent population growth between 2010 and 2014 due to net migration alone. Of the four Texas metro areas on this list, San Antonio has the lowest median home price, at just $161,900.

6. Houston

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 17

Metro Population: 6,204,141

Median Home Price: $190,000

Median Annual Salary: $50,830

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 5.43 percent

Moving only a few hours east, Houston grew at a similar rate to San Antonio, with 5.43 percent growth in the five-year period. While it may be pricier than the Alamo City, Houston still has a low cost of living compared to the rest of the country, with a median home price of just $190,000.

5. Orlando

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 44

Metro Population: 2,226,835

Median Home Price: $188,250

Median Annual Salary: $40,200

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 6.37 percent

Staying in the southern U.S. for the remainder of the list, Orlando comes in at No. 5 with a population growth of nearly 6.4 percent between 2010 and 2014. Orlando is a big draw for new residents and tourists alike, with sunny weather and major employers in the tourism industry such as Disney and Universal Studios.

4. Charleston, South Carolina

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 19

Metro Population: 697,281

Median Home Price: $209,450

Median Annual Salary: $42,770

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 6.49 percent

Taking the No. 4 spot on the list is Charleston, with 6.49 percent population growth due to net migration over a five-year period. Having ranked eighth in the 20 Most Desirable Places to Live, Charleston proves many people are choosing to relocate based on personal preference.

3. Sarasota, Florida

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 14

Metro Population: 722,784

Median Home Price: $226,750

Median Annual Salary: $39,960

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 7.67 percent

Sarasota took a sizable jump in net migration rates -- growing by 7.67 percent between 2010 and 2014. The Florida metro area is a particularly large draw for retirees, and as a result, the median age in the area is over 50 years old.

2. Austin, Texas

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 2

Metro Population: 1,835,016

Median Home Price: $240,000

Median Annual Salary: $48,150

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 8.86 percent

The No. 2 Best Place to Live also comes also comes in at the second spot for the number of people relocating to the area. Having grown by 8.86 percent between 2010 and 2014 due to net migration alone, Austin also ranks highly for desirability and has a blossoming job market for the tech industry.

1. Fort Myers, Florida

Best Places to Live 2016 Ranking: 38

Metro Population: 647,554

Median Home Price: $201,925

Median Annual Salary: $38,750

Net Migration Rate, 2010 to 2014: 9.36 percent

With nearly 9.4 percent population growth between 2010 and 2014 due to net migration alone, Fort Myers is the top place people are moving to of the 100 largest metro areas in the U.S. With a median age of over 46 years, Fort Myers is a popular spot for retirees and has grown significantly in recent years, though it remains a smaller metro area with less than 650,000 residents.





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Julian Marchese

A college dropout is prepping his own hedge fund.

Julian Marchese, 20, left New York University last year to focus on his business, Marchese Investments.

"NYU is extremely expensive," Marchese told Business Insider. "I felt that the next three years that I would have spent at school I could have spent on building [investment] strategies."

Becoming an entrepreneur fulfills a lifelong dream, he added.

"I like making my own hours," he said. "I can work as hard as I want to. There's no office I have to go to."

For now, that's truly the case. He has been working from his family's home in suburban Toronto before he moves back to Manhattan early next year, where he rents a shared office space on Wall Street, he said.

A handful of industry vets have helped him set up his operations, and he plans to eventually hire some programmers and even an intern.

Marchese said he manages about $1 million since launching last October, and expects another $3 million or so to come in over the coming months.

Hedge funds don't have to disclose much information, particularly tiny ones, so Business Insider hasn't been able to verify the amounts independently. But we heard about Marchese going out on his own from a person in the industry.

Marchese declined to identify the investors, but said they weren't his family members.

"I don't come from much money," he added. "Most of it went to NYU."

Rather, investors got to know him as he gained publicity as an investing whiz kid. He says one investor expressed interest after Business Insider profiled him during his freshman year, when he was setting up shop in his dorm.

Screen Shot 2016 09 30 at 12.49.02 PM

"When I was younger, it was all about me building my name and my brand," said Marchese, who has had numerous articles written about him over the years. "Now that I'm running a business, it's about me being a professional."

Marchese invests using quantitative strategies  which use computer programs  to trade stocks and exchange traded funds. He has returned about 14% net of fees since launching last October, according to a performance record he provided.

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It's far from common for investors to launch funds in their 20s, let alone without a college degree  though a recent exception is Jamie Sterne, a 28-year-old Harvard grad.

Technically, Marchese's firm is not a hedge fund, which pools capital in one structure; he's starting out managing investors' money in separate accounts. But he said he plans on launching a commingled hedge fund in the coming months.

So why start off on his own rather than head to one of the established funds to work on his craft?

"I believe I have an investment philosophy that adds value on its own," he said. "I don't want to share that intellectual property with anyone because I think it's best serviced to my investors."

NOW WATCH: Former Wells Fargo employees say they were fired after reporting fraudulent activity





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Samajwadi Party President Shivpal Singh Yadav, who was invited as the chief guest for the Ram Barat event , usurped this religious platform to make an appeal to the people to vote for Samajwadi Party in the coming assembly elections.

By Siraj Qureshi: The Ram Barat of Agra is known to be one of the grandest events in Western Uttar Pradesh and people arrive from all over the state to see the Barat as well as the 'Janakpuri' that is made from scratch every year in a different part of the city.



EVENT GETS POLITICAL

Being a religious event, the actors who play the role of Ram, Sita and Lakshman are accorded the same reverence as should be accorded to the deities themselves. However, this year, the Janakpuri transformed into a political platform, when UP Samajwadi Party President Shivpal Singh Yadav, who was invited as the chief guest at the event, usurped this religious platform to make an appeal to the people to vote for Samajwadi Party in the coming assembly elections.

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The Samajwadi Party supporters then began shouting slogans hailing Shivpal Singh Yadav and the Samajwadi Party, capturing the dais where the 'swaroops' of Lord Ram and Sita were seated and shouted slogans throughout the time Shivpal performed the 'aarti' of the swaroops. This spectacle shocked the Ram devotees who had arrived for a glimpse of their deities.

PRAYER MISCONSTRUED?

Even the Organizing Committee officials looked angry at the lack of discipline in the Samajwadi party ranks. Committee Chairperson Kundanika Sharma told India Today that some overzealous party workers shouted slogans praising Shivpal Singh Yadav. The Committee officials tried to stop them. She explained that Shivpal Singh Yadav was asking for Lord Ram's blessings during the elections and this was probably misconstrued by the devotees as a political speech.

ALSO READ:

Outreach: With eye on UP polls, BJP to hold panchayats in Haryana's Muslim-dominated areas

UP election: Why Rahul Gandhi's Kisan Yatra has left BJP, SP worried



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Despite the celebration, it was not quite panda-monium when nearly two dozen cubs were introduced for the first time in China.

Read: Cuteness Overload: Watch this Baby Panda's Series of Attempts to Roll Over

The 23 panda cubs, all under 4 months old, were caught snoozing on stage in Sichuan, a central China province, as hundreds flocked to the breeding facility.

One little guy even fell off the stage.

"I think this is just about the cutest thing in the entire world," an American tourist told local media, according to the Associated Press.

The event was held to celebrate a baby panda boom at the Chengdu Research Base of the Giant Panda this year.

They reported a total of 27 baby pandas, including four born overseas from pandas on loan  double the amount of pandas born in 2015.

Read: Chori the Red Panda Celebrates Turning 16 With Personalized Birthday Cake

Experts say the baby-boom is due to improvements in breeding technology at the base.

Thanks to their conservation efforts of the Chinese facility, the species is now being classified as "vulnerable" instead of "endangered," according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Watch: Witness This Tender Moment Between a Giant Panda and Her Tiny Newborn Cub

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Kanye West has never been afraid to speak his mind, both on record and off -- just ask George Bush. And while he has a long track record of speaking on sex, relationships, fashion, social issues and, of course, himself, he's also spent plenty of time over the years diving into the political world in his lyrics.

With all eyes on the November presidential election showdown between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump -- not to mention Kanye's maybe-joking-maybe-not candidacy for 2020 on the horizon -- Billboard combed through his lyrics and pulled out 25 political references that he has made in his music over the years.

Kanye West for President? White House Responds

"All Falls Down"

"We shine because they hate us, floss 'cause they degrade us/ We tryna buy back our 40 acres"

"I say f--- the police, that's how I treat 'em/ We buy our way out of jail, but we can't buy freedom"

"Jesus Walks"

"Getting choked by detectives, yeah, yeah, now check the method/ They be askin' us questions, harass and arrest us/ Sayin', 'We eat pieces of sh-- like you for breakfast'/ Huh? Y'all eat pieces of sh--? What's the basis?/ We ain't going nowhere but got suits and cases"

"Never Let Me Down"

"I get down for my grandfather who took my mama/ Made her sit in that seat where white folks ain't want us to eat/ At the tender age of 6 she was arrested for the sit-ins/ And with that in my blood I was born to be different/ Now n---as can't make it to ballots to choose leadership/ But we can make it to Jacob's and to the dealership/ Swear I hear new music and I just don't be feelin' it/ Racism's still alive, they just be concealin' it"

"Two Words"

"And I basically know now, we get racially profiled/ Cuffed up and hosed down, pimped up and ho'd down/ Plus I got a whole city to hold down"

"Heard 'Em Say"

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"Before you ask me to go get a job today/ Can I at least get a raise of the minimum wage?/ And I know that the government administer AIDS/ So I guess we just pray like the minister say"

"Crack Music"

"How we stop the Black Panthers?/ Ronald Reagan cooked up an answer/ You hear that? What Gil Scott was hearin'?/ When our heroes or heroines got hooked on heroin/ Crack raised the murder rate in D.C. and Maryland/ We invested in that, it's like we got Merrill Lynch-ed/ And we been hangin' from the same tree ever since/ Sometimes I feel the music is the only medicine"

"Who gave Saddam anthrax?/ George Bush got the answers/ Back in the 'hood it's a different type of chemical/ Arm & Hammer baking soda raised they own quota"

"Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix)"

"See, a part of me saying keep shinin'/ How, when I know what a blood diamond is?/ Though it's thousands of miles away/ Sierra Leone connects to what we go through today/ Over here it's a drug trade, we die from drugs/ Over there they die from what we buy from drugs/ The diamonds, the chains, the bracelets, the charms/ I thought my Jesus piece was so harmless / Til I seen a picture of a shorty armless"

"We Major"

"Projects to' up, gang signs is thrown up/ N---as hats broke off, that's how we grow up/ Why else you think shorties write rhymes just to blow up?/ Get they first car and then IRS show up"

"Everything I Am"

"I know people wouldn't usually rap this/ But I got the facts to back this/ Just last year, Chicago had over 600 caskets/ Man, killing's some wack sh--"

"Gorgeous"

"Inter-century anthems based off inner-city tantrums/ Based off the way we was branded/ Face it, Jerome get more time than Brandon/ And at the airport they check all through my bag/ And tell me that it's random"

"I treat the cash the way the government treats AIDS/ I won't be satisfied till all my n---as get it/ Get it?"

"Power"

"The system broken, the school is closed, the prison's open/ We ain't got nothing to lose, motherf---er we rollin'"

"Lost in translation with a whole f---in' nation/ They say I was the abomination of Obama's nation/ Well that's a pretty bad way to start the conversation"

"New Day"

"And I'll never let my son have an ego/ He'll be nice to everyone wherever we go/ I mean I might even make him be Republican/ So everybody know he love white people"

"Murder to Excellence"

"And I'm from the murder capital where they murder for capital/ Heard about at least three killings this afternoon/ Looking at the news like, 'Damn, I was just with him after school'/ No shop class but half the school got a tool"

"I feel the pain in my city wherever I go/ 314 soldiers died in Iraq, 509 died in Chicago"

"What's the life expectancy for black guys?/ The system's working effectively, that's why"

"Clique"

"Yeah I'm talking business, we talking CIA/ I'm talking George Tenet, I seen him the other day/ He asked me about my Maybach, think he had the same/ Except mine tinted and his might have been rented"

"To The World"

"These n---as tryna hold me back/ I'm just trying to protect my stacks/ Mitt Romney don't pay no tax/ Mitt Romney don't pay no tax"

"New Slaves"

"I know that we the new slaves/ I see the blood on the leaves"

"Meanwhile the DEA/ Teamed up with the CCA/ They tryna lock n---as up/ They tryna make new slaves/ See that's that privately owned prison/ Get your piece today"

"Feedback"

"Pablo bought a Rollie and a Rottweiler/ Seem like the more fame, I only got wilder/ Hands up we just doing what the cops taught us/ Hands up we just doing what the cops taught us"

"Facts"

"On the field I'm over-reckless on my Odell Beckham/ 2020 I'mma run the whole election"

Big Sean, "All Your Fault"

"I don't give a f---, I don't give a f---/ But cops chokin' n---as out in the media/ We finna have a protest and tear the city up/ We 'bout to tear this whole place up pretty much"
As Napas most influential winery celebrates a half century, we toast a few of its finest vintages.

Fifty years ago, Robert Mondavi built a big, beautiful winery in Napa Valley and started making Cabernet Sauvignon. Isnt that what everyone does up there? Well, not in 1966. Napa then was a simple farming community, planted with acres of Petit Syrah and French Colombard and pumping out jugs to fill supermarket shelves. Mondavis architectural winery represented an entirely new vision: Designed by none other than Clifford May, it was the first major construction in the valley since Prohibition, and it was meant to produce wines that could rival the best in France.



May created the winerys famously arched facade to attract the eyeand the tourist, a first for a wine region anywhere in the world. Robert Mondavi redefined what a winery should be, says winemaker Zelma Long, a Mondavi alum who now owns Long Vineyards in Napa and Vilafonte in South Africa. He thought everything should be visible and wine should be something that spoke to the mouth and the heart. He created a new kind of consumer.

Leveraging the cachet of Bordeaux, Mondavi smartly focused on Cabernet Sauvignon and, through his relentless marketing, made it synonymous with Napa. He also had an eye for talent: Robert Mondavi Winery was the starting point for some of the valleys legendary winemakers, beginning with Warren Winiarski, the founder of Stags Leap Wine Cellars, and Mike Grgich, of Grgich Hills Estate. Tim Mondavi, Roberts son, became a respected winemaker in his own right and worked closely with talents including Charles Thomas, who became winemaker at Quintessa and founded Thomas-Hsi, and Paul Hobbs, the consultant and owner of Paul Hobbs Winery. The current winemaker, Genevieve Janssens, became director of winemaking in 1997 and carries on the tradition of making top-tier Napa wines.

Today, as Mondavi marks its 50th anniversary, the Napa Valley AVA has grown to include more than 450 wineries, and wine regions from Australia to Austria have adopted its founders tourist-friendly approach. The companys anniversary celebrations kicked off earlier this year with a retrospective tasting of its Cabernet Sauvignons that reached back to some of the very first vintages. Here are the highlights, including the first release, which was served at a gala dinner honoring the winemakers.

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1966 Unfined Cabernet Sauvignon

I am Warren Winiarski, and I made this wine, Winiarski declared at the gala. And he made it as the winery itself was being constructed all around him. With 90 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 10 percent Cabernet Franc, it whispers of hay and pale red fruit, with touches of pomegranate reminiscent of old Bordeaux.

1971 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve

Mondavis first reserve designation, it was made by Grgich with 60 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 40 percent Cabernet Franc. At 12.7 percent alcohol, the wines subtle aromatics offer no clue of its explosive flavors: cloves and spices, violets and lavender. The most thrilling wine of the tasting.

1976 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve

Made by Tim Mondavi and Long, working with small yields and concentrated flavors. It is the only 100 percent Cabernet Sauvignon since Mondavi founded the winery. Notes of dry grasses and lavender on the nose yield to intensely earthy, meaty flavor.

1987 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve

Cool, dry weather resulted in a slow ripening process and higher acid for the 87 vintage. Even now, this elegant Tim Mondavimade wine shows green flavors amid the dark fruit and dried grasses.

1998 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve

An El Nino year meant one of the latest harvestsand most challenging vintagesof the decade. Janssenss 14.1 percent alcohol blend gets its backbone from To Kalon Cabernet but also contains fruit from vineyards in Oakville, Stags Leap, Carneros, and West Napa Valley. Mushroom and brine, with black olives and subtle red fruit, the wine transcends a difficult vintage and presages the style of Mondavi today.

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Crime-thriller film Marauders, which recently premiered in Asian theatres, sees action star Bruce Willis as a high-powered bank owner, whose bank is brutally robbed by a group of heavily armed criminals.

FBI agents desperately try to get to the bottom of the crime, but unexpectedly stumble upon a vast conspiracy, and a treasure trove of political secrets.

Bank heists narratives are a dime a dozen in Hollywood blockbusters, but it seems that reality isnt too far off either - the FBI states that there were over 4,000 robberies in the United States in 2015 alone.

The statistics of reported bank robberies in East and Southeast Asia are noticeably lower according to this 2006 UNODC report (which compares the rate of robberies per 100,000 people in each regions total population), but Asia has had its fair share of intriguing robbery cases.

Heres a look at five of the most fascinating bank heists from around Asia in recent decades.

300 Million Yen Robbery (1968)



A composite portrait of the suspect released by the Japanese police.

The year is 1968. A group of Nihon Shintaku Ginko bank employees are transporting almost 300 million yen (equivalent to about US$3.6 million today) to a factory on a rainy December morning.

The money is neatly packed in metal boxes, and locked up in the trunk of a company car. They are a mere 200m away from the factory when a police motorcycle screeches to a halt in front of their car.

The policeman screams that that dynamite had been planted on their car, and that the vehicle is about to explode. He tells them that their branch managers house had just been blown up as well.

Smoke and flames appear under the car. Terrified, the employees flee the vehicle. Unfortunately for these bank employees (and the factory employees for whom the money was intended for as bonuses), its too late - the policeman calmly enters the vehicle, speeds off, and is never seen again.

The suspect was never apprehended. Its been almost half a century, and the unsolved case still continues to fascinate Japan as one of the countrys most incredulous heists.

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Standard Chartered Robbery (2016)

The suspect in a photo taken at a Bangkok airport. Photo: Screengrab from Nation TV

Bank robberies are a rarity in Singapore, with only five such crimes occurring over the past 12 years.

The most recent (and perhaps most peculiar) case was the one involving 26-year-old Canadian tourist David James Roach, who managed to rob a bank in Singapore with nothing but a piece of paper. Without any weapon whatsoever.

Yeah, you read that right. On the morning of July 7, 2016, Roach casually strolled into the Holland Village branch of Standard Chartered Bank, handed the teller a note with his demands, and walked out of the bank, money in hand.

Some reports said that Roach even subsequently visited a nearby cafe for a quick snack. But this particular thief did not get very far.

After fleeing to Bangkok, Roach enjoyed only three days of freedom before he was swiftly arrested at the backpacker hostel he was residing in. However, Thailand has refused to extradite the Canadian to Singapore, leaving room for more twists in this tale.

Carbanak Online Heist

Photo: LinkedIn

In 2013, news broke out that a cybergang, Carbanak, had launched repeated online attacks on financial institutions around the globe.

The world was largely unprepared for this, as this was an unprecedented type of cyber attacks on banks; where hackers would previously rely on fraudulent methods, this criminal gang instead developed codes that would allow them to extract money directly from bank networks.

Early detection of the missing funds would have been challenging as well - investigators found that it took an average of two to four months for the gangs malware to infect the system and for the transfer process to be completed.

It is estimated that the total value stolen to date is a nightmarish US$1 billion, with an average of US$8 million stolen per bank.

While the masterminds behind the cyberattacks have not been identified, it is suspected that the multinational group consists of European and Chinese hackers.

At the time of this article, Carbanaks attacks are still reportedly active.

Agricultural Bank Of China Embezzlement

Photo: Wikipedia

This particular white-collar crime went down as the largest bank robbery in Chinas history, but the missing funds surprisingly went unnoticed for almost half a year.

Agricultural Bank Of China managers Ren Xiaofeng and Ma Xiangjing, with the complicity of two of the banks security officers, hatched a devious insider scheme to borrow money from the bank in order to purchase a huge sum of lottery tickets.

The plan was to win enough money to quietly return the stolen money to the bank, while having surplus for themselves as well.

They repeated this plan three times, but were only successful on their first try. Lady Luck just wasnt smiling down on them anymore, because they got caught soon after in April 2006.

Sonipat Bank Robbery

The robbery suspects being arrested. Photo: Indian Express

This robbery takes a leaf out of the classic bank robbery scene: dig a tunnel under a bank, enter the vault, wipe it clean, and leave without anyone noticing.

After two months of careful planning, this was exactly what a group of four thieves did on a weekend in October 2014, in the quiet town of Sonipat in Indias state of Haryana.

Prior to breaking into the vault in Punjab National Bank, the robbers spent 40 days meticulously digging a tunnel that was less than 1m wide and almost 40m in length.

The tunnel miraculously avoided telephone, water, or electricity lines, allowing them to evade detection at the time of the crime.

The group discreetly cleared out 86 lockers of money and jewellery, which was worth well over a whopping INR 100 crore (more than US$16m).

Three of the thieves were caught three days later, but the mastermind (who apparently drew inspiration from the popular 2006 Hindi movie, Dhoom 2) had already committed suicide.
The South Carolina boy wounded in Wednesday's school shooting is on life support, according to a statement from his family.

At just 6-years-old, Jacob Hall is clinging to life in intensive care after cops believe a Townville teenager gunned down his father before driving to an elementary school and opening fire.

Read: Deaf Teen Shot Dead Despite Friend's Pleas to Gunman: 'We Can't Hear You'

Jacob was hit in the leg, ripping open his femoral artery. He lost so much blood that he sustained a serious brain injury, his family told Greenville News.

"Were waiting and hoping for a miracle," one of Halls older brothers, Gerald Gambrell, told the paper.

According to State Rep. Alan Clemmons, Jacob died twice and was revived. He required immediate emergency surgery.

Travis Paige, a friend of Jacob's family, started a GoFundMe campaign to help support his parents as they take off work to stay by his side during what is shaping up to be a long road to recovery.

In two days, the fund raised more than $80,000, including $10,000 from the GoFundMe team, with more coming in every hour.

Read: Protesters Swarm Charlotte Streets As Police Defend Fatal Shooting of Black Man

"A HUGE thank you to all who have donated so far! It shows that we still live in a great nation and that humanity and goodwill still exist!! Please continue to pray for Jacob and his family as they continue to battle with the unnecesary grief!! God bless you all!!" Paige wrote.

Jacob's family also released a brief statement.

"We appreciate the communitys support, especially the Townville Rescue Squad who treated Jacob onsite and brought him to the hospital," Rodger and Renae Hall said. "We appreciate everyones thoughts and prayers and ask for privacy during this difficult time."

The other two victims at the school were treated and released.

Watch: How to Use a Folding Chair to Barricade the Door During a School Shooting

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6 things you need to know before you binge Marvels Luke Cage

6 things you need to know before you binge Marvels Luke Cage

Marvels Luke Cage landed on Netflix today, so now you have weekend plans! Seriously, though, if there was ever a show worth binging, we have a feeling its this one:

The character has a large role in Marvels Jessica Jones

Sorry to break the news, but if you havent watched Jessica Jones on Netflix, you might want to start there before you watch Luke Cage. Its not essential, but it will give you some context  and, spoiler, all the Marvel Netflix shows will be connected (more on that later).

While he did have a vital role in Jessica Jones, we shouldnt necessarily think we know who Luke Cage is: Mike Colter, who stars as the titular character, told IGN,

Youre not always the same person around everyone you know. So when I looked at Luke in Jessicas world, what I appreciated about it  what it allowed me to do because I wasnt playing the lead  was that theres a side of him where I think we saw him in a very vulnerable sense.

While Jessica and Luke get romantically involved, and we get to see a somewhat lost version of Luke in the first season of Jessica Jones, it seems well see a lot more strength from the character in his own series.

Dont expect the same depiction of New York youve seen in Marvels other Netflix series.

Daredevils New York is a gritty, dark world of saturated colors. Jessica Jones version of the city is similar: often gray, with tinges of black and purple that feel like watercolor, seeping throughout the environment. Lukes New York is uptown  110th street, to be exact  and frankly, more vibrant. While some reviews have mentioned that its still plenty somber, the Miami New Times calls the show the sunniest of Marvels Netflix shows, so be prepared for less of the previous series grimness.

Rosario Dawsons Claire Temple is an essential character

Claire Temple first appeared in Daredevil season one as a nurse who takes care of Charlie Coxs Matt Murdock, and she was also in Jessica Jones  in fact, she helped save Lukes life. Shes got a role in Luke Cage, too, and its reportedly a decently sized one (unlike in Jessica Jones, where Claire is really only featured in one episode). Thats likely because Claire Temple is the character that connects all of Marvels Netflix shows. Since shes the connective tissue, well see Claire after Luke Cage  though we dont know yet whether the two characters date. (They do  briefly  in the comics.)

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Alfre Woodard does NOT play the same character she played in Captain America: Civil War.

In Civil War, Alfre Woodard played a small, but essential role: The grieving mother who confronted Tony Stark with her sons death in Sokovia, making Tony think that the Avengers should be regulated. However, while the film and Luke Cage technically exist in the same universe, here Woodard is an entirely different character: An extremely corrupt councilwoman we cant wait to see be very, very bad.

Youll get to see the character in his original costume.

Luke Cage as a character was created in the 1970s, a time when a full-of-rage Luke could wear a bright yellow shirt over a mostly bared chest and no one thought that looked weird. In the show, Colter briefly wears the characters original costume, which is sure to be a hilarious moment for fans and newbies alike.

Keep an eye on Misty Knight

Misty Knight is an amazing female character: Shes a cop, a martial artist, and a veritable badass. Reviews have already hailed Simone Missick as the shows breakout star, and because shes connected to Iron Fist, well be seeing more of her in the Marvel Netflix universe. However, the character deserves her own show  and fans can make that happen. Remember how the Punisher got a Netflix show after fans were vocal about their love? Well, when you binge Luke Cage and love Misty, make sure your voice is heard by the creators and Netflix on social media  because as much as we love Jessica Jones, we dont want her to be the only awesome female character with her own show.

With this information, go forth and watch Luke Cage  were sure you wont be disappointed.

The post 6 things you need to know before you binge Marvels Luke Cage appeared first on HelloGiggles.
The Daily Beast

Patrick Pleul/AFP via GettyJust days after he promised advertisers that Twitter would not become a free-for-all hellscape, Elon Musk used the platform he now owns to amplify a baseless conspiracy theory about the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosis husband by an intruder.There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye, Musk tweeted Sunday morning in reply to a tweet by Hillary Clinton blasting the Republican Party for creating a toxic environment that lays the gr
daenerys on her ships

In the movies, amazing leaders can frequently be seen making life-changing speeches  sometimes whilst riding a horse back and forth before a mass of armored, sword-wielding soldiers.

In real life, leadership is a much quieter trait. In fact, you may not always even realize that others see you as a great leader.

Here are some signs that people view you as a leader in the office:

1. Everyone seeks out your opinion

This is probably the most obvious sign that your peers view you as a leader. Whether or not you're the boss, you're a fixture in the office when it comes to giving insight and opinions. If this sounds like you, then your coworkers clearly value your wisdom.

2. You're a good communicator

People won't think you're a great leader just because you've got good ideas. You've got to be able to communicate those ideas too.

"There has to be a sense that the person themselves believes in the project or idea," leadership expert Hugh Kearns said in an interview with Science magazine. "If they are wishy-washy or not very committed to the idea themselves, then it will be very hard to bring other people along. The other people will have the concern that the project will collapse at the first obstacle or setback."

3. Your boss ignores you sometimes

"Sometimes, bosses want to see how proactive and self-starting their future leaders are. Those who need less care and feeding may have the edge over those who need constant reinforcement and direction to be productive," Jim Morris writes for the Daily Muse.

Having your supervisor "neglect" you sometimes might not be the best feeling in the world, but it's probably a pretty good sign.

4. You never scramble to take the lead

In an article for Inc, Les McKeown wrote that there's a difference between take-charge-type posers and real leaders:

"Always opinionated, usually impatient and frequently brusque, these gotta-be-in-fronters get so used to other people describing them as natural born leaders that sooner or later  to their own and everyone else's detriment they begin to believe it."

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Real leaders only take the helm when it's necessary.

This trait goes back to one of the heroes of ancient Rome. A general named Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was called to serve the state as dictator during an invasion (in those days, "dictators" were appointed during military emergencies and held full authority for six months). He was so competent that he routed the invasion in a matter of weeks. Afterwards, instead of taking advantage of his term, he resigned, went back to his small farm, and became a legend in his own lifetime.

People generally prefer selfless leaders like Cincinnatus over ambitious, grasping ones like Caesar.

5. You help people grow

Whenever someone messes up, you're the first one on the scene helping them to fix things. Coworkers seek you out for help and your boss frequently asks you to mentor others.

"If people are coming to you, they either figured out you excel at something, or they were sent to you as a knowledgeable resource. Either way, it's a good sign," Morris says in an article for the Daily Muse.

6. You're firm, but not close-minded

Moderation is key. You don't want to come across as a pushover, of course. No one is going to view a weak-willed person as a potential leader. That being said, the best leaders aren't lone wolves. They take their team members' suggestions and concerns into consideration before acting.

If you stand up for your own ideas, but fairly weigh every option before proceeding, then odds are your coworkers consider you an effective leader.

7. People come to you for advice

If people are actually soliciting your insight at work, that's a clear sign they respect your judgment. They're looking to you for guidance.

Think about it this way. Who do you turn to when you need advice? Some random colleague whose work you don't respect? Or someone you aspire to become more like?

8. You always do your homework

A good leader doesn't have to give amazing speeches or even have a ton of charisma. People will perceive you as as promising leader if you have insightful solutions and prepare well for workplace projects. Instead of trying to wow others with fake charisma, focus on being the best you can be at your job.

"I think most people have unrealistic ideas about leadership," Kearns said an interview with Science magazine. "They tend to think they have to be Nelson Mandela or some such inspirational character. In reality leadership is much more mundane: for example, preparing for your meeting, communicating with people, and listening."

9. You're confident, but not arrogant

Arrogant people believe themselves to be excellent leaders and workers  without having much evidence to back up that hypothesis. They just feel like they should be in charge.

No one wants to take orders from an arrogant leader.

Confident people know their strengths and work on their weaknesses. They trust in their own competence and work hard. People are usually happy to follow confident, competent individuals.

NOW WATCH: After 3 NBA championships, LeBron James shares his best advice on leadership





More From Business Insider


The principal and a senior teacher of a Kendriya Vidyalaya near Shillong were on Friday arrested and sent to five-day police custody for allegedly raping two minor students, police said.

By Indo-Asian News Service: The principal and a senior teacher of a Kendriya Vidyalaya near Shillong were on Friday arrested and sent to five-day police custody for allegedly raping two minor students, police said.

Yogesh Joshi, 32, from Churu village in Rajasthan, and Deep Jyoti Das, 25, from Tezpur in Assam were arrested after the parents of the two victims lodged an FIR, accusing the duo of raping their daughters.

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FIVE-DAY POLICE CUSTODY



"We have produced both the accused before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Isormon Rymbui and the court has remanded them to five-day police custody", Mukesh Kumar Singh, the district police chief of West Garo Hills, told IANS.

Also read: Kolkata Park Street rape case: Main accused Kader Khan arrested from Delhi



Singh said that the investigation was already in progress.

"We have booked the two accused under POSCO Act and Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code," he said.

WHEN IT HAPPENED



The principal and the teacher had allegedly raped the two students of Class XII on the evening of September 3 as they were invited, along with some senior students, to celebrate Joshi's birthday.

Also read: Scarlett Keeling's rape and murder: Both accused acquitted by Goa court



The victim's parents said that the two teachers had mixed alcohol in the fruit juice served to the girls.

Condemning the alleged rape of the minors, the Civil Society Women's Organisation has demanded that bail not be granted to the accused and has asked police to file a chargesheet at the earliest.

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Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas shook hands and spoke briefly at Shimon Peres's funeral on Friday in a rare public encounter between the two men.

The encounter took place as mourners gathered ahead of the funeral. It was believed to be their first handshake since a Paris climate meeting last November.

"Good to see you. Long time," Abbas said in broken English, a video posted by Netanyahu's spokesman showed.

Netanyahu and his wife thanked him for coming.

The last substantial public meeting between Abbas and Netanyahu was in 2010, though there have been unconfirmed reports of secret meetings since then.

Peace efforts have been at a complete standstill since April 2014.

Abbas was given a front-row seat next to European Council President Donald Tusk.

He was making a rare trip to Jerusalem from his base in the West Bank city of Ramallah, joining leaders from around the world for the funeral of the Israeli elder statesman and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

On Wednesday, Abbas described Peres as a "brave" partner for peace.

Abbas negotiated with Peres and signed the Oslo peace accord of 1993, which earned the then foreign minister the Nobel prize alongside prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"Peres was a partner in making the brave peace with the martyr Yasser Arafat and prime minister Rabin, and made unremitting efforts to reach a lasting peace from the Oslo agreement until the final moments of his life," Abbas said earlier.

No other Arab leaders attended the funeral. Many in the Arab world accuse Peres of "war crimes" for his role in successive Middle East conflicts.

Egypt was represented by Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, while Jordan also sent a minister. They are the only two Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel.

Abbas and Netanyahu were not expected to meet after the funeral.

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Ofer Zalzberg, senior Middle East analyst for Brussels-based think tank the International Crisis Group, said the Palestinian leader's attendance was about influencing public opinion rather than wooing the Israeli premier.

"(The visit) is significant in terms of Abbas's two principal target audiences: Israeli public opinion and international public opinion. Abbas is showing to both that he rewards those committed to the two-state solution," he said.

Netanyahu heads what is widely considered to be the most right-wing government in Israel's history.

He remains ostensibly committed to a two-state solution, but during his successful re-election campaign in March last year he pledged he would not allow a Palestinian state if he won.

Netanyahu has said he is ready to hold new peace talks with Abbas at any time provided there are no preconditions.

The Palestinians have said repeatedly that there can be no meaningful talks without a halt to Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied territories.
Whats up with these adult dorms that so many millennials are living in?

Whats up with these adult dorms that so many millennials are living in?

When most of us graduate college, one of the first things were happy to say see ya! to is dorm life. The constantly crowded bathrooms with consistently absent hot water, our neighbors loud music, trash left in the hallway No one misses these aspects of dorm living. So when we first heard that a great many millennials were choosing to return to dorm life in so called adult dorms, we were flabbergasted.

Adult dorms are a concept brought to us by the coworking company WeWork, Commonspace, and Common.

Most of these coliving spaces are made up of micro-units of around 300 square feet. These tiny units surround shared common areas which often include game rooms and a chefs kitchen. This already sounds nicer than college.

As Troy Evans of Commonspace told The Atlantic:

Were trying to combine an affordable apartment with this community style of living, rather than living by yourself in a one-bedroom in the suburbs.

Well, when you put it that way

According to Fortune, the visionaries behind these companies took a look at the rising cost of rent in popular cities such as New York and Los Angeles and the stress of starting fresh in these populous places would attract recent grads to coliving spaces where, according to Fortune, rooms are fully furnished, amenities are included, and communal spaces full of fellow new grads.

And its working.

As 24-year-old copywriter and Common resident Cole Kennedy told The Wall Street Journal:

Trying to find a place in New York is the biggest headache in the world. According to Kennedy, Coliving offers a group of like-minded people, mostly in their 20s, with whom to chat or go out for a drink. Its jump-starting your ability to make friendships.

What you have to realize is that these adult dorms offer a heck of a lot more than a place to sleep. Theyre a community and a lifestyle. Commons locations in Brooklyn offer not only furnished bedrooms and weekly cleaning services, but potlucks and other community events, such as the Fourth of July party pictured below:

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And the rooms look darn nice, too:

Thats sure a lot nicer than my old dorm!

Some dorms, such as Commons Havenmeyer building in Williamsburg, even offer a Cinema Room and Wellness Room, not to mention a library:

While the rooms themselves might be small, the community of support at coliving spaces can be very, very large.

Plus, the decor of these adult dorms is downright stunning.

Is this a palace or an apartment building? Oh, its neither. Its an adult dorm.

The lobby seems like the perfect spot to work in a rainy day as we slowly wave goodbye to summer. #coliving #coworking #interiordesign #interior #rainyday A photo posted by The Collective (@collective_llp) on Sep 6, 2016 at 2:42am PDT

What happens when your dorm is cooler than you are?

With coliving spaces available all over the world, who wouldnt want to sign up?

What kind of dorms have you heard of that offer such views?

Fancy a view? Check not too fancy but too beautiful co-living pods in Swiss Alps by @the8es guys! #RemoteWorkers #LocationAgnostic #WolfAndTravel #CoLiving #MySwitzerland A photo posted by Remote Workers (@remoteworkers) on Sep 28, 2016 at 4:38pm PDT

This one looks so nice it may even be worth the move to Siberia

Spent the weekend at @mokrin_coworking, a rural co-working and co-living space in the northern part of Serbia. It's the perfect place for freelancers and digital nomads to focus on work, see some greenery, and explore outside the city. A photo posted by Johnson (@_thewonderyear) on Sep 21, 2016 at 9:38am PDT

Well, well admit it: we get the allure. This certainly seems more adult than the dorms of college. Now if only we didnt have to worry about rent

The post Whats up with these adult dorms that so many millennials are living in? appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Airbnb is offering four lucky guests a free, one-night sleepover in the iconic Abbey Road studios with Mark Ronson.



This uptown-funky townhouse in St Johns Wood, North London, will be turned into a temporary bedroom for the lucky competition winners to enjoy on October 15.

London-based musician and producer Mark Ronson will play host for the evening, dishing out glasses of Champagne to the guests upon arrival.

An all-access tour will be given of the studios, including a chance to play on The Beatles piano, to mix a track on the worlds largest mixing board, and to record a song with the help of Ronson.

They will also be treated to dinner, snacks, beverages, and two nights in a nearby Airbnb before or after their stay.

The house rules simply state guests must leave your mark and turn it up to 11  weve got sound-proofing.

Ronson said: I was born and grew up round the corner from Abbey Road Studios, one of the greatest studios ever.

"Over the years working at Abbey Road, Ive gotten to know many of the engineers there and hearing the legendary stories of recording albums is one of the great perks of being in the building.

Fancy kipping in this musical mecca? Click this link and tell Airbnb what song you wish you could have witnessed being record at the famous Abbey Road studios.
By Tim Hepher

PARIS (Reuters) - Airbus Group (AIR.PA) said on Friday it would merge with its planemaking unit, strip out bureaucracy and simplify its brand, marking a break with its complex corporate roots as it prepares for tougher expected competition.

Europe's largest aerospace group will be renamed "Airbus" after its core planemaking brand under the shake-up, the latest piece of corporate tinkering since it emerged from a cluster of French, German and Spanish aerospace interests in 2000.

Airbus confirmed the promotion of Fabrice Bregier to the new role of chief operating officer for the whole group, with overall responsibility for reshaping digital operations as well as for the global supply chain and quality.

He will continue to carry out his existing job in charge of the planemaking business, renamed Airbus Commercial Aircraft.

"We are bringing Team Airbus closer together, recognising that our commercial aircraft division is by far the largest contributor to our company's revenues and financials," Chief Executive Tom Enders said in a statement.

The company curbed the influence of French and German governments in 2013 and adopted its best-known jetmaking brand a year later by renaming itself Airbus Group, but left in place an overlapping structure and confusion over which Airbus was which.

People familiar with the plans said earlier that this distinction would now disappear as the vehicle for the original merger, known as Airbus Group SAS, and the planemaker, Airbus SAS, merge into a single company based in Toulouse under a sole chief executive, German-born Enders.

Both are currently subsidiaries of the listed entity, Airbus Group SE, which is based in the Netherlands.

Enders has promised to bring new digital thinking into production, development and support to speed decision-making and prepare for future competition across the group's products which range from aircraft to satellites and defence systems.

He told staff in a letter last week the changes would result in consolidation and cost-reductions at the top of the company.

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French labour unions ranging from Force Ouvriere to the CGT, CFDT and CFE-CGC said they feared possible job cuts.

Force Ouvriere said in a statement it would "watch all the components of this restructuring, notably its social impact"

CGT official Xavier Petrachi told Reuters: "We do not know yet the scope of this restructuring. Will it be limited to the support functions of Airbus Group and of Airbus SAS or will it impact the structures of Airbus Operations and entities of the helicopters and defence and space units ?"

The heads of the company's two other divisions, helicopters boss Guillaume Faury and defence and space chief Dirk Hoke, are expected to assume additional group-wide roles to help drive through Enders' so-called "digital transformation" project.

The company said these units would benefit from reduced costs due to the internal merger, which will take effect in January. It did not provide any financial details.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher, additional reporting Johanna Decorse; Editing by Victoria Bryan, Greg Mahlich)
By Victoria Bryan BERLIN (Reuters) - In the 1980s American Airlines calculated that it could save up to $100,000 just by removing olives from its salads. Since then, the industry's economy drive has continued apace forcing airline catering firms to reinvent themselves. British Airways said on Thursday customers on its short-haul economy flights would be sold Marks & Spencer sandwiches because its customers said they would prefer to pay for food from a brand they recognize. "The cost of the existing catering service hasn't been reflected in customer satisfaction," a spokeswoman said, declining to provide figures. The shift to buy-on-board food is driving catering companies into each others' arms as companies seek scale in a fragmented market and look to build up retail and data expertise to maximize profits. "Traditionally airlines have handed meals out and not had to worry about who's got the meal. Now it's having a deeper awareness about the customer, what they've bought, how they bought it, when they bought it," Robin Padgett, head of air services group dnata's catering division, told Reuters. Airline caterers operating in Europe include Lufthansa unit LSG SkyChefs, Gategroup, Austria's Do&Co and dnata, part of the Emirates Group. LSG bought Irish in-flight sales specialist Retail inMotion last year to serve its onboard retail business and is also restructuring, cutting up to 2,400 jobs. Air France-KLM is selling a stake in its catering business Servair to China's HNA, which is also buying Gategroup as it builds out its aviation interests through a series of deals. Gategroup itself bought travel retailer Inflight Services earlier this year to build up its buy-on-board business and boost sales. Shares in Gategroup rose 34 percent in the 12 months up to the announcement of the takeover offer from HNA. Catering is seen as a far more attractive investment than the airline industry itself, where margins are typically tight, especially in Europe. Do&Co, which also has restaurant and event catering units, has a price earnings (p/e) multiple of 24 times, while Gategroup's p/e ratio is 33. That compares with a multiple of less than 4 for Lufthansa Group and 5.7 for British Airways owner IAG. MEAL DEALS Michael Gierse, Union Investment fund manager and Lufthansa shareholder, highlighted Do&Co as the benchmark in the sector thanks to its focus on providing upmarket food for business and first class cabins, plus its restaurant and events division. Do&Co has an operating profit margin of about 10 percent in its airline catering division, against about 6 percent for Gategroup and 3 percent for Lufthansa. "Traditional volume catering is shrinking due to the low-cost carriers and buy on board is not as good as expected, because passengers often bring their own sandwiches on board," Gierse told Reuters. Still, Dnata, which gets 60 percent of its revenues from traditional catering and 40 percent from buy-on board, sees plenty of opportunity for growth. "We're working with a couple of our airline customers now, in the way that Tesco might, to analyze that large data and show them what customers truly are buying, whether meal deals or particular ranges so we can develop that down to niches on routes," Padgett said. In one example, dnata's analysis showed that passengers on routes to Asia typically serving construction workers traveling home from the Middle East were willing to spend on food, but only if they thought they were getting value for money, leading dnata to change packaging and menus for that airline, thereby boosting sales. By using data analytics to understand what customers were buying on specific routes, airlines could boost sales of buy-on-board food by between 30-50 percent, Padgett said. (Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
By Letitia Stein

(Reuters) - The chief justice of Alabama's Supreme Court was effectively ousted on Friday by a judicial panel that found he unethically resisted U.S. court rulings that legalized same-sex marriage.

Chief Justice Roy Moore, 69, violated judicial ethics with an order seen as directing probate judges to withhold marriage licenses from same-sex couples, defying federal court decisions, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary ruled.

It was the second suspension for the outspokenly conservative Moore. Earlier, he was sanctioned for refusing to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments in a state building.

Moore on Friday blasted the decision that followed a trial earlier this week.

"This was a politically motivated effort by radical homosexual and transgender groups to remove me as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court because of outspoken opposition to their immoral agenda," he said in a statement on social media.

His lawyer, Mat Staver, said he plans to appeal the unanimous decision to suspend Moore without pay for the rest of his term, effective immediately. Staver said it essentially removes Moore from the bench, as the chief justice will be too old to seek re-election at his term's end in January 2019.

Civil rights proponents hailed the move. "The people of Alabama who cherish the rule of law are not going to miss the Ayatollah of Alabama," Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in a statement.

The Alabama Court of the Judiciary said in the ruling that Moore's Jan. 6 order showed "disregard for binding federal law" after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark June 2015 decision giving gay and lesbian couples the right to marry.

The judiciary court rejected the chief justice's argument that he was providing a status update. Moore has insisted there was uncertainty after conflicting opinions on gay marriage from state and federal courts.

"I think this ruling is an abuse of power," Moore's lawyer, Staver, said by phone. "Its a de facto removal."

Story continues

The ruling noted the state judiciary court had removed Moore from the bench in 2003 for defying a federal order to take down a Ten Commandments monument he installed in the state's judicial building. Voters re-elected him as chief justice in 2012.

He was charged after the Southern Poverty Law Center filed ethics complaints.

"It undermined the integrity of the judiciary, the spectacle of a chief justice telling other judges not to follow a court order," the SPLC's Cohen said by phone.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Fla.; Editing by David Gregorio and Matthew Lewis)
By India Today Web Desk: Amid rising tension following the surgical strike, an Indian soldier inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control today, an army source said.

Sepahi Chandu Das from 37 RR strayed to the other side of the LoC. DGMO has informed Pakistan about Das.

"Such inadvertent crossing by Army and civilians are not unusual on either side. They are returned through existing mechanisms," the source said.

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"As regard report of killing of eight Indian Army personnel reported in sections of Pakistan media the report is completely false and baseless," he added.

SURGICAL STRIKES

The Indian Army today said it has conducted surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan, killing several terrorists and causing significant casualties to their hideouts.

The Army said special commandos crossed the LoC last night, conducted the operation in the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and returned to the Indian side without any casualty. The Air Force was not involved in the surgical strike. The Army has claimed to have killed at least 38.

The entire operation was monitored for the entire night by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval from the Army headquarters in New Delhi.

It was because of this operation that Parrikar and Doval had cancelled their dinner on Wednesday night with the Coast Guard commanders.

Also Read

India hits Pakistan back with surgical strikes across Line of Control, 38 killed



How 25 Indian commandos crawled through enemy territory to kill 38 terrorists in PoK

--- ENDS ---
Seattle, WA-based Alaska Air Group ALK recently announced its intention to commence flights to the Cuban capital of Havana from Jan 5, 2017. Late last month, the carrier gained approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to fly to Havana.

The carrier intends to start its journey from Seattle to Los Angeles and then fly to Havana upon receiving approval from the Cuban government. Alaska Air Group is the only U.S. carrier to have received approval for daily non-stop flights between Havana and the U.S. West Coast. According to a media report, the carrier was originally scheduled to start flying to Havana from Nov 29, 2016. However, it requested for permission to delay due to the upcoming holiday season rush.

Notably, Alaska Air Group is not the only carrier to gain approval from the U.S. DOT to Havana. A total of eight U.S.-based carriers, including Delta Air Lines DAL, American Airlines Group AAL and United Continental Holdings UAL, have been permitted to start flights to Cuba. The approval is a major positive as diplomatic ties with Cuba were severed more than 50 years ago. Even now, travel to Cuba is permitted only for purposes like family visits, education, journalism and humanitarian projects.

Visit to the nation for tourism is still prohibited, which would likely have been purpose of visit if the launch was during the holiday season. Alaska Air Group, while requesting for the delay, had apparently cited this clause and said that travel for the permitted purposes was more likely if its service was launched in early January, thereby increasing the chances of the new route being a success.

ALASKA AIR GRP Price

ALASKA AIR GRP Price | ALASKA AIR GRP Quote

Apart from the Havana-related update, Alaska Air Group is in news due to its proposed acquisition of Virgin America VA. To allow the antitrust division of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) more time to review the proposed buyout, the two companies have agreed not to close the deal before Oct 17 (unless the DOJ provides written concurrence to close earlier) as opposed to the earlier date of Sep 30.

Story continues



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Former Miss Universe Alicia Machado punched back on Friday after Donald Trump attacked her in a 5 a.m. Twitter rant.

Among other things, the Republican presidential nominee called Machado disgusting, said she had a terrible history and urged the public to check out [her] sex tape and past.

Machado took to Instagram later in the day to accuse Trump of making attacks, insults and trying to revive defamations and false accusations about my life. All of this with the goal of intimidating me, humiliating me, and throwing me off balance one more time. The attacks that have surged are slander and cheap lies. She made her comments in Spanish, which were translated by Yahoo News.

She also said: This, of course, is not the first time that I was confronted with a situation like this. Through his campaign of hate, the Republican candidate insists on discrediting and demoralizing a woman. This is definitely one of his most frightening characteristics. With this, hes taking attention away from his real problems and his inability to pretend to be the leader of a great country.

Machado, now a high-profile actress in Latin America, was Miss Venezuela when Trump took over the beauty pageant about 20 years ago, and she was crowned Miss Universe in 1996. After she gained weight, Trump called a press conference and invited reporters to watch her work out. During this years election campaign, she said she had been blindsided by the press conference and further accused Trump of calling her Miss Piggy, fat and ugly in private.

During Mondays presidential debate, Democrat Hillary Clinton brought up Trumps weight-shaming comments in order to argue that the celebrity businessman has a clear pattern of sexism. Donald, she has a name. Her name is Alicia Machado. And she has become a U.S. citizen. And you can bet she is going to vote this November, Clinton said in the closing minutes of the debate. (In his Friday morning tweets, Trump asked, Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting  Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?)

Story continues

When I was just a little girl, and now as a candidate, he humiliated me, he insulted me, he disrespected me publicly  as he normally did privately in an even more cruel way, Machado wrote on her Friday Instagram response to Trump. This is how this was for me and its clear over many years that this is actions and conduct hes repeated with other women for decades. Therefore, I will stay standing, sharing my story, my absolute support for Mrs. Clinton in the name of women, of my sisters, aunts, grandmothers, cousins, friends, and the female community.

Her Instagram post in full:

Clinton also responded to Trumps Twitter flurry with a series of her own tweets:

This isunhinged, even for Trump. A few notes. https://t.co/WURWs6aJ5f  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 30, 2016

Alicia deserves praise for courageously standing up to Trump's attacks. And he has the gall to blame herand say he "helped"?  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 30, 2016

When something gets under Donald's thin skin, he lashes out and can't let go. This is dangerous for a president.  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 30, 2016

Trump obsessively bullies Rosie O'Donnellan accomplished actor. He insulted Kim Kardashian for her weightwhen she was pregnant. Pathetic.  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 30, 2016

We've heard Donald's insults for years, and his policies reflect this disregardeven contemptfor women.  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 30, 2016

Hunter Walker contributed to this story.
Larkin Malloy, who held roles on several soap operas including All My Children, has died. He was 62.

Malloy played AMCs Travis from 1987 to 1998. Walt Willey, who portrayed his on-screen brother Jack on the ABC soap, posted on Facebook Thursday that Malloy had died of complications from a recent heart attack.

Willey wrote:

Larkin Malloy welcomed me like a brother when I joined the cast in 1987. We worked together, did appearances together, partied together, vacationed together. He was an actors actor, spending many years teaching the craft, and a gentleman in the Old World style. We spent many hours together, both on set and off, and truly were Irish brothers from another mother. Tommy, you will be missed. Love you, brother.

Larkin also appeared on the daytime dramas Loving, The Edge of Night, Guiding Light and As the World Turns and in a Season 13 episode of Law and Order.

His death comes one day after that of Agnes Nixon, the creator of All My Children and One Life to Live.

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Susan Lucci: All My Children Creator Agnes Nixon 'Was All I Hoped to Be'

Agnes Nixon, Creator of All My Children and One Life to Live, Dead at 93

AMC Vet David Canary Dead at 77
Athens (AFP) - Ancient graves have been unearthed on the Greek Aegean island of Kos in a new search for a British toddler who went missing over two decades ago, police said Friday.

"We have actually found some archaeological remains, we've got four graves which date back at least 1,500 to nearly 2,000 years ago," Detective Inspector Jon Cousins said in a video released by the South Yorkshire Police.

Cousins is part of a team of British experts, supported by Greek police, who are searching outside a Kos farmhouse where Ben Needham, a 21-month-old toddler from the northern English city of Sheffield, went missing in 1991.

Cousins insisted that the discovery of the graves, which must be examined by the Greek archaeological service, "doesn't hamper what we're doing, we're cracking on."

The search began Monday in a large field with olive and fig trees just outside the farmhouse after "new information" came to light in May, according to Cousins.

"As a direct result of an appeal to the people of Kos in May of this year, an independent witness has given an account to officers and this, along with facts that we already knew, has brought officers back to the farmhouse to conduct targeted searches based on the information that we have now," the South Yorkshire Police department told AFP this week.

Reports say police are now examining the possibility the toddler, who was been played outside the farmhouse, was crushed by a digger clearing land during renovation works.

In past years there have been suspected sightings of young men believed to resemble Ben in Greece and Cyprus, but DNA tests have come back negative.
Angelina Jolie is in early talks to star in TriStar's adaptation Shoot Like a Girl.

The film is based the book Shoot Like A Girl: How One Woman's War Against the Taliban Led to Her Victory Over the Department of Defense, an upcoming memoir by Air Force Major Mary Jennings Hegar that will hit shelves in March 2017.

Hegar, who Jolie would play, served three tours in Afghanistan as an elite rescue helicopter pilot. She earned a Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross for her work. She also opened the front lines for women by successfully taking on the Department of Defense in Washington D.C., asserting that the Combat Exclusion Policy barring women from combat duty was unconstitutional and unjust toward women in the military.

Read more: What Films Are Next for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt After Their Split

The Gotham Group is producing the project. Frank Baldwin wrote the most current draft of the script, and the producers are currently looking for a director.

The book was originally brought into the studio by Nicole Brown, who will oversee the project with Hannah Minghella.

Jolie was most recently seen in By the Sea, which she also directed. She's attached to the Maleficent sequel at Disney. She's repped by UTA and Sloane, Offer.

Gersh reps Mary Jennings Hegar and the book.

Read more: Meet Angelina Jolie's London-Based Power Squad
(Adds comments from Barrick)

BUENOS AIRES/TORONTO, Sept 30 (Reuters) - A judge in Argentina ruled that Barrick Gold Corp's operations at its Veladero mine would remain suspended, saying repairs were insufficient to reopen it after a leak of processing solution containing cyanide earlier this month.

Judge Pablo Oritja's decision was based on a report from mining police in San Juan province that found Barrick had not installed security cameras and sensors as required, state news agency Telam said on Friday.

A spokesman for the province said Oritja had extended the temporary suspension of operations on Thursday until Barrick completes additional work at Veladero, one of its five core mines.

Barrick President Kelvin Dushnisky told Reuters on Sept. 19 that he thought the mine could start operating again in two weeks.

Toronto-based Barrick said on Friday that it had completed "critical" work required by authorities for the resumption of operations and was awaiting a final resolution of the matter.

The world's largest gold producer by output, Barrick does not expect the suspension to cause it to miss its 2016 consolidated production forecast, said spokesman Andy Lloyd.

Barrick said provincial regulators ordered work in seven areas, including maintenance of the exterior perimeter of the leach pad liner and raising the exterior berm, or bank, over which the processing solution flowed.

The company gave no estimate of the costs of the work or suspension. It will finalize them once the mine is back in operation, Lloyd said.

Telam said Oritja would go on vacation on Friday, meaning another judge could handle the case.

Barrick has not said how much processing solution was spilled. Tests by United Nations investigators in October showed the year-earlier spill had not contaminated local water supplies.

The company announced the spill on Sept. 15. The province had fined Barrick nearly $10 million for a September 2015 leak.

(Reporting by Hernan Nessi, Maximilian Heath and Caroline Stauffer in Buenos Aires and Susan Taylor in Toronto; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump received yet another endorsement, this time from a group of alumni belonging to the George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations.

John Ashcroft, the former U.S. Attorney General under Bush 43, joined the FOX Business Network to detail why he decided to join this coalition of Trump supporters.

Its because I believe that the rule of law is the best friend that liberty ever had, Ashcroft explained, adding that "we need a president who is committed to the rule of law and I believe that Donald Trump is more likely to restore the rule of law.

Ashcroft said that shifting focus back to the rule of law should be a front-burner issue for the United States government.

The former attorney general, who served from 2001-2005, also commented on what he wants to see in future attorneys general.

We need an attorney general who is committed to the oath to defend the Constitution more than to advance the agenda of the President, he said, adding, We need an attorney general and we need Supreme Court justices who honor their pledge to the Constitution, their oath to the Constitution, more than their personal commitment to a political agenda.



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By India Today Web Desk: It's an amazing time to travel and the Bollywood stars are making sure that we all realise that.

After Nargis Fakhri's Greece vacation and Kalki Koechlin's biking trip to the Northeast, it was Dabangg actress Sonakshi Sinha's turn to join the league, and her Instagram account is proof enough.

Also see: Kalki Koechlin's 4,000 km biking trip to the Northeast with her father will inspire you to travel



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Sonakshi took time off to go on a solo trip to the beach lover's paradise, Seychelles.

Also see: Lisa Ray's Lebanese vacation will give you major travel goals



Right from taking a dip into the sea to scuba diving, the Bollywood beauty did it all in the East African country. And she looks simply stunning in her pictures from the place. Besides, they are inspiring enough to plan a vacation to the destination.

Also see: These pictures from Nargis Fakhri's Greek holiday will inspire you to travel



Don't believe us, take a look at the pictures yourself:

Picture courtesy: Instagram/aslisona

Picture courtesy: Instagram/aslisona

Picture courtesy: Instagram/aslisona

Picture courtesy: Instagram/aslisona

Picture courtesy: Instagram/aslisona

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A Sept. 19 article on the Atlantic Council and its Global Citizen Awards, by Thor Halvorssen and Alex Gladstein, activists at a small non-profit called the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), was riddled with insinuations and unsubstantiated charges that misrepresented the Atlantic Council and its work. Foreign Policy has already corrected the original version due to factual errors both in the headline, stating that we had presented Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba with our award, which we hadnt, and due to a charge that we dont publicly list all our donors, which we do.

As the president and CEO of an organization that each day works to live up to its well-earned reputation for donor transparency and intellectual independence, I was disappointed that the authors ignored my on-record responses to some of their charges and, in my view, didnt provide fair opportunity to respond to others. On that, I speak from experience as I spent 25 years as a senior editor and reporter for the Wall Street Journal. So I will respond here:

Halvorssen and Gladstein present two arguments: one questions the Atlantic Councils leadership in think-tank ethics and transparency, including insinuations that we received payments in nominating the Gabonese president for our 2016 Global Citizen Award (which he in any event did not receive); the second is that President Bongo is entirely undeserving of international recognition. The first claim is categorically false. The second also doesnt stand up to closer scrutiny.

The authors insinuated that a pay-to-play situation was at hand in our nomination of President Bongo for the award. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Atlantic Council receives no funding  and has no plans to receive funding  directly or indirectly from the Gabonese government.

I told this to Halvorssen in an email sent on Sept. 17, and in a phone call with his chairman Garry Kasparov several days earlier. Yet the piece, with this irresponsible charge, ran two days later without any mention of my categorical denial. Even worse, the author knew he would be talking to me later in the week of publication when we would have had a chance to compare views and facts on Gabon. When I asked him in an email why he decided not to hold the piece, he said it would have served my agenda but not his to do so. Getting the facts right would seem to be the most important agenda for both sides.

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The nomination of President Bongo came internally from the Atlantic Council staff and not from any donor of any sort. Contrary to the articles insinuations, we received no contribution from any corporate or individual funder with investments or interests in Gabon in relationship to this award nomination or any work we do on Gabon. Suggesting otherwise without a shred of evidence, and with my statements on the record denying it, was irresponsible in the extreme.

We list all of our annual donors on our website and in our annual report, showing the approximate magnitude and the year of each gift. All government and government-related funding is further vetted by the Governance and Nominating Committee of our board, and we follow a strict intellectual independence policy regarding all of our work.

It is worth noting that Human Rights Foundation (HRF), of which Halvorssen is president, does not reveal nearly as much about its own donors, which are listed alphabetically without any categories regarding the size or precise year of gifts. That said, we will not suggest here that any one of their donors influenced the position on Gabon or other issues. Their good work should not be impugned without substantiation, and neither should ours.

The Atlantic Council is a recognized leader in think-tank transparency and ethics because we pay attention to such details. For the second year in a row, Charity Navigator, the premier organization that rates nonprofits across the United States, gave the Atlantic Council its coveted 4-star rating for our sound fiscal management and commitment to accountability and transparency.

On the second matter regarding President Bongos suitability for international recognition, fair-minded individuals can differ on that. But it is worth reviewing the logic behind his nomination, which includes international recognition President Bongo has received from the United Nations and others, and the wish to encourage the considerable progress his country has made from the heavy-handed rule of his father.

Months before he was up for reelection, President Bongo was nominated for the Atlantic Councils Global Citizen Award, based on his widely celebrated commitment to preserving Africas wildlife and environment and his economic and infrastructure reforms. In recognition of these efforts, he was a recipient of the 2015 Sustainable Development Award by the U.N.s specialized agency for information and communications technology. The same year, he was recognized by the International Conservation Caucus Foundation for leadership in the global fight against wildlife crime.

President Bongos commitment to conservation is recognized around the world. He banned commercial fishing off coastal waters to establish an enormous marine protected area, covering nearly one-fourth of Gabons territorial waters  home to 20 species of whales and dolphins, four species of marine turtles (including the worlds largest breeding leatherback turtle population), and more than 20 species of sharks and rays (including threatened tiger sharks). He expanded the number of rangers and other employees in the national parks, which cover 11 percent of Gabons landmass, to 750 from 60, to fight illegal logging and poaching in some of the most pristine forests in the world.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, who is co-chair of President Barack Obamas Task Force on Wildlife Trafficking, said while visiting Gabon in January, Gabon has shown strong leadership in the region, and we support its progressive and ambitious vision for wildlife conservation and ecotourism while sustainably managing its natural resources.

In recent years, Gabon has been a key diplomatic partner for the United States on a number of issues. In 2011, President Bongo was the first African leader to publicly call for Muammar al-Qaddafi to step down in Libya. He helped the United States galvanize support among African countries for the Libya resolutions. Until Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was elected last year, Bongo was the only African president honored by President Obama with a stay at Blair House, and the White House placed him next to Obama at the state dinner during the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in 2014. Earlier this year, Gabon hosted the largest ever U.S. Army exercise in Africa, providing training for militaries facing threats ranging from Boko Haram to al Shabab.

I wont address here the litany of attacks on President Bongo in the Foreign Policy article. The arguments for and against him are a matter of public record  as are those for and against Jean Ping, his former brother-in-law and political opponent. The Atlantic Council has a consistent record of defending core Atlantic values. So, we too are concerned by allegations of electoral improprieties wherever they occur, while at the same time wishing to encourage progress where we find it.

No doubt Gabon has far to go yet in terms of developing democracy and fighting corruption, but even on these issues progress has been made that the article neglects to mention, progress that should be encouraged and built upon. Ironically, Halvorssen and Gladstein include a link to an article that documents the advances during President Bongos tenure  that prosecutors appointed by him found corruption in the civil service and, as a result, the government fired some 800 employees.

Last month, President Bongo was narrowly reelected in the contested presidential election against Jean Ping. (It is worth noting this is the same Jean Ping who, as chairperson of the African Union Commission, downplayed Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabes campaign of violence that forced the opposition to withdraw from the run-off in that countrys 2008 election.) Following a spate of violent protests, Bongo agreed to an election recount and welcomed a delegation from the African Union to help resolve the political impasse. Both sides in the electoral dispute argued their case before the final arbiter of the contest, the Gabonese Constitutional Court, which ruled in favor of President Bongo.

After the ruling and his inauguration for a second term, President Bongo said he will most likely include opposition in the new government, a potential step in the right direction.

As the Atlantic Council was weighing the facts and charges regarding the contested election and its aftermath, and determining whether to go ahead with its award, President Bongo precluded our process and informed the Atlantic Council that my first obligation is to stay in Gabon and that he would forego receiving the honor in order to attend to the overriding priorities in his country.

For President Bongo to receive the award in any future year, he would have to be renominated. In other words, he will be judged on his actions in the coming weeks, the same standard that will be set by the Gabonese people. In sum, the Foreign Policy article was about an honor that was not bestowed while suggesting financial transactions that never happened.

We wish the authors had taken the time to meet with us on these matters or that Foreign Policy editors had reached out to us for comment, which they never did.

The Atlantic Council and Human Rights Foundation want the same thing: to galvanize communities in common cause in the pursuit of human dignity and freedom. We hope that in the future, Thor Halvorssen and his colleagues will engage constructively on these issues rather than relying on falsehoods, insinuations, and unsubstantiated charges.

Photo credit: Muller-Stauffenberg/ullstein bild via Getty Images
(Recasts throughout, adds shares, analyst comment)

By Byron Kaye and Colin Packham

SYDNEY, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Australian supermarket giant Woolworths Ltd on Friday said it is considering offers to buy its petrol station chain in a deal said to be worth more than $1 billion, extending an asset sell-off as it shores up its core grocery business.

The sale would broaden a divestment programme under new Chief Executive Officer Brad Banducci as he refocuses on the grocery business, amid a price war with Coles, owned by Wesfarmers Ltd, and Germany's ALDI Inc.

Caltex Australia Ltd, the co-owner of the chain, had hired investment bank UBS to help secure a deal valued at A$1.5 billion ($1.14 billion), The Australian newspaper reported earlier.

Woolworths, Australia's top grocer by sales, said it had received several proposals which were "incomplete and conditional". It declined to give further details.

Caltex and UBS declined to comment.

The prospect of an exit from the fuel business pushed Woolworths shares to their highest intraday level in a month on Friday, as the broader market fell as much as 1 percent.

"We don't think that Woolworths should be a retail conglomerate. We would like to see it as a clean liquor and supermarket business, performing competitively against ALDI and Coles," Clime Asset Management senior equities analyst David Walker said.

Woolworths last month said it would close its Master's hardware chain and write off the losses, following years of criticism about the loss-making home improvement joint venture with U.S.-based Lowe's Companies Inc.

Woolworths investors are concerned it is losing grocery sales to Coles, ALDI and others due to high shelf prices which it has used to subsidise losses elsewhere.

In May, S&P cut its long-term credit rating for the 92-year-old company, which together with Coles supplies most of the food Australians consume in their homes.

The potential sale of its more than 500 service stations also underscores the effects an oil price collapse is having on industries outside resources.

Last month, Woolworths blamed a one-fifth slump in its fiscal 2016 petrol sales for a slight fall in total group revenue, a factor it said was caused by declining global oil prices and a drop in comparable volumes.

($1 = 1.3108 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Byron Kaye and Colin Packham; Editing by Stephen Coates)
VIENNA (Reuters) - U.S. rapper Freddie Gibbs was acquitted on Friday of sexually assaulting a woman in Austria, a Vienna court spokeswoman said. Gibbs, 34, whose real name is Fredrick Tipton, was extradited from France to face charges that he spiked a woman's drink and sexually abused her while he was on tour in Vienna last year. The rapper, who is from Gary, Indiana and whose album Pinata was selected by several publications as among the best of 2014, had denied any wrongdoing. "Gibbs was acquitted of sexual assault," the spokeswoman said, adding the decision is not yet effective. Prosecutors have until Monday night to object. (Reporting by Kirsti Knolle; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
In Ava DuVernay's new prison documentary 13th, one segment juxtaposes racial slurs and attacks from a Donald Trump rally with archival footage of a well-dressed black man being pushed around by a crowd of white men. Trump's words about how a black person would be treated "in the old days" play over the scene, and it's the hardest part for DuVernay to watch.

Why include it in the film, which hits Netflix on Oct. 7? "Is it still gonna be relevant next year, when we know which one of the candidates [will be president]?" she recalled asking herself during the press screening at the New York Film Festival. "I think it's vital to have him in there, because he's taken this country to a place that is gonna be studied and considered for a long time. It's gonna have repercussions past the moment, whether he's the president or not - gosh, I can't believe I'm saying those words! So we need to remember this moment. It gives us context to this moment that we're in, looking through a lens of race and culture."

The Selma director admitted there was internal debate in doing so. "Take him out? Leave him in? No, he doesn't deserve a place in this thing, and such. But you gotta show that stuff because it's too important and it can't be forgotten." The film also includes a clip of Hillary Clinton's "superpredator" comments and explores the consequences of Bill Clinton's 1994 crime bill.

Watch @AVAETC explain why Donald Trump scenes are "vital" to @Netflix prison doc #13th, opening #NYFF. https://t.co/07Z2ID95ax pic.twitter.com/wW1ZqvnPl2

- Ashley Lee (@cashleelee) September 30, 2016

The new documentary, which opens the New York Film Festival on Friday night, examines the horrors of mass incarceration and the prison industry in the U.S., as well as how the U.S. has produced the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with the majority of those imprisoned being African-American. It traces a pattern of fear and division behind mass criminalization, from D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915) and the rebirth of the KKK to the civil rights movement, the 1994 crime bill and the Black Lives Matter movement.

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Its title refers to the Constitution's 13th Amendment: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States."

DuVernay, who "grew up in an atmosphere where prisons were always a presence" and majored in African-American studies in UCLA, said she began making the film right after the press tour for Selma. "I think I started it the day after the Oscars, which is appropriate," she laughed. The film was made with a thousand hours of archival footage at her fingertips: "It costs a lot. Big ups to Netflix. Thanks Luke Cage, thanks Stranger Things!"

Read more: '13th': NYFF Review

Upon being invited to make a doc by Netflix, DuVernay set out to make a primer that explores the prison industrial complex and the idea of punishment for profit: "I was always disturbed and fascinated by and furious that more people weren't talking about how multibillion-dollar companies were profiting off black bodies," She then opted to add a section about the Black Lives Matter movement because "it asks to interrogate it more deeply. ??? To see it back-to-back and lined up, you can see it all that much more clearly and feel it that much more deeply."

The film also includes the widespread mobile footage capturing the victims of police brutality - all of which was used with the permission of the victims' families, as highlighted repeatedly at the bottom of the screen. Asking to do so was a priority, as she lost her father less than six months ago.

"[I thought,] what if there were a video of his last moments, and I didn't own it? Because it's all public domain. I asked [the families'] permission, but they don't own it," she explained. "Can you imagine the last moments of your loved one in such a violent manner, and you don't even own it? ??? I thought of my father in the hospital and I was furious, so I had to ask."

Read more: Oprah Winfrey, Ava DuVernay on the Push for "Inclusion" (Not Diversity), Tackling Black Lives Matter Beyond the "Hashtag"

The process came to be too much for the director to handle while finishing the film, so her sister took over, and spoke with the families for hours, listening to their stories. Additionally, she included the textual notation because "black trauma and black drama as a spectacle is a real issue in our community."

DuVernay hopes audiences stay until the very end of the movie. "The credit sequence is about black joy, because black trauma is not our life," she said of the ending, which initially thanked the film's dozens of analysts and interviewees. However, that sequence "left me off the hook. ??? I just wanted us to leave on the hook for something here because this is a generations-old, centuries old problem we've allowed to have happened."

13th??hits Netflix and limited theaters on Oct. 7. Watch the trailer below.
In its latest attempt to support Latin Americas growing technology industry, Chinas biggest search engine Baidu, Inc. BIDU has put its faith and cash in Brazil-based Internet investment fund, Easterly Ventures.

Baidu announced itself as the lead investor in the fund worth $60 million. General Manager of Baidu Brasil and President of the Brazilian O2O Association, Mr. Yan Di stated that Easterly Ventures will be the nations first Internet investment fund of its kind.

Easterlys goal is to equip Brazilian technology startups with fund, technology, local traffic and industry expertise, thereby enabling them to enter national and international markets. Meanwhile, Easterly has plans to invest in 15 Brazilian startups, with the first one scheduled for late 2016.

Baidus Interest in Latin America

We believe that despite facing tough competition from search peers like Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, Yahoo! Inc. YHOO and Microsoft Corporations MSFT Bing, Baidu sees plenty of opportunities in Latin America.

Out of the 300 million global monthly active users of Baidus international mobile apps, 27 million are in Brazil. The companys DU Ad Platform focusing on mobile advertising receives more than 150 million daily ad requests in Brazil.

Yan Di stated that "Brazil's economy is expected to rebound in the year ahead. There is absolutely no better time to enter this market."

Its Ventures So Far in the Region

Previously the company promoted its startup incubator projects "Baidu Class" and "Baidu Accelerate", teaming up with Latin American Association (LAAS) and top universities.

In 2015, Baidu Brasil established the Brazil O2O Association, Brazil's first business community for online-to-offline (O2O) companies.

In 2014, the company acquired Peixe Urbano, the Brazilian group-buying platform. The platform lifted its market share from 30% to 70% within a year of the acquisition.

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angela merkel

Deutsche Bank hasn't had an easy few days.

But that doesn't mean German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be coming to the rescue.

Two weeks ago it was reported that the troubled German lender might be slapped with fines worth $14 billion by US regulators over bad derivative products from the financial crisis. Shares plunged to record lows in the aftermath.

Plus, Bloomberg reported this week that about 10 hedge funds have moved to limit exposure to the bank and have withdrawn funds, fearing that the bank could collapse under the weight of proposed fines. Again  shares plummeted.

In the midst of all this, there have been rumors that the German government might be preparing a bailout for the country's biggest lender.

However, the German finance ministry flatly denied this possibility. And that makes sense, given Merkel's delicate political position.

It's "inconceivable" that Merkel would bailout the troubled lender given domestic tensions and her political situation, Eurasia Group managing director Mujtaba Rahman told Business Insider by phone.

Pouring public money into a private bank likely wouldn't be the most popular decision with voters at home, who are already displeased with Merkel's unwavering stance on the refugee crisis, ahead of 2017 federal elections. Notably, Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party already took a hit in early September regional elections in her home district, while the anti-immigrant Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) party saw some gains.

Moreover, Merkel is also vulnerable with the more right-leaning members of her party, as well as with Bavaria's conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) party, which has traditionally cooperated with the CDU in elections. The CSU has been pushing for caps of 200,000 refugees a year, to which Merkel has not yet acquiesced, and now there have been reports that some CSU folks might not be willing to support Merkel come 2017.

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In short, bailing out the bank could "expose her to criticism on the right flank," Rahman told BI.

So don't expect it anytime soon.

NOW WATCH: STIGLITZ: It makes me crazy that everyone gets this wrong about the economy





More From Business Insider


The Supreme Court cancelled the RJD strongman's bail and ordered that he should be sent back to jail in the Rajiv Roshan murder case.

By Amitabh Srivastava: RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin has been sent to a jail in Siwan after the Supreme Court today cancelled his bail in the Rajiv Roshan murder case.

The Siwan-based don had surrendered before a local court. "I don't care about what people say. I respect the judiciary," the former MP told reporters before surrendering.



A September 7 order of the Patna High Court had granted bail to Shahabuddin and he was released on September 10 from the Bhagalpur jail.



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Rajiv Roshan's father Chandrakeshwar Prasad had challenged the bail granted to Shahabuddin in the apex court. Shahbuddin was already convicted in the murder of two sons of Prasad alias Chanda Babu.

Roshan, a journalist, was Prasad's third son. Shahabuddin was released even as the trial in the Roshan murder case had not started.

"The Supreme Court said the Rajiv Roshan case trial needs to be expedited and Mohammad Shahabuddin has to be sent back to jail," Prasad's lawyer Prashant Bhushan told reporters outside the Supreme Court.

Bhushan said he will move another petition asking Shahabuddin be moved to a jail outside Bihar and the trial be conducted via video-conferencing.

DON'S DESPERATE MOVE



In a desperate attempt to defend his bail and stay out of jail, the convicted politician had unilaterally proposed to abide by any condition imposed by the Supreme Court. He was also ready to stay out of Bihar to allay the apprehension raised by the government. The Supreme Court obviously did not attach any significance to his pleadings.

Earlier, Shahabuddin's release had immediately triggered swift developments; and on September 16, two appeals were filed in the Supreme Court challenging his bail. The first petition, moved by Siwan resident Chandrakeshwar Prasad - through noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan, argued that the Patna high court did not take note of the fact that the don is a "history sheeter and dreaded criminal" who has scant regard for the law. Bhushan had argued that Shahabuddin's release from jail posed a threat to all witnesses, and that the don was involved in as many as 45 criminal cases, including nine murders, and has been convicted in 10 cases.

Prasad is the father whose three sons were murdered in the most brutal manner at the alleged instance of Shahabuddin. The second petition was moved by the Nitish Kumar government in which it pleaded for bail cancellation, as Shahabudin was considered a threat to law and order. He was described as someone who would "unleash" terror on people of Bihar.







Nitish managed to keep Shahabuddin inside jail only under BJP-JDU tenureBihar CM Nitish Kumar supporting convicts to stay in power, alleges BJP leader Sushil Modi



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Few cineastes exude a greater passion for French cinema than celebrated writer/director Bertrand Tavernier, who broke through in 1974 with his debut feature, The Clockmaker of St. Paul.

So its fitting that this years Retrospective section of the New York Film Festival will focus on Taverniers three-hour-plus documentary My Journey Through French Cinema, which details the filmmakers myriad cinematic influencers, from Jacques Becker to Jean Renoir.

The fest will also screen a selection of the classic French films that figure prominently in My Journey Through French Cinema, as well as movies from one of Taverniers favorite American directors, Henry Hathaway.

Taverniers love affair with Gallic cinema began when he was a child stricken with tuberculosis in post-World War II Lyon. It was the discovery of film that helped Tavernier mine his inner strength in order to make a full recovery.

I think that cinema and the films that I watched is what really saved me, says Tavernier of his sickly youth, portions of which were spent holed up in a recuperative hospital.

Having difficulties breathing meant that for a long time I could not run, I could not walk fast. So having my imagination working, making these discoveries of film, was what was stimulating to me. Maybe all those difficulties attracted me to things that were normally impossible for me to do. For example, I loved watching westerns. I loved living in different periods. Cinema was part of my education, and it was also something which helped me to go on fighting. Cinema kept me alive.

New York Film Festival director Kent Jones says Taverniers documentary, which will be released this year through Cohen Media Group, provides a perspective on this history of French cinema that is a very different kind of experience for audiences.

Its a very personal film  that goes without saying, he adds. But I think most moviegoers are used to seeing things that look at the past through a sort of reverence, an on-bended-knee take on things.

Bertrand is one of the few people that really knows and understands film history from every single angle. And in this case, its a matter of Bertrand knowing the material so well and so intimately that he feels comfortable pointing out what he thinks are the limitations with each filmmaker. Its the kind of criticism that comes from living with the work for years, and thats what I love about this film.

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For Tavernier, some of the most satisfying feedback on My Journey has come from the new generation of cineastes, who are just now discovering the great treasure trove of pioneering French filmmakers.

A young student recently came to me and said, I was so moved by the film that it changed my life, Tavernier says.

Like Tavernier, Jones would love for younger people to discover the work of early French film, and he is hoping My Journey will inspire that.

Right now in movie history, we have a little bit of a gap for a lot of younger people that wasnt there when I was a kid, Jones says. When I was young, old Hollywood was constantly present on television. It was the fabric of life, and the same goes for French cinema.

Tavernier agrees.

People watch film differently today, he says. A film you have not seen in the first four weeks of its release is considered an old film. Same goes for books. Everything today is living under the dictatorship of the present. Nevertheless, there are some young people who seem to make some great discoveries, and we should continue to encourage this.  We should have no barriers; we should all keep open minds. Its about keeping alive the spirit of curiosity.

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(Beirut)  Syrian government forces continued their push into rebel-held districts of Aleppo on Thursday as international officials issued dire warnings of an ongoing humanitarian disaster in Syrias largest city.

The U.N.s humanitarian chief Stephen OBrien told the Security Council that the conditions in eastern Aleppo, which is besieged and assaulted by all sides by government forces, had descended into the merciless abyss of humanitarian catastrophe.

Speaking to the Security Council via video link from Geneva, OBrien painted a grim picture of the conditions in the war-wracked eastern part of the city, where at least 320 civilians including 100 children have been killed in the past week. An additional 765 have been wounded.

OBriens report noted that the U.N. now calculates that 861,200 Syrians are trapped in sieges  a nearly 50 percent increase from the last estimate of 586,200. The new figure reflects the governments protracted blockade around eastern Aleppo, where an estimated 250,000 people or more live.

Most of the besieged citizens, divided across at least 18 locations around the country, are trapped by government forces, and international observers are beginning to accuse both Damascus and its close ally Moscow of war crimes.

The U.N. embarked on an ambitious plan early this year to establish regular humanitarian access to Syrians living under various sieges but was reportedly stymied by the government as well as a restrictive covenant between rebels and the government to limit assistance to 60,000 of the most distressed, divided among four towns. At that time, a total of 487,000 Syrians were estimated to be living under siege.

OBrien said certain Security Council members bore responsibility for global inaction on Syria and ended his address saying it was time to place the blame.

In Aleppo, rescue crews were working for the third straight day to clear the rubble and search for survivors of presumed Russian or Syrian government airstrikes on the eastern al-Shaar and al-Mashhad neighborhoods that flattened residential buildings and killed at least 23 civilians, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

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Germany and Turkey condemned what they called blatant breaches of international humanitarian law and renewed calls for a cease-fire.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who spoke by phone Thursday, said Russia, the Syrian governments chief backer on the international stage, bears special responsibility to calm the violence and thereby give any chance to a political process, according to a statement released by Merkels office.

The White House said Thursday that Merkel also spoke with U.S. President Barack Obama by phone as well, and both agreed that Russia and the Syrian regime bear special responsibility for ending the fighting in Syria and granting the U.N. humanitarian access to besieged and hard to reach areas in Syria.

Meanwhile, airstrikes destroyed the last remaining bakery in Anadan, an opposition town north of Aleppo, activists said.

Adnan Medlej, an activist from Anadan, said the bakery was hit shortly after it distributed bread to the towns remaining 2,000 residents and others in nearby villages. After intense bombings that devastated the towns infrastructure, most residents have fled to other areas in rural Aleppo province.

A video shot by Medlej shows the bakery destroyed and a crater outside, with water leaking and walls scorched.

On Wednesday, government shelling near a bread distribution center in Aleppo city killed six people.

Meanwhile the U.S. and Russia escalated their war of words over the catastrophe as government forces kept up their assault on Aleppos rebel-held quarters.

Government forces seized the Handarat neighborhood along the contested citys northern flank, forcing rebels to withdraw further from a crucial supply route to the citys east, the Castello Road, pro-government media and observers said. A government blockade of the road has kept the opposition-run east under siege since mid-July, with the exception of a month-long period where rebels broke through the governments southern line.

But gains have proven ephemeral in the battle for Aleppo: government forces captured Handarat last Saturday, only to surrender it again Sunday.

Syrias military also released a video purporting to show a freshly captured neighborhood in the citys historic center.

The video shows damaged traditional buildings, with arched ceilings and stone walls, in the Farafra neighborhood which rests at the foot of the citys towering central citadel. Soldiers and allied militants are seen walking past mounds of debris, twisted metal bars, and caved-in ceilings. The government claimed it expelled rebels from the front-line neighborhood Tuesday.

A top Russian diplomat meanwhile called a U.S. threat to halt cooperation with Russia in the Syria conflict an emotional breakdown and said Russia is willing to support a 48-hour cease-fire around Aleppo.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Thursday rejected Washingtons calls for a seven-day pause in hostilities, but said Russia is willing to support a 48-hour truce for humanitarian purposes.

Damascus blocked assistance from reaching eastern Aleppo during a week-long cease-fire which collapsed earlier this month.

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Associated Press writer James Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report.
Mark Cuban's childhood was "as middle class as you can get," he told Dale Hansen on Dallas News channel WFAA.

After graduating from Indiana University, he said, he set off for Dallas, moved into a three-bedroom "dump" with five friends, and worked as a bartender to make ends meet.

Cuban earned his first million by age 32 when he sold his first company, MicroSolutions. Less than 10 years later, he sold his second company, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo for $5.7 billion and became a self-made billionaire at age 40.

It's safe to say the "Shark Tank" investor and Dallas Mavericks owner is set when it comes to money  but how much money does he think is "enough"?

"'Enough' is what it takes to not worry about the bills," Cuban said in his debut monthly column in the October issue of Men's Fitness. "'A lot' is enough that you never have to worry about working again."

But it doesn't stop there. "'F you' money means you can rent a jet to go wherever you want, whenever you want, and no party is out of reach," the billionaire explained.

"'F everyone' money means you can have your favorite band in your backyard, not care how much it costs, and lend them your jet to get there."

Cuban seems squarely in that latter category and is loving every minute.

When Men's Fitness asked about his smartest purchase, he answered, "A plane." When asked about his dumbest, he said, "Let's see. ... If I could remember them, I could list you a couple hundred bar tabs with my buddies."

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank."







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By Eric M. Johnson

(Reuters) - A black man who died after a physical struggle with police in a southern California home made an emergency call to Pasadena police because he needed help and suffered from bipolar disorder, his partner told a Los Angeles TV station on Friday.

His death comes as police in the San Diego area released a videotape of a fatal shooting by officers of another black man, 38-year-old Alfred Olango, who died in El Cajon on Tuesday as he grappled with what his mother said was a mental breakdown.

Friday's incident in Pasadena, and Olango's death after his sister called 911 seeking help, highlight the risks of a system that relies on police officers to respond to mental health crises.

The slayings were the latest in a string of deaths of black men caused by police officers in the United States that have led to protests over racial bias in the American criminal justice system.

Local broadcaster KTLA reported that Shainie Lindsay, who identified herself as the man's partner and said she witnessed the incident, said he was bipolar.

"He called the police on himself. He wanted help," Lindsay told the TV station.

Pasadena Police officers came to the home regarding a "domestic disturbance" early on Friday morning, the department said in a statement. Police said officers encountered the man, whom they have not identified, and said he refused orders to drop a knife he was holding.

After a stun gun failed to subdue him, a fight ensued, Pasadena police said. No shots were fired.

Officers saw he had stopped breathing as they were restraining him and switched to a life-saving CPR procedure, the department said. The man died at the scene.

Lindsay said after he was shot with a stun gun, the man tried to move to a bedroom that he locked behind him. The officers pried their way into the room and wrestled with him, kicking his head and hitting him with a baton, she told KTLA.

"Then, after that, they was doing CPR and then he was dead," Linsday told KTLA.

A representative for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Guillermina Saldana, said homicide detectives were involved in the investigation.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Blake Lively is a new mama again.

The actress has welcomed her second child, People reported, citing an unnamed source.

Lively, 29, and husband Ryan Reynolds, 39, are already parents to daughter James, who was born December 2014. The couple, who starred together in the 2011 superhero flick Green Lantern, tied the knot in September 2012.

According to a Page Six source, the Cafe Society star's close gal pal, Taylor Swift, headed to a Manhattan hospital to visit the baby on Friday morning. Because it's never too early to recruit a new squad member, duh.

Lively's most recent film projects include All I See Is You, The Shallows and Woody Allen's Cafe Society.

Reynolds recently starred in Criminal and Deadpool. Next up, he'll be working on several movies including Life, The Croods 2 and Deadpool 2.

Reps for Lively and Reynolds did not immediately respond to The Hollywood Reporter's request for comment.
(Adds background on electric car strategies of luxury auto makers, Tesla Motors)

By Joseph White and Edward Taylor

Sept 30 (Reuters) - German luxury auto maker BMW AG said on Friday it will offer all electric versions of its next generation BMW X3 compact sport utility vehicle and electric Mini models, expanding its entries in the emerging electric luxury vehicle market.

BMW confirmed a report earlier Friday by Bloomberg News.

Reuters reported on Sept. 9 that top BMW executives were skipping Paris auto show events this week to resolve differences over electric vehicle strategy and chart a new electric product offensive, including a possible electric Mini.

The electric Mini is expected to debut in about three years, company officials said.

BMW faces increasing pressure from German rivals Daimler AG and Volkswagen AG as well as Tesla Motors Inc of the United States, which have outlined aggressive plans to court affluent buyers - and respond to regulators - with new electric vehicles.

BMW moved earlier than its German rivals to field innovative electric cars, launching the BMW i3 battery-powered city car in 2013 with a lightweight body made of carbon fiber instead of steel or aluminum. However, the i3 and the plug-in hybrid i8 have been slow sellers.

Meanwhile, Tesla is aiming for sales of 80,000 or more electric sedans and sport utility vehicles this year, and has said that nearly 400,000 would-be buyers have placed reservations for its Model 3 sedan. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk has said he is targeting a July 2017 launch for the Model 3.

Daimler and VW used this week's Paris auto show to promote plans to launch new waves of electric vehicles.

Germany's luxury car champions face a convergence of pressure to embrace electric vehicles from regulatory mandates and from Tesla's success at winning affluent consumers to the idea of premium electric vehicles.

In the United States, California and several other states have adopted escalating quotas for sales of electric vehicles. California's goal is that 15 per cent of vehicles sold in the state in 2025 would be battery-powered. Policymakers in China, the world's largest vehicle market, and Europe are also calling for more electric vehicles.

(Reporting by Joe White in Detroit and Edward Taylor in Paris; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Matthew Lewis)
LONDON (Reuters) - British department store chain John Lewis [JLP.UL] [JLPLC.UL] will have to appoint a new leader after Managing Director Andy Street was chosen by the ruling Conservative Party as its candidate for mayor of the West Midlands in central England. Street, who has been with John Lewis for 31 years, nine as MD, was formally selected by local Conservative members on Thursday, the party said in a statement. The employee-owned John Lewis Partnership, which also owns upmarket supermarket Waitrose, said he would step down from his role on Oct. 28 to fight the mayoral election which will be held in May next year. It said Street's successor will be announced "in due course". Analysts say frontrunners to succeed Street are his former lieutenant Andrew Murphy, who is now the partnership's productivity director, current retail director Mark Lewis and commercial director Paula Nickolds. "Andy has led John Lewis brilliantly and leaves the brand with great momentum for the future," said the Partnership's chairman Charlie Mayfield. Earlier this month the department stores business reported a 31 percent fall in first-half operating profit despite a 4.5 percent rise in sales. The profit fall reflected increased investment, higher staff costs and lower prices. However, the firm said it was confident it would outperform the market in the second half when the majority of its sales and profit are delivered. (Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Paul Sandle)
By Harriet McLeod CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - A first grader who was shot and wounded by a 14-year-old boy accused of killing his father before he opened fire outside a South Carolina elementary school is "fighting for his life," a fire chief and the boy's family said on Thursday. Jacob Hall, 6, was struck in the leg on Wednesday afternoon during a shooting spree that also wounded another boy and a first-grade teacher at Townville Elementary School, about 100 miles (160 km) northeast of Atlanta. Police said the teenager crashed a pickup truck into a fence around the rural school's playground after he fatally shot his father, Jeffrey DeWitt Osborne, 47, at their home about 2 miles (3 km) away. The teen, who has not been named, is in custody. "I hate my life," he said before firing a handgun at the school, the Greenville News reported, citing the aunt of a 6-year-old girl who was headed outside for recess at the time. The incident was the latest in a series of shootings at U.S. schools that has fueled debate about access to guns in America. Many schools have beefed up security precautions since 2012, when a gunman shot and killed 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Hall's family said in a statement the 6-year-old was a "very sick little boy." The message, provided through the Greenville Health System Children's Hospital where he remains in critical condition, said a bullet tore through his femoral artery, causing massive blood loss that led to a "major brain injury." Billy McAdams, chief of the Townville Volunteer Fire Department, choked up on Thursday as he asked for prayers for "little Jacob," whom he had helped treat at the scene. "Hes still fighting for his life," McAdams told a news conference. Teacher Meghan Hollingsworth, who was shot in the shoulder, and the other boy, also 6, according to media reports, were treated and released. McAdams credited fellow first responders and the school's staff for taking action to prevent another school massacre. Hollingsworth shepherded students inside to safety and urged medical staff to care for the injured children before her, he said. Jamie Brock, a 30-year veteran of the Townville Volunteer Fire Department, was unarmed when he confronted the shooter and pinned him down for police, McAdams said. Brock has declined media interviews, saying he wanted the focus to remain on the victims. "The true heroes of yesterday's senseless tragedy are the teachers that put their lives on the line to protect the students," Brock said in a statement read by McAdams at the news conference. "This will not take us down." Authorities said they did not know of any connection between the shooter and the school victims but had ruled out terrorism and ethnicity as motivating factors. The suspect, who was home-schooled, was emotional when he called his grandparents Wednesday afternoon, authorities said. His grandmother "could not make out what he was saying because he was crying and upset, and so they went to the house, and thats when she discovered her son and called 911," coroner Greg Shore told reporters. The teenager was gone. His mother offered no insight into his motive in a statement released to media on her behalf on Thursday. "Our entire family is absolutely shocked and saddened by the senseless actions of our son and grandson," the statement said. (Additional reporting Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott, Lisa Shumaker and Paul Tait)
LONDON (Reuters) - BP has criticized the new "Deepwater Horizon" film as being an inaccurate Hollywood dramatization of the deadly oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. "The Deepwater Horizon movie is Hollywood's take on a tragic and complex accident. It is not an accurate portrayal of the events that led to the accident, our people, or the character of our company," Geoff Morrell, BP senior vice-president of U.S. communications & external affairs, said in a statement on the British oil and gas company's website. "Deepwater Horizon," which is released in the United States on Friday, focuses on the hours before and after the explosion from a well blowout on the BP rig in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, leading to the worst offshore oil disaster in U.S. history. Eleven workers were killed and millions of barrels of oil spewed onto the shorelines of several states for nearly three months. BP, which has had to pay over $55 billion in clean-up costs and fines, said the film "ignores the conclusions reached by every official investigation: that the accident was the result of multiple errors made by a number of companies." Actor Mark Wahlberg, who plays an oil engineer who survived the disaster, said the film aimed to honor the 11 men killed in the accident. Other than BP, rig operator Transocean and services contractor Halliburton were also found to be at fault . "Coming as it does six-and-a-half years after the accident, the movie also does not reflect who we are today, the lengths we've gone to restore the Gulf, the work we've done to become safer, and the trust weve earned back around the world." BP said in the statement. (This story has been refiled to include name of BP spokesperson in paragraph two.) (Reporting by Ron Bousso; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Gautam Bambawale was summoned over the 'unprovoked' cross-border firing by Indian Army in which two Pakistani soldiers were killed.

By Maha Siddiqui: Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale, who was summoned by the Pakistan Foreign Office, on Thursday categorically said during the meeting that India carried out 'a counter-terrorism strike' across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan.

Bambawale was summoned over the "unprovoked" cross-border firing by Indian Army in which two Pakistani soldiers were killed.

During the meeting Pakistan Foreign Office told the India High Commissioner that they reject the claim of "surgical strikes" by India to which the high commissioner said that strikes were carried out to eliminate terrorists waiting at launch pads to attack India.



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READ| India sends stern message to Pakistan: Army conducts surgical strike in PoK, kills 38 jihadis



He also rubbished Pakistani claims that India was trying to escalate tension on the LoC.



According to Foreign Office sources, Pakistan "strongly" condemned the firing across the Line of Control, Geo TV reported.

Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry handed over the protest note to Bambawale, sources said.

Chaudhry claimed that Pakistan remains a "victim of interference" and "state sponsored terrorism".

READ| Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike



India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the Army inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.

The Foreign Office, earlier in a statement, strongly condemned the "unprovoked ceasefire violations at LoC by Indian forces", which it termed as "a continuation of a pattern of ceasefire violations committed by the Indian forces".

It said that "any such aggression will not go unanswered or unpunished".

READ| Claims denied: How Pakistan media is treating India's surgical strike

Two Pakistani soldiers were killed in the cross-border firing.

The Foreign Secretary also expressed Pakistan's deep disappointment at India's decision not to participate in the SAARC Summit.

For its part, Pakistan is committed to the objective of regional cooperation, envisaged in the SAARC charter, he said.

Chaudhry also conveyed to Bambawale, Pakistan's deep concerns over "life threats to Pakistan's High Commissioner in New Delhi" and urged the Indian government to ensure his safety and security and that of other officials and their families, in accordance with the Vienna Convention.

Also Read:



Will Pakistan hit back? Villages close to border being evacuated, leaves of soldiers cancelled

Nawaz Sharif after India's surgical strike: Don't take our peaceful intent for weakness



--- ENDS ---
(Reuters) - Brad Pitt will undergo drug and alcohol tests as part of a temporary agreement with his estranged wife Angelina Jolie that will allow him to see their six children, two people familiar with the agreement said on Friday. The temporary agreement, which will run until Oct. 20, was the first breakthrough in the bitter split between the superstar couple since Jolie filed for divorce on Sept. 20. The actress cited "the health of the family" and sought full physical custody of the children. Pitt, 52, and Jolie, 41, both agreed to undergo individual counseling, and Pitt's initial visit with the children will take place with a therapist, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. No ruling or decision has been made on who will eventually have legal or physical custody, they said. Representatives of Pitt and Jolie did not return calls for comment on Friday. Media reports say that since their separation on Sept. 15, Pitt has not seen the three biological and three adopted children he had with Jolie. The couple, dubbed Brangelina during their decade-long romance, split following an incident on a private plane in which Pitt was reported to have lost his temper in front of one or more of the children. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has said it is evaluating whether to pursue an investigation into the matter. Both stars have laid low since the announcement of their divorce. Pitt this week skipped the red carpet premiere in Los Angeles of his latest movie project, saying he wanted to focus on his "family situation." Pitt's next film is the November war drama "Allied" in which he stars with French actress Marion Cotillard. Cotillard last week issued a statement strongly denying any involvement in Pitt's divorce after rumors that they became romantically involved during filming. (Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
By Paula Arend Laier

SAO PAULO, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Decisions by Brazilian shopping mall operators to cut tenants' rents are limiting store vacancies, sparing operators from the nation's harshest economic recession in eight decades and helping fuel a 45 percent jump in their shares this year.

Occupancy rates ranged between 93.8 percent and 98.1 percent in the second quarter, better-than-expected, yet, in most cases, slightly down from the first quarter, according to numbers provided by some of Brazil's listed mall firms. Analysts expect the numbers to remain around current levels, a sign of resilience.

By allowing tenants to pay less or parcel out rents for longer, mall landlords are offsetting a two-year decline in retail sales and declining household income, industry leaders said. Despite recent signs of reviving consumer sentiment, a recovery in retailing has a long way to go, they said.

"Albeit marginally, we have verified that vacancies have gone down thanks to these renegotiation accords between malls and store owners," said Luis Augusto Ildefonso da Silva, head of institutional relations at Alshop, a mall industry group.

The modifications to leases are similar to steps taken by banks, which raced to refinance hundreds of problematic loans from some of their top corporate clients, avoiding a jump in defaults and loan-loss provisions. Rent renegotiations, alongside expectations of lower borrowings, have helped mall stocks to outperform Brazil's benchmark Bovespa index.

Rent discounts, one of the few defensive tools at the disposal of the $47 billion industry to withstand defaults and vacancies, are likely to remain in effect this year and possibly in early 2017, said Cristina Betts, chief financial officer at Iguatemi Empresa de Shopping Centers SA.

Apart from negotiating with existing tenants, the lower rents could attract retailers with little or no presence in shopping malls, said Eduardo Prado, head of investor relations at Aliansce Shopping Centers SA.

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That could help malls improve their tenant mix, replacing troubled tenants with those in a better situation, Prado said.

New operators are more likely to give rent discounts than high-end or more established players, Iguatemi's Betts said.

Still, indicators continue to show mixed readings, making it harder for investors to accurately predict the timing of a rebound.

Credit Suisse Securities analysts said a gauge of same-store sales points to a recovery gaining traction in coming months, with the indicator having already troughed in the prior quarter. Yet, Iflux, an indicator gauging mall attendance, fell 2.5 percent in August over the same month a year earlier.

(Writing by Ana Mano; Editing by Guillermo Parra-Bernal and Leslie Adler)
SAO PAULO, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Vale SA intends to form a strategic partnership in fertilizers, a segment in which the world's largest iron ore producer, has failed to find a partner or sell in recent years.

In a securities filing on Thursday, Rio de Janeiro-based Vale said board members did not discuss a sale of the fertilizers unit. In recent days, several local newspapers said a sale of the unit would be approved at the Thursday board meeting.

Reuters reported on June 17 that Mosaic Co was in talks with Vale about the fertilizer unit, following the collapse of an attempted venture with Apollo Global Management LLC for the division.

(Reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal; Editing by Michael Perry)
Buzz off, EU.

Brexit has kicked the hornets nest.

Across Europe, populations of wild bees have been declining for the past decade. Its estimated that 75% of food cropsincluding fruit, vegetable, seed, nut and oil plantsdepend in part on bees and other animals to pollenate them, so the fallout from this mass death is potentially disastrous.

Climate change, habitat destruction, and disease have all played a part in this decline. But the link between bee deaths and a group of pesticides called neonicotinoids (nenonics, for short) is becoming more and more clear. Now, after leaving the EU, there is a chance that Britain could reintroduce these chemical concoctions back into its agricultural fray.

Neonics were introduced in the early 1990s to replace DDT, a more toxic chemical that was commonly used in farming. Because they are so effective at killing pests that could otherwise devastate crops, nenoics are now the most widely used pesticides in the world. But they affect insects theyre not meant to target, too. When bumblebees are exposed to neonics, their brains are affected, impairing their memory and ability to forage for pollen, as well as changing the ratio of males to females in a colony and sometimes even reducing the number of queens. This doesnt bode well for Mother Natures delicate balance.

With mounting evidence that neonics cause harm to these very important insects, in 2013 the European Union put a moratorium in place, banning their use for two years. At the time, the UK opposed the ban, and Britains National Farmers Union (NFU) fought to lift it by arguing it is disastrous for rapeseed farmers, whose crops are used for cooking oil. Now that the two-year period is up, the EU is currently reviewing the latest evidence to assess whether the ban should be extended. Its expected that it will.

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Given the fierce opposition to the ban from the NFU and agrochemical lobby, environmentalists are concerned that the UK will abolish the ban on neonics when it leaves the EU. With three quarters of the worlds crops relying on natural pollination and wild bee communities contributing an average of over $3,000 per hectare to the production of crops, the reintroduction of neonics could have serious implications for the UKs rural economy, food security, and global tradeand, of course, the bees.

Neonics can accumulate in the soil for years after use, showing up in the pollen and nectar of flowers growing in field margins, hedges, and water streams. Professor Dave Goulson, a biologist at Sussex University and founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, is one of the foremost scientists researching the effects of these pesticides on bee populations. His 2012 study on this subject helped pave the way for the EU moratorium on neonics. Since then, he says, evidence on how neonics pose a serious threat to bees has been mounting.

The most conclusive of these studies was published last year, by a group of Swedish scientists who tested the effects of neonics on bees in the field. Goulsons more recent research examines how neonics can accumulate in the soil for years after use, showing up in the pollen and nectar of flowers growing in field margins, hedges, and water streams. Evidence for them affecting bees, I think, is beyond reasonable doubt, Goulson says.

Crops in the UK survived for years before the introduction of neonics, and they can continue to strive without them. After learning about the potential harm they cause bees and other insects, British arable farmer Peter Lundgren willingly stopped using the chemicals on his farm in Lincolnshire, northern England, around eight years ago.

When I talk to groups of farmers who have had damage to crops by pests that would be controlled by neonicotinoids, they are open to alternatives, he says. I think they know essentially that neonicotinoidss days are numbered. Lundgren has been doing just fine without spraying his crops with the pesticides or buying treated seeds, carefully managing his wheat, rapeseed, and barley crops by using other insects and the occasional use of less-strong fertilizers to control pests. He now campaigns on the issue.

Still, the NFU is adamant that the ban is detrimental to farmers. It argues that there has been a dramatic increase cabbage-stem flea beetles since the EU introduced the ban in 2013 and claim that no form of pest control other than neonics can prevent this insect from damaging valuable rapeseed crop. Our stance on neonicotinoids seed treatments remains the same in light of current evidence, Emma Hamer, the NFUs senior plant advisor, said in a statement sent to Quartz. We believe the EU-wide moratorium is ill-informeda knee-jerk reaction from the EU Commission that is over-precautionary.

Bee prosperity aside, if the UK decides to reintroduce neonics once it leaves the EU, it could potentially affect Britains standing in the global economy.

The UK exports its food and drink to over 200 countries, accounting for a trade worth $23 billion in 2015. If the UK reintroduces neonics, countries where a ban is in place might refuse to import its agricultural produce.

France, which is among the largest importers of the UKs agricultural produce, is moving towards introducing a total ban on neonics that goes beyond the EUs ban on three kinds of the pesticide. The Canadian province of Ontario and the American state of Minnesota have also been suggesting a neonics ban. As farmers we need to be carefula bonfire of the regulations might mean that we end up in a position where we cant trade with the rest of the world, let alone Europe, Lundgren says.

With so many uncertainties over how, when, and even if the UK will leave the EU, at this point it is only possible to speculate over what Brexit could mean for bees. But with such bitter divides raging, it seems possible that the bees who had no say in the vote could be the ones forced to buzz off.

You can follow Sarah on Twitter at @Shearmans. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

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By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - Britain must maintain its close ties with European law enforcement agencies after it leaves the bloc, a senior British police chief said on Friday, amid concern that the country's security could be damaged by leaving the EU. Security was cited as a major issue by those who wanted Britain to remain in the European Union, including Prime Minister Theresa May, and the head of the bloc's law enforcement agency Europol has warned Brexit would have serious consequences. "In bluntest form, we must be able to continue to exchange intelligence and we must be able to understand the movement of criminals and criminal behaviour across international borders," Lynne Owens, Director General of Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA), told reporters. "We are supplying that information to the Home Office and it's for them to make the policy negotiations," she added. The June vote to leave the EU means Britain could lose access to the Schengen Information System, which shares data on criminal suspects within the passport-free zone in Europe, and its use of the European Arrest Warrant, which allows easier extradition of criminal suspects inside the EU. The NCA leads Britain's fight against serious and organised crime. David Armond, Owens' deputy, said he believed new deals could be reached if necessary through new bi-lateral or multi-lateral treaties but warned it could be a complex process. "It's a concern. We're ... coming up with a strong operational case why those arrangements are necessary and developing scenarios where if we can't do it this way there is an alternative. I won't pretend it's easy," he said. "The Europeans need us as much as we need them, maybe more so. I cannot envisage a situation where we can't continue to do business with our European partners, it's important for all of our security and the way we protect our citizens." Britain's membership of Europol is an immediate issue for the government which must decide whether to opt out of new EU legislation regarding the agency. Some pro-Brexit figures have said it would be illogical for Britain to sign up to closer police cooperation when it is in the process of leaving the bloc. A decision is expected in the next couple of months. (Editing by Stephen Addison)
By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's beleaguered national inquiry into child sex abuse, one of its largest and most expensive ever undertaken, has denied it is in crisis after its most senior lawyer became the latest figure to quit. The multi-million pound inquiry, expected to take some five years to complete, was launched by the government in July 2014 following a series of scandals dating back to the 1970s and allegations of abuse involving celebrities and politicians. Since then it has suffered numerous setbacks and three figures appointed to lead the investigations have stepped down, the latest being New Zealand High Court Judge Lowell Goddard who resigned in August. She was replaced by social care expert Alexis Jay who oversaw a 2014 investigation into wrongdoing in the northern English town of Rotherham which revealed some 1,400 children, some as young as 11, had been abused. In the latest blow, Ben Emmerson, the most senior lawyer appointed to help the inquiry, resigned late on Thursday shortly after he had been suspended because of concerns about "aspects" of his leadership. He quit just hours after another of the inquiry's senior legal team announced she too had resigned. "It has become clear to me that I am not the person to take this review forward on your behalf," Emmerson said in his resignation letter. The inquiry, set up by Prime Minister Theresa May in her former role as Home Secretary (interior minister), is to examine abuse at institutions including churches, schools and council bodies across the country and will also consider whether allegations were covered up by police or politicians. Critics say its scope is too wide, making it impossible to work effectively, while victims, many of whom have waited decades to tell their story, fear the establishment will again cover up the crimes they suffered. "Honestly this is truly a sad day for victims and survivors of abuse, when we lose one of the world's leading civil rights lawyers," Ian McFadyen, who was abused at school, wrote on Twitter. May said the inquiry had to go ahead. "We need to investigate, we need to learn the lessons from the past. If we don't do that we can't guarantee that we're going to be able to stop such abuse from happening in the future," she told BBC TV. "This is a really important inquiry." The inquiry itself said its work would continue. "It has been said that the inquiry is in crisis," a statement on its website said. "This is simply not the case, and the Chair and Panel are united in their determination to see this important work through to a conclusion." (Editing by Stephen Addison)
"James Bond" executive producer Callum McDougall has confirmed that British actor Daniel Craig is "absolutely the first choice" for series producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, who run 007 production banner Eon Productions.

McDougall, who has worked on the last four "Bond" films starring Craig -- alongside Broccoli and Wilson -- revealed the news on the UK's BBC Radio 4 "Today" program, when asked if Craig would be returning to the role, and said: "I wish I knew. We love Daniel. We would love Daniel to return as Bond. Without any question he is absolutely Michael G.Wilson and Barbara Broccoli's first choice. I know they're hoping for him to come back."

The statement follows speculation that Craig would not be returning to the franchise after the British actor failed to commit to another installment.

Since then, rumors that a raft of actors -- such as Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston or Jamie Bell -- could be in the running to replace Craig as the next 007, have been rife, although Eon has remained tight-lipped about any developments of their projects (via Deadline).
Nairobi (AFP) - A British aristocrat's son due to face trial in Kenya on Monday for smuggling 100 kilogrammes (220 pounds) of cocaine knew nothing about the illegal shipment, foreign investigators believe.

Jack Marrian, a 31-year-old sugar trader, faces a possible life sentence if found guilty of smuggling cocaine worth $6 million (5 million euros).

But the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) -- which worked with Spanish police to track and seize the shipment in late July -- believe Marrian and his co-accused, Kenyan clearing agent Roy Mwanthi, knew nothing of the drugs concealed in a sugar consignment from Brazil.

"We got information from our office in Spain. The intelligence was that their Spanish counterparts had information about a container that had suspected drugs in it," said Melvin Patterson, a DEA spokesman.

Spanish police believe the drugs were intended to be unloaded in Valencia and sold on the lucrative European market, but something went wrong and they were shipped onward to Kenya.

"A criminal group based in Valencia, Spain, tried to get cocaine out of a container, but failed," Patterson said.

- 'Rip-on, rip-off' -

When the shipment arrived in Mombasa, Kenyan anti-narcotics police discovered the plastic-wrapped bricks of cocaine hidden among sacks of sugar as well as a duplicate seal.

Experts say this is a sure sign of the "rip-on, rip-off" or "blind hook" smuggling technique whereby cartels secretly stash their illegal products inside a legitimate consignment removing the drugs at a stop en route and replacing the broken seal with the replica.

"The Spanish stressed that this was a 'rip-off' load and the recipient of the container would have no knowledge that it was being used to transport drugs," said Patterson.

Marrian and Mwanthi are due in court in Nairobi on Monday at the start of their trial. Both deny the charges.

His case has caused a sensation in his native Britain, where the aristocratic background of his mother Lady Emma Clare Campbell of Cawdor and his attendance at top private schools, including the alma mater of Prince William's wife Catherine, have caught the eye of the press.

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Sources familiar with the case suggest the two men were taken into custody because of public and political pressure to make an arrest after news of the bust broke in local media.

Kenya is a hub for heroin trafficking via the so-called "southern route" - from the poppy fields of Afghanistan and Pakistan to consumers in Europe via the Indian Ocean and East Africa - but cocaine trafficking is less common with West Africa the far more popular transshipment point for moving the drug from South America to Europe.

The domestic market for cocaine in East Africa is growing but remains small while drugs trafficking in Kenya, experts say, is tightly controlled by politically connected local cartels.
LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May said she will listen to Scotland's concerns over Britain's exit from the European Union but that the devolved Scottish government will not have a veto over the Brexit negotiations. Scotland wants to have more detail about how the British government plans to leave the EU to prevent a "hard Brexit" that would severely damage the economy, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Tuesday. After Britain's vote to leave the EU, Sturgeon said Scotland may seek another independence referendum - something that could split the world's fifth largest economy apart just as it attempts to go it alone outside the European bloc. "What I am very clear about is that, as we look into these negotiations, we will fully engage the Scottish government in the discussions that we have, in preparing what position the UK is going to take," May told BBC Scotland. When asked directly if Scotland could have a veto over Brexit, May said: "The United Kingdom will have a position in the negotiations and we, as a United Kingdom government, will be negotiating with the European Union." May added that the United Kingdom's government would listen to and take account of the particular concerns of Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom, which is made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom's devolved parliaments could complicate or slow an EU withdrawal as their remit over such a major change is unclear and there is a convention for giving the assemblies a say on matters that concern them. Scots rejected independence in a 2014 referendum. But in the referendum on EU membership on June 23, Scots voted to stay in the bloc while England and Wales opted to leave. "There are two questions you can ask about a second [independence] referendum in Scotland: One, 'Could there be?' And that's a process issue," May said. "I think the real question is 'Should there be another referendum in Scotland?' My answer to that is overwhelmingly 'no'," she said. "There should not be second referendum in Scotland." (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Scunthorpe (United Kingdom) (AFP) - In the fierce heat of a roaring blast furnace, liquid hot iron gushes forth from the taps, sending sparks dancing into the air at a sprawling steelworks in northern England.

The Scunthorpe complex is the latest reincarnation of British Steel, the former state-run behemoth that once towered over the nation's economy -- and now appears to be in recovery mode after a deep crisis.

"There's been some dark times -- periods of mass redundancy, a lot of negative press -- but now we are starting to see positive results financially," blast furnace manager Sam Thomas, 29, told AFP as melted iron ore spewed in the background.

"We're also starting to feel a bit more like the morale is picking up," said Thomas, who has worked at the facility for 11 years.

On its 100th day of trading on Thursday, the new British Steel announced that it was back in profit following a painful cost-slashing turnaround plan.

"There were many months of uncertainty and we all worked hard to get to a profitable situation," said Thomas, who oversees four gigantic blast furnaces established in the 1950s and named after queens of England -- Anne, Bess, Victoria and Mary.

The group, sold by India's Tata Steel to investment firm Greybull Capital in May, said Thursday it had turned from "significant" losses over the last few years to a stage where it was now back in profit.

- Rebirth of British Steel -

The region was thrown into disarray last year when Tata Steel put its European long products division up for sale as it refocussed on strip steel, in the face of a collapsing market.

The move sparked worries that Scunthorpe -- whose community of 65,000 inhabitants has been built around steel for generations -- could become a ghost town.

Long steel products comprise plates, rails for railways, sections used in construction, and wire rod. The latter can be used as steel rope for infrastructure like suspension bridges or filaments for car tyres to give rigidity.

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In late 2015, Tata had scrapped Scunthorpe's plates output -- a key market which has been ravaged in recent years by China's steel overcapacity and the subsequent flood of cheap imports into Europe.

In May 2016, Greybull bought the long products division -- including a steel mill in Hayange in northern France -- and renamed it British Steel in a deal under which Tata retained responsibility for the old British Steel's costly pension scheme.

The new firm focussed its efforts on niche output of long products with keen domestic demand, and its facilities in Britain and France now produce 2.8 million tonnes per year.

News of the group's profitability was welcomed Thursday by Scunthorpe's 3,000-strong work force, who had also agreed to a pay cut and different terms and conditions of employment.

The pay cut is now due to be reversed in June 2017.

- 'Not out of the woods' -

Britain's trade body UK Steel has said it wants the British government to help the industry more with both high energy costs and business rates and what it says are unfavourable national procurement policies.

"I welcome that they have brought the British Steel brand back to life. I think fundamentally it's a good and viable business and should have a strong viable future," UK Steel chief Gareth Stace told AFP.

The shock of Britain's EU exit referendum has been a double-edged sword, clouding the economic outlook but also making exports more competitive by sending the pound tumbling.

"Brexit -- for the time being, it hasn't happened yet," British Steel executive chairman Roland Junck told AFP.

"The only thing we see is the loss of value of the British pound, and that still for us is balanced: our raw material is becoming more expensive but the value of our sales outside of Europe actually compensated for that."

At the same time, there has been a modest recovery in steel prices -- after more than two years of collapse fuelled by cheap Chinese imports.

"We're not out of the woods yet, but we're in a much more positive place," said Andrew Wilson, area technical manager of rail at Scunthorpe.

"The future's looking good. If you shut the steelworks then the town becomes a ghost town. It's critical to the area."
Russia has said it expects Pakistan to take "effective" steps to stop activities of terrorist groups on its territory as it voiced concern over "aggravation" of the situation along the LoC between New Delhi and Islamabad.

By Press Trust of India: Russia on Friday said it expected Pakistan to take "effective" steps to stop activities of terrorist groups on its territory as it voiced concern over "aggravation" of the situation along the Line of Control between New Delhi and Islamabad following the surgical strike carried out by India on terror camps in PoK.

It also asked the two neighbours not to allow any escalation of tensions and settle their disputes through negotiations.

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CONCERNED WITH SITUATION ALONG LoC: RUSSIA



In a statement, Russia said it stands for "decisive struggle" against terrorism in all its manifestations. "We are concerned with the aggravation lately of the situation along the line of control between India and Pakistan. We are calling on both the parties not to allow any escalation of tensions and to settle the existing problems by political and diplomatic means through negotiations. We stand for a decisive struggle against terrorism in all its manifestations."

Also read: Afghanistan defends surgical strikes in PoK, says India acted in self-defence



"We expect the Government of Pakistan to take effective steps to stop activities of terrorist groups on its territory," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The statement came amid heightened tension between India and Pakistan after the Indian Army carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, seen as a reprisal for the Uri attack.

SOUTH KOREA BACKS INDIA



Meanwhile, South Korea has supported India's stance against terrorism emanating from Pakistan as Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan apprised its President Park Geun Hye about the surgical strike carried out by the Indian Army at the terror camps across the LoC.

Also read: Surgical strikes by Indian Army: China calls for India, Pakistan 'to exercise restraint'



The issue came up when Mahajan, who is leading a Parliamentary delegation, called on the President in Seoul.

During the discussions, the Speaker informed the Korean President about the "strong action" taken by India against terrorism, said a statement issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat, referring to the cross-LoC surgical strike.

--- ENDS ---
By Angel Krasimirov SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's parliament on Friday banned the wearing of face veils in public in a move supporters said would boost security after Islamist militant attacks in Europe, but which drew criticism from Amnesty International. The "burqa ban" law, pushed by the nationalist Patriotic Front coalition, echoes similar measures in western European countries such as France, the Netherlands and Belgium which have various laws banning the wearing of niqab full-face veils or head-to-toe burqas. People who do not comply with the ban in Bulgaria face fines of up to 1,500 levs ($860), as well as suspension of social benefits. The ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms refused to take part in the vote, which followed full-face veil bans in public in several Bulgarian towns. It said the ban would incite ethic and religious intolerance. The ruling center-right GERB party said the ban has nothing to do with religious outfits but is only aimed at boosting national security and allowing better video surveillance. "The law is not directed against religious communities and is not repressive," senior GERB lawmaker Krasimir Velchev said. "We made a very good law for the safety of our children." According to the law, clothing hiding the face may not be worn in government offices, schools, cultural institutions and places of public recreation, but exceptions are allowed for health or professional reasons. Human rights group Amnesty International said the ban violated Bulgarian women's rights to freedom of expression and religion, calling it part of a disturbing trend of intolerance, xenophobia and racism in the Black Sea state. "Women in Bulgaria should be free to dress as they please and to wear the burqa or the niqab as an expression of their identity or beliefs," Amnesty Internationals Europe Director John Dalhuisen said. "Legitimate security concerns can be met with targeted restrictions on the complete covering of the face in well-defined high risk locations and not through a blanket discriminatory ban such as this." A minority of Muslim women in Europe cover their faces, but their veils have become symbols for some Europeans troubled by security, immigration and Muslim integration. Muslims make up about 12 percent of Bulgaria's 7.2 million population and most belong to a centuries-old community, largely ethnic Turks. Muslim women in the country traditionally do not wear niqabs or burqas, except for a small group in the Roma community who have recently started, sparking tensions in the city of Pazarzhik. Many Bulgarians are concerned that the migrant inflows into Europe may pose a threat to their predominantly Orthodox Christian culture and help radicalize part of the country's long-established Muslim minority. (Reporting by Angel Krasimirov; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany's central bank sees no need for a new global stimulus package as it expects the world's economy to continue to recover, Bundesbank board member Andreas Dombret said on Friday.

The IMF has called on economies that have fiscal surpluses to spend more but its appeal has gone unheeded in Germany, where the central bank opposes further monetary easing and the government is reluctant to eat into its record budget surplus.

"We see no need for a global, coordinated package of monetary, fiscal and structural measures," Dombret said ahead of the IMF's annual meeting on Oct. 7-9.

"It is rather about the right policy mix, consistent with stability, in individual countries."

He added Germany would agree to extending a bilateral credit line that a set of countries granted to the IMF at the height of the euro zone crisis in 2012, provided that creditors are given voting rights and an 85 percent majority is required to activate that lane.

SECULAR STAGNATION

Dombret added that fears of "secular stagnation", that is persistently low economic growth, were overblown, even accounting for ageing populations in developed economies

"The danger of slipping into a secular stagnation is in our view overestimated," Dombret said.

"A certain weakening of trend growth in developed economies is unavoidable against the background of demographic developments," he added.

(Reporting by Francesco Canepa; Editing by Alison Williams)
- By insider





Chairman and CEO of C.r. Bard Inc (BCR) Timothy M Ring sold 92,293 shares of BCR on 09/28/2016 at an average price of $227.81 a share. The total sale was $21 million.

CR Bard Inc manufactures, distributes and sells medical, surgical, diagnostic and patient care devices. The Company sells its products to hospitals, individual healthcare professionals, and extended care facilities. C.r. Bard Inc has a market cap of $16.43 billion; its shares were traded at around $223.74 with a P/E ratio of 52.40 and P/S ratio of 4.77. The dividend yield of C.r. Bard Inc stocks is 0.43%. C.r. Bard Inc had an annual average EBITDA growth of 8.50% over the past 10 years. GuruFocus rated C.r. Bard Inc the business predictability rank of 2-star.





CEO Recent Trades:

Chairman and CEO Timothy M Ring sold 92,293 shares of BCR stock on 09/28/2016 at the average price of $227.81. The price of the stock has decreased by 1.79% since.

Chairman and CEO Timothy M Ring sold 110,000 shares of BCR stock on 09/26/2016 at the average price of $228.96. The price of the stock has decreased by 2.28% since.

Directors and Officers Recent Trades:

VP - Human Resources Betty D Larson sold 4,032 shares of BCR stock on 09/19/2016 at the average price of $225.33. The price of the stock has decreased by 0.71% since.

Sr. VP, Gen Counsel & Secy. Samrat S. Khichi sold 9,183 shares of BCR stock on 09/06/2016 at the average price of $221.01. The price of the stock has increased by 1.24% since.

Sr. VP Sci Tech and Clin Afrs John A Deford sold 7,928 shares of BCR stock on 09/06/2016 at the average price of $221.06. The price of the stock has increased by 1.21% since.

For the complete insider trading history of BCR, click here

.This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






CalAmp Corp. (CAMP) shares tumbled on Friday after it released its fiscal second-quarter financial results late on Thursday. The company said that it had $0.27 in earnings per share (EPS) on $90.5 million in revenue. The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters had called for EPS of $0.31 on $95.01 million in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had $0.31 in EPS and revenue of $74.67 million.

In terms of guidance for the fiscal third-quarter, the company expects to have revenues between $81 million and $87 million and EPS in the range of $0.24 to $0.30. The consensus estimates are $0.35 in EPS on $97.88 million in revenue.

ALSO READ: The Most Dangerous Cities in America

During the second quarter, the company purchased and retired roughly 580,000 shares of its common stock at an aggregate cost of $8.5 million, pursuant to a stock repurchase plan adopted in June 2016. At the end of the quarter, the remaining authorization for additional share purchases under this plan is $16.5 million.

On the books, cash and marketable securities totaled $117 million at the end of the quarter. Net cash provided by operating activities was $11.0 million during the second quarter of fiscal 2017.

Michael Burdiek, CalAmp's president and CEO, commented:

The company continues its rapid pace of innovation, expanding its product portfolio and leadership position in the connected vehicle marketplace. Our pipeline of opportunities is very healthy, and we recently won two significant MRM telematics device customers who are expected to contribute to our long-term growth. Although we have been impacted by tough macro conditions in North America, we continue to invest in market-leading telematics solutions, and we remain optimistic that we will see a pick-up in growth from CalAmp's core businesses and new opportunities emerging through LoJack channels.

ALSO READ: 18 Jobs Being Replaced by Robots

Shares of CalAmp were down more than 14% to $14.00 Friday morning, with a consensus analyst price target of $22.29 and a 52-week trading range of $13.01 to $21.35.

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A bill signed into law on Thursday by California Governor Jerry Brown allows a self-driving vehicle with no operator inside to test on a public road, a key step enabling a private business park outside San Francisco to test driverless shuttles. Self-driving cars are already allowed to test on California public roads by 15 automakers, technology companies and startups, including Alphabet's Google , Ford , Honda <7267.T> and Tesla . But under current state regulations, a person must be in the driver's seat for monitoring, and the car must have brakes and a steering wheel. The bill introduced by Democratic Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla allows testing in Contra Costa County northeast of San Francisco of the first full-autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel, brakes, accelerator or operator. A project at the Bishop Ranch office park in the city of San Ramon to deploy driverless shuttles from French company Easymile had been on hold pending passage of the bill. Easymile already operates the shuttles in Europe. New legislation was necessary because although driverless vehicles can be tested on private land like the office park, the shuttle will cross a public road on its loop through the campus. The new law means that two cube-like Easymile shuttles that travel no faster than 25 mph (40 kph) will be tested for a period of up to six months before being deployed and used by people. In an interview with Reuters in March, Bonilla said the "natural tension" between regulators concerned about safety and lawmakers trying to encourage innovation in their state necessitated a new bill. "They're risk averse and we're saying we need to open the door here and take steps (to innovate)," Bonilla said, calling the driverless shuttle project "a very wise first out-of-the- gate opportunity" to show how the technology could work safely. Those working on self-driving vehicles believe their first real-world applications will be on campuses, business parks and other controlled environments with less traffic and fewer distractions than busy urban streets. Google and others have complained that California state regulations on self-driving vehicles are too restrictive, and that a patchwork of state regulations is unwieldy. Google has begun testing in Texas, where laws do not address autonomous vehicles without drivers, steering wheels or brakes. The federal government released a set of voluntary guidelines last week on autonomous vehicles, hoping to create a framework for states as they design rules governing robot vehicles.. (Reporting by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Peter Cooney)
(Adds analyst comment, updates prices to close) * Canadian dollar ends at C$1.3117, or 76.24 U.S. cents * Bond prices lower across the maturity curve * 10-year yield touches a fresh historic low at 0.904 percent By Alastair Sharp TORONTO, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The Canadian dollar strengthened against its U.S. counterpart on Friday as its economy grew more than expected in July, but its muted gains over a week in which oil prices surged raised questions about the currency's ability to further appreciate.

Canada's gross domestic product grew 0.5 percent in July, fueled by a rebound in oil and gas extraction after wildfires in Alberta earlier this year, Statistics Canada data showed. The economic growth topped analysts' forecasts for a gain of 0.3 percent.

"All in all a solid report ... it should definitely push back against some of the recent pessimism we see in the market," said Andrew Kelvin, senior rates strategist at TD Securities.

The currency's muted response to that data and the sharp weekly gain in the price of oil, a major Canadian export, raised concerns for Adam Button, a currency analyst at ForexLive in Montreal.

"The inability of the Canadian dollar to make any kind of significant gain on Friday despite a stellar GDP report is a worrisome sign," he said, calling the loonie "extremely vulnerable".

The currency settled at C$1.3117 to the greenback, or 76.24 U.S. cents, stronger than Thursday's close of C$1.3149, or 76.05 U.S. cents. Its strongest level of the session was C$1.3088, while its weakest was C$1.3195.

It rose 0.4 percent over the week, while U.S. crude prices were up about 7 percent, helped by Wednesday's announcement of an OPEC deal aimed at removing some production from an oversupplied market.

On Tuesday, the loonie hit its weakest in nearly six months.

In other domestic data, producer prices unexpectedly fell in August as meat and dairy products saw the largest decrease in nearly nine years, while lower prices for energy and petroleum products also weighed, data from Statistics Canada showed.

Story continues

Canadian government bond prices fell across the yield curve, with the two-year down 4.5 Canadian cents to yield 0.519 percent and the benchmark 10-year off 40 Canadian cents to yield 0.997 percent.

Earlier, the 10-year yield touched a fresh historic low at 0.904 percent.

ForexLive's Button said those trading the U.S.-Canada currency pair may be starting to get jitters about what a possible Donald Trump victory in November's U.S. presidential election could mean for Canada's trade relationship with the United States.

"It's like a Brexit for Canada and someone else is doing the voting," he said.

(Additional reporting by Fergal Smith; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
Social networking sites is being monitored for hate content, rumours and morphed videos with fear of sporadic reaction after the Indian Army carried out surgical strike across LoC.

By Mustafa Shaikh: With fear of sporadic reactions after the surgical strike was carried out by the Indian Army in PoK on Thursday, Maharashtra Anti-terror squad (ATS) in coordination with other agencies, has been on alert in regards with radical elements and suspicious youths spreading hate content on social networking sites.

"We have widened the war footing and are keeping a tab on all the radical elements. Citizens are being alerted through WhatsApp messages that they should not forward any rumours text without confirmation. As a routine process, ATS deletes jihadi videos on the social networking sites," an official said, on the condition of anonymity.

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Also Read: How 25 Indian commandos crawled through enemy territory to kill 38 terrorists in PoK

AN EYE BEING KEPT ON SOCIAL MEDIA, MORPHED VIDEOS ON SURGICAL STRIKE

The official said an eye is also been kept "on people who are visiting such sites. There is a concern of reaction or anti-social elements spreading rumors (after the surgical strike)- that's why these measures are being taken."

According to the plan, attempts will be made to erase morphed videos of the surgical strike. It will be ensured that social media is not used as a tool to spread rumors among the citizens.

According to some reports, as many as 356 jihadi videos have been blocked by the ATS, but the agency maintains that its a usual exercise and not because of Thursday's surgical strikes.

Also Read: Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike

No specific alerts have been given to the Mumbai Police or the Indian Coast Guard but Mumbai is on high security due to the festive season.

The national capital Delhi too is on high alert after the surgical strike was carried out by the Indian Army.

Also Read:

Delhi on high alert after Indian Army carries out surgical strike across LoC

After India's surgical strike, Pakistan violates ceasefire yet again

India hits Pakistan back with surgical strikes across Line of Control, 38 killed

Indian Army strikes as they unfolded across Line of Control

Who strategised the Indian Army's surgical strikes across the LoC?



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By Michael Hogan HAMBURG (Reuters) - Europe's brewers should soon enjoy an improved supply of the key beer ingredient hops, as a much larger harvest is expected in Germany, ending shortages that have plagued the industry in recent months, the head of a top global hops trading house said. After a weather-hit 2015 crop in Germany, which provides hops for much of Europe, brewers faced such tight supplies that at times they struggled find hops on the open market and were forced to buy inventories from each other. "Germany's harvest is not over yet but it looks like the crop will be much better than the disastrous crop in 2015 and we are expecting the largest German hop crop since 1993," Stephan Barth, managing partner of the German/U.S. Barth Haas Group told Reuters. "I think European beer brewers will face much better hop supplies in the coming year." Germany and the United States are the two dominant hop growers, each accounting for one-third of world production. Germany is a major hop exporter to regions including west and east Europe, Asia and Africa and its crop is of great importance to brewers in these areas, such as Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller. Last summer's hot and dry weather blighted the European hop harvest while strong demand for increasingly popular craft beers, which need more hops, brought tight supplies and rising hop prices. But a better mix of rain and sunshine this summer has helped the harvest. Germany's 2016 hop harvest is likely to rise by around 45 percent to about 41,000 tonnes from about 28,300 tonnes harvested in 2015, Barth said. "The figures are still estimates but the current harvest picture in Germany looks much better than last year," Barth said. "Precise figures will not be available for a couple of months." The harvest picture elsewhere in Europe is also better than last year, he said. In other main producing countries, the Czech Republic is expected to have a very good crop, Poland's is above average and Slovenia's average, Barth said. But although supplies will be better, the improved harvest picture is not currently putting much downward pressure on hop prices. Prices of some hop types had risen by 35 to 50 percent following the bad 2015 harvest. "Prices are surprisingly stable and even increasing despite the better supply outlook," Barth said. "This is possibly connected with the fact that inventories had to be run down in the past months after the lousy crops in 2013 and particularly 2015 to meet hop demand." "Inventories are now being re-filled but it might take another large harvest before we see major downward pressure on prices. However it is a great relief to the industry that we look like getting a better crop this year in terms of size." (Reporting by Michael Hogan, editing by David Evans)
Memo to pundits: Do not back out of an appearance on Chelsea Handlers show at the last minute, lest you be ridiculed.

Handler ripped into conservative pundit Ann Coulter on Thursday, after Coulter apparently cancelled an appearance on Chelsea in the 11th hour.

According to Handler, the talk-show host went out on a limb and booked Coulter, an ardent Trump supporter and author of In Trump We Trust.

Also Read: Actually, Ann Coulter, Rob Lowe Roast Producers Amplified Laughs for Your Jokes (Exclusive)

And guess what she did? She called in sick right before the show today, Handler said in a segment of her show Wednesday.

Handler added that Coulter made the cancellation via email.

You know how seriously I take this job? I was up at 5 a.m. this morning reading this piece of garbage, Handler said, holding up a copy of Coulters book. And then you email in sick.

Also Read: Rob Lowe Roast Writers Reveal Jokes That Ann Coulter Rejected (Video)

In an attempt to present her audience with an idea of how the interview might have gone, Handler employed a body double in the form of the very un-Coulterlike Fortune Feimster, who rattled off Coulter quotes such as, It would be a much better country if women did not vote. That is simply a fact.

And, Gays are the molecular opposite of blacks. Everybody likes the gays moving in next door.

And also, Americans should fear Mexicans more than ISIS.

With the audience clearly turning on her, Coulter/Feimster declared, You guys clearly didnt read my book.

Also Read: Ann Coulter Changes Course on 'Mental' Donald Trump (Audio)

In all fairness, in defense of my audience, its hard to get through that piece of s, Handler shot back.

Ouch.

Watch the exchange between Handler and faux-Coulter in the video

Related stories from TheWrap:

Actually, Ann Coulter, Rob Lowe Roast Producers Amplified Laughs for Your Jokes (Exclusive)

Rob Lowe Roast Writers Reveal Jokes That Ann Coulter Rejected (Video)

Ann Coulter Changes Course on 'Mental' Donald Trump (Audio)
BEIJING (Reuters) - China will make countering the Dalai Lama's influence the "highest priority" in its work on ethnic affairs in Tibet, the region's Communist Party boss has said, vowing to uproot the monk's "separatist and subversive" activities. Beijing says its Communist troops peacefully liberated Tibet in 1950 and regards the 80-year-old, Nobel Peace Prize-winning Buddhist monk as a separatist. The self-exiled Dalai Lama says he merely seeks genuine autonomy for his Himalayan homeland. China's Foreign Ministry expressed anger and threatened countermeasures this month after the Tibetan spiritual leader spoke at the European Parliament in France. "First, we must deepen the struggle against the Dalai Lama clique, make it the highest priority in carrying out our ethnic affairs, and the long-term mission of strengthening ethnic unity," Tibet party secretary Wu Yingjie said in a speech published on Friday in the official Tibet Daily. "(We must) thoroughly expose the reactionary nature of the fourteenth Dalai Lama, crack down on separatist and subversive activities, and strive to eliminate at their roots harmful elements that damage ethnic unity," Wu said. Public veneration of the Dalai Lama, who fled China in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule, is prohibited in Tibet, though in private, many Tibetans revere the monk and display his picture. Identifying the effort to crack down on his influence the top task in the region's ethnic affairs suggests Wu will ratchet up the government's already hardline approach in the devoutly Buddhist region, which is prone to anti-Chinese unrest. Wu was appointed Tibet's top official in late August, and has vowed stronger criticism of the Dalai Lama. The government rejects criticism from rights groups and exiles who accuse it of trampling on the religious and cultural rights of the Tibetan people, saying instead that its rule has brought prosperity to a once-backward region. Nonetheless, China faces no shortage of problems in the region, including those stemming from poverty, language barriers, and development that has at times clashed with a traditional herding lifestyle. Tibetans, one of China's 56 officially recognized minority groups, are guaranteed legal protection for their languages and cultures. But they are often marginalized and treated with suspicion by Beijing, which views them as potential separatists. Officials see ethnic affairs work, such as improving Mandarin proficiency among minorities, as key to ensuring national cohesion and creating economic opportunity. There has been resistance to greater Mandarin education in schools in Tibet, with people fearing the government wants to culturally assimilate them. The government denies that. (Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Hillary Clinton at a campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa, Sept. 29, 2016. (Photo: Matt Rourke/AP)

Hillary Clinton announced Friday that she wants to enlist 5 million new volunteers into a National Service Reserve aimed at 18- to 30-year-olds.

What if we strengthen the culture of service in America so it wasnt just something we did one day a year, but it became a regular part of our lives? she asked at a Florida rally on the topic of national service on Friday.

The former secretary of state argued that her volunteer plan would help combat growing self-segregation in America, where people surround themselves with people who think, talk, look and read the same news as they do. That comes with a cost. It magnifies our differences, she said, adding that the election has drawn attention to that trend. Then it makes it harder to put those differences aside when our country needs us.

Reservists, under Clintons plan, would respond to natural disasters, help the homeless or tackle other local problems, the campaign said. Under the plan, they would be eligible for college credit, time off from work, or even a modest stipend, based on financial need, to participate in the Reserve. (Clinton will negotiate with higher education institutions and corporations to get those benefits.)

Clinton also wants to expand AmeriCorps, a paid-service organization, from 75,000 members to 250,000, and expand the Peace Corps for those who want to volunteer abroad. The ultimate goal is that anyone who wants to serve full time will be able to do so, Clinton said in her speech. Part of the plan is also aimed at adding volunteer opportunities for Americans over 55 by increasing slots for them in AmeriCorps and involving them in other volunteer organizations.

On the 20th anniversary of the AmeriCorps national service program, hundreds of new volunteers were sworn in for duty at a White House ceremony, Sept. 12, 2016. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

A Clinton campaign aide said the program offers a contrast to Trumps self-centered message during a week in which he has feuded with a former beauty queen on Twitter and in interviews. As we see Trump focused on making sexist and derogatory comments and dividing the country, we are going to continue to run a campaign thats about bringing the country together, the aide said of Clintons national service speech.

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The plan also offers an opportunity for the candidate to emphasize her own record of service for children  which could help combat her high unfavorable ratings  while also reaching out to voters under 30.

Clinton has struggled to consolidate support among millennials, whose votes she needs to win crucial swing states like Florida and North Carolina. Earlier this month, she gave a speech aimed at the group, admitting that many of them have doubts about her but vowing to win their support. Her top surrogates, including Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders, have fanned out on college campuses in battleground states to urge young voters to back Clinton and to tout her plan to make college debt free for middle-class families.

The campaign noted that millennials are particularly interested in volunteerism and that five times as many people apply for AmeriCorps than get accepted.
Chicago (AFP) - Hillary Clinton on Thursday took a swipe at Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, who further crippled his longshot bid for the White House by failing to name a single foreign leader he likes.

Johnson, who has virtually no chance of making it to the White House, could still prove a thorn in the Democratic nominee's side by siphoning off votes in Colorado and other battleground states.

In a cringe-inducing minute-long segment during a MSNBC town hall-style event, Johnson sat speechless after host Chris Matthews asked him, "Who's your favorite foreign leader? Any one of the continents, any country, name one foreign leader that you respect and look up to, anybody."

The embarrassment follows another live television crash-and-burn, when the former New Mexico governor replied "what is Aleppo?" to an interview question about the Syrian city at the center of global attention.

Asked about her favorite world leader by campaign reporters in Chicago on Thursday, Clinton said "oh, let me think," before bursting into laughter.

"No, look," she continued. "I like a lot of the world leaders. One of my favorites is Angela Merkel."

"I think she's been an extraordinary, strong leader during difficult times in Europe, which has obvious implications for the rest of the world."

"Her leadership and steadiness on the euro crisis and her bravery in the face of the refugee crisis is something that I am impressed by."

The two women have known each other for a long time, "back into the 1990s," Clinton boasted.

"I've spent a lot of time with her and I hope that I'll have the opportunity to work with her in the future," she added. "But we could talk about lots of different leaders if you want to sometime."

Clinton's Republican rival Donald Trump, who has previously castigated Merkel, also decided to choose her as his favorite world leader on Thursday.

"I think Merkel is a really great world leader," he told New England Cable News before adding that he "was very disappointed" in her because of "the whole immigration thing."
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that Republican opponent Donald Trump may have violated U.S. law, following a news report that one of his companies attempted to do business in Cuba. Newsweek said on Thursday that a hotel and casino company controlled by Trump secretly conducted business with Cuba that was illegal under U.S. sanctions in force during Fidel Castro's presidency of the Communist-ruled island. (See the Newsweek article: http://bit.ly/2dmKH3e) Today we learned about his efforts to do business in Cuba which appear to violate U.S. law, certainly flout American foreign policy, and he has consistently misled people in responding to questions about whether he was attempting to do business in Cuba, Clinton told reporters on her campaign plane. Clinton and Trump are in a close race ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Newsweek, citing interviews with former Trump executives, internal company records and court filings, said the Trump company spent at least $68,000 for a 1998 trip to Cuba at a time when any corporate expenditure in the Caribbean country was prohibited without U.S. government approval. The Trump company did not spend the money directly, but funneled the cash for the Cuba trip through an American consulting firm, Newsweek said. Newsweek cited a former Trump executive as saying the goal of the Cuba trip was to give Trumps company a foothold should Washington loosen or lift the restrictions under the U.S. trade embargo. The former executive said Trump had participated in discussions about the Cuba trip and knew it had taken place, according to Newsweek. "The efforts that Trump is making to get into the Cuba market, putting his business interests ahead of the laws of the United States ... shows that he puts his personal and business interests ahead of the laws and the values and the policies of the United States of America," Clinton said. (Reporting by Amanda Becker; Writing by Eric Beech; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Peter Cooney)
Sources in home ministry say the militants who are already in the valley are hoping to sneak in and conduct a 'spectacular' strike.

By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: After the surgical strikes conducted by Indian forces in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, intelligence agencies have a mammoth task at hand. The festival season is round the corner and that represents an opportunity for the terrorists to strike back.

Sources in home ministry say the militants who are already in the Valley are hoping to sneak in and conduct a 'spectacular' strike.

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CIVILIANS UNDER THREAT

Intelligence sources also point out that terrorists may target security forces but the possibility of civilians being targeted is not being ruled out. The danger is higher in the Jammu region. Though evacuation of villages from border areas along Jammu and Punjab is being undertaken, there is still a sense of worry that a possible attack in some of the areas along the border might catch the forces off guard.

But what has been a shot in the arm for the security and intelligence wing is the pre-emptive action in many locations targeting the sleeper cells. The NIA, along with the state police forces and the Intelligence Bureau (IB), has targeted many sleeper cells while working on a case involving ISIS suspects.

TERROR CAMPS SHIFTED

There is also a report that terror camps and launchpads along LOC have been shifted back deep inside PoK after the surgical strikes.

While India is busy patting its own back, the next few days will be extremely crucial on the security front with Pakistan-based terror groups looking to strike back with vengeance, said a senior officer.



ALSO READ:

Surgical strikes effect: MHA asks all states to beef up security anticipating Pak retaliation

Surgical strikes effect: Terror chiefs told to lie low in Pakistan



--- ENDS ---
Hillary Clinton was in Florida ahead of two separate rallies there Friday, and it's likely part of her agenda will include ramping up her rhetoric to appeal to black voters in the key swing state. It's for good reason, too.

Despite the overwhelming support she has received from the African-American community, especially compared to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, there appear to be valid fears black voters may not come out to the polls to support her on Election Day.

InsideGov | Graphiq

Florida is seemingly the most important of all the swing states, according to political pundits who keep citing President Barack Obama's presidential election success there in 2008 and 2012. Florida previously cost Democrats the White House in 2000 when George W. Bush edged then-Vice President Al Gore.

"I expect black vote to be down a little from 2012. It was a historical vote. But I dont suspect it to go back to 2000 or 2004 levels, Steve Schale, a former Obama campaign official in the state, told CBS News. "We dont need it to be at 2012 levels we just need it to be close to that and I think it will be close to that."

Black voters in Florida heavily favor Clinton with 69 percent support, according to a CBS poll released this week. But African-American Floridians elected (and re-elected) Obama with about 95 percent support, a threshold Clinton likely needs to match in order to win the Sunshine State.

The voting bloc of 1.7 million black Floridians has been instrumental for Democratic candidates throughout modern history, but especially in the recent past, CBS News reported. "The black vote is the most cohesive vote in the whole state, and has been," said Susan McManus, a political analyst from the University of South Florida. "The margin of victory that black voters have given Democrats in the last three election cycles have been huge compared to margins of victory within the Latino community or the white community."

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MooseRoots | Graphiq

An average of national polls taken by Politico found Clinton and Trump are nearly tied in the swing states of Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. However, the Democratic presidential nominee is leading by a wide margin with heavy support from likely black voters, according to the most recent USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times "Daybreak" tracking poll. More than 74 percent of African-Americans nationwide are on Team Hillary, but questions linger over their true satisfaction with her track record in advocating for black people.

You cannot win this election without the African American vote, L. Douglas Wilder, the former governor of Virginia who is the first African-American in the U.S. elected to serve in that post, told the Washington Post last week. Hillary obviously has the necessary qualifications.  But tell me how what youve done relates to what (the black community) needs.

While Clinton was enjoying a slim lead over Trump nationally, the billionaire candidate was ahead in states with scant black populations. Iowa, for example, has voted for a Democratic candidate six out of the last seven presidential elections, according to the Hill. This election, however, Five Thirty Eight found the state is skewing Republican by a margin of 4 percentage points. Early voting in Iowa officially got underway Thursday.

Another likely concern for Clinton's campaign is Trump's reported recent 20 percentage point surge in support among black voters, something that News One's Roland Martin said could be an issue for the Democrat in other swing states. "If they dont get serious about driving Black votes hard in Florida, North Carolina, as well as Ohio, they may have serious problems," Martin said about Clinton's campaign this week.

When factoring third party candidates into the presidential polling equation, Trump's campaign placed third behind Green Party nominee Jill Stein but ahead of Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson with African-American voters. Just 3 percent of likely black voters across the nation were supporting the Republican in the Washington Post poll released earlier this month. Johnson and Stein garnered similarly lackluster polling numbers among blacks, with 2 percent and 4 percent, respectively.

InsideGov | Graphiq

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In visits to the Detroit area last month, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump pledged to inject new life into the region, unlocking new jobs and growth in areas evolving after manufacturing losses.

In Warren, Michigan, Clinton described a budding "comeback" there, pledging to spread the "revitalization" to areas of the state that have not yet recovered from the auto industry's drubbing during the recession. Trump, just days earlier in Detroit, discussed an American Dream that "long ago vanished" for many in the city, outlining crime and unemployment problems that he, not Clinton, was equipped to fix.

The reality for Detroit and other former manufacturing hubs in swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania sits somewhere between the candidates' depictions. Both Trump and Clinton chose the Detroit area to make their speeches, as it not only represents a shifting U.S. economy but also sits in a state that will help to determine who controls the White House.

"The one thing that Trump's overlooked is there's been a turnaround in Detroit recently," said Stephen Spurr, an economics professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, who noted that the city still faces hurdles in crime, infrastructure and education.



The comments the candidates made about the Motor City provide a blueprint of their campaign messages and how they would address economic growth throughout the country. While their economic visions contrast, some of their plans for renewal do overlap.

The Detroit area's unemployment rate of about 6 percent is worse than about 5 percent for the U.S., but has fallen from more than 7 percent in January 2015, according to the Labor Department. The area's unemployment rate sits lower than it did in January 2006 before the financial crisis.

Detroit still lags the recovery seen by the broader U.S., but its economy has shifted in recent years. "Professional and business services," "trade, transportation and utilities" and "education and health services" now employ more people than manufacturing, the Labor Department said. Total nonfarm payrolls in the Detroit area increased 2.3 percent in July from the previous year.

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So how would both candidates try to boost growth? Clinton wants to raise additional government cash through tax increases on the wealthy, aiming to put $10 billion into what she calls "Make it in America" manufacturing partnerships. She proposed to invest in job training for displaced manufacturing workers, simplify tax filing for small businesses and expand broadband access.

Trump's renewal efforts focus largely on unlocking growth through across-the-board tax cuts. He supports income tax reductions for all tax brackets, as well as a reduced 15 percent corporate tax rate and end to the estate tax on the wealthy . He also wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and end the Trans-Pacific Partnership, claiming trade changes will save millions of American jobs.

Most independent analyses have raised concerns about the American deficit growth under Trump's tax plan, even after economic growth is taken into account.

Spurr also identified infrastructure as a key need for Detroit, and both candidates have pledged to inject money into that. Clinton said in her Warren speech that she wants to create an infrastructure bank, claiming "$25 billion in government seed funding could unlock more than $250 billion and really get our country moving on our infrastructure plans." She would also use tax hikes on the wealthy to fund that investment.

Trump has repeatedly pledged to boost infrastructure spending, but his method of payment is less clear. He said in Detroit that the "new wealth" created by the tax cuts will help to boost investment in infrastructure and the military.

Spurr said he sees flaws in Clinton's plan, but believes it would prove more effective than Trump's. In particular, he said he does not think Trump's tax cuts can be implemented without stifling social services or ballooning the national deficit.

So who has made strides in Michigan and the Rust Belt overall? Clinton will likely win the heavily Democratic Detroit, and has a 5-point advantage in an average of recent polls of Michigan, according to RealClearPolitics.

Trump has an average 2-point lead in Ohio in recent polls, while Clinton holds a 1.8-point average advantage in Pennsylvania.

Tune in to CNBC at 1 p.m. ET on Monday, when "Power Lunch" heads to Detroit to get a read on Motown's revival, the auto industry and Michigan's economy in this election year. Quicken Loans founder and developer Dan Gilbert will be co-host.











More From CNBC


(Reuters) - IT services provider Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp (CTSH.O) said it was conducting an internal investigation into possible violations of U.S. anti-corrupt practices laws related to payments in India, sending its shares tumbling on Friday.

The company also said President Gordon Coburn had resigned and would be replaced by Rajeev Mehta, the head of IT services.

Cognizant, which gave no reason for Coburn's departure, did not respond to a query on whether it was linked to the probe.

The company's shares closed down 13.4 percent at $47.63 on Friday, wiping out about $4.5 billion of market value.

They fell as much as 17.4 percent to $45.44, their lowest in more than two years.

Cognizant is based in Teaneck, New Jersey but about three-quarters of its employees are in India.

The investigation is focused on a small number of company-owned facilities, Cognizant said in a regulatory filing. It said it could not predict the impact on its financial results.

Citigroup downgraded Cognizant's stock to "neutral" from "buy", citing the investigation.

"It is too early to know more specifics, but the possible violations appear to be quite serious, especially given the resignation ...", Citigroup analysts wrote in a client note.

Cognizant said it had notified the Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission about the probe.

Earlier this year, the Justice department launched a pilot program designed to encourage companies to self-report violations of foreign bribery laws in return for reduced penalties.

A number of U.S. companies have been accused of breaking laws related to corruption overseas this year.

U.S. authorities said on Thursday that Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC (OZM.N) would pay $412 million to resolve probes into the hedge fund's role in bribing officials in several African countries.

(Reporting by Anya George Tharakan and Sai Sachin Ravikumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Ted Kerr and Sriraj Kalluvila)
When a tech company recently came to Stefano Schiavon at the University of California, Berkeley to test an air-conditioning system for its office, his mind went to flip-flops. The new system would blast cool air from the floor rather than the ceiling, and this being the Bay Area, and this being a tech company, Schiavon figured he couldnt use the same old models researchers have been using since the 70s to study thermal comfort. (Yes, that is the name for the academic study of maintaining a building at just the right temperature.)

He needed to test people in flip-flops.

Feet, it turns out, are exquisitely sensitive to temperature. When you get cold, the blood vessels in your extremities are the first to constrict, which is your bodys way of preventing more heat loss. You feel uncomfortable because your feet get numb or getting close to numb, says Edward Arens, an architect at the University of Berkeley, who also studies thermal comfort. If building managers could heat or cool the feet alone, they could cut energy and costs. So at Berkeley, researchers are focusing on thermal comfort from the feet up.

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Despite the outsized importance of feet in thermal comfort, footwear hasnt been a big focus in the field. Shoes havent gotten quite as much attention as clothing, says Arens. Thermal comfort researchers have long had a trove of data on how well different types of clothing insulate the body. Not so with shoes. Ten years ago, about all they had data for was mens shoes with thick socks, going back to the 60s when everyone was wearing suits, he says.

As someone who does not wear mens shoes with thick socks, I confess to having hoarded a mini heater under my desk for the express purpose of warming my ankles. These heaters, Arens informed me, are hated by the building managers. Theyre fire hazards, and theyre hugely inefficient because they blow hot air. Think about it: Blowing and heat actually have opposite effects. Blowing air over your feet cools them. So to warm your feet by blowing air, the heater has to blow extra hot air. And because that air mixes with cooler air in the room, it has to blow extra extra hot air. There is your fire hazard.

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Stefano Schiavon

Arens has a better, more energy-efficient idea. Hes built a foot warmer that, unfortunately, looks a bit a foot oven. But inside, a lightbulb radiates heat onto your feet. No hot air. In tests among librarians working on the University of California, Berkeley campus, the foot warmers kept the librarians warm even when the room temperature dropped 4 degrees Fahrenheit. That actually cut heating costs in half, according to Arens. If your feet are warm, the rest of your body can easily compensate for those 4 degrees by burning a few more calories without much discomfort.

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An even more direct way to heat your feet? Heated insoles. Arens showed me some battery-powered prototypes on his desk. The tiny batteries could draw wireless power from charging coils in a mat. Because the insoles would directly heat your feet, they draw just two watts of powercompared to the 1000 watts of hot air personal heaters can. (The foot warmers draw about 30 watts.) The prototypes are clunky though, not exactly something you can slip into a sleek pair of heels.

And thats the challenge in selling office workers on these personal heating devices. People care about how things look. They dont really care about saving their employers money on the energy bill. Arens said, not entirely jokingly, that the foot warmer could be better marketed for weight lossyou can stay comfortable while the rest of your body burns extra calories in the cold.

When it comes to cooling, feet need special consideration, too. What the tech company wanted Schiavon to test was an office-wide system that blew cool air at foot level. So Schiavon set up the system in Berkeleys controlled environment chamber, a simulated office space where he has complete control over the chambers temperature, airflow, and humidity. He recruited students wearing flip-flops, plopped them in front of computers for three hours, and repeatedly surveyed them about their comfort levels.

Feet and ankles, Schiavon found, are even more sensitive to blowing air than previously thought. And this was an especially important finding for women, who are more likely to wear sandals and have bare ankles. To keep people from getting too cold, foot-level air conditioning requires fine-tuning, like getting a diffuser to slow cold air before it hits bare ankles. Raising the temperature of the whole office by a few degrees in the summer also helped. That would be the most energy-efficient solution. If everyone came in with flip-flops or sandals in the summer, the building could save on AC.

In the early days of air conditioning, offices were full of men in suits. Weve come a long way already. From an energy perspective, its been very good to relax the dress code, says Arens. You can laugh now, but flip-flops? They might be next.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Husband-and-wife team Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu have discreetly amassed a 400-piece collection of postwar Italian art, mainly falling within the Arte Povera movement. Soon they will make these oeuvres accessible to the wider public.

Spanu, who is Sardinian of origin, was formerly a marketing and software executive; Olnick, who is from Manhattan, is the daughter of the late real estate developer Robert S. Olnick, whose portfolio contains more than a dozen buildings. The couple have been in the public eye regarding their extensive collection of Murano glass, which was a featured exhibition at New York's American Craft Museum (now the Museum of Arts and Design) in 2000.

Now the duo are on the verge of opening a 20,000-square-foot private exhibition space in the Hudson Valley, to showcase their ambitious collection. The venue will be open to the public in 2017 by appointment, without admission fee. The majority of the space will be dedicated to the in-house permanent collection, but areas for rotating temporary exhibitions, and a library dedicated to Italian art, have been allotted as well. The space has been christened "Magazzino," which means warehouse in Italian -- a purposeful dissociation from the word museum.

Arte Povera ("poor art") is a conceptual art movement known as such due to the artists' use of cheap or recycled materials, from textiles to wood to dirt. (Ironically, the value and prices of these pieces are surging on today's art market.) The movement spanned the mid-1960s and lasted until the early 1970s in Italy. Hallmark Arte Povera artists included Alighiero Boetti, Jannis Kounellis, and Giuseppe Penone.

The couple found -- and self-financed -- a stark, outsized industrial building, repurposed and redesigned by Spanish architect Miguel Quismondo, to accommodate their large-scale works. Located about 60 miles north of New York City, in Cold Spring, the Magazzino will be in good company. Neighbors include the contemporary art hub Dia:Beacon, which is less than 15 minutes away, and The Storm King Art Center, the 500-acre sculpture park, is almost directly across the river.

Although the art venue is forthcoming, the Olnick Spanu art program (hosted proximally to the Magazzino, in the couple's luxurious home) has been ongoing, and is in fact celebrating its 10-year anniversary. This program invites Italian artists to create site-specific works; one such example is Remo Salvadori's "Continuo Infinito Presente," 2009-2010.
By Renee Dudley

NEW YORK/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - For the first time since a massive security breach exposed about 400 unpublished questions meant for upcoming SAT tests, the College Board will administer the important college entrance exam this weekend.

The not-for-profit organization says no version of tests given this weekend will contain any of the items exposed in the breach.

In a statement issued August 3, the College Board called the breach a serious criminal matter and pledged to take the stolen test content off the SAT administration schedule while the investigation is under way. College Board spokesman Zach Goldberg said Wednesday that we have nothing to add to that statement.

A person with access to the questions for upcoming exams had provided Reuters with hundreds of confidential test items, the news agency reported in August. The questions and answers include 21 reading passages  each with about a dozen questions  and about 160 math problems.

As part of an investigation into the breach, federal authorities raided the home of Manuel Alfaro, a former top College Board executive who has become an outspoken critic of the organization. On August 26, FBI agents seized computers and other materials from Alfaro, who spent 21 months with the College Board before being dismissed as executive director of assessment design and development in February 2015.

Among other criticisms, Alfaro has alleged the College Board failed to follow its own specifications in developing the math sections of the new SAT, which launched in March. His allegations are contained in a series of posts on the social network LinkedIn. Alfaro, who has not hired an attorney, declined to comment.

Independent testing specialists have said the breach represents one of the most serious security lapses that has come to light in the history of college-admissions testing.

How widely the items have circulated remains unclear. As is common in China, test-prep operators there have been offering access to what they claim to be upcoming tests ahead of this weekends exam. One group referred to the Reuters report and said it can offer test-takers items that come from a very complete, very full bank of unreleased questions.

Asked about the advertisement, the College Boards Goldberg said: We take all reports of test security seriously.

(Additional reporting by the Shanghai newsroom. Edited by Blake Morrison)
Bogota (AFP) - A nationwide police raid nabbed 238 suspected narcotics dealers and hitmen, dismantling 15 criminal gangs suspected of enlisting minors and homeless people to sell illegal drugs, authorities in Colombia said Friday.

Those captured "are not only linked to drug trafficking, but also to killing of 63 people," Police Chief General Jorge Hernando Nieto told reporters.

During the counter-narcotics operation, authorities also allegedly found the suspects committing other crimes including murders, extortion, robbery, illegal possession of firearms and using children to commit crimes.

According to authorities, who infiltrated the gangs as part of Colombia's "Operation Temis II," the suspects used children, homeless people, cab drivers and street vendors to sell drugs.

"Some of the dismantled organizations were formed by family clans who have devoted themselves to this illicit activity for generations," a statement read.

The world's largest grower of coca, the plant from which cocaine is made, Colombia is also the largest producer of the drug, with an estimated 646 tonnes last year alone, according to the United Nations.
Terror chiefs in Pakistan have been told to maintain a low profile following the surgical strikes by Indian army in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir in what is being seen as an operation to avenge Uri terror attack.

By India Today Web Desk: Indian army's surgical strikes across the LoC seem to have delivered the right message to Pakistani leadership and terror chiefs living in the country. According to government sources, terror chiefs in Pakistan have been told to maintain a low profile in the wake of Indian army's operation in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

"Terror chiefs are keeping mum in Pakistan. They are lying low after the surgical strikes. They have been told by the Pakistani establishment to do so," government sources said.

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READ: Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike



PAKISTAN TELLING LIES

The sources also said that Pakistan was strategically telling lies about surgical strikes carried out by Indian army in PoK.

"They have never owned up to Pakistani jehadi factory or a terrorist. We don't expect them to say that terrorists have been killed because that would be a sign of admission that there are terror camps on their side," a government source said.

"We have the photographs of the surgical strikes but we don't intend to share them as yet," maintained the source.

READ: After India's surgical strike, Pakistan violates ceasefire yet again

INDIAN MISSION COULD BE TARGETED

Meanwhile, intelligence agencies, including some foreign agencies, warned that Indian mission in Afghanistan and some other countries could be targeted by Pakistan based terrorists.

Indian, Afghan, US and allied intelligence agencies, monitoring Pakistan based terror outfits intercepted conversations of terrorists indicating that Indian missions could be possible targets. The agencies have notices movement of terror assets in Afghanistan.

READ: Indian Army strikes as they unfolded across Line of Control

Security of Indian embassy in Kabul has been tightened. Additional Afghan security personnel have been deployed outside the embassy.

Indian missions in Jalalabad and Herat are on terror target. Intercepts by the agencies indicate high possibility of retaliatory strikes by the terrorists. High alert has been sounded across Afghanistan.

Infographic: How India carried out military operation in PoK





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Surgical strikes in PoK: How Indian para commandos killed 50 terrorists, hit 7 camps

Avenging Uri: How India conducted surgical strikes in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir

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Comedy goddess Tiny Fey is responsible for the newest Saturday Night Live cast member

Comedy goddess Tiny Fey is responsible for the newest Saturday Night Live cast member

Celestial comedy goddess, Ms. Tina Fey, is no stranger to Saturday Night Live. She got her ~big break~ there in 1997, and quickly rose in the ranks to not only become anchor of Weekend Update, but also one of the shows only female head writers. When she eventually left SNL, the heavens wept, so she gave us 30 Rock to make us feel better.

And now, shes blessed us with another little sliver of comedy happiness: Turns out, shes the reason Alec Baldwin is going to be on SNL this season.

Earlier this week, we learned that for this season of SNL, Baldwin is going to be donning the crazy wig and making a duck face all season long as Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump. When we learned this we were like LOL and were still laughing at the thought of it right now. But how exactly did Baldwin find himself in the halls of the (real) 30 Rock once again?

The idea [to have Baldwin be Trump] came out of a conversation with Tina Fey at some point during the summer, long-time SNL showrunner, Lorne Michaels, explained to The Hollywood Reporter. Then I mentioned it to Alec but hed already committed himself to a movieThere were a lot of obstacles in the way to working it out. But I just thought hed be brilliant doing it and I thought he and Kate [McKinnon, who plays Hillary Clinton] would be a match.

When asked just how Baldwin as Trump came up in conversation, Lorne continued, [Tina and I] were talking about who should do it. And she said, Well, the person that should really play it is Alec. And I went, Yeah! A light went on.

Aww, isnt it sweet to know that even though shes not on SNL, and not in 30 Rock anymore, Tina Fey is still trying to make sure we laugh as much as possible? So sweet. And also does this mean we can expect a visit from former Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin this season? Please say yes.

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The post Comedy goddess Tiny Fey is responsible for the newest Saturday Night Live cast member appeared first on HelloGiggles.
oil well sunset rig

The count of active oil rigs in the US rose by seven to 425 this week, according to oilfield-services giant Baker Hughes.

The gas rig count increased by four to 96. With the count of miscellaneous rigs unchanged at one, the total rig count rose 11 to 522.

The oil-rig count has not fallen during the last 14 weeks, the longest streak since before oil prices started slumping in 2014. The tally is now at the highest level since the week of February 12.

After the oil crash started, drillers were forced to cut costs in various ways, including reducing the number of active rigs. The rig count became one way to gauge how oilfields service providers were responding to changes in oil prices, and how confident they felt about market conditions.

News about crude oil this week was dominated by OPEC's informal meeting in Algiers, which ended with a tentative agreement to cut oil production to between 32.5 million barrels and 33 million barrels per day. The group pumped 33.2 million barrels in August.

West Texas Intermediate crude futures in New York, the US benchmark for prices, was up 0.6% to $48.11 per barrel ahead of the rig-count data, and little changed after. Futures have gained nearly 5% this week, as investors saw the OPEC deal as a promising step in solving the market's oversupply problem.

Here's the latest chart of the rig count:

9 30 16 oil rigs chart

NOW WATCH: KRUGMAN: There is an argument for doubling the Feds inflation target





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Los Angeles (AFP) - The writer of the Wonder Woman comic series has confirmed the superhero is bisexual, putting an end to a long held debate on whether she'd had relationships with other women.

Speculation has been rife for many years over the sexuality of the Amazonian princess, who hails from the island Themyscira, which is populated solely by female warriors.

Although she becomes romantically involved with a man who washes up on the island, storylines over the years have implied, if not explicitly stated, that she has also been in love with women.

Greg Rucka, who returned to DC Comics this year to craft the "Rebirth" series commemorating Wonder Woman's 75th year in print, told the Comicosity news website Wonder Woman was "queer."

The word -- which has several definitions -- was defined by the interviewer as "involving, although not necessarily exclusively, romantic and/or sexual interest toward persons of the same gender."

"When you start to think about giving the concept of Themyscira its due, the answer is 'how can they not all be in same sex relationships?' right? It makes no logical sense otherwise," said Rucka, who worked on the character throughout the 2000s.

"You're supposed to be able... to have a fulfilling, romantic and sexual relationship. And the only options are women. But an Amazon doesn't look at another Amazon and say, 'You're gay.' They don't. The concept doesn't exist."

The announcement was mostly welcomed as good news on social media, although not all fans were happy.

"I just found out some people are actually upset Wonder Woman is queer. As if -- what -- you're paranoid Wonder Woman might not date you?" tweeted Mike Drucker, a television comedy writer.

There were no clues to Wonder Woman's bisexuality when Warner Bros screened the first trailer for the upcoming standalone "Wonder Woman" at San Diego Comic-Con in July.

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The Amazonian heroine, played by Gal Gadot, is seen leaning over soldier Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) after he has washed up on her island.

"You're a man?" she asks him, and he replies: "Yeah, do I not look like one?"

"Wonder Woman" is scheduled to hit theaters on June 2, 2017, focusing on a character who was introduced earlier this year in the widely-panned "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice."
With domestic and global terrorism becoming the norm, along with heart-breaking stories from war-torn pockets of the world, we are reminded humanitarians do still exist and are making a difference.

Legislation has been introduce by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) awarding the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award bestowed by Congress, to Don Stephens, founder of Mercy Ships. His organization provides free healthcare and life-saving surgeries to the worlds poor onboard state-of-the-art hospital ships.

Stephens has steered Mercy Ships for nearly 40 years in which 82,000 life-changing surgeries have taken place, helping over 2.5 million people. More than 1,600 volunteers including  doctors, nurses, engineers, dentists and cooks  have donated their time to keep the mission afloat.

Often the procedures performed are what developed nations may take for granted such as cataract surgery or the removal of a tumor.

The economic value of these services is about $1.3 billion but is likely outweighed by the reward of bringing healthcare to people and nations that otherwise would be left untreated.

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(Reuters) - Police in New Haven, Connecticut, on Friday pleaded for an end to a spate of battles with paintball and BB guns on city streets in broad daylight, warning they had received more than a dozen 911 calls from residents who believed the weapons were real.

While the guns involved were not lethal, police said they were difficult for residents to differentiate from actual firearms, noting that one woman made a frantic call to report two gangs battling with assault rifles on her street.

"We're trying to avert a tragedy," said Assistant Chief Achilles Generoso in a statement on Friday. "The effort to stop this is a top priority for our department."

The United States has been rocked over the past two years by a long series of police shootings of unarmed black men and boys, some of which involved toy guns or items that police mistakenly believed were guns.

Police in Cleveland, Ohio, in November 2014 shot dead 12-year-old Tamir Rice after a 911 caller reported a man with a gun in a park. Rice was holding a toy gun.

New Haven police have been confronted by angry crowds at least once when they responded to reports of armed teenagers only to find that the weapons in question were not real firearms, the department said.

They also noted that a 10-year-girl was injured when a person with a BB gun shot her in the head. Police said they are looking for the people who carried out that shooting.

"This has got to stop before someone is seriously hurt or worse," said Karl Jacobson, supervisor of the department's intelligence division.

(Reporting by Scott Malone in Boston; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
A suspect has been taken into custody after surveillance footage showed him grabbing a convenience store cashier by the wrists, and allegedly kidnapping her out of the store as bystanders watched.

Read: Hero Crossing Guard Thwarts Attempted Kidnapping of Girl From Elementary School

The Los Angeles Police Department arrested Jose Eduardo Gaxiola Caro, 29, Wednesday night in connection to the alleged kidnapping.

The 28-year-old victim was working behind the cash register at a Los Angeles convenience store when suddenly, the 6-foot-tall, 220-pound suspect grabbed her by the hands, and dragged her out the door.

A delivery man can even be seen in the surveillance video stepping over her, and dropping his package on the counter as the suspect pulls her out of the store.

Surveillance footage then appears to show the suspect forcing the woman into his red Honda Civic and closing the door, before getting into the driver's seat and fleeing the scene. It also appeared he hit her several times with the hammer he was carrying in his right hand.

Police responded to the scene shortly after when a silent alarm went off, and determined a kidnapping had taken place.

Read: 911 Call Reveals Boy, 8, Frantically Describing How He Saved Brother, 2, From Kidnapper

The woman escaped the car hours later, and was found safe in a cemetery. She was able to alert her family, and get medical attention at a nearby hospital, a press statement reported.

Cops discovered the suspect's car hours later, and, following a short vehicle pursuit that ended in a crash, cops were able to take Caro into custody.

The victim said she did not know her alleged abductor, according to KCAL.

Watch: Girl, 13, Surrendered to Police After Shooting Elderly Couple Who Suspected Her of Shoplifting: Cops

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In response to the surgical strikes by the Indian Army, China today issued a statement saying that it was concerned about the confrontation and that both nations should exercise restraint.

By Ananth Krishnan: China today said it was "concerned about continuous confrontation and tension" between India and Pakistan and called on both parties "to exercise restraint", in its first response to the surgical strikes carried out across the Line of Control.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang told reporters that Beijing "as a shared neighbour and friend to both India and Pakistan" was "concerned about continuous confrontation and tensions between India and Pakistan".



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Also Read: China says in touch with India, Pakistan; hopes for improvement in ties

'WE CALL ON ALL PARTIES TO EXERCISE RESTRAINT'

"We call on all relevant parties to exercise restraint and refrain from actions that would escalate tension. We hope that both parties would properly address their differences though dialogue and consultation and deescalate tensions as soon as possible," he said.

China had said on Thursday it was in frequent communication with both India and Pakistan in the wake of heightened tensions following the Uri attacks.

Geng added that Beijing was "in communication with both the countries to exercise restraint, enhance communication and properly resolve differences" and "will continue to work on the two sides for peace talks based on the development of the situation".

Also Read: Indian Army commandos cross LoC, conduct surgical strikes in Pakistani territory, kill 38

BALANCING ACT

China has this past week walked a fine line in its diplomacy to India and Pakistan, apparently aimed at seeking to avoid entirely displeasing both countries.

Beijing twice moved to deny statements from its all-weather ally Pakistan claiming it was supporting Islamabad on the Kashmir issue, maintaining its stance of 'neutrality' was 'consistent'.

At the same time, while it strongly condemned the Uri attacks, it didn't do so unequivocally, making clear that not only Pakistan but India too had the responsibility to maintain stability, suggesting a careful diplomatic balancing act aimed at ensuring neither side was displeased.

On Wednesday, Islamabad dispatched two parliamentarians as special envoys on Kashmir to meet with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin in Beijing.

A brief Foreign Ministry statement said China "attached importance to Pakistan's stand", and listened to the envoys' briefing. The statement repeated Beijing's officials stand that has been reiterated on several occasions this past week, that Kashmir was a historical issue for India and Pakistan to address through dialogue.



Also Read:

Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike

War with Pakistan imminent? Punjab villages close to border being evacuated

Indian Twitter celebrates 'Modi's punishment for Pakistan', Pakistani Twitter fumes

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Decoding Modi's Pakistan policy: From shawl and birthday diplomacy to surgical strike



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By Andrew Chung

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Costco Wholesale Corp should hand over $5.5 million to compensate Tiffany & Co for selling counterfeit Tiffany diamond engagement rings, a federal jury said on Thursday.

Tiffany is also entitled to punitive damages, the jury in Manhattan said. Lawyers for both sides were presenting evidence on Friday to help determine the amount of punitive damages.

The trial, which began on Sept. 20, was aimed at determining the amount in total damages that Costco is liable for, after U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain ruled last year that Costco had willfully infringed Tiffany's trademark by selling rings bearing the luxury retailer's name.

Tiffany spokesman Nathan Strauss declined to comment on Friday. In a statement on its website, Costco said it would not comment because jury deliberations were continuing.

The $5.5 million represents the amount of profit Costco made from the sale of the rings that would fairly compensate Tiffany, said the jury, which was made up of five men and two women.

The amount far exceeds the $781,000 that Costco had argued at the start of the trial was the maximum it owed. Costco said about 2,500 rings it sold were found by the court to have infringed Tiffany's trademark.

Costco had also argued that Tiffany's trademarks were invalid because they sought ti prevent others from using the word "Tiffany" as a generic description of a type of ring setting.

But Swain rejected that argument and said Costco confused consumers by using the word Tiffany in display case signs.

She said Costco's jewelry buyers had asked vendors to copy Tiffany designs, and that evidence showed Costco employees were aware of customer confusion but did nothing to remedy it.

The case is Tiffany & Company and Tiffany (NJ) LLC v. Costco Wholesale Corp, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, 13-1041.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Additional reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Bernadette Baum)
Madrid (AFP) - Spain's crisis-hit Socialists gathered for a key meeting Saturday to attempt to help end the country's prolonged political deadlock and decide the fate of embattled party leader Pedro Sanchez.

The roughly 300 members of the party's federal committee were summoned to Socialist headquarters in Madrid for a showdown between allies of Sanchez and opponents who want him out.

The outcome could see the party lift its veto on a new government led by acting conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, a move that could be key to unblocking Spain's nine-month political paralysis.

With feelings running high, the meeting started late and the committee then agreed to go into recess to determine the parameters of the debate and if there would be a vote after it, El Pais reported on its website, which was providing a blow-by-blow account as some 150 party members demanded a chance to speak.

By mid-afternoon, there had been three adjournments with no inkling of a breakthrough.

"Tough moments (but) I don't want to lose hope," tweeted Pepe Martinez Olmos, a senator who professed he "loved" his party.

- Internal dissent -

Since December 2015, the country has been without a fully-functioning executive as rivals fail to agree on a government following two elections in which none of the main parties won an absolute majority.

Even Rajoy, whose Popular Party won both elections though without enough seats to rule alone, was forced into negotiating a minority government which was voted down in parliament earlier this month.

On Friday Sanchez made his first public appearance since senior party members tried to oust him on Wednesday. His face was sombre as he predicted the committee would face a "decisive debate".

The Socialist Party (PSOE) has been wracked for months by internal dissent, and tensions boiled over into open warfare after 17 members of the party's 35-strong executive quit together in a bid to force Sanchez out.

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The ill-feeling was evident again Saturday as Sanchez supporters shouted "no means no, no means no," in showing their backing for his continued opposition to a Rajoy-led administration.

Dozens of PSOE members backing Sanchez were out bright and early at party headquarters to roundly boo his opponents, decrying them as "putschists" and "fascists" as they showed up for the meeting.

Sanchez detractors want the PSOE to use the 85 parliamentary seats it won in June polls to help unblock the national deadlock and allow Rajoy to lead a right-wing government by abstaining in a vote of confidence, rather than voting against as it did earlier this month.

The PSOE's place is "in the opposition," said Socialist lawmaker Eduardo Madina, who opposes Sanchez.

- Hints at resignation -

Sanchez opposes another Rajoy term, pointing to repeated corruption scandals hitting the PP and inequalities sparked by years of austerity.

"Spain doesn't deserve another four years of Mariano Rajoy at the head of the Spanish government -- four more years with a prime minister who has systematically lied to Spanish society," he said Friday.

Sanchez has hinted he would step down if a majority of those at the federal committee reject his vision of what direction the party should take -- in other words if they favour abstaining.

"Obviously I could not put into practice a decision that I don't agree with," he said.

If his critics get their way and he quits, an interim leadership will be appointed which would likely direct the Socialists to abstain if Rajoy decided to go for another vote of confidence, thus unblocking the situation and avoiding a third round of elections.

If Sanchez wins, though, he will press ahead with his plans to appeal directly to grassroots members by calling primary elections on October 23 to elect a new leadership, and the future would be a lot more uncertain.

Spain's parliament has until October 31 to produce a government or new elections will be called in December -- the third in a year.
Amanda Knox is another gripping true crime documentary you should add to your Netflix list, according to nearly every critic.

The documentary examining the eponymous murder suspect and trial that captivated the media has a 91 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which counts 21 of the 23 reviews as fresh.

TheWraps critic Robert Abele described the film that started streaming on Friday as a substantive, even-handed and eye-opening film from Rod Blackhurst.

Also Read: 'Amanda Knox' Review: Gripping True-Crime Doc Separates Facts From Hype

Amanda Knox features Knox herself, who was accused of and sent to prison for the murder of her roommate in Italy. She was then acquitted in 2011 and the definitively exonerated by the Supreme Court of Cassation in 2015.

Read 7 of the best reviews below to see why critics think this is a must-watch for Netflix subscribers.

Brian Tallerico, Roger Ebert:

Amanda Knox does an admirable job of detailing the crucial facts of the case. I dont suspect it will persuade anyone convinced that Knox is akin to the Monster of Florence, and it undeniably takes a pro-Knox stance, but its a well-made, accomplished piece of filmmaking that works because of how it focuses such a large case down to its key players, thereby illuminating how something like this could happen to anyone Again, if you think Amanda Knox is a masterful criminal, someone who got away with murder, this film is unlikely to convince you otherwise. Most of this information has been available beforealthough some of the first-hand accounts of the interrogations from Knox and Sollecito are new. Its just seeing it all presented in one, impactful film that one can view the scope of the whole story. Whether you think she did it or not, Amanda Knox is a horror story that should be told.

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times:

Did she or didnt she? That is the question Amanda Knox explores with laser-like precision. Different viewers will come to different conclusions, but without doubt this strong documentary sheds a powerful light on this particular case while emphasizing the ultimate unknowability of absolute truth.

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See Videos: Netflix Drops 2 Trailers for Amanda Knox Doc: 'Believe Her' and 'Suspect Her'

Ariel Scott, New York Daily News:

Amanda Knox will not answer any questions surrounding the mystery of Meredith Kerchers murder  but the documentary will stay with audiences long after its 92 minute run time. Although the truth behind what happened that night in Perugia may never be revealed, the film does not need a resolution to strike a powerful cord with viewers.

Jeannette Catsouli, New York Times:

You dont have to remember the gutter headlines inspired by its namesake to find the true-crime documentary Amanda Knox completely riveting. And not because of the lip-smacking speculations surrounding Ms. Knoxs eight-year battle with the Italian legal system after being charged with the 2007 murder of a housemate and fellow exchange student, Meredith Kercher. Rather, the directors, Brian McGinn and Rod Blackhurst, have produced a tightly edited, coherently structured and ultimately moving reassessment that burrows beneath the lurid in search of the illuminating.

Darren Ruecker, We Got This Covered:

The retrospective aspect of the documentary is all a part of its clear mandate of seeking truth rather than views or clicks. Amanda Knoxs story is no longer a timely one, but the distance that we have from it is what allows for a deeper look, and one that has implications on todays media landscape, whether its in the realm of sensational crime reporting or presidential campaign coverage. For sheer craftsmanship and watchability alone, Amanda Knox is a must-see offering on Netflix; for its exposure of the workings of justice systems and media culture, its an essential piece of work worth sharing and discussing Netflix adds another outstanding documentary to their lineup with Amanda Knox, a true crime dive that would make Errol Morris proud.

Also Read: ABC Family Orders Amanda Knox Murder Mystery Pilot 'Guilt'

Benjamin Lee, The Guardian:

Some might be frustrated about the lack of new information concerning what was already a well-documented case. But the film adds depth to what we know and refrains from a third act faux-discovery, as in Bart Laytons The Imposter. Its a carefully balanced and frightening film with Knox a terrifyingly unknowable character at the grisly centre.

Jen Yamato, The Daily Beast:

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.

Related stories from TheWrap:

'OJ: Made In America,' 'Amanda Knox' Among International Documentary Association's Screening Series Lineup

Amanda Knox Murder Conviction Overturned
For the first time in more than two generations, the US presidential race in Florida is following a different dynamic  no longer is the political debate in this key swing state dominated by Washingtons relationship with Havana.

This is a sign that the younger generation in the Cuban exile community is less hardline than its parents  and an indication of the historic shift in Cuban-US relations since 2014. Diplomatic ties have been restored and Barack Obama has become the first US president to visit Cuba since Calvin Coolidge in January 1928.

As if that wasnt remarkable enough, this has occurred with Cuban-Russian relations at their strongest since the demise of the Soviet Union. Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev has visited Cuba twice since February 2008 while Vladimir Putin visited in July 2014. Meanwhile Raul Castro has been to Moscow three times in recent years. Can these two relationships really keep improving in parallel?

Cold War legacy

Havanas burgeoning relationship with Moscow following the Cuban revolution in January 1959 was a key catalyst for the tension between Cuba and the United States for more than half a century. Geopolitics in 2016 may be radically different from the Cold War era, but the old tensions live on. Americas relations with Russia are as bad as they have been since the end of the Soviet Union. And the thaw with Cuba has a long way still to go: the trade embargo is still in place and there are fears that progress might unwind under Obamas successor.

To understand why relations between Cuba and Russia are reviving, you need to consider recent initiatives in Cuban and Russian foreign policy. Cubas political influence has been growing both in Latin America and throughout the developing world. From out of Moscow, meanwhile, a Putin doctrine has emerged. It wishes to return Russia to great power status and forge a multi-polar world that is not dominated by America.

Also very relevant to Cuban-Russian relations in 2016 is the legacy of the past. There are many children with Cuban/Soviet parents, while Cuba still requires spare parts for Soviet-era machinery. It has also been logical for Moscow to begin reasserting itself in Latin America from a political point of view with the country that it already knew best, the only one with Russian-language ability.

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The one big deficiency between the two countries is in trade. Since 2000 Russian trade to and from Latin America has increased by more than 900% and now exceeds $15bn (12bn) each year. The same thing hasnt happened with Cuban-Russian trade. It is below $200m per year, which is less than 0.004% of Russian global turnover.

The two countries weak trade relationship is a hangover from the Cold War days, when Cuba was economically dependent on the Russians. By the mid-1980s more than 70% of its global trade was with the Soviet Union. However, Cuban-Russian bilateral trade post-1992 has been typical of trade relationships between newly independent countries and their former metropoles: trade fell rapidly and didnt recover  and what remains is dominated by exports from the Russian side.

Moscow had no equivalent relationships with other Latin American states during the Soviet era. As a result, there has been no such colonial legacy to hinder Russian trade there. This helps explain why its commercial relationships have been very different.

It has been evident for some time that Russia wants trade with Cuba to move in the same direction. Putin said as much ahead of his 2014 visit to Havana. Put this together with the Cold War legacy and the growing importance of the region for Russia and the two countries efforts to reheat relations with one another makes sense. It certainly looks as though the geostrategic importance of Cuba for the Kremlin has increased, if not to the level of the Cold War era.

Balancing act

The US trade embargo of Cuba remains in place despite Obamas desire for it to be lifted. That has been too much for a Republican-dominated Congress, despite the lifting of travel and certain financial restrictions. Obama has said that the embargo will be lifted, when I cant be entirely sure.

The question is to what extent Cuba will manage to ride both horses at once in future. Partly this depends on who wins the keys to the White House on November 8. Donald Trumps seemingly more cordial relationship with Putin could make this balancing act easier for the Cubans, although he is on record as saying: I would probably have the embassy closed until such time as a really good deal was made and struck by the United States.

Whoever wins in November, it is probably safe to say that Cubas longstanding difficulties with America will not disappear overnight. No doubt the issue could still return to Floridian politics in time for the next presidential election in 2020. The danger for Cuba is that its growing dalliance with Moscow makes this more likely than not.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Mervyn Bain receives funding from The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and a Carnegie Research Grant.
Nicosia (AFP) - A Cypriot court ruled on Friday that an Egyptian man accused of hijacking a plane and diverting it to Cyprus can be extradited to Cairo for his alleged crimes.

Nicosia District Court judge Dona Constantinou was satisfied that Seif al-Din Mohamed Mostafa, 58, would get a fair trial in Egypt and would not be persecuted for his political beliefs.

"I have no doubt that the offences described in the extradition request are offences which can constitute an extradition order," the judge's ruling said.

"The offences are part of the common criminal code and under no circumstances can they be considered political," she added.

Mostafa listened to the proceedings pensively and gave no outward sign of emotion.

Defence lawyer Robertos Vrahimi said he has been instructed by his client to appeal the decision and has 10 days to do so.

Mostafa is accused of using a fake suicide belt to seize the EgyptAir plane flying from Alexandria to Cairo in March and redirect it to the Mediterranean island.

The hijacking ended peacefully with his arrest and the release of the 55 passengers after a six-hour standoff.

Constantinou said that when Mostafa was arrested he gave "no political motive whatsoever" for his actions.

Egypt requested Mostafa face trial under a bilateral agreement.

The defence argued that Mostafa should not be extradited because he would not receive a fair trial and there was a possibility he could be tortured.

It was claimed that as an opponent of the regime in Egypt he would not get justice.

- Fair trial assurances accepted -

But the court said it was satisfied that Mostafa would get a fair trial and would not be targeted because of his previous history of activism.

The judge said that Mostafa had no recent trouble with the authorities and he was even issued with a legal passport to travel.

"He travelled without the authorities banning his exit from the country which would be expected if the authorities were persecuting him as claimed."

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The judge's ruling said the court had no reason to doubt the assurances given by the Egyptian authorities to Cyprus that Mostafa's human rights would be respected.

"Based on the evidence placed before me I judge that all the conditions have been met under the 1996 extradition agreement between the Cyprus Republic and the Arab Republic of Egypt," said Constantinou.

In June Mostafa gave his reasons why he hijacked an EgyptAir plane and should not be extradited.

He painted himself as a liberal who wanted democracy for an Egyptian people subjected to "abductions, disappearance, illegal detention and extrajudicial killings".

Mostafa said his motive for hijacking a domestic Egyptian flight on March 29 was to seek asylum in Italy and tell the world about the "repressive" Cairo government.

He urged the court not to extradite him to Egypt as he would become a "dead man walking".

"If I am extradited to Egypt my fate would be torture and death. Perhaps I shall be found hanged in my prison."

He requested asylum in Cyprus but it was refused as the authorities deem him a "perpetrator of serious crimes".

The Cypriot justice ministry says Egypt has given assurances of a fair trial and that the extradition request has nothing to do with politics.

Mostafa has been described by Cyprus authorities as psychologically unstable.
Prague (AFP) - The Czech prime minister has asked his British counterpart Theresa May to take action to stop what his government considers violence against Czechs in the wake of Britain's decision to quit the EU, his office said Friday.

The Czech leader said Prague was "disturbed by the increase in hateful attacks in Britain aimed at the citizens of EU member states".

The Czech premier spoke to May by telephone on Thursday after Zdenek Makar, a 31-year-old Czech, was killed in a brawl outside a London pub.

A 29-year-old Briton has been charged with his murder, according to reports.

"The Czech government finds it unacceptable to see Czechs attacked because of their origin and being treated as second-class citizens," Bohuslav Sobotka told May.

"Therefore I asked the British prime minister... to let me know what measures her government will adopt to stop these hateful attacks," he said.

In a statement, a Downing Street spokesperson said May had offered her sincere condolences for the Czech national killed in London last week but stressed that police did not consider racism to have been the motive.

"She said that while we understood this particular incident was not considered to be a hate crime, the UK Government condemned hate crime in the strongest way possible and it had no place in British society."

The killing of the Czech national follows the murder of a Polish man in August.

Police in Harlow, northeast of London, are investigating the August 27 murder of 40-year-old Polish factory worker Arek Jozwik as a possible hate crime although they have said the motive is still not clear.

Two Polish officers also joined British police in the town after two Poles were also attacked outside a pub there on September 4.

British police said in July that hate crimes surged before and after the June 23 referendum in which voters chose to exit the EU following a campaign dominated by a divisive debate about immigration.

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Although police attributed the increase in part to greater vigilance by officers and greater awareness among the public, more than 3,000 incidents were reported to police across the country between June 16 and 30, up 42 percent on the same period last year, according to the National Police Chiefs' Council.

The most common offence reported was harassment, including assault, verbal abuse and spitting.

Poland has also urged London to protect its nationals living in Britain, of whom there were about 831,000 in 2015, following the Brexit vote.

Czech authorities put the number of their citizens working in Britain at some 37,000.
Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about politics, the election and Samantha Bee as she promotes her Lady Parts Justice organization, which is hosting its first satirical awards show, called the "Golden Probes," on Sunday.

LPJ is an organization focusing on the "erosion of reproductive access" in the United States and the ceremony is meant to honor "outstanding achievements in sexism and anti-choice extremism in the fields of politics, media and other industries that have made strides pushing women's rights backwards." Mike Pence is among the nominees, which are mainly politicians and policymakers.

The nominees and winners will be revealed at the ceremony, held at (le) Poisson Rouge in New York on Oct. 2 and streamed live on the LPJ website. Jessica Williams and Wendy Davis are scheduled to attend the show with taped appearances from Sarah Silverman, Connie Britton and Broad City's Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer.

Winstead shared her thoughts on the "sexist 1990s" media coverage Hillary Clinton has received, what a moderator should do at a debate, why she wishes people would stop saying they want Samantha Bee to host The Daily Show and what Donald Trump has revealed about society

Read more: Samantha Bee Takes on Trump-Clinton Debate, Mocks Sexist Media Coverage

What about the Golden Probes has you most excited for the weekend?

The fact that so many people are going to - in a really fun way - learn about how all of these laws that are curbing reproductive access happen. People don't fundamentally get that these laws are coming out of state legislatures mostly. We get sucked into general election and all of this big stuff about Trump and Hillary when quietly people are getting elected in midterm elections who are changing the course of how our access to reproductive health, abortion, is just being eroded.

Can you talk a bit about the people who are nominated and winning awards?

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Of all of the people that were at some point contenders for president on the Republican side, none of them are nominated because there's people who are more dangerous. You might think of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina - they are not nominated. We have found people who have said things that are so outrageous and who are holding office now. It's important to learn about this statewide onslaught. Mike Pence is nominated because he's also served in all of the places [Congress and as governor of Indiana.] He's an all-around upstanding nominee.

When it comes to who we rely on to help us make sure that we retain our constitutional rights, it's state legislators - who are completely nuts - and a Supreme Court that will decide what is nuts and what isn't - and that feels like that is a little insane. That's kind of where the volleyball game is happening.

In Missouri, one state legislator tried to pass a law that would have forced Planned Parenthood to give the medical records of every woman who's ever had an abortion over to their state government. There's one man who had proposed that women should be forced to carry a nonviable fetus to term because of miracles. There's a guy in Idaho who asked, "Why can't women just swallow a camera to have a gynecological exam?"

What do you think of Trump's run for presidency?

Trump has given permission for people to be horribly racist, horribly ugly, horribly awful and then you combine that with access to the internet and the media - it's just been an onslaught of permission to be uncivil, uneducated and unbelievably terrifying.

I had one woman tweet at me - I don't remember what my joke was but it was something about Donald Trump and his son retweeting white supremacists. This woman wrote to me saying, "Donald Trump is not a white supremacist, I am and he's the closest candidate I have." I'm like "Wow." The legions of ugly that have been gathered and validated is what terrifies me the most. If we give them power and if we give them validation - if we lose science and we literally lose general humanity then we've kind of lost everything as a civilized society.

What about his stance on abortion?

I think he is so full of shit. He has been staunchly pro-choice, supported Planned Parenthood and now [has reversed his stance]. To me it tells me more about the anti-abortion movement that people who are profound leaders in caring about life have co-signed on to him because that just shows that they have layers of hypocrisy. If you are supporting a candidate who has caveats and giant gaping holes in their abortion stance and you are firmly "pro life" then you have put yourself in charge of being judge and jury about what life is. I just believe that pregnancy is not a baby, but I don't understand how someone who thinks that life begins at conception could have a caveat about abortion.

Read more: Top 10 Most Outspoken Celebrities Who Support Planned Parenthood

What are your thoughts on Hillary Clinton as a candidate?

I was a Bernie [Sanders] supporter, and now I feel really confident about the things I really love about Hillary, whether it's college tuition, TPP, whether its both [Sanders and Clinton] saying we want to make sure that repealing the Hyde Amendment gets into the platform. Bernie pushed Hillary to a place where I'm excited about having her as a candidate.

What is your opinion about the media coverage of Clinton and Trump?

When they decide to break away from Trump to cover Hillary it's been often outstandingly sexist 1990s and that's really bizarre to me. Even watching the debate, Donald Trump interrupted Hillary 26 times in the first part of the debate, and then I read about how moderators are acting like its not their job to correct the record. I don't know what their job is then. To sit there and just not try to facilitate?

Debates are so the American people can get the best information possible from the two people who will lead the nation and spend their tax dollars. For any moderator who thinks it's not their job to make sure that the information they get is correct and that they hear both people speaking on said information is outstanding to me. So that part really bums me out.

Read more: Trevor Noah Jokes Donald Trump "Has Hired the Suicide Squad" With New Campaign Staffers

Have you been watching the Trevor Noah-hosted Daily Show, and if so, what do you think?

Quite frankly, I've seen some of it and I think Trevor is awesome. People hate change. There's this new young person who is taking over the hardest job in the world for scrutiny and trying to make it his own, and I think it's brave and he's funny. People should stop hemming and hawing about this cool thing that was going on with Jon Stewart and start embracing what he's doing.

I feel the same thing about Sam Bee. I keep hearing people say "I wish Sam Bee was the host of The Daily Show." I'm like, why don't you shut up and be so excited about the fact that Sam Bee and Jo Miller got to create this amazing new show with their unique and wonderful perspective and are doing so on their terms. It's the best.

Do you watch other Daily Show alums like Stephen Colbert and John Oliver to see how they're doing?

Yeah, I'm thrilled about all of it. The hope of doing an ensemble show like that is that it can permeate into other spaces, so not all of this amazing talent is glommed into one spot. So to be able to watch watch Stephen and Sam and John Oliver and Brian Unger and people just doing really cool stuff, it's really great and makes me feel really happy.

*This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

LPJ is hosting public watch parties that will live-stream the Golden Probes in cities like L.A., DC, Austin, Portland, Memphis and Minneapolis.

Read more: Samantha Bee Rips Donald Trump's "Secret Weapon" Roger Ailes
The Home Ministry has issued a country-wide advisory asking states to beef up security at crowded locations in anticipation that terrorists could strike Indian cities.

By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: A day after Indian forces carried out surgical strikes at 7 locations, both the IB and MHA have issued terror alert across the country.

STATES ASKED TO BEEF UP SECURITY

Ahead of the festive season, the Home Ministry has issued a country-wide advisory asking states to beef up security at all the sensitive places, strategic installations, markets, religious places and other important places to ensure security.

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This in anticipation that a possible terror strike may not be limited to the border areas along the western border with Pakistan, but rather that terrorist could strike Indian cities.

The Intelligence Bureau had issued advisories to metro cities alerting police forces in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad to be extra vigilant.

The fear is that Pakistan based terror groups may look to hit India back in order to avenge India's surgical strike in PoK.

BORDER AREAS

Home Minister Rajnath Singh today reviewed the security situation in the country, particularly along the border with Pakistan in states like Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, and directed central security organisations to be on high alert.

The states touching the border with Pakistan - Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat - have been told to be particularly vigilant, sources said.

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) top brass have been asked to intensify security at all industrial units, airports and other locations wherever they are deployed, the source said.



ALSO READ:

Surgical strikes effect: Terror chiefs told to lie low in Pakistan

All attempts being made to release Indian soldier in Pakistan's custody: Rajnath

'Most aggressive action from India in years': What international media said about surgical strikes







--- ENDS ---
DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / September 30, 2016 / According to Dallas criminal lawyer John Helms many criminal cases begin with a police stop, which is any time when an officer pulls over a car or asks a person on foot to stop and answer questions. During a stop, the police can gather evidence for criminal charges, such as signs that a driver is intoxicated for a DWI case, or the smell of marijuana for a drug case. After a stop, the police will look for probable cause and the right circumstances to justify a search of a person (a pat down), or a car. To justify a stop, though, the police must have "reasonable suspicion" that the person being stopped has committed a particular crime.

A recent decision from Massachusetts' highest court about police stops made national headlines because of its holding about black men running from the police. Did the court hold that it is OK to run from the police? The short answer says criminal defense attorney Helms is, "Not quite."

In Commonwealth v. Warren, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that the mere fact that a person runs from the police, without more, does not give the police reasonable suspicion to stop the person. What was perhaps more notable was that the court went on to discuss the fact that black men in the Boston area are disproportionately subject to stops and that a black man might therefore run from the police to avoid being racially profiled.

Here is what happened. The police were called to a reported breaking and entering of a house. The victims described three suspects as being black men. One was wearing a red hoodie, one was wearing a dark hoodie, and the other was wearing dark clothing. They had taken a backpack and run away. About thirty minutes after the break-in, a police officer spotted two black men walking near a park. Both wore dark clothing, and one had on a hoodie. The police officer yelled to them, "Hey guys wait a minute!" The two men made eye contact and then jogged into the park. The officer radioed to other officers on the other side of the park who encountered the two men walking. These officers yelled at the two men. One turned and ran back into the park. The officers ordered him to stop and ran after him. He was caught, and he was found to have a concealed handgun for which he did not have a permit. He was charged with that crime and convicted at trial. The other man was not charged with anything, and neither was he linked to the breaking and entering.

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The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts reversed the conviction because the police did not have reasonable suspicion that he had committed a particular crime, which was necessary for the police to stop him. Therefore, the stop was illegal, and the gun found during the stop could not be used as evidence. Without the gun, the conviction could not stand.

In explaining its decision, the court said that the only factor that could have possibly given the police reasonable suspicion was the fact that the defendant ran from the police. The court said that the description of the clothing was too vague to identify the men as suspects in the breaking and entering. Also, there were two rather than three men, and neither had a backpack. Finally, the place where they were found was not so close to the scene of the crime, given the time since the crime, to suggest they were the culprits. That left just the running away.

The court held that running away is a factor that can be considered, along with other evidence, in determining whether there was reasonable suspicion, but running away ALONE is not enough. The court explained that Massachusetts' law allows a citizen to ignore or walk away from the police if the police have no basis for stopping them. Therefore, a person also has the right to run away, and the court was unwilling to say that MERELY running away is enough evidence that a person committed a specific crime that the officer suspects.

Then, the court discussed recent studies showing that black men are stopped at a higher rate in the Boston area than whites and that this cannot be explained by crime statistics. The court concluded that a black man could fear being racially profiled by the police and might run away out of a belief that the police would treat him unjustly. The court was careful to say, however, that flight can never be considered just because a black man is involved. However, in these circumstances, where flight was the ONLY basis for reasonable suspicion, the possibility that the person fled to avoid racial profiling strengthened the court's view that there was not enough evidence to find reasonable suspicion.

This case does NOT mean that it is a good idea to run from the police. Doing so could escalate a tense situation and substantially increase the possibility of a violent confrontation with the police. It also does NOT mean that flight cannot be considered by a court as consciousness of guilt. It can be, and it could tip the balance if there is other evidence to support reasonable suspicion.

Additionally, this case is not legally binding on any courts besides Massachusetts' state courts. Courts in other states can consider it, but they are not required to follow it.

What the case does show, however, is that courts are beginning to consider the social realities that have been heavily discussed around the country in recent years.

Anyone charged with a crime involving a police stop should consult with an experienced criminal defense lawyer about whether the stop was potentially illegal. If it was, the case could be dismissed. I have had a lot of success convincing courts that police stops were illegal and that evidence from the stop should be suppressed. My knowledge of this area of the law is often vital for protecting my clients.

If you, a family member or someone you know has been charged with a crime or have been convicted and need help with an appeal in the Dallas area, contact Dallas criminal lawyer John Helms at (214) 666-8010 or fill out the online contact form. You can discuss your case, how the law may apply and your best legal options to protect your rights and freedom.

Media Contact

Dallas Criminal Lawyer John Helms

214-666-8010

https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-helms-69172699

Photo courtesy of Myolisi (talk | contribs)

source: http://johnhelms.attorney/dallas-criminal-lawyer-asks-mass-top-court-say-ok-black-men-run/

SOURCE: John Helms Law Firm via Submit Press Release 123
Danielle Brooks will slay you with her cover of Feeling Good

Danielle Brooks will slay you with her cover of Feeling Good

Danielle Brooks is a radiant performer who emanates confidence and strength in everything she does, whether she is shining in a new Lane Bryant campaign, making us laugh and cry as Taystee on Orange is the New Black, or running Broadway in The Color Purple.

Cue Nina Simone...And I'm feeling good! @lanebryant #thisbody A photo posted by Danielle Brooks (@daniebb3) on Sep 28, 2016 at 7:58am PDT

Since the flawless actor earned a Tony nomination for her superb performance in the Broadway show, one might assume that she has the utmost confidence in her singing abilities. But earlier today, Danielle took to Instagram to express that she still deals with insecurities like everybody else:

Ive gotten the chance to sing on Broadway practically every day for a year in front of thousands of people. Even though it might appear Im very confident, anyone who really knows me, knows that some days Ive struggled to convince myself my voice is worthy to be heard.

Heather Headley Joins The Cast Of "The Color Purple" On Broadway

Its incredibly motivating to hear such a powerful talent admit that even she has rough days, but it is even more inspiring to know that Danielle had posted on Instagram to say:

This is MY voice. And today, I declare I love it.

She includes a clip of herself singing the standard made famous by Nina Simone, Feeling Good. And Brooks soulful rendition is captivating.

A video posted by Danielle Brooks (@daniebb3) on Sep 30, 2016 at 1:32pm PDT

In her caption, Danielle adds:

Ive definitely had my ups and downs learning to appreciate the tone, the cracks, the imperfect runs  all that comes with MY voice Im grateful and #feelinggood for the sound that is MY OWN.

We absolutely adore Danielles gorgeous and unique sound, too  we only wish we could hear her sing the full song!

The post Danielle Brooks will slay you with her cover of Feeling Good appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Washington (AFP) - When Donald Trump complained about his microphone after his televised presidential debate Monday with Hillary Clinton, few people believed him -- viewers had no trouble understanding his words.

But on Friday, the well-respected Commission on Presidential Debates said that in fact, the Republican candidate was right.

"Regarding the first debate, there were issues regarding Donald Trump's audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall," the commission said on its website, without elaborating.

In that terse phrase the independent group thus confirmed that Trump was right in denouncing the quality of his microphone, even if his initial complaint was met with widespread derision and disbelief.

"They gave me a defective mic. Did you notice that?" he asked reporters after the debate, which was viewed by a record-breaking 84 million people in the US alone.

"My mic was defective within the room. I wonder, was that on purpose? Was that on purpose?"

Hillary Clinton, enjoying the moment after a debate in which Trump seemed to struggle as the evening wore on, quipped that "anyone complaining about microphones is not having a good night."

It was not clear how much difference the technical problems might actually have made. Trump's words were at all times audible on the several networks that carried the debate, though at times there seemed to be a slight echo.

That might, however, have been distracting for the candidate, particularly one who seems to thrive on audience reactions.
(Adds Delta and union comments, timeline, background)

Sept 30 (Reuters) - Delta Air Lines Inc and its pilots union have reached an agreement in principle for a new contract that has been more than a year in the making, the parties said on Friday.

The deal, reached with the help of U.S. federal mediators, requires the approval of union leaders before it can become a so-called "tentative agreement," which pilots can vote to ratify or reject. About 65 percent of voting pilots turned down the last tentative agreement in July 2015.

Delta did not immediately return a request for comment on the terms of the agreement. But in a statement, it called it an "industry-leading package of pay, benefits and work rules."

The last tentative agreement offered an 8 percent pay hike upon signing. However, opponents said the gains were slight considering Delta's growing profits and that higher wages came at the expense of more-lucrative profit-sharing. Changes in sick leave and other work rules also offset the gains, the critics said.

Following the rejection, the leader of Delta's unit of the Air Line Pilots Association, International resigned. The parties did not come to terms by the old contract's target date for revision of Dec. 31, 2015.

In a statement, the union's Chairman John Malone said the Friday's agreement "achieves the goal of advancing the profession... (and) recognizes and rewards the Delta pilot group for the daily contributions we make to Delta's financial success."

The union said it has seven days to review the agreement before deciding whether to put it up for a pilot-wide vote.

(Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Dan Grebler)
(Reuters) - A court ruled in Depomed Inc's (DEPO.O) favour in a patent dispute over its opioid drug, Nucynta, a decision that could help pave the way for the drug maker to explore a sale.

Sources told Reuters this month that Depomed was preparing to explore a sale and talks with potential buyers are expected to start shortly after a ruling on Nucynta, the company's biggest drug.

Activist investor Starboard Value LP in April called on Depomed to explore a sale after disclosing a stake of close to 10 percent.

The hedge fund, which wants to oust Depomed's board, has set Nov. 15 as the date for a special meeting of the company's shareholders.

The ruling prevents Actavis (now Allergan Plc (AGN.N)), Alkem Laboratories Ltd (ALKE.NS) and Roxane Laboratories Inc from selling generic versions of Nucynta until 2025, the company said.

Sales of Nucynta, which Depomed acquired in early 2015 from Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc for just over $1 billion, have lagged the company's expectations affected by concerns of health insurers about addictive potential of opiate-based drugs.

The ruling provides market exclusivity to Nucynta ER, Nucynta and Nucynta oral solution, an unmarketed form of Nucynta, the company said on Friday.

Shares of Newark, California-based Depomed were up 3 percent in after-market trading. Up to Friday's close of $24.97, the stock had risen nearly 60 percent since Starboard reported its stake.

(Reporting by Dipika Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
Deutsche Bank AG DB inked a deal to sell its U.K. insurance business, Abbey Life, for $1.09 billion to Phoenix Life Holdings Limited, a unit of Phoenix Group Holdings Limited. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals, including Prudential Regulatory Authority. The move comes in the wake of the banks efforts to boost its capital position.



Phoenix Group Holdings, the UKs major specialist closed life and pension fund consolidator, will acquire the Abbey Life business  Abbey Life Assurance Company Limited, Abbey Life Trustee Services Limited and Abbey Life Trust Securities Limited  held within Deutsche Banks asset management wing.



The German banking giant, currently under investors close tabs due to concerns over its financial health, expects to have a net positive capital impact following closure of the sale. In its release, Deutsche Bank noted that on a pro-forma basis, the sale would have enhanced the banks Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio (CRR/CRD 4 fully loaded) by around 10 basis points as of Jun 30, 2016.



However, the transaction is likely to result in pre-tax loss of around 800 million, mainly due to impairment of goodwill and intangible assets.



John Cryan, Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Bank, stated, Deutsche Asset Management will continue to focus on its core businesses of Active, Passive and Alternatives, while this transaction will also strengthen Deutsche Banks capital position. We continue to build a simpler and better Deutsche Bank.



Earlier this month, Phoenix Group confirmed that it was in advanced discussions with Deutsche Bank regarding the acquisition of Abbey Life.

Deutsche Bank had acquired Abbey Life in Oct 2007 for around 1 billion. It began exploring the sale of its British insurance unit last October. Apart from Phoenix, several companies, including Swiss Re AG and Britains Legal & General Group Plc, had earlier shown interest.



Notably, in January, Cryan had mentioned that the bank was reviewing strategic options for Abbey Life, adding that the business did not align with its asset management business. This Bournemouth-based company is among the several firms currently under probe by the UKs financial watchdog  the Financial Conduct Authority  related to their practices on exit fees.



Bottom Line



Deutsche Banks latest move comes as a slight relief at a time when investors sentiments have been weighed down due to concerns over the banks capital position. This has been triggered by the potential $14-billion accord with the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ).



While the company has no intention to pay the amount sought by the DoJ, anything substantial will certainly compound woes for Deutsche Bank. The bank has shouldered significant legal settlement in the past as well, which affected its financials. Notably, it reported net loss of 6.8 billion in 2015, its first full-year loss since 2008 reflecting the impact of several one-time items, including huge litigation charges.



Nevertheless, revenue challenges should ease gradually as Cryan is expediting Strategy 2020 efforts to revamp the bank with focus on simplifying the banks business model, reducing costs and shedding unprofitable businesses.



Some stocks in the foreign banks space worth considering include Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. ITUB, Banco Macro S.A. BMA and The Bank of Nova Scotia BNS.

Story continues

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By Davide Scigliuzzo

NEW YORK, Sept 30 (IFR) - Embattled Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan did something unusual at the bank's annual leveraged finance conference in Arizona this week - he turned up.

It was only the second time in the 24-year history of the shindig that the bank's CEO actually bothered to attend, and the timing was anything but auspicious.

Deutsche shares hit a new low as the conference got under way, as the markets wondered if the bank was even still viable in the face of a potential US$14bn fine from the US Department of Justice.

Media are barred from the event, but several attendees told IFR that Cryan had done a reasonable job of soothing concerns of investors and executives at the gathering.

In particular, they said, the CEO helped assuage doubts about the German lender's commitment to its leveraged finance business.

"Deutsche Bank is going through some volatility but their leadership in levered finance has been consistent," said Michael Buchanan, deputy chief investment officer at Western Asset Management.

"I didn't see any indication that internally they had any desire to pull back. Employee morale seemed good."

Deutsche's stock and bonds rebounded from the week's lows on Friday morning, after AFP reported that the bank is nearing a settlement with the US government for a much lower US$5.4bn. Deutsche declined to comment on the report.

RATES AND VOTES

More than a few attendees said that the major concern at the conference was not the health of Deutsche at all, but rather US rates - and US votes.

The first debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was broadcast live at the Arizona resort on the first night of the three-day conference.

And those on hand underscored the uncertainty attached to one of the most unusual and contentious US elections in recent memory.

"You have to construct and build portfolios that can do well in both outcomes," said Buchanan, who was one of the speakers on a credit markets panel. "There is a reasonable amount of probability that either candidate will take office."

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BREXIT

Markets never like that kind of uncertainty, and many raised questions about the reliability of US election polling, mindful of the failure to predict the outcome of the Brexit referendum.

Meanwhile, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stressed the importance of free trade and the need for the United States to support its allies abroad.

While some saw this as marking a contrast with Trump, two people in attendance said Rice refrained from directly entering the election fray.

And apart from the election, participants also expressed worries about stretched valuations and the potential that an unforeseen shock could cause a dramatic move wider in spreads.

"This has been a great year for high-yield, but boy that is a very challenging course for next year," said one. "When the market is priced to perfection, there is nothing but downside."

Another said: "Some people think valuations are stretched. And there are a lot of questions on what happens in 2017, and how long this can continue." (Reporting by Davide Scigliuzzo; Editing by Marc Carnegie and Matthew Davies)
Following surgical strikes by India in PoK, a wary Pakistan has started mobilising its troops, reserves and mechanised infantry along the border and in response, India has stepped up its preparedness to deal with any misadventure by Islamabad.

By Manjeet Negi: Perturbed by Indian surgical strikes inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Islamabad has begun mobilising its troops, reserves and mechanised infantry along the Indian borders. According to highly placed official sources, the intelligence agencies have confirmed mobilisation of Pakistani troops.

India is also fully prepared, with matching-response mechanisms already activated to frustrate any Pakistani foolhardiness, top military sources said.



READ| Nawaz Sharif breaks silence on surgical strike, says don't want war with India

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FORCES AT MAXIMUM ALERT

Satellites, radar chains and technical-intelligence facilities are monitoring western borders and airspace 24x7, the sources told India Today.

The officers in the military operations' centre are constantly reviewing inputs, most senior security sources said. Vigil, they added, has been raised to the highest level.

On Thursday night, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, national security advisor Ajit Doval and army chief General Dalbir Singh together monitored India's preparedness till 11 pm.

READ| How Indian para commandos crawled through enemy territory to kill 50 terrorists in PoK



PUNJAB ON ALERT



Punjab remained on high alert even as evacuation from villages along the international border with Pakistan continued on Friday. While social media was abuzz with unconfirmed reports of Pakistan army's heavy build up along the border, the authorities urged people not to panic.

The Indian Army, the Indian Air Force and the Border Security Force were put on high alert in Punjab and neighbouring states. Army convoys, carrying artillery guns, could be seen moving towards the border belt in preparation to thwart any retaliatory move from Pakistan for the LoC strike.

The IAF has also been put on high alert with forward air bases on the western front in full preparedness. IAF fighter jets carried out sorties over some parts of Punjab as a preventive measure.





ALSO READ:

Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike

Who strategised the Indian Army's surgical strikes across the LoC?

Claims denied: How Pakistan media is treating India's surgical strike



--- ENDS ---
Despite its current challenges, Deutsche Bank (XETRA: DBK-DE) is not struggling as much as current speculation suggests, Mark Yusko, CEO of Morgan Creek Capital Management, told CNBC on Friday.

Not only does the German banking powerhouse have a lot of capital cushion, it's not holding a lot of terrible assets that were seen in the United States during the financial crisis, Yusko said on "Squawk Box."

Deutsche Bank's stock has been cut in half this year, with losses accelerating in recent weeks on concerns over a capital crunch in the face of a proposed settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice that could reach $14 billion and on reports of hedge fund selling.

The German lender's shares hit another all-time low in European trading Friday, but recovered late in the session to end higher. After record lows Thursday on Wall Street, Deutsche Bank's stock that trades in the U.S. was sharply higher midday Friday.

Any comparison of the German institution to investment banks in the U.S. is "silly," Yusko said, arguing that heading into the 2008 crisis Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were subject to significantly more distress and funding imbalance than Deutsche Bank today.

"The U.S. banks were so highly levered at the time, which they shouldn't have been, and things started to unravel because they were bad assets, they were bad loans. I don't think you have that problem in Germany today," he said.

Deutsche Bank won't likely have big woes, he said, and may end up being a solid long-term buy. But where the German bank may struggle, he acknowledged, is getting back on its feet in the industry, since "banking is a confidence game."

Credit analyst Filippo Alloatti at Hermes Fund Managers echoed the importance of confidence, telling CNBC's " Squawk on the Street " on Friday that there's a "psychological limit" in Germany over how low Deutsche Bank's shares can drop before investors start panicking and consumers start potentially pulling their deposits.

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While he doesn't see Deutsche Bank's $252 billion of liquidity as an immediate problem, Eric Wasserstrom, managing director of Guggenheim Securities, warned of the potential volatility that comes with holding high amounts of liquid assets.

"Capital, or the erosion of capital, is something that kills a bank slowly; illiquidity is something that kills it overnight," Wasserstrom told "Squawk on the Street."

When it comes to needing to recapitalize, Wasserstrom drew a contrast between methods in the United States, where during the financial crisis the government infused banks with capital and forced them to raise common equity to replace those funds, and Europe, where banks are typically expected to fend for themselves.

"In continental Europe, most of the expectation was about forbearing for these institutions to earn their way out of the problem, which they've clearly never been able to do."

As for U.S. banks, Morgan Creek's Yusko believes they will struggle for a long time due to low global growth overall. He also said American banks have been "Dodd-Franked." Referring to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, he said they've been regulated excessively and turned into utilities.

Morgan Creek, with about $2.9 billion in assets under management, is primarily a hedge fund allocator, which means it invests in other funds on behalf of clients. The firm also makes its own bets on certain stocks.









More From CNBC


New York (AFP) - Heavy market pressure on Deutsche Bank eased Friday as a knowledgeable source told AFP the US fine over toxic debt it sold would be only $5.4 billion, not the $14 billion originally demanded.

A person familiar with the talks between Deutsche Bank and the Department of Justice said an agreement could come in the next few days to settle the US government charges that the bank knowingly sold high-risk mortgage securities ahead of the 2008 financial crisis.

The final amount of the settlement could also be slightly different, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The news powered the shares of Germany's biggest lender dramatically higher as worries about its financial stability under the pressure of a potentially massive US fine ebbed.

US-traded shares of the bank finished up 14 percent at $13.09, while in Frankfurt, in part due to different market hours relative to the timing of the news, shares added 6.4 percent at 11.57 euros.

Deutsche Bank and the Justice Department declined to comment on the news of a deal, as did the German finance ministry.

But worries about the impact of the case on Deutsche Bank had spread through markets and into the political realm over the past week, unnerving investors.

Adding to the rising concerns were conflicting reports in German media on whether Berlin would come to the troubled bank's aid if necessary.

-'No basis for speculation'-

Then late Thursday the bank's US-traded shares plunged on news that a number of hedge funds that clear derivatives business through Deutsche Bank had pulled out money.

The shares also tumbled as the Frankfurt stock market opened Friday, falling by more than nine percent at one point, hitting a historic low of 9.90 euros.

This sparked fears that a banking meltdown reminiscent of the 2008 crisis was in the making, potentially dragging other European banks and global markets down with it.

Deutsche Bank chief executive John Cryan managed to lift the mood with a letter to staff Friday insisting the bank was not at risk.

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"At no time in the last two decades has Deutsche Bank been as safe as it is today," Cryan wrote.

"In a situation like this, the most important factor is our liquidity reserves. Currently they still amount to more than 215 billion euros ($241.7 billion)," he said.

"This is an extremely comfortable buffer. This is clear proof of how conservatively we have planned."

"There is therefore no basis for this speculation," he added. "Nor can uncertainty about the outcome of our litigation cases in the US explain this pressure on our stock price, if we take the settlements of our peers as a benchmark."

- Bailout less likely -

The bank has suffered for months from perceptions of a weak capital base. In June it flunked the US Federal Reserve's stress test.

A month later Deutsche was among the worst performers in a European Banking Authority stress test, although Cryan insisted the exercise had demonstrated the institution's resilience to future crises.

A settlement with US authorities of $5.4 billion would be just shy of the total Deutsche Bank has set aside in provisions for outstanding legal actions.

CMC Markets analyst Jasper Lawler said that improved match of figures "may make a rights issue more palatable and makes a government bailout much less likely."

Still, the US toxic mortgage-securities case is just one of 8,000 legal challenges burdening Deutsche Bank. An investigation by New York regulators over allegations of money laundering at its Moscow office looms.
Deutsche Bank is taking off after Agence France-Presse reported the bank is closing in on a $5.4 billion settlement with the US government over mortgage-backed securities from the financial crisis.

This is much lower than the $14 billion settlement originally reported two weeks ago.

The settlement announcement could come in the next few days, according to the AFP report, which cited a source close to the matter.

After sinking to an all-time low on Thursday, US-traded shares of Deutsche Bank are up around 15% and German shares are up over 6% on Friday following the news.

The last two weeks have been troubling for the German bank. After a report that it may be subject to $14 billion in fines by US regulators over bad derivative products from the financial crisis, shares of Deutsche began a tailspin.



Additionally, rumors of a bailout  or lack thereof  from the German government and hedge funds decreasing their exposure to Deutsche Bank haven't helped.

On Friday, however, CEO John Cryan sent a letter to employees assuring them that the bank is still stable. Additionally, the consensus from analysts is that the bank will not settle for the $14 billion and should be able to make it out of the current crisis (though that wouldn't remedy larger, long-term issues).

Following the positive news, shares have popped over 15% as of 2:05 p.m. ET, to $13.21 a share.

DB 9 30 16 COTD

German shares are also well off their lows of the day, up 6.4%, at 11.57 per share.

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The situation at Deutsche Bank is deteriorating and shares are down 7% in Europe. A Bloomberg report indicated that 10 hedge fund clients are reducing their dealings with Germany's biggest bank. The head of the Europe's largest investment bank directly addressed the report, telling a German newspaper that the bank had not seen any noticeable outflow of funds. 34 million people have already started their holiday shopping. Creditcards.com says by the end of November, one-quarter of U.S. adults plan to have finished their holiday shopping. The real overachievers are the ones who are already finished-about a million Americans. The movie 'Deepwater Horizon' opens today at theaters across the United States. The film depicts the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig that had a blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Disney is trying to tap into Star Wars fans creation of YouTube fiction by tying Fridays release of the action figures from new movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story with a competition to create the best short films using the new toys. The concept of Star Wars fan fiction is a YouTube sensation with videos collectively getting over 16 billion views in the last year alone. To kickstart the competition #GoRogue, Disney hired James DeJulio's crowd-sourcing company Tongal to find superfans to make four short films to inspire competition entries and they picked Kevin Ulrich, Ben MacKenzie and Tucker Barrie. Ulrich, who has made short films with the toys since the age of 11, explains their place in popular culture. "George Lucas did something brilliant with Star Wars which nobody else had done which was to make so many toys that you could have just the random background characters, you could have the major characters and you could basically create your own Star Wars world with toys." The toys are being released less than three months before the films cinematic release. However, the three fans making the films got to see the range much earlier than the general public. MacKenzie explained "We didn't get any more information than was available to the public but getting these characters and getting to see them up close more than just a second in a trailer and seeing their designs was sort of a joy." But they did get a little insight into the film's storyline by accidentally emulating it. "There was a lot of feedback from Disney and Lucasfilm," said Ulrich, who animated the Lego scenes as well as wrote the screenplay. "I'd make something up and maybe it would be too close to the actual film so then we'd have to change it." When the first 'Star Wars' film 'A New Hope' was released in 1977, the action figures swiftly became the years most wanted toys and toymaker Kenner was unprepared for the demand. By the end of 1978, $100 million was made in sales from the toys. The Star Wars toy market continues to be strong with $500 million worth of toys sold in 2015 and the same expected in 2016. The competition is open until October 21 and media asset packs are available on the starwars.com site.
By Randi Belisomo (Reuters Health) - Cancer specialists and primary care physicians are not communicating very well about the end-of-life concerns of the patients they share - and according to one new study, they often rely on those patients to convey information back and forth. Researchers in the Netherlands found that end-of-life discussions are rarely a subject of direct, interprofessional communication. Although the study, published in the journal Family Practice, reflects European realities, its findings likely resonate across the siloed American health system, too. Most patients in the U.S. have many doctors, and if each is doing their own little thing, no wonder patients are confused, said University of Washington professor and oncologist Dr. Tony Back, who was not involved with the study. The primary care doctor says, I think I should talk about end-of-life care with this patient, and the oncologist says, We have another treatment to try. The patient is saddled with sorting that out, and its not fair. The research team, led by Dr. John J Oosterink at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, interviewed 16 general practitioners and 14 cancer specialists about the last discussion they had with a patient about end-of-life issues. Oncologists were asked whether they knew what their patients general practitioner discussed, and general practitioners were asked the same about oncologists involvement. The study investigators did not respond to a request for comment. While general practitioners and oncologists all recognized the importance of timely end-of-life discussions, most believed general practitioners - due to longstanding patient relationships - were in the most appropriate role to facilitate them. General practitioners who spoke about end-of-life issues emphasized patients wishes and concerns. Oncologists focused on incurability and non-treatment orders. Some American oncologists dont expect primary care physicians to be involved in end-of-life planning at all. That relationship gets lost in a cancer diagnosis, and most of my patients stop seeing the internist, said Virginia Kaklamani, a professor of medicine and leader of the breast oncology program at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio who wasn't involved in the study. The person closest to the patient should initiate an end of life discussion, and that person ends up being the oncologist. Kaklamani told Reuters Health that after an initial phone call following a new patient appointment, talks with primary care physicians are rare. If everything was done right, it would be extremely helpful for communication to be better. But for impact, the internist would need to have a relationship with the patient and continue to follow the patient. Thats not happening. According to internist Dr. Cheryl Wilkes, a clinical practice director at Northwestern Universitys Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, the primary care doctors communication with oncologists is often limited to what is written in the electronic medical record. I get a copy of their note, and its on me to look at it, Wilkes told Reuters Health. Ill have a feel for how the cancer is progressing, but as an internist, I dont know the exact implications of what that means for their time frame. Wilkes does initiate these essential talks herself. Medicares new coverage of advance care planning as part of the Welcome to Medicare visit and annual wellness visits that follow encourages her to start this conversation more frequently. I love it that once a year, I am enabled to do it, said Wilkes, who also was not involved in the study. Back says that efforts like Wilkes are essential to prepare patients for the end of life and ensure they receive the same message from each physician they see. Challenges arise when internists initiate end of life dialogue, but oncologists tell patients that such discussions are premature. Back is one of the co-founders of the non-profit Vital Talk, which develops communication courses to foster better connections between patients and clinicians - particularly surrounding end-of-life care. What is happening in our system is the internist, who maybe knows the patient well and is better at drawing out that patients values, doesnt have a very clear place at the table, Back said. They can bring something very important to this situation. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2cGmh5n Family Practice, online September 1, 2016.
Until now, the 84 million-plus viewers of Mondays presidential debate mostly had to take Donald Trumps word that his microphone was glitchy. Aside from those amplified sniffles, the sound seemed unremarkable during the broadcast.

But now the Commission on Presidential Debates has confirmed that Trumps mic did indeed have issues that attendees at Hofstra University might have detected. Regarding the first debate, says the Commission in a statement positively un-Trump-like in its brevity, there were issues regarding Donald Trumps audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall.

Despite the commissions admission, Micgate was pretty much a non-story today, entirely overwhelmed by the GOP candidates Twitterstorm during Fridays wee hours in which he called former Miss Universe Alicia Machado disgusting and referenced a supposed sex tape.

Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016

Unless Trump has seen an authentic sex tape featuring Machado (lots of hoax videos are springing up), hes most likely referring to a scene from Spanish-language reality show La Granja, in which actress Machado apparently canoodled under the sheets with a fellow cast member. Standard stuff for the Real World/Big Brother-style show.

Hillary Clinton, in a stump speech in Florida today, addressed the latest unhinged Trump tweet brouhaha.

Why does he do things like that?, she asked, her mic sounding loud and clear.

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Donald Trump may not have been entirely wrong when he was speculating about mic issues at the first general election debate.

"Regarding the first debate, there were issues regarding Donald Trump's audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall," the Commission on Presidential Debates said in a tersely-worded statement that didn't elaborate on what those issues were.

Following the Sept. 26 debate, the Republican presidential contender appeared to be just stirring up another conspiracy theory when he complained about microphone issues.

"My microphone was terrible. I wonder, was it set up that way on purpose?" Trump said on Fox and Friends on Tuesday.

Hillary Clinton had responded to that line of speculation with a quip: "Anybody who complains about the microphone is not having a good night."

The showdown between the candidates, held at Hofstra University in New York and aired on 13 networks, was the most-watched presidential debate in history, captivating 84 million viewers.
Joe Heck and Catherine Cortez Masto. (Photos: David Becker/AP; Cathleen Allison/Nevada Appeal/AP)

Its clear from even the quickest glance at the latest headlines  the audio issues, the stiffed piano merchant, the whole Miss Piggy controversy  that Donald Trump has transformed the 2016 presidential election into a spectacle unlike anything in recent U.S. history.

But what has Trump done to down-ballot politics?

Last Friday, Down Ticket traveled to Las Vegas to check in on the race to succeed retiring Sen. Harry Reid former majority leader, current minority leader, and, with nearly 34 years of Capitol Hill maneuvering under his belt, the second most powerful Democrat in the country.

We chose Nevada because, more than any other marquee 2016 contest, it seemed like the perfect place to explore the deeper forces that define American politics today.

For starters, its one of the few open Senate seats at stake this cycle. No incumbent means no incumbency advantage, no out-of-the-gate favorite. A level playing field is helpful when youre trying figure out whats actually happening on the ground.

Second, both contestants represent bigger trends in their respective parties. Republican Rep. Joe Heck, a physician and a brigadier general in the Army Reserve who has served three tours of active duty, is precisely the kind of candidate the RNC was calling for when it declared, in its autopsy of Mitt Romneys 2012 loss to Barack Obama, that Latinos will close their ears to our policies if they think we do not want them here. Hecks Henderson-area congressional district, NV-3, is 15.4 percent Latino, and in his 2014 reelection bid, he won 40 percent of the Latino vote, besting Romneys 2012 performance by 13 percentage points.

Sen. Harry Reid arrives for a press interview in Las Vegas last August. (Photo: David Becker/Reuters)

Meanwhile, Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, the states two-term attorney general, is Latina herself  the granddaughter of an immigrant from Chihuahua, Mexico. If elected, she would be the first Latina in the U.S. Senate.

Then there are the overall demographics of Nevada to consider: 28 percent Hispanic, 9 percent black, roughly 10 percent Asian-American or Pacific Islander (a community thats growing faster in the Silver State than anywhere else in America). With non-Hispanic whites now reduced to 50 percent of the population, Nevada has already morphed into the kind of multi-ethnic melting pot that the rest of the country will soon become as well. The fact that its also a purple state makes it something of a bellwether  a glimpse of our political future.

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Last but not least: The contest between Heck and Cortez Masto is too close to call. Both candidates reminded Down Ticket of what they constantly remind voters  that Nevada could determine which party will rule the next Senate.

When you look at the first four seats ranked as most likely to flip parties, they are Republican seats going Democratic, which puts us at 50-50, Heck told Down Ticket. This is number five, which puts us back at 51.

Right here in Nevada is the pathway for Democrats to take back control of the Senate, added Cortez Masto.

Translation: everybody is bringing their A-game.

These were the reasons we went to Nevada. What we found, however, was less emblematic of American politics writ large than of how Donald Trump is distorting American politics.

Both sides insisted that all they wanted to talk about was the issues. What they were actually talking about was whether Cortez Masto was Hispanic enough.

*****

The quarrel started last Thursday with Tom McAllister, a longtime Heck consigliere who was, until recently, his official political director. Reacting to a Washington Post story in part about Cortez Masto and her Mexican-American roots, McAllister tweeted that Catherine is about as Mexican as I am. Its relevant when applying for scholarhsips [sic]  or running for #nvsen.

Rep. Joe Heck at the Capitol last year, during the vote to elect the speaker of the House. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images)

Next up was Hecks former campaign manager, Mark Ciavola, who seconded his old colleague on Twitter with some quips about how Cortez Masto doesnt speak Spanish. Finally, McAllister took to Facebook to complain that Cortez Masto is going around Nevada hyping up the fact that she could be the first female Hispanic ever elected to the U.S. Senate.

Dont believe her BS, McAllister warned. Hispandering at its finest.

Cue firestorm. To try to erase [Cortez Mastos] familys provenance, to equate being Mexican with being Hispanic, to use the term Hispandering, a sneering insult: This is outrageous. This is nasty. This is borderline racist, wrote Jon Ralston, Nevadas most influential political reporter. And it is just plain dumb.

It was also distinctly Trump-like: an identity insult with echoes of the candidates trademark tirades against Elizabeth Pocahontas Warren and Judge Gonzalo Curiel.

This is Donald Trumps America, where you can say almost anything you want about minorities, Ralston wrote. Just as Trump thinks its fine to call [Curiel] Mexican, so, too, McAllister and Ciavola think its fine to try to erase Cortez Mastos heritage because they worry about her having success at winning Hispanic votes.

As for Cortez Masto, she could, theoretically, have let the issue drop. After all, neither Ciavola nor McAllister are currently affiliated with Hecks campaign, and Heck doesnt agree with their remarks.

We have a lot of questions for my opponent, but her ethnic heritage is not one of them, Heck told Down Ticket in his first public comments on the controversy. Those are former aides.  One left the campaign four months ago, one six months ago. Theres a reason why theyre no longer with us.

But no surprise: That wasnt enough for Cortez Masto.

Guadalupe Arreola, civil rights activist Dolores Huerta, Catherine Cortez Masto and an unidentified supporter address campaign volunteers in Arreolas Las Vegas home, Sept. 15, 2016. (Photo: Dalton Bennett/Washington Post via Getty Images)

By Friday morning, her campaign had organized an event at the Hispanic Museum of Nevada, a small storefront space in Las Vegas Boulevard Mall. A podium was positioned in front of a high white wall hung with oil paintings by Carlos Porfirio and Samy Gana; nearby stood a mannequin bedecked in traditional Bolivian garb and a table arrayed with Guatemalan handicrafts. Two dozen Hispanic Cortez Masto supporters holding orange-and-blue campaign signs emblazoned with the slogan Una de las Nuestras! Cortez Masto Para el Senado slowly shuffled behind the podium. A family friend reminded the news media in attendance that Cortez Mastos late father, Manny Cortez, was a local legend; immigration activists demanded that Heck apologize.

If theyre attacking her because of that, said Jose Macias, that means theyre attacking the whole community.

Finally, Cortez Masto stepped to the microphone in a bipartisan purple pantsuit.

For longtime aides of Congressman Heck to attack my Mexican heritage, claiming that it is only useful for a college application, is disgusting, she said. Its offensive not only to me, my father and my grandfather, who immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico, but it is insulting to all Mexican-Americans who make America strong.

Attempts to diminish their contributions go to the heart of what people like Donald Trump and Joe Heck are thinking, Cortez Masto continued. They think America is weaker because of our differences and that our diversity is something to be criticized and feared. Let me tell you: they are wrong.

In an interview after the Hispanic Museum event, Cortez Masto was even more indignant.

Donald Trump speaks as his sons Donald Trump Jr., second from left, and Eric Trump, third from left, look on during a caucus night party in Las Vegas last February. (Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

It starts with Donald Trump, his message of hate, racism and discrimination, she told Down Ticket. People need to stand up to that type of rhetoric and just call it what it is. And Donald Trump  here Cortez Masto paused, catching her mistake  excuse me, Congressman Heck, by not even being willing to stand up, by not saying anything, then hes complicit in perpetuating that type of divisive rhetoric. Thats not somebody who should be representing the state of Nevada, or our country in general.

*****

Cortez Mastos calculus here is simple. In Nevada, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by nearly 80,000. Lots of Nevada Democrats are Hispanic. Cortez Masto doesnt need crossover voters; if her base turns out on Nov. 8, she will win. What better way to get Nevada Democrats fired up than by accusing Heck of being just as anti-Hispanic as Trump  even if you have to stretch the transitive property to its limits (ex-staffers = Heck = Trump) to do it?

As one Nevada Democrat excitedly told Down Ticket, word of mouth has more resonance here, where people work all-night shifts and dont tune into the evening news. This is something that people will talk about. People who dont pay attention to politics will be like, Holy s***, thats quite the accusation. People can connect with this.

A reminder for people to vote at a primary election polling site in Las Vegas. (Photo: John Locher/AP)

Or at least thats what Democrats hope. For months now, the Cortez Masto campaign has been trying to portray Heck as a Trump clone, reminding voters that, unlike many other GOP Senate candidates  and unlike his fellow Nevada Republicans, Sen. Dean Heller and Gov. Brian Sandoval  Heck has endorsed the Manhattan mogul for president. Cortez Masto has described Heck and Trump as ideological soul mates. Reid  who selected Cortez Masto to succeed him and says he is devoting a huge amount of [his] time to the race  has referred to his protegees rival as both a parrot and Joe Im Really Trump Heck. Democratic attack ads have pilloried Heck for saying he has high hopes that Trump will win; that he completely supports Trump; that he trusts Trump with Americas nuclear codes.

And yet the polls appear to be moving in Hecks direction. In August, Heck and Cortez Masto were basically tied; the largest gap between them in the RealClear Politics polling average was 0.3 percentage points. Since the start of September, however, Hecks lead has grown: first to 1 point, then to 1.2 points, then to 1.5 points, then to 2 points, and now to 4 points. One of the most recent statewide surveys shows Heck up by seven; another puts him ahead by three. In contrast, the same poll shows Hillary Clinton beating Trump by six.

Sen. Dean Heller, with his wife, Lynne, after his win over challenger Rep. Shelley Berkley in 2012. (Photo: Julie Jacobson/AP)

Democrats argue that a transient population, odd work hours, and lots of cell phones, especially among younger minorities, make Nevada notoriously difficult to poll. They point out that existing polls tend to underestimate Democratic turnout; in 2012, the Republican Senate candidate, Dean Heller, won by a much slimmer margin (1.2 points) than his average polling lead predicted, and in 2010, Reid defeated Republican Sharron Angle by a solid 5.6 points even though hed trailed her in 14 of the last 18 public surveys. They say Reids powerful political machine will give them an edge over the states notoriously sloppy GOP on Election Day. They blame a multimillion-dollar ad blitz by the Koch Brothers  who are determined to embarrass Reid, their archenemy  for depressing Cortez Mastos numbers. And they believe that last weeks Hispandering flap will help turn the tide.

Maybe so. Or maybe not. Well find out soon enough.

Political operatives saying offensive stuff  thats nothing new. Neither is the outrage machine that their rivals like to rev up in response. But something about the recent Heck vs. Cortez Masto contretemps felt  symptomatic. The eagerness to insult an opponents ethnic identity. The eagerness to capitalize on these insults for electoral gain. Even Hecks stiffness when discussing the subject. (He simply repeated, verbatim, his press shops official line on the subject: They have a lot of questions for Cortez Masto, but none about her heritage.)

One side seems terrified that white working-class voters will turn on them if they arent sufficiently Trump-like. The other side seems convinced that trashing their opponents as bigots-by-association is the best way to voters hearts. Its a vicious circle thats becoming even more vicious in the Age of Trump.

*****

This is unfortunate, because Heck and Cortez Masto actually have some ideas worth discussing. During an interview at the Democratic Partys Las Vegas headquarters, Cortez Masto empathized with Nevadans still struggling in the wake of the worst recession Ive ever seen, when literally 77,000 homeowners were at risk of losing their homes; she recalled that, as one of the few state attorneys general with the power to write legislation, she introduced over 40 bills  40  that passed out of the legislature with the support of Republicans and Democrats, and were always signed by a Republican governor; she spoke about writing the states first sex-trafficking law, creating its first domestic-violence fatality review team ever, and filing suit against one of the biggest banks in the country because they werent doing right by the homeowners here.

Catherine Cortez Masto, running for Minority Leader Harry Reids Senate seat in 2016, speaks with supporters last February. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, at his field office in Summerlin, Heck made it clear that he doesnt agree with many aspects of Trumps divisive immigration platform, pointing out, with a laugh, that its logistically and fiscally impossible to find and deport 12 million people, and that there are areas on the border with Mexico where physical obstacles just wont work.

You put up a 10-foot wall and Ill show you a 12-foot ladder, Heck said. Or Ill show you the tunnel.

Hecks history on immigration is nuanced. Democrats insist hes all talk, no action  and that he has voted against both DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Legal Permanent Residents and DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals)  but the truth is that hes also broken with the GOP herd on several occasions. (Hecks congressional district begins just south of the glitzy hotels and casinos of the Vegas Strip and stretches into the neighboring suburbs that many of the Latino and Asian immigrants who staff those hotels and casinos call home.) In 2013, Heck read all 1,200 pages of the Gang of Eights comprehensive immigration reform bill, and though he objected to portions of it, he planned to work on a House version. When House Republicans eventually decided to kill the legislation, Heck released a statement saying the situation was extremely frustrating and very disappointing. He spent six months drafting a GOP version of the DREAM Act. And he says that he would continue to push for bipartisan immigration reform as a senator under President Trump.

Demonstrators outside Hecks office in Las Vegas in 2014. (Photo: Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, Astrid Silva/AP)

Youll get to a comprehensive solution through a series of individual bills, Heck told Down Ticket, noting that he recently partnered with progressive Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona on a career and technical education bill that passed unanimously in the House. These days youve got folks that want to go off into their respective corners and just argue at each other. But if you take the time to build relationships and get simpler things accomplished, that builds a level of trust to then be able to go out and tackle the more difficult issues.

At the moment, however, the race to replace Reid couldnt be more polarized.

Last Saturday, while Cortez Masto repeated her applause lines about Heck and Trump at a Hillary Clinton Glassbreakers summit in North Las Vegas, Heck was 70 miles west in the desert town of Pahrump, a libertarian outpost in the middle of one of the largest but least populous counties in the United States. Hed come for the annual Fall Festival parade.

Men circled on horseback, American flag bandanas knotted around their necks. An activist in full Revolutionary War regalia, long rifle included, was holding a sign that read VOTE NO ON QUESTION ONE  the November ballot measure that would institute background checks for gun purchases. Life is Short, Death is Sure, Sin the Curse, Christ the Cure! read a banner lashed to the side of church float. Billboards for the Chicken Ranch Brothel lined the road. (Prostitution is legal in Pahrump.) Nye County Commissioner Donna Cox  decked out in a suede-fringed poncho, turquoise jewelry, a cowboy hat and a pistol on her hip  pulled her blond grandson in a wagon; Coxs husband walked beside her, a pitchfork in his hand. Beneath his denim overalls was a bright red T-shirt: 101% TRUMP.

For a mile and a half, Heck (in Wranglers and a white, tightly tucked polo) and his wife, Lisa (in cowboy boots and pink plaid), meandered down Route 160 in the low morning sun, waving to onlookers. They walked a few feet behind the Nye County Republican Party float that featured bales of hay, a Make Liberty Great Again scroll and a life-size cardboard cutout of Donald Trump.

Contrasted with Cortez Mastos event at the Hispanic Museum, the parade in Pahrump was a vivid illustration of the cultural divide has driven Trumps campaign  and that threatens to define the Nevada Senate race. The Silver State may be diverse  a preview of Americas majority minority future. But as many studies have shown, diversity and resentment  particularly on the part of a previously privileged group  go hand and hand. Everything is a little hotter in a melting pot.

Heck during a roundtable event in Henderson, Nev., in June. (Photo: David Becker/AP)

Dr. Joe Heck! shouted Hecks outreach director. Running to replace Harry Reid in the U.S. Senate! Dr. Joe Heck!

Bout time! the people of Pahrump shouted back. Give em Heck! Praying for you, man! Hooray for that guy! You gonna take out Nancy Pelosi too?

Good morning, said Heck, still waving. Good to see you.

There were a few Hispanic locals lining the parade route. They largely remained silent.

_____

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The officials said the Cartosat series of satellites (Cartosat-2, 2A, 2B and 2C) were being used for strategic purposes and more so the Cartosat 2C whose images have better resolution.

By Indo-Asian News Service: India's eyes in the skies - family of remote sensing or earth observation satellites - is said to have given the necessary images to the armed forces to carry out its surgical strikes on terror camps across the Line of Control (LoC), officials said today.

The officials said the Cartosat series of satellites (Cartosat-2, 2A, 2B and 2C) were being used for strategic purposes and more so the Cartosat 2C whose images have better resolution.

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The Cartosat 2C was launched in June 2016.

READ| India carried out counter-terrorism strike across LoC, Indian High Commissioner tells Pakistan



Informed sources told IANS that Cartosat 2D and 3 will also be used by the armed forces.

While officials at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) were silent on the use of satellites for strategic purposes, they did agree that satellite images are sourced by various agencies including the defence forces.

READ| Surgical strikes in PoK: How Indian para commandos killed 38 terrorists, hit 7 camps



Sources told IANS that while the earth observation satellites are managed by ISRO, the use of satellite's payload/equipments dedicated for strategic use is decided by the defence forces.



India also has its Risat series of radar imaging reconnaissance satellites that provides all weather images using synthetic aperture radars (SAR).



READ| India sends stern message to Pakistan: Army conducts surgical strike in PoK, kills 38 jihadis



While the eyes in the skies are earth observation satellites, the hearing power for the defence forces is given by the communication satellites.

The Indian armed forces and in particular the Navy got its own satellite power in GSAT-7/Rukmini, a communication satellite for maritime communication purposes.

READ| Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike



India's second dedicated military communication satellite is GSAT-6 while Indian Air Force is also set to get one satellite for its use in the future.

Looking at the overall picture it seems that Indian defence forces will have around six satellites for their use at any given point of time in the near future.

Also Read:

After India's surgical strike, Pakistan violates ceasefire yet again



Delhi on high alert after Indian Army carries out surgical strike across LoC



Claims denied: How Pakistan media is treating India's surgical strike

Will Pakistan hit back? Villages close to border being evacuated, leaves of soldiers cancelled Nawaz Sharif after India's surgical strike: Don't take our peaceful intent for weakness

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One woman was killed and more than 100 people were reportedly injured at the New Jersey Transit terminal in Hoboken after a train crashed into the station on September 29, according to news reports. The incident happened shortly before 9 am, when the train crashed through a wall, causing a part of the roof to collapse.

This video shows chaotic scenes inside the train station immediately after the crash. Credit: Leon Offengenden
Dubai has been named the leading destination in the Middle East at the World Travel Awards Middle East ceremony, while Etihad Airways was given the title of leading airline for the region for a record 10th year in a row.

Industry leaders gathered at the St. Regis Dubai this week to honor the best in Middle Eastern travel.

Winners of the regional events which also include Europe, North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and Australasia, will go on to the grand finale December 2.

There were few surprises at this year's gala ceremony. Since 1996, Dubai has taken the title of leading destination in the Middle East every year with the exception of 2010, when it was momentarily overtaken by Abu Dhabi.

Likewise, the results of the awards suggest that Abu Dhabi's flagship carrier Etihad Airways is the standard-bearer when it comes to air travel, having dominated the category for the last 10 years.

In years past, other favorites included Qatar Airways and Emirates.

In the category of leading hotel, that title went to the Jumeirah Al Qasr at Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai, a luxurious property designed in the style of a Sheikh's summer residence with touches of royal architecture and tributes to old Arabian design.

If you're eyeing a trip to the Middle East, take cues from the winners of the World Travel Awards Middle East which were voted upon by leaders in the industry. Here are a few of the winners:

Leading airport: Dubai International Airport

Leading beach destination: Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi

Leading beach resort: Le Royal Meridien Beach Resort & Spa, Dubai

Leading boutique hotel: Al Mashreq Boutique Hotel, Saudi Arabia

Leading budget hotel brand: Citymax Hotels

Leading low-cost airline: flynas

Leading luxury hotel: Rosewood Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Leading romantic resort: One&Only The Palm, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
The fallout from the decision by members of Congress to override President Obamas veto of a bill allowing US citizens to sue the government of Saudi Arabia for damages related to the 9/11 terror attacks is already becoming apparent, and Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell responded with some really extraordinary chutzpah.

The Kentucky Republican blamed President Obama for failing to show enough opposition to a bill that he literally vetoed.

Related: Congress Now Has to Fix the Problems It Created With Veto Override Vote

The law the president rejected is the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA, which rolls back some of the foreign immunity protections that prevent sovereign countries from being sued in US courts. On Wednesday, though, the Senate voted 97-1 to override the veto, and the House followed up shortly thereafter with a 348-77 override vote.

Even before they voted to force the bill to become law over the presidents objections, members of Congress were already acknowledging that opening the door to lawsuits against foreign governments in US courts would create a huge headache for the Departments of Defense and State, which have tens of thousands of personnel stationed abroad, and potentially for US businesses operating overseas.

Nevertheless, they went ahead and overrode the veto. And by Thursday, backlash in the Arab world had begun.

The Saudi government released a statement saying that the new law is of great concern to the community of nations that object to the erosion of the principle of sovereign immunity, which has governed international relations for hundreds of years. The statement continued, The erosion of sovereign immunity will have a negative impact on all nations, including the United States.

Related: More Americans Want a One-Party Government That Can Ram Through Policy

While the governments statement was measured, the public reaction in the Arab world was not. Social media was full of complaints about various US actions around the world, from errant drone strikes and support for the Saudi suppression of a revolt in Yemen back through the torture scandal of Abu Ghraib, support for the Shah of Iran, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.



It remained unclear whether there would be reciprocal removal of US sovereign immunity by other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere. Much will depend on the number and kind of lawsuits that are filed in US courts against foreign governments accused of sponsoring terror attacks on US soil.

Story continues

Even as he prepared to vote for the override this week, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that he expected lawsuits to be filed very quickly. And, according to the New York Times that appears to be exactly what is happening as a consolidated lawsuit filed by 9/11 victims and their families seems to be on its way back to federal court.

In fact, the whole concern is that the situation could play out in exactly the way President Obama, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Secretary of State John Kerry, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan and a host of other administration officials specifically warned Congressional leaders it would.

Related: What Donald Trump Doesnt Seem to Understand About US Nuclear Weapons

Obama reiterated his concerns when he sent the legislation back to Congress with his veto message last week.

That made it particularly bizarre to hear the Senate Majority Leader try to place the blame on the president Thursday, by complaining about the White Houses failure to communicate early about the potential consequences of the law was somehow to blame for lawmakers decision to override the presidents veto.

I told the president the other day that this is an example of an issue that we should have talked about much earlier, McConnell said. It appears as if there may be some unintended ramifications of that and I do think its worth further discussing. But it was certainly not something that was going to be fixed this week.

Congress will now embark on a recess set to last nearly two full months, leaving plenty of time for damage from the new law to accumulate.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
The Hague (AFP) - Amsterdam sex workers on Thursday launched a project described as unique in Europe -- a brothel run by prostitutes by themselves with no exploitation, thanks to financing from a social investment fund.

"Today we are witnessing a breakthrough in the empowerment of sex workers. It is a dream come true," said spokesman Richard Bouwman.

The project due to open in May 2017, is "the first sex business managed solely by sex workers," he said at the launch in the Dutch capital.

Prostitution has been legal in the Netherlands since 2000 and sex workers, who are registered with the chamber of commerce, pay taxes on their incomes. Their pimps or handlers must have a permit and often pay a high commission.

The My Red Light project, which involves four buildings comprising 14 of the famous windows looking out onto Amsterdam's notorious red light district, will enable sex workers to use their incomes to improve their social status.

The scheme, which has resulted from a feasibility study carried out at the request of the city authorities last year, is being backed by the philanthropy fund Start Foundation, as well as the Dutch bank Rabobank.

"My Red Light, founded by sex workers, offers self-employed entrepreneurs within the prostitution sector the opportunity to rent work spaces at attractive rates and flexible terms," the project said in a statement.

It is also open to male sex workers and transgender sex workers.

- 'Safe, comfortable place' -

"We want to create a safe and comfortable place for the whole community," said spokeswoman Dinah Bons.

It is set in the heart of Amsterdam's infamous red light district where women and men sit in windows on display hoping to attract customers.

The scheme "wants everyone to feel free to take a seat in the board or to fulfil other management positions. We want to tear down any form of (gender) stereotyping and we are here for everyone who is in this line of work," added Bons.

Story continues

About 7,000 sex workers ply their trade in Amsterdam with some 75 percent coming from poorer countries, particularly in eastern Europe.

"Profits made from the rental of all 14 windows will be invested in initiatives that seek to improve the social status of sex workers," Bouwman said, adding that workshops will also be offered "to help sex workers work in a safe and professional way.

The scheme is part of Amsterdam city's policy to "make the city's sex work industry clean and safe, and to give sex workers greater independence" and reduce abuse, according to the city's tourist office.
The Hague (AFP) - Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders has summoned Russia's ambassador over "unacceptable" comments by Moscow criticising a report into the downing of flight MH17, officials said on Friday.

"Responding to the presentation of the initial findings... spokespersons for the Kremlin and the Russian foreign ministry and defence ministry questioned the professionalism, integrity and independence of the Dutch public prosecution service," the Dutch foreign ministry said.

"The Russian ambassador was informed that unsubstantiated criticism like this is unacceptable," the ministry said in a statement, issued in The Hague.

Moscow on Wednesday described as "biased" and "politically motivated" initial findings by a Dutch-led team of international investigators which concluded that the Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down by a missile transported from Russia.

The Boeing 777 passenger jet was blown out of the sky on July 17, 2014 over war-torn eastern Ukraine killing all 298 on board, the majority Dutch citizens.

Criminal investigators from the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine this week said they had "irrefutable evidence" that a BUK missile slammed into the plane and was fired from a field in a part of eastern Ukraine then controlled by pro-Russian rebels.

But the findings stopped short of directly accusing Moscow of involvement in the tragedy.

Koenders said: "Given the convincing nature of the evidence, Russia should respect the results that have been presented, rather than impugning the investigation and sowing doubt."

He called on Russia to "continue to cooperate fully with the investigation and subsequent prosecution and trial" of those responsible.

Ukraine and the West insist pro-Russian rebels blew the jet out of the sky with a Russian-made missile system likely supplied by Moscow.

The tragedy saw the European Union slap tougher sanctions on Russia, blamed by the West for being behind the rebellion. The punitive measures remain in place as the fighting drags on.

Story continues

But Russia and the rebels have consistently denied any role in downing the plane, and have instead blamed Ukrainian government forces.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Friday the ministry has reviewed the Dutch ministry's press release "on the demarche" regarding Russia's ambassador.

The Russian foreign ministry "drew attention to the Dutch side's total rejection of any reasoned criticism of the preliminary results of the criminal investigation into the crash," Zakharova said in a statement.

"The preliminary results presented by the Joint Investigation Team were officiously portrayed as the only true results to which there can be no doubts or objections," she said.
By Manuel Mogato and Benjamin Kang Lim MANILA/BEIJING (Reuters) - Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte travels to China next month on a visit that could redraw alliances in East Asia after his incendiary comments about the United States and active courting of Washington's chief rivals. The friendly relationship between the Philippines and the United States has been one of the pillars of Washington's strategic military rebalance to Asia under President Barack Obama. But the alliance has been under strain since Duterte came to power three months ago and chafed at U.S. criticism of his bloody war on drugs, which has led to the killing of more than 3,100 alleged drug users and dealers by police and vigilantes. He has insulted Obama and then made it clear the Philippines will pursue a much more independent foreign policy than it has in the past. That has included the Philippines extending an olive branch to China, despite the two countries being locked for years in a bitter territorial dispute in the South China Sea. Duterte has also spoken of reaching out to Russia. "Ever since President Duterte took office, China and Philippines have been engaging in friendly interactions, which have yielded a series of positive results," Zhao Jianhua, the Chinese ambassador to Manila, said at a Chinese National Day reception at the embassy this week. "The clouds are fading away. The sun is rising over the horizon, and will shine beautifully on the new chapter of bilateral relations," Zhao said. Duterte plans to visit Beijing from Oct 19-21, and hold talks with both President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. Diplomatic and business sources in Manila have said he will be accompanied by about two dozen businessmen, which could lead to deals being forged that could underpin any improved bilateral ties. But key to a successful visit will be an understanding of how to approach the dispute over the South China Sea. Beijing has angrily rejected a decision by an international court in July that ruled China's claims to the waterway were invalid, after a case was brought by the Philippines. Duterte wants China to abide by the ruling and allow access to the Scarborough Shoal, a traditional fishing ground for Chinese, Filipino and Vietnamese fishermen. But he has not insisted on the ruling being implemented and said he would like to negotiate on the row. "Duterte giving us face means we have to rethink our policy," a source with ties to China's leadership and the military told Reuters. "We have to reciprocate his courtesy." FISHING RIGHTS Getting Filipino fishermen access to the Scarborough Shoal would be a major win for Duterte and add to his already sky-high domestic popularity. According to a recent survey, he has a record high approval rating of 92 percent even as he faces international opprobrium for the killings. "When Duterte visits China next month, his agenda will focus on trade, investments and fishery cooperation with China, including access to Scarborough," a Philippines foreign ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Zha Daojiong, an international relations professor at China's Peking University, said a deal over renewed Philippines access to Scarborough Shoal could be expected at the visit. But he said it would be a verbal rather than written agreement to avoid formally acknowledging the international court's ruling, which upheld the historic fishing rights of both states. "There's many ways this meeting could be productive...even if there is likely to be some caution on both sides," Zha said. Officially, Beijing has yet to confirm Duterte's visit, but the foreign ministry has said it welcomes a visit by him at an early date. The Global Times, an influential tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, said in an editorial last week it could lead to a new chapter in ties. "A new, positive interaction between China and the Philippines, starkly different from the Aquino era, may be unveiled," it said, referring to the previous Philippines president, Benigno Aquino. "Duterte shows stark differences from his predecessor in diplomacy and style. He seems to prefer more balanced diplomatic relations with other countries rather than being too reliant on the U.S." HITLER Duterte has this month struck at the heart of ties with the United States by saying the two countries would not hold any joint naval patrols during his six-year tenure and calling for the withdrawal of U.S. special forces stationed in the restive south of the country. On Friday, he outraged Jewish groups by appearing to compare himself to Adolf Hitler, which could heap more pressure on Washington to publicly turn against him. Despite the uncertainty, U.S. officials have maintained that all remains well. "As it has been for decades, our alliance with the Philippines is ironclad," Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Thursday, speaking to American sailors aboard the U.S.S. Carl Vinson at its home port in San Diego. But analysts think damage has already been done. "Officials in Washington must now be seriously worried about the trajectory of U.S.-Philippine relations," said Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore's ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute. "Especially military-to-military issues such as joint exercises and U.S. access to Philippine bases, and whether Duterte will try and cut a deal with Beijing over the South China Sea that will allow China to advance its maritime claims." But not everyone in China is rushing to embrace Duterte, because of his extreme unpredictability. Last month, despite the new-found bonhomie, the Philippines said at a summit of Asian nations in Laos that it was "gravely concerned" about Chinese boats preparing to build structures at the disputed Scarborough Shoal. "We have to see what he actually does," said Luo Liang, a researcher at the Chinese government-backed National Institute for South China Sea Studies in Hainan. "Although the signals from Duterte are good, we still need to wait and see." (Additional reporting by Martin Petty in Hanoi, Greg Torode in Hong Kong, Ben Blanchard in Beijing, Marius Zaharia in Singapore and Yeganeh Torbati in San Diego; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Martin Howell)
The Hague (AFP) - Equatorial Guinea has asked the UN's top court to tell France to suspend its legal proceedings against the son of the central African nation's president, the International Court of Justice said in a statement on Friday.

French prosecutors accuse Equatorial Guinea's vice-president Teodorin Obiang -- the son of the country's leader -- of looting state coffers to fund his lavish tastes.

Among his alleged purchases are the famous white glove of pop star Michael Jackson's, private jets and sprawling properties.

In 2012 French prosecutors ordered the seizure of the Obiang family's six-storey mansion on Avenue Foch -- one of the poshest addresses in Paris -- as well as several luxury cars and vintage wines.

In its request to The Hague-based ICJ on Thursday, Equatorial Guinea recalled a case it filed before the court in June, claiming that France had breached the vice-president's immunity.

Thursday's request comes after Obiang was ordered to appear before a French criminal court on October 24.

"Equatorial Guinea consequently notes the urgency of its request," the ICJ statement said.

Malabo wants the ICJ to order Paris to put the criminal case on hold and for the Avenue Foch property "be treated as premises of Equatorial Guinea's diplomatic mission in France".

It also wants the ICJ to tell France to "refrain from taking any other measure that might cause prejudice to the rights claimed by Equatorial Guinea... or compromise the implementation of any decision which the Court (ICJ) might render".

Obiang's father, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1979, is Africa's longest-serving leader, and extended his 36-year rule in April when he was re-elected with 93.7 percent of the vote.

An ICJ official, who declined to be named, said he could not give a time-frame for a ruling on Equatorial Guinea's request, but said "as it is urgent, it will be as soon as possible."
Cairo (AFP) - An Egyptian militant group said on Friday that it tried to assassinate the deputy prosecutor general with a car bomb, a day after the blast in a Cairo suburb.

Police had said the Thursday night bombing had occurred as the official's convoy drove past the rigged car wounded a passerby. The prosecutor, Zakareya Azmi, was unharmed.

The Hasm group, which has claimed attacks in Cairo in recent months, said it was was behind the bombing in a statement circulated on social media.

The recently emerged group published purported pictures of the moment the bomb exploded, and threatened further attacks against "the oppresive judiciary."

The group, about which little is known, had previously claimed responsibility for killing a policeman and for the attempted assassination of a pro-government Muslim cleric.

In 2015, a car bombing killed prosecutor general Hisham Barakat. No group has claimed responsibility for that attack.

Police later said they arrested the perpetrators of the attack, charging that they were members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood movement of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Hundreds of soldiers and policemen have also died in jihadist attacks since the military overthrew Morsi in 2013 and unleashed a deadly crackdown on his supporters.
By PTI: New Delhi, Sep 30 (PTI) Members from the government and the business community representing India and Sweden will take part in discussions during the annual Sweden Indian Nobel Memorial Week 2016, which commences tomorrow.

During the event which will be held from October 1 to 7, competitions and discussions with academia will be held at Indore, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati and New Delhi.

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The Sweden India Nobel Memorial Week is held in memory of Swedish innovator and philanthropist Alfred Nobel to celebrate Indian Nobel laureates and is organised in cooperation with leading Swedish companies in India.

The theme for the 10th edition of the event is Sweden Makes in India.

Ibrahim Baylan, Minister for Policy Coordination and Energy, and Erik Brandsma, Director General of Swedish Energy Agency, will also be participating in the event.

The other programmes during the event include The Nobel Wall in Delhi, Noida and Chennai, the Swedish Film Festival in Chennai and Nobel Memorial Reception.

Harald Sandberg, Ambassador of Sweden to India, said, "India and Sweden do share common basic values and interests, and at the same time, we see a great potential to take inspiration from each other and expand our cooperation across a range of sectors."

He said the two countries are collaborating in Indias "Smart Cities" initiative. PTI PR KIS RT KIS

--- ENDS ---
Cairo (AFP) - An Egyptian member of parliament is facing ridicule for saying that universities should perform virginity tests on female students.

Ilhamy Agina reportedly told an Egyptian newspaper on Thursday that virginity should be a prerequisite for admission to university.

He argued that it would help to end the practice of unregistered "customary" marriages that appeal to Egyptian youths who cannot afford formal weddings.

"Any girl who enters university must be examined to prove she is a maiden," Agina reportedly told the Youm 7 newspaper.

His comments sparked derision on social media.

"Didn't I tell you the bottom is still far, and worse is to come?" rights lawyer and dissident Gamal Eid wrote on Twitter.

"We have a member of parliament obsessed with sex," wrote liberal dissident and journalist Khaled Dawoud.

Agina told AFP on Friday his remarks had been misinterpreted and that he has decided to boycott the media.

"People have been attacking me since yesterday and they're upset and such. I've decided not to deal with the media," he said.

"I did not make a demand, I made a suggestion. There's a big difference between a demand and a suggestion."

He said the Youm 7 reporter had asked him about the government's role in ending customary marriages, so he suggested the virginity tests.

"I said, well, it's not the government's right to ask a girl or a man whether they've had a customary marriage," he said.

"But maybe, maybe... just as a suggestion that may or may not be implemented: the government could tell university hospitals to conduct drugs and virginity tests.

"And then the university can tell the student's parents," he added.

It was not the first time Agina has made controversial remarks.

He previously said he supported female genital mutilation, which is illegal but is still widely practised in Egypt.

"We are a people whose men have erectile dysfunction... if we stopped performing female circumcision then we'd need stronger men," he once said in remarks reported by Egyptian media.
By Liana B. Baker

(Reuters) - Activist hedge fund Elliott Management said it bought 8.1 percent stake in Mentor Graphics Corp (MENT.O), calling on the company to increase shareholder value and pursue "strategic opportunities."

Mentor Graphics is the latest technology firm the hedge fund has targeted, following successful campaigns at Qlik Technologies, Riverbed, Informatica and Compuware, which all sold to private equity firms after Elliott invested.

Elliott said in a filing Thursday it had initiated a dialogue with the board of directors after taking a roughly $200 million stake in the company.

Elliott's broad range of investments across the tech industry are overseen by portfolio manager Jesse Cohn, who also leads its private equity investing arm, Evergreen, based in Menlo Park, California.

In June, it partnered with Francisco Partners to acquire Dell Inc's software assets in a deal worth more than $2 billion that was an offshoot of its campaign against storage company EMC Corp.

Mentor Graphics, based in Wilsonville Oregon and run by Chief Executive Wally Rhines, is no stranger to activist investors or takeover offers. Billionaire activist Carl Icahn won a proxy fight in 2011 that secured him three board seats, although he exited his investments in the company in April after six years.

The company, which sells its software to semiconductor companies that use it to design and test their chips, also fended off a hostile takeover by rival Cadence Design Systems (CDNS.N) in 2008.

The semiconductor industry which Mentor serves has also been consolidating at a rapid pace. NXP Semiconductors NV (NXPI), worth about $24 billion in market value, is in early talks with Qualcomm (QCOM.O) about a potential merger, sources said Thursday.

Mentor's shares are about flat year-over-year and have recovered since falling more than 30 percent after a disappointing earnings outlook last fall.

The company's shares spiked 6.5 percent to $26.30 in after-market trading on Thursday.

Mentor Graphics shares, which closed Thursday's session at $24.69, should be valued at $29.07, according to StarMine data.

(Additional reporting by Narottam Medhora in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Stephen Coates)
By Bruno Federowski SAO PAULO, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Latin American currencies strengthened on Friday on reports Deutsche Bank is close to reaching an accord with U.S. officials to settle charges related to its sale of toxic mortgage bonds before the financial crisis.

Concerns over the financial health of Germany's largest lender sent investors scurrying for safer assets earlier this week.

Agence France-Presse reported Deutsche Bank was nearing a settlement to pay $5.4 billion. About two weeks ago, the bank said it would fight a $14 billion demand from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Brazil's real currency strengthened 0.4 percent, while the country's benchmark stock index rose nearly 1 percent.

The Mexican peso firmed more than its peers after the country's central bank increased rates by 50 basis points to stem the currency's decline.

The hike "seems difficult to understand for those that look at fundamentals but seems a lot clearer for those that think of monetary policy as a damage control tool," J.P.Morgan strategist Carlos Carranza wrote in a client note.

The peso was pushed to historic lows over the past weeks on concerns that Republican candidate Donald Trump could become the next U.S. president.

He reiterated his "underweight" recommendation for peso-denominated Mexican bonds, citing outflows, the peso's underperformance, a weakening current account and risks related to the U.S. election.

Key Latin American stock indexes and currencies at 1635 GMT: Stock indexes daily % YTD % change change Latest MSCI Emerging Markets 905.38 -0.88 15.02 MSCI LatAm 2402.65 0.07 31.21 Brazil Bovespa 58751.60 0.69 35.53 Mexico IPC 47631.93 -0.08 10.83 Chile IPSA 4025.38 -0.67 9.38 Chile IGPA 20095.33 -0.55 10.71 Argentina MerVal 16751.57 0.04 43.48 Colombia IGBC 9940.64 0.44 16.30 Venezuela IBC 12967.97 1.86 -11.11 Currencies daily % YTD % change change Latest Brazil real 3.2417 0.39 21.76 Mexico peso 19.3200 1.02 -10.82 Chile peso 657.1 0.09 8.00 Colombia peso 2884.65 0.19 9.87 Peru sol 3.392 0.03 0.65 Argentina peso (interbank) 15.2450 0.85 -14.84 Argentina peso (parallel) 15.65 0.58 -8.82 (Reporting by Bruno Federowski; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
Emma Roberts just started a trend that has us wanting to revamp all our jeans

Emma Roberts just started a trend that has us wanting to revamp all our jeans

Whats better than covering a denim jacket in patches? Using those patches to spruce up a well-loved pair of old jeans!

The Queen of Ripped Jeans  that would be Scream Queens star Emma Roberts, in case you werent sure  was spotted out in Los Angeles this week taking her signature look to the next level. Sporting a lived-in pair of boyfriend jeans, Roberts slacks featured one torn knee  and one covered in a grunge-chic iron-on patch.

Its such a simple addition, but it definitely adds a little extra DGAF pizzazz to her look.

We also love that Roberts is always willing to take a basic pair of jeans and make them super special.

Earlier this month, she paired her favorite pants with a swimsuit for this incredible, must-wear summer look.

Babies A photo posted by Emma Roberts (@emmaroberts) on Sep 9, 2016 at 3:24pm PDT

And back in July she wore this perfectly summer-licious outfit on a trip to Miami:

Bye Miami I miss you already A photo posted by Emma Roberts (@emmaroberts) on Jul 14, 2016 at 11:16am PDT

Want to channel your inner Emma Roberts and give your old jeans a new lease on life? Shop the fun iron-on patches weve rounded up below!

Dixie + Dotty Embroidered Posh Pineapple Iron-On Patch

Get it here for $2.52.

Washi Gang Galaxy Planet Iron-On Patch

Get it here for $7.49.

Wildflower and Company Frida Patch

Get it here for $9.75.

Little Arrow Studio Girl Gang Patch

Get it here for $8.

Memory Original Red Lipstick Iron-On Patch

Get it here for $1.99.

Tidy Patch Desert Giant Cactus Applique Patch Set

Get them here for $8.99.

Wildflower and Company SLAY Patch

Get it here for $4.

The Patch Queen Kawaii Pastel Pink Purple Gem Diamond Patch

Get it here for $2.14.

Well, we know one thing for sure: Emmas style slayage is never patchy.

The post Emma Roberts just started a trend that has us wanting to revamp all our jeans appeared first on HelloGiggles.
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LONDON  As if Emma Watson wasn't already a complete and total badass.

Now, she's learning to box.

SEE ALSO: Emma Watson tweets selfie in support of J.K. Rowling's charity

While attending the One Young World Summit in Ottawa, Canada, the British actress took part in a training session with SheFighter, a women's self-defense studio in the Middle East founded by Jordanian Lina Khalifeh.

Khalifeh will join Watson and several other feminist activists on stage at the Summit to discuss women's empowerment and how to challenge gender stereotypes.

The Taekwondo black belt and women's rights campaigner started SheFighter  the first women's only martial arts centre in Jordan  in response to the high rates of domestic violence in the country.

She began by teaching some friends in her parent's basement, but after two years news of the classes has spread so widely that Khalifeh decided to open the studio to meet the high demand.

In a tweet, Khalifeh is quoted as saying, "It is such an honor to meet and talk to Emma Watson  an amazing actress and feminist activist and was honored as well to train her!"

So how did Watson fare?
After Simon McBurney finished his opening-night performance of The Encounter - the one-man show which features binaural technology (3D audio) via individual headphones for each theatergoer and follows a National Geographic photographer on a life-changing journey through the remote Javari Valley in Brazil - he addressed the Broadway audience directly and shared his experience meeting the play's real-life subjects.

"I said, 'I'm thinking of making a piece of theater,' and [the tribe leader] said, 'We hope you do, and when you do, we want you to go to your people and tell them that we, the Mayoruna people, exist.' They do, they work tirelessly, they're in a constant political struggle," McBurney asserted to the Golden Theatre attendees on Thursday. "They are fighting for their environment, our environment, just as people are in the North Dakota pipeline today."

It's a speech producers have asked the creator-director-star not to make every night, "because they feel it gets too long, but I think it's very important," he told The Hollywood Reporter at the opening party at Sardi's, also attended by Willem Dafoe and Danny Strong. "Listen - now we've opened, I think I can do whatever I'd like."

Read more: 'The Encounter': Theater Review

McBurney - who attributes his physical stamina to yoga and daily rehearsals - was told by attendee Kevin Kline that the performance was the single most transformative theatrical experience he's ever had. It is high praise that follows the show's hit London run, which has attracted potential successors. "My friend Damian Lewis, for example, and Benedict Cumberbatch expressed interest in doing it," said McBurney.

Altogether, he hopes audiences are changed by The Encounter. "I hope they come away with a very powerful sense of place and question what is fictional and what is real and, therefore, what are the stories we're telling about the world around us, which are affecting this world," said McBurney. He then looked at his 7-year-old daughter, whom he was holding in his arms, and added, "I hope they're thinking of the future, and what we're leaving our little ones."

The Encounter runs through Jan. 8.
PARIS (Reuters) - The sacking of Mozambique's energy minister will not affect Italian oil firm Eni's final investment decision on an offshore gas project there, Eni Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi said on Friday. Energy Minister Pedro Couto was sacked by the president on Thursday, a month before Eni is due to finalise its decision on the Coral offshore gas project, worth tens of billions of dollars. No reason was given for his dismissal. "The government's decision will have no impact," Descalzi told journalists in Paris. Descalzi said all approvals for Coral had been obtained from the government and major policies and special decrees related to the project had been completed last year. "The last step is the project financing which is independent," he said, adding that a final investment decision could come as expected around October or November. The southern African state discovered offshore gas reserves six years ago amounting to some 85 trillion cubic feet, one of the largest finds in a decade. The gas offers Mozambique an opportunity to transform itself from one of the world's poorest countries into a middle-income state and a major global liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter. Eni met bankers in London last week about project financing to develop the field. Descalzi also said that Eni was not looking to sell stakes in any other assets in Africa except in its Area 4 concession in Mozambique and in the Zohr gas project in Egypt. "In Zohr because we have 100 percent of it and it is a big investment and production which is why it is reasonable to share the risk with other partners," he said. (Reporting by Bate Felix and Stephen Jewkes, editing by Gus Trompiz and Adrian Croft)
* Diaz could become Socialist leader, replacing Sanchez

* Supporters say she could end Spain's political impasse

* She would be first woman to lead a major Spanish party

* But unclear if can win enough support among split Socialists

By Julien Toyer

MADRID, Sept 30 (Reuters) - A new actor is waiting in the wings of Spain's nine-month-old political drama, with the potential to bring it to a badly needed conclusion and break up its male-dominated cast.

Susana Diaz, who leads a powerful faction of the Socialist party, is being encouraged by her supporters to challenge party leader Pedro Sanchez, who is under growing pressure to quit over his handling of an unprecedented political deadlock.

If the 41-year-old plumber's daughter were to take the helm, she would not only become the first woman to lead the Socialist party since it was founded 137 years ago, but also to lead any major Spanish political party.

Europe's fifth-largest economy has been without a fully fledged government since December, when its 36 million voters were called to the polls for the first of two inconclusive elections, each ending in bickering and no sign of compromise.

The stalemate has paralysed decision-making and threatens to hinder an economic rebound from recession. The prospect of a third election is looming large - to the deep frustration of Spaniards who are fast losing faith in their leaders' ability to rise above party politics.

Against this backdrop, the stage is set for the first change in leadership of Spain's main political forces since caretaker Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called the first election.

The Socialist party is pivotal to breaking the impasse because it holds 85 out of the 350 seats in parliament's lower house. It can allow Rajoy's conservative People's Party, which won the most seats, to form a minority government by abstaining in a confidence vote - something Sanchez has refused to do.

The party has torn itself in two; 17 rebels - led by Diaz, according to party sources - resigned from the Socialists' 38-strong executive committee on Wednesday to try to unseat Sanchez and avoid a third election that the party has virtually no chance of winning.

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Diaz, the chief of the Andalusia region - a Socialist stronghold and Spain's most populous autonomous community - already has a track record of reaching cross-party compromises at local level and could take a different path.

She says she opposes a right-wing government, but her supporters say she is more pragmatic than Sanchez whose intransigence they blame for the party's slump in local government elections this month.

"She is a female version of Felipe Gonzalez," said a long-time party member who draws parallels with the way Gonzalez took over a battered Socialist party in the late 1970s to make it the biggest force of Spanish politics for more than a decade by guiding it on a journey from the fringe to the centre-left.

Many of the most powerful figures in the party back Diaz but it is unclear if she will eventually topple Sanchez, given the party is divided and its grassroots, according to party insiders and analysts, are largely siding with the current leader.

In a much anticipated speech on Thursday, Diaz said the time had come to heal the wounds of the party but she stopped short of clarifying her own intentions.

"I'll be where the grassroots put me, at the top or at the bottom," she said to the cheers of her supporters.

CLOUT

Were Diaz to end up leading the Socialists, she would face the party's central dilemma: allow a conservative minority government or force a third general election in a year.

The Socialists are split over which is the best course of action, with many grassroots members opposed to allowing the People's Party to govern again. Diaz's backers say she is the only figure with enough political clout to make the call and keep the party united at the same time.

"Although I can't see much of a difference between her and Sanchez from an ideological point of view, she would bring a different style and leadership," said Teneo Intelligence analyst Antonio Barroso. "Her plan is probably to allow a minority conservative government in exchange for Rajoy's departure."

Diaz has shown a readiness to take decisions that do not sit well with the party's grassroots, just as Gonzalez did 30 years ago when he steered Spain into NATO, her supporters say.

Last year, after an inconclusive local vote, she made a pact with the centre-right Ciudadanos party to reach a parliamentary majority and form a government - the first left-right coalition of Spain's new splintered political landscape, and the kind of deal that would be needed now nationally to break the impasse.

But her critics say Diaz, a career politician who has held jobs in the local administration since 1999, lacks both the life experience and national political know-how needed to run the party - or the country.

"On two occasions she said she wanted to run the party and then she balked. She doesn't scare anybody anymore. She has become a bit of a bluff," said a senior Socialist member from Sanchez's close entourage, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In the view of some opponents, she is also tainted by a corruption scandal involving her party in Andalusia - though there has been no suggestion that she did anything wrong.

BACKERS

Diaz, who landed on the frontline of national politics three years ago when she replaced her long-time boss and mentor at the top of the regional government, can count on influential supporters inside the party to succeed in her bid.

She not only controls the most powerful of all Socialist federations in Andalusia but is also backed by the heads of the big Valencia, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha regions.

Former party chiefs Felipe Gonzalez - who has called for Sanchez to go - and Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero are also on her side, according to party sources.

Newspaper El Pais, an influential voice among Socialist ranks, urged Sanchez to quit on Thursday and backed Diaz's option of installing an interim management of the party until a conference could pick a new leader.

Diaz has courted senior executives from Spain's top companies who describe her as hard-working and direct. Some would prefer to deal with her than Sanchez, according to people familiar with their thinking.

"She has a real chance of controlling the party because she has a good grip on the organisation, is backed by regions where the Socialists have done well recently and by prominent figures, including Felipe Gonzalez," said Teneo Intelligence's Barroso.

(Editing by Mark Bendeich and Pravin Char)
"We are asking for four things: stop the killing, stop attacks on health care, let the sick and wounded out and let the aid in," Rick Brennan, WHO's head of emergency risk management and humanitarian response, told a UN briefing in Geneva.

Civil Defense members search for survivors at a site hit by an airstrike in the rebel-held al-Shaar neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria. (Photo: Reuters)

By Reuters: Fighting in Syria's besieged eastern Aleppo has killed 338 people in the past few weeks, including 106 children, and 846 have been wounded, including 261 children, a World Health Organization official said on Friday.

WHO'S APPEAL

"We are asking for four things: stop the killing, stop attacks on health care, let the sick and wounded out and let the aid in," Rick Brennan, WHO's head of emergency risk management and humanitarian response, told a UN briefing in Geneva.

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"The situation really is unfathomable."

Russia and Syrian government forces launched a campaign to recapture the rebel-held sector of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city, this month, abandoning a ceasefire a week after it took effect.

Brennan said he did not have details on the kinds of injuries, but it was obvious what to expect: "There will be shrapnel wounds, there will be blast wounds, there will be burns, penetrating injuries to the head, chest and abdomen. There will be lost limbs, there will be fractures. The range of injuries is pretty predictable."

No hospital was able to take hundreds of patients at a time, he said.



LACK OF ESSENTIAL MEDICAL EQUIPMENT

Brennan said WHO had had supplies for 140,000 people ready for weeks, but the security situation prevented it from taking essential medical equipment into the city.

Asked if WHO had permission from Damascus to send in medical supplies if the security situation allowed, he said negotiations to get access were continuing and he met Syria's deputy minister of health last week.

"They are aware of the urgency of the situation."

He also said WHO had met Russian officials previously and made it "very, very clear" about the need for evacuations and the need to stop attacks.

"I think that those communications are still ongoing, and we've had some exchanges over the last few days, and there is an interest in facilitating evacuations, but those communications have been ongoing," he said.



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--- ENDS ---
Brussels (AFP) - EU environment ministers agreed Friday to fast-track the ratification of the landmark Paris agreement on climate change, despite the fact that some national parliaments have yet to approve the deal.

"All member states greenlight early EU ratification of Paris agreement. What some believed impossible is now real," European Union President Donald Tusk said on Twitter.

"Victory!" tweeted French Environment Minister Segolene Royal.

Fears that the United States and China, the world's two biggest polluters, were leaving the EU behind on ratifying last year's historic deal pushed the bloc's 28 ministers to rush through the collective measure.

Around 60 countries have now committed to the landmark agreement designed to stem the planet's rising temperatures, which was sealed in December 2015 in the French capital.

"This is a historic day," EU Environment Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete told a news conference, "a day when we put behind us any doubts that the EU is ready to join the Paris climate agreement."

Seven EU countries including Germany and France have ratified the deal so far.

The Paris accord requires all countries to devise plans to achieve the goal of keeping the rise in temperatures within two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and strive for 1.5 C (2.7 F) if possible.

Leaders of EU countries had agreed at a summit in the Slovakian capital Bratislava on September 16 that the bloc should push through ratification at a collective level as soon as possible.

- 'Speed up the process' -

Questions about how emissions cuts will be divided among EU countries have held up the deal in a number of nations, not least over the issue of how Britain's vote to leave the union will affect quotas.

The European Parliament must now give its approval before the EU actually ratifies the agreement, an EU statement said.

The ministers "agreed to speed up the process of ratification of the Paris Agreement" and "decided to go ahead with ratification at EU level", said the statement.

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"Member states will ratify either together with the EU if they have completed their national procedures, or as soon as possible thereafter," it added.

Europe has prided itself on taking a global lead on climate change issues but has watched with alarm as the rest of the world has left it behind.

The Paris agreement received a major boost earlier this month when China and the United States, the two largest emitters, jointly acceded to the deal during a summit between Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping.

At least 30 countries jointly ratified the Paris deal at the UN General Assembly in New York on September 21.

France's Royal told AFP earlier this month that she was upbeat the accord would take effect before the next UN-led climate conference on November 7 in Marrakesh, Morocco.
Montreal (AFP) - Negotiations for a freeze, or even a reduction, in greenhouse gas emissions from civil aviation are making progress, Europe's transport commissioner said Friday, adding she is feeling "cautiously optimistic."

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN agency, opened its triennial assembly in Montreal on Tuesday and is meeting there until October 7, with a climate-centered agenda.

"After four days of discussions," said EU transport commissioner Violeta Bulc.

"I am pleased with the positive momentum emerging from ICAO's Assembly, and cautiously optimistic that there will be a positive outcome," the Slovenian EU commissioner said.

Carbon dioxide emissions from the aviation sector are not part of the Paris accord (COP21) aimed at limiting the global temperature rise to +2 degrees Celsius -- or if possible +1.5 degrees -- by 2050 compared to the pre-industrial era.

The 191 member states are seeking agreement on a proposed global mechanism of compensation for international aviation emissions. It goes by the name of CORSIA, or the Carbon Offset and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation.

The objective is to ensure that the volume of aviation emissions in 2035 is no higher, and hopefully lower, than the 2019 and 2020 levels.

To date, 63 nations representing 84 percent of aviation traffic -- including the biggest polluters such as the European Union, the United States and China -- have agreed to take part in this system starting in 2021, according to the ICAO.

"There are still some open issues that need to be solved for all states to be onboard," Bulc said. She said the 28-member EU would "continue to defend the current text, in order to prevent further weakening" of the proposed measure.

A source close to the discussions told AFP that informal talks were under way to address the final differences, stressing that Latin American and African countries were expressing "considerable" support for the proposal.

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"Without an effective market-based measure to reduce aviation emissions, it will be impossible to keep temperatures within 1.5 degrees as we all agreed to do in Paris," said Mike Halferty, transport minister of the Marshall Islands, whose Pacific Ocean territory is threatened by rising sea levels.

"This is why I have personally made the long journey here to help fight for this measure."

He added: "We simply cannot afford to wait another three years for the aviation sector to take action."
By Matthias Williams

KIEV (Reuters) - The European Union has expanded the amount of produce Ukraine can export duty-free to the bloc as part of their free trade deal, but delayed disbursing a second tranche of aid pending further policy steps by Kiev, the bloc said on Friday.

A political and trade agreement between Ukraine and the EU came into force in January. Its original signing, fiercely opposed by Russia, was the spark for the popular uprising in 2014 that toppled a Kremlin-backed president.

Friday's announcement is a boon to Ukrainian exporters, some of whom had complained about the fact that the deal only allowed a fraction of farm exports to be sold without tariffs, at a time when trade between Ukraine and Russia has diminished.

The EU said it had increased the volumes that Ukraine can export duty free in goods including maize, wheat, barley, processed tomatoes and honey.

On a visit to Kiev on Friday, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said, however, that Brussels would not hand over financial assistance worth 600 million euros until Ukraine took measures that include lifting a ban on exporting its wood.

Another condition is allowing social payments such as pensions to be properly disbursed to refugees from eastern Ukraine, where fighting between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed separatists has killed more than 9,600 people.

"We see some modest improvements in our trade, that is positive, but of course more needs to be done. So we've been encouraging our Ukrainian friends to keep on with the reforms," Malmstrom told reporters at a briefing.

She said the ban on wood exports, formally intended to protect Ukrainian furniture makers and the environment, violated the rules of the World Trade Organisation as well as the EU's bilateral trade deal with Ukraine. "And it's also a symptom of the unpredictability of the business climate because this is clearly a discriminatory thing to do," she said.

Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said the government would discuss the wood export ban with lawmakers to find a solution.

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The trade deal is provisional and potentially under threat after a Dutch referendum in April voted to reject the agreement, which has to be ratified by all 28 EU member states in order to take effect permanently.

Asked about the potential implications of the Dutch vote, Malmstrom said: "This is of course an unprecedented situation.

I don't really know where this will land. We hope to find a solution, because this is of course an agreement that 27 other countries have ratified and is of great importance to Ukraine."

(Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk; editing by Mark Heinrich)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Italy has asked for more time to sell four small savings banks it bailed out last year, the European Commission said on Friday, saying it was open to the request.

"The Commission is in close and constructive contacts with the Italian authorities regarding the prolongation of the sale deadline for four Italian bridge banks," Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said in an email.

"The Commission can see good reasons to accept a postponement," he said.

Italy promised the European Commission to sell Banca Marche [BNCMH.UL], Banca Etruria, CariFe and CariChieti.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, editing by Robin Emmott)
By Francesco Guarascio and Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Just as it starts to grapple with the profound institutional upheaval that is Brexit, the European Union faces a potential game of musical chairs in top jobs which senior figures are trying to contain. The end of Martin Schulz's mandate as EU parliamentary speaker in January risks triggering a free-for-all battle among political parties and member states for influence not only in the legislature but other EU institutions in the coming year. That would add to existing tensions that have left the bloc struggling to agree common responses to problems ranging from debt-strangled growth in the euro zone and a wave of Syrian and other refugees to negotiating the Britain's complex EU exit. Backroom jockeying for power among politicians unknown to most of the Union's half-billion citizens would also not enhance the reputation of institutions fighting to reverse the anti-EU, nationalist surge seen in Britain's June referendum and set to play a big role in German, French and Dutch elections in 2017. Two years ago, Schulz's center-left group promised that the German Social Democrat would give way for a conservative successor; but this would now give the right the presidencies of all three major EU bodies, with Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker running the executive European Commission and Donald Tusk of Poland chairing EU summits as president of the European Council. Tusk's own mandate expires at the end of May but he is expected to want to stay on. This week Juncker, who has three years left, appealed to conservative allies not to oust Schulz, with whom he has forged a left-right "grand coalition" to back legislation. "If you are crossing difficult times and troubled waters, stability is of the essence," he told France 24 television during a joint interview with Schulz. The trio of himself, Tusk and Schulz was working well, Juncker said, and should carry on. Schulz, who admirers say has raised the profile of the European Parliament in two terms as president over the past five years, refuses to say if he will step down as agreed though aides say he does not rule it out. Adding to uncertainty is whether he might find a new role challenging center-right Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany's parliamentary election a year from now. "There are a lot of people thinking about my future, amongst them some who say I'm doing a good job. I find this not so bad," Schulz told France 24 when asked whether he would seek a third term. But he declined to say more on whether he would run again. If Schulz were replaced by a center-right figure, diplomats say, it could trigger a chain reaction, notably against Tusk -- although there is precedent for one party having all three jobs. Aides to the Pole, who took office in late 2014, say he is not yet thinking about what do when his term expires. It has been widely assumed that he would serve at least five years. A renewal needs only a majority of EU leaders, meaning that his own right-wing successor as Polish premier cannot block him. Diplomats say there is little appetite for change, either in Parliament or the Council: "This is all we need, this musical chairs at the top of the institutions," one senior EU diplomat said of the bloc's troubles with Brexit and other crises. Ousting Schulz could upset things and should be avoided, the diplomat added: "Right now we have balance. We should keep it." PARLIAMENT RESHUFFLE Merkel herself has stayed out of the debate on Schulz but her allies in the European Parliament's European People's Party (EPP) have newly agreed to put up a candidate for the speaker's chair, to be voted on by lawmakers in January. The biggest of eight blocs in the chamber with 215, or 29 percent, of the 751 seats, the EPP will choose its candidate in December. The election for speaker is part of a mid-term reshuffle of parliamentary posts, including committee chairs. An added element of this year's horse-trading will be the fate of the 73 British members, whom some colleagues want to see sidelined and removed from key roles even before Britain leaves the EU. Center-right officials say Schulz should make way for an EPP president as agreed when the EPP let Schulz win in 2014 as part of deal that saw Parliament back Juncker at the Commission. Some EU officials have said the center-left S&D, which has 25 percent of seats, could be promised major posts later. Others raise the possibility that other parties, notably the centrist liberals, could bid for the post as a compromise. Schulz has cross-party support in parliament for his efforts to strengthen its legislative role but opponents complain that his double act with Juncker makes the parliament seem soft on the executive. Another feature of the interplay between competition for EU posts and national elections next year is the fate of another president of a key political institution - the center-left president of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers. Dutchman Jeroen Dijsselbloem faces an uncertain future after a national election in March. Should he lose his portfolio in a new governing coalition in The Hague, that could cost the S&D another key post if conservatives sought to chair the Eurogroup. (Editing by Dominic Evans)
(Adds Commission comments)

BRUSSELS, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Environment ministers from all 28 European Union states agreed on Friday to a fast-track, collective ratification of last year's U.N. Paris climate deal, the EU said.

"All member states greenlight early EU ratification of Paris Agreement. What some believed impossible is now real," tweeted European Council President Donald Tusk, whose home country Poland had been the main state resisting such a swift accord.

The executive European Commission hailed a "historic" move that brings the Paris accord to the brink of taking effect.

Agreed by 195 countries in December, the accord is designed to slash greenhouse gas emissions and avert dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial times.

EU ratification is a key milestone, as the agreement only takes effect once at least 55 nations making up at least 55 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions ratify it.

"Once approved by the European Parliament next week, the EU will be able to deposit its ratification instrument," the Commission said in a statement. The EU agreement, over Polish objections that it wanted more guarantees for its coal-fired economy, short-cuts 28 separate national ratification processes.

Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said: "The European Union delivers on promises made ... The member states decided to make history together and bring closer the entry into force of the first ever universally binding climate change agreement."

Energy and climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said: "They said Europe is too complicated to agree quickly. They said we had too many hoops to jump through. They said we were all talk. Today's decision shows what Europe is all about: unity and solidarity as Member States take a European approach." (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Budapest (AFP) - Hungarians are poised to reject the EU's troubled refugee quota plan in a referendum on Sunday, as fiercely anti-migrant Prime Minister Viktor Orban rides a populist wave across the bloc.

Following are the main European populist parties that have stoked concerns about the continent's worst migrant crisis since World War II to boost their support and even enter government in some countries.

- 'Disgusting worms' -

- GERMANY: Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) suffered a stinging setback in state elections in Berlin on September 18 in a backlash against her "open-door" refugee policy.

Alternative for Germany (AfD) won seats in the regional parliament with 14 percent of the vote -- not far behind the CDU's 18 percent.

A recently elected Berlin deputy for the AfD reportedly called Syrian refugees "disgusting worms" and said asylum seekers were "parasites which are feeding off the German people".

Two weeks earlier, the AfD came ahead of the CDU in a northeastern regional poll. It now has seats in 10 out of Germany's 16 regional parliaments.

- AUSTRIA: The Freedom Party (FPOe) narrowly missed winning a May 22 presidential election. This would have made Norbert Hofer Europe's first far-right elected head of state since 1945.

However, Hofer will have another stab at winning the election on December 4 after the country's highest court annulled the May result due to procedural irregularities. He has said Islam "has no place in Austria".

Austria was located on the so-called Balkan migrant route, which saw hundreds of thousands of people, many fleeing the Syrian war, trek up from Greece towards northern Europe last year.

- SLOVAKIA: In March, the People's Party Our Slovakia won 14 seats in the country's 150-seat parliament, four years after it was founded on a platform hostile to the Roma minority, the EU and NATO. Party leader Marian Kotleba has been branded a neo-Nazi by opponents.

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Populism has spread into mainstream parties too, with Prime Minister Robert Fico taking one of the EU's tougher stances on immigration. He has branded the migrant crisis an "onslaught" and called EU migrant policy "ritual suicide".

- Anti-migrant fences -

- HUNGARY: Orban, head of the right-wing Fidesz party, has organised the October 2 referendum on migrant relocation under an EU quota plan.

In late 2015, Hungary built fences along its borders with Serbia and Croatia to stem the massive tide of migrants. Other countries in the Balkans then followed suit.

Those migrants who do sneak through into Hungary suffer illegal border pushbacks and unlawful detention, Amnesty International said Tuesday.

Orban has called immigration "poison" and has said that "every single migrant poses a public security and terror risk".

- POLAND: The Law and Justice (PiS) party swept back into power in late 2015 after nearly a decade, playing on fears sparked by the refugee influx.

Its leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has said refugees bring "cholera to the Greek islands, dysentery to Vienna, various types of parasites".

- NORWAY: The Progress Party joined a government coalition in 2013 after winning 16 percent of the vote. The party's Sylvi Listhaug, immigration and integration minister, has said "the tyranny of kindness is blowing over Norwegian society like a nightmare".

- DENMARK: The Danish People's Party won 21 percent of the vote in a 2015 legislative poll. The minority government needs the party's support to pass legislation.

Denmark introduced a host of measures to deter migrants earlier this year, including allowing police to confiscate some of their valuables to help pay for their accommodation.

- FINLAND: The nationalist Finns Party won 18 percent of the vote in 2015 legislative elections and is now a part of the government coalition, although its popularity has fallen. Party leader Timo Soini is foreign minister.

- Brexit ripple effect -

- BRITAIN: A historic vote on June 23 to leave the EU was the biggest success to date of populist movements since the bloc was founded.

The "Leave" victory was driven in large part by worries about immigration, economic uncertainty and a perception that an out-of-touch Brussels elite was making the rules.

With the Labour Party in crisis, the new head of the eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP), Diane James, has said she wants the group to become Britain's main opposition force.

- FRANCE: The National Front (FN) has notched up several local electoral successes since 2012. The FN's Marine Le Pen has likened the migrant influx to the "barbarian invasions" of the fourth century.

Boosted by the succession of Islamist "terror" attacks in France, polls consistently tip Le Pen to reach the second round of France's presidential election in 2017.

- NETHERLANDS: The far-right Freedom Party is currently leading polls for a March 2017 legislative vote. The party's platform calls for a closure of "all mosques and Islamic schools" and "a ban on the Koran."
Brussels (AFP) - Frenchman Michel Barnier officially starts work as the European Commission's Brexit negotiator on Saturday in an appointment that British media called a "declaration of war".

Loathed in parts of London for taking on the banking sector when he was a commissioner, Barnier insisted after his appointment by Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker in July that he will be fair to all sides in what promise to be difficult talks.

The 65-year-old former French minister will begin his job with a grand tour throughout the autumn of the 27 European Union capitals -- minus London -- to canvass their views on the historic divorce.

"During this first stage he will proceed with a round of consultations with member states," Juncker's spokesman Margaritis Schinas said on Friday, although Barnier will not speak to the press until November.

Barnier has already visited Berlin for "constructive" talks with foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday, and met with Juncker, European Parliament chief Martin Schulz and the parliament's own Brexit pointman Guy Verhofstadt on Tuesday.

But Britain may remain off his itinerary until it formally triggers the two-year separation process from the EU, with the rest of the union insisting there can be "no negotiation without notification".

- 'Most dangerous man in Europe'

British Prime Minister Theresa May has kept the rest of the EU guessing as her government tries to work out what it wants in terms of access to the single market and migration, saying she will not trigger the split until 2017 at the earliest.

British newspapers reacted with alarm after Barnier's appointment, given his 2010-14 stint as EU financial services commissioner, which put him at odds with free-wheeling London bankers after the financial crisis.

But both Brussels and London are playing down talk of bad blood.

"At that time I was called the most dangerous man in Europe, and (yet) finally we succeeded to build a clever global financial regulation agenda, with the UK on board," Barnier told a conference in Brussels on September 7.

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"So it's possible, and my line will be... to reach a win-win agreement" for both sides on Brexit.

British officials said they were "relaxed" about his appointment and that contrary to local media reports he was regarded in London as more of a friend to Britain than a foe.

Barnier is also well acquainted with Britain's new Brexit minister, the eurosceptic David Davis, as both were Europe ministers for their respective countries in the 1990s.

Barnier may have informal talks with Britain's ambassador to the EU before any formal meeting with May, European sources said, adding that "exploratory" contacts were a good idea to set the scene for official negotiations.

- Turf war -

Barnier -- who has spent the last two years working on security issues for Juncker as Europe faces a wave of jihadist attacks -- will head a "Brexit task force" featuring what Juncker called "the commission's best and brightest".

His new deputy, Sabine Weyand, is a senior Commission trade official from Germany and is expected to take charge of the nuts and bolts of an eventual deal while Barnier deals with the politics.

But Barnier already finds himself in an EU turf war involving the same issues of national sovereignty that played such a big role in the campaign for Britain's EU referendum in June.

Member states want the talks to be run by the European Council, which groups the 28 EU leaders under former Polish premier Donald Tusk, and not by the European Commission.

But Juncker's Commission, the executive arm of the EU, is pushing to be the main player, and it has the European Parliament's support for that, European sources say.

Parliament meanwhile asserts that it must have the final say on any Brexit deal, as it is the only one of the main three EU institutions that is directly elected by the public.
By Philip Pullella and Margarita Antidze TBILISI (Reuters) - Pope Francis called for respect for international law and the sovereign rights of nations as he arrived in Georgia on Friday, an implicit criticism of Russia, which keeps troops in two breakaway areas of the ex-Soviet state. But Francis measured his words carefully, in an apparent attempt not to hurt the Vatican's increasingly warm ties with the Kremlin-backed Russian Orthodox Church. Georgia won independence in 1991 but the Kremlin's shadow still looms large. Russia, which fought a short war with Georgia in 2008, is one of the few countries that recognize the contested areas of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. Speaking at the welcoming ceremony at the presidential palace, Francis, in a clear reference to the Georgian situation, said relations between states in the region "can never lay aside respect for the sovereign rights of every country within the framework of international law". Georgian President Georgy Margvelashvili said there was a desire for all people to live in dignity. "But this mission cannot be accomplished in the light of violations of the rights of civilians and the territory being occupied by a neighboring country," he told the pope. While not specifically mentioning Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Francis supported the right of displaced people to "freely return to that land". The government says about 300,000 people have been forced from their homes by the conflict over the disputed territories. Moscow has opposed U.N. resolutions backing their right of return. "CREEPING OCCUPATION" Georgia, which wants to join the European Union and NATO, has accused Russia of practicing "creeping occupation" by slowly moving fences delineating the breakaway areas from the rest of Georgia's territory. "We are just 40 km (25 miles) away from barbed wire fences preventing civilian populations - neighbors, relatives, family members - from having contact with each other," the president said. Less than one percent of Georgia's population of about 3.7 million are Catholic. The overwhelming majority belong to Orthodox Christianity, which broke with Rome in 1054. Under Francis, who was elected in 2013, the Vatican has made a concerted effort to improve relations with Orthodox Christians in the hopes of an eventual reunion. Earlier this year, he held a historic meeting with Kirill, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Georgian Orthodox Church is one of the more conservative in the Orthodox world. Some of its more hard-core members protested at the airport. They held signs reading: "Vatican is a spiritual aggressor" and "Pope, arch-heretic, you are not welcome in Orthodox Georgia". But on Friday evening there was no sign of tension between the two Churches as Georgia's ailing, 83-year-old Orthodox leader, Patriarch Ilia II, warmly welcomed the pope. Francis also visited a church of the country's Assyrian-Chaldean Christian community, where he prayed for victims of war in the Middle East, asking God to comfort those "wearied by bombing" and to "raise up Iraq and Syria from devastation" (Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Ralph Boulton)
Bow down to this woman's unswerving determination to grab a bite off her pork bun in the middle of a deadly typhoon in Taiwan.

By India Today Web Desk: The amusing photo first appeared in an article published by the Wall Street Journal. Since then, the woman struggling to eat her pork bun in the middle of raging typhoon has turned into an internet sensation.

Typhoon Megi has wreaked havoc since it made landfall in eastern Taiwan and according local reports, the storm has caused traffic accidents, drowning, and people have been hit by flying debris.

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But middle-aged Taiwanese woman remains unfazed by the deadly storm while holding her upturned umbrella and digging into her sumptuous pork bun.



Tufo Megi mata ao menos quatro pessoas e fere outras 260 em Taiwan. Chiang Ying-ying/AP pic.twitter.com/i0SSORsLlN @broadagroimagem (@broadagroimagem) September 27, 2016



And the her picture took Twitterati by storm as well, with many applauding her determination and calling her 'a hero of our troubled times'

Picture of woman eating pork bun during the middle of a Tycoon is the thing of legends Vikram Patel (@thevikrampatel) September 28, 2016 the pork bun is safe in her stomach https://t.co/PdBaIGvVcT Justin Jay Bolaos (@iamjustinjay) September 29, 2016

my new hero is this woman eating a pork bun in the middle of a typhoon pic.twitter.com/MuO4aDCWE3 nigel griffith (@Nighuul) September 28, 2016

The only aesthetic I follow now "the umbrella you can have! The pork bun? No!" pic.twitter.com/lXuwaBd80d Marie (@_murturtle) September 29, 2016

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By Nita Bhalla and Jatindra Dash NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Authorities in India have raided mica mines, arrested traders and begun steps to regulate the underground industry, local officials said, after a Thomson Reuters Foundation expose revealed a cover-up of child deaths in illegal mica mining. A three-month investigation in the mica-producing state of Jharkhand found that a flourishing black market had resulted in at least seven children being killed since June, mining for the prized mineral that adds sparkle to makeup and car paint. But the deaths went unreported as victims' families and mine operators feared it could end the illegal mining of mica, the only source of income in some of India's poorest regions. Mithilesh Kumar Singh, divisional forest officer for Koderma district, said his department had begun a crackdown on hundreds of mines and had so far arrested two people and registered cases of illegal mining against seven others in the past month. "We do not arrest the laborers working in the mines because they are poor," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "We only arrest those who employ them to do these illegal activities." Five vehicles, including pickup trucks and vans, used to transport the massive piles of mica extracted from the mines, were also seized during the crackdown, he added. India is one of the world's largest producers of mica, a silver-colored, crystalline mineral that has gained prominence in recent years as an environmentally friendly material, used in the car and building sectors, electronics and "natural" makeup. Once boasting over 700 mines, the industry was hit by 1980 legislation to limit deforestation and the invention of synthetic mica, forcing most mines to close. But renewed interest in mica has sent illegal operators scurrying to access hundreds of closed, crumbling mines, many in the forests of Jharkhand's Koderma and Giridih districts. Indian law forbids children below the age of 18 working in mines and other hazardous industries, but many families living in extreme poverty rely on children to boost household income. "BIG BLOW" TO ILLEGAL MINING Following the Thomson Reuters Foundation investigation in August, Jharkhand's labor department announced an inquiry. The findings submitted earlier this month said illegal mica mining was the main source of income for local people and confirmed some workers had died due to collapsing mines. However, it found no evidence of child deaths. The inquiry said three women from Haraiya village in Koderma had died on May 5 while extracting mica and cited claims by local village leaders that no children were involved in mica collection in the area and that all were attending school. Labor officials, however, said they had launched a public awareness campaign across the state to stop child labor and had rescued around 250 children working in places such as small shops and restaurants. "After your news report, we got the inquiry done. The labor commission are taking necessary action," Principal Secretary of Jharkhand's Labor and Employment Department S.K.G. Rahate told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "We have already launched a campaign in the first fortnight of August across all the districts to stop child labor and that campaign continued in the first fortnight of September." Authorities also said plans were underway to begin regulating some mica mines in the illegal sector, which is estimated to produce 70 percent of India's annual mica output. This would not only provide important revenue for the state, but would also regulate the sector and ensure that mica mining is conducted safely and without the involvement of children. A geological survey to determine the amount of mica reserves has begun and once this has been completed, authorities say they will demarcate blocks and begin auctioning mining leases in early 2017. Kumari Anjali, director of Jharkhand's geology department, told Thomson Reuters Foundation that officials had already visited the districts of Koderma and Giridih to conduct surveys and that they would submit a report to the government on Friday. Child rights groups in Jharkhand said the Thomson Reuters Foundation expose had been a "big blow" to illegal mica mining activity in the area and welcomed moves by the government in the aftermath, but said much more action was required. "The Thomson Reuters Foundation report created waves. There are steps to auction the open pit mines and raids have been conducted on illegal mica traders," said Raj Bhushan from Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save The Chilhood) in Jharkhand. "It is a big blow to the illegal mica trade. But we also need to consider the repercussions on these communities as mica is their only source of livelihood. They must be given other job opportunities or ensured work once the mines are legalized." (Reporting by Jatindra Dash in Bhubaneswar and Nita Bhalla in New Delhi. Writing by Nita Bhalla. Editing by Timothy Large. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, which covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)
Jesse Williams is asking one police officer to take a hard look at student arrests.

The Grey's Anatomy star travels to Pinellas County, Florida, to investigate inequality in the school system for the upcoming EPIX series, America Divided.

"Pinellas is third in the state in disproportionately arresting black children," the 35-year-old actor explains in the video. "Three times as many students are arrested for disorderly conduct in Pinellas, than in Miami. And Miami has three times the amount of students. That's pretty alarming."

WATCH: Jesse Williams Delivers Impassioned Speech At the BET Awards Calling for Justice and Equality

Watch the video above to see Williams have a frank discussion with Pinellas officer Mike Hawkins about the police force in his hometown, as well as the underrepresentation of African Americans in its ranks.

Meanwhile, Williams has been an outspoken advocate for justice and racial equality.

EXCLUSIVE: Jesse Williams Opens Up About Powerful BET Awards Speech, Anton Yelchin, and 'Grey's Anatomy'

The actor's powerful, politically-charged, Humanitarian Award acceptance speech at the BET Awards earned both praise and condemnation. Speaking to ET at the event, Williams said he'd hoped to deliver a message for those who need to be heard.

"I'm here for all the incredible protestors, activists, attorneys, organizers that are sacrificing [an] incredibly great deal to be heard and get access to equal rights and justice in this country," he shared. "[The BET Awards] recognizing me is really recognizing them in my view, and I think that means that we're getting traction."

WATCH: Jesse Williams Reacts to Petition to Get Him Fired From 'Grey's Anatomy' as Signatures Increase

Watch the video below for more.

America Divided premieres on EPIX on Sept. 30 at 9/8c.

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Bogota (AFP) - Before this week's historic peace deal with the FARC rebels, Colombia's civil war killed, bereaved and displaced millions, while thousands of others spent years in the jungle as hostages.

Here are portraits of four victims of the 52-year ideological and territorial conflict, which is expected to practically end after Sunday's referendum on the government's accord with the FARC.

They are typical faces of a many-sided conflict that Colombian authorities estimate has left 260,000 people dead, 45,000 missing and nearly seven million displaced.

- The mother -

Judith Casallas's 22-year-old daughter Mary Johana disappeared along with her husband Jose Didier on October 7, 2007.

"We have never received a call," said Casallas, 55. "Who did it? To this day, I do not know."

Judith has spent nine years searching, hoarding the Christmas presents she has bought each year for Mary Johana.

"I hope she will come back and see them, and know that we were always thinking of her."

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have signed an accord to disarm and demobilize, ending the war they have fought against the state since 1964.

"When I was little, I was told that the guerrillas were good, that they were the ones helping the people. I hope they remember that, and that they help us to find our relatives," Casallas says.

"I hope that whatever happens at least I'll be able to say: 'I now know what happened to my daughter.' And then I can rest."

- The hostage -

Clara Rojas is now a congresswoman, but 10 years ago she was a hostage in the jungle, threatened constantly with death.

The FARC seized her in 2002 along with the presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, their most high-profile captive internationally.

"We endured nearly six years as hostages. It was a very difficult experience, very hard," Rojas says.

"What most affected me was the isolation, being deprived in an instant of your ability to exist, to decide, to think."

Story continues

She says 40,000 people were kidnapped over the past 40 years of the conflict.

It has drawn in various groups of armed rebels, paramilitaries, gangs and state forces.

Rojas gave birth to a baby boy while in captivity. She declines to talk about the circumstances. Her captivity is painful to recall.

"I just want to live for the present and cling to this peace."

- The widow -

In 2007 the FARC massacred 11 local elected officials it had held hostage for five years in Colombia's Cauca Valley.

Among them was Juan Carlos Narvaez. He left behind a daughter and a wife, Fabiola Perdomo, 47.

Three weeks ago, Perdomo traveled to Cuba, where the FARC and the Colombian government held four years of peace talks that led to the accord.

There she met the men responsible for her husband's killing. They apologized to her.

"It is a healthy exercise. It is very painful but very necessary," she said.

"Coming face to face with the killers, I could tell them all the damage and the pain I suffered. I could get out all the rage I had carried in my heart for many years."

Perdomo works in a government agency helping victims of the conflict. She hears stories like her own every day.

Despite her resentment at what happened, she supports the peace deal, which is meant to transform the communist FARC into a political group.

Opinion polls ahead of Sunday's referendum indicate that voters will ratify the deal by a wide margin, though more than a third reject it.

"We have to back it, to do away with the FARC, but to do away with them in a civilized way," said Perdomo.

"We are going to disarm them by voting 'Yes' to the peace accord. Then when we have a chance in the future to confront them politically, we will defeat them at the ballot box."

- The displaced -

Yomaira Socarras, a mother of four, was twice driven from her home by the threat of violence.

She had a few hours to pack her belongings, flee with her children and start anew elsewhere.

The first time was in 2005. Right-wing paramilitaries, fighting the leftist guerrillas with state military support, warned her she was in danger.

"That was a very calm move. They warned me it was better to leave the area because my husband was a soldier," she says.

She left her central home city of Villavicencio with her family and they ended up hundreds of miles away, in Istmina in the northeast.

In 2008 she was forced out again by a threat from another side in the war. At dawn one day while her husband was out at work, she received a visit.

"About 70 men from the FARC turned up and told me I had to leave, otherwise they would kill me and all my children," she says.

She now lives in Soacha, a southern district of the capital Bogota, home to displaced families from across the country.

Her husband is ill and does odd jobs to supplement his invalidity benefits.

"The hardest thing is managing to start a new life," she said.

The FARC accord virtually ends the conflict, but the government has not yet managed to start peace talks with a smaller leftist rebel group, the ELN.

Socarras is happy about the FARC deal, but still has doubts.

"They are going to disarm... but we do not know whether more armed groups will emerge," she says.

"Violence is all around."
Global health officials are racing to better understand the Zika virus behind a major outbreak that began in Brazil last year and has spread to almost 60 countries. The following are some questions and answers about the virus and current outbreak: How do people become infected? Zika is transmitted to people through the bite of infected female mosquitoes, primarily the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the same type that spreads dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are found in all countries in the Americas except Canada and continental Chile, and the virus will likely reach all countries and territories of the region where Aedes mosquitoes are found. The virus can also be transmitted through sex, from either a male or female partner who has been infected, and a few cases of apparent infection via blood transfusion have been reported. How do you treat Zika? There is no treatment or vaccine for Zika infection. Companies and scientists are racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine for Zika, but a preventative shot is not expected to be ready for widespread use for at least two or three years. How dangerous is it? The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that infection with the Zika virus in pregnant women is a cause of the birth defect microcephaly, a condition defined by unusually small heads that can result in developmental problems, and other severe brain abnormalities in babies. The CDC said that since the causal relationship had been established, several important questions must still be answered with studies that could take years. The World Health Organization in an updated assessment said the "most likely explanation" is that Zika virus infection during pregnancy is a cause of congenital brain abnormalities including microcephaly. In addition, the agency said infection is a trigger of Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), a rare neurological disorder that can result in paralysis. The update from the WHO came after considering months of research. Its previous statement, based on a rapid assessment of evidence, said there was strong scientific consensus that Zika virus caused GBS, microcephaly and other neurological disorders. Brazil recently reported 1,949 confirmed cases of microcephaly believed to be linked to Zika infections in pregnant women. It is investigating more than 3,030 suspected cases of microcephaly. Current research indicates the greatest microcephaly risk is associated with infection during the first trimester of pregnancy, but health officials have warned an impact could be seen in later weeks. Recent studies have shown evidence of Zika in amniotic fluid, placenta and fetal brain tissue. What are the symptoms of Zika infection? People infected with Zika may have a mild fever, skin rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain and fatigue that can last for two to seven days. But as many as 80 percent of people infected never develop symptoms. How can Zika be contained? Efforts to control the spread of the virus focus on eliminating mosquito breeding sites and taking precautions against mosquito bites such as using insect repellent and mosquito nets. U.S. and international health officials have advised pregnant women to avoid travel to Latin American and Caribbean countries, sections of Miami, Florida in the United States and Singapore where they may be exposed to Zika. They are also advising that men and women who have traveled to Zika outbreak areas use condoms or abstain from sex for six months to prevent sexual transmission of the virus. How widespread is the outbreak? Active Zika outbreaks have been reported in at least 59 countries or territories, most of them in the Americas, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Brazil has been the country most affected. (http://1.usa.gov/1ovAJyh) Africa (1): Cape Verde Americas (49): Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Aruba, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Bonaire, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curacao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saba, Puerto Rico, Saint Barthelmy, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Eustatius, St. Maarten, St. Kitts and Nevis, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, United States, U.S. Virgin Islands and Venezuela. Asia (1): Singapore Oceania/Pacific Islands (8): American Samoa, Fiji, Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga. What is the history of the Zika virus? The Zika virus is found in tropical locales with large mosquito populations. Outbreaks of Zika have been recorded in Africa, the Americas, Southern Asia and the Western Pacific. The virus was first identified in Uganda in 1947 in rhesus monkeys and was first identified in people in 1952 in Uganda and Tanzania, according to the WHO. What other complications are associated with Zika? Zika has also been associated with other neurological disorders, including serious brain and spinal cord infections. The long-term health consequences of Zika infection are unclear. Other uncertainties surround the incubation period of the virus and how Zika interacts with other viruses that are transmitted by mosquitoes, such as dengue. (Compiled by the Americas Desk)
In light of continued instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the U.S. State Department mandated Thursday the immediate departure of all nonessential personnel.

Families of U.S. government workers have been ordered to leave the country, amid unrest surrounding the countrys election process. A travel warning on the State Department website said most official government travel to the Congo had also been halted.

Very poor transportation infrastructure throughout the country and poor security conditions make it difficult for the U.S. Embassy to provide consular services anywhere outside of Kinshasa, the advisory said.

There has been a surge of violent clashes in Congo in recent weeks, largely owing to fears that President Joseph Kabila  who comes to the end of his second and final term in office in December  will delay democratic elections in order to maintain the presidency, reports the BBC.

Protests in the capital Kinshasa last week left at least 17 people dead and the headquarters of opposition parties torched. The State Department warned travelers that armed groups, bandits and some elements of the Congolese armed forces  kill, rape, kidnap, pillage, steal vehicles and carry out military or paramilitary operations in which civilians can be indiscriminately targeted.

The travel warning was issued a day after the U.S. imposed sanctions on two top DRC officials, in what is largely thought to be a warning to Kabila to respect the countrys constitution, according to the Guardian.
By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people are dying of hunger in the area of west Africa where Boko Haram militants are active, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the region, told a news conference on Friday. About 65,000 people are in a "catastrophe" or "phase 5" situation, according to a food security assessment by the IPC, the recognized classification system on declaring famines. Phase 5 applies when, even with humanitarian assistance, "starvation, death and destitution" are evident. The tragedy of using the F word is that when you apply it its too late," said Toby Lanzer, who has also worked in South Sudan, Darfur and Chechnya. Boko Haram militants have killed about 15,000 people and displaced more than 2 million in a seven-year insurgency and they still launch deadly attacks despite having been pushed out of the vast swathes of territory they controlled in 2014. "This is the first time Ive come across people talking about phase 5. The reason for that was simply a lack of access. We couldnt get to places," Lanzer said. "Because of the insecurity sown almost exclusively by Boko Haram, people have missed three planting seasons." Asked if it was safe to assume that tens of thousands of people were dying, Lanzer said: "Its not what were assuming, its what the IPC states. And I back that number. "I can tell you from my first trip outside (the regional capital) Maiduguri, I had never gone to places that had adults who were so depleted of energy that they could barely walk." One aid agency reported back from the Nigerian town of Bama that its staff had counted the graves of about 430 children who had died of hunger in the past few weeks, Lanzer said. With millions more short of food in northern Nigerian and regions of the adjoining countries, the situation could get much worse, and could turn into the "biggest crisis facing any of us anywhere", he said. Were now talking about 568,000 across the Lake Chad basin who are severely malnourished, 400,000 of them are in the northeast of Nigeria. We know that over the next 12 months, 75,000, maybe as many as 80,000, children will die in the northeast of Nigeria, unless we can reach them with specialized therapeutic food, Lanzer said. Across the Lake Chad region, more than 6 million people are described as "severely food insecure", including 4.5 million in Nigeria, he said. (Editing by Louise Ireland)
The fatal victim in Thursday morning's train crash in Hoboken, New Jersey has been identified as 34-year-old Fabiola Bittar de Kroon.



De Kroon was standing on the platform of the Hoboken station when the train crashed through a barrier at around 8:45 a.m. She was killed by debris, according to ABC News.



She was a former employee in the legal department for software company SAP in Brazil, before she left earlier this year.



The victim was married and had one child. Her husband was out of town on business while their child was at daycare at the time of the crash.







Originally from Santos, Brazil, de Kroon moved to Florida where she lived before moving to New Jersey.



Andy Kendzie, a SAP spokesman, said the company is "shaken by the news" of the crash and is "profoundly saddened" by de Kroon's death, according to ABC News.



The train, which was a rush hour commuter train, "came at a high rate of speed into the station and crashed through all the barriers, bringing it right to the interior wall of the Hoboken Terminal," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said at a press conference.



Christie said there's "no indication that this is anything more than a tragic accident."



He added, "We don't know a lot about why it happened. The engineer is cooperating with law enforcement."



The crash injured about 100 people.



Carrie Cristello, the director of media relations for the Jersey City Medical Center, released a statement to PEOPLE saying the center had received a total of 66 patients from the crash.



Thirteen of those patients remain under "guarded condition," according to Cristello.



Monica Nolasco, 22, told PEOPLE the scene was from "straight out of a movie."



"People were bleeding from their heads, their noses were busted and they were holding their faces and hands," she said.
On a Friday night just before Rio de Janeiros municipal elections, city council candidate Marielle Franco arrives at a warehouse party in her neighborhood of Mare  a favela, a low-income informal settlement, located in Rios North Zone. An Afrobeat band sings of the luta (the struggle), racism, machismo. People sport orange stickers bearing outline of an Afroed woman: Francos campaign image.

I am because we are, her campaign slogan reads, a nod to the African philosophy ubuntu, and a surprisingly telling message. Franco, an up-and-comer in one of Brazils new leftist parties, the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), is appealing to locals because of a shared identity. The 37-year-old, whos making her first run for elected office, is telling a story of a new era of progressivism in Brazil, one that draws on her childhood history growing up in a favela. The Olympic dust has settled; Rio is facing a deepening financial crisis and ever-deteriorating security issues, and all this is cast against the specter of ex-President Dilma Rousseffs ousting in September after a lengthy impeachment process.

Amid all this, Franco, whos widely expected to win her election on Sunday, hopes to begin her ascent into the highest echelons of Brazilian politics. Franco and her small but plucky party, which is just 11 years old, see themselves as the counterbalancing force to the current center-right government. Theyre calling for wider social safety nets, new public housing projects, community policing.

In addition to her partys platform, Franco has her own wish list: She wants standard bus routes rewritten so women can get off at designated brighter or safer spaces late at night. She wants more government-funded day care centers so moms can work. As Franco issues many of these calls for change, she uses her personal history expertly to compensate for a lack of experience in elected office. Day care is a case study in this Francoism: Though other politicians have been trying to up the number of centers for years, Franco says they didnt understand the complex cartographies of the city of 6.5 million, didnt see the invisible borders drawn by gangs or drug factions that might make a seemingly accessible center dangerous for a mother to reach.

Shes the chance to bring politics closer to here and fight for our interests. Shyrlei Rosendo, Mare resident

Joao Feres, a political science professor at the State University of Rio, says the PSOL is not realistic. Its idealistic leftist policies. Theyre more concerned with sticking to their own principles and not meddling with the dirty aspects of Rio politics. City council politics is a messy business, peopled both with ideological opponents and, in some cases, members of actual criminal militias. Franco and colleagues will have to negotiate with sundry types. And the idealism may come crashing down.

Seleta1 mariellefranco 04

Marielle Franco makes the kind of policy promises only a local can make.

Source Midia Ninja

Feres also thinks solutions are, in PSOL discourse, less favored than raw hope. He gestures to one of the PSOLs  and Francos  favorite targets, police efforts to gain control of favelas run by drug traffickers, under the moniker the pacification police. The program, Feres says, can be criticized in many ways, but [PSOL] seem to think there is some other magical solution to public security. We reached out to the main center-right party in Rio, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, for their take on policing and Franco, but they did not reply to request for comment; other local politicians declined to speak on record mere days before an election.

Mare, Francos home where we are stumping today, is one of Rios most precarious neighborhoods. Frequent school closures and lockdowns prevent people from getting to work. Franco, whos raising her teenage daughter here, says it wasnt always like this. As a kid in the 80s, she played on the streets without worry. She was around 14 the first time she saw an armed trafficker. Today, thats commonplace.

Franco got pregnant at 18; her childs father wasnt around after the first few years. She took a job as a preschool teacher making minimum wage  about $200 a month  to support herself and her child. While her daughter was still in grade school, Franco got a scholarship to a prestigious private university, continuing to teach to pay her way. After college she kept teaching, and, in 2007, started working for the PSOL, drawn in by the idea of a new leftist party where she could sink her hands into the dough.

Her profile is a rarity in Rio and Brazils political sphere  currently, six of the 51 seats on the Rio City Council are occupied by women. She pitches herself as change itself: Its important to have someone like me because its a direct identification. Residents believe that Franco would fight for her own: Shes the chance to bring politics closer to here and fight for our interests, said Shyrlei Rosendo, 33, a Mare resident. And that appeal is crucial for PSOL, says Jose Eduardo Leon Szwako, a professor and social scientist who specializes in civil society movements at the State University of Rio. Francos party has not been able to win over large slices of the Rio electorate, he says  its been mostly young, educated liberals cheering PSOL along. Feres says the party will not go far without more support from lower income citizens. Theyve never been able to break the class barrier, and thats a major problem for a leftist party in Brazil, he says, pointing out that their core support remains middle-class.

The party spills out into the street, heralding the weekend. Music blasts from speakers while residents drink beer and eat barbecue on the streets. Franco takes selfies with supporters. The scene recalls the kind of policy promises only a local girl can make: In the favela, shes pledged to hold more events valorizing Afro-Brazilian and favela culture like baile funk, parties devoted to the musical genre that originated in Rios favelas. Those fetes? Theyve been banned by police in some areas. The state identified them as security risks.

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A soldier, who was wounded in the Uri terror attack, succumbed today. The death toll rises to 19.

By India Today Web Desk: Another soldier, who was wounded in the Uri attack on September 18, succumbed to his injuries in Delhi today, taking the total toll to 19.

Naik Rajkishor Singh was the last one to succumb.

The Uri attack was carried out by heavily-armed militants who stormed Army headquarters in Uri town of North Kashmir.

Singh's death comes amidst Indian Army's surgical strike along LoC that destroyed seven terror launch pads. About 38 militants were killed in the strike.

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Also read:

Uri attack: Pakistan can't go unpunished, PM Modi has approved effective retaliation

Uri attack: An inside story of how it happened

Uri terror attack: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemns act



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Wall Street is brushing off concerns about Deutsche Banks (DB) financial health for now.

All three major averages (^GPSC, ^DJI, ^IXIC) are sharply higher following a report that Germanys largest lender is close to settlement with the US Justice Department for just $5.4 billion, thats way less than initially requested. Deutsche Bank shares have been under pressure after the DOJ requested $14 billion to settle charges related to the sale of toxic mortgage securities before the financial crisis.

On the economic front, the Commerce Department reported that personal spending remained flat in August, while income rose 0.2%. While, the core PCE, the Federal Reserves preferred inflation measure, rose 0.2%.

Voting for remarriage

Media mogul Sumner Redstone and his daughter Shari want Viacom (VIAB) and CBS (CBS) to merge. They sent a letter to the boards of both companies pushing for a re-combination of the two companies that split apart in 2006. Why does this make sense?

Just say no



Salesforce.com (CRM) wants regulators to block Microsofts (MSFT) $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn (LNKD). Salesforce says the deal would hurt competition by giving Microsoft too much control over LinkedIns huge pool of data. What are regulators likely to do?



Stocks to watch

Nutanix is making its Wall Street debut under the ticker NTNX. The cloud computing firm raised $238 million in its initial public offering Thursday night, selling roughly 15 million shares at $16 a piece. The higher-than-expected price tag values Nutanix at $2.2 billion dollars.

Costco (COST) shares were higher in early trading. The wholesale club chain delivered better-than-expected earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter. The companys switch to Visa (V) from American Express (AXP) translated into lower fees, which helped offset a decline in food prices.

NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) shares added to Thursdays nearly 17% gain in early trading following reports that Qualcomm (QCOM) is in talks to buy the Netherlands-based chip maker in a deal valued at more than $30 billion. The deal would help Qualcomm expand its reach beyond smartphones to automotive electronics, which has become a hot market for new chip technology.
In 2017 the Ferrari marque turns 70 and to celebrate this achievement it took the wraps off the LaFerrari Aperta soft-top hypercar and also detailed plans to build 350 limited edition takes on its current supercar lineup at this year's Paris Motor Show.

While competitors like Lamborghini and Bentley chose to skip over this year's Paris motor show, Ferrari has decided to throw a party, for itself.

And the biggest guest at the bash in turns of sheer force of character is the new LeFerrari Aperta. Like its hardtop sibling, this new hypercar offers hybrid hyper performance, thanks to an electric motor and V12 engine working in perfect harmony -- 0-100km/h in under 3 seconds plus a top speed of 350+km/h -- but dials the drama up to 11 by taking the roof off, something that was a very, very complicated process.

Removing the roof means robbing the car of structural rigidity and aerodynamic prowess. However, Ferrari's engineers and designers have done everything within their powers to ensure that there is no noticeable difference between the hard top and soft top versions.

And this is important because most buyers are expected to already have the standard' LaFerrari in their garages.

The car will come with a fabric soft top as standard or a carbon fiber removable hardtop can be specified as an option.

As well as a new hypercar, Ferrari also detailed plans to build 350 limited edition cars, 70 examples of each vehicle in its series production range -- one for each year of the company's existence -- to mark its anniversary.

However, each of these special models will stand out visually but not in terms of performance. Ferrari's Tailor Made Atelier (which usually handles ground-up bespoke commissions) has created 70 individual liveries inspired by the most iconic Ferraris in history, some of which, but by no means all, were on show.

The California T "Steve McQueen," for example, is inspired by the 250GT Berlinetta lusso the actor and racing driver once owned. Like the original car, it's finished in a deep brown and has a camel leather interior.

The company has also looked to racing success for ideas, including the 1961 Tourist Trophy winning 250GT Berinetta SWB. Applied to an F12Berlinetta on the stand, it boasts Blu Scuro racing livery, a number roundel and a white horizontal stripe across the hood.
By Yawen Chen and Ryan Woo

CHANGSHA, China/BEIJING (Reuters) - Property speculators in China are looking for the next big thing beyond the country's major cities. And they may have found it in the inland city of Changsha.

Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen have been the hottest property markets for most of the year, although smaller places such as the coastal city of Xiamen have been heating up too. Now there are signs the wave is reaching further inland.

Until now, Changsha's home prices have been one of the lowest among central provincial capitals due to ample land supply, a more leisurely economy compared with its bustling coastal cousins and subdued local demand.

But prices have jumped in recent months, catching many local property agents by surprise.

"Prices have risen 2,000 yuan ($299.84) per square metre on average in the past two months. That's almost a 30 percent rise from July," said Hu Yi, marketing manager at Central Courtyard, a residential project in Changsha targeting mid- to high-end buyers.

The sharp price rises in many cities are raising some uncomfortable memories of the last big run up in home values, which resulted in a property bust earlier this decade.

China's southern boomtown of Shenzhen, with tight land supply and a fast-growing tech industry, has led the rally for most of the year. But it lost its top slot in August to the second-tier city of Xiamen where prices were up more than 40 percent from a year earlier.

Prices rose in 64 of 70 major cities from the previous month, the highest in two years, government data shows.

There are even flickers of life in Zhengdong, a district of the inland city of Zhengzhou that became a symbol of China's property excesses because of rows of empty housing developments.

China property investment is also rising. Shortly after the August home price data was released, a parcel of land sold for a record price in southern China, the Shanghai Securities News reported.

Mortgage demand is driving loan growth in July and August. Indeed, the value of new mortgage loans is almost 70 percent of the value of total property sales in 2016 so far, the highest since mid-2009, UBS analysts said, citing figures from data provider CEIC.

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The government wants to keep the property sector as a driver of economic growth as other areas splutter, so has an incentive to allow healthy price rises. Still, some are concerned.

The central bank's chief economist, Ma Jun, was quoted earlier this month calling for steps to "curb excessive bubbles" in the property sector.

UBS Chief China Economist Wang Tao said it was time the government tightened credit conditions for homebuyers.

The price gains are a "self fulfilling prophecy," she said. "You buy when everyone is buying, that's the mantra. But at one point, prices are too high to find anyone to buy from you, and returns from rent are too low."

The government's "primary concern" should be to "limit the liquidity" in the property market, Rosealea Yao, an economist at Gavekal Dragonomics in Beijing said after the price data was released.

When China's property market saw similar price gains a few years ago, 47 cities imposed restrictions on home prices. This time around only half a dozen have done so, she said.

One factor driving speculators into the property market is moribund stocks. Benchmark indexes have fallen 13-15 percent this year, although some of China's commodities markets are rallying strongly.

CHANGSHA'S SPECULATORS

After Xiamen, the inland city of Hefei saw the second-biggest price gains in August, as out-of-town investors from Shanghai swooped in.

Now property speculators complain that even Hefei is too expensive, so they are searching for the next opportunity and have found Changsha, agents and buyers said.

Chen Xiaochuan, marketing manager with local residential property project Xiang-Shore Park said speculators make up about a third of homebuyers in Changsha.

They are mainly from first-tier cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen, property agents said, but are also from Hefei, where home prices have doubled since the start of the year.

"They saw what happened in Hefei and thought to themselves, maybe Changsha will be the next Hefei," Chen said.

Despite claims by some property agents that the inventory of empty homes is dropping to record lows in Changsha, empty-looking apartment buildings are still a common sight.

China Index Academy data shows there are 126,945 homes, or 13.46 million square metres, sitting empty in Changsha.

"I came here alone, but met many fellow Hefei property buyers along the way," 40-year-old Hefei businessman Zhou, who only gave his surname, said as he listened to a sales pitch for a new development. Zhou said he already owns three properties in Hefei and some in Nanjing and Hangzhou, two cities near the east coast.

GHOSTLY NO MORE?

In Zhengzhou, the first Starbucks cafe in the Zhengdong district opened this month, surrounded by empty, shiny office towers and residential blocks.

The shop manager said business would pick up in coming months, thanks partly to the cafe's proximity to three residential property projects.

One of them is The Park, a high-end project developed by a subsidiary of Haima Automobile Group.

"We have already bought an apartment here, and we are looking to buy a second one," a woman who goes by her last name Wang told Reuters just outside of project's sales office.

Home prices in Zhengdong district have risen two-thirds this year to 25,000 yuan ($3,747.56) per square metre on average, sales manager Xu Zhou said. That is still less than half of Shenzhen's average price of $8,104.

"We see a flux of buyers from people outside of Zhengzhou, especially those from smaller cities in the same province," Xu said, who apologised for his raspy voice, which he said was due to one too many sales pitches.

And for Zhang Liyang, a sales manager at Greenland Group's Zhengzhou office, the price surge in the past few months came as a surprise, which meant missed opportunities as she was entitled to employee discount rates.

"Even we didn't expect the prices to go up this much," she said. ($1=6.67 yuan)

(Reporting by Yawen Chen and Ryan Woo; Editing by Neil Fullick)
BOSTON (Reuters) - Fidelity's Contrafund (FCNTX.O), the largest mutual fund investor in Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc (CMG.N), cut its stake in the struggling burrito chain by 19 percent in August, Fidelity disclosed on Friday.

Run by portfolio manager Will Danoff, Contrafund reported holding about 790,177 shares in Chipotle at the end of August. That was down from about 980,000 shares in the previous month, according to Fidelity fund disclosures.

Fidelity was not immediately available for comment.

Contrafund's reduced exposure comes as activist investor Bill Ackman works to revive the chain's sales. Earlier this month, Ackman's Pershing Square hedge fund disclosed a 9.9 percent stake in Chipotle.

Since the end of 2015 when Contrafund held about 1.95 million Chipotle shares worth $934 million, Danoff has cut the stake by 59 percent.

Chipotle is struggling to revive sales after food-borne illness outbreaks hit the chain. Its share price is down 41 percent in the past year, trading up 1.2 percent on Friday afternoon at $425.74.

(Reporting by Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Diane Craft and Jeffrey Benkoe)
Shares of Wells Fargo & Company WFC took a hit recently after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fined the bank for opening millions of unauthorized accounts. In addition to the $190 million fine, the bank might also face a series of legal actions by its ex-employees and shareholders. ETFs that invest a notable portion of their assets in Wells Fargo are also getting affected by the scandal.

Unauthorized Sales Scandal

The banking giant was recently alleged of illegally opening 1.5 million deposit accounts in the name of customers who did not authorize the same. Moreover, the employees have also been alleged of applying for 565,000 credit cards, which were not permitted by customers. Also, debit cards were requested and issued without the consumers knowledge or consent and the employees went as far as creating PINs.

Out of the combined fine of $190 million, the bank will pay $100 million to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the largest in the agencys history, given the severity of the violations. Also, Wells Fargo will be paying $35 million and $50 million to the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, and City and County of Los Angeles, respectively. The rest of the amount will be paid in customer remediation (read: U.S. Banks Clear Stress Test: Financial ETFs in Focus).

Lawsuits by Ex-Employees & Shareholders

The situation has worsened further with the company facing a couple of lawsuits by former employees and shareholders. Two of the banks ex-employees, Alexander Polonsky and Brian Zaghi filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court in Los Angeles County accusing that the bank's rigorous and illegal sales practices pushed employees to the verge of "breaking point."

These ex-employees, who were dismissed or demoted over the past 10 years, demanded at least $2.6 billion in damages. According to the complaint, The biggest victims of Wells Fargo's scam are the class of victims that were fired because they did not meet these cross-sell quotas by engaging in the fraudulent scam that would line the CEO's pockets (read: Will Financial ETFs Forget Brexit and Gain on Decent Q2 Earnings?)

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Separately, law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP filed a lawsuit in San Francisco federal court targeting Cross-selling on behalf of all shareholders of the bank who bought the companys stock between Feb 26, 2014 and Sep 15, 2016. The lawsuit was filed against John Stumpf  Chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo, Chief Financial Officer John Shrewsberry and Carrie L. Tolsted along with the bank. It accused that the banks cross-selling efforts to retail customers were the product of a carefully designed system and were not meant to fulfill customers need and satisfaction.

Impact of the Scam

As an immediate response, 5,300 employees were fired by the bank. Wells Fargo refunded $2.6 million to customers for any charges associated with the products which they may not have requested. Notably, the accounts refunded represented just 1% of the accounts reviewed by a third party consulting firm and refunds averaged $25. The bank also stated that its making efforts for improved customer satisfaction while maintaining loyalty and ethics (read: 6 Sector ETFs Threatened by Brexit Uncertainty).

Separately, John Stumpf is set to forfeit all of his outstanding unvested stock awards of around $41 million. He has also agreed to forgo his salary during the investigation. Also, Carrie Tolstedt, who headed the companys community banking unit, will forfeit all of her outstanding unvested equity awards of around $19 million. Additionally, both Stumpf and Tolstedt will not be awarded bonus for 2016.

Financial ETFs to Watch

Shares of Wells Fargo witnessed a significant decline in recent times mostly led by its unauthorized sales scam. The bank lost 2.9% and 12.4% over the past five-sessions and in the trailing one-month, respectively (as of Sep 29, 2016). The financial ETFs that have a significant exposure to this banking behemoth were also negatively impacted by the scam (read: Clinton Apparently Won First Debate: ETFs in Focus).

iShares US Financial Services IYG, Financial Services Select Sector SPDR XLFS and PowerShares KBW Bank ETF KBWB declined 2.4%, 2.3% and 2%, respectively, over the past five sessions. IYG, XLFS and KBWB have 9.6%, 8.9% and 7.3% of their assets invested in Wells Fargo, respectively. While IYG and KBWB have a Zacks ETF Rank #4 (Sell), XLFS has a Zacks ETF Rank #3 (Hold) with a High risk outlook.

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Thai health authorities on Friday said microcephaly in two babies was caused by the Zika virus, in what is believed to be Southeast Asia's first confirmed cases linking the sickness and the birth defect.

The announcement could affect Thailand's key tourism industry, one of the kingdom's few economic bright spots under junta rule, with many Western governments warning pregnant women against non-essential travel to Zika-affected areas.

"Two of the three infants (tested) had microcephaly due to the Zika virus," Wicharn Pawan, a disease control official at the Health Ministry told AFP.

The ministry later said tests remain inconclusive as to whether the third infant's condition was connected to Zika.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) this week said any confirmed link in Thailand would be the first identified in Southeast Asia.

Zika causes only mild symptoms in most, including fever, sore eyes and a rash.

But pregnant women with the mosquito-borne virus risk giving birth to babies with microcephaly -- a deformation that leads to abnormally small brains and heads.

There is no cure or vaccine for the virus, which has infected more than 1.5 million people in nearly 70 countries since last year, according to WHO, with Brazil the hardest hit.

While Zika has been present in Southeast Asia for years, there has been an uptick in the number of recorded cases in the region in recent months.

The WHO has however noted that the rise in detection also comes in conjunction with heightened surveillance.

On Friday it urged Southeast Asian countries to strengthen measures aimed at preventing, detecting and responding to the virus.

But it praised the reaction in Thailand where "authorities have been active in detecting and responding" to Zika, according to Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO's Regional Director for Southeast Asia.

- Tourism fears -

This week Thailand's health ministry said it was monitoring 36 pregnant women infected with Zika, three of whom recently gave birth to babies with microcephaly.

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Thai virologist Praset Thongcharoen said Friday that "4.3 infants per 100,000", are born with microcephaly in Thailand, twice the global average.

The condition can also be caused by Down syndrome and other infections during pregnancy such as German measles and chickenpox.

Scientists warned this month that the world should prepare for a "global epidemic" of microcephaly as Zika takes root in new countries.

Tourism has buttressed Thailand's otherwise stagnant economy and authorities have been eager to reassure locals and visitors that the country is not experiencing a Zika epidemic.

Authorities are spraying areas of Bangkok prone to mosquito infestations and say they are on top of the issue.

But Friday's news could deliver a blow to Thailand's "teflon" reputation as a tourist haven.

The industry, which is expected to account for some 17 percent of Thailand's GDP this year, has swiftly bounced back from coups, violent street protests and bomb attacks in the past.

Before the Thai test results were announced, the United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel advisory urging pregnant women to "consider postponing nonessential travel to Southeast Asia countries with reports of Zika virus".

The news comes just one day before the start of "Golden Week", an annual Chinese holiday that sees a flood of tourists descend on neighbouring Thailand.

The kingdom is hoping to receive 33 million visitors this year, boosted by surging numbers of visitors from China.
Thai health authorities on Friday said microcephaly in two babies was caused by the Zika virus, in what is believed to be Southeast Asia's first confirmed case of a link between the sickness and the birth defect.

Tourism is expected to account for 17 percent of Thailand's GDP this year, and authorities will be desperate to prevent visitor numbers from tailing off after Friday's announcement.

"Two of the three infants (tested) had microcephaly due to the Zika virus," Wicharn Pawan, a disease control official at the Health Ministry told AFP.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) this week said any confirmed cases in Thailand would be the first identified in Southeast Asia.

Zika causes only mild symptoms in most, including fever, sore eyes and a rash. But pregnant women with the virus risk giving birth to babies with microcephaly -- a deformation that leads to abnormally small brains and heads.

There is no cure or vaccine for the virus, which has infected more than 1.5 million people, mainly in Brazil, since last year, according to WHO.

While Zika has been present in the region for years, there has been an uptick in the number of recorded cases in Southeast Asia in recent months.

The WHO has however noted that the rise in confirmed cases also comes in conjunction with heightened surveillance.

Thai authorities have been monitoring 36 pregnant women infected with the virus.

Earlier this week Thai doctors cleared two other babies with the condition of a link to Zika, a virus spread mainly by mosquitoes.

Virologist Praset Thongcharoen said "4.3 infants per 100,000", are born with microcephaly in Thailand, twice the global average.

The condition can also be caused by Down syndrome and other infections during pregnancy such as German measles and chickenpox.

Scientists warned this month that the world should prepare for a "global epidemic" of microcephaly as the virus takes root in new countries.

Tourism has buttressed Thailand's otherwise stagnant economy and authorities have been eager to reassure locals and visitors that the country is not experiencing a Zika epidemic.

Story continues

Friday's news could deliver a blow to Thailand's "teflon" reputation as a tourist haven.

The industry has swiftly bounced back in recent years from coups, violent street protests and bomb attacks.

Before the Thai test results were announced, the United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel advisory urging pregnant women to "consider postponing nonessential travel to Southeast Asia countries with reports of Zika virus".

The news comes just one day before the start of "Golden Week", an annual Chinese holiday that sees a flood of tourists descend on neighbouring Thailand.

The kingdom is hoping to receive 33 million visitors this year, boosted by surging numbers of visitors from China.
A sense of deja vu. It's like a brawl between schoolchildren, except that the players are policymakers. Bang in the middle of this brawl, the Kashmir uprising continues, only to be quelled by lethal pellets that have blinded teenagers. Many Indians too are critical of it.

Naseem Zehra

It all started with the unfortunate Uri attack that left 18 Indian soldiers dead. The latest from the Indian prime minister is, "Blood and water cannot flow together". This was followed by news of India's decision to review the Indus Basin Water Treaty of 1960 and discussions on limiting trade. In Pakistan too, there are calls to ban Indian planes from Pakistani airspace and to further limit the passage of Indian trade goods via Pakistan. The prime minister of Pakistan has opted to stay clear of issuing threats to India. Instead, he has remained singularly focused on the Kashmir issue, specifically the human rights violations. In fact, by not mentioning India's aggressive political intervention on Baluchistan or the Indian spy master Kulbhushan Yadav, Nawaz has earned some criticism at home. Nevertheless, he remains a man looking for peace with India and a solution on Kashmir.

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India's list of diplomatic 'favours' to Pakistan, recalled recently by Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj at the UN, included an invitation to Pakistan's PM to Modi's inauguration and Modi's stopover in Lahore. Yet, Nawaz too repeatedly went the extra mile-by attending Modi's inauguration despite criticism at home, by signing the weak Ufa agreement with India and ensuring an inquiry on Pathankot. Things began to fall apart when Delhi insisted that the post-Ufa visit by Sartaj Aziz could not accommodate a meeting with Kashmiri leaders. This was followed by the fence-mending Modi visit-and then came the Kashmiri uprising. But it was hard for India to blame Pakistan until the Uri attack.

Has India's finger-pointing helped Delhi? The issue of Kashmir with Kashmiris as the primary party still needs a resolution and for both Pakistan and India normalising relations is imperative.

Nawaz Sharif's only comment on the Uri attack was that the incident may have been linked to Indian repression in Kashmir. Pakistan's first response to the Uri attack was to hold an independent inquiry on the incident. India's reaction has been accompanied with its stated policy of "isolating Pakistan internationally" for allegedly being a 'terrorist' state. Obviously these words carry little weight other than the political gains the Indian prime minister believes he may make on the home front. Meanwhile, the Russians came to Pakistan for a first-ever joint military exercise.

Hysteria is a poor form of policy and the world community has generally stopped reacting to complaints that emanate from the two sides of the Pakistan-India border. The two governments will have to talk to resolve bilateral issues of trade, trade routes, Sir Creek, Baluchistan, Pathankot, Samjhauta, the Mumbai attacks, water problems, climate change etc. On Kashmir, however, the international community is intermittently forced to react.

While the K word clearly lies at the core of our enduring adversity, the litany of mutual grievances is a long one: India's active role in the breakup of Pakistan, Pakistan's role in promoting the Khalistan movement, India's pre-emptive occupation of Siachen and Pakistan's blundering into the Drass-Kargil heights, proxy wars, intel operations, lighting up the LoC, beheading soldiers, banning flights and limiting or stalling trade. Neither nation has gained anything beyond propaganda from the brawl-and-scream policy that has shadowed their dismal history.

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So let's step back to look at what is possible between our countries. We must do so because we need-and above all our respective leaderships need-to believe that animosity and adversity is not our destiny.

That brings us to the question of what has worked so far. The February 1999 Lahore summit was a breakthrough moment in Pakistan-India relations. It put the two countries on the path to resolving outstanding issues and indeed Kashmir as well. Then Pakistan's Kargil blunder struck all this progress down. In an ironic twist, it was the Kargil man, General Pervez Musharraf who opted to take forward what the Sharif government had initiated. The four-point formula, which did involve the Kashmiris without giving up Pakistan's UN position on Kashmir, was a good beginning.

Despite the war cries, the Indian PM now needs to settle down to an unconditional dialogue with Pakistan. The issues are well-known. And in Kashmir, a new internet-empowered generation is passionately and autonomously charting a course for its future. Meanwhile, the key question is: will Nawaz Sharif find a partner for peace in India?

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The author is a Pakistani TV commentator and columnist

--- ENDS ---
By Katy Migiro NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The United Nations has appointed its first special envoy for Somali refugees to ensure they receive protection, following accusations by a rights group that Kenya has been forcing them out of the world's largest refugee camp in a bid to close it. Kenya, which says the returns are voluntary, called last week at the U.N. General Assembly for more funding to repatriate more than 300,000 Somali refugees living in Dadaab camp on its northern border. "The Special Envoy will first help to maximise efforts to search (for) solutions for Somali refugees and asylum seekers at national and regional level and strive to enhance dialogue... to help maintain asylum," the U.N. said in a statement on Friday. Former Kenyan ambassador to Somalia, Mohamed Abdi Affey, was appointed in response to "recent security and political gains in parts of Somalia, along with growing pressures on host countries and related asylum fatigue," it said. One million Somali refugees are living in exile in neighbouring Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti and Yemen and some 1.1 million Somalis are displaced within Somalia, it said. Kenya hosts the world's second largest Somali refugee population after Ethiopia, U.N. refugee agency spokesman Duke Mwancha told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Affey, who also served as special envoy to Somalia for the east African bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), has been appointed for an initial period of six months. He will work to boost funding for humanitarian and development projects supporting the reintegration of Somali returnees, the U.N. said. Returns from Kenya to Somalia have increased since Kenya announced in May that it would close Dadaab, saying the camp had been infiltrated by "terrorist cells". Some 31,000 Somali refugees have voluntarily returned home from Kenya since December 2014, Mwancha said. Human Rights Watch said this month Kenya is harassing Somali refugees to return when it is not safe to do so. Hunger is worsening in Somalia due to poor rains, with five million people now short of food, the U.N. said. Kenya says Somali Islamist group al Shabaab has used Dadaab as a recruiting ground. The east African nation has been hit by a string of attacks by al Shabaab, including on a shopping mall in Nairobi and a university in the northeast. Dadaab hosts three generations of Somali refugees, some of whom have been living in the dusty, sprawling camp since 1991. (Reporting by Katy Migiro; Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, womens rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories.)
Tbilisi (AFP) - Pope Francis arrives in Georgia on Friday for a three-day visit as part of a broader tour of the Caucasus region.

Here are some key points about Georgia's ancient Christian tradition.

- Ancient Christian nation -

Georgia was the second nation in the world -- after neighbouring Armenia -- to adopt Christianity as a state religion in the early 4th century.

Located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, the mountainous country of 4.9 million traces its history back to at least the 13th century BC.

The Georgian Orthodox Church claims Apostle Andrew was the first to preach Christianity in the ancient Georgian kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia, which feature prominently in classical Greek and Roman literature and mythology.

Saint Nino, the daughter of a Roman general, converted Georgia's King Mirian and Queen Nana to Christianity in the 4th century and remains one of the most venerated saints in the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Christianity also played a pivotal role in shaping arts and literature in medieval Georgia, which flourished between the 11th and early 13th centuries.

- Conservative views -

The Georgian Orthodox Church, followed by more than 80 percent of the population, is known for its conservative views.

While officially separated from the state, the Church wields significant influence on Georgia's social and political life.

The current leader of the Church, 83-year-old Patriarch Ilia II, has equated homosexuality to a disease and compared it to a drug addiction. He has also called on authorities to adopt an anti-abortion law.

- Severely repressed -

The Georgian Orthodox Church is one of several distinct Eastern Orthodox Churches, which also include the Greek and Russian Churches.

The church was severely repressed during the Soviet era and Tsarist Russia's occupation of Georgia.

In Soviet times, hundreds of Georgia priests were either killed or sent to work camps. Most churches and monasteries were closed, and some even destroyed by the Bolsheviks.

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Patriarch Ilia II oversaw a major revival of the Church after Georgia regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

- Won't pray together -

The Georgian Orthodox Church has doctrinal differences with the Roman Catholic Church that date back to the "great schism" of 1054, when the Eastern church rejected Rome's authority.

The Orthodox Church's refusal to accept the primacy of the Roman pontiff has long been the primary barrier to a rapprochement.

The churches' disagreements on a number of theological issues explain why Pope Francis and Patriarch Ilia II will not pray together in public during the pontiff's visit to Georgia.

- Small Jewish community -

Georgia is home to a number of minority groups that are free to practice their religion. The skyline of the Georgian capital Tbilisi is sprinkled with Georgian Orthodox churches, mosques, synagogues and churches belonging to Christian minorities.

Muslims make up some 10 percent of Georgia's population. Armenian Christians account for nearly three percent of the population and are the largest Christian minority group in the country.

Roman Catholics, Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists and Pentecostals are also present in Georgia.

During his visit Pope Francis is expected to pray for peace in Syria and Iraq in Tbilisi's church of Saint Simon Bar Sabbae along with Syrian Catholic bishops.

Georgia's small Jewish community traces its history to the 6th century BC and has largely been assimilated into Georgian culture.
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised hopes of a new era in relations with Islamabad when he paid a surprise Christmas Day visit to his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.

In the months since, relations between the nuclear-armed archrivals have unravelled, culminating in the Indian military's strikes this week on militants along the de-facto border with Pakistan in Kashmir that prompted a furious response from Sharif.

Here are five reasons why the strikes occurred.

- Pathankot attack -

Just days after Modi's holiday visit to Sharif, militants from across the Pakistan border launched an audacious attack on an Indian airforce base that left seven soldiers dead.

India blamed the raid at Pathankot in Punjab state on a Pakistan-based militant group that also staged a 2001 attack on the Indian parliament.

Modi urged Sharif to take action against those responsible, which the Pakistani premier promised to do. But India became frustrated with what it sees as Pakistan's lacklustre response.

"India responded to that attack with measure and reason. Modi invited Pakistan investigators to come over and gather evidence for example, and such a strategy wasn't successful," said Ashok Malik, senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a policy organisation in New Delhi.

- Deadly Kashmir protests -

Indian-administered Kashmir erupted in violence in July after a popular militant leader was killed in a gun battle with security forces.

India slapped a curfew on the restive Himalayan region to try to stem the protests, and internet and mobile phone services were snapped.

But residents continued to take to the streets to protest Indian rule, with more than 80 people killed in the ongoing unrest, mostly in clashes with security forces.

Kashmir is divided between Pakistan and India, but both claim the territory in full and they have fought two of their three wars over its control.

Militant groups, some based in Pakistan, have battled India's security forces for years for independence of the Muslim-majority territory from India or its merger with Pakistan.

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Sharif accused India's security forces of carrying out brutalities against unarmed civilians during the protests, further stoking tensions between the neighbours.

- Uri army base -

On September 18, militants staged a predawn raid on an Indian army base near the de-facto border dividing Kashmir, killing 19 soldiers -- the worst such attack in 14 years.

India blamed the attack at Uri on Pakistani-based militants, the same group blamed for the Pathankot attack.

Modi vowed to punish those responsible, while also launching a diplomatic drive to isolate Pakistan, including by pulling out of a regional summit, in a major snub to Pakistan.

- Public Pressure -

The Uri attack triggered public fury and demands for military action, including from senior members of Modi's own party.

"Modi was under pressure for quite sometime to respond militaristically after dovetailing with Nawaz Sharif failed," said Mohan Guruswamy, chairman of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Delhi-based think tank.

Others predicted Modi would respond eventually with military action, given his credentials as a strong Hindu nationalist.

"This government, more so than others, was expected to respond because Modi is seen as a tough leader, he is seen as a leader who is going to punish those who hurt India," Malik said.

But Malik also said Modi was left with no choice because of what the army said was substantial intelligence of militants preparing to attack Indian towns and cities.

- International opinion -

India may have also been counting on the fact that Modi enjoys a closer relationship with Washington than his predecessors, and therefore international reaction to India's strikes might be muted.

"The diplomatic pressure to dissuade India from retaliating is not there," Malik said.

"There is exasperation (in Washington) with Pakistan and that has played to India's advantage," Malik said of US demands for Pakistan to take action against Taliban militants moving across its border into Afghanistan.
HELSINKI (Reuters) - The former head of Helsinki's drugs squad was sentenced on Friday to three years in jail for official misconduct, aggravated fraud and bribe-taking related to the purchase of police surveillance equipment. Jari Aarnio was previously sentenced to one year and eight months by a district court, but judges at the Court of Appeal took a harder line, saying his actions were planned and had endangered public trust in the police. He denied the charges. Such cases are rare in Finland, whose public sector ranks second least corrupt in the world after Denmark. Aarnio also faces charges, which he denies, of drug dealing and corruption in a separate case that could lead to a sentence of up to 11 years in prison. In the first case, the court said Aarnio had hidden a financial interest in a company he bought equipment from as the drug squad boss. The surveillance devices were used by Aarnio's unit and also by the Finnish Security Intelligence Service. The court said in its statement the equipment was not suitable for police use because a member of an organized crime group was also involved in the company. The case was heard at the appeals court after prosecutors appealed against an initial decision to dismiss the fraud charge. Aarnio had also appealed, asking for all charges to be dropped. In the separate drug case, Aarnio is suspected of organizing the smuggling of about 900 kg (1,000 lb) of hashish into Finland from the Netherlands, and of preventing police colleagues investigating the case. Sentencing is expected in November. (Reporting by Tuomas Forsell; Editing by Jussi Rosendahl and Alison Williams)
PARIS (Reuters) - France said on Friday it wanted an international investigation to decide whether Sudanese government forces had used chemical weapons in Darfur after allegations in a "worrying" report by Amnesty International. The rights group said on Thursday the government has carried out at least 30 likely chemical weapons attacks in the Jebel Marra area of Darfur since January using what two experts concluded was a probable blister agent. Foreign ministry spokesman Romain Nadal, describing the report as "worrying", said it carried very serious allegations which had to be investigated. "We think that the report raises questions for the international community and so the relevant institutions should look closely into it and examine the seriousness of the claims to establish the reality," he told reporters. The rights group estimated that up to 250 people may have died as a result of exposure to the chemical weapons agents. Sudanese U.N. Ambassador Omer Dahab Fadl Mohamed said on Thursday in a statement that the Amnesty report was "utterly unfounded" and denied that Sudan possessed any kind of chemical weapons. Nadal said Paris wanted The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the Hague to investigate thoroughly as well as the United NationsAfrican Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) to shed some light on events. Amnesty said the most recent attack occurred on Sept. 9. Its investigation was based on satellite imagery, more than 200 interviews and expert analysis of images showing injuries. (Reporting By John Irish; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
The last few months have been difficult for Freddie Gibbs. In June, while on tour in Europe, Gibbs was arrested in France due to rape allegations from 2015. The arrest and accusations stemmed from an alleged incident that took place in Austria. The following weeks after his arrest led Gibbs to be released from the French jail and transitioned into the custody of Austrian authorities although he and his lawyers denied these charges from the start.

In August, Gibbs was formally charged with sexual assault in Austria. If convicted of the charge Gibbs could have faced up to 10 years in prison, but Thomas Kralikthe lawyer that represented Gibbs while he was in Viennaremained firm on his stance that Gibbs was indeed 100% innocent of these accusations.

Weeks later, Gibbs is finally met with good news. Gibbs was officially found not guilty of these sexual charges today and is finally ready to return home to the United States with his family.

His lawyer Theodore Simon released an official statement on the issue. Read it in full below.

"Today, September 30, 2016 Freddie Gibbs was found not guilty. We have always maintained unconditionally and without any doubt that Freddie would be and now has been fully exonerated and completely vindicated. We are pleased and thankful that the Court recognized the same trust and confidence we and all of his fans have had in Freddie that justified and resulted in his absolute acquittal. Immediately after his acquittal I spoke with Freddie who expressed his deeply sincere, heartfelt gratitude and thanks to his fiance Erica Dickerson for her unwavering support, for the steadfast and incomparable loyalty of his long time friend and manager Ben "Lambo" Lambert, for the extraordinary work and effort of his lawyers and for the overwhelming outpouring of love he has received from his fans. He says, 'Thank you!'

While we are appreciative of the verdict of not guilty, nothing has changed. The actual facts have always demonstrated that Freddie was and is 100% innocent. It is now self-evident he was wrongly accused. The trial has confirmed our belief that after a searching and complete investigation and trial the true and actual facts would be revealed - that there always was an absence of any scientific, physical, or credible evidence that would warrant in any way such an accusation.

Freddie and his family look forward to returning to the States so he can resume his life and career."

Continue Reading On Complex
After his June arrest in France in connection to an alleged rape that took place in Vienna, Austria in 2015, rapper Freddie Gibbs has been acquitted of sexual charges, his attorney said in a statement sent to Billboard.

"Today, September 30, 2016 Freddie Gibbs was found not guilty," Gibbs' attorney Theodore Simon wrote. "We have always maintained unconditionally and without any doubt that Freddie would be and now has been fully exonerated and completely vindicated. We are pleased and thankful that the Court recognized the same trust and confidence we and all of his fans have had in Freddie that justified and resulted in his absolute acquittal."

Gibbs (real name Frederick Tipton) was taken into custody before a performance at Le Rex in Toulouse before posting bail. According to the AFP, Vienna ruled that there was not enough evidence to convict the 34-year-old Indiana rapper, who was accused of having sex with a girl, who was 17 at the time. Gibbs could have faced 10 years in prison.

Read the rest of Gibbs' statement below:

Immediately after his acquittal I spoke with Freddie who expressed his deeply sincere, heartfelt gratitude and thanks to his fiance Erica Dickerson for her unwavering support, for the steadfast and incomparable loyalty of his long time friend and manager Ben "Lambo" Lambert, for the extraordinary work and effort of his lawyers and for the overwhelming outpouring of love he has received from his fans. He says, "Thank you!"

While we are appreciative of the verdict of not guilty, nothing has changed. The actual facts have always demonstrated that Freddie was and is 100% innocent. It is now self-evident he was wrongly accused. The trial has confirmed our belief that after a searching and complete investigation and trial the true and actual facts would be revealed - that there always was an absence of any scientific, physical, or credible evidence that would warrant in any way such an accusation.

Freddie and his family look forward to returning to the States so he can resume his life and career."
On board the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle (AFP) - French jets blasted off from an aircraft carrier Friday to go into action over Iraq as the international coalition builds up for the looming battle to win back Mosul from Islamic State jihadists.

Eight jets took off from the Charles de Gaulle carrier in the eastern Mediterranean in the first operations since it left port in France on September 20, an AFP journalist on board reported.

French military officials refused to say whether the Rafale jets were carrying out air strikes or were on a reconnaissance mission.

But the return of the Charles de Gaulle to the region on its third mission since February 2015 is another sign of the steady build-up of forces for an offensive on Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the carrier was "contributing to the coalition's strikeforce", but that the offensive for Mosul had not yet begun.

"It is not the start of the battle for Mosul. This is the continuation of support operations that we are providing for the coalition," he said on a visit to western France.

"A major operation is about to be unleashed, but not today," he added.

US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said Wednesday he was sending about 600 extra troops to Iraq to train local forces for an assault. They will join 4,600 military personnel already in Iraq.

IS seized Mosul along with other areas of Iraq in June 2014, but Iraqi forces have since regained significant ground from the jihadists and are preparing for an assault to retake Mosul with coalition air and artillery support.

- Forces gathering -

More than 200 people have been killed in attacks in France undertaken by IS in the past 12 months and President Francois Hollande has said his nation is at "war" with the group.

The 24 planes on board the Charles de Gaulle triple France's bombing capacity in the region. Twelve French air force Rafale jets are already stationed in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

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France has carried out more than 15,000 air strikes against IS targets in Iraq and Syria since 2014, representing five percent of the total undertaken by the US-led coalition.

US planes have accounted for 80 percent of the strikes.

The offensive on Mosul could begin in October with the aim of taking full control of the city by the end of the year, Western officials have said.

The Pentagon estimates that between 3,000 and 4,500 IS fighters remain in Mosul.

Around 500 French soldiers are based in Iraq, advising Kurdish peshmerga forces in northern Iraq and helping to train elite Iraqi army units.

The extra US forces announced this week will head to Qayyarah, a strategically key air base 40 miles (65 kilometres) south of Mosul that will help channel supplies and troops towards the city.

They will also help increase the capabilities at the joint Iraqi-US Al Asad air base for night operations and operations in low visibility.

Russian forces have concentrated their efforts on propping up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and on Friday marked a year since beginning air strikes.

The United Nations has expressed concern that the offensive on Mosul could trigger one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent years, forecasting that at least 700,000 people could require assistance.

"Mosul has the potential to be one of the largest... disasters of many, many years," Bruno Geddo, the UN refugee agency's main representative in Iraq, said Thursday.
When Indian soldiers conducted surgical strikes on terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the troops included the crack Ghatak platoons of the very same 6 Bihar and 10 Dogra battalions who lost 19 soldiers in Uri attack.

Ghatak platoon of 6 Bihar and 10 Dogra units were made part of the surgical operations as they were familiar with the terrain.

By India Today Web Desk: When four Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists attacked the Army's 12th Brigade in Uri sector on September 18, as many as 19 Indian soldiers lost their lives. Sixteen of those soldiers belonged to 6 Bihar, while three belonged to 10 Dogra.

Late on Wednesday, when Indian soldiers conducted surgical strikes on terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the troops included the crack Ghatak platoons of the very same 6 Bihar and 10 Dogra battalions.

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READ| How Indian para commandos crawled through enemy territory to kill 50 terrorists in PoK



GHATAKS AVENGE URI DEATHS

The veteran Ghatak platoons joined two para commando units for the attack on enemy territory. One of the rationales behind getting the Ghatak platoon of these units to accompany the special forces was to ensure a sense of revenge is achieved by these units.

READ| Watch how India carried out military operation in PoK

The operational advantage of sending these well-trained troops from 6 Bihar and 10 Dogra was that they have a deeper sense of the terror across the LoC and better acclimatisation as they have been deployed in the area for a while now.

READ| Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike



Morale in a battalion always takes a hit when fellow soldiers are killed and there is a burning desire for retribution, therefore these units were given an opportunity to strike back, sources said.

While the key role in the surgical strikes was carried out by the 4 and 9 battalions of the Special Forces, the Ghatak battalions were used in a flanking role.

READ| Nawaz Sharif breaks silence on surgical strike, says don't want war with India

WHAT IS A GHATAK PLATOON:

True to its name, the Ghatak (which means deadly in Hindi) infantry platoon spearheads strikes ahead of a battalion. Every infantry battalion in the Indian Army has one such platoon and only the most physically fit and motivated soldiers make it to the Ghatak Platoon.

The Ghatak soldiers are well-trained, well-armed and equipped to handle situations like terror strikes, hostage situations and counter-insurgency operations. They often act as shock troops and conduct assaults against enemy positions often without support from the rest of the battalion. Their operational role is similar to Scout Sniper Platoon of the US Marines (USMC) and the Patrols platoon of the British Army. They are often asked to carry out tasks such as special reconnaissance, raids on enemy artillery positions, airfields, supply dumps and tactical headquarters. They are also capable of directing artillery and air attacks on targets deep within enemy lines. A Ghatak platoon is usually 20-man strong, consisting of a commanding Captain, 2 non-commissioned officers and some special teams like marksman and spotter pairs, light machine gunners, medic and radio operator. The remaining soldiers act as assault troopers. Most undergo training at the Commando Training Course in Belgaum, Karnataka. Often, other specialised training like heliborne assault, rock climbing, mountain warfare, demolitions, advanced weapons training, close quarter battle and infantry tactics are also given. Members of the platoon are also sent to the High Altitude Warfare School and Counterinsurgency and Jungle Warfare School. It is mandatory for all infantry officers to pass the Commando Training Course. These units are equipped with the Tavor TAR-21, INSAS or a version of the AK-47 as their primary assault rifle. The marksmen are equipped with the Dragunov SVD sniper rifle and Heckler & Koch MSG-90 sniper rifles. They wear standard issue camouflage and body armour. Depending on the mission, they may carry other items like ropes, climbing gear, grenades, rocket launchers, laser target designators and night vision equipment.

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In 2012 reports came in that all Ghatak platoons of the Army were getting the first lot of the latest weaponry aimed at equipping the troops to tackle newer forms of threats.

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READ: 2 Pakistan soldiers killed as India responds to ceasefire violation with punitive strikes



With the changing scenario, four different sets of equipment would be added to the armoury of the Ghatak platoons, source said.

This would include new automatic sub-machine guns having rapid-fire, assault rifles and night firing capabilities.



Also Read:

Delhi on high alert after Indian Army carries out surgical strike across LoC

After India's surgical strike, Pakistan violates ceasefire yet again

India hits Pakistan back with surgical strikes across Line of Control, 38 killed

Indian Army strikes as they unfolded across Line of ControlWho strategised the Indian Army's surgical strikes across the LoC?



Social media being monitored for hate content, rumours day after Indian Army's surgical strikes







--- ENDS ---
New French Law Mandates Riding Gloves

The website motofire.com reports that French law now requires that motorcycle riders wear gloves. Riders caught without hand protection will face a fine of $76 and have a point added to their license. This rule will apparently be enforced even if you are trying to save your best girl from a horde of marauding genertically altered military zombies aboard a really cool chopper, so remember to grab a pair of goves before making your escape.

France already requires riders to carry a hi-viz reflective jacket or vest in case of a roadside emergency, and a helmet that displays at least 18 square cm of reflective material. A violation carries a fine of $152. According to the report, France also requires riders to carry spare bulbs and an alcohol breath-testing kit, a rule widely ignored since a violation carries no fine.

Of course some riders have taken offense at the perceived violation of their civil liberties, and perhaps even their equality and fraternity. The FFMC, Federation Francaise des Motards en Colere (which literally translates according to Google as the French Federation of Angry Bikers has released this statement:

Its not that we are against the gloves, the problem is that were forced to wear them under the threat of fines and losing points. Theres no lives at stake here, and if we dont wear gloves then we arent threatening other peoples integrity.

May we have a show of hands on this matter?

Road Rash Sucks

All joking aside. You really should wear gloves when riding a motorcycle because road rash really sucks. Just ask this poor rider.
Yangon (AFP) - Scars lace across 16-year-old Than Than Ei's face, each line bearing testimony to the abuse she says she suffered at the hands of her adoptive family, the latest case of child abuse piling pressure on Myanmar's government.

She was just nine when her father sent her to be adopted by a family in Yangon. By her tenth birthday she had become their virtual slave, beaten with bicycle chains and kitchen implements almost daily for five years.

"My lips were whipped with an iron chain," she told AFP at her aunt's house in South Dagon, east of Yangon. "They also use it to slash my hands and threw hot water on them."

"As they did not feed me, I ate without their permission. Then they accused me of stealing food and crushed my fingers with pliers."

Her story is increasingly familiar in Myanmar, where tens of thousands of youngsters from poor families are also sent to work as servants in middle-class, urban households.

Activists say the government has done little to address the issue, while police and authorities regularly turn a blind eye to allegations against wealthy and powerful families.

"The justice system throughout the country is broken and generally not seen as protecting the rights of the least advantaged," said Matthew Smith, chief executive of Fortify Rights.

"Authorities in a position to help have been negligent."

The issue came to light this month with the case of two girls, aged 16 and 17, who described shocking abuse during five years held captive in a tailor's shop in Yangon.

The victims' families say police refused to help them free the girls, whose story of being beaten, burnt and stabbed by the shop owners hit headlines after they were rescued this month.

They were initially paid $4,000 in compensation but, under mounting public pressure, police pressed criminal charges and the president has ordered an enquiry into how authorities handled the case.

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Six members of the tailor's family appeared in court on Thursday on human-trafficking charges.

- Justice delayed -

Campaigners say more needs to be done to address the issue in Myanmar, rated the seventh-worst country for child labour in the world by risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft.

Tackling the issue is one of the key challenges facing the new democratically elected government as it seeks to heal the country after 50 years of oppressive military rule.

But it is also a complex task given grinding poverty that leaves many families dependent on income from working children.

"We're going to find more and more of these types of cases," said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch Asia, urging lawmakers to get ahead of the issue.

Than Than Ei's family said authorities did nothing when alerted to what was happening.

Twice, neighbours complained but the local ward officer -- a relative of the alleged abusers -- did nothing.

Than Than Ei finally managed to flee the house and her uncle, Myo Oo, filed attempted murder charges against the family in July 2015.

One member of the family was arrested, but nothing was done for a year. Then last week police, galvanised by the tailor shop case, arrested three more people.

"If the authorities had helped us like this since the beginning, our case would not take this long," said Myo Oo. "I also want to ask them why."
FX has ordered a 10-episode season of early-80s Los Angeles crack cocaine drama, Snowfall. Production is set to begin next month for a 2017 debut.

Snowfall is being produced by FX Productions, and is executive produced by Dave Andron, Thomas Schlamme, John Singleton, Eric Amadio, Michael London and Trevor Engelson. Andron is showrunner.

The pilot was written by Singleton, Amadio and Andron and directed by the Belgian team of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah.

Also Read: 'You're the Worst' Renewed for Season 4 at FXX

We are excited to add Snowfall to our original series lineup, said Eric Schrier, of of two presidents of Original Programming for FX Networks and FX Productions. Dave Andron, Tommy Schlamme, John Singleton and Eric Amadio have delivered a riveting and beautiful pilot and we cant wait to start work on the series.

Heres the official series description, all in FXs own words:

Los Angeles 1983. A storm is coming and its name is cocaine. Snowfall is a one-hour drama set against the infancy of the crack cocaine epidemic and its ultimate radical impact on the culture as we know it. The story follows numerous characters on a violent collision course, including: Franklin Saint (Damson Idris), young street entrepreneur on a quest for power; Gustavo Zapata (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), a Mexican wrestler caught up in a power struggle within a crime family; Teddy McDonald ( Carter Hudson), a CIA operative running from a dark past who begins an off-book operation to fund the Nicaraguan Contras; and Luica Villanueva (Emily Rios), the self-possessed daughter of a Mexican crime lord.

Below are the cast and their character descriptions in more detail.

Also Read: 'The Strain' Renewed by FX for Fourth and Final Season

Damson Idris (pictured above) will play Franklin Saint, a young street entrepreneur on a quest for power. Born and raised on the streets of South Central but educated in an upper class neighborhood in the Valley, Franklin is determined to raise his station in life through whatever means necessary.

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Sergio Peris-Mencheta will play Gustavo El Oso Zapata, a Mexican wrestler turned gangster in search of his American dream. An outsider since birth, he has struggled his whole life to find somewhere to belong. Gustavo will finally find a place in a Los Angeles crime family that values his brutal ways  but belonging will cost him more than he can imagine.

Carter Hudson will play Teddy McDonald, a CIA operative banished to the Los Angeles office after a tragic misstep in the past. When he sees an opportunity to reverse his fortunes, Teddy risks everything to get his life back on track.

Emily Rios will play Lucia Villanueva, the self-possessed daughter of a Mexican crime lord that imports and sells marijuana throughout Los Angeles.

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FX's John Landgraf, Finance Panel and Legal Aces at TheGrill

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FX Emmy Wins for 'People v OJ' Soothes Rupert Murdoch's Tough Year

Emmys by the Numbers: FX Gives HBO a Run for Its Money

FX Cancels Denis Leary Comedy 'Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll' After 2 Seasons
By Gerauds Wilfried Obangome LIBREVILLE (Reuters) - Gabon's opposition leader Jean Ping called on Thursday for national talks to form a "new republic" and urged foreign powers to impose sanctions on allies of President Ali Bongo, sworn in this week after a disputed election in the oil-producing nation. Ping remained intransigent during his speech in the capital Libreville, saying he refused to recognise Bongo's presidency. But his appeal for dialogue -- albeit on his own terms -- could help usher in a return to normal after post-election violence last month killed at least six people. Ping ridiculed Bongo's earlier appeals for talks, saying that the president, who came to power in a contentious 2009 election following his father Omar Bongo's death after 42 years in power, had won fraudulently. Instead, he said he would organise his own talks, though he provided few details. "This inclusive national dialogue will be...the occasion to put in place the foundations of a new republic," he said. Ping also called for sanctions against the authors of what he called "a military-electoral coup d'etat" and urged the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to come to Gabon to investigate violence after Bongo was declared the winner. Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement on Thursday that she had begun a preliminary examination of the situation in the country at the request of the government. She will decide later whether to open a formal investigation. [nA5N197016] Bongo's victory in last month's poll by less than 6,000 votes drew accusations of fraud from Ping. France called for a recount and the European Union said it found anomalies in Bongo's stronghold province of Haut-Ogooue, where he won 95 percent of the vote on a 99.9 percent turnout. But fears of resurgent violence after the Constitutional Court upheld Bongo's victory last week failed to materialise and Bongo was sworn in at a subdued ceremony on Tuesday. [nL8N1C34KC] He has promised to name an inclusive new government in the coming days and to address some of the issues that have fuelled anger in the country of 1.8 million, like youth unemployment and over-reliance on dwindling oil revenues. However, the conduct of the poll may hurt his international reputation as a reformer, analysts said. Just a handful of African leaders attended his inauguration. (Writing by Aaron Ross; editing by Ralph Boulton)
Gary Johnson did it again. Upon being asked to name a world leader he admired, the Libertarian candidate for president flubbed, unable to name a single one. I guess Im having an Aleppo moment, he admitted, harking back to his last big misstep, when he proved unable to identify the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo, site of one of the worlds worst ongoing humanitarian crises.

Though Johnsons gaffes are not unique  politicians have committed worse sins of ignorance in this election and in past ones  they continue to undermine his campaigns attempt to present a pragmatic foreign policy alternative. For a politician, its not enough to have great ideas. You also have to sell them.

Johnsons gaffes appear so damning partly because they werent really gotcha questions. No one asked him to name the new president of Uzbekistan, or the capital of Eritrea. Most Americans cant point to Aleppo on a map (including, infamously, various New York Times reporters chastising Johnson) but with consistent media coverage of the Syrian crisis, most could probably identify why its important. Even Donald Trump has been able to identify a world leader he admires, though his choice of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin admittedly leaves a lot to be desired.

Despite that, its not clear that these missteps render Johnson unfit to run for president, as many have suggested. Its easy to forget that former presidents and candidates alike have made similar mistakes. President Gerald Fords insistence that there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe ranks high among the most memorable blunders of past presidential debates, while Sarah Palins short-lived stint as John McCains running mate saw a plethora of errors, including the improbable assertion that Vladimir Putin might want to singlehandedly invade Alaska.

This years election has seen foreign policy gaffes from both Republican and Democratic candidates, most notably Donald Trumps highly questionable statement that there are no Russian troops in Ukraine. His campaign has been riddled with implausible plans and inaccurate assertions, from his belief that the United States should simply take all the oil in Iraq and Syria, to his contention that Hillary Clinton has spent her entire adult life fighting the Islamic State. Clinton has done better, undoubtedly a result of her tenure as secretary of state, but even she has made errors, including a garbled response in one town hall event that suggested Libya isnt experiencing a civil war.

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In the case of the Libertarian candidate, foreign policy was always likely to be problematic: the focus of many libertarians on non-interventionism seems to suggest that you dont need a great amount of knowledge about the world to conduct foreign policy. Indeed, Johnson has shown himself to be much more knowledgeable on core domestic issues like taxation or drug policy.

But even if most libertarians are as skeptical about interventions abroad as they are about government intervention at home, in order to make a coherent case for restraint in Americas foreign policy, you have to explain why it will work better. Johnson, it turns out, is generally correct in his approach to Syria: U.S. intervention to alleviate suffering, in Aleppo or elsewhere, is unlikely to work and may well make the situation worse. Its the same approach the White House is taking today. But without knowledge of detail, he struggles to explain why.

The big tragedy here is that the foreign-policy approach offered by the Johnson-Weld campaign is not only a compelling alternative to the current orthodoxy, but is increasingly popular among Americans. A more restrained approach to foreign policy would see the United States involved in fewer unnecessary conflicts around the world, and a much stronger emphasis on diplomacy and other non-military solutions to global problems. In contrast to Clintons liberal interventionist approach, it would avoid getting bogged down in civil wars like Libya and Syria. In contrast to Trumps curiously aggressive isolationism, a restrained foreign policy sees trade as a positive, security-enhancing factor.

Polling throughout the election campaign suggests that many of these ideas resonate with voters. In one recent Chicago Council survey, only 27 percent of Americans believed that the United States does too little around the world, while 41 percent of respondents think the United States does too much. More than half of respondents think that other countries should solve their own problems rather than relying on the United States.

Indeed, its likely that some of Johnsons strongest bases of support come from his foreign policy leanings. Polls show that 36 percent of active-duty troops, many of whom have witnessed first-hand the foreign policy follies of the last decade, intend to vote for Gary Johnson, while 29 percent of millennials  a generation with a strong tendencies towards restraint  are planning to vote for him.

Yet even with growing public support, Johnsons gaffes encourage the media to dismiss his foreign policy ideas as unimportant or fringe. many have been quick to argue that Johnsons gaffes render him  or any libertarian candidate  unqualified to run for president.

But each gaffe made by the Libertarian candidate represents a missed opportunity to persuade voters. After Johnsons recent brain freeze, his running mate Bill Weld went on to cite Germanys Angela Merkel worthy of admiration, but provided few details. In fact, Merkels focus on diplomacy in conflict resolution in Ukraine and elsewhere, her record of restraint in military interventions like Libya, and her efforts to resolve the Syrian refugee crisis are a wonderful example of what a restrained foreign policy might look like in practice.

Ultimately, these gaffes raise the question of the Libertarian campaigns goals in the election. Is it simply the infinitesimal chance of getting elected as a third-party ticket? Or is the goal instead open debate, to present an alternative for voters disillusioned with other parties, and shift Americas foreign policy in a more libertarian direction? Johnson and his running mate have repeatedly emphasized debate participation as a key goal of the campaign, even after they missed the 15 percent polling threshold to participate in the first debate. If he does get debate access, Gary Johnson will have the potential to enrich the national foreign policy debate with ideas no other candidate is presenting. But if he cant avoid further Aleppo moments, that influence might well be squandered.

Photo credit: ALEX WONG/Getty Images
Jimmy Kimmel took to the streets to determine if anyone actually knows who Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson is.

Turns out, not really.

Person after person had no idea who Johnson is or the fact that he is running for President. Not all that surprising, considering he only seems to make the news when he doesnt know what Aleppo is or when he cant name a single world leader.

Also Read: Joe Scarborough Calls Gary Johnson 'Completely Ignorant' After 'Another Aleppo Moment'

Even a local traffic cop had no idea. I know several Gary Johnsons, but probably not the one you want, the officer told Kimmels team.

Finally, one guy was able to correctly identify Johnson, and was rewarded by a barrage of streamers and confetti.

Watch the video above.

Related stories from TheWrap:

Libertarian Nominee Gary Johnson Answers Serious Question With Tongue Sticking Out (Video)

Randy Rainbow's Spoof of Gary Johnson's Aleppo Flub Is the Best Video You'll See Today

What Is a Libertarian? Fox Business Host John Stossel Explains Ahead of Gary Johnson Town Hall
gary johnson

Call it a "Tubman moment."

Gary Johnson, the gaffe-prone Libertarian Party candidate for president, seemingly has a tendency to forget things.

Months before Johnson failed to recall what Aleppo is  Syria's largest city, and one of the hardest hit by the ongoing civil war  during an interview with MSNBC, he apparently had to ask an aide who Harriet Tubman was.

The nugget is buried in a long New Yorker profile from July about Johnson's third-party candidacy for the White House.

After giving a speech at a Libertarian political convention in California, Johnson was questioned whether diversity was "a problem" for the Libertarian Party, which is mostly young, white, and male.

He responded that his party would start doing better among nonwhite voters once he became more nationally recognized.

Shortly thereafter, Johnson was shepherded into a room at the convention center that was named after Harriet Tubman.

"Who's Harriet Tubman?" Johnson asked an aide, according to The New Yorker. The aide had to quietly remind Johnson who Tubman was.

Harriet Tubman, Women on 20s

Tubman, of course, is an American civil rights icon. Born into slavery, she served as an armed scout for the Union during the Civil War and fought for women's suffrage. Tubman's face will grace the newest iteration of the $20 bill.

But clearly, that wasn't the end of Johnson's troubles.

On Wednesday, Johnson admitted to MSNBC's Chris Matthews he was having an "Aleppo moment" when he couldn't immediately name any foreign leaders he respected.

He doubled down on his inability to name any foreign leaders in a tweet on Thursday, saying, "It's been almost 24 hours... and I still can't come up with a foreign leader I look up to."

While Johnson has had some trouble getting his poll numbers up to a comfortable level, The Chicago Tribune endorsed him for president on Friday.

Johnson's campaign wasn't immediately available for comment.

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NOW WATCH: A hair surgeon explains what's going on with Donald Trump's hair





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By John O'Donnell

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany's insistence that Italy accept tough conditions in tackling its problem lenders may rebound now that Berlin faces a banking crisis of its own.

After months of argument over how to deal with bad debts in the Italian financial system, Deutsche Bank <DBKGn.DE> instead took center stage on Friday, with its share price near record lows and its chief executive trying to reassure staff and markets that Germany's biggest bank remains robust.

For many in Italy, including Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, this diverted attention from the country's own difficulties in recapitalising the likes of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena. <BMPS.MI>

Renzi went easy on expressing any Schadenfreude on Friday, but knocked the ball back into the German court. "We have always said that the European Union has to do everything in its power to fix the problems of the banking sector and the main worry focuses on the German lenders," he told national broadcaster RAI.

He is not alone. The International Monetary Fund has named Deutsche as a bigger potential risk to the wider financial system than any other global bank.

With Monte dei Paschi struggling to persuade investors to back its third recapitalization in as many years, Economy minister Pier Carlo Padoan acknowledged Italy had to get its own house in order, but not in isolation.

"Just like the problem of bad bank loans must be solved within a reasonable time frame, so it should be for Deutsche Bank's problems," he told La Stampa newspaper.

Rome and Berlin have been at odds for months over demands that Italian savers should shoulder the burden of a rescue of Monte dei Paschi, Italy's third biggest and oldest bank.

Rome had tried to shield institutional investors and ordinary Italians who put their savings into the bank's bonds, while Berlin had wanted them to suffer losses as a condition for allowing state support.

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An official familiar with the German government's stance, had told Reuters it wanted to prevent Italy tapping European funds to solve its banking problems, a move that would mean Berlin footing part of the bill.

Germany points out that while the Italian government is saddled with heavy debts, citizens' personal savings are high, meaning private investors should play a role in bank rescues. "The state is poor," said the official. "The Italians are rich."

Renzi's government opposes such a step, fearing it would be unpopular before a referendum on constitutional reform in December.

'SOFTER LINE'

Although Germany is far stronger economically than Italy, Deutsche Bank's great size poses a greater problem than any individual Italian lender.

As they prepare for national elections in 2017, politicians in Berlin also oppose any state bailout of Deutsche, a bank unpopular among many voters because of its aggressive expansion on Wall Street that resulted in billions of euros of fines.

The possibility that Deutsche could run short of capital if it is overwhelmed by penalties puts Berlin in a more vulnerable position than before, possibly undermining any push for a tough solution for Italy.

"They have taken a very doctrinaire line with the Italians," said Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank. "Maybe this gives Germany cover to soften their line."

While final approval for state aid for banks lies with the European Commission, Germany's position, as the euro zone's largest economy, is nonetheless important.

Throughout the euro zone debt crisis, Berlin tried to insulate its lenders and citizens alike from the problems of countries such as Greece. This caused ill feeling in states that were forced into bailouts as well as in some, like Italy, that did not need one.

Tilford believes that an amicable end to the tensions between Germany and Italy is now important both for tackling the banking problems and for the unity of the 19-member euro currency area.

"What Germany has sought to do since the start of the crisis is avoid any costs to its banks or taxpayers," he said. "The big fault line in the euro zone is between Italy and Germany."

Others believe, however, that even the problems at Deutsche will do little to change Germany, which has lectured other European countries on how to manage their economies and finances better throughout the debt crisis.

"Deutsche Bank is embarrassing," said Sven Giegold, a German member of the European Parliament, adding, however, that he did not expect Germany to change its general stance. "German arrogance is more deeply rooted than that."

(Additional reporting by Francesca Piscioneri in Rome; editing by David Stamp)
"We believe that continued communication is obviously important to reduce tensions. We've repeatedly expressed our concerns regarding the danger that terrorism poses to the region and we all know that terrorism in many ways knows no border," Kirby said.

By Press Trust of India: A terrorist attack like the one on an Indian Army camp in Uri "escalates tensions", United States have said, asking Pakistan to take action against UN-designated terrorist outfits and delegitimise them.

"Obviously, an (terrorist) attack like that (in Uri) escalates tensions. What I don't want to do is try to get into, you know, some sort of broad characterisation one way or the other but obviously an attack like this is horrific and...", the State Department Spokesman, John Kirby.

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The spokesperson was interrupted by a reporter mid-way that her question was about India's response to the September 18 Uri attack.

"But the Indian response is that -- is that the kind of escalation that Secretary Kerry was warning against?" the journalist asked referring to the telephonic conversation between the Secretary of State John Kerry and the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj earlier this week.

Kirby was quick to clarify that he was referring to the Uri terrorist attack.

"Oh, I thought you were talking about the Uri attack," the spokesman said.

KIRBY TALKS TO SWARAJ

On September 27, Kerry spoke with Swaraj. For technical reason, the conversation was spread over two separate calls.

"I can confirm for you that the secretary spoke with --on the 27th, so earlier this week, with Indian External Affairs Minister Swaraj and reiterated his strong condemnation of the September 18 Uri attack. He condemned terrorism in all its forms and he cautioned against any escalation intentions," he said.

Responding to questions, Kirby called for de-escalation of tension between the two countries.

"We've seen those reports (of Indian surgical attack), we're following the situation closely as I think you can understand. We also understand that the Indian and Pakistani militaries have been in communication," he said.

"We believe that continued communication is obviously important to reduce tensions. We've repeatedly expressed our concerns regarding the danger that terrorism poses to the region and we all know that terrorism in many ways knows no border," Kirby said.

Also Read

India hits Pakistan back with surgical strikes across Line of Control, 38 killed

How 25 Indian commandos crawled through enemy territory to kill 38 terrorists in PoK

--- ENDS ---
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German prosecutors are again considering whether to press charges against Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives for failing to staunch a tide of racist and threatening posts on the social network during an influx of migrants into Europe. Munich prosecutors said they had received a complaint filed by a German technology law firm two weeks ago alleging that Facebook broke strict national laws against hate speech, sedition and support for terrorist organizations. Attorney Chan-jo Jun, who filed a similar complaint in Hamburg a year ago, is demanding that Facebook executives be compelled to comply with anti-hate speech laws by removing racist or violent postings from their site. Jun is principal partner of the law firm Jun Lawyers of Wuerzburg in Bavaria. Facebook said the complaint had no merit. "Mr Jun's complaints have repeatedly been rejected and there is no merit to this (latest) one either," a Facebook spokeswoman said. "There is no place for hate on Facebook. Rather than focusing on these claims we work with partners to fight hate speech and foster counter speech." Facebook's rules forbid bullying, harassment and threatening language, but critics say it does not do enough to enforce them. A spokeswoman for the public prosecutor in Munich said a decision would be taken in coming weeks on whether to act on the new complaint, which names Zuckerberg - Facebook's founder and chief executive - and regional European and German managers. Hamburg prosecutors denied Jun's earlier complaint on grounds that the regional court lacked jurisdiction because Facebook's European operations are based in Ireland. Jun wrote on his website he believed he would get a more favorable hearing in Bavaria because the justice ministry had signaled an openness to hearing racial hate crime cases. Jun has compiled a list of 438 postings over the past year that include what some might consider merely angry political rantings, but also show clear examples of racist hate speech and calls to violence laced with references to Nazi-era genocide. Following a public outcry and pressure by German politicians for failing to delete a rash of racist postings on Facebook, the Silicon Valley social networking giant earlier this year hired Arvato, a business services unit of Bertelsmann , to monitor and delete racist posts (http://reut.rs/1WfylHe). A rash of online abuse and violent attacks against newcomers to Germany occurred amid a migrant influx last year, which led to a rise in the popularity of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and has put pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democratic party. (Reporting by Harro ten Wolde; writing by Eric Auchard; editing by Mark Heinrich)
By Andrea Shalal BERLIN (Reuters) - German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel heads to Iran next week with a planeful of industry executives keen to rebuild trade ties, but remaining U.S. sanctions and political concerns are holding back a hoped-for business boom. Gabriel says a German-Iranian business commission will meet for the first time in 15 years, and forecasts concrete business deals will be announced, but he has also said Tehran must accept Israel's right to exist and stop military support for Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in order to normalize ties. He is making his second visit to Tehran since the Islamic Republic reached a deal with world powers in July last year to lift economic sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear program, in return for curbs on its nuclear activities. Industrial giant Siemens AG and automaker Daimler will be among the first German firms to benefit from opportunities in Iran, but they are proceeding carefully and only after legal reviews. Exports to Iran jumped 15 percent in the first half of the year to 1.13 billion euros and could reach 4 bln euros in the full year, said Michael Tockuss, head of the Hamburg-based German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce. He cited signs of movement in the German banking sector, which has been reluctant to underwrite business deals for fear of running foul of remaining U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran for what Washington says is Tehran's money laundering, support for terrorism and human rights abuses. "Economic cooperation won't perform miracles but it can open up countries and stimulate societal change," Gabriel, who leads the Social Democrats, junior partner in the ruling center-right coalition, told the online site weekly magazine Der Spiegel. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a fellow Social Democrat, in February invited Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to visit Germany. But Chancellor Angela Merkels Christian Democrats, anxious about managing ties with two fierce Iran foes, Saudi Arabia and Israel, oppose a state visit now. NO "RED CARPET" FOR ROUHANI FOR NOW "Rolling out the red carpet for Rouhani in Europe could be misunderstood as a signal that Iran is already an accepted partner in the world community," said Juergen Hardt, foreign policy spokesman for Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU). Hardt said he expected Gabriel to hammer home Germany's concerns about Iran's support for Assad's "terror regime" in Syria, its "unspeakable" anti-Israeli rhetoric and human rights abuses in Iran. Ilse Aigner, economy minister of the German state of Bavaria, says she raised those concerns during two visits to Iran over the past year, but says hardliners could oust Rouhani unless he produces tangible benefits from the nuclear deal. Aigner returned from Tehran earlier this month with agreements by three Iranian banks to open branches in Munich, which she says could smooth the way for more trade and investment in coming years. One big issue for small- and medium-sized firms is the inability to secure letters of credit for shipments of goods, said Werner Schroeppel, managing director of IMO GmbH, which exports components for wind energy facilities in Iran. Schroeppel's firm is now using third parties to do business in Iran, but hopes the process can be streamlined so it can take part in an expected boom in Iran's wind energy sector. "The sanctions have been dropped, but the tools what we need to do business successfully are still not there," he said. The Europaeische-Iranische Handelsbank AG in Hamburg offers such instruments already, but Germany's two biggest banks, Commerzbank AG and Deutsche Bank AG say they remain cautious. Michael Sabet, an Iranian-German business executive whose company imports tonnes of saffron from Iran, is upbeat that more banks are ready to provide letters of credit which he said could save up to 3 percent of the cost of a deal. "The situation is easing," he said. "We used to have to wait three to four months to get approval. Nowadays its just a phone call and some documents to exchange and that's it." (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Dominic Evans)
By Hyunjoo Jin SEOUL (Reuters) - German auto parts supplier Robert Bosch GmbH lodged a lawsuit in the United States against South Korean peer Mando Corp <204320.KS> alleging infringement of four patents, a claim Mando later said was groundless, pledging to "actively respond". Shares in Mando tumbled 13 percent on Friday to their lowest levels in more than two months after the suit was filed at United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Thursday. The suit claims some brake systems (ABS) and electronic stability control (ESC) products supplied by Mando, South Korea's No.2 auto parts maker after Hyundai Mobis <012330.KS>, breach four of Bosch's patents. Bosch said it's seeking an disclosed amount of damages and a court order to prohibit Mando from further infringing the patents. "Unless Mando is enjoined from its infringement, Bosch will continue to suffer irreparable harm," the German firm said in Thursday's filing. Mando denied the claims in a statement issued in Seoul on Friday, saying it would make an unspecified but "active" response to the lawsuit to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible. "We will prove that Bosch's claims are groundless should the lawsuit proceed," Mando said in its statement, adding the dispute would not affect the stability of supply of its products to customers. Mando has two U.S. factories, in Alabama and Georgia, catering to demand from Hyundai Motor <005380.KS> and General Motors . Mando also supplies steering racks for Tesla Motor's Model S vehicles, and is in talks with the U.S. automaker to supply unidentified components to the upcoming Model 3 car, Reuters reported in May. (Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Additional reporting by Yun Hwan Chae; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)
By Rajendra Jadhav and Sethuraman N R

BENGALURU/MUMBAI (Reuters) - A drop in gold prices prompted consumers to buy the precious metal, ahead of festivals in India, the wedding season and China's long National Day holidays, boosting demand in Asia.

Gold prices have lost nearly 1 percent this week after the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton got the better of Republican rival Donald Trump in their first debate, denting the safe-haven appeal of bullion and bonds.

In India, discount over the official domestic prices narrowed to $10 an ounce, from $12 last week, in anticipation of consumer buying during the festival season.

"Retail demand has been improving due to festivals. It is expected to rise further in the coming weeks as we head towards the peak festive season," said Mukul Sonawala, proprietor of wholesaler and retailer Narrondass Manordass in Mumbai.

Demand for the yellow metal usually strengthens in the final quarter as India, the world's second-biggest gold consumer, gears up for the wedding season as well as festivals such as Diwali and Dussehra, when buying gold is considered auspicious.

"Jewellers are expecting higher demand in rural areas due to good monsoon. They are stocking up for the festive season," said a Mumbai-based dealer with a private-bank.

Two-thirds of India's gold demand comes from rural areas, where jewellery is a traditional store of wealth. This year, India's food grain production is estimated to rise due to good monsoon.

Premiums in top consumer China stood at $3 an ounce to the spot benchmark.

China's peak season for gold demand kicks off next week with the National Day holiday, lasting until Lunar New Year early 2017.

"There was some good buying from the Chinese ahead of the holidays, and we need to see if this holds next week," said Ronald Leung, chief dealer, Lee Cheong Gold Dealers, Hong Kong.

Hong Kong prices were seen at a premium of as much as 70 cents, while premiums in Singapore dipped to 60 cents from last week's 80 cents, due to lower demand.

Japanese markets witnessed good demand this week as prices in terms of the yen were low, a Tokyo-based trader said. Prices were flat to a discount of 5 cents in Tokyo.

(Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai, Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
By Ryan Woo

BEIJING (Reuters) - Millions of Chinese tourists are packing their bags for distant and not-too distant shores for the National Day holiday, with early indicators pointing to a slump in bookings for neighbouring Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The "Golden Week" break, which starts on Saturday in one of the world's biggest mass movements by plane, boat and train, offers an important snapshot of Chinese holidaymakers and their changing tastes and habits as economic growth at home stutters.

It is also a peak season for retailers outside China looking to lift their top line. Singapore is luring Chinese shoppers with discounts and promotions while South Korea is trumpeting a month-long Korea Grand Sale.

Shinsegae Duty Free in Seoul's Myeongdong area popular with Chinese has been making preparations since July.

"We are expecting many Chinese tourists, so we think sales will increase a lot," shop official Ahn Joo-yeon told Reuters.

Thailand expects 220,000 Chinese visitors during the break, up about 30 percent from last year, Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor Yuthasak Supasorn told Reuters, despite a doubling in visa fees, a spate of bombings in the south of the country and fears of the spread of the Zika virus.

Thailand confirmed on Friday that Zika had caused two cases of microcephaly, a condition that results in babies being born with small heads, the first time the condition had been linked to Zika in Southeast Asia. [nL3N1C62AB]

"So far there has been no impact (from Zika fears) on our Thailand route," said Wang Yanfei, market and PR manager at Shanghai Spring International Travel Service, the parent of Spring Airlines .

"We will give warnings and tips on our group notices. Team leaders will remind travellers of Zika and mosquito issues before the tour starts."

Thailand's tourism authority said it expects Chinese visitors to spend 7.8 billion baht ($225 million) during the Oct. 1-9 break, up 39 percent from a year earlier.

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Total tourist spending in China and by Chinese abroad is expected to surge 13.5 percent to 478 billion yuan ($72 billion) during the holiday, according to China Travel Academy, a government-backed research institute.

That would be four times Iceland's gross domestic product.

But the number of mainland tourists visiting Taiwan, a self-ruled island China considers a breakaway province, has taken a tumble.

The decline reflects deteriorating relations with Communist Party rulers in Beijing since President Tsai Ing-wen, of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, took office in May.

"WE STILL WELCOME CHINESE TOURISTS"

Chinese tourists travelling alone and in groups during the holiday will slump 50 percent from a year ago to 30,000, Taiwan's tourism bureau said.

"The drop in Chinese tourists numbers is mostly owing to political factors," said Chiu Chui-cheng, a deputy minister of Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan's China policymaking body.

"We still welcome Chinese tourists."

China says it is natural its tourists are avoiding Taiwan given the current tensions between the two sides and what Beijing views as Taipei's insensitive handling of a July bus crash, deliberately caused by the driver who set the vehicle on fire, killing 24 Chinese tourists.

Taiwan's tourism bureau does not publish estimates for mainlanders' spending during the holiday. It projects full-year spending of T$110 billion ($3.5 billion) versus T$140 billion for 2015.

A reduced appetite for luxury due to a slower Chinese economy and a crackdown on extravagance has also hit visits to the former British colony of Hong Kong, which has been racked by pro-democracy protests and anti-China sentiment in recent years, infuriating Beijing.

Paul Leung, chairman of the Hong Kong Inbound Travel Association, expects a 20-30 percent slide in mainland tour groups from about 300 tours a day last year.

"For tour operators, Golden Week is no longer a golden period," said Joseph Tung, executive director of the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong.

Due to short flight times and looser visa policies, South Korea and Japan have remained popular.

Beijing has protested against a U.S. decision to deploy an advanced anti-missile system in South Korea, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system, to counter missile threats from North Korea. China worries the system's radar will be able to track its own military capabilities.

"There are some travellers putting off going to South Korea because of the THAAD issue," said a sales official at Qucheng Travel Agency in Shanghai.

Still, all the travel groups to South Korea and Japan, with which Beijing has a rocky relationship due to a territorial row and other disputes dating back to World War Two, were sold out at major agencies two months before the holiday.

($1 = 6.668 yuan)

($1 = T$31.36)

($1 = 34.7 baht)

(Additional reporting by Muyu Xu, Ben Blanchard, Wang Han, Gao Liangping in BEIJING, Panarat Thepgumpanat in BANGKOK, Faith Hung in TAIPEI, Donny Kwok in HONG KONG and Nataly Pak in SEOUL; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Montreal (AFP) - Google, which is hoping to beam the internet to remote areas of the world via balloon, went before the UN's aviation agency to ask member states to let it ply their airspace.

The company's X Lab, which was created to pursue big-vision projects, said it hopes to establish a network of helium balloons floating in the stratosphere that will emit a powerful 4G signal to rural and difficult-to-access areas.

The new initiative -- launched in 2013 and dubbed "Project Loon" -- saw its first balloon take off from South America in February only to crash at a tea plantation in Sri Lanka, where it was discovered by villagers.

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, had partnered with Sri Lanka to bring the internet to remote areas there. The country's Information and Communication Technology Agency, which coordinated the tests with Google, described the landing as controlled and scheduled.

Loon has "significantly improved the balloon design, manufacture and launch procedure," X Lab told the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Wednesday, according to a document seen by AFP.

"The balloons are now robust, remaining aloft well beyond the targeted 100 days, and are launched through a custom developed auto-launcher, allowing rapid multiple launches," X Lab told the organization's executive committee.

After compiling publicly available wind data with its own flight data, Project Loon was able to model the stratosphere's air flow, allowing its balloons to "change altitude to 'catch' the winds moving at the speed and direction necessary to a given service area," the document said.

Alphabet requested the assistance of ICAO member states as they met for its 39th triennial assembly, asking them in particular to "establish bilateral or multilateral letters of agreement with adjacent states and Project Loon to allow Loon balloons to safely transit flight information region boundaries."

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"Safety and coordination with the international civil aviation community is very important to Project Loon," a X Lab spokeswoman told AFP.

Loon is currently working to finalize a safety plan and set up its operations center.

In July, leading social network Facebook launched a similar attempt to bring internet access to remote areas via solar drones.
The celebrity chef posted a picture of himself, with the team of doctors and nurses, after the operation.

By India Today Web Desk: In all the years that we've known Vikas Khanna, we've known him as the super-hard worker that he is.

Having lived a life full of challenges--from getting his legs operated at a very young age to living in shelter homes on moving to New York City--Vikas Khanna has earned his spot in the 'food elites' of the world.

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So, it doesn't come as a surprise that when faced with adversity yet again, he'd go through it with a smile on his face.

Picture courtesy: Facebook/Vikas Khanna

The MasterChef India judge and celebrity chef has now had to undergo a hand surgery for a lump in his hand. Breaking the news to his fans and followers, Vikas took to social media yesterday to post a picture of himself after the operation.

He wrote: "Thank You. Thank You. To all the Doctors and assistants and nurses for saving my left hand. Due to a massive lump it had lost its sensation. Dr. Sushil Kumar and team said once i opened my eyes "your hand will be fine within a few weeks, we just protected our heritage""

We're just glad you're fine, Vikas!



--- ENDS ---
Warning: This recap for the Catastrophe and the Cure episode of Greys Anatomy contains spoilers.

And it all came tumbling down for Alex Karev.

Alexs beatdown of DeLuca was bound to have consequences, and wow, are those consequences dire. Hes charged with felony assault, and then demoted at the hospital. Frankly, hes fortunate that Bailey didnt fire him. Not that long ago, Alex had a great job and proposed to the girlfriend he loved, and it just goes to show how life can turn sour for you in an instant. And only for himself  as hes circling the drain, Alex might just suck Meredith in, too.

Heres a rundown of this weeks episode, including our live tweets:

Suit up

As Alex dresses in suit and tie for a court appearance, he experiences flashbacks to his beatdown of DeLuca. The guilt is crushing him. Meredith enters his bedroom (hes staying at her house now), as her voice-over talks about the absolute loyalty surgeons give to each other.

Surgeons: ride or die. Also Alex looks hella hot dressed up #GreysAnatomy  Yahoo TV (@YahooTV) September 30, 2016

At the hospital, a perturbed Bailey complains she needs more spies in the ranks to tell her WTF is going on. Richard offers to be her James Bond. Elsewhere, Maggie runs into Meredith and tells her sister about a sex dream she had about Riggs  where they hook up in a car in the parking lot. Ummmm

Maggie resolves to ask Riggs out on a date, except would that be sexual harassment? Oh well, whatever, shes going to do it anyway.

She is his boss!! https://t.co/CrtMUYEC9f  Yahoo TV (@YahooTV) September 30, 2016

One of Alexs former patients, Zack, comes into the ER with abdominal pain. Zack had previously undergone a kidney transplant, and when Ben gets the labs, they indicate the boy may have appendicitis.

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Time for Alexs court hearing. The prosecutor wants to charge him with a felony, which Alexs lawyer vigorously argues against. Ultimately, though, the judge sides with the prosecution, and that means Alex is facing real prison time. Meredith tries to give him a pep talk and adamantly declares he will not go to prison. But things are not looking good, not at all.

Alex is getting charged with a felony? ???? This is NOT great, Bob #GreysAnatomy  Yahoo TV (@YahooTV) September 30, 2016

Oh, and going back to the hospital isnt any better, as Alex has to face an even harsher judge: Bailey. She yells at him for beating up DeLuca, then mentions the intern is recovered enough to return to work. Will that be a problem? Not for Alex.

So, good news and bad news for April. Harriet is well enough to go home! The bad news is that Aprils C-section wound re-opened, so mama isnt ready to go home. April melts down, realizing that her baby girl is leaving the hospital without her. She starts ranting at Jackson about nature and crying and dehydration.

Smelling like birds and dogs. April is hilarious, even when shes legit upset #GreysAnatomy  Yahoo TV (@YahooTV) September 30, 2016

Buffer zone

In surgery, Maggie asks Merediths advice on asking out Riggs (oh jeez), when Owen comes in to invite Mer to a dinner party that Amelia concocted as a peace treaty between Owen and Riggs. Mer doesnt want to be his buffer person, so Maggie eagerly offers.

Meanwhile, Jo is on Amelias service today (thanks to Stephanies request), and they are working on the case of Patricia, who has a tumor that she named Wilma after her husbands mistress. Amelia is energized, ready to kick the crap out of Wilma. That is a trigger for Jo, who comes a bit upset at that language. Amelia apologizes, and to make it up, invites her to the dinner party.

In the cafeteria, Bailey gets an update from James Bond aka Richard Webber, whose only gossip is that people are fighting over ownership of Callies ortho lab. Oh, Richard, maybe keep your day job?

Alex isnt the only one messing up right now. Meredith runs into DeLuca in the elevator and accidentally threatens to block him from surgeries if he continues to press this case against Alex. Whoops! Alex rightfully yells at her, and to make it up, she invites him to the dinner party. Oh no, this cannot end well.

Dinner party begins. Maggie is dressed to the nines. Owen and Riggs are super uncomfortable around each other. Meredith makes up a patient by the name of Peterkin so she can whisper to Riggs that he has to turn down Maggie when she asks him out.

This housewarming party might rival Mers dinner party when Penny showed up #GreysAnatomy pic.twitter.com/vq7poR9oMD  Yahoo TV (@YahooTV) September 30, 2016

It gets even worse when Alex shows up and Jo is there. He tries to apologize again, but she isnt having it. It doesnt fix anything! she replies. Sorry doesnt fix anything.

As much as we like Jolex as a couple, its good to see Jo staying strong #greysanatomy @camilluddington  Yahoo TV (@YahooTV) September 30, 2016

He wishes they werent at the party, that it was just you and me  but there is no you and me, Jo declares, before storming off. And then Alex gets a page from the hospital. Earlier, he brushed off Bens report of Zacks condition, and now Zack is in crisis.

Gotta have faith

When Alex returns to the hospital, Zack is in surgery, but Bailey kicks him out of the OR and off of the case. Zacks mom, one of his biggest fans, also expresses her disappointment in him when Alex confesses that he messed up.

When Mer finds Bailey after Zacks surgery, Bailey knows that Meredith sorta threatened DeLuca and warns her not to let Alexs problems drag her down, too. You are not Karevs guardian angel, she says. Theres no need to go down with him.

Meanwhile, a despondent April video chats with Jackson and sings Harriet a beautiful rendition of George Michaels Faith.

Why does a song on #GreysAnatomy make us cry every damn week? #yougottahavefaith  Yahoo TV (@YahooTV) September 30, 2016

Later, Jackson brings Harriet back to visit mommy, and Richard gives him some advice: Find a way to help April. Dont back off, and dont let her push him away.

Back to Zacks case: His kidney is failing and needs to be removed. Meredith is assigned to the surgery and decides to ask DeLuca to join her. Alex, guilty and horrified at making a big mistake, gives Zack a pep talk before going into surgery. It reminds us what a great doctor he can be. Hes just not that doctor right now.

Jackson is back to take Harriet home, and April is clearly upset again. He suggests that when shes cleared to go home, she and Harriet come live with him. April refuses  she needs to set boundaries with him and she can take care of her baby. Jackson soothes her, saying he knows she wants to be independent. But she needs help, so she should think about it.

At the end of the evening, Maggie runs into Riggs in the parking lot. Next to a car. Ohhhhh, no. She asks him out to dinner, and he politely declines, saying hes not ready to date anyone right now. Uh huh. Maggie walks away, humiliated.

Yikes, poor Maggie! Riggs says hes isnt ready to date (but he is ready to hook up with Mer in a parked car) #GreysAnatomy  Yahoo TV (@YahooTV) September 30, 2016

She returns home to curl up next to Meredith and Alex. Mer just confessed sleeping with Riggs to Alex, so theres a huge love triangle elephant in the room. Have a little faith in your sister, Mer!

Greys Anatomy airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on ABC
Culiacan (Mexico) (AFP) - The sons of imprisoned drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman were probably behind a grenade attack on a military convoy in northern Mexico, killing five soldiers, authorities said.

Some 60 gunmen, who also fired several rounds from assault rifles, freed a wounded suspect who was being escorted by the soldiers in an ambulance during the pre-dawn ambush in Culiacan, capital of the state of Sinaloa, state and military officials said on Friday.

Guzman's sons were "very probably" responsible for the attack, which freed a suspect identified as Julio Oscar Ortiz Vega, alias "El Kevin," General Alfonso Duarte, a regional commander, told reporters.

The gunmen stole the ambulance while a military Humvee caught fire in the assault, which left 10 people injured, including a Red Cross worker. Four of the injured were in surgery.

The soldiers were returning with the wounded suspect after another shootout in the mountain community of Bacacoragua, part of the municipality of Badiraguato, the region where Guzman and other notorious drug lords were born.

The suspect was "being transferred to Culiacan for immediate medical attention... but unfortunately this group acts in a premeditated, cowardly, treacherous way, using firearms and grenades," Duarte said.

The general said Guzman's brother, Aureliano Guzman Loera, alias "El Guano," is battling for control of drug production against the Beltran Leyva drug cartel in the remote region. One of Guzman's sons, Jesus Alfredo, was kidnapped by rivals for a few days in August. Another son, Ivan, is also allegedly involved in cartel activities.

President Enrique Pena Nieto vowed on Twitter that the assailants "will answer to the law."

Sinaloa is one of Mexico's most violent states and the ambush came as murders are on the rise this year across the country.

- Guzman woes -

Guzman is hailed as a Robin Hood-type figure in his stronghold, and his cartel is still considered a fearsome force despite his capture.

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The cartel leader was arrested in the Sinaloa coastal city of Los Mochis in January, six months after he escaped from prison near Mexico City by sneaking through a 1.5-kilometer (one-mile) tunnel that opened into his cell's shower.

Guzman now waits for a Mexican judge to decide whether he can be extradited to the United States, a ruling that he could appeal, although US officials believe he could be in US territory before the end of the year.

His capture dealt a blow to his cartel, but the gang still has a strong leader, his longtime associate, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who has never spent a day in prison.

Guzman's sons are also accused by the authorities of having roles in the criminal group.

But in a sign of the cartel's vulnerability, one of them, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, 29, was kidnapped in a restaurant in the Pacific resort of Puerto Vallarta in August, apparently by members of the rival Jalisco New Generation drug cartel.

Two US government officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, have told AFP that the son was released days later and the reasons for the abduction are unclear.

One of the US officials said the kidnapping appeared to be a "non-sanctioned event" committed by lower ranking members of the New Generation cartel, and that their bosses ordered them to release Guzman's son.
Another day on the campaign trail, another hack of Hillary Clintons campaign. This time its an audio recording of the Democratic presidential candidate speaking to donors at a February fundraiser in northern Virginia, and the subject isnt just the usual stuff of politics: It goes to the heart of American nuclear strategy.

The recording that was passed to the right-leaning Washington Free Beacon website marks another alarming episode in a campaign season marked by a series of digital thefts that security experts believe have been carried out by Russian-backed hackers to disrupt the U.S. presidential election.

The hack reinforces concerns that Russia is trying to influence and interfere in the U.S. election in favor of the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, who has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and whose aides have long had friendly ties to Moscow and its allies. Both the Clinton campaign and lawmakers have alleged that Russia is attempting to meddle in the election.

But its not clear this latest hack will have much of an effect on the race for the White House, as the recording touches on questions of longer-term nuclear modernization, as well as relatively obscure details of the Defense Departments nuclear programs that are unfamiliar to most voters  and apparently even to Clinton herself.

In the recording, made at a routine fundraising event at one supporters home in the leafy Washington suburb of McLean, Virginia, Clinton questions the elaborate, long-term $1 trillion modernization plan for the countrys nuclear force, which is supported by President Barack Obamas administration, and whether and to what degree all of it is needed.

Do we have to do any of it? If we have to do some of it, how much do we have to do? she asked.

The timing of the leak will feed suspicions that Moscows proxies are somehow involved. On Thursday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter wrapped up a four-day swing through some of the nations most critical nuclear missile installations, touting the U.S. arsenal and promising hundreds of billions of dollars in upgrades in the coming years.

Story continues

The Pentagon plans to spend $108 billion over the next five years to maintain and upgrade its nuclear force, including the nuclear-tipped cruise missile program.

Speaking Monday at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, Carter said Washington has underfunded nuclear weapons modernization over the past 25 years  while Russia and China have ramped up their efforts  and many systems have already been extended decades beyond their original expected service lives. So its not a choice between replacing these platforms [and] keeping them. Its really a choice between replacing them [and] losing them.

The next day at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, Carter went further, suggesting that Washington should adapt traditional conceptions of deterrence in the face of North Koreas unpredictability and Russian modernization programs. We cant just do things the old way, he said. We have to look at those whom were deterring and adjust what were doing to take that into account.

Carters comments marked one of the most strident defenses of the American militarys nuclear capability by a U.S. official in years, analysts say.

He emphasized in a forward-leaning and deliberate way how nuclear forces are the backbone of our forces, including conventional forces, said Thomas Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That was an important speech.

But it was Carters remark that the United States is refreshing NATOs nuclear playbook to deter Russia that drew a swift rebuke from the Russian Foreign Ministry, which accused Carter of plotting a dangerous game.

Moscow added that Carters statement means that if Russia comes under attack from U.S. allies, the Americans will be ready to back it and threaten to use their nuclear weapons against us.

The audio recording of Clintons remarks has also surfaced on a website called DC Leaks, which previously published large volumes of hacked emails from U.S. military and civilian officials and organizations. Researchers at the cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect have identified the site as part of information operations carried out by Russian agents against U.S. targets during the election season. The site has posted emails belonging to former Secretary of State Colin Powell; Gen. Philip Breedlove, the former commander of NATO forces in Europe; and documents from financier George Soross philanthropic outfit.

The audio file in question was contained in an email sent by Ian Mellul, a Democratic operative, to Nick Merrill, a Clinton official. Merrill did not respond to questions about the file and the policy differences between Clinton and the Obama administration on nuclear weapons.

There has been no claim of responsibility for the email hack, but the episode  and the fact that the Clinton campaign has been targeted yet again  will likely turn the spotlight back on the Trump campaigns ties to Moscow.

This week, one of Trumps advisors, Carter Page, was forced to resign after a report that he may have met with Russian officials under sanction by the United States and the European Union and that U.S. intelligence agencies were investigating him for possible back-channel ties to Russian leaders. Page, a onetime consultant to and investor in the Kremlins state-run gas company Gazprom, has long defended Russian government policies. The Trump campaign spent days denying he was even part of the candidates advisory team before Page finally announced he was leaving the campaign.

In the leaked recording, Clinton stumbles on a technical question about a new nuclear weapon. A former senior Pentagon official asks Clinton if she favors scrapping a proposed new nuclear-armed cruise missile, known as the long-range standoff (LRSO) weapon.

Clinton indicates she would oppose such a missile, signaling a less hawkish stance than Obama. But its not clear she entirely understands the question, as she quickly shifts to describing the dangers of tactical nuclear weapons, which are a separate category of shorter-range weapons and not what she was asked about. She refers to the 2011 arms control treaty negotiated with Russia during her tenure as secretary of state and adds that the accord did not cover tactical nuclear weapons.

The question to Clinton came from Andrew Weber, a former senior Defense Department official who has urged the Obama White House to call off the new cruise missile on grounds that it is a dangerous and unnecessary addition to Americas already vast nuclear arsenal.

The U.S. Air Force reportedly plans to buy a total of 1,000-1,100 of the new missiles at a cost of $10.8 billion, with the first missile due to be completed by 2026. They would allow nuclear capability on advanced, radar-evading bombers like the B-2 and a planned long-range bomber still under development, rather than relying on the old, slow-flying, nonstealthy B-52 bomber.

The new cruise missile has set off a debate between the Defense Department and critical defense wonks  the Pentagon wants more flexibility, while arms control experts worry it will be destabilizing  but is hardly the centerpiece or linchpin of U.S. nuclear policy.

People are reacting to this like it means something, but it doesnt, said Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert and contributor to Foreign Policy. Its a living room in February where shes been blindsided and is giving a pat response.

FP staff writer Elias Groll contributed to this article.

Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Beirut (AFP) - As Syrian regime forces advanced in Aleppo, backed by a deadly Russian air campaign, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) decried the "bloodbath," saying the battleground city's eastern rebel-held portion had become "a giant kill box".

Syria's army was advancing on two Aleppo fronts, as talks between key players Washington and Moscow -- which back opposing sides in the war -- appeared close to collapse.

Damascus's bid to recapture all of the divided northern city has prompted the UN to warn of "a humanitarian catastrophe" and Aleppo is the focus of a new French-led UN draft resolution calling for the cessation of hostilities.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the BBC Friday that Washington was protecting the former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front, once known as Al-Nusra Front in its effort to overthrow Assad.

"We have more and more reasons to believe that from the very beginning the plan was to spare Nusra and to keep it just in case for Plan B or stage two when it would be time to change the regime," Lavrov said.

Just over a week after Syria's army announced an operation to recapture all Aleppo, it was advancing both in northern and central Aleppo Friday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor and state media.

In the north, it recaptured the Handarat former Palestinian refugee camp, as well as the old Kindi hospital, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Rebels had held the hospital since 2013, and capturing it allows government forces to threaten the opposition-held Heluk and Haydariyeh neighbourhoods.

The Observatory said at least 15 people, including two children, were killed in strikes on Heluk and other eastern districts Friday.

In leaked audio published by the New York Times, US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed frustration that his diplomatic efforts to end Syria's civil war had not been backed up by US military force.

Story continues

"I've argued for the use of force... but things evolved into a different process," he said to a group of Syrian civilians last week in New York.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon also announced he was setting up an internal board of inquiry to investigate the September 19 bombing of an aid convoy in Syria that killed 18 people.

The US has blamed the bombing on Moscow, which denies the accusation.

- Humanitarian catastrophe -

In central Aleppo, meanwhile, fierce clashes shook the Suleiman al-Halabi neighbourhood, divided by the frontline separating the rebel-held east and regime-held west.

The army is seeking to capture the opposition-held sector of the district and advance to the main water supply station for the government-controlled part of Aleppo which is in the neighbourhood.

State television said 15 civilians had been killed and 40 wounded by rocket fire into the government-held part of Suleiman al-Halabi and neighbouring Midan district.

Since the army operation began, Damascus and Moscow have pounded east Aleppo with air strikes, barrel bomb attacks and artillery fire, killing at least 216 people, including more than 40 children, according to the Observatory.

The assault has levelled apartment blocks and put hospitals out of service, creating a humanitarian catastrophe in opposition areas besieged for most of the past two months.

It has been some of the worst violence since the March 2011 beginning of Syria's conflict, which has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced over half the population.

Outside Damascus, meanwhile, air raids on several rebel-held towns in the Eastern Ghouta region killed at least 17 people including eight children, the Observatory said.

Moscow, a key ally of President Bashar al-Assad, began a military campaign to bolster his forces in September 2015 that has so far killed more than 9,300 people, the Britain-based Observatory says.

- 'Giant kill box' -

That figure includes 3,804 civilians and more than 5,500 jihadists and rebels, it says, adding that at least 20,000 civilians have been wounded.

The Observatory says it determines what planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

"We do not consider as reliable the information... coming from this organisation, which is based in the United Kingdom," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Moscow said Thursday it would continue its campaign, despite Washington's threat and international concern about Aleppo.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Russia was in danger of becoming "a pariah nation", saying the attacks in Aleppo were "unquestionably a war crime".

"Bombs are raining from Syria-led coalition planes and the whole of east Aleppo has become a giant kill box," MSF director of operations Xisco Villalonga said in a statement on Friday.

"The Syrian government must stop the indiscriminate bombing, and Russia as an indispensable political and military ally of Syria has the responsibility to exert the pressure to stop this," he said.
30 Sep - Stars from Aga Muhlach, Kim Chiu, to Manny Pacquiao recently gave their own reaction and extended their condolences over news of Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago's death.



But it was Heart Evangelista, who was the closest to the late senator, who left the most affectionate messages online, which came in several different posts and various memories of her time with the senator, whom she called her second mother.



The actress, who knew Santiago for a long time due to the former's friendship with her mother, took to Instagram and wrote, "My mommy, my Tita, my Elizabeth Taylor, my lawyer, my mentor, my everything... I don't know what to say... I cannot say goodbye. I just can't..."



"You put so much happiness and positivity in my life that I just can't imagine I can't call you ever again... I love you my super hero... I will miss you my Cleopatra... I will be the luckiest girl in history to have you as my [second] mom. I love you so much!"



Evangelista, whose meeting and marriage to Chiz Escudero was also because of Santiago, shared that the senator used to spend a lot of time with her, talking about the world, fashion, law, and all kinds of random things, and even took care of her when she was sick - like a real mother would.



"I would sleep over for weekends and stay up till 2am and we would talk about Cleopatra and Grace Kelly. Your big hair and workout clothes, your lambing tone, your sweetness and kisses..."



She also shared another photo of them together, and wrote, "I can't believe you're gone... My no. 1 protector, thank you for being my hero... I love you so, so much... I don't know what to do."



Santiago, who was battling cancer since 2014, passed away on 20 September. She was 71.



(Photo source: instagram.com/iamhearte)
STUTTGART, Germany (Reuters) - Germany's HeidelbergCement (HEIG.DE) is seeing strong business in the UK and is more worried about the economic effects if Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election than it is about Brexit, its chief executive said on Friday.

Britain is the company's second biggest market and CEO Bernd Scheifele told Reuters he even sees potential benefits from the country's June 23 vote to leave the European Union.

"August was still a strong month for us," Scheifele said when asked whether his view had changed since July, when he shrugged off the vote result, and said demand had been high since the appointment of Theresa May as prime minister.

"May is more focused on infrastructure spending," Scheifele said on the sidelines of a speaking engagement in the German city of Stuttgart. "I believe the UK will do better out of the EU than in it."

Analysts had at first expected Brexit to hurt the earnings of building materials makers like HeidelbergCement, which makes concrete and cement and is the world's No.1 supplier of construction aggregate, which covers a broad range of materials used in construction including sand, gravel and slag.

HeidelbergCement's shares took a hit after the June vote.

But UK infrastructure funds have since been hitting record highs on the prospect of more government spending after the vote, bolstered by the view that the effectiveness of ultra-loose monetary policy is reaching its limits.

Earlier, Scheifele expressed concern about the upcoming presidential election in the United States, HeidelbergCement's biggest market, and the prospect of maverick Republican candidate Donald Trump's being elected.

"The U.S. elections are very important for us. Trump would be a ticket to an unknown destination and would clearly unsettle the economy, and therefore I fear that business would significantly pull back on investments," he said.

"With Hillary Clinton, you know where you are."

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; editing by Christoph Steitz and Susan Fenton)
* August was strong month - CEO

* UK will do better out of EU - CEO

* Trump would unsettle economy - CEO (Adds CEO quotes, context)

STUTTGART, Germany, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Germany's HeidelbergCement is seeing strong business in the UK and is more worried about the economic effects if Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election than it is about Brexit, its chief executive said on Friday.

Britain is the company's second biggest market and CEO Bernd Scheifele told Reuters he even sees potential benefits from the country's June 23 vote to leave the European Union.

"August was still a strong month for us," Scheifele said when asked whether his view had changed since July, when he shrugged off the vote result, and said demand had been high since the appointment of Theresa May as prime minister.

"May is more focused on infrastructure spending," Scheifele said on the sidelines of a speaking engagement in the German city of Stuttgart. "I believe the UK will do better out of the EU than in it."

Analysts had at first expected Brexit to hurt the earnings of building materials makers like HeidelbergCement, which makes concrete and cement and is the world's No.1 supplier of construction aggregate, which covers a broad range of materials used in construction including sand, gravel and slag.

HeidelbergCement's shares took a hit after the June vote.

But UK infrastructure funds have since been hitting record highs on the prospect of more government spending after the vote, bolstered by the view that the effectiveness of ultra-loose monetary policy is reaching its limits.

Earlier, Scheifele expressed concern about the upcoming presidential election in the United States, HeidelbergCement's biggest market, and the prospect of maverick Republican candidate Donald Trump's being elected.

"The U.S. elections are very important for us. Trump would be a ticket to an unknown destination and would clearly unsettle the economy, and therefore I fear that business would significantly pull back on investments," he said.

"With Hillary Clinton, you know where you are." (Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; editing by Christoph Steitz and Susan Fenton)
The Indian Army launched surgical strikes against terror launch pads in Pakistan and went 3 km inside the Pakistani territory.

By Mail Today Bureau: India conducted "surgical strikes" across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir on terrorist hideouts in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and killed several terrorists, the Army's Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) said today.

It was India's first major strike on Pakistan after PoK-based terrorists attacked an Indian Army camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri area earlier this month, killing 18 Indian soldiers.



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Read More:

Drones filmed operation, 2 soldiers hurt by mines: All you need to know about the surgical strike

Indian Army's surgical strikes should make Pakistan think twice before trying another Uri

Indian Army commandos cross LoC, conduct surgical strikes in Pakistani territory



Nawaz Sharif calls for peace, then praises terrorist in UN speech

All you need to know about Pakistan's nastiest weapon: Tactical nukes

Apocalypse alert: How India-Pakistan nuclear war will kill 12 million, destroy two countries





--- ENDS ---
(Repeats story to add PIX tag)

* August was strong month - CEO

* UK will do better out of EU - CEO

* Trump would unsettle economy - CEO

STUTTGART, Germany, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Germany's HeidelbergCement is seeing strong business in the UK and is more worried about the economic effects if Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election than it is about Brexit, its chief executive said on Friday.

Britain is the company's second biggest market and CEO Bernd Scheifele told Reuters he even sees potential benefits from the country's June 23 vote to leave the European Union.

"August was still a strong month for us," Scheifele said when asked whether his view had changed since July, when he shrugged off the vote result, and said demand had been high since the appointment of Theresa May as prime minister.

"May is more focused on infrastructure spending," Scheifele said on the sidelines of a speaking engagement in the German city of Stuttgart. "I believe the UK will do better out of the EU than in it."

Analysts had at first expected Brexit to hurt the earnings of building materials makers like HeidelbergCement, which makes concrete and cement and is the world's No.1 supplier of construction aggregate, which covers a broad range of materials used in construction including sand, gravel and slag.

HeidelbergCement's shares took a hit after the June vote.

But UK infrastructure funds have since been hitting record highs on the prospect of more government spending after the vote, bolstered by the view that the effectiveness of ultra-loose monetary policy is reaching its limits.

Earlier, Scheifele expressed concern about the upcoming presidential election in the United States, HeidelbergCement's biggest market, and the prospect of maverick Republican candidate Donald Trump's being elected.

"The U.S. elections are very important for us. Trump would be a ticket to an unknown destination and would clearly unsettle the economy, and therefore I fear that business would significantly pull back on investments," he said.

"With Hillary Clinton, you know where you are." (Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; editing by Christoph Steitz and Susan Fenton)
The already pretty animated Heidi Klum got a big kick out of the Boomerang app. (Photo: Jennifer Lourie/Getty Images)

Jump. Splash. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

Heidi Klum couldnt get enough of the Boomerang from Instagram app while on location for a photo shoot for her Heidi Klum Intimates line earlier this week, at Virgin Gorda, in the British Virgin Islands.

Love the BOOMERANG, Klum, 43, captioned an Instagram post of her mermaid-worthy hair flip.

Love the BOOMERANG ???? A video posted by Heidi Klum (@heidiklum) on Sep 29, 2016 at 3:01pm PDT

Klum arrived to the exotic island on a very tiny plane  and didnt hesitate to document her mini freakout with a quick still shot on Instagram.

Really ..?????? This small plane ???????? A photo posted by Heidi Klum (@heidiklum) on Sep 26, 2016 at 12:27pm PDT

But from the moment her plane touched down, Klum uploaded a dozen video clips over the course of three days.

Throughout her trip, the bikini-clad model frolicked in the sea and splashed around in the dark caves of the Baths of Virgin Gorda, showing off her incredible figure in a series of Boomerang loops.

Its raining, Klum joked, as she threw her arms in the air.

Its raining ..???????????????????? !!!!! @heidiklumintimates #heidiklumintimates A video posted by Heidi Klum (@heidiklum) on Sep 27, 2016 at 4:21pm PDT

A video posted by Heidi Klum (@heidiklum) on Sep 29, 2016 at 3:00pm PDT

The video-obsessed Project Runway judge even took the Boomerang action indoors. To start her morning, she uploaded a fun video of herself falling backwards onto her bed in red intimates.

Good morning everyone ???? shooting @heidiklumintimates #heidiklumintimates A video posted by Heidi Klum (@heidiklum) on Sep 29, 2016 at 5:21am PDT

And just a few hours later, Klum was back in the water for another day of shooting. She had no problem sharing the Boomerang spotlight with her crew, capturing all the photo shoot fun in several days worth of clips.

Another day in Paradise shooting, Klum wrote, jumping excitedly with her team.

Having to much fun ???? A video posted by Heidi Klum (@heidiklum) on Sep 28, 2016 at 3:10pm PDT

Another day in Paradise shooting @heidiklumintimates with @rankinarchive @lindahaymakeup @robeauhair @ingefonteyne A video posted by Heidi Klum (@heidiklum) on Sep 28, 2016 at 5:46am PDT

Keeping with this weeks video theme, Klum wrapped up the shoot with  of course  another Boomerang. Wearing a one-piece swimsuit, the model pointed her toes and crisscrossed her legs for a lively final action shot.

Story continues

And thats a wrap ???????? ???????????????????????????????????? @heidiklumintimates A video posted by Heidi Klum (@heidiklum) on Sep 30, 2016 at 5:59am PDT

Klum departed the island earlier this afternoon, making a quick stop in Puerto Rico. The mother of four is heading back to Europe, where she spends much of her time with her partner, Vito Schnabel. Klum started dating the art dealer in March 2014 after splitting from Seal, her husband of nine years.

Klums incredible Caribbean photo shoot may have come to an end, but thanks to her beloved Boomerang, the animated fun will always live on.

Again and again and again.
Photo: Getty Images

As soon as Pippa Middletons engagement was announced in July, designers around the world grabbed their sketchpads to start doodling up a dream dress. Dressing a semi-royal for their wedding is a designers fantasy; right now, theyve all got their fingers crossed that theyre the chosen one.

The clock is ticking, as she plans to wed fiance James Matthews in August 2017. So several designers have shared with Brides UK what they think Middleton should wear on her big day  and were drooling. This Middleton sisters got a tough choice ahead of her.

Photo: Courtesy of Brides UK

Bridal designer Mira Zwillingers sketch features a plunging Bardot neckline with delicate handmade branches and blooms, offset by a full lightly pleated skirt of silk-chiffon. The ethereal dress comes with a floral headpiece, and exudes rose hues.

Photo: Courtesy of Brides UK

And if Pippa wants the complete opposite of the Alexander McQueen dress her sister the Duchess of Cambridge wore to marry Prince William in 2011, theres a designer for that. Charlotte Simpsons creation is sophisticated, minimal, and modern, featuring a sharply tailored bodice with a cinched waist and a high neckline. It would have a fluid train, a silk-tulle veil and beaded embroidery along the hips to add a sense of romance.

Photo: Courtesy of Brides UK

In case she does decide to follow in her Princess sisters footsteps and wants something similar to the gown designed by creative director Sarah Burton, Stephanie Allin is the way to go. Allin sketched a gown with long lace sleeves, a V-neck and a romantic full A-line skirt that would transform her into the princess doppelganger. Were not sure she wants people to be thinking, oh my, she looks just like her sister! on her wedding day, though.



Photo: Courtesy of Brides UK

If she surprises everyone and wants to go glam, which is so unlike the woman known for her simple chic style, Ian Stuart has her covered with an innovative two-piece coat and champagne silk-mikado dress. I think Pippa will decide to wear a completely different style from her sisters wedding gown  and her iconic maid-of-honor silhouette, Stuart said. This dress features a ruched bodice and voluminous veil.

Story continues

Photo: Courtesy of Brides UK

Romona Keveza, who has dressed American celebrities like like Angelina Jolie, Kate Hudson, Taylor Swift, Kendall Jenner and Jennifer Hudson for the red carpet, offered a dramatic off-the-shoulder gown with long sleeves; a sharply cinched-in waist; and a soft, full skirt made of Chantilly lace.

Photo: Courtesy of Brides UK

Lastly, Andrey Savin opted for a more relaxed look with an Italian silk sheath dress and a back and sleeves crafted from French lace. However, thats just for the reception; for the ceremony, a dramatic lace overlay with scallop edging and a slit down the center would be placed over the skirt. Middleton doesnt seem like the multi-look bride to us, but only time will tell.



Which gown do you think Middleton would look best in?

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.


An Oregon man was arrested Tuesday after cops say he broke into a couple's home and proceeded to shave his head in their bathroom  but not with shaving cream.

John Koskela, 69, said he returned to his Keizer home and encountered Eric Avila, 39, in the bathroom, shaving his head using hand sanitizer instead of shaving cream.

Watch: Store Clerk Completely Ignores an Armed Robber to Help Customers

Cops say Avila had entered the property by breaking through a fenced backyard before walking in through a sliding door as Koskela's wife, 64-year-old Patricia Koskela, was in a bedroom, apparently unaware the stranger was there.

Koskela first tried chatting with the suspect out of fear any aggressive act might encourage him to do something dangerous, he told the Statesman-Journal.

"I cant remember your name, my memory fails me sometimes," Mr. Koskela recalled saying. He said the suspect told him "Eric."

According to reports, when Mrs. Koskela finally ordered Avila out of their home, he eventually left, but not before asking for a hug from her at the door. The request was reportedly denied.

When the couple called police, Mr. Avila reportedly ran from the residence.

Watch: He Could Have Killed Me: Woman Reacts After Jumping on Car to Catch Purse Thief

He was found nearby, however, after officers say they were able to identify him thanks to his partially shaved head.

Mr. Avila was taken into custody without incident and charged with the crimes of burglary in the first degree and criminal mischief in the third degree.

Watch: 21-Year-Old Man Sentenced for $1.00 Armed Robbery

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Honda Vietnam Produces 20 Million Motorcycles

Honda Vietnam celebrated the twenty-millionth unit of cumulative motorcycle production at a ceremony held today at its factory in Ha Nam Province. An Air Blade that rolled off the assembly line represented the 20-million production figure in a glamorous ceremony that included the unveiling of that memorable unit, models, speeches and a laser light show that looked like it was sourced from a Ho Quynh Huong concert. The milestone marks Honda Vietnams significant contribution to the countrys motorcycle business and demonstrates the companys commitment to long-term investment in the country.

Honorable guests from government attended the ceremony, including Mr. Nguyen Dinh Khang, Member of the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Communist Party; Noriaki Abe, Chief Operating Officer, Regional Operations; Toshiyuki Shimabara, Operating Officer in charge of Motorcycle Production, and Minoru Kato, General Director, Honda Vietnam.

Honda Vietnam

Honda Vietnam celebrated the production of its five-millionth motorcycle in 2008, the 10-millionth in 2011, and the 15-millionth in 2014.

Honda Vietnam commenced operations in 1996 and produced the first motorcycle in December 1997. Over 20 years the company has strengthened its production facilities through the operation of three factories, a parts center, and various workshops. Honda Vietnam has boosted its exports while also increasing its sales in the domestic market.
By Terry Wade HOUSTON (Reuters) - Taco trucks in Houston have begun doubling as voter registration sites as Latinos in Texas flex their political muscle before the Nov. 8 presidential election in a state that has long symbolized Mexican immigration to the United States. Riffing on widely ridiculed comments by Marco Gutierrez, a supporter of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, that without action on immigration reform, "you're going to have taco trucks on every corner," the non-partisan civic group Mi Familia Vota is driving the effort to reach first-time voters. "We Latinos have been the group with the most growth in Texas, but this hasn't translated into the political sphere," said Houston coordinator Carlos Zamora. "We want to build political capital." Although Texas is a Republican stronghold, demographics in the Lone Star State are seen shifting in favor of Democrats with the steady increase in Hispanic voters, who have historically favored the party. In the 2012 election, Latinos nationally voted for Democratic President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney by 71 percent to 27 percent, according to exit polls. The Pew Research Center estimated this year that 39 percent of Texans were Hispanic and that about 4.8 million Latinos were eligible to vote in the state. Historically, there has been a voter registration gap. In 2012, about 2.6 million Latinos were registered to vote in Texas, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2012, Romney beat Obama in Texas by about 16 points. In this year's campaign, Trump, whose hardline approach to illegal immigration has alarmed many Hispanics, leads Democrat Hillary Clinton in the state by about 8 points, according to fivethirtyeight.com's average of polls. Mi Familia Vota did not say how many people it hoped to register in Texas. It said that in the first few days of the campaign, it often had to restock registration brochures at the trucks. At Tacos Tierra Caliente, one of eight taco trucks participating in the registration drive in Houston, posters urging customers to vote hung next to the menu of meat stuffings painted on the side of the truck advertising barbacoa, lengua and pollo. At the metal counter where they pay, customers can fill out voter registration cards that require no postage when mailed. The group plans to expand its campaign to other taco trucks across the country's fourth most populous city. (Fixes spelling of group's name, paragraphs two and eight.) (Reporting by Terry Wade; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Julian Castro, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, wants to extend the American dream to everyone by making it more affordable to own a home.

In an exclusive interview with the FOX Business Networks Countdown to the Closing Bell, Castro said there must be a strong balance between lessons learned from the housing crisis and the ability to provide greater opportunities for responsible homeowners.

We can make it more affordable but also ensure that the safeguards that have been put in place stay so that we dont slide back to where we were ten years ago. [We need to provide] greater opportunities for folks who are responsible, who can pay on a mortgage to be able to buy a home, Castro said.

The homeownership rate in the U.S. has declined to its lowest level since 1965, driven by Millennials who are burden by debt and low paying jobs. According to second-quarter figures from the Census Bureau, the U.S. homeownership rate dropped to 62.9%.

Despite the lackluster numbers, the HUD secretary sees an avenue of optimism for future Millennial homeowners.

While its true that that age group is not buying a home at the same rate that they were lets say in 2005 and 2006, its also true that from 2012, 2013, 2014, we have been seen an increase and we are not just sitting around. We are also trying to ensure we do our own part, Castro told host Liz Claman.

He stressed the importance of a growing economy and higher wages to sustain the housing market.

Just last week, the Census Bureau reported that more folks are earning more. The benefits of this growing economy are reaching out from the middle out. They are lifting everybody up for the first time in a while; wages are growing thats very important, he said.

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2016 09 30 16_52_41 Hurricane MATTHEW

At least one person has died since Hurricane Matthew began and became a Category 5 Storm late Friday as it passed through the Caribbean Sea and is expected to reach Jamaica as early as Monday, the Associated Press Reported.

According to The U.S. National Hurricane Center, Matthew is now the most powerful hurricane in the Atlantic since Hurricane Felix in 2007.

Jamaica began preparing for the storm, which its effects may be felt beginning Saturday, and activated its National Emergency Operations Center, the AP report said.

Matthew reached wind speeds of 160 mph (260 kph), almost exceeding those of Hurricane Gilbert  Jamaica's worst worst storm that hit the country in September 1988.

"Hurricane Matthew could rival or possibly exceed Gilbert if the core of the strongest winds does actually move over Jamaica," Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, told the AP.

"There is no certainty of that at this point."

The capital of Jamaica, Kingston, may experience flooding and Haiti's southwest coast was put on under a tropical storm watch.

As of 11 p.m. EDT, Matthew was about 80 miles northwest of Colombia and 440 miles southeast of Kingston.

In its path the storm brought high tides and a strong rainfall to Colombia, which made officials declare an alert after local TV reports of major flooding in coastal areas.

The only reported death from the tropical storm since it hit the Caribbean Wednesday was a 16-year-old by who was killed when a boulder crushed him, officials said.

Matthew strenthened rapidly, and was quickly upgraded to a Category-4 storm earlier Friday.

Hurricane #Matthew still strengthening. Sustained winds 120 mph @ 2 pm. Pressure 960 mb or 28.35" moving WSW @ 12mph pic.twitter.com/hCIJw1jqbT  NWS Eastern Region (@NWSEastern) September 30, 2016

JUST IN: Hurricane Matthew has rapidly strengthened into a powerful Category 4 hurricane in the Caribbean, NHC says - @NBCNightlyNews pic.twitter.com/7zOZKGripd  Micah Grimes (@MicahGrimes) September 30, 2016

NOW WATCH: Scientists discovered something 'shocking' that could rewrite a key part of human evolution





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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) faces possible bans from doing business with the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois in the wake of its sales scandal that erupted earlier this month.

Alderman Edward Burke, who heads the Chicago City Council's finance committee, introduced an ordinance on Friday that would suspend the bank from acting in several capacities, including as a municipal depository, bond underwriter and financial adviser.

"The city council should not engage in any business for the next two years with this institution that has deceived, defrauded and duped its customers," Burke said in a statement.

Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs set a Monday news conference to announce "plans to suspend billions of dollars in investment activity with Wells Fargo," according to an advisory from his office on Friday.

Wells Fargo staff opened checking, savings and credit card accounts without customer say-so for years to satisfy managers' demand for new business, according to a $190 million settlement with regulators reached on Sept. 8. The bank said it fired 5,300 employees over the issue.

On Wednesday, California State Treasurer John Chiang announced a sweeping suspension of the state's business relationships with Wells Fargo for the next 12 months. The bank is also under pressure from Oregon's treasurer to reform its management structure and executive compensation.

U.S. lawmakers called on Thursday for Wells Fargo chief John Stumpf to resign and a top House Democrat demanded the bank be broken up because it is too big to manage.

Chicago's finance committee is scheduled to take up the proposed ordinance on Wednesday. The city has paid Wells Fargo $19.45 million in fees since 2005, according to the committee.

The bank served as senior underwriter on five Chicago bond issues totaling nearly $969 million since 2006, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Wells Fargo made the list of 15 senior underwriters tapped by Illinois this month for bond sales over the next three years. A spokeswoman for Governor Bruce Rauner declined to comment on whether his office is rethinking Wells Fargo's selection.

(Reporting by Karen Pierog; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / September 30, 2016 / Khang & Khang LLP (the "Firm") announces the filing of a class action lawsuit 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 before the October 25, 2016 lead plaintiff motion deadline.

If you purchased Yirendai shares 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.

The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, 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 also placed a new regulations cap on individual borrowing at 1 million yuan. When this news emerged to the public, Yirendai's stock price fell, thus 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.

Story continues

Contacts

Joon M. Khang, Esq.

Telephone: 949-419-3834

Facsimile: 949-225-4474

joon@khanglaw.com

SOURCE: Khang & Khang LLP
Congo Cobalt minors

Tech giants like Intel and Apple have made some serious progress to end their dependence on "conflict minerals" (tungsten, tin, tantalum, and gold) from mines controlled by the warlords of the Congo, where the workers are often prisoners.

Unfortunately, the mines in the region that produce another important mineral, cobalt, have not fared so well.

Cobalt is a mineral used in the lithium batteries that power everything from smartphones to electric cars.

A major investigative report by the Washington Post's Todd Frankel and Michael Robinson Chavez reveals the abject conditions of workers in these mines.

This is especially so for the so-called "artisanal miners," who are not direct employees of any company but make their living by jumping down nearby holes, often barefoot with no safety gear, and manually digging out cobalt. Injuries and death are common. Sometimes the workers are children.

Once the cobalt is dug up, it is washed in the river. This process can contaminate the water and cause birth defects and other health issues.

A good day's dig will earn these miner's the equivalent of $2-$3, the Post reports.

Apple to the rescue?

While these people are not exactly in the same category as slave labor, they are trapped by the poverty of their situation. Although the Congo is rich with some of the most important minerals in the tech industry, the people of the region are not the main financial beneficiaries of the bounty.

Many tech companies are aware of the cobalt mining conditions in the Congo, but the level of interest in doing inspections and improving conditions from these tech companies varies.

WaPo Cobalt miners

Apple's Paula Pyers, a senior director at Apple in charge of supply-chain social responsibility, told the Post that Apple is committed to working with its main supplier, Huayou Cobalt, to clean up the conditions, as well as work on the underlying issues of poverty.

Other companies appear less enthused to get involved. A consultant that works on the issue, Lara Smith of Johannesburg-based Core Consultants, told the Post that cobalt mining is still an issue of don't look/don't see for many tech firms.

Story continues

Companies cant claim ignorance, Smith said. Because if they wanted to understand, they could understand."

More technology may help

This is isn't the only material nor the only region where horrible conditions exist in mining, farming, or harvesting other base materials.

But it's not all dire news. Now, parts of the tech industry are creating technology to help solve the overarching issue of forced labor everywhere.

africa rwanda rice farmer

"There are at least 34 categories that Amnesty International has identified as having a risk of forced labor," SAP Ariba's CEO Alexander Atzberger, told Business Insider.

Ariba is an ecommerce purchasing cloud service used by corporate buyers. It taps into forced labor records by a startup that offers a database of such information, called Made in a Free World.

Such efforts are attempting to help purchasers understand if the products they are buying  from batteries to boardroom furniture  contain materials likely to be sourced from forced labor.

If they suspect an issue, Ariba hopes to "empower people" with the ability to insist suppliers submit audits of the working conditions across their whole supply chain, right down to the miners, Atzberger says.

The hope is that all companies everywhere can be part of the solution, not just part of the problem.

Read the whole Washington Post report>>

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By Asad Hashim and Fayaz Bukhari ISLAMABAD/SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Pakistan on Friday "completely rejected" India's claim to have sent troops across its disputed border in Kashmir to kill suspected militants, as India evacuated villages near the frontier amid concerns about a military escalation. In a rare public announcement of such a raid, India said it had carried out "surgical strikes" on Thursday, sending special forces to kill men preparing to sneak into its territory and attack major cities. Indian officials said troops had killed militants numbering in the double digits and that its soldiers had returned safely to base before dawn, but declined to provide more evidence of the operation. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif maintained that India fired unprovoked from its side of the heavily militarized frontier in the disputed region of Kashmir, the flashpoint for two of three wars between the nuclear-armed neighbors, and killed two soldiers. "The Cabinet joined the Prime Minister in completely rejecting the Indian claims of carrying out 'surgical strikes'," Sharif's office said in a statement issued after a cabinet meeting on Friday. It added that the country was ready "to counter any aggressive Indian designs," but gave no further details. The U.S. State Department said Washington was watching the situation closely and urged "calm and restraint" by both sides, saying it did not want to see escalation by the two nuclear-armed countries. "Nuclear-capable states have a clear responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. "That's my message publicly and that's certainly our message directly." Pakistan captured an Indian soldier on Thursday on its side of the border, but India said this was unrelated to the raid as the man had inadvertently strayed across the frontier. Domestic pressure had been building on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to retaliate after 19 soldiers were killed in a Sept. 18 attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir that India blames on infiltrators who crossed from Pakistani territory. A senior leader of Modi's ruling party declared himself satisfied with India's "multi-pronged" response to the attack on the army base. "For Pakistan, terrorism has come as a cheaper option all these years. Time to make it costly for it," Ram Madhav, national general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party, wrote in a column for the Indian Express newspaper. India has also launched a diplomatic campaign to try to isolate Pakistan. Its decision on Tuesday to boycott a summit of South Asian leaders in November in Islamabad was followed by Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan expressing their "inability" to attend. Sri Lanka said on Friday that peace and security were vital for regional cooperation, but stopped short of pulling out. "SURGICAL FARCE" While India's public and politicians have welcomed the operation, Pakistan greeted New Delhi's version of events with scepticism and ridicule. Television news channels and newspapers reported only small arms and mortar fire, a relatively routine occurrence on the de facto border. Pakistan's Express Tribune, an affiliate of the New York Times, led its edition with the headline "'Surgical' farce blows up in India's face". Rising tensions have also hit cultural ties. Pakistani cinemas have stopped screening Indian films in "solidarity" with the armed forces, and after an Indian filmmakers' group banned its members from hiring Pakistani actors. Indian-made Bollywood films are wildly popular in both countries. India's announcement of the raid on Thursday raised the possibility of military escalation that could wreck a 2003 Kashmir ceasefire. India evacuated more than 10,000 villagers living near the border, and ordered security forces to upgrade surveillance along the frontier in Jammu and Kashmir state, part of the 3,300-km (2,100 miles) border. Hundreds of villages were being cleared along a 15 km (9 mile) strip in the lowland region of Jammu and further north on the Line of Control in the Himalayan mountains of Kashmir. "Our top priority is to move women and children to government buildings, guest houses and marriage halls," said Nirmal Singh, deputy chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir. "People who have not been able to migrate were instructed not to venture out of their houses early in the morning or late in the night." Modi's government has been struggling to contain protests on the streets of Kashmir, where more than 80 civilians have been killed and thousands wounded in the last 10 weeks after a young separatist militant was killed by Indian forces. Pakistan said on Friday that Sharif's special envoys had arrived in Beijing to brief China on the deteriorating situation in Indian-controlled Kashmir. China, a Pakistan ally, expressed its concern, Pakistan's foreign ministry said in a statement. Farmer Rakesh Singh, 56, who lives in the Arnia sector of Jammu, said his family were among the first to leave home because his village was within range of Pakistan's artillery. "We suffer the most," he said. "It is nothing new for us." (additional reporting by Shihar Aneez in COLOMBO; Writing by Rupam Jain and Tommy Wilkes; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alistair Bell)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Unocoin, a Bangalore-based bitcoin startup, has raised $1.5 million in funding from a mix of Indian and U.S. investors, the company announced on Thursday. The company, which runs a trading platform to buy, sell, and store bitcoins for Indian customers, said the money raised was the largest for an Indian bitcoin startup. Unocoin, which has 100,000 users and more than 30 employees, has been in operation since December 2013. Unocoin describes itself as the Coinbase of India. San Francisco-based Coinbase is the largest U.S. bitcoin company and runs an exchange and a wallet service, among other businesses. Funding came from Indian entities such as Blume Ventures, Mumbai Angels and ah! Ventures along with U.S. investors such as Digital Currency Group, Boost VC, Bank to the Future, and FundersClub. Digital Currency Group was founded by one of the top U.S. bitcoin investors Barry Silbert, while Boost VC is run by U.S.-based Adam Draper, the son of billionaire entrepreneur Tim Draper. "We needed a separate exchange for India. A few years ago when we wanted to buy bitcoin, there was nothing available in India," Sunny Ray, Unocoin's co-founder and president told Reuters in an interview. "So if you want to buy bitcoin from an international exchange, you will have to do a wire transfer from India to these international exchanges and get your bitcoin and oftentimes it takes three to five days." Unocoin raised about $200,000 in its first financing round. It started from a small hometown called Tumkur, near Bengaluru. Bitcoin, a digital currency, was trading at $604.50 on the Bitstamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
By Beh Lih Yi JAKARTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Slum dwellers in Indonesia have launched a landmark legal case to challenge a decades-old law which has been used to forcibly remove thousands of families, amid a wave of evictions in the country's capital. The case comes as authorities ramp up efforts to clear housing along a main river bank in Jakarta, the sprawling capital of 10 million people, to pave the way for an ambitious flood mitigation project. Local residents have asked the court to declare a law enacted in 1960 as unconstitutional as it "gives the government a great authority to take the land from the people" without due consultation, court documents show. "I see more and more people suffering like me. This is wrong, this is inhumane," said Mansur Daud who was evicted last year from a slum in west Jakarta to make way for the project. The 54-year-old hawker launched the legal challenge with two others this week, saying they want justice to be upheld. "There was no dialogue, no compensation. I have to live at my parents' house now, my children were traumatized by the eviction, where is the justice?" he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Friday. The 1960 law prohibits the use of land without permission from the rightful owner, but land rights advocates argue it has long been invoked in favor of the authorities. Lawyer Alldo Fellix Januardy said the law unfairly targets slum dwellers and the poor who cannot provide proof of land ownership, due to a legacy of unclear and overlapping land titles, as well as bureaucracy in Indonesia. However he said this was exacerbated by the fact that the law does not require the government to provide the same proof of title when it is used to evict the residents. "The problem with land evictions in Indonesia is that nobody has a (land ownership) certificate," said Januardy, who specializes in land rights cases and represents the slum dwellers. "If nobody has a certificate, then the court should be the one to decide whose land it is but the government never sends cases to court, they just evict people because of this law. "If we win the case, every forced eviction must be decided through the court before it happens," the lawyer added. The Constitutional Court has yet to fix a date to start hearing the case. The Jakarta city government has defended its move and vowed to push ahead with the evictions despite criticism. Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama said the project was necessary to prevent annual floods during monsoon season and alternative housing had been provided to those affected. According to the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute, which has been helping evicted families, there were 113 forced evictions last year, with each round typically involving many dwellings. A total of 8,145 families and 6,283 small businesses were affected in 2015, the group said. Another 325 evictions were set to take place this year, the institute said, citing the government's planning documents. The latest round of eviction took place on Wednesday, which saw bulldozers demolish a waterfront shanty town in Jakarta. It went without protest but past evictions have sometimes resulted in violence. In August last year, security forces fired teargas and water cannon after they clashed with residents while clearing a flood-prone area in the capital, with 27 people arrested. (Reporting by Beh Lih Yi @behlihyi, Editing by Paola Totaro; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)
The Pioneer-Tuas cluster suffered the largest decline.

The industrial sector continued to face strong headwinds in most industries and sectors, putting further pressure on both industrial space rentals and prices in Q3 2016.

Data from Knight Frank show that overall island-wide rents declined by 1.2% q-o-q to $2.08 per sq ft per month (psf pm) in Q3 2016, as rents across most locations dropped.

The Pioneer  Tuas cluster incurred the largest drop of 9.6% q-o-q in Q3 2016, mainly due to the under-performing oil and gas industry, related offshore and marine services, and general manufacturing that dragged down the activities of related and supporting trades agglomerated within the B2 cluster.

Rents in Kaki Bukit  Ubi  Paya Lebar  Eunos and Kallang  Geylang  Bendemeer clusters improved by 2.6% and 1.3% q-o-q respectively.

"This cluster is generally more resilient due to their status as an established industrial hub with complementing amenities such food centres. It is also supported by the reduced disamenities like improved traffic conditions for industrialists in the area in view of the near completion of stage-three Downtown Line by 2017 which covers stations such as Bendemeer, Ubi and Kaki Bukit.

Business Park rents moderated downwards by 4.1% q-o-q to $4.22 psf pm in Q3 2016 on the back of the challenging business climate with tenants exercising greater caution in rental expectations. Nonetheless, business park space equipped with flexible layout, ready-amenities, good connectivity, and clustering effect with spill-over benefits are still well occupied.





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YARI PLAINS, Colombia  At dawn in a jungle clearing in southern Colombia, rebels wearing pixelated fatigues, berets and Lenin badges form up in a loose parade before the start of their school day. They belong to the countrys largest and oldest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which reached a peace agreement with the government last month after more than 50 years of civil war  morning military training has thus been replaced by classwork.

After a shout of Viva Colombia! the guerrillas, ranging in ages from 18 to 59, disperse into improvised classrooms formed by camouflage tarpaulins stretched between trees. There is some awkwardness when they put down their guns and pick up the textbooks that are the key to the new phase of their struggle.

We are going into a new type of battle, and politics requires just as much training as war, said Paula Saenz, 26, a group monitor at the FARCs Isaias Pardo school, which was set up in 1984 to train the movements top command. Saenz, whose job is to turn her fellow fighters into party operatives, says the FARCs aspiration to conquer the hearts and minds of their countrymen will collapse if we dont understand the issues that the country faces or how to get across our political message.

After more than 50 years of fighting, and four years of tense negotiations, the FARC and the Colombian government signed a peace agreement on Sept. 26 in the colonial city of Cartagena, Colombia. The deal will be put to a public referendum on Oct. 2, after which the group hopes to cease its existence as a Marxist guerilla movement committed to overthrowing the state and begin a new life as a leftist political organization prepared to compete in elections.

The Isaias Pardo school is at the center of the groups current preparation for civilian life, but the FARCs emphasis on education is nothing new. Our motto has always been first you arm a guerrillas mind, then you put a gun in his hand, said Frankie, 29, as he made notes in his cartoon-covered textbook. If you dont prepare a guerrilla ideologically, culturally, and politically, he wont know what he is fighting for, and just as easily as he can fire that way, he could fire back this way.

Story continues

Unassuming and timid, Frankie left school in the city at age 13 after a pulling a knife on a teacher who was about to hit him, and sold candy and recycled trash on the streets of Bogota before joining the FARC one year later. He said most FARC guerrillas had little or no education when they joined the movement. According to government figures, more than 1.5 million Colombians are illiterate; thats more than 3 percent of the population. Ive had to teach people who arrived at the FARC and didnt even know how to spell their name, he recalled. In the villages where they lived, if they worked they couldnt study, and if they studied they couldnt eat.

FARC recruits would go through two years of basic education in literacy, ideology, and the movements command structure at local training camps. Their military training courses in explosives, intelligence, and sniper shooting was typically preceded by classes in reading or writing. Those recruited for the top command would be sent to schools like the Isaias Pardo Mixed School in the Yari Plains jungle camp, one of a handful of national training camps.

The FARC has now developed a pedagogy for peace curriculum to create a new cadre of political leaders. Unit commanders from across the FARCs eastern bloc have marched for hundreds of miles to attend the Isaias Pardo schools nine-month course. Frankie walked for five weeks from the north across the Cordillera mountains; Paula came from the southwest, trekking through dense jungle.

The [Isaias Pardo] school has always had a strong ideological component grounded in Marxist-Leninism from the beginning, explained Victoria Narino, 34, who joined the FARCs urban guerrilla 12 years ago after studying social sciences in Bogota and has been the camps main professor for the past nine months. But since the peace accords began, the military training has disappeared and political training has intensified ahead of the huge, transcendental step  from armed fighters to civilians  that we are about to take.

The daily routine begins at dawn with national and international news headlines and circulares  updates from the central command at the negotiating table in Havana. Listening to news on the radio is such a ritual for us like praying is for Christians, Victoria explained. We do it everyday. In the morning twilight the guerrillas drink tinto  sweetened coffee  to stay awake and keep warm. Banners emblazoned with the faces of the FARCs leadership and other Marxist figureheads hang from the eaves of the large hut where they gather for lectures under a roof made of plastic sheeting and palm leaves.

In rough rows of eight, rebels sit on benches or stools crafted from logs. Their guns are always by their side, placed on the dirt floor or hanging from tree branches just outside the shelter. They spend most of their time immersed in left-wing political theory and cultural history: classes in party structure, philosophy, history and political economy. They discuss supply-side economics in terms of crops: plantains, coffee, and yuca, the starchy root vegetable typical of the Andes. The work by historian Renan Vega on social movements in Colombia  class struggle, unions, and the fight against state terrorism  was recently added to the curriculum.

Ahead of the plebiscite on the peace accords, the FARC will have to convince a skeptical public that they can indeed do peaceful politics. It is unclear at this stage whether the FARC will form its own political party or  more likely  join efforts with other leftist groups, especially in rural areas where they have their strongest support base.

Recent polls have swung between approval and rejection of the FARCs political future, reflecting deep polarization in Colombia. If the deal passes in the referendum, the FARC still has to contend with vehement opposition. According to an Ipsos poll, 79 percent of respondents said FARC leaders should not be allowed to participate in politics, even though they would be allowed to under the accords.

For Kristian Herbolzheimer, a conflict resolution expert with Conciliation Resources, an international nongovernmental organization which has consulted with negotiators in the Colombian peace process, the integration of the FARC into the democratic sphere will be the biggest test to the peace process. It bodes well that the group has already shown a willingness to moderate its ideology. They have accepted private property, foreign investment, and abiding by a constitution and a legal framework they have been fighting against for decades, he said.

Herbolzheimer also noted that FARC negotiators in Havana had shown flexibility on their initial demands and won significant concessions on land rights and retribution  original objectives of the insurrection  as a result. But the FARCs commitment to disarm and enter formal political channels is a fundamental but insufficient condition, he said. The main question is how existing political parties will respond and engage with a new political player.

Meanwhile, in the jungle camp, Frankie and his fellow guerrillas still follow the motions of armed insurgency: Armed lookouts stand guard among the bushes, listening for unexpected sounds, their eyes scanning the darkness for an enemy that is no longer searching for them. Many still dig trenches beside the huts where they sleep  a precaution from the days of heavy bombing raids.

But there is also a growing spirit of ease. Frankie emphasized that the movement has always been a military-political organization. The political agenda only took a hit when the fighting got really tough during Plan Colombia years, he added, referring to a U.S.-backed military campaign against the rebels that began in the late 1990s. In October 2015, the FARC announced it had stopped military training and was now actively preparing its fighters for legal politics.

Today, many students at the camp spend long stretches of their afternoons reading for pleasure in hammocks tied between their caletas, the wooden and palm beds they sleep on. Novels and short stories that lift the revolutionary spirit are circulated in the camps, with Mikhail Sholokhovs One Mans Destiny being a camp favorite. On the few available laptops, Charlie Chaplin films among more typical Hollywood fare.

The guerrillas at the camp say they are more interested in grassroots activism than state politics. Everyone is expected to carry their political militancy with them even if they dont aspire to office, explained Victoria. In addition to being a farmer, I might be the chairman of the community action group of my village and affect change that way, from the bottom up, she said, listing actions against multinational companies and extractive industries.

Days before the announcement of the peace deal in September, Carlos Antonio Lozada, FARCs urban commander who is now preparing to lead his organization into politics, arrived at the camp to answer rebels concerns about the process of demobilizing as a military group. He answered a wide range of questions in the schools main lecture shelter.

After the plebiscite on Oct. 2, the FARC will move to 23 U.N.-monitored concentration zones to begin the demobilization and disarmament process, and they will remain there for up to six months. Lozada assured rebels that their families could visit them in these areas and that the group was still negotiating to allow the children of FARC members to live with them during this period. He also explained that FARC members who committed or ordered atrocities but confess to their crimes will avoid serving their sentences in jail, instead performing community service projects and acts of reparation.

His audience seemed confident they will eventually enjoy political success outside of big cities. We already have a lot of popularity in our areas, said Frankie. We have relied on that support base and would have been defeated long ago if it didnt exist. In the Yari Plains region, there are few traces of the central government. Bridges and roads have been constructed by the FARC and the local population tends to see the guerrilla organization as their most dependable form of local government. Many locals doubt the central governments capacity to make good on promises of investment in infrastructure and development projects. They also tend to see the FARC as preferable to the organized paramilitary groups, which were born from a botched demobilization process in the early 2000s of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a federation of right wing paramilitaries, and are growing in power.

Among the guerrillas at the Isaias Pardo school, violence from these paramilitary forces is considered the biggest threat to the peace process and their personal safety. The previous FARC attempt to enter peaceful politics in the 1980s was undone by similar groups. Close to 3,000 party members, including two presidential candidates, were murdered and many of the remainder fled the country. In a break from her duties as class monitor, Paula Saenz said that paramilitaries beat her uncle to death in front of her when she was a child and forced her family to abandon their home. Paramilitarism is not the ghost everyone wants it to be; its real and every guerrilla is terrified it is coming to kills us just like before, she said.

In the school, students, divided in their squadrons that will later become political cells, spend much time discussing both the fine print of the peace agreement and broader questions about their future lives. Many know they will soon begin work as farmers, and wonder what they will do for food while they wait for their crops to grow. Eliodoro Suarez, 58, one of the camps veterans, explains they will receive a minimum-wage salary from the government following demobilization. That is an answer we can work with, says Miller, 43, his assault rifle lying across his lap. Crops dont grow overnight.

The vast majority of the FARCs rank-and-file is on board with the peace deal. Only one unit, the 200-strong Armando Rios First Front in the southern central province of Guaviare, has said it will not disarm but continue to fight. The FARC quickly responded by rejecting the unit from the movement as military airstrikes against it began.

Paula Saenz said she understands that many of the FARCs fighters see little alternative to returning to war if their comrades start disappearing or being murdered. But she says she trusts the FARCs promise that the movement will not raise its rifles again. We were born without these guns so we cant say they define us she said, wrapping her textbooks in plastic to protect them from the jungle humidity. It might be difficult to leave them behind, but it is the path to peace.

For now, there is a spirit of optimism in the Isaias Pardo school: The future brings the possibility of political rebirth. And while the model of armed struggle may be ending, Saenz insists the FARC will remain. No one is going to fight for 50 years, hand in their gun and say, Give me $17, and the story ends here.'

Photo credit: LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images
This Immigrant Doctor Is Reimagining Health in the American City

Anthony Julius had heard a thing or two about Holocaust deniers. The British solicitor had read about them and their outlandish claims in the newspaper; hed also seen a few speaking on television.

Holocaust deniers are a collection of people who claimed that many of Hitlers most nefarious acts during WWII never happened. According to many such doubters, Hitler had not ordered the gassing of Jews, and when he learned of it, he tried to stop it. Some deniers went as far as to say that the scale of the Holocaustclose to 6 million Jews died during the periodwas greatly exaggerated and that the German concentration camps were brutal work camps, not death camps. The same group often asserts that the Jewish community constructed the Holocaust narrative as a way to manipulate public opinion in its favor.

Holocaust denial is just rubbish, malicious rubbish, Julius tells TakePart.

His colleague Richard Rampton, on the other hand, had never come across these WWII revisionists. Holocaust denial was all new territory for me, says the barrister, who adds that he found the claims of such deniers to be nasty and laughable. It isnt rational.

Yet here they were, two legal eaglesJulius the high-profile solicitor and Rampton the veteran barristergoing head-to-head in court with a Holocaust denier: David Irving, a British author who had written extensively about WWII, sometimes from the perspective of the Germans.

Irving was suing their client, American professor Deborah Lipstadt, for libel. His charge: Lipstadt had identified him as one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial in her 1993 book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Memory and Truth, adding that Irving is at his most facile at taking accurate information and shaping it to conform to his conclusions. Irving, the author of Hitlers War, a Nazi-sympathetic book published in 1977, regards himself principally as a biographer of top Nazis (and others), as he told The New York Times in an email. He claimed Lipstadts accusation was untrue and that her assertion damaged his reputation as a historian and brought about U.S. publisher St. Martins Press cancellation of his biography on Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

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Lipstadt, who is based at Emory University in Atlanta, was surprised to receive word of Irvings suit, which he filed in British court in 1996. But she was more dismayed to learn that under British libel law, the accused is guilty until proved innocenta direct contrast to the American approach of innocent until proved guilty. Thus, the onus was on the defense to prove that what she had written about Irving was true and not malicious and that he was distorting the facts of Nazi Germanyin essence, denying that the Holocaust had happened.

Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books, had the option of settling with Irving and walking away from a protracted court battle. But both decided to fight. Thats when Lipstadt called Julius for help. The contentious court case that followed forms the basis for the new film Denial, which opens on Sept. 30.

Watch the trailer below:

Julius, best known for successfully representing Princess Diana against the House of Windsor in her divorce, was quick to take the case, even though it meant doing much of the work pro bono.

[Irving] is an Englishman and therefore had a huge advantage, Julius says of what convinced him. I knew that Deborah as a foreigner might be lost in the terrain of the British libel law. It didnt take me any time to say yes. Im a Jew. And although I didnt lose any family members during the Holocaustweve been in Britain for three generations and before that, in RussiaI had a sense of a lucky escape.

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For legal support and advocacy, Julius turned to his longtime associate Rampton, considered to be one of the nations leading experts in libel law. This was an important case, Rampton says. I am not Jewish, but I have had friends who were victimized in WWII.... I had to say yes.

Early on, the pair made the decision that neither Lipstadt nor any Holocaust survivors would testify in court. Rampton pointed out that Irving, who had spent years poring over Nazi documents, had a detailed knowledge of the period: He would have mercilessly bullied Deborah and any of the Holocaust survivors like nobodys business. The decision frustrated the professor; she was under tremendous pressure from the international Jewish community to speak up and defend her statements. She was upset about the decision, Rampton recalls. But she sat there in court, listening to Irving say awful stuff in court. And she sat there biting her finger. She might have wanted to get up and hit him, but she didnt. She has the patience of Job.

Watch an interview with Deborah Lipstadt below:

Instead, Lipstadts legal team adopted the strategy that they would prove the professors statements to be true by establishing that Irving was indeed a Holocaust denier. To do so, they pulled together a group of reputable historians and scoured Irvings books for any major distortions of history; they set about proving his more controversial claims false.

For one, Irving asserted that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were not used to kill people and that the Jews there died largely because of typhus and other diseasesnot from the poison pellets that were lowered into the chambers where children and adults were held prisoner.

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The legal team examined documents and photographs and went on research trips together. One of the most meaningful moments for the team was a journey to Auschwitz. Rampton doesnt mince words when describing the concentration camp: Auschwitz is one of the worst places on Earth.

As for Denial being a re-creation of what Lipstadt, Rampton, and Julius went through during their five years of trial preparation and court appearances, The film could have been awful; it could have been terribly sentimental, Rampton says. But it was done with such restraint. The filmmakers let the story speak for itself."

While no film can stop Holocaust denial from continuing, Denial may well inspire thought about the importance of establishing a collective truth, one that can instruct future generations. Its about the evils of the falsification of history, Rampton says. Its history about historyand that has value.

Denial opens in select theaters Sept. 30 and nationwide Oct. 21.

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Earlier this week, the president of Israel gave a speech in Kiev that discussed Ukrainians participation in the Holocaust. Ukrainian nationalists were not amused.

Reuven Rivlin made his remarks at a session of the Ukrainian parliament commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre, when Nazi invaders slaughtered 33,771 Jews in a Kiev ravine from September 29-30, 1941. The lawmakers who invited him to speak may have expected him to dwell on the crimes committed against Ukrainian Jews by Germans. But Rivlin chose to also address the actions of Ukrainian collaborators who assisted the Nazis in mass murder.

Rivlins remarks came at a moment when Ukrainians are engaged in intense reflection about their national identity. The Euromaidan revolution of two years ago, the loss of Crimea, and the continuing war with Russia have heightened nationalist feelings, leading to a renewed veneration of twentieth-century nationalist groups. Rivlins clear association of these groups with the Holocaust clearly struck a nerve. But without the kind of confrontation he sparked, it would impossible to frankly discuss this darker side of Ukrainian history. And if it doesnt honestly reckon with its past, Ukraine is in danger of enshrining a mirror image of the history-blind chauvinism that predominates in neighboring Russia.

The Israeli head of state began his remarks with what could be seen as an attempt to build a rapport with his Ukrainian audience though shared pain. He told the story of his wifes family of Ukrainian Jews, murdered by the Germans a year after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.

He likened the fate of his doomed relatives  some whose names we will never learn  to the fates of the victims at Babi Yar. Many thousands of Jews who were shot, tormented, burned, and buried alive in Babi Yar also have no name, Rivlin said. They were exterminated under the open sky  without anyone bothering to register their names. They are nameless. Rivlin noted that the people killed at the hands of the Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators were forgotten intentionally  not only by the Nazis, but under Soviet rule, when commemoration of the massacre was forbidden.

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In contrast to the anonymity of the victims, Rivlin was clear in identifying the guilty. Noting that about 1.5 million Jews were killed in Ukraine during the Second World War, he was unflinching in confronting his hosts with the full scope of the truth: Many collaborators to the crimes were Ukrainians. And among them, the fighters of the OUN  who mocked the Jews, killed them, and in many cases handed them over to the Germans  particularly distinguished themselves. It was his specific mention of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) that prompted some of his listeners to later denounce Rivlin. Formed in 1929, the OUN was a nationalist group that sought to establish an independent Ukrainian state and often employed violence against its enemies, including Poles and supporters of the Soviet regime.

The role of the OUN in the Ukrainian national consciousness has increased as Ukraine has asserted its identity in the face of Russian aggression. The group is an integral part of the countrys history of struggle for independence from the Soviet Union, and is particularly resonant today as the Kremlin continues to delegitimize the Ukrainian state and assert its supremacy over its neighbor. This year, the Kiev city government voted to rename a major street after Stepan Bandera, the groups leader. Thats why, though Ukrainian-Jewish relations have noticeably improved since the collapse of the Soviet Union (Volodymyr Hroysman became the countrys first Jewish Prime Minister in April), Rivlins speech hit such a raw nerve.

Bogdan Chervak, current leader of the OUN  which still exists as a political interest group  reacted sharply. What the President of the State of Israel did in Parliament today can be unambiguously interpreted as a spit in the soul of Ukrainians, he wrote on Facebook. To accuse the OUN of [taking part in] the Holocaust, and during parliamentary hearings for the 75th anniversary of Babi Yar, no less, is to disrespect the Ukrainian nation.

While it is undoubtedly false to say that every member of the OUN committed crimes against Jews during the Holocaust, it is simply untrue to claim they played no role at all. Involvement of certain units of the group in the murder of Jews is well documented, including units loyal to Bandera. In Ukraines struggle against Soviet colonialism, some nationalist rebels saw aligning with the Nazis as a matter of survival. Yet that choice often entailed participation in Nazi atrocities.

Volodymyr Viatrovych, the controversial leader of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, who has made a career out of minimizing the negative image of Ukrainian nationalists, similarly reacted negatively to Rivlins speech. Unfortunately, the president of Israel repeated the Soviet myth about the OUNs participation in the Holocaust, Viatrovych wrote on Facebook. Honoring the memory of the Babi Yar victims would be more sincere without employing the myths of those who erased their memory.

Another factor that complicates the legacy of the OUN is that its regularly portrayed as a dangerous fascist group by Russian propaganda, always in search of ways to delegitimize Ukraine. Conversely, Ukraine has been implementing a process of decommunization, its controversial effort to do away with the legacy of the Soviet past by shedding Soviet names and symbols from Ukrainian territory. It is through this very process that the Kiev City Council voted to name a street after Stepan Bandera, the OUN leader. But exalting the OUN as only good, in opposition to its Russian portrayal as evil, is simply a mirror image, and no nearer to the historical truth. Any gray area is lost  the very area that Ukraine must focus on to grow its newfound democratic civic identity.

Intriguingly, Rivlins comments also divided Ukraines Jewish leaders. Josef Zissels, head of Ukraines leading Jewish association, accused Rivlin of perpetuating Soviet-era stereotypes. He was raised on Soviet historiography, Zissels said in an interview on Ukrainian radio. Israel, at least the older generation, still lives under its influence. He doesnt reflect the views of the young. After all, young, religious Israelis stood on the Maidan. Such views as he expressed today are yesterdays. Many Jewish community leaders like Zissels view Jewish participation in the revolution as another sign that Jews now consider themselves as full members of a unified Ukrainian nation.

This weeks series of commemorative events, including a conference organized by a Canadian organization where the history of Ukrainian-Jewish relations was openly discussed, show just how far Ukraine has come in reckoning with its history.

Just as some Ukrainians collaborated with Nazis, over 2,500 others are among the Righteous Among the Nations  those whom Israel credits with saving Jews during the Holocaust. Rivlins words may have stung or even seemed tactless to those who are committed to presenting only the most positive images of Ukrainian history, especially at a time when Ukraine is doing so much to honor the victims of wartime atrocities. But if Ukraine is to continue on in its struggle to become a democratic society, it must face up to all sides of its history: positive, negative, and everything in between.

In the photo, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Parliament Speaker Andriy Parubiy, and European leaders place candles at the memorial to the victims of the Babi Yar massacre near Kiev on September 29.

Photo Credit: GENYA SAVILOV/AFP/Getty Images
Jerusalem (AFP) - A member of the Israeli security forces was stabbed and seriously injured Friday in the West Bank town of Qalandia, a police spokeswoman said, adding that the Palestinian attacker was then gunned down.

The 28-year-old attacker, a Jerusalem native, approached an Israeli checkpoint and stabbed a member of the security forces, who was rushed to hospital. Fellow security forces members then shot the Palestinian dead, police said.

Violence since last October has killed 231 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese national, according to an AFP count.

Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks. Others were shot dead during protests or killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza.

Many analysts say Palestinian frustration with the Israeli occupation and settlement building in the West Bank, the complete lack of progress in peace efforts and their own fractured leadership have helped feed the unrest.

Israel says incitement by Palestinian leaders and media is a main cause of the violence.
You're never too young to learn about a legend. Maureen "Ma Dukes" Yancey, the mother of the late renowned Detroit producer J Dilla, announced this week on New York hip-hop radio station Hot 97 that she plans to release a chronicle of her son's life in the children's biography entitled The Life Story of James Dewitt Yancey.

Rest In Beats: 6 Hip-Hop Heavyweights Who Loved J Dilla

The biography, now available for pre-order, will officially be released Nov. 22 as both a standard printed version and audio version featuring narration by Ma Dukes. A portion of all proceeds will be donated to the James Dewitt Yancey Foundation.

In a statement published by Rolling Stone, Ma Dukes said, "It's been an amazing quest for the Foundation as we gear up to support the education of youth by inspiring them to pick up an instrument and enhance their creativity and learn to appreciate the arts."

Watch J Dilla & Nas' Eye-Popping Video for 'The Sickness'

Dilla died Feb. 10, 2006, after battling a rare blood disease and lupus. A doughnut shop inspired by the producer/rappper's work on the album Donuts was opened May 3 by his uncle in Detroit to honor his legacy.

See below for the full interview with Ma Dukes:
* Japan quarterly premium for Oct-Dec marks 7-year low

* Drop reflects softer spot premiums amid supply glut

* Producers cut offers from initial $80-$82/T proposals (Adds comments and details)

By Yuka Obayashi

TOKYO, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Japanese aluminium buyers have agreed to a premium of $75 a tonne for metal to be shipped over October-December, down 17-19 percent from the prior quarter, on softer spot premiums amid a supply glut, five sources directly involved in the talks said.

Japan is Asia's biggest importer of aluminium and the surcharges, or premiums, which consumers pay to producers on top of the London Metal Exchange cash price for primary metal shipments, set the benchmark for the region.

The latest deal marks a second straight quarterly drop and the lowest in more than seven years. For July-September, buyers had paid a premium of $90 to $93 per tonne (PREM-ALUM-JP).

"We've struck the deals at $75 a tonne with three producers," a source with a buyer told Reuters, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the talks.

A source at a producer said that all of his company's clients had agreed to contracts at $75 a tonne.

The quarterly pricing negotiations began last month between Japanese buyers and global producers, including Alcoa Inc , Rio Tinto and South32 Ltd, with offers ranging between $80 and $82 a tonne.

But suppliers were forced to cut their initial pricing ideas. Buyers were seeking premiums in the low $70 a tonne range, because of weaker spot premiums amid high locals stocks and soft demand in housing and construction in Japan.

Aluminium stocks at three major Japanese ports fell to 304,200 tonnes by end-August from a record high of 502,200 tonnes in May 2015, but they are still higher than the 230,000 tonnes to 270,000 tonnes held in early 2014.

Japan's combined output of rolled-aluminium products in July and August fell about 1 percent from a year ago, according to the Japan Aluminium Association.

"We are still not happy with $75 as the current spot premiums are lower, but producers were not compromising any further," a source at a fabricator said.

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Japanese buyers are looking to reduce the amount of aluminium they purchase via annual contracts, instead turning to spot markets where premiums have dropped to their lowest in more than seven years.

Meanwhile, surcharges for physical aluminium have stabilised in Europe and the United States as more attractive financing deals and firmer demand tighten the market.

(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Tom Hogue)
One Last Thing Before I Go

Miki Meek | This American Life

Producer Miki Meek tells the story of a phone booth in Japan that attracts thousands of people who lost loved ones in the 2011 tsunami and earthquake. A Japanese TV crew from NHK Sendai filmed people inside the phone booth, whose phone is not connected to anything at all.

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Young Rural Women in India Chase Big-City Dreams

Ellen Barry | The New York Times

The factory floor is going full throttle when the new girls walk in. Everywhere is the thrumming of sewing machines, the hum of fans, the faint burning smell of steam irons. On narrow tables that run between the machines, half-assembled Marks & Spencer miniskirts are thrust forward by fistfuls. The tailors, absorbed in the task of finishing 100 pieces per hour, for once turn their heads to look.

The new girls smell of the village. They have sprinklings of pimples. They woke well before dawn to prepare themselves for their first day of work, leaning over one anothers faces in silence to shape the edges of each eyebrow with a razor blade. Their braids bounce to their hips, tight and glossy, as if woven by a surgeon. On their ankles are silver chains hung with bells, so when they walk in a group, they jingle.

Recommended: The Runaway 9/11 Bill That Congress Refused to Stop

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Moscow Welcomes the (Would-Be) Sovereign Nations of California and Texas

Mansur Mirovalev | Los Angeles Times

The arrival of Californian, Texan, Puerto Rican, Northern Irish, Catalan, Italian, and Lebanese secessionists to mingle with activists from several unrecognized separatist territories in former Soviet republics is becoming a tradition as Moscow turns to belligerent, anti-Western nationalism coupled with a readiness to take up arms against its former Soviet vassals.

Moscow uses these gatherings to promote its political agenda, gain more political leverage in the West and push for the lifting of Western sanctions imposed on Moscow after its 2014 annexation of Crimea and support of the separatists in eastern Ukraine, a former lawmaker with the ruling United Russia party said.

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* * *

Hot Mess: How Goldman Sachs Lost $1.2 Billion of Libyas Money

Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel | Bloomberg Businessweek

U.S.-led sanctions steadily crippled the Libyan economy. Then, in 2003, Qaddafi watched American troops invade Iraq and drag a filthy Saddam Hussein out of a spider hole. A few days later, Qaddafi offered to give up Libyas WMD programs. Eager to reward good behavior, the U.S. eased sanctions, restoring full relations in 2006. Qaddafi might have been a brutal tyrant who forced citizens to study his Green Book, but he was abruptly a man the West could do business with. So complete was the reversal in his fortunes that on one visit to New York he struck a deal to pitch his Bedouin tent on the Westchester County lawn of Donald Trump.

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The reemergence of Libya, and its vast oil wealth, coincided with an era of nearly unbridled avarice on Wall Streetand nowhere more so than at Goldman Sachs. The same year that Qaddafi established the LIA, Goldman posted the largest profit in Wall Street history. The bank paid employees an average of $622,000, with many times that amount available for bankers who nailed down the biggest deals. A stupendously wealthy petro state desperate to buy into a bull market was a dream clientthe kind of elephant, in Goldman argot, that could make careers.

* * *

The New Star of Germanys Far Right

Thomas Meaney | The New Yorker

For decades, the German far right has been a limited force, with easily recognizable supportersnicotine-stained ex-Nazis in the sixties and seventies, leather-clad skinheads in the eighties and nineties. Petry is something different, a disarmingly wholesome figurea former businesswoman with a Ph.D. in chemistry and four children from her marriage to a Lutheran pastor. During a month I spent with her this summer as she drove around Germany giving speeches, she drew connections between politics and laboratory science, sprinkled her speech with Latin phrases, and steered discussions about German culture toward the cantatas of Bach.

* * *

Darkness and Fear in Aleppo as the Bombs Rain Down

Liz Sly and Louisa Loveluck | The Washington Post

The bombings at night are the worst. There is no electricity in the rebel-held portion of eastern Aleppo, and the warplanes flying overhead target any light piercing the blackness beneath.

So families huddle together in the dark, gathered in one room so that they dont die alone, listening to the roar of the jets and waiting for the bombs to fall.

After they do, rescue workers venture out, navigating the rubble and craters left by earlier bombings, to dig out victims without headlights or lamps. They haul them to hospitals swamped with patients being treated on the floor by doctors who barely sleep and must choose which lives to save and which to let go.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
By Hilary Russ

NEW YORK, Sept 30 (Reuters) - New Jersey lawmakers and Governor Chris Christie on Friday struck a $16 billion deal to fund stalled state transportation projects for the next eight years by hiking the gasoline tax 23 cents a gallon.

The proposal would increase the total state gas tax, which has not risen since 1988, to 37.5 cents a gallon. In exchange, lawmakers would reduce sales taxes and eliminate an estate tax on wealthy residents.

The hard-fought deal comes after months of talks and previous agreements that ultimately fell flat. The Democrats who lead the legislature could not agree among themselves and with Christie about exactly how to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF), which pays for road, bridge and transit projects and as of July 1 only had about enough money for debt service on existing projects.

In early July, Christie halted all but the most essential projects paid for with the TTF, including $2.7 billion of NJ Transit projects.

Friday's funding agreement also comes in the wake of a deadly NJ Transit crash of a commuter train in Hoboken, an accident that has added scrutiny to the state's transportation funding crisis.

Investigators on Friday examined a black box recorder recovered from the wreckage in search of clues about the cause of that crash the day before.

Christie noted during a press conference on Friday that he had been in discussions with Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto earlier in the week.

"This meeting was scheduled and known by many reporters almost a week before the tragedy," Christie spokesman Brian Murray told Reuters in an email.

Under the deal, the state sales tax rate will drop in phases from the current 7 percent to 6.625 percent after January 2018. Low-income working families, veterans and retirees would also see tax reductions.

Altogether, the tax cuts will cost the state $164 million in 2017 and an estimated $1.4 billion once fully phased in by 2021, Christie's office said.

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Both houses of the legislature must still approve the proposal.

Christie also said he would ask voters in November to approve a constitutional amendment mandating that gas tax revenues be dedicated to transportation projects.

(Reporting by Hilary Russ; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
By Frank McGurty and Amy Tennery HOBOKEN, N.J. (Reuters) - A commuter train plowed into a station in New Jersey at the height of Thursday's morning rush hour, killing a woman on the platform and injuring more than 100 people as it brought down part of the roof and scattered debris over the concourse. Witnesses described terrifying scenes as the front of the train smashed through the track stop at high speed and into the Hoboken terminal, toppling support columns and creating chaos at one of the busiest transit hubs in the New York City area. "We have no indication that this is anything other than a tragic accident but ... we're going to let the law enforcement professionals pursue the facts," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said at a news conference in Hoboken alongside New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Train #1614 originated in the town of Spring Valley in New York state and was at the end of its hour-long journey when it crashed. The train's engineer, or driver, was injured and taken to hospital but later released, officials said, without providing details. Media identified the engineer as Thomas Gallagher, citing unnamed sources, and said he was cooperating with investigators. U.S. National Transportation Safety Board vice chairman Bella Dinh-Zarr told a separate news conference in Hoboken that investigators would retrieve the event recorder, which tracks speed, braking and other data, from the rear of the train on Thursday night. She said the train was operating in a "push-pull configuration" in which locomotive-hauled trains can be driven from either end. The train had an engine that was pushing four cars including the controlling, or cab, car in front, officials said. "Our investigation will continue here on scene for seven to 10 days," Dinh-Zarr said. The train was on track five when it hit the Hoboken terminal building at about 08:45 a.m. (1245 GMT). The New Jersey medical examiner's office identified the victim as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, of Hoboken. The woman was a former employee in the Brazilian legal department of SAP, the technology company said in a statement. Her LinkedIn page said she was a corporate lawyer who attended Florida International University. Broadcaster NBC New York reported de Kroon had recently moved from Brazil to New Jersey with her husband and child. Christie told CNN 114 people were injured. The Chinese Consulate General in New York told Xinhua news service at least one of the injured was Chinese. Cuomo said it was obvious the train came into the station too fast, but it was unclear why. The cause could be human error or technical failure, Cuomo said. He added that it was too early to say whether an anti-collision system known as positive train control (PTC) could have prevented the crash. PTC is designed to halt a train if the driver misses a stop signal and advocates cite it for helping to combat human error. The crash renews focus on the mandatory anti-collision system that has been plagued with lengthy, contentious delays. According to a report by NJ Transit to the Federal Railroad Administration for the first half of 2016, the public transport system does not have PTC in operation on its 326-mile network. New Jersey Transit ranked second for the most train accident reports nationwide for commuter railroads from January 2007 through June 2016, behind Amtrak. New Jersey Transit had 271 accidents, or 18 percent of the total, compared with Amtraks 44 percent, according to data from the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration Office of Safety Analysis. Mike Larson, who works as a machinist for NJ Transit, was 30 feet away from the train just before it slammed into the platform. He told The Journal News of Westchester County, New York, that the train's speed appeared to be about 30 mph (48 kph). The speed limit in the station is 10 mph (16 km) per hour, the NTSB's Dinh-Zarr told reporters. The terminal, listed on the New Jersey Registry of Historic Places, was designed in the Beaux Arts style and construction finished in 1907. It is on the Hudson River's west bank across from New York City. Its station is used by commuters traveling into Manhattan from New Jersey and New York state. Hoboken is the last stop on the lines it serves. A couple of hundred emergency workers spent the morning shuttling in and out of the station, some carrying the injured on stretchers to ambulances. Federal investigators later began examining the wreckage. Linda Albelli, 62, from Closter, New Jersey, was sitting in one of the train's rear cars and described how she had felt something was wrong a moment before the impact. "I thought to myself, 'Oh my God, he's not slowing up, and this is where we usually stop'," Albelli said. "'We're going too fast,' and with that there was this tremendous crash." 'RUNAWAY TRAIN' As investigators searched for clues to the cause of the accident, some said it could have been prevented. U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a Democrat on a senate committee that includes transportation matters, said the crash was "hauntingly similar" to past tragedies involving insufficient or unsafe practices or equipment. Blumenthal has advocated for the roll out of the anti-collision system. "This catastrophe was caused by a runaway train  traveling too fast and out of control. There is no excuse," Blumenthal said in a statement. He said there was an urgent need for better safety technology, new equipment and improved training. The historic green-roofed Hoboken Station is served by NJ Transit commuter trains connecting much of New Jersey with the country's largest city, as well as the Port Authority Trans-Hudson subway-like system known as PATH, a light rail service and ferry service to New York. In May 2011, a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey train crashed at Hoboken station, injuring more than 30 people. An investigation by the NTSB determined excessive speed was the main cause of the accident. An NTSB official said the agency would look at similarities between that crash and Thursday's. The crash was the latest in a string of fatal train crashes in the United States. The worst in recent years involved an Amtrak train that crashed in Philadelphia in May 2015, killing eight people and injuring more than 200. (Reporting by Frank McGurty, Amy Tennery and Robert MacMillan; Additional reporting by Laila Kearney, David Ingram and Joseph Ax in New York, Catherine Ngai in Jersey City, Curtis Skinner in San Francisco, and Susan Heavey, Tim Ahmann and David Shepardson in Washington; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Grant McCool, Frances Kerry, Bill Rigby, Toni Reinhold)
By Luke Baker JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Under a white canopy on a forested hillside in the late summer sunshine, old friends and several adversaries brushed shoulders with one another on Friday as they mourned the death of Israeli statesman and Nobel laureate Shimon Peres. Dozens of world leaders and hundreds of dignitaries gathered at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl cemetery, some hugging each other warmly, others greeting each other more cautiously, one or two briefly seeking to bridge the stark differences that divide them. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara shook hands and exchanged a few words with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who smiled deferentially, the first time the rival leaders had met in Jerusalem since 2010. "Long time, long time," said Abbas with warmth. Netanyahu, who has repeatedly accused Abbas of inciting violence and hatred against Jews, thanked him for coming, saying: "It's something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people." Shortly afterwards, Abbas took his place in the front row between Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, and Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, acting as a buffer between two European leaders who have clashed sharply on policy. Nearby, U.S.President Barack Obama arrived with a large delegation. He kissed Abbas on each cheek and moved down the line of mourners, shaking hands with Peres's relatives, with leaders and officials, before standing silently next to Netanyahu, with whom he has long had a fractious relationship. Steps away, members of Peres's extended family - sons, daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren - wiped tears from their eyes, which were hidden behind dark sunglasses. A few rows back, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, known for his occasional verbal faux pas, kept his distance. In an article written shortly before Britain voted to leave the European Union in June, Johnson suggested Obama's part-Kenyan ancestry made him indisposed to Britain, the former colonial power, remarks critics called "dog-whistle racism". "WE BECAME FRIENDS" For protocol reasons, former British prime ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron were not in the front row. But they sat alongside each other on white plastic chairs, next to Israel's chief rabbi, and chatted and posed for pictures, setting aside any party-political differences they may have had. In the front row, French President Francois Hollande listened stoically to the eulogies by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Netanyahu, Obama and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, paying little heed to his predecessor and potential presidential rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, who sat one row behind. Bill Clinton is highly regarded in Israel and scores of people greeted him with broad smiles. He moved through the crowds, welcoming the attention. On Thursday, he stood before Peres's coffin as it lay in state and shed tears for his old friend, with whom he worked for years in a failed attempt to reach a definitive peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Netanyahu and Peres, who died on Wednesday aged 93, were from opposite sides of the political spectrum and spent years openly at odds, with Peres's vision of how to reach peace with the Palestinians in stark contrast to Netanyahu's. While acknowledging those differences, Netanyahu has strived to say that he and Peres came to a much better understanding in recent years, and he underlined that message in his eulogy, which heaped praised on his one-time rival. "Israel grieves for him, the world grieves for him, but we find hope in his legacy, as does the world," said Netanyahu, who defeated Peres by barely 30,000 votes in an election in 1996, the event that marked Netanyahu's rise to power. "It's no secret that Shimon and me were political rivals, but over the years we became friends, even close friends." (Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
Jessica Alba

The Honest Company is finally removing a controversial ingredient from its laundry detergents after initially saying it didn't plan to do so.

According to a new story out from the Wall Street Journal's Serena Ng, Honest Company  Jessica Alba's $1.7 billion household products company  is planning to introduce a new detergent in 2017 that's free of an ingredient called sodium coco sulfate. The ingredient is said to contain a large amount of sodium lauryl sulfate, a cleaning agent that Honest Company has said in the past it doesn't use at all.

The fact that Honest Company was using the ingredient first came to light in March, when the Journal reported that lab tests found SLS in the detergents. The news was problematic for Honest Company, in that it thereby defies the central pitch of the company: that it sells "honestly safe, effective essentials for family and home."

Alba's company came under fire last summer, too, when people claimed that its sunscreen didn't work.

Honest Company's issues arise at a tense time for the startup, which filed to go public earlier this year. This month, Recode reported that the company was planning to sell itself to Proctor & Gamble or Unilever. Now, the Journal reports that Clorox and Johnson & Johnson might be interested in buying the company as well.

"Our internal R&D team, led by Dr. Laurence Dryer, consistently works to innovate across our entire product line while adhering to The Honest Companys uncompromising safety standards," Honest Company wrote in a statement. "As part of this process, we are continuing to work on a new breakthrough cleaning line, including dish care, laundry and household cleaners, utilizing an advanced sugar-based surfactant technology to further improve the efficacy of our products."

NOW WATCH: The 5 biggest changes coming to everyones iPhone





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With the election less than six weeks away, Vice President Joe Biden went on The Tonight Show, where he conveyed his concerns about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Well, I can tell you what; Ive never seen anybody who knew as few facts, said Biden. Hes probably a decent guy. But its his lack of sensibilities.

Biden specifically pointed to such comments as Trumps rooting for the housing market to fail and his ability to dodge taxes making him smart. Can you think of any president  any president youve studied, read about, or knew  who would say anything like that?, Biden implored. Name me one president who would do that. It angers me, quite frankly.

Biden didnt attack Trumps character, but he made it clear he doesnt believe the Republican candidate is fit to run the free world. Ive never known of a candidate who knows as little about the world as this man does, explained Biden. I dont even think he understands how much damage he does by what hes already said.

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on NBC.

Watch: Donald Trump and Alicia Machados war of words over the years:

Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram  or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Cynthia LuCiette, on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
Watch out, Google; Jon Voight is on to you.

A day after GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed that the search engine was suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton, the theory was given added credence by the Deliverance actor, who backed Trump up on the claim.

Its probably true, Voight said, when approached by TMZ on Thursday.

Also Read: 'Star Trek' Actors, Producers Start Anti-Donald Trump Group

Whats more, Voight asserted, Google isnt the only party at fault. The actor went on to suggest a media-wide conspiracy against Donald Trump and his Republican colleagues.

Mainstream media is in the tank for the Democrat party, Voight said. This is real.

Voight went on to warn against plants in the upcoming second debate between Trump and Clinton, which will take place in a town hall-style format.

Also Read: Donald Trump Says Google Is 'Suppressing' Negative Hillary Clinton News

Are people set up within the audience? Voight wondered. Im sure that people want to win, and thats the way it is.

Hard to argue with logic like that.

Watch Voight break it all down in the video.

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'Star Trek' Actors, Producers Start Anti-Donald Trump Group

Randy Rainbow's Trump Debate Spoof Is Super-Callous Fragile-Egocentric Braggadocious (Video)

Hollywood Republicans Feel Under Siege in 'Toxic' Anti-Trump Industry
Amman (AFP) - Hundreds of Jordanians took part in a demonstration Friday in the centre of Amman to protest a deal signed this week to import natural gas from Israel.

Demonstrators carried banners reading "No to financing the Zionist entity from the pockets of Jordanian citizens" and "No to gas imports from the Zionist enemy."

The protest was called by trade unions and political parties opposed to the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, half the population of which is of Palestinian origin.

"Gas from the Zionists is a disgrace," demonstrators chanted.

A US-led consortium leading the development of Israel's offshore gas reserves announced the signing on Monday of a deal to sell natural gas from its Leviathan field to Jordan.

US firm Noble Energy, the lead partner, said the contract with the National Electric Power Company of Jordan (NEPCO) was for 300 million cubic feet (8.5 million cubic metres) per day over a 15-year term.

It includes an option to purchase a further 50 million cubic feet, up to a total of 350 million daily.
By Karen Freifeld

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York judge weighing whether ex-AIG chief Maurice "Hank" Greenberg should be liable for accounting fraud on Thursday pressed the 91-year-old executive about why AIG had created an offshore entity for losses from a failed automotive warranty program.

Greenberg was on the stand for the third day for allegedly engineering the offshore entity, known as Capco, to hide $200 million in underwriting losses from shareholders.

The transaction is one of two at the heart of a 2005 case against Greenberg that finally went to trial two weeks ago after years of legal wrangling.

Justice Charles Ramos of New York state court in Manhattan, who is presiding over the non-jury trial, took over questioning Greenberg from Assistant Attorney General David Nachman in an effort to cut to the chase.

"There is no one in this room who doesn't think you're a brilliant business manager and a rational person," the judge said, noting there were no clear financial benefits to the company from the Capco transaction. "Why would AIG go through the Capco transaction in the first place? What was the motivation for that?"

Greenberg responded that the transaction was designed to help AIG managers by taking off their books so-called run-off - years of leftover claims from a shut-down auto warranty program. "They were arguing they shouldn't be held accountable for the runoff," he testified.

"They didn't want this negative?" Ramos asked.

"Right. That was the only reason," said Greenberg.

Because the exchange was hard to hear, Ramos summarized Greenberg's testimony to the courtroom.

"And if the shareholders are deceived, that's their problem?" Nachman interjected, drawing an objection from David Boies, Greenberg's attorney.

Nachman then went back to questioning Greenberg, while Ramos urged him to move more quickly.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is seeking to recoup some $50 million in bonuses paid to Greenberg and his co-defendant, former AIG Chief Financial Officer Howard Smith. He also wants to bar them from the securities industry and from being officers and directors of public companies.

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Greenberg still heads C.V. Starr, a private insurance company.

The trial is adjourned until Tuesday, when Greenberg is expected to testify about the other transaction in the case: a $500 million deal that allegedly inflated AIG's reserves.

Greenberg led AIG for four decades before he was ousted in 2005. The following year, the insurer paid $1.64 billion to settle federal and state probes of its business practices.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Dan Grebler)
30 Sep - It was revealed that Jun Lana's upcoming movie "Die Beautiful" has been chosen to participate in the main competition in the upcoming Tokyo International Film Festival.



As reported on PEP News, the news was announced by the director himself on Instagram, saying, "Our newly finished film "Die Beautiful" has been selected in the Main Competition of the Tokyo International Film Festival. Congratulations also to the other Filipino filmmakers who were selected, especially [Ivan Andrew Payawal] for his film "I America" screening at the Asian Future section. So proud of you, Ivan!"



This will mark Lana's comeback to the Tokyo Film Festival competition, after winning the Best Actress award for Eugene Domingo at the festival back in 2013 for his movie, "Barber's Tales".



Aside from Lana and Payawal's movies, it was revealed that three other Filipino movies will be joining the festival, including Lav Diaz's "Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis", which will be in Tokyo's World Focus section. The movie previously won the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlinale.



(Photo source: instagram.com/junrobleslana)
The Kardashian and Jenner sisters participated in a little family competition this week  and everyone came out a winner!



On her website Thursday, Kendall Jenner announced the "Class of Kardashian-Jenner Awards 2016" with specific honors being handed to each of the five sisters.



"I feel like things have been sooo busy lately and there's just never enough time for my sisters! Kim and I started plotting to do something cute on our apps that involved all of us  and these fun awards are the result," Kendall, 20, penned in the blog post.



Starting from the top, the most artistic award was presented to oldest sister Kourtney Kardashian, which was accompanied by three photos of the mother of three in front of multiple murals.







Second in line was little sister and Kylie Cosmetics founder Kylie Jenner, who walked away with three awards: biggest drama queen, most likely to crash on your couch and most likely to be texting.



According to the Keeping Up with the Kardashians reality star, Khloe Kardashian is apparently both flirty and a good dancer because the 32-year-old walked away with top honors for best dancer and most flirty.



Kim Kardashian West was also crowned two awards, including best dressed and most likely to be president.



And just what did the professional model get crowned for the 2016 family awards? The oldest Jenner daughter is clearly beloved by Kris and Caitlyn Jenner because she was awarded the vote for most liked by parents.



Congrats to all of the winners  until 2017!
Kate Middleton STUNS in this simple ivory dress

Kate Middleton STUNS in this simple ivory dress

There are some people who manage to achieve an effortless look of divine beauty, and Kate Middleton (aka the Duchess of Cambridge) is one of those blessed souls. It all started with that iconic blue engagement dress, and there have been numerous buzzworthy looks since then; her baby blue coat dress and Jenny Packham gown spring to mind as particularly memorable.

During the 2016 Royal Tour to Canada, Middleton wore an elegant  yet simple  full-sleeved cream dress to a childrens party for military families.

VICTORIA, BC - SEPTEMBER 29: (NO UK SALES FOR 28 DAYS) Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte of Cambridge attend a children's party for Military families during the Royal Tour of Canada on September 29, 2016 in Victoria, Canada. (Photo by Pool/Sam Hussein/WireImage)

According to the Mirror, Middletons dress is from See by Chloe. If you absolutely adore it, know that it can be purchased on Net-A-Porter! We love how Middletons look is classy yet casual, with the patterns on the sleeves and neckline of the dress providing a nice eye-catching element.

ALSO, wearing a basically white outfit to a childrens party? BOLD MOVE, Kate. Were sure it meant some pretty #BOSS maneuvers around chocolatey toddler fingers and barn-yard animals. Way to be a pro.

Oh, and completing her killer look were a pair of Fleur wedges from Monsoon in a similar muted shade. Again, super simple and very comfortable looking still, it begs the question: how does she do it?

Kate

Damn, girl.

The post Kate Middleton STUNS in this simple ivory dress appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver's split has not stopped their family from sticking together.



The couple's daughter Katherine, 26, recently sat down with PEOPLE and opened up about how the family has gotten along since her parents' 2011 separation.



"We do everything together as a family," Katherine said. "We've maintained very, very close relationships with every member of my entire family and my family has done a great job at keeping us all together, showing up for one another."



Schwarzenegger and Shriver separated in 2011 after the former governor of California admitted to fathering a child with the family housekeeper 14 years earlier.







Yet Katherine, who has spoken before about her family's tight relationship, said the breakup has had little effect on the family dynamic. "We are very, very close and love one another  and just because my parents arenat necessarily together, doesnat mean anything or affect our family in any other way."



The separation has taught the author and lifestyle blogger to appreciate "healthy relationships," a topic she said she often discusses with her mother. "I think being in a loving and healthy relationship is the greatest gift."



Check out the video for more on Katherine's love life, family and upcoming projects.
Need horses? No state is as steeped in equine history as Kentucky, with its celebrated annual Kentucky Derby, which attracts racing fans from around the world. The Bluegrass state also offers a good slice of Middle American settings, including farmland, quaint storefronts, and long, winding rivers. But appealing locations aside, producers also come to the Bluegrass State for its 30-35% refundable tax credit.

Specifically, that incentive provides a refundable tax credit of 35% for resident above-the-line and below-the-line cast and crew. For non-resident cast and crew, the credit drops a smidgen to 30%. But the number remains at 35% for filming in one of the states designated enhanced incentive counties.

Commercials are also eligible as long as they spend at least $100,000, and documentaries and Broadway productions are eligible with an expenditure minimum of $20,000. For a Kentucky based company the threshold drops to $10,000.

Theres no project cap, and the compensation cap on above-the-line is set at $1 million. The website of the states film office includes an online application form.

Notable projects produced in Kentucky over the years include: Where Hope Grows (2014), The Ides of March (2011), Land of Tomorrow (2011), Secretariat (2010), Elizabethtown (2005), and Seabiscuit (2003).

Incenitves 35% Resident above-the-line and below-the-line refundable tax credit $1m Compensation cap on above-the-line spending $250k Minimum spend 30% Non-resident above-the-line and below-the-line refundable tax credit

Information courtesy of EP Financial Solutions, a production incentive consulting and financial services company.

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Washington (AFP) - Secretary of State John Kerry is frustrated that his diplomatic efforts to end Syria's civil war were not backed up by US military force, according to a recording leaked Friday.

In the audio released by the New York Times, Kerry is heard lamenting to a group of Syrian civilians last week in New York that his call for US action against Bashar al-Assad's government fell on deaf ears.

"I think you're looking at three people, four people in the administration who have all argued for use of force, and I lost the argument," he tells the group.

"I've argued for the use of force ... but things evolved into a different process."

State Department spokesman John Kirby did not deny that the recording -- made at a private meeting in a diplomatic mission on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly -- is authentic.

"While we will decline to comment on a private conversation, Secretary Kerry was grateful for the chance to meet with this group of Syrians, to hear their concerns first hand and to express our continued focus on ending this civil war," he said.

It has been widely reported that Kerry pushed President Barack Obama to take a more robust path in Syria, to give teeth to international efforts to force Assad aside and end a civil war now heading into its sixth year.

But Washington's top diplomat has been careful to present a united front with the White House in public, even as he attempts to work with Moscow to rein in Assad's forces and build space for a political dialogue.

In August 2013, after Assad had been accused of firing chemical weapons at civilians, Kerry gave a ferocious speech that was seen as prefiguring a retaliatory US military strike -- only for Obama to back down only hours later.

Kerry refers to the speech incident in Friday's leaked recording, but blames the US Congress for refusing to vote to authorize the US military to take action against Assad.

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At last week's meeting, the Syrians -- sympathizers with the rebellion against Assad -- expressed frustration that US efforts in their country are focused on fighting the Islamic State group and not on Assad or his allies.

Instead, on September 9, Kerry agreed with Assad's ally Moscow that there should be a ceasefire between the regime and the US-backed rebels. The truce came into force on September 12 but fell apart after a week.

Russia and the United States are now blaming each other for the breakdown and Assad's Russian-backed forces have launched an assault on rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

"Look, I get it," Kerry tells the incredulous Syrians.

"A lot of us wish there was an enforcement mechanism right now. A lot of us have been fighting for one, but we don't have one right now and that's set," he warned.

"We're trying to pursue the diplomacy, and I understand it's frustrating. You have nobody more frustrated than we are."
John Cryan

Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours.

To sign up, scroll to the bottom of this page and click "Get updates in your inbox," or click here.

It's all about Deutsche Bank right now. Here are the headlines:

In other news, Nutanix finally had its IPO on Friday, and the entire tech industry is relieved. We also got a behind-the-scenes look at what actually goes on during an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, so take a look.

Janet Yellen may resign as Federal Reserve chair if Donald Trump wins the presidential election, according to Bob Landry, a portfolio manager at USAA investments. China has the markets totally fooled. And "politics as we knew it is over," according to Ian Bremmer.

Lastly, these are the new New York City restaurants Wall Street should check out this fall.

Here are the top Wall Street headlines at midday

Gaddafi, bribery, and a $40 billion hedge fund: The key details from the case against Och-Ziff  Och-Ziff Capital Management has agreed to settle charges of bribery, paying nearly $200 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC announced Thursday.

OPEC just reached a surprising deal  here's what comes next  The oil watcher Robert Mabro, who died last month, once quipped that OPEC should change its logo to a tea bag "because it only works when in hot water."

Banks like to talk about blockchain, but none want to be the first to actually use it  There are more than 50 major banks clamoring to adopt the technology known as blockchain  the underpinnings of bitcoin  but none of them wants to be the first.

Story continues

Why this top VC is funding a startup that could eat away at his own business  When Andy Weissman began to look at investing in a startup called CircleUp, he realized the underlying concept was something that could put him, or some of his competitors, out of business.

GM just quietly created a new car brand  For a hundred years, General Motors was defined by its brands: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, GMC, Cadillac. Later, Saturn, Saab, and Hummer joined the portfolio.

The 22 hottest cars at the 2016 Paris Motor Show  The Paris Motor Show kicked off ths week and it did not disappoint.

100 under-the-radar places everyone should visit in the world  Travel should be more than crossing attractions off a bucket list. It should be an opportunity to see some truly magnificent  and surprising  parts of the world.





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Kristen Stewart stars in three films showing at this years New York Film Festival, which opens tonight. Arguably none has had a more contentious lead-up to its stateside debut than Personal Shopper, the actress collaboration with French director Olivier Assayas. When the film first showed at Cannes in May, it was initially booed, but it also received praise online and a standing ovation at its official premiere. That sort of polarizing reaction is sure to accompany it when it lands in U.S. theaters, if its first American teaser is any indication. Watch it above.

Related: Olivier Assayas Correctly Calls Kristen Stewart the Best Actress of Her Generation

In Personal Shopper, Stewart plays a young woman intent on receiving a from-beyond-the-grave sign from her recently deceased brother, who promised to get in touch from the afterlife, and with whom she shares a heart defect. That premise is the launching pad for another of Assayas moody, meditative genre-bending tales, one that careens wildly between ghost story, murder mystery and grief-stricken character study. While the end result seemed to split audiences at Cannes, it largely riveted critics, including our own Kerrie Mitchell, who wrote about the pseudo-ghost story, Even if it doesnt hold together, its also fair to say its never boring. And a lot of that is due to Stewart, whose performance is both mesmerizing and unnerving.

While a prior international trailer debuted online a few months ago, this is IFCs maiden attempt to directly sell the Hitchcockian film to domestic audiences. You can check out the teaser above, and  aside from seeing it at this years New York Film Festival, where it screens on Oct. 7  see the film in theaters in March 2017.
BISHKEK (Reuters) - The government of Kyrgyzstan plans to downgrade the status of local office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the cabinet said on Friday, after the human rights watchdog invited Bishkek's outspoken opponent to a conference. The move follows the cancellation of a cooperation treaty between Kyrgyzstan and the United States for similar reasons: Washington had given a human rights award to a man convicted and imprisoned in Kyrgyzstan. Kadyrzhan Batyrov, a businessman and an ethnic Uzbek community leader, has lived in Sweden since 2011 and has been sentenced in absentia to a prison term at home on charges of being involved in the 2010 ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan in which hundreds died. Batyrov spoke at an annual OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw this month, and his presence there angered the Bishkek government. On Friday, a spokeswoman for Kyrgyzstan's foreign ministry said it had sent a formal note to the OSCE, informing the organisation that it plans to downgrade the status and the mandate of the OSCE centre in Bishkek. The spokeswoman said Kyrgyzstan had planned such a move before the Warsaw conference because it believes the OSCE office has completed its mission of aiding democracy-building in the former Soviet republic. "At the same time, the recent incident related to the presence of Kadyrzhan Batyrov, wanted (in Kyrgyzstan) for criminal offenses, at the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw last week has prompted the Kyrgyz side to notify the OSCE about this sooner," she said. Kyrgyzstan is more liberal than its autocratic Central Asian neighbours, but also much more volatile politically. Violent protests in 2005 and 2010 toppled two of its presidents and the latter was followed by clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks who are a significant ethnic minority in the country's south. Last year, Kyrgyzstan cancelled a cooperation treaty with the United States in protest against the award of a U.S. State Department human rights prize to Azimjon Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek journalist and activist who is serving a life sentence on charges of inciting ethnic hatred. Kyrgyzstan was not the only nation in the region angered by the OSCE conference. Tajikistan's delegation walked out of the same meeting, protesting against the presence of the leaders of the outlawed Islamic Renaissance Party accused of staging a failed coup against President Imomali Rakhmon. (Reporting by Olga Dzyubenko; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov)
By Joel Schectman LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Here, in the city of glitz and promise, just a few poor plays can bury a gambler under a tower of debt. And when a player doesnt repay the loans, Las Vegas has power to employ a tool unavailable to most every other creditor: jail. Las Vegas Justice Court sits two miles from the cacophony of the Vegas strip, in a sparsely developed area of downtown dotted with bail bond shops. Vices of the strip  prostitution, fights, drug possession  are adjudicated in this court. In a windowless basement of the courthouse sits Las Vegas most fearsome debt collector: the Clark County District Attorneys Bad Check Unit. This is where the books often get settled on casino debt-fueled gambling. The Bad Check Unit office resembles a DMV with numbered counters and grumbling visitors waiting their turn. Whatever the motive that led a player to take out a loan to gamble and then not repay the casino, their judgment day comes here, in a starkly lit room. Debtors arrive after the casinos have turned their debts over to prosecutors, who have issued arrest warrants. In 2015, the Bad Check Unit chased after 2,607 casino debts  more than 200 a month, according the district attorneys office. For debts over $10,000, the scofflaws have to pay the district attorneys office an additional 10% to settle the case and escape jail time. Chasing errant debtors generated $2.2 million overall for the district attorneys office last year, public records show. If the gamblers pay the casino back in full, or negotiate a settlement with the casino, charges are usually dropped, said Thomas Pitaro, a Las Vegas attorney who defends clients accused of bad casino debts. Otherwise, they face potential jail time. The district attorneys office was unable to say how many cases ended with jail, but a spokeswoman said the number was small. The Supreme Court and federal law have generally prohibited states from jailing people over unpaid debts. And casino debt was largely legally unenforceable in the United States until early 1980s. But in a bid to help its paramount industry, the Nevada state legislature passed a law in 1983 that made casino markers  a kind of gambling IOU signed by players  legally enforceable like a bounced check. Defaulting on a casino debt became the equivalent of a issuing a bad check, Pitaro said. It has evolved into the use of state coercive power to collect debts to protect the major industry, Pitaro said from his office, blocks from the courthouse. Without the threat of criminal charges, the casino industry has long argued, scofflaws wouldn't pay up. Casinos send letters to players, and if theyre not paid, file a complaint with the DAs Bad Check Unit. One man in the waiting room of the Bad Check Unit, a former city worker, said he was there to repay a casino debt of a few hundred dollars he forgot he owed after moving to California. A police officer jogged the debtors memory during a traffic stop, telling him he had an outstanding warrant for bad checks, but giving him a chance to make payment without being hauled in. That debt led him back to the Las Vegas Bad Check Unit, where he had one last chance to clear his hand. (Editing by Ronnie Greene)
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 30, 2016 / LED Medical Diagnostics Inc. ("LED" or the "Company") (LMD.V) announces that it is proposing a financing of Cdn$500,000 through the issuance of 12% senior secured debentures of the Company (the "Debentures") maturing 24 months from the closing date of the financing (the "Closing Date"). The Debentures will be issued to the Bloom Burton Healthcare Lending Trust II, as part of a non-brokered private placement of units consisting of: (i) Debentures in the aggregate principal amount of Cdn$500,000; and (ii) a total of 750,000 common shares of the Corporation. The subscription price for the units will be Cdn$500,000.

The Company intends to grant the common shares as a loan bonus in accordance with Exchange Policy 5.1 of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSX-V"). The issuance of the Debentures and the common shares is subject to TSX-V acceptance.

The proceeds will be used by LED for working capital and general corporate purposes.

All securities issued in connection with the transaction will be subject to a hold period expiring four months and one day after the Closing Date.

About LED Medical Diagnostics Inc.

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, LED Medical Diagnostics Inc., through its wholly-owned subsidiaries LED Dental Inc. and LED Dental Ltd, provide dentists and oral health specialists with advanced diagnostic imaging products and software, in addition to the award-winning VELscope Vx tissue fluorescence visualization technology. Backed by an experienced leadership team and dedicated to a higher level of service and support, LED Dental is committed to providing dental practitioners with the best technology available by identifying and adding leading products to its growing portfolio.

The Company is currently listed on the TSX-V under the symbol "LMD", the OTCQX under the symbol "LEDIF", as well as the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol "LME". For more information, call 884.952.7327 or visit www.leddental.com/investor-relations.

Story continues

Investor Relations:

Glen Akselrod

Phone: 905.326.1888 ext 10

Email: glen@bristolir.com

Media Contact:

LED Dental

Chris Koch

Phone: 678.293.9413

Email: chris.koch@leddental.com

Corporate Contact:

LED Medical

David Gane, CEO

Phone: 604.434.4614 ext 227

Email: david.gane@leddental.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: LED Medical Diagnostics Inc.
It was so hard to say goodbye for Lena Dunham, as she wrapped the final season of Girls. (Photo: Jerritt Clark/Getty Images)

Some people just arent good at goodbyes. Lena Dunham is one of them. In the wee hours of Sept. 30, the Girls creator bid adieu to the show that launched her to Hollywoods A-list when it premiered just over four years ago.

Its 2 am on Friday morning and we just finished shooting Girls. Forever, she began. No insert shots of cell phones or exteriors to grab. Were not missing a quick shot of Shosh marching down a Soho street. Were finished. We did it all. Jenni called that final cut, I dropped my costume on our van floors (sorry Kristen, sorry I never hang my damned costume) and we got into our vans to head home for the last time.

Alongside her tearful selfie, Dunham admitted, To say I dont enjoy goodbyes is an understatement. But, as a wise woman once told me, relish it. We so rarely get to choose our goodbyes. Shes right. And we got to choose this one. But that doesnt mean its easy I know Im not alone in the Girls family when I say this is the end of the largest and most potent chapter of my life so far.

She went on to reflect on how the show has changed her life for the better. Before Girls I had zero identity, zero self-love and an urgent sense of untapped creative desire that kept me up and sweating at night in other peoples beds, wondering why vague sexual affirmation wasnt enough to make me feel human. (Anyone who saw Dunhams first feature film, Tiny Furniture, will likely remember the scene in which she has umm relations in a storm drain.)

I had hardly an inkling of the responsibility we take on when we tell stories, or of the power words can have, but what I had- as an obsessed fan of shows from Girlfriends to Felicity to Ally McBeal was the audacity to think that people might want to see women like my friends and me (broken, imperfect, angry) on television, she added. Whether you love or hate Ms. Dunham, its likely that at least one of those aforementioned shows worked its way into your heart at some point way back when.

The 30-year-old star then shared a message of pure, unbridled gratitude. When we shot our pilot six years ago, I never dreamed that I could be so fulfilled by the process of art-making, of collaboration, of honest expression. And so through this show I developed an identity, gained a new kind of family and began my life in earnest. Its an embarrassment of riches. And while she didnt name specific names, she still made sure to call out the people who had helped her amass this wealth.

There are too many essential personnel to name here, and the messages I have for them are far too intimate for this modern venue, but I trust Ive made it clear who you are and what you mean to me. If I havent, please feel free to demand explanations.

Dunham went on to share an old photo of herself and co-stars Allison Williams, Jemima Kirk, and Zosia Mamet, and left messages to her fans, critics, cast and crew, and the men and women of Girls. She ended that post with love is all I have for every single one of you (even the 16 year old who keeps telling me to blow him in the comments section, though I do feel concerned hes not being parented closely enuf.

There were more tears throughout the evening, and Allison Williams would be the one in Dunhams final pic of the night because she stayed until the bitter end like the queen she is, said Dunham.

Before the tears took over, Dunham did give some personal shout-outs, like the one to Shihan Fey for always being there with an umbrella, a cup of tea and a brilliant smile. Dunham praised her more because You wrangle the actors on this show like an expert zookeeper and you never break a sweat.

Thank you @shihanfey for always being there with an umbrella, a cup of tea and a brilliant smile. You wrangle the actors on this show like an expert zookeeper and you never break a sweat.  you beauty #lastnight #endofGIRLS A photo posted by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on Sep 29, 2016 at 9:16pm PDT

More shout-outs went to her other female producers, or the big cats, as she called them. @jennikonner & I have learned so much from Regina Heyman and Ilene Landress, who know how to run a set with heart and grit and power. We love them fiercely.

Dunham and Konner even showed some love to the women who were stand-ins on the show over the years and who got their first speaking parts in the final episode.

Our faithful, loyal and lovely stand-ins for all of these years. Today they had their first speaking parts on Girls and many tears were shed. #endofgirls A photo posted by @jennikonner on Sep 29, 2016 at 1:41pm PDT

The filming may be done, but Dunham promises Ill be back with my Girls when its time to promote this MFer in January And also forever and ever, everyday, in my heart. Thank you all. In perpetuity, Lena.
Kristine Froseth has been cast as the female lead in Jeff Davis TNT drama pilot Let the Right One In, based on the best-selling novel by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist.

Let the Right One In is an eerie drama about Henry, a young boy, long tormented by his classmates, who finds solace in a friendship with a charismatic vampire, Eli (Froseth), who appears to be near his age. Thin and pale, Elis actual age is unknown. Lonely and friendless (for obvious reasons), Eli lands in an apartment building in Vermont, and soon begins a strange friendship with Henry, an equally lonely 16-year-old boy who has no idea what kind of creature hes dealing with.

Teen Wolf creator Davis wrote the script and serves as executive producer with Marty Adelstein and Becky Clements of Tomorrow Studios and Simon Oakes of Hammer Films. The pilot is being produced by Tomorrow Studios in association with Turners Studio T.

Lindqvists debut novel was an instant bestseller in Sweden. He adapted his book into a screenplay for the 2008 Swedish film of the same name, which earned international awards. In it, Eli was played by Lina Leandersson.

TNTs pilot will draw from the original source material. Carl Molinder, who produced the original screenplay, and Alex Brunner also serve as executive producers on the TNT adaptation.

Froseth recently wrapped Zoe Cassavetes upcoming web series Junior and will next be featured in Danny Strongs Rebel in the Rye opposite Nicholas Hoult and Kevin Spacey. Froseth also plays the female lead in Prey for Blumhouse opposite Logan Miller. Shes repped by WME, Anonymous Content and Hansen Jacobsen.

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This Immigrant Doctor Is Reimagining Health in the American City

Given the pressures of homework, tests, and puberty, the last thing middle and high school students should have to worry about is feeling safe at school. But as a report released on Wednesday reveals, the majority of American tweens and teens are victims of some form of bullying on campus.

For the report, From Teasing to Torment: School Climate Revisited, the Gay Lesbian, and Straight Education Network surveyed nearly 1,400 middle and high school students ages 13 to 18 and about 1,000 secondary school teachers. Nearly three-fourths of students said theyd been verbally or physically harassed in the past year, and about half of teachers said that bullying is a significant problem on campus. However, students in 2015 reported lower incidence of all types of biased remarks, except racist remarks, than students in 2005, the reports authors wrote.

As for whether things have gotten better for LGBT youths, the results are mixed. A survey by GLSEN in 2005 found that nearly 62 percent of secondary students said kids at their school were bullied because of their sexual orientation. This latest survey, conducted in 2015, found that about half of youths said kids at their school were bullied for that reason.

RELATED: For LGBT High Schoolers, Gay-Straight Alliances Spell Safety

Greater cultural acceptance of the LGBT community, as well as the growing number of Gay-Straight Alliances in schools, may be responsible for that drop. But despite the decrease in student-to-student bullying, students in the latest survey reported low levels of teachers and school staff intervention when LGBT students were being harassed.

Although the vast majority [of schools] say that teachers do have an obligation to ensure LGBT students are safe and supported, only about half are taking certain actions to ensure that happens, Emily Greytak, GLSENs director of research, told TakePart.

Teachers overall say theyre relatively comfortable intervening, but that comfort has decreased, Greytak said. The discomfort is attributed to a lack of administrative and community support, as well as increased responsibility given to teachers and the pressures of standardized testing, she said.

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RELATED: Can Congress Force Schools to Finally Get Serious About Bullying?

Educators and other school staff are sometimes the people making biased comments. About 15 percent of students reported hearing school staff make homophobic remarks, and nearly 26 percent said theyd heard school staff make negative remarks related to students gender expression, according to the report. Only about 28 percent of students said teachers and other school staff often or very often intervened when they heard a student make homophobic remarks.

Greytak said the lack of training provided to teachers regarding issues related to LGBT students is the main barrier preventing safer school climates. Results from the poll revealed that less than one-third of teachers had received training or professional development on working with lesbian, gay, or bisexual youths, and just one-fourth had received training or professional development on trans student issues.

RELATED: When It Doesnt Get Better: LGBT Youths Face Long-Term Effects of Bullying

Teacher credentialing programs dont spend enough time training on bullying, on multicultural education or diversity issues, and certainly not on LGBT issues, Greytak said. To that end, GLSEN has partnered with the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the Association of Teacher Education to provide more resources to new teachers. Well be working with them to develop a policy of problematic initiative resources to help address that, Greytak said. It comes down to professional development and training for educators.

Take the Pledge: Pledge to Be an Ally of the LGBTQ Community

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 Turning Barbershops Into Safe Spaces for Gay Black Men

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Original article from TakePart
The Rome Film Festival on Friday unveiled the lineup for its 11th edition, with 40 films from 26 nations.

The focus is on hits from other fall festivals, but the lineup also includes Gavin O'Connor's new thriller The Accountant, starring Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick.

As previously announced, Barry Jenkins' Moonlight, about a young man struggling to find himself across multiple eras in Miami, will open the fest.

A slew of recent Toronto films and other buzzed-about awards contenders are once again filling the program this year. Among them are Genius by Michael Grandage, Hell or High Water by David Mackenzie, Denial by Mick Jackson, Into the Inferno by Werner Herzog, Manchester by the Sea by Kenneth Lonergan, and Nate Parker's Birth of a Nation.

Birth of a Nation has been shrouded in controversy since this past summer when accusations of rape and bullying resurfaced against Parker and the film's co-writer Jean Celestin. The accuser later committed suicide. The controversy is beginning to register heavily in local Italian press.

Oliver Stone will come to Rome to present Snowden, as well as discuss American politics on the eve of the U.S. election. The Benedict Cumberbatch-narrated documentary Naples '44, directed by Francesco Patierno, will also play the fest.

Among the other guests is Meryl Streep, who will hold court with Rome festival attendees, and will also have her latest film, Stephen Frears' Florence Foster Jenkins at the festival.

Jon Krasinski's directorial debut, The Hollars, a comedy about a man returning home to his sick mother, will also play the festival. And Jim Sheridan's drama The Secret Scriptures, starring Rooney Mara and Vanessa Redgrave (who will be in attendance), will come to Rome after playing the London Film Festival.

Mara will be on double duty at the fest with the closing film Lion, starring Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman. Patel plays an adopted Indian boy who sets off to find his lost family.

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Close Encounters audience talks in Rome are planned with Bernardo Bertolucci, Don DeLillo, David Mamet and Viggo Mortensen. And Gordian Maugg in his new film, Fritz Lang, explores the director immersing himself in a murder case to research his famous film M.

Tom Hanks, who will receive the fest's lifetime achievement award, will also participate in an audience discussion. Meanwhile, Rome etrospectives are planned for Michael Cimino, Gregory Peck, Alberto Sordi and Lang.

And a series of films on American politics right before the election will help set a global discussion for the U.S. election. A retrospective of films on immigration is also planned, with the lineup including Italy's Oscar foreign-language submission Gianfranco Rosi's Fire at Sea.

Read more: Tom Hanks to Get Rome Film Fest Honor
Following the peace treaty signed by Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos and the rebel group FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) earlier this week, Ringo Starr premieres a new version of his peace anthem "Now the Time Has Come" featuring Colombian superstar Fonseca, who sings a Spanish verse on the powerful track.

In his verse, the Latin Grammy nominee expresses his feelings toward the recent peace treaty -- which would end five decades of conflict in his native country. "I talk about so many years dreaming of peace, about the millions that left without a reason, I say that what we are doing is not easy but we do it for those yet to come, for the next generations," he told the Associated Press.

Fonseca Sings With Ringo Starr for Colombia's Peace

Adding: "This has been very exciting. First, getting an invitation from Ringo Starr's people was a surprise. And to see that he also wants to join the peace process in Colombia with a song about hope, as a Colombian and as a musician, this is a privilege."

"Now the Time Has Come," written by the ex-Beatle and producer Bruce Sugar, was initially premiered in partnership with United Nations in celebration of the International Day of Peace.

Ringo Starr Shares New Song, Video For International Day of Peace: Watch

Listen to the new release of "Now the Time Has Come":
If you live in this part of the world, you wont be able to watch Game of Thrones anymore

If you live in this part of the world, you wont be able to watch Game of Thrones anymore

Our much beloved Game of Thrones is, without a doubt, the biggest show in the world right now (possibly, even the entire universe). It continues to smash viewing and streaming records, its the most pirated show on the internet, and we are hands down obsessed with everything to come out of Westeros. Weve only been without our Game of Thrones for three months now, and we already miss it dearly. Is it time for Season 7 yet??

While we know Game of Thrones will return to television sometime next year, its not actually going to be returning back to television everywhere. Even though HBO is a world-wide channel, it has decided to stop airing in one part of the world, and were so sorry to tell you this, Netherlands, but you cant watch Game of Thrones anymore.

giphy (1)

And if youre thinking you can just watch it on HBO Go, you cant, because thats getting the boot, too.

Earlier today, HBO announced that it was pulling the plug on ALL their channels in the Netherlands, including HBO1, HBO2, HBO3, HBO On Demand and HBO GO. This will go into effect on December 31st of this year, so the clock is ticking if youre going to try and re-binge all of Game of Thrones, and also maybe Sex and the City, and The Sopranos, and also Girls.

There is good news in this, and thats lots of HBO programs (and, maybe even the whole cable package) will be available somewhere again in the future, probably through another channel/cable package, but those details havent come to light yet. Though no reason for this drastic change has been made public, its thought to be because HBO just couldnt compete with Netflix, and like, we get that.

So as you enter into this dark time, were so so so so so sorry about this Netherlands. Hopefully, youll get Game of Thrones back before it returns in 2017 (and if you dont, were so so so so so sorry about all the spoilers youre going to encounter).

The post If you live in this part of the world, you wont be able to watch Game of Thrones anymore appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Lockheed Martin Corp.s LMT unit, Space Systems Co., has won two modification contracts from the U.S. Air Force worth a total $217.0 million. Both the contracts were awarded by the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, CA.



Contract Details



The first one, worth $127.5 million, includes logistics support for the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS). Per the modification, Lockheed Martin will provide services for operations, and sustainment and support factory infrastructure for the SBIRS program.



Under the second contract, worth $89.5 million, the company will execute acoustic testing and verification for Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite vehicles 5 and 6 as a risk reduction effort.

LOCKHEED MARTIN Price

LOCKHEED MARTIN Price | LOCKHEED MARTIN Quote

What are SBIRS & AEHF?



The SBIRS program is considered among the nations highest-priority space programs. It is designed to provide worldwide, persistent, infrared surveillance capabilities such as early warning of missile launches. It simultaneously supports other missions including missile defense, technical intelligence and battle space awareness.



On the other hand, AEHF provides improved global, survivable, protected communications capabilities for strategic command and tactical warfighters operating on ground, sea and air platforms. The companys AEHF military satellite program is shaping up well with AEHF-4, AEHF-5 and AEHF-6 projected to launch in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively. According to the company, AEHF is the most secure communication satellites used by the government.



About Space Systems



Space Systems Co. (LMSSC) is a major operating unit of Lockheed Martins Space Systems segment. It designs, develops, tests, manufactures and operates a full spectrum of advanced-technology systems for national security, and military, civil government and commercial customers.



Space Systems continues to capture the governments attention as the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is expected to focus consistently on enhancing its capabilities to counter emerging security threats. Moreover, the latest budget proposal allocates $1.8 billion for space launch in fiscal 2017. It also seeks to increase spending in several key areas including cybersecurity, electronic warfare and improved security for crucial U.S. satellites.



Space Systems enjoys a steady flow of contracts from the DoD. Last week, it won a modification contract, valued at $395 million, for the development of the GPS III Space Vehicles 09 and 10. (Read more: Lockheed Martin Wins $395M Deal for GPS III SV 09 and 10)



Other Companies in the Space



Apart from Lockheed Martin, companies like The Boeing Co. BA, Raytheon Company RTN and Northrop Grumman Corporation NOC also enjoy a steady stream of contracts from the U.S. DoD for military space programs.



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By David Ingram

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investigators on Friday examined the black box recorder recovered from twisted wreckage of a New Jersey commuter train for clues as to why it plowed into a landmark terminal, killing a woman on the platform and injuring scores of people.

The event recorder was removed late on Thursday from the locomotive at the rear of the NJ Transit train that slammed through a barrier at the end of the track and into the Hoboken station during the morning rush hour, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Christopher O'Neil said.

He said debris from the crash, with beams supporting the roof down and wreckage strewn about the site of the historic Beaux Arts rail terminal, was preventing investigators from reaching a second recorder in the train's front car. It may not be until Saturday that the device is recovered.

The recorders hold data that includes the train's speed, throttle position and use of brakes and could offer clues as to why the train, crowded mainly with commuters heading into Manhattan, failed to stop.

NTSB Vice Chairman Bella Dinh-Zarr said the investigation was expected to take seven to 10 days. The agency scheduled a news conference for 5:30 p.m. EDT on Friday.

"We've started the process and it's ongoing," O'Neil said. "There are some structural issues there, and the structure is unsafe, potential for collapse, that kind of thing. So that has to be resolved. We want to get there as quickly as possible, but we want to get there safe," O'Neil said.

Train No. 1614, originating in Spring Valley, New York, was at the end of its 17-stop hour-long southward journey when it crashed, toppling support columns in the early 20th century building. Witnesses described a scene of horror and chaos.

Witnesses and officials said the train came into the station too fast and never slowed, but it was unclear why.

It was too early to say whether an anti-collision system known as positive train control (PTC) could have prevented the crash, they said. PTC is designed to halt a train if the driver misses a stop signal, and advocates say it helps to address human error. None of NJ Transit's train are equipped with PTC.

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Peter Goelz, a former NTSB managing director, said that PTC is most effective at higher speeds out on open track, adding it is far from clear it could have made a difference in Hoboken. He said other factors, such as the alertness of the locomotive engineer, or driver, could turn out to be more important.

Representative Bill Pascrell of New Jersey, who toured the site Thursday, again on Friday called for new safety measures on commuter rail systems including more federal funding for PTC. "Commuters need to feel safe in our trains and on our tracks," he said in a statement.

WOMAN, 34, KILLED

NJ Transit on Friday suspended train service in and out of the Hoboken terminal, one of the busiest transit hubs in the New York area, accommodating some 60,000 people a day.

The crash killed a 34-year-old Hoboken woman who was standing on the platform when the train slammed through the barrier, jumped off the tracks and skidded across the station concourse. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told reporters that 114 other people were injured.

NJ Transit said the train's engineer was Thomas Gallagher, a 29-year veteran of the railway, 10 of those as an engineer. He was taken to hospital for minor injuries and released, and is cooperating with investigators, officials said, without providing further details.

The NTSB also wants to speak with a conductor and a rear brake man who were also on the train, Dinh-Zarr said on Thursday.

Gallagher, who is married with two daughters, has a deep love for driving trains, said Penny Jones, 72, one of his neighbors in suburban New Jersey.

"He wanted to be a train engineer since he was very, very young," she said by phone, adding that she was heartbroken for what Gallagher went through even as the cause of the crash remained undetermined.

"No matter what, this is something they'll have to deal with the rest of their lives," she said, noting police officers were stationed outside the Gallagher house.

In 2011, a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey PATH train crashed at the Hoboken station, injuring more than 30 people. The NTSB determined the accident was caused mainly by excessive speed. The NTSB said it would also look for similarities between the two crashes.

New Jersey Transit ranked second for the most train accident reports nationwide for commuter railroads from January 2007 through June 2016, behind Amtrak. It had 271 accidents, or 18 percent of the total, compared to Amtrak's 44 percent, according to data from the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration Office of Safety Analysis.

The rankings in part reflect the heavy use of rail transit in the U.S. Northeast compared with other parts of the United States.

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Ian Simpson in Washington; Writing by Alan Crosby; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, Howard Goller, Grant McCool)
Luc Bessons EuropaCorp has entered exclusive negotiations with Frances largest exhibitor, Cinemas Gaumont-Pathe, to sell off its multiplex business. The company announced the news Friday, a day after it unveiled that Chinas Fundamental Films was set to become the companys second-biggest shareholder (behind Besson) in a $67 million (60M) deal.

The potential sale of the exhibition business represents another part of EuropaCorps strategy to refocus on its core business activities: production and distribution of TV and film. If successful, the deal would see Gaumont-Pathe take over EuropaCorps Aeroville 12-screen multiplex theater, which opened in 2013 in Tremblay-en-France near Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, as well as the La Joliette multiplex project in Marseille, the latter of which is set to begin construction in January.

EuropaCorps exhibition strand has never been a huge part of the companys overall business and, on average in 2014 and 2015, multiplex management repped about 4% of overall revenue. It operated, rather than owned, the Aeroville multiplex, renting it from commercial real estate company Unibail-Rodamco.

Initially, the move into exhibition came as part of a strategy to diversify the business and generate revenues with a limited risk, but the theater failed to turn over significant profit in the past three years and reports indicate that the Aeroville has so far amassed $11.1M (10M) in net losses.

Trading in EuropaCorp fell about 4% this morning in France in light of the potential sale  thats after it jumped about 20% on Thursday thanks to the Fundamental deal.

Gaumont-Pathe is the largest cinema chain in France, with sites also in Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands. It operates 110 cinemas across the continent with a total of 1,051 screens.

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Magora UK has Published New Resources on Their Blog, Helping People to Determine Whether Their Start Up Idea Could Really Go the Distance and Become the Next Big Thing

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM / ACCESSWIRE / September 29, 2016 / Startups are everywhere in the modern business world. Thanks to the influx of new technologies and connectivity, and the exciting new markets in the world of consumer technology and interaction, many people can see opportunities to offer new ways of accessing products and services, and feel they could be the next big thing. Web and mobile app developer company Magora UK has just published a new guide on their blog to how people with a great idea can test whether or not it has the chops to succeed in the cut-throat world of investment.

Magora UK's new blog provides an essential roadmap covering all the major steps of bespoke software and app development for business. In this post they speaks about the digital solution for startups or realisation of fresh ideas via web or mobile apps. This includes invaluable advice on how to test and develop the idea in question, and what steps to take to get it out in front of audiences and test-drive it for further feedback and development. It even offers advice on developing a minimum viable product to prototype audience response.

The blog is part of an increasing series of resources developed by Magora UK, designed to encourage the next generation of companies that will become their future customers. Bespoke app and software development is bigger in the start-up community than anywhere else, and Magora are ideally placed to provide app development for startups, helping them punch above their weight in terms of business performance.

A spokesperson for Magora UK explained, "If ideas are robust, they should stand up to being challenged. Just as that's true in conversation and politics, it's also true in business. Making sure you can anticipate the challenges your ideas will face, and even challenge them yourselves, will ensure you have the best possible pitch to present to investors about your startup. This new blog gives you a step by step guide as to how you can go through that process. It gives anyone interested in developing their idea a useful roadmap, and anyone who might be thinking of investing in an idea a way to assess how bulletproof it really is."

Story continues

About Magora UK:

Magora UK has a mission is to help businesses to achieve maximum value for money through the development of bespoke software and apps. Their custom solutions can help businesses push to the front of their industry, optimize internal processes, create a more rewarding user experience or maximize ROI.

For more information, please visit https://magora-systems.com/

Contact Info:

Name: PRWhirlWind

Email: info@magora.co.uk

Organization: Magora UK

Address: 32 Cowper Street London EC2A 4AW

Phone: +44 20 3868 6533

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/magora-uk-publish-new-blog-on-how-startups-can-validate-their-idea/134764

SOURCE: Magora UK
To mark the 300th anniversary of Italy's Chianti Classico heritage, winemakers have announced plans to launch a bid for UNESCO recognition as a World Heritage Site.

Organized by Chianti Classico winemakers who together form a group called the Consortium, the move is meant to put the Chianti region of Italy on the same plane as Piedmont, Burgundy and Champagne, protected wine-growing regions which are all listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites for their long winemaking traditions.

This fall, the Chianti region in Tuscany celebrated 300 years since the Ducal decree that first established the boundaries for Chianti Classico.

The territory's capitals are Siena and Florence and amount to 71,800 hectares (177,500 acres) of wine country.

Chianti produced outside the designated geographic area is designated by the omission of the word Classico as the two wines are produced in different regions under different sets of production regulations.

Bottles produced in the Chianti Classico region are identifiable by the group's logo, a black rooster.

To qualify for the designation, Chianti Classico must be produced with a minimum ratio of 80 percent Sangiovese. The remaining 20 percent can be a blend of native grapes like Canaiolo, Colorino and international varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.

But winemakers of Chianti Classico will be up against another Italian wine-growing region which has long been hoping for UNESCO recognition. The Prosecco-producing region of Valdobbiadene-Conegliano was submitted as an application in 2010 and remains on the tentative' list.

To be inscribed on the World Heritage List, sites must be of outstanding universal value such as bearing a unique or exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or civilization.

The 40th session of the World Heritage Committee takes place in Istanbul October 24-26.




Donald Trump took to his favorite social network in the early hours of Friday to blast former Miss Universe Alicia Machado with a series of jaw-dropping tweets.

Read: Trump Says He 'Saved' Job of Ex-Miss Universe Alicia Machado, Whom He Once Called 'Miss Piggy'

It all started at 3:20 a.m. when Trump lashed out on Twitter about "made up lies" in regard to his presidential campaign.

Anytime you see a story about me or my campaign saying "sources said," DO NOT believe it. There are no sources, they are just made up lies!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016

Then he started in on Machado at 5:14 a.m. tweeting: Wow, crooked Hillary was duped and used by my worst Miss U.

At 5:19 a.m. he tweeted: Hillary was set up by a con.

And finally at 5:30 a.m. he said: Did crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?

Wow, Crooked Hillary was duped and used by my worst Miss U. Hillary floated her as an "angel" without checking her past, which is terrible!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016

Using Alicia M in the debate as a paragon of virtue just shows that Crooked Hillary suffers from BAD JUDGEMENT! Hillary was set up by a con.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016

Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016

Trump could have been referring to a just-surfaced video of the former beauty queen having sex on a risque reality show in her native Venezuela.

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At 5:50 a.m., he went on a tirade against the 'dishonest media' that he feels is against him.

Remember, don't believe "sources said" by the VERY dishonest media. If they don't name the sources, the sources don't exist.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016

Just before 11 a.m. on Friday, Clinton fired back at Trump on Twitter.

What kind of man stays up all night to smear a woman with lies and conspiracy theories?  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 30, 2016

During Monday nights heated debate, Hillary Clinton brought up the situation between the former pageant queen and Trump.

Clinton said: He called this woman Miss Piggy. Then he called this woman Miss Housekeeping, because she was Latina. She has a name. Her name is Alicia Machado.

In an interview with Inside Edition in May, Machado blamed Trump's mockery of her weight for causing an eating disorder.

Fox News host Megyn Kelly has told Trump to give his attacks on Machado a rest.

On The Kelly File Thursday night, the host said: Why doesn't he just shut up about the women, and how big they're supposed to be?

Read: Fellow Miss Universe Contestant Backs Alicia Machado's Claims on Trump's Bullying: 'Suck Your Gut In'

Since being thrust in the spotlight, Machado has defended herself about her weight and allegations that she was once suspected of driving the getaway car during an attempted assassination of her boyfriend's brother-in-law. It happened in 1997 in Venezuela.

She denies she committed a crime, and no charges were ever filed. It's also reported that she had a daughter with a notorious Mexican drug kingpin, which she also denies.

On Tuesday night, she told Anderson Cooper: I have a past. We all have a past. Im no saint.

Watch: Who Is Alicia Machado? Miss Universe Who Trump Called 'Miss Piggy' Says She'll Vote Hillary

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The lines between social drinking, alcohol abuse and alcoholism are extremely thin. Crossing them warrants no special "aha" moment; generally, the drinker doesn't consciously digest that alcohol has become a problem until he or she is a few miles past the last line. If the drinker ever felt a slight inclination that the habit developed into full-force alcoholism, he or she probably shrugged it off in denial.

[See: 7 Health Risks of Binge Drinking You Can't Ignore.]

So, how do you know if you are an alcoholic? It would be nice if there was a logical or numerical response to the question -- as in, "If I drink less than five drinks a night, that doesn't make me an alcoholic," "If I drink only on the weekends that should mean that I'm not an alcoholic, right?" or "If I am not drinking alone, I am fine."

Unfortunately, none of these questions or statements will lead to a conclusion as to whether or not you are an alcoholic. The most important question I ask my clients struggling with accepting their alcoholism is, "How often are you thinking about drinking?" We then delve deeper into a series of questions that aim to create a conscious awakening:

-- Do you frequently feel compelled to drink?

-- Does alcohol, the thought of alcohol or the planning of your next drink occupy most of your energy and focus?

-- Have you wanted to stop drinking, but find yourself with a drink in hand just a short time later?

-- Have you sacrificed other activities that you enjoy because you plan to drink or were drinking?

-- Do you find that you need to consume more alcohol to get the same effects you once had?

These questions kick-start our discussion about alcoholism, and the common behaviors associated with alcohol dependency. These questions address the mental, physical and emotional state of one's drinking. The general rule of thumb when it comes to labeling oneself as an alcoholic is: If alcohol causes or has caused mental, physical or emotional distress in your life, alcohol has ceased to be a luxury and has entered the realm of necessity.

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[See: 14 Ways Alcohol Affects the Aging Process.]

Alcoholism tends to run in families. If one or more of your family members suffers from alcoholism or addiction, you are at a higher risk of alcoholism than the rest of the population. You are also at a higher risk of alcoholism if you suffer from anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder. These mental disorders often lead to self-medication with alcohol or other mind-altering substances.

If you are still unconvinced that you are an alcoholic, or you need more tangible data, ask yourself these questions:

1. Do you often feel guilty about your drinking?

2. Do you feel the need to lie to others about your drinking?

3. Have one or more of your loved ones expressed concern about your drinking habits?

4. Do you frequently drink more than you plan on drinking?

5. Do you black out when drinking?

6. Do you feel that you need to drink to relax or feel better?

7. Do you find that you wake up from a night of drinking with severe anxiety, shaking or sweating that only a drink or medication can fix?

8. Do you feel uncomfortable in environments where alcohol is unavailable?

9. Have you ever tried to control your drinking?

10. Have you had problems at home, school or work as a result of drinking?

11. Have you ever thought that your life would be better if you didn't drink?

12. Do you ever find yourself jealous of people who can drink without consequences?

If you answered "yes" to three questions or fewer, you may be mildly abusing alcohol. If you answered "yes" to four to seven questions, you exemplify traits of an alcoholic; you have entered into the danger zone and should seek help for alcohol dependence. If you answered "yes" to eight to 12 questions, you exemplify traits of a severe alcoholic and should seek treatment for alcoholism.

This test is not medically-approved, nor is it an official test for determining alcoholism, but it will give you an idea of the type of questions you need to ask yourself when observing your drinking.

[See: How to Find the Best Mental Health Professional for You.]

The only person who can determine whether you are an alcoholic, an alcohol abuser or a social drinker is yourself; no one can answer these questions for you. If you take an honest survey of yourself and your drinking habits, you can determine whether you have reached the point of alcoholism and only then can you get the help you need. Doing so will teach you how to move through life without the aid of alcohol, allowing you to reconnect with your loved ones and to rekindle your desire to live another day.

DeAnna Jordan is the clinical director at New Method Wellness, a substance abuse treatment center in Orange Country, California. Jordan has over 20 years of experience working with clients in recovery and is a marriage and family therapist specializing in the maintenance of healthy relationships. As a recovering addict, Jordan brings a breadth of personal recovery experience to her clinical leadership and believes a comfortable, structured and supportive environment is an essential part of maintaining long-term sobriety. In addition to her passion for recovery, Jordan is extremely involved in the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. As a current Woman of the Year candidate, Jordan is campaigning to raise funds for LLS blood cancer research in honor of local children who are blood cancer survivors.
Jerusalem (AFP) - The death of Nobel laureate Shimon Peres led to a surge of nostalgia in Israel over his peace efforts, but his ideals have become increasingly absent from the country's political scene.

The former president and prime minister won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating the Oslo accords with the Palestinians and spent the latter years of his life defending his pursuit of the goals they represented.

But more than two decades later, the peace process that the Oslo accords began has stagnated, and Israeli politics has undergone a marked shift to the right.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is seen as the most right-wing in Israel's history, and key members of his coalition say openly that they oppose a Palestinian state.

"Even though world leaders sing the praises of Peres as a hero of peace, in that area, Peres was a has-been," Yossi Alpher, former aide to ex-prime minister Ehud Barak, said of the last remaining founding father of Israel, who died Wednesday at age 93.

Netanyahu has joined in praising Peres even though the two men were political rivals.

At Peres's funeral on Friday, Netanyahu in his eulogy called him a "great man of the world" and recalled late-night discussions with him on the future of Israel.

"He said that peace was true security -- if there is peace, there will be security," Netanyahu said at the funeral in Jerusalem attended by a range of world leaders.

"I told him, 'Shimon, in the Middle East, security is an essential condition for peace, and for the establishment of peace' ... My friends, you know what surprising conclusion I came to? We were both right."

After Peres's death, Netanyahu had poignantly noted that it was the first day in the existence of Israel without him, referring to his presence at the founding of the country in 1948.

An estimated 50,000 people streamed past his coffin as it lay in state outside parliament on Thursday, bringing together Israelis of all backgrounds and political beliefs.

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But while Peres was widely lauded both in Israel and abroad for his transformation from hawk to peace advocate and statesman, his death will have little impact on current Israeli politics and diplomacy, a number of analysts said.

Peres served as president between 2007-2014, but that role in Israel is largely ceremonial.

- 'Learn lessons' -

Ilan Greilsammer, political science professor at Bar Ilan University, said that Peres had ceased to have much influence in both areas as he grew older.

"For numerous years, he had been in the role of the sage," he said.

"He benefited from a moral authority, but wasn't involved with the activist left, which is in any case in bad shape."

Peres won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the Oslo accords, which envisioned an independent Palestinian state.

But a year later, Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist opposed to the agreements, while in 2000, the bloody second Palestinian intifada erupted.

Islamist movement Hamas, which calls for Israel's destruction, has also come to power in the Gaza Strip.

Many Israelis have since turned their backs on peace and the Oslo accords, while polls show that the Labour party, which Peres once led, has dropped significantly in popularity.

No charismatic leader has emerged from the young activist guard.

While many Israelis still say they support a two-state solution in theory, Netanyahu himself ruled it out ahead of 2015 elections only to later backtrack.

Settlement construction in the occupied West Bank has meanwhile continued, slowly eating away at the land Palestinians view as part of their future state.

Gun, knife and car-ramming attacks by young Palestinians in recent months have only increased the bitterness between the two sides.

"World leaders who go to the funeral for Peres should know that the Oslo process has been discredited for years," said Alpher.

"And that we should -- Israelis, Palestinians, the international community -- learn lessons from it, which Peres never did."

While Peres's peace efforts are being lauded, his role as the architect of Israel's undeclared nuclear programme may prove his more lasting contribution.

Israel is now considered the Middle East's sole nuclear-armed nation.

"I prefer to remember Peres for his contribution to Israel's security," Alpher said.
By Nellie Peyton DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Mauritanian anti-slavery activists jailed last month have been tortured in detention and transferred to a remote desert location in an "intensification of repression" by the state, a leading campaigner said. The West African nation in August jailed 13 members of the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA) for up to 15 years for their role in June protests by residents of a slum in the capital Nouakchott, many of whom are former slaves. Slavery is a historical practice in Mauritania, which became the last country worldwide to legally abolish it in 1981. Today some 43,000 people or at least one percent of the population live as slaves, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index. Yet other estimates put the number as high as 20 percent in a country that is a focus of activism by the modern anti-slavery movement. The 13 activists have been tortured and were this week moved to the desert north where they are cut off from their families, doctors, and lawyers, according to members of the IRA in the northern town of Zouerate who were informed of the relocation. Mauritanian government officials did not respond for requests to comment. "This intensification of repression is equal to the intensification of the fight (against slavery)," Biram Dah Abeid, head of the IRA and an opposition politician, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Dakar, Senegal. "Our colleagues suffered physical and psychological harm," he said, adding that people cannot even visit the prisoners' families for fear of being watched by the government. The activists said they were not present at the protests and that the trial was an attempt by the state to discredit the IRA. Anti-Slavery International called the sentences a "devastating blow" to the Mauritanian anti-slavery movement. A European Union delegation said last month it was concerned by "credible allegations" of torture and violations of legal procedures in the case against the activists, and urged the Mauritanian authorities to investigate. The Haratin, who make up Mauritania's main "slave caste", are descended from black African ethnic groups along the Senegal river. They often work as cattle herders and domestic servants. The West African nation criminalized slavery in 2007 and a new law passed last year makes the offence a crime against humanity and doubles the prison term for offenders to 20 years. The jailing of two slave-owners in May and the release of Abeid and activist Brahim Bilal, who had been in prison for 18 months after taking part in an anti-slavery march, were hailed as a turning point in the fight to end the practice. But Abeid, who has been jailed several times and came a distant second in a 2014 presidential election, said the moves were merely "an illusion" of progress. (Reporting By Nellie Peyton, Editing by Kieran Guilbert and Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)
U.S. President Barack Obama addresses the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's 46th annual Legislative Conference Phoenix Awards Dinner in Washington, September 17, 2016. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday condemned Congress' decision to override President Barack Obama's veto of a bill that will allow 9/11 victims' families to sue Saudi Arabia for any role it may have played in the attacks.

He pinned much of the blame for the override on Obama himself, however, saying that the White House was too slow to warn about the "potential consequences" of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, known as the 9/11 victims bill.

"Everybody was aware of who the potential beneficiaries were, but nobody really had focused on the downside in terms of our international relationships," McConnell said, claiming that the White House failed to "communicate early about the potential consequences of a piece of legislation that was obviously very popular."

In vetoing the bill, however, Obama laid out three concrete reasons he thought the legislation was a potential liability.

The first, Obama wrote, is that the bill would allow private litigation in US courts against countries that have not been designated state sponsors of terrorism. As such, it would undermine terrorism investigations by taking them "out of the hands of national security and foreign policy professionals and placing them in the hands of private litigants and courts."

"This would invite consequential decisions to be made based upon incomplete information," the president wrote.

Secondly, passage of the lawsuit bill "would upset longstanding international principles regarding sovereign immunity, putting in place rules that, if applied globally, could have serious implications for US national interests," the veto message reads.

That is because the ad-hoc removal of sovereign immunity in US courts for foreign governments without first designating them state sponsors of terrorism opens the door for other nations to act reciprocally.

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obama saudi

"Enactment of JASTA could encourage foreign governments to act reciprocally and allow their domestic courts to exercise jurisdiction over the United States or US officials  including our men and women in uniform," Obama wrote.

Lastly, the bill "threatens to create complications in our relationships with even our closest partners," he wrote. Obama noted that exposing the US's foreign partners to this kind of private litigation, without the involvement of national security professionals, could make them reluctant to cooperate on "key national security issues, including counterterrorism initiatives, at a crucial time when we are trying to build coalitions, not create divisions."

Obama ended the veto message by reinforcing the extent to which he has "expanded upon" the Bush administration's efforts to compensate victims' families and enact national security programs to protect Americans from terrorism in the wake of the 2001 attacks.

"I have continued and expanded upon these efforts, both to help victims of terrorism gain justice for the loss and suffering of their loved ones and to protect the United States from future attacks," Obama wrote. "The JASTA, however, does not contribute to these goals, does not enhance the safety of Americans from terrorist attacks, and undermines core US interests."

obama saudi arabia

Obama was not alone in his warnings about the potential ramifications of passing the bill. Arab states lobbied heavily against the bill in the run-up to the vote and have been quick to condemn the legislation's approval.

On Thursday night, the United Arab Emirates' minister of state for foreign affairs tweeted that the bill set "a dangerous precedent in international law that undermines the principle of sovereign immunity and the future of sovereign investments in the United States."

The Saudi foreign ministry called the legislation an "erosion of sovereign immunity" on Friday, warning that the bill "will have a negative impact on all nations, including the United States."

Stephen Kinzer, a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, told The Associated Press that the bill would likely be seen in the Arab world as "yet another chapter in the more than century-long history of Americans trying to apply their standards and laws to the whole world."

"Certainly this bill doesn't win America any friends," added Adam Ereli, a former State Department spokesman and former ambassador to Bahrain.

The White House on Friday said the bill's passage was "an abject embarrassment" and said it would work with lawmakers to try to limit its policy effects.

NOW WATCH: David Cay Johnston: 'There's no evidence Donald Trump is a billionaire'





More From Business Insider


(Adds comments from Monster, Randstad)

By Michael Flaherty

NEW YORK, Sept 30 (Reuters) - MediaNews Group Inc, one of the largest U.S. newspaper companies, said on Friday it plans to nominate seven directors to replace the board of Monster Worldwide Inc, stepping up a battle against the proposed sale of the online jobs site.

The fight presents a unique case whereby a private company is proposing to overthrow a public company's entire board through a proxy fight, a move more often associated with activist hedge funds.

Monster, based in Weston, Massachusetts, agreed in August to a $429 million acquisition offer from Dutch staffing group Randstad. The all-cash offer from Randstad, the world's second-largest staffing company, is part of its effort to expand into the United States and into online recruiting.

Ten days after the announcement of that deal, MediaNews said it had bought an 11.6 percent stake in Monster and that it opposed the Randstad acquisition.

MediaNews repeated its concerns about the deal on Friday.

"We have significant concerns about the flawed and unorganized sale process that led to the current deal with Randstad," MediaNews said on Friday.

Monster Chief Executive Officer Tim Yates said in a statement that MediaNews Group is trying to derail the Randstad deal and take control of the company without paying a premium.

Monster's board recommends that shareholders tender their shares to Randstad, "which provides stockholders immediate and certain value," Yates said.

MediaNews, whose 67 daily newspapers include the San Jose (California) Mercury News and the Lowell (Massachusetts) Sun, nominated seven directors, including Daniel Dienst, former chief executive of Martha Stewart Omnimedia, who MediaNews said it would install as Monster's CEO if its proposed slate of directors wins.

Monster's annual meeting has already been held, so MediaNews is launching a consent solicitation, meaning it needs to get the support of more than 50 percent of Monster's outstanding shareholders before it can proceed with a special vote for its seven nominees.

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MediaNews said in August that Monster should remain independent and boost its share price through cost cuts, the sale of assets and by adjusting its strategy.

Monster has called the MediaNews case against the Randstad offer "flawed and uninformed."

Last week, Randstad extended the deadline for its offer to Oct. 28.

"Randstad has full confidence in its proposed transaction to acquire Monster Worldwide, Inc," the company said on Friday. "We believe our terms deliver substantial and certain value for MWW shareholders."

(Reporting by Michael Flaherty; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Tom Brown)
Next year, Angelina Jolie becomes a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. She'll be teaching at the Centre for Women, Peace and Security, a program she helped create in 2015 that focuses in part on ending war zone rape, a cause close to her heart for more than five years.

But Jolie didn't get to this imposing, world-renowned institution at Clare Market and Houghton Street in central London on her own.

She's here in large part due to Baroness Arminka Helic, 48, a former Bosnian refugee whose desperate flight from her war-torn homeland and extraordinary rise to the loftiest heights of British politics - in 2014 she joined the House of Lords, a lifetime seat - make her the kind of woman Jolie might play in a movie.

In fact, Helic got to LSE first, as a 24-year-old with few funds fresh out of Bosnia who knocked on the door of an international history professor, told him her country "was falling apart" and begged to be allowed to study there.

Read more: Hollywood Flashback: Before Brangelina Split, Pitt and Jolie Played Killer Spouses in 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith'

Jolie co-founded the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative in 2012 with then-British Foreign Secretary William Hague but it was Helic - "Minky" to her friends - who connected the two after she persuaded Hague to watch Jolie's 2011 movie about the Bosnian war, In the Land of Blood and Honey.

Together with Chloe Dalton, another former Hague aide and the British-born daughter of a former ambassador, Helic and Jolie have traveled to conflict zones together as a highbrow, global girl squad.

Last year Jolie, who has often said she has rarely had women friends, formed the Jolie Pitt Dalton Helic foundation with the two, aimed at preventing violence against women and helping refugees.

Read more: Brangelina Split: Who Gets Custody of Couple's Miraval Rose?

But since the Jolie-Pitt divorce news broke last week, Helic, 48, who guards her privacy zealously and did not respond to requests for comment, has been described variously as Jolie's "mentor" and part of Jolie's new "coven" helping Angelina plot her divorce strategy from Brad Pitt.

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All of which makes her friends and associates - political leaders, policy experts and human rights lawyers from London to Belgrade to Sarajevo - by turns aghast and amused.

Helic's story is "more incredible than any Hollywood script," said Dan Hamilton, a member of the U.K.'s Conservative Party and a longtime political consultant. "If people only understood where she came from. This woman escaped a country where people were being shot at and their throats cut every day and women were gang raped for months - and eventually made it into Britain's House of Lords. So to see her singled out as if her claim to fame is helping Angelina Jolie through her divorce is almost funny in a sad way."

Read more: Brangelina Split: What Happens to the Jolie-Pitt Jewels Now?

The Bosnian war, which lasted from 1992 to 1995, was the bloodiest conflict on European soil since World War II. It involved the eruption of ancient, complex ethnic feuds between Bosnian Serbs, Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Croats after the fall of Yugoslavia in the 1980s. But because it was so hard for Westerners to grasp, the war was just as easy to forget - despite horrifying atrocities committed in a country just a 20-minute flight from Venice, Italy. It's estimated that 60,000 women were sexually assaulted and tortured in the so-called "rape camps" there.

Had Helic not fled the country at the start of the war, she might have been one of Bosnian Muslim women gang raped and deliberately impregnated by Serb guerrillas whose harrowing accounts broke hearts at the international war crimes tribunal at the Hague in 2000.

But Helic did escape and rose through the ranks as a British foreign policy advisor helping to end sexual violence in war zones around the world. Not only that, she has dinner with Angelina Jolie and her kids in London at restaurants like Quaglinos when they aren't helicoptering to sites like the genocide memorial in Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina where 8,000 Bosniak men were murdered in 1995.

Read more: Pitt v. Jolie: Comparing the Stars' Divorce Dream Teams

Until her friendship with Jolie, Helic was the most low-profile of a trio of Bosnian Muslim women who have made a splash abroad. Bosnian-born Aida Hadzialic, 29, was until recently Sweden's youngest-ever and first Muslim government minister. She moved to Sweden at age 5 with her family to escape the civil war in Bosnia.

Senela Diana Jenkins, 42, another Bosnian refugee with movie-star looks and an unstoppable drive, fled Sarajevo for London - also penniless and at the same time Helic did. She' s now worth millions.

"War was raging and I was escaping through barricades, walking, buses, whatever I could find," Jenkins, born Sanela Dijana Catic, said in 2009. "I made it to Croatia and then out. Every day it seemed I would hear my friend died, my uncle was dead, my cousin was dead." Her brother was shot dead eight days before the war ended in 1995.

In Jenkins' case, she barely spoke the language. But she began working odd jobs, set up her own jewelry stall, began studying computer science - and in 1999 married Roger Jenkins, a Barclays banker who - with her networking help - became one of the richest men in Britain.

Read more: Brad Pitt Cancels Red Carpet Appearance Citing "Family Situation"

They divorced in 2009, but he gave her almost half of his $500 million fortune, saying "Without her, I wouldn't have had the success I had." Jenkins courts publicity as much as Helic avoids it, and is a leading philanthropist and international human rights activist who now operates out of a $32 million cliffside estate in Malibu. She counts everyone from Mick Jagger and George Clooney to Elton John and Sean Penn among her friends.

She runs the Sanela Diana Jenkins Human Rights Project at the UCLA School of Law, which helps hunt down war criminals, as well as a Bosnia-based foundation formed in memory of her brother. She also teamed up with Penn after the Haitian earthquake and used $1 million of her money to charter a plane in with Penn and medical personnel.

Helic, Jenkins and Hadzialic's achievements abroad are a form of vindication for many Bosnian rape victims who returned to their villages after the war and were forced to see their former rapists strolling around town or sitting near them in a coffee shop.

But Helic, unlike the others, is despised by some current-day Serb politicians in Bosnia-Herzegovina who were once allied with Serb dictators like Slobodan Milosevic, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, all three of whom were arrested for war crimes for their roles in the "ethnic cleansing" and genocide of Muslims and Croats.

Read more: 'The Awards Pundits' on Brad and Angie, Paramount's Woes and the New York Film Festival

That a female Bosnian Muslim refugee was appointed by former British Prime Minister David Cameron and Queen Elizabeth to the House of Lords - traditionally a part of Parliament reserved for Britain's most accomplished, elite and aristocratic - and has been able to help shape British foreign policy has outraged Bosnia's hard-line old Serbs, experts say.

"They are furious," says Nermin Mulalic, a longtime Sarajevo lawyer who once worked for Bianca Jagger's Council for the Defense of Human Rights and has represented clients at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at the Hague. "They are trying to destroy her the way they tried to destroy women during the war. They cannot stand to have a Bosnian Muslim woman in such a position of power and influence."

Mulalic adds that these forces are trying to ruin Helic by painting her as the instigator of a worldwide conspiracy against Bosnian Serbs. "They see themselves as victims of her," he says. Indeed, fantastic stories about Helic have been circulated on Bosnian news blogs that have her single-handedly steering Britain away from support of Israel in favor of the Islamic world and especially Palestine.

Last week Milorad Dodik, the president of what is now called the Serb Republic of Srpska, the region where Helic grew up, who has been called the "new Slobodan Milosevic," appeared on local TV to denounce Helic.

Read more: Brad Pitt Lawyers Up for Angelina Jolie Divorce Fight (Exclusive)

Former Serbian politico Zoran Cicak, a onetime ally of the notorious Milosevic, the former president of Serbia and so-called "Butcher of the Balkans," described Helic to THR as somewhat of an opportunist. He said she leveraged her relationships with both British and American politicians to nudge Britain away from backing Israel in favor of the Islamic world.

"The rise of Arminka Helic in British politics is certainly the result of her exceptional intelligence, hard work, strong will and total absence of morals and scruples," Cicak said in an email from Belgrade. "I know from one of the people engaged by British agencies to profile her in 2013 that she did even did not use her female charm that much."

Because Helic has identified as a Bosnian Muslim, accusations about her being anti-Israel might be credible to those who don't understand that in the former Yugoslavia, Bosnian Muslims were much more of an ethnic group than a religious one. While sources close to Helic say she may well be sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians, it has more to do with her own past as a refugee; they point out that she has proclaimed herself pro-America and does not seem to have an anti-Israel agenda.

Helic was born in eastern Bosnia, one of five sisters, and got a degree in English literature at the University of Sarajevo in 1989, where she stood out for her punk-rock hairdo, a fellow student told BBC News in 2014.

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As Serbian paramilitaries started burning down villages and murdering Muslims, Helic and her family fled to Croatia. She and one of her sisters managed to flee to Britain because Helic knew someone there who could take them in.

Though she had planned to be a Shakespearean scholar, her arrival in London "was replaced by a passion for truth and survival - by my desire to see my family alive and my country safe," she wrote in a recent essay. "I would talk about the war to anyone who cared to listen, naively thinking that by telling the truth I could somehow help to stop the bloodshed."

Realizing she had to have a British education to be effective, Helic said she found her way to LSE, despite having no money for tuition and knocked on the door of David Stevenson, a professor of international history.

"I told him 'My name is Arminka Helic. I am from Bosnia-Herzegovina,'" she wrote. "'My country has been destroyed and no one believes me when I say how or by whom. I am told I need to be educated in the U.K. at a good university. Please could I study here?'"

Stevenson, who is still an LSE professor, helped arrange for Helic to study for her master's degree in international history (he declined comment when contacted by THR). Helic began working at a Haagen Dazs ice cream shop to help pay her way.

Helic graduated in 1996 and spoke about how much her time at LSE meant to her during her first speech at the House of Lords in 2014. Jolie watched from the gallery.

"Arminka is a woman of courage and integrity," she told the BBC in 2014. "She has extraordinary energy and will."

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Our ongoing love affair with FX's Atlanta hit a new high last week with the show's fifth episode, "Nobody Beats the Biebs." Actor Austin Crutefrom Atlanta originally, currently a student at NYUstole every scene he appeared in as "Black Justin Bieber," expertly skewering our willingness to forgive a white Canadian pop star for his bad behavior.

Crute's a musician himself, though he didn't have a hand in writing the song performed at the end of this week's episode. He did, however, share the story of how he ended up on the show, what it took to be Justin Bieber, and whether Atlanta is doing a good job of representing his hometown.

How did you land the role on Atlanta? What was the audition process like?

My then-agent sent me an audition for the show as he would any other audition. The sides got sent to my email and I recognized the name from whisperings of a Donald Glover show based on the city, so I was like, Oh yeah, Ive got to be on this. I was in NYC, so I went to tape my audition in the designated casting office. They had me sing for the audition, but looking back, I dont really know why. It was a pretty standard process.



Were you a Childish Gambino fan before the show?

I was and am an admirer. Im not going to sit here and lie and say I was out here with every album, bumping every song in my car on the way to school. But as far as artistic vision and execution is concerned, I can say Ive always admired him. Community had me in tears for months of my freshman year of college. And his music videos have always been so iconic. As a duo, he and Hiro are a problem. That "Oakland" video? That mug gave me chills. And I really hopped on the music wagon when the STN MTN/Kauai tape came out.

What was your reaction when you found out you were playing Justin Bieber?

I was in the middle of my Morality in Childhood class, and I get a call from my agent, so I stepped out as if I was going to the bathroom. After the pleasantries, he said, Pack your bags. Youre going to Atlanta. You got the gig. Bruh, when I tell you I teared up likethe happiness I felt in that moment was overwhelming. Its my first ever TV gig so I was elated. Then I had to go back into class and act like nothing had happened.

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What kind of direction did you get to act like Bieber?

So at first, Im here thinking that Ive really got to be good. Like, a pop star would. I learned choreography and everything for the press conference scene where Justin performs his apology song. But after seeing me dance on stage, Hiro literally runs up to me and goes, Youre almost too good. When you dance, we should almost think, Why is he a star again? And as for my line delivery, their direction to me was to basically be an obnoxious, childish brat. So, I turned up the ignorance and there it was.

Where did you record PLAY? What's your songwriting process like?

I recorded and produced most of the tape in my bedroom in Atlanta. The rest was in NYC. Usually when I start a record, I start with the beat or a sound from the synth library. One good synth can create a whole song for me. One sample can set the tone for the rest of the song. Sometimes I think of melodies or syllables or hooks apart from the beat, but rarely do I ever think of them without an idea of the accompaniment beneath them.

Then comes the writing. It depends on the song. Concept almost ALWAYS comes first for me. Then one of two kinds of songs are made: Vibe to Story or Story from Vibe. If I create a beat that gets my face is scrunched up like I smelt somethin heinous, and Im rocking with it, I get so overwhelmed with inspiration that I just have to get it out. So Ill set up the mic in front of the workstation (I rarely ever go in booths) and just go from the brain. Ill record one line. Then another. Then another. Until before I know it, I have a full verse and/or chorus. I catch the vibe, then it just so happens to become a story or a full song.

Then theres Story to Vibe. For songs like M I A, its harder to do the quick-record thing because much more metaphorical thought goes into the story telling. In this case, Ill take the story that I want to tell and funnel it into the context of the vibe. In both processes, though, the vibe and the story become married in a beautiful way, and thats my favorite part about songwriting. Melodies and lyrics together are so magical man.

How did the "Justice" song come about? Were you involved in the songwriting with Donald?

Okay so the line originally was something like thats why I wanna sing this song or something. Then at the end of one of the takes, Hiro runs up to me and says say its from your upcoming album Justice. And as for the song, I didnt help with that at all. They sent it to me to learn, so I was over here thinking I was gonna have to sing it on stage. But the gag is lil nigga just lip-synced to the track. Hilarious. It was stuck in my head for days after that.

Do you think Atlanta is doing a good job of representing Atlanta, the city?

Oh yes. The accuracy is so spot on. Even to how the white people are with the low key racist remarks. I didnt truly realize how racism-laced the vocabulary in suburban Atlanta was until I came to NYC. Its so funny. The white dude in the pilot who said nigga because he thought he and Earn were cool like that? Then switched it up around other people? I was rolling. They represent Atlanta and its respective conversation so well, especially within the broader context of America as whole. They have the dopest writing team, and I feel so honored to be a part of this. #ATLHOE

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microsoft research dave molnar

Bringing a scientist to important customer meetings is nothing new for Microsoft.

The idea is that Microsoft Research's biggest brains get the chance to give a short lecture with no point other than to reassure the would-be buyer that "the future is in good hands," says Microsoft Research Chief Product Officer Vikram Dendi. The researcher would give their spiel and turn the floor back over to the salespeople.

"I used to go to those meetings and just be a talking head," says David Molnar, who's been with Microsoft Research since 2009. It was "nice," he says, but pretty one-sided.

Molnar says "used to," because there's been a huge shift at Microsoft Research under CEO Satya Nadella. Since its founding in 1991, Microsoft Research was more of an academic organization than anything: The mandate was to expand human knowledge, not to build products.

Nadella's big idea was that Microsoft Research's cutting-edge science should be more broadly applied to the core of Microsoft's products. A new group, Microsoft Research NExT, was brought into the world in early 2015 to fast-track their research into products like Windows Hello facial recognition and Skype Translator.

Microsoft Research scientists are still being invited to customer meetings. But where before, it was a very one-sided thing, Molnar and the rest of Microsoft Research are actually talking to those customers and figuring out how they can work together, Dendi says.

SAGE wisdom

Now, Molnar is the head of Project Springfield  a new "fuzz-testing" product, announced at this week's Microsoft Ignite event in Atlanta, that helps automatically scan software for security flaws and point them out to programmers.

It's based on a tool Molnar worked on called SAGE, which Microsoft used internally to test Windows 7 and later products.

About three years ago, Molnar realized that SAGE was so good, he thought Microsoft could juice it up with some artificial intelligence features and host it in the Microsoft Azure cloud, so that Microsoft customers could use it, too.

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Fun aside: Fuzz-testing is so called because it literally fuzzes up a program with random words and inputs, basically finding errors by pure trial and error at massive scales. The thing that makes SAGE, and thus Project Springfield, so special is that it uses artificial intelligence to apply a little less randomness and a little more science to those guesses.

That concept was the beginning of Project Springfield. But Molnar was with the core Microsoft Research group, which is focused on academic science. And Project Springfield was intended to be something that people would actually use. To bring it to fruition, Molnar knew he had to take a "leap of faith" and take his next steps with NExT.

Vikram Dendi Microsoft Research Chief Product Officer

Under NExT, research scientists bring their ideas in front of a "launch team," which basically acts like a pitch session at a venture capital firm. In fact, the whole system is designed to think startup-like thinking in researchers, Dendi explains.

Norm Whitaker, the head of Microsoft Research NExT's Special Projects team  and the mastermind behind Microsoft's insane plan to build data centers underwater  helped Molnar take his academic research and "shore it up" into something more like a business proposal, with a clear outline of what purpose Project Springfield would fulfill, and who would use it.

"It's so much more complicated than writing a research paper," Molnar says.

Molnar, who got his PhD from UC Berkeley, still says that he was "nervous" to be in front of that panel, which included Dendi, NExT head Dr. Peter Lee, and the "portfolio managers" who ultimately get assigned to take a project to fruition.

Now, Project Springfield is on its way to becoming a real service for real customers, with Molnar leading the team and Whitaker advising, leaving the lab and actually helping programmers and big businesses in a material way.

Success story

Springfield is a success story for Microsoft's ability to build products, but it's also a big victory for Microsoft Research's new philosophy around getting products out, explains Dendi.

Ultimately, Dendi says, it's all about empowering researchers to have a bigger impact. They got into science and research in the first place to do things that could change the world. No Microsoft researcher is forced to join up with NExT, but it gives more entrepreneurial spirits like Molnar a big opportunity, if and when they see an immediate real-world application of their work.

microsoft research peter lee

"They're getting excited about something they can put into customers' hands," Dendi says.

In fact, this week also saw the formation of Microsoft's new AI and Research Group, which takes Microsoft Research, Microsoft Research NExT, and the Bing and Cortana product groups, and puts them all under the leadership of veteran exec Harry Shum. There, too, the idea is to bring science and product closer together.

NOW WATCH: The worlds largest pyramid is not in Egypt





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By Sanjeev Miglani NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Beyond Thursday's raid by Indian special forces into Pakistan's side of divided Kashmir, New Delhi is considering new economic and diplomatic measures to bring pressure to bear on its neighbor, Indian officials said. In a rare public acknowledgement, Indian officials said teams of elite troops crossed the de facto border dividing the nuclear-armed rivals in the Himalayan state, killing several militants it believed were planning to attack major cities. The raids were a direct response to an attack earlier this month on an army base in Kashmir that India blamed on Pakistan-based militants. Pakistan denied India had conducted raids on territory it administers and said it was not involved in stoking trouble in Indian-controlled Kashmir. It has demanded New Delhi produce credible evidence to back its claims. Some Indian officials said the military was not planning further attacks or a major military offensive against Pakistan. But they said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government was debating whether to use New Delhi's rising economic and diplomatic weight to squeeze Pakistan, a country one-fifth its size and with an economy seven times smaller. "The objective is not just to go across the border and kill 10-12 people," said an Indian security official involved in the daily consultations since the Sept. 18 attack on an army base in the border town of Uri in which 18 Indian soldiers were killed. "The objective is to bring about a change in Pakistani behavior, and for that you need to move on multiple levels. "The strategy will involve all instruments of national power. Military is only one of the options," added the official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. Options under consideration include choking trade with Pakistan that takes place through third countries such as the United Arab Emirates, officials said, even though it is limited and in India's favor. New Delhi is also considering building dams on rivers running into Pakistan and intensifying diplomatic pressure, hoping that it can show other countries how militants based in Pakistan impact the rest of the world, the officials added. According to one of them, India could try to dissuade international companies from conducting business in Pakistan. ON THE OFFENSIVE The steps being considered signal a far more assertive posture by India under Modi's nationalist administration than the previous government, but it risks further escalating tensions between the countries. Recent Indian governments have held off launching military strikes, including when gunmen from Pakistan mounted a three-day assault on Mumbai in 2008, for fear it could invite retaliation from Pakistan that could escalate into a nuclear conflict in the worst-case scenario. One Indian security official described the new Indian approach as moving from a "defensive posture to defensive offense", under which India works on the vulnerabilities of Pakistan - its economy, internal security and international image as an unstable nation, home to militant Islamist groups. "Pakistan's vulnerability is many times higher than that of India," the official said. Hours after Thursday's raid, one Indian government official said New Delhi would review its economic relationship, including trade flows, with Pakistan. But he downplayed the possibility of India taking measures such as blocking travel between the two countries, saying the reality of policy-making was much more sober. BLOCKING TRADE Official trade between India and Pakistan was a modest $2.6 billion in 2014, but informal trade is estimated to be closer to $5 billion, with jewelry, textiles and machinery exported from India through third-country ports such as Dubai. India's informal imports from Pakistan through the same channels consist of textiles, dry fruits, spices and cement. Indian security planners said a crackdown on such trade, in which some former members of Pakistan's powerful military are believed to be active, would help increase the pressure. The head of Pakistan's Board of Investment, Miftah Ismail, said sanctions had usually not worked elsewhere in the world. He said there was little trade between the two countries, and since much of it was in India's favor, any restrictions would affect India more than Pakistan. "If India does (go ahead with economic sanctions), Pakistan will somehow react, and we will further impoverish the people in both countries," said Ismail, who is also a special assistant to the Pakistan prime minister. "I don't see anything good coming out of this." (Additional reporting by Manoj Kumar and Tommy Wilkes in NEW DELHI, Drazen Jorgic in ISLAMABAD; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
By Linda Thrasybule (Reuters Health) - Uninsured, immigrant and minority communities in the United States may not be as aware of skin cancer as they should be, a recent study suggests. At a medical clinic in southern Florida, researchers surveyed members of these communities and found that nearly 25 percent had never heard of skin cancer, or melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, and almost 21 percent believed - incorrectly - that dark skinned people were immune to the disease. The findings confirm that minority patients dont understand the risk and that theyre misinformed, said Dr. Elizabeth Quigley, a dermatologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who was not involved with the study. The risk of skin cancer is certainly much higher for whites than for people of color. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, out of every 100,000 people in the U.S. in 2013, about 30 white people developed skin cancer, compared to about 5 Hispanics and roughly 1 or 2 blacks and Asians. But while people with lighter complexions are more prone to skin cancer, the American Academy of Dermatology warns that when its diagnosed in patients with skin of color, it tends to be more advanced. They dont know that they have it, so they arent checking for it, said Quigley. Whats missing are skin cancer education programs geared for people who dont speak English or who are illiterate, said lead author Dr. John Strasswimmer, a dermatologist who works at the Caridad Center in Boynton Beach, Florida and teaches at the University of Miami. Any of the brochures we have in our dermatology offices, or skin cancer information we give out to patients, is written for people who tend to be lighter skinned and more educated, Strasswimmer told Reuters Health by phone. Strasswimmer and colleagues collected surveys in 2015 and 2016 from 206 participants. Most were women, on average in their 40s, and largely from Central America, Mexico, South America and the Caribbean. Most had not gone to college. About 16 percent had ever asked a doctor about a suspicious spot on their skin, and almost 60 percent rarely or never checked their skin for spots, according to the findings published in JAMA Dermatology. About 75 percent of respondents fell into the low or inconsistent category for sun safe behaviors such as wearing a hat or long sleeves, or using sunscreen. Increased sunscreen use correlated with higher education. Most common reasons for not protecting the skin included its too hot, its inconvenient, and I dont have sunscreen, hat and/or long-sleeved shirt. There was no connection between participants skin color and their knowledge of skin cancer. Nearly 90 percent of adults expressed a strong desire to learn more about skin cancer, however, which Strasswimmer finds encouraging. Even though theres a lack of awareness, theres a thirst for knowledge, he said. Another study published in the same issue of the journal, found similar results among American Indian adults in rural New Mexico. Mary Logue and colleagues at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque asked 429 American Indian and non-Hispanic white adults how often they wore sunscreen or practiced other sun-safe behaviors. American Indian respondents were less likely to practice sun safe behaviors than their white counterparts. Although (skin cancer is) less common in American Indians, it can be deadly for them too, said Strasswimmer. Thats why education outreach is so important. Quigley pointed out that the research is helping to define an unmet need. Everyone is at risk for skin cancer, she said. Its important that people check their skin once a month for new or changing spots on the skin. SOURCES: http://bit.ly/2cGmt4d and http://bit.ly/2cQQInG JAMA Dermatology, online September 14, 2016.
From Good Housekeeping

"Good-natured," "people-oriented" and "gentle" - that's how the American Kennel Club describes American Staffordshire Terriers and Staffordshire Bull Terriers, two dog breeds commonly called pit bulls. Along with American Pit Bull Terriers and other "bully breeds," these misunderstood dogs are banned in Miami, Denver, Ontario and most recently Montreal.

The latest legislation came after a dog attacked and killed a woman in the Canadian city, although that dog was registered as a boxer, not a pit bull. Now, pit bulls or even dogs that look like them must be muzzled and kept on short leases while out in public. Owners will also have to shell out $115 U.S. for a special permit. More importantly, it'll be illegal to adopt or acquire any new pit bulls, putting lots of shelter dogs at risk of death.

Photo credit: Getty

Montreal's ban, an example of breed-specific legislation (BSL), stems from common biases and misperceptions about pit bulls. Most experts condemn these ineffective laws, including the American Bar Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior and even the White House, just to name a few. Why? Besides victimizing innocent dogs, BSL doesn't keep people safe.

Places that have passed BSL have actually seen an increase in dog bites, likely because residents assume other breeds won't bite and therefore behave irresponsibly. The statutes are also vague, especially when it comes to mixed breeds, and enforcement wastes time and money. "If anything, they jeopardize [public safety] because they divert animal control resources away from truly dangerous individual dogs and use it to round up dogs who haven't harmed anyone," says Bronwen Dickey, author of Pit Bull: The Battle Over an American Icon.

In response to the new legislation, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Montreal announced they would stop their services. They're refusing to follow the rules because one-third of the 2,000 dogs they take in every year would be subject to euthanasia. The good news? While they're working to defeat the measure, SPCA Montreal has seen more people coming to its shelters. The visitors want to give the rescued pit bulls a home - before it's too late.

Story continues

Photo credit: Getty

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Beirut (AFP) - More than 3,800 civilians have been killed in one year of Russian air strikes in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad, a monitoring group said Friday as international outcry mounted.

Assad's regime and its key backer Russia are under growing pressure from world governments to halt a new offensive pounding rebel-held areas of the battleground city of Aleppo.

More than 9,300 people have been killed in the Russian raids since September 30, 2015, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The toll includes more than 2,700 jihadists from the Islamic State group and around 2,800 fighters from various rebel factions, the British-based monitor said.

At least 20,000 civilians have been wounded in the Russian raids, it said.

The Observatory -- which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information -- says it determines what planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said the death toll from Russian strikes could be even higher given the number of people killed by unidentified warplanes.

Moscow said on Thursday that it would press on with its bombing campaign in Syria, ignoring a threat by Washington to suspend its engagement over the conflict following escalating attacks on rebel-held parts of Aleppo.

Regime and Russian aircraft have carried out a barrage of strikes on east Aleppo since the Syrian government announced an offensive last week to retake all of the divided city.

- Merciless abyss -

The bombardment has been some of the worst in Syria's five-year civil war, and follows the failure of a short-lived ceasefire brokered by Russia and the United States.

Moscow and Washington have traded blame for last week's collapse of the ceasefire deal that would have marked the first step in a new effort to end the war that has killed 300,000 people since 2011.

US Secretary of State John Kerry admitted Thursday that months of diplomacy to end the war had hit a dead-end.

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"I think we are on the verge of suspending the discussion because, you know, it's irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place, to be sitting there, trying to take things seriously," he said.

US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned what they called "barbarous" Russian and Syrian regime air strikes on Aleppo during a phone call, the White House said.

UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien told the Security Council in New York that Aleppo is descending into a "merciless abyss of a humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed so far in Syria."

More than 100,000 children remain trapped in east Aleppo, he said.

Two of the largest hospitals in the city's east were bombed on Wednesday in what UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described as a war crime.

Save the Children said that bunker-busting bombs meant it was too dangerous for children to return to even underground schools in Aleppo when classes resume this weekend.

The "ferocious assault" on Aleppo could deprive almost 100,000 school-age children of an education, said the charity, which supports 13 schools in the city, eight of them underground.
As all rise for Judge Robert Heffron Jr. for the mental health court of Prince George's County, there's little resemblance to a hospital unit or outpatient clinic with white-coated doctors. The judge in his black robe takes the bench, seated directly in front of the Great Seal of Maryland and the state and U.S. flags. The Tuesday morning docket lists defendants and case numbers, not patients and diagnoses. The few people who show up in scrubs, in a blazing shade of orange, are defendants transported from jail. Most of the defendants arrive in street clothes.

However, as the session moves forward, exchanges among court personnel sound a lot like discussions between health care providers and patients. Are defendants complying with treatments and taking medications as ordered, and if not, why? Issues doctors hear about all the time -- like prescription drug side effects that make people feel drowsy, lethargic and unlike themselves -- also arise in this courtroom.

[See: How Social Workers Help Your Health.]

Still, it's clear this isn't a mental health clinic, but a court of law. One case involves a woman who's having compliance issues with her psychiatric drugs, which she says cause numerous side effects. The problem, however, is that she randomly assaults people on the street when she's off her medication.

Medication does nothing for her, she insists, noting that she functions well, including showing up in court, without it. At one point she challenges the judge: "Are you a psychiatrist? Do you understand what I'm saying?"

At another point, Heffron says, "You can choose not to take your medication. And I can choose not to allow you into the community." Eventually, Jhana Bogan, a private attorney paneled through the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, asks the judge for a moment to quietly confer with her client.

After their conversation, Bogan summarizes for the court: She's explained to the defendant that she has the right not to take her medication. She has encouraged the client -- and the client has agreed -- to speak to her doctor about the medication and side effects at an upcoming appointment. "That sounds like a good plan," the judge says. "We'll take it from there."

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As with health care, a multidisciplinary team approach is used in court. The psychologist who works with the court conducts competency evaluations, submits opinions and occasionally testifies, explains Marilyn Bailey, coordinator for mental health and drug courts in the county's fifth district. A clinical social worker serves as a consultant on clinical issues.

Mental health courts are one type of problem-solving court, along with drug court, DUI court and veterans court. About 350 mental health courts exist in the U.S., according to Linda Rosenberg, president of the National Council for Behavioral Health, speaking to journalists at a National Press Foundation conference on mental health in September.

Mental health courts put the power of courts to good use, says Rosenberg, who in her previous role as senior deputy commissioner of the New York State Office of Mental Health, set up one of the early such courts in New York City. She says they can prevent people with mental health issues who commit small transgressions -- like trespassing and showing up on strangers' sofas or in their yards -- from being jailed.

Major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder are common diagnoses in these defendants (all adults) and are sometimes accompanied by substance use disorders. Some defendants with traumatic brain injuries or developmental disabilities are eligible as well.

[See: 7 Health Risks of Binge Drinking You Can't Ignore.]

Participation in mental health court is voluntary. After being referred following an arrest, those who are eligible, competent and interested sign an agreement and are assigned a case manager. Most receive pretrial releases from jail with conditions set by the program team. An individualized treatment plan is combined with ongoing monitoring by the court.

Reducing contact with the criminal justice system for participants with mental illness is a major program goal. Addressing underlying problems that can lead to criminal behavior and lowering the rate of recidivism are big-picture program aims.

While requirements vary, programs include mental health treatments, periodic status hearings and weekly check-in calls with a case manager, possibly along with drug testing or job training, depending on each participant.

Not every patient with mental illness is suitable for this pathway. "We don't do sociopaths or oppositional personality disorder," says Judge Patrice Lewis, the coordinating judge at the mental health court in Prince George's County. Launched in 2007, the court was in session monthly at first, then weekly, with cases now being heard Tuesdays and Thursdays, mornings and afternoons. The community need is there.

With the potential to improve defendants' lives, Lewis says, "It's the most rewarding work I've ever done." The goal, she explains, is to decriminalize mental illness. "I can't incarcerate you out of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia," she says.

Heffron says mental health court is a judicial approach "that really, really works," although it's not an overnight or magic solution. Sticking to routine and consistency is important for these defendants, as is patience. "Accommodations need to be made," he says.

Attorneys, naturally adversarial, are more collaborative in this particular setting, Heffron says. It's more about moving people forward than winning cases. The low-key atmosphere gives defendants who are feeling shaky a place to de-escalate, Lewis says: "Now we're in a safe space."

Another case on the morning docket involves a young man who's completed a drug-treatment program. "He's just doing it," Bogan says. "I'm proud of him." The judge congratulates him, adding, "Keep up the good work, and we'll be out of your life before you know it."

Two separate cases involve women for whom a court has issued bench warrants. One turned herself in within hours, while the other was picked up many months after failing to appear in court. With some back-and-forth between Bogan and Assistant State's Attorney Mary Grace Waldron, negotiations are made to facilitate medication discussions with doctors and clarify housing and other family and social issues. Second chances are offered.

[See: How to Help Aging Parents Manage Medications.]

An encouraging hearing goes smoothly and quickly for a young woman who's recognized for successfully completing the mental health court program (unofficially referred to as "graduating"). "Congratulations -- we knew you were a heavy lifter," the judge concludes. "We have a small exit interview, and then you're good to go."

Lisa Esposito is a Patient Advice reporter at U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter, connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at lesposito@usnews.com.
Rabat (AFP) - As campaigning heats up ahead of next week's parliamentary elections in Morocco, Nabila Mounib wants to offer voters an alternative to ruling Islamists and the liberal opposition.

The country's only female party leader, Mounib heads up a leftist coalition that calls for a constitutional monarchy and genuine political reform.

The North African kingdom has long been considered among the most liberal nations in the Arab world.

But its parliament has limited legislative clout, even after King Mohamed VI agreed to a new constitution curbing his near-absolute power in 2011 following region-wide popular revolts.

The Federation of the Democratic Left (FGD) is campaigning for the October 7 poll under the slogan: "With us, another Morocco is possible".

In an interview with AFP, Mounib said her movement offers a "third way" between the ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) and the liberal opposition Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM).

"Those two parties don't respond to the aspirations of Moroccans to establish a real democracy," she said.

"We position ourselves between them, and propose the way of genuine political reform via a separation of powers."

Over the last few months, the 56-year-old academic has carved out a prominent space in Moroccan politics with her outspoken criticism of other political parties and the royal palace itself.

She dismissed what she believes is a false dichotomy between conservatives and modernists.

"The party that calls itself conservative (the PJD) has shown that in economic terms it is a follower of neoliberalism with all its harmful effects," she said.

"Meanwhile the other side, abusively called modernist, has never talked of modernity."

- Left in disarray -

The FGD is a coalition of three leftist groups including Mounib's Unified Socialist Party (PSU).

It comes from a long tradition of leftist parties which were harshly repressed during the reign of King Hassan II.

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King Mohamed VI, who succeeded his father in 1999, took a more lenient stance. But the left has been in disarray for a decade.

"The program of the left is obsolete and has not reinvented itself since the 1980s," said Abdellah Tourabi, a Moroccan columnist and political scientist.

He said leftists in Morocco are intellectually and ideologically stuck in the past, opening the door for more conservative, Islamist parties.

"The left can no longer seduce its historical base, namely the urban middle classes," Tourabi said.

"Another force has taken its place today -- the PJD. It wins the most seats in the major cities, where the left used to triumph."

That is a dynamic Mounib hopes to tackle. She was a prominent supporter of Morocco's Arab Spring-inspired February 20 Movement, calling for a parliamentary monarchy.

Mounib says the 2011 constitution did not go far enough -- but that has not entirely alienated her from the palace.

In late 2015, the King sent her on a delicate diplomatic mission to persuade Sweden not to recognise Western Sahara, controlled by Morocco, as an independent country.

The trip was a success, in part thanks to her leftist connections.

- Disillusioned -

Mounib's political ambitions received a boost in mid-September when a local newspaper published an open letter signed by a hundred figures from academia, the arts and civil society, calling on her to turn the FGD into a force for change.

The letter criticised those "who say that reform is possible but continue to work with the corrupt" and "those who call themselves progressives but condone authoritarianism under the cover of fighting religious fundamentalism."

Those words could hit home among Moroccans who are disillusioned with politics. Turnout was just 45 percent at the last poll in 2011, which Mounib's party boycotted.

This time round, with 30 parties competing, the FGD is hoping to end the radical left's long exile and win more than 300,000 votes nationally.

"The echoes are favourable and the surge of sympathy is indisputable," said Omar Balafrej, another figure of the FGD, whose candidates have pledged to pass up on their parliamentary salaries if elected.

In April, Mounib made waves by polling third on a list of politicians most likely to head the next government.

"She has a certain freedom of tone," said TelQuel, the magazine that ran the poll.

"It's more her personality than her programme that seems to raise interest."
Moscow (AFP) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday accused the United States of protecting a jihadist group in Syria in its effort to overthrow the beleaguered regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

In an interview aired Friday on BBC World News, Lavrov said Washington had vowed to "take as a priority an obligation to separate the opposition" from the former Al-Qaeda affiliate once known as Al-Nusra Front, but that it had not done so.

"We have more and more reasons to believe that from the very beginning the plan was to spare Nusra and to keep it just in case for Plan B or stage two, when it would be time to change the regime," Lavrov said.

Moscow has repeatedly accused the US of failing on its commitment to persuade rebel forces to distance themselves from jihadist groups such as Al-Nusra, which changed its name to Fateh al-Sham Front in July after renouncing its ties to Al-Qaeda.

A short-lived truce brokered by Moscow and Washington earlier this month could have led the two countries to coordinate strikes against jihadists, but the deal fell apart as both sides blamed each other for its failure.

Moscow has been accused of indiscriminately bombing Aleppo's opposition-controlled east as it helps an assault currently being conducted by Syrian government troops to capture all of the country's second city.

The United Nations has warned that a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Aleppo unlike any witnessed so far in Syria's five-year war, which has claimed more than 300,000 lives.

Russia has said it would continue its Syrian bombing campaign in spite of US warnings that Washington would suspend talks unless Moscow stopped its assault on Aleppo.

In a phone call with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday, Lavrov stressed Moscow's "readiness to continue to consider additional possibilities" to work with the United States on normalising the situation in Aleppo, Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.

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Lavrov also stressed Russia "remains open for dialogue with the United States on all key issues" regarding Syria, the statement said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday that more than 9,300 people -- including some 3,800 civilians -- had been killed in a year of Russian air strikes in Syria in support of Assad.

Moscow quickly dismissed the claim, insisting its bombing campaign had prevented jihadists from taking over in the war-torn country.
By Dan Whitcomb SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The mother of an unarmed black man shot to death in Southern California said on Thursday her son was having a mental breakdown when he was confronted by police and they should have helped him instead of quickly opening fire. Within two minutes of police arriving, Alfred Olango, 38, was shot to death in the San Diego suburb of El Cajon on Tuesday after he pointed an object that turned out to be an electronic cigarette at police, authorities said. The shooting has sparked protests and calls from activists for a federal investigation. About 200 protesters gathered on Thursday night near the scene of the shooting, blocking traffic and throwing bottles and rocks at passing vehicles. Police in riot gear tried to contain the demonstration, arresting several protesters. It was the latest in a string of shootings of mostly unarmed black men by white police officers in the United States that have led to sometimes violent protests. "Mental breakdown is not easy to confront. He needed someone who could ... calm him down and then take care of the situation. Thats all the (911) call was called for, not to come and just finish his life," Olango's mother, Pamela Benge, said in tears at a news conference in San Diego. Olango was distraught because his best friend had recently died, she said. Attorneys for Olango's family criticized authorities for releasing the image of Olango pointing the object at an officer, saying it gives an unfair impression of the former Ugandan refugee, and called for the public release of the full video taken by a bystander. El Cajon officer Richard Gonsalves and a colleague on the police force, whose name was not released, were responding to emergency calls about a "mentally unstable" man walking in traffic, officials said. Police have said the two officers encountered him at a strip mall and Gonsalves opened fire within two minutes of arriving at the scene. Attorneys for Olango's family said it was closer to a minute. Dan Gilleon, an attorney for Olango's family, has accused the officers of escalating the situation. He said in a phone interview they should have taken cover and talked to Olango from a distance to defuse any tension. "We all go through bad days. I don't know that someone of my skin color would end up dead because they're having a bad day," Gilleon, who is white, said at the news conference. Police have said Olango ignored commands to take his hand out of his pocket before pulling out an object later determined to be an electronic cigarette, a vaping device used to inhale nicotine. Olango assumed a "shooting stance" and pointed the object, which had a 3-inch-long (8-cm) cylinder, police said. No gun was ever found. Gonsalves opened fire and the other officer discharged a Taser device, police said. Police have not said how many shots were fired. A family spokesman said Olango was shot five times. The officers have been placed on administrative leave as El Cajon police and the San Diego County District Attorney's Office investigate. The full video of the incident has not been released, under an agreement between District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and law enforcement that mandates that any such video be released after the conclusion of her office's review of a police shooting. "The image was released by El Cajon PD to stop some of the inaccurate narratives forming about the incident, such as the subject of the shooting had his shirt off and his hands up when he was shot," Tanya Sierra, a spokeswoman for the district attorney, said in an email. Gilleon also cited Gonsalves's history. He was accused of sexual harassment by fellow officer Christine Greer in 2015 in a case later settled, according to court records. The lawsuit said he sent her a text message of a picture of his penis. Gilleon represents Greer in another lawsuit filed in August accusing Gonsalves and El Cajon officials of retaliation against the female officer. An attorney for Gonsalves in the civil litigation did not return calls. Olango, who attended high school in San Diego, recently moved back home from Arizona to be closer to his teenage daughter and was living with family and working at a furniture company, Gilleon said. The news conference on Thursday was attended by several of Olango's family members, including his teenage daughter who cried through most of it. (Additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York, Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle,; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Lisa Shumaker)
By Dan Whitcomb and Patrick Fallon SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The mother of an unarmed black man shot dead in Southern California this week said on Thursday her son was having a mental breakdown when he was confronted by police and they should have helped him instead of quickly opening fire. Within two minutes of police officers arriving, they had shot Alfred Olango, 38, after he pointed an object at them that turned out to be an electronic cigarette, authorities said. The shooting in the San Diego suburb of El Cajon has sparked protests and calls from activists for a federal investigation. About 75 protesters gathered late on Thursday near the scene of the shooting and threw rocks and bottles, stopped vehicles and broke car windows. They also knocked a motorcyclist off his bike and assaulted him, the El Cajon Police Department said. Police used pepper spray to disperse the crowd and arrested two men for unlawful assembly, the police statement said. It was the latest in a string of shootings of mostly unarmed black men by police officers in the United States that have led to sometimes violent protests. "Mental breakdown is not easy to confront. He needed someone who could ... calm him down and then take care of the situation. Thats all the (911) call was called for, not to come and just finish his life," Olango's mother, Pamela Benge, said through tears at a news conference in San Diego. Olango was distraught because his best friend had recently died, she said. Attorneys for Olango's family criticized authorities for releasing the image of Olango pointing the object at an officer, saying it gave an unfair impression of the former Ugandan refugee, and called for the public release of the full video taken by a bystander. "The image was released by El Cajon PD to stop some of the inaccurate narratives forming about the incident, such as the subject of the shooting had his shirt off and his hands up when he was shot," Tanya Sierra, a spokeswoman for the district attorney (DA), said in an email. At the earliest, the full video of the incident would not be released until after the DA's review, authorities said. El Cajon officer Richard Gonsalves and a colleague on the police force, whose name was not released, were responding to emergency calls about a "mentally unstable" man walking in traffic, officials said. Police have said the two officers encountered him at a strip mall and Gonsalves opened fire within two minutes of arriving at the scene. Attorneys for Olango's family said it was closer to a minute. Dan Gilleon, an attorney for Olango's family, has accused the officers of escalating the situation. He said in a phone interview they should have taken cover and talked to Olango from a distance to defuse any tension. "We all go through bad days. I don't know that someone of my skin color would end up dead because they're having a bad day," Gilleon, who is white, said at the news conference. Police have said Olango ignored commands to take his hand out of his pocket before pulling out an object later determined to be a vaping device used to inhale nicotine. Olango assumed a "shooting stance" and pointed the object, which had a 3-inch-long (8-cm) cylinder, police said. No gun was found. Gonsalves opened fire and the other officer discharged a Taser device, police said. Police have not said how many shots were fired. A family spokesman said Olango was shot five times. The officers have been placed on administrative leave as El Cajon police and the San Diego County District Attorney's Office investigate. Gilleon also cited Gonsalves's history. He was accused of sexual harassment by fellow officer Christine Greer in 2015, according to court records, over allegations that he sent her a text message photograph of his penis. Gilleon is also representing Greer in a lawsuit filed in August accusing Gonsalves and El Cajon officials of retaliation against her. An attorney for Gonsalves in the civil litigation did not return calls. Olango had recently moved back home from Arizona to be closer to his teenage daughter and was living with family and working at a furniture company, Gilleon said. Thursday's news conference was attended by several of Olango's family members, including his teenage daughter who cried through most of it. (Additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York, Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Louise Ireland)
























































































TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our livesIf we remember those times and placeswhere people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we dont have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

--Howard Zinn



I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him.

--Martin Luther King Jr.

True religion consisted in an inward life, wherein the heart does love and reverence God the Creator, and learns to exercise true justice and goodness...I found no narrowness respecting sects and opinions, but believed that sincere, upright-hearted people, in every society, who truly love God, were accepted of him.

--John Woolman



Love each other as I have loved you.. I call you friends because I have made known to you everything I heard from my Father.

--Jesus in John 15: 12-15



...Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.



You have answered right, said Jesus, do this and life is yours...



Who is my neighbor?



Jesus replied with the Parable of the Good Samaritan [heretic, outsider, enemy].

--from Luke 10:27-37

Religion has been emphatically embodied, not in speculative theories, but in practical righteousness, in active virtues, in reverence to God, in benevolence to man- the latter being the only sure test of the former.

--Thomas M'Clintock



...It is safer to approach God through the Holy Spirit than through the door of theology. We can identify the Holy Spirit whenever it makes its presence felt. Whenever we see someone who is loving, compassionate, mindful, caring, and understanding, we know that the Holy Spirit is there.

--Thich Nhat Hanh


(Fixes byline, no change to copy) By Abhishek Takle SEPANG, Malaysia, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Fernando Alonso was encouraged after trying out an updated Honda engine in his McLaren, even if running it in Friday's practice sessions means he will be forced to start Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix from the back. The Spaniard carries a 30-place grid penalty into Saturday's qualifying session as the new power unit fitted to his car pushes his use of engine-related components further beyond his permitted allocation. But Alonso enjoyed a strong day testing the new powerplant, which he will not be using on Saturday or in the race, setting the fifth and seventh fastest times in Friday's two sessions. "Today was a good day," said the double world champion, who completed a total of 45 trouble-free laps of the Sepang circuit. "We managed to complete a good number of laps and do all the tests we had planned for today, including some parts already for next years car, so it was a very good day in that way." Honda have made steady progress after a difficult renewal of their once dominant partnership with McLaren last season. The upgrade Alonso tested in Malaysia, featuring a lighter engine block and a redesigned exhaust, was the latest in a series of enhancements they have been making to the engine over the course of the year. Alonso plans to run just one lap in qualifying quick enough to secure him a spot on the 22-car grid. But he is planning to drive an attacking race from the back and is hopeful of handing McLaren a double points finish together with Jenson Button, who will start his 300th grand prix, especially if Sepang's notoriously fickle weather comes into play. "Qualifying will be very short for me - I'll do just one timed lap, to get within 107 per cent of the pole time and then I'll watch the rest of the action on TV," he said. "Then I'll save as many new tyres as possible for the race to attack from start to finish. "We are expecting rain, I don't know if it will come for qualifying or for the race, but whenever it comes it will help us." (Editing by Ed Osmond)
Welcome to Mr. Oizo's pool party. It is a very splendid and stupid affair. The dark gentleman over there smoking hot dogs is Boys Noize. That's Peaches swimming through the Jell-O mold. Don't mind Tetanos and Mocky's violent game of rock-paper-scissor, it is a perfectly friendly bit of sport. Skrillex will show you the way to the bathroom, right through the chandelier, past the gaping void. Be sure to shake hands with Siriusmo but do use your left foot only, and please respect Phra's wishes not to use English today.

That's what All Wet sounds like, an 11-track exploration of all things weird and funky from Mr. Oizo, aka Quentin Dupieux, and some of his queerest friends. The album, which sees official release on Ed Banger Friday, Sept. 30, is an exciting change for the autonomous producer who, up until this point, has done almost everything on his very own.

"It just felt right to invite some guests," the Frenchman says. "I feel like it's not only my record. I'm suddenly sharing this weird music with some other people, which is really cool. I feel less isolated."

Mr. Oizo & Skrillex Hold A Party At The 'End Of The World': Listen

While it all fits snuggly under Mr. Oizo's yellow umbrella of jarring and angular experimentalism, there is a definite sense of collaboration. The title-track, recorded alongside Siriusmo, features a light-hearted piano riff surrounded on all sides by warped disco textures. "Ruhe" is pregnant with dark, German techno tones, no doubt inseminated by Boys Noize's acid-dropping fingers. It sounds quite reminiscent of the pair's Handbraekes collaborative duo. Indeed, the track was borrowed from recent sessions to produce a third Handbraekes EP, but it fit in with the whole friendly-vibe of All Wet, so Mr. Oizo stole-up the song for his own.

After a series of pesky emails and some light stalking, he convinced Peaches to unfurl a freaky bit of verse on "Freezing Out." Lead single "End of the World" is easily one of the Ed Banger man's smoothest productions to date, which may or may not have to do with the skillful hands of Skrillex.

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"My talent in music is that I'm not a musician," Dupieux says laughing. "I try to do some chords on the keyboard, I don't even know if it's right or wrong, and I don't care. Even if I'm trying to go funky and easy and good feeling, that's why it always sounds twisted. I don't want to sound stupid, but it's like when a kid is trying to make a painting, and it's trying to replicate a dog for example, for the first time, with paint. You get the idea. You see that it's a dog, but of course, it's been through a mind that doesn't know to make this perfect."

Since breaking out with "Flat Beat," the inexplicable hit of 1999 that famously introduced such an absurd dog puppet known lovingly to fans as Flat Eric, Mr. Oizo has been a name synonymous with surreal. His music is firmly rooted in the familiar sounds of funk, disco, and French touch, but it is always presented in such a way as to be completely unfamiliar. It's like a cubist painting on the usual bowl of fruit, a hulking mass of sharp-edged blocks colored in bright neon.

"(With) music, I don't think," he says. "I just plug the computer when I know it's the right time, when I feel like making music, and then I try stuff. I do some drafts. I record whatever. There's no method. It's just random. Sometimes I find something I love, so I spend three days trying to finish it. There's no thinking. I don't use my brain. I'm just trying to be as close to a child (as possible), and actually, that's the only way I know how to make music."

Boys Noize's 'Mayday' Video Is a Truth Bomb Set to a Beat

It seems to be a theme among his work. Film was first love, of which he's written, directed, edited, and soundtracked five full-length offerings. Each is equally off-putting, derails into non-sequiturs, and is as hysterical as it is downright confusing. He made his first bit of music out of sheer necessity, a way of getting around music licensing when he sold his first short-film to a major television network at the age of 19. Films like Rubber, Wrong Cops, and Wrong (Not a Wrong Cops sequel), when taken in congruence with the sound of albums Lamb's Anger, Stade 2, and All Wet might give the impression that his approach to film is quite ardently as childish. He promises this is not the case.

"You have to spend a lot of time writing for example, and when I write, this includes thinking," he says. "So it's the same brain working, but very differently."

Differently or not, nothing Dupieux does is absent of that off-beat curiosity, and All Wet is no different. All the collaborations in the world couldn't mop the abnormality out of his air, but that's probably what makes creatives like Flying Lotus and others want to be friends with Dupieux in the first place.

"Sometimes weird is good. Sometimes weird is horrible," he says. "I hope I'm on the good side of the weirdness."
Nairobi (AFP) - Munching, the giraffe looks up towards the skyscrapers looming in the distance.

But this picture-postcard image of Nairobi, one where wild animals graze in the shadow of the cityscape, is at risk from a railroad.

A unique urban conservation site, the Nairobi National Park is a vast wildlife reserve where lions, hyenas and giraffes roam at will just seven kilometres (four miles) from the heart of town.

But its singular setting could prove its undoing. Nairobi, one of Africa's fastest growing and economically advanced cities, is planning to build a Chinese-funded railway line across east Africa's oldest national park.

Urban projects have steadily nibbled away the edges of the 120-square-kilometre (45 square miles) reserve, with new roads laid, power lines strung across its southeast corner, a pipeline dug underground and clouds of dust blowing in from nearby cement plants.

Worse still, recent housing estates obstruct a key wildlife migration route on the park's southern flank leading to Kenya's other famed nature reserves, such as the Maasai Mara.

"In the 70s and 80s about 30,000 wildebeest came to the park every year. Nowadays, only about 300 come back regularly," said Sidney Kamanzi, who heads the Friends of Nairobi National Park group.

-'Nothing like this before'-

The latest threat to the park is part of a gigantic rail project -- currently at the heart of a legal battle -- which critics claim could do untold harm to the cityside sanctuary that is also home to zebras, crocodiles, hippos, rhinos, antelopes, buffaloes and hundreds of bird species.

Under the scheme, an elevated rail line will run across six kilometres of the park perched on pillars between eight and 40 metres (24 to 120 feet) tall.

"Chunks of the park have been taken away little by little, but there has never been anything like what they propose now," Kamanza said.

"The consequences will be disastrous," he said, although other conservationists are demanding an environmental impact study before passing final judgement.

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Kenya, which sees itself as east Africa's economic heart, decided in 2013 to upgrade its national railway network to link traffic from the region's leading port, Mombasa, to Nairobi, and then on to regional neighbours Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan.

A first 483-kilometre (300-mile) section from Mombasa to a terminal east of the Nairobi National Park is to be completed in late 2017. The line is said to be Kenya's largest infrastructure project since independence.

But it is the second stage section linking Nairobi to Naivasha in the Rift valley, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) northwest of the capital, that is seen as most problematic to the park and its 150,000 yearly visitors.

To avoid the high cost of buying land near the reserve, the authorities decided on one of seven possible options -- to cut through the sanctuary despite loud objections by some environmental groups.

- 'The right thing for Kenya': Leakey-

Initially opposed to the idea, the state-run Kenya Wildlife Service has finally come out in favour, with KWS chairman, world-renowned anthropologist Richard Leakey, saying the costs of skirting the park would have been way too high.

My personal choice was that the park and the railway should be separate. However, the cost of going round and the implications to our economy and the taxpayer made no sense and we are trying to do the right thing for Kenya, Leakey said.

Kenya Railways hopes to begin work on the elevated track in January. It would last 18 months and be organised in three stages to avoid having to completely cut off half of the park during construction.

Pillars will be camouflaged, noise pollution reduced and freedom of movement maintained for the animals, the rail authorities have said.

But angry sceptics have taken the case to the country's environmental court on the grounds there was no impact study. The court has ordered the suspension of the stage two works pending a decision.

"The park is small and therefore fragile," said Paula Kahumbu, who heads Wildlife Direct, a nonprofit group.

"We don't want this affair to turn into an issue pitting economic development against conservation, because the two can co-exist," she added.

But other activists are worried the railway could spell the end of the iconic site.

"If the railway (line) is authorised, it could create a precedent that could mean the death of the park," said Sidney Quntai, who heads the Kenyan Coalition for the Conservation and Management of Fauna.

"Today it's a bridge (elevated track), but what will it be tomorrow?"
By Laura Zuckerman SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - U.S. and Canada-based Native American tribes are expected to sign a treaty on Friday that urges protections be maintained for grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park. The treaty is the latest sign of growing American Indian activism tied to tribal rights and the environment, and just the third such cross-border agreement in 150 years, tribal members involved said. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said earlier this year that Yellowstone-area grizzlies had come back from the brink of extinction and it proposed stripping U.S. Endangered Species Act protections from the population of about 700 bears. The move would open the way for hunting bears that roam outside the park's borders in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. The treaty, expected to be signed by Piikani Nation and other tribes in the western Canadian province of Alberta on Friday, declares support by more than 50 tribes for protecting grizzlies from random killing and preserving their habitat against development. The planned ceremony comes two days before representatives of other tribes mostly in and around the U.S. Rocky Mountain West are expected to sign the same treaty during a ceremony in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. The Canada-based tribes are signing the measure to show solidarity with tribes based in the United States, as they are all united by cultural and religious ties to grizzlies. Chief Stanley Grier of the Piikani Nation and representatives from such tribes as the Blackfeet Nation in Montana and the Shoshone-Bannock of eastern Idaho, argue grizzlies are too sacred and culturally important to be killed by hunters. "There should be no doubt that delisting and trophy hunting the grizzly bear on ancestral tribal and treaty lands threatens irreparable harm to those sites and to tribal sovereignty and religious freedom," Grier said. Tribal members also say the U.S. government failed to engage in "meaningful consultation" before decisions were made about delisting grizzlies. Serena Baker, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the agency had sought since 2014 to reach out to about 50 tribes  through letters, phone calls and emails  about Yellowstone grizzlies. "The service has and is continuing to offer government-to-government consultation with Native American tribes west of the Mississippi," she said on Thursday. (Reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Salmon, Idaho; Editing by Eric M. Johnson and Peter Cooney)
Washington (AFP) - Five weeks from election day, the gloves are off between Donald Trump and the media, with American news outlets going so far as to call the Republican White House nominee a "liar" on their news pages.

Trump is facing a new level of scrutiny in the domestic press, including investigations into his charitable foundation and his business dealings, and checks of his multiple distortions of facts.

The normally restrained New York Times recently decided to call out Trump on its news pages for "lies" after the billionaire blamed his opponent Hillary Clinton for starting the "birther" movement questioning whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States.

"It was demonstrably and unequivocally false and he had to know it," Times editor Dean Baquet said in a recent interview with his newspaper.

"To have not called it a lie would have been odd, it would have been false on our part."

CNN broke with its editorial custom on the same occasion by plainly stating in an on-screen banner that Trump had "falsely" accused his Democratic rival.

While Trump has up to now appeared to have used the US media to his benefit -- accruing hundreds of hours of exposure to voters -- that may be changing, analysts say.

"The media have slowly come to understand this cannot be covered like a normal presidential campaign," said Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University.

"Trump has repeated falsehoods often enough that they clearly are lies. He is perpetrating falsehoods deliberately. We've never seen that before from a presidential candidate."

- Newspaper endorsements -

The tougher media approach comes against a backdrop of unprecedented acrimony between Trump and segments of the news media, said Allan Lichtman, a political historian at American University in Washington.

The Manhattan billionaire has attacked members of the media personally, calling reporters "sleaze" and "scum."

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"Of course candidates have criticized the media before, but no candidate has ever savaged the media as Donald Trump has, making it a fundamental part of his message," Lichtman told AFP.

Trump's credibility with the media is so low that dozens of traditionally conservative outlets have either endorsed Clinton or called Trump "unfit" to be president.

The Dallas Morning News and Arizona Republic broke new ground by endorsing a Democrat. USA Today, the large national daily which has never before taken a position on a presidential race, called the Republican "a dangerous demagogue," without endorsing Clinton.

The staunchly Republican Chicago Tribune meanwhile endorsed Libertarian Gary Johnson, and called Trump "not fit" to lead.

Trump has responded -- by stepping up his attacks on the media.

On Twitter, he sought to downplay recent investigative reports, saying, "don't believe 'sources said' by the VERY dishonest media. If they don't name the sources, the sources don't exist."

He then went after newspapers refusing to endorse him, tweeting, "the people are really smart in cancelling subscriptions to the Dallas & Arizona papers & now USA Today will lose readers!"

- He said, she said -

Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth University political scientist, said Trump has forced the media to test its limits on objectivity.

Nyhan argues that to simply say the media is going up against Trump -- as his supporters routinely claim -- "plays into a liberal bias story" and fails to take into account the lack of scrutiny Trump has received so far.

"Trump has forced the media to reckon with the limits of 'he said, she said' coverage that bends over backwards to avoid any possible bias," Nyhan said.

"The way Trump has been covered to this point doesn't do justice to the repeated inaccurate claims he has made."

Angelo Carusone, executive vice president of the left-leaning watchdog group Media Matters for America, sees the greater scrutiny -- both of Trump's statements and his track record -- as positive.

"What the media are doing now is good, but I would say it's too little, too late," he said.

"They showered him with uncritical coverage for over a year that allowed him to steamroll through the primary process."

- Counter-narrative -

As the roller-coaster White House campaign barrels on, Trump appears to follow the old adage that any publicity is good publicity, Carusone argued.

"Even if some of his claims are outrageous, he is controlling the terms of the debate," he said.

In a fragmented media environment, Trump has also managed to solidify his base by reaching voters directly through Twitter and conservative online media outlets, said Carusone.

His supporters, for example, were able to spread the message #TrumpWins after last week's debate, making that a trending topic, even though scientific polls showed Clinton as clear victor.

"His ability to tell a counter-narrative has been jarring for members of the press corps," Carusone said.

Lichtman noted however that Trump's ability to circumvent the mainstream media -- while it helped for the Republican primaries -- won't help him in a tight general election.

"He is stuck in the low 40s and he has to go beyond his core supporters to win," Lichtman said. "He can't do that through alternative media."
LINTHICUM, MD / ACCESSWIRE / September 30, 2016 / NFM Lending is pleased to announce the opening of a new branch in Sarasota, Florida. This branch is an extension of NFM's Clearwater, Florida branch. The branch will focus its lending platform throughout Sarasota and the surrounding area. NFM Lending offers Conventional, FHA, VA, USDA, FNMA, Jumbo, and many other loan options.

Buddy Moore, Branch Manager, says that he chose to bring his team to NFM because of their reputation for client service.

"I joined NFM Lending because I was looking for a company that had a culture from the top down that was consistent with my core beliefs," said Moore. "I wanted to work for a company that truly cared about their associates and their customers. NFM Lending is empowering me to provide 'Raving Fan' service with consistent communication and customer service throughout the loan process. It is important to me to not only meet, but exceed, the expectations of our customers and referral partners. It is my goal to set my team apart from the competition by creating a 'Wow' culture before, during, and after the transaction."

The branch is currently hiring qualified Loan Originators for full and part-time positions. The branch's goal is to provide top-notch service, commitment, and dedication to borrowers, ranging from first-time home buyers to seasoned buyers looking for their next home, a second home, or investment properties. Visit the branch page to learn more: www.nfmlending.com/FL328B.

For more information, please contact:

Buddy Moore

NMLS # 432212

Phone: 941-374-5626

Fax: 941-373-1401

bmoore@nfmlending.com

www.nfmlending.com/bmoore

About NFM Lending

NFM Lending is a mortgage lending company currently licensed in 29 states across the U.S. The company was founded in Baltimore, Maryland in 1998. They attribute their success in the mortgage industry to their steadfast commitment to customers and the community. NFM Lending has firmly planted itself in the home loan marketplace as "America's Common Sense Residential Mortgage Lender."

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For more information about NFM Lending, please contact:

NFM Lending

Toll-Free: 1-888-233-0092

pr@nfmlending.com

Twitter: @nfm_lending

SOURCE: NFM Lending via Submit Press Release 123
By Costas Pitas

LONDON (Reuters) - Jaguar Land Rover (TAMO.NS) will "realign its thinking" on investment after Britain's vote to leave the EU and if Nissan gets a Brexit compensation deal then other automakers would need a level playing field, Britain's biggest carmaker said.

Chief Executive Ralf Speth also told Reuters on Friday that there were signs that some customers in Europe, Jaguar Land Rover's biggest market, no longer wanted to buy British cars.

Speth responded to comments by Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn, who said on Thursday he would halt new investment in Britain without a pledge of compensation for tariffs imposed on UK-built cars in the event of a 'hard Brexit'.

"We are the only car manufacturer in the UK to do all the work in terms of research, design, engineering, production planning in the UK," Speth said.

"We want to have fair treatment and a level playing field at the end of the day," he told Reuters by telephone from the Paris auto show.

Britain is not expected to begin formal divorce talks from the European Union until 2017, which will last two years, but there are growing concerns among carmakers about the implications of a 'hard Brexit', which would leave firms paying tariffs to export UK-assembled cars to EU markets.

Carmakers Nissan and Toyota both warned on Thursday that tariffs could hurt production in Britain and Volkswagen-owned (VOWG_p.DE) brand Skoda urged Britain, Europe's second-largest car market, to clarify the situation as soon as possible.

Britain's business ministry did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Speth said Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which built one third of Britain's 1.6 million cars last year, would face a double hit in the event of 'hard Brexit' with tariffs on exported cars and imported parts and technology hurting competitiveness.

"If we face higher tariffs than anybody else then it's quite clear that it's reducing the competitiveness of our products especially in Europe," he said. "The order of magnitude cannot be calculated right now."

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Two sources told Reuters in June that the firm estimates its annual profit could be cut by 1 billion pounds ($1.3 billion) by the end of the decade if Britain returned to WTO tariffs of 10 percent, according to internal documents.

FUTURE INVESTMENT?

Speth also raised concern that some European consumers might be shunning British brands in the wake of the Brexit vote, referring to comments by European sales representatives.

"They have the very first customers in their showrooms (who) clearly highlight that they don't want to buy British products any more," he said.

Any blow to the British car industry, which was dogged by wild-cat strikes and poor productivity in the 1970s and 1980s, could undo years of recent progress with output currently expected to reach a record high of 2 million by 2020.

JLR said its long-term investment strategy has not changed as a result of the vote but the firm would now have to think again after Britons backed leaving the European Union on June 23.

"We have to realign all of our thinking and work on how to handle this Brexit best," Speth said. Asked if that included investments, he replied: "Everything."

Over 800,000 jobs depend on Britain's overwhelmingly foreign-owned car industry and big carmakers backed continued membership during the campaign, seeing benefits from open trade and standardized rules.

Britain's car industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders warned on Friday that a lack of clarity over a potential deal risked future growth.

"The current uncertainty is not conducive to attracting manufacturing investment to the UK," Chief Executive Mike Hawes said.

However, Speth left open the possibility of new investment in Britain such as an electric battery and car plant if the conditions, including pilot testing and support from science, were right.

"The best thing would be to have something in the UK... If you are producing batteries there then you will also produce vehicles there," he said, suggesting a partnership with the Warwick Manufacturing Group in central England.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Adrian Croft)
Paris (AFP) - A sultry blonde in a black mini-dress with a plunging neckline smiles through scarlet lipstick as she leans fetchingly against a bright red Kia Rio at the Paris Motor Show.

Despite ardent denials, and to the dismay of feminists, many image-makers in the auto industry still prefer leggy lasses to peddle their cars at the industry's shows.

"This sexualisation of the car, associated with male power, is intolerable," said Florence Montreynaud of the feminist group Les Chiennes de Garde, which means female watchdogs.

"You have the impression that for the same price, you get the girl with the car!" Montreynaud told AFP.

"When car makers try to make us believe that this is essential for doing business, it's a joke."

Carole Francois, a client relations official for Penelope, an agency that recruited around 300 hostesses for the Paris show, insisted the time-worn auto-show tradition of girl-as-eye-candy "no longer exists".

While she acknowledged that some of her clients wanted hostesses with "impossible" measurements, she said "you don't see as much flesh" as before.

A 21-year-old hostess who gave only her first name, Mathilde, is working on her second Paris show, this time at the Volkswagen stand.

"We are equal to the salesmen," she said, "not decoration for the radiator".

Wearing heavy makeup but dressed modestly in a light blue shirt with dark blue jeans and white sneakers, the student recalls her first experience with a different carmaker.

She says she learned how to take salacious remarks from "the older customers" in her stride.

"One of them asked me, 'are you as hot as the motor?'" she recalled. "Another time it was 'can you climb on to any chassis?'"

These days, hostesses receive between one and three days of training aimed at helping them to tackle such advances.

And several constructors have opted this year to have their hostesses wear longer dresses, or trousers with flat shoes.

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"But it's still macho," said another recruiter. "The Italians are the worst."

At the stand of South Korean carmaker SsangYong, two hostesses in body-hugging minidresses teeter on stilettos as they pose for a selfie with three Asian visitors.

Unlike their male counterparts, they aren't touting tablet computers to deal with inquiries -- and no car is in the background for the picture.

That is all right with Irina, who says her job is to "introduce" the new Liv2 model and "be a showcase to attract clientele".

- '1950s mentality' -

"These practices typically both hyper-sexualise women's bodies and exploit them commercially," said Raphaelle Remy-Leleu of the group Osez le Feminisme (Dare to Be Feminist).

A French Senate panel on women's rights issued a report to coincide with the Paris show calling for an end to the woman-and-car cliche.

It called for an end to "sexist messages" in automobile advertising and spoke out against scanty clothing which "reduced the status of the woman to car-enhancer."

It also said the car show, which opens to the public on Saturday, should have as many male hosts as hostesses.

Citroen, the only French carmaker that is headed by a woman, Linda Jackson of Britain, observes gender parity at its stand.

"It's only fair," said Riwan, a 19-year-old Citroen host wearing red trousers and a beige jacket.

Montreynaud of Les Chiennes de Garde praised Citroen for the "egalitarian" move.

But, she said, the industry remains in the grip of a paradox: "An egalitarian mentality coexists with the archaic mentality of the 1950s, with the provocative dress."
The Duchess of Cambridge (not Princess Kate) and Prince George attend a childrens party for Military families. (Photo: Splash News)

Do not wear hats after 6:30 p.m., dont even think about snapping a selfie  and whatever you do, do not call the duchess Kate.

Those were just three of the ground rules issued to the public by the Canadian government this week as Kate Middleton, Prince William, and their two children, Prince George, 3, and Princess Charlotte, 16 months, arrived in the country as part of their eight-day royal tour.

But getting the duchesss title right is a challenge for more than just those who may get to meet her face-to-face  who should address her, by the way, as Your Royal Highness, initially, and Maam thereafter  according to the Department of Canadian Heritages code of conduct, issued Monday before the family landed. Theres also confusion among much of the public, in general, as seen on social media, in the general media, and in our own Yahoo story comments section, with such sentiments as Princess Kate is so beautiful that she looks great in whatever she wears!

The problem? Kate Middleton will never be Princess Kate.

While Catherine is absolutely a princess, her correct title is Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge, CNN royal expert Victoria Arbiter tells Yahoo Style. She wasnt born a blood princess, so she is not a princess in her own right. When she married William, she took on the rank of her husband, a royal prince. However, referring to her as Princess Kate is simply incorrect. Ditto for Williams mom, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, who despite being dubbed Princess Di by the public, didnt hold rights to that title.

And while were on the topic, the duchesss nickname is not Kate  at least at home. William calls her Catherine [as opposed to duchess] because shes his wife and he doesnt need to stand on ceremony while referring to her, adds Arbiter. And Catherine is more regal and appropriate than Kate.

Complicating matters further are two impending name changes: When Wills father, Charles, becomes the king, his daughter-in-law will become Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales. And the day William is crowned king, Catherines title will be Queen Consort.

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Confusing? Very. And while Kate and Will are known for bucking tradition  and as Arbiter says, neither would have been offended if someone had called her Kate  the Canadian guide to the public was likely a nod of courtesy to the couple and an attempt to avoid further confusion (as is this story).

So why cant we let go of Princess Kate? Enter our cultural obsession with a good, happy ending. We may romanticize the title because of Kates humble roots, which made her marriage to William a real-life fairy tale. The couple met at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, when Kate was an art history major who wore sequined halter tops. Parents Carole and Michael Middleton were middle class, and their daughters pairing with William caused controversy among those who questioned whether she had the breeding to be a future queen. Princess Kate could also be a glamorous nod to her status as a global fashion icon and ability to crash a designers website minutes after being photographed in her outfit du jour.

Or maybe the reason we hold fast to princess is much simpler. Royal titles can be very confusing, so to some degree, Princess Kate is just easier, notes Arbiter. We all know what a princess is and it can seem like a grander title than any other. And while some may ask, Why does it even matter? the easy answer is this: If we can say Williams title correctly, its only fair to extend the same respect to his wife. Right?

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Lithium Grade, Average 785 ppm with a High of 1,640 ppm

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 30, 2016 / Noram Ventures Inc. (TSX-V: NRM, Frankfurt: N7R, US: NRVTF) ("Noram" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company has engaged Brad Peek CPG, to complete an independent N.I. 43-101 technical report on its Lithium Brine/Clay projects in the Clayton Valley, Nevada.

Brad Peek CPG, has Master of Science degree in Geology and more than 40 years' experience in project management, mineral exploration and in computer applications in mineral exploration and mining. Brad is a member of the Society of Economic Geologists and the American Institute of Professional Geologists  Certified Professional Geologist CPG11299.

Brad Peek has been associated with Noram's Clayton Valley project since its initial acquisition of the lithium properties and has been directly responsible for sampling, sample analysis, reporting and development of the drilling program.

Noram's Clayton Valley, Nevada property overview;

Consists of 888 mineral claims, comprising approximately 17,000 acres in Clayton Valley Within 2 km to largest Lithium Producer in USA; Albemarle Corporation Lithium grade, average 785 ppm with a high of 1,640 ppm The valley has access to infrastructure with power, transport and labor

About Noram Ventures Inc.:

Noram Ventures Inc. (TSX-V: NRM, Frankfurt: N7R, US: NRVTF) is a Canadian based junior exploration company, with a goal of becoming a force in the Green Energy Revolution through the development of lithium and graphite deposits and becoming a low-cost supplier for the burgeoning lithium battery industry. The Company's primary business focus since formation has been the exploration of mineral projects that include lithium projects in the Clayton Valley in Nevada, the Hector Lode in San Bernardino county, California and the Jumbo graphite property in British Columbia. Noram's long term strategy is to build a multi-national lithium-graphite dominant industrial minerals company to produce and sell lithium and graphite into the markets of Europe, North America and Asia.

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For further information, please visit www.noramventures.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

/s/ "Mark R. Ireton"

President & Director

This news release contains projections and forward-looking information that involve various risks and uncertainties regarding future events. Such forward-looking information can include without limitation statements based on current expectations involving a number of risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance of the Company. The following are important factors that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward looking statements; the uncertainty of future profitability; and the uncertainty of access to additional capital. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results and the Company's plans and objectives to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information. Actual results and future events could differ materially from anticipated in such information. These and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking information are based on estimates and opinions of management on the dates they are made and expressed qualified in their entirety by this notice. The Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking information should circumstance or management's estimates or opinions change.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Noram Ventures Inc.
There seems to be something about Canada that is attracting retailers to the land. On reading the trends, we note that many U.S. retailers have made and are still making attempts to expand in that part of the world. What is it thats so alluring about Canada?



One reason could possibly be the proximity of the countrys largest metro areas to the American border. Thanks to this advantage, the Canadians are well-versed with various U.S. retail names and their products, which clearly increase chances of their success in the country. This, clubbed with relatively less competition in Canadas retail market (compared to the U.S.), was reason enough for retailers to make an entry here and expand in the region.



Well, expanding successfully in Canada is definitely easier said than done. This becomes more evident from failed attempts by companies like Target Corp. TGT and Sears Holdings Corporation SHLD, which tried all means to grasp footing in Canada but ultimately landed in a soup. While these companies had a tough time in the Niagara Falls country, Nordstrom Inc. JWN) has recently popped up on the forefront, smartly expanding its operations in the region.



What Weighed Upon TGT & SHLD?



Some reports suggest that Targets differentiated pricing and merchandise from its domestic country put Canadian customers off, whereas others highlighted that this Minneapolis-based departmental store retailer spoilt things in haste, by selecting wrong store locations and over-speeding the expansion process. On the other hand, Sears Holdings struggled with high labor costs, and had to shut down its Sears Canada division as part of cost-cutting and business revival efforts.



Where does Nordstrom Stand?



Nordstrom, which has been eyeing Canada for quite a while now, had first announced plans to expand in the country in 2012, and launched its first Canadian store in Sep 2014  at CF Chinook Centre in Calgary. Standing in 2016, Nordstrom has so far introduced only four full-line stores in the country, with plans of opening two more through fiscal 2017. This highlights how this fashion specialty retailer is executing this strategy slowly, learning from the mistakes made by its fellow firms. In fact, Nordstroms choice of location testifies to this yet again.



The company recently introduced a store in Toronto, at CF Toronto Eaton Centre, which ranks among the top 10 most productive malls across North America. This store, which also marked Nordstroms second global flagship location, is likely to draw traffic, given its strategic location, products ranging through all kinds of prices and special services.



Apart from expanding full-line stores, Nordstrom is also on track to achieve its target of opening 15 Rack stores in Canada. Notably, the company envisions a $1 billion sales opportunity from its expansion in Canada by 2020. All said, we believe that not taking Canadian expansion as a cake-walk, and instead handling it tactfully should prove profitable for Nordstrom.



Some Other Players



While the aforementioned companies set examples of extending their footprint into Canada directly, some others went for prudent buyouts of existing Canadian ventures to gain exposure. The acquisition of Zale Corporation by leading jewelry retailer, Signet Jewelers Limited SIG and Victoria's Secret owner, L Brands, Inc.s LB takeover of the Canadian La Senza chain, bear evidence to this fact.



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NORDSTROM INC (JWN): Free Stock Analysis Report



TARGET CORP (TGT): Free Stock Analysis Report



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L BRANDS INC (LB): Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment Research
OSLO, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, can resume investing in Singapore Technologies Engineering, the board of the central bank said on Friday.

The fund originally excluded the company from its investments in 2002 because it produced anti-personnel landmines, following a recommendation from the Council on Ethics, its independent ethics watchdog.

"The Council on Ethics has received confirmation from Singapore Technologies Engineering that the company no longer has any activities associated with production of antipersonnel landmines or cluster munitions," the board of the central bank said in a statement.

The fund is managed by a unit of the central bank.

(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Branding Donald Trump a "dangerous demagogue," USA Today on Thursday urged its readers not to vote for the Republican presidential candidate, but added that it was not endorsing his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton either. The national newspaper said in an editorial that it had never taken sides in U.S. presidential elections in its 34-year history, but was abandoning the practice because the New York real estate developer was unfit for the presidency. It went on to list and expand on eight reasons for its stance, including: "He is ill-equipped to be commander in chief," "He traffics in prejudice," and "Hes a serial liar." "Trumps foreign policy pronouncements typically range from uninformed to incoherent," the editorial said. In an opinion piece on the USA Today website, Trump's running mate Mike Pence wrote that the New York businessman was "thoughtful, compassionate and steady... I know he is ready to lead the United States as our next president and commander in chief." Trump and Clinton are locked in a close race for the Nov. 8 election. A majority of Americans say Clinton won their first presidential debate on Monday, according to a Reuters/Ipsos national tracking poll. USA Today, published by Gannett Co Inc, said its editorial board was divided on Clinton, and some of the reservations about the former secretary of state centered on her "sense of entitlement, her lack of candor and her extreme carelessness in handling classified information." Urging voters to stay true to their convictions, USA Today said: "Whatever you do, however, resist the siren song of a dangerous demagogue. By all means vote, just not for Donald Trump." (Reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Bill Rigby)
JERUSALEM  President Barack Obama hailed Shimon Peres Friday as a man who showed the world that justice and hope are at the heart of the Zionist ideal and saw all people as deserving of dignity and respect.

Wearing a Jewish skullcap as a sign of respect and reverence, Obama said in his eulogy that Peres understood the Palestinians must be seen as equal in dignity to Jews and therefore must be equal in self-determination.

Shimon never saw his dream of peace fulfilled, noted Obama, speaking at Israels national cemetery, Mount Herzl. He said Peres believed that the Zionist idea would be protected when Palestinians had a state of their own.

The region is going through a chaotic time, the president said. Threats are ever-present and yet he did not stop dreaming and he did not stop working.

Obama noted that he was the 10th U.S president to meet Peres and fall prey to his charms. In many ways, he said that Peres reminded him of other giants like Nelson Mandela and Queen Elizabeth, leaders who speak with depth and knowledge, not in sound bites.

Former President Bill Clinton, in his eulogy, said he always was in Peres endless capacity to move beyond the most crushing setbacks to seize the possibilities of each new day. He never gave up on anybody, I mean anybody, Clinton said.

Obama said that he and Peres, about four decades apart in age, shared a love of works and books and history. When they met at the White House and then in Israel, he said, they both understood they were there only because they reflected the magnificent story of the nations they led.

The last of the founding generation is now gone, Obama said, speaking just to the left of Peres casket draped in blue and white. Peres died at 93 Wednesday, two weeks after suffering a stroke.

Peres, whose name is synonymous with Israels history, served stints as prime minister, president and foreign minister. He welcomed Obama on his first trip to Israel as president in 2013, as the two men sought to restart a peace process with the Palestinians that has so far failed.

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The United States delegation included Clinton, Secretary of State John Kerry and about 20 members of Congress and several administration officials.

Air Force One landed in Tel Aviv early at daybreak Friday and Obama was expected to return shortly after the service from his second visit to Israel as president.

The two leaders enjoyed a friendly relationship and a mutual admiration of the others intellect and intentions. Upon his passing, Obama said no one did more over the years than Peres to build the alliance between the U.S. and Israel. Obama said the alliance is stronger than ever, notwithstanding tensions over Obamas pursuit of an agreement designed to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

The two leaders shared similar visions for a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Peres son-in-law and personal physician, Dr. Rafi Walden, said Obama had called the family overnight on Wednesday during Peres final hours and spoke to Peres daughter, Tzvia. We are deeply moved, Walden said.

Obama awarded Peres the Medal of Freedom, the United States highest civilian honor, in 2012, saying Shimon teaches us to never settle for the world as it is.

In turn, Peres bestowed the Medal of Distinction on Obama, making him the first sitting U.S. president to receive Israels highest civilian honor.

This award speaks to you, to your tireless work to make Israel strong, to make peace possible, Peres said in 2013. Your presidency has given the closest ties between Israel and the United States a new height, a sense of intimacy, a vision for the future.

Those who worked with both men said they shared mutual respect and affection.

Even a man into his 90s, Peres was always thinking about the future, said Dennis Ross, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former adviser to Obama. I think that captured the presidents imagination and added to the respect for him.

Ross, who said he spoke often with Peres during the past three decades, said the Israeli leader believed that Obamas heart was in the right place. But he wasnt always convinced that the president fully understood the nature of Israels predicament in the region, Ross said.
(Adds statement from lawyer for Cohen)

By Nate Raymond

Sept 29 (Reuters) - Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC will pay $412 million and CEO Daniel Och will pay $2.17 million to resolve U.S. probes into the hedge fund's role in bribing officials in several African countries, U.S. authorities said on Thursday.

In the first U.S. foreign bribery case against a hedge fund, Och-Ziff subsidiary OZ Africa Management GP LLC pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to participating in a scheme to bribe officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Och-Ziff meanwhile entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, in which charges related to conduct in Congo, Libya, Chad and Niger would be dropped after three years if it follows the terms of the deal.

"I'd like to emphasize that Och-Ziff has taken substantial remedial efforts to improve its compliance program to ensure something like this can never happen again," Mark Schonfeld, a lawyer for the New York-based firm, told a federal judge.

In total, Och-Ziff will pay $412 million to resolve the U.S. Justice Department and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission cases, $213 million of which constituted a criminal penalty. It also agreed to the appointment of an independent monitor.

Och agreed to pay $2.17 million to settle SEC charges that caused certain violations along with CFO Joel Frank, who also reached a settlement, the regulator said.

BRIBES TIED TO MINING, SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUND

The deals capped U.S. probes into the $39 billion hedge fund firm that centered in part on Michael Cohen, Och-Ziff's former London-based head of European investing, who was responsible for investments in Libya and other African countries.

According to authorities, in 2008, Och-Ziff entered into a partnership with an Israeli businessman with close ties to high-level Congolese officials in order to fund his mining-related interests.

At least two employees, though, knew the businessman gained access to these investment opportunities by bribing officials, prosecutors said. Those employees, a person familiar with the matter said, were Cohen and an analyst, Vanja Baros.

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Authorities did not name the businessman, whom they said had paid over $100 million in bribes to Congolese officials from 2005 to 2012. But the source said it was Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler.

Ronald White, Cohen's lawyer, in a statement said "when all the facts are known, it will be clear that he has done nothing wrong."

Gertler's Fleurette Group declined comment. A lawyer for Baros did not respond to a request for comment.

Separately, beginning in 2007, an employee, who the source said was Cohen, engaged a London-based middleman to help it secure an investment from the Libyan sovereign wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Och-Ziff received a $300 million investment into its hedge funds, and soon after entered into an agreement to pay a sham $3.75 million "finder's fee," which it knew would be used to pay Libyan officials in exchange.

The Justice Department said its investigation remains ongoing. The probe has resulted in one individual being criminally charged.

In August, Samuel Mebiame, a Gabonese man who U.S. authorities said acted as a "fixer" for a joint-venture involving Och-Ziff, was arrested and accused of engaging in a scheme to bribe officials in Africa to obtain mining rights.

A criminal complaint said Mebiame supplied cash and cars to two Niger officials; an S-class Mercedes Benz sedan and rented private Airbus jet to a Guinean official; and travel and shopping expenses for an adviser to Chad's president.

A lawyer for Mebiame declined comment.

Och-Ziff shares closed up 5.65 percent at $4.49.

The cases in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, are U.S. v. OZ Africa Management GP LLC, No. 16-cr-00515, and U.S. v. Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC, No. 16-cr-00516.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Joel Schectman in Washington and Anthony Lin in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, Chizu Nomiyama and Edwina Gibbs)
By Barani Krishnan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices settled mixed on Friday while posting their second straight monthly gain on OPEC's planned output cuts, even as skepticism about the cartel's pledge grew after data suggested another record high in its production.

Brent crude settled up 4 percent for September and U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 8 percent, helped by Wednesday's announcement by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in Algeria that it aimed to remove some 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the market.

Analysts estimate the global oversupply in crude at 1.0-1.5 million bpd.

A Reuters survey on Friday found that OPEC output likely rose to 33.60 million barrels per day in September from a revised August record of 33.53 million bpd as Iraq boosted crude exports and Libya reopened some of its main oil terminals.

Brent for November delivery settled down 18 cents, or 0.4 percent, at $49.06 a barrel, before expiring as the front-month contract. For both the week and month, it rose about 4 percent. For the quarter it fell around 1 percent.

WTI's front-month, also November (CLc1), closed up 41 cents, or nearly 1 percent, at $48.24 per barrel. It gained 8 percent on the week and month, and was almost flat on the quarter.

"Yes, it's a second straight monthly gain for oil but the question is whether we can continue punching higher from here," said David Thompson, executive vice-president at Powerhouse, a commodity-focused broker in Chicago.

"If we look at OPEC's latest production figure, it gives them an even larger amount to cut. None of the actors involved are flushed with cash. They're all petro states suffering from low oil prices. It's very difficult to see them cut production in a meaningful way when they need the money."

OPEC said on Wednesday it had achieved agreement in principle to cut output to between 32.5 million bpd and 33.0 million bpd from about 33.5 million bpd, estimated by Reuters to be August's production level. Details will be finalized at OPEC's policy meeting in November, group officials said.

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The cuts were forced by a persistent glut that has more than halved prices from mid-2014 highs above $100.

Russia, not an OPEC member but a large producer pumping crude at record highs, said it would find a way to freeze production if it reaches a deal with OPEC.

The United States, also a non-OPEC member and now the biggest oil producer, said on Thursday it had little faith in the OPEC plan. U.S. energy envoy Amos Hochstein told Reuters that any price gains from the cuts would trigger higher U.S. production, which would ultimately defeat the deal.

A weekly reading on the U.S. oil rig count showed local drillers added 95 rigs for the third quarter, the most in any quarter since 2014. [RIG/U]

(Additional reporting by Keith Wallis in Singapore and Osamu Tsukimori in Tokyo; Editing by Paul Simao and Richard Chang)
WASHINGTON, D.C.  On the heels of North Korea's latest, and largest, nuclear test, here's a look at Lockheed Martin's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system.

In July, Washington agreed to equip Seoul with a THAAD battery to further defend the region amid the North's missile tests.

A THAAD battery is made up of a four-part antimissile system. The graphic below shows the components needed for each enemy-target interception and how the unique missile-defense system works.

thaad 1200x

Here's a brief breakdown of the process:

1. Radar detects threat

thaad amanda raytheon

THAAD's first line of defense is its radar system.

"We have one of the most powerful radars in the world," Kyle Terza, of Space and Missile Defense Command and a former THAAD battery commander, told Business Insider in a previous interview.

Raytheon's AN/TPY-2 radar is used to detect, track, and discriminate ballistic missiles in the terminal (or descending) phase of flight.

The mobile radar is about the size of a bus and is powerful enough to scan areas the size of entire countries, according to Raytheon.

2. Weapon is assigned and target engaged

thaad launcher

Each launcher unit carries up to eight missiles and can send multiple kill vehicles at once, depending on the severity of the threat.

Once an enemy threat has been identified, THAAD's Fire Control and Communications support team kicks in. If there is a decision to engage the incoming missile, the launcher fires an interceptor to hunt for its target.

3. After launch, a booster splits from the kill vehicle and tracks the target before colliding with it

While in flight, the interceptor will track its target and obliterate it in the sky.

4. Target is destroyed using kinetic energy

Impressively, the THAAD interceptor does not carry a warhead. Instead, the interceptor missile uses pure kinetic energy to deliver "hit to kill" strikes to incoming ballistic threats inside or outside the atmosphere.

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NOW WATCH: Meet THAAD: Americas answer to North Korean threats





More From Business Insider


By Alex Lawler

LONDON (Reuters) - OPEC's oil output is likely to reach its highest in recent history in September, a Reuters survey found on Friday, as Iraq boosted northern exports and Libya reopened some of its main oil terminals.

The increase comes despite lower output in top exporter Saudi Arabia and this week's agreement by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in Algeria to limit supply to support prices, its first such decision since 2008.

Supply from OPEC has risen to 33.60 million barrels per day (bpd) in September from a revised 33.53 million bpd in August, according to the survey based on shipping data and information from industry sources.

The rise in output could add to scepticism about OPEC's ability to allocate its new production target of between 32.50 million and 33 million bpd, a task ministers left until a meeting in November. Oil rallied towards $50 a barrel on Thursday but was trading near $49 on Friday.

"The agreement still leaves hard and difficult negotiations for the individual caps to be set," said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB.

"Now, with an OPEC curb on the cards for the first time in eight years, Brent crude is not even able to lift above $50. At least not yet."

Supply has risen since OPEC in 2014 dropped its historic role of fixing output to prop up prices as Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran pumped more. Production has also climbed due to the return of Indonesia in 2015 and Gabon in July as members.

The membership changes have skewed historical comparisons. September's supply from OPEC excluding Gabon and Indonesia, at 32.65 million bpd, is the highest in Reuters survey records starting in 1997.

In September, the increase was led by Iraq and Libya. Iraqi state oil firm SOMO and Iraq's semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan began jointly exporting crude from the Kirkuk oilfield again. This lifted Iraqi supply to market to 4.43 million bpd in September, according to the survey.

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In Libya, the National Oil Corporation opened three previously blockaded ports, allowing AGOCO, an NOC subsidiary that operates mainly in eastern Libya, to boost output. [L8N1C54J2]

Supply in Saudi Arabia has edged down from the record high reached earlier in the summer, sources in the survey said.

Supply in Iran, OPEC's fastest source of production growth earlier this year after the lifting of Western sanctions, has held steady this month as output nears the pre-sanctions rate. Iran is seeking investment to boost supply further.

Angolan output slipped because the Plutonio field was shut for part of the month.

There was no sign yet of higher supply from Nigeria, where attacks on oil installations have cut output. Supply should rise in October if efforts for a restart of Qua Iboe and Forcados crude exports come to fruition.

The Reuters survey is based on shipping data provided by external sources, Thomson Reuters flows data, and information provided by sources at oil companies, OPEC and consulting firms.

(Reporting by Alex Lawler; Editing by Susan Thomas)
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday offered to act as mediator between India and Pakistan to defuse rising tensions over disputed Kashmir.

The offer came after Pakistan's ambassador met with the UN chief and urged him to personally intervene, while India said it did not want to aggravate the situation.

Ban called on "both sides to exercise maximum restraint and take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation," a statement from his spokesman said.

The UN chief said India and Pakistan should address differences through diplomacy and dialogue, and offered to mediate.

"His good offices are available, if accepted by both sides," the UN spokesman said.

Tensions between the two arch rivals have been boiling since the Indian government accused Pakistan-based militants of launching an assault on an army base in Kashmir earlier this month that killed 18 soldiers.

India on Thursday said it had carried out "surgical strikes" several kilometers (miles) inside Pakistan-controlled Kashmir on what they called "terrorist" targets.

"This is a dangerous moment for the region," Pakistan's Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told AFP after meeting with Ban at UN headquarters in New York.

"The time has come for bold intervention by him if we are to avoid a crisis, because we can see a crisis building up."

Lodhi accused India of creating "conditions that pose a threat to regional and international peace and security."

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric earlier said the UN chief "would welcome all proposals" or initiatives aimed at de-escalation.

Ban is following the situation "with great concern," said Dujarric, citing the escalating rhetoric between the two countries and the increased tensions along the line of control separating Kashmir between Pakistani- and Indian-controlled areas.

- India says no desire to aggravate tensions -

A UN military observer mission (UNMOGIP) is looking into reports of ceasefire violations along the line of control and will report to Ban, he added.

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"UNMOGIP has not directly observed any firing across the line of control related to the latest incident," he added.

In a statement to AFP India's mission to the United Nations said "India has no desire to aggravate the situation," and that "our response was a measured counter-terrorist strike."

"It was focused in terms of targets and geographical space," the mission said. "It is reflective of our desire to respond proportionately to clear and imminent threat posed by terrorists in that instance.

"With our objectives having been met that effort has since ceased."

The Pakistani ambassador said she had suggested to Ban that plans for a visit to India and Pakistan expected in November could be brought forward to avert a crisis.

Lodhi also met this week with the current Security Council president, New Zealand Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, to ask that the top UN body keep a close eye on developments.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they gained independence from Britain seven decades ago, two of them over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.
Madrid (AFP) - At the helm of the Spanish Socialist party for two years, Pedro Sanchez -- or "Mr Handsome" as he is known -- is fighting for his survival as fellow heavyweights call for his head.

Seventeen members of the party's executive quit Wednesday in a bid to oust the 44-year-old, unhappy about the way he was navigating the Socialist ship through Spain's nine-month political deadlock. But he is holding on.

His fate will likely be decided on Saturday at a meeting of the party's federal committee where his projects will be put to a vote.

The former economics professor was largely unknown when he took the reins of the Socialist party (PSOE) in July 2014 after winning the first ever primary elections organised by the 137-year-old grouping.

Always immaculately suited and booted, tall and with Hollywood good looks, the married father-of-two positioned himself to reinvent a party struggling to recover from former Socialist prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's management of the economic crisis.

But now that half of the party's executives want him out, the man who has long been a PSOE campaigner is turning to those who voted him in to settle the crisis.

"Let the grassroots members speak," he said this week, calling for new primaries for October 23.

- 'No is no' -

Born in 1972 in Madrid, Sanchez grew up in a wealthy family -- his father an entrepreneur and his mother a lawyer.

He studied in the Spanish capital before getting a Master's degree in political economy at the Universite libre de Bruxelles in Belgium.

Politics, though, were always his passion.

He became an opposition town councillor in Madrid from 2004 to 2009, after which he entered parliament as a lawmaker under Zapatero's administration.

That ended when the conservative Popular Party (PP) swept to power in 2011 with an absolute majority, kicking the struggling Socialists out of power.

But he returned to the lower house in 2013 after the resignation of a lawmaker, and then went on to be voted in as Socialist party chief.

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In public, he likes to cultivate the image of a good family man with his wife Begona, a dazzling smile always at the ready.

But he has also shown an aggressive side -- particularly when acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is concerned, his "bete noire."

This came to the fore in a televised debate with Rajoy last year before December polls.

"The head of the government, Mr Rajoy, has to be a decent person, and you are not," he said, demanding to know why he had not resigned over repeated corruption scandals that had hit the PP.

And after two inconclusive elections in December and again in June, Sanchez has steadfastly refused to back any coalition government led by Rajoy.

"No is no," he famously said, as the acting prime minister tried to approach him for a government deal.

On top of the corruption scandals, he accuses Rajoy of having deepened inequalities in Spain through severe austerity measures.

Instead, he has rooted for an "alternative" government, turning unsuccessfully to centre-right upstart Ciudadanos and far-left Podemos to form a government.

A source close to Sanchez says he is actually wary of Podemos, a party that has made no secret of wanting to replace it as Spain's main left-wing force, and with whose leader Pablo Iglesias "he has never got along."

- Bad to worse results -

But as the PSOE went from bad result to worse result -- first in December elections, then in the June vote and now in two regional polls -- high-ranking members of the PSOE decided to precipitate their coup attempt.

Sanchez has been criticised for keeping key party members in the dark about what was happening.

Thought to trust only a few close allies, he even ignored advice from former prime minister Felipe Gonzalez -- a Socialist heavyweight -- who then came out publicly against him.

Even leading left-wing El Pais daily has rallied against him.

"Sanchez has ended up not being a fine leader, but an unscrupulous fool who doesn't hesitate in destroying the party he has so mistakenly led rather than recognise his huge failure," it wrote Thursday.

But Ignacio Escolar, founder of the left-wing online daily eldiario.es, rejected this.

"If Pedro Sanchez is really such a terrible, disastrous, pathetic leader as portrayed by those who once supported him, why don't they want to confront him in primaries?", he asked.
(San Diego)  Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Thursday the U.S. will sharpen our military edge in Asia and the Pacific in order to remain a dominant power in a region feeling the effects of Chinas rising military might.

Carter made the pledge in a speech aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in port in San Diego.

The Pentagon chief described what he called the next phase of a U.S. pivot to Asia  a rebalancing of American security commitments after years of heavy focus on the Middle East.

His speech, aimed at reassuring allies unsettled by Chinas behavior in the South China Sea, came three days after he made remarks at a nuclear missile base in North Dakota about rebuilding the nuclear force. Those comments prompted a strong reaction from the Russian foreign ministry, which issued a statement saying it had interpreted Carters statement as a declared intention to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons.

Carter said the Pentagon will make its attack submarines more lethal and spend more to build undersea drones that can operate in shallower waters where submarines cannot.

The United States will continue to sharpen our military edge so we remain the most powerful military in the region and the security partner of choice, he said.

He added, Were going to have a few surprises as well, describing them only as leap-ahead investments.

With a broad complaint that China is sometimes behaving aggressively, Carter alluded to Beijings building of artificial islands in disputed areas of the South China Sea.

Beijing sometimes appears to want to pick and choose which principles it wants to benefit from and which it prefers to try to undercut, he said. For example, the universal right to freedom of navigation that allows Chinas ships and aircraft to transit safely and peacefully is the same right that Beijing criticizes other countries for exercising in the region. But principles are not like that. They apply to everyone, and every nation, equally.

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Carters speech was meant to set the scene for a meeting Friday in Hawaii with his counterparts from the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN. The association focuses mainly on trade issues, but in recent years, with U.S. encouragement, has sought to engage in a range of defense and military issues. The U.S. is not a member of the organization but has sought to use it as a forum for further developing security partnerships amid regional concern about Chinas military buildup.

On Carters flight from San Diego to Hawaii later Thursday, a senior defense official aboard the plane told reporters that Carter expects to hear concerns from some Southeast Asian ministers, including those from Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, about the threat they perceive from an expected return of extremists who have been fighting for the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon, said hundreds of IS fighters already have returned to Southeast Asia from Syria and Iraq and said up to 1,000 more may return as the Islamic State group faces increased military pressure.

Carter has described Pentagon efforts to execute a pivot to Asia by shifting, or rebalancing, U.S. forces and attention toward the Asia-Pacific region after a decade and a half of Mideast-focused strategies and operations.

In April, he said he was putting the best people and platforms forward to the Asia-Pacific by increasing the number of U.S. military personnel in the region and by sending and stationing advanced weapons system there. He said that includes F-22 and F-35 stealth fighter jets, P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft, continuous deployments of B-2 and B-52 strategic bombers and the newest surface warfare ships like the amphibious assault ship USS America.

Among the Asia problems that have arisen for the Pentagon since Carter last met with the regions defense ministers is a sudden and steep deterioration in relations with the Philippines.

When Carter visited the Philippines in April, he praised the strength of the partnership. He said his visit had inaugurated a major new era in a longstanding alliance. He was referring to the U.S.-Philippines Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. Im proud to say this alliance is as close as its been in years.

That seeming closeness took a sharp downturn when Rodrigo Duterte was elected president in June. In early September, President Barack Obama cancelled a meeting with Duterte after the Philippine leader publicly called him a son of a bitch. Later, Duterte said he regretted the comment. And just this week, Duterte said joint military exercises of Filipino and American troops scheduled for next week will be the last such drills, although his foreign secretary quickly said the decision was not final. Duterte said the Philippines will maintain its military alliance with the United States because they share a 65-year-old mutual defense treaty.

I would serve notice to you now that this will be the last military exercise, Duterte said Wednesday. Jointly, Philippines-U.S., the last one.

Even so, Carter said in his speech Thursday that the relationship with the Philippines is ironclad.

As host of Fridays meeting in Hawaii of defense ministers of the Associated of Southeast Asian Nations, Carter is expected to have at least informal interaction with Philippine Defense Minister Delfin Lorenzana.

___

This story has been corrected to show that the defense minister for the Philippines is Delfin Lorenzana, not Voltaire Gazmin.
In retrospect, I was wrong to shoot it that way, but there was no other way to get it done. Thats how director Billy Friedkin last week summed up his famously hair-raising chase scene in the Oscar-winning 1971 film The French Connection. Friedkin was speaking before a rapt audience at the Directors Guild that had gathered for the 45th anniversary of his storied thriller, and he was candid about the challenge of shooting action scenes in the pre-CGI era. Given budget and time restrictions, the chaotic chase scene could not be not carefully prepped or story-boarded; streets were not cleared nor pedestrians pre-warned, and permissions were not received.

The skilled stunt driver careened through the streets, accidentally slamming into first one car, then a truck. I took human life for granted because I wanted the shot, Friedkin reflects. I would never do it again.

Friedkins film today is regarded as a classic cop movie based closely on an actual heroin bust, but its director was determined to prevent it from playing like a balky procedural. With two non-stars (at the time) as its leads, Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider, the film was made for $1.8 million on a 40-day shoot. To fans of chase scenes, Friedkins depiction of a car in desperate pursuit of an elevated train surpassed the great contemporary chases in Bullitt and The Italian Job in terms of speed and daring. With bullets flying, cars hurtled through the streets of Brooklyn at 90 miles per hour with first Hackman, then a stunt driver at the wheel.

In his DGA presentation, Friedkin broke down the chase moment-by-moment, detailing why actual pedestrians, not extras, were used in many takes, how passers-by scurried out of the way as cops sped after suspects, guns firing. No one was hurt but lots of cars were damaged, the director explained. And there were close calls. Friedkin himself shot parts of the chase from the back seat of Hackmans car.

In many ways, The French Connection exemplified the cowboy-style filmmaking techniques of 70s Hollywood filmmakers, who seemed eager to defy the rules. 2oth Century Fox was initially reluctant to hire Friedkin, whose early movies, like Boys In The Band or Harold Pinters The Birthday Party, displayed no special gift for action. When he finally landed the job, Friedkin hoped to cast an established star like Paul Newman as Popeye Doyle. Friedkin and his producer, Phil DAntoni, who had earlier produced Bullitt, presented a $2 million budget, but the studio cut it by $500,000, thereby rendering the action scenes even more of a challenge. Still, Friedkin was adamant about avoiding the prospect of a static surveillance film.

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I knew we needed action  two or three good chases, Friedkin told the DGA audience. But how many times can you show Hackman and Scheider running after a guy? Two weeks before the start of production, Friedkin and his producer decided to walk the streets of New York and not stop until they had patched together an exciting chase. In their mind, Hackman, playing an obsessive cop, understood that the bad guy was hiding in an elevated train and he would have to relentlessly follow the train as it sped above him. A creaky elevated line in Brooklyn granted Friedkin last-minute permission to shoot on three weekends but there was no time to deal with police bureaucracy. Extras were hired to serve as passengers on the train but actual pedestrians would be waiting on station platforms, watching the train rush by and witnessing the daring chase on the streets below.

While Friedkin had admired the chases in Bullitt, with cars soaring up and down the steep hills of San Francisco, he was determined to enhance the atmosphere of danger. The streets in Bullitt seemed oddly clear of traffic or pedestrians; Friedkin wanted greater reality, but was alarmed when his stunt car started bouncing off stationary vehicles, forcing his crew to apply emergency repairs to keep the scene (and antos) rolling.

In staging his scene, Friedkins subconscious role model was Buster Keaton, whose silent movies were built around daring train chases. Keatons scenes seemed life-threatening, Friedkin observed. And, of course, neither Keaton nor Friedkin had the present-day luxury of computers and special effects. Neither could retire to the editing room with computer-enhanced footage. They had to rely on what they saw in the streets.

In his DGA presentation, Friedkin reminded his audience he was not defending that style of devil-may- care filmmaking, putting lives at risk to achieve maximum impact. But the demands of 70s-era filmmaking, with its extraordinary ambitions but limited budgets, produced memorably vivid scenes and performances. In the case of The French Connection, it also resulted in five Oscars including Best Picture.

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KUALA LUMPUR/MILAN, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Malaysian state oil firm Petroliam Nasional Bhd is considering selling its majority stake in a $27 billion Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, three people familiar with the matter said this week.

Petroliam Nasional, or Petronas, is weighing options for the project as its finances have been squeezed after crude oil prices have collapsed by more than 50 percent since the middle of 2014. Additionally, the economics of the project have been called into question as LNG prices for delivery into the main markets in northeast Asia have slumped more than 70 percent over nearly the same time period. (LNG-AS)

Petronas was given the go-ahead for the project by the Canadian government earlier this week. It said then that executives would study the conditions imposed by the Canadian authorities and conduct a review before deciding on the next steps.

Petronas on Friday said it will not provide any additional comment when asked about the potential sale.

The sources said Petronas has been considering a sale for months, after it became apparent that a Canadian approval was possible, but had yet to take a final decision. Other options are also being considered, including putting it on ice.

They added that finding a buyer in current market conditions would be difficult. Petronas signed on for the project in 2012 through the acquisition of Canada's Progress Energy. That year LNG prices climbed to as high as $18.17 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) but have fallen to $5.75 per mmBtu since then.

If suspended, the project would be put on ice until gas prices begin to turn around and Petronas is confident of securing long-term contracts at reasonable prices, said the sources, who declined to be identified as the negotiations are not public.

Petronas has minority partners for the project in China, India, Japan and Brunei.

(Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi in KUALA LUMPUR and Oleg Vukmanovic in MILAN; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
* Oil price slide hits group's profits, prompts capex, job cuts

* Project economics questioned, LNG price down 70 pct in 2 yrs

* Looking at gas prices, costs before final decision - source (Adds comment, background)

By A. Ananthalakshmi and Oleg Vukmanovic

KUALA LUMPUR/MILAN, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Malaysian state oil firm Petroliam Nasional Bhd is considering selling its majority stake in a $27 billion Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, three people familiar with the matter said this week.

Petronas, as the company is known, is weighing options for the project as a more than 50 percent slide in crude oil prices since the middle of 2014 has hit the group's profits and prompted cuts to capital expenditure and jobs.

Amid the cost-cutting, the economics of the Canadian project - which took three years to get approval due to environment concerns - have been called into question as LNG prices (LNG-AS) have fallen more than 70 percent in two years.

Petronas was given the go-ahead for the C$36 billion ($27.34 billion) project by the Canadian government earlier this week. It said then that executives would study the 190 conditions imposed by the authorities and conduct a review before deciding on the next steps.

Petronas said on Friday it will not provide any additional comment when asked about the potential sale.

The sources said Petronas has been considering a sale for months, after it became apparent that a Canadian approval was possible, but had yet to take a final decision. Other options are also being considered, including putting it on ice.

"They are going to be looking at gas prices, costs and returns before they make the final decision," said one of the sources. "It is a very tough call."

The Canadian project is Petronas' biggest foreign investment and seen as a sign of Malaysia's global energy ambitions. An exit would underscore the financial constraints at the state-run firm and also the soft outlook for LNG prices.

Last month, Petronas reported an 85 percent slide in second-quarter profit and labelled the industry outlook "gloomy" well into 2017. It has committed to paying 16 billion ringgit to the government coffers this year, down nearly 40 percent from its year-ago contribution.

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TOUGH SELL

Petronas signed on for the project in 2012 through the acquisition of Canada's Progress Energy.

It has faced several hurdles. Aboriginal and environmental groups have said the project would threaten a salmon habitat. The LNG price decline added to concerns, also a growing supply glut as other projects went live.

If Petronas goes ahead with a sale, finding a buyer in current market conditions would be difficult, the sources said.

Petronas was considering its options as far back as a year ago, a separate industry source said, but he added it would be difficult to sell in the current environment given that Canadian projects are more expensive.

If Petronas opts to suspend the Canada project, it would be put on ice until gas prices begin to turn around and Petronas is confident of securing long-term contracts at reasonable prices, said the sources, who declined to be identified as the negotiations are not public.

Other LNG projects in British Columbia have also faced delays, underlining the market outlook. In July, Royal Dutch Shell and its partners pushed back a decision on building an LNG export terminal, and Chevron has delayed the scheduled 2017 start of its Kitimat LNG project.

Petronas has minority partners for the project in China, India, Japan and Brunei. ($1 = 1.3166 Canadian dollars) (Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Susan Thomas)
By A. Ananthalakshmi and Oleg Vukmanovic

KUALA LUMPUR/MILAN (Reuters) - Malaysian state oil firm Petroliam Nasional Bhd is considering selling its majority stake in a $27 billion Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, three people familiar with the matter said this week.

Petronas, as the company is known, is weighing options for the project as a more than 50 percent slide in crude oil prices since the middle of 2014 has hit the group's profits and prompted cuts to capital expenditure and jobs.

Amid the cost-cutting, the economics of the Canadian project - which took three years to get approval due to environment concerns - have been called into question as LNG prices have fallen more than 70 percent in two years.

Petronas was given the go-ahead for the C$36 billion ($27.34 billion) project by the Canadian government earlier this week. It said then that executives would study the 190 conditions imposed by the authorities and conduct a review before deciding on the next steps.

Petronas said on Friday it will not provide any additional comment when asked about the potential sale.

The sources said Petronas has been considering a sale for months, after it became apparent that a Canadian approval was possible, but had yet to take a final decision. Other options are also being considered, including putting it on ice.

"They are going to be looking at gas prices, costs and returns before they make the final decision," said one of the sources. "It is a very tough call."

The Canadian project is Petronas' biggest foreign investment and seen as a sign of Malaysia's global energy ambitions. An exit would underscore the financial constraints at the state-run firm and also the soft outlook for LNG prices.

Last month, Petronas reported an 85 percent slide in second-quarter profit and labeled the industry outlook "gloomy" well into 2017. It has committed to paying 16 billion ringgit to the government coffers this year, down nearly 40 percent from its year-ago contribution.

Story continues

TOUGH SELL

Petronas signed on for the project in 2012 through the acquisition of Canada's Progress Energy.

It has faced several hurdles. Aboriginal and environmental groups have said the project would threaten a salmon habitat. The LNG price decline added to concerns, also a growing supply glut as other projects went live.

If Petronas goes ahead with a sale, finding a buyer in current market conditions would be difficult, the sources said.

Petronas was considering its options as far back as a year ago, a separate industry source said, but he added it would be difficult to sell in the current environment given that Canadian projects are more expensive.

If Petronas opts to suspend the Canada project, it would be put on ice until gas prices begin to turn around and Petronas is confident of securing long-term contracts at reasonable prices, said the sources, who declined to be identified as the negotiations are not public.

Other LNG projects in British Columbia have also faced delays, underlining the market outlook. In July, Royal Dutch Shell and its partners pushed back a decision on building an LNG export terminal, and Chevron has delayed the scheduled 2017 start of its Kitimat LNG project.

Petronas has minority partners for the project in China, India, Japan and Brunei.

(Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Susan Thomas)
Due to his acid tongue and backing of vigilante death squads, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is increasingly likened to a dictator. On Friday, he even made the comparison explicit himself, saying, Hitler massacred 3 million Jews. Now, there are 3 million drug addicts  Id be happy to slaughter them, according to GMA News.

Duterte had just arrived in Davao City, where he served more than two decades as mayor, and first launched the extrajudicial drugs war that is now spiraling across the 100 million-strong Southeast Asian nation. Since his inauguration June 30, police and vigilantes have heaped more than 3,000 bloodied corpses onto the nations streets, many scrawled with grisly epitaphs like pusher.

The 71-year-olds indiscriminate campaign has strained the Philippines already bursting prisons as well as its relationship with old ally Washington. On Wednesday, Senator Patrick Leahy suggested that the U.S. should consider withholding financial assistance to the Philippines in response to the drugs war. Duterte responded by vowing that the latest U.S.-Philippine joint military exercises would be the last.

Read More: 7 Times Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte Shocked the World

But the bombastic former lawyer and prosecutor apparently has a new friend in China. Hours before Dutertes Hitler comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a news briefing in Beijing that illicit drugs are the common enemy of mankind and that fighting against all drug-related crimes is a shared responsibility of all countries. Geng added that China would like to work out a joint action plan with its Asian neighbor in the campaign, according to the state-backed China Daily newspaper.

Chinese support for Dutertes draconian drugs war is perhaps unsurprising. China executes the worlds highest number of criminals  official figures are not published, though human-rights groups estimate 2,400 last year  including for serious drugs offenses. Moreover, China has the most to gain by wooing the new Philippine leader, given that Manila had previously been the loudest claimant nation to object to Beijings sweeping territorial claims in the South China Sea. Duterte is due to arrive in Beijing for an official visit Oct. 20.

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[Dutertes] foreign policy will be more pragmatic and balanced, not just relying on the U.S., and not just focusing on security and territorial disputes with China, says Professor Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Beijings Renmin University.

Nevertheless, Chinas vocal backing for the drugs war is curious, as Duterte has repeatedly taken aim at Beijing for harboring drug dealers, and has also fingered alleged Filipino-Chinese narcotics kingpins by name. In July, while visiting a military camp, Duterte said, Where is the big fish [in trafficking drugs]? If you want them, go to China. Look for them there, reports Agence France-Presse.

Read More: The Killing Time: Inside Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes War on Drugs

Beijing has offered to build a huge drug-rehabilitation center on the main Philippine island of Luzon, according to Duterte, though its no secret that much of the crystal methamphetamine flooding the Philippines comes from southern China. In addition, the precursor drugs for locally produced meth are generally manufactured in Chinese labs. But its unlikely that Duterte will press either this issue or the South China Sea too hard in Beijing. You wont see Duterte badger them, says Joseph Franco, an expert on the Philippines at Singapores Nanyang Technological University. Its going to be theater, they are going to make a spectacle out of it.

One reason for a light touch is the economy. China is the Philippines largest trading partner, and the archipelago nations previously ruddy finances are increasingly unnerved by Dutertes erraticism. Over the past month, financial markets have fallen as investors have taken fright, Gareth Leather, senior Asia expert for Capital Economics, said in a statement Friday. The Philippine peso has dropped nearly 4% since the start of September and is now at its lowest level against the U.S. dollar in seven years. The Presidents erratic and crass style is a concern, adds Leather.

Invoking the Holocaust is, of course, evidence of precisely just that, even if Duterte isnt the first Philippine leader to roll out a Nazi comparison. His predecessor, former President Benigno Aquino, warned last year that the South China Sea dispute was reminiscent of Europe on the cusp of World War II. Only in this analogy it was China that was portrayed as the tyrant. If somebody said stop to Hitler at that point in time, or to Germany at that time, would we have avoided World War II, Aquino said during a speech in Japan.

Dutertes contrasting use of the metaphor is nothing but good news for Beijing.

 With reporting by Zhang Chi / Beijing
Davao (Philippines) (AFP) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday likened his deadly crime war to Hitler's efforts to exterminate Jews, as he declared he was "happy to slaughter" millions of drug addicts.

Duterte also railed against Western critics of his unprecedented law-and-order crackdown, which has left more than 3,000 people dead in three months and raised concerns about a breakdown in the rule of law in one of Asia's most chaotic democracies.

"Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I'd be happy to slaughter them," Duterte told reporters in his home city of Davao, although he vastly underestimated the number of people killed in the Holocaust by the Nazi leader's regime.

"At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have," he said, then paused. "But you know, my victims, I would like to be (sic) all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition."

Duterte, 71, won elections in May in a landslide after a campaign dominated by his pledge to eradicate drugs in society by killing tens of thousands of people.

The lawyer and former city prosecutor promised immunity for security forces if they were charged with murder, and on his first day in office urged residents of a Manila slum to kill drug addicts within their own community.

His police chief also urged addicts to burn down the homes of drug traffickers and kill them.

Since Duterte came to power on June 30, police have killed more than 1,200 people and about 1,800 others have died in unexplained circumstances, according to official figures.

A piece of cardboard, with "drug peddler" or "drug addict" written on it, is frequently placed on corpses that are left on the streets. This has led to the war on crime becoming known as "cardboard justice".

- 'Revolting, inhumane' -

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Duterte has faced a barrage of criticism from Western governments and rights groups, but he has reacted defiantly and often with abusive language while insisting he is not doing anything illegal.

Duterte has branded US President Barack Obama a "son of a whore", called UN chief Ban Ki-moon a "fool" and used expletives in referring to the European Union while raising his middle finger.

His analogy with Adolf Hitler, whose campaign to wipe out Jews in Europe led to about six million deaths by the end of World War II, triggered more condemnation.

"Any comparison of the singular atrocities of the Holocaust with anything else is totally unacceptable," German foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer told reporters.

World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder described Duterte's comments as "revolting" and demanded he apologise.

"What President Duterte said is not only profoundly inhumane, but it demonstrates an appalling disrespect for human life," Lauder said in a statement.

- Hypocrisy -

Duterte on Friday also criticised the European Union and the United States for alleged inaction on the migrant crisis emanating from the Middle East.

"You US, EU. You can call me anything. But I was never into or I am never into hypocrisy like you," he said.

"There are migrants escaping from the Middle East. You allow them to rot and then you're worried about the deaths of about 1,000, 2,000, 3,000?"

In response to American criticism, Duterte has signalled he intends to downgrade military ties with longtime ally the United States, while forging closer relations with China and Russia.

Duterte said this week he intended to end joint military exercises with the United States.

The nations conduct war games regularly in the Philippines and coastal waters, which previous governments have intended as a form of deterrence against China's ambitions to control most of the South China Sea.

US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter responded to Duterte's comments by insisting on Thursday America's alliance with the Philippines remained "ironclad".

But Duterte on Friday insisted the war games next week involving more than 1,000 troops would be the last of his six-year term, as he hit out again at the United States.

"Do not pretend to be the moral conscience of the world," he said.
Rodrigo Duterte Philippines military

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has attracted international criticism for the bloodshed driven by the war on drugs he launched when he took office nearly four months ago.

And he has caused more worry in Washington, DC, through his repudiation of ties with the US and seeming embrace of China  a move that has stirred concern among the Philippines' neighbors in the region and among US policymakers as they try to respond to China's growing influence and assertiveness in the South China Sea.

However, Duterte's initiatives  a brutal crackdown on the drug trade and an opening to Beijing  may come in conflict with each other if the Chinese role in the Philippines' drug scene becomes a sticking point.

Duterte has referred to the connection between China and drugs in the Philippines since mid-summer. After a July 12 international-court ruling dismissing China's claims in the South China Sea, Duterte suggested that many drug-related killings involved Chinese nationals.

"Those who die and the bodies are unclaimed, who will claim them? Most of them really are Chinese," he said on July 17. He also claimed that drug organizations cooked shabu, a name for the methamphetamine consumed in the Philippines, aboard ships originating from China.

Later that month he doubled down saying, "Where is the big fish [in illegal drugs]? If you want them, go to China. Look for them there."

Philippines drug war vigilante extrajudicial violence Duterte

In late August, Duterte's government again linked China to the country's drug trade. Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay told a Senate hearing that the Chinese ambassador had been summoned to respond to accusations that China was a major source of drugs and that Chinese triad gangs were involved in smuggling.

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"(The ambassador) said that this is not true, and I told him these reports are based on intelligence information. They have been validated so far as we are concerned, so I wanted a clarification from him," Yasay told Reuters at the time.

China responded by requesting more information on allegations about Chinese involvement in the drug trade, with the country's ambassador to the Philippines saying it was "utterly wrong" to claim all the drug lords were Chinese.

If you find there are Chinese nationals who got themselves involved in drug-related crimes, give us solid information before you say they are Chinese, China's ambassador, Zhao Jianhua, said in late August. These allegations or generalizations must be avoided.

China Philippines Russia Medvedev Li Keqiang Cambodia Rodrigo Duterte ASEAN Asia

In recent weeks, Duterte has reaffirmed his desire to break with the US (though he said he would honor current treaties) and rebuked much of the world for criticizing his drug war, all while again signaling his willingness to engage with China.

In mid-September, Duterte announced his government was considering weapons purchases from China, and on September 26 said "we will open alliances with China" and Russia, and that he would open up the "other side of the ideological barrier."

But drugs still cast a shadow over the Philippines' ties with China, where the presence and seizures of methamphetamine have grown in recent years.

Meth seizures in China, USA, Philippines

In August, an antinarcotics raid northwest of Manila reportedly seized more than $82.7 million worth of shabu in a warehouse allegedly belonging to a Chinese syndicate.

In early September, a raid on a pig farm north of the Philippine capital of Manila uncovered a drug lab and led to the arrests of seven Chinese citizens.

Also in early September, the chief of the PNP Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force said that China continued to be a major source of drugs in the Philippines.

Most of those involved in smuggling shabu were mostly Chinese and West African drug syndicates, Senior Supt. Bartolome Tobias told reporters at the time.

This is why we will continue to launch operations against big-time Chinese drug lords operating in the country, he said.

China, which has capital punishment for drug offenses, has affirmed its support for Duterte's crackdown on drugs, but Chinese officials and state media have at times denied Chinese involvement or downplayed China's role in the Philippines' drug trade.

Chinese citizens have both criticized the bloodshed in the Philippines and mocked Philippine anger over Chinese involvement in the drug trade, according to Quartz.

Positioned between two world powers  China and the US  in a strategically valuable spot in the South China Sea, the Philippines president has room to play both sides.

map south china sea

The US would likely be quiescent over the drug violence if Manila was firmly on its side in efforts to balance against Chinese power, and Beijing would likely be open to playing ball if the Philippines were willing to accede to some of China's interests in the Pacific.

But Duterte's saber-rattling against the US (though Philippine and US officials have reaffirmed the relationship) has only stirred unease in Washington, while his focus on combatting drugs and drug dealers may antagonize Beijing.

Duterte, for his part, seems to be focused on drugs, perhaps to the detriment of other issues.

On September 30, noting that Hitler had murdered millions of Jews, he said: "There are 3 million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I'd be happy to slaughter them."

"If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have...," Duterte said, pausing and pointing to himself.

NOW WATCH: Philippines president compares himself to Hitler  says hed be happy to 'slaughter' 3 million drug addicts





More From Business Insider


By Steve Scherer ROME (Reuters) - Italian police on Friday cleared out the "Gloomy Street" transit camp in central Rome where thousands of migrants have slept over the past year as they made their way toward northern Europe. The Baobab center near Rome's Tiburtina train station was shut down in December, but volunteers quickly set up a camp on the street in front of the old shelter, providing tents, chemical toilets, mattresses and meals. An estimated 60,000 migrants have slept there over the past 12 months and volunteers said about 300 migrants spent the night in Via Cupa, which means Gloomy Street in English, on Thursday. Police moved in after dawn, rounding up dozens of people for identification. They later hauled away the mattresses, toilets and food. "Shutting down the camp doesn't solve the problem. There will still be migrants looking for a place to sleep tonight," Andrea Costa, one of the founding members of the Baobab shelter, told Reuters. Italy has been on the front line of Europe's immigration crisis, taking in more than 450,000 migrants who have arrived by boat from North Africa since the start of 2014, official figures show. The state provides shelter to about 160,000 asylum seekers - eight times more than it did in 2013 - in centers up and down the country, but there are no state-funded shelters for migrants in transit. According to European Union law, they should seek asylum in Italy or be sent home. Residents and Baobab volunteers have been calling on Rome's government to provide a more suitable location. The new city government, run by mayor Virginia Raggi, told Reuters last month a solution would be found by Aug. 15. While police have cleared migrants out of Gloomy Street on several occasions in the past, they have always left the camp itself intact. A residents' group hailed what appeared to be an end to the shelter. "Even though it was way overdue, they put an end to the mess that Gloomy Street had become," the group said on Facebook. Costa said volunteers and activists were seeking new locations for the camp, including an abandoned fishery school nearby, but did not rule out staging protests in front of city hall or occupying a new space. (Reporting by Steve Scherer; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Tbilisi (AFP) - Pope Francis called Friday for respect of national sovereignty and "coexistence" as he arrived in Georgia but seemed to dodge potential Russian ire at the start of a visit to the volatile Caucasus region.

The pontiff was greeted warmly by President Giorgi Margvelashvili and the leader of the Georgian Orthodox church, Patriarch Ilia II, at the start of the three-day visit to Georgia and Azerbaijan that the Vatican has billed as a peace mission.

Pro-Western Georgia -- one of the world's oldest Christian nations -- fought a brief war with Russia in 2008 and two Moscow-backed breakaway regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which remain out of Tbilisi's control.

After meeting with the pontiff, Margvelashvili thanked him for supporting Georgia's territorial integrity, saying that "20 percent of the Georgian territory remains under occupation" by the Russian troops.

But in a speech in the presidential palace's courtyard before government officials, civil society leaders, and foreign diplomats, Francis did not mention Russia, nor the word "occupation."

Apparently wary of irritating the Kremlin and Russia's powerful Orthodox Church, Francis only made general calls for "the respect of sovereign prerogatives of all countries within the framework of international law."

"Coexistence between all peoples and states in the region" is "an indispensable precondition" for peace and stability, he said.

On Sunday, Francis is due in Azerbaijan, where he will meet with, among others, President Ilham Aliyev, just days after the authoritarian leader won a referendum on constitutional changes seen as consolidating his grip on power.

While in the energy-rich country, Francis is expected to reiterate the call he made three months ago in Armenia for a peaceful resolution of the long-simmering conflict over the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh.

Officially part of Azerbaijan, the territory has been under the control of ethnic Armenian separatists since 1994, when a war between the two countries ended in a ceasefire but no formal peace accord.

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Since then, there have been sporadic outbursts of violence, including one in April that left 110 people dead.

- Steps to peace -

Interfaith dialogue and reconciliation between different branches of Christianity have been dominant themes of Francis's papacy.

And he will be seeking to strengthen relations with the Georgian Church which, like other Orthodox churches, does not recognise papal primacy and has doctrinal differences with the Roman Catholic Church.

On Friday, Francis prayed for peace in Syria and Iraq with Syrian Catholic bishops at Tbilisi's Church of Saint Simon Bar Sabbae.

The churches' disagreements on a number of theological issues explain why Pope Francis and Patriarch Ilia II will not pray together in public during the pontiff's visit to Georgia.

"The papal visit may bring in a certain thaw in the two churches' relations, but not a breakthrough," Levan Sutidze, religion columnist at Georgia's Tabula magazine, told AFP.

"Theological differences are substantial and the Georgian Church is known for its isolationist position."

Ilia, 83, has overseen a post-Soviet revival of a church which claims the loyalty of more than 80 percent of Georgia's 4.9 million population.

The church leader is a conservative figure known for some controversial views, including that homosexuality is a disease that should be treated like drug addiction.

Georgia was one of the cradles of early Christianity and one of Jesus's apostles, Andrew, is credited with spreading the faith to the territories that make up modern Georgia.

Occupied by the Bolsheviks in 1921, the country regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and is now targeting membership in the European Union and NATO -- a process its diplomats hope will be advanced by the papal visit.
This popular theory about those freaky clowns is totally not true

This popular theory about those freaky clowns is totally not true

Clowns are more creepy than funny. Its just a fact. But recent real-life creepy clown sightings have forced schools to shut down , escalated to actual crimes, and caused general mass hysteria in several parts of the U.S. There have even been reports that these clowns may have chased children or lured them into the woods. *Shudder.* This whole thing is somewhere between slight WTF and actual living nightmare.

it

But could this whole clown thing just be an elaborate gonzo marketing scheme to promote the upcoming movie, It? Internet conspiracists seem to think so.

Lets examine the facts.

The most famous creepy clown in cinematic history is Pennywise.

it2

Tim Curry immortalized the role in the 1990 classic miniseries from Stephen Kings, It. The film reboot is set to hit theaters in 2017. Pennywise loved to terrorize children, and creep up in places that are least expected. So do the creepy clowns!

Butfilming for the It reboot ended two weeks ago.

Screenwriter and producer Barbara Muschietti commemorated the wrap with this super-creepy Instagram.

And yes, it's a wrap on #itthemovie. Thank you amazing cast and crew for this magical journey. And thank you #stephenking for giving us this tale. A photo posted by Barbie Mus (@barbaramus) on Sep 21, 2016 at 11:10pm PDT

Were still not convinced that the clowns arent one big viral marketing campaign.

Fair enough. How about this? Today, The Hollywood Reporter reached out to the production company for It and thankfully, got a clear answer.

New Line is absolutely not involved in the rash of clown sightings.

Okay then! And what about Stephen King? Has he commented on the clowns? Unfortunately, no.

I'm excited for the IT move. Because we all float down here, Georgie. And you'll float, too. Want a balloon?  Stephen King (@StephenKing) August 23, 2016

While were glad for a Stephen King blessing on any reboot, that still doesnt explain these awful clowns!

Until we get answers, it just feels like were all living inside an alternate season of Stranger Things.

The post This popular theory about those freaky clowns is totally not true appeared first on HelloGiggles.
U.S. health officials on Thursday advised pregnant women to avoid nonessential travel to Southeast Asia and the Maldives because of the potential risk of Zika infection, which can cause severe birth defects.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) singled out 11 countries in its latest advisory: Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste (East Timor) and Vietnam.

Thursdays advisory about potential risks in Southeast Asia so far only recommend postponing nonessential travel. The CDC said travelers have been infected with the virus in parts of Southeast Asia, where Zika is endemic and has been present for many years. Many local residents are believed to be immune, though travelers most likely are not.

Read More: Why You Should Care About Zika

Pregnant women traveling to Southeast Asia could become infected with Zika virus, the CDC said. The level of this risk is unknown and likely lower than in areas where Zika virus is newly introduced and spreading widely.

Zika is a primarily a mosquito-borne disease, but it can also be sexually transmitted. It was identified in Brazil last year and has since spread globally. Infection is not always symptomatic, but can cause a fever similar to dengue. Zika infection during pregnancy can cause serious brain abnormalities such as microcephaly and other birth defects.

Read More: See All the Places Where the Zika Virus Has Spread

The CDC has advised pregnant women to avoid almost 60 countries or regions worldwide because of Zikas rapid spread.
White House

In a move that blatantly disregards our unspoken agreement to never think about the Olympics when they arent taking place, President Barack Obama welcomed a slew of U.S. Olympians to the White House on Thursday, including the gold-medal-winning womens U.S. gymnastics team.

And since Obama is a funny guy, he attempted to get into the splits with the team in front of the White House photographer. At least, thats what the caption says. Really, Obama slightly bent at the knees and said, Caption the photo so it says I tried to do the splits. Hes barely lunging but whatever. How can we ever trust him again?

He is a perfect 10 in our book. #TeamUSA pic.twitter.com/kxyB3mx6RP  The First Lady (@FLOTUS) September 29, 2016

The White House welcomed Paralympians as well, although there were some big-name absences at the event.

This is the last group of Olympians the Obamas will host at the White House, as the president noted in his speech to the group. Among the athletes were Simone Biles, Michael Phelps and Aly Raisman. Gabby Douglas, who underwent surgery to remove her wisdom teeth earlier this week, did not attend. Swimmer Ryan Lochte was banned from the event.

First, could Douglas not have had her wisdom teeth yanked at literally any other time? I get not wanting to make a public appearance when your jaw is all swollen but you skipped a White House visit. Get it done a week earlier or a week later.

Second, Lochte being banned from the White House is great. I like to think he didnt know he was banned and tried to attend anyway, only he was standing alone outside Monticello wondering where everyone was.

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Getty Image

Third, yeah, the Obamas cant host Olympians at the White House ever again, but why not at their house? Youre telling me if they invited gold-medal winners to their private residence, they wouldnt come? Spring for some catering, get a bouncy house in your backyard and create some viral content when the gymnasts go wild in that thing.

Then again, what if Michelle runs and wins? That would mean four to eight more years of the Obamas pretending to do splits in front of White House photographers.

I feel like Ive kind of lost the point of this story. American Olympians and Paralympians were at the White House. They had fun. Thanks for reading.

(People)
Sept 30 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the business pages of British newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

The Times

British Steel will be capable of making profits of 150 million ($194.46 million) a year if it gets the right government support, Roland Junck, the company's executive chairman said. (http://bit.ly/2dbg3M3)

Jeremy Corbyn and Labour MPs are edging towards a "coalition agreement" that would allow members of the parliamentary party to choose who fills some shadow cabinet posts. (http://bit.ly/2dbllHl)

The Guardian

London Mayor Sadiq Khan is planning to launch the UK's most comprehensive inquiry into the impact of foreign investment flooding London's housing market. (http://bit.ly/2dbhgmA)

The European head of Airbnb has denied claims that the company is driving up property prices and perpetuating London's housing crisis. (http://bit.ly/2dbhiL7)

The Telegraph

Commerzbank, the second-biggest bank in Germany, has suspended its dividend and revealed more than 9,000 job losses. (http://bit.ly/2dbiBK0)

Sky News

Two of Europe's biggest web hosting service providers, Strato and Hellman & Friedman, are teaming up with private equity groups in a bid to win control of a British-based Host Europe. (http://bit.ly/2dbimic)

Government ministers and stakeholders from the UK, France and China have attended a ceremony to officially agree the 18bn Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. (http://bit.ly/2dbjmTB)

The Independent

Vitol, the world's biggest oil trader, faces a potential scandal over claims it ripped off the people of impoverished Mozambique for critical fuel by at least $80 million last year. (http://ind.pn/2dbjJgY)

Deutsche Bank came under mounting pressure after it emerged that some hedge funds worried about its financial strength had started to trim their exposure to the troubled lender. (http://bit.ly/2dbkVAP)

($1 = 0.7714 pounds) (Compiled by Gaurika Juneja in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Sept 30 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories from selected Canadian newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

** Ontario, Quebec and California environment ministers met in Toronto Thursday and discussed Ontario's plan to join the Western Climate Initiative, which is dominated by the U.S. state whose population is double that of the two provinces. http://bit.ly/2dJJC6i

** At least two unexplained cases of sudden, partial paralysis in young children have been confirmed in Canada, and doctors believe the cases could be linked to the return of a virus that in 2014 sent hundreds of North American children to hospital with severe respiratory illness. http://bit.ly/2d0MRCa

** Enbridge Inc will sell a key Saskatchewan pipeline system for $1.075 billion as it looks for financial room to help it proceed with its massive takeover of Houston-based Spectra Energy Corp. The deal announced late Thursday will see private midstream firm Tundra Energy Marketing Ltd buy Enbridge's South East Saskatchewan pipeline system. http://bit.ly/2dwoxZE

NATIONAL POST

** Loyal BlackBerry fans may still be able to get their thumbs on a last new, in-house designed handset despite the company's decision to stop developing hardware internally by the end of its fiscal year. BlackBerry Ltd CEO John Chen is in the midst of testing a handset prototype - it sounds like it features the beloved keyboard - that was already in the works when the company decided to give up hardware development to focus on software, he told reporters at a round-table discussion at the Waterloo headquarters on Wednesday. http://bit.ly/2dEDqcy

** Bank branch closures and staff cuts aren't new to the financial services industry as it adjusts to customer demands for more online and mobile services, and competition from fintech rivals. But Laurentian Bank of Canada's announcement late Thursday that 50 branches will be merged, eliminating around 300 employees in the process, was particularly bold, says Rob Sedran, an analyst at CIBC World Markets. http://bit.ly/2cQe7pk

** The Competition Bureau is going after the Vancouver Airport Authority for restricting competition among in-flight catering companies. An investigation by the bureau found that the airport authority has "refused" to give new in-flight catering suppliers access to the Vancouver International Airport, even though the airlines that use the airport want more choice in suppliers. http://bit.ly/2dEEuxc (Compiled by Rama Venkat Raman in Bengaluru)
TORONTO (Reuters) - Britain's Princess Charlotte, 1, spoke for the first time in public on Thursday during her family's Canadian tour, uttering the word "pop" while she and her brother played with balloons. Britain's Prince William and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, are on week-long trip to Canada. It was the first time the couple have brought their children Charlotte and George, 3, on an official visit to the country. The family was in Victoria, British Columbia, on Thursday, where they attended a children's party for military families. The event on the grounds of Government House, an official residence, included bubbles and a petting zoo with miniature ponies. But the two royal children seemed especially interested in an archway of pink and green balloons, where Charlotte was heard speaking to her brother. It was not the first time on the tour that the children have been the centre of media attention. On Saturday Prince George made headlines when he ignored Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who was offering him a high-five and a handshake. The royal family has been greeted by enthusiastic crowds during the tour of the western province of British Columbia and the Yukon territory in the far north. William is second in line to succeed his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, who has been Canada's head of state since she ascended to Britain's throne in 1952. (Reporting by Jeffrey Hodgson; Editing by Sandra Maler)
TORONTO (Reuters) - Britain's Princess Charlotte, 1, spoke for the first time in public on Thursday during her family's Canadian tour, uttering the word "pop" while she and her brother played with balloons. Britain's Prince William and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, are on week-long trip to Canada. It was the first time the couple have brought their children Charlotte and George, 3, on an official visit to the country. (Reporting by Jeffrey Hodgson; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Los Angeles (AFP) - Following days of protests, police in San Diego on Friday released video footage of the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man, saying the decision was made to counter "misinformation" being circulated about the incident.

The grainy cellphone and surveillance videos show the victim, Alfred Olango, 38, a Ugandan immigrant, pacing back and forth as he is confronted by two police officers in the parking lot of a strip mall.

He is then seen being tasered and shot as he points an object at one of the officers.

The cylindrical object turned out to be a vape inhaler.

The deadly confrontation in El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego, has prompted daily street demonstrations that turned violent late Thursday after protesters blocked some streets, hurling bottles and rocks at passing vehicles and police and smashing car windows.

One person was also pulled off his motorcycle.

Davis said police used tear gas to disperse the crowd and five people were arrested.

"Our goal today is to clarify and hopefully calm the community's concerns regarding the recent officer-involved shooting," police chief Jeff Davis told reporters on Friday as he released the video footage.

"Our only concern at this point was community safety," he added. "We felt that the aggression of some of the protesters was escalating to the point where it was necessary to release some information."

Davis said several stores had shut down on Friday and schools had let out students early, fearing more violence.

The shooting took place as the United States is reeling from a string of police shootings of black men, including one earlier this month in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and another in Charlotte, North Carolina, that also ignited protests and heightened racial tensions.

Local officials in El Cajon have vowed a thorough and transparent investigation and initially refused to release the video of the incident pending the outcome of a probe.

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Davis said the two officers involved in the incident -- both 21-year veterans -- had been placed on administrative leave.

He said Olango's family had declined to watch the video earlier in the day and the decision to release it was to dispel any "misconceptions" about what happened.

The police confrontation with Olango took place after his sister called police three times saying he was acting erratically and walking into traffic.

According to local media reports, it took police 50 minutes to dispatch officers to the scene.

Olango's mother, Pamela Benge, said on Thursday that her son had had a breakdown after losing a friend but was not mentally ill.

"My son was a good, loving young man," she said tearfully. "I wanted his future to be longer than that. I wanted him to enjoy his daughter."

She said the family had arrived as refugees in the United States 25 years ago, fleeing unrest in Uganda.

- 'Came from war zone' -

"We came from a war zone," she said. "I thought a lovely nice country like this would protect us. We just need protection, that's all."

The family initially immigrated to New York as refugees in 1991 but then eventually moved to southern California.

Olango attended school in San Diego before dropping out, according to media reports, and worked as a cook at a Hooters restaurant.

Several local African-American community leaders welcomed the release of the video on Friday and urging the community to remain calm.

"It is okay to protest, but we want folks to protest in peace," said the Reverend Gerald Brown, executive director of the United African-American Ministerial Action Council.

"We want to make sure that everyone's safe, everyone gets home," he added, standing alongside the police chief at the news conference.

"We want to make sure that the (police) officers are safe, as well."

According to a document obtained by AFP, US immigration authorities twice unsuccessfully tried to deport Olango, once for transporting and selling drugs and later for a firearms conviction.

In both instances, Ugandan authorities refused to issue travel documents allowing Olango to return to his homeland, US authorities said.

He was released from custody both times, as US law dictates that immigrants cannot be held indefinitely if their country of origin refuses to allow them back.
WHITEVILLE, TN / ACCESSWIRE / September 30, 2016 / On September 27th, 28-year-old Australian Dane Kinder became the first quadriplegic to complete two high-altitude "oxygen jumps" in less than 24 hours. He made his world-record-setting skydives just outside of Memphis, TN, exiting from a modified Super King Air flying at roughly 30,000 feet and freefalling toward earth at speeds in excess of 220 mph. At that altitude, which is typically flown only by commercial airliners, supplemental oxygen is essential. For both jumps, the external air temperature at exit was approximately 40 below zero. Accompanying Kinder in the air was tandem master Mark Gerlach.





"Ever since I was a little kid I dreamed of feeling the freedom of falling from the sky," shared Kinder. "This was a dream come true for me and now I hold a record! My hope is that I can inspire others to push further and surpass the record we've set. Freefalling for over two minutes twice in the same day is the most incredible adventure of my life thus far! Being a quadriplegic has its limitations, but I choose to not let circumstances dictate what I do on and off this earth. I'm excited for my next experience!"

Just one week before he was to enter the Australian Army, Kinder was so gravely injured in a car accident that he was pronounced dead at the scene. Against medical odds, he battled back. During his recovery, Kinder realized he could do things believed to be impossible. He claims this is what set him on a journey to push limits and not let his physical limitations hold him back.

To make his skydiving dream a reality, Kinder enlisted the help of Sarasota, Florida-based Incredible Adventures, a company with more than 20 years of experience organizing extreme experiences. The international adventure company has offered the kind of high-altitude military-style skydives that Kinder experienced for more than a decade, but is best known for arranging high-altitude MiG fighter jet flights in Russia.

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"We could not be more pleased to have a role in making Dane's childhood dream of high-altitude skydiving a reality," said Incredible Adventures CEO Gregory Claxton. "This was one of the most inspiring adventures we've organized. The atmosphere was electric when he finally made it back to earth and set the world record on his second jump! We can't thank Kevin and his jump staff enough, for all they did to make Dane's record-setting skydives possible."

Kevin Holbrook, the veteran Special Forces Officer who served as Kinder's jump coordinator said, "Jumping from this altitude is no walk in the park and requires special equipment, precise training and years of experience to pull off. The record attempt was set to occur earlier, but the weather made it impossible. Waiting one extra day made all the difference and we are proud to have worked with Dane." Holbrook and his jump staff have been part of the Incredible Adventures team since 2003 and hold at least 28 skydiving records.

Special parachute rigging was made onsite to help prevent Kinder's legs from being broken upon landing. The jump team believes the custom equipment they named "the Dane Rig" can be repurposed to help others with loss-of-limb-use experience the sensation of a high-altitude skydive.

The current advertised price of a high-altitude military-style "HALO Jump" is $3695 and includes all necessary jump training, use of equipment, flight time and raw video. Jumps are tandem, so no prior skydiving experience is necessary, but some health and weight restrictions apply. For more information, prospective jumpers can contact Incredible Adventures at 800-644-7382 or visit www.incredible-adventures.com.

About Incredible Adventures

Incredible Adventures is an international adventure company based in Sarasota, Florida. The company is best known for introducing the world to high-altitude MiG fighter jet flights in Russia back in 1993 and offering great white shark adventures in San Francisco. Other adventures include military fantasy camps and hands-on space training.

Learn more at www.incredible-adventures.com.

Media Contact:

Jane Reifert, VP of Marketing, Incredible Adventures

1-800-644-7382

jane@incredible-adventures.com

SOURCE: Incredible Adventures
By Kate DiStacio on 30 September 2016 for Inhabitat -

Image above: Morgan Freeman on Tonight Show shortly after becoming a beekeeper. From original article.

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SOURCE: Katherine Muzik PHD ( kmuzik@gmail.com SUBHEAD: Actor converts his 124 acre Mississippi ranch into a giant sanctuary for wild bees.Morgan Freeman has played so many roles during his long Hollywood career its difficult to keep track, but his newest role may prove to be his most important. The actor has turned his 124-acre Mississippi ranch into a sanctuary for wild bees , in an effort to help support population growth for the little pollinators.Freeman started beekeeping in 2014 with 26 hives of buzzing babies, and he explained that tons of bee-friendly plants have been planted on his property.Back in 2014, Freeman talked to Jimmy Fallon about his new hobby during an appearance on The Tonight Show.Having taken up beekeeping just two weeks prior to the interview, the actor described how well he and his bees get along. The actor told Fallon that he doesnt even need to wear a protective beekeepers suit or veil when tending to his precious pollinators, suggesting that he has reached a level of skill and ease akin to his on-screen performances.Freeman didnt start keeping bees because of a sweet tooth , but rather as a direct response to the mass bee die-offs that have been threatening the survival of wild bees for the past several years. The actor recognized the opportunity to make a difference through personal action, so he imported 26 hives full of bees from Arkansas and started feeding them sugar water.Freeman said he doesnt wear the beekeepers hat and veil because the bees do not sting him, joking that the protective gear is for people who cant resonate with the bees. When Fallon suggested Freeman had become at one with the bees, the actor couldnt help but agree.Its difficult to measure what kind of an impact Freemans efforts may have on the larger bee populations in North America, but his hobby is an inspiring gesture of goodwill toward those tiny living creatures that are often taken for granted.See also: Ea O Ka Aina: Bayer & Syngenta Poisoning Bees 9/22/16
By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm will attempt to fend off EU antitrust charges at a hearing on Nov. 10 that it used anti-competitive methods to squeeze out a rival, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The European Commission may take Qualcomm's arguments at the hearing into account in the case, which could delay the Commission's decision and possible fine against the company if it is found to have infringed EU antitrust rules.

Qualcomm requested the closed-door hearing nine months after the European Commission accused it of forcing British phone software maker Icera out of the market by selling certain baseband chipsets below cost between 2009 and 2011.

Icera was later acquired by Nvidia Corp.

Participants at antitrust hearings typically include senior officials from the Commission's competition unit and other relevant departments, officials from national competition authorities, rivals and interested groups.

Qualcomm, which faces a second antitrust charge of making illegal payments to a major customer for exclusively using its chipsets since 2011, did not ask an oral hearing for this case, the people said.

Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso and Qualcomm, which supplies Android smartphone makers and Apple Inc, declined to comment.

The company could face a fine up to $2.5 billion or 10 percent of its 2015 revenue, if found guilty of breaking EU rules.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee. Editing by Jane Merriman)
LONDON  The Raindance Film Festival is the U.K.s only film event with a strand devoted to independent digital and streaming series, and this year its dedicating seven separate programs to the genre. Titled The World of Today, Industry 5.0, Love and Death, The Age of Absurdity, The Otherworlds, Thrilling Life Predicaments and Adulting, these offer insights into web series from around the globe.

From Italy comes Love Street by Wanja Sellers, in which a married couple become bored with the restrictions of domesticated family life. Self-made and self-financed, using family and friends as actors, the series is a good example of the flexibility and fluidity of web series, operating outside the norms of traditional film and TV budgeting, although Sellers does have a cautionary tale for anyone thinking that web series come without the usual expenses of casting.

There was a parrot in the story, she recalls. I felt it was an important character, but I didnt know anyone with a parrot. So I had to rent one. That bird was such a diva! And he was also the only actor that got paid.

How would you describe Love Street?

Love Street is actually a fantasy. After all, dont all parents, no matter how much they love and adore their children, fantasize, at least once in a while, about the carefree old days before parenting? A time before having to deal with teachers and homework help, vaccinations, dental braces, PTA, lice, etcetera [Central characters] Nina and Nick Love are constantly struggling  and failing  to be good parents and when they realize one day that their four unusually mature and responsible offspring dont appreciate them, or indeed actually need them, Nina and Nick decide to run away from home. They sneak out one day while the kids are at school. The first three episodes of Love Street are enough for us to understand that this choice is the best for everyone!

When and why did you decide to make it as a web series?

I originally wrote the outline for this series about two years ago  it was intended for TV. At first I wrote it as a half-hour pilot. I lived in Rome at the time, so  of course  I took it to RAI. After weeks of meetings and raised hopes, in the end, it didnt get anywhere. It sat in the drawer for a year or so and then I decided to do something with it. I chopped the script into three 10-minute episodes, shot it cheaply, and threw it on YouTube. People really seemed to like it and the short episode format worked for it. So I decided I wanted to continue the adventures of the Love family.

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What are the attractions of the web series format?

I really like the web format because of the very short episodes. Its not only the fact that it goes on the web that makes it a web series  although its great to have a place available for those projects without distribution  its also the format that I really like, which is very unusual on TV. In Italy RAI has occasionally funded and produced web series  the first and most famous being An Imperfect Mom  but in those cases there was an outside producer and quite a good budget. This isnt typical for most web series, which usually have little or no funding. Mine, for example, was made without any funding.

How did you finance it and put it together?

The way I funded my series, as many webbies do, is to not spend any money to make it. I shot this in my home with my husbands camera and using family and friends as actors and crew. Luckily in my case my family and friends are mostly film people, so I got quality despite the lack of budget, despite the fact that I couldnt really pay anyone.

Who do you think the audience for a webs series is, and how do you see them being consumed?

For the most part, web audiences are a bit younger than TV audiences, so one must bear in mind the target audience. They arent all 20 years old though, some are in their fifties or more, and others are very young  school age  but they arent the TV audience. They are a little hipper I guess. I like shooting for web because it frees you a little, compared to TV. Like in mine, I guess if it was TV they wouldnt be cursing and smoking so many joints and stuff. Also, for web you have to shoot a little different than for TV or film because it is important to remember that this is content that is watched on small devices, IPads or cellphones

The other thing about the web is that its international, so it has to be universal and it really has to be in English. This was the problem with mine. Since mine was intended for Italian TV, I shot it in Italian. When I gave up on TV and put it out on the web, I had to subtitle it and its just a drag to read subtitles on a tiny screen. This is why, although I have outlines for the next 20 episodes, I didnt keep shooting. The next step for me is to rewrite the script in English, and set the whole thing in London, where I now live.

What are the challenges  if there are any  of making a web series?

The challenges are fewer in a way  you can shoot these things with little money and throw them online. The problem is, it most likely ends there. Only a few web series actually get to a point of making money. And as we know, the more money you have to work with, the more you can do and the better your product. Plus we need to live. We cant dedicate ourselves to our art as well if we are working full-time at Boots [the British pharmacy chain].

Is there a strict script/structure or is there room for improvisation/last-minute changes?

Web format is still pretty free. Mine is structured and shot quite traditionally, because I come from a cinema background. But everyone can do what they want with a web series, it depends on your taste, style and where you want it to go.

Whats next for you?

Working at Boots. Kidding! The next step is finding a U.K. producer and continuing the series in English.

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By Neha Wadekar

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The campaign to track down poachers and protect endangered species in Africa's embattled reserves is tapping into the technology used in the virtual world of online poker and other computer games.

A U.S.-funded initiative is applying artificial intelligence and game theory algorithms to predict the movement of poachers, helping rangers who are testing the new technology in Uganda to find illegal hunters and their animal traps.

"We're trying to predict future poacher attacks or where poachers may strike next based on what we have observed in the past on our patrols," Professor Milind Tambe from the University of Southern California, who is leading the initiative, said.

"Each conscated snare represents an animal's life saved," Tambe, whose team is developing technology called Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security (PAWS), told Reuters by phone.

Across Africa, a battle against poaching is raging but often being lost. African elephant numbers, for example, fell by 20 percent between 2006 and 2015 because of a surge in ivory poaching, according to conservationists.

There have been some successes. Uganda has seen its elephant population recover from a nadir of 700 to 800 in the 1980s after years of chaotic rule and dictatorship to reach about 5,000 now. But officials say poaching is back on the rise.

"Elephant poaching has started to increase in the last five years, which is a major concern, and thats linked to the global price of ivory," said Andy Plumptre, director of the Albertine Rift Program for the Wildlife Conservation Society in Uganda.

The problem is not just big time poachers seeking ivory, which can sell for $1,000 a kilogram ($450 a pound) or more. Illegal hunters are sometimes locals seeking meat to eat or sell to pay school fees.

Killing game, meanwhile, has knock-on effects. It destroys prey chased by carnivores such as lions and leopards, causing their numbers to drop too.

PAWS

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This is where PAWS, which is being tested in Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National Park, aims to assist in the fight against poaching. The system helps rangers map routes in the same way mathematical computer models predict how a rational human reacts and create opponents for online poker and other games.

"We want to deliver the software so the local rangers can use it with minimum training, Tambe said, adding that Queen Elizabeth National Park offered 18 years of ranger-collected data on illegal activities to help perfect the technology.

In the past month since the latest round of testing began, rangers using PAWS have found 10 antelope traps and elephant snares waiting to be triggered, a far better score card than they could usually expect without technological assistance.

Sometimes success still comes too late, one patrol using PAWS found an elephant carcass with tusks sawn off.

Tambe has used game theory software to improve efficiency of U.S. law enforcement and government agencies since the early 2000s, but realized the techniques could also protect wildlife.

Initial PAWS testing has also taken place in Malaysia, and the program has been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Army Research Office.

PAWS faces its own challenges, however.

Poor mobile and internet connectivity in the park could prevent the rangers from using the software accurately and in real-time.

It could also bring rangers even closer to poachers who have proved ready to turn their guns on the authorities elsewhere. In Virunga National Park, in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, 150 rangers have been killed in the past decade.

(Editing by Edmund Blair/Jeremy Gaunt)
Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson managed to make foreign-policy watching eyes rollagainthis week after he failed to name even a single world leader he admired. (Johnson said he was having an Aleppo moment, but in deference to the long-suffering Syrian people, lets agree to call it a Gary moment.) In truth, its not that easy to pick a universally respected leader these days. The world's current crop of presidents and prime ministers are a particularly flawed bunch. Here, in semi-defense of the indefensible, are five who deserve a little credit.

5. Angela Merkel. Sure, the German chancellor may have driven Greece to the economic brink to make a political point, but she stood up for refugees when it counted. Her decision to declare Germany open to those fleeing the otherwise ignored horrors of the Syrian civil war continues to hurt her party's chances in Germany's upcoming elections next year. (Though it did earn her the approval of Johnsons running mate, William Weld, who declared her his favorite world leader.) And yet she is sticking to her guns, refusing to back down to internal pressure. Her tenure will be assessed on more than refugees, but on this issue, she has been the definition of political courage.

4. Aung San Suu Kyi. Myanmar's de facto leader spent more than two decades in the political desert after winning an election that was then nullified by the countrys military junta. Her decision not to back down in all that time made her a focal point for international attention on the countrys political system, and eventually opened up the space for the military to hand over power. She even compromised on that power shift, choosing to work around a constitutional provision that barred her from becoming president. Her government is not immune from criticism: reforms have moved slowly, and she has failed to address a serious human-rights crisis involving Myanmars minority Rohingya. But however it plays out, she deserves credit for turning Myanmar from a lost cause to a bright spot for Asian liberalism.

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3. The Pope. The Vatican gets the most-improved merit badge. Francis has the advantage of not having to actually govern a populationits good to be infalliblebut compared to where the Vatican stood under his predecessor on issues like gay rights, its night and day. But for the geopolitics wonks out there, beyond bringing social policy up to par, Pope Francis has used his good offices to facilitate rapprochement in Cuba, Colombia, and others. Not bad for an unelected 79-year-old.

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2. Alassane Ouattara. The Ivory Coast's second-term president is not well-known outside of international policy circles, but he should be. Ouattara left a prized position at the International Monetary Fund to go back into politics in a seriously divided country. He went on to win elections in 2010, only to see his incumbent opponent denounce the vote and move for war. Ouattara fought his way to victory, but then settled for peace. Rather than pursuing vengeance, Ouattara sent his opponent to face trial at the ICC and initiated transitional justice processes at home. Overwhelmingly re-elected last year, he has continued to promote inclusive, pro-growth policies.

1. Juan Manuel Santos. Santos was not the first president to try to bring peace to Colombia, but he is likely to be the first to succeed. Colombia votes this weekend on a peace deal that has been decades in the making. Santos has become intensely unpopular at home in the processlosing critical support from the predecessor he served as defense ministerin part because the peace deal offers what may be overly favorable terms to former FARC rebels in exchange for demobilizing. That may turn out to be too steep a price to pay for peace, but at least Colombia has the chance to find out. Stay tuned for the Nobels.

This article has been adapted from Matt Petersons weekly newsletter for Eurasia Group, Signal.

Who is your favorite world leader and why? Send your pick to hello@theatlantic.com and well post a collection in our Notes section.Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Cats, dogs, and even guinea pigs, goldfish, bats, and capybaras can be loving and loyal family members during their lives. So why must owners and their pets be separated in death?

It turns out that they dont have to bedepending on where they live. New York has become the latest among a handful of states that allow humans and their finned, tentacled, winged, or four-legged companions to be buried together in official cemeteries. And there appears to be a movement afoot (or is it aclaw?) to pressure other states to get on the bandwagon.

Earlier this week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law allowing about 1,900 not-for-profit cemeteries regulated by the state the right to accept the ashes of pets to be interred along with their human owners. The cemetery just must consent to it first.

We took care of them in life, and we want to make sure were doing everything we can to take care of them in death, says Coleen Ellis, co-chair of the Pet Loss Professionals Alliance, an association of pet-friendly cemeteries, funeral homes, and crematoriums. Having them near us makes us feel like we did that.

About two-thirds of U.S. households own a pet, according to the American Pet Products Association.

The Empire State isnt the only one to allow people to take their animals with them into their final real estate resting place. But the specifics vary widely, and weirdly, state to state.

Virginia permits people and their pets to be buried beside each other in separate caskets. They can also be interred together in Florida if the animal died before its owner and its ashes are kept separate.

In New Jersey, humans unwilling to part with their creatures must be buried in pet cemeteries to be with them forever. Pennsylvania cemeteries are permitted to have separate sections for people and pets. And human cemeteries in Oregon can choose whether or not to accept cremated pet ashes.

But laying a pet to rest in a cemetery isnt just emotional. It can also be quite costly.

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Owners can expect to shell out anywhere from $550 to more than $4,000 for a casket and grave in a pet cemetery, according to Angies List. That doesnt include grave maintenance, which can run an additional $20 or more a month and upward of $500 for a lifetime of care. Costs for animals interred with their humans will vary widely as well.

Everything from the size of the beast (a spotted genet will be cheaper to bury than a rottweiler, of course) to the area where its buried and how elaborate its eternal resting place will be are factored into the final price tag.

So why not bury Humbert the hamster in the backyard? For starters, those who live in apartments, condos, and co-ops often dont have the outdoor burial space. And many people would prefer a permanent resting place for their furry and reptilian companions that they can visit even after they move to a new home.

Were doing so many things to humanize our pets while theyre alive, such as your doggy spas, doggy hotels, Ellis says. [So] its only natural that when they die, we would want the same thing for them as we would want for any of our human loved ones.

The post Can You Really Be Buried With Your Pet? appeared first on Real Estate News and Advice - realtor.com.
A 38-year-old Ugandan refugee fatally shot Tuesday by police in El Cajon, California, was in the middle of a "breakdown" when he allegedly pulled a vaping device from his pocket and pointed it at responding officers, El Cajon police and the man's family said.



Police described Olango's vape smoking device, or electronic cigarette, as having an all-silver cylinder that was three inches long and one inch wide. It was collected as evidence from the scene.



The shooting death of Alfred Okwera Olango prompted protests through the streets of El Cajon, a small city about 15 miles northeast of San Diego, and demands for a video of the incident to be released by police.



His family, via their attorney, quickly questioned the handling of the situation and said Olango had been in the middle of a "mental breakdown" brought on by the death of a close friend. Indeed, Olango's sister can purportedly be heard on video from the scene berating police for killing her brother instead of subduing him.







The family's attorney also sought to undercut the standing of the officer who killed Olango by tying the officer to an earlier, unrelated sexual harassment suit the attorney brought against him. Meanwhile details have surfaced of Olango's checkered past with immigration, as he was twice subject to deportation proceedings in the U.S.



So far, El Cajon police have only released a still photo of Olango taking an alleged "shooting stance" before he was shot. Two officers were involved in the shooting and both were placed on administrative leave during the investigation, as is standard.



Only one of the officers fired his weapon, police said; the other fired a Taser-like device.





Refugee Killed by California Police Allegedly Drew Vape Device During 'Mental Emergency'| Crime & Courts, Shootings, True Crime



Police said Olango refused to comply with orders to remove his hands from his pocket and took that position before he was fired on by officers.



"At one point, the subject rapidly drew an object from his front pants pocket, placed both hands together and extended them rapidly toward the officer taking up what appeared to be a shooting stance," police alleged in a statement released Wednesday night.



"At this time, the officer with the [Taser-like] electronic control device discharged his weapon. Simultaneously, the officer with the firearm discharged his weapon several times, striking the subject."



Officers provided first aid at the scene, but Olango died of his injuries at the hospital, police said.



The officer who killed Olango, Richard Gonsalves, was allegedly demoted last year after a female underling sued him and the city alleging sexual harassment, the Los Angeles Times reports. Gonsalves was accused of allegedly making unwanted sexual advances toward the woman, according to the Times.



(Messages left with Gonsalves' attorney, the city's attorney and El Cajon police were not immediately returned. PEOPLE was not immediately able to reach Gonsalves himself.)



The attorney representing the female officer in that sexual harassment lawsuit, Daniel Gilleon, confirmed the allegations to PEOPLE. Gilleon is also assisting the Olango family following the shooting.



Gilleon alleges that Gonsalves' harassment continued for a year, with Gonsalves allegedly sending sexual photos and texts to his client. Decrying the shooting itself, Gilleon says, "[Police] are trained to take cover and begin a dialogue and talk to [Olango] in a way that is calming. They shouldn't have sent someone who sends out pictures of his privates to an insubordinate. "



New details about Olango have also emerged: He was the subject of two deportation proceedings since coming to the U.S. in 1991, but both times his native Uganda refused to take him back, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a statement released to PEOPLE.



In 2002, an immigration judge ordered Olango's deportation following his conviction for transporting and selling narcotics. Then, in 2009, he was returned to ICE custody after serving a prison term for a conviction on a firearms charge in Colorado.



"At that time, ICE renewed its efforts to obtain a travel document from the Ugandan government," according to the statement. "Once again the attempts were unsuccessful, leading to Mr. Olango's re-release from ICE custody on an order of supervision. Up until February 2015, Mr. Olango had been reporting to the agency as required.



"However, he failed to appear for an in-person appointment with ICE officers that month and had not been encountered by the agency since."



 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.





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What Led Up to the Shooting

Before the shooting, El Cajon officers say they responded to a 911 call around 2 p.m. Tuesday of a man acting erratically behind a Mexican restaurant.



The man, who was in his 30s and wearing a black tank top and blue jeans, was "not acting like himself" and "walking in traffic, not only endangering himself, but motorists," police said.



A YouTube video purportedly showed Olango's sister screaming and berating officers after the shooting, as she said she telephoned police three times to help her in subduing him and told them her brother was mentally ill.



"I called for help," she told officers. "I didn't call you guys to kill him."



Soon several protesters were at the scene chanting "black lives matter" and "hands up, don't shoot."



Police said a witness at the scene came forward and gave officers video footage of the incident.



"That witness voluntarily provided their phone to the police department and gave written consent for the officers to view the video," according to a police statement. "This was the only phone provided to officers in this investigation. No other phones were taken from witnesses. Investigators are reviewing the video and other video recovered from the scene."





Olango Family Attorney Criticizes Police Behavior

Olango's mother later said her son was not mentally ill but was reeling from the death of a close friend, according to NBC San Diego.



Friends of Olango said he had been distraught over the recent death of his boyhood friend and fellow African refugee Bereket Demsse.



"He was just so depressed," Vicky Ellis, Olango's former girlfriend, told the Los Angeles Times. "I'd never heard him so upset."



Gilleon, the family's attorney, said Wednesday that Olango "was going through a mental emergency  a mental breakdown  because he had lost someone he loved dearly," according to NBC San Diego.



"We all go through a bad day," Gilleon said, clarifying that Olango was not mentally ill.



Speaking to PEOPLE, he reiterates the call for police to release video of the shooting. He says Olango was shot five times.



"That is one of my primary goals, is to demand in an open way we want the video released  and express our frustration that they were willing to cherry-pick one image out of the video," Gilleon says. "It was one image that supported their case. It has been circulated and talked about all over the country. In my opinion it supports the narrative they want to advance that it is all Alfred's fault."



Gilleon says the police narrative around the shooting has so far excluded information about what happened. He says the officers are trained for such situations and should have started a dialogue with Olango to deescalate the situation.



"They have [Olango] standing in a stance that looks like he is holding a gun. It is unfair because there was a lot of stuff that happened before that point," Gilleon says.



He continues, "It is not fair they are litigating their case in the media. I don't think it is fair."



El Cajon's mayor said that the FBI would join the investigation. "The most important thing to take away from this meeting today is a tragedy occurred In El Cajon yesterday. We lost a life. Nobody wants to see the loss of a life," Mayor Bill Wells said at a Wednesday news conference, according to the Times.



"The family is devastated," Wells said. "The person who lost his life is devastated. Even the police officers involved in the shooting are devastated, and certainly the community is devastated."



Olango's death follows recent fatal police shootings in North Carolina and Oklahoma.
By Mehreen Zahra-Malik ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A summit of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) leaders set for Islamabad in November has been postponed indefinitely, the Pakistani government said on Friday, amid rising tension between arch-rivals India and Pakistan. India's foreign ministry had announced on Tuesday that it would skip the meeting, blaming Pakistan for a deadly assault this month on an army base in the disputed Himalayan state of Kashmir. Pakistan denies the accusations. India's decision was followed by Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan expressing their "inability" to attend. "Pakistan deplores India's decision to impede the SAARC process by not attending the 19th SAARC Summit at Islamabad on 9-10 November 2016," the foreign office said in a statement. "The spirit of the SAARC Charter is violated when a member state casts the shadow of its bilateral problems on the multilateral forum for regional cooperation." A spokesman for India's foreign ministry said on Twitter: "We note Pakistan's decision to postpone SAARC summit. They've been compelled to recognize the regional sentiment against terrorism." India said on Thursday that it had sent troops across its disputed border in Kashmir to kill men preparing to enter its territory and attack cities. Pakistan has rejected Indian claims of "surgical strikes" into its territory and maintained that India fired unprovoked from its side of the heavily militarized frontier in Kashmir, killing two soldiers. This area has been the flashpoint for two of three wars between the nuclear-armed neighbors since 1947. India's announcement of the raid on Thursday raised the possibility of military escalation that could wreck a 2003 Kashmir ceasefire. India evacuated more than 10,000 villagers living near the border, and ordered security forces to upgrade surveillance along the frontier in Jammu and Kashmir state, part of the two countries' 3,300-km (2,100 miles) boundary. Hundreds of villages were being cleared along a 15 km (9 mile) strip in the lowland region of Jammu and further north on the Line of Control in the Himalayan mountains of Kashmir. Modi's government has been struggling to contain protests on the streets of Kashmir, where more than 80 civilians have been killed and thousands wounded in the last 10 weeks after a young separatist militant was killed by Indian security forces. (Writing by Mehreen Zahra-Malik; editing by Mark Heinrich)
The remains of a North Carolina girl, believed to have disappeared in 2011, have been discovered in a shallow grave, authorities revealed Thursday.

The Rowan County Sheriff's Office said skeletal remains found Tuesday have been identified as Erica Parsons, who was first reported missing by her adopted brother in 2013.

Read: 6-Year-Old South Carolina Shooting Victim on Life Support: 'We Are Hanging on Every Second'

Erica lived with her adoptive parents Casey and Sandy Parsons from 2000 until she disappeared in 2011 at age 13.

According to WSOC, the girl's bones were across the North Carolina border in Chesterfield County, South Carolina on property owned by Sandy Parsons.

Four years after their son, Jamie Parsons, reported his adopted sister missing, the Parsons maintained Erica had gone to live with a woman they believed to be her grandmother in the city of Asheville.

But authorities have never found a grandmother.

In March 2015, Casey Parsons was sentenced to 10 years in prison for tax fraud and her husband, Sandy, to eight years.

The Parsons were convicted of accepting government benefits for the girl for years after her disappearance.

Read: Deaf Teen Shot Dead Despite Friend's Pleas to Gunman: 'We Can't Hear You'

Erica's aunt, Teresa Goodman, reportedly told WSOC that officials struck a deal with Sandy Parsons from prison as part of the investigation.

Casey Parsons was sentenced to 10 years in prison for tax fraud and Sandy Parsons was sentenced to eight years for continuing to take the benefits, which reportedly included monthly adoption assistance checks for $634.

The Rowan County Sheriff's Office said the investigation into the cause and manner of death is ongoing.

Watch: After Cops Make Plea for Missing Teen, She Responds on Facebook: 'I'm in My Room'

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Paris (AFP) - French automaker Renault on Friday said it would cooperate fully in a government probe into emissions cheating that has rocked the European car industry.

Renault is "totally determined to cooperate ... we are ready to open everything," Renault boss Carlos Ghosn told AFP at the Paris car show, adding that it was "necessary to re-establish trust."

French Environment Minister Segolene Royal last year launched a probe into emissions cheating, a year after Volkswagen admitted to fitting 11 million cars with software designed to fool emissions tests in off-road conditions.

In preliminary findings published in July the commission did not rule out that other carmakers were also guilty of using cheating software.

Renault moved into the spotlight when the Financial Times quoted members of the inquiry team as saying that the report "omitted significant details", and suspected that the inquiry was too lenient on Renault because of the government's 20 percent stake in the carmaker.

Royal denied the report, and said last week that additional tests were under way to try to ensure that manufacturers cannot 'game' or rig testing results.

Ghosn said that gaming ran "against the interest of carmakers" and said he hoped the European Automobile Manufacturers Association ACEA would lay down rules as the industry needs "undiscutable measurements".
Drive-By Truckers picked a nice time to come up with one of their sharpest assessments yet of what co-leader Patterson Hood once called "the Southern Thing." American Band is a Southern liberal's attempt to puzzle through the emulsified white working class alienation and resentment that's been endlessly cited as a force driving the rise of Donald Trump. The Confederate flag, Iraq, the NRA, immigration hysteria and other hot buttons are pushed, but Hood and fellow songwriter Mike Cooley rarely go in for sloganeering. Instead, they use empathy, vivid storytelling and subtle imagery to unpack brutal complexities.



The album's biggest rocker "Surrender Under Protest" evokes the Civil War's "lost cause" tradition to lash out against Dixie-pride holdouts but still seems to leave room for dialogue; "Guns of Umpqua," about an Oregon mass shooting, unfolds gently as a crisp morning, making for an almost impossibly poetic depiction of unfathomable loss and tragedy; "What It Means" reflects on systemic racism over swelling organ, a soft honky tonk two-step and hand claps. Hood recently relocated from Athens, Georgia to Portland, and in many ways the album has a feel of displaced reflection; you should listen to it while reading Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance's excellent memoir about going from poor Appalachian upbringing to Yale law school but never really leaving his roots behind. Hood sums up a similar circular migration on "Ever South," a stark, sinewy R&B boogie that traces his own roots back to a primordial American past, then fast forwards to assess the emotional byproducts of hundreds of years of hard history: "Ever Southern in my stance/In the Irish of my complexion, in the Scottish in my dance/In the way I bang my head against my daily circumstance." The result is more than a Clinton ad with Skynyrd and Stones guitars (though it'd be enough if it was). It's political rock that never confuses passionate commitment with smug certainty, asking more questions than it answers on a hero's journey into our darkest national impulses, and maybe in some small way, beyond them.

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Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children (Twentieth Century Fox) Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children (Twentieth Century Fox)

Secret ending? No.



Running time: 127 minutes (~2 hours)

Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children is a fantasy adventure film about a secret race of super powered humans living in cloistered time loops. They find themselves in grave danger when their hiding places are exposed.

It stars Eva Green (Miss Alma LeFay Peregrine), Asa Butterfield (Jake Portman), Chris O'Dowd (Franklin Portman), Terence Stamp (Abraham Portman), Judi Dench (Miss Esmeralda Avocet), Ella Purnell (Emma Bloom), and Samuel L. Jackson (Mr Barron). It is rated PG-13.

The immense challenge that Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children faces is the fact that were already saturated by stories of super powered beings, so any story about the discovery of a secret world of super powers has to avoid retreading the same standard tropes.

Unfortunately, Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children doesnt offer anything new on that front (besides some macabre scenes), and the mentor character (Miss Peregrine) herself is insufferable, even though the Peculiar Children are rather cute.

Highlights

Asa Butterfield and the cast for the Peculiar Children are quite adorable

While Asa Butterfield (Jake Portman) might look too eager to please in posters, hes actually a rather endearing protagonist who has his emotions tugged in different directions. To top it off, hes not only filial, but a secretly romantic fellow (as the final Act will show you).

His performance as Jake is probably one of the most underrated aspects of the film. The Peculiar Children are also adorable little creatures of frightening power, and their innocence is what makes their performances touching but natural.

Letdowns

Eva Greens overacting

Eva Green channels as much Mary Poppins and stiff upper lip Britishness into Miss Peregrine as she can, so much so that she seems like a caricature of Mary Poppins at times. One or two demonstrations of how exact and proper she is would be enough  we dont need her to glimpse at her pocket watch every two scenes.

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Her desperate attempt to keep her posture as straight as possible makes it seem like the producers have no idea what Miss Peregrines character is, apart from the fact that shes vaguely birdlike.

Terribly exaggerated colour correction

Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children is so afraid that you wont be able to catch the nuances of the different locations that it turns the dial up to eleven on colour correction in both directions. Either its a drab, dreary blue or an impossibly chirpy gold. Whatever editing software was used for this film certainly needs to be updated or thrown away.

Plot logic (or lack thereof)

The Peculiar Children boast several incredibly powerful characters amongst them, some who have an instant kill power and others who control the elements.

Yet theyre unable to take down opponents who have similar or weaker powers? Theyre children, true, but if you can instantly kill someone with your abilities, why does that make anyone a threat to you? Why doesnt the film ever address this glaring loophole?

Only picks up halfway in Act Two

Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children drags its heels so long in the reveal of a secret world and special powers that youre dying to hit someone on the head with a mallet and tell them to just accept the oddness of the world and get on with it. It only picks up midway through the film, when the central conflict is established and the threats and stakes are revealed. By then youre so exhausted with the speed of the plot that okay, youre just going along for the ride.

Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children would have been a great film ten years ago.

Should you watch this for free? Yes.

Should you watch this at weekday movie ticket prices? If youve read the book or you like superhero/fantasy films, yes.

Score: 2.5/5

Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children opens in cinemas:

- 29 September 2016 (Singapore)

- 29 September 2016 (Malaysia)

- 28 September 2016 (Philippines)

Marcus Goh is a Singapore television scriptwriter. Hes also a Transformers enthusiast and avid pop culture scholar. He Tweets/Instagrams at Optimarcus and writes at marcusgohmarcusgoh.com. The views expressed are his own.


The Chicago Tribune endorsed Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson on Friday as a principled option beyond the typical red-blue binary.

The conservative papers editorial board argued that the Democratic and Republican parties have drifted so far from the United States political mainstream and failed to nominate suitable candidates to the top of their tickets.

The papers editorial is as much an indictment of Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump as it is an endorsement of former New Mexico Gov. Johnson.

We reject the cliche that a citizen who chooses a principled third-party candidate is squandering his or her vote. Look at the number of fed-up Americans telling pollsters they clamor for alternatives to Trump and Clinton, the board wrote.

This recommendation follows a growing trend among right-leaning or moderate newspapers  which dont like Trump but generally cannot bring themselves to support Clinton  to urge their readers to vote for Johnson.

The Caledonian-Record, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Winston-Salem Journal, the New Hampshire Union Leader, the Detroit News and now the Chicago Tribune have all endorsed Johnson.

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson at a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Scott Morgan, File/AP)

Clinton has by far scooped up the most newspaper endorsements, including from the New York Daily News, the Houston Chronicle, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Berkshire Eagle, the Los Angeles Times, the Akron Beacon Journal, the New York Times, the Portland Press Herald, the Baltimore Sun and the Sun Sentinel.

Several normally conservative papers  including the Dallas Morning News, the Arizona Republic and the Cincinnati Enquirer  recently endorsed Clinton, even though they had backed Republican presidential candidates for decades. The Enquirer had endorsed Republicans for nearly a century.

Similarly, the editorial board for USA Today bucked its 34-year history of having never taken sides in a presidential race by coming out against Trump on Thursday  calling the billionaire businessman unfit for the presidency.

Story continues

Like clockwork, Trump took to Twitter to compliment people who canceled their subscriptions to the Dallas Morning News and the Arizona Republic over their endorsements and gloated over the possibility of USA Todays losing readers.

The people are really smart in cancelling subscriptions to the Dallas & Arizona papers & now USA Today will lose readers! The people get it!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016

A Yahoo News review could find no major newspaper that has endorsed Trump for president in the general election. A handful of publications, including the New York Post, National Enquirer and New York Observer, backed the mogul in the GOP primary. (The Observer is owned by Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is also a top campaign adviser.)

In its Johnson endorsement, the Tribune acknowledged the genuine gripes that electrify Trump supporters  economic forces beyond their control, ineffective career politicians, mocking from elitists, etc.  but insisted that electing a bombastic and self-aggrandizing man who lacks the character or prudence for the job is not the cure.

And though the board members admitted that Clinton is undeniably capable of running the country and would break down a gender barrier that should not exist, they still doubted her honesty and fear an ever-expanding government of federal spending and taxation that contradict their fiscally conservative values.

With that demand for a principled president paramount, we turn to the candidate we can recommend, the board wrote. One party has two moderate Republicans  veteran governors who successfully led Democratic states  atop its ticket. Libertarians Gary Johnson of New Mexico and running mate William Weld of Massachusetts are agile, practical and, unlike the major-party candidates, experienced at managing governments.

The endorsements for Johnson come at a useful time in his campaign, which has been tripped up by recent gaffes. During a television interview earlier this week, he painfully struggled to think of a foreign leader he admires. And in another TV interview earlier this month, he revealed he was ignorant of Aleppo, the city at the epicenter of the Syrian refugee crisis.
Firefighters battled a four-alarm fire at a historic church near the University of California Berkeley campus on Friday, September 30.

Part of the roof at the First Congressional Church collapsed due to the intensity of the flames, according to a report. In a Facebook post, the church said: What we know so far is that it is related to work that was being done on the roof. No one was hurt and the fire is being contained.

Other videos show that black smoke and flames could be spotted from blocks away. The church was built in 1874. Credit: Instagram/Yaneli Gonzalez
By Victoria Bryan BERLIN (Reuters) - The Rosetta spacecraft ended its historic mission on Friday, crashing on the surface of the dusty, icy comet it has spent 12 years chasing in a hunt that has provided insight into the early days of the solar system and captured the public's imagination. The spacecraft has stalked comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko across more than 6 billion km (3.7 billion miles) of space, collecting a treasure trove of information on comets that will keep scientists busy for the next decade. Scientists in the European Space Agency control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, clapped and hugged as confirmation of the end of the mission came at 1119 GMT. Rosetta completed its free-fall descent at the speed of a sedate walk, joining the probe Philae, which landed on the comet in November 2014 in what was considered a remarkable feat of precision space travel. "Thank you Rosetta," ESA director general Jan Woerner said on Twitter. He was among some 300 people who had also gathered before dawn at a conference room at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, to watch a live webcast as Rosetta's signal disappeared from monitors, simultaneously with the team in Germany. "It was a good ending," Klaus Schiling, who worked on mission planning for Rosetta 27 years ago with prime contractor Airbus, told Reuters at the Mexico space conference. "There were so many ups and downs with this mission." PLANET FORMATION The mission managed several historic firsts, such as getting a spacecraft into orbit around a comet and the unprecedented landing of a probe on the surface. A handful of previous spacecraft had snapped pictures and collected data as they flew past their targets. But, dashing hopes for more discoveries, Philae, the 100 kg (220 lb) probe, bounced several times on landing before getting stuck against a cliff wall, leaving it unable to perform any more experiments beyond its first three days on the comet after its solar-powered batteries ran out. Rosetta's cameras located Philae's resting place just a few weeks ago. The ESA is ending the mission because 67P is racing toward the outer solar system, out of range for the solar-powered spacecraft. Rosetta also has been subjected to the harsh radiation and extreme temperatures of space since launching in March 2004 and so was unlikely to last too much longer. Before reaching the surface and shutting down, Rosetta's instruments and camera relayed back data and images, giving scientists insight into the structure of the comet. That data will reveal information on the side walls of the comet, crucial to understanding how they are formed, plus on large 100-metre (300 foot) wide pits, which scientists believe are key to how the comet releases gas and dust as it is warmed by the sun. Daniel Brown, an astronomy expert at Nottingham Trent University, said the images sent back from the Rosetta mission were "as powerful as Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon". Data collected by Rosetta and Philae is already helping scientists better understand how the Earth and other planets formed. For example, scientists now believe that asteroids, not comets were primarily responsible for delivering water to Earth and other planets in the inner solar system, possibly setting the stage for life. "We've just scratched the surface of the science. We're ending the mission, but the science will continue for many years," project scientist Matt Taylor said ahead of the end of mission. (Additional reporting by Irene Klotz in Guadalajara, Mexico and Tilman Blasshofer in Frankfurt; Editing by Alison Williams)
By Victoria Bryan BERLIN (Reuters) - The Rosetta spacecraft ended its historic mission on Friday, crashing on the surface of the dusty, icy comet it has spent 12 years chasing in a hunt that has provided insight into the early days of the solar system and captured the public's imagination. The spacecraft has stalked comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko across more than 6 billion km (3.7 billion miles) of space, collecting a treasure trove of information on comets that will keep scientists busy for the next decade. Scientists in the European Space Agency control center in Darmstadt, Germany, clapped and hugged as confirmation of the end of the mission came at 1119 GMT. Rosetta completed its free-fall descent at the speed of a sedate walk, joining the probe Philae, which landed on the comet in November 2014 in what was considered a remarkable feat of precision space travel. "Thank you Rosetta," ESA director general Jan Woerner said on Twitter. He was among some 300 people who had also gathered before dawn at a conference room at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, to watch a live webcast as Rosetta's signal disappeared from monitors, simultaneously with the team in Germany. "It was a good ending," Klaus Schiling, who worked on mission planning for Rosetta 27 years ago with prime contractor Airbus , told Reuters at the Mexico space conference. "There were so many ups and downs with this mission." PLANET FORMATION The mission managed several historic firsts, such as getting a spacecraft into orbit around a comet and the unprecedented landing of a probe on the surface. A handful of previous spacecraft had snapped pictures and collected data as they flew past their targets. But, dashing hopes for more discoveries, Philae, the 100 kg (220 lb) probe, bounced several times on landing before getting stuck against a cliff wall, leaving it unable to perform any more experiments beyond its first three days on the comet after its solar-powered batteries ran out. Rosetta's cameras located Philae's resting place just a few weeks ago. The ESA is ending the mission because 67P is racing toward the outer solar system, out of range for the solar-powered spacecraft. Rosetta also has been subjected to the harsh radiation and extreme temperatures of space since launching in March 2004 and so was unlikely to last too much longer. Before reaching the surface and shutting down, Rosetta's instruments and camera relayed back data and images, giving scientists insight into the structure of the comet. That data will reveal information on the side walls of the comet, crucial to understanding how they are formed, plus on large 100-metre (300 foot) wide pits, which scientists believe are key to how the comet releases gas and dust as it is warmed by the sun. Daniel Brown, an astronomy expert at Nottingham Trent University, said the images sent back from the Rosetta mission were "as powerful as Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon". Data collected by Rosetta and Philae is already helping scientists better understand how the Earth and other planets formed. For example, scientists now believe that asteroids, not comets were primarily responsible for delivering water to Earth and other planets in the inner solar system, possibly setting the stage for life. "We've just scratched the surface of the science. We're ending the mission, but the science will continue for many years," project scientist Matt Taylor said ahead of the end of mission. (Additional reporting by Irene Klotz in Guadalajara, Mexico and Tilman Blasshofer in Frankfurt; Editing by Alison Williams)
Moscow (AFP) - Russia on Friday dismissed an accusation its bombing campaign in Syria has killed thousands of civilians, insisting it has stopped jihadists taking over as it marks a year since it began air strikes.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday that more than 9,300 people -- including some 3,800 civilians -- had been killed in the year of Russian air strikes in Syria in support of President Bashar Al-Assad.

"We do not consider as reliable the information on the situation in Syria coming from this organisation, which is based in the United Kingdom," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

The toll released by the Observatory includes more than 2,700 jihadists from the Islamic State jihadist group and around 2,800 fighters from various rebel factions.

The monitor also said that at least 20,000 civilians have been wounded in Russian raids.

Peskov said that the Russian campaign's main objective had been to "assist Syrians and the Syrian army in the fight against terrorism."

"Taking into account that the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra aren't sitting in Damascus, this is probably a positive result of the support our air force has provided to the legitimate armed forces of Syria," Peskov said.

Russia has been accused of indiscriminately bombing Aleppo's opposition-controlled east as it helps an assault currently being conducted by Syrian government troops to capture all of the country's second city.

A short-lived truce brokered by Moscow and Washington earlier this month could have led the two countries to coordinate strikes against jihadists, but the deal quickly unravelled.

The United Nations has warned that a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Aleppo unlike any witnessed so far in Syria's brutal five-year war, which has claimed more than 300,000 lives.

Russia said Thursday that it would continue its Syrian air campaign in spite of US warnings that Washington would pull the plug on talks unless Moscow stopped Aleppo assault.
SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Russia will find mechanisms and instruments needed to freeze oil production should the country reach an agreement with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on limiting output, the Russian Energy Minister said on Friday.

Alexander Novak also told journalists on the sidelines of a business forum in the Black Sea resort of Sochi that Iran's energy ministry's delegation will visit Russia in October-November to present potential oil deals to Russian companies.

Novak also reiterated that he is against increasing tax burden on the oil sector.

(Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Dmitry Solovyov)
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Possible deliveries of shoulder-fired missiles to the Syrian opposition would be "absolutely counterproductive," RIA news agency cited a Russian deputy foreign minister as saying on Friday. "This would be an be absolutely counterproductive approach because ultimately these people, which have been trained and armed by the Americans, they will do the same thing that what was done in New York on Sept. 11 (2001)," RIA cited Mikhail Bogdanov as saying. The collapse of the latest Syria ceasefire has heightened the possibility that Gulf states might arm Syrian rebels with man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, to defend themselves against Syrian and Russian warplanes, U.S. officials said on Monday. Bogdanov also said that the U.S. claims that Russia strikes the opposition during its air strikes in Syria are "unsubstantiated". (Reporting by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
SOCHI, Russia, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Russia's federal budget deficit could reach 3.5-3.7 percent of gross domestic product this year, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Friday.

Finance ministry officials earlier said they had hoped to limit the deficit to 3.2 percent of GDP in 2016.

Siluanov also told reporters at an investment forum in Sochi, southern Russia, that the finance ministry planned to increase domestic borrowing by 200 billion roubles ($3.2 billion) in 2016.

He said the ministry would include the privatisation of state stakes in oil firms Rosneft and Bashneft in amended budget plans for this year.

($1 = 63.2929 roubles) (Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; Writing by Alexander Winning and Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
(Adds quotes, context)

By Darya Korsunskaya

SOCHI, Russia, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Russia's federal budget deficit could hit 3.5-3.7 percent of gross domestic product this year, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Friday, a sign that low oil prices are continuing to hurt the commodity-dependent economy.

Buffeted by Western sanctions and lower oil revenues, the Russian government is struggling to plug holes in the budget and revive an economy stuck in a deep slump.

Finance ministry officials had previously said they hoped to limit the deficit to 3.2 percent of GDP. President Vladimir Putin said this week that the size of the budget deficit was acceptable for now.

Siluanov said Russia would increase domestic borrowing by 200 billion roubles ($3.2 billion) in 2016.

"By the end of the year we will reach the borrowing level that we must stick to next year, we will borrow around 30-40 billion roubles a week," the minister told reporters at an investment forum in Sochi, southern Russia.

He said his ministry would include the privatisation of state stakes in oil firms Rosneft and Bashneft in amended budget plans for this year that are set to be submitted for government discussion next month.

If stakes in those firms were not sold to investors this year, Russia would spend more of its reserves, he said.

Under amended budget proposals, the finance ministry was so far sticking to spending 2.1 trillion roubles from the Reserve Fund this year, he said.

($1 = 63.2929 roubles) (Writing by Alexander Winning and Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. software company Salesforce called on EU regulators on Thursday to investigate antitrust issues related to Microsoft's $26 billion bid for social network LinkedIn.

Microsoft (MSFT.O) is expected to seek EU antitrust approval in the coming weeks for its largest ever deal.

Salesforce (CRM.N), which lost out on the bidding for LinkedIn (LNKD.N), urged competition authorities to go beyond a simple review, saying the deal threatens innovation and competition.

"By gaining ownership of LinkedIn's unique dataset of over 450 million professionals in more than 200 countries, Microsoft will be able to deny competitors access to that data, and in doing so obtain an unfair competitive advantage," Burke Norton, Salesforce's chief legal officer, said in a statement.

"Salesforce believes this raises significant antitrust and data privacy issues that need to be fully scrutinized by competition and data privacy authorities in the United States and in the European Union," he said.

Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, said in a statement: "Salesforce may not be aware, but the deal has already been cleared to close in the United States, Canada, and Brazil. We're committed to continuing to work to bring price competition to a CRM market in which Salesforce is the dominant participant charging customers higher prices today."

The European Commission's preliminary review of merger deals lasts 25 working days, which can be extended by about four months if it has serious concerns.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Francesco Guarascio and Sandra Maler)
Washington (AFP) - A new US law allows survivors of terror attacks and victims' relatives to sue foreign governments, opening the way for Saudi Arabia to be targeted for its alleged role in the 9/11 attacks.

The kingdom firmly denies it had anything to do with the September 11, 2001 assault on New York and Washington, and warned Thursday of "disastrous consequences" for relations between the allies.

But what do we know about the allegations, and what might be revealed if the families of 9/11 victims seize on the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act to have their day in court?

- Saudi hijackers -

The Saudi government insists it had no official involvement in the attacks, and the official US investigations found no proven link.

But individual Saudis were involved: 15 of the 19 hijackers who seized passenger jets and crashed them into landmarks were citizens of the kingdom.

The attack was carried out by the Al-Qaeda movement, which was founded and led by Osama bin Laden, the son of a wealthy Saudi construction magnate with close ties to the royal family.

But Bin Laden himself had been banished from the kingdom in 1992 and was stripped of his Saudi citizenship by royal decree in 1994 after speaking out against the king.

The 9/11 Commission set up by President George W. Bush said in 2004 that "Saudi Arabia has long been considered the primary source of Al-Qaeda funding."

"But we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization."

- The '28 pages' -

Why, then, do suspicions remain? And why did an overwhelming majority of US lawmakers vote to override President Barack Obama's veto, passing a law to allow lawsuits against the kingdom?

Part of the answer lies in the so-called "28 pages," a section of a congressional report into the attacks that pre-dated the 9/11 Commission findings and was classified on Bush's orders.

Story continues

For years, the mystery surrounding the missing section fed theories that the US administration had censored the passages to save Saudi officials from scrutiny and protect ties with the oil-rich ally.

But in July this year, under pressure from lawmakers and victims' families, Obama ordered the 28 pages to be released, and they do not definitively identify official Saudi involvement.

"While in the United States, some of the 9/11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi government," the document said.

One suspect on the US East Coast believed to be from the Saudi interior ministry appeared to fake a seizure during FBI questioning about his links to a hijacker.

He was later released from hospital and managed to flee the country before he could be questioned again.

In California, a suspected Saudi intelligence operative was believed to have provided "substantial assistance" settling two more hijackers in to American life.

The phonebook of an Al-Qaeda operative captured in Pakistan meanwhile pointed to US contacts, notably a company that managed a Colorado property of the then-Saudi ambassador.

- Follow-up investigation -

Releasing the material, the Obama administration said the leads turned up by the 2002 congressional probe and contained in the missing 28 pages have since been investigated.

"They don't shed any new light," spokesman Josh Earnest said, "or change any of the conclusions about responsibility for the 9/11 attacks."
By Anusha Ravindranath

Sept 30 (Reuters) - Southeast Asian stocks ended lower on

Friday with Indonesia posting its biggest intraday percentage

loss in over two weeks as the announcement of a tax hike on

cigarettes weighed on tobacco companies.

Indonesia's finance minister on Friday said the government

would raise the excise tax on cigarettes by an average of 10.5

percent next year, and also intensify its crackdown on the

illegal circulation of cigarettes.

The Jakarta Composite Index ended down 1.24 percent,

led by falls in major cigarette makers PT Hanjaya Mandala

Sampoerna Tbk and PT Gudang Garam Tbk. The

index fell 0.45 percent on the week.

A decline in oil prices and concerns over German lender

Deutsche Bank spooked investors in regional markets, with

financial and energy stocks losing ground.

Singapore shares finished lower, but gained 0.44

percent on the week. Blue-chips Singapore Telecommunications Ltd

and Singapore Airlines Ltd were among the

top losers on the index.

A weak peso pushed down Philippine stocks, which

closed over 1 percent lower led by losses in telecom and

consumer non-cyclicals. The index also posted its biggest

quarterly percentage loss in a year.

The Philippine peso in September saw its steepest monthly

drop in 16 years as concerns grew that President Duterte's

policies may keep driving foreign investors out of the country.

"Investors are concerned about this headline-grabbing

rhetoric from the president. They are looking for buzz words

like growth and economic development," said Victor Felix, an

analyst with AB Capital Securities in Manila.

"I project that this weakness in the peso will continue," he

added.

Malaysian stocks closed 1 percent lower, dragged

down by financials and consumer cyclicals, while Vietnam snapped

a nine-day winning streak to end down 0.41 percent, but gained

1.7 percent on the week.

For Asian Companies click;

SOUTHEAST ASIAN STOCK MARKETS

STOCK MARKETS

Change on the

day

Market Current previous Pct Move

close

Singapore 2869.47 2885.71 -0.56

Story continues

Bangkok 1483.21 1491.43 -0.55

Manila 7629.73 7714.86 -1.10

Jakarta 5364.804 5431.957 -1.24

Kuala Lumpur 1652.55 1669.64 -1.02

Ho Chi Minh 685.73 688.55 -0.41

Change so far

this year

Market Current End prev yr Pct Move

Singapore 2869.47 2882.73 -0.46

Bangkok 1483.21 1288.02 15.15

Manila 7629.73 6952.08 9.75

Jakarta 5364.804 4593.008 16.80

Kuala Lumpur 1652.55 1692.51 -2.36

Ho Chi Minh 685.73 579.03 18.43

(Reporting Anusha Ravindranath in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil

Nair)
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently charged the former senior director of regulatory affairs for Puma Biotechnology Inc. (PBYI) with insider trading ahead of the companys news announcements about its drug to treat breast cancer.

The agency alleged that Robert Gadimian pocketed more than $1.1 million in illicit profits by secretly purchasing Puma stock and short-term call options based on nonpublic information he learned about positive developments in two clinical trials for Pumas drug, neratinib.

Gadimian allegedly bought Puma securities before the results from the first trial were announced in December 2013 and again before the results of the second trial were announced in July 2014.

ALSO READ: 10 Things That May Scare the Hell Out of Investors Going Into the Fourth Quarter of 2016

According to the SECs complaint, Puma confronted Gadimian after learning about his trades and he admitted to trading because of greed. Gadimian allegedly proceeded to alter his trading records before providing them to Puma for its internal investigation, deleting certain trades in Puma securities and renumbering the pages of the altered documents to hide his changes.

Gadimian was fired in October 2014.

In a parallel case, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Massachusetts Friday announced criminal charges against Gadimian.

Antonia Chion, associate director in the SECs Division of Enforcement, commented:

We allege that Gadimian used valuable confidential information about his employers drug trials to trade illegally and enrich himself.

Shares of Puma closed Thursday at $66.06, with a consensus analyst price target of $86.00 and a 52-week trading range of $19.74 to $94.93.

Related Articles
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 30, 2016 / Levi & Korsinsky, LLP announces that it has commenced an investigation of NorthStar Asset Management Group Inc. ("NorthStar" or the "Company") (NSAM) concerning possible breaches of fiduciary duty.

The investigation concerns the merger agreement, announced June 3, 2016, between between NorthStar, NorthStar Realty Finance Corp. (NYSE:NRF), and equity firm Colony Capital Inc. (NYSE:CLNY). Following the merger announcement, certain institutional shareholders have objected to the deal in its current form on the grounds that it does not provide sufficient value to NSAM's stockholders. To obtain additional information about the investigation, go to: http://zlk.9nl.com/northstar-asset-management or contact Joseph E. Levi, Esq. either via email at jlevi@zlk.com or by telephone at (212) 363-7500, toll-free: (877) 363-5972.

Levi & Korsinsky is a national firm with offices in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Washington D.C. The firm's attorneys have extensive expertise in prosecuting securities litigation involving financial fraud, representing investors throughout the nation in securities and shareholder lawsuits. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

CONTACT

Levi & Korsinsky, LLP

Joseph E. Levi, Esq.

30 Broad Street - 24th Floor

New York, NY 10004

Tel: (212) 363-7500

Toll Free: (877) 363-5972

Fax: (212) 363-7171

www.zlk.com

SOURCE: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP
Clay Newbill, Robert Herjavec, Barbara Corcoran, Mark Cuban, Lori Greiner, Kevin OLeary (Todd Wawrychuk/ABC)

In its eighth year and, as of this past week, over $100 million of the hosts own personal money invested, Shark Tank is stronger than ever.

Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Kevin OLeary, Lori Greiner, and Robert Herjavec recently joined executive producer Clay Newbill for a breakfast with press at LErmitage in Beverly Hills to talk about the show, its legacy, and its future.

Shark Tank changed  literally  our country, Greiner said. From six-year-olds to 97-year-olds, everybody watches the show. Its inspired a cultural revolution, she insisted, by making the language of entrepreneurs understandable to laymen.

We had somebody come on this season. He was in his 20s, Herjavec continued. He said, I used to watch Shark Tank when I was young. And we were all, What? Are we old?! It was very humbling.

Corcoran leapt in: Humbling? What was humbling? It was depressing!

New This Season

Corcoran revealed two new things two watch for. One: The introduction of the show is changing. To emphasize how [the Sharks] started from rags and worked their way to riches, she said. So people are going to see us in a different light, and I think people are going to relate in a different way. Two: Theyre going to do a profile on each Shark. The first one  of OLeary  airs this week, and Corcoran is looking forward to it. I understand that he actually cries on set, she said, sounding incredulous. I hear that his story is so touching. And I cant believe hed touch me on anything!

Will this be the best year ever for the show? Some say yes. We did a deal this season This is the best thing Ive seen in eight seasons, Herjavec said. But Cuban quickly jumped on the statement: You say that every day! So the jurys still out.

On Their Influence

Recently, said OLeary, in San Francisco airport, an 11-year old girl came running up to me  her mother was in tow back there  and she said, Are you Mr. Wonderful, that guy on Shark Tank? I said, Yeah. Listen, last night, you should have done that deal with the convert up 20%.

Story continues

The idea of the show has reached the mainstream educational system. Any parent I meet, said Greiner, almost every single one of them, says, Oh, we have a Shark Tank thing in our school. All of them are having Shark Tank classes, theyre having Shark Tank projects, theyre having Shark Tank contests.

Cuban emphasized that their reach extends to every age. The reason I do the show is Shark Tank tells everybody the American Dream is alive and well. Like everybody was saying  6-year-olds, 8-year-olds, 90-year-olds  we give them confidence that if we can do it, they can do it. Its hard to impact that many people any other way.

The Casting Process

We have over 40,000 apply every year, and about 180 of them make it actually onto the rug, Newbill said.

Is it a wow idea? is the first thing they ask. The magic happens when an offer is made, so we want everybody that comes in there to get to that point, he said. Next, they look at the person. Are they energetic enough? Do they have that fire? Do they have that passion? Do they have that drive that we know works for television, but also is something that a Shark will be looking for?

Thats just scratching the surface, he continued. We spend weeks, months working with them. The pitch might get practiced hundreds of times with the producers offering advice, but, he said, its a take it or leave it-type of advice because, at the end of the day, its their businesses.

The show itself requires less direction. The Sharks all fuel each other, so, what does Newbill really have to do? I tell them, Okay, its been an hour.'

On Celebrity

Like so many before them, the Sharks have found fame to be a double-edged sword. OLeary cold-called the executive of a money center bank  the kind whose funds start at a billion dollars  and was greeted with an, Oh, Mr. Wonderful! and invited right through multiple layers of security because the executives daughter loves his show. Shark Tank opened the door, he said.

On the other hand, it can be difficult to be recognized and hounded everywhere  literally everywhere  in the world. Many years ago, recalled Corcoran, Im in a boat at a dock where theres no people, virtually, that live there. And our boat pulls in and people crowd around the boat screaming Shark Tank! We just sailed right out of there! But despite early misgivings, she now says shes addicted to the attention. Ill never retire, she said. Im gonna work until I just drop dead. And Im planning to drop dead in the goddamn red seat so it helps the ratings!

Shark Tank airs Fridays at 9 p.m. on ABC.
By Thomas Wilson

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Sharp Corp said it will spend $570 million on its organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen business - one of its first major investments since it was taken over by Taiwan's Foxconn although the amount pales in comparison to efforts by South Korean rivals.

Manufacturers of consumer and other electronics are gradually shifting towards OLED screens which are generally thinner and are more flexible than liquid crystal display (LCD) screens.

Sharp said it will invest in pilot production lines at its plants in Osaka and in Mie prefecture, western Japan, which are due to start between April and June 2018.

Sharp is hoping to team up with its domestic rival Japan Display Inc on OLED displays, the Nikkei business daily reported last month, quoting new CEO Tai Jeng-wu.

Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd , secured control of Sharp last month in a deal that gives its access to the Japanese firm's advanced screen technology and which is likely to help strengthen its pricing power with major client Apple Inc.

South Korean rivals have bet heavily on the technology over the last two years.

LG Display Co Ltd said last year it would invest 10 trillion won ($9 billion) in a new plant to make the ultra-thin panels.

Samsung Display, an unlisted unit of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd that's the largest maker of OLEDs for smartphones, is investing 4 trillion won by 2017 in an OLED production line.

Research firm IHS has forecast that shipments of OLED smartphone panels will overtake LCDs in 2020.

($1 = 101.1500 yen)

($1 = 1,101.7000 won)

(Reporting by Thomas Wilson; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
Integrated energy major Royal Dutch Shell plcs RDS.A Nigerian division, Shell Petroleum Development Company, has shut down its Trans Niger Pipeline at Gio in Ogoni due to a recent fire. This pipeline feeds into Nigeria's strategic Bonny Export Terminal.

The shutdown is expected to lower Shells Nigerian exports by 180,000 bpd. Shell Petroleum Development has shut down the pipeline as a precautionary measure in order to determine the cause and impact of the fire.

The Trans Niger Pipeline is one of two major pipelines that carry the Bonny Light crude grade for export to its Forcados terminal in the Niger Delta. The pipeline was first shut down in Jul 2016 following a leak at the same location in Ogoni land.

ROYAL DTCH SH-A Price

ROYAL DTCH SH-A Price | ROYAL DTCH SH-A Quote

Shells other major export terminals in Nigeria and Forcados were closed in February due to attacks by militants. These repeated militant attacks have caused the Nigerian oil production to decline from 2.1 million barrels a day to 1.7 million barrels.

Headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands, Shell is one of the largest integrated oil and gas companies in the world. It explores for and extracts crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids. It has interests in chemicals as well as power generation and renewable energy.

Predictably, the commodity price slump has adversely affected Shells financials, particularly at its upstream unit. Furthermore, Shells revenues, earnings and cash flow have been significantly hurt by weak natural gas prices. Attacks on the companys local establishments by the Nigerian militants have added to its woes.

Moreover, Shells peers  ExxonMobil Corporation XOM, Chevron Corporation CVX, Braskem S.A. BAK  have also been reeling under issues like low oil prices and weak refinery margins.

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With his intense eyes, dimpled chin and thatch of hair, Simon McBurney has a chameleonic look that shifts imperceptibly from innocent to sinister, enchanted to terrified, that will be familiar to anyone whos seen him onscreen: He played Colin Firths illusionist sidekick in Woody Allens Magic in the Moonlight and the father of Eddie Redmaynes Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, among many other roles. But its as a theater magician that he is best known, the creative and onstage engine behind Complicite (originally Theatre de Complicite), the London-based company he co-founded in 1983 and which has toured such mesmerizing works as The Street of Crocodiles and Mnemonic.

Complicite has been in the vanguard of merging technology and performance, and its latest work, The Encounter, which has just opened on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre, is the most audacious immersion yet into an artificially intelligent new theater. A solo show in which McBurney portrays many characters in wildly different locations, you might think of it, as I did, as a particularly inventive episode of A Prairie Home Companion as conceived and directed by Carlos Castaneda. Its a mindblower.

'The Encounter.'

McBurneys inspiration is The Encounter: Amazon Beaming, Petru Popescus account of American photographer Loren McIntyre. His search for the source of the Amazon River leads him to the Mayoruna, a tribe whose affinity for decorating their faces with spikes embedded in their flesh led to their nickname the cat people. McIntyres relationship to these people unconnected to the outside world takes him deep into the jungle, where hes introduced to flesh-devouring bugs, menacing jaguars and thieving monkeys, as well as a feral community whose elders communicate telepathically (thus the title). Man and nature conspire to scare the crap  not to mention the occasional blood and guts  out of McIntyre as his alliances within the tribe shift and his personal belief system takes a mighty spin.

All of this is conveyed ingeniously by McBurney in an attic set as he re-creates for us the story through the use of much electronic gear that alters his voice for different characters (including a daughter who refuses to go to sleep and serves as a stand-in for the audience with her constant interruptions to demand some human interaction). We, by the way, are given headphones to achieve the full, sensurround effect, even as we watch McBurney step in a spaghetti of recording tape for one sound effect, or manipulate various microphones to place us in the center of the action. Some of it is very trippy and might remind viewers of a certain age of the first time they listened to, say, Emerson Lake & Palmer on a very good set of headphones after a mushroom sandwich or two.

The 110-minute show is a wonder, yet I couldnt help but feel it also was a bit of a con that forced us to pay more attention to the technical gimcrackery than to the extraordinary tale unfolding. Would imaginative staging by, say Julie Taymor or Alex Timbers, with an actual cast, have had as much impact? Id like to think so. Or, as one British critic noted, after reading Amazon Beaming: [F]or proof that the same effect can be produced by the rather less advanced method of ink on paper, look no further than this book.

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Singapore is second top dealmaker in 3Q among Asean peers.

Unprecedented levels of geopolitical uncertainty are weighing heavily on dealmakers globally but not in the Asia-Pacific region.

The region was the stand-out performer in 3Q16 with IPO proceeds surging 138% to US24.2bn and deal volume rising 41% to 176. The data is in stark contrast with global data of 39% plunge to US79.4bn in IPO proceeds and 23% decline in deal volumes to 704.

Although China continues to dominate, there was significant activity in Japan, Australia and South Korea. Japan, in particular, continues to see healthy IPO activity with 19 deals raising US$1.5b in 3Q16[1], compared to US$1.1b in proceeds through 18 IPOs in 2Q16.

Among Asean exchanges, Singapore is amongst biggest contributors which closed 6 deals amounting to US$438M (S$598M). It narrowly missed the top spot occupied by Indonesia which made US451M from 3 deals.

Other Asean exchanges which reported highest proceeds are Thailand (US$279m from 7 deals); and Malaysia (US$28m in 3 deals).

Max Loh, Asean and Singapore Managing Partner, Ernst & Young LLP, says: Investor sentiment in Asia-Pacific is still being supported by ample liquidity in emerging markets. Cross-border listings have slowed as home exchanges have become more competitive in offering value propositions for companies to list locally.





More From Singapore Business Review


Big brands are expected to offer big discounts.

As Chinese tourists travel abroad during their week-long national holiday, the city-state has nothing but open arms, offering their own spin on Golden Week to boost its local retail sales.

Different brands from Nike to Samsonite are offering discounts in Singapore. Such promotions are aimed at grabbing a slice of more than half a billion Chinese buyers who are expected to travel domestically and overseas for the annual holiday starting on October.

During the promotion period, malls such as those owned by Southeast Asias biggest developer CapitaLand Ltd., and Hong Kongs Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. will offer lucky draws and free limousine rides to users of UnionPay, Chinas card-payment equivalent of Visa and MasterCard.

According to Singapore Retail Association Chairperson R. Dhinakaran, the event is intended to heighten the appeal of Singapore for local and foreign users of the card.

Chinese visitors remain very important to the retail industry, he said.

Around 589 million Chinese will travel overseas and domestically during the holiday period. Singapore was at the seventh spot of top destinations.

To know more about the story, click here.







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Only getting worse. Washington and Moscow are flexing in Syria, the Black Sea, the Baltics, and right on through to the hacking of computer networks. But Moscow is doing most of the jabbing, with the Americans crying foul.

Aleppo is where things are taking the most gruesome human toll, with Russian bombs obliterating entire apartment blocks and hospitals while Washington threatens to shut down ceasefire talks  to Moscows annoyance and seeming amusement.

Reacting to State Department spokesman John Kirbys comment this week that Moscows bombing runs on Syrian civilians could lead to terror attacks in Russia and Russian soldiers coming home in body bags, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for Russias Defense Ministry, said the comments were the most frank confession by the U.S. side so far that the whole opposition ostensibly fighting a civil war in Syria is a U.S.-controlled terrorist international, using a Soviet-era term. Meanwhile, some Syrian rebels in and around Aleppo, feeling burned by Washington, are drawing closer to the Nusra Front, al Qaedas powerful affiliate in the country.

Slamming ceasefire. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Thursday dismissed Secretary of State John Kerrys call for another seven-day ceasefire in Syria, adding that Kerrys threat to walk away from negotiations was little more than an emotional breakdown.

Tweet war. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zaharova uncorked a series of Tweets Thursday calling for an international investigation into a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan this week that may have killed up to 15 civilians. Russian officials also on Thursday slammed what they say is a dangerous new U.S. nuclear strategy that directly threatens Russia.

U.N. in Afghanistan. The United Nations in Afghanistan has backed up local reports from Nangarhar province that the American airstrike killed 15 and injured another 13 civilians, and has called for an independent investigation. U.S. military officials in Kabul have said that American planes were operating in the area at the time of the strike on Wednesday, and say theyre looking into the reports.

Story continues

Clinton hack. It looks like one of Hillary Clintons staffers was hacked, and an audio recording of a private speech the candidate gave to political donors in February was leaked to the conservative outlet, the Washington Free Beacon. The hacker remains unidentified, but the recording shows Clinton questioning a key part of the Obama administrations controversial $1 trillion nuclear weapon modernization program, while promising to come down harder on Russian and Chinese hackers. They have physical assets that are also connected on the internet, she said. So they have to know we would retaliate. So that provides a certain level of deterrence. Its unclear if the hack was part of the DNC hack earlier this year.

Washington struggling with all of this. When it comes to Moscows intentions, the bigger question confronting American intelligence officials, the New York Times David Sanger writes, is whether the Russian president has a grander scheme at work. So far, their conclusion is probably not. Mr. Putins moves, they argue in background conversations, are largely tactical, intended to bolster his international image at a moment he has plenty of troubles back home.

Still, theres dissent within the White House over how much leeway to give the Russians. The White House so fair has not publicly blamed Russia for hacking of the Democratic National Committee, stealing voter registration rolls in Arizona and Illinois, or the Democratic cell phone beak-in. This has led to something of an uprising in parts of the White House and the State Department, Sanger continues. A range of cyberstrategists and younger diplomats have complained over the past nine months that the failure to draw lines has encouraged Mr. Putin to see what else he can accomplish, especially at a time of political transition in the United States.

Growing U.S. war in Somalia. U.S. forces came under fire in two separate incidents in Somalia over the past week, leading to the American Special Operations Forces to call in airstrikes to fight off the attackers.

Good morning and as always, if you have any thoughts, announcements, tips, or national security-related events to share, please pass them along to SitRep HQ. Best way is to send them to: paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or on Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley

Syria

The Assad regime and its allies have assembled a force of around 6,000 ground troops near Aleppo as the battle for control of the city intensifies. Around 5,000 of those fighters, according to the Guardian, are members of Shia militias drawn from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon. Prominent militia leaders like Akram al-Kaabi have framed the fight for the city in sectarian terms, comparing the fight against predominantly Sunni Syrian rebels to pivotal seventh century battles between Sunnis and Shia.

For real this time, we swear. American officials are once again threatening to send more and more-sophisticated weapons to Syrian rebels now that Russia has walked away from talks on a ceasefire in the city of Aleppo. Anonymous officials whisper to Reuters that the joint Syrian government and Russian assault on the city has the Obama administration considering options ranging from increased weapons shipments to rebels, to humanitarian airdrops in rebel-held areas, to air strikes on Assad regime air assets. Despite the rhetoric, the consideration so far hasnt reached higher levels and the State Department has yet to officially give up on the diplomatic track, much less embrace an alternative.

Syrian activists in Deir Ezzor say U.S. airstrikes knocked out two bridges over the Euphrates, cutting off supply routes to residents in Mayadeen and al-Eshara, according to Syria Direct. The anti-Islamic State coalition says it hit two bridges in the area, describing them as ISIL supply route[s]. Local counter that theyre dependent on the bridges, as well, but lack the ability to build and use alternative bridges, like Islamic State has at times.

South Asia

Indias border conflict with Pakistan in the disputed territory of Kashmir has escalated, with India saying it carried out a surgical strike on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control separating the two countries forces. India Today reports that Indian authorities say the operation lasted for four hours and involved special operations forces venturing as far as two kilometers across the Line in order to hit what they claimed were militants on the verge of infiltrating Indian territory. Separately, Pakistan says it captured an Indian soldier on Thursday, according to Reuters, and Indian officials say the prisoner inadvertently crossed over to the Pakistan side of the Line of Control.

Sudan

Amnesty International alleges in a new report that Sudan used chemical weapons against civilians in Darfur, killing between 200 and 250 people from January through September 2016. Researchers from Amnesty talked to medical personnel and witnesses on the ground, collecting statements as well as photos. Experts consulted by Amnesty say the data is consistent with the use of blister agents. Sudanese military forces allegedly delivered the chemical weapons in bombs and rockets, producing what witnesses say were toxic clouds that turned from black to blue.

Do-over

We did what now? Congress is starting to have doubts about a bill allowing 9/11 victims families to sue Saudi Arabia in court  a day after overriding a presidential veto to pass it into law. The Hill reports that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) both said theyre now open to altering the bill, which both supported, and now say they didnt fully realize what was in it. Ryan said hed like to see some as-yet undefined middle ground that would simultaneously allow 9/11 victims to have their day in court without opening the Defense Department and military personnel up to similar lawsuits by foreign plaintiffs. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, and Saudis, are struggling to understand, and define, what the bill means for the 70 year-old alliance.

Travel safety

The U.S. Consulate in Munich has issued an urgent warning for U.S. residents visiting the famously-boozy Oktoberfest events in the city: pace yourselves, lightweights, youre making the rest of us look bad.

Photo Credit: ALEKSEY NIKOLSKY/AFP/Getty Images
[September 29, 2016]

Nintex Wins Two Office App Awards at Microsoft Ignite Conference

ATLANTA, Sept. 29, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft today at its annual Microsoft Ignite conference awarded Nintex, the leader in workflow and content automation (WCA), with two 2016 Microsoft Office App Awards including:







"Most Business Value for a SharePoint Add-in" for Nintex Workflow for Office 365 , http://www.nintex.com/workflow-platform/nintex-workflow/workflow-for-office-365

for , http://www.nintex.com/workflow-platform/nintex-workflow/workflow-for-office-365 "Best User Interface for a SharePoint Add-in" for Nintex Forms for Office 365, http://www.nintex.com/workflow-platform/nintex-forms/forms-for-office-365

Last year Microsoft awarded Nintex with the 2015 Microsoft Office and SharePoint Application Development Partner of the Year Award. Nintex was honored among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology. Microsoft also honored Nintex with several Office App Awards in 2015 during the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Orlando. Nintex claimed the "People's Choice" top honor for Overall Developer and first place for "Most Launched SharePoint Add-in" and "Most Business Value SharePoint Add-in" for Nintex Workflow for Office 365.

To learn more about the Office App Awards visit http://betterwith.office.com/OfficeAppAwards2016.

Media Contact

Kristin Treat

Nintex Public Relations

[email protected]

cell: (215) 317-9091

Product or service names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nintex-wins-two-office-app-awards-at-microsoft-ignite-conference-300335394.html

SOURCE Nintex
Ahead of this weekends return of Saturday Night Live, exec producer Lorne Michaels is speaking out for the first time about his surprising decision to pink-slip longtime cast members Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah.

VIDEOSSNL Premiere Promo: Kate McKinnon Toasts First-Time Host Margot Robbie

I think they were great, and they did wonderful work when they were with us, Michaels tells USA Today. They served the show well, and are two people I really care about. [But] change is the lifeblood of the show; it always has been. And you have to keep bringing new people in. Hopefully its for the best. Im not worried about either of them going on to success.

Killam and Pharoah  who recently signed on to headline separate Showtime comedy pilots  were let go one year shy of their seven-year contracts. The decision blindsided Killam. I had sort of had it in my head I would make this upcoming year my last year, but then heard they werent going to pick up my contract, he said at the time. I was never given a reason why, really I honestly dont know what happened on the other side. (Rookie featured player Jon Rudnitsky was similarly shown the door.)

RELATEDExclusive: Emily Blunt to Make SNL Hosting Debut

Michaels also addressed this falls other big SNL headline: The casting of Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump. Turns out, it was Tina Feys idea. She said, You know who would be a great Trump is Alec!  he recalls. I talked to Alec, who was finishing a movie, he was getting ready to have a baby  it couldnt have been worse timing. But, slowly, the idea grew on me.

The decision had nothing to do with Baldwins predecessor, Darrell Hammond, who Michaels insists was obviously great at playing Trump. But just as Darrell took over from Phil Hartman doing Bill Clinton, these things have to change. I dont know how many people have played Hillary Clinton.

Story continues

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Somali officials said that a recent U.S. airstrike killed civilians and Somali soldiers, not al-Shabab militants as the U.S. has claimed.

According to the BBC, the regional government in the autonomous central region of Galmudug has demanded an explanation from the U.S., claiming that 22 civilians and Somali soldiers were killed in the attack late Tuesday.

Galmudug officials reportedly suggested that the U.S. military had been tricked into believing it was targeting extremists by the neighboring state of Puntland.

The BBC reports that the Somali military has confirmed that its soldiers were killed, but the report did not specify the number of casualties.

Washington said the self-defense attack killed nine members of al-Shabab, a militant group with ties to al-Qaeda.

In a statement Thursday, the U.S. Africa Command responded to claims that civilians had instead been killed.

We have seen reports alleging non-combatant casualties as a result of this defensive strike. We have assessed all credible evidence and determined those reports are incorrect, the statement said. As with all such allegations, we take this one seriously.

Residents of Galkayo, the city in Galmudug where the strike took place, protested Thursday by burning American flags.

A Somali general reportedly confirmed a statement from al-Shabab that there were no militants in the area at the time of the attack.

[BBC]
One of the students wounded in Wednesday's elementary school shooting in South Carolina remains hospitalized in critical condition, PEOPLE confirms.



Six-year-old Jacob Hall was shot along with another student and a female teacher Wednesday afternoon at Townville Elementary School in Anderson County, South Carolina.



Hall was airlifted to Greenville Memorial Hospital where he underwent surgery, according to officials.





South Carolina School Shooting Victim, 6, Remains in Critical Condition After Surgery| Crime & Courts, Death, Murder, True Crime



Townville teacher Meghan Hollingsworth and another student, also 6 years old, were released from AnMed Health Medical Center Wednesday evening, AnMed spokesman Ross Norton tells PEOPLE.



Hollingsworth was shot in the shoulder while the student, who has not been identified, was shot in the foot.



 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.





Shooting Stared at Recess

On Thursday, Anderson County Superintendent Dr. Joanne Avery released a statement addressed to the school's families.



"We are shaken, but feel fortunate that the injuries were not more numerous or more severe," Avery wrote.



She wrote that the suspect, a 14-year-old boy who has not yet been identified, allegedly started shooting at a door located in the rear of the school, as a class began to exit for recess. Officials have said the shooting started after 1 p.m.





South Carolina School Shooting Victim, 6, Remains in Critical Condition After Surgery| Crime & Courts, Death, Murder, True Crime



The suspect did not enter the building at any time, Avery wrote, and students were immediately taken to safer locations.



The suspect was subdued by a volunteer firefighter who has since been widely praised for his actions, authorities said.



"I want to assure our Townville family that we are in this together," Avery wrote. "We will stand with you and your children as they process this senseless act of violence."



The suspect's father, 47-year-old Jeffrey Osborne, was found dead near the school in what officials have told PEOPLE is a related incident. Officials have not publicly discussed a motive and it remains unclear what charges the suspect will face in the shooting.



PEOPLE has not been able to reach the Osborne family for comment.



Townville Elementary School will reopen for class on Monday.
A 14-year-old who allegedly shot three people inside a South Carolina elementary school was charged with attempted murder Friday. The teenager was charged with one count of murder in the death of his father, 47-year-old Jeffrey Osborne, and three counts of attempted murder, one for each of the people who were shot at Townville Elementary School on Wednesday. A teacher and two students were injured in the shooting, including a 6-year-old boy who was on life support in the intensive care unit at a local hospital as of Thursday.
Madrid (AFP) - Spain's debt-laden energy giant Abengoa on Friday posted a 3.7-billion-euro ($4.2-billion) net loss in the first half of 2016, as it seeks to seal a deal with creditors to ward off bankruptcy.

A "general slowdown in business" contributed to the result, the Seville-based group said in a statement.

It had only posted a loss of 340 million euros in the first quarter, while in the first six months of 2015, the group made a 72-million-euro profit.

The world player in solar and wind power, biofuels and water management announced last year that it was filing for preliminary protection from creditors following years of frenzied, unsustainable expansion worldwide.

It has launched a recovery plan that includes the sale of biofuels assets and other non-strategic holdings, as well as job cuts -- it has already shed at least 11,000 jobs since the end of last year -- and finalised a debt restructuring deal in August.

The group now has until October 25 for creditors and investors to sign off on the deal, which would see it receive a cash injection of 650 million euros on top of loans already granted to the company.

Abengoa's billions-strong debt has affected many of its projects around the world, which it has either been unable to keep constructing or operating.

In the statement, the group singled out solar power facilities in Chile and South Africa and electricity transmission lines in Brazil.

Its bioenergy sector was particularly hard-hit, with several bioethanol plants in the United States and Europe "paralysed" by bankruptcy proceedings.

The group added that overall turnover reached 1.2 billion euros in the first half of the year, close to three times less than the same time in 2015.

A family-owned company founded 75 years ago, Abengoa rose from being a local electrical firm, fixing installations damaged in Spain's 1936-1939 civil war, to a major player in solar energy and other renewables.

But risky bets on biofuels and Spain's cuts to renewable energy subsidies during an economic downturn pushed the company to the edge of bankruptcy.
It all seemed so easy back then. When American Marines landed in Beirut 34 years ago this month, they came, as their commander put it, to help our Lebanese friends. The problem was, friends can be fickle. The Reagan administration saw white hats and black hats in Lebanon, when in fact, they all wore shades of gray.

Coincidentally, a man named Reagan was the first American casualty in Lebanon. Cpl. David L. Reagan of Chesapeake, Virginia, just 21 years old, was killed clearing ordinance left over from the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which claimed at least 10,000 lives.

It is our expectation that our people will not become involved in any combat that will result in loss of life, White House Spokesman Larry Speakes told reporters after the fact. By the time the Marines humiliatingly withdrew 17 months later, 264 American servicemen and 15 diplomats and CIA employees were dead; the United States had fought, and effectively lost, a war. Instead of a Benghazi-style lynch mob, Congress carried out a thoughtful investigation and ultimately issued a set of recommendations to avoid such disasters in the future. But that was before the era of hyper-polarized politics and media.

Contrast that to the Kill em all and let God sort it out approach to terrorist attacks these days.

Youve got to get over there and make them pay where they live, New Jersey governor and Donald Trump apologist Chris Christie said in response to the Orlando massacre, conveniently ignoring the fact that the killer was a New York-born U.S. citizen. It is unacceptable to allow this type of stuff in our country and for us to not fight back.

Americas disastrous Lebanon incursion is a cautionary tale for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as they compete over who will be tougher in neighboring Syria. Lebanon marked the first military intervention in the Middle East in the post-colonial era and the first time Americans fired in anger on Muslim troops since fighting the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It ended in disaster. In Beirut, the United States planted the seeds of the terrorism that today encircles the globe. We saw the terrible cost of policy based on the arrogance of D.C. heavyweights who thought they knew more than the experts on the ground, and we witnessed the consequence of a White House worldview that automatically assumed all Muslims were bad and all Christians were good.

Story continues

The seminal moment of the Lebanon experience came on a quiet Sunday morning in October 1983 when a truck bomb leveled the U.S. Marine barracks near Beirut airport, claiming the lives of 241 American servicemen. The devastating attack was part of a convulsion of anti-American violence that marked the birth of modern radical Muslim terrorism  though the Shiite militiamen of Lebanon were fighting for a fundamentally different cause than the Sunni radicals of Islamic State and al Qaeda now do. The explosion shook me awake in my bed miles from the blast site. The scene that awaited when I arrived a half-hour later  bits of U.S. Marines with whom I had been drinking beer and shooting hoops the evening before were hanging from the leafless trees; the hands of trapped Marines and sailors reaching from between slabs of broken concrete; rows of bodies lined up on the ground  will forever shape my view of the troubled interplay of Islam and American policy.

In the coming months and years, I would find myself covering suicide bombings of U.S. embassies in Lebanon and Kuwait; the hijacking of a TWA flight packed with Americans; and the kidnappings of U.S. citizens from the streets of Beirut, some of them my friends.

We must find out what is going on, Donald Trump told Americans the day after the Orlando massacre. We need to tell the truth, also, about how radical Islam is coming to our shores.

It might be a mystery to Trump, but it doesnt take a Middle East expert to know the answer. It is clear to anyone who has paid attention to the news over the past few decades, or studied a little history. The U.S.-backed anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, American troops in Saudi Arabia in the Gulf War, the invasion of Iraq in 2003; these all fueled the flames of terror that have spread around the world and has now arrived on our city streets and in our shopping malls. But the spark was lit in Beirut.

There, the Reagan White House sided with one set of armed factions because they happened to be Christian against another set of armed factions that happened to be Muslim, turning would-be allies into enemies and creating an opening for Irans Revolutionary Guards to foment anti-American chaos. For future American policymakers, Lebanon should have been a cautionary tale. White House operatives, led by Robert McFarlane, Reagans special envoy to the Middle East, ignored the resident diplomats and military experts alike.

Were sitting ducks down here, the commander of the Marines battalion, Col. Timothy Geraghty, told McFarlane when ordered to open fire on Druze and Shiite Muslim positions, as I recounted in my 2003 book on the conflict, Seeds of Hate. Geraghty later wrote that the decision removed any lingering doubts of our neutrality, and I stated to my staff at the time that we were going to pay in blood for this decision.

Muslim militia leaders, locked in conflict with the Christian-dominated Lebanese government, also sought to avoid war with the United States. Im giving this small advice to the U.S. Marines to stay away from the Lebanese Army positions, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, told me at the time. It is better for them and better for me. If they dont, they could get caught in the crossfire [and would] unfortunately suffer the consequences. The Druze, an esoteric offshoot of Shiite Islam, would ultimately end up fighting the Americans alongside Lebanons Shiite Muslim militias.

The Marines had been rushed to Beirut after Christian militiamen, supported by Israeli troops, massacred at least 800 Palestinian and Shiite civilians in Beiruts southern slums. Muslims had welcomed the Americans as protectors. But the Marines mission was ill-defined. When clashes broke out between Christian and Muslim rivals, the White House sided with the Christians under the guise of supporting the legitimate government of Lebanon, which was anything but.

And he, whose whole course of proceeding seemed like a deliberate crusade against Mohammedan susceptibilities, never appeared to reflect for one moment that he was thereby supplying the springs to an under-current of fierce and deadly fanaticism, Col. Charles Churchill, a 19th-century British officer, wrote of an earlier ill-fated Western intervention in the region.

Oblivious to the irony, Reagan warned Middle East governments: Those outsiders who have fed the flames of civil war in Lebanon for so many years need to learn that the fire will consume them, too.

And so it did, erupting into a global conflagration we continue to battle today.

It was in Lebanon that todays tactics of terror were first employed against Americans. Is it more brave to shoot bombs from the sea? Akram, a Shiite militiaman, asked me as we sat drinking sweet tea in a bunker facing the Marines positions as shells from the USS New Jersey roared above our heads. We have no New Jersey. We do not have jet planes. We have many trucks, so we use them. What is the difference between dropping a bomb on a building from the sky and driving it from the street?

Osama bin Laden later told Imad Mugniyeh, Hezbollahs operations chief, that he was inspired by the suicide bombings that Mugniyeh used to bring America to its knees and adopted them for himself, an Arab intelligence source related to me years later.

There were no simple answers then to the question of how we stop terrorism, nor are there today  no matter how hard some politicians try to convince us otherwise.

You can run, but you cant hide, Ronald Reagan declared in 1985 after a plane carrying Palestinian hijackers who had murdered an American was intercepted by U.S. jets. It was, he said, a message to terrorists everywhere. A year later, Reagan would assure the nation, History is likely to record that 1986 was the year when the world, at long last, came to grips with the plague of terrorism.

Would that it had been so.

In the three decades since, we have learned just how difficult it is to strike back against Islamist extremists. Despite countless drone missiles, special operations raids, and F-16 airstrikes, terror continues to metastasize. The war against terrorism does not lend itself to shock and awe solutions. It is a painstaking, complex, and methodical battle, often carried out far from the glare of television cameras. But American politicians have never let those facts get in the way of a good soundbite.

When I take action, Im not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. Its going to be decisive, George W. Bush promised, oh so many dead camels ago. But as terrorism has spread, American rhetoric has only grown louder  on both sides of the aisle. They are going to be on the run wherever they hide, President Barack Obama declared after the June terrorist attack on Istanbul airport. And we will not rest until we have dismantled these networks of hate that have an impact on the entire civilized world.

We have to knock the hell out of ISIS  and we have to do it fast, Trump said in Mondays presidential debate. We have to smash ISISs strongholds with an accelerated coalition air campaign, more support for Arab and Kurdish forces on the ground, and intense diplomatic efforts in Syria, Iraq, and across the region, Hillary Clinton declared the morning after the New York bombings.

Its understandable that we want instant gratification. But there are no simple solutions. Our drunken lurching from disengagement to intervention in the Middle East, from coddling autocrats to democracy-building and back again, is ready evidence of that.

If George W. Bushs team missed the cues from Beirut when they set out to redraw the map and create a democratic, new Middle East, we now have Iraq from which to learn. The Syria primer for the next administration should have a chapter on each of those conflicts: same patchwork quilt of rival ethnic and religious groups, same ever-shifting array of regional proxy wars. But Americans cannot afford for the next occupant of the White House to repeat the mistakes of the past. Slow and careful is also a policy.

Donald Trumps insistence that we should take the oil in Iraq as war reparations, repeated in Mondays debate, makes clear that the words careful and methodical are not part of his vocabulary. But he got one thing right in his April foreign policy speech, We have made the Middle East more unstable and chaotic than ever before.

Yet on the campaign trail, the candidates muscle-flexing continues to give voters the simplistic bromides they so desperately want to believe. I have a simple message for them, Trump said of the Islamic State in April. Their days are numbered. I wont tell them where and I wont tell them how. But theyre going to be gone. And soon.

Now where have we heard that before?

Photo credit: PHILIPPE BOUCHON/AFP/Getty Images
In 1999, during the rowdy heyday of the cosmopolitan and the sweet martini, Sasha Petraske opened a small bar on Manhattans Lower East Side called Milk & Honey. In many ways, this civilized establishmenthidden behind an unmarked door and specializing in perfectly made classic cocktailsmarked the beginning of the modern cocktail era, with an influence that reached around the world. Petraske died last year, but this month the book he was writing, Regarding Cocktails, will be released by Phaidon. Completed by his wife, Georgette Moger-Petraske, it features contributions from a whos who of todays drinks world. Dale DeGroff, David Wondrich, Eric Alperin, Sam Ross, and many others offer a final tribute to the man who taught a new generation of bartenders the art of making cocktailsand a new generation of drinkers to appreciate them. Michalene Busico

Gordons Breakfast

A variation on one of Petraskes signature cocktails, it packs the perfect punch for Sunday brunch.

2 oz. London dry gin

6 lime wedges

 oz. simple syrup (see recipe)

3 thin cucumber slices

4 dashes Cholula hot sauce

2 dashes Worcestershire sauce

Pinch kosher salt

Pinch freshly ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients except the salt and pepper in a cocktail shaker. Add 1 cup of cracked ice and shake vigorously until the drink is sufficiently chilled. Pour into a chilled rocks glass and finish with a pinch each of salt and freshly ground pepper.

Simple syrup: Combine  cup granulated sugar and  cup filtered water and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Do not boil, as many recipes instruct, as that would cause some of the liquid to evaporate and skew your water content when making cocktails. Cover and refrigerate up to 4 days. Sasha Petraske

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Maana Invited to Present at Digital Cities Summit

Maana today announced Tara Prakriya, Chief Product Officer at Maana, and Jeff Dalgliesh, Oil and Gas Solutions Specialist at Maana, have been invited to participate and speak at Digital Cities Summit.

The first annual Digital Cities Summit hosted by Stanford and PARC, a Xerox company, is bringing together an elite, invitation-only group of 200 global CEOs, SVPs, entrepreneurs, and policy makers to the Stanford campus. The goal of the conference is to encourage conversation about how disruptive technology is changing the way citizens, government, and commercial organizations interact with each other to create new social contracts, business models, and behaviors in a digital urban environment. Maana is honored to have its Chief Product Officer and Oil and Gas Solutions Specialist invited to participate on a panel of experts at this prestigious event examining emerging technology trends and impact.

Title: Algorithms, Analytics and Automation: Getting Smart

When: October 4th at 2:15 p.m.

Panel description: Ms. Prakriya will moderate a panel of experts including Adam Porter Price, Senior Manager at Booz Allen Hamilton (News - Alert), Jeff Dalgliesh, Oil and Gas Solutions Specialist for Maana, and John Polak, Director of Urban Systems Laboratory at Imperial College London. The group will discuss with the audience the impact automation and analytics technologies will have on the urban experience including areas like transportation and healthcare.







Additional Resources

About Maana

Maana pioneered "knowledge technology" for the enterprise. Maana's patented Knowledge Graph combined with Maana's proprietary algorithms, expedite extracting knowledge from data silos, to reveal the relationships in the context of optimizing assets or processes. Customers include Fortune 500 companies such as Chevron (News - Alert), GE, Maersk and Shell. Maana's investors are comprised of Chevron Technology Ventures, ConocoPhillips Technology Ventures, Frost Data Capital, GE Ventures, Intel Capital (News - Alert), Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, and Shell Technology Ventures. Maana is privately held with offices in Palo Alto, California and Bellevue, Washington. Visit us at http://www.maana.io/

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929006423/en/
Stephen Colbert isn't holding back his words on Trump.

In an upcoming interview with Bill Carter on SiriusXM, the late night talk show host calls the Republican presidential nominee a "coward" and a "chicken" for not returning as a guest on CBS' The Late Show.

After clucking and squawking to drive the point home, Colbert says wryly, "He's got a great sense of humor about himself. I'm sure he won't mind."

Carter joins in the teasing too: "Come on, Donald. Step up," the host encourages.

The rambunctious interview takes a couple other amusingly controversial turns, as well. Colbert dismisses the popular daily USA Today as "a cartoon page masquerading as a newspaper," calling attention to the paper's unprecedented non-endorsement of Donald Trump.

Carter, a longtime New York Times reporter and recently a Hollywood Reporter columnist, is currently a CNN contributor.

The full conversation airs on SiriusXM Insight on Monday on channel 121.
New York (AFP) - As Sting took up the refugee crisis for his latest album, he met in Berlin with musicians who fled Syria. The rock legend asked for their permission to record his song.

"I felt it was important to have that sanction," Sting told AFP of the track "Inshallah," in which he envisions himself on a boat like a refugee desperate for safety.

The song appears on Sting's album "57th and 9th," which comes out November 11 and marks the most rock-driven work in years by the former Police frontman.

The long politically engaged artist and Amnesty International supporter, who turns 65 on October 2, also reflects somberly on his own mortality on the album.

Sting asked the Syrians to share their stories and performed with them a version of "Inshallah" -- which means "God willing" in Arabic -- for the album's deluxe edition.

"'Inshallah' is a beautiful word from the Arabic language which is kind of resignation -- it's God's will, it shall be -- or it's a word that describes some sort of hope, courage," Sting said.

"I don't know what the political solution is," Sting said of the refugee crisis that brought more than one million asylum seekers to Europe's shores last year alone.

"But I think if there is a solution, it has to be rooted in empathy -- for the victims of the war that's going on in Syria at the moment for example, the victims of poverty in Africa, and perhaps in the future the victims of global warming."

Climate change also figures on the album in the track "One Fine Day" in which Sting playfully prays that skeptics are right and that the planet's fast-rising temperatures are all a hoax.

"I would love everything to be fine and for us just to carry on what we're doing with impunity. But of course all of the scientific evidence is pointing the other way," he said.

Sting said he chooses to remain upbeat despite what he sees as a rightward turn in the world.

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"As a life strategy I've thought that optimism was the best route to take in most things, and I still do, but it's getting more difficult to be optimistic," he said.

"I think the strongman trope -- the man we have in Turkey or in Russia or in the Philippines -- people wanting this strong alpha male, chest-beating type of leader, and the Trump phenomenon here, it would indicate a certain anxiety and fear in the world generally. And of course they feed on that, and they feed it," he said.

- Still an Englishman in New York -

"57th and 9th" opens in robust rock form with "I Can't Stop Thinking About You," a love song with a charging drive.

Sting's studio return to his rock roots comes after a decade of experimentation including a lute album, a symphonic interpretation of Police songs and the Broadway musical "The Last Ship" about his shipbuilding hometown in northern England.

After selling more than 100 million albums, Sting said he was fortunate not to worry about commercial considerations -- but wanted a change.

"The most important aspect of music, in my opinion, is surprise," he said.

The album's title came from the Manhattan intersection where Sting, who lives with his actress wife Trudie Styler near Central Park, would cross each day as he walked to the studio.

New York "has always inspired me -- its architectural drama, the clamor of the city, the traffic, the noise.

"You see stories on the street -- you hear stories, people speaking very loudly on the phone, very intimate conversations," he said with a laugh.

Yet Sting said he appreciated the city as an outsider.

"I'm an Englishman in New York," he said with a smile as he referenced one of his best-known songs. "I'm still very much that alien, and enjoy that."

- Reflecting on mortality -

Conscious of being a foreigner, Sting steers clear of partisan stands on US politics, although he said he was following the election "extremely closely" and quipped that few people would have trouble guessing where he stood.

He shows no such reticence on British politics, saying he was "horrified" by the June 23 vote to leave the European Union after a campaign full of "fear-mongering nonsense."

Despite appearing in strong health, Sting is increasingly reflective after the deaths this year of fellow music greats including David Bowie and Prince.

On the new album's song "50,000," Sting sings to a rock guitar about past glories and staring himself down in the bathroom mirror.

Sting said that, with more than half of his life clearly behind him, it was time to reflect on death.

"That's not to be morbid. I think to accept one's mortality is actually enriching because every day counts, every experience counts."
Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f229958%2fgettyimages-611382876

You know why you're here.

You're here to see 23 giant panda cubs, all of which made their public debut on Thursday in Chengdu, in the Sichuan Province of southwest China.

SEE ALSO: Malaysia zoo celebrates mummy, daddy and baby pandas' birthdays

All the pandas were born at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding this year, and there was good reason to celebrate.

In early September, the giant panda was reclassified from "endangered" to "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It was a decision challenged by Chinese authorities, who said the decision has come "too soon."

But enough talking. Look at the baby pandas.

Look at this scallywag.

Image: VCG via Getty Images

All tuckered out.

Image: Getty Images

So fresh and so sleepy.

Image: VCG via Getty Images

Oh, hey there.

Image: VCG via Getty Images
On-Demand Beauty-Service App GlamSquad Partners with Dyson [Pret-a-Reporter Inbox]

If you've wanted to try Dyson's revolutionary new Supersonic hair dryer but don't have an extra $400 to shell out for it, you're in luck. GlamSquad, the on-demand beauty-service app that serves L.A., New York City and Miami, now exclusively offers blowouts using the space-y looking, state-of-the-art dryer. "No stone has been left unturned when it comes to the innovative design and manufacturing of the Dyson dryer," said GlamSquad creative director Giovanni Vaccaro. "This blow dryer is heat-controlled, which prevents extreme heat damage; it's quiet, which is important for GlamSquad since our beauty professionals are in clients' homes, hotel rooms and offices, and I believe this dryer allows for quick dry time, so you are in and out."

Vetements Hires Maison Margiela Alum [Business of Fashion]

Vetements has added Nina Nitsche, former first assistant to Martin Margiela and later lead director at the brand until 2012, to join its roster as Vetements' new collection director. Nitsche will be in charge of the design team and will report to co-founder Demna Gvasalia.

Style.com to Re-release Vetements' First Collection [Fashionista]

Much like posting a #TBT photo of your Sunday brunch on Instagram, Style.com is tapping the very recent past for a new nostalgia collection. The London-based site, which is still technically under construction in the U.S. but very much shoppable in the U.K., is re-releasing Vetements' first-ever collection from way back in 2014. In honor of the partnership, Vetements also relaunched its website to look like its old, pre-Conde-Nast-takeover website.

Michael Kors, Kate Hudson Team Up for Watch Hunger Stop [Pret-a-Reporter Inbox]

Ahead of World Food Day on Oct. 16, Michael Kors has teamed up with Kate Hudson on a host of initiatives to benefit Watch Hunger Stop, the brand's campaign to end world hunger. The label is rolling out a special-edition activity tracker ($145), timepieces ($295) and T-shirts, sold exclusively in Michael Kors boutiques and online. For each tracker and watch sold, 100 meals will be donated to WFP (United Nations World Food Programme); for each T-shirt sold, 25 meals will be donated. On Oct. 1, the brand also will launch a special Snapchat Geofilter at Michael Kors stores. Each Snap sent using the Geofilter will result in 25 meals donated.
When can a family sell a vacation property lot? The Supreme Court will look back at one of its big decisions from the 1970s when it hears a dispute involving four family members and the state of Wisconsin.

In 1978, Justice William Brennan wrote for a 6-3 majority in the Penn Central v. New York City case that redefined property rights under the Fifth Amendments Takings Clause and also served as a foundation for historic preservation programs at a local level. A New York City commission prohibited the Penn Central Railroad from redeveloping Grand Central Station after two plans substantially changed the buildings historic look above the building. Penn Central sued, claiming it should receive full compensation for the air rights about Grand Central Station.

Brennan and the majority disagreed, saying the commissions decision wasnt a taking under the Fifth Amendment and that the railroad still could derive a reasonable economic return from the buildings use. The decision also established a four-part test to determine if a property holder should receive just compensation under the Firth Amendment if a government policy or action results in a taking of their property.

One of the four parts of those tests involves a concept called the parcel of a whole. In his decision, Brennan wrote that this Court focuses rather both on the character of the action and on the nature and extent of the interference with rights in the parcel as a wholehere, the city tax block designated as the landmark site. In that context, the Court considered the Grand Central building and the air space above it as one property in terms of the Fifth Amendments Takings Clause.

In his Penn Central dissent, Justice William Rehnquist questioned how this concept would be applied. The need to consider the effect of regulation on some identifiable segment of property makes all important the admittedly difficult task of defining the relevant parcel, he said.

Story continues

Now, the Court will consider that logic and a precedent from another noteworthy case in Murr v. Wisconsin. The Murr family has owned two riverfront lots since the 1960s; one of the lots contained a vacation cottage; the other lot wasnt developed. The parents bought the two lots originally, and they were conveyed to four of their children in 1994 and 1995.

In 2004, when the children began to explore selling the empty lot to pay for improvements in the cottage, they found out that a zoning law established in 1975 barred the children from selling the empty lot separate from the cottage. The zoning law also prohibited the development of the empty lot because it didnt meet minimum size requirements for an independent lot.

The familys lawyers cited another Supreme Court decision, Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992), which said that the denial of all economic use of a property by a government regulation was a taking under the Fifth Amendment and required just compensation. The state government argued that the properties should be considered as a whole in the takings analysis, citing the Penn Central decision. The state appeals court ruled against the Murr family and the family filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, which was accepted in January 2016.

The question now before the Court is, in a regulatory taking case, does the parcel as a whole concept as described in Penn Central Transportation Company v. City of New York (1978), establish a rule that two legally distinct, but commonly owned contiguous parcels, must be combined for takings analysis purposes?

The Justice Department has filed a brief supporting the state of Wisconsin.
Riga (AFP) - Non-aligned Sweden will join NATO's Strategic Communications Centre based in nearby Latvia amid heightened tensions with Russia in the Baltic Sea region, the centre said Friday.

"Joining NATO's STRATCOM Centre of Excellence as a contributing partner is a natural step for Sweden," Janis Sarts, director of the Riga-based unit told AFP.

Earlier this month, Sweden announced it was remilitarising its biggest island, Gotland, amid speculation over the country's ability to defend itself against a more assertive Russia.

Sweden is not a NATO member but is part of the alliance's Partnership for Peace programme launched in 1994 to develop military cooperation with non-member countries.

Sarts added that non-aligned Baltic neighbour Finland has already joined the STRATCOM centre, opened in 2015 amid fears the Kremlin was influencing Latvia's large ethnic Russian minority over the Ukraine crisis.

As well as providing an alternative to the official Russian narrative on Ukraine, the centre develops "the coordinated and appropriate use of NATO communications activities and capabilities in support of Alliance policies, operations and activities," according to its website.

Aside from Latvia, the centre currently has six other NATO members -- Britain, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Lithuania and Poland.

France and The Netherlands have also expressed an interest in joining.

"Sweden has a lot to contribute to STRATCOM from past experiences and current monitoring of information flows directed against Sweden," Anke Schmidt-Felzmann, a researcher at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, told AFP.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian government forces and rebels fought battles in the center of Aleppo and north of the city on Friday, a week into a Russian-backed offensive by the Syrian army to take the entire area, a war monitor and sources on both sides said. There were conflicting accounts on the outcome of Friday's fighting. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a Syrian military source said government forces had captured territory north of Aleppo and buildings in the city center. An aerial bombardment of rebel-held areas continued on Friday, with heavy air strikes in the Shaar district where incendiary material struck a complex of medical buildings, the complex's director and other medical workers said. Syrian state television reported that a child had been killed and others injured by rebel shelling in the government-held al-Ithaa neighborhood of Aleppo. Rebel sources however denied there had been any additional advances north of the city by government forces that seized the Handarat camp area north of Aleppo on Thursday. A rebel official said government forces had advanced in the Suleiman al-Halabi district of central Aleppo, but were then forced to withdraw. The Syrian military and its allies launched a Russian-backed offensive one week ago aimed at capturing rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo that are home to more than 250,000 people. Aleppo, Syria's largest city and commercial hub before civil war began in 2011, has been divided into government and opposition sectors for four years. A water station was bombed in Suleiman al-Halabi, on the front line to the north of Aleppo's Old City, dealing a further blow to a water system already badly damaged during the offensive. The Observatory blamed government forces. A Syrian military source, however, said rebels had blown it up and state media later said that insurgent shelling of Suleiman al-Halabi and the adjacent government-held al-Midan district had killed 15 people. The Islamist Jabhat Fateh al-Sham group, formally known as the Nusra Front until it broke its formal allegiance to al Qaeda in July, said that eight of its fighters had been killed fighting at Suleiman al-Halabi. ADVANCE AND RETREAT The Observatory, a British-based war monitor, reported heavy bombardment by government forces and "back and forth" fighting in the Suleiman al-Halabi neighborhood. The Syrian military source said government forces captured several buildings in the area and were "continuing to chase the remnants of the terrorists fleeing them". The rebel official however said government forces had "advanced and then retreated", losing "a number of dead". Zakaria al-Malahifji, an official for the Fastaqim rebel group that is present in Aleppo, said the insurgents still controlled the water plant. In the fighting north of Aleppo, the Observatory and a television station operated by Hezbollah said government forces had taken the Kindi Hospital area adjacent to the Handarat Palestinian refugee camp, a few kilometers (miles) from the city. Hezbollah is a Lebanese group fighting alongside the army. But rebel sources denied that the government had captured the Kindi Hospital area, saying fighting was still going on. A senior rebel official also said that government forces were shelling the rebel-held districts with artillery from a hilltop to the east of Aleppo. (Reporting by Ellen Francis, Tom Perry and Angus McDowall; Editing by Tom Perry and Mark Heinrich)
[September 29, 2016] OKI Introduces the ColorPainter E-64s, a 64-inch Wide Format Inkjet Printer Equipped with SX Ink Low-odor Eco-solvent Ink for the Global Market

OKI (News - Alert) Data Infotech Corporation, an OKI Group company specializing in the wide format printer business, today announced that it introduces the ColorPainter E-64s, a 64-inch wide-format printer equipped with its proprietary low-odor, eco-solvent SX ink designed for low- to mid-volume sign and graphics business in the global market. The new product will be shipped to the global market beginning in late October. The new product is affordable which keeps costs of adoption down, and provides the advantage of while still offering use of OKI's advanced SX ink and proven print technologies, warmly received in the higher-end, production devices: ColorPainter M-64s (64-inch) and ColorPainter H3-104s (104-inch). Low-odor SX ink improves working environments while achieving a wide color gamut, vivid glossy prints, high-density color, superior outdoor durability, and low operating costs, making it ideal for a broad range of interior and exterior applications from vehicle wraps to backlit displays. The ColorPainter E-64s inherits certain features from the higher-end models, including automatic print adjustments using optical color sensors that automatically perform both media advance and bi-directional position adjustment; Smart Pass Technology 4 (SP4), which realizes stable, high-quality printing through optimal dot size; and Smart Nozzle Mapping 3 (SNM3), which automates the process of nozzle ompensation, something previously done manually. It is a powerful tool for customers to improve workflows and efficiency.



OKI Data Infotech Corporation will strive to expand its sales of wide-format printers with SX ink including the ColorPainter E-64s to the global market. About OKI Data Infotech Corporation

OKI Data Infotech Corporation is a leading company in wide-format printing technology, and is a subsidiary company of OKI Data Corporation, headquartered in Chiba, Japan. OKI Data Infotech develops and manufactures precision-engineered wide-format printing systems specifically for the sign, graphics, CAD, and GIS markets that provide industry-leading productivity and image quality. OKI Data Infotech and its worldwide network of authorized distributors and dealers, provides complete printing solutions including wide-format printers, inks, media, software, installation, support, knowledge and training. Website: http://www.okidata-infotech.com/. About OKI Electric Industry (OKI) Founded in 1881, OKI Electric Industry is Japan's leading telecommunications manufacturer in the Info-telecom field. Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, OKI provides top-quality products, technologies, and solutions to customers through its info-telecom systems and printer operations. Its various business divisions function synergistically to bring to market exciting new products and technologies that meet a wide range of customer needs in various sectors. Visit OKI's global website at http://www.oki.com/. Notes: ColorPainter is a trademark of OKI Data Infotech Corporation.

The names of the companies and products mentioned in this document are the trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective companies and organizations. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929005438/en/

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The supernatural beings lurking in New Zealand capital Wellington are set to come out of the darkness once more in an upcoming TV spin-off to Taika Waititi's mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows.

The procedural comedy series Paranormal Event Response Unit - conceived by Waititi and Flight of the Conchords star Jermaine Clement, who played the 862-year-old vampire known as Vladislav in the 2014 hit - will follow naive police officers Karen and Mike (who had minors roles in the film) as they attempt to keep Wellington residents safe from all manner of mythical beasts.

Broadcast funding agency NZ On Air has granted $1 million towards making the six 30-minute episodes, which will screen on local channel TVNZ 2.

"Comedy is serious business and notoriously hard to get right. We are delighted that Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi are bringing their talents to smaller screens," said NZ On Air boss Jane Wrightson, according to New Zealand web site Newshub.

Waititi, who is currently filming Thor: Ragnorok, has previously spoken about making a What We Do in the Shadows spin-off, in January discussing a show centered on the film's pacifist werewolves, which he said would be called, aptly, We're Wolves. The director's latest film, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, had a limited release in North America over the summer, earning $5 million.

Read more: What We Do in the Shadows: Sundance Review
The supernatural beings lurking in New Zealand capital Wellington are set to come out of the darkness once more in an upcoming TV spinoff to Taika Waititi's mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows.

The procedural comedy series Paranormal Event Response Unit - conceived by Waititi and Flight of the Conchords star Jemaine Clement, who played the 862-year-old vampire known as Vladislav in the 2014 hit - will follow naive police officers Karen and Mike (who had minors roles in the film) as they attempt to keep Wellington residents safe from all manner of mythical beasts.

Broadcast funding agency NZ On Air has granted $1 million towards making the six 30-minute episodes, which will screen on local channel TVNZ 2.

"Comedy is serious business and notoriously hard to get right. We are delighted that Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi are bringing their talents to smaller screens," said NZ On Air boss Jane Wrightson, according to New Zealand web site Newshub.

Waititi, who is currently filming Thor: Ragnorok, has previously spoken about making a What We Do in the Shadows spinoff, in January discussing a show centered on the film's pacifist werewolves, which he said would be called, aptly, We're Wolves. The director's latest film, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, had a limited release in North America over the summer, earning $5 million.

Read more: What We Do in the Shadows: Sundance Review
TAIPEI, Sept 30 (Reuters) - A U.S. state regulator has found the Chicago banking branch of Taiwan's Mega Financial Holding Co has not met required compliance controls, the president of the Taiwanese financial firm told Reuters on Friday.

It is the second bank branch of the state-controlled firm to run afoul of U.S. financial authorities, after its New York branch was fined $180 million for lax compliance and anti-money laundering violations in August.

Mega Financial, which has close ties to Taiwan's government, has been under scrutiny since about 200 of its customers were named in the so-called Panama Papers, a massive leak of documents from a Panamanian law firm that put the spotlight on the shadowy world of offshore companies used to avoid tax.

President Bruce L.Y. Yang said financial regulators had uncovered problems with internal controls at the Chicago branch of Mega International Commercial Bank, known as Mega Bank, and requested the branch manager be replaced.

"The Chicago branch has to improve some deficiencies in regulatory compliance," Yang said. He added that the branch manager had been replaced, but it was unclear if the bank would face a fine.

Yang, the president of both the parent holding company and the bank, one of Taiwan's biggest lenders, said its chairman, Michael C.S. Chang, would travel to Chicago, New York and Canada next week.

Terry Horstman, a spokesman for the Illinois state banking regulator, whose jurisdiction includes Chicago, declined to comment on whether the agency had examined or probed the bank.

"At this point in time, there is no public enforcement action against Mega International Commercial Bank's branch in Chicago by the Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation's banking division," Horstman said.

Chang told a news conference earlier this week that Mega Bank's overseas branches were coming under greater scrutiny by regulators abroad following critical lapses involving suspect transactions between its New York and Panama branches.

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Chang said the branches underwent annual inspections but regulators, including those in the United States, Canada and Panama, have become more stringent about them in the wake of the fine the New York State Department of Financial Services slapped on Mega's New York branch in August.

The New York regulator had found lax compliance and anti-money laundering violations involving Panama transactions.

Mega Bank has branch offices in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.

(Reporting by Liang-sa Loh; Additional reporting by Suzanne Barlyn in New York; Writing by J.R. Wu; Editing by Alex Richardson)
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Takeaway.com, the online food ordering service, said on Friday its shares had been priced at 23 euros each in its initial public offering, giving it a market capitalization of 993 million euros ($1.1 billion).

The Dutch company's IPO will raise 328 million euros from the sale of new and preexisting shares, representing a third of its equity, with 175 million euros coming from new shares.

The company plans to spend the money on paying down debt and funding expansion in Germany, where it competes with Delivery Hero.

($1=0.8916 euros)

(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)
Shimon Peres will be buried as a hero on Friday at a funeral in Israel attended by representatives from more than 70 countries, including U.S. Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Although at the time of his death he held no office, there is almost no office in Israel he had not held: He served as prime minister two times, foreign minister three times, defense minister twice, and he also served as minister of finance and minister of transportation.

Yet back in the 1990s, Peres was driven from the prime ministers office as terror reigned in the wake of the Oslo Accords, and Israelis grew skeptical of his leadership. Indeed, Israelis derided Peres as an unrealistic peacemaker and in, 1996, elected a young prime minister named Benjamin Netanyahu instead.

At the time the country was yearning for an aggressive leader, one who would respond to the deluge of Palestinian suicide bombings that had devastated Israel that year. Voters had come to view Peres, who would not abandon peace negotiations, as soft, believing his pursuit of peace was risking public security while Netanyahu promised a hard line against Palestinian terror. They had forgotten Peress role in creating Israels military industrial complex.

In his early days, Peres had been a hawk.

As director general of the Ministry of Defense he had created a secret connection with the French, convincing them to sell arms to a then isolated Israel back in the late 1950s. Peres had forged another secret connection with Germany, which became Israels second lifeline as the Germans then also started to sell arms to the Jewish state  something the United States refused to do until many years later. Reportedly, he was the father of Israels nuclear program, Dimona.

In June 2012, while Shimon Peres was in Washington, D.C. to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, I sat down with him at Blair House to interview him for the Washington Post. In a conversation that covered topics from the crisis in Syria, to Arab spring, to events in Iran, Peres was relaxed and elated after receiving the Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. To an aide, Peres recommended my mothers Katharine Grahams autobiography as she too had received the Medal of Freedom. I was really taken by the combination of wisdom and sincerity, he noted, adding and Lally has that also.

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Turning to the past, Peres then talked about what he saw as his first great achievement: persuading France to sell arms to a fledgling Israel way back in the 1950s when the country was virtually isolated.

Peres was the protege of Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, Israels first prime minister and the primary founder of the state of Israel.

There was an [arms] embargo by the U.S., Great Britain, France, and Canada. It only affected Israel because the Russians did not respect it. So the Arabs got the arms, and we got nothing. The problem was how to break this embargo. The Foreign Minister thought he could convince the Americans, that he could convince the Canadians, that he could convince the British, and I told him there was no chance. I said let me try the French. Nobody [in Israel] thought France was a serious option.

Peres had started to work for Ben-Gurion when he was just 24 years old. His former mentor, he told me, had had an enormous impact on his life.

Leaning forward in a chair and gesturing, Peres said firmly, Ben-Gurion was a great man. He had a fantastic memory. He was a real intellectual and spoke seven or eight languages. When he gave you his word, it was his word. With all his great talents, he remained an innocent man. He didnt have a trace of cynicism or skepticism. I learned quickly there are two rules to work with him: Never lie, but dare as much as you want. That fits my character. That meant if I took a daring position, I could make mistakes. Moses was born in a box. Lets move out of the box.

In the decades following his work on building up Israels military might, Peres underwent a gradual transformation from Peres the hawk to Peres the peace seeker. He was steadfast in his search for peace. When I asked him at Blair House if he still favored a two state-solution with the Palestinians, he said:

I think all the other alternatives are unacceptable. I havent changed my mind. I think [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas is a partner, and I think we can achieve peace with him. We have to try to do our best. The problem between us and the Palestinians is the following: They are not talking about negotiations. They are talking about the opening of negotiations. You cannot negotiate without an opening. The complicated issues (of peace, borders, etc.) may take time. What can be done immediately is to open negotiations.

When I asked if ending the conflict seemed like a hopeless endeavor, he gave a response I will always remember: There are no hopeless situations, only hopeless people.

During the many times that I interviewed him over the years, Peres had always emphasized the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship to Israel. He had met and worked closely with every U.S. President since Harry Truman.

In the grand Blair House room where we were sitting, right across from the White House, Peres reflected: The first president I met to talk to was Kennedy. Kennedy started to question me like a machine gun. It was the day our Chief of Intelligence resigned. All of a sudden Kennedy said, Do you have a nuclear bomb? I said, Israel will not be the first to introduce a nuclear bomb in the Middle East. After the meeting, the Ambassador said, How dare you give such an answer? And then I got a cable from Prime Minister Levi Eshkol saying, Why did you say this? Three or four weeks later, it became the official policy of Israel. So I think I said the right thing.

Then Peres turned to reminiscing about President Reagan:

Now to tell you about a Republican president with whom I was extremely friendly  that was President Reagan. When I first met him, I didnt know he was the president. He was so modest. He conquered my heart, and we developed a personal friendship. In every meeting Reagan told me an anti-Russian joke, and I also had to bring from Israel an anti-Russian joke.

Then it was Bill Clintons turn:

When I am speaking about American presidents, I have to speak about my very special relations with President Clinton. He contributed more to peace than anybody else.

When I asked Peres if he shared the belief of some that President Obama is not friendly toward Israel he replied: I dont accept it. President Obama is an exceedingly intelligent person. Dont underrate him. I find it very easy to trust him.

Always a fan of America, Peres summed up his love of this country by saying, America is the only country that became powerful by giving and not by taking, the only nation that understood that generosity is a great policy. My admiration for America is sincere. It is not passing. I came here without knowing English. I spent two years here, and I was really taken by America  by the hard work, the sense of democracy, and the friendship to Israel  it fell upon me like an unbelievable surprise.

That June afternoon in Washington wasnt the first time I interviewed Shimon Peres; the first time was back in 1981and 13 more interviews with him would follow over the years. He was always interested in the life of the mind, he was a voracious reader and an optimist. Who else at age 90 would hold a conference in Jerusalem called Tomorrow?

Your proudest moment? I asked him once in Jerusalem. He replied quickly, You have to build strength because it may save the use of force. I think you have to build peace, not just negotiate peace.

Shimon Peres, the last of the founders of the Jewish state, was a symbol of the hope for peace and a man dedicated to the country he loved. His measured voice and wisdom will be missed in his country and in the region.

Farewell, Mr. President.

Photo credit: LIOR MIZRAHI/Getty Images
Photo: Hannah Teoh

Prospective presidential candidate Tan Cheng Bocks daughter has slammed government feedback unit REACH after a public forum on the Elected Presidency (EP) was scrapped recently.



The dispute arose over whether Tan, 76, had indeed registered for a forum with Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shangmugam that was to be held on Thursday (29 September). It was cancelled due to poor response, said REACH.

In a Facebook post on Thursday evening, Tan lamented the cancellation of the forum as he had registered his attendance last week and had been looking forward to hearing Shanmugam speak.

This forum would have been a great platform for Singaporeans to seek clarification on the matter, said Tan, who contested the last presidential election in 2011 and lost by just 7,382 votes, or a 0.35 per cent margin.

Shortly after Tans post, REACH posted on its own Facebook page: In response to queries, we confirm that we do not have any registration under the name of Dr Tan Cheng Bock for this dialogue.

Tan responded to the post by clarifying that he had registered under his alias Adrian Tan, which is in his NRIC. He also provided his NRIC number, mobile, address, and occupation, and received a confirmation of his registration.

Tans daughter Ming Li also weighed in, commenting on the REACH Facebook page: Given the wealth of information and resources at your disposal, could you not check with him whether he in fact registered before posting your implied statement on Facebook that he did not register?

Ming Li further pointed out that she, her brother and husband had all registered for the event together with Tan. Given all the information you know, are you still implying that my father dd not register for this event?

Screenshot from REACH Facebook page

Earlier this month, Tan had questioned if the forthcoming changes to the EP were aimed at preventing him from contesting the election. He declared his candidacy in March and told Yahoo Singapore in June that he saw no reason for the Constitutional Commission to disqualify him.

Several dialogues on the presidential election have been organised since a Constitutional Commission released its recommendations on changes to the EP earlier this month. Under the proposed amendments, Tan would be ruled out of the next presidential election in 2017.

The government has released a White Paper adopting many of the recommendations, and it is expected to debate it in Parliament in November.
By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - A South Carolina teenager suspected of killing his father and wounding two boys and a teacher at an elementary school was charged on Friday with one count of murder and three counts of attempted murder, the office of the local solicitor said.

The 14-year-old boy, who has not been named by authorities, will remain in custody for at least another 48 hours after he appeared before a state judge for a hearing behind closed doors on Friday, a staff member at the 10th Judicial Circuit solicitor's office confirmed to Reuters by telephone.

The hearing did not consider the question of whether he will be tried as an adult, according to the solicitor's office.

The teenager was arrested on Wednesday after police said he crashed a pickup truck into a fence around Townville Elementary School and then shot and wounded two students and a teacher.

Prior to that, he had shot and killed his father, 47-year-old Jeffrey Osborne, as the man watched television at their home about 2 miles (3 km) from the school, according to authorities.

The shooting was the latest at a U.S. school to stoke debate about access to guns. Many schools have bolstered security since 2012 when a gunman shot and killed 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Six-year-old Jacob Hall, one of the students who was shot at Townville Elementary, remained in critical condition at a local children's hospital on Friday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

His family said he is on life support after a bullet tore his femoral artery, causing blood loss that led to a "major brain injury."

"We are hanging on every second," said his uncle, Johnny Bridges, reading a statement to reporters on Thursday evening. "Please continue to pray for Jacob and the other victims of this horrible, senseless crime."

The teacher, Meghan Hollingsworth, and another boy, also aged six, were less badly hurt.

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Jamie Brock, an unarmed volunteer firefighter, pinned down the shooter until police arrived, Billy McAdams, chief of the Townville Volunteer Fire Department told a news conference.

Authorities said they did not know of any link between the shooter, who was home-schooled, and the victims.

Citing the aunt of a 6-year-old girl who witnessed the attack, the Greenville News reported that the suspect said, "I hate my life," before firing a handgun at the school.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Lisa Shumaker and David Gregorio)
[September 30, 2016] INSIDE Secure and Marvell Deliver Open Source Open Data Plane Security VPN Solution

INSIDE Secure (Paris:INSD), at the heart of security solutions for mobile and connected devices and network equipment, today announced the Marvell (News - Alert)-INSIDE Secure solution, a collaboration that provides open source Open Data Plane (ODP) security API support on Marvell's ARMADA 8K and ARMADA 7K System-on-Chip (SoC) families with embedded INSIDE Secure Security Protocol Accelerator IP technology. The Marvell-INSIDE Secure solution provides customers with an easy and efficient way to secure their high-speed networking applications with access to all of the ARM (News - Alert) ecosystem's software support. Cloud computing, data centers and server farms are expected to process 8.6 ZB of traffic by the end of 2019 according to the Cisco (News - Alert) Global Cloud Index, up from 3.4 ZB in 2014, and require significantly more bandwidth every few months. Traditional CPU-based technology consumes too much power and simply cannot handle the workload required to secure increasing traffic. Combined with Marvell's advanced networking technology and ODP API support, the acceleration features of INSIDE Secure's packet engine technology provides an ultra-efficient and high performance VPN solution. The Marvell-INSIDE Secure solution takes a complete IP packet and autonomously transforms it into an encrypted IP packet, or vice versa, offering customers cutting-edge automated intelligence embedded in the solution. "We are excited to collaborate with INSIDE Secure to offer a high-performance open source VPN solution for our ARMADA 7K and ARMADA 8K SoC family based on multi-core ARMv8 Cortex A72 CPUs," said Michael Zimmerman, Vice President and General Manager of Connectivity, Storage and Infrastructure at Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. "The security protocol acceleration technology, combined with Marvell's high speed networking technology and state-of-art IOs, provides the optimal solution for SMBs and enterprise networks and security appliances. With CPU and IO virtualization support, the ARMADA 7K and ARMADA 8K SoC families are ideally suited for the data center and edge virtual CPE (vCPE) appliances." "Marvell's ARMADA 8K and ARMADA 7K integration with our hardware IP technology, INSIDE Secure's high speed IPsec and TLS Security Packet Engine, illustrates our ability to offer best-in-class products for top tier vendors. We facilitate an easier deployment and use of our embedded security technology," said Andrew McLennan, executive vice-presdent of INSIDE Secure's Mobile Security Division. "We are proud to be supporting the ODP API defined by the Linaro community."



To maximize overall application performance, the advanced architecture of the Marvell-INSIDE solution offloads packet transformation. Additionally, INSIDE Secure's Security Packet Engines enable efficient multi Gigabit IPsec and TLS security protocol processing with maximum CPU offload to handle full line speed encrypted communication. Marvell's ARMADA 8040 SoC, embedded with INSIDE Secure's Security Packet Engine running ODP, will be demonstrated jointly at Linaro Connect on Sept. 30, 2016 at the JW Marriott Resort and Spa Hotel in Las Vegas.

To learn more about the products:

http://www.marvell.com/embedded-processors/

https://www.insidesecure.com/Products-Technologies/Silicon-IP/Security-Protocol-Packet-Engines

https://www.insidesecure.com/content/download/2379/16914/version/1/file/Server+EIP-197e.pdf About Marvell Marvell (MRVL) is a global leader in providing complete silicon solutions. From storage to cloud infrastructure, Internet of Things (IoT), connectivity and multimedia, Marvell's diverse product portfolio aligns complete platform designs with industry-leading performance, security, reliability and efficiency. At the core of the world's most powerful consumer, network and enterprise systems, Marvell empowers partners and their customers to always stand at the forefront of innovation, performance and mass appeal. By providing people around the world with mobility and ease of access to services, adding value to their social, personal and work lives, Marvell is committed to enhancing the human experience. As used in this release, the term "Marvell" refers to Marvell Technology Group Ltd. and its subsidiaries. For more information, please visit www.Marvell.com. About INSIDE Secure INSIDE Secure (Euronext Paris - INSD) is at the heart of security solutions for mobile and connected devices, providing software, silicon IP, tools and know-how needed to protect customers' transactions, content, applications, and communications. With its deep security expertise and experience, the company delivers products having advanced and differentiated technical capabilities that span the entire range of security requirement levels to serve the demanding markets of network security, IoT security, content & application protection, mobile payment & banking. INSIDE Secure's technology protects solutions for a broad range of customers including service providers, content distributors, security system integrators, device vendors and semiconductor manufacturers. For more information, visit http://www.insidesecure.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929006471/en/

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According to a recent Reuters report, Spanish telecom behemoth Telefonica SA TEF is moving ahead with a proposed IPO (initial public offering) for its U.K. wireless unit O2 UK in Dec 2016. However, Reuters also reported that if the market conditions remain volatile, the IPO may be shifted to the first quarter of 2017. Notably, just a few days ago, The Telegraph reported that Telefonica is preparing for the IPO of its U.K. wireless unit early next year.

Telefonica has hired Barclays, UBS, Morgan Stanley and a fourth investment bank for this purpose. Marketing agency Finsbury will take care of the public relations part of the proposed IPO. The company is likely to divest a 30% stake of O2 UK through the IPO. Reuters reported that the IPO could value the O2 UK unit around GBP 10 billion (more than $13 billion).

It is worth mentioning that last week, Telefonica filed an IPO prospectus for its infrastructure division Telxius, to the Spanish stock market regulator, the Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV). In May 2016, Bloomberg reports stated that Telefonica is mulling over an IPO for Telxius and O2. In the meantime, the company has been grappling with issues such as the Brexit, Britains vote to leave the European Union, which delayed the process.

At present, the U.K. wireless market is dominated by four large players. Apart from O2, 3UK and Vodafone Group Plc. VOD, BT Group Plc. BT has emerged as a key player in this space after its acquisition of British mobile network operator EE, earlier jointly controlled by Orange SA ORAN and Deutsche Telekom AG.

Telefonicas debt currently stands at approximately 52.2 billion (around $58 billion). The company had planned to reduce its debt burden through the divestment of its O2 division. However, the plan fell through as the transaction failed to materialize. According to some industry watchers, Telefonica may now be forced to sell some of its core assets to raise cash and pay-off debt. Else its debt rating may be badly affected.

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Are the days of Indian restraint toward Pakistan over? New Delhis announcement on Thursday, that it had conducted surgical strikes in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir to take out terrorist teams, risked escalating already heightened tensions between South Asias nuclear armed rivals, signaling a new Indian assertiveness in the face of provocations by its western neighbor. Until now, India had been careful to avoid doing anything that might spark a military clash with Islamabad. Had New Delhi now changed its mind about the risks of confronting Pakistan?

The announcement followed almost two weeks of intense domestic pressure on the government of Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi to respond to an attack on an Indian military base on Sept. 18. Eighteen Indian soldiers died in the raid on the installation near the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border that divides the Kashmir region between the two nations. Coveted by both, India and Pakistan have already fought three wars over the northern province. When India accused the four gunmen behind the raid of coming from across the LoC  a claim Pakistan rejects  concern soon spread about the prospect of a conflict that many fear could spiral into a nuclear fight.

The stakes could not be higher. Past studies have shown that if each country were to use 50 nuclear bombs (or around half of the estimated Indian and Pakistani stockpiles) against the other, the devastation would kill as many as 20 million people in the first week. International food production would also suffer, putting many more at risk of malnourishment, as soot from the explosions blocks out the sun and distorts global surface temperatures.

Read More: Narendra Modi Pulls India Back From the Brink on Pakistan

Given the risks, Modi had indicated that his government would continue treading with care when it came to its arch regional foe, turning up the diplomatic pressure on Islamabad and challenging Pakistan to a different war in a speech to members of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sept. 24. If you have the strength, come forward to fight against poverty, he said. Lets see who wins. Lets see who is able to defeat poverty and illiteracy first, Pakistan or India.

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But Thursdays announcement suggested that Indias assessment of how far it could go in pressuring Pakistan without sparking a full-scale war had changed. India said it had struck multiple terrorist launch pads on the other side of the de facto boundary, inflicting casualties that officials claimed numbered in the double digits.

Even as Pakistan denied that the Indian strikes had taken place, saying the two sides had only engaged in small arms fire along the LoC in which two of its soldiers had died, New Delhis disclosure marked a significant shift in Indian strategy.

India is known to have conducted targeted raids across the border in the past. But it has never before publicly acknowledged its actions, something that analysts attribute to growing domestic calls for Modi to live up to his image as a strong leader. His allies in the Hindu right-wing movement have long advocated tougher action against Muslim Pakistan. Having himself criticized past Indian governments of being too soft on Islamabad, he had to be seen to act.

This was a case of India needing to appease a restless public, says Michael Kugelman, an analyst at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. Were talking about a conservative and nationalist government that has pledged repeatedly to take a tougher line on Pakistan, only to shy away from retaliating against perceived Pakistani provocations  Something had to be done to convince the Indian public that its government is willing to act tough as well as talk tough.

Domestically, despite India releasing little information about the specifics of the strikes and Pakistan contesting New Delhis claims, it worked: the announcement was widely lauded at home, with Modis allies hailing the action as proof that India now had stronger, more aggressive leadership than in the past. Terrorism is a global cancer. It needs surgical intervention. India has done its part, Ram Madhav, a prominent BJP leader, said in an op-ed published after the Indian disclosure. Madhav had responded to the Sept. 18 raid by calling for Modi to scrap Indias policy of acting with restraint toward Pakistan. For Pakistan, terrorism has come as a cheaper option all these years. Time to make it costly for it, he wrote in the local Indian Express newspaper on Friday.

Read More: These 5 Facts Explain Why India and Pakistans Kashmir Dispute Is Going to Get Worse

Modi, say analysts, can also count on stronger diplomatic cover for Indias actions, as the country builds closer strategic ties with the U.S. India knows it can count more U.S. support now than would have been the case several years back, explains Kugelman. U.S.-India relations are strengthening in a big way, and India knows that Washington will not stand in the way of Indian efforts to take matters into its own hands.

What, then, of the nuclear question? Could Indias actions drive the two South Asian nemeses onto the battlefield and into a nuclear face-off? For the moment, Pakistan continues to insist that New Delhis claims are an illusion being deliberately generated by [India] to create false effects. And despite the bluster in the Indian media and among Modis supporters, officials in New Delhi maintain that their armys actions were, in fact, restrained given the threat faced by the country. The strikes, New Delhi said, were in response to specific intelligence about terrorist teams that India believes were planning on attacking targets on the Indian side. Indias actions, the officials maintained, were directed squarely against these terrorists in order to protect Indian interests.

But although the risk of an escalation into a full-scale war still remains relatively low, the developments of the past 24 hours do point to a more uncertain future, says Kugelman. We could be looking at a rather unsettled and volatile new normal, he adds. Thats not particularly reassuring, given that were talking about two countries with nuclear weapons.
(Adds statement from company, paragraph 4)

FRANKFURT/SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 29 (Reuters) - A Tesla Motors Inc car operating under Autopilot collided with a bus in northern Germany, but the electric car maker said a collision was unavoidable because the bus swerved into the vehicle's lane.

The incident occurred on Wednesday in the town of Ratzeburg, German police said.

The car's driver told Tesla following the crash that he was using Autopilot when the incident occurred but that it was unrelated to the accident, a Tesla spokeswoman said on Thursday.

"We have spoken to our customer, who confirmed that Autopilot was functioning properly and that his use of Autopilot was unrelated to the accident," Tesla said in a statement.

Reuters could not confirm independently what the car driver told Tesla and the circumstances that caused the bus to swerve.

Tesla's Autopilot, introduced last October, helps drivers steer and stay in lanes and is intended to assist, but not replace, drivers. It has been the focus of intense scrutiny since it was revealed in July that a Tesla Model S driver was killed while using the technology in a May 7 collision with a truck in Florida.

Since then, there have been various reports of accidents involving Teslas whose drivers were using Autopilot, including a fatality in China, but it is not clear what role, if any, the driving assistance system played. There have also been reports of serious accidents prevented because of Autopilot.

Police in Ratzeburg said in a statement on Thursday that the 50-year-old driver from Brandenburg drove into the back of a Danish tour bus as it was returning to the inside lane after overtaking. Police said they planned to investigate "why (Autopilot) did not work."

The Tesla driver was slightly injured but none of the 29 bus passengers were hurt, the statement added. Authorities were not immediately reachable by telephone after hours on Thursday.

Tesla denied that Autopilot was at fault, saying the bus swerved into the car's lane and side-swiped the Tesla, making a collision "unavoidable," the spokeswoman said.

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"We can only do so much to prevent an accident," she said, adding that Tesla was in contact with German police.

Reuters was not immediately able to reach German police for comment.

The Silicon Valley automaker said this month it was updating the semi-autonomous driving system with new limits on hands-off driving and other improvements.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan in Frankfurt and Alexandria Sage in San Francisco; Editing by Emma Thomasson, Matthew Lewis and Lisa Shumaker)
By Aukkarapon Niyomyat BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand reported on Friday the first confirmed cases in Southeast Asia of microcephaly linked to mosquito-borne Zika, as the World Health Organization urged action against the virus across the region. The confirmation of two case of microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size, came a day after U.S. health officials recommended that pregnant women postpone non-essential travel to 11 Southeast Asian countries because of the risk of Zika. "We have found two cases of small heads linked to Zika, the first cases in Thailand," Prasert Thongcharoen, an adviser to the Department of Disease Control, told reporters in Bangkok. He declined to say where in Thailand the cases were found but officials have said they were not in Bangkok. The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the cases were the first of Zika-linked microcephaly in Southeast Asia and the virus infection represented a serious threat to pregnant women and their unborn children. "Countries across the region must continue to strengthen measures aimed at preventing, detecting and responding to Zika virus transmission," Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, the WHO's regional director, said in a statement. U.S. health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, which can lead to severe developmental problems in babies. VIRUS SPREADING The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last year in Brazil, which has confirmed more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly that it considers to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Zika has spread extensively in Latin American and the Caribbean over the past year or so, and more recently it has been cropping up in Southeast Asia. Thailand has confirmed 349 Zika cases since January, including 33 pregnant women, and Singapore has recorded 393 Zika cases, including 16 pregnant women. Some health experts have accused Thai officials of playing down the risk of Zika to protect its thriving tourist industry, but Prasert dismissed that. "Thailand is not hiding anything and is ready to disclose everything," he said, adding that other countries in Southeast Asia might also have cases of Zika-linked microcephaly that they have not disclosed. The WHO said Thailand's response was an example for the region. "Thailand's diligence underscores the commitment of health authorities to the health and wellbeing of the Thai public, and provides a positive example to be emulated," Singh said. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday people should consider postponing travel to Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste (East Timor), and Vietnam. The CDC has already issued a "travel notice" for Singapore, and said such a warning would be considered for the new countries if the number of cases rose to the level of an outbreak. Thailand's confirmation of Zika-linked microcephaly comes ahead of China's week-long "Golden Week" holiday with Thailand expecting 220,000 Chinese visitors, up from 168,000 for the week in 2015, Tourism Authority of Thailand governor Yuthasak Supasorn told Reuters. NO VACCINE There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected. There are also no specific tests to determine if a baby will be born with microcephaly, but ultrasound scans in the third trimester of pregnancy can identify the problem, according to the WHO. Zika is commonly transmitted through mosquitoes but can also be transmitted sexually. Another Thai health ministry adviser urged everyone to work to stop the spread of mosquitoes but said people should not panic. "Don't have sex with a Zika-infected person. If you don't know if they are infected, then use a condom," the adviser, Pornthep Siriwanarangsan, told reporters. "We can't stop women from becoming pregnant ... but we mustn't panic." Health authorities in the region said they were stepping up monitoring, but there has been little testing and officials said the real number of cases was bound to be higher than the confirmed figure. "We do not test everybody, we test only those who are symptomatic," said Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubia, health secretary in the Philippines, which has reported 12 Zika cases. "Yes, we are positive that the number is higher because we are not testing everyone." Malaysia, which has reported six cases of Zika, including two in pregnant women, said it would seek information from Thailand on the particular strain of the Zika virus there. "We are taking serious notice of the reports in Thailand, and we will reach out to the Thai authorities for more information ... so that we can be more prepared," Malaysia's health minister, Subramaniam Sathasivam, told Reuters. Authorities in Vietnam, which has reported three cases of Zika, ordered stepped up monitoring of pregnant women. In Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, head of disease outbreak and surveillance Dwi Oktavia said there had been no sign of any increase in birth defects there. Indonesia had one Zika case in 2015 but has confirmed none since then. Microcephaly in babies can lead to respiratory problems related to malformation of the brain, a serious threat to the lives of babies. Children with microcephaly face lifelong difficulties, including intellectual impairment. Zika was first identified in Uganda in 1947 and first isolated in Asia in the 1960s. It was unknown in the Americas until 2014. (Additional reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre, Juarawee Kittisilpa and Panarat Thepgumpanat, Kanupriya Kapoor in JAKARTA, Roxanna Latiff in KUALA LUMPUR, Karen Lima in MANILA and Pham Thi Huyen My in HANOI; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Alex Richardson)
(Photo illustration: Yahoo News, photos: Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images, iStock/Getty Images)

Ever since the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, presidents have been judged on the successes they notch during their first 100 days. Now, as Barack Obama prepares to end his historic turn on the political stage, Yahoo News is running The Last 100 Days, a look at what Obama achieved during his consequential presidency, how he navigates the struggles of his last months in office and what lies ahead for him after eight years filled with firsts. We will also look at how the country bids farewell to its first African-American president.

Its not a literal 100 days  Obama leaves office in late January 2017.

And it wont all be about policy. As Obama himself is fond of noting, he also spent his two terms as father to his daughters, Malia and Sasha, and husband to first lady Michelle Obama. And even without much input from the White House, the cultural landscape shifted dramatically over his two terms on issues such as gay rights.

And then theres the way the president sees the presidency  not just his tumultuous years at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., but also the institution and its relationships (for better or worse) with other branches of government and with the news media.

In this eighth installment, we look at what Obama hopes to yet accomplish as a lame-duck president in the lame-duck session of Congress.

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Theres no single, authoritative explanation for how the language of American politics acquired the expression lame duck, a term that originated in 18th century London finance to designate an investor or broker who could not pay his debts.

But according to the Political Dictionary of the late William Safire, an expert on language, the modern meaning appears to date to 1910, when the Nation magazine described lawmakers who lost on Election Day as lame ducks in the sense that they have been winged, but hope to preen their plumage again.

And theres general consensus that the first president to get the label was Calvin Coolidge, in May 1926, when the Appleton Post-Crescent of Wisconsin ran a piece called Making a Lame Duck of Coolidge. (If Coolidge objected, he did not hold much of a grudge against Wisconsin, where he spent the summer of 1928.)

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Today, the expression is understood to apply to sessions of Congress right after an election but before the next crop of legislators has taken the oath. It also varyingly applies to a president in the waning days of his term: either after the midterm elections six years into a presidency or between the day voters pick a new president and the day that new commander in chief is sworn in.

Lame-duck President Obama heads into his final lame-duck session with his legacy on his mind and major unfinished congressional business on his plate  most of which is likely to remain unfinished by the time Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

President Obama after speaking at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner at the Washington Hilton in April. (Photo: Susan Walsh/AP)

Back in May, at the White House Correspondents Dinner, Obama acknowledged his metaphorical lamed-waterfowl status and used it for laughs, joking about the Republican opposition he has faced since his inauguration in 2009.

A couple of weeks later, the president vowed to keep pushing ahead with executive actions where the Republican-held Congress refused to act.

They keep on waiting for this whole lame-duck thing to happen, he said in a speech at the White House United State of Women Summit. Let me tell you. It will happen as soon as Ive elected a really good successor to carry on our policies.

Aides say the president will press ahead in his final months with executive actions on a wide range of subjects, from closer ties to Cuba to fighting climate change.

But joking or defiant, Obama has a lame-duck problem: Many incomplete legacy defining achievements are almost within reach but will depend on action from a Congress that shows no inclination to hand him any end-of-term victories.

The White House would love to see Congress approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), confirm Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, confirm career diplomat Jeffrey DeLaurentis as the first ambassador to Cuba, and make progress on criminal justice reform. That is all in addition to averting a government shutdown by passing annual spending measures.

A senior Republican Senate aide, asked to handicap prospects of action for those priorities, painted a glum picture for the White House. TPP? Hilarious (see, e.g., Hillary Rodham Clinton). Garland? Still no. DeLaurentis? No. Criminal justice reform? Maybe some House action, but no.

Judge Merrick Garland, right, President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden walk from the White House Oval Office to the Rose Garden, where Garland was introduced as the presidents nominee for the Supreme Court, March 16, 2016. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

Keep in mind, the lame-duck session is likely to be about three weeks. Any of those issues would take at least a week. At least, said the GOP aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity. And we still have to fund the government.

Obama has talked about making a strong push to get the TPP trade agreement  his top unfinished foreign policy priority  through Congress when lawmakers return for a few weeks in November and December.

Supporters of the accord at the White House and in Congress point to votes last year on granting the president enhanced authority to negotiate the deal. The key Senate vote went 60-38, while the House approved the proposal 218-208.

Polls show that a majority of Americans support international trade. But both Trump and Clinton oppose TPP, as do a majority of Democrats. Even if Republican leaders were to bring up the agreement for a vote (and theres no sign theyre especially eager to do so), would Republicans agree to give Obama a victory, even if its one that advances trade?

We, the United States, have to lead, and our leadership requires us to pursue high-standard, innovative initiatives like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Secretary of State John Kerry warned Wednesday, arguing that rejecting TPP would harm Americas global standing.

A man protesting the Trans-Pacific Partnership holds a sign over U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman as he testifies before the Senate Finance Committee in January 2015. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

On Thursday, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, a fervent TPP supporter, declined to discuss prospects for action on the agreement. But if youre talking about damaging U.S. leadership in the world, look at the Obama administrations foreign policy, he told reporters at a press conference, dismissing the Obama administrations argument. I rest my case on that.

And Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Thursday that trade had become politically toxic and that I believe if it [TPP] were brought up this year, [it] would be defeated.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans show no sign of bending to Democratic calls to hold hearings on Garlands nomination, which Obama announced on March 16, and proceed to confirmation votes.

The next president will be filling that vacancy, and we will just have to see who that is, McConnell said Thursday.

Lame-duck sessions are sometimes used by outgoing legislatures to take politically toxic votes after the voters have already weighed in. Some analysts say that if Clinton were to win the White House and Democrats the Senate, for example, then approving a relative centrist Supreme Court nominee like Garland might look like the better play for Republicans in Congress. Otherwise theyd risk an even more liberal jurist filling Antonin Scalias seat.

Obamas nomination of DeLaurentis, first reported by Yahoo News on Tuesday, faces GOP obstruction as well, though not because of any objection to his qualifications for the post. Instead, Republicans have cast the choice as a referendum on the presidents historic outreach to the former Cold War enemy 90 miles off Floridas coast.

Rewarding the Castro government with a U.S. ambassador is another last-ditch legacy project for the president that needs to be stopped, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said Wednesday after DeLaurentis nomination.

The president and first lady stand with the U.S. chief of mission in Cuba, Jeffrey DeLaurentis as they meet with embassy staff iat a hotel in Havana in March. (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)

The White House had anticipated the criticism.

We have such a basic difference on that, Ben Rhodes, Obamas deputy national security adviser, told Yahoo News. To us, the concept that its a reward for a country to have an ambassador makes no sense. On the contrary, having an ambassador gives you a higher profile, a higher-ranked advocate for what America cares about, whether thats bilateral cooperation or whether thats speaking out for human rights.

But that wont clear a path to confirmation.

Obama has made clear that his post-presidency will shine a spotlight on criminal justice reform. And the issue has made some bipartisan headway in Congress. But the odds are long that lawmakers will do much when they return after the November election.

We do know that we have more work to do to talk with our members about the merits of criminal justice reform, Ryan said Thursday. There are a lot of our members who just have not looked into this issue well enough, and its those undecided members who have not formed opinions yet that were going to be communicating with in the weeks ahead.

McConnell sounded a darker note on the same day Ryan spoke: With regard to the criminal justice issue, as you probably know, its very divisive in my conference, he said. Whether we can take up something that controversial, with that amount of limited time available, I doubt.

McConnell suggested that there was bipartisan interest in moving forward in the lame-duck session on several health-related measures, including regenerative medicine, precision medicine and the fight against cancer. And he played down the impact of the president-elect on the last days of this Congress.

Look, we dont know whos going to win in November. But no matter who does win in November, we still have the same government in place until the end of the year, he said. And we need to accomplish as much as we can for the American people in the limited amount of time we have left.

It just wont be as much of Obamas agenda as the White House hopes.
Sep 25, 2016; Nashville, TN, USA; Oakland Raiders players Clive Walford (88), Kelechi Osemele (70), Derek Carr (4), Gabe Jackson (66) and Latavius Murray (28) celebrate after defeating the Tennessee Titans 17-10 at Nissan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The Oakland Raiders will finish the second half of back to back road games, both with 10 a.m. PST starts. This week, they travel to Baltimore to take on a Ravens team that they beat last year in a game that helped the Silver and Black get back on track after a week one blowout loss. Now, Oakland will travel to Baltimore and try to unseat one of the remaining undefeated teams in the NFL.

And if the Raiders want to pull off an upset of the Ravens for the second straight year, these are some of the keys to getting that done:

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Raiders News: Three bold predictions for the Raiders vs. Ravens game.

Raiders News: Raiders Rivals: Getting to know the Baltimore Ravens.

1  Convert on third down

The Raiders currently sit at 19th in the league on third down conversions this season having only converted on just under 39% of their attempts. In raw numbers, they have converted 14 of their 36 third down attempts this year. That not only hurts the offense and its ability to put points on the board, it also gets the defense back on the field and we all know how many issues that unit has.

One of the primary goals of this Raider squad should be finding consistency from both sides of the ball. On offense, that means converting third down plays to extend drives and maintain control of time of possession.

2  Win the turnover battle

This one seems obvious, right? But its especially important this week when the Raiders take on a Ravens team that currently has a giveaway takeaway ratio of -1 while Oakland is currently tied for fifth best ratio in the league with +4. Joe Flacco has thrown four interceptions in the past two weeks. Clearly they were able to win in spite of those ball security issues but if the Raiders want to pull off the upset, losing the turnover battle isnt a good way to go about that.

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The defense looked better last weekend in large part due to the fact that they forced three turnovers. If they can force multiple turnovers again this weekend, it will go a long way towards getting the win. But one thing is for sure, the Raiders wont have a great chance at winning against Baltimore if they lose the turnover battle.

3  Run it down Baltimores throat

While the Baltimore offense is nothing to write home about, the defense is having a very nice year. Their rush defense is currently top ten and only allowing opposing offenses to put up an average of 86 yards per game. Meanwhile, the Raiders are second in the league with over 148 yards per game through the first three weeks. Despite the fact that the Ravens have a strong run defense, the Raiders cant back down from their run game.

The run game is increasingly becoming a significant portion of the Raiders identification. They cant allow the Ravens to take them out of their normal game plan and abandon the run. The Raiders should start pounding the ball early ans set a physical tone behind the blocking of former Raven Kelechi Osemele.

The post Three keys to a Raiders win on Sunday at the Baltimore Ravens appeared first on Cover32.
At least one Republican agrees with President Obamas decision to veto a bill allowing families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia.

Despite Democrats and Republicans voting in a landslide to override the presidential veto on Thursday, former Republican New Jersey Governor Tom Kean joined the FOX Business Network and said he believes the President was right to reject the bill.

Once we pass a law like this it gives people around the world the right to pass similar laws and bring American citizens into their courts and sue American citizens, Kean said. And courts around the world dont always have the same system of judgment we do. American soldiers, American business people, American tourists, what have you, could get caught up in a way that we are not going to like. For that reason and a couple other reasons, I am sorry they did it.

The former Governor is also widely recognized for chairing the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, commonly known as the 9/11 Commission, which was signed into law in 2002. The commission was created to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

I have great sympathies for the families trying to blame and get money and all that. I have great sympathy for them. I just dont think this was the right remedy and I think the President was right and I think well regret doing it, he said.

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TriMas Corporation TRS, a manufacturer and distributor of engineered and applied products has initiated facility consolidation actions to more efficiently utilize existing locations and better serve its customers.



Consolidation Details



The actions are incremental to certain facility closure and consolidation efforts completed over the past year as part of TriMas Financial Improvement Plan (FIP). The actions constitute the companys continuous improvement initiatives which will impact each segment.



In its Aerospace segment, production of the Paris, AR facility will be consolidated into the Ottawa, KS facility. In the Engineered Components unit, activities at two Tulsa, OK facilities will be consolidated into another existing location in the state.

TRIMAS CORP Price

TRIMAS CORP Price | TRIMAS CORP Quote

Additionally, production in the Packaging segment in Mexico City will be consolidated with a recently launched facility in San Miguel de Allende. Finally, within the Energy segment, TriMas is exploring options to improve the performance of its Wolverhampton, U.K. facility.



Details of FIP



During the third quarter of 2015, given the uncertain economic environment and the impact on net sales and profitability of lower oil prices, a stronger U.S. dollar and slowing industrial production, TriMas announced a FIP to improve profitability, cash flow conversion and operational efficiency. The FIP consisted of headcount reduction, manufacturing and administrative cost reduction and facility consolidations.



As part of the FIP, the company targeted cost actions to yield $15 million of annual savings, accelerating an additional $5 million of savings initiatives in the Energy business, with the remaining $10 million of savings expected to be spread relatively evenly across the remainder of its business.



Benefits of Consolidation



TriMas consolidation actions signify positive steps toward streamlining its infrastructure to drive performance. Moreover, by implementing the FIP, the company aims to lower the cost structure, which will allow it to improve profitability.



Other Factors



Certain activities at the impacted facilities may continue through the end of the year and into early 2017 before the consolidation efforts are finalized. TriMas will provide more information related to these consolidation activities, expected one-time costs to achieve and estimated future savings, on its third-quarter earnings call.



Upshot



TriMas continues to restructure its energy business to improve cost structure, including consolidating certain facilities, starting up a lower cost manufacturing facility in Reynosa, Mexico, and adding experienced resources to the leadership team.



The mining behemoth, Caterpillar Inc. CAT, which belongs to the same sector as TriMas, also boosted its restructuring actions. The company has effectively reduced $1.1 billion in costs over the past one year and has a target of over $2 billion for the full year. The stock has delivered a strong one-year return of over 39%.



Another industrial products sector stock, Century Aluminum Co. CENX is implementing a number of actions to reduce costs and preserve cash amid a weak pricing environment. The company expects to achieve annualized savings of $40$65 million through these measures that includes operating expense cuts and headcount reduction. The company has witnessed a one-year return of over 50%



Another player in the same sector, Avery Dennison Corporation AVY pursued aggressive restructuring activities and productivity actions that will help achieve its long-term financial goals. The company is reducing fixed costs, localizing material sourcing and responding more quickly to changes in customer needs by decentralizing decision making. The stock has witnessed a one-year return of over 42%



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[September 30, 2016] TechStyle Brand JustFab Reveals Innovative Partnership with Social Media Stars "Betches"

TechStyle, parent company to JustFab, the leading fashion-subscription, e-commerce site and lifestyle fashion brand is pleased to announce its collaboration with the trend-setting social media platform, Betches. The partnership encompasses multiple joint marketing opportunities and curated collections selected by the creators themselves, Jordana Abraham, Samantha Fishbein and Aleen Kuperman, which will include an assortment of apparel, shoes and handbags, continuing into 2017. "We're so excited to be working with JustFab on this partnership! Our two teams were in sync right away and it's been a natural fit from the start. We can't wait for our fans to see our first collection and our ongoing collaboration this coming year," commented the founders of Betches. Considered a pioneer in the digital space as one of the first online subscription retailers, JustFab continues at the top of emerging market trends with a non-traditional marketing approach. JustFab has joined forces with the widely popular social media handle, Betches, to further connect with its target audience through the trendsetting and engaging platform. By working closely with the like-minded digital brand, the partnership will convey its joint message of women empowerment through all sizes and styles highlighting humor and fashion for women of all ages. "For JustFab, partnering with Betches just makes sense - we are at the forefront of using technology to better understand our customers' needs and serve them with the right products, styling, trend information, and fashion & lifestyle content. Betches provides its customers with just that, along with a healthy dose of humor. It's a platform where you can have fun with fashion & lifestyle contet, and laugh with your friends over how relatable it really is. That's exactly the type of partnership we want to offer our customers," commented Traci Inglis, Chief Marketing Officer of TechStyle, JustFab's parent company.



The partnership will consist of joint collaborations including select light-hearted, fun and quirky graphics that will be shared over the Betches social media handles including Instagram (4.5 million followers), Facebook (News - Alert) (90k likes), Twitter (160k likes) in addition to their website Betches.com (10m page views). The partnership will also include several curated collections hand-picked by the Betches founders in addition to the official launch event in November 2016. Similar to JustFab, the Betches creators go by the mantra of not taking yourself too seriously and feeling confident in who you are. Betches represents the voice of not only millions of JustFab's customers but also the everyday woman looking to feel empowered and inspired. "Women relate to the Betches content because it pokes fun at our everyday lives in a way that is relatable and fun. Our customers love that," added Traci Inglis, Chief Marketing Officer. The everyday woman wears many hats all of which Betches tap into through their relatable and humorous content. JustFab wants to show no matter what hat you're wearing that day, there's a style to match.

For more information about JustFab and to shop online, please visit www.JustFab.com. ABOUT BETCHES Betches was started in 2011 as a blog by college roommates and childhood friends Jordana Abraham, Samantha Fishbein, and Aleen Kuperman. Their blog immediately went viral, and from there they knew they had a unique chance to build their business from the ground up. Five years later, they have a created a huge millennial brand with an audience of over 5 million, two New York Times bestselling books, and a successful retail operation, Shop Betches. The Betches are excited to be launching this collaboration with JustFab and for many new exciting projects to come. ABOUT JUSTFAB: Founded in 2010, JustFab is the leading fashion-subscription ecommerce site and lifestyle fashion brand that offers members an engaging and personalized shopping experience. Millions of members worldwide are given the celebrity treatment every month as they receive a customized selection of shoes, apparel, handbags and jewelry. Members have exclusive access to fashion tips and content, clickable style boards to shop complete outfits and the team of JustFab fashion consultants for expert advice. JustFab offers high-fashion looks at affordable prices and shipping is free for all items over $39.95. ABOUT TECHSTYLE FASHION GROUP (FORMERLY JUSTFAB INC.): TechStyle Fashion Group is a global fashion and lifestyle company founded in 2010 to deliver access, quality and style for unprecedented value. TechStyle Fashion Group uniquely merges advanced technology with the latest fashion trends to offer an entirely new shopping experience to millions of customers worldwide, including 4 million VIP Members, through a portfolio of apparel and shoe brands. TechStyle Fashion Group is reimagining the business of fashion through data, personalization and vertical integration to benefit the modern shopper. TechStyle Fashion Group's brands include JustFab, Fabletics, ShoeDazzle and Fabkids, and are available in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. www.TechStyle.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005081/en/

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By Doina Chiacu WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump increased his attacks on a former beauty queen with a vague and unsubstantiated allegation about a sex tape in predawn Twitter posts on Friday that prompted Democratic rival Hillary Clinton to denounce him as "unhinged." Trump's refusal to drop his invective against Alicia Machado, the Miss Universe from Venezuela whom he criticized for gaining weight after she won the crown in 1996, threatened to damage his already weak standing among women and Hispanics. With less than six weeks to go until the Nov. 8 election, Trump made reference - without giving evidence - to a sex tape involving Machado, who had publicly denounced him all week as a humiliating bully. His attacks provided critics with new fodder to question his temperament for the White House. "Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?" Trump said in his Twitter messages in the early hours of Friday. He did not elaborate on his allegations beyond saying that the Clinton campaign was unaware of the beauty queen's past and had been "duped" by her. At a campaign rally in Coral Springs, Florida, Clinton said the episode was evidence that "a man who can be provoked by a tweet should not have the nuclear codes." Who gets up at 3 a.m. in the morning to engage in a Twitter attack against a former Miss Universe? I mean he hurled as many insults as he could. Really, why does he do things like that? "His latest Twitter meltdown is unhinged, even for him. It proves again he is temperamentally unfit to be President of the United States," she said. Campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said Clinton called Machado on Friday to thank her for the courage she has shown. Politico reported that Machado has starred in racy reality TV programs and posed naked for Playboy's Mexican version, but said media outlets have found no evidence that she has starred in pornographic films. Machado, now a U.S. citizen, dismissed the fresh attacks with a message on Instagram, calling them "cheap lies" from a man intent on defaming her. "By way of his hate campaign, the Republican candidate insists on discrediting and demoralizing a woman, which is clearly one of his most frightening characteristics," she wrote in her post in Spanish, next to a photo of herself draped in an American flag. TEMPERAMENT AT PLAY Clinton raised Trump's treatment of Machado during their first presidential debate on Monday night as an example of how he views women. Clinton said Trump, the former owner of the Miss Universe pageants, had called Machado "Miss Piggy" and also "Miss Housekeeping" because she was a Latina. The New York real estate mogul attacked Machado the following day in a television interview as he sought to rebound from a debate that Clinton was widely viewed as having won. He also promised to hit Clinton harder in their next debate, on Oct. 9, suggesting he might attack Clinton on the infidelities of her husband, former President Bill Clinton. Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Trump said Machado had gained a "massive amount of weight" after her pageant win and that it was a "real problem." Critics said his offensive this week raised questions about Trump's character. The former television reality star has never run for office before and his habit of making off-the-cuff insults has alarmed many in the Republican Party establishment. "When one of the two presidential candidate finds himself in a Twitter war with a former Miss Universe and is attacking her throughout the night ... not only does it demonstrate a lack of restraint but almost an incapacity to control impulses," Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, who is not a Trump supporter, said in a telephone interview on Friday. In taking the bait Clinton dangled on Monday, Trump echoed his August entanglement in a days-long public dispute with the parents of a Muslim Army captain killed in Iraq. That incident caused anguish among many Republican leaders concerned that he had nothing to gain by attacking a grieving family. Trump's remarks on Friday could hurt him further with women and Hispanic voters, both groups that favor Clinton in opinion polls. Clinton, 68, a former U.S. senator and secretary of state, is the first woman to win the presidential nomination of a major U.S. political party and has led Trump in opinion polls. The latest Reuters/Ipsos national tracking poll, released on Friday, showed Clinton leading by 43 percent to Trump's 38 percent among likely voters. On Friday afternoon the Republican candidate tweeted a sarcastic reference to the sort of important 3 a.m. calls that White House incumbents receive and that were made famous in a 2008 Clinton presidential campaign commercial. Trump has criticized Clinton as being asleep and missing such a call during the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, when she was secretary of state. "For those few people knocking me for tweeting at three o'clock in the morning, at least you know I will be there, awake, to answer the call!" Trump said in his tweet. Clinton mocked Trump this week after he complained that he had a faulty microphone during Monday's debate. The Commission on Presidential Debates said on Friday that, "Regarding the first debate, there were issues regarding Donald Trump's audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall. The sound was not affected for the record-setting audience of 84 million people who tuned into the 90-minute exchange. At a rally in Novi, Michigan, Trump wondered aloud whether the microphone problem was deliberate. "It's difficult, and when you have a situation like that and you know it's bad and you think that 100 million people are watching, what do you do, stop the show? I wonder why it was bad," he said. (Additional reporting by Amanda Becker in Florida, Steve Holland in Michigan, Alistair Bell in Washington; Editing by Frances Kerry, Toni Reinhold, Grant McCool)
By Tarek Amara and Patrick Markey TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's prime minister plans key talks with unions to hold down state sector wages and sees close to 3 percent economic growth next year from a package of reforms aimed at underpinning the democracy won in the 2011 revolution with economic gains. Opportunities and jobs are a constant demand by younger Tunisians frustrated that economic progress has not matched the political transition to democracy since the uprising that ousted autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali as president. Western backers often praise Tunisia as a model of success for a region mired in violence. But successive governments since 2011 have failed to create jobs or carry out reductions in the public deficit demanded by their international lenders. It is a delicate balance for the government. Austerity measures like a vehicle tax proposed in 2014 or lack of jobs in the past have triggered the kind of protests among young Tunisians that helped topple Ben Ali and there were riots over jobs in the south at the start of this year. Youssef Chahed, a French-educated agriculture specialist in office less than a month, is sensitive to how fragile the social peace is in Tunisia but expressed confidence that he could deliver on reforms with his new national unity government. "All reforms are sensitive but we are going to resolve everything through dialogue and consensus," Chahed told Reuters in an interview. He said his government would first stabilize the public deficit, including bringing under control the large public wage bill, and focus on creating new revenue. "We need the economic component to be managed now because the political component remains fragile," he said. "We are going to demand exceptional efforts." He said a four-year plan estimated average growth at around 2.5 percent. Growth last year was 0.8 percent after three big Islamist militant attacks battered the vital tourism industry. The deficit this year would widen to 6.5 percent compared with 4.4 percent last year. "For 2017, growth will be close to 3 percent," he said. Tunisia faces a debt service payment of $3 billion next year, and the central bank has warned the government may struggle to come up with the $450 million a month it needs to pay public employees. The public wage sector represents a huge portion of Tunisia's public spending. At 13.5 percent of GDP, it is one of the highest in the world, a remnant of the system of high state employment and subsidies from the Ben Ali era. But how successful curbing or controlling public wages will be depends on negotiations with the powerful UGTT and UTICA labor unions on whether they will allow a freeze in wage increases and in public sector recruitment. Earlier this year, the IMF approved a $2.9 billion four-year loan for Tunisia, one of a raft of foreign credits and loans from partners hoping to support the transition, But the IMF has urged acceleration of reforms. "We have a complete package to stabilize the budget - an extraordinary tax for companies (and) calling on the UGTT to freeze salary increases. The idea is to get an agreement on a complete policy for growth," Chahed said. TOURISM, PHOSPHATE When he was picked for the top government job by President Beji Caid Essebsi in August, critics dismissed Chahed as a political novice chosen only for his loyalty. Critics said he would be unable to manage resistance to any austerity reforms. But Chahed, in the interview, said he believed the government's policy of inclusiveness - bringing in major parties and representatives close to the unions - would help towards a consensus on pushing through tough measures. Those measures, include reducing tax evasion and incorporating the informal, non-taxed businesses into the tax-paying economy. A new tax on companies is also in the works. Reviving economic revenue in vital industries will also be part of the government strategy. Tourism, which represents around 8 percent of GDP, has been hit by lost bookings and hotel closures after the attacks on foreign visitors last year. But Chahed said the sector was slowly recovering, citing the lifting of a travel ban by Spain, strong Russian and Algerian visitor numbers as a signal of confidence in Tunisia. Under Chahed, Tunisia resolved two protests that were costing millions in losses. He had promised a tough line with economic protests over jobs in vital sectors, but in both cases the government reached a financial deal with protesters. In the phosphate sector - a key revenue earner -- the government this month signed a deal to create nearly 3,000 jobs in exchange for ending protests and restarting vital phosphate output and exports. (editing by Richard Balmforth)
Port Elizabeth (South Africa) (AFP) - Two men have appeared in court in South Africa accused of stealing a penguin called "Buddy" from a marine park and releasing him into the sea, police said Friday.

Adrian Donian, 22, and Emile du Plessis, 24, made a brief appearance in Port Elizabeth magistrate's court Thursday on charges of theft and malicious damage to property.

Buddy, an endangered African black-footed penguin, was taken from Bayworld Oceanarium in Port Elizabeth in a nighttime raid last week, triggering international concern over his fate as he is likely to die in the wild.

He was wrapped in a shirt, bundled in a car and taken the short distance to the coast where he was released into the Indian Ocean.

The two men handed themselves into Humewood police station in the city on Thursday accompanied by their lawyer.

Bayworld manager Dylan Bailey this week told AFP that they had confessed to the crime and said it was a demonstration against animals being kept in captivity.

But Bailey said Buddy, three, would not survive in the sea as he cannot hunt or fend for himself.

"The two men were charged and immediately appeared in court the same day and released on warning," police spokeswoman Priscilla Naidu told AFP.

"The case was postponed for further investigation. They will appear again in a month's time."

- Separated from mate -

Buddy, who was born in captivity, has also been separated from his mate Frances at the marine park, and one of their two chicks has since died, the local Herald newspaper reported.

The newspaper said that the two suspects looked remorseful and were "too traumatised" to speak to the media after the court appearance where they were supported by family and friends.

Bayworld staff and local volunteers have been searching along the coast for Buddy in the slim hope of finding him alive.

He has an identification tag with the number 266 on his left flipper. He also has a microchip, but no tracker.

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Buddy was discovered missing the day after the theft when he could not be found for his monthly health check.

Security camera footage showed the men entering the penguin enclosure and taking selfie photographs before stealing Buddy and later releasing him at the nearby Pollock Beach.

African black-footed penguins, also known as jackass penguins due to the braying noises they make, have been rated as endangered since 2010 after suffering from commercial fishing and shortage of prey.
(Reuters) - U.S. health officials on Thursday recommended that pregnant women postpone nonessential travel to 11 Southeast Asian countries because of the risk of Zika virus infection, which has been shown to cause severe birth defects. The latest countries singled out by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste (East Timor), and Vietnam. The CDC said "travel notices," like those issued for Zika-struck countries like Brazil and Singapore, have not been issued for these destinations, but such warnings would be considered if the number of cases rises to the level of an outbreak. Zika, which is mainly a mosquito-borne disease, was first identified in Brazil last year and has been spreading globally. The CDC has so far advised pregnant women to avoid going to nearly 60 countries and regions because of the active spread of the virus. Unlike parts of Central and South America and the Caribbean hit hardest by the recent Zika outbreak, areas of Southeast Asia have had the virus present for many years. It is considered endemic in these countries, the CDC said in a statement, and many people who live there are likely immune. The agency said there have been recent variations in the number of cases reported in the region and, while the level of risk is unknown, Zika virus infection during pregnancy causes severe birth defects, including microcephaly and other severe brain abnormalities. Henry Harteveldt, founder of the travel consultancy Atmosphere Research Group, said the warning could discourage visits to Southeast Asia ahead of the peak winter travel season around Christmas and New Years. "Some of these destinations are very popular for students and younger adults in their 20s or 30s looking for vacations, whether it's a backpacking tour or surfing or swimming," said Harteveldt. "This could have a noticeable impact on inbound tourism and (cause) some economic damage." The impact may not be limited to U.S. vacationers, he added. "When the U.S. CDC issues an alert, just like when the U.S. State Department issues an advisory, its taken very seriously across the travel industry. It may prompt the CDCs counterparts (in other countries) to take a look and issue their own warnings," Harteveldt said. To be sure, any dip in travel to Southeast Asia is unlikely to hurt profits for U.S. airlines because they have few flights to the region, relying instead on other carriers to transport their customers with the help of marketing or "codeshare" agreements. Companies that fly more to the destinations, like Air France-KLM SA and Emirates [EMIRA.UL], have more exposure, said Harteveldt. "These are not the top-tier vacation destinations that a lot of people go to. Theyre still (more like) "bucket-list" destinations, he said. "Its not like the CDC just issued a warning saying, dont go to England." Airline bookings to parts of Latin America and the Caribbean slipped globally after the CDC issued a similar travel warning for the region because of Zika. (Reporting by Dipika Jain in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Deena Beasley in Los Angeles and Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Bernard Orr)
By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. government bureau set up to do "secret" and "top secret" security clearance investigations has turned for help to a private company whose login credentials were used in hack attacks that looted the personal data of 22 million current and former federal employees, U.S. officials said on Friday.

Their confirmation of the hiring of KeyPoint Government Solutions by the new National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB) comes just days ahead of the bureau's official opening, scheduled for next week.

Its creation was spurred, in part, by the same hacks of the Office of Personnel Management that have been linked to the credentials of KeyPoint, one of four companies hired by the bureau. The officials asked not to be named when discussing sensitive information.

KeyPoint representatives did not respond to requests for comment sent by email and left on the company CEO's voice-mail.

A spokesman for OPM said the agency in the past has said in public statements and in congressional testimony that a KeyPoint contractor's stolen credentials were used by hackers to gain access to government personnel and security investigations records in two major OPM computer breaches.

Both breaches occurred in 2014, but were not discovered until April 2015, according to investigators.

OPM Director Katherine Archuleta resigned in mid-2015 amid scrutiny of the agency's cybersecurity practices.

KeyPoint is one of four companies hired by the new NBIB to do field interviews for security clearance investigations, OPM and officials said earlier in September.

One U.S. official familiar with the hiring of KeyPoint said personnel records were hacked in 2014 from KeyPoint and, at some point, its login credentials were stolen. But no evidence proves, the official said, that the KeyPoint credentials used by the OPM hackers were stolen in the 2014 KeyPoint hack.

Earlier this month, OPM said it was awarding four contracts for "investigative fieldwork" to KeyPoint, CACI Premier Technology Inc, SCRA LLC and Securitas Critical Infrastructure Services. OPM said the four companies were the only ones to bid for the investigation contracts.

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A congressional investigator noted that after OPM fired one major investigations contractor, the agency's backlog in processing clearance investigations increased.

OPM officials said on Thursday one aim for NBIB is to reduce processing time for "top secret" clearances to 80 days from 170 days and for "secret" clearances to 40 days from 120 days.

(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Dan Grebler)
By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court opens its new term on Monday in uncharted territory, with an vacancy on the bench on a presidential Election Day now certain for the first time since Abraham Lincoln won re-election in 1864 at the height of the Civil War.

While the eight justices will start to hear oral arguments on a range of issues including religious rights, insider trading and intellectual property, attention will be focused on the Nov. 8 presidential election that will determine who will get to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Feb. 13.

In Lincoln's time, Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the notorious pro-slavery Dred Scott decision, died in October 1864, just weeks before the election. After Lincoln won re-election, he appointed the anti-slavery Salmon Chase as chief justice in December 1864. That tipped the ideological balance of the court in Lincoln's favor, according to legal historian Paul Finkelman, who teaches at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law in Canada.

In a step with little precedent in U.S. history, the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate has refused to consider confirmation of appellate judge Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama's nominee to replace Scalia, saying the next president should make the appointment. Obama's term ends on Jan. 20. Congress is now in recess until after the election.

More than 150 years after Lincoln appointed a new chief justice, the next appointment could similarly herald a major shift on the court. Without the conservative Scalia, the court is split with four liberals and four conservatives, after years of conservatives in the majority.

If Scalia is replaced by a more liberal justice, "we would see a five-vote solid, consistent liberal majority that could write its own ticket on a lot of issues," said conservative legal activist Carrie Severino.

The court could tilt to the left on issues such as gun rights, voting rights and the death penalty, among others.

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In the next president's first four-year term in office, there is the chance of filling even more vacancies. Three of the justices are 78 or older: liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg (83), conservative Anthony Kennedy (80) and liberal Stephen Breyer (78).

Democrat Hillary Clinton faces Republican Donald Trump in the election. Some Republican senators are concerned that, if she wins, Clinton could nominate a justice more liberal than Garland, raising the possibility the Senate could move to confirm him after the election and before Clinton is sworn in. But the Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell, has said he has no plans for that.

AVOIDING 4-4 SPLITS

In the meantime, the court will proceed shorthanded into the 2016-17 term that runs through June, hearing arguments and issuing rulings, with Chief Justice John Roberts' court likely eager to avoid taking up cases that could lead to 4-4 split decisions.

Such rulings leave in place lower court decisions and provide no national legal precedent. Four cases last term ended in 4-4 splits. One was in one of the court's biggest cases: Obama's failed bid to revive his plan, blocked by a lower court, to protect millions immigrants in the country illegally from deportation.

One way the court can try to avoid divisions is to take up issues on which the justices are not ideologically divided.

There are already signs the justices are doing so, as shown by an uptick in intellectual property disputes they are hearing, including a major design patent battle between Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd<005930.KS>, which will be heard on Oct. 11.

Cases on transgender rights and Republican-backed state laws that opponents contend were designed to suppress the turnout of black, Hispanic and other voters who tend to back Democrats potentially could be added to the docket, although those cases could lead to 4-4 ties.

The court on Thursday took up eight new cases, including another intellectual property fight over whether the Oregon-based Asian-American rock band The Slants can trademark its name despite the term's history as a racial slur.

Among other cases of note, the court on Wednesday will consider Illinois businessman Bassam Salman's appeal of his insider trading conviction in a case that could hem in prosecutors in bringing such charges in the future.

On Election Day, the court will consider a case that touches upon race discrimination and predatory lending. The justices will decide whether to allow the city of Miami sue Bank of America Corp and Wells Fargo & Co over their lending practices.

The court has not yet scheduled oral arguments in a religious rights case it agreed to hear before Scalia died. It concerns whether Missouri, on the basis of the constitutional precept of separation of church and state, can exclude a Lutheran church that operates a daycare center from a state program that awards grants for resurfacing playgrounds.

Some Supreme Court experts say the court may be waiting until Scalia's replacement is seated before it hears the case because it may divide the court along ideological lines.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)
Nintendo is on the comeback trail with March 2017 home console, the NX, according to the CEO of Ubisoft, whose company has used new console launches as a jumping-off point for a number of blockbuster franchises.

On the occasion of a board election meeting that took place at a critical juncture in Ubisoft's 30-year history, co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot took a moment to praise the upcoming Nintendo NX.

Interest surrounding the console is high, particularly considering Nintendo's secretive stance towards the impending launch, with most public knowledge gleaned from insider leaks and patent filings.

Guillemot, however, has proven extremely positive about the console's general prospects in recent weeks.

"Nintendo will be back in the race with the NX," he said, during an investor's call on September 29, noted Chloe Woitier, who was reporting on the event for French broadsheet Le Figaro.

That's after he had described the mystery console as a "fantastic machine" the previous week -- one with a "very attractive" interface that is "easy to use for all gamers," he had said.

Nintendo's current home console, the Wii U, has resulted in a clutch of critically acclaimed game experiences -- "Super Mario 3D World," "Mario Kart 8," "Splatoon," "Super Smash Bros.," and "Super Mario Maker" are standouts from the last three or four years across all console platforms.

But it failed to catch on at retail. The Wii had managed over 100 million sales, making it one of the top three best-selling consoles of all time; the Wii U, since its 2012 introduction, is on about a tenth of that.

References to Nintendo getting back in the console race necessarily recall its purple patch and, pertinent to Guillemot's positivity, Ubisoft has its own track record of using new console launches to premiere potential new blockbuster franchises.

"Just Dance" was so successful on the Wii that Nintendo praised the franchise to high heaven during its own investors' meetings.

"Tom Clancy's The Division" launched as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One stablished themselves, just as Clancy franchises "Ghost Recon" and "Splinter Cell" had done in the Xbox and PlayStation 2 days.

And "Assassin's Creed," that quasi-historical action series which is only now yielding from an annual release schedule -- as long as 2016's two spin-offs and a multi-million dollar Michael Fassbender film aren't counted -- became an early showcase for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
[September 30, 2016] Provincial Police Launch Campaign to Enhance Cyber Security

Information and Data Systems are Today's Criminal Targets ORILLIA, ON, Sept. 30, 2016 /CNW/ - Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) is doing its part to enhance public safety and awareness and mitigate the many threats posed by cyber criminals during Cyber Security Awareness Month. In 2015, the top ten cyber scams earned criminals an estimated $1.2-billion from Canadian victims. Put another way, around 80,000 people unwittingly fall prey to these scams every day  equivalent to the population of Sarnia or Peterborough. During October, the OPP will join police services and subject matter experts from across the country to promote public awareness and help prevent all Canadians from becoming victims of online crime. While engaging in a public awareness media and social media campaign, the OPP's own Cyber Strategy is spreading the word among its 9,200-member workforce to ensure OPP information systems and data remain secure while building capacity to support modern investigations. This year's OPP Cyber Security Awareness Month campaign will focus on four topics including: Free Wi-Fi use/Password protection

Phishing/Ransomware (Personal/Corporate) scams

Email Attachments

Online Child Safety For helpful tips and links, follow the OPP on Twitter (@OPP_News), Facebook and Instagram and using the hashtags #CyberSecurity, #CyberAware and #OPPTips.



If you or someone you know suspects they've been a victim of digital or online crime, contact your local police service, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, report it to the OPP online at http://www.opp.ca/index.php?id=132 or through Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS) at https://www.tipsubmit.com/start.htm QUOTES

"We know OPP members have positive impacts on public safety every day through investigations and our various community safety initiatives. Everyone within our organization also has a critical role to play to secure OPP data and information systems as we implement the OPP Cyber Strategy. Everyone will receive training that explains cyber threats and teaches cyber hygiene practices, which they can then relay to their own families, friends and business contacts."  J.V.N. (Vince) HAWKES, OPP Commissioner "Most criminal investigations include some form of device-based or internet-based digital evidence. The recovery and management of digital evidence is a vital part of nearly every OPP investigation. Based upon the pillars of prevention, response and support, the Cyber Strategy's goal is to position the OPP to manage risks, reduce threats and minimize harm caused by crime involving digital technologies."

Deputy Commissioner Rick BARNUM, OPP Investigations and Organized Crime LEARN MORE Cyber Security Awareness Month toolkit (courtesy of Public Safety Canada) Cyber Security Risks (courtesy of Public Safety Canada) Get Cyber Safe is a national, multi-jurisdiction, public awareness campaign created to educate Canadians about Internet security and the simple steps they can take to protect themselves online. Visit http://www.getcybersafe.gc.ca/ MEDIA NOTE: This is the first in a series of topic-specific OPP media releases to enhance community safety and awareness as part of Cyber Security Awareness Month. SOURCE Ontario Provincial Police

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(Adds analyst comments, details, share movement)

Sept 30 (Reuters) - Online trading company IG Group Holdings Plc said it had agreed to buy news and research portal DailyFX and its associated assets from U.S. retail broker FXCM Inc for $40 million.

IG Group said the deal, which is expected to close by the end of October, would add about 5 million pounds ($6 million) to ongoing operating costs annually and add to earnings from IG's 2018 financial year.

The British company also said it expected to account for the purchase price at a constant rate spread over 10 years.

Analysts said this meant total costs of 8 million pounds, after adding 3 million pounds in amortisation annually.

IG Group, which has over 152,600 active clients according to its website, said the deal would "significantly enhance" its ability to bring on new clients and improve the retention rates of current clients.

"Our discussions with IG this morning indicate that IG is not buying a revenue stream but instead a client recruitment engine," RBC analysts said.

"While client recruitment and retainment are positives, this acquisition does add to an already rapidly increasing cost base," the analysts added.

IG Group said this month that financial markets had become "increasingly subdued" in the two months after Britain's shock vote to leave the European Union, presenting clients with limited trading opportunities.

Upon completion, the DailyFX business along with its web domains, source code, content and 34 employees will be transferred to IG, FXCM said.

Assuming a cost base of 8 million pounds and revenue per client of 2,000 pounds, DailyFX needs to add 4,000 customers every year to break even, Barclays analysts said.

FXCM, which is the largest U.S. retail broker, with about 200,000 customers worldwide and 88,000 in the United States, said it would use the proceeds from the sale to repay debt owed to Leucadia National Corp.

FXCM, reeling after customers lost more than $200 million from the surging Swiss franc early in 2015, borrowed $300 million from Leucadia to keep operating. http://reut.rs/2drwhuW

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"While DailyFX is a high quality asset and was not a targeted asset to sell, the opportunity came along and it was something we felt we should take advantage of," FXCM CEO Drew said.

"At this time, we do not plan on selling any other retail FX assets..." he added.

IG's shares were up 0.058 percent at 865.5 pence at 0847 GMT on the London Stock Exchange.

($1 = 0.7715 pounds) (Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair)
The United Nations has denounced the death of 15 civilians, including a child, in a US air strike against Islamic State militants in eastern Afghanistan, calling for an independent investigation into the killings.

The drone attack occurred Wednesday in Achin district, a hotbed of IS insurgents in Nangarhar province near the border with Pakistan, as villagers gathered to welcome a tribal elder who had returned from the hajj pilgrimage.

"UNAMA condemns the killing of at least 15 civilian men and the injuring of at least 13 others, including at least one boy, in the strike," the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said late Thursday.

"Civilian victims of the strike included students and a teacher, as well as members of families considered to be pro-gvernment."

Afghan authorities had previously put the civilian death toll at between three and 13.

The American military acknowledged it had conducted the "counter-terrorism airstrike" on Wednesday, adding it was still probing the incident.

"United States Forces - Afghanistan takes all allegations of civilian casualties very seriously," the US military said in a statement, highlighting the challenge of targeting IS insurgents making steady inroads in Nangarhar.

"Daesh is killing innocent Afghan men, women, and children. They continue to put innocent lives at risk by deliberately surrounding themselves with civilians and dressing in female attire," it said, using the Arabic acronymn for IS.

Islamic State first emerged in Afghanistan in late 2014 and has since violently challenged the much larger Afghan Taliban movement in parts of the country's east.

But the fighters have steadily lost territory in recent months because of stepped-up US airstrikes and a ground campaign by Afghan forces in Nangarhar.

Civilian and military casualties caused by NATO forces have been one of the most contentious issues in the 15-year campaign against the insurgents, prompting harsh public and government criticism.

A US air strike killed eight Afghan policemen earlier this month in the southern province of Uruzgan in the first apparent "friendly fire" incident since American forces were given greater powers to strike at insurgents in June.

The new authority gave the US-led NATO troops greater latitude to order air strikes in support of Afghan troops.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday announced he is setting up a board of inquiry to investigate the bombing of an aid convoy in Syria last week that killed 18 people.

US officials have said that Russian planes carried out the air strikes on September 19 that hit the 31-truck convoy bringing aid to a town west of the besieged city of Aleppo.

Moscow has denied the accusation and the Russian military is carrying out its own investigation of the bombing that destroyed 18 trucks and damaged a warehouse.

The internal UN panel "will ascertain the facts of the incident" and report to Ban, who will "decide what further steps to take," said a UN statement.

Ban urged all sides to fully cooperate with the probe.

The United Nations has warned that the attack on the aid convoy could amount to a war crime.

UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien told the Security Council on Thursday that the area around the convoy that was "clearly marked UN and Syrian Arab Red Crescent" became a "killing zone" during two hours of heavy bombing.

The strikes on the convoy in Urum al-Kubra claimed the life of the local head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, Omar Barakat, as well as 12 volunteers and five drivers.

Another 15 drivers were wounded, many civilians were killed and wounded, and the warehouse as well as a nearby medical clinic severely damaged, O'Brien said.

The aid chief stressed that all actors on the ground were informed of the convoy's movement in line with UN procedures for all deliveries of humanitarian assistance.

"We do not yet have all the details," O'Brien said. "However, it is not too early to make clear the consequences of this shameful attack."

"If the attackers knew of the humanitarian convoy and intentionally directed an attack against it, they committed a war crime."

The bombing of the aid convoy took place just hours after the Syrian military announced the end of a week-long ceasefire negotiated by Russia and the United States.

That decision came in response to a US coalition air strike on a Syrian army base that killed dozens of soldiers and which Washington said was unintentional.
John Legend is stepping in front of the camera.

The Oscar-winning musician and Underground executive producer has signed on for a key role in the upcoming second season of the WGN America drama, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Legend will play famed abolitionist and author Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery, Douglass daringly escaped bondage in Maryland and went on to become a revolutionary leader of the 19th century. A prominent writer, celebrated speaker and progressive political reformist, he was considered a beacon of hope for many.

Douglass is one of several real-life figures featured in the historical series, which centers on the Underground Railroad. Aisha Hinds (Under the Dome) will recur as Harriet Tubman, Chris Chalk plays renowned African-American abolitionist William Still, and Sadie Stratton will portray notorious slave trader Patty Cannon in season two.

Read more: WGN America's 'Underground' Casts Its Harriet Tubman

The 10-episode second season is currently in production in Georgia for an early 2017 launch.

Legend exec produces the series - for which he also produced the theme - with creators-showrunners Misha Green and Joe Pokaski, as well as Anthony Hemingway, Akiva Goldsman, Tory Tunnell, Joby Harold, Mike Jackson, Ty Stiklorius and Mark Taylor. Sony Pictures Television produces Underground in association with Get Lifted Film Company, Weed Road Pictures, Safehouse Pictures, Wandering Rocks and Tribune Studios.

Legend's other exec producing credits including Southside With You and the Oscar hopeful La La Land, starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, in which he also co-stars. Legend is repped by WME and Del Shaw.
Washington (AFP) - The United States is investing in a military air base capable of deploying drones in Niger's central city of Agadez, the Pentagon confirmed.

The United States already has a military presence in the country's southwestern capital of Niamey, where it stations MQ-9 Reaper drones and supports France's anti-jihadist Barkhane force, among others.

The US "has negotiated an agreement with the government of Niger to allow for the construction of a new runway and all associated pavements, facilities and infrastructure" at the base in Agadez, Pentagon spokeswoman Michelle Baldanza said.

The Agadez site will remain Niger's and is not slated to become a US post like Djibouti, home to the only permanent US base on the African continent, she said.

Baldanza estimated the US investment will cost $50 million, though The Intercept, which first reported the story, said it is slated to cost $100 million.

According to the investigative news site, which obtained formerly confidential military documents, Niger is the only country in the region willing to allow a US base for MQ-9 Reapers, and has positioned itself to be a key hub for US military operations in the region.

"There's a trend toward greater engagement and a more permanent presence in West Africa -- the Maghreb and the Sahel," Adam Moore of the University of California Los Angeles told the site.

Investment in Agadez "suggests that Niger is becoming, after Djibouti, the second most important country for US military counterterrorism operations on the continent," he added.
donald trump

In the 34 years USA Today has printed newspapers, its editorial board says, it has never taken a position in a US presidential election.

That changed Thursday, with the board issuing a scathing rebuke of Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.

The paper, as many others have in recent weeks, called Trump "ill-equipped to be commander in chief," saying he "traffics in prejudice," "isn't leveling with the American people," and is "a serial liar."

"Did you ever imagine that a presidential candidate would discuss the size of his genitalia during a nationally televised Republican debate? Neither did we," the editorial board wrote. "Did you ever imagine a presidential candidate, one who avoided service in the military, would criticize Gold Star parents who lost a son in Iraq? Neither did we," it added.

But the paper noted that its Trump takedown was not an endorsement for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. The eight-person editorial board was split on giving Clinton its support.

In a separate story explaining why the paper sidestepped its tradition of neutrality, the board wrote that it thought about what USA Today founder Al Neuharth would have done.

In 2012, the year before he died, Neuharth wrote his own editorial saying Mitt Romney should stop appearing with Trump.

"He's a clown who loves doing or saying things, no matter how ridiculous they may be," Neuharth wrote. "No politician or voter  or Yankee fan  should take him seriously."

As it's customary for USA Today editorials to offer an opposing view, Thursday night's tirade against Trump appeared alongside a counterpoint from his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana.

The editorial board urges voters to "stay true to your convictions," whether that means voting for Clinton, a third-party candidate, or a write-in.

"Whatever you do, however, resist the siren song of a dangerous demagogue," the editorial concludes. "By all means vote, just not for Donald Trump."

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NOW WATCH: 'CHECK OUT SEX TAPE': Trump goes on raging tweetstorm ripping Miss Universe contestant





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Washington (AFP) - The United States ordered families of government personnel stationed in the Democratic Republic of Congo to leave amid fears about escalating violence, the State Department said.

"The potential for civil unrest is high in parts of Kinshasa and other major cities," it said, referring to the country's capital in a travel warning.

"As a result of the deteriorating security situation, family members of US government personnel have been ordered to leave the country beginning September 29. Most official US government travel to the DRC has been halted."

It noted that violent clashes this month between security forces and opposition protesters over the electoral process had resulted in deaths and the destruction of property.

"Very poor transportation infrastructure throughout the country and poor security conditions make it difficult for the US Embassy to provide consular services anywhere outside of Kinshasa," it added.

Last week's clashes left dozens dead in Kinshasa, where opposition groups were demanding the resignation of President Joseph Kabila.

He has ruled since 2001, and the constitution bars him from running for a third term. Although his current term ends on December 20, no date for new elections has been announced and there are fears he plans to stay in power.

The State Department warned travelers that armed groups, bandits and some elements of the Congolese military "kill, rape, kidnap, pillage, steal vehicles, and carry out military or paramilitary operations in which civilians can be indiscriminately targeted."

DR Congo's government accused the United States earlier on Thursday of sowing "chaos" after Washington placed two of Kabila's top allies on its sanctions blacklist.

The US Treasury on Wednesday said both the men were involved in violently putting down opposition to Kabila and undermining democratic forces in the country.
Washington (AFP) - Two days after threatening to suspend talks with Russia on the crisis in Syria, the United States confirmed Friday that negotiations continue but insisted they are "on life support."

US Secretary of State John Kerry called Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for the third day in a row, but received no sign that Moscow is ready to halt the Syrian regime's assault on Aleppo.

On Thursday, amid much criticism at home and abroad that the threat to break off US-Russian bilateral talks on Syria was hollow, Kerry insisted that he was "on the verge" of ending them.

And that's where matters remained 24 hours later, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, while introducing a new metaphor to describe how close the rival capitals are to a rupture.

"This is on life support, but it has not flatlined yet," he told reporters when asked why Kerry believes it is worthwhile to keep the diplomatic channel open while Russian jets pound Aleppo.

"It's egregious, it's horrific, it's in clear violation of international standards or norms, humanitarian norms and international law," Toner said.

And he agreed that "at a certain point" Washington would have to look again "to see if it becomes futile to continue to believe in a diplomatic process."

"That said, I just can't definitively say we're there at that point yet. We're very close but we're not there yet."

Earlier, Lavrov had hit out in an interview with the BBC, suggesting Washington may be trying to protect jihadist rebels from assault in order to later use them against Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Toner dismissed this charge out of hand. "It left me shaking my head, he said. "It's absurd."

A short-lived truce brokered by Moscow and Washington earlier this month fell apart as both sides blamed each other for its failure.

Moscow has since been accused of indiscriminately bombing rebel-held eastern Aleppo in support of an assault by Syrian government troops aiming capture all of the country's second city.
Washington (AFP) - In a break from tradition, USA Today took a stance Friday in the upcoming presidential election, warning readers to "resist the siren song of a dangerous demagogue" and reject Republican Donald Trump.

The national newspaper, one of the most widely circulated in the United States, had never in its 34-year history taken a position on a presidential race, but its editorial board spoke out this time on the battle between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.

"We've never seen reason to alter our approach. Until now," the paper said.

"This year, one of the candidates -- Republican nominee Donald Trump -- is, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, unfit for the presidency.

"From the day he declared his candidacy 15 months ago through this week's first presidential debate, Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he lacks the temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty that America needs from its presidents."

The newspaper presented an eight-point list explaining why it thinks the New York billionaire is not fit for the White House.

Trump is "erratic," "ill-equipped to be commander in chief" and a "serial liar," the paper said.

He also "traffics in prejudice," "speaks recklessly," has coarsened the national dialogue, has a checkered career in business, and hasn't leveled with voters on issues such as his tax returns.

In a rebuttal of sorts, Trump's running mate Mike Pence insisted that "Donald Trump is ready to lead."

"The American people once again stand at a time for choosing. On one hand, we have a candidate in Hillary Clinton who represents all that is wrong with the status quo in Washington," the Indiana governor wrote in a USA Today op-ed piece.

"On the other, Donald Trump has the courage to speak his mind and the boldness to make true his vision of a renewed America."

- No endorsement for Clinton -

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Despite its position on Trump, USA Today refrained from endorsing Clinton, saying its board was unable to reach a consensus.

It cited her long career in public service, but noted her "sense of entitlement, her lack of candor and her extreme carelessness in handling classified information."

Clinton has flaws, "though hers are far less likely to threaten national security or lead to a constitutional crisis," the paper said.

It urged readers to make a choice: vote for Clinton, for a third-party candidate, write in a candidate or focus on down-ballot candidates in other races that will also be decided on Election Day, November 8.

"Whatever you do, however, resist the siren song of a dangerous demagogue. By all means vote, just not for Donald Trump," it said.

USA Today is the latest major newspaper to warn against Trump.

Conservative newspapers such as The Arizona Republic, Cincinnati Enquirer and Dallas Morning News have broken from decades of support for Republican candidates and endorsed Clinton.

Trump shot back on Twitter after the USA Today editorial, claiming it and other papers that have been critical of him are losing readership.

"The people are really smart in cancelling subscriptions to the Dallas & Arizona papers & now USA Today will lose readers! The people get it!" he wrote.

Clinton and Trump are locked in a tight race, with the Democrat holding a narrow 2.9-point lead in the latest average of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.
The TNT pilot of vampire drama "Let the Right One In" has cast Kristine Froseth as its female lead reports Deadline.

Originally a best-selling novel by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist, the series will tell the story of Henry, a lonely young boy who finds solace with charismatic vampire Eli, to be played by Froseth.

Also lonely and friendless, Eli arrives in an apartment building in Vermont, and the pair soon begin a strange friendship, with Henry unaware of exactly who or what he is dealing with.

Lindqvist's debut novel was an instant bestseller in Sweden, and was adapted into the film of the same name in 2008. Lindqvist also wrote the screenplay for the Swedish movie, which won a host of international awards and featured Lina Leandersson as Eli. In a 2010 American film adaptation of the book, Chloe Grace Moretz played the lead female role.

Froseth recently finished filing Zoe Cassavetes' upcoming web series "Junior" and can next be seen in Danny Strong's "Rebel in the Rye," which follows the life of author J.D. Salinger and also stars Nicholas Hoult and Kevin Spacey.
Varian Medical Systems Inc. VAR recently introduced its new HyperArc High Definition Radiotherapy (HDRT) technology at the 2016 American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting. This technology will use non-coplanar treatment strategies in radiotherapy and radiosurgery for cancer patients. It is designed to automate and simplify sophisticated treatments such as Stereotactic Radiosurgery.



HyperArc is designed for Varian's TrueBeam and EDGE treatment platforms. The HyperArc treatment delivery technology is currently FDA 510(k) pending. Treatment planning supporting HyperArc is being developed to do virtual dry runs to evaluate treatment quality before the dose is delivered.



The company is aiming to make the HyperArc technology clinically available beginning in 2017. First generation HyperArc products will be designed for the radiosurgical treatment of brain metastases.



VARIAN MEDICAL Price

VARIAN MEDICAL Price | VARIAN MEDICAL Quote

Varians oncology business growth prospects are impressive. The company is addressing both the tier 1 and mid-tier markets through its Edge, Truebeam and VitalBeam products. Moreover, the company is winning contracts, not only in the Americas but also in international markets, which is a huge positive.



Strong fiscal third-quarter 2016 results validate the companys growth scenario. Adjusted earnings of $1.22 per share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a nickel and increased 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. The figure comfortably surpassed managements guided range of $1.16$1.20 per share.



Oncology System sales increased 8.3% from the year-ago quarter to $605.2 million, while gross orders increased 6.4% to $675.9 million in the fiscal third quarter. Moreover, Oncology gross margin improved more than 400 basis points to 46% driven by a favorable product mix (higher mix of TrueBeams and software) as well as productivity gains.



Following robust results, Varian raised its fiscal 2016 guidance. The company now expects adjusted earnings in the range of $4.62$4.66 per share, up from the previously guided $4.55$4.65. Revenues are still expected to increase 3% in fiscal 2016.



Other major players in the medical sector include CryoLife Inc. CRY, IDEXX Laboratories Inc. IDXX and Masimo Corporation MASI.



CryoLife posted a superb one-year return of 83.9%, much better than the S&Ps 13% over the same time frame. The company also posted positive earnings surprises in the last four quarters, the average being 502.50%.



IDEXX recorded a streak of positive earnings surprises over the last four quarters, at an average of 12.7%. Additionally the company has an impressive one-year return of 52.7%.



Headquartered in Irvine, California, Masimo also registered a promising one-year return of 55.1%.



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Anglo-French drama Versailles debuts Stateside on Ovation TV tomorrow night (October 1) at 10 PM with a two-hour opener. The English-language series from Canal+ Creation covers the first years in power of the young Louis XIV (Vikings George Blagden) and was a big ratings hit for Frances Canal Plus when it began airing in November 2015. In a rare move for a foreign TV production, cast and creators gathered at the French Embassy in Washington DC this week for a splashy U.S. premiere. Check out the U.S. trailer below.

Created by Simon Mirren (Criminal Minds, Without A Trace) and David Wolstencroft, (Spooks, The Escape Artist), Versailles was filmed on location at the real palace outside Paris. With a 30M euro budget, the epic 10-part series is the most expensive drama ever produced in France. Making it in English was a strategic move that opens it up to wider audiences.

The series took on cultural phenomenon status during its French run and, in a first, was renewed for a second season even before the initial season started. Zodiak Rights sold out worldwide including to BBC Two where a June 2016 bow drew 1.8M viewers.

Ovation has engaged in a big social media push and is promoting the series with vignettes about the backstory of the period. That includes experiential events in New York tied to costume design and how it relates to current fashion. The first two episodes were directed by Yves Saint Laurent helmer Jalil Lespert. A significant sponsor is Fiat with branded content and behind-the-scenes clips melding the show and car as a modern take on an icon.

Set against a backdrop of power, love, betrayal and war, Versailles examines a defining period of French history. The year is 1667 and King Louis XIV is a 28-year-old monarch on the cusp of greatness. A ruthless leader, he will stop at nothing to achieve his vision of creating the most beautiful palace in Europe and seizing absolute control of France and his enemies.

Story continues

A Canal+ Creation Originale, its co-produced by Zodiak Fiction, Capa Drama, and Incendo. Exec producers are Mirren, Wolstencroft, Claude Chelli (Braquo), and Anne Thomopoulos (Rome).

After Saturdays debut, Versailles continues in the 10 PM slot with a two-hour conclusion set for November 19.

Check out some video:

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Andre Rousselet Dies: Canal Plus Founder & Mitterand Cabinet Director Was 93

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SPRINGFIELD, VA / ACCESSWIRE / September 30, 2016 / Versar, Inc. (NYSE MKT: VSR) today announced its next steps towards addressing its long term liquidity needs, as described in the Company's May 26, 2016 and July 1, 2016 8-K filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

First, Versar announced another forbearance agreement with Bank of America through October 31, 2016. Versar has successfully operated within the obligations established by the prior forbearance agreements, including a requirement that Versar pursue alternative sources of funding for its ongoing business operations. The Company continues discussions with various lenders, including the one with which it signed an indicative agreement announced via press release on September 7, with the goal of entering into a replacement credit facility that provides adequate liquidity for the Company.

Second, because discussions with potential lenders are ongoing, the Company filed a Form 12b-25 yesterday after the market closed with the Securities and Exchange Commission delaying the filing of its Form 10-K.

Lastly, Versar announced the retention of H. Haywood Miller III of Berkeley Research Group to provide financial advice and process consultation. Mr. Miller reports to the Board of Directors.

"We are confident about the prospect of concluding this process in the near term," said Versar Chief Executive Officer, Tony Otten. "We fully expect the timely implementation of a new lending facility to enable Versar to embark on a renewed trajectory toward profitable growth in fiscal year 2017."

The Company intends to provide regular updates on its financial statement filings until they are filed.

VERSAR, INC., headquartered in Springfield, Virginia, is a publicly-traded global project management company providing sustainable value oriented solutions to government and commercial clients in the construction management, environmental services, and professional services market areas.

Story continues

VERSAR operates the following websites: www.versar.com and www.versarpps.com.

Find out more about VERSAR at

https://twitter.com/VersarInc

https://www.facebook.com/VersarInc

http://www.linkedin.com/company/38251

This news release contains forward-looking information. The forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be significantly impacted by certain risks and uncertainties described herein and in Versar's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the fiscal year ended June 26, 2015, as updated from time to time in the Company's periodic filings. The forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and Versar does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements.

Contact:

Karin Weber

M&A, Investor Relations Manager

Versar, Inc.

(301) 233-2382

kweber@versar.com

Robert Ferri

Robert Ferri Partners

(415) 575-1589

robert.ferri@robertferri.com

SOURCE: Versar, Inc.
(Morris Plains, N.J.)  The engineer at the controls of a speeding commuter train that crashed into a station on Thursday, killing one person, has been in the railroad business for nearly three decades, and neighbors said he loves the work and theyre heartbroken for him and his family.

Engineer Thomas Gallagher was cooperating after the rush hour crash at Hoboken Terminal, which killed a woman waiting on a platform and injured more than 100 other people, authorities said.

Gallagher, 48, was seen slumped over the controls after his train rammed through a barrier and came to a rest in the waiting area. He was hospitalized briefly. Hes expected to speak with federal investigators, the National Transportation Safety Board said.

Gallagher, a married father of teenage daughters, has worked for New Jersey Transit for 29 years, an agency spokeswoman said. A union roster shows he started as an engineer about 18 years ago.

A police car guarded Gallaghers home in Morris Plains on Thursday night. Hours earlier, police escorted a woman into the home so she could collect a few things.

Next door neighbor Penny Jones said she heard about the crash while out of the house and figured shed ask Gallagher about it when she got back. Reporters told her hed been involved.

It was very shocking, Jones said. Im just heartbroken for them, theyre just wonderful people.

Penny Jones husband, Tom Jones, went over to Gallaghers home, where he said the engineers daughters, mother and mother-in-law appeared upset and dumbfounded.

Gallagher attended Fairleigh Dickinson University from 1986 to 1990, according to his LinkedIn page. He listed his profession as loco engineer, using railroad shorthand for locomotive.

Tom Jones said: It was very evident that he loved his work  loves his work.
Viacom and CBS Corp. took the first step toward considering a recombination on Friday by forming special committees to evaluate the request made Thursday by their mutual parent company, Sumner Redstones National Amusements.

Viacom confirmed the composition of the committee in a release on Friday. CBS is understood to be in the process of setting the members of its panel.

National Amusements, which controls 80% of the voting shares in Viacom and CBS, sent a letter to the boards of both companies asking them to consider a merger.

Viacoms committee is composed of independent directors Thomas May, who is chair of the Viacom board, and Nicole Seligman. May and Seligman will co-chair the special committee. The other members are Kenneth Lerer, Judith McHale, Ronald Nelson and Charles Phillips.

Lerer, McHale and Nelson joined the Viacom board in August amid the corporate shakeup that saw chairman-CEO Philippe Dauman step down after a legal battle with National Amusements Sumner Redstone and Shari Redstone. Phillips has been on the Viacom board since 2004.

CBS and Viacom were brought together by Sumner Redstones acquisition of the Eye in 2000. But the companies were carved up as separate entities in 2006 out of concern that the larger entity was not valued appropriately by the market.

At the time, the expectation was that Viacoms cable assets would drive growth while CBS broadcast holdings would be a slow-growth stock. A decade later, CBS is a much healthier company with sizzle on Wall Street while Viacoms core assets have weakened, hence the push to reunite the companies.

Viacoms special committee has hired Debevoise & Plimpton as its independent legal advisor. Its expected to also retain an independent financial advisor.

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Stephen Colbert's 'Late Show' Develops a Taste for Bud Light

CBS, Viacom Shares Climb on Merger Proposal
The deceased victim of the New Jersey Transit train crash at a Hoboken terminal Thursday morning had just dropped her daughter off at day care before tragedy struck.

Read: At Least 1 Dead, Dozens Injured After Commuter Train Slams Into New Jersey Station: 'It Just Didn't Stop'

Attorney Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, was on her way to work Thursday morning when the train crashed at 8:45 a.m.

Day care director Carlos Magner told NBC News: She was dropping off the daughter. I was closing up the stroller. We had a good talk for like a minute. And she said she was in a rush."

She is survived by her husband Daan, who was away on a business trip at the time of the crash, and a daughter. The family lives in Hoboken.

De Kroon was identified by the state medical examiners office. The mother was originally from Santos, Brazil, and once worked for the software company, SAP, in her native country before moving to America with her family earlier this year.

SAP said in a statement: SAP is profoundly saddened and shaken by the news of today's train crash in New Jersey. We can confirm Fabiola Bitter De Kroon was an SAP employee with our legal department in Brazil but left our company earlier this year. We express our deepest condolences to her family, friends, and all those impacted by todays tragic event."

Read: After Hoboken Crash, How You Can Escape a Train Collision Alive

Investigators have recovered the black box that will tell them the train's speed at the moment of impact. At least 100 injuries were reported.

De Kroon, who was not on the train when it crashed, died after she was struck by debris.

The train's engineer has been identified as 48-year-old Thomas Gallagher, who was a 29-year veteran at New Jersey Transit. He has been released from the hospital and is reportedly cooperating with investigators.

Gallagher has tested negative for drugs and alcohol. Investigators will be checking his phone records to see if he was distracted at the time of the crash.

Story continues

Watch: Hero Police Officer Pulls Man From Tracks Seconds Before Train Comes

Related Articles:
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) confirmed late Friday it will make $1.21 billion in payments to 652 U.S. brand dealers as part of its $16.5 billion diesel emissions settlement to date.

VW's dealers will receive an average of $1.85 million each on average over 18 months under the settlement that was first announced in principle in August.

Separately, the U.S. Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission and lawyers for owners of 475,000 polluting diesel cars were filing legal papers late Friday asking a federal judge to grant final approval to buy-back offers and diesel remediation efforts at an Oct. 18 court hearing.

The court documents say Volkswagen won't sell any U.S. diesel vehicles for the 2016 and 2017 model years. The company, which has been barred from selling all diesel vehicles in the United States since late 2015, said earlier this month it is uncertain whether it will ever sell diesel vehicles in the United States again.

As part of the settlement with VW brand dealers, the company will continue making some incentive payments to dealers, buy back diesel vehicles that dealers can't sell and suspend capital improvements for two years that it wanted dealers to make.

Volkswagen still faces billions of dollars in potential civil and potential criminal U.S. fines for violating emissions laws, as well as a potential costly buy-back of 85,000 vehicles equipped with 3.0 liter diesel engines if it can't convince regulators that they can be fixed.

VW has admitted it installed improper software that deactivated pollution controls on more than 11 million diesel vehicles sold worldwide.

In June, VW agreed buy back 475,0000 U.S. vehicles equipped with 2.0 liter engines at a cost of up to $10.03 billion. It also agreed to spend up to $5.3 billion to address claims by federal regulators and 44 U.S. states.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Diane Craft and Mary Milliken)
(Adds details of agreements, VW won't sell 2016, 2017 model U.S. diesels)

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Volkswagen AG confirmed late Friday it will make $1.21 billion in payments to 652 U.S. brand dealers as part of its $16.5 billion diesel emissions settlement to date.

VW's dealers will receive an average of $1.85 million each on average over 18 months under the settlement that was first announced in principle in August.

Separately, the U.S. Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission and lawyers for owners of 475,000 polluting diesel cars were filing legal papers late Friday asking a federal judge to grant final approval to buy-back offers and diesel remediation efforts at an Oct. 18 court hearing.

The court documents say Volkswagen won't sell any U.S. diesel vehicles for the 2016 and 2017 model years. The company, which has been barred from selling all diesel vehicles in the United States since late 2015, said earlier this month it is uncertain whether it will ever sell diesel vehicles in the United States again.

As part of the settlement with VW brand dealers, the company will continue making some incentive payments to dealers, buy back diesel vehicles that dealers can't sell and suspend capital improvements for two years that it wanted dealers to make.

Volkswagen still faces billions of dollars in potential civil and potential criminal U.S. fines for violating emissions laws, as well as a potential costly buy-back of 85,000 vehicles equipped with 3.0 liter diesel engines if it can't convince regulators that they can be fixed.

VW has admitted it installed improper software that deactivated pollution controls on more than 11 million diesel vehicles sold worldwide.

In June, VW agreed buy back 475,0000 U.S. vehicles equipped with 2.0 liter engines at a cost of up to $10.03 billion. It also agreed to spend up to $5.3 billion to address claims by federal regulators and 44 U.S. states.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Diane Craft and Mary Milliken)
Wed all rather be somewhere else sometimes  but those desires are usually better kept to yourself.

Walmarts website features a slew of questionable t-shirts made by Hollywood Thread. One particularly offensive garment (which lists activities that could get you arrested on two counts) reads, Id Rather Be Snorting Cocaine Off Of A Hookers Ass.

SEE ALSO: Banned 90s Walmart shirt is relevant again thanks to Hillary Clinton

For just $19.95 plus shipping, this shirt could be yours:

Image: walmart

Mashable reached out to Walmart and heard back from Bao Nguyen, who works in media relations for Walmart Global eCommerce and Technology. Nguyen said that Walmart plans to take the shirt down.

Wow. This obviously has no business being on our site, said Nguyen. Were removing it ASAP. Thanks for calling it out.

Image: walmart

When talking with Nguyen on the phone, he explained how Walmarts partnerships with third-party retailers like Hollywood Thread work.

After a seller is approved, Walmart outlines to them its detailed policies of what is and is not allowed to be sold on Walmarts site. Whenever an approved seller uploads an item, it goes through a filter to make sure no trigger words get flagged.

Nguyen mentioned that Walmart also has a trust and compliance team who look at the site every day for anything that may have snuck past the filter.

He agrees that the shirt in question is in violation of Walmarts policies.

We apologize to anyone who was offended, Nguyen said.

The shirt is also being sold on Amazon. Mashable reached out to Amazon for comment, but the company did not immediately reply.

Image: amazon

Several other Hollywood Thread shirts sold on Walmarts website also err on the side of offensive and misogynistic:

Image: walmart

Image: walmart

Image: walmart

Image: walmart

Image: walmart

And some are just a little bit weird:

Image: walmart

Image: walmart

Image: walmart

Image: walmart

Image: walmart

Mashable reached out to Nguyen for comment on the other shirts that could be found offensive, and we will update this story if he responds.
Stockholm (AFP) - Unusually warm weather in Europe's autumn has eroded profits at Hennes et Mauritz (H&M), the Swedish clothing giant said Friday as it released third quarter results.

Net profits for the three months from June came in at 4.8 billion Swedish kronor (500 million euros), down nine percent on the same period last year.

"Sales were good in most of the markets up until mid-August," said Chief Executive Karl-Johan Persson.

"Thereafter sales were negatively affected by unseasonably hot weather which continued into September, resulting in a challenging start to the autumn season."

Persson also blamed a strong dollar -- and resulting impact on purchasing costs -- for the slowdown in profits.

Overall turnover rose by six percent to 56.8 billion kronor.

In June, H&M had blamed an unusually cool European spring for poor sales figures.

Nevertheless, the firm said it had a "positive view of our opportunities for 2017 and going forward, both in terms of sales and profitability."

Over the whole of 2016, the firm expects to develop its presence in the United States and China, opening 30 and 47 new stores respectively.
Warren Beatty has a lot of credits (acting or otherwise) to his name - Oscar winner, political activist, Carly Simon muse - but the title he seems to like best is husband.

While promoting his new movie Rules Don't Apply, the actor took part in a Reddit Ask Me Anything, where he told one user, "The best thing that ever happened to me is Annette Bening."

Bening stars with Beatty in Rules Don't Apply, which sees the Bonnie and Clyde actor taking on the role of Howard Hughes as he subjects his employees - a young actress (Lily Collins) and her driver (Alden Ehrenreich) - to his outlandish behavior.

Matthew Broderick, Oliver Platt, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen and Ed Harris also star in the Old Hollywood tale, which will be opening this year's AFI Fest.

From autobiographies to Donald Trump, here are a few more things the actor addressed during his AMA.

If a movie were made about Warren Beatty, he would want to be played by Ronald Reagan.

When asked who should play him in a biopic about his own life, Beatty responded: "Ronald Reagan. Or maybe Barack Obama. I might add that Ronald Reagan, who was a friend of mine, once said to me (not joking) that he did not know how anyone could be president now without being an actor."

He doesn't promote comparisons with Donald Trump and his one-time character Senator Bulworth.

In the political comedy Bulworth, Beatty plays a politician who perennially puts his foot in his mouth. But when asked if he sees any resemblance between the GOP presidential nominee and the fictional senator, he offered: "What Jay Bulworth is saying is very, very different from that which Mr. Trump is saying."

Beatty, a longtime Democrat, worries that this election cycle is obliterating "voices of wisdom."

"I've spent a lot of my life in political activism. I campaigned for Jack Kennedy, I campaigned with Bobby Kennedy and quit movies for a while to work with George McGovern and help him try to get us out of Vietnam," Beatty said when asked about what he thinks of the current election. "What concerns me most at the moment is that the commercialization of the use of technology may be creating a cacophony of opinions that obliterates voices of wisdom."

Story continues

His favorite memory of filming Ishtar involves camels.

"Standing holding two camels on a street in Marrakesh with Dustin Hoffman staring at one another," Beatty said when a user asked him his favorite moment from filming the comedy.

Is there an autobiography or a Dick Tracy reboot in his future?

Beatty said "yes" to both.

Read more: Why Warren Beatty's 'Dick Tracy' Deserves More Than a Half-Forgotten Fate
According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Weatherford International Ltd. WFT has agreed to pay $140 million to settle charges brought against it for overstating earnings by over $900 million. The company had also used misleading income tax accounting practices to justify the incorrect earnings figures.



The SEC also mentioned that two former Weatherford senior accounting executives  James Hudgins and Darryl Kitay  agreed to settle charges that they were the masterminds behind the scheme. Hudgins, who was the vice president of tax, is liable to pay a fine of $334,067 on grounds of disgorgement, interest and penalty. Kitay, who was a tax manager, has been charged a penalty of $30,000.



Weatherfords CEO, Bernard Duroc-Danner, has also agreed to pay $140 million to settle charges brought against the company.



Per the SEC release, Weatherford, Hudgins and Kitay neither confessed nor contradicted the verdicts. Investigation by SEC is expected to continue.



Hudgins has also been prohibited from serving as an officer or director of a public company for five years. Both Hudgins and Kitay have been debarred from appearing and practicing before the SEC as accountants. Nonetheless, these Weatherford executives can apply for reinstatement after five years.



WEATHERFORD INT Price

WEATHERFORD INT Price | WEATHERFORD INT Quote

Per a company filing, Weatherford has also agreed to prepare and provide certain reports to the SEC over the next two years.



The SEC asserts that between 2007 and 2012, Weatherford deceitfully lowered its year-end provision for income taxes. This was done to better align the companys earnings results with its previously-announced projections and analysts' expectations. Apparently, Hudgins and Kitay made numerous post-closing adjustments to fill gaps and meet the company's earlier released effective tax rate.



In fact, Weatherford later had to restate its financial statements thrice in 2011 and 2012.



In Nov 2013, Weatherford had finalized a settlement of about $253 million with the U.S. government. The Department of Justice (DOJ) said that Weatherford subsidiaries agreed to plead guilty to anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and export controls violations under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading With the Enemy Act.



Per the Houston Business Journal research, Weatherford is the 18th largest energy employer in Bayou City. In 2015, it reported revenues of $9.43 and had a workforce of 2,209 employees.



Some better-ranked players from the energy sector include Enbridge Inc. ENB, NGL Energy Partners LP NGL and Evolution Petroleum Corp. EPM.



Enbridge posted a positive earnings surprise of 19.57% in the preceding quarter.



NGL Energy Partners has a mixed earnings surprise history. The partnership posted positive earnings surprise in two of the last four quarters. It reported a positive earnings surprise of 1480.0% in the preceding quarter.



In the last reported quarter, Evolution Petroleum Corp. delivered a positive earnings surprise of 350.00%. Coming to the earnings surprise history, the company beat estimates in two of the last four quarters.



Confidential from Zacks



Beyond this Analyst Blog, would you like to see Zacks' best recommendations that are not available to the public? Our Executive VP, Steve Reitmeister, knows when key trades are about to be triggered and which of our experts has the hottest hand. Click to see them now>>



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The Weeknd dropped a new single, and you must drop everything and listen

The Weeknd dropped a new single, and you must drop everything and listen

Okay guys, its official: Today is the day for slam dunk new music! Solange dropped her new album, and Vulture just informed us that our favorite Ethiopian crooner The Weeknd (aka Abel Tesfaye) released a new single called False Alarm, from his upcoming album Starboy. Yesterday we enjoyed his dark music video for Starboy, so were super excited for this new single.

false alarm tomorrow A photo posted by The Weeknd (@theweeknd) on Sep 28, 2016 at 9:08pm PDT

You can listen here.

Along with a constant beat that gives the song energy, the lyrics suggest that its about a woman whos obsessed with the material things in life. Bathroom stalls for the powder nose / High heel shoes with the open toes / shes got a good time wrapped in gold.

As always, The Weeknd has done a good job of painting a very specific character into his music. And whether or not shes a false alarm, the track itself begs for multiple listens.

A photo posted by The Weeknd (@theweeknd) on Sep 30, 2016 at 8:48am PDT

If youre a fan, remember that The Weeknd will be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live (kicking off its 42nd season with host Margot Robbie!) on October 1st. Were excited to see his rockin performance, as well as his brand spankin new hair.

Now, back to listening to False Alarm on repeat. Bring on the weekend (sorry couldnt resist)!

The post The Weeknd dropped a new single, and you must drop everything and listen appeared first on HelloGiggles.
Donald Trump is re-igniting a national conversation about fat shaming after his recent comments about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado and former TV personality Rosie ODonnell.

Read: Man of a Certain Rage: Trump Rips 'Dishonest Media,' Alicia Machado and 'Crooked Hillary'

Johanna Kendel, founder and CEO of the Alliance of Eating Disorder Awareness told Inside Edition his comments are offensive on so many levels.

"His comment made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up. As someone who struggled for more than 10 years with various eating disorders, it brought back up this idea that we all have to look a certain way," she said.

Earlier in the week, Trump told Fox News that Machado had "gained a massive amount of weight and it was a real problem during her reign as Miss Universe after she won in 1996.

Nearly 2/3 of Americans are struggling with weight and experts say fat shaming is the last bastion of acceptable discrimination.

Dr. Adrienne Youdim told Inside Edition: "Somehow as a society we allowed ourselves to shame an obese individual for being obese. It goes without saying it is completely unacceptable."

Fox News' Megyn Kelly has said he is alienating voters by picking on overweight Americans and women.

During the debate, Trump also wouldn't back down on his feud with Rosie ODonnell, and in the past has mocked her over her size.

There was a moment during the debate when he described what a computer hacker might look like.

"They could be someone who is sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds," he said.

No one appears safe from Trump cracks, including Kim Kardashian.

In 2013, he discussed her pregnancy on Showbiz Tonight: I have noticed she is a little bit large. I will say this, I dont think you should dress like you are 120 pounds.

He's even taken at jab at his ally New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

Story continues

Read: Trump Says He 'Saved' Job of Ex-Miss Universe Alicia Machado, Whom He Once Called 'Miss Piggy'

Youre not eating Oreos anymore. No more Oreos, he said at an event earlier in the year where he denounced the cookie and Christies enjoyment of the snack.

Watch: Who Is Alicia Machado? Miss Universe Who Trump Called 'Miss Piggy' Says She'll Vote Hillary

Related Articles:
Deutsche Bank Shares Plunge to New Lows

-Questions about the financial health of the German bank caused investors to panic again after a report that 10 major hedge funds are reducing their positions. Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) sent out a statement to assure investors that its financial position is stable.

With Deutsche Bank on shaky ground, is there a looming crisis in the European banking system? Varney & Co. will address these concerns at 9 a.m. ET.

The Last Trading Day of the Month

-The Deutsche Bank news is putting pressure on global stocks today, the last trading day of the month and the quarter. What is in store as we begin the next quarter?

Today at 12 p.m. ET on Cavuto: Coast to Coast, former Federal Reserve Bank of Philly president Charles Plosser weighs in on U.S. economic worries.

And dont miss Wall Street Week tonight at 8 p.m. ET as a group of experts wrap the action this quarter in the stock market.

Who Really Won the Debate?

-How did the first presidential debate impact voters? We find out tonight at 6 p.m. ET when the post-debate Fox polls are released!

Tune in to Making Money with Charles Payne at 6 p.m. ET for live analysis of the polls as soon as they break!

The U.S. to Relinquish Control of the Internet

-As of October 1st, the U.S. Government will let a contract expire that has given it control over the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) also known as the internets address system. This is significant because whoever controls ICANN can censor the internet. Moving forward, the organization will become autonomous and accountable to the international community.

Also on Varney, the Texas Attorney General who is suing the Obama administration to prevent it from giving up control of ICANN! Dont miss what he has to say.

Latest on the NJ Transit Crash

-Officials have not yet determined what caused the major accident at Hoboken station yesterday morning. The crash killed one and injured more than 100 people, and severely damaged the infrastructure at the station.

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From Esquire

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin' gets done, and where you can take what you have gathered from coincidence.

Where better to begin this week than in New Jersey, where Chris Christie is being hung out to dry in court by his former henchpeople and underlings. This must be terribly distracting for Big Chicken as he works his new gig cleaning the pools at Mar-A-Lago. The New York Times is on the scene, picking through the rubble of a very overrated political career.

The closings of the access lanes in September 2013 continued for two more days, creating a catastrophic traffic jam that created gridlock for emergency vehicles, school buses and commuters in Fort Lee, N.J. But Mr. Christie made no effort to reopen the lanes and end the gridlock. Instead, his former ally said, the governor was clearly delighted and seemed to savor the scheme. And after learning that the Fort Lee mayor's persistent and urgent calls for help were being ignored, Mr. Christie said in a sarcastic tone, "I imagine he wouldn't get his calls returned."

Your Honor, the People would like to amend the indictment to include a charge of Aggravated Dickitude.

The former ally, David Wildstein, who has pleaded guilty to being the culprit behind the lane closings, testified as prosecutors showed a series of photographs of him, Mr. Christie and Bill Baroni, then the governor's top staff appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the bridge, at a service in Lower Manhattan on the 12th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The photos showed the three men in a loose huddle outside the governor's official vehicle on a dirt roadway between the Sept. 11 memorial and the World Trade Center construction site. Mr. Christie, who has previously said he did not recall the conversation, appears engaged and animated, looking directly into Mr. Baroni's eyes, raising his eyebrows and laughing in some of the frames and reaching out to touch the other men's arms. "We were all very relaxed," Mr. Wildstein testified. "Were you and Mr. Baroni bragging?" asked Lee Cortes, an assistant United States attorney. "Very much so," Mr. Wildstein said. "This was our one constituent. I was pleasing my one constituent. I was rather happy that he was happy."

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The Governor is sad. Quick, somebody find an elderly math teacher he can yell at on camera. This trial is all kinds of fabulous.

Speaking of teachers, we are still keeping an eye on the referendum here in the Commonwealth (God save it!) that would lift the cap on the number of charter schools, which, of course, is nothing short of the greatest civil rights question of our time.

(In an earlier post on this topic, I made a mistake in narrowly focusing on the referendum and on charter schools, which enabled liberalism's various hall monitors to enjoy a little cock-a-doodle-doo by telling me that Massachusetts forbids for-profit charters. As the movement gains momentum, we'll see how long that lasts, but no matter. I should have made the obvious point that charters are merely the camel's nose under the tent, or into the public trough, as it were, for the whole education "reform" movement, which is certainly no kind of non-profit. I was wrong in that detail, and unclear in my overall argument. My apologies to the assembled.)

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In any case, the money is still rolling in behind the effort to lift the cap from the various social justice warriors and civil rights icons in the hedge fund industry. However, the people fighting the referendum got a big boost this week when, as The Boston Globe explains, Senator Professor Warren publicly lined up against it.

"Many charters schools are producing extraordinary results for our students and we should celebrate the hard work of those teachers and spread what's working to other schools,'' she said. But, after hearing from both sides, "I am very concerned about what this specific proposal means for hundreds of thousands of children across our Commonwealth, especially those living in districts with tight budgets where every dime matters. Education is about creating opportunity for all our children, not about leaving many behind."

It will be an interesting test of power between SPW and Republican Governor Charlie Baker, who's staked a lot of his prestige on the passage of this amendment. Bear in mind: Nobody is arguing to do away with charter schools. If the referendum fails, there still will be charter schools and the issue likely will go back to the state legislature to be debated again. But there is ample precedent, especially from California and Ohio, to maintain the status quo in the regulatory structure.

Let's skip on west along the northern latitudes until we get to Montana, where a college professor named Kristen Juras is running for judge. (Ed. Note: The Second Worst Idea In American Politics Strikes again.) In the past, Ms. Juras has had issues with a column on The Montana Kaimin blog that dispensed sexytime advice. Now that she's a candidate, Ms. Juras has decided there's votes in them thar feuds. As the Kaimin reports:

Juras posted a brief statement on "Kristen Juras for Montana Supreme Court Justice" attacking the political blog Montana Cowgirl for claiming that Juras "thinks birth control is a major problem in society." (Juras does believe in the right of Catholic pharmacists to refuse to sell birth control, which is maybe the most specific issue a candidate for public office has ever rallied in support of.) The blog also made reference to the Kaimin incident, using it as an illustration of her backward attitudes regarding sex. Juras' somewhat frantically-worded post is accompanied by a video of her performing a parody of the Dr. Hook song "Cover of the Rolling Stone," in which she details her "version of what went down." The song details what happens when someone is "politically incorrect" on the UM campus, signifying that Juras' grasp on the meaning of that phrase is just as tenuous as her understanding of melody.

Dr. Hook? A "version of what went down"? Somebody got their Mod Squad boxed set from Amazon this week, I think.

Singing aside, there are several key problems with Juras' post. First, she claims,"the column was discontinued after the United States launched a comprehensive review of the University's handling of sexual assault and harassment complaints." Even if we ignore the fact that this entire incident occurred three years before that investigation was even considered, this is still flagrantly false. The column was discontinued simply because Bess graduated. She also claims that "all of the major newspapers refused to publish" Davis' columns, and that this is the reason they're unavailable to read online. This, again, is false, as the Kaimin never sought syndication of "Bess Sex." It was written for this newspaper, like all other Kaimin content. The fact that they aren't online is merely a testament to our poor archival management.

My wise old Irish gran' used to tell me, boyo, if you run for judge, don't make up stupid stuff that's so obvious that you can get busted by college students who are doing journalism in their spare time. She was very wise.

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Skink Trainer Friedman of the Plains brings us the sad tale of how the civil liberties of the state's livestock are being brutally abridged from above. Tulsa Public Radio, with the 411:

The Director of the Oklahoma ACLU, Ryan Kiesel, told lawmakers they must be careful. He says there is a huge concern over privacy rights. He told a senate interim committee the government cannot be allowed to use drones to spy on people. Kiesel compared drones more to wire-taps than aircraft. Kiesel told the committee he has no problem with drones being used to check on livestock or crops, but does not want them used for government snooping.

Seems reasonable, at least until cows start showing up at Gary Johnson rallies.

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.

Click here to respond to this post on the official Esquire Politics Facebook page.

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The White House on Friday corrected a press release on President Barack Obama's remarks at late Israeli President Shimon Peres' funeral to clarify their location. The original version of the remarks identified the location as Jerusalem, Israel.

The service was held at Mount Herzl, Israel's national cemetery that's located on the west side of Jerusalem. Despite the site being the national cemetery of Israel, the US does not recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

US policy on Jerusalem is controversial. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump recently promised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that if he's elected, the US will recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Here's the corrected release:

Screen Shot 2016 09 30 at 4.54.08 PM

Peres died earlier this week at age 93.

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This was an important week in the history of peace. On Monday, in the charming colonial city of Cartagena, the Colombian government signed a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), one of the most vicious and indomitable guerrilla movements in the Americas. By signing the agreement, the FARC essentially agreed to cease to exist, at least as an armed group, and transform itself into a civilian political force.

That the Colombian government, after four years of negotiations, finally managed to get the FARC to lay down its weapons did not come as a complete surprise to observers. The military momentum in the conflict has long been on the side of the government. The process also benefited from a gradual shift in regional politics that deprived the guerrillas of support: Cuba and Venezuela, the FARCs most important allies, stopped supporting some of the FARCs most insane demands, and this paved the way for a deal.

The more surprising  and controversial  aspect of the agreement involves the concessions the government saw fit to grant the rebels in return for laying down their weapons. This has troubled some Colombians, to an extent that will become fully clear only on October 2, when the country will hold a national plebiscite on the deal.

It is understandable that some would view the governments move with suspicion. After all, this 52-year war generated immense suffering, entailing more than 267,000 deaths, 46,000 disappearances, 29,000 kidnappings, and an unknown number of sexual crimes, incidents of torture, and other horrors. For many Colombians, an outright victory on the battlefield would have been far more gratifying than one marked by compromise.

In reality, however, there are understandable reasons for the governments decision, and other peacemakers can learn a great deal from this case.

The most controversial concession is the lack of specificity about punishment. Although a mechanism for illuminating past crimes will be established, with the hope that the worst atrocities will be publicly acknowledged and even tried, the 297-page peace agreement offers very little clarity about the consequences of guilt. Some undefined lesser crimes, which may include killings, would be eligible for amnesty, and so would some drug crimes if they were conducted to finance the war rather than for personal gain. Thus, the agreement comes with some loopholes that could weaken the otherwise strong system of reparations it provides for.

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Another controversial concession is that the FARC will be granted five seats in each chamber of Congress for two electoral cycles. Existing laws ban individuals with criminal backgrounds from holding office, so allowing sanctioned FARC members to run for Congress, or even the presidency, violates the law, to say the least.

For the FARC, these concessions are a sweet deal. Prior to the signing ceremony in Cartagena, at their last meeting, the rebels voted unanimously to sign the agreement. But in a country where as many as 60 percent of citizens report having been victims or having a close relative victimized by the war, the compromises have disappointed. Former president Alvaro Uribe, who is leading the opposition to the accords, describes the peace agreement as an amnesty in disguise.

Uribes words are no doubt an exaggeration. This is not a blanket amnesty. The agreement stipulates penalties for those who confess (though they will involve community work rather than jail time), and even harsher punishments for those who do not confess and are found guilty of crimes. A lot will depend on judicial discretion, meaning that outcomes will depend on the judges selected. But it is clear that many Colombians would have preferred stronger penalties. More fundamentally, these Colombians are posing a deeper question: Why didnt the government, which was winning the war militarily, didnt just finish the job and annihilate the FARC entirely?

This question, in my opinion, can be answered. A combination of military realities, economic incentives, and international pressures precluded the government from winning a complete victory.

On the military side, the chances of fully annihilating the FARC were slim. There is no question that the Colombian state was winning the war. Consider the changes in the military balance between the opposing sides. Since the 1990s FARC forces were reduced by half (from approximately 18,000 to 8,000 by 2015), whereas Colombias military forces increased by more than 250 percent (from 210,000 to 480,000).

The problem was that the government couldnt win much more than that. With 8,000 guerrillas active, the FARC still had enough power to continue to inflict losses. And as President Juan Manuel Santos himself recognized, geography matters: With large parts of Colombia consisting of sparsely populated rainforest, the FARC still had a enough territory on which to hide. Continuing the war, and especially going deeper into the jungle to flush out the last of the rebels, would have been unrealistic.

Continuing the war also has important economic costs. True, the Colombian economy has been improving in recent years, which surely benefitted the war effort. On the other hand, the drug trade has not abated  and this benefited the FARC. Each point deserves some discussion.

There has always been a remarkable paradox in Colombias economic development. Even during the worst times of the conflict, the countrys economy continued to grow. This presents a striking challenge to the assumption that war normally ruins economies. Colombias economic growth has never been spectacular relative to the Chinas of the world, but it has been less volatile compared to its Latin neighbors. Starting in the 2000s, this growth started to yield serious reductions in poverty: The percentage of the population living below the poverty line dropped from 49.7 to 27.8 between 2002 and 2015, according to the World Bank.

Decades of favorable economic conditions explain a dramatic decline in support for left-wing radicalism across the electorate. This has worked in the governments favor. By 2015, according to most polls, the FARC was the most repudiated political force in Colombia. Its bad reputation is due in part to the atrocities the group committed, but also to the fact that the Colombian state delivered economic growth. This allowed the government to contain the FARC, not just militarily, but also politically.

But the FARC had their own economic asset: the drug trade. In Washington and Bogota, the FARC are routinely referred to as narco-terrorists because they extract resources from the drug trade to finance their violence. Essentially, drugs provide the FARCs most important resource. At some point, the Colombian state must have come to the realization that, because the drug trade was limitless, offering no concessions to the FARC would have meant perpetual war. The Colombian state made peace because, unlike the United States, it tacitly recognized that the drug economy is undefeatable.

There is more to the connection between economics and peace in Colombia. Growth, I mentioned, changed Colombian society by making it more middle-income, less poor, and less sympathetic to radicalism. But it also changed the states calculations. With higher standards of living, the Colombian state realized that the country was now eligible to apply for OECD membership. The OECD, an association of the worlds most prosperous democracies, is one of the most prestigious international clubs. It is primarily devoted to improving the quality of governance among its members. Only two other Latin American countries, Chile and Mexico, have joined so far.

Once the government realized it was eligible for OECD membership, the opportunity costs of waging continued war increased enormously. More war meant less time and fewer resources to address the OECDs long list of application requirements (including infrastructure development, environmental protections, investment facilities, and bribery controls). So the government decided to make a deal.

Colombians will face a complicated moral dilemma when they take to the polls on October 2 to have their say on the agreement. Do they want a harsh justice predicated on punishment and revenge, or do they want a system focused on incentivizing the belligerents to make peace? Those who want the former will probably vote no, while those who prefer the latter will vote yes.

But Colombians who are considering rejecting the agreement should bear in mind that an absolute victory over the FARC was never possible, that in the end the government obtained most of its demands, and that even the most perfect forms of justice come with a price. The price of peace has been concessions. The price of revenge would have been more war.

In the photo, some of the witnesses to signing of the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC wait for the start of the ceremony in Cartagena, Colombia, on September 26.

Photo credit: LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images
What do Congress and the media have in common? They salivate over red meat like a pack of wild animals. And when the victim is the CEO of a big bank, now thats a rare treat they cant help but pounce on.

It wasnt enough for Elizabeth Warren and the Senate Banking Committee to beat Wells Fargo chief executive John Stumpf to a pulp last week. Yesterday it was a House panels turn to pummel the executive. And the media just ate it all up.

Headlines ran the gamut of violent metaphors, from Wells Fargo CEO roasted on Capitol Hill and A parade of lawmakers rip into CEO John Stumpf to US House panel lambasts Wells Fargo boss over phantom accounts and Lawmakers take more swings at Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf.

One story I read said, For many of the angered lawmakers, the scandal is personal. They hold accounts with Wells Fargo or have taken out mortgages. During the hearing, Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas said he had a mortgage with the bank and wished he didnt, adding If I could, Id pay it back.

Empathizing with constituents and feeling consumers pain is one thing  thats part of a congressmans job  but that does not explain much of the over-the-top rancor and irresponsible claims levied against the CEO and his company on capitol hill.

Massachusetts Rep. Michael Capuano said Stumpf reminded him of the guys who ran Enron and Arthur Anderson, adding, You and your entire leadership team are clearly and unequivocally guilty of at least conspiracy to commit fraud.

Who needs the criminal justice system when we have grandstanding politicians like Capuano to act as judge and jury. Who needs an indictment, a trial, a conviction and a sentence; just lock up the whole management team and throw away the key.

Let me remind everyone: The Wells Fargo fraud consisted of 2 million accounts being opened or credit cards issued, the vast majority of which were free. A grand total of $2.6 million in fees were collected, all of which have been refunded. Thats more or less the extent of the damage.

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Enrons massive accounting scandal, on the other hand, resulted in the bankruptcy of a $60 billion energy giant with 20,000 employees. Comparing that or the sub-prime mortgage crisis to what happened at Wells Fargo, as some lawmakers did, is like comparing the Grand Canyon to a crack in the sidewalk. Its ludicrous on its face.

Meanwhile, Rep. Carolyn Maloney accused Stumpf of dumping $13 million worth of Wells Fargo stock after learning about the fraud and called the bank a school for scoundrels. Rep. Gregory Meets said the CEO of the nations largest bank was running a criminal enterprise, and joined a chorus of senators and representatives who called for the 34-year bank veteran to be fired.

Let me explain where all this is coming from. This is an election year. A very special election year with two unpopular candidates running for president and hundreds of lawmakers scared for their precious jobs. Im sure some of these politicians speak with conviction, but make no mistake, the grandstanding is selfish and self-serving.

I guarantee that the taxpayer dollars spent digging up dirt, writing stirring speeches and coming up with sensational sound-bites, not to mention the investigations and indictments that will surely follow, will end up costing you and me far more than the so-called massive fraud that cost affected customers all of $1.30 per account, on average.

And whatever happened to journalists reporting the facts? On a business news program just ahead of yesterdays hearing, a reporter  not a commentator, mind you, but a reporter  said, and Im paraphrasing from memory here, lets all hope the Department of Justice would do its job and indict Stumpf. The on-air anchor seemed as shocked as I was.

And everyone wonders why were living in a shoot first, ask questions later world. When our political leaders and the media couldnt care less about the facts, is it any wonder we end up with citizens who, like Capuano, consider a little thing like the presumption of innocence to be superfluous.

Is it any wonder we see and hear people rush to judgement all day long, like this one:

And this one:

Look, dont get me wrong. Im no apologist for the bank or its CEO. When Stumpf said, We should have done more sooner during his prepared statement, that was quite an understatement. Its hard to believe that nobody thought to implement tighter controls and dial back their insanely aggressive Eight is Great cross-selling goal years ago.

In my view, some of the banks execs are probably guilty of negligent oversight, overzealous growth metrics, and stupidity. Stumpfs performances before Congress have been weak, at best. When it comes to accountability, he says the words but doesnt come across that way. And recent clawbacks were not proactive, as they should have been.

But aside from the 5,300 branch employees and managers the bank fired over five years, we dont know squat about the culpability of high-level executives like Stumpf and former retail head Carrie Tolstedt. And hours of grilling and grandstanding by both Senate and House banking panels didnt tell us anything we didnt know two weeks ago.

So, what was the point of all this? Votes for the politicians and ratings for the media.

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Early on the morning of Sept. 29, according to Indias Defense Ministry and military, Indian forces staged a surgical strike in Pakistan-administered Kashmir that targeted seven terrorist camps and killed multiple militants. Pakistan angrily denied that the daring raid took place, though it did state that two of its soldiers were killed in clashes with Indian troops along their disputed border. New Delhis announcement of its strike plunged already tense India-Pakistan relations into deep crisis. It came 11 days after militants identified by India as members of the Pakistani terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed killed 18 soldiers on a military base in the town of Uri, in India-administered Kashmir.

Amid all the shrill rhetoric and saber rattling emanating from India and Pakistan in recent days  including Indias home minister branding Pakistan a terrorist state and Pakistans defense minister threatening to wage nuclear war on India  one subtle threat issued by India may have sounded relatively innocuous to the casual listener.

In reality, it likely filled Pakistan with fear.

On Sept. 22, Indias Foreign Ministry spokesman suggested, cryptically, that New Delhi could revoke the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT). For any such treaty to work, warned Vikas Swarup, when asked if India would cancel the agreement, it is important for mutual trust and cooperation. It cannot be a one-sided affair.

The IWT is a 56-year-old accord that governs how India and Pakistan manage the vast Indus River Basins rivers and tributaries. After David Lilienthal, a former chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority, visited the region in 1951, he was prompted to write an article in Colliers magazine, in which he argued that a transboundary water accord between India and Pakistan would help ease some of the hostility from the partition  particularly because the rivers of the Indus Basin flow through Kashmir. His idea gained traction and also the support of the World Bank. The bank mediated several years of difficult bilateral negotiations before the parties concluded a deal in 1960. U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower described it as a bright spot in a very depressing world picture. The IWT has survived, with few challenges, to the present day.

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And yet, it has now come under severe strain.

On Sept. 26, Indias government met to review the treaty but reportedly decided that it would not revoke the agreement  for now. New Delhi left open the possibility of revisiting the issue at a later date. Ominously, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told top officials present at the treaty review meeting that blood and water cannot flow together. Additionally, the government suspended, with immediate effect, meetings between the Indus commissioners of both countries  high-level sessions that ordinarily take place twice a year to manage the IWT and to address any disagreements that may arise from it.

These developments have spooked Pakistan severely. Sartaj Aziz, the foreign affairs advisor to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said revoking the IWT could be perceived as an act of war, and he hinted that Pakistan might seek assistance from the United Nations or International Court of Justice.

If India were to annul the IWT, the consequences might well be humanitarian devastation in what is already one of the worlds most water-starved countries  an outcome far more harmful and far-reaching than the effects of limited war. Unlike other punitive steps that India could consider taking against its neighbor  including the strikes against Pakistani militants that India claimed to have carried out on Sept. 29  canceling the IWT could have direct, dramatic, and deleterious effects on ordinary Pakistanis.

The IWT is a very good deal for Pakistan. Although its provisions allocate three rivers each to Pakistan and India, Pakistan is given control of the Indus Basins three large western rivers  the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab  which account for 80 percent of the water in the entire basin. Since water from the Indus Basin flows downstream from India to Pakistan, revoking the IWT would allow India to take control of and  if it created enough storage space through the construction of large dams  stop altogether the flow of those three rivers into Pakistan. To be sure, India would need several years to build the requisite dams, reservoirs, and other infrastructure to generate enough storage to prevent water from flowing downstream to Pakistan. But pulling out of the IWT is the first step in giving India carte blanche to start pursuing that objective.

Pakistan is deeply dependent on those three western rivers and particularly the Indus. In some areas of the country, including all of Sindh province, the Indus is the sole source of water for irrigation and human consumption. If Pakistans access to water from the Indus Basin were cut off or merely reduced, the implications for the countrys water security could be catastrophic. For this reason, using water as a weapon could inflict more damage on Pakistan than some forms of warfare.

To understand why, consider the extent of Pakistans water woes. According to recent figures from the International Monetary Fund, Pakistan is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world, with a per capita annual water availability of roughly 35,300 cubic feet  the scarcity threshold. This is all the more alarming given that Pakistans water intensity rate  a measure of cubic meters used per unit of GDP  is the worlds highest. (Pakistans largest economic sector, agriculture, consumes a whopping 90 percent of the countrys rapidly dwindling water resources.)

In other words, Pakistans economy is the most water-intensive in the world, and yet it has dangerously low levels of water to work with.

As if thats not troubling enough, consider as well that Pakistans groundwater tables are plummeting precipitously. NASA satellite data released in 2015 revealed that the underwater aquifer in the Indus Basin is the second-most stressed in the world. Groundwater is what nations turn to when surface supplies are exhausted; it is the water source of last resort. And yet in Pakistan, it is increasingly imperiled.

There are other compelling reasons for India not to cancel the IWT, all of which go beyond the hardships the decision could bring to a country where at least 40 million people (of about 200 million) already lack access to safe drinking water.

First, revoking the treaty  an international accord mediated by the World Bank and widely regarded as a success story of transboundary water management  would generate intense international opposition. As water expert Ashok Swain has argued, revoking the IWT will bring global condemnation, and the moral high ground, which India enjoys vis-a-vis Pakistan in the post-Uri period will be lost. Also, the World Bank would likely throw its support behind any international legal action taken by Pakistan against India.

Second, if India decided to maximize pressure on Pakistan by cutting off or reducing river flows to its downstream neighbor, this would bottle up large volumes of water in northern India, a dangerous move that according to water experts could cause significant flooding in major cities in Kashmir and in Punjab state (for geographical reasons, India would not have the option of diverting water elsewhere). Given this risk, some analysts have proposed that New Delhi instead do something less drastic, and perfectly legal, to pressure Islamabad: build dams on the western rivers of the Indus Basin. The IWT permits this, even though these water bodies are allocated to Pakistan, so long as storage is kept to a minimum to allow water to keep flowing downstream. In fact, according to Indian media reports, this is an action Modis government is now actively considering taking.

Such moves, however, would not be cost-free for Pakistan. According to an estimate by the late John Briscoe, one of the foremost experts on South Asia water issues, if India were to erect several large hydroelectric dams on the western rivers, then Pakistans agriculture could conceivably lose up to a months worth of river flows  which could ruin an entire planting season. Still, it would not be nearly as serious as the catastrophes that could ensue if India pulls the plug on the IWT.

Third, if India ditches the IWT to punish its downstream neighbor, then it could set a dangerous precedent and give some ideas to Pakistans ally, China. Beijing has never signed on to any transboundary water management accord, and New Delhi constantly worries about its upstream rival building dozens of dams that cut off river flows into India. The Chinese, perhaps using as a pretext recent Indian defensive upgrades in the state of Arunachal Pradesh  which borders China and is claimed by Beijing  could well decide to take a page out of Indias book and slow the flow of the mighty Brahmaputra River. Its a move that could have disastrous consequences for the impoverished yet agriculturally productive northeastern Indian state of Assam. The Brahmaputra flows southwest across large areas of Assam. Additionally, Beijing could retaliate by cutting off the flow of the Indus  which originates in Tibet  down to India, depriving New Delhi of the ability to limit the rivers flows to Pakistan.

Fourth, Indias exit from the IWT could provoke Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the vicious Pakistani terrorist group that carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks. LeT has long used Indias alleged water theft as a chief talking point in its anti-India propaganda, even with little evidence that New Delhi has intentionally prevented water from flowing downstream to Pakistan. If India backed out of the treaty and took steps to stop the flow of the Indus Basins western rivers, LeT would score a major propaganda victory and would have a ready-made pretext to carry out retaliatory attacks in India. An angry Pakistani security establishment, which has close links to LeT, would not go out of its way to dissuade the group from staging such attacks. Indeed, given the damaging effects Indias move could have on ordinary Pakistanis in such a water-insecure country, Pakistan would be keen to find ways to strike back at India.

What this all means is that Indias cancellation of the IWT would not produce New Delhis hoped-for result: Pakistani crackdowns on anti-India terrorists. On the contrary, Pakistan might tighten its embrace of such groups. The mere act of canceling the IWT  even if India declines to take steps to reduce water flows to Pakistan  would be treated in Islamabad as a major provocation, with fears that water cutoffs could follow, and thereby spawn retaliations.

To be sure, India has good reason to be unhappy about the IWT. The treaty allocates to India only 20 percent of the entire Indus River Basins water flows, and New Delhi knows its gotten the short end of the stick. Additionally, the IWTs provisions limit Indias ability to build hydro-projects in Kashmir. These are significant matters in a nation with its own severe water stress. According to an estimate by the New Yorker, India boasts 20 percent of the worlds population but only 4 percent of its water. Not surprisingly, more than 300 million people in India face water shortages. Severe droughts have contributed to an alarming farmer suicide campaign that has claimed a staggering 300,000 lives over the last 20 years. And in an ominous indication of what the future may hold, India is consuming more groundwater than any other country in the world.

All this is to say that India has a strong case for requesting a renegotiation of the treaty. That would be a more prudent strategy than unilaterally revoking it.

India should preserve its decision to keep the IWT in place. Rescinding it could have disastrous consequences for Pakistan  and especially for ordinary Pakistanis  and also damaging results for India. With India-Pakistan relations nearly on a war footing, threatening a course of action that risks humanitarian devastation could bring the subcontinental powder keg one dangerous step closer to exploding.

Photo credit: SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/Getty Images
After FBI Director Jim Comey warned a congressional panel on Wednesday that hackers are poking around voter-registration systems in various states, law-enforcement officials told CNN that the U.S. suspects Russian involvement. ABC News reported that nearly half of U.S. states have come under cyberattack from hackers affiliated with Russia, which helps explain Comeys comment during Wednesdays hearing that the FBI is looking into just what mischief is Russia up to in connection with our election.

Time and time again, officials and lawmakers have shown a willingness to point fingers at Russia for election-related mischief, either publicly or under cover of anonymity. CIA Director John Brennan said Russia has advanced cyberwar capabilities, and that the country has been very active in trying to manipulate elections overseas, at a Wednesday event during the Washington Ideas Forum, presented by The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute.

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And when hackers broke into the Democratic National Committees email systems this summer, President Obama himself said that experts have attributed this to the Russians.

So why did Donald Trump stand on a debate stage this week and equivocate on the DNC hack? Heres what he had to say when Lester Holt, the moderator, asked both candidates who should be blamed for cyberattacks on the U.S.:

I dont think anybody knows that it was Russia that broke into the DNC. Shes saying Russia, Russia, Russia. I don'tmaybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China, it could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed who weighs 400 pounds, okay?

He was responding to Hillary Clintons straightforward analysis of the situation: Putin is playing a very tough, long game here, she said. And one of the things hes done is to let loose cyber attackers to hack into government files, hack personal files.

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Monday night wasnt the first time Trump shrugged when it came to Russias role in the cyberattack. When Matt Lauer asked Trump about his relationship with Putin, pointing out that Russia is probably  the main suspect for the hacking of the DNC computers, Trump replied: Well, nobody knows that for a fact. (In July, on the other hand, Trump encouraged Russia to find emails sent to and from Clintons private email account.)

In cyberwar, attribution matters. The Justice Department has increasingly brought formal charges against them and hanging up their photos in the FBIs gallery of most-wanted cybercriminals. Blaming another country for cyberattacks can make it harder for a country to justify sponsoring further intrusions, or can bolster public support for retaliation, Bruce Schneier, a computer-security expert, has argued.

Recommended: Body Cameras Are Already Failing the U.S.

Its not like Trump waffled onstage because he truly didnt have the information that Clinton had. A U.S. intelligence officials told Time that the governments confidence in Russias involvement in the DNC hack was covered in one of Trumps intelligence briefings.

I do not comment on information I receive in intelligence briefings, Trump responded in a statement to the magazine. However, nobody knows with definitive certainty that this was in fact Russia. But Trump doesnt have a particularly stellar track record of keeping details from his classified briefings to himself. Earlier this month, he said intelligence officials in one briefing seemed displeased with the Obama Administration, based on their body language. (His comments were criticized by former intelligence officials, who say agents who deliver briefings are trained never to betray emotion or display a preference for one policy over another.)

Instead, Trumps statement during the debate came across as another manifestation of his apparent willingness to cozy up with Russia. As The Washington Post pointed out earlier this week, the way Trump discussed the DNC attack mirrors how Russian President Vladimir Putin tends to talk about it: first, a demurral about the identity of the attackersIts complicated! We may never know!and then, a pivot to the information that the hackers leaked, which was damaging to the Democratic Party.

On one hand, it certainly doesnt appear that repeatedly pointing fingers at Russia for election-related cyberattacks has convinced Putin to lay off the hacking. But on the other hand, refusing to lay blame on the culprit at all could potentially be more dangerous: It allows state-sponsored hackers an additional layer of safety in anonymity, which may embolden them to keep attacking.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Jesus in Love supports lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer (LGBTQ) spirituality, with an emphasis on art and literature. It promotes artistic and religious freedom and teaches love for all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. It is based on these beliefs: God loves all people, including sexual minorities. The creative process is sacred. The queer visions, especially the gay Jesus and LGBT saints, will free people to experience the divine in new ways and lead to a more just world. Jesus in Love was founded by lesbian Christian author Kittredge Cherry as her personal project. It is her gift to the world. Many thanks to everyone who supports her vision.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian firefighters are battling to extinguish wildfires that have engulfed forests in eastern Siberia and forced schools to close in its Irkutsk region, according to local media. Environmental group Greenpeace said some two million hectares had been on fire and large amounts of carbon disgorged by the fires represented an environmental threat and a danger to local communities. A state of emergency had been declared in the Irkutsk region and all activity banned in local forests where fires were still raging, the regional emergencies ministry said. Fifty criminal cases had been brought against people accused of violating fire safety rules, it added. (Reporting by Reuters Television; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
More than half encourage their children to study abroad.

Singapore often scores high in terms of safety, standard of education, economy and in other measures but a new study released by Ipsos & SSI show that 42% of Singaporeans will still choose to leave the country if given the chance.

Melanie Ng, Head of Ipsos' Market explained that while Singapore is indeed a 'fantastic' city to live in, for some Singaporeans, freedom of choice may be more important than the comfort and safety the country can provide.

In Singapore, a typical complaint is the fast pace of life that is synonymous with city living, and another being the relatively limited opportunities to explore niche careers such as those in arts and music. Hence the impetus to migrate perhaps stems from a persons desire for a different lifestyle, or for a place where someones unique interests are viable career opportunities," she said.

Furthermore, the study found that Although 74% of Singaporeans rated the Standard of Education here as good/excellent, 56% would still encourage their children to study outside of Singapore.

To this, Melanie adds, While there has been considerable effort put in place to ensure that a university degree is accessible to all Singapore children, studying and living overseas is thought to provide a richer learning experience  opening students up to new cultures and perspectives  and teaching them to be independent and accountable. By going overseas, our students also have the choice to pursue broader study streams that we may not be able to offer at the moment.







More From Singapore Business Review


By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Yahoo's disclosure that hackers stole user data from at least 500 million accounts in 2014 has highlighted shortcomings in U.S. rules on when cyber attacks must be revealed and their enforcement.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner this week asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether Yahoo and its senior executives properly disclosed the attack, which Yahoo blamed on Sept. 22 on a "state-sponsored actor."

The Yahoo hack could become a test case of the SEC's guidelines, said Jacob Olcott, former Senate Commerce Committee counsel who helped develop them, due to the size of the breach, intense public scrutiny and uncertainty over the timing of Yahoo's discovery.

Yahoo has not specifically addressed when it learned of the 2014 attack. And the vagueness of SEC's 2011 rules on disclosure and its failure to enforce them are drawing equal attention, privacy lawyers and cyber security experts said.

The agency has "been looking for the right case to bring forward," said Olcott.

The agency in 2011 told publicly traded companies to report hacking incidents that could have a "material adverse effect on the business" but did not define that.

SEC has never acted against a company for failing to disclose a cybersecurity incident or threat, and it has brought just two enforcement actions against companies for insufficient data protection, an agency spokesman said.

Lawyers said this reflected difficulty in determining if breaches were material and many companies' belief that reporting on cyber threats generally satisfies the disclosure requirement.

Yahoo has not offered a precise timeline about when it was made aware of the breach.

On Sept. 9, it said in an SEC filing it did not know of "any incidents of, or third party claims alleging ... unauthorized access" of customers' personal data that could have a material adverse effect on Verizon Communication Inc's planned $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo's core business.

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Since then, Yahoo has not clarified if it knew of the attack before that SEC filing. "Our investigation into this matter is ongoing and the issues are complex," a Yahoo spokesman said last week.

In his letter, Warner asked the SEC to evaluate whether the current disclosure regime was adequate. He cited reports that fewer than 100 of 9,000 public companies disclosed a material data breach since 2010.

"I don't know that we need new rules. But in certain situations, you may need more aggressive enforcement," said Roberta Karmel, a Brooklyn Law School professor.

The SEC in 2014 examined whether cyber disclosure rules needed to be strengthened and imposed new requirements for broker-dealers and investment advisers but not public companies.

'PUNISH THE VICTIM'

Some policymakers worry rules compelling prompt disclosure of cyber attacks could deter companies from cooperating with authorities.

"We cannot blame executives for worrying that what starts today as an honest conversation about a cyberattack could end tomorrow in a 'punish the victim' regulatory enforcement action," Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said this week.

Congress last year expanded liability protections for companies that share cyber information with the government, and Pritzker urged granting companies temporary immunity during the response to a hack.

Amid SEC inaction, the Federal Trade Commission has brought 60 successful data security cases since 2001 in part, lawyers said, because its authority is clearer than the SEC's.

Those cases have dealt with deceptive statements by companies and security lapses. The FTC is hampered by the lack of a national requirement for companies to notify the public about data breaches.

That idea got widespread support after the 2013 hacking of shoppers' credit card information from Target Corp. But legislation proposed by President Barack Obama in 2015 fizzled.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Additional reporting by Joseph Menn, Jim Finkle and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Cynthia Osterman)
By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan was sued on Friday for the return of a Pablo Picasso masterpiece allegedly sold under duress in 1938 because of Nazi and Fascist persecution in Europe. A complaint was filed in Manhattan federal court by the great-grandniece of Paul Leffmann, a Jewish industrialist from Germany who once owned "The Actor," a rare work from Picasso's Rose Period in 1904 and 1905. Laurel Zuckerman, who handles estate matters for Leffmann's widow Alice, is alternatively seeking more than $100 million of damages. She joins others seeking to reclaim art taken or sold after Nazis took power in Germany, and as Europe plunged toward war. The Met in a statement said it has "indisputable title" to "The Actor" and will defend its rights. Zuckerman said Paul Leffmann sold "The Actor" to two art dealers in June 1938 for $12,000 to fund an escape to Switzerland from Benito Mussolini's regime in Italy, where he and his wife had fled from Germany the prior year. This occurred soon after a state visit by German chancellor Adolf Hitler made clear that Jews in Italy were endangered, and "there was no time left" to act, the complaint said. The Met acquired "The Actor" in a 1952 donation, but failed to properly investigate its provenance, and only after decades of incorrect cataloguing finally in 2011 acknowledged Leffmann's ownership and sale, the complaint said. Zuckerman had learned about the painting in 2010 and demanded its return. An agreement putting the case on hold expired on Friday. Lawrence Kaye, a lawyer for Zuckerman, said many European tribunals have ordered the return of artwork sold under duress in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s, though such cases have been less common in the United States. "We believe the painting is tainted by the history of the Holocaust, and the Leffmanns, given the circumstances under which they sold it, never lost title," he said. But the Met said its research "makes clear" that Nazi persecution did not result in the sale, in part because Leffmann sold "The Actor" at a fair price in Paris and kept the proceeds. "While the Met understands and sympathizes deeply with the losses that Paul and Alice Leffmann endured during the Nazi era, it firmly believes that this painting was not among them," it said. The Leffmanns settled in Zurich after the war, and died there, the complaint said. The Met website calls "The Actor," which depicts a tall and gaunt male figure, "simple yet haunting," and "the work with which Picasso ended his obsession with the wretched in favor of the theatrical world of acrobats and saltimbanques." It attracted attention in January 2010 when an art student accidentally lost her balance and fell into the canvas, causing a six-inch tear. The painting was repaired. The case is Zuckerman v Metropolitan Museum of Art, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 16-07665. (Editing by Alistair Bell)
For Immediate Release

Chicago, ILSeptember 30, 2016Zacks Friday Finish Line is a podcast hosted weekly by Zacks Editor Maddy Johnson and Content Writer Ryan McQueeney that takes on the weeks biggest news from the financial and investment world.

Who in the World Should Buy Twitter?

Welcome to Episode #14 of the Zacks Friday Finish Line Podcast?

A Busy Week for Spotify

This week, Maddy and Ryan kicked off the show with a pair of headlines surrounding Spotify. According to some reports, the music streaming giant is looking to buyout one of its many competitors, SoundCloud. At the same time, the company announced a soft-launch in Japan this week, becoming the first music streamer to offer a free, ad-supported service in that country.

More IPOs

The hosts then took a look at two IPO announcements. Jose Cuervo, the worlds largest tequila maker, filed for an IPO that could be worth up to $1 billion, and the luxury resort company Playa Hotels & Resorts announced its intentions to hold an IPO valued at $100 million. Playa plans to list under the ticker PLYA.

Major OPEC Announcement

Maddy and Ryan also touched on this weeks jump in oil prices following the decision by OPEC to cut its oil output for the first time since 2008. After two days of deliberation, OPEC member nations decided to reduce output to 32.5 million barrels per day (bpd) from current production of 33.24 million bpd.

Twitter Buyout Rumors Escalate

Finally, this weeks main story was the ongoing Twitter TWTR buyout rumors. With companies like Salesforce CRM, Alphabet GOOGL, and Disney DIS all reportedly interested, it appears like a Twitter takeover could be on the horizon. Maddy and Ryan looked at all of the rumors and offered their own insights into which potential companies would make the most sense to take over the struggling social media site.

Want More Zacks Friday Finish Line?

Check back every Friday for a new episode that looks at each weeks biggest financial and investment news. You can follow the Zacks Friday Finish Line Podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud, and ZacksInvestmentNews on YouTube.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.



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For Immediate Release

Chicago, ILSeptember 30, 2016Zacks.com looks back on the hottest stories of the week featured in the Stocks in the News blog, where analysts and writers discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks, the financial markets, and the greater investing world.

Here are highlights from this weeks Stocks in the News blog:

To Boost Growth, West Elm is Launching a Hotel Chain

On Monday, modern home-furnishing chain West Elm, owned by Williams-Sonoma Inc. WSM, announced it is launching a boutique hotel chain, dubbed West Elm Hotels. While this is a business departure for the company, its a strategic move that West Elm hopes will boost currently stagnant growth.

The furnishings in the hotels will be for sale, and a hotel is an innovative way to showcase West Elms wide range of home products.

Amazon (AMZN) Stock Rising on $1000 Price Target

Shares of Amazon.com Inc. AMZN gained as much as 1.6% in morning trading Tuesday after analysts from JPMorgan Chase (JPM) raised their price target for the stock to $1,000 from $925.

JPMorgan is not the first to call for Amazon to hit quadruple digits; the stock rose to all-time highs in May shortly after analysts at Bernstein upped their target to $1,000 from just $770. The adjustment from JPMorgan also comes just one day after Cowen analyst John Blackledge highlighted Primes remaining room to grow.

Nike (NKE) Posts Q1 Earnings and Revenue Beats, Cites Incredible Summer of Sport

Nike Inc. NKE released its fiscal 2017 first quarter financial results on Tuesday. Earnings per share of 73 cents beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 56 cents per share, while revenues came in at $9.1 billion, also surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $8.85 billion.

Revenues for the NIKE Brand were $8.5 billion, up 10% on a currency-neutral basis driven by double-digit growth in Greater China, Western Europe, Emerging Markets, Central & Eastern Europe and Japan, including strong growth in Sportswear, Running and the Jordan Brand.

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Apples New London Headquarters Heading to Battersea Power Station

Apple Inc. AAPL revealed on Wednesday that it is taking over Londons Battersea Power Station, a decommissioned power plant close to the River Thames, for its brand new headquarters in the city. The tech giant will be moving to its new HQ in 2021.

The companys main European headquarters, however, will remain in Cork, Ireland; 6,000 employees work at that location, but the new Battersea site will be Apples largest outside of its Cupertino, California HQ location in the U.S.

Learn More About Zacks Investment Ideas

You are welcome to download the full, up-to-the-minute list of 220 Zacks Rank #1 "Strong Buy" stocks free of charge. There is no better place to start your own stock search. Plus, you can access the full list of must-avoid Zacks Rank #5 "Strong Sells" and other private research. See the stocks free >>

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About Zacks

Zacks.com is a property of Zacks Investment Research, Inc., which was formed in 1978. The later formation of the Zacks Rank, a proprietary stock picking system; continues to outperform the market by nearly a 3 to 1 margin. The best way to unlock the profitable stock recommendations and market insights of Zacks Investment Research is through our free daily email newsletter; Profit from the Pros. In short, it's your steady flow of Profitable ideas GUARANTEED to be worth your time! Register for your free subscription to Profit from the Pros.

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/zacksresearch

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Zacks Investment Research is under common control with affiliated entities (including a broker-dealer and an investment adviser), which may engage in transactions involving the foregoing securities for the clients of such affiliates.

Media Contact

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support@zacks.com

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.



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By Bill Berkrot BOSTON (Reuters) - The risk posed by the Zika virus to developing fetuses is likely far greater than current estimates suggest, a top U.S. health official said on Thursday. Microcephaly, a rare birth defect in which babies develop abnormally small heads, is one of a constellation of Zika-associated problems increasingly being seen in children born to mothers infected during pregnancy with the Zika virus. Other types of birth defects observed include seizures, deafness, blindness and a range of neurological and developmental abnormalities. Earlier this year, a U.S. analysis estimated the risk of microcephaly following a mother's infection with the virus during the first trimester of pregnancy at between 1 percent and 13 percent. That figure does not include the overall risk of risk of birth defects, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a panel discussion on Zika. "If you're talking about any congenital defect I think it's going to be much higher than 13 percent," he said. "I think we're going to see something very disturbing." The panel was presented by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in collaboration with Reuters. (http://tinyurl.com/hhepvwj) The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency over Zikas link to microcephaly in February. The mosquito-borne virus has spread rapidly through the Americas, with Brazil hit hardest so far. On Wednesday, the U.S. Congress approved $1.1 billion to fund research and efforts to contain Zika. Speaking on the same Zika panel on Thursday, Dr. Marcia Castro, an associate professor of demography at Harvard, said physicians in Brazil are studying the initial wave of babies impacted by Zika who are now reaching their first birthday. In addition to seizures, agitation and frequent crying, these children are also exhibiting a severe type of reflux that prevents them from eating, she said, adding that it is unclear how long these children will live. "Another study with mice shows Zika also affects the brain of an adult," she said, potentially impacting long-term memory and depression. As of Sept. 17, Brazil had confirmed 1,949 cases of microcephaly linked to Zika, mostly concentrated in the countrys northeast region. Another 3,030 cases are still under investigation. In the United States, the virus has infected tens of thousands of people on the island territory of Puerto Rico. The spread of the virus in Miami, Florida, where a handful of locally transmitted cases emerged, has been limited through aggressive mosquito control. "Puerto Rico is going through a terrible situation and we have to help them right now," Fauci said. "They really need our help." With new Zika funding in hand, Fauci said the first priority will be to move forward clinical trials of five potential vaccines. (Additional reporting by Toni Clarke in Washington; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Bernard Orr)
The following timeline charts the origin and spread of the Zika virus from its discovery nearly 70 years ago: 1947: Scientists researching yellow fever in Uganda's Zika Forest identify the virus in a rhesus monkey 1948: Virus recovered from Aedes africanus mosquito in Zika Forest 1952: First human cases detected in Uganda and Tanzania 1960s-80s: Zika detected in mosquitoes and monkeys across equatorial Africa 1960s80s: Zika found in equatorial Asia, including India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan 2007: Zika spreads from Africa and Asia, first large outbreak on Pacific island of Yap 2012: Researchers identify two distinct lineages of the virus, African and Asian 201314: Zika outbreaks in French Polynesia, Easter Island, the Cook Islands and New Caledonia. Retrospective analysis shows possible link to birth defects and severe neurological complications in babies in French Polynesia March 2, 2015: Brazil reports illness characterized by skin rash in northeastern states July 17: Brazil reports detection of neurological disorders in newborns associated with history of infection Oct. 22: Colombia confirms cases of Zika Oct. 30: Brazil reports increase in microcephaly, abnormally small heads, among newborns Nov. 11: Brazil declares public health emergency November 2015-January 2016: Cases reported in Suriname, Panama, El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, Paraguay, Venezuela, French Guiana, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Guyana, Ecuador, Barbados, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Curacao, Jamaica Feb. 1: World Health Organization (WHO) declares public health emergency of international concern Feb. 2: First case of Zika transmission in United States; local health officials say likely contracted through sex, not mosquito bite Feb. 5: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says virus being actively transmitted in 30 countries, mostly in the Americas Feb. 8: U.S. President Barack Obama requests $1.9 billion to fight Zika Feb. 18: CDC adds Aruba and Bonaire to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 32 Feb. 23: CDC adds Trinidad and Tobago and Marshall Islands to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 34 Feb. 25: Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases number more than 580 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers, with an additional 4,100 suspected cases of microcephaly Feb. 27: France detects first sexually transmitted case of Zika March 8: WHO advises pregnant women to avoid areas with Zika outbreak and said sexual transmission of the virus is "relatively common" March 19: CDC adds Cuba to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 38 March 22: CDC adds Dominica to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 39 March 31: The World Health Organization says there is a strong scientific consensus that Zika can cause the birth defect microcephaly as well as Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that can result in paralysis, though conclusive proof may take months or years April 1: CDC adds Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 40 April 4: CDC adds Fiji to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 41 April 13: The CDC concludes that infection with the Zika virus in pregnant women is a cause of the birth defect microcephaly and other severe brain abnormalities in babies. CDC adds St. Lucia to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 42 April 18: CDC adds Belize to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 43 April 25: Canada confirms first sexually transmitted Zika case April 29: Puerto Rico reports first death related to Zika, according to the CDC. The island territory also confirms 683 Zika cases, including 65 pregnant women, and five suspected cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome from Zika May 4: Panama confirms four microcephaly cases tied to Zika May 6: Spain has first case of Zika-related brain defect in a fetus May 9: CDC adds Papua New Guinea, Saint Barthelemy and Peru to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 46 May 12: CDC adds Grenada to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 47 May 13: Puerto Rico reports first case of Zika-related microcephaly May 20: WHO says an outbreak of Zika virus on the African island chain of Cape Verde is of the same strain as the one blamed for birth abnormalities in Brazil May 26: CDC adds Argentina to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 48 June 9: WHO updates guidelines on prevention of sexual transmission of the Zika virus, including advising women living in areas where the virus is being transmitted to delay getting pregnant June 14: El Salvador confirms first case of microcephaly linked to Zika June 30: CDC adds Anguilla to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 49 July 8: CDC confirms a Utah resident's death from the previous month is the first Zika-related death in the continental United States July 14: CDC adds Saint Eustatius to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 50 July 15: New York City's health department reports the first female-to-male transmission of the Zika virus. July 18: CDC reports the caregiver of Utah man who died of Zika tested positive for virus, raising questions about its spread July 19: Florida health officials investigate a case of Zika virus infection that may have been caused by local mosquito bite July 22: New York City health officials reports first baby born with Zika-related birth defect July 25: Spain reports first case in Europe of baby born with Zika-related defect; CDC issues updated recommendations for preventing and testing for Zika infection, warning that the virus can be transmitted through unprotected sex with an infected female partner July 26: Honduras detects 8 cases of babies with Zika-related defect; CDC adds Saba to countries and territories with active outbreaks with total at 51 July 27: Paraguay reports first cases of microcephaly linked to Zika July 29: Florida authorities report what is believed to be the first evidence of local Zika transmission in the continental United States Aug. 2: CDC adds Antigua, Barbuda, and Turks and Caicos to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 54 Aug. 3: U.S. researchers said they launched Zika vaccine clinical trial Aug. 11: CDC adds Cayman Islands to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 55 Aug. 12: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declares a public health emergency in Puerto Rico over Zika with 10,690 laboratory-confirmed cases Aug. 13: Brazil reports 1,835 confirmed cases of microcephaly Aug. 16: Haiti reports first case of microcephaly linked to Zika Aug. 17: Guatemala confirms first case of newborn with microcephaly linked to Zika Aug. 19: Florida governor says five cases of Zika are believed to have been contracted in Miami Beach, the second area in Miami-Dade county where the virus is spreading. Aug. 25: CDC adds The Bahamas and the United States to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 57 Aug. 26: FDA recommends that all blood donated in the United States and its territories be tested for Zika virus, starting with 11 states in the first phase; Nicaragua confirms first microcephaly birth linked to Zika Aug. 27-29: Singapore confirms first case of locally transmitted Zika virus, which rise to 56 cases two days later Aug. 30: Confirmed cases in Singapore rise to 82, with some of the latest infections detected beyond the area of initial outbreak. Several countries advise pregnant women or those trying to conceive to avoid traveling to the city-state. Australia, Taiwan, South Korea and the United States issue travel warnings Aug. 31: CDC adds Singapore and the British Virgin Islands to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing tally to 58 (The CDC groups together Antigua and Barbuda in its updated official count) Sept. 3: Malaysia detects first case of locally transmitted Zika Sept. 5: Philippines confirms first case of Zika virus likely to have been transmitted locally Sept. 6: Florida confirms 56 locally transmitted cases, 577 travel-related infections, and 80 infections involving pregnant women Sept. 8: Singapore reports 283 cases of locally transmitted Zika virus Sept. 10: Singapore locally transmitted Zika cases rise to 329 Sept. 13: Thailand said it has recorded 200 cases of Zika since January, the first time the health ministry has confirmed the number of cases this year. Sept. 16: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports 20,800 confirmed cases of Zika virus in U.S. states and Territories. The department says there are 3,176 confirmed cases in U.S. states and District of Columbia. As of Sept. 8, the department said there were more than 1,880 pregnant women with evidence of Zika virus in U.S. states, District of Columbia and U.S. territories Sept. 19: Florida's governor declares Wynwood neighborhood in Miami Zika-free but the CDC leaves travel warning for Miami Beach Sept. 26: CDC adds St. Kitts and Nevis to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing tally to 59 Sept. 29: CDC issues travel advisory urging pregnant women to postpone non-essential travel to 11 Southeast Asian countries in connection with the Zika virus and Brazil reports 1,949 confirmed cases of microcephaly believed to be linked to Zika infections in pregnant women SOURCES: World Health Organization, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Reuters (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Compiled and edited by the Americas Desk)
Whats Google got up its sleeve? Well find out Tuesday, Oct. 4, when the company is holding an event in San Francisco.

Google is expected to use the event to show off new smartphones and other hardware, as well as offer more information about its Internet-connected speaker, a rival to Amazons popular Echo device.

While Google hasnt said exactly whats in store for the event, the rumor mill is flush with speculation. And the company often releases new hardware right about this time of year. Last year, Google unveiled its Nexus 6P and 5X smartphones on Sept. 29. And two years ago, it announced the Nexus 6 smartphone and Nexus 9 tablet on Oct. 15.

Heres a closer look at what were expecting to see from Google on Oct. 4.

Pixel Phones

Google is widely expected to show off new smartphones during this event, as it has done in years past. But theres one big difference: The new devices will reportedly fall under Googles Pixel brand, according to reports from sites like Android Police and VentureBeat. Google smartphones have previously been given the Nexus label.

VentureBeat posted what it claims are leaked photos of the new phones, suggesting the upcoming devices wont look much different than the companys current Nexus lineup. According to the leak, Google will once again release a phone in two sizes, with the smaller iteration including a 5-inch 1080p screen, 32GB of storage space, a 12-megapixel camera, and an 8-megapixel front shooter. The larger version, said to be called the Pixel XL, will feature similar hardware but with a larger 5.5-inch QHD display and a beefier battery.

Why the name change? Its probably a move on Googles part to take more control of its flagship smartphone lineup.

Google works with smartphone makers like LG and HTC to produce Google-branded phones, and these partners largely influence how the phones are designed. Now, this could be changing. The Information reported earlier this year that Google intends to take more control over its branded smartphones. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said this summer that the company would become more opinionated about the design of its Nexus phones. Googles tagline for the event, Made by Google, also hints at such a change.

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All this doesnt necessarily mean that Google is going to stop working with other manufacturers to make Google-branded hardware. Indeed, the new Pixel devices are rumored to be built by HTC. It just means Google might give outside firms like HTC more precise guidelines rather than leaving designs largely up to them. Google has been drumming up anticipation for a big change  Hiroshi Lockheimer, Googles senior vice president of Android and Chrome, recently tweeting the following:

We announced the 1st version of Android 8 years ago today. I have a feeling 8 years from now we'll be talking about Oct 4, 2016.  Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) September 24, 2016

Google Home

Google demonstrated its Home speaker during its Google I/O developer conference in May. But the company has yet to offer a firm release date for the device, saying only that it would be available later this year. Google could use Tuesdays event as an opportunity to share more details about when Google Home will launch and what the device can do.

Home is the companys first hardware product to include the Google Assistant, intelligent software that can answer users questions, keep track of their calendar, and so on. Google Home looks to be the companys answer to the Amazon Echo, which has become a surprise hit with consumers since its late 2014 launch.

Daydream VR

Google also used its I/O conference this year to unveil Daydream, a virtual reality platform. So far, Google has offered hardware companies a so-called reference design for Daydream-ready VR headsets and controllers, as well as a set of standards for smartphone makers to ensure their handsets are Daydream compatible.

But many unanswered questions remain about Daydream. Which phones will support it? Whos Google working with to make VR headsets, if anybody? And when might those devices launch? Google could give us some answers during Tuesdays event.

Google is also said to be developing a separate VR headset that will not require a phone or computer to power it. While a report from Recode suggested Google may have abandoned this project, Engadget followed up with a report that said Google is indeed still working on the device.

4K Chromecast

Googles streaming dongle has proven to be one of its most successful hardware products. The company shipped 3.2 million Chromecast units during the first quarter of this year, according to a report from IHS.

Now, the company may be planning to improve the Chromecast by adding 4K streaming capabilities. This new device will reportedly be called the Chromecast Ultra, according to reports from VentureBeat and Android Police, and will sell for $69. Google is expected to offer the Ultra model alongside its non-4K $35 Chromecast. (What is 4K? Learn everything you need to know right here.)

A New Wi-Fi Router

Google is reportedly planning to introduce a new $129 Wi-Fi router during its Oct. 4 event, according to Android Police. Unlike Googles previous router, the OnHub, this device is said to have multiple access points, allowing several units to be linked together to create one large network.
We've arrived at the finish of yet another week, but you can't leave work or school and enjoy your weekend without one last list of paid iPhone and iPad apps on sale for free. There are still some freebies in Thursday's post if you want to check them out, but today we've got nine fresh apps for you. Remember, these sales could end at any time so be sure to check them out soon.

DONT MISS: Yup, now the iPhone 7 is exploding

These are paid iPhone and iPad apps that have been made available for free for a limited time by their developers. There is no way to tell how long they will be free. These sales could end an hour from now or a week from now  obviously, the only thing we can guarantee is that they were free at the time this post was written. If you click on a link and see a price listed next to an app instead of the word get, it is no longer free. The sale has ended. If you download the app, you will be charged.

LEDit

ledit

Normally $1.99.

LEDit turns your iPhone/iPad into an awesome ticker display. Its the perfect app to communicate with your friends in noisy bars, parties or concerts. Also in places where shouting would be inappropriate such as meetings, classes or libraries. Use LEDit to:

- Pick up girls/boys.

- Order drinks in crowded bars.

- Tell your coworkers how bored you are during a meeting.

- Support your sportsball team.

- Let lousy drivers know what you think of them.

- Send song requests to the DJ.

- Talk to your dentist during a procedure.

- Greet passengers at the airport.

- Communicate with the hearing impaired.

- The possibilities are endless! Featured by Apple (Staff Picks) in 10+ countries ** Top 1 Overall in 20+ countries **

Download LEDit

i2Reader

i2reader

Normally $5.99.

i2Reader is an innovative and award-winning eBook reader! Among the features: - Support of EPUB (DRM-free), PDF, RTF, HTML, FB2, MOBI, DOC and plain text formats;

- Customizable styles;

- Dictionary support (starDict format) for quick word lookup;

- Extremely user-friendly interface;

- One-way built-in FTP server to upload books and dictionaries to i2Reader;

- One-way built-in Web server to upload books and dictionaries from your computer;

- Support for cross-platform Calibre tool to upload books to i2Reader;

- Custom-made PDF rendering engine that reformats the text from PDFs for easier reading on the iPhone screen;

- Autoscroll;

- Auto-hyphenation;

- Display and save of inline images in the books;

- Integrated Web browser to quickly download books from the Internet;

- Bookmarks;

- Table of Contents;

- Landscape and fullscreen modes;

- Book groups.

Story continues

Download i2Reader

PicEraser

piceraser

Normally $1.99.

This app helps to remove the background of any picture of yours and maintain transparency with just few taps. With Background Eraser you can easily remove background from your photos & save the transparent image in Png or Jpg format! Features

=========

- Add Background Photo - Remove & Change your photo background

- Undo-Redo features!

- Restore/Reverse Tool!

- Save as Png or Jpg format!

# PNG/ JPEG File Selection - Selecting size of output picture (PNG_transparent background,JPEG_white background) # Share Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Mail, Other Apps

Download PicEraser

Crystal Adblock

crystal-adblock

Normally $0.99.

Start blocking ads on Safari immediately. Ad blocking loads pages 4x faster, saves up to 50% of your data and much more! Crystal Adblock is easy to use and makes the browsing experience on your iPhone and iPad much more enjoyable.

*Block all annoying ads on your iPhone and iPad*

Ads will no longer clutter the small screen of your mobile device. Browse your favorite webpages without distractions from annoying banners and pop-ups.

*Save up to 50% of your data*

Ads can consume a really high percentage of your data plan. By blocking ads, Crystal Adblock helps to optimize the usage of your data for the online activities that matter to you.

*Load pages 4x faster & enhance battery life*

Browsing is sped up considerably with Crystal Adblock. The duration of your devices battery life is also rapidly improved.

*Stay safe and secure*

Did you know that ads can hide malware and tracking? Protect yourself from these risks by using Crystal Adblock. A few words from satisfied users: ***** I couldn't be more pleased with how well this app performs

***** Simple, cheap and does what it says it does. Can't get better than that!!

***** Completely satisfied! You won't regret buying this app for less than a dollar.

***** Makes the Internet usable again .

***** SO NECESSARY

Get Crystal Adblock now and enjoy ad-free browsing!

Download Crystal Adblock

Maze Zen

maze-zen

Normally $1.99.

Maze Zen introduces classic circle mazes to iOS in a beautifully designed game on iPhone and Apple Watch. Navigate designed mazes by tilting the screen to move the ball through the maze towards the center. After each maze is completed, a simple meditation will become visible to read and reflect on. The overall experience of playing Maze Zen is tranquil and relaxing. You can even change the maze color to match your mood using a pinch gesture on iPhone or digital crown on Apple Watch. There's also a super difficult mode called Zen Master mode that can be enabled by changing the color all the way to black. Playing Zen Master mode will surprise you with the extra-sensory skills required to blindly navigate to the center of the maze. If you complete a maze in Zen Master mode from beginning to end you'll become immortalized in the Zen Master leaderboards!! If you like being creative, click the Create button on iPhone and use the elegant maze creator to create a maze of your own! Simply click anywhere on the maze to create a hole or drag a line between rings to add a wall. You can even add a simple meditation for the community to read when they complete your maze. When you are finished with a maze it will be shared with the entire global community! Maze Zen is a simple and fun game that will relax you and make you think!

Download Maze Zen

Timenotes

timenotes

Normally $0.99.

Timenotes is an app that allows you to create a reminder which will count years, days, hours, minutes and seconds to or since some of your special dates. ===================== TOP10 Paid Lifestyle In Russia

TOP15 Paid Lifestyle in China

TOP15 Overall in Malta

TOP25 Paid Lifestyle in the USA If you have any questions and ideas for app improvements (usability, translation, interface)  please email your feedback to app@factory.mn Remember, your feedback is very important to us and will be used to improve our apps. If you find any bugs, or if you experience any crashes, then we would very much like to hear about the issue. ===================== "Beware: youll probably find yourself setting countdowns for everything, just to get another chance to stare that gorgeous user interface."

 TheAppleBites.com FreeAppReport.com Featured App!

Download Timenotes

He Likes The Darkness

he-likes-the-darkness

Normally $0.99.

Jump on the platform, don't touch on enemies!

Go to the top, become the leader of the world ranking! Features:

- 5 characters

- Online leaderboard

- 100 levels Gameplay:

- Don't touch on enemies, don't fall!

- Collect stars to open the portal to the next level

- Collect coins to unlock new characters

Download He Likes The Darkness

Tower of Fortune

tower-of-fortune

Normally $0.99.

People say

- A surprise gem of RPG - by Missattha

- Excellent Slot/RPG game with unique art and addicting gameplay - by BazookaTime

- Fun, Addictive and stylish - by Anne Packrat

- Classic retro game - by Shaolean

- Terrific RPG hybrid - by Retr0spective

- Amazingly addictive - by Won'tgetfooledagainson

- Old school with a twist - by Ricepirate Mick Lauer

- I'm hooked - by Monster Party

- Deeply engrossing game - by David Magallon

- Highly enjoyable - by Pyong Review

- A Reel Good Time For RPG Fans - by Toucharcade, 4/5

- ... it's a hard game to put down once you've mastered its secrets - by AppSpy, 4/5

- ... it's just really freaking addicting and clever - by 148Apps, 4/5 Appstore Customer Ratings

Average rating for all versions: 4.5/5 -----------------------------------------------------------

Tower of Fortune is a retro-style slot machine/RPG. You play as a retired hero and lived with daughter peacefully. Until one day, an unknown power from the mystic tower took her away. This force the hero to draw the sword again and fight for his daughter. Features

- One button gameplay, easy to learn and no tutorial needed

- Retro pixel graphics and funny animation

- RPG mechanics such as combat, powerful equipment from defeated boss, level up and skill upgrade system, hero transform and much more...

- 4 slot machine game: Combat in the tower, Treasure in the chest, Fight the scum family, and Rest in the tavern

- Customize your camp with various options such as dungeon scene, cauldron and mystic pet

- 39 kind of enemies want to stop you to find the truth

- 37 powerful equipment from the ancient god to collect

- 39 random combat quest and 12 random tavern quest to challenge

- 3 different game ending to discover in first character's storyline

- Endless spin and fun!

Download Tower of Fortune

MarchQuest

marchquest

Normally $4.99.

Introducing MarchQuest: An Immersive Role-Playing Fitness Game. Walk or Run through the real world to be the Hero of MarchQuest. With MarchQuest, every real world step you take unlocks immersive story and gameplay on your iPhone. MarchQuests unique design integrates storytelling with a role-playing game experience complete with animated 3D characters, Triple-A quality voice-over and choices that matter. MarchQuest also tracks and gamifies fitness through distance, time, pace, steps and calories burnt. "...there's something very charming about MarchQuest." -PocketGamer WHAT PLAYERS ARE SAYING

Great use of art, voice and music to create an immersive running experience!!! Makes working out so enjoyable and the story is totally addictive! Its the perfect mix between Habitica, Pokemon Go and Zombies, Run! Download this, its worth it! Go on the Quest! [It is] like Zombies, Run! or Pokemon Go mixed with Game of Thrones or the Lord of the Rings!

STORY MarchQuests story is set in the fantasy world of Vale where you take on the mantle of The Marchwarden, a mythic hero called from Earth. However, the foreign world you enter is one plagued by civil war. To become that Hero, you must traverse the lands of Vale in your struggle to unite and win the hearts of the people or see the world of Vale fall to ruin. Along your heroic adventure you will meet an intriguing cast of characters and companions who join you on your quest. Each Quest begins and ends with an RPG-style dialogue sequence where your choices shape the story. Your deeds will be noticed!

Download MarchQuest

Trending right now:

See the original version of this article on BGR.com
Microsoft is expected to unveil new Surface-branded hardware this year, including Surface Pro 5 and a Surface Book 2 tablet/laptops. But for the first time since introducing the Surface family of Windows devices, Microsoft may also launch a desktop computer of its own. Rumored to be an all-in-one (AIO) PC, the Surface desktop is expected to compete directly against Apples iMac.

DONT MISS: An Apple employee just leaked details about the iPhone 8

According to The Verge, Microsoft is currently targeting a late October launch event in New York City. Thats when at least one AIO PC should be unveiled. Apple is also going to unveil refreshed Macs in late October, according to recent reports.

German site WinFuture discovered even more evidence that Microsoft is serious about making desktop hardware: a listing for a Surface Ergonomic Keyboard at the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). The name seems to indicate that Microsoft is making a Surface accessory that would fit a desktop PC rather than a 2-in-1 tablet/laptop. A product image for the keyboard isnt available.

Microsoft has developed various keyboard accessories for its Surface devices in the past. If its launching a Surface AIO this year, its likely the computer will have its unique accessories. Apples iMac also has various accessories of its own, including mice, keyboards, and trackpads.

Details are scarce on what the Surface AIO will have to offer. But given Microsofts history of going after Apple products with its Surface devices, the PC will at least match the iMac's specs.

Trending right now:

See the original version of this article on BGR.com
By Joseph White and Edward Taylor (Reuters) - German luxury auto maker BMW AG said on Friday it will offer all electric versions of its next generation BMW X3 compact sport utility vehicle and electric Mini models, expanding its entries in the emerging electric luxury vehicle market. BMW confirmed a report earlier Friday by Bloomberg News. Reuters reported on Sept. 9 that top BMW executives were skipping Paris auto show events this week to resolve differences over electric vehicle strategy and chart a new electric product offensive, including a possible electric Mini. The electric Mini is expected to debut in about three years, company officials said. BMW faces increasing pressure from German rivals Daimler AG and Volkswagen AG as well as Tesla Motors Inc of the United States, which have outlined aggressive plans to court affluent buyers - and respond to regulators - with new electric vehicles. BMW moved earlier than its German rivals to field innovative electric cars, launching the BMW i3 battery-powered city car in 2013 with a lightweight body made of carbon fiber instead of steel or aluminum. However, the i3 and the plug-in hybrid i8 have been slow sellers. Meanwhile, Tesla is aiming for sales of 80,000 or more electric sedans and sport utility vehicles this year, and has said that nearly 400,000 would-be buyers have placed reservations for its Model 3 sedan. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk has said he is targeting a July 2017 launch for the Model 3. Daimler and VW used this week's Paris auto show to promote plans to launch new waves of electric vehicles. Germany's luxury car champions face a convergence of pressure to embrace electric vehicles from regulatory mandates and from Tesla's success at winning affluent consumers to the idea of premium electric vehicles. In the United States, California and several other states have adopted escalating quotas for sales of electric vehicles. California's goal is that 15 per cent of vehicles sold in the state in 2025 would be battery-powered. Policymakers in China, the world's largest vehicle market, and Europe are also calling for more electric vehicles. (Reporting by Joe White in Detroit and Edward Taylor in Paris; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Matthew Lewis)
ATHENS (Reuters) - A court in Cyprus on Friday ordered the extradition of an Egyptian who hijacked an aircraft with a fake explosive belt, diverting it to the island in March. Seif Eldin Mustafa, 59, failed to convince the Nicosia district court that he could not get a fair trial in his home country, the semi-official Cyprus News Agency reported. Mustafa commandeered a domestic Alexandria-Cairo flight with 72 passengers and crew on board on March 29, ordering the pilot to divert to Larnaca airport on the Mediterranean island. He surrendered about six hours later, after gradually releasing all passengers and crew unharmed. One passenger took 'selfies' with Mustafa which were posted on social media. Mustafa had taken charge of the early morning flight by showing flight attendants what appeared to be a belt stuffed with plastic wires and a remote control. After directing the flight to Cyprus, he asked for the release of female prisoners in Egypt, and to come in contact with his Cypriot ex-wife. (Writing by Michele Kambas; Editing by Catherine Evans)
- By Adam Lawrence





It really is no secret that action cameras are out there, but unlike the cameras on your phone or even the mainstream camcorders you would buy at a big-box retailers like Best Buy, these haven't really been mainstream, yet. Though the industry has been growing, it hasn't been until recently that action cameras have taken more of the main stage. And in the coming years, it is anticipated that the market will continue to grow.





The action camera market size is expected to increase at a CAGR of over 22% from 2016 to 2023. Personal action camera market share equated to roughly 75% of the total revenue in 2015. Growing popularity among several different age groups in addition to advanced product features offered by vendors is likely to provide added growth potential to the action camera market over the next seven years. A big contributing factor to this has been the dominance of GoPro (GPRO) and the limited (until recently) selection that consumers have had.

Price can be a big driver and with GoPro's priced upward of $500 depending on any additional accessories, the average consumer could easily be priced out of this market. But obviously, the bigger technology companies may have been using this time of GoPro's dominance to make it the guinea pig and truly test the market. Now we're starting to see more popular names in the space begin introducing their own brand of action cameras.

In fact, Nikon (TSE:7731) just introduced its own line of action and 360 degree cameras. One is a more GoPro-like 4K action camera called the KeyMission 170, and the other is a life-logging camera called the KeyMission 80. Nikon will call its 360 camera the KeyMission 360, which the company announced at CES. The KeyMission 360 actually came out with "Best Action Camera" designation at the recent Photokina show.

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Rumored to be released in "late September," Sony (SNE) is also vying for a seat at the action camera table with its launch of the FDR-X300R. The company's flagship action camera product features much of the functionality that its competition hosts but as an extra value add, the FDR-X300R boasts a "live view" remote and features the same technology that its leading camcorders hold as well. Sony introduced its new action camera, the FDR-X300R, at IFA 2016 in Berlin earlier this month.

The downside? This product will not be cheap for consumers. Entry level users that don't get the waterproof housing or the live view remote could be set to spend somewhere in the ballpark of $400. Also, unlike other traditional action cameras that can be mounted directly onto the front of a helmet, the Sony version looks more like a smaller, traditional camcorder and mounts to the side of a helmet

Even GPS company, Garmin (GRMN) jumped into the market earlier this summer with its introduction of the Virb Ultra 30. This is another higher priced "entry level" camera that boasts a price of $499 on the company's website. Higher grades of stabilization features, as well as a unique voice command function, help set this product apart from others. According to early reports, "You just shout 'okay Garmin,' the lights on the camera will blink, and then you can tell it to do things like start or stop recording, or take a photo. It even works through the camera's waterproof case, though you have to yell a bit louder."

Unfortunately, the limited live streaming features of the camera leave much to be desired when it comes to sharing life's moments in real time. According to Garmin, you'll either have to use an iPhone or iPad for the data connection (or be hooked onto the same Wi-Fi), you can only stream to YouTube at launch, and the stream is capped at 720p.

The facts remain that GoPro has initially set the tone for this arena and its latest move could continue to build awareness around a once niche market. Late last week, the company announced that it will be bringing a drone quad-copter, called Karma, to market in October with a $799 price tag. Though many consumers are familiar with the drone space, GoPro's Karma has been well received by investors. In fact, since making the announcement the company has seen share prices increase by as much as 16% from its Friday, Sept. 16 closing price heading into the weekend the company announced it would be debuting a "new product".

A 20 minutes' flight time, 35mph top speed, and all of the bells and whistles to handle a GoPro action camera "passenger" are included in this new product. On top of that, a user can remove the front part of the drone to have a handheld unit, called the Karma Grip feature, and promises "Hollywood-quality stabilization."

This product doesn't just signify a new product for GoPro, it also shows investors that it is far from a "one trick pony" that many have begun to think over the years. In 2014, the stock traded at nearly $100 per share but tumbled shortly after. This has been the first clear example that GoPro is looking to become more of a tech company than a camera company, at least for now.

But this hasn't deterred other companies from throwing a hat into the action camera space while GoPro figures out that diversification is a real thing. Recently HP Inc. (HPQ) and Life Clips Inc. (LCLP) entered into a licensing agreement for Life Clips to be allowed the use of the HP branding on its line of action and 360 degree cameras. HP has approved for sale and distribution in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, 26 countries in Europe, five countries in Africa and 38 countries in Latin America.

The deal doesn't necessarily net HP a huge score, but it could be a foray to at least test the viability and consumer response of what could end up becoming an eventual HP Action/360-degree camera.

Other companies attempting an entry into this market include Panasonic (TSE:6752), with its less than desired bullet camera, dubbed Panasonic HX-A1M. It's on the less expensive end of the spectrum at $199.99, but again, its price reflects its quality as it doesn't have the same image quality and stability control as other more developed products.

The once "king of film," Kodak (KODK) has its version of a 4K camera. Kodak's Pixpro 4KVR360 is targeting more of the 360-degree VR action camera space. It's able to wirelessly upload files to outlets like YouTube and Facebook via its "Smart Device App" and has capabilities to control & view the camera remotely. Though no pricing has been revealed yet, Kodak's new exposure to the action camera space may finally set the company in the digital space.

A study released earlier this month suggests that shipments for wearable cameras will grow from 7.4 million last year to 24 million by 2021. Analysis firm, Tractica, is anticipating that the market will be worth about $3.4 billion by the end of that period.

The facts remain, what GoPro originally forged has now begun to develop into and quickly become a potential industry of scale. The use of third party applications, the implementation of WiFi capabilities, the inclusion of 360 degree options, and the new push toward virtual reality could all be strong reasons to be paying attention to companies that have exposure to the action camera space.

Disclosure: The author owns no stock in any of the companies mentioned within this article & has received no compensation of any kind to write / publish this article, but he is affiliated with MIDAM Ventures LLC, a company which has an existing awareness agreement with Life Clips Inc.

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This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






By Julia Love REUTERS - Alphabet Inc's Google said on Thursday it renamed its business-to-business cloud computing brand and enhanced some enterprise applications using artificial intelligence, the company's latest gambit to better compete with Amazon.com and Microsoft Corp. in the lucrative cloud business. Discussing the rebranded Google Cloud, Diane Greene, senior vice president of Google's enterprise business, said the company has made good progress courting customers and improving its technology. Cloud computing uses remote internet servers to store, manage and process data, and Google offers a range of apps like word processing and email, as well as the ability to host data and offer resources for developers. The new name replaces the Google for Work brand. "We are closing the gap incredibly fast" with competitors, Greene, a former CEO of VMware who joined Google last year to ramp up its cloud business, told experts and journalists at an event. Analysts say Google trails Amazon and Microsoft in market share but is gaining under Greene. Although the business is not big enough to break out separately in its quarterly earnings statement, Google reported a 33 percent surge in "other revenue" in its most recent quarter, which analysts said was probably due largely to gains in cloud computing. Greene has moved quickly to streamline engineering and appointed new leadership to beef up the company's cloud business. This has helped improve sales, Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said during the company's latest earnings call. Earlier this month, Google acquired cloud software company Apigee Corp in a deal valued at about $625 million. The company on Thursday also announced a partnership with consultant Accenture to develop cloud services for clients in industries such a retail, healthcare and finance. In addition, the company said it had woven more artificial intelligence into its apps to help employees work more efficiently. Using machine learning to crunch troves of data, Google says its apps will prompt users to, say, open files at certain times of day or propose meetings based on their habits. Google recently added a U.S. data centre in Oregon in order to speed up service and next year will open more in Virginia, Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Sao Paulo, London, Finland and Frankfurt. (Reporting by Julia Love, editing by Peter Henderson and Alden Bentley)
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has lifted restrictions placed on using and carrying Samsung Electronics Co's Galaxy Note 7 mobile phones on commercial airplanes, but only for devices purchased after September 15, 2016, the country's aviation regulator said. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), earlier in September, warned passengers and airlines from turning on or charging Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones when they are on board or storing them in checked-in baggage. Samsung has not started selling Galaxy Note 7 phones in India as yet, the company said in a statement, adding that it will only sell new devices in the country that will have a green battery icon to indicate it is safe to charge and use on a flight. The restrictions will continue to apply on Galaxy Note 7 phones that were purchased before September 15 this year, DGCA said in a statement. Samsung recalled its Note 7 phones across the globe this month due to faulty batteries, which caused the devices to explode, when they were kept on charge or in normal use. (Reporting by Aditi Shah; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. software company Salesforce called on EU regulators on Thursday to investigate antitrust issues related to Microsoft's $26 billion bid for social network LinkedIn. Microsoft is expected to seek EU antitrust approval in the coming weeks for its largest ever deal. Salesforce , which lost out on the bidding for LinkedIn , urged competition authorities to go beyond a simple review, saying the deal threatens innovation and competition. "By gaining ownership of LinkedIn's unique dataset of over 450 million professionals in more than 200 countries, Microsoft will be able to deny competitors access to that data, and in doing so obtain an unfair competitive advantage," Burke Norton, Salesforce's chief legal officer, said in a statement. "Salesforce believes this raises significant antitrust and data privacy issues that need to be fully scrutinized by competition and data privacy authorities in the United States and in the European Union," he said. Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, said in a statement: "Salesforce may not be aware, but the deal has already been cleared to close in the United States, Canada, and Brazil. We're committed to continuing to work to bring price competition to a CRM market in which Salesforce is the dominant participant charging customers higher prices today." The European Commission's preliminary review of merger deals lasts 25 working days, which can be extended by about four months if it has serious concerns. (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Francesco Guarascio and Sandra Maler)
CHARLESTON -- The University of Illinois Extension plans a healthy aging summit at the LifeSpan Center of Coles County from 8:30 a.m.  2 p.m. on Oct. 19.

Aging: Everybodys Doing It will feature three Extension educators. Kathy Sweedler will present on Avoiding Financial Elder Exploitation." Mary Liz Wright will discuss Healthy Eating as You Age," while Cheri Burcham will finish out the day with Living Your Bucket List. There will also be brain breaks throughout the day.

The summit will be held at the LifeSpan Center of Coles County at 11021 E. CR 800 N., Charleston. The cost is $5 and includes a catered lunch and all materials. The East Central Illinois Area Health Education Center is partially funding the program to keep costs down for participants.

Pre-registration is required by calling the University of Illinois Extension office at 217-345-7034 or by going online to http://go.aces.illinois.edu/HealthyAgingSummit. Those wanting to attend must be registered and paid by Oct. 11. To request reasonable accommodations to participate, call 217-345-7034.
By Thomas Wilson TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Sharp Corp said it will spend $570 million on its organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen business - one of its first major investments since it was taken over by Taiwan's Foxconn although the amount pales in comparison to efforts by South Korean rivals. Manufacturers of consumer and other electronics are gradually shifting towards OLED screens which are generally thinner and are more flexible than liquid crystal display (LCD) screens. Sharp said it will invest in pilot production lines at its plants in Osaka and in Mie prefecture, western Japan, which are due to start between April and June 2018. Sharp is hoping to team up with its domestic rival Japan Display Inc on OLED displays, the Nikkei business daily reported last month, quoting new CEO Tai Jeng-wu. Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd , secured control of Sharp last month in a deal that gives its access to the Japanese firm's advanced screen technology and which is likely to help strengthen its pricing power with major client Apple Inc. South Korean rivals have bet heavily on the technology over the last two years. LG Display Co Ltd said last year it would invest 10 trillion won ($9 billion) in a new plant to make the ultra-thin panels. Samsung Display, an unlisted unit of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd that's the largest maker of OLEDs for smartphones, is investing 4 trillion won by 2017 in an OLED production line. Research firm IHS has forecast that shipments of OLED smartphone panels will overtake LCDs in 2020. ($1 = 101.1500 yen) ($1 = 1,101.7000 won) (Reporting by Thomas Wilson; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
Miroslav Lukas of the Czech Speleological Society told AFP the 404-metre depth of the cave at Hranicka Propast was confirmed by a gauge carried by a robot (AFP Photo/Joseph Eid) (AFP/File)

Prague (AFP) - A Czech-Polish team said Friday it had discovered the world's deepest underwater cave in the eastern Czech Republic.

At 404 metres (1,325 feet) deep, the Hranicka Propast, a limestone abyss near the city of Hranice, beats out Italy's Pozzo del Merro cave that is 392 metres deep for the world record, Miroslav Lukas of the Czech Speleological Society told AFP.

"We wanted to beat the Italian record. We succeeded and now we have the magic number of 404 metres," said Lukas, insisting the cave was "definitely" deeper than that.

"I don't know if it's by five metres or a hundred, but the depth is set to change," he said.

Lukas said the figure was confirmed by a depth gauge carried by a robot and by the length of a data cable connected to the robot.

On September 27, Polish diver Krzysztof Starnawski first descended to 200 metres to install a signal line for the robot, then navigated the device down to the record depth.

"The robot broadcast information about its depth and course into a monitoring device on the surface," Lukas explained to AFP.

"It fell deeper and deeper, heading into places where we could see no bottom, until it reached 404 metres," he added.

Lukas said the project was co-financed by the National Geographic society, which broke the story online late Thursday.

Research at Hranicka Propast started in 1963, said Lukas, who first dived there in 1974.

In 1995, a robot reached a depth of 205 metres in the abyss, setting the deepest point.

In 2012, Starnawski "discovered a narrow opening at 200 metres and a large break" that allowed him to reach a depth of 373 metres. Two years ago he reached 384 metres.
Amy Acker and George Eads in the Sept. 30 episode of MacGyver. (Credit: CBS)

In the premiere of CBSs new MacGyver, we learned that Angus MacGyver (Lucas Till) may not have the best taste in women; it turns out the same may not be true for Jack Dalton (George Eads). In tonights episode, we meet Sarah Adler, played by Angel and Person of Interests Amy Acker.

Related: MacGyver Premiere: What Works, What Needs Work

When Dalton hears who their rescue mission is for  Sarahs gone missing in Venezuela after obtaining evidence to take down an international arms dealer  the look on his face suggests that theres quite a long story there. They used to be  partners. I dont know what the right word is there, says Acker. Her uncertainty is due to the fact that, besides their years of engaging in covert military operations together, theres a romantic connection that almost, but never quite, seems to bubble to the surface whenever theyre together. Theyve had a little history of missed opportunities, relationship-wise, she says.

And, she notes, Theyve each had their own turn saving each others lives. Its made clear early on that Adler is no damsel in distress  in fact, MacGyver calls her the female version of Dalton. (If youve ever seen Acker play the sometimes sweet, sometimes terrifying Root in Person of Interest, you know that she can more than hold her own against the mighty force that is George Eads.)

Photo: CBS

Since were so early into the series, introducing a female version is actually a really fun way to find out more about who Dalton the character is. Acker says theres a wild-card element that she saw in Eadss portrayal that she injected into her own. You [dont] know which direction shes going to go, she says. And she tried to bring Daltons sense of humor into Adler. It was fun to get to poke fun at him in the way that he does to other people. We tried to work that in wherever we could, Acker laughs.

Related: Locked in a Room With MacGyver: Can Lucas Till Live Up To the Hype?

Ackers role in Person of Interest began as a guest star, but her work was so impressive that she became a series regular a few seasons later, so dont be too surprised if the MacGyver producers bring her back. That seems like the most fun way to have a job: You get to try it out first, get to like all the people, and somehow convince them they need to keep you around, she says.

Story continues

She was initially drawn to MacGyver by the involvement of David Slack, a former writer for PoI. Hes so talented and a great friend. I just like saying any words that hes writing, she says with a grin. Acker also wants to be involved for another, more personal reason: I have an 11-year-old son who likes to build contraptions. I might gain some cool mom points!

Though shes never made an impromptu parachute out of a truck tarp, Acker says that she does have a little of the shows spirit in her at all times. Im more of the crafty version of MacGyver. Lets make this into a table! she says. Im the Martha Stewart MacGyver.

There are at least six MacGyverisms in the second episode, and if forced to choose just one, she says shed go with the night-vision goggles. That decision is based partly on coolness, but also on one very practical concern. My only fear was that when I was showing my son this, all of a sudden we were going to have explosions going off in our backyard, she says. With the goggles, I think my house would have the least chance of burning down.

MacGyver airs Fridays at 8 p.m. on CBS.
Menlo Park, Calif.  Structural biology research conducted at the U.S. Department of Energys SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has uncovered how small insecticidal protein crystals that are naturally produced by bacteria might be tailored to combat dengue fever and the Zika virus.

SLACs X-ray free-electron laser  the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), a DOE Office of Science User Facility  offered unprecedented views of the toxin BinAB, used as a larvicide in public health efforts against mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, West Nile virus and viral encephalitis.

The larvicide is currently ineffective against the Aedes mosquitos that transmit Zika and dengue fever, and therefore not used to combat these species of mosquitos at this time. The new information provides clues to how scientists could design a composite toxin that would work against a broader range of mosquito species, including Aedes.

Today, Nature published the study.

A more detailed look at the proteins structure provides information fundamental to understanding how the crystals kill mosquito larvae, said Jacques-Philippe Colletier, a scientist at the Institut de Biologie Structurale in Grenoble, France and lead author on the paper. This is a prerequisite for modifying the toxin to adapt it to our needs.

Selective Mosquito Control, Courtesy of Bacteria

The BinAB crystals are produced by Lysinibacillus sphaericus bacteria, which release the crystals along with spores at the end of their life cycle. Mosquito larvae eat the crystals along with the spores, and then die.

BinAB is inactive in the crystalline state and does not work on contact. For the crystals to dissolve, they must be exposed to alkaline conditions, such as those in a mosquito larvas gut. The binary protein is then activated, recognized by a specific receptor at the surface of cells and internalized.

Because Aedes larvae can evade one of these steps of intoxication, they are resistant to BinAB. These larvae do not express the correct receptors at the surface of their intestinal cells. Many other insect species, small crustaceans and humans also lack these receptors, as well as alkaline digestive systems.

Part of the appeal is that the larvicides safe because its so specific, but thats also part of its limitation, said Michael Sawaya, a scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles-DOE Molecular Biology Institute and co-author on the paper.

For public health officials who want to prevent mosquito-borne disease, BinAB could also offer an alternative for controlling certain species of mosquitos that have begun to show resistance to other forms of chemical control.

Creating a Tailored Insecticide

The research team already knew the larvicide is composed of a pair of proteins, BinA and BinB, that pair together in crystals and are later activated by larval digestive enzymes.

In the LCLS experiments, they learned the molecular basis for how the two proteins paired with each other  each performing an important, unique function. Previous research had determined that BinA is the toxic part of the complex, while BinB is responsible for binding the toxin to the mosquitos intestine. BinB ushers BinA into the cells; once inside, BinA kills the cell.

The scientists also identified four hot spots on the proteins that are activated by the alkaline conditions in the larval gut. All together, they trigger a change from a nontoxic form of the protein to a version that is lethal to mosquito larvae.

Using the information gathered during the crystallography study, the research team has already begun to engineer a form of the BinAB proteins that will work against more species of mosquitos. This is ongoing work at Institut de Biologie Structurale, UCLA, University of California, Riverside and SLAC.

Solving the Structure

Only coarse details were known about the unique three-dimensional structure and biological behavior of BinAB prior to the experiment at LCLS.

We chose to look at the BinAB larvicide because it is so widely used, yet the structural details were a mystery, said Brian Federici, professor of entomology at UC Riverside.

The small size of the crystals made them difficult to study at conventional X-ray sources. So the research team used genetic engineering techniques to increase the size of the crystals, and the bright, fast pulses of light at LCLS allowed the scientists to collect detailed structural data from the tiny crystals before X-rays damaged their samples.

The researchers used a crystallography technique called de novo phasing. This involves tagging the crystals with heavy metal markers, collecting tens of thousands of X-ray diffraction patterns, and combining the information collected to obtain a three-dimensional map of the electron density of the protein.

This is the first time weve used de novo phasing on a crystal of great interest at an X-ray free-electron laser, said Sebastien Boutet, SLAC scientist.

The technique had so far only been used on test samples where the structure was already known, in order to prove that it would work.

The most immediate need is to now expand the spectrum of action of the BinAB toxin to counter the progression of Zika, in particular, said Colletier. BinAB is already effective against Culex [carrier of West Nile encephalitis] and Anopheles [carrier of malaria] mosquitos. With the results of the study, we now feel more confident that we can design the protein to target Aedes mosquitos.

Additional contributors to the research include scientists from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes at UCLA, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Stanford University. The Institut de Biologie Structurale is a research center for integrated structural biology funded by the Commissariat a lEnergie Atomique, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the Universite Grenoble Alpes. The Collaborative Innovation Award program of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HCIA-HHMI), W.M Keck Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, France Alzheimer Foundation, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, and DOE Office of Science supported the research.

SLAC is a multi-program laboratory exploring frontier questions in photon science, astrophysics, particle physics and accelerator research. Located in Menlo Park, California, SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. To learn more, please visit www.slac.stanford.edu.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.

Citation: (Colletier, J-P et al., Nature, 28 September 2016 (10.1038/nature19825))
CHARLESTON -- Issues over openness and transparency regarding the Eastern Illinois University Vitalization Project were brought up at the task force's first meeting Thursday.

Lola Burnham, journalism professor, questioned EIU President David Glassman on the extent to which the project will be public and where its meetings will be publicized before they occur.

Somebody needs to make sure that the public who are interested in attending, including the media, know when these meetings are taking place, she said.

Glassman confirmed that the work group meetings, which are expected to occur a few times a week, are open to the public along with the task force as a whole. He said the project will be sure to follow the rules and regulations with regard to the Illinois Open Meetings Act.

According to the statute, officials must publicly notify, through the EIU website, when and where each meeting is taking place 48 hours before the start of the meeting, as well as post the agenda.

For the task forces first meeting Thursday, the university failed to provide a public notice of the meeting on its website. Glassman said the meeting was scheduled in a short period of time. Faculty, staff and students selected were notified late Tuesday of their involvement in the project, according to an email from Glassman.

However, he said the minutes and further announcements of the task forces meetings will be posted on the Vitalization Project page of Easterns website.

Where the work group meeting announcements will be was unclear as of Thursday. Glassman said work group members have not met and have not been able to set up times yet.

When the work groups come together and they meet and they identify when theyre going to meet, then we will have to find a way in which they can post their meeting times, he said.

Burnhams questioning came after Glassman made comments earlier in the meeting on centralizing the information garnered from the meetings.

There will be centralized contact for making public announcements about the Vitalization Project, he said. It will be essentially centralized. For public announcements, they will be made at the discretion, collaborative discussion, of the task force chairperson and the president liaison chairperson."

He continued that this does not prevent those in the groups from talking with colleagues about the activities, it is just that when the media contacts us, that is what I am asking that we have to make more centralized in our public announcements.

Also in the meeting, Glassman said that 58 individuals were selected out of the 218 nominations sent to his desk.

Joe Gisondi, journalism professor, noted concerns he had over the selection of the members of the committee and the representation or possible lack thereof from the wider university community. Gisondi said specifically that no one from the journalism department staff was selected even though a few nominations from the department went out.

What has to be taken into consideration is the nominations themselves, Glassman said. There are several departments and services and units on campus of which nobody was nominated.

Glassman also explained nominees were not considered for work groups not specifically mentioned in the nominating email.

While the full list of selected nominees will be posted on the Visualization Project page (eiu.edu/vitalizeproject), Glassman did note the chairs for each of the nine work groups.

Ryan Hendrickson, EIU Graduate School interim dean, was selected as the task force chair.

The work group chairs are listed as follows: work group 1, Rick Roberts, counseling and student development department chair; work group 2, Ryan Gibson, director of web services; work group 3, Jody Stone, senior associate director of housing and dining; work group 4, Tami Babbs, assistant comptroller; work group 5, Steven Daniels, physics department chair; work group 6, Richard Flight, business professor; work group 7, Cindy Rich, secondary education and foundations instructor; work group 8, Jeff Stowell, psychology professor; work group 9, Melinda Mueller, political science professor.

Vacancies in any of the work groups will be handled by the council on university planning and budget.

The task force as a group will meet at least twice between now and the start of January.
MATTOON -- Lake Land College's corn and soybean fields are managed like most farms in many respects. The fields are seeded in the spring, the crops are harvested in the fall, and the grain is sold to generate revenue.

However, farm manager and agriculture instructor Mark Niemerg said the fields also serve as an education resource for students and as a training resource for the agriculture industry.

Lake Land farms approximately 135 acres of college-owned land adjacent to campus and 35 acres of private land around the nearby apartment complex, Niemerg said. The farm work, including the current harvest, has been handled for a few years now by Larry Overton and his sons Chris and Tyler.

"They do a nice job for us," Niemerg said. "I really appreciate them."

Niemerg said he sometimes hires one or two agriculture students to help with Lake Land's harvest, but it's not practical to utilize all of the students. He said class time is limited and the weather is often inclement during these times. He added that many of the students are already busy helping their families or employers with farm work.

Nevertheless, Lake Land's fields still serve as a student education resource. Niemerg said he closely follows the soil preparation, planting and harvesting in these fields. He incorporates this knowledge into his classroom lessons, along with digital photos of the crops at every development stage.

"You know exactly what was done with a certain field. I can better explain, without a doubt, what caused a given issue with the crops there," Niemerg said.

Lake Land Agriculture Division Chair Ryan Orrick said Niemerg said has done a great job over the years in his unique dual role as a farm manager and an educator.

Niemerg said Lake Land is a community college, so the mission of its fields extends beyond just educating students. He said the fields are used to study various farming materials and methods at the request of agriculture businesses. He said the results are then shared with farmers, managers, sales people and others in the industry.

One of the upcoming projects will be a five-year study on cover crops, Niemerg said. He noted that some of the other studies have focused on fungicide and herbicide applications, different tillage practices, and earthworms and other biological activity in the soil.

Niemerg said Lake Land's test plots are regularly used for Dow AgroSciences, DuPont and Monsanto, companies that each have chemical and seed operations. He said DuPont and Monsanto have both held field day training sessions on campus that have drawn attendees from throughout Illinois and other states.

"We want to be viewed as a training hub for the major players in agriculture," Niemerg said.

Niemerg said agriculture companies appreciate that Lake Land is centrally located, sits alongside Interstate 57, and has farmland that encompasses Central Illinois and Southern Illinois glaciated soils. He said Central Illinois soil has more consistent depth than the southern variety, and is better at holding nutrients and water.

"The production capacity is much greater. It's just a more forgiving soil," Niemerg said of Central Illinois soil. However, Niemerg said the differing soil types can make it challenging to ensure consistency when comparing results from different test plots.

Niemerg said the agriculture companies provide chemicals, seeds and assistance with any specialized planting. He said Lake Land uses revenue from the sale of the harvested grain to purchase fertilizer and other needed materials, repair tiles, remove brush, and meet other needs for the fields.

"If you live on a farm, there is always something that needs to be done. I don't live on this farm, but there is always something that needs to be done here," Niemerg said.

Orrick said community members can follow the progress of this fall's harvest at https://www.facebook.com/lakelandcollegeag/, the page for the Lake Land College Agriculture Division & Livestock Judging Team.
Friday, September 30, 2016 Former Mayor Takes On Current One Over ABQ Crime Wave And A Possible Break For Dems in Hot State House Race Chavez & Berry The seemingly passive response in officialdom to this week's news that ABQ is experiencing



If I'd handled crime and APD like the current Administration, I would deserve to be hanged in effigy. I'm astonished by the absence of outrage at City Hall. There's nothing easy about fighting crime but fundamentally ABQ needs a fully staffed, well-led and disciplined police department. Officers who break the law need to be held accountable but the rest of the police force needs to know that the Mayor has their back, not just by praising the great work that they perform every day but by fighting for and securing good pay, training and departmental funding.



Police make a difference and we shouldn't be surprised when the department shrinks and crime goes up. The current Chief is a nice guy but he's feckless and morale is horrible. Those are firing offenses. I don't envy the challenges confronting the next Mayor, but any candidate who doesn't talk openly and seriously about what has to be done shouldn't be considered seriously by the voters.



Chavez had his share of crime woes when he was mayor, especially in his first term in the 90's when gangs and Cuban refugees caused a record number of murders. In a later term, he wrestled with thefts from the APD evidence room. But he did hold a police chief accountable by firing him and putting in reforms.



The crime wave reports keep rolling in.



Will we get a direct response from the mayoral candidates when they are asked: "Will you retain the current APD Chief and upper command, if elected Mayor?" Or will the current chief and command bail out before the balloting begins? Stay tuned. . .



A BIG BREAK?



Is this



A southern New Mexico legislative candidate who runs a Boys & Girls Club is being sued for negligence after a former employee was sentenced to prison for sexually abusing two boys. The parents of one boy are suing Republican candidate for District 38 Rebecca Dow, claiming she ignored obvious red flags that could have prevented Alejandro Hernandez from hurting two 13-year-old boys during his employment at the Boys & Girls Club of Sierra County in Truth or Consequences. Dow told the Journal: In our facilities we go to great lengths to ensure the safety of our students, including background checks. I cant comment on the things they have alleged against me, but I trust the legal system will work.



Dow is running against Democrat



The Dow-Hotvedt battle could be a cliffhanger given the bad news for Dow. Dem performance in the district is 48.9%.



The House is divided 37 to 33 so it's two to tie for the Dems and three to take over.



This is the home of New Mexico politics.



E-mail your news and comments. (jmonahan@ix.netcom.com)



Interested in reaching New Mexico's most informed audience? Advertise here.



( c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2016

The seemingly passive response in officialdom to this week's news that ABQ is experiencing an exploding crime rate far surpassing any neighboring cities had us wondering what would be happening if Marty Chavez were still Mayor. We blogged that he would probably be hanged in effigy in Old Town in contrast to the current GOP Mayor Richard Berry who surfs along with little public or media scrutiny. From D.C. where he now lives and works, Chavez, a former three term mayor, comes with this :Chavez had his share of crime woes when he was mayor, especially in his first term in the 90's when gangs and Cuban refugees caused a record number of murders. In a later term, he wrestled with thefts from the APD evidence room. But he did hold a police chief accountable by firing him and putting in reforms.The crime wave reports keep rolling in. This one from UNM says campus car thefts rocketed in '15 as they did elsewhere in the city.Will we get a direct response from the mayoral candidates when they are asked: "Will you retain the current APD Chief and upper command, if elected Mayor?" Or will the current chief and command bail out before the balloting begins? Stay tuned. . .Is this the break the state House Democrats need to retake their majority which they lost to the R's in '14?Dow is running against Democrat Mary Hotvedt in the Silver City area district. They are battling to replace retiring GOP Rep. Diane Hamilton. R's backing Dow say this one is not over. They are hitting Hotvedt, a family therapist, for advocating open marriage, her stance on the death penalty and taxes, saying she is "not a good fit" for the mostly conservative SW district.The Dow-Hotvedt battle could be a cliffhanger given the bad news for Dow. Dem performance in the district is 48.9%.The House is divided 37 to 33 so it's two to tie for the Dems and three to take over.This is the home of New Mexico politics.
The good news: The OMALiNK shuttle service will return soon.

The even better news: It will do so under local ownership.

Cory Althouse, a Lincoln man who owns a steam-cleaning business, said he finalized a deal to buy the transportation service earlier this week from Groome Transportation of Richmond, Virginia.

Groome, which bought the business three years ago from its founder, Lincolnite Chris Stokes, shut down the service Sept. 23.

Althouse said he found out about the impending closure from his mechanic about a week before it happened. He said the mechanic thought he would be a good candidate to buy the company because of his background.

In addition to his steam-cleaning business, Althouse has been driving a cab for Happy Cab for the past four years, and within the past year bought his own cab and became an owner-operator.

Althouse said he hopes to have OMALiNK up and running again soon, but he has some work to do to make that happen.

The first order of business is applying to the Public Service Commission for temporary authority to operate under Groome's license.

Jamie Reyes, the PSC's interim transportation director, said once an application has been received and legal notice given, there is a five-day period during which the service cannot operate.

If the five days pass without any substantive complaints being filed, then OMALiNK can start operating while it seeks a permanent license.

Althouse said he was hoping to get the application completed by Friday, which could mean he could be operating by the second week of October.

He said he also is working with OMALiNK's former employees.

"We want to keep them on board," Althouse said.

OMALiNK shut down at the end of the day Sept. 23 after almost 13 years of operation. It was mainly used by people moving between Lincoln and the Omaha airport, but it also had authority to ferry passengers within Lincoln and Omaha.

Vince Groome, CEO of Groome Transportation, said that when he bought OMALiNK in 2013, he thought the Lincoln-Omaha market would be a good one, but it turned out to be too small for the company, which has operations in 19 states.

Groome said it seemed easier to shut down the service than try to sell it, and he said he was surprised when he received three offers for the company after news trickled out that it was shutting down.

He said he agreed to sell to Althouse largely because he was the highest bidder, but he also liked the fact that Althouse wanted to continue the business as is.

"To be in that market, you've got to be an owner-operator," Groome said. "That's why I think it will work for Cory better than it worked for us."

Althouse did not disclose what he paid for the company, but he said he felt like he got a good deal. He has a partner in the deal but said that person does not wish to be identified.

Althouse will serve as CEO and run the day-to-day operations. He said the service will operate much like it did before, although he plans to reinstitute personal pickups at customer homes. Groome had ended that practice and was picking up only at central locations such as grocery stores.

Althouse also said he would like to expand and hopes to seek authority to take passengers to and from Grand Island.

He has set up a temporary email address for potential customers to contact him: omalinkllc@gmail.com.
AOL founder Steve Case is bringing his Rise of the Rest bus trip to Omaha and Lincoln Monday for a day of highlighting startups and entrepreneurs.

But while Case's visit is the highlight of what's being touted as LNKDNA week, it is far from the only big event.

After three stops in Omaha from 7-10 a.m., Case will head to Lincoln for the rest of the day. The first scheduled event is a tour of Nebraska Innovation Campus. Case also will visit the Museum of American Speed, Fuse Coworking and Hudl before the day's main activities commence.

From 3-4 p.m., Case will host a "fireside chat" at the Rococo Theater, in which he will discuss the Rise of the Rest initiative and share insights from his experiences on topics including innovation, perseverance, partnerships and policy.

From 4-6 p.m. is the Rise of the Rest Pitch competition, where eight startup companies -- three from Lincoln and five from Omaha -- will have four minutes each to pitch their company in front of Case and four other judges for a shot at a $100,000 investment from Case.

The tour will end the day with a party at the Rococo before heading off for its next stop in Denver.

If you can't make the Monday events, don't worry. There are plenty of other things going on. Some of the highlights:

* On Tuesday, Lincoln native Amanda Valentine will host Make it Work at Vega from noon-1 p.m. Valentine, the sister of Maroon 5 guitarist James Valentine (who also will be in town for a concert Tuesday), competed on Bravo's Project Runway and now has her own clothing line. She also does personal styling for some of today's top pop and country music stars.

* Marcus Corp. CEO Greg Marcus will host "Cocktails and Conversation" Wednesday from 5-7 p.m. at the Marcus Lincoln Grand Cinema. The Milwaukee-based company owns Lincoln's first-run movie theaters as well as The Cornhusker Marriott.

* On Thursday, Derreck Kayongo will host "Tapping Your Social Power to Create Social Change" from 5-7 p.m. at the Rococo. Kayongo, a former Ugandan refugee, is best known as the founder and CEO of the Global Soap Project, which recycles discarded soap from hotels into new bars of soap to underserved communities worldwide. He also is CEO of the Atlanta-based National Center for Civil and Human Rights.

There are a host of other events occurring daily. For more information, go to http://lnkdna.com/.
We all know how "Deepwater Horizon " ends. When the BP oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, 11 people died and millions of gallons of oil spewed into the waters and up against the Gulf shores in the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

The story of the aftermath, even 6 years later, is still being written. The how-did-it-happen is another thing, and the point of director Peter Berg's intensely thrilling indictment of the greed and gross negligence that contributed to the horrific outcome.

Like the best true stories translated to film, this well-known ending works for Berg, not against him. He and writers Matthew Sand and Matthew Michael Carnahan know, as Ron Howard did with "Apollo 13" and James Cameron knew with "Titanic," that it's not about whether they live or they die or if the ship goes down or all are saved. It's about the process and those decisions, big or small, corrupt or well-intentioned, that made this disaster inevitable.

Based on a New York Times article, "Deepwater Horizon's Final Hours," the film is about the crew  the men and women aboard just doing their jobs. Mark Wahlberg anchors as Mike Williams, a no-nonsense engineer, who leaves his wife (Kate Hudson) and precocious daughter at home for his dangerous job on the rig. An early scene with a school science project spells out exactly what he and his co-workers do and foreshadows what will go wrong. It's the kind of set up that on paper likely seems too cutesy, but here, it not only works, it actually builds tension rather effectively.

"Deepwater Horizon" rises above expectations of what a movie like this is capable of at every turn  restrained where you think it might go too big or sentimental, and genuinely affecting when you think you're gearing up for an eye-roll. Wahlberg may be an easy punchline, but he's an underrated everyman and at his subdued best here. Even Hudson, in the generally thankless concerned-wife role, makes it seem worthwhile.

It's a welcome step up for Berg, too, whose patriotic bombast and cliche romanticism overwhelmed "Lone Survivor." Here, you really internalize the plight and rage of the workers, even though most people in the audience aren't likely to ever set a foot on an oil rig.

When Kurt Russell's crew leader Jimmy Harrell gets angry at the corporate brass for having neglected to perform some critical safety tests, you're angry right along with him. The execs like Don Vidrine (a perfectly slimy John Malkovich) see only that they're behind schedule and over budget and are cutting corners with abandon even as the rig seems to be faltering underneath them.

Jimmy and Mike eventually convince them to run a few tests  a white knuckle endeavor for everyone involved and, well, you can torture a statistic until it talks and it seems it might be the same for a pressure test. So they proceed, and, of course, things go spectacularly wrong.

It is a spectacle indeed  a must-see horror of fire and oil as this unbelievably massive structure explodes and crumbles around all the people we've gotten to know, like Gina Rodriguez's Andrea Fleytas, Dylan O'Brien's Caleb Holloway and Ethan Suplee's Jason Anderson. It's the rare film that can make you care about, and be able to tell the difference between, over a dozen characters.

I would have liked to have seen more of the rescue efforts from the Navy, more of the aftermath, but Berg keeps things focused, and the movie is likely better off for it. "Deepwater Horizon" achieves that impossible balance of being a tribute to the workers who both perished and survived that day and a searing critique of the rotten system that put them there in the first place.
A former Lincoln police officer who said her career was sidelined by back problems caused by her duty belt is asking a judge to grant her a pension.

Last month, the city denied Jonna Conlon's request for a line-of-duty injury pension after officials determined she could return to work and thus isn't eligible for disability benefits, according to the city attorney.

Conlon appealed.

Her attorneys cited doctors opinions' that she be restricted from lifting and from fighting, according to court filings. Her injuries even precluded her from taking a job as a paraeducator at a middle school in Lincoln, where she might need to restrain children smaller and less dangerous than the people she would encounter as a street cop, they said in court records.

"No matter how game Jonna Conlon is to try it again, should she be put out there with those restrictions in place?" her attorney Joel Nelson asked the city's Fire and Pension Disability Review Committee in May.

Conlon started her career in 2010 and said she developed lower back pain from the 25-pound belt in early 2014, according to court filings. In December of that year, she had disk replacement surgery on her lower back.

At some point, she asked her bosses if she could wear a vest that would bear the weight of the policing tools, but they said that wasn't an option, court documents say. They did put her in a modified uniform -- a vest carrier that housed her ballistic vest and had pockets -- when Conlon tried to return to full duty for one day in April, she said. But she still had equipment hanging around her waist and the pockets were hard to access, she said. Her handcuffs, for example, were on her lower back.

"They were difficult to get to, and they were extremely uncomfortable," Conlon said.

During the shift, her back pain returned as bad as it was before the surgery, she said.

This summer, the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office outfitted its deputies with similar vests to avoid back injuries. Lincoln Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister said he has no plans to use the vests.

Conlon testified at a disability pension review in May that she was put back on light duty after the one-day trial. In court filings, she said she wanted to go back to full duty but never got the approval she needed from then-Chief Jim Peschong.

"I would have tried anything," she told the pension review committee.

She was fired in June 2015.

In a letter that May, Peschong said Conlon was being terminated because she had exceeded the amount of time an officer can spend on light duty.

"Jonna, it is unfortunate that your injury brought us to this point in your law enforcement career," he wrote. "I wish you the best of luck and a speedy recovery."

After Conlon filed for a pension, the city hired a private investigator to follow her around, something city Personnel Director Doug McDaniel said it has done five times since 1968.

"It's not a routine thing," he said. "But when there's an indicated need, it's the responsible thing to do."

He declined to say why the city hired Prodigious Investigations in Conlon's case.

In its nine-page report that was part of court documents, the company said it watched and followed her for several hours on four days between late July and mid-September 2015, even signing up for a gym membership during the probe. During that time, investigators noted, she bent to pick up dog poop, vacuumed her car and did push-ups, sit-ups and yoga at the gym.

A company official declined to comment on the case, and the investigator's report wasn't discussed in the transcript of the pension board hearing provided to the court.

Attorney Tom McCarty, who is representing Conlon in the appeal, dismissed the investigator's findings.

"The question really is (...) can a police officer be a police officer, not can they lift a 10-pound dumbbell or walk a dog?" he said.

Ultimately, Mayor Chris Beutler denied Conlon's request for a pension last month, saying she wasn't eligible. City Attorney Jeff Kirkpatrick said the pension board reviewed her medical records and concluded she could still work as a police officer.

Conlon has since taken a job as a paraeducator at an elementary school in Lincoln.

In the appeal, McCarty said, the judge must decide the nature of a police officer's job, weighing moments of light stress such as driving a cruiser and writing reports with physical encounters like arrests.

At the pension hearing in May, attorney Nelson framed it this way: "It may be medium duty 99 percent of the time, but the 1 percent of the time when it's very heavy, or something that can't be quantified at all, is not something the officer can pass on."
Lincoln Fire and Rescue is changing how it responds to medical calls from local prisons after a number of assaults on prison staff members.

The strategic changes take effect immediately and came out of a joint LFR/Nebraska Department of Correctional Services discussion after it took rescue workers 12 minutes to get to nine Lincoln Correctional Center staff members who were assaulted by inmates on Aug. 24.

Until now, rescue crews have had to wait outside while staff inside the Correctional Center, Nebraska State Penitentiary, Diagnostic and Evaluation Center and Community Correctional Center-Lincoln made sure it was safe for them to enter.

Response to medical calls at the prisons was taking twice as long as it did to other businesses and homes, said Lincoln Fire Chief Micheal Despain.

Beginning Saturday, that will change.

"NDCS staff will have procedures in place to now bring patients to a secured staging area near the perimeter of the facility where a faster transfer of patients can occur," Despain said. "Also, NDCS staff will implement a more efficient process of relaying critical patient condition information between the correctional staff within the facility operating on radios, through the central communications center and on to the 911 operator to ensure the actual response better meets the needs of the incident."

While the new strategy won't necessarily result in fewer calls, Despain said it will improve response and processing times.

Frakes said he is confident in the new protocol and Despain said it's modeled after several other states that use the same procedure.

"While we're responding, the patient is moving to the gate as well," Despain said.

LFR and state Corrections staff are working on a better plan for response to fire calls, which will depend on what area of a given prison is affected.
The Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department has issued food enforcement warnings to:

Marketplace IGA, 4646 W. Huntington Ave. No Food Manager currently associated with establishment, one employee with expired permit (repeat). Employee food handler list not current (repeat). Chicken in deli case at unsafe temp, discarded, corrected (repeat). Items in produce cooler above safe cold holding temps, items relocated; melon at unsafe temp and discarded, corrected. Knives and slicer with food residues. Numerous flies in deli area and Subway.

Perfect Diner, 2855 N. 27th St. Employee drinks without lids (repeat). Employee washing knives and dishes for raw meat did not wash hands before returning to line. Worker did not sanitize knives and cutting board that was used to cut raw meat after washing at sink. Employee starting shift did not wash hands prior to starting work. Shell eggs over produce in walk-in, meats not stored by cooking temp, reorganize (repeat). Chicken kept out at lunch at unsafe temp, discarded. Sushi rice lacking time as control sticker, no control log kept, rice discarded, corrected (repeat). Three-compartment sink leaking. Dented can on shelf, removed, corrected.

Rodeway Inn, 2801 West O St. Food handler permit records not current. Employees food handler permits list not available. Food manager permit requirements not in compliance. Spray bottles filled with cleaners were not labeled, labeled bottles with name of product, corrected.

Village Inn #110028, 111 S. 29th St. Some employees without current food handler permits. Gravy made in morning at unsafe temps, discarded immediately, corrected (repeat).
Even if Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson had better than a Creamsicles chance in Death Valley of winning this November  which he doesnt  I wouldnt vote for him.

Sure, I get why some millennials and liberals are drawn to him. Hes a pot-promoting, pro-gay, abortion-rights backer and foe of capital punishment who wants government out of your personal business and the U.S. out of most foreign entanglements. His unaffected style strikes a refreshing contrast with conventional politicians, even if he doesnt know from Aleppo and cant name even one living foreign leader he admires.

But they seem to forget theres a reason Johnson was a Republican as late as 2012. And they seem not to know that a vote for Johnson is also a vote for an array of conservative, free-market, small-government positions that are anathema to most progressives.

He supports the U.S. Supreme Courts Citizens United decision that more or less obliterated laws that attempted to tamp down the influence of big money on our elections.

He opposes nearly all forms of gun control, allowing only that we should be open to a discussion on keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.

He advocates repealing the Affordable Care Act approved under President Barack Obama and the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit approved under President George W. Bush. His belief is that deregulated competition among insurance companies, hospitals and other health providers will work its salutary magic for those who are now or will be left uninsured.

He favors privatizing K-12 education through voucher programs, privatizing prisons and partially privatizing the Veterans Administration. He backs turning Medicare and Medicaid into leaner, exclusively state-administered programs even though he allowed in an interview with the Los Angeles Times this year that some states would likely be horrible failures.

Hes proposed increasing the Social Security retirement age to as high as 72, subjecting benefits to means testing and at least partially privatizing the program.

He opposes cap-and-trade measures to reduce carbon emissions and believes, in that charmingly utopian way of ideological enthusiasts, that if we allow the market to function unimpeded, consumers, innovators and personal choices will do more to bring about environmental protection and restoration than will government regulations.

He favors abolishing the minimum wage.

He is against net neutrality, the principle favored by progressives and small web entrepreneurs that internet service providers should not be allowed to favor certain legal websites over others by, for instance, giving them superior signal access to consumers.

Johnson has said he wants to get rid of all federal corporate, income, inheritance and capital gains taxes and replace the lost revenue with a 28 percent federal consumption tax  think of it as a sales tax on steroids that youd pay on top of state and local taxes. Even with the provision of monthly supplement checks to cover the tax on basic poverty-level expenditures, this radical shift would, like most Republican tax plans, almost certainly be a boon to the rich and place added burdens on low- and middle-income earners.

Further, Governor Johnson has pledged that his first major act as President will be to submit to Congress a truly balanced budget, says his website. No gimmicks, no imaginary cuts in the distant future. Real reductions to bring spending in line with revenues, without tax increases.

He may not really mean it. In May, the National Review reported that when Johnson became governor of New Mexico in 1995, he inherited a debt of $1.8 billion. When he left eight years later, the debt stood at $4.6 billion.

I understand that my principled fiscally conservative and libertarian friends nod with approval at many of the items on the above menu, however unlikely they would be to pass through Congress in the far more unlikely event Johnson were elected. They are features of his candidacy, not bugs.

What I dont understand is why hes garnering his strongest support among young voters who tend to be the most liberal  29 percent of those ages 18-34 backed Johnson in a mid-September Quinnipiac University poll  as though hes some next-gen Bernie Sanders in running shoes or a nonkooky version of Green Party nominee Jill Stein.

If they understand what theyre endorsing when they cast their lot with Gary Johnson, thats fine.

If they dont, thats scary.
The Lincoln City Council added Indigenous Peoples Day to the local calendar in smooth and admirable fashion.

They just put the new holiday right beside Columbus Day, sidestepping the fight that would have ensued if they had tried to wipe the previous holiday out of existence.

People who want to continue celebrating the so-called discovery of America by Columbus are free to do so.

And those who want to celebrate the cultures and the tribes that were already here now have their day on the calendar.

Surveying the trends, well venture a prediction that Indigenous Day may one day overshadow Columbus Day.

Lincoln joins about a dozen cities that have voted to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day on the second Monday in October. The councils action does not create a new paid holiday for city workers.

Lincoln may be in the forefront of the movement, but it seems to be accelerating nationally. Last year Alaska renamed Columbus Day, and businesses there will close in honor of Indigenous Peoples Day after Alaska Gov. Bill Walker signed a proclamation making the change official. South Dakota has celebrated Native Americans Day since 1990.

Columbus Day never caught on in a universal way. Twenty-two states dont recognize it as a paid holiday. Nebraska state government, which observes all federal holidays, does give workers the day off.

Some writers, like Lizzie Crocker of the Daily Beast, have even wondered if Columbus Day is going extinct.

Thats a real possibility. As Bernard Vance of the Omaha Tribe told the City Council in Lincoln, Its well documented that he was a mass murderer and a rapist among other things.

Bartolome de las Casas, a priest who accompanied Columbus, wrote of those who traveled with him: "They attacked the towns and spared neither the children nor the aged nor pregnant women nor women in childbed, not only stabbing them and dismembering them but cutting them to pieces as if dealing with sheep in the slaughter house.

The idea for declaring Indigenous Peoples Day in Lincoln originated with leaders at the Lincoln Indian Center. Councilman Carl Eskridge said the occasion will be a positive celebration. Clyde Tyndall, executive director of the Indian Center, pointed to many Natives, including professionals, attorneys, architects, who all had a hand in developing Lincoln.

Before Europeans arrived, 15 tribes lived and hunted within the boundaries of what is now Nebraska, he said. Today, students from at least 69 tribes are part of the Lincoln Public Schools system.

The City Council approved the resolution unanimously. We hope the community as a whole will embrace Indigenous Peoples Day just as whole-heartedly.
I am a combat veteran who takes a different view from McAnthony Brisco ("Speech still free during the anthem," Sept. 27). I wasn't in the sandbox. I did spend over a year around the punch bowl.

When I stand for the anthem, I remember the young men and women who went off to foreign lands to fight for America and defend its flag. Mostly, I remember those who didn't make it. Some are still listed as MIA.

If the Journal Star looked hard enough, they might find others who share my view. In my opinion, we are seeing too much selective journalism.

Leland Foote, Lincoln
Gov. Pete Ricketts is giving volunteers who oversee two state organizations rocked by scathing state audits time to make sweeping changes before deciding whether they should be reappointed.

Both the Nebraska Brand Committee and Tourism Commission were the subject of audits this year filled with allegations of lax oversight, violations of state laws and lack of accountability. Each of the volunteer oversight boards since has dismissed its executive director.

And on both, board members continue to serve after their terms have expired.

Jerry Kuennings four-year term on the Brand Committee ended Aug. 28.

A month later, Ricketts has yet to decide whether the Imperial rancher and chairman of the five-member committee will be reappointed.

The governor will appoint new board members after audit findings have been addressed by the Brand Committee," Ricketts spokesman Taylor Gage said in an email. "Like the Tourism Commission, many of the audit findings stem from management issues at the staff level that are being rectified by the respective board members and commissioners.

How the respective commissions handle these problems will weigh in the governors appointment decision.

Ricketts cannot remove volunteer members once they are appointed.

Terms for other members of the Brand Committee end in August 2017, 2018 and 2019.

The terms of five of the nine members of the state Tourism Commission expired July 1, and the remaining four are up in 2018.

People in Nebraska's tourism industry have discussed changing the structure of the commission, which would require legislative action. That could include revamping the makeup of the board.

Created in 1941, the Brand Committee keeps records of cattle brands, inspects cattle to verify ownership and investigates missing and stolen livestock. The committee is funded through inspection and other fees. Its brand area covers roughly the western two-thirds of Nebraska.

As of this week, Ricketts has two choices for the Brand Committee appointment, Kuenning and Gary Darnell of Harrisburg, according to Gage. The govern is still accepting applications.

Darnell, a rancher who finished his last term in 2012 after eight years on the commission, said he wants to restore cattlemens faith in the committee and has no opinion on when the governor should make the appointment.

He has to make that appointment when he feels its just. His people and fact finders are making that judgment on facts I would not have access to, he said.

Kuenning said he continues to work hard and is proud of what the committee has accomplished in addressing issues laid out in the audit report.

Were moving on. Weve got work to do, he said. In my opinion, the governor is letting the committee function as it should.

Both the Brand Committee and Tourism Commission are making policy and rules changes, as well as searching for new staff leadership.

The Brand Committee raised eyebrows when it accepted Shawn Harveys resignation as executive director, then created a new position for him as interim chief investigator and director of field operations, which allowed him to keep his salary of about $71,000 plus benefits.

Much of the July report from State Auditor Charlie Janssens office focused on Harvey, alleging he made personal use of a state-owned pickup, backdated an employee's disciplinary form and approved the sale of livestock without proof of ownership. Possible violations of state law have been forwarded to the Nebraska Attorney General's Office, which is reviewing the information.

The committee has advertised for a new director with the help of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture. The application deadline is early next month.

Nebraska Sen. Al Davis of Hyannis, who has been critical of the decision to keep Harvey, said the governor should decide whether to reappoint Kuenning soon after an Agriculture Committee hearing set for Oct. 14 on the audit and the committees actions.

The Brand Committee also is working to update rules and procedures and has commissioned a new computer system in answer to many bookkeeping issues raised in the audit. Committee members on Wednesday appeared before the Nebraska State Records Board for approval of a contract with Nebraska Interactive, the state's computer application designer, to develop web-based software that will track the work of brand inspectors, keep records, accept payments in the field, improve checks and balances, etc.

The Tourism Commission fired Executive Director Kathy McKillip in May after an April audit report showed the commission had reimbursed alcohol purchases using government money and allowed advertising firm Bailey Lauerman to overrun its contract for the state's main tourism campaign by $4.4 million.
GENOA  The off-road trails at Headworks Park near Genoa, a popular spot for all-terrain vehicle operators, are closed indefinitely.

Loup Public Power District, which owns the park and trails, announced the closure Thursday, citing the recent dissolution of the Nebraska Off Highway Vehicle Association.

The organization, which disbanded because of liability concerns and ongoing litigation, helped manage the ATV trails since 1990.

Neal Suess, Loup Power District president and CEO, said the closure is a result of NOHVAs dissolution, ongoing liability concerns and safety issues for park visitors and Loup personnel.

Dan Nitzel, co-founder of NOHVA, posted a message on the organization's website Sept. 6 detailing the board of directors' decision to end the group.

"We had to discontinue the organization because of liability concerns for our officers, directors, volunteers and members," he wrote.

According to Nitzel, the group faced three lawsuits over the past 18 months, two of which involved an accident at Headworks Park.

Because of the lawsuits, Nitzel said the group can no longer purchase liability insurance to protect its officers, volunteers and members from lawsuits involving accidents.

In his message, Nitzel acknowledged that alcohol use is high among ATV trail users at Headworks Park and the number of injuries is increasing.

"Even though the riding area is closed at 11 p.m., most people don't follow the curfew rule and ride late into the evening or all night  which is causing a big problem," he wrote.

"While the lawsuits are the main factor forcing NOHVA to disband, rider support for what we do at Headworks was falling," he added. "The majority of those who ride at Headworks chose not to support NOHVA with a membership."

Membership dues were used to help maintain the trails at Headworks Park and support partnering agencies.

Although the ATV trails at Headworks Park will be closed, the camping, fishing and picnic areas remain open.
TOWN OF WATERFORD  Firefighters from two counties battled a pole barn fire late Thursday night in far northwest Racine County.

A 60-foot by 80-foot pole barn at 34625 Loland Drive was reported on fire at about 10:35 p.m. Thursday evening, according to a Tichigan Volunteer Fire Company press release.

The fire was believed to have been started by the use of a welding torch being used on a vehicle in the barn, the release said.

Fire departments from Tichigan, Waterford and Rochester were initially called to the scene, west of Highway 83 and about three miles northwest of the Village of Waterford. The fire was later upgraded and 10 more departments from Racine and Waukesha counties arrived on scene to assist, according to the release.

Vehicles and propane tanks were inside the barn and firefighters got the fire under control after 45 minutes battling the blaze, the release said.

Some of the vehicles in the barn were spared. The estimated damage to the barn and its contents is $150,000 and no injuries were reported, fire officials said.

The last units cleared the scene at about 2:14 a.m. Friday.
WIND LAKE  A suspect in the robbery of a BP gas station earlier this week has been arrested, the Racine County Sheriffs Office reported Friday.

The suspect was taken into custody in Milwaukee County after the Sheriffs Office worked with several regional law enforcement agencies that reported similar incidents in their jurisdictions, according to a news release.

The Sheriffs Office did not name the suspect, citing ongoing investigations.

Additional information will be made available once it is determined the investigation has been concluded, according to the release.

Deputies were dispatched at 2:45 p.m. Monday to the BP gas station at 7812 S. Loomis Road, for a report of an armed robbery.

Upon arrival, sheriffs deputies and investigators learned that a single suspect entered the store while armed with a rifle. The suspect reportedly robbed the store of an undetermined amount of cash and tobacco products, the Sheriffs Office reported.

Nobody was hurt during the robbery and the suspect fled prior to deputies arrival.
Be patient, its coming. Wisconsins color train is a little behind schedule. The annual changing of the colors in the states forests, parks and cities has yet to make an appearance across much of the state and it may take a few more weeks to get here. Green leaves still dominate here in southeastern Wisconsin where Racine and Kenosha County are listed at 10 percent of peak color by tourism charts.

Only a couple of counties in the far Northwoods are at more than 50 percent  in the Hurley and Presque Isle areas. And over in La Crosse, which is often awash under a canopy of reds and golds for its annual Oktoberfest celebration this weekend, the colors are only at 30 percent of peak  which isnt expected until the third week in October. For leaf-peepers and fall bikers, hikers and walkers, Racine isnt expect to hit color peak until the fourth week in October  assuming they dont fall prey to the cold rains and winds of early November. We have plenty of time yet to dig the rakes out of storage.

Another tree was in the news this week  a DoubleTree. Thumbs up and welcome to the newly refurbished DoubleTree by Hilton as it officially changed names and rechristened itself after a $4 million upgrade to the former Radisson franchise at 223 Gaslight Circle. The upscale hotel underwent a major renovation that included redoing the lobby and public areas, gutting bathrooms and replacing tubs and fixtures, a remodeling of the fitness center with all new equipment and addition of a new covered entryway to the hotel.

Two thumbs up  or maybe just one paw  to the newest member of the Caledonia Police Department and first K-9 on the department. The furry law enforcer goes by several potential aliases  Zeus, Thor or Louie. Thats because Caledonia Police Officer Cory Radke, who is the K-9s first handler, has asked the community to help name the dog. You can cast your ballot at surveymonkey.com/r/2DWWF6H

There was distressing news of the disarray at the Bray Center this week with reports of unpaid mortgage and utility bills that threaten the centers continued operation. The operational problems apparently began to stack up a year ago after longtime Executive Director Jameel Ghuari was forced to step away after suffering a stroke. The center at 924 Center St. is independent of other city-run centers and faces a deadline today to make a $1,700 bank payment  before even addressing other larger debts. The center has been a mainstay for youth after-school activities and we hope the centers board can find a way to right the ship and get it back on track.

Make it a nice clean shave. Sidewalk shaving to even out the bumps between squares apparently can shave costs pretty well, too. In a pilot program, the city of Racine contracted with Safe Step, LLC, of Hortonville, to saw cut sidewalks in need of repair instead of going with full replacement as it has in the past. That cheaper technique has received favorable first reviews from Public Works Director Mark Yehlen, who said, Youre getting 88 percent of the work done for a little more than half the money. Until we actually ended up doing it, I wasnt sure how it was going to work out. The savings helped make up the costs for sidewalk replacement on the citys five street reconstruction projects, according to Yehlen.
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Friday that Russia likely is meddling in the U.S. electoral process with the aim of calling into question the results of the upcoming presidential election.

I think their goal here is to delegitimize the election, which is not a good thing, Johnson, R-Oshkosh, told reporters after an event at the Wisconsin state Capitol.

Im not concerned that theyre going to be able to tip the scales of the election. But Im concerned with what theyre trying to do in terms of a disinformation campaign, as theyve done in eastern Europe, Johnson added.

As chairman of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee, Johnson is one of the leading federal lawmakers on national security issues.

Johnsons remarks mirror similar concerns raised by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton weeks ago.

The Washington Post has reported U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are investigating a broad covert Russian operation in the United States to sow public distrust in the upcoming presidential election and in U.S. political institutions.

U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe Russia was responsible for hacking into internal Democratic National Committee emails. Russian intelligence agents also may be involved in efforts to hack into voter registration records and other election data in multiple U.S. states, according to a new Time Magazine report.

The presidential candidate Johnson supports, Republican nominee Donald Trump, has taken a different tack on Russia.

Trump repeatedly has deflected blame from Russia for hacking into the DNC emails, despite U.S. intelligence officials reportedly telling Trump they have high confidence Russia is responsible.

He also has praised Russian president Vladimir Putin and called on Russia to hack into Clintons emails.

Johnson, asked repeatedly Friday about Trumps comments on Russia and Putin, declined to say whether hes bothered by them. Johnson instead blamed Obama for Russias actions.

The reason Russias doing these types of things  the reason Chinas showing aggression, the reason that ISIS hasnt been defeated  is because President Obama isnt providing the leadership, Johnson said.

The first-term Johnson is seeking re-election in November. Hes challenged by Democrat Russ Feingold and Libertarian Phil Anderson.
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For transfer instructions to GoDaddy, please click here.
China arrests man suspected of killing 19 in remote village

Chinese police on Thursday arrested a man suspected of killing 19 people, including three children, found dead in different locations a remote southwestern village, state media and authorities said.
Durbarmarg store fire under control

A fire that broke out in a shop at Durbar Marg in the Capital on Friday has been brought under control.
Ex Home Minister Ghimires effigy cremated at Aryaghat

The last rites of former Home Minister Madhav Ghimire and his two brothers, who went missing in the Trishuli river following an accident on Sunday, were performed by making effigies at Pashupati Aryaghat, Kathmandu on Friday.
Forest land grab row: Taskforce inspects wrecked buildings

A taskforce formed to investigate the Dhading District Forest Offices attempt to demolish the buildings of Radio Dhading and the womens shelter, Sneha Kendra, has inspected the wrecked buildings located in Neelkantha Municipality.
Govt re-tables three budget-related bills

The three budget-related bills, which were earlier rejected by a majority of lawmakers, have once again been tabled in the Parliament to facilitate full implementation of the budget for this fiscal year.
Leaders face tough balancing act

An uphill task of accommodating diverse interests stare at the governing CPN (Maoist Centre) and Nepali Congress as they look to redraw federal boundaries to bring the disgruntled parties on board without minimising the influence that the top leaders of major parties hold in the existing federal setup.
Manmohan Institute Bill withdrawn from House

The government on Thursday withdrew the Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) Bill from Parliament.
Many casualties in New Jersey train crash (In pictures)

A woman has been killed and 108 other people injured, some of them critically, after a commuter train crashed into a railway station in the US state of New Jersey.
MJF-L calls for inclusive negotation process

The Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum Loktanrik has expressed dissatisfaction over the exclusion of the party in the ongoing informal negotiation to resolve the Madhes crisis.
MJF-L Chief Whip confirms PM Dahals meet with Tikapur incident accused in Delhi

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, during his state visit of India in New Delhi, had met a person accused of being involved in the Tikapur incident, confirmed Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-Loktantrik Chief Whip Yogendra Chaudhary.
No free medicine service for Far West: NHRC

People in the far-western region are deprived of free medicines available at zonal hospitals, according to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
PM calls for amending Saarc Charter

At a time when the fate of 19th Saarc Summit to be held in Islamabad hangs in the balance amid tensions between India and Pakistan, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Thursday said that the Saarc Charter should be amended and called on the Saarc Secretariat, which is based in Kathmandu, for introducing reforms.
Refused refugees

Ratification of Paris climate agreement by some countries was a success but not addressing plight of climate refugees was a failure
Sajha to operate buses to Baglung and Gorkha

Sajha Yatayat, which has been operating public buses along different routes in the Capital, has said it is going to expand its services outside the Valley.
Trouble in Shangrila

Another Tourism Day passes while we continue to struggle with a litany of problems
US election 2016: Trump accused of Cuba embargo breach

Hillary Clinton says presidential rival Donald Trump appears to have violated US laws, after a report said he broke a trade embargo with Cuba.
We plan to extend our services up to Birgunj

Maersk Line is a container shipping company operating globally. The Danish-based company has been providing services to Nepali traders for the last two decades. Franck Dedenis, managing director India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka Cluster at Maersk Line, is currently on a visit to Nepal. The Kathmandu Post caught up with Dedenis for an interview.
Resuming talks with North Korea in the wake of its fifth nuclear test would end up recognizing the communist nation as a nuclear state and further embolden the regime, a former chief U.S. nuclear negotiator with Pyongyang said Thursday.



Former Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who served as lead negotiator for the six-party nuclear talks with the North from 2005 to 2009, also stressed in an article to the Project Syndicate that now is not the time for such conciliatory gestures, but to tighten sanctions on Pyongyang through greater cooperation with China.



The North's Sept. 9 nuclear test has brought not only calls for tougher punishment for Pyongyang, but it also for reopening negotiations with the North, even in exchange for some concessions to the regime, in order to stop any further progress in the North's nuclear and missile programs.



"The logic behind such suggestions seems to come down to, 'What have we got to lose?' The answer is simple: plenty. Such talks ... would most likely bring with it a general acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear-weapons state," Hill said.



Moreover, Hill said that the North would be unlikely to engage in any such talks, much less impose a moratorium on weapons tests, unless some of their longstanding demands, such as the suspension of joint military exercises by the U.S. and South Korea, were met.



"This Realpolitik approach, some seem to believe, will somehow diminish whatever power the North Koreans wield, essentially disarming them. But the truth is that the North has done nothing to earn such appeasement," he said. "And, in fact, if the international community were to make any such conciliatory gestures, the result would be a bolder North."



The North has long demanded an end to joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea, denouncing such routine drills as a rehearsal for invasion, despite repeated assurances from Washington and Seoul that the exercises are purely defensive.



Hill said such exercises are an essential part of any alliance and should continue.



"If two countries agree to mutual defense, they need to ensure that their cooperation is practiced and perfected. That is precisely why North Korea, which knows a thing or two about the need for tests and exercises, has made the issue a top propaganda priority," he said.



Hill said the U.S. government has been right in demanding any talks with Pyongyang be based on previous deals, including a 2005 denuclearization deal, which he negotiated and calls for the North to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for political and economic concessions.



Launching new talks that ignored past obligations would cast doubt on the "viability of any new accord," he said.



"What is needed is more cooperation with China on sanctions enforcement, as well as deep and quiet talks with the Chinese that aim to address any strategic mistrust over the eventual political arrangements on the Korean Peninsula," Hill said.



"The U.S. should also continue to strengthen its security relations with Japan and South Korea, including by developing and deploying anti-ballistic missile systems. Direct measures like those that were allegedly used to hamper Iran's nuclear program should be explored and accelerated," he said. (Yonhap)




Joe and Rhonda Sexton, who operated Flowers by Guenthers at 310 Sand Lake Road in Onalaska from 2000 to 2013, plan to reopen the flower shop within a couple weeks.

They had been leasing the building to a couple who operated the business until it closed a few weeks ago. We got it back, Joe Sexton said last week. The quicker we get it open again, the better.

The Sextons recently moved back to the area from North Padre Island, Texas, where Joe had been a barber.

The past two years, he had operated his own barber shop kiosk  which he has moved inside the Onalaska flower shop. It looks like a big barber pole, he said of the shiny red, white and blue kiosk.

Sexton said a couple prospects have expressed interest in buying the flower shop business. Even if the Sextons do sell it, he hopes to keep his Barber Joe kiosk inside and continue to cut hair there.

Ill be a barber here until Im 100, Sexton joked. The barber kiosk might open before the flower shop reopens, he said.

Hours for both the flower and barber businesses probably will be 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays and 8 a.m. to noon Saturdays, Sexton said. For more information, visit www.barberjoe.com or www.flowersbyguenthers.com.

The latter website is being redone and will be up soon, Sexton said.
Holmen Lutheran Churchs meatball and lefse dinner, which includes Norwegian desserts, will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15. Adult tickets are $10, children ages 4-10 are $5, and children 3 and under are free. Carry outs are available. Each adult ticket is your chance to win a king-size quilt door prize.
October 2-8 is National 4-H Week, and Houston County is celebrating the 4-H youth who have made an impact on the community and are stepping up to the challenges of a complex and changing world. This years themes are #4HGROWSHERE & #4HGROWN. The 4-H program grows confidence, character, friendships, opportunities, knowledge, community and so much more. During 4-H Week, look around town for signs and posters celebrating the occasion. In school, youth might be giving announcements, sharing facts about 4-H and handing out promotional items. Also, tune into local radio stations and listen for Houston County 4-H youth sharing why they love 4-H.

The 4-H youth development program provides learn-by-doing experiences to encourage youth to experiment, innovate and think independently. 4-H programs are offered through school-based, after-school and camp settings and within community clubs, where groups meet regularly to work on projects, perform community service and develop leadership skills. Through this unique process, youth obtain essential life skills such as problem-solving, decision-making, coping and communicating.

4-H provides positive, non-school learning opportunities that are critical for the development of young people, said Dorothy McCargo Freeman, state 4-H Youth Development Program Leader. As a result, 4-H youth are able to contribute and make a difference in positive ways in their homes, schools and communities throughout Minnesota.

Todays 4-H projects include the traditional and still popular agriculture and animal science projects. But 4-H youth also work on cutting-edge technology projects, such as aquatic robotics, digital photography, community service and environmental projects, such as maintaining local hiking trails and testing water in area streams for contaminants.

My favorite thing about 4-H is being an officer (Historian) and taking projects to the fair, said Charlie Martin of the La Crescent Tiger Lilies.

Recent findings from Tufts Universitys 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development indicate that young people in 4-H are three times more likely to contribute to their communities than youth not participating in 4-H. Notably, the Tufts research discovered that the structured learning, encouragement and adult mentoring that 4-Hers receive play a vital role in helping them actively contribute to their communities. In Houston County, more than 400 4-H members and 100 volunteers are involved in 4 H.

Learn more about 4-H in Minnesota and how you can get involved at 4-H.umn.edu or contact Rebecca Paulson, Houston County 4-H program coordinator, at 507-725-5807 or rpaulson@umn.edu.
Criminal charges are pending against a La Crosse woman accused of shooting at another vehicle during a road rage incident early Wednesday in the town of Onalaska.

The driver of a Chrysler 300 said he was traveling with two passengers from downtown La Crosse to Holmen about 2 a.m. when a Ford Focus began tailgating him on Hwy. 35 in Onalaska, according to La Crosse County Sheriffs Department reports.

He tried to lose the car in Holmen, but it followed until both cars stopped on Forest Court. The passenger in the Chrysler confronted the occupants of Ford before Lenore Winjum fired from the drivers seat, according to the report.

The Ford fled, and the Chrysler followed until police intervened and found Winjums car on Wolfe Drive in Holmen.

Winjum, 28, told investigators that the Chrysler was tailgating and a passenger threw three full beer cans at her car. She said she removed a handgun while stopped on Forest Court and fired one shot, aiming for a tire but striking the drivers door, reports stated. No one was injured. Authorities recovered a handgun from her car.
An exhibit opening this weekend at the Childrens Museum of La Crosse invites people to experience Japanese life and culture.

Hello from Japan! is a traveling exhibit that will be on the second floor of the museum Saturday though the end of the year. Its part of the Freeman Foundation Asian Culture Exhibit Series, childrens museum marketing and development director Leanne Poellinger said, and is one of six exhibits traveling across the country designed to increase understanding of Asian culture.

Children's Museum of La Crosse celebrates 17 years and 1 million visitors The Weaver family started out celebrating the last days of summer and ended up being part of

The exhibit features a Japanese streetscape that highlights both modern and traditional Japanese culture. Inspired by Tokyos bustling Harajuku district, attendees will learn about the citys urban design, sing karaoke, learn about Japanese cuisine and explore Kawaii, or the culture of being cute.

At the other end of the exhibit, displays highlight the spiritual side of Japanese culture with a Shinto shrine and park. Kids will be able receive a fortune, leave a wish at the wishing tree and crawl through a bamboo forest.

The Childrens Museum website and the displays will also point students to a mobile app created to tie in with the exhibit. The League of Extraordinary Bloggers app at www.lxbgame.com puts kids on a team of agents from four Asian countries to solve a mission and share information.

Thanks to the Freeman Foundation and the Association of Childrens Museums, Poellinger said, La Crosse was able to host the Hello from Japan! exhibit rent free. A grant from the La Crosse Community Foundation Global Awareness Fund will be used to sponsor events and field trips around the exhibit, and the museum plans to host an adult field trip day sometime in December.

The exhibit should appeal to kids of all ages, with stations where students can create their Kawaii-styled Japanese mascot or work with iPads to learn Japanese language and writing. Poellinger also said she hopes to work with the local international student community on programming or workshops on topics that tie in with the exhibit, such as origami.

Most people dont get to visit Japan, Poellinger said. Its neat to see where all these Japanese influences in our culture come from.
An October trial for a Holmen man who confessed to killing his girlfriend last year is delayed until spring after he fired his attorney.
MADISON, Wis. (AP)  Donald Trump probably wont win Wisconsin, given the dismal performance of past Republican presidential candidates in the state, the Assemblys top Republican said.

Trump appeared at a rally in Waukesha, one of the states most conservative cities, on Wednesday evening. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Thursday pointed out that a Republican presidential candidate hasnt won Wisconsin since 1984, and predicted that Trump probably wont break that streak.

Vos made the remarks during a debate with Democratic Minority Leader Peter Barca at a downtown Madison club. He said the Wisconsin GOP was initially concerned about Trump hurting down-ticket Republican candidates, but that he now believes Trump is helping them by energizing conservative voters. He predicted that Republicans will retain their Assembly majority with something close to the 63-36 advantage they now enjoy.

If the election was today, wed come back with all 63 seats, Vos said.

Trumps Wisconsin campaign director didnt immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Vos supported Sen. Marco Rubio during the primary season and as recently as last month, he branded Trump an embarrassment. He said during the debate that he now supports the billionaire candidate. Vos explained to reporters afterward that he was angry with Trump because Trump didnt automatically endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan, one of the Wisconsin GOPs stars, in Ryans primary race. Trump eventually did issue the endorsement, which Vos said changed his mind about Trump.

Barca, for his part, said he expects a huge turnout for Hillary Clinton and U.S. Senate candidate Russ Feingold. The latest Marquette University Law School poll released on Sept. 21 showed Clinton and Trump about even and Feingold leading incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson. Still, Barca predicted that a national Democratic wave that could carry his party back to the majority in the Assembly.
The answer to the question, Who wears short shorts? was as easy as snagging a brat with sauerkraut at the Oktoberfest Lederhosen Luncheon Thursday: The grenadiers do, of course.

The men of the Grenadier Corps, which numbers 25 couples when fully staffed and is tasked with helping the royal family promote Oktoberfest, must hew to specific clothing guidelines. Of course, the women do, too, but a story about the Lederhosen Luncheon focuses naturally on lederhosen, the plural form of lederhose.

Asked why his pea green leather (leder) shorts (hosen) were shorter than most others at the luncheon under the big tent at the South Festgrounds, second-year Grenadier Jeff Hankey said, Its official for the grenadiers, as are the corps members shirts, ties, suspenders and coats.

When its really cold, we have the flexibility to go with bundhosen, Hankey said, adding for detail, but my bundhosen are brown.

In the Bavarian cosmos, lederhosen range from pretty short to just above the knee, while bundhosen extend just below the knee, as do the lesser-known kniebundhosen, according to Destination Munich, a written and cyberspaced guide to such things.

Before Hankey became a grenadier, he was with the bagpipers  known as doodlesackers, in some circles.

I wore a kilt, Hankey said. Im German and Irish, and I try to make my family proud.

Hit with the overworked question about what is worn under a kilt  if anything  Hankey replied coyly, Nothing is worn under a kilt, but it is real and authentic.

A neophyte Oktoberfester who might be wearing a brand-spankin new pair of lederhosen has one thing in common with the Festmaster: Both put the garments on one leg at a time.

Beyond that, royalty also must toe the line on costumery, said outgoing Festmaster Chuck Roth, who noted that his black and green knee-length lederhosen follow the rules.

I didnt have to think about much, Roth said.

Festmasters also have flexibility for the weather, such as when the Oktoberfest royalty appeared at an event in Winnipeg, Canada, and the temperature was minus-15 and to ward off similar conditions at the St. Paul Winter Carnival, he said.

Those were the only two times Ive worn the bundhosen, he said.

Roth agreed with a first-timers assessment that lederhosen, bundhosen and even kniebundhosen  he hadnt heard of that version  or whatever else you call the leather breeches can present a challenge in a restroom. Unbuttoning the flaps can be time-consuming, especially if youre in a hurry.

Youve got to have a plan, Roth said with his nearly perpetual smile. You have to give yourself a little more time.

Actually, thats an understatement. The process of getting the barn door open is as challenging as trying to take the horse collar off a Clydesdale.

Some lederhosen novices dont have to follow Oktoberfest laws  formal ones, anyway.

Just ask Mike Weidemann of Holmen, the spouse of newly-revealed royal and Mrs. Oktoberfest 2016, Sue Weidemann.

Asked how he selected his trachten, as the traditional German/Bavarian attire are called, Weidemann replied, My wife got them from somewhere in Germany.

Although Mike didnt sound as if he were resentful, and although Sue stood nearby in her homemade dirndl with her trademark Christmas theme, and although her personality is about as bright and pleasant as anybody you can find, and although she smiles more than a chesire cat, one might surmise from her selection of his outfit without consulting him that she also wears the lederhosen in the house.

She even picked out the crotch bling, Mike said, referring to the silver chain dangling from both sides of his waist, with a small, animal horn-like decoration in the middle. Theres a German name for them, but thats what the grenadiers tell me they call it.

He may have been searching for the word charivari, which describes the jewelry accessories for both fraus and herrs. Many of the male charivari are designed to illustrate the hunting tradition of manly men, explaining why many include those animal horns.

Lederhosen normally are worn with long socks, although some festers opt for ankle-length, in which case they also wear calf warmers halfway between the knees and feet.

The luncheon attracted several hundred early festers to the South Side festgrounds, leaving few tittynopes for sandwiches later.

Following are a few other factoids of lederhosen lore, compiled from comprehensive interviews at the luncheon and investigative reporting from Destination Munich and other reputable sources.

Until the leather britches are broken in, wearers might feel a bit like they are walking around with a permanent wedgie.

Although some who eschew wearing the pants make jokes about chafing because of the stiff leather, the shorts are lined, so that is not a problem for most. If one is particularly sensitive, he probably could solve the problem with a pair of the extra-long style of Duluth Trading Co. Buck Naked briefs.

As tradition has it, cleaning lederhosen is verboten. In fact, the dirtier, the better, because that helps keep the leather moist and comfortable. (That said, the air at the luncheon smelled pleasant enough, with perhaps the sauerkraut aroma overcoming any hint of wet cows or moldy leather.)

Oddly enough, the blame for delivering the death knell to lederhosen as an everyday fashion goes to a Bavarian  one Levi Strauss.

Strauss was a native of northern Bavaria, an area known for spurning lederhosen. When he migrated to San Francisco during the California Gold Rush, his riveted blue jeans became the most popular type of pants in the world, according to Destination Munich.

Not that Levis didnt need a bit of tweaking. The original jeans had a rivet in the crotch, as well as at all of the pockets. Unlike with lederhosen, the rivets are for reinforcement rather than bling.

The rivets irked nuns in Catholic Schools, who banned the brand because the metal doo-dads scratched chairs.
The toll from last weeks floods grew to more than $21 million Thursday as damage reports continue to come in.

The worst damage so far is in Vernon County, where 44 homes and businesses were destroyed and more than 200 damaged by torrential rains that dumped 3 to 7 inches of rain Sept. 20-22.

The county has incurred nearly $6 million in damage to roads and bridges, on top of the nearly $4 million in private property, according to the latest numbers released by Wisconsin Emergency Management.

Crawford County suffered nearly $5 million in damages, with two homes destroyed and 64 damaged.

Two Vernon County residents were killed in the flooding, and a BNSF train derailed in Crawford County when water eroded the earth beneath the tracks.

Road crews have been working to clear debris, but road closures remain common throughout southwest Wisconsin.
CHICAGO  Political pollsters usually dont tell you about these people: the Americans who arent planning to vote.

Yet in a close election like this years presidential race, those who arent currently planning to vote could matter a lot, if the campaigns can move them from the sidelines to polling places. The latest Bloomberg Politics national poll shows that Hillary Clinton has more of a stake in trying to motivate them than Donald Trump.

The Bloomberg survey for the first time asked unlikely voters who they would back, if they had a change of heart and decided to cast a ballot. What it showed is greater support for Clinton than Trump among those not likely to vote, as well as a nonvoter profile that skews Democratic.

The findings show that those not planning to vote back Clinton over Trump, 38 percent to 27 percent, if they did indeed cast a ballot. That 11-point difference, although subject to a margin of error of plus or minus 5.5 percentage points, helps underscore the importance of turnout for the Clinton campaign.

Democrats from Barack Obama on down are worried about voter apathy among nonwhites, so much so that the president told one recent audience that he would consider it a personal insult if black voters didnt back Clinton.

Polls, including Bloombergs, have also shown young voters are also a problem for Clinton. Those under age 35 are more likely to be nonvoters than likely voters, 54 percent to 46 percent, the poll showed.

As a way to try to address the problem, Clintons campaign has increasingly started to tailor campaign events to younger votes. She appeared Wednesday in New Hampshire with Bernie Sanders, her primary rival, at an event that focused on college student debt and her proposal for free college tuition for families earning less than $125,000. Clintons campaign said Wednesday that its trying to arrange more events with Sanders because he has a strong appeal to millennial voters and those thinking about supporting third-party candidates because of his independent affiliation as senator from Vermont. Hes a particularly powerful voice on that front, Jennifer Palmieri, Clintons communications director, told reporters.

In October, Clintons campaign is expected to focus more heavily on get-out-the-vote efforts, especially in battleground states where early voting will be underway. Trumps turnout efforts, heavily dependent on the Republican National Committee, will also be growing in intensity.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation insists that a new road is the only solution to congestion issues in our area. Most of us dont want (and we cant afford) new roads, so we need to come up with our own alternatives. Some local and regional agencies are beginning to look at other solutions, and it's important that they hear from all of us.

There are many low-cost improvements we can make now. We can raise parking rates to simulate congestion pricing, for example. Building more road capacity doesnt alleviate traffic congestion, but congestion pricing does. Governments and employers could do much more to encourage and reward car pools, park and ride, and transit use, too.

And we need to consider the growing number of people who cant or dont drive private vehicles. A new road will not help you get to work or shopping if you dont own a car, but better public transportation will, including services to rural areas. Sensible, sustainable and equitable transportation solutions wont come from the top down.

From 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5, the Sierra Club will host a La Crosse Area Transportation Forum at the Southside Neighborhood Center, 1300 S. Sixth St. There will be information about current transportation options, opportunities for people to make suggestions and start working on solutions, and news about the states transportation budget and planning processes. Everyone is welcome to this free event.
A 20-year-old Tomah man was referred to the Monroe County District Attorney for multiple charges after he was pulled over by Tomah police Sept. 18 on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle.

Police conducted a records check on a van that was headed south on North Superior Avenue, and the license plate came back as stolen Sept. 12 in Monroe County. The van parked in the Goodwill parking lot, where police observed a different license plate number on the front of the vehicle.

After the van pulled away from Goodwill, police initiated a stop and identified the driver as Jade Arlean Justice Deeny, who told police he recently purchased the vehicle with the plates on it. The report says he produced a title without a date of sale or buyer or seller information. He denied a request by police to search the vehicle. The report says police later determined the vehicle was purchased legally but that Deeny had stolen one of the license plates.

Deeny was transported to the police station, and police used a K9 to sniff the exterior of the vehicle. The K9 reportedly alerted police to the odor of narcotics, and police conducted a search, which allegedly found two baggies with marijuana seeds, a baggie with marijuana residue, a jar with marijuana inside and multiple burned ends of cigarettes.

The search also uncovered a name tag of a 17-year-old juvenile identified as Deenys girlfriend. She was later identified as a runaway from North Carolina living with Deeny in Tomah. She told police she hadnt obtained a high school diploma and was not attending school. The report says she admitted to police that some of the marijuana belonged to her.

Deeny, who has two active North Carolina warrants, was referred for possession of stolen property, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and contributing to truancy. The juvenile was referred for possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

In other Tomah police news:

Tammy Miller-Long, 43, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for bail jumping after a Sept. 18 drunk driving stop in Tomah. Police stopped the Miller-Long vehicle after it accelerated south on Superior Avenue at a high rate of speed.

Miller-Long has bond conditions that prohibit her from consuming alcohol and having contact with a man identified as a passenger in the vehicle. She was issued a municipal citation for drunk driving.

Corey Jamael Taylor, 24, and a 16-year-old juvenile, both from Apple Valley, Minnesota, were referred to the district attorney for allegedly stealing televisions from rooms at the AmericInn.

Police were called to the motel Sept. 4 and observed screens in several rooms had been pulled from their window frames and televisions from the rooms had been removed. One television was spotted hidden under a white sheet and another concealed under some brush.

Police were told that a group of young males that was staying in one of the rooms approached a motel employee and tried to sell one of the televisions and that the men attempted to sell Playstation games in the parking lot. The report says one of the men asked for a reward after telling the motel manager he had found one of the televisions.

Police located the men in the motel pool and spoke with a man later identified as Taylor. He told police that it was the 16-year-old who found the televisions outside the motel. Police ended the interview without an arrest.

Twelve days later, police obtained surveillance video allegedly showing Taylor and the juvenile with the missing televisions. Both Taylor and the juvenile were referred to the district attorney for burglary, trespass to the dwelling and criminal damage to property. The juvenile was also referred for theft.

Amber Michelle Schaller, 23, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney on multiple charges after a Sept. 21 incident in a group home.

Police were called after Schaller allegedly struck an employee. The report said Schaller was initially cooperative but began to resist when police attempted to transport her to a squad car. She allegedly threatened to kick an officer in the nuts and kicked an officer on the leg.

Schaller was referred to the district attorney for threatening an officer, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. She has a bond condition that prohibits her from committing acts of violence, which triggered the bail jumping referral.

Derek Ravon Bussell, 23, Chicago, was referred to the district attorney for possession of marijuana after a Sept. 22 traffic stop.

Police were called to Kwik Trip after the manager said four males attempted to purchase cigarettes with a pre-paid card that lacked sufficient funds. The males left, and their vehicle was observed parked in a handicap stall at Walmart. Police followed the vehicle after it exited the stall and initiated a traffic stop on East McCoy Boulevard.

Police identified the driver as Bussell, who denied he had been to Kwik Trip. During the conversation with Bussell, police detected an odor of marijuana in the vehicle. The report says Bussell acknowledged that he and his passengers smoked a few miles back. Bussell reportedly failed a field sobriety test, and a green, leafy substance was found under the drivers seat. He was issued a municipal citation for driving under the influence of a controlled substance.

Mark James Roose, 36, and Lisa J. Roose, 35, both of Tomah, were referred to the district attorney for disorderly after a Sept. 21 incident. The two reportedly had an argument over items Lisa Roose was retrieving from Mark Rooses garage. Lisa Roose told police that Mark Roose grabbed both her arms and dragged her from the garage. Mark Roose told police that Lisa Roose was taking items that didnt belong to her.

Dustin John Keith Viveros, 25, Tomah, was referred to the distict attorney for physical abuse of a child. The report stated that Viveros pinched a five-year-old girl and left visible marks on her arm.

Ryan Len Stanford, 30, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for bail jumping. He is on probation and was involved in an alleged hit-and-run crash for which he was issued three municipal citations.

Jeremy J. Cory, 34, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for child neglect. Police report that Cory allowed a seven-year-old child under his supervision to leave a Dogwood Lane residence on a bicycle. Police found the child riding the bicycle near Dairy Queen.

Calvin William Broas, 25, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for bail jumping. He is accused of violating a bond condition that established a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew after a traffic stop shortly before 1:30 a.m. Sept. 17.

Davonte Rashaun Fleming, 22, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for carrying a concealed weapon. Flemings vehicle was pulled over Sept. 18, and he reportedly admitted carrying a 9 mm. pistol without a concealed carry permit.

David Albert Beyer, 60, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for bail jumping. He allegedly violated a bond condition that prohibits him from consuming alcohol.

Dwight Fitzgerald Carter, 49, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney on three charges after a Sept. 23 incident in Tomah.

A woman who is five months pregnant accused Carter of punching her in the stomach, and a witness heard the two yelling at each other. Carter was referred for disorderly conduct, battery and bail jumping.

Nicholas Toman, 24, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for operating after revovation/drunk driving-related, failure to install an ignition interlock device and bail jumping after a Sept. 23 traffic stop.

Scott Allen Dotson, 53, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for threatening battery to an officer and bail jumping. Dotson is accused of telling a Monroe County jailer that Tomah police officers who arrested him April 7 should watch their backs because he intended to come after them upon his release from the county jail.
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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 (3) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (3) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (3) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (3) Nov 23 (3) Nov 22 (3) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (3) Nov 18 (3) Nov 17 (3) Nov 16 (2) Nov 15 (3) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (4) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (4) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (3) Nov 05 (5) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (3) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (4) Oct 30 (3) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (4) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (3) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (4) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (4) Oct 17 (4) Oct 16 (3) Oct 15 (3) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (3) Oct 11 (3) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (4) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (5) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (4) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (4) Sep 26 (3) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (3) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (3) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (4) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (4) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (3) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (4) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (5) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (3) Aug 19 (3) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (3) Aug 11 (4) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (5) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (3) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (3) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (5) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (3) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (5) Jul 11 (4) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (3) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (3) Jul 01 (6) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (5) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (4) Jun 18 (5) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (3) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (3) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (5) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (4) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (5) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (4) Jun 02 (5) Jun 01 (3) May 31 (4) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (3) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (4) May 23 (4) May 22 (3) May 21 (3) May 20 (4) May 19 (3) May 18 (3) May 17 (4) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (3) May 13 (4) May 12 (1) May 11 (3) May 10 (3) May 09 (3) May 08 (3) May 07 (4) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (4) May 03 (3) May 02 (3) May 01 (6) Apr 30 (3) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (5) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (3) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (3) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (4) Apr 16 (3) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (3) Apr 09 (3) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (3) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (3) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (3) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (3) Mar 28 (4) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (3) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (3) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (3) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (3) Mar 18 (3) Mar 17 (3) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (3) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (3) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (4) Mar 08 (3) Mar 07 (3) Mar 06 (4) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (3) Mar 01 (3) Feb 28 (3) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (3) Feb 25 (3) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (3) Feb 21 (3) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (3) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (3) Feb 16 (3) Feb 15 (3) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (3) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (3) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (4) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (4) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (3) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (5) Jan 27 (4) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (3) Jan 21 (4) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (5) Jan 17 (4) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (5) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (4) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (3) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (3) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (3) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (2) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (2) Nov 05 (2) Nov 04 (3) Nov 03 (2) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (2) Oct 30 (6) Oct 29 (5) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (5) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (5) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (4) Oct 18 (4) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (3) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (2) Oct 11 (2) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (2) Oct 07 (2) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (3) Oct 04 (2) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (4) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (2) Sep 26 (2) Sep 25 (2) Sep 24 (1) Sep 23 (1) Sep 22 (2) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (1) Sep 19 (1) Sep 18 (1) Sep 17 (2) Sep 16 (1) Sep 15 (2) Sep 14 (2) Sep 13 (1) Sep 12 (1) Sep 11 (2) Sep 10 (2) Sep 09 (1) Sep 08 (1) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (1) Sep 05 (1) Sep 04 (2) Sep 03 (1) Sep 02 (1) Sep 01 (1) Aug 31 (2) Aug 30 (1) Aug 29 (1) Aug 28 (1) Aug 27 (1) Aug 26 (1) Aug 25 (1) Aug 24 (1) Aug 23 (2) Aug 22 (1) Aug 21 (1) Aug 20 (2) Aug 19 (1) Aug 18 (1) Aug 17 (2) Aug 16 (2) Aug 15 (1) Aug 14 (1) Aug 12 (1) Aug 09 (1) Aug 08 (1) Aug 07 (1) Aug 05 (1) Aug 04 (1) Jul 31 (1) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (5) Jul 28 (2) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (6) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (3) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (4) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (4) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (6) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (3) Jun 19 (6) Jun 18 (5) Jun 17 (5) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (4) Jun 13 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Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier

Those who habitually put items in their recycling bins that don't belong there are the target of the ordinance amendment, not those who make an occasional, accidental mistake, said Public Works Director Jeff Demers.
Businessman Elon Musk says his company is building a powerful, reusable rocket and a spaceship that may travel to the planet Mars.

The spacecraft would eventually be able to take as many as 100 people and their equipment to the red planet, he said.

The entrepreneur announced his plan on Tuesday at the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Elon Musk is the founder of the American company SpaceX. It designs, manufacturers and launches rockets and spacecraft.

During his speech in Mexico, Musk did not talk about the September 1 explosion of SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket and the satellite it was carrying.

But Musk did say he wants to establish a city on Mars. He said the planned city would be able to support itself -- complete with the ability to make iron, as well as pizzas.

Musk wants human beings to be able to live on more than just one planet. And he said the best way to do that is to first colonize Mars. He wants many people to be able to travel to the red planet.

Really the key is making this affordable to almost anyone who wants to go...

Reusing rockets and spaceships will help lower the cost for each person, he explained. The spaceships would also be able to refuel in orbit. He suggested the production of methane and oxygen on Mars would provide fuel for the trip back home.

Musk says a self-supporting colony on the planet would require about 1 million people. To get them there and to build the colony, it would take between 40 and 100 years -- or about 10,000 flights with 100 people per flight.

Musk said the trip would last between 80 and 150 days. Eventually, the cost would go down.

The very first flights will be fairly expensive, but the architecture allows for a cost per ticket of less than $200,000.

No date has been set for the first flight. But Musk said he wanted to send the first manned mission to Mars by 2024. He added that he plans to start transporting supplies to the planet as soon as 2018.

Musk invited other companies to join the Mars effort, which reportedly would require about a $10 billion investment.

The American space agency NASA has its own program for sending astronauts to Mars. NASA will be using its own equipment. Currently, the space agency does use Space X for taking supplies to the International Space Station.

Musk, a wealthy entrepreneur, is also known for his Tesla Motors company, which makes electric cars.

Im Anne Ball.

George Putic wrote this story for VOA News. Anne Ball wrote 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

entrepreneur  n. a person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss in order to make money

affordable  adj. to be able to pay for something

architecture  n. the method or style of building

expensive  adj. costing a lot of money

ticket  n. a piece of paper that allows you to travel on a vehicle

mission  n. a job that someone is given to do
This is Whats Trending Today.

Gary Johnson is the Libertarian Party candidate for president. His name will appear on ballots in every U.S. state and territory on Nov. 8. It will be next to prominent candidates from the two main political parties, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

Johnson is the former governor of the southwestern state of New Mexico.

And his name has been on the ballot before. He was the Libertarian candidate in 2012. He received about 1 million votes, but Barack Obama and Mitt Romney received many millions more.

Johnson does not have enough support in public opinion studies to be included in the televised presidential debates like the one between Clinton and Trump on Monday night.

But a television news program did give Johnson a chance to speak about himself and some political issues on Wednesday.

And it did not go well.

The host of the show asked him to name a foreign leader he admires.

Johnson had trouble coming up with a name. Later, he said he was trying to recall the name of former Mexican president Vicente Fox. Johnson worked with Fox when he was governor of New Mexico.

Johnson said he was having an Aleppo moment when he could not think of Foxs name.

Aleppo moment is trending on Twitter.

The phrase refers to the time in early September when Johnson was asked about Aleppo, the city at the heart of the Syrian civil war.

And he replied by asking and what is Aleppo?

People criticized Johnson for not knowing enough about the war in Syria to identify one of the countrys major cities.

On Thursday, people reacted to Johnsons trouble with the names of foreign leaders. They also wanted to remind the candidate that problems in Syria should not be minimized.

Many people posted news of bombings or deaths in Aleppo while mentioning Johnson and saying This is an Aleppo moment.

And thats Whats Trending Today.

Im Dan Friedell.

Dan Friedell wrote this story for Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor.

What do you think of Johnsons Aleppo moment? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

prominent  n. important and well-known

admire  v. to feel respect or approval for (someone or something)

minimize  v. to treat or describe (something) as smaller or less important than it is

trending  adj. a comment or story popular, or often repeated on social media
An international team of scientists has identified a new kind of superbug -- or strong bacteria -- that has made people sick.

They link the development of the superbug to the use of antibiotic drugs in farm animals.

The scientists say this new strain of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- known as MRSA  sickened at least 10 people in Denmark. They said the bacteria is resistant to several antibiotics and can kill chickens.

This strain is not found in Denmark. The researchers believe the Danes likely got sick from it by eating or being close to imported chicken.

Most people do not get MRSA from animals used as food. The bacteria usually spreads through person-to-person contact in hospitals or other buildings where people live in small, crowded spaces. Farm workers have a higher risk of staph infections.

The researchers compared the strains of MRSA in the 10 Danes to staph infections in other people and in livestock. They found the strain came from poultry -- animals like chickens and turkeys.

The contaminated meat in Denmark was imported from other countries, including France, the Netherlands and Germany.

The findings were published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. They show that this strain of the virus may be more-easily passed from meat to people.

Last week, the United Nations held a high-level meeting of experts on antibiotic resistance. They talked about how resistance could become an international crisis if steps are not taken.

One of their main worries is the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. If the drugs are used too often they can become ineffective. More superbugs like MRSA will develop, the experts said. They called on governments and private companies to work together to stop the overuse and misuse of antibiotics.

Laura MacCleery was at the meeting. She works for the Washington, D.C.-based Consumers Union. She says animals that are raised on farms for food are often given antibiotics to prevent disease and help them grow faster.

MacCleery said the experts discussed measures to reduce resistance to antibiotics.

She said, "Drug pricing and availability at a level of provider incentives -- those are the kinds of things that governments can do to discourage inappropriate prescribing among physicians, and to educate consumers about the potential risk of antibiotic resistance.

MacCleery says her organization has persuaded restaurants like McDonalds to agree not to sell chicken treated with antibiotics.

Im Jonathan Evans.

VOA Health Correspondent Jessica Berman reported this story from Washington. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted her report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

strain n. one of several closely related infectious micro-organisms

contaminated n. infected, containing something harmful

routinely adv. regularly

sub-therapeutic doses n. less than the required amount of a medicine

unsanitary adj. not clean

incentives n. something that encourages someone to carry out some action

prescribe v. to officially tell someone to use a medicine or treatment to get better


Six weeks remain until elections in the United States. Yet many Americans say they still do not know who they want as president.

Now, there are some new tech tools that might help them decide. Startup businesses are creating products that try to change behavior and increase political activity.

Brigade is one of those startups. The California-based company runs a social media site and mobile app. It did not even exist in 2012, when the U.S. held its last presidential election.

Brigade is a platform for debating and deciding political positions. Users can follow the political issues that interest them, such as gun rights, immigration or the environment.

Matt Mahan was a creator of Brigade and now serves as its chief executive officer. He says a few problems need to be solved to increase American civic involvement.

We need to give people easy access to the information they need to make decisions, but we also need to embed that within their social lives, we need to make it part of the conversations theyre having with friends, and we need to create cultural norms around participating."

Brigade lets users debate issues and try to influence other people online. Users can also see how their opinions compare with other users as well as political candidates.

"I think that's kind of the point of democracy -- is to create this public square where people can discuss and debate their values, and their perspectives on issues and, ultimately, create trade-offs and come to a conclusion about what's the best way to move forward to kind of create the greatest good for the most people."

Crowdpac is another politically-minded technology company. It also did not exist at the time of the 2012 presidential election.

Gisel Kordestani is Crowdpacs chief operations officer. The company is, in her words, using technology to try to help the average citizen to connect and engage in politics.

The Crowdpac website describes itself as the first crowdfunding site designed for politics. It provides information about individuals seeking public office. It also helps users find and support the candidates who share their opinions. And, it helps those running for office raise money. It does this through crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is the activity of raising money through small donations from a lot of people. Generally, crowdfunding takes place on the Internet.

Kordestani said technology companies are changing how Americans take part in politics by creating new ways for political participation. That is why, she thinks, politicians should look to Silicon Valley, Americas technology center.

This region has just grown over the last four decades, has grown into not a powerhouse just in the U.S. but globally, in setting the technology, the platforms and the rules of engagement of society, for work, for the environment, globally.

Kordestani said many tech companies in Silicon Valley also recognize the importance of working with politicians and the government to create positive changes.

Im Caty Weaver.

Elizabeth Lee reported on this story for VOANews.com. George Grow adapted this story for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

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Words in This Story

startup  n. a new business

mobile  adj. able to move from one place to another

access  n. a way of getting at or close to something or someone

embed  v. to set or place firmly in something else

conversation  n. a talk or discussion

participate  v. to be involved with others in doing something

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globally  adj. of or related to the whole world

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The United States announced criminal charges and economic sanctions against four Chinese individuals and a Chinese company earlier this week.

The U.S. government said it acted to punish them for suspected support for North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

On Wednesday, a State Department official suggested that more Chinese companies and individuals could face investigation for suspected violations of sanctions on North Korea.

The State Departments coordinator for Sanctions Policy, Daniel Fried, spoke to the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee.

He said, It would also be useful if Chinese banks and companies understood that increasingly dealing with North Korean companies, especially those that are sanctioned, is going to be risky.

Two days earlier, the Treasury Department announced criminal charges and economic actions against a Chinese seller of industrial machinery. It named four top officials of Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Developmental Company Limited (DHID).

The four include the companys chairwoman, Ma Xiaohong. They are accused of plotting to avoid sanctions against North Korea, and using American financial businesses to hide the money they earned illegally.

Chinese officials also are investigating the company. They are looking at its connection with the Kwangson Banking Corporation, a North Korean bank. U.S. and United Nations have said the bank has provided financial services in support of North Koreas weapons programs.

A State Department officials said, This shows we can work cooperatively with China; we both see it in our interests to apply greater pressure on North Korea.

On Tuesday, a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs official spoke to reporters about the U.S. action. Spokesman Geng Shuang said China was prepared to support U.N. resolutions against North Korea. The resolutions call for sanctions to punish the North for its nuclear and missile tests.

However, the spokesman expressed opposition to other countries using their own laws against companies or people within China.

I want to stress that we oppose any country enacting so-called long-arm jurisdiction, using its own domestic laws against a Chinese entity or individual, he said.

In March, China agreed to the strongest U.N. Security Council sanctions yet to limit trade with North Korea.

The council's members have approved other actions to punish the country for its nuclear activities and missile program. Those restrictions have largely halted North Korean trade with countries other than China.

North Korea has faced severe international sanctions to punish the country for its nuclear activity and missile program.

Those restrictions have largely halted North Korean trade with countries other than China.

However, new research suggests that North Korean state-operated businesses are using middlemen in China to avoid sanctions.

Im Mario Ritter.

This story was written from reports by Pete Cobus and Nike Ching for VOA News. Mario Ritter adapted it for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

entity n. a legal business or organization, something that exists by itself and is separate from other things

middlemen n. people who buy goods from a producer and sell them to someone e
A hearing originally scheduled for Thursday to determine if Dawson County prosecutors and Gothenburg police are in contempt of court for failing to return a pickup truck taken into evidence in a criminal case has been delayed until November.

The case dates back to April 7, 2014, when Michael Schulz, 57, of Loveland, Colo., was arrested by the Gothenburg Police Department and charged with possession of burglars tools, a class-four felony.

Schulz was witnessed by a Gothenburg police officer at that communitys Wastewater Treatment Plant and found to be in possession of bolt cutters and a saw, as well as copper wire, which the officer believed had been removed from the plant, according to court documents.

At the time of his arrest, Schulzs 2006 Dodge Ram pickup was impounded by Top Notch Towing Company.

On May 12, 2014, the State of Nebraska filed three charges against Schulz: possession of burglars tools (a class-four felony), second-degree trespassing, and theft by taking (both misdemeanors). Prosecutors moved to drop the charges, and the case was dismissed in Dawson County District Court on Sept. 29, 2014, according to court documents.

Schulz requested that his pickup be returned to him both before and after the dismissal of the case. However, the City of Gothenburg and State of Nebraska did not return the truck, both stating they were contacted by the United States Attorneys Office for Nebraska.

Federal prosecutors said Schulz was under investigation for similar crimes in Colorado, Wyoming, and Kansas. The federal prosecutors requested the truck remain in evidence pending the completion of their investigation.

In October 2015, Judge James Doyle ruled that Schulzs pickup could not be returned because evidence concerning the tires and other attributes of the vehicle could be of assistance in pursuing federal and state criminal investigations.

Attorney Russel Jones, who is representing Schulz in the attempt to get the truck returned, said no charges were filed against Schulz in federal court to his knowledge.

A charge of possession of burglars tools was re-filed against Schulz in DawsonCounty.

On June 24, 2016, Schulz pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of attempted possession of burglars tools, a class-one misdemeanor. He was sentenced to 18 months of probation.

On July 7, 2016, Jones filed on Schulzs behalf a motion to return seized property. A hearing was held in Dawson County District Court Aug. 18, and Judge James Doyle ordered that the pickup be returned to Schulz forthwith.

On Aug. 23, Dawson County Attorney Liz Waterman sent official notice to Gothenburg City Attorney Mike Bacon and Police Chief Randy Olson instructing them to act in accordance with the judges order.

That same day, Olson sent a letter to Schulz informing him that the vehicle was no longer needed for investigatory purposes, and could be retrieved from the towing company by paying all towing and storage charges.

When Schulz contacted Top Notch Towing in September, he was told he owed $19,152 in towing and storage fees, according to court records.

Olsons letter said Schulz was responsible for the charges because he was charged with and convicted of a crime in the case the truck was taken into evidence for, citing Nebraska revised statute 60-1903.01.

If you fail to respond to this letter, we will dispose of the vehicle 30 days after the receipt of this letter, If the vehicle is auctioned, or sold, the proceeds from the sale, less any towing, storage, and sale expenses will be held without interest for you or any lien holders for two years, Olsons letter stated.

On Sept. 13, Jones filed on Schulzs behalf a motion to find the State on Nebraska in contempt of court for failing to comply with Doyles order to return the pickup, and requested a temporary restraining order and injunction against the state, Dawson County, City of Gothenburg, Gothenburg Police Department, and Top Notch towing, barring them from disposing of Schulzs vehicle.

In an affidavit in support of his motion, Jones called the towing and storage fees excessive and said if the vehicle was disposed of prior to a hearing on the matter Schulz would suffer irreparable injury, loss, and damage.

On Sept. 22, a hearing was held on the motion for a temporary restraining order, which was granted by Doyle. The judge ordered a hearing to be scheduled for Sept. 29, which was subsequently continued to Nov.4.
The Indian Motion Pictures Producers' Association (IMPPA) on Thursday decided to ban Pakistani artistes and technicians from working in India till ongoing bilateral tensions die down, a spokesperson said.

Filmmaker Ashoke Pandit, Vice President, IMPPA told IANS over phone: "At a meeting today, the members of IMPPA have decided that Pakistani actors and technicians can't be allowed to work in India till matters settle down."

However, he clarified that this decision will be applicable only for new projects.

Pandit said the IMPPA will in no way impede the release of any movies which are slated to hit the screens and feature Pakistani actors.

This resolution, which will be officially passed on Friday, is the second such directive after the political party Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) gave an ultimatum to Pakistani artistes to leave India, and even threatened the release of films featuring Pakistani actors.

Among the films are Karan Johar's Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, starring Pakistan's heartthrob Fawad Khan, and Shah Rukh Khan's Raees, which will mark Mahira Khan's Bollywood foray.

Asked if IMPPA's resolution is motivated by the MNS in anyway, Pandit said: "It has nothing to do with politics. We are not going to trouble any filmmaker who has already worked with a Pakistani actor in a yet to be released film, but we are opposing any new projects with them."

Tensions between India and Pakistan have escalated since the September 18 terror strike on an army camp in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, in which 18 Indian soldiers were killed.

India has blamed the attack on Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, which was also responsible for the January 2 Pathankot terror strike in which seven Indian security personnel were killed.

India on Thursday said its army had carried out "surgical strikes" on terrorist launch pads in Pakistani territory.
If youve ever been a kid, and there are pretty high chances that you have, youve probably asked your parents where babies come from, and youve been told different ridiculous stories.

And if youve had even a remote connection to the West you were informed that storks carry babies over to your parents place like a courier service. Now we get a whole animation movie surrounding this particular myth, Storks, and the results are surprisingly zany and fun.

Were introduced to Stork Island where parents letters requesting for children are sent and processed, and the birds send over the requisite babies to the addresses marked in the letters.

The company shuts down when one of the storks named Jasper (Danny Trejo) kept the baby instead of delivering it.

Twenty years later the island is now a warehouse, much like Amazon, led by Hunter (Kelsey Grammer) whose eye is on his subordinate Junior (Andy Samberg) to take over duties.

To pass the test hes given the task of firing the human Tulip (Katie Crown), the now grown up baby whos been hanging around the island ever since the mishap. One thing leads to another and a few goofball errors occur that send Junior and Tulip on a road trip to deliver a baby.

What works in Storks is how unabashedly 90s it feels.

The zippy zany animation style, the motor mouth style of comedy, and the whole bonding over a road trip angle is reminiscent of pretty much every animation movie from the 90s. However it never feels like a tired rehash  theres so much energy oozing out of every scene its difficult not to be entertained by the goofiness.

The jokes, courtesy of writer-director Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) are shot out as if through a Gatling gun and just dont stop punching you in the funny bone.

Juniors over the top mannerisms, though not an all time classic is quite reminiscent of the Genie in Aladin, and theres some unexpected humor and heart in the Modern Family style subplot involving the parents (Ty Burrell, Jennifer Aniston) of the baby to be delivered.

The all too familiar themes of family and home are hilariously complemented by absolutely nutty sequences like an encounter with villainous wolves chasing in speedboats. In fact some of the scenes are so ridiculous youll tend to wonder if this is a stoner movie disguised as a kids cartoon.

Theres the standard issue social message in the film but luckily it isnt forcibly hammered into our skulls like many other animation movies. On the contrary youll be pleasantly surprised by how delicately the theme is handled, given the loud silliness of the rest of the film.

Storks is a film I had absolutely no expectations from and it turned out to be the animated surprise of the year.

Its the kind of movie meant for pretty much all kinds and ages of audiences, and if youre in need for some emotional manipulation the finale contains that layer as well. Except the 3D glasses theres really no reason why you shouldnt be watching it in theaters this weekend. Take your kids too.
Before MS Dhoni: The Untold Story hit the theaters, we had a no holds barred chat with Sushant Singh Rajput about his latest movie, his contemporaries, followed by a fun game of 'five seconds rule' on The Firstpost Show with Renil Abraham in association with Garnier Men Acnofight.

Sushant spoke about how his family reacted when they got to know that he wanted to be a dancer and an actor. He said that he didn't tell his family about this for almost three years till a situation came up where he had to fly abroad for a dance performance.

When asked about how he can still be cordial with a contemporary actor who probably bagged a role he really wanted, he jokingly said that he is a good actor in real life also. He went on to say that he would definitely feel disappointed if someone else got a role that he really wanted, but would never have a problem with the other actor who got the movie.

The episode took a much more fun turn when Renil spoke to him about how he reacts to male and female attention. Sushant said he doesn't know how to respond to someone who is hitting on him; he gets uncomfortable and that any kind of feedback is not welcome. "If a girl is hitting on me, even if I like her, I still wouldn't know what to do," Sushant confessed.

We spoke about his recent public break up with actress Ankita Lokhande and asked him if heart break helps him in emoting a poignant scene better on screen. Sushant answered that how would one emote something until and unless they know that emotion better, and that drawing on one's real life personal setbacks definitely helps.

Talking about MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Sushant told us the funniest thing that he discovered about Dhoni. He said that Dhoni sleeps a lot (like a baby in fact) and that for that such a big personality, Dhoni is calm, composed.

After the conversation, the host and the actor went on to play a few fun rounds of 'five seconds rule' and it was Sushant who aced it.

Watch the full episode of The Firstpost Show with Renil Abraham featuring Sushant Singh Rajput right here, right now.
This is with reference to the article published on 28 September 2016 in FirstPost titled Watch: Kodaikanal Won't rapper Sofia Ashraf serves some facts to Unilever's Paul Polman.

It is disappointing that Firstpost has chosen to publish the article based merely on claims rather than verifying the facts, thus lending credibility to misinformation being spread on this matter.

The article makes grossly erroneous conclusions on the basis of these claims. It states and we quote, dumping of toxic waste by Unilever's now-shut thermometer factory is one of the most infamous cases of shirking of corporate social responsibility in India. This is contrary to facts:

Since this issue first came to light, HUL has actively sought to address it in a responsible and transparent manner. HUL did not dump mercury in Kodaikanal. HUL closed the factory in 2001, immediately after becoming aware of an environmental breach, wherein glass scrap with residual mercury had been sold to a scrap dealer, about three kilometres away from the factory, in breach of our guidelines. HUL has taken several steps to secure the environment. All glass scrap along with the soil was retrieved from the scrap yard in 2001 itself, for safe storage in factory premises. In 2003, all mercury-bearing material was safely disposed of including the glass scrap from the scrap yard to a recycler in the US. Subsequently, in 2006, all plant, machinery and materials were decontaminated and disposed of. The only remaining work is the remediation of soil in the factory premises.

We are fully committed to cleaning up our former factory site in Kodaikanal. We submitted a Detailed Project Report (DPR) to Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) in August 2015. We will commence the clean up as soon as we receive the consent from TNPCB. We believe it is in the interests of all concerned to begin this work as soon as possible.

Independent studies by eminent national institutions, conducted on the directives of TNPCB, have shown that no environmental harm has been caused to the Kodaikanal environment beyond some spots in the factory site which require remediation. This has been confirmed in a study conducted in October 2015 by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) as per the directives of the TNPCB. The only exception is a small area on the perimeter of the factory, which HUL has already committed to remediate and has included in the DPR.

Detailed factual clarifications

1. Incorrect statement: The viral video had such an impact that Hindustan Unilever finally bowed down and agreed to compensate 591 ex-mercury factory workers.

Factual clarification: This is not correct. In March 2016, HUL signed a settlement with former employees of our factory in Kodaikanal. The agreement was signed on humanitarian grounds in keeping with the suggestion of the Honble Madras High Court where the former employees had filed a petition in 2006 seeking economic rehabilitation.

2. Incorrect statement: the ecologically sensitive area around Kodaikanal hasn't been cleaned up to acceptable standards by Polman and co. and that they have released 'independent reports' and they've worked hand in glove with the Central Pollution Control Board to shirk away responsibility.

Factual clarification: As clarified above, HUL has actively sought to address this matter in a responsible manner since the issue first arose in 2001. After becoming aware of an environmental breach at our former factory in Kodaikanal, we immediately closed the factory and commissioned an environmental and risk assessment by independent consultants URS Dames and Moore.

As required by law, HUL informed TNPCB, which is the local regulatory authority, as soon as we became aware of the issue. Since then all remedial measures have been taken as per the directives of TNPCB and with all necessary approvals. Over the years several studies have been conducted by eminent national institutions as per the directives of TNPCB. These include a risk assessment study by National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) in 2007 and a Site Specific Human Health & Ecological Risk Assessment study by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi in 2010:

It is pertinent to mention that independent studies by eminent national institutions, conducted on the directives of TNPCB, have shown that no environmental harm has been caused to the Kodaikanal environment beyond some spots in the factory site which require remediation. This has been confirmed in a study conducted in October 2015 by NEERI as per the directives of the TNPCB. The only exception is a small area on the perimeter of the factory, which HUL has already committed to remediate and has included in the DPR.

3. Incorrect statement: .why the Central Pollution Control Board's (CPCB) proposal to clean the mercury contamination in Kodaikanal to level of 20 mg/kg was not up to par. Besides being toxic for residents, it also continues to cause damage to the ecologically sensitive Pamper Shola forest area.

Factual clarification: This is not correct. It is pertinent to note that TNPCB in consultation with the Scientific Experts Committee (SEC), constituted by the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee (SCMC), has set the remediation standard of 20 mg/kg based on site-specific risk assessment study in line with international best practice. Even the guidelines issued by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in 2016 require a site specific risk assessment to take place in order to decide upon a clean-up standard for remediating contaminated sites.

The standard has been set by TNPCB after the review of extensive studies by eminent Indian national institutions, which include:

 A risk assessment study was done by NEERI in 2007 as directed by the SCMC

 A Site Specific Human Health & Ecological Risk Assessment study conducted by IIT Delhi in 2010

 A study on the impact on soil and soil erosion by Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation Research Centre, Ooty, in 2010

 A study on the impact and preservation of trees by National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, in 2011

The soil remediation standard had been confirmed by the CPCB  the foremost organisation that deals with issues concerning pollution control under the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Government of India  to whom TNPCB had referred the matter. The environment ministry has endorsed the remediation standard of 20mg/kg. The Madras High Court has also taken note of the same. The standard set by TNPCB is fully protective of human health and the environment.

Over the last 15 years, several studies by independent experts have confirmed that there has been no adverse impact on the environment outside the factory premises. In fact, all the samples taken by NEERI in 2015 from streams in Pamper Shola forest were found to be safe from a human health and ecological perspective. The sediment samples are within the general screening ranges developed by either United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) or Canadian authorities.

4. Incorrect statement: To put it in perspective, she compares the CPCB verdict to the United Kingdom soil guideline value for residential areas, which puts the limit at 1 mg/kg!

Factual clarification: The article incorrectly refers to the United Kingdom Guideline Value as a soil remediation standard. The activists are confusing the issue by mixing up screening criteria with remediation standards.

There is no single remediation standard for the clean-up of mercury contamination either in India or any other country. Some countries have established preliminary screening criteria [called by various terms, depending on the country: Intervention Value (Netherlands), Guideline Value (UK), Soil Quality Guideline (Canada), Regional Screening Level (US)], which are used by regulators to determine whether a site is potentially contaminated or not and whether a site-specific clean-up standard should be established.

These criteria vary from country to country and are different to the standards which regulators set when remediation is required. Remediation standards are based on a risk assessment study of the site in accordance with international best practice. The US Environmental Protection Agency, UK Environment Agency and European environmental protection agencies follow this approach. The guideline notified by the CPCB, in January 2016, also recommends site-specific risk assessment to determine the clean-up standard for a contaminated site. This is the same approach that has been followed by TNPCB for remediation of soil in our former factory in Kodaikanal.

The remediation programme as envisaged in the DPR submitted by HUL to TNPCB would be fully protective of human health and the environment. In fact, after the work is completed the site will be safe for children to play in or to eat root vegetable grown from the soil.

An arbitrary reduction in the standard, as being demanded by activists, would not only undermine the mandate of the SCMC but would also not be based on science or facts. In fact, it can result in risks to the local ecology and not provide any additional benefit.

The author is Head, Corporate Communications, Hindustan Unilever Limited.

Firstpost has offered Sofia Ashraf the opportunity to respond to this article.
New Delhi - Vijay Mallya can play the victim well. After months of being on the run, post the Kingfisher Airlines fiasco which lead to unpaid salaries of staff, dues to state-run banks and other liabilities, Mallya has once again accused the government of making him a poster boy of bad loans and financial crime.

He has also assured shareholders of United Breweries, where he continues as chairman, that he would fight legally to recover assets seized by agencies over unpaid loans taken to run KFA.

There is nothing new in what Mallya has said but it bears repetition simply because what he makes out to be regulatory issues leading to the demise of Kingfisher Airlines remain till date.

Other airlines continue to complain  in vain  about the unusually high-cost environment which suffocates profitability. In India, aviation turbine fuel attracts the highest taxation anywhere in the world and since ATF accounts for up to half of any airlines operating costs, running an airline in India is anyway an expensive business which needs large investments and generates meager returns.

On top of that, restrictive policies in foreign investments till very recently tied up Indias airlines in a knot since their fund raising and overseas expansion plans were stymied by the government.

So the question that begs answers even now, four years after Kingfishers demise, is this : Could a more benign policy and regulatory environment have helped arrest the steep decline of this airline, perhaps prevented its demise?

At a time when anyone and everyone has been cursing banks and their tardiness in preventing Mallya from allegedly sinking up to Rs 9,000 crore of cash in the airline business, it is hard to even think if the government of the day could have done more to help Mallya destroy public wealth.

The popular sentiment is that banks crawled when asked to bend, that the UPA government (under whose rein the Kingfisher demise saga played out) bent over backwards to help Mallya. It is true that Kingfisher would have suffered even if these hurdles had been negotiated since it lacked an efficient management team and decisions were taken arbitrarily.

Nevertheless, here is a look at how the harsh policy, regulatory and competitive environment also contributed to Mallyas ruin.

1) During the UPA regime, there were several discussions within the government over doing away with the 5/20 restriction but this rule has been relaxed only earlier this year. This restriction did not permit airlines to fly overseas unless they had completed five years of domestic operations and had a fleet of 20 aircraft.

A dream to launch overseas flights pushed Mallya to make the disastrous acquisition of Air Deccan in 2007-08. Air Deccan would have become eligible to fly overseas in 2008 while KFA would not be eligible even then. After the acquisition, of course Mallya made strategic mistakes which further hurt the combined airline entity. But had the 5/20 restriction been restricted or relaxed earlier, perhaps Mallya may not have considered Air Deccan buy and the KFA saga may have ended differently.

2) Foreign airlines were allowed to invest in Indian carriers with a 49 percent cap in September 2012. Kingfisher had to shut operations just three months later  had this restriction on foreign airline investment been lifted earlier, KFA may have been able to get critical funding from a foreign partner.

Several people aware of developments at that time say that Mallya was shocked when a Gulf based prominent airline signed up with a large Indian airline in 2013 despite holding extensive talks with him for funding KFA and picking up some equity in his airline.

Mallya was close to signing the term sheet for this deal when his Indian rival steered the Gulf airline and swung the deal in a matter of hours. Earlier this year, the cap on foreign holding (not by foreign carriers though) in an Indian airline was finally lifted but no new FDI proposals have come in since.

3) The NDA government extended more than a helping hand to another private airline, SpiecJet, when was in dire need of cash in December 2014 and had no money to even pay oil marketing companies for jet fuel. Its promoters had indicated they would have no choice but to shut down the airline.

The government of the day asked stakeholders like the Airports Authority of India and some oil marketing companies to extend credit to the moribund SpiceJet till it was in a position to make payments. It also quickly reversed an order of aviation regulator DGCA which had banned fresh bookings, realizing that this would generate much-needed cash for the airline to at least pay its fuel bills.

If NDA could prevent another Indian airline going bust and leaving thousands of people without jobs, should the previous government not have extended a lifeline to Kingfisher and done the same?

4) Competitive intensity also pushed along KFA towards a demise. By 2007, LCCs were commanding a dominant share of the market and had begun offering tickets at throwaway prices. This eroded players profitability.

Costs incurred rose sharply but companies were unable to hike fares due to intense competition. This led to pressure on realizations, and profit margins of most airlines slid into the red. Consolidation followed - JetLite (erstwhile Air Sahara) was acquired by Jet Airways, Kingfisher bought Air Deccan and Indian Airlines was merged with Air India to form a new entity.

But by 2009-10, continuous fleet expansion by LCCs put further pressure on airlines like Jet and Kingfisher so that the share of the top three players (Jet Airways, Kingfisher and merged Air India ) dropped. Then Jet and Kingfisher introduced low-fare operations under the Jet Konnect and Kingfisher Red brands, respectively. For both airlines, this further complicated matters and worsened their balance sheets.

Mallya made many errors of commission as well as omission in the Kingfisher saga but his biggest mistake may have been withholding employee salaries. He was operating in a negative environment but so were other airlines. Policy, regulatory and pricing factors together cannot atone for Mallyas sins of mismanagement.
New Delhi: Bollywood actor Salman Khan today announced the foray of his Being Human brand into the jewelery segment.

The collection includes fashion and fine diamond jeweleries, designed by Style Quotient Jewelery, which is exclusive licensee to manufacture, distribute and retail the brand.

"We are extending Being Human brand by associating with more partners. After clothing, we have ventured into the jewelery segment," said Salman Khan while launching the collections.

He further said that a portion of the income for the venture would be spent on charity works.

"I want my fans to buy the product for the quality and value of the products and not for charity," he added. Being Human Jewelery would be available at all jewelery stores and would be exclusively sold online on Amazon.

"We are also targeting the markets of Middle East, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. We are also discussing to enter markets as UK and USA," said Style Quotient Jewelery CEO Prasad Kapre.

The company would have 80 per cent of the product catering to women and rest 20 per cent for men.

According to Kapre, Being Human jeweleries are light weight and are designed for everyday use. They are ranged between Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000.

"The entire jewelery has been designed into 18 karat gold and would be crafted with natural Australian diamonds that have passed through Rio Tinto chain of custody system from mine to retailer and will be accompanied by a certificate of authenticity," he added.
New Delhi: A day before India's biggest spectrum auction begins, the government today said telecom firms should "tank up" radiowaves to bridge shortfall in their holdings as the next such sale may not happen for "quite some time".

"After this auction we believe, there will no spectrum shortage in India. This problem of spectrum scarcity affecting quality of service will be history," Telecom Secretary JS Deepak told PTI.

Terming the auctions as a "great opportunity to tank up on spectrum", he said not doing so will place operators at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis others. The same opportunity in terms of the variety of spectrum

that is being placed on the block will not come for quite some time, he added.

"After this auction if there is unsold spectrum, it means there is no demand for it... So we will harmonise spectrum purchased by operators in all bands including 1800 Mhz and 2100 Mhz so that we can make it contiguous and multiply its efficiency for operators. Only after harmonisation process is complete, will we think of the next auction," Deepak said.

India's biggest telecom players Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and new entrant Reliance Jio Infocomm are amongst 7 companies that are in fray for the bidding. Other bidders include Reliance Communications, Aircel and Tata Teleservices.

As much as 2,354.55 megahertz of frequencies are being put up for auction in seven bands -- 700 Mhz, 800 Mhz, 900 Mhz, 1800 Mhz, 2100 Mhz, 2300 Mhz and 2500 MHz. The radiowaves being put up for auction can be used for 2G, 3G and high speed 4G mobile services. This is more than the cumulative spectrum holding of the top 4 operators.

On the high cost of spectrum, Deepak said the industry "absolutely" has the paying capacity for buying it in the auction which starts at 10 AM on Saturday.

This is the first time radiowaves in 700 Mhz band will be put up for auction and it is priced at Rs 4 lakh crore at the reserve price. However, the operators and analysts have said that the pricing in this band is too high.

On pricing of 700 MHz, the Telecom Secretary said that since the spectrum in the band is top quality, it is expensive.

The price is high but it has its own advantage both in terms of propagation ability of spectrum and potential savings in capital expenditure, he added.

"It is best for 4G, for indoor coverage, so it has its value. Those buying 700 Mhz spectrum have to spend a third of the amount on capex as compared to 3G spectrum in 2100 Mhz band," he said.
Beleaguered liquor baron Mallya on Thursday said Kingfisher Airlines has turned out to be a 'nightmare' and blamed government's adverse taxation policies and higher fuel prices for the business failure.

"The business (of Kingfisher Airlines) failed due to high fuel prices, due to adverse government policies by taxation and of course the failure of aviation engines," he said in a video message to shareholders at the 100th Annual General Meeting of United Breweries Holding.

"What started as the genuine business failure of Kingfisher Airlines, which was once known as the queen of the skies with the best-ever service and connectivity that India has seen, has now turned out to be a nightmare," he added.

He also said, "I have been accused of stealing and siphoning off Rs 6,000 crore out of the Kingfisher Airlines without any legal basis, whatsoever."

Mallya told shareholders that he would challenge all the charges leveled on him in courts.

"As its part of concerted efforts to make a poster boy of bad loans and financial crime, the government continues to attach properties and threaten other forms of action, all of which, I assure you, my dear friends, will be contested in the courts of law," Mallya.

The embattled business tycoon also said he can show the company can account for every single paisa of Kingfisher and expenditure incurred by it through the government retention account of the firm that was managed by leader of the consortium of banks, State Bank of India  which filed criminal charges against him and his company.

"The business is all about success and failure and it is unfortunate that only few select cases to all government agencies choose to ignore this very basic fact," he added.

In its latest annual report, released to shareholders at the AGM, UBHL said it has been without a managing director since April 17, 2014.

In the interregnum, Board Chairman Vijay Mallya is acting as principal officer of the company and reviewed its performance at the board meetings held during the year.

"Even after his relocating to London, he has full control over affairs of the company through appropriate delegation of duties to various operating executives who report to him on a regular basis," it said.

Giving details of the remuneration paid to the directors, UBHL disclosed fees totalling Rs 3.2 lakh to Mallya for attending board or committee meetings.

Out of this, payment of sitting fees totalling Rs 1.6 lakh has been restrained by Order of the Tax Recovery Officer dated November 24, 2015, said.

However, Mallya received remuneration totalling about Rs 1.6 crore from two overseas subsidiaries of UBHL.

"The chairman of the company has received remuneration from two subsidiaries, amounting to $120,000 (previous year $120,000) and British Pound 89,600 (previous year GBP 89,600) during the year 2015-16," it said.

UBHL also said Vijay Mallya's son Sidhartha ceased to be a director of the company with effect from March 31, 2016.

The company's operations comprise primarily of holding of strategic investments and other securities, international trade, development of real estate, sale and rental of constructed premises, including residential property of Kingfisher Towers, licensing of trademarks, advancing of loans and provision of guarantees.

Interestingly, it also disclosed having been given "the Export Excellence award" by a Karnataka business chamber.

UBHL said, "It is constrained by various restraint orders of the High Court of Karnataka, as a result of which revenue yielding business proposals like franchising out the Kingfisher brand owned by the company and renting out vacant space at UB City, Bangalore could not be implemented".

Now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines owes over Rs 9,000 crore to a consortium of 17 banks led by SBI.

Mallya, who left the country on March 2 and is now in the UK, has been declared a proclaimed offender by a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Mumbai on a plea by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with its money laundering probe against him in the alleged bank loan default case.
New Delhi: Taking Karnataka to task for its repeated "defiance" by flouting its orders for release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu, Supreme Court on Friday asked it to discharge 6,000 cusecs water from 1 October till 6 October, warning no one would know when the "wrath of the law" would fall on it.

The apex court gave the last opportunity to the Siddaramiah government to release 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu, despite a unanimous resolution passed by both house of Assembly.

"Karnataka despite being a state is flouting the order and creating a situation when the majesty of law is dented. We would have proceeded to take steps for strict compliance of the order but we have directed Cauvery Water Management Board to first study the ground realities and submit a report," a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and U U Lalit said.

"Karnataka shall not be bent upon to take an obstinate and stand of defiance as one does not know when wrath of the law will fall upon them," the bench said while directing the Centre to constitute the Cauvery Water Management Board by 4 October.

SC today directed the Karnataka Government to release 6000 cusecs of Cauvery water from Oct 1 till Oct 6.  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

It ordered all the stakeholders  Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pudduchery  to give names by 4 pm on 1 October of their representatives to be included in the board which would be chaired by the Union Water Resources Minister.

"We assume that Karnataka being a part of the federal structure of the country shall live upto the occasion and not show any deviancy till report of ground reality is submitted by the Cauvery Water Management Board," the court said.

The bench reminded Karnataka that it is bound by Article 144 of the Constitution and "aid in compliance" of the order of the Supreme Court.

"On plain reading of Article 144, it is clear as crystal that all authorities are bound to work in aid of Supreme Court and they are bound to obey the orders of Supreme Court but unfortunately Karnataka being a state is flouting the orders of the court," the bench said.

#FLASH:SC directs Govt of India to constitute Cauvery Water Management Board by Oct4 &to study the ground realities that #CauveryIssue faces  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

At the outset, senior advocate FS Nariman, representing Karnataka, referred to the communications between him and the Chief Minister Siddaramiah.

Senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, appearing for Tamil Nadu, expressed anguish on behalf of the state saying Karnataka has already made up its mind that it is not going to comply with the apex court directions.
To fully understand the implications of India's surgical strikes carried out in the intervening hours of Wednesday night and Thursday morning, we need to first comprehend what Pakistan has been doing so far.

Nuclear armaments have a specific purpose. When two nuclear nations collide, indeterminate usage of atomic weapons brings a calamity so total that it undermines the very purpose of war. Modern nuclear doctrines, therefore, stress on nuclear warheads as a measure of deterrence.

What is nuclear deterrence, and how does it work?

Let's look at what Richard Ned Lebow, Professor of International Political Theory at the Department of War Studies, King's College London, wrote in 2008 on this subject.

"Deterrence is an attempt to influence another actor's assessment of its interests. It seeks to prevent an undesired behavior by convincing the party who may be contemplating such an action that its cost will exceed any possible gain. Deterrence pre-supposes that decisions are made in response to some kind of rational cost-benefit calculus, that this calculus can be successfully manipulated from the outside, and that the best way to do so is to increase the cost side of the ledger."

Now consider interpolating this theory into the India-Pakistan dynamic. By virtue of being the 'lesser power' vis-a-vis India in conventional military terms, Pakistan had positioned its nuclear arsenal as a deterrence against India. It pledged the nukes as a strategy to level the playing field and prevent a mightier Indian Army  which had won three conventional wars before nuclear proliferation  from marching into its cities and threatening its very survival.

But Pakistan being Pakistan, it went ahead and made nuclear arms a tool of its India-specific jihad.

How Pakistan cynically overturned nuclear pledge

"A credible nuclear deterrent," wrote American military strategist Bernard Brodie in 1959, "must be always at the ready, yet never used." (The Anatomy of Deterrence)

Post 1998, Pakistan adopted a new strategy. It began using the nuclear umbrella to export cross-border terror into India. The efficacy of this strategy was in its simplicity.

As Rajesh Rajagopalan writes in News18: "Pakistan has been attempting to use nuclear weapons to shield itself from any retaliation so that it could use terrorists to attack India. It has done this by claiming that any Indian military action will result in a nuclear escalation."

In other words, nuclear arsenal became the perfect cover for its subversive activities within the region. It could now create terror infrastructure with impunity, nurture terrorists within its borders and unleash these on India with little chance of retaliation because of its professed "low threshold" for tolerance. And this blackmail worked because Indian political establishment believed it worked.

Indian political leaders failed to understand that there exists a huge gap between Pakistan's professed nuclear threshold and a military operation beneath that line. Firstpost had argued in a piece post Uri attacks that India must call Pakistan's nuclear bluff and its weigh politico-military options.

The point is simple. Though India does not have a 'first use' policy, its nuclear doctrine promises massive retaliation. If Pakistan uses "tactical nuclear weapons" for any small, low threshold Indian operation, it stands to gain little and lose massively. However, while it would be in their interest to not actually use nukes, bragging about it serves the purpose.

This lack of understanding severely tied India's hands in the face of repeated and relentless terrorist attacks planned, funded and executed by the Pakistani Deep State. Every time New Delhi took a hit, it could do little beyond bleeding, threatening something vague, suspending talks and eventually moving on. This resulted in three things. One, it showed up India as a weak state unable to defend itself. Two, it massively sapped the national morale and made us into a defeatist nation. Three, it gave western powers huge leverage over us.

To the global powers, India is traditionally seen as a pacifist nation, far too invested in its own future to take credible action against enemies. World powers ended up paying Pakistan a premium for its continuous bad behavior and penalised India for its sense of responsibility and restraint. It's easy to reason with the good boy in class because you know he understands the weight of his actions. You have less influence over the delinquent. Principles of natural justice sadly has no bearing in strategic affairs.

Why surgical strike is a paradigm shift

By moving across the Line of Control (a line it did not cross even during the Kargil conflict) and dismantling some of the terror camps, the Indian Army and political establishment have triggered a tectonic shift in this dynamic. It has not only punched a huge hole in Pakistan's nuclear bluff, effectively proving that it is another of the axiomatic lies which the failed state is based on, it changed forever the complex interplay between nations following terror attacks.

Before I explain, let's remember that there is no reason to believe Pakistan will abandon its terror policy henceforth. For Pakistani generals, as Professor C Christine Fair writes so poignantly in her book Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War, defeat isn't a reverse in battle, which it anyway has suffered many times at the hands of India, but abandoning the offensive altogether. To the Pakistan Army, stopping attacks against India is defeat, and defeat is ignominious death. So attacks will continue.

But what will change irrevocably is the pressure. The onus, henceforth, will be on Pakistan not to act, which is a 180-degree shift from the reflexive force on India to show "restraint" each time Pakistan-sponsored terrorists breached our borders and killed our civilians and soldiers.

In one fell swoop, India took the "strategic restraint" crown off its own head and placed it on Pakistan's scalp. Wednesday night's action  crossing the LoC, dismantling terrorist launch pads, neutralising over 50 terrorists plus a couple of Pakistan Army jawans and returning without even a scratch and then talking openly about the covert operation  sends two significant messages.

One, India isn't a war-mongering nation but cannot be taken for granted any more by its adversaries. Now that the nuclear voodoo has been busted, any further misadventure from Pakistan will bear escalating costs. This sets the bar high for India in event of future attacks but Narendra Modi government would have factored it in.

Two, since India will give a befitting tit for each tat, it is incumbent on Pakistan not to provoke India further and risk escalating tension between two nuclear armed neighbours. Since it is in nobody's interest to create instability in South Asia, least of all US and China, pressure will be mounted on Pakistan to not do anything silly. See how the language of coercion has changed?

Pressure of coercion

Consider what the US has been doing since the attacks. While the operation was still going on had just ended, US National Security Advisor Susan Rice telephoned Indian counterpart Ajit Doval and what followed was one of the strongest condemnation of Pakistan from White House ever.

Think this is the strongest statement I've ever seen from DC on an India-Pak crisis. Demands action on Jaish, LeT. https://t.co/EjdnmxVzfA  Myra MacDonald (@myraemacdonald) September 29, 2016

According to the statement released, "Ambassador Rice reiterated our (USA's) expectation that Pakistan take effective action to combat and delegitimise United Nations-designated terrorist individuals and entities, including Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, and their affiliates."

The timing of this message makes it clear that US was kept in loop, as Firstpost argued on Thursday.

As Seema Sirohi writes from Washington in The Wire: "The short statement gives enough indication of American perceptions on Pakistan and its jihad factories. India got the US to call it like it is on Pakistan even as the Indian army was in kinetic motion. In other words, the US took sides and didnt condemn any violation of any sovereignty of any country."

If any doubt still remains, that should dispelled by what the US said on Thursday evening during the daily news briefing.

According a report in News18, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said: "What I can tell you is that we have seen some reports from the region. Those reports include that Indian and Pakistani militaries have been in communication with one another and we encourage continued discussions between India and Pakistan to avoid escalation," and added that Pakistan has been asked to "combat and delegitimise" UN-designated terrorist entities, including LeT and JeM.

Go through the responses carefully. India has carried out and advertised a surgical strike across the LoC and the US is condemning Pakistan's terror policy and calling for de-escalation of tension. A clearer endorsement of the Indian line and a more open urge to Pakistan to show restraint is hardly possible.

This of course hasn't been easy. Modi mounted a concerted diplomatic offensive, both pre and post the surgical strikes. Envoys of 25 countries including P5 nations have been briefed about India's strikes and why it was necessary.

Modi has used military action and diplomatic overtures as complementary tools to coerce Pakistan and take away its bargaining chip. Onus is now on Islamabad.
With the surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC), India has abandoned the doctrine of strategic restraint which had allowed Pakistan-based terror groups to hit India with impunity. With this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has changed the India-Pakistan narrative.

Whether this will bring down the terror strikes launched from Pakistani soil or lead to a dangerous escalation between the two nuclear armed South Asian rivals is not clear.

This is the first time that Indian troops had crossed the LoC under the NDA government, something that was avoided during the Kargil incursions. The new narrative fashioned by the Prime Minister and the NSA is for every hit there will be a counter hit.

The Modi government has acted with maturity in handling the complex situation. The fact that DGMO Lt General Ranbir Singh had called up his counterpart to inform him and insist that Indias action along the LoC was not military action but "anti-terror" move is also worth noting. Unlike after the Myanmar operations, when there was much chest-thumping by many BJP leaders, including Minister of State for I&B Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, this time around there was relatively less crowing.

The DGMOs statement was to the point and brief. His statement mentioned action along the LoC, without letting out whether soldiers crossed the line. What the rest of the ministers said does not matter, but the official line kept the issue vague.

Government had no choice but to strike

For the BJP-led Modi government, there was no other choice. Indias patience was running low. In fact, since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, people's anger at regular terror strikes from anti-India outfits nurtured by Pakistan have been growing. To be fair to Modi, despite his constant mocking of his UPA predecessor Manmohan Singhs soft approach to terror, he too tried his best to befriend Pakistan. The invitation to Nawaz Sharif to attend his swearing-in, the detour from Kabul to call on Sharif on his birthday were all part of his effort for peace negotiations. But Pathankot and then Uri combined with Sharifs eroding clout in Pakistan, made him realise the futility of his peace overtures. The death of 18 Indian soldiers in the Uri terror attack also led to the growing demand from Prime Ministers own hardline followers for retaliatory action. The BJP has always believed in a strong government and failing to act against Pakistan would have indicated a measure of weakness that did not go down well with the PMs strong man image.

The government had to act and to declare that it has done so openly. A covert operation was out of question because the people had to be told that Modi was not Manmohan Singh.

Calibrated pitch

Instead of a knee-jerk reaction following the Uri attack, the government took time and covered the loopholes. In the diplomatic front, India gave its version to the assembled world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj spoke with maturity, while young Eenam Gambhir's reply to Sharif was succinct. India not only announced that Modi will not travel to Islamabad for the Saarc Summit, but also got Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan to pull out. Regional isolation of Pakistan was complete. Doing this at the international level will not be easy, because the US needs Pakistan to get a peace deal negotiated in Afghanistan with the Taliban.

The US was kept in the loop with US Security Advisor Susan Rice speaking to Ajit Doval after Wednesday's strikes. By evening, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar also briefed 25 envoys about Indias action. Ambassadors of the P-5 countries  US, Russia, France, UK and China  were all present.

Pakistan's reaction

"Pakistan will not react immediately," said former foreign Secretary Lalit Mansingh. "Sooner or later they will change the narrative, he pointed out. The Pakistan army has not admitted to Indian attack at the seven launch pads along the LoC. They continue to maintain that it was cross-border firing in which two of their soldiers died and nine others injured. "Very soon, they will focus on unprovoked attack by India on Pakistans sovereignty. I think they will also take this before the UNSC."

"India will be kept in tenterhooks through the festival season," said Ambassador Mansingh.

Islamabad will also launch a counter-diplomatic offensive. They will brief China, the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) members, which includes major Islamic powers like Turkey and Egypt.

There will be much talk by Pakistani experts of using tactical nuclear weapons if Indian soldiers cross the LoC but the government is now willing to take this in its stride. There will be fresh tension between India and Pakistan. China, which has invested $46 billion in Pakistan for its one belt-one road initiative will call for talks.

Anxieties about problems in Balochistan will propel China to work for peace between India and Pakistan.

India and Pakistan will be on edge for the next few months and there will be blasts of accusations and counter-accusations from both capitals. The truth is: We are on uncharted waters and will have to see if this results in ultimate peace or war.
Pakistans political and defence establishments and media have treated the announcement of Indias surgical strike across LoC with some disdain. The newspapers and websites display no sense of panic or concern. They are happy with their militarys explanation that it is nothing but rebranding of cross-border fire as surgical strike by India and it is fabrication of truth to generate media hype. On closer look, however, the veneer of calm indifference itself looks like fabrication. Since the militarys version is the only version that counts in Pakistan, everyone appears to have suspended suspicion and questions.

There could be a few reasons for this ostrich-like approach. One, the Indian strike exposes big holes in the Pakistan militarys exaggerated claims of its fighting capabilities; two, the establishment wants to be in denial about the terrorist launch pads  it would be self-incriminatory; three, it wants the people of the country to be in the dark about any Indian military action; and four, after playing the escalation bluff for too long, it is now worried about India resorting to escalation.

The first three should be of no interest to India, but the escalation part has to be. In bilateral equations between countries, the perception of threat plays an important role. After putting the so-called non-state actors into deadly effect, Pakistan has had the habit of uttering the N word, i.e. nuclear weapons, to deter India from escalating matters. While the military response from India to Pak-based terrorists has been adequate, it has been reticent about mentioning nuclear weapons. Perhaps Pakistan has played this card better  as a rogue state with not much accountability to its people it can be irresponsible, not so India.

Now that India has decided not to shy away from the escalation game, it need not hold back from provocative action whenever necessary. Diplomatic and economic isolation of Pakistan are good moves at one level but for a country that deserves cruder treatment, occasional display of power is also of critical significance. For that India need not look war-mongering or create war frenzy; strong retaliatory and preventive strikes would speak for themselves.

At the press announcement on Thursday, DGMO Ranbir Singh while mentioning that significant casualties had been caused to the terrorists and those who are trying to support them during the anti-terrorist operation also mentioned that the defence forces had no plans for further continuation of the operations. The government could have added the operations might have ended on this occasion but we are prepared for similar action any time in future. We reserve the right to preventive strikes. In terms of messaging it would have been effective.

Since the government has owned up the cross-border strike, a first for any government, it may as well go a bit ahead and make PoK is ours assertion part of its routine conversation. As escalation goes this would not be imprudent. Its not a bad idea to keep Pakistan perennially worried about PoK. The strike reveals a new aspect to Indias approach as this article in Firstpost says. The addition of preventive strikes and PoK would give the new approach the hurting edge.

Of course, all this is no guarantee against Pakistan playing dirty again. Theres the risk of the escalation game ending up in a full-fledged war where mutual destruction is assured. Worse, it might lead to a long war-like situation hanging heavy in the air with no actual war being fought. Given that India needs to think out of the box to handle Pakistan, the new approach is worth a try.
Pakistan must be the only country in the world to practice implausible deniability as the basic tenet of its diplomacy. It doesn't own up when it hits other nations through its army regulars or jihadists. And it stays in denial when it gets by other nations in retaliation for its misdeeds.

Kargil never happened for Pakistan. In spite of mounting evidence, Pakistan never accepted Ajmal Kasab as a product of its jihadi factories. Its leadership always denied Osama bin Laden was the country's guest. And, Islamabad has always denied evidence of Dawood Ibrahim's presence in Karachi.

Deniability has been a hallmark of Pakistan's statecraft since the days of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who, in a fit of hubris that has had disastrous consequences for both the countries, dispatched tribals and army regulars in disguise to capture Kashmir soon after Independence.

So, it may not have come as a surprise to the global community when Islamabad rejected India's claim of surgical strikes along the LoC as an illusion. Its official PR machinery claimed India had resorted to unprovoked firing with light ammunition and mortars along the LoC, killing two Pakistani soldiers.

The Pakistani response suits India. Since Islamabad is not even ready to accept that it was hit, its leadership can't talk of a suitable retaliation. Evidently, de-escalation is in-built in the Pakistani refusal to acknowledge the surgical strikes.

But, Pakistan has had a history of working from behind a veil, using non-state actors to act against India on its behalf. It is certain that while keeping up a brave face in public, it would be dying to respond to Indian action through its jihadist infrastructure. So, India has to be prepared for Pakistan's response, which, of course, it would later deny.

The challenge for India after Thursday's show of its intent to carry out preemptive strikes on jihadists is to ensure that as a policy it yields maximum results with minimum costs. The purpose of the surgical strike was not just to target terrorists before they could enter India. It was also meant to warn Pakistan of the consequences of breeding jihadis in its backyard. If Pakistan and jihadists refuse to get the message and scale up their operations, the pressure on the Indian government would be to retaliate with bigger force. This is where the stakes will start rising.

Now that India has avenged Uri, signalled to Islamabad that it retains the option of cross-border strikes and addressed the domestic constituent baying for revenge, it should invite Pakistan for talks to de-escalate the situation. Dialogue can begin at a level that suits both the countries. Its purpose should be restoration of peace between the two countries and discussing steps to avoid further escalation of tension and hostilities.

War mongers in both the nations can lead to just one consequence: mutual destruction. As this Firstpost article points out, the long-term consequences of a war between the two countries would impact almost a third of the world's population. So it is incumbent upon both the countries to avoid it.

Thursday's surgical strike has ironically turned out to be a win-win strategy for both India and Pakistan. For Prime Minister Narendra Modi it has ensured that India gets a feeling of euphoria and triumph. For Nawaz Sharif, the in-built mechanism of deniability has warded off pressure to react. The Pakistani Army's claim of capturing an Indian soldier and killing eight others in border skirmishes also helps Sharif to keep critics at bay.

Mission accomplished, revenge-lust satiated, both the countries can now tone down the rhetoric and go back to the discussion table.
Uri: Cross border trade between India and Pakistan remained unaffected in Jammu and Kashmir despite the surgical strikes by the army across the Line of Control (LoC), with 26 trucks crossing over to PoK and 13 from there reaching the Indian side.

As the state administration went into a huddle with army officials discussing possible evacuation of the locals from villages on the border amid heightened tensions between the two countries, trucks carrying goods from India crossed Salamabad checkpost in Uri on way to PoK.

Similarly, PoK authorities said 13 trucks with goods including embroidery items crossed over into Salamabad from Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir.

After necessary documentation was completed, the cross over of trucks started at 2 pm and was completed by 4 pm,

officials said.

They said Indian trucks carried chilli seeds, embroidery material, cumin seeds and black cardamom, while the trucks from PoK came with almonds, dried dates and mangoes.

Uri, located 102 km north of Srinagar, is one of the last Teshils in Baramulla district of north Kashmir.

It was in news recently after four militants of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) carried out a suicide attack on army camp killing 18 soldiers on 18 September.

Tension between India and Pakistan has been increasing since then. In the wee hours of Thursday, India said its troops had carried out surgical strikes inside PoK and destroyed terrorists launch pads located in that part of Kashmir.

The trade between the divided parts of Kashmir resumed on Tuesday after nearly two months as Pakistani traders decided to suspend the trade to protest civilian killings in the valley as a mark of "solidarity with the people of Kashmir".

21 items, including eatables, garments and handicrafts, are traded on the twin routes  Srinagar-Muzaffarabad in Kashmir and Poonch-Rawalakote in Jammu  on which around 50 trucks ply for four days a week.

The trade between the divided parts is considered as the second major Confidence Building Measure (CBM) after the launch of historic bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad on 7 April, 2005.

Although agreed upon by India and Pakistan in 2004, the trade became a reality on 21 October, 2008.
Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday formally announced that the 19th Saarc Summit which was to be held in Islamabad in November this year has been cancelled.

A statement form the Foreign Office said that "the spirit of the Saarc Charter is violated when a member state casts the shadow of its bilateral problems on the multilateral forum for regional cooperation".

"Pakistan attaches great importance to regional cooperation under the umbrella of Saarc and remains committed to hosting the 19th Saarc Summit at Islamabad at the earliest," it added.

In the wake of 18 September terrorist attack in Uri town of Jammu and Kahsmir, India decided not to participate in the Summit, which was followed by the boycott of Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangaladesh and on Friday, Sri Lanka too expressed its reservations.

The statement also said that Pakistan deplores India's decision to impede the Saarc process by not attending it, which was slated for 9-10 November.

"The decision by India to derail the Summit effectively contradicts Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi's own call to fight against poverty in the region," the statement said.

The Foreign Office said that a new set of dates for holding of the Summit in Islamabad will be announced soon, through the Chair of Saarc (Nepal).
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MHA issues advisory asking all states to remain vigilant during upcoming festive season.

"We will tell you what is a real surgical strike...and you will get the deserved response soon," he said. - PTI

Saaed warned India of a "befitting response" for its military operation in PoK, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi will now know what is meant by "surgical strikes".

We are concerned with the aggravation lately of the situation along the line of control between India and Pakistan: Russia Foreign Ministry

Expect that Pakistan should take effective steps to stop activities of terrorist groups in territory of the country: Russia Foreign Ministry

Decision by India to derail Summit effectively contradicts Prime Minister Modis own call to fight against poverty in the region: Pak MOFA

A new set of dates for holding of the 19th SAARC Summit at Islamabad will be announced soon: Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs

New dates for the Saarc summit to be to be announced soon

Rajnath Singh assures the family that they will bring the soldier who crossed over to the other side of the LoC back.

Rajnath Singh meets the family of soldier who crossed over to other side of LoC

Grandmother of a jawan who crossed over to the other side of the LoC died after not receiving any information about him.

Sources said the army was ready to deal with any possible attack from Pakistani side in response to the "clinical strike" carried out by para commandos of the army. - PTI

Army Chief Dalbir Singh complimented all ranks of Udhampur-based Northern Command for successfully conducting the "surgical strike" on terrorist launchpads across the LoC in which "significant casualties" were inflicted on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.

Pakistan on Friday said it has briefed the envoys of the P5 - the US, China, Russia, the UK and France - over "unprovoked firing" by India on the LoC and asked the countries to play their role in ensuring the maintenance of peace and security in the region. - PTI

Amid heightened tension with Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday chaired a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) to review the situation along the Line of Control. The meeting is understood to have discussed various options related to the LoC in the wake of the Uri attack.

PM Narendra Modi chairs Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meeting on situation on the LoC. pic.twitter.com/lZL9MFg2aq  ANI (@ANI_news) September 29, 2016

The meeting is also understood to have taken stock of ceasefire violations and infiltration attempts. Four terrorists had stormed an army camp in Uri on 18 September and killed 18 soldiers.

Delhi: PM Narendra Modi chaired Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meeting on situation on the LoC. pic.twitter.com/QZa2XJCjcF  ANI (@ANI_news) September 29, 2016

PM Modi chairs Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meeting on situation on the LoC, senior ministers & officials present. pic.twitter.com/Nd80LLVIP1  ANI (@ANI_news) September 29, 2016

Pakistani troops have also violated the ceasefire along the LoC twice since Wednesday. Pakistani troops on Thursday violated the ceasefire along the LoC in Naugam sector of Kashmir by opening indiscriminate fire towards Indian Army posts.

Pakistani troops on Wednesday had targetted Indian positions with small firearms along the LoC in Poonch district.

Meanwhile, director general military operations (DGMO) and Vikas Swarup to address media shortly, ANI reported.
Pakistan on Friday postponed the Saarc Summit to be held here next month after India along with four other member states of the regional grouping decided against attending the meet.

"Pakistan deplores India's decision to impede the Saarc process by not attending the 19th Saarc Summit at Islamabad on 9-10 November 2016," the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement. It claimed that the spirit of the Saarc Charter is "violated" when a member state casts the shadow of its bilateral problems on the multilateral forum for regional cooperation.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was looking forward to welcome the Saarc leaders for their participation in the summit. All preparations had been made for "successful" holding of the summit, the statement said. It alleged that decision by India to "derail the summit" effectively "contradicts" Prime Minister Narendra Modi's own call to fight against poverty in the region.

"India's decision to abstain from the summit on the basis of unfounded assumptions on the Uri incident is a futile effort to divert attention of the world from the atrocities" by India in Kashmir, the Foreign Office said.

"Pakistan attaches great importance to regional cooperation under the umbrella of Saarc. Therefore, Pakistan remains committed to hosting the 19th Saarc Summit in Islamabad at the earliest so that the objectives of regional cooperation under the Saarc umbrella can be pursued more vigorously," it said.

The Foreign Office said a new set of dates for holding of the summit in Islamabad will be announced soon, through Nepal, which is currently the Saarc Chair. "Accordingly, we have conveyed the same to the Prime

Minister of Nepal," it said.

Besides India, three other Saarc members  Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan  pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding of the meet.

Sri Lanka also pulled out of the Saarc Summit on Friday, becoming the fifth country to do so. Citing continuous cross border terrorism by Pakistan, India had announced earlier this week that "in the prevailing circumstances, the Government of India is unable to participate in the proposed summit in Islamabad."

Saarc member states include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Islamabad: Pakistan's cabinet met on Friday to review the situation on the Line of Control (LoC) in the wake of surgical strikes by the Indian Army.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif chaired the meeting, which is expected to put across the collective response of the nation to the challenge thrown by the latest events, Radio Pakistan reported.

The meeting comes in the wake of the surgical strikes that India carried out on terrorist launch pads across the LoC on Wednesday night. Pakistan has denied that no surgical strike took place and that there were only firing and artillery shelling between the two armies across the LoC that killed two of its soldiers.

In their remarks before the meeting, the cabinet members reiterated resolve of the government to defend the nation at all costs.

Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said support to the struggle of the Kashmiri people would remain Pakistan's main priority.

He said India was "indulging in diversionary tactics in a bid to deflect attention of the international community from its brutalities against Kashmiris."

He said Pakistan would confront India diplomatically but "our armed forces are also fully prepared to defend the country."

Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif reiterated that Pakistan does not want escalation of tension but it was ready to meet any eventuality.

He said Pakistan would respond befittingly to any firing across the LoC.

The Defence Minister said India was displaying irresponsible attitude and trying to playing with the galleries in a bid to hoodwink its public opinion. He said India cannot suppress legitimate aspirations of Kashmiri people.

Minister for Commerce Khurram Dastgir said India was creating artificial tension in its attempt to divert attention of the world from its atrocities against Kashmiris. He said Pakistan's defence is in strong hands and the country would continue to raise voice for rights of Kashmiris.

Minister for Kashmir Affairs Barjees Tahir said the world pledged right to self-determination through UN resolutions decades back and now fifth generation of Kashmiris is protesting for this right. He said Indian policy of suppression of legitimate struggle of Kashmiris would neither benefit India nor the region.

Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Syed Riaz Hussain Pirzada regretted that instead of giving right of self-determination to Kashmiris, India was resorting to terrorism against Pakistan. He said the world community should take notice of India's belligerence.

Secretary Foreign Affairs will brief the Cabinet on Kashmir issue and tensions between Pakistan and India.
On Thursday night, the main accused in the Park Street rape case  where woman's rights activist Suzette Jordan was apprehended by five men and brutally raped in a moving car  was arrested in Delhi. The arrest comes four years after the incident. Jordan passed away in March 2015.

Besides the main accused Kader Khan, the police arrested an accomplice named Ali. The two will be produced before a local court in Kolkata on Friday, reported DNA.

According to a report by Hindustan Times, Kolkata police received information that Khan was back in the country and was hiding out in Gaziabad where he had rented an apartment under a fictitious name. He was put under surveillance and on Thursday night, a joint team of Delhi and Kolkata police apprehended him.

Khan is presently being interrogated by the police to trace others who have helped him hide for four and a half years.

On 10 December 2015, nine months after Jordan's death, the other three accused who were on trial in the case were pronounced guilty. The Additional Sessions Judge Chiranjib Bhattacharya of the City Sessions Court had pronounced Ruman Khan, Naser Khan and Sumit Bajaj guilty of gangrape, criminal conspiracy, voluntarily causing hurt, criminal intimidation and common intention, under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. The court had sentenced them to a term of 10 years in jail. At the time Kader Khan and Ali were in hiding.

Jordan  then a divorcee and mother of two  was beaten up and gangraped at gun point inside a moving car and then thrown off the vehicle near Kolkata city intersection on the night of 5 February, 2012, after she had come out of a night club on Park Street.

Jordan, who came forward and revealed her identity on television in June 2013, fought her case against heavy odds.

Days after she filed the complaint on 9 February, 2012, ignoring disparaging comments and initial reluctance of the Park Street police station personnel, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called it a "cooked up case" and alleged that the woman was trying to malign the state government.

Banerjee's remarks were widely flayed by the civil society and the public, but that was not the end of Jordan's ordeal.

Trinamool MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar called the entire episode "a sex deal gone wrong", while minister Madan Mitra questioned what she was doing at a night club so late in the night and dubbed the rape allegation a "fabricated complaint meant to extort money".

However Jordan decided to go public about her ordeal and even urged the world to call her a "rape survivor" and not as the "Park Street rape victim".

On 13 March 2015, she died of multi-organ failure after being diagnosed with encephalitis.

With inputs from IANS
Patna High Court on Friday struck down Bihar goverment's prohibition law, terming it "illegal".

A division bench of the court comprising Chief Justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari and Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh quashed the 5 April notification of the state government to stop consumption and sale of alcohol in the state.

The 5 April notification is ultra vires to the Constitution, hence not enforceable, the court said in its verdict.

The same bench had on 20 May reserved its order on a batch of writ petitions filed by Liquor Trade Association and many individuals challenging the liquor law in Bihar brought by Nitish Kumar government with stringent penal provisions.

The stringent Bihar Excise and Prohibition Bill, 2016 was passed on 1 August in the state Assembly by voice vote amidst boycott by Opposition over the state government's rejection of their proposals.

On the provision of arrest of family members in the event of liqour bottle being found at their house, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar had earlier said that only adult members will be penalised on the premise that somebody in the household must be knowing as to who has brought the liquor.

The Bihar government had also earlier banned the sale of toddy, which is considered the poor man's beer and regarded as a natural juice.

This move was opposed by the people, including by ally RJD's chief Lalu Prasad as well as the opposition BJP and its allies.

According to RJD leaders, Lalu was not in favour of banning toddy. Lalu Prasad as Chief Minister in the early '90s had declared toddy tax-free in Bihar to help the people engaged in the business, particularly the 'Pasi' caste Dalits.

In view of increasing pressure from Lalu Prasad, Nitish Kumar decided to lift the ban on the sale and consumption of toddy, something which points out the huge role which the JD(U)'s alliance with RJD plays when the Bihar government is forming policies.

After imposing prohibition, commercial tax revenue in the state also witnessed a sharp dip. According to India Today, the state government's commercial tax revenue went down from Rs 3,666 crore in the first quarter of the last fiscal year to Rs 2,372 crore in the same period this year.

The excise revenue also decreased from Rs 897 crore in the same period last year to Rs 42 crore this year.

In the last fiscal year, the state government was earning around Rs 5000 crore only from the sale of liquor in the state.

Defending prohibition in Bihar, Nitish Kumar had also said that crimes like rape, murder, dacoity, road accidents, theft and extortion had come down since April this year, even though there has been a sharp rise in cases registered under the excise law.

With inputs from agencies
There has been no gunfire, no alert sirens and no fighter jets dropping bombs. It is not wartime yet, but tens of thousands of villagers in lying in the border belt with Pakistan are already experiencing a war-like situation.

As the relations between India-Pakistan  the nuclear armed neighbours  sizzle up, especially after India's retaliatory surgical strikes on the terror launch pads across LoC, the Indian Army is bracing up for a possible escalation in the situation. Thousands of villagers in the border states of Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat and Rajasthan are being relocated while a state of high alert was issued across Uttar Pradesh fearing retaliation from Pakistan. The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) also stepped-up up vigil along the Indo-Nepal border.

Punjab border villages evacuated

Following constant reports of ceasefire violation along LoC and amid apprehensions of situation escalating across the border, over 4,00,000 people in Punjab's border belt, comprising Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Ferozepur, Gurdaspur, Pathankot and Fazilka districts, have been evacuated from their homes to "safer areas".

Residents in nearly 1,000 villages in these districts have been ordered by the authorities to evacuate following escalation of tension between India and Pakistan as the Army beefed up security across the length of Indian border.

"We loaded a lot of our belongings and household articles on our tractor-trolley. We have not yet decided where we will go. But we have to move out. The standing crop in our fields has to be harvested within the next 10 days. We hope this situation eases out soon," farmer Sardul Singh of Amritsar district told IANS.

Punjab shares a 553-km international border with Pakistan. The entire border is marked by an electrified barbed wire fence.

The Sikh holy city of Amritsar, which lies only 30 km from the international border, too seemed to be prepared for any eventuality, including war.

Hospitals in the border districts have been asked to keep some beds in the emergency wards vacant for any contingency. The leave of police personnel, medical staff and others maintaining emergency services have been cancelled. Electricity of border villages and towns will also be cut-off, according to CNN-News18.

In some of the border villages, which are located across the rivers in the border belt, Border Security Force (BSF) and Indian Army personnel could be seen ferrying people, including children and the elderly, and their belongings to safer areas on Thursday and Friday.

"There is nothing to panic about. The evacuation is being done as a preventive measure. Arrangements are being made to accommodate the evacuated people," Isha Kalia, Deputy Commissioner of Fazilka district in southwest Punjab, said. Kalia visited various evacuation centres in her district and talked to people accommodated there.

But villagers said that there was some panic and anxiety among them. According to CNN-News18, some villagers have refused to move stating that they have nowhere else to go. "Punjabis have faced wars before and we will see whatever happens again... Yaha se uthenge to jayenge kaha ji (where will we go from here)," a resident told CNN-News18.

"Old timers have been through the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan. Those days were bad. But Punjabis have always faced wars valiantly. For the newer generation, who have not seen wars, the evacuation is a new thing. Many youngsters are worried about what will happen," Waryam Singh of Ferozepur district, who is 70-plus and lived through the 1965 and 1971 wars, told IANS.

The villagers who have been evacuated were headed either to the homes of relatives and friends in "safer zones" or opted for camps organised by the district authorities.

With arrangements to accommodate hundreds of people at each of the 45 relief camps having to be made within a few hours, the evacuated people complained of mismanagement and chaos.

Local gurudwaras and social organisations also chipped in, within the past 12 hours, to arrange food and water for the displaced people.

Along all roads and paths in the border belt, any mode of transport available was being used by the people to move out with their belongings. The authorities also arranged buses at some places to ferry people. Army convoys, with artillery, moved towards the border with Pakistan on Thursday and Friday.

Army on high alert in Punjab

The Indian Army, the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Border Security Force (BSF) were put on high alert in Punjab and neighbouring states to counter any escalation that may follow under the current stand-off between the two nations.

Army convoys, carrying artillery guns, could be seen moving towards the border belt in Punjab on Thursday and Friday in preparation of thwarting any move from Pakistan to retaliate the LoC strike. Leaves of Army personnel deployed on the Western front have also been cancelled with immediate effect, according to CNN-News18.

The IAF has been put on high alert with forward air bases on the western front in full preparedness. The IAF bases in the region include Halwara and Adampur (both in Punjab), Ambala (in Haryana) and Hindon (near Delhi).

Air Force fighter jets carried out sorties over some parts of Punjab as a preventive measure.

The International Border (IB) in the Punjab frontier is manned by the BSF which is on maximum alert following the latest developments at the LoC.

Army units were also on high alert in Punjab. The army presence in Punjab is substantial, spread in Mamoon cantonment near Pathankot, the 11 Corps based in Jalandhar, the 10 Corps in Bathinda in southwest Punjab and army units in Ferozepur, Amritsar and other places.

The Western Command, headquartered at Chandimandir near Chandigarh, is monitoring the situation along the border with Pakistan in Punjab sector, a senior Army officer said.

The Ambala-based 2 Corps, a strike corps, has also been put on high alert along with the Hisar-based 33 Armoured Division, sources said.

UP on high alert, increased vigil along Indo-Nepal border

Security was heightened in all districts in Uttar Pradesh, fearing retaliation from Pakistan while the SSB was also asked to step up vigil along the Indo-Nepal border.

Special focus was on security of historical monuments, tourist destinations, public places like railway and bus stations, malls, shopping complexes and film theatres, an official told IANS.

Additional police force was deployed in the peripheral parameters of cantonments in Lucknow, Agra, Kanpur and Meerut, and military installations and airports were put under close watch.

Special checking operations were initiated to screen vehicles on border and other sensitive areas like Maharajganj, Bahraich, Gonda and Gorakhpur. "Other than scaling up the visible security, we have also sensitised the intelligence system and are keeping an eye on every activity," an official said.

India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads inflicting "significant casualties"across the LoC on the 28 and 29 September, seen as a reprisal for the Uri attack. The Uri Army base was attacked by heavily-armed Pakistani terrorists on September 18 in which 18 soldiers were killed. India has maintained that the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed was behind the attack.

With inputs from IANS
New Delhi: Army Chief Dalbir Singh on Friday complimented all ranks of Udhampur-based Northern Command for successfully conducting the "surgical strike" on terrorist launchpads across the LoC in which "significant casualties" were inflicted on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.

Sources said the army was ready to deal with any possible attack from Pakistani side in response to the "clinical strike" carried out by para commandos of the army. The Additional Directorate General of Public Information (Army) in Ministry of Defence said the army chief complimented the Northern Command for successfully planning and implementing the strike, seen as a reprisal for the Uri attack.

The sources said the decision on the "surgical strike" was taken soon after the attack on the Uri army base on 18 September. They said India was ready with contingency plans considering the possibilities that Pakistan may retaliate in the wake of the surgical strike.

The Army also trashed reports in Pakistan about Indian casualties during the operation, saying one member of the special forces received minor injury while returning but it was not due to any enemy or terrorist action. It has been estimated that casualties was at least 40 on Pakistani side but there was no official confirmation.

The operation was "clinically" planned and the attack on each of the seven launch pads located in Leepa, Tattapani, Kel and Bhimbar were carried out simultaneously, sources said. The sources said it was a moonless night and total darkness helped the special forces bring the element of surprise with total effectiveness.

It has been estimated that casualties were at least 40 on Pakistani side but there was no official confirmation. Choppers also hovered over several sectors on the Indian side of the LoC to divert attention of the Pakistani security forces guarding various post.

There were unconfirmed reports that the operation has been videographed using drones. There have been satellite images of the operation, the sources said. Meanwhile, one more soldier, who was critically injured in the terror attack on Army's Uri base 12 days ago, on Friday died of his wounds, taking the total number of army personnel killed in the strike to 19.

Naik Raj Kishor Singh was undergoing treatment at Army's Research and Referral Hospital here. "Gen Dalbir Singh #COAS & all Rks #IndianArmy pay homage & salute the supreme sacrifice of braveheart Nk Raj Kishor Singh, #UriAttack," the ADG PI (Army) tweeted.
"Jung bahut karli. Jung karke kya paya, na zameen mili na jannat paya (What has war yielded? Neither land nor heaven).

These words spoken firmly in the ear of Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz at the Raiwind Palace  albeit not in quite as sophisticated and chaste Urdu  by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Lahore exactly 11 months ago must be resonating rather loudly now.

The Sharif brothers seem to have mistaken Modis utterances as a sign of his love for Urdu shaayari. In his book The Pakistan Paradox by Christophe Jafferlot, the French scholar on South Asia aptly writes: The idea of Pakistan (is) riddled with tensions. Initiated by a small group of select Urdu-speaking Muslims who envisioned a unified Islamic state, today Pakistan suffers the divisive forces of various separatist movements and religious fundamentalism.

Perhaps attuned to dealing with Indian politicians prone to display their love for shaayari more than realpolitik, there is nothing amiss if the Pakistan establishment regarded Modis utterances as the usual platitudes. But those who know Modi could vouch for the fact that the prime minister is not known for lowering his guard and talking inanities to please someone.

Take for instance, the following: His silence after the Indias surgical strikes inside Pakistan is indicative of his focused approach to the task at hand. Those who met him or spoke to him over the past three days admit that Modi did not let anyone know about his steely resolve to carry out the operations. Not even once did he lend credence to the notion of warmongering. His speeches at Kozhikode were measured and calculated to address the domestic and international audience. In his public meeting, he talked about fighting a thousand-year war with Pakistan to end poverty, illiteracy and infant-mortality. In his BJPs national council, he was particularly emphatic on his partys attempt to co-opt Muslims as our own.

The astute politician that he is, Modi is acutely conscious of the fact that the war hysteria in India must be contained to check the divisiveness on Hindu-Muslim fault line. That is the precise reason that he selectively used his silence and eloquence, both, as strategic assets. And this is not the first time Modi did it. There is a discernible pattern.

Recall 26 July, 2008 when Ahmedabad witnessed multiple bomb blasts triggered by Indian Mujahideen group that claimed the lives of 60-odd people. Modi, as a chief minister, was requested by the then police commissioner to not visit the site. He not only ignored the police officials advise but also visited the hospitals where injured were brought in the midst of reports of successive blasts. He looked supremely calm and avoided rhetoric. However, in a secret operation conducted with the help of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), his police teams conducted raids across the country and nabbed all culprits. The operations secrecy was blown away when the UP government headed by Mayawati prevented the Gujarat Police from carting away a terrorist arrested from Azamgarh in a secret raid.

Modis discreet behaviour is deeply internalised in his political personae. Those closely watching his behaviour would see discernible pattern. For example he dissuaded the Ministry of External Affairs after the Pathankot attack to go all out against Pakistan. The MEAs reaction after the Pathankot attacks was quite restraint and avoided mentioning Pakistan to give the Pakistani establishment space to manoeuvre. Despite stiff resistance by the Indian agencies and the home ministry, a team of Pakistani investigators was allowed to conduct the probe in Pathankot airbase. However this magnanimity was taken by the Pakistani establishment as consistent with the old Indian approach.

In sharp contrast to the Pathankot attacks, the government adopted a silent approach after the attack on the Uri brigade headquarters of the army. Apart from Modis tweet assuring people to get even with perpetrators of the attack, Modi avoided war rhetoric. The investigative agency too did not bother to seek any help from the Pakistani establishment. Right from the word go, there was no ambiguity in the prime ministers mind that it was military action by Pakistan camouflaged as terrorism.

Those who know Modi could vouch for the fact that the prime minister is not known for lowering his guard and talking inanities to please someone

Although Modi let other colleagues like Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj manage the domestic and external fronts respectively, he was totally immersed in operational details of Indias response. He did factor in the inherent instability of Pakistan, its own fault-lines and the jihadist mindset of a section of its army while fashioning Indias response. And he started making preparations for such an eventuality after the Uri attack. In fact, his soft message delivered on 25 December, 2015 at Raiwind Palace was an abstract for the text he has been preparing for Pakistan.

Unfortunately, the Sharif household and Pakistani establishment failed to understand its meaning.
Shimla: Twenty-four patients suffering from scrub typhus, a disease caused by the bite of an infected mite found in areas with heavy scrub vegetation, have died in Himachal Pradesh, an official said on Friday.

"The total number of scrub typhus deaths is 24 and 825 patients have tested positive till September 28," a government spokesperson told IANS.

He said directions have been issued to all medical officers in the state to treat the scrub typhus patients free of cost.

Many patients from across the state were referred to the Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital in Shimla for treatment.

Union Health Minister JP Nadda has assured the state government of all possible help in managing the endemic disease scrub typhus.

"The ministry is very closely monitoring the situation and if requested shall provide all logistical and technical support to the state to strengthen their capacity to effectively manage the situation," an official statement quoting Nadda said on 27 September.

The symptoms of the disease include fever, headache, muscle pain, cough and gastroenteritis  inflammation of the mucous membrane of the stomach and intestines.
The NDA government's Income Declaration Scheme (IDS), which opened a window for balck money hoarders to declare their ill-gotten wealth and come clean, is closing today.

The government, in order to further facilitate the filing of declarations, has extended the working hours of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) until 8 pm on Thursday and Wednesday. The Income Tax Department offices will remain open all over the country until the midnight today.

Here's a low down on the NDA government's ambitious scheme aimed at battling black money:

What is the scheme all about?

The scheme, which came into effect for a period of four months starting from June 1 this year, was announced by the government with an aim of bringing out black money from the domestic economy. Those who declare their un-taxed wealth under the scheme can make their payments as follows:

i) a minimum amount of 25% of the tax, surcharge and penalty to be paid by 30 November 2016;

ii) a further amount of 25% of the tax, surcharge and penalty to be paid by 31 March 2017;

iii) the balance amount to be paid on or before 30 September 2017.

The time for making payments was extended considering the practical difficulties of the stakeholders, who feared they may have to resort to distress sale of assets.

Penalty against the tax evaders or those people do not declare their deposits and assets under the IDS would be 100 percent to 300 percent, besides jail terms ranging from three months to seven years, depending upon the severity of the fault and laxity.

The government hopes to collect taxes worth Rs 50,000 crore and declaration worth Rs 1 lakh crore.

How is the government facilitating income declaration?

The CBDT is leaving no stone unturned to ensure maximum declarations under the window.

The government has assured people that the information declared under the scheme would be kept confidential and not shared with any authority.

Further, the payments made under the scheme shall neither be reflected in the annual statement, which is the consolidated tax statement, nor can it be viewed by the assessing officer in the Online Tax Accounting System (OLTAS) of the department in the interest of confidentiality.

The I-T department has been directed to accept declarations without PAN under the black money compliance window, but ensure that the unique number is later obtained by the entity concerned.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has asked tax sleuths to ask such declarants to attach a separate application in the IDS form for allotment of a fresh PAN to them quickly.

The decision was notified by CBDT as some field offices brought to its notice that they were encountering "few cases" where an entity wanted to make a declaration of black money under IDS, but had no PAN.

The extension of date to make payments was also part of this effort.

Separately, the Reserve Bank of India has instructed banks to accept cash deposits at the counter from people declaring unaccounted wealth under the scheme.

What are the criticisms against the scheme?

As the IDS deadline drew nearer, the I-T department started conducting raids across the country. Even the small businesses were not spared.

The opposition has accused the government of harassment.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari alleged that under the scheme, the total declaration made till 30 August was Rs 4,164 crore only and the total tax collected was only Rs 2,428 crore.

As against this, in 1997, the then United Front government's voluntary disclosure of income scheme (VDIS), the total declaration made was Rs 33,000 crore and total tax collected Rs 10,000 crore. The scheme was devised by then finance minister P Chidambaram.

"if today we go to any trading hub in the country there are these horror stories of how the small trader, the honest businessman, the honest taxpayer is being literally coerced in order to make declaration to fulfil the target under this income declaration scheme," Tewari said.

Will the scheme be a success?

The jury is still out. Media reports say the government hopes raise anywhere between Rs 35,000-50,000 crore from the scheme.

According to this Business Standard report, the declarations have picked up towards the close of the scheme, which the government has refused to extend.

The tax officials cited by the newspaper say that the scheme will be a success if the income declarations goes beyond Rs 50,000 crore. Even declarations worth Rs 40,000 crore is not bad, they say.

However, if, as the Congress alleged, the officials have been harassing the tax payers to meet targets, it may end up as a failure and is likely to backfire.
New Delhi: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) should apologise and withdraw its report on Kairana that is based on communally charged assumptions, activists have said.

"We are deeply dismayed as this report clearly communalises crime and criminals. One community cannot be the reason behind the law and order problems anywhere," minority rights activist, Farah Naqvi told media on Thursday.

"The report says that the Muslims, who had survived the Muzaffarnagar riots and settled in Kairana, are creating law and order problems in the town. It makes prejudiced and communally charged assumptions," she said.

"NHRC should apologise to the riot victims for having stigmatised their entire community and should withdraw this report," she added.

Social worker Harsh Mander also challenged the report saying, "NHRC's report makes a stereotyped declaration. Is this what we expect from the highest statutory body in the country?"

Noting that criminality in any area causes people to migrate, he said: "It is the state government's job to act and accommodate the migrants. Criminality does not have a religion or a community."

Naqvi said that it is a matter of grave concern that "our premier human rights body in a public document spoke so loosely and irresponsibly, based only on what unnamed witnesses said they feel and stigmatise an entire community of Indian citizens as criminals."

Social worker Akram Chaudhary from Shamli demanded factual evidence of NHRC's figure of 25,000-30,000 migrants having settled in Kairana town post riots, saying: "According to the survey that we conducted in Kairana, 270 muslim families from (approximately 2,000 people) survived the riots in muzaffarnagar and settled in the town."

"We ask why the NHRC is directly feeding false notions of Hindu community honour being under threat, which has been used as the pretext for numerous previous incidents of communal violence, including most recently in Bijnor," she stated.

Naqvi sought for justification on the issue.

"Why has it chosen to closely study a list of 346 families supplied by a political party with a clear stake in communalising the atmosphere ahead of the UP polls?" she questioned.
New Delhi: A day after the surgical strikes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to review the situation on Friday at the LoC and the international border with Pakistan at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS).

As the tensions have heightened, Modi is expected to assess the situation on the ground, sources said.

Pakistan has insisted that there was no strike by India even as its Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has called a cabinet meeting today.

India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC on the intervening night of 28 and 29 September, with the Army saying it had inflicted "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK, days after Modi warned Uri attack would not go unpunished.

On Thursday, Pakistan summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale over "unprovoked firing" by India in which two Pakistani soldiers were killed.
Chennai: On Friday DMK President M Karunanidhi urged the Tamil Nadu government to "put an end to rumours" regarding the health of AIADMK supremo and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa by providing proper information to the people, while wishing his arch rival a speedy recovery.

"As I had already mentioned, though I differ with her ideologically, it is my desire that she recovers soon and take up official duties as usual," he said and wished her a speedy recovery.

Karunanidhi said although Apollo hospital, where the Chief Minister is recuperating from fever and dehydration, was issuing bulletins about her health, "some unwanted rumours" were deliberately being floated by "some persons."

"Some persons are spreading unwanted rumours about her health on the social media and to put an end to these, proper information about the Chief Minister's health must be made available to the people," he said in a statement.

Karunanidhi suggested that photographs of the Chief Minister be released through the media to quell any kind of rumours being circulated about her health.

Jayalalithaa (68) was admitted to the hospital on 22 September after she complained of fever and dehydration.

She has been advised to stay for a few days at the hospital.

Meanwhile, AIADMK slammed the rumour mongers and said efforts were being made to confuse people and party workers.

"Some persons are trying to create confusion among people and party workers by spreading rumours," party spokesperson C R Saraswathy said.

She pointed out that Jayalalithaa has been, among others, monitoring the Cauvery situation from the hospital while also announcing festive bonus for state government employees on Wednesday.

Expressing concern over rumours being spread through social media, the spokesperson said such platforms should be used in a constructive way.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has reasons to celebrate and, at the same time, sulk today. A day after the Indian Army made their covert surgical strike in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir public, one would expect the topic would be the talk of the town on every channel and newspaper. But, on Friday, cameras shifted focus on Bihar as two important newsbreaks took away the thunder from the Narendra Modi government.

Newsbreak #1: The Supreme Court on Friday cancelled the bail of controversial RJD leader Mohammad Shahabuddin. The SC directed Shahabuddin to surrender and asked the Bihar government to take steps to take him into custody forthwith.

Newsbreak #2: The Patna High Court struck down the liquor ban imposed by the Nitish Kumar administration in April. A high court bench, after hearing a petition against the ban, termed it "illegal".

The two developments come as good and bad news for the Bihar chief minister. Here's why:

Liquor ban quashed

The Patna High Court, in a rather surprising ruling, struck down the blanket ban on alcohol in Bihar imposed by the Nitish Kumar government and termed it "illegal". This is a huge blow to Nitish. The chief minister's pet project, the plank that made him sail through the doubled-edged Bihar Assembly election, prohibition in Bihar was both criticised (by Opposition and tipplers) and applauded by several across the nation.

Liquor prohibition has been a major poll plank among political parties and their leaders, especially in 2015 and 2016 during the Assembly election season. After Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Bihar, now Uttar Pradesh (set to go to the polls early in 2017) is gearing up for many rallies promising a ban on alcohol. Since the rural population, especially the women, are so sick and tired of a drunk man in the family, it works when a politician comes bearing the good news of a sober household. Nitish made this a reality in Bihar. In fact, detractors were critical of his decision saying that the move, which was dubbed as a political one, will drain the state coffers.

When Nitish first placed ban on alcohol as a poll agenda in the run up to the Bihar election, speculations were abound. How is total prohibition possible? How will the chief minister manage to fill the huge gap created by the lack of liquor revenue? How will Nitish prohibit the sale of illegal or spurious liquor (it's a fact that when you ban the sale of something, the illegal replacement floods the market)? But the Nitish Kumar government was able to tide over all the hardships and doubts and prohibition was successfully imposed that eventually showed results.

The police crime statistics in Bihar backs Nitish's claim that crime rate has come down by about 27 percent since imposition of total prohibition in the state in early April. Crime figures compiled by state police headquarters reflect slide in heinous crimes like murder, kidnapping for ransom, rape, dacoity, arms act, atrocities against women and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and riots among others during as compared to last year's data.

Murder cases fell from 276 in April 2015 to 206 in April 2016, a decline of 25.36 percent, Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Alok Raj, who is the nodal officer for enforcement of prohibition, told PTI. The police headquarters have compiled the figures on the basis of reports submitted by respective SSPs and SPs of districts following the prohibition. As per the data, a total of 12 persons were kidnapped for ransom in April 2015, while the number declined to one in April this year. The number of rape cases fell from 112 to 59 in April this year, a decline of 47.32 percent.

Asked whether prohibition alone was the reason for decline in the crime graph, the ADG said, "Prohibition and pro-active policing have been major contributors for decline in the number of criminal cases in April this year."

Nitish got an extra pat on his back for daring to make prohibition a reality with its main ally in the state  Lalu Prasad Yadav's RJD  a party that never supported the blanket ban on liquor. The Telegraph in this article, dated 5 May, 2016 said:

"RJD boss Lalu Prasad, who has officially supported prohibition, misses no opportunity to oppose it in private conversations. He revealed on the condition of anonymity that he had advised Nitish and his aid, Prashant Kishore against prohibition when the duo met him ahead of imposing it."

The prohibition plank was not just a good governance tool. It was a politically calculated and calibrated move. The liquor ban would also push Nitish as a front-runner for the 2019 Lok Sabha battle. An ideology-driven, old-school politician, Nitish probably does not want to ride on a media-driven campaign, like Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Nitish rather chose a more conventional method. In search of an ideological plank, the JD(U) chief wanted an issue that would hammer his way all the way to the 7 RCR. Sreemoy Talukdar argued in this Firstpost piece that Nitish's prohibition on alcohol was driven by ambition:

"He has a two-pronged strategy. In calling for a RSS-mukt Bharat, he wishes to generate heat by challenging India's currently dominant politico-ideological force. This is an interesting move but still at a very early stage. Two, to position himself as a social reformer he has sought to make Bihar a dry state, jumping on to the bandwagon of prohibition  an idea of dubious effectiveness that still retains immense currency."

Nitish's plan was perfect till he overdid it.

In August 2016, the chief minister amended the existing Bihar Prohibition and Excise Bill, 2016, and proposed that the state government could prosecute a woman if her husband secretly consumed alcohol  even without her knowing it. The amended bill said that it must be presumed that every adult member of the family is in the know if someone is drinking, making, selling or distributing alcohol in "one's premises".

According to reports, the draconian changes in the new bill was circulated before the opening day of the five-day Monsoon Session, for feedback, and has already been cleared by the Nitish Kumar Cabinet. The bill also sought punishment for liquor advertisements in the media and social media with a jail term of five years, a Rs 10-lakh penalty or both.

"Charity begins at home. If we are making a law, then we should unanimously pass a resolution from here itself. The message of unity in the form of a resolution that we will neither drink and nor promote drinking should go out to the people," Nitish reportedly said.

This was a bad move. Let's give Nitish the benefit of the doubt and presume that he had an honest intention at heart when he proposed and imposed prohibition. It even did some good to the society at large. But penalising on presumption was draconian and excessive. In the new bill, all sections were made non-bailable, where only courts can grant bails and not police stations. If the bill were to come into effect, only special courts would have had the authority to try cases related to violation of the Bihar Prohibition Law.

The high court didn't just strike down the law, it termed it "illegal."

Shahabuddin sent back to jail

On 7 September, RJD leader and former MP Mohammad Shahabuddin with a string of convictions to his name was granted bail by the Patna High Court in a murder case. Three days later, the tainted leader walked free from prison after 11 years, staging a massive show of strength and also challenging Nitish, who was credited with ending the gangster-turned-politician's reign of terror.

However, on 16 September, Chandrakeshwar Prasad of Siwan, whose three sons were allegedly murdered at the behest of Shahabuddin, moved Supreme Court seeking cancellation of bail. Bihar government also moved the Supreme Court.

On 30 September, Supreme Court set aside Patna High Court order, and cancelled Shahabuddin's bail in the 2014 murder case of Rajiv Roshan, sending the Siwan MP to prison again.

This could brighten Nitish's day. On the day that the Bihar chief minister's pet project was stayed, another court gave a reason to the chief minister to rejoice. And here's why:

The bench said Shahabuddin shall be taken into custody forthwith and be sent back to Bhagalpur jail. The state government shall take all steps to comply with the orders of the court, it said. The court has also asked for speeding up the murder trial against the gangster-turned-politician.

Forty-nine-year-old Shahabuddin, whose crime record goes back to 1986, was hand-picked by Lalu in 1990 to tap Muslim leaders and escalate a Muslim-Yadav combination. MLA in 1990 and 1995, four times MP between 1996 and 2004, Shahbuddin won on RJD and Janata Dal tickets till he was barred from contesting elections following his conviction in the 2007 murder case.

With Nitish coming to power and his obsession with restoring law and order situation in Bihar, Shahabuddin's wings were clipped. In November 2005, Shahabuddin was put behind bars for 18 cases of murders, extortion and under the Arms Act. After his release earlier in September, Shahabuddin made it clear, that just because Lalu and Nitish have forged an alliance despite their differences, he will still not consider the latter as his boss. "My supporters will teach (Nitish Kumar) a lesson in the next polls," Shahabuddin had told reporters after his release.

Shahabuddin's release deepened fault-lines between Lalu and Nitish, who spent months convincing their detractors that the RJD-JD(U) combine was not an alliance of compulsion (even though the truth was something else). Shahabuddin called Nitish, "a chief minister of circumstances". Before that the Siwan MP lampooned the chief minister by saying that Nitish cannot get more than 20 seats on his own. "Mandate to Madhu Koda ko bhi public ka mandate tha (Even Madhu Koda had public mandate)."

Talking to reporters from his residence, the Siwan strongman, according to The Times of India, said: "Nitish has never been a mass leader; he cannot win even 20 seats on his own. My party is definitely a part of the government, but RJD boss Lalu Prasad was, is and will remain my leader. Madhu Koda (also) became the CM because of circumstances, and so is the case with Nitish."

Only after such intrepid public barbs, Nitish understood the full import of his mahagathbandhan of convenience with Lalu. The speculation just after Shahabuddin's release was if Nitish couldn't pressurise Lalu to rein in Shahabuddin, it would send an unmistakable message that he has been held to ransom by a rogue ally. With Shahabuddin's release, Nitish's hold on the current government was questioned. Can a chief minister, who cannot be his own man, in his own state, hope to play a prominent role outside it?

The Supreme Court order of Friday just made Nitish's day.

The Shahabuddin spectacle robbed Nitish of even "the fig leaf of morality that he had tried to retain."

We cannot yet say what this mix of news will mean for Nitish. The day his pet project was tanked and temporarily his 2019 dreams dashed, another court gave the Bihar chief minister a reason to be happy. Nitish can still hold his head high and cruise ahead with his 2019 ambitions as the leader who does not compromise on law and order. For a seasoned and an astute politician like Nitish, finding a poll plank is not very difficult.

We, however, are being presumptuous in commenting that the alcohol prohibition is done and dusted. Nitish could just revive it.

With inputs from agencies
Chicago: Democrat Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump of breaking the law by violating the US trade embargo with Cuba, slamming her rival as dishonest and willing to put his interests before the country.

Clinton yesterday said Trump's business interests in Cuba in the 1990s "appear to violate US law, certainly flout American foreign policy," as she accused him of misleading American voters.

Newsweek earlier reported that Trump hotel and casino executives spent USD 68,000 while trying to get a foothold in Cuba during a trip in 1998.

That was well before the United States loosened its decades-old embargo and when expenditures in the Caribbean country were illegal without US government approval.

A former Trump executive who spoke to Newsweek on condition of anonymity said the company did not obtain a government license for its spending before the trip.

The issue plays into Clinton's main line of attack against her Republican rival.

Her campaign has framed the election as an existential moment for the republic: a choice between Clinton's safe pair of hands and the latent authoritarianism of an erratic and duplicitous mogul.

The issue could also cause Trump problems in the swing state of Florida  where anti-communist Cuban Americans make up a vocal slice of the electorate.

Polls show the Democrat and Republican nominees running virtually neck-and-neck there.

"This adds to the long list of actions and statements that raise doubts about his temperament and qualification to be president and commander in chief," said Clinton.

She accused Trump of continuing to "stonewall the American voters" on his taxes and business interests "before they cast their votes, early or on 8 November."

Facing questions about the report, Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway all but acknowledged that his company violated the embargo.

"As I understand from the story, they paid money in 1998," she said on the ABC show "The View."

However, Trump ultimately "decided not to invest there," she added, saying the real estate billionaire has remained "very critical" of Cuba and the Castro regime.

Newsweek reported that the company did not spend the money directly, opting instead to funnel the funds through a consulting firm  Seven Arrows Investment and Development Corp  with Trump's knowledge to make it appear as if the spending were part of a charitable effort.

Instituted in the early 1960s, the trade embargo was designed to starve Fidel Castro's regime of US currency. Despite the recent restoration of diplomatic relations between Washington and Havana, the embargo remains largely in place.

Florida's Republican US Senator and onetime presidential candidate Marco Rubio, whose parents fled Cuba, said he was "deeply concerned" about the report.

"I hope the Trump campaign is going to come forward and answer some questions about this," he told ABC's "Capital Games" podcast.

"It was a violation of American law if that's how it happened."
Brussels: EU environment ministers agreed Friday to fast-track the ratification of the landmark Paris agreement on climate change, despite the fact that some national parliaments have yet to approve the deal.

"All member states greenlight early EU ratification of Paris agreement. What some believed impossible is now real," European Union President Donald Tusk said on Twitter.

"Victory!" tweeted French Environment Minister Segolene Royal.

Fears that the United States and China, the world's two biggest polluters, were leaving the EU behind on ratifying last year's historic deal pushed the bloc's 28 ministers to rush through the collective measure.

Around 60 countries have now committed to the landmark agreement designed to stem the planet's rising temperatures, which was sealed in December 2015 in the French capital.

"This is a historic day," EU Environment Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete told a news conference, "a day when we put behind us any doubts that the EU is ready to join the Paris climate agreement."

Seven EU countries including Germany and France have ratified the deal so far.

The Paris accord requires all countries to devise plans to achieve the goal of keeping the rise in temperatures within two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and strive for 1.5 C (2.7 F) if possible.

Leaders of EU countries had agreed at a summit in the Slovakian capital Bratislava on 16 September that the bloc should push through ratification at a collective level as soon as possible.

Speed up the process

Questions about how emissions cuts will be divided among EU countries have held up the deal in a number of nations, not least over the issue of how Britain's vote to leave the union will affect quotas.

The European Parliament must now give its approval before the EU actually ratifies the agreement, an EU statement said.

The ministers "agreed to speed up the process of ratification of the Paris Agreement" and "decided to go ahead with ratification at EU level", said the statement.

"Member states will ratify either together with the EU if they have completed their national procedures, or as soon as possible thereafter," it added.

Europe has prided itself on taking a global lead on climate change issues but has watched with alarm as the rest of the world has left it behind.

The Paris agreement received a major boost earlier this month when China and the United States, the two largest emitters, jointly acceded to the deal during a summit between Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping.

At least 30 countries jointly ratified the Paris deal at the UN General Assembly in New York on 21 September.

France's Royal told AFP earlier this month that she was upbeat the accord would take effect before the next UN-led climate conference on 7 November in Marrakesh, Morocco.
Hoboken: A rush hour commuter train crashed through a barrier at the busy Hoboken station and lurched across the waiting area Thursday morning, killing one person and injuring more than 100 others in a grisly wreck that renewed questions about whether long-delayed automated safety technology could have prevented tragedy.

People pulled chunks of concrete off pinned and bleeding victims, passengers kicked out windows and crawled to safety and cries and screams could be heard in the wreckage as emergency workers rushed to reach the injured in the tangle of twisted metal and dangling wires just across the Hudson River from New York City.

The New Jersey Transit train ran off the end of the track as it was pulling in around 8:45 am, smashing through a concrete-and-steel bumper. As it ground to a halt in the waiting area, it knocked out pillars, collapsing a section of the roof.

"The train didn't stop. It just didn't stop," said Tom Spina, who was in the terminal and rushed to try to help the victims.

Ross Bauer was sitting in the third or fourth car when the train entered the historic 109-year-old station, a bustling hub for commuters heading to New York.

"All of a sudden, there was an abrupt stop and a big jolt that threw people out of their seats. The lights went out, and we heard a loud crashing noise like an explosion" as the roof fell, he said. "I heard panicked screams, and everyone was stunned."

The engineer, Thomas Gallagher, was pulled from the mangled first car and was hospitalized, but officials said he had been released by evening. He was cooperating with investigators, Gov. Chris Christie said.

A woman standing on the train platform  Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, of Hoboken, a former employee in the legal department of the business software company SAP in Brazil  was killed by debris, and 108 others were injured, mostly on the train, Christie said. Scores were hospitalized, some with serious injuries including broken bones.

"The train came in at much too high rate of speed, and the question is: 'Why is that?'" Christie said.

New York Gov Andrew Cuomo said investigators will determine whether the explanation was equipment failure, an incapacitated engineer or something else.

Some witnesses said they didn't hear or feel the brakes being applied before the crash. Authorities would not estimate how fast the train was going. But the speed limit heading into the station is 10 mph.

The National Transportation Safety Board planned to pull one of the black-box event recorders Thursday evening from the locomotive at the back of the train. The device contains information on the train's speed and braking.

But it wasn't safe enough yet for investigators to extract the second recorder from the engineer's compartment because of the collapsed roof and the possibility of asbestos in the old building, NTSB vice chairwoman T Bella Dinh-Zarr said.

Gallagher, the engineer, has worked for NJ Transit for 29 years, and a union roster shows he started as an engineer about 18 years ago. Neighbors describe Gallagher and his family as good people.

Investigators will examine the engineer's performance and the condition of the train, track and signals, among other things, she said. They also plan to look into whether positive train control  a system designed to prevent accidents by overriding the engineer and automatically slowing or stopping trains that are going too fast  could have helped.

None of NJ Transit's trains is fully equipped with positive train control, which relies on radio and GPS signals to monitor trains' position and speed.

The NTSB has been pressing for some version of the technology for at least 40 years, and the industry is under government orders to install it, but regulators have repeatedly extended the deadline at railroads' request. The target date is now the end of 2018.

The New Jersey Transit train ran off the end of the track as it was pulling in around 8:45 am, smashing through a concrete-and-steel bumper

"While we are just beginning to learn the cause of this crash, it appears that once again an accident was not prevented because the trains our commuters were riding lacked positive train control," said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y. "The longer we fail to prioritise investing in rail safety technology, the more innocent lives we put in jeopardy."

Cuomo, a Democrat, and Christie, a Republican, said it was too soon to say whether such technology would have made a difference.

Over the past 20 years, the NTSB has listed the lack of positive train control as a contributing factor in 25 crashes. Those include the Amtrak wreck last year in Philadelphia in which a speeding train ran off the rails along a curve. Eight people were killed.

Even without positive train control, there are still safeguards in place at the Hoboken terminal.

NJ Transit trains going into Hoboken have an in-cab system that is designed to alert engineers and stop locomotives when they go over 20 mph, according to an NJ Transit engineer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the accident.

Trains like the one in Thursday's crash also are equipped with an alerter system  a sort of dead man's device  that sounds a loud alarm and eventually stops the train if the engineer goes 15 to 20 seconds without touching the controls.

But it was unclear whether those mechanisms kicked in or would have made a difference if they had.

The train was not equipped with an inward-facing camera in the cab that could give a fuller picture of the operator's actions, though Dinh-Zarr said it did have outward-facing cameras on both ends.

The Hoboken terminal handles more than 50,000 train and bus riders daily, many of them headed into New York. After arriving at Hoboken, the commuters take ferries or PATH commuter trains across the river to the city.

Passengers said the train, which set out from Spring Valley, New York, was crowded, with standing room only in the typically popular first few cars, but authorities had no immediate estimate of how many were aboard.

Jamie Weatherhead-Saul was standing at a door between the first and second cars. She said the crash hurled passengers against her, and one woman got her leg caught between the doors before fellow riders pulled her up.

Michael Larson, an NJ Transit employee working in the terminal about 30 feet away, said he saw the train go over the "bumper block" and lift up into the air, stopping only when it hit the wall of the station's waiting room.

As the train hurtled into the depot amid concrete dust and dangling electrical wires, "I couldn't believe what I was seeing," he said.

William Blaine, an engineer for a company that runs freight trains, said he saw the train's engineer slumped over the controls after the crash.

More than 1,00,000 people use NJ Transit trains to commute from New Jersey into New York every day. With the Hoboken station still closed as of Thursday evening, NJ Transit trains out of Penn Station in Manhattan were crowded with commuters forced to find a detour around Hoboken.

"My 30-minute commute is turning into at least an hour and a half," said Steve Malfitano, who had to go into New York just to get from one New Jersey city to another. But he added: "It is what it is. It's better than what those people had to go through."

In 2011, a PATH commuter train crash at the Hoboken station injured more than 30 people. The train slammed into bumpers at the end of the tracks on a Sunday morning.
Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday said it has briefed the envoys of the P5  the US, China, Russia, the UK and France  over "unprovoked firing" by India on the LoC and asked the countries to play their role in ensuring the maintenance of peace and security in the region.

Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry accompanied by the Director General Military Operations (DGMO) briefed the Ambassadors of Permanent Members of UN Security Council about the "frivolous Indian claim of carrying out surgical strikes on the LoC", the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.

DGMO Major Gen Sahir Shamshad Mirza gave a detailed briefing of the situation on the LoC and completely rejected the Indian "claim of surgical strikes", the statement said. It claimed that in reality, on the night of 28 and 29 September, the Indian forces resorted to "unprovoked firing" at the LoC at multiple points, which led to the death of two Pakistani soldiers.

"The Armed Forces of Pakistan gave a befitting response to the ceasefire violations by India. He also highlighted the troops positions on the LoC and explained the anti-infiltration mechanisms already in place," the statement said. The DGMO also informed the envoys about layers of fencing, barbed wires, lighting, border posts, bunkers etc, on the LoC, which ensure that no infiltration takes place. The Foreign Secretary also rejected the "false and baseless Indian claims", the statement said.

"He conveyed serious concerns over the increased Indian aggression and belligerence, especially during the last few days which could also be seen in multiple public statements made by the Indian Prime Minister," it said.

The Foreign Secretary informed the Ambassadors that Pakistan remains the "major victim of terrorism, including state terrorism". He called upon the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council to play their role to ensure maintenance of peace and security in the region.

Earlier, reports said Pakistan's DGMO met Foreign Secretary Chaudhry and gave a detailed briefing to him on the situation at the LoC. India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the Army inflicting "significant

casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK. The terror launch pads were targeted by the Army on the intervening night of 28 and 29 September in a nearly five-hour-long operation.
United Nations: Pakistan's UN envoy asked the president of the United Nations Security Council on Thursday to informally brief the body on the country's escalating tension with neighbouring India and said she will discuss it with UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday.

Indian officials said elite troops crossed into Pakistan-ruled Kashmir on Thursday and killed suspected militants preparing to infiltrate India and carry out attacks on major cities, in a raid that raised tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Pakistani UN Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told Reuters she met with New Zealand's UN Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who is president of the 15-member Security Council for September.

"I brought to his attention the dangerous situation that is building up in our region as a result of Indian provocation," she said. "Our call to the international community is avert a crisis before there is one."

India's UN mission was not immediately available to comment.

Van Bohemen said he told the council on Thursday that Lodhi had visited him to raise concerns about the situation with India. "I briefed the council on her approach," he said.

Pakistan said two of its soldiers had been killed in exchanges of fire on Thursday, but denied India had made any targeted strikes across the de facto frontier that runs through the disputed Himalayan territory.

The raid raised the possibility of military escalation between the neighbours that could wreck a 2003 Kashmir ceasefire. Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full, but govern separate parts, and have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.

"Pakistan is showing maximum restraint but there are limits to our restraint if India continues with provocations," Lodhi said. "Right now, our effort is just to tell everyone 'this is what's happened so far, watch this space because it's a very dangerous space'."

She said there had already been "ominous signs of unusual movement" along the border with movements of troops and tanks and credible reports of Indian evacuations of some areas.
Islamabad: Islamabad wants peace in the region but "we will not allow anyone to cast an evil eye on Pakistan", Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared on Friday.

Pakistan will also never end its moral, political and diplomatic support to the separatist campaign in Jammu and Kashmir, Sharif told a cabinet meeting.

The meeting was called to discuss the situation on the Line of Control (LoC), which divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan, and in the Indian part of Jammu and Kashmir.

Sharif said Pakistan wanted peace to pursue its development agenda "we will not allow anyone to cast an evil eye on Pakistan".

Sharif's comments came a day after India said it had carried out surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads across the LoC.

Sharif insisted that Kashmir  Pakistan holds the northern third of the state and India the southern two-third  was an "unfinished agenda of the partition of the sub-continent".

"Indian atrocities cannot suppress the passions of the Kashmiri people," Sharif told the cabinet.

The Pakistani cabinet joined the Prime Minister in rejecting the Indian claims of carrying out "surgical strikes", an official statement said.

It said the Indian military had resorted to unprovoked firing on the LoC, leading to the death of two Pakistani soldiers.

The cabinet expressed deep concern over the "continued killings and grave human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir."

"The cabinet appreciated the courage, valour and commitment of the Kashmiri people who continue their just struggle for the right to self-determination in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions."

The cabinet expressed Pakistan's unwavering commitment to provide moral, political and diplomatic support to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

The cabinet also accused India of lying by claiming that terrorists from Pakistan raided an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir on September 18 killing 19 soldiers.

"Pakistan's commitment for peace must not be construed as weakness," Sharif said.

"In case of any aggression or violation of LoC, Pakistan will take all necessary steps to protect its people and territorial integrity."
Manila: Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte raised the rhetoric over his bloody anti-crime war to a new level on Friday, comparing it to Hitler and the Holocaust and saying he would be "happy to slaughter" three million addicts.

Duterte issued his latest threat against drug dealers and users early Friday on returning to his home in southern Davao city after visiting Vietnam, where he discussed his anti-drug campaign with Vietnamese leaders and compared notes on battling the problem.

"Hitler massacred 3 million Jews ... there's 3 million drug addicts. There are. I'd be happy to slaughter them," Duterte said, referring to a Philippine government estimate of the number of drug addicts in the country. Historians say that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis under Hitler before and during World War II.

Duterte has said that his public death threats against drug suspects are designed to scare them into stop selling illegal drugs and to discourage would-be users. Such scare tactics, he has said, are legal. But his remarks Friday took that crime-busting approach to a different level.

During the presidential election campaign earlier this year and during the three months he had held office, the tough-talking Duterte has threatened to drown drug suspects to fatten the fish in Manila Bay. He also threatened to execute drug traffickers by hanging  because he didn't want to waste electricity on them  until their heads were severed from their bodies.

While Hitler victims were innocent people, Duterte said his targets are "all criminals" and that getting rid of them would "finish the (drug) problem of my country."
Riyadh: Saudi Arabia has warned of "disastrous consequences" from a United States law allowing 9/11 victims to sue the kingdom, in a major spike in tension between the longstanding allies.

The warning came on Thursday after the US Congress voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to override President Barack Obama's veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (Jasta) on relations between states.

Jasta allows attack survivors and relatives of terrorism victims to pursue cases against foreign governments in US federal court and to demand compensation if such governments are proven to bear some responsibility for attacks on US soil.

A Saudi foreign ministry source on Thursday called on the US Congress "to take the necessary measures to counter the disastrous and dangerous consequences" of the law.

The unnamed spokesman, cited by the official Saudi Press Agency, said the law is "a source of great worry."

This law "weakens the immunity of states", and will have a negative impact on all countries "including the United States," the Saudi spokesman said, expressing hope that "wisdom will prevail."

In opposing the law, Obama said it would harm US interests by undermining the principle of sovereign immunity, opening up the US to private lawsuits over its military missions abroad.

The erosion of sovereign immunity is also a concern among the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, of which Saudi Arabia is the most powerful member.

Saudi Arabia's Gulf allies have lined up beside Riyadh to criticise the law.

Analysts earlier on Thursday warned that Saudi Arabia could reduce valuable security and intelligence cooperation with longstanding ally Washington after the Congressional "stab in the back."

Cutting such cooperation is among the options available to Riyadh, the analysts said.

"I'm afraid that this bill will have dire strategic implications" for the United States, Salman al-Ansari, head of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC), told AFP.

"This partnership has helped provide US authorities with accurate intelligence information" that helped stopped attacks, said Ansari, whose committee is a private initiative to strengthen Saudi-US ties.

Riyadh and Washington have a decades-old relationship based on the exchange of American security for Saudi oil.

Saudi Arabia was home to 15 of the 19 Al-Qaeda hijackers who carried out the 11 September, 2001 attacks on the United States which killed nearly 3,000 people.

Riyadh denies any ties to the plotters.

Ties between Riyadh and Washington became increasingly frayed under Obama, but analysts said security cooperation and intelligence sharing remained solid.
Washington: A terrorist attack like the one on an Indian Army camp in Uri "escalates tensions", United States have said, asking Pakistan to take action against UN-designated terrorist outfits and delegitimise them.

"Obviously, an (terrorist) attack like that (in Uri) escalates tensions. What I don't want to do is try to get into, you know, some sort of broad characterisation one way or the other but obviously an attack like this is horrific and...," the State Department Spokesman, John Kirby, told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.

The spokesperson was interrupted by a reporter mid-way that her question was about India's response to the 18 September Uri attack.

"But the Indian response is that  is that the kind of escalation that Secretary Kerry was warning against?" the journalist asked referring to the telephonic conversation between the Secretary of State John Kerry and the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj earlier this week.

Kirby was quick to clarify that he was referring to the Uri terrorist attack.

"Oh, I thought you were talking about the Uri attack," the spokesman said.

On 27 September, Kerry spoke with Swaraj. For technical reason, the conversation was spread over two separate calls.

"I can confirm for you that the secretary spoke with  on the 27th, so earlier this week, with Indian External Affairs Minister Swaraj and reiterated his strong condemnation of the September 18 Uri attack."

"He condemned terrorism in all its forms and he cautioned against any escalation intentions," he said.

Responding to questions, Kirby called for de-escalation of tension between the two countries.

"We've seen those reports (of Indian surgical attack), we're following the situation closely as I think you can understand."

"We also understand that the Indian and Pakistani militaries have been in communication," he said. "We believe that continued communication is obviously important to reduce tensions."

"We've repeatedly expressed our concerns regarding the danger that terrorism poses to the region and we all know that terrorism in many ways knows no border," Kirby said.

"We continue to urge actions to combat and de-legitimise terrorist groups like LeT, and Haqqani Network, Jaish-E-Mohammed."

"So, this is something that we're obviously keenly focused on," Kirby said in response to a question.

Counter-terrorism co-operation, he said, is something that the United States is always working at with its partners in the region.

"We're always trying to get better at combating terrorism in the region."

"There are many ways you can do that, you know, through information sharing regimens and increasing communication between all parties involved," he said.

But he refused to entertain question on if there was any co-operation between India and the United States on the latest Indian operation.

"I don't have a specific laundry list here to read out to you because, frankly, it's something that we've been constantly working at with our partners in the region," he said.

Kirby said America's message to both sides has been the same in terms of encouraging them to increase communication to deal with this threat and to avoid steps that escalate the tensions.

"I think I'm not going to get into characterising each and every step along the way there."

"But obviously, what we want to see is increased cooperation against what is a very shared common threat for both countries, and to see steps being taken to deal with it by all sides," Kirby said.

Meanwhile, the US Ambassador to India, Richard Verma, who was in Washington DC, has rushed back to New Delhi.

"As far as I know, he's returning to New Delhi. My understanding is that he believed that it was appropriate for him to go back."

"He has got a big job. There a lot of responsibilities that come with it. And, obviously it's a very dynamic situation and he felt it was prudent to go back. We support that," Kirby said.
Washington: US Secretary of State John Kerry warned that Washington was on the brink of ending its talks with Russia on the Syrian conflict over the assault on Aleppo.

"I think we are on the verge of suspending the discussion because, you know, it's irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place, to be sitting there, trying to take things seriously," Kerry said.

"There is no notion or indication of seriousness of purpose with what is taking place right now," he told a conference in the US capital, a day after warning his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov he would end talks unless Moscow halts the assault on Aleppo.

Kerry said the United States would pursue other alternatives, "barring some clear indication by the warring parties that they are prepared to consider how to approach this more effectively."

A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow would press on with its bombing campaign in Syria, where forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are waging a furious assault on Aleppo's rebel-held eastern sector.

A top UN aid official called the situation in Aleppo a "merciless abyss of humanitarian catastrophe," in the latest appeal for a halt to fighting.

Kerry's efforts to broker a ceasefire have come under fire from Republicans who have called for tougher action against Moscow and the Syrian regime.

"It's easy to be critical of diplomatic efforts because it's difficult, but what is the alternative?" said Kerry.

He said United States would defeat the Islamic State militants operating in Syria and Iraq, "but that is different and distinct from involving ourselves directly into the civil war which is the war against Assad."

His comments echoed those of President Barack Obama who insisted on Wednesday that "there is not a scenario in which, absent us deploying large numbers of troops, we can stop a civil war in which both sides are deeply dug in."
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From January to August this year, the Transport Bureau (DSAT) received over 1,540 complaints related to taxis, 467 of which were about taxi overcharging. This information was revealed by the DSAT during a press conference earlier this week.

The total number of complaints increased 20 percent year-on-year, with overcharging occurrences being 37.3 percent higher than in the first eight months of 2015.

Following overcharging are complaints regarding detours and refusals to take passengers, with 251 and 191 complaints recorded respectively.

Che Sai Wang, head of the Division of the Transport Management of DSAT, said that law enforcement officers from the transport authority are faced with disrespect from taxi drivers during inspection because their authority is not as far reaching as that of police officers.

Some taxi drivers do not cooperate with these officers from the transport authority, even going so far as to physically attack them sometimes. This has led to some officers leaving the department and their job, according to Che. He informed that there are currently 50 to 60 officers from DSAT working as taxi inspectors.

Another concern revealed during the conference focused on taxi infraction. According to Leong Wa Chi, head of traffic police department of the Public Security Police Force, this year, the number of violations of the taxi regulation decreased in comparison to the first half of 2015. Approximately 2,000 infractions were recorded in the first half of this year.
MGM Chinas CEO and executive director Grant Bowie is optimistic over the gaming operators revenue this September, after a slight increase in the sectors revenue last month.

I think the month will be reasonably consistent. Were obviously hoping to see improvement year-on-year, he told the press on the sidelines of the event. If we see that  particularly in the mass market  I think everyone will be happy, he added.

Similarly, Bowie said tourist arrivals this Golden Week are looking quite strong and occupancy is positive. Yet he admitted that traditional holiday periods are not nearly as busy as they were in the past.

On the possibility of banning croupiers from gambling, Bowie argued that there is never one solution to address those issues.

Im not personally a supporter of banning people because what then happens is that if they break the ban, they could be committing an offense and I dont think that issue of problem gaming [should be considered] a criminal offense, he explained. I think its a social issue. It needs to be managed, he added.

Meanwhile, the executive director said it is challenging to hire local workers in a market where the unemployment rate is low. However, he is confident they will achieve the quality and number of people needed to open MGMs property in Cotai, revealing that some of its current employees would also transfer to the new casino resort.

I think were now getting back to a much healthier employment market, he said, adding that MGM has to be a place where the employees want to work.

Among the 6,000 employees needed for the upcoming resort, about half of the positions are for gaming.

Continuing education series kicks off

MGM Macau hosted its Local Talent Continuing Education Series ceremony yesterday, presenting its learning and development strategy, and long-term commitment to nurturing local talent. The presentation included a roadmap on diversifying skillsets through on-the-job training.

At the ceremony, the resort unveiled three talent development programs available to its employees. The three programs are held in partnership with the Labor Affairs Bureau, the Macao Polytechnic Institute, the Macau Federation of Trade Unions, and Escola Secundaria Luso-Chinesa de Luis Gonzaga Gomes.

The Local Talent Continuing Education Series will provide training programs including Diploma in Gaming Management, Gaming Industry Occupational Quality Training, and MGM High School Diploma Program with courses beginning in September.


Chinese state media say a man has been arrested after 16 people were found dead in six village homes. The bodies of the dead, including women and three children, were found yesterday in Huize county in Yunnan province in the countrys southwest. The official Xinhua News Agency said a suspect was arrested in the provincial capital of Kunming, about 200 kilometers from where the bodies were found. An officer at the Daibu branch of the Huize police confirmed the deaths, but said he had no further details. Xinhua did not identify the suspect. It described the deaths as a killing spree but provided no details. If they were murders, the deaths would be one of the bloodiest mass slayings in Chinas recent history.

Thailand suspends seahorse trade to greater China

Thailand, the worlds biggest exporter of seahorses, is suspending trade in the animal because of concern about threats to its wild population. The decision was announced at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES. Dr. Amanda Vincent, a seahorse expert at The University of British Columbia, said that Thailand ended its seahorse trade earlier this year until it can make exports sustainable. Vincent is director of Project Seahorse, a group working with Thai authorities on seahorse conservation. The groups partner is the Zoological Society of London. Seahorses are mainly used in dried form for traditional medicine in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Twin pandas to say bye-bye to Atlanta as they head to Chengdu

Panda twins born three years ago at Atlantas zoo are set to leave for China later this year. Zoo Atlanta says Mei Lun and Mei Huan are expected to leave for the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in November. The zoo says the pair were the first surviving giant panda twins ever born in the U.S. Their mother, Lun Lun, gave birth earlier this month to another set of twins. She and her partner, Yang Yang, have had a total of seven offspring, all conceived by artificial insemination. Like at the other three U.S. zoos that have giant pandas, the bears are on loan from China. As part of the loan agreement, all adult offspring are sent to China when theyre of age.
From October 1 to 4 the three act Opera Turandot by Giacomo Puccini will hit the stage of the Grand Auditorium of the Macao Cultural Centre (CCM). Conducted by the hand of Maestro Lu Jia leading the Macao Orchestra, and staging the production the world-renowned producer Giancarlo del Monaco and stage and costume designer William Orlandi, the production is set to be a great show.

The opera tells the story of Turandot, a beautiful Chinese princess who tests her suitors using three riddles. Only the one who can answer the riddles correctly can marry her, those who fail will face death.

The producer Giancarlo del Monaco in a meeting yesterday with the press explained that the show, which will open the 30th Macao International Music Festival, is a special version of the opera of Puccini cleaned from the usual exaggeration of Chinese elements that we usually see in other productions of Turandot. He added that most of the time this opera is presented with too much Chinoiserie.

Del Monaco revealed that this story has a clear tribute moment to its original author, Giacomo Puccini, who died before being able to finish it.

The moment will clearly be marked on stage with a blackout and the appearance of a photograph of Puccini together with white chrysanthemum flowers and an evocative message, he noted, explaining that the remainder of the show following the moment will be the section completed by Franco Alfano.

A confessed long time friend of Maestro Lu Jia, Music Director and Principal Conductor of Macao Orchestra del Monaco remarked during the backstage tour, conditions are gathered for a great show. Highlighting the cooperative efforts among the several parties involved, he added, Maestro Lu Jia is responsible for what you will hear and Im responsible for what you will see.

The stage design and the lighting are also important parts of the show, as del Monaco explained, the light [in the show] will materialize and be part of the scenography. Big importance was given to the wardrobe and the use of colorful masks that will contrast with the black background, del Monaco added.

Stage and costume designer William Orlandi remarked that the idea of creating a clean version with only the essential elements on stage was developed to highlight the importance of these elements to the story: The Stairway, Chinese art elements that resemble the main gate of the forbidden city, and the Chinese imperial throne are essential. Orlandi also revealed several details regarding the production of the costumes, all designed by him and produced locally in a Hong Kong atelier where he often works.

Tickets for the four Turandot performances are already sold out.
A meeting between two international statesmen in Ireland had to be cancelled  because one of them overslept.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin had agreed to break a flight from the United States to Moscow in County Limerick for a reception with the Irish prime minister.

But instead there was a minor diplomatic incident when the Russian leader failed to appear.

Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, Irelands leader, had to be content with meeting the Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets, who reported the president was asleep.

The taoiseach, his wife, two ministers, a group of Irish MPs, an Irish guard of honour, a military band and a delegation from the Russian embassy were all waiting on the tarmac to greet Mr Yeltsin.

They stood while his plane inexplicably circled Shannon airport for an hour, and for another 15 minutes after it landed, before they were told the president was too tired, and then too ill, to see them.

Mr Reynolds  who had to cancel a lavish reception at the nearby Dromoland Castle  denied he had been snubbed.

I completely understand  Mr Yeltsin was acting on the orders of doctors who said it would be better for him not to get off the plane.

He suffers from bad blood pressure  when a man is ill, a man is ill, he said.

But Mr Reynolds was said to be frustrated that the Russian president could not attend a news conference about the peace process.

And it was rumoured the vodka-loving leader had over-indulged his taste for the drink on the journey from Washington.

He finally appeared in Moscow to set the record straight.

I feel excellent  I can tell you honestly, I just overslept.

The security services did not let in the people who were due to wake me  of course I will sort things out and punish them, he said.

Courtesy BBC News

In context

Boris Yeltsin could be an unpredictable president.

Before the Shannon Sleepover he had twice jumped on stage during receptions to entertain the assembled dignitaries  much to the embarrassment of his officials.

The Russian president was also prone to making statements immediately denied by his press secretary.

In Sweden in 1997 he announced Russia was cutting its nuclear arsenal by a third and at the height of the Kosovo crisis he threatened to send a missile to the US.

Mr Yeltsins health seriously declined after suffering a heart attack in 1996 and he resigned in 1999.

He died on April 23, 2007 from congestive heart failure.
A week ago, HK01, a Hong Kong-based Chinese online newspaper cooperating with The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealed that our Chief Executive, Fernando Chui Sai On, and his legislator elder brother, Chui Sai Cheong, had been closely connected to an offshore company, Yee Shing International Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands, for about two decades. As a subsidiary of Hopewell Holdings Limited, a major infrastructure and property firm listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since 1972 (with revenues of HKD6.64 billion in 2015), this offshore had in effect been co-founded by Chui Sai Cheong together with a long term executive of Hopewell.

The Chief Executive was only director of the tax-free company for two short years, starting in 1997, and resigned from his directorship on July 30th 1999, shortly before it was announced that he would become, after the December 19 handover, the new Secretary for social affairs and culture. His brother, on the contrary, was only out of Yee Shing for a short spell in 1994, and was still listed as a director in 2010 when Mossack Fonseca, the now rather infamous Panamanian law firm, lost the custody contract for the offshore. HK01 consequently wonder why this function had never been enclosed in Chui Sai Cheongs declaration of assets, the one all senior officials are supposed to divulge since a more stringent law on such matters was passed in January 2013more than six years after the arrest of Ao Man Long, better late than never

Interestingly enough, both brothers came up with a public explanation, and of course these were in line with the responses aired back in April when the so-called Panama papers, of which 29 percent of offshore firms were incorporated either in Hong Kong or China, started to unravel: why the big fuss, when all this is legal?! Chui Sai Cheong gave an interview to the ever-zealous and pro-establishment Chinese newspaper Macao Daily revealing that he had actually resigned from the director position in July 2012 (spoiler!), and that he therefore acted in accordance with the new asset declaration law. And then, Chui Sai Ons Spokespersons Office made it publicly known that by resigning from all business-related positions prior to his nomination to senior public posts he had been strictly following the Basic Law of the MSAR. And things simply went back to normal: silence!

I already argued earlier this year that governing is not only a matter of legality, and that responsibility in politics require slightly more than being law abiding in grey areasand the Panama papers are raw diamonds in that respect. The time when traditional paternalistic elites could profess do as I say and not as I do is coming to an end, and unfortunately not necessarily pointing to a reassuring future, whatever the setting, democratic or less sothink US, the Philippines, China, etc.

What these offshore leaks have revealed for Macao is well established: paragons of virtue and patriotism, even the ones representing Macao at the CPPCC or the NPC, are the ones practising tax evasion on an industrial scale while holding dual nationality. But for the Chui, dysfunctions are of another nature: what is the exact purpose of holding an official position? The younger Chui resigned 12 days before being nominated Secretary and the elder Chui resigned from Yee Shing right in the middle of the revision of the new asset declaration law (passed in 2013, but introduced in December 2011)? In finance, that would be called insider trading! And then what about the separation of powers: the two brothers played musical chairs in the very same business! Moreover, Chui Sai On was supposed to champion social and economic housing, both as a legislator starting in 1992 and as a Secretary afterwards, while his brother, now a legislator, was helping Hopewell ripe the full benefits of luxury real-estate programs such as Nova Taipa and then Nova City?

Promiscuity is a powerful excuse on a tiny territory that has a multi-secular tradition of opacity, but still, this is too big to go unnoticed.
Macau has been included in a list of nine cities worldwide in the travel section of British newspaper the Independent. Unfortunately that list details the worlds least friendly cities.

Warranting just a single short paragraph in the article, reviewer Georgina Wilson-Powell lambasted Macaus never ending stampedes of gamblers who dont even acknowledge your presence when they trample over you.

Also making the list of shame was Hanoi, Vietnam, criticized for being home to aggressive locals who argue about being short-changed and rip off tourists.

I found Vietnam a fairly combative experience  the endless barrage of scams meant most interactions with locals were spent arguing about being short-changed, haggling over taxi fares only to have the same fight all over again once at the destination, described Laura Chubb.

Did I enjoy my time in Vietnam? Absolutely  but it was sad to have to treat all unsolicited approaches with a level of suspicion, added Chubb.

Vladikavkaz, Russia was also on the list, whose corrupt police, hideous humid weather and dreadful food make it the least friendly place for article contributor Jamie Lafferty.

Vladikavkaz is the most unfriendly place Ive ever been. If not there, then one of the other cities in southern Russia, he wrote, adding that he only ended up there by chance.

The other cities included in the article were Baku in Azerbaijan, Dallas and Miami in the U.S., Prague in the Czech Republic, Warsaw in Poland, and Reykjavik in Iceland.

Some of the contributing authors did note, however, that their opinions might have been influenced by unusual circumstances and that their judgment was not necessarily reflective of the entire city, region or country.

For example, while labeling Reykjavik curiously awkward, Nicola Trup puts forward that East Iceland offers a warmer welcome. Additionally, Simon Calder who detailed his experience in Dallas, regards Texas as generally a big-hearted state with three warm and welcoming cities: Houston, Austin and San Antonio. But not Dallas. DB

Charm evaporated overnight

In a recent article published by the Financial Times, David Tang listed the worlds worst cities and one of them was Macau. According to Tang, Macau must win the accolade of a city whose charm evaporated overnight when it was returned to Chinese sovereignty.

Tang added: Casinos and shopping arcades now rule the roost and somnambulant punters come and go, some with grim countenances hiding their secret losses, and others smiling as they splash their spoils on ostentatious retail. Outside, the narrow streets are dead, the skyline an undulating mess of soulless silhouettes, and more and more cars jam the roads. Money launderers mingle with fortune hunters. In the shadows of the ubiquitous pawn shops, with their sleepless neon signs, the place filled with an overwhelming sense of depression, despair, despondency and delinquency.
Several tourists have recently claimed to face discrimination at immigration counters upon their arrival in the region. Following on from this, just this week, a recent beauty pageant participant was held for over two hours at the Macau International Airport after it was seen that she holds an Iranian passport.

The Immigration Bureau has previously remarked that discrimination for visitor arrivals does not exist, however Melika Razavi experienced the opposite.

The beauty queen, who lives in Cape Town, represented Iran in Miss Global 2016 held in the Philippines on Saturday, where she was crowned Miss Fitness.

According to her account to the Times, upon entering the region, an immigration officer took her to a room after seeing her Iranian passport, and she was interrogated about her purpose in visiting Macau.

Razavi, who introduced herself to the officers as a professional poker player, was asked to sign documents that would allow authorities to inspect her luggage, personal handbag, and even her mobile phone.

He asked me to sign a paper to check my luggage. So he opened my luggage, he checked my luggage and he asked me to sign a paper [again] because he wanted to check my phone, explained Razavi to the Times.

It was a male going through my stuff, and I was very uncomfortable [with] him searching my underclothing and asking me, what is this? Do I need to explain? It was just very uncomfortable. Very uneasy, she described.

After scrutinizing her personal belongings, she was asked to present some MOP5,000, which she did not have on hand as she was only carrying some credit cards and Philippine pesos.

The beauty pageant contestant said she has been to Macau before and was never asked to show money, stressing that Macau is the only region that has ever required her to show cash in order to enter the city.

I showed them my credit cards. I do not carry cash with me because of the past experiences that I had. [] I dont go to any country and show money, she explained.

I showed them four different worldwide [credit/debit] cards, and I asked them, can I withdraw? They said no. [] so Im just trying to find out how am I going to have cash if [they] are not letting me use the ATM machine, the Iranian woman complained.

Eventually, the immigration officers informed her that she was refused entry to the city and would be deported back to the Philippines for failing to bring Patacas or Hong Kong dollars with her, even after checking her hotel booking and return ticket.

The guy just looked at me and said, well, you cannot enter this country without having cash in your pocket. And I first thought its a joke, she shrugged.

And the last [officer] spoke to me [and said], were waiting [for] a flight so we can send you back to the Philippines. Im not from the Philippines and so it didnt make sense to me, the recent beauty pageant contestant described.

Razavi admitted she was deeply offended by the treatment of the officers, adding that her experience was not welcoming.

The Immigration Bureau previously described such inspections as part of their service formalities, yet it seemed that the investigations were only being done to selected nationalities.

I feel that Im being treated like a [part of] ISIS or terrorist, [but] Im coming here for a good cause, she said.

Miss Iran in Miss Global 2016 revealed that she had always given a percentage of her poker-

playing winnings to different charities and on this trip to Macau, she intended to donate to local charities. Razavi revealed she was planning to visit two local charities in the region including a home for the aged and an orphanage.

After being told that she was being deported to a country she does not even have visa to, Razavi decided to introduce herself to the officers as Miss Iran and showed them videos of her performances during the pageant.

Razavi told the Times that she was only allowed to enter Macau after she showed the border police officers a video of her doing some magic tricks in front of the renowned Filipino boxer, Manny Pacquiao.

[After they] saw the talent trick with Manny Pacquiao, one of the guys tried to help me, she said. And at the end, the guy told me, we are giving you one chance to enter this country, she said.

Razavi expressed her disappointment after the alleged discrimination of her arrival in the peninsula, stressing that she was judged as someone who was participating in illegal activities.

Am I a terrorist? Am I carrying drugs? she questioned. I love the people in this country [sic] thats why I came back, [but] it was a very bad experience, she explained.

After being hailed as Miss Fitness in Miss Global 2016, she revealed she would be participating in the upcoming poker tournament in the region this October. Razavi, who reached the Times through her friend, lawmaker Pereira Coutinho, was only granted a ten-day visa. Coutinho argued that the case is another example of over-zealous behavior.

Although the Macao Government Tourism Office is significantly investing in promoting the citys tourism offerings, Razavi implied that it should also be outlined how Macau welcomes tourists.

Indian tourists face humiliating welcome

The Times previously reported that several tourists from India were also discriminated by allegedly having to queue in a different line and were interrogated for up to three hours. The tourists have described such border inspections as humiliating and discriminatory.
South Koreas military said yesterday that a North Korean soldier had crossed the border between the rivals to defect.

South Koreas Joint Chief of Staff said military officials were investigating the North Korean solider, who defected across the central-east portion of the military demarcation line, which is inside the 4-kilometer-wide Demilitarized Zone that separates the countries.

The military provided no other details.

The Koreas have shared the worlds most heavily fortified border since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. The conflict ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula in a technical state of war.

Despite the heavy military presence at the border, North Korean soldiers occasionally find room to sneak into the South. Another North Korean solider defected in June last year after crossing the military demarcation line. AP
As many as 75,000 children will die over the next year in famine-like conditions created by Boko Haram if donors dont respond quickly, the U.N. Childrens Fund is warning. Thats far more than the 20,000 people killed in the seven-year Islamic uprising.

The severity of malnutrition levels and high number of children facing death make the humanitarian crisis confronting northeastern Nigeria perhaps the worst in the world, according to Arjan de Wagt, nutrition chief for UNICEF in Nigeria. He said children already are dying but donors are not responding.

Most severely malnourished children die of secondary illnesses like diarrhea and respiratory infections, de Wagt told The Associated Press. But with famine, you actually die of hunger, and that is what is happening, he said.

Severe malnutrition is being found in 20, 30 and even 50 percent of children in pockets of the region, he said.

Globally, you just dont see this. You have to go back to places like Somalia five years ago to see these kinds of levels, de Wagt said. Nearly 260,000 people died in Somalia between 2010 and 2012 from severe drought aggravated by war. At the time, the United Nations said aid needed to be provided more quickly.

UNICEF yesterday doubled the amount of its appeal for Nigeria, saying USD115 million is needed to save children whose lives are literally hanging by a thread. Only $24 million has been raised so far, the agency said.

The lack of money has meant some 750,000 people living in accessible areas could not be helped this year, spokeswoman Doune Porter told the AP.

Most of the estimated 2.6 million people who fled Boko Harams insurgency are subsistence farmers who have been unable to plant for two years or more.

Several thousand people returned this month from refugee camps to towns being secured by Nigerias military, but its too late to plant as the rainy season draws to an end. Meanwhile, Boko Haram still attacks outside urban areas.

Of 4 million people in desperate need of food are about 2.2 million people trapped in areas where Boko Haram is operating or in newly liberated areas that still are too dangerous to reach by road, de Wagt said. Among them, 65,000 are living in famine-like conditions.

The crisis has reached catastrophic levels for people who have sought refuge in towns controlled by the military but who are entirely reliant on outside aid that does not reach them, aid group Doctors Without Borders said Wednesday.

Many families are only able to eat once every few days and usually only watered-down porridge, said Oxfam aid group spokeswoman Christina Corbett. They are going to bed hungry and waking up with no way to change that.

UNICEF limited its outreach to the region after Boko Haram fighters attacked a military-escorted humanitarian convoy in July, wounding a UNICEF worker and others when a rocket hit an armored car.

But de Wagt said the agency continues to deliver some therapeutic food by helicopter and to train local health workers to treat malnourished children living in dangerous areas.

Doctors Without Borders, also known by the French acronym MSF, said the highest levels of starving children are in camps in Maiduguri, the northeastern city free of conflict where aid workers have been active for two years.

The mortality rate is five times higher than what is considered an emergency, with the main cause being hunger, it said in its statement. Michelle Faul, Lagos, AP
Pockets within the Myanmar military may still be cooperating with North Korea although the new civilian government and the military leadership oppose such ties, a senior U.S. official said yesterday.

During Myanmars years of international isolation, its then-ruling junta bought defense equipment from North Korea. The U.S. has been pressing the country also known as Burma to cease those ties as a condition of normalized relations with Washington.

Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel said President Barack Obama underscored to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, during a visit to Washington this month, the importance of rooting out any vestiges of cooperation that may have remained.

We think there are potentially a few residual pockets within the Burmese military, people who might still have some ongoing interactions [with North Korea] that are in effect leftovers from five-plus years ago in the era of the military dictatorship, Russel told a Senate hearing.

But we think as far as the government is concerned and the military leadership is concerned that they are fully on board and this is something they are working to prevent and eradicate, he said.

U.N. Security Council resolutions forbid arms trading with North Korea  part of the international effort to restrict sources of revenue for the isolated nations nuclear and missile programs. During junta rule, Myanmars military was a key North Korean customer.

Obama, alongside Suu Kyi during the Sept. 14 White House visit, announced that he plans to lift the remaining U.S. economic sanctions and restore trade benefits to the former pariah state, following its transition to democratically elected civilian government after decades of military rule.

Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado complained at Wednesdays hearing that Congress had not been consulted adequately before the decision was announced to lift the so-called national emergency with regard to Myanmar  the executive order used to authorize the current sanctions.

He said Suu Kyi, who met with lawmakers during her visit, said she still supports sanctions on the military-controlled companies Myanmar Corporation and Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd., two of the largest businesses in the country.

Russel responded that Suu Kyi had said that it was time to lift all the sanctions  a position she articulated in public.

Some human rights activists and congressional aides argue there are alternative legislative authorities the U.S. could use to restrict dealings with those corporations, even after Obama lifts the emergency. Matthew Pennington, Washington, AP


US A commuter train from New York barreled into a New Jersey rail station without stopping and crashed during the morning rush hour yesterday, injuring more than 100 people, some of them critically. The train came to a halt in a covered area between the stations indoor waiting area and the platform, causing a metal structure to collapse. Authorities are investigating what might have caused the train to crash.

PHILIPPINE President Rodrigo Duterte says joint military exercises of Filipino and American troops next week will be the last such drills, although his foreign secretary quickly says the decision is not final.

MYANMAR President Barack Obama underscored to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, during a visit to Washington this month, the importance of rooting out any vestiges of military cooperation with North Korea that may have remained from the previous military administration.

INDIA-PAKISTAN Pakistan says two of its soldiers were killed in an unprovoked attack when India fired across the border of the disputed region of Kashmir, while India said it had carried out a surgical strike against terrorists.



AFGHANISTANs unity government is expected to remain in place despite the formal expiration of the U.S.-brokered deal between two electoral rivals whose internal feuding has undermined efforts to battle the Taliban and stabilize the country.

NIGERIA As many as 75,000 children will die over the next year in famine-like conditions created by Boko Haram if donors dont respond quickly, the U.N. Childrens Fund is warning. Severe malnutrition is being found in 20, 30 and even 50 percent of children in pockets of the country.

BELGIUM Tens of thousands of workers have rallied in the Belgian capital to protest against government reforms and labor laws, disrupting public transport and traffic. Brussels police spokeswoman Ilse Van de Keere said around 45,000 people took part in yesterdays protest.
JEROME  Erik Waller loved Idahos open spaces and duck hunting, and when he applied for a job at St. Lukes Jerome, his wife, Kimberly, was supportive.

Their plane touched down in Boise, and while the Mississippi couple was driving a rental car to Jerome for Eriks job interview, Kimberly Waller got a phone call. On the other line was Donna Bratton, CFO of Jedco Xpress, offering her a job interview that day. Bratton had gotten Kimberlys resume from a contact at the Society for Human Resource Management.

Hitting two birds with one stone, the husband and wife soon had jobs lined up and were feeling good about moving to Idaho with their two children.

Obviously making a 2,500-mile cross-country move is not easy, Erik Waller said. It was a little easier than I was expecting.

An organization for human resource managers, the Society for Human Resource Management is aiming to make Idaho more attractive to potential employees by finding jobs for their spouses, too.

We ask them if they have a spouse, a partner or significant other who also needs a job, said Rebekah Yancey, president of the Snake River Chapter of SHRM. One of the roadblocks when recruiting somebody is essentially making sure both of you have a job.

The Hiring Partners program kicked off in 2015. When a member organization is trying to find a job for a potential employees spouse, the HR manager emails the resume to Yancey. She then sends it out to a network of businesses.

Weve probably sent out about two dozen resumes, she said.

And businesses benefit, too. They can work together to help split relocation costs to bring the couple to Idaho, Yancey said.

Only a handful of spouses have found positions through Hiring Partners since the program launched last year, but its gaining momentum.

Its taking on some traction with a lot of the local employers, said Mark Stevens, director of human resources for St. Lukes Magic Valley.

The program isnt about competing with other employers for workers, he said, but is a partnership to help each other. There have been times when the hospital has lost candidates because their spouses couldnt find jobs, he said, but that typically happens with positions on the lower end of the wage spectrum  not with physicians.

Jedco Xpress, a courier service in Jerome, needed a new office manager in December, Bratton said. The company isnt an SHRM member, but Bratton had recently gotten on the Hiring Partners email list. In fact, it was the first resume Bratton had seen from Yancey.

What interested her in Kimberly Waller was that she was from Mississippi  so is Brattons husband.

Southerners are very personable, Bratton said. I guess thats what attracted me to my husband.

Kimberly Waller spent the past 10 years as a financial aid adviser for a junior college and a university. Her husband applied for a nurse manager job at St. Lukes Jerome, having been a traveling nurse in Mountain Home earlier that year.

Erik Waller said hed shared his wifes resume with St. Lukes, which then shared it through Hiring Partners.

At first, Kimberly Waller was nervous about applying at Jedco. Shed already applied at the College of Southern Idaho and Wells Fargo, but managing an office was somewhat out of her experience.

Im a very family-oriented person, so I liked the atmosphere (Jedco) had, she said.

Family is Jedcos name  J-E-D being the initials of Brattons family members.

We are a faith-based business, Bratton said. When things happen like that, its not happening by chance.

Bratton estimates the business would have searched for an office manager for another month had she not come across Wallers resume. She now sees an email from SHRM about every week, she said.

It just showed that it was a viable resource, Erick Waller said And it obviously works.
JEROME  The creepy, possibly criminal, and definitely hard to verify scary-clown phenomenon has reached the Magic Valley.

A man dressed as a clown reportedly chased people on South Idaho Street in Wendell on Wednesday night, police said. Then on Thursday, a student at Jerome High School received a text telling him something to the effect of, The Clown is coming to your school.

Police dont know if the incidents are related, and law enforcement in both cities are taking the reports seriously. But police believe both incidents are likely copy-cat pranks in the same vein of clown-related hoaxes that have spread across the country in recent weeks, with people reporting scary clowns chasing children and making online threats from New York to Arizona.

First, there was the report Wednesday night from Wendell that a clown was chasing people on the citys main drag.

A Wendell deputy and a Gooding County unit responded out there but were unable to locate the subject, Gooding County Sheriffs Sgt. Kelby Cornett said.

The deputies continued to search for the clown throughout the night but didnt find anyone matching the description. Cornett said his office was planning to have extra patrols out Thursday night keeping watch for a possibly mean-spirited clown.

Then on Thursday, just hours after local law enforcement agencies were warned to look out for threats to schools coming from clown-themed social media accounts, a Jerome high schooler received an anonymous text.

The Clown is coming to your school, was the gist of the text, Jerome Police Chief Dan Hall said. As far as we know, theres no real threat, but were still taking it seriously.

So was there actually a clown out Wednesday in Wendell chasing and harassing people? And is there really a sinister clown on his or her way to torment Jerome high school students?

If the recent trend around the country holds true here in the Magic Valley, the answer to both questions is likely a resounding no.

According to multiple media reports, the reports of creepy, criminally-minded clowns started in late August in South Carolina, where it was reported clowns were offering children money to lure them into the woods. The trend continued in the weeks that followed with reports of clowns up to no good in Georgia, Maryland, Alabama and other states.

Many of the reports, though, seemed to be hoaxes. The New York Times reported Thursday that at least 12 people across the country have been charged with making false reports in connection to clown hoaxes.

Predictably, the scary-clown phenomenon has since migrated online, with several high schools across the Phoenix area receiving vague threats from Facebook and other social media accounts featuring profile photos of scary clowns.

The Arizona Republic reported three teenagers were arrested for the hoax and other teens were under investigation in connection to the threats against nearly two dozen schools in the Phoenix area.

The problem was so wide-spread in Arizona that a bulletin was sent out to law enforcement agencies around the country Thursday morning warning them to prepare for hoaxes involving social-media clowns making vague threats to schools. Twin Falls and Jerome police both confirmed they received the bulletin early Thursday.

And it couldnt have come at a better time, as late Thursday morning police learned of the text message circulating around Jerome High School.

The student received the anonymous text about 11 a.m., Hall said. He sent it to other students, but it appears there was only one original text, and no specific threats.

Police are trying to back-track and trace the source of that text, the police chief said.

It appears people are using this to disrupt things, Hall said.
SHOSHONE  A group of young men stepped in to prevent an 18-year-old Shoshone man from kidnapping a former girlfriend Thursday night, police said.

The 18-year-old, Antonio I. Venegas-Hernandez, fled the attempted kidnapping after punching a 15-year-old boy but crashed on Idaho 26 west of Shoshone and was arrested, Shoshone Police Chief Rene Rodriguez said in a statement.

Venegas-Hernandez was arraigned Friday in Lincoln County Magistrate Court on a felony count of attempted second degree kidnapping and a misdemeanor count of battery.

Police believe Venegas-Hernandez was possibly stalking a former girlfriend when on Thursday night he saw her truck outside a home in the 300 block of East D Street, Rodriguez told the Times-News. The girl was at the house with a group of friends who stepped in and prevented him from taking her.

SPD would like to thank the individuals who were instrumental in stopping the kidnapping, Rodriguez said in the statement, adding their names will be released later pending their permission.

The attempted kidnapping turned rough, the police chief said, and during the altercation Venegas-Hernandez allegedly struck a 15-year-old male in the mouth with a closed fist causing a laceration to the inside of the 15-year-olds mouth.

Venegas-Hernandez then fled the scene but crashed his vehicle on Highway 26 west of Shoshone, Rodriguez said. Police detained him and took him back to the police department where, during an interview, he admitted to his part in the earlier incident.

Venegas-Hernandez was booked into the Jerome County Jail, Rodriguez said. Court records do now show whether hes still being held on bond or if hes been released.
SUN VALLEY  Police Chief Walt Femling expects to be back working mid next week after suffering from what was likely a stroke earlier this week, the mayor said.

Femling was in his office about 11 a.m. Wednesday when he had a medical emergency, Mayor Peter Hendricks said. Emergency medical responders told the mayor that Femling was experiencing stroke-like symptoms.

The chief will be out of the ICU today, coming home this weekend and fully expects to be back in the office mid next week, Hendricks said Friday. Im very happy hell be back at the office and look forward to welcoming him back with open arms.

Femling, 59, retired as Blaine County Sheriff in 2011 during his sixth term because of health issues but was hired later that year to head the Sun Valley Police Department.

Femling was not listed as a patient Friday morning at St. Lukes Boise Medical Center. The Idaho Mountain Express reported he was flown there Wednesday after paramedics initially took him to St. Lukes Wood River.
TWIN FALLS  A laptop for every high school freshman. More iPads. Classroom sets of Chromebooks.

Those are some ways Magic Valley school districts are upgrading classroom technology this school year.

Many are buying iPads and laptop computers to help facilitate student learning and help children become prepared for technologically-savvy workplaces.

For the last several years, weve been investing in a lot of technology, said Ashley Johnson, student achievement director for the Minidoka County School District. It prepares students for life outside of high school.

Minico High School in Rupert is trying something new this school year: providing each freshman with an HP laptop computer.

The school district spent about $97,000 on the devices using voter-approved supplemental levy money. It plans to continue the program in future years with each incoming freshman class.

Each of this years 256 freshmen is assigned a laptop, which they use at school and home.

They are responsible for taking it home and bringing it back to school charged every day so its ready to use in their classes, Johnson said.

Minico freshman Megan Graf, 14, said having a laptop helps her do better on homework and with making sure she turns in assignments.

I like having a laptop because weve had iPads since fifth grade and last year we used laptops quite a bit, she said. Now, we get our own and we dont have to share it.

Megan types notes in class instead of writing by hand. That saves time, she said. And in a couple of classes, her teachers post resources online to help students study for quizzes.

At the end of the school year, students will turn in their laptop for maintenance. Then, students will receive the same laptop back next school year.

Minico High used to have mobile carts with laptop computers shared among classrooms. But school leaders decided students needed to have access to technology in every class.

Another project: Improving wireless internet access at the school, which Johnson calls a work in progress. It can be a challenge in older school buildings such as Minico, built in 1955.

At Minidoka County elementary schools, theres an additional 360 iPads this school year, purchased using state technology money. Another 150 iPads were paid for using state literacy money.

Middle schools added 40 new iPads, class sets of Chromebooks  which are small laptop computers  and a cart with HP laptops.

Heres an overview of how five other school districts are upgrading classroom technology:

Twin Falls

The Twin Falls School District will receive about $400,000 in state technology money this school year.

During the recession starting around 2009, the district stopped its technology spending. Now, its getting caught up on replacing desktop computers on a rotating schedule.

But now, theres a real shift toward mobile devices in classrooms, director of operations Brady Dickinson said. Over three years, the district has been purchasing more Chromebooks.

About half of this years technology money went toward buying 30 classroom sets of Chromebooks, for 600 total. Its similar to the number purchased last school year.

Ideally, the district wants to have one mobile computing device for every student. Currently, the ratio is nearly two-to-one.

But Bickel Elementary School has a tablet for every student, thanks to a 2014 grant from the Idaho Department of Education. And Bridge Academy, an alternative middle school, also has one device per student.

Kindergarten through third-grade classes typically prefer iPads because they have large icons and touch screens, Dickinson said. Higher grade levels often prefer Chromebooks.

Two new elementary schools  Rock Creek and Pillar Falls  have an unusual feature: closets wired as charging stations for electronic devices.

Julie Warner, a fifth-grade teacher at Harrison Elementary School, received a school district grant for a classroom set of Chromebooks. Its the third year her students are using them.

Students use the devices to practice reading skills, do research for social studies and science, read passages and answer comprehension questions, and for writing assignments.

They also use Google Docs to share their writing virtually with their teacher and classmates, and to collaborate on editing. And they create presentations using Google Slides and turn in assignments through Google Classroom.

Having a classroom set of Chromebooks gives children more exposure to technology than going to a computer lab once a week, Warner said.

The biggest benefit she has seen: Theres a higher level of engagement from the students.

Kimberly

In the Kimberly School District, new computers have been ordered for four computer labs, Superintendent Luke Schroeder said.

The current hardware is seven to nine years old, making it difficult to run newer programs and take online state standardized tests.

Technology is really hard to stay on top of because it is ever changing, Schroeder said.

Kimberly school officials are trying to come up with a direction for how to use digital tools in classrooms while protecting student data.

Schools already have some mobile computing devices, such as Netbooks  a type of laptop computer.

Cassia County

This school year, the Cassia County School District bought 300 additional computers and eight classroom sets of Chromebooks. Each year, it spends about $500,000 on school technology.

Hansen

The Hansen School District will receive about $34,000 this school year in state technology money.

Money will go toward increasing wireless Internet access points at the elementary school, upgrading security systems, and upgrading technology and projectors at the junior high/high school.

School officials plan to purchase a mobile Chromebook lab with 30 laptops. Plus, each seventh through 12th grade teacher will get an allowance to spend on classroom technology that best meets their needs.

Castleford

Schools now have Chromebooks for some math classes to help with implementing a math intervention program. The high school already has one mobile computing device for every student.
TWIN FALLS  The Bureau of Land Management's Twin Falls District is holding an open house on Tuesday to celebrate public lands and honor those who care for them.

The open house will be 4 -7 p.m. Oct. 4 at the district's new office, 2878 Addison Ave. E. A year ago, 60 BLM staffers moved into the new building. Before, they were in three offices across Twin Falls.

The statement says the open house is "all the more special" because it also marks the 40th anniversary of the passage of the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act of 1976, the law that set up the current land management system.

"It's a real privilege to serve with the BLM in this part of Idaho," said District Manager Mike Courtney. "A lot of people in southern Idaho genuinely care about our public lands, and they make our jobs easier."
TWIN FALLS  New technology has accelerated the need for a second area code in Idaho.

Starting Sept. 5, 2017, new phone numbers may be assigned using a 986 area code, and all numbers will require 10-digit dialing. The Idaho Public Utilities Commission hosted several public workshops this year to inform Idaho residents of the change.

Here are the answers to some questions you may have about what this change will mean for you:

Q: Why is Idaho bringing in a new area code?

A: As of August 2015, 95.5 percent of all available numbers using the 208 area code had been assigned, Idaho Public Utilities Commission spokesman Gene Fadness said. That doesnt mean every 208 number has been taken, but the state assigns prefixes  the three digits following the area code  that are based on geographic location.

Were down to 40-something prefixes left for the entire state, PUC Utilities Compliance Investigator Daniel Klein said. Maybe six to a dozen may be assigned for an entire year.

In todays world, phone numbers arent just for the traditional landline or cellphone. Tablets, alarm systems, credit card machines and even some apps are assigned their own phone numbers.

There are a lot more numbers assigned than there are people, Fadness said. There might be a dozen numbers assigned to one person, depending on what kind of technology they have.

While Idahos population hasnt grown so much to necessitate new area codes, the technology has. Idaho is only one of a few Western states that has a single area code.

Q: When will I have to use 10-digit dialing?

A: Mandatory 10-digit dialing for all Idaho phone numbers will begin Aug. 5, 2017. However, you can start using 10-digit dialing earlier as early as Nov. 2 this year.

Once mandatory 10-digit dialing kicks in, phone users will get a recording if they dial only seven digits. This means with local numbers, too, whether they have the current 208 or the new 986 area code.

Thats going to be the most difficult thing to get used to, Fadness said. Youll be told to hang up, dial again and use the area code.

Nothing will change for calling 911, 211, 311, 411, 511, 611, 711 or 811 where available.

Rates, services and coverage area will not change, and a local call will still be considered local. You wont have to dial 1 in front of the 10-digit phone number unless you are placing a long-distance call using a landline.

Ten-digit dialing would have been inevitable, anyway, likely within the next decade due to new technologies that are making it the standard everywhere, Fadness said.

Q: How can I prepare in advance?

A: All cellphones and many landline phones have programmable numbers. To help get ready for 10-digit dialing, you can plug in all your contacts phone numbers with the area code.

If you have a security system or medical alert device, you may also need to contact your provider and see if there is anything youll need to do to reprogram for 10-digits or update the software.

Q: Will 208 area codes still be available for phones after Sept. 5, 2017?

A: Yes. And in some cases, that may be all thats available unless a carrier allows you to request a 986 phone number. Rural areas that havent used all numbers assigned to their prefixes could still have 208 numbers for a long time, Fadness aid.

But there could still be advantages to going with the 986 area code. Businesses will have a new opportunity to seize coveted seven-digit numbers that spell out words.

Q: I still have questions. Where can I go for more information?

A: You can call the toll-free number, 800-432-0369. The PUC website, puc.idaho.gov, also has information under Hot Items.
When a juvenile commits a crime in Idaho, the system is designed to rehabilitate the offender, not punish.

Unfortunately, the state isnt doing near enough to meet that goal.

Fully 3 in 4 children who enter a juvenile detention center in Idaho have a mental health, substance abuse or co-occuring disorder. For boys, its often substance abuse. For girls, its more likely a mental health problem.

But judges and defense attorneys alike emphatically say the state isnt providing enough funding to treat the underlying causes of whatever triggers juveniles to commit crimes. Worse, funding is declining: The Legislature cut funding for juvenile justice this year by $200,000, from $51.7 million to $51.5 million.

In a special report in Sundays edition, the Times-News explored the states juvenile justice system, largely created in 1995 by an act of the Legislature. Overall, insiders say it is working. Cases seem to have declined overall in the past 20 years, and fewer juveniles are being booked into the Magic Valleys detention center in Twin Falls.

The system differs from adult criminal courts in several major ways. Whereas the system for adults is designed to punish, the system for juveniles is designed to rehabilitate. Smartly, the goal is to keep juveniles off a criminal track, to intervene and correct the problems before the offenders become adults.

Thats why many juvenile cases are sealed, so youthful mistakes dont mark children with a scarlet letter that will follow them into adulthood. Its also why parents can be held accountable for their childrens misdeeds and, for example, be forced to take parental counseling or pay for damages caused by their children.

Still, while the overall design of the system is proving effective, nearly every defense attorney and judge we interviewed for the special report said the same thing: There arent enough programs and funding that address the underlying causes of juvenile crime  especially for mental health and substance abuse problems. Kids simply dont have access to the programs they need to get help.

And that hurts us all, especially if children go on to reoffend as adults because they were denied access to the resources that could have turned around their lives.

The blame here lies with the Legislature, which controls the money for the Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections.

More funding would certainly help; smarter funding may be even more effective. Judges said the limited programs already available are often too broad  one-size-fits-all programs that arent necessarily narrowly tailored to meet individual needs.

Most of the programs are group programs, which sometimes proves problematic when troubled and like-minded teens are put together. As one judge put it bluntly, some of these programs are where kids meet their next dealer.

The stakes are high. Were talking about saving lives. We owe it to these children to give them the rehabilitation they deserve.
I have several comments:

1. Bergdahl was dismissed from the Coast Guard due to mental illness. So how can the Army prosecute him for not behaving properly? The Army is at fault for letting him enlist!

2. I grew up hiking Devil's Corral for the last 40-some years. You need to leave it just like it is. People come to see Idaho, not Disneyland. I'm sorry its not handicap-accessible, but they have plenty of places to go. It's a special place and of historical history. Take a hike and tell your kids!

3. Can you please vote none of the above for president? The U.S. is in true trouble when the two choices we have are both a disgrace to their country and its people. No more Bush, Clinton, Obama's; we need true leadership honest leadership.

Brent Reece

Boise
The Court of Urgent Matters (CUM) issued an injunction on Thursday cancelling another court ruling that has blocked the transfer of the strategic islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia. The court ruling has generated mixed feelings in the country and there are expectations that it would be appealed.

Some analysts fear however that the government could use it as an opportunity to submit it to a vote in parliament for approval.

Lawyer Khaled Ali, who was one of the pioneers of the blockade by an administrative court in June, dismissed CUMs ruling because only the highest administrative court can suspend the implementation of an administrative courts verdict.

CUMs task is to deal with cases requiring quick resolution but since the 2011 uprising, it has ruled on issues relating to political parties and other sensitive matters.

President Sisi signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia in April to handover the two unpopulated islands located in the Gulf of Aqaba, a strategic part of the Red Sea bordered by Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. They also overlook narrow shipping lanes to the Israeli port of Eilat and Aqaba in Jordan.

The move led to the most popular anti-government protest since Sisis election. The President was accused of selling Egyptian territory in exchange for the oil-rich kingdoms economic support to his administration. The government has always denied the accusations explaining that Cairo was overseeing the Saudi Arabian islands as a guardian after they were leased to Egypt in the 1950s.

Israel once had control over the islands in 1956 and from 1967 to 1982 after the Six Day war but they were handed over to Egypt in 1982 under the Camp David peace accords.

Mohamed Nour Farahat, a law professor at Zagazig University, said CUMs ruling could urge the government to seek the approval of the parliament for the deal to go ahead as it claims that sovereignty is not a dossier for courts and that could lead to a confrontation between powers; political institutions against the civilians.
Chicken will be the best-positioned protein due to its low price position in times of pressure on consumer spending power but rises in production costs and the long-term impact of COVID-19 threaten to disrupt the sector, according to Rabobank.
A formal start

Its like a formal start to everything, said another new graduate student, Ron Shanderson, an Atlanta native whose childhood love of dinosaurs morphed over time into an interest in cancer biology.

The students, who sat grouped together according to their departments, listened as Talbot welcomed them and introduced Lloyd Minor, MD, dean of the School of Medicine.

The key is this: Dont become discouraged, Minor said. This is a game of the long haul.  What may seem like a small advance later may be one of the most impactful things that youve done in your life.

Minor shared a quote by School of Medicine faculty member Michael Levitt, PhD, reflecting on his career after winning the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2013: You never really have a single "Eureka" moment. There are a lot of small steps. Each time you solve a step, thats great  but theres another step. Its really important not to give up."

Minor added, In fact it was only in looking back at his science in his early years that he could understand how every step mattered. ... His research in the early 1980s directly led to a $40-billion industry in anti-cancer drugs.

Receiving lab coats

As the speeches ended, the students lined up to receive their coats. Biochemistry students came first, followed by those in bioengineering, then biology, and so forth. Like all the other students, Spencer folded his white coat across his left arm and got in line, then walked across the stage, put on his new coat with help from Talbot, and shook the deans hand.

The crowd cheered as each student walked across the stage. Family members and friends took photos.

The key is this: Dont become discouraged.

The new graduate students  56 women and 66 men  are entering 14 different bioscience programs, such as biochemistry, neurociences and genetics. Eighteen already have advanced degrees, and 26 are considered underrepresented minorities in the biosciences. Twenty-six were born in countries outside the United States, including Panama, Hong Kong and Venezuela.

Spencers father, a plumber, and his mother, a babysitter, werent able to make it to the ceremony. Both his parents, who immigrated to the United States from the West Indies, were back home in New York. He said his grandfather made him promise hed visit him in the West Indies when he graduated.

When I told my parents I might be a plant scientist, my father wasnt quite sure about it, Spencer said. He said hes both excited and overwhelmed by the opportunity to improve the future of human health through plant research.

As each of the various faculty members introduced their new students, and watched them put on their coats, they offered words of welcome.

We look forward to seeing what you can do, said Tony Ricci, PhD, professor of otolaryngology, who introduced the neurosciences students.

Students chatted and laughed as they left the building, heading out to take a group photo and join the dean for a reception and dinner on the Alumni Lawn.

They adjusted their new coats, some too big, some too small, some just right.

Were in now, one student said as she walked outside. They cant take it back, right?
Two top military officials close to President Joseph Kabila in Democratic Republic of Congo have been blacklisted by the United States government on Wednesday.

The US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it has placed financial sanctions on the Chief of General Staff of the copper-rich nation, General Gabriel Amisi Kumba, the commander of the armed forces and on General John Numbi, a former inspector of the National Police.

According to the acting director of the OFAC, John Smith, these officials, current and former, of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo have engaged in actions that have undermined the democratic process in the DRC and suppressed political freedoms and rights of the Congolese people, potentially spreading instability in the country and more widely in the Great Lakes region.

The sanctions mean their assets in the United States will be frozen and Americans are prohibited from making transactions with them.

The sanctions come at a time when the DRC government has increased repression. Over the past 18 months, several prominent democracy activists have been jailed, and radio and TV stations have been shut down.

Demonstrations to hold elections on time led to government crackdowns, the death of at least 50 people, and the arrest of dozens of protesters.
Gabons President Ali Bongo appointed Emmanuel Issoze Ngondet as Prime Minister on Wednesday and asked him to form an inclusive government following disputed elections.

Before his appointment to the position, Emmanuel Issoze Ngondet was foreign minister of the oil rich central Africa nation.

The government could be announced at the latest by Sunday. Since this is an open government, it takes time for consultations, the communications minister, Alain-Claude bile-By-Nze said.

Ali Bongo Ondimba was sworn in Tuesday as Gabons president for a second seven-year term, after he was reelected by a slim margin in a disputed vote.

At the swearing-in ceremony, Bongo vowed to defend the constitution and to be fair to all. He called for political dialogue, but opposition candidate Jean Ping rejected the offer, accusing Bongos ruling party of vote-rigging.

Bongo pledged to ensure equal opportunities for all and to push through a 2025 program that would deliver a flourishing economy.

Ali Bongo took over from his father Omar Bongo, who ruled for 41 years until his death in 2009.
Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Wednesday reached an agreement to limit oil production to between 32.5 and 33 million barrels per day.

According to energy ministers of Qatar and Nigeria, members of the Organization reached an understanding after a six-hour gathering in the Algerian capital, but deferred until November the fraught task of finalizing a plan to make those cuts.

We came to an agreement of between 32.5 and 33 million barrels per day, the Nigerian Minister of State for Petroleum Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu told reporters.

He said a committee would be formed to determine how much each country would have to cut and then report to the group at its next meeting on Nov. 30 in Vienna.

The 14-member OPEC produces more than a third of the worlds oil. The groups exceptional decision will help stabilize the market, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said after the Wednesday meeting in Algiers.

In a statement, OPEC said it had concluded that the market glut was not going away any time soon. It is not advisable to ignore the potential risk that the present overhang may continue to weigh negatively well into the future, the group said.

Iran, Libya and Nigeria are all trying to increase production, while countries like Venezuela and Algeria can ill afford to lose oil revenue by reducing output. Saudi Arabia, the groups largest producer, has been pumping at record levels in recent months.
Morocco has once again proved its generosity and solidarity with African countries. Early this week, the North African country rushed to provide humanitarian aid to Burkina Faso affected by floods caused by torrential rainstorms.

Upon instruction of King Mohammed VI, a first Moroccan plane carrying 16 tons of food, medicines and blankets, landed Tuesday in the Ouagadougou International Airport.

It was followed by a second plane laden with 15.5 tons of humanitarian assistance destined to alleviate suffering of Burkina-Faso people. More Moroccan planes will be flown to this African country as Morocco pledged to provide 100 tons of humanitarian aid.

Burkina-Faso is one of the African countries visited by King Mohammed VI during his recent African tours to boost partnership within the frame of South-South cooperation.

Morocco has also placed Africa at top of its foreign policy. Since he came to power in 1999, King Mohammed VI paid visits to a score of African Sub-Saharan states. These visits are part of Moroccos efforts to support the political, economic, financial and cultural development of the continent.

Moroccos centuries-old historical, cultural, and economic ties thus grew stronger and its presence in the continent was further consolidated as Government-to-Government strategic cooperation was enhanced and as the Moroccan private sector, finding incentives in the personal commitment of the king, started investing in African countries.

Thus, many Moroccan large firms have opened branches or set up joint ventures in some 23 African countries. These include Banks (BMCE, Attijariwafa Bank, Banque Populaire,) real estate developers (Addoha, Alliances Developpement Immobilier,) insurance companies (Saham Group), mining and industrial companies (Managem group, OCP) and telecom companies (Maroc Telecom.)

In his speech on the occasion of the 63rd anniversary of the Revolution of the King and the People, celebrated on August 20, the Moroccan Sovereign said : For Morocco, Africa means more than just being part of a geographical area, or having historical bonds with the continent.

Africa also means sincere affection, appreciation, close human and spiritual relations as well as tangible solidarity. Furthermore, Africa is the natural extension of Morocco and the embodiment of the countrys strategic depth, stressed the Monarch.
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Frail Elderly Vibration Exercise Responses study participants Madeline Mason and Beryl Hawthorne completing WBV and SIM exercise sessions at Summerset at Aotea retirement community. Credit: Massey University

Increased frailty in the elderly means a higher risk of falls, fractures, lack of independence and an overall decreased quality of life. Now a new study from Massey University's School of Sport and Exercise has highlighted the benefits of Whole Body Vibration (WBV) therapy for the frail elderly.

Senior tutor in life sciences Daniel Wadsworth and colleague Dr Sally Lark have spent the past three years carrying out research for the Frail Elderly Vibration Exercise Responses (FEVER) study. It involved 117 rest home residents from 12 homes in the Wellington region.

Mr Wadsworth says the participants, all aged 70 years and older, were targeted as they can't achieve conventional exercise at an intensity that will benefit their health.

"We wanted to investigate whether WBV exercise could maximise function and increase the quality of life for the residents. Previous research has shown potential benefits in various populations, including sedentary people, and healthy, mobile, community-dwelling elderly, but there is a gap in research focusing on the frail elderly who stand to benefit most from this accessible form of exercise," Mr Wadsworth says.

Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a WBV-exercise group; a simulated WBV-exercise group; or a control group. The WBV and simulated participants took part in three 20-minute sessions per week, while the control group received no exercise intervention beyond normal care.

Madeline Mason completing a whole-body vibration exercise. Credit: Massey University

Mr Wadsworth says the WBV participants appeared to benefit from the therapy in several ways. "Participants reported increased strength, balance, falls-related confidence and overall quality of life. It has the potential to enhance independence and quality of life, and is a cost-effective way of exercise delivery to a population who can't exercise in traditional ways. WBV is proven to be a fantastic rehabilitative tool for building confidence in the long term."

Feedback from participants included:

"Knees feel 100 per cent better, no pain."

"Using the machine has increased my sleep, walking and wellbeing. I feel more relaxed and confident."

"It has felt much easier to walk, even without my stick."

One of the study's participants' mobility improved so much he was discharged from the rest home and returned to independent living in the community. A carer assists him three times a day to help with tasks such as showering and preparing meals.

Seventy-year-old Syphone Kingsada wanted to take part in the study to improve his quality of life.

The FEVER study involved 117 residents from 12 rest homes in Wellington. Credit: Massey University

"I found the therapy great. I now have improved mobility, and I am more confident and better at keeping my balance. I can go for walks at the shops, and leave the house more often.

"Moving out of Longview Home to my own place has made my life so much better. My children can come and visit me, and even stay the night," he says.

Mr Wadsworth says, unlike other research, the FEVER study provides a timeline for WBV-exercise benefits. "After completing the 16-week training intervention, benefits remained for three to six months, suggesting that WBV exercise could be a useful rehabilitative tool for building confidence and ability for more challenging exercise.

"However, the psychological benefits appear to last longer than the physical ones, leading to a mis-match between confidence and physical ability. This has the potential to increase fall risk if not managed properly," Mr Wadsworth says.

He believes future research should focus on identifying the direct impact WBV exercise has on falls. "Research should also explore the safe use of WBV exercise by individuals with lower-limb joint replacements, given their prevalence in this population."

Mr Wadsworth and the FEVER research team recently presented their findings at the Conference of the New Zealand Association of Gerontology  Making Active Ageing a Reality  held in Wellington earlier this month.
The sharing of data from and to participating hospitals allows MSQC to identify best practices and help individual surgeons understand how they can improve. Credit: University of Michigan Health System

Once upon a time, Dr. Darrell Campbell would get Christmas cards from the patients whose lives he'd saved by transplanting a new kidney, liver or pancreas into them. He'd get hugs and high fives when they came in for appointments.

He got his satisfaction from every operation that went well, and from seeing young surgeons launch their careers after learning at his side in the University of Michigan hospital's operating rooms.

But the patients he takes care of these days don't call or write. They don't say hello in the hospital halls. They don't even know his name.

And yet, his work touches tens of thousands of them a year, making their operations safer, their surgical teams more prepared, and their recoveries smoother.

That's because Campbell has traded in his scalpel for Big Data. He leads one of the largest data-driven quality improvement efforts in all of surgery. Instead of operating on individual patients, he helps other surgical teams improve the way they care for their patients.

And just like any surgical team, it's not a one-man show.

In Campbell's case, he's at the helm of a team of 2,000 surgeons, nurses, data experts and others from 73 hospitals around Michigan. Together, they've created a massive cooperative effort with funding from the state's largest insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, and based out of the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. They collect 137 different types of data about 50,000 operations performed at participating hospitals each year, from the patient's weight to the exact drugs they got during the operation.

It's called the Michigan Surgical Quality Collaborative, or MSQC. For the last decade, it has been the silent force behind a dramatic shift in surgical safety and better outcomes for patients across the state. The team's publications about their achievements are causing a ripple effect on patients nationwide.

For instance, they've just published results from their efforts to reduce the number of patients who develop a surgical site infection after a common colon operation  the colectomy, or removal of part of the bowel. Not only did infections drop further the more often teams followed a "bundle" of anti-infection protocols, but so did costs. And a new analysis shows that even though the rate of such infections dropped at hospitals nationwide during the time when MSQC was addressing them, the rate dropped faster in Michigan.

In another new paper, they show how complications from surgery more than doubled the cost of a patient's care, and ate into a hospital's profit margin.

"In my surgical career, we could really see a tangible benefit from what we did in virtually every patient," Campbell explains. "But in population health efforts like MSQC, no one knows that you've helped them. They don't know that they were spared getting an infection in the hospital, or that their operation was performed in a way that's consistent with the same operation done on a patient a hundred miles away. But we're able to make a difference for hundreds or thousands of patients at a time."

Campbell started down the road of improving surgery through shared data when he was chief medical officer of the U-M Health System, beginning in the late 1990s. He saw what the hospitals that serve America's veterans were doing by looking at the data from their national electronic health record system, and acting on it.

Unlike the VA hospitals, though, he knew that most places where surgery takes place in the U.S. don't have a way to share their records securely and electronically  and even if they could have, competitive pressures would stand in the way as they tried to stay afloat in Michigan's downturned economy.

If things were going to get better for patients at non-VA hospitals, he realized, it would take a lot of trust, a lot of technology, and a lot of time.

Primary care doctors were already hard at work doing the same thing in their sphere. But they had so much to do to improve management of common chronic conditions that the surgeons weren't yet on their radar.

And yet nearly half of American medical care is related to surgical procedures. So, Campbell first spearheaded U-M's participation in a surgical quality improvement project that started with three hospitals and grew to hundreds nationwide that's now run by the American College of Surgeons. The effort won him a national award for patient safety. But in 2005, the opportunity arose to harness BCBSM funding and launch a statewide effort involving a few dozen hospitals.

Because a statewide initiative can be nimbler than a large national one, Campbell calls MSQC a real "boots on the ground" approach. A key part of its success, he says, has been the culture of trust and familiarity that the MSQC team has cultivated through regular conference calls and meetings of all the participating teams. He also credits the responsive customer service from MSQC staff, who work directly with the nurses who spearhead data collection and reporting at each hospital.

"What we rely on is a spirit of collaboration  that we're not going to use the quality information to award trophies or put up billboards about who's the 'best in the state," he adds. "It's measurement to improve, not measurement to judge. We treat the data confidentially, and share findings among our participants  including helping outliers understand how their practices or results differ from those around the state, and how they can change."

More hospitals have joined over the years, as MSQC attained a special status as a federal Patient Safety Organization. The kinds of operations that MSQC focused on grew, from ones done by general surgeons to those done by vascular surgeons and now gynecological surgeons. Most recently, a bundle of interventions aimed at reducing inappropriate use of hysterectomy, and reducing infections among those who do opt for surgery, has rolled out for hospitals' use.

More tellingly, no hospitals have dropped out. More will join in the coming year. And other states, from South Carolina to Tennessee to Illinois, have launched similar efforts with funding from their own Blue Cross Blue Shield insurers.

"The medical professions tend to be adversarial with big third-party payors, but we have the same goals of better quality and lower cost, and more appropriate use of care with fewer complications," says Campbell. "Through efforts like MSQC, we can work together productively with them."

The next challenge, he says, lies in connecting surgical quality improvement efforts with the care that patients receive before and after surgery, and linking up with quality improvement efforts going on in primary and non-surgical specialty disciplines. MSQC's rich data set, with records from more than 420,000 operations, can help drive such programs.

For example, U-M has launched an effort based on MSQC data that can help surgical patients reduce their risk of complications by undergoing pre-surgery "prehabilitation" that includes exercise, quitting smoking and emotional factors. Another effort draws on evidence from MSQC and other sources to fuel efforts to improve opioid painkiller prescribing after surgery.

Another challenge is to help hospitals improve the value of the care they provide to surgical patients - - not just by reducing cost, but by improving quality. Even if it costs more up front, higher-value care will ultimately mean fewer repeat hospital stays, and less time in nursing homes and the emergency room, Campbell feels. This drive is in line with the move by Medicare and other insurers to changing the way they pay for care to focus on value.

"It's a fertile field, and there's still a lot we can accomplish that can have a great impact on a lot of people," Campbell says. So even if MSQC doesn't get Christmas cards from the patients its work touches, "We are learning from our data, and acting on our data across a broad spectrum. For me, that brings a satisfaction of a different sort."

Explore further Surgery study shows worse health, more problems and higher costs among Medicaid patients
A new study from the University of Liverpool in collaboration with The University of Western Australia has examined why some people feel motivated to walk their dogs regularly and others don't.

There are more than 8 million dogs in households across the UK. Unfortunately not all of them are taken for regular walks.

The study, led by Dr Carri Westgarth from the University's Institute of Infection and Global Health, examined the demographic and behavioural factors that contribute towards owners reporting having a strong sense of encouragement and motivation to walk provided by their dogs, which the team call 'the Lassie effect'.

Encouragement and motivation

As part of the study data was collected from 629 dog owners participating in the RESIDE study, a 10-year study of 1813 residents in Perth, Western Australia.

The results of two survey outcomes, 'Dog encouragement to walk' (how often dog encouraged me to go walking in last month) and 'Dog motivation to walk' (Having a dog makes me walk more), were analysed to identify both positive and negative factors associated with them.

Dog and owner factors

Explaining her findings Dr Westgarth said: "There are both dog and owner factors that are associated with an owner's sense of encouragement and motivation to walk the dog, which in turn has been found to be associated with increased dog walking behaviour.

"We now know that owners feel more motivated to walk larger dogs, and if they believe that walking keeps the dog healthy. A strong relationship or attachment to the dog and reporting feeling that their dog enjoys walks is also motivating to owners.

"They are less motivated to take their dog out if they perceive that it is too old or sick, or if other family members usually walk the dog instead. These factors may be targeted in future interventions to increase and maintain physical activity levels of both people and pets."

The results of the study have been published in BMC Public Health this week.

Explore further Education and dog-friendly neighbourhoods could tackle obesity

More information: C. Westgarth et al. Understanding how dogs encourage and motivate walking: cross-sectional findings from RESIDE, BMC Public Health (2016). Journal information: BMC Public Health C. Westgarth et al. Understanding how dogs encourage and motivate walking: cross-sectional findings from RESIDE,(2016). DOI: 10.1186/s12889-016-3660-2
(HealthDay)More U.S. health care workers need to get their annual flu shots, a new government report shows.

Roughly one in every five American health care workers skips the yearly vaccination, and in some facilities that number exceeds half, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We owe it to our patients, as well as to other health care providers, to be vaccinated," said Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

"This is one of the most important ways to prevent transmission of influenza, not only in the hospital but also in other health care settings," said Glatter, who was not involved with the new study.

Getting a flu shot can lower the odds of patients contracting the flu from doctors, nurses and others, and reduce flu-related complications and deaths among health care workers and their patients, the authors of the CDC report said.

That might be even more important this coming flu season, as CDC officials said Thursday that vaccination coverage declined 1.5 percent across the entire U.S. population during the 2015-2016 season, with only 46 percent of Americans receiving the annual vaccine.

To assess recent rates of flu vaccinations in the health care community, Carla Black, an epidemiologist at the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and her team analyzed data from the last two flu seasons.

In the 2015-2016 flu season, 79 percent of all health care workers reported being vaccinated, which was similar to the 77 percent who said they got flu shots in the 2014-2015 flu season.

Health care personnel who worked in hospitals were most likely to be vaccinated (91 percent), compared with people who worked in clinics (80 percent) and those employed in nursing homes and long-term care facilities (69 percent), the investigators found.

Despite having lower overall vaccine coverage, long-term care facilities were the only places where vaccination rates increased in 2015-2016an increase of 5 percent, the researchers said.

Doctors continued to be more likely to get a flu shot (96 percent) than medical assistants and aides (64 percent). Vaccination rates dropped to 45 percent in health care facilities where vaccination wasn't required of employees, the findings showed.

The most effective way of ensuring that health care workers get vaccinated seems to be by making it a requirement, the researchers noted. The highest overall rates of vaccination were in facilities that mandate flu shots for workers (97 percent).

"When employers do not require vaccinations, the concern is that this could be a potential way in which transmission of flu can be significantly increased," Glatter said. "It's vital that employers encourage annual vaccination to reduce transmission of flu."

Unless there are religious or medical reasons to avoid a shot, "it's imperative that all people get vaccinated to protect the safety of patients and others," Glatter said.

To ensure health care workers are vaccinated, the CDC recommends educating employees about the benefits of vaccinations, promoting vaccinations and providing free vaccinations.

The report was published Sept. 30 in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Explore further Flagging flu-shot rate worries CDC

Copyright  2016 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Thai health authorities on Friday said microcephaly in two babies was caused by the Zika virus, in what is believed to be Southeast Asia's first confirmed cases linking the sickness and the birth defect.

The announcement could affect Thailand's key tourism industry, one of the kingdom's few economic bright spots under junta rule, with many Western governments warning pregnant women against non-essential travel to Zika-affected areas.

"Two of the three infants (tested) had microcephaly due to the Zika virus," Wicharn Pawan, a disease control official at the Health Ministry told AFP.

The ministry later said tests remain inconclusive as to whether the third infant's condition was connected to Zika.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) this week said any confirmed link in Thailand would be the first identified in Southeast Asia.

Zika causes only mild symptoms in most, including fever, sore eyes and a rash.

But pregnant women with the mosquito-borne virus risk giving birth to babies with microcephalya deformation that leads to abnormally small brains and heads.

There is no cure or vaccine for the virus, which has infected more than 1.5 million people in nearly 70 countries since last year, according to WHO, with Brazil the hardest hit.

While Zika has been present in Southeast Asia for years, there has been an uptick in the number of recorded cases in the region in recent months.

The WHO has however noted that the rise in detection also comes in conjunction with heightened surveillance.

On Friday it urged Southeast Asian countries to strengthen measures aimed at preventing, detecting and responding to the virus.

But it praised the reaction in Thailand where "authorities have been active in detecting and responding" to Zika, according to Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO's Regional Director for Southeast Asia.

Tourism fears

This week Thailand's health ministry said it was monitoring 36 pregnant women infected with Zika, three of whom recently gave birth to babies with microcephaly.

Thai virologist Praset Thongcharoen said Friday that "4.3 infants per 100,000", are born with microcephaly in Thailand, twice the global average.

The condition can also be caused by Down syndrome and other infections during pregnancy such as German measles and chickenpox.

Scientists warned this month that the world should prepare for a "global epidemic" of microcephaly as Zika takes root in new countries.

Tourism has buttressed Thailand's otherwise stagnant economy and authorities have been eager to reassure locals and visitors that the country is not experiencing a Zika epidemic.

Authorities are spraying areas of Bangkok prone to mosquito infestations and say they are on top of the issue.

But Friday's news could deliver a blow to Thailand's "teflon" reputation as a tourist haven.

The industry, which is expected to account for some 17 percent of Thailand's GDP this year, has swiftly bounced back from coups, violent street protests and bomb attacks in the past.

Before the Thai test results were announced, the United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel advisory urging pregnant women to "consider postponing nonessential travel to Southeast Asia countries with reports of Zika virus".

The news comes just one day before the start of "Golden Week", an annual Chinese holiday that sees a flood of tourists descend on neighbouring Thailand.

The kingdom is hoping to receive 33 million visitors this year, boosted by surging numbers of visitors from China.

Explore further Thais probe babies with microcephaly for Zika link (Update)

 2016 AFP
This year, everyone will have to roll up their sleeves and receive the flu shot via injection, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) no longer recommends the nasal flu mist vaccine due to ineffectiveness.

"Feeling the pinch is a small price to pay to protect your health and, importantly, to protect the health of those more vulnerable to illness," said Jorge Parada, MD, MPH, medical director, infection prevention and control program, Loyola Medicine.

"The message is still loud and clear," said Dr. Parada, a professor in the Division of Infectious Disease of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. "Everyone six months and older should be vaccinated effective immediately. The flu shot is safe and effective and it's a myth that you can get the flu from the flu vaccine."

Flu season traditionally begins in October and ends around April, peaking in January and February.

"It takes almost two weeks after vaccination for the flu shot to become fully effective," said Dr. Parada. "Similarly, it can take four to five days after exposure to the flu virus to develop symptoms."According to the CDC, the flu kills 3,300 to 49,000 people each year, with children and the elderly particularly vulnerable.

"Unlike many infectious diseases, the flu can be prevented and even eliminated when everyone in a community gets the vaccine," said Dr. Parada. "Just as a hard hat is necessary safety equipment for construction workers, those of us who work in healthcare know that we need to take special precautions. Getting a flu shot protects ourselves, our patients and our entire community from harm."

Loyola is a leader in infectious disease prevention and is in its seventh season of mandatory flu vaccine as a condition of employment.

Each February, an FDA committee determines which virus strains will go into vaccines sold in America for the coming season. The committee considers which viruses are making people sick in Asia, where the flu season first begins, and the effectiveness of the previous season's vaccine.

According to the CDC, flu vaccines protect against the three or four viruses that research suggests will be most common. For 2016-2017, three-component vaccines (trivalent) are recommended to contain:

A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus

A/Hong Kong/4801/2014 (H3N2)-like virus

B/Brisbane/60/2008-like virus (B/Victoria lineage)

Four component vaccines (quadrivalent) are recommended to include the same three viruses above, plus an additional B virus called B/Phuket/3073/2013-like virus (B/Yamagata lineage).

Dr. Parada offers the following tips to protect yourself and your community this flu season:

Get your flu shot anytime starting now, and certainly before the end of October

Wash your hands thoroughly and frequently throughout the day

Cover your mouth and nose with the crook of your arm when you sneeze to limit the spreading of germs

Stay home if you have the flu

"You'll know you have the flu, and not just a cold, if you also have a fever," said Dr. Parada. "Stay home for two to three days until you are not in danger of infecting others. And remember there are multiple strains of the flu virus so it is possible to get sick with flu more than once during the flu season."

Loyola University Medical Center is one of a few select hospitals who invest in universal screening of all inpatients for MRSA, was the only academic hospital to participate in a national C. difficile study and performs the most accurate testing for bacteria.

Explore further Expert advises preparing for flu season now
Georgias Prime Minister promises a well-organised grape harvest season

Georgias Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili has today traveled to eastern Georgias Kakheti region  the countrys most famous wine-making area.Kvirikashvili watched the grape harvesting process, and said that as of today, more than 68,000 tonnes of grapes had been processed by 11 wine making companies."The Government is fully ready to smoothly harvest and organise all grape harvesting activities this year, the PM told Kakhetis grape growers.He believed that farmers and wine makers would greatly benefit from this years harvest.While in Kakheti, Kvirikashvili also opened a new 25-bed hospital in the town of Dedoplistkaro.The new facility has modern equipment and met international standards."The clinic will have a lab where any kind of test can be carried out, said Georgias Health Minister David Serkeenko, who accompanied Kvirikashvili to Kakheti.The new clinic employed medical personnel who previously had to work at the towns old hospital which was located in a building in a state of disrepair.The Minister said the new hospital was larger, so it needed more staff so that more people will be employed in the future.The costs for building and equipping the new clinic was fully covered by the state. More than 3.5 million GEL was allocated from the state budget for the project.Meanwhile, Kvirikashvili presented the ruling Georgian Dream  Democratic Georgias candidates in Kakheti for the upcoming parliamentary elections, and called on citizens to be more active and participate in the voting process.
BP reveals cost of contracts on Azerbaijans biggest gas project

Contracts worth about $18 billion have been signed so far within the second phase of the development of Azerbaijans Shah Deniz gas and condensate field and the expansion of the South Caucasus pipeline, said a message from BP, an operator of these projects.The company organized a press tour Sept. 22 for journalists to Azfen-Tekfen-Amec consortiums (ATA) production site, where the assembly of topside modules of the platform for the Shah Deniz 2 project is being carried out, Trend reports.The projects implementation continues successfully and currently, the work on the project has been completed by 82 percent and is being carried out in accordance with the schedule.The work on the expansion of the Sangachal oil and gas terminal also continues according to the plan, said BP message.The pipe-lay barge Israfil Huseynov completed the complex installation of the first Shah Deniz flowline from the North Flank cluster to the platform location, according to BP. The barge is now installing the other flowline before it heads to the West Flank to install the two flowlines there.Following the float-out of the subsea construction vessel Khankendi of the dry dock, it recently received the main crane for installation. The vessel is now getting ready for commissioning and certification. Once completed, this new vessel will be deployed to the Shah Deniz 2 area for the construction of the subsea structures.The contract for development of the Shah Deniz offshore field was signed on June 4, 1996.The shareholders in the contract are BP (operator - 28.8 percent), AzSD (10 percent), SGC Upstream (6.7 percent), Petronas (15.5 percent), Lukoil (10 percent), NIOC (10 percent) and TPAO (19 percent).As part of the Stage 2 of development of the Shah Deniz field, the gas will be exported to Turkey and European markets by expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline.The reserves of the Shah Deniz field are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas and 240 million tons of condensate.Gas output will increase from 9 billion cubic meters to 16 billion cubic meters per year within the implementation of the Shah Deniz 2 project.
To strengthen patrolling near occupation lines

By Messenger Staff

Georgias Public Defender Ucha Nanuashvili stresses the importance of strengthening patrolling on the parts of the villages along the dividing line that are beyond the area of the Georgian checkpoints (the villages of Khurcha and Tskou in west Georgia, near de-facto Abkhazia), especially close to the dividing line, where population is at increased risk.Last week, the Public Defender presented a special report to local non-governmental and international organizations in the city of Zugdidi, in western Georgia, about the socio-economic and security situations of people living along the dividing line between Samegrelo and Abkhazia, and reviewed the human rights situation of the population of the villages of Khurcha, Pakhulani and Tskou.The Ombudsman said the village of Khurcha of the Zugdidi municipality borders the village of Nabakevi of the Gali district, the central area in de-facto Abkhazia.The village has been directly affected by violent conflicts several times. Khurcha is the only village on the other side of the Enguri River, which is controlled by Georgia. The Georgian police checkpoint is located at the entrance of the village and this creates safety problems for the rural population, Nanuashvili said.A clear example of this was the murder of a young Georgian citizen at the Khurcha-Nabakevi checkpoint on May 19,, Ombudsman said.Nanuashvili said unlawful arrests on charges of "illegal border crossing" by the Russian occupants are frequent in the village of Khurcha, as well as other villages along the dividing line.Residents of Khurcha and Gali, including school children, have been amongst the detainees over the years, Nanuashvili said.The Ombudsman appealed to Georgias Ministry of Internal Affairs to strengthen patrols around the villages along the dividing line.The need for strengthening security along the border was never more apparent than earlier this year, when 31-year-old Georgian citizen Giga Otkhozoria was killed by Russian-controlled Abkhazian border guards. Otkhorozia was shot six times on territory currently controlled by Georgia in the village of Khurcha.Otkhozoria was running and shouting for help according to local witnesses, but no one was able to help him.If there has been a checkpoint or other official body, the guard might have hesitated to chase Otkhozoria.One of the reasons why the authorities may refrain from additional security in the area is the possibility of escalating the situation, which is prudent to a degree but does little to help those ever at risk of kidnaping or death.
The News in Brief

EU unlikely to ease travel rules for Georgia before October vote  Reuters



The European Union is unlikely to agree visa-free travel for Georgia before its Oct. 8 elections as its government had hoped, diplomats said on Friday, citing divisions in the bloc and fears over immigration, Reuters reports.



Germany blocked visa liberalization for the nation of 3.7 million people in June, demanding that the EU first firm up its system for suspending visa waivers. The move was backed by France and Italy.



Voters in EU states have grown extremely wary of immigration after some 1.3 million migrants reached the bloc in 2015.



While EU states agree Georgia has met all criteria for visa liberalization, negotiations between EU states and the European Parliament on the suspension mechanism have ground to a halt.



The lawmakers demand a bigger say in triggering any such brake than national capitals are willing to give them.



"Some member states say they want visa liberalization for Georgia but in fact act differently," said one EU diplomat.



Another said it was looking "increasingly impossible" to agree more relaxed travel rules for Georgia ahead of the parliamentary vote there on Oct. 8 - lending fodder to opposition claims that the ruling Georgian Dream party has failed in its foreign policy goals.



The former Soviet nation on Russia's border is caught in a geo-political tussle between the EU and Russia. Georgia's Western aspirations are opposed by Moscow, which sees the nation as part of its sphere of influence.



Easier travel rules for Georgians overlap with similar talks the EU is holding with Ukraine and Turkey. Those two countries are more problematic for the EU, making member states wary of moving ahead on Tbilisi.

(IPN)







Wizz Air Opens Base in Kutaisi, Launches 7 New Routes



Low-cost airline operator Wizz Air announced on September 23 about opening a base at the Kutaisi airport and adding seven new routes, now offering total of 11 low-fare routes to eight countries from Kutaisi.



The airline has based one of its new Airbus A320 aircraft at the David the Builder International Airport in Kutaisi.



New destinations from Kutaisi include Berlin, Dortmund and Memmingen (about 100km from Munich) in Germany; Larnaca in Cyprus; Milan in Italy; Sofia in Bulgaria, and Thessaloniki in Greece.



Wizz Air said that the base's establishment represents an investment of USD 98 million (cost of A320 aircraft) by the airline operator in Kutaisi, creating 36 direct jobs with the airline.



Wizz Air, which launched flights to and from Kutaisi in 2012, was operating four routes (Budapest, Katowice, Vilnius and Warsaw) before adding new destinations.



We put Kutaisi on the map of aviation in 2012 and since then we have carried over 600,000 passengers on our low fare routes, stimulating the local tourism and aviation industries and strengthening business relations between Georgia and the rest of Europe, Owain Jones, Chief Corporate Officer of Wizz Air, said.

(Civil.ge)







Muslims in Kobuleti win symbolic victory in discrimination lawsuit



On Monday, Batumi City Court ruled partly in favor of the local Muslim community in a conflict about a planned religious boarding school called a madrasa.



The court case, which has lasted two years, deals with a conflict among locals in the town Kobuleti, in western Georgia, which began in 2014.



When it became know that a madrasa was being planned, locals protested against it. Some of them slaughtered a pig and hung its head on the door of the building.



The court decided that this was discrimination and symbolically fined three people one lari each who will be prohibited from interfering in the Muslim community while they are on their own property.



But the court did not agree with a claim that the police improperly carried out their duties.



Locals in Kobuleti do not agree with the courts decision. They claim that their rights were violated, not the Muslims rights.



Zhuzhuna Kaladze, one of the three who got a one lari fine by the court, claims it is a district where everybody is a practicing Orthodox Christian.



Their plans to build a madrasa there violate our rights, she told journalists, adding that something serious might happen if the madrasa is built.



The Muslim community, on the other hand, does not agree with part of the courts decision relating to the conduct of the police and plan to appeal to the Supreme Court.



Lawyers representing the community claim it is the first lawsuit in Georgia wherein Muslims have claimed to have been discriminated against.



The madrasa in Kobuleti will soon start preparations to open, its director Ramaz Kakaladze said.



It is very important for us that the court created a precedent to admit the discrimination of the Muslim community in Georgia, he said.

(DF watch)






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Grape harvest 2016: 71,300 tonnes of grapes picked so far

The grape harvest is in full swing in Georgias eastern Kakheti region where so far this season 11,000 farmers have earned over 62 million GEL by selling 71,300 tonnes of grapes.The Georgian National Wine Agency said local growers had processed the following grape varieties:Rkatsiteli - 38,500 tonnesSaperavi  28,700 tonnesKakhuri Mtsvane  2,100 tonnesTo date most grapes were processed in Kakhetis Gurjaani municipality  24,800 tonnes. Followed by:Kvareli  17,500 tonnesTelavi  16,800 tonnesSighnaghi  6,400 tonnesLagodekhi  2,100 tonnesDedoplistskaro  1,600 tonnesAkhmeta 1,100 tonnesSagarejo  937 tonnesTwo days ago, Georgian wine company Kakhetian Traditional Winery opened a new grape processing and brandy spirit distillation plant in Velistikhe Village, also in Kakheti region.The new factory, which is fitted with modern technologies and machines, meets top international standards and has the ability to process 15,000 tonnes of grapes.Thanks to financial support from the Bank of Georgia and Georgian Government, the Kakhetian Traditional Winery invested 7 million GEL (about $3.2 million/2.69 million*) to open the new factory.New plant employed local residents, which motivated farmers to cultivate wine and grow high-quality grapes that they could later sell locally and abroad, said Georgias Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili.He noted thanks to the Governments activities many people were returning to rural areas to open various types of ventures, including enterprises processing wine or livestock products.[Georgias] export to Europe is growing, whereas the Russian market has also opened. This is a welcoming fact, since these markets are quite important to our country, Kvirikashvili said.He also mentioned Georgias wine exports to China had grown significantly in recent years and Georgia was slowly increasing its exports and being an export-oriented country.
Preferential loans volume for Azerbaijani business wont change

In 2017, the volume of funds allocated from the state budget for the National Fund for Entrepreneurship Support under Azerbaijans Economy Ministry, will remain at the level of the current year, the countrys Finance Minister Samir Sharifov told reporters Sept. 26 in Baku.For the issuance of preferential loans, entrepreneurs will be provided with 250 million Azerbaijani manats (1.6292 AZN/USD on Sept. 26) through the Fund in 2016, including 70 million manats  by budgetary funds.The minister said also that funds, allocated for the Fund, together with accumulated and returned loans that were previously issued by the Fund, will be used for the issuance of preferential loans. It will contribute to the involvement of a greater number of entrepreneurs in the economy that, in turn, will lead to its further growth.Since early 2016, the National Fund for Entrepreneurship Support allocated preferential loans worth 102.7 million manats for entrepreneurs. These loans will allow creating about 5,500 new jobs.The National Fund for Entrepreneurship Support was created in 1992.The issuance of loans for entrepreneurs is carried out through authorized banks and non-bank credit organizations, overall number of which is 59.
Parliament Speaker addresses business

By Messenger Staff

Georgias Parliament Speaker and leader of the Republican Party (which will run independently in the upcoming October 8 parliamentary elections), David Usupashvili, has urged business people not to be influenced by any political force and make a free choice at polling stations.The address came after last weeks meeting between Georgias ex-Prime Minister and founder of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) coalition, Bizdina Ivanishvili, and the business community.At the meeting, Ivanishvili asked the entrepreneurs whether they were ready or not to inform people around them about the achievements of the current authorities, which took office in 2012.Ivanishvili stressed that unlike in 2003-2012, under the United National Movement (UNM) authorities, business was no longer suppressed, and businesses in Georgia felt this very tangibly.Ivanishvili also said a certain portion of the people were disappointed by the actions of the current authorities as they had not been able to improve the general economic condition in the country.However, Ivanishvili stressed that a range of positive steps have been taken, but it was impossible to improve all the drawbacks in four years."You are well aware of the special role of free and fair competition, not only in terms of economic development, but also in general progress, Usupashvili stated.Politics needs free and fair competition, just like business. A non-competitive environment leads the political system to the swamp, like it does to the economic system. Even the most generous political power starts producing low-quality, expensive and dangerous products without competition, Usupashvili added.He also called on entrepreneurs not to contribute to establishing an uncompetitive one-party system in the country and vote for parties whose election program was closer to their expectations.It is very likely that the business community will make a free choice as no one can force them at the polling stations to vote for any party.Even under the UNM authorities in 2012, when the pre-election and election environment was very tense, the GD coalition managed to win simply because people supported them.Now, when all international and local organisations stress that pre-election campaigning is calm and transparent, it is less likely voters will be forced to vote for the parties or individuals they dislike.The relationship of Ivanishvili and the Republicans has also attracted attention.When Ivanishvili established the GD coalition to defeat the nine-year rule of the UNM, the Republicans took a central part in the coalition. Ivanishvili frequently praised them for their professionalism.Now Ivanishvili says the Republicans always act based on their own, narrow political interests.It can be said the Republican Party is a favourite target of Ivanishvili, who is considered an informal ruler of the country by the opposition.When Ivanishvili served as Prime Minister in 2012-2013, he was frequently asked who could be in the opposition for 2016 parliamentary elections, as the coalition at that time united the Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party, the Free Democrats, the Republicans, the National Forum, the Conservatives, the Industrials party and the Peoples Party; in fact, the coalition contained most of the parties of Parliament.Ivanishvili used to answer that if there was not a real, strong opposition for 2016, the coalition would split and ex-coalition members would create an opposition wing.This lunacy has really happened.Based on the polls, the Republicans do not have a high rating, it may be hard for them to overcome the 5% threshold to appear in the legislative body.On the other hand, the number of people who dislike Ivanishvili has increased, as people accuse Ivanishvili, a billionaire, of not helping them.Consequently, Ivanishvilis consistent criticism of the Republicans may work to their advantage and attract votes for the Republicans.
THE TRUE COST OF ALL THAT 'CHEAP' LAOR THAT DESTROYED AMERICA THE BIG SECRET DEMOCRATS DO NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW: Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeless largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens.
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Longtime observers of the Missoula art scene may remember Ben Bloch as a conceptual provocateur. At the Goatsilk Gallery, he and his partner Caroline Peters used installation, video and other means to challenge ideas about can be considered art.

That gallery closed in 2005, when Bloch moved to Walla Walla to teach. Goatsilk itself lived on, with long-term projects like "Killin' It with Paul Crik," a series of YouTube videos numbering more than 100, which meld performance art and advice videos.

It may surprise those who haven't been following Bloch recently to learn his other major body of work comprises abstract expressionist landscapes and not something more controversial.

Painting, though, was his original portal into more experimental art forms, and one he returned to about five years ago.

Next First Friday in Missoula, he plans to share between 12 and 15 canvases, some as large as 55 by 40 inches, at the Public House, which used to be the Raven Cafe.

The paintings reflect the abstract work he made as an MFA student at the University of Montana. He maintains a realist palette, but his compositions are looser and his brushstrokes often large and slashing.

He uses high-grade acrylic instead of the traditional landscape medium of oil paint  he said it allows him to create a tension between "flat, washy planes" and areas where builds the paint application is much thicker.

Since leaving Missoula, Bloch has lived in Washington, and now splits his time between Utah and Cameron, south of Ennis in Madison County, where he keeps a studio.

The new works, most of which were painted in the last year, interpret the landscape in or around southwestern Montana. Winter figures into some canvases, where his watery and dripping techniques are physical reminders of the cold precipitation.

A large theme of the works are the two-lane highways that facilitate our experience of the land, a feature that's often left out of landscape paintings.

"It either cuts through it or brings you to it, which is not omitted from the painting," he said. He likes the compositional possibilities, too: In one painting, the pavement divides the canvas horizontally. While his rendering of the land is loose, the roads have a hard-edged quality.

He likes the tension between the "graphic quality of the road and the organic quality of the mountains, trees and grasses."

Earlier this summer, Bloch spent a month in Virginia City as a resident artist for a project called "Reimagine Montana: National Parks, Historic Landmarks, Trails, and Monuments Across Time."

It was funded with a grant between the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service, which is marking its 100th anniversary this year.

Other artists were assigned to sites around the state, and their work will be part of a traveling show.

Bloch stayed on-site in the old mining ghost town, which he described as spooky.

He said it resembles the set of "Deadwood," with "old, decaying but beautifully decaying surfaces," like real life but somewhat like a Disneyland exhibit.

Some of the work he produced there will show at the Public House.

He said he values working with collaborators, which allows for bigger, expansive projects. And there are through-lines that might not be obvious. The "Killing It with Paul Crik" videos were shot outside, alluding to the landscapes that he's painting now.
The second Montana Film Festival, which opens on Thursday, Oct. 6, has taken innovation and representation as its unofficial theme.

The featured movies filmmakers include a pioneering African-American director, a film shot on a remote island off the Australian coast with indigenous tribes as the cast, innovative video and animation artists, and next Friday's state premiere of "Certain Women," surely the most anticipated of the lineup.

Director Kelly Reichardt based her independent drama on short stories by Helena native Maile Meloy and shot the feature in the Livingston area. Alongside Michelle Williams, Laura Dern and Kristen Stewart, she cast Missoula native Lily Gladstone. Both Gladstone and the movie as a whole earned glowing reviews on the festival circuit.

***

When the festival debuted last fall, schedules had aligned and organizers premiered three independent, Montana-made feature films. While the festival plans to spotlight those as they become available for screenings, it was never their intent to be a festival of movies made in Montana.

"The concept was really to celebrate films as art," said Mike Steinberg, co-director of the festival. Because of that strong local emphasis, some attendees expected state connections in the myriad other films that were selected for artistic merit, such as "Tangerine," which was shot in LA with iPhones.

"The festival will always serve that purpose to present films that are made locally or have a local connection," he said, with a focus on artistic quality and independence.

The festival debuted started last year by the Roxy Theater. The theater, officially a program run by the nonprofit International Wildlife Film Festival, works under a "community cinema," with monthly and one-off programming that reflects interests of local residents and local groups.

That spring event, which brings in filmmakers from around the world, owns the theater. It reopened it to year-round programming as the Roxy in 2013 after renovations. It now offers three screens, including one digital projection that allows them to show new-release independent movies.

Last year, Roxy executive director Mike Steinberg and company started the Montana Film Festival to serve the Treasure State's narrative film community, a growing segment that doesn't completely overlap with the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.

On the closing day of the festival, they'll present "Inside 'Walking Out,'" in which Missoula-based director Andrew Smith will discuss and share clips from his followup to "Winter in the Blood," also made with his brother Alex. The movie, starring Matt Bomer, is based on a short story by David Quammen and was shot in the Livingston area.

***

This year, there weren't quite as many local films to premiere, and they began looking for other angles.

For instance, Montana has a rich cultural history, said co-director Andrew Rizzo, but it's not a particularly diverse population. With questions of race dominating the American popular conversation, they set out to offer a window of programming that reflects the diversity, artistic and cultural, in cinema.

Burnett, who Steinberg called "the quintessential African-American filmmaker," was the first guest they sought out.

"The more that we understand these African-American pioneer filmmakers, African-American pioneers in society, the more that our communities are educated about is the less ignorance we'll have about some things," Rizzo said.

Burnett attended UCLA's filmmaking school, where he began shooting a movie called "Killer of Sheep" as his thesis project. He expanded the story about everyday life in 1970s Watts into a 1977 full-length that became celebrated but not often seen. Issues with the copyrights to the music prevented a theatrical release for years.

"It was probably the most famous film that nobody had ever seen for quite a while: talked about by critics, adored by critics. It never had a theatrical release until the early '80s," Steinberg said.

The music has since been cleared and the 35mm film restored, and it was included in the Library of Congress' first selections for the National Film Registry.

New York magazine film critic David Edelstein wrote that "' Killer of Sheep' can be seen (and reseen) as a great  the greatest  cinematic tone poem of American urban life."

Burnett will attend the festival for screenings of "Killer of Sheep" and another of his films, "To Sleep With Anger" with Danny Glover.

The festival opens next Thursday with "Tanna," a movie shot on the multi-island nation of Vanuatu. Directors Martin Butler and Bentley Dean have documentary backgrounds, spent months there working with local tribes, who'd never seen movies before, to help develop a story and cast.

It's a classic "Romeo and Juliet" story, Rizzo said, translated through their tribes' customs and language. (It's in Nauvhal with subtitles.)

***

Two guests will feature more heavily in shorts programs than features.

Emily Hubley grew up in a family of animators. Her father, John Hubley, left Disney in the 1940s to pursue more independent and artistic animation projects. He and his wife, Faith Hubley, made their own animated projects and enlisted their children, Emily and Georgia, to help draw and provide voices.

While Georgia pursued music with famed indie-rock trio Yo La Tengo, Emily continued in animation.

She'll present three blocks of shorts programs that cover more than 50 years of work by her and her family.

Steinberg said John and Faith's early work is "free-form and beautiful, like living watercolors," and Emily's own work takes a personal, stream-of-consciousness approach.

Julia Oldham, a Portland video artist, will present her experimental works, and Zaltko Cosic, a video artist from Yugoslavia who studied in the United States, will present three of his recent features.

***

Several other of the 12 features are more formally innovative than anything else: "The Alchemist Cookbook" is a "punk-rock" take on the modern horror film, Steinberg said. In director Joel Potrykus' vision, a young man hides out at a remote cabin on an inadvisable mission.

The film played at South by Southwest, and Variety magazine's Dennis Harvey wrote "If you only see two American indie features co-starring Satan this year, one should obviously be 'The Witch.' The other almost certainly will turn out to be 'The Alchemist Cookbook.' "

Star Ty Hickson will be in attendance for the screening. Sophia Talkan's "Always Shine" also takes on the modern horror genre, through the lens of Hollywood jealousy.

Steinberg guessed that "The Brand New Testament" will have a broader release. Danish director Jaco van Dormael imagines that God is a cranky author who's plans for the world are stymied when a little girl locks herself in his office.

As a whole, Steinberg said the festival will give "a larger sense of independent films and what they are."
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?

Jails are overcrowded because were not dealing with underlying issues. A huge portion of incarcerated people have mental health or substance abuse problems, which costs enormous sums of public money if we wait to deal with them. If were able to assess and treat people with these issues  and do it as a public investment so that were not leaving people behind  we can significantly reduce prison and jail populations and save the taxpayers money. Thanks to Sen. Cynthia Wolken, Rep. Kim Dudik and other officials around the state, weve started to address these problems.

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?

Our FWP does an incredible job managing state lands, our wildlife, and the hunting and fishing seasons. As an avid outdoorsman, I have seen the great job the department has been doing for access and habitat. Just this summer, my wife and I floated the Blackfoot River with my wifes parents. An FWP warden was at the put in, asking us about our experience thus far and what FWP could do better. It was refreshing for my mother-in-law, whos from Great Falls, to see FWP interact with the public in such a positive way.

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?

The 2013 Legislature funded the College of Technology, which has a beautiful campus being constructed in Hellgate Canyon. Weve got programs at the COT that do a great job at training people for jobs in the energy sector. There are similar programs available through the Montana Department of Labor and Industry throughout the state, including the registered apprenticeship program being run by the Montana Department of Labor and Industry in coordination with Gov. Steve Bullocks Main Street Montana Project. Montana has always been a leader in energy production, and we will continue to be well into the future.

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?

The University of Montana is in House District 89, and I have heard firsthand the incredible impact our failure to fund college tuition has had on Montana families. We have an absolute duty to lower tuition by funding the Montana University System, creating more work-study type jobs, and helping ease the incredible burden of student debt. The Legislature needs to hear from students and parents who are struggling with the high costs of tuition, because an educated workforce will have a significantly positive impact on every county and town in Montana.

What do you regard as the most urgent problem facing Montana, and how do you propose dealing with it?

Economic development means creating opportunities for all Montanans, and the way I would expand those opportunities is to fund education at both the pre-K and post-secondary levels, invest in infrastructure and the expansion of broadband, and keeping public lands in public hands. If we have an educated workforce that has the tools to create and maintain jobs in Montana, all of us will benefit, including the tourism industry, which is a $4 billion annual boost to our economy. Montana would be a significantly less attractive place to start a business and raise a family if we lost our public lands.
BIGFORK  The investigation of a Bigfork man the state alleges may have been operating a Ponzi scheme to defraud investors has spilled over into the race for Montanas lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., told the Missoulian that the congressmans campaign would donate all contributions it has received from John Kevin Moore, also known as Kevin Moore, to the Flathead Food Bank.

That includes $5,100 Moore appears to have donated to the Zinke campaign, using two different names and occupations but the same Bigfork mailing address, during the 2014 general election. That amount would exceed the federal campaign contribution limit for an election cycle by an individual, which was $2,600 that year.

Moore has not been charged in the current securities investigation. He is scheduled to appear in a Flathead County courtroom next week for a show-cause hearing to argue why a judges order freezing his assets should not be continued in the form of a temporary injunction.

In court documents filed earlier this month that successfully sought a temporary order to restrain Moore from selling more investments or disposing of any assets, Montana Deputy Securities Commissioner Lynne Egan accused Moore of selling more than $2.7 million in investments in oil leases without registering the securities with the state, and without registering as a securities broker.

The documents say 36 people invested with Moore.

Those same documents allege that, while paying out $886,600 to investors from those funds, Moore also withdrew almost $800,000 for himself, spent more than $400,000 to make mortgage payments and pay escrow service and legal fees on two Bigfork homes, and used even more of the money to purchase vehicles, fine art, an RV and an ATV.

Egan said she began her investigation after four people complained they had made investments but received minimal or inaccurate information about Big Sky Mineral Resources from Moore.

The Associated Press has reported Moore has previous criminal convictions for defrauding an individual in the sale of a painting, for defrauding another person of $75,000 in a gold coin scheme, for writing bad checks, and for mail fraud, in a 2003 case where he portrayed himself as a licensed outfitter in mailing materials to potential clients.

Heather Swift, communications director for Zinke, said the congressman had no idea of the transgressions and only learned of the situation when he read the article in the newspaper.

***

The Missoulian first discovered a possible tie between Zinke and Moore on the website for Big Sky Mineral Resources, the company Moore allegedly sold the investments through, while reporting on the state investigation.

The lead picture in the photo gallery on the Big Sky Mineral Resources website shows Moore standing with Zinke and former Vice President Dick Cheney. Another photo in the gallery shows Zinke talking to a group of people at a place called Legacy Ranch, with a man who appears to be Moore standing closest to the congressman.

The Congressman takes hundreds of photos a week with people, Swift said in an email to the Missoulian. Some people like to have their picture taken with their Congressman or former Vice President and some of those people put them online.

Since then the campaign of Zinkes Democratic opponent this fall, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau, has circulated a photograph of Moore and four other men preparing to dine with Zinke and Zinkes wife, Lola, in an email calling for Zinke to explain his relationship with convicted felon Kevin Moore.

That picture, and another of Moore and Zinke together, can be found at NoisyRoom.net, along with a report about the meetings where the photographs were taken. They identify Moore as the marketing director for Stand Up America, a not-for-profit organization founded by retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, who also lives in the Flathead Valley.

Vallely is also pictured in those photographs.

The Congressman met Mr. Moore because they both live in the Flathead and know many of the same people, like General Paul Vallely, who founded the veterans organization Stand Up America, and Mr. Moore attended the occasional campaign event with dozens of other Flathead residents, said Swift, who went on to say Zinke had no knowledge of Moores past criminal history or the investigation that is now ongoing.

***

Vallely on Thursday confirmed that Moore had been invited to attend events in Washington, D.C., associated with Stand Up Americas launch of the Legacy National Security Advisory Group, formed to advise presidential and congressional candidates on national security and military strategy.

But he said Moore was never an employee of Stand Up America, and had passed himself off as the groups marketing director.

Thats what con men do, Vallely said. They work their way into your confidential circle, and then use you. Thats what he did to Congressman Zinke, and thats what he did to us.

Vallely is a West Point graduate and former military analyst for Fox News. He is a critic of President Barack Obama, and last year in a radio interview on The Real Side with Joe Messina said Obama should be arrested for treasonous activities.

Vallely said the meetings launching the Legacy National Security Group that included Moore occurred before Moores current and past legal problems were known by Stand Up America.

The retired general also said the FBI has restricted much of what I can say about Moore, and said the federal agency has also launched an investigation into Moore and his sale of investments in oil and gas leases.

A spokeswoman for the FBI on Thursday said it is FBI policy to neither confirm nor deny whether someone is under investigation.

***

Moore has donated $5,700 to Zinkes 2014 and 2016 campaigns, according to records with the Federal Election Commission and the Center for Responsive Politics.

The affidavit Egan filed detailing expenditures of more than $3.3 million from multiple bank accounts held by Moore and his businesses include 37 categories, such as more than $143,000 in fine art purchases and more than $126,000 in vehicle purchases, but none identified as campaign contributions.

There are categories called Moore personal expenditures ($126,425) and uncategorized expenditures ($71,149), but there is no indication those might have included donations to Zinkes campaign.

Sanjay Talwani, press secretary for the Montana Commissioner of Securities and Insurance, said his office wont talk about it beyond whats in the affidavit because the case is ongoing.

***

The 2014 records show Moore used different names and occupations, but the same Bigfork post office box number, to donate $5,100 within a month during Zinkes 2014 general election campaign.

On Aug. 29, 2014, a Kevin Moore, who listed his occupation as martial arts instructor, donated $2,600 to the Zinke campaign. A 2008 Flathead Beacon feature story about martial arts in the Flathead Valley includes a photograph of a man identified as Kevin Moore, and calls him a Brazilian jiu-jitsu master. The Kevin Moore in that photograph, and the Kevin Moore pictured with Zinke and Cheney, appear to be the same man.

On Sept. 29, 2014, a John K. Moore, who listed his occupation as art dealer, donated $2,500 to the Zinke campaign. The John Kevin Moore under investigation by the state allegedly spent more than $140,000 on fine art, and has a previous conviction for defrauding someone in the sale of a painting.

Both came from the same mailing address, a post office box number that LexisNexis, which provides an electronic database for legal- and public records-related information, says has been associated with Kevin Moore since 1993.

The reports of the two donations are 658 pages apart in the 1,087 pages of the Zinke for Congress required quarterly filings with the FEC in October, 2014. The first contribution was made to the Zinke Victory Fund and transferred to the campaign.

Julia Queen, public affairs specialist with the FEC, declined to say whether the donations would violate individual limits.

Queen would only say that the individual contribution limit for an election cycle in 2014 was $2,600, and that regulations make it the duty of a campaigns treasurer to monitor contributions to ensure compliance with the laws limits and prohibitions.

The Kevin Moore who listed his occupation as a martial arts instructor also donated $500 to Zinke in February of 2015, and another $100 in May of 2015.

Swift said all of the funds donated to Zinkes campaigns by John K. Moore and Kevin Moore will now be donated to the Flathead food pantry to help our neighbors in need.
DARBY  Darby residents found a locked door at town hall Thursday after the sudden resignation of the towns clerk and treasurer of the past 20 years.

In an open resignation letter to the community, Nancy McKinney said she chose to resign due the stress of manning a short-staffed office and a challenging work environment under the towns new mayor.

Her resignation was followed by the towns council chair, Bret Rider, who cited similar differences with Mayor J.C. McDowell.

On Thursday afternoon, McDowell said he had no indication that McKinney was about to resign her post.

I didnt get a phone call or an email, McDowell said. I had to get the public works director to open the office. There was no grievance filed prior to her resignation.

McDowell plans to meet with the council Friday to explain his plan to reopen the office as early as Monday.

There has been tension over budgetary practices proposed by McDowell.

The mayor said those changes are needed to begin building financial reserves for unexpected repairs, capital improvements and for the potential need to build a multi-million wastewater treatment plant that could be required under revised state regulations.

McDowell said the town has been operating for 12 years with no budgetary surplus.

In effect, the town of Darby has been expending 100 percent of all of its revenue every way, he said. There is no way to replenish the reserves. One major required repair would deplete all the reserves the town has without any method to replenish them.

Rider said he disagreed with the mayors proposed budgetary process and was upset with the badgering that went on at town hall meetings.

Weve always run the budget a certain way, Rider said. Nancy would do the budget and then they would present it to us. The council would approve it or not approve it. That changed when he came on board.

We had done it this way for 15 years and it had worked, he said.

Rider said he disagreed with the percentages that McDowells proposed budget would allocate to items like public works and wages.

The way he talked to me and the council was wrong, Rider said. I was doing this job because I cared about the city. At $64 every two weeks, Im certainly not doing it for the money. Ive lived in Darby my whole life. We were doing fine until the new mayor stepped in.

Im not trying to bad mouth the new mayor, but I dont agree with what hes doing, Rider said. I dont want to be part of it. The way we were badgered the last meeting, I said this was enough.

In her letter, McKinney said she has been manning the office alone since last March when assistant clerk Tari Conroy quit due to a toxic work environment that created enormous stress.

Since the first of the year, McKinney said her office lost staff, implemented two new software systems and credit card processing. It has also implemented changes requested by the mayor in the way it produces utility bills, which takes more time.

The additional workload has resulted in a late fiscal year 2015 annual financial report and monthly cash reconciliation reports have not been submitted to the council, McKinney wrote.

In the 20 plus years of working for the town residents, seven mayors, 21 council members, 23 board members and numerous volunteers, my integrity has never been questioned, she wrote. I have been a hard working and loyal employee. I lost earned vacation hours because taking time off would have meant services would have not been available to the public and the work needed to be accomplished would have remained undone.

Yet, McKinney said her work ethic and integrity have been questioned by an unsigned complaint from a probationary employee.

It has been painful experiencing and watching others being subjected to bullying like tactics of repetitive and prolonged mayoral presentations at meetings and in the office that continue until the subjected party reluctantly agrees with him, McKinney said. His treatment of others including elected officials is demeaning.

Since taking the position, McDowell said he has worked closely with financial experts and state officials to develop a system that properly accounts for public funds.

Were still working through that process, he said. Its been a difficult one for some of the council members. Its been a difficult process to come into alignment about the needs of the community.

McDowell said the state Department of Environmental Quality has revised wastewater regulations which could require communities in close proximity to a river to switch over from wastewater lagoons to a wastewater treatment system.

Those upgraded treatment systems have cost other communities about the size of Darby between $4 million and $8 million.

In light of that upcoming requirement, I have been diving down into water and sewer funds to better prepare for that eventuality in the community, he said. Its required the council to take a very hard look at how we have been operating in the past.
This spring, Missoula County Sheriff's Deputies Justin Uriarte and Ross Jessop headed to North Carolina for six weeks of training at Southern Police Canine Inc., the company the sheriff's office used to acquire their new K-9 unit dogs.

Thursday, the department formally introduced Santxo (pronounced Sancho) and Loki. The new officers, each around 18 months old, are a mix of German shepherd and Belgian Malinois, and are originally from Hungary. Sheriffs department special teams Lt. Jeremy Meeder, who oversees the K-9 units, said the mix of breeds has become popular because it combines the intelligence of the former with the endurance of the latter.

The department hasn't had a K-9 unit in 15 years. To select Uriarte and Jessop from the deputies who applied, Meeder said they brought in K-9 handlers from the U.S. Forest Service who worked with the officers to see how they handled the dogs. Meeder also conducted home visits, talking with the deputies' families about what having a K-9 living with them might mean and the responsibilities it would entail.

Just after returning from North Carolina, the department had to put their new K-9 officers to work when a pair of men robbed a gas station and carjacked a family, kidnapping them and leading police on a chase through Missoula. Santxo and Uriarte were brought to where the men eventually left the vehicle.

He was able to track them off the road and right back to the spot where they were picked up by another vehicle, Meeder said.

In addition to being certified for patrol duty, which includes locating dangerous suspects and finding missing people, the Missoula sheriffs dogs also trained in finding drugs.

Their noses are what we use 90 percent of the time, Meeder said. They are trained on five different drug scents: marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and ecstasy.

He said the department waited to train the dogs on locating meth until they returned to town so they would be taught to recognize and search for the chemicals most commonly found in the strains of the drug around Missoula.

The dogs are required to go through an annual re-certification, and the K-9 teams have weekly training sessions at a sheriffs department facility next to the Missoula County Detention Facility.

Santxo and Loki also can conduct what Meeder calls an article search, finding items that might have been dropped or thrown by a suspect when they are running from officers. Meeder demonstrated on Thursday, taking an imitation training pistol and pitching it out into the grass field before pushing it down into the lawn and out of sight. Jessop issued a command to his dog Loki in Dutch, the language the department is using for its K-9 units, and Loki ran across the lawn, circled in on the pistol and sat, rewarded when Jessop threw him a rubber toy.

They are trained to find and recover metal, plastic and paper. Hes looking for an anomaly, something that doesnt belong, Meeder said. Everything that dog does is for that silly toy. Thats all he cares about in this world.

In addition to working on local drug and tracking cases, Meeder said Mineral, Granite and Sanders counties have also enlisted the help of Missoulas K-9 units, as have probation officers and the U.S. Marshals Service.

Uriarte said one of his goals as an officer always had been to be a K-9 handler.

It was part of when I decided to be a cop, going all the way back to when I was 14, he said. Im a dog person. I have a hunting dog and a rescue dog.

He said the department has long discussed bringing back the K-9 units. Now that they are back, Uriarte said people are interested every time they bring the animals out in public, and Santxo and Loki dont mind being around groups of people.

When they see you walking around with the dog, you draw a crowd. All the kids want to come up and pet them and so do a lot of the adults, he said.

His and Jessops patrol vehicles also received special upgrades to accommodate Santxo and Loki. In addition to putting a kennel inside, Meeder said they are outfitted with heat sensors. Each officer carries a small pager on their belt with a readout of the interior temperature of their vehicle.

The cars can be programmed to a threshold where if it gets there, the windows automatically roll down and fans turn on, Meeder said. They will also receive an alert notification and can also press a button to open the doors remotely to let the dog out.
A new program for homebuyers in Missoula may sound too good to be true, but its for real.

A local nonprofit, the Montana and Idaho Community Development Corporation, has announced a new initiative to gift money to eligible borrowers so they can afford to make a down payment on a house. The beautiful part is, the money doesnt have to be paid back.

The HomeNow Down Payment Gift Program is being instituted all across Montana, and will provide between 3.5 percent and 5 percent of the total mortgage loan to people looking to buy a house. To be eligible, borrowers must:

 qualify for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage through FHA, VA, HUD Section 184 or Rural Development,

 have income within established limits,

 have a minimum 640 credit score, and

 occupy the property as a primary residence.

The HomeNow Down Payment Gift Program is cash for eligible borrowers to put toward a down payment and closing costs, said MICDC president Dave Glaser. The HomeNow Program is available in about 30 other states, but this is the first time it will be available in Montana. As housing prices have risen across the state, we decided to introduce the program here  and are looking forward to awarding our very first Montana gift right here in Missoula.

A minimum down payment on a $200,000 home is $7,000 using a Federal Housing Authority down payment percentage of 3.5 percent, and a recent survey from Bankrate.com found that 63 percent of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings.

The HomeNow Down Payment Gift Program is designed to help borrowers overcome that challenge by providing a gift to fund up to 100 percent of the cash requirement to close, including down payment and closing costs. No additional paperwork or information is required to qualify for a HomeNow Gift. The funds are provided at close with a participating lender with just one additional signature.

Melanie Calahan of the MICDC said that the nonprofit is funding the program through private donations, earnings from its New Markets Tax Credits program, and a partnership with U.S. Bank.

The money comes back to us, so its an evergreen fund that perpetually refills itself, she said. So we are able to re-gift the money.

The program isnt limited to first-time homebuyers and can be used for housing purchases or rate/term refinances. Homebuyer education courses are recommended, but not required.

Potential homebuyers should contact a participating mortgage lender to find out if they qualify for the program. Currently, First Security Bank of Missoula and Mann Mortgage of Missoula are participating, but MICDC is working to have every lender in Montana participate.

Calahan said the program is designed in a way to help people who are having a hard time getting ahead financially afford a down payment. She said theres no limit to the number of people who can apply to participate in the program as long as they meet the requirements.

Its a great fit with part of our mission, she said. We are always looking to find a way to help people that are just a little bit outside of the financial mainstream, which is what we do with the rest of our products.

People curious about the program should inquire not with the MICDC but with a lender at First Security or Mann Mortgage.
"Step up."

That was Reinvest Montana co-founder Caitlin Piserchia's message for the University of Montana Foundation board of directors and its investment committee chair, Mack Clapp, on Thursday afternoon.

Reinvest members, students and community members rallied in the University Center atrium before heading upstairs to stage a "human oil spill" outside the board meeting.

For three years, the group has pushed the foundation to divest from fossil fuels and instead invest in sustainable Montana energy industries.

"The point today is that this is the one time a year when they are in town," Reinvest co-coordinator Simon Dykstra said of the foundation's annual board meeting. "They are the decision-makers on divestment, and Mack Clapp is the ultimate decision-maker."

The rally also was another chance for the group to stand in support of the Standing Rock activists  which they say is connected to their own efforts.

"Investing in the fossil fuel industry involves building pipelines in indigenous lands," Dykstra said.

Because the UM Foundation is a private nonprofit, its meetings are not open to the public. Reinvest members argue that because the foundation's mission is to serve the university, a public institution, it has a responsibility to be transparent with the public.

"They're leaving us out of the process," Dykstra said.

Foundation assistance vice president of marketing and communications Melissa Wilson said Reinvest members "perched outside" talked with trustees during breaks in Thursday's meeting.

"They (the board) did not have a formal session specifically to discuss divestments at this meeting, it was more just the authentic engagement around the space," Wilson said.

***

Clapp has remained silent on the issue, and on the protests.

While the foundation is "continually keeping an ear to the ground or a finger on the pulse of what's going on in that environment," Wilson said there are no "formal milestones in place to address it."

The foundation's September 2015 statement on fossil fuel divestment stands unchanged today, Wilson said.

It reads, "... having carefully investigated the impact of divestment on the Foundations long-term investment portfolio and our ability to support the University, we have determined not to divest at this time."

If the foundation were to divest from fossil fuels, Reinvest says it should steer toward environmentally conscious energy industries and "economically support past workers in the fossil fuel industry, support those at Standing Rock and the marginalized communities," Dykstra said.

"This is a simple local change with a big international impact," Piserchia said.

Associated Students of the University of Montana president Sam Forstag addressed the foundation board Thursday morning. ASUM submitted a resolution asking for a permanent ex-officio student seat on the foundation board  similar to resolutions that ASUM has passed the last two years.

"If we don't hear back from them (the foundation's governance committee) in the next couple weeks ... then I have every intention of taking this to the state, to the Board of Regents," Forstag said during the rally.

Wilson said Forstag's proposal was a "starting point."

***

During the annual board meeting, which continues Friday, new officers and committee chairs are chosen. That had not happened as of press time Thursday.

MJ Desrosier and Courtney Little Axe, both UM students, have been to Standing Rock.

"I think we're living in a pivotal moment," Desrosier said, pointing to the Standing Rock protests and to the other universities that have recently divested from fossil fuels, including the University of Oregon this month and University of Washington's decision to divest from coal last year.

Reinvest's chants filled the UC.

"Mack Clapp divest! Engstrom divest! Water is life!"

Cate Campbell, a member of 350 Missoula's leadership committee, said the rally felt like Groundhog Day. That's a sign of perseverance, she said.

Thursday's rally, as well as this spring's sit-in that led to Reinvest members being cited for criminal trespass, are "not an empty gesture of civil disobedience," she said.
Commissioner of Securities and Insurance Monica Lindeen will visit Missoula and Hamilton next week to host screenings of a new documentary detailing the dangers of fraud in Montana.

Gold Diggers: Investment Fraud in the Treasure State covers the story behind a pair of recent investment scams, the Ponzi scheme conducted by Art Heffelfinger in Montana City and the Anne Schlenker's Bozeman investment theft.

It is narrated by actor Bill Pullman, and was produced by Lindeen's Office of the State Auditor through a grant from the nonprofit investment education organization Investor Protection Trust.

Missoulas screening will be held Monday, Oct. 3, at 6 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Downtown, with a second viewing in Hamilton on Tuesday, Oct. 4, at 12:30 p.m. at the Bitterroot River Inn.

In a news release Lindeen said she hopes the free screenings, which also include a meal, will help educate residents about the warning signs of fraud schemes.

The more you know how to spot the red flags of fraud, and where to turn for help and information, the less likely you are to be taken by a modern-day gold digger, Lindeen wrote in the announcement.

More information is available online at csimt.gov/fraudtour, where anyone interested in attending can RSVP for a screening.
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A recent spate of political ads on TV this week show the Montana Republican Party blaming potential job losses at Colstrip and a downturn in coal production in Montana on Steve Bullock and the Democratic Party in general. Since we have spent an inordinate amount of time looking at coal issues over the past decade and more, we feel some responsibility to try to respond to this issue so that others will not be misled by blatant coal industry propaganda.

The most basic part of this debate is that the coal industry has been in a slump both domestically and internationally for years. Most of the largest coal companies in the U.S. and most of the major coal companies mining in Wyoming and Montana have had to declare bankruptcy within the last year. The coal port proposals that were going to reinvigorate Montana coal production have all but gone away as Asia, and specifically China, cut back their coal imports as their economic growth slowed. China, like the rest of the industrialized world, is also worried about their greenhouse gas and other toxic emissions associated with coal-fired power generation. The Montana coal industry can no longer look to Asia as a means to offset shrinking domestic U.S. coal markets. This has nothing to do with who will be our next governor or our next congress-person.

In the context of the U.S. electric market, the four coal-fired generators at Colstrip will see limited demand for their electricity going forward. That is partially due to the fact that Colstrip units 1 and 2 are no longer efficient electric generators. Not only are they too costly to retrofit to meet impending pollution control standards, they also produce electricity that is too expensive for the market to want to buy. Add to this an ever-shrinking market for coal-fired electricity now that Washington, Oregon and California no longer want Montana coal-fired electricity, and you again have a market that will not support past production levels of Montana coal and Montana coal-fired electricity.

The U.S. as a whole has been moving toward natural gas and renewable sources of electricity since the turn of the new century. With the decline in the cost of building natural gas fueled electric generators, the increase in their fuel efficiency, and the glut of natural gas that has driven down prices, electric utilities long ago stopped investing in new coal-fired generators, overwhelmingly favoring natural gas over coal. Natural gas has been competitive with coal on a dollar per megawatt hour basis for the last several years, especially when it comes to less efficient coal-fired generators such as Colstrip 1 and 2. This is a market reality and not something that was put together by the Democrats.

The same economic forces that allowed for the creation of Colstrip (Environmental Protection Agency emissions regulations favoring low sulfur Montana coal) are now tightening to favor other, still cleaner sources of electricity. This will lead to lower greenhouse gas emissions (less global warming), cleaner air, longer life expectancy and a much smaller environmental footprint. The Colstrip electrical generators are largely owned by out-of-state companies (Northwestern Energy, headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, owns a minority share of only Colstrip unit 4) that will make rational economic decisions with regard to the future of the Colstrip generators. If their operation is profitable, then they will continue to operate. Colstrip 1 and 2 are slated to be decommissioned by 2022 because the owners (Talen Energy and Puget Sound Energy) decided that the energy costs were too high and the emissions from those units were too great, requiring costly retrofits to operate. Meanwhile units 3 and 4 will continue to operate because they are more efficient and they can compete in the current market.

Unless the Republicans of Montana can force China to start buying Montana coal, or they can put the cheap and abundant natural gas genie back in the bottle, their efforts at election-time political misdirection will do nothing to boost coal-fired generation and coal production in Montana. As major cheerleaders for relying on market forces, assumedly Montana Republicans will enthusiastically embrace the energy market changes that are forcing painful adjustments in the Colstrip area.
Huckleberries to Homecoming! This years celebrations offer a full week packed with events, from last Sundays Homecoming Kickoff at Southgate Mall and Mondays painting of the Hello Walk to the Homecoming Hustle 5K race kicking off just before Saturday mornings parade. Extra helpings of huckleberries to honorary Homecoming Parade Marshal William Marcus, former director of the University of Montanas Broadcast Media Center and head honcho for the 2016 Under the Big Sky Homecoming.

Chokecherries to what appears to be a serious problem with sexual harassment and hostile work environments within the National Park System, and allegations arising out of Yellowstone National Park. One equipment operator at Yellowstone recently submitted a statement to the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee describing a special projects division rife with tales of sexual exploitation of female employees and misuse of government credit cards. Investigators are looking into the claims at Yellowstone now, but the accusations follow troubling findings at national parks in other states that point to a systemic failure to address this widespread problem.

Huckleberries to Polson High School senior Marita Growing Thunder, who is designing and sewing a dress after every school day to honor missing or murdered Indigenous women. The 17-year-old member of the Fort Peck Sioux Tribe is joined by other participants of Save Our Sisters across the continent who are calling attention to the tragedy by making and wearing dresses of their own design. While Growing Thunder insists Its not about me at all, she deserves plenty of positive attention for her diligent efforts on behalf of such an important cause.

Chokecherries to the lack of funding for Court Appointed Special Advocates of Montana that led the board of directors to vote to close the organizations state office at the end of October. The nonprofit supports the work of 15 local CASA offices that train volunteers to advocate for abused and neglected children in Montanas courts. Those offices will remain open, but the CASA of Montanas uncertain financial future comes at a particularly bad time when the states child welfare system is taking on more cases than ever.

Historical huckleberries to the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula and the University of Montana for bringing Yukio Shimomura to Missoula to talk about his time in a Japanese internment camp. The 81-year-old Japanese-American veteran was only 7 years old when his family was first placed in the Topaz Camp near Delta, Utah. This past week, he gave presentations to classes at Sentinel, Hellgate and Willard Alternative high schools, as well as at UM, helping to ensure that this part of our nations history, shameful as it is, will never be forgotten. Connecting someone who lived through it with Missoula students is important.
HAMILTON  Its no simple thing to make 450 apple pies in a day.

But every year for the past 37, volunteers from the Bitterroot Valley community have gathered in October to participate in baking spree that would make Johnny Appleseed smile.

On Thursday, they gathered again at the annex of the St. Francis Catholic Church in Hamilton to create the pies that would eventually help keep the lights on all year long at the Ravalli County Museum.

The annual McIntosh Apple Days celebration thats set to hit the museums lawn at 9 a.m. sharp Saturday is the Bitterroot Valleys harbinger of fall.

When the faithful hundreds gather to pick up their $15 apple pie, they probably dont give much thought to the hundreds of hours that went into make the event a success every year.

The museums marketing and events coordinator, Sarah Monson, knows first hand just how much planning it takes to make it all come together.

On Thursday, Monson flitted back and forth between tables filled with hundreds of pies shells being expertly filled by people who often come back every year to lend a hand.

There is a lot that has to happen to make this work, Monson said. It takes a lot of math.

You have to ponder just how many sticks of butter that youll need to ensure that every pie is topped with that nice big pat that helps make all those apples melt in a persons mouth. And then theres all those supplies from last year that need to be used up.

We get here early to lay out all the pie shells so theyre ready to go when the volunteers arrive on the scene, she said.

As soon as the pies are filled with apples supplied by Swansons and Frost Top orchards and then covered in a crust or crumb topping, they are carefully transported to either the Coffee Cup restaurant or the Corvallis High School cafeteria where they are baked.

We really appreciate all that they do for us, Monson said.

Monson and a few other volunteers work to ensure the quality of the apple pies will meet the demanding tastes of the customers who come back year after year.

We are very, very careful when it comes to quality control, Monson said. We want to produce a fabulous product.

After all, there is a lot riding on the events success.

This is our major fundraiser of the year, she said. Even with the mill [vote] passing last spring, that money only pays for about one-third of the cost of the operating the museum. Were still responsible for two-thirds of the cost.

People in the valley have always stepped up to help.

We try to hold off selling the pies before 9 a.m., Monson said. We have run out as early as noon. We may have a variable with the weather this year. We might get some rain.

Monson said none of this would be possible without the hundreds of volunteers who happily give their time to make it happen.

We have folks who come back every year to help, she said. They really love this process.
There has always been this dangerous part of him that will go too far and do something that backfires, said Michael DAntonio, the author of The Truth About Trump, a new biography of the real estate mogul.

His worst impulses, he added, are self-defeating.

Over the past few days, those instincts have been on vivid display. In quick succession, Mr. Trump has repeated his critique that Ms. Machado gained a massive amount of weight after she won the Miss Universe crown in 1996; suggested that former President Bill Clintons infidelities are fair game for campaign attacks; and urged his followers to check out a sex tape that may not exist. (Ms. Machado appeared in a risque scene on a reality television show, but fact-checkers have discovered no sex tape.)

The eruptions could further damage Mr. Trumps reputation with women and Latino voters at a time when he can scarcely afford to alienate either group, five and a half weeks before Election Day.

Yet for close students of Mr. Trumps career and campaign, it all has a familiar ring. Over the years, he has issued a stream of needlessly cruel and seemingly off-the-cuff insults  both on and off social media  that have inflamed the public. He declared on Twitter that Kim Novak, a reclusive 81-year-old actress at the time, should sue her plastic surgeon, sending her into hiding. He derided the appearance of a rival, Carly Fiorina, angering female voters by asking: Can you imagine that, the face of our next president? And he criticized the mother of a slain American soldier, musing that as a Muslim woman, she was not allowed to speak.
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MISSOULA  Irish Studies at the University of Montana, in partnership with the Presidents Lecture Series, Friends of Irish Studies in the West, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Butte Archives, will host the 32nd annual American Conference of Irish StudiesWestern Regional. The conference theme is Her Exiled Children: Ireland and Irish America.

The Missoula conference is set for Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 20-22. Most events will be held at the Holiday Inn Downtown.

A full slate of activities has been organized to commemorate the Easter Rising of 1916, said Traolach O Riordain, UMs Irish Studies program director, and to celebrate the long and historic relationship between Ireland and Montana.

Guest speakers include H.E. Anne Anderson, the ambassador of Ireland to the U.S.; Gov. Steve Bullock; Professor Ruan ODonnell, chair of history at Irelands University of Limerick; Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, poet in residence at the University of Notre Dame; Breandan Feiritear, former head of Radio na Gaelachtachta and documentary filmmaker; and Myles Dungan, independent scholar and Irish radio and television broadcaster.

The event begins with a tour of Butte and Anaconda on Thursday, Oct. 20 and concludes with a banquet and celebration of Irish culture on Saturday, Oct. 22.

The Butte and Anaconda tours will be led by University of Montana Professor Emeritus of History Dave Emmons, author of The Butte Irish and Beyond the American Pale.

Delegates will be received by members of Division 1 of the Ancient Order of Hibernians at their Anaconda hall. Founded in 1885, this division is the longest continuously active division west of the Mississippi. Following a tour of the facility and town, the group travels to Butte for a reception at the Butte Archives, home to a rich repository of material relating to the history of the Irish in the West. A tour of the city follows, after which the group returns to Missoula.

Friday marks the official opening of the conference and the presentation of papers. Ellen Crain and Aubrey Jaap from the Butte Archives will present the traveling exhibit, Erins Exiled Children: Irish America and the Road to the Rising, which sets the theme for the day, focusing primarily  but not exclusively  on the Easter Rising. Dungan will present a paper titled How to Lose a Country in 16 Executions.

In addition, ODonnell will present Irish America and the 1916 Rising at 8 p.m. in the University Center Ballroom on UMs campus. It is free and open to the public.

Saturday will celebrate the historical relationship between Ireland and America in general  in particular the close connection between Ireland and Montana. The Irish love of sport is a prominent feature of Saturdays activities. Hurling, the most ancient of Irish games, is the sport, Loyola Sacred Hearts Rollin Field is the venue and teams that traveled from throughout the Northwest and Canada are set to play.

Keynote speakers for Saturday have a personal connection to Montana. Feiritear will deliver a talk titled Dragging it Home: Songs and Stories from Gaelic America. He has been following the trail of Irish-speaking emigrants and presenting his findings on radio and television for more than 40 years. His documentary on Butte, Sceal ar Butte, will be shown following his talk.

Ni Dhomhnaill will read from her large corpus of original poems and will share family stories and the memories they left from living and working in Montana.

The conference concludes with a banquet at which Irish Ambassador Anderson and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock will be guests of honor. Both will speak to the importance of the relationship between Ireland and Montana.

You can register to participate in conference or, if you can't attend all events, you can purchase tickets for the banquet. You'll find all information by going to http://hs.umt.edu/irish-studies.

For more details, call O Riordain at 406-243-6359 or email traolach.oriordain@mso.umt.edu.
An estimated 500 people converged on the Butte Civic Center Thursday night for the Butte Chamber of Commerce's annual dinner and awards announcements.

Marko Lucich, longtime chamber director who recently announced his resignation so he can focus on his health, received a standing ovation.

The chamber's annual awards went to the following:

The Mike Venner Spirit of Butte Award  presented to an individual who exemplifies the love of community that Mike had  went to Ted and Cheryl Ackerman, nominated by their daughter, Crystal Carlson. The Ackermans converted a dilapidated building in Uptown Butte into a boutique hotel, among other contributions.

The Harold McGrath Award went to the Butte Cobras hockey team, owned and operated by Michael Burks. The McGrath award recognizes a person or entity who contributed significantly to the community's quality of life.

"Typical Butte tough: Integrity and character. The Butte Cobras are what this award is all about," Leo McCarthy said in his nominating letter.

The Chief Executives Community Enhancement Award went to two entities: The Butte America Foundation/KBMF 102.5 FM, a new public radio station, and the Spirit of the Columbia Gardens Carousel, which is constructing a new building at Stodden Park to house the carousel.

"Completion of this treasure is in sight," Chief Executive Matt Vincent said of the carousel project. "This spirit of dedication and persistence is what wins them this award."

As for the radio station, Vincent said:

"Their programming has created a space for our community of thinkers. Almost all of their work is done by volunteers."

Radio station founder Clark Grant first came to Butte to the Montana Folk Festival, and the city entranced him, he said. He stayed.

"Butte needed its own voice ... it took about four years and $20,000 to get (the station) off the ground. We now run on a $50,000 budget thanks to donors and underwriters. I find so much meaning in KBMF, and I love living in Butte."
ORIGINAL NOTICE FOR PUBLICATION

The Bank of New York Mellon Trust Company, National Association fka The Bank of New York Trust Company, N.A. as successor to JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., as Trustee for Residential Asset Mortgage Products, Inc., Mortgage Asset-Backed Pass-Through Certificates Series 2005-RS4

Plaintiff,

vs.

William R. Ramsdell; Tamara L. Ramsdell; Parties in Possession, et al.

Defendants.

You are notified that a petition has been filed in the office of this court naming you as a defendant in this action. The petition was filed on May 19, 2016, and prays for foreclosure of Plaintiffs mortgage in favor of the Plaintiff on the property described in this notice and judgment for the unpaid principal amount of $63,083.06, with 4.62% per annum interest thereon from June 1, 2015, together with late charges, advances and the costs of the action including (but not limited to) title costs and reasonable attorney's fees, as well as a request that said sums be declared a lien upon the following described premises from February 10, 2005, located in Muscatine county, Iowa:

Lot 20, in Block 4, of Brook Street Addition to the City of Muscatine, in Muscatine County, Iowa, commonly known as 112 Park Avenue, Muscatine, IA 52761 (the "Property")

The petition further prays that the mortgage on the above described real estate be foreclosed, that a special execution issue for the sale of as much of the mortgaged premises as is necessary to satisfy the judgment and for other relief as the Court deems just and equitable. For further details, please review the petition on file in the clerk's office. The Plaintiffs attorney is Emily Bartekoske, of SouthLaw, P.C.; whose address is 1401 50th Street, Suite 100, West Des Moines, IA 50266.

NOTICE

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 TWELVE MONTHS (OR SIX MONTHS IF THE PETITION INCLUDES A WAIVER OF DEFICIENCY JUDGMENT) FROM THE 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 YOUR 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.

You must serve a motion or answer on or before 21st day of October, 2016, and within a reasonable time thereafter file your motion or answer with the Clerk of Court for Muscatine County, at the county 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 the assistance of auxiliary aids or services to participate in a court action because of a disability, immediately call your District ADA Coordinator at 563-326-8783. If you are hearing impaired, call Relay Iowa TTY at 1-800-735-2942.

By: Jeff Tollenaer

CLERK OF THE ABOVE COURT

Muscatine County Courthouse

401 East 3rd Street,

Muscatine, IA 52761

IMPORTANT:

YOU ARE ADVISED TO SEEK LEGAL ADVICE AT ONCE TO PROTECT YOUR INTERESTS.
The Board of Education of the Muscatine Community School District, in the County of Muscatine, State of Iowa, met in planning session on Monday, September 26, 2016 at 6 p.m. at the Administration Center. President Tammi Drawbaugh called the meeting to order. Directors Tim Bower, John Dabeet, Aaron Finn, Nathan Mather, Randy Naber, and Mary Wildermuth were present. Also present were Superintendent Jerry Riibe and Director of Finance Tom Anderson.

The board recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

President Drawbaugh welcomed visitors and media representatives.

The following spoke during Citizens Speak:

* Rebecca Paulson, 2607 Ashford Avenue, spoke in favor of reinstating Accelerated Reader at the elementary schools. * Melissa Burkamper, 2468 Clermont Road, spoke in favor of reinstating Accelerated Reader in the elementary schools.

* Gloria Carver, 3319 Clermont Drive, spoke in favor of reinstating Accelerated Reader in the elementary schools.

* Jen Metcalf, 2700 Becky Thatcher Rd, spoke in favor of reinstating Accelerated Reader in the elementary schools.

* Melanie Keele, 2447 Bobwhite Drive, spoke in favor of reinstating Accelerated Reader in the elementary schools as well as typing and keyboarding, and the interview process of recent administrative hires.

* Susie Norton, 2469 Cattail Ridge, spoke in favor of reinstating Accelerated Reader in the elementary schools.

* Jill Meineke, 3171 New Era Road, spoke in favor of reinstating Accelerated Reader in the elementary schools.

* Andrea Cassidy, 1507 New Hampshire Street, spoke in favor of reinstating Accelerated Reader in the elementary schools and having more recess time for students.

* Shawna Trosen, spoke in favor of having more recess time for students.

* Andrea Kreitner, 607 W. 4th Street, spoke in favor of reinstating Accelerated Reader, having more recess time for students, and keyboarding.

* Ricky Teed, 516 Sunrise Circle, spoke in favor of reinstating Accelerated Reader in the elementary schools and also spoke of his concerns of the math program and how it helps students that need extra help or need to advance to a higher level.

* Brian Metcalf, 2700 Becky Thatcher Road, spoke in favor of reinstating Accelerated Reader in the elementary schools and keyboarding.

A motion was made by Director Naber and seconded by Director Dabeet to approve the Resolution for Public Hearing for the sale of Washington Elementary, 610 Maiden Lane, for Monday, October 10, 2016 at 7 p.m. in Council Chambers at City Hall. All ayes; motion carried.

Administration and staff then presented information on the following topics:

* The district's Data Management System.

* Demographics.

* District Achievement Targets.

* ELA programming for K-5 students.

* Master Facility Planning.

Information on finances and human resources was tabled due to time constraints until the next board work session, Monday, October 24, 2016.

A motion was made by Director Wildermuth and seconded by Director Naber to adjourn the meeting. All ayes; motion carried. Time: 8:51 p.m.

Tammi Drawbaugh, President

Lisa Mosier Bunn, Secretary
The Muscatine County Board of Supervisors met in regular session at 9:00 A.M. with Howard, Kelly, Sorensen, Sauer and Bonebrake present. Chairperson Sorensen presiding.

On a motion by Kelly, second by Bonebrake, the agenda was approved as presented. Ayes: All.

On a motion by Kelly, second by Howard, the Chairperson was authorized to execute a Governor's Traffic Safety Bureau (GTSB) Impaired Driving Countermeasures Grant Contract in the amount of $34,000. Ayes: All.

Community Services Director Mike Johannsen updated the Board on General Assistance. Johannsen stated expenditures are at 13.59% with a target of 16.67%. Johannsen stated expanded Title IX has helped Muscatine County reduce costs drastically in the areas of prescriptions, medical and hospitalization.

Johannsen updated the Board on Veterans Affairs. Johannsen stated expenditures are at 14.22% with a target of 16.67%. Veterans Affairs Director Jennifer Watkins-Schoenig stated from September 2013 - September 2014 $14,703,000 was spent on veterans in Muscatine County in comparison to September 2014 - September 2015 in which $16,381,000 was spent on Muscatine County veterans. Watkins-Schoenig stated she is looking for volunteers to drive the van that takes veterans to appointments at the VA Hospital. Sauer suggested parking the van in a visible location with a banner advertising for drivers. Watkins-Schoenig stated veterans can now get veteran designation placed on their driver license directly through the Department of Transportation.

Johannsen updated the Board on Case Management. Community Services Assistant Director Kathy Anderson-Noel stated they are currently serving 153 people through Case Management. Anderson-Noel stated they have had good experience with Amerihealth as a managed care provider. Anderson-Noel stated they bill a month in arrears, but the current reimbursement rate is covering Muscatine County's cost. Anderson-Noel stated two new service areas that were previously seen annually through DHS will now be seen monthly through case management.

Johannsen updated the Board on Trust Services stating Muscatine County's Trust Services program has expanded throughout the Eastern Iowa Mental Health Region and the State is looking to offer the service throughout the State of Iowa. Johannsen stated there are 213 trust cases of which 65 are guardianships, 38 are conservatorships and the remaining cases are payee.

Johannsen updated the Board on Eastern Iowa Regional Mental Health Services. Johannsen stated the expenditures are 13.44% with a target of 16.67%. Johannsen stated the region has a healthy fund balance, but will be seeing some funding designated for crisis stabilization, permanent supported housing, HIPAA compliance, quality measures and evidence based practices. Johannsen stated a top priority of the Eastern Iowa Mental Health Region is to study whether or not to establish a dedicated CEO and/or administrative assistant positions. Johannsen stated the crisis stabilization effort has been the biggest benefit of regionalization.

County Engineer Keith White updated the Board on secondary roads construction projects and two outstanding FEMA projects from FY2013.

On a motion by Kelly, second by Sauer, the Board approved the following utility permits: CenturyLink - installation of equipment and power at the intersection of Sweetland Road and 180th Street; CenturyLink - installation of fiber optic cable and equipment on Vail Avenue between New Era Road to just north of Pine Creek. Ayes: All.

County Engineer Keith White stated he is seeing many campaign signs wrongly placed in the right-of-way on County roads. White stated the signs need to be on the private property, not in the right-of-way.

On a motion by Bonebrake, second by Howard, the Board approved a renewal application for a Class E Liquor License, Class B Wine Permit, Class C Beer Permit and Sunday Sales Permit for Reif Oil Company, dba Stewart Road Fast Break, 2418 Stewart Road, Muscatine, IA 52761. Ayes: All.

The Muscatine County Board of Supervisors met as a Board of Canvassers for the Muscatine Community School District Physical Plant and Equipment Levy Special Election held on Tuesday, September 13, 2016. The Board certified the following results to be a true and correct abstract of the votes cast in the election: Yes Votes: 388; No Votes: 99; Total Votes: 487. Public Measure B was adopted.

On a motion by Kelly, second by Sauer, minutes of the Monday, September 12, 2016 regular meeting were approved as written. Ayes: All.

Correspondence:

All Supervisors reported a call from John Beckey regarding the Muscatine Hospital Board.

Sorensen reported a contact from a citizen requesting a turn lane at Hwy 61 and Vail Avenue.

Kelly reported a call from Jessup, IA regarding the beavers.

Committee Reports:

Sorensen attended a Regional Workforce Investment Board meeting September 12th.

Sauer attended a Muscatine County Fair Board meeting September 15th.

Bonebrake and Sauer attended the Farm Bureau Annual Meeting September 12th.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:55 A.M.

ATTEST:

Leslie A. Soule, County Auditor Jeff Sorensen, Chairperson

Board of Supervisors
MUSCATINE  Two Muscatine High School Hall of Honor inductees hope students will learn that hard work, perseverance, Iowa values and accepting help from others can allow anyone to reach their goals.

Lieutenant Colonel Candice Frost and Roy Carver Jr. were formally inducted into the MHS Hall of Honor on Friday. The former MHS students said they were honored to be considered, and to be part of their alma maters homecoming celebration.

It means a lot to come home and see the values and the comradery of Muscatine High School hasnt changed since I graduated in 1994, Frost said.

She said she enjoyed the school spirit she saw, and said the students were an inspiration to her.

There are very few places Ive been in the world where I can, first-hand, see the compassion and caring of a student body like here in Muscatine, she said.

Frost, a member of the U.S. Army, said the honor was unexpected, and she urged students to remember to accept help from those around them. Her guidance counselor, she said, was the reason she attended the U.S. Military Academy.

I think one of the most important things that continue from when I graduated until today is that students realize no one ever does it alone. You really do need the assistance of your classmates, your teachers, your parents, and they can help you along the way and in the decisions that you make, she said.

Iowa ethics, Frost said, have also followed her and have helped her work hard to reach her goals.

These students understand a hard days work; they understand grit and what it means to persevere and make it through. You can see it right now in Cedar Rapids: Iowans come together when theres a call, she said.

As the first female assigned to an infantry brigade, Frost said she has learned that not everyone is accepting of women, or the other.

But through hard work, you can really make change within the system, she said.

As students look toward the future and begin to make decisions that will shape their careers and lives, Frost hopes the young women and men will pursue their goals.

My hope is that I can inspire them to achieve the highest of heights, she said.

Roy Carver Jr., whose father established the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust and Carver Pump in Muscatine, said he was surprised to be chosen for the Hall of Honor at MHS.

It is an honor because there are so many wonderful real giants of Muscatine that were here before, and its hard to believe Im sitting on the same wall as those people, Carver said.

He said he has been honored to be part of guiding the Carver Trust, through different economies and difficulties, and remaining able to give back to the community. Carver said he hopes MHS students will realize that success is not achieved alone.

Theyre all team efforts, he said.

Carver told the students at Fridays homecoming assembly that many great people were needed to make a business successful, and they should strive to be one of those people and continue to learn as they grow.

I would encourage you all to be curious, he said.

During his time at MHS, Carver said he learned about himself, his likes and dislikes, and how to shape his future.

Enjoy what youre doing, he said.

Matilyn Hepker, a senior at MHS, said one of Principal Jared Smith's comments resonated with her.

These recipients sat in the same seats that we did and got ready for the same homecoming game and the same pep assemblies and have gone through the same daily tasks that we have as Muscatine High School students, and now theyre standing in front of this huge body of students, Hepker said.

Its definitely inspiring, senior Sarah Spellman said.

Frost and Carver both encouraged students to pursue their goals, and to know that those around them will be pivotal in helping them achieve success.

Through hard work and determination, you can really achieve all the life goals youve ever sought, Frost said.
MUSCATINE, Iowa  The entire Muscatine High School gymnasium erupted with cheers Thursday night as James Terry and Katie Hanssen were crowned Homecoming King and Queen.

Friends and family members surrounded the pair, and tears of happiness were shed all around. Last years Homecoming King and Queen, Isaiah Smith and Larkin Chapman, said they were happy to pass their crowns to Terry and Hanssen.

I was so proud to be able to pass my crown on to Katie, I know that shes always been friends with everybody and Im just so proud of her and just this whole school for nominating such a wonderful person, Chapman said.

For Smith, the expression on Terrys face was the best part of the announcement.

It was really cool to see James reaction, I kind of had a feeling he was going to be the one, and just to see his excitement on his face just definitely made it so worth it, Smith said.

Terry has had a musical high school career, from jazz band to chorus, and plans to participate in the MHS Transition Program, and explore future education opportunities with the University of Iowa REACH (Realizing Educational and Career Hopes) Program. He said he was not even a little surprised to be named Homecoming King.

Im so happy, he said.

Hanssen, who has been a cheerleader at MHS, also hopes to attend the University of Iowa REACH Program. She said she was surprised.

Im really happy, she said.

Their parents also said they were excited to see their children receive the crowns.

A lot of happiness for all the kids; I mean obviously they love James and Katie and its a pretty special thing, said Pete Terry, James' father.

Katies mother, Marcie Hanssen, said she was also happy for all of the students who nominated and voted for her daughter.

I think its a testament to the entire Muscatine High School that they nominated Katie to be on homecoming and then she actually won, I think its a great thing and the tribute goes to the entire high school for allowing her to be Katie, she said.

Marcie Hanssen said her daughter told her when she was younger that she was going to be a cheerleader and Homecoming Queen.

I didnt believe her, but she proved me wrong both times. Thats pretty cool, she said.
MUSCATINE, Iowa The first concert of the Muscatine Symphony Orchestra's 2016-17 season will be held Saturday, and both the conductor and guest artist are excited for the show.

The concert,MasterWorks I: "Masterfully Dvorak," will be the first in the MastorWorks season.

The guest artist, Anthony Arnone, says he looks forward to playing his cello during the performance. Arnone said he has known the orchestra's conductor, Brian Dollinger, and has played with MSO in the past.

"Its always fun to work with him and the orchestra," he said.

The program will feature the music of Antonin Dvorak, whom Arnone said was known for his connection to Iowa, where he wrote some of his music. He said he is especially excited to play Dvorak's "Cello Concerto in B minor."

"I will take any chance I can get to play the Dvorak Cello Concerto," he said.

Arnone is a professor at the University of Iowa, and he said all ages should feel encouraged to attend the concert.

"Theres great music in every category and the music on Saturday is great music," he said.

He said some of the songs will have rock and roll elements, and other fun features. Although one piece will be long, and not everyone will be familiar with the music, Arnone said listeners will be able to appreciate the talents of those on stage.

"Approach it with an open mind," he said.

The performance will be held at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Central Auditorium at Ninth and Cedar streets. Tickets are available at Hy-Vee and at the door, and are $15 for adults, $12 for seniors, and free for students.
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 []
Communications Minister Faith Muthambi says the revival of the electronic manufacturing sector will help South Africa achieve the growth targets set out in the Nine-Point Plan.

The Minister was speaking at an interactive session of the 1st Summit of the NexTV CEO Africa 2016 in Port Louis, Mauritius, on Thursday.

As government, we are overwhelmed by the manner in which South Africans are embracing digital migration South Africans including those in the most remote areas, have shown us that they are aware that everyone on the African continent and the entire world is going through a television revolution of migrating from analogue to digital broadcasting.

While South Africans are indicating to us that they want to move away from the outdated analogue system, as government, we believe that one way of making our Nine-Point Plan a reality is to revive the manufacturing of television sets.

 [The interest shown by our people] in digital migration gives us hope that by reviving the manufacturing of TVs in small and medium enterprises, this will help us to bring down the price of flat screen TVs and ensure that we create employment opportunities for our people, she said.

South Africa has already begun the transition from analogue to digital terrestrial television broadcasting in the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) area in the Northern Cape and other border-lying provinces.

On Monday, the Minister was at Xigalo village in Limpopo where she was invited by a local church to educate congregants about digital migration. She also used her visit to the rural village to distribute free set-top boxes (STBs), which were connected to analogue TV sets in poor households.

TV owners need to either acquire a STB to connect their analogue TV or purchase a digital television set, which has an inbuilt digital tuner. A set-top box is a device which converts the signals from a digital television broadcast into a form which can be viewed on a traditional television set.

Governments programme of distributing free STBs to five million households is underway in earnest.

Bua-Microtronix Manufacturing CEO, Thulani Ngesi, is also attending NexTV CEO Africa. The company specialises in PC board assembly for the mining, military, automotive and various commercial industries.

 We are here to expand our footprint. The message that I want to send back home is that everybody in the continent has now realised that digital migration is a reality said Ngesi.

Bessie Tugwana from the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), said:  Through this engagement, as the public broadcaster, we are far ahead of most African countries in terms of using the modern technologies in the broadcasting space.

The two-day summit provides a unique opportunity for networking amongst CEOs and top executives in the technology, media, and content and cable TV industries.

More on digital TV

How the ANCs Digital TV mess is costing you money

DStv, Communications Department take Etv to court over digital TV

Faith Muthambi takes on Blade Nzimande over digital TV
A recent report released by Bank of America Merrill Lynch has revealed the biggest reasons why people are upgrading to the iPhone 7.

Longer battery life was the number one reason people are upgrading, followed closely by the phones waterproof capabilities.

For those of you in South Africa looking to pick up Apples latest smartphone, the local release date and pricing was recently revealed.

Check out the other reasons given below:

Are you picking up Apples new smartphone? Let us know in the comments below and in our forums.

More gaming news

Intel Skylake Core i3 processors are powerful enough for high-end gaming

The truth behind the porn game kids played at Panarottis

This is the porn game kids were playing at Panarottis
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates  A bill passed by Congress allowing the families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi government has prompted reactions of outrage and ridicule among some in the Arab world. Many critics say the bill reinforces a long-held perception in the Middle East that the U.S. only demands justice for its own victims of terrorism, despite decades of controversial U.S. interventions around the world.

Others support the bill, but point out that the U.S. is meanwhile backing a Saudi-led intervention in Yemen that has led to the deaths of thousands of civilians there.

Two Arabic hashtags were trending on Twitter when the bill was passed, one referring directly to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA, and the other simply titled: #TheAmericanTerrorism.

Some Arabic Twitter users shared a photo montage that depicted U.S. military actions in Japan and Vietnam, as well as naked Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison being humiliated by smiling U.S. troops. It read: Japan, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan cant wait for JASTA to be implemented so they can, in turn, prosecute the U.S.

Another shared a 2005 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial cartoon of a young boy on his fathers lap watching an image of the Hiroshima mushroom cloud and asking: Which terrorist group did that?

One post shared more than 750 times included a clip with Arabic subtitles of stand-up American comedian Eddie Griffin talking about U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying these wars are about money, money, money.

The criticism, of course, is nothing new, says Eurasia Groups Director for the Middle East and North Africa Ayham Kamel.

The Middle East, as a region where the U.S. has been dominant, has always been critical of U.S. policy, he said.

The U.S., for example, has supported unpopular leaders in the region, such as the Shah of Iran until 1979 and Egypts Hosni Mubarak until 2011. Both were ousted from power after mass protests.

In America, though, the feeling is the U.S. does more good than bad, Kamel said. I think theres a genuine disconnect and its not a new thing ... No matter what the U.S. does.

Yemen-based lawyer Haykal Bafana said hes lost relatives and friends to al-Qaida attacks in Yemen and fully agrees with the legislations intent of allowing lawsuits in U.S. federal courts against foreign countries for actions alleged to have contributed to acts of terrorism in the United States.

But, he also had just one word to describe the bill: Hypocrisy.

Thats the only way to see it, Bafana said, pointing to White House support of the 18-month-long Saudi-led intervention in Yemen and U.S. drone strikes launched from Saudi Arabia that have killed Yemeni civilians.

Stephen Kinzer, a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, said the war in Yemen may have actually contributed to a more anti-Saudi stance among members of the U.S. Congress, who have expressed their concerns about Washingtons involvement.

Even so, outside the U.S. the bill could reinforce a widespread view in the world that the U.S. seeks to dominate and dictate rules to others, said Kinzer.

They could easily see it as yet another chapter in the more than century-long history of Americans trying to apply their standards and laws to the whole world, he said.

Existing law allows lawsuits in the U.S. to be brought against countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism, such as Sudan, Syria and Iran. JASTA expands that to allow any foreign country to be brought to trial for alleged involvement in terrorism acts on U.S. soil.

The bill was passed Wednesday by both the Senate and House, overriding President Barack Obamas veto.

In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid ahead of the vote, Obama wrote the U.S. relies on the principles of sovereign immunity to prevent foreign courts from second-guessing its counterterrorism operations and other actions taken daily.

Reciprocal lawsuits abroad could subject U.S. service members to litigation. Foreign courts could also decide whether classified U.S. government information is required in trials.

My opposition to JASTA is based primarily on its potential impact on the United States, Obama wrote. The United States has a larger international presence, by far, than any other country  we are active in a lot more places than any other country, including Saudi Arabia.

The bill doesnt take into account the foreign policy or national security interests of the United States, said Adam Ereli, a former State Department spokesman and former ambassador to Bahrain.

Certainly this bill doesnt win America any friends, Ereli said.

Bafana, however, said he doesnt think courts in Saudi Arabia or other Gulf Arab countries will seek a reciprocal lifting of sovereign immunity on U.S. government personnel because theyve cooperated with Washington in sensitive counterterrorism operations and missions.

They cant turn around and say we want to try you for war crimes because it would be like accusing yourself, he said.
ROME  Police investigating suspected Italian mobsters for cocaine trafficking discovered two Van Gogh paintings hidden in a farmhouse near Naples, masterpieces that had vanished in 2002 during a nighttime heist at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum, authorities said Friday.

The two paintings were "considered among the artworks most searched for in the world, on the FBI's list of the Top 10 art crimes," Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said.

They were found in a farmhouse near Castellammare di Stabia as Italian police seized some 20 million euros ($22 million) worth of assets, including farmland, villas and apartments and a small airplane. Investigators contend those assets are linked to two Camorra drug kingpins, Mario Cerrone and Raffaele Imperiale, according to a statement by prosecutors Giovanni Colangelo and Filippo Beatrice.

The recovered masterpieces, propped up on easels, were unveiled for reporters Friday at a news conference in Naples. Museum director Axel Rueger said Italian investigators contacted the museum earlier in the week and art experts determined the paintings were authentic.

"Needless to say, it's a great day for us today," Rueger told Sky TG24 TV. "We hope they are soon back where they belong."

With their frames removed and covered by cotton cloths, the paintings appeared to be in relatively good condition despite their long odyssey, the museum said.

One of the paintings, the 1882 "Seascape at Scheveningen," is one of Vincent Van Gogh's first major works. It depicts a boat setting off into a stormy sea, and the thick paint trapped grains of sand that blew up from the Dutch beach as Van Gogh worked on it over two days.

The other is a 1884-85 work, "Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen," which depicts a church in the southern Netherlands where the artist's father was the pastor. Experts believe it was done for Van Gogh's mother.

Despite the wishes of the museum, the paintings are not leaving Italy anytime soon. They are evidence in an investigation of whether gangsters from the Camorra crime syndicate were behind the original theft or might have become involved with the artworks later.

The Camorra is one of Italy's three largest organized crime syndicates, with the Calabria-based 'ndrangheta by far the most powerful. The Camorra consists of many crime clans, based in Naples as well as many of the Campania region's small towns.

Financial Police. Col. Giovanni Salerno said investigators looking into the syndicate's cocaine trafficking operations got a tip that the Camorra might have the Van Gogh artworks.

"One of those being investigated made some significant comments about their illegal investments made with earnings from drug trafficking, and he indicated two paintings of great value that supposedly were purchased by Imperiale. They were the result of a theft carried out in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam almost 14 years ago," Colangelo, the chief prosecutor in Naples, told reporters.

When renowned masterpieces are stolen, it's usually a theft commissioned by a private collector who has already agreed to buy them, since it's virtually impossible to sell them in the legitimate art market.

The Camorra and other Italian crime syndicates, awash in illegal revenues from drug trafficking, designer-goods counterfeiting and toxic waste dealings, are increasingly looking to launder their dirty profits and make even more money in the process.

Salerno said a person at the farmhouse when the paintings were found "didn't say a word" about how they wound up there. He declined to elaborate, saying the case is still under investigation.

The museum said the paintings, inspected by a curator, do show "some damage." Authorities don't know where the paintings were kept in the 14 years since they were stolen by thieves who broke into the museum overnight and made off with the works from the main exhibition hall, where dozens of Van Gogh paintings were on display.

The seascape painting had some paint in the bottom left corner broken away, while the other painting had "a few minor damages at the edges of the canvas," a museum statement said.

Police who arrived at the Amsterdam museum on Dec. 7, 2002, discovered a 4.5-meter (15-foot) ladder leaning against the rear of the building.

The thieves had apparently climbed up to the second floor using a ladder and broke in through a window, according to Dutch police at the time. Within a year, Dutch authorities had arrested two suspects, but the paintings' whereabouts remained a mystery  until Italian authorities searched the farmhouse.

"After all these years, you no longer dare count on a possible return," Rueger said. "The paintings have been found! That I would be able to ever pronounce these words is something I had no longer dared to hope for."
Eric Sternberg of Sapphire Journeys announced that he recently returned from CoNexion, one of the travel agency industrys biggest events, Sept. 14-17 in San Diego.

As part of a group of approximately 400 travel agents and another 200 industry experts, Sternberg connected with leading experts in the travel industry and learn more about the many tools and resources Nexion provides to better serve Napa-area travelers, said a news release.
POCAHONTAS ISLAND, Va.  He roams from house to house along the quiet streets of this little neighborhood, giving voice to its history and spirits. The collection of modest homes, tucked between an empty lumber factory and an abandoned rail yard, doesnt look like a rare and haunted place.

But in Richard Stewarts eyes, Pocahontas Island is alive with an unexpectedly dramatic past. Using a black magic marker, Stewart scrawls the words of 12 generations of ancestors on old porch rails, doorways and window frames.

Aint no looking back master Im at the promised land.

1861-65 we were called black confederate

Nat Turner father sold less than a mile from here

Pocahontas Island70 acres in the middle of the Appomattox River next to downtown Petersburgis home to one of the oldest African-American communities in the United States. Pocahontas became a town in 1752, a center of tobacco trade and, later, shipping and railroads. White people lived here, too, but the community always had African-Americans at its heart.

The richness of the soil and its historycant no money replace that. This is my holy land, Stewart said. This is my place.

A retired federal worker, Stewart, 72, has used his pension and a little family money to buy several properties on Pocahontas Island and create a homespun historical park. Its solitary, back-breaking work. He cuts the grass, patches walls, even reframes collapsed roofs. He installed a Black History Museum in one of his houses, and he painted the others in eye-catching colors, festooning them with flags to catch attention.

If his work seems a little frantic, thats because Stewart is trying to capture something even well-funded museums struggle to conjure: the soul of a place. Pocahontas Island is significant not just because its old, but for its connections to the Revolutionary War, the slave rebellions of the early 1800s, the Underground Railroad and the Civil War.

You may have a museum in Washington, D.C., Stewart said, but we are on natural ground. We are on land where slaves walked, where abolitionists walked. This is our native land.

Stewart grew up here when it was still full of life, and he swam in the river and played Civil War in the woods. He was orphaned by age 16, but others on the island looked out for him. He left to work for the military and civil service, but always came back. As the neighbors got older, some gave him discounts to buy their property, with the understanding that he would take care of it. So, it became his lifes work.

And along the way, he absorbed stories.

One of his ancestors, Charles Stewart, was profiled in an 1884 edition of Harpers Monthly magazine under the headline, My Life as a Slave. Richard Stewart tells how Charles, who had money because he was a champion horse trainer, went to Richmond to buy a wife for $350.

After four years, Betsey Dandridge had borne him three children and done untold amounts of laundry and cooking. But Charles grew frustrated that she wouldnt give up voodoo, Richard Stewart said. So he took her back to Richmond, sold herand the childrenfor $350 and used the money to buy a horse. Betsey and the children wound up somewhere in Chesterfield County, but Richard Stewart doesnt know their fates.

Slaves and free blacks lived side by side on Pocahontas Island, which was a port on the Appomattox before joining the city of Petersburg. It became an island after a canal was built in the late 1700s. Today, its more of a peninsula, as the main channel of the river clogged after a flood in the early 1970s.

Petersburg was one of the busiest slave markets in the old South, but it also had one of the highest concentrations of free blacks, attracted by jobs and by the presence of a community of their own. For a time, in the spirit of liberty after the Revolutionary War, a few planters freed their slaves.

And Pocahontas Island was where many went to live. That means history has played out here from an African American point of view from before the Revolution until today.

It is an active African American community that has direct ties to that period of not only Petersburg but Virginia history, and by extension the nations history, said Louis Malon of the nonprofit Preservation Virginia, which plans to catalog sites on the island beginning this month. In 2014, the organization listed Pocahontas Island as one of the most endangered historic sites in the state.

About 50 houses, one chapel and a community center are laid out on five streets. The population is down to roughly 60 people, from a high of several hundred in the mid-20th century, and all the stores and businesses are gone. The only brick building is the Jarrett House, built in 1810 and once home to a free black woman and her children. The city of Petersburg bought it and has stabilized it, but is mired in budget woes, so restoration is on hold.

Richmond writer and entrepreneur Free Egunfemi discovered Pocahontas Island when researching her familys history, and has become a passionate advocate, writing articles in a local news blog.

It is a place, Egunfemi said, of self-reliance and black freedom.

The rooms of Stewarts history museum are crammed with too much for the eye to take in. He has slave shackles, countless pictures and artifacts dug up from nearby yards: a dolls head, iron locks, bottles, shells. The 1860 sheet music for the Virginia Polka by Tom the Blind Negro Boy Pianist sits next to a one-year contract to hire a slave in 1836. And all of it is papered with hand-lettered signs, some listing rolls of blacks who fought in the Revolution or even for the Confederacy.

Outside, Stewart has bought the small house next door, which he said was built in the early 1800s by a mixed-race man whose white mother sold him into slavery as a child because she couldnt be seen with him. Stewart painted it pink and yellow and covered it with words and pictures related to Nat Turner.

At least one man who helped Turners bloody slave rebellion in 1831 in nearby Southampton County hid, for a time, in the woods on Pocahontas Island, Stewart said.

Folks here provided him food, he said.

This is the kind of detail of history thats hard to prove. Stewart has the word of older generations, but not much was documented in any formal way.

Across the street stands an empty duplex wrapped in faux-stone composite paper. Stewart doesnt own this house, but he watches over it nonetheless. According to city records, the house was built in 1809, and according to local lore, it was a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Look up under here, Stewart said on a visit, pointing to a hole in the homes foundation. This will give you an idea what the Underground Railroad was like. Below the house is a dirt-floored crawl space, unusual for this area, and just high enough for an adult to stand upright. Even more striking: a brick fireplace, directly beneath the main fireplace of the home. Soot still stains the bricks from where someonea runaway slave?once made fires.

Some of the islands landmarks remain in memory only. Where the empty lumber factory stands was once a home that belonged to Joseph Jenkins Roberts, who ran a small fishing business while cutting hair in Petersburg. He left in 1829the state had appropriated money to send blacks back to Africa, Stewart said. In 1847, Roberts became the first elected president of Liberia. Pocahontas Island used to hold an annual festival in his honor.

Stewart talks about slavery in an offhand way that can seem jarring. He credits his stature and strong build to what many regard as the myth of selective breeding. In colorful terms, he tells how mixed-race children were sent to live on the island: We had a lot of out-of-wedlock mulattos over here. You might have seen a child walking along over here white as snow, and [the] mama walking along dark as a bag of coal.

His stories have a way of making a troubling past seem disconcertingly close. And to Stewart, it is.

When he looks at the issues of todayracial tensions, police shootings, economic disparitieshe sees their roots in the post-traumatic stress of slavery. Emancipation was left unfinished. Families who never accumulated wealth or property had nothing to pass down to their children, who could never break the cycle of poverty.

The post-traumatic stress of slavery did not leave you any generational wealth, he said, and thats whats wrong with America, in my opinion.

In 1993, Pocahontas Island was devastated by a tornado that also destroyed significant parts of downtown Petersburg. Two good things came of it, Stewart said: College students and other outsiders descended on the neighborhood to help it clean up. And an old junkyard was cleared away.

Previous owners, he said, had prohibited locals from cutting through the junkyard to get to the Appomattox River, where Stewart grew up playing under the trestles of a bridge that Robert E. Lee once crossed on his way to Richmond.

I told God if I ever got a chance to buy this property, theyd never deny my people going to the river again, Stewart said. So when I got the chance, I bought it.

On slow daysmost daysStewart likes to walk on the path along the riverbank. He takes stock of his property, and worries about the work still ahead. At his age, he said, hes running out of energy. He doesnt know whether Pocahontas Islands traditions will survive beyond him.

But he tells himself hes done everything he could. Your history is here. Its living. Its American history, thats whats here, he said. I walk the nature trail and look at Pocahontas and see the spirits of yesterday. I know I sound crazy. I see the spirits of yesterday, and they speak to me and tell me Im doing all right.
Arts Council Napa Valley (ACNV) announced that The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has awarded a $270,000 grant to the countys arts and culture agency to service general operating support.

The Hewlett Foundation -- which concentrates its resources on activities in education, the environment, global development and population, the performing arts, and effective philanthropy -- will make funds available to ACNV as a three-year general operating support grant beginning in 2016 and ending in 2018.

Through The Hewlett Foundations investment, ACNV will continue its ongoing mission to create a flourishing creative culture for Napa County residents. The grant will serve to further ACNV's initiatives by providing every student with a comprehensive arts education, bringing art to public spaces, and nurturing the arts through community festivals and events.

The foundation's grant will help launch ACNVs new ACNV Community Fund, which plans to provide capital to local organizations and artists in an effort to deepen the impact of arts and culture locally.

The Hewlett Foundation money will also support the ACNV Education Alliance, a public-private partnership that oversees access to arts education for all children in transitional kindergarten-12th grade public schools; implementation of Napas 1 percent Art Ordinance; the Napa ARTwalk Program and the annual Arts in April festival.
Napa Vice Mayor Mary Luros has raised twice the funding of two other City Council candidates since July, but her challenger, Doris Gentry, is ahead of both incumbents in the years overall campaign financing race.

Luros, a local attorney who was appointed to the council in 2015, received $25,579 against spending of $16,041 between July 1 and Sept. 24 to bring her total contributions to $34,183, according to Form 460 campaign forms the candidates were required to file with the city by Thursday.

Her summertime fundraising exceeded that of her fellow council member Scott Sedgley, who reported $12,098, and the $12,475 given to Gentry. Expenditures for the period totaled $9,737 by Sedgley and $17,911 for Gentry.

Gentry, however, has received the most donations overall, attracting $37,783 since the start of the year  more than $3,000 more than Luros and well ahead of Sedgleys $19,598. Her campaign spending for the year has reached $36,048, versus Luros $29,404 and $10,583 by Sedgley.

A longtime community volunteer who twice ran for the state Assembly as a Republican, Gentry is seeking one of the seats held by Luros and Sedgley, who was elected in 2012 after 28 years as a Napa city firefighter. Gentry finished third that year in a two-seat contest.

The Doctors Company, a Napa-based medical malpractice insurance firm, made the largest donation to Luros during the July-September period with a $2,500 gift Sept. 18. The second largest donation was $1,250 from Jeff Leib, a lawyer in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills.

Seven donors each gave Luros $1,000, including Luros Napa law firm, the campaign of county Supervisor-elect Belia Ramos, Planning Commissioner Michael Murray and the art studio of city Planning Commissioner Gordon Huether. The other $1,000 donors are the Napa development company of George Altamura, Wine Country Inc. of Napa and Cathy DAngelo Holmes, a commercial real estate broker.

Gentrys summer-season donations also included $1,000 from Altamura and the same amount from Napa-based G.D. Nielson Construction Inc., construction company owner Jeffrey A. Berger, Knollwood Vineyards north of the city and Vesta Pacific Development, the San Diego company that bought the Napa Valley Registers old downtown office last year and will replace it with townhouses and retail space.

Topping the contributions to Sedgley is $2,500 from Third Street Napa Development, whose agent Thomas McComic has the same listed San Diego address as the Register site owner Vesta Pacific. The Doctors Company, which gave money to the incumbent Luros, also provided Sedgley $1,500, as did the campaign of county Supervisor Alfredo Pedroza, the former Napa councilman whom Luros replaced last year.

Donations of $1,000 each came from Altamura, the Napa developer, and from Minnesota-based Oppidan Investment Co., which is applying to build a seniors home in north Napa on land owned by Justin-Siena High School.

Despite facing no opponents on the Nov. 8 ballot, Mayor Jill Techel also raised $4,000 and spent $2,965 from July to September. Altamura and U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson each donated $1,000 to Techel, who also received four donations of $500 each, including one from The Doctors Company.

For the year, Techels campaign has raised $32,950 and spent $7,695.
Napa County Supervisors Diane Dillon and Keith Caldwell will travel 5,500 miles to represent the county at the Great Wine Capitals conference in Porto, Portugal.

Agricultural Commissioner Greg Clark will also attend the event from Nov. 5 to Nov. 11. The estimated cost is up to $17,500 in public money.

Great Wine Capitals is a network of nine wine destinations across the globe, including San Francisco/Napa Valley. Napa County began sending the agricultural commissioner and one supervisor to the annual conference in 2006 and in 2008 increased the Board representation to two supervisors.

Local wine industry and tourism officials also attend, though not using county money.

The county Board of Supervisors last week approved the travel expenses for Dillon and Caldwell, as well as Clark. It also agreed Dillon should serve as one of the Boards two representatives through 2018.

Dillon said county government was asked to participate, encouraged to participate, urged to participate in the annual conferences by the local wine industry. The county learns important things about its prime industry and economic engine, she said.

From 2006 through 2013, the Board of Supervisors had then-Supervisor Bill Dodd as one of its representatives. Since then, it has rotated supervisors into both Board slots.

Dillon said that Great Wine Capitals colleagues expect at least one Napa County supervisor to be a semi-permanent designee. She said the county would also benefit from this arrangement because a supervisor attending multiple years builds up knowledge.

You work a lot, Dillon said. You participate in committee meetings. There are things to read and study and (you) engage with your colleagues from around the world and get their perceptions of what is happening with the worldwide wine economy. It has a definite impact on what happens here.

Board Chairman Alfredo Pedroza, who traveled with Dillon last year to Spain for the conference, agreed the county needs a semi-permanent designee.

The value definitely is in the continuity, Pedroza said. You develop those relationships.

That left the question of who should receive the four-year term.

I think since Supervisor Dillon has gone two years in a row, continue that continuity, make her the representative moving forward, Caldwell said. I guess another two years would be the recommendation.

The Board then agreed that Dillon should also attend the conferences in 2017 and 2018 at destinations that have not been announced. Along with 2015 and 2016, that would give her a four-year term.

Supervisors wanted the remaining slot to remain rotational so everyone has a chance to go. Supervisor Mark Luce, who traveled with Supervisor Brad Wagenknecht to Argentina in 2014, said the trips provide significant value.

I think we all should take every opportunity to get there and experience that, Luce said. Its not like a wine tour. Youre visiting with government officials. Youre visiting with visitor professionals.

But Dillon noted not every supervisor may get to travel. Twice when her turn came up before, Napa was the host for the assembly, she said.

Great Wine Capitals was founded in 1999 to encourage travel and business exchanges among wine regions. Members are Adelaide, South Australia; Bilbao/Rioja, Spain; Bordeaux, France; Cape Town/Cape Winelands, South Africa; Mainz/Rheinhessen, Germany; Mendoza, Argentina; Porto, Portugal; Valparaiso/Casablanca Valley, Chile and San Francisco/Napa Valley.
BERLIN

Police called as larger-than-life Hitler appears in Berlin

A huge moving image of a laughing Adolf Hitler has prompted a shocked Berlin driver to call police.

Police say they received a call Monday about the apparition, which turned out to be part of an art installation.

The incident was a test for a video light show in which the faces of more than a dozen famous people tied to Berlins history are projected onto buildings in the center of the German capital. Only Hitler is silent.

Displays of Nazi imagery that glorify the Third Reich are forbidden in Germany, but police spokeswoman Valeska Jakubowski said Thursday the Hitler apparition was covered by exceptions granted for artistic works.

The installation is part of a month-long light show that starts Friday and runs through Oct. 23.

MOSCOW

Russia accuses U.S. of threatening support for nuclear attack

The Russian Foreign Ministry is accusing the Pentagon of making a veiled threat to back its allies in an attack on Russia with nuclear weapons.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Monday accused Russia of nuclear saber-rattling and argued that even though the Cold War is long over, nuclear weapons are still needed to deter Russia and other potential aggressors from thinking they could get away with a nuclear attack.

Moscow responded Thursday by saying that Carters statement amounted to the U.S. threatening to use its nuclear weapons in support of an aggression against Russia waged by its allies. It added that Russia will have to take retaliatory measures to protect its security.

BERLIN

Scientists bid farewell to comet probe, hope for more discoveries

Scientists are saying their final farewells to the Rosetta space probe ahead of its planned crash-landing on a comet.

The probe was launched in 2004 and took a decade to reach comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, where it released a lander in November 2014.

Both Rosetta and its lander Philae have gathered a wealth of data about 67P that have already given scientists significant new insights into the origins and nature of comets.

The European Space Agency plans to steer the probe toward the comet as slowly as possible Friday so it can take unprecedented close-up images before colliding with the icy surface.

Scientists involved in the project said Thursday that  even after Rosetta goes silent  they have decades of work ahead of them analyzing all the data collected during the mission .

LONDON

Lead lawyer in troubled U.K. child sex inquiry suspended

Britains long-running official inquiry into child sex abuse has suffered another setback with the suspension of its lead lawyer.

The inquiry said Thursday that chief counsel Ben Emmerson was suspended Thursday because of concerns about his leadership.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd says she still has confidence in the $130 million probe.

Her office said the inquiry is continuing its vital work in exposing the failure of public bodies and other organizations to prevent systematic child sexual abuse.

Emmerson says he learned of his dismissal in news reports.

The probe was set up by Prime Minister Theresa May when she was home secretary in 2014. The first three chairmen have resigned and no findings have been issued.
I stood holding a glass of rose wine at a recent wine lunch with Chateau La Nerthe when the export director Christophe Bristiel looked at me and told me that I was holding a glass of a wine that was 800 years old.

He did not mean that the actual wine in my glass was that old but rather that the rose wine was from a winery dating to 1199. Prieure de Montezargues was a monastery in Tavel, France and the French King had granted the monks the right to make wine. Today, the 84-acre property is owned by the Richard family who also own Chateau La Nerthe in Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Domaine de La Renjarde in Cotes du Rhone Villages.

After enjoying the structured Prieure de Montezargues Tavel 2015 made with 55 percent grenache, 30 percent cinsault, 13 percent clairette and 2 percent of syrah, mourvedre, carignan and courboulanc and with its notes of strawberry and gooseberry, we sat down for lunch and to taste the wines of Chateau La Nerthe.

The first written record of Chateau La Nerthe dates to 1560, making it one of Chateauneufs oldest estates. It is also one of the largest properties in Chateauneuf-du-Pape with 225 acres that are located in a single block around the Chateau. The cellar was built in the 15th century and the chateau was built in the 18th century as a residence. The Richard family, who has been in the wine industry since 1892, purchased the estate in 1985. Certified organic since 1998, Chateau La Nerthe grows all 13 of the legally permitted grapes in Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

While grenache makes up more than 75 percent of the grapes in the area, only half of the vineyard at Chateau La Nerthe is planted to Grenache. Thirty percent is planted to syrah, which is three times more than anywhere else in the region. Many of the vines average over 40 years old.

We were told the history of the winery by Bristiel who grew up drinking Chateau La Nerthe. His father was the winemaker there. Bristiel did not want to work in the wine industry like his father but he eventually studied wine and in 2004 moved to Chile where he built a winery. He returned to Chateau La Nerthe in 2009 and works as the export director.

While the majority of Chateau La Nerths production is dedicated to red wines, they make a fair amount of white wine, which is less than five percent of the production in Chateauneuf-de-Pape. The Chateau La Nerthe Blanc 2014 is made with 35 percent grenache blanc, 33 percent roussanne, 18 percent bourboulenc and 14 percent clairette.

Hand-harvested with 38 percent of the wine aged in barrels and the remainder in stainless steel, the pale yellow wine has notes of citrus, white peach and pear. There are 1,300 cases of this $60 wine compared to the 200 cases of the Chateau La Merthe Clos de Beauvenir 2012 made with 58 percent roussanne, 32 percent clairette, 8 percent grenache blanc and 2 percent bourboulenc.

An extraordinarily elegant and intense wine with notes of peach, apricot and sweet spices, this limited wine can be found for $170.

The red wines include the fresh, everyday drinking Les Cassagnes de La Nerthe 2013 that falls under Cotes du Rhone Village. A deep red color with intense red fruits and sweet spices on the nose, this wine is made with 60 percent grenache noir, 20 percent syrah, 10 percent cinsault, 5 percent mourvedre and 5 percent carignan and retails at $24. At about $60, the Chateau La Nerthe Rouge offers the balance and elegance the winery is known for.

We got to taste the 2012 Rouge as well as the 2006 Rouge. Both wines are made with varying percentages of grenache noir, syrah, mourvedre and cinsault. Aged in 12 months in a combination of oak barrels and wooden vats before blending, both wines are dark red with notes of spices and black fruit on the nose and soft, fine tannins on the palate. What was impressive was the freshness and liveliness of the tannins in the 2006 Rouge, which is already 10 years old and yet still so youthful.

Our tasting ended with the 2012 Chateau La Nerthe Cuvee des Cadettes. This wine is from a unique 20-acre vineyard planted with 85 to 100-year-old vines. A traditional GSM blend of almost equal parts syrah, grenache and mourvedre, the wine is aged in 100 percent new oak barrels for 15 months. The resulting wine is a dark red color, almost purple, with aromas of black cherry and sweet spices. The wine is rich and complex but also young.

Chateau La Nerthe is in its 500 harvest in its 15th-century cellar. As one of the largest and oldest properties in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, every glass is a part of history.
If you have been to one of the ubiquitous charity auctions around the Napa Valley during the last 30 years you have probably heard Fritz Hattons voice booming from the stage. His friendly and powerfully disarming demeanor have helped bring in hundreds of millions of dollars to the local community for worthy causes. You may know his voice, but you may not know that he and his wife, Caren, also have a wine brand called Arietta.

When our friend John Kongsgaard told me he had access to some amazing grapes and asked if we wanted to make some wine together, of course I had to say yes, Hatton said. Making wine sprang from our friendship and our shared love of wine and music.

Arietta was created in 1996 through a collaboration between Napa Valley winemaker John Kongsgaard, his wife, Maggy and the Hattons. But before becoming partners together in a wine business, the couples had been longtime friends, often sipping wine and listening to music into the early morning hours. One of their favorite composers was Beethoven.

John and Maggy loved Beethoven, and so did we, Caren said. Wed be together enjoying wine, and it could sometimes get very late. At 1:11 in the morning, John would call for Beethovens Arietta, Opus 111, to be played.

Often on those late nights the couples were joined by a classical musician who would then sit down at the piano and play the piece. When such a guest was not in attendance, Fritz  who is an accomplished pianist in his own right  would play.

It was a magical time, being together, listening to Beethovens piano sonata, Caren said. It is just such a wonderful piece of music, starting out simply and then growing in complexity  just like a fine wine.

Although Beethovens Arietta was a prominent component of the couples friendship, naming the wine brand did not come easily. Prior to releasing the first vintage, they struggled to decide what the wine might be called.

We were going back and forth with names, but nothing seemed to fit, Fritz said. But at one point, Caren looked at me and said, We have wine that needs to be bottled, so we need a name. Look in your music books; thats where youll find it. And she was right. There in my lap was the music score for the Arietta. We all agreed immediately that it was the perfect name.

The couples also agreed that the wine theyd make would not be your standard Napa Valley wine but would instead take its direction from the classical music they all loved, focusing on sourcing grapes that were grown only in vineyards that might create the depth and ethereal serenity theyd found together through music. They found what they needed primarily in Lee Hudsons famous Carneros vineyards.

In 2005, Fritz and Caren took over as sole proprietors of Arietta, and John handed over the winemaking reins to Andy Erickson, who has worked at such prominent Napa wineries as Dalla Valle, Harlan, Screaming Eagle and Staglin.

Normally visitors to Arietta taste wine where it is actually made, at Chateau Boswell on the Silverado Trail, about halfway between St. Helena and Calistoga. However, when I met the Hattons I was lucky enough to visit them at their beautiful home in St. Helena, where we sat out in their shady backyard sipping wine from the most delicate and expressive glassware Ive ever used  hand-blown Gabriel-Glas, from Swiss/German wine critic Rene Gabriel  all while I became familiar with the familys four dogs and two cats.

The three wines that stood out on that afternoon were the 2014 Arietta On the White Keys Sauvignon Blanc, the 2012 H-Block red wine blend and the 2012 Arietta Merlot.

The 2014 Arietta On the White Keys Sauvignon Blanc ($62 a bottle and 500 cases made) is blended with Semillon grapes in oak barrels, both of which provide the wine with an expansive and complex mouth feel. The nose is of candied lemon-rind, beeswax, dried mint and white peach. The flavors mirror the aromatics but finish with a limestone minearality.

The Cabernet Franc-focused 2014 H-Block red wine blend ($150 per bottle and 400 cases made) is Ariettas first to have been commercially released. This wine is 50 percent cabernet franc that is co-fermented with merlot. Aromas of dried plum, shiitake mushrooms, fresh sage and new leather dominate this wine. Rich and creamy on the palate, its softness and surprising brightness are in intriguing contrast to the lingering flavor of beef broth in the finish.

The 2013 Arietta Merlot ($75 per bottle and 300 cases made) was the standout of the tasting. This wine is complex and speaks to the wonderful depth of Merlot grown in the clay soils of Carneros, which is similar in some ways to the most famous Merlot producer in the world, Petrus, which is grown on 28 acres of blue clay on a piece of land called the button in the Pomerol region of Bordeaux in France.

The Arietta Merlot has a blue-plum and cardamom -coffee aroma, and once in your mouth this wine expands in talcum-powder layers that include milk chocolate, dried blueberry and wet cedar. If you can wait long enough between sips, you might find the lingering flavor of dried violets.

Fritz and his wife, along with their friends, the Kongsgaards, and winemaker Andy Ericson have created a wine brand that represents their love of music, friendship and the wines of the Napa Valley. The wines are wonderful, truly representing the best of what the area can produce. But what is the future of such wines? That is, will such wines last more than the life of the founders?

In California, we have an amazing knack for refining and improving things. Think of technology. Think of food. Think of wine. But what is less clear is what happens to these things over time. We are creative, passionate and generous. And Arietta exemplifies these values in both their wines and in the personalities of their founders. My hope is that such special wines and important values somehow find a way to carry on, presenting future generations with concrete examples of what it can mean to be true citizens of the Napa Valley and the broader world beyond.

Ariettas wines are well-distributed in California and are available in select states. Locally, you can find them at 750 Wines in St. Helena, Backroom Wines in Napa and retailers. Tastings are by appointment only. For more information or to order the wines, visit www.arietta-wine.com.
Go Kellie Pickler!

Loved not only for her bold personality and southern charm, country music recording artist and the star of the CMT hit docu-comedy television series I Love Kellie Pickler is known for her avid support of our servicemen and women. In honor of Kellies continued work spanning nine-and-counting USO tours, the critically-acclaimed North Carolinian and her husband Kyle Jacobs were honored Sept. 28, with the Department of Defense Spirit of Hope Award, presented annually to distinguished Americans and organizations to include entertainers and men and women of the United States Armed Forces whose patriotism and service reflects that of Mr. Bob Hope.

I am so humbled to be in such great company in receipt of this honor from the Department of Defense, Kellie shared after accepting the distinguished award with her husband Kyle on Wednesday in Washington D.C. Weve been so blessed to have a great relationship with the USO which has allowed us to be able to take a little piece of home to our service men and women both overseas and here at home.

The Department of Defense criteria for the Spirit of Hope Award requires the recipient to have selflessly contributed an extraordinary amount of time, talent or resources to significantly enhance the quality of life of service members and their families serving around the world and epitomize the values of Bob Hopeduty, honor, courage, loyalty, commitment, integrity and selfless dedication.

In 2015 at the CMA Music Festival the parents of slain Navy SEAL Chris Kyle presented Kellie Pickler with the first-ever Operation Troop Aid Chris Kyle Patriot Award and in 2013 Kellie received the Heart For The Warrior Award from the USO of North Carolina during the Salute to Freedom Gala.
On Monday 3 October 2016, the NATO Deputy Secretary General, Ambassador Alexander Vershbow will travel to Vienna to participate at the OSCE Security Days. The theme this year is Revitalising Military Confidence-Building, Risk reduction and Arms Control in Europe.

Ambassador Vershbow will deliver a speech at the event as a lead speaker. The speech will be available on the NATO website upon delivery.

Follow us on Twitter (@NATOPress and @NATOdsg).
Japan to establish new unified command to manage operations of land, sea and air forces

French Foreign Minister calls on Russia to reconsider its decision on grain deal

Ferrari unveils 499P hypercar with all-wheel drive

Russian Foreign Ministry hopes that Putin, Pashinyan and Aliyev meeting will help conclude peace treaty

Pashinyan to meet with Putin in Sochi, followed by trilateral meeting of Armenian, Russian and Azerbaijani leaders

Reuters: Border Agency building set on fire in Britain

US recognized as most powerful country in world for seventh time

Iran accuses Israel of organizing terrorist attack in Shiraz

Reuters: NATO urged Russia to urgently resume grain deal

Guterres intends to achieve resumption of Russia's participation in grain deal

Resistance Movement calls rally on November 5

La Stampa: Italian farmers fear rising cereal prices due to disruption of grain deal

Beglaryan: About 33% of the entire population of Artsakh gathered at the Renaissance Square in Stepanakert

Sweden's new government is ready to supply Kiev with heavier weapons

Babayan: Any proposal in which Artsakh will be considered part of Azerbaijan will be rejected

Dozens of female students protest in Afghanistan

Biden confuses number of states in U.S.

Peskov: Russia cannot be someone's vassal

Minibus carrying party members overturns in Ankara

Dashnaktsutyun: Any document that will include Artsakh into Azerbaijan must be torn up

Speaker: We hope that no document ignoring the Artsakh issue will be signed in Sochi

Italian MFA comments on Russia's withdrawal from food deal

Economist: High inflation took Western countries by surprise, which were wrong in their forecasts

Artsakh National Assembly issues statement: Artsakh has never been and will never be part of independent Azerbaijan

Parliament of Republic of Artsakh unanimously adopts statements

NA holds extraordinary meeting in Artsakh: Big rally takes place on Renaissance Square (photos)

Lavrov confirms Putin's readiness for negotiations with Ukraine

La Repubblica: Italy supplied Kiev with 20-30 M109L artillery guns and PzH 2000 howitzers

Typhoon in Philippines affects more than 932,000 people

Source: Turkey conducts 'telephone diplomacy' on food deal

Television and partially radio broadcasts will be turned off in Armenia for two hours on October 31

Borrell: The EU urges Russia to revert its decision

Haiti PM Ariel Henry: The leader of a political party was murdered in the republic

Armenia MFA expresses condolences to South Korea over Seoul tragedy

Seoul receives more than 3,700 missing persons reports after crush

Armenian Defense Ministry: Private received fatal gunshot wound

Toivo Klaar: I emphasised the European Unions continued strong engagement in the peace process

Arrested for assaulting Speaker Pelosi's spouse faces charges

Major crush in Seoul: There are victims

Britain needs air defense in connection with war in Ukraine

France to plant 1 billion trees by 2030

Armenian FM meets participants of World Armenian Summit

The Swiss are going to set record for longest passenger train in the world

At least 146 people killed and 150 more injured in Seoul as they were crushed by crowd

Europeans frightened by growth of household appliances exports to Armenia, Kazakhstan

Russia requests UN Security Council meeting in connection with Ukraine's attack on Black Sea Fleet ships

Michel Aoun: Lebanon could slide into constitutional chaos

Zelensky intends to have Patriot SAMs, Abrams tanks and aircraft from US

President discusses latest foreign political developments around Artsakh

Azerbaijan officials considering opening embassy in Israel

Pashinyan receives Youri Djorkaeff

Thierry Breton talks Twitter purchase by Elon Musk: In Europe, the bird will fly by our rules

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

Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Garo Paylyan discuss prospects of normalizing Armenian-Turkish relations

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

BloombergNEF: Gas reserves from the U.S. will not be enough to fill the gaping hole left by Russia in Europe

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

UK prime minister may freeze foreign aid for two more years

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

India's ruling party spokesman sues news portal

Archaeologists discover 240-year-old American camp for British prisoners of war

Subglacial river of 460 kilometers long discovered in Antarctica

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
YEREVAN.  The safety requirements for the new nuclear power reactor(s) being planned in Armenia have been made in compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) requirements, and the European Union (EU) post-Fukushima standards.

The respective decision was adopted at Thursdays Cabinet session of the Government of Armenia.

The government plans to close of the currently-operating reactor of the countrys nuclear power plant in 2026, but to build a new one until then.

The construction of this new reactor is planned to get underway by no later than 2018.

And within the framework of a funding agreement with Russia, the lifespan of the operating reactor will be extended for ten years, until 2026.
Several hundred supporters of the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen applied for asylum in Germany, reports Berlin's Die Zeit newspaper, referring to the Chairman of Dialogue and Education Fund in Germany Erkan Karakoyun, which represents that movement in the GDR.

At the same time, in the schools in Germany, which are linked to the Gulen movement, a growing number withdrawals were recorded. Thus, 65 children withdrew from one of Stuttgart institutions. In Germany there is also circulating a list of doctors, restaurant owners, entrepreneurs, with a call to refrain from using their services, reports the DW.

75-year-old Gulen is accused of organizing a coup attempt on July 15 in Turkey. Ankara issued an order of his arrest at the beginning of August and then tried to get to his extradition from the United States. The US stressed that Washington is ready to hand over Gulen, in case the Turkish authorities submit sufficient evidences about his involvement in the coup.
Pope Francis on Friday will start his three-day visit to Georgia and Azerbaijan.

During his visit, the pontiff will meet with the religious and political leaders of the two countries, Haqqin.az news agency of Azerbaijan reported citing the Vatican press office.

The Bishop of Rome will arrive in the Georgian capital city of Tbilisi on Friday afternoon. After the official welcoming ceremony at the airport, the Pope will head for the presidential palace, where he will meet with President Giorgi Margvelashvili. On Saturday, the Holy Father will celebrate a Holy Mass in a Tbilisi stadium. Subsequently, he will meet with the Georgian Catholic priests and members of the clergy.

On Sunday morning, His Holiness will fly from Tbilisi to the Azerbaijani capital city of Baku. Pope Francis visit to Azerbaijan will kick off with a Holy Mass at the Church of the Virgin Mary, in Baku. Subsequently, the supreme pontiff is scheduled to meet separately with President Ilham Aliyev, leadership of the Caucasian Muslim Board, and representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church and Jewish community in Azerbaijan.

To note, the Bishop of Rome had paid a visit to Armenia in June.
YEREVAN.  The Acting Foreign Minister of Armenia, Edward Nalbandian, on Thursday delivered a lecture at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, in the US.

Nalbandian presented the foreign policy priorities of Armenia, the road which the country has passed since the 25 years of its independence, and several regional matters and Armenias outlook on the avenues for their resolution, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

The acting FM of Armenia also informed the participating leading American analysts about the consequences of the military aggression which Azerbaijan had unleashed against Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), in early April, the ongoing effortsby Armenia and the co-chairing countries (Russia, US, and France) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Groupto surmount the consequences of this aggression, and the current phase in the process to resolve the Karabakh conflict.

In addition, Edward Nalbandian responded to the numerous questions posed by those in attendance.
YEREVAN.  Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan on Friday received a delegation led by Marc Oppenheim, Head of International Retail and Commercial Banking at Credit Agricole Bank of France.

The PM stressed Credit Agricoles activities in the banking sector and the presence of French management culture in Armenia, Press Office of the Government of Armenia informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

He also underscored the need to increase French capital inflow and implement additional measures toward investment projects in Armenia. In addition, the Premier expressed a conviction that Credit Agricole Bank will be able to greatly contribute to the engagement of French capital in Armenias economy.

Oppenheim, for his part, noted that ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank on Friday marks the 20th anniversary of its activities in Armenia. In his words, this fact reflects the strong bilateral ties and their great desire to contribute to the improvement of business climate, intensification of business sector, and development of economy in Armenia.

In the ensuing talk, the interlocutors discussed bilateral cooperation.
YEREVAN.  President of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia, Galust Sahakyan, on Friday received newly appointed Georgian ambassador Giorgi Saganelidze

Congratulating the ambassador on his appointment, Sahakyan expressed the hope that the diplomat will contribute to the further deepening and strengthening of Armenia-Georgia ties, the NA informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

Galust Sahakyan added that Armenian-Georgian parliamentary ties and mutual visits have increased considerably in recent years. He added, however, that there are still ample opportunities and great unused potential for the development of trade and economic relations, and expansion of cooperation in several domains.

Ambassador Saganelidze, for his part, pointed to the high level of Armenian-Georgian relations. He noted that the Armenian ethnos has played a major role in the development of Georgian statehood. The Georgian diplomat also expressed his readiness to have a significant contribution to the further deepening and straightening of ties between the two countries.

The interlocutors stressed that the friendship between the Armenian and Georgian peoples is a solid foundation for the development of interstate relations.

At the ensuing talk, the Armenian parliament speaker and the Georgian ambassador reflected on several matters of mutual interest.
YEREVAN.  At this time, there are no chances for organizing a meeting between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) MP Artak Zakaryan, who is also Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, stated the aforesaid at a press conference on Friday.

In his words, a meeting between the two presidents will be possible solely when the respective agenda is agreed upon.

At this moment, there is no such possibility in a foreseeable future,  noted Zakaryan. But, naturally, negotiations [to resolve the Karabakh conflict] also mean meetings.

Ambassador James Warlick, US Co-Chair of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group, had expressed the hope that the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan would meet in the near future.
Breast and cervical cancer can be prevented or cured if diagnosed early and treated. Yet these two diseases are the leading killers of women throughout Latin America.

Experts believe that in order to improve access to health care and provide better preventive care for women in Latin American countries, health systems need to be strengthened and womens cancers must be prioritized, while at the same time mainstreamed into health care. A strong and growing evidence-based, civil society and patient engagement movement is taking important steps to work regionally to respond to this tremendous challenge to the health and well-being of women.

Coinciding with Breast Cancer Awareness Month and in conjunction with Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, the University of Miami will take an important step toward building the hemispheric synergy to help women in Latin America by hosting the first Womens Cancers in the Americas: Strategies for Synergy symposium on October 5 and 6, on the Universitys Coral Gables campus.

The University of Miami is poised to take a catalytic leadership role by creating hemispheric bridges that will strengthen health systems, promote gender equity and close divides in access to cancer care and control for women, said Felicia Marie Knaul, director of the University of Miami Institute for the Americas (U-MIA). The opportunities are huge.

The symposium  undertaken by the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Miller School of Medicine and sponsored by the University of Miami Institute for the Americas, in collaboration with Tomatelo a Pecho, the Union Latinoamericana Contra el Cancer de la Mujer, and the Women and Health Initiative at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health  will generate new evidence, provide platforms, and produce innovative future projects to take advantage of opportunities for action.

The symposium is part of UMs hemispheric platform and is a key component of the U-MIA strategic initiative on womens cancer in the Americas. Collaborations between Latin America and South Florida will be tremendously important and the symposium is designed to catalyze these new and novel initiatives.

This seminar  the first of its kind at the University  will broaden the focus to Latin America, capitalize on the work already done at Sylvester, including migrant communities in South Florida, highlight challenges to access while identifying opportunities to strengthen health system responses and improve outcomes. By building upon existing efforts and programs for womens health and health care access in South Florida, the seminar will initiate a strategic dialogue to create linkages and identify collaborative platforms that can be extended to Latin America.

Other Sylvester and UM events related to Breast Cancer Awareness Month include:
22:48

Amid heightened tension with Pakistan, Army has asked the forces to be "prepared for any eventuality" and maintain "very high level of alert" as its Chief Gen Dalbir Singh visited Jammu and Kashmir to assess the military preparedness.





The situation on the Line of Control and hinterland was discussed at a meeting held by Northern Army Commander Lt Gen D S Hooda and attended by Srinagar-based Corps Commander Lt Gen Satish Dua, state Chief Secretary B R Sharma and DGP K Rajendra Kumar.





During the meeting, "Lt Gen Hooda stressed upon the need for maintaining a very high level of alert and vigil and to remain prepared for any eventuality," an army spokesman said.





"The Chinar Corps Commander, Lt Gen Satish Dua reviewed the entire gamut of operational readiness with the Army Commander and briefed him on all security measures along the LoC as well as the hinterland," the spokesman added.





The review of security was undertaken against the backdrop of surgical strike carried out by the Indian army against terror camps across the LoC two days back.





The army made an "earnest appeal to the people of Kashmir to ensure calm and peace in these sensitive times and strengthen the government and security agencies in meeting the challenges emanating from across the borders".





Earlier, Lt Gen Hooda briefed the Army Chief at Northern Command Headquarters at Udhampur about the overall security situation along the borders. The Army Chief then visited the Kashmir valley.
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SHIJIAZHUANG, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Organizations and companies from China and the United States have agreed to build a Sino-U.S. innovation park in Baishishan, one of China's innovation parks in the northern province of Hebei.

At the China-U.S. Innovation High-Level Forum held at the park on Wednesday and Thursday, Mitchell Stanley, chairman of the board of trustees of the National Center for Sustainable Development; Gongping Yeh, president of the Global Innovation Center; managers of Baishishan and five entrepreneurs from China and the U.S. signed the agreement.

ENFOS, a San Mateo-based company that collects environmental data, will have its first Chinese branch in the Baishishan park to help deal with local smog.

Around 300 people from the government, NGOs and companies attended the forum on cooperation in innovation and investment.

Jin Xiaoming, head of international cooperation department of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), said the U.S. and China face common challenges in climate change, environmental protection, energy safety, food security and major diseases, which should be dealt with together.

"History has proven that innovation promotes social progress, and we should tackle these challenges together," he said.

The MOST and Hebei provincial government are among the sponsors of the forum.
BEIJING, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- China and Belarus on Thursday have decided to forge a comprehensive strategic partnership, featuring mutual trust and win-win cooperation.

When holding talks with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China and Belarus are good friends and sincere partners. Lukashenko is making a state visit to China from Wednesday to Friday at Xi's invitation.

Hailing the close ever communication and cooperation between China and Belarus at present, Xi said bilateral ties are developing to a higher level.

Xi said China is willing to work with Belarus to maintain the momentum of development and make full use of the chances brought by the Belt and Road Initiative to inject new impetus into relations and benefit the people of two countries.

Both sides are expected to consolidate political trust, keep high-level visits and render firm support to each other on issues concerning their respective core interests, Xi said.

"Political trust is the cornerstone of the China-Belarus comprehensive strategic partnership," said a joint statement signed between the two presidents after their talks. In the statement, the two sides agreed on respecting each other's development path as well as domestic and foreign policies, and supporting each other on issues involving their core interests.

During the talks, Xi expressed his hope that China and Belarus will integrate their development strategies to have more common interests.

Belarus is a reliable friend of China, Lukashenko said, noting that both countries have broad common interests and fruitful cooperation in various fields.

Lukashenko said Belarus supports the Belt and Road Initiative and is ready to integrate its own development strategies with the initiative.

According to the joint statement, China and Belarus decided to make joint efforts to advance the "Belt and Road" building and make the Chinese-Belarusian Industrial Park Great Stone an exemplary project along the Belt and Road.

The Belarusian side will also work for the alignment of the Belt and Road and the Eurasian Economic Union, said the statement.

According to the statement, the two sides also decided to boost cooperation on trade, investment, finance, transport, security, technological innovation and culture as well as people-to-people exchanges.

They agreed to keep close communication and coordination in regional and international affairs within the United Nations framework.

After their talks, the two presidents witnessed the signing of 26 cooperation documents, including a list of measures to push ahead the Belt and Road Initiative.

Prior to the talks, Xi held a red-carpet ceremony to welcome the visiting president.
BEIJING, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Two more people suspected of telecom and cyber fraud have turned themselves in after being named in a police warrant.

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) on Monday issued a warrant for 10 fugitives implicated in telecom and cyber fraud. As of Thursday, five had surrendered to police, according to the ministry.

One of the suspects, 28-year-old Xie Jianhai, allegedly cheated a victim out of five million yuan (750,000 U.S. dollars) on June 2 this year and is also suspected of money laundering for telecom and cyber fraud criminal rings involving more than 100 million yuan.

The other, Wang Zhihui, 28, is suspected of organizing 30 others in telecom fraud schemes since December of last year involving 6 million yuan.

Telecom and cyber fraud made headlines across China last month when Xu Yuyu, 18, from Shandong Province, died of cardiac arrest after losing her tuition money to a telecom scammer.
NICOSIA, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- An intergovernmental meeting between Cyprus and China has confirmed there are possibilities for further development of cooperation in several sectors, an official statement said on Thursday.

The statement said the two countries held their seventh session of the China-Cyprus Joint Economic Committee on Wednesday with a view of further strengthening and developing their cooperation in both existing and new sectors.

It said that sectors of cooperation included energy, renewable sources of energy, agriculture, telecommunications, civil aviation and education.

It also said both sides stressed the existence of favorable conditions for increasing commercial transactions and strengthening cooperation on investment in tourism.

The meeting was jointly presided by the Permanent Secretary of Cyprus Directorate General for European Programmes, Coordination and Development, Giorgos Georghiou, and Deputy China International Trade Representative Zhang Xiangchen.

Georghiou stressed the good relations and close ties between Cyprus and China, said the statement.

On his part, Zhang confirmed the friendly ties China shared with Cyprus and stressed the existence of an excellent cooperation and support in the political sector, it said.

"The two co-presidents expressed their satisfaction with the spirit of cooperation at the meeting and stressed that the result of these contacts will contribute towards further developing and differentiating the economic and other relations between the two countries," the statement concluded.
LISBON, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Portugal's growth is most likely to be lower than the government's initial estimations, Pedro Pita Barros, professor of economics at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, told Xinhua on Thursday.

While the Socialist government believed the economy would expand by 1.8 percent this year and next, Pita Barros wasn't as optimistic.

Barros said there was risk of a second bailout in the future, but that he didn't see this happening in the coming months.

"The government is making a delicate balance between its electoral platform and the need of budget management. So far, the numbers provided seem in line with meeting the budget target," he said.

He also pointed out that the current Socialist government's focus in raising consumption "cannot be the solution for a decade-and-a-half-long economic slowdown."

The country's main challenge now is to increase productivity, he said.

This can be done through exposure to international markets, investment in tradable sectors, channelling existing funds into the best projects, creating a stable business environment, and changing labor market rules, he said.

He also said it was necessary to ensure that when businesses fail there is a fast deployment of productive assets, to avoid depreciation of equipment as the courts take a long time to decide.

Barros said the introduction of a new property tax for the rich, as revealed recently, would undermine foreign investment in real estate, and while it would create more equality, he doesn't know to what extent.

The country's unemployment figures have improved, however, Barros said this does not necessarily mean the economy is improving.

"To have the economy improving, we need productivity gains," he explained. "But employing more people may be done in labor-intensive but low-productivity potential growth, with no permanent and sizeable effect on growth."

The center-left Socialist government led by Antonio Costa, and supported by the Left Bloc and Communist Party, has rolled back austerity measures taken after Portugal's 78-billion-euro (87.70 billion U.S. dollar) bailout in 2011.

Costa has insisted he will manage to bring the deficit down comfortably below 2.5 percent of GDP and meet EU commitments, despite the International Monetary Fund (IMF) saying the country's deficit would reach 3.0 percent of GDP this year, and the opposition saying the government has failed.

"I hope it will manage," Barros said. "If it does, I do not expect it to be comfortably or without exceptional measures."
Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) holds a welcoming ceremony for Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko before their talks in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 29, 2016. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- China and Belarus on Thursday have decided to forge a comprehensive strategic partnership, featuring mutual trust and win-win cooperation.



When holding talks with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China and Belarus are good friends and sincere partners. Lukashenko is making a state visit to China from Wednesday to Friday at Xi's invitation.

Hailing the close ever communication and cooperation between China and Belarus at present, Xi said bilateral ties are developing to a higher level.

Xi said China is willing to work with Belarus to maintain the momentum of development and make full use of the chances brought by the Belt and Road Initiative to inject new impetus into relations and benefit the people of two countries.

Both sides are expected to consolidate political trust, keep high-level visits and render firm support to each other on issues concerning their respective core interests, Xi said.

"Political trust is the cornerstone of the China-Belarus comprehensive strategic partnership," said a joint statement signed between the two presidents after their talks. In the statement, the two sides agreed on respecting each other's development path as well as domestic and foreign policies, and supporting each other on issues involving their core interests.

During the talks, Xi expressed his hope that China and Belarus will integrate their development strategies to have more common interests.

Belarus is a reliable friend of China, Lukashenko said, noting that both countries have broad common interests and fruitful cooperation in various fields.

Lukashenko said Belarus supports the Belt and Road Initiative and is ready to integrate its own development strategies with the initiative.

According to the joint statement, China and Belarus decided to make joint efforts to advance the "Belt and Road" building and make the Chinese-Belarusian Industrial Park Great Stone an exemplary project along the Belt and Road.

The Belarusian side will also work for the alignment of the Belt and Road and the Eurasian Economic Union, said the statement.

According to the statement, the two sides also decided to boost cooperation on trade, investment, finance, transport, security, technological innovation and culture as well as people-to-people exchanges.

They agreed to keep close communication and coordination in regional and international affairs within the United Nations framework.

After their talks, the two presidents witnessed the signing of 26 cooperation documents, including a list of measures to push ahead the Belt and Road Initiative.

Prior to the talks, Xi held a red-carpet ceremony to welcome the visiting president.

Earlier on Thursday, Lukashenko also met with Zhang Dejiang, Chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee and Yu Zhengsheng, Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, respectively in Beijing.
BEIJING, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- A national action plan on human rights protection released Thursday charts how China intends to improve human rights during the next five years.

The third national human rights action plan was designed to synchronize with the country's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020). Two previous action plans brought substantial progress in human rights development.

From 2012 to 2015, 66.6 million people in rural areas were lifted out of poverty. In December 2013, China abolished reeducation through labor. The latest revision to the Criminal Law has removed the death penalty for nine crimes.

China is not consumed by complacency, but sober-minded that human rights problems remain, including those closely related to the people's central interests.

The new action plan puts protection of the people's rights to subsistence and development at the top of the list. Everything will be done to reduce poverty, and ensure basic housing, clean water, food security, and adequate transportation.

By 2020, 50 million people shall have bade farewell to poverty by developing new industries, by finding new jobs and by relocation to other areas. Another 20 million, principally those who have partially or completely lost their ability to work, shall be covered by welfare programs. No county will be called a "poverty county" by then.

By prioritizing people's basic rights, China has combined the universality of human rights with the actual situation in the country, and is committed to human rights with Chinese characteristics.

Apart from poverty alleviation, the plan covers everything from legal and political rights to environmental rights, devising specific and feasible targets, including numerical goals such as a one year increase in average life expectancy by 2020, and an extension of the average years of schooling for the working-age population to 10.8 years.

Such a national initiative with detailed and feasible plans demonstrates the Communist Party's and government's commitment to, and confidence in, the human rights cause.

The period covered by the new plan is crucial to China's building of a moderately prosperous nation in an all-round way by 2020.

Fulfilling the action plan is vital to realizing that goal, and ultimately, the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation.
LONDON, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Britain stands on the verge of an unprecedented ability to liberate global trade for the benefit of the whole planet, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said Thursday.

Addressing an audience in Manchester, Fox was talking about free trade in a world which has seen Britain vote to leave the European Union.

Fox was put in charge of the newly created department by Theresa May who replaced David Cameron as prime minister.

Commentators said Fox's keynote speech was a clear indicator that the government favored a hard Brexit in its plans to leave the EU.

"It is potentially the beginning of what I might call 'post geography trading world' where we are much less restricted in having to find partners who are physically close to us," said Fox.

"It is an exhilarating, empowering and liberating time yet this bright future is being darkened by the shadows of protectionism and retrenchment. History teaches us that such trends do not bode well for the future," he said.

"Its modern-day critics would do well to evaluate the devastating failures of alternative economic models throughout history and to compare them with the recent success gained by countries such as China, India, or Vietnam. Free trade has, and will continue to, transform the world for the better," the official added.

Britain's trade with the world is equivalent to over half the country's national income, but Fox added that where progress has stalled at the multilateral level, Britain must be ready to look to more bespoke plurilateral and bilateral arrangements to ensure that the global marketplace remains fair and free.

"As a newly independent WTO member outside the EU, we will continue to fight for trade liberalization as well as potentially helping developing markets trade their way out of poverty by giving them preferential access to our markets," he said.

"As we establish our independent position post-Brexit, we will carry the standard of free and open trade as a badge of honor," he said. "I believe the UK is in a prime position to become a world leader in free trade because of the brave and historic decision of the British people to leave the European Union."
Photo taken on Sept. 22, 2015 shows an offshore platform for pile sinking in Rudong offshore windpower project of China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) in Rudong County of Nantong City, east China's Jiangsu Province. (Xinhua/Li Xiang)

LONDON, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) announced Thursday that it has signed all final agreements for the Hinkley Point C (HPC) project, and a suite of agreements relating to the projects of Sizewell C and Bradwell B, with French energy company EDF and the British government.

This means that all the necessary government and commercial approvals have been completed for Hinkley Point C project and the flagship project of the "golden era" for China-Britain relations can now move forward after two months of delay. This follows the Britain's decision to proceed with the project following a comprehensive review and revised agreement with EDF.

At the same time, the agreements will also enable preparatory work to begin on Bradwell B, allowing CGN to put its HPR1000 technology through Britain's generic design assessment (GDA) process.

During a signing ceremony in London, British Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Greg Clark, chairman and CEO of EDF Jean-Bernard Levy, and the chairman of CGN He Yu signed the final documentation to enable Hinkley Point C to go ahead.

"Signing the contract is a crucial moment in the UK's first new nuclear power station for a generation and follows new measures put in place by government to strengthen security and ownership," said Clark.

"Britain needs to upgrade its supplies of energy, and we have always been clear that nuclear power stations like Hinkley play an important part in ensuring our future low-carbon energy security," he added.

CGN's chairman He said that the signing of a package of investment agreements in Britain's nuclear power projects means that CGN has the strength to compete with international nuclear giants.

"The signing of these agreements signifies CGN's commitment to the UK as one of the world's leading developers and operators of nuclear power. This flagship program is a triple win for China, Britain, and France and is a culmination of years of cooperation between the three countries. CGN looks forward to providing UK consumers with safe, reliable and sustainable energy and maximizing opportunities for UK suppliers and the UK workforce," he said.

Chinese Ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming said Hinkley Point C project is a flagship project and new milestone for China-Britain ties. "Today, the three countries signed an agreement which reconfirmed the golden era of China-UK relations. Hinkley Point C project is a golden product of a golden era," he said.

EDF said in a statement that the Hinkley Point C is a major element of the group's 2030 strategy. The two reactors at Hinkley Point will strengthen EDF's presence in Britain, a country where its subsidiary EDF Energy already operates 15 nuclear reactors and is the largest electricity supplier by volume.

It added that Hinkley Point C is a unique asset for French and British industries as it will benefit the nuclear sectors in both countries and will support employment at major companies and smaller enterprises in the industry.

The Hinkley Point C project is located in Somerset and is a joint project between CGN and EDF in which CGN will have a 33.5 percent interest. According to the final investment agreement, construction of HPC can now commence with completion expected in 2025.

The proposed Bradwell B project will be located in Essex, subject to the HPR1000 design receiving GDA approval, and will consist of two HPR1000 reactors each with an output of 1.15 gigawatts. CGN will have a 66.5 percent interest in Bradwell with the remainder held by EDF.

HPR1000 is based on leading third generation nuclear technology and is China's nuclear technology of choice for export. CGN's Fangchenggang Unit 3, currently under construction in southern China, will be the reference plant for Bradwell B.

According to the agreement, CGN will officially submit the HPR1000 for GDA approval. The GDA process is the world's strictest nuclear technology review. CGN will file the GDA application to the British government immediately, and aims to complete the approval process within five years.

Liu highlighted CGN's HPR1000 technology and believed it will get through the GDA process.

"Because HPR1000 technology is already established in China and some other international markets, we are confident the technology can pass the assessment, which will mean that China's nuclear power really has gone global," he said.

"The UK has repeatedly stressed they welcome Chinese technology. They will use common international standards to assess," he added.

As the first new nuclear power project in Britain for more than 20 years, the Hinckley C nuclear power project represents a restart of the British nuclear power industry and paves the way for other new nuclear power projects in the country.

Britain is accelerating its transition towards a low-carbon economy with the goal of generating 25 percent of its energy requirements from renewable, sustainable sources. The three nuclear projects together form an important element in achieving that ambition.

The construction of Hinkley Point C project alone will provide over 25,000 employment opportunities which will benefit France and Britain's nuclear power industry supply chain, as well as provide skills training.

After completion, it will provide 7 percent of Britain's energy needs, delivering secure and affordable low-carbon electricity for 60 years.
New York, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Consulate General in New York confirmed Thursday that one Chinese citizen was injured in the New Jersey train accident, in which one was killed and over 100 injured.

The Chinese Consulate General told Xinhua the injured Chinese has received initial treatment at hospital and there is no life-threatening. The Consulate General has already made contact with the family of the injured.

Currently, Consular staff is rushing to other local medical institutions to verify the possibility of other Chinese citizens injured in the accident.

The Consulate General said it will continue to follow up the situation and provide timely assistance to the affected Chinese.

The train plowed into Hoboken station just before 9:00 a.m. local time (1300 GMT) with around 250 passengers on board. Hoboken station, which sits 11 kilometers outside New York city, is a hub for commuters to switch for Manhattan.

All trapped people have been rescued from the train wreckage, according to local media reports. Jersey City Medical Center officials said they have seen 40 walk-in patients from the crash, with 11 patients in the emergency department.
Berat Albayrak, the Turkish minister of energy and natural resources speaks during a reception marking the 67th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in Ankara, Turkey on Sept. 29, 2016. Turkey and China should further develop economic, political and cultural relations, Turkish officials said on Thursday. (Xinhua/Zou Le)

ANKARA, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Turkey and China should further develop economic, political and cultural relations, Turkish officials said on Thursday.

At a reception marking the 67th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Berat Albayrak, the Turkish minister of energy and natural resources, said that as the two main gates of Asia, China and Turkey need to keep developing the bilateral relations.

Albayrak, who attended the G20 Summit in eastern China's Hangzhou earlier this month, spoke highly of the city and the arrangement of the summit.

"All the members of the Turkish delegation kept telling me the great hospitality you've shown us during the summit in one of the most beautiful cities in the world," he said.

Mehmet Eker, the foreign affairs deputy chairman of the Turkish ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), defines the future of Turkey-China relations as "very bright."

"The Belt and Road initiative and other developing plans show that Chinese leaderships' vision is very bright. Turkey would like to be part of it. The cooperation and partnership of two countries are very essential to our continent and the world," Eker told Xinhua.

Yu Hongyang, Chinese ambassador to Turkey, said the bilateral relations are improving, as the two countries maintain cooperation in regional and international issues.

"The two meetings of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan since last year have pointed out directions of China-Turkey ties," the Chinese ambassador said.

The trade volume between China and Turkey reached 27 billion U.S. dollars in 2015. China is Turkey's second largest trade partner, after Germany.
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The UN General Assembly will hold an interview with Kristalina Georgieva, a second candidate for the next UN secretary-general put forward by Bulgaria, next Monday, Peter Thomson, president of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly, said here Thursday.

The General Assembly interview will start at 1:00 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) on Monday, Thomas said at a reception of the UN Correspondents' Association in honor of him at UN Headquarters in New York.

The new Bulgarian candidate will enjoy the same treatment in the interview as the other candidate vying to succeed the current UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, who is retiring after his maximum two five-year terms on Dec. 31.

During the interview, she is expected to share her vision on the world body with member states and answer questions from diplomats and civil society on she will manage the global organization if elected.

Georgieva, a Bulgarian diplomat who is the vice president of the European Commission and a former World Bank economist, entered into the race for the post of the world's top diplomat. The Bulgarian government on Wednesday nominated Georgieva for the post of the UN chief and withdrew support from its previous candidate Irina Bokova, who was nominated by Sofia in February for her candidacy.

Thomson said that it is up to Bokova to decide whether to stay in the race.

Bokova, the director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said on Wednesday that she would remain in the race.

The interview is part of the efforts by the 193-member General Assembly to make the selection process to replace Ban.

In practice, the 15-member Security Council and its five permanent members will make the final choice and send a single candidate to the General Assembly for approval.
NEW DELHI, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Indian authorities Thursday sounded an alert in various states that share border with Pakistan and in areas close to Line of Control (LoC) dividing Kashmir, officials said.

The local administration in these places have ordered evacuation of population from the frontier areas close to International Border (IB) and LoC. The alert has been issued in Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Indian-controlled Kashmir.

The alerts came following Indian claims of "surgical attacks" by Indian army inside Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

Officials in New Delhi fear attacks from Pakistan in retaliation of the "surgical attacks."

Pakistan, however, rejected Indian claims about "surgical strikes" inside Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. A statement issued by Pakistan military's Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said two Pakistani troopers were killed due to unprovoked firing early Thursday from Indian troops across LoC in Bhimber, hotspring, Kel, and Lipa sectors.

Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated because of the ongoing civilian protests in Indian-controlled Kashmir and a deadly attack last week on an Indian army base in frontier Uri town. The attack killed 18 troopers and wounded over 20 others.

New Delhi blames Islamabad for fanning Kashmir protests and accuses it of sending armed militants into Indian-controlled Kashmir, an accusation Islamabad strongly rejects. Islamabad says it only provides moral and political support to Kashmiris.
WELLINGTON, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- International flights coming into land at Auckland, New Zealand's biggest airport, have been hit by laser beams, the New Zealand Police said Friday.

Police were also investigating reports from pilots of laser strike attacks on a domestic flight coming into Wellington Airport.

On Thursday evening, a passenger plane on route to Wellington Airport was targeted with a powerful green laser aimed at the cockpit.

Both pilots suffered headaches and had their vision temporarily obscured as a result of the strike, but the plane later landed safely, said a police statement.

Early Friday, several international flights approaching Auckland Airport were also targeted.

The statement said police were investigating the incidents in both cities and a police helicopter had been deployed when the reports were received to try to pinpoint and track the visual line of the laser.

Anyone caught was likely to face charges such as endangering transport or criminal nuisance.

"Anyone using a laser pointer on an aircraft is putting the lives of those on board in serious danger," Senior Constable Shane Gealey, Tactical Flight Officer, Air Support Unit, said in the statement.

"While to the person pointing the laser, it may just be a little dot of light, whereas for the person on the other end, it is a large illumination that can cause eye damage, flash blindness and headaches."

The flight attendants' union, E tu, condemned the laser strikes as irresponsible and potentially lethal.

"These strikes put everyone at risk, including the pilots, flight attendants and the general public," E tu director of organizing aviation Kelvin Ellis said in a statement.

Last month, an Auckland man was identified and charged with endangering transport and was currently before the courts.

Earlier this week, a Police helicopter was hit by a laser strike over Auckland.
BANGKOK, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Thailand, after hosting the celebration of the World Tourism Day 2016, invited representatives to visit northeastern Khon Kaen province from Wednesday to Thursday to promote accessible tourism for all, the theme of the World Tourism Day 2016.

It is the first time for Thailand to be the host country of the official celebration of the World Tourism Day, which falls on Sept. 27 annually.

Representatives visited tourist attractions in the province to testify the accessibility as well as experience the local culture.

During the trip, representatives with disabilities travelled with buses equipped with wheelchair lifts.

In the silk village, representatives used a newly-built restroom designed for persons with disabilities.

The Khon Kaen route is the country's first "tourism for all" route and more of its kind is expected in the future, said Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul, Thai minister of Tourism and Sports.

Representatives said Thailand still needs more advancement in its tourism accessibility while spoke highly of Thai people's kindness and willing to help.

"The people have been so friendly and so helpful, so even though you may not have the infrastructure...the people still make it possible to travel," Said Martin Heng, Lonely Planet's accessible travel manager, who have travelled to many countries on his wheelchair.

"The good resource for Thailand is people, they are very kind," said Hideto Kijima, president of Japan Accessible Tourism Center, adding that Thailand needs more infrastructure such as tactile paving systems, and mass transport systems.

According to Kobkarn, the ministry also aimed to promote the local tourism of Khon Kaen as well as the northeastern region.

The northeastern Thailand, or Isan, consists of 20 provinces, which are not as famous as the northern Chiang Mai or the southern Phuket among foreign tourists.

"We have to admit that when we put forward Khon Kaen to our representatives, they had no idea about it, but now after the trip, they are impressed by the province and the local people," She said.

The northeastern region of Thailand has some prominent tourist attractions, especially Khmer style temples that date back to 11th century, such as Phanom Rung in Buriram Province and Phimai historical park in Nakhon Ratchasima province.
CANBERRA, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- A former Australian government minister has been criticized for his decision to disregard the nation's "do not travel" warning and venture to a region of Iraq under threat by Islamic State (IS) forces.

Wyatt Roy, former Assistant Minister for Innovation, who was not re-elected at the July 2 federal election, recently traveled to the war-torn region to visit Kurdish forces near Mosul and without government approval, something Foreign Minister Julie Bishop described as reckless and "irresponsible".

Bishop released a statement overnight condemning Roy's actions and said he was not acting in the way a former government minister should.

She said politicians have the responsibility to follow all directive of the government, including "do not travel" warnings unless on official, mandated business.

"Official Australian government advice for all Australians is 'do not travel' to Iraq," Bishop's statement said.

"It is irresponsible of Wyatt Roy to travel to the front line of the conflict between IS and Kurdish forces in Northern Iraq, in a region regarded as very high risk.

"He has placed himself at risk of physical harm and capture, and acted in defiance of government advice."

She said although his sojourn to the region had the hallmarks of an official visit, he wrote a piece for The Australian newspaper and had a photographer with him, the government in no way approved his trip or condones his actions.

"Mr. Roy did not seek nor did he receive assistance from the Australian government for his travel to Iraq," Bishop said.

"The government does not endorse or approve of Mr. Roy's actions, and strongly urges other Australians to follow the official advice of 'do not travel to Iraq'."

Under current laws in Australia, it is illegal to travel to certain parts of Syria, and while it's technically legal to travel to the Peshmerga region of Iraq, the government actively discourages Australian citizens from doing so.

Overnight, Roy told SBS TV in Australia that he traveled to the region "to visit and see (the war zone) for myself, in a way that I really couldn't have done as a member of parliament".

He said he was at one point caught up in a firefight between Islamic State militants and local Kurdish forces before he was told to leave the area.
WELLINGTON, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The New Zealand government Friday expressed appreciation for the independent investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH 17, saying its report is an important step towards accountability.

The downing of flight MH17 over Ukraine in July 2014 costs 298 lives, including a New Zealand citizen and a New Zealand resident, Foreign Minister Murray McCully said in a statement.

"We remain committed to ensuring there is accountability for this tragic incident," said McCully.

"This report, which is based on a painstaking, impartial and careful investigation, raises some very serious questions," he said.

"The Joint Investigation Team's release of its preliminary findings is an important step towards accountability."

New Zealand continued to urge all countries to fully cooperate with the investigation, as required under Security Council resolution 2166.

"The victims of this tragedy and their families deserve this much," he said.

The Joint Investigation Team, which comprised investigative authorities from The Netherlands, Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia and Belgium, released its interim report into the MH17 disaster on Sept. 28 in The Hague.

The report found that the plane was brought down by a surface-to-air missile brought into Ukraine from Russia and fired from an area under the control of pro-Russian separatists at the time.

An investigation into criminal accountability was continuing.
TEGUCIGALPA, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- So far this year, around 60 babies have been born with microcephaly in Honduras, with the majority caused by the Zika virus, an official said Thursday.

"We have a new total in the number of microcephaly cases. So far in 2016, we have 60 babies with this illness," Deputy Health Minister Francis Contreras told the media.

The number of microcephaly cases has doubled this year compared to that of 2015, Contreras said, adding that the number of microcephaly cases could reach 340 by the end of this year.

Currently, over 600 pregnant women infected with the Zika virus are being monitored in the country.

Microcephaly is a birth defect characterized by an unusually small head and an underdeveloped baby brain and is often accompanied by brain atrophy and neurologic abnormalities.

Zika virus is mainly spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Patients infected with the virus can have symptoms such as fever, conjunctivitis, muscular and joint pain, skin rashes and headaches.

Researches have found that there is a causal relationship between the Zika virus, microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that can result in paralysis and deaths.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles on Thursday denied that the government intends to raise taxes for the rest of the year, despite the low tax collection at present.

"There is no need to raise taxes this year. All projections we made in the bimonthly reports show that there is no need for a tax hike," Meirelles said.

Earlier in the day, the Secretariat of Federal Revenues announced that the federal tax collection continued to fall in August, dropping 10 percent to 91.8 billion reals (28.2 billion U.S. dollars). The figures were the worst for August in seven years.

Meirelles also said there is no projection for a tax hike in 2017, either. He expects the tax collection to improve next year, with an improved gross domestic product (GDP).

"We do not foresee the need for tax hikes in 2017. There is a need for a general increase in tax collection and we believe it will partially come from the GDP growth, and there will be more collection originated from privatization and concessions," he said.
Bird view of the Drepung Monastery (Xinhua/Gyaincain)

It would be unusual if the Drepung Monastery is not listed on your tour itinerary to Tibet. It is the largest among all Tibetan monasteries and the most important monastery of the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism.

Main hall of the Drepung Monastery (Xinhua/Gyaincain)

Established in 1416, it is also one of the three great monasteries of Tibet. The other two are the Ganden Monastery and the Sera Monastery.

Bird view of the Drepung Monastery (Xinhua/Gyaincain)

Situated a few miles west of Lhasa, the 700-year-old monastery covers an area of 250,000 square meters. It houses 7,700 monks and had 141 fazendas and 540 pastures in its heyday.

Bird view of the Drepung Monastery (Xinhua/Gyaincain)

The monastery stands at the foot of the Gambo Utse mountain. Its name Drepung means a pile of rice, as row upon row of white buildings look just like rice pile from afar.

A lama walks in the Drepung Monastery on Sept. 1, 2016 . (Xinhua/Gyaincain)

Against an impressive mountainous background, Drepung offers a majestic sight with its hundreds of large buildings nestled in a grandiose site.

A huge Thangka is exhibited at the Drepung Monastery in Lhasa on Sept. 1, 2016. (Xinhua/Jigme Doje)

Every year, many traditional Tibetan festivities are celebrated at the monastery, such as the Horse-racing Festival, the Grand Prayer Festival and the Shoton Festival.

Lamas and believers pray before the huge Tangka at the Drepung Monastery in Lhasa on Sept. 1, 2016. (Xinhua/Jigme Doje)

Last year, more than 200,000 Buddhists and people of other faiths came to Lhasa for the Shoton Festival, the highlight of which is the "sunning of the Buddha" ceremony.

A lama takes photo of the crowd before the huge Thangka for exhibition at the Drepung Monastery in Lhasa on Sept. 1, 2016. (Xinhua/Jigme Doje)



At the ceremony, a 37-meter-wide, 40-meter-long giant Thangka painting depicting Buddha was taken out of the monastery and put on a platform for both visitors and believers.

A believer talks with lamas in the Drepung Monastery on Sept. 1, 2016 . (Xinhua/Gyaincain)

The Drepung Monastery also houses many cultural relics like rare Thangka scrolls and Buddhist scriptures.
SYDNEY, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- New figures show 1,718 babies were stillborn in Australia last year, at a rate of about five babies per day.

The Stillbirth Foundation Australia said while the figures may be shocking to some, the rate of stillbirths in Australia has not changed much in decades, the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) reported on Friday.

"We know there is up to a third of stillbirths annually that are preventable," the foundation's chief executive, Victoria Bowring told the ABC.

"What we need is funding to rollout education programs (and) national health campaigns just to educate not only pregnant woman but health clinicians and other professionals in the system," Bowring said.

The foundation is using the annual data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to renew calls for governments and the private sector to invest more funding and research into what it calls a national health crisis.

Its patron, former New South Wales premier Kristina Keneally, said there was not enough awareness about stillbirths.

"There are 35 stillbirths today in Australia for every incidence of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) and it was research that drove the insights into how to prevent SIDS," Keneally said.

"We've seen SIDS drop dramatically in Australia and around the world as a result of Australian research, and I'm convinced there is research that we can do, there are answers we can get, there is advice that we can give to parents (about stillbirth) that we're simply not doing now."

Keneally had a stillborn daughter, Caroline, in 1999 and said the difficulty in talking about it was a factor.

"I do think it's an incredibly hard thing to talk about, stillbirth, it's hard for parents to talk about because it is such an extraordinary tragedy, it is devastatingly sad," she said.

The foundation said there were relatively simple steps expectant parents could take to improve their chances of having a healthy delivery.

"We know that sleeping on your left side is a possible prevention for stillbirth, we know that baby's movement is vital to monitoring the health of your baby and any changes in those movement patterns need to be reported to a hospital, your midwife, your obstetrician as soon as you notice the change," Bowring said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (C Front) and other senior leaders Li Keqiang (3rd R Front), Zhang Dejiang (3rd L Front), Yu Zhengsheng (2nd R Front), Liu Yunshan (2nd L Front), Wang Qishan (1st R Front) and Zhang Gaoli (1st L Front) attend a ceremony at the Tian'anmen Square in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 30, 2016, to honor and remember deceased national heroes on the Martyrs' Day. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior leaders attended a ceremony Friday at the Tian'anmen Square in Beijing to honor and remember deceased national heroes on the Martyrs' Day.

This year is also the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Long March, a famous military maneuver carried out by the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of the Communist Party of China from 1934 to 1936.

Veterans, family members of martyrs and representatives of all walks of life gathered at the Monument to the People's Heroes at the Tian'anmen Square to mark the country's third Martyrs' Day on the eve of the National Day.

The leaders and other participants in the event will present flowers to the people's heroes.

Martyrs, as defined by the government, are "people who sacrificed their lives for national independence and prosperity, as well as the welfare of the people in modern times, or after First Opium War (1840-1842)."

It is estimated that China has about 20 million martyrs.

China's legislature approved Sept. 30 as the Martyrs' Day in 2014, to commemorate those who lost their lives fighting for national causes.
SEOUL, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Sentiment among South Korean manufacturers stayed low as laborers in key automakers went on partial strikes, central bank data showed on Friday.

The business sentiment index (BSI) for September stood at 71, unchanged from the previous month, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). The reading below 100 means pessimists outnumbered optimists.

The BSI among automakers tumbled from 76 in August to 65 in September as labor strikes in major carmakers, including Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors and GM Korea, boosted concerns about losses from production delay. The September figure was the lowest since June 2009.

Hyundai Motor, the country's No.1 automaker, faced 22 labor strikes in 2016 alone as of Thursday, causing an estimated production delay of 121,167 vehicles worth about 2.7 trillion won (2.45 billion U.S. dollars).

Business sentiment in the electronics and communications equipments increased 9 points over the month to 86 in September thanks to higher prices of DRAM chips.

The BSI among exporters declined 3 points to 72, but the index among companies depending mainly on domestic demand rose 2 points to 70 in September.

Meanwhile, the September BSI among non-manufacturers came in at 73, making no change compared with the previous month.
Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani (front) signs a peace deal in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, Sept. 29, 2016. The Afghan government signed a peace deal with Hizb-e-Islami, a militant group led by Gulbudin Hekmatyar on Thursday, in an effort to boost peace and national reconciliation in the militancy-hit country. (Xinhua/Rahmat Alizadah)

ISLAMABAD, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan welcomed the peace agreement signed between the Afghan government and Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan on Thursday, local media reported late Thursday.

"Pakistan has consistently emphasized that there is no military solution of the conflict in Afghanistan. Politically negotiated settlement through an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace process is the most viable option for bringing lasting peace and stability to Afghanistan," the Foreign Ministry here said.

The successful conclusion of the peace deal between the Afghan government and Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan is, therefore, encouraging, the ministry said in a statement, hoping that the peace agreement could provide an opportunity for similar agreements between Afghan government and other Afghan insurgent groups for achieving durable peace in Afghanistan.

"The government and people of Pakistan reiterate their continued support and solidarity with the government and people of Afghanistan in their pursuit of peace, progress and prosperity," it said.
LHASA, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Tibetan women, considered unsuitable to study and practice medicine for more than 3,000 years, are now playing an equal role to men in Tibetan medicine.

Lhaphun, a gynecologist with the Tibetan Hospital in Lhasa, said she was astonished to be admitted to the Tibet College of Tibetan Medicine (TCTM) 26 years ago as she was sure she would have to study Western medicine.

"In my mind, scripture halls were where Tibetan doctors are taught," recalled the 45-year-old doctor.

MODERN EDUCATION BRINGS WOMEN DOCTORS

For thousands of years, knowledge and treatment of Tibetan medicine had been passed down in monasteries and the best doctors were often monks. Women rarely had the chance to learn medicine, and their roles were restricted to household chores and raising children.

In 1963, fifteen Tibetan women entered Lhasa's Men-Tsee-Khang -- a traditional Tibetan hospital founded in 1916 -- to begin formal medical study.

Women now make up half of the 800 physicians at the Tibetan Hospital in Lhasa. Of new students enrolled by the nearby Tibet College of Tibetan Medicine each year, almost a half are female.

Recalling her college life, Lhaphun said unlike traditional Dratsang (monastery schools) where lessons were given in dimly lit scripture halls, their classrooms were in modern buildings.

The routine monastic practice of chanting mantras was skipped, but classical works by ancient medical masters were memorized to obtain the basic theories and knowledge of Tibetan medicine.

Lhaphun and her classmates familiarized themselves with herbalism, grasping diagnosis and various therapies. In summer, they followed their instructors to learn about herbs in the mountains.

The most impressive course for Lhaphun was ethics. Thirty-one sections of Volume II of the Four Medical Tantras, an encyclopedia of Tibetan medicine dating back to the eighth century, are devoted to medical ethics.

"The best doctors should take all patients as their children and treat them equally. That makes the job noble," said Lhaphun.

Tenzin Yangjen, 22, graduate of the West China School of Pharmacy at Sichuan University, joined the Tibetan Medicine Development and Research Institute at the Lhasa Hospital last year.

"It's no longer rare for women to study medicine in Tibet. Women doctors work in all departments of our hospital," she said.

PIONEERS OF MODERNITY OF TIBETAN MEDICINE

Describing her job as finding "secret" prescriptions in classical medical tantras and revitalizing them through modern technology, Tenzin Yangjen said her goal was to standardize Tibetan medicine as much as possible.

"For our generation, the mission is to bring Tibetan medicine to the world, and the key is standardization," she said.

To reach that goal, Tenzin Yangjen and her colleagues have been working to standardize herbal products using modern extractive technology to turn traditional decoctions and pills to granules that are more popular in today's market.

Lhaphun has worked at the Lhasa hospital for 21 years. A primary task has been to find and rescue endangered therapies and explore ways to integrate them with modern medical science. For instance, her team uses modern equipment to conduct data analysis and correlate their findings with traditional urine and pulse diagnosis.

"Without standardization in diagnosis, testing methods and treatment, it will be difficult to popularize Tibetan medicine beyond the plateau," she said.

Her team is also looking to revitalize traditional therapies such as blood-letting, moxibustion, cupping and others. Even diarrhoea can be used as a treatment to help patients eliminate toxins, said Lhaphun. A retired expert from a hospital in Nagqu has been invited to explain the diarrhoea therapy to the 30-strong staff in Lhaphun's department.

Classical medical tantras record the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric and women's conditions and put them into 40 categories. So far, only one-fifth of those therapies have been put to clinical use in her department. Of the tens of thousands of prescriptions mentioned, the number in use is roughly 200.

"The potential of Tibetan medicine is huge. There is so much we need to learn," she said.
MOSCOW, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The risk of hostility intensification is on the rise in Syria amid escalating tensions between Russia and the United States over the failure of a truce deal that had been expected to improve the situation in the war-raged country.

Earlier this month, Moscow and Washington announced they had brokered a landmark agreement on a nationwide cease-fire in Syria, which both sides hoped would lead to their countries' military cooperation to end more than five years of bloodshed there.

However, crossfire resumed in the first hours after the week-long truce deal expired on Sept. 19, with both parties trading accusations of failures to implement the deal.

Moscow blamed Washington for the U.S.-led coalition air strikes against Syrian government troops, saying the move violated their bilateral agreement, while Washington insisted Moscow be held accountable for the bombing of a UN humanitarian convoy in Syria, an accusation the Kremlin has denied.

"Russia and the United States have reached an impasse over implementing the cease-fire deal in Syria, due to its complexity and lack of trust between the participants," Fyodor Lukyanov, chief editor of Russia in Global Affairs magazine, told Xinhua.

Spat between the two powers was growing on Wednesday, when the United States threatened to suspend cooperation with Russia if the Syrian forces backed by Moscow kept bombing the opposition.

"If the civil war in Syria continued, extremists could attack Russian interests, and perhaps even Russian cities," U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday.

"We cannot regard these statements as anything else but a call for action," Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded Thursday at a briefing.

The Russian Defense Ministry saw Kirby's warning as a "confession by the U.S. side that the opposition allegedly conducting a civil war in Syria is an international terrorist group controlled by the U.S."

The United States, which had assumed the responsibility for separating the so-called moderate opposition from terrorists, has failed to honor its promise, Moscow argued.

The United States itself, Lukyanov believes, has little clue as to who represents moderate opposition in Syria.

"Settlements of complicated conflicts like the Syrian one called for deep and very detailed elaboration with strict definitions of responsibilities of participants, and a high degree of mutual trust," he said. "And the trust between Russia and the United States is not only low, but practically nonexistent."

On top of it, he noted, the U.S. side was evidently divided between the Department of State and President Barack Obama, who is willing to reach some progress, and the Pentagon, which had no intention to cooperate with its Russian colleagues.

One proof of this was the reluctance of Washington to publish the texts of the reached agreement with Moscow.

"As the Obama administration has been under sharp criticism for allegedly making concessions to Moscow, the unveiling of any agreement with Russia could lead to another wave of attacks from opponents," Lukyanov said.

Under the current circumstances, a new outburst of hostility is expected with Russia increasing its presence in Syria, outside support to the Syrian opposition rising, and the Syrian army attempting to intensify its operations, he added.

A change in the situation may occur either if the Syrian army scores "some great victories," or the parties exhaust military means and begin to seek new talks, he concluded.
MELBOURNE, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The world could be rocked by a gastroenteritis epidemic in the next two to seven months, Australian experts have warned.

Researchers from the Royal Melbourne Hospital's Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory identified a dangerous strain of the virus norovirus, the most common cause of gastro, in Victoria.

Mike Catton, director of the laboratory, said the strain had mutated since first being identified in August 2015 and could now skip around herd immunity.

Catton said the strain was responsible for most cases of gastro, a stomach virus that often causes nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, in Victoria in the last 18 months.

"If this new recombinant has undergone enough change to escape herd immunity and become the next epidemic variant, then from its first detection in Victoria in mid-June 2016, the expected epidemic could be any time between mid-August 2016 and January 2017," the researchers wrote in their findings, published in European journal Eurosurveillance on Friday.

Based on historic data going back 14 years, the researchers said this particular strain could even spread worldwide and become a pandemic.

"If past trends are followed, then it would have the potential to also predominate in other parts of the world," they wrote.

"Based on years of experience monitoring new norovirus strains we think that this new strain is genetically different enough to cause an epidemic," Catton told Fairfax Media on Friday.

Victoria's chief health officer, Charles Guest, issued an official warning about the impending outbreak.

"As is common with many viruses, norovirus can mutate and, through routine surveillance from our public health laboratories, we know it does so frequently," Guest told Fairfax on Friday.

"Occasionally the virus changes to become so different that the community has no effective immunity.

"This means that everyone who comes into contact with it is very susceptible to illness; whether contact is with faeces of an infected person or by being close to an infected person who is vomiting."

Children under five years old and the elderly are most at risk of catching gastro.
CARACAS, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela hailed on Thursday the oil output freezing deal reached by Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in an attempt to stabilize prices.

In a statement, Venezuela's Foreign Affairs Ministry lauded "the historical agreement" reached at an informal meeting in Algeria on Wednesday, which "includes a freeze in output by the OPEC members."

The participants agreed to limit oil output from 33.24 million barrels per day (bpd) to 32.5-33 million bpd, and to set up a high-level technical committee to oversee the output share of each member.

The agreement "reflects Venezuela's untiring efforts for almost two years in search of a consensus to stabilize the oil market and reduce the perverse effects of financial speculation and futures markets on hydrocarbon production," said the statement.
HAVANA, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Cuban President Raul Castro on Thursday met with leaders of Lesotho and Namibia to boost relations and cooperation with the African nations, according to a government statement.

Castro met with Prime Minister of Lesotho Pakalitha Bethuel Mosisili at the presidential palace where they exchanged views on bilateral relations and expressed their will to strengthen ties with further cooperation in areas such as health, education and sports.

During his-four day visit to Cuba, Mosisili met with various government officials, signed a number of cooperation agreements and visited students from his nation studying in the island country.

More than 50 students from Lesotho are studying in Cuba now, while Havana currently has medical and educational advisors in the African nation.

Cuba established diplomatic relations in 1979 with Lesotho, a landlocked small country completely surrounded by South Africa.

Castro also held talks with Sam Nujoma, the first president of Namibia and an anti-apartheid activist, who is also visiting the island to further strengthen relations between the two countries.

Nujoma was a founding member and the first president of the South-West Africa People's Organization and played an important role as leader of the national liberation movement in campaigning for Namibia's independence from South African rule.
NEW YORK, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The fortune of U.S. Republican nominee Donald Trump has shrunk 800 million U.S. dollars since 2015, according to Forbes magazine, increasing the mystery about how rich the millionaire really is.

The business magazine pegged Trump's net wealth now at around 3.7 billion U.S. dollars, citing the declines of New York city's real estate market for the loss.

Eighteen of the 28 assets or asset classes belonging to Trump group declined in value, including his trademark Trump Tower on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, his 71-story 40 Wall Street and private club Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, the magazine reported on Wednesday.

Besides the value decrease in his property, the magazine also scrutinized Trump's presidential campaign cost and how much his controversial remarks about the Hispanics hit his business, which is worth about 150 million U.S. dollars in total.

The real wealth of the U.S. candidate remains a mystery as he boasted his worth was "in excess of t10 billion dollars" but Bloomberg's estimation is 3 billion U.S. dollars and Fortune puts it at 3.9 billion U.S. dollars.

During Monday's first presidential debate, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton slammed Trump for having no guts to disclose his tax returns which may reveal that either he is not as rich as he claimed or he lies about his tax.

However, Trump's rebuttal that "you don't learn that much from tax returns" may be more true because his income can't offer a full picture of the value of his assets, debt or stakes, analysts said.
SYDNEY, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Starbucks have begun reopening coffee shops around Australia's biggest cities, eight years after closing down scores of stores owing to failed strategies.

The chain told News Corp on Friday that it had a new plan for success as it aims to be the most successful coffee chain in Australia, whereby the takeaway coffee market is worth about 2 billion Australian dollars (1.53 billion U.S. dollars).

At present, the market is dominated by brands such as Gloria Jeans with more than 450 branches while Coffee Club has 350 outlets in Australia.

In comparison to Starbucks which only has a mere 22 outlets, a far cry from the 100 stores it operated when it first started in 2002.

Then, without warning, the world's most successful coffee chain closed scores of stores in Australia.

Racking up losses of 143 million Australian dollars (109 million U.S. dollars) on its Australian operations, in 2008, Starbucks sacked 700 staff and closed 66 branches leaving a rump of cafes in the central business district's of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane mostly serving tourists familiar with the brand.

And that's the way it stayed until recently when, with little fanfare, Starbucks opened new stores in Sydney and Brisbane.

Starbucks Australia chief executive Chris Garlick said the chain's handful of stores had a "significant and loyal customer base" but its new cafes, far from being on every street corner, would be concentrated in a limited number of areas.

"Our growth strategy is centred around our customers preferences and where they want us to be, which includes shopping centres and high traffic tourist locations," he said.

"We're confident these locations will help us create destinations for customers who want to come to our stores and relax, spend time catching up with friends, or some quiet time alone."

This is perhaps most evident with its next big move into Sydney's northern beaches, a prime tourist destination, by Christmas.

Prof. Paul Patterson, from the University of New South Wales' Business School, said Starbucks' main problem first time round was that it fundamentally misjudged Australia.

"I don't think it was much to do with the coffee, the problem was the brand," he said.

"The Americans assumed that Australians would fall in love with an American brand and that just didn't happen."

"Australians are not anti-American but they are anti arrogant American brands," he said.

Patterson said in Britain and China, with 800 and 2,000 outlets respectively, Starbucks were partly responsible for introducing coffee culture in countries where a nice cup of tea was the hot beverage of choice.

In Australia, however, independent coffee shops were already part of the culture.

"Starbucks failed to realize people were brand loyal to their local coffee shops because they know their barista and people weren't going to leave that to go to a global brand," Patterson said.

More than that, Starbucks charged a premium price.

A Starbucks tall latte currently at one of the few Sydney outlets costs 4.40 Australian dollars (3.4 U.S. dollars) while a large flat white can be bought at funky holes in the wall nearby for 3.50 Australian dollars (2.67 U.S. dollars).

The menu, heavy on U.S.-style creamy sweet drinks and black coffee, only had a handful of milk-based coffees loved by Australians.

In 2014, the Withers Group, one of the country's richest families bought the rights to the chain in Australia.

They already own the local arm of Japanese global convenience store franchise 7-Eleven which also sells coffee but for just 1 Australian dollar (76 U.S. cents).

Withers Group's then chief executive Warren Wilmot said the company had lofty ambitions for its new buy.

"Growing store numbers will be one of our primary opportunities," Wilmot said at the time.

"Our aim will be to make Starbucks the most successful coffee chain in Australia."

While its new expansion has been quiet, it's not gone completely under the radar.

Residents in the Sydney beachside suburb of Manly almost spat out their chai lattes, so appalled were they at the idea of the U.S. chain taking up residence in their suburb.

Earlier this week, Garlick told the Manly Daily that the company had changed and was now true blue.

"No doubt it's going to take a little bit of time for people to understand it's a global brand run by Australians in Australia."
SYDNEY, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- More than 200 guns are being seized each month in Australia's sunshine state Queensland, police statistics show.

Local media reported on Friday that the firearms have been netted in police operations targeting criminals and expired licences, the number of seizures in the state rising by nearly 70 percent since 2010.

Queensland Police seized 3,057 firearms in 2015 and a further 610 in the first three months of this year.

In 2010, 1822 guns were seized.

The figures do not include firearms voluntarily handed into police which will be the aim of a gun amnesty being negotiated by the federal government and the states.

More than 19,000 weapons were surrendered to police during a three-month gun amnesty in Queensland in 2013.

But firearms policy researcher Samara McPhedran, of Griffith University, said it was important to be realistic about what amnesties achieved as those who handed in their weapons weren't likely to engage in gun violence.

"While it sounds like a cliche it's true to say criminals don't hand in their guns," she said.
by Cesar Marino Garcia

CARTAGENA, Colombia, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The signing of a historic peace deal earlier this week is a momentous occasion for Colombia, yet it marks only the beginning of a long and arduous march towards a lasting future free of violence.

BEGIN BY NOT FORGETTING

Maria Emma Wills, director of Colombia's National Center for Historical Memory, said that "memory is an ally of peace as it allows us to discern which conditions took us to war, which prolonged it and which led it to a progressive end."

According to Wills, the first step is to engage victims and former soldiers in an effort to gather archives of the conflict's main facts. She said these programs can help future Colombians make sense of the country's violent past.

In a much anticipated moment during the Sept. 26 signing ceremony, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) commander-in-chief Timoleon Jimenez formally apologized for all the violence the guerrilla group staged in the conflict.

"I would like to sincerely ask for forgiveness from all the victims of the conflict for all the pain that we have caused during the war," he said.

For many, this was a step in the right direction for the FARC, which has begun to help the country heal, certain victims told Xinhua.

Marino Cordoba, the international coordinator for the National Afro-Colombian Peace Council, fled Colombia after his village became embroiled in the conflict. She said the apology was the minimum that the Afro-descendant and indigenous communities, the most affected by the armed conflicts, could expect.

"After 52 years of war, society has lost its capacity to feel horror, as horror has been repeated so often. The apology carries a message that what happened in the war is unjustifiable and can never happen again."

KEY TO JUSTICE

Opponents to the peace process have argued against the deal, saying it offers "impunity" to FARC members, whose crimes in the war will not be persecuted.

According to the agreement, the FARC members who committed a range of serious crimes but come forward to confess will see restrictions on their freedom for five to eight years, instead of going to prison.

To benefit from this scheme, the fighters involved will have to comply fully with the authorities in search of the truth and in reparations to victims.

Those who hide their crimes and fail to cooperate may face up to 20 years of prison terms.

For the Colombian government, it is more effective to have a FARC member help in de-mining, reveal where mass graves are or eradicate coca plantations than jail them.

"NO" VOTE STILL POSSIBLE

However, the victims are divided on this topic, with some saying that they, because of the amnesty, will vote "No" in the coming Oct. 2 plebiscite, in which the fate of the peace deal will be decided.

Recent polls have shown a clear lead for the "Yes" camp, with an IPSOS poll on Sept. 27 finding 66 percent of respondents support the deal and 34 percent oppose it.

However, concerning the possibility of a "No" victory, James Carlin, a British writer and journalist familiar with Colombia, told Xinhua: "The world would be absolutely stupefied. For a country which has been at war for 52 years, to essentially vote for the war to continue would be a complete defeat for humanity. It would lead us to ask: 'What type of species are we?'"
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Brunei's air quality is among the cleanest and safest on the planet, according to a new model developed by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The findings, quoted by local media on Friday, analysed 2012 data from 154 countries and showed the sultanate only accounted for one death linked to air pollution.

Brunei had the lowest number of deaths from air pollution in the world, followed by Fiji and Vanuatu with two deaths each. However, no deaths were recorded in the Pacific states of Kiribati, Micronesia and Solomon Islands, said the findings released recently.

The new model was based on data gathered from 3,000 locations, using pollution monitors on the ground, modelling and satellite readings.

Brunei's air quality was also the best among ASEAN nations, while Indonesia was rated the deadliest with 61,792 deaths related to polluted air. When ranked per capita, Myanmar had the worst air quality in the region with 43 deaths for every 100,000 people.

It was also found that 92 percent of the world's population live in places where the air quality exceeded WHO limits. Globally, three million deaths are linked to exposure to outdoor air pollution.

"Air pollution continues to take a toll on the health of the most vulnerable populations -- women, children and the older adults. For people to be healthy, they must breathe clean air from their first breath to their last," said WHO Assistant Director General Flavia Bustreo.

Scientists from eight international institutions worked with the UN agency to analyse exposure to tiny particulates 2.5 microns in size, known as PM2.5, which penetrate deep into the lungs and in the cardiovascular system.

WHO said PM2.5 poses the greatest risks to human health and included air pollutants such as sulphate, nitrates and black carbon.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel slammed airstrikes by Russia and the Syrian government on the northern Syrian city of Aleppo during a phone conversation on Thursday.

Obama and Merkel believed Russia and the Syrian government "bear special responsibility for ending the fighting in Syria and granting the UN humanitarian access to besieged and hard to reach areas in Syria," said a White House statement.

Heavy aerial bombardments hitting east Aleppo and indiscriminate shelling in western parts of the city are threatening the lives of civilians while further hampering the delivery of critical aid, Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, UN Deputy Special Envoy for Syria, said in Geneva on Thursday.

On Sept. 10, Russia and the United States announced a landmark agreement on a nationwide cease-fire in Syria, which both sides hoped would lead to their countries' military cooperation to end more than five years of bloodshed there.

However, crossfire resumed in the first hours after the week-long truce deal expired on Sept. 19, with both parties trading accusations of failures to implement the deal.

At a conference in Washington hosted by the Aspen Institute and the Atlantic Council on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the United States is "on the verge" of calling off talks with Russia over military cooperation in Syria after the failure of the ceasefire.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday that Russia sees no alternative to a diplomatic settlement of the Syrian crisis with the United States.

The senior Russian official reiterated Moscow's stance, blaming Washington for failing to fulfill its obligations and commitments, which Moscow believes has caused the collapse of the Russia-U.S. brokered truce accord.
MEXICO CITY, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- China's growing appetite for beef and pork has boosted meat exports in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, with more potential to be tapped in the Chinese market.

China, one of the main markets for Brazilian beef, bought 906 million U.S. dollars' worth of Brazilian beef from June 2015 to January 2016, or 28 percent of the sector's total revenue, said a report by Brazil's Ministry of Development, Industry, and Foreign Trade earlier this year.

Despite China's rising demand for beef, there is still a great potential for growth in the Chinese market, with only 6 kg of beef bought per capita each year at present, compared with 35-40 kg in Brazil and around 60 kg in Argentina.

China imposed a three-year embargo on Brazilian beef imports in May last year following an atypical epidemic of mad cow disease in 2012. The embargo was then lifted after Brazil imposed stricter controls.

In the past two years, Brazil has become China's main source of beef and pork.

Mexico's first ever shipment of pork to China marked a milestone in trade, said Mexican industry officials.

China's meat market is a tough one to break into, given the strict sanitary requirements, but once the market has been cracked open, it promises to provide Mexican meat industry with brisk business, they said.

Claudio Freixes Catalan, the CEO of a leading pork and meat producer in Mexico named Keken, said his company secured the sale of 22 tons of pork to China following seven years of negotiations, and the shipment sailed in July.

"The Chinese market is very selective, and it doesn't want meat from countries that have had any kind of sanitary problem," he told Xinhua, adding that "Mexico is free of any kind of virus related to swine."

To Mexican Agriculture Minister Jose Calzada Rovirosa, exporting meat to China reflects Mexico's progress in this sector.

Throughout history, "it is the first time Mexico shipped pork to China," he said, describing the day the shipment went out as "special."

Mexico also exports avocado, berries, tequila, and other products to China, but opening up China's market to Mexican pork is expected to boost trade significantly, he said.

China will surely keep purchasing Mexican pork in the future, as "we will continue to use specific lines of production" that meet the country's sanitary standards, he said.

In the next five years, Keken expects to see 350 million U.S. dollars in investment, which it will largely earmark to promote its exports, said the CEO.

China is also Argentina's biggest beef market, importing more than 40,000 tons in 2015, or 36 percent of Argentina's annual beef exports.

The two countries reached a "landmark beef deal" in July that will secure Argentina's beef exports to China in the future, said an industrial trade website Global Meat News.
BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The ninth Cross-Strait cultural industries fair will be held in the port city of Xiamen in southeast China's Fujian Province from Nov. 4 to 7, according to a press conference on Friday.

There will be 3,100 booths displaying crafts, creative design, digital content and tourism on the mainland and Taiwan.

The event also aims to improve communication between countries and regions along the 21st century Maritime Silk Road, and help Chinese culture to go global.

To date, the fair has drawn attendees from several countries, including Pakistan, Australia, Poland, Nepal, India, Cameroon and Uzbekistan.

Last year, more than 730 enterprises from Taiwan attended the fair.
BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Congress' overriding President Barack Obama's veto of a bill allowing Sept. 11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia not only has drawn criticism from the kingdom, but also is considered by many as a move that could bring negative impacts.

U.S. Congress voted Wednesday to override Obama's veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA.

The bill, which has now become law, grants an exception to the legal principle of sovereign immunity in cases of terrorism on U.S. soil.

Survivors and families of the Sept. 11, 2001 victims have been trying to sue the Saudi royal family, Saudi banks and charities in U.S. courts, on the grounds that the Saudi government provided financial support for terrorism.

The families' efforts have largely been stymied, in part because of a 1976 law that gives foreign nations some immunity from lawsuits in American courts.

Now with JASTA enacted into law, the families are allowed to move forward with a case they filed in 2003 against Saudi Arabia in a New York federal court.

Saudi Arabia was home to 15 of the 19 al-Qaida hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington D.C. area and Pennsylvania. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the terror attacks, was also a Saudi national.

Riyadh denies any role in the plotting the terror attacks.

CRITICISM FROM SAUDI ARABIA, UAE

An official at the Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry said Thursday in a statement that the erosion of sovereign immunity, which has governed international relations for hundreds of years, will have a negative impact on all nations, including the United States.

The official elaborated that JASTA has been opposed publicly by many nations as well as dozens of American national security experts who see the dangers that JASTA presents.

The official hoped that wisdom will prevail and that U.S. Congress will take the necessary steps to correct this legislation in order to avoid any serious unintended consequences that may ensue.

The erosion of sovereign immunity is also a concern among Gulf allies of Saudi Arabia, a powerful member of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council that groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said Thursday that U.S. Congress' move was a "dangerous precedent" in international law that undermines the principle of sovereign immunity and the future of sovereign investments in the United States.

"The populism surrounding the JASTA law overcame the rationality required in matters of international law and investments. It will have long-term and serious implications," Gargash tweeted.

He added the move against Saudi Arabia in the United States was "unreasonable and demagogic." The kingdom, he added, had suffered itself "the most from extremism and terrorism."

"Our reactions at the legal and investment levels should not be hasty. Easing the damage requires focused and joint action. Logic and reason will always prevail," tweeted Gargash.

POSSIBLE NEGATIVE IMPACTS

In opposing the law, Obama has said the bill "would be detrimental to U.S. national interests."

"Enacting JASTA into law, however, would neither protect Americans from terrorist attacks nor improve the effectiveness of our response to such attacks," Obama said.

Analysts on Thursday warned that Saudi Arabia could reduce valuable security and intelligence cooperation with longstanding ally Washington after the congressional "stab in the back."

"I'm afraid that this bill will have dire strategic implications" for the United States, Salman al-Ansari, head of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee, told AFP.

Saudi Arabia has threatened to sell off hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of American assets held by the kingdom if the United States passes and enacts the bill.

On the other hand, technically, it will be hard to prove a foreign nation is responsible for acts of terrorism, said attorneys and law experts, who expected drawn-out legal wrangling.

Jack Quinn, co-counsel for more than 2,000 family members of Sept. 11 victims, said the plaintiffs will now ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to reconsider the issue in light of the new law.

"We will next attempt to complete the development of evidence and find out what the truth is," said Quinn.

However, even under the new law, the White House can still request a court to halt related cases.

The law allows a court to put a proceeding against a foreign state on hold if the United Stats says it "is engaged in good faith discussions" with the country to resolve the claims.
A cosmological tourism park near the world's largest radio telescope in Guizhou, southwest China (Xinhua/Ou Dongqu)

By Ge Mengchao & Wang Caizhen

Albert Einstein says: "You do not really understand it unless you can explain it to your grandmother." Truly, it is not easy to make non-experts, like our grannies, understand science-related topics, but Bi Xiaotian enjoys meeting the Einsteinian challenge.

Bi, a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University in Beijing, began to be known as a popular science writer in the past summer after his online article went viral by explaining why some drinks taste "terrible" in a scientific but amusing manner.

The article, illustrated with funny pictures and full of buzzwords, was written to respond to Internet users' spoofing selection of "Top Five Terrible Drinks." He compared the five soft beverages through chemical approaches.

The article on Weibo, a leading microblogging service in China, was retweeted 8,900 times with 17,000 comments.

A snapshot of Bi Xiaotian's Weibo webpage

Bi is one of the college students who have joined in the efforts of popularizing science in an era when Chinese people' s low science literacy becomes a concern in contrast to the present information overload.

According to statistics from the China Association for Science and Technology, only 6.2 percent of Chinese people held basic science literacy in 2015, lagging far behind the country's economic growth.

The low science literacy has protruded the dearth of effective science communication popularizing complex subjects like cosmology, quantum physics, evolution and anatomy to the public.

Bi's story related to science communication started two years ago when he, together with six classmates, accidentally became "defenders" of PX, a notorious chemical in the eyes of Chinese public.

PX, short for P-Xlyene, is a chemical compound widely used in clothing, manufacturing, pharmacy and the petroleum industry. Nevertheless, nearly all planned PX projects in Chinese cities over the past decade encountered boycotts and protests due to environmental concerns of the public. The same situation occurred in Maoming, Guangdong Province in 2014 again.



Bi says he understands the concerns of the protesters but he had something to say when he found that the chemical property of PX was intentionally changed from "low toxic" to "high toxic" by ulterior users at Baidu Baike, China's Wikipedia.

"I hate those people who manipulate the public by spreading rumors," Bi says. "Whether PX is low toxic or not is just a simple scientific issue."

Bi and other Tsinghua students launched a campaign to defend PX on Baidu, changing the property of the chemical into "low toxic" for 36 times in the week from March 30 to April 6, until the definition of the term was locked by Baidu's webmaster as "low toxic."

Bi Xiaotian, a chemical PhD candidate in Tsinghua University, poses for a picture in a lab. (Photo provided to New China)

NEW MEDIA SAVVIES

Like Bi, Sun Yafei, also a PhD candidate of Tsinghua's Chemistry Department, has had a similar experience.

Sun still remembered his first article concerning science communication. In that piece named Plasticizer's Chinese War, Sun introduced government attitudes and grounds towards plasticizer in Europe, the United States and Japan to the Chinese public.



Sun's article was published after a toxic plasticizer scandal in Taiwan triggered huge controversy and unrest among the international community, especially Asian countries in 2011, when it was exposed that the chemical product was wrongly added into food as an additive.



All of a sudden, food plasticizers were completely demonized. "I felt uneasy to see the non-professional comments on the web so I handed in my article to an editor of Squirrel Association," he says. Squirrel Association, short for Squirrel Association of Science Communicators, is a non-governmental organization that publishes books, organizes themed events and runs an Internet service.



Squirrel Association and Zhihu, China' s Quora, were not so popular and influential as they are today, but Sun has since become an opinion leader and an Internet celebrity. On Zhihu, Sun has gotten 31,000 likes, 9,800 thanks with 17,000 followers.



Nowadays, a growing number of Chinese netizens resort to Squirrel Association or Zhihu for expert opinions and scientific insights on social hot topics like environmental protection and safety of genetically-modified food due to lack of authority voices.



"These Internet platforms have allured loads of young intellectuals from universities and related industries," Sun says. "We share ideas and brainstorm together online."

On the one hand, the huge hunger for knowledge, with people as interested in and enthusiastic about science as they have ever been, happens to be a catalyst for promoting science communication.



It is far from enough, on the other hand. High academic authorities in China are generally reserved and reluctant to speak out their opinions and suggestions. As a result, college students like Bi and Sun are playing an increasingly significant role in defending scientific facts amid media hype and sensationalism as well as numerous misinterpretation prevailing among the public.



Various reasons are considered to have resulted in this phenomenon. Compared with poker-faced professors and experts who stay in labs surrounded by bizarre test tubes, students are easy-going and down to earth. As young adults and twitteratis, they understand their audiences better and are good at playing with trendy new media platforms. Except for Squirrel Group and Zhihu, these Internet savvies like to publish scientific articles on WeChat, China' s What's App, and Weibo, China's Twitter.



Another advantage for college students is that they are more likely to get in touch with leading scholars and researchers who can re-check their opinions. Moreover, driven by pure love of communicating and feeling of being worshiped, most of them tend to be less influenced or manipulated by vested interest behind science research.

A worker at a science exhibition in Hefei, east China's Anhui Province, explains to two pupils how solar power is generated on Sept. 22, 2016 (Xinhua/Zhang Duan)

ROLE OF PROFESSORS

Both Sun Yafei and Bi Xiaotian complain about their weaker influence on popularizing science. It is true that if a man is in a low position, his words are often of little effect.



"The dilemma of science communication in China is that students lacking experience are more eager to communicate with the public, while at the same time, professors with authority just say nothing," Sun says. "It is leading experts rather than I who should stand out and uphold the banner of communicating science and improving public' s intellect."

Last year, Sun's appeal was echoed by Zhou Gongdu, an 84-year-old professor at the School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering of Peking University. By handwriting a letter, he accused an advertisement themed "We hate chemistry" on the China Central Television (CCTV) of misleading the public. Three days after that letter's release on the Internet, the advertisement was removed by the state broadcaster.

Conspicuously, scientists and professors in Chinese colleges have greater power and potential to communicate science but are less promoted and encouraged. "Professors do not like to communicate science as they think the public can not understand what they are talking about," says Jin Jianbin, professor in Tsinghua School of Journalism and Communication, "neither do they gain many rewards both monetarily and mentally."

However, Professor Rao Yi, Professor Xie Yu from Peking University and Professor Lu Bai from Tsinghua University have made a difference by establishing a company named Intellectual Media Ltd. last year. Their WeChat account The-Intellectual has attracted more than 320,000 followers.



The-Intellectual offers the public original articles about high-end science and technologies. In addition, it also participates in debates on hot social issues.

The-Intellectual is trying to create an atmosphere that makes lofty researchers and scholars feel more relaxed and pleasant by teaching them new media skills, supporting their hobbies or organizing seminars. Lu Bai, neuroscientist and professor in Tsinghua School of Medicine, says their aim is tantamount to influence the influential people who will lead others to love and communicate science.

Sun Yafei appreciates what the professors have done. "They are blazing a trail," he says.
Shimon Peres memorial ceremony at the Knesset (EPA/ATEF SAFADI)

JERUSALEM, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- World leaders were gathering on Friday morning in Jerusalem to bid farewell to one of Israel's founding fathers, Shimon Peres.

An honor guard carried his coffin into the main plaza of the Mount Herzl cemetery as the military chief Rabbi read Psalm chapters.

A number of dignitaries from Israel and from around the world stood still as the coffin arrived, including U.S. President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

It was the first meeting of Abbas and Netanyahu in more than a year, after negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians broke off in 2014.

Live broadcast showed Peres' daughters, sons, and grandchildren shedding tears and hugging Peres' three aides, who worked with him over the last two decades.

Peres, Israel's ninth president and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, passed away on Wednesday after spending two weeks in induced coma following a stroke.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov look toward one another during a press conference following their meeting in Geneva where they discussed the crisis in Syria on September 9, 2016. (AFP Photo)

MOSCOW, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The risk of hostility intensification is on the rise in Syria amid escalating tensions between Russia and the United States over the failure of a truce deal that had been expected to improve the situation in the war-raged country.

Earlier this month, Moscow and Washington announced they had brokered a landmark agreement on a nationwide cease-fire in Syria, which both sides hoped would lead to their countries' military cooperation to end more than five years of bloodshed there.

However, crossfire resumed in the first hours after the week-long truce deal expired on Sept. 19, with both parties trading accusations of failures to implement the deal.

Moscow blamed Washington for the U.S.-led coalition air strikes against Syrian government troops, saying the move violated their bilateral agreement, while Washington insisted Moscow be held accountable for the bombing of a UN humanitarian convoy in Syria, an accusation the Kremlin has denied.

"Russia and the United States have reached an impasse over implementing the cease-fire deal in Syria, due to its complexity and lack of trust between the participants," Fyodor Lukyanov, chief editor of Russia in Global Affairs magazine, told Xinhua.

Spat between the two powers was growing on Wednesday, when the United States threatened to suspend cooperation with Russia if the Syrian forces backed by Moscow kept bombing the opposition.

"If the civil war in Syria continued, extremists could attack Russian interests, and perhaps even Russian cities," U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday.

"We cannot regard these statements as anything else but a call for action," Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded Thursday at a briefing.

The Russian Defense Ministry saw Kirby's warning as a "confession by the U.S. side that the opposition allegedly conducting a civil war in Syria is an international terrorist group controlled by the U.S."

Syrian children ride an attraction in the Syrian rebel-held town of Arbin, in the eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, as they celebrate the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday on September 13, 2016, the day after an internally backed ceasefire for Syria came into effect as part of a hard-fought deal to bring an end to the war between rebels and regime fighters. (AFP Photo)

The United States, which had assumed the responsibility for separating the so-called moderate opposition from terrorists, has failed to honor its promise, Moscow argued.

The United States itself, Lukyanov believes, has little clue as to who represents moderate opposition in Syria.

"Settlements of complicated conflicts like the Syrian one called for deep and very detailed elaboration with strict definitions of responsibilities of participants, and a high degree of mutual trust," he said. "And the trust between Russia and the United States is not only low, but practically nonexistent."

On top of it, he noted, the U.S. side was evidently divided between the Department of State and President Barack Obama, who is willing to reach some progress, and the Pentagon, which had no intention to cooperate with its Russian colleagues.

One proof of this was the reluctance of Washington to publish the texts of the reached agreement with Moscow.

"As the Obama administration has been under sharp criticism for allegedly making concessions to Moscow, the unveiling of any agreement with Russia could lead to another wave of attacks from opponents," Lukyanov said.

Under the current circumstances, a new outburst of hostility is expected with Russia increasing its presence in Syria, outside support to the Syrian opposition rising, and the Syrian army attempting to intensify its operations, he added.

A change in the situation may occur either if the Syrian army scores "some great victories," or the parties exhaust military means and begin to seek new talks, he concluded.
Lhaphun (middle) talks to a patient at Tibetan Hospital in Lhasa, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, Sept. 20, 2016. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

LHASA, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Tibetan women, considered unsuitable to study and practice medicine for more than 3,000 years, are now playing an equal role to men in Tibetan medicine.

Lhaphun, a gynecologist with the Tibetan Hospital in Lhasa, said she was astonished to be admitted to the Tibet College of Tibetan Medicine (TCTM) 26 years ago as she was sure she would have to study Western medicine.

"In my mind, scripture halls were where Tibetan doctors were taught," recalled the 45-year-old doctor.

Lhaphun works on a newborn at Tibetan Hospital in Lhasa, Sept. 20, 2016. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

MODERN EDUCATION BRINGS WOMEN DOCTORS

For thousands of years, knowledge and treatment of Tibetan medicine had been passed down in monasteries and the best doctors were often monks. Women rarely had the chance to learn medicine, and their roles were restricted to household chores and raising children.

In 1963, fifteen Tibetan women entered Lhasa's Men-Tsee-Khang -- a traditional Tibetan hospital founded in 1916 -- to begin formal medical study.

Women now make up half of the 800 physicians at the Tibetan Hospital in Lhasa. Of new students enrolled by the nearby Tibet College of Tibetan Medicine each year, almost a half are female.

Recalling her college life, Lhaphun said unlike traditional Dratsang (monastery schools) where lessons were given in dimly lit scripture halls, their classrooms were in modern buildings.

The routine monastic practice of chanting mantras was skipped, but classical works by ancient medical masters were memorized to obtain the basic theories and knowledge of Tibetan medicine.

Lhaphun and her classmates familiarized themselves with herbalism, grasping diagnosis and various therapies. In summer, they followed their instructors to learn about herbs in the mountains.

The most impressive course for Lhaphun was ethics. Thirty-one sections of Volume II of the Four Medical Tantras, an encyclopedia of Tibetan medicine dating back to the eighth century, are devoted to medical ethics.

"The best doctors should take all patients as their children and treat them equally. That makes the job noble," said Lhaphun.

Lhaphun and her colleagues discuss the condition of a patient at Tibetan Hospital in Lhasa, Sept. 20, 2016. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

Tenzin Yangjen, 22, graduate of the West China School of Pharmacy at Sichuan University, joined the Tibetan Medicine Development and Research Institute at the Lhasa Hospital last year.

"It's no longer rare for women to study medicine in Tibet. Women doctors work in all departments of our hospital," she said.

PIONEERS OF MODERNITY OF TIBETAN MEDICINE

Describing her job as finding "secret" prescriptions in classical medical tantras and revitalizing them through modern technology, Tenzin Yangjen said her goal was to standardize Tibetan medicine as much as possible.

"For our generation, the mission is to bring Tibetan medicine to the world, and the key is standardization," she said.

Lhaphun talks to a patient at Tibetan Hospital in Lhasa, Sept. 20, 2016. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

To reach that goal, Tenzin Yangjen and her colleagues have been working to standardize herbal products using modern extractive technology to turn traditional decoctions and pills to granules that are more popular in today's market.

Lhaphun has worked at the Lhasa hospital for 21 years. A primary task has been to find and rescue endangered therapies and explore ways to integrate them with modern medical science. For instance, her team uses modern equipment to conduct data analysis and correlate their findings with traditional urine and pulse diagnosis.

Lhaphun checks a patient at Tibetan Hospital in Lhasa, Sept. 20, 2016. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

"Without standardization in diagnosis, testing methods and treatment, it will be difficult to popularize Tibetan medicine beyond the plateau," she said.

Her team is also looking to revitalize traditional therapies such as blood-letting, moxibustion, cupping and others. Even diarrhoea can be used as a treatment to help patients eliminate toxins, said Lhaphun. A retired expert from a hospital in Nagqu has been invited to explain the diarrhoea therapy to the 30-strong staff in Lhaphun's department.

Classical medical tantras record the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric and women's conditions and put them into 40 categories. So far, only one-fifth of those therapies have been put to clinical use in her department. Of the tens of thousands of prescriptions mentioned, the number in use is roughly 200.

"The potential of Tibetan medicine is huge. There is so much we need to learn," she said.
BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Combined profits of China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reached 1.54 trillion yuan (230.6 billion U.S. dollars) in the first eight months of this year, down 1.3 percent from a year earlier, official data showed Friday.

The pace of decline decelerated from a 6.5-percent slump in the first seven months, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Finance (MOF).

In the first eight months, profits of SOEs under central government control dropped 5 percent from a year earlier, while those of locally administered SOEs rose 8.4 percent, both better than the performances in the first seven months.

SOEs in the oil, petrochemical and tobacco sectors posted substantial profit declines compared with a year earlier, while transportation, real estate construction, pharmaceutical and electrical companies posted big profit increases.

SOEs in steel and non-ferrous metal industries continued to suffer losses.

SOE revenues hit 28.67 trillion yuan in the first eight months, up 0.2 percent, unchanged from the growth rate registered in the first seven months.

SOEs fared better and their profits showed signs of stabilizing although downward pressure persists, said the MOF statement.

An economic downturn, which trimmed China's economic growth to 6.7 percent in the first half of this year, has put pressure on SOEs, which are at the forefront of an official drive to reform the country's growth model and cut overcapacity.

More data suggest stabilization in the economy, with the latest Caixin General China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), a private gauge of China's manufacturing activity, showing improvement in September.

The Caixin manufacturing PMI edged up to 50.1 in September from a reading of 50 the previous month. It was only the second time the index had been in expansionary territory since February 2015. A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while anything below represents contraction.

Growth in China's August rail freight volume and a surge in industrial profits are also among the encouraging data that reinforce a message of economic stabilization.
BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brunei's Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah exchanged congratulations on Friday to mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral ties.

In his message to Hassanal, Xi said China and Brunei have enjoyed a long friendship, and over the past 25 years, their ties have undergone a sound and fast development as both sides have continuously deepened their political mutual trust, steadily advanced their all-round cooperation and maintained close coordination in regional and international affairs.

The Chinese leader also noted that the two sides have stuck to the principle of mutual respect and treated each other as equals, setting a good example of how big and small countries can co-exist on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.

China would like to work with Brunei to promote their traditional friendship and deepen cooperation of mutual benefit so as to bring more benefits to the two peoples, and make an even greater contribution to maintaining regional peace and development, he added.

In his message to Xi, the sultan said the two nations have deepened their relations and strengthened the friendship between the two peoples over the past 25 years.

He said the events co-sponsored by the two sides to mark this year's anniversary have brought the two peoples even closer and promoted their mutual understanding, adding that he believes cooperation between the two countries in all areas will further boost the development of bilateral ties.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (C Front) and other senior leaders Li Keqiang (3rd R Front), Zhang Dejiang (3rd L Front), Yu Zhengsheng (2nd R Front), Liu Yunshan (2nd L Front), Wang Qishan (1st R Front) and Zhang Gaoli (1st L Front) attend a ceremony at the Tian'anmen Square in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 30, 2016, to honor and remember deceased national heroes on the Martyrs' Day. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior leaders attended a ceremony Friday at Tian'anmen Square in Beijing to honor and remember deceased national heroes on Martyrs' Day.

Veterans, family members of martyrs and representatives of all walks of life gathered at the Monument to the People's Heroes at Tian'anmen Square to mark the country's third Martyrs' Day on the eve of National Day.

The marble monument, the foundation of which was laid on Sept. 30, 1949, stood tall against a blue sky. Eight carvings depicting major episodes in Chinese revolutionary history since the First Opium War (1840-1842) adorn the monument's pedestal.

Premier Li Keqiang, top legislator Zhang Dejiang, top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng, senior leader Liu Yunshan, top discipline inspector Wang Qishan and Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli also attended the event and presented flowers to the people's heroes with other participants.

A military band played trumpets to commemorate martyrs before the ceremony started.

At 10 a.m., a crowd of around 3,000 people sang the national anthem. They then bowed their heads in silent tribute to those who devoted their lives to the liberation of the Chinese people and the development of new China, which was founded in 1949.

Following a patriotic song by school children in white shirts and red scarves, the uniform of China's Young Pioneers organization, 18 honor guards laid nine baskets of flowers in front of the monument.

The baskets were presented in the names of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, China's top legislature, the State Council, the top political advisory body, the Central Military Commission, democratic parties and non-party individuals, mass organizations, veterans, senior cadres and the families of martyrs, as well as China's Young Pioneers organization.

President Xi straightened red ribbons on one of the baskets and led a group of senior officials in a walk around the monument to pay tribute.

School children and other participants followed them and laid bouquets of chrysanthemums at the foot of the monument.

Martyrs, as defined by the government, are "people who sacrificed their lives for national independence and prosperity, as well as the welfare of people in modern times, or after the First Opium War."

It is estimated that China has about 20 million martyrs.

China's legislature approved Sept. 30 as Martyrs' Day in 2014 to commemorate those who lost their lives fighting for national causes.
SUICHANG, Zhejiang, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Seven people were confirmed dead in a landslide that hit a village in east China's Zhejiang Province Wednesday, local authorities said Friday.

Rescuers retrieved four bodies at the scene of the landslide on Friday, bringing the death toll to seven, the provincial information office said in a press release.

As of Friday afternoon, 15 people had been rescued and 20 others remained missing.

Rainstorms triggered by Typhoon Megi caused about 400,000 cubic meters of debris to slide down nearby mountains, burying 20 houses in Sucun Village, Suichang County on Wednesday. More than 1,460 residents living nearby have been evacuated.

Hu Gang, executive vice county governor of Suichang, told reporters that more than 4,000 people, with the help of 43 life detectors, four unmanned planes and 180 excavators and rescue vehicles, are racing against the clock to reach the missing ones.

Hua Suping, party chief of the village, said the landslide started while she and other cadres were persuading residents to relocate.

Psychologists have been sent to temporary shelters to offer counseling to villagers who have been relocated.

A restaurant in Suichang County stayed open overnight to provide free noodles for rescuers.

A firefighter who had been working more than 24 hours told Xinhua that they could not stop the rescue work. "A little more persistence from rescuers will bring more opportunities to find survivors," he said.

Xia Baolong, secretary of the provincial committee of the Communist Party of China, arrived at the village on Friday morning for rescue command and to comfort the affected residents and rescuers.

Xia asked rescuers to make every effort to find the missing and cautioned them to avoid secondary disasters.

Local authorities have received 2.1 million yuan (314,700 U.S. dollars) in donations for the deadly landslide.
This file photo taken on July 15, 2016 shows people taking streets near the Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridge during clashes with military forces in Istanbul.(AFP Photo)

ISTANBUL, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The leader of Turkey's main opposition party on Friday voiced opposition to the extension of a state of emergency imposed in the wake of a failed coup in July.

"The state of emergency should be terminated as quickly as possible," Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP), told the foreign press in Istanbul, saying its prolongation would strengthen the perception of a "counter-coup."

"Otherwise Turkey's democratic path would be in jeopardy," he cautioned.

A day earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the government's intention to extend for another three months the state of emergency declared five days after the outbreak of a coup plot on July 15, in which more than 240 people were killed and nearly 2,200 others injured.

In the ongoing crackdown, more than 50,000 people, among them military officers, civil servants, lawyers, academicians and journalists, have been detained.

Kilicdaroglu stressed that an additional 93,000 others, including prominent intellectuals of the country, have been dismissed from their posts.

In his view, the statutory decrees adopted under the state of emergency have given the president unlimited power above the constitutional institutions, including instant detention of anyone and shutting down of media outlets at his own discretion.

The CHP leader urged the government to start a normalization process and put the country back on the democracy track.

The pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party had voiced its displeasure as well.

In a written statement released on Thursday, the party criticized the president and the ruling party for "ruling the country under decree-laws, ignoring the parliament, universal human rights and principles of democracy."
Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior leaders Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli attend a ceremony at the Tian'anmen Square in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 30, 2016, to honor and remember deceased national heroes on the Martyrs' Day. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Activities were organized across China on Friday to honor and remember deceased national heroes on Martyrs' Day.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior leaders attended a ceremony in the morning at Tian'anmen Square in Beijing.

Veterans, family members of martyrs and representatives of all walks of life gathered at the Monument to the People's Heroes at the square to mark the country's third Martyrs' Day.

In east China's Jiangsu Province, 95 newlyweds arrived at Yuhuatai memorial park of martyrs in Nanjing City at 9 a.m. to offer flowers.

Soldiers and relatives of martyrs also participated in the activity. After singing the national anthem and spending one minute standing in silent tribute, the couples went to the monument to lay flowers.

Many martyrs sacrificed their lives at Yuhuatai.

Liu Aiqin, 90, is the daughter of late leader Liu Shaoqi. Her mother, He Baozhen, was martyred at Yuhuatai in 1934 after being betrayed by traitors. Liu Aiqin traveled from Beijing to Nanjing for the commemoration.

"We should firmly remember the purpose of the martyrs' sacrifice.

We should acknowledge that what we have today is hard-earned, and never forget what the martyrs have sacrificed," she said.

Newlyweds Ding Sicheng and Dai Bin, both police officers, joined in the activity. They grew up near Yuhuatai and have heard many stories about the martyrs.

"We should never forget them, and we should learn to cherish the present," Ding said.

At 10 a.m., a public memorial ceremony for martyrs was held in the Yingxiongshan martyrs' memorial park in Jinan City in east China's Shandong Province.

Ma, a local citizen, said he came on behalf of his father, who fought in the Battle of Jinan and the Battle of Qingji, two important battles in China's war of liberation. His father has bad knees and could not come.

At 9 a.m., a public memorial ceremony was held in the martyrs' memorial museum of Qingdao City. A chorus of primary school students paid their respects through song, and citizens placed flower baskets in front of statues of martyrs.

Memorial parks for martyrs in Shandong also launched online memorial platforms on their official websites for people to pay their respects.

"We owe our happy life today to the sacrifice of the martyrs. Their spirits are immortal and will always encourage us to move forward," wrote one netizen posting under the name "Song Mingchun."

In east China's Jiangxi Province, officials, veterans and family of the martyrs attended a memorial activity held in the provincial martyrs' memorial hall.

Chen Haining, a descendant of martyr Chen Xingfa, said, "We should remember history and cherish today, and we should all learn from the martyrs to hold fast to dreams and beliefs."

China's legislature approved Sept. 30 as Martyrs' Day in 2014 to commemorate those who lost their lives fighting for national causes.

Martyrs, as defined by the government, are "people who sacrificed their lives for national independence and prosperity, as well as the welfare of the people in modern times, or after First Opium War (1840-1842)."

China recognizes an estimated 20 million martyrs.
MOGADISHU, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Galmudug is seeking apology and compensation from the U.S. after 13 of its soldiers were killed and seven others injured by a U.S. airstrike on Wednesday.

The northern region's Information Minister Mohamud Aden Osman called on Washington to carry out further investigations into the airstrikes.

"One soldier is missing. The strike has also caused the destruction of two battle-wagons belonging to Galmudug forces," said Osman in a statement on Friday.

"None of our security services (state and national level) were informed about the attack," said Osman, terming the deadly U.S. airstrike an attack.

Osman said the state was very disappointed that the U.S. Pentagon had used an excessive force against Galmudug forces with "misinformation" from authorities in the semi-autonomous Puntland state that made the U.S. forces beleive they were targeting Al-Shabaab militants.

"We suspect that Puntland State of Somalia provided wrong information deliberately with its own interest to secure the attack," Osman said.

He said the the misinformation was aimed at creating "hostility that can undermine the relationship between the two states."

"This will also has a repercussion in the fight against terrorism, and will cause the attention of the terror war to be forgotten and turn to political rivalry," he said but added Galmudug would remain determined in the fight against the Al-Shabaab Islamist group.

The U.S. airstrike on Wednesday hit a camp of Galmudug forces in eastern Galkayo. Galmudug authorities initially said 22 soliders were killed and 16 others injured in the bombardment, which sparked street demonstrations against U.S. forces.

Osman said the incident could benefit Al-Shabaab militants who want to disrupt Somalia's upcoming elections which had been delayed twice. Voting is expected to begin in late October for a new parliament and lawmakers will then choose a president on Nov. 30.

"In this critical time, the only option we have is to cooperate and not inciting violence and hostility," he said.

The U.S. has carried out a series of airstirkes in Somalia against Al-Shaabaab, which has been fighting to topple the Somali government for years.
PARIS, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- France on Friday launched new operation against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq from its largest warship Charles de Gaulle in order to intensify strikes and retake Mosul, the group's stronghold, local news channel BFMTV reported.

Eight Rafal fighter jets took off from the carrier in the eastern Mediterranean. But It was not clear whether the French jets were to carry out air strikes or were on a reconnaissance mission.

Speaking to news channel BFMTV, Vincent Desportes, general of ground forces division, said the aircraft carrier's deployment in the fight against the extremist group in Iraq was "important but it doesn't change the situation."

"This is neither the beginning of the great battle of Mosul nor the final assault against (IS). We are far from winning back Mosul because it's a city with hundreds of thousands of people which is strongly held by Daesh (also known as IS)," he said.

"Mosul reconquest will be difficult and will only be done by help of ground troops. It could last many weeks or months," he added.

On Sept. 6, French Defense Minsiter Jean-Yves Le Drian announced "(French) artillery is arriving close to the front line," as "we decided to bolster our support of the Iraqi forces this autumn with the aim of recapturing Mosul."

Since 2014, Mosul has been IS stronghold.

France was one of the first European countries to join the U.S.-led coalition against IS. Its fighter jets have bombed the group in Iraq in 2014.

After growing terror threats, Paris decided by the end of September 2015 to strike Daesh targets in Syria where hundreds of French nationals have been recruited and could return home to carry out attacks after being trained there.
NEW DELHI, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- India Friday said it has taken up with Pakistan the release of one of its soldiers who had accidentally strayed into the neighboring country's territory Thursday.

"All attempts are being made to free 22-year-old soldier Chandu Babulal Chauhan from Pakistani captivity," Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh told the media in the national capital.

Reports of Chauhan's capture by the Pakistani Army came hours after the Indian Army Thursday announced that it conducted surgical strikes on terror launch pads in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

According to The Indian Express newspaper, Chauhan was captured by Pakistani troops at Jhandroot, west of Mankote village, and has been kept at the Pakistani military headquarters in Nikayal.

However, the Indian Army has said in a statement that Chauhan did not take part in the surgical strikes and had "inadvertently crossed the Line of Control from the army post where he was on duty."

"Such inadvertent crossing by the army and civilians are not unusual on either side. They are returned through existing mechanisms," said the statement.

Pakistan has not yet commented on the capture of the Indian soldier, nor has it expressed intention to release him.
NEW DELHI, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- High Court in India's eastern state of Bihar Friday quashed local government's notification of banning liquor, saying it was illegal.

"The government notification on banning liquor is ultra vires to the constitution, hence not enforceable," the court in its verdict said.

Friday's court order has struck down the liquor ban in the state, ardently championed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

The local government has passed the new Bihar Prohibition and Excise Bill-2016 and even got Governor's assent to the Bill. However critics described it "draconian" for it ordered strict penalties against family members of anyone found drinking, selling or making liquor.

In April this year local government headed by Kumar announced a blanket ban on sale and consumption of liquor. The ban was one of Kumar's election campaign promises during last year's local elections.

Bihar was the fourth state to completely ban alcohol in India.

Alcohol is completely banned in the western state of Gujarat, and northern eastern states of Manipur and Nagaland. It is also partially banned in few other states.

Last month, 17 people were killed in state's Gopalganj district after consuming country made bootleg liquor.
NEW DELHI, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- An Indian court Friday overturned the ban on liquor in the eastern state of Bihar, which was imposed by the local government in April this year.

The High Court in state capital Patna cancelled the ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol in Bihar, terming it as "illegal, impractical and unconstitutional."

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had clamped the ban as per a pre-election promise to women voters that if he was elected for a third consecutive term last year, he would turn Bihar into a dry state.

Though Kumar had claimed the ban would usher in "social change" in Bihar, critics described it as draconian with punishments for even family members of anybody caught consuming or possessing liquor.

More than 13,000 people have been arrested in Bihar for defying the ban since April 5.

Alcohol is also banned in the western state of Gujarat while the southern state of Kerala and some other Indian states have imposed a partial ban. Enditem
NEW DELHI, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- At least nine people were killed and more than 12 others injured after their vehicle collided with two other vehicles in the northern Indian state of Haryana Friday, a senior police official said.

"The mishap took place at Sainiwas village in Siwani town in the state's Bhiwani district when the victims, all pilgrims, were returning home in the neighboring state of Punjab in a pick-up van after attending a religious ceremony," he said.

The vehicle first rammed into a truck that was moving ahead of it and was then hit by another vehicle from behind, thus getting sandwiched in the impact of the accident, the official said.

While nine people were killed on the spot, those injured, including five women, were rushed to a nearby hospital by local residents.

The drivers of the two other vehicles fled the spot soon after the incident.

A probe has been ordered into the incident.

India has one of the highest road accidents in the world, with over 130,000 dying every year, according to official statistics.
China's Vice Education Minister Hao Ping (2nd R) and other delegations from the BRICS members show the New Delhi Declaration on Education in New Delhi, India, Sept. 30, 2016. The 4th Meeting of BRICS Ministers of Education was held here Friday in a bid to promote education cooperation and people to people exchanges among the five countries before the upcoming BRICS Leaders' Meeting this October. (Xinhua/Bai Chun)

NEW DELHI, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The 4th Meeting of BRICS Ministers of Education was held here Friday in a bid to promote education cooperation and people to people exchanges among the five countries before the upcoming BRICS Leaders' Meeting this October.

It is an important BRICS meeting after the informal meeting among BRICS leaders during the 11th G20 Summit held in Hangzhou this September.

The meeting gathered delegations from the BRICS members, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa.

In his speech, Hao Ping, China's Vice Education Minister Hao Ping said China faces three major challenges in educational development and reform.

Firstly, China is now running the largest education system in the world, which demands constant and huge investment. Secondly, considerable disparity still exists in education development, which requires further efforts to promote education equity. Thirdly, improving education quality is one of the top priorities in China's 13th 5-year education plan.

Hao Ping also proposed three suggestions to further enhance education cooperation among BRICS countries, including promoting more cooperation among BRICS universities, encouraging more joint research and teaching, and providing supporting policies and services to facilitate student and faculty mobility.

His proposals were highly acclaimed by other delegates, and were included in the New Delhi Declaration on Education, which was signed by the participating ministers during the meeting.

The declaration emphasized issues of common interest, including promoting equal and accessible education through strengthening international cooperation, and advocates more cooperation in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), quality assurance, life-long learning, knowledge transfer and student and faculty exchanges, which is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030 of the UN.
YANGON, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Central Bank of Myanmar (CBM) has awarded service licenses to three more foreign banks this month as the second batch of its grant of such licenses, bringing the total to 13.

The three foreign banks, namely Shinhan Bank from South Korea, E SUN Commercial Bank from China's Taiwan and the State Bank of India, are three out of the four awarded preliminary approval of operating licenses in March this year.

The other one, which is the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV), had already been awarded service license at the end of June and commenced operations in July.

According to the announcement of CBM, Shinhan Bank, the first bank licensed in this month, is to start operation in this month while the latter two on Oct. 3.

There are nine foreign banks which have already opened branches in Myanmar.

Those nine foreign banks are three from Japan, two from Singapore, and one each from China, Malaysia, Thailand and Australia-New Zealand.

Myanmar's banking and financial sector lags far behind other ASEAN countries. After the Central Bank of Myanmar became independent in 2012, the most visible reform by the central bank is awarding the licenses to foreign banks for opening branches in the country.

Granting licenses to foreign banks is intended to attract more foreign investments to the country, said an official of CBM earlier.

According to the CBM's regulations, foreign banks are only permitted to provide corporate banking services to foreign firms and have a maximum of one branch at present. They are set to have a minimum paid-up capital of 75 million U.S. dollars.

Local banks are expecting to collaborate with foreign banks in project financing and lending syndicated loans for expanding the country's banking industry as the local ones are weak in capital assets, according to local bankers.

Meanwhile, such local giant banks are stepping up to explore the international market.

There are also 25 local private banks and four state-owned banks in the country.
GENEVA, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- WHO official on Friday urged warring factions to stop targeting Syria's depleted health care sector, and to allow the immediate and safe evacuation of the sick and wounded who are trapped in conflict areas.

"Throughout this entire conflict, we have seen regular attacks on health services. In the last few months the situation has got desperately worse," Rick Brennan, director of the World Health Organisation(WHO) department of emergency risk management and humanitarian response, told press here.

"Some of the data that we have collected indicates that out of over 100 public hospitals throughout the country, only 45 percent are fully functional," he added.

While the health situation on the ground is dire throughout the country, the official warned that the situation in Aleppo was significantly worse, especially in eastern parts of the city where fewer than 30 doctors were catering to the needs of up to 275,000 people.

"Children and other civilians are being treated on the floor, in corridors. There are not enough intensive care beds," said Brennan, who reminded that the "Geneva Conventions prohibit attacks on health care and promotes the neutrality of health services, health facilities, and health workers."

According to a new WHO report, 63 alerts on attacks carried out by air to surface missiles and barrel bombs were documented across the warn-torn country in August this year, up from 54 in July.

The attacks over these two months resulted in the deaths of at least 52 people, including nine health workers and eight children.

The WHO official called upon those responsible to stop the violence, end attacks on health care, let the sick and wounded out, while allowing much-needed humanitarian aid to reach those in need.
SHENYANG, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- A court in northeast China's Liaoning Province has sentenced nine members of a drug-dealing gang, with four of them sentenced to death or a suspended death penalty, the court said Friday.

The ruling was handed down by the Shenyang City Intermediate People's Court on Thursday.

Gang leader Chen Xuhong, 55, and Zhu Guobao received the death penalty for dealing and transporting drugs. Shi Xiaomao and Liu Zhongtao were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, said the court in a written statement.

The other five received prison terms ranging from two and half years to 10 years.

The court found the gang transported and sold up to 33 kg of methamphetamine starting in May 2014.

The statement did not mention whether the defendants would file an appeal.
TOKYO, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday expressed his confidence about making progress in solving the long-standing territorial dispute between Japan and Russia regarding the four Pacific islands.

"I have a strong feeling of confidence about finding a way to make progress in the negotiations," Abe said at a meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives.

Abe is expected to hold a meeting with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. The summit is set to take place in Nagato, Yamaguchi prefecture, which is also Abe's hometown.

Abe visited Russia earlier this month and held talks with Putin on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in the port city of Vladivostok. The two sides agreed to continue consultations over the issue.

Putin said in Vladivostok that Russia would like to find a solution with Japan on the territorial dispute, but will not "trade in territories".

Russia and Japan have not signed any peace treaty since WWII mainly due to their long-held dispute over the four Pacific islands which are called the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia.
BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- South Korea on Friday announced a new site for a U.S. missile shield in the country amid strong opposition from locals and its neighbors, just days after Washington announced to speed up the deployment set by the end of the year.

Seoul's latest move apparently came under U.S. pressure. Yet it takes two to tango. Uncle Sam's missile shield Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system cannot roll into South Korea without permit.

South Korea, however, must be clearly aware that what Uncle Sam will bring is not a missile shield to protect it, but "a big bad wolf in disguise" that will wreak havoc on its own homeland, since local residents and neighboring countries are focusing their angry eyes on it.

THAAD's planned deployment is in the name of protecting South Korea's security, but actually is aimed at protecting U.S. troops stationed in the country.

Saying that THAAD can counter the nuke and missile threat from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is merely a ruse. It is not a material guarantee for South Korea's security, as THAAD itself is a curse.

The current situation on the Korean Peninsula is already extremely volatile. Neither the DPRK nor South Korea plus the United States are willing to be outdone. THAAD's arrival will only escalate the military confrontation between the two sides and bring more danger to the peninsula.

THAAD's deployment will break the regional strategic balance and spur neighboring countries to take countermeasures, and South Korea's ties with its neighbors will deteriorate, said Wu Riqiang, an associate professor at the School of International Studies of China's Renmin University.

Drawing fire on itself for an anti-missile system which even cannot protect the city of Seoul, and sacrificing the security of the whole country and people to usher it in are not the results that South Korean authorities hope to see.

THAAD's entry into South Korea undoubtedly will bind South Korea onto the U.S. chariot, and turn the country into a U.S. pawn and tool for seeking "rebalance" and hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region.

The deployment of THAAD is obviously a key step for the United States to build an Asian version of NATO, and also an important move for it to build an anti-missile system in the western Pacific region, while THAAD might go to Japan or other countries.

South Korean pacifists have warned that THAAD will turn South Korea into a U.S. "military colony." THAAD's arrival will divide the society of South Korea, where local residents frequently held protests against its deployment, questions within the ruling Saenuri Party were constantly heard, and opposition parties firmly opposed.

South Korea will hold its presidential elections at the end of next year, and the THAAD issue will surely be a hot topic in the elections.

Yet the South Korean authorities still have time to reconsider, make the security of their own nationals a top priority, reverse their wrong decision, and fend off THAAD.
DUBLIN, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Cannabis with estimated value of 1.2 million euros (1.34 million U.S. dollars) has been seized during a four-day operation in south Ireland's County Tipperary, police said on Friday.

During the operation, 26 locations were searched and nine people were arrested and further searches took place Friday morning with additional arrests made, police said.

They added that in the largest seizure of the operation, 1.1 million euros worth of cannabis was found on Wednesday in a property in Hollyford, County Tipperary.

The property raided in Hollyford has been described by police as a "sophisticated grow house".

Police from several different units took part in a number of searches over the last four days.

As part of this operation, a total of 34 penal warrants and 14 bench warrants were executed with these offenders currently before the district court, according to a police spokesperson. (1 euro = 1.12 U.S. dollars)
MOGADISHU, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) announced Friday the appointment of Kenyan Mohamed Abdi Affey as its special envoy on the Somali refugee situation for an initial duration of six months.

UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi Grandi said in a statement that the special envoy will help search solutions for Somali refugees and asylum seekers at national and regional level, and enhance dialogue between governments of asylum countries, Somalia and the international community to help maintain asylum for Somali refugees.

"The special envoy will also provide advice on how best to address protection concerns and identify appropriate solutions," the statement said.

"The special envoy will provide specific support to efforts to provide humanitarian and development resources for the reintegration of Somali returnees," it added.

The UNHCR and Kenya are repatriating Somali refugees living in Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp in northern Kenya.

Affey was the east African bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)'s special envoy to Somalia. He will be based in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and report to the UNHCR chief directly.

The Somali refugee situation has been going on for over two decades, affecting generations of Somalis.

There are currently one million Somali refugees living in exile in the regional countries including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Yemen, while some 1.1 million people remain displaced within Somalia.

"Given the recent security and political gains in parts of Somalia, along with growing pressures on host countries and related asylum fatigue, it is opportune to renew efforts to find durable solutions for Somali refugees while also advocating for the preservation of asylum for those in continued need of international protection," said the statement.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 30, 2016. (Xinhua/Zhang Duo)

BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday that China hopes Belarus can offer more favorable conditions for Chinese investors.

Li made the comment during a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is on a state visit to China from Wednesday to Friday.

China is willing to integrate the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative with the industrial park development strategy of Belarus, focusing on industrial production capacity and equipment manufacturing cooperation, the Chinese premier said.

Li also called for more exchanges in culture and at the local level.

Lukashenko said Belarus appreciates China's adherence to reform and opening-up and peaceful development, adding that his country will learn from China's experience and expand exchanges with China.

Lukashenko said Belarus expects to enhance practical cooperation with China in building infrastructure, industrial park development and science.

Belarus will try to make it more convenient for Chinese businesses to invest in the country, Lukashenko said.
NEW DELHI, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- India has sought urgent release of one of its troopers captured by the Pakistan army near the Line of Control (LoC) dividing Kashmir, officials said Friday.

The trooper, according to Indian army, has "inadvertently" crossed LoC and entered Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh told media in New Delhi that all efforts were being made to secure the release of the captured trooper.

"The government has taken note of the reports which stated that an Indian soldier is in Pakistan's captivity," Singh told reporters. "New Delhi will take up the matter with Islamabad for his early release."

According to Indian media reports the captured trooper was identified as 22-year-old Chandu Babulal Chauhan.

Chauhan's captivity with Pakistan army came hours after India announced that it carried out deadly "surgical strikes" inside Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

Indian officials said Chauhan's crossing over was not related to the "surgical strikes".

Though Pakistan is yet to confirm the capture of Indian trooper, however, a local newspaper - Dawn reported that an Indian trooper was captured.

India's Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said during the "surgical strikes" Wednesday night significant casualties were inflicted on infiltrators and their supporters and that the Indian side has not suffered any casualty or damage.

Pakistan, however, rejected Indian claims about "surgical strikes" inside Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

A statement issued by Pakistan military's Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said two Pakistani troopers were killed due to unprovoked firing early Thursday from Indian troops across LoC in Bhimber, hotspring, Kel, and Lipa sectors .

LoC is a de facto border that divides Kashmir into India and Pakistan controlled parts.

Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated because of the ongoing civilian protests in Indian-controlled Kashmir and a deadly attack last week on an Indian army base in frontier Uri town, about 109 km northwest of capital city - Srinagar. The attack killed 18 troopers and wounded over 20 others.

New Delhi blames Islamabad for fanning Kashmir protests and accuses it of sending armed militants into Indian-controlled Kashmir, an accusation Islamabad strongly rejects.
BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- China on Friday welcomed the signing of all final agreements for the Hinkley Point C (HPC) nuclear project, saying it is in the interests of all parties.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang made the comment at a daily press briefing.

China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) announced Thursday that it has signed all final agreements for the HPC project, and a suite of agreements relating to the Sizewell C and Bradwell B projects, with French energy company EDF and the British government.

This means that all necessary government and commercial approvals have been completed for Hinkley Point C, and the project can now move forward after two months of delay.

The HPC project, the flagship project of what has been called the "golden era" of China-Britain relations, is located in Somerset. It is a joint project between CGN and EDF, and CGN will hold a 33.5-percent stake.

Geng said the HPC project is an important achievement by China, Britain and France in the spirit of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.

China is willing to work with Britain and France to ensure smooth implementation of the HPC project and other nuclear energy cooperation projects agreed upon by the three parties, he said.

As the first new nuclear power project in Britain in more than 20 years, the HPC project represents a restart of the British nuclear power industry and paves the way for other new nuclear power projects in the country.
BUDAPEST, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Hungarian Union of Public Officials, Employees and Public Workers used Local Government Day on Friday as an opportunity to demand pay hikes for its members.

Addressing a news conference and demonstration in Budapest, union chief Erzsebet Boros acknowledged that the mayors of many small towns had been granted salary increases as had district office staff, but that had actually increased the exodus of local government workers.

This, she said, was the outcome of unequally raising wages for people doing the same jobs in different offices.

She reminded her audience that local government workers initiated a brief strike two weeks ago because they had not seen their pay rise in eight years. This, said Boros, left most of them making less than the official minimum subsistence level.

Participation in local government strikes, she said, had been high, but they had still not been effective, as far as the government was concerned.

She demanded decent wages for all local government workers including those working in financially-disadvantaged communities. The European Charter of Local Self-Government specifically requires the central government to protect local governments in financially weaker communities and to equalize their resources, she pointed out.

Issues important to the community can be at risk if local governments become inoperable, Boros warned.
Image taken on Nov. 11, 2014 shows an employee working in the Yaguane Meat Processing Plant Cooperative in Virrey del Pino, 40 km from Buenos Aires, Argentina. (Xinhua/Martin Zabala)

MEXICO CITY, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- China's growing appetite for beef and pork has boosted meat exports in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, with more potential to be tapped in the Chinese market.

China, one of the main markets for Brazilian beef, bought 906 million U.S. dollars' worth of Brazilian beef from June 2015 to January 2016, or 28 percent of the sector's total revenue, said a report by Brazil's Ministry of Development, Industry, and Foreign Trade earlier this year.

Despite China's rising demand for beef, there is still a great potential for growth in the Chinese market, with only 6 kg of beef bought per capita each year at present, compared with 35-40 kg in Brazil and around 60 kg in Argentina.

China imposed a three-year embargo on Brazilian beef imports in May last year following an atypical epidemic of mad cow disease in 2012. The embargo was then lifted after Brazil imposed stricter controls.

In the past two years, Brazil has become China's main source of beef and pork.

Mexico's first ever shipment of pork to China marked a milestone in trade, said Mexican industry officials.

China's meat market is a tough one to break into, given the strict sanitary requirements, but once the market has been cracked open, it promises to provide Mexican meat industry with brisk business, they said.

Claudio Freixes Catalan, the CEO of a leading pork and meat producer in Mexico named Keken, said his company secured the sale of 22 tons of pork to China following seven years of negotiations, and the shipment sailed in July.

"The Chinese market is very selective, and it doesn't want meat from countries that have had any kind of sanitary problem," he told Xinhua, adding that "Mexico is free of any kind of virus related to swine."

File picture of cattle along a road near Pocone, Mato Grosso state, western Brazil on January 31, 2011. (Xinhua/AFP)

To Mexican Agriculture Minister Jose Calzada Rovirosa, exporting meat to China reflects Mexico's progress in this sector.

Throughout history, "it is the first time Mexico shipped pork to China," he said, describing the day the shipment went out as "special."

Mexico also exports avocado, berries, tequila, and other products to China, but opening up China's market to Mexican pork is expected to boost trade significantly, he said.

China will surely keep purchasing Mexican pork in the future, as "we will continue to use specific lines of production" that meet the country's sanitary standards, he said.

In the next five years, Keken expects to see 350 million U.S. dollars in investment, which it will largely earmark to promote its exports, said the CEO.

China is also Argentina's biggest beef market, importing more than 40,000 tons in 2015, or 36 percent of Argentina's annual beef exports.

The two countries reached a "landmark beef deal" in July that will secure Argentina's beef exports to China in the future, said an industrial trade website Global Meat News.
Residents light candles to bless for peace and reconciliation in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, on Sept. 25, 2016. (Xinhua/Jhon Paz)

by Cesar Marino Garcia

CARTAGENA, Colombia, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The signing of a historic peace deal earlier this week is a momentous occasion for Colombia, yet it marks only the beginning of a long and arduous march towards a lasting future free of violence.

BEGIN BY NOT FORGETTING

Maria Emma Wills, director of Colombia's National Center for Historical Memory, said that "memory is an ally of peace as it allows us to discern which conditions took us to war, which prolonged it and which led it to a progressive end."

According to Wills, the first step is to engage victims and former soldiers in an effort to gather archives of the conflict's main facts. She said these programs can help future Colombians make sense of the country's violent past.

In a much anticipated moment during the Sept. 26 signing ceremony, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) commander-in-chief Timoleon Jimenez formally apologized for all the violence the guerrilla group staged in the conflict.

"I would like to sincerely ask for forgiveness from all the victims of the conflict for all the pain that we have caused during the war," he said.

For many, this was a step in the right direction for the FARC, which has begun to help the country heal, certain victims told Xinhua.

Photo taken on Sept. 26, 2016 shows a pen made with a bullet shell, which is named by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos as "baligrafo" (bullet-pens) for signing the final peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. (Xinhua/COLPRENSA)

Marino Cordoba, the international coordinator for the National Afro-Colombian Peace Council, fled Colombia after his village became embroiled in the conflict. She said the apology was the minimum that the Afro-descendant and indigenous communities, the most affected by the armed conflicts, could expect.

"After 52 years of war, society has lost its capacity to feel horror, as horror has been repeated so often. The apology carries a message that what happened in the war is unjustifiable and can never happen again."

KEY TO JUSTICE

Opponents to the peace process have argued against the deal, saying it offers "impunity" to FARC members, whose crimes in the war will not be persecuted.

According to the agreement, the FARC members who committed a range of serious crimes but come forward to confess will see restrictions on their freedom for five to eight years, instead of going to prison.

To benefit from this scheme, the fighters involved will have to comply fully with the authorities in search of the truth and in reparations to victims.

Those who hide their crimes and fail to cooperate may face up to 20 years of prison terms.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Commander in Chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Timoleon Jimenez attend the signing ceremony of the final peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC, in Cartagena, Colombia, Sept. 26, 2016. (Xinhua/Jhon Paz)

For the Colombian government, it is more effective to have a FARC member help in de-mining, reveal where mass graves are or eradicate coca plantations than jail them.

"NO" VOTE STILL POSSIBLE

However, the victims are divided on this topic, with some saying that they, because of the amnesty, will vote "No" in the coming Oct. 2 plebiscite, in which the fate of the peace deal will be decided.

Recent polls have shown a clear lead for the "Yes" camp, with an IPSOS poll on Sept. 27 finding 66 percent of respondents support the deal and 34 percent oppose it.

However, concerning the possibility of a "No" victory, James Carlin, a British writer and journalist familiar with Colombia, told Xinhua: "The world would be absolutely stupefied. For a country which has been at war for 52 years, to essentially vote for the war to continue would be a complete defeat for humanity. It would lead us to ask: 'What type of species are we?'"
A pregnant receives medical treatment in the University School Hospital, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Feb. 19, 2016. (Xinhua/Rafael Ochoa)

TEGUCIGALPA, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- So far this year, around 60 babies have been born with microcephaly in Honduras, with the majority caused by the Zika virus, an official said Thursday.

"We have a new total in the number of microcephaly cases. So far in 2016, we have 60 babies with this illness," Deputy Health Minister Francis Contreras told the media.

The number of microcephaly cases has doubled this year compared to that of 2015, Contreras said, adding that the number of microcephaly cases could reach 340 by the end of this year.

Currently, over 600 pregnant women infected with the Zika virus are being monitored in the country.

An employee of the Ministry of Health of Honduras is preparing to fumigate intercity buses to fight the mosquito Aedes aegypti, transmitter of Zika virus, dengue and chikungunya, in the city of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Feb. 2, 2016. (Xinhua/Rafael Ochoa)

Microcephaly is a birth defect characterized by an unusually small head and an underdeveloped baby brain and is often accompanied by brain atrophy and neurologic abnormalities.

Zika virus is mainly spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Patients infected with the virus can have symptoms such as fever, conjunctivitis, muscular and joint pain, skin rashes and headaches.

Researches have found that there is a causal relationship between the Zika virus, microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that can result in paralysis and deaths.
NAIROBI, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Kenyan ministry of energy on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a Chinese firm to pave way for the construction of a 50 Megawatt solar plant in northeast Kenya's Garissa County.

Cabinet Secretary for energy and petroleum Charles Keter said during the signing ceremony that the largest China-funded solar plant in east and central Africa will advance green agenda and inclusive development in Kenya.

"The solar project will transform the lives of Kenyans in many ways. It will create green jobs, and expand access to power to regions that are off grid and contribute to lowering of carbon emissions," Keter said.

Keter said feasibility studies on viability of the project have been finalized to pave way for its commissioning at the end of this year.

China has provided capital and technical assistance to help Kenya exploit its untapped renewable energy potential.

According to China's Jiangxi Corporation for International Economic and Technical Cooperation (CJIC), the Chinese contractor, the 135-million-U.S. dollar solar plant will be fed to the national grid and is expected to produce enough power to light up 625,000 homesteads.

"The China-funded mega solar project will foster technology and skills exchange in order to ensure Kenya becomes a hub for development of cleaner energy sources," Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Liu Xianfa said during the signing ceremony.

He said the solar plant project will strengthen Sino-Kenya economic and trade cooperation.

Liu also reaffirmed China's commitment to strengthen energy cooperation with Kenya, adding that Sino-Kenya energy cooperation has "bright prospects".
AMMAN, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of Jordanians took to streets on Friday in protest of the recent signing of a deal to buy gas from Israel.

During a demonstration in the capital Amman, protestors called on the government to rescind the deal, saying it threatens the country's security.

On September 26, Jordan signed an agreement with U.S. Noble Energy, the main control holder of Israel's Leviathan gas field, to import natural gas.

Jordan's state-run National Electric Power Company said the deal will meet 40 percent of the country's gas needs and save about 600 million U.S. dollars every year.

Under the agreement, Noble Energy will provide 15 billion U.S. dollars' worth of gas to Jordan for a period of 15 years, or 300 million cubic feet on a daily basis.

Figures show Jordan imports about 97 percent of its energy needs.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) shakes hands with Maris Selga, Latvia's ambassador to China, in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 30, 2016. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met with 35 new ambassadors to China on Friday. (Xinhua/Ding Lin)

BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met with 35 new ambassadors to China on Friday, on the eve of the 67th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China.

Li welcomed them to China and extended his greetings and best wishes to their countries' leaders and people.

Reaffirming China's adherence to an independent and peaceful foreign policy and the peaceful development path, the premier said China will work with all countries to tackle global challenges for robust, sustainable, balanced and inclusive world economic growth.

"China will continue to reform and open up to develop itself and achieve common development with other countries," Li said, adding that China's medium-to-high economic growth will provide more opportunities for the world.

The ambassadors expressed their congratulations on the 67th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China and conveyed their national leaders' greetings to China's leaders and people.

They lauded China's role in fostering world peace and development, voicing willingness to boost cooperation between their countries and China.

After the meeting, Li invited the ambassadors to a reception marking the 67th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China.

China's National Day is on Oct. 1.
NAIROBI, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- A Kenyan court on Friday jailed a terror suspect to a total of 80 years for supporting terrorism activities and groups in the country.

Nairobi Senior Principal Magistrate Joyce Gandani ruled that Abdirizak Muktar Edow was a member of Somalia-based Islamist group Al-Shabaab and had been supporting terrorism activities.

Muktar, 24, was arrested in June 2014 at the Masai Mara Game Reserve. The prosecution said he had been in constant communication with an Al-Shabaab member identified as Sheikh Hassan alias Blacky.

Hassan was gunned down by police in May 2014 in Mandera, northeast Kenya which borders Somalia. He and an accomplice who escaped were allegedly preparing to carry out a terror attack.

The prosecution said Muktar had been operating a car hire business in Mandera and that eight grenades among other terror-related materials were seized from his vehicle.

The ruling said that in June 2014, Muktar was found with a mobile phone which contained articles aimed at instigating terror attacks.
Chinese ambassador to Brunei Yang Jian (front, L) and Brunei's Second Minister of Finance Hj Abdul Rahman (front, R) react after taking a group photo during the reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Brunei to mark the 67th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China which falls on Oct. 1 and the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between China and Brunei, in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, Sept. 30, 2016. Brunei's relationship with China has witnessed steady development in the past decades and Brunei is looking forward to further promoting ties between the two countries, Hj Abdul Rahman said in an interview on Friday night. (Xinhua/Jeffrey Wong)

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Brunei's relationship with China has witnessed steady development in the past decades and Brunei is looking forward to further promoting ties between the two countries, the country's Second Minister of Finance Hj Abdul Rahman said in an interview on Friday night.

Hj Abdul Rahman, along with other senior officials from Brunei's Ministry of Finance and Prime Minister's Office, attended the reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Brunei to mark the 67th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China which falls on Oct. 1.

September 30, 2016 also marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between China and Brunei.

In an interview with Xinhua, Hj Abdul Rahman said that both the political and economic ties between the two countries have significantly grown in the past 25 years.

"We are looking forward to further promoting bilateral relations with China in all aspects in the future", he added.

Yang Jian, Chinese ambassador to Brunei, said that the Chinese side attaches great importance to its relations with Brunei, and China "is ready to work with the Bruneian side to facilitate the mutually beneficial cooperation so as to bring greater benefits to our two peoples".
BELGRADE, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- EU is waiting for Serbia and Poland is there to make the journey faster, said visiting Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski here on Friday.

Waszczykowski met his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic and Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic. According to the press release of the Serbian government, Waszczykowski stressed during his meeting with Vucic that his country supports Serbia's EU path and is ready to share useful experience from its accession process.

He also proposed that two countries establish special relations.

"Not only that we need to strengthen our bilateral cooperation, but also to support your European path. We have passed through the process of negotiations successfully, and we would wish to offer you our experience and assistance in the process of negotiations with the EU," he stressed.

He added that he hopes that the topic of continuation and strengthening cooperation with Serbia will be on the table in two months at the meeting of the Visegrad Group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia).

At a press conference after meeting with Dacic, Waszczykowski once more underlined Poland's readiness to support "the ambition of Serbia to become a member of the EU as soon as possible by exchanging its own experiences and predicting possible problems".

"Poland has many positive experiences from transition and negotiations with the EU and we wish to share them with you," he said, adding that the country also supports Serbia in efforts to overcome the migrant crisis.

Dacic said at a press conference that Poland is an important partner of Serbia and the two countries should realize their agreement on establishing special relations that was proposed earlier at a meeting of Waszczykowski and Vucic.

He said that Poland could prove as an example for Serbia in many segments, because since it became a member of the EU, GDP of that country increased by 50 percent, while it increased its economy by 20 percent under the conditions of the global economic crisis.

Dacic added that the foreign trade between Serbia and Poland is around 1 billion euros and it can be increased even more.

According to the press release of the Serbian government, Vucic talked with Waszczykowski about the bilateral cooperation, Serbia's EU path and the migrant crisis.

Vucic introduced Waszczykowski the economic reforms that the Serbian government undertook and praised "extraordinary results of economic reforms in Poland".

He thanked the Polish government for the support for Serbia's EU path, and stressed Serbia hopes for more investors and tourists from Poland. (1 euro =1.12 U.S. dollars)
US President Barack Obama touches the coffin of former Israeli president and prime minister Shimon Peres after speaking during his funeral at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl national cemetery on September 30, 2016. (AFP/Xinhua)

by Keren Setton

JERUSALEM, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- A unique career ended in an unprecedented funeral for Israeli leader Shimon Peres, who was laid to rest in Jerusalem on Friday morning.

Thousands accompanied Peres on his last journey to the VIP section of Israel's national cemetery in Jerusalem. He was buried next to two former prime ministers.

Among the thousands were tens of world leaders, including two U.S. Presidents -- Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

Media attention was on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who made a rare trip to Jerusalem to honor the late Israeli president.

Shortly before the ceremony began, Abbas shook hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two spoke briefly, a rare occasion in recent years.

The last round of talks between Palestinians and Israelis broke down in April 2014, much to the dismay of Shimon Peres who was president at the time.

Throughout his career, Shimon Peres was a staunch advocate for peace with the Palestinians and an establishment of an independent state for them.

For many years, his support for a two-state solution all but ostracized him from the political scene. Gradually, however, many Israelis became accustomed to the idea.

Peres, who was part of Israel's history from its establishment, was witness to every major event.

In a heartfelt eulogy, Netanyahu said he had learned to love him although they were far from each other on the political spectrum.

"I loved you. We all loved you. Farewell Shimon. Dear man. Great leader," said the Israeli prime minister.

But Netanyahu made no mention of Abbas in his speech.

When he welcomed the tens of dignitaries from abroad at the beginning of his eulogy, he did not list the Palestinian leader.

Obama made certain to remind him. It was yet another awkward diplomatic moment between the two leaders who share a tense relationship.

"President Abbas' presence here is a gesture and a reminder of the unfinished business of peace," Obama said in a not so subtle nudge to Netanyahu.

Obama and Netanyahu have differed for years on how to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict with the Palestinian issue at the core of it.

"He (Peres) showed us that justice and hope are at the heart of the Zionist idea. A secure life in a nation that can defend itself, by itself," the U.S. president said.

This is precisely where Netanyahu and Obama do not agree.

While Netanyahu has said repeatedly he is in favor of an independent Palestinian state, settlement activity during his tenure has intensified. Palestinians and many in the international community believe the current Israeli government is creating facts on the ground that make a future Palestinian state unviable.

For much of his political career, Peres was ridiculed for his ideas on how to solve the conflict with the Palestinians. Many Israelis still believe peace is an unrealistic goal.

Israelis and Palestinians are entrenched in months of tit-for-tat violence that has taken the lives of hundreds of Palestinians and tens of Israelis.

Throughout the decades-long conflict, Peres remained optimistic.

Former U.S. President Clinton praised him for his long-lasting vision.

"He started off life as Israel's brightest student, became its best teacher and ended up its biggest dreamer. He lived 93 years in a state of constant wonder over the unbelievable potential of all the rest of us to rise above our wounds, our resentments, our fears to make the most of today and claim the promise of tomorrow," said Clinton.

As U.S. President in 1993, he had hosted the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians which Peres was instrumental in forging.

In their eulogies, both Clinton and Obama emphasized they believed Peres was not naive in his dreams as public opinion in Israel often dictated.

Towards the end of 1995, in the days preceding the assassination of his political partner Yitzhak Rabin, Peres was also the subject of incitement for his dovish positions.

Current Israeli President Reuven Rivlin ended his eulogy with an apology.

"We should also apologize to you. It was OK to differ with you, your opponents had the duty to voice their opinion but there were years when red lines were crossed between ideological rivalry and actions that have no place," Rivlin said.

A heartfelt apology from an Israeli leader was coupled with hope from U.S. President Obama. "Now the work is in the hand of Israel's next generation and its friends," he said.

Obama will finish his term in a few months, leaving Netanyahu to work with a new administration.

On a clear-skied sunny Jerusalem morning, Israeli soldiers gradually covered the grave site with dirt, and this symbolic act marked the end of an era in Israel's annals.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (2nd R) is welcomed by Turkish Cypriots in the northern part of Nicosia, capital of Cyprus, Feb. 1, 2010. (Xinhua/Huseyin Sayil)

NICOSIA, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon kept up his pressure on leaders of the Cypriot communities to make good on their promises to try to end the 42-year long division of Cyprus, according to media reports on Thursday.

Cyprus was divided in 1974 when Turkey occupied its northern part, in reaction to a coup by the military rulers of Greece, and moved Turkish Cypriots from all over the island into the enclave controlled by Turkish troops.

Ban was reported to have telephoned Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci on Wednesday, days after he met them in person in New York.

He reportedly urged them to stick to their intensified negotiations to reach a solution agreement by the end of this year.

Cypriot government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides told state radio on Thursday that Ban, in his call to Anastasiades, expressed satisfaction with the results of his meeting with the two leaders on Sunday at the UN Headquarters.

"The secretary general repeated his readiness to get involved more energetically (in efforts to solve the problem) at any stage of the process if asked to do so by the leaders," Christodoulides said.

He also said that the dates for the upcoming meetings of Anastasiades and Akinci are expected to be announced either soon with the agenda of the negotiations.

Anastasiades returned to Cyprus on Wednesday night after talks on the Cyprus problem in London with British Prime Minister Theresa May and in Paris with French President Francois Hollande.

Britain, the former colonial power and also a guarantor power for Cyprus along with Turkey and Greece, has traditionally taken the initiative in moves for a Cyprus solution in the UN Security Council and the European Union.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L, front) meets with foreign experts who won the Chinese government's Friendship Award for this year, along with their families, in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 30, 2016. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- China will adopt a more open and inclusive policy to attract foreign talent and try to create a fair and transparent environment for them, said Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday.

Li made the remarks when meeting at the Great Hall of the People with a group of foreign experts who had recently received the Friendship Award, given annually by the Chinese government since 1991 to honor outstanding foreign experts in China.

Fifty foreign experts from 18 countries were conferred the award this year.

Li thanked them for helping introducing advanced technology and management expertise to China and promoting cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

China will streamline "green card" application procedures and integrating foreign experts work permits and alien employment licenses into foreigner's work permits, he said.

Li also promised participation by foreign talent in China's national scientific research projects and better protection of intellectual property rights.

At the invitation of Li,the recipients attended the reception marking the 67th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Chinese PresidentXi Jinping(C), PremierLi Keqiang(3rd L), and senior leadersZhang Dejiang(3rd R),Yu Zhengsheng(2nd L),Liu Yunshan(2nd R),Wang Qishan(1st L) andZhang Gaoli(1st R) attend a reception held by the State Council to celebrate the 67th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 30, 2016. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday called for further reform to break institutional bottlenecks hindering economic development and social justice.

Li made the remarks one day ahead of China's National Day on Oct. 1, when addressing a reception at the Great Hall of the People to mark Saturday's 67th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, together with other senior leaders including Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli, as well as some 1,200 people from home and abroad attended the reception.

Li, on behalf of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, first extended greetings to all Chinese and expressed gratitude to foreign friends who had contributed to China's development.

He said China has undergone significant changes over the past 67 years, particularly in the wake of the reform and opening up drive in the 1970s.

In 2016, the country has managed to sustain moderate growth in overall demands while promoting supply-side structural reforms, and maintained economic stability while optimizing its economic structure, Li said.

National development has been matched with improvement in people's well-being, the premier continued, citing the hosting of the G20 Hangzhou summit and China's medal rushes in the Rio Olympics and Paralympics as more reasons to be proud.

Looking forward, he said economic development should be China's central mission.

Efforts should be made to maintain medium- to high-speed economic growth while elevating its innovative capacities and developing medium and high-end sectors, Li said.

Authorities should work to increase people's incomes, and boost social welfare, enhance environmental protection and food safety, to boost the Chinese public's senses of accomplishment, satisfaction and security, and lift more people from poverty.

They must also comprehensively promote the rule of law, and create a level playing field to allow for equal competition among all market entities, and provide equal and accessible public services for all, Li said.

"We must further open up, promote the Belt and Road initiative and facilitate international production capacity cooperation," the premier said.

Li went on to say that the Chinese government will remain faithful to the "one country, two systems" policy in Hong Kong and Macao affairs, and allow the two special administrative regions to play their roles in China's modernization.

Regarding ties across the Taiwan Strait, Li said the Chinese mainland will continue to uphold the one-China principle, adhere to the 1992 Consensus, and oppose all forms of "Taiwan independence," to protect and promote peaceful development of cross-Strait ties, he said.

"We will follow an independent foreign policy of peace, firmly protect our national core interests, and join forces with all other countries to forge a community of common destiny and interests," Li added, calling for stepped-up efforts to turn the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation into reality.
Syrian pro-government forces take part in an operation to take control of Aleppo's Suleiman al-Halabi neighbourhood, which is divided by the frontline that separates the rebel-held east and regime-held west of the northern city, on September 30, 2016. (AFP/Xinhua)

DAMASCUS, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- At least 15 people were killed and 55 others were wounded Friday by mortar shelling on government-controlled areas in the northern city of Aleppo, state news agency SANA reported.

The shelling targeted several residential areas in the government-controlled parts in western Aleppo, the latest in a series of attacks the rebels in eastern Aleppo are waging to quell the momentum of the Syrian government forces, which are making notable gains in Aleppo.

Meanwhile, a military source told Xinhua that the Syrian army has captured several buildings in the rebel-held areas of Slaiman al-Halabi. The army also seized parts in the Bustan al-Basha area in the old city of Aleppo, including a church.

This comes as the Syrian army succeeded to recapture the Handarat Camp for Palestinian refugees, after taking and losing it again last week.

The renewed military showdown in Aleppo came just two weeks after a Russia-U.S. brokered truce expired with no extension.

Last week, the Syrian army declared the beginning of a new offensive on rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo, urging the civilians to leave those areas and advised the rebels to surrender.

Aleppo has a strategic importance for the warring parties due to its location near the Turkish borders, and being Syria's largest province, and once the economic hub of Syria.
SUICHANG, Zhejiang, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Seven people were confirmed dead in a landslide that hit a village in east China's Zhejiang Province Wednesday, local authorities said Friday.

Rescuers retrieved four bodies at the scene of the landslide on Friday, bringing the death toll to seven, the provincial information office said in a press release.

As of Friday afternoon, 15 people had been rescued and 20 others remained missing.

Rainstorms triggered by Typhoon Megi caused about 350,000 cubic meters of debris to slide down nearby mountains, burying 20 houses in Sucun Village, Suichang County on Wednesday. More than 1,460 residents living nearby have been evacuated.

Hu Gang, executive vice county governor of Suichang, told reporters that more than 4,000 people, with the help of 43 life detectors, four unmanned planes and 180 excavators and rescue vehicles, are racing against the clock to reach the missing ones.

Hua Suping, party chief of the village, said the landslide started while she and other cadres were persuading residents to relocate.

Psychologists have been sent to temporary shelters to offer counseling to villagers who have been relocated.

A restaurant in Suichang County stayed open overnight to provide free noodles for rescuers.

A firefighter who had been working more than 24 hours told Xinhua that they could not stop the rescue work. "A little more persistence from rescuers will bring more opportunities to find survivors," he said.

Xia Baolong, secretary of the provincial committee of the Communist Party of China, arrived at the village on Friday morning for rescue command and to comfort the affected residents and rescuers.

Xia asked rescuers to make every effort to find the missing and cautioned them to avoid secondary disasters.

Local authorities have received 2.1 million yuan (314,500 U.S. dollars) in donations for the deadly landslide.

Authorities in Zhejiang have mobilized 11,000 people to help with inspection of areas prone to geological disasters.
KATHMANDU, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Nepal's parliament has passed a new bill on Industrial Enterprises Act banning strikes in industrial units that disrupt the production.

Nepalese industrialists have long been complaining that the strikes by different trade unions by making competing demands in a bid to the increase their influence are major hurdles to run industries.

As the trade unions are aligned with different political parties, they stage strikes in support of the political mission of their mother parties.

Another important provision made by the bill which was passed on Thursday is the provision of the "no work no pay" which is expected to discourage the tendency of workers walking out of industries to participate in rallies organised by political parties in line with the call of the trade unions associated with the particular political party.

After President Bidya Devi Bhandari puts stamp on the bill, it will replace the 24-year old Industrial Enterprise Act. This bill was passed a month after another important bill on Special Economic Zone (SEZ) was approved, paving the way for the operation of SEZ in the country.

Nepal's business community is elated with the passing of the two important bills at the interval of one month, terming these moves as progressive steps toward legal reforms.

Pashupati Murarka, president of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), the apex private sector body of Nepal, told Xinhua Firday that the provisions of banning strikes and "no work and no pay" were the long-standing demands of the Nepalese business community.

"This will help attract more domestic and foreign investment if they are implemented properly," he said.

During the period from 2008-2013, Nepal witnessed a total of 4, 451 strikes including bigger and smaller strikes, according to Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) central bank which conducted a study about the impact of the banda in Nepal's economy.

The central bank's study found Nepalese economy loses 16 million U.S. dollar from a day of general strike and Nepal witnessed total output loss of 1 billion U.S. dollar as a result of high number of strikes in the five-year period.

The bill on Industrial Enterprise Act has also mentioned that it will be the umbrella Act on industrial issues which means the government does not changes its provision through annual budgetary provision.

Murarka said that it would give the message of policy stability which is very essential for investors.

Former Finance Secretary Rameshore Khanal told Xinhua on Friday that all the political parties in the parliament coming to support the bill is an indicator that they have now realized that the peaceful environment in industries are necessary for more investment in the sector.

"In the past, some major political parties were not in favour of no work no pay system but those parties have also supported the provision this time," he said.

The new law has given tax incentives to industries with manufacturing industry getting income tax exemption by 20 percent. Investors who earn by investing in infrastructure such as road, bridge, ropeway, railway, airport among others will get 40 percent tax exemption. It has also made provision of giving full tax exemption for five years and thereafter another three years for the industries set up with investment above 9.31 million U.S. dollar.
A general view shows on September 22, 2016 buildings destroyed during Saudi-led air strikes in the rebel-held Yemeni port city of Hodeida the previous day. (AFP/Xinhua)

ADEN, Yemen, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified gunmen killed an intelligence colonel in Yemen's port city Aden on Friday, a day after the Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for assassinating a police officer in the country's temporary capital.

Th gunmen traveling in a vehicle opened fire at the intelligence Colonel Ali Muqbil, as he was on his way going to Friday prayers in Aden's neighborhood of Mansoura, a security official said on condition of anonymity.

Witnesses confirmed to Xinhua that the masked gunmen fired a barrage of bullets that hit different parts of the intelligence colonel body and he died immediately at the scene.

The attack is the latest targeting senior security and intelligence officials in Aden, where the Saudi-backed government has temporarily based itself.

Many of the previous armed attacks in Aden have been claimed by the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch or the IS group.

On Thursday, the IS claimed responsibility for assassinating a police officer by attaching an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) to the underside of his car.

According to local sources, the assassinated police officer was working for Aden's International Airport and participated in training newly-recruited police soldiers in Aden.

Earlier in the day, Aden's Police Command said in a statement that the anti-terrorism unit raided the home of an IS leader in Aden, seizing large quantities of explosives including M112 and C4 charges.

In the last two months, Yemeni government forces launched anti-terror offensives and drove out scores of gunmen linked to the al-Qaida and the Yemen-based affiliate of the IS from key neighborhoods and government compounds in Lahj and Abyan provinces.

Yemen, an impoverished Arab country, has been gripped by one of the most active regional Al-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East.

The Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), also known locally as Ansar al-Sharia, emerged in January 2009 and claimed responsibility for a number of terrorist attacks against Yemen's army and government institutions.

The AQAP took advantage of the current security vacuum and ongoing civil war to expand its influence and seize more territories in the south of Yemen.

Security in Yemen has deteriorated since March 2015, when war broke out between the Shiite Houthi group which is supported by former President Ali Abdullash Saleh, and government forces which are backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition.

Over 6,400 people have been killed in ground battles and airstrikes since then, many of them civilians.
TEHRAN, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- France's Renault signed an agreement with Iran on Friday to establish production line of cars and after-sales service centers in the Islamic republic, Tasnim news agency reported.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed in the presence of Iranian Minister of Industry, Mines, and Trade, Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, and Renault CEO, Carlos Ghosn, in Paris on the sidelines of the 2016 Paris Motor Show.

Through the agreement, the Iranian car-making companies and Renault will establish joint ventures to produce cars and provide after-sales service in Iran.

The first vehicles to be produced in Iran will be under the brands of the Symbol and the Duster, beginning in 2018, semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Friday.

The joint venture will, on the one hand, include an engineering and purchasing center which will support the local suppliers, as well as a plant with an initial production capacity of 150,000 vehicles a year, which will be added to Renault's current capacity of 200,000 vehicles in the Islamic republic, according to the report.

Under the agreement, the group will, for the very first time, develop its own distribution network with sales and after-sales services in line with Renault brand standards.

"With two million vehicles planned to be produced by 2020, the potential of the Iranian car market is undeniable. This agreement confirms our strategic choices made in Iran and opens a new era allowing Renault to hold a privileged position in the country," the CEO of Renault was quoted as saying.

In July, it was announced here that Renault would produce five new products in Iran in collaboration with two major Iranian companies, Saipa Motor Corporation and Iran Khodro Company (IKCO).

Saipa and IKCO would produce three and two new cars, respectively, in cooperation with the Renault, said Fardad Daliri, deputy head of the Industrial Development & Renovation Organization of Iran.

The return of the French car makers to the Iranian car market began after the implementation of the nuclear deal between Iran and the world powers (known as JCPOA) in January.

In June, IKCO and the French carmaker Peugeot-Citroen (PSA) agreed to launch a joint company in the capital Tehran to produce cars.

The 50-50 joint venture, if finalized, would be worth 400 million euros.

The would-be company would manufacture the Peugeot 208, the 2008 sport utility vehicle, as well as 301 compact utilizing the local potential to make most of the parts.

Thirty percent of the cars, to be produced jointly, would be exported to the Middle East and other countries, Iran Khodro's chief executive, Hashem Yeke Zareh, said.

Under the U.S.-led sanctions against Iran on the latter's disputed nuclear issue, Renault and PSA left Iran in 2011.
KIEV, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy in Ukraine hosted a ceremonial reception on Friday to mark the 67th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

The event was attended by Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Gennady Zubko, First Vice Speaker of the Ukrainian parliament Iryna Gerashchenko, and Ukrainian government and parliament representatives, diplomats and business representatives.

While addressing the ceremony, Chinese Ambassador to Ukraine Du Wei spoke highly of the development of the relations between China and Ukraine, saying that the countries have a potential to boost their cooperation in various fields.

"The Sino-Ukrainian cooperation has broad prospects for development in the aerospace, scientific-technical and economic fields," Du said.

For his part, Zubko said that China and Ukraine have much in common as their people are hard-working, well educated and patriotic and the two countries have good prospects for a new heightened level of cooperation.

"We must build a common strategy that would give the quantitative results," Zubko said.

Meanwhile, Gerashchenko applauded the achievements China has made in its successful development policy, saying that Ukraine is willing to learn from China's experience and deepen the bilateral dialogue between the two countries.

"The liberalization of the visa regime and optimization of cooperation under the Silk Road initiative are our main objectives," she said.

The People's Republic of China was founded on Oct. 1, 1949.
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Stephen O'Brien, is expected to visit Djibouti and Yemen on Oct. 1-4, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here Friday.

In Djibouti, O'Brien, who is also the UN emergency relief coordinator, is scheduled to meet with key officials and visit local communities supported by humanitarian assistance, Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

O'Brien will start his visit to Yemen on Oct. 2 and he will meet officials in Sanaa and see first-hand the situation of internally displaced families and others who urgently need humanitarian aid, the spokesman added.

Djibouti is one of the countries which host Yemeni refugees fleeing the conflict in Yemen.

After 18 months of civil war and a Saudi-led bombing campaign, 14.1 million people in Yemen are food insecure, of whom 7.6 million are one step from famine, the UN said.

Around 14.4 million people lack access to adequate healthcare services and 19 million lack access to clean water and sanitation, the world body said, adding that some 82 percent of Yemen's total population, around 22.1 million, in Yemen require basic aid.
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in South Sudan said they are increasingly concerned about the safety and well-being of some 100,000 people trapped in Yei, a border town in South Sudan, a UN spokesman said here Friday.

More than 30,000 people have reportedly been displaced in the area following attacks on civilians and looting earlier this month, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

They joined several thousand others displaced from nearby Lainya County since mid-July, and up to 60,000 town residents who remain in the town with no means to leave and who are now in as much need as those who have been displaced by the conflict, said the spokesman.

Yei, about 150 km southwest of the capital Juba, is situated in Central Equatoria state, close to South Sudan's borders with Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Those people who have been displaced into Yei from surrounding areas, following deadly attacks on civilians and looting of private property on Sept. 11-13, reports said.

UNHCR's presence there has been limited to providing protection activities and assistance to refugees from neighboring DRC who live in Yei town and nearby Lasu settlement.

An inter-agency mission to Yei, led by UNHCR on Tuesday, observed that tens of thousands of displaced are sheltering in abandoned houses and smaller numbers in church compounds and are facing a serious shortage of food and medicine.

Terrorized men and women spoke of horrific violence against civilians before and during their flight, including assault, targeted killing, mutilation, looting and burning of property.

Several civilians have been hacked to death, including women and infants. There are reports that many young men, aged between 17 and 30, have been arrested on suspicion of siding with the opposition.

Displaced people need food, household items, medicines and the children need access to schools, a UNHCR official said.

Food prices are skyrocketing, with basic commodities quickly disappearing from the market. Many internally displaced people have reported that their food stocks have been looted. Two local hospitals are functioning at reduced capacity.

Lack of high-energy food for malnourished children and breastfeeding mothers is becoming critical. There are indications of increasing sexual and gender-based violence, and unaccompanied and separated children.

The population is unable to leave the town due to limited freedom of movement and lack of resources.

With farmers unable to reach their fields, harvests are rotting and the risk of missing the upcoming planting season is very high. This means that people may have no crops next year.

Back in Juba, humanitarian partners are mobilizing to respond to the situation in Yei, including provision of food, non-food items and drugs. A date for access is still not certain.

To improve the security situation, the UN is planning to increase its force in the country. The government has already agreed to the deployment of a 4,000-strong regional protection force mandated by the UN Security Council, in addition to the roughly 12,000 UN peacekeepers already serving in the nation.

The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) was set up in 2011 after South Sudan gained independence from Sudan. It played a major role in trying to protect civilians when war broke out in 2013 between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and those of then Vice-President Riek Machar.

Deteriorating security in South Sudan has forced more than 200,000 people to flee the country since a fresh fighting broke out around Juba, the capital, on July 8, bringing the number of South Sudanese refugees in neighbouring countries to over one million.

In South Sudan, more than 1.61 million people are internally displaced and another 261,000 are refugees from Sudan, the DRC, Ethiopia, and the Central African Republic.
JERUSALEM, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Vice Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Wan Gang, special envoy of Chinese President Xi Jinping, on Friday attended the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres at the national cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

Wan, on behalf of President Xi, the Chinese government and people, expressed deep condolences over the passing of Peres and extended sincere sympathy to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Knesset (parliament) Speaker Yuli Edelstein and other Israeli leaders as well as Peres' relatives.

Wan, who is also minister of science and technology, said that Peres, a senior Israeli statesman as well as the founder and driver of the Middle East peace process, enjoyed great respect of the Israeli people and the international community.

Peres, who visited China a few times, had long been committed to the cause of promoting the Chinese-Israeli friendship and made important contributions to the development of Chinese-Israeli relations, Wan said, adding that the Chinese people will miss and remember him.

Stressing that China attaches great importance to the development of Chinese-Israeli relations, Wan said that when the two countries mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic ties next year, China will work with Israel to implement key consensus reached between leaders of the two countries and push for further development of bilateral relations.

Rivlin, Netanyahu and Edelstein told Wan that the fact that President Xi sent him for Peres' funeral fully reflects the Chinese people's deep friendship with the Israeli people and Israel will continue to consolidate and develop its friendly and cooperative ties with China.

Peres, who served as Israeli president from 2007 to 2014, passed away Wednesday, two weeks after suffering a major stroke.

Leaders, representatives and dignitaries from around 60 countries and organizations attended the funeral of Peres.
BUENOS AIRES, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Ties between Argentina and China have "limitless" potential, director of foreign trade at HSBC Argentina, Juan Pablo Scasserra, has said.

"In recent times, China has become one of the country's principal strategic partners, the potential is limitless," Scasserra said in an interview included in Friday's edition of Argentina's financial publication Cronista Comercial.

The interview was published in a supplement put out by the Argentine-China Chamber of Commerce called "Orientar."

"HSBC is betting strongly on the Argentina-China trade corridor," said Scasserra. "The bank has very ambitious targets for growth and gaining market share in foreign trade financing, transactions and payments, offering Argentine companies the opportunity to do business in China with our consulting."

Since 2011, HSBC Argentina has carried out more than 1,500 foreign trade transactions amounting to some 500 million yuan (75 million U.S. dollars).

"Carrying out operations in RMB allows Argentine exporters or importers negotiate better terms with their Chinese counterparts, among other benefits," said the HSBC official.

The yuan's inclusion among the world's reserve currencies, those accepted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for international transactions, is a positive development, said Scasserra.

"It's good news for both the financial system and the (international) market in general. Using the currency of the Asian giant in these areas allows greater diversification of financial transactions and the development of new products, as well as allowing banks to be more versatile," he said.

A leading agricultural exporter, Argentina established diplomatic ties with China in 1972. The Asian country is today its second-largest trade partner.
A tourist surfs the waves in Siargao Province, the Philippines, Sept. 29, 2016. The Philippines is celebrating the National Tourism Week every last week of September which aims to raise awareness on the importance, benefits of the tourism industry for the country. (Xinhua/Rouelle Umali)
BATT renews FATCA appeal

In making this appeal, the BATT said todays date for the enactment of the bill was critical to TT being FATCA compliant.

BATT said todays deadline takes priority over the December 31, the reporting deadline date given by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to indicate why the specific country did not meet todays deadline. Noting that after today, the IRS will consider which countries are FATCA compliant, BATT said, This is not a measure of comfort for countries not meeting the September 30th deadline. BATT said TT cannot operate effectively without being networked to the US financial system, which affords us greater connectivity to the global marketplace. The Association said the loss of correspondent banking relationships, will not only hurt our reputation and hinder the progress of our country, but also cripple any aspirations of becoming the regional financial centre.

This impasse does little to help us attract new capital and our position as a regional leader.
Cocoa farmers cry out for labour, access roads

CDCTTL chairman Winston Rudder and other members of the Board heard concerns and suggestions from the farmers including one by a farmer who said that outstanding farmers be recognized through an Award granted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries, which can serve as an in- centive to produce better quality produce.

In a two-hour session, the third facilitated thus far by the CDCTTL, farmers expressed expectations of the newly installed Board. CDCTTL Director Fitz Clarence Waldropt said to the farmers, we are all here to help you. We have the best cocoa in the world but we have to maintain that. Only five percent of the worlds cocoa produced is considered fine or flavor cocoa; and Trinidad and Tobago holds the distinction as one of only nine countries whose produce is considered 100 percent fine or flavor.

There is a global demand for this product and new markets in places such as Russia and Saudi Arabia are opening up to cocoa exporters.

To address the main concerns expressed by farmers, in the three sessions held thus far, the Board has been promoting the many and varied value added opportunities available in the sector. This through participation in the Trade and Investment Convention held in July.

Also, CDCTTL will participate in UWI Cocoa Research Centres World Cocoa and Chocolate Day celebrations to be held today and tomorrow.

The chairman clearly enunciated to the farmers that the CDCTTL has been advocating with buying agents, fermentary operators and Cocoa and Coffee Cooperatives to ensure that there is a ready market for the 2016/2017 crop.

CDCTTL has also been in contact with the Ministrys County Offices with a view to positively influencing the priority areas addressed on the issue of agricultural access roads.

The Cocoa Research Unit of the Research Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries has the longest ongoing cocoa breeding program in the world; and research officers train and teach cocoa farmers in cocoa agronomy and improving the variety and sizes of cocoa pods, and providing more disease resistant cocoa trees. The CDCTTL Board members at the meeting including chairman Rudder, Kamaldeo Maharaj, Glen Beckles and Waldropt. CDCTTL continues its stakeholder meetings with the next one scheduled for Moruga.

Meetings are also expected to be held in Arima, Sangre Grande and Tobago.
Attorney complains after getting ticket

Sources revealed that when PC Guevara approached the attorney and informed him that he was in breach of the traffic laws, the attorney told the officer he (the attorney) was on the phone speaking with the Acting Commissioner of Police.

The attorney then asked PC Guevara if he did not know who he was. The officer proceeded to write up the ticket. Sources revealed that the attorney later complained to senior police officers about being issued the ticket, prompting Snr Supt Jacob of Port-of-Spain Division to assign Supt Mohamme to investigate the attorneys complaints.

Newsday also understands that a formal report was lodged with the Police Complaints Authority by the indignant attorney.

Contacted yesterday, the attorney would neither confirm nor deny the incident saying he would not make any comment to the media. Newsday understands that Supt Mohammed has requested information from the police constable who issued the ticket. It remained unclear whether or not the attorney had paid the $1,000 fine.
Cop fined $6,000 for weed

The charge was laid by Snr Supt Zamsheed Mohammed who was a Police Sergeant at the time of the incident. The court heard that on March 18, 2008, then Sgt Mohammed who was also at the time a court prosecutor, carried out search exercise at the cell block of the courthouse and found the drugs in the officers possession. Defence attorney Subhas Panday, said that prior to his arrest, PC Parsons had spotted two men acting suspiciously in Princes Town. Panday said that one of the men dropped a bag containing the drugs which Parsons then took into his possession.

Panday said his client reported to work that day with the intention of reporting the matter to the Princes Town Police Station but was arrested before he could do so. Parsons was fined $6,000 or in default, will serve one year imprisonment with hard labour.
Spiritual leaders tell relatives Ria is alive

This, according to relatives who continue to hold out hope that the wife and mother of two will soon be returned safely home to her family.

Speaking with Newsday yesterday, the relative said, We have met with priests from the Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Baptist and other spiritual people and everybody saying that Ria is alive and in a house and wants to come home. They also say that a rich man is involved in her kidnapping.

All these spiritual people cant be wrong and that is why we are begging whoever have Ria to please let her come home. Last week Thursday, at about 8.15 am, Sookdeo was driving her red Nissan X-Trail vehicle and had just dropped off nine-year-old daughter Elena and five-year-old son Toraz to classes at the Picton Presbyterian School, Picton when she drove a short distance away to turn. It was the last time she was seen or heard from as a report stated that her path was blocked by a black Nissan X-Trail vehicle from which a man dressed in police uniform exited and snatched her before bundling her into the black vehicle and speeding off. Surveillance cameras near the scene of the incident captured the image of the vehicle. Last Sunday, police went to a house at Rochard Road, Penal where they seized and impounded a similar black vehicle that was parked in a garage at the back of a house. Three persons, including a police officer on suspension, and a female relative were detained as persons of interest. They have however since been released pending further investigations.

An official police sketch of man has also been released as investigators seek the publics assistance in finding those responsible as after one week, they are yet to make a breakthrough in the case. A motive for her abduction has not been established.

Thus far, extensive but futile searches have been conducted in the south western peninsula and in the Barrackpore area. Relatives and friends continue to gather each night at her home at Wellington Road, Debe to offer prayers.

The relative continued, Somebody must know something, so please, anybody, just say something.

We want Ria home. Just think about her two little children and what they are going through not seeing their mother. Police returned tothe home on Wednesday where they continued intense interviews with family members.
Griffith: I too was called by Carmona

Given the separation of powers between Government and the State, Griffith yesterday told Newsday that on receiving the message and aware of the protocols in place, he sought the approval of then Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, in whose Cabinet he served. Having been an aide de camp to a former president and a military attache to a former prime minister, Griffith said, I was aware that to attend any such meeting I had to have the approval of the Prime Minister. He approached Persad-Bissessar who, he said, was not aware of any request for a meeting of a member of her cabinet with the President.

A direct invitation from the President to a minister, Griffith said, puts the minister in a very uncomfortable position. The minister has to go the Prime Minister to make sure he or she has the requisite approval. He added, I asked her what I should do. She gave me the approval to meet with him. The meeting was informal, he said. Carmona, Griffith said, spoke like any other citizen who have ideas about national security. The meeting did not deal with policy restructuring or operational security matters, Griffith said. Asked what he thought about the current scenario regarding the opposing positions taken by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Carmona on the latters meeting with National Security Minister Edmund Dillon, on national security matters, Griffith said, There is a saying, When the elephants fight, only the grass gets trampled.
MY ANALYSIS OF THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE



By Chuck Baldwin

September 29, 2016

NewsWithViews.com

[ NOTE: The opinion in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the opinion of NewsWithViews.com, it's employees, representatives, or other contributing writers.]

I am one of these libertarian/constitutionalists who is still undecided as to who I will vote for for President this November. Obviously, I would NEVER vote for Hillary Clinton. She is a career criminal politician of the highest order. Putting another Clinton in the White House just might put the final nail in the coffin of America. She is a disgusting, despicable, deplorable degenerate. Hillary and Bill are no better than Bonnie and Clyde. Let me take that back. They are FAR WORSE than Bonnie and Clyde.

Hillary is a Neocons Neocon; she is a globalists globalist; she is rabidly anti-Second Amendment; she is a radical pro-homosexual, pro-abortion, pro-transgender, pro-war, corporatist crony. Hillary represents ALL OF THE WORST in Washington, D.C.

That being said, it is my personal conviction to never vote for the lesser of two evils if both candidates are guilty of violating the core principles that I have determined to never compromise.

I havent voted for a major party presidential candidate in the general election since Ronald Reagan. I did cast enthusiastic votes in the GOP primaries for Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. Normally, the GOP nominates big-government Neocons like Bush I, Bush II, McCain, and Romney--and I refuse to vote for such candidates. Absent a principled Republican presidential candidate to vote for in the general election, I usually vote for the Constitution Party candidate. This years CP candidate is Darrell Castle: a very good man and a committed constitutionalist--a man I could easily vote for.

The confusion this year is that the GOP presidential candidate, Donald Trump, does not have a legislative track record. His personal rhetoric and contributions in the political arena are all over the board. One could just as easily put him in either the Democrat or the Republican camp (not that there is normally that much difference between the two major parties in Washington, D.C., anyway). At times, he has talked and acted like a liberal, while at other times he has talked and acted like a conservative. However, without a definitive voting record, the REAL Donald Trump is extremely difficult to nail down.

Trump is campaigning as a nationalist/populist conservative. He claims to be pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-less taxes, pro-less government regulation, anti-illegal immigration, anti-globalism, anti-establishment, pro-law and order, and pro-freedom. If that was all there was to it, I could easily support him. But that is NOT all there is to it.

There have always been several things about Donald Trump that Ive been uneasy with. I have said that repeatedly, as faithful readers of this column know. Ive said I think Trump might be a really good President or a really bad President. And, quite frankly, it appears to me as if it could just as easily be one as the other.

Therefore, I watched the first presidential debate this week between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton with much interest. Truthfully, I was looking for Donald Trump to assuage my reservations about him. He didnt. He only exacerbated them.

Let me begin with an objective and critical analysis of the debate: on the whole, I thought Donald Trump did poorly. He seemed ill-prepared and was not very good at thinking on his feet, albeit he did amazingly better in the polls afterward than I expected he would. This is a VERY BAD omen for Hillary Clinton. Trumps performance was less than spectacular, yet the American people (a record 84 million watched the debate) gave him the post-debate nod. Hopefully, all of the scandals and criminality of the Clintons are finally starting to catch up with them in this election. Because of Hillarys poor poll results following what was probably her best on-camera performance ever, it might even be safe to predict a Trump landslide victory in November. But I digress.

As Trump and Clinton went into the debate, Trump had all of the momentum. If he had had a strong performance Monday evening, he might have been able to seal a victory in November that night. Democrats were holding their collective breath hoping and praying that Hillary would not fall down during the 90-minute debate. Two-thirds of the American people now believe that Hillary is not physically capable of being President (another bad omen for her). That she stayed on her feet made it seem like a good night for her (and indeed it was). Trump entered the ring against a very weak and very unpopular opponent. But his mediocre showing allows Hillarys candidacy to remain competitive. It could have been a knockout night for Trump; instead, he left his opponent standing to fight another day.

Donald scored well when he talked about Hillarys email scandal, but he didnt drive it home. He let her slip out of it. He scored well when he talked about NATO countries not paying up for their own defense. He scored well when he said America is not the policeman of the world. He scored well when he said we should have never invaded Iraq. He scored well when he talked about stopping the hemorrhage of Americas manufacturing jobs going overseas. He scored well when he forced Hillary to defend NAFTA. He scored well when he talked about reducing taxes and government regulation. He almost scored well when he tried to talk about Hillary and the career politicians in D.C. helping to create ISIS, but, again, he didnt know how to drive it home. That had to be due to either a lack of preparation or a lack of understanding about the nuts and bolts of it all.

With the help of her debate assistant, moderator NBC news anchor Lester Holt, Hillary had Donald on the ropes much of the debate talking about his lack of paying taxes and his several bankruptcies. Trumps lack of debating experience showed up when he fell into the trap of letting them put him on the defensive with those accusations.

Hillary Clinton is the quintessential corrupt politician. The way she sold access to foreign donors (especially the Chinese) via her crooked Clinton Foundation when she was Secretary of State and when Bill was President is infamous. Trump could have easily turned the tables on her by shifting the spotlight to the obvious financial improprieties of her criminal foundation, but he didnt even bring it up.

The financial corruption of the Clinton Foundation makes Trumps legal wrangling that allowed him to pay no taxes and business bankruptcies look like childs play in comparison. But Trump let himself stay on the ropes by trying to defend himself instead of attacking the political bribes associated with the Clinton Foundation. That alone might have been a knockout punch for Trump. But he never threw it. That could be because he is reported to have donated to the Clinton Foundation in the past. If so, that sadly left him vulnerable on what would otherwise be a winning issue for him.

Trump also missed a huge opportunity to drive home Hillarys corruption when the subject of cyber security came up. Clintons email scandal is the perfect example of how she willingly compromised our national cyber security as our Secretary of State.

Then there is Benghazi. Trump never broached it. Maybe he is waiting for later debates. But this is an issue he simply cannot ignore in prime time debates. He can bet that the pro-Clinton media moderators will never broach the subject, so he will have to.

But I thought the worst mistake of the night was Trumps failure to highlight Hillarys radical anti-Second Amendment agenda. He had a wide-open door, a golden opportunity to drive home the point that he was truly the only pro-Second Amendment candidate on the stage, and he blew it. BIG TIME.

The only thing Trump did to separate himself from Clintons radical gun-control agenda was to tout his endorsement by the NRA. How lame!

Not only did Trump NOT drive home his support for the Second Amendment, he spent quite a bit of time AGREEING with Clinton about getting guns away from criminals. At this point, Donald Trump sounded downright scary.

Trump went on and on talking about all of the shootings in Chicago. But he said NOTHING about the fact that Chicago is one of the most gun-controlled cities in the country. He could have used the shootings in Chicago as an example of how gun-control laws do not work and how gun-control laws make life more dangerous for law-abiding people. He had a golden opportunity to drive home the fact that gun-control laws do NOT keep criminals from having guns, that they will ALWAYS have guns (because they dont care about obeying the law), and that it is the law-abiding folks who are at risk because they are disarmed and, hence, unable to defend themselves. But, again, he said nothing of the sort.

Thats when Trump got scary.

Instead of promoting lawful self-defense, Donald starting promoting Police-State-style stop and frisk laws. This was exactly what I DIDNT want to hear from Donald Trump. It was very obvious at this point that Trump is quite ignorant of the Constitution. When he started talking about stop and frisk, he made Hillary look GOOD when she retorted that such laws are unconstitutional. THEY ARE INDEED UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Geez! Did we have to have Hillary Clinton tell us that? UGH!

Police have NO authority to stop and frisk people without cause. America is not a Police State (at least not completely). This is one of my nagging questions about Trump: Does he even realize the constitutional constraints on government--including the executive branch of government? Should his stop and frisk policies become law, America will have pretty much officially crossed the Rubicon into a Police State. I have to tell you, this one scares me silly, because it portends MUCH MORE in the way of police abuse--and we already have WAY TOO MUCH of that.

And I dont know if Trump was trying to draw in the Ted Cruz supporters (Ted having just recently endorsed Donald) or what, but he seemed to go out of his way to talk about his friendship with Israels Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That didnt set well with me either.

Zionist Israel is NOT Americas friend and is certainly no friend to world peace. For all intents and purposes, the Zionist agenda in Tel Aviv and the Neocon agenda in Washington D.C., and New York City are one and the same: war and the financial profits that come from war.

One of the attractions to Trumps campaign is his outsider status. The people of America are mostly fed up with the status quo in Washington. They are tired of endless wars of aggression; they are tired of war for profit; they are tired of American globalism; they are tired of our State Department and CIA meddling in the private affairs of foreign nations; and they are tired of Americas coercive, bullying foreign policies--including nation building and forced regime changes.

Donald Trump is 2016s anti-establishment, anti-Neocon, anti-globalist candidate. But by identifying himself with the Zionist Netanyahu, Trump lumped himself in with the whole Neocon, Warfare State machine. I guess the question is: Does he realize it, or is he truly ignorant of who these people really are and merely trying to entice the Ted Cruz Israel-First Christians into voting for him? Thats another unanswered, nagging question I have about Trump. And all he did Monday night was, again, exacerbate my reservations.

And though it didnt come up in this first debate, I am truly not certain where Donald Trump comes down on the whole wars of aggression issue. When he talks about it being wrong to have invaded Iraq, he sounds really good. But he has also talked before about nuking nations in the Middle East. Then he turns around and says in this first debate that nuclear weapons are the biggest problem in the world. So, again, which Donald Trump would occupy the White House if he were elected? More nagging questions.

The good news for Trump is, again, post-debate polls indicate that despite a mediocre performance, he still seemed to come out ahead of Hillary in the minds of the general public. However, Im sure there are many libertarian/constitutionalists like me who came away with more questions than answers about Trump. And just to go on record, I will follow Ron Pauls example and NOT endorse Gary Johnson, who is more liberal than he is libertarian--and his running mate even more so.

The other good news for Trump is that there are yet two more debates in which he will have an opportunity to try and assuage my reservations about him. Like the Zen master said, Well see.

[If you appreciate this column and want to help me distribute these editorial opinions to an ever-growing audience, donations may now be made by credit card, check, or Money Order. Use this link.] [I also have many books and DVDs available for purchase online. Go to Chuck Baldwin Live Store]

 2016 Chuck Baldwin - All Rights Reserved





Chuck Baldwin is a syndicated columnist, radio broadcaster, author, and pastor dedicated to preserving the historic principles upon which America was founded. He was the 2008 Presidential candidate for the Constitution Party. He and his wife, Connie, have 3 children and 9 grandchildren. Chuck and his family reside in the Flathead Valley of Montana. See Chuck's complete bio here.



E-mail: chuck@chuckbaldwinlive.com

Website: ChuckBaldwinLive.com
In Oxford and Portsmouth, well-educated middle-income people, the type of voters I thought would see the advantages of being closely linked with other European nations, talked to me about why they voted to leave the EU.



Their main reason? Too many immigrants in recent years from the continent, many of whom they felt didnt want to be British, who didnt respect British culture and British traditions and who could be potential terrorists.

They also wanted to send a message to the political elite in London, who they felt ignored their concerns about immigrants working in jobs that once were filled by old-stock Brits.



The same thing is happening throughout Europe and the United States:





Similar anti-immigrant sentiments are rampant across Europe and are altering the political landscape from Greece to Germany, France and on to the United Kingdom.

The same xenophobia is a driving force behind Donald Trumps campaign for the U.S. presidency, with his rallies fuelled by crowds roaring their approval whenever he vows to build a towering wall along the Mexican border to stop illegal immigrants.

In Europe, countries such as Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria are fed up with other nations demanding they take in more refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria. Greeks are trying to prevent migrant children from attending schools with their sons and daughters and talk about a different look now in Greek schools.





And, in Canada, the same sentiments are just under the surface:





The lone public poll on Leitchs proposal found 67 per cent of Canadians, including 87 per cent of Tory voters, like the idea of screening newcomers for anti-Canadian values. The Forum Research poll for the Toronto Star also found 57 per cent of Liberals and 59 per cent of New Democrats like it.





It doesn't matter that potential immigrants are already heavily screened. What matters is that xenophobia is the handmaiden of political ambition.





Image: huffingtonpost.ca





Bob Hepburn warns that those of us who think that Kellie Leitch is on the political fringe, whipping up wing nuts, should think again. Xenophobia is gaining political traction all around the world. After his recent visit to Britain, Hepburn reports that:
German iron woman and Chancellor Angela Merkel would visit Morocco next year at the invitation of King Mohammed VI.

The announcement came Thursday in a statement by the Royal Office, which stated that Chancellor Angela Merkel accepted the sovereigns invitation to pay an official visit to Morocco early 2017.

King Mohammed VI and the German Chancellor had Thursday a telephone conversation during which they discussed a number of issues including the migration policy, the statement said, adding in this regard that Morocco pledged to optimize and rationalize the management of migration inflows.

Angela Merkel has repeatedly called on Moroccan and Algerian authorities to fully cooperate with Germany in the identification and deportation of their nationals who have been denied asylum.

In January, in the heat of arrivals of waves of Syrian refugees, Berlin indicated that priority will be given to the Syrian asylum seekers and indicated that Morocco and Algeria were safe countries.

King Mohammed gave assurances to the German leader that Morocco would address the issue and the Sovereign instructed the Moroccan home minister to fly to Germany with a team of experts from his department to speed up the identification and deportation process of Moroccan nationals illegally staying in Germany.
The European Union is moving to scale up the blocs financial assistance to Tunisia, as proposed by its foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

Mogherini proposed in Brussels on Thursday to double the assistance, currently estimated at 170 million per annum, to enable the North African country to focus on youth employment, social development and assistance to companies.

The proposal yet to be voted by the 28 EU members corresponds to the Tunisian government 2016-2020 strategic development plan. If accepted, the assistance will come into effect from next year up to 2020.

Tunisia has been mired in economic slow-down since the 2011 revolution. State public spending has soared against significant collapse of companies returns. Unemployment has skyrocketed to hit nearly 16 per cent.

To save the country authorities have subscribed to loans from international financial institutions.

During his swearing-in ceremony last month, the countrys Premier Youssef Chahed indicated that it was urgent for the state to implement drastic reforms, including cut of public spending.

Minister of investment, Fadhel Abdelkefi, Wednesday sounded the alarm noting that the country is in economic state of emergency.

The North African country will host on November 29-30 an international conference to attract foreign investments.
A Moroccan fog water collection project won the 2016 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Momentum for Change Award, local media reported.

The fog harvesting project was initiated by Dar Si Hmad, a woman-led NGO, as a solution to water scarcity in some of the most isolated, rural communities in the Anti-Atlas mountain range.

Dar Si Hmad designed and installed what is now the worlds largest operational fog water harvesting system, the UNFCCC said in a statement.

It is an innovative solution to persistent water stress where fog is abundant, a technique inspired from ancient water practices, the UNFCCC added.

The water is collected from the fog through a series of tall steel poles, hung with rectangular black polymer nets. These are the fog harvesters which can in twenty-four hours, collect up to seventeen gallons of watercondensed fog from the nearby Atlanticper square yard of netting.

The prize awarding ceremony and a series of special events will be held during the UN Climate Change Conference in Marrakech, in November 1-18.
Photo: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images

On Thursday, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a law requiring that all single-occupancy restrooms in public buildings be open to people of any gender, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The bills sponsor, State Assemblyman Phil Ting of San Francisco, said the state was charting a new course for equality and that restricting single-user restrooms by gender defies common sense and disproportionately burdens the LGBT community, women, and parents or caretakers of dependents of the opposite gender.

The bill came in response to new legislative efforts in other states, most infamously North Carolina, restricting the rights of transgender people to use restrooms that match their gender identity. The Justice Department announced that it was suing North Carolina for federal civil rights violations over its bathroom law on the same day the California assembly passed Tings bill by a wide margin.

Speaking to Time, the assemblyman downplayed the social justice angle of the law, saying, its ultimately a matter of convenience for the largest number of people, and stressing that it will also help parents and caretakers  not to mention women in general.

Ting also said that while some social conservatives objected to the bill, the main point of contention was that men dont seem to be able to use the bathroom without making a mess.

Transgender advocates applauded the laws signing. Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Transgender Law Center, told NBC it was a matter of safety, as transgender people are at high risk of experiencing threats, harassment, or violence when using restrooms that do not correspond to their correct gender.
Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Barack Obama has long argued that America and its allies must seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. One of the signature foreign-policy achievements of his first term was forging a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia. This May, he became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima and pay tribute to the victims of humanitys first experiment in nuclear warfare.

These actions  combined with Obamas broader reputation for relatively dovish foreign-policy instincts  has largely obscured the fact that his administration is pursuing a $1 trillion nuclear modernization program, which many experts think will only heighten the risk of atomic war.

The presidents plan involves breaking up Americas existing nuclear stockpile into smaller, more reliable weapons, including cruise missiles with nuclear tips. This allows Obama to maintain his pledge to create no new nuclear weapons, while developing a sleek, modern arsenal that will, somehow, further deter enemy nations from attacking the United States.

There are a few problems with this plan. For one thing, building more precise nuclear cruise missiles only makes their use more thinkable, in the words of former vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James E. Cartwright. Whats more, the move threatens to kick off a new round of nuclear proliferation, as Stephen Kinzer, a scholar of international relations at Brown University, recently observed:

Obamas proposed modernization increases our vulnerability, not our security. The first and most obvious reason is that it will certainly lead other countries to seek equivalent arsenals of their own. It is especially upsetting to Russia, which already feels under increasing American threat as a result of our military maneuvers on its borders and the fact that many of our missiles are positioned in Germany, Turkey, and other countries near its territory. The Russian defense minister recently announced that in response to Obamas plan, Russia will bring five new strategic nuclear missile regiments into service. China would surely match that escalation. If it does so, India will follow. Then Pakistan will jump into the race. It is a recipe for disaster.

Kinzer also notes that, since a nuclear cruise missile would be indistinguishable from a conventional one on radar, an air defense controller in another country  would have no way of knowing whether [an incoming missile] was armed to destroy a building or an entire city. The temptation to launch nuclear retaliation could be irresistible.

Finally, theres the programs exorbitant cost. At a time when deficit politics are constraining our governments ability to invest in basic social services and infrastructure improvements, do we really need to spend $1 trillion on renovating weapons we dont ever want to use?

Hillary Clinton, for one, thinks not.

Earlier this week, the Washington Free Beacon published an audio recording of a fundraiser Clinton held back in February, which was gleaned from the hack of a campaign staffer  reportedly, as part of the same hack that exposed DNC emails.

In that audio, Andrew C. Weber, a former Defense Department official, asks Clinton if she would cancel the nuclear-cruise-missile project, were she elected president.



I certainly would be inclined to do that, she replied. The last thing we need are sophisticated cruise missiles that are nuclear-armed.

Clinton went on to suggest that such weapons would likely encourage a nuclear arms race, and praised former Defense secretary William J. Perry for his public opposition to the modernization program.

This is going to be a big issue, Clinton added. Its not just the nuclear-tipped cruise missile. Theres a lot of other money were taking about to go into refurbishing and modernization  Do we have to do any of it? If we have to do some of it, how much do we have to do? Thats going to be a tough question, so I will look to people like you and Bill Perry to help me answer that question.

Elsewhere in the recording, Clinton took a more hawkish stance on cybersecurity, suggesting the United States must deter attacks from China and Russia through retaliatory measures. Per the New York Times:



Though the administration never formally accused China of stealing the security-review records of nearly 22 million federal employees and contractors, she called the theft a gold mine for Chinese intelligence.



They are at it all the time, she said of the Chinese state-sponsored hackers. But she also seemed to suggest  more directly than she did in Monday nights debate  that she thinks the best deterrent to the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians and the North Koreans, all of whom she named, was a dose of American offensive cyberweaponry.



They have physical assets that are also connected on the internet, she said. So they have to know we would retaliate. So that provides a certain level of deterrence.

For now, foreign hackers seem decidedly undeterred. Which, in this one instance, might be for the best  these cyberwarriors just provided American voters with a clearer idea of Clintons views on nuclear weapons than her campaign ever did.
A homeless man sleeps on a bunk at the McAuley Water Street Mission in New York City. Photo: Viviane Moos/Corbis via Getty Images

The number of New Yorkers sleeping in homeless shelters is at a record high, and will likely surpass 60,000 in the coming days: a grim commentary on the failure of the citys efforts to combat homelessness.

According to the Daily News, the city officially counted 59,948 individuals in its more than 600 homeless shelters Wednesday night. Of these, 23,600 are children, The Wall Street Journal adds, noting that the total has risen steeply from 50,689 when Mayor Bill de Blasio took office in 2014, and from about 57,600 just a few months ago.

City officials insist the total would be even higher  around 67,000, they estimate  without the new anti-homelessness programs the de Blasio administration has put in place like rental assistance and legal aid.

Speaking to the Journal, Social Services Commissioner Steve Banks blamed the recent rise in homelessness on the fact that previous city governments had not provided these services, saying, My frustration is that the kinds of common sense investments that weve made in prevention and rental assistance were not made 20 years ago when this trajectory began.

Indeed, the homeless population grew significantly over the 12-year mayoralty of de Blasios predecessor Michael Bloomberg, particularly after the city closed the $140 million Advantage rent-subsidy program when Albany cut funding for it in 2011. The Department of Homeless Servicess budget is set at $1.3 billion for this year, up from $1 billion in Bloombergs last year in office.

The de Blasio administration launched its own rental-assistance program in 2014, but one challenge it has faced is that landlords refuse to accept the assistance vouchers, even though this constitutes illegal housing discrimination. The Daily News also notes that the Human Resources Administration is launching a new enforcement unit to address this problem.

In the last count the city conducted in May, 2,535 homeless people were living on streets and subways in New York. The city is one of few localities legally obligated to shelter the homeless; a right to shelter was established in the court case Callahan v. Carey, in 1981.
Photo: Kham/AFP/Getty Images

Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has set the bar very high for shocking statements. Hes a man who has regularly openly called for the murder of drug users, who recently flipped the European Union the bird, and who, during his successful presidential campaign in April, made a horrific gang-rape joke that earned him worldwide condemnation.

Earlier today, he managed to one-up himself. In a televised address, he favorably cited Hitlers genocide and expressed enthusiasm about the prospect of attempting to replicate it: Hitler massacred three million Jews, he said (it was 6 million, of course). Now there is three million, theres three million drug addicts. There are. Id be happy to slaughter them. At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have [me]. He went on to say that this hypothetical murderous crusade would finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition.

Such violent language is by no means out of character for Duterte. He built his national profile as the bombastically tough-on-crime mayor of Davao City, which Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth described as The death squad capital of the Philippines in 2009, with criminals and drug users  alleged and actual  regularly targeted for grisly executions. Duterte long claimed ignorance of the death squads, but Roth and other advocates and investigators were extremely skeptical:

A recent Human Rights Watch investigation made a mockery of his denials. Nine insiders described the machinery of death. Current and former Davao police officers and local officials select the targets and equip local thugs with handguns or knives. Riding a motorcycle without license plates, the death squad members approach their victim in broad daylight, often in busy markets, and with no attempt to hide their identities, kill him in cold blood. The killers then nonchalantly drive off, confident that the police, who had been warned of the murder and thus conveniently absented themselves, will take their time to return, and will then perform at best a perfunctory investigation. Witnesses are too terrified to identify the death squad members for fear of becoming their next victim.

Since then, plenty of new evidence has come out tying Duterte to such killings. Earlier this month, for example, a former hit man claimed, in televised Senate hearings about extrajudicial killings in Davao City, that Duterte ordered some of those killings personally. One victim was fed to crocodiles.

In light of all this, its understandable why human-rights activists were so horrified by the prospect of a Duterte presidency. Now their fears are being realized, not just in the form of verbal incitement, but with bodies in the street as well: The Times reports that Since Mr. Duterte took office in June promising a grisly campaign against crime and drugs, the Philippines has seen a surge in killings of drug suspects. About 3,000 people have been killed since then, a third by the police, and the rest by, well, who knows?
Photo: John Moore/Getty Images

There are always some particular interests with a particular reason for political engagement in any given election. I vaguely recall that during one of Jerry Browns presidential campaigns practically every chiropractor in America supported him because he favored making their services eligible for Medicaid funding. In 2012, a friend of mine who worked for a big bank in an area affected by new regulations cast his first presidential vote for a Republican because Barack Obama has made my life a living hell the last four years. It happens. Im sure no one in Hillary Clintons camp expects a lot of support from people who work for coal companies, or who used to work for them, and buy Donald Trumps cruel promise to bring the mines back.

But one of the stranger special interests to emerge with a big stake in campaign 2016 is the private-prison industry. As you may recall, in August the Justice Department announced it was phasing out the use of contracts with private correctional companies to house federal prisoners. At Mondays presidential-candidates debate, Hillary Clinton praised that decision and said shed like to see it emulated by state correctional departments (who house the bulk of Americas incarcerated population). Though she has no power at present and the federal government has no control over state prison contracting practices, the stocks of the two largest private-prison companies took a dive right away.

And so, as Betsy Woodruff reports, the private-prison industry could really, really use a friend like Donald Trump in the White House. Back in June, when asked about private prisons, Trump was bullish:

In an interview with Chris Matthews in June, the Republican nominee praised the industry.

I do think we can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons, he said. It seems to work a lot better.

The line didnt get much attention at the time because in that same interview Trump called for punishing women who get abortions. Trumps campaign didnt respond to a query about whether he still holds this view on the corrections industry.

Who knows if he had any idea what the question was really about. Its possible he was just winging it and, being a Republican these days, figured he should favor any kind of privatization.

Its true that Trump has to be counted generally as a fan for incarceration, as part of his belief that we need law and order to quell a crime wave. His closest ally in Congress, Senator Jeff Sessions, is a bitter opponent of criminal-justice-reform legislation aimed at reducing the number of people in prison for nonviolent drug offenses.

So perhaps if you or a loved one is a private-prison guard, your employer will quietly let you know between now and Election Day that Making America Great Again includes a bright future for corporate hoosegows. Its not like the industry has a lot of choice.
Cuban-American Trump supporter Santiago Portal in Miami on March 13, 2016. Photo: Sean Drakes/CON/LatinContent/Getty Images

Donald Trump and his surrogates get a lot of flak for constructing their own reality, but maybe theyre on to something. The Trump campaign has addressed the many reports about his foundations unscrupulous and potentially illegal actions by attacking the Washington Posts David Fahrenthold for getting the story wrong, refusing to provide any facts, and suggesting that Hillary Clinton is the real culprit. That strategy may catch up to Trump some day  it has helped spark a criminal investigation  but the Trump Foundation hasnt had a huge impact on the presidential race, so why change tactics?



It seems thats the Trump teams thinking when it comes to a new report that the candidate violated U.S. law by doing business in Cuba. According to Newsweeks Kurt Eichenwald, in 1998 Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts spent $68,000 on a foray into Cuba. Due to the U.S. trade embargo, it was illegal at the time for an American company to spend any money in Cuba without government approval  but Trump wanted to have a foothold in the country if the embargo was lifted. So, according to a former Trump executive, a consulting firm called Seven Arrows Investment and Development was hired to meet with Cuban government officials and business leaders about potential opportunities for the casino company  and Trump was aware of the trip from the start.

This document shows a Seven Arrows executive requesting reimbursement from Trumps company for the Cuba trip, and suggesting that the trip was taken on behalf of a Catholic charity (though they got the name wrong  it should be Caritas Cuba).

The document speaks for itself. Trump company sent consultant to Cuba during embargo, discussed hiding it as charitable effort. #TrumpInCuba pic.twitter.com/sCjtP8A3MI  Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) September 29, 2016

Funneling the money through another company would not erase Trumps liability for violating the embargo, but thats irrelevant now because the statute of limitations has run out. The news could, however, cause problems for Trump among Cuban-Americans in the crucial swing state of Florida  but there are already signs that this is just another Trump controversy that his supporters will shrug off.



Though the Trump camp knew the Newsweek cover story was coming for days, when it was finally published on Thursday they had no coherent strategy for addressing it. Thursday on The View, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway inadvertently suggested that Trump had in fact violated the embargo.

Read the entire story, she said. It starts out with a screaming headline, as it usually does, that he did business in Cuba. And it turns out that he decided not to invest there. I think they paid money, as I understand from the story, in 1998  and were not supposed to talk about years ago when it comes to the Clintons.

Apparently Conway was unaware that spending any money in Cuba, even if Trump decided not to invest any money there, was a violation of U.S. law. Later she told the Washington Post that she did not say he broke the law or violated the embargo.

Then in an NH1 interview that aired Thursday night, Trump attacked Eichenwald and offered a hazy denial. I never did business in Cuba. Theres this guy who has very bad reputation as a reporter. You see what his record is, he wrote something about me in Cuba, Trump said. No, I never did anything in Cuba. I never did a deal in Cuba.

Trump hasnt answered questions about the document that appears to show Seven Arrows asking for reimbursement for the Cuba trip. Anyone whos observed the Trump campaign knows he probably never will  which is why a number of Republican politicians from Florida said theyll need to hear a good explanation from the Trump campaign before they withdraw their support for the candidate.



Thursday on the ESPN Capital Games podcast, Florida Senator Marco Rubio acknowledged that what the Newsweek piece describes is a violation of American law. Then he said he would withhold judgement until the Trump campaign gave more detailed answers.

I hope the Trump campaign is going to come forward and answer some questions about this, because if what the article says is true  and Im not saying that it is, we dont know with a hundred percent certainty  Id be deeply concerned about it. I would, he said.

U.S. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Miami said hell give Trump the benefit of the doubt for now. What we have so far are unnamed sources, he said. Its important to see what the facts are.

According to leaked talking points, after discrediting Eichenwald, surrogates were supposed to shift the blame to Clinton.



Obtained from a source, here are the Trump surrogate talking points on report of Cuba business dealings... pic.twitter.com/tTz6gkpPAQ  Kyle Blaine (@kyletblaine) September 29, 2016

Both Rick Scott and Rudy Giuliani followed those instructions. The Florida governor claimed he hadnt read the story, but said, I assume this is more of what Hillary Clinton keeps doing.

Similarly, when asked about the report on Thursday night, the former New York mayor initially said, The Clinton campaign will throw every charge at him that they can possibly muster up. When informed that the story came from a journalist, not the Clinton, Giuliani said he only trusts legal documents, not something written by journalists. I know journalists have a lot of bias.

The real question is how voters will respond in Florida, where Clinton and Trump are virtually tied (the Real Clear Politics polling average has her up by just .6 percent). Theres speculation that the story could hurt Trumps support with older Cuban-Americans, who are very pro-embargo and usually vote Republican. Among Cuban-Americans, Trump isnt as popular as previous GOP nominees, but a recent poll still had him leading among that group in Florida with 43 percent to Clintons 36 percent.



The Newsweek story is getting a lot of attention in the state, but so far theres no evidence that Cuban-Americans are turning against Trump in droves. Some are even defending Trumps business dealings in Cuba. Mauricio Claver-Carone, director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, wrote on his website that the candidate may deserve kudos for deciding not to illegally invest in Cuba. He said:



However, its fascinating to watch those who are currently working to hand the Castro regime billions of dollars  beginning with the Obama administration, Clinton campaign, and its talking heads  now attacking Trump for this $68,000 consulting expenditure.

Ana Navarro, a Republican consultant and Never Trumper, told the Huffington Post that despite the report, I think a lot [of Cuban-Americans] will still vote for Trump. However, she believes that some will peel off. Trump cant afford to lose even a fraction of Cuban-American voters. There is a chance that failing to seriously address the Cuba allegations could cost Trump Florida, and even the presidency. On the other hand, explaining why you broke U.S. laws isnt a great plan either.


Photo: JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images

Beauty-pageant participants have unexpectedly been part of the conversation during this election cycle, so one Democratic super-pac has decided to utilize them  or at least, women dressed as them  in the fight against Trump and his Republican supporters.



The Daily Beast reports that the PAC For Our Future made sashes emblazoned with Miss Piggy, Miss Housekeeping, and Miss Eating Machine  a nod to Trumps comments about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, which Hillary Clinton brought up during Monday nights presidential debate. (Trump, for his part, has shown no remorse.) Other sashes reference other things Trump has said about women, such as Miss Piece of Ass, Miss Bimbo, Miss Flat Chested, Miss Gold Digger, and Miss Disgusting Animal.

Women wearing said sashes are reportedly expected to start showing up to Republican offices in five states, such as Senator Marco Rubios in Florida, Senator Rob Portmans in Ohio, and Representative Joe Hecks in Nevada. Anythings worth trying this close to the election, though based on Republicans reactions to the Alicia Machado news (Newt Gingrichs, for instance) and their policies on women in general, it may be a waste of time  and sashes.
Annie and Robin Korkki were found dead in a private villa at Maia Luxury Resort in the Seychelles. Photo: TSOGO SUN

Before sisters Annie and Robin Korkki were found dead on the same hotel bed, they embarked on what their Minnesota family called a dream African vacation: beach trips through Kenya, Tanzania, and Zanzibar; a safari; and one final stay at a luxury island resort in the Seychelles.

Anne Annie Korkki, 37, and Robin Korkki, 42, left for Africa on September 1 and checked into a private villa at Maia Luxury Resort two weeks later, on the popular island of Mahe, located more than 900 miles off Africas eastern coast. Their seventh day on the hotels lush grounds (where rooms cost $2,000 a night) looked much like any other day for a typical resorter: They were seen drinking at bars throughout the hotel. Later that night, a butler and resort staff helped them return to their room.

What happened after they locked the villas door that night isnt clear. After a butler remained locked out the next morning, an employee tried to wake the sisters, failed, and hotel officials called the police. Authorities found them unresponsive on the same bed.

Undisclosed medications were reportedly taken from the room as part of the investigation, but there were no signs of violence, according to authorities, and no marks on them whatsoever, Seychelles tourism minister Alain St. Ange told NBC News. A Seychelles police spokesperson said the room was undisturbed.

Annie and Robin Korkki. Photo: Courtesy of Give Forward

It didnt make sense: Both women were physically active and experienced travelers, according to family and friends. Annie Korkki worked at a JPMorgan Chase in Denver; Robin Korkki was a financial trader in Chicago. After their mother and two brothers flew thousands of miles to the Seychelles, police released an inconclusive autopsy report showing they died of acute pulmonary and cerebral edema  water drowning, but each in different ways: Both Annie Korkkis lungs and brain were full of fluid, but excess water was found in only Robin Korkkis lungs.

A forensic pathologist told the Chicago Tribune that pulmonary edema is a non-specific finding, though drug use and poisons can trigger the condition. A police spokesperson said investigators will learn more from a toxicology report sent to a lab about 1,000 miles away, on the island of Mauritius.

While the Korkki family works with authorities and the U.S. embassy to bring the sisters bodies back to the U.S., their brother Chris Korkki told the Minnesota Star Tribune the family had learned details only from articles flying around online, and nothing from officials prior to the autopsy. Our family is still very much in shock, he said. Were devastated.
The OECD Observer online archive takes you on a journey through half a century of public policy and world progress.

Since November 1962, the OECDs experts and leading guests offer insights on the questions facing our member countries with concise and authoritative analysis, and provide our audiences with an excellent opportunity to understand policy debates and consider solutions.

Each edition of the OECD Observer reports on a core theme of the OECDs on-going work, from economics and society through governance, finance, and the environment, and articles are bolstered by tables and graphs.
Superwoman is so ott. lol i love her.

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Me too.

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this cast is so cute.



i would die if michelle obama even knew who i was.

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kidz bop queen!!!!





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Queen of Sears Arrive Air Band. Selena Gomez who?







Zendaya, Bella Thorne and Ross Lynch are dancers here.

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omg i remember these commercials but i never knew there was a song and music video

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I think I'm actually going to cry when the Obamas leave the white house :(

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I still watch that video he did where he tries to dip the cookie into a glass of milk and when it doesn't fit he sighs and goes, "Thanks Obama."

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laughing and crying b/c PLEASE DON'T GO

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michelle is everything, seriously

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Edited at 2016-09-30 04:35 pm (UTC)

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cool outfits tbh

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I want those pants! lmao they look so comfy



he actually looks kinda cute here

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Those shirts are so teenage dork Peter and I'm a little in love.



...with the shirts. Not the 14 hear old in them.

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I need that first shirt I got so deathly ill when I was there this past May lmao

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He's such a dork. I hate him.

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...which explains why there was a guy in a Spiderman costume at yesterday's game. A lot of things are starting to make sense...



Also, I wish I had a hypotenuse shirt and hello kitty pajama pants when I was a kid This kid looks like Trea Turner, who is also 12...which explains why there was a guy in a Spiderman costume at yesterday's game. A lot of things are starting to make sense...Also, I wish I had a hypotenuse shirt and hello kitty pajama pants when I was a kid

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who is he? he looks cool

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the new spiderman sis!

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bless this costuming department.

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In '08 I was absolutely in love with the Obama's but now I feel nothing but rage for them especially after the disgusting photos of her hugging war criminal Bush came out but why should I be surprised when she's married to the drone king. 8 years and they did absolutely nothing to aid black people and other poc. What a waste.

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They at least sorta kinda pretended to try with other poc but have been relentlessly shit to black people the entire time, and still are.

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Honestly, hes been as shit to other poc too, he deported more undocumented Mexican citizens than Bush, is about to do the same to Haitians effectively breaking up families. He drones south Asia and north Africa and the middle east killing tens of thousands of innocent people. Documents released by his administration shows drones kill more innocent people than anyone else and he still uses it so ya, he's been a massive shit all around.

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everyone kept praising that pic with bush i felt like i was in the twilight zone



like i know y'all love michelle and don't want to criticize her but damn

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I think Lilly is so stunning.

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how did lilly blow up so much, her vids are funny but they were never anything like out of this world or superior other youtubers? did she do something I'm not aware of?

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She is just heavily promoted by youtube. I think youtube is putting a lot of funding into trying to make a few popular youtubers into actual celebs. She has billboards and tv commercials for her yt channel. They also paid for her to make a movie, and she went on late night talk shows to promote it.

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oh wow that's intense. I'd think the shaytards or someone else would have more commercial success cause lilly always kinda seemed like a youtuber, but good on her! she's super smart and sweet :)

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yeah idgi either. granted i haven't seen any of her videos in ages, but from what i remember weren't most of her videos about growing up punjabi?? idk, i found them funny b/c they were relatable, but i don't see how that gives her a lot of mass appeal??





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Oil held onto gains on Friday afternoon after front month contract rolled over to the December contract.

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Friday, September 30, 2016

OPEC did the unthinkable  it decided to cut production for the first time since the global financial crisis in 2008. The group met in Algiers and decided to cut its production from 33.24 million barrels per day (mb/d) to a range of between 32.5 and 33.0 mb/d. The details will be finalized in November, but the tentative deal succeeded in boosting oil prices more than 6 percent on Wednesday, and by another 1 percent on Thursday.

Deal still uncertain. There are plenty of reasons OPEC wont reach a deal. The group did not allocated production limits to each of its members, so it is still unclear who will be cutting. Also, some of the members could cheat, even if they do seal the deal in Vienna in November. Moreover, if the cap is placed at the high end of the range  33.0 mb/d  it would amount to a very unimpressive cut of just 200,000 barrels per day. On top of that, Nigeria, Iran, and Libya are exempt from the limits. They are allowed to produce at maximum levels, and combined they are hoping to bring back 1.5 mb/d. The psychological effect on the oil market has been enormous, with oil prices up big on the week. But with oil traders starting to question the viability and the significance of the deal, the rally came to a temporary halt on Friday.

Iraq questions numbers. Another unexpected sticking point could be Iraq, which is no longer exempt from OPEC limits after years of special treatment as it recovered from war. Iraqs oil minister questioned the data that OPEC was using  the minister argued that Iraq was producing much more than OPEC was giving it credit for. The discrepancy would potentially limit Iraqs production more than it should, Iraqi officials say. The conflict poses another stumbling block for the November meeting. Related: The Shakeout Continues: 100 Oil And Gas Bankruptcies Yet To Come

Saudi Arabia needed a deal. The OPEC production cut only came because Saudi officials did an about-face, a 180-degree turn from its position over the past two years of letting the market sort out the surplus. The Wall Street Journal reports that Saudi officials, including energy minister Khalid al-Falih, grew concerned about the economic toll on the kingdom from persistently low oil prices. The minister reportedly became alarmed from the latest forecast for oil prices remaining low through 2017, and the revelation was enough to lead the Saudis to reverse course. Im not convinced they have changed from the market-share policy but I have to think they have erased the We dont care if it goes to 20 $/bbl policy, Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix told the WSJ. They seem less idealistic, a little more realistic.

Refiners down on OPEC deal. The surge in oil prices will be welcome by producers, but not by refiners. The BI North America Refining & Marketing index, an index of refiners, dropped by 4.6 percent on Thursday. Higher oil prices is bad news for refiners, which need to purchase crude in order to process it into refined products. Gasoline inventories are still high, and margins are low, Moodys said, a problem that could persist for some time.

Oil analysts not impressed by OPEC cut. Oil prices skyrocketed this week after OPEC came to terms, but seasoned oil analysts are not exactly overwhelmed. Several major investment banks  including Goldman Sachs, Societe Generale, Jeffries and UBS  did not alter their oil price forecasts on the news. Citis Ed Morse said the decision is still kicking the can down the road. Goldman, however, did say that if the deal is implemented, it could add $7 to $10 per barrel to the oil price next year.

U.S. Congress overturns Obamas veto on 9/11 bill; but now regret it. This week both the U.S. House and Senate overwhelmingly overturned President Obamas veto of a bill that would allow the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to sue Saudi Arabia. But by Thursday, many of them expressed regret for doing so, fearing reprisals for Americans abroad. Its a bizarre development from the Congress, given that the President explicitly vetoed the bill for just that reason. The bill also threatens to disrupt the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, and Saudi stock exchange took a beating as the bill progressed. Related: Is The Eagle Ford About To Stage A Comeback?

Court decision in Pennsylvania could hurt shale gas drilling. The Pennsylvania State Supreme Court overturned an industry-friendly law that could be a burden for shale gas drillers. The court ruled that the 2012 law unfairly favors the gas industry. The law allowed drillers to notify public water suppliers but not private well owners about spills or leaks. It also restricted health care professionals from obtaining information about the chemicals used. The court ruling also struck a blow against eminent domain, a procedure that allowed gas drillers to seize private and public land for drilling. Opponents of fracking in the state hailed the ruling, but the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry trade group, said it would make investment difficult.

Deepwater Horizon movie a headache for BP. The British oil giant may have thought it put the 2010 disaster behind it, but a new movie about the Deepwater Horizon disaster paints the oil major in a very bad light. Deepwater Horizon, starring Mark Wahlberg, Kate Hudson and John Malkovich releases on Friday. The movie is particularly ill-timed for BP as the company is hoping to drill off of Australias southern coast and has run into stiff environmental opposition. Australian regulators sent a request this week to BP for more information regarding its oil spill response plan. Critics of BP have used the example of Deepwater Horizon to argue for blocking the drilling plan in the Great Australian Bight.

By Evan Kelly of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Is Saudis Market Share War Over, Is It On-Hold, or Is It Still Coming?

OPEC surprised the markets when word came out that for the first time in eight years the cartel planned to put oil production limits in place at its upcoming November meeting. Rumors have been zinging around the media for a little while, but yesterdays announcement from OPEC sent oil markets upward to the tune of almost $3 per barrel. The rally continued on Thursday with WTI November contracts piercing $48 per barrel for a while in morning trading.

E&Ps were buoyed by the news, but a hundred oil and gas bankruptcies (and counting) serve as an ugly backdrop for recent predictions of continued record inventory levels and no market balance for another yearor two.

But that gloomy future gave way yesterday to a day of sunshine for the North American E&Ps, a generally optimistic group that has been too busy retooling their companies to smile much since OPEC last startled the global oil and gas sector by announcing its new strategy to chase market share rather than maintain price stability. That was on Thanksgiving Day of 2014. That took oil out of triple digits all the way down to the $20sbriefly. Oil producers have endured almost two years of being smacked around by post-crash market pricing.

But the projected changes that would be caused by such a moverepresenting an unprecedented agreement by arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iranhas analysts scratching their heads, sharpening their pencils, rebooting their commodities price models and spitting out research notes in a flurry of activity after delivery of yesterdays OPEC news.

We noted the drop in U.S. oil inventories in recent weeks: OPEC

In its announcement, OPEC said the following:

In the last two years, the global oil market has witnessed many challenges, originating mainly from the supply side. As a result, prices have more than halved, while volatility has increased. Oil-exporting countries and oil companies revenues have dramatically declined, putting strains on their fiscal position and hindering their economic growth. The oil industry faced deep cuts in investment and massive layoffs, leading to a potential risk that oil supply may not meet demand in the future, with a detrimental effect on security of supply. Related: Is The EIA Wrong On Texas Oil Production?

The Conference took into account current market conditions and immediate prospects and concluded that it is not advisable to ignore the potential risk that the present stock overhang may continue to weigh negatively well into the future, with a worsening impact on producers, consumers and the industry.

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Based on the above observations and analysis, OPEC Member Countries have decided to conduct a serious and constructive dialogue with non-member producing countries, with the objective to stabilize the oil market and avoid the adverse impacts in the short- and medium-term.

The Conference, following the overall assessment of the global oil demand and supply balance presented by the OPEC Secretariat, noted that world oil demand remains robust, while the prospects of future supplies are being negatively impacted by deep cuts in investments and massive layoffs. The Conference, in particular, addressed the challenge of drawing down the excess stock levels in the coming quarters, and noted the drop in United States oil inventories seen in recent weeks.

The Conference opted for an OPEC-14 production target ranging between 32.5 and 33.0 mb/d, in order to accelerate the ongoing drawdown of the stock overhang and bring the rebalancing forward.

In a conference call hosted by Paul Sankey and David Clark of Wolfe Research, the analysts examined what the surprise change in direction will mean to global oil prices and U.S. unconventional producers in particular, if OPEC follows through.

What we are looking at here at the very least is a freeze, Sankey said. We were looking for more OPEC production growth but now we no longer think so.

The analysts issued a research note yesterday that summed up the news like this:

 little did we realise that not only would Saudi not cut to defend a weakening market but they would increase by 1Mbd by summer 2015. Why? To fight Iran for market share. Two years later, we again head towards a landmark Thanksgiving, this time with OPEC reverting to managing the market. Why? We believe the organization may be concerned about potential excessive under-supply by 2020. Maybe the Saudi IPO played a part. And simply, cartel economics, as we have repeatedly pointed out, have become compelling: 10 percent cut in volumes for 30 percent rise in price.

During todays call, Sankey and Clark said that a Saudi-Iran agreement changes entirely what OPEC is doing.

Sankey said he believes that the market is already in balance, based on EIA data, OECD data and other analysis. Lets call it a balanced market were in now. So every barrel they cut gets toward an undersupplied market. 32.5 -33 MMBOPD is the suggested range OPEC will move to. The cut would be 700,000 BOPD. Remember that is every day, Sankey said. If you go from a balanced market to a 700,000-barrel undersupplied market, that is a big deal. Related: Has Saudi Arabia Pushed OPEC Too Far?

The key question is will Iran respect the deal?. In general Saudi has done what they said, followed by UAE, Kuwait and others.  [But,] if these guys dont trust each other then its a different story if there is a race to more production.

Why did OPEC do it?

With weaker demand predicted through 2017 they could see a rough market coming, the analyst theorized. Being a cartel the economics were overpowering: a 10 percent cut could give as much as a 30 percent rise in oil prices.

The thesis is that marginal supply growth comes in the future from U.S. unconventional [production]. This is extremely bullish for all the U.S. E&Ps on the unconventional side, Sankey said.

U.S. production growth hit 1.3 MMBOPD in Dec. 2014. Today the capacity limits are geology, infrastructure, and water handling. Lets say they can get back to 1.3, 1.4 MMBOPD by 2020, we could hit that place in the market a year earlier or more. In the scenario with OPEC capped at 33 MMBOPD, that wipes out the overhang by 2017.

A call participant asked the question, Do you think there is an implicit price theyre trying to target? What price do you think the Saudis want?

The Wolfe analysts said, I think they want demand growth and not too much supply growth. Saudi Arabia believed that the marginal breakeven price in the U.S. is $80 per barrel. But [ExxonMobil CEO Rex] Tillerson talked about how good the U.S. E&P guys are, especially when their backs are against the wall.

It goes to $51 per barrel at the margin. We think there will be acceleration [of activity] above $50. I would say if we were in a $60 + environment that would be a good price  without destroying demand. I dont think we could sustain prices as high as they were in the past, but $60-$80 I would think [OPEC] would be very happy with.

Q: What outcome do you expect from the November OPEC meeting? Are we going to get specific quotas?

A camel is a horse designed by a committee, Sankey said, referring to the punchline from an old joke. OPEC has appointed a committee to work this out. Seems theyll exclude Libya and Nigeria. Iran will stick at 3.7 [MMBOPD] because they are just back in the markets post sanctions. The details are extremely unclear and some of this was from the original Algerian proposal. The fact that Saudi and Iran are remotely agreeing is the headline.

By Oil & Gas 360

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Canadian pipeline giant Enbridge has agreed to offload one of its key networks, in Saskatchewan, for US$1.08 billion. The buyer is Tundra Energy, a private energy infrastructure company. The proceeds of the deal will go towards funding Enbridges takeover of U.S. Spectra Energy, worth US$28 billion.

The South East Saskatchewan pipeline system includes some 1,600 km of pipelines gathering crude oil and other liquid hydrocarbons, one trunk line, and four truck terminals, spanning Saskatchewan and part of Manitoba. According to the buyer of the system, its average daily throughput to Enbridges mainline in Manitoba is about 175,000 barrels of crude. The system also includes an extension to the Bakken shale in the U.S., but this extension is not included in the acquisition.

For Enbridge, the deal represents part of a divestment plan envisaging the sale of assets worth US$2 billion, with all the proceeds going towards the funding of the Spectra Energy deal  a merger that will create the largest energy infrastructure company in North America, according to the Globe and Mail. When the deal is closed, Enbridge shareholders will own 57 percent of the company, while Spectra holders will have the remaining 43 percent.

The company will have assets in crude oil, liquids and natural gas pipelines, terminal and midstream operations. The company will also have a regulated utility portfolio and renewable energy operations.

Meanwhile, Enbridge is awaiting the decision of the Canadian federal government on its proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which was suspended by a court earlier this year. The courts ruling was that the previous Canadian government, which had given the go-ahead to Northern Gateway, did not consult First Nations fully.

Northern Gateway, worth about US$6 billion, is one of several pipelines that Trudeaus government will have to consider in the face of widespread public opposition to any kind of oil infrastructure projects, finding a balance between the economic benefits of these projects and the opposition.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Despite OPEC's decision on Wednesday to scale back production, the oil trade bloc will produce oil at record rates in September, according to the results of an industry survey conducted by Reuters.

Led by Saudi Arabia, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed - for the first time since 2008 - to limit their outputs. After an informal meeting in Algiers, the group said the target rate would be somewhere in between 32.5 million and 33 million barrels per day (bpd).

Figuring out who has to cut output and by how much from the blocs 33.53 million bpd levels in August will be OPECs task during its 30 November meeting in the headquarters in Vienna.

"The agreement still leaves hard and difficult negotiations for the individual caps to be set," Bjarne Schieldrop, the chief commodities analyst at SEB, told Reuters. "Now, with an OPEC curb on the cards for the first time in eight years, Brent crude is not even able to lift above $50. At least not yet."

Reuters says it bases its survey on shipping data supplied by external sources, Thomson Reuters flows data, and other information provided by corporate sources from the industry. OPEC and related consulting firms also contributed to the survey.

Iraq and Libya led the oil production increases forecasted by experts in September. Libya sent off its first shipment of oil from the Ras Lanuf port earlier this month, while Iraq restarted jointly exporting crude with Kurdistan from the oil-rich Kirkuk.

Iran and Saudi Arabia mostly maintained their August outputs after setting all-time records in the first half of this year in production growth and output, respectively.

By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com

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The blog ad industry has blackballed me and all of my websites because of my political views, so I can no longer support this site through ads. Accordingly, I have posted

my resume

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Belly up to these bar stories, brought to you by Miller Brewing Co., that explore well-loved-but-lesser-known taps and taverns from all corners of the city and beyond.

Its been a decade since John Duggan, Tom Coffey and Ed Stritch bought the Third Ward building at 124 N. Water St. and transformed the space from the iconic M&M Club to The Irish Pub.

Duggan says he is most proud of the bars diverse appeal.

"Its very much a local bar in a Downtown environment that caters to all of the demographics," he says. "Youll see 20-somethings mixing with people in their 60s or 70s. Im very proud of our staff and their ability to create such an inclusive environment."

Duggan, who was born to Irish parents in England, came to Chicago to play rugby and never left the United States. Today, the Irish Pub sponsors both a rugby and a hurling team.

Food items have changed over the years, but the menu has primarily stayed committed to a mix of Irish fare like fish 'n' chips and Reubens, along with American pub fare favorites such as wings and wraps.

"Our food changes seasonally and almost everything we make is from scratch," says Duggan. "Very little comes out of the freezer and into the fryer."

Duggan says he hopes to expand the patio to the west by next season.

Built in 1904 as a Pabst Brewing Co. Saloon and Boarding House, Bob Schmidt bought the building in 1976 when the Third Ward was still an undesirable location. He opened the M&M Club in 1978, making M&M the first gay bar that served meals. In 1980, the patio was added, and the glass atrium was erected three years later.

The M&M Club was known for its friendly service and family-style fish fry. It was also the first gay bar to uncover its windows in 1984. Prior to that, gay clubs were boarded up and hidden from the public.

The bars location has an impact on its success. It's anchored on a high-traffic corner on the edge of the Third Ward and very close to the bustling Walkers Point neighborhood.

"With the resurgence of the Walkers Point area we have seen more foot traffic and more customers from the south," says Duggan. "The proximity of the space along with our staffs consistent customer service has been a great mix for us."
Reprinted from Palestine Chronicle



Ban Ki-moon

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Ban Ki-moon's second term as UN secretary-general is ending this December, he was the most ideal man for the job as far as the United States and its allies are concerned.

Of course, there will always be other Ban Ki-moons. In fact, the man himself was a modified version of his predecessor, Kofi Annan.

The unspoken but unmistakable rule about UN secretary-generals is that they must come across as affable enough so as not to be the cause of international controversies, but also flexible enough to accommodate the US' disproportionate influence over the United Nations, particularly the Security Council.

At the end of their terms, the "success" or "failure" of these secretaries has been largely determined by their willingness to play by the aforementioned rule: Boutros Boutros-Ghali had his fallout with the US, as did Kurt Waldheim. But both Annan and Ban learned their lessons well and followed the script to the end of their terms.

It would be utterly unfair to pin the blame for the UN's unmitigated failure to solve world conflicts or obtain any real global achievement on a single individual. But Ban was particularly "good" at this job. It would be quite a challenge to produce another with his exact qualities.

His admonishment of Israel, for example, can come across as strong-worded and makes for a good media quote, yet his inaction to confront Israel's illegal violations of numerous resolutions passed by the very UN he headed, is unmatched.

Even his purportedly strong words of censure were often cleverly coded, which, ultimately, meant very little.

When Israel carried out its longest and most devastating war on Gaza in the summer of 2014, a large number of international law experts and civil society organizations signed a letter accusing the UN chief of failing to clearly condemn Israel's unlawful action in the Occupied Territories, its targeting of civilian homes and even the bombing of UN facilities which killed and wounded hundreds.

The signatories included former UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk who, along with the others, called on Ban to either stand for justice or resign. He did neither.

The signatories criticized him, specifically, about the Israeli shelling of a school managed by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), in which ten civilians were killed.

In his "condemnation" of the Israeli attack, Ban even failed to mention Israel by name as the attacker, and called on "both parties" to provide protection for Palestinian civilians and UN staff.

"Your statements have been either misleading, because they endorse and further Israeli false versions of facts, or contrary to the provisions established by international law and to the interests of its defenders, or because your words justify Israel's violations and crimes," they wrote.

And they were right. This is Ban Ki-Moon's signature policy -- his ability to sidestep having to criticize Israel so cleverly (and, of course, the US and others) when that criticism could have, when needed most, at least given a pause to those who violate international law at will.

Considering this, many have perceived Ban's farewell speech at the 71st session of the UN General Assembly on 15 September as a departure from his old reserved self. It was understood that it was the end of his term and he was ready to show some backbone, however belatedly. Sadly, this was not the case.

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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.



Umayyad Mosque

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Before the externally-orchestrated dirty war on Syria started with the externally-orchestrated "Arab Spring" psy op; before the "peaceful protestors" shot the unarmed Syrian security forces; and before the West armed, trained and funded the international mercenary cannibals who loot, rape, and plunder; Syria was an oasis of civilization surrounded by imperial puppet states.

Syria was prosperous, with a growing economy. It had food sovereignty, with a "strategic" stock of millions of tons of high quality wheat, not the "Franken-food" bio-tech variety; it had a strong central bank with no usurious IMF loans; it had a popular, reformer President; it had a mostly well-educated, secular, pluralist, forward-looking population; and it was the fourth safest country in the world.

After almost six years of illegal war launched by some of the most militarily advanced countries, and years of illegal sanctions imposed by these same criminal governments -- including Canada's puppet government -- Syria is still standing strong. It still has a popular, elected President and government. And it is still a beacon of civilization.

Despite the collective punishment of sanctions and the terror of war, Syrians remain defiant. Arabi Shaher exemplified this defiance when he said, "Do whatever you like, this is our country; it will remain our country." He, like many Syrians, sees through the lies. And his appraisal of the root cause of the war is openly shared by many Syrians.

Israel and its allies "benefit" from a balkanized and destroyed Syria. Even conflicting pipeline interests are subordinated by Israel's perceived needs as presaged by the Oded Yinon plan. Syrians commonly report that Israel first and foremost, and its allies, are the number one agents driving the current holocaust. These interests are said to subordinate the "oil" interests. Same in Iraq.

Not surprisingly, Syria, ranked among the top five countries in terms of safety before the war, is now a war zone on about 2,000 fronts, but life goes on for all Syrians.

Despite the Western assaults on Syria, Syria still provides free health care and schooling for all in government-controlled areas, even as terrorists teach children to be "child soldiers", and to adopt the degenerate Wahhabi ideology that violently excludes all other ideologies and religions.

All of the violence, including the daily exposure to bombings, is currently being "normalized". Outsiders report that when a mortar bomb strikes nearby, Syrian pedestrians barely notice, and continue on their way. The trauma of the war will present challenges for years to come.

Despite, or maybe because of its challenges, Syria treats all of its inhabitants -- regardless of their country of origin -- as Syrians.

"Wesam", a man born to Palestinian refugees, explains that Palestinian refugees have the same rights as Syrians. They can buy a home, they can buy land, and they can legally work in Syria. In contrast, he explains that Palestinian refugees have no rights in neighbouring Lebanon; they cannot work legally, and they cannot buy a home outside of the refugee camp.

And so life goes on in Syria. The West is doing everything that it can to change this -- economic sanctions, mercenary terrorists, bombing grain silos, bombing Syrian Arab Army (SAA) positions, disinformation warfare -- but it isn't working.

Damascus, one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world, is strong. Observers mistakenly thought that the capital would fall within months, but it hasn't happened yet, and it is unlikely to happen at all.

Syria has strong institutions, a strong army, and strong allies. It also has a strong civilizing core. Syria's victory will be everyone's victory.

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Reprinted from The Nation

It is simply the case that the candidates for public office never get better once they are elected to public office. At best, the candidate you see on the campaign trail is the mayor or governor or president you get. At worst, which is often the case, the candidate you see on the campaign trail is actually the best version -- with bigger promises and more manufactured charm -- is actually the best version of the elected official who takes the position of power.

That's politics. And voters need to be reminded of that fact as the election season hits its stride. No one should ever fall for the fantasy that a presidential candidate whose campaign-trail antics raise concerns will somehow turn out to be less concerning as president.

It never, ever, works that way.

Even the most exciting and encouraging contenders for the presidency tend to fall short of expectations. And candidates who are troublesome on the trail often turn out to be agonizingly awful once they sit down in the Oval Office.

This is a point that cannot be made frequently enough. And Michelle Obama, who knows a thing or two about campaigns and presidencies, is making it with perfect pitch this fall.

That the first lady is a powerful speaker and a powerfully effective campaigner has, by now, been well-established. What deserves more notice at this point in the campaign, however, is that has emerged as the strikingly effective critic of Donald Trump.

When it comes to explaining why voters should be afraid, very afraid of the Republican nominee for president, no one does a better job than Michelle Obama.

Though she rarely mentions Trump by name at campaign stops on behalf of Hillary Clinton, the first lady's references to Trump's most obnoxious words and deeds put the billionaire's candidacy in perspective. Precisely, and perfectly.

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I bring this incident up because I grew up in a town not far from Chappaqua -- a decidedly less affluent northern Westchester County suburb. I have been hearing about this story from my mother, who often relays the local news. From what I can gather, there is a feeling of "this doesn't happen here" and "this is not the kind of school where these things occur." It's not surprising. You hear this all the time from residents who are interviewed by the news media after an otherwise "unheard of" crime occurs in their wealthy enclave. And at Horace Greeley, things are different. This school is known as a sort of private-public school, always ranked as one of the best public high schools in the nation. It sends its students to all of the top-tier universities, and its students go on to successful careers. It is not at all coincidental that Chappaqua households are listed among the highest-income in the country as well.

A school's success is inextricably tied to wealth for a number of reasons. In public schools, the major source of revenue is derived from property taxes. Obviously, an abundance of multi-million dollar properties will generate higher returns for a school district than the cheap real estate of the poor and middle-class. But above that, whether students in rich neighborhoods attend public or private schools, whatever their schools may lack, their parents can make up for in donations. We can all help fund our children's schools, but while poor households may not even be able to spare pennies, and middle-class households might be able to spare $10 or perhaps as much as $100 dollars, rich households could "sacrifice" $10K, $100K, or for some, even millions of dollars without blinking an eye. That is how much wealth disparity exists; it is truly incomprehensible.

Unequal funding in schools results in inequitable educational opportunities. Schools with more money have greater resources. And greater resources does not mean technology, because there is no evidence that technology enhances education (it merely benefits the tech industry). It means smaller class sizes, ample books and supplies, access to music, art, and physical education, availability of field trips, clean classrooms, and well-paid teachers who are not overburdened with untenable conditions and who are not struggling themselves to make ends meet. There is a reason that the students in Beverly Hills were performing better, on average, than the students I once taught in East Los Angeles -- and it had nothing to do with the students' abilities. Instead, it had everything to do with the superior resources available to both students and teachers in richer school districts (along with the horrendous hunger, poverty, and homelessness rampant in schools in lower socio-economic neighborhoods).

A recent episode of "This American Life" explained how school integration was a monumental success in increasing student performance and narrowing the achievement gap for people of color, not because of racial intermingling, but because black students were able to access the same education opportunities as white students. It follows that desegregation of schools should be implemented not just on the level of race but on the level of economic status. If we really want to fix our public school system, students of all races and all socio-economic strata need to co-exist at all public schools, and there needs to be an end to all private and charter schools.

Charter schools have done little to aid in providing a better quality education to all -- mainly because that is not what they were established for. Charters do not have the same mandates as public schools, so they do not have to follow all of the same onerous, bureaucratic regulations. These directives were put in place by the capitalist governing class who purposefully constructed them to undermine public education. With the failure of public education, the capitalist class could make way for a new open market in education. With charter schools, the taxpayers could pay for the market and all of the profits could be had by industry. That is not to say that all charter schools were created by corporate profiteers (though that is true in an alarming number of cases). Many charter schools were established by good educators with the best of intentions for students. I know of a number of them and worked at one over a decade ago. That is also not to say that some students do not benefit from a charter school education, whether socially or academically (though research shows that, overall, this is not the case). But these exceptions are akin to a handful of people sharing a winning lottery ticket while everyone else remains left behind. They amount to educational fortune, but not educational justice.

Imagine if all of the nation's rich folks were forced to send their children to plain-old public schools, along with students of middle-incomes and students of low- or no incomes. First, any crowded classrooms, unclean conditions, problems with teachers, or lack of resources would be nipped in the bud, because the rich parents would pour their money, their time, and their lawyers into improving the conditions for their children (and thus, all of the children). Second, the rich children would learn a great deal from their less wealthy peers about people who do not have access to the wealth and privileges that they do, hopefully, making they more sympathetic and empathetic to the conditions of others. Third, the wealthy parents might not feel comfortable having their children mingle with the non-wealthy hoi-polloi, so they may actually learn empathy as well. They may think more closely about socio-political issues and they might learn about the reality of other people's lives, about the plight of others from the actual struggles of their childrens' peers, rather than from the propaganda and hearsay they gather from their perch on high. They might, in turn, use their fortunes to help to improve the quality of life for their childrens' peers and maybe, for the rest of the 99% of the country.

While there is no doubt that the eradication of poverty, hunger, homelessness, and gross income inequality overall would drastically improve the educational success of all students, it also seems that the preservation of what could be and should be an exceptional public school system in America is imminently achievable. But, it cannot be done with the useless reforms and technological tools that are currently being pushed on the public. The solution to educational equality relies on the total integration of all American students into diverse yet equivalent, well-financed public schools.

Now, exactly what kids are being trained for in school -- to be corporate technocrats and to perpetuate society's plunge into planetary ecocide and species suicide " That's a whole other issue "

(Article changed on September 30, 2016 at 17:52)
This is Part 2 of a 3-part series on Kaya Henderson's leadership of DCPS. [Part 1]

After six years as head of D.C. Public Schools, Kaya Henderson steps down Friday, claiming she's turned around a troubled school system.

"DCPS has become the fastest--improving urban school district in the country," Henderson's DCPS bio states.

But the facts tell a different story. It's one of slight overall improvement (largely due to gentrification and changing demographics), masking a disturbing reality: under Henderson the achievement gap has grown and D.C.'s most at-risk students have fallen even farther behind.

"A frequent criticism of Henderson," writesCity Paper's Jeffrey Anderson, "is that she promotes progress by highlighting aggregate student test scores that either do not account for or obscure one of the widest achievement gaps in the country."

"Looking at the system as a whole the district has maintained a modest improvement for all students," Washington Teachers' Union president Elizabeth Davis wrote in response to Part 1 of this series.

But when we disaggregate this data, a more compelling story emerges: students and teachers throughout the district are not receiving the needed resources that would aid in mitigating the scourge of multi-generational poverty.

Mayoral Control

Henderson arrived at DCPS in 2007 when her close friend Michelle Rhee took the reins of the school system.

Their arrival coincided with D.C. switching to mayoral control of schools, which disempowered the elected school board, and gave Rhee and Henderson unprecedented authority.

This power grab was justified as necessary to address D.C.'s wide achievement gaps: between black/Latino and white, and lower and higher-income students. But after Rhee and Henderson's combined near-decade atop DCPS, the achievement gaps haven't narrowed. In fact they've widened.

The gaps "are huge -- and years of corporate reform didn't stop them from widening," writes Valerie Strauss, a rare voice willing to challenge Henderson at the Washington Post.

The Associated Press similarly found that under Henderson the achievement gap "remained persistently high and has increased by some measures."

"The gaps between wealthy and poor remain huge--and have actually increased--under Rhee and Henderson," wrote former PBS reporter John Merrow, citing DCPS scores on the test known as "the nation's report card."

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Politics without ethics is one thing; politics without conscience is altogether something else. The Congress-led UPA government is the first and the BJP-led NDA government, the second. Apart from the innumerable corruption scams, the extent of the UPA's lack of ethics showed in the Indo-US Nuclear deal which was made when George W. Bush was the President of the United States. It convinced me that we had lost forever the battle for being some kind of an autonomous player in global politics (which, I anyways believe, was lost with the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984).

Toeing the American line was unforgivable and it was hard to imagine anything worse for a third world nation given the fact that the American state has nothing but contempt for people of the Global South. Turkey and Pakistan are good examples: anyone who has befriended the American state in the non-western world, they end up with illegitimate governments in which the masses have little or no faith and a perpetual threat of civil war hanging like a sword on their heads.

The Congress-led UPA government kept the illusion of a conscience alive by being pro-poor in theory though they were responsible for the near chaos and panic that lead to the rise of Narendra Modi as a stable alternative to an otherwise disintegrating social and political order. The BJP ensured that whatever vestiges of conscience were left would be faithfully cremated and the ashes dispersed in the Indian Ocean, never to be found again. The way the government has dealt with the Kashmir crisis is an instance of that kind of conscienceless politics.

How can a government legitimize itself through the mere use of force against a civilian population leaving them no opportunity but to fight it out to the finish? When I look at those Kashmiri streets and stone-throwers, I get the strange feeling that they are operating in a barren landscape where power is pitted against resistance in a one-to-one manner. There are no social and political institutions to channelize the energies and feelings of young boys and girls who experience an existential vacuum in their goalless lives waiting for time to pass like the characters in Beckett's absurd plays.

The last years of the Algerian war of freedom and the Indian struggle for independence were characterized by leaderless protests. The fact that there is no leader is a sign that the masses have decided to take matters into their own hands. It is a tacit agreement made by a population that has no choice but to fight through whatever means available at its disposal. The fact is that an elected government at the center and at the state has placed the Kashmiri-on-the-street in a state of helplessness along with a gnawing feeling of impotence that kills in a way that is hundred times worse than being terminated by a bullet. Anti-colonial wars were fought by leaderless masses and however long Israel might prolong its occupation in the end it has no choice but to leave because the Palestinian masses do not want an alien power ruling them.

If the idea is that we have a democratically elected political party it follows suit that such a system takes the masses into confidence and responds to their day-to-day needs. Once the army and the police were used as the only available option to the government to repress the common people in Kashmir, with or without Pakistan's support, something like the Uri attack in which soldiers were killed seemed like an expected response. You can't be killing more than a hundred people and expect the others to do nothing about it. This is not to forget that the attack was on an army base and not against civilians which means that it is more of an act of war rather than an act of terror.

As much as I think that Pakistan is a nation without a moral or a political stand of any kind given its dismal treatment of minorities and that there are too many non-state players who are nearly as powerful as the state itself, I really don't think they are the problem at this point in time. Since it took power as the elected government, the BJP has literally made no serious policy decisions that would positively benefit the masses. Whatever done by the previous government is simply being continued with no effort to make changes by the current government. Whipping up hysteria is not just a strategy but a political weapon, and the only one at the BJP's disposal. We are not merely talking about mediocrity but something more dangerous than that: it is called cynicism.

From cow vigilantism to nationalism, all we get to hear is hysterical outbursts of passion, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. The highlight of the absurd drama is the completely conscienceless suggestion to stop the flow of the Indus river water to Pakistan. It speaks volumes for the cynicism of the party in power. If the cow vigilantes had not taken their role so seriously and gone out of the way in attacking people wherever it suited them, the BJP would not be having this kind of a trouble with either its Dalit voters or the poor who realize that this party not only wants to hit them on their backs but also on their bellies. Therefore, all attempts by the government with generous support from the corporate media to make the masses ready for a war with Pakistan are actually failing miserably. The Indian masses are neither impressed nor interested in that kind of war mongering.

Force is only a stopgap arrangement with the Kashmiri elites playing their own devious role in how willing they are in endorsing the presence of the army to protect their own lives, lifestyles and properties. A government must invest on the people and build institutions rather than create a situation where the only work available for the young is to join the police or the army. A poor country like India cannot afford to be pumping millions for the upkeep of a state that is completely opposed to the idea of India as a nation. The common people have to be included and made to feel that they belong to this nation-state. Nothing is more dangerous than a situation where repression is successful in keeping the masses quiet. It is an ominous sign of bigger changes to come and certainly not for the best. The Edwardian era was a peaceful one and we experience something of that tranquility and humor in the novels of P.G. Wodehouse. The First World War was round the corner and all those illusions of a secure world were shattered in no time.

How can for example the Indian government as a policy support Baloch nationalists fighting for a separate state and say that this does not apply to Kashmiri nationalists? The contradiction is only too obvious and I keep wondering without trying to be ironic, who gives the Narendra Modi government these uncannily pointless ideas. The false sense of security through the use of absolute power is bound to have dangerous consequences in the not-so-long future. The writing on the Kashmiri wall is obvious to those who have eyes to see: either we create an inclusive order that is willing to accommodate the aspirations of the common people of Kashmir or we end up buying the loyalty of the elites with the Indian tax-payer's money and becoming brutally repressive with the masses in the way Israel operates while dealing with the Palestinian Territories.
Today, MoveOn.org Political Action announced the winners of the Laughter Trumps Hate contest, a national competition dedicated to denouncing the racist, sexist, bigoted campaign of Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, with humor and creativity. More than 200 comedians submitted entries to the competition and winners were selected by an all-star panel of judges, including Judd Apatow, Adam McKay, Aasif Mandvi, and Negin Farsad. Thousands of MoveOn members also voted on the contest finalists to select the winner of the Crowd Favorite Award.

The competition began in late July, when participants from around the country submitted short videos of stand-up comedy, political sketches, and impressions of Donald Trump, all pertaining to his hateful campaign or the issues of bigotry and bullying. In August, the wittiest and most creative participants were invited to perform at live showcases at The Hollywood Improv in Los Angeles, Zanies Comedy Club in Chicago, and Gotham Comedy in New York City. Through the election, we will be releasing the best videos from these showcases on our Facebook and Twitter.

The winners are:

Best Stand-Up Comedy: George Civeris

-- Watch his routine here:

Best Comedy Sketch: Trumpmerica by Brian Parise, Steven Cartaccio, JL Cauvin, and Janelle James

Best Trump Impression: Andrew Knox

-- Watch his impression here:





Crowd Favorite (based on the votes of thousands of MoveOn members): Make America Great Again

by Kate Chavez, Robin Holloway, and Lindsey Hope Pearlman of Up & Down Theatre

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Reprinted from Strategic Culture



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The crescendo of US-led condemnations against Syria and Russia over alleged humanitarian crimes in Syria grows louder by the day. The eerie sense is that this outcry is being orchestrated as a prelude to a NATO-style intervention in Syria.

Such a NATO maneuver would follow the template for former Yugoslavia and Libya, leading to greater civilian deaths, territorial disintegration, a surge in regional terrorism and more international lawlessness by Western states.

The concerted, emotive appeals over the past week -- bordering on hysteria -- indicate a propaganda campaign coordinated between Washington and its Western allies, the mass media and the US-led NATO military alliance.

It was US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power who led the chorus of accusations against Russia and its Syrian ally, using the Security Council emergency meeting last weekend to condemn barbarism of renewed violence around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. Britain and France piled in with more unsubstantiated condemnations of war crimes, as did shameless UN officials, Ban Ki-Moon, the secretary general, and Staffan de Mistura, the UN's special envoy to Syria.

Few people would countenance war, but surely Syria has the sovereign right to defend its nation from a foreign-fueled war on its territory. In all the lachrymose lecturing from the likes of Samantha Power, the pertinent question of who started this war in the first place gets lost in rhetorical fog.

Days later, NATO civilian chief Jens Stoltenberg issued a statement denouncing Russia and Syria for blatant violation of international laws in Aleppo, adding that the military actions by both were morally totally unacceptable.

All the while, Western news media outlets have run saturation coverage of what they depict as a humanitarian hell in Aleppo, the strategic Syrian city where the final throes of the country's nearly six-year war seem to be playing out.

The New York Times published an article with the gut-wrenching headline: "The Children of Aleppo, Syria, Trapped in a Killing Zone."

It goes on to say: Among the roughly 250,000 people trapped in the insurgent redoubt of the divided northern Syrian city are 100,000 children, the most vulnerable victims of intensified bombings by Syrian forces and their Russian allies.

In a separate article, euronews.com reports: "Nowhere to hide -- volunteer describes conditions inside Aleppo."

The implication in the Western mass media is that Syrian and Russian air forces are bombarding indiscriminately across civilian districts of the city. The same desperate tone and bias is ubiquitous in all Western media outlets.

However, if we ascertain the sources for this saturation information, it turns out to be a limited range of anonymous activists, or the Western-funded group known as the White Helmets, which purports to be a humanitarian response network, but which in actual fact is integrated with illegally armed insurgents, including the al Qaeda terror organization Jabhat al Fatah al Sham (al Nusra Front), as writer Rick Sterling details.

Western TV news outlets are routinely using video footage from the White Helmets, supposedly taken in the aftermath of air strikes on Aleppo. This is an astounding abdication of any journalistic ethics of independence and impartiality.

These same media outlets rarely, if ever, carry reports from the western side of Aleppo where a six-fold greater population -- 1.5 million -- live in government-held districts, compared with the rebel-held eastern quarter.

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By Dave Lindorff



Who was really to blame for the downing of Malaysian Flt. 17?

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If the danger of the anti-Putin, anti-Russian disinformation propaganda campaign out of the Pentagon and promoted by the US corporate media weren't so serious, the effort itself might be laughable. I did laugh,

In fact, listening last night to a discussion by an NPR host with a government spokesperson about the latest propaganda effort to blame the downing of a Malaysian jumbo jet over Ukraine on July 17, 2014 on Russia. After hearing the government official, whose name I didn't catch, say that Dutch prosecutors had found "solid evidence" that it was a "Russian-made" BUK antiaircraft missile launched from "pro-Russian" rebel held territory in Eastern Ukraine by "pro-Russian rebels," who then "brought the missile launcher back to Russia, the NPR host asked, laughing, how the "Russian government media" were handling this story.

I laughed because the NPR host's report was as much a blatant piece of one-sided propaganda, replete with laughing reference to Russian media, as any "Pravda" reporting from the days of the old USSR. So thoroughtly bought into his role of propagandist was this NPR host that he didn't even realize how biased he sounded, laughing as he referred to the Russian news media. You could actually "hear" the invisible quotes he was putting around the word "news."

I'll leave it to the quite capable hands of veteran investigative journalist Robert Parry to eviscerate the "facts" presented by Dutch and Australian prosecutors, who as he points out in a recent article , were by their own admission relying on information provided by the Ukrainian secret service, though the Ukrainian military is really the most likely source of the missile that brought down Malaysian Flight 17 killing all 298 passengers and crew.

The most obvious reason to doubt claims that Russia and Russian separatists in Ukraine were the ones responsible for the downing of Flight 17 is that neither of those parties had anything to gain (and everything to lose) by such a horrific act of terror. At the time the plane was downed, Pro-Russian separatist forces were trouncing Ukrainian military forces trying to conquer the rebellious Donbass region. The last thing they or their backer, Russia, needed was to do something that would be guaranteed to turn all of Europe against them, and hand the US government a perfect justification for providing more offensive military support to Ukraine. On the other hand, Ukraine and its military had every reason to commit such a heinous act if they thought they could pin the blame on Russia, and win more support from the US.

No reporters with the US corporate media ever raise that crucial and obvious point.

Nor do they ever note that Russia was not only barred by the Dutch from being a party to the Dutch-led investigation into the plane's downing, but that its repeated offers of evidence -- communications intercepts, radar data and information about the the BUK missiles and missile launchers in the possession of Ukrainian military -- were flatly rejected.

This was no "independent" investigation, and the prosecutors from Holland and Australia were not looking for truth. They were looking for a predetermined answer: Russia was behind this. And what a surprise! They found just that!

I'm reminded of the pathetic 9-11 Commission report on the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. That Commission was lied to by the FBI and stonewalled by the Bush/Cheney administration to the point that its own co-chairs said that they were unable to do a credible investigation into the cause of the incident or even into why the entire US intelligence apparatus and the US military were unable to detect it in the planning or to prevent it as it played out. I myself reported, based upon a source in the National Transportation Safety Administration,, the unsurprising truth that the four supposedly indestructible "black boxes" of the two planes that hit the Twin Towers, said by the FBI to have never been found in the meticulously picked through rubble, had in fact all been recovered and brought to the NTSA, but that "the FBI had taken them away." (This source was backed up by a second source in the NY Police Department who told me he saw one of the boxes found in the rubble he was helping to search through and then be taken away in a government SUV.)

The US media have been willing accomplices in covering up the truth of 9-11, and astonishingly remiss in never seriously investigating that epic disaster, and now they are playing the same propagandistic role in trying to demonize Russia.

What makes this new propaganda campaign so dangerous is that we are headed into an election that, Trump campaign boasts aside, is likely to be won by Hillary Clinton, a woman who as President Obama's Secretary of State engineered, directed and funded the bloody coup in Ukraine that overthrew the elected government there and replaced it with a fascist-led government that is best described as a kleptocracy. The coup government's first act was to launch an ethnic cleansing campaign designed to drive the Russian majority population out of the eastern more industrialized part of the country. (It was that campaign that led the generations-old Russian populations of Donetsk and Lugansk to secede from Ukraine, and the 92%-Russian Crimea to ask for Russian military protection and to be re-annexed to Russia, from which it had decades ago been ceded to the Ukrainian state (soviet) by then Soviet Union Premier Khrushchev, himself a native of Ukraine.

Clinton has made no secret of her loathing of Russia, its elected leader Vladimir Putin (whom she has publicly compared to Hitler), and its foreign policy of opposing US aggression in Syria, Ukraine and other regions. It was Clinton who has been urging the aggressive forward march of NATO membership right up to Russia's western border and the placing of nuclear-tipped anti-missile missiles on Russia's borders. It is also Clinton who is proposing, if she becomes president, to establish a wholly illegal "no-fly" zone in Syria -- a move that would put the US in the position of trying to shoot down Russian aircraft that are legally defending the Syrian government against ISIS and Al Nusra rebels. Talk about war-mongering! Clinton, if she had her way, by pitting US pilots against Russian pilots, would be inviting World War III.

Such a policy can only happen if the American people, who polls show are sick and tired of American war-making in the Middle East and elsewhere, can be convinced that Russia is simply the Soviet Union Version 2.0. A neo-con cabal in the State Department and in the Pentagon, and most of the intelligence apparatus that is so integral to US national security planning, are trying to put the word out to the willing hacks in the corporate media, that Russia should be demonized at every opportunity, so that Clinton can win this election, and then move forward with her plans to increase tensions with and military pressure against Russia.

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In earlier articles of this series, quite a few different voting systems of voting have been described and considered. But the series has developed over more than two years and readers may well have forgotten or never even read some of those earlier articles so it seems worth offering a review -- and that is our purpose in this article. Here we will first describe the circumstances of a hypothetical election and then go through each of the electoral systems in turn to see how that election might might turn out under that system.

The election we will consider is between three candidates. The voters are strongly focused on a single issue and it does not matter much what that issue is. Two of the candidates, Isfor and Isagien, represent the two different sides of that issue and the voters split pretty evenly between them. Nearly every voter prefers either Isfor or Isagien but opposes the other of those two. The third candidate, Benute has managed to remain neutral on the issue of the day, saying that it is best to wait to see how matters evolve and make a decision in the future. Both Isfor and Isagien ridicule Benute for just kicking the can down the road, but Benute seems seems well liked by nearly all voters and is the second choice for essentially all of the voters.

You are encouraged now give some thought about which of the three candidates you think should win the election - not on the basis of any choice of electoral system but on the basis of having a good democracy.

If the election were held using plurality voting, most voters would probably realize that Benute really has no chance and so they would vote for either Isfor or Isagien. One or the other would win by a slim margin and no doubt half of the voters would feel cheated and unhappy about the outcome.

On the other hand, if the election were held using balanced plurality voting, (where a voter can choose to vote for or against one candidate) then some fraction of the voters would likely choose to vote against whichever of Isfor or Isagien they oppose and only a negligible handful of voters would choose to mention Benute on their ballot. Voters would feel forced to make a decision, for example to vote against Isfor rather than for Isagien. The decision would seem to depend on whether it was more important to the voter that Isagien win or that Isfor not win election, but there is another way to think of that decision. Voters would mostly be aware that the choice would not make any difference in the contest between Isfor and Isagien but rather, the choice would only make a difference to Benute's competitiveness in the election. Votes against either candidate would help Benute remain competitive. If at least half of the voters on each side were more concerned about, from their viewpoint, the wrong candidate being elected then both Isfor and Isagien would have a negative vote-count so Benute would win with a vote-count of (essentially) zero. That is one possible outcome, but with balanced plurality voting it would be quite possible for any of the three candidates to win.

With approval voting, there is no such ambiguity. Recall that this is the system where a voter is asked to indicate approval of each candidate the voter chooses. In this particular election, roughly half of the voters would show approval for each of Isfor and Isagien while essentially all voters would indicate approval for Benute. This would make Benute the winner.

With balanced approval voting, (where the voter is asked to indicate approval or disapproval -- or neither - for each of the candidates) the outcome is much the same as with approval voting. It is likely that half of the voters would cast a vote for Isfor and Benute and against Isagien, while the other half would cast a vote for Isagien and Benute but against Isfor. The election would clearly go to Benute with 100% approval while Isagien and Isfor would each net only 0% approval.

In this election there are few enough candidates that there would would really be little motivation for using balanced ration voting, but for the sake of providing an example we can consider it nonetheless. Each voter would be handed three (it could be more or less than that, but three seems reasonable with just three candidates) balanced plurality ballots.

A smart way for an voter who prefers Isagien would be to cast one ballot for Isagien and two ballots against Isfor; after all, the most important priority of such a voter is that Isfor not to win but to give Isagien an advantage. Then again, casting two ballots for Isagien and one against Isfor is also a smart approach for such a voter but it gives Isagien even more of an advantage.

If all voters cast one ballot in favor of Isfor or Isagain two against the other then those two candidates both have negative net scores and Benute would win with a net score of zero. At the other extreme, if all voters cast two ballots for and one against then the result is a tie or near tie between Isfor and Isagain.

But of course there are many possibilities between these so that any of the three candidates could come out the winner. However, it seems likely that the voters would be educated on the consequences of their votes and that they would realize that a vote against the candidate they opposed would help their second-choice candidate, Benute, to remain competitive in the election. It seems likely then that many of the votes would be cast in the negative and that Benute would have a good chance to be the winner.

This article is now getting quite close to the thousand-words that OEN suggests as a maximum length, but we still have IRV and IRBV to consider. The reader is encouraged to give some thought about what might happen given these other systems of voting. I do plan to write a follow-up article addressing these two other systems, however.
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Media Should Report That President Trump Is Violating The Constitution -- And It's An Impeachable Offense President Donald Trump's continued ownership interest in the Trump Organization means that he is in violation of the U.S. Constitution's Emoluments Clause, which prohibits the president from personally benefiting from actions taken by foreign governments and their agents. Sunday, January 22, 2017President Donald Trump's continued ownership interest in the Trump Organization means that he is in violation of the U.S. Constitution's Emoluments Clause, which prohibits the president from personally benefiting from actions taken by foreign governments and their agents.

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Conservative Newspapers Explain Why They Refused To Endorse "Frightening" Trump David Yepsen, former Des Moines Register political columnist, said, "One thing Trump has to do is get moderate and wavering Republicans to 'come home.' When Republican papers endorse Hillary Clinton, those endorsements become something that might continue to give those Republicans pause about him." USA Today, which has "never taken sides" in a presidential race, declared Trump "unfit for the presidency" in an editorial. Friday, September 30, 2016David Yepsen, former Des Moines Register political columnist, said, "One thing Trump has to do is get moderate and wavering Republicans to 'come home.' When Republican papers endorse Hillary Clinton, those endorsements become something that might continue to give those Republicans pause about him." USA Today, which has "never taken sides" in a presidential race, declared Trump "unfit for the presidency" in an editorial.

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Hannity Doubles Down: The Phony Benghazi Scandal Committee Fox Built Was "Political" In the year-and-a-half between the attacks and House Speaker John Boehner's formation of a special committee to investigate the administration's response to Benghazi, Fox aired over a thousand evening segments about Benghazi. Thursday, October 1, 2015In the year-and-a-half between the attacks and House Speaker John Boehner's formation of a special committee to investigate the administration's response to Benghazi, Fox aired over a thousand evening segments about Benghazi.

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Former CBS News Colleague Calls O'Reilly's Combat Claim "Absurd" Another one of Bill O'Reilly's former colleagues at CBS News is casting doubt on his claims that he reported from a "combat situation" in Buenos Aires during the Falklands War. Charles Krause, a CBS News correspondent from 1980 to 1983 who reported from Buenos Aires during the same period as O'Reilly, is the latest to contradict the Fox News host. Monday, February 23, 2015Another one of Bill O'Reilly's former colleagues at CBS News is casting doubt on his claims that he reported from a "combat situation" in Buenos Aires during the Falklands War. Charles Krause, a CBS News correspondent from 1980 to 1983 who reported from Buenos Aires during the same period as O'Reilly, is the latest to contradict the Fox News host.

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NRA Floats Idea Of Kids Needing To Show Gun Proficiency "To Advance To The Next Grade" NRA News commentator Billy Johnson imagined a compulsory education system that would require children to become proficient with firearms, just like "reading and writing," even "if they didn't want to learn. It wouldn't matter if they didn't want to learn. We would make it necessary to advance to the next grade." Thursday, July 24, 2014NRA News commentator Billy Johnson imagined a compulsory education system that would require children to become proficient with firearms, just like "reading and writing," even "if they didn't want to learn. It wouldn't matter if they didn't want to learn. We would make it necessary to advance to the next grade."

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Fox's Benghazi Expert Endorsed Assassinating Obama Last Week Days after he wrote a column endorsing the assassination of President Obama, Fox hosted Michael Scheuer to accuse Hillary Clinton of effectively murdering the Americans who died during the 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya. Scheuer, a former CIA officer with a long history of extreme rhetoric, has appeared on Fox News and Fox Business dozens of times over the years. Friday, January 3, 2014Days after he wrote a column endorsing the assassination of President Obama, Fox hosted Michael Scheuer to accuse Hillary Clinton of effectively murdering the Americans who died during the 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya. Scheuer, a former CIA officer with a long history of extreme rhetoric, has appeared on Fox News and Fox Business dozens of times over the years.

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Ted Nugent's Presidential Pitch: Disenfranchise The Working Poor And The Elderly Ted Nugent proposed a compromise that would trade closing the gun show loophole for closing "the federal voting loophole," which allows individuals who do not pay federal income tax to vote. Implementing this plan would involve taking away the vote from a large number of Americans who work but do not owe federal income taxes as well as retirees and some individuals who cannot work because of illness or disability. Thursday, December 5, 2013Ted Nugent proposed a compromise that would trade closing the gun show loophole for closing "the federal voting loophole," which allows individuals who do not pay federal income tax to vote. Implementing this plan would involve taking away the vote from a large number of Americans who work but do not owe federal income taxes as well as retirees and some individuals who cannot work because of illness or disability.

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Former 60 Minutes Producer Mapes: Benghazi Story Aimed At "Obsessed" Right-Wing Audience Former 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes, who was fired for her role in a controversial 2004 story about President Bush's service in the Air National Guard, accused CBS News of pandering to a right-wing audience with her former program's recent Benghazi report, for which the network has been criticized and forced to retract. Sunday, November 10, 2013Former 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes, who was fired for her role in a controversial 2004 story about President Bush's service in the Air National Guard, accused CBS News of pandering to a right-wing audience with her former program's recent Benghazi report, for which the network has been criticized and forced to retract.

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CNN's Latest Gingrich Ethics Problem: His Company Received RNC Payment Last month, Newt Gingrich's media production company was paid $9,500 by the Republican National Committee, a fact he has not divulged on Crossfire, the CNN program he co-hosts. It's the latest ethics headache brought to the network by their new host. Thursday, October 24, 2013Last month, Newt Gingrich's media production company was paid $9,500 by the Republican National Committee, a fact he has not divulged on Crossfire, the CNN program he co-hosts. It's the latest ethics headache brought to the network by their new host.

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New CNN Host Newt Gingrich Is Already Violating Network Rules Issues with Gingrich and his PAC don't end with his CNN disclosure problem. Mother Jones raised significant questions about whether Gingrich is fronting a "dubious PAC" since "most of the money flowing into American Legacy PAC is benefiting vendors and consultants who have long been associated with Gingrich" rather than actual candidates. Thursday, September 26, 2013Issues with Gingrich and his PAC don't end with his CNN disclosure problem. Mother Jones raised significant questions about whether Gingrich is fronting a "dubious PAC" since "most of the money flowing into American Legacy PAC is benefiting vendors and consultants who have long been associated with Gingrich" rather than actual candidates.

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Fox Asks Rumsfeld About Extending "Hand Of Friendship" To Dictators, Forgets About Saddam Hussein What's so awkward about Fox pressing Rumsfeld on the U.S. sending "mixed signals" is Rumsfeld himself had offered a "hand of friendship" to Iraq's dictator at the time when Hussein was engaging in the use of banned chemical weapons -- actions the Bush administration would later cite as a justification for military strikes. Thursday, September 5, 2013What's so awkward about Fox pressing Rumsfeld on the U.S. sending "mixed signals" is Rumsfeld himself had offered a "hand of friendship" to Iraq's dictator at the time when Hussein was engaging in the use of banned chemical weapons -- actions the Bush administration would later cite as a justification for military strikes.

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Laura Ingraham Celebrates March On Washington 50th Anniversary With Gunshots And Race-Baiting On her August 26 radio broadcast, Ingraham criticized the event and its speakers, saying the goal "was to co-opt the legacy of Martin Luther King into a modern-day liberal agenda." Ingraham began playing a clip of Lewis' speech from the 50th anniversary rally, before interrupting the playback of his comments with the sound of a loud gunshot. Wednesday, August 28, 2013On her August 26 radio broadcast, Ingraham criticized the event and its speakers, saying the goal "was to co-opt the legacy of Martin Luther King into a modern-day liberal agenda." Ingraham began playing a clip of Lewis' speech from the 50th anniversary rally, before interrupting the playback of his comments with the sound of a loud gunshot.

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Karl Rove Absolves GOP Of Blame For Debt Ceiling Hostage Taking Karl Rove ignored the Republican obstructionism that led to the 2011 debt ceiling crisis, falsely claiming President Obama was entirely to blame for automatic government spending cuts and misleadingly accusing Obama of hypocrisy for criticizing the devastating effects of the law. Thursday, August 1, 2013Karl Rove ignored the Republican obstructionism that led to the 2011 debt ceiling crisis, falsely claiming President Obama was entirely to blame for automatic government spending cuts and misleadingly accusing Obama of hypocrisy for criticizing the devastating effects of the law.

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Dissecting Bob Woodward's Comparison Of Benghazi To Watergate There's no small irony to Woodward injecting himself into what has become a scandal driven by deceptively edited emails passed off to reporters, given the recent attention he received after using a similar method to support his ridiculous accusation that a White House aide threatened him. Sunday, May 19, 2013There's no small irony to Woodward injecting himself into what has become a scandal driven by deceptively edited emails passed off to reporters, given the recent attention he received after using a similar method to support his ridiculous accusation that a White House aide threatened him.

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The John Bolton Acknowledgment That Should End The Benghazi Scandal Mongering Fox News contributor John Bolton delivered a devastating blow to the right-wing scandal mongering over Benghazi when he acknowledged that it was impossible to know at the exact moment of the September 2012 terrorist attack whether it was appropriate to shift security resources away from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli. Wednesday, May 8, 2013Fox News contributor John Bolton delivered a devastating blow to the right-wing scandal mongering over Benghazi when he acknowledged that it was impossible to know at the exact moment of the September 2012 terrorist attack whether it was appropriate to shift security resources away from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli.

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Stephen Moore, Rush Limbaugh, And The Right-Wing War On Science mental midgets mock science, even more cluelessly than past right wing morons. In this case a high school kid calls out a Wall Street Journal hack... but the problem is growing-- as the right's attack on education continues to dumb down America (rk) Thursday, April 11, 2013mental midgets mock science, even more cluelessly than past right wing morons. In this case a high school kid calls out a Wall Street Journal hack... but the problem is growing-- as the right's attack on education continues to dumb down America (rk)

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Journalists on NRA "Enemies List" Speak Out On "Thuggish" and "Insane" Approach The NRA web site lists 37 columnists, cartoonists, and editors along with other organizations and public officials it sees as opponents of its efforts under the headline "National Organizations With Anti-Gun Policies." The list claims that the journalists in question "actively editorialize in favor of gun control laws." Several of those news people on the list criticized the NRA for the move. Thursday, February 7, 2013The NRA web site lists 37 columnists, cartoonists, and editors along with other organizations and public officials it sees as opponents of its efforts under the headline "National Organizations With Anti-Gun Policies." The list claims that the journalists in question "actively editorialize in favor of gun control laws." Several of those news people on the list criticized the NRA for the move.

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Why Isn't The Media Discussing The Unprecedented Law Giving Gun Makers And Dealers Immunity? Faced with an increasing number of successful lawsuits over reckless business practices that funneled guns into the hands of criminals, the 2005 immunity law was a victory for the NRA, which "lobbied lawmakers intensely" to shield gun makers and dealers from personal injury law. Thursday, December 20, 2012Faced with an increasing number of successful lawsuits over reckless business practices that funneled guns into the hands of criminals, the 2005 immunity law was a victory for the NRA, which "lobbied lawmakers intensely" to shield gun makers and dealers from personal injury law.

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Karl Rove And Dick Morris: Too Embarrassing For Fox News Fox News producers are under orders to limit the appearances of contributors Karl Rove and Dick Morris. Fox relied heavily upon Rove and Morris to interpret polling and project the winner of the 2012 presidential election, which they invariably projected being Mitt Romney. Thursday, December 6, 2012Fox News producers are under orders to limit the appearances of contributors Karl Rove and Dick Morris. Fox relied heavily upon Rove and Morris to interpret polling and project the winner of the 2012 presidential election, which they invariably projected being Mitt Romney.

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Fox News Kicks Off "Swift Boat" Campaign Against John Kerry Ahead Of Possible Defense Post Fox News is distorting Sen. John Kerry's record in an attempt to discredit his possible nomination as Defense secretary. But Fox's criticism is based on the misleading and false claims of a disgraced 2004 Swift Boat campaign against Kerry and on the misrepresentation of past Kerry remarks. Thursday, November 15, 2012Fox News is distorting Sen. John Kerry's record in an attempt to discredit his possible nomination as Defense secretary. But Fox's criticism is based on the misleading and false claims of a disgraced 2004 Swift Boat campaign against Kerry and on the misrepresentation of past Kerry remarks.

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"Rob Kall's book is amazing. He's created a real breakthrough, visionary how-to for a sustainable, quality future. Like Saul Alinski's Rules for Radicals, this book is destined to become a classic must-read for all those concerned with social, economic, and environmental justice in today's interconnected world. Story shapes the world and our world needs new stories if we are to survive and thrive. The story of the bottom-up evolution and revolution is one that can change individuals, groups, businesses, religions, and governments for the positive as it shows how bottom-up inclusiveness, connectedness, collaboration, empathy, innovation, and freeform creativity can help unleash the great potentials for good inherent in our very nature. If you want to improve things in your world and the world, first read this book, then apply the suggestions. Change is sure to come."



Pamela Jaye Smith, mythologist and author of InnerDrives, Power of the Dark Side, Symbols* Images* Codes* and award-winning writer-producer-director
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Pakistan-India Relations: Is there Possibility of War? Despite, the current impasse between Pakistan and India relations, the chances of a full-fledge war are quite bleak. Pakistan-India war is not possible in near time soon. Friday, September 30, 2016Despite, the current impasse between Pakistan and India relations, the chances of a full-fledge war are quite bleak. Pakistan-India war is not possible in near time soon.

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Political Turmoil in Bangladesh The beginning of 2015 has witnessed one of the worst political turmoil in the history of Bangladesh. Since last two months, the country has been badly paralyzed by the blockades of roads, railways, waterways and rallies staged by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Sunday, March 15, 2015The beginning of 2015 has witnessed one of the worst political turmoil in the history of Bangladesh. Since last two months, the country has been badly paralyzed by the blockades of roads, railways, waterways and rallies staged by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

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Gas-Shortage Crisis in Pakistan: Causes and Remedies During these harsh winters, people of Pakistan are facing the challenge of intolerable and unscheduled gas-load shedding. Tuesday, January 20, 2015During these harsh winters, people of Pakistan are facing the challenge of intolerable and unscheduled gas-load shedding.

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Pak-China Relations Moving Ahead The bilateral visit which was aimed at rebuilding investor confidence and attracting huge foreign investments had been a great success as Pak-China friendship has reached new heights of mutual co-operation and understanding. Wednesday, November 19, 2014The bilateral visit which was aimed at rebuilding investor confidence and attracting huge foreign investments had been a great success as Pak-China friendship has reached new heights of mutual co-operation and understanding.

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Eid-ul-Adha ---- An Eid for Elites! Eid ul Adha or the "Day of Feast of the Scarifice" is one of the two Eid Festivals celebrated by the Muslims world over. As the month of Zilhajj approaches Muslims prepare themselves for Hajj, the pilgrimage by Muslims annually to Mecca, Saudia Arabia where they perform series of Islamic rituals. The Muslims celebrate Eid ul Adha from 10th-12th Zilhajj, after performing Hajj. Friday, October 26, 2012Eid ul Adha or the "Day of Feast of the Scarifice" is one of the two Eid Festivals celebrated by the Muslims world over. As the month of Zilhajj approaches Muslims prepare themselves for Hajj, the pilgrimage by Muslims annually to Mecca, Saudia Arabia where they perform series of Islamic rituals. The Muslims celebrate Eid ul Adha from 10th-12th Zilhajj, after performing Hajj.

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Blasphemy- From Books to Cyber Mode The recent act of Blasphemy is just another Western attempt to enrage Muslims. The propaganda tool has been refined from books to cyber mode; the objective remains same i.e to instigate Muslims to create violence and to portray them as religious fundamentalists and extremists. Saturday, September 22, 2012The recent act of Blasphemy is just another Western attempt to enrage Muslims. The propaganda tool has been refined from books to cyber mode; the objective remains same i.e to instigate Muslims to create violence and to portray them as religious fundamentalists and extremists.

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Turning a Blind Eye to the Massacre of Burmese Muslims Rohingya Muslims, one of the largest stateless and persecuted community in Asia, look toward world community for a practical solution of their cause but the world community has turned a blind eye to the killings of innocent Burmese Muslims. Saturday, August 11, 2012Rohingya Muslims, one of the largest stateless and persecuted community in Asia, look toward world community for a practical solution of their cause but the world community has turned a blind eye to the killings of innocent Burmese Muslims.
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India not shared any evidence of Uri attack with Pakistan: FO 30 September, 2016



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Ways that Players Used to Take Advantage of Slot Sites ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office has said that India had not shared any evidence of Uri attack with Pakistan but only handed over one page of information to the Pakistani high commissioner in New Delhi.



The Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria expressed these views in the weekly media briefing here on Thursday.



We should draw a distinction between evidence and just one page of information. India shared information with Pakistan, which is not any evidences of Uri attack, the spokesman said. On postponing the scheduled SAARC summit in Pakistan, Zakaria said due to negative attitude of Indias, the upcoming SAARC summit was postponed. He said that India is impeding the SAARC process to divert attention from her atrocities in Indian held Kashmir but it failed to do so, calling India desperate.



Responding to a question about the Indian threat to isolate Pakistan as Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Bhutan refused to take part in SAARC summit conference, the spokesman rejected the impression of Pakistani isolation and said that China is investing massively in Pakistan, joint military exercises with the Russian army are underway and Irans naval ships are present in Pakistan, which proves that Pakistan cannot be isolated.



On Indian External Affairs Minister Shushma Swaraj address to UN General Assembly in which she termed Kashmir integral part of India, he said that her statement was a violation of the UN charter because the UN Security Council had passed a resolution on it. He said Pakistan demanded a free and fair investigation of human rights violation in Indian held Kashmir.



He said due to Indian atrocities in occupied Kashmir the eyesight of around 800 peoples was lost and more than 7000 were injured during the last 83 days. Indian atrocities in Kashmir have attracted the worlds attention, which is manifested in the strong condemnations and calls by the international political and human rights organisations for sending a fact finding mission to Indian Occupied Kashmir.



Regarding the Indian threat to provoke the Indus Water Treaty (IWT), the spokesman said that one party cannot invoke the agreement unilaterally. India did not inform Pakistan officially on the matter; it was just a media report. He said Pakistan always tried to resolve problems and issues with India through dialogue and even last month twice invited India for exclusive talks on Kashmir, but India had denied talks.



On the nexus between India and Baloch separatists, the spokesman said that Pakistan had often shared dossiers and informations with the international community that proved Indias involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan. After the capture of Indian serving Naval Officer Kulbhushan Yadev, it further strengthened Pakistans position.



FO Spokesman strongly condemned unprovoked ceasefire violations at LoC by Indian forces, saying it was a continuation of a pattern of ceasefire violations committed by the Indian forces. The valiant Armed Forces of Pakistan would continue to give a befitting response to any aggression.













India had not shared any evidence of Uri attack with Pakistan





ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office has said that India had not shared any evidence of Uri attack with Pakistan but only handed over one page of information to the Pakistani high commissioner in New Delhi.



The Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria expressed these views in the weekly media briefing here on Thursday.



We should draw a distinction between evidence and just one page of information. India shared information with Pakistan, which is not any evidences of Uri attack, the spokesman said. On postponing the scheduled SAARC summit in Pakistan, Zakaria said due to negative attitude of Indias, the upcoming SAARC summit was postponed. He said that India is impeding the SAARC process to divert attention from her atrocities in Indian held Kashmir but it failed to do so, calling India desperate.



Responding to a question about the Indian threat to isolate Pakistan as Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Bhutan refused to take part in SAARC summit conference, the spokesman rejected the impression of Pakistani isolation and said that China is investing massively in Pakistan, joint military exercises with the Russian army are underway and Irans naval ships are present in Pakistan, which proves that Pakistan cannot be isolated.



On Indian External Affairs Minister Shushma Swaraj address to UN General Assembly in which she termed Kashmir integral part of India, he said that her statement was a violation of the UN charter because the UN Security Council had passed a resolution on it. He said Pakistan demanded a free and fair investigation of human rights violation in Indian held Kashmir.



He said due to Indian atrocities in occupied Kashmir the eyesight of around 800 peoples was lost and more than 7000 were injured during the last 83 days. Indian atrocities in Kashmir have attracted the worlds attention, which is manifested in the strong condemnations and calls by the international political and human rights organisations for sending a fact finding mission to Indian Occupied Kashmir.



Regarding the Indian threat to provoke the Indus Water Treaty (IWT), the spokesman said that one party cannot invoke the agreement unilaterally. India did not inform Pakistan officially on the matter; it was just a media report. He said Pakistan always tried to resolve problems and issues with India through dialogue and even last month twice invited India for exclusive talks on Kashmir, but India had denied talks.



On the nexus between India and Baloch separatists, the spokesman said that Pakistan had often shared dossiers and informations with the international community that proved Indias involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan. After the capture of Indian serving Naval Officer Kulbhushan Yadev, it further strengthened Pakistans position.



FO Spokesman strongly condemned unprovoked ceasefire violations at LoC by Indian forces, saying it was a continuation of a pattern of ceasefire violations committed by the Indian forces. The valiant Armed Forces of Pakistan would continue to give a befitting response to any aggression.












PTI march to Rawind today

LAHORE: Several thousand supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) from different parts of the country reached Adda Plot on Raiwind Road on Thursday to participate in the accountability movement seen by many as a do-or-die act of Imran Khan.



Caravans of supporters started pouring in the city a day ahead of a march on Raiwind being organised by the PTI to pressure Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family to explain their position over proof of their corruption published in the Panama Papers some six months ago.



A stage was being erected and seating arrangements were being made till late night in Adda Plot  close to the prime ministers Jati Umra residence.



Mass gathering started picking up momentum late in the evening as the PTI leaders, including its chairman Imran Khan, led rallies from different parts of Lahore and Raiwind to the protest venue.



Mr Khan is already in an aggressive mood and has announced that he will send a strong message to Mr Sharif as well as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the wake of skirmishes along the Line of Control.



Mr Khan says he has exhausted all forums, including peaceful protests, and hinted that he may move his party to second stage of an aggressive agitation to compel the prime minister and his family to explain how they have set up offshore companies and stashed huge money and bought expensive flats abroad.



Talking to journalists, he said his party had planned the march to send a message to Mr Sharif but now, in the backdrop of alleged Indian surgical strikes, it would also send a strong message to the Indian premier. I will effectively respond to Narendra Modi which Nawaz Sharif has so far failed to do.



In the wake of alerts that Indian spy agency Research and Analysis Wing and its Afghan counterpart had planned terrorist activities to target the PTI march, Mr Khan sounded undeterred, saying such threats had always been conveyed whenever the party planned to raise voice against the rulers corruption and rigging in 2013 general elections.



He said the government was afraid of the PTI and employing mean tactics to deter people from participating in the march. But, he added, the nation was united and would express unity by joining him at the Raiwind march in a bid to oust the corrupt mafia from the corridors of power.



When asked whether India had launched cross-border strikes to save somebody in Pakistan, he said Mr Modis statement that Mr Sharifs had made the speech at the United Nations under pressure implied that the latter was under pressure from Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif and did not himself want to highlight Indian atrocities against Kashmiris.



The army chief and the entire nation are on the same page, the PTI chief said. Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah has warned that the PTI will be solely responsible for any mishap in the wake of the threat alerts.



Meanwhile, Faisal Vawda, PTI leader from Karachi, met Imran Khan and briefed him about the partys strategy to face the tactics employed by the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) and the Punjab government to disturb the peaceful march on Raiwind.



The PTI has set up a helpline to disseminate information about any untoward incident and the PML-Ns Gullus, a reference to rowdy elements allegedly patronised by the ruling party.



Many caravans of PTI supporters will reach Lahore on Friday (today). On Thursday, the party workers in four-wheelers and motorcycles moved in the city while raising slogans against Mr Sharif and his government.



Imran Khan visited the protest venue in Adda Plot late night and said peoples unity would help send the looters of national wealth behind the bars.



In the evening, PTI senior leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi visited Wagah Border and witnessed flag lowering ceremony. He said Pakistan had the ability to effectively respond to Indias ceasefire violations along the LoC. He said India was living in fools paradise if it thought that it could unnerve Pakistan by stopping water or withdrawing from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit.
Two Pak Army soldiers killed at LOC

ISLAMABAD: At least two Pakistan Army soldiers were killed as Indian troops fired across the Line of Control in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said on Thursday. The Pakistani military confirmed the deaths of its soldiers yet dismissed the Indian claim of 'surgical strikes'.



"There had been cross border fire initiated and conducted by India which is [an] existential phenomenon," said an ISPR statement released shortly after the Indian Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) held a press conference making claims about surgical strikes.



An exchange of fire between Pakistani and Indian LoC troops began at 2:30am and continued till 8:00am in the Bhimber, Hotspring, Kel and Lipa sectors in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the ISPR statement said. "Pakistani troops befittingly responded to Indian unprovoked firing on the LoC."



Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said nine soldiers were injured during the incident, and added that small firearms were used to respond in a "befitting manner".



Shortly after the exchange of fire, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Defence held a joint press conference in New Delhi in which DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh alleged that surgical strikes were conducted by the Indian army on "terror launch pads along the LoC". The strikes will not continue, he said.



"The Indian army conducted surgical strikes last night at these launchpads. Significant casualties have been caused to these terrorists and those who are trying to support them... The operations aimed at neutralising the terrorists have since ceased."



Sources quoted by Indian media alleged that Indian para commandos went 2-3 kilometres into AJK in Mi-17 choppers and destroyed six 'terror camps', killing at least 38 suspected terrorists along with Pakistan Army troops.



Singh said the decision to launch the strikes had been taken after the military determined the launchpads had been set up with "an aim to carry out infiltration and terrorist strikes in Jammu and Kashmir and various other metros in our country."



An Indian military source said the operation was carried out on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control where there were between five and seven infiltration launchpads.



It was a shallow strike. The operation began at around midnight and it was over before sunrise, this source, who had been briefed by his superiors on the operation, said. All our men are back. Significant casualties inflicted. Damage assessment still going on.



A Pakistani military officer at Chhamb, near the LoC, contradicted the Indian version, saying the attack had been repelled. They ran back, leaving many dead bodies on their side, this senior officer said.



The Pakistan military swiftly rubbished notions of a surgical strike.



"The notion of surgical strike linked to alleged terrorists bases is an illusion being deliberately generated by Indian to create false effects," a military statement said.



"This quest by the Indian establishment to create media hype by rebranding cross-border fire as a surgical strike is fabrication of the truth. Pakistan has made it clear that if there is a surgical strike on Pakistani soil, the same will be strongly responded."



The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) said Pakistans airspace would be safeguarded at any cost. "PAF is always alert and ready to issue a befitting response to foreign aggression," a spokesperson said.



Indian authorities ordered the evacuation of villages in Punjab near the Pakistan border on Thursday amid fears of retaliation from Islamabad following Indias claim of surgical strikes against terror launchpads across the LoC, Hindustan Times reported



Pakistan, rejecting baseless Indian claims that it carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan, condemned unprovoked ceasefire violations across the LoC, Radio Pak reported.



Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said, "Indias falsified, concocted, and irresponsible statements can only escalate the already-fragile security situation in the region."



Zakaria added that India had deliberately escalated tension at the LoC in order to divert attention from the deteriorating situation in held-Kashmir. India is trying to make fool of its own people and the international community, he maintained.



Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif strongly condemned the incident, according to Radio Pakistan. "Our intent for a peaceful neighbourhood should not be mistaken as our weakness," the premier said.



National Security Adviser Lt Gen (retd) Nasser Khan Janjua submitted a comprehensive report on the LoC situation to the prime minister, Radio Pakistan reported. Nawaz is also being briefed regularly on the situation along the LoC by security institutions.



The Foreign Secretary summoned the Indian High Commissioner today and rejected the baseless Indian claim of surgical strikes.



Unprovoked firing by Indian troops across the LoC was also condemned in the meeting. These incidents are a continuation of a pattern of ceasefire violations committed by India, said the Foreign Secretary.



He added that the armed forces of Pakistan will continue to give a befitting response to any act of aggression. The latest incident of cross-border firing comes as tensions simmer between Pakistan and India over the Kashmir issue.



Last week, India initiated a diplomatic drive to isolate Pakistan after blaming it for the Sept 18 attack on the Uri army camp in IHK which killed 18 soldiers  a claim which Pakistan has rejected.
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Un aniversario mas del mayor genocidio de la Humanidad



Retrato del franquismo en Espana



Visca Catalunya!



El Chulo de Madrid



Cuando la policia se roba la democracia



Una imagen dice mas que mil palabras



La purita verdad



Asi gobierna la maldita burguesia



Mi pobre clase media



Como Chavez nadie



Comparte La Colmena via twitter Twittear

Programa de la MUD



Asi o mas clarito



Por que Trump no ataco Corea del Norte?



Hace 15 anos Por que la OEA no se pronuncio?



Una verguenza nacional



La luz que nos guia



La Union Europea Premio Nobel de la Paz?



Feudalismo ayer y hoy



Obama, el mentiroso



Curiosa coincidencia



Un mundo de cerdos



No es extrano?



La Marioneta



Los ricos protestan, los pobres celebran



MARICORI Y OBAMA



Cuantas muertes este ano?



USA TODAY



USA HOY 6



USA HOY 5



USA HOY 4



USA HOY 3



USA HOY 2



USA HOY (1)



Insaciable



Cronologia de un agresor



Guarimbear en USA



Mexico hoy



Bolivar y Chavez



Primero Amargado



Dios los cria y ellos se juntan



USA hoy (III)



USA hoy (II)



USA hoy



Mexico hoy



Mexico hoy



Mexico hoy



Obama



La verdad sea dicha



Los ricos



Que no nos vea Obama



Pobre Obama



SOS PALESTINA



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Chavez Cuanto te queremos!



Por culpa de Chavez



Cerveza Polar







Algun dia Colombia volvera a la ideologia de Bolivar







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LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares?



























Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano...



Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos:



Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias.



Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera.



No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje.



En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio.



Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida.



Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella.



Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal.



Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista.



Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen.



Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che?



Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio.



Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora.



Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo.



Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo.



Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania.



No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar.



Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga.





Alguna duda?



Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino



Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia.



OZ1



OZ2



OZ3



OZ4



Homenaje a Jason Galarraga



La Victoria de Samotracia



Odalisca



Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008



























La Sierra Nevada de Merida



Nuestro precioso Churum Meru



Homenaje a Picasso



Autoretrato



Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola?

La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.

Mi profesion?

Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.

Sal en la Coca Cola?

A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.

De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:

Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto

Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)

azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)

Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas

Mucha Cafeina

Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio

Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe

Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion

El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.

Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.

Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.

En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).

Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.

La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.

Bebidas Light?

Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el

Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.



Publicado por loretahur



En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur

MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina:

1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias.

2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina.

3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard.

4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos.

5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla.

6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos.

Ahora... sobre la margarina:

1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) .

2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias.

3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno).

4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer.

5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna.

6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo.

7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina.

Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas:

* No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo).

* No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!!



No a la guerra, Si a la Paz



Misterios de la ciencia...



Los costos de la guerra



medicos y capitalismo...



Capitalismo...



medicos (2)



Quien educa a nuestros hijos?



Los Medios...



Sin Palabras...



Chistes feministas

- Cual es el problema, Eva?

- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz...

- Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.

- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...

- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.

- Que es un hombre?

- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.

- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.

- Cual es el truco?.

- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.

- Cual?

- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.





Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Ellas...



Ellas (2)...



Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1

Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije:

-Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro.

Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria.

Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre?

-Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa!



VENGANZA NUMERO 2

Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris.

A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita:

- Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!!

Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta.

La mujer paso quince dias en Francia.

El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla.

Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es:

- Y amor me trajiste mi francesita??

- Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina.



VENGANZA NUMERO 3

El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion.

- No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo.

- Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz.

Te quiero confesar algo.

- Esta bien, esta bien. Habla!

- He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga.

- Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!!



machismo y cibernetica



Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston.

-Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide.

-Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!.



.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.

Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos.

Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco.

Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas



Gol !!!!



Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso!



Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy!


Band diagram of the graphene-tungsten disulphide-graphene structure explaining the principle of plasmon generation. The application of interlayer voltage V results in the enrichment of one layer by electrons (blue), and the emergence of free states (called holes) in the opposite layer (red). An electron can tunnel from an occupied state to an empty state (dashed line), and its excess energy can be spent to excite a plasmon (red wavy line). Credit: Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology

Researchers from MIPT's Laboratory of 2-D Materials, Optoelectronics, Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics, and Tohoku University (Japan) have theoretically demonstrated the possibility of creating compact sources of coherent plasmons, which are the basic building blocks for future optoelectronic circuits. The theoretical device is based on the unique properties of van der Waals heterostructures  composites of graphene and related layered materials. A paper detailing the study has been published in the journal Physical Review B.

Plasmons are quasi-particles that are "mixtures" of oscillating electrons and the electromagnetic field coupled with them. Plasmons can be used to generate, transmit and receive signals in integrated circuits. They can act as mediators between electrons and light waves in highly efficient photodetectors and sources, particularly in the actively explored terahertz range. It is interesting to note that plasmon energy can be stored at a length scale much less than the wavelength of light. This means that plasmonic devices can be far more compact than their photonic counterparts. The most "compressed" plasmons are those that are bound to the conducting planes, and these plasmons can be used to make the most compact optoelectronic devices.

But where can one find a conducting plane that supports ultra-confined plasmons? For more than 40 years, such objects have been created by sequential growth on nanometre-thin semiconductors with affine crystal structures. In this process, certain layers are enriched with electrons and obtain good electrical conductivity. These "layer-cakes" are called heterostructuresRussian physicist Zhores Alferov was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for their development.

However, growing nanoscale layers is not the only way of obtaining flat semiconductors. During the last decade, researcher has been focused on a different, intrinsically two-dimensional materialgraphene. Graphene is a one-atom-thick layer of carbon, and it can be obtained by simply slicing graphite crystal. The study of the unique electronic properties of graphene (which are radically different from those of classical heterostructures) was marked by another Nobel prize awarded to the MIPT alumni Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov (2010). A great number of graphene-based devices have been created already, including transistors receiving high-frequency signals, ultrafast photodetectors and even the first prototypes of lasers. The properties of graphene can be further enhanced by placing it on another material with a similar crystal structure. Materials similar to graphene can essentially be used to create the "layer-cake" heterostructures mentioned above. In this case, however, the building blocks of the structures are joined by van der Waals forces, which is why they are called van der Waals heterostructures.

In their work, the researchers show that a heterostructure comprising two graphene layers separated by a thin layer of tungsten disulphide not only supports the compact two-dimensional plasmons, but can also generate them upon the application of interlayer voltage.

"The structure we are modeling is essentially the gain medium for plasmons," explains Dmitry Svintsov, the first author of the research. "More common examples of gain media are the neon-helium mixture in a gas laser, or a semiconductor diode in a laser pointer. When passing through such a medium, the light is amplified, and if the medium is placed between two mirrors, the medium will generate the light by itself. The combination 'gain medium plus mirrors' is at the heart of any laser, while the gain medium for plasmons is a necessary element of a plasmonic laser, or spaser. If the gain medium is switched on and off, the plasmonic pulses can be obtained on demand, which could be used for signal transmission in integrated circuits. The plasmons generated in the gain medium can also be uncoupled from the graphene layers and propagate as photons in free space. This allows one to create tunable sources of terahertz and far infrared radiation."

Apparently, the gain medium is not a perpetuum mobile, and the particles created by iteither photons or plasmonsmust get their energy from a certain source. In neon-helium lasers, this energy is taken from an electron thrown onto a high atomic orbital by the electric discharge. In semiconductor lasers, the photon takes its energy from collapsing positive and negative charge carrierselectrons and holes, which are supplied by the current source. In the proposed double graphene layer structure, the plasmon takes its energy from an electron hopping from a layer with high potential energy to a layer with low potential energy, as shown in the figure. The creation of a plasmon as a result of this jump is similar to the way in which waves form as a diver enters the water.

To be more precise, the electron transition from one layer to another is more like soaking through the barrier rather than jumping over it. This phenomenon is called tunneling, and typically the probability of tunneling is very low for already nanometre-thin barriers. One exception is the case of resonant tunneling, when each electron from one layer has a "well-prepared" place in the opposite layer.

"The principle of plasmon generation studied by our group is similar to the principle of the quantum cascade laser proposed by the Russian scientists Kazarinov and Suris and realized in the U.S. (Faist and Capasso) more than 20 years afterwards. In this laser, the photons take energy from electrons tunneling between gallium arsenide layers through the AlGaAs barriers. Our calculations show that in this principal scheme, one can profitably replace gallium arsenide with graphene, while tungsten disulphide can act as a barrier material. This structure is able to generate not only photons, but also their compressed counterpartsplasmons. The generation and amplification of plasmons was previously thought to be a very challenging problem, but the structure we have proposed brings us one step closer to the solution," says Dmitry Svintsov.

The paper written by Dmitry Svintsov, Zhanna Devizorova, Victor Ryzhii, and Taiichi Otsuji received the Alferov's Foundation Young Scientist Award at the 24th International Symposium Nanostructures: Physics and Technology, which was held in Saint Petersburg in July 2016.

More information: D. Svintsov et al. Plasmons in tunnel-coupled graphene layers: Backward waves with quantum cascade gain, Physical Review B (2016). Journal information: Physical Review B D. Svintsov et al. Plasmons in tunnel-coupled graphene layers: Backward waves with quantum cascade gain,(2016). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.94.115301
Image of the ringed bird in 2008 baby bird 0M- that died due electrocution in 2014 in a high power line density area in Penedes. Image: Conservation Biology Group of the University of Barcelona and the IRBio.

Dying from electrocution at power lines is the most common death for Bonelli's eagles (Aquila fasciata), a threatened species in Europe. This is the case of a baby bird that died at Montserrat Mountain (Barcelona, Spain) in 2014 in a place with a high density of power lines. Another ringed eagle was electrocuted in Valles mountains in 2015 at the bottom of an electric tower in Emporda (Girona, Spain).

These are only two examples of the 92 Bonelli's eagles that died due to electrocution in Catalonia from 1990 to 2014, a problem that plagues birds around the world. In other parts of the peninsula, this affects other species with great ecological value, such as the Spanish imperial eagle (Aquila adalberti), another of the most threatened species around the world. In the United States, the American bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) often dies by electrocution; it is the national symbol of a country where there are between 12 and 64 million bird deaths due to power lines (around 11 million electrocutions) annually.

Power lines: bird death traps

"Saving two adult birds or four young eagles per year would be enough to stabilize the Bonelli's eagle population. In order to do so, the most efficient action would be to join preservation efforts to correct some electric towers, which are danger spots for the birds," says Joan Real, director of the Conservation Biology Group linked to the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences and the Biodiversity Research Institute of the University of Barcelona (IRBio), and one of the authors of a new article published in the journal Biological Conservation, together with Antonio Hernandez Matias (first author of the article) and Francesc Pares (UB and IRBio), and Roger Pradel (University of Montpellier).

This work shows a statistical model to evaluate the impact of electrocution deaths in Bonelli's eagles in Catalonia and quantifies which mitigation actions would be necessary to preserve the eagle population in different areas. "Regarding preservation, the new model will allow managers calculating the needed mitigation effort to guarantee the population viability of these birds" says the researcher Antonio Hernandez Matias, member of the Conservation Biology Group of the University of Barcelona.

Stopping adult bird deaths is a more efficient strategy

Increasing the number of baby birds is a classic strategy to preserve Bonelli's eagle. For example, moving baby birds that would probably die to other nests is a positive task but not the most efficient one regarding the preservation of its population. Identifying the priority measures to be promoted is the key factor when facing the challenge of Bonelli's eagle preservation.

"One first step, for example, would be to decide if protection or mitigation measures are centered on adult or young populations, which use separated areas in lots of territory species" says Joan Real, who, since 1980, led a reference group on research of the Bonelli's eagle ecology and finding solutions to improve its preservation.

"The new statistical model as well as other studies carried out in recent years shows that stopping adult deaths is 10 times more efficient demographically than trying to make baby birds fly. This information is very important for the conservation managers because it allows them to be more effective and optimize their means."

Preventing eagle population decrease with a new statistic model

Most of the Bonelli's eagle populationbetween 920 and 1100 coupleslives in the Iberian Peninsula. This species, threatened throughout Europe, has declined dramatically in recent decades. Catalonia is not an exception regarding this general tendency.

In the 1990s, there were around 100 couples, which were reduced to 60 by 2000. However, the population has stabilized now, and there is some colonization in some territories. Nevertheless, in the northwest sector and center of the Peninsula, the situation has become alarming, and some populations are in danger of disappearing.

Most of the deaths are caused by power lines and human hunting. "To understand how human activity causes demographic decrease in endangered species is essential to establish the priorities in preservation actions," says Joan Real. To assess the mortality impact of electrocution in the populations, the authors designed a new statistical model that uses warning information on ringed eagles from experts with demographic data about the eagle populations from 1990 to 2014.

Antonio Hernandez says, "The new statistic model allows adding information on monitoring and multievent models of hunting and warning, so it was possible to estimate death probability due specific causes as well as probability of finding a dead individual for the same reason. In this sense, it was estimated that it is three times more probable to find dead individuals due electrocution than other causes, and the probability of finding dead individuals for electrocution was of 62 percent in non-territorial individuals and 26 percent in territorial individuals."

Combining efforts to correct the most dangerous power towers

Once the electrocution impact was known, it was applied on a demographic model based on the monitoring of the population in Catalonia driven by the Conservation Biology Group of the UB in recent decades. As a final result, they could prove that reduced bird electrocution would guarantee the viability of the population, a topic which had some controversy due the lack of quantitative analysis.

"As a consequence, they could estimate what correction efforts on electric support would be necessary so to stabilize the Catalan population," said Joan Real. The new work obtained the support of the company ENDESA, the Swiss foundation MAVA, the Spanish Government, Diputacio de Barcelona and Miquel Torres Foundation, from Vilafranca del Penedes.

A protocol against electrocution points in Catalonia

The UB and IRBio group also designed a protocol to efficiently mitigate the bird electrocution problem. With the technical characteristics of the electric supports and their positions, one predictive model developed by the researchers identifies the most dangerous towers and focuses the correction effort on black spots, the ones that have more electrocutions. This procedure allows optimizing by more than a 70 percent the resources dedicated to the correction, with a positive effect on the eagles. "The pioneer test of this initiative happened in Parc Natural de Sant Llorenc del Munt and it reduced eagle mortality from 23 percent to zero in recent years," says the researcher.

"However, it is quite worrying that although legislation has existed from the Spanish and the Catalan governments for more than 10 years, in Catalonia, there are no power lines corrected yet and thousands of birds are electrocuted every day. For the eagles, this is one of the worst impacts for the survival of the populations" says Joan Real. The Conservation Biology Group of the UB is also author of the project "The Viability of the Population of Bonelli's Eagle in Catalonia: Guidelines for Conservation," the first scientific report that presents guidelines to preserve this endangered species in Europe.

More information: Antonio Hernandez-Matias et al. Electrocution threatens the viability of populations of the endangered Bonelli's eagle (Aquila fasciata) in Southern Europe, Biological Conservation (2015). Journal information: Biological Conservation Antonio Hernandez-Matias et al. Electrocution threatens the viability of populations of the endangered Bonelli's eagle (Aquila fasciata) in Southern Europe,(2015). DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2015.06.028
Microplastic fibre inside sea pen polyp. Credit: Michelle Taylor

Scientists working in the mid-Atlantic and south-west Indian Ocean have found evidence of microfibers ingested by deep sea animals including hermit crabs, squat lobsters and sea cucumbers, revealing for the first time the environmental fallout of microplastic pollution.

The UK government recently announced that it is to ban plastic microbeads, commonly found in cosmetics and cleaning materials, by the end of 2017. This followed reports by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee about the environmental damage caused microbeads. The Committee found that a single shower can result in 100,000 plastic particles entering the ocean.

Researchers from the universities of Bristol and Oxford, working on the Royal Research Ship (RRS) James Cook at two sites, have now found evidence of microbeads inside creatures at depths of between 300m and 1800m. This is the first time microplastics  which can enter the sea via the washing of clothes made from synthetic fabrics or from fishing line nets  have been shown to have been ingested by animals at such depth.

The results are published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Laura Robinson, Professor of Geochemistry in Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, said: "This result astonished me and is a real reminder that plastic pollution has truly reached the furthest ends of the Earth."

Microplastics are generally defined as particles under 5mm in length and include the microfibres analysed in this study and the microbeads used in cosmetics that will be the subject of the forthcoming Government ban.

Among the plastics found inside deep-sea animals in this research were polyester, nylon and acrylic. Microplastics are roughly the same size as 'marine snow'  the shower of organic material that falls from upper waters to the deep ocean and which many deep-sea creatures feed on.

Dr Michelle Taylor of Oxford University's Department of Zoology, and lead author of the study, said: "The main purpose of this research expedition was to collect microplastics from sediments in the deep ocean  and we found lots of them. Given that animals interact with this sediment, such as living on it or eating it, we decided to look inside them to see if there was any evidence of ingestion. What's particularly alarming is that these microplastics weren't found in coastal areas but in the deep ocean, thousands of miles away from land-based sources of pollution."

The animals were collected using a remotely operated underwater vehicle. The study, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), was a collaboration between The University of Oxford, the University of Bristol, the Natural History Museum in London, and Staffordshire University's Department of Forensic and Crime Science, which made sure the results were robust and the study was free from potential contamination.

Dr Claire Gwinnett, Associate Professor in Forensic and Crime Science at Staffordshire University, said: "Existing forensic approaches for the examination of fibres are tried and tested for their robustness and must stand up to the scrutiny of the courts of law. These techniques were employed in this research in order to effectively reduce and monitor contamination and therefore provide confidence in the fact that the microplastics found were ingested, and not from the laboratory or other external contaminant.

"Using forensic laboratory techniques, we have identified that microplastics are present in ingested material from deep sea creatures. Forensic science is still a fairly new science, but we are delighted that our work and techniques are starting to inform other sciences and important environmental research such as this."

Explore further Coastal wildlife more vulnerable to microplastics than expected

More information: M. L. Taylor et al. Plastic microfibre ingestion by deep-sea organisms, Scientific Reports (2016). Journal information: Scientific Reports M. L. Taylor et al. Plastic microfibre ingestion by deep-sea organisms,(2016). DOI: 10.1038/srep33997
Researchers at KAUST have sequenced the genome of a coral reef fish from the Red Sea, the blacktail butterflyfish, for the first time. Credit: Tim Sheerman-Chase via Flickr

Sequencing the genome of an organism allows scientists to investigate its unique genetic make-up, its evolutionary links to other creatures, and how it has adapted to its environment. Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, have sequenced the first reef fish genome, the blacktail butterflyfish (Chaetodon austriacus), an iconic Red Sea species considered to be an 'indicator' species for coral health.

While genome sequences already exist for well-established model species such as the zebrafish, which is commonly used in medical research, there are no genomes publically available for natural populations of tropical reef fish. Michael Berumen, Joseph DiBattista, and a multidisciplinary team at KAUST, sought to fill this significant gap in fish genomic data.

"The blacktail butterflyfish has one of the most restricted ranges of any butterflyfish species, largely concentrated in the northern and central Red Sea," explains DiBattista. "Therefore, it is likely to have developed unique genomic adaptations to this environment."

Identifying these genetic mechanisms may also help predict how other marine organisms could adapt to challenging sea conditions in future.

The team faced a considerable task when it came to sequencing the new genome, partly because they had no reference genomes from closely-related fish to compare. They took portions of gill filaments from a wild butterflyfish and generated a mix of DNA fragments or 'reads'.

"We then undertook a series of steps to figure out which reads connected with each other, and as a whole, how they overlapped," explains Berumen. "Imagine trying to reconstruct a lengthy book from tiny segments consisting of a few hundred characters, each taken from a random part of that book. This very quickly becomes a computer science problem since it would be impossible to do it manually. Most fish genomes consist of around a billion base pairs, or a book with a billion characters in our analogy!"

Berumen sought the bioinformatics expertise of Manuel Aranda's group at KAUST's Computational Bioscience Research Center. Once the team had assembled the genome, they analyzed it to ensure it made sense; for example, checking for the existence of genes previously identified in other organisms.

Their final, high-quality genome includes 28,926 protein-coding genes. The team hope their genome will enable studies on the co-evolution of reef fish species and comparisons of gene sequences between closely-related fish across the Indo-Pacific region.

The genome may also help stem trading in wild reef fish, because aquaculture specialists may eventually be able use the data to produce new, aquarium-tolerant species to fulfill the market demand for decorative fish.

Explore further The Atlantic cod's sex gene revealed

More information: Joseph D. DiBattista et al. Draft genome of an iconic Red Sea reef fish, the blacktail butterflyfish (): current status and its characteristics, Molecular Ecology Resources (2016). Journal information: Molecular Ecology Resources Joseph D. DiBattista et al. Draft genome of an iconic Red Sea reef fish, the blacktail butterflyfish (): current status and its characteristics,(2016). DOI: 10.1111/1755-0998.12588
Credit: NASA

The Loma Fire in California which broke out on Monday, September 26, 2016 has now grown to 2,865 acres and is 20% contained. There is good news to be had at present. Evacuations were lifted Wednesday afternoon for all Santa Cruz County residents, but road closures remain in effect for non-residents. In addition, the number of houses/structures damaged or destroyed remains constant.

According to the CA Fire managers the cooler weather enabled firefighters to use a tactic called a firing operation where they spark their own fire at the top of a hill. The then let the fire burn down slowly to where the fire is burning down below. If the fire were to come up the hill on its own, it'd be much more intense. It is one type of offensive to try and quell the fire's intensity. The downside to this is that it causes a new plume of smoke to rise and create air quality issues, however, it is not something that the fire already raging would not do on its own. Firefighters are working 24 hour shifts and they are hoping to have the fire contained by Monday.

This natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra satellite on September 28, 2016. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption: NASA/Goddard, Lynn Jenner with information from CA fires.

Explore further Image: Gap Fire in California continues to burn
Hundreds of tiny samples of unconventional superconductors called heavy fermions had to be aligned and glued onto aluminum plates for imaging in inelastic neutron scattering experiments. Credit: Yu Song/Rice University

New findings from researchers at Rice University, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) suggest that condensed-matter physicists need to rethink how magnetic fluctuations arise in both unconventional and high-temperature superconductors.

"Our results challenge the present understanding of magnetic fluctuations in high-temperature superconductors," said Rice graduate student Yu Song, lead co-author of a study this week in the scientific journal Nature Communications. "Specifically, our findings suggest that magnetic fluctuations similar to those found in magnetically ordered compounds may, in fact, be common to many unconventional superconductors.

Superconductors are materials that lose electrical resistance at a critical temperature. For conventional superconductors, these critical temperatures are impractically low, but high-temperature superconductors tantalize engineers and scientists because their critical behavior comes about at temperatures that are obtainable with relatively affordable industrial processes. In the three decades since high-temperature superconductors were discovered, physicists have found dozens of them but have yet to explain their electronic workings.

All high-temperature superconductors are composite materials. Some contain copper and others have iron. A third class of layered composites called "heavy fermions," which are made of exotic elements like cerium and ytterbium, exhibits the same sort of unconventional superconductivity as high-temperature superconductors, albeit at far colder temperatures.

Hundreds of tiny samples of unconventional superconductors called heavy fermions had to be aligned and glued onto aluminum plates for imaging in inelastic neutron scattering experiments. Credit: Yu Song/Rice University

Most of these unconventional superconductors convey little to no electricity at room temperature, and they continue to be poor conductors until they are cooled to their critical temperature, at which point superconductivity comes about suddenly.

One electronic behavior that's been observed in all classes of unconventional superconductors is neutron spin resonance, a collective magnetic excitation that arises slightly below the critical temperature.

In the new experiments, Song, Rice physicist Pengcheng Dai and colleagues worked for two years to observe resonance behavior in three unconventional superconductors, one made of cerium, cobalt and indium and two others in which ytterbium was substituted for portions of cerium. All three compounds are heavy fermions, so-named because of the tendency of their electrons to behave as if they are far more massive than normal electrons.

"Spin resonance modes are found in both copper- and iron-based high-temperature superconductors, and our results on both doped and undoped cerium-cobalt-indiumprototypical heavy fermionsprovide new insights," Song said. "Importantly, superconductivity in all these compounds is believed to be mediated in similar ways by magnetic fluctuations, including those we observe in spin resonance modes, and while it's generally accepted that spin resonance is a signature of unconventional superconductivity, there is no consensus on what causes it to happen."

Yu Song prepares a sample for neutron scattering tests. Credit: Yu Song/Rice University

Song, Dai and colleagues used a technique known as inelastic neutron scattering to examine the resonance behavior of cerium-cobalt-indium and "doped" compounds in which either 5 percent or 30 percent of the cerium was replaced with ytterbium. The experiments were conducted in 2014 at the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum at the Technical University of Munich and in 2015 at the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Center for Neutron Research in Gaithersburg, Md.

All samples were created by UCSD physicist Brian Maple and colleagues, and Song spent hours painstakingly aligning hundreds of the tiny samples and gluing them onto aluminum substrates for testing. By cooling the samples to critical temperatures and examining how neutrons scattered from the samples throughout the cooling, Song, Dai and colleagues were able to show how the magnetic resonance of the materials developed and behaved at the critical point where superconductivity arose.

"People have known for years that magnetic orderthe alternating alignment of spins that is characteristic of magnetismactually competes with and suppresses superconductivity," said Dai, professor of physics and astronomy at Rice and the lead scientist on the project. "Intriguingly, magnetic fluctuations in magnetically disordered compoundsfluctuations that resemble what we see in magnetically ordered compoundsappear to be essential for superconductivity."

In one key finding, the behavior of the resonance in both the doped and undoped samples appeared the same; this discovery directly conflicted with behavior that would be expected based on Landau's classical theory governing the electronic behavior of metals. Co-author and theoretical physicist Dirk Morr of the University of Illinois at Chicago said this observation shed new light on a longstanding debate between two theoretical camps that attempts to explain the nature of resonance modes.

"One camp stands for the spin-exciton interpretation, and the other argues that the resonance is a paramagnon, a remnant of the magnetic order," Morr said. "The spin-exciton picture seems to work better for some compounds while the paramagnon interpretation seems to work better for others. Our results fall more within the paramagnon interpretation, and though no theory can unify the two opposing views, these results hint at the possibility that they are, in fact, two ends of a continuum."

Explore further A potential Rosetta stone of high temperature superconductivity

More information: Yu Song et al. Robust upward dispersion of the neutron spin resonance in the heavy fermion superconductor Ce1xYbxCoIn5, Nature Communications (2016). Journal information: Nature Communications Yu Song et al. Robust upward dispersion of the neutron spin resonance in the heavy fermion superconductor Ce1xYbxCoIn5,(2016). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12774
Douglas V. Gibbs is a proud member of the American Authors Association

Douglas V. Gibbs is a proud member of the Military Writers Society of America.
This is the latest in a series of posts about the 1916 presidential election between Democratic incumbent Woodrow Wilson and Republican challenger Charles Evans Hughes, a Glens Falls native.

Charles Evans Hughes made a campaign stop in Plattsburgh, arriving on the noon train from the south, The Plattsburgh Sentinel reported Sept. 15, 1916.

Hughes' wife, his secretary, and a large party of newspaper representatives accompanied him.

A large and representative body of ladies and gentlemen from all parts of the county met Hughes at the depot, The Sentinel reported.

Hughes and a caravan of about 100 automobiles decorated with American flags paraded from the depot to the Witherill Hotel, where Hughes was to rest for a few hours before a 4 p.m. tour of the National Guard training camp.

Crowds lined the walks of Bridge and Margaret streets, and the distinguished visitor frequently raised his hat in response to the applause which greeted him, The Sentinel reported.

To be continued in a future post.

The full Sentinel report can be viewed on the New York State Historic Newspapers website, a project of public libraries.

Click here to read the most recent previous report in the series.
FORT EDWARD  A Ford Edward man has been indicted by a grand jury for allegedly selling marijuana in the village.

Michael A. Mueller, 31, of Wing Street was arrested Thursday and charged with four felony drug counts including two counts of third-degree criminal sale of marijuana, one count of second-degree criminal sale of marijuana and one count of criminal possession of marijuana. He was also charged with two misdemeanor counts of criminal possession of marijuana.

Mueller was arraigned in Washington County Court and remanded to the Washington County Jail. Bail was set at $2,500 cash or $10,000 bond.

The arrests came as a result of an investigation of several months by the Washington County Sheriffs Office, with the assistance of the Fort Edward Police Department. Also helping out on the case was the New York State Police Community Narcotics Enforcement Team, New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Glens Falls Police Department.
GLENS FALLS  Crandall Public Library Director Kathy Naftaly is preparing a plan to develop more space for smaller size public meetings and one-on-one instruction.

The demand is very, very high on the three rooms we have now. If we could add some kind of fourth meeting space, that would be a real boon to the community, she said.

The library community room in the basement can seat up to 175 people, depending on seating arrangement.

There are two smaller meeting rooms on the second floor, one of which can seat up to 16 people and the other up to 12.

The rooms are available free of charge on a first-come, first-served basis to organizations, municipalities and businesses to conduct educational programs and meetings, so long as sales of products or services are not part of the program.

The library also provides space to Literacy New York, a charity that teaches adults how to read.

Naftaly told the library board on Wednesday she has asked staff to submit recommendations by the end of November on how to improve use of existing space.

We know we cant build more, but we want to optimize what we do have, she said.

The intent is to prepare a proposal in time to apply for a state library construction grant in the states 2017-18 budget year, which begins April 1.

Naftaly does not expect to seek library district funding for the project.

She also is exploring the feasibility of energy-efficiency improvements, including solar panels, in anticipation of a state energy efficiency grant program for libraries that will be accepting applications next summer.
HUDSON FALLS  Three Hudson Falls men were arrested and heroin, cocaine and marijuana were seized at the Chef Jeffs pizza restaurant on Friday.

State Police would not release extensive information on the case, but said the arrests followed a months-long investigation into illegal sales of drugs. Police were assisted by the Hudson Falls Police Department, Washington County Sheriffs Office and Glens Falls Police Department.

Officers executed a search warrant early Friday at the pizza and sub shop at 55 John St. and arrested three suspects.

Michael Santana, 35, of Hudson Falls was charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance and criminal possession of a controlled substance.

Cody Olden, 28, also was charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance and criminal possession of a controlled substance.

Alfonso Santana, 41, was charged with fifth-degree conspiracy, criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminal possession of marijuana.

Police would not comment on what led them to investigate the property or the amount of drugs that were seized.

Santana is accused of selling cocaine and heroin in June and heroin in September in Hudson Falls, according to an indictment handed up in Washington County Court. Olden allegedly sold cocaine in May and September in Hudson Falls.

They are both were arraigned and remanded without bail to Washington County Jail.

Alfonso Santana was arraigned in Town of Kingsbury Court and sent to the jail in lieu of bail of $2,500 cash or $5,000 bond.

A neighbor who did not want to be identified said her daughters woke up to the sight of flashing police lights.

Then she heard a bang and saw three men and one woman being taken out of the building by police officers, she said. She also saw officers carrying items out of the building.

The building that houses the pizza shop and the apartment above it is owned by Michael and Alfonso Santana. Michael Santana is also listed as an owner of the residence at 55  John St.

Police said the investigation is pretty much wrapped up and they do not expect additional arrests.
At a colourful ceremony at UBA's head office, the launch was attended by many of UBA's senior managers, representatives from the Ghana Education Service and beneficiaries from previous editions.

The Chief Executive Officer of UBA Ghana, Abiola Bawuah said, "there was no better way than to support the youth of Ghana. UBA believes in the need to support the youth and we believe education is the way to go.

One of Nelson Mandelas famous quotes is; Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world. And so that is the backbone of this initiative, she added.

The competition first began in 2014 and each year, students from Ghanas senior high schools are challenged to write an essay on a given topic. The topic for this years edition is Can young persons in leadership promote national development in Ghana?

Ms Evelyn Araba Zentey of the curriculum development department of the Ghana Education Service, suggested to the bank to include a competition for students with the talent of drawing in the coming years; a suggestion which was welcomed by the bank.

READ MORE: United Bank For Africa UBA signs agreement to issue MasterCard in Africa

A beneficiary of the 2014 competition, Dorcas Nuku Darko (now a student of the University of Ghana) encouraged students to get involved in the competition. As the second runner-up, she received an educational grant of 7,000 cedis, a laptop computer and opportunities to meet some prominent people in society.

The competition is open to all senior high school students in Ghana; who are expected to send in a handwritten essay of no more than 750 words to UBAs head office in Ridge, Accra or any of UBAs business offices in the country by Friday, November 11, 2016. Entries should include their complete contact information and photocopies of their original birth certificates.
READ ALSO:Mental Health Accra Psychiatric hospital closes down OPD

According to him good scientific documentation on traditional medicines will help doctors to know the chemical and organic composition of drugs that will spell out properly the various ailment and diseases that can be treated with a particular herbal drug.

He, however, expressed worry over the lack of commitment on the part of government in supporting traditional practitioners financially.

Dr Duncan also noted that most practitioners do not have enough money to go through the needed processes in getting their drugs endorsed in the country even though they have efficient and potent drugs that can cure various non-curable diseases such as cancers, HIV, Diabetes, Hypertension and others.
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The Ghana Cocoa, Coffee and Sheanut Farmers Association has raised concerns over the sale of subsidized fertilizer by farmers, warning that the act could negatively affect government policy on fertilizer programmes.

GOVT SURMOUNTS IMF HURDLE

Fiscal policymakers are in a seemingly buoyant mood after the IMF on Wednesday gave its seal of approval to the third review of the ongoing bailout programme.

LEGAL SYSTEM SEEN HINDERING CREDIT AVAILABILITY

Mike Nyinaku, CEO of Beige Capital has stated that the current legal system does not encourage financial institutions to lend to SMEs.

ACCESS BANK TO LAUNCH IPO THIS YEAR

MORE MUMS GOING CRAZY; PUT LIVES OF BABIES AT RISK

Childbirth can be one the exciting moments for most mothers, but after childbirth, most women suffer from a condition  Post Natal Depression  that make them either neglect or harm their newborn babies and in extreme cases, develop suicidal tendencies.

DVLA TARGETS STUDENT DRIVERS

The DVLA has launched a Tertiary Driver Licence Project (TDLP) aimed at granting students the opportunity to learn how to drive and obtain driver licence before they complete their programme of study.

9 READ FOR PRESIDENT

Nine presidential hopefuls yesterday submitted their nomination forms to enable them to contest in the December presidential election.

CPP PICKS KUFUOR BOY

Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, the presidential candidate of the CPP has selected Nana Gabby Nsiah Nketiah as his running mate for the December 7 polls.

FORD GIFT SAGA: MAAHAMA VIOLATES POLICY  CHRAJ

NDUOM ASSURES FARMERS OF BETTER LIVING CONDITIONS

Presidential hopeful of the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP), Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, has assured farmers in the country of better living conditions when given the nod to govern this country.
Executive Director of the International Literacy Association (ILA) Marcie Craig said: the work of Deborah is closely intertwined with our mission to transform lives through literacy, so we are thrilled to welcome her to our growing list of 30 Under 30 honorees.

READ ALSO: Over 600 students graduate at the Ghana Institute of Journalism

According to a statement released by Golden Baobab, Deborah Ahenkorah Odei-Agyekum who is also a member of the group (Golden Baobab) was selected for her unique contribution to advancing literacy through her organisation, Golden Baobab.

This years ILA 30 Under 30 list of honorees consist rising leaders from 12 countries and several sectors. The winners are made up of nonprofit leaders, classroom teachers, authors, volunteers, researchers, and social entrepreneurs, who have championed projects that have directly improved literacy in their communities.

READ ALSO: Find out the award winners at the GJA awards

In Ghana, Golden Baobab is one of the leading groups that run projects to improve the literacy rate among young people.

Its flagship program, the renowned Golden Baobab Prizes for African Literature and Illustration, has inspired writers and illustrators from over 24 African countries to create children and young adult stories.
According to CHRAJ, the investigations conducted into the allegations of bribery brought before it by the CPP Youth does not only exonerate the President but also brings the matter to a cessation.

Commenting on the report by CHRAJ on Accra-based 3FM, Justice Emil Short said the outcome of the investigation leaves uncertainty on the minds of Ghanaians: Well, I think the decision is problematic, explaining that: It poses more questions.

And one wonders what signal its sending to public officers especially the Minister of Roads and Highways, who has to deal with contractors in the course of official duties in awarding contracts.

"I said so because the Commission established that the code of gift for public officers was violated by the president yet it went ahead to dismiss the petition without granting any of the releases, he said.

Former Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Prof Mike Ocquaye has also stated that though the report vindicates the president on his acceptance of the Ford vehicle from the Burkinabe contractor Djibril Kanazoe, he has to avail himself to answer the mind bubbling questions on the minds of individuals.

READ MORE:Ford gift saga Full CHRAJ report on bribery allegation against Mahama

Definitely from what I see at the moment, there are more questions than answers and I dont think we are anywhere nearing closure to such a controversial issue. Was the President called? Was the President asked pertinent questions that he should answer? It is very important in this case how you really interrogate the issue. How did the President come to know this gentleman in the first place?

The circumstances [under] which you come to know a person are very important. From what I heard about the initial evidence, the introduction was made by this Burkinabe to the then vice president for one single purpose.

Prof Ocquaye is also of the view that the purpose of the Burkinabe introducing himself to the then vice president should be probed further.
Presidential and parliamentary candidates are mandated to a filing fee of GH50,000 and GH10,000 respectively but several political parties have raised concerns with the pricing.

However, speaking on the ECs request for an asset declaration, Mr Greenstreet said the CPP believed in transparency and, therefore, he did not see anything wrong with declaring his assets.

We always wish to comply with orders of institutions of government and we are willing and hoping to be transparent about our affairs so we feel that is the right thing to do, he said.

Meanwhile, other presidential hopefuls have submitted their nomination forms to enable them contest in the December 7 elections.

See also:9 Presidential aspirants file nominations

They are the Presidential nominee of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo, the flag bearer of UPP, Mr Addai, Nana Boateng of the UFP.

President John Mahama of the NDC also filed his nomination forms, former first lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, Mr Kofi Apaloo of the Independent Peoples Party (IPP), Madam Akua Donkor of the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP) and Mr Kwabena Adjei of the Reform Patriotic Democrats (RPD).

Earlier today, the Peoples National Convention (PNC) flagbearer Dr Edward Mahama also filed but failed to take along a picture of himself which will be used on the ballot paper.

See more: Akua Donkor files nomination
Mr Appiah Boateng, who is currently the Member of Parliament for the area, is said to have dropped out after a court granted a motion by one Dickson Adjei Danso that the MP should be prevented from campaigning for the December polls because he was embroiled in a criminal case.

A lawyer for the plaintiff Nkrabeah Effah-Darteh told the Daily Guide newspaper: In 1998/99, the Honourable MP, known as Joseph Appiah, ran away from a criminal case against him at the Osu Police Station, changed his name to Charles Yeboah, and travelled to New Zealand. Along the line, he got involved in a case of fraud and was convicted in Auckland and sent home to Ghana."

Reports say lawyers for the MP failed to convince the Presiding Judge Patience Mills Tetteh to dismiss the case on Tuesday.
The dialogue comes on the back of growing reports suggesting that the 2016 polls could be chaotic, particularly in the Northern Region, where some twelve (12) constituencies have been identified as dangerous hotspot of electoral disturbances.

As part of my responsibility, I will organise students to let the information reach far in communities. I will let them know that as youth we are so energetic and its time for elections, we will be going around with motorbikes and other things because that is how we win elections, election is not about do or die affairs, that shouldnt be the case, a participant from Bimbilla promised.
We cannot on our own remove some of the requirements. So we were expecting her to reject the fees. We are filing a contempt case on Monday [October 3], he said.

Mr Asamoah Siaw explained that according to the electoral laws, the requirements for filing included the quadruplicate forms, picture, the filing fee and statutory declarations as well as tax declaration and asset declaration forms.

He indicated that they wanted to submit the required items when they got to the EC's office but the EC instructed them to submit everything that they had. She took everything and so she has to answer why she took the money. She is in contempt of court, or the commission is, and we will take appropriate measures to resolve the issue, he told Accra-based Class FM.

He further explained that the EC did not accept the fees of the other presidential aspirants except they want to say that they did backroom acceptance and when the cameras were there, they rejected it, questioning: So why do you accept that of the PPP when you rejected that of others?

The party is pursuing a declaration that Regulation 45 of C.I. 94 is discriminatory, arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable. That the entire C.I. 94 does not contain the appropriate relevant provisions that meet the intendment of Article 296 of the 1992 Constitution.

The other reliefs sought include: A declaration that the proper instrument within the meaning of the relevant laws of the Republic of Ghana, in charging a deposit or fees for conducting a presidential or parliamentary election, by the Electoral Commission, is a statutory instrument and not constitutional instrument. An order directed at the defendants to desist from collecting and or receiving the said deposit or fees for the conduct of the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections until the appropriate statutory instruments have been passed in accordance with appropriate legal rights.

But the EC accepted a bankers draft of GHC 50,000 which was attached to the nomination forms of the presidential aspirant Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom on Friday, 30 September.

The EC had earlier rejected the fees of other presidential nominees the previous day.

Background:

On September 29, 2016, the Electoral Commission started accepting completed forms of presidential and parliamentary hopefuls without taking the filing fee.

This is due to an injunction secured by the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) over the high filing fees for presidential and parliamentary aspirants.

Today (September 30, 2016) which is the closing date for filing of nominations the EC in what can be described as a turnaround accepted the filing fee of the Presidential nominee of the PPP.

The National Chairman of the party, Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond and National Treasurer Felix Ograh presented the completed forms on behalf of Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom.

In presenting the documents, the Brew-Hammond also added the filing fee to it. Even though every political partys fee was rejected, the EC accepted that of the PPP.

Chairperson of the EC Mrs Charlotte Osei explained that she accepted it because the PPP knew of the legal implications and still brought the money, so they [EC] have accepted it.

Even though Brew-Hammond asked for the money to be given back to him, the EC refused and kept it.
The Commission, in a 78-page report, said its investigations concluded that the Presidents action did not amount to accepting a bribe.

READ ALSO: Ford Gift Saga

This is because, upon evidence, the President submitted the Ford Expedition gift from the Burkinabe contractor, Djibril Freres Kanazoe to the state.

CHRAJ, however, said Mahama violated the Gift Policy under the Code of Conduct.

Commenting on the matter, the Minority leader said CHRAJs reliance on Article 218 (A&E) of the Constitution to back its stance was an obvious attempt to whitewash this whole issue that came out.

You would want to question the process as mandated by Article 219 of the Constitution. We want to know if the Commission requested and received the documents or records relevant to the investigation, he said.

We also want to know whether they [CHRAJ] questioned all persons in respect of the subject matter under investigation, he said on Accra-based TV3.

READ ALSO: CHRAJ Ford Report

Mensah-Bonsu believes the Ford Gift case is a national matter, saying It should not be the burden of the Minority. It should be the burden of the nation that is being imperiled by untruths from the presidency.

Background

Some sections of Ghanaians expressed anger over reports that President Mahama was given a brand new Ford Expedition in 2012 by a Burkinabe contractor, Djibril Kanazoe who won the bid to construct the $650,000 Ghana Embassy Wall in the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou.

Many anti-corruption campaigners slammed the president for what they describe as his disregard for the guidelines on conflict of interest in accepting the vehicle gift.

However, Government in a statement issued by Communications Minister, Edward Omane Boamah said even though the car was received, it had nothing to do with the contract awarded.

President John Mahama subsequentlyrubbished corruption allegations against him, saying such claims are baseless.
Speaking on Accra-based Citi FM he said the ruling will go a long way to shame critics that they are only trying to destroy a gem, a pearl that we have.

He added that President Mahama is not somebody that anyone can bribe, that President Mahama did not receive a bribe and that the gift of Ford was not intended to bribe him or influence him in anyway.

READ ALSO: Full CHRAJ report on bribery allegation against Mahama

The Commission, in a 78-page report, said its investigations concluded that the Presidents action did not amount to accepting a bribe.

This is because, upon evidence, the President submitted the Ford Expedition gift from the Burkinabe contractor, Mr Djibril Freres Kanazoe to the state.

CHRAJ, however, said Mr Mahama violated the Gift Policy under the Code of Conduct.

Some sections of Ghanaians expressed anger over reports that President Mahama was given a brand new Ford Expedition in 2012 by a Burkinabe contractor, Djibril Kanazoe who won the bid to construct the $650,000 Ghana Embassy Wall in the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou.

Many anti-corruption campaigners slammed the president for what they describe as his disregard for the guidelines on conflict of interest in accepting the vehicle gift.

However, Government in a statement issued by Communications Minister, Edward Omane Boamah said even though the car was received, it had nothing to do with the contract awarded.

President John Mahama subsequentlyrubbished corruption allegations against him, saying such claims are baseless.
Us Weekly reports that the Hollywood stars welcomed their bundle of joy in New York city on Friday, September 30.

Blake first debuted her bump in Australia while shooting extra scenes for "The Shallows" on Lord Howe Island in Australia.

Since then, the 29-year-old has flaunted her bump in everything via social media including a bikini at Taylor Swift's annual fourth of July party in Rhode island.

The couple is already parents to 20-month-old James.

For Blake who has always dreamed of having a big family, this is definitely a step in the right direction. While pregnant with her second child, Lively revealed that she wanted more kids and would not be settling for two.

While on the today show in June, she said:

"I'm one of five kids. My husband is one of four, so we're officially breeders.

"You can go on our website and we will give you some of our children."

Gushing about James, she added: "She's always doing something fun and exciting. She's the most fun, funny human being I've ever been around in my life."

Blake and Reynolds got hitched in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, in September 2012.
Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!
It was gathered that Enyolam who has been living in the state for the past 17 years, and her friend abducted the girl on her way to school on Tuesday, September 27, 2016, and had even joined the mother of the girl to search for her as well as reporting a case of missing person at a police station.

A police source who narrated the scenario, said the 43-year-old Enyolam wanted to extort money from her sister, hence her decision to kidnap the little girl.

The suspect and the girls mother are sisters. Believe, however, colluded with her friend, Aigbomiam, to abduct the girl so that she could make money from the mother.

Their plan was that the friend would kidnap the child and hide her somewhere in Ogun State, while she would negotiate the ransom with the mother on the phone.

When the girl went missing, the girls mother called her and they both searched for the girl. She even suggested that they should report the case to the police. The mother never suspected that she was behind the kidnap.

It was learned that while people were looking for the girl, Enyolam kept in touch with Aigbomiam on the phone.

The source continued that while in captivity, the girl raised the alarm that Aigbomiam was not her mother and called for help from some residents of the area she was being kept and the matter was reported to a community leader, who invited the police.

When the police discovered that Aigbomiam was not alone in the crime and she was receiving calls from Believe, they decided to play along. They asked her to invite Believe to Ogun State.

It was when she arrived that the police arrested her. The case was subsequently transferred to Lagos State where the offence was committed. That was where the mother of the girl saw that her own sister was behind her ordeal.

Confessing to the crime, Enyolam said she needed to raise money for business but when she approached her sister, she refused to assist and that was the reason she hatched the plan of abducting her daughter.

I have my own children. I needed money badly that time and I thought of different ideas, which didnt work. So, I decided to kidnap my sisters daughter and demand N30,000 ransom from her.

I involved my friend because I didnt want to be the one to take the girl from school. I dont know what came over me.

42-year-old Aigbomiam, an indigene of Ekpoma, Edo State, said Believe asked her to kidnap the victim after she returned from a surgery in Benin.

She said she wanted to use the girl to collect some money from her sister. She just showed me the girls school and I kidnapped her around 7.30am on Tuesday, while she was going to school.
ALSO READ: Hunt begins for man who allegedly beat his wife to death at Egbeda

The accused identified as Amir Darbanou, and his late wife, 35-year-old Nasrin Abek, hail from Iran although they have been living in Sydney for the last four years.

According to the reports, Amir has been angry at what he perceived as religious unfaithfulness on the part of his wife who was a hairdresser.

The suspect allegedly stabbed Nasrin multiple times inside their Potts Point unit apartment in St Neot Avenue on Wednesday, September 28.

The body of the deceased was discovered on Thursday, September, 29 at about 6:20 am by the police who were alerted to the imminent danger by the Nasrin's father.

The father of the deceased revealed that he had received a disturbing phone call from his son-in-law on Wednesday, telling him his daughter was dead.

Nasrin's body was later found on Thursday with multiple stab wounds. He said he had raised concerns earlier with the police about his daughter's welfare following her conversion but had been too late to save her life.

According to the reports, there has been no previous history of any form of violence between the couple until the tragic night when some neighbours claimed to have heard scream around the time she was killed.

The suspect has been brought before the Central Local Court on Friday, September 30, on a one-count of murder.

A Kings Cross Police Superintendent, Michael Fitzgerald, has disclosed that the police has recovered the possible weapon used to kill the deceased from the dump where the garbage from the units are disposed.

Fitzgerald said, We are not looking at any other suspects in this matter. It is alleged that the son-in-law told [the father] certain things which brought the concern from the father to speak with police today.

There was no known history of domestic violence between the pair. Any incident of violence, let alone domestic violence, is tragic and we ask anyone if theyve got any information about any loved one or any friend who may be involved in any domestic incident to come forward, to contact us, because we need to know, the police Superintendent appealed.
ALSO READ: Pastor arraigned over alleged theft of N10 m jewellery

The accused, Abayomi Ogunbayo, was brought before a Badagry Chief Magistrates Court in Lagos State on Wednesday, September 28.

Ogunbayo faced a charge of threat to life and according to the prosecutor, Innocent Uko, the accused committed the offence on September 25 at the Pota area of Badagry over a loaf of bread.

Uko told the court that the accused and his friend were arguing over the loaf of bread when Ogunbayo brought out a knife and threatened to stab him.

The two friends were embroiled in an argument over the sharing of a loaf of bread when the accused took a knife and threaten to kill his friend.

The complainant quickly dashed out of the house to report the incident to the police, he said.

According to Uko, the offence contravened Section 56 (1), (A) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2011.

ALSO READ: 2 men arraigned in court for forging NYSC certificates

Ogunbayo pleaded not guilty to the charge and was granted bail in the sum of N100,000 with a surety, who must provide evidence of tax payment to the Lagos State Government.
Veno News reports that Ojedele also known as Esutosin, a landlord who lives with his wife and six children at Bakare street, Ogba Ayo, Fadunsi, was nabbed after he broke into the home of the neighbour and stole the items.

He was said to have succeeded in packing his loot and was about sneaking away when he was caught.

Some of the items stolen by Razak Ojedele

Photo Credit: Veno News

In his confession, the old man said it was poverty that pushed him into the act, confessing that he had been stealing in the past to take care of his family.
In a video titled "The Governor is a Pregnant Woman", the three men, all governors of southwestern prefectures, put on a 7.3 kg (16 pound) vest that simulates a woman who is seven months pregnant.

The video, launched on Tuesday, is the brainchild of the Kyushu Yamaguchi Work Life Promotion Campaign, which hopes to encourage Japan's notoriously workaholic men to adopt a more balanced life and share household chores.

Accompanied by uplifting music, the politicians groan their way up and down stairs, clutch their bellies as they ease themselves into cars and struggle to bend over.

One man tries to pull on his socks and finally gives up in exhaustion. Another is offered a seat on a bus.

"This really drags at your shoulders and back," Shunji Kono, governor of Miyazaki prefecture and a father of three, said about wearing the vest.

Japanese men were the most unhelpful in the world, a 2014 OECD survey found, doing only one hour of unpaid chores a day compared to five hours for their wives.
ALSO READ: Police arrest ingenious robbers in Lagos

According to the police, the suspect identified as Lucky Obaseki, reportedly laid in wait for ladies entering or leaving the clubs. He would allegedly drag them into his car and drive to an isolated area where he would strip them of all their cash and valuables.

Vanguard reports that similar incidents have been reported to the police in those areas.

The suspect met his waterloo after he targeted a lady who was with her friends at one of the clubs in Victoria Island.

The Lagos State Police Command image-maker, Dolapo Badmus, said:

Detectives from Maroko Police Division arrested one Lucky Obaseki, who hails from Edo State, while attempting to rob one Igbinosa Evelyn, who went to Bar Club, Victoria Island.

The suspect lured her into his Toyota Camry in Ikoyi, pointed a gun at her, collected her ATM card and pin, and withdrew N70,000.

ALSO READ: Police arrest notorious robber in Lagos

The suspect was trailed and apprehended by detectives, led by the Divisional Police Officer, Maroko, Isah Abdulmajid. On interrogation, he confessed to the crime, adding that he specialises in robbing young ladies, who go to clubs within Lekki, Victoria Island and Ikoyi to enjoy themselves.
ALSO READ: Herdsman sentenced to 2 years in prison for illegal grazing

The Director of the board, Mrs Omolola Olanipekun, made the disclosure on Friday, September 30 at a press briefing in Abuja.

Olanipekun said that the affected herdsmen have been penalised in the form of fines imposed by the mobile court ranging from N3,000 to N7,000.

She went on to add that 589 street hawkers were also arrested and subsequently fine by the mobile court.

We dont want a repeat of what is happening in other states, we dont want loss of lives because of cattle.

We have met with the cattle rearers and they promised that they would try and get their people off the streets, but unfortunately, they did not fully comply. We have been arresting them and we discovered that there is another group that we have not met.

We are preparing to meet with them and let them know that we dont want cows in the city. If we start killing them (cattle) like the senator wants us to do, they would react and we dont want bloodshed here. Very soon, I promise, the cattle would be where they are supposed to be, she said.
The 52-year-old suspect identified as Emeka Obu, is expected to be arraigned before the court following the conclusion of the ongoing investigation.

According to the father of the victim, Ifemesi, Obu visited their home while his daughter was alone, put a hand over her mouth to ensure her silence then proceeded to tear her pant and had carnal knowledge of her.

When she started to bleed, the culprit used the torn panties to clean her up and left with the pant, he said.

Ifemesi added that the incident occurred on September 13 and that the family reported the case at the Enigwu-Ukwu Police Station, which led to the suspect's arrest.

He also disclosed that he owed the suspect some money, which might have been a motive for the rape.

Sometime in August this year, I borrowed N20,000 from my friend, Emeka Obu, and I promised that I would pay him back very soon," He said.

The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, ASP Nkiruka Nwode, has confirmed the incident adding that the Enugwu-Ukwu Police Division was currently investigating the case.

Punch reports that a written petition was sent to the Anambra State Police Commissioner, Mr Sam Okaula, asking that suspect is prosecuted as soon as possible.
ALSO READ: 4 men bag 2 years in prison for fraud

The information was contained in a statement issued by the spokesman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, in Abuja on Thursday, September 29.

The convict identified as, Dora Gilmaska, was arraigned on November 7, 2012, and later found guilty of forging and issuing a cheque of N9 million to one Tayo Olugbemi.

Gilmaska pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Uwujaren revealed that the accused would be sentenced alongside her company, Icon Media and Marketing Agency Limited.

ALSO READ: Man who impersonated the EFCC arrested for N10m fraud
Daily Trust reports that the incident was reported to the police by a resident of the area identified as Moses Ishaku, on Wednesday, September 29, 2016.

Ishaku had reportedly told the police that Ebenezer who is a security man at a housing estate in the area, had allegedly lured the girl who is a groundnut hawker, into an uncompleted building in the area and defiled her.

Ishaku reportedly said:

One of the laborers working in the estate saw the time the security man called the girl to bring groundnut. When he didnt see the girl again, he decided to check on her and he caught the man naked on top of the girl.

The man raised an alarm which attracted some residents in the area who arrested the man and handed him over to vigilantes."

A member of the vigilante group in the area who confirmed the incident said the guard confessed defiling the girl during interrogation.

The security man tried to deny raping the girl before the family members of the victim but when we took him aside and questioned him, he admitted that it was the devil that pushed him to commit the act.
According to residents of the area, the gunmen were suspected to be hired assassins as they attacked only Nwokoye and his family and left without taking away any item to suggest they were robbers.

It was gathered that the sad incident occurred on Thursday, September 29, 2016, at the family's residence on Agbose Street in the Ebute community in the area, at about 5am, when the suspected assassins broke into the man's house and shot him and his whole family, ostensibly to kill everyone.

In the end, the man and his sons said to be three-years-old and two-months-old respectively while the wife and the daughters are said to be in critical conditions in a hospital where they were rushed to by the police.

A resident of the area narrated that everyone suspects the gunmen were not robbers and were sent by someone to wipe out the family.

"The mans house is located on Agbose Street, off Oluodo Junction. He worked at a taxi park at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja. The killers came on Thursday morning.

They shot him and all the members of his family. He and the two male children died instantly, while they left his wife and the two daughters with bullet injuries.

The attackers were not robbers; they went to only the mans apartment. I was told that they did not take away any property.

That is why everyone suspects that the killers were sent. They shot all members of his family presumably so that no one would be able to report to the police.

But policemen from the Ipakodo division later came to our area to take photographs and remove the bodies. The policemen were all over our area.

The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), SP Dolapo Badmos, confirmed the incident, saying the police will surely get the killers of Nwokoye and his children.

There was a report that the man and all members of his family were found in a pool of blood. He and his two male children were confirmed dead.

His wife and two daughters were also seriously injured and they have been taken to a hospital for treatment.
The organisations Acting Country Representative, Dr Rex Mpazanje, stated this in a statement issued in Maiduguri on Friday.

Mpazaine further said the latest batch of health workers were trained in Monguno Local Government Area on Sept. 27.

He explained that 33 of the beneficiaries were Disease Surveillance and Notification Officers and assistant DSNOs while 50 were Surveillance Officers and IDP Camp Coordinators from targeted health facilities in Maiduguri.

WHO has so far trained 33 Disease Surveillance and Notification Officers (DSNOs) and assistant DSNOs, 50 Surveillance Officers and Camp Coordinators from targeted health facilities in Maiduguri, and will train more health personnel in other states.

The acting country representative said that EWARS was a disease surveillance, alert and response initiative for early detection and containment of disease outbreaks in humanitarian emergency settings.

He pointed out that over 3.7 million people were in dire need of urgent health assistance in the affected states of Borno, Adamawa, Yobe and Gombe.

Consequently, one of the most immediate responses for WHO in this emergency is that of setting up EWARS, to detect and facilitate rapid response to suspected disease outbreaks in internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps and host communities in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and Gombe states.

He added: For over six years, the North Eastern part of Nigeria faced insecurity that left most health facilities and infrastructure damaged, many health workers either killed or abducted while others fled to areas of safety.

This negative fallout, he said, had left millions of people with limited or no access to any basic primary health services, exposing them to risks of diseases and other health complications.

The aim of EWARS is to strengthen and expand the existing national Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) system in an effort to reduce the number of cases and deaths due to epidemic prone diseases and other health conditions.

Mpazanje said that 56 health facilities and 16 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps were being covered by EWARS in five local government areas of the state.

A total of 56 health facilities and 16 IDP camps are currently being covered by EWARS in five partially accessible LGAs of Maiduguri, Jere, Konduga, Mafa and Kaga, we hope to cover approximately, 1.2 million IDPs in these area.

The EWARS combines mortality and morbidity surveillance for a total of 17 diseases/health events including all those in the existing national Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response weekly reporting of diseases such as cerebrospinal meningitis, measles and cholera among others, he said.

Mpazanje added: WHO will assist the State Ministry of Health to conduct an initial assessment of Health Resource Availability Monitoring System (HeRAMS) in all targeted health facilities in 16 LGAs.

This will assist in establishing baseline indicators on the capacity of health facilities to deliver primary health care services to IDPs and host communities.

The results of the assessment will be used to guide the SMOH and partners to appropriately deploy scarce resources and technical support.

Meanwhile, the current rainy season coupled with overcrowding, poor living conditions lack of adequate nutrition have placed the IDPs in camps and host communities at heightened risk of communicable diseases, such as measles, acute watery diarrhoea and malaria.

To ensure broad coverage including in hard-to-reach areas, WHO has further increased the EWARS coverage to Monguno LGA where 15 health facility surveillance focal points were trained and the health facilities enrolled on the EWARS platform.

These 15 health facilities include 12 IDP camp clinics and three host community health facilities including a secondary health facility (General Hospital Monguno). In addition, mobile phones and surveillance reporting tools were provided to ensure a smooth take-off of the project.

According to him, WHO is working with the Monguno LGA primary health care department and health sector partners to ensure timely verification of alerts and risk assessments originating from the EWARS.
The confirmation came a day after U.S. health officials recommended that pregnant women postpone nonessential travel to 11 Southeast Asian countries, including Thailand, because of the risk of mosquito-borne Zika.

"We have found two cases of small heads linked to Zika, the first cases in Thailand," Prasert Thongcharoen, an adviser to the Department of Disease Control, told reporters in Bangkok.

He declined to say where in Thailand the cases were found.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a statement the cases were the first of Zika-linked microcephaly in Southeast Asia.

U.S. health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size that can lead to severe developmental problems in babies.

The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last year in Brazil, which has confirmed more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly that it considers to be related to Zika infections in the mothers.

Zika has spread extensively in Latin American and the Caribbean over the past year or so, and more recently it has been detected cropping up in Southeast Asia.

Thailand has confirmed 349 Zika cases since January, including 33 pregnant women, and Singapore has recorded 393 Zika cases, including 16 pregnant women.

Some health experts have accused Thai officials of playing down the risk of Zika to protect its thriving tourist industry but Prasert dismissed that.

"Thailand is not hiding anything and is ready to disclose everything," he said, adding that other countries in Southeast Asia might also have cases of Zika-linked microcephaly that they have not disclosed.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday people should consider postponing travel to Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste (East Timor), and Vietnam.

The CDC has already issued a "travel notice" for Singapore, and said such a warning would be considered for the new countries if the number of cases rose to the level of an outbreak.

Thailand's confirmation of Zika-linked microcephaly comes ahead of China's week-long "Golden Week" holiday with Thailand expecting 220,000 Chinese visitors, up from 168,000 for the week in 2015, Tourism Authority of Thailand governor Yuthasak Supasorn told Reuters.

NO VACCINE

The Thai health ministry said on Tuesday it was investigating four suspected cases of Zika-linked microcephaly in three babies and an unborn baby.

The three babies were born with small heads but it was not clear from ultrasound results whether the 37-week unborn baby had a head size smaller than normal.

The ministry ruled out a link between Zika and microcephaly in two of the cases on Tuesday. But Prasert said tests had to be carried out again on one of those cases.

There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected.

There are also no specific tests to determine if a baby will be born with microcephaly but ultrasound scans in the third trimester of pregnancy can identify the problem, according to the WHO.

Zika is commonly transmitted through mosquitoes but can also be transmitted sexually.

Another health ministry adviser urged everyone to work to stop the spread of mosquitoes but said people should not panic.

"Don't have sex with a Zika-infected person. If you don't know if they are infected, then use a condom," the adviser, Pornthep Siriwanarangsan, told reporters.

"We can't stop women from becoming pregnant ... but we mustn't panic."

Microcephaly in babies can lead to respiratory problems related to malformation of the brain, a very serious threat to the lives of babies in the first year of their lives.

Children with microcephaly face lifelong difficulties, including intellectual impairment.
The lawmaker alleged that his suspension is part of the Speaker, Yakubu Dogaras plan to quieten him.

He said Today, Im being humiliated and my crime is simply exposing corruption in high places. Who will want to take such risk in future?

Reacting to the sealing of his office by staff of the National Assembly, Jibrin said The office was purportedly sealed as a consequence of my illegal suspension.

But the truth was that it was done to enable the Speaker lay hands and destroy evidence.
Nwobualor, who was Special Adviser to former Gov. Peter Obi of Anambra on Parks and Markets, made the call in an interview with newsmen in Onitsha on Thursday.

The APGA chieftain said that the current economic recession had been in existence even before Buhari took over the mantle of leadership.

According to him, it went unnoticed because of the expertise displayed by those who managed the economy at that time.

Buhari is a strong-willed person who has the best of intentions for the country, but has faulty methods of realising his intentions.

The President should solicit the expertise of those who had been in government and those who could get the country out of the current economic quagmire.

Nwobualor criticised the suggestion for the government to sell-off the countrys national assets, describing it as an aberration on the rights of citizens.

I dont support the sale of our national assets; as the title suggests, the asset is owned by Nigerians and should be kept for them.

I am rather of the opinion that economic and financial wizards who are in abundance in this country should be mobilised to find a sustainable solution to our economic quagmire.

The politician argued that if the Federal Government sold the assets, the future generation and governments in particular, may not have assets to fall back on in times of economic hardship.
Omokri informed Buhari that solutions and not complaints would bring the recession to an end.

Read the article below:

Just on Wednesday the 28th of September, 2016, the World Economic Forum released its Global Competitiveness Report and whereas a number of African nations like Kenya (of whom we are very quick to compare ourselves positively) improved in the Global Competitiveness Index rankings, Nigeria slipped three places and is now ranked 127 out of 138 nations.

To put it murky, only 11 nations (many of them war torn) are worse than Nigeria in terms of doing business! Two years ago Nigeria was Africa's fastest growing economy. Today, she does not even feature in Africa's top ten most competitive nations! But when you point these out, the response is to blame Goodluck Jonathan under whom our economy blossomed like never before.

When you waste 16 months playing the blame game should you be surprised that investors are playing the disappearing game and running away from your economy?

And what has been the result? A recession. Now, the thing is that rather than face the recession frontally and ideate on how to end it, their administration, characteristically, has only one response: Blame Jonathan! As my Warri peeps would say-una no dey tire!

Today, the Naira has exactly half the value it had when former President Jonathan handed over power to President Buhari yet we have not gotten to half of this administration's first tenure!

If there is anything you should not be doing during a recession it is complaining. Recessions bow to solutions not complaints! But I do apologize. It is not exactly true that thus administration has not come up with a solution. It has. Sell of our national assets!

If I say that I was astounded by the news that the Muhammadu Buhari administration is toying with the idea of selling off Nigeria's national assets, I could probably qualify for a place in the Guinness Book of Records for understatement of the year!

Nigeria is going through her toughest recession ever and the government's response is the intellectually lazy one of selling our national assets! Somebody pinch me because I may as well be in a dream. I take that back. A nightmare this is!

First of all those in government need to understand that it is a most foolish thing to sell your assets in a recession because you will not get value for it. It is like selling your house while the real estate market is down. The only type of buyers you are going to attract are exploiters and shysters!

Of course a man like Aliko Dangote would advise government to sell its assets. Mr. Dangote did not become the richest African by being nice! I have met him in the flesh. He became the richest Black man in the world by being shrewd! And ever since the Buhari economy reduced his wealth by about $3.5 billion and removed him from Forbes Top 100 richest people in the world, the business mogul has not been happy about it and he has been angling to get back into that privileged company.

I may be wrong, but I suspect that Mr. Dangote, like a shark, has smelled blood. He has probably seen the cluelessness of the Buhari administration in the midst of this unprecedented crisis as a means to regain his lost fortunes.

Do not be deceived. Wealthy people like money and they like it more than you and I. Mr. Dangote, go back and check my history. I was the first man to acknowledge you as the richest Black man in the world in my 2010 documentary, Facts V Fiction. Before you conclude that I am your enemy go and watch that video. Google it. YouTube it. I am your admirer! But in as much as I admire you, I admire Nigeria more!

Back to the issues. The Buhari administration is best advised to read Napoleon Hill's book, Think and Grow Rich. You do not sell and grow rich. You think your way out of a recession. Selling our national assets because of this present recession is like selling your house because of car troubles. Where will you sleep after fixing the car?

Okay, if selling off our national assets does not stop the recession, what will be the next step? Sell us the citizens? Where does it end? The conventional wisdom when you are facing a recession is to spend your way out of a recession. Now this spending is not the same as consuming. It is expenditure that stimulates production like a massive public works program.

But what we have now is still consumption not production. The same President who wants to sell of our national assets is still maintaining ten Presidential jets, multiple convoys, guest houses in several states and travels more than Ajala!

President Jonathan banned the importation of rice because Nigeria was spending 1 billion annually importing the produce. Enter President Buhari who now reverses that ban and from one billion, we are now spending 2.3 billion in importing rice (this figure was taken right out of the mouth of the minister of agriculture, Audu Ogbeh while addressing farmers at Ndeagu-Echara and Omege-Echara in Ikwo Local Government Area of Ebonyi on Friday September 16th, 2016).

How can you be wasting so much resources on consumption and not expect a recession? Do you think President Jonathan was a fool when he banned the importation of a product that we have the capacity to produce in Nigeria?

And at least before you consider something as desperate as selling off the family silver, you should cut wastes like the 10 presidential jets, the outrageous salaries of political appointees and the billions wasted on sponsoring pilgrims by giving them concessionary dollar rates.

Next, the President should abolish 50% of annual basic salary that he and his vice receive as 'hardship allowance'. What hardship do they go through? Tax payers pay for their accommodation, feeding, medicals, travel and security. It is the man on minimum wage that deserves 'hardship allowance', not the men in the Villa!

Also, the President should direct his government to hands off sponsoring pilgrimage either directly or indirectly by giving them concessionary dollar rates that are denied to legitimate businessmen. A pilgrimage is a sacrifice. Once government pays for it, it ceases to be a sacrifices and becomes a luxury.

And if there is anything you should not be doing during a recession it is complaining. Recessions bow to solutions not complaints! It is only in police stations and courts that you have complainants. In a presidential office you should have a problem solver not a complainant! Even the word executive means that you are in that office to execute.

For the avoidance of doubt, to execute means to carry out or put into effect a plan or a course of action. You cannot execute complaints. In fact only the powerless complain. If you have power and you are still complaining, what you are invariably saying is that you do not know what to do with power!

After spending 20 million of their hard earned tax Naira to treat your ear in a London clinic, at least Nigerians deserve for you to use that same ear to listen to them and not sell their National Assets!

In just 16 months in power, the All Progressive Congress, APC has done more damage to Nigeria's economy than the 16 years the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was in power.

Let us consider the facts. In 1999 PDP met dollar at 88 to 1$ official and 105 to $1 Black Market. By 2015 when PDP handed over power to the APC after 16 years it was 197 official and 225 Black Market. In just 16 months in office, the APC has seen the Naira depreciate to 335 official and 445 Black Market.

In 1999, Nigeria was the third largest economy in Africa behind South Africa and Egypt. After 16 years, the PDP managed to make Nigeria the largest economy in Africa. But in less than 16 months of the APC being in power, we have moved backwards to being the second largest economy in Africa behind South Africa and we are in danger of losing second place to Egypt.

According to official figures from the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, the PDP created 10 million new jobs in 16 years. In contrast, the NBS reports that in 16 months of the APC being in power, Nigeria has shed 4.5 million jobs. So next time the APC accuses the PDP of ruining the economy point out these statistics to them and do not be fooled by the change from frying pan to fire!

That is all I would say on that issue. Now permit me to digress. I hate injustice and I want to use this opportunity to address a grave injustice on an innocent woman. The allegation that Aisha Buhari photoshopped her picture with Michelle Obama is false. Even if you do not like President Buhari, do not take it out on his wife or family. I have been at these functions. People line up to take pictures with the alpha personality (in that particular case, Michele Obama) who strikes and maintains the same pose.

I do not like President Muhammadu Buhari. I do not believe in him. I will NEVER EVER vote for him. Yet, I mention him by name everyday in prayer. Not some days. EVERYDAY. I do this because I fear God. I will criticize him. But if I do criticize him, it will be because of something he is guilty of not due to something he and his wife are innocent of.

Whether you like it or not, Buhari is the Lord's anointed, for now because Daniel 4:17 makes us understand that power belongs to God and He gives it to whomsoever He wills. It does not mean that the person He gives it to is the best. If God did not will it, a thousand APC could not have made Buhari President.
Olanipekun also urged PresidentMuhammadu Buhari to speak to Nigerians more.

The prominent lawyer made the comments on Thursday, September 29, during an event at the Ajayi Crowther University in Oyo.

I am not interested in any political office and I am not begging for any position. But I insist and I have a right to insist that Nigeria must be governed properly. I am saying that today, Nigeria is not being governed properly. There is rudderlessness on the part of the government both at the Federal, state and local government level. They are leaving things that they should do undone, he said according to Vanguard.

Let us start with this principle, do as I do and not do as I say. And in that wise also, we need to plead with Mr President, he needs to engage Nigerians more. I dont want to be hearing what the President says through the aides every time; I want to hear the President myself. And my children and grandchildren want to hear what the President is telling them.

That was how people like us grew up. I listened to and heard the likes of Awolowo speak with my ears live, I heard Akintola and others, not the tales from Femi Adeshina or Shehu Garba.

The President must engage and feel the pulse of the people and again, there is too much distance and too much gap between the government and the governed, which is not good for this country, he added according to Tribune.

Olanipekun also urged former president, Olusegun Obasanjo to reveal the cabals which had previously bought Nigerias assets.
The presidents Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, conveyed his message in a statement in Abuja on Thursday.

Adesina said the president joined the global community and world leaders in mourning the former two-time prime minister and president of Israel.

He said the deceased, who exhibited visionary leadership, voice of wisdom and unparalleled experience of diplomacy in the Middle East, would continue to resonate in the long search for peace in the region.

Adesina credited the president as saying that as a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 alongside Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, Peres demonstrated statesmanship and patriotism in signing the Oslo Accord and the subsequent treaties for a two-state solution.

He said that the president described the signing of the accord as most quintessential and should be followed through so that the younger generations will inherit peace and harmony.

Adesina added that Buhari affirmed that Peres served firmly, faithfully and dutifully in building a modern Israeli state, and also rose to the occasion when the world desperately needed a heart of love, magnanimity and understanding to heal the wounds of hostility in the region.

President Buhari joins the world in celebrating the warm memory of gentleness, goodness and kindness that Peres leaves behind for other leaders to emulate in serving their country and working for humanity, Adesina said.
This is coming on the heels of the re-opening of the forgery case against the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu.

The Executive Director of CLO, Comrade Ibuchukwu Ohabuenyi Ezike described the move as worrisome.

Ezike said Instead of wearing the thinking caps to cogitate and plan on how to rescue Nigerians from the present economic quagmire and restore happiness and hope to the citizens, the APC government is wasting time on inanities. Meanwhile, the last time we checked, naira had slipped to N445 to a US dollar in the parallel market and N308 on the interbank market, while cost of living has hit the rooftop.

Police report, earlier this month, showed that 62 Nigerians, so far, have committed suicide in the last six months. Nigerians are no longer suffering and smiling, we are suffering and dying.

The continued hunting of National Assembly leaders close to two years after they were elected while our country is gradually dieing is a testimony to the fact that this government does not share in the sufferings and hardship of the people as it pretends to.

It, therefore, worries us more that the Federal Government is busy chasing rats, while the entire house is on fire. Nigeria is the greatest loser because all these power games are coming at a time when all hands are needed to be on deck, with all the arms of government working concertedly and intensively to salvage the nations dying economy.

Besides, it also gives cause for deep concern that a government, which intends to woo and retain foreign investors would hurriedly dock the presiding officers of its highest lawmaking body like common criminals without any credible evidence as it is turning out to be, but only to turn round to shop for evidences to achieve a predetermined mindset. Which wise foreign investors would invest in such a climate where the highest political leaders and the citizens are criminals and the judicial system a problem to obtaining justice.

For the umpteenth time, CLO calls on President Mohammadu Buhari, to get his priorities right. He should separate primordial from national interest. This Senate forgery trial is so fraught with manipulations that may tend to make one think that the war is not the national interest. It is a distraction that we can do without in this dire times when Mr. President is supposed to inspire confidence, trust and unity among our people than the dance of kokoma that this regime has danced since it came to power.

He also said the group is disturbed at what it described as the anti-democratic tendencies of the present administration, as regards Sarakis trial.
He told youths at an event tagged: The Conversation: An evening with creative youth, that he did not meet any money in the treasury.

Buhari also called on Nigerian youth to stand up to their responsibilities by holding their leaders accountable.

He said I am going to bore you with what we met. I know that I am being accused in the papers of passing the buck, but passing the buck is sometimes absolutely necessary to remind people who take things for granted.

When we came in, I screamed to high heavens because I had promised a lot while seeking votes.

I said where is the saving? There was no saving. There was no infrastructure, power, rails, roads, there was none. What did we spend the money on? I was told buying food and petrol.

Where were the billions going? We conducted a study and found out that the oil marketers were committing fraud on at least one third of what they were importing, which is about 25 per cent of our foreign exchange.

The youth must watch our elite, especially with the condition we found ourselves. It is unpatriotic for anybody to pretend that economically we have no problem.

I have bored you with this long explanation because there are things that could be hidden from you by those that have mismanaged the country in the last 16, 17 years.
Obaseki, who was declared winner of the Sept. 28 governorship election in Edo by INEC, made the promise in his victory address in Benin on Thursday.

He said that his administration would create jobs, secure the state and ensure the welfare of the people.

He said the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the poll, underscored the peoples preference for the continuity and consolidation of the programmes of the party in the state.

Let me say that new future beckons. I pledge to work tirelessly for the good of all Edo people, irrespective of gender, social status, ethnicity, religion or political affiliation.

I want to call on the sons and daughters of Edo all over the world and all the friends of the state to join forces with me to build a great and economically strong state.

The success of Edo State does not depend on government alone but on everyone of us, he said.

The governor-elect also enjoined other contestants in the poll to join hands with him to build a more prosperous state.

I salute my fellow contestants for putting up a gallant fight. This competitive campaign has helped us to sharpen our focus on some of the important issues affecting our people.

The election is over and it is time to bury the hatchet and close ranks for the good of our dear state.

Our state is superior to all other interests and we must, as individuals, subordinate our personal ambitions to that of the entire state, he said.

He commended INEC for the transparent manner it conducted the election and also the security agencies for maintaining peace and order during the election.

Obaseki commended President Muhammadu Buhari and Governor Adams Oshiomhole for their support.
This is contained in a statement by Mr Wilson Uwujaren, the Spokesman of The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Abuja on Thursday.

Uwujaren said the convict was arraigned before Justice Abubakar Umar.

He said the Polish woman would be sentenced alongside her company, Icon Media and Marketing Agency Limited.

He said Umar had reserved the sentence after the convict was found guilty of a one-count charge of fraud brought against her by the EFCC.

Uwajaren said Gilmaska was found guilty of forging and issuing a dud cheque of nine million Naira to Tayo Olugbemi sometime in 2012.
Fayose said further that the EFCC has no respect for the fundamental rights provided for in the 1999 constitution.

The governor made the comments in a statement released by his media aide, Lere Olayinka.

The statement reads:

EFCC should release him immediately or charge him to court if there is any evidence of corruption against him rather than acting as if it is law unto itself. It is on record that former governor Ibrahim Shema reported at the EFCC office in Abuja by himself on September 16 and 12 days after, he is still being detained by the EFCC and one cannot but ask where EFCC derived its powers to first arrest Nigerians, detain them and be searching for evidences to prosecute them later.

In saner climes, anti-corruption agencies will only arrest suspects after prima facie case had been established against them and they are charged to court almost immediately, unlike the Nigerias EFCC that will arrest suspects and detain them indefinitely while looking for evidences to prosecute them.

Funny enough, the EFCC will even expect the suspects to supply evidences with which they will be prosecuted. Hope former governor Shemas incarceration is not because of his perceived presidential ambition?

It is unfortunate that a man like Shema, who did exceedingly well as Katsina State governor and even left over N3 billion in the states treasury is now being humiliated ostensibly for political reasons.

By declaring former governor Shema wanted, it presupposes that EFCC already had water-tight evidences against him and one wonders why he is still being kept in detention 12 days after he made himself available to the commission.

In the interest of democracy, rule of law and well-being of Nigerians, this continuous use of EFCC to humiliate and oppress those perceived as threat to the All Progressives Congress (APC) hold on power beyond 2019 must stop and arresting, incarceration and humiliation of notable opposition figures by the EFCC will not translate to success of the APC government and those who want President Muhammadu Buhari to succeed should let him know this.

The EFCC must change this brutish strategy and style and put the rights of Nigerians first.
Idris also said reports from foreign and local election observers showed that there was no loss of property or life during the polls.

According to the Force Public Relations Officer, Don Awunah, the police management team and the IGP are impressed with the performance of the men.

Awunah also issued a statement saying This exceptional performance of the Nigeria Police Force in the election, exemplified the determination of the Inspector General of Police in ensuring that Election Security in the Country is implemented based on international standards and policing with integrity, the statement said.

The Edo governorship election has proved from the policing perspective that the Nigeria Police Force has the capacity, knowledge, ability and personnel to process and safeguard our nascent democracy.
The Commands Public Relation Officer, ASP Aliyu Usman, said in a statement issued in Kaduna, that the command had also arrested three suspected kidnappers.

According to him, the three suspected killers had on September 8, allegedly attacked and killed the NSCDC officer, Timothy Ayuba, on his way from Bakin Kasuwa to Sabon Gayan in Chukun Local Government Area of the state.

The armed men made away with the victim s motorcycle which was later recovered.

Two Bajaj motorcycles were also recovered from the suspects, one belonging to one Idi Bello and the other to an unidentified victim.

Investigation is in progress to arrest other members of the syndicate.

Usman also said the command had also arrested the suspected kidnappers of Mrs Fatima Inusa, the wife of Dr Inusa Umar of the Faculty of Education, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Mrs Inusa was kidnapped by gunmen at her residence in Zaria, on September 19.

He said the suspects were arrested behind ABU main campus in Zaria, after a massive manhunt by operatives of the State Intelligence Bureau.

All the suspects confessed to have committed the crime, but investigation is on to arrest the rest of the accomplices.Usman said.
A statement issued in Abuja on Friday by Mr Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, said that the goodwill message was signed by the U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry.

Adesina said Kerry acknowledged the ability of Nigerians to address Nigerias current national challenges.

Kerrys statement read: On behalf of President Obama and the American people, I congratulate the citizens of Nigeria as you celebrate your Independence Day on Oct. 1.

I recently returned from my third trip to Nigeria as Secretary, and I came away with a strong sense of the nations resolve to build a better future.

During my trip, I was reminded that many Nigerians are engaged in bringing people together across the divides of culture, religious practices, and ethnicity.

According to Kerry, there is still much work to be done to provide economic opportunities for all, end corruption, win the fight against Boko Haram and ensure broad respect for human rights.

Kerry said Nigeria should provide humanitarian relief for millions of displaced people.

But we know that Nigerians are hard at work to address these challenges. The United States looks forward to deepening our partnership and friendship with Nigerians from all walks of life, so that we may work together for the betterment of Nigeria and all of Africa.
The Sergeant-at-Arms team and police supervised the sealing of the office, Room 1.05 located at the new building wing of the complex.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that some legislative staff working with Jibrin evacuated some of their personal belongings and documents before the office was closed

The ejection exercise was sequel to the resolution passed by the House during Wednesday plenary session on the recommendations of the House Committee on Ethics and Privileges, chaired by Rep. Nicholas Ossai (PDP-Delta).

In adopting the report and recommendations of the Committee, the House resolved to suspend Jibrin for 180 legislative days.

The sanction also barred Jibrin from holding any position in the House during the period till the end of the 8th Assembly.

Briefing newsmen shortly after, the Chairman House of Representatives Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Rep. Abdulrazak Namdas (APC-Adamawa) said that the House had not received any court papers regarding the suspension.

Namdas said: While the suspended lawmaker has a right to go to court, there is a clear separation of powers between the three arms of government.

The House is empowered by the constitution to have its own rules.

Jibrin breached the collective privileges of members with his blanket statements that the House is corrupt in its public hearings, investigations and oversight functions.

The House has rules and if anyone errs, there are certain sanctions which are applied. What we have done is within our rules.

There is no petition from Jibrin against any member before the Ethics Committee and we cannot investigate based on newspaper publications.
Salihu, an operative of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), who investigated the alleged N1.64 billion fraud, said that N470 was released for stationeries in 2005.

He said that N250 million was first approved by Nyame on December 30, 2004 upon request made by the Commissioner for Finance, Abubakar Tutare, on December 28, 2004.

The witness said the purchase of these bulk stationeries and office equipment for Taraba ministries and parastatals was supposed to be by direct labouras stipulated by Tutare.

He said the `direct labour consisted of a committee of civil servants and auditors who were to make the purchases directly from the market to cut cost and not through contract.

Instead, the money was paid into Salman Global Ventures account owned by Ibrahim Abubakar, a third party and friend of Nyame.

A third party that neither bidded, applied nor requested for the purchase of stationeries issued a receipt of payment of N250 million which he supplied nothing.

The money was lodged in Pacific bank in fixed deposit and it yielded an interest of N1.6 million , Salihu said.

He said in February, 2005, another N200 million was released for the purchase of stationeries again.

Salihu told the court that out of this figure, N165 million was paid into the account of Salman Global, N16 million was used for the purchase of stationeries from one Babangaru.

He also said that N15 million was given to the Deputy Speaker, Taraba House of Assembly, two million Naira went to the Permanent Secretary and N10 million to the Commissioner for Finance.

He said the rest was shared to the staff of the Ministry of Finance who all testified to that and recoveries were initiated and part of the monies returned to the EFCC.

The witness said on Oct 5, 2005, the Secretary to the State Government again applied for the purchase of stationeries for his office which was in lack and N20 million was approved.

During cross examination, by Hassan Fajimiti, Counsel to the defence, Salihu told the court that Salman Global was as elusive as air and could not be reach during investigation.
Obasanjo said this at the launch of Professor Bolanle Awes book titled: Nigerian Women Pioneers and Icons.

The ex President said women all over the world are taking over politics, adding that it should not be different in Nigeria.

He said Today, things have changed, women are seen in position of authorities. This is the time for women to reap the labour of these great women of the past. Women in Nigeria are doing extremely well and should be allowed greater involvement in the affairs of the nation.

He also said Women are patient, women persevered; they are now in many areas. Soon, we will be having elected women governors in Nigeria and soon, women will take over.

Obasanjo also cited the emergence of Theresa May as the Prime Minister of Britain, and Hillary Clinton who is running for President in the United States.
A parliamentary motion named Okechukwu Enelamah earlier this week, that MTN had used him and others to move the money out of Nigeria between 2006 and 2016.

MTN denied the allegations on Wednesday and Enelamah's office issued a statement a day later saying the accusations were "without merit and baseless".

"At no time was Dr. Enelamah in a position to transfer funds out of Nigeria on behalf of MTN Nigeria, and at no time did Dr. Enelamah transfer any funds out of Nigeria on behalf of MTN Nigeria," the statement added.

The Senate, parliament's upper house, has agreed to investigate the allegations made by one of its members against MTN, which has suffered a series of setbacks in its biggest market.

The Senate's move comes just three months after the South African firm agreed to pay a fine of 330 billion naira ($1.02 billion) to end a dispute over unregistered SIM cards.
According to him, This morning, I had a meeting with the President and he repeated to me twice, he said at my age, there is only one thing I am looking for, I want to see a great Nigeria. He has no other objective and I feel very inspired by that.

The Vice President said the sole purpose of anyone who becomes President should be to better the lives of people.

He also said It is madness for anybody in our position to be looking for money.

According to him, God put people in a position of authority for them to be able to do something for their people.

I think if any Nigerian gets the chance to be President of the country, there is nothing he/she is looking for anymore, except that, while there, you improve the lot of the people.
The Igbo group also told the Federal Government to investigate the real cause of the economic crisis, and address it.

According to the President-General of the group, Chief Gary Enwo-Igariwey, said At this time of our sober reflection, Ohanaeze Ndigbo calls on the Federal Government to reconsider its proposal on the sale of national assets.

Ohanaeze believes that selling the national assets built and developed by the previous governments in the country might not be the best way to succeed in an enterprise.

We rather think that it might be better if we look inwards to get to the root cause of the recession and address same rather than sell our hard-earned national assets.

The leader of the socio-cultural group said un-performing assets in the country can be transformed if well managed.

He said Agreed that these assets are being poorly managed now and not yielding optimal results, due to some corrupt attitude and misplaced values of those entrusted with managing them, Ohanaeze believes that these assets viability will surely manifest when our societal values change, and when men of proficiency ascend to the management of our national enterprise with the full cooperation of our society.

We believe that these assets, already acquired, stand at the centre of the economy of this country and if managed well, will give growth and hope to our posterity.

Ohanaeze Ndigbo strongly advises against the attempt/proposal to dispose our national assets like the NNPC, the LNG, refineries at this point in time.
A full video of the interview can be watched above.

During the interesting chat, the actress spoke about what the world doesn't know about her, her views on feminism, difference between season 1 and 2 of her reality series.

ALSO READ: undefined

She also shared her inspiration as an actress and producer, the term New and Old Nollywood, what feminism means to her, among other interesting topics.

On the term 'new Nollywood,' the "Miss Teacher" actress said,"I don't like to categorize it as 'new Nollywood,' we are all Nollywood."

"It's just the obvious. Funding. We want to compete with the international market, but we lack funding. Because when you make a movie, your intention is to make profit. It's a business. At the end of the day you want to make profit and sell your films."

ALSO READ:

The actress who has produced over three films this 2016, also shared her inspiration. "Whenever I wake up, I'm looking for the next new thing to do, how to impact in my society." "Basically, having the love for the art in my heart, has been a wonderful inspiration so far."

Chika Ike's 2016 productions include "Yes, I Will," "Happy Ending," "One Fine Day," and the second season of her reality series, "African Diva."
What better way to ease off the stress of the week than watch a good movie.

With that in mind, check out our list of movies currently showing in cinemas across Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.

Starring: Bovi Ugboma, Ini Dima-Okojie, Toni Tones Adefuye, Omoni Oboli, Shaffy Bello, Najite Dede, Amanda Ebeye, Adunni Ade, Gregory Ojefua, Thelma Ezeamaka.

Synopsis: when a man proposes to foot the bill for the wedding of his bride, little does he know that she will stop at nothing to have a fairytale wedding; even if it requires his funeral to achieve it.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 1:00pm, 3:20pm, 5:45pm, 8:00pm

Friday - Thursday: 12:25PM, 4:40PM, 7:00PM

Friday, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday: 12:20PM, 4:40PM, 6:50PM, 9:05PM

Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday: 11:30AM, 1:45PM, 4:40PM, 6:50PM, 9:05PM

Daily: 2:25 PM, 7:05 PM

Starring: Morris Chestnut, Regina Hall, Romany Malco

Synopsis: A surrogate mom for a couple becomes dangerously obsessed with the soon-to-be father.

Showing:

Daily: 12:30 PM, 5:00 PM, 9:30 PM

Friday - Thursday: 2:35PM, 7:10PM, 9:15PM

Friday - Thursday: 4:10pm, 6:00pm, 8:45pm

Friday - Thursday: 12:30PM, 2:40PM, 4:50PM, 7:00PM, 9:10PM

Starring: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney

Synopsis: The story of Chesley Sullenberger, who became a hero after gliding his plane along the water in the Hudson River, saving all of the airplane flights 155 crew and passengers.

Showing:

Friday - 11:00AM, 2:40PM

Saturday - Thursday: 11:00AM, 2:40PM, 8:30PM

Tuesday: 2:40PM, 8:30PM

Friday - Thursday: 10:30AM, 12:40PM

Sunday: 12:40PM

4.

Starring: Jackie Chan, Johnny Knoxville, Bingbing Fan

Synopsis: A detective from Hong Kong teams up with an American gambler to battle against a notorious Chinese criminal.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 9:00pm

Friday - Thursday: 10:40AM

Starring: Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton

Synopsis: A girl named Sophie encounters the Big Friendly Giant who, despite his intimidating appearance, turns out to be a kindhearted soul who is considered an outcast by the other giants because, unlike them, he refuses to eat children.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 11:20am

Daily: 10:05 AM

6.

Starring: Jason Statham, Jessica Alba, Tommy Lee Jones

Synopsis: Arthur Bishop thought he had put his murderous past behind him when his most formidable foe kidnaps the love of his life. Now he is forced to travel the globe to complete three impossible assassinations, and do what he does best, make them look like accidents.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 2:40pm, 7:00pm, 8:55pm

Friday - Thursday: 4:50PM, 9:15PM

Friday - Thursday: 12:30PM, 2:30PM, 4:30PM, 6:30PM, 8:30PM

Daily: 2:50 PM, 7:20 PM

Starring: Ayo Makun, Funke Akindele, Eric Roberts

Synopsis: A Trip to Jamaica which bridges the gap between Nollywood, Gollywood, Hollywood and the Jamaican movie industry will be showcasing AY again as the no-holds- barred Akpos, alongside the award-winning Funke Akindele, who plays Bola in the high voltage potpourri of love, adventure, crime and lots of comedy.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 11:00am, 12:50pm, 2:45pm, 4:40pm, 6:35pm, 8:30pm

Friday - Thursday: 1:10PM, 7:10PM, 9:20PM

Friday - Thursday: 12:20PM, 2:30PM, 3:30PM, 4:40PM, 5:50PM, 6:50PM, 8:00PM, 9:00PM

Daily: 12:00 PM, 2:20 PM, 4:40 PM, 7:00 PM, 9:20 PM

(--VIP SHOWS--)

Thu: 7:00 PM

Starring: Stephanie Beatriz, Robert Cardone, Neil deGrasse Tyson

Synopsis: Manny, Diego, and Sid join up with Buck to fend off a meteor strike that would destroy the world.

Showing:

Sat-Sun: 10:50am

Starring: Nse Ikpe-Etim, Anthony Monjaro, Seun Akindele

Synopsis: Arthur Bishop thought he had put his murderous past behind him when his most formidable foe kidnaps the love of his life. Now he is forced to travel the globe to complete three impossible assassinations, and do what he does best, make them look like accidents.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 3:00PM

Starring: Blake Lively, Oscar Jaenada, Brett Cullen

Synopsis: A mere 200 yards from shore, surfer Nancy is attacked by a great white shark, with her short journey to safety becoming the ultimate contest of wills.

Showing:

Fri-Thur: 10:00am, 12:00pm

Tuesday - Thursday: 7:05PM

Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon

Synopsis: 30 years after Ghostbusters took the world by storm, the beloved franchise makes its long-awaited return. Director Paul Feig brings his fresh take to the supernatural comedy, joined by some of the funniest actors working today.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 12:35pm

Starring:Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O'Neill

Synopsis: The friendly-but-forgetful blue tang fish begins a search for her long-lost parents, and everyone learns a few things about the real meaning of family along the way.

Showing:

Friday - Thursday: 10:40AM, 2:35PM

Sunday: 2:35PM

15.

Starring: Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Garner, Robbie Amell

Synopsis: A stuffy businessman finds himself trapped inside the body of his family's cat.

Showing:

Daily: 12:30 PM, 2:25 PM

Friday - Thursday: 1:10PM, 3:00PM, 4:50PM

Friday - Thursday: 10:45AM, 3:20PM

Sunday: 3:20PM

Friday - Thursday: 10:00am, 11:40am, 1:50pm

Starring:Margot Robbie, Cara Delevingne, Jared Leto

Synopsis: A secret government agency recruits imprisoned supervillains to execute dangerous black ops missions in exchange for clemency.

Showing:

Fri-Thur: 1:35pm, 6:30pm

Friday - 1:00PM, 6:40PM, 9:10PM

Saturday - Thursday: 1:00PM, 4:10PM, 6:40PM, 9:10PM

Starring:Mila Kunis, Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Bell

Synopsis: When three overworked and under-appreciated moms are pushed beyond their limits, they ditch their conventional responsibilities for a jolt of long overdue freedom, fun, and comedic self-indulgence

Showing:

Fri-Thur: 11:00am

Starring:Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke

Synopsis: Seven gun men in the old west gradually come together to help a poor village against savage thieves.

Showing:

Fri-Thur: 2:40pm, 7:00pm, 8:55pm

Fri - Wed: 4:25 PM, 7:10 PM, 10:15 PM

Thu: 4:25 PM, 7:10 PM, 10:15 PM

(--VIP SHOWS--)

Fri - Wed 3:20 PM, 8:30 PM

Friday - Thursday: 12:30PM, 4:40PM, 6:50PM, 9:20PM

Friday - Thursday: 1:10PM, 3:40PM, 4:40PM, 6:10PM, 8:40PM

Starring: Bimbo Akintola, Keppy Ekpeyong Bassey, Gideon Okeke

Synopsis: 93 Days is a historic gripping documentation of the deadly disease starting from the day the day the Ebola virus came into Nigeria to the day the country was declared Ebola-free.

Showing:

Daily: 4:45 PM, 9:25 PM

Fri-Thur: 4:05pm

Friday - Thursday: 11:50AM, 2:00PM, 6:40PM, 8:50PM

Friday - Thursday: 11:05AM, 4:40PM, 5:05PM

Sunday: 4:40PM, 5:05PM

Starring:Dave Bautista, Alain Moussi, Gina Carano

Synopsis: A kick boxer is out to avenge his brother.

Showing:

Daily: 12:55 PM

Friday - 1:30PM, 3:20PM, 5:10PM, 7:10PM, 9:00PM

Saturday - Thursday: 7:10PM, 9:00PM

Starring:Salma Hayek, Adrien Brody, Shohreh Aghdashloo

Synopsis: Prior to the Iranian revolution it was a place where people of all religions were allowed to flourish. This is the story of a prosperous Jewish family who abandon everything before they are consumed by the passions of revolutionaries.

Showing:

Fri-Thur: 4:45pm

Daily:12:00 PM, 4:40 PM

Friday - Thursday: 12:30AM, 9:40PM

Starring: Alexander Skarsgard, Rory J. Saper, Christian Stevens

Synopsis: Tarzan, having acclimated to life in London, is called back to his former home in the jungle to investigate the activities at a mining encampment.

Showing:
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Obaseki, who was declared winner of the Sept. 28 Edo election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), defeated Mr Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with 319,483 votes to 253,173 votes.

The Lagos State governor said that the development was not just a victory for democracy, but the people, who he said would experience continuity in terms of dividends of democracy.

Ambode, who chaired the APC National Campaign Committee for the election, said the people of Edo voted for continuity of people-friendly policies and programmes.

He urged relevant stakeholders to accept the verdict and work with Obaseki to move the state forward. He said, like I said during the grand rally of our great party  APC, at Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin some few weeks back, Edo, being the heartbeat of the South-South region, has all it takes to become another Lagos.

The decision of the people to speak with their votes in support of Obaseki is a signpost of their readiness for greatness.

It is a testament to the monumental successes recorded in the last seven and half years by the incumbent governor, Mr Adams Oshiomhole.

We are enjoying dividends of democracy in Lagos today because of the decision of the people to vote for continuity of good governance.

I am glad that the people of Edo have also towed that path and the result will definitely translate to improved social services and welfare of the people.

Ambode said that judging by the antecedents of Obaseki, he was certain that Edo was set for transformation and consolidation of the achievements of the outgoing administration.

According to him, Oshiomhole has laid the right foundation for progressive governance.

He added that With the decision to vote Obaseki who is equally people-friendly, reliable, trustworthy, and has the fear of God, the people have made the right choice and I can only urge them to continue to support him to deliver on the campaign promises.
A News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) correspondent who went round the locality reports that supporters, with trumpeters, danced through major streets, singing victory songs.

Some APC chieftains who spoke to NAN described the victory as a confirmation of the peoples trust and belief in the Gov. Adams Oshiomhole-led APC government in Edo.

Mr Yakubu Musa, an APC Chieftian, said the APC victory is as a result of the good foundation laid by Gov. Oshiomhole in infrastructure development in the state.

I can tell you that the incoming government of Godwin Obaseki and Philip Shuaibu will make the difference.

This difference is to build on the foundation of Oshiomhole as with Tinubu, Fashola and Ambode in Lagos State. The transformation will be monumental.

Another APC Chieftain, Hajiya Mariam Abubakar, advised the incoming government to hit the ground running as the people were anxious to see massive developments.

She said My message to the party is to hit the ground running after the swearing of the governor because it is not just about winning and celebrating.

It is about putting smiles on the faces of Edo sons and daughters as is with Oshiomhole.
Aregbesola said this when he broke the news of Obasekis victory as Edo governor-elect to newsmen at the National Day of Solidarity with Cuba.

The event is a roundtable discussion on strengthening International Struggle against all forms of Blockade and Isolation against Cuba.

I am happy that my party has won in Edo. I thank the Edo people for not changing the change. This change is here to stay, he said.

He appealed to Nigerians to continue to bear with the administration in the face of economy recession.

Please bear with us, it will soon be and the nation will come out in victory, he said.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had, earlier in the day in Benin, declared Obaseki winner of the governorship election in the state.

Obaseki polled 319,483 votes to defeat his closest rival, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who polled 253,173 votes.
This is contained in a statement released to newsmen by Mr Edegbe Odemwingie, APC Assistant Director Publicity, in Abuja

Odigie-Oyegun said the electorate voted continuity and consolidation of Gov. Adams Oshiomholes multi-faceted programmes.

Chief John Odigie-Oyegun congratulates the partys candidate and his running mate, Mr Godwin Obaseki and Mr , respectively on their election victory.

On behalf of the APC National Working Committee, I thank the good people of Edo State for the massive turnout during the election, he said.

He also congratulated all 19 political parties and their candidates that contested the governorship election for the fair play and relatively peaceful conduct displayed during the exercise.

The APC national chairman called for calm and appealed to the opposition parties to accept defeat in good faith.

The people of Edo state voted to ensure continuity and consolidation of the massive multi-faceted developments recorded under the administration of Gov. Adams Oshiomhole. The party assures that we will deliver on this expectation, Oyegun said.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Obaseki as winner of the governorship election on Thursday in Benin.
Oshiomhole said the Godwin Obasekis victory is a win against the tradition of godfatherism in Edo state.

He said "We have humbled Chief Tom Ikimi even in the local government he claimed to have created. We defeated Chief Raymond Dokpesi in his polling unit, his Ward and his local government. That reassures that the ruthless deployment of media machinery is not enough to distort the will of Edo people to determine their choice.

According to him, the All Progressives Congress (APC) shattered the rigging machinery of those who called themselves godfathers.

He further said Dokpesi, Igbinedion and Ikimi have been humbled by the outcome of the election which was held on Wednesday, September 28, 2016.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officially declared Obaseki as the winner of the governorship polls.
He said the victory is a further confirmation of Nigerians' belief in the Change Agenda of the party under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Governor, who stated this through a press statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Kingsley Fanwo, hailed the conduct of INEC, the Edo people and security agencies, who ensured a hitch-free exercise.

I salute the gallantry of the Edo people who conducted themselves peacefully throughout the election. They spoke with a united voice in support of the change agenda of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

The Independent National Electoral Commission also used the Edo poll to prove to the outside world its efficiency, ingenuity and neutrality. The security agencies, poll observers and all stakeholders who made it possible to conduct a free, fair and credible poll in Edo State.

My message to the Edo people is to believe in Obaseki. My message to Obaseki, the Governor-Elect, is to build on the solid legacies of the Comrade Governor, Adams Oshiomhole. You have spoken today. In the next four years, Edo State will be better.

Obaseki is an excellent technocrat, an administrator per excellence, a pragmatic leader. It is time to bring all these qualities to bear on the development of Edo State. As neighbors, Kogi and Edo states will continue to collaborate for development."
In spite of this, a Christian and Muslim have decided to team up and produce a new version of the Qur'an.

According to Christian Today, the project, which is a translation of the seventh century Islamic holy book, is as a result of the similarity between over 3,000 verses in both the Bible and the Qur'an.

During The Church Boys podcast, the translators said they hoped this unlikely alliance, and the new Islamic Holy Book would start an "open discussion".

The Muslim, Dr Safi Kaskas, said his desire is for the project to stop the religious war between Christians and Muslims in America.

"When I first came to the United States, if it wasn't for my American neighbors opening their hearts and their homes for me, I wouldn't have made it. I feel a debt to this country.

I hate to see that the same Americans are feeling bad about Muslims now. I want to repair this relationship.

The best way to do this is from our holy books," he added.

ALSO READ: 10 misconceptions Nigerians have about Muslims

For Dr David Hungerford, a Christian orthopedic surgeon, he wants the new version to stop ignorance amongst his fellow believers.

"What our hope is is that Christians will read it and the eyes of their misunderstanding and the depth of their ignorance will be dispelled so they can now look upon Muslims as part of the Abrahamic tradition.

If you look at religion, there has never been a time in mankind where somebody who professes religion has not taken aspects of it out of context and distorted its meaning. If we look at Christianity, Christianity was used to justify the Inquisition, burning witches, slavery", he said.

This new version, "The Qur'an With References to the Bible", contains Qur'anic verses and Bible verses at the end of each page, that make reference to the Islamic text above.
The result reportedly represents the best performance record in the state since 2007.

In a statement issued by the Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Education, Mr Adesina Odeyemi, on Friday, September 30, in Lagos, a breakdown of the result showed that, out of the 44,108 candidates who sat for the examination, 22,233, representing 50.41 percent, got credits in a minimum of five subjects, including Mathematics and English.

The statement read:

This is a major improvement on the result of 2015 which saw 15,542 students, representing 37.27 percent, obtaining credits in at least five subjects, including English and Mathematics, out of the 45,991 who sat for the examination.

A total of 24,069, representing 54.57 percent, got credits in a minimum of five subjects, including Mathematics and 27,885 candidates, representing 63.22 percent, got credits in a minimum of five subjects, including English."

He said that the result was very commendable when compared with the statistics obtained in 2015.

A total of 18,094 students out of 41,697, representing 43.39 per cent, recorded credit passes in at least five subjects, including Maths and 20,731 students, representing 49.71 per cent, in five subjects including English respectively in 2015.

Also, 22,524 candidates, representing 53.33 percent candidates got four credits including Mathematics and English; while 25,999 candidates representing 58.94 percent got four credits including Mathematics.

30,635 candidates, representing 69.45 percent, got four credits, including English.

This is a direct reflection of the investment of government in training and welfare of its staff.

For instance, 300 Mathematics teachers were trained on effective classroom delivery of the subject at a cost of N4.5M, while 100 Physics teachers were also trained in the same class delivery of subjects.

ALSO READ: 3 female students get rewarded for outstanding performance

It will be remembered that the state government organised a Mock Examination for the students in a bid to better prepare them for their WASSCE in 2015.
As a young nation, we have accomplished a great deal, but there is still work to be done for us to realise our full potential as a people and nation.

There are many parallels in Nigerias journey and that of Social Media Week Lagos (SMW Lagos). We too find ourselves approaching an important milestone; in 2017 we celebrate our 5-year anniversary.

As SMW Lagos global online reach rapidly approaches 1 billion, we recognise the tremendous impact we have, yet we also understand we too have much work to do. As a conference, we must ensure that our programming is transformative and provides the capacity to Lagosians, Nigerians and Africans in general.

SMW Lagos strives to be a platform that fuels economic development and improves the quality of life in Lagos and throughout Africa.

Our mission is to provide a forum for Africas most innovative minds. through the exchange of ideas, skills sharing and collaboration these thought leaders will generate approaches to digital and tech-based solutions that radically change the status quo and create opportunities that positively impact not just Nigeria but the entire continent.

Our focus for the next 5 years is to provide programming that leverages social media and technology to do the following:

[1] Create jobs

[2] Encourage and facilitate investment

[3] Ease access to quality education

[4] Achieve gender balance

Job creation, investment, access to quality education and gender balance are game changers. If more Nigerians and Africans in general, can earn a living, access capital, educate themselves and be treated equitably regardless of gender, they are empowered to transform their lives, communities, countries and the entire continent.

SMW Lagos can and will steer the conversation around Africa to one that is solutions oriented and rooted in African progress. This is our plan for the next 5 years (#Next5Years) and we know with the continued support of Nigerians and the global community this plan can be achieved.

ALSO READ: All you need to know about the 2016 edition of Social Media Week Lagos

SMW Lagos continues to be inspired by Nigeria and the brilliance and resilience of its people. Its this unrelenting spirit that has allowed our people to accomplish so much and make our presence known throughout Africa and around the world.
Ariana is doing just that using an escort website and it is far from cheap. The bids reportedly start at a whooping 150,000 EUR and she could rake in far more, causing you to wonder just how far some men will go to have the experience of sleeping with a virgin.

During an interview, Ariana said:

"Many students have the issue that during their studies they have to deal with multiple problems. You have to go to work in order to pay for your education.

"I want to move to another country for my studies in medicine. The university will be very expensive, the rent will also be high.

"I imagine that living in another country will be very hard, therefore I want to get the financial burden out of the way so I can focus on my medical studies."

ALSO READ: Meet the first openly gay Miss America contestant

Unlike what you are all thinking, Ariana does not think are actions are ethically wrong.

"It is the easiest way to earn money in a short time. I am also an independent woman and can do just what I want. Believe me, I have thought long and hard to make this decision.

"I have hoped for so long to find my great love, but it did not work out. So why should I wait any longer? And why should I lose my virginity to someone who could then break my heart later?"
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in Kabul that it condemned the killing of at least 15 civilian men and the injuring of at least 13 others, including at least one boy, in the strike.

He said that the unmanned drone was reportedly targeting members of the Islamic State extremist group on Wednesday, but resulted in several civilian casualties.

The assistant mission said that the villagers had gathered to celebrate the return of a tribal elder from the Hajj pilgrimage and were reportedly sleeping in a guesthouse of the elder when the airstrike occurred.

He said there were reports by the government that Islamic State members also died in the attack.

He, however, called on the Afghan government and international military forces to launch an independent investigation into the incident.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has acknowledged conducting the airstrike but said it was still reviewing all materials related to the incident.
Gervais Niyongabo, chairman of FEDES-SANGIRA, was detained in the southern Makamba region on Wednesday, police spokseman Pierre Nkurikiye wrote on his Twitter account.

Niyongabo had been one of the few opposition leaders still working inside the central African nation - many others have fled to neighbouring states and Europe.

Burundi has been mired in political crisis and sporadic violence for more than a year, triggered by President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term in office, which he secured in a disputed election in July 2015.

Opponents accuse the president of violating the constitution and a peace deal that ended a civil war in 2005. The government accuses opponents of fomenting unrest, and accuses them of backing rebel groups, which officials call "armed gangs".

FEDES-SANGIRA party was among the opposition groups to boycott the elections last year.
Wan Qingliang was put under party investigation in 2014, before being handed over to legal authorities for prosecution.

The court in Nanning city said on its official microblog that Wan had taken more than 100 million yuan ($15 million) in bribes, gifts and from extortion in exchange for help with promotions and project approvals.

The court also ordered that all of his assets be seized.

Wan admitted his guilt and handed over evidence not previously discovered in the investigation, resulting in a lighter sentence, the court said.

While the court did not give an explanation, he could have received the death penalty for such serious crimes.

It was not possible to reach any of Wan's family members or legal representatives for comment.

Courts are controlled by the party and do not challenge party accusations, especially in corruption cases, meaning there had never been any doubt that he would be found guilty.

The court said his crimes dated back to 2000, during which time he abused his position as head of the Communist Party Youth League in the southern province of Guangdong, where Guangzhou is located, as well as other subsequent provincial positions.

Guangdong is one of China's export hubs, and Guangzhou is the provincial capital. As party boss, Wan was the city's most senior official, outranking the mayor.

Separately, a court in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo said it had jailed Wang Min, the former party boss of the northern city of Jinan, for 12 years for taking bribes.

It was also not possible to reach Wang's relatives or legal representatives for comment. Jinan is the capital of Shandong province.
Ping remained intransigent during his speech in the capital Libreville, saying he refused to recognise Bongo's presidency. But his appeal for dialogue -- albeit on his own terms -- could help usher in a return to normal after post-election violence last month killed at least six people.

Ping ridiculed Bongo's earlier appeals for talks, saying that the president, who came to power in a contentious 2009 election following his father Omar Bongo's death after 42 years in power, had won fraudulently.

Instead, he said he would organise his own talks, though he provided few details.

"This inclusive national dialogue will be...the occasion to put in place the foundations of a new republic," he said.

Ping also called for sanctions against the authors of what he called "a military-electoral coup d'etat" and urged the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to come to Gabon to investigate violence after Bongo was declared the winner.

Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement on Thursday that she had begun a preliminary examination of the situation in the country at the request of the government. She will decide later whether to open a formal investigation.

Bongo's victory in last month's poll by less than 6,000 votes drew accusations of fraud from Ping. France called for a recount and the European Union said it found anomalies in Bongo's stronghold province of Haut-Ogooue, where he won 95 percent of the vote on a 99.9 percent turnout.

But fears of resurgent violence after the Constitutional Court upheld Bongo's victory last week failed to materialise and Bongo was sworn in at a subdued ceremony on Tuesday.

He has promised to name an inclusive new government in the coming days and to address some of the issues that have fuelled anger in the country of 1.8 million, like youth unemployment and over-reliance on dwindling oil revenues.
Jack Marrian, a 31-year-old sugar trader, faces a possible life sentence if found guilty of smuggling cocaine worth $6 million (5 million euros).

But the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) -- which worked with Spanish police to track and seize the shipment in late July -- believe Marrian and his co-accused, Kenyan clearing agent Roy Mwanthi, knew nothing of the drugs concealed in a sugar consignment from Brazil.

"We got information from our office in Spain. The intelligence was that their Spanish counterparts had information about a container that had suspected drugs in it," said Melvin Patterson, a DEA spokesman.

Spanish police believe the drugs were intended to be unloaded in Valencia and sold on the lucrative European market, but something went wrong and they were shipped onward to Kenya.

"A criminal group based in Valencia, Spain, tried to get cocaine out of a container, but failed," Patterson said.

'Rip-on, rip-off'

When the shipment arrived in Mombasa, Kenyan anti-narcotics police discovered the plastic-wrapped bricks of cocaine hidden among sacks of sugar as well as a duplicate seal.

Experts say this is a sure sign of the "rip-on, rip-off" or "blind hook" smuggling technique whereby cartels secretly stash their illegal products inside a legitimate consignment removing the drugs at a stop en route and replacing the broken seal with the replica.

"The Spanish stressed that this was a 'rip-off' load and the recipient of the container would have no knowledge that it was being used to transport drugs," said Patterson.

His case has caused a sensation in his native Britain, where the aristocratic background of his mother Lady Emma Clare Campbell of Cawdor and his attendance at top private schools, including the alma mater of Prince William's wife Catherine, have caught the eye of the press.

Sources familiar with the case suggest the two men were taken into custody because of public and political pressure to make an arrest after news of the bust broke in local media.

Kenya is a hub for heroin trafficking via the so-called "southern route" -? from the poppy fields of Afghanistan and Pakistan to consumers in Europe via the Indian Ocean and East Africa ?- but cocaine trafficking is less common with West Africa the far more popular transshipment point for moving the drug from South America to Europe.
Social media users -- primarily men -- had spread a rumour that the dolls were on sale in Derb Omar, an immense wholesale market in Casablanca.

On Thursday, two local newspapers ran full-page stories on the rumours.

"Sex dolls invade the markets," was the headline in the Arabic-language daily Asabah.

It noted that "many doubt the truth of the rumours".

But according to local media, security forces were taking no chances. The police, including plain-clothes officers, raided the Chinese area of the market, Asabah reported.

No sex dolls were to be found.

"The only dolls the police were able to find were the mannequins used in clothes shop windows," it said.

Abderrazak Lazrak, head of the Derb Omar trader's association, "formally denied the rumour" in comments to Kifache TV, saying the dolls should not be confused with ordinary mannequins.

The interior ministry, contacted by AFP, declined to comment.

While some Moroccans expressed indignation at the rumours, others were amused.

Some women took to Facebook to demand male versions of the dolls.

Sex dolls are de facto illegal in Morocco, where the law punishes "anyone who produces, diffuses, publishes, imports, exports, exposes, sells or possesses" pornographic material.
In a rambling speech on his arrival in Davao City after a visit to Vietnam, Duterte told reporters that he had been "portrayed to be some cousin of Hitler" by critics.

Noting that Hitler had murdered millions of Jews, Duterte said: "There are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I'd be happy to slaughter them.

"If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have...," he said, pausing and pointing to himself.

"You know my victims. I would like (them) to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition."
Kenya, which says the returns are voluntary, called last week at the U.N. General Assembly for more funding to repatriate more than 300,000 Somali refugees living in Dadaab camp on its northern border.

"The Special Envoy will first help to maximise efforts to search (for) solutions for Somali refugees and asylum seekers at national and regional level and strive to enhance dialogue... to help maintain asylum," the U.N. said in a statement on Friday.

Former Kenyan ambassador to Somalia, Mohamed Abdi Affey, was appointed in response to "recent security and political gains in parts of Somalia, along with growing pressures on host countries and related asylum fatigue," it said.

One million Somali refugees are living in exile in neighbouring Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti and Yemen and some 1.1 million Somalis are displaced within Somalia, it said.

Kenya hosts the world's second largest Somali refugee population after Ethiopia, U.N. refugee agency spokesman Duke Mwancha told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Affey, who also served as special envoy to Somalia for the east African bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), has been appointed for an initial period of six months.

He will work to boost funding for humanitarian and development projects supporting the reintegration of Somali returnees, the U.N. said.

Returns from Kenya to Somalia have increased since Kenya announced in May that it would close Dadaab, saying the camp had been infiltrated by "terrorist cells".

Some 31,000 Somali refugees have voluntarily returned home from Kenya since December 2014, Mwancha said.

Human Rights Watch said this month Kenya is harassing Somali refugees to return when it is not safe to do so.

Hunger is worsening in Somalia due to poor rains, with five million people now short of food, the U.N. said.

Kenya says Somali Islamist group al Shabaab has used Dadaab as a recruiting ground. The east African nation has been hit by a string of attacks by al Shabaab, including on a shopping mall in Nairobi and a university in the northeast.
Yei is situated some 150 kilometres (93 miles) southwest of Juba, near the borders with Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and until recently had been spared much of the violence plaguing the world's youngest nation.

But the security situation there has deteriorated rapidly since July.

The UN refugee agency said now around 100,000 people -- many of whom had fled into the town in search of safety -- could no longer leave after government troops surrounded the area.

"The government forces are surrounding the town and they are restricting access into the town and also preventing people from leaving, presumably because they suspect them of siding with opposition forces," UNHCR spokesman William Spindler told reporters.

He pointed out that more than 30,000 people had fled into Yei from surrounding areas following deadly attacks on civilians and looting of private property earlier this month.

They joined several thousand displaced people who had arrived since mid-July, and as many as 60,000 town residents, he said.

UNHCR and other UN agencies had visited the town on September 27, discovering that tens of thousands of displaced people had taken refuge in abandoned houses and church compounds, Spindler said.

"Terrorised men and women spoke of horrific violence against civilians before and during their flight," the refugee agency said, pointing to killings, mutilations and the looting and burning of property.

In Yei, the displaced "are facing a serious shortage of food and medicine," Spindler said.

He said humanitarian workers were hoping to soon bring desperately needed aid into the town, but acknowledged that the timeframe for such a delivery remained unclear.

South Sudan, which gained independence in July 2011, descended into war just two and a half years later when President Salva Kiir in December 2013 accused his former deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup.

Numerous attempts to shore up a fragile truce have failed, and in a major setback to peace efforts, fresh clashes erupted in Juba on July 8 this year between Kiir's guards and troops loyal to Machar.

Since the fresh violence in July, more than 200,000 people have fled South Sudan, sending the number of refugees from the war-scarred nation past the one-million mark, UNHCR said.
Opportunities and jobs are a constant demand by younger Tunisians frustrated that economic progress has not matched the political transition to democracy since the uprising that ousted autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali as president.

Western backers often praise Tunisia as a model of success for a region mired in violence. But successive governments since 2011 have failed to create jobs or carry out reductions in the public deficit demanded by their international lenders.

It is a delicate balance for the government.

Austerity measures like a vehicle tax proposed in 2014 or lack of jobs in the past have triggered the kind of protests among young Tunisians that helped topple Ben Ali and there were riots over jobs in the south at the start of this year.

Youssef Chahed, a French-educated agriculture specialist in office less than a month, is sensitive to how fragile the social peace is in Tunisia but expressed confidence that he could deliver on reforms with his new national unity government.

"All reforms are sensitive but we are going to resolve everything through dialogue and consensus," Chahed told Reuters in an interview.

He said his government would first stabilise the public deficit, including bringing under control the large public wage bill, and focus on creating new revenue.

"We need the economic component to be managed now because the political component remains fragile," he said. "We are going to demand exceptional efforts."

He said a four-year plan estimated average growth at around 2.5 percent. Growth last year was 0.8 percent after three big Islamist militant attacks battered the vital tourism industry.

The deficit this year would widen to 6.5 percent compared with 4.4 percent last year.

"For 2017, growth will be close to 3 percent," he said.

Tunisia faces a debt service payment of $3 billion next year, and the central bank has warned the government may struggle to come up with the $450 million a month it needs to pay public employees.

The public wage sector represents a huge portion of Tunisia's public spending. At 13.5 percent of GDP, it is one of the highest in the world, a remnant of the system of high state employment and subsidies from the Ben Ali era.

But how successful curbing or controlling public wages will be depends on negotiations with the powerful UGTT and UTICA labour unions on whether they will allow a freeze in wage increases and in public sector recruitment.

Earlier this year, the IMF approved a $2.9 billion four-year loan for Tunisia, one of a raft of foreign credits and loans from partners hoping to support the transition, But the IMF has urged acceleration of reforms.

"We have a complete package to stabilise the budget - an extraordinary tax for companies (and) calling on the UGTT to freeze salary increases. The idea is to get an agreement on a complete policy for growth," Chahed said.

TOURISM, PHOSPHATE

When he was picked for the top government job by President Beji Caid Essebsi in August, critics dismissed Chahed as a political novice chosen only for his loyalty. Critics said he would be unable to manage resistance to any austerity reforms.

But Chahed, in the interview, said he believed the government's policy of inclusiveness - bringing in major parties and representatives close to the unions - would help towards a consensus on pushing through tough measures.

Those measures, include reducing tax evasion and incorporating the informal, non-taxed businesses into the tax-paying economy. A new tax on companies is also in the works.

Reviving economic revenue in vital industries will also be part of the government strategy. Tourism, which represents around 8 percent of GDP, has been hit by lost bookings and hotel closures after the attacks on foreign visitors last year.

But Chahed said the sector was slowly recovering, citing the lifting of a travel ban by Spain, strong Russian and Algerian visitor numbers as a signal of confidence in Tunisia.

Under Chahed, Tunisia resolved two protests that were costing millions in losses. He had promised a tough line with economic protests over jobs in vital sectors, but in both cases the government reached a financial deal with protesters.
U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders gathered for the burial in Jerusalem's Mount Herzl cemetery, two days after Peres, a former president and premier, died at the age of 93.

"Long time, long time," Abbas told Netanyahu and the prime minister's wife Sara, after shaking his hand before the start of the state ceremony.

Welcoming Abbas, as participants recorded the encounter on their cellphones, Netanyahu said of his attendance: "It's something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people and on behalf of us."

But Abbas's rare visit to the city, a short drive through Israeli military checkpoints from Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, seemed unlikely to yield anything more than handshakes.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been frozen since 2014 and Netanyahu and Abbas, deeply divided over Jewish settlement on land Palestinians seek for a state and other issues, have not held face-to-face talks since 2010.

Abbas was given a front-row seat between European Council President Donald Tusk and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Obama briefly greeted the Palestinian leader with a kiss on each cheek before walking down the line to stand next to Netanyahu.

Peres, who died two weeks after a stroke, jointly won a Nobel Prize for his peace efforts with the Palestinians in the 1990s, landmark talks that have failed to achieve a final land-for-peace agreement.

Obama and Netanyahu were to deliver eulogies at the cemetery, which overlooks the Jerusalem forest and a verdant valley, in what could be an opportunity for the president to encourage Israelis and Palestinians to revive peacemaking.

U.S. officials have held open the possibility of Obama making another formal effort to get peace negotiations back on the agenda before he leaves office in January, possibly via a U.N. Security Council resolution.

With time short between the end of the funeral and the start of the Jewish sabbath at sundown, no plans were announced for any diplomacy on Friday. Obama and Netanyahu, who have had a testy relationship, last held talks on Sept. 21 in New York, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

Peres will be buried in a Jewish religious ceremony, in a plot between two former prime ministers, Yitzhak Rabin and Yitzhak Shamir. Rabin was assassinated by an ultranationalistIsraeli in 1995 over the interim peace deals that he and Peres reached with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"A light has gone out," Obama said in a statement after Peres died in a hospital near Tel Aviv on Wednesday, two weeks after suffering a stroke.

Outside Israel's parliament on Thursday, an estimated 50,000 Israelis filed past Peres's flag-draped coffin as it lay in state.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, arriving in Israel a day before the burial, visited the plaza in front of parliament to stand, head bowed, in front of Peres's casket.

The leaders of Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel, were not on the roster of participants issued by Israel's Foreign Ministry. But the Egyptian foreign minister was scheduled to attend and King Abdullah of Jordan sent a telegram of condolences.

Obama was leading a delegation of 33 U.S. officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leader in the House of Representatives.

Britain's Prince Charles, French President Francois Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former British leaders David Cameron and Tony Blair were also on a long list of foreign dignitaries attending the funeral.
Witnesses described terrifying scenes as the front of the train smashed through the track stop at high speed and into the Hoboken terminal, toppling support columns and creating chaos at one of the busiest transit hubs in the New York City area.

One woman from Hoboken died when she was struck by debris from the crash, said the city's mayor, Dawn Zimmer. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told reporters that 108 people were injured.

The train's engineer, or driver, was injured and taken to a hospital. In a phone interview with CNN, Christie said the driver had been released from hospital. He did not describe his injuries.

"We have no indication that this is anything other than a tragic accident but ... we're going to let the law enforcement professionals pursue the facts," Christie said at a news conference in Hoboken alongside New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

U.S. National Transportation Safety Board vice chairman Bella Dinh-Zarr told a separate news conference in Hoboken that investigators would retrieve the event recorder, which tracks speed, braking and other data, from the rear of the train on Thursday night. She said the train was operating in a "push-pull configuration" in which locomotive-hauled trains can be driven from either end.

"Our investigation will continue here on scene for seven to 10 days," she said.

The New Jersey medical examiner's office identified the victim as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, of Hoboken.

Cuomo said it was obvious the train came into the station too fast, but it was unclear why. The cause could be human error or technical failure, Cuomo said. He added that it was too early to say whether an anti-collision system known as positive train control (PTC) could have prevented the crash. PTC is designed to halt a train if the driver misses a stop signal and advocates cite it for helping to combat human error.

A couple of hundred emergency workers spent the morning shuttling in and out of the station, some carrying the injured on stretchers to ambulances outside. Federal investigators later began examining the wreckage.

Hoboken, the last stop on the lines it serves, lies on the Hudson River's west bank across from New York City. Its station is used by many commuters traveling into Manhattan from New Jersey and New York state.

Linda Albelli, a 62-year-old from Closter, New Jersey, was sitting in one of the train's rear cars and described how she had felt something was wrong a moment before the impact.

"I thought to myself, 'Oh my God, he's not slowing up, and this is where we usually stop,'" Albelli said. "'We're going too fast,' and with that there was this tremendous crash."

The speed limit in the station is 10 miles (16 km) per hour, Dinh-Zarr said.

'RUNAWAY TRAIN'

As investigators searched for clues to the cause of the accident, some said it could and should have been prevented.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a Democrat on a senate committee that includes transportation matters, said the crash was "hauntingly similar" to past tragedies involving insufficient or unsafe practices or equipment. Blumenthal has advocated for the roll out of the anti-collision system.

"This catastrophe was caused by a runaway train - traveling too fast and out of control. There is no excuse," Blumenthal said in a statement. He said there was an urgent need for better safety technology, new equipment and improved training.

The historic green-roofed Hoboken Station is served by NJ Transit commuter trains connecting much of New Jersey with the country's largest city, as well as the Port Authority Trans-Hudson subway-like system known as PATH, a light rail service and ferry service to New York.

Train #1614 was on the Pascack Valley line, which goes through Northern Bergen County, and had originated at Spring Valley, New York. It was on track five when it hit the Hoboken terminal building at about 08:45 a.m. EDT (1245 GMT).

In May 2011, a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey train crashed at Hoboken station, injuring more than 30 people. An investigation by the NTSB determined excessive speed was the main cause of the accident.
Turning the ship before it hits the iceberg
A tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to Muscatine police has led to federal child pornography charges against a 35-year-old Muscatine man.

Casey John Blain is charged in U.S. District Court, Davenport, with one count of possession of child pornography, one count of receipt of child pornography and one count of distribution of child pornography. He faces a prison sentence of up to 40 years.

Blain was arraigned Thursday. A trial date has been set for Oct. 31 in U.S. District Court, Davenport, before Chief Judge John Jarvey.

The case against Blain began March 9 when Muscatine Police Detective Jeffrey DeVrieze received a Cyber Tipline Report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

According to the search warrant DeVrieze filed in Muscatine County District Court, the tip provided information that a specific internet user was transmitting and disseminating sexually explicit images of children over a website and possibly other third-party mobile applications. Additionally, the user had lengthy discussions about engaging in the sexual abuse of children and being in possession of more images and videos.

The user was going by the name raivenrogers1 and was communicating on a website with other anonymous users. In conversations, raivenrogers1 told others that they should switch to a specific messaging app if they were interested in sending nude photos back and forth.

In another conversation on the internet, raivenrogers1 tried to share two explicit images of females who appear to be under the age of 12. The company intercepted the images and turned them over to police as part of the investigation.

The investigation also showed that the user profile on the messaging app belonged to Blain.

During an interview, Blain told DeVrieze that he used the messaging app, which is logged in on his phone, to trade child pornography with other users. Blain said that he did not create the images but that he receives and shares them, according to the search warrant request.

DeVrieze turned over his investigative documents to FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Huber on April 6.

Federal authorities arrested Blain Sept. 12. Blain will remain in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.
The Pleasant Valley Community School District school board voted unanimously to appoint Tracey Rivera to serve as school board director for Pleasant Valley's district #6, formerly held by Christina Anderson, who had to vacate her seat as her family is moving out of the district. Rivera will serve in Andersons former seat until the regular school board election scheduled for November 2023.
DES MOINES  The debate over the debates in Iowas U.S. Senate race took another twist Friday when incumbent GOP Sen. Chuck Grassleys campaign accepted an Oct. 19 debate invitation but said the senator has not been able to reach an agreement with Iowa Public Television because of a format dispute.

Democratic challenger Patty Judges campaign charged Grassley as being disingenuous and dishonest with Iowa voters. Both campaigns had agreed to the IPTV format in principle, Judge spokesman Sam Peocker said.

Until this afternoon, the Grassley campaign continued to clearly and repeatedly insist that the IPTV debate was the only televised debate they would agree to, and never questioned the format until late Friday afternoon, Roecker said.

Fridays announcement means Grassley has accepted an invitation from Quincy Media Group for a debate at 7 p.m. Oct. 19 at Morningside College in Sioux City and a debate sponsored by WHO radio, Grassley Works campaign manager Bob Haus said. He indicated discussions are ongoing for additional debates.

The Oct. 19 debate, preceding the second presidential debate, will be broadcast on KTIV in Sioux City, KWWL in Waterloo/Cedar Rapids, KTTC in Rochester, Minn., which serves north-central Iowa, and WGEM in Quincy, Illinois, serving southeast Iowa, as well as being streamed live on the stations' websites, Haus said.

The KTIV debate will be in the hour immediately preceding the presidential debate, and allow us the opportunity for a larger audience to hear both candidates on the issues, Haus said in an email.

Sen. Grassley looks forward to another debate with a statewide audience, Haus said. Just like he has in his previous re-elections, he's committed to taking part in these question and answer discussions to continue demonstrating to Iowans why he's the best person to represent them in the United States Senate.

Earlier this week, Judge, who has called for debates offered by media sponsors in Des Moines, Davenport, Sioux City and Cedar Rapids, took the extraordinary step of offering to hold the four debates with Grassley in parking lots of Dairy Queens in Iowas largest media markets in hopes that his fondness for ice cream would persuade him to accept the invitation now that early voting for the Nov. 8 general election is under way in Iowa.

Roecker accused the Republican incumbents campaign of playing games just as Sen. Grassley plays games in Washington.

His campaign is now insisting not just that the only truly statewide debate is too intimidating for him to participate in, but that voters in the largest media market will not have an opportunity to view Sen. Grassley and Patty Judge debate the most important issues facing Iowa and the country, he said. To pull out of an agreed upon debate is not just a loss for Iowans, it is an absolute crime being perpetrated on all voters by the Grassley campaign.
SPRINGFIELD  The group behind a proposed amendment to the Illinois Constitution that would have changed the way legislative districts are drawn sent an email message to supporters Wednesday urging them to make redistricting reform an issue in this falls races for the General Assembly.

The proposal from the group Independent Maps, which would have taken lawmakers out of the once-a-decade process of redrawing district boundaries, was blocked from the Nov. 8 ballot last month when the Illinois Supreme Courts four Democratic justices ruled it unconstitutional. The courts three Republican justices dissented.

Independent Maps is encouraging its supporters to contact your local candidates for the Illinois House and Senate and ask them to commit to active support for a true redistricting reform bill.

Its a similar message to one Gov. Bruce Rauner and his fellow Republicans have been promoting across the state in the run-up to Election Day, but Independent Maps spokesman Jim Bray said its not a coordinated effort.

After the high court took away the opportunity for voters to have their say through a petition-driven referendum, convincing lawmakers to put the question on a future ballot is the quickest way for citizens to make their voices heard, Bray said.

The court ruled that the Independent Maps proposal, which would have created an independent redistricting commission, went beyond the scope allowed for petition initiatives. Those measures are limited to making structural and procedural changes to the General Assembly.

The group that challenged the proposal was represented in court by a lawyer with close ties to the state Democratic Party.

However, Bray noted that Independent Maps had bipartisan support for its plan, which also had the backing of nonpartisan good-government groups like the Better Government Association and the League of Women Voters.

The only way that legislators are going to pass this, if they ever would, is through citizen pressure and by knowing that citizens care, he said. Remaining silent isnt going to help move this forward.

Bray said Wednesdays message was sent out in response to emails and calls from supporters who wanted to know what to do next after the Supreme Court defeat.

You helped us start a statewide movement, reads the message from Dennis FitzSimons and Dave Mellet, Independent Maps chairman and campaign manager, respectively. And while the Illinois Supreme Court denied voters an opportunity to amend their own constitution, now its time to tell our elected representatives that the fight must go forward for redistricting reform.

The email also encourages supporters to continue writing letters to local newspaper, talking to family members and neighbors, and calling lawmakers after the election.

We are encouraging our coalition partners to take on the next phase of the battle for redistricting reform, the message says. We hope that you will continue to be an active supporter of these efforts. Additional information on these plans and opportunities for involvement will come your way soon.

The group formed to support this specific proposal, Bray said, and its board of directors will have to meet to chart its way forward.

Among the decisions the board faces is what to do with the money remaining in its campaign fund. The group had more than $1 million available at the end of June and has since reported raising nearly $500,000, according to state campaign finance records.

Sarah Brune, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, which tracks campaign finances and supported the redistricting proposal, said Independent Maps could use that money to continue advocating on the issue.

If it does, it wont be the only group making that case to the public.

A campaign called Fix Illinois, which is funded by Rauner-backed super political action committee Turnaround Illinois Inc., has launched an online petition drive to support redistricting reform.

But unlike the Independent Maps petition drive, which collected more than half a million signatures in an effort to put the question to voters in November, Fix Illinois effort will have no practical effect.
Rep. Mike Smiddy, D-Hillsdale, and his Republican opponents have launched dueling television ads that have turned up the volume in the already-expensive 71st District race.

Smiddy is accusing rival Tony McCombie and the Republican Party of targeting him for using money he borrowed from his campaign account to pay for his wife's breast cancer treatments three years ago. The GOP denies that's the case, but in their own ad, the party claims Smiddy is improperly using campaign funds for personal use.

Smiddy defends the spending.

The spat has echoes of the 2014 campaign, when Republicans also questioned Smiddy's use of campaign funds. Smiddy accused the GOP then of targeting spending for his wife's treatment back then, too.

In Smiddy's new ad, a narrator says, "Bruce Rauner and Tony McCombie are attacking Mike Smiddy for an honest loan he took to help pay for his wife, Deb's, cancer treatments."

The ad also features Deb Smiddy, who looks into the camera at one point and says, "I think that's pretty heartless."

Smiddy said he borrowed money from his campaign account to cover his wife's treatments in 2013, and campaign disclosure reports say he borrowed $14,907 that year.

The Smiddy ad is in response to a 30-second spot that McCombie and Illinois Republicans aired recently that accuses Smiddy of turning campaign donations into "personal cash, pocketing 65-grand."

But a spokesman for the Illinois Republicans, Steven Yaffe, said the spending the ad questions has nothing to do with a loan.

The party said its claims are based on $41,410 in salary payments that Smiddy's campaign made to him in 2012 and early 2013 and another $23,642 that went to pay for rent at an apartment complex in Springfield from 2014 through the spring of 2016.

"Mike Smiddy used campaign dollars to pay himself and rent an apartment, but the ad makes no reference to the personal loans he took from his campaign fund," Yaffe said.

McCombie's campaign declined to comment, referring calls to the state Republican Party.

Smiddy defended his ad, saying that a family member heard Republicans in the district linking the dispute to his wife's health treatments.

I cant take anybody at their word from the House Republican Organization because theyve proved time and time again theyre willing to do anything to win," he said.

The House Republican group is largely funded by the state Republican Party, which, in turn, has received large donations from the governor.

Asked about the salary payments in 2012 and early 2013, Smiddy said they were legitimate and allowed him to campaign full time. A 2013 letter to the State Board of Elections from his campaign said Smiddy was hired as an independent contractor and would be compensated "in lieu of an outside consultant, for various campaign activities outside the normal responsibilities of a candidate."

Smiddy also defended the use of campaign funds for the Springfield apartment, saying that he was using that money for lodging instead of using taxpayer-funded legislative per diem payments. Smiddy said he stopped taking per diem payments in the spring of 2015.

The 71st District race is one of the more closely contested in the state. The district includes parts of Rock Island, Henry, Whiteside and Carroll counties.
Quad-City Chapter No. 50 of the National Association of Women In Construction (NAWIC) will meet at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 6, at Black Hawk College, 6600 34 Ave., Moline, for a tour of the business training center.

Dinner will follow the tour at 6:30 p.m. at Montana Jacks, 5200 27 St., Moline. A brief business meeting will follow dinner. Participants should RSVP by Tuesday, Oct. 4, to Julia Anderson at 309-314-6508 or janderson@civilinc.com.

The tour will be conducted by Julie Gelaude, director of the business training center. She has served the college for more than 17 years, working with local businesses to improve the skill of the workforce by customizing the training to fit the specific needs and trends of each business.

In addition to the Workforce Development Initiatives, she oversees the Production MIG and Stick/TIG Welding program as well as the Highway Construction Careers Training Program HCCTP that is funded by the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Rural whites and urban blacks: Expand voting access to all. It's a plan only those with the most cynical motives could oppose.

That's the takeaway from a resounding defeat this week in federal court that struck down an Illinois law permitting same-day voter registration at the polls in counties with populations greater than 100,000. The new rule, Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan concluded, imbalanced voter power and, in effect, disenfranchised voters in rural counties. The ruling squared with the law's right-wing challengers, including Patrick Harlan, a Galesburg truck driver who is challenging U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos in Illinois' 17th Congressional District.

It's another damning defeat in a state where, in the past few months, various courts have told voters they can't oversee how legislative maps are drafted, the pension is managed and, now, that they can register at the nearest polling station.

Both sides of the suit lobbed accusation of racial bias at the other. Conservatives challenging same-day registration said its authors were only interested in bolstering the solidly Democratic black vote. Suppressing the black urban vote was the lawsuit's real purpose, proponents of same-day registration countered.

Unfortunately, both sides probably have a point. At a statewide level, voters are little more than often predictable demographic blocs for statistically in-tune partisans. But the key difference is this: One side sought to expand access to voting, particularly in communities that suffer from uniquely urban issues, such as long lines at the polls. The other side shamefully sought to curtail the democratic process, plain and simple.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan immediately made it clear that she intended to appeal. The clock's ticking after all, and entire Election Day plans would have to be tossed in 21 counties should Der-Yeghiayan's ruling stand.

An appellate panel should stay the ruling until after Nov. 8. Doing so would avoid widespread Election Day chaos in a presidential year. Then, when the General Assembly reconvenes, there's a simple response to Der-Yeghiayan's statement about demographic fairness. An expansion of the program to all of Illinois' 102 counties would nullify the judge's concerns about the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. It would return same-day registration to historically under-served populations. It would reinstate the program in communities where government services tend to be less available. And, perhaps of greatest import, would increase voter access throughout the entire state.

Voter suppression is a time-honored farce in the United States, where politicians disingenuously gripe about low turnout. Take a peek at voter ID laws in Texas, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Studies show that the rampant "voter fraud" used to justify these laws doesn't exist. It's a bunk excuse tapped in GOP-run states to keep blacks from the polls. It's an attempt to secure power by limiting political participation. Of late, several courts have reached the same conclusion.

Harlan's complaint against Illinois' same-day registration push was birthed in similar motives. And the damage is real. Any functioning representative government must embrace methods of increasing voter participation. Anything less is a cynical plot against democracy itself.

At least the fix is easy in Illinois, though. Expand the law to all counties, regardless of population. Provide state funding for the effort. And assure every eligible Illinoisan can show up and vote when the polls open.

It's a plan anyone truly interested in bolstered, fair elections will support.
I'm 80 years-old, but according to the recent Quad-City Times editorial, I must be a millennial. I'm sick of endless war. We were sucked into Korea by dictator Syngman Rhee who we know attacked North Korea and General Douglas MacArthur assured President Truman it would be a piece of cake; our CIA deposed Iran's elected leader and installed the Shah, another dictator; then came the bogus Gulf of Tonkin incident in Vietnam; President Ronald Reagan invades Grenada; President George W. Bush invades Iraq. It's time to end perpetual war.

 Yes, medical care should be a right supplied by a government-run single-payer system like all the other industrialized countries.

 Yes, college and trade schools ought to be free as they are in many countries and once were here.

 Yes our trade treaties need to be revised to bring living standards up for all people.

 Yes, corporations and the billionaire-class should not have such disproportional influence on our government.

 Yes, the wealthiest 1 percent ought to pay their fair share of taxes and help pay down the national debt.

Unless Mrs. Clinton can earnestly convince us millennials she will address our concerns, we have no one to vote for. Thus far, she has been less than inspiring. Her picks for advisers are troubling.

Arthur C. Donart, Ph. D.

Thomson, Illinois
DES MOINES  Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds is scheduled to depart this weekend on a trade mission to Argentina and Uruguay in an effort to expand trade opportunities for Iowa businesses in South America in hopes of spurring job growth through export activities, officials said Friday.

Iowa has a great reputation globally for quality people, products and services, said Reynolds, who will lead a two-country visit through Oct. 8 that is being coordinated by the Iowa Economic Development Authority. Administration officials said taxpayer dollars would not be spent on the mission, which was being funded by private donations to the Iowa Economic Development Authority Foundation.

During the trip, Reynolds will meet with U.S. embassies, ministries, chambers, universities, associations and Iowa company operations in Buenos Aires and Rosario, Argentina, and Montevideo, Uruguay, according to the governors office, which put out a list of six companies and organizations participating in the mission.

The state economic development authoritys International Trade Office markets Iowa products and services, educates Iowa businesses on exporting and assists global companies wishing to establish or expand operations in Iowa as well as exploring opportunities internationally for investment within the state. In 2014, Iowa hit a record for exports at $15.1 billion, officials said.
JOHNSTON, Iowa  Kim Weaver is not as well-known or well-funded as previous Democrats who have tried to replace Steve King in Congress.

But Weaver said Friday she thinks Kings own words make him more vulnerable in this election.

Weaver, the Democratic challenger hoping to prevent King from earning an eighth term serving northwest Iowa in the U.S. House, talked about the race Friday during taping of this weekends episode of Iowa Press on Iowa Public Television.

King declined an invitation to appear with Weaver on Iowa Press, host Dean Borg said.

In 2012, Weaver worked on the unsuccessful congressional campaign for Christie Vilsack, the former Iowa first lady. Because of her name recognition and fundraising, Vilsack was seen as one of Democrats best hope to unseat King in Iowas heavily Republican 4th District.

Weaver, who has worked for the state in the Department of Human Services and as a long-term care ombudsman, is not as well known as Vilsack.

But Weaver thinks Kings propensity for making comments  either in public or on social media  that many perceive to be inflammatory will be his undoing.

I have to say that he has actually given me a bit of a boost, Weaver said on Iowa Press. The escalation of his racist rhetoric has also started to, people go, Whoa. If you watch his Twitter feed, he is actually starting to put out more blatantly racist language.  Unlike a lot of people, Ive been paying attention, and theres a pattern to when he puts those things out, and he has increased the number of offensive tweets that he has been doing.

When asked for a response to Weavers assertions and why King declined Iowa Public Televisions invitation, a spokeswoman for the campaign said King was unavailable for comment.

Weaver differs greatly from King on the one issue on which he may be most vocal: immigration. While King calls for strong enforcement of strong immigration laws and supports Republican presidential candidate Donald Trumps calls for mass deportation of immigrants living in the country illegally, Weaver said she supports allowing those immigrants to remain in the country and eventually earn U.S. citizenship.

Weaver said she thinks that politicians have made the immigration issue toxic but that Iowans are willing to discuss immigration policy.

The people I talk to, Republicans and Democrats, do believe that we need a path to citizenship, Weaver said. (Immigrants) are becoming a greater part of our society. Theyre our friends. Theyre our neighbors. Theyre our childrens friends. So people, real people arent as polarized as the politicians, and (opponents of immigration reform) are trying to use this, I believe, as a sensationalistic scare tactic (that) the big, bad people are coming to get us, when I dont think its true.

Weaver also said she opposes the crude oil pipeline being constructed in Iowa, both generally and in the private companys use of eminent domain.

And she said she supports federal water quality regulations known as the Waters of the U.S. rule and thinks planting industrial hemp could help the states water quality issues.

Weaver said that, as a union member, she does not support the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement President Barack Obama hopes to convince federal legislators to approve. And she said she would not have voted to override Obamas veto of legislation that will allow families of 9/11 victims to sue foreign governments, in particular Saudi Arabia, over their possible role in harboring terrorists.
NATION

Trump shames beauty queen

Plunging deeper into campaign controversy, Donald Trump publicly shamed a former beauty queen on Friday for her "disgusting" sexual past and then  in one of presidential history's more bizarre moments  encouraged Americans to watch a "sex tape" he said would support his case.

Even many of Trump's supporters shook their heads at his latest outburst, which could further hurt him among the nation's women, many of them already skeptical, whose votes he'll badly need to win election.

"Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?" read a missive from Trump posted on Twitter at 5:30 a.m. That referred to 1996 Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado, a Venezuela-born woman whose weight gain he has said created terrible problems for the pageant he formerly owned.

Unsurprisingly, Trump's pre-dawn tweet-storm ricocheted across the campaign trail.

Trump's campaign accused the media and Hillary Clinton of colluding to set him up for fresh condemnation, to which Clinton retorted, "His latest twitter meltdown is unhinged, even for him."

Boy charged as juvenile in South Carolina

A 14-year-old South Carolina boy was charged as a juvenile Friday with murder and three counts of attempted murder after authorities say he killed his father and opened fire on students at a school playground, wounding three people.

The boy did not show any emotion as he walked into the courtroom wearing a yellow jumpsuit. He was unrestrained, not wearing handcuffs or leg shackles, as required by state law in most juvenile cases.

His lawyer, Frank Epps, noted that the teen has given a statement to law enforcement and asked that investigators not question him again without his lawyer present. The judge agreed to that, and ordered the teen to be held in jail.

The boy's mother sat on the front row during the brief hearing and left the courtroom sobbing and leaning on another woman.

WORLD

5 soldiers killed in attack

The sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman were likely behind a brazen ambush on a military convoy using grenades and high-powered guns that left five soldiers dead and 10 wounded on Friday, officials said.

The attack in Mexico's northern Sinaloa state left two military vehicles completely burned out and dead soldiers scattered across a highway. It was apparently launched to free a wounded drug suspect being transported in an ambulance guarded by the convoy.

"Up this point we are not certain about this group, but it is very probable that it was the sons of Chapo," said local military commander Gen. Alfonso Duarte.

Takeover begins of Puerto Ricos finances

A federal control board on Friday took over Puerto Rico's finances and several government agencies for the first time in the U.S. territory's history in a bid to haul the island out of an acute economic crisis.

The seven-member board met in New York and was briefly interrupted by protesters who yelled, "This is slavery!" and "Stop pillaging Puerto Rico!"

The meeting was livestreamed over the internet following pledges that the board would operate with transparency.

It ordered Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla to produce a fiscal plan in two weeks and submit weekly and monthly revenue reports that detail how the government is adhering to its budget.

Members also voted on which Puerto Rico government agencies would come under the board's oversight. They include the island's central government, its largest public university, its heavily indebted utility companies, a Government Development Bank that is running out of cash and a public pension system underfunded by more than $40 billion.

"We're working as quickly as possible," said Jose Carrion III, who was elected board president, to reporters after the meeting.

The board was approved by Congress in June and is charged in part with helping restructure a portion of a nearly $70 billion public debt that Garcia has said is unpayable. Carrion is one of four Republicans on the board, along with three Democrats. Also on the board is a representative of Puerto Rico's governor who is barred from voting.

Garcia on Thursday urged the board to make the public pension system one of its priorities. He also requested that the board consider intervening in a trial in which a federal judge is expected to soon rule on whether Puerto Rico will have to pay its debts even though the U.S. legislation signed in June also protects the island from lawsuits through February 2017.

Board members did not comment publicly on that petition.

Puerto Rico has been mired in a decade-long economic slump brought about largely by decades of heavy borrowing. The island has defaulted on several multimillion-dollar bond payments since last year and faces a growing number of lawsuits from creditors seeking to recover a portion of their investments. Several government agencies are now operating under a state of emergency that permits withdrawals only for essential public services.
Rick Weiland is back on the campaign trail, but this time as a backer of ballot issues rather than a candidate, and without his guitar.

Music was a fixture of Weilands losing bid for the U.S. Senate in 2014, when he released videos of himself strumming and singing rewritten lyrics to the tunes of popular songs. In one example, he changed the place names in the classic country hit Ive Been Everywhere to South Dakota locations. The song and accompanying video highlighted his visits to all 311 of the states cities and towns.

Weiland, a Democrat, and independent former Republican senator Larry Pressler ended up losing the three-way Senate race to Republican Mike Rounds.

This fall, Weiland is traveling to 25 cities to promote three statewide ballot questions  he collectively calls them a trifecta of reform  that he helped petition onto ballots for the Nov. 8 general election.

The ballot questions are Amendment V, which would remove political party labels from races for county and state offices, and for national offices other than president and vice president; Amendment T, which would take redistricting out of the Legislatures hands and assign it to an independent commission; and Initiated Measure 22, a wide-ranging attempt to forestall government corruption with new campaign-finance disclosure and reporting requirements, stricter limits on campaign-finance contributions, a public funding mechanism for political candidates, new restrictions on lobbying, and the creation of an ethics commission.

In the coming weeks, the Journal will publish a package of material on all the statewide measures on the 2016 ballot. And the paper has hosted a steady conversation in its editorial pages from writers on both sides of the issues.

But meanwhile, Weiland has made his feelings on three of the measures almost a crusade. He was in Rapid City recently, and sat down with a Journal reporter as part of the newspaper's ongoing Newsmaker 5Q series of interviews.

Your critics accuse you of being a sore loser and say that instead of implementing needed reforms, your ballot measures would simply make it easier for Democrats to get elected. Whats your response?

Ask Republicans. Ask Don Frankenfeld. Is that the way he feels? Hes supporting Initiated Measure 22. Ask Stan Adelstein. Ask Chuck Parkinson. Ask Joe Kirby over in Sioux Falls. Ask John Timmer, whos run for Congress, who was the father of the term limits initiative that passed. Ask De Knudson, who was on the (Sioux Falls) City Council. Ask Dave Volk, who served as the state treasurer and ran for Congress. Both Timmer and Volk ran against Tim Johnson (a Democrat) for Congress.

So this just isnt sour grapes. This isnt just Democrats who are looking for a way in. Weve built a broad-based coalition, and Ill tell you whats driving it: People are sick of partisan politics. Theyre sick of it at the state level, and theyre sick of it at the federal level. And thats why weve been able to build a successful coalition.

Opponents of Initiated Measure 22 seem to focus on the portion of the measure that would establish public funding for political candidates (voters could assign two $50 credits to participating candidates of their choice, with funding from the state treasury). Your critics say its wrong to give public funds to politicians. How do you answer that criticism?

Thats all theyve got. You know why? They dont want to talk about the GEAR UP scandal (in which a Platte man killed his wife and their four children as details emerged of his alleged embezzlement of federal funds awarded through a state contract). They dont want to talk about EB-5 (an immigrant-investor program whose former director is facing criminal charges and also led to an official's suicide). They dont want to talk about a failing grade we got from the national Center for Public Integrity.

So, with IM 22, the only thing the opponents have is these little $50 democracy credits. And theyre using fear tactics: "Well never build another school. Well never be able to fix another road or repair a bridge." It sounds like the end of the world if this passes. And I think thats a joke. Its about one-tenth of 1 percent of our state budget. Its a total of $6 million a year, not to exceed $12 million over the course of a two-year election cycle. And its voluntary.

I think the impact were trying to accomplish here is that if youre so inclined as a voter, you can take back $100 of your tax dollars. Think about that: Whens the last time a taxpayer in South Dakota had a chance to say, "I want $100 back because I want to invest it in legislative candidates who share my beliefs, my values?" A lot of people dont have disposable income to participate in terms of making contributions, so it gives them an opportunity. And I think the other benefit is for the candidate. They dont end up being so beholden to the thousand-dollar check writers. And I think thats a good thing. It attempts to level the playing field.

But I really think the bottom line on that attack is they cant talk about any of the other things on IM 22 because people know weve got a corruption problem.

Do voters really think we have a corruption problem? Voters have continued to support Gov. Daugaard and Sen. Rounds despite trouble with the EB-5 and Gear Up programs.

If you look at my race, Rounds barely broke 50 percent. He was a two-term, extremely popular governor, well-funded, and he didnt blow the doors off. If Pressler hadnt been in that race, it wouldve been a lot closer. Pressler took 17 percent because of his name recognition, and because he has politically evolved to being more of a Democrat than a Republican. If Larry hadnt been in the race, I know from my polling I wouldve gotten a majority of his votes.

On (Gov. Dennis) Daugaard, I think hes getting some bump from the fact that he got religion on teacher pay and did something about it. And he saw some of his colleagues in other states go for this whole transgender bathroom issue, and he was smart enough to realize what an economic calamity that wouldve created, like in North Carolina where national events are being pulled. And hes gotten religion on Medicaid expansion. So, I think the voters, Democrat and Republican, are rewarding him for doing right by them.

When you ran for the Senate, you railed against big money. Now your ballot measures are receiving financial support from out-of-state groups, including more than $100,000 from Open Primaries in New York for Amendment V and more than $200,000 from Represent Us in Massachusetts for IM 22. Have you been co-opted by the very forces youre trying to fight?

Well, look at what were trying to do. Were not trying to change the tax code. Were not trying to impact public policy. Were trying to impact the political system so that good ideas get a fair shake. We went out and recruited national partners for these initiatives, not having the resources, unfortunately, to collect the kind of signatures you need to qualify these for the ballot, or even the expertise to help write what we ended up submitting. Its really helpful to have access to that expertise and the ability to fund a petition drive.

The other thing thats important is that these organizations are really interested in making sure our political system works, and are interested as we are at TakeItBack.org (Weilands political action committee) in starting a national movement to change the politics and ultimately the dysfunction of our political system and our governmental institutions. So, if were successful here, we think we can export our success to the 23 other states that have this form of direct democracy (the initiative and referendum).

Initiated Measure 22 and Amendment V seem to be attracting more attention and opposition than your other measure, Amendment T, which would create an independent commission to redraw legislative districts. Will that measure benefit from flying under the radar?

Amendment T is a no-brainer. I spent some time in Washington, D.C., and saw how dysfunctional its become, in large part because of gerrymandering.

We saw that a little bit here in South Dakota in the June primary where the Republican legislators that crossed over to vote for the teacher pay-raise got primaried, and some lost. And thats because some of those districts have become so partisan and so extreme. Its a warning shot that says, "If you cross over to work with the other side, we will retaliate. We will primary you."

So, Amendment T takes the political map-drawing out of the hands of the partisan "electeds" and gives it to an independent commission. And whats wrong with that? Youve got balance. Youve got two Democrats, two Republicans and two independents, and they get to determine it, and the public gets to review it and provide input.

Thats why I call this package of ballot issues the "trifecta of reform." It starts with Amendment T and fair elections, where the voters get to choose the officeholders, not the officeholders figuring out where their voters are and then drawing the map to accommodate their self-interest.

Amendment V tries to create a contest of ideas like we have at the local level. We have nonpartisan elections locally in South Dakota, and whats so scary about that? Whats so different about a mayor providing a vision for a community, or a school board member for our system of education, or a city council member? Theyre all elected on a nonpartisan basis. And we havent even talked about the fact that Independents cant fully participate in the June political primaries. Since when did you have to pledge allegiance to a political party to exercise this basic right to vote? So we have an opportunity here to enfranchise all the voters and give them a voice in the entire process.

I think the broad coalition of Republicans and Independents that weve gathered all share what I just told you. We can argue about economics, health care, climate change  but we are in agreement that our political system and democracy are in trouble, and we need to open it up. And these three efforts, this trifecta of reform, does that.
DEADWOOD | On Thursday morning, as a gentle breeze combed the pine boughs towering above the silent gravesites of countless miners, muleskinners, merchants and madams in this fabled towns Mt. Moriah Cemetery, 160-year-old Jackson, one of Deadwoods original pioneers, was laid to rest.

Jacksons story is one of history and mystery  a man in his mid-20s who joined a flood of fortune-seekers in Deadwoods earliest muddy and bloody years, when some historians say the fledgling gold camp yielded a death-a-day, most from unnatural causes.

While the cause of Jacksons demise may never be known, much has been learned since his skeletal remains were unearthed by a construction crew working on a retaining wall project near the intersection of Taylor and Jackson streets in the spring of 2012. The man had been buried in Ingleside Cemetery sometime between Deadwoods earliest origins in 1876 and the latter part of 1878, according to city historic preservation officials.

State archaeologists and city personnel, assisted by a local archaeologist, sifted through the site, collecting bone fragments and the remnants of a cranium. They found 99 percent of his skeleton, save for one tooth and a few small finger and toe bones.

Probing the past

The gruesome discovery set off a flurry of investigative activities worthy of a TV crime show, with the citys Historic Preservation Office enlisting the assistance of scientists and researchers using modern forensic techniques from Georgia to Texas and Colorado to California.

Tests by Dr. Angie Ambers, a DNA analyst and forensic geneticist with the Institute of Applied Genetics in Fort Worth, Texas, found that the man, who probably died in his late teens or early 20s, likely had light red hair, light brown eyes and came from Western Europe.

Dead men do tell tales, Ambers told a small crowd assembled for the re-interment Thursday. In this case, this young pioneer told us part of his story through his DNA and his skeletal remains. DNA is in a sense stardust, from a time that has passed."

She said no one can ever know the full story, except that the man's journey ended in Deadwood.

The long forgotten dead are longing for home, she added.

A molecular analysis of the silver and gold extracted from the teeth, conducted by the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in an attempt to trace their origins, was inconclusive, according to Deadwood Historic Preservation Officer Kevin Kuchenbecker.

Examination of the teeth and jaw bones of Jackson, conducted by forensic dentist Thomas David of Atlanta, postulated that he likely came from a family of some means and that he apparently chewed tobacco on the right side of his mouth. The man had nine fillings, six with silver tint amalgam and three that were gold, a rarity in the late 1800s, city archivist Mike Runge explained.

The results of the testing and analysis were provided to Karen T. Taylor, a forensic artist in Fort Worth, who will provide Deadwood with a two-dimensional drawing of the individual based on the studies, Runge said. That two-year project should be completed in the next two months, he said.

With the DNA testing, looking at Y chromosomes, and a variety of other factors, weve been able to gain a sense of this individual, Kuchenbecker said. At this point, Jackson has probably traveled as much as anyone in this office. As a preservationist and an historian, its been somewhat surprising that we can take a skeleton of a man who died about 140 years ago and learn so much about him.

End of the trail

On Thursday morning, Jackson found his final resting place in Deadwoods own Boot Hill, just below the gravesite of Seth Bullock, the towns first marshal. Wild West re-enactors looking the part in black frock coats, cowboy boots and period dress, carried Jackson to his new home in a small redwood box built by local craftsman Keith Umenthum. A small marble marker denoted an Unknown Pioneer discovered in 2012 at the site of the citys first cemetery.

Katie Lamie, an archeologist with the South Dakota Archeological Research Center, said she first met the deceased in March 2012, while she was monitoring the retaining wall project near the site of Wild Bill Hickoks original grave. She said Jackson had been missed several times before when previous construction projects had come just inches from his remains.

None of the 100 or so other burials recovered from Deadwoods first cemetery between the years of 1878 and 2007, have been the subject of such archeological and scientific scrutiny, Lamie noted. Through the final episode of his life, this individual was apparently revered by a close group of friends or family."

She noted that at burial he was well dressed in a coat and possibly a vest and shirt.

These individuals paid for his coffin burial, she explained. Most notably, they fired a three-round salute at his first funeral, consisting of the three spent .50-.70 center-fire cartridge cases that we later found in his coat pockets. We stand here today in place of these also departed friends and family.

According to the priest who officiated at Thursdays services, Jackson was placed in an honored spot reserved for a young man who traveled West to find his personal El Dorado and who typified the pursuits of thousands of faceless pioneers, some of whom got rich while others died.

This is actual history, not the Hollywood version, said the Rev. Michael Johnson of Deadwoods St. Johns Episcopal Church, the oldest church in the Black Hills. The priest, who wore vestments appropriate to an Episcopal priest of 1879, and recited from a 1789 book of common prayers, said the young man he helped bury was symbolic of the spirit of the American West.

Jackson represents all of those long-forgotten people, a past thats still speaking to us, he said. They came West to make it rich, but for some, that was the end of their story.
The Seventh Circuit Court on Thursday set a January trial date for a 28-year-old Rapid City man accused of raping two children. The court also again gave the defendant permission to travel out-of-state.

Zachary Swisher faces seven counts of first-degree rape against two children younger than 13, which authorities say took place in August, September and October of last year. Swisher additionally faces one count of sexual contact with a child younger than 16. He faces maximum prison sentences of life for each rape charge and 15 years for the sexual contact offense.

Swisher maintains his innocence, and will go to trial Jan. 9 to 11 in Pennington County. On Thursday, Judge Robert Mandel also granted Swishers request to travel to Alaska to winterize his home there. Swisher was arrested in Wasilla, Alaska, last January. After being released from jail on bond, the court earlier gave him permission to travel to Montana where he has a job.
Mark T. Anderson, director of the U.S. Geological Survey Water Science Center for North Dakota and South Dakota and a Rapid City native, will retire today after more than 42 years working for the federal government.

Anderson began his career in Rapid City, and following assignments in Oregon, Arizona and Washington, D.C., returned to Rapid City in 2006 as the director of the USGS South Dakota Water Science Center.

Anderson is a graduate and adjunct faculty member of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology with degrees in chemistry and civil engineering, and advanced graduate studies at the University of Arizona. He and his wife Carla live in Rapid City and have two adult sons. Anderson plans to continue working with the USGS on special assignments.

An open house for Andersons retirement is planned at the USGS offices at 1608 Mountain View Road from 2 to 5 p.m. Nov. 18 and is open to the public.
PIERRE | A state official approved revisions Thursday to South Dakotas general permit for concentrated animal feeding operations that are aimed at making large animal farms safer and more accountable.

Steve Pirner, secretary of environment and natural resources, made the decision after nearly three days of testimony at a contested case hearing.

The general permit sets regulations for manure storage and usage. The regulations are intended to protect surface water and shallow aquifers.

Hundreds of livestock, dairy and poultry producers in South Dakota operate under the general permit. They now would need to apply within the next one to four years for re-approval to continue operating.

South Dakota now has 426 concentrated animal feeding operations covered by the general permit that is being revised, according to Kent Woodmansey, administrator for the states feedlot permit program. He said three operations have individual permits.

Producers dont need permit coverage if they are below certain thresholds that vary by animal species. For example, cattle producers who have 999 head or fewer are exempt.

The staff of state governments feedlot permit program began working on the updates and changes more than a year ago.

Other government organizations and producer groups conferred informally with the state officials. Formal consultations and a public comment period followed.

A citizens group, Dakota Rural Action, contested the changes. That led to the hearing this week.

Two members of the feedlot programs staff presented their recommended changes Tuesday.

A consultant for Dakota Rural Action made her suggestions Wednesday. Witnesses for the producer groups testified Wednesday and Thursday.

On Wednesday, lawyers for livestock and poultry groups were able to block testimony at the hearing about whether feedlot manure contributes to antibiotic resistance.

The hearing officer wouldnt allow the presentation by Don Kelley, a licensed pathologist and medical doctor from Rapid City, and the state chairman for Dakota Rural Action, a citizens group that emphasizes food and environmental safety.

While the doctors testimony wasnt allowed, the producer groups lawyers, Todd Wilkinson of DeSmet and Brian Donahoe of Sioux Falls, werent able to halt a ranch wifes testimony about deadly circumstances involving a manure pit near Orient. One of the farmers died and his brother is in a coma.

The feedlot staff proposed further changes Thursday morning reflecting some of the Dakota Rural Action suggestions.

They included definition of an aquifer, placement of three monitoring wells, frequency of water quality testing, federal jurisdiction in Indian country and maximum pumping from manure storage for preventing structural failure.

The feedlot programs staff had previously recommended many changes that also were adopted in the final version. Among them:

Mandatory bankruptcy reporting;

Any discharge is a violation of the state permit;

Producers must show they received environmental training within the past three years;

Any person with an ownership interest of 10 percent or more must be identified;

Producers can choose coverage under the state permit or a federal permit;

Federal permit applications can be contested;

The producer must own the land or have a long-term agreement for the land where manure is to be applied; and

Land applications of manure are restricted during saturated, snow-covered or frozen soil conditions.

Producers from each side testified Wednesday and Thursday.

The lawyers for the sides made their concluding remarks after the feedlot programs staff offered their final version of the updated permit.

Ellie Bailey, an attorney representing the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said the amended permit is intended to protect the quality of South Dakotas surface waters and shallow aquifers and to ensure the manure is applied as nutrients.

She described it as a road map for environmental compliance.

Kelsea Sutton, the lawyer for Dakota Rural Action, said the group understands state policy leans toward agricultural producers and more concentrated animal feeding operations.

My clients realistic, Sutton said.

But Sutton argued state government hadnt met its public involvement responsibility under the federal clean-water law. She also called for the ability of the public to contest sites.

Sutton, citing a previous court case, referred to a race to the bottom to appease polluters.

South Dakota does not have to follow this trend, she said.

Todd Wilkinson and Brian Donahoe, representing a range of producer groups, said their clients didnt agree with all of the changes being made but felt their views were considered.

Donahoe said he hoped the feedlot program could send personnel to county proceedings to explain that South Dakotas requirements are uniformly based on the raw number of animals. Those standards vary among counties.

Pirner took notes but sat silent throughout the proceedings until about 11:45 a.m. Thursday.

He said the informal process was good. The formal process was even better, he said.

The program gained a lot of public input, he continued, and the final round of changes Thursday make a good permit even better.

Any time we can do that in government its a success, Pirner said.

Hearing officer Catherine Duenwald said the feedlot program has 30 days to submit its final findings. After that Dakota Rural Action would have 30 days to offer its findings. The permit would take effect after that, she said.
The annual Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup is a sight to behold as 1,300 bison shake the earth. It's an even better sight to capture with a camera. Here are 10 tips from the Rapid City Journal photography staff to help with photographing this unique event that takes place in the park this morning and typically draws a crowd of several thousand.

1. Pick your viewing area

The roundup has two possible viewing areas, one south and one north. One isnt better than the other but you need to know which one you are going to because the routes are different. Be cognizant of the sunlight from each site, and generally keep the sun at your back.

2. Arrive early

The parking lots open at 6:15 a.m. and close at 9 a.m. With thousands of people arriving, traffic often backs up along the highway and park road and can move very slowly. Plan for at least a 30-minute drive once you reach the park entrance in order to not miss the show. For the hungry patrons, a pancake and sausage breakfast is available at both viewing areas.

3. Bring a long lens

Everything is far away and you wouldnt want to be close to a herd of bison moving over the plains. You will be behind a large wooden fence and you will need a long telephoto lens to reach the action. Anything over 200 mm is recommended.

4. Bring extra batteries

The roundup takes place in the morning and cold weather will drain the life out of your batteries. Dont be left without enough juice to make it through the day.

5. Bring extra memory cards

Long gone are the days of film rolls with only 32 exposures. Make sure you have enough memory space so you can shoot to your hearts content.

6. Photograph fellow travelers

The roundup is more than just bison running over a prairie. The people who come to watch provide a photo opportunity in their own right. Whether it is the group you came with or the interesting sightings during the day make sure to photograph the people. In year's past, a dancing parking attendant wearing a large bison hat has been one favorite photo subject.

7. Stay for the sorting

The roundup is essential to maintaining a healthy herd. After the bison are corralled, workers start the process of testing, branding and sorting the animals. Stay behind after the big crowds leave to photograph some up close work at the corrals.

8. Set a fast shutter speed

Buffalo can run fast so don't miss your chance to get them stopped in a photo with a slow shutter speed. Anything above 1/500 should do the trick to capture the fast action.

9. Look for the American flag

The iconic shot of the Buffalo Roundup is the rider with American flag ridging with the herd. Keep an eye out for the rider and flag.

10. Try a slow shutter too

The other spectrum of movement is showing the movement. A slow shutter speed and panning with the action of the bison will give a sense of movement. If you are shooting with a long lens such as a 200 mm, your shutter speed doesnt need to be a tremendously slow shutter speed. A speed of 1/100 while panning with the long lens will give an attractive motion blur.
Here are some of the things we now know about the pioneering young man who died in the earliest days of Deadwood, now known as Jackson. The theories largely come from cutting-edge, multi-disciplinary research conducted by scientists and researchers enlisted from across the U.S., who have examined his remains over the last two years:
Prince of Monaco refuses to extradite former co-owner of Vneshprombank to Russia

MOSCOW, September 30 (RAPSI)  Prince of Monaco Albert II has refused to extradite former co-owner of Vneshprombank Georgy Bedzhamov, who is accused of large-scale fraud, to Russia, RIA Novosti reported on Friday.

On July 20 the Moscow City Court upheld the ruling of a lower court putting Bedgamov on the international wanted list.

On July 12 Monacos Court of Appeal ruled against Bedzhamovs extradition to Russia, where he is charged with embezzling nearly one billion rubles ($15.3 mln). Condition of Bedzhamovs health was cited by Monacos official as a reason for such refusal.

Earlier, the press-service of the Prosecutor Generals Office has confirmed that in April 2015 Bedzhamov was arrested in Monaco.

Bedzhamov is a brother of another co-owner of the bank, Larisa Markus, who was detained on December 22, 2015, on suspicion of fraud.

According to investigators, in 2013 Markus along with her accomplices created an organized criminal group to embezzle the banks funds. They allegedly granted loans to sub-companies and did not refund money to the bank.

Investigators claim that the group embezzled 932.1 million rubles ($14.3 million). Markus, who is currently in detention, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Vneshprombank is number 40 in RIA Ratings ranking of Russian banks by assets, as of January 1, 2016.

On December 18, 2015, the Central Bank appointed a temporary administration in Vneshprombank for six months to appraise its financial performance. It was revealed that massive transactions had been conducted to transfer assets out of the bank.

In March, the Moscow Commercial Court declared Vneshprombank bankrupt.
L azarus and Joannes Colloredo were

conjoined twins

who were born in Genoa in 1617. Only the upper body and left leg of Joannes Baptista were visible. He could neither speak nor see.

In order to make a living, Lazarus and his brother toured various European cities and also in Turkey. The Colloredos visited many wealthy individuals, as well as figures of royalty and the court of Charles I of England. When not performing, Lazarus covered his unfortunate looking brother with a cape.

On occasion, Lazarus allowed spectators to poke, pinch, and or otherwise irritate Joannes. When this happened, Joannes would exit his vegetative state to squeal or spew out other nonsensical sounds.

Several reports indicated that Lazarus did marry and fathered several children, none of whom suffered from any physical abnormality.

At some point in his life, Lazarus killed a man who had been teasing him. He was arrested and put on trial for murder. However, when it came time for the court to reach their verdict, it had no option but to let Lazarus go. Had the court ruled otherwise, not only would Lazarus have been hanged, but doing so would have resulted in the death of an innocent man, his brother Joannes.

Twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, fused together at the pelvis, were born in 1908 in Brighton, England. Their doctor believed they would not live more than a month. Their unmarried 19-year-old mother Kate Skinner was a barmaid, who viewed the twins abnormality as punishment for having them out of wedlock. Her employer, Mary Hilton essentially purchased them from their mother and took them under her care. Hilton apparently saw commercial prospects and began touring with them around the world. The Hilton sisters first toured in Great Britain in 1911 when they were only 3 years old, as The United Twins. They subsequently gained recognition in Europe, Australia, and the United States. In 1926, Bob Hope formed an act called the Dancemedians which featured the sisters, who performed a tap-dancing routine. Their handlers kept all the money the sisters earned.

When Mary Hilton died in Birmingham, Alabama, the girls were bequeathed to Marys daughter Edith Meyers, and her husband. Held as virtual captives when not performing, the girls were physically and mentally abused if they did not do what the Meyers wanted.

The girls were kept out of public eye while they were being trained to play jazz music. Violet was a skilled saxophonist and Daisy a violinist.

In 1931, the twins successfully sued the Meyers to get out of their contract; they were also awarded $100,000 in damages. Once on their own, the sisters decided to work the vaudeville circuit, where they dubbed themselves the Hilton Sisters.

They eventually married, both to gay men. One marriage lasted, at least on paper, ten years, while the other was over in a mere 10 days.

The Hiltons last public appearance was at a drive-in in 1961 in Charlotte, North Carolina. After being abandoned there by their tour manager, they were forced to take a job at a nearby grocery store, where they worked for the rest of their lives.

On 4 January 1969, the twins were found dead in their home, both victims of the Hong Kong flu. According to the autopsy, Daisy died first with Violet dying two and four days later.
Adaptability is the number one skill needed by students to succeed in todays job market.

That was the message Hamilton High School teacher Brett Holmes gave to Montana Superintendent Denise Juneau when she toured the school, Thursday, and asked him to pinpoint essential job skills.

When they walk into my class or a job, the software is going to be different and they have to be able to adapt and problem solve and go from there, Holmes said.

Other essentials he listed are the basic work skills of being on time, responsible, ethical and then being skilled at a profession.

Juneau toured the skilled trade programs, class offerings and praised the school for their graduation rate, dual-enrollment and certificate programs. She said she was impressed with the hands-on learning and advanced tools in design and the welding at Hamilton High School.

Whats cool is you dont see this kind of set up in every school, she said.

Yes, but part of the reason you dont see it is who do you get to teach it? Holmes said. His focus was the advancement of industrial technology training and who would be available as instructors.

Even I have started to focus on drafting, architecture, engineering and welding, he said. Technology education taught at younger grades is perfect. At high school, the rubber meets the road and theyve got to have skills for jobs.

Holmes said the fall of the Balkan oil fields has brought wages down for welders. He said he checks wages and teaches jobs where certified, graduated students can earn a living. He teaches Auto CAD, Solid Works, Master CAM and fabrication.

Part of this was made possible by a levy the community passed, he said.

Juneau also visited with school to work coordinator Becky Brough and two students who completed the Bitterroot College Certified Nursing Assistant program. Senior Rachel Grimes and told Juneau she is currently employed as a CNA and had always wanted to go into the health care field.

I just love helping people and I know what to do, Grimes said. It just fits me. The CNA program exceeded my expectations.

Grimes plans to finish school and then work in Louisiana in the health care field.

Emily Fussell said she was nervous to take the class because she was the youngest student.

It surpassed my expectations of what I learned and what I thought I was capable of learning, Fussell said. I cant believe I know so much now and Im certified to help people as a 17 year old.

Juneau said their future employment is secure.

It is a field where youll always have jobs, Juneau said. I did a job survey this summer and even the Billings Clinic had openings for 250 jobs. This pipeline of skilled work force that is now being developed at a young age is necessary.

Brough said the high school has 150 students in community internships each year and students find the career they are looking for through the successful internships.

Hamilton High School has a graduation rate of 94.4 percent and last year students earned 614 college credits through dual enrollment programs and Advanced Placement courses. Graduation Matters Montana honored the school last spring with an Impact Award for increasing college readiness. ACTs College & Career Readiness Campaign honored the school for creating a learning environment that serves all students.

The dual credit course, internship programs and the career readiness programs that youre putting in place are pretty awesome, Juneau told the high school teachers after school. The idea of students earning over 600 college credits is significant and very, very impressive. The work youre doing here is phenomenal.

Juneau said Graduation Matters Montana is growing strong and now has 58 schools participating,

Weve had a record high graduation rate two years in a row and weve cut the dropout rate by a third thats all due to schools doing work just like Hamilton, she said. Im proud of the work youre doing, the state is proud of your work going on for college and career readiness.

The faculty and Juneau watched the first screening of the high schools Graduation Matters promotional video.

This is the best Ive seen, she said.
Cast One for Hope is in Hamilton and on the Bitterroot River this weekend.

Cast One for Hope is the signature fundraising event in Hamilton for the Casting for Recovery program, a nationwide program providing free fly-fishing retreats for women with breast cancer.

Casting for Recovery is celebrating 20 years this year with 41 retreats covering 45 states. Two of those are in Montana, one on both sides of the state.

Hamilton resident Peg Miskin works remotely for Casting for Recovery. She started the fundraising event in Hamilton four years ago.

I wanted us to have a signature national fundraiser involving fishing and I love Hamilton, she said. Ive been here five years and wanted people to come see this beautiful valley and especially bring new people during a normal shoulder season.

Casting for Recovery takes women in all stages and all ages of breast cancer for a weekend away. Women apply and 14 are selected randomly for each retreat that has a psychosocial session with a trained facilitator and a medical session with a trained medical facilitator.

A lot of the retreat involves teaching them about fly-fishing, Miskin said. They learn the equipment, the knots, the bugs and have two sessions on learning to cast. On the last day of the retreat, we bring in local volunteer river helpers. We let them fish for three hours one-on-one and then they get to test their skills.

Miskin said fly-fishing is a new experience for 95 percent of the women attending the Casting for Recovery retreats and half of them continue to fly-fish.

(The retreats) are about being in nature and not being in a hospital setting, Miskin said. They are with other women who have gone through the same journey and its a real comfortable, beautiful, welcoming, supporting energy.

Miskin said women from Ravalli County have attended the Glacier Casting for Recovery retreat, which serves women from Western Montana.

Casting for Recovery relies on 1,600 volunteers who make up the retreat teams nationwide.

The Cast One for Hope fundraiser is an essential aspect to the program. Thirty anglers, from all over the country, as well as locally, attend a kickoff party Friday, fish the Bitterroot all day Saturday with local volunteer river guides and attend a celebration dinner Saturday night.

Jenny West is one of 15 local fly-fishing guides who donate their day to row anglers who are fishing in the Cast One for Hope fundraiser.

This is Wests fourth year of guiding Cast One for Hope event.

Its a neat event and it is exciting to have it locally, she said. Thirty anglers come all over the country and Ive had people from Georgia, Texas, New Jersey and Alabama. They come for the cause.

West said the women on the Casting for Recovery fly-fishing trips enjoy the day.

These women love to get out fish and worry about nothing but the fly on the water and the river running through their bare feet and they are loving it, West said. It is such a great thing to help this program.

One of Casting for Recoverys national sponsor is Sisters on the Fly, an outdoor womens group with 7,000 sisters who encourage adventure. They only have one rule No Men, No Kids, Be Nice, Have Fun! Members of this organization will be attending the Cast One for Hope event on Friday and Saturday evening and are having a rally at Anglers Roost south of Hamilton. The public is invited to meet the Sisters on the Fly and view their vintage trailers from 10 a.m. to noon on Sunday.

Miskin said the Casting for Recovery retreats give women who are going through breast cancer the opportunity to take a break from the stress of their diagnosis and treatment.

Fly- fishing is such a great way to disconnect and take pause in your life, she said. It allows you to take a break from everything. I think that is true with anybody who is going through something, whether it is breast cancer or otherwise. For me  it is my control, alt, delete. Some people run, for me it is fly-fishing. I think everybody needs that, especially somebody who is going through something as traumatic as breast cancer.

Miskin said being on the river is a magical retreat.

There are women who will say, over and over again, This is the first time I havent thought about having breast cancer, she said. Its magic, I love being a part of it.

The Cast One for Hope event starts with a casual reception that is open to anglers, guests, and local community members 6  9 p.m. on Friday. The evening will have food by Red Rooster Gourmet & Catering, handcrafted hard cider by Backroad Cider and local brew from Lolo Peak Brewing Co.

The full day guided fishing with a catered lunch by Red Rooster Gourmet & Catering is sold out.

Local community members and Casting for Recovery supporters are encouraged to attend the celebration dinner and auction, 6:30 p.m. on Saturday at City Hall. The gourmet dinner by Caffe Firenze with wine pairings begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Bedford Building, downtown Hamilton. Dinner-only tickets cost $100 and the evening will include live and silent auction, awards presentation and live music.

Cast One for Hope fundraiser event sponsors include Hamilton sponsors: Linda Looser, Physical Therapist, New Horizons Physical Therapy, Soroptimist Club of Hamilton and John Cawley of Anglers Roost. Other sponsors are Grizzly Hackle  Missoula, Flyvines  Missoula, F3T Fly Fishing Film Tour, Cheeky Reels, Sisters on the Fly, Orvis and American Fly Fishing Trade Association (AFFTA).

Miskin said Cast One for Hope raised over $40,000 last year. She is already planning next years event.

I love having local community involved, Miskin said. I love Hamilton. I moved here for a reason I used to come and visit. To be able to bring something like this to Hamilton is a gift. I just love it.

For more information visit online CastOneforHope.org or castingforrecovery.org.
It was marvellous to wander into Ranui library yesterday and discover women crocheting the psychedelic costumes Tuvaluans call gatu kolose, and kids donning those costumes and performing dances and songs. Ranui is the capital of New Zealand's Tuvaluan community, and this is Tuvaluan language week.



Marama told me about how determined Tuvaluans are to make West Auckland into a stronghold of their culture. The community runs art groups, reading groups, and several churches. We talked about Gerd Koch, the German ethnographer who came to Niutao in the early 1960s and befriended a pagan carpenter named Saipele, who offered him lessons in magic as well as woodworking.



Koch made a series of black and white films that unobtrusively documented islanders' martial skills and dances. He coaxed some of the elderly men and women of Niutao to perform their ancient songs, and recorded them.

I found a copy of Songs of Tuvalu , a magnificent bilingual anthology based on Koch's work at Niutao, in the Otara Public Library last year. One of the CDs that accompanied the book had, alas, been removed from the sachet in the book's back cover. Perhaps not coincidentally, the missing CD contained the magical, pre-Christian songs Koch had recorded.
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iStock/Thinkstock(TOWNVILLE, S.C.) -- A 14-year-old who allegedly shot three people outside a South Carolina elementary school appeared in court Friday.



The teen was charged with one count of murder in the death of his father and three counts of attempted murder, one for each of the people who were shot at Townville Elementary School on Wednesday.



A judge in Townville agreed to detain the teen pending his trial, saying there was enough evidence in the case to hold him. He has not yet entered a plea. His mother cried as he appeared in court.



The teen's attorney, Frank Eppes, did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.



Students were at recess when the teenager allegedly approached the playground armed with a handgun, police said. A volunteer firefighter who arrived minutes after the 911 call was placed tackled the teen to the ground. A teacher and two students were injured in the shooting, including a 6-year-old boy who was on life support in the intensive care unit at a local hospital as of Thursday.



After the shooting, the school announced that it would be closed for the remainder of the week.



The teen's father was found dead of a gunshot wound at his home about two miles away from the school. The Anderson County Coroner said Wednesday that the death appeared to be a homicide.

Copyright  2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
sacw.net - 30 September 2016

PRESS RELEASE

29 September 2016

South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), a regional network of human rights defenders, is deeply concerned about the postponement of the 19th South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit which was scheduled to be held in Pakistan in November 2016. We understand that this is due to the decision made by the Prime Minister of India not to attend the Summit. The Prime Minister of Bangladesh too has conveyed her decision not to attend the summit. Reportedly, both these nations have backed out due to Pakistanas alleged involvement in cross border terrorist attacks in the region and its interference in internal affairs of other countries. Afghanistan and Bhutan may also not participate in the Summit. The SAARC charter stipulates that the Summit will be automatically postponed or cancelled if a member country does not attend the event.

SAARC is the only state level body in the region. SAARC has been instrumental in developing cooperation among the 8 member states mostly on trade and culture. Even though it has not handled bi-lateral issues specifically, SAARC has provided valuable forum for member countries to deal with issues of concern to them. Therefore, SAHR would like to call upon the SAARC member states to recognise the importance of SAARC for fostering cooperation among member states. SAHR would also like to strongly state the importance of collaboration and cooperation among states in maintaining peace and harmony in South Asia. SAHR urges India and Pakistan to engage in dialogue and also ensure that SAARC is not weakened by their actions.

On behalf of the members of South Asians for Human Rights

Hina Jilani, Chairperson

Dr. Nimalka Fernando, Co-Chairperson
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Sep-29-2016 20:50 TweetFollow @OregonNews Oregon Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police Support a New Approach to Drug Possession Crimes They collectively recommend that user-amount drug possession convictions be treated as Misdemeanors.

As heroin use has increased, so have heroin-related overdose deaths. Between 2002 and 2014, the rate of heroin-related overdose deaths more than quadrupled, and more than 10,500 people died in 2014.

Image: CDC

(SALEM, Ore.) - Sheriff Brian Wolfe, President and Chief Geoff Spalding, President: Oregon Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police recognize that every community and most of our citizens are touched in one way or another by the damaging impacts of drug addiction. We understand that it ruins lives, breaks hearts, burdens families and robs our communities of individuals with potential. Too often, individuals with addiction issues find their way to the doorstep of the criminal justice system when they are arrested for possession of a controlled substance. The penalty is often a felony drug conviction where the person may receive a jail sentence, are placed on probation and receive limited treatment services. Unfortunately, felony convictions in these cases also include unintended and collateral consequences including barriers to housing and employment and a disparate impact on minority communities. Oregon Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police are committed to work with the Governor, Attorney General, District Attorneys, members of the Oregon State Legislature and stakeholders to craft a more thoughtful approach to drug possession when it is the only crime committed. Oregon Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police recommend that user-amount drug possession convictions be treated as misdemeanors and recommend that offenders be carefully assessed and given individualized, mandated treatment as a condition of their conviction. If successful, drug abusers will return to health and productivity and will not commit future crimes where they become further entangled in the criminal justice system. This approach continues to demand accountability while applying limited resources to treatment and services to address the underlying addiction and prevent future crime. We believe our limited criminal justice resources should be focused on addressing violent crime and property crime problems that destroy community livability. We do not support any reduction in Community Corrections funding through "savings" for this historic felony level population, as this would undermine current recidivism reduction work and harm community-based efforts that are a result of the state's Justice Reinvestment Initiative. We believe this newly created misdemeanor population should continue to be funded by the state, and Community Corrections agencies should remain responsible for providing the assessments and subsequent evidence-based treatment service or referrals. We also believe that our prosecutors must continue to have access to specialty courts like drug court and other accountability tools as we treat these drug possession crimes as Class A Misdemeanors. In many counties, first time drug possession offenders can avoid a felony if they seek and complete treatment. We must be clear. It is imperative that mandated assessments and treatment services accompany this change in drug crime policy so that individual risks and needs can been identified and addressed. Source: Oregon State Sheriffs Association _________________________________________

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Warcraft may not have performed as expected, but that hasn't deterred director Duncan Jones from getting on with his passion project, Mute, and finding a pretty big distribution partner in Netflix.

In a recent appearance on the Empire podcast, Alexander Skarsgard spilled the beans on the deal. He explained that the film, which is currently in production, will get a Netflix day-and-date theatrical run.

"I think theyll do what they did with Beasts Of No Nation where they do a theatrical simultaneously to a Netflix release," said Skarsgard. "I just got back from Dublin where Duncan showed me all the renderings and the visuals of it. I'm very, very excited about it."

And so are we! The actor went on to explain a bit about his character in the film:

"Its about a guy who was in an accident as a kid. Hes ex-Amish, so he lives a very monastic life: he doesnt have a cellphone or anything like that. Hes left the [Amish] community but he still kinda follows the rules."

While this is good news for Jones in that it will ensure a huge swath of people see his film, it means that Mute will likely not find its way to many local theatres, so anyone hoping to see the science fiction film on the big screen will be out of luck.
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Luis Gongora, the second of three people fatally shot by San Francisco police in a six-month span that began with the killing of Mario Woods last December, was shot a total of six times on April 7, as his just released autopsy reveals. The full Medical Examiner's report is now online, and as KQED reports Gongora was shot in the head, the back left shoulder, the right upper back, chest, and twice in his right forearm. Also, he was found to have amphetamine and methamphetamine in his system, in addition to another stimulant, mephentermine, and THC, the primary intoxicant in marijuana.

As KRON 4 recalls, former Police Chief Greg Suhr said at the time of the incident that officers responded to the scene on Shotwell Street following reports from homeless outreach workers of a man swinging a kitchen knife. When officers arrived, they say they found Gongora sitting on the sidewalk with the knife upright. When he refused to let go of the knife, officers quickly shot him with non-lethal beanbag rounds, after which they say Gongora "charged" at them. Witnesses at the scene deny this part of the account, with some saying Gongora remained seated, and others saying Gongora appeared confused.

Mission Local reports that the autopsy confirms findings of an earlier, independent autopsy commissioned by Gongora's family, showing that a bullet entered his forehead and exited above his left ear, traveling downward, indicating he was shot from above. Also, a bullet that entered his back traveled downward and exited his arm.

Witnesses also claimed that Gongora did not understand officers' commands because he spoke little English.

We also now learn via the autopsy of Gongora's arrest record, showing he had been arrested in 2015 for stopping traffic by lying in the street in San Francisco, and that he was jailed twice in 2014 in San Francisco and Milpitas for felony assault and for an unknown charge. In 2010 he was arrested for marijuana possession possibly with the intent to sell.

After video of the shooting, most of which took place outside the camera's frame, emerged the day after Gongora's death, many decried the officers' inability to de-escalate the situation without lethal force  given that Gongora seemed likely high or intoxicated, and the entire altercation, from first command to final shot, took a total of 30 seconds.

Civil rights attorney Adante Pointer, who previously represented the family of Alex Nieto, who was also shot and killed by police, tells KQED that a lawsuit against the city is coming "in the near future."

Previously: First Video Surfaces Of SFPD Firing On Homeless Man Within 30 Seconds Of Exiting Squad Cars
Nobody likes a boring election. (Plenty of people dont like allegedly exciting elections, either, so theres that.) People like to know their vote matter  and that, in turn, they matter, even if it means shaming and denigrating the electorate into voting  but the truth is, in a place like California and in a place like San Francisco, our choices are between shades of liberal Democrats. Everybody is mostly the same, so whats the difference?

The supervisor race in District 11  the residential neighborhoods along the citys southern edge, home of City College, Jerry Garcias grandmothers old house, and an immensely popular medical cannabis dispensary  is a good example of this. Take the candidates: Ahsha Safai and Kimberly Alvarenga are doth Democrats, they are both political directors for unions, they are even both political directors for different locals of the Service Employees International Union. Theyre both for creating jobs, theyre both for working families. What's in a vote?

The apparent sameness masks the contest's potential importance to the balance of power at City Hall: Safai is the moderate and Alvarenga is the progressive  a difference, as San Francisco Magazine points out this week, that more or less boils down to taking a call from Airbnb versus a call from the Tenants Union  and since the progressives hold a one-vote majority on the 11-member Board of Supervisors, what happens in District 11 could very well determine who runs the city. If city politics is a playground seesaw, swinging back and forth, District 11, this collection of mostly working class people of color living in Mediterranean homes  Tom Wolfes slums with a view  is the fulcrum. (All of that is moot if Jane Kim wins the state senate seat and the mayor appoints a moderate to replace her, but I digress.)

There could be a lot at stake in the D11 race, and to date, if anyone has been on the offensive, its been forces aligned with Alvarenga. She served as political director for SEIU 1021, the massive and massively-influential public employees union, and proxy attacks have been steadily coming via local progressive website 48Hills  whose editor, former Guardian top honcho Tim Redmond, is also on the SEIU 1021 payroll.

Though theres no reliable polling of the district that weve seen, its reasonable to assume Safai is running with a lead: He has endorsements from Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and other top Democrats, and has raised almost triple the cash Alvarengas raised. (Mayor Ed Lee is staying out the race, which says as much about him as it does about the candidates.) That could explain the attacks on him, while Alvarengas been mostly unsullied. About the worst we heard was talk that the former district director for Tom Ammiano hasnt done much for the neighborhood, the same critique leveled at current D11 supe, John Avalos, not long after he took office in 2009.

So far, the tone of things has been mostly positive, but nows the time  October is upon us, Election Day six weeks away  that the tone typically changes. At this point, things turn one of two ways: they get really nasty, or they get really technical. The latter is how youd describe what's been going on this week.

We mentioned endorsements. Neither side has the endorsement of the local Democratic Party  a very big deal in a year when even engaged voters are staring helplessly at the massive voter guides stuffed with an alphabet soup of ballot propositions, wondering what to do. This is when cheat sheets like the local Democratic Party slate come in handy  hence this negative piece about Alvarenga neatly placed in the Chronicle on Wednesday afternoon, hours before the Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) was set to vote for a second time on an endorsement in D11. It seems Alvarenga hadn't registered as a Democrat until this spring. She apparently declared no party affiliation before that, despite saying to interviewers that she'd been a Democrat since she was 18. A smart ploy, but it didn't work. No loyalty, no problem: on Wednesday night, the DCCC still elected not to endorse either candidate.

So now what? As it happens, the janitors' union is having its own power struggle. And now, Safai has to do some explaining, courtesy of forces within SEIU Local 87 who don't like current president Olga Miranda, and are using the union's munificence to Safai as a hammer to bash her with.

Back in 2012, Safai received $9,500 from the janitors for helping negotiate a long-term tenant for SEIU Local 87s Tenderloin union hall, according to public records, something hes not licensed to do. It goes like this. Safai came on as SEIU Local 87s part-time political director in 2009. The union is small, averaging just under 3,000 members during his tenure compared to 54,000 for Alvarengas SEIU 1021, so conceivably theres just less to be done. In 2011, federal immigration conducted "desktop raids" on employers to see if workers' eligibility papers were in order. According to Safai and Miranda, massive amounts of janitors lost their jobs, and the bereft union could no longer afford to keep him on. (Whether this is true SFist could not confirm; federal records show membership and revenues were both relatively steady during this time.)

However Safai stayed on to keep doing the work, he told SFist. In addition to political work, he also had a series of meetings with St. Anthonys Foundation over a period of ten months which culminated with the charity renting office space from the janitors. After St. Anthonys signed the lease and moved in, Safai went to the unions executive board to ask for some kind of compensation. The $9,500 sounds big, but it barely covered my expenses, he says. After that, he came back on as political director, but as an outside consultant rather than being in-house on the payroll.

State law says you need a real estate license to negotiate a commercial lease. Public records show Safai does not have one  which is why both he and SEIU 87 president Miranda call the payment a referral fee, even though the payment is described as a commission in public records on file with the Department of Labor.

Im not the person who prepares [the internal forms for payments], but I can tell you it was understood to be a referral fee, Miranda told us Wednesday. A commission is very distinct from how we paid Ahsha.

Why does this matter, and why should anyone care? Consider: In 2008, Safai lost to current D11 supe John Avalos by about 1,000 votes. Avalos is heavily supporting Alvarenga  but, according to Miranda, about 800 members of the janitors' union live in District 11. And SEIU 87 has, predictably, endorsed Safai in the race.

Thus, the balance of power in City Hall could very well rest with the people who clean our floors for under $20 an hour.

This is why Mirandas opponent in her modest-sized unions presidential race is trying to make Safai and the check he received into a major issue.

Ahsha doesnt do anything, says Elsa Maria Almanza, who has mounted several unsuccessful bids against Miranda for president. He doesnt work with the members. The only thing hes in for is political interest.

And that's not it. Almanza claims union members have been all but coerced into volunteering on the Safai campaign. Here's how: There was a contract rally a few weeks ago. Anyone who didn't attend, according to Almanza, was threatened with a $150 penalty taken out of their checks  a penalty that would be refunded, if members then attended a Safai campaign rally. "This is extortion," Almanza says.

Miranda did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that accusation. Whether or not it's true, this race could quickly become the fall's messiest.

Related: Supervisor Candidate's Campaign Office Vandalized With Misogynistic Slur
While I've often appreciated the films of Tim Burton, I've very rarely loved them, finding him too often to be so involved with the the look of his films that he forgets he's supposed to be telling an actual story. Add to that the nearly constant inclusion of Johnny Depp (who is a dominating presence, to say the least), and his recent films have felt both one note and exhausting.

While he didn't direct the disastrous Alice Through the Looking Glass that was released earlier this summer, it still had his handprints all over it, and Burton is probably hoping Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will wash away the memory of that mistake. Sadly, it will have to be chalked up as another failure.

Based on the first book in a young adult series by author Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's centers on Jacob (Asa Butterfield), a Florida teen who is closer to his grandfather (played by Terence Stamp) than to his dad, partially because Grandpa told some pretty great bedtime stories in his youth. But Grandpa's continuing insistence that those stories weren't just stories is chalked up to dementia as he's grown older, and Jacob begins to doubt him too.

When his grandfather meets a gruesome fate, it convinces Jake that he had been telling the truth all along. He persuades his distant and bird-watching (?!) father (Chris O'Dowd) to accompany him on a trip to an island in Wales, to see that "home for peculiar children" where his grandfather was once a resident.

What follows involves portals, time travel, and those aforementioned peculiar children, who are all living the same day in 1943 over and over again to avoid eyeball-eating "Hollowghasts." (Seriously.) Jake is looked on with suspicion by residents like Enoch (Finlay MacMillan), the sullen boy who can bring inanimate objects to life, and is clearly a stand-in for Burton himself. Others can't help but be drawn to him, like Emma (Ella Purnell), the literally ethereal blonde who would float away if not weighted down by her steampunk metal shoes.

Maybe 20 years ago, a home full of kids with "special" and often supernatural talents would have elicited some sense of wonder or excitement, but all I could think was, "Yeah, I liked this place better when it was known as Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters."

Burton's latest "muse" Eva Green (when you've got a type, you've got a type!) plays Miss Peregrine. She gives an enjoyably weird and off-kilter performance, speaking in an odd, clipped accent and gliding around with birdlike movements, which is appropriate considering Peregrine isn't just her name.

But she's really the only standout in a film that feels phoned in. The majority of the kids are reduced to the peculiarities and given no real personality, and Jake spends way too much of the movie as an observer instead of a hero.

But where the movie really fails is with the bad guys, lead by Samuel L. Jackson. God bless him, but I'm just plain tired of seeing him show up as the villain! Especially when he doesn't bring anything new or exciting to the role. Here he's the same old grinning monster, cracking wise but rarely saying anything that's actually funny.

It doesn't help that he's also in charge of some monsters that are so unoriginal, I was sure their initial appearance was a joke. Ha ha, you thought the bad guys were gonna just be eyeless and noseless dudes with fang-filled mouths, AGAIN?  just kidding! Here's something REALLY SCARY!

No such luck.

The original book's best aspect was its use of found photographs as a starting-off point for a supernatural story: Actual found black-and-white photos of spooky-looking kids doing things that look unexplainable are interspersed throughout the book. Of course, the photos are really just old camera tricks, but having them included in the book with a backstory adds a certain sense of plausible reality to the whole thing.

Burton barely gives those photos a passing moment, taking away the one thing that would explain why Jake was convinced his grandfather's stories were true. But I suppose that makes sense. The film actually does come off like a long-winded and boring tale told by someone who's probably ready for his pudding a nice long nap.
Snowden makes you reconsider every mean post youve ever put on Facebook, Twitter or any other social media platform.

Showing just how invasive the government can be, director Oliver Stone suggests someone is watching all the time  even if you just have your laptop open.

Its a chilling conclusion for a film thats retracing steps that were better covered in Citizenfour, Laura Poitras look at Edward Snowden, the insider who tried to stop the practice by going to the British newspaper, The Guardian.

Starting with Snowdens meeting with Poitras and reporter Glenn Greenwald, Stone backtracks, then shows the situations that led to the whistleblowing.

Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is painted as an upstanding computer genius whos just trying to do the right thing. Theres a strong attempt to absolve him of treason charges and suggest greater forces were at play. Many of the government officials have a shady quality, constantly pulling Snowden aside to justify their behavior. Theres a definite edge to the storytelling but it doesnt overshadow the fact that surveillance is going on and you dont know anything about it.

Stone makes Snowden seem fairly naive in the beginning. He leaves military service because his legs have stress fractures; he enters the government because he wants to do something for his country. His facility leads him up the ladder and into some of the top secret sites where coding and hacking are done.

There, Snowden sees how lax some of the security is and how insiders are using intelligence for less than honorable means. When he gets to a certain level, he realizes he cant be a part of the plan and decides to get out and warn others.

Gordon-Levitt plays the role quite simply, adapting an odd accent to make Snowden seem quirky. He has a relationship with a yoga instructor (Shailene Woodley) that complicates matters but doesnt give him pause. She follows him to Hawaii; he makes the decision to tell all.

While Melissa Leo and Zachary Quinto get close-to-star billing as the journalists, theyre hardly given more to do than prime the exposition pump. They ask questions, Stone uses them as transitions into those flashbacks.

The only real tension comes when Snowden slips into a Hong Kong hotel to share his story. Stone doesnt fill Snowden with a lot of the nuance we saw in films like JFK or Platoon but he isnt afraid to take a stand.

He sides with Snowden (who makes a last-minute appearance), contending the U.S. government has a Rubiks Cube-like mentality when it comes to invading citizens privacy.
Turkey dinner planned at St. James

SIOUX CITY | A turkey dinner will be held from 4-7 p.m. Saturday at St. James United Methodist Church, 2032 S. Cypress St. All proceeds go to Food-4-Kids, a weekend nutritional food program at Morningside Elementary School.

Tickets will be available at the door. Adult admission is $12, children 5 to 10 are $6, and ages 4 can eat for $3.

Blessing of the Animals service is Sunday

SPIRIT LAKE, Iowa | A Blessing of the Animals service will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at St. Alban's Episcopal Church, 23rd Street and Zenith Avenue. Weather permitting, it will be held on the grassed area south of the church to celebrate the Feast of St. Francis. In the event of rain, the service will be held indoors.

Guests are invited to bring their pet or their photograph. Pets may also be blessed by simply naming them during the service.

Calvary Episcopal hosts pork chop supper

SIOUX CITY | Calvary Episcopal Church, 1308 S. Cleveland St., will hold its annual pork chop supper from 5-7 p.m. Tuesday. The meal is free with an offering.

New Bible studies offered at St. John's Lutheran

SIOUX CITY | Two new bible study opportunities will be added each week at St. John Lutheran Church, 2801 Jackson St., beginning at 10 a.m. Wednesday and 6:30 p.m. Thursday. The Rev. Jeff Swanson will present information and engage in conversation about the lessons assigned for the coming Sunday. Each session will last about 60 to 90 minutes.

Visit stjohnlutheransiouxcity.com for additional information.

Pastor and Bibi's Hope to visit Lutheran Church

SIOUX CITY | The Rev. Harrison Goodman and Bibi's Hope will present from 9-11:30 a.m. Saturday at Redeemer Lutheran Church, 3204 S. Lakeport St.

Goodman will give a presentation on children, while the Bibi's Hope committee will share a slide presentation about their recent trip to West Africa. A salad luncheon will conclude the program.
WASHINGTON  Where you live plays a big role in staying independent as you age. Now researchers say an innovative program that combined home fix-ups and visits from occupational therapists and nurses improved low-income seniors' ability to care for themselves in their own homes.

Still to be answered is whether that better daily functioning also saves taxpayer dollars  by helping enough older adults with chronic health problems avoid costly hospital or nursing home stays.

"We're improving people's lives, improving their abilities," said Sarah Szanton, a Johns Hopkins University associate nursing professor who leads the experimental program reported Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs.

Surveys show most older adults want to live at home for as long as possible. Yet chronic diseases and their resulting disabilities  problems walking, bathing, dressing, cooking  can make that difficult in homes with steep stairs, doorways too narrow for walkers, and other obstacles.

And seniors who have trouble with those so-called activities of daily living are costly for Medicare and Medicaid, too often ending up in hospitals or nursing homes because they couldn't care for themselves at home, or had a bad fall while trying.

Szanton's team aims to help those seniors maintain their independence through CAPABLE  it stands for Community Aging in Place, Advancing Better Living for Elders  a program testing modest home modifications and strategies for daily living.

The fixes sound simple. A double banister let people rest their weight on both sides to get up and down stairs safely. Handymen fixed trip hazards, installed grab bars and lowered shelves so seniors could reach without climbing. Occupational therapists bought assistive devices to help people with tremors feed themselves, and taught the frail how to get in and out of high-sided tubs.

Even simple fixes can be life-changing, like the reaching gadget therapists gave Bertha Brickhouse to help tug on her socks and shoes.

"You just don't want to ask someone, 'Can you come to my house and help me put my boots on?'" said Brickhouse, 69, of Baltimore, who has diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and uses a cane for damaged knees. "It was like I was born all over again from their help, the things they did to make my life much easier."

In a demonstration project funded by the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, the Hopkins researchers provided 234 Baltimore residents with 10 home visits by handymen, occupational therapists and nurses. Interventions were tailored to each senior's priorities: Did they want to bathe without help? Cook? Be able to climb the stairs, or make it out of the house to go to church or visit friends?

After completing the five-month program, three-quarters of participants improved their ability to take care of themselves  on average, able to perform two more tasks of daily living on their own compared to before receiving the care, Szanton reported Wednesday.

Two-thirds of participants also were better able to perform related tasks such as grocery shopping, and half experienced fewer symptoms of depression.

The aid cost about $2,825 per participant, including the home repair, home visits from health professionals, and assistive devices.

Szanton's team still is calculating if that translates into cost savings for Medicare or Medicaid. Separately, a more rigorous study funded by the National Institutes of Health is under way with an additional 300 Baltimore residents, to prove if the interventions really work.

Federal Medicare officials declined comment on Wednesday's findings. But state Medicaid and aging officials are closely watching the research.

Michigan has opened its own pilot project, testing a version of CAPABLE with more seriously disabled seniors who are eligible for a nursing home but don't want to move, said Sandra Spoelstra, an associate nursing dean at Grand Valley State University who is leading the study with state Medicaid officials.

"It's a different way of talking to people and listening to what they desire to make their life better," Spoelstra said.
This week on the podcast, reporters discuss who won the first presidential debate; who's ahead in the race for the White House; and is the last dance for Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (aka "The 'stache")?

On Iowa Politics is a weekly news and analysis podcast which re-creates the conversations that happen when Iowa's political reporters get together after deadlines have been met. This week's show features James Q. Lynch, Todd Dorman, Christinia Crippes, Erin Murphy and Ed Tibbetts.

This week's show was produced by Richard Pratt and the music heard in the podcast is courtesy of Scarlet Runner.

Chat with us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @OnIowaPolitics, and subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher. Know an Iowa musician who should be on our show? Send their band sound files to oniowapolitics@gmail.com
SIOUX CITY | Over and over, the man standing behind him with the gun kept telling him to quit playing and tell him where the money was.

Jacob Hopkins testified that he told the man he didn't have any money stashed in his home.

"The one behind me said he wasn't playing. He demanded my wallet, and after several minutes of that, they left my residence," Hopkins said Friday during the first day of testimony in Isaiah Mothershed's trial.

Mothershed, 19, of Sioux City, is charged in Woodbury County District Court with two counts of attempted murder and four counts of first-degree robbery. He is accused of shooting Sioux City police Officer Ryan Moritz in the leg while waiting to be transported to jail after his arrest on Feb. 7. Mothershed is also accused of a string of robberies and break-ins that occurred from Jan. 29 to Feb. 6 and firing a shot at a homeowner who interrupted a break-in.

Hopkins said he came home from work between 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 29 and heard people inside. He saw one man run downstairs, and two others wearing black ski masks came out of the kitchen and pointed pistols at him. They took him to his bedroom in the basement and made him kneel in the corner facing a wall. One man stood beside him, another behind him. Both kept their pistols pointed at him. One poked him with the gun, demanding the keys to a safe.

"He threatened to shoot me," Hopkins said. "I just wanted them to leave."

After punching Hopkins in the face, fracturing his eye socket, the men took a shotgun and two hunting knives from the safe in addition to his debit card. The items were found on Feb. 7 in the apartment where Mothershed and seven others were arrested in connection with a robbery earlier that night.

On cross-examination from defense attorney Matthew Metzgar, Hopkins said he couldn't identify the men in his home because two were wearing masks and one wore a hoodie pulled down over his face.

"Were you able to identify Isaiah Mothershed as one of the individuals in your home that night?" Metzgar asked.

"No," Hopkins answered.

Metzgar told jurors in his opening arguments that the state would have no evidence other than testimony from Mothershed's corroborators, who all received "beneficial" plea agreements from the state, linking Mothershed to the robberies.

"Evidence will show you that none of the victims will be able to identify the defendant as being there," Metzgar said.

Woodbury County Patrick Jennings said evidence would prove that Mothershed was involved in the robberies and that he shot Moritz.

Officer Zac Croft, one of the officers who executed a search warrant at Justin Ferguson's apartment at 2947 Park Ave., where Mothershed was arrested, said that while officers escorted people from the apartment, Mothershed stood behind a loveseat and continually had to be told to put his hands on his head after repeatedly putting them down at his waist and waistband "as if he wanted to pull something out of them."

Police have said that while seated on the couch with his hands cuffed behind his back, Mothershed pulled out a gun hidden in the couch and fired a shot at Moritz that passed through his left thigh. A second shot struck Mothershed in the left leg.

Officer Anthony Vondrak testified that during a search of the apartment after Moritz was shot police found, among many other items, a shotgun identified as belonging to Hopkins, two other handguns, several loaded ammunition magazines, two black ski masks and a black backpack containing Mothershed's ID and two Crown Royal whisky bags filled with bullets.

Testimony will continue Monday morning.
SIOUX CITY | Sioux City's Human Rights Commission will hold a discussion on disabilities from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Jitter's Cafe, 306 Virginia St.

Titled "Ready, Willing and Disabled," the discussion is part of the commission's Civil Rights Academy educational series to educate residents about federal, state and local civil rights laws and the classes of people protected under those laws.

According to the commission, approximately 12 percent of the U.S. population has a disability. Although the Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted more than two decades ago, people with disabilities continue to have issues with finding employment.

Twenty-one percent of the disabled population in the United States age 16 and older lives in poverty, the commission reports.

Wednesday's event is free for the public to attend and will include a light meal. Those interested can pre-register by contacting the Human Rights Commission at 712-279-6985.
SIOUX CITY | A Storm Lake, Iowa, man has been arrested after police said he provided alcohol to a teen who died five days ago.

The Storm Lake Police Department on Friday announced the arrest of Marcelino Antonio Flores, 24, of Storm Lake. Flores was cited Thursday with contributing alcohol to a minor resulting in death, which is a felony charge.

The police department and Buena Vista County Medical Examiners Office have been investigating the death of Mark Anthony M. De Lira, 19, of Storm Lake. De Lira was found dead at a home in the 500 block of East Fifth Street on Sunday.

Police said De Lira's death is related to excessive consumption of alcohol.

Flores is being held in Buena Vista County Jail on bond. The investigation is continuing.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY | Two South Sioux City High School students have been charged after the school went under lockdown for nearly three hours following threats that were overheard Thursday morning.

South Sioux City Police Chief Ed Mahon said Friday the two students have been charged with disturbing the peace, and may face additional charges as the investigation continues. Mahon said their names and ages are not being released at this time.

Police first reported via Facebook that one of the department's school resource officers had been made aware of a conversation between students that included possible threats. The conversation was overheard by other students, the post said.

Superintendent Vernon Fischer told the Journal Thursday afternoon that the lockdown began around 7:45 a.m., before normal school hours, and continued until around 10:30 a.m.

During that time, no one was allowed to enter or exit the building, all restrooms and hallways were cleared, all doors were locked and all students were accounted for. Classes at the high school resumed normal hours after the lockdown was lifted.

No weapons were found during the investigation, Mahon said.

The two students were found inside the school and taken into police custody for questioning.

Several parents and guardians lined up in the parking lot to pick up their students early, filing through the doors five at a time to go through a reunification process that involved confirming their identity and relationship to the student.

Police remained on site through the process to aid in traffic and reassure families.
NEW YORK  Donald Trump shamed a former beauty pageant winner Friday for her sexual history and encouraged presidential voters to check out what he called her "sex tape," in an early-morning tweet-storm that dragged him further away from his campaign's efforts to broaden his appeal to women.

A day after he injected former President Bill Clinton's infidelities into the campaign, Trump accused Hillary Clinton's campaign of helping 1996 Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado get U.S. citizenship, but offered no proof. He said Machado had a "terrible" past that a "duped" Clinton had overlooked before holding her up "as an 'angel" in the first presidential debate.

"Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?" read a missive from Trump posted on his verified Twitter account at 5:30 a.m.

"This is ... unhinged. Even for Trump," Clinton retorted in a tweet of her own.

Machado, the Venezuela-born actress, has been center stage in the campaign since Clinton noted in Monday's debate that Trump had mocked her publicly for gaining weight after she won Miss Universe, a pageant then owned by the businessman. If that was a trap laid by Clinton, the irrepressible Trump dug himself deeper the next day by saying Machado's "massive" weight gain had been "a real problem."

Trump's latest taunt appeared to refer to footage from a Spanish reality show in 2005 in which Machado was a contestant and appeared on camera in bed with a male contestant. The images are grainy and do not include nudity, though Machado later acknowledged in the Hispanic media that she was having sex in the video.

Clinton responded with a tweet-storm of her own, accusing Trump of contempt for women and asking what kind of a man "stays up all night to smear a woman with lies and conspiracy theories?" She tied his broadside against Machado to his previous attacks on Rosie O'Donnell and Kim Kardashian about their looks.

"When something gets under Donald's thin skin, he lashes out and can't let go," Clinton said. "This is dangerous for a president."

Clinton's campaign has released videos featuring Machado and has arranged for reporters to interview her in an effort to use Trump's comments against him just as early voting in critical states gets underway.

Trump's outburst was a new reminder of how he has seemed unable to restrain himself from veering into unhelpful territory, even with the election less than 40 days away. His allies have implored him to stick to attacks on Clinton over her family foundation, her emails or her long history as a political insider, critiques that fall further out of view whenever Trump sparks a new controversy.

Shaming Machado over intimate details from her past could be particularly risky as Trump tries to win over more female voters, many of whom are turned away by such personal attacks. It also risks calling further attention to the thrice-married Trump's own history with women.

On Friday, Trump said Clinton had been "set up by a con" in holding up Machado "as an 'angel' without checking her past, which is terrible!" He suggested Clinton had helped her gain citizenship.

Clinton's campaign has highlighted Machado's status as a new American and her plans to cast her first vote for Clinton. But Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said Clinton did not help Machado get U.S. citizenship.

The flurry on Twitter began shortly after 3 a.m. on the East Coast when Trump complained about stories about his campaign based on anonymous sources and told his supporters not to believe them.

"There are no sources, they are just made up lies!" he wrote.

Trump has repeatedly gotten himself in trouble with his late-night and early-morning tweets, which appear to be written by the candidate himself. Trump has, at various points during his campaign, toned down the content, but rarely for long.

His latest broadside against Machado adds fuel to a burgeoning debate in America about putting down women over the perception of promiscuity. Women's advocates have said the phenomenon, which takes place largely online, holds women to a different standard because men are often praised for having multiple partners.

A day earlier, Trump warned voters that a Hillary Clinton victory would bring her husband's sex scandal back to the White House. It was Trump's latest effort to bounce back from Monday's debate performance, which was widely panned as ineffective.

"The American people have had it with years and decades of Clinton corruption and scandal. Corruption and scandal," Trump said Thursday. "An impeachment for lying. An impeachment for lying. Remember that? Impeach."

The fresh rehash of the 1990s Monica Lewisnky scandal came despite Trump's insistence that he's been showing impressive restraint by not bringing it up. Trump has said he declined to mention it during the debate because Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, was in the room.
SAN FRANCISCO  Older drivers may soon be traveling a safer road thanks to smarter cars that can detect oncoming traffic, steer clear of trouble and even hit the brakes when a collision appears imminent.

A few of these innovations, such as blind-spot warning systems, are already built in or offered as optional features in some vehicles, primarily in more expensive models.

But more revolutionary breakthroughs are expected in the next few years, when measures such as robotic braking systems are supposed to become standard features in all cars on U.S. roads.

Better technology, of course, can help prevent drivers of all ages from getting into accidents. But those in their 70s and older are more likely to become confused at heavily trafficked intersections and on-ramps. Aging also frequently limits a body's range of motion, making it more difficult to scan all around for nearby vehicles and other hazards. And older drivers tend to be more fragile than their younger counterparts, suffering more serious injuries in traffic accidents.

"Anything that reduces the likelihood or severity of a collision is really a technology that is primed for helping tomorrow's older adults," says Bryan Reimer, research scientist for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AgeLab and associate director of the New England University Transportation Center. "We are moving toward an ecosystem where older adults will increasingly be supported by the technology that may help enhance their mobility."

Automakers are rolling out more technology just as the first members of the culture-shifting Baby Boom generation turn 70 this year. By 2030, the U.S. Census Bureau expects there will be nearly 54 million people who are 70 or older living in the country, up from about 31 million in 2014.

About 80 percent of that group is expected to be licensed to drive, based on current trends, and that ratio could rise even higher if technology lets elderly people remain behind the wheel and preserve a sense of independence longer.

The presence of safety technology will be a key consideration for three-fourths of the drivers older than 50 who plan to buy a car in the next two years, according to a recent survey by auto insurer The Hartford and MIT AgeLab. In an indication that priorities are shifting, only one-third of the surveyed 50-and-older drivers who bought a car during the past two years focused on safety technology.

The push to engineer self-driving cars has helped heighten awareness about the role technology can play in eliminating the human error that causes most accidents.

Google, now part of Alphabet Inc., ignited the self-driving car research seven years ago when it began working on autonomous vehicles in a secret laboratory. Now, most automakers and other major technology companies, including Apple and Uber, are also working on self-driving technology, though there is still wide disagreement over when robotic chauffeurs will be ready  and legally cleared  to assume sole responsibility for navigating public roads.

Google aims to have its fully autonomous vehicles cruising around by 2020. That objective is considered too ambitious by many auto industry executives and experts who believe self-driving cars are a decade or more away from becoming a reality.

In the meantime, plenty of other technology should be widely available for older drivers.

Earlier this year, the auto industry vowed to make automated emergency brakes a standard feature by September 2022, but it won't be that long before the technology is widely available. Toyota plans to build it into most models, including its Lexus brand, by the end of next year.

Cameras on a dashboard screen that show what's behind the car have become commonplace in recent years and will be mandatory on all new cars by May 2018. The equipment is expected to be especially helpful for older drivers with a limited range of motion.

Other technology expected to assist older drivers includes automated parking, and adaptive headlights that swivel in the same direction as the steering wheel and adjust the beams' intensity depending on driving conditions and oncoming traffic.

Robotic systems that temporarily assist with highway driving already are available, most notably in Tesla Motors' high end Model S. The electric-car maker released its Autopilot feature last fall, prompting some Model S owners to entrust more of the driving to the robot than Tesla recommends while the system is still in testing mode. For instance, some drivers have posted pictures of themselves reading a newspaper or book with the Model S on Autopilot, or even sitting in the back seat.

In May, an Ohio man was killed when a Model S in Autopilot mode crashed into the side of a tractor-trailer while traveling 9 mph above the speed limit on a highway near Gainesville, Florida. Federal investigators are looking into the cause.

Highly publicized incidents like that may make it more difficult to persuade older drivers to trust the technology coming to their cars.

Older drivers also will need help understanding its benefits and how to use it, says Dale Rife, senior adviser to AARP. To help, AARP is planning to put more focus on car technology in its 37-year-old driver safety programs.

"This evolution is going to accelerate in the next few years," Rife predicts, "but people fear what they don't understand. And if they don't understand it, they will just avoid it."
SIOUX CITY | Marvis Hendrickson laughs when asked to recall a question that may have stumped her while conducting tours and informational programs at the cabin of Theophile Bruguier in Riverside Park, on Sioux City's western edge.

The log cabin was built in 1849, five years before Sioux City was incorporated, making it Sioux City's oldest structure on record. It was discovered in 1933 by workmen reclaiming wood from old homes. After learning it belonged to Bruguier, who came to Siouxland to settle as early as 1847, officials had the structure moved to its present location in 1934.

Hendrickson and people like Jackie Warnstadt, both members of the Girls of '68, work to preserve the history of this cabin while telling the story of Bruguier, a French fur trader from Canada who befriended Chief War Eagle and eventually married two of War Eagle's daughters.

The question Hendrickson gets: "Do you live here?"

While the answer is a "No," one gets the idea Hendrickson likely could envision herself in this cabin long, long ago, about the time settlers moved west and made this trapping and emerging industrial center their home base.

"Can't you just see Bruguier and War Eagle sitting together right here?" Hendrickson asked. "This is where our history took place."

Bruguier's cabin contains photos of himself, as well as others, including Dr. John Cook, who is credited with surveying Sioux City for the U.S. government before platting the town. Cook also gave Sioux City its name 152 years ago.

Bruguier was the first white settler on this land. The Canadian trained as a lawyer, but left the trade after the death of his bride-to-be. Rather than practice law, he immersed himself in the trapping industry for the American Fur Company.

He eventually bought furs from the Sioux Indians and sold them to small fur companies. While in this line of work, Bruguier became friends with Chief War Eagle, of the Yankton Sioux.

According to Warnstadt and Hendrickson, War Eagle was never a chief. He did come with 40 followers to settle this area, but he was never formally recognized as a chief by the tribe. "His name was Little Eagle," Hendrickson said.

The Girls of '68 help maintain and preserve the stories and history surrounding this cabin and the lives of War Eagle and Bruguier. The group opens the cabin to the public from 2 to 4 p.m. on the second Sunday of each month, from May through October. This site is also a popular draw for some 1,500 Sioux City fourth-graders each year.

"They come here as part of their Iowa history project," said Warnstadt, a retired teacher who, in 2006, earned the Iowa Teacher of the Year award. She was Sioux City Teacher of the Year in 2005.

The Girls of '68 reportedly evolved from a birthday club formed in the 1890s. That, or the group arose as its members were all wed to men who formed the Boys of '68 group at that time. The name may have had something to do with a 50-year Sioux City residential requirement asked of members long ago. Members are now asked to be a Sioux City resident for at least five years before joining.

"We had a membership of more than 1,000 women at one time," Hendrickson said, noting the group now consists of 51 members.

The Girls of '68 worked more than a decade ago to renovate this historic cabin, which is modeled after a French style of tongue-and-groove architecture. The $30,000 effort helped protect the building from the elements, a necessity when considering the structure has met and withstood nearly 170 winters.

Bruguier's home isn't the only Sioux City attraction to which he is attached. He was initially buried at St. Joseph Cemetery in Salix, Iowa, after his death in 1896. But, in 1926, the Junior Pioneers deemed that he should be buried with his Indian wives, Flaming Cloud and Dawn, and their children.

After reaching an agreement with family members, the city and officials within the Sioux City Catholic Diocese, had his body disinterred, as well as that of his third wife, Victoria Turnott, and brought to the bluff overlooking the Missouri River on Sioux City's west side.

It is there, at War Eagle Bluff, that Bruguier found a final resting place, along with his first two wives and two infants.

"Bruguier had his children speak French to him, native language to their mother and English to their doctor," Warnstadt said.
AUGUST





1 - Kelli Newman, Laura Cheek, Jordan Bell, Jason Karten

2  Ashley Bravin, Margaux Cowden, Fred Smith, Teresa Osso

3  Disney Samutsakorn, Samantha Harder, Heather Levinson, Steve Wasserman, Cory Holtzman

4  David Trigger Ortiz, Kyle Burdges

5  Elizabeth Zimmerman Calderwood, Robert Nero, Chris Michael, Amy Rice, Sean Dunn

6  Joe Tomola, Jeff Greenwood,

7  Bodio-Jodi Hews Shultz, Michelle Charalambopoulos, Xinyan Zhang

8 - Jennie Wilson

9  Cassie Winters

10 - Wally Newman, Miguel Garcia, Lisa Marie Bauman, Tim Emery, Victoria Lobanov,

11  Laura Windell

12 - Josh Hammock, Javier Navarro, Laura Konowalski, Leah Frances Turano

13  Madi Swayne, Elle Michelle, Alannah Blanco

14  Nancy-Jo Webster White, Georgio Mahmood, Fia Fasbinder

15 - Joe Schmal, Kat Latona

16  Oliver Putnam, Charee Wagner, Brian Gardner, Jake Dieringer

17  Julie Kelley, Margo Cramer, Gene Shabinaw, Warunee Ngennak

18  Aaron Spiwak, Emily Joyce Phillips, Stacey Cambers

19 - Stephanie Olsen, Shelby Moran

20 - Brenda Bennett, Samantha Tang, Neil Reinhold, Richard Berentsen, Christina Rico Ricafort

21 - Jill Rudberg, Anders Strand, Melinda Bracken-Hof, Kayla Babb

22  Josh Schulman, Alberto Izarraraz, Cybele Parsignault

23  Eden Allegra Young

24  Keith Andreen

25  Serena Wong, Audrey Frenzel, Ashley Poole, Austin T-Rex Divine, Alex Campbell

27  Rose Angulo, Dave ONeill, Mary Jean Bustard

28  Tony (I-thought-you-said-pickets) Arlyn, Corky Cronin, Jasmin Newberry

29  Charlie Silveria

30 - Beth Beltramo

31  Debra Simons, Maggie Harris, Beth Lee, Zac Araneta, Kristen Casalenuovo









(if you'd like to be included in this list, email me - skip@skiptucker.com)
When Lifesize, an HD video collaboration platform, was spun-out from computer peripheral maker Logitech, it had to make a massive shift of its product offering to a subscription-based cloud service. Which also meant they needed to make a massive shift to becoming a company highly aligned with rapidly changing customer needs and expectations, or else risk losing them almost as fast as theyre able to bring them on.

Amy Downs, Chief Customer Success and Happiness Officer Lifesize, shares with us how the key to the companys transformation to a subscription business model was changing the corporate culture to be customer-first. And how that change raised their net promoter score (NPS) from negative four to over seventy, increased customer retention rates, and created a customer support team that finally understood their value to the business.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: Before we jump in there maybe you can give us a little of your personal background.

Amy Downs: Absolutely. Ive been in the tech space for many years. I started as a coding software as a software engineer early in my career and realized very quickly that I missed working with people and customers and so over time Ive just really enjoyed creating experiences and working with them with employees happy employees  happy customers and so on. So really have spent the last few years of my career focused in on both. Both growing startups and also this SAP what weve done here at Lifesize which is really a bit of a turnaround. And so  really helping companies to understand the importance that customer obsession has to add to the overall bottom line.

Small Business Trends: So tell us about what you guys do over at Lifesize?

Amy Downs: We were the very first creators of HD video conferencing many moons ago. We started as a hardware company and we were acquired. Craig Malloys our CEO and started a company manufacturing amazing video conferencing end points and we were acquired by Logitech in 2009 for about $405 million. Then in 2012 the market really started to shift. The on-premises infrastructure videoconferencing market was really declining and at the same time with consumer apps like Facebook and Skype people started to get used to this concept of talking with each other on video. So we noticed a shift in the market where B2B video conferencing was just taking off like crazy and we had to make a decision. Either we rode that trend line down by staying with our on premises solution or we made the shift and take our on premises solution and put that in the cloud and thats what we did. So we did a complete overhaul of our product offering to a cloud based service.

We completely changed the entire structure of the organization and we knew as a cloud service provider that its so easy for customers in a cloud based world to just switch and Lifesize didnt have a huge focus on customers.

Small Business Trends: Why did they bring you in as Chief Customer Success and Happiness Officer?

Amy Downs: We were a manufacturer of hardware devices in a three tier distribution model so we were very far separated from customers and so we really needed to bring in  what I call slow customer service DNA into the company. And Craig Malloy knew that. So I joined Lifesize back in May of 2014 because like you said there was a little bit of a challenge when it came to customer service.

Small Business Trends: What exactly was the main challenge?

Amy Downs: When we rolled out our on premises infrastructure solution I remember interviewing with Craig and he said we had a few product problems but nothing you cant solve. And were also making this shift to a cloud based solution. And he says we really need a full focus on customer obsession.

Im a huge believer that customer services does not just sit with customer support. It is a company based initiative. And so  we needed a culture of customer obsession in order to win in this market. And the reason I joined was because he understood the link between a very strong culture and being able to create customers for life.

One of the first things I asked was do we get feedback from our customers, do we have any voice of the customer program here at Lifesize. They said we actually sent out the support surveys. I said, what do we do with them, and they were like, oh really nothing.

So I remember looking through all the surveys and I was like, oh boy. What it really told me was that there were three pillars I think to really fixing any problem, you know. It all starts with the people and usually those folks just need to know a direction; whats important. They need to know how the work they do connects with the customer, and how important that is to our business. And then they really need processes and systems to be successful.

And so really there were just a couple of what I would say simple things that we did. I needed everyone at Lifesize to know that Craig was like behind us right. That this was what we were building and the changing of our culture was a CEO driven initiative. And I had his full sponsorship and so we educated the entire company.

We brought in net promoter and we educated everybody on the importance of our customers. During our first town hall I asked who pays our paychecks. We got all these different answers from our employees, and no one said our customers. And I said, no, thats who pays our paychecks. That is who is putting food on our table and thats who allows us to drive, you know, good cars and have  homes  and go do fun things and so, you know, I said, its our jobs and our commitment back to that community and back to our customers.

To do the right thing by them, and every single person at Lifesize plays a role in that. And so we started to put our net promoter program in place and gather that feedback. One of the challenge areas as I mentioned was our customer support department. So we made some really minor adjustments.

We put a couple of tools in place that helped that team to see when help tickets were coming in and how they were aging. We basically educated them on the philosophy and vision for what we wanted customer obsession to look like and ultimately really just built that team up. I would say they were shoved off in a corner and really very disconnected from the business. So my job was really to help them to understand how important they were and what a critical role they played in the success of our company and give them a couple of tools that they needed to be really successful.

And so we actually were recognized by winning a gold Stevie award for customer service team of the year for making the transformation. When we started as I mentioned our net promoter score was a negative four and today it is over 70.

If you set that vision and give the systems and processes they need to be successful  and just believe in them and let them know that theyre making a difference  thats all it takes. Thats really it. That was the biggest piece of what we did.

Small Business Trends: What kind of impact has the rise in NPS had on retention rates or even revenue?

Amy Downs: We launched our cloud service as I mentioned really in late May of 2014. We are approaching 4,000 new customers. Our retention rates are fantastic. We actually measure customers on all sorts of factors and industry benchmarks on churn and ultimately what we call net positive ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue). And a lot of that again is just changing the culture of our company, not just with the customer support team but with the entire company. And bringing that voice of the customer program so that we continually drive change over time.

That change has helped us with reference customers. We see that 50 percent of the customers we ask to be references on our net promoter surveys say they are absolutely willing to be a reference and do case studies. So  lots of advocates and promoters out there and we actually are approaching 350 percent growth in all of our individual registered users making calls on the system, and 204 percent growth in our minutes call volumes year over year.

Small Business Trends: It sounds like as the business model has changed to being a cloud based subscription, the service model has become central to the overall business model.

Amy Downs: Its such an important point because it is critical that its done in advance. Ive been in this space for almost 10 years now and what Ive noticed is I dont think companies realize that until theyre in year two or three and they start to have a churn problem; and theyre like, oh, my gosh, we have to go address the three things to build a great customer service team or we need to add a customer success function and we need to build out the journey.

And so its a super point because if you start with the end in mind you have to build a great experience that should be part of the product offering. And I think if companies think that way and really put a focus on how do we deliver great value and great service. And how do we promote that to our customers.

And ultimately from a customer standpoint if theyre making an investment in a product they want to know that  not only does that product serve their needs but how are you going to ensure that they are getting the value for the money that they spent and that youre going to take care of them. And continually are providing information on new updates, new features, new things that we think will help our customers reach the goals they had when they first bought, or may provide them with additional value down the road that they werent even thinking of.

This is part of the One-on-One Interview series with thought leaders. The transcript has been edited for publication. If it's an audio or video interview, click on the embedded player above, or subscribe via iTunes or via Stitcher.
Dont Google Amy Schumer. If you do, theres a good chance you could find a site that would expose your computer to malware.

Thats right, online thieves and cyber criminals use popular celebrities like Schumer to target online users and lure them onto malicious websites. Schumer is just one of many celebrities named in a report by McAfee whose search results garner a high percentage of malicious websites. Others include Justin Bieber, Will Smith, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and more.

Each year McAfee puts out its Most Dangerous Celebrities Report. You can see the 2018 Dangerous Celebrities list here.

Beware Malicious Websites That Wear Celebrity Masks

And while you might not find yourself doing a lot of research on Amy Schumer or Justin Bieber for business purposes, its still important that you understand the threats that are out there targeting businesses and consumers online. Malware and other online threats are everywhere. And sometimes theyre disguised as seemingly normal websites that are just targeted at peoples popular interests.

Cybersecurity is so important for businesses that want to protect important data and documents. The right software helps to constantly monitor the threats to your business and take measures to protect your company. After all, the last thing you want is to have your system infected with malware because you were looking up Amy Schumer or Justin Bieber on a work computer.
Poverty  September 30, 2016  John Clarke

I recently had the enormous honour of representing the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) at a week of action and international conference, organized from September 4-10 by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) in the UK. This was another step in building a close working relationship between our two organizations. It was also fascinating and inspiring to see disabled people, not merely participating in the struggle against austerity but actually giving a powerful and decisive lead to the entire movement.

Since 2010, governments in the UK have moved into a cutting edge role in the implementation of the agenda of austerity. Central to this has been a drive to degrade and undermine income support systems so as to generate a climate of desperation and to force people into low paid, precarious work. A notorious system of benefit sanctions has ensured that those forced to seek assistance live in a state of ongoing uncertainty, under constant threat of suspension or outright cut off.

However, a striking feature of the austerity attack in the UK has been an extraordinary and brazen readiness to attack disabled people living in poverty. When the whole edifice of English Poor Law provision was put in place, there was an assumption that those seeking assistance could be divided into the more and the less morally worthy, the deserving and the undeserving poor. Able bodied and employable people were considered highly suspect and subject to outright abandonment, whereas those who could not be so readily assumed to be the architects of their own misfortune, particularly disabled people, might expect somewhat fewer conditions and scrutiny to be attached to the pittance they were provided. The austerity agenda of the 21st Century, however, has no patience with such sentimentality. Its considered essential that disability, even of the severest kind, should exempt no one from the scramble for the lowest paid and most exploitative jobs.

Challenge and Resist Massive Injustice

First implemented, shamefully, by a Labour Government, the infamous Work Capability Assessment (WCA) was toughened by the Tory led Coalition in 2010 and its implementation handed over to private companies. First, at the hands of the hated Atos and, then, the U.S. based Maximus, sick and disabled people have been subjected to a regime of degrading scrutiny and lethal abandonment that has been shocking beyond description. DPAC has played a truly inspiring role in acting to challenge and resist this profound and massive injustice.

This extreme concern to ensure that almost no one be considered unable to participate in the scramble to find employment, has huge implications in terms of the international implementation of austerity. Certainly, Ontario has been impacted by this approach to public policy. Here, the institution that has gone the furthest in this regard is the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) as it oversees the persecution and impoverishment of injured workers. The WSIB displays willful disregard for medical evidence and an obsessive readiness to deem workers capable of performing work they have no realistic hope of obtaining or being able to perform.

Those disabled people who must rely on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), are facing a regime that is focused on blocking and restricting eligibility to the greatest degree possible. The same determined drive to insist that virtually everyone is ready for work in some theoretical form is a central consideration. While a major redesign of ODSP appears to delayed due to yet another round of social assistance review and consultation by the Ontario Government, the previous Brighter Prospects report that the Liberals commissioned makes clear that the concept of somewhat secure disability benefits is incompatible with the prevailing political agenda.

The DPAC week of action was of importance, not only because we in Ontario face the same kind of attacks, but because the model of resistance that has been created by an organization of disabled people in the UK holds lessons for all of us. The recent upsurge of support around the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party notwithstanding, it would be impossible to deny that a sweeping movement of resistance to austerity in that country is yet to emerge. As real wages have declined on a scale comparable to that of Greece, strike activity is at historic lows. Social movement struggles continue but the needed critical mass of social resistance is yet to be set in motion. The Tory architects of social regression probably thought that disabled people would be among the least combative of their victims but this proved to be a serious miscalculation. The week of action that I had the privilege to play a role in drove this home to me very powerfully.

Throughout the week of September 4, a range of actions unfolded in a whole number of towns and cities. I was able to participate in several of the actions. Without doubt the most inspiring and important was held on September 7. DPAC members and supporters marched to the Houses of Parliament and blocked Westminster Bridge, bringing traffic to a halt. It took the police a couple of hours to clear scores of disabled people, many of them in wheelchairs, from the bridge. A few arrests occurred but the calm determination of people who were fighting back against lethal benefit cuts was unbeatable. It was easy to see why DPACs readiness to defy those responsible for these attacks has been so profoundly inspiring to the entire movement against austerity in the UK.

On the Saturday, the week culminated in a one day conference, devoted to the theme of Disabled Peoples Resistance: Building Beyond Borders. Presentations were made by people from Ireland, Greece, Bulgaria, Germany and I was able to report on the struggles underway in Ontario. Emancipation Movement of People with Disabilities: Zero Tolerance presented a video on an occupation they had carried out at a centre for disabled children in Lechaina, Greece. They were challenging the rampant neglect and abuse of children in these centres face, some of them strapped to their beds for every hour of the day and night. They are demanding the Syriza led Government deal with this appalling mistreatment at such places and several international solidarity actions will be taken to assist their struggle, including here in Toronto.

Coming out of the week of action and conference has been a renewed commitment to developing much more dynamic forms of international solidarity. We discussed ways to act together in support of our different struggles and to deepen our understanding of the attacks we face and the lessons that can be drawn from the forms of resistance we take up. Seeing the abuses faced by the disabled in austerity wracked Greece, this disgraceful removal of social provision in the UK or the failure to provide shelter from the elements for the homeless in Toronto, its clear that the agenda thrown against us is becoming ever more reckless and harmful. The lead that DPAC has given in this regard is a lesson to movements against austerity everywhere and opens up huge possibilities for the struggles that lie ahead. 
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WASHINGTON

(Sept. 29, 2016)The U.S. Department of Defense today announced the following contract awards that pertain to local Navy activities., is being awarded afirm-fixed-price contract for the procurement of seven full-rate production Lot 10 GQM-163A Coyote Supersonic Sea Skimming Target base vehicles for the Navy (5) and the government of Japan (2), including spares and long lead steel. Work will be performed in Chandler, Arizona (71 percent); Camden, Arkansas (24 percent); Vergennes, Vermont (3 percent); and Hollister, California (2 percent), and is expected to be completed in June 2019. Fiscal 2016 weapons procurement (Navy); and foreign military sales funds in the amount of $28,712,100 are being obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. This contract combines purchases for the Navy ($21,375,357; 75 percent); and the government of Japan ($7,336,743; 25 percent) under the Foreign Military Sales program. The, is the contracting activity (N00019-16-C-0080)., is being awarded afirm-fixed-price supply contract for the fiscal 2016 production of the MK 38 MOD 3 Machine Gun System (MGS). This contract is to fulfill specified requirements and technical performance requirements for the MK38 MOD3 25mm Machine Gun System ordnance alteration and provide additional spare parts. The MGS produced is derived from application of an ordnance alteration to the MK 38 MOD 1 25mm MGS. Once installed, version incorporates two-axis stabilization, an improved Electro-Optical Sight System, improved Multi-Function Display, modified Main Control Panel, a new Main Computing Unit, a 7.62mm machine gun and remote control operation. This contract combines purchases for the Navy (84 percent); and the governments of the Philippines (8 percent); and Jordan (8 percent) under the Foreign Military Sales program. Work will be performed Hafia, Israel (67 percent); and Louisville, Kentucky (33 percent), and is expected to be completed by May 2018. Fiscal 2016 weapons procurement (Navy); foreign military sales; and fiscal 2015 weapons procurement (Coast Guard) funding in the amount of $25,427,512 will be obligated at the time of award. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1(a)(2) - only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. The, is the contracting activity (N00174-16-C-0053)., is being awardedfor modification P00003 under a previously awarded fixed-price-incentive-firm contract (N00019-16-C-0004) for procurement of three full mission simulators for the Air Force in support of F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. Work will be performed in Orlando, Florida (98 percent); and Fort Worth, Texas (2 percent), and is expected to be completed March 2020. Fiscal 2014 aircraft procurement (Air Force) funding in the amount of $24,378,036 is being obligated at time of award, all of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is being awarded amodification to a previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N00019-15-D-0033) for the manufacture of up to four T56-A-427A spare engines; up to four power section modules; and up to three reduction gear box modules for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft. Work will be performed in Indianapolis, Indiana, and is expected to be completed in September 2017. Fiscal 2016 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $22,816,577 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is being awarded a not-to-exceedfor modification P00009 to a previously awarded cost-plus-incentive-fee, fixed-price-incentive-fee contract (N00019-15-C-0004). This modification provides for the procurement of one low-rate initial production Lot 10 F-135-PW-600 engine in support of the Marine Corps F-35B Lightening II Short Take-off and Vertical Landing aircraft to facilitate engine testing under the Component Improvement Program. Work will be performed in East Hartford, Connecticut (76 percent); and Indianapolis, Indiana (24 percent), and is expected to be complete in February 2018. Fiscal 2016 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $14,884,614 will be obligated at the time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is being awarded a not-to-exceedmodification to delivery order 0031 previously placed against basic ordering agreement N00019-14-G-0020. This modification provides for deployable spares packages in support of the low-rate initial production Lot 9 F-35B aircraft for the Marine Corps. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas (24.4 percent); El Segundo, California (9 percent); Owego, New York (8.6 percent); Samlesbury, United Kingdom (7.2 percent); Cheltenham, United Kingdom (6.2 percent); Nashua, New Hampshire (5.8 percent); Torrance, California (5.5 percent); Orlando, Florida (4.9 percent); Cedar Rapids, Iowa (3.7 percent); San Diego, California (3.6 percent); Phoenix, Arizona (3.1 percent); Melbourne, Florida (3 percent); Irvine, California (2.5 percent); North Amityville, New York (2.4 percent); Windsor Locks, Connecticut (2.2 percent); Baltimore, Maryland (2.2 percent); Papendrect, Netherlands (1.9 percent); Rolling Meadows, Illinois (1.8 percent); and Alpharetta, Georgia (1.8 percent), and is expected to be completed in July 2020. Fiscal 2016 aircraft procurement (Navy/Marine Corps) funds in the amount of $16,497,297 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity., is being awarded afirm-fixed-price modification to a previously awarded indefinite-delivery requirements contract (N00019-11-D-0010) for aircraft maintenance and logistical life cycle support for 49 C-12 aircraft. Work will be performed in Corpus Christi, Texas (42 percent); Patuxent River, Maryland (6 percent); Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (6 percent); Manama, Bahrain (6 percent); Atsugi, Japan (6 percent); Beaufort, South Carolina (4 percent); San Angelo, Texas (4 percent); Yuma, Arizona (4 percent); New Orleans, Louisiana (4 percent); Iwakuni, Japan (4 percent); New River, North Carolina (3 percent); Kadena, Japan (3 percent); Manassas, Virginia (2 percent); Miramar, California (2 percent); Futenma, Japan (2 percent); and Misawa, Japan, and is expected to be completed in December 2016. Funds will not be obligated at time of award; funds will be obligated on individual delivery orders as they are issued. The, is the contracting activity., is being awarded anmodification under a previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N40080-11-D-3020) for the exercise of option one for base operations support at the Naval Air Station, Patuxent River. The work to be performed provides for all management supervision, labor hours, training, equipment and supplies necessary to perform base operating services to include but not limited to providing janitorial services, grounds maintenance services, base support vehicles and equipment, street sweeping/snow removal services, and pest control services. After award of this option, the total cumulative contract value will be $58,826,992. Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Maryland, and work for this option period is expected to be completed September 2017. No funds will be obligated at time of award. Fiscal 2017 operation and maintenance (Navy); and fiscal 2017 Navy working capital contract funds in the amount of $10,492,022 for recurring work will be obligated on individual task orders issued during the option period. The, is the contracting activity., is being awardedfor firm-fixed-price delivery order 0069 against a previously issued basic ordering agreement (N00019-12-G-0008) to procure launch and recovery equipment, spares, support equipment, and support services for the ScanEagle unmanned aircraft system operations for the government of Tunisia Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Services Program. Work will be performed in Bizerte, Tunisia (50 percent); and Bingen, Washington (40 percent); and Beja, Tunisia (10 percent), and is expected to be completed in September 2017. Fiscal 2016 operations and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $9,802,042 are being obligated at time of award, all of which will expire at the end of the fiscal year. The, is the contracting activity.
CRD Handshake: Rebecca Pearson, career and technology education specialist for CCPS, right, demonstrates the power of a firm handshake with Westlake High School junior Markayla Conner. Pearson shared with students tips on proper business etiquette at the school system's kickoff Tuesday for the Career and Research Development (CRD) program. The program provides enrolled juniors and seniors with work-based learning experiences.

LA PLATA, Md.

(Sept. 30, 2016)More than 100 Charles County Public high school juniors received a crash course in professionalism, interviewing skills and how to ask questions of prospective employers at a Career Research and Development (CRD) Program kickoff event held this week at La Plata High School. The CRD program is available in all Charles County high schools for juniors and seniors interested in exploring the business and career world before they graduate. Interested students enroll in the program during their junior year and learn essential skills necessary for success in landing, and keeping, a job.At Tuesday's kickoff event, Charles County Public Schools (CCPS) Deputy Superintendent Amy Hollstein welcomed students and talked about the importance of first impressions. "We want you to start the program on a positive note so you are ready to be successful this year. It's a wonderful way for you to meet people and remember to present yourself as a professional. You never know who you are going to meet in a couple of years that could open a door for you," Hollstein said.As juniors, CRD students complete their first work-based learning experience in the classroom by learning about resume building, completing a job search, proper interviewing skills and areas of interest in which they may want to work. CRD teachers also work with juniors to learn basic concepts of personal financial literacy and successful career planning, as well as help them create a portfolio to use during an interview.The work-based component of the CRD program is taken during a student's senior year and requires the student to work at least 10 hours per week. Teachers continue to work with seniors on career choices and job searches, preparing them for the workplace, problem resolution, building their portfolio and financial literacy.This year's regional kickoff was the first held for the CRD program with a goal of providing students new to the program with information about how the program works. But most importantly, how these students can best prepare themselves for their future endeavors. Guest speaker Keith Grasso, a CCPS graduate and owner of Island Music Company, a small business located in downtown La Plata, spoke to students about the importance of hard work and first impressions in the workplace.Grasso worked at a local music store during high school and said his experiences there, and relationships formed out of hard work and respect, helped him develop his passion to pursue a career that involved music.Also invited to address the group was Tiarra McIlwain, a 2016 Thomas Stone High School graduate who earned the CRD Student of the Year title earlier this year. In addition to being recognized for a strong work ethic and exceeding the expectations of her employer, McIlwain was honored for her interviewing skills and ability to dedicate herself to a commitment, such as a job, while balancing her studies.Annually, the CRD Student of the Year receives a $2,000 scholarship and McIlwain plans to use hers to enroll in a paramedic course to pursue her goal of becoming a paid paramedic. She credited her CRD experiences for leading her to the right path after graduation. "My portfolio helped me interview for the CRD award, with CCPS staff and local community members. What I learned in the CRD program helped me get this scholarship. My goal is to become a paid paramedic and this scholarship is helping me to pay for the course," McIlwain shared.Staff from the CCPS Career and Technology Education (CTE) office provided an interactive presentation for the students in which they talked about dressing for the job you want, do's and don'ts for looking and being professional in the workplace and how to best prepare for a job interview. Traci Chappelear, CTE coordinator for the school system, stressed to the group the importance of working with their teachers to research job possibilities and finding employment."Work with your teachers to find a job. They are here to help you and prepare you for life after high school. Next year, there will be three of you in this room that will get a scholarship through the Student of the Year program," Chappelear said.This school year, there are more than 225 students enrolled in the CRD program. The program was formerly known as the Cooperative Education Program, and provides a bridge from school to work, classroom instruction, work experience and on-the-job training related to a student's career goals.The Cooperative Education Program was launched in 1971 at La Plata and Henry E. Lackey high schools, expanded to Thomas Stone High School in 1972 and then to Maurice J. McDonough High School in 1979. Westlake High School started offering the program in 1998. North Point launched the program in 2009 with its first senior class, and St. Charles High School added the program last school year. Students interested in the program can contact the CRD coordinator at their school.
From every wound there is a scar, and every scar tells a story. A story that says, I survived.

- Unknown



The whole week seemed a lot more picturesque before it happened.

I had envisioned our meeting would be captured on camera as a teary facade for all of YouTube to fawn over. Instead, my shaking hands must have hit record twice  possibly four  times as I stumbled around the airport, frantically searching for a face I hadnt seen in four years.

As I stood at the Fort Lauderdale airport on the two-year anniversary since I had started testosterone injections, I was sincerely afraid that my own mother might not recognize me.

It was the day before my approaching surgery, and my mother would be meeting her son for the first time.

At this point I should really back up for a moment and point out that any sort of sex reassignment surgery isnt necessary, nor is it for everyone. If I chose not to get surgery, I would still be Brendon. However, self-doubt had rocked me from the chest down since puberty, and once I found out top surgery (the masculinization of my chest area) was an option, it became the only option.

After living a barebones lifestyle for over a year, I had finally saved enough to pay for my surgery.

Like many, my insurance wouldnt cover this surgery. To say Im one of the lucky ones for making it this far is putting it lightly, as the self-harm statistics against trans people who are held back from transitioning are nothing short of horrific. I have nothing to thank but chance itself in many regards that I somehow had the strength to continue.

Yet in this moment, all I could think about was introducing myself as Brendon for the first time to my own mother, who had made the expensive journey from North Dakota to be my personal caretaker during my first week of recovery.

Im grateful that I had my mothers full support after I came out and that she too managed to save up enough for her first trip to our sunny shores. However, the Broward transgender community is also fortunate to have the incredible New Beginnings Retreat, which is a recovery center specifically run for post-operative transgender patients in recovery.

Had a snowstorm struck the Midwest and cancelled all seven flights out of Fargo, I would have had to make a last minute arrangement with the loving team at New Beginnings, and I was thankful to still have that option in case my mother became permanently lost in the tides of people at Terminal C.

Thankfully, luck was on my side.

By the time I found her, we managed to take one or two selfies focused blurrily at the ceiling before I began to rush her eagerly to my car.

There was no doubt she was glad to see me, but both of us were too overwhelmed to show it much. We still had to stop for groceries that would have to last us a week before we could check in with our Airbnb hostess.

Everything was a blur.

Somehow despite all the chaos, my mother had not only made it to Florida, but we both somehow made it to my appointment at noon the next morning.

Like mother, like son.

Im off to see the Wizard.

It had all started with a free consultation at Take Shape Plastic Surgery.

Dr. Russell Sassani, certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgeons, graduated with Highest Honors at Rutgers University, where he began his specialized training in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

As an open member of the gay community himself and an advocate for transgender rights, Dr. Sassani was the recipient of the Trans Equality Award in 2014, presented by the Pride Center in Fort Lauderdale.

The award sits in a glass case in his waiting room, where all his patients are welcome to view it.

Just recently, Dr. Sassani welcomed Jazz Jennings for a consultation at his practice, a moment that was filmed for Jennings popular television show on TLC. On it, he stated that about a third of his patients now consisted of transgender patients in search of greater authenticity.

By the time my mother and I arrived, we were long past that original consultation phase. I had already talked with Dr. Sassani about my options, paid a grueling sum that was the result of my life being on hold for a year, and successfully weaned myself off of nicotine.

All that was left was the surgery itself.

Rather than enjoy the comfort of the waiting room with its glistening awards like I had in my previous consultations, my mother and I were taken through a well-protected back door the moment I arrived.

Inside the surgery center, we were greeted by a gleeful Wizard of Oz theme. All the nervousness that had been carving itself prematurely through my chest was washed away.

For a brief moment, it felt more like a trip to a spa than to a surgeons office.

The Nurse Manager Tammy was nothing short of a delight, making sure that my mother and I had a few genuine laughs and selfies. Dr. Sassani sat with me himself as I described my ideal end results and he carefully traced the incisions on my chest to suit my ideal aesthetic, something that not all surgeons are willing to do. I was given one last consent form to sign, which I scribbled on as if it were the iTunes Terms and Conditions.

Before I knew it, I was being guided towards a door in my white button-up with an I.V. dangling sharply from one wrist.

Next to the entrance was a little sign that caught my eye moments before the surgery table itself was revealed through the open doorway.

Im off to see the Wizard.

The first ever (properly focused) photo that my mom, Jennifer Lies, and I took together as mother and son.

This surgery isnt going to make you a man.

Going back several months before my surgery, my mother had a fine piece of advice for me during one of our many long phone calls.

This surgery isnt going to make you a man.

It would have been easy to mistake that as transphobia, but I know my mother, and she knows me.

I know Im already a man, I had replied sharply. Im doing this to feel more comfortable with myself, but it doesnt change anything.

That was exactly the answer she had been looking for.

Nonetheless, as I finally lay there after the surgery while slowly allowing the anesthesia to release its foggy grip, I was still surprised by how little I felt had changed.

The only real difference at that moment was a vague feeling of helplessness settling in. Up until this day, I had worn a binder to manually flatten my chest, which in itself was terribly uncomfortable. The only thing that felt different was a pair of drainage tubes now lodged into the flesh of my arms, woven securely through a compression top that would help keep my bandages firm.

The surgery itself had gone wonderfully, Dr. Sassani comforted.

Deep in the comfort of a very expensive nap, I had undergone a double incision  a bilateral masectomy with trimmed nipples and areolas grafted onto a more masculine location. Two temporary drainage tubes were woven through my chest, which would need my mothers somewhat-careful touch to monitor.

In some ways I had finally made it, but the finish line was still a long way off.

At the time, I attributed my lack of utter euphoria to the drugs left in my system. Still, the knowledge of this checkpoint in my life was enough to usher me onto my feet and even say a few sweet compliments to the nurses which I know my mother disapproved of.

That part Ill always blame on the anesthesia.

Hours after surgery.

I felt my first glimpse of real fear.

While I hardly remember the first few hours once we arrived back at our cozy air bnb studio, I was soon bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with restlessness that lasted for the first few days. Never in my bright mind did I think the adrenaline that had gotten me this far in life might be betraying my own healing process.

This was my mistake.

That weekend, less than 40 hours after surgery, I had a sudden increase in bleeding. To top it off, the moment I sat up from a nap and noticed deep red drains, my head began to spin and I could barely move.

Within minutes, my mother was on her phone, frantically explaining the situation to Dr. Sassani who was currently tucked in the comfort of his home. The doctors orders were to get me to his office, where he would meet us as soon as possible. My mother was reassured that I would be fine, and that the worst case scenario would only involve me going back into surgery until they stopped the bleeding.

I had the entire Uber ride to bite back nausea and think about my life up to this point. Everything felt immobile, and my thoughts felt less clear.

For possibly the first time in my young life, I felt my first glimpse of real fear.

However, unlike so many incredible souls before me who had suffered far worse fates, there was no regret. As I stared at the nauseating sight of cars zipping by, I didnt for a moment wish my life were any different.

This surgery was the birth of two scars, but the healing of many others.

I let this thought sink into my mind as Dr. Sassani and the Nurse Assistant Rosie led us inside through the Surgery Center, which was normally inoperative during weekends. Im grateful to say that despite the potential urgency of the situation, everyone was incredibly calm and patient with my frightened mother, which for once I couldnt be.

In order to check the bleeding, the doctor opted to remove all bandages much earlier than usual, only to reveal good news all was well, it was just a false alarm. Likely a result of me overstraining myself. In fact, I was told my healing up to this point looked miraculous.

I did, however, receive a firm wave of a finger from Dr. Sassani.

Moments before I was about to be rebandaged, Rosie was kind enough to break tradition of the full-mirror reveal and give me a small glimpse of my chest in a hand mirror so I could see for myself that all was well. Usually, the grand reveal is like a ceremony; the patient is slowly undressed after a full week of healing, and as the bandages come off for the first time, they turn to face a mirror and stare at their own reflection for the first time.

For me, though, this tiny glimpse was proof that it was over, as though I was afraid the bandages would come off and I would be stuck with the same awkward lumps.

In that tiny smudged reflection, I could see I was beautiful.

I was me.

For the rest of the week, I treated my recovery with new light. No longer did I pace back and forth recklessly, cleaning up the hotel room or even trying to cook. I finally allowed my mother to watch over me, which still proved to be much different and even a bit more frustrating than I remembered from the days before I left for college.

Yet somehow, we made it.

After a very quiet but anxious week, it was almost time for my proper reveal.

In the two years since I had come out, I had met countless trans people like myself, and many of them had shared their own journeys with me. What I learned is that everyone who opts for surgery reacts differently for their own reason. I witnessed several friends grieve with tears of loss after spending years trying to normalize their bodies, while I had seen others spare not an ounce of joy.

Keeping this in mind, I had spent the rest of the week telling myself that, whether or not my chest would look nearly as good as the foggy glimpse I had gotten did, I wouldnt force myself to feel joy. That, if some piece of myself felt like it was missing simply from years of its awkward presence, I wouldnt stop myself from mourning or even feeling anger.

This reveal would be about my own authenticity, nothing else.

The removal of the bandages was much more complicated the second time, as it also involved removing the drains  easily the most painful moment of my entire recovery, although this is different for everyone. The stitches also had to come out, so at one point I had a nurse on each side with Dr. Sassani himself standing over my face, all of whom were thirty meters too close to me considering I hadnt been allowed to shower properly for a full week.

Once the last stitch was snaked away from my chest (or it might have been a very thick hair, Ill never really know), I was guided towards the mirror even as the room filled with staff members from throughout the building who were eager to see my face light up.

As I stepped in front of the mirror, I sure smiled. But I kept my promise, and allowed myself a few moments to pinpont what I really felt inside.

It took several breaths for it to sink in relief.

There was a literal burden that had been lifted from my chest.

Im worth more than the scars that run skin deep.

Its been almost five months. No longer do I have to contort into a pressurized vest every morning in a crude and often painful attempt to flatten my chest, nor do I have to hesitate when other men around me begin to whip their shirts off. Sure, I definitely havent earned a six-pack, and even now I could use a few healthy days in the sun to gain some color.

And sure, if you catch me shirtless while walking my dog along the sidewalk in a quiet little neighborhood of Fort Lauderdale, youll notice two scars that will take several more years before they begin to fade away.

But Im worth more than the scars that run skin deep.
Voters on Nov. 8 will decide ballot measures in nine states that would expand legal access to marijuana. Here's a rundown:

RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA

In five states, the ballot measures propose to legalize recreational marijuana use for anyone 21 and over.

ARIZONA: Proposition 205 would allow adults to buy and possess up to an ounce of marijuana and grow up to six plants at home. The initiative would establish a new department that would regulate pot like alcohol and impose a 15 percent tax on pot sales that would benefit municipalities, schools and the state health department. Many business groups and the Republican-led government, including Gov. Doug Ducey, oppose the measure. Two recent polls were at odds _ one predicting the measure would prevail, the other forecasting its defeat.

CALIFORNIA: Proposition 64 would allow adults to possess up to an ounce of pot and grow six marijuana plants at home and levy various taxes on sales that would be deposited into the state's Marijuana Tax Fund. Most of the money collected will be spent on substance-abuse education and treatment. Some of the fund would be used to repair damage done to the environment by illegal marijuana growers. Recent polls show support for the measure at about 58 to 60 percent.

MAINE: Maine's ballot measure would allow possession of up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana, as well as the cultivation of up to six marijuana plants. It would place a sales tax of 10 percent on retail marijuana. There's been opposition to the measure from many people in the medical marijuana community, including local growers who feel they will be squeezed out of the market by corporate operations if the state goes fully legal. Polls indicate a close outcome, with the pro-marijuana side apparently holding a slight lead.

MASSACHUSETTS: Question 4 would legalize possession of up to an ounce of recreational marijuana and allow for home-growing of a limited number of plants. Sales of marijuana products would be subject to a 3.75 percent excise tax in addition to the state's regular sales tax, and a commission would be created to regulate recreational marijuana. Massachusetts voters have previously approved medical marijuana and decriminalizing possession of small amounts of pot. Polls suggest public opinion on the new measure is closely divided.

NEVADA: Question 2 would legalize possession and use of up to an ounce of marijuana and impose a 15 percent excise tax on marijuana sales, with revenue going to support education. For the first 18 months, only businesses that have medical marijuana certification could apply for licenses.

MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Twenty-five states already allow use of marijuana for medical purposes. Three more could join that group, while one of the 25 states, Montana, will be voting to liberalize its existing law.

ARKANSAS: Arkansas voters will have two competing medical marijuana proposals on the ballot, though both have faced court challenges seeking to disqualify them. Both would allow patients with certain medical conditions to buy marijuana from dispensaries, but they differ in their regulations. Supporters worry that having two proposals on the ballot increases the likelihood that both will fail. They face opposition from Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who once headed the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, and from a coalition of lobbying groups that includes the state Chamber of Commerce and the Arkansas Farm Bureau.

FLORIDA: Florida currently allows limited use of marijuana for terminally ill patients, and polls show voters favor a state constitutional amendment to more broadly legalize medical marijuana. The ballot measure, if approved by 60 percent of the state's voters as expected, would allow its use for treating non-terminal patients suffering from debilitating conditions such as cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, AIDS, post-traumatic stress disorder, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease), Crohn's disease, Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis. A similar measure was on the ballot in 2014 and received 58 percent approval, 2 percentage points shy of what was needed for passage.

NORTH DAKOTA: The initiative would make it legal for North Dakota residents who suffer from one of several debilitating illnesses to use marijuana with a doctor's permission and possess up to 3 ounces of marijuana for medical purposes from either a state-licensed dispensary or a personally grown supply. The state Health Department says the program would cost more than $3.5 million a year to operate.

MONTANA: Montana's ballot initiative would undo the restrictions that a 2011 state law placed on the 2004 voter initiative legalizing medical pot in the state. Those restrictions include a ban on dispensaries, flagging doctors for review if they recommend marijuana for more than 25 patients a year, and limitations on what ailments qualify for the registry.
The tragic 1998 murder of gay Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard has inspired a play and film adaptation, The Laramie Project, numerous literary works and, most importantly, a hate crimes bill passed by Congress a decade later. Shepards story is now being told on the opera stage.

Last weekend, Not In My Town by gay Fort Lauderdale composer and lyricist Michael W. Ross received its world premiere performance by Opera Fusion at the Florida Atlantic University Theatre in Boca Raton.

The one-act work, presented in 13 scenes, begins on the campus of the University of Wyoming in Laramie where Shepard (Ryan Townsend), a transfer student, is being bullied. Lesbian Romaine Patterson (Robyn Marie Lamp) comes to his aid and the two develop a deep friendship.

Subsequent scenes explore the deliberations of Shepards parents (Sarah-Helen Land and Ardean Landhuis) over his homosexuality and the evening Shephard met two men at a local bar only to be taken to a field, assaulted and left for dead tied to a fencepost.

The remainder of the opera portrays Romaines anguish, a candlelight vigil, protests led by homophobic Westboro Baptist Church pastor Fred Phelps (Enrique Estrada), statements by Shepards parents at the sentencing of the attackers and Pattersons landmark speech at a meeting of the Anti-Defamation League.

While the opera ostensibly tells the story of Shepards life and death, the real heroine is Patterson, whose idea to construct angel costumes for counter-protesters at Shephards funeral would catapult her into the national spotlight as an activist. More recently, she was cohost of a popular Sirius XM Out-Q radio program.

Patterson was in the audience at FAU for the premiere performance, taking the stage to welcome the audience and express her nervousness at seeing her story portrayed on stage for the first time.

By most standards, the premiere was a huge success, a moving tribute to Shepards sacrifice and legacy. Billed as a musical drama, Not In My Town definitely falls within the operatic genre. Rosss score is lush, suggesting the film scores of Hans Zimmer or the contemporary romantic symphonies of Howard Hanson, performed beautifully by an 18-piece orchestra under the baton of Gordon Roberts. The vocal lines are less lyric and often serve primarily to advance the detailed exposition of the historical events.

Most musical highlights occur after Shepards murder, when Ross finally seems freed from the story and can finally explore the underlying emotions and motivations of his characters: When did the World Stop Caring sung powerfully by Lamp and Olivias Proposal, beautifully performed by Lamp and Cory Shelley as Pattersons girlfriend, Olivia. The most poignant musical moment is the Candlelight Vigil, a beautiful choral work unencumbered by lyrics and again accompanied by a rich orchestration.

Landhuis (Dennis Shepard) performs triple duty as director and production designer. His staging is tight, especially given the large ensemble. A large stone arch effectively floats across the stage to set the different scenes on the university campus, frame the Shepards home and serve as the entrance to the church.

The production moves to the Broward Center this weekend and should not be missed.

OperaFusion presents Not In My Town by Michael Ross at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale, Sept. 30  Oct. 1. Tickets are available at BrowardCenter.org.
What were you doing in 1998? Some of our readers werent even born yet, but for the founders of Sprudge Media Network it was an exciting time. Both just 14 years old, Jordan Michelman and Zachary Carlsen met on the first day of eighth grade at Curtis Junior High School in University Place, Washington. Little did they know theyd go on to create this very website, and theyre looking back at it all in this weeks episode of the Coffee Sprudgecast.

Sign up now as a subscriber to the Coffee Sprudgecast and never miss an episode. The Coffee Sprudgecast is sponsored by La Marzocco and KitchenAid.

1998 was a long time ago and we sure appreciate you listening to our lackadaisical ride through the back-in-the-daisical. Simpsons VHS dubs, high school theater, open mic nights, Tacoma cafes in the late 90s (shout out to The Usual), Counter Strike, teriyaki in the North End, Kamel Red Lights and much moretruly it was an idyllic time for our childhood chums. This podcast is part 1 of a two-part series in which we explore the Story of Sprudge, in celebration of our 7th anniversary publishing the site. Next up well run down the scene in 2009, when Sprudge first launched.

Thanks so much for listening! Thank you to our sponsors! Heres some of the finest music from the year of our Lord 1998truly, madly, deeply.

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Shake It Off Lindy surged first over around the final turn to pass pacesetter Southwind Cobra, upsetting in one of the six Bluegrass splits for two-year-old trotting colts Thursday at The Red Mile.

With Eburry Street and Sortie breaking before the first turn, Moonshiner Hanover inherited the lead, keeping Southwind Cobra parked while Shake It Off Lindy sat in the pocket. Rough-gaited clearing the lead, Southwind Cobra maintained his stride passing the quarter in :29.1, and was unchallenged through a :58.1 half.

Sitting in third, Shake It Off Lindy pulled to the outside approaching the three-quarter pole and was up to Southwind Cobras wheel within a matter of strides. Past the third-quarter in 1:27.3, Shake It Off Lindy had taken the lead, and was holding off Moonshiner Hanover splitting horses and Signal Hill coming down the center of the track. In front by a length, Shake It Off Lindy finished in front of Moonshiner Hanover and Southwind Cobra. The 1:55 clocking was a career-best for Shake It Off Lindy.

The Frank Antonacci trainee won his second start in six tries this season, earning $45,250 this season. By Crazed out of the Love You mare Nashville Lindy, he is owned by K R Breeding LLC and was driven by Tim Tetrick. He paid $29.60 to win.

Hes been training down good and we didnt stake him too heavy, Antonacci said. He was a $17,000 yearling that was part of my dads experiment with the French mares. We gave him every chance he could possibly have to be a good horse, and hes showing a good turn of foot and he has a good head on him.

Anytime youre involved with these horses multiple generations; train the mare and train the father, its definitely a little special, Antonacci added. Hell probably be back here next week.

Brushing to the lead after the half, Long Tom maintained control as he advanced to a 1:55.2 win over Bills Man and Equestrianconxtion.

Bills Man parked around the first turn and was forced to move to the lead, clearing in :28.3. Approaching the half, driver Tim Tetrick edged Long Tom, sitting in third, off the pylons and rushed towards Bills Man through a :58 half.

Shuffled to third, Equestrianconxtion moved first over midway through the final turn. Long Tom passed three-quarters in 1:26.3 as Bills Man tried to weave out of the pocket and Equestrianconxtion hanged to his outside. The two struggled to approach Long Tom and couldnt get by, as Long Tom hit the line a half-length in front of Bills Man and Equestrianconxtion in 1:55.2, a lifetime best.

Owned by Amg Stable Oy, trained by Marcus Melander, and driven by Tim Tetrick, the colt by Muscle Hill from the Windsongs Legacy mare Ilia scored his third win out of four tries this season, earning $46,875. Sent off the 2-5 favourite, he paid $2.80 to win.

When I was home in February, he told me I have a good horse I want to send over, Marcus Melander said. A trainer in Sweden bought him at Harrisburg and he brought him overseas to Sweden. I was there for my visa, and I happened to go there for just a week and we talked. We sent him over as soon as possible, and he came to my barn at the end of March.

I thought he had potential after the first time he raced, Melander also said. He had a little time off; trouble getting to the races and then he raced great at Freehold [in the $29,000 Harold Dancer Memorial] after a month off, and then he raced great again at the Meadowlands. After that, I decided to bring him down here and try him in the Grand Circuit. Well have to look at him after this race to see if hes good, but hell probably be back here next week.

Snowstorm Hanover took the lead into the first turn and managed to hold command, trotting a 1:55.3 mile, a lifetime best, over Buckeye Boss and International Moni.

Trotting the first quarter in :29 and the half in :59.2, Snowstorm Hanover was unchallenged on the lead. Buckeye Boss, sent off the even-money favourite, drafted from the pocket, Meme Hanover trotted third and International Moni sat fourth. Into the final turn, Buckeye Boss tipped outside attempting to sling to command, but Snowstorm Hanover began to accelerate at three-quarters in 1:28.3.

Buckeye Boss challenged Snowstorm Hanover through the stretch. As Buckeye Boss advanced, Snowstorm Hanover steadfastly remained on the lead, staying about a half-length in front of Buckeye Boss at the wire.

Returning $13.40 to win, Snowstorm Hanover, by Muscle Massive from the Andover Hall mare Snow Angel Hanover, won her third race in eight starts this year, earning $86,869. He is owned by Burke Racing Stable, Frank Baldachino, Peter Collura & Weaver Bruscemi, trained by Ron Burke, and driven by Matt Kakaley.

Waiting to pursue the lead until the top of the stretch, Fly On easily gained command midway through the stretch, besting Dunbar Hall and Southwind Woody in a 1:55 lifetime-best performance.

Taking the lead through a :29.1 quarter, Fly On soon yielded to Southwind Woody brushing to the lead into the backstretch. He was unchallenged off a :57.1 half and was unchallenged up until the three-quarter pole, when Fly On inched towards the lead with Always A Good Time on his back. Fly On met strides with Southwind Woody at three-quarters in 1:27.

Fly On drifted through the stretch, eventually sprinting clear of Southwind Woody clinging to second while Always A Good Time hanged in fourth and Dunbar Hall flew up the pylons from fourth, edging by Southwind Woody to claim second.

Winning his sixth race in ten starts this year, Fly On, a Muscle Hill colt out of the Credit Winner mare Calchips Finisher, has now earned $88,747 this year. Owned by Andy Miller Stable Inc, Arden Homestead Stable and Gaitway Stable, trained by Julie Miller and driven by Andy Miller, Fly On paid $2.60 to win.

He has been a model of consistency, Julie Miller said. He didnt really like the track at Freehold that day on the half [in the Harold Dancer Memorial] he didnt manoeuvre the track well; thats the only mishap he has had. Weve been real pleased with him. He has willingness to go and were pretty excited about him.

Julie Miller called me about a year ago, after she and Andy bought him, and said that they were looking for a partner, Peter Gerry of Arden Homestead Stable said. We have had such wonderful luck with the Millers Stable.

There was one horse we didnt have any luck with, Gerry added. And that was because we kind of pressured them into buying him, and that was the brother of a good horse they bought from our consignment. We felt so guilty, but they have always been so kind to us. What fun it is to have an investment with the Miller family.

Going wire to wire, New Jersey Viking finished in front of Muscles Jared and Explosive Ridge, trotting his Bluegrass division in 1:56.1.

Holding an uncontested lead through a :28.3 quarter and :59 half, New Jersey Viking led Muscles Jared, who raced from the pocket, and What The Hill, who was sent off the 4-5 favourite. Fraser Ridge, caught on the outside since the start, gradually advanced towards the leader from first over, carrying Explosive Ridge on his tail.

Fraser Ridge reached New Jersey Vikings wheel into the final turn. What The Hill tried to sprint off the pylons, but lost stride. Fraser Ridge began to falter, forcing Explosive Ridge three wide, chasing after New Jersey Viking in 1:27.4. In the stretch, New Jersey Viking held control while Muscles Jared dipped towards the cones and edged to the outside, attempting to slide to the lead, but New Jersey Viking held him off by about half a length.

New Jersey Viking, by Muscle Hill out of the Broadway Hall mare Hall Of Wishes, won his fourth race in seven starts this year, earning $111,893 for owners Knutsson Trotting Inc. and Little E LLC. Trained and driven by Ake Svanstedt, he paid $8.40 to win.

Clearing control at the quarter, Dover Dan stayed in front as he trotted a lifetime-best 1:55 mile in the final Bluegrass division.

Setting a :28.2 quarter, Dover Dan brushed by Soho Hanover to take the lead into the backstretch. Eternal Patrol trotted third in front of the 1-2 favourite King On The Hill in fourth. After a :57.1 half, King On The Hill led a two-wide charge into the far turn.

King On The Hill reached Dover Dans neck midway around the final turn, but Dover Dan accelerated toward a 1:27.1 third-quarter and drew separation at the top of the stretch. Soho Hanover attempted to sneak by at the pylons while King On The Hill faltered and Patton, riding his cover, tried to close down the center of the track. Dover Dan held off Soho Hanover, while Patton finished third.

John Butenschoen trains the colt by Andover Hall out of the Royal Troubador mare CR Kay Suzie. Winning four of eight starts this season, he has earned $108,579 for owners William Wiswell, Jean Goehlen, and Eugene Schick. Driven by Corey Callahan, he paid $8.40.

I think Corey [Callahan] and I were a little bit aggravated after our first two races, Butenschoen said. They both raced well, but neither one really got a big shot to race. Bills Man was second and tried to sneak up the wood there, and then Simply Volo had no shot; he had a horse on the long side of him the whole mile, so I think it was in Coreys mind that if we get beaten [to the lead], theyre going to beat us.

Live racing resumes on Friday, September 30 at The Red Mile with five divisions of the $298,000 Bluegrass Stakes for two-year-old trotting fillies slated on the nine-race card. First race post is at 7:00 p.m.

(The Red Mile)
A plethora of stakes races will highlight this weekends programs of live racing at Red Shores Charlottetown Driving Park and Summerside Raceway, as the P.E.I. tracks will play host to a bevy of lucrative dashes.

Stakes Galore Sunday At Summerside

There will be a mega-stakes Sunday afternoon this weekend at Red Shores Summerside Raceway.

The Prince County oval will play host to 14 stakes dashes. The first race will head behind the starting gate at 1 p.m.

Race 14 will be the $15,716 final of the Atlantic Aged Mares Pacing Series, which is sponsored by Standardbred Canada.

Ramblinglily has drawn Post 2 for driver Ken Murphy and trainer Alan Jones, who co-owns with fellow New Brunswicker Normand Leger. The daughter of Articulator has been exceptional all season. She has recorded 10 wins from 18 starts, but was defeated in her last two Open Mare starts by Drivingthedragon N, who has drawn Post 8 for Sundays final. Jason Hughes trains and drives Drivingthedragon N for owner Donald MacRae of Vernon Bridge. Two other mares that have been factors in the Open mares ranks all year, Best Risque (to be driven by Clare MacDonald) and Shadows Mystery (Gilles Barrieau), have drawn Post 1 and 4, respectively. Other entries include Brodys Leona (Corey MacPherson), Sendmeasign (Kenny Arsenault), Alittleeastermagic (Ron Matheson) and Dustylane Msvickie (Marc Campbell).

The other 13 dashes on the Sunday afternoon program will feature the Lady Slipper stakes for three-year-old pacing fillies, the Joe OBrien Memorial Stakes for three-year-old pacing colts and the Lady Slipper Stakes for two-and-three-year-old trotters.

The $11,300 Lady Slipper Gold races for fillies have been carded as Race 11 and 13. The $7,000 Grassroots dashes have been carded as Race 1 and 7.

Three-year-old pacing colts will compete in the $7,600 OBrien Gold divisions, which have been programmed as Race 5, 10 and 12, while $6,200 Grassroots action has been slotted as Race 3 and 8.

The two-year-old trotters race off in $8,000 Lady Slipper divisions in races 2 and 6, with the three-year-old trotters facing off in races 4 and 9 for $7,600 purses.

To view the harness racing entries for Sunday at Summerside, click the following link: Sunday Entries  Summerside Raceway.

Rivalry Renews In Charlottetown Feature

A red hot Clic K will have to face off with the returning Big Surf in the Saturday evening feature at Red Shores Charlottetown Driving Park. The Saturday evening card will also feature a number of stakes events.

The 15-race card will kick off with a 6 p.m. first-race post time.

The Clic K  Big Surf matchup will take place in Race 14, and the duo will battle it out for the winners share of the $2,400 purse.

Clic K has drawn Post 7. Marc Campbell is scheduled to be in the bike for trainer Jackie Matheson and owners PLO Stables of Donagh. The gelding is heading into the contest after having won two consecutive Preferred paces.

Big Surf will return to Island action after having raced in Invitational events in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia over the course of the past two weeks. He will be placed back on the Lasix program and will start from post 4. Corey MacPherson will drive Big Surf for trainer Trevor Hicken and owners Robin and Luke Burke of P.E.I. and Perry Burke of Quebec. Smiley Bayama (Adam Merner) has drawn the tough Post 8 for the race. Smiley Bayama is heading into the tilt fresh off of a pair of second-place finishes in the Conroy and Chippin Invitational events on the mainland.

Other entries in the preferred pace include Machinthesand (Ken Murphy), DBS Rosco (Kenny Arsenault), OK Galahad (Jason Hughes), All Turain (Gilles Barrieau) and Nogreatmischief (Gary Chappell).

The program also features the Joe OBrien Memorial stakes for two-year-old colt pacers and the Lady Slipper stakes for two-year-old pacing fillies.

The first of the $11,400 Lady Slipper Gold races for the fillies will line up for Race 8. Maritime record holder Woodmere Finesse will headline the group from Post 5 with Kenny Arsenault in the bike for trainer Jack Arsenault and owner Edward Maher of Nova Scotia. The other $11,400 split will go postward for Race 12 with Shesaroyal Cowgirl (Mark Bradley) and Woodmere Dreams (Barrieau) vying for supremacy in a seven horse field.

A trio of $5,400 Lady Slipper grassroots divisions will face the gate for Race 1, 3 and 5. The $9,800 Joe OBrien gold divisions will be contested in Race 10 and 13. Nameisonthehalter has been favoured for Race 10. Corey MacPherson has picked up the catch-drive aboard Nameisonthehalter for trainer Lawrence Snow. Twomacsoneshadow (Gilles Barrieau) will battle with seasonal leader Tobinator (MacPherson) in Race 13.

A pair of $6,400 OBrien Grassroots divisions will line up for Race 7 and 11.

To view the harness racing entries for Saturday at the CDP, click the following link: Saturday Entries  Charlottetown Driving Park.

(With files from Red Shores)
Century Downs Racetrack and Casino will show off the stars of tomorrow this Saturday. The two-year-old fillies will do battle in two $25,000 divisions of the Neal Adler Memorial Stakes. The two-year-old colts will square off in the Horizon Pace, also in two divisions each carrying a $25,000 purse.

The boys kick off the stakes action right off the bat on Saturday in the first two races carded. The first division will feature Senga Nitro, who looks to have a bright future ahead. He sizzled in his latest effort in a winning time of 1:56.3 in the Lonestar stakes. That equaled the track record for two-year-old pacing colts set last year by Outlaw Gettnrdone and Outlaw Turn N Burn.

Kenneth Gunn owns and bred the Blue Burner-Nells Sweet Future colt, who is trained and driven by Ryan Grundy. His only blemish on his short resume is when he went off stride in the ASHA Colt Stakes but has rebounded nicely and is now four-for-five in his career (two-for-two in Sires Stakes action) with $34,816 in lifetime earnings.

Lady Luck was a no-show for the connections as both horses in each stake (Senga Nitro in the Horizon and Shesamysterytome in the Neal Adler stake) drew the tough outside post eight, but the barn is ready for the challenge.

We did not get any luck at the post draws for sure, but Senga Nitro is coming in good, said driver/trainer Ryan Grundy. He can take the fresh air. He likes to come from off the pace. His only issue was in the ASHA Colt stake where he went off stride but that was due to normal colt growing up issues.

The time off definitely helped my colt, added Grundy. Mateo and Amysterytome are the top threats in my opinion.

Mateo, another up and coming star, will be looking for some revenge. After winning the ASHA Colt Stakes, he destroyed some older condition types and looked primed to notch the win in the Alberta Lonestar. The Blue Burner-Mater Deo gelding had one of his owners Jim Marino in the bike for that stake race, and won the race only to get disqualified for causing interference to Big Fantasy and Jamie Gray at the three-quarter mark. As a result, Mateo was placed third for this infraction.

Born blind in one eye, Mateo was a private purchase. His half brother just sold at the ASHA Yearling Sale for $21,000 last month and his mother paced 1:52 in a big stake race at Mohawk a few years back, so his bloodlines suggest talent.

Amysterytome will be part of the picture. He was moved up to the winners circle as a result of the aforementioned disqualification involving Mateo. The talented Mystery Chase-Takemetotheriver gelding is owned by Timothy Kane, Gary Zima, and Mike Dicks. He is now two-for-three in his early career and has banked $16,799 to date. He is trained and driven by Brandon Campbell.

Shifting to the gals, the first division will feature some very nice fillies. Wedding Dance drew the rail and will be a force. Owned by Donald Richardson and trained by Harold Haining, she holds the divisional track record for two-year-olds posting a time of 1:56 back on August 20. The Mystery Chase-Westart Love filly now boasts four wins from seven starts, with $32,401 in lifetime earnings.

The barn is confident she will show a good effort.

She is a very nice filly for sure and we are happy with the post draw, said trainer Harold Haining. She is in good shape with no problems to report. Hopefully we can keep on going.

This race, however, is by no way a slam dunk.

You have to keep an eye on Rod Starkewskis filly Lil Bit O Jingle. He works them pretty good.

Kurt and Kathy Schmidt's homebred filly Lil Bit O Jingle had a change of address as she has now been moved to the Starkewski barn by its owners after Travis Cullen decided to leave Alberta for Ontario. The daughter of Blue Burner-Rain Drop Hanover has posted an impressive four-for-seven in her young career and has banked $26,141 in purses. Phil Giesbrecht will be in the bike to call the shots.

Shesamysterytome (Mystery Chase-Allamerican Boo) was a $2,700 bargain buy at the Alberta sale. She has drawn the tough outside post but nevertheless is a threat to do some damage. She only has one win from five starts with four second place finishes, good for $16.587 in lifetime earnings and has been very competitive in stakes competition. The Ryan Grundy trainee can not be overlooked.

Post eight will definitely sting but hopefully we can have a good race and come out of it with some money. Wedding Dance with the rail looks awfully tough, added Grundy. So does Lil Bit O Jingle who will go for the Starkewski barn for the first time and appears to have lots of talent.

Shesamysterytome suffered some traffic woes in her last start back on September 17 in the Alberta Starburst stake but still put in a very respectable effort.

I hooked wheels with So Long Sugar at the three-quarter mark. I thought I was done when that happened but my filly showed me lots as she made up a ton of ground to finish second.

The path to victory in the second division appears to go through the talented Outlaw Fireball. She equaled the previous divisional track record set by Nightime Chase back on August 7 in the Alberta Starlet, stopping the timer in 1:56.1 only to have the aforementioned Wedding Dance set the track record in 1:56 later on August 20. The Blue Burner-Watchasgirlsgoby filly was privately purchased by her driver J.F. Gagne and partners Peter Van Seggelen, Carl Warnaar and Tapron Holdings Ltd. She is trained by Majorie Dumont.

Punters looking for a value play might just find it in Last Time To Play (Western Terror-Susurrus Hanover). The two-year-old daughter of the terrific sire Western Terror was a $40,000 purchase out of the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale. Earlier in the summer she rattled off three straight wins, including a romp in the Emerald stake. Her last start back on September 17 was a tough assignment. She drew the outside post versus older condition types and was not a factor. She had some time off since then and the Masse barn knows when its stakes time. She has a respectable 7-3-1-1 lifetime record good for $16,894 in earnings for her owner Lucy Raymond of Edmonton, Alberta.

Century Downs Racetrack and Casino will offer eleven dashes on both Saturday and Sunday this weekend with a first race post time of 1:10 p.m. each day.

(A Trot Insider Exclusive by Frank Fontana)
Hours before his murder trial went to the jury Thursday, defendant Sergey Fedoruk had two outbursts in court that required workers to install hooks into a desk to chain him in place.

A third incident then prompted Fedoruks removal from the courtroom, perhaps a fitting end to proceedings in a case in which Fedoruks mental condition is the key issue.

Fedoruk is charged with second-degree murder in the Aug. 1, 2011, beating death of his brother-in-law Serhiy Ishchenko at their Ostrander-area home north of Kelso.

Twenty minutes into the reading of jury instructions Thursday, Fedoruk slipped down in his desk chair and fell to the floor, then describing through court interpreters how he hit his head on the desk. Earlier in the day, he spoke loudly and disrupted proceedings, requiring hooks be installed to link his ankle cuffs to.

The jury was excused while Fedoruk, a Ukrainian emigre, lay crumpled on the floor, chanting gibberish, claiming his back was broken and asking to call the FBI. Family members in the audience told Cowlitz Superior Court Judge Stephen Warning that theyd seen their relative have similar outbursts in the past.

After a few minutes, Fedoruk was helped up by jail staff, who wheeled him in shackles out of the courtroom in a desk chair to a holding cell for the remainder of the day.

Concerned about his clients competency, defense attorney Thad Scudder asked for continuance, then a mistrial. Warning denied both motions.

The scene helped highlight the central issue in the trial: Did Fedoruk, 43, have the mental capacity to understand that he was beating Ishchenko to death? Were his actions intentional or just plain negligent?

The defense admits Fedoruk killed Ischenko, but it asserts that he did so negligently and should be convicted, if anything, of second-degree manslaughter.

Mr. Fedoruk was in the midst of a storm here, said Scudder, quoting from defense mental health expert Kenneth Muscatels description of Fedoruks manic episodes. His roof was leaking. The state wants you to think in that moment when he killed Mr. Ishchenko that his attic was dry. When in fact, his whole house was full of water.  Hes not guilty of murder 2. Hes not guilty of manslaughter 1. He is guilty of manslaughter 2.

Scudder argued that Fedoruk was clearly not in his right mind when he killed Ishchenko. He acted irrationally, for example, when his first priority was to hide the wine he drank with Ishchenko before he hid Ishchenkos body in the back yard. Before he killed Ishchenko, Fedoruk claimed he had a vision that God spoke to him and told him his niece had been raped.

Scudder argued that Fedoruk was likely having a psychotic or manic episode during the fatal beating, like the ones hed experienced before and for which he was supposed to be taking medication. (Fedoruk, according to mental health reports, told psychologists he was not taking his medications on the day he beat Ishchenko.)

It doesnt seem so rational when you have this person on the ground, and hes not moving, and your thought is I need to hide the wine. And that comes before I need to resuscitate him. I need to hide the body. When you look at the components, each individual act, it seems rational. When you look at the whole behavior, its bizarre, Scudder argued.

Pacific County Deputy Prosecutor Don Richter told jurors that Fedoruks mental issues are not an excuse for his behavior.

Richter argued that through the entire fight, Fedoruks actions were intentional. He claimed to have performed CPR on Ishchenko; he hid the wine bottle for fear of getting in trouble with his probation officers; he choked Ishchenko back after Ishchenko choked him; he hid his bloodied jeans.

He placed blows where he knew they could be lethal. He threatened someone who he thought was going to call the police, Richter said. He indicated he was feeling strong, and he was going to kill someone. And Mr. Ishchenko is dead. And thats murder.

Jurors deliberated about an hour before breaking off at 4:30 p.m. Thursday. They will resume deliberating Friday morning.
Tiger  the giant cats are considered as one of the wildest creatures in the world. However, they become helpless if caught in the trap and such situations are the basic reason for the decreasing number of tigers in Asia.

The illegal trading of tigers in Asia is not a new issue and a new report published by World Wildlife Fund has created a new deep concern for ecologists and environmentalists all over the world. As per the report, the illegal trading of tigers in Asia has hiked in past 15 years. The statistics published by WWF states that around 1,755 of the rare animals were seized between 2000 and 2015, which includes a large number of tigers.

The WWF in its reports states that in the backyards of US, total 5,000 tigers are being seized, while only a little amount of tigers have left in the forest. On Thursday, World Wildlife Fund released a report based on the illegal trafficking of tigers which has brought up some serious issue regarding the rare wildlife creatures along with the mounting reports of unlawful tiger trafficking. According to the traffic report released on 29th September, from 2000 to 2015, most of the animals, or their body parts, sourced from hostage breeding farms, which accommodate around 8,000 Tigers, giving the environmentalist some major goals about the growing volume of tiger trafficking in Asia.

In the entire Asia, 200 tiger facilities are presented, and now they house only 3,900 tigers which have given a new alarm to the wildlife activists. According to the source, the most commonly trafficked items from Tiger are the skins, trailed by bones, and all of those exported products are used for medicinal or semi-therapeutic purposes. In Indonesia, most parts of tiger specimens are employed in taxidermy.

On this matter, senior vice president of WWF, Ginette Hemley said that illegal networks are gradually becoming intense and continued to traffic captive-bred tigers all around Asia, decaying the hard and fast rules for tiger business. Now the time has come that the existing tiger range countries should quickly shut their farms down or wild Tigers will face a prospect only as skin and bones.

This view of the Senior Vice President of WWF is clearing saying how intense and crucial the situation is for the rare tigers and how it could affect the wildlife in the future time.
NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope (SST) has captured mesmerizing blue-black image of galaxy cluster Abell 2744, commonly known as Pandoras Cluster. The cluster appears magnified due to gravitational lensing effect of its own gravity.

A gravitational lens is a distribution of matter (such as a cluster of galaxies) between a distant light source and an observer, that is capable of bending the light from the source as the light travels towards the observer. The amount of bending is one of the predictions of Albert Einsteins general theory of relativity.

In the image, the fuzzy blue spots are massive galaxies especially at the center of the cluster, but astronomers will be poring over the images in search of the faint streaks of light created where the cluster magnifies a distant background galaxy. In this image, light from Spitzers infrared channels is colored blue at 3.6 microns and green at 4.5 microns.

NASAs Chandra X-ray observatory and Hubble Space Telescope are also monitoring this Pandora Cluster. Astronomers have used Abell 2744 for magnifying images of more distant background galaxies. The more distant galaxies appear as they did longer than 12 billion years ago, not long after the big bang.

The above image captured by Hubble Space Telescope reveals almost 3,000 of these background galaxies interleaved with images of hundreds of foreground galaxies in the cluster. Their images not only appear brighter, but also smeared, stretched and duplicated across the field. Because of the gravitational lensing phenomenon, the background galaxies are magnified to appear as much as 10 to 20 times larger than they would normally appear. Furthermore, the faintest of these highly magnified objects is 10 to 20 times fainter than any galaxy observed previously. Without the boost from gravitational lensing, the many background galaxies would be invisible.

Moreover, JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope (launched back in 2003) mission for NASAs Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech in Pasadena, California. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
VR or Virtual Reality has brought up a new creative revolution in the tech world, making it more efficient and inventive to enjoy technical advancements. You will most likely be unable to go to Mars or swim in the deep blue oceans of Australia, but you can enjoy all those exclusive moments by sitting in your room.

Prologue to Virtual Reality or VR has come up with the easiness for exploring a universe of potentials like never before. The preamble to VR technology makes your outlying for your locales, makes you flying in the sky, and exploring new things that you have seen never before.

While the progression of VR technology in the current tech world is quite notable, making a career in this sector will be the best investment for prosperous future. While a number of techno enthusiasts are dreaming of building a career on the edge of Virtual Reality, Udacity  the online educational institute has introduced a nanodegree program to educate students about the courses and functionalities of VR.

Udacity was launched by the founder of Google X and self-driving car Sebastian Thrun in June 2011. The aim of the organization completely relied upon bringing educational transformations among students by offering nanodegrees in different technology related subjects and VR nanodegree program is one such course. As the perspective of Virtual Reality are appeared to create a deep impact on numerous industries from gaming and movies to education, communication, and healthcare, this nanodegree of Udacity will help students in finding better career opportunities.

Whats the VR nanodegree Program?

With the empowerment of Google Day Dream and HTC Vive, Udacity has launched this nanodegree for VR technology. The complete program is intended to create a world-class prospectus that will deliver the students the newest insights into the revolutionary sect of VR. With the integration of powerful 3D engine Unity, Udacity will provide reality-like teaching on basic prospects of VR technology.

Udacity while inaugurating the course, promises the online students to enroll without any experience in creating mobile phones or desktop-based applications. The course will educate the learners to gain knowledge of virtual reality practice and applications that can be implemented on Google Cardboard Daydream, HTC Vive, and Oculus Rift. The course is declared to take place in a VR-enabled environment, allowing the teachers to exhibit each concept in 3D technology. Udacity also announced the class to include interactive programs which will be operated through customary video, printed and exemplified contents.

The students can attain the course on their own comfortable schedule. The course fee is declared to be $199 per month and the Students who will be able to finish the nanodegree within one year will get an automatic repayment of 50% of their deposited fee. But if after successfully completing the course, the learners wont get any job in VR field; then Udacity will refund their fees.
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Delhi High Court had asked the government if it is willing to allow Bharti Airtel to adjust over Rs 3,000 crore. The Rs 3,000 crore, according to Airtel is owed by the government towards the disputed license fees for its Punjab circle for 1996-98 against future license fees.

A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal asked the lawyer appearing for the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to take instructions on whether Airtel will be allowed to adjust the amount, including interest, if the telco agreed to secure the amount.

Airtel, represented by senior advocate Harish Salve, has offered to give a bank guarantee to secure the DoT for the adjusted amount or give an undertaking to refund the money if the government succeeded in the litigation between them over disputed license fees of Rs 399.92 crore paid by the telecom major in 2001 for its Punjab circle for the years 1996-98.

The telecom major has claimed that the government owed it an amount of over Rs 3,000 crore, including interest on the amount of Rs 399.92 crore from 2001 till date. The court was hearing Airtels plea challenging a single judge order holding that company was not entitled to refund.

In its plea, the telecom major has contended that it was not liable to pay licence fees for Punjab circle for April 1996 to March 1998 as the government had of its own accord unilaterally, illegally and without any basis brought about a de-facto suspension of the licence during that period. It has said that prior to going for arbitration, it had in 2001 deposited the amount with DoT on the understanding that if the company wins, the amount would be refunded.

The arbitrator had dismissed the refund claim of the company against which it came to High Court which in 2012 had set aside the arbitral award, Airtel said in its petition.

The 2012 decision was challenged by DoT and is still pending before another bench of Delhi High Court which rejected the governments plea for stay, the company has said. Airtel told the court today that it can either give a bank guarantee securing the government for the adjusted amount during pendency of DoTs appeal or it can give an undertaking to refund the money if the department succeeds.

The court listed the matter for further hearing on 24 November.

PTI
Anirudh Regidi

Apple will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of the iPhone in 2017 and Apple has said that the event will be celebrated with a completely redesigned iPhone.

A number of reports suggest that the new iPhone will be called the iPhone 8 (rather than the expected iPhone 7s) and that itll feature an OLED screen and a bezel-less design.

There are also a great many rumours surrounding the new design, the chipset and even the charging mechanism. Heres everything weve heard:

Design: A bezel-less iPhone

A number of rumours are pointing to three new iPhones in 2017. These rumours suggest that there will be a regular iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, and a special edition, premium iPhone 8 model.

The phones are expected to be redesigned completely, featuring a metal frame to house the components. This frame will apparently be embedded in an all-glass body.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggests that the frames will be made of stainless steel and aluminium, and that only the premium model will have the stainless steel frame. Kuo also expects to see a bezel-less design for the iPhone 8.

An all-glass iPhone is intriguing, and considering the popularity of the JetBlack iPhone 7 (40-50 percent of pre-orders so far), the idea isnt so far-fetched.

A source in Israel also spoke of the new iPhone as the iPhone 8 rather than the iPhone 7s. He also suggested that the new iPhone would be different.

Display: Enter OLED

The most fascinating rumour surrounding the new iPhone is the one that suggests Apple will use an edge-to-edge, curved, flexible OLED panel for the iPhone 8. Though Kuo does say that he expects the OLED panel to be available only on the premium iPhone.

Apple has reportedly signed an agreement with Samsung for the delivery of an estimated 40 million OLED panels, which will be supplemented by panels from the likes of LG and Sharp.

Vague rumours suggest that Apple is investing in a secretive Taiwanese lab that develops OLED panels and the company could be investing in an AMOLED panel manufacturer.

OLED is a great choice for a smartphone display because it offers almost perfect contrast ratios, is extremely thin (it doesnt need a backlight) and can be flexible. It is also very energy-efficient (black pixels dont consume power).

The downsides to OLED include a shorter lifespan and weakness to water damage. Considering that Apple is already using these panels in the Apple Watch and the fact that the Watch Series 2 is completely water resistant, this is not much of a concern.

Apple has reportedly been working on an integrated touch and display driver unit that is also expected to house all requisite sensors, including Touch ID.

Camera: OIS for all

With the iPhone 7, Apple introduced optical image stabilization (OIS) for the regular iPhone. It was a much needed feature that took its time getting to the smaller iPhone. The Plus model introduced a dual-camera system with a wide-angle and normal lens (Apple calls it telephoto, but its only a 56mm equivalent lens), but the latter lacks OIS.

While a new and improved camera is expected, no one is expecting much from the system other than OIS for the normal lens, says MacRumours.

Wireless charging, A11 SoC and more

Since Apple uses a sequential numbering scheme for its SoCs, the new iPhones will use an A11 chip. Some suggest that the chip will be built on 10nm manufacturing technology, which should further improve the efficiency of the chip. This should yield improved battery life as well as performance.

Apple has also shown a great deal of interest in wireless charging, particularly in WiTricity. The company is also apparently more interested in long-range wireless charging rather than the pad-based wireless charging that is currently popular.

With long-range charging, youll be able to use your phone in the vicinity of the wireless charger, without having to place it down on a wireless charging pad. This should also ameliorate that the lack of a headphone jack brings up. Youll be able to charge your phone and listen to music simultaneously.

Since the iPhone 8 is expected to be an all-glass iPhone, there will be no place for Touch ID. In this scenario, Apple might place the Touch ID sensor and other sensors under the front glass panel, much like Xiaomi is doing in their Mi 5s.

Some rumours are also hinting at Apples interest in Xintac, a company that specialises in biometric security, iris scanning and related technology. While we dont expect to see this technology in the iPhone 8, Kuo does suggest that it tech might make its way into the 2018 iPhone.
tech2 News Staff

Apple opened pre-orders for the latest flagship devices iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus on Flipkart at midnight today. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple visited India back in May to talk about the importance of Indian market, discuss 'Make in India' with PM Modi and trying to push refurbished iPhones to the market. This was the first time that the Apple CEO was visiting India and it was partly a knee-jerk reaction to the company reporting a drop in year-pm-year profits and iPhone sales for the first time since 2003.

Despite bold statements about importance of Indian market, possibility of cheaper iPhones and presence of Apple in India for the next thousand years, the company failed to launch the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus at the same time as USA, in the first phase of iPhone avalibility. Instead, Indian consumers will have to wait for almost one month to get their hands on the smartphones. Even though the company is set to open technology development centre and Maps centre in Hyderabad.

The buzz around launch of iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus was comparitively much lower than the last year according to analysts and they further reported that the latest iPhones are nothing revolutionary or game changer in any way. Even though strong preorders for iPhone 7 has pushed Apple stock to their highest point in 2016.

However, despite joining forces with Flipkart to provide the Apple iPhone and other Apple products in addition to the preorders for the launch 7 October 2016, things don't look great for the company. According to a report by Business Standard, it is speculated that iPhone sales may drop further in the country. According to the latest data by GFK, Apple's share by value stands at 6.3 percentage. This is less than Oppo and slightly above Lyf mobiles. The report points out at Samsung to be the top smartphone leader with 47 percent market share.

Sales volume through out India is also dropping with the iPhone losing market share to other brands in the main cities. According to International Data Corp, the shares have halved from 4.6 percent to 2.5 percent in top 30 Indian cities in April-June 2016.

The market performance in above Rs 20,000 segment has worsened by falling to 35.6 percentage from 52.3 percentage in January-March 2016. However, even though the analysts claim that the falling iPhone shares in the first half is a noted trend, but, this time the change was different. The market share has been captured by the sudden emergence of Chinese brands like Oppo and Vivo according to the report.
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Autonomous cars will first hit the streets of nations where drivers are "disciplined" and "respect the rules", the Renault-Nissan group boss said Thursday.

In an unequivocal stab at the "flexible" approaches to mapping and driving rules in countries like Brazil and India, Carlos Ghosn said the futuristic vehicles would remain off the cards there for now.

"You need to have a mapping which is precise and reliable... You need to have also driving rules which are being respected, because autonomous cars respect the rules," Carlos Ghosn told reporters at the Paris motor show.

"You know very well that in some cities in Brazil, this is a joke, you live in Brazil, I live in Brazil, at night cars don't stop at the red light. Nobody stops."

The Renault-Nissan alliance plans to launch at least 10 driverless cars by 2020.

Ghosn also said that in India's sprawling metropolis Mumbai, "people don't always respect the rules."

He said he believed self-driving cars would come first "to very disciplined driving countries" like Japan, the United States, France or Germany.

"And then little by little we're going to apply the technology for countries where things are a little bit more flexible."

AFP
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A bill signed into law on Thursday by California Governor Jerry Brown allows a self-driving vehicle with no operator inside to test on a public road, a key step enabling a private business park outside San Francisco to test driverless shuttles.

Self-driving cars are already allowed to test on California public roads by 15 automakers, technology companies and startups, including Alphabet's Google, Ford, Honda and Tesla. But under current state regulations, a person must be in the driver's seat for monitoring, and the car must have brakes and a steering wheel.

The bill introduced by Democratic Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla allows testing in Contra Costa County northeast of San Francisco of the first full-autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel, brakes, accelerator or operator.

A project at the Bishop Ranch office park in the city of San Ramon to deploy driverless shuttles from French company Easymile had been on hold pending passage of the bill. Easymile already operates the shuttles in Europe.

New legislation was necessary because although driverless vehicles can be tested on private land like the office park, the shuttle will cross a public road on its loop through the campus.

The new law means that two cube-like Easymile shuttles that travel no faster than 25 mph (40 kph) will be tested for a period of up to six months before being deployed and used by people.

In an interview with Reuters in March, Bonilla said the "natural tension" between regulators concerned about safety and lawmakers trying to encourage innovation in their state necessitated a new bill.

"They're risk averse and we're saying we need to open the door here and take steps (to innovate)," Bonilla said, calling the driverless shuttle project "a very wise first out-of-the- gate opportunity" to show how the technology could work safely.

Those working on self-driving vehicles believe their first real-world applications will be on campuses, business parks and other controlled environments with less traffic and fewer distractions than busy urban streets.

Google and others have complained that California state regulations on self-driving vehicles are too restrictive, and that a patchwork of state regulations is unwieldy. Google has begun testing in Texas, where laws do not address autonomous vehicles without drivers, steering wheels or brakes.

The federal government released a set of voluntary guidelines last week on autonomous vehicles, hoping to create a framework for states as they design rules governing robot vehicles..

Reuters
tech2 News Staff

An angry Apple customer smashed at least 14 iPhones, 4 Macs and 1 MacBook Air inside an Apple Store in France. The agitated customer went on a clear rampage inside the Apple store in Dijon, France. According to the reports by The Verge and the video posted on YouTube, the customer was calmly going around the store and smashing the Apple devices using an iron ball.

The video showing the destruction of Apple devices is uploaded by user "kekess _______" on YouTube, presumably only to upload videos related to this incident. This video is one of the three where the angry customer is talking about his rights to return the device and refund. Other videos show him casually exiting the store on encountering security guards and attempting to avoid them outside the store.

Two mall security guards seem to be trying to pacifying and bring him under control while he was trying to escape the guards in the final video. According to reports by French media website "Le Bien Republic," the customer is in police custody at the time of writing the story. The reason, identity or the number of devices destroyed could not be confirmed at the time of writing but it sure is troubling. This comes right after the report where it is predicted that iPhone sales can go further down in India.
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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved rules requiring wireless carriers to provide upgraded emergency alerts including more information than currently allowed such as photos and web links, acting after the system was used to help find the suspect in Sept. 17 New York and New Jersey bombings. The alert system, in place since 2012, is typically used to send messages to mobile phone users to warn of dangerous weather or find missing children but can be employed for security threats. The FCC said the new rules will take effect over the next one to two-and-a-half years.

A trade association representing wireless providers said it expects it will take more than a year to develop industry standards before some aspects of enhanced alerts are in place. Shortcomings in the current system emerged after authorities in New York City used the U.S. Wireless Emergency Alert system to seek help to find the suspect in the bombings in Manhattan and the New Jersey shore. Their alert, sent to millions of mobile phone users, stated, "WANTED: Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28-yr-old male. See media for pic. Call 9-1-1 if seen."

The alert did not contain a picture of Rahami, who was caught on Sept. 19. It was the first time the system had been used to help find a criminal suspect. But some U.S. lawmakers and message recipients criticized the alert because it required users to conduct an internet search to find a photo rather than simply including the picture.

The FCC's new rules expand the maximum length of emergency text message alerts to 360 characters from the current 90 and allow for embedded web address links and telephone numbers. The FCC is also considering how to include thumbnail-sized photos and symbols in wireless alerts but did not act yet on that. Wireless carriers have expressed concern that alerts that include a website address could lead to network problems if millions of cellphone users all click on a link at the same time.

The wireless trade association CTIA, representing companies including Verizon Communications Inc, AT&T Inc, Sprint Corp and others, said it is planning to conduct a trial to gauge whether photos and videos "could be included in future alerts in a manner that does not cause harmful network congestion or technical issues." The FCC also created a new class of action-oriented alerts like "boil water" for safe drinking water or "shelter in place" warnings during severe weather.

The commission is also requiring mobile phone carriers to deliver alerts to more specific geographic areas. Alerts are broadcast only from cell towers whose coverage areas match an emergency zone. U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, urged the FCC to modernize the alerts. "In light of the need to respond in real time to terror threats, we can't afford to have an emergency wireless response system that is stuck in the '90s," Schumer said this week.

Reuters
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Alphabet Inc's Google said on Thursday it renamed its business-to-business cloud computing brand and enhanced some enterprise applications using artificial intelligence, the company's latest gambit to better compete with Amazon.com and Microsoft Corp. in the lucrative cloud business.

Discussing the rebranded Google Cloud, Diane Greene, senior vice president of Google's enterprise business, said the company has made good progress courting customers and improving its technology. Cloud computing uses remote internet servers to store, manage and process data, and Google offers a range of apps like word processing and email, as well as the ability to host data and offer resources for developers. The new name replaces the Google for Work brand.

"We are closing the gap incredibly fast" with competitors, Greene, a former CEO of VMware who joined Google last year to ramp up its cloud business, told experts and journalists at an event. Analysts say Google trails Amazon and Microsoft in market share but is gaining under Greene. Although the business is not big enough to break out separately in its quarterly earnings statement, Google reported a 33 percent surge in "other revenue" in its most recent quarter, which analysts said was probably due largely to gains in cloud computing.

Greene has moved quickly to streamline engineering and appointed new leadership to beef up the company's cloud business. This has helped improve sales, Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said during the company's latest earnings call. Earlier this month, Google acquired cloud software company Apigee Corp in a deal valued at about $625 million. The company on Thursday also announced a partnership with consultant Accenture to develop cloud services for clients in industries such a retail, healthcare and finance.

In addition, the company said it had woven more artificial intelligence into its apps to help employees work more efficiently. Using machine learning to crunch troves of data, Google says its apps will prompt users to, say, open files at certain times of day or propose meetings based on their habits. Google recently added a U.S. data center in Oregon in order to speed up service and next year will open more in Virginia, Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Sao Paulo, London, Finland and Frankfurt.

Reuters
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NXP Semiconductors NV is exploring selling itself to Qualcomm Inc in a deal that could be valued at more than $30 billion, two sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

The deal would help diversify Qualcomm's business and make it a bigger supplier to the automotive industry. Talks are in the early stages and NXP may entertain other offers, should they emerge, according to one of the sources.

An agreement with Qualcomm could be struck in the next two to three months, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported news of the talks.

Representatives for Netherlands-based NXP and San Diego-based Qualcomm declined to comment.

NXP shares rose 16.9 percent to close at $96.12 on Thursday, while Qualcomm's rose 6.3 percent to $67.45.

NXP closed a nearly $12 billion deal to buy US-based Freescale Semiconductor last December, creating the world's top maker of automotive electronics and doubling the percentage of its auto-related revenue to 40 percent. It could also attract interest from other large semiconductor companies such as Broadcom and Texas Instruments Inc, analysts have said.

Qualcomm, which supplies Android smartphone makers and Apple Inc, has been dealing with slowing smartphone sales and stiff competition from Chinese and Taiwanese rivals.

Qualcomm has so far sat out the transformative consolidation sweeping the industry, which has seen mega-deals such as Avago buying Broadcom for $37 billion last year.

Qualcomm gets the bulk of its revenue from chip sales but most of its profit comes from wireless patents it licenses to the mobile industry. It explored a plan to break up its chip business from its patent licensing unit after pressure from activist investor Jana Partners but decided to remain whole.

Mizuho Securities analyst Vijay Rakesh said that the deal would give Qualcomm a roadmap for the next decade while moving away from a maturing handset market and toward the faster growing opportunity in automotives.

Qualcomm was ranked third in terms of revenue among global semiconductor companies in 2015, while NXP ranked No 7, according to research firm IHS.

RBC analyst Amit Daryanani said the potential deal would be accretive to Qualcomm, which could also use offshore cash.

"Assuming a reasonable valuation is paid, this would be an attractive acquisition for Qualcomm and a good use of $30 billion in cash Qualcomm currently has on their balance sheet," Daryanani said.

NXP has a market value of about $28.5 billion, while Qualcomm's is about $93 billion.

Reuters
tech2 News Staff

Samsung India has issued a statement saying that the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in India has lifted the restrictions on in-flight use of new Samsung Galaxy Note 7 devices purchased after 15 September 2016.

Samsung states that the safe Galaxy Note 7 devices will feature a green battery status indicator and that these devices are safe for use on flights. Samsung is also quick to point out that the phone hasnt actually launched in India and that when it will, the units sold will only be the safe units.

We recognize the inconvenience this has caused to customers, flyers and airline authorities, and remain committed towards customer safety, said Samsung, in its statement.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has been at the centre of a global controversy these past few weeks. Reports of at least 35 Note 7 devices blowing up at random forced Samsung to issue a worldwide recall of the devices.

Samsung is expecting to process at least 2.5 million affected devices. Its important to note that Chinese Note 7 devices were unaffected by the recall since those devices used a battery from a different manufacturer. The replacement Note 7 devices will host batteries made by that same manufacturer.
tech2 News Staff

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recall is the largest fire and burn hazard related consumer electronics recall in US history. Samsung did the right thing and took the necessary but expensive steps to ensure that their customers had safe devices. Samsung may have rushed to get the phone into the market before the launch of the iPhone 7, and may have compromised on the quality of the phone in doing that.

At the international launch of the Galaxy Note 7, Samsung's Mobile Chief, DJ Koh who formerly lead the research and development department, elaborated on the history of the Note series. The Note along with the S-Pen was a smartphone with a stylus, seemingly an outdated technology. This was the kind of device that no one believed would work, but Samsung stuck to its vision. Now the device exists in a product category of its own. Apart from superior waterproofing, The Note 7 included a biometric Iris scanner, something that the Apple iPhone 7 did not have. Koh defended the 3.5 mm audio jack in the launch, but the jack might be be removed out by the time the next Note launches.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will have a dual camera setup, according to a report in Galaxy Club. The speculation is based on a patent application where Samsung has introduced a one finger vertical sliding gesture to zoom, instead of the pinch to zoom. This is the kind of user interface that can potentially work with a dual camera setup. Samsung filed the patent for these gestures to zoom in Korea. There is also a horizontal gesture to increase and decrease the brightness. Dual cameras on the rear are an expected on the Note 8 because that was one of the features that the iPhone 7 had this year, but the Note 7 did not. The LG G5 and Huawei P9 also had dual cameras this year.

The Note 8 may sport a 4K display according to a report in BGR. The evidence is the demonstration of a 4K display for mobile phones by Samsung at a trade conference in California, and this display will most likely to be used in one of its flagship phones. It has been a long standing notion that phones do not require high resolution screens, because the screens are so small. However, we do keep phones a few inches from our face, unlike televisions which are across a room. A higher resolution display would also give a more immersive and realistic experience on Gear, Samsung's VR Goggles. A small piece of evidence supporting this is that Samsung shipped free Gear VR headsets to everyone who had pre-booked a Note 7.

Tech Update has some detailed specification leaks allegedly from Weibo. The back has a 30 MP camera, with a 9 MP selfie shooter. It has 6 GB of RAM with on board memory variations in 64 GB and 128 GB. The 4K display at least would require a more capable battery. There is a 4200 mAh battery, which is likely to support wireless charging. The phone will be powered by a Snapdragon 830, according to a report in GizmoChina. One unexpected feature that might make it through is a projector. There are phones with projector before, but it especially makes sense for a design oriented phone to give instant presentations. The Galaxy Note 8 is expected to land around April 2017.

The most interesting feature could be a speaker module in the S-Pen. Patently Mobile refers to an S-Pen patent application in the United States. If an S-Pen is in the slot, then the sound travels through the S-Pen and exits from the speaker. If there is no S-Pen in the slot, then the sound travels out of the opening via an internal speaker. A speaker on the S-Pen could replace the speaker grill section, allowing for better water resistance on the device.

The recall fiasco lead to an advantage for Apple. Analysts had said in the first week of September, that despite the recall, there was no reason to write off the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 yet, and that the phone might recover in terms of sales. Looks like these analysts were right, as Samsung just reported that over a million consumers are using safe versions of the device now. Now that both the iPhone 7 and the Galaxy Note 7 are finally out, there are questions and speculation over what is next. The stakes are high because of the Note 7 recall fiasco this year, and the lukewarm response to the new Apple handsets.
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Unocoin, a Bangalore-based bitcoin startup, has raised $1.5 million in funding from a mix of Indian and U.S. investors, the company announced on Thursday.

The company, which runs a trading platform to buy, sell, and store bitcoins for Indian customers, said the money raised was the largest for an Indian bitcoin startup. Unocoin, which has 100,000 users and more than 30 employees, has been in operation since December 2013.

Unocoin describes itself as the Coinbase of India. San Francisco-based Coinbase is the largest U.S. bitcoin company and runs an exchange and a wallet service, among other businesses.

Funding came from Indian entities such as Blume Ventures, Mumbai Angels and ah! Ventures along with U.S. investors such as Digital Currency Group, Boost VC, Bank to the Future, and FundersClub.

Digital Currency Group was founded by one of the top U.S. bitcoin investors Barry Silbert, while Boost VC is run by U.S.-based Adam Draper, the son of billionaire entrepreneur Tim Draper.

"We needed a separate exchange for India. A few years ago when we wanted to buy bitcoin, there was nothing available in India," Sunny Ray, Unocoin's co-founder and president told Reuters in an interview.

"So if you want to buy bitcoin from an international exchange, you will have to do a wire transfer from India to these international exchanges and get your bitcoin and oftentimes it takes three to five days."

Unocoin raised about $200,000 in its first financing round. It started from a small hometown called Tumkur, near Bengaluru.

Bitcoin, a digital currency, was trading at $604.50 on the Bitstamp platform

Reuters
Google today announced that it will open a new Google Cloud Region in Mumbai. Expected to be live in 2017, the India cloud region is aimed at offering Google Cloud Platform services to Indian developers and enterprise customers.

Googles investment in a local Cloud Region reaffirms Googles commitment to its customers in the country. The local region will help make Google Cloud Platform services even faster for Indian customers, enhancing differentiators that are already motivating companies to choose Google as their partner.

With more than one billion end users, Google Cloud has gained significant traction in India and across the world. Globally, key customers already leveraging the benefits of Google Cloud Platform include Snap Inc (formerly SnapChat), Niantic Labs (Pokemon Go), Telus International, and Evernote. In India too, we have seen great customer momentum with thousands of customers including major brands like Wipro, Ashok Leyland, Smartshift by Mahindra & Mahindra, Dainik Bhaskar Group and INshorts.com building on Google Cloud Platform.

Speaking at Horizon, Brian Stevens, Vice President, Google Cloud, By expanding to new regions, we deliver higher performance to customers. In fact, our recent expansion in Oregon resulted in up to 80% improvement in latency for customers. We look forward to welcoming customers to our new Cloud Regions as they become publicly available throughout 2017.

Google made the announcement about the India Cloud Region at an event in San Francisco, called Horizon. It was the launch of Google Cloud, Googles unique and broad portfolio of products, technologies, and services that let customers operate in a digital world easily and at peak performance. At Horizon, Google also unveiled G Suite. Previously called Google Apps for Work, G Suite encompasses a set of intelligent apps  Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Hangouts, and more  designed to bring people together, with real-time collaboration built in from the start.

Google Cloud Platform takes the infrastructure, machine learning and networking services used to power Google services and makes them available to businesses and developers to build high performance applications and data analysis at a low cost. As Indias startup community continues to grow, Cloud Platform provides the full stack of services to build, test and deploy their applications.

In addition to its focus on Indian customers, Google is continuing to build its partner ecosystem to support customers as they move to the cloud. In India, Google already has deep partnerships with a multitude of born-in-the-cloud partners including Searce Co-Sourcing, Cloud Cover, PowerUp Cloud and MediaAgility as well as global partners like Wipro, TCS, Tech Mahindra, PwC and Cognizant. The opening of the cloud region opens up newer opportunities for several new cloud partners who will benefit from building their services on Google Cloud.

@Technuter.com News Service
The House and Senate voted Wednesday to reject President Obama's veto of legislation allowing lawsuits against foreign sponsors of terrorism  the first successful override of a presidential veto since Obama took office.



The president had vetoed the legislation Friday because he said the bill  known as the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA  would infringe on the presidents ability to conduct foreign policy. It was the 12th veto of his presidency.



But after an intense push by 9/11 survivors and families of victims who want to sue Saudi Arabia based on claims the country played a role in the 2001 terror attacks, even Obamas Democratic allies on Capitol Hill voted to override his veto.



The House voted 348-77, well above the two-thirds majority needed. The final vote tally in the Senate was 97-1. Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., cast the lone dissenting vote.



"In our polarized politics of today, this is pretty much close to a miraculous occurrence," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said. Democrats and Republicans in both chambers agreed, he said, that the bill "gives the victims of the terrorist attack on our own soil an opportunity to seek the justice they deserve."

Obama just recently tried to veto a bill that would allow the families of terrorism victims to sue Saudi Arabia for harboring any and all jihadists who planned the attacks. Fortunately, this time, even the Democrats voted to override his veto and ensure the bill could stand I'm glad both Republicans and Democrats alike supported this move (with the exception of Reid, who's a disgrace if he couldn't). The 9-11 Families fought very hard for justice, and it's about time they were given the respect they deserve, for fighting for the honor of their beloved relatives.The override enraged the Saudis , who unsurprisingly have no sympathy for 9-11 Families or why they're seeking compensation. If the Saudis don't want to lead relations with the US anymore, so be it. We shouldn't be relying on oil or anything else coming from such an awful country.

Labels: anti-americanism, dhimmitude, House of Saud, islam, jihad, political corruption, racism, terrorism, United States, US Congress, war on terror
Duterte likens himself to Hitler, wants to kill millions of drug users

Reuters, Manila :

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte appeared to liken himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Friday and said he would "be happy" to exterminate three million drug users and peddlers in the country.

His comments triggered shock and anger among Jewish groups in the United States, which will add to pressure on the U.S. government to take a tougher line with the Philippines leader. Duterte recently insulted President Barack Obama and in a series of remarks he has undermined the previously close relationship between Manila and Washington.

In a rambling speech on his arrival in Davao City after a visit to Vietnam, Duterte told reporters that he had been "portrayed to be a cousin of Hitler" by critics.

Noting that Hitler had murdered millions of Jews, Duterte said: "There are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I'd be happy to slaughter them.

"If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have...," he said, pausing and pointing to himself.

"You know my victims. I would like (them) to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition."

Duterte was voted to power in a May election on the back of a vow to end drugs and corruption in the country of 100 million people. He took office on June 30 and over 3,100 people have been killed since then, mostly alleged drug users and dealers, in police operations and in vigilante killings.

His comments were quickly condemned by Jewish groups.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Digital Terrorism and Hate project, called them "outrageous".

"Duterte owes the victims (of the Holocaust) an apology for his disgusting rhetoric."

The Anti-Defamation League, an international Jewish group based in the United States, said Duterte's comments were "shocking for their tone-deafness".

"The comparison of drug users and dealers to Holocaust victims is inappropriate and deeply offensive," said Todd Gutnick, the group's director of communications. "It is baffling why any leader would want to model himself after such a monster."




Two-day business fest begins at Notre Dame College

Economic Reporter :

A two-day 'Business Fest Bangladesh -2016' started at Notre Dame College in the city on Thursday.

Notre Dame College Business Club has organized the event with the participation of students from 40 colleges.

State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid inaugurated the business fest at a function on the college premises.

Presided over by Notre Dame College Business Club President Rafat Mostafa, the function was also addressed by Business Club Moderator and teacher Farzana Hossain, Student Managing Council Chief FatherAntani Sushanta Gomez and Business Council Chief Dr. Father Liton Seubart Gomez.

The business fest includes seminars, symposiums, workshops and discussion meetings.

Through the fest, the students of business studies would be able to know about their future opportunities and responsibilities, said a press release.
Woman found hanged in Ctg hotel

UNB, Chittagong

Police recovered hanging body of a woman from a residential hotel at Kapasgola in Chawkbazar area of the city on Wednesday night.

The deceased was identified as Shilpi Aktar, 29, daughter of Monsur Ali of Mirnagar Sheikhpura area in Dinajpur.

Officer-in-charge of Chawkbazar Police Station Nurul Huda said police recovered Shilpi's body hanging from the ceiling fan in room no 208 of 'Four Star' Residential Hotel .

Police detained Shariful Islam, 40, a resident of Hathazari upazila, for interrogation in this connection.


Dr Mosharraf's birthday today

City Desk :

Today (Saturday) is the 71st birthday of BNP Standing Committee member and former health minister Dr Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain. He was born on October 1, 1946 in a renowned Muslims family in Goyeshpur village under Daudkandi upazila in Comilla, says a press release.

The former minister has completed his Matriculation from Daudkandi High School in 1962 and ISC from Govt. Chittagong College in 1964. He completed MSC degree in Geology from Dhaka University in 1968. Dr Mosharraf joined the Dhaka University as a lecturer in 1969 and in the same year he went to the United Kingdom (UK) for higher study by obtaining a 'Colombo Plan Scholarship'.

He obtained his MSC degree from Imperial College in 1970 and DIC diploma in 1973 and PhD degree under London University in 1974. After returning the country Dr Mosharraf joined the Department of Geology as Assistant Professor and elevated to Professor in 1987. He became the chairman of the department from 1987 to 1990.

Dr. Khandaker Mosharraf was elected as the Asstt. Secretary of the Salimullah Muslim Hall in 1964-65 and Vice President of the Haji Mohammad Mohsin Hall in 1967-68 respectively. Dr Mosharraf has played a significant role during the War of Liberation in 1971 by organising expatriates Bangladeshis and played a bold role as a convenor of Chhatra Sangram Parishad in London.
Cervical cancer curable

City Desk :

The speakers at a seminar held on Jahangirnagar University (JU) campus said the cervical cancer is curable despite of its severity.

'On an average around 18 women die of cervical cancer daily in Bangladesh,' the speakers told the awareness seminar on cervical cancer at senate hall on the campus.

JU Public Health and Informatics (PHI) department recently organized the seminar. JU Pro Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Abul Hossain addressed as the chief guest and Treasurer Professor Dr Abul Khair addressed as the special guest.

Presided over by the chairman of JU PHI department Professor Dr Md Ruhul Furqan, Professor of Gynecology department of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) Ashrafunnessa and acting Chief Medical Officer of JU Medical Center Dr. Muzeza Jahura spoke as key speakers.

The speakers said cervical cancer could occur due to HPV virus, having sexual contact and smoking.

But, it is curable by taking radiotherapy, chemotherapy, vaccine, checking up cervix, abstain from smoking and eliminating early marriage, they added.

They also emphasized on checking up cervix of those women who are above of 30 years in every three years.


Saving the Sundarbans

After reading the report, "Disaster written in the wall," of The Daily Star. I am deeply concerned about the severely detrimental impact to the Sundarbans, to our nation and to our delicate planet if NTCP is successful in setting up the Rampal power plant.

My humble suggestion would be to address the root cause of the problem:

Firstly, we request or put massive pressure on the Indian government, Indian Environmental Agencies, and/or the Indian Prime Minister to prevent NTPC continuing with the power plant project, even at the expense of Bangladesh addressing any associated sunk costs of NTPC.

Secondly, we request the US government to put pressure on India to discontinue the Rampal project.

Thank you for bringing such a crucial environmental problem under the limelight.



Masood E. Azad

Dhanmondi
Progress of SAARC hinders

SAARC's 19th Summit to be hosted by Pakistan in Islamabad on November 9 is now the target of Indians enraged by the attack on an Indian army camp in Uri Kashmir close to the Indo-Pakistan Line of Control.

India is furious about the Uri attack which left 17 Indian security forces personnel dead and many injured. No time was lost after the attack in blaming Pakistan, in which four unidentified armed attackers entered the presumably high security camp killing and injuring Indian soldiers. Recently a similar attack on an Indian Air Force Camp at Pathankot, also close to the Line of Control, resulted in India accusing Pakistan of being behind the attack.

Ace Indian special force commandos have carried out surgical strikes crossing the Line of Control (LoC) into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, inflicting significant damage to the terrorist infrastructure across the border. The operation took place on Wednesday past midnight and is now over, Director General of Military Operations Lt General Ranbir Singh told mediapersons in New Delhi. He said he had also informed his Pakistani counterpart of the surgical strikes.

Pakistan has "strongly condemned the unprovoked and naked aggression of Indian forces along the Line of Control", even as its Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) denied there were any surgical strikes. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a statement his country could thwart any evil design to undermine its sovereignty. Sharif paid rich tributes to jawans "who have been martyred during unprovoked firing by Indian forces."

South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), established in 1985 at Dhaka with the signing of Dhaka Declaration and adoption of SAARC Charter, owes its birth to the pioneering initiative taken by the Late President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh. SAARC Charter includes a long preamble and ten articles. The very raison d'etre of SAARC was to forge cooperation and especially economic cooperation among the member states of South Asia.

The assumption was that a common culture, civilization and heritage among all the seven post colonial states of South Asia would bring about unity and cooperation among them, gradually bringing about social and economic development in the region, and possibly create an integrated market that could remove poverty, illiteracy and unemployment which are some of the common problems and unifying objectives of the South Asian states. It was believed that regional cooperation would bring about economic cooperation despite the political differences existing among them.

Sovereign equality, territorial integrity, political independence and non-interference in internal affairs are some of the major principles clearly defined in the Charter of SAARC. The SAARC Charter kept bilateral issues out of the purview of the SAARC and emphasized on multilateral cooperation. The member states of SAARC were free to forge any other bilateral and multilateral cooperation as they would deem fit.

But, in actual terms, bilateral disputes have always stymied the prospects of multilateral cooperation through SAARC. The formation of SAARC was a significant development in the direction of regional cooperation. Despite their strong mutual differences and trust deficit, the South Asian states did agree to sign an agreement promoting regional cooperation. But the reality remains that focal points like Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan and India's water sharing with Bangladesh remain thorns which continue as tension for consolidating relationship among SAARC countries. As long as these issues can't be resolved recognising each others' interest -- the future for SAARC to become any sort of a meaningful union like the EU remains a shadowy vision. If India can be reasonable to abide by international norms then SAARC has a bright hope for the countries of the region.


BB warns 22 banks for maintaining high spread

Kazi Zahidul Hasan :

The Bangladesh Bank (BB) has issued warnings to 22 commercial banks for their maintaining a higher spread between deposit and loans.

The BB sent the warning letters to the Chief Executive Officers and Managing Directors of the banks recently, officials said.

The banks are Agrani Bank, Woori Bank, AB Bank, The City Bank, the IFIC, the Pubali Bank, the Uttara Bank, the Dhaka Bank, the Eastern Bank, the Bank Asia, the Trust Bank, the NRB Commercial Bank , the Meghna Bank, the Modhumoti Bank, the City Bank NA, the HSBC, the One Bank, the Union Bank, NRB Bank, the BRAC Bank and the Standard Chartered Bank.

Among them, local commercial bank BRAC had been maintaining the highest spread

of 9.24 per cent followed by foreign bank Standard Chartered with 9.24 per cent, according to a BB figure as on May 30.

BRAC was collecting deposit at an average rate of 3.89 per cent of different maturities while their average lending rate was 13.27 per cent.

Similarly, Standard Chartered Bank was collecting deposit at a meager rate of 1.93 per cent while its lending rate was 9.24 per cent.

Expressing dissatisfaction at their high spread between deposit and loans, the central bank has asked them to bring down it (spread) to 5.0 per cent within the given time.

As per the BB rules, both local and foreign commercial banks must have to maintain a 5.0 per cent spread between their deposit and loans.

"We have issued warnings to the banks as they have been maintaining above 5.0 per cent spread violating BB rules," Md Nowsad Ali Chowdhury, an Executive Director of BB told The New Nation on Friday.


War situation escalates at LOC

India claims to have killed 55 terrorists: 14 Indian soldiers killed, claims Pakistan

Dawn.com, Muzaffarabad :

An Indian soldier has been captured by the Pakistan army, while Indian soldiers have also been killed in the episode of firing across the Line of Control, it emerged Thursday.

Confusion over the capture of the soldier persists as neither Indian nor Pakistani officials are issuing any official statements on the matter, as yet.

An Indian army official based in New Delhi said, "It is confirmed one soldier from 37 Rashtriya Rifles with weapons has inadvertently crossed over to the Pakistan side of the Line of Control".

Avoiding connecting the capture to today's firing incident, he said such incidents of people including civilians crossing the frontier by mistake have happened in the past from both sides. Building a case in favour of India, he added that those who strayed are returned.

"Pakistan has been informed [of the soldier's crossing] through the DGMO on hotline," ANI News quoted Indian Army sources as saying. Pakistan's Ambassador to the United Nations Dr Maleeha Lodhi, while talking to Al Jazeera, confirmed that Pakistan Army has "captured an Indian soldier who was trying to enter" into Pakistani territory. Lodhi, however, denied that there was any surgical strike inside the territory of Pakistan, as claimed by the Indian forces. "India is trying to divert global attention from the war crimes it is committing in occupied Kashmir, where more than a 100 people have been killed in cold-blood by Indian forces," said the Pakistan's ambassador. She said that India is trying to provoke a conflict with Pakistan to calm its domestic opinion, because even India's domestic opinion is questioning its role in Kashmir. "My country [Pakistan] has exercised maximum restraint in the face of what happened in the early hours of Thursday."

"What we saw on Thursday was cross border shelling, by mortar fire as well as small arms fire. We have captured one Indian soldier who was trying to cross while two Pakistani soldiers were martyred in cross border shelling. But there was no surgical strike inside territory controlled by Pakistan."

"It is very irresponsible of India to act this way. We want the international community to urge restraint upon India," she maintained. On Pakistan's side, two officials based in Chhamb sector said the Indian soldier with weapons was captured at 1330 local time on Thursday.

Separately, security sources confirmed the same to Dawn.com. The sources said a 22-year-old Indian soldier by the name Chandu Babulal Chohan was taken into custody by Pakistani forces. They added that at least eight Indian soldiers were killed. The bodies of the Indian soldiers have not been recovered by the Indian Army from the site of the skirmishes at the LoC. Security sources claim an attempt to recover the bodies by the Indian Army has not been made yet as they fear coming under fire from Pakistan Army troops.

In his show Capital Talk on Geo News, Hamid Mir said that 14 Indian soldiers were killed in two sectors. Defense analyst Major General (Retd) Ijaz Awan, who was on his show, confirmed his claim.

An exchange of fire between Pakistani and Indian LoC troops began at 2:30am and continued till 8:00am in the Bhimber, Hotspring, Kel and Lipa sectors in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the ISPR statement said.

Meanwhile, TNN from Delhi adds :

In a stunning reprisal for the Uri terror attack that breached decades of self-imposed restraint, India conducted " surgical strikes " on seven terrorist "launch pads" across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in the early hours of Thursday. Top government sources said that it was "not possible to immediately quantify" the number of terrorists killed in the strikes carried out by crack Para-Special Forces who simultaneously hit five launchpads located 1.5-6.5 km inside PoK. "According to an initial estimate, as many as 40 to 55 terrorists were killed. But it will take some time to arrive at the approximate number of casualties after the Para-SF teams are properly de-briefed and photographs and videos analysed," said a source.

A day after the Uri camp attack that left 18 soldiers dead, TOI in its September 19 edition was the first to report that the Army had asked the government to consider "limited but punitive cross-border strikes" to send an unequivocal message to Pakistan.

This is the first time since 1971 that the Indian Army has openly crossed the LoC. Indian troops have engaged in limited action across the border a few times, for instance in 2002 during Op Parakram and later in response to the beheading of a soldier in 2013. PM Modi gave the go ahead for the surgical strikes on Tuesday after a series of briefings in the South Block. But Thursday was different. Unlike earlier engagements, the government and the Army boldly proclaimed they had undertaken a big operation across the LoC and justified it by citing an imminent terror threat.
BCL foils Rampal protesters` rally, 25 injured

Being foiled by BCL activists to hold protest rally at Central Shaheed Minar, leaders and activists of National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports are showing red cards demanding immediate cancellation of Rampal Power Plant

Staff Reporter :

The Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) activists on Friday foiled a cycle rally of the green activists' campaign against the building of a coal-fired Power Plant at Rampal near the Sundarbans, witnesses said.

The protesters under the banner of 'Shatasfurto Janata' gathered in front of the Central Shaheed Minar around 10:00am to hold a rally with bicycles protesting the government move, they said.

The Dhaka University unit of the BCL led by President Abid Al Hasan and

General Secretary Motahar Hossain surrounded the area and held a human chain there that triggered a clash, according to them

"The rally was supposed to encircle Dhaka University, Dhanmondi, Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue before dispersing at the National Press Club," Liton Nondi, a protester and President of Bangladesh Students Union, told The New Nation on Friday evening.

The rally faced the first interception at Central Shaheed Minar, where the programme was supposed to begin, from a human chain formed by the BCL men around 10:30am, he said.

He alleged that their 25 activists were injured during the bouts of confrontations with police and BCL men.

Police also arrested two protesters from the city's Tejgaon area during protest, he claimed.

"More cyclists from around the city were heading to this spot as well. Police stopped a number of cyclists at Shahbagh, Dhanmondi, Nilkhet, Polashi and Kakrail, and seized their bicycles," said Liton Nondi,

Saikat Mallik, President of Bangladesh Students Federation, said that BCL members fractured the arm of a protester called Ashik.

However, when a group of protesters tried to move towards the National Press from the Doel Chatter at noon with their bicycles, police lobbed tear gas shells and used water cannon to disband them, he said.

BCL activists assaulted several green activists during rounds of confrontation, he said.

Mohammad Imran, General Secretary of Dhaka University's Mohsin Hall Chhatra League BCL unit, said: "We are for the development and for the power plant. That is why we are demonstrating."

When contacted, Professor Anu Muhammad, member-secretary of the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports, said, "The protesters managed to rally together at Shaheed Minar despite earlier setbacks and tried to pass through the BCL barricade. They were attacked from behind as they proceeded towards the Press Club."

"We condemn such attempts to foil the people's movement. The attack has exposed the moral depravity of the government. They are afraid of our protests and unleashed the BCL and police repeatedly on us," the Professor said.

"The Chhatra League and the Sundarbans campaigners had simultaneous programmes at Shaheed Minar," Siddiqur Rahman, Officer-in-Charge of Shahbagh Police Station.

"Their designated route was Azimpur to Dhanmondi?. Police tried to stop them because this was not their designated route," he said.
Hannan Shah laid to rest in Gazipur

Staff Reporter :

BNP leader ASM Hannan Shah was laid to eternal rest at his family graveyard in Kapasia upazila in Gazipur on Friday.

Three Namaz-e-Janazas were held in Gazipur district. The venues were Bhawal Rajbari, Kapasia Pilot High School and Ghatutia High School ground.

BNP leaders Nazrul Islam Khan, Mohammad Shahjahan,

Khairul Kabir Khokon, Fazlul Haq Milon, Hasan Uddin Sarkar and Gazipur city Awami League General Secretary Shah Alam, among others, attended the Namaz-e-Janaza held at Bhawal Rajbari ground. Hannan Shah, a retired army officer and politician, was buried beside his father's grave amid tears, grief and heart rending cry.

People from all walks of life irrespective of professions and ages attended the Janaza and offered prayer seeking eternal peace for the departed soul.

Four Namaz-e-Janazas of Hannan Shah were held in the capital on Thursday. The BNP leader's Namaz-e-Janaza was also held in a Singapore mosque on Tuesday. Hannan Shah died in Singapore on September 27. He was 77.

He was flown to Singapore for treatment on September 11, after he suffered a major cardiac problem.

His dead body was brought to home on Wednesday evening by a flight of Bangladesh Airlines.
BGMEA for early release of containers at Port

Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) on Friday at an urgent Press conference in city demanded of the government to take immediate steps for delivering containers now stranded at Chittagong Port due to strike.

Staff Reporter :

Leaders of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) yesterday expressed concern over the container congestion at Chittagong Port following the strike enforced by the Chittagong Prime Mover-Trailer Owners-Workers Unity Council.

They said the strike has affected their export and production seriously causing losses to billions of taka.

"The strike has led to serious container congestion at the port leaving an adverse impact on our exports and factory production," Md Siddiqur Rahman, President of BGMEA told this at a

press conference on Friday. BGMEA organised the press conference to brief journalists about the impact of the strike on the apparel industry.

"We do not see any justification of the strike when the whole economy suffers from this kind of act," said the BGMEA president, adding, "Chittagong is our prime seaport and the country's 80 per cent import and export trade pass through it".

"The port is playing a vital role for economic activities, but it's activities are disrupted time and again after enforcement of strikes by various groups. It a matter of grave concern We cannot accept such a destructive programme. We want a permanent solution to this," Rahman added.

The BGMEA leader also urged all to come out with a permanent solution of the present deadlock to keep running wheels of their industries.

He also asked the authorities concerned to take measures for quick disposal of the containers now piled up at the port.

"Chittagong Port was experiencing the largest ever container congestion as the trailer operators have enforced an indefinite strike from Monday," Rahman said.

As of Thursday, a total of 40,259 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of containers were stockpiled at the port yards exceeding its total capacity of storing 36,357 TEUs of containers.

Of the stockpiled containers, as many as 13,500 TEUs contain materials imported by apparel exporters.

"These imported containers could not be released in the last few days due to the strike. The exporters were paying the price and the disruption will send a negative message to the buyers," said the BGMEA president.


Bangladesh`s hasty support for India denied us importance and a positive role

Editorial Desk :

The planned visit of the President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping to Bangladesh in the middle of October could have been used as a great diplomatic opportunity by Dhaka if it could have waited in taking sides over the worsening military confrontation between India and Pakistan. We could have waited to be decisive over our support for India. Our government could not have avoided support for India as it was a forgone conclusion because of the special relationship our government has with India.



In the situation of war with Pakistan the support of Bangladesh in favour of India will not be a big help for India. If any effective role was to be expected then that was in the field diplomacy.



It was also important for us to think that the issue involved in the dispute is Kashmir. The question will be how best to solve the Kashmir problem. The most reasonable basis for the solution will be public opinion in both parts of Kashmir. The fate of Kashmir has to be weighed constructively for the good of India also. There is a resolution of the United Nations on Kashmir.



Military confrontation between India and Pakistan over Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir has drawn the two nuclear nations closer to broader engagement. Whether these acts will lead to war is not clear despite assurances from India that it has no intention to escalate.



India claimed it had carried out a surgical attack on Pakistani side of the LoC on Wednesday night in which they killed several terrorists. Pakistan said two of its soldiers were killed in exchange of fire and they fear more such attack may come. In fact exchange of fire across the LoC continued through Friday in which both sides claimed to have also more military and civilian casualties.

What surprises many at this stage is that when both India and Pakistan are trading blames and making rush to war games, Bangladesh has lent its open support to India in the event of any war. Our Government has said Bangladesh would stand beside India; which appears to many as too early an announcement that should have been delayed to allow the situation to get clear. Needless to say India has helped Bangladesh in our Liberation War and it is natural that we have a responsibility towards India also.

In a war context however, Bangladesh support will mean nothing effective. But so clear cut a partisan stand in favour of India would not mean much.

In our view neither India nor Bangladesh has intention to go for a full blown war. Having nuclear weapons on both sides, they must show restrain because it will destroy each other. Such a decision will be suicidal. But accidents may happen. So Bangladesh could have played a sobering role to calm the situation.

The visit of the Chinese president could be used to explore how both countries can be helpful for peace in the region. The question is not to encourage India or Pakistan to go to war.

In fact the latest military escalation in the ground resulted from an attack on September 18 on an Indian army base in Uri of Jammu and Kashmir that claimed the lives of 18 Indian soldiers in the night-time operation. India held Pakistan responsible for the attack saying terrorists from Pakistani side of the LoC have carried out the raid. But Pakistan turned down the claim saying Kashmiris fighting for freedom may have carried out it. Some parts of the state is now witnessing mass uprising protesting serious violation of human rights by Indian forces in the region.

If Bangladesh could wait then it would have been possible for it to play constructive role. Now after so clear a support so prematurely we see no role for our country.

The Indian motive behind the new military escalation is to destroy terrorists bases inside Pakistani held Kashmir. But Pakistan is blaming India for 'unprovoked and naked' aggression. In fact the main issue behind the military escalation rests with the Kashmiri people's aspiration for freedom. We must say both India and Pakistan must work to ease their condition without diverting their miseries under the smoke of a new war.




The Undead Archives

I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry. But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world.
Louisiana had the highest murder rate per capita among all states in the country last year, a streak the state has maintained every year since 1989, according to new data released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation this week.

The Times-Picayune reports that the states high murder rate figured as one of several metrics in data that showed murders throughout the U.S. jumped by 10.8 percent from 2014 to 2015  the largest percentage increase since 1971.

Calculated as murders per 100,000 people, the FBIs murder rate marks a key metric in the agencys 2015 Uniform Crime Report, released on Monday. Aside from murders, the annual report also compiles data for other violent crimes  rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults  property crimes, weapons types, victim profiles and demographic analysis. The report categorizes data according to national, state and local jurisdictions.

Read the T-P story here.
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.
Updated: 2016-09-30 07:58

By Yang Feiyue (China Daily)

Steamed shrimp with soy sauce is the most popular dish with visitors. Photos by Yang Feiyue/China Daily

Hangzhou chef shops near and far to serve good food at resort hotel, Yang Feiyue reports.

Chef Hu Chuanqing brings external and local culinary elements together at Hangzhou's Xanadu Resort.

"I believe in serving good food to my guests, whether it's local or not," says the 47-year-old, who's been in the catering business for 25 years. He's now running the kitchen in the Crowne Plaza's Taoyuan Chinese restaurant.

Born in Xiaoshan, an underdeveloped district then in Zhejiang province's Hangzhou, Hu's grasp of catering was deepened when he got a chance to work in Shanghai from 1992 to 1994.

"At that time, Shanghai people loved our local dish Dongpo pork, and I was good at cooking it, so I got the slot," Hu says. Made from a slab of pork belly, the lengthy "red cooking" time of more than three hours results in fat without much of its greasiness.

Working in the big city for two years, Hu returned to Xiaoshan and worked his way up as head chef in various well-known restaurants.

Since 2000, Hu has visited places with well-developed catering industries, including Guangdong province's Guangzhou and Shenzhen, Hong Kong and the Sichuan provincial capital, Chengdu.
Home >Police Enforcement > Checkpoints and Stops > North Carolina: Traffic Stop Must Be Based On An Actual Violation Of Law
President Joe Biden has decided to ban Russian oil imports, toughening the toll on Russia's economy in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine. The United States generally imports about 100,000 barrels a day from Russia, only about 5% of Russia's crude oil exports, according to Rystad Energy. Last year, roughly 8% of U.S. imports of oil and petroleum products came from Russia. Gas prices have been rising for weeks due to the conflict and in anticipation of potential sanctions on the Russian energy sector. The U.S. national average for a gallon of gasoline soared 45 cents a gallon in the past week and topped $4.06 on Monday, according to auto club AAA. Should the US ban Russian oil imports over Ukraine war?

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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

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[For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien...

Cock Ring

A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis.

It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow.

It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber.

In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection.

Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction.

It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it.

Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time.

Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function.

Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy.

You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect.

[Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat...

Love Doll

Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex.

There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women.

Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price.

The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true.

You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste.

There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice.

You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls.

If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here

Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to...

Sex lubricants

Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules.

It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution.

Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse.

There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent.

Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent.

If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here.

What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many...

Toys for the Prostate

Another sextoy for men is prostate toys.

The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line.

Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men.

Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men.

What is the prostate?

The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm.

You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus.

By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms.

Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.)

The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation.

Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure.

sextoy for beinner women in India

The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy.

The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy.

Vibrator.

Dildo

Electric Masserger

Lets check out what each one is in detail.

If you want to check out womens toys, click here.

[BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm...

Vibrators

A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator.

Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy.

It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy.

Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women.

For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators.

Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex.

Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself.

This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual.

Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men.

When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons.

Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most...

Dildo

A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis.

It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass.

A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it.

They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well.

It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device.

A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo.

Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands.

For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis.

This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one.

To learn more about dildo, please click here.

What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th...

Electric Masserger

A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores.

It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low.

Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels.

Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation.

It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure.

For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm.

It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out.

If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager?

To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here.

What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th...

How to choose a sextoy for Indian

Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one.

Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points:  Does the size fit you (the partner)?

Does the size fit you (your partner)?

Is the environment able to produce sound without problems?

Price range

First of all, the choice of size is quite important.

Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women.

For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage.

Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems.

Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise.

If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level.

Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it.

Finally, there is the price range.

The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest.

Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy.

Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy?

I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance.

For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics.

If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out.

How to buy sextoys in India

The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping.

For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below.

Sextoy is one of them.

Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping.

SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India.

They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry.

Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card.

To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy.

ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal.

Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on.

Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture.

Cautions for Indians using sextoy

When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind

Keep sex toys clean

Watch out for electrical leakage

Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy

As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone.

Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there.

It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case.

In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness.

Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful.

If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it.

You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly.

Summary

What did you think?

In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India.

The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future.

As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values.

However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health.

If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try?

Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women.

I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it.
CARBONDALE  Pancakes and stuffed French toast are now more readily available in Carbondale as the IHOP will open Monday.

In the place of the former blighted Unicity Inn hotel, will sit a newly constructed IHOP with more space to grow. The property sits next to Staples and just down the street from University Mall along the entryway into the city from the east.

The anticipation of the restaurant started back in February 2015 when it was announced the Unicity Inn would be demolished, and the past year has seen the site as a construction zone.

IHOP Owner Andy Patel said he has vast experience when it comes to running similar establishments. He said Thursday that he has been in the IHOP business for 26 years. He has owned IHOPs in Florida, St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, and he is the owner of the restaurant being constructed in Marion.

IHOP isnt Patels only business venture, as he has owned Pizza Hut, Burger King and Applebees franchises throughout the country.

I always came to Carbondale and thought it would be a good spot for a breakfast place, he said, adding that he didnt see very many breakfast spots in the area.

The restaurant will open officially Monday, but Patel said there will be a grand opening celebration about Oct. 17 or 18.

During the first two official days of business, Patel said the business will be donating part of its proceeds to particular organizations in the city.

On Monday, he said IHOP is giving 100 percent of its proceeds to the Boys & Girls Club of Carbondale. Any proceeds gained during normal business hours  6 a.m. to 11 p.m.  will go to the club.

Then, on Tuesday, the restaurant will match any donations given to the Carbondale Park District at the restaurant up to $5,000. Patel said the goal is to generate $10,000 for the part district.

Connected to the building is a 3,000-square-foot facility that is open for rent. Behind the building facing Illinois 13, is another 6,000-square-foot building with no immediate plans. He said he has spoken with a few companies, but there havent been any deals made.

Patel said the Marion facility is scheduled to open the second week of November. After these buildings are open, he said he will be expanding to Mount Vernon and Effingham with IHOPs.

The city has been so great to work with, Patel said. Because of City Manager Gary Williams, I landed much quicker here.

We wanted to help clean up this area.
PINCKNEYVILLE  A Pinckneyville man once held for his role in the 2010 kidnapping and murder of a 15-year-old Pinckneyville teen was formally charged earlier today with the girl's death.

Chad R. Bennett II, 26, was charged Friday with first-degree murder, four counts, and concealment of homicidal death, one count, in the death of 15-year-old Sidnee Stephens, according to a news release from Perry County State's Attorney David N. Stanton.

An arrest warrant was signed Friday, when he was taken into custody. His bail was set at $1 million. The case is set for a preliminary hearing on Oct. 14.

Bennett was reportedly committing a burglary on July 18 or 19, 2010, when he kidnapped Stephens and later killed her, according to the court documents from the Circuit Court of the 20th Judicial Circuit of Perry County. The documents allege that Bennett either shot or strangled Stephens and, a few days later, about July 21 or 22, attempted to conceal her death by using a strap to attach a concrete block to Stephens' body and "positioning the body" under the Beaucoup Creek Bridge on Cudge Town Road in Pinckneyville.

Fishermen discovered the teen's body under the bridge on July 25, 2010.

Charged with collaborating in the teen's death were her half-sister, Dakota Wall, who was sentenced in 2014 to 26 years in prison, and others; Wall had reportedly left the door open so others could come in and scare Stephens.

According to previous Southern Illinoisan reports, Robbie Mueller, James Glazier and Carl Dane entered the house, choked Stephens until she lost consciousness twice, and took her in the truck of a vehicle to Beaucoup Creek where Dane said in court testimony that he shot her two to four times with a handgun after removing her from the trunk.

Mueller said he and Glazier pushed Stephens' body into the creek.

Glazier is serving a 60-year sentence and Mueller was sentenced to 37 years. Dane committed suicide in his jail cell before he was transferred to prison.

In late August 2013, Perry County State's Attorney David N. Stanton dropped the original murder charge against Bennett, filing a Nolle Prosequi, which meant Stanton did not wish to prosecute the case at this time, reserving the right to refile them later, according to an online Southern Illinoisan article. He did so at the time because he didn't think he'd have anyone to testify against Bennett.
MCLEANSBORO  A 22-year-old Hamilton County man has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of a 45-year-old Salem man.

Zachery J. Shock of Dale is charged with fatally shooting James L. Berkel on Friday.

Shock was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of aggravated battery with a firearm, a Class X felony, according to a news release from Hamilton County State's Attorney Justin Hood.

He was arrested early Friday morning in Wayne County, and is being held at the White County Jail on $2.5 million bond. Hamilton County does not have a jail and uses the jail facility in White County.

Shock's first appearance is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 3, at the Hamilton County Circuit Court, according to Hood.

The investigation was handled by Illinois State Police with assistance from Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, McLeansboro City Police and Wayne County Sheriff's Office. Autopsy results for Berkel are pending and the investigation is ongoing.
The attorney for Elisa Kirkpatrick, the former veterinarian found guilty in July of felony aggravated cruel treatment of an animal and 10 misdemeanor charges, has filed an appeal in her case with the Appellate Court for the Fifth District.

The notice of appeal filed earlier this week does not indicate on what grounds the appeal is requested, but her attorney John Clemons with the Southern Illinois Law Center argued in a previous motion for a retrial that the state failed to prove that Kirkpatrick acted with intent to harm the animal on which she performed the surgery that was the basis of the felony charge.

Chief, who belonged to a Marion resident who was a longtime client of Kirkpatricks, died within hours following the surgery in question. Much of the court testimony centered on what caused Chiefs death.

During Kirkpatricks bench trial, the state prosecutors argued the intent was shown by the fact that Kirkpatrick was a skilled veterinarian who knew her veterinary license had been suspended, and would have reasonably known that the conditions under which she performed surgery on a clients pet dog named Chief were not sanitary. Clemons argued that Kirkpatrick's only intent was to save a dog already near death.

At the bench trial's conclusion, Judge Brian Lewis sided with the state and sentenced Kirkpatrick on Sept. 2 to two years of mandatory probation. The terms of her sentencing also require she submit to a mental health evaluation and treatment.

I think its very clear that there was a domino effect of events in this case that led to a downward spiral, Judge Lewis said in making his ruling.

The Mount Vernon-based Appellate Court can reverse the lower courts ruling or send it back with directions, or can affirm the decision.

A longtime veterinarian at Carbondales Kitty Klinic, Kirkpatrick had her license suspended by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation in December 2014 and continued to practice veterinary medicine throughout the following year, picking up animals at owners homes and treating them at her house.

Authorities performed a welfare check at Kirkpatricks home on May 22, 2015, after receiving a report of an offensive odor from an individual who had tried to serve her an eviction notice. They discovered dozens of animals, including 40 dogs, 15 cats, two pigs, a donkey, a cockatoo, a bobcat and an African serval. In the basement, they found bags stuffed with animal carcasses. Kirkpatrick testified that her affairs had spiraled out of control because of personal challenges in her life, including the death of her father.

Kirkpatrick was convicted of a Class 4 felony of aggravated cruel treatment of an animal for performing a surgical operation on Chief, an American Staffordshire terrier, in an unsterile manner on her kitchen island. Chief died within 24 hours of being removed from her home by authorities.

In addition to mandatory probation, Assistant Williamson County States Attorney Joe Cervantez had recommended 180 days of jail time and a $5,000 fine. The prosecution also said Kirkpatrick should be barred from working with, living with or owning animals for the duration of her probation.

At sentencing, Clemons argued against the $5,000 fine, calling Kirkpatrick indigent and unemployed.

Clemons called the proposed rule that would prevent Kirkpatrick from working and living with animals extremely problematic and an unnecessary condition, as Kirkpatricks mother owns several animals and Kirkpatrick might be able to secure employment as a researcher.

We dont need to infringe on Dr. Kirkpatricks ability to get some kind of employment, he said then.

In the sentencing, Judge Lewis said he would not proscribe Kirkpatrick from being around animals. She was ordered to pay court fees but was not ordered to pay a fine.
This editorial appeared in Thursday's Washington Post:

With the passing of Shimon Peres, who died Wednesday at age 93, Israel suffers the loss of a lion, the last of the founding generation of leaders. Peres came to Palestine from a village in what is now Belarus when he was 12. He became a young kibbutznik, a lieutenant to founding father David Ben-Gurion, a Knesset member, a deputy defense minister, an acting prime minister, and minister of defense, foreign affairs, transportation, communications, immigrant absorption, information and finance. He was twice prime minister and, near the end, the nation's president. Through a career that spanned this tumultuous period  through years of siege, bloodshed and building a nation  Peres never abandoned hope that, with enough sweat and tears, Israel would live in peace.

The young Shimon Persky once described the Jewish world of his birth as similar to a voyage in a subway train  "you travel underground, you don't see the scenery, and nobody sees you in the train." Nevertheless, with an eloquent tongue and quick mind, he excelled in school. He arrived in Palestine in 1935 pale and introverted, but within a few years had heartily embraced the Labor movement. He worked the land at a youth village, impressing friends with a fondness for literature and history that was, at times, otherworldly. One friend told biographer Michael Bar-Zohar that "when he spoke to us we felt as if we were right now in London and had met Churchill an hour before."

Peres did not fight in the trenches in Israel's war of independence, but rather scoured the world for arms, often working in an office separated only by a sheet of plywood from Ben-Gurion. Later, he helped found Israel's aircraft industry and, using tortuous and sometimes illegal methods  because no one would sell weapons to Israel openly  he snapped up tanks, aircraft, torpedo boats and spare parts. He opened the doors for Israel to the French arms industry in the 1950s. This was followed by an even more spectacular and secret achievement, the creation of the Israeli atomic bomb, an unstated but powerful deterrent.

Peres was a security hawk at a time when Israel's enemies were its Arab neighbors. But the dynamic changed somewhat after Israel made peace with Egypt in the Camp David Accords of 1979. When the Palestinian uprising broke out in 1987, Peres realized that, while the Palestinians were not an existential threat, Israel would never live in peace without settling with them. Peres had been shrewd, secretive and scheming in politics, but he and his longtime rival, Yitzhak Rabin, made a fateful decision to work together upon returning to power in 1992. The next year, a surprising back-channel negotiation with the Palestine Liberation Organization led to the Oslo Accords, offering the Palestinians limited self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It was a crowning triumph for Peres, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Rabin and Yasser Arafat.

It also marked a metamorphosis for Peres, who spoke of peace fervently and with no less eloquence than in his school days. He found great respect as Israel's president, his final stop in a long journey, but his dream of Israel at peace, pursued with such determination and vision, eluded him to the last.
By Li Yingqing in Kunming and Zheng Jinran in Beijing (China Daily)

The police in Kunming, Yunnan province, arrested a 25-year-old man suspected of killing 19 people aged 3 to 72, in a remote southwestern village on Thursday afternoon.

The Ministry of Public Security sent a team to investigate the case along with local authorities.

Few details are known since the investigation is in its early stages, but the provincial public security authority said it did not involve terrorism.

Yunnan provincial public security authorities confirmed that 19 villagers from Yema village, Huize county, Qujing city - including four children - were found dead on Thursday morning. The victims were from six families.

The suspected killer, Yang Qingpei, a resident of the village, was arrested at 2 pm on Thursday in Kunming, about 200 kilometers away from the where the crime occurred, the city police said.

Though no official details about motives were released, an anonymous source claiming to be the suspect's student told Chengdu Business Daily that the victims were relatives of Yang, including his uncles.

Yang is married and has worked in Kunming for years, but has been in debt as a result of gambling, the source said, adding that he intended to borrow money from his relatives but was rejected and killed them on Wednesday night.

Contact the writers at zhengjinran@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/30/2016 page4)
Trinity United Methodist Church of Orangeburg will present a benefit concert, Coming Home: A Musical Family Reunion," this Saturday, Oct. 1.

The concert, which is part of the year-long celebration of Trinity's 150th anniversary, will begin at 4 p.m. in the church sanctuary.

The public is invited to enjoy traditional and contemporary gospel featuring the world-famous Jarvis Brothers Quintet, The Flame Within and Friends, The Graham Family, Pastor Mack and First Lady Gwendolyn McClam, John Morris Wright, Herman Daniels and Trinitys Voices of Faith Choir directed by Gail Mack and more.

There is no admission fee, but love offerings and patron contributions are welcome. The proceeds from the event will support the churchs Sesquicentennial Project Fund for various ministries.

Founded in 1866 as Trinity Methodist Episcopal, the first congregation occupied a small school house built by the Freedman's Bureau, which the United States Congress established in 1865 to help former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the American Civil War. Its present structure on Boulevard Street was begun in 1928 and completed in 1944.

This event underscores the musical tradition of excellence that has been associated with Trinity since her inception. With outstanding soloists, choirs, bands and musicians over the years, Trinitys heritage is deeply tied to her contributions in the area of worship music.

'Coming Home is a unique opportunity to celebrate the themes of music and family that have been so important in the life of our church for more than 150 years, said Janice McCollom, a member of the October Group sponsoring the event.

As we were considering ways to honor the churchs 150th anniversary, Myra Graham Thomas, October Group chair, came up with the idea to sponsor a concert featuring some of the churchs family groups and other artists in a musical family reunion, she said.

Headlining the concert will be perhaps Trinitys most well-known contributors to the music ministry, the acclaimed recording artists who comprise The Jarvis Brothers Quintet.

Singing the Jubilee style of Negro spirituals and African-American songs for more than 40 years, the sons of the late Ulysses Sr. and Anna Jarvis grew up in Orangeburg attending Trinity. The brothers include Ulysses Jr., Donald, Anthony, Rogers and Donalds son, Cornell, who often sang with his father and uncles and permanently joined the group after the 2007 passing of brother Reginald.

Nationally renowned for their richly layered harmonies and authentic delivery, the Jarvis Brothers have performed at The Smithsonian Institute, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the United Methodist Church General Board of Global Ministries Regional Mission Theology Consultation and at many other festivals and events throughout the country. Not to be left out, the brothers only sister, Priscilla, is a church organist, and sings in the Sanctuary Choir and Voices of Faith. Musician and producer Steven Jarvis, also Donalds son, continues the musical tradition of the Jarvis family as a keyboardist with the Voices of Faith.

Also coming home to celebrate their roots in Trinity is the vocal trio The Flame Within. Karyn Amos Moss, Yvette McDaniel and Janice McCollom began singing together as members of the Junior Choir at Trinity during their high school years in the mid-1970s. Flame, as the best friends are popularly known, was initially guided and inspired by McDaniels late parents, James and Myrtle McDaniel, also longtime fixtures in the music ministry of Trinity.

With smoothly blended voices, the women sing a variety of genres, from classical to pop to contemporary gospel and more, and have performed across the country. Dr. McDaniel, an operatic soprano and director of the Denmark Technical College Choir, has studied with some of the worlds most acclaimed teachers and has appeared with symphony orchestras and on stages throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Saturdays appearance will also include friends of the trio, Myron Brooker and Ashley-Marie Jordan. Brooker is the minister of music at Andrew Chapel Baptist Church and is a longtime popular local musician known for his stirring vocals and masterful skills on the piano and keyboard. Jordan, too, is an accomplished young vocalist, with a soaring, pitch-perfect soprano that captivates all who hear her.

The Graham Family, originally from Lake City, has been playing and singing together as siblings for as long as they can remember. They began in Wesley United Methodist Church and evolved into an R&B group, Graham National Product, in 1973, under the tutelage of their father, the late Robert Graham, who also served as a minister of music at several local churches. The family moved to Orangeburg in 1979 where they affiliated with Trinity United Methodist Church.

Originally three brothers, three sisters, a cousin and a brother-in-law, Saturdays musical reunion will feature contemporary gospel selections by the now expanded family of cousins, grandchildren, in-laws and friends, including original members sisters Myra Graham Thomas, Kathy Graham Chavis and Jessica Graham Pleasant, brother Peter Graham, several of their spouses and children and other members of their extended families. Thomas husband, J.J., will accompany the Grahams and the Voices of Faith on bass.

Trinitys senior pastor, Rev. Mack C. McClam and First Lady Gwendolyn McClam will perform a special duet during the concert. The talented pair are also celebrating a homecoming, as they are both graduates of Claflin University in Orangeburg. They returned to the area when Rev. McClam was appointed to serve Trinity in June 2015. A noted soprano, Mrs. McClam, the former Gwendolyn Loretta Tyler of Norway, is an educator and adjunct professor in the Department of Education at Claflin. She has served as music leader for the South Carolina United Methodist School of Mission for many years and as music coordinator of the United Methodist Ministers Spouses Retreat. Rev. McClam, an elder in the South Carolina Annual Conference, has served in many ministry appointments around the state. Parishioners at Trinity are quite familiar with his rich baritone voice, but many may be unaware of his talents as a saxophonist as well.

Also performing will be John Morris Wright, a native of Holly Hill whose family moved to Orangeburg when he was 12. A saxophone student of the late J.B. Hunt, celebrated local musician and teacher, and long-time band director at the former Wilkinson High School, Wright led the popular R&B band The Exotics, for five years and founded The Invincibles Band and Revue and a combo known as The Enticers. He has performed with numerous recording artists such as ZZ Hill, Bobby Womack, Clarence Carter, Candi Staton and Garnet Mims. Now retired, this Trinity member composes and arranges music and enjoys performing at local nursing homes and charity events.

Vocalist Herman Daniels will also be on the program. Daniels spent his youth in Lake City and became a fan of the elder members of the Graham Family. They would let him sing with them from time to time, even though he was only 4-years-old. Daniels has sung in various choirs and currently contributes to the music ministry at Trinity as a member of the Sanctuary Choir, the Mens Chorus and the Voices of Faith.

Also on Saturday's bill are family members Gloria Waymer Dean, a church pianist and Worship Committee chair, who will provide solo music on piano, and her son, Jason Dean, who will accompany several of the artists on drums.

Rounding out Saturdays musical family reunion will be the Trinity United Methodist Church Voices of Faith choir, recently reorganized under the direction of Gail Hubbard Mack. Mack, a lifelong member of Trinity and an arts administrator with Orangeburg Consolidated School District Five, is a noted teacher, musician and director. She has led music ministries at Trinity and a number of area churches for more than 30 years. The popular 25-voice choir, recently featured at the Orangeburg NAACPs Freedom Fund Banquet, is known for ministering in a wide range of liturgical styles including classical, spirituals, traditional hymns and traditional and contemporary gospel.

The community is invited to attend the afternoon event. For more information, contact the church office at 803-534-7759.
Nigerians all over the world will pause to celebrate their countrys 56th anniversary of independence from the British on Saturday, Oct. 1.

In observation of the day, the Nigerian community in Orangeburg will hold a special celebration showcasing Nigerian culture, fashion and cuisine on Saturday at the St. Luke Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall.

The event, which is open to the public, will begin at 4 p.m. St. Luke Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall is located at 324 Mingo St.

Tickets may be purchased at the door for $10 per person.

Nigeria, a country in West Africa, sits on the Gulf of Guinea and is bordered by the countries of Niger and Chad Republic in the North, Cameroon on the eastern part, Benin Republic on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the south.

The land boundaries stretch nearly 2,515 miles and the coastal line stretches nearly 530 miles. This is approximately the size of the state of Texas.

Nigeria is ranked the eighth most populous nation in the world with more than 180 million people. There are 36 states in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory. The federal capital is located in Abuja.

Nigeria is a country that is endowed with rich culture and diversity, with more than 250 different ethnic groups. However, there are three dominant tribes: the Ibos (Igbo), Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani. Christianity and Islam are the two major religions.

The name Nigeria is derived from the Niger River, which is the longest and largest river in West Africa.

Nigeria is very rich in natural resources, especially oil. As the largest oil producing country in Africa, much of the economy depends on oil revenue. Oil revenue provides 20 percent of GDP, 95 percent of foreign exchange earnings and about 65 percent of budgetary revenues. At one time, crude oil production was at a maximum of 2 million barrels per day. Other natural resources in the country include coal, tin, bauxite, iron ore, limestone, lead, zinc, rubber and gold, but these have not been fully explored.

Agriculture is a vital part of the countrys economy. However, the level of practice and methodology is still far behind. There is rapid growth in population, and food production has not kept up. As a result, Nigeria, which once was a large exporter of food, now imports some of its food products. Agriculture has suffered years of mismanagement, inconsistent and poorly conceived government policies and the lack of basic infrastructure. Yet this sector accounts for over 27 percent of GDP and two-thirds of employment.

Economically, Nigeria is considered one of the fastest developing countries in the world despite the fact that three key factors essential for the growth and development of any country -- infrastructure, power supply and basic water supply -- are lacking or non-existant.

In spite of all these challenges, Nigeria possesses many positive attributes for carefully targeted investments and economic opportunities at all levels. There is a profitable niche market outside the energy sector. For example, specialized telecommunication providers have developed under the governments reform program. Companies that are interested in long-term investment and joint ventures, especially those that use locally available raw materials and labor, may find it beneficial to explore opportunities to do business in Nigeria.

Politically, Nigeria is moving to stabilize democracy in the country with the recent election of His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari. The president has committed to deal with some of the key issues that have put a chokehold on the country. These include wiping out corruption, eliminating the threat of Boko Haram, improvements in the energy sector and infrastructure development for economic growth.

Most Nigerians believe that our country is unique and special even though to the rest of the world our problems are not different from those of our neighbors. The difference here is that Nigerians have the resilience, tenacity and willpower to rebound and stay united through turbulent times.

This is why we ask the rest of the world and our community in particular to join us in saying cheers and happy independence to Nigeria, the Giant of Africa."
Three Eutawville men are facing murder charges in the shooting deaths of four people in July 2015.

More arrests and charges are likely, according to Orangeburg County Sheriff Leroy Ravenell.

I made a comment on the day of this incident that we would not rest until the person or persons who committed this crime are brought to justice, Ravenell said at a Thursday press conference.

This investigation is far, far from over, he said.

Charged with the execution-style slayings are Robert Lee Pockets Bailey, 37, of 11269 Old Number Six Highway; Derrick Warren Coleman, 27, of 1234 St. Julien Drive and Antly Jermaine Scott, 35, of 253 Barkley Street.

Each of the men is facing four charges of murder, one charge of attempted murder, one charge of first-degree burglary and one charge of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.

Ravenell believes the men visited 7050 Old State Road, Holly Hill, on the steamy morning of July 15, 2015. Robbery and illegal drugs were on their minds, he said.

But instead of robbing the home of material items, investigators believe the men took much more.

They are accused of taking the lives of Tamara Alexis Perry, 14; Shamekia Sanders, 17; Krystal Hutto, 28 and Jerome Butler, 50.

Investigators also believe they tried to kill 8-year-old Dreamzz Nelson, but he survived and is doing well.

Each of the victims was shot in their heads with a handgun.

The three suspects were taken into custody without incident on Tuesday.

Acting on a tip, the Orangeburg County Sheriffs Office requested the U.S. Marshals Service assist in apprehending Coleman and Scott. They arrested the pair at a home in Foley, Alabama.

The suspects are awaiting extradition to South Carolina.

Investigators arrested Bailey in Eutawville the same day.

The sheriffs office identified Bailey as a person of interest early in the case. Until May, he was held at the Orangeburg County Detention Center on drug charges.

Bailey pleaded guilty to first-offense distribution and possession of narcotics, second-offense manufacturing and possession of scheduled drugs with intent to distribute and unlawful carrying of a handgun.

Circuit Judge Ed Dickson sentenced him to 10 years in prison, but suspended the term to five years of probation.

With three accused murderers in custody, Ravenell said the investigation is ongoing and he wants anyone who had knowledge of the slayings before or after it happened to call law enforcement.

The Holly Hill case has a dedicated tip line: 1-888-825-7172.

Those who did not come forward with knowledge of the case will also face charges, Ravenell explained.

We are anticipating some charges, whether they are murder, then it will be, but I do believe more charges are coming, he said.

This is a different kind of investigation than Ive ever been involved in within 30 years, Ravenell said Thursday.

The investigation took us in circles and now circles are coming together, he explained.

Ravenell said he remains convinced that Christopher Dean Wright, 37, had information about the case that he could have provided.

I still stand on that, Ravenell said.

Wright is the father of the two slain teens and sole survivor. He was also Huttos fiance.

His attorney says he has been cooperating with authorities.

Wright wasnt at home when the shootings occurred and hasnt been charged in them. He faces three unlawful conduct toward a child charges, two drug trafficking charges one obstruction of justice charge and one trafficking crack cocaine charge.

He has been held at the Orangeburg County Detention Center since last fall.

Ravenell said that he and other members of the Holly Hill 4 taskforce of law enforcement agencies  such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Marshals Service and State Law Enforcement Division  met with the victims family members on Wednesday to tell them about updates in the case.

I told them how amazing they were throughout this entire process, Ravenell said.
A Eutawville man says he didnt kill four people in July 2015.

"I am not no murderer," 37-year-old Robert Lee Pockets Bailey told Orangeburg County Magistrate Don West on Thursday.

"I would never hurt nobody. I might drink and smoke whatever but this right here is totally wrong, he said.

Bailey is one of three suspects charged with four counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, one count of first-degree burglary and one count of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.

His arrest was announced Thursday, just hours before his arraignment.

During his hearing, Bailey spoke while about 35 family members of the victims watched in silence.

Bailey said, "They are going to see I am innocent and I am still innocent until the time comes.

I didn't do that."

West reminded Bailey his day in court will come later.

"I understand," Bailey said.

"The bail will be set at a later time before a circuit court judge," West said.

"Yes, sir," Bailey said.

As the charges against Bailey were being read, one female on the front row became emotional and had to be consoled by a male.

Bailey; Derrick Warren Coleman, 27, and Antly Jermaine Jackie Man Scott, 35, are all accused in the July 15, 2015 execution-style murder of four people in Holly Hill.

Authorities allege they shot and killed Jerome Butler, 50; Krystal Hutto, 28; and half-sisters Shamekia Tyjuana Sanders, 17, and Tamara Alexis Perry, 14. Dreamzz Nelson, 8, was shot but survived.

During a Thursday morning press conference, Orangeburg County Sheriff Leroy Ravenell said Bailey was a person of interest early in the investigation.

Bailey pleaded guilty in May to first-offense distributing and possessing narcotics, second-offense manufacturing and possessing scheduled drugs with intent to distribute and unlawful carrying of a handgun.

Circuit Judge Ed Dickson sentenced Bailey to 10 years in prison on those charges, but suspended the term to five years of probation.

Originally from New Jersey, Bailey has lived in Eutawville for about 16 years.

During Thursday's arraignment, Bailey said he lives with his mother, his wife and his four children ages 7 to 19.

Bailey is currently unemployed, but he told West he used to sell hair.
Left:Marketing Consultant Candice Sealey impressed upon calypsonians the importance of a fan base. Middle:Lawyer Stephen Huggins chided the senior calypsonians for not having contributed much to the advancement of the art form. Right:Kenneth Scakes Alleyne warned against putting down the elder bards so as to elevate the younger ones.

Members of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Calypsonians Association will be continuing efforts to improve the prospects of calypsonians, when they meet again October 8.





That will be a follow-up to a Retreat staged at the conference room at the Arnos Vale Playing Field last Saturday.





President Earl Caba Bennett described the session as "rewarding when he addressed the closing, albeit, noting governance of the Calypso body was not exclusively an executive undertaking, so as to involve others in the work of the Association.





Marketing and Promotion





Marketing Consultant Candice Sealey made a presentation on Marketing and Promotion.

She highlighted the importance of having a "brand. For her, ones image and reputation help to connect with fans.

Artistes must interact with fans, and there must be contact with the public through, among other means, the innovations available through technological upgrades.





"Listen to feedback from fans.  Your development as an artiste is shaped by your fans, Sealey urged.

Artistes must clear up any doubt as to who they are, and Sealey indicated, "You have to figure out what you want to be known for.





Artistes have to increase their fan base, she posited, and pointed out ways of broadening the base through different strategies, competitions and other ingenious means.

She pointed to the benefit of having goals, and being able to "target the right audience.





Governance in calypso





Veteran calypsonian Kenneth Vibrating Scakes Alleyne shared the presentation on Governance in calypso with lawyer Stephen Huggins. But it came across that there were differences in philosophy between the two presenters.





Huggins made it clear that the art form should encourage and embrace innovation, noting, "There is always going to be progression, and emphasised, "We must accommodate the young people.





Huggins proffered the view that elders were not adding much to the advancement of calypso.

Scakes took a different outlook and warned, "We cant have a tendency of putting down senior calypsonians to bring up the juniors.





Financial Sustainability





Tent manager Bentley Browne addressed the issue of Financial Sustainability as far as the Association, tents, and artistes were concerned.





Browne noted that the Association was competing with the Carnival Development Corporation for sponsorship, and used the occasion to encourage the Association to do more promotional events.





"We have to become more focussed on raising funds, Browne said, and towards that end, advanced the view that cultural activities should be all year round, not seasonal.





Browne made a special appeal to calypsonians to become members of the Copyright organisation since, as he saw it, calypso was no longer confined to the narrow ambits of any island nation.

In that light, he also encouraged artistes to make songs that will have appeal beyond the village.





Growing the Art Form





Musical arranger Joffre Venner, who for many years served as the Co-ordinator of the Junior Calypso/Soca competitions, addressed the art form as it related to the schools.





He noted that the transition from junior to senior ranks was not automatic, and he, too, urged Tents to promote year round activities.





There are fewer children coming from primary schools who are showing an interest in calypso, according to Venner. He cited the absence of incentives as a possible reason for the fall off.





Venner stressed the need for training among the youngsters in areas like voice, song writing and performance. He wants youngsters to get hooked on a musical instrument as early as possible, and in the case of calypsonians, they ought to learn the keyboard or guitar, at least.





If Venner gets his way, there will be more live band performances so that calypsonians will have a more practical approach to the job. Still, Venner pushed for the bards to "practise professionalism, and impressed upon his audience of calypsonians, the importance of having two songs completed and rehearsed for shows.

Venner, a pioneer of the efforts to raise awareness about copyright, stressed the importance of registering with the Eastern Caribbean Copyright Organisation, and looked at it as the "calypsonians pension.





Marlon Stevenson, a long-standing producer of carnival shows, addressed the audience on Enhancing competitions. He raised issues of relevance, and opened consideration of the need for Calypsonians to become more familiar withlibel and defamation laws.

"Sometimes people are misplaced as to what they can do, Stevenson said. (WKA)
Left:Workers under instructions of the Physical Planning and Development Board, removed part of the Chill Spot structure last week Wednesday. Right:Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said that when politicians get involved they do so with policies.

While the Physical Planning and Development Board (PPDB) is an extension of government, the decision taken against Chill Spot and Aqua was not the decision of any politician.





So said Dr Ralph Gonsalves during a press briefing last week Thursday.





He told members of the media that the PPDB was an independent body established under the Town and Country Planning Act, Chapter 334 under the laws of St Vincent and the Grenadines.





The body consists of 15 members - 12 being office holders and three appointed by Cabinet.

Among the office holders are the Director of Planning, Manager of National Properties, the Chief Engineer, Chief Agricultural Officer, Chief Surveyor, Chief Environmental Officer, the head of the Housing and Land Development Corporation (HLDC), the General Managers of the Central Water and Sewerage Authority (CWSA) and VINLEC, the Commissioner of Police, Warden of the Kingstown Town Board and the Permanent Secretary in the ministry responsible for Planning.





Among the three appointed by Cabinet are the Chairman and Deputy Chairman  and the other person who is appointed by Cabinet is a former head, Adam Nelson, who, according to the Prime Minister, ".. is a splendid professional. I dont think that anyone can say that he has any political axe to grind with anyone.

He went on to say that he was aware of the situation, gathering updates through direct reports, and/or from discussions on local radio.





But he went on to indicate that as far as he knew, no journalist or radio talk show host took the time to see who was on the Planning Board.





The PPDB has authority, and the individual who heads the unit is the secretary to the Board and Chief Executive Officer.





Gonsalves said that there was talk circulating that the individual, whom he did not identify, was a supporter of the New Democratic Party (NDP), and that he "have Ralph head spinning round and he taking advantage of ULP (Unity Labour Party) people.





But the Prime Minister said that as far as he was concerned, the Head of Physical Planning was a good professional.





"It doesnt mean that he cannot make mistakes, but his politics, I dont know; and I have found him to be, in my conversations with him, to be a reasonable person, Gonsalves told the media.

"As a maturing democracy, we must get our facts in order, he continued.





The businesses in question, Chill Spot and Aqua, while many appreciated the service they provided, were the focus of ongoing complaints by residents who cited smoke and excessive noise as disturbances to their health and well-being.





And while there were no zoning laws to regulate what types of businesses can operate in the area, Arnos Vale, those who chose to operate there are obligated to do so within the framework of the law.

"Politicians dont go out and see whats going on with restaurantswhere politicians get involved, they do so with policies; if we want to change the law, Prime Minister Gonsalves said.

Matters of Planning, he said, rest with the authority of the PPDB. (DD)
Despite the trillion-dollar loss since 1960, Cuba remains committed to the ideals of the revolution which moved its status from being a dictatorship to be a socialist republic.

In 1960, one year or so after the revolutionary forces of Cuba led by Fidel Castro had ousted Fulgencio Batista Zaldiva, president and dictator, the USA government imposed an economic, commercial and financial embargo against Cuba .





It was President Dwight Eisenhower who signed the order for the embargo which took effect from October 15, 1960. In February 1962, his administration expanded the trade embargo to cover all trade with Cuba. The following February, President John F Kennedy issued a ban on travel to Cuba.





The embargo in its totality was intended to put pressure on the Castro government and weaken his rule. Fifty-six years later, the revolution remains intact in Cuba, in the face of recurring tightening of the embargo, and Cuba has made tremendous strides in delivering services to its people and even sharing their resources, not least being manpower, with the rest of the world.





But the real records show that Cuba continues to suffer a "systematic worsening due to a US embargo. According to RT, the first Russian 24/7 English-language news channel, Havana values its losses at $1.1 trillion since Washington imposed the sanctions in 1960.





In the words of Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno, "There is not, and there has not been in the world, such a terrorizing and vile violation of human rights of an entire people than the blockade that the US government has been leading against Cuba for 55 years, Abelardo Moreno told reporters.

RT reported that the Minister accused Washington of carrying out the "implacable persecution of investors in Cuba and the countrys financial transactions via the numerous sanctions that create substantial disincentives for establishing economic links with Havana.





Cubas annual report to the United Nations on the US sanctions said that Cuban foreign trade between April 2013 and June 2014 amounted to $3.9 billion, the report said. "Without the embargo, Cuba could have earned $205.8 million selling products such as rum and cigars to US consumers, it added.





Moreno also emphasized the damage inflicted on tourism, with that sector being unable to earn at least $2 billion due to the impediments on traveling to the island imposed on US citizens.





In the health sector, no figure can "reflect the intangible costs of the social and human importance of the damage caused by the impossibility of getting access to medications and technology, the deputy foreign minister said.

He also blamed the embargo for the difficulties in accessing internet on the island, saying that the United States creates an obstacle for companies providing broadband services in Cuba. Additionally, he said that the area is one of the "most sensitive to the embargo, with economic losses estimated at $34.2 million.

In the face of all of this and more, US President Barack Obama recently signed the one-year extension of the embargo on Cuba, based on the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, created to restrict trade with countries hostile to the US. (Source: RT News Channel)
H.E. Vilma ReyesValdespino (centre) with THE VINCENTIANS Managing Director Desiree Richards (right) and Editor Cyp Neehall after their very cordial exchange of views and information.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines has been assured that the bi-lateral relations and the programmes of co-operation with the Republic of Cuba are entrenched .





Word of this comes from H.E. Vilma ReyesValdespino, Cubas resident Ambassador to this country.





The Ambassador made this clear when she met with THE VINCENTIAN, Tuesday 20th September, during which she exchanged views and courtesies, and gave updates on existing areas of co-operation.





Managing Director of THE VINCENTIAN, Desiree Richards, and Editor Cyp Neehall were pleased to entertain the Ambassador at the VINCENTIANS Offices, Pauls Avenue, Kingstown.





Airport, Education assistance and more





Among the areas of support that will remain in place is Cubas role in the construction of the International Airport at Argyle, Ambassador Vilma ReyesValdespino confirmed. Cuban engineering and technical personnel will see the construction through, making them the only foreign presence that could boast of being involved in the construction of the airport from its very beginning to its completion.





Cubas assistance for advanced/tertiary education for Vincentians will continue this year, with some seven scholarships being made available in Medicine, and two in Medical Technology. The Medical Technology scholarships were awarded on the specific request of the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.





Assistance in Animal Husbandry will be ongoing,with Cuban specialists being made available to the Ministry of Agriculture for that Ministrys programme of Artificial Insemination. As always, local related personnel will benefit from the presence of Cuban specialists on the ground.





And even as that Spanish-speaking Caribbean partner commits to ensuring that the Diagnostic Centre at Georgetown is complete, both in terms of construction and equipment, a brigade of Medical Personnel stands ready in Cuba for deployment to St. Vincent and the Grenadines, to begin the service from the Centre and to train Vincentians accordingly.





Herberpro-P: SVG the first





Of particular gratification to Cuba, and passionately expressed so by the Ambassador, was this countrys acceptance of the use of Herberpro-P, in the treatment of diabetic-related ulcers.





According to H.E Ambassador ReyesValdespino, St. Vincent and the Grenadines is the first Eastern Caribbean country to have the use of this therapy, and "stands positioned to become the country of reference for the whole geographical area.





The drug, made available free of charge to the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, was first administered here on December 4, 2015.





To date, some 26 patients are in treatment all, according to reports, with very good results. About four of the cases have seen complete closure of the wounds, and more than 50% show signs of granulation, i.e. formation of healing tissue.





Indications are that there have been no major amputations in any of the 26 cases under care and treatment with Herberpro-P.





A Cuban specialist, Dr Eberto Carrazana Peinada, remains on the ground here monitoring patients, carrying out consultations and evaluations, and training local medical personnel.

Herberpro-P was developed by the Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Cuba, and is patented in more than 30 countries, including the United States of America.





The US Blockade





As would be expected, H.E. Ambassador Reyes Valdespino raised the issue of the continuing economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the USA on the people of Cuba.





This was timely, in that the United Nations General Assembly is expected in October this year, to votes, as it has done for the last twenty-two years, in favour of Resolution 70/5 which calls for an end to the blockade.

Notwithstanding the recent inroads made with the reopening of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the results of the blockade remain in effect, not least being the prosecution of companies that make transactions with Cuba, directly or through third parties.





The Cuba government and the people of Cuba, as they have done for the last fifty-six years, have called for a full dismantling of the blockade, and seek support from all peoples of the world in this cause.

This country is on record as having called consistently for the unconditional removal of the blockade.
NDP parliamentarians (four persons from right) joined in the protests. Inset: Luzette King, one of the major players in the Front Line protest, has assured that the protest will continue as long as the ULP remains in the seat of government.

by Kenville Horne





Today, Friday 30th September, would mark the 292nd day since the protest action began against the December 9, 2015 general elections, outside the office of the Supervisor of Elections, Bay Street, Kingstown.





That election saw the return of the Unity Labour Party (ULP) for its 4th consecutive term as government.

Luzette King, political activist and one of the primary players in the protest, now dubbed the Front Line, said that the protest action will continue, despite the challenges faced, including the lessening in the number of protestors.





When THE VINCENTIAN spoke to King on Wednesday, she admitted that no one thought the protest would have lasted that long.





"We didnt think the illegitimate ULP regime would have been so adamant that they would stay (in government), because its clear that the election was rigged. To me, if you listen to what was said recently, Senior Counsel Astaphan made it clear that we have numbers on ballots that could be traced, and that in itself is a problem. He tried to retract it, but its already out, said King.





Anthony Astaphan, lawyer for Supervisor of Elections Sylvia Scrubb in the matter of two election petitions filed by the New Democratic Party (NDP), had referenced, on Boom FM on Friday 23rd September, to a number located on the back of the ballots used in the December 9, 2015 general elections, which corresponded to the number printed on each counterfoil. He retracted his statement later the same day, during the ULP-favoured Shake-up programme on We FM.





Under the Representation of the People Act, No ballot shall bear a number of any kind. A number is printed on the counterfoil only, which is removed before the ballot is placed in the ballot box.

King said that there have been a number of damning statements by persons in authority concerning the December 2015 election, yet its difficult for the NDP to get justice.





But she assured that the longer they stay on the Front Line, the more resilient they become. "The more we stay here is the more we see the need to remind the Vincentian public that all is not well. We have a regime that did not win the elections. They are pulling all kinds of stunts to distract us from that issue of a rigged election, King asserted.





"We will continue, because if we were to pack up and go, the public will forget. Our very presence here reminds people every single day that something is happening, something is not right. If its even three of us, added King.

She said that despite police harassment, they continue to protest, since, "We have to remind the Supervisor of Elections (that) she has not done a good job, and the people do not have confidence in her, King stated.

Following the December 9th 2015 general elections, the opposition NDP by way of petitions, asked the court to overturn the results in the Central Leeward and North Windward constituencies, that had been declared in the ULPs favour. However, High Court Judge Brian Cottle struck out the two petitions. That decision has since been appealed.




(L-R): James Bow Baptiste, Lesworth Gargan Young and Andrew Dougee Baptiste are said to be safe in Martinique.

by KENVILLE HORNE





Three Vincentian fishermen, who went to sea on the morning of Monday 26th September, and were reported as missing when they failed to return as expected (early evening), were rescued at sea by the Martinique coast guard on Thursday.





News of their safety was received by family members on the said Thursday.





Family members await their return, a date for which was not fixed, up to press time, late Thursday.

Captain Andrew Dougee Baptiste, 54, of Rose Place, along with crewmen James Bow Baptiste, 35, and Lesworth Gargan Young, 31, both of New Chapmans Village, Georgetown, set out to sea around 7 am on Monday, on the boat Driver, a 25-foot fiberglass pirogue.





Reports are that other than the mens cell phones, there was no other navigational or communication equipment onboard.





When the men failed to return as expected, a report was made to the local Coast Guard by Lorenzo James, part- owner of the boat. He was particularly concerned, given that by that time, news of a pending tropical system had surfaced.





There are reports that James did not receive a co-operative response initially from the Coast Guard, but this was not confirmed.





When THE VINCENTIAN spoke with Kozel Lewis, daughter of Andre Dougee Baptiste, she said, "I am just very happy to hear they are OK, especially my Dad, and I want to thank all who called and prayed. We are very grateful.
The Rose Place Community Day that once featured as a prominent activity to mark the anniversary of this countrys independence from Britain, is back on the official calendar.





The day, which included a day of card games, especially Pedro, and culinary activities, went into hiatus for a number of reasons, the challenge of soliciting sponsorship not being among the least of these.





A renewed effort has pervaded the community, and a committee, comprised of representative of the Rose Place based Goodwill Fisherman Co-operative and leading activists in the community, met and formulated plans for re-activating the Day, and has received the sanction of the National Independence Committee.





Come October 27, 2016, Rose Place will be a hive of table games, activities for children and a general opening and offering of the culinary skills of the community.





If all goes according to plan, a number of Rose Place stalwarts who have since passed on, and current outstanding community activists would be recognised.

The all-day affair is, according to a representative of the Planning Committee, expected to attract the support of business houses and small business people in the community.

In leading up to the actual Community Day, a number of cleaning-up and general beautification tasks are expected to be undertaken by the community.





According to a representative of the Planning Committee, the revival of the Rose Place Community Day is intended to sow the groundwork for the formation of a genuine community organization.
Greenpeace activist about to stop a Taiwanese tuna longliner illegally fishing in the tuna-rich tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean. The ship was escorted back to Taiwan where it faced suspension from operation for a year. (Source: www.worldfishing.net)

Vincentians need to investigate and discuss the Atlantic Ocean fishing issue.





When I reflect on the high taxes, high unemployment, high cost of living and the high rate of poverty that exist in our country, I also think of what we have at our disposal to turn things around; to empower our people in an attempt to develop our nation.





After listening to a programme hosted by Mr. Jerry George two Monday nights ago, I returned to an article penned by the leader of the Green Party Mr. Ivan ONeal. In that article, entitled, "Taiwan eating our lunch, while our children go hungry, ONeil stated that Taiwan uses a new jumbo class of fishing boats that can take up to 11,000 tonnes of tuna a year. He estimated that Taiwan has 40 vessels registered in SVG with an offshore company. He also gave an estimate of the amount of money Taiwan makes every year from fishing with a St Vincent and the Grenadines deep sea fish licence. He claims that Taiwans annual intake from fishing, using the ships registered under the SVG Flag is EC$800 billion per year.





Taiwanese have been using the SVG Fishing Licence since 1987.

How did he come up with this figure? He cited firstly, a Taiwan Embassy press release on Wednesday, 10 April 2013, which confirmed that Taiwan fishing vessels are registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines under the High Seas Fishing Act 2001, on which to base his position.

He then uses half the capacity of the boats, which is 5,000 tonnes of tuna a year, which, incidentally, is less than the Taipei Times estimates.





Here is the breakdown:





1 tonne = 1000kgs, therefore 5000 tonnes = 5,000,000kgs.

40 boats (Taiwan) catch 40 x 5,000,000kg = 200,000,000kgs of tuna.





1kg tuna at 1000 is 200,000,000kgs x 1000 = 200,000,000,000 (200 billion pounds)

1 = EC$4 dollars, 200,000,000,000 = EC$800,000,000,000 (800 billion EC dollars.





He went on to state that if the figure (800 billion) is divided by the SVG population of 110,000, then that makes EC$7, 272,727 a year for every person in SVG, making the occasional donations to SVG from Taiwan look like peanuts.





Mr. ONeil ended his article by posing a few questions to the Taiwan Ambassador. These questions are relevant then and are still relevant now, and are as follows: How much does Taiwan make from SVGs deep sea fish license? How many years has Taiwan been using the SVG fish licence? How many Taiwanese ships have used the SVG fishing licence?





What is the total catch in tonnes of fish from these Taiwanese ships?

How many billions have been made by all Taiwanese ships when using the SVG fish licence?

Now, my intention is not to bash Taiwan, nor am I getting into the discussion of whether we should realign our diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China.





The point is, we have professionals in the various government ministries here, who are more than able to research these issues, and advise our political leaders, who vow to act in the best interest of St Vincent and the Grenadines. Have they failed us? And if they know better, why are we getting "peanuts from this arrangement?

Are the figures stated above incorrect or false? If so, what are the correct figures? Is it a situation that we have failed to strike a better deal? Who is benefiting from all of this?

Once again, the intention of this letter is not to exacerbate the Taiwan and the China debate, but to get the facts from our professionals in the Ministry of Fisheries, in particular, and our political leaders, from Prime Minister Mitchell to Prime Minister Gonsalves.

I know in this country, the power of the lobby and spin is greater than common sense.





Truth Seeker
Tropical Storm Matthew was expected to continue to intensify today Friday, as it churned its way northwards through the Caribbean Sea.

The system, however, left behind destruction and at least one fatality as it affected this country, Wednesday night into early Thursday morning.





Information from the National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO) stated that as of Thursday, in the immediate aftermath of the passage of the system, at least 450 people were forced to evacuate their homes, and were occupying 23 relief shelters throughout the country.





This country recorded at one fatality. Keron Antoine (Lynch), a fourth form student of the Buccament Bay Secondary School, died while trying to clear a pathway for gushing water that was beginning to affect the residence he occupied with his mother.





Reports indicate that a boulder came loose and pinned the boy against the wall of his home. It is reported that he died on the spot.





Michele Forbes, Director (Ag) of NEMO, also stated that a preliminary account yesterday revealed that at least one home was destroyed and 27 damaged, in areas as separated as Roseau (Sion Hill), Belair, Vermont and Buccament.

Forbes noted that it was expected that this number may increase, as other persons affected may not have had the opportunity to come forward to make a report.





Meantime, NEMO and other related personnel were set to commence an overall assessment of the aftermath. Some community groups were reported to have already begun preliminary work in this regard.





As far as electricity services were concerned, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of VINLEC - Thornley Myers also in an interview yesterday, that they too were expected to carry out an assessment to determine the damage.





In the hours following the passage of the storm, Myers said that there were nine crews and some contractors out in the field working on restoring electricity to affected areas, including

the area between South Rivers and Hopewell, and from South Rivers to Bridgetown (Biabou). The work entailed restoring lines that were damaged.





Electricity in the north eastern section of the country, from Georgetown upward, was expected to be restored in good time, according to Myers.





Damage to some lines at the Richmond Hydro-Plant was expected to be addressed, and Myers anticipated that this would be back up and running soonest.





An assessment is yet to be done with respect to the Cumberland Plant, which would necessitate inspection of the line in the mountainous regions of Hermitage and Convent, on the Leeward side.





For the most part, electricity service across the state was maintained at a high level during the passage of the storm.

Addressing the nation from Trinidad, via a telephone link-up with the State-owned National Broadcasting Corporation, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves gave the assurance that a national relief programme will be set it place, following the dislocation caused by the storm.




Left:Garth Saunders, General Manager of the CWSA, offered justification for the shutting down of the water system here during the passage of a tropical storm. Right:Heavy flows of muddy water and stones would have blocked the system, had it not been turned off.

As of Thursday morning, the water supply had been turned on for residents being fed from the Montreal intake, following the passage of Tropical Storm Matthew on Wednesday 28th September.





This was part of the response given by Garth Saunders, General Manager of the Central Water and Sewerage Authority, as he responded during a call-in to a radio station, to criticisms by some citizens who were of the view that the water supply should not have been affected.





The GM said that the decision, to shut down the system, was a good one in terms of protecting the water supply, and cited that the supply was under some pressure because of heavy flows of muddy water.

"The rivers are still flowing heavy and we cannot take that water into our system, because the level of treatment that we have does not cater for that raw water quality that is muddy and filled with stones and mud, he said.

"So we are not in a position to take that water in our system, Saunders disclosed, noting further that if the system was not shut down, then the lines would have been blocked.

"So its a good thing we did that, he continued.





Shutting down the system was not an uncommon practice, and in the event of a fire, there is an emergency plan in place to ensure the supply of water in cases of that nature, Saunders assured.

Saunders said also, that the Dallaway system was turned on briefly, in order to check the transmission between that intake facility and that at Montrose in Kingstown.





" But because the raw quality was so bad, we had to shut down again, he said on Thursday morning.

According to Saunders, The CWSA was doing inspections of the entire system in phases.

"St Vincent is mountainous, so there could be some damage, the CWSA GM cautioned.

"So we want the public to know that it (the water supply) will be intermittent. . We will have to continue to monitor closely and try to bring it back as quickly as possible.

But he advised that in as much as the CWSA would like to be able to restore water to consumers as quickly as possible, it had to be done in the right way.





During the interim, Saunders said residents should continue to store water, especially so at this period, i.e. the peak of the hurricane season.





In terms of when the water supply was expected to be returned to normalcy, Saunders said that the disruption would have continued well into Thursday, since the team of engineers would most likely opt to keep the system turned off.
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By Azernews





By Nigar Abbasova

Azerbaijan and Bulgaria, which have well-established bilateral ties, may soon expand their cooperation to the sphere of port service operations.

The Baku International Sea Trade Port (Port of Baku), the oldest and largest port on the Caspian Sea signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bulgarian Ports Infrastructure Company.

The document, which was signed during the 4th session of the Azerbaijani-Bulgarian intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation, provides for the further expansion of cooperation and exchange of experience between the Baku International Sea Trade Port and Bulgarian ports of Varna and Burgas.

The memorandum was undersigned by Head of the Port of Baku Taleh Ziyadov and Director General of the Bulgarian Ports Infrastructure Company Angel Zaburtov.

The cooperation is expected to contribute to the improvement of the quality of services and related management activities of port infrastructure, as well as ensure optimum efficiency of port services.

Port of Baku earlier signed MoUs with Antwerp, Panama, Aktau and Poti ports.

The Baku International Sea Trade Port was previously located in the middle of the city. Taking into account the bid of the country to become one of the major commercial and transportation hubs in the region and facilitate regional transformation, the state decided to move it to a new location, 70 km south of the capital Baku, near a small town called Alat, which is located at the strategic crossroads of the regional railroads and highways.

Port of Baku is expected to complete the first stage of its new international sea and trade port by 2017, increasing capacity to 11.5 million tons of cargo per year and up to 50,000 containers, many of which could be transshipped between China, Central Asia and Europe.

Being headquartered in Sofia, Bulgarian Ports Infrastructure Company manages the infrastructure of the public transport ports of national importance. The company has four territorial and three specialized divisions in Burgas, Varna, Lom and Ruse.
By Azernews





By Nigar Abbasova

Russian energy giant Gazprom received a permit to implement survey work for two lines on the offshore segment of the Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline in Turkeys territorial waters, the company reported.

Gazprom head Alexey Miller said that the work within Turkish Stream project is currently implemented at an excellent pace, underlining structural and operative interaction with the Turkish partners.

Gazprom earlier reported that it had received the first permit from Turkish authorities for construction of the offshore segment of the project.

The offshore part of the pipeline will cross the Black Sea bed, while its maximal depth along the route is expected to reach 2,200 meters. The length of the offshore part will stand at 910 km.

Turkish Stream, which is expected to bring Russian gas via the Black Sea into Turkey and southern Europe, became topical following mending of Russia-Turkey ties.

The issue was also on agenda during the meeting of Russian and Turkish Presidents in St. Petersburg on August 9, which became the first meeting after the Su-24 bomber incident, which deteriorated ties between the two countries.

One of the other obstacles that a project faced before deterioration of ties was failure of the sides to reach consent over gas price. Gazprom earlier reported judicial proceedings on the suit of Botas against Gazprom on gas prices will start in the second half of 2017.

Miller and Berat Albayrak, Energy Minister of Turkey reached an agreement on the earliest possible completion of the procedure for issuing authorizations required to launch the Turkish Stream project in August, 2016.

The Turkish Stream pipeline was announced by the Russian authorities in December 2014. Initially, it was planned that the marine section of Turkish Stream would comprise four lines with the capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters each.

The projects total cost is estimated at 11.4 billion, with the cost of the first line amounting to 4.3 billion.

Gazprom and Turkish company Bota? signed the MoU on the construction of a
By Trend





Armenias armed forces have 13 times violated the ceasefire on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops over the past 24 hours, Azerbaijans Defense Ministry reported on September 30.

Positions of the Azerbaijani army underwent fire from the Armenian positions located near the Javahirli village of Azerbaijans Aghdam district, Kuropatkino village of the Khojavand district, Ashagi Seyidahmadli village of the Fuzuli district, as well as from the positions located on the nameless heights of the Goranboy, Khojavand and Fuzuli districts.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.








By Azernews





By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijans first English language newspaper  Azernews takes part in the One Young World Global Summit, which began its work in Canadas capital Ottawa on Thursday.

The three-day summit attracted some 1,300 young people from 193 countries.

The solemn opening ceremony was attended by famous world politicians such as former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, first female president of Ireland Mary Robinson, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and the stars of world cinema -- UN goodwill ambassador Emma Watson, Natalia Vodianova and others.

Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, addressing the ceremony, referred to the young people saying that they have the power to transform the world.

The most interesting part of the ceremony was the presentation of the flags of the

participating countries. The flags of all countries were solemnly presented to the audience.

The ceremony also saw the presentation of influential newspapers of the Sparknews organization which brings together 55 well-known and most influential newspapers in the world, including Azernews, La Figaro (France), Al Jazeera plus, la Nation (Argentina), Th Asahi Shimbun (Japan) and LENA (Alliance of leading European newspapers).



Founder of Sparknews Christian de Boisredon also addressed the event. He at first presented to the audience, the Azerbaijani newspaper and invited Editor-in-Chief of Azernews Sevil Mikayilova to the stage.

Azernews is Azerbaijan's first English language newspaper. It has been published since 1997.

Azernews is the newspaper and online publication, regularly covering the current events in Azerbaijan and the Caspian region. The newspaper is an associate member of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).
By Trend





Turkey is not getting enough support from its allies in the fight against the IS terrorist organization, Ankara is waiting for more support, Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik said, TRT Haber reported.

The minister said that as a result of the Shield of the Euphrates operation, the IS is suffering its heaviest losses during the entire Syrian crisis.

In 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.

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 IS, YPG and PYD are the most active terrorist groups in Syria.








A company that operates a major natural gas hub in southwest Wyoming has yet to pay thousands of dollars in fines imposed for safety violations after a 2014 fire because state regulators failed to send the final bill.

Regulators are investigating why the bill was never sent, but theyve determined the company was not at fault, said John Ysebaert, the Department of Workforce Services standards and compliance administrator.

It is clerical and on our end, on my end, Ysebaert said Wednesday. (The company) has not paid any of the fines, but to be fair they have not been given notice of This is what you owe for all those citations.

Wyoming regulators do not expect an appeal from Williams Field Services Company, which operates at the Opal plant, because the company already agreed to the final fine amounts in 2014, Ysebaert said.

I dont anticipate any issues with them paying the fine, he added.

The company did not comment on its intention to pay the full amount but is aware of the oversight, said Sara Delgado, spokeswoman for Williams.

The penalties have not yet been finalized, but we are committed to working with OSHA to reach closure on the issue, she said in an email.

The case was opened on April 25, 2014, after an explosion ignited a fire that burned for five days and led to a temporary evacuation of the small town of Opal. An ensuing investigation led to 14 penalties totaling $46,000 against the Williams Field Services Company for violations such as failing to provide safety guardrails and improper handling of hazardous chemicals.

Williams representatives met with Wyoming regulators and asked that two of the fines be reduced.

OSHA and Williams Field Services Company reached an informal agreement regarding the 2014 incident on November 25, 2014, said Hayley McKee, spokeswoman for the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, in an email. During the discussion, hazard abatement was discussed, and the final penalty amounts were agreed upon. Wyoming OSHA made a mistake, and its taking full responsibility in not following through with its responsibility to send the final paperwork to Williams Field Services Company.

McKee said Thursday that she could not verify the reduced penalty amount until the case has closed.

The company has been back in the spotlight after the Sept. 14 death of Michael Smuin, 36, who was killed while doing routine maintenance at the plant.

In investigating his death, the state regulators became aware of the open 2014 case. According to a federal evaluation that took place in 2014 and 2015, the Wyoming Occupational Safety and Health Administration was under strain from high turnover when the Opal fire and subsequent investigation took place.

The Opal fire case appears to have fallen through the cracks during a period of disorder at the state regulation division.

Wyomings OSHA department went through a period of management changes that disrupted the consistency of its work, according to a report prepared by federal OSHA regulators evaluating the state between October 2014 and September 2015.

The report found a number of issues such as the lack of proper documentation and inconsistencies with the divisions established rules. The report also concluded that issues uncovered in the federal evaluation were likely the result of high turnover within the division during 2014 and 2015.

In 2015, there were eight staffing changes within the compliance division and five new workers were hired. The deputy administrator, as well as the managers for compliance and operations were new to their positions, the report states.

The issue of the unpaid fines is further complicated by the way Wyoming collects safety violation penalties, which the federal report determined as ineffective.

Fines are levied by the state regulators, but companies send the money directly to the county where the infraction took place. The county passes that amount along to the school district.

The Lincoln County Treasurers Office was not aware that there were fines due after the Opal fire, said Joey Antilla, the deputy treasurer who receives the safety penalties.

Generally, safety penalties show up in the mail unexpected, she said.

Previously, Antilla would receive a phone call from a regulator at the state alerting her to an incoming fine, but that hasnt taken place in years, she said.

The final steps in closing the Opal fire case are taking place, Ysebaert said. After the penalty amounts are sent to Williams, and regulators have checked that the company has fixed the problems that led to the fines, the company has a period of weeks to either pay the fines or appeal them.

The case will remain open until penalties are paid, Ysebaert said.

Inspectors are verifying that all the abatement was done and so forth, Ysebaert said. But we have thousands of inspections, and that one just did not get closed.
The sale of Caspers Greiner Motors to two Oregon companies may suggest the regions economy is more stable than falling energy prices suggest.

Spartan Auto Group owner Don Jones, who purchased Greiners General Motors dealership in east Casper, said hed been eyeing the Casper market for 10 years.

Its a rapidly growing market. Theyre trying to make it the hub for Wyoming, Jones said.

While he is aware of the states economic downturn, Jones said Casper remains a strong market.

There are certainly some dry years, but those cycles of the big ups and downs are being reduced over time as Casper becomes more of a hub, Jones said.

Caspers increasing role as a retail and health care center for central Wyoming is an example of the ratchet effect, whereby cities reach a scale that is unlikely to be reduced even if variable parts of the economy, like the energy industry, become less lucrative.

Lithia Motors, a publicly traded nationwide chain of dealerships based in Medford, Oregon, acquired Greiners Ford dealership. Lithia CEO Bryan DeBoer said in statement that the company expected to generate $75 million in annual revenue from what he said was the largest standalone dealership in the state.

Lithia did not respond to a request for comment.

Jones said Spartan, based in Ashland, Oregon, and Lithias move into the Casper market is far from anomalous. The presence of stores such as Wal-mart and Home Depot, along with chain restaurants, shows that national companies have identified Casper as a smart place to invest.

When the big boxes come through town, that means something, Jones said. Theyve done their studies, and they tend not to fail.

Spartan spokesman Don Schrader grew up in Casper and said that during his childhood locals went to Denver or Billings, Montana, for big purchases.

Even for back-to-school shopping you went out of town, Schrader said. But things have changed as Casper has grown and its economy has diversified.

When (Jones) looks at Casper, what he sees is a retail center, not an energy center, Schrader said.

Still, Natrona County has been hit hard by the energy bust, with unemployment roughly doubling over the last 12 months. Casper cut its municipal budget by almost 40 percent this year.

Greiner, too, has been hurt by the downturn. The company shut its Douglas location in April. At the time, president Phil Schmidt cited a perfect storm of poor economic conditions.

Schmidt said the sale of Greiners two Casper properties was for a mix of economic and personal reasons.

We just took stock of our personal situations and what weve perceived as the business climate and decided it was time to go ahead and accept an offer, Schmidt said.

He acknowledged the sale as bittersweet. Schmidt has worked at Greiner for 28 years. His partner, Pete Greiner, helped his father start the Ford dealership in 1970 and took over in 1973 at age 23.

Greiner purchased the General Motors dealership about five years ago, Schmidt said.

Weve been blessed to have an awful lot of great employees and great families, and Im going to miss working with those people, Schmidt. Ive enjoyed being a car dealer.

Schmidt said the companys roughly 180 workers were expected to stay on under new ownership. He said the employees experience was part of what made Greiner a desirable acquisition.

Jones, who is temporarily relocating to Casper to aid in the ownership transition, said he preferred smaller, regional markets in the West where customers tend to be more loyal.

If you treat the customer right and take care of the employee, theyre more likely to stay with you for the long haul, Jones said.

I dont mean offend anyone who lives in a bigger city, he added. I cant tell you why, I can just tell you what I see.

Spartan will add Greiners General Motors dealership  which will be renamed Casper Buick, GMC, Cadillac  to its six existing locations. The company owns dealerships in Laurel and Missoula, Montana.

As for Caspers auto market, Jones said its ideal for a man who likes to sell trucks.

Its a truck market number one, Jones said. I mean, anybody can tell that.
Three months after U.S. marshals shot and killed a man in Douglas, state authorities dont know when their investigation into the shooting will be complete.

U.S. marshals killed Jasen Scott Ramirez on June 30 in the parking lot of a Douglas church while trying to arrest him on federal drug charges. Authorities wont say whether Ramirez was armed, though family members have said he wasnt.

Ramirez, 44, had just left his fathers funeral when marshals attempted to apprehend him.

There is no time frame for completing the investigation, said Frosty Williams, deputy director of operations at the Division of Criminal Investigations.

The division is still working to find and interview people related to the case, Williams said.

Its a matter of tracking down the people who were in attendance at the funeral, identifying them and interviewing them, he said.

Williams did not know how many more people needed to be interviewed.

Brenda Mares, a cousin of Ramirez, said she felt authorities were doing little to move the investigation forward.

I feel like we still want answers, we still want justice, she said. We still want to know why that marshal shot him. Everythings still in limbo and we dont know anything.

Its been up to the family to keep pressure on authorities and make sure Ramirezs death is investigated, Mares said.

She was in the parking lot that day and saw the marshal shoot her cousin. Shes still in shock, she said.

We shouldnt just let it go, she said. Were going to try our hardest to get answers.

After the report is completed, the Converse County Attorneys Office will be responsible for reviewing the case.

Converse County sheriff deputies and Douglas police officers responded to a shooting call at St. James Catholic Church at 2:43 p.m. on June 30 and found Ramirez unconscious on the ground.

Medics took him to Memorial Hospital of Converse County, where he died.

Investigators found two handguns and methamphetamine in a vehicle nearby and a half ounce of meth in Ramirezs possession. They have not specified who owned the vehicle or whether the guns were loaded.

Ramirez was wanted for federal charges for possession of methamphetamine with the intent to distribute, possession of a firearm in the furtherance of a drug trafficking crime and being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to federal court documents. He faced life in prison.

Ramirez was indicted on May 18 in U.S. District Court of Wyoming, court records show. An arrest warrant was issued the next day.
A Natrona County man pleaded guilty to five charges Friday for stealing a truck from an acquaintance and leading police on a chase through downtown Casper in April.

William Joseph Kirkpatrick, 30, pleaded guilty to two felonies, aggravated assault and theft and three misdemeanors: leaving the scene of an accident, evading police and destruction of property.

The chase began on April 21 after a Chevrolet truck driven by Kirkpatrick hit another vehicle in the Loaf n Jug on Centennial Court and then left without exchanging information, according to court documents. The other driver reported the incident to police, who then found Kirkpatrick driving the truck down 15th Street.

Kirkland refused to obey police orders to pull over and led them on a pursuit through downtown Casper. He ignored stoplights, swerved into oncoming traffic and traveled at speeds up to 55 miles per hour in areas where the speed limit was 30 miles per hour, the documents state. Police used spike strips to puncture two of the trucks tires.

After crashing through a chain-link fence at Air Gas on North McKinley Street, Kirkpatrick hit the fence of a home on Waterford, got out of the truck and ran from police.

The next day police received a report that a man matching Kirklands description had damaged a truck by throwing a flashlight at it near the intersection of Fourth and McKinley streets, according to the documents. Police found Kirkpatrick in the area and arrested him. They later learned that Kirkpatrick had stolen the Chevrolet truck from an acquaintance who had given him a couch three months before.

Attorneys for both the state and Kirkpatrick agreed he should serve three to five years in the Wyoming State Penitentiary. He will be formally sentenced later.
The smell begins on Durbin Street, emanating from the Market Square building in downtown Casper, a deja vu for those who remember the restaurant that occupied the ground floor a couple of years ago.

The familiar smell is a mix of curry and spices, an unmistakable aroma: Indian food.

Trust that smell, and follow it. Open the doors and walk down the stairs, where patrons scoop chicken tikka masala from a steaming buffet tray and cooks make homemade naan in the kitchen.

Because this is no mirage. Indian food has returned to Casper.

The restaurant, Himalayan Indian Cuisine, quietly opened in mid-September in the space Monsoon Indian Cuisine once occupied. The menu features meals that combine tastes of Nepal and India, cooked and prepared by a team that would know.

Were all from Nepal, manager Utsav Shaha said.

The 20-year-old came to the U.S. eight years ago. He spent his teenage years in Washington state, then moved to South Dakota in 2015 to work at an Indian restaurant. His first visit to Wyoming came in February, when he was scouting a location to start his first full-time restaurant. When he saw the space at Market Square, it was an obvious decision.

Everything was (already) set up, he said.

Himalayan Indian Cuisine specializes in a lunch buffet and offers a full lunch and dinner menu. Items range from the familiar, like chicken tikka masala, to the unfamiliar, like daal, a black lentil and cilantro stew.

With Punjabi (cuisine), the flavor is more cream sauce and dairy. A lot of spices, a lot of oil, a lot of cardamom, a lot of ginger and garlic mixed together, a lot of tomato sauce and onion sauce, Shaha explained. For (Nepali food), its more of a boil, more vegetables. Not as much oil. More dry.

The differences are easily seen at the lunch buffet, where steaming trays of vegetable noodles, chili chicken, tikka masala, rice pudding and basmati rice sit side by side.

And the cooks behind these dishes have experience.

Shaha recruited a team of Nepali friends hes met in the U.S. On Wednesday, Ashish Thapa prepared a fresh vegetable mix to be fried for the buffet tray. Thapa met Shaha when they worked together in South Dakota.

If (we) stick together, then we can make it bigger, said Thapa, 21, who moved to the U.S. a year and a half ago. We need to stick together.

Narayan Gharti Kshetri rolled out dough to make fresh naan. Shaha met Narayan in Washington and worked with him in South Dakota.

When we come (to the U.S.), we are here together, Shaha said. Because its a hard world. Its a different world here. Its a fast life from where (were from).

Himalayan Indian Cuisine, located at 232 E. Second St., is open six days a week (closed on Mondays). The lunch buffet starts at 11 a.m. and lasts until 2:30. Trays are constantly filled with fresh food. Dinner is from 5 to 9:30 p.m.

So far, business has been good. Casper locals are following the smell, eating a foreign cuisine theyve missed.

And Shaha isnt surprised.

Somebody, he said, really needed to open this place back up.
At least we know Donald Trump wasnt lying when he said he didnt practice for the debate.

But the truth is, I  along with my Trump-supporting friends  thought it was a draw: Trump won the first half, and Hillary Clinton won the second. Since most people stopped paying attention after the first 30 minutes, thats a win for Trump.

Clinton supporters, or the media, had reason to be happy: She looked healthy! In fact, it was the best Ive ever seen Hillary.

Note to the Trump campaign: While it may seem studly that Clintons best performance versus Trumps worst ends in a draw, on Nov. 9, no one wants to say: We almost won  and our guy didnt prepare!

The medias excitement over Clinton successfully baiting Trump is revealing  of the media, of what this election is really about, and of what Trump needs to do now.

The definition of Trump taking the bait was getting him to talk about himself, not about issues.

Clinton  with assists from the moderator  baited Trump on how rich he is, the loan from his father, a lawsuit in 1972, the birther claims, who he said what to about the Iraq War from 2001 to 2003, and so on.

For the media, their gal was winning whenever minutes of a 90-minute debate were spent rehashing allegations about Trump. Ha ha! We prevented Trump from talking about issues that matter to the American people!

Trump wins when he talks about issues; he loses when he talks about himself.

Trump was winning when he talked about the heinous trade deals that have shipped jobs abroad and immiserated millions of Americans. He was winning when he talked about bringing order and safety to black neighborhoods overrun with crime. He was winning when he talked about rebuilding our inner cities.

Ordinary people dont care about Trumps taxes or net worth or the things he said as an entertainer. Trump will be dead and gone in 30 years.

But whether America continues to exist or becomes some dystopian blend of Guatemala and Afghanistan will be determined by this election.

Its almost impossible not to correct a lie, especially about yourself, which is why Clinton and Lester Holts baiting strategy was to make outrageous claims about Trump.

Clinton, for example, criticized Trump for not releasing his tax returns, saying, maybe ... hes paid nothing in federal taxes.

Trump has to learn to ignore it. The voters have. They dont care about his taxes. They want jobs, they want a wall and theyd like fewer Muslims showing up, collecting welfare, then killing Americans.

Trump doesnt have to do formal debate practice. But he does need Pavlovian training to stop responding to irrelevancies.

This isnt about him! Its about a movement of the people to take back their government from an arrogant plutocracy.

From now until the next debate, every person who works for Trump should personally insult him several times a day.

If he starts to respond, they should say, No one cares, sir. Tell me how youre going to stop Mexican drugs from pouring across our border.

The proof that voters dont care about the personal attacks on Trump is that, even after his lazy and self-indulgent debate performance, he won nearly every online poll.

Evidently, the American people have sized up the candidates and decided they want Trump. But theres just one formality: He needs to pass some minimum threshold, a basic job requirement  like proving he has a drivers license.

Everybody agrees hes got the job. Its too late for Clinton to be sucking up to the hiring committee, reminding them, but I took drivers ed seven times  yes, there were mistakes, but I was grilled for 11 hours about that vehicular homicide. Also, the Russians hacked my GPS.

Trump showed up at the debate with his drivers license. Thats all anyone needed to see.
Fort Caspar Academy has been named a 2016 National Blue Ribbon School  an honor bestowed on less than 1 percent of all the countrys public schools.

The U.S. Secretary of Education announced the awards this week.

The program honors public and private elementary, middle and high schools across the nation that are either top performers or working quickly to close achievement gaps. Fort Caspar, which educates about 420 students in kindergarten through fifth grade, was nominated in the top performer category. The state department of education nominates schools for the award and then completes an in-depth application about school practices.

Fort Caspars principal, Rick Edwards, who has been in the role for about a year, said the honor recognized the work and dedication of the entire school community  students, teachers and parents, as well as past administrators and other officials in the district. Many people laid the groundwork for todays success, he said.

We have high expectations, and our kids rise to meet them, Edwards said. I am certainly proud.

The Natrona County school is one of 279 public schools across the nation to receive the honor. The Department of Education will formally recognize those schools as well as 50 private schools at a ceremony Nov. 7-8 in Washington, D.C.

National Blue Ribbon Schools are proof that we can prepare every child for college and meaningful careers, U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. said in a video message to honorees, according to a news release. Your schools are on the cutting edge, pioneering innovative educational practices  professional learning communities, project-based learning, social and emotional learning, positive behavior systems  making you shining examples for your communities, your state and the nation.

Fort Caspar was one of only three Wyoming schools to be recognized. The others were South Side Elementary School, in Worland, and Wilson Elementary School, in Wilson. All three Wyoming schools were selected for the top performer category.

Last year, only one Wyoming school  Spring Creek Elementary School, in Laramie  received the honor.
An Idaho man died early Thursday in a crash east of Green River, according to the Wyoming Highway Patrol.

Pocatello resident Mark Esterholdt, 46, was driving a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV east on Interstate 80 when the Jeep crossed into the median. It overcorrected to the right, left the interstate and slid down a ditch, according to a news release from the highway patrol. Then, it vaulted a drainage ditch, hit a concrete wall and rolled.

Esterholdt, who was wearing his seat belt, was taken by ambulance to Sweetwater County Memorial Hospital in Rock Springs, where he died from his injuries, the release said.

The crash, which marked the 89th highway death in Wyoming this year, is under investigation, according to the release. At this time last year, the state had seen 113 fatalities.
GREELEY, Colo.  Two students are facing charges after making threats about shootings at Greeley schools.

The Tribune reported that the threats spread on social media Monday and claimed that a shooting would occur at Northridge High School. A similar post also said there would be a shooting at a park on Halloween night. Several Greeley-Evans School District 6 students also received Facebook messages from fake profiles of clowns, which made further threats of a shooting.

Two students were detained in connection to the threats. One was a 15-year-old girl linked to the Northridge threat.

Later an 11-year-old boy brought a BB gun to Franklin Middle School in a backpack with an image of a clown on it. Police say the boy planned to wear clown gloves while using the weapon.
FRESNO, Calif.  The head of Yosemite National Park will retire after employees complained that he created a hostile workplace by allowing bullying, harassment and other misconduct  allegations that have been made in other national parks, officials said Thursday.

Superintendent Don Neubacher announced his plan Wednesday, said Andrew Munoz, a spokesman for the National Park Service.

Neubacher said in an email to Yosemite employees that regional administrators had decided it was time for new leadership and offered to transfer him to Denver as a senior adviser.

His decision to retire came less than a week after a congressional oversight committee said at least 18 Yosemite staffers had complained of a toxic work environment.

The hearing also spotlighted wider allegations of sexual harassment, bullying and other misconduct among employees at Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and Canaveral National Seashore in Florida.

Neubacher headed Yosemite for nearly seven years and spent 37 years with the park service.

He did not respond to requests for comment but said in the email to workers provided to The Associated Press that his retirement is effective Nov. 1 and he will go on leave immediately.

I regret leaving at this time, but want to do whats best for Yosemite National Park, he wrote. It is an iconic area that is world renowned and deserves special attention.

Neubacher did not mention the workplace allegations but he did list several accomplishments at the park under his leadership, including restoring native species such as the Western Pond turtles and winning approval to improve conditions along the parks two wild rivers.

In May, Grand Canyon National Park superintendent Dave Uberuaga also chose retirement over a transfer after being told the park needed new leadership to address a longstanding pattern of sexual harassment and other workplace hostility.

At the recent congressional hearing, Kelly Martin, Yosemites fire chief, testified that Neubacher publicly humiliated her and intimidated staffers in front of others.

In Yosemite National Park today, dozens of people, the majority of whom are women, are being bullied, belittled, disenfranchised and marginalized, Martin said in written testimony.

Yosemite employees described horrific working conditions (that) lead us to believe that the environment is indeed toxic, hostile, repressive and harassing, the park service said in a preliminary report last month.

Neubacher sent an apology email to all park employees days after the hearing, referencing some serious staff concerns related to Yosemites workplace environment.

U.S. House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said in an interview Wednesday, prior to Neubachers retirement announcement, that he was concerned about a corrosive culture that tolerates sexual harassment within the National Park Service and has been allowed to persist too long.

The Utah Republican expressed dismay that those responsible for the misconduct  either directly or because it occurred under their watch  had not been punished sufficiently and instead were promoted or shifted to other positions.

Chaffetz and other lawmakers have said problems at Yosemite are exacerbated because Neubachers wife, Patricia Neubacher, is deputy director for the agencys Pacific region, which includes Yosemite.

The inspector general of the U.S. Interior Department has launched investigations into conditions at Yosemite and Yellowstone.

The agency has grappled with sexual harassment since at least 1999, when then-Director Robert Stanton appointed a task force focused on problems faced by women in park law enforcement.

The task force surveyed female employees and concluded that the park service was an organization in crisis with systemic mistreatment of women.

Fifty-two percent of the women employees surveyed said they had personally experienced sexual harassment while working for the park service.

The park service currently has almost 25,000 employees, with about 63 percent of them men.
Editor:

I am writing to endorse Audrey Cotherman as a candidate for Wyoming State Legislature House District 57 in Casper. Though I now live in Denver, I met Audrey several years ago when my late husband and I lived in Cheyenne. Audrey and my husband, Robert B. Sharp, both pursued a Doctor of Education degree in adult education at the University of Wyoming when Audrey lived in Laramie. They completed their doctoral degrees at the same time and then Audrey hired Bob to work for her when she was Executive Director for the Wyoming Council for the Humanities. They traveled throughout the state to meet with citizens who wished to bring programs of humanities-related enrichment to Wyoming communities.

I have long witnessed Audreys deep commitment to the people of Wyoming through her active participation in education at all levels, advocate for historic preservation, Natrona County school board membership and extensive volunteer work for underserved communities in Casper. Audrey is a talented writer, exhaustive reader on public issues and articulate spokesperson for the causes for which she has spent untold hours over the years. Her high integrity and great sense of humor are two more characteristics that I have come to know well.

Audrey is extremely well qualified to represent House District 57 in the State Legislature and I urge voters in that district to vote for her to represent you. As someone who has valued Audreys friendship, I can assure local voters that you will be well represented.
A federal judge this afternoon rejected the last-minute bid by Attorney General Mark Brnovich to block the Department of Commerce from giving up its oversight of the organization that coordinates Internet names and addresses.

In a brief order, U.S. District Court Judge George Hanks Jr. refused to issue the injunction that Brnovich had sought. That paved the way for transfer of control of the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers at midnight tonight to an international consortium.

In his pleadings, Brnovich argued that allowing the transfer to go through would harm First Amendment rights of Americans and create opportunities for hostile foreign governments to wreak havoc with the Internet.

But Hanks instead sided with attorneys from the U.S. Department of Justice who said Brnovich was being alarmist.

In their own filings, the federal attorneys called Brnovich's fear of harm "speculative at best and rests entirely on hypothetical future actions of third parties.'' And the government's lawyers said the complaint Brnovich filed on behalf of himself and attorneys general from other states complaint "is full of 'coulds' and 'mays,' as they cannot identify a single specific and real harm that will befall them.''

There was also the question of whether the judge, sitting in Texas, actually had jurisdiction to hear this complaint.

And it also didn't help that the lawsuit was filed late Wednesday night asking Hanks to stop a transfer that for months has been set to take place at midnight today night.
The Rusty Nail on North Flowing Wells Road will serve its final beers Friday night.

Last call is midnight Friday, Sept. 30, and once they clear the tables and lock the doors, the 44-year-old tavern will be no more, said longtime owner Susan Compton.

This is the second Tucson bar that had been around more than 40 years to close this week. After a 46-year run, the Boondocks Lounge on North First Avenue closed for good Thursday.

Compton early this week finalized the sale of the Rusty Nail property at 4415 N. Flowing Wells Road, near West Wetmore Road. She notified her three part-time employees and posted a note on Facebook: The Rusty Nail Tavern would like to thank everyone for all the great years! We regret to inform everyone that we will be closing our doors forever at close on Friday. Come in and say bye this week.

The Rusty Nail has been a fixture in the Flowing Wells neighborhood since 1972 and was a popular early-morning drinking hole for shift workers from the mines. Compton, a South Dakota native who moved to Tucson to attend the University of Arizona, bought the bar in 1989, nearly a decade after earning a business degree.

It was Comptons second bar in Tucson; she bought the nearly 70-year-old Bay Horse Tavern, a popular UA-area bar on East Grant Road, two years after graduating.

Compton described the Rusty Nail as a quintessential blue-collar corner bar, where miners, plumbers, masons and others sat shoulder-to-shoulder enjoying a cold one after work. Business dropped when the mines closed; it dropped again when the state banned smoking.

People now get a 12-pack and go home and drink a beer and smoke a cigarette on the patio, Compton lamented.

She said she had considered for a while the idea of selling the bar, but didnt really act on it until six weeks ago. A friend introduced her to a real estate specialist who convinced her the property could be sold quickly. Five days later, they identified a buyer.

Compton said it is almost certain the new owner will not open a tavern on the property. The sale included the land and the building, but she has not heard what will become of the building.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Oct. 4, Compton will open the tavern at 6 a.m. to sell all of the memorabilia that has been collected over the past 44 years including posters on the walls. The sale will run through noon. She said she has to have the building empty for the new owners on Oct. 6.
The University of Arizona has again been recognized as one of the worlds most innovative universities.

The UA made the second annual Reuters Top 100  Worlds Most Innovative Universities, based on factors including scholarly research articles, patents and commercial impact.

Arizona ranked 63rd in the survey, down from 55th last year.

The UA is the only Arizona school on the Reuters list. Arizona State University didnt appear on this years list after ranking 86th on the inaugural 2015 list.

Published by the media company Thomson Reuters, the list is based on data from 2009 through 2014, including patent filings, patent success and commercial success based on patent citations by others.

Reuters said no matter where a school ranks in the Top 100, it is making a significant global contribution.

Its important to remember that whether a university ranks at the top or the bottom of the list, its still within the top 100 on the planet, technology journalist David Ewalt wrote for Reuters. All of these universities produce original research, create useful technology and stimulate the global economy.

David Allen, who runs the UAs technology transfer efforts as vice president of Tech Launch Arizona, said he wasnt surprised that UA made the grade.

The UA has upped its tech-transfer numbers every year since Tech Launch was formed in mid-2012 and beefed up the process with added licensing staff, greater outreach to faculty inventors and programs including proof-of-concept grants and expert business mentoring.

Its confirmation to us that were going in the right direction and that our intellectual property is being adopted by industry, Allen said.

Allen said he wouldnt be surprised if the UA moves up in Reuters future rankings, based on the programs success in the past couple of years.

For the 2016 fiscal year that ended June 30, Tech Launch Arizona reported record results and improvement across almost all measures, including a nearly 40 percent increase in patents filed and double-digit increases in disclosures and licensing.

In its listing narrative for the UA, Reuters cited the schools estimated $8.3 billion annual economic impact and more than $606 million in research spending in fiscal 2015, along with highlights from the last fiscal year.

Faculty members filed 250 invention disclosures last fiscal year, up from 213 in 2015; filed for 278 patents on faculty inventions, up from 200 in fiscal 2015; and executed 97 options and licenses, up from 83 in 2015.

Reuters figured that about 41 percent of the 303 patent applications the UA filed from 2009 to 2014 resulted in patent awards. But the UA scored somewhat lower than average for commercial impact  including measures like patent citations by others, an indication of the schools impact on commercial research and development.

Separately, the National Science Foundation ranks the UA 20th in research and development spending among U.S. public universities and colleges and 33rd among U.S. public and private universities. Those rankings are based on 2014 data.

Though it seems a new list comes out daily, Allen said rankings like the Reuters Top 100 give the university recognition, as well as a glimpse of how peers are faring.

They give you a sense of direction and show you where youre at relative to others, he said.

Reuters says its ranking process starts with a list of some 600 academic and government organizations that published the greatest number of articles in scholarly journals from 2009 to 2014.

The global list also is restricted to institutions that filed 70 or more patents with the World Intellectual Property Organization during the five-year period examined by Reuters.
Several doctors and advocates for physician-assisted suicide held a panel discussion this week that lasted for more than two hours. During that time, two people died somewhere in Pima County.

Many deaths end with slow, agonizing pain and without much semblance of dignity, said Dr. Alan Molk, a clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Arizona and panelist Wednesday night.

"The world of emergency medicine is not exactly what is portrayed by Hollywood," Molk said. "A lot of what we see are patients who have multiple serious medical problems."

The forum's purpose was to discuss medical-aid-in-dying like those in Oregon, Washington, California, Vermont and Montana and whether a similar law could be enacted in Arizona.

Those on the panel, as well as the audience, itself were divided on the issue. Local doctors spoke of flaws in the current system, test cases that push the proposed laws to their limits and personal experiences that have shaped their perspective.

Several members of the audience shared their experience. Several men in the audience asked the room to consider that only God should be involved in end of life issues. One warned that doctors could easily become the agents of death if such a law is passed.

The forum was organized by Councilman Steve Kozachik and the Tucson chapter of Compassion and Choices, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping terminally ill patients with their end-of-life choices, including those seeking physician aid in ending their lives .

With more than 35 years as a doctor, Molk said he became involved in the issue watching his mother slowly lose everything to Alzheimer's Disease.

For Molk, one issue seems to trump everything when it comes to the complicated decisions people make about end-of-life issues in the emergency room . "It is the inability to say 'Good-bye,'" he told the audience.

Many people are prompted to choose life-extending treatments that are ultimately futile rather than compassionate care to make people comfortable.

Dr. Richard Carmona, the former surgeon general of the United States, shared a similar story about the death last week of his sister from cancer.

Describing her last days as "a skeleton with skin," the former surgeon general was unable to help her even though she was getting medical care in California. The state allows doctors to offer aid to terminally ill patients who want to end their lives.

She refused to consider it, Carmona said.

"We were there in those last moments, and it was agonizing to watch the excruciating pain and discomfort that she went through."

Dr. Jim Nicolai, the associate medical director at Casa de la Luz Hospice, offered a different perspective .

"I took an oath and that oath was not to take a life. Not intentionally," Nicolai says.

He sees suffering in his job at the hospice, but says he feels that it shouldn't be a doctor who decides when suffering is enough.

Kozachik concedes getting a medical-aid-in-dying law passed in Arizona will not be easy.

"The value of events such as this is that the competing perspectives are aired in a very public and open manner. Framing public policy in a way that respects that diversity is going to be tough," he said. "I'm hopeful that we can build on the successes seen in the other 5 states who have gone ahead of us in this."

Members of Compassion and Choices are expected to lobby the legislature to pass a similar law next year.
PHOENIX  The attorney generals office will not order Secretary of State Michele Reagan to tell counties to give voters an extra day to register to vote despite the deadline this year falling on a holiday.

In a letter to House Minority Leader Eric Meyer, Assistant Attorney General Dominic Draye acknowledged that when the date for performing certain functions falls on a holiday, state law allows that to be moved to the following day.

In this case, the deadline to register for the Nov. 8 election is end-of-day Monday, Oct. 10. That Monday, however, is Columbus Day and all state offices are closed.

Draye said there also is a 1968 Arizona Supreme Court ruling that says that election statutes have to be interpreted literally even where a strict interpretation led to a Sunday deadline for ballot delivery.

He acknowledged that conflict between state statute and the 1968 ruling means there are colorable arguments for either an Oct. 10 or Oct. 11 deadline.

Draye also said lack of clarity in the law leaves room for the exercise of discretion on the part of the secretary of state. And he said if someone decides to sue we will support and defend the secretary of state in her policy decision.

Drayes letter is likely to be the last word, at least for the time being. Meyer said he has no intention to sue.

Right now Im focusing on my election and registering voters before the 10th, he said. But Meyer said hes still miffed at Reagan.

She has chosen to potentially reduce voter participation when you would think it would be her job to encourage as many voters to participate in the electoral process as possible, particularly in a presidential election thats coming up, he said.

Meyer said the recent 27-vote victory by Andy Biggs over Christine Jones in the Republican primary for Congressional District 5 shows the importance of a few votes.

Reagan spokesman Matt Roberts said his boss decided the Oct. 10 deadline is the legal one after earlier consultations with the attorney generals office.

Roberts also pointed out something else: While Oct. 10 is a state holiday, he said all but one county  Mohave  will be open that day. Lawmakers allowed counties to trade that day to instead give workers off the day after Thanksgiving.

Meyer said most people who wait until the last minute to register will presume all government offices are closed.

Still, Meyer conceded there are other options unaffected by the holiday.

The main one is the ability of Arizonans who already have a drivers license or state-issued identification card to register to vote online through a web site maintained by the state Motor Vehicle Division. Maricopa County Elections Director Karen Osborne said that is where the vast majority of voters register.

Meyer said the law requires those requests to be postmarked by the Oct. 10 deadline but the post office is closed that day.
OPINION: "Well, I finished by telling this person I knew his grandparents were huge Franklin Delano Roosevelt supporters. After being asked what point I was trying to make, I responded with something the late president once said: 'Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves. And the only way they could do this is by not voting,'" writes Tucsonan Mary Stanik.
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!

By Amit Kumar, TwoCircles.net

For Shazia Khan, the path to success has never been a straight one: as a Muslim girl growing up in Bihar, she had her work cut out since the time she joined primary school in Dumka (now in Jharkhand), staying at her grandparents house. She then moved back to Bhagalpur, her birthplace, where she finished her higher secondary school. Looking back, she believes that the single biggest reason for her success was her fathers single-minded devotion to one cause: Come what may, his daughter would not stop her studies. And thanks to that resolve, today, Khan is a successful entrepreneur in Patna, running the citys first shoe laundry clinic. But even this was not a straight route; she reached here after years of determination and patience.

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In 2000, 17-year-old Khan enrolled into a four-year physiotherapy graduation course in Patna. After her first year, she got married, but even that never stopped her education. My dads promise to me, and my in-laws, that he would not pay a single penny as dowry, but instead spend the money on my education. Even though I got married, I continued my course and my father paid all the expenses. Without his support, I doubt I could stand here, and talk to you about my project, she says.

It was not until 2007 that Khan received her degree, after she had completed her studies and finished the mandatory internship programmes. Immediately after she finished her degree, she joined World Health Organisation as part of their polio outreach programme in Bhagalpur, and worked for them for six months. She then also worked as a Monitor for Polio Project with UNICEF. However, since she now had a child, she decided to focus on that, and to ensure that she doesnt stop learning, she also enrolled into a distance-learning course in Hospital administration. The decision to join this course for Khan was partially influenced by the fact that her husband also worked as a Hospital Manager in Begusarai. However, as she said, her destiny lied somewhere else.

I remember reading an article in 2006 in Outlook magazine about Sandeep Ghajakas, a Mumbai resident who had started Indias first shoe laundry store. Since then, I knew I wanted to do something like this: no one, at least in Bihar, had started a shop for cleaning shoes. While we spent so much on clothes, we cared little for our footwear and this was an opportunity I wanted to utilise, says Khan, now a mother of two.

However, starting a venture is easier said than done: for the next six years, she worked on the idea in her spare time. Since she had no business training or experience, she tread slowly in unchartered waters. Whenever I would meet people, I would often casually ask them if they would ever take their shoes to a dedicated shop for repairs and cleaning. Most of the response I got was positive, she says. But even then, she knew she had to understand as much as possible about shoes before she took the big step.

Between 2010 and 2012, Khan attended various programmes for training in this field: she went to a shoe-making institute in Chennai for a few months to train, and then to Bhutan to work in a shoe laundry clinic. In December, with an investment of about Rs 5 lakh, she set up Revival Shoe Laundry in Alpna locality of Patna.

I thought that starting the business was tough. My father, who had always supported me, was initially unsure about this as it was completely unrelated to my training as a physiotherapist. However, I had faith, and had the first-mover advantage of bringing a unique concept to the city, she says. Soon, customers started coming in, but most people initially confused the shop as a shoe-selling store. It took us a few months to explain people what we did here. So, then they would bring their dirtiest, almost dead shoes to see what we could do with them, Khan says, smiling.

Over the next three years, Khan immersed herself completely in the venture, ensuring that she hit break even and started earning a profit in her venture. She now employs two women and three men in her shop. However, her meeting with Savita Ali, who has been working with Dalit and Muslim women, added a new goal in her life: she realised that just because she had been successful did not mean that things had improved for Muslim women in general. In our Muslim society, even the most rudimentary things are considered as achievements. So, if a girl completes graduation, it is considered as a big achievement. I want our community to now move beyond these ideas, and encourage Muslim and Dalit women to work, and become self-sustainable, she says.

As part of this initiative, Ali and Khan have set up the Dalit Muslim Mahila Manch. The organisation will address the issues and problems that the women in these two communities face. While Ali handles the legal issues that affect women, Khan is working hard to become a mentor for women who wish to set up their own ventures, self help groups or acquire new skills. I have a successful business Inshallah now, and hope that I can help the organisation through funding and guidance. Muslim women have potential, but we need to not only create awareness but also encourage them to take up issues. And fight their evils. There are a number of government initiatives that are there to aid women, and we want to ensure that these initiatives reach the women, Khan adds.

Between her family, her entrepreneurial venture and her social work, Khan barely finds any time for other activities. To be honest, I like being busy. I am happy that I have so much on my plate; I would not want it any other way, she says. Khan hopes to open more stores in Patna, and wants to expand her business to the North East also, but says that she is no hurry. I will take it slowI cannot forget that I have other responsibilities also, she says.

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By Imran Inamdar, Twocircles.net

Solapur: The Department of Urdu, SSA Arts and Commerce College, Solapur organised a two-day national seminar on Information technology ke daur mein Urdu ka Suratehal (The state of Urdu in the age of Information Technology) in collaboration with University of Grants Commission.

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The two-day seminar, held on September 24 and 25, discussed the challenges that the language faced in the modern age, and how the language could be brought more in tune with the current levels of other languages.

The seminar was inaugurated by Noor Maldar Vice. Chancellor of Solapur University in the presence of Viqar Sheikh, Dr. Gaus Sheikh, Principal of SSA Arts College M.A Dalal, Faiz Inamdar and Ayyub Nallamandu.

During his inaugural speech Dr. Noor said that in this age of technology, competition has increased substantially. We need to be fully prepared with adequate research work. This is the only way we can keep Urdu updated, he said.

Dr. Major Afsar Farooqui, Head, Urdu Department, Ismail Yusuf college, Mumbai was the chief guest at the event. In his keynote address, he said contrary to what a lot of people said, the modern age has given new avenues to Urdu. We now have E-books ,online magazines along with the regular Urdu books, newspapers and magazine. They are all easily available online. Urdu is in a promising situation right now and its future is also bright, he said.

The seminar was concluded in five sessions wherein nearly 36 research scholars revealed their studies and guided the assembly.

Speaking with the Twocircles.net, convener of the seminar Shafi Chobdar commented that in this era of information technology where English is dominating, Urdu language lovers must do all that is possible to maintain its importance and dignity. He says that this seminar was a small effort to engross Urdu in this IT domain and provide opportunities to all the scholars and students to unveil their research work.

Principal of the college M.A Dalal said, This was an attempt to highlight the importance of preserving our mother tongue. Scholars from four states attended the seminar and expressed their ideas on the topic. We believe that this awareness campaign should be carried out by other institutions of India too.
LUO JIE/CHINA DAILY

Before the first US presidential debate on Monday, quite a few American experts on China were upset that the two candidates, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, had not talked much about the United States' broad policy toward China. They have been witness to the positive momentum in bilateral relations, yet they were troubled by the worsening strategic rivalry between the two countries.

Former US ambassador to China Winston Lord believes that even in the transition period, the president-elect should find someone very important to start talking with China in a bid to turn bilateral ties around. Orville Schell, director of the Center on US-China Relations at Asia Society, has suggested that former US president Bill Clinton take up the job if his wife is elected.

For many Chinese, the absence of China as a topic during the US presidential race may not be a bad thing, because candidates have for long used China as a bogeyman. Many still remember Republican nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 yelling and swearing in every speech that he would label China a currency manipulator on the first day in office if he was elected president. At one Republican primary that year, Jon Huntsman, a former US ambassador to China, was made to look the least relevant for US-China relations by his opponents.

That is how toxic the US presidential race is vis-a-vis China.

On Monday, Trump literally started his debate by criticizing China, accusing it of devaluing its currency. It only proves he is totally out of touch with the real world where the yuan has been facing a downward pressure from the market.

In fact, when I asked former US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and former deputy national security advisor for international economics Caroline Atkinson on Sept 22 why the US government had got it so wrong just a year ago in thinking the yuan was still grossly undervalued, they both dodged the question.

During the presidential race, candidates focus on subjects they believe will please voters instead of engaging in rational debate. This is so true for this year when both candidates are disliked. Still, there has been plenty of rational and intelligent talk among China hands on a more sensible US policy toward China after the next administration takes office.

Testifying before the US Congress on Sept 22, George Washington University professor Amitai Etzioni said China and the US have many shared and complementary interests. Whatever differences exist between the two great nations, they can and must be resolved in a peaceful manner. He suggested a grand bargain between the two countries from cyber security to the Taiwan question.

Former US ambassador to China Stapleton Roy argued last week that the Barack Obama administration has based its East Asia policy on assumptions that are outdated. He believes East Asia needs a sustained and well-informed policy from the US administration no matter who wins the presidential election in November.

And the Navy Times, a US newspaper, has reported that White House National Security Council issued a directive recently asking Pentagon officials to stop using inflammatory phrases to describe US-China relationship, such as calling it a "great power competition". It said that by labeling the relationship a "great power competition", Obama administration officials inaccurately suggest the US and China are on a collision course.

NSC Senior Director for Asian Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink neither confirmed nor denied the Navy Times report on Tuesday evening when I checked with him. If true, it is a right move toward a healthier rhetoric which the important China-US relationship deserves, different from destructive declamations like "China should not write the rules, we should", as Obama likes to say.

The author is deputy editor of China Daily USA. chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com
Deltapath Makes Collaboration a Priority with New Solution

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By Alicia Young

Web Editor By Alicia YoungWeb Editor

Deltapath, Inc., a video focused unified communications solutions provider, yesterday introduced the Deltapath Trio Connector. This is a communication gateway for Polycom (News - Alert) RealPresence Trio that has an embedded high-definition audio conference bridge, supports wireless content sharing along with mobile collaboration, and acts as a gateway to business telephone systems.





The purpose of the Deltapath Trio Connector is to make the office into a space where everythingequipment, devices and moreis connected, ensuring seamless collaboration. Specifically, it allows all Polycom endpoints and infrastructure to connect to each other by extension number or room number, making the whole process incredibly efficient.

The Deltapath Trio Connector is designed with simplicity in mind; it includes a firewall, Session Border Controller, audio conferencing bridge, SIP proxy, call routing engine and endpoint-provisioning server all in a single device. Not only is this all-in-one device easy to use, but it also offers native support for Polycom devices in telephony, video, content sharing, mobile video conferencing and endpoint provisioning.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, My company has room-based videoconference systems in place already, and we use those as our core collaboration tool. Isnt that enough? Your company isnt alone in that areamany organizations invested in similar technology practices. However, oftentimes that sort of system isnt enough, because it is limited to that room alone. We live in a mobile society, which means that videoconferencing and connectivity cannot be restricted to a conference room.

The Deltapath Trio Connector solves this issue by enabling organizations to easily adopt the Polycom RealPresence Mobile software and Polycom RealPresence Desktop collaboration software across their mobile workforce. This helps provide easy to use face-to-face collaboration for every conversation, regardless of where participants are.

Meanwhile, where there is good connectivity, there is productivity. Deltapath's Trio Connector, integrated with Polycom's endpoints, boosts productivity by enabling business communications that extend across desktop, mobility and room-based settings. Not only that, but the solution has an embedded audio conferencing bridge that enables Polycom customers to host up to 32 concurrent participants on its own audio conferencing bridge in high definition taking full advantage of the RealPresence Trio's studio quality audio, according to Andy Chan, Director of Solution Architecture and Professional Services at Deltapath. The ability to host 32 concurrent participants sounds a lot like productivity to me.

All in all, the goal of the solution is really just to make life easier for everyone, customers and employees alike. According to David Liu, Founder and CEO of Deltapath, The Polycom RealPresence Trio is a lot more than just a conference phone, instead it's a multi-function collaboration solution. We see the potential of bringing the RealPresence Trio, using Deltapath Trio Connector, to collaborate with teams and customers on demand and in real-time, to drive up productivity, make decisions faster, and eventually build long lasting business relationships. Collaboration is key, and it looks like this solution is working on making it as easy as possible.

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Edited by Maurice Nagle
OPEC agrees to cut crude oil production Updated: 2016-09-30 10:20 By YANG ZIMAN/LYU CHANG(China Daily)

A worker checks the valve of an oil pipe at Al-Sheiba oil refinery in Basra, Iraq.[Photo/Agencies]

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, made a decision to cut daily oil output by 700,000 barrels.

The decision has driven up oil prices up close to $50 per barrel. The WTI Crude Oil Spot Price increased by $2.38 to $47.05 per barrel on Wednesday, up 5.33 percent from the previous day. Brent Crude Oil Futures Prices increased by 5.92 percent to $48.69 per barrel on the same day.

According to Reuters, OPEC has reached a consensus to keep its daily production within 32.5-33 million barrels per day, compared with 33.2 million tons per day in August. It is the organization's first decision to control oil output since 2008.

China Oilfield Services Ltd shares increased by 11.3 percent to HK$6.8 per share on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Wednesday, the biggest increase since Feb 18. China National Offshore Oil Corp saw its H shares up 5 percent to HK$9.7 per share on Wednesday.

Gao Jian, an oil analyst with Shandong-based bulk commodity information company Sublime China Information Group Co Ltd, said that OPEC's output reduction is unlikely to have substantial impact on oil prices in the long run.

"Now is the lean season for oil consumption. Overall energy demand remains weak. Investors will still focus on the basic supply and demand," he said.

Gao said that the output of other major oil exporters needs to be taken into account, such as Russia and the United States.

"If Russia and the US increase their oil output, it will offset OPEC's reduction," said Gao.

According to Russia's ministry of energy information, the country's crude and condensate oil output stood at 11.1 million barrels per day as of Sept 20, up from 10.7 million barrels per day in August.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently announced the opening of new oilfields, which will increase the nation's crude oil output by 600,000 metric tons.

Meanwhile, Libya is planning to reopen the oil export in Port Ras Lanuf. Nigeria's Forcados Port will resume crude oil trade by the end of September, the first time since February.

According to a report by Goldman Sachs, OPEC's output limitation will drive up oil prices in the short run. However, uncertainty will remain in the oil market in the coming months. Since the reduction agreement won't be officially approved until the end of November, its impact on oil prices in the short run is also limited.
From finding unicorns to supporting pig-raising software Updated: 2016-09-29 17:05 (chinadaily.com.cn)

Wang Donghui, co-founder of Ameba Capital, poses for a photo in Hangzhou, Sept 21, 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Related story: Zhongguancun releases 2015 unicorn report

Frontier technologies, the next big leap forward

Beijing is China's Silicon Valley, says co-founder of billion-yuan fund

Chic. Unicorn locater. This is what Wang Donghui, the co-founder of Ameba Capital, is probably best-known as in China's venture capital circle.

The former chief financial officer of Kingsoft, the country's leading antivirus software and internet service company, has made a successful transition from an executive to an angel investor.

He is best-known for investments that Ameba Capital, the China-focused venture capital firm he co-founded in 2011, made in three startups which later turned out to be unicorns, or companies with $1 billion valuations or higher, based on fundraising.

The average return on investment for Ameba is currently 20 times, just five years after its launch.

Now Ameba Capital has completed its second round of funding by raising 700 million yuan ($105 million), bringing the firm's total asset under management to 900 million yuan.

The lion's share, or 40 percent of the second round, will be invested in the Software as a Service (SaaS) industry, Wang told chinadaily.com.cn.

SaaS means that software and data are hosted in remote servers and delivered on users' demand.

The digitalization of the country's enterprises means there is a high growth potential in the industry.

"Compared with China, the US sector is dozens times bigger. This is mismatched since China's GDP is about 60 percent of US's," said Wang Donghui, who looked chic when he met reporters in Hangzhou recently.

Wang claimed that in corporate internet, China lags the United States by more than 20 years. "China's consumer internet developed much faster than corporate internet."
Xi says Belarus is a good partner Updated: 2016-09-30 06:34 By An Baijie(China Daily)

Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) holds a welcoming ceremony for Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko before their talks in Beijing, Sept 29, 2016.[Photo/Xinhua]

Two presidents sign declaration to enhance mutual trust and build strategic cooperation

China and Belarus signed 26 documents on Thursday in Beijing to enhance cooperation in areas including investment, trade, education and science.

President Xi Jinping and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko attended the signing ceremony. The two leaders also signed a joint declaration to enhance mutual trust and establish a win-win comprehensive strategic partnership.

During the meeting, Lukashenko awarded Xi the "Peace and Friendship" medal of Belarus.

China has agreed that Belarus will set up a general consulate in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province.

Calling Lukashenko "an old friend of the Chinese people", Xi spoke highly of his efforts in improving bilateral ties.

"We have exchanged views many times on the bilateral relationship and issues of joint concern," Xi said, adding that the two sides have reached broad consensus.

Xi said that China considers Belarus a good friend and partner, and that the bilateral ties are experiencing their best period. The political mutual trust has been continuously enhanced, and the two sides have maintained frequent coordination in regional and international issues, he added.

Lukashenko said that Belarus and China have jointly implemented the Silk Road Economic Belt Initiative. The initiative, proposed by President Xi in 2013, aims to connect Europe and Asia through reviving the ancient Silk Road.

The China-Belarus Great Stone Industrial Park, which the two countries are building together, is an important part of the Silk Road Economic Belt, he said.

In a statement the two countries issued in May last year, China and Belarus said the park "is a strategic project in line with both countries' developmental interests".

The aim is for the 90-square-kilometer park, which is 25 km from the Belarusian capital of Minsk, to become not only a logistics hub, but also an industrial and high-tech base, said Kiryl Rudy, Belarusian ambassador to China.

Li Huilai, China's assistant foreign minister, said that the two leaders have agreed to enhance cooperation in areas including trade, investment, industry and finance.

China and Belarus have maintained close high-level exchanges in recent years. In September last year, Luka-shenko came to Beijing to attend a ceremony to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the world's victory against fascism. In May last year, during Xi's state visit to Belarus, the two countries pledged to combine strategies of development.

Ma Junchi, a researcher of European studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that through attracting Chinese investment, Belarus hopes to improve its industrial structure, which currently relies heavily on energy.
The culinary pretender that won big Updated: 2016-10-01 00:19 By XU JUNQIAN in Shanghai(China Daily USA)

Chefs at work at Lao Zheng Xing Gao Erqiang / China Daily

Lao Zheng Xing, a restaurant located in a six-story building in Shanghais Huangpu district, got another nod of affirmation for its culinary excellence when it was awarded one Michelin star on September 21.

The Michelin Guide Shanghai, which marked the French publications first foray into the Chinese mainland, awarded 26 restaurants with a total of 31 stars.

The guide has since its debut sparked controversy, with many experts in the local dining scene commenting that there is a skew toward Cantonese and hotel restaurants and how the guide is hardly representative of Shanghais effervescent dining scene.

Lao Zheng Xings reception to its latest accolade was rather underwhelming as well. In fact, no one turned up at the awards ceremony to accept the honor. The restaurant management told China Daily that they were not informed of the event beforehand.

Hu Bing, the executive chef of Lao Zheng Xing, was seemingly nonchalant about the win, too.

Trouble, said the 41-year-old Shanghai native, when asked what this award meant to the restaurant.

We have not taken a break since the mid-autumn festival. This award means we now have to deal with even more customers.

The 400-seater restaurant said that business has spiked by 25 percent since the results were released last week, with more young diners, instead of the regular crowd comprising senior citizens, pouring in than before.

Opened by Xia Shunqing, the son of a businessman from Wuxi, Jiangsu province, who was born and raised in Shanghai, Lao Zheng Xing is actually a copycat establishment.

The original, called Zheng Xing, was set up in 1862 by two businessmen from Ningbo, Zhejiang province.

The duo, Zhu Zhengxing and Cai Renxing, had initially opened a grocery stall in Shanghai. After the business failed, they came across a chef from Wuxi and decided to make a comeback with a restaurant which offered a hybrid cuisine that combined the greasy nature of Hui (Anhui) cuisine and refinement in Xi (Wuxi) cuisine.

The idea turned out to be a hit with the locals, who were willing to fork out more money to savor something other than the coarse Anhui cuisine that was predominant in Shanghai at that time.

According to library archives, Zheng Xing had during its peak in the 1930s attracted people to set up more than 120 copycat establishments in Shanghai.

However, only Xias establishment managed to withstand the test of time, running till the 1950s when it was taken over by the municipal government as a state-owned company.

Lao Zheng Xing has since been the go-to place for classic Shanghainese dishes such as fried river shrimps and braised pigs intestines with alfalfa sprouts.

The restaurants continued success over the years can be attributed to its team of loyal and highly skilled chefs. Wang Hui, a 27-year-old chef at Lao Zheng Xing, first set foot in the restaurant about a decade about. After working in the restaurant for a year, Wang was taught how to prepare the river shrimps, something that he has perfected as an art form today.

Every day, Wang deep-fries hundreds of plates of shrimps that are no larger than a thumbnail. The shrimps are dunked into boiling oil that measures around 200 degrees Celsius for exactly 18 seconds  no more, no less  before being scooped up, revealing a crisp, orange shell that can be consumed. This cooking method quickly dehydrates the shell while retaining the juices in the meat within.

No one makes them better than us. And I am not saying this simply to pride ourselves as veterans, said Hu, in a rare display of pride not seen in Chinese chefs who usually prefer to be discrete about their achievements.

However, the dishes that are served at Lao Zheng Xing today, admitted Hu, arent exactly the same as those from a century ago. The braised pig intestines they serve now, for example, do not have the pungent odor like how it normally would in the past.

Hu said that his job as the executive chef is to modernize Shanghainese cuisine while maintaining the original character of the dish. The restaurant has through the years been making their dishes a little more bland in order to cater to todays health-conscious customers.

Weve reduced the usage of sugar and oil in our dishes by about 15 percent. Thats the best we can do without compromising the taste, said Hu.

Creativity is not something we look for. People come to Lao Zheng Xing for traditional Shanghainese cuisine  our job is to satisfy their palates and hearts, not attempt to be fancy.
Conducting music between two worlds Updated: 2016-09-30 12:12 By Jian Ping in Chicago for China Daily(China Daily USA)



Jindong Cai is an orchestral conductor and professor of performance at Stanford University and a three-time recipient of the prestigious ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music. Provideded To China Daily

Jindong Cai, a conductor and professor at Stanford University, is saluted for connecting East and West through classical music

Jindong Cai, an orchestral conductor and professor of performance at Stanford University, received a special thanks in Chicago earlier this year at a celebration of Shanghai Spring - the first Chinese music series ever produced by a US radio network for broadcast in North America and Europe.

Cai was attending the event as an honored guest because his book - Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese, co-authored with his wife Sheila Melvin - served as an important resource for WFMT series producer Paolo Pietropaolo. Cai was also interviewed for the show.

"I could not have made Shanghai Spring without Rhapsody in Red and without Jindong Cai's contribution," said Pietropaolo.

Cai said that as a Chinese conductor and professor in the US, he has an obligation to serve as a conduit between the East and West through music.

"When you look at a region from a political point of view, you see conflicts and struggles," he said in an interview with China Daily. "From a cultural point of view, you see connections."

He emphasized the importance of cultural exchange in enhancing understanding between people of different backgrounds. He regards music - his profession and passion in life - as the perfect vehicle.

"Because China has emerged economically and politically, there is a thirst and curiosity for many people in the West to learn more about Chinese culture," he said. "We artists can connect people in the two worlds."

Cai, 59, began his dream of becoming a conductor when he attended the Boston Symphony Orchestra's first performance in Beijing in 1979, along with 18,000 enthusiastic Chinese at the Beijing Capital Stadium. It was the first Western orchestra performance in China after the Cultural Revolution.

"I was mesmerized by the power and beauty of the music, conducted by Maestro Seiji Ozawa," he recalled. "I thought I'd love to do that one day."

Cai came to the US to pursue graduate studies after studying violin and piano in Beijing. He attended the New England Conservatory and then the College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati.

His breakthrough came in 1992 at the Lincoln Center Mozart Bicentennial Festival in New York. Gerhard Samuel, the concert's conductor and Cai's mentor, took ill right before the dress rehearsal. Cai stepped in to conduct for the world premiere of a new production of Mozart's unfinished German-language opera Zaide.

"That was a turning point in my career," Cai said. The concert received critical acclaim from the New York Times.

The rest is history.

Over the years, Cai has guest-conducted major symphony orchestras in the US and China, including the Arkansas Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the Northwest Chamber Orchestra in Seattle, the China National Broadcasting Symphony, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and the Guangzhou Symphony.

He is also the principal guest conductor of the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra. In 2015, he led the Shenzhen Symphony on its first tour of the US West Coast, performing in Palo Alto, San Jose, Seattle, Los Angeles and San Diego.

In December 2015, Cai served as conductor for the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra at the Listening to China - 2015 Shanghai project, which aimed to encourage "understanding of traditional Chinese music culture."

In his quest for forging cultural exchange and understanding, he founded the Stanford Pan-Asian Music Festival in 2005, with the support of Stanford University. The annual festival, which includes performances and academic discussions, has brought in musicians from various Asian countries.

"Each year, we focus on an Asian country or region, or an artistic form," Cai said.

The festival, which is held around the Chinese New Year, is open to students and the public.

This year's festival featured the Forbidden City Chamber Orchestra from China and local artists representing Iran, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Japan.

"Once we focused on music from southern Asia and had musicians from India and Pakistan," said Cai. "The two countries always have political conflicts, but if you look at the music, the south of India is very close to the music of Pakistan and the musicians all know one another."

Cai said he is personally involved in selecting the performing troupes or individual musicians for the festival.

Cai received the Asian Hero award from the California State Legislature in 2010 for his contribution to the enrichment of musical diversity in the San Francisco Bay Area.

These days Cai often crosses two continents. Besides China, where he frequently conducts major symphony orchestras, he is also the principal guest conductor of the Mongolia State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet in Ulaanbaatar, and his guest conducting also includes symphonies in Korea and Mexico.

Cai is a three-time recipient of the prestigious ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music and has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, BBC and NPR.

His second book, Beethoven in China: How the Great Composer Became an Icon in the People's Republic, also co-authored with his wife, was released by Penguin in September 2015.

"Through his writing and music-making, Cai has achieved something very few others have," Pietropaolo said. "He's a door-opener, a bridge-builder and the world of classical music in both China and the West is better off thanks to his work and his efforts."
DC Chinese Film Festival: kaleidoscope of China Updated: 2016-09-30 23:48 By China Daily in Washington(chinadaily.com.cn)

The third DC Chinese Film Festival juries talk about the films at the closing ceremony of the festival on Sunday in Washington. From left are: Russell Williams, a full-time professor of film and media arts at American University; Tom Vick, the curator of film at the Freer and Sackler Galleries; Anita Long, the president of Women in Film and Television Houston, and Xie Fei, an internationally recognized Chinese film director and the festivals leading judge. Yuan Yuan / For China Daily

For a week, Washington audiences got to watch 67 films from nine countries and regions covering love, spirituality, education, environment, lifestyle, regional development, welfare, social justice, post-war trauma and, of course, traditional cultural heritage  almost all the aspects of todays Chinese society one can think of.

Through the lens of the filmmakers, I get to learn about Chinas recent changes in an artistic way and to recognize trends of the Chinese film industry, said Yang Rong, who came to the United States from Beijing 30 years ago.

The DC Chinese Film Festival, a non-profit initiative that was held in the nations capital from Sept 19-25, is the citys leading showcase for Chinese-related art films.

This year, 54 main competition films, in which filmmakers tried out new themes and techniques, along with five special screenings and eight community screenings, covered a variety of social issues.

Founded in 2011, the Chinese festival has grown substantially in size and scope, said festival director Geoffrey Cai.

All films in the festivals main competition this year were selected from 741 submissions from nearly 40 countries by a mixture of around 70 percent of film professionals and 30 percent of general audiences, said Tian Chuyin, director of programming for the festival.

Films in the main competition must have been produced after 2014 and without a previous official release, she said.

Nominations of the film festival should at least meet one of the three requirements, to include Chinese cast members in its main crew, be related to Chinese culture or have Chinese (Mandarin or other dialects) as its main language, Tian said.

The nominations were divided into six categories: documentary feature, documentary short, narrative feature, narrative short, experimental short and animation short.

Seven juries give awards to the best films in each category and three special awards. Two audience special awards were given based on their votes.

Meredith Dalton volunteered for the festival as an opportunity to watch the films.

This is the first time Ive noticed the festival, Dalton said. I think its a very diverse showcase. Its too bad (that) its every two years instead of every year, but hopefully in the near future, theyll be able to do it more frequently.

Dalton felt strongly about the film Twenty Two, a look at the experiences of the last surviving fomer comfort women in China.

This is a new topic for me, and this was a very well-done film about a generation that was passed, she said. Its nice that theyve been able to capture these women. They are the records for future generations.

This years leading film judge, Chinese film director Xie Fei, interacted with the audience after the special screening of his 1995 film The Mongolian Tale.

When I was a student, one of my mentors kept telling us to shoot films that would last long, Xie said. Whats the meaning of long-lasting movies? Well, through characters and plot, those movies express universally understandable themes with deep concerns in humanity and human destiny.

Xie also mentioned that films can capture unique nationalities and regions that are experiencing dramatic change and even vanishing.

We tried to make the jury team a diverse one with three Asians, two African Americans and two white, Tian said.

This is interesting for me to see younger filmmakers who may just be starting out with short films, said another judge, Tom Vick, the curator of film at the Freer and Sackler Galleries. Its a chance to really get an idea of what young filmmakers are working on, to see a kind of potential among them.

Chen Xiaoxiao brought the festival her masters graduation film, a 30-minute documentary titled A Place Called Home, depicting the daily lives of abandoned children residing at the Zhang Jiakou Welfare Center in China.

The film takes an unflinching look at an institutional world where heartbreak and tragedy, though routine, co-exist with the simplest but unexpected daily progress.

Im so profoundly moved by the movie, said JoAnn Sainz, an educational consultant. Its so exclusive, and theres nothing more superior than a sense of mission.

The winning films were announced on Sunday evening at the festivals closing ceremony.

Forefinger Town won both the Best Animation Short and the Audience Award.

Chen Yujie, the director of the Best Narrative Feature Lost Daughter, was the only winner in attendance to accept an award.

Films presented here are very different from the commercial films we see in the nowadays Chinese mainstream film market, Xie said. And I think screening is actually more important for the filmmakers than actually winning an award.

This film festival is a great opportunity for District residents and visitors to experience cultural diversity through film, said Muriel Bowser, mayor of the District of Columbia, in a letter to the festival.

Hopefully, the festival is able to draw greater attention in the future, Yang said. Around the DC area, specialists in Chinese studies, students majoring in international relations, families with adopted Chinese children and those who practice speaking Chinese are all potentially interested in these films.

Yuan Yuan in Washington contributed to the story
Cheng Yu-Tung, Hong Kong jeweler, billionaire, dies Updated: 2016-09-30 12:04 (AGENCIES)

Cheng Yu-tung, who helped develop the Chow Tai Fook jewelry chain, the world's largest jewelry retailer, and went on to become one of Hong Kong's billionaires, has died. He was 91.

Cheng died peacefully with his family at his side Thursday night, his family said in an e-mailed statement.

Besides Chow Tai Fook, Cheng was chairman of New World Development. In February 2012, he announced his retirement as chairman of the company, which was founded in 1970 and operates in businesses including energy, bus services, department stores and real estate, which includes New York's Carlyle Hotel.

Henry Cheng Kar-shun, the eldest son of Cheng Yu-tung, said on Friday evening that his father had been in a coma since he underwent brain surgery four years ago. His death will not affect New World Development's operation, he added.

Like fellow billionaire Li Ka-shing, Cheng was among Chinese refugees who fled from Japanese invaders and made it big outside of the mainland. Cheng, the third-richest tycoon in the city on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, had an estimated net worth of $12.7 billion through his holdings in Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd and New World Development Co.

Cheng was honorary chairman of Chow Tai Fook Jewellery, which operates more than 2,000 outlets in China and Hong Kong, and whose revenue was more than 70 percent larger than that of New York-based Tiffany & Co in the latest fiscal year. The jewelry-chain operator has struggled recently in Hong Kong as mainland Chinese tourists skip the shopping mecca for other destinations.

Profit for the year ended March 31 fell by 46 percent, slumping to the lowest since 2010. The chain is now looking to new strategies such as operating art galleries merged with malls in China, and selling diamonds wholesale to U.S. retailers to diversify away from its retail business.

As his businesses took off, he would visit jewelry stores unannounced to check on them, and eat with his workers at the company canteen. He wore Nike running shoes with business suits.

Cheng was born on Aug 26, 1925, in Shunde, a city in Guangdong, the southern Chinese province adjoining Hong Kong. In 1940, he fled to Macau to escape China's war with Japan.

At the age of 15, Cheng got his first job as an apprentice at the gold shop of family friend Chow Chi Yeun, who had founded Chow Tai Fook in 1929. Three years later, Cheng married Chow's daughter, Tsui Ying, in a marriage arranged by their fathers.

In 1946, Cheng moved to Hong Kong from Macau to open a store. The jewelry chain expanded as Hong Kong's population doubled to almost 1.5 million with mostly displaced refugees. By 1950, the city's population swelled to more than 2 million as Chinese fled Communist China, and Cheng used the profits from selling gold to fund his property purchases.

Cheng was a major philanthropist in Hong Kong. In April 2012, he spoke at a groundbreaking for a building that was named after him at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Cheng took Chow Tai Fook public in December 2011, raising $2 billion in a Hong Kong share sale. Two months later, he announced his retirement from that business.

Last December, Cheng transferred some of his stock holdings to family funds and agreed to sell $3.2 billion of Chinese property projects in a move seen as an effort to put his affairs in order.

Cheng and his wife had two sons, Henry Cheng and Peter Cheng, and two daughters, Amy Cheng and Cheng Lai Ha.
Across America Updated: 2016-09-30 12:12 (China Daily USA)

Birthday party - washington

Front from left: Kristie Kenney, counselor of the US State Department, and Cui Tiankai, Chinese ambassador to the US, attend a reception on Tuesday evening at the Chinese embassy in Washington to mark the 67th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. More than 700 guests from US government departments, Congress, foreign embassies, international organizations and other groups participated in the celebration. Chen Weihua / China Daily
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National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan addresses the sitting to collect opinions on the draft Law on Associations __Photo: An Dang/VNA

The draft Law on Associations should be presented to the upcoming session of the 14National Assembly (NA), NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan said on September 22, the last working day of the third session of the NA Standing Committee.We should not postpone the submission of the draft law but would put it before the NA deputies for discussion and passage, she said.Ngan asked the law-drafting body to work hard on the draft and include in the draft effective and practical regulations on operation of associations, including associations involving foreigners.Concretizing Article 25 of the 2013 Constitution, the 44-article draft law contains specific provisions on the establishment, organization and operation of associations, state management of associations, and registration and management of the operation of foreign non-governmental organizations in Vietnam. It is expected to not only guarantee the citizens right to form associations but also ensure the state management of associations and foreign non-governmental organizations registered to operate in Vietnam.Most lawmakers agreed that the draft law needs to create favorable conditions for citizens to exercise their right to form associations and bring into play associations autonomy, use of volunteers and sense of responsibility.However, they said the draft law should regulate more specifically the state management of associations, particularly foreign-involved associations and unregistered ones, in order to ensure their operation to comply with the law.Le Thi Nga, Chairwoman of the NAs Committee on Judicial Affairs, said associations that are not required for registration and those without legal person status all need specific regulations to ensure the respect for peoples rights and the state management of unregistered associations.Some legislators proposed strict regulations on the formation of associations in order to avoid the mushrooming of associations, which could cause difficulties to state management work, and avoid the abuse of formation of associations for illegal activities.Regarding the provision that allows foreigners working lawfully in Vietnam to join associations, NA General Secretary Nguyen Hanh Phuc said more studies are needed to ensure their rights are respected and their activities abide by Vietnamese law.During this session, which began on September 12, the lawmakers also gave their opinions on the draft Law on Belief and Religion and the draft Law on Asset Auction.They commented on other draft laws concerning technology transfer, foreign trade management, management and use of state property, and state compensation liability.Debating the draft Law on Belief and Religion, most lawmakers agreed with the provision that allows religious organizations to establish schools as part of the national education system, which will operate in line with the current education law.Phan Thanh Binh, Chairman of the NAs Committee on Culture, Education, Adolescents and Children, said that in reality, many religious organizations have lawfully opened and effectively managed education institutions for children, with some 126,000 students attending about 270 schools currently operated by religious organizations.NA Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu said more study was needed to ensure that education institutions formed by religious organizations refrain from teaching the content on belief and religion, with a view to guaranteeing the freedom of religion of each person.Concerning other social activities of religious organizations, such as charity, humanitarian relief, social protection, and healthcare, most legislators agreed that religious organizations have made great contributions to the society.However, some said religious organizations should ask for permission from the authorities in the localities where their social activities are carried out, adding that to respect peoples freedom of religion, religious organizations would not be allowed to conduct propaganda activities to expand and develop their religions.As regards the draft Law revising a number of articles of the Law on Technology Transfer, the lawmakers agreed that the revision is necessary to meet the demand of economic growth and international integration.Minister of Science and Technology Chu Ngoc Anh said the revision aims to facilitate technology transfer activities inside and outside Vietnam with a view to helping Vietnamese businesses enhance their production capacity and competitiveness in both domestic and overseas markets.He said the revision was made in the spirit of renewal of the state management of technology transfer in line with trade liberalization and international integration trends.Some legislators raised concerns over whether to amend only 16 articles of the current law or to revise the entire law, saying that with the current domestic situation of technology, revising only some articles of the current law would not meet the demand of national industrialization and modernization.After discussion, the NA Standing Committee agreed that the draft law revising a number of articles of the Law on Technology Transfer should be upgraded into the revised draft law on technology transfer.Discussed for the first time, the draft Law on Foreign Trade Management aims to serve as a tool of state management over foreign trade that ensures transparency and compliance with international law as well as raise the competitiveness of the economy.It is necessary to promulgate a law on foreign trade management in order to complete the legal framework for foreign trade activities, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Cam Tu said.At present, there are many legal documents on state management of foreign trade activities. These lead to overlaps in state management work and a lack of transparency, thus causing risks to import and export activities of businesses, Tu said.The Committee agreed with the drafts major provisions on state management of foreign trade activities, such as management measures, dispute settlement, and measures for foreign trade development.However, many legislators said the draft law gave too much power to management agencies, especially the Ministry of Industry and Trade.Phan Thanh Binh said the draft law regulates many kinds of licenses and gives a lot of power to the Minister of Industry and Trade, authorizing him to grant quotas and designate import and export businesses.Most lawmakers wanted the draft law to reduce power of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and increase support for businesses involved in foreign trade activities.The lawmakers said revision of the Law on Management and Use of State Property aims to ensure efficiency and thrift in the procurement, management, use and operation of public property, thus meeting the requirements on practice of thrift and combat of waste and corruption.Some legislators said the revised draft law seems to be infeasible if it is designed to cover all types of public property. They proposed the formulation of a code on public property or specific laws regulating certain types of public property based on the characteristics and sources of formation of each type of the property.To optimize the efficiency of the management and use of public property, the lawmakers suggested distinguishing between public property serving the States management work, public property for social welfare purposes and public property for commercial purposes while clearly identifying the subjects managing and using different types of public property.Le Thi Nga and some other lawmakers proposed the draft law be added with provisions on responsibilities and handling of heads of agencies or units that are assigned by the State to manage and use public property but let violations occur in their agencies or units.The draft law should also define the subjects eligible for, and criteria and norms of, furnishing of public property like cars, working offices and public-duty houses in order to avoid loss or waste of public property.The revised draft Law on State Compensation Liability should clarify damage and determine the level of compensation while simplifying procedures and shortening the time of resolution so as to raise the responsibility of officials on duty and guarantee the lawful rights and interests of related organizations and individuals, according to the lawmakers.Le Thi Nga said the draft law was extremely difficult so the lawmaking process should be carried out step by step and take into account all the cases to protect the lawful rights and interests of those affected by the States decisions.She asked the law-drafting body to clarify provisions on cases that would or would not be eligible for compensation.Nga also said the public complained about the large amount of state money used for compensation, but the draft did not mention the compensation liability of officials who made wrongful convictions.In reply, Minister of Justice Le Thanh Long said he did not make sure the revised draft law would solve all the problems. In terms of calculating damage for compensation, he said it was easier to calculate material damage than spiritual damage, adding that the drafting board had tried to set criteria to quantify spiritual damage.On principle, all civil servants involved must pay compensation, Long said, suggesting the law be reasonably designed to give them a sense of compensation for damage caused but it would not be so stringent that civil servants did not dare do anything.Tong Anh Hao, Deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme Peoples Court, said most cases of wrongful conviction faced slow compensation due to difficulties in identifying the agencies responsible for compensation. Moreover, most of the victims could not prove their damage, which remained the most complicated task.Meanwhile, Deputy Procurator General of the Supreme Peoples Procuracy, Le Huu The, said it was necessary to have a benchmark to calculate the level of compensation, noting that the provisions on compensation were not clear enough, thus causing inconsistencies between agencies responsible and persons eligible for compensation.Closing the session, NA Chairwoman Ngan asked the Government, Supreme Peoples Court, Supreme Peoples Procuracy and related authorities to closely collaborate with one another in finalizing the draft laws and draft reports for timely submission to the NA for consideration and approval.-
HA NOI  The State should eliminate price ceilings for milk products and control milk prices via input materials instead, experts said.

Price ceilings were put in place in May 2014 by the Ministry of Finance. At the end of the second quarter of 2015, the ministry extended the price ceiling through the end of this year.

The Ministry of Finances Pricing Management Department said after stabilising milk prices, the prices dropped by between 0.1 per cent and 34 per cent for milk products for under six year-olds.

Nguyen Anh Tuan, director of Ministry of Finances Price Management Department, told Tin tuc (News) newspaper early this week that the price ceiling would be effective until the end of this year and then the ministry would review the price ceilings.

Nguyen Thi Xuan, a Ha Noi resident, said the current price for a 900g can of Nan milk is VN340,000, while it was VN400,000 before the price ceiling was enforced.

She worried that if the State eliminated the price ceiling the price of milk products for children would increase again.

Meanwhile, Phuong Thao, owner of a milk shop in HCM City said before the price ceilings, milk producers and distributors had adjusted their prices according to supply and demand on the market and explained the reasons for the adjustments.

Since the price ceiling was enacted, companies had offered less discounts and promotions for agencies and customers when they adjusted milk prices, she said.

Vu Ngoc Quynh, general secretary of the Viet Nam Dairy Association, said in the short term, buyers have enjoyed lower prices thanks to the price ceiling.

But in the mid and long term, the mechanism would hinder the development of milk products and reduce competition among producers, said Quynh.

Price expert Ngo Tri Long said the mechanism discouraged companies from investing in production of new products and gave no incentive to improve product quality. That also made the companies unable to compete at home and abroad.

The State should abolish the price ceilings and let the market decide the prices, Long said. To control milk prices without the price ceiling, the State should manage the import of materials for the production of milk products by using the tax and customs policies.

He also said that it would be difficult to increase the prices of milk products for under six year-olds after eliminating the price ceiling because dairy companies must register the new prices and get approval from the State to adjust their prices.

Nutrition and Food Group under Eurocham represented six foreign multi-national dairy companies in Viet Nam proposing that the State should remove the price ceiling and use the market to determine prices.

To ensure cheap milk powder products, the State should reduce import tax and value-added tax for the components of these products. The import tax for milk is 5 per cent for products from ASEAN and 10 per cent for products from other countries. - VNS
HCM CITY  Although the Vietnamese Good Agriculture Practice (VietGap) was issued for seafood breeding five years ago, enterprises are not enthusiastic about using this standard as a qualification for their product exports.

In 2011, as preparation for the fisheries sector to actively penetrate the world market, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said the VietGap practice should be applied in aquaculture, mainly for three species -- tra fish, tiger prawn and white-leg shrimp.

Le Van Quang, chairman of the Minh Phu Seafood Joint Stock Corporation which has been processing and exporting shrimp for 35 years, said the company had not met any customers who required products to be certified with VietGap.

They only needed certifications of Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP), Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification and Global Gap -- an internationally recognised set of farm standards dedicated to Good Agricultural Practices, he said.

He added that the criteria required by VietGap were even higher than other certifications. Therefore, he suggested shrimp farms in Viet Nam be required to meet standards of BAP and ASC, instead of VietGap.

"BAP certification is globally used and Vietnamese shrimp products are mainly sold abroad. So, why does Viet Nam not use the certification to certify all stages of shrimp production? Quang told a Vietnam News Agency correspondent.

Currently, the state is supporting farmers to achieve VietGap certification, but it would be more reasonable to use that money to help them achieve BAP and ASC certifications to reduce production costs and make Vietnamese shrimp products more competitive," Quang suggested.

Nguyen Thi Hong Phuoc, head of the raw materials procurement division of the HCM City-based Vinh Loc Food Processing and Trade Co Ltd, said based on the certification requirements of an importer, the company would appoint a person to go on a fact-finding tour to farming areas in the Mekong Delta region.

Farming areas that met the importers requirement would be chosen to sign contracts and the company would commit to do long-term business with well-performing areas, she said.

The company only exported VietGap certified goods to markets which did not demand specific certifications.

Commitment of exporters

Explaining reasons why enterprises are not interested in the VietGap certification system, Truong inh Hoe, general secretary of the Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), said certificates such as GlobalGap and ASC were standards used on a voluntary basis.

Businesses that wanted to export to any market must meet the standards of that particular market. Western European countries required Global Gap certification while American market demanded the BAP certificate.

These standards helped increase the added value of the enterprises products.

However, VietGap, currently, was not a requirement of importers, so companies were not ready to meet those standards.

"In fact, if we do a good job in introducing and promoting the VietGap certificate, it will be more easily recognised and well-known in other countries and applying VietGap will become more popular, Hoe said.

VietGap will be a commitment by exporters that the products they make are strictly monitored for food safety and hygiene.

VASEP always encourages businesses and farmers apply the VietGap process in aquaculture to meet the increasing needs of export markets," he added.

Nguyen Viet Thang, chairman of the Viet Nam Fisheries Association, said VietGap was an essential criterion for assessing food safety for Vietnamese products.

World over, each country has a certain standard and symbol to address food safety issues. Exporters who want to sell their products in a market have to ensure they satisfy the standard applied in the market, according to the chairman.

However, to avoid enterprises applying for 3-4 certificates at the same time, Thang said the Government had asked the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Directorate of Fisheries to study the possibility of connecting the certification systems.  VNS
HA NOI  Viet Nam Competition Authority (VCA), under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, has urged mobile phone users to contact service providers when they notice abnormal account activity or suspect value-added services being activated automatically.

The Vietnamese mass media recently reported the problem of scamming money from mobile users by automatically installing and expanding value added services, which customers may not know of or control. This has caused much concern among mobile phone users.

To check the list of value-added services, Viettel users should call the free switchboard at 18008198 or call numbers 19008198 or 0989198198, which will entail call charges.

Viettel users can also send a message by texting TC and sending to 1228 to check services they are using.

For Mobifone, consumers can call to 18001090 (free) or 9090 (VND200 per minute) or text KT to 994.

Meanwhile, VinaPhone users should call 9191, with the rates of VND200 per minute for prepaid numbers and free for postpaid numbers or text TK to 123.

For complaints, questions or advice, consumers should contact the switchboard of VCA at 18006838 (free).  VNS
NAY PYI TAW  National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan has said her visit to Myanmar aims to show the Vietnamese parliaments resolve to reinforce the traditional friendship and multi-faceted co-operation between the two countries and legislative bodies.

She made the remark at a meeting yesterday with Speaker of Myanmars parliament and Upper House, Mahn Win Khaing Than, following the welcome ceremony at the Myanmar parliaments headquarters in Nay Pyi Taw.

She congratulated Myanmar on the successful general election last November and on completing the final step in the seven-step roadmap for national building. She voiced the belief that with the new leadership, it will become a prosperous country with a higher stature in the international arena.

Viet Nam and Myanmar boast a time-honoured amity, the Chairwoman said, noting that Myanmar is one of the first Southeast Asian nations to set up diplomatic ties with Viet Nam. It strongly supported her country during the struggle for national liberation, and Viet Nam always keeps in mind that valuable assistance.

She lauded the countries effective co-operation in defence-security, economics, trade, investment, culture and tourism. There are now 11 Vietnamese-invested projects with a total registered capital of almost US$700 million in Myanmar.

To enhance collaboration, she asked the two parliaments to urge their Government agencies to implement important co-operation mechanisms, including organising the ninth meeting of the joint committee for bilateral co-operation in 2016.

Ngan rejoiced at the sound development of the two parliaments relations, asking them to continue co-ordination in supervision to ensure that the countries co-operation agreements are implemented effectively.

They should increase sharing experience, particularly in institution building, lawmaking and supervision over law enforcement. She also asked the Myanmar parliament to continuously consider and support necessary revisions to mechanisms, policies and laws so as to boost trade and investment partnership.

Echoing the view, the Myanmar Speaker said the parliaments need to promote delegation exchanges to learn from each others experience and improve the capacity of parliamentarians.

He spoke highly of Viet Nams socio-economic achievements, adding that the two nations share many similarities and his country wants to learn more about Viet Nams reform experience.

The Myanmar parliament is adapting some legal documents to the current socio-economic situation and building new laws. It is also considering revising investment-related laws so as to attract foreign investment, including from Viet Nam, he added.

At the meeting, Chairman Ngan said Viet Nam is ready to help Myanmar fulfill the duties of the ASEAN Chairmanship in 2017. She also delivered the invitation to visit Viet Nam to the Myanmar Speaker, who accepted with pleasure.

Also yesterday, NA Chairwoman Ngan met with Speaker of Myanmars House of Representatives (Lower House) U Win Myint, saying that Viet Nam wishes to enhance the long-standing friendship and multi-faceted co-operation with Myanmar, both bilaterally and multilaterally.

The NA Chairwoman congratulated Myanmar on its attainments in national reconciliation, security and political stability, economic development and foreign affairs.

Myanmars hosting of the 37th ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA 37) demonstrates that regional countries have trust in the country and appreciate its increasingly important role and position in the world arena, she noted.

For his part, Myint said Myanmar wishes to partner with the Vietnamese NA in making law.

Applauding Viet Nams socio-economic achievements, particularly in aquaculture and seafood processing, the host noted his hope that Viet Nam will share its experience in this field with Myanmar.

The Vietnamese and Myanmar legislatures have closely co-ordinated with each other at regional and international inter-parliamentary forums such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the AIPA, he said, calling for Viet Nams contributions to the AIPA 37 to be hosted by Myanmar from September 29 to October 3.  VNS
HA NOI  President Rodrigo Roa Duterte said yesterday that the Philippines places importance on accelerating its across-the-board co-operation with Viet Nam. He was speaking at a meeting with Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in Ha Noi.

Duterte said implementation of the Strategic Partnership contents and the early building and deployment of an action plan for 2017-2020 to tap co-operation potential by both countries will create a new impulse for the growth in the respective countries and the region at large.

He spoke highly of Viet Nams role and position in ASEAN and expressed his hope for continued co-operation in the new ASEAN Community as well as at multilateral forums.

Regarding the East Sea issue, President Duterte urged all parties to exercise self-restraint, without resorting to the threat or use of force, and to solve disputes by peaceful measures in accordance with the universally recognised principles of international law.

Party General Secretary Trong warmly welcomed President Duterte. He suggested both countries carry out agreements they have reached and fully utilise the existing co-operative mechanisms, with the focus on the exchange of high-level visits across Party, State, National Assembly channels and people-to-people exchanges.

He also referred to potential maritime co-operation and co-operation in rice trading, oil and gas, fisheries, mining and services.

The Party leader affirmed that Viet Nam stands ready to support and co-ordinate with the Philippines in accomplishing its ASEAN Chair in 2017, contributing to a strong, united and developed ASEAN Community.

He reiterated Viet Nams position of tackling disputes in the East Sea through peaceful means, including the full respect of legal and diplomatic processes in the absence of threats or use of force and in compliance with international law.

He wished the President and Philippine people success in their nation-building process and active contribution to peace, stability, co-operation and development in the region.  VNS
HA NOI  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has called on Viet Nam and the Philippines to tap their potential for trade and investment ties to match their strategic partnership.

He told the visiting Philippines President Rodrigo Roa Duterte during their meeting in Ha Noi yesterday that Viet Nam will create the best possible conditions for Filipino investors in the agriculture, food processing, services and tourism sectors.

The leader suggested that the Philippines facilitate Vietnamese investments in infrastructure, oil and gas exploitation, mining and services in the country.

He also urged the two sides to continue their close co-operation in rice trade via the Rice Trade Agreement.

Viet Nam is ready to provide rice to the Philippines in the long term, helping the country ensure food security, the PM noted, proposing that the two countries soon expand the memorandum of understanding on rice trade for the 2017-20 period.

He also suggested enhancing bilateral collaboration in other spheres, such as culture, tourism, transport and fisherman affairs.

Viet Nam and the Philippines should step up their affiliation across fields in a more pragmatic and effective fashion, particularly in national defence, security, trade, investment, as well as at regional and international forums, PM Phuc said.

In the realm of politics and diplomacy, the leader stressed the maintenance of all-level delegation exchanges and existing co-operation mechanisms, while increasing people-to-people exchanges.

He called for conducting joint patrols and carrying forward the Joint Committee on Sea and Ocean Co-operation at the deputy foreign ministerial level, and appoint a group of legal experts within the framework of the committee.

Viet Nam is willing to work with the Philippines in the fight against drugs and other crimes, such as high-tech crimes, cyber crimes, human traffickers and terrorists, he said, adding that Viet Nam will also partner with the country in maritime security, naval forces, maritime police and rescue operations at sea.

The two sides should promptly sign an agreement on extradition and another on the transfer of prisoners, PM Phuc added.

The host and guest agreed on the need to team up with each other in protecting peace and stability in the East Sea, as well as the interests and rights of each country, in line with international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, opposing the use of violence, and maintaining East Sea peace through non-military means.

PM Phuc also suggested the two sides ratchet up sea and ocean co-operation; continue strengthening ASEANs unity, as well as its role in handling the East Sea issue; work more closely in ASEAN through information sharing and co-ordination in stance; and promote regular exchanges between Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia and Viet Nam for forming a key group in the bloc.

To that extent, the countries need to co-ordinate in enhancing ASEANs central role in responding to challenges that impact on peace, stability and security in the region, and the relations with other dialogue countries, the Vietnamese leader said.

He said if a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) is finalised in 2017 on the blocs 50th founding anniversary, it will be a hallmark and an important step forward for not only ASEAN, but also the Philippines as the ASEAN Chair, contributing to promoting peace and stability in the region.

President Duterte told his host that when he was young, one of his dreams was to visit Viet Nam and that he admired Viet Nams victory in the struggle for winning national independence and its renewal and development achievements and saw the country as an example for his country to follow.

He said he highly values what the Vietnamese Government and people have done for the Philippines, especially the supply of rice to the country when it dealt with food shortage, affirming that Viet Nam is a good neighbour and brother of the Philippines.

He further stated that his country would back Viet Nams organisation of the APEC 2017 and welcomed PM Phucs attendance at ASEAN 2017.

President Duterte expressed hope of signing more trade agreements with Viet Nam, saying it will help the two become strong nations in the region.

The Philippines also wants to boost co-operation with Viet Nam in other domains, including the prevention and combat of crime and is ready to negotiate on the signing of an extradition agreement.

On the East Sea issue, Duterte agreed that the parties involved need to continue working to settle all disputes and disagreement peacefully with respect to international law.

The Philippines protested the use of force in this area and wanted the concerned sides to work to promote mutual understanding, President Duterte stressed.

He went on to say that ASEAN needs to make more efforts to solve the East Sea issue peacefully, suggesting speeding up consultations among the blocs member countries on this matter.

A joint statement between Viet Nam and the Philippines was issued yesterday on the President Dutertes visit to Viet Nam. Full text of the statement can be viewed at www.vietnamnews.vn.  VNS
NAY PYI TAW  National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan joined other ASEAN parliamentarians at the executive committee meeting of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) in Nay Pyi Taw today.

The meeting, the first among activities of the 37th AIPA General Assembly (AIPA-37) hosted by Myanmar, drew parliamentary delegates from the 10 AIPA member countries.

Opening the event, Speaker of Malaysias lower house Pandikar Amin Bin Haji Mulia, who held the AIPA-36 Presidency, handed over this position to Speaker of Myanmars Parliament and Upper House Mahn Win Khaing Than.

As the AIPA-37 President, the Myanmar speaker then chaired the meeting of the AIPA executive committee.

The event considered the appointment of Raneo E. Abu, Deputy Speaker of the Philippines House of Representatives, as Vice President of the AIPA-37 executive committee.

They also approved activities and agenda of AIPA-37, including topics for AIPA committees meetings, and looked into the time for organising AIPA-38 and other important issues.  VNS
A NANG  The central city of a Nang in co-operation with experts from the Japan Port Consultants company and the Overseas Coastal Area Development Institute of Japan have begun a pre-feasibility study to make Lien Chieu Port a cargo port.

Vice chairman of the citys Peoples Committee, Nguyen Ngoc Tuan, said the study will run until February with the support from Japan and Yokohama City.

He said a Nang has been seeking funds of US$200 million from the official development fund for the project and plans to redevelop the port on a public-private partnership model.

Lien Chieu port will be designed as a deep sea cargo port in the ASEAN region, serving Thailand, Myanmar and Laos in the East-West Economic Corridor No 2. Lien Chieu port, which currently can handle 50,000 deadweight tonnage container ships, will be able to handlle 100,000-tonne ships and cargo ships with a loading capacity of 8,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEUs) from 2025.

According to the ministry of transport, a Nang will handle 29 million tonnes of cargo by 2030.

Viet Nams seaport system development plan to 2020 designates a Nang Port as a major commercial port and one of the key gateways to the East Sea from the sub-Mekong region.

In March, a Nang and Japans Yokohama agreed on an extension of the Memorandum of Understanding on technical co-operation in urban development to 2016-19, boosting co-operation between the two cities in investment promotion, urban management, eco-city development, sustainable urban development.  VNS
HCM CITY The German Chamber of Skilled Crafts Potsdam yesterday handed over a Letter of Acknowledgement to certify the equivalence of two occupational standards offered by the LILAMA 2 Technical and Technology College in ong Nai Province.

The two are occupational standards for construction machinery technicians and industrial electronics technicians.

Two courses have been developed based on the standards, the university said. They will be introduced in this school year.

German standards serve as international benchmarks and were adjusted according to the needs of the Vietnamese labour market, Le Van Hien, president of the college, said.

The close involvement of Vietnamese professional associations and more than 20 professionals from leading companies, besides German experts, is one of the factors for the success, he said.

The courses are part of a programme called Reform of technical and vocational education and training in Viet Nam, which also sets occupational standards for the country, he said.

The programme is implemented by several German development agencies in close co-operation with the Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA).

LILAMA 2 Technical and Technology College, run by the Ministry of Construction, was chosen by the Government and MoLISA to become a centre for technical and vocational education and training, he added.

In close co-operation with industry, LILAMA 2 will teach theoretical content to students and also train them in occupation-related practical skills based on the latest technologies at its state-of-the-art training centres.

Teachers and trainers of LILAMA 2 are regularly trained by German experts in technology and practically oriented training methods.

This hands-on transfer of know-how is to ensure professional utilisation of equipment in training.

This is a significant step forward to provide demand driven workforce solutions, according to Bui Quang Hai of the Vietnam Association of Mechanical Industry.

There is a severe shortage of skilled workers and technicians with practical-oriented vocational qualifications in Viet Nam.

As the country deepens its international integration, the demand for skilled workers is steadily increasing and new technical challenges emerge.

LILAMA 2 has co-operated with the German Development Cooperation focusing on four occupations: construction mechanics technician, industrial electronics technician, metal cutting-computer numeric control technician, and mechatronics technician.

The programme includes inter-related fields of activities at different levels, including technical and vocational education and training (TVET) policy, advice and systemic reforms, support for centres of excellence for TVET, and TVET for skilled workers in wastewater treatment.  VNS
HCM CITY  The hand, foot and mouth disease season has barely begun in HCM City but hospitals are already seeing a rush of patients, many of them severely affected, according to paediatrics hospitals.

Hand, foot and mouth disease is a common viral illness that afflicts children aged under five and has no vaccine or specific treatment.

The disease peaks between October and November.

Fifty-two children were being treated yesterday at the Paediatrics Hospital 1 compared to 30 in the whole of August.

An 18-month-old girl from southern Tien Giang Province has been placed on a ventilator after being diagnosed with grade three - with grade four being the highest - of the disease.

Her mother, Tran Thi Thanh, said she had fever of 39 degrees Celsius and was taken to a private clinic.

But with the fever not breaking and the child getting convulsions, Thanh said she was rushed to the provincial hospital.

With her condition steadily worsening, the provincial hospital sent her to the Paediatrics Hospital 1.

Dr Truong Huu Khanh, head of the hospitals neurology and infectious diseases ward, said continuous fever of 39 degrees is a symptom of hand, foot and mouth disease, and parents should pay attention to this.

When children have fever for three days, they should be taken to the nearest hospital. They will have a sore throat and rash with vesicles on the hands, feet and diaper area.

Early detection of the disease is vital to reduce fatalities though many children with low resistance could succumb to the virus virulence, he said.

The disease causes complications such as pulmonary oedema, meningitis and encephalitis, he said.

The best way to prevent the disease is by parents washing their own and their childrens hands frequently, he said.

Though public awareness of the disease has improved, many parents ignore preventive measures.

At the Paediatrics Hospital 2, the number of inpatients with the disease has increased by 10 per cent in September.

Between September 16 and 22 there were 130 patients with hand, foot and mouth disease, 23 per cent higher than last month, the city Preventive Health Centre reported.

Khanh said if children get the disease they should stay at home to avoid spreading it.  VNS
The a Phuoc Waste Treatment Complex causes the foul odour that plagues some southern districts of HCM City, head of the office of HCM City Peoples Committee, Vo Van Hoan, said yesterday.  Photo zing.vn

HCM CITY  The a Phuoc Waste Treatment Complex causes the foul odour that plagues some southern districts of HCM City, head of the office of HCM City Peoples Committee, Vo Van Hoan, said yesterday.

Hoan said at press conference that the smells come from the complexs landfill and the lake treating water leaking from dumped waste.

The committee asked Viet Nam Waste Solution - the investor  to grow trees on an area of 46ha in the complex to isolate the landfill from outside, he said.

The city would also speed up land clearance on an area of 100ha to develop a green belt, he added.

The investor was also asked to cover the liquid waste area, treat smells and complete work required by the environmental impact assessment, he said.

Waste heaps at a Phuoc landfill are up to 25m high and the landfill will be full in the next five or seven years. The city will call on relevant agencies to speed up development of the Tan Thanh Waste Treatment Area in southern Long An Province to reduce the burden for the a Phuoc landfill, Hoan said.

The construction of a Phuoc Waste Treatment Complex - known as the a Phuoc landfill - was started in mid-2005 with an investment of US$100 million on an area of 138ha in the citys Binh Chanh District.

Between 2007, when it opened, and 2014, the complex buried 3,000 tonnes of waste from HCM City and 20 tonnes of waste from southern Long An Province every day.

The volume increased to 5,000 tonnes a day after the city closed the Phuoc Hiep Waste Complex in Cu Chi District at the end of 2014.

According to reports from authorities in Binh Chanh, Nha Be and seven other city districts, the odour worsens during the rainy season.

This year the smells were particularly bad, they added.

Many local residents have complained to the citys environment department about the stink in Hung Long and a Phuoc communes in Binh Chanh District, Phu My Hung City Centre in District 7, and Phuoc Long and Phuoc Kieng communes in Nha Be District.

Although the city has paid more for waste treatment at the a Phuoc landfill, improper waste treatment technology is blamed for spreading the stench.

The city paid $16.4 for treating a tonne of waste there in 2007, $19 in 2013, $20.16 in late 2014 and $21.1 in 2016

Early this month, Prime Minsiter Nguyen Xuan Phuc ordered the citys authorities to locate the source of the air pollution and implement solutions.  VNS
NGHE AN  The Viet Nam Maritime Search and Rescue Co-ordination Centres (Vietnam MRCC) SAR 273 boat yesterday rescued and towed a troubled trawler to Cua Lo Port in the central province of Nghe An.

The captain of NA 90000 TS trawler was ao Ngoc Han, from Nghe An Province. There were 19 sailors on board.

Engine failure had forced the trawler to go adrift in the waters, 52 nautical miles to the southeast of Xuan Hai Commune in Ha Tinh Provinces Nghi Xuan District, since noon on Tuesday.

On receiving the news, the Vietnam MRCC dispatched the SAR 273 boat to rescue the trawler and its men. It reached the troubled trawler on Wednesday afternoon.

The rescue boat personnel provided medical aid to the fishermen who were exhausted and panicked after facing strong waves and winds, and safely towed the trawler to shore.

All 19 crewmen were reported to be in a stable condition.

In related news, the Steering Committee for Disaster Prevention, Search and Rescue in central Binh inh Province said it was coordinating with relevant agencies to tow a fishing boat drifting off the Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago.

According to preliminary information, the boat was owned by Phan Van Dung, a local resident.

Suffering a breakdown, the boat, with 12 sailors on board, had been drifting in the water, about 62 nautical miles off Son Ca island of Truong Sa archipelago since Wednesday morning.

Information about the trouble boat has been broadcast by Vietnam coastal Radio station system so that it could receive assistance from boats in the vicinity.  VNS
HA NOI  Ha Noi Police yesterday issued a warning to two policemen of the ong Anh District Police for an assault with a reporter from the Tuoi tre (Youth) newspaper.

The officers accused of the assault are Ngo Quang Hung and Nguyen Van Thuyen.

Reporter Tran Quang The was also found to have violated regulations by entering a crime scene without permission from the police, said Colonel Nguyen Duy Ngoc, deputy director of the Ha Noi Police.

Earlier, last Friday morning, ong Anh district police had found the body of a taxi driver under Nhat Tan Bridge.

Reporter The, together with some other reporters from different newspapers, arrived at the scene to report on the incident. Not noticing any camera ban sign or police line restricting the crime scene, he took out his camera.

Several photographs were shared on a social network, accusing a group of plainclothes ong Anh district policemen of assaulting The.

The chairman of the Ha Noi Peoples Committee, Nguyen uc Chung, asked the capital police to urgently investigate the alleged harassment of the reporter.  VNS
BAC KAN  The Bac Kan City Peoples Procuracy offered a public apology today to a woman who had previously been unjustly prosecuted.

The procedural document showed the Bac Kan Police busted a gambling operation on 24 December 2013. The police began legal proceedings against 21 people in the case, including Pham Thi Lan. The police also banned Lan from moving out of her living home.

A day later, Hoang Anh Phuong, one of the gamblers, admitted to police that he gambled with many people, including Lan.

When they checked Phuongs mobile phone, the police discovered Lans telephone number and messages in which Lan discussed gambling with Phuong.

The police proposed that the peoples procuracy begin legal proceedings against Lan for gambling. But Lan kept saying she had suffered a miscarriage of justice.

Lan said the telephone number saved on Phuongs mobile phone was hers. But she owned a grocery where she often kept her phone, so she did not know who used her phone to send Phuong messages related to gambling.

The Bac Kan Peoples Procuracy prosecuted Lan in December 2014. But during the trial, the Procuracy discovered unresolved questions. After a subsequent investigation, the Bac Kan Peoples Procuracy did not find enough evidence proving Lan violated the law.  VNS
HCM CITY  Work on the Forgotten Land sand statue park began in Phan Thiet city in Binh Thuan Province on September 27, aiming to offer a new tourism product.

The 1.3-ha park will display statues featuring fairy tales and legends of Viet Nam and the world, made entirely of natural sand by sculptors from 12 countries.

Nguyen uc Hoa, deputy chairman of Binh Thuan Peoples Committee, pledged to support the project, hoping that it would draw more tourists to the beach city in the southern province.

Marielle Heessels, a Dutch sculptor, said she had visited Viet Nam for the first time and was inspired by the people and nature. She was quoted by Vietnam News Agency as saying that she hoped her future works at the park would enthrall tourists and locals.

On September 30, the first statue, a work by Heessels, Leonardo Ugolini of Italy and Enguerrand David of Belgium , will be unveiled.

The park is scheduled to open in late January, according to Vietnam News Agency.  VNS
HOBOKEN, United States  A speeding commuter train that plowed into a New Jersey station during morning rush hour Thursday, killing one person and injuring 114, has caused major destruction at the transport hub and gateway to Manhattan.

The train entered the Hoboken station "at a high rate of speed" and "crashed through the barriers, bringing it into the interior wall" of the terminal, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said.

A 34-year-old resident of Hoboken, who state medical examiners identified as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, was standing on the platform when she was hit and killed by debris from the crash, Christie told CNN. She was the sole confirmed fatality.

The trains engineer was treated at a local hospital before being released and was cooperating with an investigation into the crash, he said.

"We have no indication that this is anything but a tragic accident," Christie said.

"Was it a system failure? Was it human error? Was it a medical emergency involving the engineer? We dont know."

Video and photos on social media showed serious damage to the transit choke point just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, with the train tangled in wires and debris from what appeared to be caved-in portions of the roof.

The Hoboken terminal is a major transfer point for New Jersey trains and buses as well as ferries and the PATH commuter train that take passengers to New York.

Difficult times

Kenneth Garay, chief medical officer at Jersey City medical center, said surgeons were "all hands on deck" treating patients with broken bones, internal injuries and lacerations.

"None at this point are life-threatening," he said on CNN. "Theyre critical and stable and being carefully monitored."

A total of 114 people were injured, Christie told the station. Of those, 55 were treated by emergency responders, while another 22 were transported to hospitals and 37 were walk-ins.

He said he had been contacted by the White House and was working with federal, state and local authorities to "make sure this investigation is seamless and coordinated."

Structural damage and the possible presence of asbestos had prevented investigators from accessing the train cars, Bella Dinh-Zarr, vice chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters.

Investigators would spend seven to 10 days on site, she added, saying they hoped to find the trains event recorder -- which would contain information about speed and braking -- later in the day.

Horrible accident

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she "was terribly upset this morning."

"Its a horrible accident," the former New York senator said at a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa. "I just want to send our thoughts and prayers."

Donald Trump also expressed his sympathies with the victims on Twitter.

"My condolences to those involved in todays horrible accident in NJ and my deepest gratitude to all of the amazing first responders," the Republican candidate said.

Appearing alongside Christie was New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who canceled a trip to Israel for the funeral of former president Shimon Peres.

"These are difficult times over these past weeks and months, between terrorist attacks and natural disasters," Cuomo said, referring to a recent string of bombings in New York and New Jersey.

Pretty chaotic

Train 1614 was arriving from Spring Valley, New York when it struck the Hoboken terminal building around 8:45 am (1245 GMT), the New Jersey Transit agency said in a statement.

Passengers described a scene of chaos with dazed and bloodied people making their way to safety.

"We crashed and the lights went out. A few people screamed," Leon Offengenden told CNN.

"It was pretty chaotic," he added. "And people just in shock and everybody has photos and cameras out and iPads. It was pretty intense."

Passengers described the train  which was carrying around 250 people  ramming full speed into the bumper at the end of the track.

"We never slowed down," Jim Finan, a commuter from New Jersey, told said. "We plowed, I mean, right through the bumper."

Investigators will be looking for similarities to a 2011 PATH commuter train crash at Hoboken that injured several dozen people, Dinh-Zarr said.

Christie said engineers were examining the structural integrity of the Hoboken terminal, which underwent lengthy repairs after being hit during Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

The last major train crash in the United States took place in May 2015, when an Amtrak train linking Washington to New York derailed in Philadelphia, killing eight and injuring 200.

In December 2013, a New York suburban train derailed in the Bronx while traveling at several times the speed limit, leaving four people dead and more than 60 injured.  AFP
BEIRUT  Bunker-busting bombs are putting children in so much danger in Syrias Aleppo that they wont even be able to return to underground schools when classes resume this weekend, a charity said Friday.

The "ferocious assault" on Aleppo could deprive almost 100,000 school-age children of an education, said Save the Children, which supports 13 schools in the northern battleground city, including eight underground.

The United States has accused Russia of using "incendiary bunker-busting bombs" in a week-long aerial assault on the citys rebel-held east in support of Syrias President Bashar al-Assad.

The Kremlin said Thursday it would press on with its bombing campaign, blaming the surge in violence on Washingtons failure to control rebels in Aleppo and insisting Syrian forces were battling "terrorists".

Save the Children said the use of the "earthquake bombs" which burrow four to five metres (yards) into the ground before exploding meant even underground schools were unsafe.

"Schools in eastern Aleppo were due to re-open for the new school year tomorrow, but as the city continues to suffer a ferocious assault they will remain closed, depriving almost 100,000 school-age children of an education, while they continue in fear for their lives," it said in a statement.

The bunker-busting bombs are used to penetrate hardened targets such as underground military headquarters, leaving victims entombed in rubble.

"Parents are afraid to send their children to school because everything is targeted," said a school principal in eastern Aleppo only identified as Omar.

"The students are also suffering on all levels, you see them barely walking, dragging themselves, which makes them unable to focus on the learning and studying," Save the Children quoted him as saying.

"Regarding the bunker buster bombs, of course only hearing the sound creates a state of terror and panic that is not like anything else.

"The immense power of destruction is the most important, it can destroy underground shelters and basements and the buildings get totally destroyed, not just partially."

Nowhere is safe

Save the Children said more than 300 children have been killed or wounded in eastern Aleppo in the past five days.

"We are not going to school because the airplanes bomb any gathering," said 12-year-old Amjad.

"When the plane comes we sit on the floor, afraid that things might fall above us. One of my friends died in the bombing -- he was my best friend.

"I love to go to school to study and I wish I could become a civil engineer to rebuild the houses that were destroyed," he said, quoted by the charity.

Even before the latest escalation, school enrolments in Aleppo had fallen to as low as six percent, said Save the Children.

"Were now more likely to see children being pulled from the rubble or treated on the floor of a hospital than sat at a school desk," said Nick Finney, Save the Children head for northwest Syria.

"Children deserve the right to play, to learn, to be children.

"The use of bunker busting bombs means there is literally nowhere we can keep children safe, and we want to see the use of these weapons investigated as a potential war crime."

Obama, Merkel condemn barbarous Russian, Syrian strikes on Aleppo

US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned what they called "barbarous" Russian and Syrian regime airstrikes on Aleppo during a phone call Thursday, the White House said.

The Syrian government and its ally Russia "bear special responsibility for ending the fighting in Syria," the two leaders agreed, strongly condemning the strikes in eastern Aleppo, an area they said is "populated with hundreds of thousands of civilians, half of whom are children."

The United Nations says a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding unlike any witnessed so far in Syrias brutal five-year war as Moscow and Damascus carry out an offensive to retake the city after a ceasefire collapsed last week.

Russia and the United States have traded blame for the collapse of the deal that would have marked the first step in a new effort to end the war that has killed 300,000 people since 2011.

Obama and Merkel urged parties on the ground to "continue respecting the ceasefire, begin the disengagement of forces along the line of contact as quickly as possible and provide international monitors unfettered access to the entire conflict zone."

"The president and chancellor strongly condemned the barbarous Russian and Syrian regime airstrikes against eastern Aleppo," the White House said.

Two of the largest hospitals in the citys east were bombed on Wednesday in what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described as a war crime.

Air strikes pounded Aleppo province on Thursday while at least 11 civilians, including seven children, died during attacks on the city of Idlib, nearby Jarjanaz and central Hama province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.  AFP
Bridge collapse in western India kills at least 70 people Hundreds of people had gathered on and near a recently restored suspension bridge in India before it collapsed from the weight of the crowd and fell into the river.

Wall of people: Aussies detail horror of Halloween stampede Two Aussies caught up in the deadly Halloween party stampede that has claimed more than 150 lives, including at least one Australian, have opened up about what they witnessed and how they escaped from being crushed.

04:12 One reason why Joe Biden might not run again in 2024 The only thing" that could stop Joe Biden running for president in 2024 would be if the Republican Party threaten to put Hunter Biden at the...
Bugging out Master baker Stefan Fischer filed a lawsuit recently against Bakery of New York for wrongful firing because he refused to use bug-infested flour to make batches of bread. According to Fischer, when he informed management of the bugs in the facilitys 3,000-pound flour silo, he was told simply to make multigrain bread, which Fischer took to mean that fewer diners would complain if they heard crunching while eating multigrain.

Economic indicators

News Corporation Australia reported in September the enviable success of a 16-year-old British entrepreneur, Ms. Beau Jessup, who has so far earned about $84,000 with a simple online app to help rich Chinese parents select prosperous-sounding English names for their babies. Users choose among 12 personality traits they hope their baby to have, then receive three suggestions (including a list of famous people with those names). Jessup got the idea when living in China and noticing that some babies of the rich were given lame names, such as Gandalf and Cinderella.

No likes

About 200 employees at a travel service in Shandong Province were fined the equivalent of $6.50 each recently for failing to comply with orders to comment (favorably, one supposes) on the general managers daily posts to the Twitter-like Internet site Sina Weibo.

Weird science

Trees talk to each other and recognize their offspring, according to Australian ecology researcher Suzanne Simard (most recently lecturing on the influential video series TED Talks). Trees are not independent organisms but belong to arboreal families with characteristics identifying them to other family members. According to Dr. Simard, mother trees that ordinarily expand their roots wildly may hold back to give nearby kinfolk tree roots a chance to spread. Using isotope tracing, she learned of trees passing healthful carbon, via fungi, to neighboring family seedlings, which she said renders the seedlings more resistant to future stress.

Cant stop myself

The lifelong pickpocket known as Auntie Sato, 83, who has spent nearly 30 years of her life behind bars, was sentenced again (two years, six months) in August for a purse-snatching from a traveler in Tokyos Ueno Station. Why, asked the judge, does Auntie Sato keep at it, especially since she also owns property and has rental income. Said she, I thought about (stopping), but gave up. Its hopeless.

More sticky fingers

Faisal Shaikh, awaiting his cellphone theft case to be called at the Thane sessions court in Mumbai, India, in August (one of several theft charges pending), wandered up to the court stenographers desk and swiped her cellphone. He was apprehended shortly afterward near the courthouse.

Oops!

By August, Raymond Mazzarella was fed up with the tree in his neighbors yard in Pittston Township, Penn., as it was continuously dripping sap onto his car  and so grabbed a chainsaw, cut through the 36-inch-wide trunk, and (he thought) fixed the problem. However, the tree fell directly onto Mazzarellas small apartment house, dispossessing five tenants and, ultimately, forcing inspectors to condemn the entire building.
WATERLOO  A former Waterloo couple are in the Black Hawk County Jail on charges in the death of a 4-year-old girl.

Chad Allen Little, 32, was arrested Friday and made his initial appearance Saturday on charges of first-degree murder and child endangerment leading to death. Littles girlfriend, Kristi Amber Buss, 31, formerly of Waterloo, whose 4-year-old daughter died of head injuries in 2015, was arrested Thursday night for child endangerment.

Prosecutors say Little abused Buss two children, and Buss failed to stop abuse that killed Gracie Buss last year.

Little confirmed his Waterloo address and said little else in his initial appearance Saturday morning. Bond on the murder charge was set at $1 million cash or surety and $100,000 for the child endangerment charge.

Buss, who is 4 months pregnant and recently was living with her parents in Holland, Iowa, said little in court during her Friday appearance.

Corrections officials said she has no prior record and is eligible for pretrial release, a supervised program that allows defendants to remain free while awaiting trial without posting bond, but Judge Jeff Harris ordered she be held in jail with bond set at $75,000.

From our perspective, it was prolonged physical abuse by an individual named Chad Little, where Ms. Buss was the mother of the child. We also believe there was prolonged abuse with the brother of the victim of this case by Chad Little, Black Hawk County Attorney Brian Williams told the court Friday during Kristi Buss initial court appearance.

We certainly have alleged in this particular complaint a failure to act at this point by Ms. Buss during the course of the relationship with Chad Little that we believe led to the death of Gracie Buss, Williams said.

Little was booked into the Black Hawk County Jail Friday afternoon. Until then, Little had been at the Fort Dodge Correctional Facility serving a five-year prison sentence for a Black Hawk County burglary case.

Gracie Buss, 4, was found unconscious when paramedics were called to her home on Downing Court at 9:07 a.m. May 30, 2015. She was taken to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City where she remained on life support until she died June 3, 2015.

An autopsy determined she died of blunt injuries to the head. It also found other injuries that were in different stages of healing, court records state.

According to court records, Dr. Resmiye Oral, a pediatrician and child abuse expert at University of Iowa Hospitals, determined there was no medical cause for Gracies extensive soft tissue and intracranial injuries, and the wounds could only be the result of trauma.

Kristi Buss initially told authorities Gracie had fallen down the stairs the night before, and she later changed the account, saying the girl had fallen down the stairs hours before the ambulance call, court records state. She also told police her daughter had a seizure disorder and frequently fell down stairs.

Little, who also lived at the home, gave multiple versions of being at the Downing Court home, police said.

Gracies brother told investigators Little beat the young girl a lot, and several witnesses told police they had observed injuries while Kristi Buss and Little were dating.

Another witness told authorities Little had admitted he had been involved in an argument with Kristi Buss and threw something at her, but Gracie got in the way, court records state.

Authorities interviewed Kristi Buss as recently as July, when she said Gracie Buss never fell down the stairs, records state.

The charge of child endangerment resulting in death is punishable by up to 50 years in prison upon conviction. First-degree murder carries a mandatory life prison sentence without parole.

Staff writer John Molseed contributed to this article.
DES MOINES  Eight Northeast Iowa counties have been declared federal disaster areas related to severe storms in August.

President Barack Obama issued the declarations requested by Gov. Terry Branstad for Allamakee, Chickasaw, Clayton, Fayette, Floyd, Howard, Mitchell and Winneshiek counties, the governors office announced Friday.

Those counties suffered significant damage due to storms and flooding from from Aug. 23-27.

The presidential disaster declaration will provide federal funding to the declared counties through the public assistance program, which is designed to help local governments and some nonprofit organizations.

The funds may be used for emergency work and the repair or replacement of disaster-damaged facilities and may include debris removal, emergency protective measures, repair of damaged public property, loans needed by communities for essential government functions and grants for public schools.

The declaration also includes money to conduct hazard mitigation activities for the entire state to minimize the impact of future disasters by taking steps now to strengthen existing infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Branstad Friday proclaimed a disaster emergency for Fayette and Muscatine counties in response to more recent floods that began Sept. 21. Twenty-three counties are now part of that declaration, including Allamakee, Benton, Black Hawk, Bremer, Buchanan, Butler, Cedar, Cerro Gordo, Chickasaw, Delaware, Floyd, Franklin, Hancock, Howard, Jones, Linn, Louisa, Mitchell, Story, Worth and Wright.

The governors proclamation allows state resources to be utilized to respond to and recover from the effects of these storms. Fridays proclamation also activates the Iowa Individual Assistance Program for both counties.

The program provides grants of up to $5,000 for households with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level or a maximum annual income of $40,180, for a family of three.

Grants are available for home or car repairs, replacement of clothing or food, and for the expense of temporary housing. Original receipts are required for those seeking reimbursement for actual expenses related to storm recovery.

The grant application and instructions are available on the Iowa Department of Human Services website. Potential applicants have 45 days from the date of the proclamation to submit a claim.

State, local and federal teams are conducting joint damage assessments in nine counties impacted by the recent flooding.

The assessments will be conducted in Benton, Black Hawk, Bremer, Buchanan, Butler, Delaware, Floyd, Jones and Linn counties.

Data from the joint damage assessments could be used the governor to request a presidential disaster declaration to make funding available in the designated counties.

The FEMA Individual Assistance Program is made available to homeowners, renters and businesses and can include grants and low-interest loans to help pay for temporary housing, home repairs and other disaster-related expenses not covered by insurance or other aid programs.

Assessments of damage to public infrastructure have not been scheduled at this time.

In order to request a presidential disaster declaration, damage incurred must meet criteria set by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
RAYMOND Two motorcyclists were involved in separate crashes in Raymond Thursday night.

Authorities were called to a head-on collision between a motorcyclist and a passenger car at 8:30 p.m. on Dubuque Road near Raymond Road/Highway 297. Medics with Evansdale Fire Rescue took the rider to a local hospital, and further details werent available.

Then at 11:48 p.m., a motorcycle rider flipped after hitting railroad tracks in the area of Dubuque and Lafayette roads. The driver, Clinton Thomas Shannon, 37, of Waterloo, declined medical treatment and was arrested for first-offense operating while intoxicated.

Crews from the Raymond Fire Department were called to both accidents.
UnityPoint Health-Allen Hospital and Allen College have long histories of service in the Cedar Valley  histories that have been greatly beneficial to a large portion of the regions population.

Earlier this week, when UnityPoint Health, the parent company of the hospital and the college, announced a fund drive for three ambitious projects for building and renovating facilities, it became apparent they will continue to be a great benefit to the area for many generations to come.

The three-part $19.8 million fund drive is titled For Allen For You, and about $10.2 million already has been raised. The remaining $9.5 million is being sought to help fund three major initiatives.

Its part of a total project that is estimated at $48 million in initiatives.

$4 million would go toward the $30 million UnityPoint Health-Prairie Parkway project, a 90,000-square-foot outpatient facility being constructed it the Pinnacle Prairie area of southeastern Cedar Falls. That was the known project, and a grand opening is planned for January.

$8.8 million for Allen College initiatives, including office, classroom and lab space for a new occupational therapy program and future physical therapy program; a nursing simulation lab; classroom and office space renovation with upgraded technology. This portion also includes endowed scholarship support at a time when enrollment is growing and school loan debt is rising.

$7 million toward a $10 million project at Allen Hospital for an expanded birthing center, neonatal intensive care and pediatrics units, renovating existing space within the hospital. One of the benefits will be more infants and their families will be able to stay closer to home while undergoing care.

If theres a word we look at, home hits all three parts, said Dee Vandeventer, chief development officer for UnityPoint-Allen Foundation. Were trying to keep well through Prairie Parkway, out of the hospital, at home. When you look at the OB/NICU/Peds, were trying to keep people close to home at that most precious time of their lives.

The Prairie Parkway project in the Pinnacle Prairie- area of southeastern Cedar Falls is designed to bring outpatient services under one roof in a fast-growing part of the metro area, providing patient-centered, coordinated comprehensive care in one location. The project is in response to a shift in the way health care is being delivered nationally. Instead of asking patients to travel to multiple providers and clinics in the area, Prairie Parkway will offer a full range of services in one building.

Its really a growth in our organization thats spurring this. And access, said Pam Delagardelle, Unity-Point-Waterloo CEO. If were wanting to keep people out of the hospital, we need more primary-care access points.

There are few community amenities that equal the importance of quality, convenient and efficient health care, and were fortunate to have that in the Cedar Valley.

Were also fortunate we have some major donors who realize that importance.

It just boggles my mind whats been accomplished, Mike Christiason, co-chair of the campaign, said about the initial fundraising.

The UnityPoint plans and fundraising announcement is in addition to several other major medical projects in the Cedar Valley. That includes Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare-Iowas plans to construct a new hospital in Cedar Falls to replace Sartori Memorial Hospital.

We believe these are important projects that will benefit the entire Cedar Valley. With that in mind, we thank the individuals and businesses who have made such generous lead gifts, providing a very nice jump-start for this campaign. We hope that momentum is ongoing, and we encourage others in the Cedar Valley to consider assisting this beneficial project.
Which side are you on?

Thats the question voters should be asking members of Congress as they return home to campaign, but in many districts House members are avoiding all questions about the Trans Pacific Partnership.

I havent read it yet, is a favorite answer when voters ask members of the House of Representatives where they stand. These members have had the document for nearly a year, and its 5,544 pages will never be read by most of them, but they have an obligation to take a position now and inform voters now, not after an election when they are voting on it in a lame duck session of Congress.

Iowa CCI Action, the Communications Workers and Our Revolution will hold a series of town hall meetings across Iowa next week. We will discuss the TPP and mobilize opposition but, most importantly, demand all candidates for the House and Senate tell us which side they are on. TPP will be the major issue facing Congress for at least the rest of 2016  it is unacceptable for House members or candidates to say they dont know where they stand or they havent read it.

Opposition to TPP in Iowa is similar across our nation  Democrats, Republicans and Independents want a new model for globalization. Trade is popular, but a global economy increasingly dominated by ever-larger multinational corporations is not working for working Americans. Wall Street and the finance sector, not main street and working class Americans, are benefiting from every deal, which have little to do with trade and much more to do with creating rules that protect the profits of investors.

Around our nation and around the world a populist revolution is growing and the rigged global economy is a major cause. Consider Investor State Dispute Settlement  a clause that allows multinational corporations to sue governments in international tribunals. Since adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, nearly all U.S. trade agreements have included ISDS.

ISDS has nothing to do with reducing tariffs or promoting trade. Instead, ISDS is about encouraging foreign investment by guaranteeing governments will do nothing to reduce future profits of foreign investors. If regulations or legislation are adopted that impact profits, the multinational corporation can sue in a secret global tribunal instead of a national court. The loss of sovereignty, as well as the bias toward foreign investment profits, are key reasons to demand a new trade regime and reject TPP.

Currently, multinational corporations are suing the U.S. and dozens of other nations for billions including the recent suit by TransCanada against the U.S., demanding $15 billion in reparations for denying the Keystone pipeline. TransCanada is not attempting to recoup investment losses but instead seeks full compensation for the loss of future profits on that potential investment.

Contrast this with violations of environmental, food safety, health or labor sections of the agreements. In these cases, no secret global tribunals or reparations. Instead, reports are discussed between governments and take years to process. Even in the best of cases, nothing results but new promises. Citizens get reports, discussions and, at best, new promises; multinational corporations get reparations.

A new trade regime would create balance between investors rights and the rights of citizens. A new trade regime would place our jobs and communities and our rights as consumers above the rights of multinational companies. For example, instead of celebrating new protections for pharmaceutical corporations to set prices and block regulation, we would celebrate trade deals that promote the rights of all of us.
Bonnie Sadler campaign

JORDAN LECKBAND

WINTERSET -- I spent four years in the Cedar Valley as a student at UNI. During that time I was elected as a senator in the Northern Iowa Student Government and was able to work with Sen. Jeff Danielson in Cedar Falls and at the statehouse. When Bonnie Sadler's campaign shared on Facebook an unbelievably skewed account of Sen. Danielson's record, perpetuated by the Iowa Republican Party, I defended Sen. Danielson, as did my friend and colleague in NISG Keenan Crow.

About an hour after posting my defense, it got deleted. I posted my defense again and also called the campaign out for whitewashing their news feed. That comment got deleted as well and blocked users from commenting.

That makes a stark difference between Sen. Danielson and Ms. Sadler. Danielson is always willing to listen to every voice, even if that voice is in disagreement. Sadler, meanwhile, is putting her fingers in her ears while she tries to smear an excellent public servant. Spreading lies is wrong, but trying to silence someone who is correcting the record is stupid.

Likes Hillary

KENT GUILD

WATERLOO -- I like Hillary Clinton. She is optimistic and idealistic. She grew up in the '50s and '60s. She followed the advise of President Kennedy. She tried to do what she could do for her country. She helped children when she worked for the Children's Defense Fund

Mrs. Clinton is intelligent and dedicated. She obtained her law degree from Yale, arguable one of the best law school in the country. She became the first woman partner at a prestigious law firm in Arkansas.

Mrs. Clinton is energetic and driven. She attempted to implement national health insurance in the 90s When Senator Edward Kennedy proposed health insurance for children, she backed that program.

Mrs. Clinton is poised and professional. These characteristics are exemplified by her knowledge of the facts and issues. To her haters, these traits are called cold and calculated.

Mrs. Clinton is human. She has made mistakes, but she admits her errors.! Her mistakes have been amplified and embellished, sometimes falsely.

I like Hillary Clinton.
WATERLOO  St. Pauls United Methodist Church, 207 W. Louise St., will open a new service of international worship at 11 a.m. Sunday.

It will allow people from various nations, tribes and tongues to worship.

The service will be followed by an international luncheon.

WATERLOO  The Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church kitchen committee will sell dinners from noon to 4:30 p.m. Saturday at 202 Sumner St.

The menu features chicken dinners, $7; chitterlings dinners, $8; fish dinners, $7.50. All dinners come with sides and dessert.

Call 234-4927 or 433-8118 for orders or deliveries. Delivery orders end at 4 p.m.; pickup orders end at 4:30 p.m., or until meals are sold out.

WATERLOO  The men of Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church, 432 Newell St., will host the 24th annual Harvest Day program at 6 p.m. Saturday.

The program includes male choirs from Waterloo, Cedar Rapids and the Quad Cities. The public is welcome.
Unidentified body found during search

BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP)  Authorities searching for a missing hunter in south-central Montana say they have found a mans body.

Park County sheriff Scott Hamilton said Wednesday authorities are not able to identify the body and an autopsy was scheduled for Thursday.

The body was found dressed in camouflage at the bottom of a cliff during the search for Mark Rollins of Decorah, Iowa. Rollins wife reported him overdue from a hunting trip.

A group of hunters told a U.S. Forest Service officer theyd met a man in his 60s in the Crazy Mountains on Sept 20. They said he appeared well-equipped, but they were concerned when he hadnt returned to his vehicle by Tuesday.

The search began Tuesday and continued Wednesday with dogs and a helicopter.

Rollins owned and operated Edes Angry Pickle, a popular restaurant in downtown Decorah.

Waterloo police kill charging dog

WATERLOO  Waterloo police shot and killed a dog after it came at an officer Thursday morning.

Details werent immediately available, but officers were called to a report of the dog, described as a Rottweiler or pit bull, that had a person cornered in the area of Fairview and Kern streets, according to Capt. David Mohlis with the Waterloo Police Department.

When officers pulled up and exited the squad car, the dog came at them and was shot, Mohlis said.

The dog owners mother told police the dog had bit her a week earlier, and she had to get stitches to close the wound, Mohlis said.
European Budget and Human Resources Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva holds a news conference after a meeting of the EU executive body in Brussels, Belgium, July 27, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

The Bulgarian government has officially nominated Kristalina Georgieva, currently a vice-president of the European Commission, to join the race to become the next Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Georgieva, who is 63, said in a statement she felt "deeply honored" that the Bulgarian government put her name forward.

Fellow Bulgarian, 64-year-old Irina Bokova, director-general of the Paris-based United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), has also been nominated by her country. Her name was put forward in February.

To date, according to the United Nations website, 12 candidates worldwide have been named by governments as candidates to replace Ban Ki-moon, who will step down at the end of the year. However, three of those have withdrawn their nominations.

It is not yet clear whether Bokova will be withdrawing from the race.

Georgieva welcomed her country's faith in her and said the importance of the UN's mission pushed her to accept the challenge.

"After careful consideration, I have decided to accept the nomination," she said.

Georgieva worked as a senior official at the World Bank before taking up her position within the European Commission, where she is responsible for budget and human resources.

She will now present her credentials and vision for the role of secretary-general to representatives from the United Nations' member states.

Ban Ki-moon has previously said in an interview it is "high time" a woman is selected for the role.

China link

Georgieva is an honorary member of the Beijing-based China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, a high-level international advisory body that works with the Chinese government.

She spoke at a function organized by the China Mission to the EU on Monday, where she described China's recent hosting of the G20 summit as a "huge success". She also said China's steady commitment to tackling climate change has reflected the country's determination to deal with severe global challenges.

"China has gone beyond bringing the contribution to its own people and is determined to develop a peaceful world and respond to global challenges," Georgieva said.

She made the comments at the event ahead of the 67th National Day of the People's Republic of China on Oct 1.

Georgieva said she was encouraged by China's commitment and actions in ratifying the Paris climate change agreement ahead of the G20 summit.

"For me, this is an action that China had taken the lead in and will be beneficial to our children and grandchildren and I should like to thank China for its commitment," said Georgieva.

She said China's 13th Five-year Plan demonstrates it is determined to restructure its economy, improve environmental quality and energy-efficiency, and continue to reduce poverty.

"And, for me, China's hosting the G20 has delivered a clear message that it will do in the global arena what it has done at home," she added.

Yao Yueyang contributed to the story
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By The Associated Press Sep. 30, 2016 | 04:50 AM | BEDFORD, NH

Donald Trump is warning voters that a Hillary Clinton victory would bring her husband's sex scandal back to the White House.

Injecting Clinton's marital troubles into the 2016 campaign is Trump's latest effort to bounce back from Monday night's widely panned debate performance. In contrast, Clinton has delivered a mostly positive message in the days since her debate performance re-energized her candidacy.

Clinton is stressing that her plans will solve the kind of kitchen-sink problems facing American families  the high cost of childcare, mounting student debt and unpaid family leave.

Trump is promising lower taxes and "jobs, jobs, jobs," but he has also intensified the dire warnings and personal attacks that have defined his outsider presidential bid.
[Eric O. Scott is one of our talented monthly columnists. Each month he brings you insight and analysis about issues coming from within or affecting our collective communities. If you enjoy his work, consider donating to our fall fund drive today. You make it possible for The Wild Hunt to continue featuring great writers, unique voices, and news reports every day. Every dollar counts. Please donate today and share the campaign. Thank you.]

I have been thinking about pilgrimage lately, and what that word might mean to Pagan ears. Like so much else in our religions, its a concept that we have had to define for ourselves. Paganism, after all, does not have a long tradition of religious travel on the order of Catholicism or Islam; we have no Mecca or Santiago de Compostela. But we have created our own holy places: campgrounds and groves and bookshops, festivals and moots, and we have imbued the ancient places, the relics of the old pagan religions, with a new sense of significance.

Its the latter, especially, that interests me; the way we interact with ancient sites, laying claim to their histories. In their 2009 article in The Pomegranate,  Beyond Sacred: Recent Pagan Engagements with Archaeological Monuments , scholars Jenny Blain and Robert Wallis see the Pagan romance with these sites as ways to relieve our anxieties about the present, and to a degree that seems accurate: much of Paganism, to my mind, addresses the alienation many of us feels in the modern world. (This is what all that reenchantment business is about, after all.)

Less comforting is Blain and Walliss reading that Pagans, at least the British Pagans whom they studied at a variety of sites throughout the United Kingdom, have found ways to make themselves neo-indigenous, using language similar to those of Australian Aborigines or American First Nations peoples to lay claim to the landscape: In Britain, they write, Pagans have adopted sacred sites and ancestors rather than archaeological site or monument or remains, suggesting both a spiritual element to visiting and (particularly through ancestors) an implication of direct engagement with landscape rather than a more voyeuristic relationship with a closed past. While this has led to some positive results - Blain and Wallis mention that several ancient sites have been saved from the bulldozer thanks in part to Pagan efforts - there is something obviously troubling about the mostly white Pagan population laying claim to indigeneity.

While Blain and Wallis are describing British subjects interacting with British sites, the situation makes me think of my own fascination with places abroad - mostly Iceland, for me - and my own sense of connection to a place with which I have no material connection. I have had a desire for the north for most of my life, a desire deeply intertwined with my practice of Asatru. Iceland, after all, is Saga-Land, home to the literature that informs so much of modern Heathenry. When I visited a few years ago, I took incredible pleasure in visiting the sites from my favorite old Norse stories: the farm at Borg where Egill Skallagrimsson spent his days, the hill where Gunnar slipped from his horse. But I was also aware that my love for Iceland was almost entirely concentrated on its past; until I actually met my Icelandic friends in person, they seemed less substantial than the ghosts of saga-time.

I suppose I come by it honestly: outsiders visiting Iceland have inherited a long tradition of writing, the fountainhead of which is William Morriss account from the 1870s. Although he predates what we could call modern Paganism by decades, Morris was drawn to Iceland out of love for the sagas, and came to the island with a preoccupation for reading the modern landscape in terms of the Saga Age. The nation was his true north, the land by which he guided the compass of his soul, and much of his literary work references Iceland and its history. But he found the reality of the island and its inhabitants lacking in the passion and intensity of the past. His journals constantly reference the discrepancy between his romantic vision of the place and the benighted reality of it:

Just think, though, what a mournful place this is  Iceland I mean  setting aside the pleasure of ones animal life there: the fresh air, the riding and rough life, and feeling of adventure  how every place and name marks the death of its short-lived eagerness and glory Lord! what littleness and helplessness has taken the place of the old passion and violence that had place here once.

Morriss account had a deep influence on two travelers who visited Iceland in the 1930s, W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice, who published Letters from Iceland in 1937. Its an odd book, full of unexpected styles and forms: a poem to Lord Byron (!) in five parts, a practical list of gear, a fictional letter between young girls, and a motley survey of other authors opinions on Iceland, Sheaves from Sagaland. But a sense of Morris romance pervades the text, as does Audens discomfort with the Nazi idealization of Iceland as the land of a pure Germanic spirit. If they want a community like that of the sagas they are welcome to it, he writes. I love the sagas, but what a rotten society they describe, a society with only the gangster virtues. Auden says this, but its clear that he bemoans the loss of that society himself, and has the same dissatisfaction with the living Icelanders that Morris had.

And I find myself wondering if this is all part of what pilgrimage is: the setting of expectations on a place, setting limits. When we travel to places in search of meaning, by definition we end up circumscribing those places. For Morris and Auden  and me too, though Id like to think that in my visit to Iceland I managed to broaden my perspectives  their pilgrimage was enclosed by the limits of the past. Similarly, for Blain and Walliss neo-indigenous Pagans, these religious sites draw their meaning, their value, from a past that can claimed. Inventing pilgrimage also means inventing  and therefore limiting  the meaning of the places we visit.

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Paks II project gets environmental licence

30 September 2016

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Hungary's plan to build two additional reactors at Paks has reached an important milestone with the receipt of an environmental licence for the project, Attila Aszodi, the government commissioner responsible for Paks II, told World Nuclear News yesterday.

The licence was issued by the Government Office of Baranya County, Aszodi said by email. Attainment of the licence confirms the project meets the environmental requirements of both Hungary and those of the European Union, he said.

The procedure was started on 19 December 2014 when the project company MVM Paks II Ltd submitted a more than 2000-page environmental impact assessment report, Aszodi said. During this process, the document was extended "due to different procedural acts", he said.

The complete information submitted for the licence was made available to the public throughout the process - at the environmental authority and relevant local governments, as well as on the websites of the Government Office of Baranya County, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Paks II project company, Aszodi said.

"In accordance with the relevant regulation, an international environmental impact assessment procedure was also carried out as part of the environmental impact assessment procedure of the Paks II project," he added.

Other authorities also evaluated the document, including the nuclear safety authority and water administration authority, he said.

The environmental authority held a number of public hearings last year - in Paks on 7 May and, later, in nine other locations in seven countries - Austria, Croatia, Germany, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine. Expert consultations were also held in countries that participated in the licencing process, he said.

"On 16 June this year, the Paks II project company informed the environmental authority about the specification of certain technical solutions," Aszodi said. "This information - like all other environmental information - was also sent to the countries participating in the procedure so that the comments of their public as well as Hungary's could be taken into account during the final decision making by the Hungarian environmental authority," he added.

The consultation phase of the international environmental impact assessment procedure was finally completed on 26 August.

Aszodi said: "Issuance of the environmental licence means that a very long and thorough procedure has been completed and a professional decision has been made. The licence issued [yesterday] is a crucial step in the licensing of the Paks II project."

He stressed that the extensive and transparent process and the inclusion of Hungarian and foreign public insight into the project demonstrated that the environmental decision was based on good practice in the interests of the "entire international community".

Aszodi said two weeks ago that the European Commission is expected to issue a decision soon on Paks II. The European Commission has been examining until recently two matters related to Paks II - procurement and whether funding of the project amounts to state aid.

The submission of the site licence application for the new Russian-built VVER-1200 units to Hungary's regulator is scheduled for the end of October, Aszodi told delegates at the World Nuclear Association's 41st Annual Symposium in London on 16 September.

Site investigation work for the project has been completed and documentation for that is being prepared. "We hope to submit the site licence application at the end of October with the target of obtaining the licence in the spring of next year," he said.

Once the site and environmental licences have been issued, the construction licence application can be prepared, he added.

Construction work would start in 2018, but when exactly depends, he said, on the conditions the European Commission attaches to its approval of the project. Hungary has had the Commission's approval to spend the last two years working on licensing, he added.

Paks currently comprises four Russian-supplied VVER-440 pressurized water reactors, which started up between 1982 and 1987. An inter-governmental agreement signed in early 2014 would see Russian enterprises and their international sub-contractors supply two VVER-1200 reactors at Paks, as well as a Russian state loan of up to 10.0 billion ($11.2 billion) to finance 80% of the project.

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

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KOKO Architects has completed the design of 35 self-catering mountain lodges located on the rocky shores of the Soddatjrn Mountain Lake, Norway. Named Skapet, the exterior finishes on the lodges are made of rolled zinc, and they resists the wind and snow and does not require maintenance for decades, which are now open to amateur hikers and mountaineering enthusiasts.

In 2013, the Norwegian Tourism Association organized an architectural competition to construct self-catering mountain lodges for the hiking trail around Lysefjord and on the rocky shores of the Soddatjrn Mountain Lake. The competition criteria stipulated that the lodges must be contemporary, easy to maintain and use ready-made factory modules in order to avoid long construction periods in the inaccessible mountains and unpredictable weather conditions.

Image  Marius Dalseg / The Norwegian Trekking Association

Covering 350 square meters, KOKO Architects' design approach pushed the limits of the wilderness experience one step further. The group of buildings includes a main building, sleeping cabins, a toilet with a storage room and a sauna. Water can be taken from the lake and there is no mains electricity supply.

Image  Tonu Tunnel

Commissioned by Stavanger Turistforening, the main building, sleeping cabins and sauna are heated by using wood. There are two gas stoves in the kitchen that visitors can use at the same time and a solar panel provides lighting. The hikers can wash themselves in the sauna where the washing room is located directly above a mountain stream.

Image  Tonu Tunnel

The interior uses a lot of wood, which creates a warm and friendly atmosphere. All of the buildings have a wall of glass with panoramic views of the surrounding picturesque landscape. The main building with its rectangular plan and kitchen, living area and sleeping facilities, can accommodate 30 to 35 trekkers.

Image  Tonu Tunnel

The smaller lodges can accommodate five. The rooms in the main building are arranged to encourage interaction between different trekking parties. The mountain lodges were opened to all visitors and hikers in August 2016.

Visitors are usually members of Norways trekking associations, one of them the Stavanger Trekking Association, which has 25,000 members and provides active, versatile and environmentally friendly activities in the wilderness for young and old, families, amateur hikers and mountaineering enthusiasts.

Image  Tonu Tunnel

The rent system is built on trust on site; each person leaves money for the accommodation in a box inside the lodge or fills in an invoice form with their personal information. Since the lodges are mostly a long way from roads and traffic and difficult to get to, it is also the task of the visitors to take care of the visitors coming after them: everyone replenishes the food supply, brings firewood and cleans the lodge before they leave.

Image  Tonu Tunnel

Image  Tonu Tunnel

Image  Tonu Tunnel

Image  Tonu Tunnel

Image  Tonu Tunnel

Image  Tonu Tunnel

Image  Tonu Tunnel

Image  Tonu Tunnel

Image  Tonu Tunnel

Site plan. Image  KOKO Architects

Plans. Image  KOKO Architects

Plan and section. Image  KOKO Architects

Project Facts

Architect: KOKO Architects

Location: Soddatjrn, Norway

Client: Stavanger Turistforening

Commission: 2013

Completed: 2016

Size: 350 m2

Top image  Tonu Tunnel

> via KOKO Architects






"The falling number discount and its effect on a producer's actual production history (APH) has been a growing concern in the Pacific Northwest," said Michelle Hennings, executive director of WAWG.

RITZVILLE, WA, September 30, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- This year, wheat growers in the Pacific Northwest are receiving heavy discounts at the elevator due to low falling numbers. The impact is compounded by the fact that low falling numbers this year will also lower a producer's Actual Production History (APH) when a producer goes to sign up for crop insurance for next year's crop, even if no insurance claim had been filed for low falling numbers.



This has been a growing concern in the Pacific Northwest. The Washington Association of Wheat Growers, Idaho Grain Producers Association, and Oregon Wheat Growers League are disappointed that the RMA has denied our request to exempt falling numbers from APH calculations this year, despite wide support from PNW industry, state agencies, and Congressional delegations. We are extremely disappointed that RMA offered no other option to address the situation now, when our growers most need the help.



We are aware of the hardship our growers are facing, given historically low prices following several years of drought. Many producers are at risk of losing their farms and the impacts of low falling numbers are making the situation worse. Our organizations are committed to finding a better way to handle falling number discounts and will continue to work with RMA to develop a feasible solution for growers.



Contact: Michelle Hennings, Washington Association of Wheat Growers (509) 659-0610



Stacey Satterlee, Idaho Grain Producers Association (208) 345-0706



Blake Rowe, Oregon Wheat Growers League (541) 276-7330



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Sep 30, 2016 | By Alec

No manufacturing technology is perfect, but todays industrial grade 3D printing conventions are faced with several significant drawbacks. Even when relying on those metal or ceramic powder 3D printers used for aerospace applications, 3D printed parts can exhibit miniscule sharp edges and small levels of porosity, consisting of very tiny defects and gaps. While you cant even see them, researchers from the Carnegie Mellon University previously found that these small flaws can decrease the 3D printed objects density and resistance to fatigue.

Its one of the reasons why industrial 3D printing isnt being adopted at a very large scale just yet. But researchers from the German Bundesanstalt fur Materialforschung und -prufung (BAM) institute have come up with a revolutionary ceramic powder 3D printing technique that overcomes these problems entirely.

BAM is part of the BMWi, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (not to be confused with car brand BMW). As a departmental research institute, they are mostly focused on material engineering and testing, and providing advice on how to protect people, the environment and material goods. German construction, engineering and other industries regularly rely on BAMs research and validation procedures, and they are one of the institutes behind the German reputation for high engineering standards.

Through this focus BAM is no stranger to 3D printing, though they have outdone themselves with this latest project. Using a custom 3D powder printing technique, they can now 3D print ceramic structures with a higher stability than ever thought possible through this manufacturing technique. Pores and edges are non-existent, reducing a likelihood of fractures and increasing the density of the parts. At the same time, the method is fast, simple, inexpensive and doesnt use hazardous materials  perfect for a very wide range of manufacturing industries.

At the same time, this method makes ceramic 3D printing far more viable for industrial users. For ceramic production in particular suffers from the high temperatures that are necessary to blend the material into uniform component, while (unlike resins, polymers and metals) they can not be cross-linked. Professor Dr. Jens Gunster, who headed ceramic 3D printing efforts at BAM, has now overcome these limitations by relying on so-called pre-ceramic polymers, which are converted into ceramics during 3D printing. Unlike regular ceramics, these can be cross-linked, plastically deformed, melted or dissolved with a variety of solvents. Ceramic 3D printing, in short, has become more potent than ever.

This breakthrough is especially remarkable because it remains inexpensive. We use a commercial, very inexpensive powder which is used in industrial processes and in the production of cosmetics. We apply it layer by layer and glue it locally with a solvent when the desired structure is completed, professor Gunster revealed. The solvent is 3D printed in layers in a fashion reminiscent of ink-jet printing, with the polymer being fired in oxygen-free environments at temperatures above 1200 degrees Celsius. The result: a ceramic made from vitreous silicon oxycarbide (SiOC).

To make it work the German engineers had to rely on a completely new ploy. They were faced with the problem that the 3D printed polymer would begin to melt at 60 degrees Celsius, making firing impossible. To overcome the problem, they added a cross-linking agent to the dissolved powder, which ensures that structure is maintained during firing.

Through this method, they were able to further build on the 3D printing process  which has since grown into a dual print head setup, with a solvent/cross-linking agent being extruded from one and a pure solvent from the other. We use these two liquids to print the structures skeleton and the covering in one process. The skeleton retains its structure during firing since it contains the cross-linking agent. The covering applied without the cross-linking agent melts. It merges with the skeleton and even enters its lattice structure due to an interaction of viscosity, surface tension and gravity. As a result, we obtain a ceramic whose surface is smooth and has no pores or sharp edges. The structure has been optimized through self-assembly and withstands pressure, the professor argued.

During development, the BAM research group collaborated with German powder-based 3D printing pioneers Voxeljet AG. While no commercialization plans have since been released, this technology breakthrough could obviously provide a huge boost to ceramic and powder-based industrial 3D printing efforts. More will doubtlessly follow.

Posted in 3D Printing Technology

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Trish Lee

Simple meets bespoke in gowns designed by Trish Lee, whose vintage-inspired aesthetic and impeccable fabrics are combined with exact measurements and custom designs for a fully couture experience. A Trish Lee dress complements the bride's best features to ensure that she looks and feels her most beautiful on her most important day. // 323 Geary St., Suite 808 (Union Square), trishlee.com





(Courtesy of Lace & Liberty)

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(Courtesy of Amy Kuschel)

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At Amy Kuschel's expansive showroom, brides of all stripes are bound to find a dress to suit their fancy amid the substantial collection of looks. The Lennon, the store's most popular style, is designed to emulate a clean, blank canvas", while the Lemon Drop exudes a more classic ideal of elegance and charm. And for those blissful brides who are low on time, there is a ready to wed" rack of dresses that can go home the same day. // 23 Grant Avenue, 5th floor (Union Square), amykuschel.com





(Courtesy of One Wed)

Sarah Seven

The ambiance at Sarah Seven's showroom emulates the whimsical nature of the store's bridal collection. From the hickory floorboards to the stone fireplace, the space is urban yet modern just like the frocks. With French lace accents, romantic silhouettes, and soft flowing skirts, Sarah Seven is the premiere destination for the boho-chic and vineyard brides. // 3235 Fillmore Street, 2nd Floor (Cow Hollow), sarahseven.com
Several mosquito-borne viral infections have recently emerged in North America; West Nile virus is the most common in the United States. Although West Nile virus generally causes a self-limited, flulike febrile illness, a serious neuroinvasive form may occur. Dengue is the most common vector-borne viral disease worldwide, and it has been a significant public health threat in the United States since 2009. Known as breakbone fever for its severe myalgias and arthralgias, dengue may cause a hemorrhagic syndrome. Chikungunya also causes flulike febrile illness and disabling arthralgias. Although meningoencephalitis may occur with chikungunya, bleeding is uncommon. Symptoms of Zika virus infection are similar to those of dengue, but milder. Zika virus increases the risk of fetal brain abnormalities, including microcephaly, if a pregnant woman is infected. Zika virus is spread through Aedes species mosquito bites, is transmitted sexually, and may rarely spread nonsexually from person to person. [corrected] Diagnosis of these vector-borne infections is clinical and serologic, and treatment is supportive. Other, well-established vector-borne diseases are also important. Ehrlichiosis is a tick-borne bacterial disease that presents as a nonspecific syndrome of fever, headache, malaise, and myalgias. It is diagnosed via blood smear testing, with confirmatory serology. Ehrlichiosis is treated with doxycycline. Rickettsial infections are transmitted by fleas, mites, and ticks, and severity ranges from mild to life threatening. Rocky Mountain spotted fever, the most significant rickettsial infection, is primarily a clinical diagnosis that presents as fever, headache, myalgias, petechial rash, and tick exposure. Doxycycline is effective for rickettsial infections if administered promptly. Vector avoidance strategies are critical to the prevention of all of these infections.
As in the American original, which costarred James Coburn, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson, much of the fun in the latest M7 comes from the posse-recruiting scenes  it takes a mercenary bunch to protect a village  and in the bromance that blossoms among the hired muscle. As an emotionally damaged sniper named Goodnight Robicheaux, Ethan Hawke attempts to create a multilayered character, while Chris Pratt does his best Chris Pratt impersonation as a smirking, wise-cracking quick draw named Josh Faraday. And so what if Vincent DOnofrio seems to be channeling his doomed country-boy soldier from Full Metal Jacket (1987)? His perpetually mystified presence is a welcome respite from the cocksure attitudes of the guys around him.

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This being a film by Antoine Fuqua (Olympus Has Fallen, The Equalizer), expect more fiery explosions in two hours than occurred in the entire 1870s out West. As always, each one is painstakingly choreographed and lovingly photographed  Fuquas version of a sex scene.
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ACAs library of educational tools help members improve their business practices. ACA also holds the most popular industry conferences and offers credentialing for collectors, attorneys, and more. ACAs Training Zone subscription gives agencies access to almost all of our education for one low cost.
(Bloomberg) The Wildenstein family of art dealers sold more than 600 pieces since the turn of the century, generating around $300 million in cash to fund their lifestyle, and has works worth nearly three times that much in storage, according to a banker who has intricate financial knowledge of the clans dealings.

Daniel Wildenstein created an offshore trust in the Bahamas in 1998 to lodge 2,500 works from the art dealers collection. A Royal Bank of Canada unit managed it, and a representative told a Paris court this week that its sole purpose was to provide funds for the family.

There were sales in order to generate the money for making distributions to support their lifestyles, RBCs Brian Taylor said during the third day of the trial of Daniels son, Guy, and grandson, Alec Junior.

They stand accused of hiding assets worth hundreds of millions of euros to slash inheritance taxes after Daniels death in 2001.

The trial at Paris criminal court, which will last until Oct. 20, provides insight on the familys business secrets, which were so fiercely held that Guy Wildenstein said he didnt learn of many of the financial machinations until his fathers death.

When he transferred the works of art to the so-called Delta Trust in the Bahamas, Daniel had valued the assets at $1.1 billion. The trustee at the time didnt second-guess that assessment, and neither did the current one, the Royal Bank of Canada Trust Co.

Art Sales

The collection held by the trust has been gradually thinned, with around 71 million euros ($79.7 million) distributed between 2001 and 2004, including more than 30 million euros in works of art, Taylor told the court. About 675 works have been sold since then, generating about $238 million for family members, he said.

A lot still remains untouched. No cash distributions have been made to the family since the end of 2013, leaving a collection worth approximately $875 million sitting in storage in the U.S., Switzerland and Singapore, Taylor said.

$1 Million

Currently, I dont have much left. I have to check but Ive got less than $1 million, said Alec Wildenstein Junior, who got $4 million in proceeds from the sale of several Pierre Bonnard works around 2013. We havent received any distribution in the last few years.

The Wildenstein family entered the art world in the 1870s in Paris when Nathan Wildenstein, Guys great-grandfather, helped a client sell some paintings while he was working as a tailor. Nathan opened his own gallery the same decade. His firm, Wildenstein & Co., has been family-run since then.

Five generations later, the art-dealing tradition continues through Guy, in charge of the Wildenstein Institute, whose catalogues raisonnes for the most important artists of the 19th and 20th centuries are so exhaustive that a work by Monet would be worthless without a so-called Wildenstein index number.

The familys days of hoarding acquisitions may be over. While sales have proceeded, the familys disinterest in contemporary art means no new works have been purchased for the trust since its creation.

The contemporary art market isnt my craft, Guy Wildenstein said, adding that buying very expensive works that might be worthless tomorrow didnt make sense to him. I stuck to what I knew well.

Fiscal Risks

Guy said he didnt know there was any fiscal risk when he didnt declare the trusts in his inheritance-tax bill, and none of his advisers and lawyers told him of any, according to the court indictment.

The assets held in trusts werent legally Daniels, his lawyers have said. Instead, they belonged to the trusts and therefore shouldnt count for estate taxes. French prosecutors argue that the trusts arent truly independent, pointing to evidence that the Delta Trust became a source of bounty for Guy and his brother Alec, who died in 2008.

Unaware of the trusts when it settled in 2002, France accepted a set of bas-reliefs by Marie Antoinettes favorite sculptor to cover an estate tax bill it believed worth no more than 17.7 million euros. It was alerted to the trust several years later as Daniels second wife, Sylvia, fought for her share.

Daniels Death

In October 2001, Daniel, who had battled cancer, fell into a coma and died. Two weeks later, Sylvia signed away her rights to her late husbands estate. According to Sylvia, her stepsonsGuy and Alectold her the taxes would bankrupt her if she didnt. Several years later, she sued Guy and Alec claiming she was cheated out of her inheritance and that the family was sitting on trusts and real estate worth billions.

Guy Wildenstein also told the Paris court he didnt know why $188 millions worth of paintings were moved to Switzerland from the U.S. while his father was dying. The only thing Guy said he knew was that Daniel had decided to reorganize the Delta Trust in July. Because of the complexity of moving art, items were still being shipped when he died.

The Royal Bank of Canada unit in the Bahamas didnt learn of the shipments until more than a decade later and informed the U.S. Internal Revenue Service soon after. In total, the U.S. authorities were deprived of $136 million in estate tax due to the movements of the paintings, according to the indictment.

Guy Wildenstein hinted at one possible reason for his ignorance about Daniels business affairs.

My father was a man of few words, Guy told the court, adding that while he was head of the household, everyone else was treated like a child. Thats how things are in the family.

With assistance from James Tarmy
A roundup of our favorite recent tax fraud cases.

Rochester, N.Y.: Preparer Frank Wilson, 55, of Tonawanda, N.Y., has been arrested and charged by criminal complaint with preparing fraudulent returns.

Authorities said that according to the complaint, Wilson operated an income tax prep business and prepared at least 18 false returns claiming total refunds of at least $90,508. The complaint further states that Wilsons conduct appears to be related to a much larger, nationwide fraud scheme involving approximately 3,529 false returns that sought a total of approximately $12,361,498 in fraudulent refunds.

Many of the taxpayers who hired Wilson did not review their returns, did not know that the defendant had included fraudulent information on their returns and received no refund from Wilson as result of the fraudulent returns.

The charge carries a maximum three years in prison and a fine of $100,000.

New York: Former preparer Lester Morrison, who pleaded guilty in 2010 to orchestrating a large-scale tax fraud, has been banned from working as a federal income tax return preparer or engaging in any conduct that interferes with the administration and enforcement of federal tax laws.

Four of Morrisons associates who also had pled guilty to tax fraud have already been barred from engaging in the prep business.

According to case documents, between 2000 and 2008 Morrison and his associates orchestrated a tax fraud involving preparation of thousands of false and fraudulent returns through a prep business in the New York City borough of the Bronx and in Englewood, N.J. The phony returns sought improper deductions by, among other things, using stolen IDs of deceased children to claim dependent deductions and claiming phony business losses for non-existent businesses.

In 2010, Morrison and his four associates pleaded guilty to tax fraud. As of last April, all been released from prison.

The courts findings include that Morrison was the organizer and leader of the scheme, caused tax loses to the U.S. of more than $17 million, and lied to the IRS during the course of the investigation.

El Dorado Hills, Calif.: Local resident Sherry Taggart, 56, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to file false claims and filing false claims.

According to court documents, Taggart and her co-conspirator, Barbara Antonucci, an unlicensed preparer, prepared federal returns for clients seeking to maximize refunds.

In 2008, Antonucci began her scheme, and Taggart joined her after May 2010. The two conspired to prepare and file hundreds of false claims with the IRS between June 2012 and March 2014, seeking refunds totaling some $1.4 million.

In total, including the period in which Antonucci operated the scheme by herself, the IRS issued more than $1.8 million in illegitimate refunds from more than $2.5 million illegitimate claims filed during the scheme.

On Aug. 19, Antonucci pleaded guilty to conspiracy to file false claims and filing false claims.

The fraudulent returns that Taggart and Antonucci prepared and caused to be filed reported false wages and dependents for their clients and, in many cases, qualified the clients for the Earned Income Credit when the clients true wages or family situation would have qualified the client for no credit or a lower credit. Most of the fraudulent returns listed wages associated with self-employment not documented by a W-2, such as housekeeper.

The defendants obtained the names, Social Security numbers and other personal identifying information of minors and falsely listed those minors as dependents on returns for clients who were unrelated to those minors. Taggart and Antonucci also filed false claims on their own behalf.

Sentencing for both is in early December. Taggart and Antonucci face a maximum of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for conspiracy to file false claims. The maximum penalty for filing false claims is up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

New York: Preparer Eliana Sarmiento, 32, of Passaic, N.J., and formerly with K&S Tax Solution in the Bronx, has been found guilty of multiple charges in connection with her participation in schemes to file fraudulent returns to receive refunds in the form of checks and wire transfers.

Together with her co-workers at K&S, Sarmiento stole more than $19 million in refunds by submitting false returns using stolen IDs, largely stolen from residents of Puerto Rico. To date, 14 employees and associates of K&S, in addition to Sarmiento, have been convicted in connection with this scheme.

According to the allegations in the indictment and trial evidence presented during trial, since January 2010 Sarmiento obtained stolen IDs in part through one co-conspirator, based in Puerto Rico, who stole the IDs of patients of a medical clinic in Ponce. She then obtained EFINs for filing hundreds of returns under the names and Social Security numbers of the victims of the ID theft. Sarmiento and other employees of K&S also used the stolen IDs of children as false dependents on the returns of certain K&S clients.

The IRS has identified $281,348,627 in attempted fraudulent returns and $19,799,175 in Treasury funds stolen by Sarmiento and her criminal associates.

Sarmiento was found guilty of two counts of theft of public funds, each carrying a maximum of 10 years in prison; two counts of conspiring to steal public funds, each carrying a maximum of five years in prison; and two counts of aggravated ID theft, each carrying a mandatory sentence of two years in prison.

St. Louis: Preparer Asmerom Keleta, former owner of U-City Tax Service, and two preparers have been charged with filing false returns on behalf of clients, according to federal prosecutors cited in news reports.

Prosecutors reportedly said that Keleta owned U-City from 2011 to 2013 and employed two preparers, Miyoshi Lewis and Teklom Paulos. The three allegedly conspired to prepare and file false returns using unjustified tax credits and listing false income, then concealed their role by falsifying the name of the preparer.

They inflated and then took a cut of refunds by taking clients to a nearby check-cashing business and demanding a share, prosecutors told news outlets. Keleta, 31, and Lewis, 30, are from St. Louis and Paulos, 36, lives in Florissant, Mo., prosecutors reportedly said. Each faces one count of conspiracy and six counts of filing false income tax returns, according to reports.
American Express, the world's largest card issuer by purchase volume, today announced tie-up with on-demand mobility solutions provider, Uber, in India. The tie-up allows AmEx to integrate its Corporate Card programs with Uber's corporate platform 'Uber for Business'. American Express is the first Card to be accepted on the central pay platform of Uber.

Saru Kaushal, Country Business Head, Global Corporate Payments, American Express India, said, "Our Corporate Card program is considered as a preferred expense management solution by world's leading businesses. This new initiative with Uber in India will further bolster our value proposition. Uber for Business is expected to help companies to reduce their car rental expenses by around 60%, while offering increased reliability and transparency. Integration of American Express Corporate Card within the solution will offer added benefit of seamless payment and extended payment terms for our clients."

Companies using American Express Corporate Card Program will now be able to leverage Uber's global presence. Their employees, while travelling for work, can use Uber for Business in any of the 70 countries in which Uber operates. The billing would seamlessly be done at the company account, back in India. Whats more, corporate clients will be entitled to sign-up bonus and usage based benefits, along with bonus Membership Reward points. They can also avail extended payment terms (51 days credit period).

Arjun Nohwar, APAC Head for Uber for Business said "Uber for Business as a product has been growing at an incredible pace worldwide and we are delighted to have some of the largest Indian corporates adopt it for their official employee travel. We have over 50,000 businesses worldwide that use Uber for Business for their mobility solutions and it has proved to be a more affordable and efficient transportation option for them. We're extremely happy to partner with American Express and look forward to giving their clients a reliable, convenient and economical ride."

'Uber for Business', Ubers platform for corporate clients, enables companies to set up corporate accounts through which employees can charge their rides directly to their respective companies. Companies get real time access to the rides and spends with Uber dashboard, thus obviating the need to tediously keep a track of individual rides and receipts.

This is a win-win deal for both the partners. Through this partnership AmEx will be able to capture incremental billings in the enterprise ground transportation segment. It will also give the brand an opportunity to acquire Uber for Business' existing and prospective customers for its Corporate Card Program. Similarly, Uber will benefit by promoting its enterprise solution to the American Express corporate client base, faster funds availability and optimized risk management.
DigitasLBi has elevated Mark McDonald, Sabah Iqbal and Pooja Gosain to Head of Creative, Head of Account Management and Senior Creative Director respectively to gratify their optimistic impact and management abilities that has aided DigitasLBi to grow immensely over the year.

In their new roles Mark and Sabah will continue to report into Prithviraj Banerjee as they will take on larger responsibilities to partner him in managing respective business units in the region. Pooja will continue to report into Mark McDonald.

Commenting on his new role Mark McDonald, Head of Creative, Mumbai said Over the last one year weve built up a fantastic team across creative and put in place a structure that allows for cross-discipline integration and encourages great creative work. Im delighted to be stepping into my new role and really look forward to delivering award-winning work that makes our clients brands count in the marketplace.

Speaking about her elevation Sabah Iqbal, Head of Account Management, Mumbai said My time at the agency (pre-merger as LBi and now as DigitasLBi in the Publicis Network) has taught me that the most important piece to the talent puzzle is culture. While my core responsibility is steering brands in the right direction with collaborative and sustainable management, I plan on carrying forward our culture and focusing my efforts on grooming, empowering and retaining talent. My goal being to make DigitasLBi the agency of choice in the advertising industry, for clients and professionals from the industry.

Commenting on her new role Pooja Gosain, Senior Creative Director said Change has to be steered in the right direction and that is what I aim to focus on most  leadership of the right kind. By combining great design, UX strategy and creativity with innovative technology and data, I look forward to creating a niche for DigitasLBi, as well as a learning curve for the entire team I work with. At the same time, fostering a culture of fraternity, ownership and inclusivity.



Prithviraj Banerjee, Head of Agency said Sabah, Mark and Pooja bring with them a duality of skills that are rare  the wisdom gained from their past creative agency experience and the agility they have instilled within themselves in this fast-paced world of digital. DigitasLBi has grown exponentially with them over the years, as they mentored their teams and produced phenomenal output at every step of their journey. Their new leadership positions do not need much getting used to, as they have been performing at heightened levels already, and will continue to help our brand grow in the future.
Myntra, a Flipkart Group company, announces the appointment of Dipanjan Basu as the CFO. A seasoned leader with expertise in a multitude of Finance and Business functions, Dipanjan brings over 15 years of experience to the fore. He moves into his new role at Myntra from Wipro, where he was the Chief Finance & Operating Officer for Wipros Digital & Consulting Business.

Dipanjan brings with him a wealth of experience in the space of financial management and operations control, building and setting up new businesses, M&A and investments in startups. He also oversaw the finance function for the Manufacturing & Healthcare business at Wipro and has been instrumental in driving billion dollar deals and leading business process reengineering at Wipro. Dipanjan started his career at Wipro as a young professional and built his way up to being one of the youngest Vice Presidents at Wipro. Dipanjan also had a two year stint with Quatrro Risk Management Services where he was the CFO of the company.

In his new role at Myntra, Dipanjan will be overlooking the finance function of the countrys largest online destination for fashion. Dipanjan is expected to streamline and further enhance important processes as the E-commerce major is witnessing strong growth.

Welcoming Dipanjan Basu to Myntra, Ananth Narayanan, CEO, Myntra said, Apart from being an exceptionally talented individual, Dipanjan is also a people leader. His skills and expertise in finance and operations will be of immense value to Myntra, especially at this juncture as we scale our business to meet ambitious targets. I would like to welcome him on board on behalf of the Myntra family.

Speaking on his new assignment, Dipanjan Basu said, I am looking forward to my stint with fashion E-commerce at Myntra. I believe that my new role will be both exciting and challenging and also a great learning experience. As Myntra is witnessing a steady growth, I should be able to leverage my experience and knowledge to support and further develop the system.

Dipanjan is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and was ranked 7th in India in the CA final exams. He is also a rank holder in the intermediate and foundation examination of ICAI.

Dipanjan is slated to join the team at Myntra on the 17th of October.
In its 11th edition, Kyoorius Designyatra has moved to Jaipur this year. Day 1 of Indias first and biggest visual communications conference witnessed power-packed speakers from across the globe sharing their purpose on Why Am I Here, which is also the theme of the conference this year. Attended by over 1,300 delegates annually, Designyatra has become a calendar event for many professionals from the creative industry, corporates, brands and marketing managers.

The theme for Designyatra 2016 comes from the questions weve been asking ourselves for years. Questions of relevance, context, real impact and change out there in the real world beyond the conference itself. Why are we here? To design some books, logos and posters, write kickass scripts and shoot cool films, or win Pencils and Lions? To have fun being creative, to chase passions and dreams or just to make ends meet? Is there something more to this? What is the point?

Independence is everything





Moderated by Vineeth Vincent, Founder, The Meditating Monkeys, Musical Cubicle & Sidestep, the days session was opened by Tony Davidson, Global Partner, Wieden + Kennedy. Davidson puts much of his creativity down to his late father who was an inventor of the Heath Robinson mould, but also believes that luck played a big part in his career as well. He stated that it is important to accept failure and also demonstrated it with an example of his work on TVC for Frisk. After sharing a few insights behind his works like Dan & Daves Chocolate Coin Factory, www.obble, Lurpark Butter, Davidson said, Having right connections is the reason why am I here. I am here because I am forever curious, because I never said no to cause chaos. For him, independence is everything. He further noted that everyone believes, work comes first, but actually people come the first. Everything good is not easy. Walk in stupid every morning, keep questioning is what he commented through the line. I ask stupid questions because I am not that clever, he added. He concluded by cautioning people against trophy hunters because they are everywhere out there.

Making a difference with design





On the other hand, Michael Johnson, Founder, Johnson Banks, UK, was here to find interesting problems to solve. He urged people to aim higher then flogging fizzy drinks. Coming with 24 years of experience in the industry, Johnson has worked on projects for the British Government, art centres in Philadelphia and Paris, a space observatory in Japan and exhibitions in Chine. Talking about design solutions for the non-profit organisation, Johnson said, The problem, at present, lies in how graphic designers and advertising agencies handle non-for-profit work. They treat it the same way old Catholic churches would treat indulgences: a little act of good will for their smooth sailing to heaven, or to pacify their conscience.

According to him, they dont do it to actually make it work. The topic for this discussion was Cystic Fibrosis (is a genetic disorder that affects mostly the lungs, but also the pancreas, liver, kidneys, and intestine). Johnson Banks has been working since the beginning of 2012 with the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, who approached them to help them clarify and relaunch their brand in the UK. As the research stage progressed, as mentioned on the website, the design company kept asking, but what is it, exactly? and received a multitude of different responses. Mid way through the research stage they had a breakthrough when they noticed the is at the end of fibrosis. They suggested the charity should activate the is in their name with a series of statements, effectively forcing it to always explain what it is, does, and why they are here. Some are simple: cystic fibrosis why were here, some uplifting  cystic fibrosis a battle we must win. A simple is created a worldwide conversation wherein people from all across the globe illustrated why they are here and which also helped them in raising the funds to support the cause. Their current major project is to rebrand technology company Mozilla.

Further, Johnson questioned himself and everybody in the audience whether we could produce open-source software. Then why cant we rebrand in the open. What if design could make a difference? he asked. He further answered the queries by illustrating a gist of some of his works and concluded by saying, Design can make a difference and you can too.

In India, Entrepreneur = Unemployed!

Next on the dais, was 24-year-old Prukalpa Sankar, Co-founder, SocialCops, India.

Having majored in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering with a Minor in Entrepreneurship, Prukalpa decided to spend her life doing the latter. Later, she also agreed that being an entrepreneur in India is equal to being an unemployed. While sharing an anecdote, Prukalpa said that the first time she realised why she was here was when she met a street cleaner named Mukesh. She said, No one knows him, no one can identify them. We did. We had organised an awards ceremony honouring the best of street workers. The true happiness and pride on their face made me realise why am I here.

She then co-founded the company named SociolCops, a data intelligence company which solves problems that the developing world faces with data. Elaborating on the work further, she said, Our designers and engineers routinely interact with the next billion  anyone from the users who have never used a smartphone to the government officers who have only seen reports on paper.

In a post published by the entrepreneur on her LinkedIn profile, Prukalpa mentions that the average user of the mobile based data collection tool is someone like Promila, which she discussed during her session as well. Promila is a 7th class pass, Marathi speaking woman who lives in Raigadh. She never used a mobile phone before our partner gave her a tablet to visit households, where she will collect data and disseminate healthcare information. According to her, over the next decade, the next 6 billion will have their first interaction with technology, mostly via a mobile phone. Designing for Promila poses a challenge that will require building new design paradigms for the future. Therefore, design matters.

Collaborating with different talents

Born in Monterrey, Sebestian Padilla, Founding Partner, Anagrama, Mexico was the most chilled out of all and had the audiences in splits with his great sense of humour. Padilla feels that Monterrey is no different than India in many aspects. He added, Monterrey is an industrial city/ boring/ grey. I am not that passionate about design. It was hard to choose a major when I was only 17. Graphic designing was the easiest to get into, out of the many options ranging from architecture to films.

Anagrama is an international, branding, architecture and software development firm with offices in Monterrey and Mexico City. Padilla believes that coming up with great design solutions and a strange scenario of his city helped him build the project and foray into everything from architecture to software development and feature films. He said, I am not the leader of each one, but I am happy to be onboard.

According to him, collaborating with creativity is amazing, but its even better to collaborate with different talents. He shared with the audiences some glimpses of his work and colleagues. He believes that if one is surrounded with right kind of people, they can do anything. Nurse, a fashion brand inspired by simplicity, the work is in its nascent stage now. According to Padilla, Energy, Diversity, Principles, Skills, and Trust are what it takes to be here.
What Are The 10 Best Denmark Based Advertising Sites to Post Classified Ads Free Online?

Top 10 Denmark Classifieds Sites- Most Popular Online Places in the country for Free Advertising!

When it comes to selling your business, may it be products or services, then its best to go online! The Internet has a ton of opportunities you are able to check out. With millions of people using the Internet, you have much more of a database and potential clients to make connections with.

Plus, its a more affordable way to sell what you have to offer! There are a number of websites that enable you to post your advertisements for free or for a small fee. That way, you introduce your brand and products to its many visitors, and you will get to build your business that way.

Online Advertising Places in Denmark used by most of the advertisers in the Country

What Are The 10 Most Popular Free Classifieds Sites for Online Advertising in Denmark?

You can find websites list based on regions and countries. For those in Denmark, we show you the Top 10 best Denmark-based online classified advertising sites where you can post adverts for personal reasons or for marketing a business.

Here is this list:-

As you already may be knowing that Craigslist is one of the top classifieds around the world for its reputation, age, simplicity, popularity, and credibility among users. It has a traditional look but very fast to load and browse and creates no burden to anyone whoever visits this site for searching or posting ads online. Craigslist Copenhagen is in full Danish language, though you may use Google or other translator if you are from out of Denmark.

Craigslist Denmark is free to use and free to publish advertisements. It is a great option for Danish buyers as well sellers.

Gulog Gratis.DK (https://www.guloggratis.dk/):

Guloggratis.dk is also a great option for anyone looking a good Danish classified site for personal and business purpose. They have around half a million ads on their site and thousands of classifieds are published on daily basis. It offers great browsing and searching features with modern look and advanced options for anyone interested in buy-sell old or new items, housing property, business, sales marketing, home, electronics, etc.

DBAs website is already filled with many ads by people who are either selling new or secondhand items. You will be directed to a page where you have the newest ads lined up, and the different categories you are able to check out.

 How to Create SEO Friendly Ad copies

GumTree has a light and friendly interface that allows you to scroll through different ads and post yours as well. You have all the ad categories available, and you can even search for other places besides Denmark.

Gumtree is a world renowned advertising sites for personal and business reasons.

 Have a Shop? Learn here how to advertise and market it in your locality

AdsArk has one of the simplest interfaces. The design may not be top notch, but it definitely does the job in serving you when it comes to posting ads and viewing them. Their ads are SEO friendly. There is no registration required, and you can even link the ad to your website.

Kugli, just like AdsArk, doesnt have the best design but has tons of categories and ads posted, as well as the huge traffic that will view your ads. Registration is free, and posting ads is as easy as 1, 2, 3!

 Local advertising techniques for marketing your biz in Denmark

JustLanded doesnt only show categories for items, but you can also sell your pets or even look for a job. You can post job offerings and items for sale with ease, may it be properties or cars. They focus more on moving and real estate.

Whats great about ExpatAds is that there is no registration required and its entirely for free! You have the choice whether to view or post ads being shown almost everything you need in one website. This is another popular advertisement posting site for global locations.

This doesnt only cater to Denmark, but to all other regions and countries around Europe and US as well. This increases your popularity and chances of being seen by other customers around the area. You also have the chance to feature your listings on their sidebar for more views.

From real estate to services, VivaStreet is a local advertising website that has you meeting up with many people around you for products and services. The featured and newly posted ads are immediately shown, so you will be assured of visitors when posting your ad.

While this is a worldwide website, it caters to Denmark as well, with more people looking at your ads and being able to link back to your website. That way, you earn more followers and traffic, thus creating potential customers.

QTellPlus has all the categories and items for sale, so you are able to post whatever you need to advertise and have the target audience contact you with ease. Whether its an event, service or item, its all free of charge and easy to post.

In Conclusion

The Internet has become a source of gaining connections for business and companies. You have millions of people who will be checking your products out, and youll be assured potential clients and an easy form of communication when transacting!

Luckily, there are now websites that offer free advertising of your business. With these Denmark-based online classified sites, you will now be able to properly show your ads to your target audience with ease. Not only that, but you will save a lot of money and reap the benefits posting your products online has to offer! So what are you waiting for?

If you have something to sell and want to boost your business, then check out what classified advertising sites will be able to give you.

Did you enjoy the article? If you have any comments or suggestions, then post them below! We would love to hear your thoughts and what you have to say about these advertising sites.
Global street fashion brand, A BATHING APE is happy to announce the launch of their global online store (bapeonline.com) on Tuesday, September 20th, 2016.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005218/en/

(Graphic: Business Wire)

A BATHING APE, also known as BAPE, was established in Tokyo in 1993 and has remained a leader in the street fashion scene since the brands inception. Thus far, the brand has produced iconic graphics, patterns and characters such as APE HEAD, BAPE CAMO, BAPE STA, SHARK HOODIE, and BABY MILO. BAPE has expanded from a mens line to create ladies and kids items to provide fashionable clothing for fans of any gender or age group and developed into an international brand with stores throughout Japan, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, China, and other regions in Asia. The brand continues to create trends for a widespread audience and was constantly requested to make BAPE items available worldwide.

Hence the opening of BAPEONLINE, a global webstore aimed at making it possible for overseas BAPE fans to buy items from the brand. The service is currently available for customers in Europe* and is planned to expand to a more worldwide presence in the future.

*BAPEONLINE is available to customers in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

To celebrate the start of BAPEONLINE, a special edition t-shirt is currently available for a limited time. Customers who purchase an item from the webstore will receive a complimentary sticker (available while supplies last).

NOWHERE Co., Ltd. was established in Harajuku, Tokyo in April 1st, 1993 and created the fashion brand, A BATHING APE during the same year. It continues to expand business with BAPE STORE, BAPEXCLUSIVE, BAPE KIDS, and A BATHING APE PIRATE STORE locations worldwide.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005218/en/

For more information about this press release, please contact:

NOWHERE Co., Ltd.

Makiko Osada, 81-3-5410-6310

Marketing Department

osadam@bape.com
NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ABS Management & Development announces new acquisitions and renewals of leases of major tenants, continuing its' aggressive growth, quickly becoming a major real estate owner and developer in New York, New Jersey, and across the U.S.

Led with it's vision and mission by the company's founder and president, Reuven Rivlin, ABS Management and Development has been acquiring and developing properties in prime locations in New York, New Jersey and across the U.S., and has amassed a portfolio of properties in retail, multi-family and development over the past 20 years.

One major New York based real estate broker said, "Mr. Rivlin is a quiet and private individual, but of the group of brokers that know him and deal with him regularly over the past 20 years, he is one of the most respected real estate owners in the industry, and when you do a deal with him, his word is as good as a contract in-hand. What stands out about Reuven, is that he deals with you with a sense of respect and commitment, and appreciates the effort put into every deal.. That sense of respect, and his capability for creative deal structuring, makes you want to work with him, just for the experience and the relationship."

This week, ABS Management & Development signed two major tenants of Camillus Plaza, a 100,000 square foot shopping plaza located in Syracuse, New York. National Retail and Pharmacy Rite Aid, a Fortune 500 Company, will continue to anchor Camillus Plaza, and has signed a five-year extension for the 15,000 square foot space they currently occupy. In addition, Solvay Bank, which has been serving the Greater Central New York for close to 100 years, has also signed a five-year extension with ABS Management and Development. The signing of these two class A tenants continue to prove ABS Management and Development's strong relationships with national brands, and ensure that Camillus Plaza will continue to thrive for both the tenants and the neighborhood.

There are currently 15 tenants in Camillus Plaza, which is located on West Genesee Street in Syracuse, New York, and ABS Management and Development's Leasing Staff stated that there is still limited space for lease in Camillus Plaza which interested parties can contact ABS Management and Development for more information.

Negotiations for the extended leases at Camillus Plaza were handled by Marc Friedman and Joel Warfman of ABS Management and Development.

About ABS Management & Development

Headquartered in New York, ABS Management and Development is a privately help real estate company with an amassed portfolio of retail, multi-family, and development projects in New York, New Jersey and across the U.S. in primary and secondary markets. With experienced leadership that spans more than 25 years, and an aggressive growth strategy in acquisitions and development, ABS Management and Development continues to grow and is quickly becoming a well known leading U.S. real estate company.

Additional information about ABS Management and Development can be found by visiting the company's website at http://absmgt.com/

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-york-based-real-estate-firm-abs-management--development-poised-for-aggressive-and-visible-growth-becoming-a-leading-us-based-real-estate-company-300337108.html

SOURCE ABS Management & Development
Ghost Rider in the sky: B-52 departs Tinker in historic flight

The first B-52H Stratofortress to be resurrected from long-term storage at the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) to rejoin the active strategic bomber fleet soared into the sky from Tinker Air Force Base Sept. 27.



The historic flight, which the aircraft is nicknamed Ghost Rider, marked the end of the warbirds 19-month transformation from a mothballed, 55-year-old, eight-engine jet parked in the Arizona desert to a fully updated conventional- and nuclear-capable global strike bomber platform.



Tinkers 76th Aircraft Maintenance Group handed over the plane 90 days ahead of schedule to Air Force Global Strike Command. Ghost Rider will join the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot AFB, North Dakota.



I am extremely proud of the team that was able to deliver Ghost Rider back to Air Force Global Strike Command, said Brig. Gen. Mark Johnson, the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex commander. This is really a testament to accomplishing the art of the possible. It shows that when there is a common goal, team members from across multiple organizations can rally behind the objective and deliver their team's full impact to the project.



Tinkers 565th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron completed the overhaul, modernization and restoration work in 272 calendar days.



Charles Alley, the 565th AMXS director, said maintainers, engineers and support teams were excited to work on the historic project, spending approximately 45,000 man-hours restoring Ghost Rider to fighting shape.



Alley said pilots of Tinkers 10th Flight Test Squadron flew the B-52 six times to verify system functionality and ensure a safe and reliable aircraft before declaring the plane ready for delivery Sept. 13.



The jet needed an extra 7,000 hours over normal programmed depot maintenance to get it up to speed with all the other B-52s in the fleet, Alley said.



I told people during test flight that because the aircraft sat in the desert so long, were knocking all the ghosts out of it, he said. It seemed like every time it came back it had two or three different things wrong with it.



Lt. Col. Darrel Hines, a B-52 flight commander with the 10th FTS, flew the plane from Arizona to Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, in February 2015, and flew in part of the six final functional test flights. The plane arrived at Tinker AFB on Dec. 14, 2015, with overhaul and maintenance work beginning Dec. 31, 2015. The plane was due to be delivered later this year on Dec. 23 but was delivered 90 days early.



Hines praised all the organizations involved in the restoration, including the 309th AMARG, the OC-ALC, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, and above all the maintainers whose skilled hands-on work made the difference.



This was a great team effort from multiple commands and it was a great success, Hines said. Now this plane is going to come out of Tinker back to the warfighter, and its going to be a huge asset to the guys going out in combat.



Ghost Rider will join 75 other B-52Hs in the Air Forces operational bomber fleet.
576th FLTS realigns administratively under 20th Air Force

The Air Force Global Strike Command Operations Directorate will transfer administrative control of the 576th Flight Test Squadron to the 20th Air Force Commander effective Oct. 1.



According to Col. Craig Ramsey, the 576th FLTS commander, the purpose of this realignment is twofold: provide a clear administrative chain of command in a more typical military construct (a commander working for another commander), and realign the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile test unit under the ICBM Numbered Air Force. Previously, the unit was administratively aligned under the Operations Directorate at AFGSC.



Administratively and functionally, this aligns the squadron with the professionals within the ICBM Numbered Air Force, Maj. Gen. Anthony Cotton, the 20th AF Commander, said. While the operational-level mission of the squadron differs from the other 20th (Air Force) units (test unit versus operational), the tactical-level actions and problem sets of the 576th (FLTS) parallel those of sister units.



Aside from a new senior rater signing administrative documents, this change should be transparent to the members of the 576th FLTS, and while administrative control will realign under the 20th Air Force, test mission activities will remain under AFGSC.



"Test management and oversight will continue to be provided by the AFGSC Operations Directorate in accordance with existing instructions, said Brig. Gen. Ferdinand Stoss, the A3 director. This provides the dual benefit of commanders working for commanders in an administrative control relationship with 20th (Air Force) while executing the command's operational test program in a streamlined relationship with the headquarters.



The 576th FLTS is the United States only dedicated ICBM test squadron, professionally executing tests that accurately measure the current and future capability of the nation's ICBM force, Ramsey said.



The 576th FLTS was originally activated in 1943 as the 576th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy) under the 392nd Bombardment Group and 8th Air Force, where they flew B-24 Liberators during World War II. Following a post-war inactivation, the 576th Strategic Missile Squadron was reactivated in 1958 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, under U.S. Strategic Air Command. Ramsey said the squadron, under various names, has been launching ICBMs since September 1959, including Atlas, Minuteman and Peacekeeper missiles.



"As an Air Force Global Strike Command unit, I think it's very fitting that we have a tie to 8th Air Force and bomber heritage as well as the early days of ICBM testing," Ramsey said. "We are very proud of our long legacy."



As the only operational test unit for all Minuteman III operational testing, the 576th FLTS works with the AFGSC Operations Directorates test branch to plan, schedule, execute and report results on all manner of ICBM tests.



The 576 FLTS has a responsibility to the nuclear community to thoroughly test all components, equipment, and facets of the ICBM weapon system and support infrastructure to ensure it meets the needs of the warfighter, Ramsey said. Before it ever reaches the field, we're supposed to make sure it's right!


Last C-5A Galaxy departs San Antonio

The final C-5A Galaxy aircraft (tail number 70-0448) departed here Sept. 28, to make room for the newer and improved C-5M Super Galaxy aircraft.



The departure is another step towards the 433rd Airlift Wings transition to the newer Lockheed Martin model. The first of the eight Lockheed Martins C-5M aircraft, arrived June 2016 and is the second C-5 to honor The City of San Antonio. The newer model has upgraded engines, an advanced glass cockpit, and 20 percent more fuel efficiency.



The flight also marked the end of another era- the flying career of Lt. Col. Dane Hortsmann, a 356th Airlift Squadron pilot.



"I think it's fitting that I am finishing my career with the 433rd AW just as we retire the last C-5A Galaxy," said Hortsmann.



"It was an honor and privilege to finish my flying career with one of my best friends, Lt. Col. Schimelpfening, while simultaneously flying the last C-5A."



The C-5A has been a part of San Antonios heritage for over 30 years, since its arrival to the 433rd Tactical Airlift Wing at Kelly Air Force Base, back in December 1984 (tail number, 69-0016) was also named the City of San Antonio.



On its maiden flight here, with Gen. Thomas M. Ryan, Jr., commander in chief of Military Airlift Command at the helm, the aircraft was delivered to Kelly Field to Maj. Gen. Sloan R. Gill, chief of the Air Force Reserve; Brig. Gen. John G. Sullivan, 433rd TAW commander and Henry Cisneros, San Antonio mayor, were all there to greet it.



Lt. Col. Steve Schimelpfening, 433rd Operations Support Squadron, had a duel connection to the C-5A's final flight from San Antonio.



"I started flying the C-5A models as an enlisted load master in 1991, so I started my career with them A model, so its ironic that I started my career with the C-5A and now I am one of the last pilots to fly it from the wing," said Schimelpfening."Being able to fly the last A model out of here, in conjunction with Lt. Col. Hortsmann's finny flight, meant so much to me."



The C-5 is still the United States largest military transport aircraft built and has been known as the backbone of the United States Air Force, with its strategic cargo lifting capabilities, hauling twice as much cargo as any other U.S. airlifter.



A true strategic military aircraft, the C-5A, sometimes affectionately called, the Aluminum Overcast or the Big Mac, has supported U.S. military operations in every major conflict since the Vietnam, because it can transport about 98 percent of the Armys equipment when they deploy.



While stationed here, the C-5A has answered the call in support of several ongoing overseas contingency operations, such as Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Enduring and Iraqi Freedom. It has flown many humanitarian relief missions as well, aiding victims of natural disasters, to include Central American assistance in the wake of Hurricane Mitch, Operation Coronet Oak in Haiti and the flooding in Pakistan and Katrina in Louisiana.



As the last C-5A departs from San Antonio, it leaves a legacy of hard work and a determined perseverance; it served the Air Force Reserve and the Alamo Wing well. It now passes the baton to the next generation.



"As the mission continues, the wing has already begun to train the next generation of aircrew for the M Model at the FTU (Formal Training Unit)," said Hortsmann.




Using car seats is not a parenting 'style'

During the past five years, Ive made several bloody trips to the emergency room. As the mom of three young kids, blood and tears just seem to come with the territory. My oldest is only five-years-old and has already gotten staples, stiches, and glue adhesives to close wounds on his head. Im definitely not a, helicopter mom. However, when it comes to car seat safety, I couldnt be more determined to make sure he is as safe as can be at all times.



On average, 37 people die every day in a car accident. Since 1980, the amount of licensed drivers in the U.S. has increased 45 percent, from 145 million to 210 million, and the total number of registered cars has increased 60 percent from 146 million to 242 million as of 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.



Increased traffic on our roadways necessitates increased safety measures. In 2015, there were 35,092 car accidents, up from 32,744 in 2014.



Children under the age of five are most at risk for serious injury or death in a car accident. According to the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration, car accidents are the number one cause of accidental deaths in children. Children under five are nearly four times more likely to die in a car accident than be kidnapped by a stranger, before age 18.



It all comes down to physics and the physiology of young children. Physiology first. Unlike adults, the vertebrae of young children are connected with cartilage, not bone. At two-years-old, none of those cartilaginous spaces have ossified to bone and can stretch up to two inches. However, it only takes  inch stretch to rupture the spinal column, resulting in paralysis or death. Three areas of the spine fuse over time, and at age eight, there is only a 50 percent probability that the bones have fused completely. Another big difference between adults and children is the head to body proportionality. At nine months old, a childs head makes up 25 percent of its body weight, whereas an adult head only makes up six percent of its body weight.



Now, lets talk physics and numbers. Sir Isaac Newton, world-renowned physicist, stated in his first law of motion that, an object in motion stays in motion. During a crash, occupants travel toward the point of impact, putting the stress of impact on the next and spine. According to the NHTSA, 60 percent of all vehicle crashes are frontal crashes. This means that a young child with disproportionally large head could fly forward while the childs body remains harnessed in a car seat. The result is devastating: internal decapitation.



Driving children is a necessity. My kids probably spend more than 15 hours per week in the car going to the grocery store, doctor or extracurricular activities. Although driving may seem scary based on the facts above, there are several ways I ensure my childrens safety.



Invest in a good car seat. There are many options available which can grow with your child from five to 120 pounds. One car seat could last your child from infant into elementary school without replacement.



Keep your child rear-facing and in their car seat as long as possible, until they hit the height or weight limits of their car seat. Remember, age is just a number, not a good indicator that your child is ready to face forward or transition to a booster seat. Many states have recently changed their laws and increased the minimum ages and weights children need to remain in their car seats. The minimum recommended age to remain rear-facing is two, according to the American Association of Pediatrics and NHTSA. Massachusetts law requires drivers follow the manufacturers recommendation of each individual car seat.



Schedule an appointment with your local fire station or other certified car seat technician to ensure your car seats have been properly installed according to your car manual and car seat manufacturer instructions. They may differ. According to a study conducted by Chrysler, 96 percent of parents and caregivers believe their child safety seats are installed correctly, but NHTSA research shows that seven out of 10 children are improperly restrained, putting them at risk for serious injury or death in a crash.



Make sure the straps are buckled correctly. If your child is rear-facing, the straps should sit at or just below shoulder level. If your child is forward facing, the straps should sit at or just above shoulder level. A chest clip is intended to go across the sternum, the strongest bone in the chest. Make sure to remove all jackets or large outerwear prior to being strapped in to ensure a snug fit. You should not be able to pinch any slack between the straps and your childs body.



Never buy a used car seat. Car seats which have been involved in car accidents are no longer safe, regardless of how fast the cars were going or if there was any damage to the car. You also never know if or how the seat has been cared for. Most detergents remove the flame retardant from the cloth covers, and therefore most car seats and their straps should only be washed with warm water or a mild dish soap.



The back seat is always the safest place for passengers. Many states prohibit children from riding in the front seat until 12-years-old. In Massachusetts, it is illegal for children under the age of 13 to sit in the front seat.



Remember that even if you dont have a child in your car, someone else might. That call, text, or Facebook message can wait  a childs life could depend on it.



While I may be okay with the occasional blood and tears resulting from getting hurt on the playground or in our backyard, Im not willing to compromise on car seat safety. People often ask me when Im finally going to let my kids ride in a car without a car seat, and my answer remains the same, when its safe.




[dropcap]F[/dropcap]our years have passed after a Dalit sugarcane worker was being burnt to death in Chincholi Sindphana, Maharashtra and a Dalit woman being paraded naked in Mulgaon. I am sure, there are many such incidents that go unreported every day. Inspite of crimes against Dalits being reported in the national media, atrocities against them continue. This shows the fearless attitude of the so-called upper castes. Even today, when governments in both state as well as in centre have changed then also Dalits continue to remain worried. The polices refusal to entertain the complaints of Dalit victims is typical. It is they who should be punished for failing to perform their duties. The offender should be given deterrent punishment. The gruesome incident shows how deep-rooted the caste system is. Although, there are laws prohibiting untouchability and atrocities on Dalits, such incidents continue to happen. Now, they are debating and trying to dissolve this law on the pretext of its misuse. As long as mindset of the people dont change, it is impossible to eradicate the social evil. Our country, it appears, will never see any social change.

The humiliation of the 42-year-old Dalit woman is something all should be ashamed of. The offenders should be given stringent punishment. Incidents like these deserve immediate attention of the state. The attack was both gender and caste-based. The plight of the Dalit sugarcane worker who was burnt to death and the woman who was paraded naked is not something we should read about and forget. The state of the homeless, landless and illiterate Dalits is the same as it was centuries ago. They remain slaves of independent India. All talk of their uplift by politicians is a tamasha. The news that a 42-year-old Dalit woman was beaten, stripped and paraded naked by five persons belonging to an upper caste at Mulgaon village in Maharashtra was shocking. The fact that such barbaric incidents continue to occur even in this age is a blot on civilised society. The increasing attacks on Dalits and other underprivileged sections is a grim pointer to the fact that mental barriers that divide and discriminate people on the basis of narrow considerations such as caste and creed need to be demolished in order to attain an egalitarian society. It is not enough to arrest the perpetrators. They should be given stringent punishment which serves as an effective deterrent.

A Dalit woman was allegedly stripped and beaten mercilessly by members of an upper caste family in Satara district. What was the reason? Simple, her son was having an affair with a girl from their family. The victim was a 42-year-old widow and lives with her then 21-year-old son in Mulgaon village. Both work as labourers, and belong to the Matang community. What was her fault? Why the society is still so conservative?

Her son had an affair with the upper caste Maratha girl, and the couple had disappeared from the village two weeks before the incidence. The girls father kept inquiring with boys mother about their whereabouts. About 15 members of the Desai family approached the victim while she was fetching water from the common village well. There they allegedly beat her with shoes, stones and sticks, and then, after stripping her, dragged her to a tree in the village, tied her up, and started beating her again. This incident happened for almost two hours, and the police did not file a complaint on that day.

Dalit Mahasangh activists took the victim to a hospital in Karad. The Patan police arrested two men and three women from the Desai clan, as per the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. However, no so called Dalit leaders were there to meet her. There are many such cases that go unreported due to fear, oppression and poverty. Even today, we the so called civilized people fight over reservations and quota by politicizing every issue but forget to strengthen the basic structure of this society. We need to be given dignity to human life, thats it. Perhaps, few people can notice that unsocial activities are also happening in this very state too, that doesnt mean we would brand it as an unsocial state and reject its people. Respect people irrespective of their caste, creed, religion or region. There are some highly educated people who are indulging in regional discrimination here, which is spoiling the idea of freedom in our own country.

Honour killing and other such atrocities are going on because of anachronism in Indian society. The younger generation wants Western independence in choosing the mates but continue to show Oriental dependence on family support for all other necessities of life. Most families, except the open-minded ones, still believe that marriage means family alliance and not merely two individuals signing the wedding register. Until the younger generation becomes independent and autonomous in all aspects of their lives like their Western counterparts, such atrocities unfortunately will continue to occur. These kind of atrocities against Dalit women is a testament to the fact that India is still in the dark age. Living in fear is a consequence of poverty, fear to ones life and that of their kith and kin.

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
Khopkar rebukes the statement issued by Salman Khan in support of Pakistani artists and threatens to take action against them.

The statement issued by actor Salman Khan in support of Pakistan artists has not gone down well with MNS Chitrapat Sena president Amey Khopkar. He said that at a time when Indian army is carrying out surgical strikes against terrorists it is not right to allow Pakistani artists to work in India. According to him people always say that it is not right to mix art with politics but India should sever ties with Pakistan which is known for promoting terrorism. Khopkar also threatened to beat Pakistani artists who are found to work in India.

When Bajrangi Bhaijaan director Kabir Khan had gone to Pakistan he didnt receive a good reception there. On the other hand, we still continue to welcome Pakistani artists and allow them to work here. We should not compromise on nations security, Amey Khopkar said.

Its not the right time to shake hands with Pakistan. Pakistani artists dont come on work visa but tourist visas. Action should be taken against them, he added.

Khopkar also threatened to protest against production house employing Pakistani artistes. If anybody in India will work with Pakistani actors or artistes, we will protest against them. Pakistani artists will be beaten up and so will the producers and directors, Khopkar said.

Following the Uri terror attack, the MNSs Chitrapat Sena (film workers association) issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Pakistani artistes to leave the country and had even threatened physical violence against them and anyone who cast them in their productions.

State industries Minister and Shiv Sena leader Subash Desai said, We should not allow Pakistani artists to work in India. Salman Khan has issued irresponsible statements and he should have first spoken to his father before making this comment.

Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant said, We should not allow Pakistan artists to work in our country at a time our armed forces are safeguarding our country. Pakistan has been known for promoting terrorism hence it was necessary for India to carry out surgical strikes to teach them a lesson. I appreciate the initiative taken by Indian army to strike in PoK under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Supporting Salman, renounced filmmaker Shyam Benegal says, Artists came because they were called for some project, whats their fault? Pakistani Government has nothing to do with the individuals.

Earlier Salman Khan backed Pakistan artists who are working in India. He said, Those who killed our soldiers in Uri were terrorists. Pakistani artistes are not terrorists. They work after getting proper documents from the government.

Salman issued these statements after a resolution was passed by Indian Motion Picture Producers Association banning Pakistan actors and technicians from working in India.
Google will open a new Cloud Region in Mumbai that will help the tech giant offer its cloud platform services to developers and enterprise customers in India.

Expected to be live in 2017, the local region in India will help make Google cloud platform services even faster for Indian customers, Google said in a statement.

The announcement was made at the Horizon event in San Francisco. However, the company did not disclose any financial details. The business-to-business (B2B) based Cloud services have also been re-branded as Google Cloud.

With more than one billion end-users, Google Cloud has gained significant traction in India and across the world. Its global customers include Snap Inc (formerly SnapChat), Niantic Labs (Pokemon Go), Telus International, and Evernote, among others.

In India too, we have seen great customer momentum with thousands of customers including major brands like Wipro, Ashok Leyland, Smartshift by Mahindra & Mahindra, Dainik Bhaskar Group and INshorts.com building on Google Cloud Platform, it said.

The move is expected to help the American company catch up with bigger rivals Microsoft and Amazon Web Services in the cloud marketplace in the country.

Setting up of a local data centre within India will also help the company cater to a larger number of customers, especially in government or financial services sectors that often have regulations that do not permit data to be transmitted outside the country. Brian Stevens, Vice President of Google Cloud said that by expanding to new regions, Google will be able to deliver better performance to customers.

In fact, our recent expansion in Oregon resulted in up to 80 per cent improvement in latency for customers. We look forward to welcoming customers to our new Cloud Regions as they become publicly available throughout 2017, he added.

The company has announced locations of seven new Google Cloud Regions  Singapore, Sydney, Northern Virginia, Sao Paulo, London, Finland and Frankfurt  that will come online through 2017, like the one in Mumbai.
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) today to discuss the situation in the wake of the surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.

PM Modi had also chaired a CCS meeting to review the situation along the Line of Control (LoC) on Thursday,

The army, sources said, targeted seven terrorist launch pads two kilometres across the LoC and that scores of terrorists were killed.
Sri Lanka on Friday expressed its unwillingness to attend the upcoming SAARC Summit in Islamabad, saying the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the summit.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Colombo, in a statement, said that the SAARC Charter requires that decisions at all levels are taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States as well.

Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia. As a founding member of SAARC, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our regions peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation, it said.

Sri Lanka condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, and stresses in this regard, the need to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region in a decisive manner, the statement said.

Sri Lanka has cordial ties with both India and Pakistan, and had refrained from comments on the two sides earlier.

However on Friday, the Foreign Ministry said: The General Provisions of the SAARC Charter require that decisions at all levels be taken on the basis of unanimity and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States as well, pointing to the lapse of consensus.

As a founding member of SAARC, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our regions peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation, the Ministrys statement added.

Founded in 1985, SAARC currently has India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal and Pakistan as its members.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28, 2016 - Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup weedkiller and the most widely used herbicide in the world, is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans, a new study by a panel of scientists has found. Glyphosate manufacturer Monsanto commissioned the study from Intertek Scientific & Regulatory Consultancy in Canada, which assembled the 15-member panel.

Monsanto undertook the effort to respond to a 2015 report from the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that found glyphosate probably causes cancer in humans.

IARC said it came to that conclusion based on limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma and convincing evidence that glyphosate also can cause cancer in laboratory animals.

The new study, published online today in the journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology, is the latest to tackle the question of glyphosate's carcinogenic potential. A report released by EPA Sept. 16 in anticipation of a Scientific Advisory Panel meeting next month on the subject reached conclusions similar to those in the Monsanto-funded study.

Said Monsanto: These findings by the panel come at an important time, after so much unnecessary confusion and concern has been caused by IARC's classification of glyphosate.

The panel's findings are consistent with the conclusions of regulatory authorities around the world. In fact, since IARC classified glyphosate, regulatory authorities in the United States, Europe, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Australia have publicly reaffirmed that glyphosate does not cause cancer.

Nathan Donley, a scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the latest study offered nothing new beyond EPA's previously released report. He said it was no surprise (that) a Monsanto-funded study found that glyphosate does not cause cancer.

Eight of the 15 authors served as independent consultants for Monsanto on the European Glyphosate Task Force, and two others have been employed by Monsanto and served as consultants. The paper contains a detailed declaration of interest, and a table posted when the preliminary results were released contains additional information on the panelists.

The Intertek authors noted the differences between their process and IARC's.

IARC reviews and assesses  data in the context of hazard (i.e. inherent carcinogenic potential), not risk (i.e. the likelihood of carcinogenic effects at exposure levels humans may encounter). As a result, the conclusion of IARC is often solely associated with hazard.

In addition, IARC only reviews data included in: reports that have been published or accepted for publication in the openly available scientific literature' or data from governmental reports that are publicly available' the study said, quoting IARC's own procedures.

The 15 scientists assembled by Intertek organized themselves into four panels covering toxicology, mechanism, exposure and epidemiology. The first three of those evaluated all of the available scientific data, including the results of a number of unpublished reports, some of which have been submitted to and reviewed by regulatory authorities, the paper said.

Donley criticized the use of unpublished data. When the bulk of your analysis involves unpublished studies that have been hidden from the public, then anyone should be skeptical, he said. IARC has been the gold standard for research on cancer for the last 50 years. IARC's is the only analysis done so far that has only taken into account publicly available data that you and I can access. As far as I'm concerned, if industry feels that their research should be analyzed, they need to make their studies available to the public.

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The Intertek authors, however, defended their use of unpublished data, which have been summarized in publicly available tables. They specifically cited tables compiled by Larry D. Kier and David J. Kirkland, who both served on the Intertek panel.

The rationale supporting the inclusion of these additional studies is that the supplementary tables presented in the Kier and Kirkland paper contain sufficient detail supporting the reliability of the studies, the paper said. Failure to evaluate and consider the large number of results included in the publication by Kier and Kirkland, as well as other publicly available studies not reviewed by IARC, results in an inaccurate assessment of glyphosate's potential genotoxicity.

IARC concluded that there was strong evidence that glyphosate causes genotoxicity, but the Intertek panel's weight-of-evidence assessment provides strong support for a lack of genotoxicity, particularly in the relevant mechanism categories (mutation, chromosomal effects) associated with carcinogen prediction, according to the paper.

#30

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This week we learned that the Everyday Everywhere movement  until now a group of loosely affiliated Instagram feeds  is becoming a full-fledged network on a single new platform. The Everday idea started with the Everyday Africa feed, which aimed to provide a 
An Iraqi Assyrias's Plea to American Voters: Defeat The Status Quo

For hundreds of thousands of voiceless people, the 2016 presidential election in the United States is a life or death situation. Assyrian Christians, Yezidis, and other highly endangered minorities in Iraq and the Middle East cannot bear another four years of disastrous American foreign policy. The Assyrian people are a stateless nation which has suffered centuries upon centuries of genocides simply because they are Christians. In this election, the American people will have the opportunity to elect a candidate who will put the country first and prevent future terrorist attacks through tough, smart foreign policy. That same foreign policy could also save the historical and biblical people of Nineveh from a holocaust. I grew up under Sharia Law and have watched my people live as second class citizens. In first grade, I was slapped by my teacher simply because I was a Christian and she demanded that I stop identifying as one. I refused and ran out of the school, because I knew even at such a young age, that she had violated both my ethnic and religious rights. Now--with the rise of the "jayvee team" ISIS (and thanks to President Obama)--my people are suffering more than ever. Consider this: In 2003, the population of Assyrians in Iraq was 1.5 million. Today, the population is less than 300,000. The instability of the region has given a green light to radical Islamic groups to commit genocide against our people simply because they are the indigenous Christians. ISIS monsters now give Christians and Yezidis in Iraq three options: convert, pay the jizya (Islamic tax), or die. The jizya is so high, that the real option is to either convert or die. With no means to defend themselves, over 200,000 Christians fled the Nineveh Plain. Numerous more are still missing. In Qaraqosh, one of the largest Christian communities within Iraq, over 1,500 Christians have been slaughtered. When the genocide began at the hands of ISIS, I was determined to expose it. I remember the day in which my relatives from Iraq had called my family in the United States. They asked us, "How can we stop these horrible terrorists?" There is a way to stop them. The United States needs to support the right people within the region, such as the Assyrians and their security force known as the Nineveh Plain Protection Units. Many of the countries that the U.S. currently believes to be its allies cannot be trusted. But, the Assyrian people can be trusted. They are peace loving people with principles and interests that are fully compatible and conducive to the principles and goals of the United States of America. Unfortunately, just two weeks before ISIS invaded Nineveh, the Kurdish Regional Government disarmed the Assyrians and Yezidis; leaving them defenseless against the medieval terrorist group. The United States should forge a long lasting relationship with the Assyrians and the Nineveh Plain Protection Units which would shape the future of Iraq for and better the entire Middle East as a whole. The Assyrian Christians and Yezidi's are in need of an internationally protected Nineveh and Sinjar regions under the central government of Iraq. These will be protected semi-autonomous regions for the natives under their own governance. Eventually, a large number of Assyrians in the diaspora want to return to their homelands just like the Jews came back to their ancestral lands. I just returned from Washington D.C where Rep. Jeff Fortenberry introduced House Resolution 152 which demands an internationally protected semi-autonomous region for the indigenous peoples of Nineveh. The United States is the prime target for ISIS and Hillary Clinton will continue the status quo of blindly supporting countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar who propagate terrorism. Through the Clinton Foundation, violent Islamic nations have bought Mrs. Clinton's silence with millions of dollars in donations. Time is running out. Both Secretary of State John Kerry and the Pope have labeled what ISIS is doing as genocide. What are we waiting for? My brothers and sisters, let us safeguard humanity together as one united nation. I miss the America in which my family migrated to almost thirty years ago. The United States of America is the strongest nation in the world, but do we think we are indestructible? What has happened to the Assyrian nation in Iraq is an example of what can happen here. Please help me save my people both here and abroad from ISIS and terrorism!
September 30, 2016

ALEPPO  The Syrian regimes military airplanes and helicopters are intensely shelling the neighborhoods in Aleppo under the Syrian oppositions control. On Sept. 28, the warplanes targeted a bakery in al-Maadi neighborhood, east of Aleppo, while people were gathering to buy bread. As a result, six people were killed and five others were wounded.

Al-Halak, Baidin, al-Sakhour, Sheikh Khadr, Masakin Hanano, Sheikh Fares, al-Haydariyat and al-Shakif neighborhoods were shelled on Sept. 30. Seven people were killed and others wounded  as of the time of this writing  while some still remain stuck under the rubble as residential buildings have been destroyed. This scene has been recurring since Sept. 19.

On Sept. 19, the Syrian regime announced its decision of noncompliance with the cease-fire reached under US-Russian brokerage and blamed the armed opposition factions for this collapse, as they had breached the truce 300 times, according to the regime.

For its part, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces accused Russia and the regime forces of breaching the truce, especially after Russian and regime aircraft targeted an aid convoy of about 20 Red Crescent trucks as they were crossing Urum al-Kubra village in Aleppos western countryside. As a result, the convoy was destroyed, 12 people were killed and others were wounded, most of whom were Red Crescent staff, including Omar Barakat, the head of the agency in Urum al-Kubra.

The Syrian regimes escalation against civilians in Aleppo coincides with the blockade the regime forces have been imposing on more than 250,000 civilians in opposition-held neighborhoods in Aleppo since Sept. 4.

Indications of a blockade have been clear in the citys eastern neighborhoods whose markets looked empty of basic foodstuff, and the citizens were living on their stored food supplies, such as rice and bulgur.

Abdel Qader from al-Qaterji neighborhood told Al-Monitor, Aleppo has turned into a death trap. The 1-month-old blockade on the city persists, while the air force and shelling, and the military helicopters continue to shell inhabited neighborhoods. My family and I survived death by a miracle. A missile from a military aircraft fell near our building in al-Qaterji neighborhood while we were in it. I felt it was the end. Everything was devastating, and the thump of the missile was deafening. The house started to collapse with splinters everywhere, and the balcony was destroyed on impact.

He added, I did not know what to do. I only heard the explosion and the wailing of my mother, sister and wife. Thank God we are all alive. My fathers leg was broken, and my nephew suffered mild head injuries. How long will this last? Dont we deserve to live in peace and security like everyone else? Dont our children have the right to a sense of security and go to school? I have young siblings and a 4-year-old daughter.

In the wake of the regime forces escalation, hospitals in Aleppo were flooded with wounded people, amid the lack of medical staff due to the blockade on the city and the fact that most doctors are in Aleppos countryside, which is under the Syrian oppositions control. Whats worse, the regime forces were targeting hospitals in the city intermittently.

In his speech before the representatives of 15 member states of the UN Security Council on Sept. 28, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon classified the attacks on Aleppos hospitals and the use of fatal weapons as war crimes.

In this vein, Aref al-Aref, an emergency room technician at a hospital in Aleppo, told Al-Monitor, Ever since the regime forces announced noncompliance with the truce, the air raids on Aleppos neighborhoods have not stopped round-the-clock. The Syrian-Russian aircraft used everything from cluster bombs to phosphorus grenades and thermobaric bombs that cause mass destruction in the targeted region. Those were used in al-Kalasa and Tareeq al-Bab neighborhoods. Since Sept. 19, there have been more than 400 dead people and over 1,000 wounded. Hospitals and medical staff are under pressure due to the blockade on Aleppo. Unfortunately, many injuries need urgent surgical interventions. But due to the shortage of specialized doctors and the high number of wounded civilians, nothing can be done at the moment.

He added, We were aided by medical staff in Aleppos countryside and hospitals in the past. But now the situation is more complex, amid the blockade and daily wounded people flooding to the hospitals.

The escalation on civilian areas in Aleppo was coupled with military escalation from regime forces on the citys northern fronts. With the support of the Palestinian Al-Quds Brigades, the regime forces managed to control on Sept. 29 the Handarat camp, north of Aleppo, following violent battles with the Syrian opposition that lasted for several days and included heavy air raids from Syrian and Russian warplanes. Meanwhile, the regime is escalating its assault on Aleppos fronts to enter the citys eastern neighborhoods to exploit its blockade on civilians and military officers.

Aleppos citizens are facing tough days. They are besieged until further notice, living under the mercy of military warplanes bombs. They are hoping for the return of security and safety, which they have been missing for more than four years, and they look with passion to the near future.
September 30, 2016

The Eda Haharedit community, the prominent anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox community in Israel, has been raging and roiling in recent weeks. The discovery of an episode that touches on the core of the groups ideology has caused a shock and a conflict that has involved insults, vandalism and even physical violence. The cause of the controversy: The administrators of the communitys educational institutions who claim, seemingly, not to depend in any way on the states funding, secretly enjoyed government money.

It all started in June when the parents of the girls school Hokhmat Lev, located in the ultra-Orthodox Meah Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem, were surprised to learn that the school, contrary to its principals official assertion, secretly receives funding from the Israeli Ministry of Education. This was uncovered after a Ministry of Education supervisor was spotted by one of the parents at the schools office. From that moment the suspicion arose among parents that theres secret cooperation between the school and the Ministry of Education, and after an independent investigation by parents it turned out that the institution does indeed secretly receive funding from the state by means of a nonprofit organization unknown to the parents.

Parents, members of the ultra-Orthodox sector who send their girls to this school, belong to one of the anti-Zionist groups in Israel. These groups ideologically oppose any connection to the Zionist state including receiving its funds. In their view, receiving funds from the state means creating dependency that invites the government's unacceptable involvement in curricula.

In this case, it wasnt only parents of the ultra-Orthodox sector who were angry. The ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist Satmar community in the United States, which funds the Hokhmat Lev school and other schools through a charity called Shekel Hatahor (Pure Shekel)  on the condition that these institutions will not benefit from government funding  was no less angry. Satmar sources argued in conversation with Al-Monitor that the school enjoys funding from three sources: the state; tuition from parents, levied because the school claims not to receive government funding; and aid from Satmar budgets.

According to the principal of Hokhmat Lev, Rabbi Alter Koifman, he knew nothing about the school receiving government funds, and others were involved without his knowledge. He claimed in a conversation with Al-Monitor that state budgets did not fund the schools educational activity. A source from the community who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity argued that the guilty party is a woman known in the community, who is close to Koifman, who did so to gather money to fund childrens weddings.

What destroyed the parents faith in the schools administration was the fact that the principal refused to send an official request to the Ministry of Education to stop the budgets for the new school year. They deceived and lied to us, a father of a 10-year-old pupil at the school told Al-Monitor on the condition his name not be divulged. We feel betrayed in the deepest way. We pay a high personal price for our ideology. They took advantage of our faith for evil, when there is actually full cooperation with Zionist institutions.

According to the pupil's father, the parents demand to fire the schools administrative staff is basic, and its not even designed to punish the people who betrayed the parents trust. They [the administration] proved that they are liars, and they cant continue to run the school for one more day.

After the revelation, unknown individuals came to the school one night, locked its gates with heavy locks, spray painted black paint all over the building and scattered rotten fish all around it. Around the same time, groups of protesters tried to vandalize the property on a daily basis. Demonstrators also held protests in front of administrators homes. Only private security guards hired by the administrators stopped the protesters. Help from the Zionist police to defend the building was something no one in the anti-Zionist community had even dared to consider until then.

In the meantime, a group of parents opened another school called The Original Hokhmat Lev. They say that the school not only declares it doesnt receive government funds, it makes sure it never will.

The revelation of this incident caused significant agitation among anti-Zionist groups in Israel and around the world, and brought about a significant re-evaluation with the Hasidic Satmar group. The sects governing body, centered in New York, decided on new regulations, whereby schools that declare they dont receive Israeli government funding and request financial assistance from the Satmar will have to provide students information to ascertain with the Ministry of Education that the educational institution does not benefit from government support.

This incident has created an absurd situation where anti-Zionist organizations will crosscheck information with the Ministry of Education to ensure that their students are not funded by the state. We still havent been able to understand what happened, and it may be that the administration really didnt know about the government funding, a Satmar source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. Whats clear is that the party is over. From now on our regulations will prevent such mistakes from happening. Cross-checking with the Ministry of Education doesnt deter us.

An official source at the Ministry of Education told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the ministry funds many anti-Zionist institutions in Israel, including in the Arab sector, and that loyalty to the state is not a condition for funding. The source added, We have a problem with a false declaration to parents, and contrary to conspiracy theories among these communities, we have no interest in forcibly funding anyone. If we receive an orderly request that proves that the institution lied to parents, the issue will undergo a disciplinary hearing.
September 30, 2016

TEHRAN, Iran  President Hassan Rouhanis trips to New York have always been followed by some controversy inside Iran. On his first trip, which took place in September 2013, he ended up having a phone conversation with the US president. On his third trip, in September 2015, his Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif shook hands with President Barack Obama.

However, Rouhanis latest trip to New York on Sept. 20-22, which was his last trip to New York during his first term as the president of Iran, was not controversial. Since Rouhanis first term is coming to an end and the high-ranking officials of the state are warning that Iran should avoid establishing any form of relations with the United States, Rouhanis delegation left Tehran without having any unexpected meetings in its agenda.

Indeed, this time around, the reactions to Rouhanis trip were different. First, the number of empty seats during his speech at the UN General Assembly meeting became a hot topic on Facebook and Twitter. Although Iranians were used to seeing former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad give speeches to empty chairs, Rouhani had the reputation of talking in front of a sizable audience during his past three trips to New York. Newspaper Vatan-e-Emrooz, which is one of the main mouthpieces of the hard-liners, published an image of Rouhani giving a talk in front of empty chairs on the front page of its Sept. 24 issue, taking up half the page. It also attacked the Reformists and supporters of the administration in a harsh editorial. This newspaper  which usually reserves its harshest criticism for Rouhanis administration, his foreign policy and particularly the way his team conducted the negotiations  wrote in its editorial, Reformists, big and small, made a big deal out of the issue of the empty seats when our former president visited the United Nations. However, this does not mean that we should behave the same way now that their administration is faced with the same occurrence. We are not interested in taking cheap shots and talking about the number of empty seats. We evaluate Mr. Rouhanis performance in New York based on the content of his speech, his meetings with the other representatives and what he has managed to accomplish during his trip.

But why were so many seats empty? Why was it that this time, unlike previous times, the speech of the Iranian president was not well received? A source in Irans Ministry of Foreign Affairs who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity said, The time allocated to each representative is previously determined based on the importance and rank of the speaker. At first, only Mr. Zarif was supposed to give a speech as Irans representative, which is why he was scheduled to talk on the third day after all the heads of state had finished their speeches. However, after internal discussions, it was decided that the president himself should go as the head of the Iranian delegation to New York. By this time, however, it was not possible to change the schedule of speeches. In previous years, when Mr. Rouhani gave a speech on the first or the second day, the assembly hall was full. This year, however, his speech was on the third day and by that time, many officials had already left New York.

Kayhan, another hard-line newspaper in Iran, covered Rouhanis speech at the UN in its Sept. 24 issue, using a sarcastic headline: The United States promised to fulfill its obligations. This newspaper has in the past continuously criticized Rouhani, in its daily editorial section, for trusting the Americans. Its Sept. 24 editorial read, Mr. Rouhani! When the United States refuses to meet its obligations regarding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which is, as mentioned, an international agreement  and comes up with a new excuse every day  do you expect them to keep their verbal promises? It has been more than seven months since the agreement was implemented and the United States has only given empty promises in exchange for real advantages it has received from Iran. Almost all of its promises have been left unfulfilled.

Both Vatan-e-Emrooz and Kayhan devoted the front-page headline of their next issue, on Sept. 25, to Zarifs Sept. 23 appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations. Under the headline Nothing Zarif, Vatan-e-Emrooz highlighted a quote from the foreign minister saying, Because of the United States breaking its promises, no European bank is willing to work with Iran. On the same day, Kayhan, under the headline Zarif finally saw the truth in what the critics were saying, quoted the foreign minister as saying that the United States has not gone to any length to fulfill its obligations under the nuclear deal.

Meanwhile, attention was also paid to the fact that Rouhanis trip to New York was quite short and that his delegation was small in number. On Sept. 23, in an editorial titled The secret behind the empty seats in the presidential plane, Katayoun Lame'zadeh, a veteran correspondent for the official Islamic Republic News Agency, wrote, Unlike Ahmadinejad who used to take his relatives and family members with him, Rouhanis plane was so empty that [accompanying] journalists had four seats each. Lamezadeh, who accompanied Rouhani to the UN General Assembly meeting, continued, Ahmadinejad would sometimes take as many as 200 people with him to New York, 14 of whom were family members, including his daughter-in-law and grandchildren as well as the spouses of his vice presidents and his chief of staff. This is while Rouhanis wife has never accompanied him on his trips to New York, and neither his chief of staff nor any of his deputies have ever been accompanied by their family members.

Nonetheless, Rouhanis opponents were overall once again busy criticizing the administration, with the pretext that the United States has not fulfilled its obligations under the nuclear deal. And if anything, this criticism only seems to increase whenever either Rouhani or Zarif use an international podium to complain about the United States not holding up its own end of the bargain.
September 29, 2016

The passing of Israels former prime minister and president on Sept. 28 sparked strong reactions all over the world, and Iran was no exception. At the age of 93, Shimon Peres died at a hospital in Tel Aviv after having suffered a stroke weeks earlier.

As of this writing, no reactions from any Iranian officials have been reported. However, the news of Peres death was widely covered in the official news outlets and the rhetoric across the articles and obituaries varied substantially.

An obituary published by Fars News on Sept. 28, "The death of the 'Qana executioner' after a two-week coma," stressed Peres support of Israeli settlers in the occupied Palestinian areas along with his military actions including the shelling of a Lebanese village near Qana. It did not mention the Oslo peace process. Fars News is a media outlet with ties to Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Kayhan, a conspicuously hard-line newspaper in Iran that stands in outright opposition to Irans current government, published its own obituary Sept. 29, "The Qana executioner and the architect behind the green sedition went to hell." Green Sedition  or simply, "the sedition"  is commonly used among political hard-line factions to describe the protests in the aftermath of the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, demonstrations that were harshly suppressed and resulted in many arrests and deaths of protesters.

In the obituary, Kayhan called the Unites States, Great Britain and Israel the ominous triangle that shaped the green sedition in the Reformist era, an indirect reference to President Mohammad Khatamis term (1997-2005). In the obituary, Kayhan accused Peres of initiating and supporting the 2009 protests in Iran.

The Zionist oppressor is a common expression used in Iran's official media outlets indicating Irans refusal to recognize Israel and consideration of it as an occupying power. However, on Sept. 29, the pro-reform Shargh Daily's obituary, "Death with two faces," called Peres the founder of Israels violations. Its writer listed the controversial Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon but notably called Israel by its name and not the Zionist oppressor.

In what might be regarded as the most flattering example of an obituary published in Iran about Peres, Shargh's piece read, In the 1980s he came to the conclusion that peace with the Arabs will not be achieved through military means.  He withdrew the Israeli troops from large parts of Lebanon and created the public sense that the war had reached its end.

There was also a wide range of reactions to Peres death among Iranians on social media. On Sept. 28, a Twitter user surprised by the reactions of Arab officials called it "the end of the world" when the foreign minister of Bahrain tweeted Rest in peace, President Shimon Peres. Meanwhile, on Sept. 27, another criticized IRGC-linked Tasnim News for its coverage, tweeting, Peres record should and must be criticized. But captions like 'he died' are against basic journalistic principles.
September 30, 2016

Jerusalem restaurant owners claim that members of the radical right group Lehava  the Hebrew acronym for Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land  are threatening them with violence if they employ Arabs. In addition to making threats, Lehava activists have also carried out a series of violent attacks in Jerusalem against Arab laborers, taxi drivers and passersby. The attacks began soon after three Israeli youths were kidnapped and murdered by Palestinians in the West Bank in June 2014, and according to city restaurateurs, there has been a dramatic rise in such incidents since then. They claim that dozens of Lehava thugs go Arab hunting, especially on Thursdays, when yeshiva students begin their break for Sabbath, and on Saturday evenings, when they head back to their seminaries.

It has become routine, the owner of one of Jerusalems better known restaurants told Al-Monitor, requesting anonymity. Each one of us restaurant owners knows that Thursdays and Saturday nights are terrible days on which we declare an emergency alert.

Business owners and their Jewish employees are having to physically defend Arab workers and confront the right-wing radicals despite the danger in doing so. We dont relax until the last of the Lehava activists disappears from the center of town and the pedestrian mall, and we make sure our workers dont go home on their own, the owner said. We always try to make some arrangement to avoid a catastrophe. Saturday evening is the worst. They [yeshiva students] dont go back to their schools until they have finished venting their rage on the Arab staff and threatening the employers.

He added, A series of brutal attacks by Lehava activists have taken place in my restaurant in recent weeks, because most of my employees are Arabs. Calls to the police, he said, are usually met with indifference.

Lehava, also the Hebrew word for flame, was founded in 2009 by the right-wing extremist Ben Zion Benzi Gopstein. Its declared aim when established was to prevent the assimilation of Jews, but over time and in light of the hundreds of people who have joined the group and support it, its activities and targets have expanded. Now the group openly declares on its website that it is agitating for Jewish work in the Holy Land. It regards the employment of Arabs by Jewish business owners, or in places where Jews are employed, as leading to assimilation, something that must be stopped at all costs by attacking Arab employees and threatening Jewish employers.

Dan Biron, the owner of Jerusalems Birman Restaurant, said that his workers are scared and will not talk to the press. He himself is not afraid to speak out.

A few weeks ago, one of my workers went to throw out the trash, he told Al-Monitor. Suddenly he was punched in the face. When he turned around, two others assaulted him and started beating him up. He left the trash cart and fled. I quickly went out and saw two cops on a motorcycle. I told them what had happened, and they said they would send a squad car. To this day, not a single police car has shown up.

Since then, Biron said, four more violent attacks have been carried out against his Arab staff. Now he accompanies them when they leave the premises.

Another restaurant owner said he, too, has received threats not to employ Arabs, but they were veiled. They dont tell you, Well burn down your restaurant, but they let you get the gist of what theyre telling you, he said.

After a number of incidents and the sense among restaurant owners that the Jerusalem police were essentially ignoring the violence and threats by these right-wing radicals, the Israel Religious Action Center, run by the Reform Judaism movement, launched Lehava Is Burning Jerusalem. The campaign is designed to raise awareness about the violence and put pressure on enforcement agencies to combat the phenomenon.

The Reform center interviewed and filmed Arab workers who claim to have been beaten by Lehava activists and described the terrifying experience. They all recalled how the activists came up to them and asked a banal question, like What time is it?  probably to ensure they were Arab judging by their accent when they responded. When it turned out their target was in fact an Arab, they threw punches until the victim bled.

Itamar Gvir, a lawyer and Lehava activist, told Al-Monitor that the restaurant owners are lying, saying, If they have proof of being threatened, why dont they lodge an official complaint with the police? He claims the restaurateurs are simply out for publicity.

Biron, on the other hand, says restaurant owners are simply afraid of retaliation. Even without the Lehava violence, things in Jerusalem are tough for business, he said. Restaurant owners dont want to take the risk of messing with those hotheaded thugs. No one wants their restaurant burned down or damaged.

Meanwhile, Lehava is expanding its target list. On Sept. 22, Lehava members, led by Gopstein, rioted at the Manofim arts festival in Jerusalem due to the participation of an Armenian church choir. The intruders yelled These are murderers of Jews and Go to Syria. Responding to the event, the Tag Meir (Light Tag) anti-racism forum organized another evening of choir performances. The forums chairman, Gadi Gvaryahu, told Al-Monitor, We will show up to shed light and spread joy anywhere the thugs of the right come to spread hatred.

That said, those who should show up first and stop these violent attacks are the police.
September 28, 2016

BAGHDAD  The Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) do not hold any legal status in Iraq, with the exception of the Council of Ministers decision July 25, which considers the PMU a force working in parallel with the counterterrorism department at the Ministry of Interior. This means that anti-PMU parties or individuals can still press charges against some PMU elements. Therefore, the Shiite Iraqi National Alliance has been seeking to pass a new law it calls PMU legal immunity before battles against the Islamic State (IS) come to an end.

The proposal was put forth by parliament members in the Security and Defense Committee along with former Justice Minister Hassan al-Shamari.

During a press conference Sept. 18, Shamari requested that the largely Shiite PMU not engage in battles and fighting in IS-controlled cities until said law is passed, warning against possible accusations of breaches against them following the liberation of some cities from IS clutches by the same groups who demanded they intervene to expel the terrorist group.

Iskandar Watout, the deputy head of parliaments Security and Defense Committee, told Al-Monitor, About 70 parliamentarians have signed the draft bill on legal immunity for PMU elements, whereby they would be treated on a legal par with any soldier in the Iraqi army.

He said, This immunity would define the rights and obligations of the PMU members and would consider their participation in the fighting against IS as legal and official.

Watout added, The immunity law would also guarantee the financial and legal rights of the security forces elements in the ministries of Interior and Defense.

As per Article 63 of the 2005 Iraqi Constitution, only members of parliament are granted diplomatic immunity, whereby they are entitled to express their views during parliamentary sessions without being subjected to litigation before courts or being apprehended.

Legally speaking, legal immunity means exempting certain individuals from certain obligation or liability, such as the application of general rules in judicial and criminal manners. Legal immunity is granted to parliamentarians at home and diplomatic figures during missions abroad. This means that such diplomatic figures would be exempted from the governing law in the state they are dispatched to in case of any criminal charges against them.

However, according to Haider Abdul Sahib, a member of parliament for the Rule of Law Coalition, the immunity law has its own legal justifications. Abdul Sahib told Al-Monitor, PMU members need the immunity law in light of the delay in passing the law on preventing any possible litigation against them, as they ought to receive the same treatment as any member of the security institutions at the very least. This issue is the prerogative of parliament.

The security forces of the ministries of Interior and Defense do not represent themselves, but the ministry and the government. The PMU forces are elements that have volunteered to fight against IS without any financial and legal guarantees; hence, it falls upon the legislature to secure their legal rights, he added.

In contrast, the parties opposing the draft bill to this effect believe it is anti-constitutional and a violation of the law. Hamid al-Mutlaq, a member of parliament for the Sunni Union of Iraqi Forces, is one of the advocates of this view. Mutlaq said that granting PMU forces and elements immunity would be a dangerous step threatening the national security and [coexistence among Iraqis].

Legal immunity is not even granted to security forces in the police and the army, so how would it be granted to the PMU, especially with the large numbers of people affiliated [with] the group? he told Al-Monitor.

We cannot deny that a lot of factions within the PMU have made sacrifices for the homeland, with many martyrs having died in liberating IS-controlled governorates. However, some of the members remain undisciplined and provoke matters and seek reprisals, violating human rights, Mutlaq said.

He added, All individuals should answer to the law, whether or not they belong to security institutions. If anything, a protocol or bylaws ought to be set to organize the work of the PMU, whereby they would be punished for any violations instead of resorting to an alien law, i.e., the immunity law for the PMU.

Many PMU members have recently been apprehended in Europe on terrorism charges, most recently in Austria, where the security forces on Sept. 20 arrested some elements belonging to the PMU-affiliated League of the Righteous on the grounds of being part of a terrorist group.

In this context, the immunity law seems more directed at protecting PMU elements abroad so that they will not be arrested outside Iraq.

The PMU members are practically part of the general command of the armed forces and therefore need a law to further legalize their status rather than an individual immunity law, observers say. This is especially true since no lawsuits have been brought against its members inside Iraq and it is unlikely that this will happen in the future.

The immunity draft bill could also be a response to the report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq on Aug. 1 on what it called violations and breaches of the international human rights law and international humanitarian law on the part of Iraqi security forces and their affiliated forces, including the PMU and peshmerga forces.

In any case, it is expected that a law regarding the PMU will pass, especially since a more powerful PMU  with its increased numbers and advanced weaponry  will emerge at the end of its fight against IS in Iraq. The pertinent question, however, is what form will the law take? Will it be a diplomatic immunity law that will be passed to the dismay of the opposing Sunni parties? Other question marks hover over this issue: Will the PMU be annexed to the ministries of Defense or Interior? Or could the PMU join the National Guard that possibly may be finally formed? All of these questions are likely to be answered following the end of the upcoming battle of Mosul, which will shape the countrys new phase after the city's liberation from the clutches of IS.
September 29, 2016

For nine months, the United Nations has attempted to force the so-called General National Accord (GNA) government on Libya. Despite myriad international pronouncements of support, the GNA has failed spectacularly to take hold on the ground. Regional squabbles, constitutional complexities affecting its legitimacy and its lack of institutional capacity impede the GNA's progress. Lurking behind all these proximal causes are its lack of revenue. It has never controlled Libya's key nodes of oil production and exports.

On Sept. 11, forces aligned with Gen. Khalifa Hifter, the GNA's most prominent rival, seized control of most of Libya's oil crescent ports  evicting the remaining pockets of Ibrahim Jadhran's federalists. In the wake of this momentous action, the two-year hiatus on international oil exports from Ras Lanuf, Sidra and Zueitina was speedily brought to an end. Since then, tankers have been loaded (mostly with crude that has been in deep storage in tanker farms) and funds for repairing oil facilities have been allocated. Soon, revenue from these oil shipments will flow back into Libya's coffers. To whom in Libya's complex, fractured institutional landscape will these funds go, and why are they being allowed to flow?

On Sept. 21, the same day that the first shipment of crude oil since 2014 left Ras Lanuf for Italy, the National Oil Corporation announced it had received a payment of 310 million Libyan dinars ($224 million) from the UN-backed Presidential Council  which functions as the GNA's executive body  to carry out repairs and maintenance at the oil facilities, and would receive another 620 million dinars paid in two equal amounts by the end of the year. The following day, 22 countries and international bodies  including key players such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Russia  issued a joint communique on Libya, reiterating commitment to the Libyan Political Agreement signed in Skhirat, Morocco, last year, as well as welcoming the nominal transfer of control of ports in the oil crescent to the National Oil Corporation and the resumption of exports.

On the face of it, after months of mishaps and accidents, lack of National Oil Corporation funding and diminished oil revenues, the reopening of these ports should be a cause for national celebration, especially given the dire economic straits Libya is in.

It is important to remember, however, that the architect of this revival is Hifter; the same man who has consistently opposed the GNA and the UN peace process, who refuses to recognize the authority of the Presidential Council and has made no secret of his admiration for military leaders, such as Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi. Yet the revenues from the oil exports he is allowing to flow are supposedly all channeled through the Tripoli-based Central Bank of Libya, which is under the control of the UN-backed Presidential Council. So why does Hifter allow this to happen when the funds will bolster the very political entity he wants to remove?

First, by seizing the oil crescent ports and reopening them, Hifter has earned a great deal of political legitimacy among Libyans, from both east and west, who were not previously supporting him. Hifter's move was brilliantly timed because his opponents from Misrata recently made progress against the Islamic State (IS) in Sirte and severely decreased the threat of terror attacks on port infrastructure. By letting the oil flow, Hifter can claim he is rising above politics and is acting in the best interests of the Libyan people, something the international community would be hard pressed to challenge given he has seemingly handed the ports over to the National Oil Corporation.

Likewise, if Hifter were to overtly seek to gain control over the Central Bank of Libya  whether by redirecting oil revenues or taking kickbacks from Libyan coffers  he would weaken his leadership credentials. On Sept. 21, the High Council of State, a consultative body enshrined by the Libyan Political Agreement, announced that it was "compelled" to take over full legislative powers from the House of Representatives as it had supported Hifter's coup, and also planned to appoint a new Central Bank of Libya chairman. The High Council of State's move was widely rejected as out of touch with reality  the Central Bank of Libya chairman, Sadiq al-Kabir, is seen as pro-Tripoli and not a fan of Hifter. That Hifter's opponents are failing to gain traction indicates that Libyans are increasingly valuing unity and power over division and tit-for-tat politics.

Second, Hifter now controls the Presidential Council's access to desperately needed oil revenues and can therefore use this as a bargaining tool to get what he wants. In fact, he could even seek to employ similar tactics as Jadhran  by blackmailing the Presidential Council by turning the spigot off. Libya's crude output has risen to 450,000 barrels per day already, up from 260,000 barrels a day last month. However, these numbers are deceptive because most of the increase is based on the finite amount of stored crude being finally exported. Nonetheless, some fields will be coming back online and production does seem to be able to be gradually ramped up.

Acknowledging the tremendous importance of these developments for any future GNA success, on Sept. 27, Prime Minister Fayez Serraj said Hifter or his close allies would be represented in the new government currently being drawn up by the Presidential Council. But this is unlikely to make Libya's powerful general suddenly subscribe to the process. Hifter's swift takeover has highlighted how little power the Presidential Council has on the ground; therefore, he would unlikely be satisfied with anything less than a complete reworking of the Libyan Political Agreement with him in a position of power.

Third, it is important to remember that despite the fighting and fragmentation in Libya, the Central Bank of Libya has largely continued to pay salaries to a whole host of opposing militias, including most of Hifter's Libyan National Army forces. Therefore, it is likely that Hifter's short-term funding priorities are focused on arms and ammunition rather than paying salaries, as in terms of arms purchases, access to Central Bank of Libya funds would be of little help in and of itself.

Instead, Hifter is looking to his international allies to access military supplies. In recent interviews, Hifter has acknowledged the intelligence support and advice his Libyan National Army receives from Egypt. And Egypt, in return, has reaffirmed its support for Hifter. Hifter has also been urging Russia, another ally, to help lift the UN arms embargo so that his forces can gain access to more arms and military equipment.

In short, Hifter's ambitions reach far beyond gaining access to specific amounts of Central Bank of Libya funding. He appears to be playing the long game; progressively building up legitimacy, leverage and influence. Since the start of the uprisings against Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi, Hifter has tried via various tactics and ruses to become Libya's strongman. It is in this light that we must interpret his current military maneuver in the oil crescent and generosity toward the GNA. He clearly hopes to finally acquire a strong enough position to seize the leadership of Libya for himself, whether through political negotiations or more likely through military force.

Fortunately for Libyans who aspire to constitutional governance, Hifter is not there yet, and he has many formidable foes  most notably the Misratan militias, who, conveniently for Hifter, have been battering down IS. Should Hifter make a power grab, the Misratans would fight to the bitter end before allowing such a staunchly anti-Islamist, former regime figure to seize power in Libya.

Nevertheless, Libyans are growing ever wearier of the relentless conflict, chaos and confusion that plague the country; if Hifter can demonstrate that he truly offers a more stable alternative, with the support of powerful allies such as Egypt, the UAE and Russia, it is conceivable that he might eventually achieve his dream  especially if the international political scene undergoes a vast upheaval in November because of the US elections.
September 29, 2016

CAIRO  A number of Salafists are calling for the Nour Party to suspend its activities in parliament, saying its lawmakers failed to block legislation they believe contradicts Sharia. Among their examples, they cite the recent law on building churches and the law increasing criminal penalties for female genital mutilation.

The Salafists say they have conducted an online vote on whether to freeze the Nour Partys participation in parliament. Most users of the Salafi websites and forums who participated voted for a freeze, the Salafists say.

The Nour Party has also hinted it might boycott the next municipal elections; in an internal referendum, about 80% of Salafi party members and supporters were opposed to participating.

The Nour Party is the only representative of the Islamist movement in the House of Representatives (Egypts parliament). The movement, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, was excluded from political life after the events beginning on June 30, 2013, where the military deposed President Mohammed Morsi.

Judge Tahani al-Gebali, the former deputy head of the Supreme Constitutional Court and the head of the Republican Alliance Party, discussed the Nour Party issue with Al-Monitor.

Since June 30 [2013], all parties operate under the idea that the state is secular and no party should claim to speak for God. This is because Egypt is protected by the constitution, especially the second article, which states that Islam is the religion of the state, Arabic is its official language and the principles of Islamic Sharia are the principles of legislation in Egypt. All parties, regardless of the difference of their ideologies, oblige themselves to the general principles of Islamic Sharia, Gebali said.

The popularity of parties based on religious thought is declining in general. Such a decline was obvious in election results and the indifference of public opinion toward the Nour Party, she added.

Gebali said the idea of basing an entire political party on religious references is questionable. She believes the Constitutional Court should decide the legitimacy of the Nour Party in the political arena.

The withdrawal of the Nour Party at such a time is considered to be politically clever, as it would retreat from a political role  something it hasnt been effective at currently  and rather engage in preaching work, an area the party is actively involved in.

Such a move would be designed to renew the party by pumping in fresh blood and by tugging at the emotions of current members in an attempt to persuade them that their withdrawal comes in defense of Islam.

She said the greater risk for the party is that if it continues to use issues that have religious components to stir controversy, it will increase friction between secular and religious parties. She called this the fight between the groups of darkness and enlightened secular thought deeply based on citizenship.

Gebali said, The emergence of religious parties came as a result of the weak education, economy and culture the Egyptian state suffers from, and of the revolutionary tolerance for Islamists after the January 25 [2011] Revolution.

She rejects the idea of letting these parties continue their political activities under the rationale that their only alternative is more terrorism and radicalism, as Egypt, throughout its history, could not coexist with these parties.

Nevertheless, she also pointed out that a full withdrawal of the Nour Party from parliament could threaten parliaments legitimacy in representing the people. The partys withdrawal, if it and other events wound up breaching the quorum, could result in calls for early parliamentary elections.

Hassan Nafea, a political science professor at Cairo University, told Al-Monitor that Nour Party supporters rejection of the law on building churches is dangerous, since this stance directly contradicts the constitution, which guarantees all citizens the right to freedom of religion.

He said, The rejection also warns that there is a sector of the population that refuses equality among citizens and rejects that citizens from other religions should practice their religious duties in their houses of worship.

Nafea said he would not be pleased if the party withdrew over the church or female genital mutilation laws, as this would mean the party is out of touch with the real political, social and economic problems afflicting citizens, such as the value-added tax and issues related to freedom such as the protest law and the surge in prices.

According to Nafea, holding early elections is unlikely, as the Nour Party holds only 12 parliament seats out of almost 600. Even if it withdraws or freezes its membership, this will not affect the majority at all and will not affect the quorum or the voting. The same goes for all political parties, he said, as together they hold 246 seats, which constitutes only 41% of the total. This means that the Egyptian parliament is divided and the regime is the only beneficiary.

Kamal El Helbawi, a former spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood in the West Delta, said, Parliamentary life will not be disrupted by the withdrawal of the Nour Party or of anyone else, as Egyptian parties are weak and none of them today seek power. Helbawi was part of the 50-member constitutional committee that drafted the Egyptian Constitution in 2014.

Helbawi told Al-Monitor there will not be calls for early elections, only by-elections in the wards where Nour representatives withdraw, similar to what happened in March when Tawfiq Okasha was ousted from parliament after he hosted the Israeli ambassador at his house.

Anwar El Sadat, the president of the Reform and Development Party and head of the parliamentary Human Rights Committee, thinks the talk of Nour's withdrawing is overblown.

The Nour Party is still [playing] its role in the parliament and it will continue to do so. The rumors circulating about freezing its membership inside the House or even withdrawing are totally unfounded, he said.

Sadat also denied rumors that the Nour Party leaked the idea that it might withdraw as part of a plot. If any plots exist, they are more likely to be from enemies of the Nour Party who want to show it as a sectarian party that puts pressure on the state, he said. All indicators show that the party will participate for the upcoming elections for municipalities, he added.

A number of Nour Party representatives, including parliament member Abdulhakeem Massoud, refused to comment to Al-Monitor. Massoud said the only representative allowed to make statements is Mohamed Salah, the spokesman for the party's parliamentary bloc, but he was unavailable for comment.
September 30, 2016

Palestinians believe that the student council elections in universities are not limited to conveying students' demands within the campus, but they rather reflect the Palestinian factions' strength and influence on the Palestinian street, where competition between political forces Hamas and Fatah is fierce.

Many university elections were held in recent months, the last of which was in May in the Arab American University of Jenin in the northern West Bank, where Fatah's youth movement, Shabiba, won. Before that, in April, Hamas' student wing, the Islamic Bloc, won in Birzeit University, defeating the Shabiba movement.

Over the past years, student council elections have been run by faction-affiliated electoral lists. But this year, Hebron University, south of the West Bank, decided Sept. 5 to hold the elections based on the individual candidacy system, where students blocs representing political factions cannot run for the elections.

It seemed clear that the situation in Hebron University was heading toward escalation between students and the university administration after the decision. This is why "Hebron University administration decided to postpone the elections for several months after they were initially scheduled to be held on Sept. 29. The elections will only be held once the student blocs agree on the new decision and thus courses would not be suspended, given the fact that student blocs have threatened to disrupt the educational process," Khalel Thabane, the dean of student affairs at Hebron University, told Al-Monitor.

Thabane added, "The individual candidacy system adopted by the university for this year was applied in the late 1990s. It is the most suitable system as it guarantees that all students are adequately represented and no student bloc is excluded, because such elections have no political dimensions. But in early 2000, the electoral lists system was introduced and applied in all Palestinian universities. It only allows one student bloc to win, so either Hamas wins and Fatah is excluded, or vice versa."

Hebron University's decision sparked angry reactions among the student blocs. On Sept. 11, Rateb al-Masri, the coordinator for Shabiba, reiterated the movement's refusal to abide by the decision as it undermines the importance of student movements in universities. He further noted that some parties within the university  which he did not name  have threatened to expel some student movements' leaders should they continue to object to the university's decision.

For its part, Hamas' Islamic Bloc declared on Sept. 10 its refusal to abide by the decision, describing it as a blow against the student movements because it clearly shows how the university wants to bypass the student movements and eliminate their roles as representatives.

On Sept. 8, Hebron University's leftist bloc, which is affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, attacked the university administration and threatened to take escalatory steps and suspend courses should the university insist on its decision.

Hani Mokbel, the head of the Islamic Bloc in the Palestinian territories, told Al-Monitor, "This is a political decision par excellence. Even though the university tried to give it a professional cover, it prevents the bloc from presenting its candidates. The university administration adopts an oppressive policy against the Islamic Bloc and prevents it from carrying out activities, while its policy toward Fatah's Shabiba movement is very lean. The Palestinian Authority [PA] and its security services are pressuring the university to limit the Islamic Bloc's activities and arrest its members."

Hebron University's decision also sparked controversy on social networks. Author Lama Khater posted on her Facebook page on Sept. 9 that the decision paves the way for eliminating student movements and limiting their activity to the university's campus.

A former official at the deanship of student affairs in Hebron University told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, "The decision aims at putting an end to political action within the university, because faction-affiliated student blocs belittle university administrations. Student blocs often confront [the administrators] within their campuses and do not give them the space they need to take decisions that might anger students, such as raising university fees. This decision deprives the elected student council from factional support, thus turning it into a powerless council, and this is what Palestinian universities are seeking."

Bilal al-Shobaki, a political science professor at Hebron University, told Al-Monitor, "Despite its political implications, the university's decision is a wise one. The university does not want its academic campus to turn into an arena dominated by political factions at the expense of academic education. Students can present their candidacy based on academic and educational standards regardless of whether they were affiliated with either Fatah or Hamas."

Hebron University's decision could be linked to the PA's intention to prevent the Islamic Bloc from returning to West Bank universities at any cost. This may push the university administration to stop the Islamic Bloc's activities and cooperate with the Palestinian security services.

In this context, Samira Halayqa, a Hamas representative at the Palestinian Legislative Council in Hebron, said, "The university's decision deprives students from their right to choose their representatives according to a system that has been adopted by universities for decades. This decision stems from the university's political motives and because it is being pressured by the PA to prevent Hamas from regaining its strength in the university. If Hebron University were to succeed in implementing this decision, other universities could join in."

It seems that the Hebron University's decision might aim to achieve two objectives: The first would be to eliminate political organizations from the student council and avoid embarrassing the PA should the Islamic Bloc win. The second would be to find a weak student council in which the administration could deal with students individually and thus impose its decisions, such as significantly raising fees. Up until now, no one knows which party would be able to impose its decision on the other.
September 30, 2016

The atmosphere at the Palestinian ministry was as cold as ice. News had come of the condolence statement issued by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the death of former Israeli President and Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

The press was asking for comments, but no one at the ministry wanted to talk to the press. A senior Palestinian official who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, said, If we say what we want, we will be going against what the president said. At the same time, no one wants his or her name associated with a whitewashing of Peres bloody history.

Most of the staff working for the Palestinian government today entered political life around the time Peres and Abbas sat at a table on the White House lawn, on Sept. 13, 1993, to sign the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). That declaration, since called the Oslo Accord, established the very offices in Ramallah and elsewhere in which some of these longtime staffers work today. Oslo  which was preceded on Sept. 9 by an exchange of letters in which Israel and the PLO recognized each other  ushered in the Palestinian Authority as well as controversial Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation.

Suheir Ismail, who trains Palestinian women to be filmmakers, began her work as a camerawoman during the first intifada (1987-1990). In an interview with Al-Monitor, Ismail argued that Peres shrewdly divided the Palestinian national movement while normalizing Israeli relations with the Palestinians and Arabs. The person claiming to be a peacemaker acted to defend the Zionist plan to establish a Jewish state and turned the effort to resolve the Palestinian cause into an endeavor to manage the conflict, she said.

Anees Sweidan, a Fatah activist from Nablus, told Al-Monitor that what has angered many Palestinians in the occupied territories is how Peres succeeded in diverting attention from the core issue of the land and settlements to one of protecting Israel and Israelis. As the godfather of the Oslo process, he knew exactly what he was doing when he created a plan that he knew full well would not work, as it lacked the guarantees that would lead to an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, Sweidan said. Sweidan posted on Facebook on Sept. 29 that Abbas should not have attended the funeral, calling Peres a criminal.

The most repeated criticism of Peres, and also often made against PLO officials, which includes Abbas, is that Oslo did not deal with settlements and did not even include a halt to settlement construction. Local leaders have often argued that the PLO, desperate for recognition by Israel, accepted the Israelis demand to postpone dealing with the issue of settlements.

According to a senior official in the prime ministers office, who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, the number of settlements and settlers has tripled since 1993, making the possibility of the creation of an independent Palestinian state that much more difficult.

While Palestinians were generally unhappy with Abbas condolence message, which alluded to Peres lifetime commitment to peace, a number of activists and Palestinian officials contacted by Al-Monitor expressed respect for their old adversary.

Ismail, one of the three co-directors of Palestinian Diaries, a documentary chronicling the first intifada, expressed a quiet admiration for Peres patriotism. He has been sincere to his ideology and his people, and if our leaders who met him from the Palestinian side worked the same way as Peres, we wouldnt be in the situation we are in now, Ismail asserted.

Mohammad Daraghmeh, a veteran Palestinian reporter and analyst, told Al-Monitor that the most important lesson we can learn from Peres is that he dedicated his life to the interest of his people and state. He moved in different directions, creating one initiative after the other from different angles, whether from an economic, military or political direction, he said. [Palestinians] need a leader like Peres, who would work on building up state institutions and not his person.

Daraghmeh, who met Peres a number of times, further said, [He] always sought ways to help his country and had a strategic vision as to the place of his country in the region and the world. The analyst admits that Peres vision of a new Middle East, reflected in his speeches and a book by that title, showed  despite this vision not being accomplished during his lifetime  the character of a leader who is thinking and initiating new projects and ideas.

This hate-love relationship between Palestinians and the late Israeli leader reflects the complexity of a man whom the world considers a peacemaker, while Palestinians insist that while he is an Israeli patriot, he bears major responsibility for the plight that Palestinians find themselves in today.
September 29, 2016

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey  For travelers in southeast Turkey, it's common in rural areas to see men in uniform armed with AK-47 assault rifles. They take part in operations with security forces, guard government facilities and clash with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), but they are neither police nor soldiers. They're called village guards.

Some are full-time government employees; others are on short-term contracts. The village guard system is based on a law passed in 1924 that was updated and applied in 1985 when the PKK attacks started.

This paramilitary force was controversial from the outset. The PKK and its sympathizers accused the guards of treason, as most of them are Kurds, and accused the state of instigating bloodshed among Kurds. The state said the fact that a guard system was needed was proof that most Kurds were opposed to the PKK. The acrimonious debate never ceased. The PKK demanded that the system be abolished and that those involved be prosecuted. The village guards weren't particularly threatened by those demands; they were more worried about their future, asking what would happen to them once the Kurdish issue was solved.

Their opponents alleged that the guards were altering the social fabric of the region. A 2013 report by Surec Research Center titled Provisional Village Guards and the Solution Process said, Although the village guard system was established as an element of the states security policy, those who joined the system used their guns for their personal interests. Because they had the backing of state security forces, they were able to impose themselves as the basic authority of their villages and the region.

Public perception of the village guards began to sour when some of them used their positions for personal gain, with the support of some officials. Increasingly, the guards were seen not as a security force but as an instrument of influence and power, especially when it became known that they were also implicated in illegal affairs. The Surec report summarized the situation: According to the Interior Ministry, 4,804 village guards were prosecuted for committing crimes between 1985 and 2003. Of these, 2,376 were charged with assorted ordinary crimes, while 2,375 were accused of aiding the PKK and serving as its accomplices.

In recent years the village guards system had been slowly withering away, but it made a comeback in July 2015 when clashes between Turkey and the PKK erupted on a large scale. The PKK has been hunting down village guards ever since, killing many. The latest such incident was Sept. 27 in Hakkari province, when a PKK attack killed three guards and wounded two as they were watching over highway construction equipment.

In a recent meeting that Minister of Interior Suleyman Soylu held with guard chiefs from 22 provinces, a decision was made to update the system and strengthen it. The group decided to form a Department of Village Guards in the ministry to address guards' problems, and to form "special teams" armed with heavy weapons to operate with soldiers.

Ziya Sozen, the president of the Anatolian Village Guards and Martyr Families Confederation, the largest professional association of village guards, is pleased with the decisions made.

The people we are fighting against have advanced heavy weapons. Our guards are trying to defend themselves with 100 bullets and a Kalashnikov. Weapons and uniforms of the guards have to be modernized. We are losing too many people because of those shortages. The guard system is essential. If we want to continue with it then it has to be supported with appropriate personnel and social rights, weapons and equipment, Sozen told Al-Monitor.

According to Sozen, the region is not under PKK domination today because of the guards.

Army soldiers and police come for short assignments and leave. Our guards, however, sometimes live in the same neighborhoods, even in the same buildings with PKK militants. Many of our guards were assassinated during the solution process. In villages where there are no guards, the PKK people walk about freely, but they cannot enter villages where there are guards. If we didnt have this system, we would have surrendered the east and southeast of Turkey to the PKK and its proxies 25 years ago, he said.

Sozen said the guards really aren't worried about their future. When the PKK is done with, our state will ensure our transition to society by employing us in public services.

Mesut Yegen, a sociology professor at Istanbul Sehir University, doesnt believe the village guard system has a meaningful role in solving the Kurdish issue. Yegen said the decision to reinforce and upgrade the system was made because the state couldnt find an alternative.

The guard system has not contributed anything to the solution of the Kurdish issue. We havent forgotten the experience of the 1990s. The village guards cannot end PKK violence. It is an instrument that should not be used because of the social problems it creates. It disrupted social relations wherever it appeared and led the way to a variety of problems. Sociologically speaking, it cannot produce anything positive except to provide some people with a regular salary, Yegen told Al-Monitor.

Yegen thinks most of the guards are not true volunteers, and he doesnt expect them to be active in clashes. He also has a warning: When the Kurdish issue is solved, a serious review of the guards has to be made. These people who now have a steady, assured income may cause new social problems if they lose this income. One aspect of the problem is that it enables some people to abuse the state authority and dictate their will on others. If a solution is not found, clashes can continue to erupt even if there is an overall solution. These clashes will be perceived not as politically motivated but as personal conflicts. This could be problematic.

Today there are 47,510 temporary and 21,800 permanent village guards employed by the state. The government plans to increase the number of temporary guards to 50,000.

A villager living between Lice and Hazro related his experience with the guards to Al-Monitor, saying, We had thousands of acres of land here. We had a typical land conflict with another man. That man joined the guards and now we cant go to our lands.

The common sentiment in the region is that although guards may at times assist security sources because of their familiarity with the region, unless they are kept under control they will continue to plague the Kurds for years to come.
September 30, 2016

On Sept. 23, RedHack, a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist computer hacking group, announced that they hacked into Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans son-in-laws email accounts. Berat Albayrak is not only Erdogans eldest son-in-law, but he is also Turkey's energy and natural resources minister. RedHack demanded that Asli Erdogan, an author and human rights activist, and other imprisoned left-wing activists be released by Sept. 25 or they would release the emails to the public.

Introducing themselves as one of the worlds oldest hacktivist groups, established in 1997, RedHack is older than its global counterpart, Anonymous. Their activities are considered criminal according to Turkish law. Yet they have some public support. In a documentary, they explain some of their hacking activities as standing by the oppressed against the oppressor. Scholars in this documentary pose the question, If RedHack is criminal, why does a generation consider the group as a hero? It seems their operations are diverse enough to convince the public they are not after personal gain, but are rather taking risks to protect public interest. For example, in April 2012 when then-Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin ridiculed a citizen to do cartwheels to show his appreciation, RedHack replied by taking over the ministrys website telling Sahin it was his turn to do cartwheels for the public. They have openly challenged the Gulen movement multiple times and hacked into their webpages. RedHack carried out bold acts as well: In 2005, they hacked the polices webpage and erased all unprocessed traffic tickets, and in 2013, they erased the debts people owed to governmental entities.

They also seem to have a sense of humor, as they have chosen nicknames after the Smurfs, such as Papa Smurf, Hard-Working Smurf and Honest Smurf. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has intensified its battle with the group, making arrests with terrorism charges. Since 2012 and through dozens of court cases, the government has failed to establish any sort of link between RedHack and the individuals arrested as RedHackers. RedHack has suffered attacks itself from allegedly government-sponsored hackers, such as Akincilar Group. Akincilar aimed to provide evidence that RedHack is a terror organization and has connections with armed terror organizations.

Going back to the current case of RedHack allegedly hacking into Albayraks email accounts, Albayrak and other government officials have been silent. They have not released any prisoners either. Once the deadline passed, RedHackers kept their promise and released photos of emails and voice recordings found in the emails to the public using social media.

The AKP government has promptly shut down multiple Twitter accounts and blocked access to the websites. On Sept. 24, police began operations to arrest those who were charged and acquitted from being RedHackers years ago.

On Sept. 28, a few marginal television channels announced they would be airing the allegedly hacked emails. On the same day, dozens of channels, known as opposition media associated with Kurdish, Alevi and leftist groups, were taken off the main satellite programming. Halk TV was still able to report some of the emails on Sept. 28.

Pro-AKP newspapers and social media accounts have started a subtle campaign claiming RedHack is now being run by the Gulen movement.

RedHack is releasing more emails from Albayraks account despite all censorship attempts. So what is in the alleged emails released so far? They are mostly emails sent to Albayrak and can be explained in three categories.

The first category is the intricate relationship Albayrak and other family members established with the mainstream media outlets, their owners and CEOs. Here we see two prominent issues. One is an email that shows pro-government columnist Hilal Kaplan sending emails to Albayrak with suggested speeches for the president. Second is a longer communication with Mehmet Ali Yalcindag, son-in-law of Turkeys biggest media mogul, Aydin Dogan. Yalcindag is also the CEO of Dogan Publishing Holding. In short, he is in charge of the most popular TV channels and newspapers in Turkey. Yalcindags alleged emails indicate that he has a friendly relationship with Albayrak and his brother and is working rather hard to make sure news and opinion pieces released are in line with the governments wishes. He even complains about his sister-in-law and some of the prominent editors in these emails. On Sept. 28, Yalcindag told the press that those pages were from his diaries. He said they were manipulated and they were not emails to Albayrak. He claimed hackers stole his diaries.

A recording found in Albayraks email account, which claims to be the voice of media mogul Dogan, tells reporters and columnists to refrain from obsessive and continuous criticism of the AKP government. He advises the writers to diversify  that is, if one day they are to criticize the government, why not the next day write about something else? If true, these releases show that even media outlets not directly owned by pro-AKP figures are controlled by them.

There were also emails about the budget for the AKPs social media trolls as well as strategies to brand the Gezi movement as being supported by foreign capital, such as Armenian businesses.

The second category of emails contains individuals demanding Albayrak find a job for themselves, their husbands and their family members. These leaked emails generate another layer of proof for the depth of clientelism and nepotism. There are emails with resumes attached asking for government positions. Also, leaked emails show discussions about who should be on the nomination list for parliament seats.

The last category of emails is the broadest: family and friends. One popular email was from former Turkish Minister of European Union Affairs Egemen Bagis, who referred to Steven Cook, an analyst for the Council on Foreign Relations, as a top pro-Israeli lackey. Cook has criticized Albayrak in a Politico article. Bagis congratulates Albayrak, saying this shows Albayrak is on the right path. There are also emails from different international companies, such as a German company requesting Albayrak set up a meeting with Erdogan and an email where a map presents information to Albayrak about the routes Islamic State members enter Syria.

Yet the most popular emails in this category  judging by the intensity of social media activity  are the chatter about intra-AKP feuds. RedHack has signaled that there are several emails indicating how AKP members are in stiff competition. In one of those emails, a senior Erdogan adviser refers to another senior adviser as a ticking bomb and cautions the family that this persons statements are inappropriate for public consumption.

RedHack has also announced that they would not share personal communications between Albayrak and his wife, indicating they mean business and respect privacy, to an extent. Yet they have shared a couple of photos of Albayraks family in Ottoman Palace costumes with the note, We know this was your dream [to establish a sultanate], we will crush them.

The leaked and unverified emails will not be sufficient to influence AKPs base voters, but they have shown the divisions within Turkish society are deeper and more layered than any observer realized.
September 30, 2016

In his recent address to the UN General Assembly's annual meeting, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey had spent $25 billion for Syrian refugees. This number caught everyone off guard, because until now Turks were told that their country had spent $10 billion for Syrian refugees.

On July 9, 2015, Erdogan said that Turkey had spent $6 billion for Syrian refugees between 2011 and June 2015. On Oct. 5, 2015, however, the Turkish president said the sum was actually $7.5 billion. Head of Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency Fuat Oktay had spoken of $10 billion as of February 2016.

The question is why expenditures rose from $10 billion at the end of February 2016 to $25 billion six months later.

Six months ago there were 2.7 million Syrians in Turkey, a figure that the president confirmed in his United Nations address. If the number of refugees did not increase, why did the expenditures grow?

Al-Monitor checked the details in the president's address. Erdogan, who until now was citing the expenditures of only state agencies, this time included the expenditures of local municipalities and civil society organizations. In his speech, Erdogan said the state expenditures had reached $12.5 billion and municipalities and civil society groups had spent another $12.5 billion.

This was the first time the Turkish public heard of money spent by municipalities and civil society. It is understandable that Erdogan took the opportunity with his UN appearance to show the massive amounts spent by Turkey and the inadequacy of UN and European Union assistance. Erdogan in his speech said the UN assistance was only $525 million. The EU had not given any money to Turkey but spent a mere $178 million via the United Nations Children's Fund. This is how Erdogan worded his grievance: "Those who promised to contribute to our efforts, led by the EU, have not kept their word. Likewise, we are still expecting the UN to keep its promise. The 71st General Assembly is a very important occasion to let the world know. The contribution of the international community should not remain at $525 million."

The rise of Turkey's total expenditures to $25 billion generated reactions in the country. One such objection came from Hurriyet daily newspaper's senior writer, Ertugrul Ozkok: "For each Syrian refugee coming to our country, $300 was taken from the pockets of every Turkish citizen. With the money they took from us, they put $8,000 into the pockets of each Syrian coming here. German people who have not spent even 1% of that money are fervently demanding their government to account for the refugee problem. Don't Turkish citizens have a right to ask this innocent question? Why did we spend this money? I know the answer: for humanity's sake. Who do we owe this humanitarian debt to? Is it a debt of neighborliness and warm feelings? Or is it what we owe for the tragedies our wrong policies caused?"

An observation is in order. Although total expenditures appear to have doubled, official state expenditures are falling. The monthly average expenditures from July 2015 through the end of February 2016 was about $500 million.

In his latest statement, Erdogan said official spendings had gone up from $10 billion to $12.5 billion. Since he made this statement on Sept. 20, he was using the figures for the end of August. At the end of February, the expenditures were about $10 billion, which means in the six months from March to August, expenditures had increased by $2.5 billion. That indicates a monthly average of $416 million official expenditures, a decline of $84 million in monthly expenditures.

Will this trend of declining expenses continue?

Winter is coming. Schools have opened. As heating, clothing, education and health expenses are likely to go up, the monthly spending for Syrians could actually increase. Although these expenses are a budgetary burden, they also boost domestic demand and contribute to production and growth. At a time when the government is working hard to boost internal demand and even has eased credit card repayments so that people can spend more, the consumption by refugees have become a life saver for the economy. Nor should we forget that Syrians have set up 4,456 companies in Turkey since 2011.

These companies are active in the domestic market as well as in exports. Without this boost from Syrian businesses, it would have been impossible for Turkey to cope with the growing bill of Syrian refugees.
Cherokee County authorities say they have arrested a man in connection with a business break-in.

Sheriff Jeff Shaver said Bradley Scott Short, 45, of Cedartown, Ga., was arrested Thursday.

Deputies received a call about a business burglary in the Piney community. Deputies later found Short and his truck along the roadside "near the burglary scene and were able to recover some of the stolen items," Shaver said.

Short was charged with third degree burglary and fourth degree theft of property. He awaits bond in the Cherokee County Detention Center.
Some elected officials in Alabama declined to speak out about the Alabama Court of the Judiciary's decision to suspend Chief Justice Roy Moore without pay for the remainder of his term.

Both Gov. Robert Bentley and Attorney General Luther Strange declined comment.

Mike Lewis, spokesman for Strange, said the attorney general was still reviewing the court's order.

State Auditor Jim Zeigler did speak out.

"I believe it is an illegal and unconstitutional decision," Zeigler said. "It's obvious they did not have nine votes to remove the chief justice. So they concocted a way to effectively remove him."

Zeigler said that because Moore is still the chief justice, although suspended, there is no vacancy, so Bentley cannot appoint a replacement.

"It will be appealed and it's going to be a legal mess," Zeigler said.

Moore's lawyer said the decision would be appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court.

Moore issued a statement saying that the JIC offered no evidence to prove that he violated the canons of judicial ethics.

"This opinion violates not only the legal standards of evidence but also the rule of law which states that no judge can be removed from office except by unanimous vote," Moore's statement said.

Alabama Democratic Party Chair Nancy Worley said the Court of the Judiciary's decision is a reminder that the law of the land applies to everybody.

"I think it was an appropriate response to a judge not following the orders of the Supreme Court of the United States," Worley said.

She compared Moore's actions to Gov. George Wallace's "stand in the schoolhouse door" to defend segregation.

Worley said Moore could benefit politically if he decides to run for governor or some other office.

"He gets a great deal of press out of these decisions and it gives him a chance to run against something that many people in Alabama think they're against," Worley said.

The chair of the Alabama Republican Party issued a statement today blasting the decision to effectively end Moore's time as chief justice.

"The Alabama Republican Party is highly disappointed in the Alabama Court of Judiciary's decision to suspend Judge Roy Moore from office," GOP state Chair Terry Lathan said. "This group of individuals are not accountable to the voters of Alabama. Their charge as a body is to address and make decisions on corruption cases involving judges in Alabama. At no time has this case been about corruption.

"Judge Moore was elected, twice, by the citizens of our state. In light of this, two groups who are unaccountable to the voters have overstepped boundaries in suspending a statewide elected judge."

In May, the Alabama Republican Party passed a resolution opposing the removal of Moore.

Lathan said the party also supported making the Judicial Inquiry Commission an elected board.

It was the JIC that charged Moore with violating judicial ethics. That came after the Southern Poverty Law Center filed complaints against Moore.

A key issue was an administrative order Moore issued to the state's 68 probate judges in January. Moore told the probate judges they will had a duty to enforce Alabama's ban on same-sex marriage, even though the U.S. Supreme Court had legalized gay marriage nationwide in June 2015.

Moore argued that his order was to give probate judges a status report on a same-sex marriage case pending in the state Supreme Court.

The Court of the Judiciary said it did not find that claim credible. It found Moore guilty on all six counts filed by the JIC.

The head of the Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State praised today's decision.

"The people of Alabama are better off without Roy Moore on the court," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "He is an embarrassment to the state, and his antics long ago became tiresome."

Eva Kendrick, the Alabama state manager of the Human Rights Campaign, which calls itself the nation's largest civil rights organization for gay and transgender rights, called the Court of the Judiciary's decision "a positive step forward in our enduring journey to create a more equal Alabama."

"Roy Moore has flagrantly and willfully attempted to block marriage equality at every turn in Alabama, using his position of power to push a personal, radically anti-LGBTQ agenda," Kendrick said.

The leader of the Democratic minority in the Alabama House of Representatives, Rep. Craig Ford of Gadsden, declined comment on the Moore suspension.
Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has been suspended from the bench for telling probate judges to defy federal orders regarding gay marriage.

It's the second time Moore has been removed from the chief justice job for defiance of federal courts - the first time in 2003 for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building.

The Alabama Court of the Judiciary (COJ) issued the order Friday suspending Moore from the bench for the remainder of his term after an unanimous vote of the nine-member court.

"For these violations, Chief Justice Moore is hereby suspended from office without pay for the remainder of his term. This suspension is effective immediately," the order stated.

The court found him guilty of all six charges of violation of the canons of judicial ethics. Moore's term is to end in 2019, but because of his age, 69, he cannot run for the office again.

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley will not have an appointment, said Yasamie R. August, press secretary for the governor. Justice Lyn Stuart will continue in the role of Acting Chief Justice and that court will continue with eight justices, she said.

The reason there won't be a replacement is because Moore was suspended, not removed from office, she said.

Moore is filing an appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, his attorney said.

Moore issued this statement:

"This decision clearly reflects the corrupt nature of our political and legal system at the highest level.

After the Attorney General of Alabama declined to prosecute this case, the JIC employed the former legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) which filed the charges against me, at a cost of up to $75,000.00 to the taxpayers of Alabama.

During the trial which lasted approximately four hours, the JIC produced no witnesses, no affidavits, and no evidence to meet their burden of proving by "clear and convincing" evidence that the Administrative order of January 6, 2016 violated the Canons of Judicial Ethics.

This was a politically motivated effort by radical homosexual and transgender groups to remove me as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court because of outspoken opposition to their immoral agenda.

This opinion violates not only the legal standards of evidence but also the rule of law which states that no judge can be removed from office except by unanimous vote."

In its order, the COJ wanted to make sure people understood what Moore's case was and was not about.

"At the outset, this court emphasizes that this case is concerned only with alleged violations of the Canons of Judicial Ethics," the COJ states. "This case is not about whether same-sex marriage should be permitted: indeed, we recognize that a majority of voters in Alabama adopted a constitutional amendment in 2006 banning same-sex marriage, as did a majority of states over the last 15 years."

The COJ also stated it is also not a case to review or to editorialize about the United States Supreme Court's 5-4 split decision in June 2015 to declare same-sex marriage legal nationwide in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges.

Moore was tried Wednesday before the COJ on the charges that centered on a Jan. 6 administrative order to the state's 68 probate judges.

The canons of judicial ethics Moore was found guilty of violating are:

Canon 1, in that he failed to uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary.

Canon 2, in that he failed to avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all his activities.

Canon 2A, in that he failed to respect and comply with the law and failed to conduct himself at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.

Canon 2B, in that he failed to avoid conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice that brings the judicial office into disrepute.

Canon 3, in that he failed to perform the duties of his office impartially.

Canon 3A(6), in that he failed to abstain from public comment about a pending proceeding in his own court.

Prosecutors with the Judicial Inquiry Commission, which filed the charges, said Moore's order sought to have probate judges defy the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that declared gay marriage legal nationwide and halt the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Moore testified that it was only a "status report" to probate judges.

In its 50-page order on Friday, the COJ stated it did not find credible Moore's claim that the purpose for the Jan. 6 order was "merely to provide a 'status update' to the state's probate judges."

"We likewise do not accept Chief Justice Moore's repeated argument that the disclaimer in paragraph 10 of the January 6, 2016, order - in which Chief Justice Moore asserted he was 'not at liberty to provide any guidance ... of the effect of Obergefell on the existing orders of the Alabama Supreme Court' - negated the reality that Chief Justice More was in fact 'ordering and directing' the probate judges to comply with the API orders regardless of Obergefell or the injunction in Strawser (federal case in Alabama)."

Moore's attorney, Mat Staver, stated in a press release that the COJ couldn't agree on an outright removal of Moore from the bench so it decided to suspend him for the rest of his term.

"To suspend Chief Justice Moore for the rest of his term is the same as removal. The COJ lacked the unanimous votes to remove the Chief, so the majority instead chose to ignore the law and the rules," said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel.

The COJ decision states: "A majority of this court also agrees with the JIC that the only appropriate sanction for Chief Justice Moore is removal from office. Removal of a judge from office, however, requires 'the concurrence of all members sitting ... It is clear there was not a unanimous concurrence to remove the Chief from office, so the COJ suspends him for the remainder of his term. In other words, the COJ did what the rules say they cannot do. There is no meaningful difference between suspension for the remaining of the term and removal from office."

The nine-member Court of the Judiciary had several options - acquit Moore, remove him from the bench, suspend him without pay for as many months as it wished, or issue a statement of censure expressing disapproval. Removal from the bench required a unanimous decision and any of the other sanctions require a minimum 6-3 vote.

Other judges in the past have been suspended by the COJ for the remainder of their terms.

Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which filed the original complaint against Moore that led to the JIC charges against the chief justice stated this moring that the COJ "has done the citizens of Alabama a great service by suspending Roy Moore from the bench."

"He (Moore) disgraced his office and undermined the integrity of the judiciary by putting his personal religious beliefs above his sworn duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution," Cohen stated. "Moore was elected to be a judge, not a preacher. It's something that he never seemed to understand. The people of Alabama who cherish the rule of law are not going to miss the Ayatollah of Alabama."

COJ says Moore had a similar defiance strategy in 2003

The COJ also stated that Moore's "arguments that his actions and words mean something other than what they clearly express is not a new strategy."

The COJ quoted from the court's order from 2003 removing Moore from the bench for defying the federal court order to remove the 10 Commandments from the courts building. That 2003 order quoted Moore as saying then that: "I did what I did because I upheld my oath. And that's what I did, so I have no apologies for it. I would do it again. I didn't say I would defy the court order. I said I wouldn't move the monument. And I didn't move the monument, which you can take as you will."

"Just as Chief Justice Moore's decision that he wouldn't 'move the monument" was, in fact, defiance of the federal court order binding him, a disinterested reasonable observer, fully informed of all the relevant facts, would conclude that the undeniable consequence of the January 6, 2016, order was to order and direct the probate judges to deny marriage licenses in direct defiance of the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Obergefell and the Strawser injunction."

Despite the 2003 removal Moore was re-elected to the chief justice job in 2012.

The current controversy arose in January 2015 after a federal judge in Mobile, Callie Granade, issued an order declaring unconstitutional Alabama's marriage laws, which prohibited same-sex marriage.

Moore, a staunch opponent of gay marriage, issued letters and orders to probate judges telling them not to issue the licenses in the days following Granade's order. Then on March 3, 2015 the Alabama Supreme Court issued an order telling the probate judges not to issue the licenses. Moore recused himself from that order.

The state supreme court's order was issued based on a petition filed by the Alabama Policy Institute (API) and other groups that opposed gay marriage.

Granade later ordered the probate judges to issue the licenses, but suspended her order until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Obergefell case. The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) issued that ruling declaring same-sex marriage legal nationwide on June 26, 2015.

Days following the SCOTUS ruling the Alabama Supreme Court issued a request for parties in the API petition to submit briefs on how the SCOTUS decision affected its order to probate judges in the API case by July 6, 2015.

But the Alabama Supreme Court didn't rule immediately.

Moore granted interviews about the SCOTUS ruling declaring same-sex marriage legal and by fall had written two letters to his colleagues on the state supreme court asking them to issue an order either way in the API case.

Then on Jan. 6 Moore issued his administrative order telling judges that the state supreme court's from March 2015 order was still in place and they are still required to follow it. But he also included a line in it that he wasn't able to provide any guidance to the probate judges on the effect of Obergefell on the Alabama Supreme Court order.

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed several complaints against Moore in 2015 to the Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC) regarding Moore's public comments about gay marriage and the orders and letters he filed.

The SPLC filed another one after Moore's Jan. 6 order. It was that last complaint that led the JIC to file the charges against Moore.

Moore testified Wednesday that the Jan. 6 order was just a status report to the probate judges and he wasn't ordering them to defy the federal courts. But at the end of the administrative order it states: "Until further decision by the Alabama Supreme Court, the existing orders of the Alabama Supreme Court that Alabama probate judges have a ministerial duty not to issue any marriage license contrary to the Alabama Sanctity of Marriage Amendment or the Alabama Marriage Protection Act remain in full force and effect."

Cohen, of the SPLC, said after Wednesday's trial that Moore had been playing "word games."
A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by Alabama Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom Parker against the agency that is investigating a complaint about public comments he made on gay marriage.

U.S. District Court Judge Keith Watkins dismissed Parker's lawsuit against the Judicial Inquiry Commission citing a 1971 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in Younger v. Harris. Under that ruling federal courts are not to interfere with pending criminal prosecutions by a state, except under extraordinary circumstances.

While the Judicial Inquiry Commission has not charged Parker with any violations of the state's canons of judicial ethics yet, Parker's lawsuit states that the JIC has been investigating him.

"Whether the JIC proceeding is more appropriately characterized as a grand jury or administrative proceeding, the relevant authorities suggest that it is 'ongoing' for purposes of Younger," Watkins stated. "Therefore, in accordance with the longstanding principle of comity and out of respect for federalism, the court concludes that Younger is applicable hear and abstains from exercising jurisdiction."

"Alternatively, if there is any doubt about the prudence of today's decision, the Eleventh Circuit instructs courts to 'err-if we err at all-on the side of abstaining," Watkins stated in Thursday's opinion.

U.S. District Court Judge W. Harold Albritton, III also had citied the Younger case when on Aug. 4 he dismissed a similar lawsuit brought by Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore.

Moore on Wednesday was tried before the Alabama Court of the Judiciary on charges he had violated six judicial canons of ethics regarding a Jan. 6 administrative to state probate judges regarding gay marriage. The JIC prosecutors say Moore told probate judges to halt the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses in defiance of U.S. Supreme Court and other federal orders declaring same-sex marriage legal.

Moore, who is now waiting to see if if the court will acquit him, toss him off the court, or some other sanction, denied that he encouraged probate judges to defy federal courts.

In October 2015 the SPLC filed a judicial ethics complaint against Parker, claiming he inappropriately commented on pending same-sex marriage cases and voiced his personal opinions about the issue. The SPLC cited Parker's appearance one particular conservative radio talk show.

Parker's lawsuit against the JIC, filed June 15, challenges the constitutionality of several speech restrictive Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics and the state law that automatically suspends a judge when JIC files charges. The judge can be re-instated depending on the outcome of a trial before the Alabama Court of the Judiciary.

"These provisions (of law) are being used by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and its allies on the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission in an attempt to intimidate, silence, and punish Justice Parker for his originalist judicial philosophy and protected speech," according to a statement issued in June by Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, who represents both Parker and Moore.
A Center Point teen is in custody after lawmen say he threatened to blow up several Jefferson County schools and shoot students.

On Sept. 21, Jefferson County sheriff's deputies were made aware of threats against an area high school that had been posted on a social media site, said Chief Deputy Randy Christian. The following day, threats against another area high school and a middle school were posted by the same person.

In the posts, the teen threatened to blow up the schools and shoot students. The post referred to bombs that had been hidden on the campuses. Deputies quickly determined that the threats were not credible and no students were in danger, Christian said. He declined to identify the schools.

Sheriff's school resource officers, along with the Special Investigations Division and the Intelligence Unit, began to work on the case immediately. Christian said detectives were able to track the posts back to a fake social media account that had been created by a 15-year-old boy from one of the schools that had been threatened.

Investigators questioned the teen, and admitted to posting the threats. He told investigators he felt that he had been unfairly disciplined and was trying to get even.

The teen has been arrested and was taken to the Jefferson County Youth Detention facility. He is charged with four counts of making terroristic threats, charges that will be handled in the juvenile system. His name is being withheld because of his age.

"I think most people from my generation would not have had the guts to pull a stunt like this because we would not have been able to sit down for a week,'' Christian said. "Maybe that's the problem these days."
Increasing tension between locals and refugees stranded on Greek islands, as all sides appeal for help.

Chios, Greece  Months after arriving on Chios, Rusde Endris has become fearful. The Syrian man was recently taking an evening walk with his 18-year-old wife on a patch of green across the street from town hall. He says two Greek men approached them and tried to remove her headscarf.

They had drunk wine. They were talking in Greek. One was a big, tall man. I only wanted to protect my wife, he says showing knife cuts on his back from the attack.

One of the men punched her in the eye. She was pregnant and she lost the baby after this, he says showing a photograph of a Greek hospital report on his mobile phone.

The report, stated that one Fatme Endris had had a miscarriage. I went to the police but the police here did nothing because it was Greeks who did this.

People are afraid

Six months since the European Union-Turkey agreement curbed newly arriving refugees on Greeces eastern Aegean islands, sentiment is beginning to turn against them.

Earlier this month a young Syrian man who calls himself Ali Ali was caught on the wrong side of an anti-migrant demonstration  another recent phenomenon on the island.

I was in the park with a friend. Some people hit me and the police arrived and separated us. One person threw a rock at my chest and someone else hit my foot with a stick, he says, showing a bandaged right foot.

Outright violence is still rare, but some islanders are beginning to demand assimilation.





I am Muslim. I cover my head. They dont like this cover. Why? asks Bushra Asheh, an English teacher whose husband was killed when a suicide bomber destroyed their house in Syria.

When I went to the market, a woman said, Why do you put this?' pointing to her hijab. Its not beautiful. I said I am Muslim. She made a face like this, says Asheh, making an unpleasant facial expression.

One of the factors turning islanders against refugees is a spate of petty crimes.

Five months ago, two 15-year-old girls had their bags ripped off them just across the street. One of them was my goddaughter. It was 8pm. Why do this? asks Yiorgos Pilioglou, a tyre repair man across the street from one of two tent cities that have sprung up in Chios town. At some point things will take a bad turn  people are afraid.

The police cant tell me not to go out after 10pm. I am not going to adjust to the migrants. They should adjust to me, fumes Yiorgos Manaras, who runs a sweet shop nearby.

A few kilometres outside town, villages surrounding the Chios government-sponsored refugee camp complain of home break-ins, missing chickens and dug-up vegetables. The camp sits in and around a disused aluminium moulding plant known by its acronym, VIAL.

In the village of Vavyloi, Apostolos Kambouris says his brother surprised a burglar in his house. He took a hundred dollar bill and his wifes good earrings, then tried to escape by jumping out of the first storey window. We didnt see the man but he was later caught because he broke his leg jumping. He turned out to be an Algerian.

You cant explain to old people whose pension has been cut and who struggle to make co-payments for medicines why others whove just arrived on the island as refugees are being fed for free, says a bakers shop assistant who declined to be named.

I understand that this comes from overseas humanitarian organisations but some people dont. Some people here go hungry, he says.

READ MORE: Greece: the fishermen of Lesbos saving refugee lives

Turning points and breaking chaos

Greeks scrambled to feed and clothe refugees as they walked through the Balkans last year. Two events turned that flow into a standing population, altering refugee politics in Greece.

In February, Austria, Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia agreed to register refugees at the border Greece shares with former Yugoslav Macedonia. Overnight, Greece became a buffer zone between the Turkey and the rest of Europe, and its refugee numbers climbed.

The turning point in the frustrations of east Aegean islanders, however, was the EU-Turkey agreement a month later. Turkey would make an effort to restrain crossings and re-admit those caught on its territorial waters; but those who make it as far as Greek waters are no longer allowed on the Greek mainland, but are confined on the islands of Chios, Lesvos, Samos, Kos and Leros.

The idea was to quickly separate them for either deportation or asylum processing. Asylum applicants are allowed to travel to mainland Greece after their first interview. But both procedures face staffing shortages and progress at a slow pace. Since March, just 578 people have been returned to Turkey under the deal.

The result is that camps built for 7,500 people are already burdened with twice that many, so they are left unlocked, turning these entire islands into massive holding areas. Many have been there for six months.

They dont want to be here, we dont want them here. Weve become a landfill, says Chios taxi driver Antonis Patsoulas succinctly.

The difficulty of waiting has caused three inter-ethnic eruptions in the camps.





Last April, about 500 Syrians fled VIAL claiming they were being harassed by Afghans. They occupied Chios main port, forcing ferries to dock at another port 40 kilometres away. The disruption to commerce and passenger traffic produced an angry mob which tried to intimidate the Syrians into leaving, prompting police to conduct a more orderly evacuation.

Last July, Pakistani inmates rioted at the processing centre on Leros, ransacking its offices. They had just been shipped in from Athens and assumed they were being deported back to Turkey. Islanders formed a posse to help police guard the camp, and forced volunteer organisations to evacuate.

They said to us, if you dont go, youll be in trouble,' says Catharina Kahane, who had worked on the island for months with her charity, Echo100Plus.

Last week, inter-ethnic tensions caused the largest riot to date at the Moria camp on Lesbos, which destroyed two thirds of it and left two thousand people without shelter.

RELATED: Volunteers leave Greek island after attacks on refugees

Where is the EU?

The insecurity of islanders is metastasising into political opposition. The mayor of Chios, Manolis Vournous initially supported a government plan to spend 3.7m euros ($4.1m) building a second, large camp at a disused landfill site, which would enable him to shut down the two tent cities in town. He is now careful to accommodate those who want refugees off Chios altogether.

Lets say we find space for another thousand people. What will happen when you get a thousand and one? Vournous says. We havent seen the EU say, I can see youre under pressure, I can see youre carrying a great burden on behalf of the EU, but Im here to support you to recover as a society.'

Vournous is indignant at the lack of EU support.

I am carrying out its policy to prevent Germany, Italy, Austria, Hungary and Spain from flooding with people, the mayor tells Al Jazeera. And the EU isnt even providing enough money for that; but I would also expect it to help me develop the economy, to show that we wont always be a frontier post; but it has no wish to do this.

The people of Chios are so frustrated with their role as European Union frontier, some are thinking of seceding.

During a five-hour session of the city council last week, one attendant suggested declaring Chios a city-state. Another suggested a referendum on whether refugees should be allowed to spend more than 72 hours on the island.

A vocal opposition now holds regular demonstrations demanding the closure of all refugee camps and the shipping of refugees to the Greek mainland.





Even the regional government is now against building more infrastructure. Northern Aegean islands capacity for refugees is defined by the hotspots they now have, says Christiana Kalogirou, North Aegean prefect. The Aegean cannot by itself bear the burden of the problem.

Kalogirou blames the European Asylum Support Office, EASO, which was meant to send hundreds of caseworkers to Greece following the deal with Turkey. So far it has sent a few dozen, of whom only 20 are on the islands.

The fact that Europe hasnt pursued this staffing as it should  has created the difficult conditions on the islands, says Kalogirou. She estimates that 70 cases a day are added to a backlog now standing at 9,000.

EASO spokesman Jean-Pierre Schembri says his agency relies on the staff EU members volunteer. On September 2, we issued a co-ordinated call for 100 staff to be deployed on the islands  Were still far away from it. Were still making repeated appeals.

Europe is addressing a backlog of 1.1 million asylum applications from last year, and member states say caseworkers cannot be spared.

The lack of staff has led to an open quarrel over asylum process. German Chancellor Angela Merkels spokesman Stefan Seibert on Wednesday chastised Greece for being too slow to send rejected asylum applicants back to Turkey. But a Greek asylum official tells Al Jazeera that EASO is exclusively responsible for the first winnowing of refugees.

Greece has no role in accepting or rejecting nominations, says the official. It is obvious that if experts do not have the requisite experience, the quality of their work will be poor and the procedure will be vulnerable to litigation and unfair to the asylum seekers.

The official also says that asylum authorities are wary of deporting applicants because No EU member state has recognised Turkey as a safe third country so far.

The result of all these shortcomings is social tension on the islands.

Chios journalist Yiannis Stevis believes the far-right minority will make its presence increasingly felt, as legitimate authority fails to live up to its task. He believes the harassment of refugees who occupied the port in April was a watershed moment for Chios.

It was a catalyst for the change in public opinion. It sanctioned the far-right elements to have a say in what will happen in the city. I dont deny them their opinions, but they are a minority; they cannot determine developments, which is what they did that night.
The Spanish civil war spanned three years  why has the Syrian conflict endured so much longer?

Ibrahim al-Marashi is an associate professor at the Department of History, California State University, San Marcos.

As the battle for Aleppo continues unabated, this intense episode in the Syrian civil war harkens back to a vicious battle for another Mediterranean city, Barcelona, during the Spanish civil war.

July 2016 marked the 80-year anniversary of the outbreak of the conflict in Spain, lasting from 1936 to 1939. In July 1936, General Francisco Franco led a rebellion among the Spanish military and his allies, collectively referred to as the Nationalists, against the recently elected left leaning Republican Government.

The Republican government rallied its military forces to its defence, in addition to anarchist and communist militia, and a civil war ensued.





I refrain from invoking the cliched phrase, history repeats itself. Rather, this piece, part of a series of articles comparing the Spanish past and Syrian present, will elucidate similar dynamics in civil wars, and illustrate how they end or why they continue to endure.

The similarities

Comparisons between these two conflicts have been made before. Two prominent political scientists, Laia Balcells and Stathis Kalyvas write, The Spanish Civil War became a focal conflict in Europe, the ideological and military battleground where fascist and anti-fascist forces clashed while the entire world stared. Today, Syria has become the key battleground of Sunni and Shia ideologues and activists.

OPINION: Spain  searching for Garcia Lorca

While I disagree that the Syrian civil war can be reduced to Sunni-Shia tensions, their mention of how the world stared as the Spanish civil war unfolded holds true for most of the international community and Syria since the fighting broke out in 2011.

First, in terms of similarities, both conflicts involved rival foreign powers which sponsored proxies in the Spanish civil war, akin to the roles Saudi Arabia and Iran have played in the Syrian civil war, just to name a few.

The USSR sided with the Republicans and Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy provided its troops and military aid to the Nationalists, tipping the balance in Francos favour.

Franco was leading a rebellion against the government, which would seem to make his forces similar to the Nusra Front, but in terms of military hardware, he would be comparable to Bashar al-Assad in that he utilised most of the military hardware inherited from the state to combat his foes.

Both these parties demonstrated their dependence on airpower, even though 80 years have transpired, and aerial technology has developed significantly.

Franco had complete control of the air, due to the participation of the air forces of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, which bombarded pro-Republican towns. As of 2015, the intervention of the Russian air force tilted the balance in Assads favour.

Both civil wars involved fighting for two major urban centres, the capitals, Madrid and Damascus, and two rebellious urban centres, Barcelona and Aleppo. The Republicans, like the Syrian rebels, suffered from infighting that ultimately weakened its ranks. by

Both civil wars involved fighting for two major urban centres, the capitals, Madrid and Damascus, and two rebellious urban centres, Barcelona and Aleppo. The Republicans, like the Syrian rebels, suffered from infighting that ultimately weakened its ranks.

In the case of the Republican side, the aid delivered by the USSR to the Spanish communist militias, defeated the anarchist militias in Barcelona. ISIL has played a similar role in weakening Syrian rebels, particularly those forces who control Aleppo.

The differences

Despite the strength of Francos forces, in the spring of 1938 the Spanish civil war appeared to have reached a stalemate, yet a year later the Nationalists scored their final victory after conquering Madrid. That conflict spanned three years. Why has the Syrian conflict endured so much longer?

There are numerous reasons why the Syrian civil war continues. Differences in terms of military, geographical, and economic dynamics of the conflict provide some explanations.

First, the roles of the strongest military side are reversed. Assad has been ensconced in the capital, and the onus has been on the rebels to seize it.

Franco was invading his own country from Morocco to capture Madrid. The stronger military force in Spain had to take the capital, the ostensible seat of power, whereas in Syria the weaker power had to achieve this goal, which proved elusive.

Second, Spain is only bordered by France and Portugal, with the former providing minimal aid to the Republicans, and the latter aiding the Nationalists.

OPINION: Spanish leftists join fight against ISIL

In the case of Syria, it has many more neighbours, bordered by Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan, and each border serves as a conduit for perpetuating the conflict in terms of arms flows and fighters. Those border nations, in addition to the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Iran, all have a stake in the civil war, and all seek an end to the war that suits their national security interests.

Third, because the conflict has lasted longer in Syria, another difference is the political economy of the civil war.

Since the war has lasted so long in Syria a myriad warlords, some on the government side and others on the rebel side, have taken root during the conflict, developing their own parasitic set of micro-economies.

It is doubtful that these parties would support a negotiated political solution if their financial base were to be threatened by an end to the hostilities.

Anarchist and communist militias in Spain had developed their own micro-economies, such as in Barcelona, but these were dismantled after the Nationalist victory there.

Rehearsal for World War II

The Spanish civil war served as a battleground for Germany and Italy to test out their new military hardware, particularly their bombers targeting civilian centres. This tactic was a prelude to a much larger conflict, World War II.

Observers of the Syrian civil war argue that Russia is using this conflict to try out its new military hardware, ranging from cruise missiles to long-distance bombing raids from Iran, in order to send a message to the US and its NATO allies about its new military prowess.

As a historian, I dislike the phrase history repeats itself, because it is overly deterministic, and denies the agency to actors in the present.

In this case, the US, Russia, and the Syrian parties need to ensure that the bloody, half-a-decade civil does not become the prelude to a much larger conflict.

Ibrahim al-Marashi is an assistant professor at the Department of History, California State University, San Marcos. He is the co-author of Iraqs Armed Forces: An Analytical History.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Intense shelling has postponed the start of the school year, raising fresh concerns over the state of Syrian education.

The recent bombardment of Aleppo has killed 96 children in one week alone and delayed the resumption of the school year.

Nothing can justify such assaults on children and such total disregard for human life. The suffering and the shock among children is definitely the worst we have seen, Justin Forsyth, the deputy executive director of UNICEF, said in a statement this week.

Children in besieged eastern Aleppo were due to resume school on Saturday after intense shelling postponed the start of the school year from earlier in September.

Jalal al-Basot, 13, has been out of school for the past two years as conflict has raged in Aleppo, but he registered for the upcoming school year and was hoping to begin as soon as possible.

READ MORE: If we lose this generation, we lose Syria

In my last year at school I had the highest grades. I dont want to waste my time in the house doing nothing, and I cant even play in the street because of the random raids all over the city, Basot told Al Jazeera.

So I stay at home, but there is not much electricity or television, so I stick with my old books, reading them again  I dont care about the bombing if I am in school, he added. I love school and studying, and I love all subjects. I want to be a maths teacher, as I am obsessed with numbers.

Of the 100,000 children estimated to remain in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, only around half were still attending school, according to Hussein Alhamood, Save the Childrens education coordinator for northwestern Syria  and that was even before the recent aerial campaign.





Most of the public schools [in Aleppo] are destroyed either partially or completely, Alhamood told Al Jazeera.

One in four schools across the country are unusable because of damage or are being used as shelters, according to the United Nations.

As schools have been repeatedly targeted by regime bombs, parents are hesitant about sending their children to school. Many schools have moved underground, and classes are also being held in community centres and private homes, Alhamood said. Save the Children and its local partners support 13 schools in eastern Aleppo, teaching around 3,000 children.

We dont have public school buildings operating or providing education, as it is a more likely target, he said. The schools we selected are underground and are likely safer, so the families were happier to send their children there.

The use of bunker buster bombs means there is literally nowhere we can keep children safe, and we want to see the use of these weapons investigated as a potential war crime. by Nick Finney, Save the Children's country director for northwestern Syria

But the ferocity of the latest bombing campaign, which has killed or injured hundreds of children, along with the use of bunker buster bombs  which can explode several metres underground  have threatened the safety of these subterranean schools.

Were now more likely to see children being pulled from the rubble or treated on the floor of a hospital than sat at a school desk. Children deserve the right to play, to learn, to be children. The use of bunker buster bombs means there is literally nowhere we can keep children safe, and we want to see the use of these weapons investigated as a potential war crime, Nick Finney, Save the Childrens country director for northwestern Syria, told Al Jazeera.

Child labour and early marriage, phenomena that have increased rapidly since the outbreak of Syrias war in 2011, are also contributing to low attendance rates, Alhamood said.

The economic situation in the city is such that people are struggling to find sources for living, he said. They are sending their children to work in the streets. Children are looking after the families  Children as young as 15 or 16 are joining armed groups. Their psychology will be affected, across the whole country. We are losing a generation.

WATCH: Aleppo  Syrian children attend underground school

Nabeeha Um-Ahmad, the head teacher at the school where Basot was registering last week, told Al Jazeera: Our children should not be having to live through these horrific circumstances, but they are, and we should do something about that  which is not keeping them locked up at home, increasing their suffering.

Bana al-Abed, aged seven, has been out of school for a year after her school was destroyed in a bombing attack. She has been Tweeting her thoughts on the siege and bombardment of eastern Aleppo, and says that she dreams of one day becoming a teacher herself.

I miss school, and my friends, so much too  and my teachers. All I want is to go back, she told Al Jazeera.

If the ongoing bombing campaign prevents the resumption of schools on Saturday, Alhamood said that Save the Children would look into launching a system of home education, whereby children would be taught at home or at the home of a teacher  although teachers themselves are hard to come by. Eight of the organisations teachers have died since the beginning of the year, while thousands more have fled the country.

If children do not resume their studies soon, they will lose out of education, Alhamood said. We are losing the hope of rebuilding the country.
Rally in Amman follows signing of contract between US firm and Jordanian utility for imports from Leviathan field.

Hundreds of Jordanians have taken part in a demonstration in the centre of Amman in protest against a deal signed this week to import natural gas from Israel.

Demonstrators carried banners on Friday, reading: No to financing the Zionist entity from the pockets of Jordanian citizens and No to gas imports from the Zionist enemy.

The protest was called by trade unions and political parties opposed to the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, half the population of which is of Palestinian origin.

INTERACTIVE: How Egypt may become dependent on Israel for energy

Gas from the Zionists is a disgrace, the demonstrators chanted.

A US-led consortium leading the development of Israels offshore gas reserves announced the signing on Monday of a deal to sell natural gas from its Leviathan field to Jordan.

US firm Noble Energy, the lead partner, said the contract with the National Electric Power Company of Jordan (NEPCO) was for 8.5 million cubic metres per day over a 15-year term.

It includes an option to purchase a further 50 million cubic feet, up to a total of 350 million daily.

Fridays rally against the gas deal is likely to put pressure on a government facing multiple domestic challenges.

Writers killing

The demonstration in Amman came just a day after King Abdullah II visited the home village of Nahed Hattar to pay condolences to the Christian writers family, following his murder on Sunday outside a court.

Abdullah strongly condemned this heinous crime which was alien to our [Jordanian] culture, the royal palace said in a statement on Thursday.

On the visit to the Christian village of Al-Fuhais, 20km northwest of Amman, Abdullah, who was accompanied by Hani al-Malki, the prime minister, said Jordans Muslims and minority Christians were united against extremism, violence and bigotry.

Hattar, 56, was shot dead by a bearded assailant on the steps of an Amman court where he was on trial for allegedly insulting Islam with a cartoon he shared on social media.

Hattars family accused the authorities of failing to protect the writer despite warnings that his life had been under threat.

The assailant, who surrendered to police at the scene, has been charged with premeditated murder, terrorism and possession of an illegal firearm.

If convicted, the suspect could face the death penalty.
Under the law, the garment will be banned in public institutions, schools, areas of administrative and public services.

Bulgarias parliament has approved a nationwide law banning the wearing of face-covering veils from most public places.

The legislation, pushed by the nationalist Patriotic Front coalition and passed on Friday, echoes similar moves in a small number of European Union countries such as France, Netherlands and Belgium.

Hostility towards Muslims has grown in Bulgaria, a major gateway for refugees trying to reach Europe from Turkey, with human rights groups criticising the country for its harsh treatment of refugees.

The ban comes after Pazardzhik, in central Bulgaria, became in April the first town in the country to prohibit the wearing of full-face veils in public, in a move local officials claimed would prevent tension among communities and boost security.

READ MORE: Bulgarian army to guard border to prevent refugee flows

Under the new law, full-face veils will be banned in public institutions, schools, areas of administrative and public services. Homes and places of worship are not included in the prohibition.





People who do not follow the ban face fines of up to 1,500 levs ($858) as well as suspension of social benefits.

Bulgarias mostly centuries-old Muslim community, dating back to Ottoman times, makes up around 13 percent of the population, mostly in the Turkish minority.

The legislation was approved despite opposition from the MDL Turkish minority party, which accused the other political forces of sowing religious intolerance.

The ruling centre-right party said the ban has nothing to do with religious outfits but only aimed at boosting national security and allowing better video surveillance.

The law is not directed against religious communities and is not repressive, Krasimir Velchev, a ruling GERB party MP, said. We made a very good law for the safety of our children.

France and Belgium have both banned the full-face veil and Switzerlands lower house this week narrowly approved a draft bill on a nationwide ban. In August Germanys interior minister came out in favour of a partial ban.

France was also this summer embroiled in a row over bans on the full-body burkini swimsuit in resorts around the Riviera.

A poll published earlier this month showed Britons to be strongly in favour of a full-face veil ban.
Philippine president says he wants to slaughter millions of drug addicts, comparing it with Hitlers massacre of Jews.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has appeared to compare himself with Adolf Hitler, saying he would be happy to slaughter millions of drug addicts just like Nazi Germany killed three million Jews.

Hitler massacred three million Jews  theres three million drug addicts. There are. Id be happy to slaughter them, Duterte said early on Friday on his arrival in Davao City after a visit to Vietnam.





If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have , he said, pausing and pointing to himself, according to AFP news agency.

While Hitlers victims were innocent people, Duterte said his targets were all criminals and that getting rid of them would finish the [drug] problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition.

Historians say that six million Jews were killed by the Nazis under Hitler before and during World War II.

Duterte was elected in a May vote on the back of a promise to wage war on drugs and other crimes in the country of 100 million people.

He took office on June 30 and more than 3,500 people have been killed since then in police operations and attacks by unidentified assailants.

Unleashing profanity

Dutertes war on drugs has been heavily criticised by the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, the Catholic Church and human rights groups.

READ MORE: Playing dead to survive Dutertes drug war

But he has hit back, often with abusive language, to the criticism.

When the European Parliament last week called on the Philippine government to put an end to the killings of drug suspects, Duterte replied by unleashing a series of expletives against the bloc.

I have read the condemnation of the European Union. Im telling them, F**k you,' Duterte said in a mix of Filipino and English, before describing the EU as hypocrites trying to atone for guilt over its members occupying other countries in the past.

Earlier this month, Duterte also directed profanities at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US President Barack Obama, after they made similar comments about the mounting death toll in the Philippines.

Duterte later apologised for calling Obama a son of a whore.
New taxes and the lifting of sanctions on Iran could contribute to smugglings decline in the Strait of Hormuz.

Khasab, Oman  Trade between this tip of the Arabian Peninsula and nearby Iran  lying only 50 kilometres across the Strait of Hormuz  goes back millennia, according to Marc Valeri, a political scientist and expert on the Gulf monarchies.

In recent years, that trade has been illicit and conducted by smugglers, given the long-standing international sanctions on Iran. But smugglers may face a hard time now that the sanctions have been lifted, due to Irans compliance with the terms of the nuclear deal signed last year.

Zia, a 23-year-old Afghan who illegally migrated from Iran to Oman in 2010, was lying down in a park when his phone suddenly vibrated. This was one of my clients in Iran, he said, as he juggled between fluent Arabic and Farsi. He was asking me to send him five air conditioners.

Zia lives in Musandam, an Omani province that borders the United Arab Emirates and is the closest point on the Arabian Peninsula to Iran. It was midnight, and Zia had already been working all day long. My job is to receive the merchandise coming from Dubai or Ras al-Khaimah [in the United Arab Emirates], to store it in several warehouses  and then, in the morning, I load it in pick-up trucks and give it to Iranian smugglers who come to the port on speedboats, explained Zia.

The types of goods smuggled to Iran include phones, televisions, clothing, shoes, cigarettes, household appliances, and cas, among others.

Smuggling accounts for about one-third of Iranian imports, estimates Thierry Coville, an Iran specialist with the Paris-based Institute for International and Strategic Relations. Data from the Iranian Customs and Excise Department showed that smuggling through the Strait of Hormuz into the Islamic Republic generates almost $5bn a year, Mehr news agency reported in 2011.

I didn't sell any cars for three months. Before, I used to sell eight cars a month. by A car smuggler in Khasab

According to Bernard Hourcade, the former director of the Institut Francais de Recherche en Iran, this smuggling is also driven by the fact that the Iranian state, pushed by the conservatives, over-protects its industry and economy and over-taxes all the consumer goods that the Iranian economy could produce on its own.

Yet the smuggling has a revitalising effect on Musandam province, which is separated from the rest of Oman by the UAE. Musandam is a very remote region, which is consequently neglected by centralised development. These activities are an enormous economic breath of fresh air, said Valeri.

In Omans capital of Muscat, Commander Ali, who works for the Oman Maritime Security Centre and declined to give his last name, told Al Jazeera that these [smuggling] speedboats are illegal, as they enter the Omani waters without permission.

However, in Khasab, Musandam provinces capital, smuggling activity seems to be tolerated. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a member of the Royal Oman Polices Coast Guard said the state orally asks them [members of the coast guard] to behave like this business was fully legal.

However, some smugglers have fallen on hard times recently. One wealthy luxury car smuggler in Khasab, who asked to remain anonymous, said his business with Iran has slowed down. I didnt sell any cars for three months. Before, I used to sell eight cars a month. The man buys luxury cars from the UAE, then ships them to Iran through the Strait of Hormuz.Four of them sank in the middle of the sea, he recounted, because of the storms, the waves, and the wind.

Slouched on the dusty tiled floor of his bedroom, surrounded by dirty laundry and empty packs of cigarettes, a smuggler named Ali Shahi confirmed that the smuggling business is in decline. When I started, in 2001, I had three warehouses and 15 trucks. Now, I work with one warehouse and two trucks only, he said.

Shahi blames new taxes, not the lifting of sanctions on Iran, for his business downfall. He said it costs him $130 to legally transfer a truckload of goods from the UAE to Khasab, and that he must pay an additional $30 in border tax. Boxes are later shipped to speedboats for a $31 fee, including $15 in tax for the Omani government. If business is slow these days, its mainly caused by the poor relationship between Iran and the UAE, said Shahi.

Until 2009, a lorry crossing the UAE-Musandam border was tax free. From 2009 onward, the crossing costs about 100 Emirati dirham ($27) and one omani rial ($2.6) on the Omani side.

While smugglers agreed that any thaw in the relations between Iran and the the international community was likely to affect their activities, they, nonetheless, did not specify how.

On the other side of the Strait of Hormuz, smuggling activities remain a source of controversy, especially given Irans weak economy: Mehr News Agency reported in 2011 that every $1bn in smuggled goods costs Iran 50,000 to 60,000 jobs. Both Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other Iranian officials have recently made statements about the need to combat smuggling.

In August, 13 smuggled luxury cars were seized and ordered to be burned by the authorities. Hourcade said that although the Iranian government is concerned about the smuggling problem, groups that profit from smuggling constitute powerful lobbies in Iran.

The international sanctions strengthen the non-state entities and weaken the normal economies, he said.

In Khasab, many wonder whether the business experience acquired by the smugglers could in the future be harnessed to bolster legal trade between the two countries. The question is really how to make it [trade activity between Khasab and Iran] more, said Houchang Hassan-Yari, director of International Relations and Security Studies at Omans Sultan Qaboos University.

Following the Iran deal, which is thawing its relations with the international community, there could be less space for smugglers to continue their activities, said Hassan-Yari. The hope is that todays smugglers become tomorrows legal, traders.
About 16 million Moroccans head to polls to pick representatives for the 395-seat lower house of parliament.

Rabat, Morocco  Moroccans head to the polls on October 7 for the kingdoms 10th parliamentary elections since independence in 1956, to define a new political map of the North African country.

Around 16 million Moroccans of the countrys 34 million are registered to vote.

Candidates from 30 parties will compete to win seats in the 395-member Chamber of Representatives, the lower house of parliament.

Campaigning began on September 25.

The main battle will be hotly contested between the ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) and opposition Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM).

The Istiqlal (Independence) Party, the oldest in the country founded in 1944, is also projected to do well in this election.

The PJD, which won the parliamentary elections in 2011 after a turbulent period that saw many of Moroccos neighbours shaken by the Arab Spring, lost to the PAM in municipal elections in 2015.

So whats the set-up?

Moroccos parliament is made up of two directly elected chambers: the 395-member House of Representatives (the lower house) and the 270-member House of Advisers (the upper house).

On October 7, voters from Moroccos 95 electoral districts will elect members to serve five-year term in the House of Representatives.

Out of 395 members, 305 are elected in multi-seat constituencies from electoral lists put together by the parties, while 60 seats of the remaining 90 are reserved for a national list of women and the rest 30 seats are at grab by candidates under the age of 35.

Will voters turn out?

Voter turnout is generally poor. On the whole, about 50 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots both in local (municipal and regional polls) and national elections (parliament).

Voter turnout in the 2015 local elections was 53.67 percent, up from approximately 45 percent in the 2011 parliamentary vote.

Turnout in next October elections will be closely watched for an indication of peoples trust in the countrys politicians and parties, but projections stipulate that a certain amount of voter apathy is expected this time too.

And who are they voting for?

The multi-party system in the kingdom makes it impossible for any political party to win an absolute majority, forcing any winning party to work with other parties to form a coalition government.

At least 30 political parties are taking part in the upcoming elections, but only six major parties do enjoy strong electoral base.

Those six major parties are usually invited to form coalition governments, while some prefer to remain in the opposition.

Those parties are:

Justice and Development Party

Authenticity and Modernity Party

Istiqlal Party (IP)

Popular Movement (MP)

Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS)

National Rally of Independents (RNI)

Does all this matter? Isnt the king in charge?

He is. Morocco is a constitutional monarchy and the king has ultimate authority. King Mohammed VI, Moroccos monarch, came to power in 1999, after the death of his father.

The king chairs the Supreme Council of the Judiciary, the National Security Council, and the Council of Ministers, which must approve all legislations. He is also the commander of the faithful, adding religious authority to his political and security ones.

The countrys new constitution, which was approved in a referendum in 2011, however, introduced amendments that stripped the king of some of his political powers.

The amendments strengthened the authority of the countrys prime minister, allowing him/her to appoint government officials and dissolve parliament  authorities previously held only by the king.

The new constitution also ensures that the prime minister is selected from the party that received the most votes in election, rather than the king naming whomever he pleases.

The reforms also strengthen parliament, allowing it to launch investigations into officials with the support of just one-fifth of its members or to begin a censure motion against a minister with the backing of a third, rather than needing the unanimous approval demanded by the current constitution.

Does social media have any impact on elections?

New media has become an integral part of the political landscape in Morocco as it helped internet-assisted political communications to boom in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring, which challenged the balance of power in domestic politics in different Arab countries.

Many government officials and political parties are now positive about using social media too as a channel to bridge the communication gap with citizens.

Social media platforms have become the prime space for Moroccans to discuss their daily issues and to assess the government and parliament works.

According to CMAIS and BoldData, two Moroccan agencies specialising in information processing, Facebook is the social media network with the highest market penetration in Morocco with a total of 8 million active users out of 16 million Internet users.

Are the elections fair?

Critics say there is no guarantee of transparency in the elections organised by Moroccos Ministry of the Interior.

Despite some irregularities noted by independent observers, such as buying votes, the voting process is generally carried out close to international standards.

Is there anything else I should know about Morocco?

Bordered on the east by Algeria and on the south by Mauritania [including the disputed Western Sahara region], Morocco has a population of 34 million, with Arabs constituting 70 percent and Berbers making up most of the rest.

Sunni Muslims account for 90 percent of the population, but the kingdom also has small Christian and Jewish minorities.

The main official language is Arabic. Berber language, which is spoken widely in the north and the south has been granted the status of official language by the 2011 constitution.

The law that regulates the Berber language is still under debate in the parliament. Many Moroccans speak French or Spanish as a second or third language.

Morocco became an independent sovereign state in 1956, following joint declarations made with France and Spain.

Mohammed Ben Youssef, the Sultan of Morocco, adopted the title of King Mohammed V, and on his death in 1961, his son succeeded him as King Hassan II and became prime minister.
US law that would allow families of victims to sue Saudi government a matter of great concern, foreign ministry says.

Saudi Arabia has condemned a recently passed US law allowing the families of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks to sue the Saudi government.

The US Congress voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to override President Barack Obamas veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) on relations between states.





JASTA allows attack survivors and relatives of victims to pursue cases against foreign governments in US federal court and to demand compensation if such governments are proved to bear some responsibility for attacks on American soil.

In a statement on Thursday, the Saudi government said the enactment of the law was a matter of great concern and called on the US Congress to avoid the serious unintended consequences that may ensue, without elaborating on what the consequences might be.

The erosion of sovereign immunity will have a negative impact on all nations, including the United States, the Saudi foreign ministry said in the statement, which was carried on state news agency SPA on Thursday.

READ MORE: The truth about the Saudi bill

Fifteen of the 19 men who carried out the 2001 attacks were Saudi nationals, but Saudi Arabia, a major US ally, has long denied any involvement in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

In opposing the law, Obama said it would harm US interests by undermining the principle of sovereign immunity, opening up the US to private lawsuits over its military missions abroad.

The erosion of sovereign immunity is also a concern among the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, of which Saudi Arabia is the most powerful member.

Saudi Arabias Gulf allies have lined up beside Riyadh to criticise the law.

Analysts said a successful lawsuit against the Saudi government would be unlikely at best, but speculated that the uncertainty surrounding the legal implications could negatively affect bilateral trade and investment with an ally.

It will be very difficult for Saudi Arabia to continue in intelligence cooperation when they take such a hostile position, Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran Saudi journalist and analyst, told AFP news agency.

He said Saudi officials are probably debating whether to act now or wait until the first suit is filed.
Angry protesters in northern region burned US flags and images of President Barack Obama after raid.

Somalias government has requested an explanation from the United States for an air raid that it says killed 22 soldiers and civilians in the north of the country.

Officials in the semi-autonomous region of Galmudug said a US bombing killed members of its forces and accused a rival region, Puntland, which is also semi-autonomous, of misleading the US into believing those targeted were members of the al-Shabab armed group.





The cabinet requests the US government give a clear explanation about the attack its planes carried out on the Galmudug forces, a government statement said.

It also urged both Galmudug and Puntland, which have often clashed over territory in the past, to mend relations, the Reuters news agency reported.

Washington said the United States carried out a self-defence air strike after Somali troops faced fire from al-Shabab fighters. It said nine fighters had been killed but that it was looking into reports others may also have died.

The United States, a major donor to Somalias government in Mogadishu, has often bombed al-Shabab positions and commanders in a bid to support the government.

Al-Shabab not in the area

Al-Shabab has been waging a war against the central government for nearly a decade, carrying out often major attacks on military and civilian targets.

Since being pushed out of major cities and towns, the group has resorted to armed attacks across the Horn of Africa country and in other countries in the region such as Kenya.

In a separate statement, Somali General Ali Bashi said the Somali army had confirmed that Galmudug forces and civilians were killed in the raid, describing it as a case of friendly fire.

The general also said that al-Shabab was not in the area, confirming an earlier statement from the rebels that they had no forces there at the time of the attack, which happened overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday.

Protesters in Galmudugs capital Galkayo burned US flags and images of President Barack Obama in protest on Wednesday, witnesses said.

Somalia has been struggling to rebuild after two decades of war. The conflict that began in 1991 has left the country riven by clan rivalries and struggling with the conflict between the government and al-Shabab.
Italian police recover paintings, worth tens of millions of euros, that were stolen from a museum in Amsterdam in 2002.

Italian police have recovered two paintings by the Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh in Naples that were stolen nearly 14 years ago in the Netherlands.

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam said on Friday that the art works, which were stolen in 2002, had been removed from their frames but appeared largely undamaged.

The museum said the paintings were recovered during a massive, continuing investigation commissioned by the Italian Public Prosecutions Department, against organised crime.

It is unknown where the works were kept after the theft in 2002, but it can be assumed that the paintings were not preserved under suitable conditions, Axel Ruger, director of the Van Gogh Museum, told reporters in Naples.

Weve waited 14 years for this moment, Ruger said.

It is not yet known when the paintings, which have an estimated value in the tens of millions of euros, will be returned to the Dutch capital.

Two men were given prison sentences for the 2002 robbery, although they had pleaded not guilty. There had been no trace of the paintings until now and the Van Gogh Museum had offered a finders reward of 100,000 euros ($112,000).

The works, Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen and View of the Sea at Scheveningen, are both from relatively early in Van Goghs career.

Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen was painted in early 1884 for van Goghs mother and father.

View of the Sea at Scheveningen, which was painted in 1882, is a painting of a fishing village near The Hague set against a dark sky.
Suspected pro-government attacks and rebel shelling claim over 20 lives on first anniversary of Russian air campaign.

At least 23 civilians have been killed in a single day in tit-for-tat attacks by government forces, Russia and anti-government fighters in Syrias Aleppo, according to a monitoring group.

Air strikes by unidentified jets killed at least 12 civilians on Friday in the opposition-held districts on the northern edge of eastern Aleppo, said the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The bombardment, believed to have been carried out by Syrian government jets and those of allied Russia, has worsened the already dire humanitarian situation in eastern Aleppo.





The Syrian observatory said that local hospitals cannot cope with the increasing numbers of injured amid a shortage in medical equipment and supplies.

Eleven other civilians were killed in shelling attacks by fighters against government-controlled areas in Aleppo on Friday, said the observatory, that relies on a network of activists inside Syria.

In Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council denounced the ongoing attacks on civilians in eastern Aleppo, in a resolution that was opposed by Russia.

The resolution text strongly condemns the military offensive on eastern Aleppo being conducted by forces loyal to the Syrian authorities, and calls on them to halt immediately the indiscriminate bombing of the civilian population.

The decision that was drafted by Western and Arab countries was adopted with 26 yes votes.

Plight of the wounded

For its part, the World Health Organization repeated its urgent demand on the rival sides to allow the evacuation of sick and wounded people from eastern Aleppo.

More than 840 people have been injured in this besieged part of the divided city over the past week, nearly a third of them children, according to the UN aid agency.

READ MORE: Letter from Aleppo  My city is not just a death toll

WHO also demanded that medical aid should be let in, and that attacks on hospitals stop.

Blocking whole populations from access to medical care, food and water is intolerable. It is inexcusable cruelty, said Pete Salama, who heads WHOs medical emergencies programme.

An estimated 300,000 people in eastern Aleppo are believed to be under siege by government forces.





Friday also marked the first anniversary of Russias air campaign in Syria.

More than 9,000 people, including nearly 4,000 civilians, have been killed in one year of Russian air raids in Syria, according to the Syrian observatory.

It said the death toll included about 3,800 civilians and 5,500 fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and various rebel factions.

A further 20,000 civilians have been wounded in Russias year-long offensive of air strikes, it said.

Later on Friday, the Russian government rejected the figures provided by the observatory.

We do not consider information about what happens in Syria from an organisation based in Britain to be reliable, Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, said

The one-year anniversary of Russias military intervention came a day after Russia said it would press on with its bombing campaign in Syria, ignoring a threat by the US to suspend its engagement.
At least 9,364 people, including 3,800 civilians, have been killed in 12 months of Russian raids, Syria monitor says.

More than 9,000 people, including nearly 4,000 civilians, have been killed in one year of Russian air raids in Syria, according to a monitoring group, as fierce fighting near the besieged city of Aleppo continues.

Russia launched an air campaign on September 30 last year in support of Syrian government forces, in a military intervention that has been widely credited with helping turn the balance of power in favour of President Bashar al-Assad.





Since then, at least 9,364 people have been killed in Russian raids, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which uses a network of activists in Syria to track daily developments in the war.

The monitor said the death toll included about 3,800 civilians and 5,500 fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group and various rebel factions.

A further 20,000 civilians have been wounded in Russias year-long offensive of air strikes.

The observatory says it determines which planes carried out what raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said the death toll from Russian strikes could be even higher given the number of people killed by unidentified fighter jets.

READ MORE: If we lose this generation, we lose Syria

Later on Friday, the Russian government rejected the figures provided by the Observatory.

We do not consider information about what happens in Syria from an organization based in Britain to be reliable, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Peskov also said there is no timeframe for Russias military operation in Syria, adding that the main result of Russian air strikes over the past year is that neither Islamic State [ISIL], nor al-Qaeda nor the Nusra Front [currently known as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham] are now sitting in Damascus.

Upon launching its air campaign in Syria, Russia had said its aerial campaign targeted ISIL and other terrorists, but rebel forces and their backers accused Moscow of focusing on moderate fighters instead.

Several medical groups also accused Russia of strikes that had hit field clinics and hospitals in Syria.

A US-led coalition air campaign has also been accused of straying from its stated mission to fight ISIL. One air raid killed dozens of Syrian soldiers earlier this month.

Merciless abyss

The one-year anniversary of Russias military intervention came a day after Moscow said it would press on with its bombing campaign in Syria, ignoring a threat by Washington to suspend its engagement over the conflict following escalating attacks on rebel-held parts of Aleppo.





Syrian and Russian aircraft have carried out a series of intense bombing raids on east Aleppo since Assads government announced an offensive last week to retake all of the divided city following the failure of a short-lived ceasefire brokered by Russia and the United States.

Moscow and Washington have traded blame for the collapse of the truce, with US Secretary of State John Kerry admitting on Thursday that months of diplomacy to end the war had hit a dead-end.

I think we are on the verge of suspending the discussion because, you know, its irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place, to be sitting there, trying to take things seriously, Kerry said.

The joint bombardment of Aleppo has been some of the worst in Syrias long-running civil war, killing about 400 people and wounded 1,700 others.

An estimated 250,000 people still live in eastern Aleppo, which has been under near-continuous siege since mid-July, causing food and fuel shortages.

The statistics are pretty horrific, said Al Jazeeras Charles Stratford, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish side of the Turkey-Syria border, citing UN officials who called for the urgent evacuation of at least 600 wounded people in Aleppo.

According to UN aid chief Stephen OBrien, Aleppo is descending into a merciless abyss of a humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed so far in Syria.

READ MORE: Letter from Aleppo  My city is not just a death toll

The situation remains absolutely desperate in that part of the city, and what seems to be fuelling the fear now among civilians in that area is whats been reported as a gradual build-up of whats been described as pro-Syrian government and government forces pushing forward and closer to the outskirts of that area, Al Jazeeras Stratford said.

On Friday, opposition activists said Syrian government helicopters had dropped at least two barrel bombs on Aleppos Old City, while one person was reportedly killed in an artillery strike in the eastern part of the city, Stratford said.

Two of the biggest hospitals in the citys east were bombed on Wednesday in what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described as a war crime.





UK-based charity Save the Children also warned said the ferocious assault on the city could deprive almost 100,000 school-age children of an education.

READ MORE: Most of Aleppos public schools are destroyed

Aleppo was once Syrias commercial and industrial heart but has been ravaged by fighting and roughly divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east since mid-2012.

The Syrian civil war started as a largely unarmed uprising against Assad in March 2011, but quickly escalated into a full-blown armed conflict.

Five years on, more than 400,000 Syrians are estimated to have been killed, and almost 11 million Syrians  half the countrys prewar population  have been forced to flee their homes.
Group treks in Pamir Mountains in country with eco-tourism potential but dependent on migrant workers remittances.

Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan  Up to 60 percent of families in Tajikistan rely on remittances by relatives working as migrant labourers in Russia.

Yet eco-tourism is a potential source of income for the mountainous country.

Tajikistan has been trying to boost tourism, introducing academic tourism courses in local universities in 2012 but with little focus on outdoor skills.

Christine Oriol, a French development worker, noticed the lack of experienced trekking guides while working on a trekking guidebook for the region and started a training course.

She is teaching a group of young Tajik women crucial outdoor skills, like map reading, pitching tents, getting the stoves going and shouldering heavy backpacks to survive a week out in the Pamir Mountains.

Oriols course is defying traditions in Tajikistans Muslim society.

The mountains I would say is considered mostly as a mans area, she says.

Women never go to the mountains. There are very few male guides, and women guides absolutely dont exist in Tajikistan.

Tajik women enjoy more freedom than in neighbouring Afghanistan but are often expected to stick to traditional roles.

Even my family, they are saying its too hard for you, says Safina Shohaydarova, a tourism graduate.

They think its more for men  all this trekking and stuff.
Besides suspensions, dozens of arrest warrants issued for staff in judicial and prison systems over alleged Gulen links.

Turkish authorities have suspended 1,500 prison personnel and arrested dozens of others working in the judiciary over alleged links with a US-based religious leader whom Turkey accuses of orchestrating the failed July coup attempt.

Speaking at an event in the Turkish capital Ankara on Friday, Bekir Bozdag, the justice minister, said more than 1,000 prison personnel and guards were temporarily suspended to remove individuals linked to the Fethullah Gulen network in Turkish prisons, but could be sacked if concrete links were found.

Turkish authorities also issued dozens of arrest warrants for staff in the judicial and prison systems.

READ MORE: Turkey frees prisoners to make room for coup detainees

Prosecutors in the Turkish city of Istanbul have sent out warrants for 87 people working in Istanbul courts and 75 wardens and other staff working in prisons, the state-run Anadolu news agency said on Friday.





There have been regular raids against staff suspected of links to the failed coup in courts, but this is believed to be the first time that the prison system has been targeted.

Police raided Istanbuls main court in the district of Caglayan and also those in Gaziosmanpasa and Buyukcekmece in search of the suspects.

Arrest warrants were also issued for staff at the prisons of Silivri, Metris and Bakirkoy in Istanbul as well as their homes.

It was not yet clear how many people had been detained in the raids so far.

Those targeted are suspected of links to Gulen, who had lived in self-imposed exile in the US since 1999.

Gulen denies the claims, saying he merely runs a peaceful organisation called Hizmet (Service).

INTERACTIVE: Timeline of attacks in Turkey

Turkeys government, who had a close alliance with Gulen in the early years of its rule, say his supporters infiltrated all sectors of society including the military with the aim of launching the coup that took place on July 15.





The coup attempt was defeated when supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took to the streets.

Erdogan returned to Istanbul unharmed.

But the state of emergency after the coup has raised tensions between Turkey and the European Union, which has expressed concerns over the scale of the crackdown that has seen 32,000 people arrested .

Since the failed coup attempt, more than 77,000 people, including soldiers, judges and prosecutors, have been investigated, some of them temporarily detained.

Thousands of soldiers, teachers, journalists, civil servants and academics have also been suspended or dismissed from their jobs as a result of their alleged links to Gulens network.

READ MORE: Fear grows as Turkey introduces state of emergency

Turkish government also shut down thousands of schools, companies, television channels and newspapers for their alleged links to terrorism since the failed coup attempt.

Erdogan said this week that the state of emergency imposed after the coup attempt should be extended at least for another three months when it expires in October.
Health ministry says tests remain inconclusive on third infants condition amid concern over impact on tourism.

Authorities in Thailand have confirmed that two cases of babies with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, were caused by the Zika virus, the first such cases found in Southeast Asia.

The health ministry said on Friday that tests remained inconclusive as to whether the third infants condition was connected to Zika.

Two of the three infants [tested] had microcephaly due to the Zika virus, Wicharn Pawan, a disease control official, told AFP news agency.

WHO broadens Zika safe sex guidelines for travellers

The World Health Organization this week said any confirmed link in Thailand would be the first identified in Southeast Asia.

Zika causes only mild symptoms in most, including fever, sore eyes and a rash.

But pregnant women with the mosquito-borne virus risk giving birth to babies with microcephaly  a deformation that leads to abnormally small brains and heads.

There is no cure or vaccine for the virus, which has infected more than 1.5 million people in nearly 70 countries since last year, according to WHO, with Brazil the hardest hit.

While Zika has been present in Southeast Asia for years, there has been an increase in the number of recorded cases in the region in recent months.

On Friday, WHO praised the reaction in Thailand where authorities have been active in detecting and responding to Zika, according to Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHOs regional director for Southeast Asia.

This week Thailands health ministry said it was monitoring 36 pregnant women infected with Zika, three of whom recently gave birth to babies with microcephaly.





Prasert Thongcharoen, a Thai virologist, said Friday that 4.3 infants per 100,000, are born with microcephaly in Thailand, twice the global average.

The condition can also be caused by Downs syndrome and other infections during pregnancy such as German measles and chickenpox.

The announcement could affect Thailands key tourism industry, one of the kingdoms few economic bright spots under junta rule, with many western governments warning pregnant women against non-essential travel to Zika-affected areas.

The tourism industry, which is expected to account for some 17 percent of Thailands GDP this year, has swiftly bounced back from coups, violent street protests and bomb attacks in the past.

Before the Thai test results were announced, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel advisory urging pregnant women to consider postponing nonessential travel to Southeast Asia countries with reports of Zika virus.

The news comes just one day before the start of Golden Week, an annual Chinese holiday that sees a flood of tourists descend on neighbouring Thailand.

The kingdom is hoping to receive 33 million visitors this year, boosted by surging numbers of visitors from China.
Walking through Plaza of the Americas on Thursday, some students created a map of Florida using coffee beans. Others posed for photos holding signs that read I love you a latte.

To celebrate National Coffee Day, the UF Social Street Team held a five-hour caffeine-themed event. Off campus, local cafes offered discounts all day.

For Brooke Schroepfer, a 20-year-old UF industrial and systems engineering junior, the holiday was a way for her to reflect on just how much coffee she drinks. She said she cant start her day without a cup.

Its a good way to start your morning before a long day, she said.

At the event on the plaza, students exchanged coffee beans for coffee-themed buttons. The beans were then glued onto a canvas to form a depiction of the state of Florida.

At Krispy Kreme, located at 306 NW 13 St., employees gave away free cups of coffee and glazed donuts.

To get ready for the rush, employees at the shop showed up to work Wednesday night, said employee Derek Asbell.

Since were open 24 hours, we had to go in at 10:30 (p.m.) to get prepared, he said.

Know Where Coffee, located at 1226 W. University Ave., offered customers 25 percent off cold-brew coffee.

We prepare cold brew every two to three days, said manager Juan Diaz. Luckily, today, that landed on coffee day; we had fresh cold brew.

Carley Carbary, a 19-year-old UF religion freshman, places a bean in UF Social Street Teams community art project (the state of Florida made up of coffee beans) on the Plaza of the Americas on Thursday in honor of National Coffee Day. Limited-edition buttons were given to those who contributed a bean to the project.

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Micah E. Johnson was 14 when he stared down the barrel of a gun.

He was walking down the streets of his Fort Lauderdale, Florida, neighborhood with his older brother when a cop car pulled over behind them.

He remembers multiple officers stepping out. Guns were drawn. And Johnson, a now-UF sociology doctoral student, stood in fear.

We never knew what they suspected us of, the 31-year-old said. They would just point the guns at our heads.

As the nation struggles to understand the deaths and acts of police brutality against the black community, UF students and the city of Gainesville are looking for answers. Student organizations have held meetings, and demonstrations have been hosted in an effort to provoke conversation and demand change.

Through meetings and protests, the residents of Gainesville want to send the same message: They are tired of talking  tired of dialogue.

For Johnson, it was a reality he grew up in. The issues of police brutality against the black community have existed for a while.

It makes you crazy a little bit, he said. It gets under your skin. Its painful.

  

Robert Dentmond was shot and killed after a stand-off with police officers in March at an apartment complex in Gainesville.

He was 16.

Ibram Kendi, a UF professor in the African American Studies Program, said Dentmond lived down his street. He had lived in Gainesville for eight months when Dentmond died. He saw no justification in Dentmonds death, he said.

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But police brutality against the black community isnt a new concept to Kendi. While in Philadelphia, he was approached by an officer who was investigating a recent shooting in the area.

Kendi watched as the officer moved for the gun on his hip.

The officer asked Kendi to remove his hands from his pockets, Kendi recalled. He complied. He believed one wrong move could have ended his life.

Every black person could be subjected to that kind of treatment, he said.

Grace King Khyra Keeley, the social justice and advocacy chair for UF Black Affairs, leads a group of students in discussion on Monday. They talked about what they can do to provoke change in their community.

No matter how educated a person may be or how many degrees he or she has, he said, every black person is viewed as a criminal.

Kendi joined a panel Sept. 22 to discuss with a group of Gainesville residents, UF students and local officers about the Black Lives Matter movement and events that continue to impact the black community.

I want people to be able to leave police incidents alive, he said. Especially young black people who look like bad dudes.

Johnson, who grew up in a predominantly black and Hispanic community, said the presence of police officers was constant.

Police officers would stop kids on the street and point guns directly in their faces, he said. Officers would mistake his fear for guilt and would threaten to beat him up, he said.

It was a way of life, he said.

But change is needed, Johnson told a group at the meeting, hosted by the Black Graduate Student Organization. Officers of the Gainesville community, who were present, are helping spark that change, he said.

I see (Gainesville Police) doing their best to mend these wounds, Johnson said.

  

In Gainesville, officers say theyre continuing to work with the community.

Gainesville Police spokesman Officer Ben Tobias wrote in an email that the department is a national leader in community relations.

He said GPD takes all complaints of police misconduct seriously and investigates them thoroughly.

When officers are found to behave inappropriately, he said, GPD acts quickly.

Our officers recognize that everyone we encounter, no matter their criminal intent, is a human being and deserves to be treated with that respect, he said.

Grace King Ben Estrella, 18, a UF mechanical engineering freshman, engages in the conversation about Gainesville and its black community. He attended a meeting led by UF Black Affairs on Monday night.

A crime analyst for GPD provided numbers that show since 2014, the number of arrests has gone down and the gaps between the number of black and white arrests are closing.

As of Sept. 15, 215 more black adults have been arrested than white adults this year.

Johnson said GPD cannot be held accountable for the shootings going on across the nation, but its important they know and sympathize with the experiences of the black community.

Were asking for support, he said.

  

Three days after the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, 43, in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday, a group of about 300 people showed up on Turlington Plaza.

The names of 40 victims who were killed by officers were read, followed by a moment of silence.

Khyra Keeley, 20, who organized the event, said she has been overwhelmed by the response of the community.

I think sometimes we forget the power and the influence we have as students, the UF political science and African-American studies student said.

Keely, the social justice and advocacy chair of UF Black Affairs, said she was amazed by how many students approached her, ready to work for change.

Shes willing to do whatever it takes to see change happen at UF and in Gainesville, Keely said. Even if that means being a part of the movement after graduation.

Im going to be in this and fight with you, she said. I dont care how long it takes; Im in it for the long haul.

  

As Medens Gerbier collapsed in the courtyard of UF Levin College of Law on Wednesday, she thought of Dentmond.

She wore a white shirt covered in blood-red handprints. The 22-year-old lay next to 39 other UF students as they dropped to the ground as name after name was read. Eventually, 40 students lay on the UF law school courtyard in protest of the deaths of unarmed black men and women.

Gerbiers heart pounded as the names were read aloud. Robert Dentmond. Terence Crutcher. Keith Scott.

It easily could have been me, the first-year UF law student said.

Alisha Moriceau, the president of the Black Law Student Association, said students need to talk to one another to provoke change and let go of the fear of offending others.

Despite professors and students being more concerned with political correctness, she said she believes police brutality against the black community needs to be discussed.

Murder is murder, the 23-year-old second year UF law student said. Its not anti-police  its anti-murder.

Moriceau said she wants to continue having difficult conversations and taking others with her to speak in the community about the issues that affect it.

We want to make people uncomfortable, she said, because until you make people uncomfortable, you cannot impact change.

Keeley said UF organizations like Black Affairs will have to come together to provoke change.

Along with other students, Keeley said she wants to attend meetings of the Police Advisory Council and work with UF to offer more education and diversity, especially during students first year.

We cant just grieve together, she said. We have to put together action steps to create change.

On Wednesday, UFs Black Law Student Association staged a die-in to honor 40 victims of police brutality. The protest took place in the courtyard of the Levin College of Law.
When Rusty the Clown heard about the latest creepy clown sighting, this time in Gainesville, he was uncharacteristically unamused.

On Tuesday, a woman reported seeing someone dressed as a clown and scaring her near her Northwest 16th Street apartment, Gainesville Police said. Rusty, whose real name is James Gorgans, said these creepy clowns spread a negative perception about his profession.

Its a tragedy, Gorgans said, because its trying to show that clowns are scary and frightening and all the things we arent.

On Tuesday, at Georgetown Apartments, the woman noticed someone dressed as a clown staring at her in silence, said GPD spokesman Officer Ben Tobias.

When she looked at it, it tilted its head in what she described a creepy manner, Tobias said.

She called the police, but the clown left before officers arrived, he said.

Sightings of unknown people donning clown masks began circulating the internet in early August after being spotted in South Carolina. On Sept. 22, the clowns reached Ocala. On Tuesday, Gainesville.

Tobias said it was a matter of time before someone brought the act to Gainesville. Earlier this week, residents at Village Green Apartments told police they saw four men dressed as clowns pack into a van.

One of his biggest concerns is someone scaring a concealed-weapon holder, he said. If a person perceives a threat, they may be within their rights to shoot.

What started out as a prank could result in somebody being seriously injured or even killed, Tobias said.

According to Florida State Statutes, its illegal for someone to wear a mask, hood or any other item that conceals the identity of the wearer on public or private property. Another statute makes it illegal to wear any item to conceal ones identity with the intent of intimidation.

Kizzie Johnson, 30, a resident at Georgetown Apartments, heard about the clown sighting Wednesday from concerned friends.

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Since the sighting, she said shes more aware of her surroundings and wont walk alone at night. If she saw the creepy clown, shed probably scream or hit it.

That dont (sic) happen out here, she said. I didnt know that happened in Gainesville.

Gorgans, the former president of the World Clown Association and a clown for 30 years, said he hopes the fad dies out quickly. He said its likely being carried out by teenagers eager for Halloween.

A lot of these kids go out and they imitate what they see, he said.

He said he hopes the public understands clowning is a harmless profession that aims to make folks laugh. But even at birthday parties, some parents are visibly scared.

If were asked to, well stay away as far as possible, he said.
A 15-acre plot of land will be unveiled at Prairie Creek Preserve today.

The Alachua Conservation Trust will partner with Conservation Burial Inc. to host a joint celebration from 10:30 a.m. to noon, which will feature a brief ceremony followed by a hike of the new trail, open to all attendees.

The new piece features a new hiking trail, a kiosk and several tables where families can go picnic after exploring the trails or visiting the grave of a loved one, said Tom Kay, the executive director of ACT.

Kay said the addition is a conservation success story.

After years of intense negotiation with landowners and a donation from Conservation Burial Inc., the ACT finally purchased the narrow stretch of land for $115,000.

Its a really critical parcel, Kay said. Its adjacent to Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery, its surrounded by Prairie Creek Preserve, and (its) also an optimal boundary for Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park.

He said the funding for the project came, in part, from a donation made by Conservation Burial Inc., which specializes in eco-friendly burials, and from a one-day fundraiser held by the Community Foundation of North Central Florida.

Freddie Johnson, the executive director for Conservation Burial Inc., said he felt a calling to help save the land, which will add to his companys acreage.

His company donated 10 percent of the burial fees it collected toward the lands purchase.

Our mission is to provide a choice for folks to have an extremely environmentally friendly natural burial over other alternatives, Johnson said. The legacy of this decision is leveraged by saving land, putting it under conservation forever and managing it as an ecosystem.

Morgan Mule, a UF biology student said she believes preserving untouched land is crucial to the planets sustainability.

The 20-year-old said she is looking forward to seeing what the new plot has to offer.

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Any new place to go out and walk on trails and see nature is always fun, Mule said. There are a lot of cool places around here to do that and its great that they are expanding this one.
Santa Fe College police officers will get body cameras in the next year.

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced it awarded a $28,000 body-camera grant to the Santa Fe College Police Department. Of the 33 departments across the country that received the grant, Santa Fe was the only one in Florida.

The college will match half of the money, totaling about $50,000, toward the body cameras. The colleges money will give Santa Fe Police time to research different body cameras, train officers in how to use them and provide professional development resources, said Santa Fe Police Chief Ed Book.

Book said he wants to get enough cameras to outfit up to 17 officers.

Funding for the one-year grant will become available in October, he said. The first few months will be spent researching what cameras to buy and how to store the video footage.

University Police has been looking into getting body cameras for the last two years, said UPD spokesman Maj. Brad Barber.

He said the department is looking to apply for more grants and sources of funding for its 89 officers.

It would be quite expensive, he said.

Book applied for a similar grant last April because he said he wanted to offer transparency to the UF community and build trust.

Why not get ahead of that and say, Look, we trust you, we want you to trust us, Book said.

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On Wednesday morning, the world lost a great man; a man bigger than politics, whose name alone is synonymous with the state of Israel.

Born in Poland in 1923, Shimon Peres moved to British-mandated Palestine in 1934. There, he not only dreamed of a Jewish nation, but he also fought courageously to realize that dream, first as a key figure in the 1948 War of Independence and later as a statesman and politician in almost every Israeli conflict since.

At a very young age, Peres was personally picked by Israels founding father, David Ben-Gurion, to carry out important missions. He was in charge of acquiring weapons for Israels war of independence, and subsequently made arms deals with France that led to another victory for Israel in 1967. Likewise, he was instrumental in developing Israels indispensable nuclear program in a country whose enemies had no tolerance for its existence.

However, it was not only his diligent efforts to build up Israels military might, his role in developing Israels major industries, Israels nuclear program or the fact that he was prime minister twice and a president that made him a great man. It was also his dream of a lasting peace with perpetually hostile Arab neighbors. He was the mastermind behind the 1993 Oslo Accord with Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which earned him a Nobel Peace Prize and gave hope to millions who longed for peace.

In a country that often forgets the remarkable journey that was the founding of Israel, Peres was the last remaining symbol of that remarkable journey. He showed the world that Israel would fight when necessary, but also seek peace when the time was right.

However, his endeavors were not without controversy. After his negotiations with King Hussein of Jordan over Palestinian self-determination failed, Peres pursued the idea of speaking directly with the PLO, which was viewed as a terrorist organization by many Israelis. The PLO was responsible for multiple atrocities such as the massacre of 22 school children in Maalot and the infamous Munich massacre, which left 11 Israeli Olympians dead. The list of PLO atrocities is long, bloody and tragic.

Still, Peres engaged in direct negotiations with the PLO in the name of peace. He dreamed of a New Middle East where Israel would not only have peaceful relations with its Arab neighbors, but be economically integrated in a flourishing Middle East.

Unfortunately, Peres dream has since been put on hold, first by the dissolution of multilateral peace in Egypt, and then by the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, that erupted shortly after Israel made far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians in exchange for peace. That violent series of events left 4,000 dead and the peace agreement in shambles. Since then relations between Israel and Palestine have gone downhill and negotiations for peace are currently at an impasse.

However, Peres never lost hope, and it is with this hope that he leaves us at the age of 93. Like his mentor, David Ben-Gurion, Peres was a dreamer, pragmatist and believer in the enterprise and innovation that created the nation of Israel. Peres passed away as a beloved figure who contributed to the development of the miracle that is Israel and as a symbol of peace and optimism. Today, he is no longer with us, but his dream and his hope for the world lives on.

Julian Fleischman is a UF political science and telecommunication senior. His column appears on Fridays.

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English News Commentary: G20 should be a pioneer in global green development

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 30 Septembre 2016



G20 countries should guide the technical development and application of renewable energy by taking the initiative in supporting the energy transformation of developing countries. In this way, energy transformation can bring direct economic benefit to developing countries.

By Wang Zhongying, Peoples Daily Occupying 54.5 percent of global land area and accounting for 63.9 percent of the worlds population as well as 90 percent of the world's GDP, G20 members are also responsible for 81.8 percent of the global consumption of primary energy, which results in their 82.9 percent share in total carbon dioxide emissions.



From the perspective of economic development, the geographical area and population of G20 members commensurate with their contribution to the world economy. However, there still leaves much potential for energy utilization efficiency.



Given its significant global status, the G20 should be a pioneer in global green development that leads the evolution of renewable energy under the guidance of green, cooperative, inclusive and shared development. To be more specific, the G20 should play a guiding role in the following three areas:



The G20 should actively put the Paris Agreement into effect and lead the implementation of development strategies for renewable energy. Early implementation of the Paris Agreement will chart the course for the global energy revolution and transformation.



The G20 should not only develop renewable energy on its own, but aid in the process of developing countries, thus setting an example in implementing the Paris Agreement.



In addition, the 20-member group should render full support to the Belt and Road construction, as China boasts obvious advantages in the development of renewable energy.



By relying on existing bilateral or multilateral mechanisms between China and relevant countries, the Belt and Road construction will spread the notion of green development and regenerative energy to the whole world, bringing benefits to local people and accelerate green development.



Furthermore, G20 countries should guide the technical development and application of renewable energy by taking the initiative in supporting the energy transformation of developing countries. In this way, energy transformation can bring direct economic benefit to developing countries.



There is only one Earth. For the G20 to lead green development, it has to break its own technical and trade barriers.



Considering the environmental cost of the exploitation and application of fossil fuels as well as the restoration cost of the ecological damage it caused, renewable energy now is able to compete with fossil energy in the market.



In the long run, global energy development will be less dependent on fossil fuel and embark on a promising path dominated by renewable energy.



(The author is Deputy Director General of Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission.)





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English News G20 outcomes to spur global trade and investment

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 30 Septembre 2016



As a direct participant and beneficiary of global trade and investment, the business world will work with each government to implement the result from the G20 Hangzhou Summit. It will help all nations increase their coordination on trade policies, eliminate trade barriers and lower trade cost.

Jiang Zengwei, Peoples Daily The importance of global trade and investment to the world economy is like blood to human body; impeded trade and investment will undermine the health of the world economy.



But in todays world, the growth of international trade has been outpaced by that of the global economy for four consecutive years, while sluggish international investment made things worse, hindering the way of all countries to shake off the aftereffects of financial crisis and pursue economic growth.



One remedy is to accelerate the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment, and fight against any forms of protectionism.



The just-concluded G20 Summit also listed the revival of global trade and investment as as part of its agenda. It not only institutionalized G20 cooperation on trade and investment policies, but also proposed a series of feasible plans to promote trade growth and issued the world's first multilateral guideline document on investment policy making.



G20 leaders also agreed to improve the multilateral trade system, accelerate the approval and implementation of trade facilitation agreements, establish global e-commerce platforms and improve the policy environment of global investment.



If these measures can be effectively implemented, the world can break trade and investment barriers, while at the same time mobilize global resources, goods and services in a more efficient manner. They can further integrate the global market, accelerate its pace in integrating cross-border supplies, industrial and value chains, and ultimately embrace a higher economic growth and boosted economic globalization.



As a direct participant and beneficiary of global trade and investment, the business world will work with each government to implement the result from the G20 Hangzhou Summit. It will help all nations increase their coordination on trade policies, eliminate trade barriers and lower trade cost.



We will also join efforts to safeguard the multilateral trade system, oppose protectionism, bring global trade back on track, establish an open, transparent and favorable global investment environment, and revitalize cross-border investment.



(The author is the chairman of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and chair of the B20 2016)



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Our annual rankings are out! Don't miss this year's lists of the Most Powerful Women in Banking, the Women to Watch and the Most Powerful Women in Finance.

BNY Mellon's Karen Peetz was named the Most Powerful Woman in Banking this year, while KeyCorp's Beth Mooney has graduated to Hall of Fame status. JPMorgan Chase's Mary Callahan Erdoes is the Most Powerful Woman in Finance for the fourth year in a row.

Bank of the West's Nandita Bakhshi tops the Women to Watch list. She left TD Bank earlier this year to become chief executive of Bank of the West, becoming the fourth woman to head a top-40 bank. The other three are Mooney, Ally Bank's Diane Morais and CIT's Ellen Alemany, who came out of retirement almost a year ago to lead CIT Group and is now No. 2 on the Watch list. Mary Mack sits at No. 3 with a rocky road ahead of her, as she works to rebuild trust with Wells Fargo customers following Wellsgate.

There are some newcomers to the honoree lists to read about too, including Mary Ann Scully of Howard Bank in Ellicott City, Md., Teresa Tanner of Fifth Third Bancorp, Rosilyn Houston of BBVA Compass, Karen Glenn of First United Bank and Trust Co. in Kentucky and Claudine Gallagher of BNP Paribas.

Hall of Fame

American Banker inducted Beth Mooney, chief executive of KeyCorp, into its newly created Hall of Fame for three-peat winners of the Most Powerful Woman In Banking award. Under Mooney's leadership female representation among corporate officers has grown to 25%; Key has one of the most diverse boards of directors in the industry.

Mooney's stature was highlighted by Key's $4.1 billion purchase of First Niagara, the industry's second-largest acquisition by deal value since the financial crisis and throughout which the company remained committed to low- and middle-income borrowers and expanding community development lending by $4.5 billion.

Mooney likes the idea of the Hall of Fame because it meshes with her philosophy of helping to make way for and elevate future female leaders, but her trailblazing days aren't over.

"American Banker names a most powerful banker every year, so in my mind, I'm not out of your game yet," she said. "You should not think of me just as a woman banker. I'm a CEO in our industry whose bank is doing lots of interesting things."

Profiles in Courage

Empathy Matters: BBVA Compass' chief talent and culture officer, Rosilyn Houston, has spent most of her career in banking. But for a short while in 2004, she left for a brief stint at a Christian organization in Dallas, where she was general manager  a big job in which she oversaw 200 employees. That's when her almost-2-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia. Following his illness, Houston returned to banking, joining what is now BBVA Compass as a senior vice president, accepting challenge after challenge until she got to her role today. She's responsible not for overseeing typical HR functions  like payroll and benefits  but also transforming the bank's culture. "This is a journey," Houston said. "We started a real intense focus on cultural transformation at the end of last year and we know it's going to take three to five years to get to where we are comfortable." Her empathy is essential to that job, and she's keenly aware that many employees come to work every day with their own personal struggles. Having suffered "a number of life blows"  she battled cancer herself and lost her mother to the illness  "that could have knocked me off course." Creating a workplace that is viewed as compassionate is one of her top priorities. "Part of being an effective leader is being sensitive to what individuals go through day in and day out, not only in the job, but in life."

Fear of the Unknown: Some bankers are proud of making it through the financial crisis. Imagine doing that while also contending with a personal crisis. When Karen Glenn, was chief financial officer of First United Bank and Trust in Madisonville, Ky., her 5-year-old son had battled non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and she often worked from his hospital room  just as she had pulled through a separate health crisis, with his twin brother. "The way I looked at it was that my boys needed me to do this," Glenn said of her decision to keep working through Ethan's treatments, instead of taking her extended leave. "This was our life, our livelihood. I had to make it work." That was in late 2009. Six months after her son completed his cancer treatments, she was promoted to president and chief executive of First United. She hesitated at first to accept the job  at the time she lived an hour away from the bank's headquarters and the job required her to move. But since becoming CEO she has substantially improved the bank's performance, posting a record profit last year, and spearheaded its first acquisition. "I came very close to saying 'no' because of the fear of the unknown," Glenn said. It was going to change my life so much." However, "not having a career has never been an option for me," she said. Today the boys are in middle school and thriving.

The Ripple Effect: JPMorgan Chase's new general counsel, Stacey Friedman, is a tough financial litigator, the only woman to serve as the general counsel of a systemically important U.S. bank and a fighter for social justice. When she became a partner at the high-powered Wall Street law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, she opted to take on a more visible role in the push for LGBT rights. At that time, she was one of 30 women, out of 172 partners, and the first to be openly gay. "You realize that it has a ripple effect," she said. (Beth Mooney said something similar at the Most Powerful Women in Banking ceremony last year.) "If people are going to laud you and notice you for it, then you should make sure you use that as a platform for change." Friedman has taken on high-profile pro bono cases in recent years, including one that successfully struck down a ban on gay adoption in Arkansas. Earlier this year, she expanded the pro bono program at JPMorgan, implementing a three- to six-month paid fellowship for attorneys to work on a legal service project. "It's undeniable that all of the things that make all of us up are obstacles or benefits along the way, and I wouldn't look at that fact of my life and assume it was never an obstacle  of course it was," Friedman said of her sexual orientation and gender. And although she has always been surrounded by supportive colleagues, she said, "that isn't the case in every corner of every financial institution or every company."

The Power of Storytelling: When it comes to supporting women in banking, Barclays' vice chairman of investment banking, Barbara Byrne, wants to do more than the usual basics (like mentoring). Over the past year she has exercised her storytelling power as a producer on indie film "Equity," a Wall Street thriller that aims to flip viewers' expectations about gender and finance on their heads. The film has all female lead characters, directors, producers and financial backers. One reason "Equity" is so effective is it doesn't sugarcoat the way women treat each other; it puts women in the same cutthroat roles typically reserved for men. "This is not a sisterhood movie," she said. Known today for her outspoken style, she was shy when she took her first job at Lehman Brothers in her 20s, calling herself better suited for a library than an investment bank. "I am a forceful personality, but I did not spring from the womb that way," she said. Harvey Krueger, a longtime executive at Lehman, brought her out of her shell. She recalls a time she prepared a presentation for him to give to the board of a major company. He asked her if she thought he was capable of giving it. She said yes. "So he said, 'Well, why don't you get up there and just pretend you're me?'" Byrne said. She followed that advice over the next few years, developed her own sense of confidence and characteristic style in the process, and now passes the advice on to her employees.

Role Call

Bank of New York Mellon's president Peetz will retire at the end of the year. She announced her retirement the same day she was honored as American Banker's Most Powerful Woman in Banking for 2016. Peetz was also ranked No. 1 in 2011 and has been ranked among the top five in each of the last eight years.

JPMorgan Chase's Thasunda Duckett has been named chief executive officer of consumer banking, as part of one of the bank's periodic management reshufflings. Duckett, one of our 25 Women to Watch this year and last, was previously CEO of the bank's auto finance arm.

Top Teams 2016

From fostering strong mentorship programs, to fighting for pay equity, to making firm commitments to diversity, these five executive teams are helping to change the face of the banking industry.

BMO Financial: The U.S. unit of Bank of Montreal has launched a micromentoring program that allows employees to get targeted coaching on specific skills. Less formal and shorter-term than mentoring as we know it, the micro mentoring program is designed to help women improve very specific skills, like time management, and supplement other long-term mentoring relationships they may have already.

Centric Financial: The Pennsylvania community bank is one of the few publicly traded banking companies with women in the chief executive and chief financial officer roles. It's also distinctive for its enviable growth and performance. That's no coincidence, says CEO Patti Husic, who makes sure there are women among the candidates any time there is an opening. (There's more on female CEO-CFO teams here.)

JPMorgan Chase: Women at JPMorgan don't just settle for the formal check-the-box networking groups. Their grassroots efforts have launched multiple programs to raise the profile of women at the company and help them advance, including a new "30-5-1" campaign inspired by CFO Marianne Lake. Other examples include the globe-trotting Women on the Move initiative and the ReEntry program to help ex-bankers return to the workforce after extended time off.

KeyCorp: There's a lot to be done now that KeyCorp has closed on its deal for First Niagara, and it's telling who has been put in charge of the many different facets of the integration. While some companies might have just a few token women on their leadership team, Key can boast about the diversity of its bench strength.

Zions Bank: For several years, Zions Bank has monitored salaries to ensure women aren't being paid less than men for comparable work. Last year, the monitoring went from a semiannual review to a constant lookout.

And Don't Miss 

Do the Right Thing: The staff at the Securities and Exchange Commission is working on a proposal to amend the current diversity disclosure rule to require more specificity, including information on the race, gender and ethnicity of board members and nominees. "Diversity contributes to high-quality decision-making and generating the best ideas," writes SEC chair Mary Jo White. "Companies that have proactively embraced diversity deserve to be recognized as leaders of the change that is not only the right thing to do, but also benefits their companies."

D.C. Doyennes: Candi Wolff of Citigroup and Anita Eoloff of Wells Fargo are two of the most powerful banking lobbyists in Washington, but they don't think the transformation of their once male-dominated field is done, nor do they think everything about the past should be abandoned. "We have to be careful about telling the story of what works and what doesn't," Eoloff said of fostering diversity. Still, "you have got to be able to speak to all sides, and sometimes you might be surprised" at where there might be some agreement.

Stay Woke: Executives at BBVA Compass, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Kentucky's First United Bank talk about unconscious bias, the power of perception and strategies for dealing with gender bias in this video. "Sexism isn't an -ism, it's just the way in which people operate," says Barclays' Barbara Byrne. Some men operate the way women typically do; some women operate the way men typically do. Executives need be open "but you need to call it out, tone it down  with humor and compassion."

Please see our Women in Banking page and join our LinkedIn group.
MB Bancorp in Forest Hill, Md., has lined up a new chief executive.

The $135 million-asset company said in a press release Friday that Phil Phillips will also become president on Oct. 25. MB said it had "parted ways" with Julia Newton, who had run the company since 2013.

Phillips, who will also join MB's board, previously served as president of Patapsco Bank in Dundalk, Md., which recently sold itself to Howard Bancorp in Ellicott City, Md.

Phillips "has deep lending contacts and experience, which will be a great asset to us as we seek to expand our business in our market," Lawrence Williams, MB's chairman, said in the release.

The company did not immediately return a call for comment.
Orrstown Financial in Shippensburg, Pa., has agreed to pay a $1 million to settle charges that it misled investors as it raised capital in the wake of the financial crisis.

The $1.3 million-asset Orrstown failed to disclose credit problems with about $70 million in commercial loans between June 30, 2010, and Sep. 30, 2011, according to an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Orrstown held two securities offerings during this time period, the agreement said. The company also is said to have miscalculated its allowance for loan losses.

At issue in the case is Orrstown's loan review process. The company failed to heighten the risk ratings on several large accounts after learning that the borrowers  all of whom were real estate developers  were facing challenges repaying their loans.

Orrstown showed "negligence" by not disclosing the impaired loans and, as a result, misstating its quarterly results, according to the Sep. 27 settlement agreement.

Under the agreement, Chief Executive Thomas Quinn also agreed to pay an individual penalty of $100,000. Several other senior executives  including the chief financial, accounting and risk officers at the time of the violations  also agreed to pay fines.

In the two days since the settlement was announced, shares of the company have fallen about 17%, to $20.20 as of midday Thursday. The KBW Bank Index increased over the same period.

Orrstown has 24 branches in Pennsylvania and Maryland.
WASHINGTON  The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday published its annual summary of insured deposits U.S. banks and thrifts.

The data, which provides a snapshot of bank deposits as of June 30, 2016, can be divided by geographic area at the state, county and metropolitan area level.

Market share report data dating to 1994 is also accessible.
Patricia McCarthy: Too soon to know

Anyone who read Tom Clancy's novel, Debt of Honor, published in 1994, has most likely wondered why it was not made into a film long ago. It is a gripping novel, written long before 9/11. The book tells the story of a Japanese man whose parents were killed at the end of WWII. He plots his deranged revenge by becoming a pilot and ultimately flying a jetliner into the Capitol building during the State of the Union address. In that book, his main character Jack Ryan, from his books Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games, etc., is the "designated survivor."

It is this book that is the likely kernel of the idea for the new television series, Designated Survivor, a Kiefer Sutherland venture very similar in vein to his long-running series, 24. In this program, he is a lowly cabinet member who is catapulted into the presidency when every other person in the government senior to him is killed in a catastrophic event right out of Tom Clancy's novel.

The swearing-in

After only two episodes, there is something unnerving about the show; where is it going? It could be good; or it could be a work of anti-American, pro-Muslim propaganda. It is too soon to know.

It is an absolute myth that after 9/11 Muslim Americans were targeted for violence by "bigoted" Americans. In fact, there was no backlash against Muslim citizens; this was a trope of the Left, convenient as it fit into their worldview but an outright lie. While there may have been a few incidents of persons behaving badly, there is no truth to the myth. There was no wholesale backlash by American citizens against their Muslim neighbors. There were, however, many Muslims around the world that openly and loudly celebrated the attack on the WTC. This new show depicts a violent response against Muslim Americans in Dearborn, MI, in the aftermath of the horrific bombing of the Capitol. So what is the show's obvious political agenda?

Good question. It may be to depict us all as deplorable racists, as Hillary does on a daily basis. It may go on to indict us all for our crimes against the Muslim world, as Obama does so often with his slick but un-subtle rhetoric. Or the series may take a turn towards the actual truth of the world today.

While the current administration chooses to deny the obvious, the radicals within the Muslim world are on a mission to bring down the West. It does not matter which self-named group claims credit, there are more of them than Hillary or Obama care to admit. And they mean business. No amount of denial is going to alter that reality, as James Comey reiterated Wednesday. Obama has made us so vulnerable by blaming America for the the "problems" of the Muslim world, and Hillary promises to make us vulnerable by importing hundreds of thousands of unvettable refugees from the chaos that is the Middle East.

Both Obama and Clinton loathe our glorious and selfless military personnel, as they do our men and women in blue. It will be an adventure to see where this series goes. If, as hinted in the second episode, it goes on to accuse America and the American people for the seventh century barbarism that has been visited upon parts of the world for the last fourteen hundred years and on America for the last fifteen years, the show will go down. The American people are sick of being blamed for the monstrous acts of others. That the Left has done this in a calculating way for the last eight years and think that they have the country under its firm control is infuriating. Enter Donald Trump.

Is Kiefer Sutherland, executive producer of Designated Survivor, an anti-American moonbat like Aaron Sorkin, Norman Lear, Michael Moore, Jill Soloway, or Oliver Stone? We will have to wait and see. But for any American who has achieved the success that all of these aforementioned opinion-shapers have achieved, to forever display their ingratitude for their success and wealth is truly loathsome. Each and every one of them owes this country a debt of honor.

Marion DS Dreyfus: Creeping Democrat Syndrome Strikes Again

The premise for this highly touted follow-up to Kiefer Sutherlands epic 24, which strung readers along a finely calibrated weekly precipice of threat and an agony of suspense is not unpromising. The entire Capitol Hill and the President have been annihilated by a bomb, leaving only lowly HUD Director Thom Kirkman 11th in line of ascent under normal circumstances -- as the accidental inheritor of the most powerful leader of the free world.

Theres no Senate. The Supreme Court nine are now naught. The countrys capital is in a mess of trouble, with every variety of potential disaster around every executive order or police skirmish.

But no. The writers have given the new president a sullen, obnoxious son, and a sullen, annoying daughter. A gorgeous wife (who punches way beyond her husbands weight in terms of salient attractiveness point systems in these matters). And a Heinz variety-pak of chief of staff types who mumble against him when his attention is turned elsewhere.

We get, instead of serious dramedy, the purple pangs of familial discomfort in the new digs, and the huge headache of a Michigan governor who does the Japanese internment thing with his huge Michigander population of Muslims. He arrests a mess of his states citizenry, and flouts the new presidents order to release all the detainees. We are given to feel dismay that a young Muslim lad has been manhandled. The horror.

Everything significant is tabled as the Prez Googles and Britannicas constitutional fixes for the miscreant Mich gov. Who is parodied soberly as the tough guy conservative who jails minorities first, asks questions later.

A veneer of a plot thats disappointing to a vast loyal one-time army of admirers.

The shows credibility, now just wrapping its second episode, plummets into inane and unrealistic lefty tropes. Bad enough that Braindead, another once-promising drama featuring the reliably contentious and beloved obsessive/compulsive Tony Shalhoub (Monk), made Republicans of the pols in a story involving pols all evil and controlled by alien bugs, while the heroes and heroines were all Dems or (rarely) Indies. At least that program features literally exploding heads when things got tetchy, and the sidekicks were an active bunch of interesting eccentric sorts.

Here, Sutherland/Kirkman is unsuccored by his cohort colleagues, and the show is headed for the sinking edge of the horizon of unwatchability.

Sutherland deserves better. More important, we deserve better.

A shame. People used to rush home to watch 24.
In a halfway honest front-page article Thursday, the Washington Post posed the following question in the headline, Enabler or family defender? How Hillary Clinton responded to husbands accusers.

I say halfway because reporter Shawn Boburg knew the answer to his question. Hillary provided it herself during a crucial 60 Minutes interview to which Boburg alluded more than once. That interview took place on January 26, 1992, the day America first met Hillary Clinton.

Earlier that same month, Arkansas state employee Gennifer Flowers confessed to a tabloid that she and Bill Clinton had had a 12-year affair. In a Hail Mary attempt to save Bills candidacy, the Clintons agreed to the interview with CBSs Steve Kroft.

When Kroft asked Bill about the affair, he answered, That allegation is false. Hillary, her hands lovingly intertwined with Bills, nodded her approval. Of course, they were both lying, Bill with much greater skill.

At this point in the interview, Hillary explained how Flowerss claim surfaced. When this woman first got caught up in these charges, she said, I felt as I've felt about all of these women: that they had just been minding their own business and they got hit by a meteor, and it was no fault of their own.

Hillary then followed up with the assertion that answered the Washington Posts question: We reached out to them. I met with two of them to reassure them they were friends of ours. (italics added) Yes, Hillary was -- and still is -- an enabler.

Hillary did not do all her own dirty work. As the Post acknowledges, in 1992 the Clinton campaign hired private detective Jack Palladino to investigate the accusers involved in two dozen allegations.

At the time, the Clinton campaign was insisting that these women were being pressured to lie by tabloids waving cash. Palladinos role, as Clinton aide Betsy Wright memorably told the Posts Michael Isikoff in July 1992, was to manage the bimbo eruptions."

Among the presumed bimbos the Clinton campaign reached out to was a former Miss Arkansas, Sally Miller Perdue. In July 1996, Perdue appeared on the Sally Jesse Raphael show to discuss her 1983 affair with Clinton, an affair later corroborated by several Arkansas State troopers. In his article a week after Perdues appearance, Isikoff noted that Palladino had done a sufficiently good job smearing Perdue that no major news organization has reported the account.

In August 1996, still worried about Perdues potential to disrupt the campaign, the Clintons had Democratic party operative Ron Tucker speak to Perdue. According to Perdue, Tucker told her, There were people in high places who were anxious about me and they wanted me to know that keeping my mouth shut would be worthwhile.

Worthwhile meant a GS-11 or higher job with the federal government. If she turned down the offer and talked to the media, He couldn't guarantee what would happen to my pretty little legs. After harassing phone calls and damage to her car, Perdue chose to go into hiding.

Perdue was the least of the Clintons problems in 1992. More potentially troublesome were the women that Clinton had assaulted, Juanita Broaddrick, Elizabeth Ward Gracen, and Paula Jones among others.

This weeks Post article pulls its punches on both Jones and Broaddrick. In the Posts account, Jones was groped and Broaddrick was the victim of a claimed sexual assault. Yes, Clinton did grope Jones, but as she would later testify under oath, Mr. Clinton then walked over to the sofa, lowered his trousers and underwear, exposed his penis (which was erect) and told me to kiss it."

As to Broaddrick, she was not merely assaulted. She was raped. It was a real panicky, panicky situation, Broaddrick told NBCs Lisa Myers in February 1999. I was even to the point where I was getting very noisy, you know, yelling to Please stop. And thats when he pressed down on my right shoulder and he would bite my lip.

Immediately afterwards, a colleague found Broaddrick in her hotel room crying and in a state of shock, her pantyhose torn and her lip swollen. The Post made no mention of Hillarys literal hands-on effort to silence Broaddrick. She threatened me at that fundraiser, Broaddrick said of an intimidating grip-and-grin with Hillary soon after the rape, thats foremost in my mind; Ill never forget that; Ill never forget that encounter.

The Post article in question makes no mention of Gracen. As Iskoff reported in his 1999 book, Uncovering Clinton, Gracen had a one-off with Clinton in 1983 when Clinton was governor and she was serving as Miss America.

To assure Gracens silence during the 1992 campaign, Clinton campaign manager Mickey Kantor got together with Clintons friend and Hollywood producer, Harry Thomason, and they arranged for her to take a part in a mini-series then filming in Croatia.

There was a reason to get Gracen out of the country. Like Broaddrick, Gracen was married when she was sexually assaulted by Clinton. It was rough sex, Isikoff wrote, Clinton got so carried away that he bit her lip, Gracen later told friends. But it was consensual.

Writing before Broaddricks prime-time confession, Isikoff missed the lip-biting MO. He also failed to acknowledge that at least one of Gracens friends, Judy Stokes, had told the Paula Jones legal team that the sex was not consensual at all.

Do you believe Clinton raped her? investigator Rick Lambert asked her. Absolutely, Stokes replied. He forced her to have sex. What do you call that?

In April 1998, Gracen came to the embattled Clintons aid, this time by recanting an earlier lie that she had never had sex with Clinton. In a television interview, Gracen said of the 1983 encounter with Clinton, What I did was wrong, and I feel very bad about it now. Gracen denied that the sex was coerced and said almost laughably of Hillary, Ill apologize to her now. It was wrong.

After her 1998 TV interview, fearing a subpoena from prosecutor Ken Starr, Gracen flew to the Caribbean where she went island hopping for several months. She had no interest being drawn into the case, wrote Isikoff. She had already lied for Clinton once.

Then as now, the media had no interest in discovering who arranged for Gracens faux apology or her sun-drenched flight from justice.

Despite her decades-long sexist and classist war on women, Hillary had confidence enough in the major media to tweet in November 2015, Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported.

Every survivor, that is, except Bills bimbos. Although she had yet to coin the term, Hillary had apparently assigned these women to the ranks of the deplorable. If clarification were needed, Clinton aide James Carville provided it on national TV in 1996. Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, said Carville for the ages, you never know what you'll find.
Who won the first debate on September 26? Perhaps a better question might be which candidate performed worse. Trump had several opportunities to score better in the debate than he did, and Hillary was her usual plastic phony self, but she avoided any real mistakes. Give her a modest edge in this first presidential debate, but give Republicans a clear edge to do better and better in the next three.

Mike Pence is smart, pleasant, likeable, and experienced. There is every reason to believe he will do better against Tim Kaine than Trump did against Hillary. In fact, Pence will probably do better than Kaine on form because Pence was a successful conservative media personality on radio and television, and this experience shows in how he handles the media.

Because of the age of the two presidential candidates, voters may be more interested in the vice presidential debates than in a typical presidential election year. Equally importantly, this vice presidential debate will give the Republican ticket an upward trajectory from the September 26 debate so that going into the second presidential debate on October 9, assuming that the format of this debate is more favorable to Trump than the first debate, Trump can push ahead of Hillary.

The October 9 debate has a town meeting format, which will allow questions to both candidates from ordinary voters. This is the sort of format in which Trump has done well, while it should terrify Hillary. No moderator is going to ask her about Juanita Broaddrick or Kathleen Willey or any other the other women raped or abused or terrorized by her husband while Hillary sat saying and doing nothing. If Trump raises that subject, he could take flak, but if a woman in the audience asks about these, what can Hillary do? Not much.

In the first debate, Trump faced the first female presidential candidate in her first debate and faced a "person of color" moderator who was clearly in Hillary's corner. Lester Holt, predictably, asked Trump questions intended to show his imagined racism, and Trump could not effectively respond that Holt was focusing on those issues. Hillary prodded Trump as a sexist (forget her husband as a rapist). Reacting too strongly to either of these leftists could have backfired.

When ordinary Americans ask questions of candidates, this may be the first time ever that Hillary, while America watches, will have to explain the unexplainable offenses of Bill and herself against women or the obvious questions about the Clinton Foundation, the email scandal, and her endless lifetime of outright lies. ("Mrs. Clinton, when you told America you were named in honor of Sir Edmund Hillary climbing Mt. Everest, you were lying, weren't you?")

Hillary, who could not have sweated too much imaging what Lester Holt would ask her, may sweat a lot imaging what ordinary voters in this sort of setting may ask her. Trump, much more than Hillary, will be more in his element. He doesn't need to shock, but simply be real and spontaneous, two qualities Hillary utterly lacks. While the two moderators are both confirmed leftists like Holt, they cannot moderate how questions are asked and what is actually asked by participants.

Coming out of the second presidential debate and out of the only vice presidential debate a few days earlier, the Republican ticket could easily be seen as leading the debate series 2 to 1. The last debate is the only one with a truly neutral moderator, Chris Wallace, whose father was an icon at CBS and whose credentials cannot seriously be questioned by anyone.

While Wallace will  and should  press Trump on things he has gotten wrong or fibbed about, Wallace will also press Hillary about the things she has gotten wrong or fibbed about. Just the email scandal and the Clinton Foundation are enough to sink any candidate forced to really answer the questions.

Hillary's public record requires her to defend a ghastly legion of calamitous and hideous failures and tacitly to endorse the grand debacle that is Obama. What about Trump's proposed policies? Well, Trump's ideas have yet to be tested in the White House...and Trump ought to remind voters of that on every occasion. So here, in the last debate, with some momentum going into the vice presidential and second presidential debates, Trump, like another New Yorker at bat for the Yankees many decades ago, can point into the stands and knock one out of the ballpark.
The scandal over Canada's "minister of democratic institutions," Maryam Monsef, continues to deepen. Originally, her story was that she was born in Afghanistan in 1985. Now it appears she was born in Iran in 1984.

According to all publicly available information, the office of the prime minister of Canada (PMO) was not aware of any of these discrepancies until last week when staffers read about the revelations in a report from the Globe and Mail.

One of two options is available: either (1) Canada's national security services failed to properly vet a cabinet minister or (2) Canada's national security services informed the PMO that Monsef's public history was false, and the PMO suppressed this information from the Canadian public.

Since the initial story broke on Monsef's past, more questions have arisen that need to be answered.

In her official statement released in response to the Globe and Mail's report that she was actually born in Iran, not Afghanistan, Monsef made the following claims:

Following my parents' wedding in Herat, the local security situation became untenable. The town was severely damaged by war and thousands were killed. No longer safe in their home town, my parents decided not to take risks and went to Mashhad, Iran, where they could be safe  with the hope of soon returning to the place their families called home for generations. While we were technically safe in Iran, we did not hold any status there.

And yet, according to an article published in IranWire on November 11, 2015 by Shima Shahrabi, a freelance journalist, "[w]hat would have happened had Maryam Monsef remained in Iran? Although she had legal residency, and even if she had been able to get a university education, she would not have been able to become a cabinet minister."

The "legal residency" that Monsef apparently held in Iran according to Shahrabi's report is very different from "not hold[ing] any status there" as Monsef's statement claims.

So which is it? Did Maryam Monsef hold legal residency in Iran or not?

Then there is the narrative attempting to be woven about Monsef's birth certificate:

It might help to know that in Afghanistan, citizenship papers and birth certificates and the official registration of births and deaths are the exotica of faraway places. One is born "in the time of the pomegranate harvest" or some such thing, or one's birth date is recorded as the first day of the year, if you are even aware of the year you were born. Especially during the terror time  the years of Monsef's childhood  it was not as though you could pop into a local government registrar to inform the world of a baby's birth.

Except according to the PMO, there is "a detailed timeline of Ms. Monsef's life that showed she was born and lived until age 9 in Iran." If Monsef was born and lived in Iran until age 9, why are we looking to Afghanistan for her birth certificate? The Globe and Mail has also stated that Monsef "was born at the Imam Reza hospital in Mashhad, Iran."

Surely Iran must have a detailed birth record of Monsef. Authoritarian regimes such as Iran are known for many failings, but the keeping of records for those born in large, relatively modern research and teaching hospitals within the nation's second largest city that also functions as a regional capital, as well as a "capital of Islamic culture," is not likely to be one of them.

A UNICEF report on "Birth registration in Iran: An analysis of the state of relevant laws" yields the following insight:

Iran adopted a Birth Registration law in 1918. The law stipulates that all births must be registered within 15 days. The Ministries of Interior, Justice and Foreign Affairs all have responsibilities for the implementation of the law.

If Monsef was indeed "born at the Imam Reza hospital in Mashhad, Iran," there must be a registered birth certificate. Even the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Islamic Republic of Iran states that "according to the paragraph 5 for the infants of foreign parents the certificate of birth are issued."

Consequently, the laws of Iran appear to unequivocally show that Monsef should have an Iranian birth certificate. Where is it?

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper from Prince Edward Island in Canada, Monsef apparently said that "if I did have an Iranian background we would have been able to settle in Iran." This again conflicts with the statement in Shahrabi's article that Monsef appears to have held "legal residency" in Iran coupled to Monsef's own claim that her family was "technically safe in Iran." Legal residency plus technical safety, especially when added to the naturalization options discussed below, qualifies as "able to settle in Iran."

The Guardian's article continues to add questions:

Monsef's story of fleeing her native Afghanistan was a central part of her campaign when she ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Peterborough in 2014. Mayor Daryl Bennett said he recalls one debate during the campaign, where Monsef described herself as a person "of Persian descent"  not Afghan. It gave Bennett pause that she didn't mention Afghanistan.

On March 23, 2016, Bryan May, the Liberal Party member of Parliament for Cambridge, Ontario, tweeted to Monsef: "Nowruz Mubarak to all my Persian friends including @MaryamMonsef." Even earlier, on November 7, 2015, the Persian Language Foundation congratulated Monsef: "Congratulations2 @MaryamMonsef #Canada's 1st #Persian #Farsi speaking #cabinet #minster [sic] 4 #Democtratic [sic] #Institutions."

Monsef clearly differentiated between Persian and Afghani, as evidenced by a June 27, 2014 tweet indicating she is "at a Persian/Afghan wedding" while in June 2012 claiming that "[t]here is a Persian-Canadian in all of us ;)." As other social media posts have shown, Monsef apparently attempted to travel to Iran in 2004 and did travel to Iran either in early 2014 or shortly beforehand.

Additional confusion is evident about Monsef's potential for Iranian citizenship. As reported by the Toronto Star, Monsef said that "[w]e were Afghan citizens, as we were born to Afghan parents, and under Iranian law, we would not be considered Iranian citizens despite being born in that country." In the Los Angeles Times, "[a] biographical timeline provided by Monsef's office noted that a child born in Iran only gains citizenship if the father is Iranian."

Both appear to be erroneous claims. The Civil Code of Iran (1928, amended 1985) states that "[t]he following persons are considered to be Iranian subjects: ... (4) Persons born in Iran of foreign parents, one of whom was also born in Iran; (5) Persons born in Iran of a father of foreign nationality who have resided at least one more year in Iran immediately after reaching the full age of 18; [and] (6) Every woman of foreign nationality who marries an Iranian husband."

As well, "[p]ersons can obtain Iranian nationality if they: (1) Have reached the full age of 18; (2) Have resided five years, whether continuously or intermittently, in Iran; (3) Are not deserters from military service; [and] (4) Have not been convicted in any country of non-political major misdemeanors or felonies."

Thus, a child born in Iran to foreign parents has clear routes available to naturalization that are not restricted to having an Iranian father, but the process is not immediate and will likely require the individual to wait until reaching the age of majority  which was about a further nine years in the case of Monsef.

Furthermore, what did Monsef mean in June 2012 when she said she was "[c]aught between two worlds: Facing a beautiful sunset in my world in the west and mountain of obligations from the east"?

What mountain of obligations from the east was a current federal government minister under? Were they benign and positive, or something the Canadian public should be worried about?

The questions continue to pile up, the supposed journalists suppress their critical thinking skills, opposition political parties play ostrich, the PMO peddles "birther" propaganda unworthy of even a banana republic, and the Canadian national security services are silent.

This is what is going on north of the longest undefended border in the world, and the security implications for both Canada and the United States are enormous.
Something important to consider about Donald J. Trump. When thinking about and deciding on your vote, try to keep this in mind. First remember, Donald Trump is and has been a private citizen like most of us. He is not and has not been a politician. He has no legislative voting record or executive political decision-making record. In fact, like all private citizens, again like most of us, he can change and has the right to change his mind on issues, political parties, and how he has made private life decisions with regard to his family, business, and personal ideals, values, and principles. That does not constitute a voting record. Period.

That said, as a private citizen  Donald Trump did not steal your money. Donald Trump did not raise your taxes. Donald Trump did not quadruple the price of food. Donald Trump is not influencing or stirring the race issue. Donald Trump did not leave any U.S. officials and citizens behind in Benghazi to be slaughtered and desecrated by Muslims. Donald Trump did not create a security vacuum from which ISIS grew out of the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Donald Trump did not arm ISIS and systematically exterminate Christians, Kurds, and the innocent throughout the Middle East. Donald Trump did not betray Israel. Donald Trump did not provide hundreds of billions in financing and technology to Iran's nuclear weapons program by way of a phony deal. Donald Trump did not give our military secrets to China. Donald Trump did not decimate and deplete our military and betray our veterans. Donald Trump did not increase our debt to over 20 trillion dollars. Donald Trump did not ruin our credit twice. Donald Trump did not institute unbalanced trade deals that sent billions of American dollars, jobs, and businesses to foreign countries. Donald Trump did not double African-American unemployment. Donald Trump did not open our borders, influence massive illegal immigration, or provide U.S. tax dollars to bring in unvetted Middle Eastern refugees to America. Donald Trump did not steal your rights, violate U.S. constitutional law, or commit treason dozens of times.

Yet Donald Trump is being ripped apart in the news, the mainstream media, and the liberal left nonstop for being a private American citizen like most of us. Yet Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the criminals occupying our government are not. The mainstream media is the Democratic Party. Stop listening to them and allowing them to influence your thinking with their Goebbels-Stalinist-Alinskyite propaganda. Stop being brainwashed, and start thinking for yourself, as an individual, as a private citizen, as a concerned American  about the Constitution, your country, your and your familys and your childrens future, about America.
There is a suspicion  or perhaps a hope  among Trump supporters that Russia has all of Hillary's emails and will release them just before the election. I don't think so. Assuming he does have the emails, look at it from Putin's point of view.

If he releases them, Hillary is toast, he gets the satisfaction of bringing her down, and Trump gets elected. Then Putin has to deal with Trump for the next four or perhaps eight years. Despite his voiced admiration for Putin, Trump is strong and unpredictable and will be looking to America's interests pretty aggressively.

Ah, but if he doesn't release them, and Hillary is elected, how things change! Obama pretty much let Putin get away with everything. While Hillary might do somewhat better just to prove a woman can be tough, Putin has a trump (ha, ha) card: "be nice, or the emails will show up in cyberspace for everyone to see." The really scary thing about all this is that Putin doesn't even have to have the emails, so long as Hillary thinks he might.

Whatever else he is, Putin is a smart operator. His best move is to do what he can to help Hillary get elected, then start the blackmail.

Note that if China has the emails, similar arguments apply. China certainly has no reason to look favorably on a Trump presidency. The only way the emails are likely to be released is if someone other than Russia or China has them and either doesn't want Hillary elected or just wants to create chaos in our election.
While American politics is focused on something mean Donald Trump said to a Hispanic woman 20 years ago, Armageddon may be brewing in the other side of the world. There is no way to sugarcoat this, other than to hope it is an empty nuclear threat from a nuclear-armed power. Sara Kamouni is the U.K. Sun:

PAKISTANS Defence Minister has threatened to destroy India  after India said on Thursday it had carried out surgical strikes on suspected militants preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-ruled Kashmir. The strikes, which were a response to shots fired across the de facto border through the disputed Himalayan territory, could lead to a military escalation between the two nuclear-armed neighbours  risking a ceasefire agreed in 2003.

An Indian military official briefs the media on India's strikes into Pakistan.

Vijeta Uniyal at Legal Insurrection supplies background and detail:

Last night, the Indian Army carried out a series of covert operations targeting Jihadi bases along its border with Pakistan. According to official Indian sources, the counter-terrorism strikes killed 38 Islamists as well as couple of soldiers of Pakistans regular army, who were overseeing these Jihadi bases. Indian Special Forces went 2-3 km inside Pakistans border destroying up to 6 Jihadi camps. No casualties were reported on the Indian side. The strikes come less than 2 weeks after Islamists attacked an Indian Army base in Indias Kashmir region, killing 18 soldiers. India has faced a sustained terrorist campaign in its Muslim majority northern state of Kashmir since the 1990s. Terrorists have killed nearly 5,000 Indian civilians and over 2,000 Indian soldiers since 2001. Tonights cross-border operation, first of its kind conducted by India, shows the change in countrys military doctrine since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office 2 years ago. Following tonights strikes India has put its army along the international border with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on high alert.

An Indian Army spokesman briefed the media on the strikes on jihadi bases inside Pakistan. Here is a video of the press conference. This is for real:
With world leaders gathered in Jerusalem for the funeral of Shimon Peres, a unique opportunity presents itself for decisive action by the West to intervene in the Syrian bloodbath.

First, it's simply false that nothing can be done.

In her 2002 book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, current American U.N. ambassador Samantha Power makes this point over and over again. In reviewing the history of the genocides in Armenia, European Jewry, Bosnia, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Kosovo, Power makes the case that in all but one of those instances, the United States and the other major powers knew what was going on and did nothing.

In each case, the West went through three phases: warning, recognition, and response.

Only in Kosovo did America and the EU act decisively  after widespread publicity and public outcry.

Well, we certainly have that now. And, after Mr. Kerry's latest pratfall, it's time to pass the baton to someone else.

And, as it happens, Samantha Power  with coauthor Derek Chollet  has written a highly relevant book: The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World, published in 2011. It was written while Power was already on the Obama National Security Council and addresses the career of the late Richard Holbrooke. In particular, it tells the tale of the U.S. diplomatic tactics, ploys, and military moves that ended the Serbian genocide against the Muslims of the former Yugoslavia.

It's engrossing and informative and a homage to the Democratic Party's brightest  and most controversial  diplomatic star. It's a pretty question whether, had Holbrooke not collapsed and died in Hillary Clinton's Foggy Bottom office, he would have succeeded her as secretary of state. But the relevance of the read today is as a toolbox for answering the question: what would Richard Holbrooke do in Syria?

In A Problem from Hell, Power found that three excuses occurred again and again for non-action: futility, perversity, and jeopardy. All have been heard in the course of the Syrian catastrophe.

"Futility" is what we're hearing now: nothing can be done.

"Perversity" is the danger of unintended consequences. Syria is already a stew of unintended consequences run riot. This excuse doesn't hunt, either.

"Jeopardy" hasn't come up yet. But it probably will  because there are Russian and Iranian military assets in Syrian territory.

Here's one we may also hear. Because of the closeness of the American election and impending change of chief executive, nothing can be done. Mr. Obama should leave this one to his successor.

Let me knock the futility" excuse in the head and be done. Here is an options list for the principals and their deputies in Jerusalem to consider.

First, options unlikely to result in casualties:

a) Recall U.S., U.K., and French ambassadors from Moscow and go to the United Nations General Assembly to seek a declaration that Syria's seat at the U.N. is vacant. When passed, close Syria's mission to the U.N. in New York.

b) Ask the U.N. General Assembly to amend the U.N. Charter to eliminate Russia's permanent seat (and veto) on the Security Council.

c) Announce a no-fly zone over Syria, which will start on Monday.

d) Proclaim a naval blockade of Syria, including of the Russian naval base at Latakia, to start on Monday.

e) Present a resolution to the Security Council authorizing the use of force in Syria. When Russia vetoes that, introduce a uniting-for-peace resolution in the General Assembly, which will have the same effect.

f) Present a resolution in the Security Council to create an international war crimes tribunal for Syria. If the Russians are still able to veto that, seek a referral to the International Criminal Court. If that's blocked, France and the U.K. should sue Russia in the International Court of Justice for a declaration that they and their ally, the Assad regime, have committed war crimes in Syria.

In other words: raise holy hell. And don't stop.

Second, besides proclamation and enforcement of a no-fly zone over Syria, what military options are available to accomplish a humanitarian intervention?

a) Remote destruction of Syrian artillery and anti-aircraft facilities, including radar installations.

b) If necessary to stop Syrian attacks, remote targeting of Syria's top leadership and command and control.

c) If Syrian attacks still don't stop, use cruise missiles to target Syria's national command authority, including President Assad.

d) Once the no-fly zone is in place, send in guarded relief convoys, accompanied by troops, helicopters, and drones.

e) As soon as possible, reopen airports to deliver people, supplies, and equipment by air.

f) Pending that, drop food and medical supplies in conflict areas.

g) Declare and establish "safe zones" for refugees.

h) Set up of temporary hospitals in conflict areas.

i) Deployment of two Saudi Arabian mechanized divisions, with American advisers, to enforce a truce.

j) Deployment of Jordanian military police, with U.S. contractors, to provide security and day-to-day law enforcement.

In short, decisive action. The time for talking is over. The only question now is the famous one from The Untouchables: "What are you prepared to do?"

Mr. President? Mr. Secretary General?

Ambassador Power?
Year eight, and credibility is a huge problem for the "hope and change" man!

We are sending more troops to Iraq, but don't call them combat troops. Like LBJ in 1964, the Obama administration, and Clinton campaign, want you to understand that having U.S. troops in a war zone does not mean that anyone will shoot at them. I guess they will all neatly line up behind others and just watch the firefight, sort of like an Obama war videogame. I just hope that the Obama fanatics read their history about Vietnam.

The irony is that we now have 5,000 troops in Iraq on the 7th anniversary of our withdrawal from Iraq. As the aforementioned article explains, the White House claims that this is all consistent with Obama's policy! In other words, I guess that meant to withdraw the troops, gloat about it in 2012, and then put them back at the end of his second term.

Over at the Obamacare office, the so-called "signature legislation" is in trouble. It is now apparent to anyone that the program will have to be dismantled unless the next president wants to call for a huge tax increase. Forget "single payer." It happens only when Democrats are speaking to their partisans!

In fact, the Affordable Care Act is affordable only for those who are not paying for it. The ACA is also making it more difficult for people to afford it, as we see from Dan Springer:

When Health Republic Insurance of New Jersey announced recently that its $46 million in debt and shutting down, it became the 17th failed ObamaCare co-op since the Affordable Care Act launched three years ago. Those failures -- just six of the original 23 co-ops remain -- have left hundreds of thousands of people scrambling for coverage. Meanwhile, insurers claiming big losses are leaving some state exchanges -- including Indiana University Health Plans, whose exit is expected to result in 27,000 Indiana residents losing ObamaCare plans in 2017. And companies still operating in the federal and state exchanges are raising premiums for next year. Together, the developments are posing new challenges for Americans seeking affordable coverage, and show the highly touted overhaul of the countrys health care system is in some cases not yielding the savings President Obama once promised.

Like pulling troops out of Iraq, the $875-billion stimulus that did not stimulate, and now Obamacare being everything but affordable.

I have one question: where would President Obama's approval be if we had an honest media willing to get out of the tank, dry up, and put on their journalist uniforms?

P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
The air cargo markets deceleration this year had a greater impact on third-quarter cargo revenues at American Airlines than its primary rivals, Delta and United Airlines. But the best revenue quarter in company history and a $483 million profit painted a positive financial picture that could be replicated in the final quarter thanks to resilient []
Thousands of dignitaries made their way to Mount Herzl cemetery this morning to honor the late Shimon Peres at his funeral. From 70 countries, more than 90 delegations of world leaders came to pay their respects to one of Israels greatest known leaders in the history of the modern nation.

Among heads of state that attended from America, and were invited by the Peres family to speak, were U.S. president Barack Obama and former U.S. president Bill Clinton. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was in attendance, which was considered a tribute to the peace efforts that Peres made throughout his government career.

Peres started serving in Israel as a young leader in his 20s. His extensive dedicated service began 70 years ago, before the modern state of Israel was born. He served in many capacities, including in the positions of defense minister, foreign minister, prime minister, and president. He was known as a great statesman and spokesperson for Israel.

Despite differences that polarized Israeli society because of some of his political actions, most of the country is united in mourning his death. He is considered the last of the founding fathers of the Jewish State. It signals the end of an era of the older fathers that helped build Israels military and economy, as well as develop Israels credibility among the nations.

The diplomacy that Peres entered into with the Palestinians did not succeed, but he continued to extend an olive branch, in spite of the wars and terror that followed his peace efforts. Peres spent much of his later years encouraging the younger generation. Today, young Israelis are developing Israel into a modern technological state, developing business ties with many nations in a softer outreach of diplomacy. Despite the tyranny of an uncertain, volatile Middle East, Israel is soaring in its achievements as a Start-Up Nation, reaching out to any country willing to do business with the Jewish State, while peace with the Palestinians remains a distant dream.

When President Obama visited with Peres for the first time, he claims he was the 10th U.S. president to listen to the Israeli leader since the days of John F. Kennedy.

Obamas words at Peress funeral service expressed not only the life of the great Israeli statesman, but also what encompassed the lives of all Israeli citizens,

 a free life in a homeland regained. A secure life in a nation that can defend itself by itself. A full life in friendship with nations who can be counted on as allies, always. A bountiful life driven by the simple pleasures of family and by big dreams. This was Shimon Peres life. This is the state of Israel. This is the story of the Jewish People over the last century. It was made possible by a founding generation that counts Shimon as one of its own.

Obama also spoke of the way Peres used his imagination to reach out to all people. it helped him to see not just the world as it is, but the world as it should be. And, Obama added, His statesmanship built an unbreakable bond with the U.S. and so many other countries.

Peres will be known as the mastermind behind the controversial Oslo Peace Accords, witnessed by President Bill Clinton on the White House lawn, September 13, 1993. This was 23 years to the day Peres suffered a massive stroke on September 13, 2016, that eventually took his life. Clinton not only encouraged that peace initiative, but was determined to see it implemented.

The Oslo Accords, signed between the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, were considered a victory by the Clinton administration. But, later, that peace treaty became known as a failure, resulting in Israel taking a more hawkish approach to peace negotiations. Something changed in the hearts of Israelis as waves of terrorist attacks, organized by Palestinian leaders, voided the principles of the Oslo Accords, resulting in thousands of deaths and injuries in Israeli society. Today, there is uncertainty about the way Peres went about trying to achieve peace with Israels enemies, even as he established the Peres Center for Peace, hoping to open up greater dialogue toward a future lasting peace.

Still, Clinton was quick to board a plane and come to Israel to express his appreciation for the accomplishments in the life of his good friend, Shimon Peres.

He lived 93 years in a state of constant wonder over the unbelievable potential of all the rest of us to rise above our wounds, resentments, our fears. To make the most of today and claim the promise of tomorrow. It must have been hard for him to do this. It is easy for us to say things like this at a memorial service. It is hard to do.

Clinton said Peres was not naive in his quest for peace, but forever optimistic in his dreams. And that he was a man of great imagination.

So for the rest of our lives, whenever the road we travel comes to a dead end; or the good we seek to do hits a stone wall; or the hand of friendship we extend meets only a cold stare; in his honor I ask that we remember Shimon Peres luminous smile. And imagine!

In Israel politics, the controversy that exists today is whether peace comes after Israels security interests are agreed upon or whether peace leads to those security interests being met. Obamas words were meant to encourage one side of that spectrum when he spoke of the Peres he knew.

I dont believe he was naive. But, understood from hard-earned experience that true security comes from making peace with your neighbors.

Today, as Israel looks at the chaos in the Middle East, it is harder to think of peace than it is to prepare for war. But, certainly, Shimon Peres was one who will not be forgotten both for his earlier years of developing Israels military and nuclear deterrence capabilities, to his later years of trying to forge a lasting peace deal with the Palestinians and Arab states. He had vision and he had dreams, and it will now be up to the next generation to find a way of keeping Israel secure, while living at peace with its neighbors.

As Obama expressed towards the end of his speech:

The last of the founding generation is now gone. He understood that it was better to live, not for a longing for the past, but for the dreams that have not come yet.

Peres will be known for his vision for the future and his continued optimism that Israelis could get there. His son, Chemi, expressed to the many dignitaries present at his fathers funeral what was his familys greatest hope.

We believe, if he could, he would have used this opportunity to remind us all that the role of leaders today is to serve their people, and there is no greater responsibility and privilege than that.

As the funeral procession walked toward the grave site, and Peress coffin was put in the ground between the graves of former prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin (a dove), and Yitzhak Shamir (a hawk), one could only hope that the thousands of leaders present were thinking of how best they could serve both Israel and the nations in the generations to come.

C. Hart is a news analyst reporting on political, diplomatic, and military issues as they relate to Israel, the Middle East, and the international community.
Political correctness is lethal, and the killing fields of Chicago provide ample evidence to those willing to look at it with clear eyes.

The Associated Press manages to provide some surprisingly frank details on the real nature of the outbreak of murder in Chicago, a phenomenon that has become a worldwide emblem of the violence depravity of American society, in the eyes of America-haters. In a piece titled Why is Chicago a murder capital? Clues from a bloody month, Don Babwin lays out clearly specific subculture that is responsible for the murders:

To those outside Chicago, the rising murder toll might suggest a city wracked by widespread violence, but August portrays a much narrower picture of constant tit-for-tat attacks among gang members, with bystanders sometimes caught in the crossfire.

Babwin lets the subculture reveal itself through interviews.

Fourteen-year-old Malik Causey loved the way gangs took what they wanted from people on the street, the way members fought for each other, the way they could turn drugs into cash and cash into $400 jeans. His mother tried to stop him. She yanked him out of houses where he didn't belong. She cooked up a story about Malik punching her so the police would lock him up to keep him safe for a while. Then on Aug. 21, Monique Causey woke to discover that her son had sneaked out of the house. Before she could find him, someone ended his life with a bullet to the back of his head a few blocks away. "I went to him and cried and told him he wouldn't make it," Causey said. "But this fighting, jumping on people ... this is all fun for them. This is what they like to do, you know, so how can you stop them?"

Monique Causey and a picture of Malik.

This is utterly horrifying and heartbreaking. A mother is powerless to save her son from the allure of a street culture that proved irresistible. The drug trade offers quick money, and the macho aggressiveness necessary to defend drug-dealing turf leads to the tit-for-tat of murder.

"People are arguing on Facebook over the color of some girl's hair, real simple things ... and they carry guns and when they finally catch each other, that's how it be," said Derrick House, 51, a former gang member and ex-convict who now works trying to prevent violence. "When they see the person they looking for, they don't care who else is out there, old people and kids, they just start shooting."

This subcultures membership is well known to police:

 more than 70 percent of those shot to death appeared on the Chicago police's "Strategic Subject List," which includes 1,400 people considered likely targets of violence based on gang involvement or criminal record.

The real question then becomes how to destroy this subculture. The Constitution rules out simple but drastic measures, and left-wing legal groups are anxious to push theories like disparate impact to prevent reasonable approaches surviving litigation. Cops can convict some of the murderers, but incarceration is hardly a scary deterrent when murder is so common a fate.

The real leverage point for change would be the broader culture. These kids have their minds filled with glamorous imagery and music glorifying gangsta life. But getting the producers of this material to stop is fruitless. Instead, we need to start mocking the gangsters as dummies, too stupid to realize they are throwing everything away. Stop treating them as victims, and let the rest of humanity scorn their subculture as uncool. Of course, it is taboo for whites to scorn anything associated with any blacks. But is this taboo worth preserving when it is killing thousands of young African-American males?

The one thing adolescents cant stand is shaming as uncool. It is time to let the natural human revulsion at this barbarity be expressed instead of repressed by political correctness.

Or you can just call me a racist and move along.
The recall of the Galaxy Note 7 was not only a first in the history of Samsung, but a first in the entire mobile industry. Weve not seen a recall on this sort of scale ever before, and especially not one that was started due to safety concerns from a faulty battery. For what its worth, Samsung has tried their best to make sure that customers are informed, and that they get a safe replacement device as soon as Samsung can manage. Many customers have now received a replacement device or have one on the way to them, and next month will see the return of the Galaxy Note 7 to shelves all over the world, but there is the argument that Samsung could have done more here. Chinese state TV certainly thinks so, as a recent post published on the CCTV website has attached Samsung for their handling of the recall in China.

In China, Samsung didnt need to recall all devices sold, because the battery inside of them was not made by Samsung SDI and was therefore deemed to be safe. This is because devices sold in China must be made in China, and this restricted Samsung from using their own batteries from South Korea. As such, devices marked as Made in China were deemed to be safe, but CCTV argues that by not recalling devices in China, but making sure the United States were given a video apology and a full recall smacked of arrogance and that Samsungs discriminatory policy has caused discontent from Chinese consumers. Its felt that because China did not receive the same sort of attention as the United States or other markets, this was some sort of discrimination against Chinese customers. Samsung did, after looking into it, have to recall 1,858 devices that were sold in the region as a test scheme, but other than that Samsung did not start a similar recall as weve seen in the States and elsewhere.

Its likely that the Chinese state TV network is merely looking for another way of pushing users towards domestic choices, as it has been known to do in the past. After all, TV networks ran by the state, are often ran for the state, and will have Chinas best interests at heart. This logically leads to throwing shade at non-domestic companies in order to shine a light on the likes of Xiaomi, Huawei, ZTE and co. Its unlikely that Samsung will respond to these comments, given that the firm has done everything it can and should have done already by now.
Three years after Google bought the popular navigation app Waze, the company is ready to release another solution for our ever-busy roads. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the carpooling app Waze Rider is going live in San Francisco after spending over four months in testing. The app is a ride-sharing solution somewhat similar to Uber and Lyft but with one important exception  its specifically designed for casual ride-sharing and not ride-hailing. In other words, it connects people who have similar destinations in mind. What that means in practice is that Waze Rider users are limited to two rides per day and while they obviously dont get to commute for free, theyre only paying for travel expenses and not the actual driver.

Why would anyone want to be a Waze Rider driver for free, then? Again, because this is a carpooling app and is looking for people who are interested in cutting their travel expenses by taking on a few more passengers. More specifically, passengers in San Francisco are currently paying $0.54 per mile which is obviously cheaper than both Uber and Lyft so Google has a good chance of attracting commuters to use its new service. In addition to that, the tech giant doesnt have to worry about all of the regulations Lyft and Uber are subject to because Waze Rider drivers technically arent making a profit. In order to sign up for the program, all you need to do is submit your home and work addresses and your general working schedule. Waze Rider will then pair you with potential commuters looking to catch a ride with you and share your travel expenses. The Mountain View-based company specifically stated that Waze Riders will never be required to provide any information on their vehicles, background checks, and everything else that the likes of Uber and Lyft are currently demanding from their drivers.

Its a service with a limited scope but works pretty much as intended. The app itself still requires some additional polishing as The Wall Street Journal reports its actual navigation still isnt working as intended but all in all  its interesting to see whether Google manages to take some of Uber and Lyfts customers considering how more affordable its service is. On the other hand, its worth noting that Uber is also likely to follow with a similar carpooling service in the near future, so Waze Rider wont be without competition for long.
Huawei is widely known in Asia, where it has a huge following, selling millions of devices each year. However, the company has also been gaining prominence in Europe and in the US, where it recently released its Huawei P9 flagship smartphone. While the Chinese company is already selling smartphones in the US, including from its sub-brand Honor, the firm is yet to sell tablets from its flagship M lineup in the country. However, that is about to change as the Huawei MediaPad M3 will be released in the US. On Twitter, the official account of Huawei, was quizzed by a user regarding the release of the MediaPad M3 in the US, to which Huawei replied stating that the tablet will be making its way to the US. Huawei also mentioned that Huawei USA will have more information regarding the release.

The MediaPad M3 was first unveiled by Huawei back in early September, during IFA 2016 and comes with specs which are pretty compelling. If you would like a recap on the specs of the tablet, do read on. The MediaPad M3 is the successor to the MediaPad M2 and it packs a large 8.4-inch 1600 x 2560 resolution IPS LCD display. Under the hood, the device is powered by the Kirin 950 octa-core System-on-Chip, which is produced by Huawei themselves. As for the memory on this tablet, 4 GB of RAM can be found in it, coupled with either 32 GB or 64 GB of internal storage, which can be expanded via a microSD card slot. Optics on this device is taken care of a 13-megapixel shooter on the rear, and an 8-megapixel shooter on the front, but neither of which come with a flash. Inside the all metal chassis is a non-removable 5,100 mAh battery which can be charged via the microUSB port on the bottom of the tablet. A fingerprint scanner with various functions has also been included in the home button of the device.

For software, the MediaPad M3 comes with EmotionUI 4.1 (EMUI) running atop Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. The tablet also happens to support most GSM networks worldwide, and also US LTE networks. As for pricing, the MediaPad M3 retails at around $400 for the 32 GB variant and for $500 for the 64 GB variant. However, this price may differ once the tablet is released in the US.
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.
Samsung has been all over the news lately, though not for the right reasons. The companys new flagship phablet, the Galaxy Note 7, is one of the most powerful devices out there at the moment, but the company had to face serious issues soon after they started shipping the Galaxy Note 7 units to consumers. Quite a few Galaxy Note 7 units were shipped with malfunctioning batteries, and a number of them exploded while charging, which forced the company to recall the device altogether. Samsung has been replacing old, malfunctioning Galaxy Note 7 units with new ones for a while now, and despite that, a new Galaxy Note 7 unit exploded in China a couple of days ago, read on.

A report regarding this particular Galaxy Note 7 unit surfaced a couple of days ago along with some images of the device, and to make things worse, the device exploded in the Bank of China. Since then, Samsung had launched an investigation into the matter, and the company has now published an official report regarding it. Samsung says that battery had nothing to do with the explosion of said device, and once again reaffirms that all the Galaxy Note 7 units that have been shipped in China come with a fully functioning battery pack, and should work without any issues in that department. Samsungs findings were corroborated by the China Taier Laboratory (CTTL) and Exponent Laboratory. This doesnt change the fact that the phone exploded, of course, but it at least confirms that the battery is not to blame here.

Now, in addition to denying that the battery is to blame for the recent explosion, Samsung also mentions that more than 1 million consumers around the world are now using safe Galaxy Note 7 units, and that 150,000 such units have been shipped to Chinese consumers. The company has also mentioned that you should contact them if youre experiencing any issues with the Galaxy Note 7, especially if overheating is present. That is more or less it, it seems like the battery is not to blame for the latest Galaxy Note 7 explosion, so we wonder what happened? We may never know, but if you do own an older Galaxy Note 7 units which doesnt have a green battery indicator, we advise you to exchange it as soon as possible.
Just a few days after celebrating its very first anniversary, Samsung Pay has launched in Russia, which means that the companys mobile payment app is now available in nine countries worldwide. Unlike its previous debuts, Samsung Pay made its way to Russia in a rather quiet manner as it currently doesnt support too many banks. Namely, Russian users can currently connect the Android app to cards from six banks: Russian Standard Bank, VTB24, Alfa-Bank Banking Group, MTS Bank, Yandex, and Raiffeisen Bank. Its worth noting that Samsung already stated this support will be expanded in the future but its anyones guess when that might actually happen. The launch was conducted in cooperation with the Russian mobile operator MTS as well as its sister bank of the same name.

For the uninitiated, Samsung Pay is a contactless payment solution supported by Samsung devices. Its based on the so-called magnetic secure transmission (MST) technology which doesnt require NFC technology. Its a neat solution and one which largely benefits from the technology not having to require any infrastructure that doesnt already exist in regular stores and other places that sell goods and services and of course, accept credit cards. Because of that, the app has reportedly been very well received by consumers. Although, one of the aspects which is likely holding its adoption back a little, is that Samsung Pay does currently only support the latest Galaxy flagships so youll need a phone that isnt older than the original Galaxy S6 in order to use the app. The Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch did recently see its support being added with its own version of Samsung Pay, but that one wont work without an NFC terminal. Once you have a supported device in your possession, you can sign up for Samsung Pay with a Samsung account and a valid payment card. Each payment is authorized with a registered fingerprint or a Samsung Pay PIN.

Since August of 2015, Samsung Pay made its way to the US, South Korea, China, Spain, Australia, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Singapore. After its Russian debut, Samsungs mobile payment solution is also expected to launch in the United Kingdom, Canada, Malaysia, Thailand, and Hong Kong by the end of the year.
Yesterday, Sprint presented at the Deutsche Banks 24th Annual Leveraged Finance Conference and the Chief Financial Officer, Tarek Robbiati, was talking about Sprints network and how the carrier has worked hard to improve the quality of its network. Robbiati explained that more than 200 million Americans are now able to access Sprint service on the 2.5 GHz band: the carrier has rolled out 2.5 GHz coverage to more than 70% of the 300 million POPs the network operates from. To coincide with rolling out the 2.5 GHz network, Sprint is also better able to introduce carrier aggregation to customers, both dual band (allowing a theoretical download speed of around 100 Mbps) and three band (of up to 230 Mbps download speeds). Robbiati is confident that Sprint will continue to improve the network: We still have further upside from improving the experience and the performance of the network either by way of coverage or by way of actual speed.

There are a number of reasons why Sprint needs to roll out the 2.5 GHz spectrum and the main one is that unused spectrum is essentially wasted money but the business also appreciates that it needed to improve the quality of its network compared with a few years ago. Sprint has deliberately sat out of the current 600 MHz frequency auction that the American regulator is processing, the FCC, on the grounds that if it were to win any spectrum at the 600 MHz point it might have to cooperate with other carriers to avoid falling foul of spectrum coverage rules, thanks to its considerable holdings at the 2.5 GHz point. Sprint would need to pay for any 600 MHz licence fees but also to develop a new network operating at this frequency, which would likely be working very differently to its existing mid and high frequency coverage. Sprints current network improvement plans revolve around installing many small sites rather than using fewer, longer ranger macro sites, which the 600 MHz frequency would encourage the lower the frequency, the greater the range of service. Americas carriers are expected to use the 600 MHz frequency to provide coverage for wide areas. Sprints line of thinking is that the better the quality of the network, the lower the churn rate, that is the number of customers who switch network away from Sprint. So far the results are promising: for the second quarter 2016, Sprints churn rate was at an all time low at 1.39%, having been reducing for the last six quarters.

However, Robbiati is mindful that Sprint needs to keep its churn rate low. In late 2014, the company acquired many customers because of its 50% off offers and these contracts will be expiring soon. Robbiati explained that Sprint has noticed a very strong correlation between network performance and churn rate and that half of customers leaving the network is because of network coverage. Around one third of customers leave for price reasons and the remainder leave for service reasons. Sprint is concentrating on keeping and improving network performance in order to retain these customers.
Google just recently rebranded their Google Apps For Work package to G Suite, and although the name change is all about focusing on bringing together team members and allowing them to better connect to work efficiently, the rebrand also comes along with individual updates to a few of the apps that are included in G Suite. This includes updates to Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, and Google Calendar, all aimed at offering a more intelligent experience to businesses and teams so that they can continue to stay as productive as possible and get things done.

The updates that Google are pushing out to the G Suite apps today are all about making things smarter so that users will be able to more easily make the apps work for them as opposed to working for the apps. Google is making things smarter by utilizing their machine intelligence technology and applying it across the apps listed above, the first of which is Drive with the Quick Access feature that was added today as part of its update. With Quick Access, Drive will attempt to recommend and offer up files to users before they ask or try to search for them based on Drives understanding of each users individual workday. The idea here is to have the file that you need to access next right on the home screen so there is less browsing that needs to be done, which means more time saved, and overall less time messing about so that users can keep things moving.

When it comes to Docs, Sheets, and Slides, Google has updated these apps with a new Explore feature that will allow users to ask for related files. Explore will also recommend things that are related to what youre doing in each app. For example, if youre working on a project for school or work that is about a specific political topic, Docs would try to recommend related content from images to other details that might be of interest or for the user to learn about so that they might be able to insert the additional information into their document. Similar things happen for Slides, as Explore will offer up suggestions based on the stuff that is in a particular slide of the presentation.

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As for Sheets, users can ask Explore to offer up answers about their data, all by using words instead of formulas to get the answers they need. The update to Calendar introduces the new Find a Time feature that has the ability to suggest times for meetings based on when the contacts youve invited are open to attend, and if youre booking the meeting in a place youve booked before, Find a Time will also show you available rooms so you spend less time trying to pin one down. Its worth noting that the Find a Time feature is only new to iOS at the moment, as Android already offers this feature, but it will be coming to Calendar on the web later this year. Lastly, Google is extending the availability of the Team Drives feature to more users through their Early Adopter Program, which allows team members to collectively manage content that is shared. Google is also extending a feature for Hangouts called Team Meetings, which has been in a small preview status just like Team Drives and will be opening up to more users through the same Early Adopter Program. With Team Meetings, joining a video call to have a meeting is as simple as its ever been, allowing anyone to join a meeting even if they dont have a Google account, as each meeting generates a short link and dial in number to make things quick and painless. While most of these features should be available for the corresponding apps across Googles platforms as of today, Google mentions that more updates to G Suite apps will be on the way to improve them even more and allow for even better workflow.
Google had introduced the Google Chromecast dongle back in July 2013. This was an incredibly affordable ($35) streaming dongle, through which you could basically stream whatever (media files) you wanted from your smartphone to wherever you plugged in the Google Chromecast, like your TV, for example. That being said, Google had introduced the second-gen Google Chromecast along with the Chromecast Audio in September 2015. The company has sold tons of such Chromecast devices thus far, and there quite a few apps available in the Google Play Store which are compatible with the Google Chromecast, which makes this gadget even more useful. That being said, were here to list top 10 such apps, but do keep in mind that these apps are listed in no particular order, and that these are just our personal picks. That being said, lets dive in, shall we?

AllCast

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AllCast is one of the most popular casting apps on Android, in general. This app has had some issues in the past (bugs), though most of those seem to be resolved now. It allows you not only to cast to the Google Chromecast, but also to the Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Roku, etc. The design of this app is also something that is worth mentioning, as it looks really nice and clean, which is quite important these days. The Premium version of this app is also available.

LocalCast

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LocalCast is a direct competitor to AllCast, as it also offers nice, clean design, and is a multipurpose app which can stream not only to Chromecast but also Roku, Fire TV, Xbox 360, Xbox One, etc. This app actually comes with a ton of features, and it basically allows you to stream content to any other DLNA device as well, other than the ones that weve listed. Much like AllCast, this app is free to use.

BubbleUPnP

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BubbleUPnP is a very capable app with a rather odd name. You can stream music, photos and videos through this app to various devices, while it also comes with an extensive Chromecast support, and it supports subtitles with custom appearance, which will certainly come in handy to some of you. The BubbleUPnP app is well designed, and it generally has really positive reviews in the Google Play Store, while it is free to use.

Netflix

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No matter where you live, chances are youve heard of Netflix, one of the most popular video subscription services in the world. Well, as most of you know, Netflixs official app is available in the Google Play Store, and it comes with a Chromecast support. What does this mean? Well, all you need to do is to stream a TV series or a movie from your smartphone to your TV through Google Chromecast, and youre good to go.

Google Play Movies & TV

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As you probably already know, you can watch movies and various shows through the Google Play Movies & TV on your smartphone. All you have to do it purchase or rent a show from Google, and youre good to go. Now, considering this is Googles very own app, its not exactly surprising that it comes with Chromecast support, now is it? Streaming works really well in this case, as it does on every other app on this list.

Spotify

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Spotify is one of the most popular music streaming services out there, and somewhere between 100 and 500 million people downloaded the app thus far. The app on its own is great and quite functional, and it also offers Chromecast support. In case you want to throw some music from your phone to some other device where you have Googles Chromecast hooked up (and quite possibly better speakers), you can do so without an issue.

Google Play Music

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Google Play Music is, much like Spotify, an incredibly popular music streaming service. Whether youre listening to music from your device, music youve uploaded to Googles servers or perhaps you have purchased a license to listen to music available from Google, youre able to stream it through the companys app, as it is fully compatible with the Google Chromecast dongle.

Plex

Plex is a really powerful multimedia center, this service has been around for a long time now, and so has the official Android app. Plex basically organizes your media content, photos, music and video, and then lets you reproduce them. This app is compatible with the Google Chromecast, which makes it even more useful than it is on its own. The app is free to use, though in-app purchases are included here.

YouTube

YouTube is the most popular video streaming service in the world, and as you know, this is Googles service. The YouTube app for Android is quite capable, and it is compatible with Google Chromecast, as expected. The usage is quite simple, every video you fire up on your phone you can stream to a device where the Google Chromecast is plugged in, all you have to do is click on the cast icon which is located in the upper right corner of your video clip on YouTube (once its up and running).

Google Cast

Google Cast is yet another application on this list that had been made by Google. This app allows you to stream content to the Chromecast dongle, Chromecast Audio and TVs / speakers with Google Cast built-in. The design of this app is great, presuming you like Material Design that is, and the app works really well. This application is completely free to use, and there are no in-app purchases included here.
All of the major wireless carriers across the United States are working on building out and modernizing their networks to prepare for the advent of 5G. A secondary network for 5G devices to fall back on is almost as important as the 5G network itself; no network technology is perfect, and no network will have 100% coverage of any given area for all of the customers that want to use the network resources, after all. One of the ways carriers have been addressing this issue is through the use of LTE-U, or unlicensed LTE. This technology allows carriers to grab unused spectrum from the air for their networks, and as you could imagine, the possibility for interference is extreme when multiple carriers are using it in the same area, and especially when public Wi-Fi is prevalent. This is magnified in a place like New York City where there are tons of users and different technologies. Thats why two of the four major US carriers have announced that they are turning to an interoperability test from the Wi-Fi Alliance.

LTE-U, similar to the various levels of carrier aggregation, has the potential to bring great speeds and increased strength and range of coverage to wireless networks. For Verizon and T-Mobile, the two test participants, LTE-U tests in lab settings and theoretical calculations have thus far proven quite satisfying. Carriers have been eager to get to work on flipping the switch for the technology, but the FCC has been a bit less gung-ho, refusing to approve any plans until interoperability tests can be done to ensure a lack of interference for both the carriers using the LTE-U technology and local elements using the spectrum in the areas where LTE-U deployment is planned. With New York City being covered in enough Wi-Fi to help some 300,000 odd lower-income residents get online for free, it seems to be a perfect testing ground, and the test created by the Wi-Fi Alliance seems to be the most realistic and workable test for interoperability that players have thus far found. Essentially, if carriers can deploy LTE-U in a place like New York City without interference, they should be able to manage a deployment almost anywhere.

At an event, Wi-Fi Alliance Vice President Kevin Robinson gave a breakdown of the plan for testing LTE-U deployment. Technical details aside, the plan is essentially for all players to work together to monitor and test equipment to ensure that nobody is experiencing interference, and the Wi-Fi Alliances guidelines will act as a stiff governance over the test and all members involved. Since this is exactly the sort of test that the FCC has been asking for, its not a stretch to imagine LTE-U getting the green light for deployment on the two participating carriers if this goes well.
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Who Is Arsenio Hall, What Happened To His Talk Show and Why Do Fans Think He Is Gay? He is one of the funniest beings to have graced the comedy constituent of the American entertainment industry. Arsenio Hall has a reputation for the rib-cracking disposition always portrayed in his comedy roles. He is not just a comedian; he is also an actor and a former talk show host for his popular show, The ...

What Is Woah Vicky Famous For and Who Are Her Family Members? Like most social media celebrities in this digital era, Woah Vicky is one of those stars that have utilized the internet as a powerful tool to propel themselves to instant fame. The social media space, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc., offers lots of people the right opportunities and potentials to become superstars overnight. Not everyone achieves ...

Where Is Michael Strahan Since His Retirement From The NFL and Who Is His Partner? Michael Strahan is a retired American football player turned media personality. He played the defensive lineman position and holds the record for most sacks in a single NFL season. He also only played for the New York Giants throughout the entire 15-year professional career that saw him win a Super Bowl ring. In February 2014, ...

How Wendy Williams Went From Being a College DJ to Having Her Own Talk Show and More About Her Divorce Wendy Williams is a former radio personality, now talk show host, who is known for her outspokenness and brash no-nonsense attitude. She gained fame and notoriety for her on-air clashes with celebrities before moving on to host her own talk show. Since 2008, Williams has hosted the nationally syndicated television talk show, The Wendy Williams Show. ...

Who is Sunny Hostin? Her Husband, Family & Net Worth Sunny Hostin is no ordinary Latina  American lawyer but also a successful columnist, multi-platform journalist, and social commentator. A happily married woman and mother of two, Hostin is the Senior Legal Correspondent and Analyst for ABC News and co-host of ABCs popular morning talk show, The View. She is a legal expert popularly known as a former ...

Who Is Robert Costa and Is He Married, Who Is His Wife? Robert Costa is a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC who is regarded as being part of Americas next generation of journalists. The University of Notre Dame graduate, who is of Italian/Portuguese descent, has been lauded for his fresh political perspectives in an industry full of old heads. In addition to his work listed above, Costa ...

Team Valor Pokemon Go  7 Key Facts You Need To Know Team Valor Pokemon Go  The craze of the new game Pokemon Go is one that took the gaming world by storm sending teenagers and adults alike into a frenzy and one of its teams Team Valor, has proven to be instrumental in making it so. Before the game was created, Pokemon was a cartoon ...

Sheryl Underwood  Husband, Family & Net Worth She is known for her trademark smile which can be described as the brightest and broadest smile ever seen on planet earth. She is none other than Sheryl Underwood the comedian, actress, and TV host whose funny wits has left America in great awe. Although Sheryl has risen to become an important personality in the industry, ...

Team Mystic Pokemon Go: 7 Facts You Need To Know And Signs You Are One Team Mystic of the break out game Pokemon Go is a team that is full of sass and chivalry. With an enchanting monicker, Team Mystic stands out from the rest of its counterparts and deserves to take the crown as champion in the Pokemon gaming-verse. To be a member of this exceptional team of Pokemon battle ...

Exploring Guy Beahms Dr Disrespect Persona, Wife and Why He was Banned Permanently From Twitch Guy Beahm who is popularly known by his online alias  Dr DisRespect, is an award-winning Twitch.tv streamer. He has leveraged on the Twitch platform to become an internet personality that is quite widely known. His online success is just more proof that anyone who is good at what they do can attain celebrity status ...

Critical Facts About Lee Ann McAdoo  The Infowars Anchor Lee Ann Mcadoo is a conservative journalist and television host whose interests in conspiracies and astrology has established her as a famous American reporter. Often referred to as Wonder Woman, McAdoo is a reporter who works for InfoWars.com, a controversial right-wing website run by radio show host, Alex Jones. Who Is Lee Ann McAdoo? Lee Ann McAdoo was born on 7 ...

Millie Weaver  Age, Husband & Infowars Career Millie Weaver is an American model, journalist, political activist, and social commentator. The young and beautiful journalist rose to fame working as a reporter for a controversial right-wing website InfoWars.com. Also known as Millennial Millie, Weaver is a social media influencer with over 100,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel and over 35,000 followers on Twitter. Who Is Millie Weaver and What Is ...

Is Jessica Tarlov Married? What Are Her Height & Weight? Jessica Tarlov is an American political consultant, strategist, and analyst whose influential and regular TV presence has made a popular figure. A good example of beauty with brains, Tarlov has appeared on various TV networks, mostly the FOX News Network where she is known for her liberal views on political analysis and insights. She is also the senior director ...

Who Is Kelly Rebecca Nichols  Alex Jones Ex-Wife? Kelly Rebecca Nichols is the ex-wife of controversial American radio show host, Alex Jones. She got nationwide attention following her divorce and subsequent custody battle with her estranged husband. Nichols, who worked with PETAs public relations department, was herself no stranger to controversies as she was involved in several publicity stunts of the non-profit animal rights ...

Who Is Bree Morgan  Cole Sprouse Ex-Girlfriend And What Is She Up To Now? Although Bree Morgan became famous through the Instagram, she also sapped some dose of popularity from Disneys sweetheart, Cole Sprouse of the Sprouse brothers. She is not only an Instagram star but also a YouTube vlogger whose popularity has long exceeded the ordinary level. Bree is conspicuously prominent on the internet and has her digital savviness ...

Does Vanna White Have Husband or Children, What Is Her Net Worth / Salary? For over three decades, Vanna White has been a household name, famous as the co-host and letter turner of the iconic NBC game show Wheel of Fortune. The talented and beautiful television personality is also an actress with several TV series and films to her credit. Since making her Wheel of Fortune debut in 1982, she has become one ...

Liz Wheeler  Biography, Husband & Net Worth Liz Wheeler is the kind of girl who sets the room on fire whenever she comes around. In this situation, however, she sets our screens on fire each time she appears as the host of One America News Tipping Point. She is, therefore, a presenter, publisher, consultant and a member of the Board of Zoning ...

Betty White  Net Worth, Children & Husband The entertainment industry will remain indebted to personalities like Betty White who brought something extra to the table and kept the world entertained for donkey years. The comedienne, actress, and writer graced the big screens in the early 50s as a show host and has been a delight since then. She is the queen of ...

Is Bill Nye (The Science Guy) Dead or Alive, What Are His Net Worth & Education? Everyone will always remember Bill Nye as the Science Guy. Besides his TV show Bill Nye the Science Guy, he is well-known for his Netflix show Bill Nye Saves the World which started airing in 2017 as well as his appearances in many famous media projects as a science educator. The star studied mechanical engineering ...

Is Cesar Millan Dead, Who Is The Wife & What Is His Net Worth? Cesar Millan is the famous dog whisperer who often stirs up mixed emotions. The Mexican-American is precisely speaking, a dog behaviorist; he has been in the game for over 25 years. His Emmy-nominated television series, Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan further pushed his method and tactics into the limelight. The series was produced from 2004 ...

Is Thomas Sanders Gay and Does He Have A Boyfriend? By the time Vine was shut down in January 2017, Thomas Sanders was already popular within and beyond the internet community for his heavy involvements on the online video hosting platform. After the tragic shutdown of Vine impacted on the growing career of the multi-talented personality, he immediately switched over to YouTube where he continued to upload ...

Is Shepard Smith Gay, Who Is The Boyfriend & What Is His Net Worth? There are only a few media personalities who are as bold and confident as Shepard Smith. Apart from his impressive stint at Fox News Channel which includes but not limited to his classic news delivery, upfront stance on virtually every issue and much more; he loves his job as much as he loves his personality. Smith ...

Is Milo Yiannopoulos Gay? His Husband and Net Worth Milo Yiannopoulos is a popular writer, journalist, polemicist, public speaker, and political commentator who is also known as the founder of The Kernel, an online blog. He has been said to be among the list of 100 weird and influential people in the United Kingdom. He appeared on this list as a result of personal beliefs and ...

Does Ryan Seacrest Have A Wife Or Girlfriend, What Is His Net Worth? From radio to television, Ryan Seacrest is a household name and a force to be reckoned with in showbiz. The radio personality, television host, and producer is best recognized as the host of the popular TV talent search contest American Idol. Heres how the media personality who always knew what his lifes ambition was and diligently pursued ...

Is Anderson Cooper Gay, Who is The Boyfriend or Husband? For many, the thought of becoming a millionaire by writing and talking about other people appears unachievable but this is the reality of the prominent American journalist Anderson Cooper who gathered millions of dollars for conducting accurate political analysis and other vital reports on TV. He is the main anchor of the CNN news show Anderson ...

Is David Muir Gay or Does He Have A Wife, What Is His Salary? David Muir is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who works for the ABC broadcast-television network and anchors the ABC World News Tonight with David Muir program while also co-anchoring the magazine program 20/20. The Ithaca College graduate, whose show has become the most-watched newscast in America, has covered stories from all across America and the world; reporting ...

Joel Osteen  Divorce Rumors, Net Worth & Family Members Joel Osteen is an American Televangelist, Senior Pastor of Lakewood Church based in Houston, Texas, a husband and a father of two. He is an author of many books, seven of which are New York Times Best Sellers and his televised sermons capture more than 7 million viewers per week and 20 million every month ...

Who Is Todd Chrisley? What To Know About His Children, Gay Rumors & Net Worth Premiered on the USA network in 2014, Chrisley Knows Best is one of the most watched family reality TV shows in the U.S. The series which is currently in its sixth season is centered around U.S real estate mogul Todd Chrisley and his family. The show reveals Todd the patriarch of the Chrisley family as a strict dad who rules ...

Who Is Shannon Bream Of Fox News? Her Husband, Children & Net Worth Shannon Bream who hosts the iconic primetime program started her journalism career in the late 1990s debuting as the evening and late-night news reporter for the CBS affiliate, WBTV. The beauty from America currently works for the Fox News Channel and she is best known for anchoring the primetime program. She also hosts Americas News ...

Is Troye Sivan Gay, Who Is His Boyfriend and What Is His Net Worth? Troye Sivan is an Australian singer and songwriter best known for songs like Happy Little Pill, Youth, Heaven (with Betty Who) and The Boyfriend Tag (with Tyler Oakley) which have all garnered him different awards and ranked on the Billboard Charts. Sivan, who was born in South Africa but now resides in the United States, is ...

Did iDubbbz Have Cancer, Is He Gay and Who Is His Girlfriend Now? iDubbbz is one YouTuber who has made a career out of courting controversy. Renowned for his absurdist channels and comedy video series, the Los Angeles based personality is the owner of two channels, iDubbzTV, and iDubbzTV2, as well as the brains behind comedy video series such as Content Cop, Kickstarter Crap, Gaming News Crap, and ...

Inside Greg Gutfelds Love Story With Wife Elena Moussa and Why Fans Thought He Was Gay Greg Gutfeld is a seasoned American television producer whose career in the media industry has spanned over a decade. He is a man of many talents who makes extra income through comedy, journalism, and editorial works. Gutfeld regularly appears on Fox News Channel as a panellist and co-host of the political talk show The Five ...

Works That Made Bo Burnham A Household Name and How Much He Is Worth Now One of YouTubes first viral stars and the worlds most exciting young comedian, Bo Burnham, has always amazed critics and comedy aficionados alike. Often regarded as the Justin Bieber of comedy, thanks to his fresh looks, floppy blond hair and hoodies, he has a multi-faceted career bigger than many comedians twice his age. It wouldnt ...

Is Louie Anderson Gay And What Is His Net Worth? Louie Anderson has one of the most abstract faces in the industry and equally knows how to use it to his advantage. He is not only a stand-up comedian but also an actor and television host who is known for his distinctive comic wits. Some of his notable projects include Family Feud, where he was ...

Is Don Lemon of CNN Gay, Who is His Partner and What Is His Salary? Don Lemon has risen to become one of the most recognizable faces on CNN over the past few years. The fiery journalist, who anchors CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, is liked and somewhat disliked for his strong and candid opinions on a variety of matters that do not just include politics but also race, significantly, matters that ...

Is Rachel Maddow Gay, Who is the Wife and How Much Does She Earn in Salary? Rachel Maddow is an award-winning American journalist, political commentator, and television news anchor. She is best known for hosting the popular nightly TV show The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Prior to this, she hosted a talk radio program on Air America Radio from 2005 to 2010. As of now, the TV sensation co-anchors MSNBCs ...

Demystifying Pokimane  Her Real Name, Ethnicity & Boyfriend Like most social media celebrities in this digital era, Pokimane Thicc is one of those stars who took advantage of the internet to make a name for herself. Given the unlimited potentials which the social media space offers, many people have been instantly propelled to fame just by posting creative online contents. Not only has ...

A Breakdown of Kris Jenners Net Worth, Sources Of Income and Relationships Over The Years Standing outside and looking in, Kris Jenner looks like the oil that greases the wheels of the entire Kardashian/Jenner machine. She has been dubbed a momager and rightfully so because she seems to have had a part to play in the trajectory of each and every one of her daughters individually and the Kardashian brand ...

Pursuits That Brought Liza Koshys Fame To its Zenith and Her Love Life Since David Dobrik Liza Koshy is an American actress who has leveraged YouTube as a platform to promote her comedy while also serving as a television host on occasions. She is talented and funny and has gathered a lot of fans from around the world. Koshy started on Vine in high school and was able to get millions of ...

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 ...

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Our struggle is to bring social, political, and economic justice to our nation. This is an effort of the Chicano/Mexican American Digital History Project. https://sites.google.com/site/chicanodigital/
The Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) and the Harbin Polytechnic University (HPU, China) have founded the Russian-Chinese Polar Engineering and Research Center, which will engage in studies intended to promote industrial development of the Arctic, Interfax reports.

The next step is to form a joint research team that will engage in breakthrough fundamental and applied research for Arctic industrial development, a FEFU press release says.

The priorities include designing ice-resistant platforms for Russia's Arctic zone and the Yellow Sea shelf, and studying durability characteristics of concretes in the polar zone, reliability of engineering facilities and ice impacts on ships.

"The FEFU has a historical scientific school with much experience in Arctic research and development and adapting continental shelf equipment. In tandem with one of China's leading technological universities, we'll expedite our large-scale Arctic project and promote international cooperation in this area," said Alexander Bekker, director of the FEFU Engineering School.

"China has no outlet to the Arctic, but its participation in such research is important from the point of view of developing modern engineering technologies as a whole. We at the Russian-Chinese center intend to address some practical tasks as well. A major oil field is being developed on the Bohai Bay shelf. We need the latest solutions to protect its engineering facilities from ice. FEFU scientists are certainly authorities on this," the press service quotes HPU Professor Wang Wei as saying.

Both universities are also planning to step up student and researcher exchanges. Young researchers from Russia and China will benefit from cooperating with the FEFU's annual ICE Mechanics ice school.

To obtain funding, the researchers will jointly apply to major Russian and Chinese scientific funds.
(ANSAmed) - BUDAPEST/BERLIN, SEPTEMBER 30 - Premier Viktor Orban said through a spokesman Friday that, Hungary ''will launch a message to Brussels: politics can't be made against the people's will'', announcing the 'political' result of a referendum to be held Sunday in the country on the redistribution of refugees in Europe.



According to polls, 80% of voters will say 'no' to quotas decided by the European Union for reallocations, while at the same time seriously questioning that the quorum of valid votes will exceed 50%, making the vote legitimate.



The national-populist Orban is publicly looking for widespread backing to be used against a future reallocation plan of migrants in Hungary, a country which last year only granted asylum to 508 people.



Orban says migrant flows should be stopped at the borders of the EU or before, by creating a ''giant city of refugees'' in Libya or somewhere else in northern Africa, where all illegal migrants can be taken.



According to the Hungarian premier, the joint defense of borders needs to be boosted, building fencing, like Hungary did on its southern border, and rejecting human traffickers' vessels at sea.



Together with Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Hungary is part of the Visegrad group, the four countries that are coordinating against EU policies to welcome migrants.



(ANSAmed)
BUDAPEST/BERLIN - Premier Viktor Orban said through a spokesman Friday that, Hungary ''will launch a message to Brussels: politics can't be made against the people's will'', announcing the 'political' result of a referendum to be held Sunday in the country on the redistribution of refugees in Europe.



According to polls, 80% of voters will say 'no' to quotas decided by the European Union for reallocations, while at the same time seriously questioning that the quorum of valid votes will exceed 50%, making the vote legitimate.



The national-populist Orban is publicly looking for widespread backing to be used against a future reallocation plan of migrants in Hungary, a country which last year only granted asylum to 508 people.



Orban says migrant flows should be stopped at the borders of the EU or before, by creating a ''giant city of refugees'' in Libya or somewhere else in northern Africa, where all illegal migrants can be taken.



According to the Hungarian premier, the joint defense of borders needs to be boosted, building fencing, like Hungary did on its southern border, and rejecting human traffickers' vessels at sea.



Together with Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Hungary is part of the Visegrad group, the four countries that are coordinating against EU policies to welcome migrants.



(ANSAmed)
MOSCOW - Russia has "strengthened" its air contingent in Syria, in the Latakia base, and is reportedly ready to do it again, this time sending a significant group of Su-25 attack aircraft, able to increase from two to 10 times a day the "frequency" of air raids against militant positions, the daily Izvestia reported Friday, citing a "military diplomatic source".



The Su-25, the source said, are able to be in Syria in two to three days and sending them is allegedly part of Moscow's response to the Pentagon's plan B in case an agreement with Russia failed, or increasing the raids, boosting the involvement of special forces and increasing the provision of weapons to the so-called moderate opposition.



Moscow has defined as "unreliable" data provided by the Observatory for Human Rights according to which 3,804 civilians died in a year due to Russian air raids in Syria, since September 30, 2015, a spokesman for Putin, Dmitri Peskov, was quoted as saying by Tass. "We don't deem the information of this organization, which is based in Great Britain, on what is ongoing in Syria to be reliable", he said.



According to the organization, the 3,804 civilians who have died include 906 minors.



In addition, 2,746 ISIS militants have been killed, along with 2,814 from rebel groups, fundamentalists and members of al Qaeda-linked Fatah ash Sham Front (ex-al Nusra).



According to the NGO, in two years of raids by the US-led international coalition, 611 civilians have been killed out of a total of 6,213 victims, as of September 23.



Also from the Russian side, Foreign Minister Serghiei Lavrov accused the US of sparing the jihadists of "Jabhat Al Nusra, probably fr some plan B".



Lavrov told the BBC, according to Interfax, that the problem about the situation around Aleppo is that the US and the coalition cannot and refuse to separate the opposition from Jabhat Al Nusra and terrorists who have joined them.



"Each time we target Jabhat Al Nusra - said the Russian minister - we are told that this must not be done, because near them, among them, are good people".
'A corner in the world', art beyond conflict in Istanbul Festival on Bosphorus with performances from Mideast

(by Cristoforo Spinella) (ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, SEPTEMBER 30 - Culture in the Middle East is trying to move on, despite the rubble in Syria and sectarian conflicts in Iraq, as well as the shock over the failed coup in Turkey and the frail scenario in Lebanon. Despite turbulence in the Middle East, where only conflicts seem to have space, a generation of artists is trying to gain the limelight and is meeting in Istanbul to be heard and watched, beyond easy labels.



The setting is the second edition of 'A corner in the world', the independent festival of contemporary art opening Saturday night in the Turkish city through October 12 with 20 performances across 13 locations on both sides of the Bosphorus.



It is a multicultural event that vies to cross borders - both material and artistic ones - with performances mixing dancing and theater, music and videos, also thanks to the cooperation between different countries. Art is like a bridge to overcome physical and cultural barriers across the region - Turkey, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Tunisia, Armenia and Romania.



The festival opened with the exhibition 'Unauthorized', which through videos and posters explores how Syrian artists continued to work over the years under the regime of Bashar al Assad, with initiatives almost always 'not authorized', often risking arrest and repression.



Theater and dance performances, videos and concerts are also scheduled.



''This year, the theme we have chosen is 'behind the corner': the world is round and its center can be any corner, according to your point of view. We are in Istanbul to look toward our world, to imagine what is behind the corner and to tell each other about our angles'', artistic director Fatih Genckal told ANSA.



The melting pot is a joint effort by young artists, who every day deal with obstacles in a Turkey where the space for freedom of expression is decreasing after alleged opponents were ousted after the failed coup on July 15.



Institutional partners, including the French cultural institute, are supporting the festival, which on Thursday will host the performance 'Deplacement' by Syrian artist Mithkal Alzghair. There will then be laboratories, debates and tours to discover places like 'arthereistanbul', an area on the Asian shore which has been hosting Syrian refugees who have fled the war for months. (ANSAmed).




YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. The Defense Ministry of Nagorno Karabakh informs the Azerbaijani forces made over 25 ceasefire violations at Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact.

The Ministrys announcement reads: Overnight September 29-30 the Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire regime more than 25 times by firing over 450 shots from various caliber weapons at the Armenian positions in Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact.

The Defense Army forces continue confidently fulfilling their military tasks and take counter measures only in case of strict necessity.
Syria: Moscow ready to send other jets, high tension with US Civilian victim toll rejected

(ANSAmed) - MOSCOW, SEPTEMBER 30 - Russia has "strengthened" its air contingent in Syria, in the Latakia base, and is reportedly ready to do it again, this time sending a significant group of Su-25 attack aircraft, able to increase from two to 10 times a day the "frequency" of air raids against militant positions, the daily Izvestia reported Friday, citing a "military diplomatic source".



The Su-25, the source said, are able to be in Syria in two to three days and sending them is allegedly part of Moscow's response to the Pentagon's plan B in case an agreement with Russia failed, or increasing the raids, boosting the involvement of special forces and increasing the provision of weapons to the so-called moderate opposition.



Moscow has defined as "unreliable" data provided by the Observatory for Human Rights according to which 3,804 civilians died in a year due to Russian air raids in Syria, since September 30, 2015, a spokesman for Putin, Dmitri Peskov, was quoted as saying by Tass. "We don't deem the information of this organization, which is based in Great Britain, on what is ongoing in Syria to be reliable", he said.



According to the organization, the 3,804 civilians who have died include 906 minors.



In addition, 2,746 ISIS militants have been killed, along with 2,814 from rebel groups, fundamentalists and members of al Qaeda-linked Fatah ash Sham Front (ex-al Nusra).



According to the NGO, in two years of raids by the US-led international coalition, 611 civilians have been killed out of a total of 6,213 victims, as of September 23.



Also from the Russian side, Foreign Minister Serghiei Lavrov accused the US of sparing the jihadists of "Jabhat Al Nusra, probably fr some plan B".



Lavrov told the BBC, according to Interfax, that the problem about the situation around Aleppo is that the US and the coalition cannot and refuse to separate the opposition from Jabhat Al Nusra and terrorists who have joined them.



"Each time we target Jabhat Al Nusra - said the Russian minister - we are told that this must not be done, because near them, among them, are good people". (ANSAmed).




TUNIS - Mothers of hundreds of Tunisian migrant children officially lost at sea off of Italian coasts in boats headed for Italy beginning in 2011 have formed an association called 'Mothers of the Missing', with the support of the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH).



"This is also an opportunity to advance public awareness on the seriousness of illegal immigration," said the association's attorney, Ayoub Ghdamsi.



He said the association would work to gather documentation regarding those missing at sea off the coasts of Italy, and not in conflict zones like Syria, Libya, or Iraq.



Ghdamsi accused the Tunisian government of "laxity" in its handling of cases related to Tunisians lost at sea since 2011.



A special investigating commission led by the country's minister for social affairs has been at work since 2015 probing 503 such cases, and has gathered wide public interest.



The commission is composed of representatives from the ministries of the interior, defence, justice and foreign affairs, as well as a representative of the families of those missing, an international law professor, a medical examiner, and a representative from the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights. Italian authorities are also collaborating through continuous information exchanges between the two countries' interior ministries as well as through meetings at the Italian Embassy in Tunis with delegations of family members of the missing and with representatives of civil society.



Former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano received a delegation of mothers of the missing during his 2012 visit to Tunis on May 16 and 17.



The mothers of the missing are also calling on Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi to hold to his electoral promises by intervening with Italian authorities to shed light on the cases.(ANSAmed).


ANSAmed - Weekly diary from October 3 until October 9

(ANSAmed) - ROME, SEPTEMBER 30 - Weekly diary of the main events scheduled in the Euro-Mediterranean area from October 3 until October 9.



MONDAY OCTOBER 3 PARIS - Summit on Libya with European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.



LAMPEDUSA - Anniversary of the shipwreck on October 3, 2013, in which 366 migrants died.



TUESDAY OCTOBER 4 No event to report so far.



WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 5 BRUSSELS - European Parliament, commemoration of victims of the October 3, 2013 shipwreck in Lampedusa in which 366 migrants died. Promoted by a group of lawmakers who are part of the parliamentary assembly of UfM, the event will see the participation of the mayor of Lampedusa Giusy Nicolini and general commander of the Coast Guards, Admiral Vincenzo Melone.



VARIOUS CITIES - World Education Day.



PARIS - Forum of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development with European Commissioner Elbieta Biekowska.



MAZARA DEL VALLO - Blue sea Land, Expo of production districts and the fishing districts of Med countries (until the 9th).



SOUSSE (TUNISIA) - Mediterranean expo on construction (until the 8th).



THURSDAY OCTOBER 8 BRUSSELS - EU, president of the Commission Jean-Claude Juncker receives Antoni Marti, head of the government of Andorra.



LA VALLETTA - EU, visit of European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans (also on the 17th) BRUSSELS - EU, European Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom and Violeta Bulc receive Nihat Zeybecki, the Turkish economy minister.



MESSINA - The Sabir Festival begins, until the 9th, in Messina and on October 13-16 in Catania.



TUNIS - Days of Italian cinema at the Med Film Festival (until the 9th).



FRIDAY OCTOBER 7 TIRANA - University of the arts, day dedicated to Italian songs.



TUNIS - Sidi Bou Said, festival on traditional music Muqat begins (until the 22nd).



TURIN - Opening of photo event 'In prima linea, donne fotoreporter in luoghi di guerra'- or on the frontlines, women reporters in war zones - (until November 13).



SATURDAY OCTOBER 8 Nothing to report so far SUNDAY OCTOBER 9 Nothing to report so far. (ANSAmed).




BRUSSELS - The European Parliament doesn't want to forget the tragedy on October 3, 2013, that caused the death of 366 people off the coast of Lampedusa. The delegation of European MPs that is part of the parliamentary assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean has thus invited on October 5 to Strasbourg the mayor of Lampedusa, Giusi Nicolini, and the general commander of the Italian coast guard, Admiral Vincenzo Melone.



Admiral Enrico Credendino, commander of operation Sophia of the European Union in the Mediterranean, will join them in the debate with lawmakers from the delegation.



The gathering will be chaired by the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, who will ''pay homage to efforts of Italian authorities'' and will ''discuss in which way the EU can better help communities that are on the frontlines of the management of the migration crisis'', the spokesman said.
Peres said Jewish people 'not born to rule other', Obama Israel has not won 'release from the need to win victories'

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, SEPTEMBER 30 - US President Barack Obama on Friday said in his eulogy at Shimon Peres' funeral that the former president would say that the ''Jewish people were not born to rule another people''.



He also cited Peres as saying: ''We won them all, he said of Israel's wars, but we did not win the greatest victory we aspire to - release from the need to win victories''.



Obama recalled how Peres insisted on seeing all human beings as having the right to the same dignity, including Palestinians.



''Even in the face of terrorist attacks, repeated disappointments at the negotiating table, he insisted that Palestinians must be seen as equal in dignity to Jews and therefore equal in self-determination.'' ''He believed that Israel would be best protected when Palestinians had a state of their own'' Obama also noted that both the US and Israel were founded ''in large part by stubborn idealists and striving immigrants, including those who had fled war and fled oppression'', noting Israel, like the United States, was not made by cynical people.



(ANSAmed)
Greece's Evangelistria Monastery, cradle of the nation Skiathos was where the first Greek flag was created

(by Patrizio Nissirio) (ANSAmed) - SKIATHOS (GREECE), SEPTEMBER 30 - At first glance it seems like just one of the many evocative monasteries dotting the Greek landscape: Moni Evangelistria rises on a hill on the island of Skiathos (Sporades), and the view is extraordinary, among forests and crystal-clear sea. But the complex is much more than the residence of a small group of orthodox monks. The story of modern Greece has passed through these walls, in particular the revolution that in 1821 brought independence to the country. It was also here that the first Hellenic flag, at that time a white cross on a blue background, was created on a loom.



"The monastery was founded in 1794 by a group of monks from Mount Athos (the Autonomous Theocratic Republic located on the Chalkidiki peninsula, in northern Greece) who did not accept the traditional rites," said Thodoris Tzoumas, president of the Skiathos Cultural Association, founded in 2005.



"In 1807, it hosted the Oath of Freedom, taken by some of the most important leaders of the revolution, including Theodoros Kolokotronis and Andreas Miaoulis. It was also here that a loom was used to create the first Greek flag. And the differences between Mount Athos remain: here, for example, women can enter the monastery".



The monastic community offered shelter as well as economic support to revolutionaries during the war against Ottoman rule.



Nowadays the monastery is one of the island's tourist destinations, far from the beaches and the lively town centre.



Besides the possibility for staying overnight, the rooms of the Evangelistria (which means 'annunciation' in Greek, taken from a monastery in ruins that rose in the distance nearby, with the same name) host four collections divided into sections: icons (many brought by the monks who came from four monasteries on Mount Athos); documents; Balkan War artifacts (including many newspapers from the era); and folklore. Among the most valuable objects is a gospel with a richly worked handmade cover, dating to 1539. Also currently on display is a collection of photographs taken on the Greek islands between the 1950s and 1960s, on loan from the Benaki Museum in Athens. "You're lucky," says Tzoumas as he exits the monastery, pointing towards the horizon. It's a clear day, and beyond the sea the 'sacred mountain', Mount Athos, is visible with its monasteries of various orthodox nations. The dissenting monks didn't go so far after all.(ANSAmed).




YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. A memorandum of understanding has been signed between the V. A. Fanarjyan National Center of Oncology and Varan Parto Darman joint-stock company.

New radiology equipment and training for specialists are planned under the document.

The Fanarjyan National Center of Oncology is one of a kind in the republic. We conduct approximately 4000 surgeries, 5500 chemotherapy treatments and 1500-2000 radiology treatments in a year. At the same time 25000 citizens are being continuously treated and are supervised. This memorandum is dedicated to the partnership between the two organizations and radiology medicine. Based on todays demands, we began searching partners for developing radiology medicine, with whom we were able to cooperate and have a new system. After searching for a long time we stopped on one company  Varan Parto Darman , Armen Tananyan  director of the center said.

The Iranian company provides radiology equipment to 85 % of the Iranian market. It is the official representative of the American Varyan company, which is the leading company in the radiology treatment equipment.

The memorandum is comprised of two stages.

During the first stage doctors of Armenia and Iran will receive training.

During the second stage, the oncology center will receive Varyan equipment, which are the modern equipment in radiology medicine.

Varan Parto Darman has 20 years of experience in medical equipment and pharmaceuticals in Iran. Now we have a representation of Varyan in Armenia also, which is called Varan Armenia. Taking into account the warm relations between our countries, which go back for ages, with doctor Armens and his teams help, we will try to create a center with exclusively modern equipments. Since four months are required for production of the equipment, and two months for shipment to Armenia, we hope that the equipment will arrive in six months. We hope that from now there wont be problems in the country, because these equipments allow treating 80% of cancer treatments, Muhammed Shahrami  Director of the joint-stock company said.

In 1946 the oncology and radiology profession was founded in Armenia. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the foundation of oncology.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. The official opening ceremony of DigiTec annual international technological Expo was held in Yerevan, reports Armenpress.

Newly appointed Minister of Transport and Communication Vahan Martirosyan and Director of Ucom Hayk Yesayan cut the symbolic red ribbon.

Before the opening of the Expo Executive Director of the Union of Information Technologies and Enterprises Karen Vardanyan said this year DigiTec Expo will put a special emphasis on education component since there is a serious shortage of professionals. He said the emphasis is more important especially after the April war.

Minister Martirosyan said Armenia has something to show to the world in the IT sector. Except that we are organizing such events in Armenia, our specialists are also taking part in the world IT forums. I am confident we will have new achievements soon.

The Expo, which is being held under Fest for Technological Armenians slogan, will last until October 2. It is being carried out by the Union of Information Technologies and Enterprises under the auspices of the Armenian Prime Minister.

More than 120 local and international companies are taking part in the Expo. This year India participates as a partner country of the Expo and is presented in the consolidated pavilion.

Leading companies such as Keysight Technologies, VMware, PicsArt, Ucom, Joomag, VOLO, Festo, Rusbase, Monitis, IUNetworks, ArmSoft, Huawei, Tumo are taking part at the Expo.
The roadshow will consist of a series of lectures at universities across the UAE and aims to raise awareness about space among students.



The appearances come as part of the Space Agencys efforts to enhance human capital and contribute to the sustainable development of the space sector.



During their presentations, the astronauts will be discussing the milestones of their careers, including the experience of exiting Earths atmosphere aboard space shuttles. They will also provide insight into the scientific research carried out as part of their missions, the significance of space exploration and ways for students to pursue careers in the space sector.



The Space Agency announced that it will host former NASA astronaut Marsha Ivins as part of its celebrations for World Space Week, which takes place between October 4th and 10th. Ivins will speak at the American University in Dubai on October 3rd, the American University of Sharjah on the 4th, the UAE University on the 5th and Khalifa University on the 6th. Subsequent lectures are yet to be confirmed.



Dr Khalifa Al Rumaithi, chairman of the UAE Space Agency, said: The lectures held by the UAE Space Agency fall within its strategic framework of developing specialized personnel that will be capable of leading the national space sector. They are also part of the educational programs that accompany the Global Space Congress, which is to be hosted by the UAE this January.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte appeared to liken himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Friday and said he would "be happy" to exterminate three million drug users and peddlers in the country, reports Reuters.

His comments triggered shock and anger among Jewish groups in the United States, which will add to pressure on the U.S. government to take a tougher line with the Philippines leader. Duterte recently insulted President Barack Obama and in a series of remarks he has undermined the previously close relationship between Manila and Washington.

In a rambling speech on his arrival in Davao City after a visit to Vietnam, Duterte told reporters that he had been "portrayed to be a cousin of Hitler" by critics.

Noting that Hitler had murdered millions of Jews, Duterte said: "There are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I'd be happy to slaughter them.

"If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have...," he said, pausing and pointing to himself.

"You know my victims. I would like (them) to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition."

Duterte was voted to power in a May election on the back of a vow to end drugs and corruption in the country of 100 million people. He took office on June 30 and over 3,100 people have been killed since then, mostly alleged drug users and dealers, in police operations and in vigilante killings.

His comments were quickly condemned by Jewish groups.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. US Secretary of State John Kerry says there are still no conditions for the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement, TASS reported.

He said in the current world there are certain frozen conflicts, including the Karabakh conflict, where currently the possibility for settlement is not being considered since first of all the leaders are not ready for it.

Kerry said the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not included in such conflicts. He said such conflicts are complex, but it is possible to see the means through which they can be left in the past if people make concrete complex decisions.

I think the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in included in this category, he said.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. On September 30 President of the Nagorno Karabakh republic Bako Sahakyan sent a congratulatory letter to President of the Republic of Abkhazia Raul Khadjimba, press service of the NKR Presidential administration informed Armenpress.

The letter reads:

"Respectful Mr. Khadjimba,

On behalf of the people and authorities of the NKR and personally myself I cordially congratulate You and the whole people of fraternal Abkhazia on the Day of Liberation and Victory in the Patriotic War.

It is a great holiday symbolizing heroism, bravery, dedication and unshakable faith of the Abkhazian people to live freely and build a sovereign state.

On the path of building an independent state, Abkhazia attained substantial successes and we are sincerely happy with all the achievements of the Abkhazian people.

I once again congratulate You, respected Mr. President, and the whole people of the Republic of Abkhazia on this significant holiday.

Peace, prosperity, welfare and new accomplishments to the Republic of Abkhazia!"
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan received today a delegation led by Credit Agricoles International Retail and Commercial Banking Director Marc Oppenheim.

As Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Government of Armenia, praising Credit Agricoles activities in Armenias banking sector and the presence of French management culture, the Prime Minister stressed the importance increased influx of French capital and the need to push ahead with the implementation of investment programs.

We are set to improve the business environment, and to this end, we have already changed the focus of the Ministry of Economy, with a primary objective to support the business community and attract investment. Our team will always be open: we will back you in addressing any eventual challenges, Karen Karapetyan said.

The Premier added that during a recent meeting with the representatives of the banking sector he urged them to develop appropriate SME lending mechanisms using the assets available with the banks in order to activate the economy.

Highlighting the Banks involvement in the agricultural sector, the Prime Minister stressed the importance of close cooperation between the French company and the Ministry of Agriculture of Armenia, adding that the Ministry of Agriculture in the near future will develop a package of investment programs. Karen Karapetyan expressed confidence that Credit Agricole will help bring in French capital and emphasized the need for a turnaround in this matter.

Thankful for the reception, Marc Oppenheim noted that the 20th anniversary of his banks activity in Armenia was being marked today. According to him, this is the evidence of close bilateral relations and their willingness to improve the business environment and economic development in Armenia. Marc Oppenheim expressed confidence that the shift in the focus of the Ministry of Economy will contribute to the implementation of the governments objectives and investment projects. He thanked the Prime Minister for his willingness to assist investors, noting that it is very important for successful business activities.

Good relations between the government and investors are the keys to success. Any State, which is ready to assist the business community, will be able to achieve development and ensure progress. We will back you on this way as we are keen to become the ambassador of French capital in Armenia, Marc Oppenheim pointed out.

During the meeting, the parties discussed other issues of mutual interest.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. The Regional Council of Basilicata (Italy) - Consiglio Regionale della Basilicata - has unanimously recognized the Armenian Genocide on September 27, and expressed its support to the Armenian people. Independent MP Aurelio Pace presented the bill upon the request of the Armenian community, the MFA told ARMENPRESS.

The bill states that the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide has been recognized by numerous international organizations, as well as the 1919 Turkish military tribunal.

The document also stresses that it is necessary to inform the public about the tragedy of the Armenian people, especially the young generation, in order to prevent similar crimes.
ALEPPO, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian populated districts of Aleppo have been shelled by terrorist groups in the morning of September 30, Gandzasar Weekly told ARMENPRESS.

Students of the Azg shelter in New Village district have been temporarily transferred to safer locations. Terrorist groups have also shelled the Villas districts. A shell exploded on one of the apartments near the St. Mary Church, which resulted in deaths and wounded among Armenians.

Ambulances arrived at the scene and rushed the victims to hospitals. The administration of the National Karen Jeppe Lycee moved students to the basement for security reasons.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan on September 30 visited DigiTec Expo-2016 12nd annual technological Expo in Yerevan Expo center, press service of the Presidential administration informed Armenpress.

The Expo which is being held under Fest for Technological Armenians slogan from September 30 to October 2, aims to create favorable atmosphere of communication between IT companies, consumers and the public, as well as to present the real picture, achievements and prospects of the Armenian Information and Telecommunication technologies field.

President Sargsyan toured all the Expo pavilions, got acquainted with the companies products and services, talked with the company representatives about their activities and further development projects.

More than 120 local and international companies, including from Russia, US, China and India are taking part in the Expo.

The Expo organizers presented to President Sargsyan the installation process of new technologies used in the military-industrial sector, reported the results of the current stage of cooperation in the format of military-industrial complex-IT companies formed upon the Presidents instruction, as well as the upcoming projects aimed at fully utilizing the IT sectors potential for the benefit of the military-industrial development of Armenia.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. City Council of Spanish city Marbella adopted an institutional declaration on September 30 by which it officially recognized and condemned the Armenian Genocide. All the politic al forces that took part in the voting unanimously voted in favor of that declaration, Armenpress was informed from the press service of MFA Armenia.

The representatives of the political forces in the City Council voiced about the importance of the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide and about its preventive nature, particularly in the context of contemporary geopolitical developments.

The speakers highlighted the importance of recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide by the central authorities of Spain.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Doctors were unable to save the life of Mirey Hintoyan injured during the bombing of Aleppos The Villas district, Armenpress reports, citing the Facebook page of Aleppo-based Gandzasar weekly, Aleppo ambulance service informed. Mirey Hintoyan was the sister of Arman Hintoyan, killed in the morning, September 30. Tsila Chapaghjurian, Yasmik Kirakosian  Perechikian are also among the victims.

A number of others have received injuries of different severity.

The Armenian populated districts of Aleppo were shelled by terrorist groups in the morning of September 30.

Students of the Azg shelter in New Village district have been temporarily taken to safer locations. Terrorist groups have also shelled the Villas district. A shell exploded on one of the apartments near the St. Mary Church, which resulted in deaths and wounded among Armenians.

Ambulances arrived at the scene and rushed the victims to hospitals. The administration of the National Karen Jeppe Lycee moved students to the basement for security reasons.












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YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Parliament Speaker of Armenia Galust Sahakyan on September 30 received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Georgia to Armenia George Saganelidze, press service of the Parliament informed Armenpress.

Galust Sahakyan congratulated the newly appointed Ambassador and expressed hope he will contribute to further deepening and strengthening the Armenian-Georgian ties during his diplomatic mission in Armenia.

Galust Sahakyan said in recent years the Armenian-Georgian parliamentary ties and mutual visits have been intensified. He highly appreciated the current level of the Armenian-Georgina relations and said there are still great opportunities and potential to develop the trade-economic relations, to expand cooperation in a number of sectors.

The Georgian Ambassador expressed gratitude for the warm reception and said with satisfaction the Armenian-Georgian relations are at the highest level. George Saganelidze said the Armenian ethnos played a key role in the development of the Georgian statehood. He expressed readiness to have a significant input in the further deepening and strengthening of the relations between the two states.

A number of issues of bilateral interest were discussed at the meeting.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Royal Valley middle school students in Mayetta Colin Caviness, Colin Everts and Luke Boyden began work on a documentary about Emma Darling Cushman  an American nurse who rescued thousands of Armenian children who had been orphaned during the genocide, cjonline.com reported.

When the Ottomans were expelling westerners from their territory after entering World War I, Cushman remained in Konya, Turkey, to continue operating a hospital she had worked at for over a decade. After the genocide began, she turned the hospital into an orphanage, found safe homes for endangered children and tried to bring shattered families back together.

As Boyden explained, this was extremely dangerous at a time when Ottoman forces were actively searching for Armenians: Emma Darling Cushman is probably the bravest, kindest and most stubborn person we have ever researched. She stood up against an entire empire.

After they finished their video, Caviness, Everts and Boyden were rewarded for their effort to tell Cushmans story  they received first place in the 2016 Discovery Awards held by the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes in Fort Scott.
World leaders attend funeral of the former Israeli president. Mahmud Abbas is in Israel for the first time since 2010, Hamas reacts negatively launching protest. Egypt and Jordan send representatives. Pope Francis expresses sadness over the death of a man of peace.

Jerusalem (AsiaNews)  World leaders gathered in Jerusalem for the funeral of former president and two-time prime minister Shimon Peres who died on Wednesday at the age of 93.

They include US President Barack Obama, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the prime ministers of Canada, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands, the presidents of Germany, France, and the European Union, the NATO Secretary General, as well as the King of Spain and Prince Charles, but above all, in the front row, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

For the Palestinians leader, this was the first time in six years in Jerusalem. At a present, peace talks between Israel and Palestine are frozen and the prospect of a two-state solution appears increasingly remote.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, slammed Abbass decision to attend the funeral, calling for a day of rage in the Territories.

What the former Israeli president could not achieve in the latter part of his political life, peace and conciliation, he was able to reach in his death, namely todays historic handshake (pictured) between Netanyahu and Abbas in Jerusalem.

The Palestinian leader, who lead a delegation of senior officials, was back in Israel for the first time since 2010. As a negotiator for the Palestinians, Abbas is one of the Palestinian leaders who backed the 1993 Oslo Accords, which saw Peres, described as a complex personality in favour of a practical peace for Israel's security, share the Nobel peace Prize the following year with Arafat and Rabin.

Palestinian sources indicate that the Palestinian leader wanted to be present at the funeral to send "a strong signal" to Israeli society that Palestinians "are in favour of peace " and "appreciate the efforts" of a "brave" partner for peace like Shimon Peres.

During their handshake the Israeli prime minister and Palestinian president exchanged a few words. "Good to see you. Long time," Abbas said. Netanyahu replied, "It's something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people." This was their first handshake since a Paris climate meeting last November.

Earlier on Friday, Mr Peres' coffin was escorted by a military honour guard from the parliament building in Jerusalem to Mount Herzl, Israel's national cemetery, where he was laid to rest alongside many of the country's former leaders.

Both Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab nations that signed a peace agreement with Israel, also sent representatives.

More than 8,000 officers have been deployed for the security operation as thousands of people were expected to attend the funeral.

The funeral was expected to be the largest such event in Israel since the funeral of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish settler in 1995.

Pope Francis also paid tribute to the late Israeli leader, who died following a stroke on 13 September, noting his tireless efforts in favour of peace.

In a telegram to current Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, the pontiff said I hope that his memory and many years of service will inspire us all to work with ever greater urgency for peace and reconciliation between peoples.

Fondly recalling Peress visit to the Vatican, the Holy Father said that his legacy will truly be honoured and the common good for which he so diligently laboured will find new expressions, as humanity strives to advance on the path towards enduring peace.

Finally, With the assurance of my prayers for all who grieve, especially for the Peres family, I invoke the divine blessings of consolation and strength upon the nation.
by Christopher Sharma

This is what emerges from the latest WHO report. With 9 thousand deaths per year, poor air quality is the more deadly than Maoist revolution of 10 years ago. At least 36 Nepalese every 100 die from respiratory problems. Local experts: "After the earthquake, the situation has worsened. Now it is public health emergency. "

Kathmandu (AsiaNews) - Air pollution is the leading cause of death and kills more children in Nepal than the Maoist insurrection which took place 10 years ago. These are the findings of 2016 World Health Organization (WHO) report. According to local experts, 9 thousand people die each year from causes related to poor air quality in Kathmandu alone.



The figure is even more worrying when one considers that it has tripled in four years. In 2012, in fact, the deaths recorded for similar causes were 3 thousand. According to WHO calculations, pollution kills 36 Nepalese every 100 thousand, for diseases such as lung cancer, lung obstruction, heart attacks.



Bhusan Tuladhar, director of UN-Habitat for South Asia, said: "Several reports have placed Nepal among the four worst countries in the protection of human health. The high pollution and heavy traffic of old vehicles has raised the risk again. "

According to Dr. Robin Bhattarai, tourists are the main victims of this disaster: "Many of them are unaware of pollution here. Europeans and Americans should wear protective masks while visiting Kathmandu. "



After the terrible earthquake that struck the country in 2014, the rate of pollution has seen a further surge. According to experts, Hindu temples and the oldest structures in the country are built with raw materials, which emit dust since the shock. These, mixed with pollution, make the atmosphere unbreathable.

Kabir Nath Yogi, doctor professor at Tribhuvan Univesity, says: "In winter, the concentration of suspended particles such as dust, smog and smoking increases considerably [...]. Air contamination is a public health emergency ".



The WHO report, which analyzed 103 countries around the world, says that about 92% of the world population breathes air harmful to health. China is the worst country from this point of view, followed by India and Russia in terms of annual deaths caused by pollution.
Tbilisi (AsiaNews) - A world "thirsty for mercy, unity and peace", calls for unity between Catholics and Orthodox "receive new impetus, renewed fervor", of which the fraternal embrace between Pope Francis and Patriarch Ilia II is "already an eloquent sign". The visit to the headquarters of the Georgian Orthodox Patriarchate, second event of this apostolic voyage to the Caucasus, was a symbol of fraternity, which has been historically difficult between the two Churches.

Georgia is the country where over 80 percent of the inhabitants are Christians. They are mainly Orthodox (Catholics are 112 thousand out of over 3.5 million inhabitants) of a particularly "rigid" Church. This is demonstrated by its decision not to participate in the Pan-Orthodox Council that was held in Crete in June this year and the fact that between the Patriarch Ilia II and the Pope there will be no prayer in common. But for the first time an Orthodox delegation will participate in the Mass that the Pope will celebrate here in the morning. In short, things will go a bit 'better than during John Paul IIs visit in November 1999, when those who had witnessed celebrations and meetings with the Pope were imposed a penance. Again, however, a group of right wing priests and faithful challenged the papal visit, so much so that two days ago, on September 28th, the Orthodox Church released a statement distancing itself from the group, saying that such a position was "absolutely unacceptable" and the fact that Francis will celebrate Mass that "cannot be considered as an expression of proselytism." In the same statement, the Patriarchate has, however, reiterated that he will not take part in an ecumenical prayer with the Catholic and "Orthodox believers do not participate in their [Catholic] church services, because doctrinal differences persist.

Today, however, Ilia II, for nearly 40 years Patriarch of Georgia, warmly welcomed the Pope. There was a private conversation and then into the interview room, the Patriarchal Choir performed a song and, after the speeches, there was the symbolic offering of welcome tea and coffee.

Francis began by talking of " here has been a strengthening of the meaningful ties that have existed between our communities since the first centuries of Christianity. These bonds have been consolidated and are characterized by cordiality and respect, evident in the warm welcome given here to my envoys and representatives. Our ties are also manifest in the study and research projects being pursued in the Vatican Archives and at the Pontifical Universities by members of the faithful of the Orthodox Church of Georgia. So too, they are seen in the presence in Rome of a Georgian community who have received hospitality at a church in my own diocese; and in the cooperation with the local Catholic community, especially on a cultural level. As a pilgrim and a friend, I have come to this blessed land as the Jubilee Year of Mercy for Catholics approaches its conclusion. Saint John Paul II also visited here, the first among the Successors of Peter to do so in a moment of great importance on the threshold of the Jubilee of 2000: he came to reinforce the deep and strong bonds with the See of Rome (Address at the Arrival Ceremony, Tbilisi, 8 November 1999) and to recall how necessary, on the verge of the Third Christian Millennium, was the contribution of Georgia, this ancient crossroads of culture and tradition, to the building of a new civilization of love (Address,Meeting with the Catholicos-Patriarch and the Holy Synod, Tbilisi, 8 November 1999). Now, Divine Providence allows us to meet again and, faced with a world thirsting for mercy, unity and peace, asks us to ardently renew our commitment to the bonds which exist between us, of which our kiss of peace and our fraternal embrace are already an eloquent sign. The Orthodox Church of Georgia, rooted in the preaching of the Apostles, in particular that of the Apostle Andrew, and the Church of Rome, founded on the martyrdom of the Apostle Peter, are given the grace to renew today, in the name of Christ and to his glory, the beauty of apostolic fraternity. Peter and Andrew were indeed brothers: the Lord Jesus called them to leave their nets and to become, together, fishers of men (cf. Mk 1:16-17). Dear Brother, let us allow the Lord Jesus to look upon us anew, let us once again experience the attraction of his call to leave everything that prevents us from proclaiming together his presence. We are sustained in this by the love that transformed the Apostles lives. It is a love without equal, a love which the Lord incarnated: Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (Jn 15:13). The Lord has given this love to us, so that we can love each other as he has loved us (cf. Jn 15:12). In this regard, it is as if the great poet of this land, Shota Rustaveli, is speaking to us with some of his renowned words: Have you read how the Apostles write about love, how they speak, how they praise it? Know this love, and turn your mind to these words: love raises us up (The Knight in the Tigers Skin, verse 791). Truly, the love of the Lord raises us up, because it enables us to rise above the misunderstandings of the past, above the calculations of the present and fears for the future.

The Georgian people, over the centuries, have testified to the greatness of this love. In it they have found the strength to rise up again after countless trials; it is in this love that they have reached the heights of extraordinary artistic beauty as another of your great poets has written: Without love, no sun rules in the dome of the heavens and for men there is no beauty nor immortality (Galaktion Tabidze, Without Love). Within love itself lies the raison detre of the immortal beauty of your cultural patrimony expressed in so many different ways, such as in music, painting, architecture and dance. You, dear Brother, have given worthy expression to your culture in a special way through your distinguished compositions of sacred hymns, some even in Latin and greatly cherished in the Catholic tradition. They enrich your treasury of faith and culture, which are a unique gift to Christianity and to humanity; this gift deserves to be known and appreciated by all.

The glorious history of the Gospel lived in this land is owed in a special way to Saint Nino, who is considered equal to the Apostles: she spread the faith with a particular form of the cross made of vine branches. This cross is not bare, because the image of the vine, besides being the most abundant fruit in this land, represents the Lord Jesus. He is, indeed, the true vine, who asked his Apostles to remain firmly grafted onto him, just as shoots are, in order to bear fruit (cf. Jn 15:1-8). So that the Gospel may bear fruit in our day too, we are asked, dear Brother, to remain yet more firmly in the Lord and united among ourselves. The multitude of saints, whom this country counts, encourages us to put the Gospel before all else and to evangelize as in the past, even more so, free from the restraints of prejudice and open to the perennial newness of God. May difficulties not be an obstacle, but rather a stimulus to know each other better, to share the vital sap of the faith, to intensify our prayers for each other and to cooperate with apostolic charity in our common witness, to the glory of God in heaven and in the service of peace on earth.

He continued The Georgian people love to celebrate, toasting with the fruit of the vine their most precious values. Joined to their exaltation of love, friendship is given a special place. The poet reminds us: Whoever does not look for a friend is an enemy to himself (Rustaveli, The Knight in the Tigers Skin, verse 854). I want to be a genuine friend to this land and its beloved people, who do not forget the good they have received and whose unique hospitality is intimately united to a way of living that is full of true hope, even though there is no shortage of difficulties. This positive attitude, too, finds its roots in the faith, the faith which leads Georgians, when gathered around their tables, to invoke peace for all, and to remember even ones enemies. By means of peace and forgiveness we are called to overcome our true enemies, who are not of flesh and blood, but rather the evil spirits from without and from within ourselves (cf. Eph 6:12). This blessed land is rich in courageous heroes, in keeping with the Gospel, who like Saint George knew how to defeat evil. I think of many monks, and especially of numerous martyrs, whose lives triumphed with faith and patience (Ioane Sabanisze, The Martyrdom of Abo, III): they have passed through the winepress of pain, remaining united with the Lord and have thus brought Paschal fruit to Georgia, watering this land with their blood, poured out of love. May their intercession bring relief to the many Christians who even today suffer persecution and slander, and may they strengthen in us the noble aspiration to be fraternally united in proclaiming the Gospel of peace". (FP)
Francis is in Tbilisi, the first leg of his visit to the Caucasus. "Far from being exploited as grounds for turning discord into conflict and conflict into interminable tragedy, distinctions along ethnic, linguistic, political or religious lines can and must be for everyone a source of mutual enrichment in favour of the common good".

Tbilisi (AsiaNews) - In the current historical moment in which there are violent extremists "with no shortage of violent extremism that manipulates and distorts civic and religious principles", all disputes that arise should be resolved by contact and dialogue between states and within society .

These the words of Pope Francis who has arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia, the first stop of a two stage journey to the Caucasus still gripped by contrasts and conflicts. From the outset Pope Francis has spoken of peace, the central theme of a journey that has as its motto "Peace to you ".

On his arrival in Tbilisi at 15 (local time) Francis was welcomed (see photo) by the President of the Republic Giorgi Margvelashvili, and the Catholicos Patriarch of All Georgia, Ilia II. Two children in traditional dress, gifted the Pope a basket of grapes. The welcoming ceremony did not include speeches, which were pronounced during the next courtesy visit to the President of Georgia at the presidential palace. Here, after a private meeting, the Pope and the President saluted the honor guard in the palace courtyard, where Georgian authorities and the accredited diplomatic corps were gathered.

"The centuries-old history of your country - the Pope said - shows that it is rooted in the values expressed in its culture, language and traditions. This places your country fully and in a particular way within the bedrock of European civilization; at the same time, as is evident from your geographical location, Georgia is to a great extent a natural bridge between Europe and Asia, a link that facilitates communication and relations between peoples. Through the centuries this has facilitated commercial ties as well as dialogue and the exchange of ideas and experiences between diverse cultures". Twenty-five years have passed since Georgias independence was proclaimed. During this period when Georgia regained its full liberty, it built and strengthened its democratic institutions and sought ways to guarantee the most inclusive and authentic development possible. All of this was not without great sacrifice, which the people faced courageously in order to ensure their longed-for freedom. I hope that the path of peace and development will advance with the consolidated commitment of all sectors of society, so as to create conditions for stability, justice and respect for the rule of law, hence promoting growth and greater opportunities for all

"The peaceful coexistence among all peoples and states in the region is the indispensable and prior condition for such authentic and enduring progress. This requires increasing mutual esteem and consideration, which can never lay aside respect for the sovereign rights of every country within the framework of international law. So as to forge paths leading to lasting peace and true cooperation, we must recall that the relevant principles for a just and stable relationship between states are at the service of a practical, ordered and peaceful coexistence among nations. Indeed, in far too many areas of the world, there seems to be a dominant way of thinking which hinders keeping legitimate differences and disagreements  which can always arise  within a climate of civilized dialogue where reason, moderation and responsibility can prevail. This is all the more necessary in the present historical moment, with no shortage of violent extremism that manipulates and distorts civic and religious principles, and subjugates them to the dark designs of domination and death".

"We should wholeheartedly give priority to human beings in their actual circumstances and pursue every attempt to prevent differences from giving rise to violence that can cause ruinous calamity for people and for society. Far from being exploited as grounds for turning discord into conflict and conflict into interminable tragedy, distinctions along ethnic, linguistic, political or religious lines can and must be for everyone a source of mutual enrichment in favour of the common good. This requires that everyone make full use of their particular identity, having the possibility, above all else, to coexist peacefully in their homeland, or freely to return to that land, if for some reason they have been forced to leave it. I hope that civil authorities will continue to show concern for the situation of these persons, and that they will fully commit themselves to seeking tangible solutions, in spite of any unresolved political questions. It takes far-sightedness and courage to recognize the authentic good of peoples, and to pursue this good with determination and prudence. In this regard, it is essential to keep before our eyes the suffering of others, in order to proceed with conviction along the path which, though slow and laborious, is also captivating and freeing, and leads us towards peace".

"The Catholic Church, which has been present for centuries in this country and has distinguished itself in a particular way for its commitment to human promotion and to charitable works, shares the joys and concerns of the Georgian people, and is resolved to offer its contribution for the well-being and peace of the nation, by actively cooperating with the authorities and civil society. It is my ardent desire that the Catholic Church may continue to make its own authentic contribution to the growth of Georgian society, thanks to the common witness to the Christian tradition which unites us, its commitment to those most in need, and the renewed and strengthened dialogue with the ancient Georgian Orthodox Church and the other religious communities of the country. May God bless Georgia and give her peace and prosperity!"
At least eight civilian casualties in two separate attacks in the province of Saada, controlled by the Houthi rebels. Hopes for humanitarian truce dashed. Saudi Arabia rejects peace plans that do not provide for the complete disarmament of the Shiite movement and UN rejects demand for an independent commission on human rights violations in Yemen.

Sana'a (AsiaNews / Agencies)  At least eight civilians were killed in two different air raids launched yesterday by the Saudi Arab coalition in northern Yemen, in areas controlled by the Shiite Houthi rebels. Official sources said that the fighters hit a private vehicle in Razah, in the Saada province, "by mistake" killing five people. In another air attack there were three victims, hit as they traveled in a vehicle in Shadeh village, also in Saada province.



The area is a stronghold of the Shiite Houthi rebels, who since September 2014 have taken control of the capital Sana'a; in the months following the advance of the rebels continued and they seized other Yemeni provinces.



Activists and international humanitarian organizations renew the condemnation of Saudi-led coalition air strikes which continue to claim victims among civilians. On 22 September last at least 20 people died in another raid that targeted the rebel stronghold of Hodeida, in the western part of the country. Even then, the government had spoke of a possible "error".



Meanwhile, there is little prospect of a humanitarian truce to bring relief to a people suffering from nearly two years of violence. Saudi Arabia has already said it is not prepared to accept a peace plan in Yemen if it does not provide for the dismantling of the Houthi armed faction.



Riyadh has also rejected a three-day truce proposed by rebel leaders. The kingdom [Saudi], confirmed coalition spokesman General Ahmed al-Asseri, does not "accept the presence of an armed militia at their doorstep".



Meanwhile, the United Nations, have rejected the proposal for an independent investigation into human rights abuses committed in the Yemeni civil war. The UN experts say they will continue to work with the current government commission in Yemen, to check for any violations. NGO activists demanded an "independent" group to be able to verify the abuses committed during the coalition air raids.



Since January 2015, Yemen has been the scene of a bloody internal conflict pitting the countrys Sunni leaders, backed by Riyadh, against Shia Houthi rebels, close to Iran.

In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition began air strikes against the rebels in an attempt to free the capital Sana'a and bring back then exiled President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi. So far the air campaign  criticised by the UN - has killed at least 6,600 people, mostly civilians and many children. At least 2.5 million people have been displaced from their homes.

For Saudi Arabia, the Houthis, allied to forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, are supported militarily by Iran, a charge that Tehran rejects.

Extremist groups linked to al Qaeda and jihadist militias linked to Islamic State are active in the country, a fact that has helped escalate violence and terror.
Local authorities double maternal leave. Jakarta criticised the decision, claiming it violates national regulations. Provincial spokesman said the decision was taken to encourage breastfeeding and reduce malnutrition. Human rights advocates praise the measure.

Jakarta (AsiaNews)  Despite being the only province in Indonesia that enforces Sharia (Islamic law), albeit in a mild form, Aceh is the first to increase parental leave for women from three to six months.

The decision surprised both the national government and human rights activists, who now praise the governor of the province located in the northern part of Sumatra.

Provincial government spokesman Frans Dellian said that the decision was taken to encourage breastfeeding to fight stunted growth in children (due to malnutrition), a major problem in Aceh.

Some 92,000 women are expected to benefit from the measure. Women who take parental leave will be paid by the government in the first three months. The authorities have not yet decided what to do for the other three months.

National authorities have criticised the decision, claiming that it violates national regulations, which allows only three months of parental leave.

Yenni Yanti Linda, a 35-year-old hospital nurse in Aceh, was the first woman to benefit from the extension. "I am very happy, she said, because I have more time to spend with my son."

Aceh begun to enforce Islamic law in 2005, following a peace agreement between Jakarta and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), an Islamist separatist group.

This sparked to a lot of criticism because of the harshness of its laws, which include public beating for people who engage in homosexual relations, gamblers, alcohol drinkers and those who meet women outside marriage and family.

In addition, the province is notorious for a number of bans, especially against women who cannot wear jeans or tight skirts, travel astride motorcycles, dance in public or celebrate Saint Valentine.

Still for some human rights advocates, an extended parental leave shows that Aceh "is becoming more progressive". Still, the province "has much work to do change its discriminatory laws."
Moscow (and Damascus) continue the bombing campaign on the eastern sector. Spokesman for the Kremlin: the United States "not constructive rhetoric." Kerry Washington responds: we are "on the verge" of breaking off negotiations. The testimonies of Aleppo families who have fled the area in the hands of the rebels. The Gulf countries are ready to provide new weapons to anti-government militias.

Aleppo (AsiaNews) - Regardless of the "warnings" issued by Washington, Russia continues its bombing campaign of eastern Aleppo, which is in the hands of anti-government rebels. The possibility of an anti-Isis (or Islamic State) Russian-American cooperation is growing remote and also are ceasefire proposals for the distribution of humanitarian aid.

Meanwhile, in Aleppo people continue to die: according to the data provided by the London based Syrian Human Rights, 9300 people have died in a year of joint Moscow - Damascus air raids. Among these, about 3,800 were civilians.

Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, says that Moscow is still interested in an agreement with the United States. However, according to the senior Russian official Washington is only offering "non-constructive rhetoric". At the same time Russia "continues" air operations in support of "anti-terrorist struggle" launched by Damascus.

US Secretary of State John Kerry responded that Washington is "on the verge" of ending talks with Moscow over Aleppo. "It is irrational - said the head of US diplomacy - in the context of the bombings that are taking place, to sit here and try to take things seriously."

Meanwhile, the Republican Party, in full campaign for the upcoming November presidential vote, is attacking the White House for not taking so far more punitive measures against Russia and Damascus. Kerry warned that "it is easy to criticize," but, he added, "what would the alternative be?".

On the ground thousands of Aleppo families are pouring through the dividing line that separates the east zone (rebel-held) from the western sector, demanding protection from the Syrian government. They are fleeing the sector subject to heavy Russian-Syrian bombing, despite threats from the extremist Islamic militia Al Nusra Front and Harakat Nur Eddin Al Zenki. This dramatic situation involves 300 thousand civilians, who have been living in terror and for four years, recently, were used as human shields.

The inhabitants of the western part of Aleppo - more than one million people - although also in a catastrophic humanitarian situation, have come together in an unprecedented chain of solidarity. Witnesses report people arriving from all sides, from all confessions (Muslim and Christian), bringing with them the little they have to help the displaced. Blankets, mattresses, towels, toys, food, some even brought a radio with batteries. The Syrian government has transferred the refugees to a camp, already previously set up.

The municipal authorities of Aleppo west have offered white minibuses, for the relocation of displaced persons; since this morning trucks loaded with water, a primary resource that is becoming scarce in this sector of the city, have been making runs. The authorities have set up an oven for the free distribution of bread; at the same time a medical dispensary has also been opened, for visits and to administer medical care to the refugees. In addition there is also a team of psychiatrists - all volunteers - who willing to treat the traumatized.

Meanwhile, the government has opened the doors of Jibrin school, intended to accommodate the young people who been without schooling for years.

A woman among the dozens of refugees who fled from the eastern sector describes the climate of fear, deprivation and prohibition under the control of the extremist militias (and jihadi) of the east sector. "We had difficulties to guarantee even bread to eat - said told Syrian state television - not to mention electricity and water. We could not even send our children to school. " A man described the "terror with which we were kept segregated, making us believe that the regular army would have killed everyone. And if we had tried to go the other way, our lives would no longer be saved. The newcomers have appealed to their fellow citizens who have remained in the east of the city, inviting them to "break the barriers of terror" and "move to the west."

Meanwhile, after the liberation of the neighborhood of Al Farafira in the east of the old town of Aleppo, the advance and the reconquest of the eastern sector by regular troops does not seem to be encountering any obstacles. Many believe that the decisive battle for the liberation of the city, unless there are complications or vetoes imposed by the United States, is imminent.

However, militiamen have received "an massive quantity of Grad type missiles, with a range of up to 40 km", to be used "in the battles of Aleppo, Hama and the coastal zone, Fares Al Biush, one of the leaders of the so-called moderate militias who control the eastern sector told Reuters.

The danger, as in the past, is that weapons and ammunition fall into the hands of the Islamic State (IS). In addition, as reported by the magazine Focus, the al Nusra Front received a supply of portable anti-aircraft missiles. A news that is likely to increase the tunnel of death and destruction that has engulfed this part of the planet for years. According to the United States many emirates of the Gulf, with Saudi Arabia in the lead, are ready to provide other anti-aircraft missiles to the armed rebel groups and jihadists in the east of Aleppo. (PB)
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. It is already 4 months Russian citizen Marat Ueldanov is kept in a jail in Baku.

His sister started a petition entitled Russia, defend your citizen in change.org website which is addressed to the Russian leadership with a request to release her brother, reports Armenpress.

She has applied to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and presented the steps she carried out during this period, and hopes Lavrov will help her on this issue.

Mariana Mirzoyan writes:

It is already 3 months and 20 days my brother Marat Ueldanov faces false charges in one of the jails in Baku. On August 30 I have applied to the Russian Embassy in Baku with a request to once again visit my brother. They paid a first visit on July 28 50 days after the sentence. During that time when the Russian Embassy was waiting for Azerbaijans permission, the ICRC representatives have already visited my brother for several times, and Marat is very grateful to them. I have insisted and will continue insisting that my brother is not a guilty. As the Embassys official letter said, my brother signed the protocols, but doesnt accept the accusation against him. Being subjected to such humiliations everyone would signed it, but even in this case Marat has such a courage to admit his guilt.

Marats sister has applied the Russian Embassy in Baku for many times, as well as the Russian MFA, but she still hasnt received any response to the question what concrete measures are being taken by Russia for releasing her brother.

Marat Ueldanov-Galustyan has been arrested on June 9 under the Article of 234.4.3 of the Azerbaijans Criminal Code which proposes punishment for illegal preparing, producing, acquiring, maintaining and transferring large amount of drugs. His sister Mariana Mirzoyan insists that false charge has been accused against his brother. Marat Ueldanov-Galustyan is Do&Co Austrian company employee, and he departed for Baku on a business trip.

Earlier the Russian MFA told Armenpress that necessary measures are being taken towards the protection of rights of the Russian citizen.

We are taking measures towards the Russian citizens protection of rights set by the law regardless of his nationality within the framework of the international law and bilateral agreements, the Russian MFAs statement said.
by Santosh Digal

Fr Pritam Toppo SFX has been working in the archipelago in the Bay of Bengal for years. He served three parishes and their congregations, providing educational and pastoral outreach. His experiences include an encounter of tribesmen armed with bows and arrows, and staying overnight in thatched bamboo huts with snakes hanging from the ceiling. Everyone  Hindus, Catholics, Muslims, animists  "participate with solidarity in all the joys and sorrow of each other.

Port Blair (AsiaNews)  Fr Pritam Toppo belongs to the Society of the Missionaries of Saint Francis Xavier, and has been working in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands for years, bringing the joy of the Gospel to some of Indias remotest communities.

His tasks come with many challenges, ranging from encounters with tribesmen armed with bows and arrows to centipede crawling on his body at the night as he slept in huts.

As soon as he was ordained in Goa, headquarters of the Society, the new priest left for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an Indian Territory in the Bay of Bengal. Here, his mission has been full of challenges. Yet, all these experiences, he told AsiaNews, have enhanced his joy and faith in Jesus Christ".

Fr Toppo teaches and provides pastoral outreach to the local population. His first destination was the parish of Campbell Bay in Great Nicobar, the island on the southern part of the archipelago, a territory of some 572 islands, islets and rocks. Here the missionary concelebrated Mass, and served as pastoral guide for youth and children.

He was later assigned to the regional house of the congregation in the territorial capital, Port Blair, where he was in charge of the administration as well as the kindergarten.

Now, on his third assignment, he serves the Rangat parish, on Smith Island, north-central part of the archipelago.

From the start, the "mission was very tough, he said, because of limited means of transport. There were no jeeps, no autos, [. . .] only state transport services. Even those were limited. Sometimes if one vehicle breaks down, there are no other buses to replace it. When this happens, we had to cancel Masses without informing the village heads as there were no telephone services in the village.

The mission is still at its beginning and has to be built up. The local population is mainly aboriginal.

"One day we were going to a village far from the parish to celebrate mass. I was with nuns. Since there was no approach road, one had to walk seven or eight miles to reach that particular village. One had to go through the deep forest and cross many streams, rivers and wet ground soaked with rain water. There were leeches to suck our blood.

On that particular day, in the middle of the journey in the deep forest, we encountered a primitive hostile tribe, called Jarawas. They were 15, equipped with bows and arrows. Immediately seeing them, I asked the nuns to remove their veils and hide under a big tree. I too took shelter under a big tree. We were lucky that they went on their way doing no harm to us. Then we came out from our hiding pace and once again gathered our courage and with great fear reached our destination.

Compared to a world that is technologically driven, time seems to have stopped here. Often the missionary manages to reach the remotest villages to say Mass only once a month. This is the case of the area inhabited mainly by Catholics from the Oncnochers tribe.

The local church is built of forest products with bamboo thatched roof. When visiting, Fr Toppo stays overnight. The village has no electric light and everything is done with lit candles.

During his stays, he holds catechism classes for children, chairs meetings to discuss the universal Church and resolve issues related to marriage and baptism. The meetings can last until 11 pm, followed by supper together.

Then "we spend the night sleeping on mats on the floor. During the night we are aware of snakes and centipedes, which are very common in the forest. Many times I found snakes hanging over my bed from the ceiling, as well as centipedes crawling over my body. But these are experiences that enhance the joy and faith in Jesus Christ.

In addition to pastoral outreach to Catholics, he also visits Hindus, Muslims and animists and they celebrate together the feast of their respective religious traditions.

The archipelago is like a mini India. All people participate with solidarity in all the joys and sorrow of each other irrespective of caste, creed and languages.
City In Iceland Turns Off Street Lights To Show Northern Lights

Trending News: Reykjavik Goes Lights Out To Show Off Northern Lights

Why Is This Important?

Because maybe we should all move to Iceland.

Long Story Short

City officials in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik dimmed street lights to allow people there to see the spectacular aurora borealis on Wednesday night and it was quite a show.

Long Story

People spend thousands of dollars and travel huge distances to get a glimpse of the northern lights, but the residents of Reykjavik were given a show in their backyard on Wednesday evening.

The stunning phenomenon isnt usually visible in the Icelandic capital, but city officials dimmed the lights in certain parts of the city so the aurora borealis could light up the sky.

Street lights went off at 10 p.m. in much of the city and the haunting, mesmerising green glow took over.

Residents and lucky tourists who happened to be there at just the right time have been posting some stunning pictures of the northern lights over Reykjavik on Instagram.

The northern lights are generally visible in Iceland and recently have been visible in Scotland and even northern England due to favorable weather conditions, but artificial light in urban areas usually makes them more or less invisible in any case.

The natural light show is caused by a stream of charged particles leaving the Sun and reacting when they reach Earths magnetic field and atmosphere.

Frustratingly for bucket list tourists, the northern lights arent predictable and people who set out to see the lights are often left disappointed.

After looking at these pictures, Im off to get the next flight to Reykjavik!

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Would you travel to Iceland just to see the northern lights?

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The northern lights are basically natures way of paying back people who live in cold climates.

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In October 2011 the aurora borealis were visible as far south as Oklahoma and Atlanta and appeared at the Battle of Fredericksburg in Virginia in 1862.
Psychologists Explain Why Clowns Creep Us Out So Much

Trending News: Finally, An Explanation For Why Clowns Are So Friggin Creepy

Why Is This Important?

Because its totally normal to think clowns are coming to kill you.

Long Story Short

The first scientific study into creepiness has shed light on why we feel freaked out by clowns and seems to suggest that its their unpredictability and disguises that scare us.

Long Story

Lets face it: nobody likes clowns. Kids regard them with mild suspicion at best, and adults are terrified of them.

Theres been a recent wave of creepy clown sightings in the US across more than 10 different states, crossing rural roads, in cemeteries, in the woods, pretty much in all the places youd expect to see a clown in a horror film.

But why is it that clowns, who are supposed to bring smiles to the faces of children instead haunt the nightmares of adults, especially those foolish enough to watch Stephen Kings It when they were far too young to deal with it?

Certainly serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who attended childrens parties in the 1970s dressed as "Pogo the Clown," didnt do a great PR job for the clowning profession, but psychologists seem to suggest our fear of clowns goes deeper and is hardwired in us.

In an article for The Conversation, Frank T. McAndrew, Cornelia H. Dudley Professor of Psychology at Knox College explains our clown phobia using examples from his excellently titled study "On the Nature of Creepiness" published in New Ideas in Psychology.

1,341 volunteers aged between 18 and 77 took an online survey about what makes someone creepy and identified that creepy people tend to be male with unpredictable mannerisms and make odd eye contact.

Its little surprise then that out of 21 occupations, clown was rated the most creepy.

Canadian psychologist Rami Nader has been investigating Coulrophobia  the fear of clowns  and believes that the key lies in the fact they are disguised.

It is the inherent ambiguity surrounding clowns that make them creepy. They seem to be happy, but are they really? There are certainly other types of people who creep us out but they have their work cut out for them if they aspire to the level of creepiness that we automatically attribute to clowns, McAndrew said.

Interestingly, its not just adults who cant deal with clowns, kids dont like them either. A 2008 study from the University of Sheffield in England found that children aged between 4 and 16 found images of clowns in a childrens ward at a hospital scary rather than nurturing.

The next time you take your child to a birthday party and theres a clown there, at least you have a scientific excuse for turning around and heading straight home.

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If this is the case, why do clowns continue to exist?

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Clowns wouldnt be so bad if they were actually funny but that pie in the face routine is getting pretty old.

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The word clown first appeared in the 1500s and was coined by William Shakespeare to refer to foolish characters.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte Says He Wants To Kill Millions, Just like Hitler

Trending News: Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte Compares Himself To Hitler

Why Is This Important?

Because this is what you get when you elect unhinged people to your countrys highest office.

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Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, long known for his bombastic rhetoric and tough talk on crime, compared his desire to slaughter three million drug addicts in his country to the Holocaust.

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Rodrigo Duterte is not one to mince his words. Dubbed Duterte Harry for his crime-busting ways, this summer he rode into the presidency of the Philippines on a wave of populist, fiery promises to rid the county of its drug dealers and addicts in a very simple way: by killing them.

So far, an estimated 3,500 people  both dealers and addicts  have died since he took office in June. About a third of them have died in police operations, the rest by armed vigilante militias. But Duterte says hes just getting started. And hes looking at a certain historical figure who also made a name for himself by killing civilians: Adolf Hitler.

At a press conference in his home town of Davao City, he told reporters that Hitler massacred three million Jews ... theres three million drug addicts. There are. Id be happy to slaughter them. At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have (me). You know my victims, I would like (them) to be all criminals, to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition.

The accepted number of Jews murdered during the Second World War is around six million.

Dutertes remarks drew condemnation from around the world. World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder called the statement revolting and said the president should retract them and apologize. Drug abuse is a serious issue. But what President Duterte said is not only profoundly inhumane, but it demonstrates an appalling disrespect for human life that is truly heartbreaking for the democratically elected leader of a great country, he said.

Phil Robertson, the Asia deputy director for Human Rights Watch, said he found the statement bewildering. Does he want to be sent to the international criminal court? Because hes working his way there, he said.

The German government also strongly condemned the remarks. Every comparison of the atrocities of the Shoah and Holocaust with anything else is inadmissible, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Martin Schaefer.

Dutertes campaign has been condemned by the US and the European Union. Duterte has brushed aside criticism, saying, often in obscenity-laced tirades, that Western governments are being hypocritical.

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At what point does the rest of the world step in to stop the madness?

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Next thing you know hes gonna start building a wall to keep drug dealers out.

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Duterte has called both Pope Francis and Barack Obama a son of a whore, though not to their faces. He also called the US ambassador to the Philippines a gay son of a whore.
French Man Destroys Over $50,000 Worth Of Apple Products In Dijon Store

Trending News: Watch A Guy Go On An iPhone Smashing Rampage At An Apple Store

Why Is This Important?

Because he did what any disgruntled Apple customer would want to do, but would never dare to do.

Long Story Short

A guy at an Apple Store in Dijon, France, went absolutely HAM and smashed over a dozen Apple products with a metal petanque ball. The guy told onlookers the reason for the outburst was because he wasn't reimbursed. The video shows security preventing the man from leaving the mall and he was taken into custody.

Long Story

Super pissed about the headphone jack going the way of the Dodo bird for the iPhone 7. A French guy expressed your frustration at Apple so you don't have to.

A video filmed Thursday afternoon at an Apple Store in Dijon, France, shows a guy dressed in sunglasses and a hoodie going on a complete rampage and smashing iPhone after iPhone after iPhone with a petanque ball (a heavy metal orb used for the French outdoor day-drinking game).





In total, you can see him smash 12 iPhones, four iMacs and a MacBook Air with the ball in his gloved hand (and that's only what we saw after a bystander started filming). According to Le Parisien, he destroyed $56,000 worth of Apple products. The guy better hope there's no 'you break it, you buy it' policy.

"Apple is a company that 'violated' European consumers' rights," he said to onlookers, according to Mashable. "They refused to reimburse me, I told them: 'Give me my money back'. They said no. So you know what's happening? This is happening!" Then, he crushed another iPhone.

via GIPHY

via GIPHY



The man begins to walk out, but the video shows security circling him and keeping him around the store. As of Friday afternoon, he was still in custody and awaiting an appearance in court.

If you've ever been to an Apple Store, you might have noticed a general policy of keeping the customer happy, even if that means cutting them a bit of slack on that water damage, busted chord or whatever. Now I can see why.

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How could the lack of reimbursement have been worth all this?

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Samsung is gong to have this video on repeat throughout its offices.

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Europe recently charged Apple nearly $15 billion in unpaid taxes due to their operations in Ireland. Apple responded by saying the ruling "will have a profound and harmful effect on investment and job creation in Europe."
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Turkey has established its first foreign military base in Somalia, the Turkish NTV reported.

The military base will begin operating soon.

Approximately 200 Turkish servicemen will be stationed in the base, who will train 10,500 soldiers of Somalia.

In addition, Special Forces will be deployed to the base from Turkey for providing security.

According to NTV, Turkey plans to establish a military base in Qatar as well.
King & Wood Mallesons ( KWM ) is now ready to elect a new European managing partner after it was confirmed that only two lawyers were vying for the position.The news comes out of American Lawyer which said that it appears KWM has made up its mind and is now ready to choose between London tax head Gareth Amdor and EUME corporate co-head Tim Bednall Amdor, a legacy SJ Berwin partner, is going up against Bednall, a legacy Mallesons partner.KWMs last European managing partner, William Boss, resigned in April after less than a year into his appointment which was supposed to end in May 2017.The firm has been searching for his successor ever since Boss departure was announced in January. Boss has gone back to a fee-earning role.Australia Big Six firm Mallesons Stephen Jaques merged with China Red Circle firm King & Wood PRC in 2012 before eventually merging with British Silver Circle firm SJ Berwin in 2013.Earlier reports said that partners vote for the new European managing partner this week and the results will be announced early next week.The selection of a new European managing partner was postponed by KWM from its February conference.According to The Lawyer, the delay was due to a major overhaul of its European operations which saw 17 practice areas reorganised into three core groups: corporate, funds and finance; dispute resolution and regulation; and real estate.There has been a spate of partner departures from KWM in Europe lately. Partners in Europe and the Middle East have also agreed to capital contributions of 14m to boost the firms capitalisation.
Jim Edwards is 75, but he has just earned his law degree and is waiting for the results of the state bar exam, all because he wants to help people who cant afford a lawyer.



According to The Daily News Journal of Tennessee, via The Wall Street Journal, Edwards, who hails from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, took the bar exam in July after recently earning his law degree from Nashville School of Law.



The reason I did that is I had seen, over the years, a lot of individuals that I thought had pretty good cases but couldn't afford a lawyer, the man told the local publication.



And I thought that if God grants me a few more years on this Earth, I can get a law degree and help those people and I don't have to make a living doing it, he added.



Edwards has put up two successful insurance businesses, The Daily News Journal of Tennessee reported.



After working for some time in the insurance industry, he built his first insurance company in the 1970s and sold it for a hefty sum. He sold his second business, a more specialised insurance firm, in 2009.



The successful business career he has had was after he had been kicked out of Mercer University in Georgia, intimated the senior.



He enrolled in the university in 1959, he said, but only attended for 18 months after being asked not to return due to poor academic performance.



While at the university, however, he found his love for the law. Instead of going to Spanish class, Id go watch a trial, the man said.



Edwards has the full support of his wife who, according to The Daily News Journal of Tennessee, cheered on her husband through the gruelling course work he had to finish.



His wife, Dr. Gena Carter who he met at a choral workshop in Massachusetts and married in 2011, said that she was familiar with how hard earning a law degree would be.



Jim would apologize to me a lot during his studying for not being able to go on a date or spend time with me. But I understood. I think it was helpful ... that I knew the struggle. If you don't, you can go crazy. It requires such a commitment, Carter said.


With the Australian Government confirming its new tax regime for working holidaymakers next year a rush on visa applications are expected, but officials are warning young people to be aware of scams.One of the latest has involved agents operating in Malaysia, some linked to tour companies offering fruit picking jobs, but the young people ended up working on a blueberry farm without the correct visa, on low pay and poor working conditions. Some scammers use Facebook to entice people and officials from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) have warned youngsters to be aware of any offer that seems too good to be true.Unscrupulous agents tell people that tourist visas, bridging visas and even student visas will allow them to work in Australia full time, which is generally untrue. They even encourage people to enrol on a course a technical college to get into Australia and then abscond.'The Department of Immigration and Border Protection warns people to be cautious regarding claims that Australian visas are allegedly for sale. These claims are not true. Australian visas are not for sale. Visas can only be obtained through official channels,' said a DIBP spokesman.'Don't be fooled by these scams. If you work in Australia in breach of your visa conditions, you may be detained and removed, and subject to a three year exclusion period,' the spokesman added.Officials are also pointing out that employers do not always know what is needed in terms of visa programmes. Recently a number of employers in the North West Territory were found to be employing people on the wrong visas.A shortage of skilled workers in the region means employers look to use the 457 visa to employ people from overseas without understanding that this visa can only be used if they have tried to find, and advertised for, a person in Australia first.The State does have a Designated Area Migration Agreement (DAMA), which expands the list of approved 457 visa occupations and relaxes salary and language requirements to include cooks, waiters, tour guides, store people, bar staff, aged care workers, childcare workers, retail supervisors, truck drivers, clerks and office managers.But smaller employers can become confused and fall foul of the regulations without realising it or without trying to be deceptive. Just moving a worker from one job to another, for example, can make their visa invalid.
From what I understand, in certain states you can register your de facto relationship, which will waive the 12 month requirement. You just have to make absolutely certain that you have documented proof that you've been in a de facto relationship. Make sure you have evidence for all 4 of the categories. And you have to register your relationship BEFORE you lodge the visa...so doing that now would be a good idea.



Or you can get married. From what I understand, that also waives the 12 month requirement, though I'm sure others can comment and verify all of this.
Hyundai has launched the Tucson with prices starting from Rs 18.99 lakh; available in three trim levels and with a choice of two engines.

Update: Read our 2016 Hyundai Tucson India review

In recent years, the demand for SUVs in India has seen a major jump with multiple automakers trying to capitalise on the surge. Last year, the launch of the Creta proved to be a big boost for Hyundai, and it became one of the bestselling SUVs in the country. Now Hyundai has further bolstered its SUV line-up with a third model  the new, third-gen Tucson. The Tuscon name is not new to India with Hyundai having originally launched the first-gen SUV back in 2005, though it was dropped from the line-up after only a brief stint.

Now Hyundai seems confident that the Tuscon in its third generation will be able to rack in numbers, especially with the jump in popularity of SUVs in recent years. And given the new SUVs aggressive pricing, Hyundai is clearly looking to make a big impact in the segment.

Specifications

Hyundai is offering the new Tucson with a choice of a petrol and a diesel engine. The diesel one is a 2.0-litre four-cylinder motor that develops a healthy 185hp and 400Nm of torque. The petrol engine is a 2.0-litre four-cylinder unit that develops 155hp and 192Nm of torque. Both motors are paired with either six-speed manual or automatic gearbox and as only two-wheel-drive.

Features

The Tucson is available in three trim levels  2WD MT, 2WD AT GL and 2WD AT GLS. The diesel engine is offered across all trim levels, though petrol buyers do not have the option of getting the fully kitted out SUV. Interestingly, this is the same set-up as on the Creta, where too, the top trim is only diesel. Standard equipment on offer in the new Tuscon include automatic projector headlamps, LED daytime-running lamps, fog lamps, height- adjustable driver seat, electric adjust, folding and heated wing mirrors, puddle lamps, cruise control, reclining second row seat, rear wiper, and washer, 8.0-inch touchscreen, AVN system with navigation, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and voice recognition. In terms of safety, dual airbags and ABS are part of the standard kit as are rear parking sensors and camera.

The top 2WD AT GLS trim gets some additional goodies such as LED headlamps (segment first), leather upholstery, dual-zone auto climate control with rear AC vents, 10-way power-adjust driver seat, drive modes, hands-free tailgate operation (segment first), side and curtain airbags, stability control, hill-start assist and front parking sensors.

To sweeten the deal, Hyundai is offering a three-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty along with a three-year/30,000 km free maintenance package and three-year roadside assistance package. Loyal customers get a one-year extended warranty as well.

Price

Hyundai has launched the new Tucson at an introductory price of Rs 18.99 lakh for the entry-level petrol model. The pricelist is as follows:

Hyundai Tucson prices Variant Petrol Diesel 2WD M/T Rs 18.99 lakh Rs 21.59 lakh 2WD A/T GL Rs 21.79 lakh Rs 23.48 lakh 2WD A/T GLS --- Rs 24.99 lakh

Rivals

The new Tucson is a direct rival to the petrol-only Honda CR-V which comes at the higher end of the Tucsons price range. While there is no direct diesel rival, the recent price cuts in the likes of the Ford Endeavour and Chevrolet Trailblazer bring them within the same bracket as the smaller Tucson.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Spiritual leader of Armenian Catholics in Armenia, Georgia and Eastern Europe Archbishop Raphael Minasian hopes that Pope Franciss visit to Georgia and Azerbaijan will herald peace in the region, Armenpress reports Archbishop Minasian told Vatican Radio.

Minasian stated the Pope has a heavy task to carry out. He is obliged to work with a society where they preach liberty and they are in the situation of domination. They speak about rights and they are the people that strip the rights of human society and at the end if I were to say the word peace, they are the war makers. I am talking about presidents, kings, societies, governments, and all of these, the Holy Father has to pass by and say the reality, defend the rights, defend the liberty, and give peace to everybody. We have lost the meaning of these three words and have to rebuild again, the Archbishop said.

The Archbishop referred to the Popes appeal for peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan saying that although the governments are taking steps towards peace, more can be done in the direction. There is work going on for peace, but I hope that also in the visit of his Holiness to Azerbaijan would encourage them also accept the realities because all of us in this world are passengers. No one owns anything in this Earth. So it is not useful to have these wars between people that can live peacefully and very happily.

The Archbishop also spoke about the ancient presence of the Armenian community in Georgia mentioning that the Armenian community in Georgia can act as a bridge for peaceful relations. In the relationship between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches, the friendship remains as a base of all kinds of relations.
French car maker looking for collaborations to develop India-specific cars.

Soon after announcing its India comeback in 2011 , setting up an office in Mumbai and identifying land for a plant in Gujarat, Peugeot put its India comeback plans on hold due to a severe financial crunch the company was going through.

However, the French carmaker is now re-looking at the Indian market, which is poised to become the third largest in the world by 2020. Peugeot chief executive Carlos Tavares confirmed the companys India plans, "Yes, we are seriously looking at coming back. In fact, I can tell you we will come back to India in the next two or three years. Right now it is only a matter of finding the right partner."

Peugeots return to India hinges on identifying a partner to share the large investment of an estimated US$ 600 million (Rs 4,000 crores) for setting up a fully integrated manufacturing and engine plant. The bigger challenge is developing products for the Indian market, another reason why Peugeot is keen to share a platform with another manufacturer. This would give higher economies of scale and reduce costs.

Peugeot is believed to have been in talks with Tata Motors to share the Indian automakers X4 platform, which will underpin future Tata models. The X4 platform could be an ideal base for Peugeot to develop its own model line for India and other emerging markets. However, talks between the two companies for a possible partnership have been suspended.

This leaves very few options for Peugeot which may eventually have to enter India on its own if it wants a piece of what is forecast to be a five million car market by 2020.

Peugeot pulled out of the Indian market in 1997 after its sole model, the rugged but outdated Peugeot 309 struggled to find buyers. Now, nearly two decades on, Peugeot is struggling to re-enter India.
Promising car production statistics hide a longer-term worry for the British car industry post-Brexit, says UK auto industry body head Mike Hawes.

Strong British car manufacturing figures are all very well, say UK car manufacturers, but they dont mean expected challenges posed by Brexit are over.



Speaking during an event at the Eiffel Tower, where eight new British cars were displayed on the eve of the Paris motor show to underscore the UKs recent healthy car export performance, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, Mike Hawes, warned that the success had come entirely during pre-referendum trading, but that the industry could not depend on the same business environment in future.



Recent headlines have suggested that Brexit is no problem, Hawes told an audience of industry leaders that included Minister for International Trade, Mark Garnier. Even our own figures - 9,00,000 cars exported so far this year - paint a picture of a strong and vibrant industry.



But these results have come about because around 10 billion(over Rs 86,000 crore) has been invested in our industry over the past five years. It was a huge help with model development and with R&D. And best of all, we were - and still are - in the single market.



Hawes explained that the industry had become deeply concerned about future conditions since the referendum. There was a danger of investment leaking away, he said, because investors were less confident of the future. The SMMT saw a window between now and the start of Brexit negotiations early next year to get its message across and intended to take advantage.



The major initiative, said Hawes, was to encourage the government to do everything possible to preserve current trading conditions by staying in the single market. There was a clear distinction between having access to the single market, he said, and actually being in it. All our advice points one way: youre either in the single market or youre not," he added.



The SMMT had looked carefully at deals negotiated by other countries on the fringes of the EU - Norway, Turkey and Switzerland - and found that none would offer the market conditions that had helped to bring the UK its automotive success in the past five years. Its imperative that the government remembers this when negotiating, said Hawes. Its the key to everything.

Steve Cropley
IIHS

The key detail here was the demanding small overlap front crash test, which saw the sedan receiving the "Good" rating, the highest one available. This rating was awarded to the C-Class in the moderate overlap front, side, roof strength, and head restraint & seats tests.Grabbing the "Good" rating in all the tests mentioned above is required for the said accolade and the same can be said about the crash avoidance performance - with the optional mitigating system, the Mercedes was able to avoid collisions in both the low-speed (12 mph) and high-speed (25 mph) tests. For the record, the automaker calls the feature Collision Prevention Assist Plus.Another important area is the ease of installing child seats, with the Benz also receiving a "Good" rating in this area.However, as highlighted back in March when theintroduced this test, the C-Class was one of the vehicles that received a "Poor" rating, the lowest one offered, in the headlight assessment.The premium aura of the model makes the result even more disappointing, especially when considering that a non-premium vehicle, namely the Toyota Prius v, was the only car to grab a "Good" rating. Even so, the "Acceptable" category also included non-premium models such as the Honda Accord or the Mazda 6. Since this area of a car's safety is now IIHS-regulated, we hope automakers are already working to improve the lighting performance of their vehicles.Those of you who missed the report delivered back in Spring should check out the second video below, which describes the headlight testing process. As for the first video we have here, this shows the 2016 Mercedes-Benz C-Class' small overlap ordeal.
kWh

EV

To put things shortly, the second generation of the Panamera allows this particular model to be more of a hybrid than before. For instance, in the Panamera S E-Hybrid we drove back in the day, if the driver didn't specifically require electric assistance using the modes of the vehicle, this wouldn't arrive until the one behind the wheel went 80% into the throttle pedal's travel.With the new model, the car starts in electric mode, with electron juice power being offered from the very beginning - German engineers wanted to maximize the real-world figures delivered by the luxury sedan.Another environment-friendly engineering piece has to do with the hydraulic system that decouples the internal combustion engine during coasting, which is quicker than the system used on the car's predecessor.In terms of the hardware, the electric drive system relies on a 14.1lithium-ion battery found under the luggage compartment floor. This serves an electric motor producing 136 hp and 295 lb-ft of twist.The supercharged 3.0-liter V6 of the old model has made room for the all-new 2.9-liter V6 from the Panamera 4S. With the efficiency-biased tweaking of this particular model, the unit sees an important output drop to 330 hp and 331 lb-ft of torque.Even so, the Hybrid tops the hp and tq numbers of the gas-only 4S, allowing the driver to control 462 hp and 516 lb-ft. The power is sent to all four paws using the second-generation PDK, which has eight forward ratios.Performance is respectable, with the Zuffenhausen hybrid completing the 0 to 60 mph task in 4.4 seconds, while offering a maximum velocity of 172 mph.The plug-in hybrid Porscha has an all-electric range of 31 miles, while the battery needs 12 hours to charge when using a regular 120-volt outlet.And while we're still waiting for the EPA ratings, the European cycle means the Panamera 4 E-Hybrid delivers north of 90 mpg - keep in mind that hybrid testing is completed with the battery fully charged, so efficiency drops after the car enters an actual road driving cycle.Since we mentioned hybrid-specific driving modes above, we'll tell you the gasoline-electric model lets you choose between Hybrid Auto (maximum efficiency), E-Power (motivation), E-Hold (maintaining the state of charge) and E-Charge (the V6 is used to charge the battery). The Sport and Sport Plus models from "normal" Porsche models are obviously present.Porsche hasn't announced the US pricing for the Panamera 4 E-Hybrid, with the sedan set to land in American showrooms next summer. And it's almost impossible to mention this without reminding you the all-electric Mission E is scheduled to debut in 2020, the year that should also bring us the next-gen 911. You know, the Neunelfer that should bring the first hybrid in this history of the rear-engined model.
PHEV

EV

kW

kWh

Say hello to the 2017 Toyota Prius PHV. The three-letter suffix, as you might have guessed by now, stands for plug-in hybrid vehicle. But thisis a bit different from other of its kind, chiefly because it has a ginormous solar panel sandwiched into the roof. Unfortunately no, it doesnt do anything if the car is being driven or if stationary and plugged in. But when it is just stationary, the solar roof charges a solar battery, which then charges the cars battery.Toyota is adamant that the photovoltaic cells can up the ante with around 3 miles every day, translating to 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) ofrange per year. Other than the roof, the Prius PHV differs from the regular Prius in appearance as well. The vertical DRLs, sleeker headlights, taillights that are integrated into the extremities of the curved rear spoiler, there are many cues that make a difference between the Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid and hybrid The powertrain, on the other hand, consists of pretty much the same internals as the model on which the Prius PHV is based on. The 1.8-liter Atkinson-type mill is supported by an electric motor. Theres a second electric motor integrated into the Dual Motor Drive System, which ramps up EV driving power to 68(92 PS or 91 horsepower). The lithium-ion battery, however, has double the capacity (8.8 versus 4.4) compared to hybrid Prius . Tipping the scales at 264.5 lbs (120 kg), the automaker highlights that the battery in the Prius PHV is just 50 percent heavier than its predecessor.Thanks to a maximum charging power of 3.3 kW, the 8.8 kWh battery can be charger quicker than the old Prius Plug-In Hybrid could. Using a Type II Mode II Mennekes connector, charging takes 2 hours. Using a regular plug socket like the one in your garage, charging takes 3 hours and 10 minutes. Last, but certainly not least, the Japanese automaker advertises a targeted average fuel consumption of only 1.0 liters/100 km and CO2 emissions of just 22 g/km for the 2017 Toyota Prius PHV. EV range? 30-plus miles (48 km).
Instead, the Italian premium brand owned by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles introduced the Veloce versions of all the models in its portfolio. These variants are the Italian equivalent of Audis S models, which sit between the standard range and the performance-focused RS cars.The idea is not new, so Alfa Romeo thinks it might be a way to get more buyers in its showrooms to sign contracts. The Italian carmaker needs this to work, as it is struggling to increase its sales for some time now.Undoubtedly, the star of the Alfa Romeo booth in Paris is the new Giulia Veloce . It is a modern incarnation of two old names in this brands legacy, which has been put together for those that want a sporty version of the Giulia , but does not feel like getting the all-out Giulia QV The result is a model that has had its performance enhanced, and its look improved, without being the M3 contender that the Giulia QV can be in the right hands. The world preview of this model also introduced the Q4 version, which is Alfa Romeo speak for all-wheel drive.The Alfa Romeo stand in Paris also featured is the Giulietta Veloce. This is the Giulias smaller brother, which is a hatchback that was launched a few years ago.In 2016, the Giulia received a facelift, and the changes were done to bring the car up to date with the newest trends in the small, but close, Alfa Romeo family.The car has received a new front grille, a trefoil nose, and new engine, transmission, and extra equipment options.The MiTo Alfa Romeos smallest and most affordable modern car, has also received a facelift and a Veloce version this year. The car you can see in the photo gallery is a Veloce version, which has been enhanced with Mopar accessories from the new Sport Kit.The latter includes 18-inch alloy wheels with burnished diamond-effect, a red Veloce badge, a new red finish on the front bumper, and the rest of the changes that have been applied in the MiTo range.
FWD

It was Renault s idea to turn Dacia into a cheapo brand. With the advent of the Logan subcompact sedan in 2004, it was rather clear that Renault made a good bet by reusing old parts from the Clio to make new products under the Dacia marque. Still, the Romanian manufacturer had it rough trying to shake off the stigma inflicted upon it by its French overlord. Not anymore, though.At this years edition of the Paris Motor Show, James Mays most-liked car brand brought forward four facelifts: the Logan sedan, Logan MCV wagon, Sandero hatchback, and the Sandero Stepway crossover-ish thing. Compared to the pre-facelifted models, the model year 2017 brings features Dacia had ignored for too long. By features, what I actually mean is creature comforts.Heres a perfect example of what Im trying to say. Until now, the horn was not to be found on the steering wheel, but on the outboard side of the signal stalk. Heres another case in point: the controls for the front and rear power windows have been finally moved from center console to the door armrests.Moving on, the Renault-Nissan B platform-based models now boast LED running lights, funky-looking taillight clusters, front grilles inspired by the Duster facelift, and optional goodies such as a parking camera. Inside, the Logan, Logan MCV, Sandero, and Sandero Stepway in facelift form add a new steering wheel that appears to be inspired by that of an old Ford Focus, a 12-volt power socket for the rear passengers and better storage solutions.Last, but certainly not least, the old 1.2 16-valve engine was phased out for a Renault-developed 1.0 SCe with 75 PS and a stop-start system on tap. For what its worth, its just about the same three-pot as in the Renault Twingo. Higher up the food chain, the Duster sport utility vehicle now holds the title of first Dacia to be offered with a dual-clutch automatic transmission. The cog swapper in question is a 6-speed EDC, which is exclusively available with the 110 PS version of the 1.5-liter dCi turbo diesel engine and only inform.The real revolution for Dacia, however, will begin in 2017, with the advent of the second-generation Duster, slated to be based on the CMF B platform.
We showed you the first spyshots of the Audi Q2's big brother back in May, but the prototype was covered in heavy camouflage, so we couldn't tell anything about its silhouette (here's the story , in case you missed it).In fact, the cloth camo sitting on top of the phychedelic wrap convinced a part of our office that the second generation of the Q3 will come with a more swooping roofline.Well, we are now back in the topic to show you a spy clip that sees the 2018 Q3 prototype ditching its cover. We can now see the silhouette of the car and it's pretty clear that this will stick to the conservative path.Since we're navigating info-scarce spy waters here, the vehicle shown in the clip at the bottom of the page could always be the Borgward BX3, another prototype we didn't get to see naked so far. You know, Borgward, the pedigree-rich German brand recently resurrected with Chinese money - here are the company's BX7 and BX5 Even If this turns out to be the Audi Q3, don't make the mistake of expecting the same convervatory conclusion can be delivered when it comes to the design details of the crossover. As is the case with the new Q5, the 2018 Q3 will make a slight upmarket move. Firs of all, this will bring an increase in size.Secondly, with Audi 's new Design Director Marc Lichte, who took over the automaker's styling department in February 2014, promising a more emotional approach, the Q3 should become quite a charming high-riding model.Yes, this is a compact machine, but it's enough to check out the current range-topper, namely the 367 PS (362 hp) RS Q3 performance, to understand how serious Ingolstadt is about this vehicle.The rumor mill talks about the next Audi Q3 making its debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show 2017. If this is true, we are now one year away from the unveiling, so there's plenty of time to get under the skin of the test vehicles.
The latest episode took place earlier this week in Germany, on a highway near the town of Gudow. A Tesla Model S crashed into a bus that was carrying 29 Danish tourists.Fortunately, nobody was seriously injured or killed, but the 50-year-old driver of the electric sedan did sustain minor injuries.According to German police in Ratzeburg (of the Schleswig-Holstein state), which responded to the scene of the incident, the driver claims that he was using the Autopilot system of the car when the accident took place. The damages are valued at approximately 55,000 euros, so a guilty party must be found as soon as possible.Tesla representatives have already responded to the incident, Yahoo notes, and they say that they spoke to the driver, who confirmed that the Autopilot system was operating correctly , and that his use of the assistance system was unrelated to the crash.The German press agency named DPA reported that the driver told police that he did not remove his hands from the steering wheel.In this situation, police officers must discover if the Tesla Model S drivers claims are valid, and they must also determine the genuine cause of the incident, which occurred when one of the vehicles was switching lanes.The circumstances of the collision are a bit complicated from our understanding of German media reports, but it is clear that it happened on the A24 highway near the Gudow service area. At some point, an impact took place between a Danish bus carrying tourists and the said Tesla Model S.The American electric vehicle sustained damage on its right-hand side, in the area of the front wheel and front fender. Meanwhile, the bus was hit on its left-hand-side, in the corner of the rear bumper. Human error is suspected as the primary cause of the incident.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Rostelecom Armenia, representative office of Microsoft Corporation in Armenia and MONT company officially announced on September 30 about the launch of cooperation in the sphere of cloud solutions.

Armenpress reports an entirely new approach towards patented software solutions was introduced at a joint press conference by the heads of the three companies.

Thank to the cooperation the corporate customers of Rostelecom will have an opportunity to acquire and make use of Microsoft Office O365 license package by monthly subscription, based on cloud solutions that will ease and simplify business activities.

3 types of Office O365 license packages are designed for SMEs

- Business Essentials (Only Online services and 1TB of OneDrive storage)

- Business (1TB of OneDrive storage and installable Office 2016 Standard)

- Business Premium (Online services, Onedrive and installable Office 2016 Standard)

Rostelekom has enjoyed a stable and leading position in the Armenian corporate market for many years thank to the high-quality service rendered to companies, as well as modern and individual approach. We constantly modernize our service packages offered to businesses by supplementing innovative solutions of key importance for business to traditional telecommunication services, one of which is cloud software solution. By commencing cooperation with global leader in software solutions Microsoft company our customers will have an opportunity to purchase software solutions of Microsoft together with broadband internet, telephony, IP television and other services from one source. This is the complete package of services necessary for the business, while the customers can themselves decide the preferred terms of the use of the software licenses, "Rostelecom" Armenias General Director Hayk Farmazyan said.

Rostelekom cooperates with representative office of Microsoft Corporation in Armenia in various IT projects.

We have cooperated with Rostelecom company for many years in different projects and initiatives in Armenia. This new service only reinforces the partnership based on mutual trust, and I am convinced the representatives of the corporate market will benefit first of all. I would like to particularly point out that the entry of this joint service into the market will greatly promote the application of licensed software packages by companies in Armenia which in our days has become the guarantee for effective and smooth operation, Director of Microsoft Armenia Liana Korkotyan said.

Up till now companies could acquire the Microsoft Office O365 license package online and with long-term conditions, but Rostelekom will offer more favorable conditions to companies.

MONT company was recognized the best provider of cloud solutions to Microsoft at the Worldwide Partner Conference 2016 in Canadas Toronto on July 15.

The indisputable advantage of cloud solutions is the reduction of capital expenditure and IT infrastructure service costs. If a company establishes a local IT infrastructure, it can save money only by refusing to purchase additional servers, applying virtualization technologies. Hence, the majority of the companies seek for new solutions.

MONT Company offers cloud solutions with monthly subscription. Cloud transformation is the main aim of the distributor and we expand our capacities with Rostelecom by creating privileged condition for all the corporate subscribers of the company, Ruben Yesayan, head of MONT's representative office in Armenia said.

Hence, as a result of the trilateral agreement new conditions with monthly subscription terms for applying licensed software packages are offered to all the legal entities easing their acquisition process by companies.

About opportunities of Office 0365

Office

- This is the newest version of Office Standard (Word, Excel, Power Point, Onenote, Publisher) or Pro Plus (Word, Excel, Power Point, Access, Onenote, Publisher) depending on the subscription option of 365.

- Available for computer, smartphone or tablet application.

- Office Online opportunity.

SharePoint Online + OneDrive

- Opportunity of internal corporate portal

- Opportunity of corporate editing online and offline

- Corporate social network application

- 1TB of OneDrive storage

Exchange Online

- Business Class Email hosting and shared calendar

- 50 GB memory for each user

- Personal domain name

- Antispam, Antivirus systems

u Skype for Business

- Multimedia conferences in HD quality

- Instant messaging

- Opportunity of desktop display and remote control
Can you believe that it's been exactly 20 years since the70 was revealed on September 30th, 1996? Back then, cars were pretty boxy, like the E36, and Dodge's Viper was fresh on everyone's minds. But here came the Swedish with their idea of a classy coupe."Without a doubt this was the most fun car project Ive been involved with," Hakan Abrahamsson says today. In 1994, he was appointed as the head of a small research group tasked with making the first coupe since the 80s. At the time, the car company had little to no experience in making appealing vehicles like this.There are lots of fun facts that surround the C70. For example, it had one of the best sound systems of any car made in Europe, with loudspeakers from the Danish prestige brand Dynaudio, Dolby Surround and an amplifier with up to 4x100 watts.The C70 was supposed to be both a coupe and a convertible. The Finnish firm Valmet made a proposal for a C70 cabriolet with a folding metal roof. This did not lead to a production model, but the C70s successor was given such a feature nine years later in 2005.Volvo was also stretching its legs in the powertrain department, as the C70 received a 2.3-liter five-cylinder turbo from the 850R, which produced 240 horsepower. However, there were also 2-liter turbo models with 225 hp.The first-generation C70 cabrio entered production a year later and was one of the first such cars to feature rollover protection bars that were activated when a crash was detected.The second generation came in 2005 and featured the folding metal roof, thus fulfilling both coupe and convertible roles. This stunning Pininfarina design lived on until 2006, by which time 89,074 had been made. It even featured diesel engines, the 150 horsepower D3, and 177 hp D4, both of which had 2-liter five-cylinder engines. Sadly, we said our goodbyes in 2013.
Year 2017 is fast approaching but Chevrolet has already unveiled its 2018 Chevrolet Equinox. It is the new Crossover and the third generation of the car manufacturing company's second-best selling model after the Silverado pickup.

"We've got the strongest truck business in the industry and we've reinvigorated our car lineup with Volt, Cruze and Malibu. We're applying the same customer focus to grow our crossover/SUV business - starting with the Chevrolet Equinox." said Alan Batey, president of Global Chevrolet and GM's North American operations as he introduce to brand's newest unit.

Chevy's 2018 Equinox will be 400 pounds lighter compared to its previous models. The car manufacturer incorporates some design hints from those passenger car models. Cues reveal that this car manufacturer's 2018 Equinox are outfitted with projector-beam headlamps, rear horizontal tail lamps and chrome accents on all trim levels.

Now for the interior, there are some new features. It has an optional denim-style seat fabric, new kneeling rear seats which enable the bottom cushions to tilt forward when the split-folding seat backs are lowered. This somehow projects and provides a flat floor for easier loading of cargo.

Talking about the engine, there are three turbocharged engines to choose from. These are a 1.5 liter turbo, a 2.0 liter turbo, mated with a new nine-speed automatic transmission and last but not the least, a 1.6-liter turbo-diesel.

Chevy's 2018 Equinox has also its safety features. System includes Teen Driver. This is an option that enables parents to set controls and review an in-vehicle report card to encourage safer driving habits. Likewise, there is also surround vision, forward collision alert and new low-speed forward automatic emergency braking. It is also equipped with safety enhancers such as lane keep assist, rear-seat child reminder, side blind zone alert and rear cross-traffic alert.

Going with the flow of the technology and strong connectivity, Chevy's 2018 Equinox can be advanced based on option packages. It might have a 7 or 8-inch diagonal MyLink touch screen, 4G LTE Wi-Fi access and compatibility with either Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.

Exposing it up, this 2018 Chevrolet Equinox current design has been around since 2010 with some sort of essential and incremental modifications, designs and specifications. This is mainly the reason why its sales have dropped to 17.7% this year to 158,475 concluded August. Likewise, its competitors have introduced later updates in the last two years.

Selling up on March 2017 and will be manufactured at General Motors' CAMI assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, this new Chevy's 2018 Equinox is definitely a road buddy anyone aspires to drive.
Someone wants to bring more excitement to car enthusiasts by leaking the images of the Nissan Note e-powered hybrid. While this may sound as exciting indeed, car lovers in the United States would not be able to purchase the model.

Japanese website Liveblog was the responsible outlet to release the photo. Even though the snapshot was possibly taken using a smartphone (because of its quality), the design and the engine for the vehicle is quite impressive.

The SUV has been refurbished with a restyled front end inspired by the Nissan "V-motion" V-shaped grille, swept-back headlights, and a new front bumper shield with reshaped lower air intakes. As for the engine, the Nissan Note hybrid is said to power the wheels entirely via an electric motor. However, the website is still unsure whether it will be powered with the engine serving solely to recharge the battery.

But the aesthetic of the automobile will not reach the North America, Green Car reports. According to the website, the sales for the Nissan Versa Note has been relatively low on the continent.

The reasons behind the low sales might include the tight competition between other huge car companies like Tesla, Volkswagen, and more firms that produce electric cars as well. Furthermore, the outlet claimed that the SUV appeals more to the European and Asian buyers.

Additionally, Paul Tan blog wrote that the Nissan Note might be available first hand in Malaysia. The model would likely compete with models from Honda, Ford and Mazda.

Almost 3 years ago, Tan Chong Motor revealed at the KL International Motor Show that there would be a second generation model of the Nissan Note. Since then, the speculations surrounded the Internet until the car company decided to unleash a bit of detail regarding the upcoming model.

More updates regarding the Nissan Note e-powered hybrid car here at AutoWorldNews.
Law-enforcement authorities will be empowered to investigate the origin of state officials wealth as part of the Armenian governments latest anti-corruption measures, Justice Minister Arpine Hovannisian said on Friday.

Hovannisian also stressed that a government bill approved by the parliament in the first reading recently will give more powers to the State Commission for the Ethics of High-Ranking Officials, a body tasked with preventing or exposing their illegal self-enrichment.

Some 600 such officials, including ministers and judges, have for years been obliged to file annual declarations of their and their family members incomes with the commission. However, the body has not looked into the veracity of those statements.

Some of those officials have attributed their and their relatives wealth to lavish financial gifts received from other individuals. Hovannes Hovsepian, the head of Armenias tax and customs services, alone has claimed to receive $3 million in such donations.

In an interviewed with RFE/RLs Armenian service (Azatutyun.am), Hovannisian was asked whether their assets will be scrutinized after the bill comes into effect. We leave it to law-enforcement bodies to get answers to such questions, she said. Yes, they can ask officials: Where did you get that money from?

The law-enforcement system will be able to ask officials this question, added the minister.

Hovannisian also said that the State Commission for the Ethics of High-Ranking Officials will similarly be allowed to take actions resulting in certain legal consequences.

The Armenian government pledged to step up its declared fight against corruption earlier this year. Armenias leading anti-graft watchdog affiliated with Transparency International said in early September, however, that it sees no evidence yet of any decrease in the scale of various corrupt practices.

Armenia ranked 95th out of 168 countries that were evaluated in Transparency Internationals 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
30 September 2016 15:30 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The economic situation in Armenia has turned into a complete disaster, to put it lightly. While the economic chaos cannot get any worse than it already is, it appears that the people fail to get their wages.

For two years former employees of the glass-processing enterprise Glass World Company in Byureghavan can't obtain salary arrears of several months. The workers have repeatedly turned to the state for help and held rallies.

After holding a picket near the building of the Armenian government on September 29, the workers this time marched to the presidential palace, Epress.am reports.

The demonstrators demanded the authorities to oblige the management of the enterprise to pay wages. A former employee Hamlet Harutyunyan stated in an interview that they have appealed to all possible institutions, and even the courts verdict was in their favor, but no one can force the plant management to pay off debts.

I cannot understand  the President also cant do this? Its like the plant is managed by some almighty person and no one can force him to comply with the court's decision. We don't know what to do. Should we start to kill to survive? he complained.

Harutyunyan added that the company owes 150,000-450,000 drams (about $317-951) to every employee.

We appeal to all authorities. The situation have reached the point that we come here and they say "leave your number, we will call," Hamlet Harutyunyan added.

When we protested, we were given some pennies, we were cheated and escorted out, but we demand the final repayment of the debt. We all are aged, no one hires us. We are unemployed since last August, there is no livelihood," said Samvel Diloyan.

Employees of the Presidential office came out to the protesters and tried to assure them that they will talk to the plants manager and Governor of Kotayk Province Karapet Ghuloyan to figure out the situation. However, the promise, did not give any hope to the protesting employees: they are confident that nothing will change, because they are constantly being given the same promise.

The Glass World Company created in 2004 on the basis of Arzni crystal factory, produced glass containers for mineral waters, soft drinks, etc. In 2014, the plant has been temporarily suspended for repair. From March 2015, the plant began to work again, but closed after some 5 months.

However, not only Armenian businesses have huge debts  that also applies to the countrys government itself.

By the end of 2016, the national debt of Armenia will get closer to the fatal point, Armenian Finance Minister Vardan Aramyan said at the government meeting on September 29.

The state debt of Armenia amounted to 2.545 trillion drams ($5.36 billion) as of the end of the first half of 2016. Noteworthy, the forecasted GDP in 2016 amounts to 5.443 trillion drams. Thus, by the end of the first half-year the national debt amounted to 46.7 percent of GDP.

Under the current law, the government debt should not exceed 60 percent of Armenian GDP. Two years ago the figure was only 43.7 percent.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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30 September 2016 13:20 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Armenias armed forces have 13 times violated the ceasefire on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops over the past 24 hours, Azerbaijans Defense Ministry reported on September 30.

Positions of the Azerbaijani army underwent fire from the Armenian positions located near the Javahirli village of Azerbaijans Aghdam district, Kuropatkino village of the Khojavand district, Ashagi Seyidahmadli village of the Fuzuli district, as well as from the positions located on the nameless heights of the Goranboy, Khojavand and Fuzuli districts.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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30 September 2016 16:32 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The problem of refugees and IDPs is the main focus of attention at a round table on The Importance of Preserving the Human Capital in Conditions of Mass Migration as a Basis for Sustainable Development held as part of the 5th Baku International Humanitarian Forum.

Opening the event, Director of the Azerbaijan International Development Agency (AIDA) Ashraf Shikhaliyev highlighted the importance of the Forum.

Due to Armenian aggression in the early 1990s, Azerbaijan faced a challenge of about a million refugees and IDPs, Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan, Chairman of the State Committee for Refugees and IDPs Ali Hasanov said while addressing the session of the 5th Baku International Humanitarian Forum on September 30.

A total of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory is still under occupation of Armenia, Hasanov reminded.

The chairman stressed that Armenia constantly violates the ceasefire regime and the Geneva Convention, carries out the resettlement of refugees from Syria in the occupied Azerbaijani lands, and cultivates drug in these areas.

The official further stressed that the Azerbaijani government takes all possible measures to ensure the necessary living conditions for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) and for their integration into society.

Refugees and internally displaced persons receive compensation, have benefits, state agencies and companies pay special attention to their recruitment, the children of IDPs and refugees are exempt from tuition fees at universities, Hasanov noted.

Residential complexes, schools, kindergartens, hospitals are build for them, Hasanov added.

Hasanov noted that the refugee problem is topical not only for Azerbaijan  as a result of wars and conflicts, the number of refugees and IDPs in the world grows every year.

During the session, a documentary film about the Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan in the early 1990s was shown. The film tells about the tragedy in Khojaly, where 613 civilians were killed during genocide committed by Armenians. The film stressed that the current leadership of Armenia was directly involved in committing the Khojaly Genocide against the Azerbaijani people. There was also stated that currently Azerbaijan has 1.2 million refugees.

Later, Deputy Economy Minister of Azerbaijan Sevinj Hasanova informed about the works done to ensure welfare of refugees, noting that Azerbaijan can share its experience in solving the problems of refugees.

The problem of refugees and migrants concerns the whole world. Numerous conferences and forums on the subject are regularly held in different countries. Azerbaijan has a long and successful experience in dealing with the refugee problem, the government continuously improves its policy on the issue of IDPs and refugees, Hasanova noted.

She stressed that the refugees and IDPs living in Azerbaijan receive necessary food and shelter; moreover, the country provides them with free access to education, health care, it satisfies their cultural needs. The refugees in Azerbaijan receive special social loans.

Other countries can benefit from the 25-year experience of Azerbaijan in this sphere and we are ready to share this experience, Hasanova concluded.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia still controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia has issued a statement over the ecalation of military operations in Syria and the situation in Aleppo.

Armenpress reports the statement reads as follows,

We are deeply concerned over the recent escalation of military situation in Syria.

The deplorable use of weaponry against the civil population of Aleppo, including the Armenian neighbourhood, that resulted in numerous human losses, is a matter of specific concern.



We express our deep condolences and support to the families and relatives of the killed and wounded.



We hope that all the parties involved in the negotiation process over the settlement of the Syrian conflict will be more determined in the joint fight against terrorism and will be bold in restoring peace through negotiations.
30 September 2016 18:42 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The Armenian side continues to violate the truce with Azerbaijan, and this hinders the countrys citizens, living near the contact line, from exercising some of their rights.

The remark was made by Azerbaijans Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsperson) Elmira Suleymanova at the session of the 5th Baku International Humanitarian Forum on September 30.

Our problem with the refugees began almost 25 years ago when Armenia occupied our lands, she said, reminding that the number of refugees and IDPs in the country is close to 1.2 million people.

Azerbaijan and Armenia for over two decades have been locked in conflict, which emerged over Armenian territorial claims. Since the 1990s war, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions. The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal, but they have not been enforced to this day.

With a population of over 9.6 million, Azerbaijan is among the countries carrying the highest IDP caseload in the world in per capita terms.

Suleymanova emphasized that refugees in Azerbaijan have the same rights and opportunities as other citizens of the country.

She noted that when Azerbaijan began to receive revenue from the sale of hydrocarbons, 10 refugee camps were resettled, and people were provided with new housing. The country has also laws regarding education for refugees, and children of refugees and IDPs receive presidential grants for education, Suleymanova added.

Nearly 100 appeals regarding Armenias violation of the rights of refugees and IDPs living in Azerbaijan were adopted, she noted. All of them were submitted to the UN and the Council of Europe. But the answer hasnt been received yet.

Suleymanova also reminded that about 80 ethnic minorities live in Azerbaijan and they all have equal rights.

The Baku International Humanitarian Forum is an annual platform for famous representatives of political, scientific and cultural elite of the world community including famous statesmen, Nobel Prize winners in various fields of science and leaders of influential international organizations for holding dialogues, discussions and exchange of views on a wide range of global issues in the interest of all humanity.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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30 September 2016 13:42 (UTC+04:00)

By Anatole Kaletsky

Never let a crisis go to waste has always been one of the European Unions guiding principles. But what about five simultaneous crises? Today, the EU faces what Frans Timmermans, European Commission Vice President, describes as a multi-crisis: Brexit, refugee flows, fiscal austerity, geopolitical threats from East and South, and illiberal democracy in central Europe. Rather than wasting its crises, the EU could be laid to waste by them.

If so, Brexit will be the detonator for that demolition. By legitimizing the concept of an EU breakup, and thus turning a fantasy among political extremists into a realistic option of mainstream politics throughout Europe, Brexit threatens to trigger an irresistible disintegration process. It will also transform economics, by paralyzing the European Central Bank in the next euro crisis: while the ECB can always defeat market speculation, it is powerless against breakup pressures from voters.

The EU therefore urgently needs to put the genie of disintegration back in its bottle. That means persuading Britain to change its mind about Europe, which, according to conventional wisdom on both sides of the English Channel, is impossible. But many impossible things are happening in politics nowadays.

The referendum majority on June 23 was much narrower than that in Scotlands 2014 independence referendum, or the negative votes on EU treaties in Ireland, Denmark, and the Netherlands, all of which were subsequently reversed. More important, the 52% who voted for Brexit were sharply divided in their aims, with some prepared to accept economic sacrifice for a hard Brexit (total separation from Europe), and others hoping for a soft Brexit that would minimize the impact on the UK economy.

According to post-referendum polling, three-quarters of Leave voters expect Britains economy either to strengthen or to be unaffected by Brexit, and 80% believe the government will have more money to spend on public services as a result of their vote. Brexit voters are so optimistic because they were told (most prominently by current Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson) that Britain could have our cake and eat it  a new deal that would preserve all of the economic benefits of EU membership with none of the obligations or costs.

When these expectations are disappointed, public opinion will change. Already, 66% of voters say maintaining market access is more important than restricting immigration, if Britain cannot have both. This directly contradicts Prime Minister Theresa Mays stated priorities  and probably explains why she refuses to talk about her Brexit strategy.

Because public expectations of an economically innocuous soft Brexit will be impossible to reconcile with the rejection of all EU obligations demanded by the Conservative Partys hard Brexit faction, May cannot win. Whichever course she chooses, she will antagonize half her party and a large proportion of Brexit supporters, not to mention the 48% of voters who want to stay in the EU.

Once this backlash starts, plenty of ambitious Conservative politicians whom May purged from government will be eager to exploit it. Already, George Osborne, immediately sacked as Chancellor of the Exchequer when May took office, has thrown down the gauntlet, challenging her democratic mandate: Brexit won a majority. Hard Brexit did not. Even the weakness of Britains opposition parties works against May, allowing opponents to plot against her, secure in the knowledge that they cannot lose power.

All this implies that British politics will become very fluid as economic conditions deteriorate and voters start to change their minds. The EU should encourage such second thoughts, which means that it must stop treating Brexit as inevitable and instead offer the possibility of a compromise that would meet British voters concerns, but only on the condition that Britain remains in the EU.

The obvious way to accomplish this would be to conclude an EU-wide agreement on greater national control over immigration and other symbolic issues related to national sovereignty. Such an agreement need not be seen as a concession to British blackmail if it were extended to all EU countries and presented as a response to public opinion throughout the Union.

By making a virtue of its response to democratic pressures, the EU could regain Europe-wide support. But to send a positive message to voters, European leaders will have to rediscover the knack for pragmatic compromise and inter-governmental bargaining that used to be the hallmark of EU diplomacy.

For starters, defusing both Brexit and the refugee crisis will require some modest changes in immigration and welfare rules. Such reforms, which would be popular in almost all member countries, need not conflict with the EUs founding principles if they preserve the right to work throughout Europe, but return some control over non-economic migration and welfare payments to national governments.

Second, the interaction of the refugee and euro crises demands new fiscal rules. Dealing with immigrants is expensive and should ideally be funded by mutually guaranteed EU bonds. Alternatively, Mediterranean countries must be offered budgetary leeway, in exchange for assuming front-line responsibility for immigration controls.

Third, the need for immigration reform, combined with illiberal democracy in Central Europe, calls for changes in EU spending priorities and foreign policy. Poland and other countries will accept restrictions on their citizens mobility only if offered additional structural funds and stronger security cooperation. Such incentives, in turn, could provide more levers to ensure respect for human rights.

Finally, restoring the EUs democratic legitimacy means ending the institutional tensions between the eurozone and the broader EU. The EU authorities must acknowledge that many member countries will never join the euro, which means abandoning their rhetoric about a two-speed Europe, with all heading  whether at high or low speed  toward the ever closer union that a single currency implies. Instead, the EU must reshape itself into two concentric circles: an inner core committed to deeper integration, and an outer ring whose voters have no interest in a single currency and a shared fiscal space.

Such reforms may seem impossible, but EU disintegration seemed impossible before the Brexit vote. In revolutionary periods, the impossible can become inevitable in a matter of months. This week, former French President Nicolas Sarkozycalled unexpectedly for a new European treaty and a second British referendum on its EU membership. In Europe, a revolutionary period has begun.

Copyright: Project Syndicate: Saving Europe By Reversing Brexit

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30 September 2016 12:10 (UTC+04:00)

By Nigar Abbasova

Azerbaijan and Bulgaria, which have well-established bilateral ties, may soon expand their cooperation to the sphere of port service operations.

The Baku International Sea Trade Port (Port of Baku), the oldest and largest port on the Caspian Sea signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bulgarian Ports Infrastructure Company.

The document, which was signed during the 4th session of the Azerbaijani-Bulgarian intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation, provides for the further expansion of cooperation and exchange of experience between the Baku International Sea Trade Port and Bulgarian ports of Varna and Burgas.

The memorandum was undersigned by Head of the Port of Baku Taleh Ziyadov and Director General of the Bulgarian Ports Infrastructure Company Angel Zaburtov.

The cooperation is expected to contribute to the improvement of the quality of services and related management activities of port infrastructure, as well as ensure optimum efficiency of port services.

Port of Baku earlier signed MoUs with Antwerp, Panama, Aktau and Poti ports.

The Baku International Sea Trade Port was previously located in the middle of the city. Taking into account the bid of the country to become one of the major commercial and transportation hubs in the region and facilitate regional transformation, the state decided to move it to a new location, 70 km south of the capital Baku, near a small town called Alat, which is located at the strategic crossroads of the regional railroads and highways.

Port of Baku is expected to complete the first stage of its new international sea and trade port by 2017, increasing capacity to 11.5 million tons of cargo per year and up to 50,000 containers, many of which could be transshipped between China, Central Asia and Europe.

Being headquartered in Sofia, Bulgarian Ports Infrastructure Company manages the infrastructure of the public transport ports of national importance. The company has four territorial and three specialized divisions in Burgas, Varna, Lom and Ruse.

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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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30 September 2016 14:20 (UTC+04:00)

By Nigar Abbasova

Azerbaijan Deposit Insurance Fund (ADIF) has so far paid compensations worth over 261.4 million manats ($ 162.6 million) to depositors of the recently closed Dekabank, Kredobank, Zaminbank, Parabank, Caucasus Development Bank, AtraBank, Bank of Azerbaijan, Ganjabank and Texnikabank.

Banks Volume of paid compensations (million manats/ million USD) Volume of insured deposits (million manats/ million USD) Parabank 32.57 ($ 20.04) 43.79 ($ 26.95) Zaminbank 49 ($ 30.1) 36.35 ( $22.37) Dekabank 2.77 ($ 1.70) 5.59 ($ 3.44) Kredobank 17.18 ($ 10.57) 30.21 ($18.59) Caucasus Development Bank 1.7 ($ 1.04) 1.5($ 0.9) Atrabank 13.28 ($ 8.17) 13.9 ($ 8.5) Bank of Azerbaijan 24.09 ($ 14.82) 24.2 ($ 14.8) Ganjabank 0.93 ($ 0.57) 1.5 ( $0.9) Texnikabank 119.88 ($ 73.76) 122.6 ($ 75.4)

Acceptance of applications from insured depositors of DekaBank, KredoBank, Zaminbank and Parabank began on August 1, 2016 and the payment of compensations has been carried out since that day.

Compensations to the depositors of Caucasus Development Bank and AtraBank are being paid starting from August 23. Payments are being carried out at the branches the banks.

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 January 29, 2016 at branches of Muganbank and Rabitabank, and since September 8 at ADIFs office.

Clients of Ganjabank receive compensations since February 4 at the branches of Rabitabank, Unibank and Kapital Bank.

ADIF launched payment of compensations to depositors of Texnikabank on February 12.

The licenses of all the nine banks were revoked in 2016, as their assets were not classified in line with the law, and they didnt create adequate reserves and their aggregate capital did not meet the minimum requirements.

Deputy CEO of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) Aftandil Babayev earlier said that the closure of non-viable banks in the country is aimed at mitigating the influence of unhealthy credit organizations on the economy of the country.

Some 33 banks are currently implementing their activities in the country.

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30 September 2016 16:51 (UTC+04:00)

By Nigar Abbasova

Azerbaijan, which is keen to establish a model of export-oriented economy and replace foreign imports with domestic production, has taken a next step in this regard.

The country has put into commission a new facade production plant, which was implemented jointly with Germany, one of the principal partners of Azerbaijan.

Head of the industry department at Azerbaijans Economy Ministry Samed Bashirli, addressing the opening ceremony said the commissioning of the plant will allow to decrease the volumes of imported production, as well as create new working places in the country.

Bashirli believes that the development of the construction sphere will also contribute to the improvement of other sectors of the economy, such as chemical industry, metallurgy, and manufacturing of machinery.

The country has already done much in the sphere of production of building materials. For instance, the country is fully meeting the domestic demand in cement production by means of local output. Some 2 million tons of cement worth over $100 million were imported in the country in 2014, while the volume recorded a fourfold drop and decreased down to 500,000 tons of cement in 2015. The figure reduced to 320,000 tons of cement and clinker in January-August 2016, while the sum spent for import operations amounted to only $15 million. Moreover, the country exported some 100,000 tons of cement worth $5 million to Georgia, he said.

Deutsche Fassaden Technologiens (DFT) Director General Vladimir Zabenskiy, in turn, said that the plant will be specialized in the production of facades, windows and doors.

Capacity of the newly-established plant is estimated at 60-80 square meters per year. The total volume of investments made in the project is about 70 million manats ($ 43.07 million), with some 80 percent of the sum being provided by Azerbaijan and the rest accounting for Germany.

Zabenskiy mentioned that the output of the enterprise is planned to be mainly used for meeting domestic needs, while its export to the neighboring countries, particularly Georgia and Iran is also considered to be among future prospects. Germany will provide supply of raw materials and all necessary technologies for the production of output.

The sphere of construction is considered to be very competitive with increasing number of strong local and foreign companies able to deliver the highest international standards in the field.

Priority areas of the country in the sphere of construction are production of aluminum, lime, ceramics, construction glass as well as construction of logical warehouses and machinery plants.

The majority of construction projects are centralized in Absheron due to the abundance of raw materials and high demand. Nevertheless, there are also centers for the production of construction materials throughout the country.

The products of building industry in Azerbaijan include cement, iron-concrete products and panels, cubic stones, brick, glass, slate, asbestos-cement pipe, heat-insulating polymer construction materials, linoleum, plumbing and chemical window and door products. Building facades is one of the largest, and most important elements in the overall aesthetic and technical performance of a building.

Germany is Azerbaijans fourth most important trading partner, after Russia, Turkey and the United States. The volume of trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Germany amounted to $2 billion in 2015, while the major portion of trade turnover figures fell to the share of industrial production.

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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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30 September 2016 16:14 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

The conference of Azerbaijans National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) has kicked off in Baku, Trend Life reported.

The event was attended by the director of the National Museum of History, Naila Velikhanli, the director of Azerbaijan National Museum of Art, Chingiz Farzaliyev, the director of the Shirvanshah's Palace Complex, Rena Rzayeva, and others.

Addressing the event, the director of Azerbaijan Carpet Museum, the chairman of the Azerbaijan National Committee of ICOM, Shirin Malikova spoke about the 24th General conference of ICOM, held on July 3-9 in Milan.

He also shared plans of the National Committee for 2017-2018.

The meeting featured the presentation of ICOM`s new logo and the preview of the upcoming conference in Kyoto that will be held in 2019.

Some statistics were made public during the meeting.

The Azerbaijani National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) was established by the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan in 1993. From its first days, Azerbaijani museums created close relationships with the worlds museums in order to popularize Azerbaijani cultural heritage.

Representatives from such national museum institutions as Azerbaijani State Museum of Arts (named after R.Mustafayev), Azerbaijani Carpet and Applied Art State Museum (named after L.Kerimov), S.Vurgun House-Museum, the Shirvanshah Palace Complex State Historical-Architectural Preserve Museum, Musical Culture State Museum, and Art Gallery participated in conferences, workshops, trainings etc. in Paris, Stavanger, Melbourne, Barcelona, Seoul, Washington, Shanghais, Vienna and others.

The National Committee received over ten grants from the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation and UNESCO with the aim of improving museum work in Azerbaijan.

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30 September 2016 18:25 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nararli

Presentation of the long-awaited Ali and Nino film, based on a novel with the same name by an Azerbaijani writer, will be held at the Heydar Aliyev Center on October 4.

Ali and Nino is a tale of love by an Azerbaijani author, who wrote under the pen name Kurban Said. The epic love story is one of the most original works of twentieth century literature.

The film shot in 2015, tell the story of two young people, whose love undergoes family differences, religious dissimilarities and a challenging political situation as Azerbaijan fights for independence.

Azerbaijani Muslim boy Ali and Georgian Nino live in the oil-rich capital of Azerbaijan which at the beginning of the 20th century was a melting pot of different cultures. Despite differences in cultures, they have loved each other since childhood.

The film's executive producer is Leyla Aliyeva, producer is Chris Tike, chief director is Asif Kapadia. Screenwriter of "Ali and Nino" is a British novelist, screenwriter and film director Christopher Hampton.

The shooting took place in Baku, including the streets of the historic Icherisheher (Old City) and in different places of the capital, as well as in Gobustan and Khynalyg.

The stars of the 104-minute film include Adam Bakri, Maria Valverde, also known from movie Three meters above the sky, Mandy Patinkin, Connie Nielsen, Riccardo Scamarcio, Homayoun Ershadi and others.

The premiere of film was held as part of the prestigious American Sundance Film Festival in Utah in January 2016.

The film will be released on October 6 in CinemaPlus cinemas in Azerbaijani and English languages.

The film has been chosen as the screen works to be shown at the opening ceremony of the Asian film festival of the world, which is scheduled for October 24.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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30 September 2016 17:28 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

There is no need in inventing new formulas or equations to solve the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said Hikmet Hajiyev, the spokesman to Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry.

Political and legal framework for the settlement of the conflict are well known  those are important resolutions of the UN Security Council, the norms and principles of the international law and the Helsinki Final act, Hajiyev told Trend on September 30 when commenting on the statement by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

John Kerry earlier stated that the settlement of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh today is still impossible.

Azerbaijan, as a country subjected to occupation and aggression by Armenia, is the interested party in the soonest settlement of the conflict. The Azerbaijani side has repeatedly stated that remains committed to the spirit of the Vienna and St. Petersburg meetings, it is interested in resolving the conflict through substantive negotiations, Hajiyev noted, adding that substantive negotiations are continuing to this day, despite the fact that information about them is not being provided to media.

These substantive negotiations, as it was stated at the level of the OSCE Minsk group co-chairs, should lead to a change in the status quo, which is unacceptable and inconsistent, and to liberation of Azerbaijani territories from the occupation, Hajiyev noted.

The spokesman further added that Armenia through various provocations tries to harm the process of the conflict resolution.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

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30 September 2016 14:03 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijan is going to buy anti-missile systems from Turkey, as the relevant talks are ongoing with the Turkish company Roketsan.

The company has demonstrated anti-tank missiles of medium and long range at the Azerbaijan International Defense Exhibition ADEX-2016.

Missiles of medium range hit the target at a distance of 2-4 kilometers, while large range missiles hit the enemy from 5-8 kilometers. The complex consists of four missiles and it can detect targets in motion.

The anti-tank missile system rotates by 360 degrees. There are two versions of the missile system  propelled wheeled or tracked chassis.

The 2nd Azerbaijan International Defence Exhibition ADEX 2016 opened at the Baku Expo Center on September 27 and will last till September 30. Although ADEX is being held for only the second time, it has already become the largest exhibition in the region.

This year, ADEX is attended by 216 companies from 34 countries, and 29 delegations from 21 states. The geographical spread of the participants has expanded to such countries as Croatia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Latvia, and Montenegro.

The most numerous contingents in terms of the number of companies are Turkey (42 companies), Israel (14 companies), and Russia (14 companies). Such well-known companies as Aselsan, CETC, Damen, MBDA, Norinco, IAI, Roketsan, Rosoboron Export, Thales and others will participate with demonstrations of military equipment.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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30 September 2016 09:50 (UTC+04:00)

A new print edition of the AZERNEWS online newspaper was released on September, 30

The new edition includes articles about: First French locomotives to be received next year; ADB makes optimistic forecast on countrys economy; Government eyes prospects of cooperation with Bulgaria, WEF: Azerbaijan leaves CIS states behind for competitiveness

AZERNEWS is an associate member of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

The online newspaper is available at www.azernews.az.
At this time, there are no chances for organizing a meeting between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

September 30, 2016, 15:16 RPA: No chances of holding Armenia, Azerbaijan presidents meeting at this time

STEPANAKERT, SEPTEMBER 30, ARTSAKHPRESS: Ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) MP Artak Zakaryan, who is also Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, stated the aforesaid at a press conference on Friday, informs NEWS.am.

In his words, a meeting between the two presidents will be possible solely when the respective agenda is agreed upon.

At this moment, there is no such possibility in a foreseeable future,  noted Zakaryan. But, naturally, negotiations [to resolve the Karabakh conflict] also mean meetings.

Ambassador James Warlick, US Co-Chair of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group, had expressed the hope that the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan would meet in the near future.
30 September 2016 10:28 (UTC+04:00)

The 5th Baku International Humanitarian Forum continued with a plenary session following the opening ceremony, Azertac reported.

The first part of the session, attended by head of the Azerbaijan`s Presidential Administration, academician of National Academy of Sciences Ramiz Mehdiyev, was chaired by Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov. It heard speeches from political and religious leaders.

Vice-president of the Republic of Bulgaria Margarita Popova hailed the importance of the Forum, saying it features discussions on pressing issues. She thanked the Azerbaijani government for "excellent" organization of the event.

Ms Popova highlighted Azerbaijan's contribution to the preservation and promotion of multiculturalism and multicultural values.

Chairman of the Clerical Office of Caucasus Muslims Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade drew the audience`s attention to ways of preventing and combating religious extremism.

Former President of the Republic of Croatia Stjepan Mesic pointed to increasing xenophobic tendencies in Europe. He called on media organizations and politicians to be more responsible. Mr Mesic noted the role of the intercultural and interreligious dialogue addressing global challenges, and hailed the importance of the 5th Baku International Humanitarian Forum in this regard.

Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk said all people must have equal opportunities and rights so that intercultural and interreligious dialogue is ensured.

Chairman of the Assembly of Representatives of the Supreme Assembly of the Republic of Tajikistan Shukurjon Zuhurov highlighted the growing prestige of the Baku International Humanitarian Forum. "The Baku forum pushes brand new ideas every year which contribute to the expansion of relations among nations and cultures.

Spiritual leader of India Sri Sri Ravishankar Swami Jyothirmayah thanked the Azerbaijani government for organizing the forum.

Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay Gerardo Amarilla, Associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Rabbi Abraham Cooper (USA), Vice-speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the National Congress of Argentine Republic Patricia Gimenez, President of the Buddhist Association of China Xue Cheng, Secretary of State of the Republic of Kazakhstan Gulshara Abdykalikova, President of the Conference of the Imams of France Hassen Chalghoumi, Commissioner for Political Affairs of the African Union Commission Aisha Abdullahi, Assistant Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Hesham Youssef, Chairperson of the Executive Board of UNESCO Michael Worbs also made speeches at the session.

The second part of the plenary session was attended by Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva. It was chaired by President of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, academician Akif Alizade. It heard speeches from Nobel Prize laureates.

Mr Alizade opened the session, saying 13 Nobel laureates will highlight current global challenges and ways of addressing them.

Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize Winner in Literature, underlined the necessity of stepping up efforts to help refugees and displaced.

Rudolph Arthur Marcus, Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry, spoke of the ongoing global changes.

Richard John Roberts, Nobel Prize Winner in Physiology or Medicine, Rudolf Martin Zinkernagel, Nobel Prize Winner in Physiology or Medicine, Robert Betts Laughlin, Nobel Prize Winner in Physics, Edward Prescott, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, Aaron Ciechanover, Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry, Avraham Hershko, Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry, Finn Kydland, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, George Fitzgerald Smoot III, Nobel Prize Winner in Physics, Ada Yonath, Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry, Dan Shechtman, Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry, Arieh Warshel, Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry, also addressed the session.

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By Amina Nazarli

The 5th Baku International Humanitarian Forum heard speeches from chairs of round table meetings to be held on September 30.

The session was chaired by Azerbaijani Minister of Education Mikayil Jabbarov, who noted the importance of the Forum. He said round tables will focus on a wide range of pressing issues of global importance. He noted that the Azerbaijani government attaches great importance to humanitarian issues.

Vincenzo Scotti, President of Link Campus University, Italy, will chair "Different Models of Multiculturalism: from Theory to Humanitarian Practice" round table. Speaking at the event, he provided an insight into the agenda of the round table. He said the Forum was a brilliant opportunity for acclaimed scientists from different parts of the world to give their message to younger generations. He underlined the importance of building dialogue for ensuring peaceful co-existence of people.

Rashid Khalikov, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, for his part, highlighted the issues to be discussed at the round table "The Importance of Preserving the Human Capital in Conditions of Mass Migration as a Basis for Sustainable Development". He drew the audience`s attention to migration problem. Khalikov also praised the organization of the Baku Forum.

Mikhail Gusman, First Deputy Director General of the Russian news agency TASS, spoke of the topics to be discussed at "Transforming of Journalism for the Information Age and its Role in Ensuring Inter-Civilizational Dialogue" round table. He praised multiculturalism and tolerance in Azerbaijan.



"For centuries people of different religious and ethnic background have lived together in peace, friendship and harmony in the country," he said. Gusman emphasized positive and negative aspects of the media and social networks.

Leyla Aliyeva, Vice President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, founder of the International Dialogue Initiative for Protection of EnvironmentIDEA, provided an insight into the agenda of "Sustainable Development and Ecological Civilization" round table.



"Azerbaijan is a land of ancient traditions and rich history, a place that sits at the crossroad between East and West, where Eastern wisdom and Western progress meet," she said. "In the days gone by, Azerbaijan was a major center on the historic silk route. This had a major impact on our culture making Azerbaijan a country that at its heart believes in tolerance, new ideas and dialogue. This unique geographic position of Azerbaijan also had an impact on our landscapes. Our country is a place of wonderful snowcapped mountains, sharp cliffs, rivers, deep forests, meadows, and lowlands."

Leyla Aliyeva went on speaking of the history of the establishment of IDEA. "We all know that governments carry out the primary responsibility for the protection of environment, but without active civil engagement, especially youth, it is impossible to ensure sustainable development. Therefore, in 2011 we have launched IDEA  the international campaign for dialogue and environmental action. Our intention was to educate and invite youth not only in Azerbaijan, but also around the world to protect the nature! Our slogan speaks for itself "One earth and future". "We try to carry out all our projects in a creative, artistic and optimistic way. Over the past five years, we have achieved many positive results such as planting more than 5 million trees, protecting the endangered species, organizing lectures, classes and exhibitions to raise the awareness!" she emphasized.

Mark Rosenblatt, Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA, in turn, drew the audience`s attention to what will be discussed at "Molecular Biology, Biophysics, Biotechnology and Issues of Personnel Training in Modern Medicine: Innovative and Ethical Problems" round table. He said the round table will address the challenges of modern medical science and the problem of medical education, innovative and ethical problems of molecular biology, biophysics, biotechnology in the modern era.

Aleksandr Bugaev, Member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of Laboratory of the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics named after V.A.Kotelnikov, will chair round table "Converging Technologies and Predictions for the Future: the Main Challenges of the 21st Century". Addressing the event, he said the issues to be discussed at the round table include security issues of nuclear technology and fusion energy, issues of expanding the scope and sources of renewable energy, convergence of radiation-, nano- and bionano-technology.

Baku International Humanitarian Forum is an annual platform for famous representatives of political, scientific and cultural elite of the world community including famous statesmen, Nobel Prize winners in various fields of science and leaders of influential international organizations for holding dialogues, discussions and exchange of views on a wide range of global issues in the interest of all humanity.



The two-day Forum features plenary sessions and speeches of the round table chairs.
30 September 2016 11:57 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijans first English language newspaper  Azernews takes part in the One Young World Global Summit, which began its work in Canadas capital Ottawa on Thursday.

The three-day summit attracted some 1,300 young people from 193 countries.

The solemn opening ceremony was attended by famous world politicians such as former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, first female president of Ireland Mary Robinson, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and the stars of world cinema -- UN goodwill ambassador Emma Watson, Natalia Vodianova and others.

Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, addressing the ceremony, referred to the young people saying that they have the power to transform the world.

The most interesting part of the ceremony was the presentation of the flags of the

participating countries. The flags of all countries were solemnly presented to the audience.

The ceremony also saw the presentation of influential newspapers of the Sparknews organization which brings together 55 well-known and most influential newspapers in the world, including Azernews, Le Figaro (France), AJ+, La Nacion (Argentina), The Asahi Shimbun (Japan) and LENA (leading European Newspaper Alliance).

Founder of Sparknews Christian de Boisredon also addressed the event. He at first presented to the audience, the Azerbaijani newspaper and invited Editor-in-Chief of Azernews Sevil Mikayilova to the stage.

Azernews is Azerbaijan's first English language newspaper. It has been published since 1997.

Azernews is the newspaper and online publication, regularly covering the current events in Azerbaijan and the Caspian region. The newspaper is an associate member of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

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30 September 2016 17:12 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

The first meeting of the autumn session of the Azerbaijani Parliament was held on September 30.

The parliamentarians discussed topical issues, including the recently held constitutional referendum, the issue of cooperation between Azerbaijan and the European Parliament, as well as considered changes to bill On Tourism.

Speaker Ogtay Asadov, addressing the session, stated that the referendum demonstrated strong support of the Azerbaijani people to the far-sighted policy of President Ilham Aliyev.

Asadov further noted that the referendum on amendments to Azerbaijans Constitution was held democratically and transparently.

The referendum to make amendments to Azerbaijans Constitution was held on September 26. The voter turnout throughout the country stood at 69.7 percent, or 3,671,707 people. Final results of the nationwide vote will be announced until October 21.



Concerning relations between Azerbaijan and the EP, Asadov reminded that for a biased resolution adopted by the EP in respect of Azerbaijan in 2015, the Parliament came to a relevant decision, and has suspended its participation in the Organization of the EU Parliamentary Cooperation and the Parliamentary Assembly "Euronest" since then.

Throughout this year, we did not participate in any of their activities. During this time, the Parliament of Azerbaijan has repeatedly received appeals, they paid personal visits and attempted to remedy the situation, he said.

He further mentioned the recent visit of the EU- Azerbaijan Parliamentary Cooperation Committee to Baku.

On September 19-20, at the initiative of the EP a delegation of 15 people arrived in Azerbaijan. President Ilham Aliyev received the delegation, and the head of the state voiced his notes and attitude on, in which direction the relations maybe continued in case the ties are restored, Asadov said.

Another issue discussed in the Parliament was the bill On Tourism. The changes in the draft law provide new requirements for the drivers of vehicles transporting tourists and participants of excursions.

Knowledge of drivers, guides and sightseers will be certified by the supervisory authority under the changes.

Drivers of tourist vehicles will have to undergo training under a special program, approved by the relevant executive authority. In particular they will have to possess legal knowledge in the field of passenger transport, and in particular the transport of tourists and sightseers.

According to the draft, drivers will have to be accredited.

The MPs also ratified the MoU between the governments of Azerbaijan and Turkey on TANAP gas pipeline.

Valeh Alasgarov, Deputy Speaker of the Parliament noted that Turkey has already implemented all necessary state procedures on this document.

The deputy speaker stressed that the approval of the Memorandum, signed on May 26, 2014, will be a very valuable support for TANAP from the Azerbaijani side.

TANAP project, worth $9.3 billion, envisages transportation of gas of Azerbaijans Shah Deniz field from Georgian-Turkish border to the western borders of Turkey. The gas will be delivered to Turkey in 2018, and after completion of the Trans Adriatic Pipelines (TAP) construction, the gas will be delivered to Europe in early 2020.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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30 September 2016 17:35 (UTC+04:00)

By Nigar Abbasova

Azerbaijan, a multinational and multi-religious country that ensures the peaceful coexistence of members of different nations and religions, is keen on preserving and strengthening its traditions of multiculturalism.

Education Minister Mikayil Jabbarov, addressing the 5th Baku International Humanitarian Forum, said there is no place for anti-Semitism or religious intolerance in Azerbaijan, which is a home for representatives of different nations.

The minister said that an Azerbaijani model of multiculturalism is regarded as exemplary by the majority of international organizations and forums, emphasizing that the country named 2016 the Year of Multiculturalism.

Jabbarov added that Azerbaijan always adhered to the traditions of tolerance and multiculturalism.

Chairman of Caucasian Muslims Board Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade, in turn, drew attention of the audience to ways of preventing and combating religious extremism.

Saying that religious tolerance is people's lifestyle in Azerbaijan, he mentioned that the country should not allow external forces to interfere in the internal affairs of the country.

Pashazade said that he supports development of tourism sphere in the country, those arriving in the country, however, should not intervene in certain religious issues, as it may lead to bad consequences in the future.

The constantly growing number of religious communities (the figure currently exceeds 665), belonging to different faiths, is considered to be the result of activities, carried out for preservation and strengthening of religious tolerance in the country. As many as 13 churches and seven synagogues are operating in the country.

All religious organizations operating in the territory of the country should be registered with the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations to obtain a legal status, while the committee doesn't register sects, religious confessions or movements.

Moreover, the International Centre for Multiculturalism, which was established in Baku in 2014, may be regarded as a concrete effort to promote the values of multiculturalism.

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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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30 September 2016 16:48 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The Azerbaijan-Russia relations are in a positive trend, Sergey Markov, Russian presidents confidant, member of the Russian Public Chamber, said at a press conference in Baku on September 30.

"Azerbaijan and Russia effectively cooperate in the field of security," Markov added.

He said the visits of Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian politicians to Baku focused on cooperation between the two countries in various fields, including energy.

Russia and Azerbaijan must do their best for energy supplies to the EU not to compete, but to get revenues, he said. For this purpose, it is necessary to coordinate Bakus and Moscows actions on the hydrocarbon prices and cooperate with Turkey as the main transit country.

The expert said the cooperation in military-technical sector is also important in strengthening relations between the two countries.

"The Russian systems are the first-class ones, moreover, they are cheaper than the US analogues," Markov added.

He said that another important direction of cooperation is the work to determine the status of the Caspian Sea, on which the two countries have similar positions.

The North-South project is also important for the two countries, Markov said. Such a safe transport corridor will bring multi-billion profits to both countries.

The issue of respect to the sovereignty of both countries is also very important, Markov said.

Russia recognizes Azerbaijans sovereign right to independently resolve the issues of power separation, Markov said, adding Azerbaijans recent referendum was devoted to this issue.

He said the 5th Baku International Humanitarian Forum was a good platform for discussing the modern challenges and problems.

The problem of refugees, which is acute for Europe today, was also discussed at the humanitarian forum, Markov said.

Daria Grevtsova, deputy director of the Russian Institute of Political Research, said that new topics, in particular, information sharing problems, journalism, were put up for discussion at the forum, held in Baku Sept. 30.

Multiculturalism was the widest topic at the forum, she said.

It is important that the number of young participants of the forum has increased, Grevtsova added. Azerbaijan can be cited as an example of multiculturalism.

The Baku International Humanitarian Forum is an annual platform for famous representatives of political, science and culture elite of the world community, including famous statesmen, Nobel Prize winners in various fields of science and leaders of influential international organizations for holding dialogues, discussions and exchange of views on a wide range of global issues in the interests of all humanity.

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30 September 2016 11:27 (UTC+04:00)

By Nigar Abbasova

Russian energy giant Gazprom received a permit to implement survey work for two lines on the offshore segment of the Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline in Turkeys territorial waters, the company reported.

Gazprom head Alexey Miller said that the work within Turkish Stream project is currently implemented at an excellent pace, underlining structural and operative interaction with the Turkish partners.

Gazprom earlier reported that it had received the first permit from Turkish authorities for construction of the offshore segment of the project.

The offshore part of the pipeline will cross the Black Sea bed, while its maximal depth along the route is expected to reach 2,200 meters. The length of the offshore part will stand at 910 km.

Turkish Stream, which is expected to bring Russian gas via the Black Sea into Turkey and southern Europe, became topical following mending of Russia-Turkey ties.

The issue was also on agenda during the meeting of Russian and Turkish Presidents in St. Petersburg on August 9, which became the first meeting after the Su-24 bomber incident, which deteriorated ties between the two countries.

One of the other obstacles that a project faced before deterioration of ties was failure of the sides to reach consent over gas price. Gazprom earlier reported judicial proceedings on the suit of Botas against Gazprom on gas prices will start in the second half of 2017.

Miller and Berat Albayrak, Energy Minister of Turkey reached an agreement on the earliest possible completion of the procedure for issuing authorizations required to launch the Turkish Stream project in August, 2016.

The Turkish Stream pipeline was announced by the Russian authorities in December 2014. Initially, it was planned that the marine section of Turkish Stream would comprise four lines with the capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters each.

The projects total cost is estimated at 11.4 billion, with the cost of the first line amounting to 4.3 billion.

Gazprom and Turkish company Botas signed the MoU on the construction of an offshore gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea in December 2014.

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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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The disposable Switch technology allows for high precision suturing of tubular (e.g. arteries) and layered structures (e.g. skin), twice as fast as the conventional technique

High precision and faster suturing provides benefits to patients as it reduces the risk of complications and results in a reduction of overall healthcare costs

Mellon will tap into an annual worldwide sutures and suturing devices market of $3bn

Mellon will introduce its technology in an 8cm Switch model, initially focusing on three vascular indications: carotid artery surgery, kidney transplant and peripheral bypass surgery

Further development of suturing devices platform allowing for suturing in most medical disciplines: micro surgery model, 10cm model, diversification in suture material, a laparoscopic model, and a robotic version

Market launch (Netherlands and Flanders) scheduled for late 2017, after completion of development and CE certification process

International market launch expected as early as 2018

Additional funding required for market introduction and the development of its micro surgery model

Nijmegen, The Netherlands, September 30, 2016 / B3C newswire / -- Mellon Medical is unveiling a patented ground breaking global innovation in suturing technology. The company has developed a platform technology for suturing with a single hand. The Switch, a disposable precision-suturing instrument, enables surgeons to suture tubular and layered structures about twice as fast as the conventional technique. The technology is expected to reduce the risk of complications, resulting in improved patient outcome and a reduction of costs. Mellon expects market introduction of the Switch  which has been successfully tested by a large number of experienced vascular surgeons  in 2017, once final development and CE certification process have been completed.

Investors in the technology include Dutch Thuja Capital, PPM Oost, Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (Brabant Development Company) and Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (Netherlands Enterprise Agency). Besides its 8 cm model, Mellon has started the development of a micro surgery-model of the Switch, designed for a.o. coronary artery and arteriovenous fistula procedures. Mellon is in talks with a number of investment parties for the financing of this model.



Platform technology

Mellon has developed a platform technology for suturing with one hand. The use of a straight needle in its device allows for suturing of all tubular and layered structures. Although market introduction is focused on vascular surgery, Mellons technology can be used in a broad range of other disciplines, like general surgery, urology, gynecology and neurosurgery. With the development of devices with varying geometries, needles and sutures and with the development of a micro surgery model, a laparoscopic and a robotic variant, Mellon can deliver the full potential of its platform.

Conventional suturing versus The Switch

Classical suturing is a complex process and takes a long time to learn. Focus is on getting control over the needle. Surgeons using conventional suturing techniques perform several coordinated motions using both hands in order to place a single suture. The needle is positioned into the needle holder and passed through the tissue, where the needle is recovered by a forceps. The needle is then repositioned into the needle holder and the process is repeated with every suture. On average, 30% of the operation time is spent on suturing.

Mellon has managed to reinvent the technique of suturing and has already received several international innovation awards for this new invention, including one from the vascular surgeon community during this years Charing Cross International Symposium for Vascular Surgery in London.

The Switch can be operated by lightly pinching the double-action buttons with thumb and index finger of one hand. The other hand is free to present the tissue to be sutured. This technique greatly improves the precision and efficiency of the suturing process, as surgeons no longer need to switch the needle between instruments and focus on getting control over the needle.

In the Switch, the needle is always secured in one of the two jaws. The predictable linear path followed by the straight needle causes less motion friction, reducing the likelihood of damage to the vessel wall and resulting in a high quality connection.

Mark Vrancken Peeters, vascular surgeon and Mellons Chief Medical Officer, commenting on the innovation: By collaborating with medical specialists, industrial designers and ergonomic experts in the development of the Switch, Mellon has been able to reinvent suturing, bringing suturing technology into the 21st century. Our mission is to improve medical procedures by providing the best possible tools. We believe our innovative platform suturing technology will improve patient outcome and reduce overall healthcare costs.

Easy to adapt

The Switch is intuitive to use and the new method is easy to learn for skilled and newly trained surgeons. The comfort of one handed suturing yields more accurate suturing in less time. Once surgeons are familiar with the device, significant time is saved during a critical phase of the vascular procedure. A pilot test with an early Switch prototype was conducted with seven vascular surgeons, after which it was concluded that performing a vascular anastomosis with the Switch prototype is 44% faster than suturing in the classical way. Through a reduction of the arterial cross-clamping time, patient outcome is expected to improve.

Pre-clinical and clinical field studies

In the process of obtaining CE mark, Mellon will perform tests on pigs, where vascular surgeons will perform vascular anastomoses with the Switch on the groin and carotid arteries. Besides documenting the ease of use and the fail safety, histological studies will have to show that suturing with the Switch is more accurate and less damaging to the vessel wall.

MedCert, Mellons Notified Body, performed a Clinical Protocol Review on Mellons Pre-clinical and Clinical Regulatory Strategy. Although it is expected that no clinical trials are needed for obtaining CE mark, Mellon will start performing clinical trials after market introduction, to prove superior accuracy and the timesaving ability of its device. The safety and performance of the Switch will be established as a result of existing research literature and the simulation of clinical practice through pig animal tests.

CE mark

Mellon will be the legal manufacturer and will apply for ISO 13485 certification within six months after closing its B-round financing which is currently underway. The Switch and its accessories are considered to be a class III medical device (EU). MedCert (Hamburg, Germany) has been appointed as Notified Body (med-cert.com) The Preclinical and Clinical Strategy has been reviewed by the Notified Body: no human studies are expected to be necessary to prove safety of the device in clinical use. The necessary safety tests, which include durability testing, usability testing, bench testing and animal (pig) testing will be performed by a Dutch CRO. Mellon plans to obtain CE mark within a year after closing of the B-round financing.

For FDA, Mellon anticipates a 510(k) pathway, assuming the FDA would accept a rationale that shows the technological characteristics of the Switch are substantially equivalent to previously listed devices for general surgical purposes (Class II). Mellon expects a Premarket Approval (PMA) for the intended use in the central circulatory system (Class III in carotid artery surgery). None of the devices listed by the FDA compete with the Switch suturing device in open vascular surgery. Clinical studies are assumed to be part of the PMA to prove safety and efficacy. Mellon plans for FDA approval within two years after obtaining CE mark.

Building a strong portfolio

Mellon will develop different dimensions of the hand-held device, to cover the whole range of vascular surgery as well as procedures in other surgical disciplines. Mellon will start with an 8 cm version for accurate suturing of blood vessels in superficial wounds, and shortly thereafter introduce an 11 cm version for delicate procedures in deep cavities (vessels of about 1 cm in diameter). Next in its product portfolio is the development of a micro-surgery model, capable of suturing smaller vessels (1 to 3 mm in diameter). Thereafter, a laparoscopic model and a reusable (electrical) model with exchangeable jaws will be developed. In parallel, Mellon intends to develop other proprietary needle-suture combinations (e.g. PDS, vicryl) that can be used in the various hand-held devices.

Visit www.mellonmedical.com for a 3D animation.



About Mellon

Mellon Medical was founded early 2013 by Lieuwke de Jong and vascular surgeon Mark Vrancken Peeters, with the objective of developing a new medical device that enables more efficient and effective suturing of tubular and layered structures. Having long been aware of the complexity of suturing such tissue through his many years of surgical practice, Vrancken Peeters strongly believed that suturing with one hand could improve the procedure and therefore patient outcome. Driven by this belief and his desire to help more than one patient at a time, he traded his career as a surgeon to achieve this mission as CMO of Mellon.

Mellons 8cm Switch, was designed to accomplish the most accurate suturing in half the time, contributing to the best possible patient outcome in vascular surgery. It is the future suturing device of choice for surgeons who conduct the most challenging procedures. In essence, all tubular and layered structures can be sutured with the Switch. It is unique, as it is the only device able to perform precise automated suturing in vascular surgery. Its main competitor is classical suturing, done with a (Castroviejo) needle holder and forceps, as both techniques use a suture thread to ligate the tissue.

Thanks to Mellons patent portfolio, consisting of four patent applications, the company has effectively protected both its current technology, as well as their future diversification, allowing for scalability of Mellons product offering.

Following a Series A funding round, investors Thuja Capital, Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (Brabant Development Company) and Participatiemaatschappij Oost Nederland (Eastern Netherlands Private Equity Company) joined as shareholders as early as May 2013, encouraged by the highly innovative nature of Vrancken Peeters idea. The first innovation loan was granted by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency in 2014.

The Management Team consists of Lieuwke de Jong, Dr. Mark Vrancken Peeters  former vascular surgeon, and Jan Benschop, and combines both valuable medical expertise and corporate, commercial as well as entrepreneurial experience. The team will be strengthened with additional experts. Mellon works with committed, trusted and creative partners, with a proven track record within the medical device industry.

Mellons four-member Supervisory Board is chaired by Jan Hendrik Egberts, entrepreneur and advisor to the venture capital, specialty pharmaceutical and medical device sectors. He was the former CEO of Octoplus, chairman of Molnlycke Healthcare Inc., and global executive board member for Johnson & Johnson Medical.

The Supervisory Board is completed by experienced life sciences entrepreneurs:

Rob de Ree  former CEO of Dezima Pharma, that was sold to Amgen in 2015 and of BMEye, that was sold to Edwards Lifesciences in 2012. Holds a seat in the Supervisory Board of Medisse and Ventinova Medical.

 former CEO of Dezima Pharma, that was sold to Amgen in 2015 and of BMEye, that was sold to Edwards Lifesciences in 2012. Holds a seat in the Supervisory Board of Medisse and Ventinova Medical. Tijn van Beek  founder and owner of Van Beek Medical in Sneek, a major dealer in laparoscopic products ranging from camera covers to suction and irrigation systems, from disposable laparoscopic instruments to reusable ones. The company was sold to Arseus Medical in 2012.

 founder and owner of Van Beek Medical in Sneek, a major dealer in laparoscopic products ranging from camera covers to suction and irrigation systems, from disposable laparoscopic instruments to reusable ones. The company was sold to Arseus Medical in 2012. Michel Briejer, PhD  partner of Dutch Venture Capital company Thuja Capital. He gained experience in a variety of senior management positions, both in the international pharmaceutical industry (Janssen Pharmaceutica and Yamanouchi), as well as in the biotech industry (Crucell).

Mellon has established an esteemed international Medical Advisory Board to provide leadership on the medical aspects of its new suturing technology. Members are world wide renowned vascular surgeons:

Prof. Willem Wisselink, MD, PhD .  Chief of the Vascular Surgery Division and Vice Chair of the Department of Surgery of VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam. He is also deputy Professor of Surgery at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

.  Chief of the Vascular Surgery Division and Vice Chair of the Department of Surgery of VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam. He is also deputy Professor of Surgery at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Prof. Jean Panneton , MD, FACS, FRCSC  Professor of Surgery and Vascular Surgery Chief and Fellowship Program Director at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, VA.

, MD, FACS, FRCSC  Professor of Surgery and Vascular Surgery Chief and Fellowship Program Director at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, VA. Prof. Ralf Kolvenbach MD, PhD, FEBVS  Director of the Department of General and Vascular Surgery, Endovascular Therapy and Phlebology at Augusta Hospital and Catholic Clinics Group, Dusseldorf, Germany. He is also a Clinical Professor of Vascular Surgery at the Heinrich-Heine University of Dusseldorf, Honorary Professor Sino-Japanese Friendship Hospital and University of Beijing, China and Professor and Co-chair of the Allied Health Profession Program at the Fliedner University in Dusseldorf.

 Director of the Department of General and Vascular Surgery, Endovascular Therapy and Phlebology at Augusta Hospital and Catholic Clinics Group, Dusseldorf, Germany. He is also a Clinical Professor of Vascular Surgery at the Heinrich-Heine University of Dusseldorf, Honorary Professor Sino-Japanese Friendship Hospital and University of Beijing, China and Professor and Co-chair of the Allied Health Profession Program at the Fliedner University in Dusseldorf. Juan Carlos Parodi, MD, PhD  Honorary professor of Surgery at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and works as Chief of Vascular Surgery at the Trinidad Hospital, san Isidro, Buenos Aires. He was formerly a professor at the Wayne State University, the Washington University School of Medicine, and the University of Miami. He pioneered the first stent graft for the treatment of aortic aneurysms in 1990. Prof. Parodi is the recipient of numerous distinctions.



Contacts

Mellon Medical

Lieuwke de Jong, CEO

Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Tel: +31 (0)24 20 22 116

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Louisiana Republican Mike Yenni is the President of Jefferson Parish and happily married with one daughter. Allegedly hes also a major closet case who has been sending some sex- texts to a teen boy he met at a Catholic high school function while on the campaign trail last year.

Via Queerty:

40-year-old Yenni and the teen, who was 17 at the time and whose name has not been released, were allegedly connected with each other by a mutual friend. The teen says he and Yenni, the former mayor of Kenner at the time, the city neighboring New Orleans, would talk on the phone and text one another regularly. As Yenni and the teens relationship deepened, he says the politician would occasionally visit him at his job at a mall food court. Once, he says, they met in the mall bathroom where the teen says Yenni gave him a pair of designer underwear. Afterwards, they shared a kiss. The texting continued, becoming more and more explicit as time progressed. In one of the texts, Yenni allegedly told the teen that he wants him naked. In another, he asked if hes worn the underwear he gave him, then says he would like him to model it for him. And in a third, he said he wanted to perform a sex act on the teen that night.

The texts were provided to WWL-TV by the teen on the condition that they not be directly quoted. The station did verify that that the texts did indeed come from Yennis personal cell phone,.

The youth, who is openly gay and is now in college, said in an interview with WWL-TV that he wants to expose Yennis behavior because he finds it disturbing.

The boy says the texts started to make him uneasy, particularly one that suggested they have a threesome with the mutual friend who initially connected them.

He asked me to go with him to his house in Oxford (Mississippi). Also, the way he would describe the sexual things he wanted to do to me. And he asked me to be a secretary or assistant in his office; that way I could be with him and not be questioned.

The age of consent in Louisiana is 17, so any sexual activity between Yenni and teen would not be illegal; however, the sexts may violate a federal law that bars the use of any telecommunications device to engage in obscene conversation with anyone under the age of 18.

The FBI is currently looking into the case.

Louisiana huh? I wonder if he knows Tony Perkins?

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Top 13 dealer tricks

Most car dealers arent really out to rip you off, but keep in mind that car dealerships are for-profit entities.
Every Friday, The Citizen features a pet available for adoption from the Finger Lakes SPCA of Central New York.

This week, we spotlight Emily and Charlotte.

Q. Who is your best friend?

A. When we arrived here we all decided we would make the nice cruelty investigator man our BFF! At the very least, he saved us from a life of misery and who knows what else. Yes indeed, we are very grateful to him!

Q. What has been your worst experience?

A. We have watched our brother and sisters get adopted by wonderful families. We are so happy for them. The worst experience either of us could now have would be to be the last puppy left  all alone. It's just too awful to think about, so we won't.

Q. If you could have a job, what would that be?

A. Given our namesakes, we think we might try our paws at being novelists! Charlotte Bronte wrote "Jane Eyre" and Emily Bronte wrote "Wuthering Heights." How hard can it be?

Q. If you could visit any place in the world, where would that be?

A. As long as we are on a Bronte theme today, we would really love to visit the Bronte Parsonage Museum  that would be in West Yorkshire, England. We don't know much about museums, but think that would be a good place to start learning.

Q. If you could meet someone famous, who would that be?

A. That would be the Bronte sisters, of course! You probably knew we were going to say that, didn't you?

Q. Do you have an interesting fact to share?

A. We do  and this is a shocker! Emily Bronte was a school teacher and she once told the children she was teaching that she preferred the school dog to any of them! We love that! Emily was a great animal lover, and her pets included several dogs and a hawk called Nero. We certainly appreciate her love of all animals, however, we feel she would have been denied tenure based on that statement! LOL!

Q. Do you have any advice for our good Citizen readers?

A. We do! Please join our shelter people and the good people from Auburn United Methodist Church on Sunday, Oct. 9, for the annual Blessing of the Animals. This will be held at the beautiful Hoopes Park at 3 p.m. All creatures are welcome. If your pet cannot attend, please bring a picture or other relic for the blessing. We may not be there, but we will be there in spirit. Rain or shine! Thank you and love, Emily, Charlotte and friends.
For the past year, Derringer Firearms in Lakeland has focused efforts on spreading We support law enforcement signs across the nation.



Now, the store's manager has launched a fundraising campaign to buy police officers new body armor and help keep officers safe.

Ashton Bardwell hopes to raise $63,000 with "Shield the Badges"

Funds will purchase armor vests for each Lakeland police officer

To donate, visit gofundme.com/shieldthebadges

With everything going on in the news lately, specifically the targeted attacks against law enforcement, it was making me really concerned about the safety for my father and my husband when they go out to work every day, said Ashton Bardwell, manager of Derringer Firearms.



Bardwells husband is a Lakeland police officer, and her father is a Polk County deputy.



Bardwell said she watched the shooting and killing of the five law enforcement officers in Dallas as it was happening on live television. She said that was the moment when she decided she wanted to do something more to protect the father of her daughter.



While we were watching it, thats probably when it really became real to me, recalled Bardwell. It became sort of an emotional project at that point in time, because I thought I dont want that to be my husband, I dont want that to be my father.



On Friday, Bardwell announced the creation of a non-profit organization called Shield the Badges. Bardwell hopes to raise $63,000 through "Shield the Badges," in order to purchase a vest for each Lakeland police officer.



The vests provide an enhanced level of ballistic protection from what officers already have. Theyll be worn on top of their uniforms during active shooter situations, and also on everyday calls when needed.



Theres lot of situations where they encounter rifle fire or guns on a normal basis, said Bardwell. I mean, just specifically, my husband has been in law enforcement for 11 years now and hes been to four different situations with people shooting at him, so it happens more than people think.



So far, Bardwell has raised $1,000. She hopes to raise the $63,000 in the next three months, so the police department can have the vests by the end of the year.



To make a donation, visit gofundme.com/shieldthebadges, or stop by Derringer Firearms to drop off a donation.

This Gofundme.com site is not managed by Bay News 9/News 13. For more information on how the site works and the rules visit http://www.gofundme.com/safety.
A book signing and discussion with "The Jaguar Man" author Lara Naughton will take place at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 12, at Auburn Public Theater, 8 Exchange St., Auburn.

Naughton's book, a recently released memoir, tells the story of her rape in the jungles of Belize when she was vacationing there.

Naughton and Gregory Bright will also present the play "Never Fight a Shark in Water" at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16, at the theater. Bright performed the play there in October 2015.

Admission to the signing and discussion is free and open to the public; admission to the play is $10-$12.

For more information, visit auburnpublictheater.org or call (315) 253-6669.
Mary Jo Pelc knew her idea was crazy. She knew that marrying her Bernese mountain dog to her friend's Lab, ticketing the public to attend and donating the proceeds to the local SPCA was crazy.

What she didn't know about her idea, though, was how many people in Auburn would get on board with it.

Sunday's Pup Nup will see Pelc, of Auburn, "give away" her 5-month-old Bernese, Ella, to Denise Brooks' Elvis, who's also 5 months old. The two women homed the puppies at about the same time.

Both dog lovers who wanted to help the Finger Lakes SPCA of CNY, Pelc and Brooks were talking about ways to do so when Brooks, of Jordan, suggested a wedding open to the public.

"I just want to help the animals," Pelc said. "It's inside my soul that I have to."

So the two went to work wedding planning.

The American Legion S-K Post No. 1324 checked off all their venue needs  namely, being dog-friendly and having a covered outdoor area in case it rains. They found their officiant in Katherine Alexander and their photographer in Chris Molloy. And, thanks to it being Halloween season, they ordered Elvis' tuxedo and Ella's surprise white outfit online.

Last week, Pelc and Brooks took another important step: Arranging Ella and Elvis' first playdate. They were very playful together, Pelc said, and will see each other regularly after Sunday's ceremony.

That afternoon, Pelc will walk Ella down the aisle to meet Elvis, who will be flanked by his best man, a black pug named Boston. Ella's sister, another Bernese named Rosie, will be the maid of honor. There will be no ring, Pelc said, but a bouquet made of dog biscuits will be part of the ceremony.

Cleanup bags will be available for canine guests, whom Pelc encourages people to bring. Their $10 ticket also gets them one free drink at the S-K Post.

After taking care of the beverage bill, Pelc said, 100 percent of proceeds from the wedding will go to the Finger Lakes SPCA of CNY. Carol Russell, executive director of the SPCA, said the shelter is grateful for Pelc and Brooks taking the initiative to help out.

"It's kind of a cute idea, and I hope they get lots of people to attend," Russell said.

Of the 40 people who've already purchased tickets, Pelc said, several have said that they won't be able to attend and just wanted to make the donation.

The rest who do come to the wedding can enter raffles for dog items and other goods and services donated by local businesses. And collecting those prizes, Pelc said, is where the Auburn community surprised her.

Coming through with donations were Petco, Walmart, Wegmans, Downtown Deli, The Copper Pig, Angelo's Pizza, Parker's Grille & Tap House, Kosta's Bar & Grill, Underground Ink and Dog Gone Workout. None of them thought Pelc and Brooks' idea was so crazy after all.

Now, Pelc believes the Pup Nup might catch on enough to become an annual event.

"It's crazy to marry two puppies. ... I can't believe what a crazy idea we came up with that people smiled and said, 'What a wonderful thing to do!'" Pelc said. "Auburn is a wonderful place as far as people being supportive."
AUBURN  Recent reports of low levels of toxins contaminating treated drinking water from Owasco Lake should be "a huge wake-up call" for political action, Auburn City Councilor Debby McCormick said Thursday.

The Auburn City Council met Thursday for an assessment of the lake, which is experiencing widespread blue-green algae blooms that have produced toxins in public water.

Through samples taken by the Cayuga County Health Department, drinking water from Owasco and Auburn has tested positive at times this past week for microcystins released by the algae. Owasco's water again tested positive Thursday  the fifth positive sampling by the town's water in the last week.

Eileen O'Connor, the county's director of environmental health, said the city's water treatment plant is doing what it can to prevent toxins from entering the water distribution system, though the facility is not designed to remove toxins.

Though the toxin levels have not reached the point of a public health concern, O'Connor told councilors that the treatment plant may not be able to handle the levels of toxins if the lake's water quality gets worse.

At the root of the issue, she said, is the runoff of phosphorous, which is a nutrient found in manure and fertilizer.

"Until something is done on a watershed basis, this is going to, unfortunately, I believe will continue," she said.

City councilors agreed that action is needed with help from the city's state and federal representatives  though the concern, as McCormick put it, is that "nobody's listening."

She said members of the Owasco Watershed Inspection Committee have approached the state Department of Environmental Conservation about concerns with phosphorus runoff.

But when the issues reach state officials in Albany, that's where the buck seems to stop, she said.

"Our drinking water means so much to our brand-new blossoming downtown restaurants, our hospital, our nursing homes," she said. "If we don't have drinking water, we don't have anything."

Auburn provides public water to residents in the city, Aurelius, Fleming Water District 6, Throop, Mentz, Brutus, Montezuma, Sennett, Springport Water District 2, Port Byron, Weedsport and Cayuga. Owasco provides water to its residents and those in the town of Fleming Water District.

During her presentation Thursday, O'Connor said the Cayuga County Board of Health is sending a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office, requesting emergency aid to address two ongoing issues that result in phosphorus runoff: Farm operational practices in need of improvement and rapidly eroding stream banks.

Councilors encouraged city officials to reach out with a similar letter, as well. Councilor Terry Cuddy said he would like to see legislation to address the phosphorus issue. He referenced recent contaminated water crises experienced in Hoosick Falls, New York and Flint, Michigan.

"We don't want another Hoosick Falls. We don't want another Flint," he said. "I'm just concerned that the more we research and the less we act, that could happen here."
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Even intermittent showers couldn't stop the engines roaring at The Strand Historic District this weekend, as the 14th annual Lone Star Rally concluded its rainy four-day run.

The fourth-largest biker fest in the nation saw thousands of attendees, all riding into Galveston Thursday through Sunday. Out of an estimated 400,000 people in attendance, according to Lone Star Rally founder Mark Gray, there were only eight arrests.

"The rally is a snowball, it just seems to get bigger and bigger," Gray says. "The rally's been kind of an anomaly because families can go, and everybody just kind of coexists. What really attributes to that is the participation of the Galveston Police, they play a very important role in how they welcome the Lone Star Rally."

Photos: 2015's Miss Lone Star Rally pageant picks a queen

Leather-clad guests crowded The Strand, where vendors offered motorcycle accessories, biker wares and fest food. The rally stretched from the historic district to Harborside, as well as down to Seawall Boulevard, where rally enthusiasts crowded island restaurants.

SEE ALSO: Motorcyclist dies in crash in Galveston

The Miss Lone Star Rally pageant chose a lady to reign over the fest Saturday evening. Live music by The Cold Hard Cash Show and Bobby Friss, poker runs, bike parades and car shows rounded up the rally.

David Allan Coe drew a massive crowd, one of the biggest in the rally's history, Gray says.

As for the food, guests were able to sample food from a forthcoming Galveston restaurant. Noted Houston restaurateur Joshua Martinez manned a booth where he sold beer and food from his upcoming restaurant space at 2021 Strand Street.

"We sold quite a bit of food, and it was an eye-opening experience. We are glad we did it. Met lots of people and now know many of our police force who came by to chat," Martinez says. "The evenings were an assault on our ear drums and next year we are gonna invest in hearing aids."

Next year's event is expected to be even bigger thanks to a potential new sponsor.

"Harley Davidson Corporation was out this year and are looking to make a big presence at next year's rally," Gray says. "It looks like they're coming out in full force."

Take a look at scenes from the 2015 Lone Star Rally in the gallery above.
CAYUGA  On Monday, Jan. 27, 2014, Cayuga's village clerk Deb Pinckney got a phone call from the Department of Public Works. Her office, they said, had been broken into.

The call came in around 11:45 a.m. when a DPW employee noticed the broken window in the back door of the building on Railroad Street. And Pinckney hurried down to take a look.

"We went in and there was glass everywhere," she recalled. "There was glass from the door and then there's a sliding glass window that separates the clerk's office and that was smashed to pieces. And the safe was open and there were papers all over the floor."

However, according to the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office, not much was missing.

Detective Lt. Brian Schenck said the investigation revealed only three things had been stolen: two rolls of stamps and a diamond pendant.

"It looked like entry was forced through a locked door on the back side of the building, the public entrance for the village office," Schenck said. "And once inside whoever was involved totally ransacked the offices ... but all they came up with were some stamps and a pendant."

"It looked more like they couldn't really find anything and just kind of made a mess of everything," Pinckney added. "They broke into a couple file cabinets and then I think when they realized there was nothing in them of interest they just kind of threw paper around."

According to Schenck, the office was last locked Saturday morning  Jan. 25, 2014  so the burglary would have happened sometime between the 25th and 27th. The alarm system wasn't working at the time, so police were not alerted to the incident until Pinckney's phone call Monday morning.

And although the sheriff's office believes there was just one person responsible, Schenck said they can't rule out multiple suspects.

"There was no evidence there that would indicate there was more than one perpetrator... but we don't know for sure," he said, noting that there were no fingerprints or physical evidence collected. "There was nothing else going on in the area of Cayuga that we would call suspicious and we never had any suspects in the case so it obviously went cold."

Still, the fact that the suspect pried open several cabinets used to store books and paperwork that had no value has lead Schenck and Pinckney to believe it was someone not familiar with the office.

"As far as I know it was the first break-in there... and I can't even think of anybody who would do that," Pinckney said. "Knowing the kind of community that we are and that there's not a lot of money around, I wouldn't think it was a local person."

Anyone with information is asked to contact Schenck at (315) 253-3545. Anonymous tips may be left at cayugacrime.com.
On Oct. 4, Massachusetts nurses will testify during a public hearing, regarding Republican Gov. Charlie Baker's proposal to allow unlicensed people to administer medication in all healthcare settings.

Here are five things to know:

1. The proposal would allow unlicensed people to administer medication in all healthcare settings, including intensive care units, acute-care hospitals and long-term care facilities.

2. Gov. Charlie Barker's Board of Registration in Nursing will host the public hearing.

3. Nurses will share their concerns about the patient safety issues posed by the proposal.

4. Currently, Massachusetts allows only licensed nurses to administer medications to patients in all settings. In two special circumstances, others can administer medications in Massachusetts.

5. The Massachusetts Nurses Association and The Massachusetts School Nurse Organization have raised serious concerns about the proposal.

"As frontline nurses, we have witnessed the impact of healthcare deregulation over the last several years and how the healthcare industry has used deregulation to degrade the quality and safety of patient care," said Donna Kelly-Williams, an obstetrical and neonatal registered nurse at Cambridge (Mass.) Hospital and president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association. "Experienced skepticism shows us that even small amounts of ambiguity in state regulations can open the door to industry misbehavior. In healthcare, that can be the difference between safe treatment and harm, between life and death."
Here are eight gastroenterologists in the news this past week.

Simon Rabinowitz, MD, a pediatric gastroenterologist, was honored by Marquis in their Who's Who biographical volumes.

The Kenneth Rainin Foundation awarded 27 grants to researchers investigating inflammatory bowel disease, including Milena Bogunovic, MD, and John Chang, MD.

Christopher Meyer, MD, was relieved of his duties by the Holzer Health System Board of Directors. Unnamed sources said Dr. Meyer was terminated Sept. 23.

Ismet Lukolic, MD, joined Seaford, Del.-based Nanticoke Physician Network Gastroenterology & Hepatology.

East Texas Medical Center added Umair Sohail, MD, to its staff.

Matt Kurien, MD, was presented with the Julie Wallace Lecture Award from the Nutrition Society for his work concerning feeding tubes.

The Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center was awarded a $20,000 grant to fund a celiac disease pilot program, the research component of which is led by Elizabeth T. Jensen, PhD, and Anca Safta, MD.
Earlier this month, more than 40 members of the American Gastroenterological Association spoke with Congressional representatives in Washington, D.C., for AGA Advocacy Day.

Here are three of the asks AGA had for Congress:

1. To support a bill that would increase funding for the NIH by $1.25 billion.

2. To increase congressional oversight of MACRA implementation. AGA members raised concerns that without increased flexibility, MACRA requirements will negatively affect small gastroenterology practices.

3. To expand the criteria to qualify as an alternative payment model under MACRA.
John C. Fang, MD, chief of the division of gastroenterology at the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City, discusses the costs and benefits of CT colonography.

Question: How has the increasing use of CT colonography impacted your practice?

Dr. John C. Fang: I don't think there's been a significant effect yet, since insurers aren't covering it. If they start covering it, it's still hard to say whether the procedure will increase or decrease our patient volumes  it could do either. It's possible that people who are now getting screened with colonoscopy will switch to getting screened by CT colonography, which would decrease our patient volume, but it's also possible that people who aren't getting screened now will begin getting screened with CT colonography, and will come to us if they find out they have polyps. We just don't know how that will balance out.

Q: What do you think about the recent push for CMS to cover CT colonography, in addition to optical colonoscopy?

JF: CT colonography is good, just not as good as optical colonoscopy, which is the gold standard  also, if virtual colonoscopy is positive, it requires colonoscopy referral for the polyp removal. But I think the bottom line is that even though we, as GI docs, may be biased to be against CT colonography, we should probably be for it, because whatever we can do to get more people screened is good, and CT colonography is likely a very effective way to screen for colorectal cancer. However, because it is relatively expensive compared to stool tests, it may not be the most cost-effective. There is also concern about what to do with incidental findings found with CT colonography, and the cost associated with evaluating them.

Q: What do you think the future of colorectal cancer screening will look like?

JF: I think it will hopefully be a menu of options, which will expand to include tests like CT colonography, blood-based tests and additional stool-based tests that are more accurate and accessible. We don't know that there will be one best test. Perhaps, the ideal situation would be a menu of all these options, and whichever one fits the patient best is the one we would do. As has been said with screening: the best test is the one that gets done
Miami Children's Health System and its affiliates, Pediatric Specialists of America and Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami, have expanded their relationship with Cerner to include revenue cycle management services.

MCHS, which implemented Cerner's EHR and integrated billing platforms systemwide, will take advantage of Cerner's business office services to manage revenue cycle operations across its 200-member employed physician group practice.

"Our long-term engagement with Cerner has already helped our health system achieve multiple clinical and financial goals, and we are optimistic about expanding our relationship," MCHS senior vice president and CIO Edward Martinez said in a prepared statement.
Test results back Thursday afternoon for the town of Owasco's treated public water showed low levels of blue-green algae toxins from a sample collected Wednesday afternoon, according to a release from the Cayuga County Health Department. The city of Auburn's treated water detected no toxins.

The town of Owasco's treated drinking water had .16 micrograms per liter of toxins, after Tuesday's samples had shown no detectable levels. This is the fifth day in a week that the town's water has had detectable levels of microcystins, toxins released from blue-green algae blooms on Owasco Lake. The town of Owasco provides public water to residents of Owasco and the town of Fleming Water District.

The health department said the levels detected are not a public health concern, and residents will be notified if it should become one. The health department will continue to test the treated water daily until no more toxins are found in the water. Samples were collected Thursday afternoon and test results are expected to be released on Friday.

Eileen O'Connor, director of Environmental Health at the county health department, said Auburn and Owasco's treatment plants have been taking measures to reduce toxin intake. She said they've increased the chlorine amounts, which kills off the toxins. They've also increased the carbon dosage to the water, and have postponed or reduced their treatment to kill of zebra mussels.

Typically zebra mussel treatment involves chlorine, and when chlorine is used outside of the water plant in the lake, the chlorine kills off the blue-green algae. Toxins are inside the blue-green algae, and are only released when the algae dies off. O'Connor said it's better to filter out the algae before it dies so it does not release the toxins.

"All the treatment plants in New York state were not designed to remove these toxins," O'Connor said. "They were designed to remove pathogens, physical particles. So the plant is trying to optimize its operation to reduce the toxins getting through, and they've been doing a good job."

For example, in untreated water, toxin levels have ranged from non detect levels to 1.3 micrograms per liter this year. The highest level of toxins detected in the treated water systems was .18 micrograms per liter.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's health advisory guidelines regarding toxins from blue-green algae state that levels of .3 micrograms per liter in children under six and 1.6 micrograms per liter for young children through adults are the levels of concern. The EPA said short-term exposure to those levels of toxins can cause damage to the liver and kidneys in both humans and animals.

Those with questions or concerns can call the county health department at (315) 253-1560. Information on blue-green algae is also available on the county's health department website at cayugacounty.us/health or its Facebook page.
Clear Lake Regional Medical Center in Webster, Texas, tapped Todd Caliva to lead as CEO, effective Oct. 24.

Here are three notes:

1. With more than 24 years of healthcare experience,, Mr. Caliva most recently served as CEO of Hospital Corporation of America-affiliated West Houston Medical Center.

2. Mr. Caliva was previously CEO of East Houston Regional Medical Center and COO of The Woman's Hospital of Texas in Houston, both a part of HCA.

3. Clear Lake Regional Medical Center, a 531-bed acute-care hospital, is a part of Houston-based HCA Gulf Coast Division.

"With solid roots in the Clear Lake area and our division, Todd's knowledge of the communitys healthcare needs will advance the strong foundation that has already been laid over 40 years," said HCA Gulf Coast Division President Troy Villarreal.
Missoula, Mont.-based Providence St. Patrick Hospital CEO Jeff Fee is stepping down from the role at the end of 2016, according to The Missoulian. He will also step down as CEO of Providence Health and Services Western Montana.

Mr. Fee has spent 10 years in the aforementioned chief executive positions at Providence. He has not announced where he will go next. Providence will not fill the CEO roles at Providence St. Patrick and Providence Western Montana. Instead the current COO of Providence Health and Services Western Montana, Joyce Dombrouski, will expand her role to cover Mr. Fee's responsibilities.



"Ten years is a long time to be in a chief executive role. When taking on the role of CEO, you sign up for things like this to happen. It comes with the territory. I've had a fantastic run and I love Montana," said Mr. Fee in a statement, according to the report.
After a seven-year effort to increase patient volumes, Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Novant Health closed Franklin Medical Center in Louisburg, N.C., last October. However, the hospital may reopen, as three healthcare organizations have submitted proposals to take over the facility, according to The News & Observer.

Franklin Medical Center has the chance to reopen due to a provision in North Carolina's 2017 budget. Previously, free-standing emergency departments were only allowed to open in counties that had a licensed hospital. Franklin Medical Center was Franklin County's only hospital, which prevented a free-standing ED from being established in the county after the hospital closed. However, the budget permits free-standing EDs to open as long as there is a licensed hospital in an adjoining county.

Raleigh, N.C.-based WakeMed Health and Hospitals, Brentwood, Tenn.-based Duke LifePoint Healthcare and Franklin County Healthcare Hospital and Practice Accountable Development Group in Louisburg have all submitted proposals to reopen Franklin Medical Center.

WakeMed would invest nearly $27 million into the facility and open a triage center with laboratory and radiology services. The system also wants to increase the number of mental health beds at the hospital, according to the report.

Duke LifePoint would spend between $22.8 million and $24 million to renovate Franklin Medical Center. The system wants to open an emergency department and provide diagnostic imaging services. It would also add 13 geriatric mental health beds.

Franklin County Healthcare proposed reopening the facility as an acute care hospital.

The Franklin County Board of Commissioners is expected to approve a proposal by Oct. 24, according to the report.

More articles on healthcare industry transactions:

Steward secures $1.25B investment to fund expansion, pay off debt

CHS explores sale of its business
The National Labor Relations Board Office of General Counsel has decided to move forward with a consolidated labor complaint against Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems, as well as the hospital operator's 38-hospital spinoff, Brentwood, Tenn.-based Quorum Health Corp., according to a National Nurses United release.

The complaint, issued by the NLRB earlier this week, consolidates 11 charges, covering 50 alleged unfair labor practices, filed against CHS, and five hospitals staffed by registered nurses affiliated with National Nurses United, the union said. The hospitals are: Massillon, Ohio-based Affinity Medical Center, Bluefield (W. Va.) Regional Medical Center, Ronceverte, W.Va.-based Greenbrier Valley Medical Center, Barstow (Calif.) Community Hospital, and Watsonville (Calif.) Community Hospital.

The union alleges CHS "has engaged in rampant and serious unfair labor practices at all of these locations, including terminating RN leaders in a wide-scale attempt to weaken support for the union and forestall reaching initial collective bargaining agreements."

According to National Nurses United, the NLRB also issued a national complaint against CHS less than a year ago for numerous alleged labor violations at the five hospitals. The most recent complaint marks the first time the NLRB has named Quorum in alleged labor infractions associated with CHS, according to National Nurses United. Quorum purchased the CHS hospitals in Ohio and California cited in the complaint earlier this year.

The union said the NLRB trial for the earlier complaint began in February and is currently underway in hearings being held and planned across the country, including in Nashville, Tenn. The NLRB has not scheduled the trial or hearings for this newest complaint but they are expected to take place after the current trial is complete.

Tomi Galin, senior vice president of corporate communications and marketing for CHS, confirmed that hearings are underway before an NLRB administrative law judge. In an emailed statement to Becker's Hospital Review, Ms. Galin said CHS and the named hospitals "are vigorously contesting allegations of the National Labor Relations Board's general counsel related to accusations by" National Nurses United.

"The [newest] complaint referenced ... is simply a reiteration of accusations which the administrative law judge rightly did not allow the NLRB's general counsel to add to the ongoing hearings. It is merely a procedural step taken by the NLRB's general counsel," she said.
Nearly 3,150 former patients have filed a lawsuit against Derby, Conn.-based Griffin Hospital, claiming several hospital employees reused the same insulin injection pens on multiple patients, according to the CTPost.

The former patients suing the hospital, represented by lawyer Ernest Teitell, claim the incident sparked episodes of emotional distress.

Griffin Hospital CEO Patrick Charmel set a letter to 3,149 former patients in 2014 explaining that insulin pens purchased for patients hospitalized between September 2008 and May 2014 had been misused.

While the pen-like injector may be reused provided a new, sterile safety needle is in place, it is possible that the pen's insulin cartridge may be contaminated with blood or skin cells, potentially transmitting infections such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV if used on another patient, according to the article.

The hospital has offered free testing for former patients. Any patient who tested positive for one of the three bloodborne diseases and did not exhibit symptoms prior to their potential exposure at Griffin would be offered free treatment, according to the article.

While hospital officials recognized five nurses that had been incorrectly administering the medication, the lawsuit claims as many as 11 hospital employees were involved. According to the lawsuit, employees improperly removed the patient identification labels on the pens to reuse them in some cases.

"We brought this case in order to hold Griffin Hospital accountable for the clearly systematic unsafe practices that occurred for a more than five-and-a-half-year period," Mr. Teitell told the CTPost.

Becker's Hospital Review has reached out to Griffin Hospital for a comment.
Legislation that would send billions of dollars to the National Institutes of Health has been placed on the agenda for the lame-duck session after the November elections, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Here are four things to know about the legislation.

1. Both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) put it on the agenda for the session.

2. If approved, the legislation would infuse billions of dollars into federal biomedical research and ease drug approvals, according to the article.

3. However, the publication notes that the exact form that any medical research legislation will take is unclear due to various moving parts.

4. One of those moving parts is differences between the House and Senate measures. According to The Wall Street Journal, the House passed its bill in July 2015 and the Senate legislation was approved in committee in 2016. The House bill would increase NIH funding by $8.75 billion over five years and expedite FDA approvals, the publication states. Safety-advocates argued certain provisions would lower safety standards. In May, such opposition slowed Senate action on a related bill. There are also disagreements as to how the new funds will be allocated.

More articles on health law:

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UnitedHealthcare subsidiary Harken Health is pulling out of 2017 Affordable Care Act exchanges in Illinois and Georgia, Chicago Tribune reports.

In Illinois, the exchange exit follows that of payers Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna, Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealthcare and Chicago-based Land of Lincoln Health co-op, which shuttered in July.

The only other area where Harken offered exchange plans is Atlanta, but the insurer will exit the exchange there in 2017.

Harken did not say how many people will be affected, according to the report. A recent rate filing with Illinois officials showed the insurer proposed rate increases affecting 22,845 individuals for next year.

In an emailed statement to Becker's Hospital Review, Harken said it "remains committed to our innovative model of insurance paired with access to relationship-based care and we look forward to continuing to offer plans to individuals and employers who purchase coverage outside of the exchange."

More articles about payer issues:

CHRISTUS Health Plan to offer ACA plans in Texas

Centene looks to hire 100 in Arizona

CaliforniaChoice launches 2 small group plans
The Therapeutic Goods Administration of Australia approved AxioMed's Freedom Viscoelastic Disc Replacement technology.

Here are five points:

1. AxioMed may now market and sell its cervical and lumbar viscoelastic total disc replacement technology in Australia.

2. The approval takes effect, immediately.

3. The technology is a next-generation disc replacement system, restoring natural disc height, stability and motion of the spine.

4. AxioMed President Jake Lubinski is meeting with surgeons in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne to discuss the Freedom Disc's benefits in October.

5. The company possesses an exclusive viscoelastic material license on its proprietary Freedom Disc technology.
Zimmer Biomet Spine will present clinical data on its Aspen MIS Fusion System and the Timberline Systems at the Congress of Neurological Surgeons' annual meeting.

Here are five highlights:

1. The company will feature three studies, which yielded positive results for the less invasive treatment methods for degenerative disc disease and spondylolisthesis.

2. The "Interspinous Process Fixation versus Pedicle Screw Fixation in Circumferential Arthrodesis: Outcomes from a Prospective Randomized Multi-Center Trial" study focuses on the Aspen MIS Fusion System.

3. The Timberline MPF Lateral Fixation System and Aspen MIS Fusion System are featured in the "Lateral Lumber Interbody Fusion with Integrated Lateral Modular Plate Fixation: Intraoperative and Follow-Up Outcomes" study.

4. The "Anterior Versus Lateral Circumferential Lumbar Arthrodesis: Outcomes from a Prospective Multi-Center Study" study highlights the Timberline Lateral Fusion System and Aspen MIS Fusion System.

5. The meeting runs from Sept. 24 to Sept. 28 in San Diego.
Here are 10 key notes on orthopedic and spine device companies over the past week.

Nebraska will be the second state in the nation to cover minimally invasive SI joint fusions using the SI-BONE iFuse Implant System.

Implanet generated revenue of 4.094 thousand, representing a 24 percent increase from the same time period in 2015.

Zimmer Biomet pledged up to $100,000 in matching funds to the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation.

Zimmer Biomet leads the global hip and knee surgical implants market, which is expected to hit $33 billion by 2022.

Amendia introduced its new spondylolisthesis reduction system for commercial launch.

St. Paul, Minn.-based Spineology expanded its relationship with Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation, a tissue bank.

Orthobiologics company Cerapedics completed a Series D financing round totaling $11 million.





The Therapeutic Goods Administration of Australia approved AxioMed's Freedom Viscoelastic Disc Replacement technology.

The Centers for Musculoskeletal Disorders in Englewood, N.J., installed Mazor Robotics' Renaissance system.

Regentis Biomaterials recently received FDA approval to begin a phase III clinical study of GelrinC, a treatment for focal cartilage defects in the knee.
A Moravia man has been charged with two felonies after he broke into a residence in the town of Locke and lead state police on a roughly seven-hour-long pursuit, state police said.

Troopers said Steven Seamans, of 2386 Route 41A, broke into a Locke home Wednesday around 10 a.m. before fleeing the scene on a friend's four-wheeler.

A Cayuga County sheriff's deputy was reportedly in the area when he witnessed the 56-year-old fleeing the residence and began a brief pursuit. At that time, troopers said, Seamans drove the four-wheeler into a corn field off of Hoag Avenue and fled into the woods on foot.

Two state police units and a helicopter then joined the search for Seamans, which lasted until he surrendered around 5 p.m.

Seamans was charged with second-degree burglary and third-degree intimidating a victim. He was arraigned before Judge Philip Franklin in Locke Justice Court and remanded to Cayuga County Jail without bail.

Troopers said the defendant  who has an extensive criminal history  was currently on parole. A preliminary hearing has been set for Oct. 5.
Here five spine surgeons weigh in on what needs to change in the U.S. health insurance industry.

Ask Spine Surgeons is a weekly series of questions posed to spine surgeons around the country about clinical, business and policy issues affecting spine care. We invite all spine surgeon and specialist responses.





Next week's question: How will biologics grow over the next five years?





Please send responses to Anuja Vaidya at avaidya@beckershealthcare.com by Wednesday, Oct. 5, at 5 p.m. CST.

Question: How can the insurance industry be re-structured to be more effective?

Ray Oshtory, MD, MBA, Pacific Heights Spine Center, San Francisco: There was a unique opportunity to align incentives with the passage of the PPACA, but unfortunately those opportunities got ignored or stripped out of the law. The majority of the profits in the healthcare economy go to the pharmaceutical and device industry. The reason is simple and is unique to the U.S. healthcare system: the payer (insurance) is separate from the decision maker (doctor) who is separate from the beneficiary (patient). The doctor has no incentive to prescribe cheaper drugs or use cheaper devices because it does not cost the doctor anything. The patient has no incentive to ask for a cheaper drug or implant because their insurance is picking up the tab. The insurance company has the incentive to save money but little power to do so without upsetting their customer, the patient, or their contracted providers, the doctors.

The way to save money in healthcare is to align incentives. For example, one suggestion might be to pay the doctors for the drugs and implants, then have the doctors buy these products when they are prescribed or implanted. You would see prices drop in half overnight with such a system. This type of model is used in dentistry which is done typically on an outpatient basis in the dentist's office. Identical products will cost a fraction of what they cost when used in a hospital because it is in the dentist's best interest to use cheaper products to save money or to negotiate lower rates, as they have to buy all of the products used in their offices, and most people do not have dental insurance. This basic model is used in virtually every other industry in this country.

Obviously, many policies would have to be changed because such a model currently is illegal due to Stark, anti-kickback and anti-self-referral laws. Medicare's bundled payment program has suspended these laws for their pilot program, likely because they see the inherent flaws in such arbitrary rules. But we cannot fall into the same flawed reasoning that doctors will intentionally prescribe less effective drugs just to save money. We went into this business to help our patients, and that is what we will continue to do.

Brian R. Gantwerker, MD, The Craniospinal Center of Los Angeles: Besides the inevitable collapse of the ACA with the withdrawal of payers from the exchanges, we would need to first re-connect the authorization and payment periods of processing claims. Next a payer-physician ombudsman must be established where physicians can go to state their cases and be heard when payers are not following their own contracted policies, which is pretty much all the time.

Medicare needs to be restructured and the MAC organizations must be held accountable to their behavior as well. If they are doing a poor job, or a complaint be made against them, a hotline should be established. It is easy for patients to call and complain about hospitals and physicians, so why should there not be something analogous to the people they pay for servicing their patients?

Rolando Garcia, MD, Orthopedic Care Center, Aventura, Fla.: The key issue in the future is a refocus on coverage and not on insurance. The real reason we all need insurance is that in case we have a medical need we can get access to safe and efficient medical care. The illusion of universal coverage with limited or nonexistent coverage is and will remain a major problem. Even those who currently participate in large insurance plans are often denied coverage based on biased and often dated policies clearly designed to cut cost. In the future, coverage on all insurance plans must be determined based on objective criteria as determined by practicing physicians and with the help of specialty societies.

J. Brian Gill, MD, MBA, Nebraska Spine Hospital, Omaha: Not sure if I can answer this in a couple of sentences as entire careers have been devoted to this topic without a solution. I do think moving towards value-based care focusing on cost, quality and outcome metrics is a step in the right direction. Risk sharing, bundled payments, capitation per lives covered are all components of the next healthcare model as the current fee-for-service model is not sustainable.

Working with our local insurance providers can lead to change. If we as physicians don't present an alternative model then one will be chosen for us under certain conditions that do not favor physicians and further compromises the care that we provide.

Vladimir Sinkov, MD, New Hampshire Orthopaedic Center, Nashua: The health insurance industry will be much more effective, efficient and cheap if it is forced to face the same economic and competitive pressures as the rest of the industries in a capitalist system. Current insurance mergers are creating monopolies.

Inability of insurance companies to sell their products across the state lines decreases competition. Anti-trust law exemptions allow health insurances to collude and lower physician reimbursements. For the most part, the true consumers of the commercial health insurance products in the U.S. are employers. This puts the patients completely out of control in terms of deciding what insurance product to have.

To my knowledge, no other individual insurance industry in the U.S. "enjoy" such protections that allow them to maximize profits while not being under much pressure at all to provide good quality products for patients or work efficiently and fairly with physicians.
Thomas C. Schuler, MD, FACS is the CEO and founder of Reston-based Virginia Spine Institute. In addition to leading the nationally-recognized practice since 1992, Dr. Schuler is also credited with performing the first hybrid multi-level cervical artificial disc replacement with spinal fusion in the nation.

He talked with Becker's about his experience performing cervical arthoplasty, his experience as a patient, and about the future of the field.

Question: After performing your first disc replacement with spinal fusion, is there anything you do differently, now that you've had time to reflect?

Dr. Thomas Schuler: The only thing I do differently now is that I use a device that provides more variable sizes to accommodate different sized patients. The challenge with the Bryan disc that I used in my first hybrid case is that it only has one height, which makes it difficult to insert in smaller patients. This is critical for female patients, since many women have smaller discs.

The first one I did was on a woman, and a smaller implant may have been a better option for her. We used the Bryan, which is a great disc, but it only has one height. If the predetermined height doesn't fit your candidate, then you have to remove more bone to make room for the disc, which isn't optimal. Whereas the Mobi-C disc gives you flexibility in height, and hopefully future generations have even more options, rather than trying to have one implant fit all patients.

Question: How does having the perspective of being a patient allow you to relate to your patients?

TS: Its an enormous benefit. As surgeons we tell our patients what to expect, but if we havent lived through it first-hand, we cant fully understand the recovery process and healing.

Patients often inquire what I would do if I had their problem and needed treatment. The answer is simple. I would have surgery, and I did. For years this has been a theoretical answer for me, now I have a true first-hand answer. I had to make the choice that the patients have asked me for years: What would you do if this was you or a loved one?

This experience has enhanced my knowledge of what patients go through and increased my level of empathy immensely. More specifically, surgeons grossly underestimate how long it takes a patient to recover from a surgery. In reality, for many surgical procedures patients will continue to improve for two years after surgery. That was the biggest thing that I learned through the process. Having undergone several spine and hip surgeries has drastically changed my approach in counseling patients on what to expect postoperatively. Understanding recovery timelines is essential when I am treating professional athletes as well as amateurs. Patients love that I can relate to their impending experience.

Question: Do you think regenerative therapy will ever come to a point where it could surpass surgery as the primary treatment option?

TS: From a volume standpoint, absolutely! As we develop more advanced technology in regenerative treatments and our results prove successful, more patients will seek out this latest alternative to surgery.

When we determine the optimal approach and right combination, there will be far more people that can be treated with regenerative treatments as opposed to surgery. However, some people will still need surgery when it is the appropriate treatment for more advanced or severe conditions than regenerative therapy can treat.

For example, we're utilizing stem cell therapy to heal injured discs. It's a promising option in patients when surgery is not a good option. The future may reveal this as a better option than fusion surgery for patients suffering from severe neck or back pain.

Question: What do you think is the future of spinal surgery?

TS: The future is bright for spinal health care. The challenge is getting third-party payers and the government to agree that the expenditure is worthwhile. Although patients report that these treatments are life-improving, the government and third party payers are looking for ways not to pay for care and as a result are denying care. Payers want all procedures to be proven, prospective and randomized, but that's not realistic or ethical when it comes to spine patients.

It's our responsibility as established surgeons to produce appropriate outcomes data and to document the efficacy of spine surgery so that patients will have access to it. This is the exact mission I am leading as president of the Spinal Research Foundation.

As physicians, we need to continue to practice quality care, make quality decisions and perform precise surgical procedures to achieve success. If we do that, we can vastly improve patients lives with the minimally invasive and regenerative treatments we have available. Do what's best for the patients and spinal healthcare will thrive.

Learn more from Dr. Schuler at the 15th Annual Spine, Orthopedic & Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference + The Future of Spine in June 2017! Click here for more information.

More health news:

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Sri Lanka on Friday reportedly announced that it is pulling out of the SAARC Summit as the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the event. The move comes after Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan decided to stay away from the 19th Summit to be held in Islamabad on November. Notably, Sri Lanka is the fifth country to boycott the summit after India conveyed its inability to participate in the event due to Uri attack.
London mayor Sadiq Khan has called a proposed hike in business rates "a real kick in the teeth" for the capital's companies.

London is set to bear the brunt of a major review of business rates, which will see bills fall in every other region.

On average business rates across London will rise by an average of 11%.

But some companies are expecting to see their bills potentially double, with detailed valuations due to be published on Friday.

Mr Khan said: "The one thing London businesses don't need post-Brexit is a business rates hike.

"This will serve as a real kick in the teeth for tens of thousands of companies in the capital who are still digesting the recent vote to leave the European Union."

He said the hikes could hamper growth, and called for the bills to be phased in more slowly than is being proposed by the Government.

Mr Khan added: "I will also be lobbying for the additional tax that the Government will force London businesses to pay to be kept in the capital.

"What we need is true devolution of this and many other taxes, with genuine protections for business, so that local government can be properly funded and business does not have to face huge increases year on year."

London's businesses face an increase in bills worth 885 million.

The move will be cost neutral, though, with this extra income offset by cuts to rates elsewhere in the country.

The changes are based on revaluations of premises on 2015 rent levels rather than those in 2008, with London rents having risen far faster than those elsewhere.

The Government will fund transitional arrangements for those companies set to bear the brunt of the change.

London retailers will be worst hit, with their bills set to rise by 14% on average.

Office bills in the capital are set to rise by 10%, and premises used for industry by 4%.

For those businesses that face an increase in their bills, any rise will be capped at 5% in the first year for small properties.

Those businesses facing an increase will have their bills subsidised initially from a transitional fund worth 3.4 billion.

London will benefit more than anywhere else in the country from the transitional relief scheme.

Councillor Claire Kober OBE, chairwoman of the London Councils group of local authorities, said London's 33 councils had already set aside 1.3 billion to fight business rates appeals - which will be made even worse by these changes.

She added: "These new figures further vindicate our argument for a separate, devolved rates system for London which benefits both councils and businesses.

"Decoupling London from the rest of the country would enable us to manage the system more effectively, preventing much-needed funds being trapped in the appeals process and putting an end to businesses paying an ever higher share of England's rates.

"As huge bills hit doormats next year, we know a fresh round of appeals will be inevitable."

Local Government Minister Marcus Jones said: "This Government is cutting business rates. Yet local firms also need to be confident that the rates they pay are accurate and fair, no matter where they are in country, and these updates will give them that reassurance.

"We are committed to helping all businesses flourish and as we make the system fairer up and down the country, nearly three quarters of companies will see no change, or even a fall, in their bills - including 600,000 who from next April will have their bills cut altogether.

"But for the small minority of businesses that do face an increase, we're putting in place 3.4 billion of transitional relief to provide vital support as they adjust to these fair and impartial changes."
Deutsche Bank shares staged a dramatic recovery on Friday afternoon after reports emerged that it could only have to stump up 5.4 billion US dollars (4.1 billion), rather than 14 billion US dollars (10.5 billion), as part of a US Department of Justice settlement.

The German lender's shares had slipped to 9.98 euro at one point, their lowest level since the 1980s, but recovered and were trading 7.5% up at 11.70 euro in afternoon trading.

Deutsche's US shares were 12.89% up at 12.96 US dollars.

The morning collapse followed reports overnight that 10 hedge funds had reduced their exposure to the lender and have taken their business elsewhere.

The news spooked investors, who continued a dramatic sell-off until late in the day, when a fresh report by Agence France-Presse suggested that a 14 billion US dollar (10.5 billion) settlement proposal, linked to the sale of mortgage-backed securities during the financial crisis, may be reduced to 5.4 billion US dollars.

Jasper Lawler, analyst at CMC markets, said: "Deutsche Bank shares recovered all of the day's sharp losses on rumours the fine will be announced at the weekend as 5.4 billion dollars.

"Even at 5.4 billion dollars, Deutsche Bank would likely to raise capital, though the size may make a rights issue more palatable and makes a government bailout much less likely."

Prior to the rally, chief executive John Cryan was forced to write an open letter to staff, saying that the news about hedge funds has sparked "unjustified concerns".

"We should consider this in the context of the bigger picture: Deutsche Bank overall has more than 20 million clients.

"I understand if you feel concerned by the extensive coverage on this issue. Our bank has become subject to speculation. Ongoing rumours are causing significant swings in our stock price.

"It is our task now to prevent distorted perception from further interrupting our daily business. Trust is the foundation of banking. Some forces in the markets are currently trying to damage this trust."

The rollercoaster rise was described by the chief executive of the Berlin stock exchange as investors "playing with dynamite".

Artur Fischer blamed a disconnect between perception and reality for the dramatic plunge in the bank's share value.

Asked on BBC Radio 4's World At One if the markets were playing with fire, Mr Fischer said: "Definitely. You could say playing with dynamite."

As share prices in the troubled bank continued to tumble, Mr Fischer said: "The market bets that the German government will do a bailout even though there is no need for that at this point in time at all.

"We have a disconnect between perception and reality. Reality is what you have in the balance sheet of Deutsche ... they have three times as much capital than what the share value is, so the reality is actually much better than the perception. But the perception at the end counts, so people act on perception."
A human rights organisation has called for a Northern Ireland company to stop training security forces in Bahrain amid concerns about torture.

Reprieve wants NI-CO, which is owned by Invest NI, to suspend its contract because police and prison officers in the Middle Eastern state systematically abuse government opponents.

The group also wants NI-CO (Northern Ireland Co-operation Overseas) to stop work with Bahrain's interior ministry until the government ratifies international laws against torture and allows independent UN inspections.

There is no suggestion anyone from NI-CO is complicit in the alleged torture.

But a report by Reprieve entitled Belfast To Bahrain: The Torture Trail said: "Ministers in NI have urgent questions to answer about the company's activities and the lack of oversight Stormont exercises over NI-CO.

"The company has trained forces who are accused of torturing people to confess to charges that carry the death penalty, as well as supporting institutions that have failed to investigate the abuse."

NI-CO has worked with Bahrain's police, prison guards and ombudsman's office for years and was awarded a 900,000 contract by the Foreign Office to promote human rights reform in Bahrain in 2015, Reprieve said.

No one from NI-CO was immediately available for comment.
The completed Hagan Homes development in Carrick, which has been purchased by the Habinteg Housing Association

One of Northern Ireland's ghost estates has been finished and sold for 2.3m almost 10 years after the property market crash, developers have announced.

Work on the Scotch Quarter in Carrickfergus began in 2008, but was abandoned just a year later after the market for homes failed to recover.

Now, almost a decade later, new developer Hagan Homes has completed the 24-unit scheme of one and two-bed apartments after taking over development last year.

The company announced yesterday that the Habinteg Housing Association, which specialises in homes for disabled people, had bought the project for just under 2.3m - or approximately 96,000 per house.

The homes will be rented to elderly people.

Jamesy Hagan, managing director at Hagan Homes, said: "The previous owners of the Scotch Quarter site in Carrickfergus started construction in 2008, but unfortunately had to suspend all development due to the property crash.

"This meant that the site became an eyesore in a prominent location in the town.

"When Hagan Homes acquired the site and started work on it in 2015, the local community reacted positively.

"They recognised that Hagan Homes builds affordable, quality, stylish homes and that we achieve this by appointing award-winning architects, interior designers and craftspeople.

"Habinteg Housing Association expressed an interest in purchasing the completed development because they felt the accommodation was in line with their ethos of providing high-quality housing for local communities.

"Habinteg had recently acquired properties at our Fort Hall development in Dundonald, and during this sale we were impressed with their approach and attention to detail, so it was a natural fit in terms of the acquisition of the Carrick development."

Ghost estates became a hallmark of the property crash in the Republic, although there were relatively few in Northern Ireland.

At the worst of the crash, more than 120,000 homes across the island were empty and in various states of progress after developers ran out of money and were unable to finish projects.

The impact was so severe that the Republic appointed a government minister just to deal with the problem.

In 2011, the Housing Executive estimated that up to 5,000 houses across Northern Ireland remained unfinished because of the devastating collapse of the property market.

Four years ago, two Co Down couples spoke out about what was branded Northern Ireland's worst ghost estate - Quoile Crescent in Downpatrick.

The houses have since been completed, but some remain empty.

Habinteg Housing Association manages 2,000 properties across more than 100 sites.

Development manager Andrew Corkill said the deal was part of the organisation's plans to expand its portfolio

"The purchase of the Scotch Quarter development for active elderly accommodation helps us realise our vision through reducing the housing need in this area and strengthening the community by providing home for all,"he explained..

Co Antrim firm Hagan Homes is one of Northern Ireland's largest house-builders.

The family-run company has built almost 3,300 houses across the region since it was established 28 years ago.
Houses in south London and the skyline of the City financial district

Sadiq Khan has ordered an inquiry into the scale and impact of foreign investment in the London housing market amid fears over a potential "surge" in money flowing in from overseas.

The Mayor of London said there was an urgent need for more transparency around the flow of offshore investment in property to ensure the capital is not being flooded with "dirty money".

Spiralling prices in parts of central London have left many unable to get a foot on the property ladder, leading to concerns over gentrification and the creation of "ghost towns" where swathes of foreign-owned real estate lies empty.

The inquiry will map how the problem is affecting the capital, from the building of affordable homes to luxury developments, and attempt to examine who is investing and where the money comes from.

Mr Khan told the Guardian that foreign investment in building new homes was welcome.

"At the same time, as more and more Londoners struggle to get on the property ladder, there are real concerns about the prospect of a surge in the number of homes being bought by overseas investors," he said.

"We urgently need more transparency around overseas money invested in London property.

"Londoners need reassuring that dirty money isn't flooding into our property market, and ministers must now make all property ownership in London transparent so we can see exactly who owns what."

Mr Khan made his comments as property website Zoopla revealed that over 666,000 homes across the UK are now estimated to be worth at least 1 million, with nearly two thirds of those in London.

The rapid rise of property prices in the capital fuels interest from overseas investors, with the Chinese said to be the biggest buyers.

According to the Guardian, a booming middle class in China is expected to quadruple the amount of money it pours into the UK annually to 150 billion over the next 10 years.

"It's clear we need to better understand the different roles that overseas money plays in London's housing market, the scale of what's going on, and what action we can take to support development and help Londoners find a home," Mr Khan said.

"That's why we are commissioning the most thorough research on this matter ever undertaken in Britain - the biggest look of its kind at this issue - so we can figure out exactly what can be done."
UK stocks were on a rollercoaster ride on Friday amid speculation over investor confidence in German lender Deutsche Bank.

The FTSE 100 Index closed 0.3% or 20.9 points lower at 6899.3, paring losses after dropping as low as 6809.5 earlier in the session.

Meanwhile, sterling rose to 1.30 against the US dollar, and to 1.156 against the euro, after positive economic news out of the UK including an upward revision of second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP).

German-listed shares in Deutsche Bank spiked in afternoon trading after reports emerged that it may only have to stump up 5.4 billion US dollars (4.1 billion), rather than 14 billion US dollars (10.5 billion), as part of a US Department of Justice settlement linked to the sale of mortgage-backed securities during the financial crisis.

The German lender's shares had slipped to 9.98 euro at one point, their lowest level since the 1980s, but recovered and traded 6.5% up at 11.57 euro in afternoon trading.

Jasper Lawler, a market analyst at CMC Markets, said: "Deutsche Bank shares recovered all of the day's sharp losses on rumours the fine will be announced at the weekend as 5.4 billion US dollars.

" Even at 5.4 billion US dollars, Deutsche Bank would (be) likely to raise capital, though the size may make a rights issue more palatable and makes a government bailout much less likely."

The news aided a recovery in European stocks, with the German Dax closing higher by 1.01% and the French Cac 40 rising 0.1%.

In oil markets, Brent crude hit five-week highs to hover near 50 US dollars per barrel.

Investors were still cheering Opec's tentative agreement to cut oil production levels, reached at an energy summit earlier this week.

In UK stocks, house builders topped the FTSE 100, buoyed by news of strong service sector performance in July, and an upward revision in second-quarter GDP to 0.7% from 0.6%.

Barratt Developments shares jumped 21.4p to 494.3p, Persimmon shares rose 74p to 1815p, Taylor Wimpey rose 4.1p to 154.1p, and Travis Perkins rose 28p to 1544p.

However, s hares in outsourcing giant Capita plunged for a second straight session, dropping more than 28p or 4% to 670p after plummeting 26% on Thursday.

It came after the company said pre-tax profits would come in at between 535 million and 555 million for the full year, compared with previous forecasts of 614 million.

JP Morgan, Panmure and Investec all downgraded their price targets for Capita on Friday.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) shares fell 1.7p to 178.8p after the bank announced that it would complete the ring-fencing of its retail banking operations by the end of 2018.

The lender, which is still 73% owned by the Government, is required to separate its investment banking operations from its high street arm by 2019.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Barratt Developments up 21.4p to 494.3p, Persimmon up 74p to 1815p, Marks and Spencer up 10p to 331.1p, and Taylor Wimpey up 4.1p to 154.1p.

The biggest losers on the FTSE 100 were Capita down 28p to 670p, Rio Tinto down 59.5p to 2574.5p, Sky down 16.5p to 894p, and St James's Place down 17p to 948p.
General Motors' ambitions for its Indian business were on display Tuesday as it unveiled the new, liquefied natural gas version of the compact Chevrolet Spark in Mumbai, where the company is fighting to gain a bigger share of a largely untapped car market.

But GM's painful reorganization in the U.S. has cut off an important source of funding to fuel its global expansion, particularly in the small but growing car markets of India and Thailand, where GM has planned $645 million in factory expansions.

GM's regional businesses haven't been able to get financial support from their U.S. parent company since the Detroit-based automaker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on June 1.

That's not a problem for GM's profitable Chinese business, but it means the Thai and Indian divisions have to scramble to secure new funding, said Johan Willems, vice president for communications for GM's Asia Pacific operations.

In China, GM is sticking with a five-year plan to double annual sales to 2 million units, roll out 30 new or updated models, and add a factory.

In Thailand, GM plans to spend $445 million to build a diesel engine plant and upgrade its existing factory in the eastern seaboard province of Rayong.

The automaker's Indian business is midway through constructing a $200 million powertrain factory in Talegaon, about two hours outside Mumbai.

Willems said India and Thailand are "two very rapidly developing countries. That's why we need to put investment in place for future growth." That money, he said, "would have come from the mother company out of the U.S."

Now, it can't.

GM executives say they are confident they'll be able to cobble together adequate funding to keep the Thai and Indian expansion plans on track, using revenues from domestic operations, bank loans, and money from other foreign divisions, like China, where GM is a market leader. But they declined to reveal details.

That funding could prove crucial as the company fights to bolster its weak presence in India's promising auto market and transform Asia into a bigger production base.

Sales in India rose about 10 percent last year, to 65,702 cars, but the company is still a distant fifth to market leader Maruti Suzuki, which sold 711,818.

"We're a challenger," said Karl Slym, president and managing director of GM India.

Today, GM sells seven Chevrolet brands in India, but the Spark has been most successful, accounting for about half of cars sales last year.

Globally, GM has sold 3.5 million Spark cars in 100 markets. The version unveiled Tuesday is GM's first clean-burning liquefied natural gas car in India. GM has already launched an LPG version of the Spark in Italy.

Even before GM decided to hive off non-performing brands like the gaz-guzzling, military-style Hummer SUV, it planned to grow the percentage of vehicles manufactured in Asia from 30 percent to 40 percent.

China, India, and Korea will likely play a "major role" in small car manufacturing for the leaner, smarter GM that many hope will emerge from bankruptcy proceedings in a few months, Willems said.

"Building small cars needs to be done in a cost-effective way," he said, adding that to do so profitably in the U.S., where costs are higher, requires significant volume.

GM has already invested over $1 billion in India. The company's two automobile factories can churn out 225,000 cars a year, far more than it sells domestically.

Executives said Tuesday that they don't plan to layoff any of their 4,000 workers in India and are on schedule to expand the number of dealerships from 104 at the end of 2007 to 245 by the end of 2009.

GM also plans to launch a new "global minicar" in India by year's end, to be quickly followed by versions in Europe and other Asian markets, Slym said.

Slym said the mini car would cost around 400,000 rupees ($8,000)  about four times as much as the ultra-cheap Tata Nano, which is scheduled to hit India's streets in July.

But he added that for the new GM to flourish, it has to turnaround its U.S. business.

Asia, he said, "can certainly help, but I don't think it can lead."
Paddy Doody, from the Henderson Group, Claire McCollum and Derek Hall from Tearfund hoping to raise 165,000 to provide 1 million meals for families in West & Central African countries.

Henderson Group, owner of Spar brands in Northern Ireland, has announced the support for Christian international aid and development agency, Tearfund for 2016.

The group will be donating 10p from the sale of its local breakfast bread products to help fund 1 million meals for families in west and central African countries.

Paddy Doody, Henderson Group Sales & Marketing Director, said: The aid that Tearfund continue to offer to families in Chad and other countries is extremely important, so we are proud to have them as one of our dedicated charities for the past four years.

It costs around just 16p to provide one meal for a family somewhere like Chad. Were aiming to provide up to one million meals for the country, so our target is to raise 165,000.

Derek Hall from Tearfund said: This campaign will help us and our overseas partners tackle extreme hunger throughout projects predominantly based in West & Central Africa. Providing meals is only part of our job, so we want to equip families with the dignity, skills and capacity to produce enough food for themselves, and surplus to sell at the market."
A new television drama will claim that the late mother of Patricia Curran was responsible for one of Northern Irelands most infamous unsolved murders.

The body of the judges daughter was discovered in the grounds of her Whiteabbey home on a drizzly night in November 1952.

The 19-year-old Queens University student had been stabbed 37 times.

The frenzied attack sent shockwaves through the community and led to the arrest and conviction of a young RAF man called Iain Hay Gordon.

The 20-year-old Scotsman, an associate of the victims brother Desmond, was found guilty but insane and spent seven years in a mental hospital.

But he always insisted the police forced him to sign a confession and in December 2000 his conviction was overturned on the grounds that the confession was not reliable.

Now a new BBC drama will throw the spotlight back on the murder mystery that has been the subject of much speculation over the years.

The team behind satirical spoof Give My Head Peace has turned its hands to more serious matters to pen a powerful new fact-based drama on the case, as seen through the eyes of psychiatrist Dr Rossiter Lewis.

And the drama offers up an alternative theory that the murder was carried out by Patricias mother Doris, with whom she allegedly had a rocky relationship.

Lewis was hired by Hay Gordons defence lawyers to examine the accused and give evidence of his insanity.

But as he delves into the facts surrounding the murder he begins to believe Hay Gordon is innocent.

Scapegoat, written by Damon Quinn, Tim McGarry and Michael McDowell of the Hole In The Wall Gang, sees Lewis outline his theory that Hay Gordon was innocent and that Patricias mother was the most likely suspect.

Co-producer of Scapegoat, Damon Quinn, explained: There was another theory around at the time that Patricia did not die in the laneway but that she made it home that night.

And her mothers alibi at the time did not check out.

Before Scotland Yard was called in, the original investigating officer, Inspector Kennedy, believed the answer lay with the family. He said in a statement at at the time it was decided to pursue every line of enquiry befrore allowing our thoughts to concentrate on something which seemed too fantastic to bellieve, namely that the Currans were covering up the muder and telling a tissue of lies.

Quinn added: A scapegoat was needed and Iain Hay Gordon was that man.

On the night in question the body was discovered by Patricias brother Desmond, with 37 stab wounds. But there was very little blood at the scene, suggesting she had not been killed there.

Also, her belongings were piled neatly several yards from the body and were dry, despite the rain.

Patricias father Judge Lancelot Curran, Desmond Curran and the family solicitor removed the corpse from the scene and drove to a local doctor.

The police were criticised for their handling of the case. They did not examine the Currans home until eight days after the murder. By that time, Patricias bedroom had been redecorated.

In Scapegoat, Lewis, played by Belfast actor Stuart Graham, comments several times: The key to this case lies with the Curran family.

Journalist John Linklater, who campaigned on behalf of Hay Gordon, acted as consultant for the drama. He has said in public lectures that he suspects her mother, but that there is no evidence to prove this conclusively.

Damon Quinn said: Its unlikely that the truth will ever come out but well still be talking about this case in 50 years time.

Meanwhile the Hole In The Wall gang has revealed that it is to write several more dramas centred on miscarriages of justice.

And the team has also written a romantic comedy called Aishas Communion, backed by Northern Ireland Screen.

The film has already been optioned and shooting is due to get under way next year.

Scapegoat will be screened on BBC1 Northern Ireland on Monday night at 9pm.
Emma Watson was at the Ottawa summit to chair a session involving the first recipients of a One Young World scholarship in her name

Emma Watson has said that she "found my tribe" after launching her HeForShe campaign at the United Nations two years ago.

The actress recalled the difficult days that followed her spreading her feminist message to a global audience, describing it as a "baptism of fire".

She said at the One Young World Summit in Ottawa, Canada: "Two years ago I launched a campaign called HeforShe at the UN in New York.

"I was very nervous before that speech - the nerves were followed by a tremendous high immediately afterwards and a crashing low a few days after that.

"My best hopes and my worst fears were confirmed all at once. I had opened Pandora's Box to a standing ovation and almost simultaneously a level of critique I had never experienced in my life and the beginning of what would become a series of threats.

"The last two years have been a baptism of fire to say the least, where I learnt just how little I know, and also how much."

Watson, 26, said launching the campaign had been her "scary first step as an activist - a word I never imagined that I would use to describe myself".

She said: "Apart from the significant progress the world has made in the cause for equality, the best thing about the last two years has been this.

"Finding people from such disparate experiences and communities, that I found that I have something in common with.

"This is a community of artists, spiritual teachers, dreamers, thinkers, doers, who work together and support each other.

"For the first time in my life, I found my sisterhood; a brotherhood - whatever, however you want to describe it - I found my tribe."

She described the battle for gender equality as being just as important as the ones against violent extremism and climate change.

"We, the entire spectrum of the feminist movement, are building an unstoppable current, for which we need ripples of hope from every age, race, ability, walk of life - every human experience," she said.

"I feel gender equality is as important as any of the other goals that we are here to discuss. And actually, if anything, it is more important, because it intersects with every single other issue that we face."

The actress was at the summit to chair a session involving the first recipients of a One Young World scholarship in her name, as she continued her fight for the feminist movement.

"We all have feminine and masculine energies within us," she said.

"And both forces need to be lifted up, respected. We need to work together in order to make the world go round. Each of you are here at One Young World because you do something important.

"And it is so exciting to see you all come together in one room, because One Young World isn't about saying what I, each of us individually, can do, but what we can do, working together, supporting and listening to each other."
Daniel Radcliffe knows how he'd like to depart this world.

"On a film set, ideally," he states, eyes widening."I want to ruin someone's day. I want to have them suddenly go, 'Dan's just dropped dead in front of the camera; we have to get his double on'."

The prelude to this is pondering a life without acting.

"If someone told me tomorrow, 'You're never going back on a film set', I really wouldn't know what to do with the rest of my life.

"I've never not worked, so I don't know what my life looks like without regularly being on a film set. I think I'd go crazy."

The truth is, the 27-year-old, who was 11 when he was cast as Harry Potter, could easily never work again, having already amassed a fortune of 74m, according to various rich lists.

It's an amount that's beyond comprehension for most people.

"It is for me," exclaims Radcliffe, as we sit facing one another on a sofa.

"I don't really do anything with my money," he adds. "I'm very grateful for it, because having money means you don't have to worry about it, which is a very lovely freedom to have. It also gives me immense freedom, career-wise."

Radcliffe, who's dating American actress Erin Darke, takes this freedom seriously.

"I feel you have a responsibility when you can be that choosy," says the actor, who remains an energetic presence, although the agitated tics so often described in the past seem to have subsided.

"For all the people who've followed my career, I want to give them something to be interested in, rather than them just watch me make loads of money on crap films for the rest of my life.

The seventh and final Potter film was released in 2011. Since then, he's appeared as a young physician in the dark TV comedy series A Young Doctor's Notebook, the haunted Arthur Kipps in the The Woman In Black, gay beat poet Allen Ginsberg in Kill Your Darlings, and a young man who finds horns sprouting from his skull in aptly titled, Horns.

He's also earned acclaim on stage, in dramas such as The Cripple Of Inishmaan and the musical How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying on Broadway.

"I think it's about doing things that are unexpected, and I love that I'm hard to pin down or categorise," he says of his eclectic choices.

"I've always felt very secure. The biggest risk people see me as having taken was doing Equus [the 2007 stage production co-starring the late Richard Griffiths], and that never felt like a risk at all, because I was just looking around at all the other people in the room thinking, 'Well, if I'm screwing up, then a lot of other amazing people are screwing up as well'."

The production required him to spend a large proportion of time on stage nude, which caused a bit of a furore among a public who could only associate him as the boy wizard.

"Well exactly - Harry Potter blinds horses and does a not very child-friendly play - which some people still brought 10-year-olds to," retorts Radcliffe, shaking his head in bewilderment.

The London-born actor, the son of a literary and casting agent, continues to surprise. Today, he's promoting Imperium, in which he plays Nate Foster, an FBI agent who goes undercover as a neo-Nazi in order to expose a terrorist plot.

The role required him to shave his head, wear clothes emblazoned with the likes of 'White Power' and shout racist obscenities.

"When we filmed the rally riot scene, we only had one camera, so from a distance, people couldn't see it; they just saw a Ku Klux Klan rally walking through their town.

"We had people who were very angry and we had to explain it was a film," he recalls.

"We also had someone wind down the window, beep their horn and give a 'white power' (salute), so it was a very weird scene to shoot."

But despite the "heavy topic", it was "a very fun movie to make".

As was Swiss Army Man, another new movie.

"It was maybe the most fun I ever had on set," remarks Radcliffe of the film, which prompted boos and walkouts when it screened at Sundance.

It tells the tale of a castaway called Hank (Paul Dano), who's about to take his own life when a very flatulent corpse named Manny (Radcliffe) washes up on the shore.

A friendship is formed, and the pair embark on an adventure together with the aim of returning Hank to the love of his life. Critics have lambasted the film for its 'puerile' scenes, but Radcliffe has nothing but praise for directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known collectively as 'Daniels'.

"I think they're playing with the idea there are certain things about being human that are universal, whether it's farting... or things that aren't bodily function-related, like being lonely or feeling different or weird," he offers.

"These are things we're all taught are slightly shameful, and the driving premise of the film is that shame is what keeps us from love and from loving ourselves."

It's rare for people to speak about their profession with the gusto that Radcliffe does.

"It's because I'm one of the lucky few who f**king loves my job. Most people hate their job and it's something you have to get through. Whereas I used to feel I had to get through the bits of life in-between jobs, like I'm working to get back to the job."

He doesn't, he clarifies, feel like this any more.

"I've got much better at relaxing and enjoying down-time and hanging out with friends," says Radcliffe, who recently returned from two weeks in Greece after wrapping on Jungle, due for release next year.

He hopes to take some time off to write ("It's the thing I always want to do"), before appearing on stage again in London next year.

Does he ever crave anonymity?

"Sometimes," he admits, nodding. "Privacy is amazingly important, because that's where you grow.

"Ultimately, the hardest thing about growing up in the spotlight, it's not the easy access to drugs or the strange, sort of pandering world that you enter into, but the difficulty is trying to work out who you are while you're constantly coming up against a perception of yourself that everybody else already has," he adds.

"I think it's very important, especially when you become famous young, to work out who you are without fame and without that as part of your identity, because that will go.

"Fame does not last forever. For anyone."

- Imperium is out now

- Swiss Army Man is in cinemas now.
Spector's wife Sally Ann (right), played by Bronagh Waugh, is visited by two policewomen

Only three minutes into series three of The Fall, and we have our first battered female body, discovered in the boot of a car in a forest.

It's Rose Stagg, the most recent victim of serial killer Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan), and unusually for this crime drama, which dwells so lavishly on tortured women, she's still alive.

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This is where we left the action at the end of the last series: with the discovery of Rose and the shooting of Spector, who's left fighting for his life.

The Fall has been strongly criticised for its fascination with violence against women. In the past, it's been described as "an invitation to share an extended rape fantasy", or an attempt to glamorise violence against women "by equating it not only with sex but with sexual attractiveness."

The show's creator, Allan Cubitt, was forced to deny accusations of misogyny, particularly in series one. He took those claims seriously enough to take over the directorship of series two and three, after the departure of the former director, Jakob Verbruggen.

You can be reasonably sure there will still be female corpses.

But the body that this new episode lingers on most lovingly is that of its central male: Paul Spector. There's blood everywhere as hospital staff struggle to save him: lying in pools on the floor, squirting out of Spector's stomach, clotting stickily on DSI Stella Gibson's hands. "Suction please," demanded the doctor. "We have a real mess here."

It's like Tarantino, but without the glorious exuberance.

I must say, though, I did enjoy the medical talk amongst the team.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Jamie Dornan as Paul Spector in The Fall series 3. Pic: @TheFallTV HUNTING SEASON: Gillian Anderson as DSI Stella Gibson and Jamie Dornan as Paul Spector in The Fall PA Gillian Anderson returns as DSI Stella Gibson in the third series of The Fall PA Jamie Dornan in The Fall LONDON, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 07: Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan take part in Q&A following the screening of BBC Two drama 'The Fall' to launch series three at BFI Southbank on September 7, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images) Getty Images The Fall stars Gillian Anderson (DSI Stella Gibson) and Jamie Dornan, who portrays serial killer Paul Spector Jamie Dornan in The Fall series 3. Pic: BBC / Facebook

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Whatsapp Jamie Dornan as Paul Spector in The Fall series 3. Pic: @TheFallTV

As Spector lay in a hallucinatory near-death stupor, drawn by a light at the end of a dark tunnel and the sound of his mother's voice, the medics were all go. "Watch the tail of the pancreas"  "no pulse, adrenaline please"  "I can actually feel the bullet." At one point, someone seemed to remark, "he's very oozy."

I don't know if that's a technical term, but it was definitely accurate.

One by one we were reintroduced to the characters from last time round. Who was this grim little Goth shrieking at her mother and wailing down the phone? Ah yes, it was Katie, Spector's crazy teenage fan-girl and junior accomplice.

And here was Spector's daughter, sneaking a look at a laptop to find a picture of her dad with the words 'Face of a Killer' captioned underneath, before leaping back into bed just in time.

Mummy had told her he was involved in a car accident. You know that storyline can't end well.

Meanwhile, Gillian Anderson, as Gibson, was as cool and inscrutable as ever.

True, she was jolted out of her customary froideur - as her wounded colleague Tom Anderson (Colin Morgan) reminded her at the hospital - when Spector went down. "Why did you run to him?" Anderson asked. "I didn't want it to end there, not like that," insisted Gibson. "I want him to live so he can be tried and sentenced and spend the rest of his life in prison. If I sounded anguished, that's why." Hmmm. If you say so, Stella.

I've admired Anderson's talents since the first days of the X-Files, when she played the super-rational FBI doctor Dana Scully, trotting after Mulder all fresh-faced and chubby-cheeked, but still with an impressive amount of presence and authority - certainly enough to put Mulder in his place when necessary. Here, in The Fall, she continued to stride along dimly-lit corridors with enviable panache, just as she did in the X-Files, her high heels clopping briskly. It's enjoyable to see a powerful female character, confident and formidable, not wilting soppily on some bloke's brawny shoulder, and Anderson is the woman for it.

This time, however, she appeared almost beyond contained. She was glacial, her face a mask of severely repressed emotions.

Unfortunately, Anderson has also developed a tense, pursed way of holding her mouth that reminded me constantly of Ann Robinson, the famously gruff host of The Weakest Link. It's impossibly distracting. I kept waiting for Gibson to say, 'you are the weakest link, goodbye.' Maybe when she does, this endlessly circuitous series will at last be at an end. After all, the novelty value of glimpsing Belfast streets and landmarks, as Stella and Co zip round town, has long worn off.

But it's not over yet. After Gibson was removed from Spector's bedside by a nurse who told her in no uncertain terms that she shouldn't be there, we saw his arm twitch. Then his eyes blinked open: briefly, unmistakeably. You became suddenly and uncomfortably aware of the vulnerability of the young nurse alone in his room, the vulnerability of any young woman in the presence of this dangerous man.

It was the most effective moment in the entire episode. The Belfast Strangler was back.
Members of the Orange Order at the height of the Twaddell Avenue dispute

Motorists are advised to expect delays in north Belfast tonight due to a number of parades taking place.

Delays are expected between 7pm and 9pm in the Ardoyne and Crumlin Road areas

Alternative routes are available, but road users are asked to plan their journeys in advance and take into account the potential for delays.

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On Saturday October 1 road users are advised to expect delays in north Belfast between 8.30am and 9.30am in the Ardoyne and Crumlin Road areas due to a number of parades taking place at this time.

Alternative routes are available, but road users are asked to plan their journeys in advance and take into account the potential for delays.
The details emerged as the 24-year-old was granted bail on charges connected to seizures at his Elgin Street flat.

A Belfast man kept his dead paramilitary uncle's bullet belt to drape over his shoulders as he played a video war game, the High Court heard today.

Gerard Thompson got a kick out of donning the ammunition and smoking cannabis during his Call of Duty gaming sessions, his lawyer claimed.

Details emerged as the 24-year-old was granted bail on charges connected to seizures at his Elgin Street flat.

Thompson faces counts of possessing Class B drugs with intent to supply, having ammunition in suspicious circumstances and without a certificate, and encouraging or assisting in an offence, namely drugs supply.

Police searched his home after stopping him in a car and finding three small bags of cannabis on July 19, the court heard.

Officers recovered more than 100 grams of the drug at the address.

Prosecutor Conor Maguire said 85 rounds of 9mm ammunition, 106 rounds of .22 ammunition and 25 shotgun cartridges were also located in Thompson's bedroom.

During interviews the accused claimed to have found the bullets while clearing out his uncle's shed after he passed away in March this year.

"He said he decided to take the ammunition back home out of curiosity as the items interested him," Mr Maguire added.

Defence counsel Joe Brolly described his client's late uncle as a "well-known INLA figure" who received a full military funeral.

Mr Brolly argued that Thompson kept the consignment of ammunition - including a bullet belt - for amusement after discovering it in a plastic bag.

"He told police that when he was smoking cannabis and playing Call of Duty on the PlayStation 3 he would drape the gun belt around his shoulders and enjoy the feel of it," the barrister said.

He just got a kick from having it."

Mr Justice Maguire was told Thompson is not suspected of being linked to any criminal gangs.

The drugs recovered from his flat were mainly for personal use, with some also being sold to a small group of friends, the court heard.

Granting bail, the judge said: "If there was evidence that the applicant was dealing in a much larger way in the supply of cannabis the court almost certainly would refuse (the application)."

He ordered Thompson to live at his mother's address and report to police twice a week
'Some 95% of patients with an urgent GP referral are supposed to be seen within 62 days'

Targets for treating cancer patients in Northern Ireland are still being missed, new figures reveal.

Around 9,000 people are diagnosed with cancer every year here, with an 11% rise over the last decade.

Some 95% of patients with an urgent GP referral are supposed to be seen within 62 days.

However, since records began six years ago the target has never been met, and between April and June this year only 70% were seen in this time.

The percentage of women seen within 14 days of urgent referral for breast cancer has also fallen sharply since last year.

Just 64% - 914 out of 1,433 referred patients - were seen on time, compared to 80% in June 2015, statistics published by the Department of Health said.

Margaret Carr of Cancer Research UK's Northern Ireland branch said some patients were waiting too long to begin essential treatment.

"These new statistics show that cancer services here are not coping with rising demand," she said.

"And with the number of people being diagnosed with cancer on the increase, the way services are currently organised is not sustainable.

"This is why a new cancer plan that sets out a long-term vision and identifies priorities and where to target resources, is needed.

"Now is the time to set out new ambitions for cancer in Northern Ireland, along with details of how these goals will be achieved."

According to the charity, cancer incidence rates have risen by 11% in the past decade.

"It is totally unacceptable that this target has not been met over such a long period," added Ms Carr.

"Swift action is needed, as patients are waiting too long for potentially lifesaving cancer treatments.

"Waiting to hear if you have cancer, and then for treatment to start, are incredibly anxious times for patients.

"We know that the earlier cancer is diagnosed, the more successful treatment is likely to be, which is why the current system of referring patients for tests to diagnose cancer must be simplified."

A recent report by Cancer Research UK has said a rise in cancer cases means the Department for Health must be prepared to boost staffing levels where necessary.
The Trust is also to pay Dr Drozdowicz's costs in taking the lawsuit.

A consultant anaesthetist is to be paid 500,000 as part of a settlement reached in her legal action against the Western Health and Social Care Trust.

Margaret Drozdowicz has also agreed to resign from her post under the terms of the resolution confirmed at the High Court in Belfast today.

Dr Drozdowicz sued for alleged breach of contract linked to her exclusion from the Erne Hospital in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh in 2013.

But after a week-long hearing Mr Justice Stephens was told the parties had arrived at a full and final settlement, with no admission of liability for any of her claims.

The Trust is also to pay Dr Drozdowicz's costs in taking the lawsuit.

The anaesthetist, a Polish national, came to Northern Ireland to work within the National Health Service in 2005.

Within two years she was promoted to the position of consultant, and by 2009 obtained the position of lead in obstetric anaesthesia.

But by 2011 her relationship with some medical colleagues was said to have broken down.

She was subjected to restrictions following a number of complaints from other staff at the hospital accusing her of unprofessional behaviour.

Her exclusion came after another member of staff was no longer prepared to supervise her.

A process to assess her clinical competence and ability to resume working relationships with medical colleagues is understood to remain incomplete.

Dr Drozdowicz claimed she had been isolated and ostracised by colleagues after she performed an audit on the efficiency of theatres within the Erne Hospital.

She alleged her audit showed inefficiencies and raised serious concerns about the value for money from theatre use and employment of consultants.

According to her case the Trust failed to properly investigate her complaints.

She also claimed that her actions led to 13 unfounded grievances about her from colleagues.

The campaign of complaints were an attempt to discredit her after she raised issues about theatres being used for private practice during NHS hours and the use of a drug to counteract deep vein thrombosis, she alleged.

The Trust disputed her allegations, with the court told that an investigation has not uphold her concerns.

There is no suggestion in the case of any harm to patients.

During proceedings Dr Dozdowicz alleged that a dying patient had received substandard care after being brought into the Erne in November 2013.

The 64-year-old man, described as a heavy smoker and drinker, was diagnosed as suffering from complaints including pneumonia.

In cross-examination it was alleged that Dr Drozdowicz was raising her voice and frantically waving ECG forms about within the critical care unit.

A nurse was said to have told her to keep her voice down amid concerns the patient's relatives may witness her actions.

But following out of court discussions it was announced that the breach of contract action has been resolved.

Dr Drozdowicz's solicitor, Barry McCaul of McGale Kelly and Co. in Omagh, confirmed later that she is to be paid 500,000 plus full costs.

Mr McCaul added: "My client is relieved at the outcome, which will see her make a clean break from her employment with the Trust."
GUO WU YUAN LING [11] 1988.8.61 All units and individuals who execute or receive documents which are in the categories specified in these regulations and within the borders of the People's Republic of China are taxpayers liable to Stamp Tax (hereinafter referred to simply as "taxpayers") and shall pay Stamp Tax according to the provisions of these regulations.2 The following categories of documents shall be regarded as taxable documents:A. Purchases and sales, undertaking of processing, undertaking of construction projects, property leasing, commodity transport, warehousing, loans, property insurance, technology contracts and documents of a contractual nature;B. documents used to transfer property rights;C. business account books;D. certificates which give rights or licenses;E. and other documents which the Ministry of Finance determines to be taxable.3 A taxpayer shall calculate the amount of tax due on the basis of a flat tax rate or a fixed amount per document, according to the nature of the taxable document. The specific tax rate or the amount of tax shall be determined with reference to the Table of Stamp Taxable Items and Tax Rates accompanying these Regulations. Where the amount of tax payable is less than one jiao, the tax is exempt.Where the amount of tax payable is one jiao or more, an odd-amount not exceeding five fen shall not be included; where the odd amount is five fen or more, the tax shall be calculated to the nearest jiao.4 The following documents are exempt from Stamp Tax:A. copies or transcripts of documents on which Stamp Tax has already been paid;B. documents executed when property owners donate property to the Government, social welfare units or schools;C. other documents approved by the Ministry of Finance for exemption from Stamp Tax.5 To carry out the payment of Stamp Tax the taxpayer shall, following regulations, calculate the amount of tax due and purchase and affix, at one time, a corresponding value of Tax Stamps (hereinafter referred to simply as 'stamping')In order to simplify the stamping procedures when the amount of tax is relatively large or where frequent stamping is necessary, taxpayers may apply to the taxation authorities to use a tax payment account or a periodic payment method instead of stamping.6 Tax stamps shall be affixed to taxable documents; taxpayers shall cancel each stamp along its border with a seal or drawn line.Tax stamps that have already been affixed may not be reused.7 Tax stamps shall be affixed to taxable documents at the time the document is executed or when it is received.8 Where the same document is signed by two or more parties and each party has one copy, each party shall be responsible for affixing the full amount of Tax Stamps due on its own copy.9 Where a document on which tax stamps have already been affixed is amended, and results in an increase in its value, an additional amount of tax stamps corresponding to the increase in value shall be affixed to the document.10 The taxation authorities shall be responsible for administering the collection of Stamp Tax.11 The State Administration of Taxation shall supervise the printing of tax stamps. The face value of tax stamps shall be denominated in Renminbi.12 Units issuing or handling taxable documents shall be responsible for supervising the payment of Stamp Tax by taxpayers, according to law.

Article 13 Where a taxpayer has engaged in any of the following, the taxation authorities shall impose penalties according to the seriousness of the case:

A. Where tax stamps were not affixed to a taxable document or insufficient tax stamps were affixed, the taxation authorities may impose a maximum fine of twenty times the amount of tax payable in addition to ordering the taxpayer to affix the correct amount of tax stamps.

B. Where there is a violation of Paragraph 1 of Article 6 of the Regulations, the taxation authorities may impose a maximum fine of ten times the amount of tax stamps that were not canceled by a seal or drawn line.

C. Where there is a violation of Paragraph 2 of Article 6 of the Regulations, the taxation authorities may impose a maximum fine of thirty times the amount of tax stamps that have been reused.

Where tax stamps have been forged, the taxation authorities shall submit the matter to the judicial authorities for criminal investigation according to the law.@@page@@

Article 14 The management of the Stamp Tax levy, apart from that stipulated in these Regulations, shall be implemented according to relevant regulations in " Provisional Regulations of the People's Republic of China on the Administration of Taxation".

Article 15 These interpretation of these Regulations is the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance; the Detailed Rules for their implementation are determined by the Ministry of Finance.

Article 16 These Regulations take effect as from October 1, 1988.

Items subject to tax Scope Tax rates Persons liable to tax Explanation 1. Purchase and sales contracts Including those for supply, advance sales, purchases, linked purchases and sales and contracts of agreement, adjustment, compensation, trade, etc. Shall pay Stamp Tax of three ten-thousandths of the value of the sale or purchase amount Issuer of the contract 2. Contract for undertaking processing work Including contracts for processing, customs work, renovation repairs, printing, advertising, surveying, testing, etc. hall pay Stamp Tax of five ten-thousandths of the value of the income from processing work Issuer of the contract 3. Construction project feasibility study contracts Including testing and planning contracts Shall pay tax of five ten thousandths of fees received Issuer of the contract 4.Building and fitting project undertaking contracts Including building, fitting, engineering undertaking contracts Shall pay tax of three ten thousandths of the contracted amount Issuer of the contract 5.Leasing contracts Including contracts for the leasing of buildings, vessels, aeroplanes, motorized vehicles, machines, apparatuses, equipment, etc. Shall pay tax of one one thousandth of the rental amount. If the tax liability is less than one yuan, stamp tax will paid on one yuan. Issuer of the contract 6.Cargo transport contracts Including contracts for civil air transport, rail transport, sea transport, inland river transport, highway transport and integrated transport Shall pay tax of five ten thousandths of the transport fees Issuer of the contract Shall pay tax according to the vouchers which are applicable to the contract 7. Storage and safeguarding contracts Including storage and safeguarding contracts Shall pay tax of one one thousandth of the storage and safeguarding fees Issuer of the contract Tax shall be paid according to the storage receipts applicable to the contract 8. Loan contracts All loan contracts signed by banks, other financial organizations and lending and independent lenders (not including inter-bank lending) Shall pay tax of 0.5 of one thousandth of the loan amount Issuer of the contract ax shall be paid according to documentary evidence applicable to the contract 9.Property insurance contracts Including insurance contracts for property, liability, guarantees, credit, etc. Shall pay tax of one one thousandth of the insurance fee received Issuer of the contract Tax shall be paid according to documentary evidence applicable to the contract 10. Technology contracts Including contracts for technological development, transfer, consulting, service, etc. Shall pay tax of three ten thousandths of listed value Issuer of the contract 11. Property transfer documents Including transfer documentation for property ownership, copyright, business trademarks, special usage rights, patents, special technology usage rights, etc. Shall pay tax of five ten thousandths of the listed value Issuer of the contract 12. Business account books Account books used in production and operation Account books which record monetary values shall pay tax of five ten thousandths of the sum of actual costs and capital reserves. Other account books shall pay tax of five yuan per book Issuer of account books 13. Permits for rights and licenses Including Government department issued documents for building construction, industrial and commercial business, trademark registration certificates, license certificates and land usage certificates Shall pay tax of five yuan per document Receiver of document





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We'll be live streaming the GARC protest - follow live updates here https://t.co/jLleICISBE

Crowds gathering at bottom of EstorilPark ahead of GARC protest parade

"Everything has been done every week it's very peaceful, we are very happy to see that. It's what we've consistently called for."

He blasted restrictions placed on the procession by the Parades Commission as a "disgrace".

"In the morning we have 250 loyalists parading through this area with the blessing of Sinn Fein," he said.

"And we've had several hundred residents restricted from part of their own area. After lobbying by Sinn Fein

"I think it's a disgrace and as the speaker put it, I think Sinn Fein has been bought by British gold."

GARC's parade went ahead on Friday evening despite urgings from both Sinn Fein and the SDLP to call the event off, and a false last minute online rumour that it had been cancelled.

Mr Fennell said he did not know who was behind the false reports it had been cancelled, but claimed they "failed miserably".

"Not only have we proven a point that we can demonstrate peacefully as we always have done," he said.

"We've also proven that there is overwhelming support for GARC analysis and rejection by the the vast majority of residents for SF UVF deal."

In a speech at the event, a spokesman for GARC claimed that 85% of residents are opposed to all Orange marches, and have accused Sinn Fein of "trampling over the rights of residents.

A ground-breaking deal was agreed last week after talks between the Crumlin Ardoyne Residents Association (CARA) and the three lodges concerned.

It was agreed that there would be a parade this Saturday and the lodges would not apply for future return parades until local agreement could be established.

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Hard-line residents group in the Ardoyne - the Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective (Garc) - has opposed the agreement and claimed there was insufficient consultation with nationalists in the area.

Police have said they will be implementing a policing operation to ensure determinations are upheld.

Assistant Chief Constable Stephen Martin said: PSNI welcomed the local agreement and we will be implementing an appropriate and proportionate policing operation in the North Belfast area on Friday evening and Saturday morning to ensure that the various Northern Ireland Parades Commission determinations are upheld."

A spokesman for the Parades Commission said the protest parade has been "necessarily, proportionately, and fairly restricted on the grounds of potential public disorder and potential adverse impacts on community life and community relations".

Garc intends to hold a rally on Friday night at 7pm to voice its opposition and also stage a protest as the parade passes on Saturday.

The Parades Commission have given the go-ahead for the protests but have placed restrictions on them.

Restrictions have been put in place for the protest parade on Friday September 30 preventing it from dispersing on the Crumlin Road.

The ruling contains the protest to the Ardoyne area.

It states that the parade must not proceed past the junction of Estoril Park with Balholm Drive.

The Garc protest parade had originally wanted to disperse at the Ardoyne Library on the Crumlin Road and has been banned from doing so.

No singing, chanting or loud drumming will be permitted.

Further restrictions have been placed on the protest planned for Saturday morning, October 1.

It will take place on the footpath between 11 Ardoyne Road and no further than city-ward on the country side of the bus shelter adjacent to 521 Crumlin Road.

The Parades Commission have said it should have no more than 60 people.

The spokesman said: "The Commission has issued determinations on the notified GARC protest events on Friday evening and Saturday morning. These protests are against the Crumlin Road parading agreement and the Ligoniel Combine parade on 1 October 2016.

"The proposed Friday evening protest parade has been necessarily, proportionately, and fairly restricted on the grounds of potential public disorder and potential adverse impacts on community life and community relations. The protest parade may not proceed beyond the junction of Estoril Park with Balholm Drive.

In line with the Commissions decisions over many years, the determination on the proposed protest for Saturday morning is restricted to 60 participants at a specified location, which enables GARC to fulfil its legitimate right to protest within sight and sound of the Ligoniel Combine parade.

GARC has slammed the ruling posting a statement on social media calling it a "perverse situation".

It said: "GARC will mobilise and march as planned at 7pm on Friday evening at the bottom of Estoril Park and will demonstrate our opposition to sectarian marches through this community.

"We call on all residents, and those who wish to show solidarity with us from other areas, to come out and reject this SF/UVF deal."
The funeral of renowned broadcaster Paddy O'Flaherty took place in Belfast. Hundreds of people gathered at St Gerard's Church in Belfast to say their final farewells to the veteran BBC journalist Mr O'Flaherty who passed away on Tuesday following a short illness, aged 73. Picture By: Arthur Allison.

The funeral of renowned broadcaster Paddy O'Flaherty took place in Belfast. Hundreds of people gathered at St Gerard's Church in Belfast to say their final farewells to the veteran BBC journalist Mr O'Flaherty who passed away on Tuesday following a short illness, aged 73. Picture By: Arthur Allison.Pacemaker Press Belfast 29-09-2016:

The funeral of renowned broadcaster Paddy O'Flaherty took place in Belfast. Hundreds of people gathered at St Gerard's Church in Belfast to say their final farewells to the veteran BBC journalist Mr O'Flaherty who passed away on Tuesday following a short illness, aged 73. Picture By: Arthur Allison Pacemaker Press Belfast 29-09-2016:

The funeral of renowned broadcaster Paddy O'Flaherty took place in Belfast. Hundreds of people gathered at St Gerard's Church in Belfast to say their final farewells to the veteran BBC journalist Mr O'Flaherty who passed away on Tuesday following a short illness, aged 73. Picture By: Arthur Allison.

The funeral of renowned broadcaster Paddy O'Flaherty took place in Belfast. Hundreds of people gathered at St Gerard's Church in Belfast to say their final farewells to the veteran BBC journalist Mr O'Flaherty who passed away on Tuesday following a short illness, aged 73. Picture By: Arthur Allison.Pacemaker Press Belfast 29-09-2016:

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Mark Carruthers Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Eamonn Mallie Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Denis Murray Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Alban Maginness Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. 'Big T' Trevor Campbell Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Mark Devenport Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Eamonn Mallie Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Paul Clarke Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Mike Edgar Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Denis Murray Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Karen Patterson Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Geoff Hill Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Noel Thompson and Walter Love Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Wendy Austin Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Mervyn Jess Picture by Presseye

Requiem Mass of BBC's Paddy O'Flaherty at St Gerard's Church, Antrim Road, Belfast. Dot Kirby Picture by Presseye

Hundreds have gathered to pay their respects to renowned BBC journalist Paddy O'Flaherty following his death.

The BBC announced the renowned broadcaster passed away following a short illness on Monday.

He was 73-years-old.

O'Flaherty was a familiar voice on BBC Radio Ulster for decades having presented many of its shows including Good Morning Ulster and Evening Extra.

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He was also a keen musician and angler.

More than 300 mourners gathered at St Gerard's Church in Belfast on Friday.

At the end of the service a recording was played of O'Flaherty playing An Coulin on the violin.

Among those in attendance was BBC presenter Noel Thompson, Wendy Austin and UTV presenter Paul Clarke.

Announcing the news on Good Morning Ulster, presenter Noel Thompson paid his respects.

He said: "He brought a big enthusiasm to every story and had the ability to turn even the most tedious story into the most fascinating."

Editor of BBC Northern Ireland Radio Current Affairs and Digital News NI, Adam Smyth, paid tribute.

He described him as "one of the best radio broadcasters these islands have ever produced, a tremendous character and a man whose name was synonymous with BBC Radio Ulster".

DUP leader Arlene Foster said she was sorry to hear of his passing.

"Such a gentle person," she tweeted.
Prime Minister Theresa May wants to see free movement across the Irish border

Prime Minister Theresa May says she wants to see free movement across the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic following the UK's departure from Europe.

She told BBC Northern Ireland that she agreed with the Irish government and Northern Ireland Executive about not seeing a "return to the borders of the past".

Mrs May also committed to work "closely" with them to ensure free movement across the border.

She said she is in discussions with the Irish government at the moment over "how we can develop these ideas in ways that are going to ensure that we deliver on the intention of all parties".

The UK voted in June by a tight margin to leave the EU.

Some 51% voted to leave against 48% who voted to remain.

However in Northern Ireland a majority (56%) voted to stay in the EU.

Speaking during a visit to Northern Ireland in June Mrs May warned a Leave vote would end an open north-south border.

She said then that it was "inconceivable to suggest a Leave vote would not have a negative impact on the border".

"If we are out of the European Union with tariffs on exporting goods into the EU, there would have to be something to recognise that between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland," she said in June.

"And if you pulled out of the EU and came out of free movement, then how could you have a situation where there was an open border with a country that was in the EU and had access to free movement?"

However the Prime Minister has denied making a u-turn in her views.

"What I said was that of course if we leave and there is a land border with a country within the European Union, that does bring a change to that relationship across the border," she said.

"All parties are clear about the intent and will to ensure we have an arrangement that isn't a return to the borders of the past."
Hazel Stewart's legal aid bill has spiralled to almost 630,000, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal.

It includes an extraordinary half-a-million pounds of taxpayers' money spent on her failed attempt to appeal her convictions for murdering her first husband and her lover's wife.

The former Sunday School teacher from Coleraine was jailed in 2011 for the double murder she helped to commit 20 years earlier.

In June she failed in a final challenge to one of her two murder convictions - leaving an enormous legal bill to be picked up by the public purse.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates miscarriage of justice claims, has refused to refer her case to the Court of Appeal.

However, she could continue her appeal to the top European court - a move that could push her bill above 1m.

The Belfast Telegraph can reveal that as well as costing the taxpayer 15,433 for her defence throughout Magistrates Court proceedings, her defence in Crown Court proceedings cost a further 99,083.

Then came the huge 513,030 bill for Court of Appeal proceedings.

The costs were slammed by DUP MLA Edwin Poots. He said: "I think most people will be wide-mouthed and incredulous that half-a-million pounds was spent on attempting to lodge an appeal that most of us would have recognised was going nowhere from the outset, given the findings of the original case.

"Frankly, I think legal aid is given out far too easily for no-hope cases.

"It damages the credibility of legal aid, and often, as opposed to helping achieve justice and ensure justice is done, it prolongs the pain and agony of the relatives of the victims of murder and the victims of other crimes."

The figures were revealed by Justice Minister Claire Sugden in a letter shared with the Belfast Telegraph. It can also be revealed that while the National Crime Agency is seeking a recovery order in respect of Stewart's interest in residential property obtained as a result of her criminality, it is not seeking to recover money paid to her from her murdered husband's pension.

Stewart had been receiving Trevor Buchanan's police pension for an estimated 16 years.

Before her conviction she was living in a swanky property with her second husband, retired police Chief Superintendent David Stewart. In June it was reported that the NCA was seeking an order that Stewart must repay money gained following the death of Mr Buchanan (32).

At that stage Stewart was seeking even more legal aid to reclaim police pension benefits inherited from her murdered husband.

However, the letter from Ms Sugden suggests the NCA is no longer pursuing Stewart over the pension. "I understand the National Crime Agency, through its ongoing civil recovery proceedings, are seeking a Recovery Order in respect of the interest in residential property obtained by Hazel Stewart as a result of her criminality," Ms Sugden writes in the letter, dated August 22, 2016.

"The NCA inform me that they are not seeking to recover monies received through the police pension."

The NCA said: "The NCA has no comment to make on this at this stage."

Previously Arleen Elliott, the former president of the Law Society - which represents solicitors - gave a defence of legal aid in a Belfast Telegraph interview.

She said: "All of us uphold the principle that you are innocent until proven guilty and that is regardless of the person or the crime they are accused of.

"If defendants are not represented across the board it would actually break down the integrity of the system, resulting in unsafe judgments and public mistrust about judgments delivered by a court.

"You simply could not have it."

Stewart (53) is serving a minimum 18-year jail sentence in Hydebank for murdering Constable Buchanan and 31-year-old Lesley Howell, the wife of her then-lover Colin Howell.

She was unanimously convicted of both killings by a jury at Coleraine Crown Court in March 2011 after Howell confessed to the murders, and testified against her.

The pair's victims were found in a fume-filled garage in Castlerock, Co Londonderry, back in May 1991.

Howell pleaded guilty to the murders in 2010 and was ordered to serve at least 21 years behind bars.
Basil McAfee was last seen alive in an off-licence

A 36-year-old man has been arrested by detectives investigating an axe murder in Belfast nearly three years ago.

Basil McAfee, 50, was found dead at his home on Henderson Avenue in the north of the city in December 2013.

He had been the victim of a frenzied knife and axe attack, police said at the time.

The suspect was detained in Belfast.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Montgomery said he was being questioned by detectives from the Police Service of Northern Ireland's serious crime branch at Musgrave station in the city.

Mr McAfee was last seen alive at an off-licence in north Belfast on the evening of December 19 2013.

His mother found him dead in the living room of his property.

Items including money had also been stolen.

To date seven people, five men and two women, have been arrested in connection with the killing, however no one has been charged.
Police at the scene of a shooting in the Bread Street area of west Belfast on September 29th 2016 , Northern Ireland (Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye)

Police at the scene of a shooting in the Bread Street area of west Belfast on September 29th 2016 , Northern Ireland (Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye)

Police at the scene of a shooting in the Bread Street area of west Belfast on September 29th 2016 , Northern Ireland (Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye)

Police at the scene of a shooting in the Bread Street area of west Belfast last night

A man was badly injured in a paramilitary-style shooting in west Belfast last night.

The attack took place at around 10pm in Bread Street, just yards from St Peter's Cathedral in the Divis area.

The victim was shot in the ankles and legs. Police and medical services were quickly on the scene to give the man first aid.

He was taken to the nearby Royal Victoria Hospital for treatment to his wounds.

Councillor Jolene Bunting of the TUV condemned the "punishment-style" attack.

"These shooting are very wrong," she said. "Guns should have no place on our streets."
The Fishery Protection boat that has been renamed Queen of Ulster, seen here at Bangor Marina.

The fisheries vessel with its name in Irish on the hull

Gerry Kelly has described Michelle McIlveen's decision to change the name of a boat from Irish to English as "bigoted" and "anti-Irish".

The DUP's Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) Minister changed the name of the fisheries protection boat from Irish to its English equivalent.

Banrion Uladh was the name of the vessel that patrols the Irish Sea as far south as Anglesey and as far north as Lough Foyle. It has been changed to Queen of Ulster.

The department said the change was made as part of routine maintenance and no extra expenditure was involved.

Senior Sinn Fein member Gerry Kelly responded to the matter on Friday morning.

He tweeted to say the decision was "beyond petty".

"It's downright bigoted. It's anti Irish," he said

In response a DAERA spokeswoman said: DAERA is a new department with a fresh identity and logo and adopts a single language policy.

"There have consequently been some necessary adaptations to assets transferring to the new Department. The change of lettering was carried out at a scheduled annual maintenance event involving repairs, repainting and antifouling.

DUP MLA Edwin Poots called the reaction to the change as "hysterical".

He said: "When asked about this change of lettering the Minister outlined that it occurred during scheduled maintenance and came at no additional cost to the public purse. The Minister has decided this newly created department will have a single language policy in order to make best use of scarce resources.

"The reaction from some quarters has been nothing short of hysterical but people will make their own judgement about Gerry Kelly referring to anyone as bigoted, particularly when the previous tweet on Mr Kellys timeline is celebrating IRA prisoners escaping from the Maze, an event which resulted in the death of a Prison Officer."

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The boat transports officials with powers to board fishing boats to check if they are complying with EU quotas.

It was launched in 2010 by then Sinn Fein Agriculture Minister Michelle Gildernew, and its Irish name sparked annoyance among DUP MLAs.

Upper Bann Sinn Fein MLA Catherine Seeley voiced her party's ire earlier this month when she submitted an Assembly question demanding to know the cost of changing the boat's name.

She also asked Ms McIlveen to explain her "rationale for the decision", and whether any consultation on the name change had taken place.

Ms McIlveen pointed out that Ms Gildernew had not carried out a consultation when she named the boat back in 2010. The Strangford MLA also clarified that there had been no additional cost for changing the name.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Gerry Kelly's Friday morning tweet. The Fishery Protection boat that has been renamed Queen of Ulster, seen here at Bangor Marina. The fisheries vessel with its name in Irish on the hull The DUP's Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister Michelle McIlveen Then Agriculture Minister Michelle Gildernew / Facebook

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"The change of lettering was carried out at a scheduled annual maintenance event involving repairs, repainting and anti-fouling," she said in the response.

Ms McIlveen also announced that her department would have a single language policy, moving away from the Sinn Fein ministers' approach where communication was done in both English and Irish.

"DAERA is a new department with a fresh identity and logo and adopts a single language policy. There have consequently been some necessary adaptations to assets transferring to the new department," she said.

"The name of the patrol vessel was a matter for the former minister at DARD (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development) Michelle Gildernew and was not an issue for consultation."
David Healy and Baroness May Blood cut the ribbon at Killyleagh Integrated Primary School

Primary school pupils were left shocked after part of a ceiling collapsed in their classroom in Co Down.

It happened at around 11.30am at Killyleagh Integrated Primary School yesterday.

The P4 and P5 pupils escaped injury during the incident and were moved to a different classroom to avoid further disruption to their day.

Principal Jason Milligan told the Belfast Telegraph: "There was an incident this morning where about a metre square of the ceiling in the P4/P5 classroom came down.

"Thankfully, no one was injured at all, but some of the children were shocked by it, as you would imagine.

"It turns out there was a pipe above the ceiling that was slowly leaking on the ceiling and had soaked in and down it came."

A man whose eight-year-old daughter was in the class said the debris missed her by a "matter of inches".

William Walker told the BBC: "My daughter was at her desk when the ceiling fell.

"If it had been six or seven inches over, it could have done her a lot of damage."

Mr Milligan said that work had begun to fix the ceiling and he hoped it would be "back to normal" tomorrow.

"I phoned the board and they sent a board officer out who has arranged for workers to come out - they are working on it now," he explained.

"The class was able to go to a spare classroom this afternoon to minimise disruption to the children.

"Hopefully, everything will be back to normal tomorrow."

Earlier this month, former Northern Ireland striker David Healy cut the ribbon to open the school after it became an integrated institution.

Commenting on his return to his old school, Healy said: "Killyleagh Primary has happy memories for me and always played an important role in local life.

"It's great to see it developing as Killyleagh Integrated Primary - a school to welcome and cherish all sections of the community."
Police at the scene of a shooting in the Bread Street area of west Belfast on September 29th 2016 , Northern Ireland (Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye)

Police at the scene of a shooting in the Bread Street area of west Belfast on September 29th 2016 , Northern Ireland (Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye)

Police at the scene of a shooting in the Bread Street area of west Belfast on September 29th 2016 , Northern Ireland (Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye)

A man is in a stable condition in hospital after a paramilitary shooting in west Belfast.

It happened in the Bread Street area at around 9pm on Thursday.

The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service said the man was shot in the ankles and legs.

The victim was dragged into an alleyway by two men and shot twice in each leg. He was taken to hospital for treatment to his injuries, which are not believed to be life threatening.

Both males were dressed in black and it is believed they made off in the direction of the Divis estate.

He has been taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. His condition on Friday morning was described as stable.

Police have appealed for information.
'The data from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) shows that just half of young people (47%) and adults (52%) believe Catholics and Protestants enjoy better relations than five years ago' (stock photo)

New research on cross-community relations in Northern Ireland has revealed that a growing number of young people believe the two main communities are drifting apart.

The data from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) shows that just half of young people (47%) and adults (52%) believe Catholics and Protestants enjoy better relations than five years ago.

But the figure for youths represents a slight decrease from the previous year's 50%, while for adults it stayed the same.

NISRA also reported that young people "have consistently shown less optimism than adults over the last decade, with never more than half of 16-year-olds saying they think things will be better in five years' time".

There was a marked drop, however, in schools participating in shared education activities - just 59% of schools took part in schemes in 2015-16 compared to 76% the previous year.

Of those surveyed, 66% of young people said they often played sport or socialised with members of other communities - up 3% from the previous year.

Most said they were comfortable expressing their identity in their neighbourhood (87%) as well as in the workplace (83%).

A reduction in both sectarian and racially-motivated hate crimes was also reported. In 2015-16, 1,001 hate crimes were recorded as sectarian (down from 1,043) with 853 as racially-motivated, down from 921.

Fewer people reported being annoyed by loyalist (23%) or republican (18%) murals, compared to 32% and 27% the previous year. And more than 80% of people questioned said they believed the culture and traditions of both Catholics and Protestants added to the richness and diversity of society here.

Meanwhile, a smaller 61% said they felt the same way about cultures and traditions from minority ethnic groups.

The study also revealed that less than a third of adults felt they had influence on decisions in their local neighbourhood, and less than a quarter for across Northern Ireland.

For young people the figures were again much lower. Ulster University's Professor Ann-Marie Gray chairs the Belfast-based cross-community group Youth Action NI.

She called the drop in shared education activities between schools surprising, but argued that the young people at Youth Action were much more willing to mix and engage in politics.

"What always strikes me when I talk to young people in my research or youth work is that they are almost universally disinterested in the kind of old-style politics we would think of," she said.

"They're absolutely interested in what we would call everyday issues. In Youth Action we held a Brexit debate before the referendum. They all said they didn't want to talk about Northern Ireland sectarian politics.

"They have political interests, but not those divided political interests. There's also a lot of political engagement in youth organisations now."

Professor Gray said that for years youth groups were afraid to address politics because of the sectarian divisions still present after the Troubles.

"Young people now actually seem very open to it," she said.

"Religion and sectarianism usually doesn't rear its head, although we do have programmes to address the underlying sectarianism that some young people may still need to address."
CAI FA ZI [255] 1988.9.291 These Detailed Rules were formulated according to stipulations in Article 15 of the "Provisional Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Stamp Tax" (hereinafter referred to simply as ' Regulations' )2 ' Documents which are executed or received in the categories specified in these regulations and within the borders of the People's Republic of China' in Article 1 of the regulations refers to documents which have the force of law within the borders of China and receive the protection of Chinese law.The above mentioned documents, whether they are executed within or outside the borders of China, are all subject to Stamp Tax according to regulations.The 'units and individuals' in Article 1 of the regulations refers to the various types of domestic enterprises, public institutions 9 administrative organizations 9 social groups and the armed forces, as well as to Chinese-foreign equity joint ventures , Chinese-foreign contractual joint ventures, wholly foreign funded enterprises, foreign enterprises, foreign companies and enterprises and other economic organizations and u-nits and individuals in their offices in China.All Chinese-foreign joint ventures, Chinese-foreign equity joint ventures, contractual joint venture, wholly foreign funded enterprises, foreign companies and enterprises and other economic organizations which pay Consolidated Industrial and Commercial Tax (CICT) may offset the full amount of their Stamp Duty payments against their CICT payments .3 'Contracts for construction projects' in Article 2 of the Regulations refers to building project survey and design contracts and construction and installation contracts.Construction and installation contracts include general contracting, sub-contracting and assignment contracting.4 'Contracts' in Article 2 of the Regulations refers to contracts concluded in accordance with the " Economic Contract Law of the People's Republic of China" , the "Foreign Economic Contract Law of the People's Republic of China" and other contracts related to contract law legislation.'Documents of a contractual nature' refers to agreements, deeds, treaties, transaction documents, letters of confirmation and other similar types of documents which have the validity of a contract.5 'Documents which transfer property rights' in Article 2 of the Regulations refers to documents including the transfer of property rights by units and individuals, through such means as purchase, sale, inheritance, gift, exchange or division.6 'Business account books' in Article 2 of the Regulations refers to books of account in which a unit or individual records the financial and accounting details of its production and business activity.7 'Books of accounts which record funds listed in the Table of Stamp Taxable Items and Tax Rates' refers to general ledgers recording the original value of fixed assets and internal working funds or books of account set up specifically to record the original cost of fixed assets and internal working funds.'Other account books' refers to books of account other than those mentioned above, including combined journals and ledgers and all types of detailed subsidiary ledgers.8 When account books which record investment according to the original value of fixed assets and internal working funds are stamped", and there is an increase in the total annual value of investment compared to that original stamped value, an additional tax corresponding to the increase in value shall be stamped on the document, according to regulations.@@page@@9 Determination of 'internal working funds' in the Table of Stamp Taxable Items and Tax Rates shall be implemented according to regulations of the relevant financial accounting system.10 Stamp Tax shall only be payable on documents listed in the Table of Stamp Taxable Items and Tax Rates and other documents subject to Stamp Tax as prescribed by economic, financial and administrative departments.11 Exemption from Stamp Tax of ' copies or written transcripts of documents on which Stamp Tax has already been paid' in4 of the Regulations refers to cases where Stamp Tax has already been paid on the official version of a document in accordance with regulations and any copies or written transcripts are then exempt from Stamp Tax if they do not create any rights or obligations involving others, but are retained only for reference purposes.If a copy or written transcript of a document is regarded as having the same application as the official document, an additional Stamp Tax payment shall be levied.12 'Social welfare units' in Article 4 of the Regulations refers to social welfare units that care for orphans, the elderly, the injured and the disabled.13 In accordance with provisions of Item 3 of Article 4 of the Regulations, the following documents shall be exempt from Stamp Tax:A. agricultural by-product purchase contracts between State designated buying departments and village committees or individual peasants;B. non-interest bearing or discounted loan contracts;C. preferential loan contracts between foreign government or international financial organizations and the Chinese government or State financial organizations.

Article 14 'Tax stamps shall be affixed to taxable documents at the time the document is executed or when it is received' in Article 7 of the Regulations refers to tax stamps which are affixed on the signing of contracts, the establishment of written instruments, the initial use of account books or the receipt of certificates.

If a contract is signed outside China, Stamp Tax shall be paid when it is applied within China.



Article 15 'The interested parties' in Article 8 of the regulations refers to units and individuals with direct power, liability and relationship with the document, but does not include guarantors, witnesses or appraisers.

The person who concludes the contract in the Table of Stamp Taxable Items and Rates of Tax refers to the interested parties in the contract.

An interested party's agent has liability to act as an agent in paying tax.



Article 16 Documents which transfer production rights shall be stamped by the issuer of the documents. If the documents are not stamped or inadequately stamped, the person holding the documents is responsible for making up the shortage. All documents in the form of contracts to be signed, shall be stamped in full, on a share basis, by the various parties holding the contracts.



Article 17 Where different tax rates apply to the same document because two or more economic items are recorded therein, if the amounts are recorded separately, the amount of tax payable shall be calculated separately and after the amounts are added together, the total Stamp Tax due shall be paid. If the amounts are not recorded separately, Stamp Tax shall be calculated using the highest of the applicable tax rates.



Article 18 Where Stamp Tax on a taxable document is based on the ratio of funds, and the amount of funds is not indicated on the document, it may be calculated in accordance with the amount recorded within the document and the State's listed price. If there is no applicable State listed price, the amount of funds shall be calculated in accordance with the market price. The amount of Stamp Tax payable shall then be calculated according to the stipulated tax rate.@@page@@



Article 19 Where funds recorded in a taxable document are in a foreign currency, the taxpayer shall calculate the amount of Stamp Tax payable by converting the foreign currency amount into Renmimbi, using the foreign exchange rate quoted by the State Administration of Exchange Control of the People's Republic of China, on the date of conclusion of the document.



Article 20 Tax stamps shall be canceled immediately after being affixed to a taxable document. If a taxpayer has a seal, tax stamps may be canceled by affixing the seal to the stamps. If a taxpayer does not have a seal, tax stamps may be canceled by drawing several horizontal lines through the stamps with a fountain pen (ball-point pen). The cancellation lines shall extend beyond the junction between an attached tax stamp and the document or the junction with other tax stamps.



Article 21 Where the amount of Stamp Tax payable on one document exceeds 500 yuan, an application shall be lodged with the local taxation authorities for a payment slip or payment settlement certificate to be attached to the document or the tax authorities may affix to the document a symbol indicating payment of Stamp Tax, thereby replacing the need to affix stamps.



Article 22 Where the same type of taxable documents makes frequent payment of Stamp Tax necessary, application may be made to the local taxation authorities to pay the collective total periodically.

The taxation authorities shall issue collective payment permits to units who calculate and prepare collective payment of their Stamp Tax. The limits on the amount and the payment time shall be determined by the local taxation authorities, but the time limit on payment shall not exceed one month.



Article 23 Where the Stamp Tax is paid periodically, the taxation authorities shall affix a collective payment stamp and serial numbers on the documents and, after being bound into a complete book and after tax stamps or payment slip attachments are canceled by stamping, the documents shall be retained for future reference.



Article 24 Where a taxpayer attached tax stamps to more than the value of the tax payment due, he may not apply for a refund or offset the excess amount against other payments.



Article 25 The taxpayer shall properly store taxable documents. For all documents which have a State regulated time period for retention, handle matters following regulations; other documents shall be stored for one year after their expiry date.



Article 26 Where a taxpayer is unable to decide whether or not a document is taxable, he shall take the document immediately to his local taxation authorities for appraisal.

Where a taxpayer disagrees with taxation authorities over the nature of a document the taxation authorities at the next higher level shall be requested to examine the document and make a decision.



Article 27 'Units issuing or handling taxable documents' in Article 12 of the Regulations refers to units who grant rights and licenses or units who handle appraisals and notarization of documents and other related matters.



Article 28 'Responsible for supervising the payment of Stamp Tax by taxpayers, according to law' in Article12 of the Regulations refers to the requirement that units who issue or handle taxable documents shall supervise the following:

A. whether or not a taxable document already has stamps attached ;

B. whether or not a taxable document has sufficient tax stamps attached;

C. whether or not the attached tax stamps have been canceled according to regulations.

Where a taxpayer does not perform the above, he shall affix stamps on site, under supervision.@@page@@



Article 29 Tax stamps shall be denominated in Renminbi, and divided into nine denominations : one jiao, two jiao, five jiao, one yuan, two yuan, five yuan, ten yuan, fifty yuan and one hundred yuan.



Article 30 Where tax stamps are used as marketable securities, all local taxation authorities shall manage strictly in accordance with methods of management prescribed by the State Taxation Bureau; specific management methods shall be determined in other legislation.



Article 31 Units or individuals may be commissioned to sell tax stamps and taxation authorities shall pay those units or individuals a service fee of 5% of the commission sales. The source of funds for payment shall be the Stamp Tax collected.



Article 32 All units who sell tax stamps on commission shall first apply to their local taxation authorities for authorization and shall provide a guarantor if necessary. After examination and approval, the authorities shall sign a commission sales contract with the commission sales unit and issue them with a commission sales permit.



Article 33 Tax payments received by a commission sales unit from the sale of tax stamps must be deposited in a special account and submitted to the local taxation authorities within the stipulated time period, or must be paid directly into a bank with a completed special payment form. Failure to pay on schedule or use of the funds for other purposes is prohibited.



Article 34 If there is a loss incurred in the sale of tax stamps or in the amount deposited, the commission sales unit is responsible for compensation.



Article 35 Unless the contract stipulated otherwise, a commission sales unit shall not authorize another unit to sell tax stamps nor transfer tax stamps to other areas to sell.



Article 36 Taxation authorities shall regularly provide guidance, inspect and supervise the commission selling of tax stamps by commission sales units. A commission sales unit shall provide details of its tax stamp sales; refusal to do so is prohibited.



Article 37 Tax stamp inspections shall be carried out by taxation authorities. When carrying out an inspection, the taxation authorities shall produce their tax inspection permit; taxpayers are prohibited from making any excuse to refuse inspection.



Article 38 On finding documents which violate the provisions of the Regulations, taxation officials shall handle the matter in accordance with relevant regulations. If it is necessary to remove documents, a receipt shall be issued to the party under inspection.



Article 39 Where a taxpayer violates the provisions of Article 22 of these Rules by failing to pay or by paying an insufficient amount of Stamp Tax within the payment period determined by the taxation authorities, the taxation authorities shall impose a late payment fine of5%o per diem from the first day in arrears, as well as ordering the payment of tax due within a prescribed period.



Article 40 Where a taxpayer violated Article 23 of these Rules, a maximum fine of 5000 yuan shall be imposed, depending on circumstances. In a serious case, a unit's collective license permit shall be canceled.



Article 41 Where a taxpayer violates Article 25 of these Rules, a maximum fine of 5000 yuan shall be imposed, depending on circumstances.



Article 42 Where a commission sales unit violates Article 33, 35 or 36 of these Rules, a warning shall be issued or the unit's status as a commission sales unit shall be canceled, depending on the seriousness of the case.



Article 43 Where a taxpayer fails to affix stamps according to regulations or evades tax, any unit or individual has the right to expose the matter and inform the relevant authorities. If taxation authorities' investigations substantiate such a report, the informant may receive a reward according to regulations, and confidentiality is guaranteed.



Article 44 The interpretation of these Regulations is the responsibility of the State Administration of Taxation.



Article 45 These Detailed Rules come into effect at the same time as the Regulations.

Back
A nationalist residents' group determined to defy an historic parades agreement at Ardoyne this weekend has been urged to reconsider its stance.

The Greater Ardoyne Residents' Collective (GARC) was told to "take a step back" and think again over its planned protests this evening and tomorrow morning.

Three Orange lodges have been granted permission to stage a return parade from July 12, 2013, early tomorrow morning, following an agreement with nationalist residents' group the Crumlin Ardoyne Residents' Association (CARA).

The deal ended a tense three-year stand-off and will lead to the dismantling of a loyalist protest camp at Twaddell Avenue.

However, rival nationalist residents' group GARC opposes the deal, slamming it as a "Sinn Fein/UVF" agreement.

It has distributed leaflets throughout the greater Ardoyne area calling for residents to turn out for a demonstration against the deal tonight.

The leaflet calls for people to assemble at Estoril Park at 7pm for an "opportunity for residents to peacefully and radically demonstrate opposition to ongoing sectarian parades through our community and the SF/UVF deal being forced upon us".

GARC has applied to the Parades Commission to hold a parade with up to 500 participants, moving from Estoril Park to Ardoyne Road and finishing at Ardoyne Library on the Crumlin Road. The event is set to coincide with a loyalist protest parade due to take place at Twaddell Avenue at 7.30pm.

GARC has also applied to hold a protest in Ardoyne tomorrow at 7.30pm when the return Orange Order parade - agreed by the three lodges and CARA - is due to take place.

The Parades Commission has placed a number of restrictions on both demonstrations.

Tonight's parade may not go on to the Ardoyne or Crumlin roads and must proceed no further than the Balholm Drive junction with Estoril Park.

The commission has also ordered respectful behaviour and has banned singing, chanting and loud drumming.

Tomorrow morning's protest has been restricted to no more than 60 people. It will only be allowed on the footpath within a certain area and participants have been ordered to "refrain from using words or behaviour which could reasonably be perceived as intentionally sectarian, provocative, threatening, abusive, insulting or lewd".

GARC criticised the Parades Commission for the restrictions on its march and called for residents to show solidarity.

However, Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly said GARC should cancel its parade today.

"It is Sinn Fein's view that we need less evening parades in this area, not more," he added.

"If GARC genuinely had the interests of this community at heart, they would cancel the parade immediately."

SDLP MLA Nichola Mallon also urged GARC to think again. "Our advice to GARC is to reconsider their planned parade this Friday, take a step back and act in the interests of peace in our community," she said.

"There is a clear responsibility on all those in leadership positions in Ardoyne to exercise their authority within our community to ensure that this weekend passes off peacefully."

North Belfast has seen some of the worst post-Agreement rioting in Northern Ireland in the three years since the stand-off started, when three Orange lodges were barred from completing their return parade pass the Ardoyne shops on July 12, 2013.
A two vehicle crash has closed a road in the Castlereagh area of east Belfast.

The Ballymaconaghy Road, Castlereagh, has been closed between the Knockbracken Road and Cairnshill Road roundabout following a serious two vehicle road crash.

Police have advised that motorists travelling in the area to expect delays.

No further details about the incident have been released so far.
The claim was made as part of the C&AG's audit of efforts by customs to tackle fuel laundering

Fuel laundering and smuggling by ex-IRA gangs and border criminals in Ireland has been virtually wiped out, the taxman has claimed.

A Revenue official told the state's public spending watchdog that a survey this year of filling stations provided "authoritative evidence" that the apparent multimillion-euro trade is close to being put out of business.

"The fuel laundering problem has been effectively eliminated," the accounting officer told the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG).

The claim was made as part of the C&AG's audit of efforts by customs to tackle fuel laundering.

The watchdog said a series of initiatives led to a crackdown on the underground business and that no evidence of laundered fuel was found in tests on 197 licensed traders this year.

It also pointed to the success of a joint exercise by Revenue and the UK's Revenue and Customs to introduce a new fuel marker on both sides of the border in April last year to make it harder to launder diesel.

Despite the claim from Revenue, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee Sean Fleming said: "Fuel laundering is a major problem and there is a substantial loss to the state in taxes foregone.

"Shockingly, there is no revenue estimate of the loss to the Exchequer as a result of fuel laundering. There has to be a better way of dealing with this issue and we will consider all options in relation to these taxes."

The C&AG was told by Revenue that it does not estimate how much the black market operations were costing.

The watchdog urged it to consider changing its stance to measure the scale of the problem and the impact of its crackdowns while also understanding losses in the tax system.

The Revenue claim came months after an independent report estimated that the Irish Exchequer lost 239 million euro last year through illegal laundering.

The C&AG said new licensing of fuel traders and electronic reporting have made it more difficult for gangs to infiltrate markets and that reckless trading provisions introduced in 2013 are a further deterrent for suppliers from supplying such fuel.

Revenue also said a national sampling survey of fuel in September last year found just 2.9% of samples test positive for the new marker and a random sampling exercise in January this year found no evidence of the new marker.

Another major issue is the environmental impact.

Revenue said it has cost 6.7 million euro since 2008 to clean up more than 1,000 dumps of toxic sludge from illegal fuel laundering plants, nearly all of which were in Louth and Monaghan.

The watchdog also revealed 15 filling stations were shut down last year as part of the wider Revenue crackdown on the sale of illicit laundered fuel.

From 2011 to 2015 a total of 149 service stations were forced to close their gates because they were unlicensed or breached the terms of their licences.

The report showed 47 commercial seizures of laundered fuel were made last year involving 215,132 litres.

No laundering plants were uncovered but there have been 35 in the last five years.

In response to the C&AG's report, Revenue said it was satisfied that the range of measures it implemented to tackle fuel laundering have been highly successful.

It also said its tests on fuel in storage tanks in service stations indicated that no laundered fuel was on the market.

"We continue to test road diesel samples on a risk basis, but the level of detections has decreased to extremely low levels," a spokeswoman said.
The Republic of Ireland's bad bank, Nama, feared that sacking one of its Northern Ireland advisers would have sparked a backlash from Stormont, a hearing in Dublin has been told.

Frank Daly, chairman of the State toxic assets agency, said removing prominent Belfast businessman Frank Cushnahan from his role would have provoked cross-border tensions.

It could have been perceived as a slight, he added.

Mr Cushnahan is a key figure in the controversy over Nama's 1.2bn sale of a massive Northern Ireland property portfolio to the US investment fund Cerberus in 2014.

Between 2010 and 2013, he served on a Nama committee set up to advise on Northern Ireland issues after being appointed on the recommendation of the DUP.

A probe into the so-called Project Eagle sale by the Republic's Comptroller and Auditor General found that Nama undervalued loans associated with the 800 properties.

It said US investment fund Pimco, which pulled out of an earlier bid, alerted Nama to a "success fee" or fixer payment of 15-16m for three parties behind the scenes. Pimco said that the money was to be shared equally by Mr Cushnahan, Brown Rudnick, a US law company, and a managing partner of Tughans, a Belfast law firm subcontracted to assist in the deal.

Mr Cushnahan has consistently and strenuously denied any wrongdoing.

Before a parliamentary committee hearing in Dublin, Mr Daly said it "wasn't a straightforward or easy decision" to press ahead with the sale after learning about the alleged fixer fees in March 2014.

Nama had to "weigh" the serious costs to itself, State-owned banks in the Republic and the country's reputation among international investors if it pulled the deal, he claimed.

"Key for us was whether we would allow Mr Cushnahan's alleged manoeuvrings in Belfast to seriously damage the interests of Irish taxpayers," he told Dublin's Public Accounts Committee, which is investigating the sale.

Referring to Mr Cushnahan's declared links with six of the 56 debtors in the property loans portfolio while he was acting as an adviser to Nama, Mr Daly said sacking him would have caused political upset.

"Removing Mr Cushnahan from the committee before his resignation in November 2013 would have been seen as a very significant and controversial move and one that would have caused tensions in the positive cross-border engagement," he told the hearing.

"Given it would have been represented as a slight to the Northern Ireland interest, we could not have done so without being satisfied that it was justified and proportionate."

Pressed on how much cross-border diplomatic concerns played on the sale, he said Nama was influenced chiefly by the commercial gain, but also the political sensitivities involved at the time and "reconciled the two".

The Project Eagle deal with Cerberus has been dogged by scandal for more than a year, including 7m linked to it being found in an Isle of Man bank account. Former managing partner of Tughans, Ian Coulter, resigned after it was unearthed.
Two firefighters who responded to a shooting at a South Carolina primary school have spoken about the actions they performed which led to them being hailed as heroes.

Townville Fire Chief Billy McAdams went inside to help treat the wounded following the incident at Townville Elementary School while firefighter Jamie Brock searched for the shooter.

"This was more than just another call to us. This incident occurred in the school where our children and the children of the community attend," Mr McAdams told a news conference on Thursday, pausing to collect himself as he recalled the harrowing events of the day before.

Authorities say the teen shot his father at their home before driving a pick-up a couple of miles to the school and shooting at a door as it was opened for recess.

Bullets struck two students and a teacher and the school was immediately placed on lockdown.

One of the wounded, six-year-old Jacob Hall, remained in a critical condition on Thursday and was said to be fighting for his life.

A teacher who was shot in the shoulder and another student who was hit in the foot were treated and released from hospital.

The shooter never made it inside the building, and no one else was hurt, Anderson County District 4 Superintendent Joanne Avery said.

Authorities said they do not yet know a motive for the shooting and they were not sure if the students and teacher were targeted or shot randomly.

The sheriff said the teenager had been home-schooled.

The fire chief said he and Mr Brock were working on his farm when they got the call about an active shooter at Townville Elementary. They rushed to the school and found the empty pick-up.

Teachers told them there were wounded inside, and Mr Brock suggested to the fire chief that he go inside to help because he was a paramedic.

Alongside a school nurse, the chief attended to Jacob, who was the most seriously injured.

In the meantime, law enforcement swarmed the school and Mr Brock looked for the shooter, finding him near the back of the school building.

"Feeling it was imperative to the safety of the students, the teachers and all the responders that were on site, he immediately confronted and subdued that shooter," the chief said.

"He was able to keep him on the ground until law enforcement could place him into custody."

Authorities have not released the teenager's name or specific age.

Anderson County Coroner Greg Shore said the teenager, crying and upset, called his grandmother's mobile phone at 1.44pm on Wednesday.

The grandparents could not understand what was going on, so they went to his home just 100 yards away.

When they got there, they found 47-year-old Jeffrey Osborne dead and their grandson gone.

About one minute later, authorities received a 911 call from a teacher at the school of about 300 pre-kindergarten to sixth-graders.

The teenager's mother, Tiffney Osborne, said in a statement that the family "cannot express the devastation we feel at the loss of our beloved Jeff".

She was at work at the time of the shooting, Anderson County Sheriff John Skipper said.

Both Mr and Mrs Osborne's first marriages ended in divorce before they got married. They each had children, who are now adults, with their exes.

Authorities said audio from the 911 calls will not be released while the investigation is ongoing.

In a statement read by the fire chief, Mr Brock said he does not want attention for his actions.

"The true heroes of yesterday's senseless tragedy are the teachers who put their lives on the line to protect the students, and the principal, through fears of her own, did what was right to ensure the safety of those students," he said.

"They deserve to be called the heroes, and I tip my hat to them."

AP
Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has compared his bloody crime crackdown to Hitler and the Holocaust, saying he would be "happy to slaughter" three million drug addicts.

Mr Duterte issued his latest threat against drug dealers and users as he returned to his home town in southern Davao city after visiting Vietnam, where he discussed his anti-drug campaign with Vietnamese leaders and ways for their governments to fight transnational crimes.

Mr Duterte has said his public death threats against drug suspects are designed to scare them into stopping selling drugs and to discourage would-be users.

But his latest remarks took his tough crime-busting approach to a different level as he said he had been "portrayed or pictured to be a cousin of Hitler", without elaborating.

Moments later, he said: "Hitler massacred three million Jews ... there's three million drug addicts. There are. I'd be happy to slaughter them."

He was referring to a Philippine government estimate of the number of drug addicts in the country. Historians say six million Jews were killed by the Nazis under Hitler before and during the Second World War.

During the presidential election campaign earlier this year and during the three months he has held office, the tough-talking Mr Duterte has threatened to drown drug suspects to fatten the fish in Manila Bay.

He also threatened to execute drug traffickers by hanging - because he did not want to waste electricity on them - until their heads were severed from their bodies.

Mr Duterte said his targets are "all criminals" and that getting rid of them would "finish the (drug) problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition".

Germany's government said Mr Duterte's comments were unacceptable.

"It is impossible to make any comparison to the unique atrocities of the Shoah and Holocaust," foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said in Berlin.

World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder branded Mr Duterte's remarks "revolting" and demanded that he retract them and apologise.

Mr Lauder said from Jerusalem, where we was attending the funeral of former Israeli leader Shimon Peres: "Drug abuse is a serious issue. But what president Duterte said is not only profoundly inhumane, but it demonstrates an appalling disrespect for human life that is truly heartbreaking for the democratically elected leader of a great country."

Philippines representative Teodoro Baguilat wondered if the president was suggesting that "it's open season now for all addicts; no more rehabilitation, just kill them systematically like what the Nazis did with the Jews".

He also expressed fears that Jewish businesspeople might boycott the Philippines.

Also critical was Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director for Human Rights Watch, who said it was baffling why anyone would want to compare themselves to "one of the largest mass murderers in human history".

Mr Robertson said that in today's context, Hitler would be accused of crimes against humanity.

"Is that what Duterte wants? Does he want to be sent to the international criminal court? Because he's working his way there," Mr Robertson said.

Amnesty International said Mr Duterte "has sunk to new depths" and urged governments around the world to condemn his "extremely dangerous outburst".

A spokesman for Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem-based world centre for Holocaust research and commemoration, declined to comment on Mr Duterte's remarks.

Mr Duterte's campaign promise to end corruption and crime, especially illegal drugs, within six months of taking office on June 30 carried him to an overwhelming victory in May's presidential election.

Since the vote, more than 3,000 suspected drug dealers and users have been killed and nearly 700,000 others have surrendered in his crackdown. Mr Duterte has asked for a six-month extension to finish the job.

His supporters and many Filipinos exasperated with widespread crime have welcomed his tough approach, but a growing number of critics, including UN officials, the European Union and the United States, have voiced concerns over the widespread killings and human rights violations.

Mr Duterte reacted by calling critics from the European Union a "group of idiots in the purest form".

He also lashed out at the US, his country's long-standing treaty ally, and the EU for finding fault with his methods, saying European countries were hypocrites for not doing enough to help the large numbers of refugees fleeing violence in the Middle East.

He said: "There are migrants escaping from the Middle East. You allow them to rot and then you're worried about the deaths of about 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 (people in the Philippines)."

AP
I used to buy lovely Armagh cider in St George's Market in Belfast. You could pick up a bottle or two, along with a bag of apples and maybe a bunch of home-grown flowers. It was delicious, an authentic Northern Irish product, loved by both locals and tourists. But we can't buy it any more. The powers-that-be have banished it from the market. It turned out that selling the gorgeous golden stuff was against the rules laid down by our overlords.

Yet another casualty of the absurdly over-zealous and dysfunctional alcohol licensing laws that are one of the curses of normal life in this country.

Elsewhere micro-brewers, independent distillers and craft breweries are enjoying a wonderful renaissance. Here they are being stymied by political teetotallers who are convinced they know what's best for all of us.

It makes me sad to live in a place with so many rules and so little joy.

Now we're supposed to be over the Moon because Communities Minister Paul Givan, in his manifold and great mercy, is prepared to allow us an extra 30 minutes drinking-up time at the end of the evening. Pubs and clubs will also be able to serve the devil's buttermilk for an extra hour, until 2am - wait for it - up to 12 times annually. That's 12 more hours of State-sanctioned drinking out of 8,760 in the course of a year that we're being permitted.

Crack open the Champagne - or maybe not.

It's all part of a new Bill debated in the Assembly this week after many years of foot-dragging, reversals and prevarication, mainly by people who treat the populace at large as though they were heedless children, and who believe you've only to get a sniff of the demon drink to instantly become a raving alcoholic.

Finally, reluctantly, they have squeezed out this measly, moralising proposal.

Of course, the farcical rules about where and when we are allowed to drink alcohol at Easter remain much the same.

During the debate Mr Givan and his DUP colleague Jonathan Bell spoke with feeling about the religious festival. "I believe that it is the highlight of any particular year when I remember the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ," said Mr Bell.

Mr Givan said: "You can't argue we want to avail of the rights of having a public holiday, which is given to you on the basis of religious belief, but then not expect that in some way there should be respect given to that holiday period."

Of course, both men are entitled to their views. But their particular beliefs should not be used to place constraints on the behaviour of others. Mr Bell and Mr Givan are perfectly free to reject alcohol over Easter, or indeed at any other time, if they feel that is the right thing to do. Equally, it is not a matter of disrespect if others - whether they are people of faith or not - choose to drink during Easter. The two situations are entirely separate. Everyone can just do their own thing.

For me it's the arbitrary nature of the law that makes it so bizarre. Why is it deemed to be offensive to our Lord to have a glass of wine at lunchtime on Good Friday, yet by six o'clock in the evening it's fine and dandy?

Look, nobody - least of all me - is underestimating the dangers of alcohol, especially for young people. Alcohol abuse and addiction are horrible, and they can wreck lives. But it shouldn't be too much to ask that legislation on this important topic should be based on evidence rather than on blind faith.

Research demonstrates that over 80% of people drink in their own homes, or those of their friends, rather than in a pub or restaurant. So why the excessive restraints on public drinking?

And does anyone really believe that allowing craft breweries to sell their wares at food markets will lure a generation of youngsters over to the dark side?

The reality is that the vast majority of drinkers are not problem drinkers. We like a glass of wine or two with our dinner, we like to go for a pint with our friends, and we like to be free to do those things when we choose, rather than when the preachers at Stormont tell us we can. It is not the business of the State to police the morals of the people. But try telling that to the Assembly.
It is a fundamental principle of our law that everyone is judged innocent until proved guilty. That infers defendants are entitled to proper legal representation, which most often is paid for through legal aid.

The cost of mounting a defence in a criminal case with solicitors and barristers involved will very often be beyond the means of ordinary people, and legal aid provides them with that safety net.

But many people reading our report today on the bill racked up to date by Hazel Stewart, the former Sunday school teacher convicted four years ago of murdering her policeman husband and the wife of her lover, dentist Colin Howell, will be astonished at the figures involved.

Stewart has mounted a number of legal cases seeking to overturn her convictions - which have been rejected by judges - and has also fought to retain the police pension of her dead husband, which was paid out for 16 years after his death was initially believed to be a suicide pact with Mrs Howell.

Although the body that examines potential miscarriages of justice has refused to refer her case to the Court of Appeal, Stewart may continue her legal battle in the European courts.

To many, her repeated legal challenges are viewed as exploiting the justice system and the legal aid provision. And they will also wonder why the National Crime Agency has dropped its demand for the repayment of her murdered husband's pension payments.

The NCA is pursuing a new avenue in respect of residential property Stewart obtained as a result of her criminality.

Most people would feel it is justice that if the taxpayer has to fund her defence, then on conviction she should pay up any financial gain resulting from her crime.

In all of this we cannot forget the families of the two victims. They have endured double agony - first in believing that they killed themselves, and then two decades later learning that they were murdered by their spouses.

Now Stewart's repeated legal challenges continue to bring the case into the limelight - it has already been the subject of a book and TV drama series - bringing fresh anguish to the families.

There is another guiding principle in law called proportionality, and many people will feel that the law has already indulged Hazel Stewart sufficiently, and that she should serve out her sentence in her prison cell away from the public gaze.


Fenghua Lin

General Manager

Shandong Binzhou Bohai Piston Co., Ltd.







China's leading piston supplier with high R&D capability

Gasgoo.com: Please give us a brief introduction to Shandong Binzhou Bohai Piston Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Binzhou Piston").

Fenghua Lin: Founded in 1950, Binzhou Piston is a producer of pistons used on agricultural machinery, commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles. Here I'm going to talk about our company's development since the reform and opening up of China started in the late 1970s, because it's in the past three decades that our company has achieved great and fast growth in the automotive industry.

1. From the late 1970s to the end of 1980's

It was a period when the Chinese economy started to transform from a planned economy to a market economy and nearly all the Chinese companies were trying to explore the markets cautiously and blindly. As to our company, we were just able to manufacture according to the design plans of customers, let alone research and development (R&D) and developing strategy. We tried to produce good quality products, but the technological level of the products largely depended on the quality of manufacturing equipment we bought.

At that time, our competitors are still state-owned Chinese companies, not foreign companies, because there was not much foreign investment in the whole Chinese economy. To upgrade our products, we brought in some technology from Japan, and we also got some management guidance from the Japanese side. And compared with our competitors in the big cities of China, our cost is relatively low, because Binzhou is a small city with much lower living and manufacturing costs. Then in 1986, we have become one of China's leading piston producers. I can say that by initiating the management and technology improvement programs, we grasped the opportunity in this blind period.

2. The 1990's

Our management was continuously improved in this period. And we not only learned technologies from foreign companies, but also started preliminary R&D practice. We established a provincial level R&D center in 1995, and a national level R&D center in 1999. In the commercial vehicle piston market, Binzhou Piston has gained a market share of 60%-70%. And the technology and quality gaps between our products and foreign companies became smaller gradually.

3. The first eight years of the 21st century

It's a time of a new Binzhou Piston striving to compete with global players: We have moved to new factories and re-designed our supply process; we have established a new lab which has passed the certification of ISO/IEC 17025; we have had new experts from Germany and the U.K., and new talents from the U.S.A are on the way to join us; our R&D capability has reached a new high, and our spending on R&D has increased to 6%-8% of our revenue from just 4% in 1995 when we set up the provincial level R&D center.

Stretching to raw material and related product business to meet the need for module supplies

Gasgoo.com: We find that Binzhou Piston started other businesses besides piston-making, such as aluminum products. Will this affect your main business?

Fenghua Lin: After careful evaluation, we set a strategy of developing diversified products based on the demands in the automotive industry. Besides pistons, we are also producing wheel hub, cylinder liners, and aluminum products, which are also for the automotive industry. We don't need to worry about their sales. And the decision of setting up a cylinder liners factory largely came from the needs of some customers (Ford, for example) for module supplies.

And the technological risk in producing the new products can be reduced by setting up joint ventures with the leading companies in that field. Our wheel hub factory was set up jointly with German BBS company. Later, because BBS fell into bankruptcy protection, we changed our partner to Qinhuangdao Daika Xinglong Hub Co., Ltd., the largest wheel hub producer in China now. Our cylinder liners factory was a joint venture with Slinger Mfg. Co., Inc., which specializes in the production of cylinder liners.

Our aluminum factory can supply for our production of pistons, wheel hub and cylinder liners, and the logistics cost can be reduced compared with supplying a different company.

Expand in the passenger vehicle market, especially in the European and American OEMs

Gasgoo.com: What's your strategy in the automotive market? Binzhou Piston has become the No.1 commercial vehicle piston supplier in China. But in the passenger vehicle segment, the current situation is more beneficial to foreign suppliers.

Fenghua Lin: In the commercial vehicle market, we are keeping the leading position by increasing investment and by finding new supplying opportunities. There are some opportunities waiting to be explored indeed. For example, in the 1990s, we were precluded from Dongfeng Cummins' supplying system because of the obstruction from the foreign party of the joint venture and the competing relationship between us and Shanghai Diesel, one of its suppliers. But in its new century expanding, Dongfeng Cummins has to recognize BInzhou Piston's technology and quality, and we have forged close cooperation relationship at last.

About 30% of our products are supplied to the passenger vehicle market, but only about 15% of our revenue is generated from it. However, we see a great growth opportunity in this market, because the Chinese passenger vehicle market is the fastest growing market in the world. And we aim to make our sales in the passenger vehicle market equal to that in the commercial vehicle market in the next five years.

This year, most of our investment on R&D and equipment is intended for the development in this market. Currently, our customers in the Chinese passenger vehicle market are mainly the domestic brand companies, such as Chery, Geely, FAW, ChangAn and Changhe. We have tried in vain to enter the Japanese and Korean OEMs' supplying system, because the sourcing of their joint venture in China is controlled by them, and they have strong sense of protecting their home suppliers. But the European and American OEMs' supplying systems are possible to enter. We have passed the certification of General Motors and Ford; we have sent samples of our products to the Ford headquarters for test in its country; we have signed a contract with Volkswagen, and we are going to supply Volkswagen German factories. And we have cooperated with the European and American OEMs in the new car design and innovation process, because they need us to take part in.

The current orders from domestic companies and the forthcoming orders from European and American OEMs make us believe that our aim to become a world leading piston maker would be reached soon.
As one of the greatest minds in human history, perhaps we might pause and reflect on the words of Marx when he said: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies."

I am, of course, referring to Groucho Marx, whose observation has particular resonance when one looks at current efforts by the two governments and the political parties in Northern Ireland to finalise a legacy process.

At this point in time there is the contradiction in play of seeking to encourage testimony from ex-combatants about the conflict while simultaneously putting in place steps to defeat the organisations they were part of.

Realistically, are ex-combatants going to give testimony about past actions when the organisations they were involved with are likely to be targeted and forced into a cul-de-sac of loss and humiliation?

As we have seen with a new mural to celebrate former UFF paramilitary Stephen McKeag, viewed by some as a mass killer and others as a hero, and constructive involvement by loyalists to try and resolve the Twaddell Avenue stand-off, the past and the future mutually exist to produce expectations about identity and change.

That identity can be static on the one hand, about preserving the past, or adapting to challenges with pragmatism for a better future on the other. The designers of a legacy process would do well to not underestimate this relationship and the emotive power of culture to influence imagination and belonging.

To talk about "defeating paramilitarism" would, essentially, mean defeating its significance as a marker of identity. With regards to loyalism, where the perception is one of increasingly being adrift from the self-serving and insular world of Northern Ireland politics, the confrontational approach is not only a mistake, but dangerous.

Any process based on trying to defeat paramilitary groups within a section of society where confidence is low is more likely to make the problem of paramilitarism worse, not better. This ill-conceived strategy is indicative of further problems with the mechanisms designed to handle different aspects of legacy in order to try and create a new space between the past and the future.

Because of this, one must have serious doubts about whether the process as envisaged will help promote the tolerance, humility and peace needed for Northern Ireland to distance itself from the pain of conflict.

To further highlight possible confusion with the legacy mechanisms which emerged from the Stormont House Agreement, where pain can be compounded rather than healed, think of an example like the woman who was sexually abused in her community and who has tried to bury this pain for years, but then decides to engage with a formal legacy structure.

Will she be steered towards mental health services, or historical investigations, or both?

Will her story and experience be used to encourage reconciliation (not defined), or even end up as part of an oral history archive? Legacy raises very real concerns, not just about how access is controlled and managed, but how testimony is controlled and used, too.

Perhaps one formal Personal Testimony Commission, with offices within Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain (to mirror the three-stranded relations of the Good Friday Agreement), set up for five years and tasked with collecting the testimonies and stories which individuals decided were important to them living in the wake of conflict, would have been a better idea.

Whether such stories were emailed, written on scraps of paper or taped and transcribed, such a project on such a scale would offer a far more comprehensive and important history about the legacy of conflict than is likely to be delivered through the mechanisms currently proposed.

In a legacy process of personal testimonies, we might have the story of a man who talks about how he cried so much over the death of his daughter that his eyes ulcerated. Or the 10-year-old boy who writes a note to say he wants to be a doctor like the one who tried to save his father. Or the soldier, or former paramilitary, explaining how he has tried to live with the guilt of committing murder.

Anonymously presented and voluntarily given, word-limited and independently vetted to avoid groups of individuals hijacking the information-gathering process with corporate lines, these stories would not be categorised alphabetically, or sectioned along Protestant/Catholic, nationalist/unionist, republican/loyalist or British/Irish lines, but only according to the dates given.

That this testimony would be likely to run into millions of pages would further confirm the complexity of conflict, providing examples of inspiration, bravery, kindness and even humour alongside the articulation of loss, loneliness, cruelty and hurt.

A personal testimony process conducted in this way would show that nobody owns the conflict, or that any single narrative is representative of it. Then legacy would be individualised and depoliticised.

Without apparent order, other than dates, any person who wants to research or try and make sense of the Northern Ireland conflict would have to dip into a terrain of individual stories that reveal the extent of emotional states which arise as a consequence of living in a society embroiled in conflict.

By so doing, the interested individual, or researcher, will understand the impact of conflict not by engaging with predictable recitations about causes and responsibilities in relation to groups, organisations, communities and States, but through individual experience.

With no obvious emphasis, the voice of the individual would transcend the corporate voice. And it is here, in the lives of individuals, that the effects of conflict are surely most powerfully felt and expressed.

This kind of information-gathering would also allow those who give testimony to say that their story exists, one among thousands of others, and that it exists not just to help society better understand how it suffered as whole, but how it must heal as a whole, too.

The individualisation of conflict experience is therefore the best way of preventing corporate and political narratives from dominating and exploiting the past.

But, this raises another question: is politics the best way to address that past?

Here one might argue that, although politics has to be the main driver for designing and implementing a process to address the legacy of conflict, the functions and delivery of the process should be managed by others, possibly clergy, therapists, trauma experts, mediators and independent experts. Would it be better, once set up, for politicians not to be allowed anywhere near it?

These suggestions are a response to a legacy process that, as it stands, lacks clarity about expected public participation and, because of that, remains obscure as to its social value and necessity. The planning process has been modelled not on inclusive participation, but exclusive control. It, therefore, starts from a point of inequality, which not only raises immediate suspicion, but undermines the credibility and validity of the project's worth.

Loyalists have been excluded from involvement in legacy planning and the communities they are part of exist in a state of low confidence. Many believe that a legacy process is about republicans and the British contesting blame about responsibility for the conflict and that they are seen as incidental to this dispute or, worse, will be used to bolster stories of collusion and State manipulation in the attempt to defeat republicanism.

This does not sit well with most loyalist ex-combatants, who argue that they have as much right as anyone else to try and influence the future, because of their undoubted influence over the past. This is an important contention and, ignored, could risk igniting serious strains in the "post-conflict" landscape.

But that is not all. Right now there is a very important discussion taking place between loyalist leaders and a handful of others about a far-reaching process of change, which can move loyalist communities from a culture of resignation to one of aspiration. The process being proposed relies on converging three areas of influence as part of an expansive strategy to build confidence.

It will require careful planning and engaging with small teams of key individuals in order to provide a clear narrative that communities will find emotionally attractive and which can provide the basis for momentum.

That momentum, once established, then aims to powerfully feed into a drive to improve educational attainment, encourage creativity and facilitate critical thinking about identity, culture and history. A legacy process badly handled and which continues to isolate loyalism from involvement will reinforce claims about marginalisation and risks undermining this work.

As such, there is a need to be aware that a better future can be seriously obstructed by an exclusive and badly designed process for dealing with the past.

And if dealing with the past is about dealing with the future, then the current state of affairs cannot bring the positive change required.

Just as politicians need to look outside of their insular world to see that society has greater and more pressing needs which the proposed legacy design cannot deal with, so, then, perhaps the best advice for loyalists is to ignore that process, as they have been ignored by its proponents and, instead, work on building a transformed and future-oriented culture which creates confidence and inspires individuals to achieve their potential as citizens from within.

Graham Spencer is Reader in Political Conflict at the University of Portsmouth. His book, The British And Peace In Northern Ireland, was published last year
Shanghai, May 9 (Gasgoo.com) Shandong Binzhou Bohai Piston Co., Ltd. (Binzhou Piston for short), China's leading piston supplier, aims to become the world leading piston maker. Reporters from Gasgoo.com introduced Binzhou Piston in detail yesterday after an interview with Lin Fenghua, general manager of Shandong Binzhou Bohai Piston Co., Ltd.

Established in 1950, Shandong Binzhou Bohai Piston Co., Ltd. started to produce piston and machinery products in 1963. The history can be divided into three stages from the late 1970s.

The first stage extended from the start of China's reform and opening-up in the late 1970s till the end of 1980s. During a transitional period from a planned economy to a market economy, Binzhou Piston introduced some technology from Japan, making greater strides than its domestic rivals. Binzhou Piston thus became the bellwether of China's piston industry in 1986.

The company welcomed its second stage which spanned the 1990s, a key decade in its history. Using a follow-up strategy, the company learned advanced foreign technology and management. Then Binzhou Piston began to construct its own R&D platform, establishing the provincial-level R&D center in 1995 and national-level R&D center in 1999. Binzhou Piston laid a good foundation for future development during this period. A good R&D team enabled Binzhou Piston to enter a transitional period 5 years earlier than companies of the industry. In the commercial vehicle piston market, Binzhou Piston has gained a market share of 60%-70%. And the technology and quality gaps between its products and those of foreign companies became smaller gradually.

The third stage ranges from 2000 to the present. These 8 years has witnessed rapid growth of Binzhou Pistonwhich has expanded from a small factory to a big industry park. In this period, Binzhou Piston has implemented its globalization strategy both in human resources and marketing. It established a new lab which has passed the certification of ISO/IEC 17025. New experts are invited from Germany and the U.K., and new talents from the U.S.A are on the way. The R&D capability has reached a new high, with its spending on R&D increasing to 6%-8% of revenue from just 4% in 1995 as the provincial- level R&D center was set up.

In recent years, Binzhou Piston has pursued a development strategy of "focusing business on car industry and set foot moderately in other industries as well." Due to the changing demands at home and abroad as well as its own development needs, Binzhou Piston started other businesses besides piston-making, such as wheel hub, cylinder liners, and aluminum products, which are also for the automotive industry. The company doesn't lack money after being listed. Advanced technology has also been introduced by cooperating with specialized companies, which enables Binzhou Piston to reduce the technological risk. The market risk is also overcome thanks to Binzhou Piston's own demands for these products. For example, Binzhou Piston first built an aluminum factory in order to save energy and then began to invest in industries related to piston manufacturing. A wheel hub factory was set up jointly with a German company --BBS Kraftfahrzeugtechnik AG, a famous wheel hub manufacturer. Later, because of BBS' bankruptcy, Binzhou Piston changed the partner to Qinhuangdao Daika Xinglong Hub Co., Ltd., the largest wheel hub producer in China now. The cylinder liners factory was a joint venture with Slinger Mfg. Co., Inc., which specializes in the production of cylinder liners.
People pass a pile of garbage burning along a road on the outskirts of New Delhi, Feb. 18, 2015.

Indias scheduled ratification on Sunday of the Paris Agreement on climate change will give it an edge in shaping future rules on emissions, but the landmark treaty may not achieve much in reducing mankinds overall carbon footprint, according to environmentalists.

India, the worlds second most populous country and among its most robust economies, is its fourth biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists and the World Resources Institute (WRI).

India would gain political benefits by being one of the early ratifiers in devising details to the rule book to be framed on different aspects pertaining to the reduction of global emissions, such as rules related to carbon stock markets, financing and adaptation, Vijeta Rattani, a climate analyst at the Center for Science and Environment, a policy think-tank in New Delhi, told BenarNews.

But the treaty is too weak and inadequate to achieve any substantial results, she said.

Indias Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this week approved ratification of the Paris Agreement, with the government calling it a historic decision.

With the ratification, India will be one of the key countries instrumental in bringing the Paris Agreement into force, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters.

Ratified by 61 nations

A total of 192 countries have signed the Paris Agreement which was adopted on Dec. 12, 2015. But according to the terms of the pact, the treaty would come into force only after 55 countries contributing to 55 percent of the global greenhouse emissions ratify it.

The signatories agreed to work collectively to keep Earths temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit a planetary temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the United Nations.

Global warming happens when greenhouse gases trap heat in the planets atmosphere, causing polar icecaps to melt and sea levels to rise, according to scientists.

So far, 61 nations have ratified the agreement, accounting for a total of 47.79 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions. Indias ratification on Sunday would take that figure to 51.89 percent.

During ratification of the Paris deal, India would spell out that it would treat its national laws, development agenda, availability of means of implementation, its assessment of global commitment to combating climate change and predictable and affordable access to cleaner sources of energy as the context in which the agreement would be ratified, a government source told BenarNews.

The Paris Agreement pertains to post-2020 climate actions. In the pre-2020 period, developed countries would follow the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty in operation since 2005 that assigns countries to reduce greenhouse emissions based on their historic carbon footprint.

The Paris Agreement intends to reduce the emissions from 50 to 40 gigatons, or to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels. Some developing countries have pledged to reduce carbon footprints in the form of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).

2030 targets

India has declared it intends to reduce the intensity of its emissions by 35 percent and build 40 percent capacity for power generation from non-fossil fuels by 2030. Besides taxing coal at $6 per ton, India has set an ambitious target of generating 175 gigawatts by 2022.

Rattani said that while India was serious about tackling climate change, a global effort was required to achieve desired results.

India still needs to work on the basic infrastructure and lots of regulations to achieve the 2030 targets, Rattani said, while noting that the agreement itself was flawed.

The means of implementation in the form of technology transfer, financing and capacity building are not adequately addressed. You need at least a trillion dollars to achieve the INDCs. Unless there is a commitment from developed countries, the INDCs would remain unfulfilled, she said.

Soumya Dutta of India Climate Justice agreed.

India has not given any target of total emission cuts nor has it given any commitment on the reductions period. Only committing to reductions in energy intensity is no big deal. India has also not said anything about cutting on its own coal consumption, Dutta told BenarNews.

However, according to Manish Srivastava, a researcher at the Earth Sciences and Climate Change Division of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Delhi, the deal has given enough flexibility to countries including India in exploring options, and is potentially supportive of financial needs.

The agreement is based on self-differentiated nationally determined contributions by countries and aims to ensure making financial flows consistent with the 2-degree goal. But financial flows are determined by a number of factors and it is not clear how the agreement will make financial flows consistent with the goal, he told BenarNews.
A spokesman for indigenous people in Malaysias Kelantan state vowed Friday to block a logging road in a protected forest until state officials stop granting licenses to cut down timber in the area.

Members of the Kelantan Network of Orang Asli Villages (JKOAK) set up the blockade earlier this week in an area they claim as their ancestral land, and rebuilt it late Wednesday after a tense standoff with loggers in which shots were fired, according to the activists.

I cannot say how long we will be here but my friends and I will continue this blockade as long as the loggers dont leave, as long as the forest clearing and logging doesnt stop, JKOAK secretary Mustafa Along told BenarNews on Friday.

Our demand now is that for the state government to open their eyes, listen to our complaint and stop and withdraw all the licenses. As long as there is logging, our blockade will continue.

According to footage of the confrontation Wednesday published by The Star, a Malaysian newspaper, a man used a chainsaw to tear down the bamboo structure while activists were still clinging to it.

A man also fired shots at the activists, according to one of them, identified only as Halim.

A vehicle with two people inside stopped in front of us, and one took out a rifle and fired. After that, we didnt have a chance to take a picture, we ran down into the forest. He got down, he put in another round and he fired again, Halim said on camera.

Three of the men were briefly detained in a truck, according to Mustafa Along. He said the trio filed a complaint Wednesday night at the district police station in Gua Musang, a town in southern Kelantan about two hours from where the confrontation took place.

Gua Musang police deputy Sow Sing said Wednesdays incident was being investigated.

The situation is not as bad as reported. There were no shots fired, he told BenarNews.

No contact

Malaysian indigenous rights activist and lawyer Siti Kasim told BenarNews that no state official had made contact with the indigenous activists since their protest began.

She claimed that contracts issued by Kelantan state government specify that logging companies should resolve any issues with indigenous people themselves.

I saw a clause in one of the logging contracts. So as far as the state government is concerned, I suppose, they have protected themselves already, if any problem occurs. Its really up to the contractors to sort it out with Orang Asli over any problems on the ground, she told BenarNews.

She said the protesters were not against logging but wanted it to be done appropriately without destroying the jungle and the mountain.

Kelantan Deputy Chief Minister Nik Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah, who is in charge of the states regional development, land affairs and natural resources portfolio, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BenarNews.

An official with the Malaysia Chinese Association Kelantan Liaison Committee said Friday he had witnessed first-hand how rampant logging in the region had triggered soil erosion that cut road links and the access of Orang Asli to towns and food sources.

It is baffling how the loggers obtained licenses for felling logs in Permanent Reserve Forest (PRF), when the land was purportedly meant to be conserved for ecological services such as water catchment protection and soil stabilization, said the statement by Lua Choon Hann.

In December 2014, the East Coast state of Peninsular Malaysia was hit by the worst flooding in the past decade, displacing more than 100,000 people from their homes. At the time, the National Security Council secretary blamed rampant logging activities for worsening the flooding and landslides, according to Malaysian media.

On Thursday, Kelantan Forestry Director Zahari Ibrahim said that 7,248 hectares of more than 600,000 hectares of permanent forest reserves in Kelantan have been illegally occupied since the 1980s, according to Bernama, the state news agency.

The illegally cleared forest land was being used for agriculture, including palm oil production, and settlements, he said.

But on Friday, Natural Resource and Environment Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar denied that permanent forest reserves in Kelantan had been cleared, according to the Malay Mail Online. The Kelantan Forestry Department is actively monitoring developments on this issue, it quoted him as saying.

Indigenous people comprise about 12 percent of Malaysias 31 million people.
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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.

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For Immediate Release, September 30, 2016 Contact: Kristen Monsell, (510) 844-7137, kmonsell@biologicaldiversity.org Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project in Canada

Threatens Critically Endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales Pipeline Company Has Long History of Spills, Accidents in United States OTTAWA The Center for Biological Diversity today urged the Canadian government to reject Kinder Morgans proposal to build a 613-mile pipeline so it can transport dirty Alberta tar sands oil to the United States and China. The pipeline would run from Edmonton, Alberta to Burnaby, British Columbia, where the oil would be loaded onto tankers and shipped through critical habitat for endangered Southern Resident killer whales, a species with fewer than 85 individual animals left. Kinder Morgan has had at least 184 leaks and other pipeline incidents caused by corrosion, ruptures, equipment failure and other problems in the United States since 2006, federal data show. These incidents resulted in $75 million in property damage and more than 27,300 barrels of hazardous materials spilled. This companys disturbing history highlights the toxic threat of its pipeline expansion project, said Center attorney Kristen Monsell. If this projects permitted, the pollution, noise and increased risk of dangerous oil spills would threaten the survival of some of the most amazing animals on Earth. Canada must reject this environmentally destructive project. Southern Resident killer whales live primarily in waters off Washington and British Columbia and are protected as an endangered species in both the United States and Canada. Despite these protections the species hasnt recovered and is expected to decline to only 75 individuals within a generation. Existing human activities in and near coastal waters threaten these animals by reducing salmon numbers (their primary food), generating toxic pollution and increasing ocean noise, which disrupts the orcas ability to communicate and locate prey. The project would nearly triple the capacity of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline to 890,000 barrels per day and would increase the amount of tanker traffic in the Salish Sea  a core foraging area for these endangered orcas  seven-fold, from around 60 tankers per year to more than 400. Experts have said that an oil spill from the project could collapse salmon stocks and lead to the extinction of Southern Resident killer whales, similar to what is happening to a pod of killer whales near Prince William Sound due to lingering effects of the Exxon Valdez disaster. That pod now consists of only seven animals and is expected to die off soon. Southern Resident killer whales are already teetering on the brink of extinction  the last thing they need is hundreds of loud oil tankers carrying millions of gallons of dirty oil through their habitat, said Monsell. We cant let what the Exxon Valdez spill did to killer whales off Alaska happen to Southern Residents too. In order to authorize the project, the Canadian government must determine that the project is in the public interest. Canadas National Energy Board issued a report finding the project met that standard in May, but the Governor in Council has yet to make a final decision. A decision is expected in December. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places


For Immediate Release, September 30, 2016 Contact: Nick Cady, Cascadia Wildlands, (314) 482-3746, nick@cascwild.org

Noah Greenwald, Center for Biological Diversity, (503) 484-7495, ngreenwald@biologicaldiveristy.org

Steve Pedery, Oregon Wild, (503) 283-6343 x 212

Bob Sallinger, Portland Audubon, (503) 380-9728 Lawsuit Filed Against Oregon Board of Forestry for Failing to

Protect Habitat for Threatened Marbled Murrelet EUGENE, Ore. Four conservation organizations filed suit today against the Oregon Board of Forestry over its dismissal of a petition requesting the board identify and protect important old-growth forest areas for the marbled murrelet, a seabird threatened with extinction. Under Oregon law the board was supposed to have provided such protection after the seabird was protected as threatened under the state Endangered Species Act in 1987. The state of Oregon is obligated to protect its threatened wildlife, and it is not doing that with this unique seabird, said Nick Cady, legal director at Cascadia Wildlands. It is way past time that protection measures for the species are instituted, otherwise the marbled murrelet will go the way of the passenger pigeon.



On Sept. 9 the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission granted a similar petition. The two agencies are required to work together to facilitate murrelet recovery and develop protection measures for occupied sites. The marbled murrelet was first listed as a threatened species in Oregon in 1987, and the listing of a species requires the Board of Forestry to conduct an inventory of species sites and develop rules to protect the sites from harmful forestry activities. Clearcut logging of the murrelets nesting habitat on state and private forestlands in Oregon is the primary cause of the species decline. For the last 30 years, Oregons plan for marbled murrelets has been to look the other way while their habitat is clearcut, said Steve Pedery, conservation director at Oregon Wild. Oregonians expect better from our governor and state agencies. They need to develop a plan to protect murrelets and their habitat, and they need to stand up to pressure from the clearcut lobby and the county politicians who do their bidding. While murrelets have been listed as a threatened species for nearly 30 years, Oregon has never developed a plan to recover them or protect the old-growth habitat they depend on. Instead the state has relied on the nesting habitat located on nearby federal forestlands. This is no longer sufficient as murrelet populations in the Pacific Northwest continue to decline, and a recent status review conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that conservation of nesting habitat on state and private lands is now critical to the species survival. The Board of Forestry's decision to not even consider a petition to identify and protect old-growth habitat for marbled murrelets once again demonstrates the board's indifference towards the plight of marbled murrelets and other old-growth dependent species, said Bob Sallinger, conservation director for Audubon Society of Portland. The board has been ignoring its obligations under both state and federal law for decades even as the marbled murrelets numbers continue to plummet. Murrelets fly inland from the ocean to nest on wide, mossy limbs found in the mature and old-growth forests of the Oregon Coast Range. A recent decision to ramp up clearcut logging of murrelet nesting habitat on Bureau of Land Management lands in western Oregon, coupled with the state of Oregons proposal to privatize the 93,000-acre Elliott State Forest, located east of Coos Bay, underscore the need to develop habitat protections. A recent murrelet monitoring report produced by the U.S. Forest Service stressed the urgent need to arrest the loss of suitable habitat on all lands, especially on non-federal lands in the relatively near term. The Board of Forestry's management of the old-growth forests needed by the marbled murrelet and cherished by Oregonians across the political spectrum has been abysmal, said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. The Board of Forestry and Gov. Kate Brown have a legal and moral responsibility to protect murrelets and their forest habitat, and need to take action to reverse the decline of the species." Background

The marbled murrelet is a member of the auk family, which includes birds like auklets, guillemots and puffins. These seabirds get their name from the marbling pattern of black, gray and white that covers their backs during the non-breeding season. When murrelets are breeding they molt to a plain brown plumage. They form lifelong breeding pairs and feed on small, schooling fish, such as herring. Populations of marbled murrelets are closely tied to the amount of old forest habitat available for nesting. The central Oregon Coast is one of the last strongholds for murrelets. While forest practices have changed on federal lands managed by the Siuslaw National Forest, scientists warn that more needs to be done to protect murrelet habitat on state and private lands where logging practices continue to indiscriminately remove nesting habitat.
Mewing is a TikTok trend that has blown up in the last few months. It is claimed that it can help shape your jawline as well as cure other ailments by actively pressing your tongue to the roof
Klcdaroglu reacts against Erdogans contempt for Treaty of Lausanne

CHP Chair Kemal Klcdaroglu has reacted firmly against President Erdogans recent statements, where he scorned the Treaty of Lausanne. Klcdaroglu criticized Erdogan for distorting history and said: You are sitting on that chair (of Presidency) by the virtue of the Republic! and added: If this is your understanding of Yenikap spirit, we are against it!

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Having met with the representatives of foreign media institutions in Ankara, CHP Chair Kemal Klcdaroglu answered the journalists questions after the meeting.

Also giving statements about Erdogans recent scolding remarks with regards to the signing of Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, Klcdaroglu said the following: So, Lausanne has been brought up! While there is such high rate of unemployment; while people are concerned about their lives; while victimized people are trying to find a way out in all 81 provinces of the country, why would Treaty of Lausanne come up? Treaty of Lausanne is the title of Turkey! We defend Lausanne; they (AKP) defend Sevres We defend the Republic; they defend the caliphate. We defend the citizens; they defend slavery. Dont forget that you are sitting on that chair by the virtue of the Republic, my friend! Where do you get the right to distort history from? Nobody has such right! If you are the President, just sit on your seat and be the President. If you dont know history, call on a historian to tell the history. Someone who is in the position of the Presidency cannot betray his/her country; cannot sell it out! Yesterday, you said: Lausanne is our title; and, today you say: The country was sold through Lausanne. What is this?... Now, he (Erdogan) will come up and say: He (Klcdaroglu) has sold out the Yenikap spirit. If this is your understanding of Yenikap spirit, we are against it!

Source: http://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/kilicdaroglu-o-koltuga-cumhuriyet-in-sayesinde-oturdugunu-unutmayacaksin-arkadas-129881.html
MTN Nigeria denies that it illegally repatriated $14bn out of Nigeria, as alleged by Nigerian politicians in the country's senate.

"The allegations made against MTNN are completely unfounded and without any merit," MTN Nigeria CEO, Ferdi Moolman, said in a Sens statement on Wednesday morning.

MTN's share price on the JSE fell sharply on Tuesday when news of the allegations emerged. Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Nigeria's senate had said it would investigate the claim thoroughly.

However, analysts have questioned the veracity of the claim, saying it seemed unlikely, given Nigeria's tight exchange controls, that the movement of such a large sum of cash would have gone undetected for so long.

The allegation was that the money had been moved out of Nigeria over a period of four years. Four banks were said to be involved.

This is not the first time MTN has run into trouble in Nigeria. It was fined $5.2bn for failing to deregister SIM cards, which it eventually managed to reduce to $1.7bn.

Source: BDpro.
The United States strongly condemns the September 27, 2016, assassination of Somali journalist Abdiaziz Mohamed Ali in Mogadishu.

Image by 123RF

Ali worked for Radio Shabelle and Shabelle Media Network. The United States extends sincere condolences to Alis family, friends and colleagues and salutes the courage of Somali journalists, who continue to struggle daily and risk their lives in defense of this inalienable right of freedom of expression on behalf of the Somali people.

The United States urges the Federal Government of Somalia to investigate and swiftly bring the perpetrators to justice. We also urge an end the culture of impunity and violence that continues to threaten the lives of journalists and activists and curtail the universally recognised right to freedom of expression, the statement read.
My industry, known for 'social rebelling' if not for 'consumer advocacy', is fabulously quiet on the data costs debate taking place in the market. Yet, the week doesn't end without industry folks talking glowingly about the effectiveness of their video content in the online media space. One has to tune into SAfm every Sunday morning to hear about all the breaking online content posted on YouTube or Facebook and wonder who really is excited about these online campaigns when it is clear that the consumers who these campaigns are targeted at are not really switched on due to prohibitive data costs.

I was of the view that the industry will add its weighty voice on the data costs debate, primarily as the industry is an advocate for consumers and largely because data availability is the decisive motivator for the consumers to access these apps in which brands advertise. It is in the interest of the advertising industry to have affordable data costs for the greater good and sustainability of the industry. As the media changes at high speed, it is clear that a huge chunk of the market is excluded from the e-media revolution taking place.

It is dangerous for the industry to sit on the fence on issues affecting consumers, because the latter tends to have long memories. I was surprised by a grandmother in Meadowlands, Soweto, who in the early 90s refused to drink Pepsi Cola, preferring Coca-Cola, reasoning that Pepsi Cola ran away from South Africa during hard times, only returning now when things are easy. Pepsi was re-entering the market after having pulled out its investments from the country due to political reasons. Now, we have a finicky youth market, or what is known as the Millennials, who are challenging every status quo in the country. Not only are these youngsters consumers, they are also a target for the industry that tries to attract them to its fold. This is one lost opportunity.

I dare think that blasting the SABC and its management circus or parodying Zuma in Nandos ads is not enough, data costs is also an issue on which the industry should have a voice, as this touches on the core of the new reality: the connection between online and offline media working seamlessly to access consumers in this ever-changing media landscape.
As overall winner of the FNB Business Innovation Awards for 2016, Bevan Ducasse, founder and CEO of wiGroup , was sponsored a trip to the Endeavor International Selection Panel (ISP) in Boston earlier this month, courtesy of FNB Business and SWISS International Airlines

Bevan became an Endeavor entrepreneur a couple of years ago, so he attended as an observer and GAP candidate.

I am incredibly grateful to FNB Business and Endeavor for the opportunity to go back to an ISP, and to further advance wiGroups position, product and strategy in order to make the biggest difference we can make, he said.

We asked him about the experience in comparison to his previous ISP.

You were looking forward to "gaining access to a global platform of leading business luminaries and a peer group of highly ambitious founders". How did the Boston ISP live up to your expectations? You were looking forward to "gaining access to a global platform of leading business luminaries and a peer group of highly ambitious founders". How did the Boston ISP live up to your expectations?

It was wonderful to see the caliber of panelists that I was able to present to, and more importantly to have their expertise across industry, which assisted in getting different perspectives on the challenges we face as an organisation.

What were some of the similarities and differences between the Boston ISP and the Florianopolis one, where you were selected in 2014? What were some of the similarities and differences between the Boston ISP and the Florianopolis one, where you were selected in 2014?

The similarity was the way each ISP made me think more global, and raised my awareness of the possibility. The key difference was one of motivating to be selected, and perhaps putting your guard up against challenges you may face, when I was at the Brazil ISP. In contrast, when I was at the Boston ISP I was far more focused on the challenges, rather than the successes in order to get the best value out of being a GAP candidate.

Comment on your experience as an observer as opposed to a candidate? Comment on your experience as an observer as opposed to a candidate?

Observing always brings perspective to general challenges, and due to you not being on the spot, it assists in your mind being open to hear in order to understand and change, rather than just to listen and feel that you need the answers.

Endeavor helps entrepreneurs to think bigger, make better decisions and multiply their influence. Has this ISP enlarged your thinking, and if so, how? Endeavor helps entrepreneurs to think bigger, make better decisions and multiply their influence. Has this ISP enlarged your thinking, and if so, how?

Yes, thinking global rather than local and assisting my belief that a $100m turnover is achievable in the short to medium term.

Do you believe your title as FNB Business Innovator of the Year opened any additional doors or opportunities? Do you believe your title as FNB Business Innovator of the Year opened any additional doors or opportunities?

Certainly in the local market were feeling the effect of the award in order to get to the right people, and for them to be more committed in their engagement due to the credibility of the awards.
To create intrigue and interest around one of South Africa's most popular vegetables - the potato - Potatoes SA has launched a new #WTP campaign to inform and educate about their nutritional benefits and versatility when it comes to preperation. After all, what is fish without chips, "wors" without mash or a "braai" without wedges?

lehtta1 via pixabay

A first for Potatoes SA (an industry organisation that supports the potato producers within each region in South Africa), its #WTP or wheres the potato? campaign has been developed as a creative, tongue-in-cheek call to action to get consumers around the country talking about potatoes. Launched across TV, radio, and print, and through an interactive social media campaign.

#WTP will demonstrate that potatoes are versatile, wholesome and are a great accompaniment to most meals. It will also assist consumers to create nutritious and delicious, as well as novel potato based meals  ensuring their families benefit from the vitamins, minerals and natural energy they provide, explains Dr Andre Jooste, CEO of Potatoes SA.

The campaign will introduce new recipes and food pairing ideas to consumers via social media, countering many of the misperceptions about potatoes that are still prevalent across the country. Were working closely with a nutritionist and professional chef to ensure that South Africans learn how to include potatoes in meals in a wholesome nutritious way. Preparation and portion size are key in unlocking their nutritional benefits, says Jooste.

With per capita consumption of potatoes currently standing at 40kgs per person per annum, he adds that the organisations efforts are directly connected to growing the industry. The sector comprises of an estimated 90,000 full-time and temporary potato farm workers, thereby making the potato industry fully committed to positively contributing to the countrys challenge of high unemployment. Were hoping to create additional awareness around farming as an economic enabler as a spin-off through the campaign.

#WTP

As summer makes itself felt across the country and the smell of braais returns over weekends, #WTP promises to give consumers new reasons to stock up on potatoes. And, with wheres the potato? just the start of the campaign, there's a lot to look forward to.

Visit Potato Nation, their Facebook page and Instagram for more.
Shareholder activist Dave Woollam has been cleared by the Financial Services Board (FSB) of allegations of insider trading in shares in Lewis, SA's largest furniture retailer.

The FSB said on Wednesday it had closed its investigation into Woollams trading in Lewis shares and found no evidence of insider trading by Woollam.

The FSBs investigation was launched in March following a complaint by the Lewis board that Woollam had been deliberately trying to drive down the share price to support his short-trading position in Lewis stock.

The FSB investigation was regarded as a critical sideshow in the continuing and precedent-setting legal battle between Woollam and the Lewis board.

Woollam is also a partner in Summit Financial Partners, which is campaigning to clean up unsecured lending practices.

In early June, Woollam served a Section 165 notice on the Lewis board requiring it to take legal action against four directors.

If the four directors were found to have been delinquent, as charged by Woollam, they faced the risk of personal liability. The four directors are CEO Johan Enslin, chief financial officer Les Davies, board chairman David Nurek and chairman of the audit and risk committee Hilton Saven.

The Lewis board told shareholders in June that Woollams action against the company was part of a concerted attempt to drive down the share price.

The board said a weaker share price would financially benefit Woollam because he held a 'long-standing' short position in Lewis shares at the time of his campaign against Lewis.

Woollam confirmed he had previously held a short position in Lewis (one of the most shorted shares in emerging markets), but at no time since initiating his legal action did he have a short position.

In June, Lewis reminded shareholders the FSB was engaged in an investigation into possible insider trading in Lewis shares by Woollam. If Woollam wanted his legal action to proceed he would have to persuade the court he was acting in good faith.

On Thursday, Woollam said he had received a letter from the FSB confirming the investigation had been closed and that no further action would be taken against him. "I have always said there were never any grounds for this complaint against me, there were never any grounds for Lewis to claim I was in any way involved in insider trading, market manipulation or market abuse," said Woollam.

A spokesman for Lewis said on Thursday evening that the companys legal advisers had been told by the FSB that it was continuing to investigate market manipulation in Lewis shares by Woollam, but he could provide no evidence of this.

The press release issued by the FSBs directorate of market abuse makes no reference to any other investigations into Lewis. Bert Chanetsa, the deputy executive officer of the FSB, said: "The press release is accurate, the people at Lewis are misinformed."
Packaging company Astrapak reported a 67% surge in first-half after-tax profit on Thursday as a turnaround plan yielded the desired results.

The groups after-tax profit from continuing operations jumped to R9.87m in the six months to August, from R5.95m a year ago.

Profit rose off higher revenue from its core markets in food, personal care and toiletries, and automotive products where Astrapak increased sales volumes and pricing.

These categories, which contributed the most to sales, were relatively resistant to poor economic conditions. They also benefited from growing urbanisation and government investment in bulk infrastructure and sanitation, Astrapak said.

The group is in the fourth year of its five-year turnaround strategy. It has exited the polyethylene terephthalate plastics market and is also divesting from the flexible film packaging, with assets for sale in businesses valued at R300m.

The net value includes residual properties from previously disposed businesses.

"We are starting to see the kind of improvement we were targeting," CEO Robin Moore said on Thursday.

Moore was confident Astrapak would achieve its targeted benchmark for earnings before interest, tax depreciation and amortisation of 12% to 15% from 8.8% by the financial year 2018.

This would be achieved as major contracts in the personal care industry were now being commercialised.

One of the contracts would generate turnover of R50m, Moore said.

Astrapak lists Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Danone, BP and Shell as leading clients.

The period under review also saw Astrapak relocate its head office from Johannesburg to KwaZulu-Natal and realise further savings from the move by reducing its supporting offices in Durban to nine from 26.

By focusing on strategic areas and costs, Astrapak was able to counter pressures from increased competition as rivals reduced prices to either retain contracts or win new business.

Astrapaks main rivals include Bowler Metcalf, Mpact, Nampak and privately owned packaging firm Polyoak.

The sharp focus on costs also offset pressures from rising prices of raw materials induced by the volatility of the rand and a firmer dollar.

Cratos Wealth portfolio manager Ron Klipin said Astrapaks turnaround strategy finally appeared to be on track, despite extremely difficult trading conditions, currency volatility and a highly competitive market.

"From a financial point of view, the sale of noncore assets and properties, with additional asset disposals pending, will further strengthen the groups balance sheet," he said.

Ian Cruickshanks, the chief economist at the Institute of Race Relations, commended Astrapak managements strategic interventions, although he questioned whether the company could continue increasing its profit at the same rate.

"You have to look at business confidence and consumer spending. It is all in the doldrums," he said.
Stakeholders engaged in the hydrocarbons industry are now busy giving their views on Tanzania's Oil and Gas Revenue Management Act, the law which will spell out the regulatory and legal framework of managing discoveries and control of the natural gas reserves and possible future oil finds.

Deputy minister for energy and minerals, Dr Medard Kalemani, said the government has given stakeholders three months to air their views before endorsement by the end of this year. Last year the Act, which requires each investor in the hydrocarbons industry to employ locals, was endorsed.

The thrust of this new legislation is to speed up the development of the gas and oil sectors. Tanzania, East Africa's second largest economy, has an estimated 55,1trn cubic feet of gas reserves, the second largest in the region after Mozambique.

Kalemani admitted that local businesspeople have limited capacity to satisfy the market to be created by the oil and gas industry players. "The ministry is geared towards creating awareness among local producers on what they are supposed to do to meet the demand of the market.

He said the local content in the development of Tanzania liquefied natural gas (LNG) will centre on empowering local producers by giving them opportunities in the project. "We want our people to be able to produce quality goods and services.

He said the project would create many employment opportunities to Tanzanians as well as enabling government to collect revenue through various forms of taxes that will help to improve the provision of social services such as education, health, water and infrastructure, among others.

National economic empowerment council executive secretary, Beng'i Issa, said her organisation conducted a study on local content in the construction of Tanzania LNG facility with the purpose of offering initial assessment of the opportunities for Tanzanian enterprises and workers to participate in the LNG project.

"Overall the analysis reveals that a significant domestic shortage of oil and gas related industrial competencies will likely limit local participation in the gas supply chain," she noted.

The country has much to do on capacity-building and that the study recommended a special plan to be put in place to enable many people be employable in certain areas to produce good and quality services.

The construction of LNG plant at Likong'o area in Lindi Region will cost $30bn. Apart from Statoil, other companies that will invest in this project include Shell, Exxon, Mobil, Pavillion and Ophir.

Tanzania private sector foundation executive director, Godfrey Simbeye, said it was crucial for the government to ensure that the private gets opportunities on the LNG project. "Private sector still has time to learn and build its capacity before the project kicks off.
SAP Skills for Africa is a skills development and job creation initiative launched by SAP Africa in 2015. The latest chapter in the South African leg commenced this week with student orientation, prefacing the actual training due to start on 29 September.

Since inception, the initiative has grown to maturity across Africa with growing numbers of graduates, SAP customers and partners. The new Johannesburg chapter represents the biggest graduate intake to date with 100 graduates embarking upon the SAP Skills for Africa ICT and soft skills training. Involved partners and customers all share the same mission: promoting economic growth and developing substantive ICT skills that change lives in a sustainable manner.

Johannesburg partners who will take the successful graduates into internships post completion of this leg of the training include EOH, Accenture, Eskom, Zimele Technologies, T-Systems, Britehouse, Bosch, Clariba Solutions, Cosnet, Cornastone and MICT SETA.

Using a hybrid approach of classroom and e-learning training, with hands-on simulated exercises, the three-month programme will afford the participants the opportunity to develop world-class IT skills. The training will comprise seven classes and modules and SAP flagship in-memory technology, SAP S/4HANA, will be introduced as part of the training for the first time.

The course also incorporates essential business and soft skills training, with a formal SAP Academy accreditation resulting in internationally recognised associate SAP consultant certification. The programme is fully-sponsored with no cost to qualifying university graduates.

IT talent development

Technology talent has always been in short supply, but as Africa increasingly becomes digitalised, that lack is now a clear inhibitor to growth and the root of a vicious cycle: technology industries dont have access to enough skills, they fail to meet customer demands, the market shrinks and what talent there is looks for greener pastures. Since demand for IT skills is a worldwide phenomenon, the IT skills brain drain is a reality that is significantly impairing Africa economies.

Skills development with specific job creation in mind is not a simple challenge to overcome, commented Lawrence Kandaswami, managing director for SAP South Africa: In a developing economy such as South Africas, digital education is not yet accessible for all. What SAP sees is a vast gap between the education that young people are receiving and what the employment market needs and this is where SAP Skills for Africa is increasingly making its unique value-proposition known.

The problem is not a shortage of jobs, but a lack of skills, agreed Ebrahim Laher, managing director at EOH SAP. Local skills pools define how competitive and effective a market is, so supporting SAP Skills for Africa is not about being a nice company, it is to secure our future prosperity.

Public sector support

As a key financial contributor since 2012, MICT SETA, through their skills levy programme, has enabled the SAP Skills for Africa initiative to grow as both public and private sector organisations support the need for specialised skills development.

Demand for technology skills reaches beyond the confines of the ICT industry. As such the SAP Skills for Africa initiative also has support from partners in other sectors, such as Eskom, concluded Sean Maritz, CIO and group executive at Eskom. Partnerships with the private sector are becoming increasingly important for enablement and development of core skills and resources across a multitude of industries.
Formula One racing has been the subject of a massive takeover by US cable tycoon John Malone , driven by the desire to add subscribers to his channels and diversify his holdings. Malone paid US$4.4 billion for a 35% stake , with the remaining interest held by race teams.

One of the new owners first tasks is to modernise the sport.

To a certain extent, such matters take care of themselves in motor racing. Innovation is constant as different teams compete to take advantage of new rules, aerodynamics, materials and techniques. Formula One is regularly dominated by manufacturers that take their latest cars as close to the margin as possible in terms of performance.

But there are two other ways in which the competition needs an upgrade. First, it has an ageing audience, in part due to the previous regimes distaste for marketing the sport to youth. TV ratings are down everywhere other than the US, which is showing renewed interest.

Second, its environmental status remains a problem. In the words of one academic overview of sustainability in sports, motor racing faces increasing pressure to reduce resource consumption and to operate in an environmentally sustainable manner. This is hardly a surprise, but in my research on greenwashed sports I found some evidence supporting both sides of the debate about race cars and carbon footprints.

Formula One is heavily reliant on fossil fuels to build the cars and the circuits, while a race causes lots of local pollution and involves a major transformation of the landscape wherever it is held. Back in 2007, each race car emitted around 1.5kg of CO for every kilometre it drove, about nine times that of a family car (more recent data is hard to find). You might expect fast cars to burn lots of fuel of course, and these emissions have been reduced in the years since.

But the racing itself is responsible for just 0.3% of the sports carbon emissions, which mostly derive from raw materials, manufacturing, and electricity usage, especially via wind tunnels and computing. In addition, Formula One teams fly 160,000 km a year to test cars and compete.

Against that, boosters claim the sport provides regular road cars with a high-speed research and development laboratory, as competition between manufacturers spurs advanced engineering and ever-greater fuel efficiency. These innovations are then passed on to everyday business and domestic motoring, supposedly diminishing the carbon footprint of normal traffic.

These supposed benefits are often highlighted in conventional press reporting. Some even argue that cyclists are miles behind Formula 1 in the environmental race due to the massive impact of travel on events such as the Tour de France, weighed against motor sports cutting-edge technology.

That said, some senior figures in the sport are horrified by changes to emissions regulations that have reduced the noise pollution that some think adds to the atmosphere. Fans complained in unprecedented numbers about the quieter engines that came in 2014 with a mandatory shift from 2.4 litre V8s to 1.6 litre V6 turbo-power units. And regulations in favour of greener practices, such as kinetic energy recovery from braking and thermal energy recovery from emissions, were long delayed because of lobbying by corporate teams.

But the McLaren Racing team became a carbon-neutral company in 2011, partly through offsets to counter the amount of flying required, but largely through emissions controls. It recycles two-thirds of its waste, sends nothing to landfill, and has an energy-efficient headquarters at its McLaren Technology Centre, a smart building that is warmed by a thermal buffer, cooled by a lake, and roofed with recycled tyres. And in 2014, Formula E for electric vehicles appeared, funded by established racing firms and Leonardo DiCaprio and staffed by escapees from Formula One sickened by its opposition to significant action against climate change.

Environmental activists have been largely ineffective in their opposition to the sport, despite mounting some very solid arguments. Greenpeace, one of few environmental organisations large enough to battle Formula One worldwide, has tried to disrupt Grand Prix events through a now-familiar tactic: people dressed up in bright colours climbing onto buildings owned by others.

But such practices are not contra the sport itself, nor are they even focused on its environmental record  in fact, Greenpeace has said very positive things about Formula One, and its former executive director is a fan. Rather, they represent a kind of secondary boycott strategy directed at particular event sponsors.

Thankfully, major sponsors of Formula One include companies that want to expand sales while cutting carbon emissions, such as Unilever, GSK, and SAP. They have lobbied hard for teams to adapt to ecological reality in the interests of a mutual desire for a social license to operate.

The likely outcome is that Formula One will expand its reach under its new owner Malone. Teams will seek efficiency gains for competitive rather than ecological reasons. Activists will complain, if not as noisily as the cars that irk them. And the real carbon footprint of the sport  its air miles  will remain a sideshow.


G Adventures in collaboration with the Jane Goodall Institute is curating a programme of 20 wildlife trips to form the Jane Goodall Collection with the hope to raise awareness of the importance of wildlife-friendly tourism.

JGI Canada/Michael Neugebauer - Jane Goodall

All trips in the collection are endorsed by renowned primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall. The Jane Goodall Institute protects endangered species through conservation strategies that incorporate the needs of local communities, understanding that helping people saves wildlife. Dr. Goodall has also formally given her support to the G Adventures Animal Welfare Policy, which covers all 650 trips and ensures the protection of all animals when travelling with the leading small group adventure tour operator.

I want to congratulate G Adventures on their animal welfare policy, which is so aligned with our values. My vision is that, one day, people can live in harmony with nature. Travel can be a powerful way to learn about the natural world and our relationship with it, says Dr. Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute.

Bruce Poon Tip, founder, G Adventures, says meeting Dr. Jane Goodall was to meet a hero of his. Its an honour to work with Dr. Jane Goodall, but more importantly to continue her legacy by helping raise awareness of her work with our travellers. She has been an inspiration for me since starting G Adventures 25 years ago.

As a social enterprise we are well known for our work with people and local communities in the places we visit. With 2017 being designated the UNs Year of Sustainable Tourism, we also wanted to highlight the work we are doing to protect the animals we share our planet with, says Poon Tip. With the launch of the new programme, G Adventures will be helping raise awareness for the Jane Goodall Institute, which supports research into the behaviour of wild chimpanzees, and community-based conservation programmes that protect chimpanzees and their forest environment.

Sample itineraries in the new Jane Goodall Collection by G Adventures include:

 Experience Borneo (new for 2017)  In Sungai Kinabatangan, travellers will take a river safari in search of wildlife and visit the nearby oxbow lake with a professional guide to seek out proboscis monkeys, pygmy elephants, macaques, and gibbons. In Sepilok, they will enjoy an afternoon visit to the orangutan rehabilitation centre. Theres also the opportunity to travel to Libaran Island by boat to have a guided tour of the island's turtle hatchery and learn about the turtle conservation programme.

 Highlights of Madagascar - Isolated from mainland Africa for millions of years, most of Madagascars plants, reptiles and primates are found nowhere else. Join expert guides to observe its famed and diverse lemurs, walk through ancient baobab forests in search of wild geckos, chameleons, birds, and insects, swim in hidden blue canyon pools, and take to the seas to spot migrating whales and dolphins.

 Galapagos Island Hopping  Highlights include a visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station, staying in the G Adventures-supported community guesthouse on Floreana and taking guided walks to observe birds and other wildlife, a wildlife boat excursion to 'Islote Tintoreras' to view breeding white-tip reef sharks, marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies, rays, and penguins, plus a visit to the Giant Tortoise Breeding Centre.

 Kenya Safari Experience - This eight-day adventure in Kenya is the ideal introduction to safari life. Ride on daily wildlife safari drives in the shadow of Mt Kilimanjaro, be introduced to the Maasai way of life, and learn about rhino conservation from the National Geographic-associated Kenya Wildlife Service.
Dams in the Western Cape are nearly a third emptier than the same period last year, local government MEC Anton Bredell said on Thursday. Dams across the province were 61.4% full on average, he said. At the same time last year the figure was 90.9%.

F.J. Erasmus via Wikimedia Commons - Theewaterskloof dam

While dam levels continued to show marginal increases, Bredell said he remained concerned. "We have not yet had enough rain this year to be comfortable. All the major dams in the province, with the exception of the Clanwilliam dam, are still very far from ideal levels.

"These include the Voelvlei dam (currently 69% full), the Theewaterskloof dam (53%) and the Brandvlei dam (57%). The Clanwilliam dam is currently 100% full and is the one highlight", he said.

The Cape Town system dams were at 61% capacity, compared to last year's 73%.

The Berg River catchment was at 72% (71% last year), Breede River catchment 57% (105%), Gouritz River catchment 40% (66%), and the Olifants/Doorns River catchment 99% (88%).

Bredell urged the public to use water sparingly to allow dam levels to recover before summer.

Source: News24

Read this report on News24Wire.com.
Global steel giant ArcelorMittal has relinquished more than 15% ownership of its South African subsidiary, ArcelorMittal SA, to pave the way for a long-overdue black economic empowerment (BEE) transaction.

The deal will ensure its recently improved relations with the government are further strengthened after years of acrimony.

This also comes as the state-owned Industrial Development Corporation appears to be cooling on its earlier plans to build a $5bn steel mill, which would have competed with ArcelorMittal SA, as reported in the Financial Mail on Thursday, 29 September.

The proposed R2.3bn BEE deal announced on Wednesday with empowerment partner Likamva Resources will see the Luxembourg-based steel maker's stake in ArcelorMittal SA reduced to about 53.72% from 69% once the transaction is concluded. The deal is expected to take effect on November 16 after the local steel producer's annual general meeting, at which shareholders will vote on the proposed issuance of new ordinary shares for the empowerment transaction.

ArcelorMittal SA CEO Wim de Klerk said on Wednesday that the group had already received irrevocable support from 70% of shareholders to vote in favour of the deal.

The BEE deal is the latest concession SA's largest steel maker has made to improve its historically poor relations with the government. It follows ArcelorMittal SA's agreement in August to drop import parity pricing for local flat steel products, pay a record R1.5bn penalty for its involvement in the historical steel cartel and invest an additional R4.6bn in capital expenditure over the next five years.

The government, meanwhile, has approved ArcelorMittal SA's application for a 10% bound rate on all imported steel products and agreed to the designation of local steel products for state procurement and infrastructure projects.

For the purpose of the transaction, ArcelorMittal SA will create a special purpose vehicle where the 17% stake to be issued to Likamva will be held. Likamva will acquire the stake, valued at R1.75bn, through a loan funded by ArcelorMittal SA. The shares will be subject to a 10-year lock-in period and will not be tradeable in that time.

The wholly owned black consortium, whose founders include a broad spectrum of business leaders, will then, within two years, issue 5% of its holding in the local steel maker to a community trust as part of the consortium's own commitments to transformation. Beneficiaries of the community trust will come from areas where ArcelorMittal SA has major operations, such as Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging.

"This is not just about ArcelorMittal SA but about the transformation and revitalisation of the entire steel industry," said Leslie Maasdorp, vicepresident of Brics's New Development Bank.

Maasdorp is a founding partner in the black consortium. Another prominent member is Jabu Moleketi, chairman of investment group Brait and the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

Maasdorp said Likamva would play an active role in creating value in the local steel maker, pursuing opportunities in new markets, expanding current operations on the continent and engaging in supplier development.

ArcelorMittal SA chairman Mpho Makwana said that together with its BEE partners the group planned to map out where and how growth would be pursued to add value for shareholders.

"We are working on an Africa growth strategy. I am certain there are other opportunities we are missing in the rest of southern Africa," he said.

The local unit sells the bulk of its steel products in SA and exports the remainder to the rest of Africa and countries in the Middle East.

The empowerment deal will also include an employee scheme for the 9,081 permanent employees of ArcelorMittal SA. The employee empowerment share trust will allocate a 5.1% stake in ArcelorMittal SA to workers of all colours, including management. But 60% of the trust would go to historically disadvantaged black employees.

The employee shares will be locked in for a 10-year period, during which time they will not be able to be traded.

Source: Business Day
Wits University students have voted by a 77% majority to resume their studies on Monday, 3 October 2016, in an overwhelming show of confidence in vice-chancellor Adam Habib.

Habib instigated the poll to establish whether or not students supported the call for the campus to be shut down in support of the demand that there be no fee increase for the next academic year.

The government announced that universities could impose an increase of up to 8%, but said that students coming from households earning R600,000 a year or less would qualify for financial support.

The poll asked students whether they wanted the academic programme to proceed on Monday if there was appropriate security in place.

A Wits media release said that 21,730 students had voted, with 77% (16,739) voting "yes" and 4,991 voting "no".

The university said on its website it had sent out 37,000 SMSes.

"The university is still waiting for the auditors to verify the staff poll. These results will be made available as they come through," the statement said.

"A decision as to whether the University will reopen on Monday will be communicated to students and staff via official university communication channels this weekend."

Source: BDpro
William and Linell Schmidt, started the Limetime Shuttle service with one drive in 2013. Travelling between Mpumalanga, Gauteng and North-West, they are now doing 19 different destinations and passed the 1 million km mark. We spoke to the husband and wife team to find out more about Limetime Shuttle and value of private transport operators.

How and why did you start Limetime Shuttle

Linell Schmidt: We started planning the business early in 2013 to get all the legal requirements organised and we did our first trip on 1 November 2013. I drove the first 70,000km and did all the company admin on my own. William assisted after hours and weekends while still in his previous career with SAB. He joined Limetime on a full-time basis in Nov 2015.

Entering the shuttle transport market was a natural choice for us. William has been involved in the transport industry in the South African breweries for many years and I have been running my own small business in Nelspruit prior to 2013. We always wanted to start our own transport company together, and everything fell into place in 2013, and we decided to go for it.

Tell us about Limetime Shuttle and its growth?

Schmidt: We knew from the start that we will have to grow consistently if we wanted to survive in this competitive environment. Through focusing on the right things we have been fortunate to have experienced great growth over the last three years.

Whats behind the Limetime name?

Schmidt: William felt that our name needed to include an on time component and my favourite colour have been lime green for many years, so the name Limetime was born. We also wanted to offer a fresh new alternative in this industry, so the lime green communicates that very well, we think.

What makes Limetime Shuttle unique?

Schmidt: Our passengers are the centre of our company. We believe that there is a big difference between claiming this and actually getting your staff and processes to live this on a daily basis. Making passengers the centre of your business changes the way you think about things like customer service, passenger safety and the ease of doing business.

How does Limetime operate and work?

Schmidt: Our number one promise is passenger safety and we strive to achieve this with every kilometre we drive. We also have various systems and controls to ensure all cylinders work together to create maximum impact for the passenger. But, in the end, it comes down to how well your people implement and live what you feel very passionate about.

How do you compete with other transport companies?

Schmidt: Competition is always good for any business and it makes businesses strive to be better. We would like to think that we contribute to the competitiveness of our industry and this makes all of us better.

What are the biggest challenges in starting and running a new private transport service?

Schmidt: The challenges will be different for every company, but for us, it took some time before people started taking Limetime seriously. I guess this might be a common challenge for most new businesses. People arent always open for change, but through being consistent in your offering, people will start taking your business seriously.

What does Limetime do to operate sustainably?

Schmidt: To be sustainable we have to ensure that we are always legally compliant and financially healthy. We also have to deliver an exceptional experience to the passenger. Lastly, we have to add value to the communities we operate in. I think we have managed to strengthen these four pillars of our business very well over the last three years and we look forward to building on this in the future.

Elaborate on growth plans for the service

Schmidt: We want to focus on continuing to deliver great passenger safety and exceptional service on the routes that we operate in. More routes are being planned for, but that is currently a bit of a secret...
The digital revolution is upon us and it has left no industry untouched. Doing a fine job at keeping up with the rate of change is the automotive industry, which in recent years has made great strides in creating intelligent vehicles that fit seamlessly into our hyper-connected world.

At the heart of this is the digital platform; for BMW Group South Africa specifically, it's their ConnectedDrive suite. Powered by T-Systems' Connected Car technology, it enables drivers to remotely monitor their vehicles, provides detailed real-time traffic data, offers around-the-clock access to the a BMW call centre for assistance in planning one's journey, and the list goes on.

The Group's ConnectedDrive manager Claycia Johnson, and group product communications manager Edward Makwana, tell us all about it.

Tell us about the BMW ConnectedDrive platform and its benefits.

Johnson and Makwana: BMW ConnectedDrive connects the car with the world. It is the comprehensive, optimum connection from the driver to the vehicle and its environments. It comprises both Services and Apps and Driver Assistance. All cars built from July 2014 are equipped with the telematic communication box (TCB) with an integrated SIM card/chip. With the installation of the TCB, the BMW TeleServices and BMW Intelligent Emergency Call services are automatically switched on  meaning they are offered as standard with any new BMW. Other services on offer...

Real-time Traffic Information (RTTI): This standard feature uses the mobile phone network and the SIM card built into the vehicle for ultra-fast transmission of detailed data. The real-time information, which is taken into account when calculating routes and possible diversions, is relayed to the vehicle with reliability and precision. RTTI covers major highways, as well as country roads and main roads in urban areas.

In order to provide the driver with precise information on traffic density, GPS data from fleets and mobile radio units, road sensors, local authority traffic management systems and many more sources besides are used to obtain as much data as possible. A live traffic jam map with colour-coded road markings in green, yellow, orange and red now visualises the current traffic flow states even more sensitively as well as providing information on roadworks, accidents and other events affecting traffic.

Remote Services: With this optional feature, customers can control their vehicle remotely by utilising functions such as viewing a status of their vehicle (fuel or electric charge, if all windows and doors are locked, locking/unlocking the vehicle, flashing the lights, operating the hooter and viewing where you have parked, etc.)

Soon, BMW South Africa will introduce the BMW Connected app, focused first and foremost on journey management for every aspect of the vehicle  digital services that simplify the day-to-day management of individual mobility requirements. Regardless of the selected mode of transport, BMW Connected guides the user to the desired destination on time without any stress. The app is enabled with the following functions.

 Personal learned destinations: places that users drive to regularly are automatically saved.

 Destinations can be stored with arrival times and incorporated into the users transport plan.

 Appointments and destinations can be imported automatically from the users personal calendar, extracted from emails, SMS messages, WhatsApp messages, etc.

 Time to leave notifications: alerts are sent to the users smartphone to ensure they arrive at their appointment on time.

 Data is transferred seamlessly to the vehicle once the user has linked up their mobile device.

 All important information pooled together in the same place.

 Customers can continue to use existing services, including last mile navigation, remote services and assistance when searching for points of interest or destinations.

Concierge Services: This optional feature connects the car with a 24-hour BMW call centre, allowing a BMW driver to get assistance in finding points of interest such as restaurants, hotels, nearest pharmacy, ATMs, selecting destinations and planning a journey. Address data for the navigation system can be transmitted directly from the BMW call centre to the vehicle and then accepted by the driver via the iDrive system.

What is the company's next wave of connected car technologies?

Johnson and Makwana: We are pressing ahead with cutting-edge technologies, digitilisation and sustainability as the basis for unique customer experiences. We see the change in our industry as an opportunity. In the years ahead we will focus on consolidating existing technological skills and developing new ones, on improving connectivity between people, vehicles and services, and on the continued evolution of sustainable mobility. In so doing, we ensure our own success and set the standards for the competition.

We have a clear vision of the synergy between cars and connectivity in tomorrows world: its called the BMW Vision Next 100. The vision vehicle looks not just 20, but even 30 years into the future, and shows how we imagine the seamless interaction between driver, car and the outside world within this timeframe. BMW Connected represents an important step in this direction.

Some fear that tech companies will overtake traditional organisations as the digital economy progresses. How is the BMW Group ensuring that they dont fall behind in the innovation race?

Johnson and Makwana: Over the next decade, the automotive industry is going to change more than it has over the last 30 years. Digitalisation will play a key role in its transformation and, as a driver of innovation, the BMW Group intends to remain at the vanguard of these developments in the automotive industry. Right now, the company is on the verge of realising automated driving. With it will come a series of technical challenges, but also a major opportunity for revolutionising mobility. In the future, 'sheer driving pleasure' will also be defined as liberating drivers through automation.

In the next technological step, automated driving will enhance road safety and make travelling even more comfortable and efficient. Automated driving, of the kind demonstrated by the BMW i Vision Future Interaction unveiled at the CES 2016, will play a key role in shaping the future of personal and sustainable mobility.

Another area in which the BMW Group is building on the advantages of digitalisation is production. Here, connectivity between the real and digital worlds offers significant potential in many areas. The aim is to achieve an intelligent, connected production setup where complex processes can be made even more efficient through the application of IT-supported technologies.
On Thursday, 29 September 2016, Biz Takeouts Marketing and Media Radio show host Warren Harding ( @bizwazza ) chatted to Busi Sizani, Uber for Business program manager for sub-Saharan Africa.

Busi Sizani

We took a closer look at Uber for Business, a ride management platform built for companies big and small that offers safe, reliable, and easy to expense rides globally.

We spoke to Busi about:

 The start and growth of Uber SA  The evolution of the brand to the unique SA landscape.

 Uber for business  what is this all about?

 How can businesses benefit?

 The features associated with Uber for Business and the dashboard.

 How Uber works for business - payments, usage, tracking and reliability.  We end the show by looking at what the future holds for Uber in SA.

Check out Uber for Business for more info, the features and to sign up.

Episode 190: Ready to get your team moving with Uber for Business?







Date: 29 September 2016 Length: 14:37min File size: 6.7MB Host: Warren Harding



The news roundup from Bizcommunity:

If you are interested in getting interviewed on Biz Takeouts, or want to suggest a show topic, email Warren Harding (@bizwazza) on moc.ytinummoczib@stuoekatzib.

Bizcommunity.com's Biz Takeouts Marketing & Media Show takes South Africa's biggest online marketing, media and ad industry platform to the airwaves and gives relevant, useful and interesting insights into all aspects of marketing in SA, Africa and beyond. Each week, the show features the movers and the shakers of the industry, current media trends, upcoming events and brand activities. For more:

Bizcommunity Special Section: Biz Takeouts



Bizcommunity Search: Biz Takeouts



Previous Biz Takeouts podcasts: Bizcommunity

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Twitter Search: #biztakeouts OR "Biz Takeouts"



Email: moc.ytinummoczib@stuoekatzib

If you are interested in getting interviewed on BizTakeouts, or want to suggest a show topic, email Warren Harding (@bizwazza) on moc.ytinummoczib@stuoekatzib.
Social media points to a moderate Clinton surge - but it's by no means decisive.

American presidential debates have very little to do with policy and debate  they are about who wins the narrative  be it by body language, demeanour, or a single hard-hitting zinger aimed at the oppositions fatal flaw.

Hillary Clinton  by means of a calm demeanour and a string of solid attacks on Trump  clearly won the narrative of Monday evenings debate. BrandsEyes social media analytics shows in real time during the debate  a decisive victory, nationally, for Clinton.

But the social media data also shows that this will not be a decisive victory for Clinton  the numbers and structure of the race point to a long, hard slog toward the November finish line.

Clinton bested Trump before, during, and after the debate, both in terms of greater number of positive mentions, and lesser number of negative mentions.

Sentiment towards Clinton and Trump Nationally

This tallied into a solid boost for her overall social media advantage for the day, in which she extended her total positive sentiment lead for the week by close to 15% - opening up a lead of 17% as compared to just over 3% for the week leading up to the debate:

Sentiment towards Clinton and Trump in North Carolina

Normally, this would probably represent something of a knock-out punch in an election, especially against such a widely disliked candidate as Trump is. In fact, most of the international media have been reporting the debate in these very terms.

But this is not a normal election  because Clinton is almost as widely disliked nationally as Trump is. In the list of least popular presidential candidates of all time, she is second only to her competitor.

This is clear from the half-hourly data collected on American social media during the debate: Clintons positive mentions only eclipsed her negative mentions during one brief time period the entire night. The graph also shows the negative mentions generally happening earlier than the positive  social media users almost reflexively criticise both candidates.

This negativity has the effect of almost cushioning the crushing rhetorical defeat suffered by Trump  who himself recorded vastly more negative mentions than positive mentions the entire night, but still benefits from Clintons own negative sentiment.

Before the debate, Hillary bemoaned the fact that she could not understand why she was not up by 50% in the polls  heres her answer. She has a likeability problem which means she is battling to absorb US citizens repelled by Trump.

In short, a rampant Clinton victory in the first debate has not altered the six fundamentals of this election; and these fundamentals all point to a very tight race in November  edging towards Clinton  but seemingly unable to be decisively tilted towards her even after a crushing debate victory.

The six, unaltered fundamentals remain:

1. The national polls and social media sentiment will likely continue to tip toward both candidates alternately over time as the US weighs up the two most intensely disliked candidates in history. 2. This election, as per the US system, will be decided state by state. This is vital for outsiders to note: each state holds a number of electors, according to their population, which are almost universally awarded in a winner-takes-all manner  meaning a candidate can win the election whilst losing the popular vote  as Bush did in 2000. Analysts need to look at the election state by state, with all their varying demographics, electoral importance, and political allegiances. 3. The way the states fall in terms of general party allegiance, matched with the latest data at hand  including polling, other historical trends, and social media sentiment  allow us to narrow, in all likelihood, the result of the election down to three crucial swing states: Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania - with the caveat that Trump holds a swing state Romney won in 2012 - North Carolina. This is where Clinton has a built-in advantage. Because of overwhelming Democratic advantage in big states like California and New York, Trump must win all three of these states to win the election. 4. And Trump is showing consistent strength in North Carolina  putting the three-state game into play. In fact, in North Carolina, his debate performance strengthened his social media sentiment:

Sentiment towards Clinton and Trump in Florida

5. Ohio and Florida, whilst showing varying data points, are both within reach of Trump. Trump seems likely to win Ohio with consistently good polling. But he was eviscerated on social media in Florida on debate night. There does seem to be a data issue in Florida, where Trump is doing surprisingly well in traditional polling while struggling on social media. Reportedly, Clintons campaign is in panic mode concerning a lack of mobilisation amongst black voters, as compared to their enthusiasm within Obamas two victories there. Meanwhile, it is likely Trump is doing well amongst the older, populous demographic of Florida who are likely to be fairly inactive on social media. The volatility of the race is exemplified by Floridas current data. The debate should give Clinton some bounce in the Sunshine State  but will it hold?

Sentiment towards Clinton and Trump in Pennsylvania

6. If Trump can somehow hold onto his ascendancy in Ohio, and win a close one in Florida as a result of a low black voter turnout there, the race will probably come down to Pennsylvania. Intriguingly, his weak debate performance hardly damaged his sentiment there. He is still underwater, however, both in sentiment and polling.

Sentiment experienced towards Clinton and Trump on back of 1st Presidential Debate

But there is a twist here - Pennsylvania is a highly diverse state politically. Legendary Bill Clinton politico, James Carville, famously described the state as Pittsburgh on one side, Philadelphia on the other, and Alabama in between. The non-urban counties are coal and old industrial country. These are the people who Obama said cling to guns and religion in the midst of economic hardship.

Trump's anti-trade and immigration rhetoric is made for these people. Clinton should be wary of one vital statistic that could push Trump to an upset in a state like Pennsylvania: in 2012, 24 million white men without college degrees (the demographic most favourable to Trump) did not bother to vote  and Obama only won the popular vote by 5 million. The fact that Trump is holding on in the social media data in this state should be very concerning for Clinton.

What is ultimately clear is that this is not a normal election that can be analysed merely by traditional polling and thinking. Trumps gaffes just dont hurt him as it would a normal candidate. In a strange way, it almost helps to craft his anti-establishment persona. Meanwhile, Clinton just cant put Trump away  her support is seemingly weighed down by her low favourability numbers.

Analysts are going to have to closely watch all the data emerging from the key states of Florida and Pennsylvania in order to understand and stay ahead of the curve of what is shaping to be one of the most important and fascinating political spectacles of our generation.
A comprehensive digital map charting soil fertility in Ethiopia is proving an important tool in tackling the country's low farm productivity, a challenge made more acute by climate change. The nationwide mapping effort was launched by the Ethiopian Soil Information System (EthioSIS) in 2012, and is due to be completed this year.

Bernard Gagnon via Wikimedia Commons - Tef in Ethiopia

The project in the Horn of Africa nation is already achieving results, with new fertiliser combinations boosting wheat yields from around 1 tonne to 3 tonnes per hectare on more than 40 percent of its agricultural land last year.

Tekalign Mamo, programme leader for EthioSIS, said fertility and other soil characteristics are dynamic processes that must be well understood for a country to be able to feed its population. "Through the years, the soil fertility status of Ethiopia - similar to other African countries - has deteriorated, and it has faced severe nutrient depletion and land degradation," he explained.

"Due to human activities like deforestation, we have experienced changing rain patterns, resulting in effects like flooding and soil erosion," he said. Agricultural land is damaged by soil acidity, salinity and erosion, which are mainly manmade problems that have seen productivity stagnate, he said.

Ethiopia's average cereal yield is little more than 2 tonnes per hectare, which is very low compared to international standards, Mamo noted. To help combat this, EthioSIS proposed the soil survey to the government, to enable fertilisers to be matched with local soil conditions and crop requirements, he said. The resulting state-of-the-art digital mapping project combines satellite imagery with data from the ground and historical information, to analyse soils and rainfall in different areas and recommend suitable fertilisers and crops, Mamo said.

"We understood that the fertiliser we have been using - especially DAP (diammonium phosphate) - is not relevant for Ethiopia, since it lacks major nutrients. Therefore we changed that formulation," Mamo said.

High demand

During the soil surveys, farmers are introduced to new fertilisers to test. Five fertiliser blending plants have also been established in the four regions with the largest agricultural production to supply appropriate fertiliser combinations. Demand for them is high, said Tegbaru Bellete, senior project officer at the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency. The government hopes the project will lead to a fertiliser advisory service for farmers, boosting their harvests and incomes, he added.

In developed countries in particular, fertilisers are tailored to the needs of the soil, he noted. "Nutrition must start in the food we grow, in soils, in the form of balanced fertilisation. Unfortunately, this has not been the case in many countries in Africa," he added.

This year, large parts of eastern and southern Africa - including Ethiopia, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and South Africa - were hit by a strong El Nino climate pattern, said Mamo of EthioSIS. The El Nino, which fizzled out around May, brought drought to many areas and excess rain to others, hurting harvests and causing food shortages.

But in the future, a deeper understanding of soils may help head off hunger in places affected by climate extremes, he said. Better water management, including rainfall harvesting and small-scale irrigation, could also make a difference, he said.

Yields of wheat, teff, coffee and beans could be doubled or tripled in some parts of Ethiopia such as Amhara and Oromia, he added. "If we increase productivity, we could produce (a food) surplus and feed those areas that are hit by threats of climate change," he said.

International interest

Since the digital soil fertility mapping began, Ethiopia has experienced an influx of international fertiliser companies including Israel-based ICL and Morocco's Office Cherifien de Phosphate (OCP), Mamo said. ICL, the International Potash Institute (IPI) and donor-backed agriculture programmes have been working with EthioSIS to develop and provide new fertiliser blends adapted to local soils.

Tanzanian officials have visited Ethiopia to learn how the digital soil mapping is done, setting up a similar soil information service in 2015 - and other countries are interested too.

Lilian Wanjiru Mbuthia, East Africa coordinator for Switzerland-based IPI, said improved soil knowledge would allow more sustainable production with minimal land degradation. "This, in the long term, will mitigate negative climate change effects and result in increased confidence towards attaining food security in East Africa," she said.

Reporting by Pius Sawa; editing by Megan Rowling
An ingenious new branding product, the MOBI-Floor Branding Kit, has been developed and released to the market by the ever-inventive Rocket Creative Design & Display.

To date, an effortless, high quality, reusable printed flooring solution has not existed on the South African market - until now that is. The only options that have been available have been branded carpets, printed industrial rubber floor tiles, wood panels with vinyl cladding or lastly, plain vinyl graphics applied directly to tiles floors, which only last a single application. All of these options have been both very labour intensive to work with and expensive to transport. These very challenges planted the seed for the origination of the Mobi-Floor Kit concept.

The kit is purpose designed and produced to fulfill the portable floor branding demand most often encountered or required by those clientele operating wanting to expose their brands within the brand activation and retail display environments. These include the micro retail applications such as AE kits, Promo Outposts etc within stores. It also includes the mall court and expo stand market where multiple, time sensitive installations are required for brand activation campaigns, product launches etc

Mobi-Floor originator and Rocket Creative MD, Richard Nilson elaborates on his product, "Our extensive exposure in the portable display industry produces a continual demand for an impactful floor branding solution that is user-friendly and re-usable. To date, the choices available have been very limited and by identifying this demand we originated our self-contained kit solution. The primary deliverable was that a single person is able to transport the floor to the desired location and install it themselves, effortlessly. We are incredibly pleased to say that our absolutely unique product ticks all the boxes in this regard. The ease of use and compact, cost-effective transportation format also makes the kits an ideal solution for both national and international brand activation campaigns."

Standard format kits launched are the Mini MOBI (1.5m square), Midi MOBI (2m square) and Maxi MOBI (3m square) turnkey kit derivatives, with bespoke sizes and shapes easily accommodated upon request. Weighing in at 8.7kg complete for a 2m x 2m floor the kit solution is ultra-portable and incredibly easy to install in under 5 minutes by a single person. The kits have panels of up to 1m wide which are butt joined and adhered into place with standard carpet tape, as is required with any temporary floor branding within a retail environment.

The unique kit solution is poised to take the retail display, activation and events industries by storm with its inventive and ultra-practical product. To get a MOBI-Floor product for your 2016 year end campaign please contact Rocket Creative Design & Display at +27(11) 262 4698 or email your enquiry to hello@rocketcreative.co.za

About Rocket Creative Design & Display:

Launched in early 1998, Rocket Creative evolved exponentially to become an innovative player in the design and display industry with a core focus on the design and origination of inventive visual display, brand activation, promotional, product merchandising & point-of-sale hardware. Due to their relentless non-conformist approach the company has achieved significant recognition within the industry. They are honored to be suppliers of aesthetically unique branding product used to promote and activate virtually every blue chip brand within Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as servicing their global, export-based clientele.



www.rocketcreative.co.za



(new website launching soon)


Agility, a leading global logistics provider, has announced the winners of its Africa 2016 Photo Competition, a series of photographs that show how quickly Africa is modernising, growing and even leading the way in new technology.

Technology Grand Prize Winner: Stephen Simiyu, Uganda.

The annual contest, now in its second year, is a pan-Africa photography competition focusing on Africas rapid modernisation. This years competition drew more than 2,500 photographs from professional and amateur photographers in 30 countries.

The winning images depicted a fisherman in a canoe on Lake Victoria on his laptop; a solar farm in Rwanda powering 15,000 homes; and the skyline of Harare, Zimbabwe.

A cash prize of $2,000 was awarded for each competition category. The winners were Stephen Simiyu, a photographer from Nairobi, Kenya (Technology); Henry Oliver Hakulandaba, an environmental consultant and photographer from Harare (Cities); and Esdore Hakizimana, a machine operator from Kigali, Rwanda (Industry).

Simiyu also won the Grand Prize of $2,000 for his photograph of a fisherman using a laptop in a canoe on Lake Victoria, Uganda.

The winning photographs and the runners-ups were featured at a session at the United Nations General Assembly in New York earlier this month and will be shown at the Thomson Reuters Africa Summit 2016 in Cape Town in October. They will also be showcased in Forbes Africa, on CNBC Africa, and in Agilitys corporate magazine, Tradelanes.

Simiyu, the grand prize winner, said: I know Africa is developing, and to show this, I needed an image that could tell that story in one picture. The competition really made me think about Africa  theres nowhere like it.

Hakulandaba, winner in the Cities category, said non-Africans are continually surprised by the pace of change in Africa. Whenever I exhibit images of Harare or any other African city, there is always someone who says they never thought Africa has such development, he said. This competition is a platform to reach a wider audience about African development. It will help change perspectives of the continents potential.

The winning images speak eloquently about the historic change underway in Africa and the opportunities for Africans, African businesses and the world, said Geoffrey White, CEO of Agility Africa. As a company investing in the logistics infrastructure of the continent, we are proud to show the world powerful images that capture a more positive view of Africa and demonstrate the progress that has already been made, hopefully changing the perceptions of Africa in 2016.

The competition was judged by an independent panel that consisted of Sneha Shah, managing director, Thomson Reuters Africa; Bronwyn Nielsen, Editor-in-Chief, CNBC Africa; and Salim Amin, chairman of CameraPix and co-founder of Africa24 Media.
The fate of a Doney Park woman accused of murdering her common-law husband is now in the hands of the jury.

Susan Joy Jacobson, 44, is charged with one count of first-degree murder domestic violence and three counts of tampering with physical evidence in the shooting death of Marvin Neal James, 54, in their Blue Ridge Drive home. The couple lived together, had a 3-year-old son in common and their second child was due to be born the next week.

During the roughly two-week trial in Coconino County Superior Court, the jury heard testimony about how James died in his bed from a single gunshot wound to the head from his .22 caliber revolver late on the night of Feb. 25, 2015.

Jacobson did not report the shooting until two days later. In her taped interviews with the Coconino County Sheriff's Office, Jacobson admitted to pulling the trigger but said she shot James after he kicked a pillow that was pressed against her 9-month-pregnant belly and threatened to kill her.

Defense attorney Bruce Griffen focused on Jacobson's character during closing arguments Thursday.

Griffen recalled the many witnesses who had described Jacobson as a peaceful, non-violent person. He told the jury they had seen enough evidence to prove James had emotionally, verbally and physically abused Jacobson for years, even threatening to kidnap their son and take him to Mexico if she ever left him.

Jacobson shot James, Griffen said, to save her own life and the life of her unborn child. He described her as "fearful, just physically assaulted, threatened with immediate death, very small, very pregnant (and) very peaceful." Griffen asked the diminutive woman to stand so the jury could see her.

"This Susan Jacobson, if you can imagine, had to defend herself (and) shot and killed Marvin James," Griffen said. "It wasn't planned. He wasn't asleep. He provoked it. She defended. It was justified."

Prosecutor Ammon Barker, meanwhile, said the shooting was the result of ongoing child-rearing and custody disputes, not a case of self-defense.

He reminded the jury that instead of calling 911, Jacobson wrapped James' body in multiple layers of plastic bags, blankets and tarps, moved it onto a makeshift ramp that appeared to lead to the window and attempted to clean up the blood. She later threw away the soiled bedding and buried the gun. He also pointed out inconsistencies in the story she told investigators Feb. 27, 2015.

Barker said the long delay in reporting the shooting and her attempts to clean up the crime scene were evidence of Jacobson's guilt. He also said the fact that James was in bed when he was shot showed there was no immediate threat to her life.

"What happened, ladies and gentlemen, is that the defendant shot Marvin James while he was lying in bed," Barker said. "And even if you believe her story that is inconsistent and riddled with lies, this is not self-defense."

The jury has the option of finding Jacobson guilty of the lesser included offenses of second-degree murder or manslaughter if they do not find her guilty of first-degree murder, which requires the state to prove premeditation.
Flagstaff and Northern Arizona University police officers will not face criminal charges for shooting an armed man to death in the Plaza Vieja neighborhood earlier this year.

The actions of the three Flagstaff Police Department officers and one NAU Police Department officer involved in the fatal shooting of Verl Bedonie on May 23 "were legally justified under Arizona law." That was the conclusion of the Navajo County Attorney's Office, which reviewed the case at the request of the Coconino County Attorney's Office due to a potential conflict of interest.

In its decision issued Thursday, the Navajo County Attorney's Office declined to pursue criminal charges against any of the police officers. The office also stated that the standards for charging decisions related to officer-involved shooting incidents are the same as those used in all criminal cases.

"For charges to be filed, the county attorney must find that there is a reasonable likelihood that all the elements of the crime charged can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, unanimously, to 12 jurors, at trial, after considering all reasonable defenses," wrote Navajo County Attorney Brad Carlyon in his report.

The Navajo County Attorney's Office reviewed more than 60 reports from NAUPD, FPD, the Coconino County Sheriff's Office, the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office and the Coconino County Medical Examiner, as well as officer body camera footage and other evidence before deciding not to press charges against any of the officers.

Two officers fatally shot Bedonie on the morning of May 23 after pursuing the Kaibeto man from the High Country Conference Center into the Plaza Vieja neighborhood and making repeated attempts to apprehend him. Two other officers fired at him earlier in the pursuit but missed.

According to the Navajo County report, Bedonie spent May 22 hanging out with an old high school friend in Kaibeto, which is located about 40 miles southeast of Page on the Navajo Nation. The two men went shooting with his friend's Ruger 9 millimeter handgun. The friend then fell asleep at about 7 p.m. When he woke up at 9 p.m., his gun and his Chevrolet Impala were missing.

Bedonie drove his friend's vehicle to Flagstaff for an unknown reason. It was later recovered from the High Country Conference Center parking garage. He arrived at least 3 hours before the deadly shootout.

According to the NAUPD report, university maintenance workers used one of the campus' blue light emergency phones to call 911 at approximately 7:47 a.m. May 23 after they saw Bedonie with a gun in his right hand in the lobby of the High Country Conference Center. The maintenance workers noted that he was acting strangely. A July toxicology report released by the Coconino County Medical Examiner's Office found that Bedonie tested positive for methamphetamine, amphetamine and cannabinoids.

Flagstaff and NAU police found Bedonie in one of the conference rooms with a gun in his hand.

"The officers had reasonable suspicion for a temporary detention of Bedonie to determine if a trespass was taking place and why he was holding a weapon in his hand," the Navajo County attorney wrote.

He left out a side door but officers caught up to him in the Drury Inn parking lot. Body camera footage released by both police departments shows the officers shouted for Bedonie to drop the gun. Instead, he pulled the weapon back out of his pocket and pointed it at the officers just a few feet away from civilian bystanders. Bedonie did not fire but two FPD officers did.

Cpl. Ben Sandoval fired four times at Bedonie and Officer Eric Tomperi fired once. They broke the window of an unoccupied vehicle but missed Bedonie, who walked across South Milton Road with the gun still in his hand. The Navajo County attorney found their actions reasonable.

"It is disingenuous to argue that pointing a handgun towards a law enforcement officer would not place the officer at a risk of serious bodily harm or death," he said in the report.

NAUPD and FPD officers chased him through Plaza Vieja, where they believe he fired one round in an alley between South Florence Street and South Park Street.

Police said Bedonie then attempted to carjack a passerby near the intersection of South Park Street and West Phoenix Avenue. The driver told police Bedonie pointed the gun at him and demanded to be taken to Phoenix. The police body camera footage showed an officer ramming the car with an undercover FPD truck to stop Bedonie, who exited the vehicle.

Bedonie then pointed the gun at officers a second time. According to information from FPD, he got off one shot before FPD Sgt. Collin Seay and NAUPD Officer Dillon Jenkins fatally shot him. He was declared dead at the scene.

"While the actions of Cpl. Sandoval and Officer Tomperi in shooting at Bedonie placed Bedonie in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury with a deadly weapon, and the actions of Sgt. Seay and Officer Jenkins resulted in the death of Verl Bedonie, their actions were legally justified under Arizona law," Carlyon wrote in his report.
WASHINGTON  Immigration has risen sharply over the past 20 years and immigrants have accounted for a larger portion of the workforce in that time, but that competition is actually helping Americans in the long run, a new report says.

The report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine found that immigrant workers in the U.S.  both legal and illegal  have the effect of increasing both wages and jobs for educated native-born workers over a decade or more.

The report, Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration, also found immigrant workers reduce the prices of goods and services in specific industries, including childcare, food preparation and construction.

Immigration is integral to the nations economic growth, said the 509-page report. The inflow of labor supply has helped the United States avoid the problems facing other economies that have stagnated as a result of unfavorable demographics, particularly the effects of an aging workforce and reduced consumption by older residents.

While immigrants benefit the economy in the long run, the report did find that there is a short-term cost. First-generation immigrants tend to be more costly to local governments, because they pay fewer taxes, are less educated and earn less. But their children get better educations and grow up to get better jobs, allowing them to contribute more to the economy and make up for the first generation.

The federal economy, meanwhile, benefits from first-generation immigrants because they pay taxes and utilize few federal benefits, such as Social Security and Medicare, since they tend to be younger.

The report estimated that there were a total of 42.3 million immigrants in the U.S. in 2014, up from 24.5 million in 1995.

James Garcia with Promise Arizona said immigrants are entering and filling low-skilled jobs, which leads to an expanded economy overall.

Im driving through Chandler, Arizona, and I see  about 25 men, Garcia said. These are immigrants who woke up at 5:30 a.m. to stand on the side of the road, hoping that someone in a pickup truck gives them a job for the day.

Its just one anecdotal illustration that the kinds of jobs that most of these folks are filling are simply the kinds of jobs that Americans dont want to do anymore, he said.

Cornell University Economics Chair Francine Blau, one of the editors of the report, said former immigrants and native-born high school dropouts with similar, low-skill job qualifications are more likely to experience a drop in wages.

The native supply of workers is slowing, she said in a conference call on the reports release last week. The infusion of immigrants and their children keep the workforce growing.

While the number of immigrants grew by more than 70 percent over the last 20 years, it has leveled off recently.

But Garcia said the growing anti-immigration narrative has made it difficult to track the true impact that immigration has had on the country.

It has always been very difficult to come up with precise (immigration) numbers, which creates an opening for anti-immigrant folks to say theyre costing us all sorts of billions and billions of dollars, he said. When you have that type of an atmosphere, it just makes it much more difficult to document the types of things that are being discussed in the report.

Garcia said while native-born high school dropouts are more likely to see wage decreases, those are also the people who dont want to fold sheets in a hotel room or stand on a street corner in Chandler, Arizona.

Juan Padilla took his first job as a hotel worker when he came here from Chihuahua, Mexico, at age 15 in 2000. He has since worked as a dishwasher, a cook, a construction worker and now has a job as a union painter on a job site in Phoenix.

Padilla said immigrants will do whatever it takes to obtain a job if the opportunity is available.

Were people too, just like any other race, any other human being, he said. We all gotta eat. The work is out there, reach for it.
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Sarah Levenson, catering manager from Lordsgate Township CofE Primary school, has been crowned winner of competition the Big School Bake Off, organised by Unilever Food Solutions.

The finalists were tasked with preparing their own styled afternoon tea  which included a scone filled with homemade jam, a madeleine, and a pastry inspired by their region  all using Stork margarine, a brand supporter of the competition.

Contestants had to create 12 bite-size portions of each item, to test their uniformity. In addition to consistency across all 12 portions, judges were looking for creativity, taste and visual appeal.

It was a tough decision for the judging panel to name their champion, but they were particularly impressed with Levensons creations.

Levenson said: I cant believe Ive won. Its amazing. I was so nervous. I came into the final to enjoy the experience and show my baking ability. The hardest part of the day for me was not knowing the kitchen and sticking to the time. But, once I started cooking, my nerves subsided.

Id definitely recommend to all school caterers across the country to enter this competition. Its so much fun and you meet so many great people. Ive certainly made some fantastic friends throughout the process and Im looking forward to entering again next year.

Levenson also takes home a 100 love2shop voucher as well as a day at her school with 2011 Great British Bake Off winner Jo Wheatley, who will host a baking extravaganza.


The new Panther helicopter of Mexican Navy. An Airbus Helicopters photo

PARIS (BNS): Airbus Helicopters has delivered the first upgraded AS565 MBe variant of the Panther multi-role helicopter to the Mexican Navy on September 28.



The Navy took delivery of the first of the ten AS565 MBe Panther helicopters it purchased in 2014, becoming the first customer in the world to receive the new version of this multi-role, medium-class military rotorcraft, the European helicopter manufacturer said.



The Navy will receive three other units before the end of this year and the remaining six by early 2018, the company added.



The helicopters will be operated by the Naval Aviation in the Gulf of Mexico and on the Pacific coast, where they will perform a range of missions including Search and Rescue (SAR), disaster relief transportation and evacuation, drug enforcement and coastal protection.



The AS565 MBe combines new and proven technologies to offer more value to operators. The rotorcraft is equipped with two Safran Arriel 2N engines, which enhance its performance in hot & high conditions and enable it to achieve a top speed of 278 km/h and a range of 780 kilometers.



It also boasts a new main gearbox, a latest-generation tail rotor and a 4-axis autopilot that reduces crew workload and makes the most demanding missions, such as SAR, easier to perform. More powerful and efficient, the AS565 MBe is also safer, more cost-effective and easier to operate, according to Airbus Helicopters.


Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I get a little disgusted with myself for being so married to specific wines. And Ive said this before. When I find a wine I like, rather than risk disappointment, I keep buying the same wine again and again until Im in a situation where I try something new, and like it. But then the same pattern repeats over and over again, until I find something newer still, and on and on it goes.

Which is why I really love the Brandon Wine Society as well as the Rotary Westman Wine Festival, which takes place at the end of October. The Wine Festivals gala dinner is Wednesday, Oct. 26, and the ultra-popular public tasting is slated for Friday, Oct. 28, with both events taking place at the Victoria Inn.

The Wine Festival offers a one-night-only opportunity to taste more than 100 different wines, a privilege several hundred western Manitobans take advantage of each year. I usually leave having encountered a number of products I revisit down the line.

But the Wine Societys offerings are a bit more sedate and allow much more time for contemplation and assessment. So at those gatherings, I have more time to really hone in on what I like  or dont like  about a particular beverage. And I can make a really informed decision about whether I want to try or buy that wine again.

At this seasons first BWS tasting, there were three whites and five reds I was impressed by  the whites and one red were reviewed in last weeks Vine Lines column. But the reds showcased were extra impressive, and I thought they deserved their own column. So here it is.

The Santa Julia Malbec Reserva from Argentina was a delight  it boasted a lovely aroma of raisin pie, with some plum pudding and vanilla thrown in for good measure. The extended finish was raspberry with a slight burn, for lack of a better word. This wine lives on and is one heck of a deal at $14.99 a bottle.

I also really enjoyed the Fontanafredda Briccotondo Barbera from Italy. Ive discovered I really enjoy Barbera, and this one was very pleasant, and also a reasonable price  $15.95. Made from 100 per cent Barbera grapes, this wine is redolent with black fruit, accented by black pepper, cinnamon and cloves. Fruity and fresh, this is lovely as a sipper as well as to pair with cheese, crackers and cured meats.

The Marques de Riscal 1860 Tempranillo from Spain sells for $16.60 and has a lovely aroma of cherries, mocha, black pepper and burnt oak. The wine is a gutsy treat and again, is good on its own or with food.

Long a fan of the Nugan Estate Durif, which is $24.92 a bottle and a fabulous wine that my longtime friend Sean deemed the best wine hed ever had at the Westman Wine Festival a few years back, I was delighted by the Nugan Estate Alfredo Second Pass Shiraz.

From Australia, this Shiraz costs $17 and boasts a bouquet of rhubarb, cherry, tobacco and chocolate, while raspberries and blueberries come through in the flavour. A very nice wine that was my husbands favourite of the night  he wrote a very definitive YES! with a black Sharpie and emphasized that with a huge circle around it on his tasting notes  I also thought it was great, and is one in which well both indulge in the future.

So if fall and winter are your seasons for red wine, this would be the time to give these beverages a go. All deliciously different, stocking the wine larder with any or all of the above reds would definitely help make the journey into the chilly season a little more palatable.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Former federal labour minister Kellie Leitch sat before television cameras last April, and became visibly emotional as she gave an apology, of sorts, for her role in announcing a tip line for reporting barbaric cultural practices during last Octobers federal election.

Her teary-eyed mea culpa came about six months after Canadians handed Justin Trudeaus Liberal party a rather decisive victory over the Stephen Harper Conservatives  a reaction, in part, to the Tories xenophobic and caustic attempts to win back power on the backs of religious minorities.

But apparently they were crocodile tears after all.

In the wake of Harpers departure, several members of the still-sizable Conservative caucus have stepped forward to declare their intentions to run for the party leadership, Leitch among them. In fact, she was the first out of the starting gate last April.

The Ontario MP has proven to be a lightning rod for controversy in this leadership race, which still has nine months to run its course. And unfortunately, she seems to have moved well past any remorse she may or may not have felt over the whole snitch-line fiasco.

Leitch recently told Macleans magazine that she proposes to screen all prospective immigrants to Canada, to try to weed out individuals who dont hold Canadian values. What exactly those values happen to be, she has not elaborated upon, but presumably they would fall in line with those same xenophobic and anti-Muslim values that characterized the Conservative party in the final year of its mandate.

But her efforts to win the leadership through the politics of intolerance should not be merely brushed off by pundits and moderate politicians in this country. The Brexit vote earlier this year that seemed to catch far too many of these political experts by surprise, and the rise of Donald Trump as a real contender for the highest political office in the United States, both have their roots in the burning anger of ordinary people who blame the elites of the world for burdens they face in life.

This anger has spilled over into an anti-immigrant sentiment and a growing intolerance for religious minorites  a.k.a. Muslim and non-white immigrants and refugees  in the United States and Great Britain. That same backlash has been felt across Europe even as countries like Germany had opened their doors to Syrian refugees who have been fleeing that war-torn country in droves.

And Canada is definitely not immune.

On Wednesday, Statistics Canada confirmed that a record number of immigrants and refugees have arrived in Canada  the largest influx of newcomers to our shores since the early 1910s. This has boosted Canadas overall population to 36,286,425, as reported by the CBC. Stats Canada stated that as of July 1, there were 437,815 more people living in Canada than on the same day a year earlier  a growth of approximately 1.2 per cent.

Of those, 30,000 were Syrian refugees who were brought in by the Liberal government.

And while there are still many Canadians who are proud to welcome these newcomers to our communities and help them integrate, there is also a highly vocal percentage of the Canadian diaspora who believe far too many foreigners are entering our borders. We noted as much on this page last week when we wrote about the Nanos Research survey conducted for the Globe and Mail that found 39 per cent of Canadians said the government should accept fewer immigrants next year  with 37 per cent saying we should accept the same number.

You only have to look at the comment sections of various news sites when it comes to immigration stories to see the visceral reactions of the anti-immigrant crowd.

And its these very people that Leitch and her ilk are attempting to draw upon as a cynical means to win power.

How very un-Canadian, indeed.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/09/2016 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

U.S. presidental debate breakdown

Most people feel that Donald Trump was outclassed and overwhelmed by Hillary Clinton in the first debate, but that does not mean Hillary will be the next president. It is not over yet! The poll of those in attendance for the debate; an audience who were pro-Hillary, showed her beating Trump 62 per cent to 27 per cent. But that means nothing! Mitt Romney steamrolled over Barack Obama in their first debate in the 2012 presidential election, but who won? But many editorials are saying there is more than an excellent chance that she will still lose! And why? Because the winner will be decided upon by who gets the greatest number of their supporters out to vote! In spite of Hillary making Trump look like a buffoon, 70 per cent of Americans (and that is a lot!) do not trust her, and many people simply refuse to vote for either a liar or a buffoon like Trump, and they will not vote at all. In Minnesota, the goon, WWF wrestling showman Jesse (The Body) Ventura was elected governor. In this role he was described as a nutcase, a loon, a selfish baby and many more insulting names. But why did they elect him? Because they could, and they were so fed up with past politicians, they thought he would be a breath of fresh air. He was a disaster, just as President Trump will be! But too many people want change from what they have and they will do the same in this election.

Slow down and look out for us

To the driver of the white car on Sept. 28 at about 8:15 p.m. The intersection of Ottawa Avenue and 26th Street is a marked pedestrian crosswalk. Please pay attention. I was wearing reflective clothing and completely within my right to cross the street at that time. Honking while refusing to slow down was incredibly inappropriate. Drivers, please keep an eye out for those out enjoying the evening air, and cyclists and joggers, remember to wear reflective clothing to aid in your visibility.

Clean up the mess the NDP did first

Coun. Lonnie Patterson was an employee of the NDP government prior to moving from Winnipeg to Brandon to run for city council and she openly supports the NDP party, along with advocating for union employees. Point being that while her NDP government was in power, they continued to raise the minimum wage, but failed to give an increase in funding to government-funded organizations causing financial hardships for non-profit organizations that provide social services for the government. In fact, this oversight by the NDP government has left many government-funded organizations with no alternative but to consider closing their doors. Perhaps Patterson should investigate the mess left by the NDP government in this regard and work with the new Progressive Conservative government to find ways to repair the current situation before talking about adding more burden to it.

Airport expansion a big waste if no flights

So we have a more than $10-million expansion to our municipal airport and some people have to say its such a wonderful thing and thank the former mayor. I see nothing grand about spending all that cash and hardly having any flights coming or going. Unless our city doubles our population, I cant see the airport with a full schedule or seats. It is disheartening to see an airline provider announce new flights and cancelling them before they even get started. Does this not speak volumes to anyone?
According to research conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2012, the capacity for voter fraud in the U.S. is substantial with nearly 2mm dead people found to be registered voters and nearly 3mm people registered in multiple states.

Approximately 24 million one of every eight voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate

one of every eight in the United States are More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters

Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state

And, just earlier today we wrote about how Arcan Cetin, the 20 year old Turkish citizen who recently killed 5 people at the Cascade Mall in Washington, somehow managed to vote in the past 3 election cycles despite not being a U.S. citizen. When asked about the news, Washington Secretary of State, Kim Wyman, simply said "we dont have a provision in state law that allows either county elections officials or the Secretary of State's office to verify someones citizenship." Sure, because why would someone's citizenship status be important for determining his eligibity to vote?

Now, courtesy of WaPo , we know that the FBI is investigating how exactly 19 dead people were recently re-registered to vote in the critical swing state of Virginia. A few months ago we noted Virginia Governor, and long-time Clinton confidant, Terry McAuliffe's willingness to go to great lengths to hand his state's 13 electoral votes to Hillary by registering 200,000 felons to vote, but adding dead people to the voting rolls seems a bit excessive




A former Nama official has been sent forward for trial after he was charged with leaking confidential information.

Paul Pugh of Clontarf Road in Dublin is accused of passing on the details of a construction company to an investment firm.

He is charged under a part of the Nama Act that makes it illegal to disclose confidential information from the agency.

He is alleged to have emailed sensitive details relating to McCabe Builders (UK) Ltd. to somebody at the investment firm Connaught and Whitehall Capital UK Ltd on or about June 6, 2012.

He was charged with the offence three months ago and has been on bail since.

Today, the 56-year-old was served with a book of evidence by Detective Garrett Lynch of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation.

The DPP has directed he be tried before judge and jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court and his next hearing is due to take place at the end of October.

He has yet to enter a plea in relation to the charge, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison on conviction or a 5m fine.
US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has described a Donald Trump tweet attacking a former Miss Universe as "unhinged", and said her Republican opponent's temperament would be "dangerous for a president".

The Democratic candidate said Mr Trump's early-morning tweets accusing Alicia Machado of having a criminal record and a sex tape were "lies and conspiracy theories".

She tweeted: "When something gets under Donald's thin skin, he lashes out and can't let go. This is dangerous for a president."

Mr Trump shamed the 1996 Miss Universe Ms Machado winner for her sexual history and encouraged Americans to check out what he called her "sex tape".

A day after the Republican candidate made reference to former president Bill Clinton's infidelities, Mr Trump also accused Hillary Clinton's campaign of helping Ms Machado gain US citizenship.

Mr Trump offered no proof of the claim, but said Ms Machado had a "terrible" past that a "duped" Mrs Clinton had overlooked before holding her up "as an 'angel'" in the first presidential debate.

The Republican wrote on his verified Twitter account: "Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a US citizen so she could use her in the debate?"

Mr Trump's taunt appeared to refer to footage from a Spanish reality show in 2005 in which Ms Machado was a contestant and appeared on camera in bed with a male contestant.

The show took place almost a decade after Mr Trump invited reporters to watch Ms Machado exercise and mocked her publicly for gaining weight after she won Miss Universe, which Mr Trump owned at the time.

In Monday's debate, Democratic candidate Mrs Clinton brought up her rival's taunting of Ms Machado.

With the US election less than 40 days away, Mr Trump's allies have implored him to stick to attacks on Mrs Clinton over her family foundation, her emails controversy or her long history as a political insider.

Rather than backing away from the comments about Ms Machado, Mr Trump has repeatedly pushed the issue back to the centre of the conversation, even as early voting in critical states gets under way.

He said this week that Ms Machado had gained "a massive amount of weight," adding that it was "a real problem".

Mr Trump said Mrs Clinton had been "set up by a con" in holding up Ms Machado "as an 'angel' without checking her past, which is terrible!"

He also suggested Mrs Clinton had helped the Venezuela-born actress gain US citizenship.

Mrs Clinton's campaign, which has released videos featuring Ms Machado and arranged for reporters to interview her, has highlighted her new status as an American and her plans to cast her first vote for Hillary Clinton.

Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon took to Twitter to ask of Trump: "What kind of human being is this?"

Her campaign chairman, John Podesta, tweeted that as a man of a certain age he shares Mr Trump's urge to get up in the middle of the night, but added a safety tip: "Don't reach for your phone."

A day earlier, Mr Trump had warned voters that a Hillary Clinton victory would bring her husband's sex scandal back to the White House.

"The American people have had it with years and decades of Clinton corruption and scandal. Corruption and scandal," Mr Trump said.

"An impeachment for lying. An impeachment for lying. Remember that? Impeach."

The reference to the Monica Lewinsky scandal of the 1990s came despite Mr Trump's insistence that he has been showing impressive restraint by not bringing it up. He said he declined to mention it during Monday's debate out of respect for the Clintons' daughter, Chelsea, who was in the room.

When she was asked about the possibility that Mr Trump would raise her husband's infidelities, Mrs Clinton said the Republican could run his campaign "however he chooses".

"That's up to him. I'm going to keep talking about the stakes in this election," the Democrat said.

Mrs Clinton has delivered a mostly positive message in the days since her debate performance re-energised her candidacy.

She is campaigning in Florida, a key battleground, where she us planning a speech focused on national service in Fort Pierce and another event in Coral Springs.
European ministers have agreed to ratify the world's first comprehensive climate treaty - a move which is set to bring the deal into force.

The European Union's environment council, made up of ministers from across the bloc, gave the green light to adopting the Paris Agreement at a meeting in Brussels.

The treaty, which commits countries to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero this century to prevent dangerous climate change, must be ratified by at least 55 countries accounting for 55% of the world's emissions to come into force.

Sixty-one countries have already ratified the deal, secured in the French capital last December, while the emissions total is just below 48%.

European Union ratification will allow the bloc's 12% of global emissions to count towards the total before all individual member states have signed up, allowing the agreement to enter into force before the end of the year - much sooner than the planned 2020 start date.

Once the European Parliament has voted for it, the EU could then formally ratify the deal in early October, so it comes into force - 30 days later - by the time countries meet in Morocco in November for the next annual round of climate talks.

EU countries will also each ratify the deal individually, with the UK expected to do so before the end of the year.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the move showed the EU "delivers on promises made".

"I am happy to see that today the member states decided to make history together and bring closer the entry into force of the first ever universally binding climate change agreement.

"We must and we can hand over to future generations a world that is more stable, a healthier planet, fairer societies and more prosperous economies.

"This is not a dream. This is a reality and it is within our reach. Today we are closer to it."

EU Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Canete said: "Today's decision shows what Europe is all about: unity and solidarity as member states take a European approach, just as we did in Paris.

"We are reaching a critical period for decisive climate action. And when the going gets tough, Europe gets going."
A massive security operation is in place in Jerusalem today for the funeral of former Israeli president Shimon Peres.

The 93 year old passed away on Wednesday after suffering a major stroke.
Pope Francis issued a vague rebuke to Russia on Friday and received an unexpectedly warm welcome from the leader of the Georgian Orthodox Church as he mixed geopolitics with religion on the first day of a three-day trip to the Caucasus.

During a speech with the Georgian president at his side, Francis insisted on Georgia's "sovereign rights" in a veiled reference to two breakaway regions over which Russia has effective control.

Francis backed Georgia's demand that residents who fled during a brief 2008 war with Russia be allowed to return home.

But the appeal was in some ways dwarfed by the surprisingly heartfelt welcome Francis received from Patriarch Ilia II, the ailing Orthodox leader who is the most respected figure in Georgia.

Crouched over his cane, Ilia welcomed Francis as "my dear brother".

"May the Lord bless the Catholic Church of Rome," Ilia said in toasting the pope at the Orthodox patriarchate in Tbilisi. "May the Lord give a long life to Your Holiness, Pope Francis."

It was a vastly different welcome than in 1999, when St John Paul II visited Georgia.

At that time, Catholic-Orthodox tensions were so high that the Georgian Orthodox Church urged its faithful to stay away from the pope's Mass. Ilia, who has been patriarch since 1977, referred to John Paul as a head of state, not a religious figure, and declined to share his call for improved ecumenical relations.

This time around, Ilia is sending an official delegation to Francis' Mass on Saturday. And on Friday, he stressed the ancient ties of their churches.

"We have lived in brotherly love for 20 centuries. I must say that we also had many problems, but we have overcome those problems with prayers and God's blessing," Ilia said.

Georgian analysts say the turn-around in attitude has nothing to do with personalities but is based on Georgia's geopolitical ambitions.

Georgia is anxious to join Nato and is pursuing an eventual membership in the 28-nation European Union. The papal visit is being seen in Georgia as the government's attempt to win allies among Europe's Catholic nations.

Not all in the Georgian church shared Ilia's view, however. A few dozen hard-line Orthodox faithful opposed to Francis' visit demonstrated outside the airport and also outside the Chaldean church where Francis held a peace prayer for the people of Syria and Iraq.

The demonstrators carried banners that read: "The Vatican is a spiritual aggressor", and "Death of papism".

But in another sign of warm ties, the Georgian Church defended its decision to host the pope and criticised the protests.

"We would like to stress that we view as unacceptable the negative statements made in public by some men of the cloth of the Georgian Orthodox Church regarding this official visit, and we urge them and everyone to be calm," the Georgian Orthodox Church said in a statement.

"The pope is definitely conducting the mass for Catholics, and we cannot consider this an act of proselytism."

Francis has made a point of engaging as many Orthodox patriarchs as possible, seeking to mount a common Christian front in the face of attacks against Christians by Islamic extremists in the Middle East.

In his remarks upon arrival Friday, Francis never once mentioned Russia or the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s.

Russia effectively gained complete control over both regions after a brief war with Georgia in 2008.

Georgia considers the territories "occupied" and has demanded that the more than 200,000 people displaced by the fighting be allowed to return home.

Francis backed Georgia's call, saying the region's different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups should be allowed to "coexist peacefully in their homeland, or to freely return to that land if for some reason they have been forced to leave it".

"I hope that civil authorities will continue to show concern for the situation of these persons, and that they will fully commit themselves to seeking tangible solutions in spite of any unresolved political questions," he added.

A 2014 UN report said authorities in control of South Ossetia and areas around it still do not let ethnic Georgians return to their former homes, apart from one district. The report also spoke of South Ossetia's de-facto authorities detaining Georgians crossing into the areas of their control, such as when farmers go to retrieve stray cattle.

Francis has been outspoken in denouncing the plight of refugees and insisting on their rights to both seek asylum abroad or to return home when security conditions permit. He has used many of his trips to press the point, praying for dead migrants at the US-Mexico border and bringing home with him a dozen Syrian refugees from Lesbos, Greece.

Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili thanked the Holy See for refusing to recognise what he called Russia's "occupation".

Georgia is overwhelmingly Orthodox, and Catholics represent less than 3% of the population. But residents - both Catholic and Orthodox - seemed pleased that Francis' visit showed a united Christian front against Islamic religious extremism.

"I think in the 21st century, when such things are happening in the world, when in many regions Christians face the threat of almost complete annihilation, we should all get united in order to protect peace," said Lali Sadatierashvili, a Catholic who was raised in western Georgia, where she had to hide her beliefs during Soviet times.

"Pope Francis' visit to Georgia is a call for peace, a call to overcome our differences."

Bachuka Gelashvili, a 50-year-old engineer, waited on Friday outside the Kashveti church for the pope's visit, saying: "Yes, there are people among us Orthodox who are against (the visit) but this is all church internal politics.

"I am and will remain Orthodox but it should not stop our contacts. We share the same God."
An insistence by breakaway Turkish Cypriots to cede Turkey the right to militarily intervene under a hoped-for deal reunifying ethnically divided Cyprus is "excessive and unjustified", the Mediterranean island's president said on Friday.

President Nicos Anastasiades said in a televised address marking Cyprus's 56th anniversary of independence from British colonial rule that no modern state within the European Union has any need for third-country security guarantees.

Any negotiated settlement to the island's 42 years of ethnic division must eliminate any dependence on third countries, Mr Anastasiades said.

The president said that while he acknowledges Turkish Cypriot mistrust of Greek Cypriots, he would not "satisfy unjustified concerns" at the expense of "existing and legitimate" Greek Cypriot fears.

Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded after a coup aimed at union with Greece.

Only Turkey recognises a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence, and it keeps more than 35,000 troops in the breakaway north. Cyprus is an EU member, but only the internationally recognised south enjoys full member benefits.

"Having in mind the tragic experience of the past, we must be the ones who will put our state above all else and beyond the interests of foreigners," Mr Anastasiades said.

Mr Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci are locked in complex negotiations to reach a peace accord by the end of the year. Both leaders have said progress has been made in shaping a federated Cyprus, but key differences remain.

The thorniest issues are how to deal with property abandoned during the Turkish invasion, how much territory each side will administer and security - matters Mr Anastasiades said would "tip the balance as to whether a settlement is achievable".

Mr Akinci has repeatedly said Turkish Cypriots trust no security arrangement other than Turkey's protection of at least the zone they would run in case an accord unravels.

He said he wants negotiations to stick to a strict timetable and to have the remaining and most difficult issues discussed in the presence of Turkish, Greek and British officials.

Mr Anastasiades has rejected timetables, calling a deal by the end of 2016 "ambitious" but doable as long as Turkey "exhibits the necessary political will".

Greek and Turkish Cypriots will vote on any agreed upon deal in simultaneous, but separate referendums.
Saudi Arabia has condemned the passsing of a new law in the United States that allows 9/11 families sue the kingdom for damages.

The country says its a matter of "great concern" in a statement issued overnight.
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A senior Ukrainian official predicted the heaviest of battles to come for the partially Russian occupied strategic...
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has rejected US accusations of aligning itself with Russia amid the Ukraine war by making oil...
One of the mysteries of the oil market is the question of how much crude oil China has squirrelled away in commercial and strategic stockpiles.

Now a satellite imaging firm called Orbital Insight claims to have an answer. It says that in May, Chinese inventories stood at 600 million barrels, substantially larger than commonly thought and nearly as big as the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Chinese storage capacity, which includes working inventory, is four times greater than widely used estimates, the firm says, adding that it has not only been able to count storage tanks, but it has also used imaging techniques to figure out how much oil is in the tanks.

If China has built larger reserves than previously estimated, that means much of what looked like oil demand over the past couple of years was not a result of higher consumption but of strategic planning. Credit:Orbital Insight

Artificial demand?

The issue could influence expectations in oil markets. If China has built larger reserves than previously estimated, that means much of what looked like oil demand over the past couple of years was not a result of higher consumption but of strategic planning. It would make OPEC's task of cutting output to drive up prices more difficult. And it could provide a buffer for China in the event of a sudden disruption in imported supplies.
The NSW government has given tens of millions in taxpayer dollars to help train staff at private corporations including global giant McDonalds.

A freedom of information request by the NSW Greens reveals the state government has awarded Mcdonald's Australia $1,809,485 in funding for vocational education and training.

Major employers including McDonald's, Coles and Woolworths all pay significant numbers of workers less than the award through reduced, or in the case of McDonald's no, weekend penalties. Credit:Glenn Hunt

Other private providers to receive state government funding for the 2015-16 financial year include Vision Training Institute ($4.68 million), Wise Education Group ($4.48 million). Government departments including Primary Industries has also obtained $2.59 million and NSW Health, $1.029 million.

Government funding for vocational training is contestable, meaning the public provider TAFE has to compete with private providers for government funding. NSW embraced the funding model after it was introduced in Victoria.
Imagine a real-life version of Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino's quixotic movie about Jewish avengers in World War II  but in this case involving a plot by a band of refugees to kill millions of Germans just after the war by poisoning their water supply.

The plot, which targeted five major cities in retribution for the Holocaust, failed. So did the conspirators' Plan B, which followed in mid-April 1946: to murder 12,000 captured SS officers  members of the very unit that enforced the Nazis' reign of terror and ran the death camps  by lacing their bread rations with arsenic.

Joseph Harmatz in Tel Aviv, Israel, a Holocaust survivor who led a revenge attempt against Nazi tormentors. Credit:AP

The second scheme was not a complete failure, however. Led by 21-year-old Joseph Harmatz, a survivor of the Vilnius ghetto in Lithuania, the plotters sickened more than 2200 German prisoners, inducing vomiting and other symptoms of cholera. Their weapons were 3000 loaves of black bread, which had been painted with a mixture of arsenic and glue at a bakery, which one of the group had infiltrated.

Mr Harmatz, who died at 91 on September 22 at his home in Tel Aviv, never publicly expressed remorse for his role in either conspiracy. But later on, his son Ronel said on Tuesday, he did acknowledge privately that he was grateful that the mass water-poisoning plot was abandoned after one of his collaborators was arrested.
A mammoth mop-up is under way in South Australia after a second day of cyclonic weather lashed the state on Thursday.

Synoptic maps show the incredible ring-like low pressure system that has smashed the southern and eastern parts of Australia since Wednesday, pushing unprecedented winds up into South Australia and across to NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.

South Australia faced more rain and some of the strongest winds it had ever seen overnight with 120km/h winds on the Neptune Islands in the Spencer Gulf and 115km/h gusts recorded in Cummins on the Eyre Peninsula.

There are fears of flooding with many rivers expected to peak later on Friday.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has slammed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for promulgating "ignorant rubbish" in the South Australian energy debate, as Labor states and territories rejected the PM's pitch for a standardised renewable energy target.

Mr Turnbull, once known as the Coalition's strongest advocate for redressing climate change, used Wednesday evening's statewide blackout to condemn "extremely aggressive, extremely unrealistic" renewable energy targets set by Labor state governments.

It followed comments from Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg and South Australian senator Nick Xenophon that conflated the power outage with the state's heavy reliance on wind power - an explanation rejected by energy experts, who said the blackout was due to the destruction caused by wild weather.

The PM singled out Victoria and Queensland as other states he said had "paid little or no attention to energy security" in their pursuit of cleaner energy. But on Friday, Mr Andrews accused Mr Turnbull of spouting "anti-climate change, anti-fact nonsense" and of resembling his predecessor Tony Abbott, a climate change sceptic.
If only every first day on the job involved balloons and a petting zoo.

Princess Charlotte has completed her first royal engagement, attending a party for military families at British Columbia's Government House, in Canada.

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, Prince George of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge arrive for a children's party for Military families during the Royal Tour of Canada. Credit:Getty

The 16-month-old was accompanied by her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and older brother Prince George, three, at the event held on day six of the family's Canadian visit.

The royal toddler siblings were certainly enthusiastic guests, accepting balloon flowers and playing with dogs and miniature horses alongside the children of some of Canada's military families, and providing the Mirror with enough cute content to live-blog the event.
A Gold Coast paediatrician who hogtied a seven-year-old patient has been acquitted of assaulting the boy on appeal.

Neville Goodwin Davis was last year found guilty in Southport Magistrates Court of assaulting the child during an October 2012 consultation after he tied the boy up with rope.

A doctor has successfully appealed his conviction for hogtying a child. Credit:Ricardo Dearatanha

Dr Davis specialised in behavioural conditions and had been consulted by the boy's mother to see if he had Asperger syndrome.

He said he initially tied the boy to a chair to occupy him so he could talk to the mother
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Ms Buchanan, who is also an announcer and stuntwoman, said she grew up riding bikes, growing up in Beaudesert and the Logan area. "I learnt how to drive at an early age, ATVs, buggies, absolutely anything I could get my hands on," she said. Ms Buchanan, 29, said there were about 10 female Monster Jam drivers. "There's 10 women getting out there every weekend in the stadium and really putting it to the guys and putting on a great show for all the fans out there," she said. "It's something we're seeing in a lot of different motorsports these days, which is really fantastic, and I hope that I can not only help encourage it but help encourage other girls out there."

While Ms Buchanan has completed her first stage of training at Monster Jam University, and hopes to drive the trucks on tour in 2017, I'm an extremely long way from giving up my day job. No taking on the Grave Digger, flying over jumps and crushing cars for me just yet. I awkwardly haul myself up into the driver's seat, wearing my restrictive and toasty warm safety gear, where I'm so securely tied in that I can barely move my head and shoulders. The crew gives a rundown of the controls. You're in park, "just like an automatic", they say. Put your foot on the brake, pull the power lever, pull the fuel level, flick a switch, and the metal and rubber machine shudders to life.

It has first and second gears, but I'm told to stick to first. And don't forget to push the fuel lever back in and return to park, with a foot on the brake when you turn it off. Oh, and you can steer using the front wheels via a detachable steering wheel and the back wheels using a switch that presses right or left. I run through the sequence again and again in my mind but strangely I'm not scared. We test the kill switch via the radio that gives the people who actually know how to drive these things the ability to shut the Alien Invasion down if I get into trouble. That's very reassuring. And then it's time to drive.

I get off to a slow start, but it feels pretty fast and there's only a few moments where the Alien feels like it lurches forward. But in retrospect that's probably the opposite of what you want from your monster truck. And when I'm cornering at the end of the straight, I realise I'm only turning the switch to turn the back wheels left - not the actual steering wheel. The steering wheel that is for, you know, steering. I get a bit stuck in the corner, so the instructor runs over and tells me to chuck it into reverse and do a three-point turn. I've got this, I think to myself. Want me to do a reverse-parallel park next? You got it. Back down the other end of the field and I can't... seem.. to.. get... Alien... to... turn and keep moving. The motor is running, but I'm only bouncing forward and back a little. It's confounding.
A Queensland teacher has been banned from teaching for a year after he exchanged sexual messages with a Year 12 student on a gay social network app.

The teacher and male student communicated via Grindr three times in 2014 and ended up discussing their sexual interests and swapping pictures of their genitalia.

A Queensland teacher exchanged graphic images with a student on Grindr.

Although the teen was a student at the school where the teacher taught, they weren't involved in the same classes or extracurricular activities and never met.

It was only when the pair communicated on Grindr that they realised they knew each other through their connection with the school, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal heard.
Firefighters have freed a four-year-old boy after his hand got trapped in a vending machine in Melbourne's outer east.

Specialist Metropolitan Fire Brigade rescue crews were called to the scene at Eastland Shopping Centre in Ringwood at 4.25pm on Friday.

Crews had to cut open to the machine to free the boy's hand after it became stuck when he tried to retrieve some lollies, an MFB spokesman said.

"The young lad is distressed," he said.

The boy was taken to hospital with minor injuries to his fingers.
Things Donald Trump says have a habit of coming back to bite him. The latest, however, may hurt him in the crucial state of Florida, where Cuban Americans are unlikely to forgive allegations that he broke the US embargo on Cuba while publicly criticising Fidel Castro and appearing tough. Paul McGeough analyses the potential fallout.

A fast-moving New Jersey-New York train crashed into a station overnight, injuring more than 100 people and miraculously one killing one. Our Josephine Tovey reports from NY.

Earth puzzle

The eyes of the world are on Jerusalem today as the funeral of former president and prime minister Shimon Peres gets underway. Our Catherine Armitage is there and will bring you the news this evening. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is due to attend, along with dozens of world leaders including US President Barack Obama and Australia's GG Peter Cosgrove.

Other must-reads today, ahead of the weekend which will also be packed with goodies:
Manila: Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has likened himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the latest of a series of rash outbursts that are alarming his country's allies in Asia, including the United States.

In a rambling speech in his hometown of Davao, Mr Duterte told reporters that he had been "portrayed to be some cousin of Hitler" by critics.

Noting that Hitler had murdered millions of Jews, Mr Duterte said: "There are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I'd be happy to slaughter them."

The 71 year-old firebrand president then said "if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have" before pausing and pointing to himself.
Miami: Donald Trump's hotel and casino company secretly spent money trying to do business in Cuba in violation of the US trade embargo, Newsweek has reported in a story that could endanger the Republican presidential nominee's Cuban-American support in South Florida.

Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts paid at least $US68,000 ($89,000) to a consulting firm in late 1998 in an attempt to give Trump's business a head start in Cuba if the US loosened or lifted trade sanctions, according to the front-page Newsweek report, titled The Castro Connection published on Thursday. The consulting firm, Seven Arrows Investment and Development, later instructed the casino company on how to make it look like legal spending for charity.

The following year, Trump flirted with a Reform Party presidential run, giving a November 1999 speech to the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami where he cast himself as a pro-embargo hard-liner who refused to do potentially lucrative business on the communist island until Fidel Castro was gone.

Neither Trump nor Richard Fields, the head of Seven Arrows consulting, responded to Newsweek's requests for comment. Trump later sued Fields, and former Trump adviser Roger Stone suggested to Politico Florida that Fields might have acted on his own, without Trump's approval, in exploring doing business in Cuba. Newsweek cited an anonymous former Trump executive who claimed that Trump had participated in discussions about the Cuba trip and knew it had taken place. Trump hired the same consulting firm to try to develop a Florida casino with the Seminole Tribe.
Even with so many legislative races already decided and so many others that appear to be sure things, Democrats believe they can make inroads into the Republican majorities in the North Carolina General Assembly this year. No one's talking about Democrats regaining the majority in either chamber of the legislature, but they have their sights on ending GOP supermajorities.A supermajority allows the legislature to override vetoes by the governor. Since gaining supermajorities in both chambers in 2012, just two years after gaining control of both for the first time in history, the Republican-led legislature has overridden four of five gubernatorial vetoes.As it stands today, Republicans hold the majority in the state House, with 75 seats out of 120, and the state Senate, holding 34 seats out of 50.Using the 2012 Civitas Partisan Index (CPI) , we have winnowed down the key legislative elections to 21 races to watch in November. We use 2012 data because that is the last presidential election year.The CPI compares votes cast for statewide races in each NC legislative district to votes cast statewide. The end result is a letter (D or R) followed by a number, indicating the extent to which each district leans one way or the other relative to the state as a whole. For example, a district whose voters gave 5 more percentage points to the statewide Democratic candidates compared to the statewide vote average for those Democratic candidates receives an index score of D+5. You can see the end of this article for a more thorough explanation.(A rating of "+0" indicates voters in that district vote for one party more than the state as a whole, but by less than 1 percent.)Of the 21 races we have chosen to watch, it's interesting to note that five of the 14 state House districts and three of the seven state Senate districts are in Wake County.With one exception, the races to watch are in districts that have a CPI score of D+4 to R+4, meaning neither party has a strong "home field advantage" there. The exception is House District 51, which has a CPI score of R+5 but is held by a Democrat.In an earlier look at the legislative landscape, we had chosen 22 races to watch. But in Buncombe County, Democratic Rep. Brian Turner's GOP challenger dropped out of the race in July and left him to run unopposed in House District 116, which has a CPI score of R+5. Turner has served one term in the state House.In the House, only 63 out of 120 districts will be contested in November 2016.Forty-one state House contests were decided before the March primary and 16 contests were decided after the votes were counted in the primary.Of the 63 House contests that will include more than one candidate in November, the CPI points to only 14 that fall in the category of races to watch. It's worth noting that all but two of these races include incumbents and the power of incumbency is real and often times hard to overcome.Incumbent Larry Yarborough (R-Person), won by 56.7 percent in 2014 after then-Rep. Winkle Wilkins (D) decided not to run in 2014. Wilkins won the district in 2012 with 56.7 percent of the vote. Yarborough will face Democrat Joe Parrish in the General Election.Given that incumbent Paul Tine (U-Dare) is not seeking election in 2016, District 6 is an open seat. Republican Beverly Boswell, who won her three-way primary with 39.3 percent of the vote, will face Warren Judge, who won the Democratic primary with 71.7 percent of the vote.Susan Martin (R-Wilson), the incumbent, was first elected to the House in 2012, when she garnered 57.2 percent of the vote. She gained strength in 2014 when she won re-election with 60.8 percent of the vote. Martin's opponent in November is Democrat Charlie Pat Farris.While Greg Murphy (R-Pitt) is officially the incumbent, he was appointed to the seat in October 2015 after Rep. Brian Brown left office to work for U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis. Murphy will face Brian Farkas, who won the Democratic primary with 61.6 percent of the vote.Incumbent Chris Malone (R-Wake) has served two terms in the state House. In 2012 he won with 50.8 percent of the vote; in 2014 he widened the winning margin with 56.3 percent. Malone will face Democrat Terrence Everitt in the General Election.Nelson Dollar (R-Wake) has served six terms in the State House. In 2012 he won with 55 percent of the vote and in 2014 he won with 54.4 percent of the total vote. Dollar won his primary in March with 55.7 percent of the vote and will face Jennifer Ferrell, who won her primary with 75.2 percent of the vote, and Libertarian Brian Irving.Five-term incumbent Marilyn Avila (R-Wake) won the 2012 and 2014 elections by carrying 53.9 percent and 54.4 percent of the vote, respectively. She will face a former judge, Democrat Joe John, in the General Election.Democrat incumbent Gale Adcock (D-Wake) beat two-term Republican Rep. Tom Murry in 2014 by winning 51.3 percent of the votes. One of the Democrats in an "R+" district, Adcock will face Republican Chris M. Shoffner in the General Election.Two-term incumbent John Szoka (R-Cumberland) was unopposed in the 2014 election. He won his first election in 2012 with 56.4 percent of the vote. Szoka will face Democrat Roberta Waddle in the General Election.Republican incumbent Gary Pendleton (R-Wake) was appointed in August 2014 to replace Dr. Jim Fulghum, who died while in office. Pendleton won with 51.6 percent of the vote in 2014. (Fulghum won 54 percent of the vote in District 49 in 2012.) Pendleton will face Democrat Cynthia Ball and Libertarian David Ulmer in November.First-term incumbent Democrat Brad Salmon (D-Harnett) beat two-term incumbent Mike Stone in 2014 by 1,573 votes (53.9 percent of the vote). Stone first won the district in 2010 with 53.5 percent of the vote and again in 2012 with 52 percent. Salmon will face Republican candidate John Sauls in the General Election.A Republican in a "D+" district, Rep. Charles Jeter (R-Mecklenburg) won his primary by 35 votes. However, Jeter resigned on July 25 and was replaced by Justin Moore. But Danae Caulfield has replaced Jeter on the ballot and will face Democrat Chaz Beasley in the General Election. While HD 92 is a D+1 district, Jeter won with 51.4 percent of the vote in 2012 and with 52.5 percent of the vote in 2014.First-term incumbent John Ager (D-Buncombe) is one of the Democrats in an "R+" district. Ager upset a Republican incumbent in 2014 (Nathan Ramsey) by winning 50.8 percent of the vote. Ramsey had won an open seat (vacated by a Democrat) in 2012 with 54.3 percent of the vote. Ager will face the winner of the Republican primary, Frank Moretz, in November.Incumbent Joe Sam Queen (D-Haywood) has served two terms in the House. (He also served two terms in the state Senate). Queen won the 2012 race with 51.7 percent of the vote and the 2014 race with 52.5 percent of the vote. In November he will face Mike Clampitt, whom he defeated in 2012 by a margin of 51.7 to 48.3 percent, and again in 2014 by 52.6 to 47.4 percent.There are 13 out of 50 state Senate districts where only one person filed to run in 2016, which means there were already 13 winners in the state Senate before the Primary. Add two Senate districts where the Republican primary decided the winner because no Democrats or Libertarians filed to run, and that leaves 35 General Election contests for state Senate. Of those, seven meet our criteria as a race to watch. All seven district races include incumbents - and all seven are Republicans.Incumbent Bill Cook (R-Beaufort) has served two terms in the Senate and one in the House. Cook's first election to the Senate was in 2012, when he won by only 21 votes - garnering 50.01 percent of the vote. In 2014 Cook won with 53.4 percent of the vote. He will face Democrat Brownie Futrell in the General Election.Michael Lee (R-New Hanover), the Republican incumbent from Senate District 9, was first appointed to fill Thom Goolsby's unexpired term in August 2014. He ran for the office in November 2014 and won 55.4 percent of the vote. (Goolsby won the district with 54.2 percent in 2012.) Lee will face Democrat Andrew Barnhill in the General Election.Incumbent John Alexander (R-Wake) has served one term in the state Senate. He won the seat left open by retiring Sen. Neal Hunt in 2014 by getting 50.4 percent of the vote. Hunt won his last election in 2012 with 55.8 percent of the vote. Alexander will face Democrat Laurel Deegan-Fricke and Libertarian Brad Hessel in November.Tamara Barringer (R-Wake) is the incumbent in the state Senate District 17 race. Barringer was first elected to the Senate in 2012 with 53.7 percent of the vote. In 2014 she won with 58.4 percent of the vote. Barringer had no challenger in the March 15 Primary, but she will face Democrat Susan Evans and Libertarian Susan Hogarth in November.Incumbent Chad Barefoot (R-Wake) was first elected to the House in 2012 with 55.9 percent of the vote and won re-election in 2014 with 52.9 percent of the vote. Neither Barefoot nor his Democrat challenger in the General Election, Gil Johnson, had primary challenges.A Republican in a "D+" district, incumbent Wesley Meredith (R-Cumberland) is in his third term in the state House. In 2012 he won with 53.9 percent of the vote and won re-election in 2014 with 54.5 percent. Meredith will face Democrat Toni Morris in the General Election.First-term incumbent Tom McInnis (R-Cumberland) beat one-term Democrat Gene McLaurin in 2014 with 50.4 percent of the vote. McLaurin won in 2012 with 53 percent of the total vote. McInnis will face Democrat Dannie Montgomery in November.Click here to see the maps and learn more about the history of the CPI.The CPI is a useful tool to take into account when looking at North Carolina's legislative political landscape. It is used to study voting tendencies within a district and to identify districts that swing, lean, or firmly trend towards one political party or the other. Keep in mind that incumbency, turnout, candidates' experience and qualities, fundraising, and current political issues also play powerful roles in determining outcomes in elections.The CPI is based on voter data from presidential election year results for governor and other Council of State offices, i.e. lieutenant governor, commissioner of agriculture, commissioner of insurance, commissioner of labor, attorney general, secretary of state, superintendent of public instruction, state treasurer and state auditor. Although presidential and U.S. Senate election results may also be available, we believe that state-level races give a more accurate picture of how voters will vote in a state legislative race than do national races.In 2012 the newly drawn legislative districts were applied to the 2012 vote for Governor and all Council of State races except the attorney general's race, which was uncontested. Though we couldn't compare individual districts in this CPI with the last one, because of redistricting, we were able to compare average voting patterns from 2008.While it is true that historically in Council of State races North Carolinians tend to vote for Democratic candidates, in the 2012 CPI we saw a possible shift in that voting pattern. In the 2008 election, the average Council of State vote (looking at only votes for Democratic or Republican candidates) was 53.4 percent Democratic and 46.6 percent Republican statewide; in the 2012 model, the average vote statewide was nearly even: 50.6 percent Democratic to 49.4 percent Republican.Click here to see the state House of Representatives chart and here to see the state Senate chart . They include candidates, election history, information on incumbency, retiring office holders and past election results.
Latest News Lendi Group settles $33.6 billion in FY22 Ambitious target of a deal a day for brokers

APRA announces new appointments The prudential regulator has a new chair, deputy chair, and members

Non-major lender Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has agreed to buy more than a quarter of the value of a government-backed lenders loan book. Bendigo and Adelaide Bank yesterday announced it had purchased $1.35bn worth of loans from Western Australian government-owned lender Keystart, whose loan book totalled around $4bn before the deal. Keystart borrowers are typically first home buyers who do not have sufficient initial savings for a deposit.Bendigo and Adelaide Bank paid a premium of $2.7m for the loans.Speaking to Australian Broker, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank chief financial officer Richard Fennell said there were two main factors behind the purchase.Although we had 11% of our loan book in WA, we are still very heavily exposed in South Australia, Victoria and to a lesser extent Queensland, so it helped us balance out the book a little better, Fennell told Australian Broker.It also gives us access to 6,000 customers that are already receiving a single product from Keystart and it gives us an opportunity to introduce them to our full suite of services and products. Obviously the opportunity to pick up 6,000 customers at a modest premium was something we were happy to pursue, he told Australian Broker.Fennell said the bank had carried out a strong due diligence process before purchasing the loans and had set strong criteria around which loans it took up.The pool of loans purchased by Bendigo and Adelaide Bank are all variable rate owner occupied loans with an average seasoning period of five years and are no more than a month in arrears.Two-thirds of the loans are located in Perth, with less than 1% located in the Pilbara and Kimberley regions.Fennell said the deal was somewhat opportunistic, however he didnt rule out similar deals in the future.Weve always got our eyes open for the opportunity to bolt on deal that fit us strategically and economically, he told Australian Broker.When these sorts of opportunities come up were very happy to have a look at them and if they meet those key factors aligning strategically with our existing business and the economic and risk stack up then were generally going to be competitive in that process.As a result of the deal, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank have also announced a non-underwritten share purchase plan (SPP) to raise additional capital.Its really just to offset the additional capital we have to set aside for this purchase. So its just so we can maintain our capital ratio, Fennell told Australian Broker.With an SPP its quite challenging to predict things, but wed be pretty confident of raising at least $40m of capital. Weve never through an SPP raised less than around $44m or $45m.
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Friday Sept. 30 Drink & drawings

Kick off Bushwick Open Studios with booze and cartoons, at the opening of the Brooklyn Comics and Illustrators exhibit. It features work from borough-centric comics, including Jermey Nguyens Stranger Than Bushwick, Tony Wolfs Greenpoint of View, and Lucio Zagos Williamsburg Shorts (pictured), among others. Featuring an open bar from Lagunitas and Henrys Wine and Spirit.

6:3010 pm at Kave Event Space [1087 Flushing Ave. between Knickerbocker and Porter avenues in Bushwick, www.artsi nbush wick.org ]. Free.

Sunday Oct. 2 Beer in space

In the future, we wont mess with malt and hops  instead well sip the smooth blue beverage Romulan Ale! Learn about the weird world of fantasy intoxicants in the lecture Star Trek  Space Juice, by professor Lucy Hunter, hosted by mead tasting room Honeys. Before the talk, you can get a tour of the adjoining meadery and a sample of its products, starting at 6 pm.

7 pm at Honeys (93 Scott Ave. at Randolph Street in Bushwick), www.enlig htenm entwi nes.com . One drink minimum.

Tuesday Oct. 4 Brew crew

Ever wanted to make your own beer? Get the inside scoop on home-brewing from a panel of local beer experts at Its Brewing in Brooklyn, including Jason Sahler (pictured) of Strong Rope Brewery, Justin Israelson from Threes Brewing, and John La Polla of the Bitter & Esters brew shop. There will also be a beer tasting and food pairings.

Brooklyn in black and white: Lucio Zagos Williamsburg Shorts is among the Brooklyn-centric comics featured in the Brooklyn Cartoonists and Illustrators exhibit opening Sept. 30 in Bushwick. Lucio Zago

7 pm at BRIC Arts Media House [647 Fulton St. at Rockwell Place in Fort Greene, (718) 6835621], www.brica rtsme dia.org . Free.

Wednesday Oct. 5 Deutsche dishes

You may have noticed a theme to the listings this week. Yes, Oktoberfest has turned our thoughts to beer, but the German festival is about more than that! Learn to cook traditional dishes like schnitzel, bratwurst, and sauerkraut at How to Prepare a German Feast at the Brooklyn Brewery  where you can also sip the brewerys Oktoberfest pilsner.

8 pm at Brooklyn Brewery (79 N. 11th St. between Berry Street and Wythe Avenue in Williamsburg), www.brook lynbr ewery.com . $10.

Thursday Oct. 6 Winning gold

Brooklyns biggest brewery was once Rheingold, which hosted the wildly popular Miss Rheingold Beauty Contest each year from 19411964. Learn all about it at Beauty and the Beer, a documentary about the annual competition, directed by a former contestant. And theres a beer tasting with Brooklyn Brewery at 6 pm!

7 pm at the Brooklyn Museum [200 Eastern Pkwy. at Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, (718) 6385000], www.brook lynmu seum.org . Free.
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The city is one step closer to adding 976 desks to Brooklyns most overcrowded school district.

The School Construction Authority used eminent domain to acquire four lots near Third Avenue and 59th Street, where it plans to build a $4-million elementary school. Some may balk at the idea of forcibly taking land for the public good, but this project is really necessary, according to one neighborhood education advocate.

For most of New Yorks history, eminent domain is kind of a dirty word, but it has potential if its used smartly, and it sounds like this can do some good. We have a really bad overcrowding issue in the area, so anything that can be done to alleviate that is welcome, said Sunset Park resident Julio Pena, the vice-chairman Community Board 7s education committee.

Brooklyn Supreme Court judge Wayne Saitta ruled on Sept. 29 that the authority can take ownership of the four lots  which are in foreclosure. Courts will determine how much to compensate the landowner at a future hearing, Saitta said.

The forthcoming PS 746 will help ease overcrowding in School District 20, which encompasses Sunset Park, Borough Park, and Bay Ridge.

District classrooms were the citys most jam-packed last year, according to an Independent Budget Office study, and the nearly 1,000 seats the city is promising are a far cry from the more-than 7,000 district seats needed just to break even.

The city has set aside money to build 4,541 seats in the area by 2024, but it needs to find space to do so, according to information from the School Construction Authority.
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Call it an arresting image.

A Sunset Park artist has painted a mural that he hopes will educate locals about their rights when dealing with police. The piece, a collaboration between illustrator Angel Garcia and activist group New York City Cop Watch, breaks down six key rights when interacting with police. The art is meant as a measure of security for people who do not feel like police are keeping them safe, Garcia said.

The police no longer give you and idea of protection, they give you a sense of fear and doubt, he said. So I think its important that people are aware of these things. The mural can go beyond something on a wall, people can learn something from it that might help them.

The mural is split into two parts. One section, written in Spanish and English, contains a list of civil rights for those stopped by police, such as the right to an attorney, and the right to decline a warrantless search.

The second section features an artistic rendering of a tree, meant to symbolize community. The roots are figures standing together arm in arm pointing up toward a pair of handcuffs. Two bird-like hands break the shackles apart, representing freedom from oppression through knowledge, said Garcia. And the trees leaves are neighbors coming together to support one another.

Garcia hopes the creative approach appeals to Sunset Parkers  and keeps them vigilant, he said.

The mural is the best way to communicate a message and that message is to know your rights, said Garcia. For me, when I create a mural it has to serve a purpose  in addition to it being colorful and inviting  its important that it be informative and not just a pretty picture on the wall.

Students from Sunset Park High School helped Garcia and Cop Watch design the project, which organizers plan to translate the work into other languages common to the nabe, such as Arabic and Chinese, according to Garcia.

Anyone wishing to volunteer to translate can e-mail Angel at angel garci aart@ gmail.com or NYC Cop Watch at copwa tchsp @gmai l.com .

Reach reporter Caroline Spivack at cspiv ack@c ngloc al.com or by calling (718) 2602517. Follow her on Twitter @carolinespivack.
Raleigh attorney Gene Boyce, who underwrote an eponymous legal center at Campbell Law School, wants lawyers with the State Bar to follow the same rules he has to obey.

Raleigh attorney Gene Boyce told Carolina Journal that his efforts to get the courts to rule on a dispute he is having with the North Carolina State Bar, the state agency that regulates attorneys, is important because it has implications for other licensing boards and the occupations they regulate.Boyce filed an appeal with the North Carolina Court of Appeals challenging a Wake County Superior Court judge's decision not to hear a complaint Boyce filed against the State Bar involving Attorney General Roy Cooper. The judge ruled that Boyce did not have standing in the matter. Cooper is the Democratic Party nominee running in the November election against incumbent Republican Gov. Pat McCrory.Boyce wants the Appeals Court to address the following question:In the appeal, Boyce notes that 57 North Carolina job-licensing agencies regulate 154 licensed job categories. He argues that if these agencies (including the State Bar) have standing to address misconduct by licensees, the licensees also should have standing in court to address allegations that their regulatory board staff has engaged in similar misconduct.Other occupations subject to state licensing and regulation include real-estate agents, barbers, doctors, locksmiths, and home inspectors.Boyce said attorneys with the State Bar should be subject to the same rules he must follow. They should acknowledge professional misconduct when it is reported to them and acknowledge a conflict of interest when one exists.Boyce's complaint sought to force the State Bar to address allegations of professional misconduct by Cooper that began in 2000 when Cooper was the Democratic Party's nominee for attorney general and his Republican opponent was Dan Boyce, Gene's son. Boyce claimed at the time that Cooper knowingly made false statements in TV ads that harmed his reputation. In 2000 Boyce took legal action against Cooper in state and federal court, and in 2014 the matter was scheduled to go to trial. Boyce contends Cooper's misconduct ended in 2014 when Cooper confessed that political ads he ran against the Boyce family were not true. The parties signed an agreement ending the civil action, but Boyce's complaint about the State Bar says Cooper's conduct is a separate issue.Boyce asked the court for a declaratory judgment forcing the State Bar to acknowledge Boyce's claims of Cooper's misconduct; declaring that the State Bar has a conflict of interest in the matter because Cooper, as attorney general, is the attorney for the State Bar; and referring the dispute to an alternative agency for investigation, findings of fact, and discipline if appropriate. The State Bar claimed that Boyce did not have standing to pursue his allegations and sought to have the case dismissed.Boyce said that as an attorney he has an ethical obligation to report professional misconduct of other attorneys to the State Bar. According to the complaint - filed in January in Wake County Superior Court - Boyce notified the State Bar on multiple occasions about Cooper's alleged misconduct, but the State Bar has not responded. Boyce also argued that the State Bar has a conflict of interest in the matter because Cooper serves as the attorney for the State Bar.In May, Wake County Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens agreed with the State Bar and dismissed Boyce's complaint.
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."
latest news

October 3, 2022

Dee Gambit

Hundreds  if not thousands  of new and returning TV shows and movies are released every month  your options of what to watch are endless. Variety, they say is ...
A look back: The ghost stories that once gripped New Jersey

In the Victorian period, even New Jersey's newspapers took ghost sightings seriously. On occasion, paranormal investigations went the extra mile.
Amazon will sell products of retail giant Aditya Birlas online fashion label (abof) on its platform as it looks to offer customers a wider variety of apparel, a category the US e-commerce lags behind in to local rival Flipkart.
After announcing the launch of Maps Development Center on May 19, Cupertino, California-based technology giant Inc., has recently short-listed 30 engineering students from the city for a 6-month project work before they could be considered for placements some time in April next year.

These 30 students-all studying at G Narayanamma Institute of Technology and Science (GNITS) for Women have been divided into six teams to work on six separate projects as a part of Apple's internship programme.
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As part of its CSR initiative, has tied up with STOP HUNGER NOW, an international relief organization that co-ordinates distribution of food and other lifesaving aid around the world, to feed hungry people.

Every year through India VoluntEARS Week, takes up social causes to spread cheer and joy in the surroundings and society. The initiative invites employees to come forward and VoluntEAR for the selected cause. The team responsible for this is called the Citizenship team.
Noida-based business process outsourcing (BPO) company is looking at spending $200 million to acquire in the field of insurance, banking and analytics as it looks to strengthen its core verticals.
has partnered with PVR cinemas in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi to bring its brand campaign around the upcoming Big Billion Days festive sale offline. The company is hoping to reach a million people through this week-long campaign that starts on September 30, wooing them to shop on its platform.
IT industry body is in talks with Odisha government for setting up a start-up warehouse under the formers start-up warehouse programme that aims to incubate, fund and provide ambient support to impact 10,000 technology start-ups in India, by 2023.
(BSP), the flagship entity of the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), has developed special grade of steel for defence establishment that can be used in terrains where temperature dips far below zero.
After forging a partnership with Takeda Pharmaceuticals Ltd for developing the Chikungunya vaccine earlier this month, Ahmedabad-based pharma major on Friday said that it has entered into a collaboration wtih Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) to develop the investigational antimalarial compound, MMV674253.
The following classes are available through the Continuing Education Department at BCCC. To register, call 252-940-6375 or email continuingeducation@beaufortccc.edu.This class is for persons applying for notary public commissions for the State of North Carolina. Various topics related to the duties of a notary public will be covered. Individuals should review the notary qualifications list on the Secretary of State's web site located here prior to registering for class. Per NC Secretary of State Guidelines, students will have to pass an exam to complete the class requirements. Students will be required to show a state issued photo ID and their social security card at the first night of class. There will be a class on October 14 and November 18 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The class requires a textbook and costs $70.T-shirts can be used to create a special memory quilt. Many quilters make them to give as high school graduation presents. Students should bring at least ten pre-washed tees to find out how to create their own treasure. Students should have existing sewing or quilting skills. Participants will enjoy the fellowship that quilters are famous for sharing. Call for a supply list. This class takes place from 6:00-9:00 p.m. on Tuesdays starting October 25 and costs $40.This class will teach students the basic foundation of using MS Word to type letters, memos and other office correspondence. If time allows, students will use Word to update and review their resume. Students must have taken "Keyboard for Job Seekers" or may be asked to complete a typing test to enroll. This class runs from October 26 through December 7 on Wednesdays from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. The class costs $75, but unemployed or underemployed individuals may qualify for a fee waiver.BCCC's new holiday tradition is Elaine Roberson's Holiday Party Foods class and takes advantage of the new culinary lab. This year's menu includes: buttermilk ham biscuits with horseradish sauce, homemade pimento cheese tea sandwiches, microwave party mix, homemade salsa with chips, homemade hummus and veggie tray, pineapple cheeseball with crackers and jumble cookies. Participants will help to prepare the menu if they choose. When all the food is prepared students will have one fine party indeed. This class will take place on Tuesdays from 6:00-9:00 p.m. starting November 8.
All attempts are being made to secure the release of an Indian soldier, who inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan, Home Minister said on Friday.

Singh said the government has taken note of the reports which stated that an Indian soldier is in Pakistan's captivity.

"All attempts are being made to secure his release," he told reporters here.

The Home Minister also said that New Delhi will take up the matter with Islamabad for his early release.

Indian Army sources had said on Thursday that "one soldier from 37 RR with weapon has inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control. Pakistan has been informed by the DGMO on the hotline."

The sources had said that his crossing over was not related to the surgical strikes.

"Such inadvertent crossing by Army and civilians are not unusual on either side. They are returned through existing mechanisms," they had said.

The Indian Army had on Thursday rejected as "false and baseless" reports in a section of Pakistani media that eight Indian soldiers were killed and one captured by Pakistani military in retaliatory fire.

Indian Army sources said, "As regard (to the) report of killing of eight Indian Army personnel reported in sections of Pakistan media, the report is completely false and baseless."

Army's reaction had came after Pakistan's Dawn News reported that Pakistani military has claimed that it has killed eight Indian soldiers and captured one while retaliating to India's firing at the first line of defence at the Line of Control (LoC) at Tatta Pani.

India had carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the Army inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.
The Indian Army has rejected the claims of Pakistani media, showing the killing of eight Indian soldiers and the capture of one other army official in the raids conducted at the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) region, adding that they were "fake" and an example of "black propaganda."

Only one soldier has suffred from "minor injuries" as he stepped on a mine while returning to the Indian side of the Line of Control, said army sources on September 30.

Sources also said that images played out on Pakistan TV channels, claiming to show Indian casualties, are "doctored or morphed clips that are fake."

According to army sources, "One soldier from 37 RR with weapon inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control, following which Pakistan has been informed by Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Ranbir Singh over the hotline."

Stating that such inadvertent crossing by army and civilians are not unusual on either side, sources added, "They are returned through existing mechanisms. As regard reports of killing of eight Indian Army personnel reported in sections of Pakistan media, the reports are completely false and baseless."

Quoting security sources, Pakistani daily the Dawn had reported on September 29 that soldiers from the Indian Army were killed in the episode of cross-border firing.

In his show 'Capital Talk' on Geo News, Hamid Mir said, "Fourteen Indian soldiers were killed in two sectors." Defence analyst Major General (Retd) Ijaz Awan, who was on his show, confirmed his claim.

An Indian soldier, Chandu Babulal Chohan, was taken into custody said the daily, adding that there is no official confirmation of this claim.

Indian armed forces conducted surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the LoC on a late Wednesday night on September 28 in order to neutralise terrorists planning to infiltrate into the Indian Territory.
The on Thursday said that one of its soldiers from the 37 Rashtriya Rifles (RR), along with his standard weapon, had inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control (LoC) and termed as "completely false and baseless" reports in Pakistani media that eight of its soldiers had been killed.

An army release issued by the Defence Ministry said that Pakistan had been informed on the hotline by the Director General Military Operations Lt Gen Ranbir Singh about the soldier crossing over the LoC.

It said that such inadvertent crossing by army personnel and civilians was not unusual on either side and they are are returned through existing mechanisms.

"One soldier from 37 RR with weapon has inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control. Pakistan has been informed by the DGMO on the hotline. Such inadvertent crossing by Army and civilians are not unusual on either side. They are returned through existing mechanisms," the release said.

"As regard report of killing of eight personnel reported in sections of Pakistan media, the report is completely false and baseless," the release added.

Dawn had quoted security sources as saying that Pakistan military had said it had captured an Indian soldier and killed eight others. Dawn later withdrew the story, replacing it with another that did not specify the number of Indian soldiers killed.

Dawn identified the soldier who crossed over as Chandu Babulal Chohan, 22, from Maharashtra. Dawn said he had been shifted to an undisclosed location.

It said the soldier was caught after the Indian military fired across the LoC.

Dawn said the bodies of the dead Indian soldiers lay unattended at the LoC, which divides Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

India on Thursday said that it had carried out "surgical strikes" on terrorist launch pads across the LoC, inflicting massive casualties. Pakistan has denied the surgical strikes ever took place.
Even as the centre is pushing ahead the Myanmar-Bangladesh-India project which will cost India a whopping Rs 1,30,000 crore, former chief of army staff, General Shankar Roy Chowdhury said the project is not feasible citing to geo-political reasons in the area.

Instead, the former senior army personnel suggested sea route from Sitway in Myanmar to Indian major ports as more viable, as a sea route will not involve crossing territorial waters of other countries apart from Myanmar and India.
Liquor stocks on Friday surged up to 14 per cent after the Patna High Court struck down the Bihar government's decision to completely ban liquor in the state.

Shares of Empee Distilleries jumped 13.92 per cent, Globus Spirits advanced by 11.47 per cent and Pioneer Distilleries zoomed 9.85 per cent on BSE.

GM Breweries soared 8.42 per cent, Tilaknagar Industries surged 7.83 per cent and Radico Khaitan went up by 6.21 per cent.

Among others, Associated Alcohols & Breweries rose by 3.44 per cent and United Breweries gained 2.81 per cent.

In a setback to the Bihar government, the Patna High Court on Friday quashed the government notification completely banning liquor in the state, saying it is ultra vires to the Constitution.

A division bench of the court quashed the April 5 notification of the state government to stop consumption and sale of alcohol in the state.

The April 5 notification is ultra vires to the Constitution, hence not enforceable, the court said in its verdict.

The Nitish Kumar-led Grand Secular Alliance government had first banned the manufacture, trade, sale, consumption of country-made liquor since April 1, but later imposed a blanket ban on all types of liquor including foreign liquor in the state.
Chemistry in the surface material on contributed dynamically to the make-up of its atmosphere over time, a study has found.

The findings come from the NASA's Curiosity rover's Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, instrument suite, which studied the gases xenon and krypton in the atmosphere.

The two gases can be used as tracers to help scientists investigate the evolution and erosion of the Martian atmosphere.

The SAM team ran a series of first-of-a-kind experiments to measure all the isotopes of xenon and krypton in the Martian atmosphere, a paper published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters said.

The team's method is called static mass spectrometry, and it is good for detecting gases or isotopes that are present only in trace amounts.

"The unique capability to measure in situ the six and nine different isotopes of krypton and xenon allows scientists to delve into the complex interactions between the Martian atmosphere and crust," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Exploration Programme at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

"Discovering these interactions through time allows us to gain a greater understanding of planetary evolution," Meyer noted.

A lot of information about xenon and krypton in Mars' atmosphere came from analyses of Martian meteorites and measurements made by the Viking mission.

"What we found is that earlier studies of xenon and krypton only told part of the story," lead author of the report Pamela Conrad, and SAM's Deputy Principal Investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, said.

"SAM is now giving us the first complete in situ benchmark against which to compare meteorite measurements," Conrad noted.
A national-level athlete, who was on the run for over a year after killing a man, has been arrested from southwest Delhi's Jharoda Kalan, police said.

Deepak, 29, was arrested on Thursday from outside his house in Jharoda Kalan village after police received information about his wherebaouts, they said.

"Last year, Amit was shot dead by three men, including Deepak, in Kanjhawla after he demanded his money back from Deepak's friend. The other two accused were arrested but Deepak had been on the run since May last year," said DCP (Southwest) Surender Kumar.

"During interrogation, Deepak said he wanted to be a famous gangster and engaged himself in criminal activities," he added.

Deepak was a shot-put athlete and had even participated twice in national-level competition.
Domestic passengers from Mumbai will not be charged an user development fee (UDF) and international passengers will pay half of the current levy following the revision in airport tariff by the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) on Thursday.
The government said it will spend Rs 2,628.51 crore for establishment of model schools in all 314 blocks in the state in the next five years.

"We have earmarked Rs 2,628.51 crore for building infrastructures of model schools in five years and the corporate sector of the state has evinced interest in the construction work," School and Mass Education Minister Debi Prasad Mishra said, replying to a question in the Assembly.

Mishra said the Tata company would set up 30 model schools while the Mining Corporation (OMC) and JSPL would construct 25 and ten schools each respectively.

The minister alleged that though the model school project was launched during the previous government at the Centre, the NDA government stopped funding for the scheme.

The state government, however, has decided to carry forward the programme, he said.

The Opposition, however, alleged that the state government was not serious about setting up more colleges for differently-abled students.

There are only two such colleges in the state and the students after completion of their 10th standard have to stop education, they alleged.

Congress MLA Krushna Chandra Sagaria demanded schools for the differently-abled be established in similar to the Karnataka model.
Barely hours after the surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) had been confirmed on Thursday, Union Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi asked crowds in Mewat: Raise your hands. How many of you are with [the prime minister] in his fight against this enemy of India?
Helping kids, especially sick kids, is a cause that people feel strongly about.

So raising $1 million at the 2016 SAINTS Ball on Saturday, Oct. 1, is a goal that sounds doable in a town like Billings with its strong sense of community spirit. Go Wild for Kids is the theme of the St. Vincent Healthcare Foundation hosted SAINTS Ball at the Billings Radisson Hotel Convention Center, 5500 Midland Road.

The event includes dinner prepared by regional chefs, an auction, and music and dancing. SAINTS raises money to renovate the hospitals pediatric intensive care unit. Tickets are $150 each and are available by calling 237-3638 or emailing heather.bergeson@sclhs.net.

St. Vincent Healthcare nurse manager Sammy Twito is looking forward to hiring two child life specialists as part of the improvements to pediatric care. The specialists help support children who are hospitalized and their families.

Specialists are trained in child development and are able to lessen the stress on children and their families by using music, art, and therapy dogs.

Its about talking to kids about stressful situations, Twito said.

She said the No. 1 fear of children is getting poked. To distract the child, studies show that playing music, playing with dogs or making art projects lessens their fear and pain.

The program at St. Vincent Healthcare will be styled after a similar program at Primary Childrens Hospital in Salt Lake City. Alinda Shelley, a child life team leader at Primary Childrens Hospital, said she uses music therapy to normalize the environment at the hospital.

Any hospital is stressful for adults, and for kids it can be even more stressful. When you normalize the environment, it feels more like they are at home, Shelley said.

Children can explore their feelings and communicate about their stress through art projects. It also gives them a different outlook on their hospitalization, Shelley said.

We deal with the family as a whole to see how they are coping with the hospital and we help them if they are facing end of life, Shelley said.

For children, familiarizing them with medical tools such as masks or tubes via play or even using the objects in art also relieves some stress.

Shelley said child life specialists have been working in hospitals for decades, and are now expanding into dental offices and outpatient facilities. Child life specialists complete an internship and must pass a national exam to gain certification.
Over 20,000 residents living in the border villages in Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts migrated to safer places on September 30 after authorities declared areas close to the international border "out of bounds for all civilian movement".

State government officials said villagers left their homes to, moving away from Pakistan's shelling range since last night on September 29.

Pakistan stepped up firing across the LoC and the international border on Thursday night in what is seen as retaliation for the Indian surgical strikes in Pakistani territory that took out seven terrorist launch pads and killed an estimated 35-40 militants waiting to cross into Indian territory.

"Over 20,000 residents in the bordering villages of Jammu, Kathua and Samba districts have migrated from their homes till Friday morning," said provincial administration officials.

"These families were lodged in temporary accommodations including school buildings, community halls and religious places," an official said, adding that relatives living away from the border areas have also been shifted with their families.

Educational institutions in these areas remained closed as a precautionary measure.

The Jammu and Kashmir government has deployed rescue and relief teams along with ambulances in the border areas, asking them to remain on high alert.

All civilian movement near the border areas have been prohibited, authorities said.

"Areas close to the international border have been declared as out of bound for civilian movement," officials said.

Hospitals have been put on high alert and doctors have been advised to remain on duty in

Officials at the state health department said hospitals that did not have regular electricity supply were provided power generating units to ensure round-the-clock of delivery medical services during an emergency situation.
In a big blow to the Nitish Kumar-led government in Bihar, the Patna High Court on Friday imposed a stay on Bihar's anti-liquor law.

Delivering its verdict on the liquor ban, the High Court annulled the state government's notification issued on April 5 this year, declaring Bihar a completely dry state. The court said that the way liquor ban had been implemented was not acceptable. The court was hearing a public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the Bihar government's decision to impose a total ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol in the state.
In a jolt to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the Patna High Court on Friday decided to set aside his government's anti-liquor law. Kumar, ever since his government enforced prohibition in the state in April this year, has travelled to large parts of India, praising the virtues of prohibition and has made it his political calling card as he looks at the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Union Home Minister on Friday reviewed the security situation in the country, particularly along the border with Pakistan in states like Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, and directed central security organisations to be on high alert.

Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and top officials of security and intelligence agencies attended the review meeting.

It comes in the wake of surgical strikes by the Indian Army on terror launch pads in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir in the early hours of September 29.

During the hour-long meeting, Doval and others briefed the Home Minister about the situation along the border and steps taken to foil any Pakistani design.

"The Border Security Force (BSF) and other central police organisations functioning under the Home Ministry have been put on high alert along the India-Pakistan border," an official source later said.

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) top brass have been asked to intensify security at all industrial units, airports and other locations wherever they are deployed, the source said.

All BSF units deployed along the international border in Jammu, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat have been directed to step up vigil.

The BSF has been ordered to increase the number of personnel deployed at sensitive posts, the sources said.

Earlier in the day, held separate meetings with the chiefs of important central security forces, including Security Guard (NSG), Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and CISF.

According to an official source here, these were routine meetings but were significant in the wake of the army's surgical strikes across the LoC.

met CISF Director General O P Singh, NDRF Director General R K Pachnanda and NSG Chief Sudhir Pratap Singh and discussed the general preparedness, sources said.
In a massive set back to former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Member of Parliament Mohammad Shahabuddin, the Supreme Court on Friday cancelled his bail paving the way for him to go back to jail.
Taking Karnataka to task for its repeated "defiance" by flouting its orders for release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu, Supreme Court today asked it to discharge 6,000 cusecs water from tomorrow till October 6, warning no one would know when the "wrath of the law" would fall on it.

The apex court gave the last opportunity to the Siddaramiah government to release 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu from October 1-6, despite a unanimous resolution passed by both house of Assembly.

"Karnataka despite being a state is flouting the order and creating a situation when the majesty of law is dented. We would have proceeded to take steps for strict compliance of the order but we have directed Cauvery Water Management Board to first study the ground realities and submit a report," a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and U U Lalit said.

"Karnataka shall not be bent upon to take an obstinate and stand of defiance as one does not know when wrath of the law will fall upon them," the bench said while directing the Centre to constitute the Cauvery Water Management Board by October 4.

It ordered all the stakeholders - Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pudduchery - to give names by 4 pm tomorrow of their representatives to be included in the board which would be chaired by the Union Water Resources Minister.

"We assume that Karnataka being a part of the federal structure of the country shall live upto the occasion and not show any deviancy till report of ground reality is submitted by the Cauvery Water Management Board," the court said.

The bench reminded Karnataka that it is bound by Article 144 of the Constitution and "aid in compliance" of the order of the Supreme Court.

"On plain reading of Article 144, it is clear as crystal that all authorities are bound to work in aid of Supreme Court and they are bound to obey the orders of Supreme Court but unfortunately Karnataka being a state is flouting the orders of the court," the bench said.

At the outset, senior advocate F S Nariman, representing Karnataka, referred to the communications between him and the Chief Minister Siddaramiah.

Senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, appearing for Tamil Nadu, expressed anguish on behalf of the state saying Karnataka has already made up its mind that it is not going to comply with the apex court directions.
Indian armed forces conducted surgical strikes in the early hours of Thursday across the Line of Control (LoC), involving not more than 100 commandos, in what is seen as a paradigm shift in how this government plans to deal with terrorist camps across the border.
Security agencies are apprehending an increase in militant operations in Jammu and Kashmir, leading to speculations about a potential rise in targeted attacks against security forces and civilians, following the conducted by the Army targeting terror launch pads in PoK.

Quoting intelligence inputs, government sources said there is a high probability of terror attacks being carried out by militants, who have already sneaked into Jammu and Kashmir, following instructions from .

These attacks may majorly target security forces serving in the Kashmir Valley, besides psoing an equal threat in civilian areas in the Jammu region.

"We have put security forces on high alert and asked them to be extra vigilant, taking into account the prevailing situation," a source said.

There have been reports that after yesterday's operation, some terror camps along the were shifted to the interior regions of PoK, sources said quoting intelligence inputs.

They said further that the evacuation of civilians has been completed in some areas in and Punjab, where people will not return till the situation becomes normal.

The sources also said the Indian soldier, who inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan, could be a "deserter" as he walked out of a group of soldiers and strayed into the Pakistani territory.

Army sources had said yesterday that "one soldier from 37 RR with weapon has inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control. has been informed by the DGMO on the hotline."



Government has already issued a country-wide alert, asking the states to heighten vigil to foil any attempt by the Pakistan-based terror groups to carry out attacks, amid apprehensions of a backlash by terrorists.

carried out 'surgical strikes' on terror launch pads across on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists and others who are trying to support them.

The September 29 announcement made by the DGMO Lt, Gen Ranbir singh, came close on the heels of a terror strike on an camp at in Kashmir that left 19 Indian soldiers dead. The attack was carried out by the Pakistan-based JeM terror group on September 18.
Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal said so far Rs 1,67,000 crore worth of bonds have been issued under the Ujjwal Distribution Assurance Yojana (UDAY) and it is now hot property and in demand.
HELENA  A senior U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs official in Montana harassed and retaliated against an employee in violation of the federal Whistleblower Protection Act because the worker filed a patient safety report over an operating room error, a judge ruled Friday.

Administrative Judge James Kasic ordered the VA to pay damages and offer former Associate Chief of Inpatient Care Dianne Scotten a job similar to what she held before she resigned in December 2014. Kasic's ruling is an initial order that takes effect Nov. 4 if the VA does not request a review of the decision.

Her former boss, Associate Director of In-Patient Care Services Norlynn Nelson, denied she retaliated against Scotten for filing the report. Nelson faced no penalties in the case.

Scotten is now working for the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services and does not want to return to the VA, said her attorney, Jill Gerdrum. But the judge's ruling should give hope to other employees who want to speak out and lead to change within the Fort Harrison medical center, the attorney said.

"My client did this because she was brave and she was appalled by what she saw there, and she wanted it to be known," Gerdrum said. "Employees are going to be less likely to retaliate now that attention has been brought to it."

VA spokesman Mike Garcia did not return a call or email on Friday.

Scotten was in her position a little over a month when she filed a report to the VA's Quality Management and Patient Safety division about a dispute within the operating room over whether a surgical towel count had been completed during an operation in April 2014.

Surgical towels are counted to ensure that none remain inside a patient during an operation. As a result of Scotten's report, an investigation was conducted, leading to changes in operating room procedures and the use of a new type of surgical towel that can been seen by X-ray.

Nelson and several of the nurse managers she supervised were upset that Scotten had filed the report, and said they did not view the miscount as a patient safety matter.

Scotten told the judge that after the report, Nelson became hostile toward her, undermined her authority in front of subordinates, took duties away from her and tried to demote her. Scotten said the workplace became so hostile that she was forced to resign that December.

Nelson and other VA leaders told the judge that the change in Scotten's duties was unrelated.

Kasic, who heard the case for the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, said the VA's argument was unpersuasive.

Scotten's report was a protected disclosure for which she was subjected to harassing working conditions and a significant change in her duties, Kasic wrote. Other VA employees testified in support of Scotten that Nelson had retaliated against other workers and that workers were afraid to make reports for fear of retribution.

"I find (Scotten) has presented persuasive evidence of motive to retaliate on the part of agency officials involved in the allegedly retaliatory personnel actions," Kasic wrote.
The Capitals tallest building, the 28-storey Civic Centre near the New Delhi Railway Station, is hardly a hub of action on a weekend night. But September 30 was not like any other Friday evening. It was the last day of the governments Income Declaration Scheme (IDS). And hours before the midnight deadline, top officials in Mumbai and New Delhi confirmed that the response was overwhelming. Till 11 pm, the pan-India declarations had exceeded Rs 65,000 crore, implying a tax amount or earning of Rs 30,000 crore for the government.
India may examine a proposal from Iran to develop airport at its strategic as part of comprehensive infrastructure development that includes rail-road connectivity to the port.

The in the Sistan-Balochistan province on the energy-rich nation's southern coast lies outside the Persian Gulf and is easily accessed from India's western coast bypassing Pakistan.

"There is already an operational airport at Chabahar. The Iranian delegation to India has asked us whether India would be willing to develop and modernise it during the review on the latest development and situation on the bilateral pact... on the Chabahar port," an official told PTI.

Apart from discussions on expanding scope of cooperation to cover development of the entire Chabahar port, it was discussed that air transport could be of much significance, the official disclosed.

The high-level Iranian delegation led by Minister of Roads and Urban Development Dr Abbas Akhoundi and comprising Ambassador Gholamreza Ansari and Deputy Minister and MD for PMO Mohammad Saeid Nejad, among others, held a meeting with Indian authorities led by Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari here.

The official said Chabahar has an operational airport and the Iranian minister enquired whether India would be willing to modernise it.

After meeting the Iranian team and a delegation from Afghanistan, Gadkari hoped that Chabahar project will open a new gateway for development of India, Iran and Afghanistan by boosting regional connectivity and trade.

He said further, "We will try to complete the project within the time schedule. We are also finding out what are new things for which we will have opportunity for development and investment. The Iranian minister has given lots of innovative suggestions regarding business development."

A "milestone" pact on the strategic in southern Iran that will provide India access to Afghanistan and Europe bypassing Pakistan was signed by India and Iran in May this year after detailed discussions between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Besides the bilateral agreement to develop the Chabahar port, for which India has committed $500 million, a trilateral agreement on transport and transit corridor was signed by India, Afghanistan and Iran, which Prime Minister Modi has said could "alter the course of the history of the region".
The is forced to run a race with legs and arms tied behind, said N Srinivasan, vice-chairman and managing director of India Cements Ltd.
The government is considering a licensing policy for tobacco products seeking to extend regulations beyond cigarettes to chewable tobacco items such as beedi and gutka.
Following the change of guard at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and ushering in of Committee (MPC), the practice of communicating has been changed.
Two months ago, Ramji Gupta and his wife Manju Devi decided to discontinue patrolling and whistling every morning to warn villagers against open defecation in Jayapur village of Varanasi district.
Hours before online marketplace biggies Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal clash during the big-bang festive season sale, questions on whether these are violating foreign direct investment (FDI) norms for e-commerce, issued in March, are being raised again.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has granted exemption to (IOB) from a regulation under the Takeover Regulations, in order to issue 55,57,14,797 equity shares through preferential allotment to the Government of India to raise around Rs 1,551 crore.

The proposed fund infusion is expected to increase the shareholding of Government of India in IOB with an additional 5.98 per cent during the Financial Year 2016-17. The proposed acquisition is on account of the Government of India's objective that all Public Sector are adequately capitalised for ensuring compliance with BASEL III norms.
Stabilising asset quality at the ailing Chennai-based lender Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) will be the top priority over the next few quarters, said the new Executive Director R Subramania Kumar.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's campaign is ready to attack his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, using the infidelities of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, according to documents.

In the documents, the idea is developed that Trump "has never treated women the way Hillary Clinton and her husband did when they actively worked to destroy Bill Clinton's accusers," EFE news reported.

The Democratic campaign did not delay in reacting and on Thursday said in a statement that "as many Republicans have warned, this is a mistake that is going to backfire."

"After his disastrous debate performance and his sexist attack on a former Miss Universe over her weight, is now trying to deflect by going after Hillary Clinton about her marriage," Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said on Thursday in a statement.

The mogul admitted on Tuesday in an interview with the Fox cable network that during Monday's debate he was on the verge of attacking Clinton with her husband's scandal, but he said "I really eased up because I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings."

He said he decided not to bring up former President Clinton's infidelities because their daughter Chelsea was in the audience, and he added that he thought he did the right thing.

Bill Clinton, who was impeached by the Republican-controlled House in 1998 after lying about his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Tennessee Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Trump supporter, told

What almost motivated Trump to air the Clintons' dirty laundry yet again was the former secretary of state's criticism of him for his insults of women, which she highlighted by noting his offensive remarks concerning former Venezuelan Miss Universe Alicia Machado, now a US citizen, who won the 1996 pageant, which the magnate directed at the time.

Trump's son Eric on Wednesday said on Sean Hannity's radio show that Bill Clinton had been possibly the worst sexist ever, according to Buzzfeed.

"It's amazing when you hear her talk about sexism and these various claims, which are ridiculous, aside from obviously Bill, her husband, being maybe the worst that's ever lived," the younger Trump said.

It remains to be seen whether Trump, under pressure because it is widely considered - and recent voter surveys show - that he lost the first debate and Clinton has gained several points, resorts to using the former president's romantic escapades to attack his rival.

For the moment, though, Trump has simply issued a warning that he might "hit her harder" in the next presidential debate, scheduled for October 9.
A California man convicted of possessing nearly pure meth for distribution in the Billings area will spend more than five years in federal prison.

During a sentencing hearing on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Susan Watters ordered Robert Perez Schilling, 27, of Rancho Cordova, Calif., to spend five years and 10 months in prison.

Schilling pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute. The judge dismissed four other counts as part of a plea agreement.

When law enforcement officers arrested Schilling on a probation warrant at a Billings hotel last year, they searched his room and found a backpack containing about 46 grams of meth and a loaded .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol that had been reported stolen, prosecutors said.

Schilling admitted to investigators that he owned the backpack and had traveled to California multiple times to get meth, which he sold to people in the Billings area. He also admitted to carrying the firearm for protection, prosecutors said.

Lab tests on the meth found it was 95 percent pure.

At the time of his arrest, Schilling had been on state probation for felony convictions for burglary and criminal mischief in Yellowstone County. He had received a 10-year suspended sentence on the state convictions.
will set up its first India data centre in Mumbai by 2017, hoping to take on global incumbents such as Microsoft and Amazon, who have a presence in the country, and allow local customers to host their applications on the internet.
Alphabet's said on Thursday it renamed its business-to-business cloud computing brand and enhanced some enterprise applications using artificial intelligence, the company's latest gambit to better compete with Amazon.com and Microsoft in the lucrative cloud business.
Democratic presidential nominee is leading Republican rival Donald Trump by 4 per cent after their first televised debate, according to a poll.

The poll published by the Public Policy Polling (PPP) institute on Thursday showed Clinton received the support of 44 per cent of the 933 voters consulted in telephone or online interviews, EFE news reported. The poll was conducted between Tuesday and wednesday.

Trump, meanwhile, received the backing of 40 per cent of the voter sample.

Fifty-four per cent of those surveyed said that Clinton beat Trump in the first prime time presidential debate on Monday at the Hofstra University on Long Island, New York.

Thirty-one per cent of those polled said that the billionaire emerged as the winner of the contest, the most-watched such event in US history, according to the PPP poll, which has an error margin of 3.2 per cent.

According to the RealClearPolitics Web site, which prepares an average of all voter surveys conducted in the country, Clinton is leading Trump by 3 per cent on the national level.

The former secretary of state and the New York businessman will face off in the second debate on October 9 at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

The third and final debate will take place on October 19 in the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Democrat Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump of breaking the law by violating the US trade embargo with Cuba, slamming her rival as dishonest and willing to put his interests before the country.

Clinton on Thursday said Trump's business interests in Cuba in the 1990s "appear to violate US law, certainly flout American foreign policy," as she accused him of misleading American voters.

Newsweek earlier reported that Trump hotel and casino executives spent $68,000 while trying to get a foothold in Cuba during a trip in 1998.

That was well before the United States loosened its decades-old embargo and when expenditures in the Caribbean country were illegal without US government approval.

A former Trump executive who spoke to Newsweek on condition of anonymity said the company did not obtain a government license for its spending before the trip.

The issue plays into Clinton's main line of attack against her Republican rival.

Her campaign has framed the election as an existential moment for the republic: a choice between Clinton's safe pair of hands and the latent authoritarianism of an erratic and duplicitous mogul.

The issue could also cause Trump problems in the swing state of Florida  where anti-communist Cuban Americans make up a vocal slice of the electorate.

Polls show the Democrat and Republican nominees running virtually neck-and-neck there.

"This adds to the long list of actions and statements that raise doubts about his temperament and qualification to be president and commander in chief," said Clinton.

She accused Trump of continuing to "stonewall the American voters" on his taxes and business interests "before they cast their votes, early or on November 8."

Facing questions about the report, Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway all but acknowledged that his company violated the embargo.

"As I understand from the story, they paid money in 1998," she said on the ABC show "The View."

However, Trump ultimately "decided not to invest there," she added, saying the real estate billionaire has remained "very critical" of Cuba and the Castro regime.

Newsweek reported that the company did not spend the money directly, opting instead to funnel the funds through a consulting firm  Seven Arrows Investment and Development Corp  with Trump's knowledge to make it appear as if the spending were part of a charitable effort.

Instituted in the early 1960s, the trade embargo was designed to starve Fidel Castro's regime of US currency. Despite the recent restoration of diplomatic relations between Washington and Havana, the embargo remains largely in place today.

Florida's Republican US Senator and onetime presidential candidate Marco Rubio, whose parents fled Cuba, said he was "deeply concerned" about the report.

"I hope the Trump campaign is going to come forward and answer some questions about this," he told ABC's "Capital Games" podcast.

"It was a violation of American law if that's how it happened.
The Indian inside Pak Occupied Kashmir (PoK) against terrorist planning to sneak into India for terrorist activities was "carefully measured", a top American think-tank said, adding the onus for escalation lies purely on Pakistan.

"This Indian response was indeed coming. Both as a signal to Pakistan and as reassurance for Indian domestic audiences. Modi could not let the outrage at Uri go unanswered," Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, a top American think-tank said.

"The Indian action was carefully measured: striking at terrorist launch pads was meant to signal that India has not lost its freedom to retaliate, but puts the onus of further escalation on Pakistan," Tellis told PTI.

Responding to a question, Tellis said the US will, counsel restraint, but unless the administration is willing to turn the screws on Pakistan  which is unlikely  India will be guided by its own interests, not American pleas for forbearance.

"I think Pakistan has its hands full right now, it is unlikely to respond to the Indian action militarily, but the larger sub-conventional war against India will continue," Tellis said.

Rick Rossow from the Centre for Strategic and Studies (CSIS) recalled that the hint of such strikes as a possible tool last year, when the Indian Army initiated an attack against militants in Myanmar.

"India has also shown other new tools in its confrontation with Pakistan, such as withdrawing from the upcoming SAARC summit, building stronger ties with other South Asian nations, and using closer security ties with the US as a hook to press for reduced military cooperation with Pakistan," he said.

"This will likely keep Islamabad on its toes, though when employing new tools in such a struggle, clear messaging is key so both sides know the others' intentions. This will guard against unanticipated escalation," Rossow said.

According to him, following a number of recent provocations that India has linked to Pakistan-based militant groups, the government of prime minister Narendra Modi has employed a different set of tools to respond to these incitements.

"These tools may not be altogether new, but the fact that they have been the focus of India's response to Pakistan's incitements marks a different approach," he said.

Rossow said while the Indian Ministry of Defence has stated it does not plan additional strikes, it is not clear whether the current tensions between India and Pakistan will escalate further.

"There is certainly little expectation that Pakistani militants, under varying degrees of control by Pakistan's military, will be deterred from initiating further attacks. But the costs to Islamabad of supporting terrorism are increasing, and taking different forms than before," Rossow said.

Jonah Blank, from the RAND Corporation think tank said that after the Mumbai 2008 attacks, India's patience had reached its limit.

"Pathankot was the breaking point. It was probably unrealistic to expect that the Uri attack would fail to bring a military response,"he said.

"The phone call between Ajit Doval and Susan Rice accomplished two important things: First, it enlisted the US to help prevent a Pakistani counter-strike. Second, it avoided jeopardising the India-US relationship by having Washington find out about the attack from Islamabad or the media, he noted.

"There was never much likelihood that the US would condemn the attack. After an American against Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, any criticism of India for a cross-border action would have seemed hypocritical," Blank said.

"The outcome, limited Indian strike, limited Pakistani response, was probably as good as could have been desired. A stronger Indian strike, or a Pakistani escalation into full warfare, would not have served either nation's interest," he said.
ING, the largest Dutch-based financial services company, is planning to announce a restructuring that will lead to thousands of job losses, Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad said on Friday.
Hedge fund Capital Management Group will pay $413 million to settle charges it bribed officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya and other African countries, officials said on Thursday.

paid bribes to officials to secure mining rights and to win investment from Libya in the company, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced.

The firm will pay nearly $200 million in disgorgement of profits and interest to the SEC, but neither admitted to nor denied the allegations.

The fund is also settling criminal charges with the US Justice Department in a parallel case for $213 million.

" engaged in complicated, far-reaching schemes to get special access and secure significant deals and profits through corruption," Andrew Ceresney, the SEC's head of the enforcement, said in a statement.

Two executives, Chief Executive Officer Daniel Och and Chief Financial Officer Joel Frank, also agreed to settle civil charges brought by the SEC, which accused the men of ignoring red flags and permitting illegal transactions to proceed.

Under 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, it is illegal for US companies and citizens to pay bribes to foreign officials to win business.
has warned of "disastrous consequences" from a United States law allowing 9/11 victims to sue the kingdom, in a major spike in tension between the longstanding allies.

The warning came yesterday after the US Congress voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to override President Barack Obama's veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) on relations between states.

JASTA allows attack survivors and relatives of terrorism victims to pursue cases against foreign governments in US federal court and to demand compensation if such governments are proven to bear some responsibility for attacks on US soil.

A Saudi foreign ministry source yesterday called on the US Congress "to take the necessary measures to counter the disastrous and dangerous consequences" of the law.

The unnamed spokesman, cited by the official Saudi Press Agency, said the law is "a source of great worry."

This law "weakens the immunity of states", and will have a negative impact on all countries "including the United States," the Saudi spokesman said, expressing hope that "wisdom will prevail."

In opposing the law, Obama said it would harm US interests by undermining the principle of sovereign immunity, opening up the US to private lawsuits over its military missions abroad.

The erosion of sovereign immunity is also a concern among the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, of which is the most powerful member.

Saudi Arabia's Gulf allies have lined up beside Riyadh to criticise the law.

Analysts earlier yesterday warned that could reduce valuable security and intelligence cooperation with longstanding ally Washington after the Congressional "stab in the back."

Cutting such cooperation is among the options available to Riyadh, the analysts said.

"I'm afraid that this bill will have dire strategic implications" for the United States, Salman al-Ansari, head of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC), told AFP.

"This partnership has helped provide US authorities with accurate intelligence information" that helped stopped attacks, said Ansari, whose committee is a private initiative to strengthen Saudi-US ties.

Riyadh and Washington have a decades-old relationship based on the exchange of American security for Saudi oil.

Saudi Arabia was home to 15 of the 19 Al-Qaeda hijackers who carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States which killed nearly 3,000 people.

Riyadh denies any ties to the plotters.

Ties between Riyadh and Washington became increasingly frayed under Obama, but analysts said security cooperation and intelligence sharing remained solid.
A terrorist attack like the one on an Indian Army camp in Uri "escalates tensions", United States have said, asking Pakistan to take action against UN-designated terrorist outfits and delegitimise them.

"Obviously, an (terrorist) attack like that (in Uri) escalates tensions. What I don't want to do is try to get into, you know, some sort of broad characterisation one way or the other but obviously an attack like this is horrific and...", the State Department Spokesman, John Kirby, told reporters.

The spokesperson was interrupted by a reporter mid-way that her question was about India's response to the September 18 Uri attack.

"But the Indian response is that  is that the kind of escalation that Secretary Kerry was warning against?" the journalist asked referring to the telephonic conversation between the Secretary of State John Kerry and the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj earlier this week.

Kirby was quick to clarify that he was referring to the Uri terrorist attack.

"Oh, I thought you were talking about the Uri attack," the spokesman said.

On September 27, Kerry spoke with Swaraj. For technical reason, the conversation was spread over two separate calls.

"I can confirm for you that the secretary spoke with  on the 27th, so earlier this week, with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and reiterated his strong condemnation of the September 18 Uri attack.

He condemned terrorism in all its forms and he cautioned against any escalation intentions," he said.

Responding to questions, Kirby called for de-escalation of tension between the two countries.

"We've seen those reports (of Indian surgical attack), we're following the situation closely as I think you can understand.

We also understand that the Indian and Pakistani militaries have been in communication," he said.

"We believe that continued communication is obviously important to reduce tensions.

"We've repeatedly expressed our concerns regarding the danger that terrorism poses to the region and we all know that terrorism in many ways knows no border," Kirby said.
has dipped 6.5% to Rs 562 on the BSE, its sharpest intra-day fall in past three months, on media reports that the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) inspected the companys Goa facility. The stock had fallen 7.4% in intra-day trade on May 25, 2016. LINK on clarification on report said that USFDA recently concluded audit of 3 manufacturing facilities at Goa and has issued 4 observations across these facilities.
Hindustan Zinc, Dishman Pharmaceuticals & Chemicals, JK Cements, Page Industries, Tata Communications, TVS Motor Company, TVS Srichakra and Whirlpool of India from the BSE500 index hit their respective 52-week highs on the BSE in an otherwise subdued market.
has moved higher to its new high of Rs 4,247, up 16% on the BSE in intra-day trade, in an otherwise subdued market on back of heavy volumes.
The on Friday adjourned the hearing in the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society matter till October 6.

A division bench of the apex court, headed by Justice J Chelameswar deferred the matter for the said date. The society has sought more time to send notices to more than 90 residents who have locked their flats.

The top court had earlier this month asked the Centre, which has been handed over the possession of the 28- storey scam-tainted building, to respond to the plea of the Adarsh Co-operative Society on maintenance of the structure.

The had earlier asked the society to consider bearing the expenses to be incurred on maintenance of the 28- storey building whose possession has been handed over to the Centre in pursuance to the apex court's order.

The apex court had on July 22 asked the Centre to secure possession of Adarsh apartments, built at Colaba in posh South Mumbai locality, for Kargil heroes and war widows, after taking its possession from the housing society by August 5.

Earlier, the Bombay High Court had ordered demolition of the apartments and sought initiation of criminal proceedings against politicians and bureaucrats for "misuse" of powers, holding that the tower was illegally constructed.
Bollywood fans are eagerly waiting to see Anil Kapoor and Amrita Singh pair onscreen again, but the 59-year-old international actor is petrified she would spill all his secrets.

The actors will be paired in upcoming 'Mubaraka,' directed by Anees Bazmee and Anil is excited at the prospect of working with her again, saying he is truly scared because she is "extremely honest and moohfat," reports Bollywood Life.

"If you truly ask me, I am scared of working with Amrita. She knows many secrets of mine and is extremely honest and moohfat (forthright)," the 'Mr. India' star said.

The movie will also star Arjun Kapoor alongside this powerful duo, who were previously seen together romancing in 1987 'Thikana.'

"I am petrified of her because I feel that once we start shooting, she will come and expose all my secrets! Mere bhanje Arjun (Kapoor) ke saamne meri puri pol khol degi Amrita," the '24' actor expressed.

He added, "She is straightforward and brutally honest. I guess that's the reason we got along so well. Don't they say opposites become friends? Each and every day, working with her was entertaining and lots of fun. She is great fun to be on the sets.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
One of Australia's most accomplished percussionists and performers, Ben Walsh is returning to India with his new solo project, 'Remix Experiment.'

Ben Walsh, who is best known for introducing the live drum 'n bass act, 'The Bird' in the late 1990s, will perform in the national capital on October 8 at 'Band Stand' restro-bar, an act presented by the Australian High Commission in partnership with Wild City.

Known for his high-energy, frenetic drum style, Ben's latest project 'Remix Experiment' is a multimedia wall of sound and vision and features a confluence of jazz-infused heavy bass lines, and amazing modern technology. The show involves live improvised music and sees each performance to be unique and one-off.

He uses turntables, vocals and triggering to manipulate the electronics, keeping human dynamics and tempo as the primary focus, and lets the computers listen to him. Interestingly, he uses his new invention the 'gravity scratch,' a unique device that allows him to scratch as fast as he can drum with incredible sensitivity. He also uses video mixing to create an abstract visual narrative to his music. The end result of this one-man show is a heavily percussive, jazz infused, hyper jungle electronic music that's crafted for the dance floor.

After the Delhi gig, Ben will head to Jodhpur RIFF where he will collaborate with Rajasthani master percussionists, on the dholak, the khartal, the morchang, the dhol, for a concert called RIFF Robust.

Ben, who has toured India a number of times, last performed a five-city India tour in June 2013. He also performed in Mumbai and Chennai in November 2012 as the musical director of the spectacular 'Fearless Nadia' as part of Oz Fest, Australia's biggest cultural festival ever staged in India. The Australian High Commission in New Delhi is proud to sponsor Ben's return visit to India in 2016.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Border Security Force (BSF) has put all its units along the International Border on high alert in the wake of the surgical strikes by India on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) on Wednesday night.

Officials said the BSF headquarters in New Delhi has issued orders to all its units along International Border in Jammu, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat to step up vigil.

BSF has restricted all civilian movement along borders with Pakistan and has also been asked by the Centre to provide manpower to local administration for evacuation of people from border villages to safer locations.

In Punjab, Government has ordered evacuation of civil population from villages falling within 10 kilometers of the border of state with Pakistan.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal put the entire government and political machinery in an emergency mode following the developments on the India-Pakistan border.

In Rajasthan, vigilance and patrolling in the border areas has been intensified and the force is alert.

Four districts of the state -- Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Barmer and Sriganganagar share over 1,000 kilometre long border with Pakistan and high alert has been sounded in Gujarat also.

Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel has said that high alert has been sounded in entire state, especially in the border districts.

Gujarat shares land and sea boundary with Pakistan. Three districts of the state- Kutch, Banaskantha and Patan share boundary with the neighbouring country.

Earlier, Indian Army conducted surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control on Wednesday night.

Speaking to media yesterday, Director General of Military Operations Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh said, the motive of the operation was to hit out at the terrorists who were planning to infiltrate into the Indian territory.

Lt General Singh informed that significant casualty was caused to terrorists during the operation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Chief Ministers of various states have expressed their support to the Central Government and the Indian Army for conducting surgical strikes last night on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) to neutralise terrorists planning to infiltrate into Indian territory, with the lone exception of Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who expressed grave concern over the escalation of tension along the Line of Control (LoC).

Cautioning the Centre, Mufti said, "The confrontation could lead to a "disaster of epic proportions if urgent steps are not taken to bring down the heightened tensions in the region. New Delhi and Islamabad must open channels of communication realising the dangerous consequences of any escalation of an ongoing confrontation along the borders."

Asserting that there is simply no alternative to talks, Mehbooba Mufti said, "History is witness that even after having fought two wars, India and Pakistan had to time and again come back to the negotiating table to resolve their issues. It will be in the interest of both countries to solve their problems through the bilateral framework as it is the only way forward given the dicey parameters of international power politics."

Her deputy, Dr. Nirmal Singh, however appeared to contradict her by saying, "We hope that Pakistan will learn something from this incident, as India is now not going to tolerate all this nonsense anymore."

Lauding the army's effort, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told ANI, "We are really proud of our army and the whole nation supports them. Surgical strikes by the army on terror launch pads demonstrates India's strong will to fight terrorism under the leadership of PM @narendramodi. Entire country stands firmly united with our armed forces. We are proud of our armed forces (sic)," he tweeted.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh told ANI, "This was not just a surgical strike, but a warning to Pakistan that we will not tolerate any more terror attacks. I congratulate the brave Indian soldiers and the army leadership for giving a befitting reply to terrorists across LOC. This decisive action amply demonstrates Hon. PM @narendramodi ji's iron will and comittment to safeguard India (sic)," he tweeted.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted: "Bharat Mata ki jai. The entire country is with the Indian Army."

"We sincerely congratulate the Central Government and our brave armed forces for the decisive action taken against terrorism," tweeted Nitish Kumar NitishKumar.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said in a tweet, "Facing vagaries of nature, fearlessly protecting our Borders and our Honour-take a bow, Indian Army! You are our Pride."

"Welcoming #SurgicalStrikes carried out by the army against terrorists. Congratulating the swift response of Central Govt & our Army," tweeted Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis tweeted, "@narendramodi ji has shown that we're a strong nation &don't tolerate terrorism. Entire nation is proud of #IndianArmy &PM #ModiPunishesPak (sic)."

CMO Goa tweeted Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar as saying, "Congratulations to Indian Army , @narendramodi , @manoharparrikar on the successful counter terrorism operation. Goa Salutes the valour of Indian Army for this brave and courageous act."

"Congratulations to the Indian Army for #SurgicalStrikes to safeguard our nation. We should strongly condemn any act of terror," said Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu in a tweet.

"#IndianArmy congratulations), we are standing with the Indian Army #SurgicalStrike," tweeted Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat.

Asam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said in a tweet, "Salute to Indian Army for the successful #SurgicalStrike. Congratulations to Hon'ble PM Shri @narendramodi ji for this determined action (sic)."

Addressing a press conference here, Director General of Military Operations Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh said "significant casualty was caused to terrorists during the operation".

Lt. Gen. Singh said, "Based on very credible and specific information which we received yesterday that some terrorist teams had positioned themselves at launch pads along the Line of Control with an aim to carry out infiltration and terrorist strikes in Jammu and Kashmir and in various other metros in our country, the Indian army conducted surgical strikes last night at these launch pads."

"The operations were basically focused to ensure that these terrorists do not succeed in their design of infiltration and carrying out destruction and endangering the lives of citizens of our country. During these counter terrorist operations, significant casualties have been caused to the terrorists and those who are trying to support them. The operations aimed at neutralizing the terrorists have since ceased. We do not have any plans for continuation of further operations. However the Indian armed forces are fully prepared for any contingency that may arise," he added.

"I have just spoken to the Pakistani Director General of Military Operations and explained our concerns and also shared with him the operations we had conducted last night. It is India's intention to maintain peace and tranquillity in the region, but we can certainly not allow the terrorists to operate across the Line of Control with impunity and attack the citizens of our country," he said.

The DGMO said, "It has been a matter of serious concern that there has been continuing and increasing infiltration by terrorists across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. This is reflected in the terrorist attacks at Poonch and Uri on September 11-18, respectively. Almost 20 infiltration attempts have been foiled by the Indian Army successfully during this year. During these terrorist attacks and infiltration attempts we have recovered items including Global Positioning Systems and stores which have had Pakistani markings.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Asserting that Washington is following the situation closely over the surgical strikes conducted by the Indian Army on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC), US State Department spokesperson, John Kirby said that his country understands that Indian and Pakistani militaries have been in communication and believe that continued communication is obviously important to reduce tensions.

Speaking at the daily press briefing, Kirby maintained that the US continues to urge actions to combat and delegitimize terrorist groups.

"We've repeatedly expressed our concerns regarding the danger that terrorism poses to the region. And we all know that terrorism, in many ways, knows no border. We continue to urge actions to combat and delegitimize terrorist groups like LeT and the Haqqani Network, Jaish-e-Mohammad. So this is something that we're obviously keenly focused on," Kirby said.

On being asked if there prior consultation between the United States and India before the surgical strikes, the spokesperson replied, "I can confirm for you that the Secretary[John Kerry] spoke with the - on the 27th, so earlier this week, with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and reiterated his strong condemnation of the September 18th Uri attack. He condemned terrorism in all its forms and he cautioned against any escalation in tensions."

Responding to the question on what specific steps have been taken to strengthen cooperation on fighting terrorism between New Delhi and Washington over the second U.S. and India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue held last month, Kirby said, "We're always trying to get better at combatting terrorism in the region. And there are many ways you can do that - through information-sharing regimens and increasing - like we said, increasing communication between all parties involved."

When asked that Secretary Kerry had cautioned against escalation and was the surgical attack an escalation, Kirby said that he is not going to characterize it and instead called the Uri attack "horrific".

Kirby maintained that Washington wants to see increased cooperation against shared common threat for both India and Pakistan.

"Well, look, again, we - our message to both sides has been the same, in terms of encouraging them to increase communication to deal with this threat and to avoid steps that escalate the tensions.. what we want to see is increased cooperation against what is a very shared common threat for both countries, and to see steps being taken to deal with it by all sides," he added.

On being asked that there is a strong coordination between India and the U.S. on counterterrorism issues and was there any coordination on surgical strikes conducted by the Indian Army, Kirby replied, "I just don't have anything for you on that. And as you know, I don't talk about the specifics of military matters."

Kirby declined to comment when asked if Kerry got any indication that India was going ahead with the strike when he spoke to Swaraj.

He, whoever, said that he has seen reports of two calls, adding, "There was a technical issue on the first call, so they had to arrange a second call to complete it. So was there two calls? Yes, there were two calls, but it was really one conversation."

On being asked if Ambassador Richard Verma who had to rushed back to Delhi was carrying any message from the Secretary or from the state building, Kirby said, "My understanding is that he believed that it was appropriate for him to go back. And I mean, he's a - he's got a big job, there's a lot of responsibilities that come with it, and obviously it's a very dynamic situation, and he felt it was prudent to go back."

When asked if he has any message for Pakistan after the reporter quoted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks that "Pakistan is supporting terrorism, India is supporting ITs, engineers, and doctors around the globe and that Pakistan still has camps inside its country who are attacking India, Kirby replied, "I mean, we understand that both militaries are in communication; we encourage that We've expressed repeatedly our concerns about the danger of terrorism, cross-border terrorism, as well, in the region, and we continue to urge actions to combat and de-legitimize groups like LeT and the Haqqani Network and Jaish-e-Mohammad."

Also when asked that about the India-US relationship, Kirby said that Washington remains deeply committed to the bilateral relationship with India and to advancing it on - across virtually all sectors of public and private enterprise.

The Indian Army conducted surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the LoC on Wednesday night.

Speaking to media yesterday, Director General of Military Operations Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh said, the motive of the operation was to hit out at the terrorists who were planning to infiltrate into the Indian territory.

Lt General Singh informed that significant casualty was caused to terrorists during the operation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Expressing his support towards the Centre's move of carrying out a surgical strike across the LoC on terror launch pads, Congress vice president on Friday asserted that this was the first step by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in years worthy of his stature.

"I want to thank Modi ji. This is the first step he has taken in two and a half years, worthy of a Prime Minister. My party and I stand with him, as what he has done is right," Rahul said during a rally here.

Later in a series of tweets, he asserted that he fully supported this move by the Prime Minister, adding that he would always support him when he made decisions worthy of his stature.

"The Congress party and the entire India stands with this decision of the Prime Minister," Rahul tweeted.

Rahul had earlier lauded the Indian Army for carrying out the operation in which sever terror launch pads were busted in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).

"All of us stand firmly united against terrorism & those who support & sponsor it. The Congress Party and I salute the Indian Army and our jawans for acting valiantly to defend our country & our people. Jai Hind," he said.

Earlier, addressing a press conference, Director General of Military Operations Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh said "significant casualty was caused to terrorists during the operation".

Lt Gen Singh said, "Based on very credible and specific information which we received yesterday that some terrorist teams had positioned themselves at launch pads along the Line of Control with an aim to carry out infiltration and terrorist strikes in Jammu and Kashmir and in various other metros in our country, the Indian army conducted surgical strikes last night at these launch pads."

"The operations were basically focused to ensure that these terrorists do not succeed in their design of infiltration and carrying out destruction and endangering the lives of citizens of our country. During these counter terrorist operations, significant casualties have been caused to the terrorists and those who are trying to support them. The operations aimed at neutralising the terrorists have since ceased. We do not have any plans for continuation of further operations. However the Indian armed forces are fully prepared for any contingency that may arise," he added.

"I have just spoken to the Pakistani Director General of Military Operations and explained our concerns and also shared with him the operations we had conducted last night. It is India's intention to maintain peace and tranquillity in the region, but we can certainly not allow the terrorists to operate across the Line of Control with impunity and attack the citizens of our country," he said.

The DGMO said, "It has been a matter of serious concern that there has been continuing and increasing infiltration by terrorists across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. This is reflected in the terrorist attacks at Poonch and Uri on September 11-18, respectively. Almost 20 infiltration attempts have been foiled by the Indian Army successfully during this year. During these terrorist attacks and infiltration attempts we have recovered items including Global Positioning Systems and stores which have had Pakistani markings."

However, Pakistan has rejected India's claim it had conducted surgical strikes on alleged terrorist launch pads along LoC, saying that New Delhi is doing it only to please the media and public.

In a statement, Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Thursday said, "The Pakistani Army gave befitting response to the Indian army. Indian Army opened up small arm fire last night on five sectors across LoC. India is doing this under a well-planned objective. If India tries to do this again, we will respond forcefully. India is doing this only to please their media and public.
No fracking way.

That's what the Montana Board of Oil and Gas said when it comes to disclosing what is in the fracking fluid that is pumped down oil wells at high pressure to recover oil. There's simply no way to disclose what's in the fluid without compromising trade secrets.

But what's being compromised by not releasing the information is doubly concerning.

First, think of how many industries have to disclose what they're using to the public. Read the label on any agricultural product and companies will tell you a list of chemicals, compounds or ingredients. A label on any item on the grocery store has the ingredients. Look at how the air, water and soil are monitored for pollutants. So it seems curious that what is being forced into the ground and could potentially mix with water would get a free pass from a government board. Unless, of course, that government board is made up of members with ties or business interests in oil and gas.

Really, what can you expect a group of oil and gas people to say? Montana citizens should not expect an unbiased opinion from this group.

That being said, transparency is key because there is potential to do harm to one of our greatest resources, water. As the old Western saying goes, "Whiskey is for drinking, water's for fighting."

We cannot leave to chance our environment, if our state history has taught us anything. We must have a better standard of review, and we must be assured that what is put into a well for fracking is going to be safe in a place where water is so scarce, especially when the financial fortunes of those who stand to gain so much by our oil don't have to live here with the repercussions of any harm that may be done.

However, we also agree that there are limited times when detailed information may indeed be proprietary. And we also respect that businesses must be able to protect the investment. But that cannot come at the expense of our environment. Just because we've been fracking in Montana since 1951 doesn't mean that all fracking done here -- now or then -- has been positive or done correctly.

That's why we urge the oil and gas board to adopt some middle ground. Is there an independent review body which can assess the claims of proprietary information or trade secrets? After all, it would seem like the easiest thing in the world for a petroleum company to simply invoke the proprietary information excuse in order to avoid any scrutiny.

We'd argue that there must be some independent review. We also think Wyoming may provide a reasonable alternative. In that state, where water contamination in Pavillion led to many questions about fracking and geology, that board has adopted a more stringent disclosure process. There are lists of fracking fluid ingredients that are not considered proprietary and must be disclosed. Any other fluid that is not on that list must be reviewed by experts to determine whether it falls under the proprietary disclosure.

When companies or individuals want to do something outside the public view, there's often a reason.

Trust us is not a good enough answer.

The risk of environmental damage is so great that we shouldn't have to trust that something is safe. We should get the peace of mind to know that something is safe -- not because some expert from a company says so, but because we can check the fact for ourselves.
Extending his support to the Central government over the surgical strike carried out by the Indian Army, former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid has said that many more steps need to be taken and hoped that the government is equipped to take concrete action in the future.

"We have supported it. I think it's important at this time not to raise questions. It would be unfair to raise questions on the government at this time. We fully support and hope that the government makes a sustainable effort in dealing with this. There are many more steps to be taken and I hope the government will be equipped to take the steps," Khurshid told ANI.

On Pakistan terming the strike as a 'ceasefire violations, the Congress leader, said "Pakistan has no choice but to remain in denial, but we shouldn't pat ourselves, because they are a slippery and difficult people, and therefore, we should be fully prepared on what is our next step. We don't have to announce it, don't have to discuss it overtly, but we should be prepared for the next step."

Asserting that diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan are at their 'lowest ebb', Khurshid said "We still have a high commissioner there and they have a high commissioner here, but how much is being done with those I doubt. I think diplomatic relations are a safety valve which we keep even in bad times."

Director General of Military Operations (DGMO), Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, on Thursday said that the Indian Army conducted surgical strikes on seven terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC), which were ready to carry out terrorists strikes in Jammu and Kashmir and various other metros in the country around midnight.

Singh said that the operation of the Indian Army was focused to ensure that the terrorists do not succeed in their design of infiltration and carry out destruction endangering the lives of citizens of the nation.

"Now based on the specific and credible information which we received yesterday that some terrorist team had positioned themselves at launch pads along the Line of Control (LoC) with an aim to carry out infiltration and terrorists strikes in Jammu and Kashmir and various other metros in our country, the Indian army conducted surgical strikes last night at these launch pads," said Singh.

Singh further said that he spoke with the Pakistani DGMO and expressed New Delhi's concern and meanwhile, shared information over the operation conducted by the Indian Army.

Elucidating the involvement of Pakistan in the recent infiltration bids and terrorist strikes the Indian DGMO said that the captured terrorists have confessed that they were trained by the estranged Asian neighbour.

"Captured terrorists hailing from Pakistan or Pakistani occupied Kashmir have confessed to their training and arming in Pakistan or territory under the control of Pakistan. The matter has been taken up at the highest diplomatic levels and the military levels at regular times. India has also offered counsellor access to the apprehended terrorists to Pakistan to verify their confessions," he said.

"Despite our persistent urging that Pakistan respect it's commitment that it made in January 2004 'not to allow its soil or territory under its control be used for terrorism against India. There has been no let up in infiltration or terrorist actions inside our territory. If the damage was limited its has been primarily due to the efforts of the Indian Army who are deployed in multi tier counter infiltration grid. And most of the infiltration bids have been foiled at those locations. The Indian armed forces have been extremely vigilant in the face of continuing threat," he added.

The DGMO also added that India had proposed to Pakistan to make available finger prints and DNA samples of terrorists who have been killed in the Uri and Poonch encounters their investigations.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The University of Arkansas, USA, as part of its efforts to foster outstanding educators who have a global perspective, has selected three students from GD Goenka School of Engineering for a fully funded summer internship at the university for a period of 10 weeks.

The University offers internships to students from all over the world based on their academic performance or extraordinary contribution towards research and development, to work as 'Research Engineering Undergraduates'. G.D. Goenka University, a leading new age university driven by a passion for excellence in education, has an active collaboration with University of Arkansas and is involved in various initiatives such as internships, student/faculty exchange, joint courses etc.

Three students, Gagan Bhardwaj (third year Mechanical Engineering), Rahul Biswash (third year Electronics and Communications Engineering) and Diksha Prakash (second year Electronics and Communications Engineering) have been selected for summer internship at University of Arkansas, USA.

Prof. (Dr.) 'Deependra Kumar Jha, Vice Chancellor, GD Goenka University said, "I feel proud and elated with this achievement and wish the students all the luck for their learning tour at University of Arkansas in USA. At GD Goenka University we aim to provide global exposure to our students to keep them abreast with latest developments in their respective fields. The Summer Internship will help these students to grow as professionals and understand the market environment they will venture into after completing their education."

The 140-year-old University of Arkansas is one of the top ranked universities in the world, and rated very high for its research work.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Zlatan Ibrahimovic headed a second-half goal as Manchester United laboured a 1-0 victory over Ukrainian minnows Zorya Luhansk in their second Europa League Group A clash here at Old Trafford on Friday.

After the goalless first-half, United finally managed to pull one back for themselves when Ibrahimovic nodded in substitute Wayne Rooney's mis-hit shot at the far post.

The 69th-minute goal, which was enough to seal victory over Zorya Luhansk, was Ibrahimovic's first in five matches since joining the Jose Mourinho-led side from Paris Saint Germain (PSG) in July this year, the Guardian reported.

United, which are standing at sixth spot in premier League, will now lock horns with Fenerbahce on October 21.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
IvyCamp an initiative of IvyCap Ventures and Zhucloud, an initiative of Incapital has announced their partnership to provide Chinese investors access to Indian startups.

The partnership will particularly bring visibility for Indian startups on IvyCamp's platform to a large base of Chinese investors via Zhucloud.

Over 30 Chinese early stage VC funds such as Cyber Carrier, Fenghou Capital, Legend Capital, Plum Ventures, Grand View Capital, K2VC, Hill House Capital, Fusion Capital, Heli Capital and Chengwei Capital, are a part of this initiative.

These are early stage funds that invest from USD 200K up to USD two million in early stage startups and are expected to scout for and invest in Indian startups in Healthcare, Fintech, e-commerce and IOT.

Over the next few months the partnership will facilitate pitches by startups to this pool of investors by organising pitch events in the cities of Mumbai and Bangalore in November 2016.

The event is designed to provide a platform to Chinese investors to interact directly with Indian startups.

"We are very excited to partner with IvyCamp that has a strong global Alumni connect which mirrors our philosophy. We have seen interest from the Chinese investment community to invest in Indian Startups and through this partnership we aim to facilitate these investments," said Director of Incapital, Eric Shu.

IvyCamp and Zhucloud will also cross leverage knowledge, by getting Chinese mentors who are highly accomplished in their fields of work and leading Chinese Incubators and Accelerators onto the IvyCamp platform to enable huge value add to the Indian startup ecosystem.

Dr. Anju Gupta, President and Co-founder of IvyCamp said: "This partnership is another step forward in promoting our Indian startups globally and helping them get the resources and knowledge they need to be successful. Our philosophy to leverage the Alumni networks to help entrepreneurs be successful resonates with ecosystems across countries and this partnership is an example of how powerful this connect can be."

IvyCamp is India's first Unified Innovation and Entrepreneurship Platform that leverages the Global Alumni Networks to help entrepreneurs become successful. Ivycamp not only supports entrepreneurs but actually helps build new entrepreneurs, by connecting them with mentors, investors, incubation centers and other resources - all built through Alumni networks. In addition, through the platform, Ivycamp partners with educational institutions to connect, support and grow its entrepreneurial ecosystems.

This collaboration is yet another sign of increasing global interest in India's start-up landscape. As per NASSCOM, India is home to the third largest base for startups in the world. It is a hyper growth inflection point for the Indian start-up ecosystem, with growth, capital and acquisitions all coming together creating a perfect storm.

Key indicators such as opportunities existing in the domestic market, access to capital/mentors, and increased M and A and consolidation activities clearly point towards the new evolution of the ecosystem. Given this pace of growth, if the landscape continues to evolve, then by the end of 2020 more than 11,500 start-ups are expected to get established in India, generating employment opportunities for more than 250,000 people.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Accusing the Chinese government of making attempts to stake a claim on religious institutions linked to Tibetan Buddhism and gradually penetrate into Nepal's Buddhist groups in order to draw them to join China-propagated Buddhist culture under the 'One Belt One Road' initiative by placing the ashes of Chinese monk Benhuan inside the Boudhanath Stupa here in May, Nepal's Buddha Dharma Citizen Forum and other agencies have demanded an inquiry into the matter.

The forum, along with other Nepalese agencies, earlier this month, submitted a memorandum to Nepal's Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Jeeban Bahadur Shahi, demanding an inquiry into a Chinese media report that stated that Chinese Buddhist Association vice president Yin Shun had placed the ashes of Benhuan inside the Boudhanath Stupa, a UNESCO Heritage site, which is located on the ancient trade route to Tibet.

The memorandum accused the Shree Boudhanath Area Development Committee and the Reconstruction Committee of placing the ashes of the Chinese monk inside the stupa in lieu of a donation of 3.5 crore Nepalese rupee from the Chinese Buddhist Association, which is controlled by the China's State Administration for Religious Affairs.

The memorandum pointed out that as the Chinese Buddhist Association is controlled by the China's State Administration for Religious Affairs, the decision to install relics of Chinese monks would have been approved by the Communist Party of China.

The complaint alleged that Chinese monks initially tried to have the ashes placed at Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha, but when they failed to do so, they lured the Shree Boudhanath Area Development Committee via a donation amount for the renovation of the stupa.

Tibetan merchants are known to have rested and offered prayers at the stupa for many centuries; and even now, when Tibetan refugees enter Nepal, most of them decide to live around Boudhanath.

Besides a detailed investigation into the matter, the memorandum also demanded that the ashes be removed from the stupa immediately, and action should be taken against the Boudha Area Development Committee president.

The stupa was damaged in the April 2015 Nepal earthquake, and is currently under renovation at an estimated cost of NR 184.5 million, of which reportedly nearly NR 142.2 million have been collected from domestic and foreign donors, including the Chinese Buddhist Association.

According to the Chinese news item, referred in the memorandum, during the ceremony held to install the relics of the monk at the stupa, apart from religious leaders from various monasteries in China, Chinese Ambassador Wu Chuntai was also present.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
NIIT, a global leader in skills and talent development, has strengthen edits presence in Myanmar by introducing pioneering programs in Digital Transformation.

The company will now offer futuristic programs like DigiNxt MMS, Big Data, Java Enterprises Apps with Dev Ops and Digital Marketing. Rahul Patwardhan CEO, NIIT Ltd who is currently visiting Myanmar unveiled NIIT's flagship training centre and dedicated it to the youth of the nation to empower them for exciting global opportunities.

Information technology has changed the way people work and the next ten years will be about transforming the businesses across all industry sectors. According to industry experts, digitally transformed organizations are 26 percent more profitable than their industry competitors.

Global Spending on digital transformation technologies is expected to cross USD 2.1 Billion by 2019. By 2018, 35 percent of IT resources will be spent to support the creation of new digital revenue streams, and by 2020 almost 50 percent of IT budgets will be tied to digital transformation initiatives. All of these indicate that Digital Transformation (DT) is going to drive the next phase of growth in the IT Industry. The process has already begun and is rapidly accelerating, with both IT companies as well as IT departments of large corporations scrambling to address the acute shortage of skills.

Speaking on this significant occasion Rahul Patwardhan, CEO, NIIT Ltd remarked, "NIIT has pioneered the category of IT training with a vision to create a manpower pool globally, to empower the IT industry. We remain committed towards developing a workforce armed with futuristic skill-sets, aligned to the industry needs by introducing cutting-edge programs in Digital Transformation. To this end, we are now looking forward to building our next phase of growth in Myanmar."

Over the past 35 years, NIIT has played a significant role in training students with its worldwide presence in 40 countries. It has played a pioneering role in providing necessary skills to the youth, desirous of building great careers. With the launch of Digital Transformation, NIIT once again revolutionizes the IT training sector. The pioneering programs in DT will use student-centered pedagogy of project-based learning to help them carve successful career in the emerging digital era.

Speaking on the occasion Sanjay Tickoo, Head, International Education (Emerging Markets), NIIT Ltd., said, "By setting up the flagship training centre, NIIT is further strengthening its presence in Myanmar. With our keen understanding of the changing skills requirement of the industry, we will now offer futuristic programs in Digital Transformation to the youth of Myanmar."

The flagship training centre will sharply focus on DT programs and will help youth chart ambitious careers by opting for the programs that suits their aptitude. For the first time ever, young professionals and students will have the flexibility to choose options from a range of multiple new-age career programs, aligned to the evolving needs of the knowledge economy.

According to MIT Centre for Digital Business, 77 percent of organizations consider missing digital skills as the key hurdle to their transformation strategy. Therefore, Indian and Global IT Companies are investing heavily in building digital transformation skills to enable their clients transform digitally. As organizations are building talent pool, the most-sought after skill sets include: Product Engineering, Analytics, Cloud Technology and Architecture, Mobile Apps, Internet of Things and Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India's number one online classifieds OLX has announced its initiative to increase cybercrime awareness among different sections of the society in association with Cyber Peace Foundation.

The online portal concluded a session along with the investigating officers of the Gurgaon Police.

OLX is the largest marketplace in India for used cars, motorcycles, mobile phones, and household items. In the last five years, it has emerged as the largest horizontal classifieds in India with 80 percent market share of the online consumer-to-consumer (C2C) trade in the country.

The platform gets 3.4 billion page-views a month in India, with 90 percent of its traffic coming from mobile. OLX is also the number buying + selling App in India on Google Play Store.

As a market leader in the rapidly evolving Internet space, OLX is committed to making the C2C trade in the country better and safer. People are at the heart of OLX's business, and that is the primary reason OLX has decided to work towards curbing the rising cybercrime in the country. In order to achieve this, OLX has collaborated with Cyber Peace Foundation, an NGO focusing on awareness, counseling, education, and training for an outreach to citizens, governments, law enforcement agencies, and private enterprises to run a special 'Police Outreach' program for various state police forces.

The objective of the program is to spread awareness among police officers about emerging trends in cybercrime and assisting them with tools for their investigation.

As a part of the program, a session with Gurgaon Police was held recently at office of Commissioner of Police, Gurgaon. It was presided over by Commissioner of Police Gurgaon, Sandeep Khirwar and was attended by approximately 30 investigating officers. A similar session was conducted for the benefit of Noida Police in July 2016.

OLX has been dedicatedly working towards building online classifieds in India, where the concept of buying and selling online from strangers did not exist until recently. The company will continue the series of program in other top metro cities in the coming months.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday said that Islamabad is ready to counter any external threat, adding the entire nation and the government stand with the armed forces.

The remarks were made during a meeting of the federal cabinet chaired by him to discuss the situation in Kashmir and the cross-border fires at the Line of Control (LoC).

The federal cabinet condemned what they called the unprovoked firing at the LoC in which two Pakistani soldiers were killed, reports Geo TV.

The Indian Army carried out surgical strikes in response to the terrorist attack at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 19 Indian Army soldiers.

Two Pakistani soldiers and over 30 terrorists were reportedly killed in the attack.

Meanwhile, during the meeting Prime Minister Sharif reiterated that Pakistan stands in solidarity with the people of Kashmir and it is an incomplete agenda of the partition of the subcontinent.

Condemning the surgical strikes, what they called "Indian aggression at the LoC", Sharif said that Pakistan is ready to counter any external threat.

He also apprised the federal cabinet of details of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session and his meetings with leaders.

Sharif also briefed the cabinet on important steps needed to be taken on Kashmir and recent exchange of fire at the LoC.

Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry also briefed the cabinet on the Kashmir issue.

Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said any armed conflict between the two nuclear-armed rivals would cause destruction in the region, adding Islamabad is fully prepared to combat Indian aggression.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan's attempt to weaken harmony in India was well-exposed when Washington-based Khalistani separatist, Amarjit Singh sought Islamabad's help in achieving the dream Khalistan, an independent Sikh state.

Amarjit is one among those Khalistani separatists living in the US, Canada and other European countries who have been enjoying their patronage to divide India and create instability.

Pakistan is giving flame to Khalistan issue ever since India highlighted the human rights violations in Balochistan.

Experts have strongly condemned Pakistan's malicious propaganda against India.

Ashish Shukla, researcher, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), said, "Pakistan is the country which wants to bleed India with thousand cuts. Anything of this kind, they would like to support such organization. Recently I saw an interview of Amarjit singh, who is the known khalistan leader. He was seen requesting Pakistan to give them moral support. It was also shown by Pakistani media where he was asking Pakistanis to support them and their movement. I one way there are people who are thinking in such way."

Based in foreign countries, the pro-Khalistan separatists including Babbar Khalsa International, International Sikh Youth Federation, Khalistan Commando Force and Khalistan Zindabad Force are spreading venom against India and using social media as a tool to spread misinformation.

They enjoy the patronage and funding by Pakistan.

"There are various people living outside India but they use social media platform to attract their attention and of people who are misled in Indian Territory. So these kinds of things are happening. Government needs to take measures and monitor social media platforms where these kinds of activities are being done. Government needs to choke financers, if any, and needs to improve intelligence in the area, especially the local intelligence should be made stronger so that we could additional information we need," Shukla adds.

The Khalistan movement peaked during the 107-s and early-to-mid 1980s. However, it has sputtered in recent years.

With the upcoming elections in Punjab, the separatists are trying to again rake up the Khalistan issue.

Punjab will go to polls early next year and there are chances that Khalistani separatists may try to vitiate the atmosphere.

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The Patna High Court on Friday struck down the Bihar Governments Prohibition of Liquor Act, terming it as 'illegal'.

The Nitish Kumar-led Government prohibited liquor in Bihar on April 5 this year, making it the fourth dry state in the country after Gujarat, Kerala and Nagaland.

In mid-July they amended the bill as per which all adults would be put behind bars if liquor was found in their homes irrespective of who consumes it.

The Supreme Court also dismissed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ashwani Upadhaya's plea, seeking a complete ban on liquor across the nation.

A division bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri and Justice N. V. Ramanna, found no merit in his plea and dismissed it.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
This is addressed to the Montana Speaker of the House Austin Knudsen and Rep. Nancy Ballance: Montanas elected leaders indeed have a responsibility to prepare our state for the future, to keep Montana in strong fiscal shape and to be good stewards of the money of hard-working families. On that point, we couldnt agree more.

Everything else in your political questioning of Gov. Steve Bullock falls far short, and our constituents deserve a discussion rooted in truth and not in the misleading muck of a partisan political campaign.

We are surprised that you find it appropriate to question the soundness of Montanas economy because it seems so many in your caucus would rather see Montana fail than to give credit to Gov. Bullocks responsible leadership and his record of bringing Montanans together to find solutions. Thats not how we do things in Montana.

All of you championed a plan that would have provided more than $186 million in unfair tax breaks for out-of-state corporations and millionairesa giveaway that required a veto in order to keep our budget balanced with a Rainy Day Fund. Bullock insisted on preserving a Rainy Day Fund to keep Montana strong if and when the free market starts affecting our revenue. Imagine the challenges we would face today had you gotten away with your plan.

Here are the facts about the strength of Montanas economy, thanks to Bullocks leadership:

 Montana coal production, whose price and production is determined by international supply and demand, has been at historic high under Governor Bullock. In fact, Montana has produced nearly 43 million tons of coal on average between 2013 and 2015far more than under any previous governor.

 Bullocks policies have built a business climate that has created more than 20,000 new jobs in Montana during the past four years. Wage withholding (the best real-time indicator of job and wage growth as it is paid daily) is up 5.62 percent. And the U.S. Census Bureau just released data indicating Montanas median household income has grown at the fastest pace in the nation.

 Our economy continues to diversify, lending strength to our revenue stream as our neighboring states face hundreds of millions of dollars in reductions during the past two years.

 Bullock shepherded legislation eliminating a combined potential shortfall of $4.3 billion in Montanas eight pension funds without raising taxes. State revenues are also up, and at $2.1 billion, FY2016 was the second-best revenue year in state history.

 According to the Kaufmann Foundation, Montana is the top state for entrepreneurs for the fourth year in a row, and more Montanans are working in our state today than ever before in our 127-year history.

As you know, though you may be unwilling to admit, Montanas economy is indeed strong. And we agree with Bullock, who reminds us theres always room for improvement. He gets things done, and both Republicans and Democrats respect him for it.

Using their input, Gov. Bullock has designed smart and responsible plans for Montanas energy future, for infrastructure investment, for timber production and for the future of Montanas public landswhich put tens of thousands of Montanans to work.

It is our responsibility as elected lawmakers to make those improvements without the influence of partisan campaign rhetoric, which has already been polluted with inaccuracies.

Honesty is critical to Montanans, and we respectfully suggest you return to it.
Expressing concern over escalated tensions between India and Pakistan in the light of recent events along the Line of Control (LoC), Russia has asked Pakistan to take "effective steps to contain terrorist groups active in the territory of the country".

Russia has also urged both the parties to peacefully settle disputes through diplomatic channels.

"We stand for decisive struggle against terrorism in all its manifestations. We expect that the Government of Pakistan should take effective steps in order to stop the activities of terrorist groups in the territory of the country," said a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry.

"We are concerned with the aggravation lately of the situation along the Line of Control between India and Pakistan. We are calling on the parties not to allow any escalation of tension and to settle the existing problems by political and diplomatic means through negotiations," the statement added.

Yesterday, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and the Defence Ministry in a joint statement announced that the Indian Army had carried out multiple surgical strikes in various locations along the Line of Control late on Wednesday night.

India's Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh announced that Indian Army had carried out multiple surgical strikes in the wake of the infiltration bids by terrorists along the Line of Control (LoC), including at Uri and Poonch earlier this month.

However, Pakistan denied the claims of surgical strikes and said there was only cross border firing between the two forces that killed two of its soldiers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court will pronounce the order on the plea to cancel the bail granted to former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Member of Parliament on Friday. The latter is facing criminal charges in around 50 cases.

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, who has filed one of the petitions, on Thursday argued before the apex court that Shahabuddin did not follow any rules and walked out of jail at will.

"The jail authorities were terrified of him. Bhushan sought cancellation of bail of Shahabuddin on the ground that if he be enlarged on bail, then the life of the last witness, who was testify in a case, would be in danger.

Bhushan had earlier on Monday told the apex court that there were 45 cases against Shahabuddin, out of which nine are related to murder and ten are related to convictions.

The top court had on September 19 issued a notice to Shahabuddin while hearing pleas of the Bihar Government and Chandrakeshwar Prasad against the bail granted to him.

The Bihar Government had earlier filed an appeal before the apex court challenging the Patna High Court's order of granting bail to Shahabuddin.

The petition was filed by Bhushan on behalf of the victim's family, which was upset to see Shahabuddin walk free.

Shahabuddin, who had been in jail for more than 10 years in connection with multiple cases, was granted bail by the Patna High Court on September 7 in connection with the murder of a man who witnessed the killing of two brothers in Siwan.

Shahabuddin's release from jail evoked widespread criticism of the grand alliance in the state with the opposition accusing the government of paving way for his release by not opposing the bail strongly in the court.
Welcoming the Supreme Court's decision to cancel former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Member of Parliament Mohammad Shahabuddin's bail, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Bihar's former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi the Bihar Government has been badly exposed in both Shahabuddin and liquor ban cases and also drew huge criticism.

In Shahabuddin case, Modi said, the Supreme Court proved that how the Bihar Government was making efforts to save him (Shahabuddin). "Nitish Kumar (Bihar Chief Minister) has formed an alliance with such a party that you forget about expelling Shahabuddin, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) did not even suspend him," he said.

Stressing that unless Shahabuddin is lodged in Tihar Jail and all the cases against him have been shifted outside Bihar, it won't make any difference, Modi alleged, "On this matter, the Nitish Government has maintained a stoic silence instead of praying to the apex court that Shahabuddin should be kept outside Bihar and should be tried outside the state."

Modi further said, "Whether he is in a Bihar jail or outside it, no witness, or police or the Nitish Government could dare to speak against him. It was his terror that even the lawyer could not argue against him in the court. When the case was in the Patna High Court many lawyers refused to become the Bihar Government's counsel, because people don't have gusts to fight against Shahabuddin's terror."

Asserting that how insolent he is that Superintendent of Police (SP) and District Magistrate (DM) were sitting at his residence and he wore a helmet and moved out of the back door to surrender in the court, Modi said, "He wanted to show that he would not come into the hands of police and would surrender at his will."

When asked whether he thought that the cancellation of Shahabuddin's bail would creat a rift in the Grand Alliance, the former deputy chief minister said, "A gulf has already been created as the RJD is solidly standing with Shahabuddin, otherwise Nitish Kumar would have pressurised Lalu Prasad to expel him from the RJD. If Lalu Yadav can get Anant Singh expelled from the Janata Dal(United) by pressurising Nitish Kumar, why cannot Nitish Kumar do it?"

"The gulf has widened and it will be widening further. Shahabuddin has threatened that his people would see Nitish Kumar in the next election," Modi added.

Earlier today, a division bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh and Justice Amitava Roy, set aside the order of the Patna High Court that had granted bail to Shahabuddin and ordered that he must be taken into custody immediately.

After surrendering in the Siwan district court, Shahabuddin asserted that he respected the order of the apex court, but warned that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar would get a fitting response from his supporters in the next elections.

Shahabuddin said that he learnt about the cancellation of his bail through other people, as he is yet to receive the order.

"I surrendered here the moment I heard about the court's decision from people. I will abide by it as I have always respected the Supreme Court's order," he said.

When asked if he had faced this massive setback since he had criticised Nitish Kumar and spoke against the Bihar government, Shahabuddin said he never afraid of speaking "the truth" and that his "supporters would give a firm response to the Chief Minister in the next polls" in the state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a massive set back to former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Member of Parliament Mohammad Shahabuddin, the Supreme Court on Friday cancelled his bail paving the way for him to go back to jail.

The apex court division bench, headed by Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh and Justice Amitava Roy, set aside the order of the Patna High court, which had granted bail to Shahabuddin and ordered that he must be taken into custody immediately.

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, who has filed one of the petitions, yesterday argued before the apex court that Shahabuddin did not follow any rules and had walked out of jail at will.

"The jail authorities were terrified of him. Bhushan sought cancellation of bail of Shahabuddin on the ground that if he be enlarged on bail, then the life of the last witness, who was testify in a case, would be in danger.

Bhushan had earlier on Monday told the apex court that there were 45 cases against Shahabuddin, out of which nine are related to murder and ten are related to convictions.

The top court had on September 19 issued a notice to Shahabuddin while hearing pleas of the Bihar Government and Chandrakeshwar Prasad against the bail granted to him.

The Bihar Government had earlier filed an appeal before the apex court challenging the Patna High Court's order of granting bail to Shahabuddin.

The petition was filed by Bhushan on behalf of the victim's family, which was upset to see Shahabuddin walk free.

Shahabuddin, who had been in jail for more than 10 years in connection with multiple cases, was granted bail by the Patna High Court on September 7 in connection with the murder of a man who witnessed the killing of two brothers in Siwan.

Shahabuddin's release from jail evoked widespread criticism of the grand alliance in the state with the opposition accusing the government of paving way for his release by not opposing the bail strongly in the court.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former External Affairs Minister and former Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna on Friday said the surgical strike at the Line of Control (LoC) which took place late night on Wednesday was a message to Islamabad that India's patience has been tested and exhausted and that New Delhi won't tolerate such skirmishes.

"Well, this is certainly a message, a message which cannot be doubted that India's patience has exhausted, it can no longer tolerate these skirmishes, and I am sure Pakistan understands this language only," Krishna told ANI.

He praised the surgical operation carried out by the Indian Army, saying the entire nation stands behind the government as one man to protect its sovereignty and integrity.

Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh earlier said the Indian Army conducted surgical strikes on seven terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC), which was ready to carry out terrorists strikes in Jammu and Kashmir and various other metros in our country around midnight.

Lt. Gen. Singh that the operation of the Indian Army was basically focussed to ensure that the terrorists do not succeed in their design of infiltration and carry out destruction endangering the lives of citizens of the nation.

Lt. Gen. Singh further said that he spoke with the Pakistani DGMO and expressed New Delhi's concern and meanwhile, shared information over the operation conducted by the Indian Army.

Elucidating the involvement of Pakistan in the recent infiltration bids and terrorist strikes the DGMO said the captured terrorists have confessed that they were trained by the Asian neighbour.

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Bamako [Mali], Sept. 30 (ANI): Holding the scourge of terrorism as impediment to development regionally and globally Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari on Friday said terrorist actions cannot be justified on any grounds, and India condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and is of view that international and cross-border terrorism should be dealt in a comprehensive manner.

Noting that the spreading tide of extremism and terrorism is a threat that both India and Mali face, Vice President Ansari said, "We feel that with a view to strengthening international normative regime on terrorism, an early adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) is essential."

Welcoming the signing of the Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation, the Vice President hope that it would lead to unity, preservation of territorial integrity, lasting peace, development and prosperity. "My Government appreciates the wisdom of Malian leadership that facilitated the signing of the Agreement. In India, we believe that political issues should be resolved through 'Ballot' and not 'Bullet'. We encourage all stakeholders to eschew violence and to embrace peaceful and democratic means to resolve political issues," he added.

Addressing the Malian National Assembly, the Vice President noted as the becomes more globalised and inter-connected, the salience of global cross-cutting issues is rising. "These issues cannot be resolved by a handful of powerful countries or even through regional efforts. They include issues such as Climate Change but also global public health challenges, drug-trafficking, trafficking of humans, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism. There are newer domains of cyber security and space security," he added.

Hailing the adoption of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, Vice President Ansari said India is committed to effective implementation of the agreement-based on equity and principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. "India had launched a major initiative of International Solar Alliance to bring together on single platform countries of the blessed with abundant solar power. We are thankful to Republic of Mali for joining the International Solar Alliance," he said.

Stating that active participation of large and populous countries like India and those in Africa becomes indispensable in resolving such global issues, he added, "That is why India advocates reforms in global political, economic and security institutions. They must become more democratic, inclusive and representative of our . Unfortunately, few institutions have that character today. Many do not yet give voice to Africa or the world's largest democracy, constituting one-sixth of humanity."

Vice President Ansari on Thursday arrived in Mali on a two-day visit after his successful trip to Nigeria.

Malian Prime Minister Modibo Keita received and welcomed the Vice President at Bamako's Modibo Keita International Airport here. Vice President Ansari, accompanied by his wife Salma Ansari, is visiting Mali at the invitation of Prime Minister Keita.

Vice President Ansari is also accompanied by Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal and a four Members of Parliament, senior officials and media.

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Bamako [Mali], Sept. 30 (ANI): Noting that economic and trade relations between India and Mali are expanding, with bilateral trade having trebled in the last five years, Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari on Friday said trade and investment levels are still below the immense potential that exists.

"We are confident that continued stability and peace would encourage Indian companies to look at Mali as an attractive investment destination for the mutual benefit of peoples of our two countries," said the Vice President while addressing the Malian National Assembly here.

"My visit, the first high level visit to Mali from India, comes at a time when the is acknowledging the India growth story. This economic growth provides India more resources not just for its own development, but also more financial leverage in expanding the scope of its engagement with emerging growth poles of the like Africa. It comes at a time when Africa, awash with the spirit of democracy, has consolidated its control over its resources and accelerated its march towards securing a prosperous future for its people," he stated.

Noting that the partnership between India and Mali can be a source of great strength for each other, both to reinforce and accelerate each other's economic development and to build a more just, inclusive, equitable and sustainable world, he said, "We have complementary resources and markets; and, the power of our human capital. We also have a shared global vision."

Talking about the future roadmap that will reflect shared vision and goals and strengths and capabilities of both nations, Vice President Ansari said, "These could include areas such as human resource development, institution building, infrastructure, clean energy, agriculture, health, education and skill development. We will also work together on addressing common issues like climate change and sustainable development of blue economy."

"India's development partnership is centred on human resource development and establishment of institutions in Africa, which are, in turn, creating skills and capacities in Africa, including in areas like agriculture, food processing, textiles and small industries to expand exports to India and other countries," he observed.

Stating that India and Mali will certainly raise their partnership to a much higher level in the years ahead, Vice President Ansari said, "We will also make our partnership more effective, based on a comprehensive review of our Development Partnership programme with Africa, particularly in terms of capacity building, infrastructure support and technology sharing, in discussion with our African partners.

"We are confident, that with its sagacious leadership; abundant natural resources; and its talented youth, Africa is well on its way to realise the vision of "Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want". And in this journey, India will be there as a friend and privileged partner, to share our experience and resources, to support African nations in whatever manner they want."

Vice President Ansari on Thursday arrived in Mali on a two-day visit after his successful trip to Nigeria.

Malian Prime Minister Modibo Keita received and welcomed the Vice President at Bamako's Modibo Keita International Airport here. Vice President Ansari, accompanied by his wife Salma Ansari, is visiting Mali at the invitation of Prime Minister Keita.

Vice President Ansari is also accompanied by Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal and a four Members of Parliament, senior officials and media.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Condemning the recent terrorist attack at the army base near Uri in Jammu and Kashmir in which 19 soldiers were killed, US Senators Mark Warner and John Cornyn, co-chairs of the Senate India Caucus have called on Pakistan to cooperate fully and transparently in the investigation and prosecute any individuals within its territory that participate in the probe.

In a letter to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the duo expressed their deep condolences to the soldiers who were injured and the families of those who were killed during the attack.

'As co-chairs of the Senate India Caucus, we write to express our support for India and to strongly condemn the recent terrorist attack at the army base near Uri in Jammu and Kashmir. We would like to express our deep condolences to you, the soldiers who were injured in this heinous attack, and the families of those who were killed' Democrat

John Cornyn and Republican Mark Warner said in a letter.

Maintaining that they greatly concerned about initial indications that the perpetrators of this attack were Pakistani and that the attack emanated from Pakistan, the duo said that if true this attack would be just the latest in a series of deadly attacks in India conducted by Pakistan-based terrorist groups.

"We call on the Government of Pakistan to cooperate fully and transparently in this investigation and prosecute any individuals within its territory that participated in this horrendous attack," they said in the letter.

"Pakistan's possible involvement in this attack underscores our broader concern about Pakistan's use of terrorism as a pillar of its foreign policies toward Afghanistan and India," they added.

They pointed out that, "As many credible experts have noted, such groups as the Haqqani network, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Jaish-e-Mohammad still operate freely in Pakistan, launching attacks not only on India but also on US personnel and interests in Afghanistan."

The senators said that they will work within the Congress to pressure Pakistan to end any association with these terrorist groups targeting India, put a stop to their cross-border incursions, and take active and immediate steps to reign in homegrown terrorists.

The duo pointed out that the continued threat of terrorism that both India and the United States face highlights the critical need to ensure to continue expanding U.S.-India bilateral defense, intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation.

"We welcome the declaration of India as a major defense partner, last year's signing of and Defense Framework Agreement, and continued deepening of the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative," they said.

Also expressing their delight over the finalization of an arrangement of facilitate the sharing of terrorist screening information and the progress made by the U.S.-India Counterterrorism Joint Working Group and the Homeland Security Dialogue, the senators said that they will continue to support these and other initiatives that will increase U.S. partnership with India against terrorism.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Vice President of India Mohammad Hamid Ansari will today address the National Assembly of Mali in capital Bamako.

Reports suggest that he will also call on Malian President Ibrahim Keita before leaving for home in the evening. Last night, the Vice President had held talks with Malian Prime Minister Modibo Keita and discussed a number of issues.

After the delegation-level talks, India and Mali signed two agreements on Standards and Cultural exchange.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup in a series of tweets confirmed the meeting.

"Expanding India's engagement with West Africa. On 2nd leg of his tour, VP Ansari arrives in Mali, holds talks with PM Modibo Keita in Bamako," tweeted Swarup.

"The two leaders also witnessed the signing of agreements in the field of standards and for expanding cultural exchanges and cooperation," Swarup said.

Vice President Ansari is in Mali on the final leg of his two-nation visit to West Africa.

This is the first high-level tour to the country by an Indian leader. The Vice President had visited Nigeria in the first part of the tour.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Expressing his disapproval over Saman Khan's comment that Pakistani artists were not terrorists and they must not be mixed up with the concept of terrorism, the Shiv Sena leader Subhash Desai on Friday said the Shiv Sena disagrees with Salman's personal opinion.

"This maybe Salman Khan's matter, but the stand of Shiv Sena is clear that the country which has taken up enmity with us, killed innocent people and infiltrated borders at several areas, we do not think it's appropriate to maintain relations with any artists or players from that nation. These are feelings of the nation and only patriotic people can understand them," Desai said.

"Salman Khan should take the advice and counsel of his father, Salim Khan," Desai added, when asked about his opinion on this matter...It may be his personal opinion, but we don't agree with it and we should not maintain any kind of relation with Pakistan which is also the stand of the Shiv Sena," he added.

Right after the Uri attack, political wing MNS decided to ban Pakistani artists from India. This was followed by The Indian Motion Pictures Producers' Association's (IMPPA) resolution to ban the Pak artists till normalcy returns.

When asked about the ban, Salman defended the artists saying, "Terrorists and artists are different. Do you think there is no difference between an actor and a terrorist? Actors come here with a proper visa granted by government. They have a proper work permit."

However, when talking about the surgical strike carried out by the Indian Army across the Line of Control (LoC) on Thursday, the Bollywood icon stated that it was an apt reaction to the neighbouring country's action in Uri that killed 19 innocent Indian soldiers.

Two Pakistani soldiers and over 30 terrorists were reportedly killed in the surgical strike carried out by the Indian Army. The action was in response to the terrorist attack at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 19 Indian Army soldiers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
HELENA  Authorities are still trying to unlock the mystery of how a Great Falls woman ended up shot to death in the trunk of her car earlier this month.

A spokeswoman with the FBI said officials are awaiting lab testing results before they reveal any more information about Rita Maze's death.

Maze was found dead on Sept. 7 in her closed trunk with a 9 mm handgun and two spent shell casings at her side, according to court documents. She died of a single gunshot wound.

Before she died, Maze allegedly called her family and said she had been struck on the head at a Wolf Creek-area rest stop and stuffed into the trunk of a car. An officer who later called Maze's cellphone said someone answered, and then the officer heard gunshots, then silence, court documents say.

Authorities found her body more than 300 miles away outside of Spokane.

Reports of the alleged abduction made headlines internationally, though officials later indicated they were skeptical of that narrative

Authorities are calling the incident a death investigation, not a homicide.

Authorities ruled out a person of interest who was initially being sought in connection with the case.
At meeting held on 12 September 2016

MMS Infrastructure announced that the Board of Directors of the Company at its Meeting dated 12 September 2016, has decided to file application with Registrar of Companies, Mumbai, Maharashtra for extension of Annual General Meeting of the Company for the financial year ended 31 March 2016.

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HCL Technologies and IBM said that the companies have entered a 15-year partnership for automation and development & operations (DevOps) solutions. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 29 September 2016.

Tata Steel said that the committee of directors approved raising Rs 1000 crore by issuing 10,000 non-convertible debentures (NCDs) on private placement basis. Each NCD carries a face value of Rs 10 lakh. NCD hold a tenure of 10 years. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 29 September 2016.

NHPC said that a wind power purchase agreement (PPA) has been signed amongst Rajasthan Government, NHPC and INOX on 28 September 2016 for 50 megawatts (MW) wind power project in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan. As per the PPA, Rajasthan Government will purchase the power generated from the project. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 29 September 2016.

Alkem Laboratories said that USFDA had conducted an inspection at the company's manufacturing facility located at Daman, India from 20 September 2016 to 29 September 2016. In this regard, the company has received the inspection report which contains thirteen 483 observations. The company shall put together a detailed response with adequate corrective and preventive measures to address the USFDA Observations and the same is proposed to be filed within the timeline stipulated by USFDA. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 29 September 2016.

Corporation Bank announced lending rates based on marginal cost of funds to be effective from 1 October 2016. The bank's Marginal Cost of Funds based Lending Rate (MCLR) for overnight loans will be 9.05%, for one month will be 9.15% and for three months will be 9.30%. The MCLR on 6-month loans will be 9.40% and for one-year loans the rate would be 9.50%, the bank said. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 29 September 2016.

Sintex Industries said that its board approved the composite scheme of arrangement for the demerger of the 'custom moulding business' and the 'prefab business' from Sintex Industries to Sintex-BAPL and Sintex Infra Projects, respectively, each a wholly owned subsidiary of Sintex Plastics Technology. The proposed arrangement will streamline various businesses developed by the group, thereby creating focused leadership and management attention. The scheme also involves issuance of equity shares of Sintex Plastics Technology to the equity shareholders of Sintex Industries such that shareholders of Sintex Industries will effectively get one equity share of Sintex Plastics Technology upon demergers against one equity share held in Sintex Industries and listing of these equity shares of Sintex Plastics Technology on the BSE and the NSE. The transaction is expected to unlock value of shareholders by separating various businesses in different entities. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 29 September 2016.

Seamec said that it has entered into an agreement with HAL Offshore (HAL) for deployment of vessel Seamec II along with provision of services of remotely operated vehicle (ROV), the contract commenced with effect from 28 September 2016. As intimated, the total contract value for the period of 3 years will be $33.44 million approximately. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 29 September 2016.

Bharat Financial Inclusion said that the capital raising committee of the company has approved allotment of 97.40 lakh equity shares to eligible qualified institutional buyers at the issue price of Rs 770 per equity share, aggregating to Rs 749.99 crore pursuant to the offer. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 29 September 2016.

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Shares of eight liquor companies rose by 3.25% to 14.58% at 14:45 IST on BSE after the Supreme Court today, 30 September 2016, reportedly dismissed BJP leader's plea seeking a complete ban on liquor across India.

Empee Distilleries (up 14.58%), Tilaknagar Industries (up 7.83%), G M Breweries (up 7.01%), Radico Khaitan (up 6.61%), United Spirits (up 6.17%), Pioneer Distilleries (up 5.95%), Associated Alcohols & Breweries (up 4.42%) and United Breweries (up 3.25%), edged higher. Khoday India was down 4.41%.

The S&P BSE Sensex was up 72.94 points, or 0.26% at 27,900.47.

According to reports, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ashwani Upadhaya had sought a complete ban on liquor across the nation. The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Upadhyay said the use of alcohol should be restricted to medical purposes and sale of liquor and intoxicating drinks and drugs must be prohibited completely or allowed with strict conditions. In his petition, Upadhyay also said that liquor is the root cause of most road accidents, road rages, crime against women, domestic violence, rape and murder and many other social evils, reports added.

However, a division bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri and also comprising Justice N. V. Ramanna, after finding no merit in his plea, dismissed it.

Meanwhile, the Patna High Court today, 30 September 2016, reportedly struck down Bihar government's controversial Prohibition of Liquor Act, terming it illegal. In April 2016, the Nitish Kumar government had imposed total prohibition on liquor in the state.

The Bihar Hotels and Bars Association had filed a petition before the High Court asking it to scrap the ban. Soon after the Bihar Excise (Amendment) Act, 2016 was passed in March, total prohibition was imposed in Bihar because of which consumption and selling of liquor in the state had become illegal, media reports suggested.

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The Union Minister for Rural Development, Drinking Water & Sanitation and Panchayati Raj Shri Narendra Singh Tomar said that by 2nd October, this year, one lakh villages will become Open Defecation Free, ODF and 40 Districts will achieve the status of ODF Districts in this financial Year. He said, to accelerate the efforts to achieve universal sanitation coverage and to put focus on sanitation, the Prime Minister had launched the Swachh Bharat Mission on 2nd October, 2014, after his historic address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on 15th August, 2014.

Shri Tomar said that the Central Government, State Governments, Municipal bodies, Panchayati Raj Institutions, NGOs, Spiritual and Religious leaders, Public Representatives, Educational Institutions and famous personalities from all walks of life have joined hands together to make India, a Clean India by 2nd October, 2019, the 50th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, as announced by the Prime Minister. Shri Tomar stressed that Swachh Bharat Mission is not a government programme, but it's a people's movement and there is need for behavioural change among the people as merely toilet construction will not be sufficient to achieve the ODF status.

Shri Tomar informed that the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation is compiling the best practices from villages across the country and will bring it to the notice of the common man to emulate the same.

The Minister expressed confidence that after Prime Minister's address at the INDOSAN, the Swachh Mission will gain new momentum.

At present 87, 666 villages are ODF, apart from 1,544 villages in Namami Gange areas. This needs to be underlined that the sanitation coverage was 42.12 percent on 2nd October, 2014, when the programme was launched, which has now increased to 55.31 percent, while 24 Districts have been declared as ODF ones. Sikkim is the only State which has achieved the ODF status, and Kerala, Haryana, Gujrat and Maharashtra will soon achieve the ODF status.

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On 8 October 2016

Rain Industries will hold a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company on 8 October 2016 to take on record the order of the Hon'ble High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the State of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh approving the Scheme of Arrangement for merger of Moonglow Company Business Inc., (Step down wholly owned subsidiary) with Rain Industries Limited (Ultimate Holding Company).

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At least nine pilgrims were killed and 14 others were injured when their vehicle collided with a truck in Haryana, nearly 275 km from here, police said on Friday.

The accident took place near Siwani town of Bhiwani district early on Friday.

The injured were rushed to hospital in Bhiwani.

Police said that the vehicle, in which the pilgrims from Punjab were travelling after offering prayers at a shrine in Rajasthan, collided with a truck coming from the opposite direction.

The vehicle was further smashed as another truck hit it from behind.

--IANS

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India's concerns on Canadian temporary foreign workers entry programme, which has become more stringent over time and acts as a barrier for Indian IT professionals, are being examined by Canada, the Indian Commerce Ministry said on Friday.

"India took up the issues of Canada's Temporary Foreign Workers Entry Programme -- which has acted as a barrier for the Indian information technology companies invested in Canada to source Indian IT professionals -- as the norms for temporary entry have become more and more stringent," the statement said here following Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's meeting with her Canadiaan counterpart Chrystia Freeland in Toronto on Thursday.

"The Trade Minister of Canada assured that a parliamentary committee is examining these issues and some of the concerns are likely to be addressed," it said.

Sitharaman is in Toronto for the third India-Canada Annual Ministerial Dialogue while Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is slated to visit Canada in the first week of October, the statement added.

Both Sitharaman and Freeland also discussed issues which have stalled the negotiations of the proposed free-trade agreement between the two nations.

The Indian ministry said the Canadian side is looking into issues concerned with the movement of professionals and provisions that could be built into the free-trade pact, also known as the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

Both sides expressed strong commitment to take forward the negotiations in CEPA and Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) and expressed the desire for their early conclusion, the statement said.

Besides, the ministers discussed ways to expand trade and having more business-to-business interface with the constitution of a CEOs Forum by Canada.

Canada also assured India of moving faster in constituting the Canadian side list of the CEOs Forum, the statement said.

Both sides also agreed to cooperate at international fora on the World Trade Organisation's Trade Facilitation Agreement on Services as well as on the unfinished agenda items of WTO's Doha Round, given the complementarity of both the nations on these issues, it added.

--IANS

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The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) will hold a meeting on Friday to review the situation in the wake of the surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army across the Line of Control (LoC), officials said.

The meet will be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi,

Home Minister Rajnath Singh will also meet senior officials from both Home and the Defence will also be meeting later during the day under chairmanship of prime minister.

Modi also chaired a CCS meeting to consider the situation along the LoC on Thursday,

An unspecified number of terrorists and Pakistani troops were killed in the early Thursday operation across Kupwara and Poonch sectors as the army moved Special Forces into Pakistan-held Kashmir, officials said.

--IANS

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Algerian counterterrorism forces on Thursday killed five armed militants in Tazoult of Batna province, 480 km southeast Algiers.

The operation is still underway. Troops have managed to retrieve machine guns and large quantity of ammunition, Xinhua quoted Defense Ministry as saying.

Six bunkers containing food, home-made mines, photovoltaic plates and other stuffs were also destroyed.

The statement added that the operation reveals the strong determination of the Algerian army forces to eliminate remains of terrorism in the country.

Algerian army forces have been very active in the last five months, as they have managed to kill nearly 100 armed militants in different operations nationwide.

--IANS

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France on Friday launched a new operation against the Islamic State militant group in Iraq from its largest warship Charles de Gaulle in order to intensify strikes and retake Mosul, the group's stronghold.

At least eight Rafale fighter jets took off from the carrier in the eastern Mediterranean. But, it was not clear whether the French jets were to carry out air strikes or were on a reconnaissance mission, Xinhua news agency reported.

Vincent Desportes, general of ground forces division, said the aircraft carrier's deployment in the fight against the extremist group in Iraq was "important but it doesn't change the situation".

"This is neither the beginning of the great battle of Mosul nor the final assault against the IS. We are far from winning back Mosul because it's a city with hundreds of thousands of people which is strongly held by Daesh (the IS)," he said.

"Mosul reconquest will be difficult and will only be done by help of ground troops. It could last many weeks or months," he said.

On September 6, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said: "(French) artillery is arriving close to the front line," as "we decided to bolster our support of the Iraqi forces this autumn with the aim of recapturing Mosul."

Since 2014, Mosul has been IS stronghold.

France was one of the first European countries to join the US-led coalition against the IS. Its fighter jets have bombed the group in Iraq in 2014.

After growing terror threats, Paris decided by the end of September last year to strike the IS targets in Syria where hundreds of French nationals have been recruited and could return home to carry out attacks after being trained there.

--IANS

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The No. 3 official at the Wyoming Highway Patrol is under investigation for posing for a photograph near a bison at Yellowstone National Park, possibly violating the rule that people must stay at least 25 yards from wildlife.

Highway Patrol Major Keith Groeneweg posted to Facebook a photo of himself near the large mammal, with the description Yellowstone signs everywhere: Stay 100 yards from animals. They can be dangerous. Keiths translation: Time to sneak up and hug a buffalo!#YNP #ILoveWyoming.

Groeneweg has told the parks chief ranger and his Highway Patrol boss he was observing the rule and that the photo appears closer than he actually was, they said.

The investigation comes after a busy summer in Yellowstone when an unusually high number of visitors, most from outside Wyoming, have approached wildlife too closely. Rangers for the National Park Service, which is celebrating its centennial this year, worked hard to educate people about wildlife rules. Nevertheless people have been gored, mauled and chased by bison, bears and elk.

Pete Webster, Yellowstones chief ranger, said a handful of people shared pictures of Groenewegs Facebook post with park officials.

I did call and spoke with him, Webster said. He was apologetic. He said the photo was purposely distorted to appear a lot closer than he was, and he was beyond our prescribed distance of 25 yards.

Rangers continue to investigate, he said.

Wyoming Highway Patrol Col. Kebin Haller said Groeneweg was forthcoming to him about the Yellowstone investigation and is cooperating with the park. Groeneweg told Haller the picture was taken during a vacation last week. A ravine cut between him and the animal, although the photo doesnt show it, Haller said.

Haller said he believed everything Groeneweg told him and the major is not on any kind of administrative leave. Haller will obtain a copy of the investigation once its completed, he said.

Law enforcement officers are held to high standards in their personal lives, since they are in charge of enforcing the law in society, he said.

I would have to say as individuals and professionals, we are always accountable for our actions and behaviors, Haller said.

Despite Groeneweg writing the distance between people and wildlife must be 100 yards, its actually a minimum of 25 yards for most animals. Bears and wolves are the exception. People must stay at least 100 yards from them, said Chief Ranger Webster.

Its to allow wildlife to roam free on the land, stress-free, he said.

The distance is also just as important to keep people safe, he added.

Weve had injuries caused by people getting too close to bison, by people getting too close to elk.
Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Friday hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar for the surgical strikes at terror camps in Pakistan-held Kashmir.

"Pakistan used to hammer India and we would sit calm and quiet. For the first time, I believe, proper reply has been given, which has been enjoyed, accepted and appreciated by all citizens, irrespective of their party affiliations. Kudos to Modi-ji and Manohar Parrikar," Parsekar told reporters.

"(It was a) fantastic move... People across the country had on many occasions become frustrated because it always used to be a one-sided action," the Goa Chief Minister added.

In a swift move, Indian Army commandos slipped into PoK in the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday and destroyed several terrorist launch pads, killing an unspecified number of terrorists, who an Indian Army spokesperson said, were waiting to infiltrate into India.

--IANS

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The Indian government and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) have signed an agreement extending the Indian Conservation Fellowship Programme to promote modern museum practices.

India's Consul General Riva Ganguly said she hoped that the programme would enrich both sides through learning from each other and that it will help Indian conservationists improve scientific methods of conservation and management.

She was speaking at a reception at the consulate on Tuesday to mark the signing of the memorandum of agreement extending the programme for five more years.

The Andrew Mellon Foundation has given $1.55 million for the new phase of the conservation fellowship programme, according to the foundation's database.

It was started in 2013 as a pilot programme and its success led to the renewal, a consulate statement said.

Under the agreement the MET will work with the Indian Ministry of Culture to develop a broad range of knowledge on modern operations of museums like conservation and planning of exhibitions.

The MET's Deputy Director for Collections and Administration, Carrie Rebora Barratt, said the rich cultural heritage of India needed conserving and the interaction of the participants from India and the United States will lead to a mutual learning process.

The Mellon Foundation's Executive Vice President, Mariet Westermann, said she was happy the foundation was participating in a program that will contribute to conserving the rich cultural treasures of India.

The MET is a premiere cultural institution of the US that was recently named the world top museum for the second year in the TripAdvisor Traveler's Choice Awards.

Last year, over 6.7 million people visited the museum that features 5,000 years of art from around the world.

The museum has a large collection of cultural artifacts from India and features special programme about the country's heritage.

It is currently holding an exhibition, Poetry and Devotion in Indian Art, featuring 22 of the dozens of Rajput and Pahari paintings in its collection.

Recent exhibitions have included "Divine Pleasures" painting from India's Rajput courts, "Company School Painting in India" and "Encountering Vishnu: The Lion Avatar in Indian Temple Drama."

--IANS

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The Indian Army, the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Border Security Force (BSF) were put on high alert in Punjab and neighbouring states to counter any escalation of the situation following the surgical strike across the Line of Control (LoC), sources said on Friday.

Army convoys, carrying artillery guns, could be seen moving towards the border belt in Punjab on Thursday and Friday in preparation of thwarting any move from Pakistan to retaliate the LoC strike.

The IAF has been put on high alert with forward air bases on the western front in full preparedness. The IAF bases in the region include Halwara and Adampur (both in Punjab), Ambala (in Haryana) and Hindon (near Delhi).

Air Force fighter jets carried out sorties over some parts of Punjab as a preventive measure.

The International Border (IB) in the Punjab frontier is manned by the BSF which is on maximum alert following the latest developments at the LoC.

Army units were also on high alert in Punjab. The army presence in Punjab is substantial, spread in Mamoon cantonment near Pathankot, the 11 Corps based in Jalandhar, the 10 Corps in Bathinda in southwest Punjab and army units in Ferozepur, Amritsar and other places.

The Western Command, headquartered at Chandimandir near Chandigarh, is monitoring the situation along the border with Pakistan in Punjab sector, a senior Army officer told IANS here.

The Ambala-based 2 Corps, a strike corps, has also been put on high alert along with the Hisar-based 33 Armoured Division, sources said.

--IANS

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Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh on Friday said it was painful to see the people being divided on race, region, religion and nationalities.

He was addressing over 200 delegates from 33 countries before flagging off a peace march from here in which they were participating to celebrate the spirit of global citizenship and universal peace.

The peace march was part of the 11th edition of the Global Youth Peace Festival of 2016 being organised by the Chandigarh-based NGO Yuvsatta.

Welcoming the initiative, the Chief Minister said it was a great effort in spreading the message of love and fraternity and that youth from over 30 countries were sharing a common platform to spread peace, preach human values and create a more just world.

"It pains me to see the people being divided on race, region, religion and nationalities while these programmes, based on common cause to bring peace and harmony, will certainly go ahead in disseminating the message as how love lives above racial and religious discrimination," he said.

Bernie Meyer, popularly known as 'American Gandhi', presented a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi and his book 'Gandhi Universal Inspiration' to the Chief Minister.

The Chief Minister appreciated the efforts of State Disaster Management Authority Vice Chairman Rajinder Rana for organising this event here with a motto 'Youth for Peace' that is continuing its crusade for a humane and peaceful world.

Delegates from several countries participated in the peace march and also comprised of 19 members of the Girl for Peace Delegation from Pakistan, who have brought Indo-Pak friendship cards with them.

Earlier, United Nations Human Settlements Programme Senior Advisor Markandey Rai welcomed the Chief Minister and also briefed him about the motive of Global Youth Peace Festival.

He said it was a unique youth campaign to spread Mahatma Gandhi's universal message of peace and harmony.

--IANS

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Afghanistan on Friday backed India on the cross-LoC surgical strikes in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi was taking "bold decisions" in the fight against terrorism.

Afghanistan Ambassador to India Shaida Mohammad Abdali told the media: "The goal is that we have to end a problem that is increasingly taking our lives."

"I can see Prime Minister Modi taking bold decisions. The leadership of the region and the governments must take bold decisions and take risks in order to free ourselves for good," he said.

Abdali's remarks came a day after the Indian Army said it had carried out surgical strikes across the Line of Control on Wednesday night on terrorist launch pads.

India's move follows the September 18 terror attack on an Indian Army camp at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 19 soldiers.

"We have to fight a phenomenon that is going to inflict us in a much bigger way. If you have that in mind, that means you need to do more and use different measures," Abdali said, referring to terrorism.

Asked if Pakistan was a state sponsor of terrorism or there were elements within that country that incited terrorism, the Afghan envoy said: "There is no doubt about state sponsorship of terrorism."

"(There is) no doubt about clear use of terrorism by a state against neighbours. I am glad to see the world recognising this more than any time before."

Abdali in an interview to a news channel earlier said his country was willing to consider a joint boycott of the Saarc summit along with India and other members.

He said for years Afghanistan was among the few countries to raise the issue of state sponsorship of terrorism by Pakistan. "Now we have the world community recognising it."

Stating that India and Afghanistan alone did not discuss the issue of fighting terrorism, he said that "we discuss with all our world partners".

Abdali said the war against terrorism would not be won if it was fought in Afghanistan but it should be fought "where it originates from".

Abdali, who earlier served as Deputy National Security Advisor and Special Assistant to former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said Kabul did not make any distinction between terror groups.

"We have suffered from terrorist groups from across the border. We feel the pain in a similar way as India."

On Pakistan, he said "patience was wearing thin" and "it is high time we review our relations."

"We have tried our best to have good neighbourly relations but the goodwill has not been reciprocated," Abdali said.

--IANS

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Sri Lanka on Friday expressed its unwillingness to attend the upcoming Summit in Islamabad, saying the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the summit.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Colombo, in a statement, said that the Charter requires that decisions at all levels are taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of Member States as well.

"Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia. As a founding member of Saarc, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our region's peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation," it said.

Sri Lanka condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, and stresses in this regard, the need to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region in a decisive manner, the statement said.

Sri Lanka's unwillingness to attend comes three days after India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan wrote to Nepal the current Chair of Saarc, conveying they are pulling out of the Saarc Summit, citing rising terrorism in the region.

With this, five members of the eight-member South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation have pulled out of the summit.
Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali has rejected an invitation for a conference scheduled in New Delhi next month amid rising tensions between the two neighbouring countries.

In a letter to the Indian Supreme Court he wrote that in the present conditions he could not attend the meeting, Geo News reported on Friday.

The Chief Justice was invited to attend the conference scheduled from October 21 to 23.

Pakistan has claimed that two soldiers were killed in Indian Army shelling across the Line of Control (LoC) late Wednesday. It has denied that India carried out "surgical strikes" behind the LoC to destroy seven terror launch pads and kill between 35 and 40 terrorists waiting to cross into Kashmir.

--IANS

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Pakistan scuttled India's participation in the Asian Trade Promotion Forum CEO meet held this week by withholding travel permission of an Indian High Commission official to Lahore, informed sources said on Friday.

The 29th ATPF CEO meet was held in Lahore from September 24 to 26 and the trade counsellor of the Indian mission was to attend the event. However, he was denied permission to travel.

The Indian Trade Promotion Organization had requested the Indian High Commission to depute an official to the event as ITPO could not send an officer from India.

The ATPF, comprising 24 member countries including Australia, Japan and China, aims to enhance trade in the region through information exchange, implementation of cooperative projects and strengthening networks among members.

CEO meetings and Working Level Meetings are held once a year.

--IANS

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Pakistan's cabinet met on September 30 to review the situation on the Line of Control (LoC) in the wake of surgical strikes by the Indian Army.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif chaired the meeting, which is expected to put across the collective response of the nation to the challenge thrown by the latest events, Radio Pakistan reported.

The meeting comes in the wake of the surgical strikes that India carried out on terrorist launch pads across the LoC on Wednesday night on September 28. Pakistan has denied that the surgical strike took place, saying there was firing and artillery shelling between the two armies across the LoC that killed two of its soldiers.

In their remarks before the meeting, the cabinet members reiterated the resolve of the government to defend the nation at all costs.

Advisor on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz, said support to the struggle of the Kashmiri people would remain Pakistan's main priority.

He said India was "indulging in diversionary tactics in a bid to deflect attention of the international community from its brutalities against Kashmiris," adding that Pakistan would confront India diplomatically even while "our armed forces are also fully prepared to defend the country."

Defence Minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, reiterated that Pakistan does not want escalation of tension, but it was ready to meet any eventuality.

He said Pakistan would respond befittingly to any firing across the LoC.

The Defence Minister said India was displaying irresponsible attitude and trying to play with the galleries, in a bid to hoodwink its public opinion. He added further that India cannot suppress the legitimate aspirations of Kashmiri people.

Minister for Commerce, Khurram Dastgir, said India was creating an artificial tension in its attempt to divert attention of the world from its atrocities against Kashmiris. He assured that Pakistan's defence is in strong hands and the country would continue to raise its voice for the rights of Kashmiris.

Minister for Kashmir Affairs, Barjees Tahir, said the current generation of Kashmiris, are fighting for a right that the world, through UN resolutions, has pledged to decades ago. He said Indian policy of suppression of legitimate struggle of Kashmiris would neither benefit India nor the region.

Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination, Syed Riaz Hussain Pirzada, regretted that instead of giving right of self-determination to Kashmiris, India was resorting to terrorism against Pakistan. He said the world community should take notice of India's belligerence.

Secretary Foreign Affairs will brief the Cabinet on Kashmir issue and tensions between Pakistan and India.
Following the abolition of the Planning Commission of India and the adoption of a new policy at the Centre, Tripura lost Rs 1,356 crore in 2015-16, an official statement said here on Friday.

"The Government of India has stopped various central aids and changed the sharing pattern for the centrally-sponsored schemes (CSS), which caused Tripura a net loss of Rs 1,356 crore in the last financial year (2015-16)," the statement said.

It said that the central government has stopped funding under normal central assistance, special plan assistance and special central assistance. Besides, the fund flow under some major schemes has got reduced by Rs 314.72 crore during 2015-16.

The Tripura government statement came in response to the NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy's criticism of the state government's "laxity in utilisation of central funds".

Debroy, who was here last week in connection with the "North East Connectivity Summit", said that it is not correct that the Tripura government was getting less funding from the Centre after the abolition of the Planning Commission.

While addressing the summit, organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar had said: "With the abolition of Planning Commission and new policy of NITI Aayog, Tripura is losing Rs 1,800 crore every year. How we would develop our infrastructure if the Centre does not help us?"

Referring to Debroy's contention on the "failure" of Tripura government to submit utilisation certificates (UCs) of central fund of Rs 475 crore sanctioned to various projects, the statement said that UCs for Rs 174 crore had already been submitted and that UCs of the remaining amount would be submitted to the Centre after completion of the various projects.

Debroy had also stated that the Tripura government failed to prepare any vision document.

"The vision document is under preparation and it would be submitted to the NITI Aayog after completion. The matter was discussed at a national conference in Delhi on July 27, 2016," the official statement added.

Debroy, who is looking after the affairs of northeastern states on behalf of the NITI Aayog, had said it would aid, facilitate and monitor governmental schemes, plans and projects in the country.

"Services sector, like higher education, health, bio-technology and tourism, can be the priority sectors for development. Poor condition of the national highways in the region must be improved at once. Medium, small and micro industries have great scope in the northeast," he had observed.

--IANS

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Four years after the crime, the prime accused in the Park Street rape case was arrested by a special team of Kolkata Police from Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad on Friday, following months of surveillance.

Kader Khan was nabbed along with an accomplice, Ali Khan, from Greater Noida, the police said, and added that both were brought to Kolkata on transit remand. They were produced before a local court which sent them to 14 days police custody.

"Yesterday (Thursday) we got an input that they were hiding in the area. A special team raided house No. F/58 in Sector Alpha two of Greater Noida. We picked up both of them from there," Deputy Commissioner (South) Muralidhar Sharma of Kolkata Police told reporters here.

Police had kept them under surveillance for the last six months, with Kolkata police working closely with their Uttar Pradesh counterparts in Greater Noida.

"We caught them with the help of the local police in Kasna. We had certain intelligence about their movement and had kept them under surveillance for the last six months. Working on a tip-off, we were able to arrest them around 1 a.m. on Friday," Sharma said.

The two accused were produced to Bankshal court in Kolkata on Friday, where they were sent to police custody till Octobe 14.

"The case needs to be re-opened. Police was not able to interrogate the two accused yet as they were on the run. Therefore we have appealed for police custody for them so that their involvement in the rape incident can be investigated," said the public prosecutor.

However, the counsel of the accused said they are not happy with the court's order and said a case cannot be reopened after the final verdict is given.

"It is discrediting to police that they took four and a half years to arrest the two accused. However, there is no point reopening a case after the verdict was already given by the High Court. They should be given jail custody as per the previous verdict." the counsel said.

An Anglo-Indian woman was sexually assaulted at gunpoint in a moving car on February 6, 2012, by a gang of five men.

Her misery was coupled by disparaging remarks made by several ruling Trinamool Congress leaders including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who called the rape incident a "cooked up case" and Lok Sabha member Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar who tagged it as a "sex deal gone wrong".

However, the gutsy Anglo-Indian woman, who came forward and revealed her identity on television in June 2013, fought her case for three years against heavy odds before she died in March last year of multiple organ failure after being diagnosed with encephalitis.

Nearly nine months after her death, the Anglo-Indian woman finally got justice with a court pronouncing guilty all three accused who were on trial in the sensational case. The main accused Kader Khan and Ali went missing eluding police until now.

--IANS

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Sirshendu PanthBureau Chief, IANS, Kolkata.

Indo-Asian News Service

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Cloud computing company is reportedly trying to block the $26.2 billion Microsoft-LinkedIn deal, arguing that Microsoft's acquisition of the enterprise social network LinkedIn will be anti-competitive.

According to a report in pcworld.com, Chief Legal Officer Burke Norton will take the company's argument to the European Union's anti-trust authorities.

"Microsoft's proposed acquisition of LinkedIn threatens the future of innovation and competition," Norton said in a statement.

"By gaining ownership of LinkedIn's unique dataset of over 450 million professionals in more than 200 countries, Microsoft will be able to deny competitors access to that data, and in doing so obtain an unfair competitive advantage," Norton added.

- now rumoured to be in the race to buy micro-blogging website Twitter - was also in the fray to acquire LinkedIn.

After losing to Microsoft, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has showed his concerns over the deal, urging the Federal Trade Commission to "scrutinise Microsoft's plans for LinkedIn".

Microsoft President Brad Smith, however, said "the deal has already been cleared to close in the US, Canada, and Brazil," Wall Street Journal reported.

In June, Microsoft announced to acquire LinkedIn in an all-cash deal, billed as one of the largest such pacts in the global social media space.

LinkedIn, which has nearly 10 per cent of its over 430 million users in India, will retain its distinct brand, culture and independence and Jeff Weiner will remain the chief executive of LinkedIn, reporting to his Indian-born Microsoft counterpart Satya Nadella, the tech giant said in a statement.

The deal, expected to close within this year, works out to over $60 per LinkedIn user.

Microsoft will pay $196 per LinkedIn share - a 50 per cent premium to LinkedIn's closing price on June 10.
DMK leader M. Karunanidhi on Friday wished Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa speedy recovery and said the state government should put a stop to rumours about her medical condition.

"Due to keeping of Jayalalithaa's health condition a closely-guarded secret, some people are spreading baseless rumours about her health condition," Karunanidhi said in a statement here.

The DMK leader said Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao has not gone and met Jayalalithaa, who has been in hospital for more than a week.

There is also no news on leaders of ruling AIADMK's allies meeting the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister in hospital, he said.

Karunanidhi said though there were news reports on Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan visiting Apollo Hospital, there was no report about his meeting her and asking after her health.

The former Chief Minister said the state government should have at least released a photograph of her in the hospital as she chaired a meeting of state officials on the Cauvery water issue and dictated her speech to be read out at a meeting on the subject in New Delhi.

Even though the Chief Minister is hospitalised for so many days, the Social Welfare Minister or the Chief Secretary have not made any announcement, which is contrary to tradition, the DMK leader said.

--IANS

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Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will come on a five-day visit to India on October 3, it was announced on Friday.

"At the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong will pay an official visit to India on October 3-7," the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

"Prime Minister of Singapore would be accompanied by his wife Ho Ching, key ministers and senior officials," it added.

Lee, who will hold talks with Modi, will also call on President Pranab Mukherjee while External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will call on the visiting dignitary, according to the statement.

Lee's delegation will include, among others, Minister of Trade and Industry S. Iswaran, Acting Minister of Education (High Education and Skills) and Senior Minister of State for Defence Ong Ye Kung, Senior Minister of State for Defence and Foreign Affairs Mohamed Maliki Bin Osman and Members of Parliament Denise Phua and Vikram Nair.

Lee will also visit Udaipur on October 5-6, the statement add.

Lee's visit comes following Modi's visit to Singapore in November last year after he attended the India-Asean and East Asia summits in Kuala Lumpur.

--IANS

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South Korea on Friday supported India's stance against emanating from Pakistan as Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan briefed its President Park Geun Hye about the action taken by the Indian army at the terror camps across the Line of Control (LoC).

In the meeting held in the President House here, meaningful discussions were held on several issues and both countries stressed upon further strengthening their relationship, said an official statement.

Informing Park about the "strong action" taken by India against terrorism, Mahajan apprised the Korean President about the continuous terrorist activities being carried out from Pakistan's territory.

"Supporting India's strong views on terrorism, Park condemned of every type," the statement added.

Park said that India and South Korea stand together against .

The two leader also discussed the progress made on the issues relating to strategic partnership built during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May last year, and economic relations and other subjects, where it was reiterated that South Korea is a natural partner of India for economic development.

They discussed security issues of northeast Asia, said the statement, adding Park expressed concern on the continuous development of atomic missile technology by North Korea and appreciated the response of India on the fifth nuclear test conducted by it.

--IANS

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The leader of Turkey's main opposition party on Friday voiced opposition to the extension of the state of emergency imposed in the country in the wake of the failed July 15 coup.

"The state of emergency should be terminated as quickly as possible," Xinhua news agency quoted Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People's Party, as saying here, saying its prolongation would strengthen the perception of a "counter-coup".

"Otherwise Turkey's democratic path would be in jeopardy," he said.

A day earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the government's intention to extend for another three months the state of emergency declared five days after the outbreak of the coup plot, in which more than 240 people were killed and nearly 2,200 others injured.

In the ongoing crackdown, more than 50,000 people, among them military officers, civil servants, lawyers, academicians and journalists, have been detained.

Kilicdaroglu stressed that an additional 93,000 others, including prominent intellectuals, have been dismissed from their posts.

In his view, the statutory decrees adopted under the state of emergency have given the president unlimited power above the constitutional institutions, including instant detention of anyone and shutting down of the media outlets at his own discretion.

The CHP leader urged the government to start a normalisation process and put the country back on the democracy track.

The pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party had voiced its displeasure as well.

In a written statement released on Thursday, the party criticized the President and the ruling party for "ruling the country under decree-laws, ignoring the parliament, universal human rights and principles of democracy".

--IANS

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Ambassador Richard Verma, who was in the US, is rushing back to India in the wake of the Indian Army's surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.

At his daily press briefing here on Thursday, US State Department spokesperson John Kirby said that Verma recheduled an event he was to attend at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and would be rushing back to New Delhi.

"He (Verma) did have to reschedule his event at the Wilson Centre and, as far as I know, he's returning to New Delhi," Kirby said.

"My understanding is that he believed that it was appropriate for him to go back," he said.

"And I mean, he's a - he's got a big job, there's a lot of responsibilities that come with it, and obviously it's a very dynamic situation, and he felt it was prudent to go back."

The Indian Army on Wednesday night carried out surgical strikes across the LoC on terror launch pads inflicting "significant casualties", according to Indian Director General Military Operations Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh.

This action came after the September 18 cross-border terror attack on an Indian Army garrison at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir that claimed the lives of 19 soldiers.

India has blamed the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed for the attack.

--IANS

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The town of Berwick-upon-Tweed lies on the border of Scotland and England. It changed hands many times in the Anglo-Scots wars. BuT (the acronym is irresistible) is now in England but Berwick Rangers FC plays in the Scottish league.
Smarting under the impact of 9/11, the Bush administration had its battering ram, Deputy Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage, to summon the chief of Pakistans ISI, asking him to dump Taliban and become a US ally, or else. The Pakistani general started arguing that there was a history of his countrys and the agencys role in Afghanistan and how they had vital interests there. History, Mr Armitage is said to have declared, begins here and now.
The Allahabad High Court on Friday deferred the hearing on a petition challenging the election of Prime Minister from Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency in eastern Uttar Pradesh till October 19 .

The petition filed by MLA Ajay Rai, who was fielded by Congress from Varanasi in the 2014 general elections, was being heard by Justice V K Shukla.

Arguing on behalf of Modi, senior advocate and BJP leader Satya Pal Jain said the petition was "not maintainable" and "deserves to be dismissed with cost".

"The petitioner has failed to place on record any material facts and has simply levelled allegations on the basis of hearsay. Moreover, allegations made by him like distribution of caps bearing photographs of Modi pertain to the period before he filed his nomination papers on April 24, 2014. There are a number of Supreme Court judgements wherein it has been held that a person can be treated as a candidate only from the date he files his nomination and that he cannot be held responsible for any act of his supporters prior to that date," he said.

In the light of these facts, the petition deserves to be dismissed with costs, said Jain, who is also the Additional Solicitor General of India in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Jain, who is a member of the BJP's executive and a former Lok Sabha member from Chandigarh, also prayed for rejecting the election petition "invoking provisions of Order 7 Rule 11 of the Civil Procedure Code" but added that he would "need two more days of hearing to complete my arguments".

The court, thereafter, fixed October 19 as the next date of hearing in the matter.

Rai, who represents Pindra in the state assembly, had filed the election petition in June, 2014, shortly after results for the Lok Sabha polls were declared.

A former BJP member himself, Rai had joined the Congress in 2012 after a brief association with the Samajwadi Party.

Although a local, Rai performed badly in Varanasi where the electoral battle turned out to be a one-sided affair with Modi bagging more than 50 per cent of the nearly 10.3 lakh votes that were polled.

Among Modi's challengers, only Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party could manage to save his deposit even though he was defeated by the winning candidate by a huge margin of 3.71 lakh votes.

Rai finished third in Varanasi seat, which Modi went on to retain after becoming the Prime Minister, resigning from Vadodara constituency in Gujarat where he had won with a record marging of 5.7 lakh votes.
A popular Bismarck brewery, Laughing Sun Brewery Co., will be taking its craft beer to Mandan in the summer of 2017.

We look at Mandan as a place for real opportunity and growth, said Laughing Sun co-owner, Todd Sattler.

The new location will be on the corner of First and Sixth Street, across the street from the Morton Mandan Public Library. The 16,000-square-foot building will be an upgrade from the current 1,500-square-foot property in downtown Bismarck.

The Laughing Sun Brewery opened in 2012. Sattler said the brewery was one of the first breweries to start up in North Dakota since the 1960s.

Sattler wanted North Dakotans to experience craft beer verses the light lagers being offered in the area

We put a lot of work into educating our staff at and everyone at Laughing Sun, said Sattler.

Sattler said he and business partner Mike Frohlich realized by 2014 they would grow out of their current location and started thinking about a second expansion property.

The building in Mandan has the right infrastructure that Sattler and Frohlich were looking for, the building and property fit their desire to brew beer on a larger scale and in the right infrastructure.

Another big difference about the Mandan location is the restaurant portion of the brewery, complete with an outdoor patio.

The great thing about the Mandan location is weve a large parking lot and room to do what we want with the patio, said Sattler.

During this year's Oktober Fest in Dykshoorn Park, Laughing Sun introduced its new beer, Rusty Tracks Autumn Brown Ale, made with aronia berries from an orchard near Harvey.

Sattler said the brewery has made about 70 different types of beer since opening its doors in 2012 and customers can expect new beer at the Mandan location.

With the new location in Mandan the owners hope to source local ingredients as much as possible in their craft beers.

Mandan (location) is going to be a production facility with your neighborhood brewery built into it, said Frohlich.

Tap room, restaurant and production facility will them get beer to get across the state. Frohlich said he and Sattler are excited have received support from the community, including folks around town already calling it their neighborhood brewery.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is slated to hold a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security on Friday. The meeting is likely to discuss Indias preparedness in case of a retaliatory strike by Pakistan-based terror outfits.
A speeding commuter train that plowed into a New Jersey station during morning rush hour, killing one person and injuring 114, has caused major destruction at the transport hub and gateway to Manhattan.

The train entered the Hoboken station "at a high rate of speed" and "crashed through the barriers, bringing it into the interior wall" of the terminal, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said.

A 34-year-old resident of Hoboken, who state medical examiners identified as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, was standing on the platform when she was hit and killed by debris from the crash, Christie told CNN. She was the sole confirmed fatality.

The train's engineer was treated at a local hospital before being released and was cooperating with an investigation into the crash, he said.

"We have no indication that this is anything but a tragic accident," Christie said.

"Was it a system failure? Was it human error? Was it a medical emergency involving the engineer? We don't know."



Video and photos on social media showed serious damage to the transit choke point just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, with the train tangled in wires and debris from what appeared to be caved-in portions of the roof.

The Hoboken terminal is a major transfer point for New Jersey trains and buses as well as ferries and the PATH commuter train that take passengers to New York.

Kenneth Garay, chief medical officer at Jersey City medical center, said surgeons were "all hands on deck" treating patients with broken bones, internal injuries and lacerations.

"None at this point are life-threatening," he said on CNN. "They're critical and stable and being carefully monitored."



A total of 114 people were injured, Christie told the station. Of those, 55 were treated by emergency responders, while another 22 were transported to hospitals and 37 were walk-ins.

He said he had been contacted by the White House and was working with federal, state and local authorities to "make sure this investigation is seamless and coordinated."



Structural damage and the possible presence of asbestos had prevented investigators from accessing the train cars, Bella Dinh-Zarr, vice chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters.

Investigators would spend seven to 10 days on site, she added, saying they hoped to find the train's event recorder -- which would contain information about speed and braking -- later in the day.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she "was terribly upset this morning.

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One more soldier, who was critically injured in the terror attack on Army's Uri base 12 days ago, today died of his wounds, taking the total number of army personnel killed in the strike to 19.

Naik Raj Kishore Singh was undergoing treatment at Army's Research and Referral Hospital here.

He succumbed to his injuries, defence sources said.

Singh was a resident of Piprati village in Ara tehsil in Bhojpur district of Bihar.

The Uri Army base was attacked by heavily-armed Pakistani terrorists on September 18 in which 18 soldiers were killed.

India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, seen as a reprisal for the Uri attack.

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Niger's army said today that 14 of its soldiers and scores of Boko Haram fighters had been killed during a multi-month sweep operation in the nation's southeast.

Defence ministry spokesman Colonel Moustapha Ledru told state television that "123 terrorists" had been killed and "a large quantity of arms recovered from the insurgents."



It was not possible to independently verify this number.

Ledru said 14 soldiers were killed and 29 wounded in the joint operations with Chad's military took place between July and September 28.

They targeted the Diffa region, which lies just across the border from the Islamists' stronghold in northeastern Nigeria.

Ledru said the "terrorists" who had been killed had "infiltrated" into Diffa from Nigeria, adding that two fighters had been captured.

Boko Haram's seven-year insurgency has left at least 20,000 people dead in Nigeria and border areas of neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, and made more than 2.6 million homeless.

Attacks in Niger's Diffa region began in February 2015.

In late July this year a multinational force, drawn from Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, was formed to tackle the Islamic insurgents and clear them out of towns and villages.

Ledru said operations had led to four strategic localities being taken back from Boko Haram control.

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More than 3,800 civilians have been killed in one year of Russian air strikes in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad, a monitoring group said on Friday as outcry mounted.

Assad's regime and its key backer are under growing pressure from world governments to halt a new offensive pounding rebel-held areas of the battleground city of Aleppo.

More than 9,300 people have been killed in the Russian raids since September 30, 2015, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The toll includes more than 2,700 jihadists from the Islamic State group and around 2,800 fighters from various rebel factions, the British-based monitor said.

At least 20,000 civilians have been wounded in the Russian raids, it said.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information, says it determines what planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said the death toll from Russian strikes could be even higher given the number of people killed by unidentified warplanes.

Moscow said yesterday that it would press on with its bombing campaign in Syria, ignoring a threat by Washington to suspend its engagement over the conflict following escalating attacks on rebel-held parts of Aleppo.

Regime and Russian aircrafts have carried out a barrage of strikes on east Aleppo since the Syrian government announced an offensive last week to retake all of the divided city.

The bombardment has been some of the worst in Syria's five-year civil war, and follows the failure of a short-lived ceasefire brokered by and the United States.

Moscow and Washington have traded blame for last week's collapse of the ceasefire deal that would have marked the first step in a new effort to end the war that has killed 300,000 people since 2011.

US Secretary of State John Kerry admitted yesterday that months of diplomacy to end the war had hit a dead-end.

"I think we are on the verge of suspending the discussion because, you know, it's irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place, to be sitting there, trying to take things seriously," he said.

US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned what they called "barbarous" Russian and Syrian regime air strikes on Aleppo during a phone call, the White House said.

UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien told the Security Council in New York that Aleppo is descending into a "merciless abyss of a humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed so far in Syria."

More than 100,000 children remain trapped in east Aleppo, he said.

Two of the largest hospitals in the city's east were bombed on Wednesday in what UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described as a war crime.

Save the Children said that bunker-busting bombs meant it was too dangerous for children to return to even underground schools in Aleppo when classes resume this weekend.

The "ferocious assault" on Aleppo could deprive almost 100,000 school-age children of an education, said the charity, which supports 13 schools in the city, eight of them underground.
The Centre today told the Supreme Court that 93 flats in the controversial 28-storey Adarsh Cooperative Society in Mumbai were still locked and it did not know what was inside those flats.

A bench of Justices J Chelameswar and A M Sapre asked Adarsh Society to write letters to the owners of these flats and open the locks.

Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for Centre, said out of the 104 flats, 93 were locked and they have got only 11 open flats which were taken into possession as per the apex court's order.

"We don't know what is inside these 93 flats and if tomorrow anyone comes and says that their belongings were there and it was damaged, then we should not be held accountable," Kumar said.

Counsel appearing for Adarsh Society said by October 3, some furniture lying in the premises will be vacated and some construction material lying will be removed.

He said the building was vacated and no one has been staying there and the 93 flats belonged to those who have got the allotment papers.

The counsel further said they will write to these flat owners to open the locks, so that it can be handed over to the Centre as per the court's direction.

The bench posted the matter for further hearing along with the petition challenging the Bombay High Court order directing demolition of the building.

On September 9, the apex court has asked the Centre to respond to the plea of the Adarsh Cooperative Society on maintenance of the scam-tainted building.

The housing society has sought a direction to the Military Engineering Services (MES), the custodian of the building, to ensure proper maintenance of facilities like lifts, generators and fire fighting equipments of the building as the office bearers of the society and flat owners have been barred from entering the premises by the apex court.

The apex court had earlier asked the society to consider bearing the expenses to be incurred on maintenance of the 28- storey building whose possession has been handed over to the Centre in pursuance to the apex court's order.

The apex court had on July 22 asked the Centre to secure



possession of Adarsh apartments at the posh Colaba area of South Mumbai for Kargil heroes and war widows, after taking its possession from the housing society by August 5.

The bench had also said that the word "secure" meant that there will be no razing of the building.

It had also issued notices on a batch of pleas, filed against the Bombay High Court decision ordering demolition, by the housing society and some allottees.

Earlier, the High Court had ordered demolition of the apartments and sought initiation of criminal proceedings against politicians and bureaucrats for "misuse" of powers, holding that the tower was illegally constructed.

The High Court, while ordering demolition, had stayed the operation for 12 weeks of its order to pull it down to enable the society to move the apex court with the appeal.

In its order, the HC bench had asked the Ministry of Environment and Forest to carry out the demolition at the expense of petitioners (Adarsh Society).

It had also asked the Centre and Maharashtra Government to consider initiating civil and criminal proceedings against bureaucrats, ministers and politicians for misuse and abuse of power to get plots under the scheme, originally meant for Kargil war heroes and war widows.

The Adarsh scam kicked up a huge political storm after it surfaced in 2010, leading to the resignation of then Congress Chief Minister Ashok Chavan.
The Delhi government today said it will submit an affidavit in the Supreme Court on Monday naming officials who have been "defying" the city administration's orders with specific instances of non-compliance.

The decision was taken on a day the apex court questioned the city government's assertion that babus were not cooperating in checking vector-borne diseases.

"The government will name officers not following its orders in the affidavit to be submitted on Monday. It will also provide specific instances where officers are defying directions of the elected government at the behest of Lt-Governor Najeeb Jung," a source said.

The Supreme Court today took strong exception of Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain's allegation, through an affidavit, that officials were not cooperating and taking responsiblity to check vector-borne disease like dengue and chikungunya in the national capital.

The Court asked the governemnt counsel to give names and evidence of those officials by October 3.

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Lashing out at the ruling TMC for taking over opposition-ruled municipalities and engineering switch over of MLAs, WBPCC president Adhir Chowdhury today challenged the Trinamool Congress to win over these municipalities and Assembly seats in by-elections.

"Many people are saying that MLAs and councillors are leaving Congress. TMC is taking over opposition-ruled municipalities one after another. I challenge them. If they have guts, they should win these municipalities in by-elections," Chowdhury said while addressing the launch of 'Congress Barta'.

Plagued by defections and infighting, the beleaguered Congress and CPI(M) are finding it difficult to keep their flock together in the face of Trinamool Congress juggernaut in West Bengal.

The Congress today launched its fortnightly party mouthpiece 'Congress Barta' with an aim to reach out to party workers, in order to have an exchange of views and opinions between party workers and leadership.

"If any of our party worker has anything to say against the party leadership, then he can write in this paper," Chowdhury, also the editor of the Congress mouthpiece, said.

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Afghanistan today backed India's surgical strikes on terror launch pads in PoK, terming it as an act of "self-defence", and in a strong message to Pakistan asserted that time has come to take "tough" and "risky" decisions to deal with the menace of terrorism.

Afghanistan's Ambassador to India Shaida Abdali said his country does not make distinction between terrorist groups and is against all such organisations that pose a danger and threat to any country in the world.

When asked about Afghanistan's stand on the surgical strikes undertaken by India in PoK, Abdali told reporters at The Foreign Correspondents' Club of South Asia,"We hope that no one will allow its territory as a safe haven for terrorists to be used against neighbouring countries."



"If terrorist groups continue to exist without action, no wonder self-defence against such terrorist groups will be in the form of action that we saw," he said, referring to the surgical strikes conducted by India on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the Army inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

Abdali said it was "high time we take tough decisions" and they may be "risky" but are needed to be taken to end terrorism.

He said such decisions may have a cost but the cost is worth it because "we have to end this continued terrorism that affects our people, our lives every day and is taking our vision backward day by day."



"We have to fight a phenomenon that is going to inflict us in a much bigger way....The core is that we have to act. The problem that we have is that it is increasingly taking our lives so at whatever cost, we have to end it," Abdali said.

After India, Afghanistan was among three other countries which pulled out of the SAARC summit to be hosted by Pakistan.

In a terse statement Afghanistan said, "Due to the increased level of violence and fighting as a result of imposed terrorism on Afghanistan, the President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani with his responsibilities as the Commander in Chief will be fully engaged, and will not be able to attend the Summit."



The Afghan envoy said he can see Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking "bold decisions" and emphasised that there was a need for the leaderships in the region and the governments to take bold decisions and "risks in order to free ourselves (from terrorism) for good".

Asked about the situation in Balochistan and the human rights violations there, Abdali said, "We have a problem of terrorism and Balochistan is our neighbour. We are being affected from our neighbourhood. Terrorism exists and at the same time people suffer there."



"We want to fight terrorism for the sake of all of us. For the sake of the common people of Pakistan, for the Balochis there and for all others living there, especially the Pashtuns. So we would like to end the atrocity, the wars in whatever forms there may be in order for the people to live freely," the Afghan envoy said.

Asked about India contemplating giving asylum to Baloch



leader Brahamdagh Bugti, Abdali said, it is "up to India to give asylum to an outsider".

"I fully sympathise with the people of Balochistan, who are suffereing. There is a war going on...We should speak for all human beings. Its a human rights issue. We hope that the people of Balochistan will have a peaceful life and a free life," he said.

Asked about four countries -- India, Afghanistan, Bhutan and Bangladesh -- pulling out of the SAARC Summit in Islamabad, he said the environment is "not conducive" to convening the conference when terrorism was "at its peak".

"Being selective against terrorism, and that continues to exist, can make those who are affected to decide whether we should continue our business as usual or whether we should think and rethink on our approach to regional affairs or the mechanism that we have, especially SAARC," Abdali said.

"Afghanistan, because of the evolving security situation that is very serious, will not be able to attend," he said.

When asked about Pakistan's denial of surgical strikes and also its refusal to acknowledge the evidence on Pakistan- based groups' involvement in terror attacks on Indian defence installations like in Uri and Pathankot, Abdali said, the sharing of evidence was a bilateral issue between the two countries. He, however, acknowledged there was "no doubt" that "the double standard approach" vis-a-vis terrorism continues.

"We hope that the approach of denial will end and we come out (on) how we deal with terrorism, whether we are sincere in the war against terrorism. Unfortunately, that sincerity is not there. The fact of denial has been there for a long time. We hope we come clean and there is no doubt that the deception in terms of war against terrorism will not be accepted forever," he said, in an apparent reference to Pakistan.

"Time has come we come clean and we make sure, based on evidence, that we act in collaboration with South Asian and all other international partners with sincerity," he said.

Noting that with regard to terrorism "patience is wearing thin nowadays", the Afghan envoy said it is high time that India and Afghanistan "reviewed" their relations with countries.

"As peaceful nation, we are trying our best to have good neighbourly relations but let me be frank here that goodwill has not been reciprocated so far," Abdali said, in another obvious reference to Pakistan.

Seeking a change of approach towards terrorism, Abdali



said it is important to take along the international community because terrorism is a global phenomenon and not a regional issue. He said there was a need to raise this issue at global fora, including the UN.

"Business as usual (approach) is going to harm all of us," Abdali said.

He stated that Afghanistan has suffered because of terrorist groups from "across the border" and feels the pain in a similar way as India.

"We understand how difficult it is to see continued violence inflicted on the people in a nation. Afghanistan, prior to 9/11 warned the world that terrorism...Will not be only affecting Afghanistan forever, that this will have spillover effects on the region and beyond," he said.

"We have to be together to go against any element...Not just one country, but if there is safe sanctuary (for terrorists) in any other country, we have to go against them," the envoy said.
Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand played out a draw with Li Chao of China to slip to the third position at the end of the third round of the 10th Tal Memorial Chess tournament, here.

Starting off with an easy draw as black against Anish Giri of Holland and following up with a brilliant win against Shakhriayar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan in the second round, Anand did not give much away as black to Li Chao and it was usual work that added to his kitty.

Overnight joint leaders Giri and Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia nosed ahead of Anand winning their respective third round game. While Giri was a class act against Russian Evgeny Tomashevsky, Nepomniachtchi outplayed top seed compatriot Vladimir Kramnik to remain ahead of the rest.

Giri and Nepomniachtchi share the lead with 2.5 points apiece while Anand, on two points, is sole third. Peter Svidler of Russia, Levon Aronian of Armenia, Mamedyarov and Li Chao share the fourth spot on 1.5 points apiece while Kramnik is now eighth in standings with just one point under his name.

Gelfand and Tomashevsky are both sharing the ninth spot with just a half point from their three games.

The day produced maximum decisive games in the event with Mamedyarov also joining the party against Gelfand. If he was upset at a bad loss against Anand in the previous round, it did not show as Mamedyarov outwitted Gelfand by launching a tricky attack in the middle game.

The other game of the 10-player round robin tournament was a draw between Svidler and Aronian who both have drawn all the three games thus far.

Anand had no troubles whatsoever in a topical Nimzo-Indian with black pieces once it led to the middle game after two minor pieces changed hands. Anand had an extra pawn, but Li Chao got a bit of an initiative. Playing it safe, the Indian ace decided to diffuse the tension it by giving his extra pawn back and reached an equal endgame.

Anish Giri was at his technical best in grinding out Tomashevsly in a long-drawn endgame. The Dutchman won his second game in the tournament is obviously proving his critics wrong here after some lop-sided performance that saw a notable drop in his rating as well as world ranking.

Nepomniachtchi probably can do no wrong here. It was a long slugfest in which he got the better of Kramnik in pretty much the same style that Kramnik won many games.

Six rounds still remain to be played in the 20000 USD prize money tournament.

Results round 3: Li Chao (Chn, 1.5) drew with V Anand (Ind, 2); Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze, 1.5) beat Boris Gelfand (Isr, 0.5); Peter Svidler (Rus, 1.5) drew with Levon Aronian (Arm, 1.5); Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus, 2.5) beat Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 1); Anish Giri (Ned, 2.5) beat Evgeny Tomashevsky (Rus, 0.5).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Dates to remember

Oct. 3: 4-H/FFA livestock judging, Morton County Courthouse, 7:30 p.m.

Oct. 4-5: All Breeds Cattle Tour, Morton/Burleigh County area

Oct. 4: Bismarck/Mandan Ag Chamber Mixer, Northern Plains Equipment, Mandan, 4:30 p.m.

All Breeds Cattle Tour

Nineteen of the regions premier seedstock producers will be featured on the North Dakota Stockmens Associations 30th annual All Breeds Cattle Tour Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 4-5. The two-day tour begins in Mandan and will make stops in Burleigh, Morton and Oliver counties.

All cattle producers should consider attending this event to see a sampling of many different breeders herds in just a couple of days. Its a great way to preview their offerings and to catch up with other producers and agribusiness professionals on the tour. In addition producers will have the opportunity to see livestock handling facilities at these operations.

Registration begins at 7 a.m. Oct. 4 at the tour headquarters, the Comfort Inn & Suites in Mandan. Buses will depart there at 7:30 a.m. for visits to MacDonald Ranches of Bismarck, Moser Simmental of Baldwin and West Branch Ranch of Baldwin, that morning. Following lunch and a tour at Strommen Ranch of Fort Rice, the tour will head to Schaff Angus Valley and Ellingson Angus, both of St. Anthony. Marohls Yellowtop Angus of Solen will be displaying cattle at the Ellingson Angus stop. The tour will resume at Kellers Broken Heart Ranch of Mandan and Tokach Angus Ranch of St. Anthony, before supper and socializing at the St. Anthony Verein Hall at approximately 6:30 p.m.

The tour will continue on Oct. 5 with 7 a.m. registration and 7:30 a.m. bus departure at the Comfort Inn & Suites, Mandan. Gustins Diamond D Gelbvieh, Helbling Herefords and Chimney Butte Ranch, all of Mandan, and TNT Simmentals of Almont will host the morning stops. The tour will then journey to the Morton County Fairgrounds in New Salem, where lunch will be served and Doll Ranch, Fast Angus/Strommen Cattle Co., Kaelberer Simmental and Kunkel Simmental, all of New Salem, will be exhibiting their livestock. A stop at Diamond J Angus of Mandan will follow, and a stop at Mandan Lake Simmental of Center will conclude the tour.

A grand finale door prize worth $500 toward the purchase of an animal from any of the tour hosts will be drawn at the final stop. You must be present to win. There is no cost to attend the tour. Preregistration is not required, but it is appreciated for meal and transportation planning purposes. To assure a spot on the bus and to be entered into a drawing for $250 cash, call 701-223-2522.

The All Breeds Cattle Tour is a project of the NDSA Seedstock Council. The NDSA is a producer organization dating from 1929.
Vice President Hamid Ansari tonight left for home after concluding his five-day visit to Nigeria and Mali during which he met top leaders of the two countries and also participated in a number of events.

He was seen off at the Malian airport by Prime Minister Modibo Keita.

Earlier in the day, he addressed the National Assembly, the Parliament of Mali and met President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Prime Minister Keita, CEOs of Indian-origin and Indian companies and also Indians posted in the West African country under United Nations Mission.

He also participated in the Friday prayers at the Grand Mosque here with the Prime Minister and hundreds of other devout.

Two MoUs were also signed between India and Mali, one on standards and the other on cultural exchange.

Ansari's was the first high-level visit by any Indian leader to Mali.

Nigeria was the first stop for Ansari. In Nigerian capital Abuja, he held talks with President Muhammadu Buhari and his counterpart Yemi Osinbajo, addressed members of the Nigerian and Indian industry and also the Indian community besides delivering a speech at the National College of Defence.

From Abuja, he reached Nigeria's largest city of Lagos where he met members of the Indian community and also delivered a speech at the University of Lagos.

An agreement was signed on standards in Nigeria. Besides a letter of intent on agreements on health, customs, transfer of sentenced persons, and new and renewable energy was signed.

The two countries held discussions on a range of issues including cooperation in the field of security, defence, ICT, culture, oil and gas, concessional credits, bilateral air services agreements, power, IT, telecom, infrastructure and fight against terrorism.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group is bombing bridges in eastern Syria in a bid to restrict the group's movement in the area bordering Iraq, a monitor said today.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said US-led air strikes destroyed a bridge near the IS-held town of Albu Kamal in Deir Ezzor province early on Friday, the third key bridge in the area to be destroyed by coalition strikes in the past week.

"The strikes destroyed a bridge... Outside of the town of Albu Kamal, cutting the border town and the surrounding area off from the rest of Deir Ezzor," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Earlier this week, coalition strikes targeted the only two remaining bridges across the Euphrates River in the province, Abdel Rahman said.

Eastern Deir Ezzor province is almost entirely controlled by IS, with the exception of the provincial capital and its military airport, which are held by government forces.

The oil-rich province is a key part of IS's self-proclaimed "caliphate", and borders territory under its control in Iraq.

The Observatory said coalition aircraft earlier this month dropped leaflets in parts of Deir Ezzor warning that it planned to target bridges and urging civilians to avoid them.

The strikes are intended to "paralyse IS inside of Deir Ezzor", Abdel Rahman said, adding that the group "uses these bridges for movement inside the province and from there to Iraq".

"They are also a main route for oil trade," which has been a source of revenue for IS, he said.

Asked about the destruction of bridges in Deir Ezzor, a US defence official confirmed that the coalition was working on "cutting IS lines of communications to further restrict its ability to move around the battlefield".

Today, Syrian state television quoted the foreign ministry as criticising the coalition for targeting infrastructure.

The US defence official acknowledged that destroying the bridges would affect civilians, but described Deir Ezzor as "an important crossroads" for IS.

"More harm will be done to the Syrian population if IS is allowed to continue to use these bridges," he said.

The strikes come as preparations gather steam for an offensive to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul across the border from IS.

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A Major of Assam Rifles was injured in an ambush by militants early today in Manipur's Ukhrul district.

Police said, AR Major Mandeep Singh was injured in a heavy exchange of fire during an ambush at Kamjong area which occurred at around 4.30 am.

He was evacuated from the encounter site, around 82 km from the Ukhrul district headquarters, by helicopter and is stated to be out of danger, the police added.

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Armed men looted cash worth Rs 6.45 lakh from a bank in Mahrajganj area here this afternoon at gun point, police said.

The three men, who arrived on a motorcycle, opened fire outside the Raghupur branch of Bank of Baroda to scare away the locals. Their were no guard deployed at the bank gate, Superintendent of Police Kuntal Kishore said.

Once inside, they held the bank staff hostage at gun point before collecting the cash and fleeing away, the SP said, adding investigation is underway and man hunt launched to nab the culprits.

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Army Chief Dalbir Singh today complimented all ranks of Udhampur-based Northern Command for successfully conducting the "surgical strike" on terrorist launchpads across the LoC in which "significant casualties" were inflicted on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.

Sources said the army was ready to deal with any possible attack from Pakistani side in response to the "clinical strike" carried out by para commandos of the army.

The Additional Directorate General of Public Information (Army) in Ministry of Defence here said the army chief complimented the Northern Command for successfully planning and implementing the strike, seen as a reprisal for the Uri attack.

The sources said the decision on the "surgical strike" was taken soon after the attack on the Uri army base on September 18. They said India was ready with contingency plans considering the possibilities that Pakistan may retaliate in the wake of the surgical strike.

The Army also trashed reports in Pakistan about Indian casualties during the operation, saying one member of the special forces received minor injury while returning but it was not due to any enemy or terrorist action.

It has been estimated that casualties was at least 40 on Pakistani side but there was no official confirmation.

The operation was "clinically" planned and the attack on each of the seven launch pads located in Leepa, Tattapani, Kel and Bhimbar were carried out simultaneously, sources said.

The sources said it was a moonless night and total darkness helped the special forces bring the element of surprise with total effectiveness.

It has been estimated that casualties was at least 40 on Pakistani side but there was no official confirmation.

Choppers also hovered over several sectors on the Indian side of the LoC to divert attention of the Pakistani security forces guarding various post.

There were unconfirmed reports that the operation has been videographed using drones.

There have been satellite images of the operation, the sources said.

Meanwhile, one more soldier, who was critically injured in the terror attack on Army's Uri base 12 days ago, today died of his wounds, taking the total number of army personnel killed in the strike to 19.

Naik Raj Kishor Singh was undergoing treatment at Army's Research and Referral Hospital here.

"Gen Dalbir Singh #COAS & all Rks #IndianArmy pay homage & salute the supreme sacrifice of braveheart Nk Raj Kishor Singh, #UriAttack," the ADG PI (Army) tweeted.

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China today executed a man for setting ablaze a tent used by villagers trying to stop their land being seized resulting death of a farmer in 2014.

Wang Yuefu, the main defendant in the arson attack, was executed by the Qingdao Intermediate People's Court after the Shandong Provincial Higher People's Court dismissed his appeal in February, upholding the initial verdict in March last year, which sentenced Wang to death for arson and provocation.

Two other defendants, including Du Qunshan, head of Dujiatuan Village, Pingdu City, received life sentences.

The appeals for leniency of another four defendants, who received prison terms ranging from six to 19 years, were also rejected.

According to the Qingdao Intermediate People's Court, a tent being used by villagers trying to stop their land being seized by developers in Dujiatuan went up in flames on March 21, 2014 that killed one and injured three others.

Du and Wang attempted to force villagers to leave by setting fire to the tent.

Ordered by Wang, three of the defendants, all wielding knives, poured gasoline over the tent and set it on fire, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

The case attracted significant public attention in China and renewed people's concerns over land disputes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Government bonds (G-Secs) rebounded following fresh demand from corporates and banks, and the interbank call rates also remained higher due to sustained demand from borrowing banks amid tight liquidity conditions in the banking system.

The 7.59 per cent government security maturing in 2026 rose to Rs 104.2475 as compared to Rs 103.8650 previously, while its yield moved down to 6.96 per cent from 7.01 per cent.

The 7.59 per cent government security maturing in 2029 regained to Rs 104.69 from Rs 104.35, while its yield softened to 7.02 per cent from 7.06 per cent.

The 7.61 per cent government security maturing in 2030 recovered to Rs 105.51 from Rs 105.23, while its yield edged down to 6.98 per cent from 7.01 per cent.

The 7.88 per cent government security maturing in 2030, the 7.68 per cent government security maturing in 2023 and the 7.35 per cent government security maturing in 2024 were also quoted higher at Rs 107.09, Rs 104.06 and Rs 102.08, respectively.

The overnight call money rates finished higher at 6.50 per cent from Thursday's level 6.45 per cent. It resumed higher at 6.50 per cent and moved in a range of 6.50 per cent and 6.45 per cent.

The 3-days call money rates ended 6.45 per cent after moving in a range of 6.60 per cent and 6.15 per cent.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), under the Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF), purchased securities worth Rs 74.29 billion in 15-bids at the 3-days repo auction at a fixed rate of 6.50 per cent as on today, while it sold securities worth Rs 123.99 billion from 43-bids at the overnight reverse repo auction at a fixed rate of 6.00 per cent as on September 29.

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Having left their crops and cattle behind, villagers living close to the International Border have put up a brave face and hailed Indian Army's surgical strikes in PoK, praising the Narendra Modi government for giving a stern reply to Pakistan.

As they vacated their houses, the villagers remained cheerful and raised patriotic slogans in several border areas including Fazilka, Amritsar and Gurdaspur.

"What our Army has done is good. Over the years, Pakistan has been repeatedly shown its evil designs. From fighting wars with us, it later started a proxy war with India by aiding and abetting terrorists.

"From Kargil to Pathankot and now Uri, it has not learnt a lesson. We welcome the firm step taken by the central government and what the Army has done," said Angrez Singh, resident of a border village in Fazilka.

Evacuation of people residing in 1000 villages within ten kilometres of the International Border continued following orders of the authorities.

Heads of local gurdwaras and temples, sarpanches and the police reached out to people using loud speakers, asking them to start evacuation at the earliest in light of the escalating situation between the two countries.

Punjab shares 553-km border with Pakistan and it has six districts which lie close to International Border.

Long queues were witnessed in villages for buying fuel with some people even carrying drums in their tractors. At many places, villagers could be seen rushing to ATMs to withdraw money as panic spread.

At the border villager of Daoke, people could be seen carrying heavy bags on their heads as they quickly packed their belongings to move to temporary camps or head to their relatives who live in cities.

There was a heavy rush on roads in border villages as people moved to safer locations. Many villagers could be seen discussing the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars and wondering whether Pakistan would retaliate this time after the strikes.

There were many who did not want to leave their houses, saying they did not want to leave their ripe crop and domestic animals behind. Paddy crop is ready for harvesting and will start reaching the market from Saturday.

"We cannot leave our crops and animals behind, we will suffer great losses. The government must settle this issue with Pakistan once for all," a farmer in Ferozepur district said.
BSNL and MTNL will provide Wi-Fi facilities at 100 tourist destinations across the country with the Union Tourism Ministry inking agreements with the state-run telecom service providers to this effect.

A total of 100 tourist places, including world heritage sites, will be identified where the service will be provided within the next six months, Tourism Secretary Vinod Zutshi said today.

BSNL and MTNL will provide the service for seven years with the Tourism Ministry bearing the operational cost for the first three years, he added.

Zutshi, however, said a call was yet to be taken on the charges for using Wi-Fi which are expected to be free for the first few minutes.

The ministry has already started providing Wi-Fi services at 30 tourist places, including Trimula temple in Andhra Pradesh, Bodh Gaya in Bihar, Khajuraho (Madhya Pradesh), the ghats of Varanasi, Fatehpur Sikri and Taj Mahal (Uttar Pradesh).

Zutshi said another 70 locations would be added to the list over the next six months, taking the tally to 100.

The initiative will enable tourists to upload photos and videos on the social media in real time.

Union Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma has repeatedly said the Centre has accorded top priority to tourism which reaps benefits such as earning foreign exchange, providing employment to the youth and empowering the women.

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Canada is looking at India's concerns related with the former's temporary foreign workers entry programme, which has become more stringent over a period of time.

The programme has acted as a barrier for the domestic IT companies invested in Canada to source Indian IT professionals, as the norms for temporary entry have become more and more stringent, the commerce ministry said in a statement today.

The issue was discussed during a meeting of Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman with her Canadian counterpart Chrystia Freeland at Toronto.

"The Trade Minister of Canada assured that a Parliamentary Committee is examining these issues and some of the concerns are likely to be addressed," it said.

Sitharaman is in Toronto for the third India-Canada Annual Ministerial Dialogue.

Both ministers also discussed issues which have struck the negotiations of the proposed free trade agreement between the two nations.

It said that the Canadian side is looking into issues concerned with movement of professionals and provisions that could be built into the free trade pact officially dubbed as Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

Both sides expressed strong commitment for taking forward the negotiations in CEPA and Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) and expressed the desire for early conclusion keeping in view the mutual benefits to both the countries.

Further, the ministers deliberated upon ways to expand trade, having more B2B interface with constitution of CEO Forum by Canada.

This was the first high-level meet led by a ministerial level delegation from India after the new government came to power in Canada. The visit assumes significance on the back of the proposed visit of Finance Minister Arun Jaitely in the first week of October.

Canada also assured India of moving faster in constituting the Canadian side list of CEO Forum and work out modalities faster.

Both sides agreed to cooperate at the international fora on Trade Facilitation Agreement on Services in WTO as well as the unfinished agenda items of Doha Round, given the complementarity of both the nations on these issues.

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Folk legend Neil Young was inspired by the Standing Rock Sioux stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline to write Indian Giver, a music video he posted Sept. 18 and has been shared thousands of times around the world.

Young, a supporter of Native American causes and an environmentalist, sings, Theres a battle raging on the sacred land, Our brothers and sisters had to take a stand, with a repetitive chorus line, I wish somebody would share the news.

Young posted the music video, with footage from the pipeline protests and police action, without comment. It features shots of him driving his renewable-fueled car, lip syncing, The pipeline crosses our farms and through our water, At the cost of our sons and daughters.

He is not the only artist moved by the events of the past six weeks, when thousands of Native Americans from tribes around the country and the world have come to live with Standing Rock Sioux in tent and teepee encampments near the Cannonball and Missouri rivers. The camps are centers for prayer, ceremony and communal living aimed at protecting the water and sacred sites, while direct action on the pipeline has led to the arrests of 70 men and women since active protesting started Aug. 10.

Joan Baez, another folk legend, appeared at the encampment without notice or fanfare Sept. 11 and sang the John Lennon song Imagine during the Sunday evening campfire. Frank Waln, a Lakota rapper from the Rosebud Sioux tribe, recorded Hear My Cry and sings One time, for my people one time, This is our time, this is our shine. Nature-based songwriter Nahko Bear performed at the Red Warrior Camp Sept. 8.

And then there is Charles Rencountre, a sculptor living in Santa Fe, N.M., who arrived at the Sacred Stones camp last week to create his personal tribute to the tribes stand. He was not asked to come, he was simply moved to bring his tools and his heart to the work.

Rencountre turns off a generator and lifts the protective glass mask covering his face to explain his project. He first extends a pleasant greeting and comments on the beauty of working outside, on a golden late summer day, with no clock other than the sun to separate work from sleep.

On a high hill overlooking the original spirit camp, he is building a sculpture titled Not Afraid to Look, a large abstract form of a man sitting, arms crossed over his raised knees, while he gazes implacably forward. The direction he faces, this man is not afraid to look, is toward the Cannonball River and beyond, where pipeline equipment is visible on high bluffs a mile away.

Inspiration for the sitting figure comes from an old pipe, with a small figure of a Native American on the pipe stem facing toward the bowl carved into the shape of a white man.

He was not afraid, this humble little guy staring down the force taking over his world, said Rencountre of a view he also shares, though the forces are different in these times. Im opposed to the fact that theyre not looking at alternative sources of energy. This is not sustainable to the rivers and to the land. This pipeline is not the answer."

The sculpture will be a replica of one he made earlier for display at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art at Santa Fe. The rebar and concrete will withstand the North Dakota weather, and it will be painted red when finished.

This piece is appropriate for here. It had to be at the spirit camp, here with the people, he said.

He has a history on the Missouri River, a many-times-great-grandmother was taken hostage and traded to Pierre Chouteau, a Missouri River supplier for the American Fur Co. His Native American roots are with the Lakota at Lower Brule, S.D.

It means a lot to me to gift this to my people, here along the river, he said. For most artists, its about selling art to the elite, and its in private homes where no one sees it. This is public art, it belongs to the world.

He expects  if weather cooperates  the sculpture will be complete sometime next week. No one knows how long the Sacred Stones spirit camps will be occupied. Weather-resistant structures for food storage and other uses are being built for the winter soon and many say they are in for however long it takes.

The sculpture, made of concrete to last a long time, will be there, too, not afraid to look at whatever happens next.
The Centre has asked the Rajasthan government to provide special incentive package to the food processing units being set up in the mega food park.

During his visit to Jaipur and Ajmer yesterday, Food Processing Secretary Avinash K Srivastava met Rajasthan Chief Secretary and briefed him about the Greentech Mega Food Park being set up at Rupangarh in Ajmer district.

Srivastava "requested the government of Rajasthan for providing special incentive package to the food processing units being set up in the mega food park," an official statement said.

He mentioned various schemes implemented by the Centre, including integrated cold chain, and suggested that the state entrepreneurs should take advantage of these schemes.

In the meeting, Commissioner Industries, Additional Director Industries, SPV/promoters of Greentech Mega Food Park Pvt Ltd, representatives of Programme Management Agency (Grant Thornton India LLP) and PMC (IL&FS) were present.

"Srivastava also visited the mega food park site located at Rupangarh village, Ajmer district, Rajasthan, and reviewed the progress of the implementation of the project. This project is expected to be operationalised by March 2017. The SPV informed that 12.09 acres have already been allotted to four units in the mega food park," the statement said.

The Centre has sanctioned setting up of 42 mega food parks across the country.

In March this year, Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal had said the government was keen to make all 42 mega food parks operational in the next 30 months with an investment of over Rs 12,000 crore.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Democratic presidential nominee has expressed concern over the possibility of emergence of nuclear suicide bombers from Pakistan if jihadists get access to the country's atomic weapons, a media report has said.

"We live in fear that they're going to have a coup, that jihadists are going to take over the government, they're going to get access to nuclear weapons, and you'll have suicide nuclear bombers. So, this could not be a more threatening scenario," the New York Times said, quoting Clinton as saying in an audio being hacked from Democratic Party's computers.

"Pakistan is running full speed to develop tactical nukes in their continuing hostility with India," the former secretary of state told a close door fundraiser in Virginia in February, the paper reported, citing 50-minute audio that appeared on the website of The Washington Free Beacon.

During the fund raiser, responding to a question on modernisation of nuclear weapons, the daily said, Clinton went beyond the question to warn of an emerging nuclear arms race, naming Russia and China as well as Pakistan and India.

"This is one of the most dangerous developments imaginable," Clinton said.

Such remarks from the former secretary of state gains significance in view of an interview of Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif to the local TV channel in which he threatened to unleash nukes against India.

"If our safety is threatened, we will annihilate them (India)," Asif had said.

The United States appears to have taken a strong note of Asif's recent statements on use of nuclear weapons.

"Nuclear capable states have the responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities," a state department official told PTI when asked about the statements being made by the Pakistani leader.

Earlier, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had said while India has generally shown responsible behaviour with nuclear technology, China conducts itself professionally, nuclear weapons in Pakistan are entangled in history of tensions.

Meanwhile, in an opinion 'Consequences of Pakistani Terrorism: Raids signal that India won't tolerate more attacks in Kashmir', The Wall Street Journal warned that Pakistan increasingly risks becoming a "pariah state" if it continues with policies.

It said if Pakistan wants to prevent an escalation of violence it needs to shut down the terror groups it continues to support. "That should start with Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two major jihadist groups that operate openly in Pakistan and are prime suspects in these attacks," it said.

"Both groups are supported by its military despite being on United Nations lists of terrorist organizations," the daily said in the hard-hitting opinion piece, a day after India carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir against terrorists planning to sneak into the country.

The Journal noted that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently offered closer economic and diplomatic ties to Pakistan as long as it stops supporting terrorism.

Pakistan, it argued, needs a new vision centered on improving the lives of its people.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the possibility of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of jihadists, which she said was "a threatening scenario", according to a media report.

"Pakistan is running full speed to develop tactical nukes in their continuing hostility with India," the former secretary of state told a close door fundraiser in Virginia in February, The New York Times reported, citing 50-minute audio audio being hacked from the Democratic Party's computers.

"But we live in fear that they're going to have a coup, that jihadists are going to take over the government, they're going to get access to nuclear weapons, and you'll have suicide nuclear bombers. So, this could not be a more threatening scenario," the daily quoted Clinton as saying in the audio that appeared on The Washington Free Beacon website.

During the fund raiser, responding to a question on modernisation of nuclear weapons, the daily said, Clinton went beyond the question to warn of an emerging nuclear arms race, naming Russia and China as well as Pakistan and India.

"This is one of the most dangerous developments imaginable," Clinton said.

Such remarks from the former secretary of state gains significance in view of an interview of Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif to the local TV channel in which he threatened to unleash nukes against India.

"If our safety is threatened, we will annihilate them (India)," Asif had said.

The United States appears to have taken a strong note of Asif's recent statements on use of nuclear weapons.

"Nuclear capable states have the responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities," a state department official told PTI when asked about the statements being made by the Pakistani leader.

Earlier, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had said while India has generally shown responsible behaviour with nuclear technology, China conducts itself professionally, nuclear weapons in Pakistan are entangled in history of tensions.

Meanwhile, in an opinion 'Consequences of Pakistani Terrorism: Raids signal that India won't tolerate more attacks in Kashmir', The Wall Street Journal warned that Pakistan increasingly risks becoming a "pariah state" if it continues with policies.

It said if Pakistan wants to prevent an escalation of violence it needs to shut down the terror groups it continues to support. "That should start with Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two major jihadist groups that operate openly in Pakistan and are prime suspects in these attacks," it said.

"Both groups are supported by its military despite being on United Nations lists of terrorist organizations," the daily said in the hard-hitting opinion piece, a day after India carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir against terrorists planning to sneak into the country.

The Journal noted that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently offered closer economic and diplomatic ties to Pakistan as long as it stops supporting terrorism.

Pakistan, it argued, needs a new vision centered on improving the lives of its people.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Saudi-led coalition killed eight civilians in two separate air strikes on rebel-controlled areas of northern Yemen today, a government official said.

Warplanes from the coalition, which supports forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, hit "by mistake" a vehicle at Razah in Saada province, killing five civilians, said the official.

Another air strike killed three civilians travelling in a vehicle in Shadeh, a village also located in Saada, said the same source.

Saada province is a stronghold of the Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels who overran the capital Sanaa in September 2014 before going on to seize other provinces.

Human rights groups accuse the coalition, which has stepped up its strikes against rebel positions especially in northern Yemen, of a string of such attacks that have killed civilians.

On September 22, at least 20 civilians died in coalition air strikes on rebel-held Hodeida, in western Yemen, in what a government official said was a possible "error".

The conflict between Yemen's government and the Huthi rebels escalated in March last year with the intervention of the Arab coalition in support of Hadi's government.

More than 6,600 people are estimated to have been killed since then, most of them civilians, according to the United Nations.

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ACoBRAjawan was today injured in a pressure bomb blast, laid by naxals, in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Bijapur district.

The incident occurred around 11:50 AM while a team of Commando Battalion for Resolute Action's (CoBRA's) 204th battalion was carrying out patrolling under Basaguda police station limits, a CRPF official told PTI.

Security forces were outon the operation since the morning to ensure security to Basaguda-Tarrem under-construction road, located around 450 km from here.

While they were cordoning off a forested patch near Tarrem, a jawan inadvertently stepped over the pressureIED (improvised explosive device) connection, triggering the blast that left him injured, he said.

"Head constable Sunil Kumar belonging to CoBRA 204th battalion sustained injuries on his legs in the blast," he said.

Soon after the incident, reinforcement was rushed to the spot and the injured constable was brought to Sarkeguda forces camp where he was provided preliminary treatment, the official said, adding that he was being airlifted to Raipur for further medication.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
For the third time in a week Colombia's largest rebel movement is asking forgiveness from its victims during the country's decades-long conflict.

Leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia traveled today to the Gulf of Uraba region to meet with residents of a town where a rebel unit in 1994 killed 35 people during a street party.

The ceremony follows FARC leader Ivan Marquez's donation Thursday of a Christ statue to a church destroyed in a 2002 bombing by the rebels.

On Monday, FARC leader Rodrigo Londono apologized for the rebels' crimes during a signing ceremony putting an end to a half-century of hostilities with the government.

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Filmmaker Kiran Rao says Indian cinema has started coming out with better roles for women now and feels it would have been impossible to make a film like "Queen" a decade ago.

The Kangana Ranaut-starrer is often hailed as one of the best films to have been made in recent times on women.

When asked if Bollywood is coming out with good women empowerment cinema, Kiran said in an interview, "It's a start. I don't think a film like 'Queen' would have been a hit, or even be made ten years ago. It's great that in popular commercial cinema there are great women characters, wonderful roles for women."



The 42-year-old director says the film industry only scouts for talent irrespective of genders, and that is the reason why there are so many women working in Bollywood in various departments.

"As we all know many women work behind the scenes who may not be directors...We have women working everywhere and there is always room for more.

"The industry is welcoming, they only look at talent. We are only interested in your voice. There's no way more women are not going to be in the film industry as we go along. I firmly believe it," she further said.

At the upcoming '18th Jio MAMI Mumbai International Film Festival with Star', whose co-chairperson is Kiran, two new awards have been introduced, called 'best film on gender equality' and 'best Indian female filmmaker'.

The director hopes the awards will encourage more women to come in Bollywood.

"We hope so...The fact that films can be made with more sensitivity towards the questions of gender is something we believe is important to acknowledge. We have now made an award for that, because you can use advertisements which uses cliches or you can choose not to," Kiran said.

"It's a choice we all make. We would like to award somebody's decision to make a film that addresses this issue," she added.

On the work front, the "Dhobhi Ghaat" director said she is working on a project and hopes she comes out with it "soon.

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Minister of State and BJP leader Pon Radhakrishnan today charged the Congress government in Karnataka with politicising the Cauvery issue 'due to election fever' and said its popularity had slid in the last four years.

"The Congress government in Karnataka is politicising the Cauvery issue due to election fever. Their popularity has been sliding in the last four years and now it has touched rock bottom," he told reporters here today.

"If they are not respecting the Supreme Court verdict, they will face the consequences," he said.

On September 27, the Supreme Court had asked Karnataka to release 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water in the next three days despite the unanimous assembly resolution passed by the state on September 23 to use the water only for drinking purposes, citing "acute distress" and "alarmingly low levels" in its dams.

The court had also called for a political solution to the impasse by convening of a meeting of Chief Ministers of both states and the Centre.

Radhakrishnan said the Prime Minister had been taking efforts to find an amicable solution to the Cauvery river water dispute.

To a question, he said he believed that Tamil Nadu chief Minister Jayalalithaa, now recuperating in a hospital in Chennai, where she was admitted on September 22 after she complained of fever and dehydration, was in good health and would attend to her work after being discharged.

He also urged people not to believe in rumours on her health.

Asked about BJP's prospects in the local body polls in Tamil Nadu next month, he expressed confidence that the party would capture more seats in the elections.

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Crimea has rolled out a red carpet for Indian investors, with Prime Minister Sergey Valeryevich Aksyonov assuring safety of Indians in the region which came under Russian control two years ago.

"Crimea has a lot to offer to tourists and investors, in terms of natural beauty, a pleasant climate and developing infrastructure," he said, Indian investors can contact him directly if they face any hurdles in Crimea.

"We are trying to attract more tourists to Crimea. We feel there is a lot of scope for Indian tourists in Crimea," he told PTI here, after an interaction with visiting reporters to Crimea.

The Crimean leader said his government will boost infrastructure to attract more tourists especially from India.

Crimea tourism authorities will address concerns of Indian tourists who face language issues during their visit, he said, adding that these include putting up signboards at important places.

"Considering the language barrier faced by tourists, we are planning to start English language courses, although Crimean people learn English during school.

"There is a lot of misinformation being spread in Western media about Crimea. However, you can see for yourself that there is no war-like situation here. The Western media says there is a Kalashnikov wielding person on every street corner in Crimea. But that is not the case," Aksyonov said.

The Republic of Crimea became a part of the Russian Federation in March, 2014 as a result of a referendum in which over 96 per cent of Crimean residents voted for the move.

Companies from China and Iran have announced their intention to invest in construction of the tourist infrastructure facilities located in Crimea, Aksyonov said.

Chinese and Iranian delegations have already inspected potential sites for tourist infrastructure, he said.

Representatives of tourist business in India, Iran and China were ready to arrange exchanges of tourist flows with Crimea, he said.

Crimean authorities will support the intention of foreign investors to work in the region and have plans to create a comfortable business environment for them, Aksyonov said.

The region's minister for resorts andtourism Sergei Strelbitsky said the number of tourists visiting Crimea rose by 26 per cent this year, compared to the last year.

This year, so far over four million tourists have come to Crimea, he added.

A majority of tourists - almost 42 per cent - visited the Southern Coast of Crimea, while 35 per cent arrived at the Western Coast. The Eastern Coast accounted for 18 per cent of the arrivals, he said.

There are now 367 organised beaches in Crimea, he said adding tourism sector tax revenues till July were over 1.15 billion roubles (USD 18.1 million), compared to 806.2 million roubles (USD 12.7 million), in the same period last year.

A new web portal www.Visitcrimea.Guide has been launched and an English version of the portal will be launched later this year with the aim to popularise Crimea as an off-season destination, he said.

So far, over 1,300 tour guides have been certified by Crimean Ministry of Tourism, the minister said.

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The University of Mary, Turtle Mountain Community College and Sitting Bull College were awarded federal grants this week to help more Native Americans pursue careers as teachers and administrators in high-need, reservation schools.

To combat teacher shortages and high turnover rates seen on many reservations in North Dakota and across the country, some colleges have turned to educating tribal members to become teachers and administrators at their own schools or other reservations.

We had found that if we grow our own (on the reservation) ... that theyre more likely to stay in the schools," said Koreen Ressler, vice president of academic affairs at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates. SBC received about $800,000 to train 10 students in various four-year education programs.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Education announced that the three North Dakota institutions were among 20 recipients of $6.7 million in grants to boost the number of teachers on reservations.

The University of Mary received nearly $1 million to partner with Turtle Mountain Community College, which will receive part of the funding for undergraduate students pursuing K-12 education degrees. The University of Mary will provide funding for graduate students who want to become principals and special education teachers.

Carmelita Lamb, department chair of Graduate Studies and Distance Education at the University of Mary, said the university identified in its grant proposal a need for more Native American teachers on reservations, where often it may be difficult to recruit and retain teachers.

"These reservation populations are super remote, and so to be able to recruit kind of mainstream graduates is kind of difficult," she said.

Ressler said there's a significant turnover in teachers at schools on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

"A lot of time, younger people right out of college use the reservations as a steppingstone to get into the bigger schools, Ressler said.

University of Mary's grant will be used not only to support Turtle Mountain's effort to educate Native American K-12 teachers, but also to provide them with an opportunity to advance their degrees.

"These degrees are not available to them in their home tribal colleges," said Lamb, a Texas native and member of the Lipan Band of Apache.

Previously, Lamb worked as an administrator at Turtle Mountain, where she said she saw the need for quality teachers.

Rolette County is the poorest county in our state, she said. Thats where were targeting.

Students at all three colleges who will receive funding through the grants are required to work in high-need communities, preferably a Native American community, after completing their degrees.

Were a high-poverty community; all of the surrounding communities are high-poverty communities, said Teresa Delorme, department chair of Teacher Education at Turtle Mountain.

Kellie Hall, vice president of the community college, said many of local school systems will pluck graduates from the teacher education program, though some have gone into non-native communities, too.

"(Students) are very excited about the financial support through this grant," Hall said. "It removed the barriers for a lot of our people, because you're looking at people who are used to working full-time jobs plus trying to manage school and a family."

Through its grant, University of Mary will support seven students in its graduate programs for school administrators and special education teachers. The programs are offered online, which is seen as a huge benefit for people already employed in reservations schools, but still want a higher degree.

"Anytime we have a bridge to a master's degree, I think that's a plus," Hall said.
Several A-listers including Daisy Ridley, Judi Dench, Michael Pena and "Hamilton" star Leslie Odom Jr have joined the cast of "Murder on the Orient Express".

Kenneth Branagh is on board to play the lead character, detective Hercule Poirot, in the adaptation of Agatha Christie's acclaimed mystery novel, said The Hollywood Reporter.

The movie also stars Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Depp will play Ratchett, the man who is murdered in the train. His "Dark Shadows" co-star Pfeiffer will play a glamorous and opinionated passenger with a secret named Mrs Hubbard, the role which was turned down by Angelina Jolie.

Ridley has been roped in to play Mary Debenham, a working-class woman, who is in love with Arbuthnot (Odom Jr).

Meanwhile, Dench is set to play Princess Dragomiroff. As for Pena, he is on board to play a Cuban passenger named Marquez.

Other cast members include Derek Jacobi, Lucy Boynton and Tom Bateman, who are set to play Masterman, Countess Andrenyi and Poirot's friend Bouc respectively.

"I'm honored to have this fantastic group of actors bring these dark materials to life for a new audience. Christie's ('Murder on the Orient Express') is mysterious, compelling and unsettling," Branagh said.

He will also will direct the upcoming movie from a script provided by Michael Green.

"Murder on the Orient Express" centers on Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, who is called into action after an American tycoon is found murdered. The victim's been stabbed multiple times in his locked compartment inside the luxurious Orient Express. With a killer in the midst during a terrible snowstorm, Poirot must identify the murderer before there is another victim.

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Security forces today continued to comb a forest area near the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir, a day after an encounter with suspected militants in which one Special Police Officer (SPO) was injured.

"Though the firing has ended, the search and cordon operation is still on," a senior police officer said.

Yesterday Special Operation Group of police had made contact with a group of one to two militants in the Mankote forest belt near the in the district, following which the encounter broke out.

An SPO has sustained minor injuries in the encounter yesterday.

"No militant has been killed so far, but the operation is still on," the officer said, adding Army and other security forces have cordoned off the area.
Quinton de Kock hit a dazzling century to lead South Africa to a six-wicket win in the first one-day international against Australia at SuperSport Park today.

The left-handed De Kock thrashed 178 off 113 balls, with 16 fours and 11 sixes, as South Africa made a challenging target of 295 look easy. The hosts won with 13.4 overs to spare.

"He was magnificent," Australian captain Steve Smith said of De Kock. "It was a 370-380 wicket if you look back at it now. Someone (for Australia) had to get a big hundred like Quinton did."



De Kock and stand-in fellow opener Rilee Rossouw put an inexperienced Australian pace bowling attack to the sword in an opening partnership of 145 off 104 balls before Rossouw missed a reverse sweep against the first ball bowled by leg-spinner Adam Zampa and was leg before wicket for 63, made off 45 balls.

Rossouw, playing his first match since being injured against the same opponents in Guyana in June, was added to South Africa's squad when regular captain AB de Villiers was forced to have surgery for an elbow injury.

He then found himself in the starting team today when Hashim Amla was ruled out by illness.

De Kock was in imperious form virtually from the start of his innings, hitting a six off John Hastings in the second over. He reached 50 off 38 balls and reached his 11th one-day international century off 74 balls when he pulled Daniel Worrall for his fourth six.

It took him only 27 more balls to reach 150 with his eighth six, hit off Zampa, which he celebrated by hitting the next two balls for six as well.

"During the evening the ball comes on nicely," said De Kock. "Me and Rilee didn't have to do anything extravagant."



It was an opinion which the Australians and everyone else at Centurion might not agree with.

"At night it's difficult to defend," said South African captain Faf du Plessis. "But that doesn't take anything away from Quinton."



De Kock broke a favourite bat during his innings but shrugged it off. "Wood is wood," he said.

In a match in which the pace bowlers of both teams took heavy punishment, 20-year-old medium-pacer Andile Phehlukwayo had figures of four for 44 in Australia's innings of 294 for nine.

Playing in his second match after an unremarkable debut



against Ireland last Sunday, Phehlukwayo was hit for 16 runs in his first over by Aaron Finch but came back strongly.

He had Finch caught at backward square leg and Smith leg before wicket in his second over. He followed up with the wicket of Mitchell Marsh, caught by a diving wicketkeeper De Kock.

George Bailey and John Hastings dug Australia out of a trouble with a 79-run stand after they had been in danger of not batting out their overs when they slipped to 192 for six in the 29th over.

Bailey (74) and Hastings (51) steadied the innings, with Hastings going to a maiden international half-century before he became Phehlukwayo's fourth victim when he was caught on the long-off boundary.

With David Warner setting the tone with 40 off 36 balls, Australia scored rapidly after being sent in but kept losing wickets before Bailey and Hastings came together.
The Delhi government today directed all recognised unaided schools in the national capital to implement recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission and give their employees revised salaries.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia issued directions to the Directorate of Education (DoE) in this regard.

He said the Delhi government has implemented the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission with effect from January 1, 2016.

"The same needs to be implemented by all recognised unaided schools in Delhi. DoE may issue necessary orders in this regard under relevant provisions of Delhi School Education Act and Rules immediately," Sisodia said in the official order.

The Delhi government had last month notified implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations, which provides 2.5 time-hike in basic salaries and pensions of its employees and pensioners.

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A special walk across the city will be organised to commemorate the birth anniversary of the Mahatma Gandhi on October 2.

The event, "Gandhi Walks: Discover Gandhi's Delhi and feel inspired" will be organised by Delhi Tourism in partnership with city based Delhi Walks.

It seeks to offer a "rare insight" into the life and times of Mahatma Gandhi, organisers said.

"It is a unique way to understand about Gandhi ji, to remember him and pay respect to him on October 2," Kapil Mishra, Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts and Languages, said.

The two-and-a-half-hour long walk will cover historical sites associated with the leader whose ideals continue to shape and influence the nation.

"It is a walk where expert guides will tell participants about Gandhi ji, his life and take them through various important places related to his life in Delhi," Mishra said.

The tickets for participating in the walk are priced at Rs 1200.

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Development in Haryana has come to a "standstill" and an atmosphere of "despondency" is prevailing among people, who are fed up with the present BJP government in the state, which has "failed on various fronts", former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda alleged today.

He also claimed that the Centre was "imposing" its crop insurance scheme on the farmers and money was being deducted from their accounts even if they were unwilling to implement the scheme.

The two-time former chief minister, who was accompanied by state Congress leaders, including HS Chattha and Phool Chand Mullana, led a protest march here before handing over a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner which described the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana as "anti-farmer".

A number of farmers participated in the protest march and demanded that the scheme be withdrawn.

"It's Kisan Loot Yojna (rob the farmers scheme)," Hooda said and asked the government to pay the premium amount if it considered itself a well-wisher of the farmers.

Slamming the Manohar Lal Khattar government in Haryana, which is scheduled to complete two years in office next month, the Congress leader claimed that development in the state had come to a "standstill", the law and order situation had "worsened" and an "atmosphere of despondency" prevailed among the public who were "fed up with the incumbent regime".

"I have never seen such bad days which Haryana has gone through in the last two years," Hooda said.

He claimed the farmers were in a "bad shape" as they were not even getting remunerative price for their produces and, in some cases, were forced to sell their crops at a rate even lower than the Minimum Support Price (MSP).

Hooda claimed that the chief minister had "no control over administration" and the state government kept effecting frequent transfers of bureaucrats, police officers and other officials.

"It seems, he (Khattar) is yet to find the right combination," he said, adding that these frequent transfers "demoralised" officers who would "stop taking interest in their work".

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Aviation regulator DGCA has partially lifted the ban on use of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 in flights, allowing passengers to use the device purchased after September 15 which has "green battery charge indication".

The ban remains on Galaxy Note 7, which has seen battery overheating, manufactured before September 15 and having a white battery charge indication on the screen.

On September 9, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) prohibited the use of Galaxy Note 7 on board flights as also carrying them in checked-in baggage following a series of incidents of the smart phone's battery exploding in various countries.

The restrictions do not apply to "Samsung Galaxy Note 7 purchased after September 15, 2016, which have green battery charge indication on their screen," DGCA said in a notice.

In a statement, Samsung said customers can identify the new Galaxy Note 7 with the green battery icon. Devices displaying this visual icon are safe to charge and use during the flight, it added.

"It is important to note that Samsung has not sold a single unit of Galaxy Note7 in India so far. The 'green battery icon' will apply to all Galaxy Note7 units that will be sold to customers in India when it is launched," the company said.

The public notice, issued on Thursday, comes days after Samsung executives met DGCA officials. The meeting also came against the backdrop of a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 catching fire on an IndiGo flight from Singapore during landing at Chennai airport on September 23.

According to the latest DGCA notice, Samsung has recalled Galaxy Note 7 sold before September 15 that have white battery charge indication on their screens.

Meanwhile, the investigation is progressing on the fire incident involving Galaxy Note 2.

Sources said initial findings indicate that the incident happened due to "some external damage" to that particular Galaxy Note 2.

Earlier this month, Samsung recalled its Galaxy Note 7 devices after finding some of their batteries exploding or catching fire.

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In a charitable bid, Disney India teamed up with Stop Hunger Now to distribute packed mealsto kids and families with lesser privileges.

Around 400 employees of Disney India from offices across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore packed meals which included dry uncooked rice, dal, dehydrated vegetables. The team had pledged to pack 1.45 lakh meals, a release said.

"Throughout the year, Disney VoluntEARS come together to inspire kids and families in neighborhoods where we live, work and play. Together with Stop Hunger Now, we hope to create a brighter tomorrow," said Jyotika Ahuja, Disney India's Corporate Communications and Citizenship Director.

The packed meals were distributed to kids via NGOs.

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Thai health authorities today said microcephaly in two babies was caused by the Zika virus, in what is believed to be Southeast Asia's first confirmed cases linking the sickness and the birth defect.

The announcement could affect Thailand's key tourism industry, one the kingdom's few economic bright spots under junta rule, with many Western governments warning pregnant women against non-essential travel to Zika-affected areas.

"Two of the three infants (tested) had microcephaly due to the Zika virus," Wicharn Pawan, a disease control official at the Health Ministry told AFP.

The ministry later said tests remain inconclusive as to whether Zika was linked to the third infant's condition.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) this week said any confirmed link in Thailand would be the first identified in Southeast Asia.

Zika causes only mild symptoms in most, including fever, sore eyes and a rash.

But pregnant women with the mosquito-borne virus risk giving birth to babies with microcephaly -- a deformation that leads to abnormally small brains and heads.

There is no cure or vaccine for the virus, which has infected more than 1.5 million people in nearly 70 countries since last year, according to WHO, with Brazil the hardest hit.

While Zika has been present in Southeast Asia for years, there has been an uptick in the number of recorded cases in the region in recent months.

The WHO has however noted that the rise in detection also comes in conjunction with heightened surveillance.

Today it urged Southeast Asian countries to strengthen measures aimed at preventing, detecting and responding to the virus.

But it praised the reaction in Thailand where "authorities have been active in detecting and responding," to the Zika virus, according to Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO's Regional Director for Southeast Asia in a statement.

This week Thailand's health ministry said it was monitoring 36 pregnant women infected with Zika, three of whom recently gave birth to babies with microcephaly.

Thai virologist Praset Thongcharoen said Friday that "4.3 infants per 100,000", are born with microcephaly in Thailand, twice the global average.

The condition can also be caused by Down syndrome and other infections during pregnancy such as German measles and chickenpox.

Scientists warned this month that the world should prepare for a "global epidemic" of microcephaly as Zika takes root in new countries.

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Following are the events that led



to cancellation of bail granted to controversial RJD leader Shahabuddin with the Supreme Court today setting aside Patna High Court's order:



Sep 7: Shahabuddin granted bail by the Patna High Court in a murder case.

Sep 10: Released from Bhagalpur jail after 11 years in connection with dozens of cases against him.

Sep 16: Chandrakeshwar Prasad of Siwan, whose three sons were allegedly murdered at the behest of Shahabuddin, moves SC seeking cancellation of bail. Bihar government also moves SC.

Sep 19: SC issues notice to Shahabuddin on the appeals.

Sep 23: Slain journalist Rajdev Ranjan's wife moves SC seeking protection and transfer of case to Delhi. SC issues notice to Lalu Prasad Yadav's son Tej Pratap and Shahabuddin.

Sep 25: Kalawati Devi, Chandrakeshwar Prasad's wife, moves SC seeking cancellation of Shahabuddin's bail in the case in which he has already been sentenced to life.

Sep 28: SC lashes out at Bihar government for not putting facts before Patna HC which granted bail to Shahabuddin.

Sep 29: SC reserves order on pleas to set aside Shahabuddin's bail.

Sep 30: SC sets aside Patna HC order, cancels Shahabuddin's bail in the 2014 murder case of Rajiv Roshan.

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Ben Steele was the best kind of hero.

That is, he was exactly the kind of person who never set out to be a hero and yet, by the way he lived his life, was an inspiration to nearly all who met him.

If all he had done with his life was survive the unimaginable horrors of the Bataan Death March, he would have been amazing, but maybe not a hero.

It was how he lived his life after that experience that set him apart. It was how he communicated his experiences through his art. It was the generations of artists whom he taught as a master in his own craft. And, it was the ability to forgive and be hopeful when he had seen the worst of humanity that made him heroic, admirable and, in the words of Sen. Steve Daines, "a state treasure." Steele died Sunday in Billings, Mont. He was 98.

It wasn't that his will of steel coupled with fleeting moments of relief through his art was just enough to keep him alive in World War II; it was that he was able to use those moments to transform others' lives.

In his artwork, we can see the suffering of soldiers and the cruelty of war. We see gaunt soldiers burying comrades en masse. That would be enough to turn any man bitter and haunted. It's not to say that Steele didn't fight those same dark thoughts, but instead he communicated the realities of being a prisoner of war.

His art takes us to a time and place which most could not  would not  imagine. That eyewitness ability of his art is truly remarkable.

Yet his experiences did not break him.

Instead, he used them to communicate a reality about war and those who fought in it. He could have let it destroy him, eat him from the inside out. Instead he spoke of reconciliation and understanding.

Surely if Steele could see life in a positive way, if he could learn not to be embittered and spiteful, then most of the petty grievances we carry can be overcome, right? That's the message of the life of Steele: That he was able to forgive and overcome.

His life's example is probably even more important and needed today when bitter partisan fighting, frustration and anger seem to boil over in so many parts of our everyday life  from politics to road rage.

It seems like Steele's life showed a better, more constructive way. Instead of lashing out at the world and its cruelty and indifference, Steele picked up his pencils and paints and created something of lasting importance and beauty. He channeled his experiences into therapy or art. He did the hard work of reconciling his past, not letting it consume his future.

We're saddened that Steele won't be around to see the opening of the middle school that will bear his name. Yet, we know the idea brought a smile to his face. And when students ask for whom is the school named, it will give educators an opportunity to talk about the redemptive power of art, and the true bravery it takes to forgive someone who has tortured you. We can't think of a better, more powerful role model.

We may have lost Steele, but his legacy lives on in three important ways. His family, including his lovely wife, Shirley, to whom we send our heartfelt condolences, will carry on.

But, his life will also continue to have a ripple effect on generations of Montana artists who not only learned about World War II, but learned how to create art at the feet of a master.

Finally, Steele's artwork has given Montana and the rest of the world a clearer picture of what the Bataan Death March and captivity was like. And by his example we've been given a role model for forgiveness and understanding. Maybe that, even more than his artwork, should earn him hero status in our book.

 Billings (Mont.) Gazette
Fortis Healthcare today said it is providing corporate guarantee for a term loan of Rs 225 crore that its subsidiary Fortis Hospitals is availing from Yes Bank.

"One of the company's wholly-owned subsidiary company that is Fortis Hospitals Ltd ... Has agreed to accept a term loan of Rs 225 crore from Yes Bank Ltd," Fortis Healthcare said in a filing to BSE.

Being the holding company, Fortis Healthcare has agreed to provide corporate guarantee for the said credit facility, it added.

Shares of Fortis Healthcare today closed at Rs 166.60 per scrip on BSE, up 2.68 per cent from its previous close.

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Congress' Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik today accused Union minister Nitin Gadkari of "keeping Goa government in the dark" on the plan of nationalising inland waterways.

"Assurance by Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar to the Assembly that he would show the draft of the Memorandum of Association to be entered into by the Goa government with the Inland Waterways Authority, to the MLAs has not been fulfilled," he said in a statement here.

The Congress leader was in Mumbai to attend a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee today.

Naik alleged that the Chief Minister could not fulfil his promise of showing the draft to the legislators as Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari "kept the Goa government in the dark."



Under the project, the Centre has announced that they will take up nationalisation of six waterways in Goa which will off load the traffic from the roads to the rivers.

Inland waterways Authority of India had recently signed an agreement with Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) to dredge the port area.

Naik said MPT is not an entity which can function in isolation nor the land on which it operates is asovereign land. Therefore, MPT and Gadkari or his ministry cannot sign any agreement disregarding the state government.

The Congress MP had strongly opposed the nationalisation of six Goa rivers in Parliament alleging that there is a "big conspiracy" to grab vast land lying on both sides of Mandovi, Zuari, Mapuca, Chapora and Sal rivers.

Naik claimed there was a confrontation between him and Gadkari during a debate in the Rajya Sabha.

"Goa will cease to have any control over the riverbeds and also the landon the banks, as may be specified by rules framed under the Nationalisation of Rivers Act," he alleged.

He claimedthe Centre has not done any environment impact assessmentbeforethe plan, and therefore, fishermen communities interest has also been totally ignored.

"If dredging for the purpose of improving transportation through rivers was the only objective, it could have been achieved by giving some financial assistance to Goa government, who would have been bound to takefishermen community into confidencebefore undertaking any dredging activity," Naik added.

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The government is far from meeting its sanitation target of building a toilet for every household by 2019, a green body today said and claimed its analysis shows that less than 8,000 toilets were constructed in 2015-16 against the target of over 2 lakhs in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's parliamentary constituency Varanasi.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised a toilet for every citizen of India by October 2, 2019, the year when the country will celebrate the 125th birth anniversary of (Mahatma) Gandhi.

"Our analysis says that is easier said than done in fact, the NDA government might find it easier to win the election than to fulfil this promise," said Richard Mahapatra, managing editor of Down To Earth, a magazine run by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

In this first-of-its-kind assessment, Down To Earth Hindi has analysed the toilet building performance over the last two years in constituencies of a number of central ministers, chief ministers and a few opposition leaders.

"In 2015-16, a mere 7,327 toilets were built in Varanasi, Modi's constituency against a target of 2,34,489 (till October 2019). At this rate, the target cannot be met before 2048," it said.

Sunita Narain, director general of CSE said, "This analysis by Down To Earth Hindi is also to remind us that building toilets is only a small part of the movement towards access to sanitation for all."



"Firstly, as we build toilets, we must ensure that they are used, that they are functional. Secondly, we must have clear answers to questions of how can we manage and treat our waste, our excreta," she said.

In the case of Home Minister Rajnath Singh, whose Lok Sabha constituency is Lucknow, the achieved number is 5,332 against a target of 1,86,177.

Singh can hope to reach the target only by 2051, it said.

Similarly Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple has a target of 5,47,739 toilets to be built by October 2019 in her Lok Sabha constituency Kannauj but managed only 8,309 and at this rate, she will take 66 years to reach his target by 2082.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi's constituency, Rae Bareli, has a target of 2,87,703, and the achieved number has been 6,581; the expected year of completion is 2060, the analysis said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Industry needs to innovate and redesign electrical equipment that can use the abundant domestic coal which has high fly ash content so as to reduce dependence on imports, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal said today.

"There is a need for us to become self-reliant and self-sufficient as we have to fight the competition on economic and fair terms," Goyal said at an event organised by the industry body IEEMA.

"Some of our equipments like boilers have been designed in such a way that there will be coal shortages and that might be forced to depend on imports. But today, with a surplus coal production, we need to develop boilers and other equipment that can use the domestic coal," the minister said.

He said the country imports nearly USD 10 billion worth of electrical equipment and this needs to change.

Explaining the need to lower or end import dependence, he recalled how the nation's defence preparedness was compromised when a foreign government refused to part defence equipment that we needed the most then.

"The surgical strike carried out by the Army yesterday reminds me of the time when we were standing helpless after a country decided not to give us the equipment that we needed.

"And today we are dependent on some inimical countries for critical spares and equipment and if at any critical juncture, the power sector got crippled for lack of spares and adequate equipment, can we handle that?" he asked.

Goyal also said he has asked the state-run equipment manufacturer BHEL to redesign some of the boilers to take a larger intake of the high fly ash coal, rather than being dependent on cleaner coal from abroad.

"We aspire that we become the laboratory of the world," the minister said.

Goyal said he has also asked National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC) to innovate and look at technology to replace the existing 35 year-old equipment at its 690 MW Salal project in Jammu and Kashmir with higher capacity equipment to increase the output by 50-100 per cent.

"I have asked NHPC to look at the technology used in other countries like America, Canada, Brazil as to how we can increase the output, may be through replacing the old equipment with higher capacity ones.

"As setting up of new hydro projects is challenging mainly due to issues like land availability, cost, R&R, it will be feasible to expand the capacity of existing plants," Goyal said.

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Unknown gunmen killed six civilians in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province today, officials said.

Local administrator Mohammad Younus of Baluchistan's Panjgur district said gunmen killed six people from the same family in an isolated house.

The victims include a father, his two sons and two female relatives, said Younus, adding that the motive for the killings was still under investigation.

Baluchistan is the scene of an ongoing low-intensity insurgency by Baluch separatist groups, and Islamic militants also operate in the area.

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Uttarakhand High Court today asked former chief ministers of the state occupying government bungalows here to specify a timeframe for vacating them.

Hearing a petition filed by activist Avdhash Kaushal in 2010, a division bench comprising Chief Justice K M Joseph and Justice V K Bisht said the former CMs dwelling in government bungalows should set a timeframe for vacating them, the petitioner's counsel Kartikeyan Gupta told PTI.

The court also set a deadline till next Monday for this when the matter will be heard, saying if they failed to specify the timeframe for vacating the government bungalows, it will have to issue an order in this regard.

The court's observation came on an assurance given by four former chief ministers of Uttarakhand including Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri, Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank nd Vijay Bahuguna through their lawyers that they were ready to vacate the government accommodations alloted to them.

The only exception was N D Tiwari who was not represented by anyone in the court.

However, standing counsel for the Government of Uttarakhand told the court that Tiwari will also be asked to vacate the government accommodation occupied by him.

Armed with a recent Supreme Court order directing former chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh to vacate government bungalows occupied by them for years in Lucknow after demitting office, Kaushal,a Padmashree awardee, had sought early hearing and disposal of his six-year-old petition on a similar matter.

Kaushal's petition seeks a direction from the court to five former CMs of Uttarakhand who occupy huge government bungalows in Dehradun despite owning houses of their own in the city and elsewhere including Lucknow and Delhi.

Welcoming the high court's directive, Kaushal said once these houses are vacated they can be utilised to accommodate constitutional offices like the State Human Rights Commission office which is currently housed in a rented accommodation in the city for which the commission has to pay a monthly rent of Rs 1.20 lakh.

"It is a drain on the state exchequer as the former chief ministers have been occupying these accommodations free of cost



for years despite demitting their offices besides enjoying other facilities," he said.

A cumulative sum by way of rent should also be recovered from the ex CMs with retrospective effect, he said adding they should also give up other facilities enjoyed by them.

Uttar Pradesh ex-Chief Minister Residence Allocation Rules 1997 by which successive governments in Uttarakhand have tried to justify allocation of these government bungalows to former CMs have no legislative sanction, Kaushal's lawyer Kartikeyan said.

"Our argument before the court was that the Uttar Pradesh Ex-Chief Minister Residence Allocation Rules 1997 were never adopted and modified by the State of Uttarakhand and hence cannot be applicable in the State of Uttarakhand," he said.

"The said Rules provide that the residence can only be provided to persons who have been ex-Chief Ministers in the Government of Uttar Pradesh.

"They further provide that the residence can only be provided in the city of Lucknow.

"The Rules specifically provide that outside Lucknow there cannot be any allocation of residence under these Rules," Kartikeyan said.

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The Madras High Court today sought to know from Tamil Nadu government the action taken on a petitioner's representation about alleged exorbitant ticket rates levied for Rajnikanth starrer 'Kabali'.

When the petition filed by G Devarajan came up seeking action against theatre owners in Tamil Nadu who were allegedly charging more than the government fixed rates, the court recorded the Government Pleader's submission that a counter would be filed with details of the action taken.

Devarajan submitted that he had purchased two tickets for 'Kabali' at a theatre here on July 20 for Rs 300 each. As per the government fixed rate, the theatre should have charged just Rs 50 for one ticket.

He said though he had given a representation in this regard to all the authorities concerned the same day, as well as through online the next day, there was no response. Hence he was forced to move court.

The court recorded the Government Pleader's undertaking and posted the matter to October 21, saying the report should have details of the action taken on the petitioner's representation.

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Union minister and Punjab BJP chief Vijay Sampla today called upon the party units of the border-lying areas to help the people evacuated from border areas in the wake of the high alert sounded after the Indian Army conducted surgical strikes across the LoC.

Chairing an emergency meeting of the core group and state functionaries here, Sampla exhorted the party workers to provide every possible help to those being shifted to safer places.

"BJP leaders and activists should collaborate with the administration in whatever manner possible so that the evacuation process is carried out with ease. It should be ensured that the displaced people do not face any food, shelter and medical-care related problems," said Sampla.

"We should respect their sacrifice. The whole nation is with them in this hour of need. BJP is determined to serve them," he added.

Sampla, BJP's core group and state functionaries also praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian Army for successfully conducting the surgical strikes on terror camps across the LoC.

"Indians now have a sense of increased self-esteem and have started believing in themselves. The whole nation is rallying behind Modi," he said.

"By conducting the surgical strikes and returning safely, the Indian Army has given a befitting reply to Pakistan and has made the nation proud," the functionaries said in a joint statement.

Meanwhile, state secretary Vineet Joshi said owing to the changed circumstances, it was decided to change the venue of the state executive from Pathankot to Chandigarh on October 2.

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Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh's son Vikramaditya was today questioned by Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials here for eight hours in a money laundering case, after which he alleged that the central investigating agencies have been "saffronised".

Vikramaditya, who is also the Himachal Pradesh Youth Congress chief, alleged that investigating agencies like ED and CBI were booking Congress leaders in false cases to please their "political masters".

"The manner in which Congress leaders were being targeted by various investigative agencies shows how they have been saffronised. By doing so, they are not setting a healthy practice... They should not set wrong precedents for the times to come," he told PTI.

Vikramaditya was questioned by the ED in a case of money laundering registered against him and his father. He said he cooperated with the agency and answered to all the queries posed to him by the investigating officials.

He said that he had full faith in the judiciary and would emerge victorious. Besides fighting the cases in various courts, he said, he will also fight them in the people's court.

"We have full faith in the judiciary and will fight the cases in various courts and will emerge victorious. We will also take the issue of political vendetta carried out against us to the people of the state and will fight the BJP in people's court in the next election," he said.

Singh said the cases being registered against him and his father were "political motivated".

The Delhi High Court had yesterday directed the ED not to arrest Vikramaditya who had been called for interrogation in the money laundering case against his father and others.

Taking note of the ED counsel's assurance, the bench said, "In view of what has transpired in court today, no orders are being passed."



Vikramaditya was asked to appear on September 30 by ED for questioning in connection with the case following his non-appearance for interrogation earlier.

ED had also filed the first charge sheet in the case at a court here against the arrested accused, LIC agent Anand Chauhan.

The agency is probing allegations against Virbhadra and his family members of having amassed wealth of Rs 6.1 crore, which is alleged to be disproportionate to his known sources of income between 2009 and 2011 when he was the Union Minister of Steel.

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In April of 1937, the war planes of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy chose a market day to bomb a Basque town, one of the first times a civilian population was deliberately targeted. Pablo Picasso, a native of Spain, quickly reacted by depicting the horror in his famous mural named for the town, "Guernica." It was finished by June. If he were alive today, he might want to paint one called "Aleppo." It should be mounted outside the White House.

Aleppo is not some quaint market town. It is  or was  Syria's major city, an ancient trading center, a cosmopolitan stop for many a camel caravan. It is now being leveled by incessant bombings, the occasional use of chemical weapons, barrel bombs and, recently, bunker busters that entomb the wounded. Even ambulances and rescue workers have been targeted. Aleppo, like Guernica before it, is where the world is learning a lesson it seems always to forget.

Barack Obama tells every interviewer he's anguished over Syria, but that is scant compensation to the victims and it has not moved the Russians or the Syrian government to halt their bombing. Secretary of State John Kerry, like some hapless suitor offering wilted flowers, has been appealing to Vladimir Putin's wholly imaginary better angels. Putin takes the flowers and then bombs some more. Unlike Obama, he knows what he wants. He wants to win.

This is not Kerry's failure. It is Obama's. He takes overweening pride in being the anti-George W. Bush. Obama is the president who did not get us into any nonessential wars of the Iraq variety. The consequences for Syria have been dire  perhaps 500,000 dead, 7 million internal refugees, with millions more coming at Europe like a tsunami of the desperate.

European politics has been upended  Germany's Angela Merkel is in trouble, Britain has bolted the European Union, and Hungary and Poland are embracing their shameful pasts  but there is yet another casualty of this war, the once-universal perception that America would never abide the slaughter of innocents on this scale. Yet, we have. Obama has proclaimed doing nothing as doing something  lives saved, a quagmire avoided. But doing nothing is not nothing. It is a policy of its own, in this case allowing the creation of a true axis of evil: a gleeful, high-kicking chorus line of Russia, Iran and Bashar Assad's Syria. They stomp on everything in their path.

Aleppo then is like Guernica, a place of carnage. It's also a symbol of American weakness. The same Putin who mucks around in Syria has filched American emails and barged into the American election. He has kept Crimea and a hunk of Ukraine and may decide tomorrow that the Baltics, once Soviet, need liberating from liberation. He long ago sized up Obama: all brain, no muscle.

All over the world, American power is dismissed. The Philippine president, a volcanic vulgarian, called the president an insulting name and, instead of doing an update of sending in the fleet, Obama canceled a meeting. China constructs synthetic islands in the Pacific Ocean, claiming shipping lanes that no one should own, and every once in a while an American warship cruises close  but not too close. We pretend to have made a point. The Chinese wave and continue building. The North Koreans are developing a nuclear missile to reach Rodeo Drive, and God only knows what the Iranians are up to deep in their tunnels.

Does all this stem from Uncle Sam's bended knee in Syria? Who knows? But America's reluctance to act has almost certainly given others resolve. There was never any need for the U.S. to put boots on the ground  that has been Obama's straw man, a totally fatuous excuse for inaction. A no-fly zone over Syria, just like the one George H.W. Bush imposed on Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein's slaughter of the Kurds, would have saved countless lives. An Assad without an air force and his killer copters might now be Dr. Assad, the London eye doctor he once was. The Russians would have likely stayed out of Syria and the Iranians and their chums, Hezbollah, would still be minding their own business instead of propping up this revolting regime.

The mural of Guernica once seen is not forgotten  the anguished faces, the twisted bodies, the hideous deformities of violent death. Now we have the photo of the Syrian boy in an ambulance, iridescent red, powdered with the dust of gone buildings, staring vacantly at a world where, for him, there are no adults. Once again, little is being done. Once again, worse will follow.
has shown keen interest to set up a commercial vehicle plant in Jharkhand and a team from the company is likely to visit the state in October.

The proposal from the came during a meeting with prospective investors and Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das in New York, an official release said on Friday.

Representatives of renowned like Clutch Group, Medtronic, Gilead Sciences also met Das, who asked them to invest in Jharkhand.

Das, currently leading a delegation to woo investors in the USA, highlighted the potential of mineral-rich Jharkhand to become an industrial hub.

Chairman PP Hinduja has proposed to set up a commercial vehicle plant in the state and assured the Chief Minister that a company delegation would visit Jharkhand in October to discuss about the proposal for implementation, the release said.

Smile Train, an NGO, which is active in health sector in the state, also took part in the meeting.

The Jharkhand Delegation also held meeting with representatives of American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin and Bihar-Jharkhand Association of North America as well as other investors, the release said.

Elaborating about the investor-friendly policies of the government, Das told the company officials that sectors like food processing, automotive, film production and textile have good opportunities in the state, the release said.

Jharkhand government also signed agreements with reputed organisations, industries and business groups.
Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki has congratulated the Indian Army for successfully carrying out the surgical strikes on the terrorist launch pads in PoK.

Solanki was interacting with the newly appointed General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C), Western Command, Lt Gen Surender Singh, who made a courtesy call on him here today.

The Governor appreciated the role of the Indian Army and said its brave soldiers are always prepared to sacrifice their lives in the service of the nation, an official release said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The International Monetary Fund said today that Mongolia has requested financial support, after a plunge in commodity prices deeply cut into the foundations of its economy.

No details were given on the size of the request.

"The Mongolian authorities have made a request for financial assistance from the IMF to support their economic program, which is intended to address balance of payments pressures and stabilise the economy," said spokesman Gerry Rice.

Rice said IMF and Mongolia officials will open discussions on the program during the annual IMF-World Bank meetings in Washington next week.

In August, Mongolia's finance minister called for an action plan to deal with the government's cash crunch, saying the country is "in a state of economic crisis," according to Bloomberg.

The country has been hit particularly hard by a more than 50 per cent fall over the past five years in the price of copper, its main export.

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India and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the world's largest museums, have signed an agreement to extend a fellowship programme for five more years aimed to enable Indian art conservators to pursue advanced training opportunities in the US and Europe.

India's Ministry of Culture and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) in 2013 signed an agreement under which they had launched the Indian Conservation Fellowship Pilot Programme, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and the Stichtung Restauratie Atelier Limburg (SRAL) in the Netherlands.

Given the success of the pilot project, the Culture Ministry and the museum decided to extend the programme for five more years till 2021. Under this agreement The MET will work with the Ministry of Culture to impart a broad range of knowledge on modern operations of museums like conservation and planning of exhibitions.

The programme provided avenues for Indian art conservators to pursue advanced training opportunities in North America and Europe, and to develop broader ties with their colleagues abroad.

India's Consul General Ambassador Riva Ganguly Das welcomed the initiative and expressed hope that the collaboration would continue to be mutually beneficial and help Indian conservationists to adopt scientific western methods of conservation and management.

The MET's Deputy Director for Collections and Administration, Carrie Rebora Barratt underscored the need to conserve the rich cultural heritage of India and said the programme will enable mutual learning.

The pilot programme was designed to broaden the experience of emerging conservators and to establish a larger and stronger conservation community in India with international links to professionals in the field. A total of 16 fellowships of approximately 3-6 months each was sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum, SRAL, and the Ministry of Culture between 2013 and 2015.

The Met is one of the world's largest and finest museums, with collections spanning more than 5,000 years of world culture, from prehistory to the present and from every part of the globe.

It has been named the world's number one museum in the TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice awards for the second sequential year. The Met said it had record attendance in 2015 and 2016, with its annual visitor numbers recently topping 6.7 million.

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In a significant policy shift, India has decided to negotiate future nuclear reactor deals in bulk rather than going for piecemeal bargains.

Sources said a decision to go for bulk deals has been taken with the view that it will help the country get nuclear reactors at considerably lower rates while at the same time assure investors of guaranteed returns.

This will be done for new reactors that are coming up in collaboration with foreign companies.

India plans to have six nuclear reactors in Jaitapur in Maharashtra with French collaboration.

A representative of a company which is a member of Indian Atomic Industrial Forum, which manufactures equipment for Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and its PSU, said the move will ensure guaranteed returns on their investments.

"This is a significant policy shift and it gives us an assured guarantee for the investments that we are making," said the senior executive with whose company negotiations are on to build reactors.

In March this year, French company EDF signed an MoU with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd, a PSU under the DAE, for construction of six nuclear reactors in Jaitapur.

Sources said, initially the plan was to negotiate for two reactors but the government later decided to go for all six.

Similarly, negotiations for bulk purchase are also underway with WestingHouse Co, which will build six nuclear reactors in Kovadda in Andhra Pradesh.

Another set of six reactors are to come up with the help of GE Hitachi in near future.

The move is expected to bring down the cost, which has been a major hurdle in the progress of the project.

A DAE official said similar negotiations could not take place with the Russian firms which built Kudankulam units 1 and 2. Six units of KKNPP are under construction.

With nearly 20 foreign reactors expected to come up in the near future, the move will help in localisation and benefit domestic companies working in the Indian nuclear sector.

India currently has 19 working power reactors.

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An Indian woman, who lives in Scotland with her Scottish husband and two young daughters, is faced with the threat of being deported and separated from her family as she did not have the "correct type of visa."



Gloria Macleod, whose husband Robert grew up in Dingwall in the Scottish Highlands but is currently working in Dubai, was refused entry to the UK at Inverness airport on Monday after being told she did not have the correct visa.

She was placed on a temporary admission order, which expires tomorrow.

Local MP Ian Blackford is in talks with the UK Home Office about Macleod's situation, which could see her daughters left in the care of elderly grandparents if she is deported.

Macleod, an Indian passport holder, travelled from the UAE with her husband and their children Siobhan, 11, and Meaghan, 10, who are British citizens, to Scotland to set up a family home in Dingwall.

The children were enrolled in a local school in the area.

She holds a UK C-visit passport, issued by the British Consulate in Abu Dhabi in December 2009 and is valid for 10 years.

To allow her to stay with her children in Dingwall, Macleod and her husband made an application to stay in the UK while Robert Macleod continued to work in Dubai.

Blackford said the Macleods were advised by the Visa Office, acting on behalf of the UK Immigration Service, that this application had to be lodged in person in Dubai after which she would be able to return to the UK.

"Macleod followed exactly the instructions given to her by the immigration service and is now being penalised for this. Her visa is still current and has not been violated in any way. I have yet to fathom any reason why these actions have been taken," the MP said.

"What is beyond understanding is the attitude of the Home Office, who are removing a mother from her family, leaving two young girls in the care of elderly and infirm grandparents for no apparent reason. This must not be allowed to happen and I will do all I can to stop this madness immediately," he added.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "A visitor visa cannot be used to enter the UK for the purpose of permanent residence. It is the responsibility of those seeking to enter the country to ensure they hold the correct type of visa. Macleod was granted temporary admission to the UK and we are considering further representations in relation to her case.

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Amid heightened tension between India and Pakistan, the Punjab government today said it has made special arrangements for the procurement of paddy sown near the borders, as evacuation of people from these areas has left farmers worried about the fate of their crop.

"We have made special arrangements for the purchase of paddy crop of farmers (living near border areas). As soon as farmers bring their crop, it will be lifted at once so growers should not worry about their crop," State Agriculture minister Tota Singh told PTI today.

Asserting that farmers living near Indo-Pak borders will not be allowed to face any problem in selling their produce, the minister further said the special arrangements have been made for the transportation of crop from the mandis and duties of concerned officials have been fixed in this regard.

"We have also decided that release orders will be issued to farmers for taking their crops to rice mills, the minister said.

Punjab anticipates the arrival of 10 per cent of total crop in mandis within next 10 days as crop procurement set to start tomorrow.

The state has set a target to lift 135 lakh metric tonnes of crop for Kharif marketing season with RBI approving Rs 22,000 crore as cash credit limit to the state for purchase.

The state government has set up a committee of four ministers including agriculture minister Tota Singh, food and civil supply minister Adesh Partap Singh Kairon, Finance Minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa and Industries minister Madan Mohan Mittal. The committee will ensure growers living within 10 km from borders do not face any problem in selling their produce, he said.

People living within 10 km of the border with Pakistan in Punjab have been asked to shift to safer places in the wake of surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army across the Line of Control (LoC).

The evacuation process in Punjab is going on in six districts -- Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Tarntaran, Ferozepur and Fazilka.

However, reports pouring from these districts said people living near international borders, who have been asked to vacate their homes, are worried about the fate of their standing paddy crop.

"People, who are living more than 2 or 3 km from the border area, are staying put. Homes in 14 villages located within radius of 1.5 km have been fully vacated so far," said an official in Ferozeour.

Akali MLA from Khemkaran in border district of Tarn Taran, Virsa Singh Valtoha expressed concern about the crop sown on 20,000 acres of land across the fence on the Indo-Pak border.

"We are only worried about the crop sown across the fence as security personnel have stopped farmers from visiting their farms (in the wake of tension between India and Pakistan), said Valtoha.

Meanwhile, Congress MLA from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said people can evacuate but who will take care of the cattle.

"Humans can evacuate but what will happen to the Cattle? What will happen to the properties of the evacuees," he asked.

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The Indian Newspaper Society today voiced concern over certain provisions of the proposed Press and Registration of Books and Publications Bill 2013, saying the government was seeking to regulate "content" of newspapers with a special clause "in the guise of paid news".

The proposal to bring in regulation with stringent punishment leading to stoppage of DAVP advertisements and even cancellation of registration of newspapers to rein in so-called "paid news" was "draconian and not justifiable by any stretch of imagination", INS outgoing President PV Chandran said at the 77th Annual General Meeting here.

"I strongly feel such regulation will have far reaching consequences to the smooth functioning of the Fourth Estate of our vibrant democracy," he said.

Chandran also termed as "arbitrary, unjustified and discriminatory" the new Print Media Advertising policy announced by the government, saying it was against the interests of small and medium newspapers, as also language newspapers.

He said the government had not consulted the stakeholders at all on some provisions.

Noting that several Public Sector Undertakings and autonomous bodies which were commercial and profit making establishments were releasing advertisements at DAVP rates, he said INS saw no justification in PSUs and autonomous bodies getting the benefit of DAVP rates.

"We are therefore strongly opposed to application of DAVP rates for advertisements by PSUs and autonomous bodies," he said, adding all PSUs and similar bodies should release advertisements at the prevailing card rates only.

Chandran also appealed to the government not to consider constituting any further wage board for journalists and non-journalists employees in newspaper establishments.

On the new GST dispensation, he said newspapers should continue to be exempted from the levy of any Sales Tax, Excise Duty and or similar indirect levies so that there is no tax burden on the common man.

Any tax on newspapers was a tax on knowledge and militates against the spread of literacy and dissemination of news, he added.

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A suspected ISI agent, Asif Ali, who is lodged in a jail here, was today produced before a local court amid tight security.

The court has fixed October 5 for the next date of hearing.

Ali, 52, was arrested by the Special Task Force of the UP Police from Subash Bazar area on August 16, 2014. Police had recovered a number of documents from his possession including pass books and debit cards of Indian and Pakistani banks.

During interrogation, Ali had confessed to being an ISI agent. He used to pass information about the Indian Army to the ISI and also financially support other local ISI agents.

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Israel has paid Turkey USD 20 million in compensation for the deadly storming of an aid ship in 2010, a key pillar of a deal to normalise ties after a six-year rift, a Turkish official said today.

The money has been transferred to the account of the Turkish justice ministry, a foreign ministry official told AFP, asking not to be named.

Turkey and Israel signed a deal three months ago to restore ties which hit an all-time low after the 2010 raid by Israeli commandos on a Gaza-bound aid ship that left 10 Turks dead.

The Turkish government is due to pass on the compensation money to the families of the victims in due course.

The compensation was one of the three key demands by Turkey for normalising ties with Israel, along with an apology and an easing of the blockade on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

While the blockade remains in place, Ankara has been able to resume delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians through Israeli ports under the deal.

A final key element is the exchange of ambassadors, who were pulled out of Ankara and Tel Aviv in the wake of the crisis even though diplomatic ties were never fully severed.

The official said that a Turkish ambassador to Israel will be appointed "soon".

Ankara did not issue an official statement in response to the death of former Israeli premier and president Shimon Peres, who was laid to rest Friday, but outgoing Turkish foreign ministry number two Feridun Sinirlioglu attended his funeral.

The normalisation agreement had been urged by the United States, which is keen to see its NATO ally, overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey, resume its previously tight relationship with Israel.

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Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das today invited American industries to 'Make in Jharkhand', calling on businesses from across the US to invest in sectors like agriculture as he touted investor-friendly policies and an atmosphere of ease of doing business in his state.

"Both the 'niyat' (intention) and 'niti' (policy) of the state government are good. For the economic development of any state, industrial growth plays a very important role. Jharkhand is a land full of opportunities and possibilities, whether in industry, agriculture, IT or tourism," Das told PTI here.

Das said states will play a crucial role in the success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious Make in India programme by giving a strong call to investors to 'Make in Jharkhand'.

Addressing a large gathering of investors, Das rolled out the red carpet for investors, saying Jharkhand is one of the richest states in the country and assured security of investment to industries and entrepreneurs.

"I invite you to invest in Jharkhand, there are several possibilities in various sectors. Jharkhand has the potential to become an IT and automobile hub," he said at a seminar organised here yesterday by Confederation of Indian Industries in partnership with USIBC on the investment opportunities in Jharkhand.

"It is not only a mineral-rich state, but has land bank, human resources, single window clearance system for investors and entrepreneurs and offers tremendous investment opportunities across sectors such as agriculture, industry, IT medical, food processing, textile and higher education," he said.

He added that the state's medical, urban development and higher education sectors also offer tremendous investment opportunities.

Das, leading a delegation from his state, is on a multi-city tour of the US to attract foreign direct investment for giving impetus to Jharkhand's mining sector.

After arriving in the US on September 26, he kicked off his official schedule by attending the Mining Expo near Bellagio in Las Vegas, Nevada which is said to be the largest mining show in the world.

He also noted that the state government is focussing on transforming Jamshedpur, Dhanbad and Bokaro into smart cities.

Das also congratulated Modi for India's surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the LoC and said Pakistan should mend its ways and focus on fighting poverty and ensuring development of its citizens.

Calling on US investors and the Indian diaspora to



contribute and invest in the economic growth of the state, Das said India and the US have to continue to work together to realise the vision of Modi and President Barack Obama of betterment of society and sustainable devlopment for all.

The Indian diaspora, which has made significant contributions to America's economic prosperity over the years, should also play a role in the development of Jharkhand with not only their investments but their expertise as well, he said.

He said in the almost 20 months that his government has been in power in the state, investments of about Rs 23,000 crore have come in Jharkhand.

The Chief Minister added that Jharkhand has not been able to realise its full economic potential due to the 14 years of "political instability" in the state before his government came to power.

Jharkhand is now among the top five states in the country on ease of doing business, improving its ranking from the 27th position, he said underscoring that his government has put in place investor-friendly policies.

He said despite being a coal-rich state, Jharkhand has been dealing with shortage of electricity and his government is taking measures to ensure that its citizens get improved power supply.

"We have set a target of producing 20,000 MW of electricity by 2020," he said.

Das also extended an invitaion to American investors and companies for the global investors summit to be held in Ranchi in February next year.
The Kerala Assembly today unanimously passed a resolution extending support and congratulating the Indian Army for its surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC.

The resolution moved by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, said, "The House congratulates the Army for taking steps to protect the country and people and fully supports its action".

The resolution said talks at the diplomatic and political level have to be taken forward to avoid further worsening of the tense situation and to find solution to the problem.

The House also asked the Centre to take necessary vigilant steps to prevent similar attacks like Pathankot and Uri and at the same time continue efforts to find a solution to the problem at the diplomatic level.

In a brief speech, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala while extending full support to the government motion, said, "I salute the Indian Army for their brilliant action".

"Pakistan has been exporting terrorism to India for a long time," he said adding the Indian Army's reply to Pakistan was laudable.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An executive at a leading Pakistani media group says that a director who was abducted earlier this week has been freed by his captors and has arrived safely in Islamabad.

Group director Muhammad Suleman said today that Abid Abdullah, the director of coordination at Jang media group, arrived at the organisation's offices late yesterday and is well. Suleman did not give further details.

A group of gunmen kidnapped Abdullah yesterday after intercepting his car in the northwestern city of Peshawar. He was in Peshawar for work.

Abdullah's driver told police that gunmen intercepted their car late in the evening, forced Abdullah into another vehicle and sped away.

The motive behind the kidnapping was not clear, but the Jang media group has strongly criticised militants, politicians and the military establishment.

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A group of lawyers today prevented eight legal correspondents from covering Kerala High Court proceedings here, forcing the law enforcement agencies to throw a ring of protection around the scribes and lead them to safety.

The incident occurred this afternoon when the correspondents, including three women journalists, were covering proceedings in the court of Chief Justice Mohan M Shantanagoudar.

Sensing the presence of media persons, a group of lawyers who assembled outside the court hall called two correspondents and informed them that journalists were not allowed to enter High Court premises, a journalist said.

Scribes alleged that they were even threatened by some lawyers who were part of the team.

When the scribes informed the matter to the Chief Justice, he directed them to meet the High Court registrar.

Media persons who reached the registrar's room under police security filed a written complaint against the lawyers, saying they had been threatened and prevented from carrying out their professional duty.

The journalists were later safely taken out of the court premises under police protection.

The legal correspondents said they went to cover the court proceedings following a safety assurance offered by the High Court authorities yesterday.

Earlier in July, a group of advocates had attacked media persons outside the Kerala High Court complex here, leaving some journalists injured.

The lawyers had hurled abuses and threatened that they would not allow the reporters to cover the court proceedings.

A section of them even had locked down the media room in the court complex.

Kerala Union of Working Journalists had alleged that the advocates resorted to violent protest against the media as they were provoked by its coverage of an alleged attempt by a government pleader to molest a woman here.

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Punjab Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia today paid a visit to border areas in this district to take stock of the make-shift arrangements for the people who have been evacuated from the areas near Indo-Pak border.

He said financial grant for the make-shift arrangements has been released by the state government to the district administration and vowed to provide "help and support" to the people.

He said six temporary camps have been set up at Sugar Mill in Bhalla village, Gurudwara Guru Ki Baag Ajnala, Gurudwara Jago Shaheed Khiala, Senior Secondary School Bhakna, Senior Secondary School Khasa and Gurdwara Guru Ki Wadali Cheerata. Six more camps are being set up at other places, he added.

The minister said arrangements for food, accommodation, medical support, electricity and toilet have been made for the the people.

Fodder is also being arranged for animals, he added.

Majithia said instructions have been issued to the police administration to guard the houses of the people who have been evacuated to safer places.

He said Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has asked the Union Petroleum Minister to increase the supply of diesel and petrol in the area.

Majithia said that the administration will provide all support to the farmers to cultivate the paddy crop and also appealed to the people not to harvest premature crop.

He said the government is committed to ensure purchase of paddy brought to mandis.

"People of Punjab are very brave and even have shown their strength in the past instances and wholeheartedly supported the national cause," Majithia said, while urging people not to be panic due to rumours and remain cautious.

"We should cooperate with our security forces as they are here to protect us," he said.

Meanwhile, 'Lokhit Abhiyaan' supremo and former MP Jagmeet Singh Brar also visited villages along the International Border and met displaced villagers in the evacuee camps set up in Fazilka district.

"The people of Punjab have always been the first line of defence for our nation and we will proudly support our jawans in every possible way," he said, adding that the government should assist the farmers who will be affected by the prevailling situation.

With six districts of Punjab sharing their boundaries with Pakistan, the Centre had yesterday asked the state government to immediately start evacuation of people residing in villages within 10 kms of International Border in the wake of the "surgical strikes" carried out by the Indian Army on terror launch pads across the LoC.

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One person has been arrested for allegedly possessing illegal arms here, police said today.

Simaranpal Singh alias Romi, a resident of Rawalpindi village in the district, was arrested by a patrol team last night, Phagwara SP Jasbir Singh Rai said, adding a .32 pistol and three live cartridges were seized from him.

He has been booked under relevant sections of the Arms Act, the SP said.

Singh was also wanted in cases of kidnapping and rioting.

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A person allegedly involved in several dacoity and robbery cases and had escaped from police custody in Howrah, was arrested from southeast Delhi's Kalkaji area, police said today.

Rahim Ali, was arrested yesterday from outside the Kalkaji Metro Station after tracking his mobile phone, DCP (Southeast) Romil Baaniya said.

On August 24, he was arrested by Howrah police for his alleged involvement in over 18 cases of dacoity and robbery but he managed to escape on August 26, the officer said.

On getting information that Rahim was hiding in the national capital and a team of Howrah police arrived here, he said.

"The location of the mobile phone purportedly being used by Rahim was traced, following which a joint police team arrested him," the officer said.

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A Shiv Sena delegation led by party chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to demand a special session of the state Legislature to discuss reservation for Maratha community and amendments to the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The meeting comes in the wake of a controversial cartoon in the Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' which met with widespread criticism.

The delegation met Fadnavis this evening at his official residence Varsha in south Mumbai.

Senior Sena leader and state minister Subhash Desai admitted the party has borne the brunt of the backlash over the controversial cartoon.

"The state legislature should pass unanimous resolution over the issue and send it to the Centre. A delegation led by Uddhavji met the Chief Minister in this regard on Friday," Desai said.

On September 27, office of the Shiv Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' in Navi Mumbai was pelted with stones over a cartoon published in the daily alluding to the silent marches being taken out by Maratha community across the state.

The community's demands include stern action against the culprits of Kopardi rape and murder case, reservations for the community and scrapping of SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The silent marches began after the alleged rape and murder of a Maratha girl at Kopardi in July.
NASA's Curiosity rover has found evidence that chemistry in the surface material on Mars contributed dynamically to the makeup of its atmosphere over time.

It is another clue that the history of the red planet's atmosphere is more complex and interesting than a simple legacy of loss, researchers said.

The findings come from the rover's Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, instrument suite, which studied the gases xenon and krypton in Mars' atmosphere.

The two gases can be used as tracers to help scientists investigate the evolution and erosion of the Martian atmosphere.

A lot of information about xenon and krypton in Mars' atmosphere came from analyses of Martian meteorites and measurements made by the Viking mission.

The SAM team ran a series of first-of-a-kind experiments to measure all the isotopes of xenon and krypton in the Martian atmosphere.

The team's method is called static mass spectrometry, and it's good for detecting gases or isotopes that are present only in trace amounts.

Although static mass spectrometry is not a new technique, its use on the surface of another planet is something only SAM has done.

Overall, the analysis agreed with earlier studies, but some isotope ratios were a bit different than expected.

When working on an explanation for those subtle but important differences, the researchers realised that neutrons might have gotten transferred from one chemical element to another within the surface material on Mars.

The process is called neutron capture, and it would explain why a few selected isotopes were more abundant than previously thought possible.

In particular, it looks as if some of the barium surrendered neutrons that got picked up by xenon to produce higher-than-expected levels of the isotopes xenon-124 and 126.

Likewise, bromine might have surrendered some of its neutrons to produce unusual levels of krypton-80 and krypton-82.

These isotopes could have been released into the atmosphere by impacts on the surface and by gas escaping from the regolith, which is the soil and broken rocks of the surface.

"SAM's measurements provide evidence of a really interesting process in which the rock and unconsolidated material at the planet's surface have contributed to the xenon and krypton isotopic composition of the atmosphere in a dynamic way," said Pamela Conrad, SAM's deputy principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre.

The atmospheres of Earth and Mars exhibit very different patterns of xenon and krypton isotopes, particularly for xenon-129. Mars has much more of it in the atmosphere than does Earth.

The research was published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

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Militants today attacked a security forces' picket in Kulgam district of south Kashmir but no one was hurt in the incident, police said.

"Militants opened fire on a joint picket of Police and CRPF at Behibagh in Yaripora area of Kulgam district at around 5.00 pm," a police official said.

He said no one was hurt in the attack carried out by militants, who fled from the scene after firing.

Security forces have cordoned off the area and launched search operations to track down the assailants, he said.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today accused the United States of protecting a jihadist group in Syria in its effort to overthrow the beleaguered regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

In an interview aired Friday on BBC World News, Lavrov said Washington had vowed to "take as a priority an obligation to separate the opposition" from the former Al-Qaeda affiliate once known as Al-Nusra Front, but that it had not done so.

"We have more and more reasons to believe that from the very beginning the plan was to spare Nusra and to keep it just in case for Plan B or stage two when it would be time to change the regime," Lavrov said.

Moscow has repeatedly accused the US of failing on its commitment to persuade rebel forces to separate themselves from jihadist groups such as Al-Nusra, which changed its name to Fateh al-Sham Front in July after renouncing its ties to Al-Qaeda.

A short-lived truce brokered by Moscow and Washington earlier this month could have led the two countries to coordinate strikes against jihadists, but the deal fell apart as both sides blamed each other for its failure.

Moscow has been accused of indiscriminately bombing Aleppo's opposition-controlled east as it helps an assault currently being conducted by Syrian government troops to capture all of the country's second city.

The United Nations has warned that a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Aleppo unlike any witnessed so far in Syria's brutal five-year war, which has claimed more than 300,000 lives.

Russia has said that it would continue its Syrian bombing campaign in spite of US warnings that Washington would suspend talks unless Moscow stopped its assault on Aleppo.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday that more than 9,300 people -- including some 3,800 civilians -- had been killed in the year of Russian air strikes in Syria in support of Assad.

Moscow quickly dismissed the claim, insisting its bombing campaign had prevented jihadists from taking over in the war-torn country.

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A Tripartite Memorandum of Understanding was today signed between Puducherry government, Civil Aviation Ministry and Airports Authority of India in New Delhi to operationalise the Puducherry airport in January next.

A release from the office of the Chief Minister said, "The process to operationalise the flights is likely to be completed and flight operations would be started by January 2017."



According to the release, Puducherry government has proposed to have air connectivity to and fromnearby cities, mostly lying within 500 km radius, and "the cost of fare is going to be only Rs 2,500 which is certainly affordable."



The government felt that this would give a big boost not only to the flow of tourists into Puducherry but would also give a fillip to industrial investment in the Union Territory.

The release claimed that it would pave the way for making flying affordable for the travellers.

Puducherry already has a modern and full-fledged airport although it is underutilised now, it said.

By conceding certain concessions as required under the MoU, the Puducherry government has ensured that regular flights will not only operate from Puducherry to other destinations, the flight service wouldalso be affordable to common people, the release claimed.

It described the inking of the MOU as a "historic phase of development in aviation sector for Puducherry."



The release said the tripartite MoU was inked under "regional connectivity service".

Chief Secretary to Puducherry government Manoj Parida signed the MOU on behalf of Puducherry government while Joint Secretary to the Aviation Ministry Usha Padhee and member of the AAI A K Dutta were the other signatories.

Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy, Tourism Minister Malladi Krishna Rao, Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha and Secretary to the Aviation Ministry R N Choubey were among those present during the signing of the MOU, the release said.

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An honourary title given to the Pakistan Prime Minister by Queen Elizabeth II was challenged on Friday in the Lahore High Court (LHC) on the grounds that it was a "mark of slavery" and against the "national interest".

The 'knighthood' given to Sharif by the British monarch in 1997 was challenged in the court by barrister Javed Iqbal Jaffery.

"Sharif has become prime minister again and the LHC has been requested to order him return the title to the British Queen as he had lowered dignity of Pakistanis by accepting a title of slavery," Jeffery said.

The petitioner said Sharif's decision to receive the title was also a violation of the Pakistan Constitution Articles 2-A and 249 as he should have taken the Parliament and the Cabinet into confidence before agreeing to receive the title.

The court will fix the date of hearing in the case next week.
A major portion of the 6.56 kg of gold jewellery worth Rs 1.87 crore, that was stolen from a city-based jeweller recently, has been recovered, police said today.

On September 17, Mukesh Sanghvi, a jeweller, was robbed of gold ornament at Carnac Bridge in south Mumbai when he and two of his colleagues were heading for Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in a taxi, a senior police official said.

"A week later, the crime branch and Pydhonie police arrested four persons in this connection and recovered 1,654 gms of gold ornament, valuing Rs 45 lakh," he said.

Following interrogation of the arrested accused, DCB-CID UNIT 2 conducted further probe in Bangalore, Navi Mumbai and Mira Road, besides the city.

They recovered seven gold bars weighing 3,214 gms and gold ornaments weighing 1,405 grams-- collectively worth Rs 1,30,38,127, the officer said.

Until now, police have recovered 6273 gms of the stolen gold bar and ornamnent, which comes to almost 96 per cent of the robbed items, he added.

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North East Students Organisation, an umbrella body of prominent students groups of the region, today threatened widespread protests if the proposed amendment of the Citizenship Act 1955 is not withdrawn by the Centre.

"NESO cannot allow this Bill to be passed and the government of India should rethink.

"If it (the bill) is not withdrawn NESO will launch protests across the region and create problems for the government," NESO Secretary General Sinam Prakash Singh told a press conference here.

Claiming that around 90,000 illegal migrants enter the region every year from Bangladesh, he said the Centre is acting against the interest of north east while different organisations are working on for detection and deportation of infiltrators.

NESO Chairman Samuel B Jyrwa said, "The government should do away with the Bill and take steps to stop infiltration by installing proper mechanism.

"They should bring in constitutional safeguards for indigenous people of North East," he added.

The BJP-led government at the Centre, Jyrwa said, is planning to give citizenship to Hindu migrants and this will burden the north east and make the indigenous communities minorities.

NESO Advisor Samujjwal Bhattacharya said the proposed amendment is a threat to the identity of local people and wondered whether the Centre was actually encouraging illegal infiltration through it.

"In his visit to Bangladesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said good governance is there in that country. If that is so and our external affairs policy is strong, then the Indian government should ensure protection of Hindus in the neighbouring country," he said.

"If any Hindu has problem in Bangladesh, then they can come to stay in India and they will be given citizenship here. So are you (Centre) encouraging illegal infiltration?" he asked.

Bhattacharya also appealed political parties of North East to oppose the bill saying it violates the fundamentals of Assam Accord, on whose basis National Register of Citizens is being updated with 1971 as base year.

"Since Independence, North East has been subjected to economic exploitation and political injustice. This latest bill is another example of political injustice. The Centre is treating us as second class citizens," he added.

Bhattacharya warned the Centre of "rigorous movements" across North East if the Bill is not withdrawn immediately.

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Chevron and Total today failed to convince a court to throw out a case which implicates them in the alleged failure to declare billions of dollars in crude exports from .

The US and French companies are among up to 15 oil majors reportedly targeted by the Nigerian government, which claims the practice lost it $17 billion ($15 billion) in revenue between 2011 and 2014.

A judge at the federal high court in Lagos dismissed the firms' applications for lack of merit after hearing arguments from both sides and adjourned the case until October 25.

Prosecutor Fabian Ajogwu told reporters outside court that the dismissal indicated there was "a course of action for the federal government".

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari came to power in May last year, promising to tackle endemic corruption and recover what he said were "mind-boggling" sums of stolen public money.

In July last year he blocked 113 oil tankers from entering Nigerian territorial waters, accusing them of exporting undeclared crude.

Buhari's government then commissioned US auditors to compare the number of barrels of oil declared for export in with those declared for import in the United States, China and Norway.

Court papers seen by AFP said the report concluded that one of "the major reasons for the decline in the revenue from crude oil exploration was due to undeclaration and under-declaration of crude oil shipments made by some major oil and gas companies".

The first case centres around the alleged non-declaration of some 57 million barrels worth $12.7 billion to the United States by the Nigerian subsidiaries of Total, Chevron and Italy's Eni.

Anglo-Dutch Shell's local subsidiary is also expected to face action in the coming weeks.

The court papers for Friday's case only mention Total and say the government wants $245 million in damages and interest, with 21 per cent interest for every year of revenue lost.

Eni said: "The claim dates back to last March and refers to a request to our subsidiary in (Agip) for a payment of about $160 million."

Chevron said it would not be commenting as the court case was active.

But according to a source familiar with the case, the oil companies would prefer not to be in direct conflict with the Nigerian government at the present time.
Odisha today sought from the Centre higher allocation of rice to SC/ST hostels and other welfare institutions in the state.

Odisha Food Minister Sanjay Kumar Das Burma conveyed this at a meeting with Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who said more rice can be allocated only if the state submits the utilisation certificates and provides exact details of beneficiaries in hostels and welfare institutions.

"We give rice to scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribes (ST) hostels. We cannot release grains if the state does not submit utilisation certificate for last year and not provide list of beneficiaries in hostels," Paswan told reporters after the meeting.

Burma has informed the Centre that it was supplying only 803.52 tonnes of rice per month as against 8,387.32 tonnes per month required to meet the demand of 5,47,380 SC/STs residing in hostels and 11,775 inmates of welfare institutions in the state.

The state is facing a shortfall of 7,583 tonnes of rice which at present is being met out of the state pool for which there is a financial burden of Rs 213 crore per annum on the state government, he said.

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Delhi Police today arrested a snatcher in connection with the daylight shooting at a constable in in Ganesh Nagar here two months ago.

With the arrest of Sunny alias Ghoose from Moti Nagar, police claimed to have solved three cases. A stolen scooty was recovered from his possession.

Police said that during interrogation he has revealed that two months ago he and his accomplice had a scuffle in Ganesh Nagar here.

Sunny revealed that two motorcyclists caught hold of him and his accomplice when the police arrived and he had fired at one of the police constables while other police personnel tried to catch them but they ran away leaving the scooty behind.

He told the police that he was involved in snatching and robbery for making quick money.

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GRAND FORKS -- New federal rules opened the skies last month to many interested in flying drones for business purposes, but they also provided a boon to those carving out niches in the industry.

With a barrier to entry now lower, those looking to get a piece of the drone pie are plentiful, but some may need to set themselves apart as professionals as competition heats up.

One means of doing so is bringing in firms that conduct training on flight operations, aircraft maintenance, equipment, navigating the regulatory environment and other topics.

Visiting Grand Forks for such reasons earlier this month were Katrina Jensen and Grady Boyce with SkyGen Aviation.

Their firm offers consulting and training services to clients, which span from large companies looking to integrate unmanned aircraft into their operations to small companies looking to get a larger foothold in the ever-expanding industry.

A lot of companies, even though they have an aviation department, theyre either so task-saturated or they arent up to speed on whats going on in the UAV industry, said Jensen, SkyGens CEO. Theres where they come to see us  as the knowledge experts that can come in and help them build processes and procedures.

Eric Agnello and Sam Girardi also made a stop in the city, representing Phoenix Aerial Systems of Los Angeles, to familiarize members of a local drone firm with their companys products and demonstrate those products capabilities.

Its a good way for us to get our stuff out there, said Agnello, the companys manager of inside sales and marketing, adding theyve traveled as far away as Australia to demonstrate products.

During their North Dakota visit, both companies met with SkySkopes, a drone firm based in Grand Forks.

Phoenix Aerial conducted a demonstration for the business and a group of UND students using its integrated LiDAR system, a device that projects lasers onto the surrounding environment to create a 3-D map. The system can be attached to a drone and flown over areas to produce maps much faster than traditional ground survey crews.

Since UAV LiDAR technology is sort of still fledging, a lot of companies want to get into this end of things, but the initial investment is large, especially compared to some other applications, Agnello said, with some systems coming with a price tag comparable to a small house.

He and Girardi flew a drone outfitted with LiDAR over UNDs Tech Accelerator on Sept. 21 and showed the results just minutes later of a 3-D map of the building and surrounding area.

As part of its visit, SkyGen oversaw flights and ran training sessions on topics including navigating new federal drone rules that debuted last month.

In his role as SkyGen president, Boyce said he teaches clients how to speak fedish  a term hes coined to describe the official-sounding language used in interactions with federal officials and paperwork.

SkyGen meets with companies looking to bolster their reputations as safe operators of unmanned aircraft.

As larger companies seek out unmanned aircraft service providers, Boyce said theyll delve into the backgrounds of those providers and hire those with proof of insurance, training and company procedures.

Thats where the industry will go because theres too much on the line, he added.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton today exuded confidence that she would perform well in the next two debates after polls showed that she did better than her Republican rival Donald Trump at the first debate.

"Well, one down, two to go," Clinton said amidst thunderous applause from the audience at an election rally in Iowa.

The next two debates are scheduled to be held in St Louis on October 9 and Las Vegas on October 19.

"I have to tell you, it was an extraordinary experience because I did get to say a few things about the positive agenda that we want to have for our country, because I want this election to be about something, not just against somebody. And so I am going to close this campaign the way I started decades ago, fighting for kids and families because it's been the cause of my life," she said.

Clinton, 68, alleged that Trump, 70, ran his successful businesses at the cost of his employees.

However, Trump claimed that the first presidential debate was rigged.

"As I said the other night, one of the things that we have found out is that has his own campaign manager said about him. Donald Trump has built a lot of businesses on the backs of the little guy. I have met people who have been the victims of his refusal to honor contracts, to pay what had been bargained for," she said.

Clinton said she is running against someone who thinks climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.

"I know it's real. I believe in science. But I'll tell you what else is real. What's real are the economic opportunities, the new jobs and businesses we're going to create by assuming the responsibility to combat climate change. And the young people of our country are going to lead the way to doing that," she said.

Clinton also said that she would focus the rest of her electioneering on her agenda and it is up to Trump to run the campaign the way he chooses.

"He (Trump) can run his campaign however he chooses. That's up to him. I'm going to keep talking about the stakes in this election," Clinton said at a conference.

"I'm going to keep talking about my agenda that will, I believe, increase growth, make it fairer, have it be lasting, deal with the real problems that families are confronting," she said in response to a question.

"What I want to do to keep America safe, and to provide the kind of steady, strong leadership that the country needs, and to bring people together, which is going to be one of the highest priorities that I will have when I'm fortunate enough to be elected president, if that's what turns out," she said.

"So, you know, I'm not going to comment on how he runs his campaign. You'll be able to see, we have two more debates, what he says and what I say," said Clinton, whose campaign has gained momentum after her emphatic performance against Trump in the first presidential debate on Monday.

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Pakistan today said it has briefed the envoys of the P5 -- the US, China, Russia, the UK and France -- over "unprovoked firing" by India on the LoC and asked the countries to play their role in ensuring the maintenance of peace and security in the region.

Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry accompanied by the Director General Military Operations (DGMO) briefed the Ambassadors of Permanent Members of UN Security Council about the "frivolous Indian claim of carrying out surgical strikes on the LoC", the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.

DGMO Major Gen Sahir Shamshad Mirza gave a detailed briefing of the situation on the LoC and completely rejected the Indian "claim of surgical strikes", the statement said.

It claimed that in reality, on the night of September 28 and 29 September, the Indian forces resorted to "unprovoked firing" at the LoC at multiple points, which led to the death of two Pakistani soldiers.

"The Armed Forces of Pakistan gave a befitting response to the ceasefire violations by India. He also highlighted the troops positions on the LoC and explained the anti- infiltration mechanisms already in place," the statement said.

The DGMO also informed the envoys about layers of fencing, barbed wires, lighting, border posts, bunkers etc, on the LoC, which ensure that no infiltration takes place.

The Foreign Secretary also rejected the "false and baseless Indian claims", the statement said.

"He conveyed serious concerns over the increased Indian aggression and belligerence, especially during the last few days which could also be seen in multiple public statements made by the Indian Prime Minister," it said.

The Foreign Secretary informed the Ambassadors that Pakistan remains the "major victim of terrorism, including state terrorism".

He called upon the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council to play their role to ensure maintenance of peace and security in the region.

Earlier, reports said Pakistan's DGMO met Foreign Secretary Chaudhry and gave a detailed briefing to him on the situation at the LoC.

India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the Army inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.

The terror launch pads were targeted by the Army on the intervening night of September 28 and 29 in a nearly five- hour-long operation.

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Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today called a special Cabinet meeting to discuss the latest tension with India and the situation on the LoC, a day after Indian Army conducted surgical strikes on terror launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The Prime Minister chaired the meeting, which is "expected to put across collective response of the nation to the challenge thrown by the latest events," Radio Pakistan reported.

In their remarks before the meeting, members of the Cabinet reiterated the resolve of the government to defend the motherland at all costs.

Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said support to the "just struggle of the Kashmiri people would remain priority of Pakistan and it would not back down on this account".

He said India is indulging in "diversionary tactics" in a bid to deflect attention of the international community from its "brutalities" against Kashmiris.

He added Pakistan would confront India diplomatically but "our armed forces are also fully prepared to defend the country".

Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif reiterated that Pakistan does not want escalation of tension but it is "ready to meet any eventuality".

He said Pakistan would respond "befittingly" to any firing by India across the Line of Control (LoC).

The Defence Minister said India is displaying "irresponsible attitude" and trying to play to the gallery in a bid to "hoodwink" its public opinion.

He said India cannot suppress legitimate aspirations of Kashmiri people.

In a first, India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, with the Army saying it inflicted "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK, days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned Uri attack would not go unpunished.

Minister for Commerce Khurram Dastgir said India is creating artificial tension in its attempt to divert attention of the world from its atrocities against Kashmiris.

Minister for Kashmir Affairs Chaudhry Barjees Tahir said the world pledged right to self-determination through UN resolutions decades back and now the fifth generation of Kashmiris is protesting for this right. He said Indian policy of suppression of legitimate struggle of Kashmiris would neither benefit India nor the region.

Secretary Foreign Affairs Aizaz Chaudhry is expected to brief the Cabinet on the Kashmir issue and tensions between Pakistan and India along the LoC.

The Cabinet meeting came amid reports that Pakistan's UN Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi is meeting the world body's chief Ban Ki-moon to inform him about the "continued provocations" by India along the LoC.

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Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali has cancelled his visit to India next month, citing "present conditions", media reports said today.

Jamali has refused to attend the global conference slated to be held in India from October 21-23, Radio Pakistan reported.

In July, Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale had personally invited CJP Jamali to the conference on national initiative to strengthen arbitration and enforcement.

In a letter to the Indian Supreme Court, Jamali said that in the "present conditions" he could not attend the meeting, the International reported.

The decision was made due to tense situation between the two countries, the report said.

A senior Supreme Court official said that though the Foreign Office recommended that the CJP may attend the conference, Jamali has refused to visit India in light of prevailing circumstances, the Express Tribune reported.

Jamali's decision comes after heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, particularly after India carried out surgical strikes against terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control.

Earlier this week, India officially pulled out of the upcoming South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) conference to be held in Islamabad.

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Pakistani media today generally supported the government's stand that India's surgical strikes across the LoC were a "drama" to "placate the local sentiments" after the Uri terror attack.

All the major newspapers gave front-page coverage to the "routine LoC firing incident" and also warned that any escalation will not be good for regional peace and security.

Leading newspaper Dawn reported that Pakistan-India crisis over Kashmir dangerously escalated after Indian forces fired across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), killing at least two Pakistan Army soldiers while calling it "surgical strikes" against terror launch pads.

"The claim was immediately dismissed by Pakistan, which said India mischaracterised cross-LoC firing as surgical strikes and made it clear that any such attempt would be responded strongly," it said.

Under a lead report headlined "'Surgical' farce blows up in India's face", Karachi-based 'The Express Tribune' said: "The Narendra Modi administration staged a drama on Thursday to placate a media-induced public frenzy following the Uri attack," it said.

The paper also said the Indian military claimed that it had carried out 'surgical strikes' against perceived 'terrorist launch pads' in the PoK.

"But the Pakistani military ripped to shreds the Indian farcical claim as an 'illusion being deliberately generated by the Indians to create false effects'," it said.

The International, which has wide circulation, reported that yesterday morning saw claims by India of carrying out surgical strikes inside Pakistan, with the latter dismissing it as just firing across the LoC.

"Pakistan strongly condemned this unprovoked ceasefire violations by the Indian forces which, it said, was continuation of a pattern of ceasefire violations committed by the Indian forces," it reported.

Right-leaning 'The Nation' reported that India failed to sell the idea of surgical strikes.

"Rubbishing the Indian military's claim of carrying out a 'surgical strike' in PoK, Pakistan Army made it clear that it will respond strongly to any misadventure," it said in the front-page lead.

It quoted the army that Indian troops committed a ceasefire violation by resorting to "unprovoked firing" at some border points, which was responded effectively.

Urdu paper and television also carried similar stories and rejected Indian claim of surgical strikes.

India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, with the Army saying it had inflicted "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK, days after Modi warned Uri attack would not go unpunished.

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One of Pakistan's most vicious militant groups has dramatically stepped up its attacks over the past month, striking mosques, Christians and security forces in attacks that have killed more than 60 people in what appears to be a backlash to military operations against it.

Ever since it broke away from the Pakistani Taliban in 2014, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar or the Freedom Movement had been carrying out sporadic attacks, often weeks or months apart.

But since the beginning of September, it has struck 10 times, including a horrific bombing of a mosque earlier this month that killed 36 people, many of them children.

The spike in violence points to how Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, which the U.S. Declared a terrorist organization last month, has eclipsed the Pakistani Taliban as the main, most aggressive militant group in a country where multiple armed extremist factions operate.

The Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-e-Taliban, have been struggling in the face of a two-year offensive by the military against its bases in North Waziristan, along the Afghan border. The assault has hampered its ability to carry out attacks and fueled splits by factions breaking away from the movement.

In contrast, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has continued its blows even after military assaults on its home territory in Mohmand, another tribal area in the northwest of the country along the border with Afghanistan. It gained notoriety in late 2014 when it took responsibility for a vicious attack on a public army school that killed 125 people, most of them children, and again in early 2016 with a series of brutal attacks, including suicide bombings against Christians in Lahore on Easter that killed more than 70 people.

In a sign of its success, other groups have tried to claim responsibility for its attacks. For example, the Islamic State group which has been trying to make inroads into Pakistan made a competing claim to have carried out an August suicide bombing in the southwestern city of Quetta that killed nearly 80 people, mostly lawyers. But security officials say they believe Jamaat-ul-Ahrar was behind the attack.

A counter-terrorism official in northwestern Pakistan said Jamaat-ul-Ahrar is the most extreme of the militant groups operating in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region and poses a "serious challenge" to security forces. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Pakistan's military in recent weeks picked up chatter among Jamaat-ul-Ahrar militants that warned of increased attacks, said Mahmood Shah, a retired army brigadier and former military intelligence official, who still has close military ties.

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The Patna High Court today quashed a notification banning liquor in Bihar, but hours later, a high-level meeting called by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar decided to summon the state Cabinet on October 2 to ratify a notification on an amended liquor law for continuation of prohibition.

The meeting also deliberated on the option to knock on the doors of the Supreme Court against the High Court order, quashing the April 5 notification on liquor ban, saying it was ultra vires to the Constitution.

In a judgment, a bench of Chief Justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari and Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh quashed the April 5 notification of the state government banning consumption and sale of alcohol in the state.

The April 5 notification is ultra vires to the Constitution and hence, not enforceable, the court said.

The same bench had, on May 20, reserved its order on a batch of writ petitions filed by Liquor Trade Association and numerous individuals, challenging the liquor law in Bihar brought by the Nitish Kumar government with stringent penal provisions.

The Grand Secular Alliance government had first banned manufacture, trade, sale and consumption of country-made liquor since April 1 but later, imposed a blanket ban on all types of liquor, including foreign liquor, in the state.

The Chief Minister has now called the meeting of the state Cabinet on October 2 in which an amended liquor law, passed by both Houses of the state legislature and consented to by the Governor, is likely to be approved for notification with an aim to continue with prohibition in the state.

Today's meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, Principal Secretary, Excise and Prohibition Amir Subhani and Principal Additional Advocate General Lalit Kishore among others.

Anjani Kumar Singh confirmed that the Cabinet would be meeting on October 2.

JD(U) state president Basistha Narayan Singh and senior minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan also attended the meeting.

"We are not satisfied with today's court order...The option of going to the Supreme Court against it is available to us," Lalit Kishore told PTI after the meeting.

"We will study the 150-page judgment to decide on the next course of action, including the option to move the apex court," he added.

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In the wake of the surgical strikes across the Line of Control by the Indian Army, fear has gripped villagers living in border areas as they apprehend that Pakistan may target civilian areas.

The villagers, who live close to the International Border, have always been bearing the burnt of cross-border ceasefire violations.

"We are a worried lot. Even though we are happy that Army conducted this surgical strike to eliminate terrorists across the Line of Control, but we are concerned that Pakistan might once again target the civilian areas here to avenge the surgical strikes," former Sarpanch of the village said.

Though the administration in the Jammu region has made "elaborate preparations" to counter any contingency and shift the people living in the vicinity of the LoC and IB to safer places, yet the residents fear that escalation between India and Pakistan would affect their livelihood.

"Majority of the people here are farmers and earn their livelihood by it, but if the tension between the two sides escalate we might end up losing our only source of income," Lal said.

The authorities have asked villagers to shift to "safer locations" in case there is a "crisis situation" along the border.

However, the people feel it difficult to leave their homes.

Similarly, in RS Pura sector of Jammu district, the situation is not different.

People are worried of the escalation between the neighbouring countries and they fear it might affect their livelihood as the harvesting season is at its peak.

"Though the administration has informed us to remain cautious and whenever there is contingency they must shift to the safer locations, but majority of the people want to stay back in their homes as the farming season is at its peak right now," a farmer of the Bera village Narinder Singh voiced his concern.

Authorities have kept Bana Singh Stadium ready to



accommodate 1,000 people in case of any emergency.

Last night, over 100 people took shelter in the stadium.

"Over 100 people took shelter here and in the morning and except the female members and children all the male members returned to their houses. Right now we are taking care of the female members and the children by providing them food and shelter. The administration has made all preparations for their stay here," Manager of the stadium Baljinder Pal Singh said.

Majority of the people who have taken shelter at the stadium come from Jora Farm village situated on the Zero Line which has reported casualties in the past in cross border firing.

Shameema Bi, a resident of the village, says they have also brought cattle with them, as, she says, in the past they have not only lost people but the livestock as well in firing by Pakistan.

"We will stay here until the authorities tell us that situation has improved," she said.
Shimon Peres was a "visionary statesman" and a "great friend of India", HRD minister said on Friday as a high-level Indian delegation paid tributes to former Israeli President who was laid to rest in the presence of leaders from over 70 countries.

Peres, who passed away on Wednesday at the age of 93, served as two-time prime minister of Israel, minister of defence, foreign affairs, finance and transportation; and, until 2014, as president of the country.

"Peres was a visionary statesman. A leader who was a great friend of India. He defended Israel like a hero from adversaries and at the same time reached out to them to have peace and largely succeeded in it," Human Resource Development minister Javadekar said.

Javadekar also met all the three children of Peres, Zvia, Yoni and Chemi, to convey condolences on behalf of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the people of India.

Joint Secretary WANA division at MEA, Bala Bhaskar, also accompanied the HRD minister.

US President Barack Obama, French President Francois Hollande and German President Joachim Gauck were among the scores of world leaders who have gathered here to pay their last respects to the leader in what is by far the largest gathering of foreign dignitaries in the history of Israel.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and former US president Bill Clinton were also among the attendees.
One police official was today shot dead while another was critically injured when unidentified gunmen tried to free two alleged under-trial prisoners from a police van in Pakistan's port city Karachi.

The gunmen opened fire on the police van carrying the prisoners in theBalochcolony area but couldn't free themafter retaliationfrom thepolicemen.

The prisoners,who were being taken back to the Central jail after attending a hearing at an anti-terrorism court have beenidentified as Mohammad Imtiaz and Abdul Malik who were arrested from Korangi, and were involved in the murder of a police constable.

One of the two policemen who were shot at were rushed to a hospital where he sucummbed to his injuries.

Earlier thismonth, two police officials were shot dead in theDefenceHousing Authority (DHA) area of the city.

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EMERADO -- A pedestrian was injured after he was hit by an Amtrak train in Emerado Thursday morning, but authorities said he walked away from the scene before being taken to the hospital.

Emerado resident Dan ODonnel, 51, is listed as the injured pedestrian in a North Dakota Highway Patrol news release. He was standing next to the railroad tracks in town and was struck by a westbound train at 5:20 a.m., according the release.

ODonnel was transported to Altru Hospital in Grand Forks for treatment of his serious injuries, the Highway Patrol said. He was in satisfactory condition as of 10:15 a.m., a hospital spokeswoman said.

Sgt. Robert Kennedy of the North Dakota Highway Patrol said ODonnel was next to a row of trees along the tracks when he was struck. ODonnel managed to walk back to his apartment, but the train conductor called 911.

The deputies were able to follow his blood trail and get a hold of the ambulance, Kennedy said. He was unsure why ODonnel was next to the tracks.

While he was unaware of the specifics surrounding the Emerado incident, Peter Pomonis, state coordinator of Operation Lifesaver in North Dakota, said there are a few rules of thumb for pedestrians walking near train tracks. Operation Lifesaver is a nonprofit education program under the North Dakota Safety Council.

First, rail lines are private property, so pedestrians should only cross or be near tracks at designated crossings, Pomonis said. Moreover, trains overhang the tracks theyre traveling on, so pedestrians should stay 15 feet away from tracks.

There can be chains or other things hanging from the train that can hit pedestrians, Pomonis said.
Pope Francis called today for respect of national sovereignty and "coexistence" as he arrived in Georgia but seemed to dodge potential Russian ire at the start of a visit to the volatile Caucasus region.

The pontiff was greeted warmly by President Giorgi Margvelashvili and the leader of the Georgian Orthodox church, Patriarch Ilia II, at the start of the three-day visit to Georgia and Azerbaijan that the Vatican has billed as a peace mission.

Pro-Western Georgia -- one of the world's oldest Christian nations -- fought a brief war with Russia in 2008 and two Moscow-backed breakaway regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which remain out of Tbilisi's control.

After meeting with the pontiff, Margvelashvili thanked him for supporting Georgia's territorial integrity, saying that "20 percent of the Georgian territory remains under occupation" by the Russian troops.

But in a speech in the presidential palace's courtyard before government officials, civil society leaders, and foreign diplomats, Francis did not mention Russia, nor the word "occupation."



Apparently wary of irritating the Kremlin and Russia's powerful Orthodox Church, Francis only made general calls for "the respect of sovereign prerogatives of all countries within the framework of international law."



"Coexistence between all peoples and states in the region" is "an indispensable precondition" for peace and stability, he said.

On Sunday, Francis is due in Azerbaijan, where he will meet with, among others, President Ilham Aliyev, just days after the authoritarian leader won a referendum on constitutional changes seen as consolidating his grip on power.

While in the energy-rich country, Francis is expected to reiterate the call he made three months ago in Armenia for a peaceful resolution of the long-simmering conflict over the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh.

Officially part of Azerbaijan, the territory has been under the control of ethnic Armenian separatists since 1994, when a war between the two countries ended in a ceasefire but no formal peace accord.

Since then, there have been sporadic outbursts of violence, including one in April that left 110 people dead.

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Rahul Gandhi, who has been unrelenting in his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, today lauded him for the surgical strikes by the Army across LoC, saying it was the "first action" befitting his post in two-and-a-half years.

Days after he slammed Modi's "short-sighted" political alliance with PDP, saying it has "opened space" for terrorism in Kashmir and apportioned blame to NDA government's "politics" for the Uri attack, the Congress Vice President said he and his party stand by the Prime Minister's decision to carry out surgical strikes.

"When Prime Minister acts as the prime minister of the country then I too support him...I want to thank him that in the past two-and-a-half years, this is the first action which can be termed as worthy of prime minister," he said at a road show as part of his Deoria-to-Delhi Kisan yatra here.

The Army yesterday carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launchpads across the LoC and inflicted "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.

Rahul said, "He (Modi) has my full support and that of Congress...The entire nation is with him today."



He also paid homage to the jawans, who were prepared to make the supreme sacrifice to safeguard the country. His tribute came against the backdrop of the attack by Pakistan- based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad on the army base in Uri in which 19 soldiers were killed.

In the course of the Kisan yatra, Rahul had alleged that



Modi's "short-sighted" political alliance with PDP has "opened space" for terrorism in Kashmir.

"I stand by our soldiers and I condemn what has been done to them by Pakistanis. However, space for that has been created by the politics the NDA has practised in Jammu and Kashmir," he had said in Mati (Kanpur Dehat) on September 20, days after the Uri attack.

Rahul had said the erstwhile UPA government had spent nine years fighting terrorism and curbing it.

He had held Pakistan responsible for the Uri attack and apportioned blame to the NDA government's "politics" for it.

Alleging that the NDA had "no strategy" vis-a-vis Kashmir, Rahul had targeted the Prime Minister, saying, "He goes from one event to another and this is no way of handling national security. National security cannot be handled like public meetings. This is a serious matter."



"FYI Modiji: a Kashmir strategy cannot be developed using selfies and sound bites (sic)," he had tweeted.

(REOPENS DEL47 )



Targeting the Modi government, Rahul alleged that it is an anti-poor government, which works a few industrialists and has failed to deliver on its promise of creating 2 crore jobs for the youth.

"In the last one-and-a-half years, it waived off loans of Rs 1,10,000 crore of 15 industrialists," he claimed at a "Khat Sabha" in Khurja.

The previous Congress government wrote off 70,000 crore of farmers' loan. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee scheme, which guarantees 100 days of employment in a year to a rural household, was a gift to farmers by the UPA dispensation, he said.
Republican nominee on Friday claimed the first presidential debate with Hillary Clinton was "rigged" after political analysts said his Democratic rival won the debate.

Addressing his supporters at an election rally in New Hampshire, 70-year-old Trump said the first debate was a "rigged deal".

Trump, 70, said he had to fight with moderator Lester Holt on "everything I said".

Political analysts said Clinton, 68, won the debate with her emphatic performance and put the reality television star on defensive on crucial issues.

"Then I had to put up with the anchor and fight the anchor on everything I said. What a rigged deal, I tell you, we are in such a rigged system - it is terrible. What's going on in this country is so sad. But it will change. Remember November 8," Trump said.

Trump said he would work hard over the next 40 days to win the White House.

"We are going to take on the special interests, the lobbyists, and the corrupt corporate media that have rigged the system against everyday Americans. We are going to create millions of new jobs for our people, trillions in new wealth for our communities, and rising wages for every working American. We are going to create a new government that serves you, your family, and your country," he said.

According to the real estate mogul from New York, his campaign is going to end Clinton's corruption and restore dignity and honesty to government service.

"Hillary Clinton is an insider fighting only for herself and for her donors. I am an outsider fighting for you," he said.

The large corporations who support terrible trade deals that offshore jobs - they are donating to Clinton, he said, adding that the Wall Street investors who have rigged the regulations against the middle class - they are donating to Clinton.

Trump also alleged that the special interests who want open borders are donating to Clinton.

"In her campaign for President, Hillary Clinton has received $100 million dollars in contributions from Wall Street and the hedge funds. She and Bill Clinton were paid $150 million for speeches since Bill left the Oval Office. The same groups paying Bill and Hillary for their speeches were lobbying the federal government," he said.

Alleging that Clinton put the office of Secretary of State up for sale, Trump said if she ever got the chance, she would put the Oval Office up for sale too.

"She deleted and bleached 33,000 emails after a Congressional subpoena. 13 phones missing, several destroyed with a hammer. Her staffers taking the fifth amendment, and her ringleaders getting immunity deals. We're going to call them the FBI Immunity 5. Foreign enemies with easy access to hack her server. Lies to Congress, under oath, about turning over her work-related emails," he said.
Over four years after the infamous Park Street gangrape case, Kolkata Police has arrested the prime accused Kader Khan from Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad district.

Kader along with his accomplice Ali Khan was arrested by a special team of Kolkata Police in a joint operation with Delhi Police from their hideout in an apartment in Ghaziabad last night, the officer said.

Sources in Kolkata Police said the duo would be brought to the city on transmit remand and likely be produced at a local court tomorrow.

The victim, a mother of two, was gangraped on February 6, 2012 by five men who had offered to drop her home from a night club at city's Park Street area.

Acting on a tip off that Kader, absconding since the incident, sleuths of Kolkata Police started tracking his mobile calls, he said.

Soon after he was located somewhere near New Delhi, sleuths started zeroing on him.

On Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar's instruction, a special team was formed to nab Kader.

"We had information that Khan has returned to the country and was having regular interaction with his family members in Kolkata over phone. We started tracking their numbers and found that calls from a particular number from Ghaziabad were made... We started tracking it and found that it was Kader's," the officer said, adding that Kader had rented the apartment in Ghaziabad under a psuedo name.

It was learnt that Kader was hiding in Bangladesh and after running out of cash he returned to Delhi through Nepal.

After keeping him under surveillance for almost a week, a joint team of Delhi Police and Kolkata Police team raided his hideout last night and arrested him, the IPS officer said.

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The 'Maratha Kranti Morcha', being held across various cities in Maharashtra, will be organised in Mumbai after Diwali.

A meeting of the volunteers of the organising committee was today held at Shivaji Mandir here, a release issued by the Committee said.

It also said that there was a demand to announce the date of march in Mumbai, it said.

The organisers claimed that since the march in the mega-polis would be the "world's largest", adequate planning, time and coordination was required.

The march would be held after Diwali and before the Winter Session of the Maharashtra Legislature in Nagpur, it added.

The organisers also appealed every household should lit one lamp this Diwali in memory of the victim who was raped and murdered in Kopardi in Ahmednagar district, said the release.

The members of the Maratha community would sport a black ribbon along with their festive clothes during Diwali as a protest since their demands are not met so far.

At today's meeting around 1,500 volunteers from.All districts except Bhandara and Gondia were present.

The community's demands include stern action against the culprits of Kopardi rape and murder case, reservations for the community and scrapping of SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The silent marches began after the alleged rape and murder of a Maratha girl by Dalits at Kopardi in July.

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The CPI(M) West Bengal unit, which is facing a tough time in the backdrop of the party's debacle in the 2016 Assembly elections, today said that quality of the party cadres has declined over the years.

"Quality of the party cadres has declined over the years. While increasing party membership, the quality has declined. We have to be with the masses," CPI(M) state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra said.

The CPI(M) today started its two-day state plenum to assess the situation and find ways to strengthen the party organisation.

According to a senior state committee member, the idea to fix a new set of criteria for selection of new cadres has also been popped up.

"It has been discussed that a new set of criteria should be drawn up while selecting fresh cadres. A proper background check should be done regarding family, financial dealings and whether the person has any criminal record. Rotten elements have to be removed from the party," the leader said.

"The objective is to streamline and strengthen the party through the organisation plenum and overcome the challenges in Bengal," a senior Politburo member told PTI.

Party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, Politburo member Prakash Karat and others are present in the two-day plenum of the state unit.

Mishra said countering the politics of terror and intimidation unleashed by the TMC were the biggest challenges the state was presently facing.

"The politics of terror and intimidation unleashed by the TMC, tacitly supported by the BJP, continues in West Bengal against the CPI(M) and the Left Front," he said.

"Along with terror and intimidation, they are using methods of coercion and appeasement through money power to wrest control of various local bodies that the Left Front had won prior to the Assembly elections. TMC has publicly declared it will 'capture' all local bodies by weeding out the opposition by the end of the year. The plenum will look into ways to counter it," the CPI(M) state secretary, said.

According to CPI(M) sources, the party would look into ways to infuse more young blood in the organisation and remove "inactive" party workers.

"To counter such an unprecedented situation, we need to bring in more young blood to the party. More youths need to be brought into the party's organisational structure. Inactive members crippled due to age and those who do not have a good image among the masses should step aside and make way for new people," Mishra added.

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Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, brother of Sri Lanka's former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was today granted bail by a court here in the alleged floating armoury case which caused a loss of Rs 11.4 billion to the state exchequer.

Former top defense ministry official Gotabhaya and six others had been asked to appear in Colombo magistrate court under the corruption charges filed by the Bribery Commission.

They were accused of causing a loss of 11.4 billion rupees to the state exchequer by supporting a private firm to run the floating armory in the southern sea port of Galle.

Gotabhaya, 67, had publicly denied any wrongdoing.

Though the privately-owned company Avant-Garde Security Service said the weapons were for escorting commercial ships in anti-piracy operations, police had received complaints that the firearms were used for intimidation.

Gotabhaya became another member of the Rajapaksa family to get bail as several other family members of the the former President were subject to investigations over corruption.

Mahinda's eldest son Namal was arrested for alleged money-laundering and is currently on bail.

His younger brother Yoshitha is on bail after having faced money-laundering charges and his other brother Basil, former economic development minister, is also on bail.

The Rajapaksa family has described legal action as a "political witch-hunt" launched by the current government headed by Rajapaksa's successor Maithripala Sirisena.

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Home Minister tonight spoke to the family members of an Indian soldier, whose grandmother passed away after hearing the news of his capture in Pakistan.

The Home Minister telephoned the close family members of Chandu Babulal Chohan, son of Bashan Chohan, who hails from Dhule in Maharashtra, after learning about the demise of his grandmother.

Sources said Chandu's grandmother died of shock after hearing the news that he has been captured by Pakistani forces.

Singh assured Chandu's family members that the government is doing its best to bring back home the soldier safe.

Indian Army sources had said on Friday that "one soldier from 37 RR with weapon has inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control. Pakistan has been informed by the DGMO on the hotline."

The sources said his crossing over was not related to the surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army at terror launch pads in PoK.

Earlier, the Home Minister said the government has taken note of the reports which stated that an Indian soldier is in Pakistan's captivity and all attempts were being made to secure his release.
A sharp rise in coking coal prices globally can bring the profitability of Tata Steel (TSL) under pressure, Fitch Ratings said today.

"TSL's profitability could also come under pressure from the sharp increase in international coking coal prices since August 2016," it said in a statement.

There is also uncertainty over the period of regulatory protection from imports will be sustained. Government lowered the number of products under minimum import price (MIP) from 173 to 66 in August 2016 and extended the duration until October 4, 2016, it added.

Besides, it imposed anti-dumping duties on the remaining products, however, the duration is six months, Fitch said.

Though, Tata Steel announced completion of sale of its unprofitable Long Products Europe business, there is uncertainty around its plans to restructure the remaining key assets in Port Talbot, UK and IJmuiden, Netherlands as well as issues, like UK pension liabilities remaining unresolved, it said.

TSL is in discussions with strategic players, including ThyssenKrupp AG, to explore the feasibility of a joint venture for its remaining European business.

"We assume the status quo remains, and hence, a further restructuring of assets presents a risk to our estimates," Fitch said.

On Tata Steel's India operations, the ratings agency said its profitability has declined by around 35 per cent y-o-y to Rs 7,560 per tonne in 2015-16 fiscal due to weak steel prices and competition from imports.

TSL's Q1 2016-17 EBITDA/tonne remains significantly less than the 2014-15 average, although profitability has improved following an upswing in realisations after government imposed protectionist MIP in February 2016, it said.

Domestic demand growth has been anaemic so far in 2016-17, with consumption over April to August 2016 increasing at just 1.3 per cent (2015-16: 5.9 per cent).

Meanwhile, producers, including TSL, are looking to increase sales volume following recent capacity expansion.

TSL started commercial operations for the first phase of its greenfield plant at Kalinganagar in Odisha with a capacity of 3 million tonnes per annum (MTPA).

TSL expects to ramp up output gradually and is targeting volume of 1 MTPA in 2016-17. Apart from higher sales, the new plant will improve TSL's product-mix, as it specialises in producing high-grade flat products, the ratings agency said.

Fitch Ratings has maintained the Rating Watch Evolving on the 'BB' Long-Term Issuer Default Rating of TSL and 'B' Long-Term IDR of Tata Steel UK Holdings Limited.

The steel producers' ratings were placed on Rating Watch Evolving on April 1, 2016 after it announced on March 29, 2016 that it is exploring options for portfolio restructuring in Europe, including potential divestment of its UK operations.

"TSL managed to sell a key loss-making asset in May 2016, but the final structure of the group and its debt remains unclear and will affect TSL's rating," it added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two brothers, who lost their parents and an elder sister in a road mishap involving a rashly driven tanker in Uttar Pradesh 12 years ago, have been awarded a compensation of Rs 2.22 crore by a Motor Accident Claim Tribunal (MACT).

MACT Presiding Officer Anoop Kumar Mendiratta directed Oriental Insurance Company Ltd, with which the offending tanker was insured, to pay Rs 2,21,63,491 along with interest to Sandeep and Sumit Tomar, residents of Janakpuri in west Delhi, for death of their 47-year-old father Satyabir Singh Tomar in December 2004.

The tribunal held the driver of the rashly driven tanker responsible for the accident at Muzaffarnagar in UP leading to death of five persons, including the proprietor of Delhi-based M/s Tomar Construction Company Satyavir Singh Tomar.

"Considering the fact that negligence is to be assessed on touchstone of preponderance of probability and a holistic view is to be taken, it has been established that the accident was caused due to rash and negligent driving of tanker by its driver," the judge said.

The tribunal, while awarding compensation to the deceased man's two sons aged 21 and 18 years at the time of the mishap, noted that one of them was forced to settle back in India instead of continuing further education or temporary job at Australia.

"It is implicit that at the tender age of 18 and 21 years the petitioners (sons) hardly had any business experience to continue the business of contractorship carried by the deceased (father) which requires experience, expertise and contacts to carry on the projects," it said.

The accident took place on December 30, 2004 when Sandeep was travelling along with his father Satyabir, mother, sister and grandmother towards Shamli from Muzaffarnagar in UP in a Toyota Qualis which was driven by Ombeer Singh Tomar.

At around 9 PM, the car was hit by a rashly driven tanker coming from opposite side at Panipat Khatima Road, the plea said, adding that all the occupants suffered injuries.

While Sandeep had received grievous injuries, his mother, sister, grandmother and driver died on the spot and his father succumbed to injuries in the hospital.

The tribunal granted this compensation on the petition relating to death of their father as the pleas in relation to other deceased have already been decided earlier.

The petition said the driver of the offending vehicle had fled from the spot and an FIR was lodged in the case at a police station in Muzaffarnagar.

It said Satyabir was running business in the name of M/s Tomar Construction Company and had several big projects in hand at the time of accident and even government projects were undertaken in his firm's name.

His sons told the tribunal that due to the death of their father they suffered huge loss of income as they could not work upto the strength and quality of their father due to lack of foresight and experience.

The tanker's owner and driver claimed that the accident had taken place due to rash and negligent driving of the car driver as he was driving at a high speed on wrong side.

They also claimed that the compensation demanded by the petitioners was exorbitant and that the tanker driver had been falsely implicated in the case.
Shelling from Yemeni rebels killed a Saudi border guard and wounded three civilians including a Bangladeshi, the interior ministry said today.

The Tuwal district of Jazan, on the Saudi frontier with Yemen, came under fire yesterday afternoon, wounding the border guard corporal, a ministry statement said.

He died on the way to hospital.

Two Saudis and a Bangladeshi national were wounded by Huthi rebel shelling of Tuwal the same day, the Civil Defence agency said in a separate statement.

More than 100 civilians and Saudi Arabian soldiers have died in strikes and skirmishes along the frontier since a Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen on the side of the internationally-recognised government in March last year.

The coalition began air strikes after the Huthis and their allies, troops loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, overran much of the country.

Riyadh feared the Huthis would take over all of Yemen and move it into the orbit of Shiite Iran, Sunni Saudi Arabia's regional rival.

In Yemen, more than 6,600 people have been killed, most of them civilians, according to the United Nations.

Riyadh faces mounting international scrutiny over civilian casualties in its Yemen air campaign.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Controversial RJD leader Shahabuddin was back in prison 20 days after his release, as the Supreme Court today set aside the Patna High Court order granting him bail in a murder case saying the discretion to release must be applied in "judicious manner" and "not as a matter of course".

"The order passed by the High Court granting bail to the respondent-accused (Shahabuddin) is set aside and the state is directed to take all consequential steps, inter alia, for taking him to custody forthwith," a bench comprising Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy said.

The bench, which clarified that it was not expressing any opinion on the merits of the case pending against the RJD leader, asked Bihar government and the concerned court to take "all steps as contemplated in law to dispose of the case, as early as possible".

Referring to various judgements on bail, it said, "Judged on entire conspectus of the attendant facts and circumstances, and considering the stage of the present case before the trial court where charge-sheet has already been submitted, together with pending proceedings against the respondent-accused as on date, and his recorded antecedents in the various decisions of this court, we are thus unable to sustain the impugned order of the High Court granting bail to him."



In its 10-page order, the apex court dealt with various aspects of the submissions and said, "Although it has to be accepted that the respondent-accused has already been granted bail by the concerned courts in other cases, a duty is cast upon the court in addressing such a prayer in a case on its own merit, and while applying its discretion, it must be applied in a judicious manner and not as a matter of course."



Shahabuddin was granted bail by the Patna High Court on September 7 in the Rajiv Roshan murder case and was released from Bhagalpur jail on September 10. He has already remained in jail for 11 years in connection with several cases.

Roshan, the eye witness to the gruesome killings of two of his younger siblings, was also killed few days before his proposed testimony in the murder case of his brothers.

The court said there was an allegation that Shahabuddin



had entered into a conspiracy to eliminated a witness in an earlier murder case against him, days before he was to finally testify in support of the charge.

Referring to the judgement, the bench said though the period of custody is a relevant factor while dealing with bail pleas, the "totality of the circumstances and criminal antecedents" have also to be "weighed" simultaneously.

"In the instant case, having regard to the recorded allegations against the respondent-accused (Shahabuddin) and the overall factual scenario, we are of the view, having regard in particular to the present stage of the case in which the impugned order has been passed, that the High Court was not justified in granting bail on the considerations recorded," it said.

It rejected the plea that on the day when Roshan was killed, Shahabuddin was lodged in Siwan jail and hence it was improbable that he took part in the crime.

"Qua the assertion that the respondent-accused was in judicial custody on the date on which the incident of murder in the earlier case had occurred, the judgment and order of the trial court convicting him has recorded the version of the brother of the deceased therein, that he had seen the respondent-accused participating in the offence," it said.

The court, however, refrained from "elaborating further on this aspect", saying the appeal against the trial court's conviction was pending in an appeal before the High Court.

On "balancing the considerations of individual liberty



and societal interest", the apex court said the High Court had erred in granting bail to Shahabuddin.

"On a careful perusal of the records of the case and considering all aspects of the matter in question and having regard to the proved charges in the concerned cases and the charges pending adjudication against the respondent-accused and further balancing the considerations of individual liberty and societal interest as well as the prescriptions and the perception of law regarding bail, it appears to us that the High Court has erred in granting bail to the respondent- accused without taking into consideration the overall facts otherwise having a bearing on the exercise of its discretion on the issue," it said.

The court had rebuked the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government, which has RJD as its coalition partner, for its lax approach in opposing bail granted to the RJD strongman in various cases at different judicial forums including the High Court.
Sebi today exempted Azim Premji- controlled Apex Trust and his son Rishad Premji from making an open offer to Wipro's public shareholders with regard to their stake going up due to rejig in shareholding of three other promoter entities.

The matter pertains to re-constitution of three partnership firms -- Prazim Traders, Zash Traders and Hasham Traders -- which are part of Wipro's promoter group. Under the rejig, HITCPL would retire as a partner from the three entities and instead, Apex Trust and Rishad Premji would become partners in each of them.

Hasham Investment and Trading Company Pvt Ltd (HITCPL) is a promoter of Wipro.

The trustee and the beneficiaries of the Apex Trust are fully-owned and controlled by Azim Premji and his wife Yasmeen Premji, both of whom are promoters.

Apex Trust, represented by its trustee Azim Premji Trust Services Pvt Ltd, and Rishad Premji had approached Sebi seeking exemption from the open offer obligation.

The markets regulator has exempted Apex Trust and Rishad Premji from making an open offer to the public shareholders of Wipro subject to certain conditions.

In his order, Sebi's Whole Time Member S Raman said there would be no change in control of Wipro pursuant to the proposed reconstitution.

Post rejig, Apex Trust and Rishad Premji would share 35 per cent and two per cent of profit of the partnership firms, respectively.

The Takeover Panel, in its report in March this year, had also recommended exemption subject to certain conditions.

According to Sebi, the proposed re-constitution is only an "internal re-organisation of the promoter and promoter group and in respect of entities, which are directly or indirectly wholly controlled by Azim Premji and his family".

While providing the exemption, Sebi said the proposed acquisition should be completed within 30 days after revision of the trust deed.

"On completion of the transaction, the acquirer shall file a report with Sebi in the manner provided in the Takeovers Regulations, within a period of 21 days from the date of such acquisition," it said.

Prazim Partners, Zash Traders and Hasham Traders had three Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) as their partners.

The move to merge the three NBFC partners into HITPCL and reconstitute the shareholding in Prazim Partners, Zash Traders and Hasham Traders was to comply with a RBI norm pertaining to NBFCs.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Security has been strengthened in Odisha Sands Complex (OSCOM), one of the units of the Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL) under Department of Atomic Energy (DoEA), in the wake of the surgical strike across the Line of Control by the Indian Army.

"As per instruction of the standard guidelines of the government, we have beefed up the security in OSCOM. Surveillance measure in and around the IREL unit has also been intensified," A K Mohapatra, chief of the OSCOM today said.

Besides our own security personnel, we have also engaged around 150 other security personnel, 50 per cent of them ex-servicemen, in the establishment, he said.

Director General, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) visited the OSCOM recently and reviewed its security measures, officials said adding, OSCOM received a fresh guideline from DoEA today about security measures.

OSCOM produces rare earths like Ilmenite, Rutile, Ircon and Sillimanite.

Besides OSCOM, security has been beefed up in other vital installations in the area including the Army Air Defence College, Gopalpur and Gopalpur Port.

"As a precautionary measure, we sounded alert in all vital establishments in our region and the marine police stations at Sonepur and Arjeepali, following the incident across the LoC," said Inspector General of Police (Southern Range) Amitabh Thakur.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Security has been strengthened at vital installations across Punjab and a high alert has been sounded at all airbases across the state following Army's surgical strikes in PoK, even as evacuation of people residing in villages along the International Border continued.

High alert has been sounded on all airbases of the region, including at Chandigarh, Ambala, Bathinda, Adampur and Halwara near Ludhiana. Border Security Force (BSF) has put the International Border on further alert yesterday after the surgical strikes, officials said.

Security has also been strengthened at Bhakra Dam, with BBMB Chairman S K Sharma saying security arrangements at all dams was being reviewed considering the threat perception due to prevailing tension with Pakistan.

Security has also been strengthened in and around other vital installations, including oil refinery and important power plants in Punjab.

Punjab shares 553-km border with Pakistan. It has six districts which lie close to the International Border.

Meanwhile, evacuation of people residing in about 1000 villages within ten kilometres of the International Border continued following orders of the authorities.

Heads of local gurdwaras and temples, sarpanches and the police reached out to people using loudspeakers, asking them to start evacuation at the earliest in the light of escalating situation between the two countries.

The district administration in border districts has arranged for tents for evacuated people, cleared beds in the government hospitals and makeshift shelters have been set up in schools and marriage palaces.

Amritsar's Deputy Commissioner Varun Roojam said all necessary arrangements had been put in place to cater to the needs of those being evacuated.

In villages falling in Gurdaspur and Ferozepur districts, administration has created several rehabilitation camps for residents of border villages.

Schools in the border areas have been shut till further orders and leaves of police and medical personnel cancelled, officials said.

SGPC, the apex religious body of the Sikhs, has announced every possible help to the evacuees.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had yesterday chaired an emergency meeting of his Cabinet and directed Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal to immediately release Rs one crore each to all the Deputy Commissioners of six border districts as "preliminary expenditure."



Asking people "not to panic", Badal had said, "All preventive arrangements have been made in the border areas."



Yesterday, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke to Badal over phone to request him to immediately start the process of evacuation of the people residing in the villages falling within ten kilometres of the International Border.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With the Supreme Court cancelling his bail in a murder case, controversial RJD leader Mohammad Shahabuddin was today back in jail after 20 days and lashed out at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar saying his supporters will "teach him a lesson".

Hours after the apex court order, Shahabuddin, who had walked out of jail on September 10 amid much fanfare after 11 years of incarceration, came pillion riding a motorcycle with his face hid under a helmet and surrendered in the court of First Class Judicial Magistrate Sandeep Kumar.

"My supporters will teach him (Kumar) a lesson in the next election," Shahabuddin, who is considered close to RJD President Lalu Prasad, said amidst clapping by his supporters in the court premises where he sat on a chair arranged by his aides.

"I stand by the truth I had said about him (a chief minister of the circumstances).... I do not have any problem about speaking the truth today," Shahabuddin told reporters before appearing in court.

Bihar government had in the apex court opposed granting liberty to Shahabuddin, a four-time MP from Siwan from 1996 to 2008.

He was sent to judicial custody for 14 days by the CJM today. The district police led by district magistrate Mahendra Kumar and Superintendent of Police Saurabh Kumar Sah took Shahabuddin into custody. He was then taken to Siwan divisional jail.

Earlier, the district administration team led by the DM and the SP rushed to Shahabuddin's home at Pratappur village to take him into custody in accordance with the apex court's order but could not succeed.

Shahabuddin gave them the slip and pillion rode a motorcycle with a helmet on his head to the Siwan court and surrendered.

As the of Shahabuddin's presence at the court spread, a large number of his supporters gathered there.

The RJD leader is facing over 36 criminal cases and had been released from Bhagalpur jail only on September 10 last. Patna High Court had granted him bail on September 7 in the 2014 murder case of Rajiv Roshan, a witness in the brutal killing of his two brothers by bathing them in acid in Siwan ten years ago.

Asked about the Supreme Court order cancelling his bail, Shahabuddin said he respects the judiciary.

"What can I say on a judicial decision. My lawyer can speak on it," he said.

High alert was sounded in Siwan as soon as the Supreme Court pronounced its order on Shahabuddin earlier in the day.

Additional police was deployed at the residence of father of the three brothers who were killed and other sensitive areas in Siwan.

(REOP CAL6)



Chandeshwar Prasad, the father of the three murdered brothers, thanked the apex court with folded hands for delivering justice.

"I thank Supreme Court for this exemplary decision," he told newsmen who thronged to his house.

Chanda Babu also thanked the media for coming to his help. "I will not be able to pay back the help rendered by media to me in getting justice for my sons.... The souls of my deceased sons would get some solace after this decision."



His ailing wife Kalawati Devi also thanked Supreme Court for giving justice.
Leaders from 70 countries, including US President Barack Obama and Arab politicians, gathered here today to bid farewell to one of the last leaders of Israel's founding generation and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres as his funeral began amid unprecedented security.

As two-time prime minister, minister of defence, foreign affairs, finance and transportation; and, until 2014, as president, Peres did more than anyone to build up Israel's formidable military might and the country's nuclear programme.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Peres as a "great man of the world".

"He soared to incredible heights. He was a great man of Israel; he was a great man of the world. Israel grieves for him, the world grieves for him, but we find hope in his legacy, as does the world," Netanyahu told mourners at Mount Herzl national cemetery where Peres would be buried alongside other prominent leaders of the Jewish state.

In what is the largest gathering of foreign dignitaries in the history of Israel, President Obama, French President Francois Hollande, German President Joachim Gauck and scores of other world leaders are attending the funeral.

Obama, who awarded Peres the presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, is one of the speakers at the ceremony. He arrived in Israel this morning. He wore a black Jewish skullcap as he took his seat at the ceremony.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was also among attendees. He was seated in the front row.

Abbas, who is on his first visit to Israel since September 2010 when peace talks broke down, shook hands and spoke briefly with Netanyahu upon arrival.

Abbas, who signed the Oslo accords along with Peres, has called him a "brave" partner for peace.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Jordanian Prime Minister Jawad Anani were also in attendance.

Jordan's King Abdullah II yesterday sent a condolence letter to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in which he highlighted Peres' efforts to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians as part of a two-state solution.

Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel.

Israel's President Reuven Rivlin in his eulogy at the funeral ceremony credited Peres with ensuring the State of Israel "as an indisputable fact".

"Like you, I was also born into the Zionist Movement in those decisive years between vision and fulfillment. I was fortunate to look up to you as a partner in the building of the State of Israel from its very foundations," Rivlin said.

"However, with much thanks to you Shimon, for our sons and daughters, for our friends - and yes for our opponents - the State of Israel is an indisputable fact," he said.

Applauding Peres as the visionary who shaped Israel's



future right from its foundation, the Israeli President said that he was not just a thinker but a doer.

"You had the rare ability Shimon to conceive what seemed to be the inconceivable, and see it to fruition. Your eyes saw far ahead, while your feet covered great distances on the landscape of Jewish and Zionist history," Rivlin said.

He "succeeded in moving even the most stubborn of politicians, and to melt away even the hardest of hearts of our opponents," Rivlin added.

Peres, who was the pioneer of Israel's nuclear programme and also backed the creation of Jewish settlements in the earlier years only to abandon the idea later as a peacemaker, earned praise for his contributions to Israel's security.

"How deep was your belief in the sacred combination of ethical leadership and military prowess, that Israel must act not just with wisdom, but with justice, faithful at every moment to its values as a Jewish and democratic state, democratic and Jewish," the president added.

Some 50,000 people paid tributes to the Israeli leader yesterday at the Knesset (Parliament) where his coffin laid in state throughout the day.

Former US president Bill Clinton was among those who paid their last respects there.

Security forces were put on high alert as the funeral began, with roads closed and thousands of officers deployed.

Some 2000 police officers backed by personnel from other agencies have been deployed in Jerusalem for the ceremony with media reports saying that some Arab and Jewish suspects have been put under preventive arrest to prevent any disruption.

Earlier, the casket carrying the departed soul was moved from the Knesset plaza to Mount Herzl.

The former president died on Wednesday morning at the age of 93, two weeks after suffering a massive stroke.
A major economic summit will likely be held in India within the next two months to attract investment from across the globe for the strategic Chabahar port in Iran which would give India access to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan, Afghan Ambassador to New Delhi said today.

Referring to the meeting between Shipping, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abbas Akhoundi and Afghanistan's Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation Mohamadullah Batash on Wednesday, Afghan Ambassador to India Shaida Abdali said its purpose was to expedite the implementation of the Chabahar transit and trade agreement and there were some "very good decisions" taken within that framework.

"We are going to address some of the technical issues involved in the Chabahar agreement and within the next two months we will -- in India or Iran, but more likely India -- call a major economic summit where all the industries will participate from India, Afghanistan, Iran and from beyond," the Abdali told reporters here at The Foreign Correspondents' Club of South Asia.

Abdali said the ministers met in order to deal with the technical issues that are still left to be addressed and the decision was made that India, Afghanistan and Iran will have a secretariat each to deal with those.

"Within a month, the three secretariats will meet again and we will have a technical team sitting again before the major summit that we have. All issues pending will be resolved. Procedures for others to invest will be made clear. We will be fully ready for foreign investers...To start business," he said.

Abdali's remarks came after Gadkari, following the meeting on Wednesday had said India, Iran and Afghanistan are keen on expediting the tripartite transit agreement on Chabahar port, which will give India access to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan.

Abdali, while talking about the ambitious project, said, "Our purpose is not to concentrate on the three countries' business and economic relations but to involve and engage all other neighbours, especially the neighbours in Central Asia and South Asia.

"We would like to give this a much more expansion beyond



these countries. We need more investments for the Chabahar port and we need international investments. We hope that the major summit that will be called (possibly) in Delhi will have participation from many countries in the region and around the world to attract more investment to the Chabahar port," Abdali said.

Expressing optimism, the Afghan envoy said the conference will be a "major step forward" to making Chabahar agreement a "grand success" for the use of many countries in the region.

"Of course, the three countries will be the biggest beneficiaries, but others will be stakeholders as well in terms of the outcome of the Chabahar agreement. But let me emphasise that the Chabahar agreement... We would like (it) to act as a complementing transit route... For the benefit of everyone," Abdali said.

A "milestone" pact on the strategic Chabahar port in southern Iran was signed in May this year.

Besides the bilateral pact to develop the Chabahar port, in which India will invest USD 500 million, a trilateral Agreement on Transport and Transit Corridor was also signed by India, Afghanistan and Iran.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today lauded Narendra Modi for the surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army across LoC, saying it was his "first action" befitting of a Prime Minister in two-and-a-half years.

Rahul, who is in Uttar Pradesh for his Kisan Yatra, said at a road show that he and his party stand by the Prime Minister's decision.

"When the Prime Minister acts as the prime minister of the country then I too support him...I want to thank him that in the past two-and-a-half years, this is the first action which can be termed as befitting of the prime minister," the Congress Vice President said.

Rahul, who has been criticising Modi during his ongoing Deoria to Delhi 'kisan yatra', was all praise for the prime minister a day after India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the Army inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.

Rahul said, "He (Modi) has my full support and that of the Congress party...The entire nation is standing with him today."



He paid tributes to the jawans who were prepared to make the supreme sacrifice to safeguard the country.

In course of his ongoing kisan yatra, Rahul had alleged



that Modi's "short-sighted" political alliance with the PDP "opened the space" for terrorism in Kashmir.

"I stand by our soldiers and I condemn what has been done to them by the Pakistanis. However, the space for that has been created by the politics that the NDA has carried out in Jammu and Kashmir," he had said in Mati (Kanpur Dehat) on September 20 days after the Uri attack.

He had noted that the erstwhile UPA government had spent nine years fighting terrorism and curbing it.

Rahul had accused Pakistan of being responsible for the attack while apportioning blame on the NDA government's "politics" for it.

"The first responsibility is on Pakistan and the government's politics," he had told reporters.

Alleging that the NDA had "no strategy" as regards Kashmir, Rahul had targeted the Prime Minister, saying he "goes from one event to another and this is no way of handling national security. National security cannot be handled like public meetings. This is a serious matter."



He had also tweeted: "FYI Modiji: a Kashmir strategy cannot be developed using selfies and sound bites.
A former government official of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation accused of accepting bribes and kickbacks from a construction contractor has pleaded guilty to federal charges in North Dakota. Randall Phelan was an elected representative of the governing body of the Three Affiliated Tribes from the end of 2012 to the middle of 2020. Investigators say Phelan used his official position to help the contractors business by awarding contracts, fabricating bids and managing fraudulent invoices. His trial had been scheduled to begin Tuesday. Phelan and two others were originally charged with receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from the bribery scheme on the oil-rich Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The contractor has pleaded guilty to bribery.
A day before Indias biggest spectrum auction begins, the government on Friday said telecom firms should tank up radiowaves to bridge shortfall in their holdings as the next such sale may not happen for quite some time.

After this auction we believe, there will be no spectrum shortage in India. This problem of spectrum scarcity affecting quality of service will be history, Telecom Secretary J S Deepak told PTI.

Terming the auctions as a great opportunity to tank up on spectrum, he said not doing so will place operators at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis others. The same opportunity in terms of the variety of spectrum that is being placed on the block will not come for quite some time, he added.

After this auction if there is unsold spectrum, it means there is no demand for it... So we will harmonise spectrum purchased by operators in all bands, including 1,800 Mhz and 2,100 Mhz, so that we can make it contiguous and multiply its efficiency for operators. Only after the harmonisation process is complete, will we think of the next auction, Deepak said.

Indias biggest telecom players Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and new entrant Reliance Jio Infocomm are amongst the seven companies in fray for the bidding. Other bidders include Reliance Communications, Aircel and Tata Teleservices.

As much as 2,354.55 Mhz of frequencies are being put up for auction in seven bands  700 Mhz, 800 Mhz, 900 Mhz, 1,800 Mhz, 2,100 Mhz, 2,300 Mhz and 2,500 MHz. The radiowaves being put up for auction can be used for 2G, 3G and high speed 4G mobile services. This is more than the cumulative spectrum holding of the top four operators.

On the high cost of spectrum, Deepak said the industry absolutely has the paying capacity for buying it in the auction which starts at 10 AM on Saturday.

This is the first time radiowaves in 700 Mhz band will be put up for auction and it is priced at Rs 4 lakh crore at the reserve price. However, the operators and analysts have said that the pricing in this band is too high.

On pricing of 700 MHz, the Telecom Secretary said that since the spectrum in the band is top quality, it is expensive.

The price is high but it has its own advantage both in terms of propagation ability of spectrum and potential savings in capital expenditure, he added.

It is best for 4G, for indoor coverage, so it has its value. Those buying 700 Mhz spectrum have to spend a third of the amount on capex as compared to 3G spectrum in 2100 Mhz band, he said.
A terrorist attack like the one on an Indian Army camp in Uri "escalates tensions", the US has said, asking Pakistan to take action against UN-designated terrorist outfits and delegitimise them.

"Obviously, an (terrorist) attack like that (in Uri) escalates tensions. What I don't want to do is try to get into, you know, some sort of broad characterisation one way or the other but obviously an attack like this is horrific and...", State Department Spokesman John Kirby told reporters here yesterday.

The spokesperson was interrupted by a reporter mid-way that her question was about India's response to the September 18 Uri attack.

"But the Indian response is that -- is that the kind of escalation that Secretary Kerry was warning against?" the journalist asked referring to the telephonic conversation between the Secretary of State John Kerry and the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj earlier this week.

Kirby was quick to clarify that he was referring to the Uri terrorist attack.

"Oh, I thought you were talking about the Uri attack," the spokesman said.

On September 27, Kerry spoke with Swaraj. For technical reason, the conversation was spread over two separate calls.

"I can confirm for you that the secretary spoke with -- on the 27th, so earlier this week, with Indian External Affairs Minister Swaraj and reiterated his strong condemnation of the September 18 Uri attack," Kirby said.

"He condemned terrorism in all its forms and he cautioned against any escalation intentions," he said.

Responding to questions, Kirby called for de-escalation of tension between the two countries.

"We've seen those reports (of Indian surgical attack), we're following the situation closely as I think you can understand. We also understand that the Indian and Pakistani militaries have been in communication," he said.

"We believe that continued communication is obviously important to reduce tensions. We've repeatedly expressed our concerns regarding the danger that terrorism poses to the region and we all know that terrorism in many ways knows no border," Kirby said.

"We continue to urge actions to combat and de-legitimise



terrorist groups like LeT, and Haqqani Network, Jaish-E-Mohammed. So, this is something that we're obviously keenly focused on," Kirby said in response to a question.

Counter-terrorism co-operation, he said, is something that the United States is always working at with its partners in the region.

"We're always trying to get better at combating terrorism in the region. There are many ways you can do that, you know, through information sharing regimens and increasing communication between all parties involved," he said.

But he refused to entertain question on if there was any co-operation between India and the United States on the latest Indian operation.

"I don't have a specific laundry list here to read out to you because, frankly, it's something that we've been constantly working at with our partners in the region," he said.

Kirby said America's message to both sides has been the same in terms of encouraging them to increase communication to deal with this threat and to avoid steps that escalate the tensions.

"I think I'm not going to get into characterising each and every step along the way there. But obviously, what we want to see is increased cooperation against what is a very shared common threat for both countries, and to see steps being taken to deal with it by all sides," Kirby said.

Meanwhile, US Ambassador to India Richard Verma, who was in Washington, has rushed back to New Delhi.

"As far as I know, he's returning to New Delhi. My understanding is that he believed that it was, appropriate for him to go back.

"He has got a big job. There a lot of responsibilities that come with it. And, obviously it's a very dynamic situation and he felt it was prudent to go back. We support that," Kirby said.
The textile industry has urged the Centre to come out with a cotton fibre security policy and curtail volatility in cotton prices from the coming season.

The industry also requested the government to direct Cotton Corporation of India to procure 70 to 80 lakh bales in peak season when prices rules lower than global rates and retain cotton as buffer stock and sell this quantity only to actual users during May-September.

The decision was taken unanimously by 26 textile associations of the country, as the predominantly cotton based textile industry has been facing acute crisis during the last eight years due to high volatility in prices especially during off season starting from May to September.

Though the cotton year is October-September, more than 80 per cent of cotton arrives in the market during November to March. Due to financial constraints and three months credit limit facility extended by banks, spinning mills are forced to procure high cost cotton for at least five months, Southern India Mills' Association chairman (SIMA) M Sethilkumar said.

The stagnated growth in the cotton textile industry and exports was mainly due to volatility in prices, Sethilkumar said, who was a part of the delegation which met union textile minister, Smriti Irani yesterday in Delhi.

He said SIMA had been urging for announcement of a cotton fibre security policy since 2007 after removal of cotton from Essential Commodities Act by extending a low cost working capital fund, and ensure adequate stock to have a level playing field in the globalised environment.

The cotton fibre security is very essential as more than 80 per cent of textile manufacturing units are in the MSME category, which provides 35 million jobs directly, particularly for the poor masses, he said.

Cotton price, which was Rs 33,000 per candy of 355 kg, had touched almost Rs 50,000 in July 2016, increasing the clean cotton price up to Rs 65 per kg.

Yarn price increased only by Rs 20 to Rs 30 per kg, thus making the mills to incur Rs 20 to Rs25 per kg loss in the last three months. Several hundreds of mills had to cut down production from 20 to 35 per cent, throwing lakhs of people out of jobs, he claimed.

Stating that downstream sectors like handlooms, powerlooms and apparel also incurred huge losses and there was a decline in export of cotton textiles, he said the cotton textile industry is already facing severe recession due to tariff barriers and sluggish demand for cotton yarn in domestic and export markets.

In such a scenario, high volatility in price has made several hundred spinning mills unviable and NPAs, he said.

He urged the government to come out with a cotton fibre security policy,a long pending agenda, curtail volatility in cotton prices from the coming season onwards and ensure enough stock-to-use ratio of 25 per cent.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Shake brand The Thick Shake Factory plans to invest Rs 50 crore to set up 200 outlets across India in the next two years.

"We intend to open up about 200 outlets with an investment of Rs 50 crore across India in the next 2 years with each outlet entailing an investment of about Rs 20-30 lakh across India through franchise model with the help of Franchise India," The Thick Shake Factory Founder M Yeshwanth Nag said in a statement.

TTSF, which began operations with first outlet in Hyderabad in 2013, at present has 16 outlets across Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Coimbatore.

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IvyCamp,Zhucloud tie up promote Chinese investment in startups * IvyCamp, an initiative of IvyCap Ventures, and Incapital's Zhucloud have announced their partnership to provide Chinese investors access to Indian startups.

The partnership will particularly bring visibility for Indian startups on IvyCamp's platform to a large base of Chinese investors via Zhucloud, IvyCamp said in a statement.

Over 30 Chinese early stage venture capital (VC) funds such as Cyber Carrier, Fenghou Capital, Legend Capital, Plum Ventures, Grand View Capital, K2VC, Hill House Capital, Fusion Capital, Heli Capital and Chengwei Capital, are part of this initiative.

These are early stage funds that invest from USD 200,000 up to USD 2 million in early stage startups and are expected to scout for and invest in Indian startups in Healthcare, Fintech. E-commerce and internet of things (IoT), IvyCamp said.

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Amazon Prime Video to bring animated series on film Baahubali * E-commerce giant Amazon's upcoming video-on-demand service Amazon Prime Video today partnered SS Rajamouli, Graphic India and Arka Mediaworks to launch multi-episode animated series "Baahubali: The Lost Legends" a based on the movie "Baahubali".

The series will premiere on Amazon Prime Video India in 2017.

The animation series will allow customers to discover hidden stories and legends from the Baahubali world, Prime Video India Director and Country Head Nitesh Kripalani said in a statement.

Mahindra Two Wheelers launches MOJO Tourer priced Rs 1.86 lakh



* Mahindra Two Wheelers Ltd (MTWL), today launched the Mahindra MOJO Tourer edition motorcycle priced at Rs 1.86 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

Commenting on the launch, MTWL Senior General Manager - Sales, Marketing & Product Planning Naveen Malhotra said the MOJO Tourer Edition is aimed at those who have a passion for touring and for whom exploring new terrain is a way of life.

The new motorcycle offers a wide range of accessories, including a magnetic tank bag equipped with four rare earth magnets to provide superior grip along with a 13 litre storage capacity, mobile holder and fog lamp and mount to be used in adverse weather conditions, among others.

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Gateway Brewing in talks to raise USD 3 mln funding * Gateway Brewing Co, a startup in the food & beverages segment, is in advanced talks with investors to raise USD 3 million in its series A round.

The money would be used to initiate its bottling operations for distribution of their beer pan-India, the company said in a statement.

Commenting on the development GBC Co-founder Navin Mittal said: "The funds raised will be used for capital expenditure, marketing and brand building. We have already been in talks with certain funds and angels to close this round. Gateway Brewing Co. Has engaged Ashika Capital Limited, an investment bank based out Mumbai to advise it on the transaction."



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SMT to establish R&D and Innovation centre in Ireland * Indian Medical devices company Sahajanand Medical Technologies (SMT) today said it is establishing its European headquarters in Ireland, which will have a state-of-the-art Research & Development and Innovation Centre.

SMT is largest developer and manufacturer of minimally invasive coronary stent systems in India and supplies to around 60 countries in Europe, Asia, MENA and Latin America. The company has received numerous awards for its breakthrough innovations and quality that have led to more thinner and flexible DES with good long term clinical results.

The project is supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation through IDA Ireland.

Cox & Kings owned MEININGER hotels to open in Heidelberg



* Tour and travel firm Cox & Kings Cox owned MEININGER Hotels have signed a contract with Hirotani Projektgesellschaft mbH to open a new hotel in Heidelberg in Germany.

The company however did not provide any financial details about the contract.

The new hotel will offer 336 beds in 100 rooms on five floors, Cox & Kings said in a filing to BSE.

The opening of the hotel is being planned for beginning of 2019, it added.

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Muthoot Group comes with Hero Indian Super League for 3rd yr * Kerala based Muthoot Group today announced its association with Hero Indian Super League for the third consecutive year.

Muthoot Group is in a continued association as the official Referee and Fair Play Sponsor of Hero Indian Super League (HISL)for the third consecutive year, it said in a release.

Alexander George Muthoot, the Director of Muthoot Group also unveiled the Fair Play Award Trophy. The Group said it will also produce a limited edition of HISL gold coins with The Muthoot Group Fair Play Award.
The Madras High Court today granted two more months' time to the Tamil Nadu government to take a decision on various remedial measures, including payment of compensation to families of 66 deceased convicts and remand prisoners from 2012 to 2015, which is pending with it.

The court, which went through the report filed by the Member Secretary, Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority (TNSLA) put the query to the government pleader, when the case came up.

The matter relates to a PIL filed by one Kesavan, an advocate, who is also the Joint Secretary of the Centre for Protection of Civil Liberties.

TNSLA said cases of 40 deaths of remand prisoners were dealt with by the Public Department, while that of the deaths of 26 convict prisoners were dealt with by the Home Department.

After going through it, the court asked the government pleader how much time is required to take a decision on the remedial measures, for which he said two more months' time was needed.

The court granted it and posted the matter to December 9.

The petitioner had sought a judicial inquiry into prison deaths and interim compensation of Rs five lakh each, claiming that more than 1,000 prisoners had died of various reasons in 13 years from year 2000.

He had also sought a direction to the Secretary, Home Department and DGP, Prisons, to consider his October 3, 2013 representation, praying for various remedial measures to provide medical facilities to prisoners to prevent unnatural deaths.

On July 29, the government had informed the court that out of 264 deaths that occurred in prisons across the state between 2012 and 2015, compensation was given only in three cases.

The Home Department had stated that the death of prisoners has been informed to the local police, judicial magistrates, district collectors, government, SHRC and NHRC.

It had said the total number of deaths of remand prisoners dealt with by the Public Department from 2012 to 2015, was 137. The total number of convicts whose deaths were dealt with by the state Home Department from 2012 to 2015, was 127 and the inquiry reports in 99 deaths were yet to be received.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A man accused of stabbing a woman to death in Sydney 26 years ago has been extradited to Australia and charged with murder, after spending almost two decades living quietly on a Pacific island.

Alani Afu, 49, has been charged over the killing of Rita Caleo, a 39-year-old mother who was repeatedly stabbed in her home in Sydney's upmarket Double Bay area in August 1990.

Caleo's death followed that of her brother, doctor Michael Chye (36), who was shot three times as he drove his car into the garage of his Sydney home in October 1989.

Australian police reopened the case into the murders of the brother and sister in 2011 and since then two other men have been arrested and remain before the court.

New South Wales police said in a statement their inquiries revealed that another man alleged to have been involved in the murder of Caleo was living in Tonga.

Afu had appealed against his extradition but arrived at Sydney International Airport yesterday. He did not apply for bail and was remanded in custody until October 4.

In his appeal, the court heard that Afu, also known as Alani Koloamatangi, was 23 years old at the time of the murder and living in Sydney.

Since returning to Tonga in 1997, he had not committed any crimes, and had married, had six children and worked for the same stevedoring business for 13 years, the court was told.

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Notwithstanding rising tensions between India and Pakistan, trade through the Attari-Wagah land route remained unaffected with more than 180 goods trucks moving across for the second day today after Army's surgical strikes across the LoC.

Amritsar Customs Commissioner Captain Sanjay Gahlot told PTI today they have "not witnessed any reduction in number of trucks".

"The trade (through Attari-Wagah route) continues to remain normal. There is no indication (of any adverse impact on trade)," he said.

Customs officials said 63 trucks with tomatoes crossed over to Pakistan through the land route while 123 with dry dates, gypsum, cement, aluminum ore, salt etc moved into the Indian territory.

"The number of trucks crossing over to India from Pakistan is likely to go up in the evening," another Customs official said.

Yesterday, 170 trucks from Pakistan brought goods to India while more than 50 went to the neighbouring country.

Pakistan imports vegetables including tomatoes, ginger, garlic and spices, cotton yarn etc while India imports cement, gypsum and dry fruits via the Attari-Wagah land route.

Meanwhile, Punjab traders dealing with imports and exports with Pakistan through the land route in Amritsar welcomed the Indian Army's surgical strikes across the Line of Control.

"The action taken by the Indian army was necessary to give befitting reply to Pakistan for the Uri terror attack," said President of Federation of Dry Fruit and Karyana Commercial Association, Anil Mehra.

"It is Pakistan which will be hit the most if trade ties between two nations are snapped. For us country comes first and then comes trade," said Mehra.

Pakistan allows import of 137 items from India through Attari-Wagah.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
TRS MP Kalvakuntla Kavitha has requested the Centre to stop import of cheap turmeric from Cambodia, saying the trend would hurt domestic farmers.

"Once cheap turmeric comes in, it looks like a substitute, people will be using it for various purposes and once they are used to paying low price, they will not pay the same price to (domestic) farmers," Kavitha said.

"Earlier, the same thing happened with rubber," she said, adding that when India had started importing cheap rubber from Cambodia and other countries, the "rubber farmers started committing suicide in Kerala".

"It hurts indigenous farmers quite a bit," she told PTI.

Telangana accounts for 60 per cent of the total turmeric produced in India, according to the Lok Sabha member from Nizamabad.

Kavitha, daughter of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, said that as of now the cheap turmeric imports from Cambodia is "not much but the trend itself should not start".

She recently met yoga guru Baba Ramdev and requested him to set up a turmeric plant by Patanjali, a company run by him, in Nizamabad. "He responded positively, hopefully something will come out of it. He will get a technical survey done," she said.

She said she has also sought Ramdev's support for the "turmeric cause".

She had been demanding that the Centre form a separate Board for turmeric on the lines of Rubber and Coffee Board. "If turmeric board is established separately, there will be more focus on the crop, research, etc."



More than 50 spices are under the purview of Spices Board and not much focus is given to turmeric, she said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The chief executive of one of Turkey's top private media firms quit today over emails purportedly showing him allowing the government dictate editorial policy but that he said were fake.

Mehmet Ali Yalcindag had since last year been the head of the Dogan Media Group which groups together key interests including the Hurriyet newspaper, CNN-Turk channel and Kanal-D channel.

The newspaper and channels are generally seen as independent of the government while taking care not to follow an overtly oppositional line.

However, Yalcindag's position came under scrutiny when emails purportedly written by him were released on social media by a group calling itself Redhack.

The emails purportedly showed him expressing willingness to Energy Minister Berat Albayrak -- who is also Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's son-in-law -- to keep coverage favourable to the government.

In a statement published on the website of Hurriyet, Yalcindag denied the authenticity of the emails and said he was victim of an "ugly fraud".

"A technical analysis of my personal computer has revealed that the emails were not written by me and were not sent using my computer."



He added: "I will use every legal right available to me against these publications," saying that detailed analysis would be carried out to explain what happened.

He said he was leaving with immediate effect "with the aim of not harming the reputation of the Dogan group."



In the purported emails, Yalcindag is alleged to complain of Hurriyet's editor-in-chief Sedat Ergin and details plans to force him out.

Ahmet Hakan, a Hurriyet columnist, and Hande Firat, CNN-Turk's Ankara bureau chief, are cited as "reliable" names to replace him.

Aydin Dogan, the founder of the family-controlled Dogan Group, said he respected the decision of Yalcindag, who is also his son-in-law.

The tycoon said he considered it an "offense" to access personal data through illegal means and present it through manipulation.

"I strongly condemn the unlawful and immoral attacks targeting my son-in-law Mehmet Ali, our family unity and Dogan Media Group's prestige and standing in public opinion.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
GRAND FORKS -- North Dakota University System officials were warned to brace for cuts in the next two-year budget that likely will go deeper than the 10 percent reduction theyre now planning to handle.

State agencies were told to plan budgets for 2017-19 that are 10 percent lower than appropriations for the current biennium -- reductions that are combined with 6.55 percent cuts in the current budget.

The probability of increased austerity measures, and the need for ongoing efficiency and collaboration at the states 11 campuses, loomed over discussions at the State Board of Higher Education meeting here Thursday, Sept. 29, on the University of North Dakota campus.

It more than likely will be higher than that, said Tammy Dolan, the university systems chief financial officer, referring to the planned 10 percent funding reduction now being built into budget requests.

Word that more budget reductions likely are coming came from a budget meeting, she said. State revenues have continued to slump because of sagging oil and farm commodity prices.

Campuses already are engaged in finding more ways to collaborate and identifying other steps to increase efficiency, Chancellor Mark Hagerott said.

This is already happening, he said, citing as an example a new cybersecurity program that will be taught by faculty on three campuses. Our goal is not to do damage.

Dolan presented board members with a summary of budget figures based on cutbacks already announced for the 2015-17 and 2017-19 higher education budgets. Although plans were submitted to the Office of Management and Budget in August, Dolan said the final numbers wont be known until the state Legislature meets.

State campus budgets for the remainder of the current biennium were reduced by $48.5 million, including $17 million in operating cost savings, or almost a third of the total savings.

Campuses will see another net decrease of $49.5 million, a blow softened by an $11.9 million funding formula increase, resulting in a $564.9 million base budget.

The 10 percent reduction for the 2017-19 budget includes $53 million in salaries and benefits across the system. Staff reductions will include not filling 190 vacant full-time positions and 125 early retirements or voluntary separations, and 105 layoffs.

Rep. Mark Sanford, R-Grand Forks, chairman of the Legislatures interim Higher Education Committee, briefed board members on recommendations and legislation his panel will present to the 2017 North Dakota Legislature.

The committee is examining university system costs, including administrative expenses, as well as governance and campus missions.

Clearly we are in a cost-containment time frame now, Sanford said. Even without the slumping state revenues, higher education will find itself striving to cut costs and gain efficiencies because of high tuition costs and college students heavy debt load, he said.

The reality is for students the cost is getting more and more burdensome, Sanford said. So cost containment is a big piece.

Because of the fluid and unpredictable budget picture, board members postponed discussion of proposed changes to the university systems tuition waiver program, which has been the subject of legislative scrutiny.

The university system has been working to increase student retention and graduation rates. Board members voted to raise North Dakotas retention rate goal to 65 percent, in line with the goal for the national average.

I dont think we should ever settle for the national average, board member Greg Stemen said. Im fine with it as a baseline.
Delhi Police's crime branch today arrested two members of a notorious murder-cum-extortion gang in Shaimar Bagh area here.

According to police, the duo -- Basant Verma and Naveen -- were recently inducted into the Harsimran alias Badal gang and were wanted in two different cases in Shalimar Bagh.

Their gang leader Harsimran alias Badal had been released on bail on August 30 in an extortion case. Bhawan Narang and Aman Batra had filed complaints that he had demanded extortion money of Rs 5 lakh each from them.

Police said while in jail, Harsimran tried to terrorise one of the complaints and fired at his car.

On September 16, he along with with his gang members visited Narang and Batra and terrorised their families and threatened to kill them for filing cases against him, police said.

He demanded Rs 10 lakh and Rs 7 lakh from Narang and Batra respectively and two separate cases of extortion were registered against him and the gang members at Shalimar Bagh police station.

To nab them, police conducted raids at various hideouts in UP West and Haryana. Acting on a tip-off, police arrested the duo -- Basant Verma and Naveen -- from near Nyay Chowk, Swaroop Nagar, Delhi.

Both of them confessed to their involvement in crimes with other gang members including Harsimran, police said.

Verma has been working as a newspaper advertisement commission agent and had been arrested earlier for attempt to murder and under the Arms Act while Naveen is son of a retired police Sub Inspector from Haryana and his brother is serving as a Constable.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Uttarakhand government today hailed the surgical strikes by the Army on terror launchpads in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir and congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the bold offensive.

A Cabinet meeting was chaired by Chief Minister Harish Rawat at Bijapur guest house where members saluted the security forces for their show of valour across the LoC.

"By carrying out surgical strikes on terror launchpads in POK, the Indian army has dealt a huge blow to terrorism. Entire Uttarakhand today salutes our forces," Rawat told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.

He congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the bold offensive and hoped such steps will continue in future.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress-led UDF Opposition continued their agitation in the Kerala Assembly on the private medical college issue for the third day today, as the government refused to reconsider its agreement with the managements on fee structure and admissions.

Replying to a notice for an adjournment motion, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan maintained that there was no need for any change in the fee structure.

On the Opposition charge that the government had failed to check acceptance of capitation fees by managements, he said a vigilance probe would be ordered into complaints regarding it.

He said the government would soon complete the process of taking over the medical college at Pariyaram in Kannur under the co-operative sector.

"Though the previous UDF government had started the process of taking over the college, it has not been completed. This government will complete the process soon," he said.

The Left leader said fees applicable in government colleges would be charged once this college became a government institution.

Health Minister K K Shailaja criticised the UDF stir and said it was aimed at creating a smoke screen with an intention to help private managements which had effectively been reined in by the LDF government.

She said the government would take legal action against three private medical colleges which had not signed agreements with the government.

"We are not going to allow them to do whatever they want," she said, adding the government had received complaints of malpractices in admissions in these colleges.

She also informed the House that the admission process would be completed by today as stipulated by the Apex Court.

Meanwhile, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala tabled in the House a CD purportedly containing audio clips connected with a private medical college management member demanding capitation fees from a prospective student.

He alleged it was the copy of the audio aired by a TV channel recently and disputed the government's argument that no capitation fees was being charged by managements.

Some UDF members moved near the Speaker's podium and raised slogans against the government after the opposition's notice for an adjournment motion on the issue was rejected.

Speaker P Sreeramakrishan went through it and adjourned the House for the day, cancelling private members' business.

Seeking notice for the motion, T V Balaram (Cong) attacked Vijayan and alleged he was behaving like a dictator.

He alleged that the medical college at Pariyaram stood to benefit the most following the agreement.

Meanwhile, MLAs Shafi Parambil and Hibi Eden (both Congress) and Anoop Jacob (KC-J) continued their indefinite fast at the foyer of the hall for the third day today. N A Nellikunnau and K K Abid Hussain Thangal (both IUML) replaced K M Shaji and N Shamsuddin (both IUML), who are on a sit-in dharna to express solidarity with the trio.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The United Nations has denounced the death of 15 civilians, including a child, in a US air strike against Islamic State militants in eastern Afghanistan, calling for an independent investigation into the killings.

The drone attack occurred Wednesday in Achin district, a hotbed of IS insurgents in Nangarhar province near the border with Pakistan, as villagers gathered to welcome a tribal elder who had returned from the hajj pilgrimage.

"UNAMA condemns the killing of at least 15 civilian men and the injuring of at least 13 others, including at least one boy, in the strike," the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said yesterday.

"Civilian victims of the strike included students and a teacher, as well as members of families considered to be pro-gvernment."



Afghan authorities had previously put the civilian death toll at between three and 13.

The American military acknowledged it had conducted the "counter-terrorism airstrike" on Wednesday, adding it was still probing the incident.

"United States Forces - Afghanistan takes all allegations of civilian casualties very seriously," the US military said in a statement, highlighting the challenge of targeting IS insurgents making steady inroads in Nangarhar.

"Daesh is killing innocent Afghan men, women, and children. They continue to put innocent lives at risk by deliberately surrounding themselves with civilians and dressing in female attire," it said, using the Arabic acronymn for IS.

Islamic State first emerged in Afghanistan in late 2014 and has since violently challenged the much larger Afghan Taliban movement in parts of the country's east.

But the fighters have steadily lost territory in recent months because of stepped-up US airstrikes and a ground campaign by Afghan forces in Nangarhar.

Civilian and military casualties caused by NATO forces have been one of the most contentious issues in the 15-year campaign against the insurgents, prompting harsh public and government criticism.

A US air strike killed eight Afghan policemen earlier this month in the southern province of Uruzgan in the first apparent "friendly fire" incident since American forces were given greater powers to strike at insurgents in June.

The new authority gave the US-led NATO troops greater latitude to order air strikes in support of Afghan troops.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India-US military relationship is the "closest it has been ever" and the two countries are exercising together by air, land and sea for the first time, America's Defence Secretary Ashton Carter has said.

He underlined that the two great democracies have done a strategic and technological "handshake".

"America's regional partnerships are growing in number and strength. The US-India military relationship is the closest it's ever been. Great nation, large democracy," Carter in his remarks aboard the USS Carl Vinson in San Diego yesterday.

"Through our strategic handshake with America's reaching west in our re-balance and India reaching east in what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi calls his Act East Policy, our two nations are exercising together by air, land, and sea."



Never did that before, he noted.

"There is also a technological handshake between the United States and India. The US-India Defence Technology and Trade Initiative grasps hands with Prime Minister Modi's Make in India campaign, helping our countries move toward more diverse defence co-development and co-production of weapons systems," Carter said.

Noting that Asia-Pacific is the most consequential region for America's future, he said the US is managing "historic change" in the area.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US artist Shirley Jaffe, an influential painter in contemporary abstract art, has died at the age of 93, after spending most of her life living and working in France, the gallery that represented her announced.

Born in 1923 in New Jersey, Jaffe moved to Paris in 1949 after studying fine art in New York and Washington.

A close friend of fellow Americans Sam Francis and James Bishop, both painters, the adopted daughter of Paris was represented for several decades by the prestigious art gallery Jean Fournier.

Jaffe first came to be known in the art scene for her abstract expressionist work. She broke away from this style in the early 1960s, adopting instead a colourful, geometric style.

"Considered one of the most influential painters in contemporary abstract art, she caught the attention of artists from younger generations, such as Jessica Stockholder and Bernard Piffaretti," the Nathalie Obadia gallery, which had represented her since 1999, said in a statement.

At the turn of the century Jaffe designed stained glass windows for the chapel of Perpignan in southern France.

Her work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

During their 2009 visit to Paris, the US first family visited the six-storey Pompidou museum and were "extremely interesting in everything" -- including Jaffe's work.

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Mining conglomerate Vedanta Ltd today said Arun Kumar has been elevated as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the Vedanta Group.

Kumar will be the CFO for both London-listed Vedanta Resources as well as the BSE and NSE-listed Vedanta Ltd, like the outgoing CFO D D Jalan.

Kumar, currently Deputy CFO at Vedanta, takes over from Group CFO and whole-time director of Vedanta Ltd Jalan on his superannuation, effective September 30, it said in a statement.

Kumar joined Vedanta in 2013 as CFO for its Aluminium and Power business. In 2014, he moved into his current role as Executive VP (Finance) and Deputy CFO, it added.

He was responsible for enhancing the capability of the finance function in the areas of accounting, risk management, driving value creation, strategic planning, re-financing, board reporting and governance and direct taxation.

Previously, Kumar has worked with Hindustan Unilever and General Electric.

Vedanta Chairman Anil Agarwal said: "D D Jalan joined the Group in 2001 and as a key member of the Executive Committee, he has played a significant role in the listing of Vedanta at LSE and NYSE . (He) will continue to provide transition support to the leadership team.

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Former Israeli President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres was today laid to rest here in a funeral attended by world leaders including US President Barack Obama who hailed him as a "giant of 20th century".

Peres, who passed away on Wednesday at the age of 93, served as two-time prime minister, minister of defence, foreign affairs, finance and transportation; and, until 2014, as president of the country and did more than anyone to build Israel's formidable military might and its nuclear programme.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Peres as a "great man of the world".

"He soared to incredible heights. He was a great man of Israel; he was a great man of the world. Israel grieves for him, the world grieves for him, but we find hope in his legacy, as does the world," Netanyahu told mourners at Mount Herzl national cemetery where Peres would be buried alongside other prominent leaders of the Jewish state.

In what is the largest gathering of foreign dignitaries in the history of Israel, President Obama, French President Francois Hollande, German President Joachim Gauck and scores of other world leaders attended the funeral amid tight security.

Obama, who awarded Peres the presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, is one of the speakers at the ceremony. He arrived in Israel this morning. He wore a black Jewish skullcap as he took his seat at the ceremony.

"In many ways, he reminded me of some other giants of the 20th century that I've had the honour to meet," Obama told mourners, as he compared Peres to Nelson Mandela and Queen Elizabeth.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was also among attendees. He was seated in the front row at the request of Peres's family.

Abbas, who is on his first visit to Israel since September 2010 when peace talks broke down, shook hands and spoke briefly with Netanyahu upon arrival.

Abbas, who signed the Oslo accords along with Peres, has called him a "brave" partner for peace.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Jordanian Prime Minister Jawad Anani were also in attendance.

Jordan's King Abdullah II yesterday sent a condolence letter to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in which he highlighted Peres' efforts to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians as part of a two-state solution.

Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel.

Israel's President Reuven Rivlin in his eulogy at the funeral ceremony credited Peres with ensuring the State of Israel "as an indisputable fact".

"Like you, I was also born into the Zionist Movement in those decisive years between vision and fulfillment. I was fortunate to look up to you as a partner in the building of the State of Israel from its very foundations," Rivlin said.

"However, with much thanks to you Shimon, for our sons and daughters, for our friends - and yes for our opponents - the State of Israel is an indisputable fact," he said.

Applauding Peres as the visionary who shaped Israel's



future right from its foundation, the Israeli President said that he was not just a thinker but a doer.

"You had the rare ability Shimon to conceive what seemed to be the inconceivable, and see it to fruition. Your eyes saw far ahead, while your feet covered great distances on the landscape of Jewish and Zionist history," Rivlin said.

He "succeeded in moving even the most stubborn of politicians, and to melt away even the hardest of hearts of our opponents," Rivlin added.

Peres, who was the pioneer of Israel's nuclear programme and also backed the creation of Jewish settlements in the earlier years only to abandon the idea later as a peacemaker, earned praise for his contributions to Israel's security.

"How deep was your belief in the sacred combination of ethical leadership and military prowess, that Israel must act not just with wisdom, but with justice, faithful at every moment to its values as a Jewish and democratic state, democratic and Jewish," the president added.

Some 50,000 people paid tributes to the Israeli leader yesterday at the Knesset (Parliament) where his coffin laid in state throughout the day.

Former US president Bill Clinton was among those who paid their last respects there.

Security forces were put on high alert as the funeral began, with roads closed and thousands of officers deployed.

Some 2000 police officers backed by personnel from other agencies have been deployed in Jerusalem for the ceremony with media reports saying that some Arab and Jewish suspects have been put under preventive arrest to prevent any disruption.

Earlier, the casket carrying the departed soul was moved from the Knesset plaza to Mount Herzl on the outskirts of Jerusalem where he was laid to rest.
A local leader of YSRC Party was murdered on the outskirts of V Sarabavaram village in the district last night.

B Raju (35), a YSRCP member, was the husband of village sarpanch B D V Lakshmi.

The crime took place within the limits of Rolugunta police station.

Raju was returning home at around 10.45 pm when a group of unidentified persons attacked him with sharp-edged weapons and fled from the spot.

Police sub-inspector K Govinda Rao said political or business rivalry could have led to the murder.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Costas Pitas

LONDON (Reuters) - Jaguar Land Rover will "realign its thinking" on investment after Britain's vote to leave the EU and if Nissan gets a Brexit compensation deal then other automakers would need a level playing field, Britain's biggest carmaker said.

Chief Executive Ralf Speth also told on Friday that there were signs that some customers in Europe, Jaguar Land Rover's biggest market, no longer wanted to buy British cars.

Speth responded to comments by Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn, who said on Thursday he would halt new investment in Britain without a pledge of compensation for tariffs imposed on UK-built cars in the event of a 'hard Brexit'.

"We are the only car manufacturer in the UK to do all the work in terms of research, design, engineering, production planning in the UK," Speth said.

"We want to have fair treatment and a level playing field at the end of the day," he told by telephone from the Paris auto show.

Britain is not expected to begin formal divorce talks from the European Union until 2017, which will last two years, but there are growing concerns among carmakers about the implications of a 'hard Brexit', which would leave firms paying tariffs to export UK-assembled cars to EU markets.

Carmakers Nissan and Toyota both warned on Thursday that tariffs could hurt production in Britain and Volkswagen-owned brand Skoda urged Britain, Europe's second-largest car market, to clarify the situation as soon as possible.

Britain's business ministry did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Speth said Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which built one third of Britain's 1.6 million cars last year, would face a double hit in the event of 'hard Brexit' with tariffs on exported cars and imported parts and technology hurting competitiveness.

"If we face higher tariffs than anybody else then it's quite clear that it's reducing the competitiveness of our products especially in Europe," he said. "The order of magnitude cannot be calculated right now."

Two sources told in June that the firm estimates its annual profit could be cut by 1 billion pounds ($1.3 billion) by the end of the decade if Britain returned to WTO tariffs of 10 percent, according to internal documents.

FUTURE INVESTMENT?

Speth also raised concern that some European consumers might be shunning British brands in the wake of the Brexit vote, referring to comments by European sales representatives.

"They have the very first customers in their showrooms (who) clearly highlight that they don't want to buy British products any more," he said.

Any blow to the British car industry, which was dogged by wild-cat strikes and poor productivity in the 1970s and 1980s, could undo years of recent progress with output currently expected to reach a record high of 2 million by 2020.

JLR said its long-term investment strategy has not changed as a result of the vote but the firm would now have to think again after Britons backed leaving the European Union on June 23.

"We have to realign all of our thinking and work on how to handle this Brexit best," Speth said. Asked if that included investments, he replied: "Everything."

Over 800,000 jobs depend on Britain's overwhelmingly foreign-owned car industry and big carmakers backed continued membership during the campaign, seeing benefits from open trade and standardised rules.

Britain's car industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders warned on Friday that a lack of clarity over a potential deal risked future growth.

"The current uncertainty is not conducive to attracting manufacturing investment to the UK," Chief Executive Mike Hawes said.

However, Speth left open the possibility of new investment in Britain such as an electric battery and car plant if the conditions, including pilot testing and support from science, were right.

"The best thing would be to have something in the UK... If you are producing batteries there then you will also produce vehicles there," he said, suggesting a partnership with the Warwick Manufacturing Group in central England.

($1 = 0.7720 pounds)

(Reporting by Costas Pitas; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Adrian Croft)

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
FARGO  The Dakota Access Pipeline was a topic of debate Thursday afternoon among candidates for one seat on the three-person North Dakota Public Service Commission.

The three candidates  incumbent Republican Julie Fedorchak, Democrat Marlo Hunte-Beaubrun and Libertarian Tom Skadeland  gathered at the Prairie Public studio in downtown Fargo for the debate, which was sponsored by the broadcaster and AARP. The candidates all ran unopposed in their parties' primaries June 14.

Fedorchak first claimed the seat to fill the vacancy left by former Commissioner Kevin Cramer, who resigned after being elected to the U.S. House in 2012. With her on the commission are two other Republicans, Randy Christmann and Brian Kalk.

Fedorchak said in her time on the commission, shes offered a common-sense approach to regulatory policy, adding that her priorities include the improvement of rail safety and reclamation and ensuring that electric rates are affordable and reliable.

Hunte-Beaubrun, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said it was time we bring some diversity to the commission. There are five tribes in North Dakota, she said, and there isnt one seat on this commission to have the tribes be heard.

She emphasized her priorities of communication, cooperation and collaboration during the debate, particularly as they relate to permits for projects such as the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Skadeland said hed started his campaign to ask fundamental questions about the role of government, including that of the Public Service Commission.

After extensive review, Skadeland said, Ive come to what I consider a rational and logical conclusion that the PSC is inherently inefficient and unethical.

Economic law opposes the commissions attempts to guide market processes, Skadeland said, adding he believes the commission restricts North Dakota citizens natural rights.

It is my belief that the PSC can and should be abolished and handled through pure, free-market processes and controlled by private-sector participants, Skadeland said.

Conflicting accounts

In discussion of the pipeline, Fedorchak described its permit process as thorough, open and transparent.

Im a huge believer in public input and work hard to get public awareness about our hearings and involvement in them, Fedorchak said. We provided the pipeline permit when we were assured that the company had met all the requirements under state law.

Fedorchak said during the 14-month process, the commission hosted three public meetings, which were noticed widely and broadly, along the pipeline route. The meetings, in Mandan, Kildeer and Williston, came after traditional listings and direct mailings to agencies including the North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission, who Fedorchak said directly notifies tribes as appropriate. A personal invitation to the hearings was extended to the Standing Rock Tribe, she said.

We had hundreds of participants and took lots of comments during the hearing process, and incorporated a lot of those concerns in our ultimate permitting process, Fedorchak said.

Hunte-Beaubrun said she disagreed with the incumbents account of the process.

I believe there was outreach to the city people in Bismarck when the pipeline was going to go north of Bismarck, and I dont feel that that was extended when it was moved down the line, she said.

On both sides of the coin, more preventative measures could have been taken to avoid conflict, Hunte-Beaubrun said, however, in the present, leaders are being called upon to sit down and communicate in efforts to resolve the dispute.

At the end of the day, were all being reactive to something thats already in place, Hunte-Beaubrun said. We have to start learning to work together because we all reside in this state, were all North Dakotans, and thats the only way were going to see ourselves move forward into the future.

Tribes should be a bigger part of permitting processes, she said. Hence my running for office.

Fedorchak said she is in favor of involving more tribal input, though she does not think its fair to hold future standards to the existing project, which is 60 percent in the ground in North Dakota today.

She also called the pipeline a vital infrastructure investment, adding its environmental restrictions make it the safest option for oil transport, though it traverses bodies of water such as Lake Sakakawea and Lake Oahe. Block valves are on both sides of each river crossing, she said, and the pipeline will be monitored 24/7, 365 days a year.

Whether everyone wants to agree with it or not, right now, we are dependent on fossil fuels for our electricity and for a lot of our energy needs, Fedorchak said.

Skadeland said he is opposed to the pipeline because the individual property rights of those involved have not been respected. In Iowa, he said, landowners have had their land confiscated illegitimately and unjustly through eminent domain. More concerning to North Dakota residents, he said, should be the government subsidies given to companies involved in pipeline construction, which he called an illegitimate source of production financing and a burden on taxpayers. A free-market approach to pipeline production would be more appropriate, he said.

The Public Service Commission seat debate will be broadcast on Prairie Public's television network 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 12, and rebroadcast at 2:30 a.m. Friday, Oct. 14.

It will also air 2:30 p.m. Nov. 6 as part of a back-to-back broadcast beginning 1 p.m. of all of this election season's debates. All airings will be available at prairiepublic.org after their initial televised broadcasts.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Oil and Natural Gas Corporation will invest 340.12 billion rupees ($5.11 billion) in four years to develop cluster 2 of east coast deepwater block, the company said in a tweet on Friday.

These fields are expected to reach a net peak production of 77,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and 16.29 million metric standard cubic metres per day (mmscmd) of gas by 2021/22 fiscal year, the company had said earlier.

($1 = 66.6000 rupees)

(Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Malini Menon)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
DEMOCRATS AND DISSENTERS

Author: Ramachandra Guha

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Pages: 352

Price: Rs 699



Plato rejected Athenian democracy on the grounds that it encouraged anarchy. Nietzsche disapproved of democracy as "Christianity's heir". But to adapt King Edward VII's famous comment on socialists, we are all democrats nowadays. India's other national myth - of being a secular republic where caste and creed are subsumed in the desi equivalent of Cicero's Civis romanus sum, I am a Roman citizen, - is no longer even whispered. But woe betide anyone who questions the world's largest democracy boast. Even the dissenters (if any) of Ramachandra Guha's title claim they want only another form of democracy.
During this year's unprecedented floods that threatened lives and livelihoods in Assam, one rescue operation caught everyone's imagination. A baby was stranded in a couple of feet of fast-moving water. Bystanders watched in horror as the water began to rise. Rescue came in the form of two boats that had to be tethered to one another. It took several men to lift the baby, put it on one boat and maintain balance by quickly getting on the other boat.
Two years ago, minutes before a flight to Mumbai took off from Delhi, the airline crew announced that a "'Dr Santosh Gaikwad" was required to approach them immediately. "I instantly knew it was about my bags," says Gaikwad, 42.
Government is working on a target date of April 1, 2017 for the rollout of Goods and Services Tax, and the first meeting of the GST Council was held in a "very cordial and constructive environment", Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Friday.

In his opening remarks at the Fourth Meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee meeting here, he said the government so far is following the road map for implementation of GST "as per the schedule".

The subject of meeting was GST, an official release said.

Jaitley said that till September 16, 2017, one year after the provisions of the Constitution (101st Amendment) Act, 2016 being brought into force, the Constitution empowers the central government to levy excise duty on manufacturing, and service tax on the supply of services.

Similarly, the Constitution Amendment Act empowers the state governments to levy sales tax or Value Added Tax (VAT) on the sale of goods till that time September 16, 2016.

The Finance Minister further said that the first meeting of the GST Council was held in a very cordial and constructive environment earlier this month. The second meeting is scheduled on Thursday.

The GST Council is a joint forum of the Centre and the States. The Council will take decisions on important issues like tax rates, exemption list and threshold limits.

Members of Consultative Committee sought various clarifications with regard to GST Law and gave suggestions for its better implementation.

Some of the major suggestions include need for absolute clarity and transparency with regard to where taxes will be collected, assessed and where the appeal will be filed in case of GST regime.

As per a release, the members said that it will be a challenging task to tackle complex situation arising-out of implementation of GST law in a federal system.

Some of them suggested there is a need for launching a large scale awareness campaign especially for small traders as most of them are still unaware of the complex procedures and processes under the GST regime including registration and filing of returns.
India Inc has stood behind the government and the Army to support the surgical strike against Pakistani terrorists saying "it is time to act tough".

It has also ruled out fears of any negative impact on the country's economy and trade due to the ongoing tensions with Pakistan.

"Our civil n (sic) decent response in the past hasn't been met with reciprocity so it's time to act tough," Biocon CMD Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw tweeted immediately after Director General of Military Operations Ranbir Singh confirmed the surgical strike on Thursday morning.

In a knee-jerk reaction, the stock market crashed and rupee fell on Thursday after the Indian Army's announcement of the surgical strike, but any long-term impact on the economy remains improbable.

This, however, may not bring any assurance to those Indian exporters who trade with Pakistan as they are likely to bear the brunt in case of any eventuality between the neighbouring countries.

In fact, compared to Pakistani traders, Indian exporters stand to lose more in case of any military escalation on the border.

Trade imbalance



If you look at India-Pakistan bilateral trade, it's about $2 billion annually in which India exports 80 per cent to Pakistan and latter accounts only for 20 per cent.

According to a study done by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), informal trade between India and Pakistan was estimated to be $4.71 billion in 2013-14.

Of this, India's exports to Pakistan were estimated to be $3.99 billion and imports from Pakistan $0.72 billion.

Cotton exporters may get hit the worst as Pakistan is the largest importer of cotton from India. Back home, Pakistan, which has one of the largest textile industries in the world, is facing a cotton crisis.

Cotton production in Pakistan has fallen 35 per cent this year and imports from India turn out to be much cheaper than from Australia and Africa. In the 2015-16 season (October-September), it bought 2.5 millon bales (one bale is 170 kg); India's total cotton exports were 6.5 million bales.

India has been traditionally supplying meat, chemicals, artefacts, medicines and agriculture products to Pakistan.

This year, there has been a surge in demand for Indian dairy products and sugar, too.

India buys nuts, fruit, cement, leather products, some chemicals and rare earth materials from Pakistan.

But in a broader context, India's overall trade with Pakistan is still small compared to other countries, and the government may not be as concerned about the impact on trade.

What India exports to Pakistan via informal channels



1. Jewellery

2. Textiles

3. Paper

4. Scraps

5. Chemicals

6. Electronic appliances

7. Tyres, and betel leaves

8. Machinery and machine parts

What India imports from Pakistan



1. Textiles

2. Dry fruits

3. Spices

4. Cement

5. Carpets, fruits and vegetables
It's a mix of diplomacy and bravery which has forced Pakistan to considerably change its stance on the recent friction in relations with India post the Uri terrorist attack.

On September 28, 2016, Pakistan defence minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif threatened India with nuclear strikes in wake of any retaliatory action after four fidayeen militants stormed an Army camp in Uri near the Line of Control and killed 19 Indian soldiers on September 18. All terrorists were killed later.

A day after Indian Army conducted surgical strike across the LoC in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and killed about 50 militants, Pakistan PM Nawaj Sharif said today Pakistan does not want war with India.

Pakistan, rattled by the unexpected strike, has surprisingly changed its stand, thanks to the Modi government's tactical moves.

It was a well crafted plan by the Modi government to bring to justice the militants planning to infiltrate from across the LoC and corner the Pakistani government with its diplomatic efforts on the global stage.

Post the Uri attack, the Modi government was under pressure to take stringent retaliatory action but, it took 10 days to follow public mood. Why the government took so long to act? What did it achieve with the late timing of the retaliatory strike? The reply might have been late but it was befitting enough to put Pakistan into deep trouble.

We look at how India cornered Pakistan post the terror strike.

The government was engaged in deliberations with Army since the attack took place.

Reports say there was tremendous pressure on the government to act against Pakistan. It chose to corner Pakistan with its diplomatic efforts and then acted against the terrorists.

The government talked about cancelling Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan and media was abuzz with reports of its implications. The Pakistani government even reached out to the World Bank on the issue. Eventually, PM Modi decided to postpone the decision on the water issue after Pakistan became anxious about scrapping the treaty.

The government also pulled out of SAARC Summit to be held in Islamabad on November 9 and 10. Following suit, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka confirmed they would not participate in the summit, citing tensions prevalent in the region. This was a big diplomatic win for India post the Uri strike.

With the US asking Pakistan to stop breeding terrorism on its land, the country was completely isolated on the global front.

Amid all these developments, the government was engaged with the Army on exercising the surgical strike option.



All posturing on the diplomatic front was to keep Pakistan in the dark about any covert steps being taken by India on the LoC.

And on September 29, after midnight, finally the time came for the Army to act on its words. It acted at a "place and timing of its own" and decimated seven terror launch pads situated across the LoC in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK).



What followed the same morning was Pakistan stating Indian forces killed two Pakistani soldiers in firing. Hours later, around afternoon, Indian Army announced it carried out surgical strikes in PoK, hitting terrorist camps.



The sequence of events corroborated the surgical strike claims by India and came as a major source of embarrassment for Pakistan which admitted the extent of official damage on its side soon after the Indian Army's action came to an end on the other side of LoC.


July turned out to be a cruel month for Bangladesh. On the evening of Friday, 1 July, a group of attackers armed with blades, guns and bombs stormed into the Holey Artisan Bakery in the heart of Dhaka. By the end of the siege on Saturday, 20 hostages - including 18 foreigners - two policemen and two bakery employees were dead.

The attack upended the security risk calculation of all foreign businesses working in or interested in Bangladesh. On the positive side of the calculation is the bright economic picture the country presents. Bangladesh has enjoyed GDP growth of 6.2 per cent a year for over a decade and has proven an attractive investment destination for many international companies in recent years, particularly those looking to take advantage of a large, low-cost labour force and proximity to shipping hubs. The government has addressed key structural constraints in the economy and, in 2015, the country received its largest ever foreign direct investment, $2.2 billion -almost half more than the previous year.

Growth has come from oil and gas, banking and telecommunications, reflecting the diversity of the economy, and investors from the US, UK, China, Singapore and South Korea have been the most bullish. And why not? According to most estimates, the investment return in 2015 was more than 14 per cent.

Cut back to the present. Almost all foreign companies are now urgently reviewing their security in the country. This is increasing the price of doing business in a country whose attractiveness very much depends on having a low operating cost. The focus, for now, has clearly shifted from the business of business, to protecting the physical safety of employees and assets - and understandably so.

The July attack followed on from other attacks over the past 18 months, which have been aimed at those perceived to represent non-Islamic influences, including secular writers and bloggers, religious minorities and foreigners. This, alongside the fact that the security machinery in the country still appears ill-prepared to tackle the challenges posed by the rising number of attacks, makes it all the more important for organisations to focus on putting in place the right security plans, protocols and preparedness.

However, that does not mean that companies can afford to look away from the risks that have traditionally kept executives in Bangladesh awake at night. Underdeveloped infrastructure remains a serious operational challenge, and political instability adds uncertainty and complexity to the identification of trusted local partners or third parties, not to mention related corporate governance and compliance concerns. Added to these concerns are the country's health, safety and environmental challenges.

Perhaps the most telling examples of these deficiencies are from the country's $26-billion garment industry that supplies to most of the world's largest clothing brands. Appalling health and safety management at the Rana Plaza, a garment export unit north of Dhaka, led to its collapse in April 2013, killing more than 1,000 people and injuring another 2,000. There was apparently a similar lack of oversight at the Tazreen Fashions factory, where a fire killed 111 workers in November 2012, and it would be surprising if this was not also the case at the Tampaco Foils factory on 10 September, where a boiler explosion and subsequent fire has so far claimed the lives of 39 people. In these cases, the owners' political connections often appear to shield them from the prompt and adequate judicial redress the victims deserved.

But nothing shielded the international companies that bought from those factories. Many of the suppliers were blacklisted as the world focused in on the garment sector's poor health and safety infrastructure, low wages and employment of children, creating a major reputational risk for household clothing brands. Many of these companies put in place due diligence frameworks to assess these risks. But unless the process of conducting such risk assessments is a continual one, how can they be assured that they are not working with the wrong people again? Now, more than ever, the international buyer needs to ensure that the seller is not simply subcontracting the work out to a blacklisted firm.

Making these supply chain risks more challenging is the high prevalence of fraud, bribery and corruption. Two high-profile, multi-jurisdictional investigations - by the US Department of Justice on Siemens in 2008 and by the Canadian federal police on SNC Lavlin in 2013 - concerned bribes paid to public officials in Bangladesh. The organisation tasked with controlling corruption - the Bangladesh Anti-Corruption Commission - is itself often undermined by corruption and political interference.

All these problems seem to thrive against the backdrop of the worsening political situation. The ruling Awami League and the opposing Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which is close to the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami, are locked in a bitter feud. Their brand of highly-charged activism frequently shuts down this country of 160 million people with strikes and counter-strikes, posing an unpredictable risk to the business continuity.

That is why a sound risk management approach in Bangladesh needs to straddle both the security and compliance concerns. There is huge potential in the country, but there is also a distinct possibility that it will be lost if the government does not address the domestic grievances and external influences fuelling the rise in extremism. A more robust national security system would be a great start.

The writer is Senior Partner, Control Risks (India)
Google will open a new 'Cloud Region' in Mumbai that will help the tech giant offer its cloud platform services to developers and enterprise customers in India.

Expected to be live in 2017, the local region in India will help make Google cloud platform services even faster for Indian customers, Google said in a statement.

The announcement was made at the Horizon event in San Francisco. However, the company did not disclose any financial details. The business-to-business (B2B) based Cloud services have also been re-branded as Google Cloud.



ALSO READ: 5 problems that Reliance Jio needs to fix right away

With more than one billion end-users, Google Cloud has gained significant traction in India and across the world. Its global customers include Snap Inc (formerly SnapChat), Niantic Labs (Pokemon Go), Telus International, and Evernote, among others.

"In India too, we have seen great customer momentum with thousands of customers including major brands like Wipro, Ashok Leyland, Smartshift by Mahindra & Mahindra, Dainik Bhaskar Group and INshorts.com building on Google Cloud Platform," it said.

The move is expected to help the American company catch up with bigger rivals Microsoft and Amazon Web Services in the cloud marketplace in the country.

Setting up of a local data centre within India will also help the company cater to a larger number of customers, especially in government or financial services sectors that often have regulations that do not permit data to be transmitted outside the country.

Brian Stevens, Vice President of Google Cloud said that by expanding to new regions, Google will be able to deliver better performance to customers.

"In fact, our recent expansion in Oregon resulted in up to 80 per cent improvement in latency for customers. We look forward to welcoming customers to our new Cloud Regions as they become publicly available throughout 2017," he added.

The company has announced locations of seven new Google Cloud Regions -- Singapore, Sydney, Northern Virginia, S o Paulo, London, Finland and Frankfurt -- that will come online through 2017, like the one in Mumbai.

Google has also rebranded its 'Google Apps for Work' as 'G Suite' that will comprise apps like Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Hangouts, and others that are designed for workplaces.
The latest figures from the CSO show that loans to Irish households declined at a rate of 1.8% year-on-year in August, as against an annual fall of 1.9% in July. Adjusted for loan sales and securitisations, there was an annual decrease of 3.1%.



Lending for house purchase which accounted for 83% of total household loans, decreased by 159m. On a year-on-year basis, mortgage loans declined at a rate of 1.9% with households repaying 1.4bn more than was advanced in new loans.



Non-housing loans increased by 41m in August. Growth in credit card spending during the month was predominantly driven by education expenditure. In annual terms, non-housing loans for consumer and other purposes declined by 1.4%



According to Merrion Stockbrokers, "Although encouraging in some aspects, the overall banking data are still a cause for concern. Households and businesses appear to want to pay down out-standing debt which is fine. However, with the cost of funding remaining high, particularly compared with the Eurozone average, there seems to be no real incentive to take on new borrowings, which is a concern as regards boosting economic activity going forward."

They added, "The bottom line is that credit will in our view need to flow at a much stronger level than currently if the Irish economy is to grow to potential over the long-run. But, with possible contagion effects from the problems with Germanys main bank Deutsche Bank, the short-term risk is that Irish banks batten down the hatches and retrench on the lending front."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

About us
Over 400 Irish and international Global trade professionals gathered in Croke Park yesterday for the second EXIM Summit, Irelands Export-Import & Global Trade Conference.



The EXIM Summit is targeted at exporters, importers, Global traders and professional service providers and aims to provide a platform for international business growth and networking.



The event opened with a Breakfast Networking Session hosted by ConnectIreland and co-sponsored by Capital Marketing which featured Economist, David McWilliams who discussed the implications of Brexit and the Apple Tax Ruling.



The Summit also featured a conference with successful international entrepreneurs and a robust panel discussion on Brexit featuring former Minister for European Affairs, Lucinda Creighton.



During the event, the inaugural EXIM Hero Award was presented to Portwest, the Mayo-based internationally successful workwear and outdoor leisurewear manufacturer. Harry Hughes, CEO of the family-owned company was presented the award by headline sponsor, An Post and members of the judging panel which featured former Vodafone and Digicel CEO, Stephen Brewer.



Programme Director of the EXIM Summit, Kapil Khanna said, "Our aim for EXIM this year was in this challenging period for global trade professionals to provide them with the platform to connect, and enable global trade as well as providing information about the implications as well as the details of the opportunities that will arise post-Brexit and this was certainly achieved today.

Source: www.businessworld.ie

About us
Bank of Ireland are celebrating this week after they were awarded Best Foreign Exchange Provider in Ireland 2016' at an awards event in Geneva hosted by Global Finance during SIBOS, the worlds premier financial services event.

This is the third consecutive year that Bank of Ireland has won this award from Global Finance, whose awards have become a recognised and trusted standard of excellence.



Award winners were selected based on criteria including transaction volume, market share, scope of global coverage, customer service, competitive pricing and innovative technologies. Global Finance also considered input from a panel of experts and feedback from industry analysts, corporate executives and technology specialists. Global Finance has been running awards for the Worlds Best Foreign Exchange Providers for 17 years.



Chief Executive at Bank of Ireland Global Markets, Kevin Twomey said, "Were delighted to be named Best Foreign Exchange Provider in Ireland by Global Finance and I congratulate the team on the award. We are focused on ensuring world-class service and innovation. The award is a great endorsement of our ongoing investment in personnel and technology, and we will continue to deliver best practice FX services for our customers."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Deloittes pre-budget report has been published today and calls on the Government to introduce taxation and other measures in Budget 2017 to improve FDI competitiveness and to encourage native Irish businesses to grow. The report says this should be done alongside changes to address critical social issues.



From a taxation perspective, Deloitte expects the Government to begin consultation on a range of new tax measures that will be needed in response to international developments such as BEPS and the EUs new Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive. Deloitte is recommending a full strategic review of Irelands corporate tax regime, to ensure that Ireland is positioned to retain and attract ongoing investment from international and domestic sources.



Deloitte believes that attracting FDI and growing indigenous business depends not only on appropriate tax policies and other business incentives but also on solving some critical social issues.



According to the report, Ireland has one of the highest effective marginal tax rates internationally with personal tax rates of over 50% and with high rates kicking in at a relatively low level. Delitte warns that this significantly reduces Irelands ability to attract highly skilled and senior-level individuals.

Deloitte advise that the Government should focus on reducing the marginal tax rate for all taxpayers below the 50% rate while introducing additional incentives to attract talent to Ireland.

In relation to Irelands R&D tax credit regime, Deloitte say the Government should consider making this regime more flexible by allowing a broader range of outsourcing regimes to qualify for relief. For example, they say relaxing the restrictions on external outsourcing and allowing an element of group outsourcing costs would increase Irelands competitiveness and ensure that Ireland is at least on par with other jurisdictions.



Head of Tax at Deloitte, Lorraine Griffin says, "Ireland should be open to taking bolder moves, particularly given the potential corporate tax strategy that the UK may pursue in a world post Brexit."

She added, "For Budget 2017, the Government will need to strongly reinforce its commitment to Irelands low corporate tax regime, including the three key components of Rate, Regime and Reputation identified in its corporation tax strategy."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
US software company Salesforce called on EU regulators on Thursday to investigate antitrust issues related to Microsoft's $26 billion bid for social network LinkedIn.

Microsoft is expected to seek EU antitrust approval in the coming weeks for its largest ever deal.

Salesforce, which lost out on the bidding for LinkedIn, urged competition authorities to go beyond a simple review, saying the deal threatens innovation and competition.

"By gaining ownership of LinkedIn's unique dataset of over 450 million professionals in more than 200 countries, Microsoft will be able to deny competitors access to that data, and in doing so obtain an unfair competitive advantage," Burke Norton, Salesforce's chief legal officer, said in a statement.

"Salesforce believes this raises significant antitrust and data privacy issues that need to be fully scrutinized by competition and data privacy authorities in the United States and in the European Union," he said.

Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, said in a statement: "Salesforce may not be aware, but the deal has already been cleared to close in the United States, Canada, and Brazil. We're committed to continuing to work to bring price competition to a CRM market in which Salesforce is the dominant participant charging customers higher prices today."

The European Commission's preliminary review of merger deals lasts 25 working days, which can be extended by about four months if it has serious concerns. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  A Salt Lake City theater is working to build a barrier not just around its bar but over it to prevent patrons on a balcony above from seeing drinks being poured.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/2dgW3nG ) that in addition to the barrier around the bar, often referred to as a Zion Curtain, the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control concluded that the Eccles Theater will need to have something more like a Zion Ceiling to prevent views from above.

The Zion Curtain is a barrier requirement has been in place for decades in some form and was preserved despite the liquor laws getting loosened in 2009. Supporters say they keep restaurants from looking like bars and curb underage drinking by hiding what they say is glamorous bartending.
LOGAN  Prosecutors have filed 39 felony charges against Audrey Winters. The 37-year-old woman is accused of breaking into the home of a family member and stealing around 50 firearms and other items.

Logan City Police Capt. Curtis Hooley said officers began an investigation, after a man reported his home, near 400 N. 100 W. in Logan, was broken into on September 18.

The house had a window that was broken and that is how entry was made, said Hooley. The victim reported that he had, what he believed to be about 50 guns, some reloading equipment, a couple televisions and some cash that had been stolen. We found out that he had recently inherited the home, as his father had passed away and so these guns and things were something that his father had owned, previous to him.

Witnesses told detectives that a suspicious vehicle was seen around the home while the victim was gone. The description matched a similar vehicle that Winters, the victims sister reportedly owned.

Hooley said as the investigation continued, a Forest Service worker found some of the stolen property at a campground in Left Hand Fork Canyon.

Then on September 23, which was Friday, the Smithfield Police Department received a call from a resident in Smithfield, who said that Audrey Winters had asked them if she could store some property at their residence. They agreed and when she showed up, she had a couple safes. They thought that was very strange and were very concerned that the property may be stolen. So they contacted the Smithfield Police Department.

Winters stopped by the home later that night while police were still there investigating. She was taken into custody and booked into the Cache County Jail. Prosecutors later filed the 39 charges of theft against her, all second-degree felonies.

Hooley said officers have recovered 38 guns and some money so far, but Winters has refused to cooperate with the investigation.

We dont really know what her motives were in that regard. We dont understand what the situation is with their father and why she may not have been in the will.

Police have had involvements with Winters who previously lived in Logan. They believe she may have been transient at the time of the robbery.

<hr /><p style=text-align: center;>will@cvradio.com
The Constitution Party candidates are on ballots in 25 states and registered as write-ins in 21 others. However, Constitution Party Presidential Candidate Darrell Castle says party members are hoping that even more people will hear their message.

Castle, a Tennessee native and practicing attorney, told a Logan audience Wednesday night that Donald Trump does not know what the Constitution is and Hillary Clinton knows what it is but does not bother to use it.

He said American Founders came together to form the Constitution to give the government enumerated powers, and it is the abuse of those powers that is causing so many problems today.

I tell them what I have to say, that the rule of law is in danger and that the Constitution is in danger, Castle said. If they elect Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump that danger is not going away.

There is very little time left to preserve those things for the American people. that is a message that resonates with them when they hear it.

If elected president, Castle said he would like to separate the United States from the United Nations. He said the United Nations came about in order to avoid war but we have been in war almost all the time since.
WEST FARGO -- Nanci Dauwen, a math teacher at Sheyenne High School in West Fargo has been named the 2017 North Dakota Teacher of the Year.

Gov. Jack Dalrymple and his wife, Betsy, along with state Superintendent of Public Instruction Kirsten Baesler were at Sheyenne High School on Thursday, Sept. 29, to honor Dauwen and the three other state finalists  Valley City High School instrumental music director Tom Kjelland; Jennifer Kujanson, a second-grade teacher at Ed Clapp Elementary School in Fargo; and Kristi Mahrer, an English teacher at Wahpeton High School.

Our young people make up only 25 percent of our population, but they make up 100 percent of our future, Dalrymple said. That is why the exemplary work of our teachers is so important.

Baesler said Dauwens application for the award was notable due to the emphasis she put on student relationships.

She also emphasizes the importance of how strongly students need to support each other, Baesler said.

Dauwen started her career in education in 1988 in Jamestown. She has been a math teacher in West Fargo since 2005.

Dauwen, who quoted lyrics from her favorite musical, Wicked, when she addressed Sheyenne students and the district on Thursday, said she always wanted to be a teacher. She spent much of her childhood playing school with her sister and today, she gets to live that dream.

Every day we get to help our students be the best they could be, she said.

Besides teaching at Sheyenne, Dauwen has been involved in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) program, was an adviser to the Student Council, was chairwoman of her schools AdvancED team and is a member of the school leadership team.

I will do my best to represent West Fargo in the coming year, Dauwen said. Most importantly, thank you to my family, Wayne, Katie and Amanda, because without your continued support, this would not be possible.

Dauwen was named the 2016-17 Professional Staff Member of the Year for West Fargo Public Schools in March.

Amy Neal, a kindergarten teacher at Lewis and Clark Elementary in Minot was the 2016 state teacher of the year. Dean Aamodt, a music teacher for Wahpeton Public Schools, earned the 2015 honor and Sheyenne English teacher Aaron Knodel was named in 2014.
E-Zine

In this weeks Computer Weekly, planning datacentre capacity is a growing challenge  we ask the experts for the latest best practice. Victims of the Post Office IT scandal explain why they think they were targeted for speaking out. And we look at the digital skills gap in retail and find out how employers can source talent. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
Colombia government and FARC on the path to peace

Published on September 30, 2016

Story by Marta Pacheco

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After five decades of conflict and several of negotiations, the Colombian civil conflict ended in September 2016 when a historical peace agreement was signed between the authorities and the FARC, the revolutionary army. Mogherini announces that the European Union suspended the rebel group from their terrorist list.

After 52 years of armed conflict, the Colombian government has reached a peaceful agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia  FARC. President Juan Manuel Santos and Rodrigo Londono, FARCs commander signed the peace deal in Cartagena, on September 26. The peace accord will bring to an end generations of bloody conflict that has killed more than 220,000 and displaced millions, said Santos.

As EU foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini has been involved in the peace talks, conveying the EUs support, politically and financially, for a peaceful transition dealing with post-conflict matters. Back in June, on the occasion of EU-CELAC Summit taking place in Brussels, the EU echoed its strong political support to the Havana peace talks started in October 2012 between the Colombian government and the FARC.

Today we suspend the FARC from our list of terrorist organisations, to support the reconciliation process and the implementation of the deal. Peace is now in the hands of the Colombian people: with their vote they can turn this promise of peace into reality, said Mogherini.

FARCs background

Officially created in 1964, he FARC represents the result of social discontentment toward the Colombian government. The revolutionary army has always expressed the reasons of their armed conflict to be of political, social and economic nature. However, the FARCs reliance on drug trade and kidnappings for ransoms, to finance its activities, harmed its reputation. The often recruitment of soldiers under 18 was also a stain attached to their identity.

In 2002, when former president Alvaro Uribe ran for the presidency, he vowed on his campaign to forcefully combat the FARC. On that same year during the election season, presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt was kidnapped by the FARC, rising political motivation to fight the Colombian revolutionary army. Betancourt was released after six years in captivity. Despite denying having suffered from Stockholm syndrome, Betancourt befriended some of her jailers, she confessed on her memoir.

Futures prospects

The peace agreement does represent a milestone in the Colombian history but the post-conflict period might face some hurdles. According to Insight Crime, the criminalisation of FARCs members is a likely scenario followed by the formation of small criminal organisations. If the FARC are to abandon the coca cultivations and illegal mining, new actors are likely to take place wishing to take control. In addition, the ELN, National Liberation Army, could seize the opportunity to strengthen its power, taking control over abandoned territory by the FARC and counting on FARMs members who might wish to join their army.

Story by Marta Pacheco
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By Elizabeth Riggle, Special to the Caller-Times

Striving to better serve their loyal customers, JB's Strudel Mania is moving to a larger venue. Scheduled to open in the middle of October, Strudel Mania will be situated on the corner of Airline Road and Cimarron Boulevard.

The new site triples the space of the former location with a bigger kitchen and multiple seating areas. With a larger kitchen, Strudel Mania will expand its breakfast and lunch menus. In addition, JB's Strudel Mania will offer off-site delivery, which is perfect for business meetings, holiday gatherings and parties.

With JB's Strudel Mania currently closed, seize the opportunity to visit JB's German Bakery and Cafe on Padre Island. Known for its scrumptious homemade breads and pastries, take advantage of special pricing on strudel and loaves of bread.

Wednesday, Friday and Sunday are bread days. In bundles of two, loaves of breads such as wood oven multigrain, rye, pumpernickel or white breads are specially priced. Every day is 10 strudels in a box day. Mix and match any type of strudel and fill the box. Choose from sweet and savory strudels. Selections may include sweet pear, poppy seed, healthy apple, brisket, chicken or pizza strudel.

JB's German Bakery and Cafe offers breakfast, lunch and early dinner. Enjoy a hearty breakfast with a Belgian waffle and a fruit cup or French toast with bratwurst.

Lunch and dinner features sandwiches created on fresh from the oven breads. Relish a bubbly grilled three cheese sandwich or thick Rueben sandwich made with rye bread topped with corned beef and sauerkraut. Add on sides of hot German potato salad, fruit cup and roasted red potatoes.

Explore the world of German cuisine by indulging in JB's daily specials. Try the hearty German meat balls or Schweinebraten: Roasted and sliced juicy pork. A majority of the specials are served with a side dish.

JB's German Bakery and Cafe has a private meeting room perfect for celebrations. Cookies, pies and cakes are welcomed at any gathering. Offer slices of the moist Black Forest cherry cream cake or the German cheese pie.
Beatriz Alvarado/Caller-Times photo The Coordinated Community Response Coalition-Safe Communities Rural Nueces, which meets monthly, discussed a program Thursday in Robstown City Hall to curb sexual and domestic violence.

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By Beatriz Alvarado of the Caller-Times

Griffith Egan hopes the lessons she teaches to children eventually put her out of a job, she said.

"We want to make sure we are instilling values in children that will help them become the best version of themselves," Egan, a primary prevention coordinator and community educator for the Women's Shelter of South Texas said. "Our goal is so we never have to have jobs."

Egan is part of a coalition made up of city and shelter employees, along with representatives from nonprofits and state agencies. The group  Coordinated Community Response Coalition-Safe Communities Rural Nueces  meets monthly to discuss and build efforts throughout Robstown to curb sexual and domestic violence. The coalition met Thursday evening in Robstown City Hall.

Among other topics, the group discussed the newest prevention and education initiative in Robstown schools. An $85,000 grant acquired by the Women's Shelter of South Texas in May from the Office of the Attorney General is going to expand a similar initiative going on at Driscoll Elementary to Seale Junior High School, shelter spokeswoman Kellie Addison said.

Since 2007, the shelter has taught age-specific curriculum in schools within the 12 counties covered by the nonprofit. The curriculum also has been administered in Calallen, Alice, Taft and Corpus Christi school districts.

Community educators from the shelter taught the curriculum once a week on a six weeks basis as part of the shelter's community mobilizing project in Robstown. The project is a component to the shelter's violence prevention work in schools.

But the upcoming project at Seale Junior High will work to adhere to a more sustainable model. The Sexual Assault Prevention and Crisis Services grant is a three year case study of sorts during which the curriculum will be taught once a week for nine weeks to a cohort of students. The cohort will engage with shelter educators as sixth, seventh and eighth grade students.

About 200 students will be exposed to curriculum that encourages empathy, peaceful conflict resolution, and character building in general, said the shelter's prevention and education coordinator Erika Reyna-Brodhag. A start date for the initiative is in the works.

"Texas is trying to measure social change to prevent sexual violence," said Reyna-Brodhag.

The Caller-Times began the Behind Broken Doors series last year to explore domestic violence, including how law enforcement investigates the attacks, how prosecutors pursue offenders in court, how advocates help victims heal, and what the community must do to reverse the deadly trend.

A similar coalition, the Coastal Bend Coordinated Community Response Coalition, started in Corpus Christi about 10 years ago.

Twitter: @CallerBetty
GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Students from St. James Episcopal School gather to make a 70 as they celebrate the school's anniversary Thursday.

SHARE GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Rev. Milton Black talks to students and parents as they celebrate the school's 70th anniversary Thursday at St. James Episcopal School. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Students from St. James Episcopal School greet each other during chapel service as they celebrate the school's 70th anniversary Thursday. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Mayor Nelda Martinez announces a proclamation as St. James Episcopal School celebrates its 70th anniversary Thursday. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Students from St. James Episcopal School sing along during chapel service Thursday as they celebrate the school's 70th anniversary.

By Beatriz Alvarado of the Caller-Times

St. James Episcopal School students are referred to as scholars by faculty, staff and parents.

Encouraging the distinction began in 2013, when Galen Hoffstadt took over as headmaster, she said.

But the term embraces the school's long-standing reputation of graduating leaders. They've always been scholarly, Hoffstadt said.

"It's a term that gives them pride in who they are," Hoffstadt said. "A student is someone who is learning, and a scholar is someone who is learning and has behavior that exhibits that learning."

Scholars, alumni, parents and teachers gathered Thursday morning to celebrate St. James Episcopal School's 70th birthday. The day began with a chapel service, which was followed by a cake and ice cream birthday celebration.

The school perpetuated the tradition of gathering scholars for a large group photo where they formed the school logo with the number 70.

Mayor Nelda Martinez presented a proclamation from the city to celebrate the milestone.

Mary D. Clark, who attended the school through sixth grade, said her experience at St. James Episcopal led to an ongoing relationship with past peers and the community.

"I came to this school and walked away with a lifetime of education that strengthened me and my children," Clark said.

Twitter: @CallerBetty
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Consultants will study various segments of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel the next few months. Officials for the Port of Corpus Christi hope their findings will help guide them as they mull efforts to widen and deepen the channel to allow larger vessels to sail through the area safely.

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By Chris Ramirez of the Caller-Times

A consulting firm at the center of an effort to reshape a stretch of New York waterfront is now helping mold the Port of Corpus Christi's channel improvement plan.

During a special meeting Thursday, the Port Authority hired Los Angeles-based AECOM to perform a waterway planning study of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel.

The panel's unanimous vote brings to $2.1 million the port has spent in recent weeks on consultants whose findings will be used to coordinate its yearslong effort to make the port accessible to larger vessels.

AECOM's six-month contract is for $243,843, port Harbor Master Ray Harrison said.

A Fortune 500 global infrastructure firm, AECOM operates in more than 150 countries and has 92,000 employees. The company recently was hired to helm an ambitious $3.5 billion plan to transform New York City's Red Hook waterfront area into a residential district.

Officials for the nation's fifth-largest port have long discussed making a variety of channel improvements to better handle growing vessel traffic and to ensure safety. The talk has hit a new, more-urgent stride in the wake of the recent expansion of the Panama Canal and the repeal in December of the nation's decadeslong ban on crude exports.

Among the changes would be widening the channel to 530 feet from Port Aransas to the Harbor Bridge. Plans also include deepening the channel from 45 feet to 52 feet, a feat that promises to make it the deepest port in Texas.

Congress authorized the port's channel improvement project in 2007 and 2014, but did not allocate the funds needed to do the work. And earlier this year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers left the project off its funding list for 2016.

Port officials believe authorizing studies for the improvements now may better position them for federal funds; rules specify the federal government would provide matching funds only after the port spends the first money on the project.

Omar Garcia, president/CEO of the South Texas Energy & Economic Roundtable, applauded the port for investing in its infrastructure, especially during a downturn in energy prices.

"(The port) continues to play a vital role for the oil and gas industry," he said. "Enhancing infrastructure allows the port to remain competitive globally while keeping safety a priority."

An amendment included in the Water Resources Development Act of 2016 authored by U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, passed the House last week.

Farenthold's amendment designates that multiphase projects previously fully authorized and underway would not require a "new start" or "new investment" decision to continue work on separable elements. He hoped his contribution would help the channel improvement effort.

"Many critical projects, such as the Port of Corpus Christi Channel Improvement Project, have been halted despite previous authorization," said Farenthold, who is running for re-election this November. "Requiring that separable elements receive a new start authorization is counterproductive and my amendment will remove another piece of government red tape."

Twitter: @Caller_ChrisRam

Other recently approved contracts

Agency/Company Nature of contract Cost

Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center Research and development $725,000

360 Factors EHS Consulting Services Inc. Engineering $368,634

Department of the Army Dredging $619,000

HDR Engineering Inc. Engineering $149,000

Source: Port of Corpus Christi
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By Madalyn Mendoza, San Antonio Express-News

The jig is up for a panhandling couple who has allegedly scammed money from people in multiple Texas cities using a poster with a photo purported as a deceased "father of 3," but was actually a stock image found on Google by a South Texas resident turned amateur detective.

Corpus Christi Police Department's spokesman Travis Pace told the San Antonio Express-News authorities have been alerted by citizens via Facebook of the situation involving an unnamed woman on Staples Street and South Padre Island Drive, asking for donations using a fake family photo.

Lianna Mercado spotted the couple Tuesday and thought the image of the supposedly deceased dad and his young daughter seemed suspect.

"The picture looked way too nice and professional," Mercado said.

Her instincts led her to investigate, finding that the photo originated from a 2011 blog discussing "What fathers should know about eating disorders."

She outed the people in a Facebook post that spread throughout the state by more than 4,000 shares as of Thursday morning.

Pace said the couple also was reported in Calallen and Mercado said people have reached out to her, claiming they saw the duo in Beaumont.

Pace called the story a "victim-less scam" because "people are willingly giving them money."

"People are throwing money at them, because the best way to do it is to tug at their heartstrings," he continued.

He added there are city ordinances that restrict panhandling in the downtown business district, the North Beach area, 50 feet from restaurants and ATM machines and bus stops.

The woman in the photos violated an ordinance that prohibits panhandlers from stepping into the streets, which would've warranted a citation. Officers were dispatched to the area, but the alleged scammers were gone, Pace said.

"I was angry because in one way or another, almost everyone has been affected by cancer ... and they preyed upon empathetic people who wanted to do good for the family and children than they believed this man had left behind," Mercado said.
SHARE Isidro Soto DeLaCruz

By Raul Altamirano, Raul.Altamirano@caller.com

Molotov cocktails, fires and a man holding a lighter led to an arson investigation on Ayers Street, officials said.

About 8:55 p.m. Wednesday police responded to an alley behind a business in the 4300 block of Ayers Street after being notified about the fires, a Corpus Christi Police Department news release states.

A caller told police a man was acting erratically in the alley and spraying tires with a flammable liquid, the news release states.

When officers arrived, the Corpus Christi Fire Department had extinguished the fires and officers apprehended the man.

After detaining the man, officers noticed several bottles containing liquid and rags sticking from the tops, commonly called Molotov cocktails, according to the news release.

The bomb squad responded to dispose of the bottles.

Officers arrested Isidro Soto DeLaCruz, 50, on suspicion of arson and transported him to the City Detention Center. His bail is set at $15,000, jail officials said.

Twitter: @CallerRaul
SHARE Becky Moeller

By John C. Moritz, USA Today Network Austin Bureau

AUSTIN  Becky Moeller was still new at her job as a young saleswoman at Southwestern Bell when she discovered that her pay, and the pay of the other women in her office, fell far short of what the men were earning.

"Women made drastically different  lower, lower, lower  than what the men did," Moeller recalled. "So a group of us banded together and said we've got to change the plight of women in the workplace."

That was 49 years ago this month, and it put the Corpus Christi native on the path to become one the pioneering female labor leaders in Texas. She became president of the Communications Workers of America Local 6137, and in 2003 became the first woman elected to a statewide leadership position for the Texas AFL-CIO, first as secretary-treasurer and in 2007, the 237,000-member organization's president.

On Thursday in Austin, some 15 months after her retirement, the Texas AFL-CIO named the conference room in its newly refurbished state headquarters on the shadow of both the Capitol and the Governor's Mansion in Moeller's honor.

Labor leaders in Texas, which has never been particularly hospitable to the Union movement, call the 51-year-old nondescript white two-story building "the headquarters of the resistance." In recent years, it had fallen into disrepair with fixtures dating back to the 1960s and '70s.

Its location near the seat of power in the heart of downtown Austin where real estate market sizzled even through the recession made the building a prime target for redevelopment as a high-end high rise. Moeller said that one suitor even promised to house the union's headquarters' staff "in perpetuity" in a spiffy new building.

Fine, she told the suitor, as long as the building would be built by a unionized workforce. Not going to happen, she was told.

"I said, 'up yours,'" Moeller told more than 100 union activists who crammed into the conference room that now bears her name. "We're not living in a nonunion building."

Richard Trumpka, the national president of the AFL-CIO, praised Moeller's leadership and tenacity in a state with laws that seek to limit the influence of labor unions.

"Becky is one of the hardest and softest trade unionists I know," said Trumka, who came to Austin for the ceremony marking the reopening of the building that was refurbished with 100 percent union labor. "When she decides to do something, God does not get in her way."

In retirement, Moeller remains active in Nueces County politics and in the labor movement. She works on behalf of candidates she supports, and preaches the virtues of union membership to anyone who will listen. Her daughter, Kristie Veit, is now president of the same local as Moeller was.

Even though union membership is on the decline across the nation, Moeller said the movement remains relevant.

"I think people are hungry for an organization that can bargain for them collectively," she said. "I think we will grow our membership because people need a voice in the workplace."
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Back in 1969, the phrase, "Houston, the Eagle has landed," affirmed Texas' place in history and underscored Texans' contributions to innovative technology and scientific research.

Texas has diversified tremendously in the nearly five decades since Johnson Space Center received those historic transmissions from space.

But, it was a different kind of moonshot that first propelled Texas into the global spotlight.

Nearly 70 years before astronauts set foot on the moon, it was Spindletop that would usher in the oil boom and put Texas on the map, launching a new era of transformational discoveries and innovations in the oil and natural gas industry.

Since those early days, technology and innovation have propelled the Lone Star State and the United States to new heights. As the world's largest oil and natural gas producer, America's homegrown research, technology and investment have helped to increase our access to affordable energy, strengthened our nation's security and created jobs and critical revenue for local, state and federal government.

We're seeing Texas universities partnering with the energy sector to research and develop many of these new technologies. Many Texas-based oil and natural gas producers have created revolutionary ways to safely, efficiently and cost-effectively bring these natural resources from underground to market.

Dry holes, for example, are largely a thing of the past thanks to technology that can more accurately predict the size, location and porosity of oil and natural gas reservoirs. High-resolution, 3D seismic imaging makes oil and natural gas drilling more precise and productive today than just 10 years ago.

Reducing the oil and natural gas industry's geographic and environmental footprint is happening with significant advances in horizontal drilling, which allows some modern oil or natural gas rigs to drill more than 20 wells from a single well pad site.

We're also seeing technological convergence and cross-collaboration with other industries and organizations, too. For instance, MRI applications originally developed for medicine are put to use in the energy sector to map rock formations to find oil deposits.

And, NASA isn't just about putting women and men on Mars. The state's oil and natural gas producers use technology drawn directly from techniques and systems that astronauts and NASA scientists employ in their work. Collaboration between NASA and Texas oil and natural gas companies like Anadarko have led to the development of a fiber-optic sensing system that can make offshore drilling platforms safer.

Meanwhile, Houston's Glori Energy is employing a new mini and mighty oil field worker. By stimulating microorganisms already present in oil fields, these organisms attach themselves to bits of oil, break it up and make it easier for crude oil to flow through rock and into the barrel. This technology has extended the life of wells by several years and boosted recoverable oil by one-third.

Companies are also encouraging their employees to bring ideas into real-world applications. Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2016, Shell GameChanger has provided innovators around the world with the financial and technical support they need to demonstrate the technical and commercial viability of their ideas. To date, GameChanger has worked with more than 1,700 innovators around the world, helping them turn more than 100 ideas into reality.

Whether it's partnerships like Apache and Rice University that are reducing carbon dioxide emissions or drones that Shell uses to safely and quickly inspect oil and natural gas field operations and refinery equipment, Texas' energy sector is defining the future and bringing technology to the forefront.

Technology  much of it birthed right here in Texas  has enabled the oil and natural gas industry to take many small steps for man, and several giant leaps for mankind.
There are many factors that account for a countrys economic freedom (or lack thereof), but one of the most overlooked is the role of religion.

Can economic freedom be explained by religion, independently of political institutions? Thats the question researchers at an economics think-tank in Germany attempted to answer. Their findings:

We investigate whether religion affects economic freedom. Our cross-sectional dataset includes 137 countries averaged over the period 2001-2010. Simple correlations show that Protestantism is associated with economic freedom, Islam is not, with Catholicism in between. The Protestant ethic requires economic freedom. Our empirical estimates, which include religiosity, political institutions, and other explanatory variables, confirm that Protestantism is most conducive to economic freedom.

The researchers found that there is something to Max Webers claim about a Protestant Ethic after all:



Historically and traditionally, the emotional need of Protestantism to overcome the anxiety of personal uncertainty regarding predetermination required economic freedom. Even if religiosity in contemporary Protestant populations is low, the legacy of the Protestant Ethic is economic freedom for individuals to be conscientiously productive.

The researchers also conclude:

Because economic freedom is a requisite of economic progress, our results imply that the religious composition of a population and religiosity can affect economic development and incomes. The religious composition of a population and religiosity in general change only slowly, through differential fertility in different religious groups. Large-scale migration can however result in abrupt change in religious composition and religiosity among a countrys population. Our results suggest that religion and religiosity of immigrants can have consequences for economic freedom.

So if you want more economic freedom in your country, import more of us Protestants and encourage us to have more babies.
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Patients at the Rosie are being warned of an outbreak of MRSA on the maternity hospital's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

As of yesterday, there were six babies found to be carrying the superbug, a common type of bacteria often carried on the skin and inside the nostrils and throat.

It can cause mild infections of the skin, such as boils and impetigo but if the bacteria gets into a break in the skin, they can cause life-threatening infections such as blood poisoning or endocarditis.

Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH), the Trust which runs Addenbrooke's and the Rosie hospitals, said the outbreak had been on the ward within the last month but all parents were kept informed once staff realised there was a higher instance than usual of MRSA colonisation.

Matthew Simms, 25, of Papworth Everard, said his sister Sabrina, 29, had been waiting to be induced at the Rosie since she was admitted on Tuesday but the outbreak had held things up.

"She's been sat there since Tuesday. I feel worried about my sister being in there," he told the News. "She's very stressed because she's got a child at home she's trying to deal with childcare and it's making it a very stressful time for her."

It is still unknown how the superbug got into the ward, which has remained open throughout.

A CUH spokesman, said: "As part of our routine monitoring for infection on the Neonatal Unit, a number of babies have been found to be carrying methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) on their skin.

"We are treating all MRSA carriers and screening other patients on the ward frequently to closely monitor the situation.

"Infection Control is something we take very seriously and all measures to control the situation are being taken."

The hospital spokesman added that representatives from Public Health England are attending meetings to assess the situation.

NICU is an intensive care unit specializing in the care of ill or premature newborn babies and has about 36 patients on it.
| BY Ricki Green |

With the help of Australias industry and the general public, Foodbanks annual (August) Food Fight campaign has almost doubled its 2015 result, collecting enough donations for 13 million serves, to feed Australians in need.

Each year Food Fight aims at putting food insecurity front and centre for grocery shoppers, with Foodbank industry partners pledging a food donation for every one of their participating products purchased at Woolworths stores. This year these partners included the iconic brands SPC, Ardmona, Helgas, Vetta, Devondale, Primo, Weet-Bix, NESCAFE, Flora, Continental and Mount Franklin.

Simple but engaging recipes using a collaboration of Food Fight products as well as other content campaign triggers were created by Whisk Media Group (publishers of myfoodbook.com.au), making it easier for consumers to get involved and brands to be recognised. These included cooking videos, recipe cards for brands and an e-cookbook book, Food for Families, which the public can download via the Foodbank website.

The campaign was brought to life in Woolworths stores via point-of-sale material, in-store radio, product highlights in the store catalogues as well as in Fresh magazine.

The activation was supported by strong above-the-line support in the form of high impact television, radio, print and out-of-home advertising. The media components were donated by Foodbanks generous advertising and PR partners, Havas Group, Red Agency and Group M.

The PR and social elements of the campaign focussed on public engagement on the streets and online. An over-sized purple lunchbox travelled around the country and the public was invited to snap, hashtag and upload a photo of it on their social media channels. For every #JoinFoodFight upload throughout August, a meal was donated to an Aussie in need.

Foodbank Australia CEO, Brianna Casey, said the support from the organisations industry partners and the public was overwhelming.

Says Casey: Its reassuring to see how much Australians want to help when they realise the enormity of the issue in our own backyard. Although largely out of sight, hunger is a growing blight on our community, with over two million Australians seeking food relief from charities each year  a third of whom are children.

There is currently a 29 per cent shortfall in the amount of food needed to ensure no Australian seeking food relief is turned away empty handed, a deficit that the food donations resulting from Food Fight will help to remedy. We cannot thank the public, our food partners and agencies enough for their support, but the fight isnt over and we hope everyone will continue to help us bridge the gap.

The food donations generated by the Food Fight campaign will go towards feeding more than 500,000 people each month. One such beneficiary is single mother Trina.

Says Trina: Having to bring up five young children on my own has been a struggle, but nothing is worse than the idea of not being able to provide for them. Having access to food helps me to make more nutritious meals for my children so they are eating better than they have in a while. With this help I now have money to support the kids in getting their education. I really just want to give them the best future I can.

The number of serves achieved in this years campaign includes:

Enough Helgas bread and Flora to make over 1.2 million sandwiches

Enough Weet-Bix for a million nutritious breakfasts

Enough Nescafe Blend 43 for 615,000 comforting cups of coffee

Enough SPC Baked Beans for half a million meals
| BY Ricki Green |

GM Holden has announced it will extend its hugely successful sponsorship of Seven Networks The X Factor for a third season, kicking off with a series of integrated TVCs via Carat Connect, to help viewers get to know the programs new host, Jason Dundas which will be available to view here Monday, October 3.

Featuring popular small SUV, the Holden Trax, the content series will follow a day in the life of Dundas as part of his new hosting gig, aimed at helping viewers get a better feel for the real Jason. Challenging face- value perceptions is all part of Holdens broader brand strategy to encourage Australians to re-imagine what it means to be a Holden driver.

Says Paul Balbo, senior manager media and brand partnerships, GM Holden: The X Factor has proved to be a powerful platform for Holden to connect with new audiences through their passion for music. Our hope with this next season is that as viewers get to know the real Jason, they also get to know a little more about the real Holden.

The series will launch on Monday 3rd October, living across broadcast, online, and social media. The integrated sponsorship was developed and managed by Carats specialist sponsorship division, Carat Connect.
| BY Ricki Green |

Sara Lee has skimped on celebrity talent to make the point that some things  especially dessert  shouldnt be skimped on, in the latest multi-media campaign for the brands premium cheesecake range via Banjo.

The six celebrities  including an uncanny Obama-lookalike  gather for a dinner party in the 30-second TVC on-air from this Sunday, 2 October in Australia and two weeks later in New Zealand.

Tom Cruise, Posh Spice, Barack Obama and Ricky Gervais alongside Taylor Swift are served deliciously crunchy Sara Lee by Bono.

Says Karen Ramsay, marketing manager, Sara Lee: We are so excited about this campaign, as it will continue to broaden the brand into a more contemporary and premium space.

In a cheesy 30-second video reminiscent of his namesakes famous sofa-jumping Oprah appearance, Tom resurrects some famous movie lines swapping in the Sara Lee cheesecakes as the focus.

The Lookalikes campaign is the first major campaign for Sara Lee since its agency, OShea & OBrien joined forces with Banjo.

Says Ben OBrien, creative director: Bringing six of the worlds best celebrity impersonators together was as bizarre and fascinating as youd imagine. Living with someone elses face definitely gives them a unique perspective on life.

All the celebs flew in from London or LA for the three-day shoot  except for the worlds most famous Taylor lookalike who is actually from Wollongong!

Last year saw the launch of the Sara Lee Incredibly premium sub-brand range, with the campaign from OShea & OBrien encouraging dessert lovers to find a reason to upgrade to the new Sara Lee Incredibly Crunchy cheesecakes.

This years hero in Lookalikes is a new SKU, Sara Lee Incredibly chocolate and orange cheesecake (with a deliciously crunchy choc base). Lookalikes continues to modernise the brand, while steering into previously unchartered waters with humour connecting the brand to new audiences.

Says Kath OShea, planning director: This was work we really wanted to make, as we could see how much it resonated with consumers in research testing. The idea about not skimping on the best part of the meal was very clear. The intrigue of the lookalikes and the humour is a great way to continue to position Sara Lee as a contemporary choice, regardless of who your dinner guests are!

The campaign will run through until January, and comprises of 1 x 30 second TVC, 2 x 15 TVCs, 3 content pieces, social and PR.

Client: McCain

Brand: Sara Lee

Marketing Manager: Karen Ramsay

Agency: Banjo

Creative Director / Writer: Ben OBrien

Creative Director / Head of Art: Raj Rabindranath

Planning director: Kath OShea

Head of Broadcast & Content: George Saada

Senior Producer: Simon Davis

Production company: Goodoil

Executive producer: Sam Long

Director: Matt Kamen

Producer: Andrew Macca McLean

Editor: Tim Parrington

Post-production: The Butchery

Sound Studio: Song Zu

Sound Designer: Abby Sie

Photography Studio: Flint

Photographer: Andreas Smetana
The imagined Figg and Topp company is a disparate band of five brothers and sisters. Between them they have little acting experience. One of them has more experience of juvenile detention than of the stage. But now they are to attempt Shakespeare's history epic Henry V, that armour-clad masterpiece centred around the 1415 Battle of Agincourt .
"The capping stack was something that was developed after Deepwater Horizon so we believe it is something that has to be in place on site or at least off the coast of South Australia," she said.
The New Zealand owner and developer of Hawaiki submarine cable system will land its proposed 14,000km trans-Pacific cable between Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and the US West Coast in Pacific City, Oregon. Hawaiki has submitted its application to the FCC.

Oregon is probably the best state on the US West Coast to land a submarine cable. The coast is relatively safe, the state permitting process is efficient and most importantly, our customers like Oregons diversity and easy access to US networks and data centres, said Gina Bohreer, senior vice president North America of Hawaiki.

We are pleased to have a long-term partnership with Alaska Communications, who understands our customers requirements in terms of system performance and quality of service.

Bill Bishop, senior vice president, business markets at Alaska Communications, added: Today, Alaska Communications manages two geographically diverse, submarine cables between Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. We have leveraged our expertise in submarine cable operations to provide landing station and network management capabilities to several other trans-Pacific submarine systems. Now, we are pleased to extend our network managed service capabilities to Hawaiki and its Oregon landing station.

The news comes after the completion of the marine survey of the 4,000km segment between Pacific City and Honolulu, and selecting DRFortress as its Hawaii landing partner.
Attendees at Capacity Africa 2016 packed the room on the 27th September to hear the winners being announced.

Speaking at the event Bill Boyle, managing editor of Capacity, said: The standard of the shortlist and the quality of the winners was exceptionally high. I would like to thank the judging panel for their tremendous work in professionally and methodically going through all of the entries. Even before the nominations close we had over seventy entries and they were of a very high standard.

We are delighted that the entrants, shortlisted organisations and winners have set the bar so high for the first Capacity Africa Awards event  this ensures that the wholesale industry will have to work hard to innovate to improve on this years list of esteemed winners. We look forward to next years event and all of the transformative ideas it will bring.

Winners Africa Carrier Awards 2016

Best East African Wholesale Carrier

Winner

WIOCC

Best West African Wholesale Carrier

Winner

PCCW Global

Best Southern African Wholesale Carrier

Winner

Liquid Telecom

Best Service Innovation

Winner

Angola Cables & DE-CIX

Best Terrestrial Project

Winner

Wananchi Business Services  SimbaNet

Best Data Centre Project

Winner

Rack Centre

Best Technology deployment

Winner

World Telecom Labs

Best Marketing Campaign

Winner

TelServ

Best CSR Initiative

Winner

Airtel Ghana

Best African Satellite Service

Winner

Gilat Satcom
Hanna Chu, under her umbrella, and Zhiping Wei of Nashua, N.H. came to enjoy the Nantucket Sound waters, more so than the sun on the first day of fall.

HARWICH  The south wind whispered across Nantucket Sound last Thursday shortly after the equinox drew the line on autumn. But with 80-degree temperatures, little wave movement from the light south wind on Nantucket Sound, and the sand at Bank Street Beach still hot beneath the feet, it was hard to believe summer was in the rear view mirror.

Bank Street Beach parking lot was three-quarters full and beach umbrellas were still plugged into the sand as people were enjoying mid-summer warmth on the first day of fall.

The Chronicle took to the beach to get reactions from beachgoers on the unseasonably warm temperatures and to find out whether people attribute such conditions to climate change.

It doesn't feel like autumn at all, it feels like a beach day in July, said Melissa Berry of Meriden, Conn. She and her husband, Bruce, were in Harwich vacationing until the end of the week.

It feels like the last day of summer, Bruce Berry quipped.

Speaking to global warming, Bruce Berry said he absolutely believes in it, adding he doesn't know if it's man-made or not, but we're certainly not helping it.

It's a beautiful place, with blue skies and clean water. I'm here for the ocean and not the sun, said Hanna Chu, visiting from Nashua, N.H. with Zhiping Wei.

We all have a responsibility to preserve this, Wei said.

Speaking to the global warming question, he said it has to be based on fact. I believe the scientists. They say, yes, it's up by one or two degrees, Wei said. Though, if you look back a million years there is a temperature cycle. But I am concerned how much the human contribution is to it. We do have a responsibility to preserve the earth.

Autumn to me is October, which is probably the nicest month on the Cape, said local resident Dick Ellis. This is a bonus, but September is the elongation of August. We catch a break with two or three days of 80-degree weather when we can go home and cook a few hot dogs. It's a bonus day and we like bonuses.

As for global warming, Ellis said he has no idea, But people who are smarter than me are concerned so I have to be concerned, so I recycle.

A couple from Northfield sitting under a colorful beach umbrella they just purchased at Benny's were enjoying their anniversary. While willing to talk, were reluctant to provide their names.

This is the best day, best beach, best weather, the woman said, adding and the best anniversary.

Do they believe in global warming?

Yes, her husband said. It's hard to say no, for nine straight months it's been the warmest ever. It's been nice on the heating bill.

The couple comes to Harwich for four or five days a year, looking forward to nice September weather. It's nice to enjoy a rare day like this. I don't feel grateful about global warming, but it's nice to have this on our anniversary, he said.

John Johnson was visiting from the Adirondack Region in upper state New York and he said he comes with a couple of friends and stays at a house of another friend in Harwich for a week or so after the crowds have gone.

If it were like this every year, wow, the sunsets have been unbelievable. This is a perfect day, if you come in the summer it's cheek to jowl, he said.

His friend, Luis Rodriquez, who lives in New Jersey, said he was amazed at the water. The water is so nice. You don't want to get out of it.

As for global warming, Johnson said he's concerned about it. Anyone who reads science knows that. We're both in our 70s and we've seen the change. New England is not getting as hot as Georgia and North Carolina. We're not having the extreme heat here.

Harwich town hall employees Elaine Banter and Marie Carlson pulled into the Bank Street parking lot in Banter's convertible for a little lunch break.

It's the most gorgeous, yummy day of the month, Banter said.

I hope it's not luring us into a false sense of security going into the fall, Carlson added.

I believe the earth temperature is cyclical, Banter said of climate change.

It benefits our economy, added Carlson, citing the crowd drawn to the beach that day.
Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.

Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here.

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You are our people. You Care. We Care2.
A plethora of automakers have adopted luxury sub-brands dedicated to their top-tier offerings, and Buick is the latest company to do it.



Now, among Vignale, Overland, V Series, Initiale Paris, Denali, and so on, there will be Avenir. Sadly, the only name was taken from Buicks 2015 concept and has nothing to do with the automobile, as it will be a trim level designed to grow with the needs of future luxury car buyers  in Buicks own words.

After acknowledging that the majority of its customers go for the top trim levels when buying a model, expecting a high-end experience and premium quality, the American car maker decided to expand its line-up with a new luxurious signature.

Through the first half of 2016, Buick has been the industrys fastest-growing major international brand, and Avenir is key to future growth and delivering on the high expectations of new customers coming to our showrooms, said Duncan Aldred, vice president of Global Buick Sales, Service and Marketing.

According to Buick, Avenir vehicles will add distinct touches to Buicks design, including three-dimensional mesh grilles, large-diameter wheels, and unique trim finishes. The car maker kept it vague while describing the interior of future Avenir models, saying it will offer unique seat details, modern trim materials, and Avenir script identification.

Buick is currently experiencing a growth in sales, mainly due to its activity in China. Unsurprisingly, the new brand could appeal to Chinese buyers. The sub-brand will be applied to both existing and future products, although the car maker didnt specify exactly which ones.

PHOTO GALLERY
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump got his facts wrong during his recent debate with Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.



Trump said that Ford is moving jobs to Mexico, even after accurately stating that the automaker will be shifting production abroad for its small car lineup.

Ford is leaving, you see that. Their small car division  thousands of jobs, leaving Michigan, leaving Ohio, were the words that sent fact-checkers and people with knowledge of what Ford is doing into a frenzy as soon as the debate got going.

In fact, Ford has pledged that the production shift will not affect workers in the United States, as reported by the Washington Post. Those workers will simply continue working on larger vehicles instead of the small cars theyre currently building.

Still, none of these facts prevented Trump from calling Fords Mexico investments an absolute disgrace a few months back, and while Ford president & CEO Mark Fields said that no US jobs will be lost as Focus and C-Max production shifts from Michigan to Mexico, the Republican candidate refused to mention that in any of his statements during the debate.

Its really unfortunate when politics get in the way of the facts. Fords investment in the US and commitment to American jobs has never been stronger, is what Fields said no more than two weeks ago while being interviewed by CNN.

During the debate, Trump was also very critical of the Trans-Pacific trade deal that President Obama negotiated in the Pacific, though that one came as little surprise.

Photo: Donald Trump/Facebook

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According to Honda UKs head of cars Phil Webb, the Honda Jazz supermini is looking like the best next candidate to receive the automakers 1-liter three-cylinder turbocharged petrol unit after the Civic hatch.



This small engine delivers 129 PS (127 HP) at 5,500 rpm and 200 Nm (147 lb-ft) of torque at 2,250 rpm, working together with a 6-speed manual transmission. So, if these are decent figures for a C-segment car like the Civic, then they should work even better for the Jazz.

The Honda exec spoke about the new 1.0-liter 3-cylinder unit with AutoExpress during the 2016 Paris Auto Show, stating that with all our engines we are looking to see where we can develop them. Customers will love it, so I think it will be something well look to use elsewhere. You look at what weve got with Jazz and you never know whats around the corner.

Of course, since the downsized engine makes so much sense for the Jazz, its possible that the small HR-V crossover could be a potential candidate as well  though we have no official reason to suspect that as of right now.

With the Jazz however, the 1.0-liter 3-cylinder turbocharged petrol unit would help the supermini compete better with rivals that are already utilizing similar engines, such as the Ford Fiesta 1.0 EcoBoost.

Our age profile for the Jazz is decreasing, so there are opportunities for us there, added Webb while discussing the models somewhat conservative image. At the moment theres nothing planned for a sporty version but were always looking for what we can do to bring younger customers into our dealerships.

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Honda may call it a prototype, but youre actually looking at the upcoming Civic Type R in, if not all, 99 percent of its might.



Seen for the first time at the 2016 Paris Auto Show, this stunning looking machine previews the Japanese car makers hatchback missile thats scheduled for a European launch in the second half of 2017. It wont stay exclusive to the old continent, though, as it will complete the comprehensive Civic line-up in North America along with the Civic Si from next year as well.

The Civic Type R Prototype looks closer to a race car for the road than to the vehicle that spawned it. Sure, the standard models design is still distinguishable, although buried under a pile of Nurburgring-bred muscle, and carbon fiber bits and pieces.

Theres a lot happening on every square inch of the cars body, and the overall design could be overwhelming for some, but this is Hondas way of hinting (although not subtly) that the car means business.

Sadly, the Japanese car maker didnt offer any details about the vehicles powertrain, but rumors suggest that it will use an upgraded variant of the familiar 2.0-liter four-cylinder turbocharged VTEC engine, currently found under the outgoing models hood. So, more than 306hp and 400Nm (295 lb-ft) of torque are expected.

Type R epitomises Hondas racing DNA, our challenging spirit and the highest levels of performance engineering. Coming to Europe during the second half of 2017, were now set to embark on the next chapter of the race car for the road, Senior Vice President Philip Ross said.

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Jeep has revealed that it could create a new entry-level SUV to combat models like the Nissan Juke and Renault Captur.



Speaking with Autocar at the ongoing Paris Auto Show, Jeep boss Mike Manley said that a model to slot below the Renegade could soon become viable for the firm, commenting that Im pretty confident that it is going to be a viable segment for us in the future.

Although Manley failed to provide a timeline of when the car could see the light of day, his tone suggested that the automaker has to start discussing or planning for such a model. Consequently, dont expect to see it any time soon. Nevertheless, he did say that if a sub-Renegade is built by Jeep, it will have to be capable off the beaten path like all other Jeep models.

When you think of some of the elements that make a vehicle capable, such as ground clearance, the geography of the vehicle makes it more difficult, Manley went on. You have to be very careful in terms of the geometry of the vehicle, plus the kind of four-wheel-drive system that you employ.

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Peugeot has chosen the Paris Auto Show to announce that by 2021, it will have three plug-in hybrid and two electric vehicles on the market.



As part of the companys Push to Pass strategy, brand boss Jean-Philippe Imparato revealed to Autocar that the French firm will launch hybrid variants of the 3008, 5008 and 508 and all-electric derivatives of both the 208 and 2008.

Few additional details about the models are known at this stage other than the fact that theyll start rolling out in 2019 and that the plug-in hybrid 3008 will have an all-electric range of 60 km.

Perhaps the most interesting of all these models will be the electric 208. Given the vehicles size, Peugeot will have to give it a range competitive to the 383 km (238 mile) range of the Chevrolet Bolt and 300 km (186 mph) usable range of the updated Renault Zoe ZE 40.

That will be no easy task for the companys first all-electric hatchback and pne with a mass-market appeal (excluding the rather curious iON).

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Visitors to the 2016 Paris Auto Show can check out the entire Porsche Panamera family, from the latest generation, but one particular model stands out: the Panamera 4 E-Hybrid.



To the untrained eye, it might look like the rest of the lineup, but if you look closer you will notice some minor touches made to the new metal, signaling the addition of an electric motor that makes 136 HP and 400 Nm (295 lb-ft) of torque.

This works in conjunction with a newly developed 2.9-liter biturbo V6 to provide a combined output of 462 HP and 700 Nm (516 lb-ft) of torque, paired to a dual-clutch PDK gearbox with eight gears. Accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) takes 4.6 seconds and top speed sits at 278 km/h (173 mph), but what mostly impressive about the Panamera 4 E-Hybrid is that it can do all this while burning just 2.5 lt/100 km (94 mpg US), in the NEDC cycle, and emit 56 g/km of CO2.

Charging the 14.1 kWh lithium-ion battery takes 5.8 hours or 3.6 hours with the optional 7.2 kW on-board charger and 230-Volt, 32-Amper connection. Prices for the frugal, yet sporty, Panamera 4 E-Hybrid kick off from 107,553 ($120,694) in Germany, where the automaker has already started taking orders, with the first deliveries expected to commence next spring. The vehicle is due for the North American market in summer 2017.

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After making its world premiere in Beijing last April, the new Renault Koleos arrived in Europe gaining on the way a range-topping Initiale Paris version.



The new French SUV, set to hit the European market in spring 2017, is the latest model to feature the companys new design language, following the lead of the Espace, the Talisman and the Megane.

Renault hasnt officially announced yet which engines are going to be available with the Koleos but they did say it will use an AWD system that comes with 2WD, 4WD AUTO and 4WD LOCK modes. If this sounds familiar, its because its the same system used in the Nissan X-Trail/Rogue as the two crossovers happen to share the same platform.

The new Koleos measures 4,670 mm long and 1,840 mm wide, with a wheelbase of 2,710 mm and a 213mm ground clearance. The cabin is said to offer class-leading space for its occupants, including 289mm of rear knee room.

The list with the active safety features includes Active Emergency Braking, Lane Departure Warning, Blind Spot Warning, Safe Distance Warning, Traffic Sign Recognition with Excess Speed Warning and Tiredness Detection. The Initiale Paris version represents the range-topping Koleos and offers luxury features such as a Nappa leather upholstery, heated and ventilated front seats, a high-end audio system, an exclusive Amethyste Black paint job and 19-inch alloys among other things.

Renault will build the Koleos in Busan, South Korea and then make it available in 80 markets. Only the Chinese version will be assembled in Wuhan, China.

PHOTO GALLERY
Photo: Wayne Moore - Castanet File Photo Peter Fassbender

Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran is encouraged by Wednesday's announcement by Premier Christy Clark concerning water.

During her keynote address to delegates at the Union of BC Municipalities Convention in Victoria, the premier announced $148.5 million in provincial funding for a new clean water and wastewater fund.

The fund is designed to enable communities to move ahead with vitally important improvements to their water and wastewater systems.

Costs for approved projects would be shared 50 per cent by the federal government, 33 per cent by the province and 17 per cent by municipalities.

The City of Kelowna has a well documented desire to amalgamate all water systems within the city under one umbrella.

"It's welcome news and if, and when, we are able to come to agreement on a new plan to provide an integrated water system for our community, certainly we would be applying for funds to do some of the work," said Basran.

"Keep in mind too, we also have wastewater projects we could also use the funds for."

As part of the meeting process at the convention, Basran said a city delegation met with Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development Peter Fassbender Wednesday to discuss developments in the integration process.

"There continues to be ongoing negotiations and conversations between the ministry, irrigation district and the city.

"Those talks will be ongoing until such time as we can reach a mutually agreeable conclusion to the situation."
Photo: Contributed

An outpouring of support from the community is helping a family get by after a fire destroyed their home in the Twin Lakes area.

Sara LaRose said money has been raised through a GoFundMe campaign and that several local businesses have pitched in.

"It's a terrible situation but the amount of support we've had from everywhere has been just amazing, with family, friends, neighbours, work, local businesses and complete strangers helping out," she said.

The family, including LaRose's husband, three children and a dog, lost pretty much everything in the fire that swept through their home last Friday. Nor did they have contents' insurance.

Since then, they have returned to work and school and found a place to live thanks to the generosity of others.

For starters, they reached their goal to raise $5,000 on GoFundMe within 48 hours. The account is ongoing, so people can continue to contribute.

Among the businesses that have pitched in are Andre's Electonic Experts, Penticton Auto, Freeride Boardshop, Penticton Electric, as well as several others.

Barefoot Beach Resort has also provided free accommodation in a two-bedroom yurt since the fire, and set up a donation drop off in their front office.

The family can stay at the resort until Oct. 15 if they need to.

People have organized events to support the family, with a fundraising barbecue set up by friends taking place in West Kelowna on Sunday.

"There are not enough words or thank you's to let everyone know how grateful we are," said LaRose. "For now we are just hanging in there trying to get back to our regular routine as much as possible."

To access the GoFundMe campaign, LaRose Family Fire-Starting Over, go here.
Photo: Wayne Moore - Castanet File Photo

In light of a recently announced provincial water fund, the City of West Kelowna is looking at accelerating its Water Master Plan.

Premier Christy Clark announced the $148.5 million clean water and wastewater fund during her keynote address to delegates at the Union of BC Municipalities Convention in Victoria.

Upon hearing the news, Mayor Doug Findlater said he immediately asked CAO Jim Zaffino to bring a report on the options available if the water plan were accelerated.

This would include information such as engineering reports.

At the forefront of the plan is the Lakeview water system, where users have been on a water advisory since the beginning of August.

Any projects approved through the fund would still require local contributions. The province and feds would contribute 83 per cent with municipalities picking up the remaining 17 per cent.

"We need to ensure there are some reserves in place for the Lakeview water system," said Findlater.

"We haven't put any money aside, but we are going to have to look at the financial situation there and see what the rates are, and if it's adequate in order to build a reserve in order to contribute towards this."

Findlater calls the provincial announcement an opportunity.

The mayor was also encouraged following a meeting with BC Hydro Wednesday.

The meeting was requested to give the city an update on a proposed second transmission line into the area.

"They are working on those three options, and some of those may start to fall away pretty soon.

"Once they settle on a finalized option, or options, they go to work on design and engineering."

Findlater said the project is still within BC Hydro's capital plan.

A detailed wildfire risk analysis of the three options is currently being conducted.

An announcement on a possible final site could come later this fall.
Photo: Getty Images

In just a few days the Water Quality Advisory in West Kelowna will have been in place for two months, leaving residents and city officials frustrated.

The water advisory was first issued for the Lakeview Water System on Aug. 4, and affects 11,000 people in Lakeview Heights, Rose Valley, Boucherie Centre, Shannon Woods, Tallus Ridge and Shannon Lake areas.

Due to above normal turbidity, between 1.6 and 2.2 NTU, children, the elderly and those with weakened immunity should consume water brought to a rolling boil for one minute, or use an alternate, safe water source.

City spokesperson Kirsten Jones says the water-quality advisory is still in effect and they have city biologists monitoring the situation daily. Jones says they will let everyone know the minute it is safe to drink the water again.

The affected Lakeview Water System also includes half a dozen elementary and secondary schools that had to make provisions before the school year began Sept. 6.

Mar Jok Elementary School principal Alisa Privett said water fountains have all been turned off and water coolers with bottled water have been stationed at multiple points throughout each school.

The children bring their own water bottles and we fill them up with the bottled water here, said Privett.

We are trying not to use the paper cups as we are a green school, so the children bring their own bottles.

She explained that the district is providing all of the bottled water as it is considered a health and safety issue as children are considered a more vulnerable population.

We had a plan in action, the day the student's arrived.

Going forward, the city has completed the Water Utility Master Plan with plans to build a water-filtration plant at the Rose Valley Reservoir.

He said the project plan in the works would cost about $40.6 million, so the city is currently looking into increased water rates to cover the cost.

The city will also look into applying for provincial funds to speed up the process.

As it stands, the new filtration plant is expected to be built and in operation by 2021.
Photo: Randy Millis

A three-car chain-reaction crash closed Boucherie Road for a period of time Thursday afternoon.

At least one driver was checked over by paramedics after the crash.

The 2:30 p.m. collision happened at Boucherie and Stuart Road.
Photo: SpierHead Winery

The 36th annual Fall Okanagan Wine Festival kicked off Thursday night with the announcement of the British Columbia Wine Awards winners.

Ten judges spent four days tasting the 624 submitted wines from over 90 B.C. wineries.

In the end, eight wines were given the title of platinum winners, while just one took home the Premier's Award for Best Wine in B.C.

The top wine was given to Kelowna's own SpierHead Winery's 2014 Pinot Noir Cuvee.

The other seven platinum winners included CedarCreek's 2013 The Last Word Red Meritage Blend, Deep Roots' 2014 Syrah, Mission Hill's 2014 Reserve Chardonnay, Red Rooster's 2015 Riesling, Road 13's Sparkling Chenin Blanc, Summerhill's Cipes Blanc de Blanc and Time Estate Winery's 2013 Syrah.

The Fall Okanagan Wine Festival will continue over the next days with over 100 events across the Okanagan.
Photo: The Canadian Press

A wildfire in a mostly remote area of California's Santa Cruz Mountains has now destroyed eight homes and sent a firefighter to the hospital, officials said Thursday.

One firefighter was injured and hospitalized, but no details were given on his condition.

The blaze burning for three days had previously only burned one home. It's not clear whether the destruction of seven more houses is new or just newly discovered by firefighters surveying burned-out areas.

Despite the damage, cooler weather and additional firefighters had officials hopeful Thursday that the blaze would be contained in days.

Full containment was expected by Monday, though wind gusts of up to 35 mph forecast for Friday night could complicate the firefight, state fire Capt. Mike Perez said. The fire has burned 6 1/2 square miles and was threatening 325 structures. It was 34 per cent contained.

Mandatory evacuations were lifted Wednesday for Santa Cruz County. But evacuation orders remained in effect for neighbouring Santa Clara County, where most of the 300 threatened structures are located, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.

The blaze broke out Monday during a statewide heat wave that brought witheringly low humidity and temperatures in the upper 90s. A 10-degree drop in temperatures and increased humidity helped fire crews. The cooling trend was expected to last through the week.

It was among several blazes burning during a time of year when the drought-stricken state sees its largest and most damaging wildfires, state forestry officials said.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Detectives on Thursday were investigating a tip that the man accused of shooting and killing five people in a mall north of Seattle may have tried unsuccessfully to buy a handgun just hours before the slayings.

Arcan Cetin used a .22-calibre Ruger rifle when he opened fire at a department store cosmetic counter Friday at the Cascade Mall in Burlington, authorities say. Cetin's stepfather told detectives after the shooting that his Ruger rifle and .22-calibre ammunition were missing.

Authorities were reviewing video to see whether the 20-year-old tried to buy a weapon from a gun store, said Sgt. Mark Francis, spokesman for the Skagit Multi-Agency Response Team.

Cetin, who has a criminal record dating back at least two years and was charged with assaulting his stepfather last year, was ordered by a court not to possess firearms.

After his arrest, Cetin acknowledged to detectives that he was the man captured on security video carrying a Ruger rifle inside the mall, "and he did bring the rifle into Macy's and shot all five victims," court documents said.

He shot them all in one minute and left the rifle with a 25-round magazine on a cosmetics counter before fleeing, police said in the documents. The victims ranged from a 16-year-old girl to a woman in her 90s and included a probation officer and a Boeing maintenance worker.

Cetin was arrested late Saturday in Oak Harbor, about 30 miles from the mall, by a sheriff's deputy who recognized him. He has been charged with five counts of premediated murder.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Former Israeli President Shimon Peres is being laid to rest in Jerusalem after an emotional ceremony that brought together leaders and dignitaries from around the world.

Peres' family accompanied the casket as it was taken to the national cemetery at Mount Herzl where Peres is being buried Friday alongside most of the country's past leaders. The casket was carried by eight members of an honour guard.

Thousands of admirers and dozens of international dignitaries attended the funeral in a final tribute to Peres and his remarkable seven-decade political career.

Peres died early Wednesday of complications following a stroke. He was 93.

Peres shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for attempting to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

U.S. President Barack Obama said Shimon Peres showed that justice and hope are at the heart of the Zionist ideal.

He said Peres made sure the Jewish people had the armaments to secure their freedom and his statesmanship built an unbreakable bond with the United States and other countries.

Peres' daughter, Tzvia Walden, told the funeral ceremony that Israel's ninth president was a loving family man at home.

She said her father loved knowledge and was "astonished" if he lent her a book and she had not read it by the next day.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Peres as "a great man of the world."

He said the gathering of dozens of world leaders was a "testament" to Peres' optimism, his quest for peace and his devotion to Israel.

"He was a great man of Israel. He was a great man of the world. Israel grieves for him. The world grieves for him."

Peres died early Wednesday of complications following a stroke. He was 93.
Photo: The Canadian Press

A team of explorers say they have discovered the world's deepest underwater cave, 404 metres (1,325 feet) down, near the eastern Czech town of Hranice.

Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski, who led the team, told The Associated Press Friday he felt like a "Columbus of the 21th century" to have made the discovery.

Starnawski, 48, found the cave Tuesday in the flooded limestone Hranicka Propast, or Hranice Abyss, which he has explored since 1998. He scuba dived to a narrow slot at 200 metres' depth and let through a remotely operated underwater robot, or ROV, that went to the depth of 404 metres.

In 2015, Starnawski himself passed through the slot and went to 265 metres' depth, realizing that was still far from the bottom and that the cavity was widening. After diving that far down, Starnawski spend must spend four or five hours in a decompression chamber. To explore the cave further, he needed a robot.

Speaking on the phone from his home in Krakow, southern Poland, Starnawski said Tuesday's discovery makes Hranice Abyss the world's deepest known underwater cave, beating the previous record-holder, a flooded sinkhole in Italy called Pozzo del Merro, by 12 metres (39 feet.)

The Czech Speleological Society said it thinks the cave is even deeper and will yield additional records.
Photo: Google Maps

Salmon Arm police are investigating a collision between two vehicles and a pedestrian.

According to Cpl. Wasylenski a westbound Dodge Ram 1500 truck, was waiting to turn off Highway 1 onto 30th Street.

The truck apparently failed to yield and collided with an eastbound Ford Fusion.

The force of the impact sent the Ford Fusion careening to pedestrians who were waiting at the intersection for the walk signal," stated Wasylenski in a release.

Both pedestrians were transported to hospital with serious but non-life threatening injuries. The driver of the truck was not hurt and the driver of the Ford Fusion received minor injuries.

The driver of the truck was charged with failing to yield.
I think wine is too expensive in British Columbia, so anyone from out of province that wants to buy our wine should pay extra. That should bring the prices down so British Columbians can afford it.

I also think that people that do buy our wine, and don't drink it right away, should pay fines until they finish it. Then, if the prices don't come down enough, the rest of the taxpayers should kick in so the government can supply it to those that can't afford it.

Makes sense right?

Seems like a smart business plan.

Brad Airey
Photo: RCMP A person of interest was spotted on surveillance video walking with missing Japanese student Natsumi Kogawa on Sept. 8, 2016.

Police in Vernon have arrested a man wanted in connection with the death of a Japanese student who has been missing for weeks.

Vancouver Police found the body of Natsumi Kogawa, 30, at a mansion in Vancouvers West End neighbourhood on Sept. 28 just before 7 p.m.

Hours later, RCMP in the North Okanagan arrested William Victor Schneider, 48, in Vernon. He has been charged with Indignity to a human body and remains in custody.

An autopsy is being conducted Monday, and police are not ruling out more charges.

While on the surface, the appearance is that (a homicide charge) is appropriate, we cant work with appearances. We have to work with facts and evidence, said acting Sgt. Brian Montague with Vancouver Police.

Police are saying little about the arrest itself.

As far as what information led to Mr. Schneider being arrested, Im not in a position to comment, he said.

Police will not say specifically where he was taken into custody. However, at about the same time as the arrest, police put crime scene tape up in Polson Park.

A makeshift camp was located behind police tape. Police characterized Schneider as being from numerous communities throughout B.C.  in other words, homeless.

Vernon RCMP have passed along Castanet's request for more information about what happened in Polson Park to Montague, who has also been the point-person for the investigation into Schneider.
If you have just started your journey in an online casino or are looking for a new site to play,...
Discussion

This series of 158 children with postnatally acquired Zika virus disease corroborates previously published reports suggesting that the clinical course of Zika virus disease is typically mild in children, as it is in adults (2,7). In this case series, only two children were hospitalized, and no deaths occurred. Serious complications of Zika virus disease, such as Guillain-Barre syndrome, were not reported for any children in this analysis. However, health care providers should be aware of potential serious consequences of Zika virus disease, including neurologic manifestations, and should notify state health departments of all Zika virus disease cases.

Severe disease following Zika virus infection in children has rarely been reported. Two deaths possibly associated with postnatally acquired Zika virus disease have been reported among children, including a Brazilian girl aged 16 years with possible hemorrhage and a Colombian girl aged 15 years with sickle cell disease who developed severe acute respiratory distress syndrome, hemothorax, and splenic sequestration., Guillain-Barre syndrome and meningoencephalitis also have been reported rarely among children during the recent outbreak in Brazil.** No deaths or neurologic complications following Zika virus infection in children were reported after outbreaks in Yap State, Micronesia, or French Polynesia (2,5). Further evaluation is needed to determine the incidence of severe disease manifestations, risk factors for more severe illness, and long-term outcomes of postnatally acquired Zika virus infection in children.

Almost half of the pediatric patients with Zika virus disease in this series were aged 1517 years, with a slight female preponderance. The relatively higher proportion of cases in females and older children might be related to health careseeking or testing bias (e.g., girls who are or might become pregnant might be more likely to seek care or to be tested) or older children being more likely to travel and thus to be exposed to Zika virus. In addition, clinicians might be less likely to suspect Zika virus infection in younger children, because the signs and symptoms (rash and fever) are nonspecific and similar to those associated with other childhood rash illnesses (e.g., roseola or scarlet fever) or drug reactions.

Compared with symptoms reported for 10 children in previously published case reports or series of Zika virus disease (7), the proportion of children in this report with rash was higher and the proportion with fever and gastrointestinal symptoms was lower. However, this report is population-based and patients met a standard case definition, including clinical, epidemiologic, and laboratory criteria. In contrast, previous reports often identified cases among hospitalized children with febrile illness, the laboratory evidence of Zika virus infection was not always definitive, and some children had evidence of other infections (e.g., malaria and dengue) (7). Published reports with aggregate information on symptoms among adults and children with laboratory-confirmed Zika virus disease during a 2007 outbreak in Yap and among adults and children with suspected Zika virus disease during a 20152016 outbreak in Colombia found similar overall frequencies of fever and rash as those described in this report (2,8). However, higher frequencies of conjunctivitis and arthralgia were described in those reports than in this series, possibly because such symptoms are more commonly identified in adults than children with Zika virus disease, or as a result of the inclusion of patients without laboratory-confirmed Zika virus disease in the Colombia report.

No antiviral medications are available to treat Zika virus infection, but symptomatic treatment with antipyretics and supportive care are appropriate and usually sufficient. Aspirin should never be used to treat symptoms of acute viral illnesses in children because of the risk for Reye syndrome. All nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) should be avoided in children aged <6 months. NSAIDs also should be avoided in all other age groups until infection with dengue virus is ruled out, to avoid the potential for hemorrhagic complications of dengue fever (7).

Protecting children from mosquito bites is the best way to prevent Zika virus infection in children. However, among sexually active adolescents, there also is a risk for sexual transmission of Zika virus; either mosquito-borne transmission or sexual transmission during pregnancy could result in congenital infection. Five of the travel-associated Zika virus disease cases in this report occurred in adolescents aged 1617 years who were pregnant, underscoring the importance of ensuring that sexually active adolescents receive guidance for preventing sexual transmission of Zika virus and have access to and counseling on contraception. Pregnant adolescents with possible Zika virus infection should be properly evaluated according to published guidance (9,10).

The findings in this report are subject to at least three limitations. First, this series represents only symptomatic cases reported to CDC that met the national confirmed or probable case definition; there likely are other cases of pediatric Zika virus disease that are not reported because the patients did not seek care or were not tested for evidence of recent Zika virus disease and did not receive a diagnosis. Second, there is potential for testing bias; testing of pregnant women and women of childbearing age has been prioritized (10), likely resulting in a disproportionate number of pediatric cases being identified among pregnant adolescents. Third, signs and symptoms of Zika virus infection are optionally reported to ArboNET, often with missing data, which might affect their representativeness; additionally, potential findings such as longer-term neurologic complications are not systematically reported to ArboNET. Nonetheless, this analysis includes the largest series of laboratory-confirmed cases of Zika virus disease among children reported to date.

The symptoms most frequently reported among children with Zika virus disease are common to many childhood illnesses. Health care providers should consider Zika virus disease in the differential diagnosis for children with the acute onset of fever, rash, arthralgia, or conjunctivitis, who reside in or have a history of travel to an area where active Zika virus transmission is occurring, or who have another epidemiologic risk factor for Zika virus disease. Children with suspected Zika virus disease should have blood and urine specimens collected and tested per current guidelines. Although Zika virus disease appears to be a mild illness in children, health care providers should report suspected cases to their state or local health department to facilitate diagnosis and mitigate the risk for local transmission. Providers should counsel sexually active adolescents who might be exposed to Zika virus regarding the risk for congenital Zika virus infection and prevention of unintended pregnancies. Guidance for health care providers caring for infants and children with possible postnatally acquired Zika virus disease is available online (http://www.cdc.gov/zika/hc-providers/infants-children.html).
Vietnam exports to Bangladesh rise

30 September 2016

Cement and clinker exports from Vietnam to Bangladesh market in the first eight months of 2016 reached US$94.20m worth, accounting for 26 per cent of total export value.



Cement and clinker exports to Bangladesh market fell 39.18 per cent while over the same period last year but is found to have the largest export value, accounting for 26 per cent share of exports.



Demand for cement in Bangladesh is mainly focussed on government infrastructure projects  approximately 40 per cent of cement consumption in the country. In addition, construction of real estate projects account for 35 per cent of cement demand, while housing construction accounts for 25 per cent. The majority of materials serving the cement industry of the country is imported from abroad.





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The Nevada supreme court has ruled that the way the states groundbreaking school choice program is funded is unconstitutional.

Nevadas education savings account program allows parents of public school students to pull their child out of a public school and take the state funding allocated to the child with them. They can then spend that money on private school tuition (including religious schools), home schooling materials, or a variety of other approved, education-related expenses.

The money is deposited in education savings accountsthus the name.

Nevadas ESA program is notable in its scope: Very few states have this type of program, and of those that do, they are limited to a small number of studentssuch as those with disabilities or from low-income families.

The program is open to all current public school students.

The supreme courts decision is mixed news for both supporters and opponents of the program. The court took issue with the way the program was financed. It does not have its own dedicated funding source, and the court ruled it was illegal to take money allocated for public schools.

It was unlimited, and it was diverting public school dollars toward private expenditures without budgeting for it, says Tamerlin Godley, a partner with a Los-Angeles law firm, Munger, Tolles, and Olson. The firm represented a group of parents, on a pro bono basis, in one of the two lawsuits challenging the program on the funding issue, Lopez v. Schwartz.

It had real potential to do harm to the public schools, Godley says.

However, the court didnt see a problem with other constitutional question brought by a separate lawsuit, Duncan v. State of Nevada: whether the state was unlawfully directing public money to private, religious institutions.

The program will remain suspended unless the funding source is changed. But thats a relatively easy fix for state lawmakers, say school choice advocates.

The court is basically saying, Guys, this is constitutional; you just have to fund it a separate way,  says Robert Enlow, the president and CEO of EdChoice, formerly the Friedman Foundation. Thats huge news. Thats the first time a universal school choice program has been upheld in a state court.

Proponents of the program may get their chance to tackle the funding issue sooner rather than later: The governor is expected to call a special legislative session in October to discuss funding for a new football stadium.

But Tod Story, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, which brought the other lawsuit against the program, says changing the funding source is a bigger hurdle than it may look.

The only way they can fund this program would be to reduce public school funding or raise taxes, and I dont think legislators will do that, he says. I dont think that voters would be supportive of thatraising taxes to send kids to private schools. Thats what we have public schools for.

Broader Impact?

To what extent the ruling could have an impact beyond Nevada is also up for debate.

Godley, the lawyer who represented the group of parents, said this sends a clear message to policymakers in other states to keep their hands off public school funding when crafting such sweeping school choice programs.

Jonathan Butcher, the education director at the Goldwater Institute, thinks the ruling is ultimately a positive step for the future of education savings accounts.

The Goldwater Institute came up with the idea for ESAs after the Arizona state supreme court struck down a voucher program in 2011 because it provided public dollars directly to private schools, and private schools only.

Butcher says the fact that the court didnt take issue with parents using state funds for tuition at private, religious schools is what will matter most outside of Nevada.

It should send a message that education savings accounts are distinctly different from other forms of school choice, private or public, he said. That another states high court found that it did not violate the state constitution, other lawmakers can gain some confidence from that.

Around 8,000 students have applied for education savings accounts, and the state treasurers office, which manages the program, will continue accepting applications despite the courts ruling.

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Michigan is the latest state to consider a law that would retain some students who arent reading proficiently by the end of 3rd grade .

The bill has passed the states House and Senate and is awaiting signature in the governors office. Ari Adler, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, said in an interview that the governor has been supportive of the 3rd grade reading initiative and is reviewing the final piece of legislation. A decision is expected next week.

Research has shown that students who read significantly below grade level in 3rd grade tend to continue to struggle and are more at risk for dropping out of school entirely.

Under the proposed Michigan law, which would go into effect in 2019-20, 3rd graders who scored more than a grade level behind on the state reading test would not be allowed to start 4th grade. There is, as usual with these sorts of bills, some flexibility. Students can continue to 4th grade if they demonstrate proficiency on an alternative standardized reading assessment or through work samples. Students with disabilities, limited English proficiency, and those who had been previously held back could be exempt as well.

A parent or guardian can also request a good cause exemption, and a superintendent can designate a teacher or someone else to grant one. And students who are deemed proficient in all other subject areas can move onto 4th grade and receive continued support in reading.

The bill also requires districts to take other preliminary steps to improve student reading, including giving teachers professional development, assessing students throughout the year, and providing intervention programs for struggling readers.

Sixteen other states and the District of Columbia have laws requiring 3rd graders be held back if they dont meet reading proficiency standards . (See above chart, last updated May 2015.)

In light of the Michigan bill, Brian A. Jacob, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, looked at the effectiveness of such policies on student outcomes . He wrote that, compared with peers who have progressed normally through early grades, students who repeat a grade during elementary school tend to have notably worse outcomes. However, he notes that there is selection biasthat students who are held back tend to have other disadvantages as well.

But studies that compare students who fall just above the cutoff for retention with those who fall just belowi.e., students who are ostensibly quite similar in their reading ability"also do not find significant and lasting benefits for retention, he wrote. Several studies find that retention is associated with short-term improvements in standardized test scores, but these seem to fade within several years. And the studies dont show any positive (or negative) effects on high school completion, either, he writes.

Only about 45 percent of 3rd graders in Michigan met the reading proficiency standard in 2016. That means that nearly 60,000 children in the state would have been subject to retention had the policy been in place last year, Jacob writes. (There were about 111,000 3rd graders in the states public schools last school year .)

But its worth noting that these retention policies are often much more complicated than they at first seem.

For example, some districts inevitably interpret the requirements and exemptions with more leeway than others. In Florida, some districts are threatening to hold back 3rd grade students whose parents opted them out of state testing, while others are letting those students prove proficiency through alternative means.

Last year, I looked at North Carolinas literacy law and found that about 14 percent of 3rd graders in the state were considered retained. And yet very few of those students actually stayed back in 3rd grade. The law allowed them to receive hybrid 3rd/4th instruction or take a 4th grade class with remediation.

The Michigan bill doesnt have those same allowances, but it does have plenty of exemptions. So how many students would really be retained if the governor signs the bill into law very much remains to be seen.

Related stories:
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Outdoor Classroom Day is coming up next week on October 6. Today, Linda Rosenblum, Education Program Manager and Servicewide Teacher Ranger Teacher Coordinator, National Park Service , shares ideas on how to use our national parks, monuments, memorials, and more as outdoor educational sites to develop 21st century skills.

National Park Service (NPS) parks and historic sites provide unique opportunities for students to study history, science, civics, culture, and global issues by providing access to primary historical resources, scientific data, subject matter experts and professionals, and community connections to local cultural heritage. As the National Park Service celebrates its 100th birthday , increased attention has been focused on expanding its presence in the education community. Most people are familiar with the larger national parks that protect breathtaking natural areas like the Grand Canyon National Park, Yellowstone National Park, or Everglades National Park, but much of the public is unaware that fully two-thirds of the areas managed by the National Park Service are not natural resource parks but instead are cultural or historical preservation sites. The National Park Service is comprised of 413 protected areas that include national parks, national memorials, national monuments, national battlefields and cemeteries, national historic sites and historical parks, national recreation areas, scenic and wild rivers, natural and historical trails, national seashores and lakeshores, and national preserves. The variety of protected areas is broad and reflects the diverse range of resources that the National Park Service preserves and protects for the enjoyment of future generations .

These special places offer a unique opportunity for educators to engage their students in place-based learning activities. Place-based learning is defined as an approach to education that focuses on the students surrounding environment and community and often takes the form of engaging in immersive, project-based activities that address real-world issues. According to Janice L. Woodhouse and Clifford E. Knapp , place-based learning prepares students to live and work to sustain the cultural and ecological integrity of the places they inhabit. They further argue that place-based learning prepares students to actively participate in civic society and the democratic process by providing knowledge of and experiences in real-life environmental and cultural issues. Educators can involve their students in problem solving and community engagement using National Park Service sites.

Teach Cultural Preservation

Cultural preservation can include many different aspects of maintaining and preserving both tangible and intangible human culture. Intangible culture includes religion, language, music, dance, literature, and other non-tangible characteristics of a group. Tangible culture includes the natural and created environments like architecture, art, cultural landscapes, and significant natural areas. The National Park Service and other preservation management organizations work to preserve and protect these treasures through land and resource management policies and procedures. Cultural preservation is one way to teach young people global competencies like critical thinking skills and cultural literacy through engagement in real-life problems and creation of solution strategies.

Teaching cultural preservation could include studying local architecture or historic neighborhoods and talking with local government officials and historical societies to learn about what is being done to protect these resources. Students could work with a nearby National Park Service site in a service learning project maintaining natural or historical resources in the park or their community. Teachers could invite a preservation professional from a local historical society, their state historic preservation office (SHPO), a local city planning office, or the National Park Service to speak to their class about how they help to preserve the cultural heritage of their neighborhood, town, or a nearby historic site and what the community can do to help.

Recently, a group of middle and high school students gathered in New Mexico to participate in a youth summit . Over the course of four days, the students visited historic sites and museums and met with professionals in the fields of preservation, cultural resource interpretation, and heritage tourism. The students studied the importance of historical and cultural preservation and the challenges met by preservation professionals and local leaders who protect these special places. The youth then formed teams and brainstormed ideas to propose solutions to these challenges. Some proposals addressed ways to decrease vandalism at historical or cultural heritage sites. Other teams offered solutions on how to increase youth awareness and engagement in cultural resource stewardship. Still others offered suggestions on how local leadership could better connect with youth. One student described the experience this way, We get to apply what we learned in real life and actually help people who are in government and help people make decisions. It kind of empowers youth to learn more about their culture and make an impact in their communities.

Promote Environmental Stewardship



Many schools look to the National Park Service to take their students outdoors to learn firsthand about environmental issues. Parks like Great Smoky Mountains National Park offer field trips where middle school and high school students can monitor changes in the natural environment at the park and connect those changes to global issues like climate change. Other opportunities exist for students to engage in service learning projects either through their schools or youth organizations like Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. Educators can connect these on-site activities to their classroom learning units in earth science, weather, geology, biology, or through interdisciplinary approaches combining scientific data gathered at a park with a math project analyzing that data. Several national parks like North Cascades National Park, Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site and Petroglyph National Monument are working with Bureau of Indian Education schools developing on-site citizen science programs where students do actual scientific data collection and analysis with National Park Service professionals. Students learn about climate change, erosion, wildlife management, and other natural resource management issues while implementing critical thinking and analysis skills in the program.

Engage in Historical Research

Many educators and students work with parks and historic sites in the development of National History Day projects by studying museum objects, buildings, photographs, maps, landscapes, and other historical resources preserved at National Park Service sites. Youth can choose topics related to the subject matter interpreted and preserved at the site or select a project based on the history of the National Park Service itself. For example, the historian and education specialist at Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas often help students find information and connect with surviving children of plaintiffs from the 1954 Supreme Court decision that ended racial segregation in the nations public schools. Students are able to conduct interviews with the plaintiffs children to learn firsthand how the case and its aftermath affected the students who were represented by the NAACP lawyers.

Other NPS Resources

The National Park Service is often considered the worlds largest informal education organization. In addition to 413 natural, cultural, and historical sites preserved and protected by the NPS, there are many program and technical offices throughout the country that do work in cultural and natural resource preservation and education. There are many other resources provided for educators through the National Park Service:



Free Admission : Every Kid in a Park is a White House initiative designed to encourage every fourth grader in the United States to visit a federal land or water management area to participate in educational and recreational activities. The program offers a one-year, free pass into federal land and water management areas to fourth graders and their families. Educators can also register for their class to participate in the program. Many parks and historic sites provide hands-on education programs for fourth graders participating in Every Kid in a Park. Lesson plans on getting to know federal lands and waters, environmental stewardship, citizen science, and Native American cultures have been developed to help educators acquaint their students with Every Kid in a Park and the participating federal land and water management agencies.

: Every Kid in a Park is a White House initiative designed to encourage every fourth grader in the United States to visit a federal land or water management area to participate in educational and recreational activities. The program offers a one-year, free pass into federal land and water management areas to fourth graders and their families. Educators can also register for their class to participate in the program. Many parks and historic sites provide hands-on education programs for fourth graders participating in Every Kid in a Park. Lesson plans on getting to know federal lands and waters, environmental stewardship, citizen science, and Native American cultures have been developed to help educators acquaint their students with Every Kid in a Park and the participating federal land and water management agencies. Lesson Plans : The National Park Service also provides an online portal where lesson plans, field trips, distance learning programs, and other educational materials and resources can be found. Searches can be conducted by keyword, subject, grade level, or Common Core standards. Over 250 featured lesson plans and materials are available from the main search page, but by clicking on view archived lesson plans here from the center of your search results page, you will have access to an additional 1,100 items from our archived content.

: The National Park Service also provides an online portal where lesson plans, field trips, distance learning programs, and other educational materials and resources can be found. Searches can be conducted by keyword, subject, grade level, or Common Core standards. Over 250 featured lesson plans and materials are available from the main search page, but by clicking on view archived lesson plans here from the center of your search results page, you will have access to an additional 1,100 items from our archived content. Professional Development: Opportunities for professional development in place-based learning are available at many NPS sites. Some parks, like Bents Old Fort National Historic Site , offer short-term workshops where educators can learn about the parks educational resources and programs and how to integrate historical and natural resources into learning activities and field trips. The NPS also offers a longer-term (4-6 weeks in the summer) professional development opportunity called the Teacher Ranger Teacher program. Participating educators spend their summers at NPS sites learning about the NPS educational resources and themes while taking an online course with University of Colorado, Denver in experiential learning. The NPS provides educators with new insights about the use of primary historical and scientific resources for use in their classrooms and programs so that they can bring their students back to the parks to conduct their own on-site learning experiences.

NPS sites provide many place-based learning opportunities where students and educators can engage in real-life problem solving activities, scientific data gathering and analysis, cultural heritage awareness, historic and environmental preservation, civic engagement, service learning, and global literacy. It is through these learning opportunities that youth can develop an understanding and appreciation for our environmental and cultural heritage and history and become the stewards of our global heritage in the future.

Follow the National Park Service and The Center for Global Education on Twitter.

Photos courtesy of the National Park Service.
Marylands state board of education agreed this week to expedite school districts requests to start before Labor Day, contrary to an executive order by the states governor setting a post-Labor Day start date starting next school year.

Republican Gov. Larry Hogan earlier this month issued the order to assist the states tourism industry, which benefits from families who vacationed through the end of August. But opponents to the move said it will take away academic time from students.

On Tuesday, the state board passed a resolution saying it would expeditiously approve waivers to the governors rule, according to the Associated Press .

Check out Education Weeks most recent story on the pros and cons of starting school before Labor Day.

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Can Your Business Refuse to Accept Pennies?

If your business conducts cash transactions, you've probably had to wait for countless customers to count out exact change to the very last penny. You may have even had plenty of customers pay an entire bill in loose change. While this can be annoying, most business owners would agree that getting paid in cash, coin, credit, or check, is still getting paid, and is still a good thing. There are, however, rare circumstances, like this attention-seeking grown man-child, where allowing a customer or debtor to pay in coinage just seems horribly inefficient.

Fortunately for private businesses, there is no federal law that mandates what type of currency a private business must accept. And according to one source, there are no states that have a blanket requirement that businesses must accept cash or coin. Just like a business can refuse to accept big bills, they can refuse coinage as well.

But Aren't Coins "Legal Tender"?

While coins are in fact legal tender, thanks to the Coinage Act of 1965, the Federal Reserve specifically explains on their website that a private business is free to develop their own policies on what forms of payment to accept unless state law mandates otherwise. The federal codes explain that dollars have to be accepted as legal tender, but never actually mandates which forms of dollars must be accepted.

An example of where state law requires acceptance of cash comes from California's landlord tenant laws. If a landlord refuses a tenant's payment of rent in cash, then a tenant basically gets excused from having to pay rent that month.

What Can You Do If a Customer Hands You a Bucket of Pennies?

If getting paid in buckets of pennies is a real concern, then consider posting a sign that says the business does not accept more than a certain dollar amount in coins per transaction (just like that "no bills over $20" sign on the register). While you may want to make that sale, you should recognize that accepting buckets of pennies could end up costing you more than you're making on the sale. Most banks charge hefty processing fees if the coins are not rolled, and paying an employee to roll the coins, even if using an automatic machine, is still a lengthy, and thus costly, process.

By being polite to your customer, and then explaining that you are unable to accept the unrolled coins in their 5 gallon bucket unless they are willing to pay the additional bank processing fees, you may be able to both save the sale and the customer experience. No customer expects that paying a bill with pennies will be a pleasant, un-embarrassing experience. If this is a regular issue your business faces, you can try to get an automatic sorting machine like a Coinstar machine, or notify your customers where the nearest sorting machine is located.

Related Resources:
Nick Bilton's analysis of his Theranos expose shows how bad actors like Elizabeth Holmes can misuse employees and government regulators, but he is especially critical of access journalism practiced in the business trades. It's a great read for anyone who writes as part of their job.

Paste Magazine pinned part of the blame on our "culture of experts," arguing that Holmes is the logical conclusion of that culture. Bilton notes that writing about someone, whether good or bad, has real-world consequences:

But perhaps the most shocking example of Holmes's activity was revealed to me in mid-July, when I found myself waiting at Cafe Venetia on University Avenue in Palo Alto, to meet with Rochelle Gibbons. Gibbons, who is soft-spoken, spent the better part of our two-hour conversation oscillating between tears and anger as she spoke about Ian Gibbons, her husband and the former chief scientist of Theranos who committed suicide three years ago, largely due, she said, to the pressures of working for Holmes.

As I read Bilton's piece, I was reminded of this quotation cited almost 100 years ago, on a little framed placard on the desk of L. E. Edwardson, an editor at the Chicago Herald and Examiner:

"Whatever a patron desires to get published is advertising; whatever he wants to keep out of the paper is news," .

 How I got to the bottom of the Theranos mess (Vanity Fair)

Previously: The rise and fall of Theranos
In July, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Dr Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute Assistant Professor of Computer Science; now the US government has asked a court to dismiss Dr Green's claims. A brief from EFF explains what's at stake here: the right of security experts to tell us which computers are vulnerable to attack, and how to make them better.

Green is working on a book whose working title is Practical Cryptographic Engineering, in which he describes the research he's undertaken  including work funded by the National Science Foundation  to investigate the security of all manner of embedded computers. This research often involves bypassing locks that manufacturers use to restrict access to their software  something that puts Green at risk of both criminal and civil prosecution under Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which creates an unprecedented legal right to sue over tampering with these locks, even when they're embedded in your own property, and even for legitimate purposes.





"Under Section 1201, computer researchers can face serious penalties just for selling a book that would help people build better, more secure computer systems," said EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry. "As we explained when we filed a legal challenge to the law in July, such penalties violate the First Amendment and threaten ordinary people for publishing research or even talking about circumventing computer code that's embedded in nearly everything we own. With the lawsuit underway, we're asking the court to bar the government from prosecuting Dr. Green so he can publish a book that's clearly in the public interest." "If we want our communications and devices to be secure, we need to protect independent security researchers like Dr. Green," said EFF Staff Attorney Kit Walsh. "Researchers should be encouraged to educate the public and the next generation of computer scientists. Instead, they are threatened by an unconstitutional law that has come unmoored from its original purpose of addressing copyright infringement. We're going to court to protect everyone whose speech is squelched by this law, starting with Dr. Green and his book."

EFF Asks Court to Block U.S. From Prosecuting Security Researcher For Detecting and Publishing Computer Vulnerabilities [EFF]

(Image: John Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering)
2015 was the fortieth consecutive year that The Rocky Horror Picture Show has played in theaters, luring out the misfits and punks and queers and oddballs. Were now seeing the third generation of misfits coming up in the world and dancing in the aisles to The Time Warp, while Fox network readies to premier the made-for-TV remake on October 20th. Rocky Horror is more than a fan phenomenon; its a bizarre yet empowering film that shows us the intersection of queer, working class, and geek cultures, although you dont have to be any of the previous to enjoy the hell out of it.

I first saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show when I rented it at the age of twelve, in the mid-1990s. My mother threw a fit, like she did when my dad let me rent Naked Lunch or Witches of Eastwick. In fact, I only saw half of it before she made me stop watching. I didn't see it again until age fourteen, when it aired on Halloween on VH1 (albeit edited for television). I was hooked.

I watched the film obsessively. I went to Sam Goody and bought a VHS and forced friends to watch it with me and yell the call-back lines. Something about this film clicked in my head. I'd known since I the age of eleven that I was attracted to other guys, and by fourteen I'd stopped denying it to myself. It was more than that, though; I'm not just "gay," I'm genderqueer, which makes me a bit of a misfit among misfits. At fourteen, part of me knew this, though not how to express it. Shortly after latching onto Rocky Horror, I also became enchanted with Marilyn Manson, then David Bowie and the films of John Waters. These outrageous pop icons served an essential role in my teens and early twenties, as they did for millions of others, helping me figure out what the hell kind of person I wanted to be: someone fearless and fabulous.

Funnily enough, I was a Rocky "virgin" until I was on cast during my junior year of college. I'd never seen it in the theater with audience participation until I was actually up there on the shadow cast. I blame my mother.

From there, the dam broke like an ankle in a platform heel. I had been going out in drag since I was seventeen, sneaking into gay clubs underage with the support of my very cool straight dad and the obliviousness of my mom. It intoxicated me to play Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Tim Curry's "Sweet Transvestite" antihero, live in front of hundreds of people. Dr. Frank isn't exclusively "gay" and he's not even a standard drag queenhe doesn't wear breasts or a wig, just bedazzled dime store lingerie. He's genderfuck like Bowie, and in fact his makeup designer is also Bowie's Ziggy Stardust-era makeup artist, Pierre La Roche.

I found something in myself during those years of playing Frank (and Janet and Rocky) that I still carry onto stage as a spoken word and performance artist, something that I keep in my heart as a journalist commenting on queer culture and its iconography. When I played Susan Sarandon's Janet, I got to be a high soft femme, not the aggro-punk drag character Roxy Roadkill that I'd acted out in late high school and college. When I played Rocky himself, I got comfortable showing off my body, which was a little chubby and nowhere near Peter Hinwood's buff bod on film. The film probably even shaped some of my sexual attractionsI melt a lot more than I'd like to for guys who look like Barry Bostwick's Brad Majors, with the thick black-framed glasses, the awkward nerdiness and all.

Margaret Cho has pointed out the perhaps surprising connection between BDSM, Star Trek, and the Renaissance Festival. There's a similar connection between kink culture, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and professional wrestling. Cho didn't resolve the nature of these connections in her live show, but I can: "Don't Dream It, Be It."

This is the core mantra of RHPS, a lyric from the swimming pool segment of the "Floor Show" extravaganza. Like dressing up as the characters in Star Trek or pro-wrestling, like dressing up for the Ren Fair or for a night of kinky role play, dressing up to attend a showing of Rocky Horror is all about the empowerment of being an idealized persona for a night. Don't merely dream it. Be it: fat girls are sex kittens, skinny gay dudes are heartthrobs, and trans folks' genders are taken seriously, even when the point is to take nothing seriously. RHPS is essentially an Americanized British sex farce, bent for the sexually volatile '70s.

The punk aesthetic and shoestring budget of the film has a less obvious but equally empowering impact: it's a film that's incredibly friendly to working class viewers. If we take a careful look at the film's plot, we first see the false protagonists Brad and Janet, a presumably middle class young couple. The film is styled to reflect a '50s aesthetic for Brad and Janet's hometown of Denton, Ohio. These two conservative American dreamers then accidentally cross over, much like Dorothy or Alice, into the Other: a distinctly '70s post-glam rock, pre-disco environment of sexual excess and gender revolution. This is where we meet the true hero of the film: Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a bisexual alien mad scientist who traipses around in fishnets and heels.

Although Brad and Janet remain p.o.v. characters, Brad quickly stops acting as protagonist and becomes a lesser observer, while Janet continues to make decisions, take action, and become sexually empowered. Their White, straight, middle class comfort zone burns down around them, leaving Brad sexually dysphoric: "It's beyond me/help me Mommy/I'll be good, you'll see/Take this dream away."

Janet, on the other hand, becomes sexually euphoric: "I feel released/Bad times deceased/My confidence has increased/Reality is here." Janet has been liberated. While some will only notice the audience shouting the word "slut" every time Janet's name is said on screen, the character has had a full arc from prudish shrinking violet to va-va-voom burlesque star. But let's be real: most don't go to RHPS to see Janet. We go for Tim Curry in all his glory as Dr. Frank.

This transformation of Brad and Janet happens at the hands of outre characters who, despite living in a castle, wear threadbare costumes fit more for carnies than the silver screen. Frank-N-Furter is the queen of this castle, and yet his outfits are disintegrating before our eyes. The middle class goody-goodies are seduced and transformed into thrift store glamour bombs by a cadre of genderqueer sex punks, and this is how the class issues of the film really get worked out: visually.

To the past four decades of audiences, these cheaply made costumes have meant something vital. Near-exact copies of the costumes can be made at home and/or assembled from second hand finds. This DIY factor is hugely important to Rocky Horror fandom. On a tight budget, anyone can dress up as their favorite character, attend a midnight show, and receive praise (and perhaps even get laid) for their ability to cosplay on a dime. In fact, this enormous fan phenomenon expanded cosplay in America beyond science fiction conventions, decades before we adopted the Japanese-created English portmanteau term "cosplay." It's a glorious patchwork of language, gender, and class.

The film's mantra of "Don't Dream It, Be It!" distills the ideal of all costume emulation: no matter your race, gender, size, or physical ability, you can be one of these characters for a night, and you can do it affordably. I've seen black and Asian Frank-N-Furters, fat Franks, and so forth. Dori Hartley, a woman, was the original Frank-N-Furter impersonator at the original crowd participation shows in NYC. I am certain there are Franks and Janets in wheelchairs somewhere, as there absolutely should be.

RHPS fandom and fantasy is beyond gender, race, class, and other factors. It is accessible in ways that the recent explosion of pop culture cosplay has yet to catch up to. For more on that, check out black cosplayer and blogger Chaka Cumberbatch's (@princessology) articles at XOJane, where she discusses how many people in geek culture vocalize surprise and even derision that a black woman would dare dress up as Wonder Woman or Sailor Venus. Rocky Horror fandom is a place where that sort of racial gatekeeping would not be tolerated.

There are no major POC characters in the original Rocky Horror Picture Show, but the fandom fills those gaps without stopping to question who "looks like" whom. Aside from race, the working class punk philosophy behind this film is inseparable from the queerness. It shouldn't be separated at allearly punk often embraced queer sex and gender as yet another fuck-you to the snooty, classist status quo. William Burroughs, John Waters and Divine, and even Tom of Finland (thanks to Vivienne Westwood) became punk icons, just as BDSM gear was integrated into the punk dress code. Like Divine and Burroughs, Rocky Horror is what Waters would call "gayly incorrect"it is not concerned with being sensitive or presenting queer people in an so-called admirable light. It's concerned with shaking up the rigid mainstream and having a blast doing it.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show has even become a tradition for many families. When I was a producer and rotating Frank/Janet in Tallahassee's Cheap Thrills cast, we received an email from the father of a transgender 13-year-old. He thanked us earnestly for creating a safe place for his queer kid to go and be their self, as well as a space where that whole family could have a good time together.

That is the lasting impact of The Rocky Horror Picture Show: a safe space for misfits and their families to go, feel normal, and have a damn good time. It's been four decades, and many of us are still going to the movies at midnight, throwing rice at the screen, and shouting obscenities. Even more remarkable, the fan culture continues to draw in young people who are finding their confidence and their self-expression. RHPS serves many of the same cultural functions of the ball circuit of NYC and beyond; as a member of house Extravaganza states in Paris Is Burning, a ball (like a showing of Rocky Horror) is a place where you can feel 100% normal being gay. Further, you can feel 100% okay being bisexual and/or trans, identities often excluded from both gay and straight culture.

After decades of talk and limbo, a small-screen remake the film is on the horizon. Curry himself will be back, this time as the Narrator/Criminologista choice very satisfying to this fan, especially now that Cristopher Lee and David Bowie are no longer with us. Broadway veteran Ben Vereen will play Dr. Scott, Queen-frontman and American Idol Adam Lambert will be Eddie, and I'm particularly hot in the pants to see Penny Dreadful's own Dorian Gray, Reeve Carney, as Riff Raff.

The most jaw-dropping and inspiring casting choice, of course, is the fierce-as-hell Laverne Cox as the new Dr. Frank. Can she live up to the role? Tim Curry sings like a fruit-roll-up of Little Richard and Mick Jagger, quite intentionally so. Let's hope Cox has the pipes to do it justice, because she certainly has the stage presence. From her interviews, it sounds as though this versatile actress will play a male drag queen, layering the character as actress-assigned-male-at-birth-playing-non-trans-man-dressing-as-woman. Please give us that delicious genderfuck, Laverne. We're counting on you.

If you've never seen the film or else never seen it live, you're missing out on an amazing phenomenon of modern folk culture. This is living folklore, like Star Wars and Dracula. People who've never seen any of those films can still recognize Count Dracula and Princess Leia on sight, because they're on boxes of cereal, television commercials, and everywhere else that urban folklore shows up.

After 40 years, The Rocky Horror Picture Show continues to make the world a safer space for oddballs and underdogs. It's a gem of cultural history. May it last 400 years.
Bowalley Road Rules



The blogosphere tends to be a very noisy, and all-too-often a very abusive, place. I intend Bowalley Road to be a much quieter, and certainly a more respectful, place.

So, if you wish your comments to survive the moderation process, you will have to follow the Bowalley Road Rules.

These are based on two very simple principles:

Courtesy and Respect.

Comments which are defamatory, vituperative, snide or hurtful will be removed, and the commentators responsible permanently banned.

Anonymous comments will not be published. Real names are preferred. If this is not possible, however, commentators are asked to use a consistent pseudonym.

Comments which are thoughtful, witty, creative and stimulating will be most welcome, becoming a permanent part of the Bowalley Road discourse.

However, I do add this warning. If the blog seems in danger of being over-run by the usual far-Right suspects, I reserve the right to simply disable the Comments function, and will keep it that way until the perpetrators find somewhere more appropriate to vent their collective spleen.


Mark Williams, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR), was joined by representatives from the Department of Defense, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and other partners today at a ceremony to announce the opening of the Alapaha River Wildlife Management Area (WMA). This almost 7,000-acre tract sits north and east of the Alapaha River in Irwin County and will provide opportunities for outdoor recreational activities such as hunting, hiking, camping and bird-watching, and will serve as a demonstration site for longleaf pine restoration.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources consistently seeks to expand available public lands through ground-breaking or innovative partnerships such as this one, said DNR Commissioner Mark Williams. The Alapaha River WMA is one of the most important tracts in our state for the gopher tortoise, a species we are diligently working to protect in order to avoid the need for a potential federal listing.



The Alapaha River WMA was once managed for longleaf pine turpentine production until the 1960s. The area was home to most of Dr. Dan Speakes (Auburn) pioneering research on the eastern indigo snake and the gopher tortoise. Gopher tortoise research conducted at the Alapaha River WMA by the J. Jones Ecological Research Center estimated the population at 1,877 adult tortoises in 2011, one of the highest and densest populations in the state. A viable gopher tortoise population is a minimum of 250 adults.



During the 1990s, a shift towards restoring the longleaf pine on the tract began. In 2000, Mr. Hugh Lentile acquired the tract and increased longleaf pine recovery efforts in partnership with the Georgia DNR.



The availability of this area to the public is thanks to the cooperation of Mr. Lentile and to partner agency efforts, including the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Department of Defense, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, Knobloch Family Foundation, and the Georgia Forestry Commission.



Management of the WMA will provide continued focus on the restoration of the longleaf pine ecosystem which provides important habitat for wildlife, including both game and nongame species, like the states official reptile, the gopher tortoise, as well as the indigo snake, the striped newt and such game species as deer and turkey.


Tennessee Education Commissioner Candice McQueen announced on Friday that the department has piloted Nextera, the online assessment platform used by the states testing vendor, with more than 9,000 high school students in 12 select districts across the state. This pilot is the first step in a series of actions the state and districts are taking this year to ensure Nextera is ready for high school students who may take TNReady End of Course exams online in the spring.

This trial run of Nextera, which occurred on Thursday, was designed to see how the platform performed in real time at Tennessee high schools.

Our goal is for high school students to have a positive experience taking their End of Course test, and it is our responsibility to ensure our vendor is ready for our schools. This pilot has been incredibly helpful to inform both our work at the state, as well as districts looking to pursue online testing for their high school students, said Education Commissioner Candice McQueen. We must prepare our students for their future, which requires comfort with technology. The results of this pilot provide further encouragement in our approach to phase-in online testing for students over the next three years.

Thursdays pilot served as one of the early proof points of online readiness for both Nextera and schools. In the contract with Questar that was finalized this summer, the department required the vendor demonstrate that Nextera performs consistently well across the state before online testing can begin. Additionally, districts must have high school students take online practice tests, testing coordinators must attend training, and districts and schools must have secure browsers installed on their devices prior to opting in to online testing next spring. High school students on block schedule will take their End of Course assessments on paper this fall, and districts will choose whether to opt into online testing in spring 2017 for high school students only. Students in grades 3-8 will take TNReady on paper.

This weeks test run was the first time Tennessee students tried out Nextera. While the department will continue to gather feedback and data from the pilot over the coming days, overall, results indicate the product was performing as expected in Tennessee. While some functional issues appeared in limited cases, all are being addressed. The department and Questar will use the results from the pilot to strengthen the platform, and high school students and teachers will again have access to it starting in November for practice. The department will continue to evaluate and strengthen the platform over the course of the practice windows.

Even if schools demonstrate readiness for online administration, districts will still have the option to choose paper and pencil assessments for their high school students this year. As part of the multi-year phase-in approach, the department is gradually moving to include more students taking online assessments, with a paper option always available for the youngest learners.

Districts and schools who participated in Thursdays pilot were asked earlier this month whether they would be interested in supporting the pilot and have partnered closely with the department and Questar to prepare. The list includes:

 Alvin C. York Institute

 Claiborne County Schools

 Fayetteville City Schools

 Fentress County Schools

 Jackson County Schools

 Jackson-Madison County School District

 Knox County Schools

 Rutherford County Schools

 Tennessee School for the Blind

 Tennessee School for the Deaf

 Trousdale County Schools

 Williamson County Schools

The department will continue to post updates about TNReady on TNReady.gov. For media inquiries, contact Sara Gast at (615) 532-6260 or Sara.Gast@tn.gov.


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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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The atomic arrangements of Zinc Oxide visible under a high-resolution transmission electron microscope. Here, Zn (green) represents Zinc and O (blue) represents Oxygen. The red lines showing the defect in the periodicity of atomic arrangements. The zig zag periodicity is Zinc Oxide's original periodicity called wurtzite and the straight line is the region with defect where the original zig zag periodicity is lost. The defected region plays a significant role in the study.

An international team of scientists with participation from the University of Gottingen, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Pennsylvania State University, and Wright State University has measured the mechanics of tiny crystalline ceramics. Materials are made of atoms, and if they are arranged periodically, they are called crystalline structures. If the size of these crystalline structures is 1,000 times smaller than a single human hair diameter, then they are called nano-structures such as nano-rods, nano-wires, nano-ribbons, nano-belts etc. In some cases, special atomic arrangements enable them to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. These materials are called piezoelectric materials. They are useful for energy harvesting as well as a variety of electro-mechanical gadgets to enhance the quality of life. Hence, it is important to have a grip on these nano-structures and measure their mechanical responses. Until now, it was unknown that mechanical behavior of piezoelectric nano-crystals containing atomic defects is different than pure.

In nature, crystals are never 100 percent perfect, and they have various kinds of structural defects. One such defect type is a stacking-fault. This is considered a structural defect. In a stacking fault, a stack of periodic arrangements of atoms in crystals gets added or missing. Dr. Kasra Momeni, Director of Advanced Hierarchical Materials by Design Laboratory and faculty member of Mechanical Engineering at Louisiana Tech University, elaborates that the presence of structural defects including stacking faults can significantly alter the stress distribution. This is due to the complex interaction between stress fields from stacking faults and the ones from free boundaries of the nano-rods, which can alter the failure mechanism of nanorods with stacking faults compared to the perfect ones.

Since energy harvesting is one of the key requirements in todays age, converting mechanical forces into a useful form of energy, i.e. electrical output, is an alternative to other energy transduction modes as well as an efficient approach. There are several crystalline ceramics which convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. We introduced a new concept that mechanics of these tiny crystalline ceramic structures are dependent on atomic defects. For example, they can collapse and their mechanical properties are not as expected. Consideration of these facts will enable us to design energy harvesting devices out of such tiny structures, explains Dr. Moumita Ghosh, leading scientist of this research from the University of Gottingen and former doctoral research scholar of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

The new finding reveals a non-intuitive know-how of defects in terms of mechanics at low dimension. Defect engineering in piezoelectric nanomaterials in future will enable us to realize various high quality and cost-effective vibration-based energy harvesting as well as electro-mechanical devices for biomedical research, diagnostics, and electronic applications.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton speak at the first presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., on September 26, 2016. (Jewel Samad / AFP/Getty Images)

That loud noise you kept hearing during the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was me sighing. Over and over and over again.

I try to avoid politics in this column, but our presidential campaign is omnipresent and invariably becomes relevant to the workplace. The relevancy this time involves the ease with which Trump interrupted Clinton while the two were debating.

In case you weren't counting, it was 51 times. Fifty-one times over a 90-minute period the man on stage interrupted the woman on stage while she was speaking.

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It's at this juncture in any column addressing sexism where I tell any male readers whose blood pressure is rising, the ones about to scream something about political correctness, to calm down and try to understand someone else's point of view. Breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth. It lowers the adrenaline.

In addition to the incessant interrupting, Trump's casual sexism during the debate included a snide "I want you to be very happy, it's very important to me" and a comment at the end about a woman he once called a "pig" having deserved such an insult. Trump also, on several occasions, said Clinton was lying about past comments he had made, when in fact she was absolutely correct.

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These are all textbook examples of the way men in the workplace  sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously  demean, deter or generally make life more difficult for women.

Are things better than the entirely male-dominated days of old? Of course. Considerably better.

But are there still problems? Oh my, yes.

Back in May, I wrote about the rise of workplace "mansplaining," when men feel compelled to talk down to female colleagues and explain things to them that they already understand. How does most mansplaining start? With an interruption, of course.

The issue of men interrupting women has been studied over and over again, going back to the 1970s. And it's a behavior that persists, with one recent study showing men interrupt women three times more often than they interrupt other men.

Susan Lee, chairwoman and master lecturer of social sciences at Boston University, recently told The Boston Globe: "Why do people interrupt? They feel they are entitled to interrupt because they are higher status. When the floor opens up for conversation in any setting, the men speak up and speak first and then people defer to them."

If you're a man, ask any woman in your life and I guarantee she will recount instances of this happening.

So, getting back to the presidential debate, we have a problem when someone being considered for the position of leader of the free world stands before a massive television audience and engages in this kind of behavior.

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Whatever you think of Trump, millions of Americans like him and support him and think he can do no wrong. So they're watching his behavior and regarding it as the way a winner behaves.

And that's where this gets dangerous. Because I'm here to tell you that talking down to a woman, interrupting her or dabbling in any manner of body-shaming is NOT how a winner behaves  not in any aspect of life and most certainly not in the workplace.

(This is not an endorsement of Clinton. She brings her own set of flaws to the table. Understand, I'm only focusing in on the male-female dynamic that was at play during the debate.)

We normalize boorish workplace behavior at our own peril. It's antithetical to the kind of work cultures most companies now strive to create, ones that are respectful, inclusive and kind.

And yet, Trump is widely embraced. Perhaps some of that support is a pushback against the end of the "Mad Men"-style workplace, a longing for the days when nobody griped about a man talking over a woman.

Working Lunch Weekdays Get the latest business news headlines, delivered to your inbox midday weekdays. >

Whatever the reason, and regardless of whether Trump wins or loses in November, companies have to be mindful of how his brashness might influence workers.

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Because I don't see how such a large portion of the population can idolize someone like Trump and then not start mimicking some of his behaviors, or at least view such behavior as acceptable.

You don't have to get political in the workplace to remind employees about the importance of letting all voices be heard, of being respectful to each other and willing to, as I said earlier, see the world through the eyes of another person  perhaps the person whom you keep interrupting.

If Trump could've done that on the debate stage, he might've set a stronger example for those who consider him an ideal businessman.

Instead he came off as a throwback, a loud and opinionated man in a suit perfectly at ease ignoring a woman trying to make a point and interrupting her. Fifty-one times.

That's the kind of behavior companies are trying eradicate. Trump's not helping on that front.

TALK TO REX: Ask workplace questions  anonymously or by name  and share stories with Rex Huppke at IJustWorkHere@tribpub.com, like Rex on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rexworkshere and find more at www.chicagotribune.com/ijustworkhere.
The way James Geier tells it, he was just a dyslexic kid who failed in school before he found his life's work mostly by accident.

Not bad for the man behind the design of some of Chicago's most acclaimed restaurants, and retail spaces worldwide ranging from Dallas Cowboys Pro Shops to Gucci and Chanel.

The designer, whose restaurant work includes Girl and the Goat, Perennial Virant and Roister, is determined to do things differently than his peers, and he says that rebellious spirit is the root of his success.

James Geier of Chicago design firm 555 International discusses how hes learned from his mistakes and what advice he shares with his staff. James Geier of Chicago design firm 555 International discusses how hes learned from his mistakes and what advice he shares with his staff. SEE MORE VIDEOS

Geier, 54, and the company he founded, 555 International, have designed for some of the most prominent chefs and hotel owners in Chicago, working not from a posh Loop office space but from a massive warehouse in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.

One of the most recent projects allowed Geier to combine his design experience with his love for the city's South Side: The Whole Foods store in Englewood, which opened a few days ago.

Geier, whose company has 140 employees, discussed some of his projects and how he works in a recent interview with the Tribune. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: How long did the Englewood Whole Foods project take?

A: From a concept development standpoint, we probably spent about nine months on it and then I'd say probably a year in totality.

We were in the other day, and it's pretty impressive. Concepts and ideas brought to life: bringing in the importance of the neighborhood and the importance of Whole Foods being there. There was a lot of creativity and art and art inspiration that was part of that too.

Q: It seems like the community really got involved in the development of the store.

A: That was very important for (Whole Foods). And that was a big part of our involvement early on, making sure that we were working toward what was appropriate for the community and not just painting a pretty picture. A lot of what we looked at was the history of the community, the reasons why it was formed. It was the crossroads early on of railroad transit, both commercial and freight. That became a very important part of some of our messages as you walk throughout the space. And then as you walk around the store and then leave in the post-checkout area, you're back into today.

Q: How long does a restaurant project typically take?

A: It really varies depending on the site: ground-up construction or a renovation. A lot of it also has to do with the relationship with the client. Do they really know who their customer is or have they just said, "Hey, I want to do a restaurant." A lot of times a client might come in with an exact (plan) and say "This is where I'm at, this is the cuisine, this is a sense of who I think we are" and sometimes they don't at all.

A time frame, generally, from concept to development is a year to 18 months for most normal restaurants. Retail stores, a little less time.

Q: How did you get your start?

A: I was dyslexic in the '60s, when no one knew what dyslexia was. I wasn't very good in school. My mind was about how I could do things with my hands and how that all worked and how things are made. The ability to channel the good, and find things that are appropriate. My abilities to understand how things are made because I'm very mechanically oriented  those are the gifts I probably had, where reading, writing and arithmetic weren't the best.

Fortunately my mother sensed early that I was having problems in school, and she enrolled me in some art classes. This art instructor really gave us opportunity to work with our hands and find our voice even as a young person, in the materials or how you expressed yourself. For me, it was always dimensional, more sculptural, than it was painting.

Unfortunately being a starving artist and trying to get out of high school isn't a great quotient to success. So looking at and coming up with industrial design, engineering and manufacturing of products and furniture and things like that was a great way for me to be able to both express my wont to build physical things along with having things to sell.

Q: Are any of your sculptures in spaces you've designed?

A: The work that we do is really about a client's needs, who the customer is, whether it's a restaurant or a retail store. If there are areas where we can show a lot of sculpture or create sculptural things, yes. There is specialty lighting and chandeliers. We've worked for Hard Rock hotels and casinos. We make a lot of sculpture out of musical instruments and a lot of other things.

Q: How do you maintain passion and love for your work when you do this day in and day out?

A: I think it's internal. I'm an artist by birth and passion, but also very pragmatic in business and manufacturing, design of products that are appropriate for environments, whether they're custom-made or very utilitarian. Passion is always something that's going to keep me awake and keep me going.

The focus is on what the customer ultimately sees, so (that motivation) is never not with me. It is the beginning and the reason why we do this.

sbomkamp@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @SamWillTravel
A former Trunk Club stylist claims the Chicago apparel retailer is still using her name to market its service to customers two years after she stopped working for the company.

The stylist, Jamie Burns, alleged Trunk Club's "unauthorized promotional emails infringe her right of publicity and falsely (imply) her origination or endorsement of Trunk Club's goods and services," according to a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Chicago.

Trunk Club, launched in Chicago in 2009, promises customers a personal stylist will hand-pick clothes selected just for them, either at one of the company's clubhouse stores or shipped to the customer to try on at home.

Burns was "favorably known amongst Trunk Club's customers for her unique style and skill in selecting clothes," according to the lawsuit.

Burns claims Trunk Club sent her former customer an email announcing a change in its home try-on policy that appeared to be from Burns and invited the customer to click a link marked "Message Jamie" as recently as last month.

It's not clear whether the company sent additional emails that appeared to be from Burns, said her attorney, Jac Cotiguala. Burns, now an interior decorator, left Trunk Club in 2014 after a dispute over who should handle customers Burns recruited, he said.

Trunk Club did not seek permission to use her name and did not respond to a cease-and-desist letter sent last month, according to the lawsuit.

"We don't believe the filing has merit and we plan to defend ourselves as necessary. Because the lawsuit is pending, we aren't able to share additional details," a spokesperson for Nordstrom, Trunk Club's parent company, said in an email.

Burns is seeking an unspecified amount of damages and an injunction ordering Trunk Club to stop using her name or modified former work email address without permission, along with an order requiring Trunk Club notify customers who received emails that appeared to be from Burns.

lzumbach@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @laurenzumbach
A Winnetka trader was federally indicted Thursday over an alleged fraud scheme that brought personal gain but ultimately sank a Chicago-based trading firm, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

Thomas Lindstrom, 48, is charged with four counts of commodities fraud and four counts of wire fraud tied to his trading of options on 10-year Treasury note futures.

According to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Lindstrom falsely inflated the value and profitability of his options position. The scheme cost his now-defunct firm, Rock Capital Markets, $13 million in losses, according to federal prosecutors.

Lindstrom made $285,000 over a six-month period in 2014 and 2015 as a result of the scheme, the news release said.

Lindstrom couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

In addition to the indictment, the commission filed a civil enforcement lawsuit against Lindstrom on Thursday.

Lindstrom is due in U.S. District Court in Chicago on Tuesday.
A spot for jerk lovers in Uptown, a sequel to Andy's Thai Kitchen and a bar designed to help you unplug top our list of restaurants and watering holes coming soon to the Chicago scene.

Kibbitznest Books, Brews & Blarney is not a restaurant proper, as owner Annie Kostiner is quick to point out, but rather what she calls "a book bar," where people can sit, relax, drink and snack  all without being connected to the Internet.

Laptops arent allowed, and excessive phone use is discouraged,

People can come here to do things they normally dont do, she said of the spot, which will pointedly not offer Wi-Fi. Maybe talk to one another, not talk to one another, maybe read a book or play a game.

The Lincoln Park bar was born out of Kostiners concern for the amount of time people spend on devices, particularly how they often choose devices over face-to-face communication. She wanted to do something about the problem and preserve in-person communication, so she started Kibbitznest, which is both the namesake of the new establishment as well as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that she started to help accomplish the same goals.

The bar will offer plenty of old-school options to entertain you: books, all types of board and card games, toys, typewriters and a foosball table. Kostiner said she hopes to expand those options eventually.

The menu will also be simple. Kostiner plans to serve local beer, along with wine and liqueurs, while coffee, tea and juice round out the drink selection. In keeping with the slow down theme, she plans to offer coffee only in mugs to drink there.

On the food front, hors d'oeuvres that pair well with boozy beverages  think olives, cheese and crackers  will be available. The signature item is also the menus heartiest: a Chicago-style hot dog, which Kostiner said she loves.

As the book bar grows, Kostiner plans to grow Kibbitznest the nonprofit along with it. Shell host events in the back area of the bar, so people can get involved. She stressed, however, that while her two projects are intertwined, her book bar simply hopes to offer an outlet where people can unplug for a few minutes.

Its about balance. Its not about getting rid of anything, she said. I love my iPhone, I love my computer, I love all of it, but theres a time and a place to be online or talk face-to-face.  You have to find time for both.

Kibbitznest opens Oct. 6. Time Out Chicago first reported the opening.

2212 N. Clybourn Ave., 773-360-7591, www.facebook.com/kibbitznestbooksbrewsandblarney

Other openings:

Kie-Gol-Lanee, a traditional Oaxacan restaurant, opens Friday in the recently closed Riques Cocina Mexicana space in Uptown, reported DNAInfo. Though the restaurant hopes to eventually offer mezcal  a spirit native to Oaxaca  right now it is BYOB. 5004 N. Sheridan Road, no phone number yet, www.kiegol.com

A new Italian restaurant from longtime Chicago steakhouse chef Arturo Aucaquizphi (Gene & Georgetti) will borrow its namesake from the classic German establishment that preceded it: In a few weeks, the old Mirabell storefront will give way to Mirabella. As reported by Eater, the restaurant will focus on fare from the Tuscany region and offer a selection of steaks as well. 3454 W. Addison St., no phone number or website yet

An Asian barbecue spot that combines Japanese, Korean and Thai flavors is now open in Logan Square, reported Eater. Ryuu Asian BBQ has a full kitchen, but guests can also cook their own meats on circular Japanese-style grills embedded in its tables. 2766 N. Milwaukee Ave., 773-661-1919, www.facebook.com/ryuuasianbbq

Jerk chicken and other Caribbean dishes are coming to Uptown, per DNAInfo. The Jerk Stop has announced plans to open in the area in early October. 1132 W. Wilson Ave., 312-600-5375, www.thejerkstop.com

Popular Lakeview dining destination Andys Thai Kitchen is preparing for a sequel. Chef Andy Aroonrasameruang plans to open the second edition of the kitchen in Edgewater with several new menu items, no more cash-only service and, eventually, a full bar, according to DNAInfo. It is tentatively scheduled to open Oct. 1. 6230 N. Broadway St., no phone number yet, www.andysthaikitchen.com

Fast-casual pizza giant Pie Five is heading to the suburbs, with a new location in Rolling Meadows. No word yet if the Dallas-based company will roll out a deep dish option.

River North is losing a rooftop hotspot, as Eater reported that Citizen Bar will close after this weekend.

Japanese restaurant Shiso has closed its Uptown location, per Eater, but sister restaurant Polygon Cafe in Andersonville remains open.

ICYMI:

Big Star part two? We have more details on the food headed to the forthcoming Hotel Zachary in Wrigleyville.

Chicagos first Bareburger, the New York-based burger chain, will open Monday at 3357 N. Lincoln Ave.
Thanks to science, you may soon be able to get drunk without feeling the effects the next morning.

A British scientist and longtime drug researcher has developed an alcohol substitute that still gives imbibers that sought-after buzz without the unsavory side effects of a hangover the next day. More importantly, at least from a public-health perspective, the substitute could also reduce instances of alcoholism and eliminate the damage that alcohol toxins have on bodily organs.

Oh, and it doesn't have calories.

Cheers!

RELATED: TRENDING LIFE & STYLE NEWS THIS HOUR

Alcarelle is the brainchild of David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacology professor at Imperial College London and former adviser on substance abuse to the British government. It's the brand name for a pair of alcohol substitutes that contain chemical compounds, which Nutt calls "alcosynths," that mimic the fun of alcohol without the consequences.

Alcarelle has not undergone a regulatory or scientific peer review, Nutt said.

Nutt has pursued patents for roughly 90 chemical compounds that have the effect of knocking a couple back, and two of those lab creations have already been tested in humans. They could come to a bar near you if his newly formed company, also called Alcarelle, can raise the money needed to bring it to market, he said. The substitute would be sold as a liquid and added to your favorite cocktail or nonalcoholic beverage in lieu of vodka, rum, gin or other libations.

"I've gone from this stage of being just me, the mad scientist, to having business partners," Nutt said in a phone interview. "They're the people who are hopefully going to get me the investors."

The various compounds that Nutt has developed work in one of two ways. Some replicate the direct effects of alcohol, specifically affecting the area of the brain that makes you feel loose but not the area that makes you fall-down drunk. Others mimic the indirect effects of alcohol, altering your serotonin or dopamine levels so that you might feel happier or more energetic.

Researchers can also engineer the chemical compounds so that their effect on the brain maxes out after so many drinks, reducing the desire to drink excessively and the risk of alcohol poisoning or blacking out, he said.

"My ambition would be for my grandchildren to never be exposed to alcohol," Nutt said.

Tackling the harmful effects of alcohol has been Nutt's focus since his days as a doctoral student in the 1970s. It was also part of his work during a stint in the 1980s as clinical science chief in the National Institutes of Health's alcohol abuse and alcoholism division. The challenge, he said, is that alcohol is fundamentally toxic to the human body. Indeed, health professionals have long warned that excessive and prolonged alcohol consumption can be detrimental to the brain, heart and liver, among other organs.

So 10 years ago, Nutt authored a paper for the British government calling for greater research into alcohol alternatives.

"Over the last couple of years, this research has come to some fruition. We now have found substances that can do what alcohol does in terms of giving people a relaxing experience and social experience, but without having the downsides of anger and aggression and addiction," Nutt said.

RELATED STORIES:

Alcohol abuse common among med students, study finds

National Coffee Day: 8 things you may not know about your cup of joe
George Blakemore, center, shouts at Mayor Rahm Emanuel after purporting he signed up to speak but was not called on after a public city budget hearing at Wright College on the Northwest Side on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015, in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)

First the Cook County Board tried to crack down on serial gadfly George Blakemore  and now the Chicago City Council may be getting in on the act.

Though proposed rules for public participation at City Hall meetings discussed Thursday would apply to everyone, the 74-year-old Blakemore  often the only member of the public to speak at council hearings  plausibly claimed they were aimed at silencing him.

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And in an epic, 10-minute rant in the council chamber, he told aldermen to "Check yourself before you wreck yourself!"

Aldermen and Cook County commissioners appear to be tiring of being lectured by Blakemore, who has been a regular at meetings for more than a decade and referred to himself Thursday as a "little lone ranger" holding government to account.

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"It's my job and all citizens' job not just to vote but to come down here and be critical," he said. "And if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen! You chose to be part of this machine!"

Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, previously gave Blakemore a badge recognizing his contribution to civic debate, including his successful push to have the rail station at State and Van Buren streets named in honor of the late former Mayor Harold Washington. Still, Burke and rules committee chairwoman Ald. Michelle Harris, 8th, this week sponsored a resolution that would ban "profane language or obscene conduct" and anyone who makes "irrelevant, repetitious or disruptive comments." It would limit speakers to three minutes.

The rule in many ways mimics one proposed earlier in September by Cook County, which was also widely seen as targeting Blakemore.

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Several aldermen, though, said the rules were too subjective and could turn off a public that already holds politicians in low esteem.

Ald. John Arena, 45th, said: "I hear it all the time, and I'm sure you do, too, that we're just a rubber-stamp body that doesn't want a dialogue with the population. ... This just furthers that perception."

After other aldermen voiced similar sentiments, Harris postponed a vote so that kinks in the rule could be worked out. But she cautioned her colleagues that she expected them to back up their bold talk about the public by actually showing up to meetings and sticking around to hear what people said.

Those who hung around to hear Blakemore speak then heard a classic diatribe.

"Put rules on your behavior, your language, your arrogance!" he told them. "If I've been insulting and disruptive, that wasn't my intent. It's the intent for you to be good public servants. You act right! You listen when the public is talking, because that's what you're getting paid for!"

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kjanssen@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @kimjnews
The Chicago Tribune editorial pages have been taking shots at Hillary Clinton for decades. That's four decades, seven years and 119 days, to be exact.

The Tribune's first broadside came June 3, 1969, after Hillary Rodham, a 21-year-old from northwest suburban Park Ridge, gained attention for a commencement speech at Wellesley College in Massachusetts that rebuked Sen. Edward Brooke, a Massachusetts Republican who was the Senate's only African-American.

Brooke spoke before Rodham at the event, urging moderation and "nonviolent political change" amid the tumult of the late '60s. In her memoir "Living History," Clinton recalled that Brooke's speech "sounded like a defense of President Nixon's policies, notable more for what it didn't say than what it did."

When it was her turn to speak after Brooke, the graduating senior ripped into the senator's address. "The entire tone of the speech was one that we found to be very discouraging," said Rodham, speaking as student government president. "There has been very little of the action promised by that rhetoric."

The Tribune wrote a news story headlined "Park Ridge Girl Raps Brooke." (Yes, she was called a "girl" even though she was 21.) That was followed by a Tribune editorial scolding her: "Miss Rodham's discourtesy to Sen. Brooke was unjustified."

The editorial noted that Rodham ended her speech with a French student slogan: "Be realistic. Demand the impossible." The Tribune added: "We are realistic enough to expect that youngsters of 21 and less who now find courtesy and patience and reliance on 'nonviolent political change' impossible for them will in a few years grow up enough so that they, too, in their maturity, will exemplify these badly needed virtues."

The news story and editorial were the second and third mentions of Hillary Rodham in the Tribune. The first was when she was named a National Merit semifinalist at Maine East High School. That 1964 article ran next to a story in which a union leader compared Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater to Adolf Hitler.

Chicago Tribune archives The first major mention of Donald Trump in the pages of the Chicago Tribune came in February 1979. Read the full story here. The first major mention of Donald Trump in the pages of the Chicago Tribune came in February 1979. Read the full story here. (Chicago Tribune archives) (Chicago Tribune archives)

Donald Trump's first mention in the Tribune came in 1975, when he purchased land in Manhattan. The second story, in 1979, likely pleased the brash young real estate tycoon. Headlined "Big deals are easy for top N.Y. broker," the story gushed: "He's only 32. He looks like a young college prof. Suddenly he has become New York real estate's big dealer."

The article and headline used the word "big" five times, with one appearance each by "bigger," "biggest," "massive" and "large."

The first Tribune mentions of the major third-party challengers are less massive. A 1994 article noted that Gary Johnson, now the Libertarian nominee, was "a multimillionaire contractor" running as a Republican for governor of New Mexico  a race that he would win. Green Party candidate Jill Stein was featured in a 2003 Tribune story about how people living alone used up a disproportionate share of resources. Stein, a Massachusetts physician, "said some novel solutions might include cohousing developments in which people retain privacy, but also share some common spaces."

mjacob@chicagotribune.com

Twitter: @MarkJacob16
Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez listens to questions from the media on March 8, 2016, at the Leighton Criminal Court building in Chicago. The sudden and confusing end to the perjury trial for three police officers marked another embarrassment for the outgoing State's Attorney. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

In a stunning development, Cook County prosecutors on Thursday abruptly dropped all charges against three police officers shortly after the start of their perjury trial when the officers' lawyers alleged they had been charged under an out-of-date law.

Prosecutors plan to re-indict the officers, but the sudden and confusing end to the trial marked another embarrassment for outgoing State's Attorney Anita Alvarez in her handling of prosecutions of Chicago police officers.

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In yet another surprise, a fourth officer, Vince Morgan, quietly pleaded guilty Wednesday to a misdemeanor count of obstruction of justice and was sentenced to a year of probation.

The four officers  three from Chicago and one from north suburban Glenview  had faced felony charges in a case first revealed by the Tribune in an April 2014 front-page story. Joseph Sperling, a Glenview resident whom the officers suspected of narcotics dealing, was pulled over after allegedly failing to signal.

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In court, all four officers  Chicago police Sgt. James Padar and officers William Pruente and Morgan, as well as Glenview Officer James Horn  had taken the stand to defend the arrest. Pruente testified he smelled marijuana in Sperling's car, justifying his decision to order him out. Police found a backpack containing about a pound of marijuana inside.

But Sperling's lawyer, Steven Goldman, pulled a surprise, producing a video from a Glenview squad car at the scene that showed Pruente had immediately opened up the driver's door and arrested Sperling. A furious Circuit Judge Catherine Haberkorn suppressed the traffic stop and arrest.

In June 2015, Alvarez's office charged the officers with perjury, obstruction of justice and official misconduct.

As the bench trial got underway Thursday before Judge Matthew Coghlan, prosecutors said in opening remarks that the actions of the officers struck at the heart of the criminal justice system.

"When police officers who are sworn to uphold the law do not, it brings an evisceration of our system of justice," Assistant State's Attorney John Brassil said in his opening remarks. "It calls into question justice itself."

But then lawyers for the officers dropped their bombshell, pointing out that prosecutors had indicted their clients under an older version of Illinois' perjury statute that is no longer in effect. In 2013, state legislators made the offense harder to prove, changing a part of the perjury law that dealt with a person's state of mind from "believing" they were lying to "knowingly" making false statements.

Colleen Daly, Pruente's lawyer, said prosecutors were "woefully short" of meeting that standard.

"They bit off, in this case, less than they could chew," Thomas Needham, Padar's lawyer, said in reference to the lower legal bar under which prosecutors charged the case.

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Prosecutors appeared caught off guard by the tack. Brassil called for a 10-minute break but ended up taking a half-hour before returning to the courtroom. He then asked the judge to order the defense attorneys to file a motion to dismiss the case, but Coghlan wanted no part of that.

"If you're satisfied with your indictment, then call your first witness  or don't," the judge said.

Joseph Sperling, left, and his attorney Jon Loevy discuss the traffic stop and arrest of Sperling by Glenview and Chicago police April 17, 2014. Four police officers have been charged with perjury in the case. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

That led Brassil to ask for another 10-minute break. About 20 minutes passed before he returned and announced prosecutors would drop all charges and re-indict the officers. He had earlier contended the defense attorneys were incorrect in questioning the perjury language used in the indictment, calling their argument "a difference without a distinction."

Attorneys for the officers objected to the move, but the judge said he did not have the authority to overrule the decision by prosecutors.

Needham later called Thursday's events ironic. Earlier, during opening statements, the officers' lawyers had blamed the third-chair prosecutor who conducted the 2014 court hearing, saying she hadn't properly prepared the officers, was unaware of the video and then failed to re-call the officers to the stand so they had a chance to see the video and correct their testimony.

"Sometimes busy, professional people trying to do their job are mistaken," Needham said. "The prosecution of this case provides an example of that."

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Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for Alvarez's office, said Thursday's events were only a hiccup in the case.

"Essentially, this amounts to a legal technicality that does not and will not diminish our ability to prosecute this case," she said in a statement. "Out of an abundance of caution, we are moving to re-indict the case in order to satisfy the concerns of the defense attorneys. We expect to resume the trial as expeditiously as possible in order to hold these officers accountable for their crimes."

Prosecutors made the decision before calling their first witness, a point at which double jeopardy would have prevented them from charging the officers again.

But the sudden end to the trial was clearly an embarrassment, particularly after Alvarez had been criticized for her handling of other high-profile prosecutions of Chicago police. In March, she lost the Democratic primary in large part because of delays in indicting Officer Jason Van Dyke in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in spite of a damning video. In April 2015, a judge acquitted Detective Dante Servin of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal off-duty shooting of 22-year-old Rekia Boyd, concluding that prosecutors brought the wrong charge.

Alvarez had said she held off on the Van Dyke indictment because of a related investigation by federal authorities, and she defended the charges against Servin as the ones she believed her office could win. She contended the judge engaged in "legal gymnastics."

sschmadeke@tribpub.com

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A 16-year-old boy has been charged with fatally shooting a 30-year-old man as he walked a few blocks from his Gage Park home this week, authorities said Thursday.

Dominick Debock faces a first-degree murder charge in the Monday killing of Jose Ernesto Martinez in the 5100 block of South Washtenaw Avenue, authorities said. Debock was ordered held in lieu of $1 million bail in a hearing Thursday before Cook County Judge Peggy Chiampas, according to court records.

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Martinez was walking in the 5100 block of South Washtenaw Avenue about 6:40 p.m. when Debock approached him and fired several shots, hitting Martinez and causing him to fall to the ground, said Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the Cook County state's attorney's office.

Debock then fired at least one round at Martinez while he was on the ground but ran off when his gun jammed, prosecutors said. Martinez, of the 5100 block of South Mozart Avenue, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:11 p.m. after suffering multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

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The shooting was captured on surveillance video, and police collected seven 9 mm shell casings at the scene.

Debock was identified by two witnesses as the shooter and arrested at his home Wednesday, prosecutors said. Police found a damaged 9 mm bullet at his home.

Prosecutors and police have not disclosed a possible motive in the killing.

Debock, of the 6100 block of South Komensky Avenue, was scheduled to appear in court again Oct. 19, according to court records.
President Barack Obama, accompanied by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, on Nov. 25. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)

President Barack Obama is planning a homecoming weekend in Chicago next week, campaigning for local and national Democrats with two major fundraising events, Democratic campaign officials say.

Obama will be the keynote speaker at a fundraising luncheon Friday for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee featuring House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. Tickets range from $10,000 a person to $66,800 per couple, the latter including a special VIP reception.

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The event is scheduled at the North Side home of Democratic mega-donor Fred Eychaner, who on Wednesday hosted Vice President Joe Biden for a campaign fundraiser on behalf of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tammy Duckworth, a two-term congresswoman challenging Republican U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk.

Obama already was scheduled to host a South Shore fundraising event for Duckworth and the state Democratic Party on Oct. 9. The event will be held at the Stony Island Arts Bank. Tickets range from $1,000 a person to $12,700 for a bundler of contributions.

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Being a local Democratic campaign donor in Illinois has proved quite expensive lately. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was in town Thursday night for two fundraisers, including one catering to lawyers. Tickets started at $2,700 per person. Event hosts had to raise $150,000, and they got a VIP meeting with the candidate.

rap30@aol.com

Twitter @rap30
Cook County Clerk David Orr, seen here at a voter registration rally, says early voting will begin around Oct. 12, maybe sooner, as the ballot is finalized. (Nancy Stone/ Chicago Tribune)

Welcome to Clout Street: Morning Spin, our weekday feature to catch you up with what's going on in government and politics from Chicago to Springfield.

Topspin

Early voting for the Nov. 8 election officially began Thursday, but with little hurrah to mark the first time ballots could be cast 40 days before Election Day.

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And there's a reason for that. Not all election authorities are ready to offer it. Suburban Cook County voters have been warned that ballots will likely be ready before Oct. 12, when issues involving the ballot and voting equipment have been resolved, County Clerk David Orr's website says.

Early voting did start for the Chicago Board of Elections at its offices at 69 W. Washington St. Board spokesman Jim Allen said voting was "steady." On Oct. 10, the city election board will offer a larger early voting site, with 150 touch screens, at 15 W. Washington.

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On Oct. 24, early voting will expand to a number of sites throughout the city and suburbs. (Rick Pearson)

What's on tap

*Mayor Rahm Emanuel's public schedule was not available.

*Gov. Bruce Rauner no public events.

*The Chicago City Council Finance Committee meets at 10 a.m. The agenda includes a resolution to have CPD provide quick-clot gauze for first responders, spending Jefferson Park Business District TIF funds for a transit study and borrowing for police squad cars for all the new cops the mayor wants to hire.

What we're writing

*Day after CTU sets strike date, Emanuel strikes back.

*Katherine Skiba's "Chicagoans in the Obama White House" project.

*Cook County prosecutors abruptly drop perjury charges against three cops, plan to re-indict.

*Harken to exit Illinois Obamacare exchange, leaving Cook County residents with three choices.

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*Witness to Laquan McDonald shooting sues, says police made her change her story.

*Chicago cop who shot Laquan McDonald again tries to get teen's juvenile records.

What we're reading

*Pilots to start texting at Chicago airports, but it's not what you think.

*Terrible news if you hate needles: FluMist has been deemed ineffective.

*The most important Chicago beer news of the year has been committed.

From the notebook :

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*Rauner finally talks Trump, in a way: For months, Republican Gov. Rauner has refused to wade into the presidential campaign or comment on his party's candidate, despite saying earlier in the year that he would support the nominee even if that person turned out to be Donald Trump.



It's an unusual situation, with reporters who cover the governor constantly probing for some insight on his views of the race at the top of the ticket Nov. 8, only to be met with a general "no comment" from Rauner.



On Wednesday, for example, as Trump was in the Chicago area after a Monday night debate performance in which he likened the city to a "war-torn country" and called for the use of "stop and frisk" by Chicago police, Rauner had nothing to say when asked by a reporter if he'd like to rise to the city's defense.



"I am not commenting on presidential politics," Rauner said.



But later that day, CNN reporter Jim Acosta posted on Twitter talking points from the Trump campaign that blamed a newly enacted Illinois law for the city's "horrific crime numbers."



"Stop and frisk is a tool that had been available for the police in Chicago, but a new policy, forced by the ACLU, went into effect on Jan. 1, 2016, and has caused for stop and frisks to be down by 80 percent this year," the talking points said. "We see the result in the horrific crime numbers."



It appears that the Trump campaign is referring to a law that was approved by Rauner in the summer of 2015. It incorporated changes to stop-and-frisk procedures that were sought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which at the time was considering suing the Chicago Police Department over excessive use of the practice of stopping people they deem suspicious and questioning them, sometimes patting them down.



The new law requires officers to document such stops, and to issue a receipt with their name and badge number to those who've been stopped.



Rauner approved that law, which put him in the rare position of having to address an issue raised by Trump.



"There is a very strong bipartisan belief, and I agree with it, that we need to try to do everything we can to improve the, help build the trust, restore trust between police and community residents," Rauner said when asked by a reporter why he'd approved the bill. "Without trust, without mutual confidence and respect, trust won't exist. And then policing effectiveness will be deteriorated even further. And obviously, trust has been badly damaged in Chicago, and unfortunately in a number of communities. And transparency and good, full information about interactions can, hopefully, will help build trust, and over time, can help the police officers keep people safer and improve the quality of life in the communities."

Asked to elaborate on his views of stop and frisk, Rauner replied that he's "not an expert at this."



"Obviously, we need to make sure that police methods are effective at battling crime and stopping criminals, but also are constitutional and fair and treat people equitably. So there's a balancing act to be done." (Kim Geiger)

*Munger on TV with ad: Republican Comptroller Leslie Munger unveiled her first television ad on Thursday, using the 30-second spot to highlight her decision to delay pay for lawmakers during the budget impasse.

The ad includes an image of Munger sitting on a couch in her home surrounded by her husband, John, sons Tom and Andy and dogs Maddie and Daisy as the narrator declares that "as a mom, she knows a thing or two about saying no."

"Tell me about it," quips Andy.

"They're hurting Illinois, so why should they get paid?" Munger asks before giving a high-five to someone off camera.

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Munger used her role overseeing the state's checkbook to delay lawmaker pay as the government's pile of unpaid bills continues to climb without a full budget agreement. Previously, lawmakers were near the front of the line to get paid. Munger's decision put those invoices in the queue with all the others, meaning legislators have been forced to wait several months between paychecks.

As of Thursday, Illinois owed vendors and contractors more than $8 billion. Combined, legislator pay adds up to about $1.3 million a month. It's a small drop in the overall budget bucket, but the populist move is designed to payoff big politically.

The ad launched just days after Munger's campaign reported a $260,000 loan from her attorney husband, which effectively lifts contribution limits in the race.

That move brought sharp criticism from Democratic candidate and Chicago City Clerk Susana Mendoza, who said it gives Munger the ability to take "unlimited" amounts of money from Gov. Rauner, who appointed Munger following the death of Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka in late 2014. Mendoza, however, can now go back to donors, including labor unions, and ask for more money. (Monique Garcia)

*The Sunday Spin: On this week's show, Chicago Tribune political reporter Rick Pearson's guests are Tribune reporter Bill Ruthhart; Rob Karr, president and CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association; and Christopher Mooney, director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois. The "Sunday Spin" airs from 7 to 9 a.m. on WGN-AM 720.

Follow the money

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*The Illinois Republican Party transferred $375,000 to the Republican State Senate Campaign Committee. Citizens for Rauner has transferred $20 million to the Illinois Republican Party fund this year as he tries to win House and Senate seats and loosen Democratic control of the legislature.

*Track Illinois campaign contributions in real time here and here.

Beyond Chicago

*Against advice, Trump launches Bill Clinton infidelities attack.

*Clinton struggling to win over the young voters she needs, AP reports.

*Darkness, fear grip Aleppo as stepped-up bombing increases horrors of war.

*Hoboken train crash leaves one dead, about 100 hurt. Chaos as train flew through the air.
The arbitration clauses that customers agreed to when they opened their real accounts are being used to keep them from suing about the fake accounts opened in their names. (Karen Bleier / AFP / Getty Images)

Not content to let Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren get in all the shots against Wells Fargo, Chicago aldermen are set to consider banning from city business the bank that has become embroiled in a scandal over millions of phony customer accounts.

Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, introduced a measure Friday to the Finance Committee he chairs, calling for the city to stop doing business with Wells Fargo for two years. Burke said Wells Fargo has been paid more than $19 million by the city for various work since 2005.

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"The City Council should not engage in any business for the next two years with this institution that has deceived, defrauded and duped its customers," Burke said in a news release.

Burke's order would have the force of law, but it's unclear when or if the City Council will adopt it. The powerful Southwest Side alderman, who has a reputation for introducing plans that garner media attention but don't get enacted, said the Finance Committee would consider it at a meeting Wednesday prior to the full council meeting, but did not specify whether a vote will be taken then on the measure. A Burke spokesman said he wasn't certain what action the committee would take.

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Federal investigators have said Wells Fargo employees were coerced by supervisors to secretly create millions of credit card and banking accounts without customers' knowledge to boost the bank's sales figures.

The scandal drew widespread attention last week when Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf appeared before the Senate Banking Committee and Warren, the Massachusetts senator who has long railed against big banks, called for him to resign and return the money he earned while the scam was occurring under his watch.

jebyrne@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @_johnbyrne
MANILA, Philippines  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte raised the rhetoric over his bloody anti-crime war to a new level Friday, comparing it to Hitler and the Holocaust and saying he would be "happy to slaughter" 3 million addicts.



Duterte issued his latest threat against drug dealers and users early Friday on returning to his hometown in southern Davao city after visiting Vietnam, where he discussed his anti-drug campaign with Vietnamese leaders and ways for their governments to fight transnational crimes, including illegal drugs.



Duterte has said his public death threats against drug suspects are designed to scare them to stop selling drugs and to discourage would-be users. But his latest remarks took that crime-busting approach to a different level.



He said he had been "portrayed or pictured to be a cousin of Hitler," without elaborating.



Moments later he said, "Hitler massacred 3 million Jews ... there's 3 million drug addicts. There are. I'd be happy to slaughter them."

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He was referring to a Philippine government estimate of the number of drug addicts in the country. Historians say 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis under Hitler before and during World War II.



During the presidential election campaign earlier this year and during the three months he has held office, the tough-talking Duterte has threatened to drown drug suspects to fatten the fish in Manila Bay. He also threatened to execute drug traffickers by hanging  because he didn't want to waste electricity on them  until their heads were severed from their bodies.



While Hitler's victims were innocent people, Duterte said his targets are "all criminals" and that getting rid of them would "finish the (drug) problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition."



Germany's government slammed Duterte's comments as unacceptable, and called in the Philippine ambassador to the Foreign Ministry over the matter.



"It is impossible to make any comparison to the unique atrocities of the Shoah and Holocaust," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer in Berlin.



World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder said Duterte's remarks were "revolting" and demanded that he retract them and apologize.



"Drug abuse is a serious issue. But what President Duterte said is not only profoundly inhumane, but it demonstrates an appalling disrespect for human life that is truly heartbreaking for the democratically elected leader of a great country," Lauder said in a statement issued from Jerusalem, where he was attending the funeral of former Israeli leader Shimon Peres.

Hitler massacred 3 million Jews ... there's 3 million drug addicts. There are. I'd be happy to slaughter them.  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte





The U.S. State Department, which is looking to sustain its longstanding alliance with the Philippines, called the comments "troubling."



"Words matter, especially when they are from leaders of sovereign nations, especially sovereign nations with whom we have long and valued relations with," spokesman Mark Toner told reporters. He repeated U.S. calls for Philippine authorities to investigate any credible reports of extra-judicial killings.



U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was more blunt.



"It is reprehensible and frankly disgusting that a democratically-elected leader is talking about the mass murder of his own people, with Hitler's Holocaust as his inspiration no less," he said in a statement.



Philippine Rep. Teodoro Baguilat wondered if the president was suggesting that "it's open season now for all addicts, no more rehabilitation, just kill them systematically like what the Nazis did with the Jews." He expressed fears that Jewish businesspeople might boycott the Philippines.



Also critical was Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director for Human Rights Watch, who said it was baffling why anyone would want to compare themselves to "one of the largest mass murderers in human history."



Robertson said that in today's context, Hitler would be accused of crimes against humanity.



"Is that what Duterte wants? Does he want to be sent to the international criminal court? Because he's working his way there," Robertson said.



Amnesty International said Duterte "has sunk to new depths" and urged governments around the world to condemn his "extremely dangerous outburst."



A spokesman for Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem-based world center for Holocaust research and commemoration, declined to comment on Duterte's remarks.



Duterte's campaign promise to end corruption and crime, especially illegal drugs, within six months of taking office on June 30 carried him to an overwhelming victory in May's presidential election.



Since the vote, more than 3,000 suspected drug dealers and users have been killed and nearly 700,000 others have surrendered in his crackdown. Duterte has asked for a six-month extension to finish the job.

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His supporters and many Filipinos exasperated with widespread crime have welcomed his tough approach, but a growing number of critics, including U.N. officials, the European Union and the United States, have voiced concerns over the widespread killings and human rights violations.



He reacted Friday by calling critics from the European Union a "group of idiots in the purest form."





Duterte lashed out at the U.S., his country's longtime treaty ally, and the E.U. for finding fault with his methods, saying European countries were hypocrites for not doing enough to help the large numbers of refugees fleeing from the violence in the Middle East.



"There are migrants escaping from the Middle East. You allow them to rot and then you're worried about the deaths of about 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 (people in the Philippines)," he said.

Associated Press
News / National

by Staff reporter

President Robert Mugabe's decision to cling onto power despite his advanced age and his country's waning fortunes has stretched his Sadc counterparts' patience to the limit, analysts have said.Mugabe was last week was left seething in anger after Botswana leader, Ian Khama described him as a liability to the region and urged him to step down.According to The Namibian newspaper, President Hage Geingob has expressed similar sentiments.Geingob said Zimbabweans, who are unhappy with Mugabe should fight for themselves. He, however, said the international community would not fold its hands, as the Zanu-PF leader brutalizes citizens.
Syrians inspect damaged buildings after airstrikes by government helicopters on the rebel-held Aleppo neighborhood of Mashhad, Syria on Sept. 27, 2016. (Uncredited / AP)

Reporting from Moscow  One year ago, Russian planes started dropping bombs on war-torn Syria.

The airstrikes, which began Sept. 30, propped up Syrian President Bashar Assad's collapsing government, which controlled an ever-shrinking area of the country after more than four years of civil war.

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Dozens of warring groups opposed to Damascus  including moderates and jihadists such as Islamic State and the Al Qaeda-allied Nusra Front  were more concerned about fighting each other while government forces kept losing ground and morale. The area held by Assad's forces had been reduced to territory along Syria's west and the Mediterranean coast, with several tentacle-like strategic corridors in the central and northern parts of the country.

Russia's involvement was a surprising game-changer. It reversed the momentum in the war and helped keep Assad in power. From the Russian perspective, it also put a spotlight on perceived American weakness  and certainly put the United States in an awkward position, since it shared the Russian goal of defeating Islamic State and Al Qaeda, but strongly opposed the larger goal of saving Assad.

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One year in, however, the unanswered question is how long Russia will be bogged down in Syria  and whether it will achieve, at best, a hollow victory.

President Vladimir Putin explained Russia's involvement in a nationally televised address the day after the strikes began.

"The best way to fight international terrorists  is to act preemptively, to fight and eliminate militants in the areas they have already occupied without waiting for them to enter our home," he told his citizens.

Moscow deployed dozens of bombers and fighter jets and up to 4,000 military personnel. Within weeks, they were conducting up to 60 strikes a day, bombing Assad's opponents of all stripes  and killing hundreds of civilians, human rights groups said.

A Syrian opposition monitoring group that tracks Syria's civil war said a year of Russian airstrikes have killed 9,364 people in the war-torn country, the Associated Press reported.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead include 3,804 civilians, including 906 children. The dead also include 2,746 members of the Islamic State group and 2,814 from other rebel and militant groups, including Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria.

Washington lambasted Russia for backing Assad and bombing ostensibly moderate U.S.-allied opposition groups. Turkey accused Moscow of killing Turkmen civilians and shot down a Russian plane for violating its airspace.

But Moscow adamantly insisted the strikes targeted only Islamic State and other jihadists.

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Almost daily, Russia's Defense Ministry released black-and-white footage of bombings taken by cameras on reconnaissance drones  and provided detailed accounts of how many enemy soldiers, training camps, depots and vehicles each strike purportedly destroyed.

The bombing was backed by visually stunning but militarily insignificant cruise missiles launched from Russian warships in the Caspian and the Mediterranean seas.

Russia also supplied a range of sophisticated weaponry to Assad's ground forces  including T-90 tanks that often withstood powerful tank-destroying missiles provided by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

"Of course, we're not going to plunge into the conflict," Putin promised, adding that Russia's involvement would be limited to airstrikes and that no Russian boot would touch Syrian ground.

He also said the strikes would be limited in time  and did withdraw some of the planes and pilots by mid-March. Just weeks earlier, a partial ceasefire that Washington helped broker had significantly reduced the level of violence in the country.

By that time, the Russian campaign had strengthened Assad's grip on power and helped his troops regain major strategic areas, including the ancient city of Palmyra. At least 60% of Syrians who had not fled the country resided in government-controlled areas.

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"August 2015 was seen as the beginning of the final countdown" for Assad's government, Moscow-based defense analyst Maxim Shapovalenko said in an interview. "A year later, we see there's going to be no final countdown."

Most important, the saving of Moscow's last ally in the Middle East marked Russia's political comeback to the region  and the world stage  as a power to be reckoned with. After the Soviet Union's disastrous 10-year war in Afghanistan, which ended acrimoniously in 1989, the Syrian campaign was Moscow's first major military operation outside the former USSR.

"For 15 years, people in Washington were telling themselves that Russia was weak, weak, weak, and that's why they could talk to Russia using force, using fists," former lawmaker and political analyst Sergei Markov said in an interview. "It took a demonstration of Russia's military might to return some hawks in Washington to reality."

But what Russia is facing now is more of a stalemate than a triumph.

A cease-fire brokered by Moscow and Washington on Sept. 9 collapsed after a U.S. airstrike that targeted Islamic State but killed dozens of government troops.

The U.S. is "on the verge of ending" talks and suspending military cooperation with Russia after weeks of relentless bombing of Aleppo, Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday.

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Washington and human rights groups had for weeks accused Moscow and Damascus of using incendiary and bunker buster bombs that killed hundreds of civilians in the besieged city and destroyed hospitals, shelters and at least one convoy with humanitarian aid.

Russia's Foreign Ministry retorted by saying that the U.S. was "on the verge of hysteria."

An image from video on the Russian Defense Ministry website shows a Russian Sukhoi Su-34 fighter bomber releasing its payload in Syria. (Russian Defense Ministry / European Pressphoto Agency)

This week, the White House said it had started considering tougher measures against Assad's government and forces  including military options. If the U.S. resorts to the military options, the victories Damascus has won with Moscow's help could look Pyrrhic.

"It is unclear what to do next," Moscow-based analyst Sergei Strokan said in an interview. "Assad has been saved, but [the current situation] is not what we counted on."

Mirovalev is a special correspondent.
Jasmine Newson, 21, turns around while praying at a gas station that was destroyed by rioters after a fatal police shooting two days prior in Milwaukeeon Aug. 15, 2016. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)

MILWAUKEE  Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn says he won't go against the advice of the state's attorney general and local district attorney to release the video of a fatal police shooting that sparked riots.



Flynn spoke to reporters Thursday at a Milwaukee Press Club event.



The state Department of Justice has finished its investigation into the Aug. 13 shooting of Sylville Smith and has forwarded the findings to Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm for a charging decision.

Schimel has said the DOJ won't release anything until Chisholm decides on charges or determines the material can be released.

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Two nights of violence erupted on Milwaukee's north side after a black officer fatally shot Smith, who was black, during a foot chase. Police have said Smith had a gun in his hand.



Associated Press
The Chicago City Council is expected to consider an important amendment to the Welcoming City Ordinance on Wednesday. When the ordinance passed in 2012, Mayor Rahm Emanuel pledged to make Chicago "the most immigrant-friendly city in the world." The proposed amendment is crucial, considering the nation's current anti-immigration climate. For me, the amendment is extremely personal.

As a Vietnamese immigrant in America, I have experienced many obstacles: growing up among the first immigrant families in my community, having to translate for my parents who didn't speak English, discovering early on that law enforcement was ill-equipped to assist immigrants.

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In 1995, my family was among the few immigrants in our neighborhood outside of Philadelphia. By the time I was 7, our household had become notorious because of multiple police visits. Officers called to restrain my alcoholic stepfather would lecture my mother for staying in a violent relationship, essentially blaming her for the situation. To make matters worse, I had to interpret this adult conversation from English to Vietnamese so that my mother could understand. After a while, we decided it was best not to call the police, even when our lives were in danger. As a child, I could feel the lack of respect and dignity because we were immigrants.

Fast-forward to summer of 2014. I was a law intern at Asian Americans Advancing Justice/Chicago. During my first week on the job, Asian-Americans mobilized in response to a disturbing 2013 video showing Jianqing "Jessica" Klyzek, a Chinese-American woman, being beaten by a group of Chicago police officers inside the Copper Tan and Spa on the North Side. One of them yelled ethnic slurs and threatened to put her in a box and mail her away. Another struck her in the head as she was handcuffed and sprawled on the ground. She received a $150,000 settlement from the city.

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Seeing the Klyzek video and reading about other incidents confirmed what I knew my whole life: Some of those tasked with protecting us view immigrants as not worthy of protection.

Chicago is at a crucial moment in which there can be real change in addressing police brutality and police accountability. I welcome the amendment prohibiting all city employees from questioning an individual's immigration status and threatening deportation. The amendment also would redefine coercion and verbal abuse to include verbal threats, and would bar city employees from using an immigrant's status or background to threaten or abuse her or him.

This effort to strengthen the Welcoming City Ordinance, combined with police accountability reforms, will bring Chicago closer to being a city where immigrants are treated the same as all residents.

Van Huynh is a law fellow at Asian Americans Advancing Justice/Chicago.
"Yes, he's a jerk, but he's our jerk." When it comes to politicians, you've surely heard this line before. Until recently, in fact, certain conservatives used to mutter it in hushed asides when they discussed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz  until Cruz recently issued a baffling endorsement of a man he once called "utterly amoral" and a "pathological liar," making it quite clear that if he's anyone's jerk, he's Donald Trump's, thank you very much.

This should not surprise anyone, I suppose, coming from a desperate politician strapping his buoy to the flaming, sinking, rabid raccoon-filled tugboat that is 2016. But oddly, many honorable American citizens  Americans not facing re-election, nor obsessed with the specter of quasi-eternal life in the fever swamps of D.C.  seem to have decided, against vast evidence to the contrary, that Donald Trump is their jerk. Of the numerous examples of this phenomenon, none is more troubling than that of Christian conservatives.

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Cal Thomas, a Christian syndicated columnist, is the latest in a long line to crack. I met Thomas years ago, around the release of his 1999 book, "Blinded by Might," which was co-authored with Ed Dobson, the late executive for the Moral Majority. Forthcoming irony alert, the duo cautioned against Christians attempting to find salvation in politicians or the Republican Party. I weaved my way to the front of the event, which was at a church, and cheerfully introduced myself. "Mr. Thomas," I said, bright-eyed, "I want to be an opinion columnist!"

"Oh," he chuckled. "You poor thing."

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Boy, was he right! He must have seen 2016 coming. Fast-forward to today, past Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and Barack Obama to the current Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump horror show, and witness Cal Thomas writing his Sept. 27 column, in which he endorses Trump. It's a doozy.

"All analogies break down at some point," Thomas writes, "but let's engage in a theological stretch. When Jesus overturned the money-changer's tables in the Temple, he said that instead of a house of prayer, the elites of his day had turned the Temple into 'a den of thieves.' This increasingly applies to Washington."

I'll pause here to note that the co-author of "Blinded by Might" just compared Washington to a house of worship. Wait! It gets better: "Only one candidate for president is capable of overturning 'the money-changers' in Washington. The political, governmental and media elites have had their chance to turn things around and they have failed. Now it's time for Trump."

Let's ignore the fact that Thomas just used an analogy in which he compared Trump to Jesus. Let's also ignore the fact that amid all this talk about corrupt money-changers, Thomas endorsed a candidate who literally bankrupted businesses involving seedy money-changing tables, stiffed people who worked for him and has applauded the abuse of eminent domain, in which the government can plow over poor people's homes in order to build things like casinos and fancy hotels.

Yes, forget all that. Trump is going to be our jerk! Trump, Thomas argues, is the only candidate who can stop the "secular progressive agenda," which seems odd if you actually listen to what Trump says. Trump will fight for "Christians who are tired of being called homophobes," Thomas tells the world; meanwhile, the real Trump recently called for immigrants to be questioned about their approval of gay rights. Trump, despite Thomas' protestations, offers incoherent and conflicting paragraphs on transgender bathrooms. His history of abortion flip-flops is almost awe-inspiring.

When it comes to Christians, in fact, Trump seems passionate about just two things: (1) making everyone say "Merry Christmas" on command, and (2) manipulating what he has repeatedly called a "powerful" Christian voting bloc.

Will Donald Trump nominate conservative Supreme Court judges? The best answer, at this point, is "maybe." On one hand, he has said that he would do so; on the other hand, he is a habitual lying machine who is trying very hard to get elected.

What is perfectly clear, if you are paying attention, is this: If Trump gets into the White House, he is not going to be our jerk, for Christians or otherwise. He will be in it for himself. He does not speak of limited government. He publicly admires strongmen in Russia and China. To think he'll overturn the "money-changing tables" is patently absurd. Based on his history and his words, he'll simply rig them in his own favor.

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Here's the sad part about this whole farce: After this election, no matter who wins, Christians will have a lot of work to do. Many of the problems that face our nation have nothing to do with politics. The government can't fix the spiritual vacuum behind the growing heroin epidemic. It can't magically fix frayed race relations. It can't help broken families or hurting kids.

Can a Christian vote for Donald Trump? Sure. I won't, but I can understand why someone would. But please, don't do it in the name of Christianity. Trump, for many reasons, divides; Christians should unite. By publicly hitching their wagon to Trump, Christians do themselves  and their higher calling  little good.

National Review

Heather Wilhelm is a National Review columnist and a senior contributor to The Federalist.
Today the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board publishes its first candidate endorsement for the Nov. 8 general election. In the coming days we'll offer endorsements for statewide, congressional, legislative and county offices. Our choices are based in part on the questionnaires completed by candidates. You can read them at chicagotribune.com/candidates.

Why does the Tribune endorse candidates?

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In 1860, this newspaper made the case for Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency, extolling him for "ability that no man can question, firmness that nothing can overbear, honesty that has never been impeached, and patriotism that never despairs." We're proud to have that among the countless endorsements we've made over the last 170 years.

Some newspapers have abandoned the practice. Endorsements require hundreds of hours of work in a time of shrinking resources. They can antagonize readers. They often require us to hold our nose and choose the less awful of the choices. They allow the fiercest partisans to dismiss us as Republican shills or Democratic lapdogs.

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We continue to endorse because, as the biggest news organization in Chicago and the Midwest, we want to inform our readers and encourage them to push an agenda for a more vital community. The most direct way they do that is in choosing who will lead their governments.

Our editorial board has a unique role as public citizen. Newspapers did in 1860, and their multiplatform descendants do today. We offer our opinions on issues from the mundane to the cosmic. And we endorse candidates, from the top of the ballot to the bottom.

It would be an abdication to say what we think should be done on an array of issues every day  and then remain silent about who is most likely to advance those goals. Our judgment is guided by certain principles. You can read them here.

Anyone who reads the Tribune knows that a politician who gets our endorsement on Election Day won't get a free pass afterward. President Barack Obama, whom we endorsed in 2008 and 2012 and whom we have faulted on numerous occasions, can attest to that. Nor does failing to get our endorsement mean a successful candidate won't get credit when it's earned.

Our readers make up their own minds when they cast their ballots. Our aim is to inform those choices by providing an honest assessment of the candidates.
Elaine Darko, 50, explains the significance of the new Whole Foods Market at the corner of West 63rd Street and South Halsted Street in the Englewood Neighborhood Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016, in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune) (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)

It's been said of Deerfield, Sauganash and countless other communities: This must be a nice place since it's got a Whole Foods and a Starbucks.

So what happens when you plunk down two of the country's most culturally powerful brands in impoverished Englewood? Do these stores become just a sideshow to the violent crime, or can they change perceptions about the quality of life in one of Chicago's most beaten-down neighborhoods?

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We suspect they help modestly, but more relevant are the opinions of people such as Jasper Taylor and Valerie Calahan-Taylor, who were standing near the hot food bar at Whole Foods on Wednesday, the day it opened in a new city-backed shopping complex at the corner of 63rd and Halsted streets.

He's a third-generation Englewood pastor at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church; she works for her family's funeral home on Halsted near 70th Street. They live in the south suburbs, but surrounded by the sheer pleasantness of this fancy supermarket, with its detox salad and organic pineapples and craft beers, the young married couple couldn't help musing: What else would it take to lure them back to their Englewood roots?

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"I think this has really opened our eyes to the possibility of change in Englewood," she told us. "It's inspiring. And it raises a question in my head along with my husband's head. What if Englewood in the next 10 years will be the new Hyde Park?"

"It's emotional," he said. But there's an exciting entrepreneurial element too: "Something's going to happen here in Englewood. Maybe more money will be spent. We might want to get in early." And so hours after their visit to Whole Foods, Jasper Taylor continued the "what if?" conversation by forwarding his wife Englewood real estate listings.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 28 Betty Robinson, 62, left, and Patience Okanu, 65, depart the Whole Foods in Chicago's Englewood on April 29, 2022, after hearing of its closing. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

Getting this couple to even consider living in Englewood is an astounding step forward. A neighborhood can't stabilize without middle-class residents, and they won't come until they see the grocery stores, restaurants and other shops that make their lives comfortable. Some stretches of the South Side are so deprived you could drive for miles and not see a nice restaurant or even a pizza joint.

Other crucial progress obviously must be made before Englewood even gets a shot: Crime must decrease, relations with police must heal, schools must improve and so on. But until the first few homesteaders jump in, it's all academic.

The deal that brought Whole Foods to Englewood, dating to 2013, was driven by Mayor Rahm Emanuel's push to address the food desert crisis. He was hoping to jump-start something in the neighborhood. Emanuel lobbied hard to get Whole Foods and put up $10.7 million in city subsidies to make the $20 million Englewood Square project happen. That's a valid investment because no one was going to take the first step alone. Whole Foods also agreed to hire locals and modify its selection to showcase local products and provide more affordable options.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 6 Hagar Johnson, center, a Starbucks shift supervisor, wipes down the glass of the pastry and foods at the new Englewood Square shopping center in Chicago on Sept. 27, 2016. Starbucks and Whole Foods open Weds Sept. 28 in the new Englewood Square shopping center. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

Now we hope to see what happens  organically. We don't want City Hall to spend more taxpayer money to manufacture vitality in Englewood, because efforts by government to play real estate developer seldom work out. But there are people living or working in Englewood with money to spend. We saw them at Whole Foods and the Starbucks next door. We hope other investors and small business owners come sniffing around for opportunities. Let a revival unfold.

Englewood now has a shopping complex with a Whole Foods. Like Deerfield. Like Sauganash. The market sells fresh mangoes and cage-free eggs, but Jasper Taylor says the store offers something more: "Hope in what seems to be a hopeless situation."
As Nov. 8 looms, a dismayed, disconsolate America waits and wonders: What is it about 2016?

How has our country fallen so inescapably into political and policy gridlock? How did pandering to aggrieved niche groups and seducing blocs of angry voters replace working toward solutions as the coin of our governing class? How could the Democratic and Republican parties stagger so far from this nation's political mainstream?

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And the most pressing question: What should tens of millions of voters who yearn for answers do with two major-party candidates they disdain? Polls show an unprecedented number of people saying they wish they had another choice.

We reject the cliche that a citizen who chooses a principled third-party candidate is squandering his or her vote.  Chicago Tribune Editorial Board

This is the moment to look at the candidates on this year's ballot. This is the moment to see this election as not so much about them as about the American people and where their country is heading. And this is the moment to rebuke the Republican and Democratic parties.

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The Republicans have nominated Donald Trump, a man not fit to be president of the United States. We first wrote on March 10 that we would not, could not, endorse him. And in the intervening six-plus months he has splendidly reinforced our verdict: Trump has gone out of his way to anger world leaders, giant swaths of the American public, and people of other lands who aspire to immigrate here legally. He has neither the character nor the prudent disposition for the job.

The mystery and shame of Trump's rise  we have red, white and blue coffee mugs that are more genuinely Republican  is the party's inability or unwillingness to repulse his hostile takeover. We appreciate the disgust for failed career politicians that Trump's supporters invoke; many of those voters are doubly victimized  by economic forces beyond their control, and by the scorn of mocking elitists who look down their noses to see them. He has ridden to the White House gate on the backs of Americans who believe they've been robbed of opportunity and respect. But inaugurating a bombastic and self-aggrandizing President Donald Trump isn't the cure.

The Democrats have nominated Hillary Clinton, who, by contrast, is undeniably capable of leading the United States. Electing her the first woman president would break a barrier that has no reason to be. We see no rough equivalence between Trump and Clinton. Any American who lists their respective shortcomings should be more apoplectic about the litany under his name than the one under hers. He couldn't do this job. She could.

But for reasons we'll explain  her intent to greatly increase federal spending and taxation, and serious questions about honesty and trust  we cannot endorse her.

Clinton's vision of ever-expanding government is in such denial of our national debt crisis as to be fanciful. Rather than run as a practical-minded Democrat as in 2008, this year she lurched left, pandering to match the Free Stuff agenda of then-rival Bernie Sanders. She has positioned herself so far to the left on spending that her presidency would extend the political schism that has divided America for some 24 years. That is, since the middle of a relatively moderate Clinton presidency. Today's Hillary Clinton, unlike yesteryear's, renounces many of Bill Clinton's priorities  freer trade, spending discipline, light regulation and private sector growth to generate jobs and tax revenues.

John McCormick, Chicago Tribune Editorial Page Editor, discusses the newspaper's endorsement of Libertarian Gary Johnson for president on Sept. 30, 2016. (WGN-TV) (Chicago Tribune)

Hillary Clinton calls for a vast expansion of federal spending, supported by the kinds of tax hikes that were comically impossible even in the years when President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats dominated both houses of Congress. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget calculates that Clinton's plan would increase spending by $1.65 trillion over a decade, mostly for college education, paid family leave, infrastructure and health-related expenditures. Spending just on debt interest would rise by $50 billion. Personal and business taxation would rise by $1.5 trillion. Sort through all the details and her plan would raise the national debt by $200 billion.

Now as in the primary season, Clinton knows she is proposing orgies of spending, and taxing, that simply will ... not ... happen. She is promising Americans all manner of things she cannot deliver.

That is but one of the reasons why so many Americans reject Clinton: They don't trust what she says, how she makes decisions, and her up-to-the-present history of egregiously erasing the truth:

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In the wake of a deadly attack on American personnel in Libya, she steered the American public away from the real cause  an inconvenient terror attack right before the 2012 election  after privately emailing the truth to her daughter. The head of the FBI, while delivering an indictment minus the grand jury paperwork, labeled her "extremely careless" for mishandling emails sensitive to national security. In public she stonewalled, dissembled and repeatedly lied  several were astonishing whoppers  about her private communications system ("There is no classified material," "Everything I did was permitted," and on and on). Her negligence in enforcing conflict-of-interest boundaries allowed her family's foundation to exploit the U.S. Department of State as a favor factory. Even her command and control of a routine medical issue devolved into a secretive, misleading mission to hide information from Americans.

Time upon time, Clinton's behavior affirms the perception that she's a corner-cutter whose ambitions drive her decisions. One telling episode among the countless: Asked by a voter if she was for or against the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, she replied, "If it's undecided when I become president, I will answer your question." As we've asked here before, will Hillary Clinton ever get over her consuming fear of straight talk?

Taken together, Trump and Clinton have serious flaws that prevent us from offering our support to either of them. Still, come Nov. 8, tens of millions of Americans will make a draw that they consider beyond distasteful.

We choose not to do that. We would rather recommend a principled candidate for president  regardless of his or her prospects for victory  than suggest that voters cast ballots for such disappointing major-party candidates.

With that demand for a principled president paramount, we turn to the candidate we can recommend. One party has two moderate Republicans  veteran governors who successfully led Democratic states  atop its ticket. Libertarians Gary Johnson of New Mexico and running mate William Weld of Massachusetts are agile, practical and, unlike the major-party candidates, experienced at managing governments. They offer an agenda that appeals not only to the Tribune's principles but to those of the many Americans who say they are socially tolerant but fiscally responsible. "Most people are Libertarian," Johnson told the Tribune Editorial Board when he and Weld met with us in July. "It's just that they don't know it."

Theirs is small-L libertarianism, built on individual freedom and convinced that, at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, official Washington is clumsy, expensive and demonstrably unable to solve this nation's problems. They speak of reunifying an America now balkanized into identity and economic groups  and of avoiding their opponents' bullying behavior and sanctimonious lectures. Johnson and Weld are even-keeled  provided they aren't discussing the injustice of trapping young black children in this nation's worst-performing schools. On that and other galling injustices, they're animated.

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We reject the cliche that a citizen who chooses a principled third-party candidate is squandering his or her vote. Look at the number of fed-up Americans telling pollsters they clamor for alternatives to Trump and Clinton. What we're recommending will appeal less to people who think tactically than to conscientious Americans so infuriated that they want to send a message about the failings of the major parties and their candidates. Put short:

We offer this endorsement to encourage voters who want to feel comfortable with their choice. Who want to vote for someone they can admire.

Libertarian nominee for president Gary Johnson meets with the Tribune Editorial Board on Tuesday, July 19, 2016. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)

Johnson, who built a construction business before entering politics, speaks in terms that appeal to many among us: Expanded global trade and resulting job expansion. Robust economic growth, rather than ever-higher taxation, to raise government revenue. A smaller, and less costly, federal government. Faith in Americans' ability to parlay economic opportunity into success. While many Democrats and Republicans outdo one another in opposing the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, or TPP, we're amused by this oddity: Today the nation's two most ardent free-traders arguably are Barack Obama and Gary Johnson.

That said, Obama and Johnson are but two of the many candidates we've endorsed yet with whom we also can disagree. Johnson's foreign policy stance approaches isolationism. He is too reluctant to support what we view as necessary interventions overseas. He likely wouldn't dispatch U.S. forces in situations where Clinton would do so and where Trump ... who can reliably predict?

But unless the United States tames a national debt that's rapidly approaching $20 trillion-with-a-T, Americans face ever tighter constrictions on what this country can afford, at home or overseas. Clinton and Trump are too cowardly even to whisper about entitlement reforms that each of them knows are imperative. Johnson? He wants to raise the retirement age and apply a means test on benefits to the wealthiest.

What's more, principled third-party candidates can make big contributions even when they lose. In 1992 businessman H. Ross Perot won 19 percent of the popular vote on a thin but sensible platform, much of it constructed around reducing federal deficits. That strong showing by Perot the relative centrist influenced how President Bill Clinton would govern.

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We wish the two major parties had not run away from today's centrist Americans. Just as we wish either of their candidates evoked the principles that a Chicago Tribune now in its 170th year espouses, among them high integrity, free markets, personal responsibility and a limited role for government in the lives of the governed. We hope Johnson does well enough that Republicans and Democrats get the message  and that his ideas make progress over time.

This year neither major party presents a good option. So the Chicago Tribune today endorses Libertarian Gary Johnson for president of the United States. Every American who casts a vote for him is standing for principles  and can be proud of that vote. Yes, proud of a candidate in 2016.

Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook.
The Chicago Tribune Editorial Board today begins endorsements for the Illinois General Assembly. While the choice of a U.S. president attracts more attention, lawmakers in Springfield arguably influence the lives of Illinois citizens as much as the next White House occupant will. Voters, please pay attention to these down-ballot races.

Democrats hold supermajorities in the Illinois House and Senate. In the House, there are 71 Democrats and 47 Republicans; in the Senate, 39 Democrats and 20 Republicans. We're advocating for more balance in both chambers, and our endorsements reflect that. Lawmakers of both parties tell us Springfield works better and more fairly when representation is less lopsided. Our mission is to recommend thoughtful, independent legislators of both parties.

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Of the 40 seats up for election this year in the Senate, 13 are contested:

22nd District: Democrat Cristina Castro of Elgin is a member of the Kane County Board. She has worked well with her Republican counterparts scrutinizing budget expenses, and she led efforts to crack down on county credit card expenses and other over-budget spending. We endorse Castro for this seat, which is open due to outgoing Sen. Michael Noland's decision to run for Congress. Castro's opponent, Tracy Smodilla of Bartlett, didn't run in the primary but managed to ward off a Democratic challenge as a last-minute slated Republican. She's smart, outspoken and fiscally conservative. She is not afraid to stand up to, well, anyone. She successfully fought an unnecessary tax increment financing district in her hometown. We hope to see her name on future ballots.

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23rd District: The remap of legislative districts in Democrats' favor helped nudge Sen. Tom Cullerton, former Villa Park mayor and a cousin of Senate President John Cullerton, into this seat in 2012. Cullerton has done some things we like. He was lead sponsor of a bill blocked by Republicans to get rid of the unnecessary lieutenant governor's office. But he doesn't wander far off his party's script and should have voted against a budget this spring that was $7 billion out of balance. He voted "present." Our nod goes to Republican Seth Lewis, an insurance agent from Bartlett, who as a Bartlett Fire Protection District trustee hasn't been afraid to vote against more spending. He also isn't afraid to speak against generous pension packages that taxpayers subsidize  including that of his wife, who is a school superintendent. Ouch. We wouldn't want to be at the dinner table for that discussion.

25th District: Just when we were warming up to Sen. Jim Oberweis, R-Sugar Grove, something pulled us back. After running for several offices, he finally won a seat in the state Senate in 2012. Then he turned around and ran for U.S. Senate. And now, he's missing votes on the few days a year the legislature is in session. There are several instances when dozens of votes got called and Oberweis wasn't around. He runs a successful business, and his wife's permanent residence is in Florida. We're endorsing his Democratic opponent, Corinne Pierog, a school board member from St. Charles. Her chances of winning in this GOP-leaning district are slim. But we're pretty sure she'll show up to vote if elected.

26th District: This northwest suburban seat opened in April when incumbent Dan Duffy resigned early. Local GOP leaders rallied to Dan McConchie of Hawthorn Woods, who won the March Republican primary. McConchie didn't get our endorsement in that race, but he's getting it this time. He has shown a willingness to work across the aisle and dig into policy, including school funding reform and anti-sex trafficking efforts. His opponent, Democrat Kelly Mazeski of Barrington, is an impressive candidate who has been involved in her local government. She characterizes McConchie as "a one-issue" lobbyist who is too socially conservative for the district. We're not convinced. McConchie left his job with an anti-abortion organization and has shown he is not a one-issue legislator. Let's give him a chance. McConchie is endorsed.

28th District: We like Sen. Laura Murphy, D-Des Plaines, because she is direct and outspoken. As a former member of the Des Plaines City Council, she advocated canceling a contract with a group opposing O'Hare airport expansion because taxpayers weren't getting enough for their money. But so far in Springfield, she has stuck to the Democratic playbook, including voting for piecemeal budget bills that expanded government programs but had no real funding attached to them. She also supported a bill at the behest of the state's largest employee union that was anti-taxpayer. This is a race where taxpayers could say "Enough!" with the budget games. We're endorsing Republican Mel Thillens of Park Ridge, whose view of government's role is less, less and less.

29th District: Incumbent Sen. Julie Morrison, D-Deerfield, has represented the district since 2013 and has proven to be an independent thinker. She launched and now chairs the Special Needs Caucus, a bipartisan group that focuses on the disabled community. She worked on legislation enabling government consolidation and creating more accountability at the Department of Children and Family Services. She voted against a local government mandate that would have tied the hands of mayors in contract negotiations with firefighters, splitting from her party. She faces Benjamin Salzberg of Northbrook, who helps companies save money by finding efficiencies. Springfield could use that. But he doesn't make much of a case to oust Morrison. She is endorsed.

31st District: Let's get one thing out the way: Republican candidate Michael Amrozowicz's name is pronounced "Am-RO-zo-wits." The Gurnee resident and former Lake County Republican Party chairman is running against incumbent Sen. Melinda Bush, D-Grayslake, who was elected in 2012 and buoyed by a new, favorable district map. Bush voted against most versions of pension reform and supported a union-backed bill that most editorial boards from Rockford to Carbondale criticized as irresponsible and anti-taxpayer. The state is broke. Taxpayers are tired of shouldering all the promises. Amrozowicz would bring more fiscal sanity to the Senate. He is endorsed.

32nd District: Sen. Pamela Althoff, R-McHenry, is running for a two-year term and says if re-elected, it will be her last: "I believe in term limits." Appointed to the seat in 2003, she has represented the northwest suburbs ever since. She has been successful at passing legislation because she lobbies her colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers. She knows Democrat staff just as well as Republican staff. Not many legislators can say that. We disagreed with her handling of a government consolidation bill this spring  she watered it down  but she still got the bill passed and signed into law. Althoff is endorsed over Democrat Melissa Coyne, a small business owner and community activist from Fox Lake.

38th District: A rematch is underway between Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris, and Christine Benson, D-Ottawa. Benson lost to Rezin 46 percent to 54 percent when they faced off in 2012. Benson retired that year as superintendent of Streator Elementary School District 44, which has been struggling with a budget deficit due in part to the state's inability to make full school payments. But Streator-area voters signaled they are taxed out. They rejected a school referendum to raise property taxes. Rezin would be a stronger advocate for those tax-weary residents. She is a consistent advocate for government consolidation and financial stability. We doubt Benson, who retired with a generous pension and is backed by organized labor, would be as prudent. With Democrats holding their 39-20 advantage over Republicans in the Senate, taxpayers can't afford to lose another seat. Rezin is endorsed.

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49th District: In this southwest suburban district, Sen. Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, D-Shorewood, is facing Michelle Smith, R-Plainfield, who is the board president in Plainfield School District 202. On the school board, Smith has tried to keep the property tax levy steady while dealing with unpredictability from the state. "Attempting to build a budget every year is like throwing darts blindfolded," Smith says. Incumbent Bertino-Tarrant should understand the pressure the state's financial chaos creates in her district  yet she couldn't bring herself to vote against House Speaker Michael Madigan's budget, which was $7 billion out of balance. She voted "present." Votes like that are the reason the state's finances are a disaster. Smith is strongly endorsed.

52nd District: First, a clarification: The Republican running in this district named Michael Madigan is not the Michael Madigan, the speaker. The Urbana restaurateur is campaigning as "the other Mike Madigan." He worked for more than a decade in state government before opening several barbecue restaurants. He faces freshman Sen. Scott Bennett, D-Champaign, who was appointed in 2015 to complete the term of state Treasurer Mike Frerichs. So far, Bennett has proven to be an independent-minded legislator. A former assistant state's attorney, he got a bill signed into law that further protects the rights of sexual assault victims, including during evidence-gathering. We wish Madigan were running for a different seat. His experience in government and business would be a welcome perspective in Springfield. But Bennett has earned another term.

58th District: We know both Republican Paul Schimpf of Waterloo and Democrat Sheila Simon of Carbondale to be dedicated public servants. Schimpf served in the U.S. Marine Corps and was an adviser to Iraqi prosecutors during the trial of Saddam Hussein. Simon was lieutenant governor under Pat Quinn. But here's a case where voters in Southern Illinois can demand change. The economy in this part of the state is desperate for revitalization. Democratic policies have not worked. Schimpf supports workers' comp changes to make Illinois more business-friendly. He also supports tort reform and term limits. Schimpf is endorsed.

59th District: It's strange that Sen. Gary Forby, D-Benton, claims to be a fiscal steward, often proclaiming that the state should retire its massive pile of unpaid bills. Then he voted in May for House Speaker Michael Madigan's spending plan, which everyone knew was $7 billion short. He didn't have to vote for it. Most Democratic senators did not. Remember that, voters of this district, when you show up to cast a ballot on Nov. 8. A better choice is Dale Fowler, mayor of Harrisburg, who knows what "reckless spending" actually means. Fowler is endorsed.

Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook.
When asked how he would heal the racial divide, Donald Trump appealed to "law and order" and stop and frisk policies as a way to curb violence in black and brown communities in Chicago and across the country. Hillary Clinton believes stop and frisk to be unconstitutional and instead proposes investment in implicit bias training for police officers. Sept. 26, 2016. (Chicago Tribune)

As with many topics, Donald Trump doesn't know much about the policing policy widely known as stop-and-frisk, but that doesn't deter him one bit from Trump-splaining it to us with unbridled self-confidence.

The policy, which involves warrantless stops of people who are suspected of criminal activity to search them for weapons, became a highlight in Republican Trump's first debate with his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, on Monday.

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As his lack of preparation quickly became apparent, the reality-TV star tried to make up for it with a flurry of exciting half-truths and over-generalizations. He called for Chicago in particular to begin using stop-and-frisk tactics to put the brakes on what he has been calling a "crime wave."

He apparently didn't know that Chicago, like his native New York, has not abandoned stop-and-frisk. The city only has tried to make it less racially and ethnically discriminatory, a policy with which Trump has not shown himself to be very impressed.

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Trump spoke admiringly of stop-and-frisk in New York, which began under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and intensified in its aggressiveness and controversy under later Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Trump credited the policy for New York's dramatic decline in murders since the early '90s and called for its nationwide expansion.

But the city also began to wind down the practice, even before it was condemned as unconstitutional by a federal district judge in a decision later criticized by a federal court of appeals panel.

Debate moderator Lester Holt of NBC News fact-checked Trump by citing the New York judicial ruling that found stop-and-frisk to be unconstitutional in that state, because it largely singled out young black and Hispanic men.

Trump argued back. "No, you're wrong. It went before a judge who was a very against-police judge," he said. "It was taken away from her, and our mayor  our new mayor  refused to go forward with the case. They would have won on appeal "

"The argument is that it's a form of racial profiling," Holt said.

"No," Trump fired back. "The argument is that we have to take the guns away from these people that have them and that are bad people that shouldn't have them."

No, the critical issue on which now-retired federal Judge Shira Scheindlin's decision turned was indeed racial profiling, no matter how little that concern may mean to Trump.

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Contrary to popular notions, Scheindlin explicitly said that she was not banning stop-and-frisk, which generally has been upheld by the courts as long as it is conducted in a nondiscriminatory manner. A 1968 Supreme Court ruling, Terry v. Ohio, upheld the practice on those grounds.

Scheindlin nixed the use of stop-and-frisk as unconstitutional in the way it was applied by police in New York, not the practice itself.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign stop in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Friday. (John Locher / AP)

That's important because the issue is a bit more complicated than the all-or-nothing way that stop-and-frisk usually tends to be discussed.

Yet even Giuliani, a Trump supporter, seemed to acknowledge in a Wall Street Journal op-ed defending Trump's position that stop-and-frisk had little to do with the city's dramatic crime drop during his watch.

The practice only escalated to a level that stirred a strong backlash, particularly from minority communities, under Bloomberg.

And contrary to Trump's assertion that the city's stop-and-frisk policy "worked incredibly well" in reducing New York's crime rate, forecasts of gloom and doom if the practice was scaled back have not materialized. So far, New York crime rates have continued their previously low levels.

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Less arguable is the common-sense conclusion that stop-and-frisk left unleashed stirs more distrust and undermines cooperation between police and the communities they are supposed to protect  which can hurt law enforcement more than it helps.

In Chicago, a similar stop-and-frisk policy was changed when the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois considered suing the city over the excessive use of the practice and racial profiling.

But after making stop-and-frisk stops at a far higher rate than New York City cops mounted at the height of their stop-and-frisk policy, according to the Illinois ACLU, police-community trust is not easy to rebuild. Stop-and-frisk is not an all-purpose cure for high crime. We need something more nuanced than that  and if there's one thing for which Trump is not known, it's nuance.

Clarence Page, a member of the Tribune Editorial Board, blogs at www.chicagotribune.com/pagespage.

cpage@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @cptime
In a smashing 97-1 vote the United States Senate, for the first time, overrode an Obama veto. The bill allows families of the victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001 to sue Saudi Arabia. While the courts will determine the validity of the claims it strikes me as odd that the Obama administration would choose to use its veto power to defend the House of Saud. Perhaps the President is hoping they will be generous in contributing to his foundation after he leaves office?
Best Men's Fragrances For Fall 2016

The 7 Best Fragrances For Fall 2016

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.

The transition from summer to fall is fraught with changes. The shift in temperature and light  not to mention the feeling of expansion to contraction  recalibrates our internal world, most notably our sense of smell.



Come late September, our natural instinct is to lean towards warmer and spicier scents. This is because the cooler climate creates a sensory blindfold and the odor molecules that make up a fragrance dont move with quite the same dynamism and ease as they did in summer. In other words, nobody is going to pick up on the subtleties of that effervescent eau de cologne you bought back in May when its below 45 degrees outside. Youre going to need something with a bit of a kick to it.



It should come as no surprise that September is the month when almost every fragrance brand launches a new concoction. Many of them are bigger, bolder and altogether more potent than the stuff that was sold earlier in the year. Traditionally masculine notes such as leather, oud, wood, cognac and spice tend to feature heavily at this time of year, so if you like your scents bold and assertive, this is your time to shine.



But, given AskMens discerning nose, big doesnt necessarily have to mean brash  there is nothing worse than a man drenched in something akin to Brian Fantanas Sex Panther. It is quite possible to go for a fuller scent this fall without asphyxiating anyone within sniffing distance. And that is the basis on which we have selected the scents listed below. And, as beautiful as they are, know that over-spraying can ruin even the best cologne.

Icon Elite by Dunhill



The original Icon may be a little over one year old but that hasnt stopped Dunhill from creating a series of variations. Elite, the third incarnation of Icon, is a spicy woody concoction featuring vetiver, cardamom, sandalwood and, unusually, ebony (no, no idea). Theres also some orange blossom in there somewhere, which adds a pleasant sweetness. Icon Elites appeal lies in the fact that it is deep and rich but reserved at the same time; it has none of the heavy handedness that you might expect from an autumnal or evening scent. Its not a patch on the original Icon, but improving on its predecessor was always going to be hard.

$40.00 at Amazon.com

Grand Soir by Maison Francis Kurkdjian



My infatuation with Maison Francis Kurkdjian only grows stronger with each new release. Grand Soir is an animalic amber, unashamedly carnal and beautifully composed. Soft vanilla and warming benzoin are married by way of labdanum, giving the whole composition a honeyed, smoky feel. It is boozy and sexy, the stuff of a wild night on the town with a new partner.

$215.00 at Amazon.com

Colonia Quercia by Acqua di Parma

The latest from Acqua di Parmas high-end Ingredients Collection sees the classic Italian cologne infused with Oak Moss absolute (quercia), which is native to Piedmont. This ingredient adds a woody  almost roasted  facet to the citrus cologne while patchouli and tonka bean create warmth and sweetness. The signature lemon accord is noticeable throughout and tempers the intensity of the oak moss. If the original ADP Colonia saw you through summer, this might be a viable option for autumn and winter.

$228.00 at Sephora.com

LEnvol de Cartier by Cartier

In stark contrast to some of the heavier fragrances listed here, LEnvol de Cartier has been dubbed a transparent oriental  a fragrance that possesses all the notes associated with this fragrance family (warm, sensual woods and musks, for example) but, at the same time, retains a certain lightness.



To wit, theres a paper-thin veneer of crystallized honey sitting on the top of this composition. Once it cracks, you dont fall headfirst into a bog-standard oriental composition. Instead, you get buoyed by a beautiful patchouli, along with gaiac wood and a vaporous musk. If youre unable to wear the extreme or concentrated fragrances that have become so popular in recent years (and many of us cant), then LEnvol is more than a happy medium.



Equally attractive is the innovative bottle, which features a refillable inner capsule.

From $132.00 at Nordstrom.com

Vert d'Encens by Tom Ford



Of the four green scents unveiled by Mr. Ford earlier this year as part of his Les Extraits Verts collection, Vert dEncens stood out as the most masculine. Not your typical green fragrance by any stretch of the imagination, this is an intoxicatingly smoky composition that marries frankincense with pine.



Pine usually sets off warning alarms for me. But this isnt a cloying air freshener sort of pine. On the contrary, it has the waxy feel of the tree sap. As with almost all of Tom Fords fragrances, the combination of notes is classic  simple, even  but theyre blended with expert precision and impeccable taste.

$225.00 at Nordstrom.com

Essenze Gold Collection Musk Gold by Ermenegildo Zegna

Earlier this year, Zegna launched three Arabian Nights-style fragrances  an amber, an incense and a musk  as part of its selectively distributed (and sorely overlooked) Essenze line. While each has their own appeal, Musk Gold is arguably the deepest and most sensual. Black pepper, coriander and saffron open the fragrance before settling into a heart of cedarwood, carrot seed and Myrrh. And then comes the musk, layered over patchouli, leather and oud. This one might be (very) hard to find, but it will be well worth the hunt.

Gucci Guilty Pour Homme by Gucci

The guilty always leave a clue in their wake, and Gucci Guilty, launched five years ago, is no exception  its popularity among younger guys shows no sign of waning. Lavender and lemon on the top give way to heart of orange flower so far, so fresh. But it is the dry and crisp combination of cedarwood and patchouli that linger. If there were a daytime or office-friendly fragrance in this months selection, Gucci Guilty might just be it.

$85.00 at Gucci.com

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Growing A Beard Makes You Long-Term Relationship Material

Here's The Secret Message Your Beard Is Sending About Your Relationship Status

Whether a woman is looking at you for a casual hook up or looking for a long-term relationship, may depend on the length of your beard. So, to the bearded hipsters of Brooklyn and Portland, you may be seeing a upsurge in guys tying the knot. A new study found women are more likely to go into a long-term relationship with a man with facial hair.

The study, based out of the University of Queensland in Australia, asked 8,520 women to judge photos of various men, rating them based on how physically attractive they found each one to be. The men in the photos were clean shaved or fully bearded, with everything in between. The study found that those men with more feminine features (smoother skin) were less attractive than those with more masculine features (exhibited by facial hair).

Related: The Best Editor-Approved Beard Trimmers

Interestingly, while women found the stubbled men to be the most physically attractive and good for a sexy fling, it was those with beards that they found best for longer-term relationships.

Our findings suggest that beardedness may be attractive when judging long-term relationships as a signal of intrasexual formidability and the potential to provide direct benefits to females, says Dr. Barnaby Dixson, lead researcher, writing in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

What is it about beards that make men more attractive to women? Its the masculinity factor, of course, but a lot more than that. Facial hair denotes masculinity which signals that they're good providers and can keep us warm and fed and pregnant through the winter and the rest of our lives. You're far more likely to be attracted to manly men when you're ovulating (i.e., when you're most fertile) for the same reasons: they seem like good stable alpha partners, says sexuality expert and YouTube personality Shallon Lester.

Beards also are known to represent maturity, dignity, wisdom and growth. Think of all the people we imagine with beards  doctors, scientists, Santa Claus. All distinguished gentlemen. Masculinity does play a strong role in the beard attraction because while it represents the aforementioned qualities it also represents sex appeal, bad boy, ruggedness, and strength, says psychotherapist Tyra Gardner, PhD. These are all qualities women look for which equals the sense of security all women look for in a man and in a relationship.

Related: $tyleJacker: Here's Why You Shouldn't Grow A Massive Beard

When a man has a beard it shows a signs of boldness and assuredness. A man like George Clooney looks good with or without a beard and appears sure of himself all the time, says Gardner.

Not only is the look natural and earth-like, it also trending among celebrities  still.

Women can be drawn to men with facial hair for various reasons, many of them stemming from psychological needs for protection. It's a very primitive urge for women to feel as though they are being protected. It almost goes back to the cavemen era..., says Dr. Kathryn Smerling, a psychotherapist based in New York City.

Sometimes its also about being a little less perfect and well coiffed. Facial hair suggests approachability, which means you are possibly a more open, genuine personality. "A bearded man tends to be perceived as more sensitive, thoughtful and in touch with his feelings. This, of course, is very attractive for most women, says Dr. Smerling.

Not that all bearded men are uniformly great mating choices for the longer term. "Brad Pitt has been seen with a short or overly long beard throughout recent years. This can be considered a way of self-expression, says Dr. Smerling. "In fact, growing a beard is one of the few ways men can express themselves. As women, we have a whole range of personal expression techniques- from the way we do our hair to do the way we treat our nails. Men have much less options."

But if you are seeking someone that can grow with you versus for you, a man who expresses himself through his facial hair may be a good way to go.

"When men are freer to express themselves more fully, says Dr. Smerling, they often get closer to their partners. This allows for more intimacy in a relationship and this combined with the notions of protection and increased sensitivity is a gold mine for women!"

In fact, this is not the first study that has found an association between dating potential and facial hair. A 2008 study at Northumbria University also found that women found men with stubble were more attractive to women than those who are clean-shaven.
CEO Pays Employees $2,000 To Go On Vacation

Trending News: Super-Cool CEO Gives Employees $2K To Make Them Take Vacation

Why Is This Important?

Because this CEO is treating his employees like dare I say it... people?

Long Story Short

Mark Douglas, the CEO of marketing company SteelHouse, pays his employees to go anywhere in the world to get some R&R. With a cap of $2,000, employees can be reimbursed and/or use the company credit card to book transportation for travel.

Long Story

Weve all heard of the invisible hand and now know that the invisible hand is quite literally so invisible that it doesnt even existat all. In an altruistic society, maybe, but one where a crooked real estate mogul is one of two viable contenders to run The Free World? Forget it. But Mark Douglas is making headlines right now as he is encouraging employees to take vacations, travel, rest, and expand their minds through monetary incentives.

In our global economy, often those who take breaks at work feel as though they shouldnt if they want to stay in their employer's good graces. Douglas is hoping to set a new trend amongst employers, as he is paying for employees to go on vacation.

Douglas gives hope to the future as SteelHouse is one of the fastest-growing marketing companies with nearly zero turnover." This is more than an impressive feat for a company that has a team of 250 employees. According to Douglas, over the last three years only 5 employees have actually left. Thats only 2% turnover i.e., virtually none.

It's one thing to say 'You have three weeks vacation,' like most companies do. It's another thing to say 'You have cash, and if you don't go on vacation and spend this money, the money literally goes to waste.' It's another level of saying this is real," he told Business Insider.

The forward-minded CEO instituted the idea after having had positive experiences at various other companies who actually encouraged employees to go on vacation. Douglas is hoping that others in executive positions within the labor force will consider instituting similar practices within their firms.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

If a successful company of 250 employees can still be profitable doling out $2,000 a fiscal year for every employee to quite literally not to be at work, then why are so many people getting flack for taking an extra 5 minutes on a 30-minute lunch break?

Disrupt Your Feed

Overworking people is a bad idea, period. It makes them less productive and breeds resentment.

Drop This Fact

Article 24 of the UN Charter of Human Rights actually states that not only does every individual have a right to rest and leisure but they also have the right to reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
The Silence of the Wolves

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In some earlier post (or posts)  that I cannot now find  Ive tried to convey the thought that Ill convey here. Yet given the rain (and reign) of silly talk today about trade, its a point that is worth repeating.

Protectionists are fond of declaring that foreign-governments subsidies (both real and imagined) of those foreign-countries economic activities  and particularly of those foreign-countries exports  are reason enough for our government to protect our economy, with tariffs and other barriers to trade, from the distortions and damages visited upon our economy by those foreign subsidies. Never mind that many of those same protectionists self-righteously champion similar subsidies as being economically appropriate and wise when issued by the domestic government. Also ignore here the fact that when foreign governments really do subsidize their export industries those subsidies make those foreign economies weaker and poorer rather than stronger and richer (while, at the same time, almost certainly making our domestic economy stronger and richer). (Theres no such thing as a free subsidy.) Instead ask: why do we never hear, from protectionists, calls for negative domestic tariffs when foreign governments are plainly pursuing policies that artificially reduce the abilities of producers in those foreign countries to profitably export to our domestic economy?

Why, for example, do protectionists in the United States never call on Uncle Sam to subsidize Americans consumption of tobacco, steel, and sugar from Zimbabwe? After all, everyone today understands that the economic policies of the Mugabe government have severely damaged Zimbabwes economy. These destructive policies in Zimbabwe create artificial inefficiencies throughout the Zimbabwean economy and, therefore, artificially raise the costs to Zimbabweans of producing and exporting goods. Americans, in turn, pay artificially high prices for whatever goods they import from Zimbabwe. If protectionists really do care about leveling the playing field and about global economic efficiency  and if protectionists are correct that the domestic use of discretionary trade policies is an economically and ethically appropriate means of achieving these fine goals  protectionists should complain that American producers enjoy an unfair advantage as they compete against their Zimbabwean rivals. American protectionists should complain that the policies currently pursued by the Zimbabwean government make the prices that Americans must pay to buy Zimbabwean exports too high. American protectionists should demand that Uncle Sam impose negative tariffs  subsidies  on imports from Zimbabwe in order to cause the prices of those imports to better reflect their true costs  that is, the costs that those imports would have been produced at had the Zimbabwean government not pursued the market-distorting policies that it has pursued for the past 36 years.

Likewise, American protectionists prior to 1981 should have complained that the number of imports into America from the horribly inefficient economy of Maoist China was unfairly and inefficiently too low and their prices too high and, therefore, that Uncle Sam should have artificially stimulated American consumption of those imports by subsidizing that consumption.

Ditto for imports from war-ravaged countries such as Afghanistan and Syria. Those wars render the economies there far less efficient than they would be if peace were reigning. Therefore, the prices that American consumers must pay for goods produced in those countries are too high and the quantities that Americans import from there are too low. According to protectionists express logic, it follows that Uncle Sam should subsidize American consumers purchases of imports from those devastated countries even if doing so causes, as it would, consumer demand for American-produced rival goods to fall.

But protectionists never, ever make this case for such import subsidies  despite the fact that most of the policies followed by most of the worlds governments cause most of the worlds economies (and producers) to be far less efficient than they would otherwise be. This silence from protectionists who unfailingly call for positive tariffs when they believe that foreign governments are taking steps to make imports into American artificially abundant and too low in price is booming.

Comments
By Winnie Jin

China continues to build on what it hopes will be the path to a more efficient, modern agricultural industry. On September 18, the Chinese government announced plans to invest RMB three trillion into modernizing the countrys agriculture by the year 2020. A loan from the state-owned policy lender Agricultural Development Bank of China will be used to develop the industry, protect national food security, and support overseas business, as well as to increase efficiency with modern equipment and improve incomes in rural areas.

Chinas Agricultural Industry

The push for agricultural modernization in China is not a new phenomenon. The CPC Central Committee and State Council have made agriculture the main focus of the annual Number One Central Document for thirteen consecutive years. A proposal for the professionalization and modernization of Chinas agriculture industry was also a key focal point of Chinas 13th Five Year Plan, released earlier this year.

While urbanization continues to rise, 45 percent of Chinas population still depends on agriculture as their primary source of income. Farmers are given collective land ownership rights by the state, resulting in fragmented land plots that make large-scale agribusiness difficult to execute without land transfers. Additionally, China suffers from an arable land shortage, with only seven percent of the worlds arable land but nearly 20 percent of the worlds population. The concern over national food security arises from the problem of whether to rely on global markets for staple items or to keep production domestic, which requires heavy subsidization. By 2011, China had already become the worlds largest importer of agricultural products, and today consumer demand continues to outpace domestic supply.

In response to these pressures on the industry, China has promised to shape policy and funnel resources toward agricultural modernization. By 2020, the government is aiming to create over 53 million hectares of farmland and invest in technology and training for farmers. The rural land transfer process has also been accelerated, and large-scale landholders are currently granted higher subsidies. Because it is obvious that the global market is integral to meeting the countrys agricultural demand, the government is also directing some attention overseas. On September 20, the Ministry of Agriculture signed a memorandum of understanding with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, solidifying their strategy of increasing overseas agricultural investment and trade.

Implications for Foreign Investors

Agriculture is designated as a strategic industry in China and certain sectors are thus protected from foreign investment. In particular, foreign investment in businesses such as genetically modified crop seeds is prohibited or restricted.

However, opportunities are still abundant in equipment or permitted agricultural products. Along with other industrializing nations, China will account for two-thirds of the global market for new agricultural machinery over the next three years. With the governments support, farmers are experimenting with technology, using drones to distribute pesticides and tractors to harvest crops.

While some agricultural businesses have been heavily restricted for foreign investment, other activities such as coffee cultivation and fertilizer production are encouraged. Consumer preferences for foreign and imported products also remain strong. For foreign investors, Chinas long-term trend of subsidizing the development and modernization of its agricultural industry promises fresh opportunities in the coming years.



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Establishing & Operating a Business in China 2016

Establishing & Operating a Business in China 2016, produced in collaboration with the experts at Dezan Shira & Associates, explores the establishment procedures and related considerations of the Representative Office (RO), and two types of Limited Liability Companies: the Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprise (WFOE) and the Sino-foreign Joint Venture (JV). The guide also includes issues specific to Hong Kong and Singapore holding companies, and details how foreign investors can close a foreign-invested enterprise smoothly in China.

An Introduction to Doing Business in China 2016

Doing Business in China 2016 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in China. Compiled by the professionals at Dezan Shira & Associates in June 2016, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Chinese market, but also for companies who already have a presence here and want to keep up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changesSelling, Sourcing and E-commerce in China 2016



China Investment Roadmap: the Education Sector

In this issue of China Briefing, we navigate through Chinas regulatory framework for investment into education, presenting a roadmap for best practices in the industry. We examine the key market information that has driven the industrys growth, analyze the different investment models that are available for foreign companies, and finally discuss the effect that Chinas recently released NGO law will have on foreign investment into education.
Greek music lovers, including Culture Minister Aristeidis Baltas, local officials, and Chinese expatriates gave a warm welcome on Wednesday evening to the China National Opera and Dance Drama Theater Symphony Orchestra.

In celebration of the 67th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the 10th anniversary of the establishment of China-Greece comprehensive strategic partnership, the acclaimed orchestra performed at the Athens Concert Hall.

The concert featured a dozen popular classic compositions of great Chinese artists inspired by the country's ancient tradition and cultural dialogue with the West, and was staged under the auspices of the Chinese embassy in Greece.

Renowned virtuosos of traditional Chinese musical instruments, such as Lin Gan, Luo Huifang and Yu Xiaoqing brought to the stage a taste of China's culture with the melodies of the Erhu, the Pipa and the Chinese bamboo flute which were combined with western instruments and rhythms.

The audience gave warm applause to the ensemble conducted by Zhang Zheng after the excellent performance of compositions such as Li Wenping's "Jasmine Flower" and Liu Xijin's "Loulan Girl."

Baltas enjoyed the performance with Chinese Ambassador to Greece Zou Xiaoli, who has announced that more such cultural bridges connecting the two countries and people will be built.

"Today's event links two music traditions on the level of music instruments and conditions for this dialogue. It was tremendously interesting how traditional Chinese music instruments were connected to Western music instruments. I think that this kind of exchange in the music field promises very interesting compositions in the future," the Greek minister said.

Greek spectators gave a standing ovation to the Chinese artists, in particular after the major surprise the orchestra had planned for the finale.

The concert ended with Greeks clapping hands to the rhythm of the "Children of Piraeus," a popular song written by late Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis for the film "Never on Sunday" starring Melina Mercouri.

The song performed by Mercouri won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1960.

"It is the first time I am listening to Chinese music if we exclude the music I have heard when watching Chinese films. I can say it is impressive. I was very much impressed by their soloists. I think they were all superb," painter Ioli Xifara told Xinhua after the concert.

"The finale, yes it is true, touched me very much. Their performance of the Children of Piraeus was marvelous. Music and art connects all nations, all people," she added.

For more than half a century, the China National Opera and Dance Drama Theater Symphony Orchestra has been promoting Chinese culture around the world and connects people by integrating Chinese and western musical styles.

On Sept. 30, Chinese musicians will perform at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in northern Greece.
China's foreign trade situation remained sophisticated and grim, as this year there are more uncertain and unstable factors, said an official from the Ministry of Commerce on Thursday.

"The Foreign trade situation is still not optimistic, and some difficulties couldn't be resolved in the short term. China needs make more effort to stabilize trade volume," said Zhang Ji, assistant minister at the Ministry of Commerce.

Zhang said the trend was mainly caused by sluggish external demand, rising costs in the domestic market, and the fact that some industries and orders are being relocated to other nations.

To meet the challenge, the organizers of the China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair, are expanding the fair's function to meet the more diverse demands of clients.

The fair will start on Oct 15 in Guangzhou. It is held twice a year and is considered an important barometer of China's future trade activity.

"In addition to serving as a place for trade transactions, we will build the fair into an inclusive platform for companies to showcase their products, share industry information, and get connected with more potential clients," said Li Jinqi, director general of the China Foreign Trade Centre.

Li said that the volume of trade deals that were made under the help of the Canton Fair's network accounted for almost 50 percent of the amount of annual exports.
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The Chinese government on Thursday conferred its Friendship Award on 50 foreign experts from 18 countries working in China, in recognition of their contribution to China's development.

Addressing the ceremony, Chinese Vice Premier Ma Kai said China will adopt more active, open and effective policies for attracting foreign talent, protect their rights and interests, and create a better environment for their work.

China has recently integrated foreign experts work permits and alien employment licenses into foreigner's work permits and will improve work and living conditions for foreign experts.

China is in the process of implementing the 13th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, he said, welcoming foreign experts to work with Chinese people to create a better future.

The "Friendship Award" is an annual award issued by the Chinese government to honor outstanding foreign experts in China. It was established in 1991.
An escaped criminal who has served over eight years of his sentence at the prison of Caidain in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province has been captured by police on after 5 days on the run.

Lei Jun. [Photo: news.sina.com.cn]

Police from across Hubei Province took part in the joint operation to track down the prisoner and eventually captured him in Chibi city.

The man named as 45 year old Lei Jun, ran away from a local hospital where he was undergoing medical procedures last Saturday. He was still wearing his prison uniform when he escaped from the hospital.

Lei was detained by the police in 2010, and sentenced to prison for 11 years on charges of contract fraud. He will be released from prison after three years and seven months. He also received a reduction in sentence of 11 months, for good behavior during his prison term.
A gynecological hospital in Chongqing has banned its doctors and nurses from using Apple's latest smart iPhone 7 series, saying the prohibition was based on monetary concerns.

"The administrative office of the hospital has decided not to allow any staff members to buy the iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 plus. Anyone who insists on purchasing one will be removed from candidacy for annual rewards of outstanding performances. And those who could not afford an iPhone 7 cell phone but still bought one will be asked to resign," a latest circular issued by the hospital said.

According to the circular, the boycott of Apple's newest creation was due to its high cost, which far exceeds the prices of other smart phones.

"With the 67th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China approaching, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 plus have been priced unprecedentedly high, which corrupts people with extravagant spending and contaminates the virtue of frugal living," the circular explained.

The circular has gone viral on the Internet and was confirmed from Chongqing's Fuling Xinjiuzhou Gynecological Hospital, even though the president of the hospital cannot be reached, Chongqing Times reported.

It was not the first time for an employer to ban their staff members from owning Apple's latest smart phones.

Several days ago, a company in Henan Province forbade its employees to buy the iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 plus, saying it's better to contribute their savings to improve their family lives rather than spending them on such luxuries.

Apple released the iPhone 7, a handset with single camera lens, and the iPhone 7 plus, with double lenses, earlier this month, and their starting prices are approximately 5,388 yuan (US$808.06) and 6,388 yuan respectively on the Chinese market.
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Four refugees died and 23 others went missing on Thursday when a boat capsized off Turkey's Aegean coast, local media reported.

A small boat carrying 31 refugees sank off the Karaada Island after sailing from the western city of Bodrum, Daily Sabah said.

It said the coast guard rescued four refugees, while search for the missing was continuing.

According to media reports, the refugees were not wearing life vests when the mishap happened.

The boat was believed to heading for a Greek island.

The Turkish route has seen a sharp fall in the number of smuggled refugees to Greek islands since Turkey and the European Union agreed in March on measures to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday that the government was preparing to extend the state of emergency for another three months, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Erdogan said the current three-month state of emergency, imposed following the July 15 coup attempt, was not enough.

Turkey needs more time to clean all extensions of Gulenists and Kurdistan Workers' Party terrorist organizations, Erdogan said. He was referring to Fethullah Gulen, a cleric accused of masterminding the coup attempt.

He noted that the state of emergency does not affect daily life in Turkey and is only for fighting terrorism more effectively.

According to the Turkish constitution, a state of emergency can be declared for a maximum of six months.

Erdogan criticized opponents to the state of emergency in Turkey and abroad, saying no one has the right to intervene in Turkey's domestic affairs.

On Wednesday, Turkish National Security Council proprosed an extension of the state of emergency beyond the initial three-month period.
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Government forces in Nigeria have killed nine Boko Haram fighters in the country's northeastern state of Borno, an army spokesman said on Thursday.

The Boko Haram fighters were killed in a gun fight with troops in Bulabulin area of the state on Wednesday, Col. Sani Usman, spokesperson of the Nigerian army told Xinhua.

He said several Boko Haram fighters were also wounded in the fight which lasted for an hour.

"The troops would continue the clearance operation of the remnants of the Boko Haram in nooks and crannies of their areas of operation with renewed vigor and determination," he added.

Nigeria's northeast region has been a stronghold of the extremist group Boko Haram.

At least 22 Boko Haram fighters were killed in a military operation early this week.

In past months, the Nigerian government has launched several military operations to eliminate the terrorist threat.
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The Chinese Consulate General in New York confirmed Thursday that one Chinese citizen was injured in the New Jersey train accident, in which one was killed and over 100 injured.

The Chinese Consulate General told Xinhua the injured Chinese has received initial treatment at hospital and there is no life-threatening. The Consulate General has already made contact with the family of the injured.

Currently, Consular staff is rushing to other local medical institutions to verify the possibility of other Chinese citizens injured in the accident.

The Consulate General said it will continue to follow up the situation and provide timely assistance to the affected Chinese.

The train plowed into Hoboken station just before 9:00 a.m. local time (1300 GMT) with around 250 passengers on board. Hoboken station, which sits 11 kilometers outside New York city, is a hub for commuters to switch for Manhattan.

All trapped people have been rescued from the train wreckage, according to local media reports. Jersey City Medical Center officials said they have seen 40 walk-in patients from the crash, with 11 patients in the emergency department.
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Sudan foreign ministry on Thursday described the report of Amnesty International, which contained accusations of Sudan's army of using chemical weapons in Darfur, as "fabricated and baseless."

"The foreign ministry would like to express its absolute rejection of the allegations of the report of Amnesty International and regard them as baseless and fabricated accusations," said Sudan's foreign ministry in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by Xinhua.

"The report aims at crippling Sudan's efforts to complete the procession of peace and stability, realize economic development and enhance consensus and social harmony," added the statement.

The statement reiterated Sudan's commitment to the international convention on the prohibition of the production and use of chemical weapons as it is a signatory member of the convention since 1998.

Amnesty International on Thursday issued a report accusing the Sudanese army of killing dozens of civilians, including children, in attacks using chemical weapons in Sudan's Darfur.

According to Amnesty International, at least 30 likely chemical attacks have hit Jebel Marra between January and September this year, pointing out that the chemical weapon use it documented may have killed 200 to 250 people, with many or most being children.

The report, which came in over 100 pages, features satellite images of destroyed villages, over 200 survivor testimonies and photographs of children suffering from chemical burns.

Jebel Marra area had witnessed heavy fighting between the Sudanese army and the rebels of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM)/Abdul-Wahid Mohamed Nur faction since the mid-January 2015 before the Sudanese army declared its control over the area last April.

The area was one of the strongholds of the SLM/Abdul-Wahid Mohamed Nur faction, located in Central Darfur state and covers an area of 12.800 square km.

It is the second highest mountain peak in Sudan as it stands more than 3,000 meters above sea level.
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Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar, Pakistani Special Envoy on Kashmir to China talks about the current situation between Pakistan and India in Beijing on Sept.28. [Photo by Guo Xiaohong / China.org.cn]

Pakistan has called on international community to send a fact-finding mission to Kashmir and has offered a dialogue with India for de-escalation of recently rising tensions between the two countries said Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar, Pakistani Special Envoy on Kashmir to China, in Beijing on Sept.28.

Bakhtyar made these remarks in an exclusive interview with China.org.cn following his meeting with Chinese Vice Minister Liu Zhenmin of Foreign Affairs.

Bakhtyar alluded to Vice Minister Liu as saying that Kashmir was a historical issue and that China valued Pakistans position on Kashmir. He said that Liu urged both India and Pakistan to handle the differences through dialogue, improve their bilateral ties and protect the region's peace and stability.

Bakhtyar expressed serious concern over the deteriorating human rights situation in India Occupied Kashmir (IOK), where hundreds have been killed and thousands have been injured over the past several months. He reiterated the need for international communitys efforts to help restore peace and stability of the region. He said that life in IOK had come to a standstill ever since the extra judicial killing of Burhan Wani, on July 8 this year.

The Special Envoy rejected Indias long time accusation that Pakistan backed militant groups are operating in disputed Kashmir. "Whenever something bad happens in Kashmir, India points its finger at Pakistan," he pointed out.

The special envoy held that India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, should resolve the issue through bilateral talks in line with the relevant UN resolution on Kashmir. Yet, he also revealed that Pakistans requests for talks with India had been rebuffed by India, several weeks ago.

He hoped that better sense would prevail and both countries would soon seek recourse to dialogue.

Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar and Alam Dad Laleka are on a visit to China as special envoys on Kashmir and Jammu sent especially by Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to China. They also met Vice Chairman Cai Wu of the Foreign Affairs Committee of CPPCC separately during their current visit.
By Rejoice Xu, China Aviation Daily | Sep. 30, 2016

China and Ireland have formally committed to seeking to establish direct air services between the two countries.

Feng Zhenglin, chief of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Irish Transport Minister Shane Ross during his visit to Dublin on September 24-26, under which they agree to "facilitate the establishment of a direct air service" between their respective countries.

Mr. Feng has discussed with Mr. Ross on the expansion of the freedoms of the air between the two countries, also fully exchanged on issues like air traffic lease, Sino-Euro civil aviation relationship and participation in ICAO activities.

China once signed air service agreement with Ireland in 1998, while this agreement has explicitly listed rules on air routes, capacity, the Fifth Freedom of Air, business cooperation and so on which has laid a more solid foundation of law on the opening of airlines and business communication between the two countries with great expectation on the newly introduction of airlines between China and Ireland from both parties.

Besides, Mr. Feng also paid a visit to Avolon, an aircraft leasing company funded by Chinese capital, and Dragon Aviation Leasing. As the origin and business center of aviation leasing, Ireland is leading the industry all around the world right now.
Beijing resident Zhao Yang poses for a photo with his Harley Davidson motorcycle in Las Vegas, the United States, before embarking on a riding tour in October last year.Xu Yana / For China Daily

A growing number of Chinese tourists are planning road trips in the United States this year, but differences in traffic laws and driving etiquette pose potential pitfalls. Cao Yin reports.

As the National Day holiday approaches and a growing number of Chinese prepare to take road trips in the United States, potential visitors are being urged to learn about US traffic laws and the country's auto culture.

The comments come after four Chinese tourists from Guangdong province were killed in July during a self-drive road trip in Arizona, when the driver failed to heed a stop sign and their vehicle was hit by a bus.

Failure to understand US road rules could potentially result in accidents, lawsuits, injuries and even death, according to experts.

Trips to the US during the "golden week" of China's seven-day National Day holiday, which starts on Oct 1, have become major money-spinners for Chinese tourism agencies, and self-driving road trips are becoming increasingly popular.

Last year, 2.67 million Chinese visited the US as bilateral tourist trips hit 4.76 million, and the number is expected to rise to more than 5 million by the end of the year, according to the National Tourism Administration.

Meanwhile, statistics provided by China Youth Travel Service, one of the country's largest tourism agencies, show that the number of Chinese planning to visit the US during the holiday has risen 30 percent from the same period last year.

About 45 percent of Chinese tourists to the US prefer not to travel as part of a group, and about 37 percent of them undertake unsupervised road trips, according to CYTS.

"Of all the tourist spots overseas, the US is the most popular destination," said Xu Xiaolei, a CYTS spokesman. "With a better highway environment and automobile culture, the US is a dream destination for driving enthusiasts."

Ge Mu, assistant president of Caissa Travel Management, an international tourism agency, said a growing number of clients are inquiring about driving holidays in the US.

Greater ease of travel

The boom in Chinese tourism to the US has been triggered by the rise in living standards and the introduction of bilateral 10-year, multiple entry visas, which make it easier for Chinese citizens to travel to the country, she said.

As an example, Ge cited one client who has traveled overseas 20 times in the past four years, and has taken advantage of the relaxed visa policy to visit the US seven times.

"When travelers are given more time in the US, most prefer to explore the country by themselves, especially on self-driving road trips that allow them to discover scenic spots that group tours can't reach," she said.

In addition, car rental companies have flourished at home and abroad, which help Chinese tourists to verify that their driving licenses are acceptable overseas, recommend routes and provide translation services.

In July, Beijing resident Liu Jing took his family on a road trip to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas and the West Coast highways in a car he rented in China.

"All the booking and rental procedures were easy because the car rental website I selected is in Chinese. First I registered, and then I submitted my license," he said. "Highways in the US are long, which makes them ideal for self-driving trips, and it's OK if you take the wrong route, because you can use GPS to find your destination," said the 42-year-old who works in the import-export sector.

He was still excited about the trip: "I enjoyed the feeling that I controlled the travel and routes instead of following other people."

Cao Longbo found it easy to rent a car when he arrived in the US. "Airports have a host of car rental companies for tourists to choose from," said the 37-year-old software engineer, who traveled around the US by car in 2013. "Visitors can rent a car with a credit card, and it's a good idea to rent GPS or download a map before the journey, even if it's a little more expensive."

Song Qianqian is also a road trip enthusiast. "I want to set my own pace and see scenery or cultures I'm interested in," said the 31-year-old who studied in the US before returning to China to work for a financial company in Beijing.
(L-R) Jean-Bernard Levy chairman of EDF Group, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, Greg Clark Secretary of State for Business, Chinese Energy Minister Neur Bekri and Energy and Industrial Strategy and He Yu chairman of CGN at a signing ceremony in London to finalise the deal to build Hinkley Point, the first new UK nuclear power station in a generation, September 29, 2016. [Photo by Philip Toscano/Reuters] Power plant design would get major boost if it passes Britains stringent approval process

China will submit its indigenous nuclear technology to the United Kingdom governments rigorous assessment program with a view to getting approval in five years  and to use it to build a power station at Bradwell, on the English east coast.

The announcement by China General Nuclear Corp Chairman He Yu was made on Thursday.

It came just after CGN, the French utility EDF and the UK government signed a final agreement on another project that is earlier in the pipeline, the UKs 18 billion pound ($23.4 billion) Hinkley Point power plant, giving it the definitive green light. CGN will finance one-third of that investment.

The Hinkley Point project is seen as a precursor for plans to introduce Chinese nuclear technology.

If Chinese technology passes GDA assessment, the Bradwell plant could be the first nuclear project in a developed market to use a Chinese design

As a part of the contracts signed on Thursday, CGN and EDF would also jointly invest in Sizewell and Bradwell, proposed UK nuclear projects. CGN would be the majority shareholder in Bradwell, which plans to use Chinas third generation nuclear technology Hualong One.

Being the majority investor in Bradwell, with a 66.5 percent share, means CGN will bear responsibility for the project and its financial returns will be higher, He said.

The UKs General Design Assessment, which determines if a new nuclear technology can be used in the UK, is known to be the worlds most rigorous. Currently only Frances European Pressurized Reactor design has GDA approval. The US AP1000 technology is still pending GDA approval. Frances EPR model is being used for Hinkley Point.

Once Hualong One passes GDA, it will boost more countries confidence and push forward Hualong Ones global market development, He said.

Bradwells technology will be modeled on Hualong One technology deployed at Guangxi Fangchenggang Phase II power station.

CGN established a GDA project department in February 2015 to work on the regulatory process; technical preparation for the GDA assessment process was completed by this July.

The new UK government, led by Prime Minister Theresa May, took all sides by surprise in July when she said she needed more time to assess the project. Approval came two weeks ago, with the extra condition that Hinkley and other foreign-funded nuclear plants cannot change hands without the governments agreement.

An EDF board meeting on Sept 27 confirmed that EDF is happy with the extra condition.

Hinkley will begin construction in 2019 with a view to start operating in 2025. It will satisfy 7 percent of the UKs energy needs.

Lady Barbara Judge, former chairwoman of UK Atomic Energy Authority, said China has good technical nuclear capabilities. I have great respect for the nuclear projects all over China, she said.

Andrew Shepherd, senior energy and infrastructure analyst at BMI Research, said rigorous and robust assessment of Chinas own domestically designed reactor by UK regulators would certainly give Chinas nuclear export plans a significant boost.

He said CGN will increase efforts to communicate with greater emphasis on transparency with the UK public about its technology in order to build trust.

He said CGN is currently in advanced stages of preparing nuclear investments in Romania. Other areas being considered include the Czech Republic, Southeast Asian countries, South Africa, and Turkey.

Contact the writer at cecily.liu@mail.chinadailyuk.com
A woman presents the DJI Mavic Pro during a press conference in Beijing, September 29, 2016. The Mavic Pro is a small yet powerful drone released by DJI, a Chinese technology company manufacturing unmanned aerial vehicles for flying cameras. DJI Mavic Pro has a stabilized camera with 12 megapixels and a new transmission system with 7 kilometers range. [Photo/Xinhua]
The stand of Beijng Dabao Cosmetics Co Ltd at an industry expo in Beijing.[Photo provided to China Daily]

China's skincare and make-up sectors registered strong growth of 12 and 10 percent respectively last year with South Korean and Japanese brands making up the lion's share of the increase, according to an industry report.

The ratio is higher than the overall growth of 3.1 percent in the fast moving consumer goods sector, according to latest figures published by Kantar Worldpanel, indicating that the cosmetics sector remains an important growth engine of China's FMCG market.

"Chinese consumers are becoming more sophisticated, and are opting to buy more premium products which are fueling the value growth of these sectors. This presents brand-new opportunities for both international and domestic players," said Jason Yu, general manager of Kantar Worldpanel China.

Dabao, a brand acquired by Johnson & Johnson, leads Kantar's 2016 Cosmetic Brand Footprint ranking, which measures which brands are being bought most often by the most consumers.

Daobao products were chosen by 23.1 percent of the population, on average twice a year.

Pechoin occupies second place and was the fastest riser in terms of consumer touch points, adding more than 3.6 million families to its brand over the last 12 months.

The double-digit growth of the cosmetic sector was mostly driven by trading up, which accounted for 82 percent of market growth, said the report.

Despite strong growth in the cosmetics market, the competitive landscape in China also went through rapid transformation, the report said.

Among all the 4,000 brands tracked by Kantar Worldpanel, only 40 percent of them saw an increase in net sales.

Among the top 20 growing brands in the market, a rise in penetration accounted for 78 percent of their collective growth, proving that the continual recruitment of shoppers is the key way to grow sales.

Aside from Pechoin, Hans, Innisfree, Dr. Morita and Shiseido also managed to grow their consumer reach faster than the other players.

South Korean Amorepacific Group Inc, which owns brands including Innisfree, had its revenue in China grown from 464 billion South Korean won ($0.42 billion) in 2014 to 765 billion South Korean won in 2015, according to its annual financial report for the year ended Dec 31, 2015.

Yu said: "Consumers today have unprecedented choices available to them thanks to overseas travel and e-commerce, yet the growth of Chinese brands and South Korean/Japanese brands is noticeable.

"While consumers are more ready to trade up, those brands which advocate health, efficacy and fun are winning consumers' choices, on the back of unique product and marketing innovation as well as smart Omni-Channel deployment. "

The report also found out that consumers are embracing natural and safe product concepts. Successful brands differentiate themselves by advocating new concepts, benefits and usage occasions, as well as pure and natural ingredients.
BEIJING - Billionaire investor George Soros was found to have invested in China's fifth biggest State-owned lender, which raised a public uproar as many still remembered that Soros has never stopped bad-mouthing China's economy.

The dramatic scenario taught investors a lesson that judging Chinese economy needs to keep a cool headed mind for an objective conclusion rather than believing in the interest-driven Soros. To benefit from Chinese economic transition, investors should abandon the habit of being a copycat, and instead cultivate the ability of judging and behaving independently.

In fact, China's economic fundamentals for long-term economic growth remain sound no matter how foreign forces with ulterior motives hype up China's economic weakness.

For the longer term, the Chinese economy has intrinsic tenacity, huge potential and ample leeway, as Chinese government has been persisting with a proactive fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy, while pushing the supply-side structural reforms.

For the near term, both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have said that China's economic outlook is positive, with an expected growth rate as high as 6.6 percent this year, which is only a dream for many countries to achieve.

To lead the market for the benefit of himself and achieve profitability, it is understandable that the billionaire creates a volatile atmosphere and misleads other investors. The gap between his words and deeds depend on the rule and regulation of the investment market, and is also based on China's economic fundamentals.

Meanwhile, the complexity and diversity, which are rooted in the economic transition where engines are iterating and dynamics are changing, may have confused those "super players," making them lag behind changeable situations.

On the other hand, China's economic transition from traditional to new engines takes time. China's economy faces such problems such as high and rising corporate debts, structural excess capacity and an increasingly large, opaque and interconnected financial sector. However, China is not facing a banking crisis, and still sees a high ratio of funding from deposit.

Moreover, the Chinese leadership is determined to conduct the reform, the fiscal and financial sectors have ample tools and resources to apply, and the Chinese economy enjoys great room for maneuver and endogenous dynamic.

In such a context, China's economy will never be reduced to a wonderland for speculators and adventurers. Only those visionaries who are good at discovering new economies and exploring new dynamics can grasp opportunities and share prosperity arising from the Chinese growth.
Hong Kong stocks rose for a third day as energy companies surged after OPEC agreed to a preliminary deal that will cut output for the first time in eight years. At the same time, property developers retreated.

The Hang Seng Index climbed 0.5 percent at the close. CNOOC Ltd and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp advanced at least 4 percent, while China Oilfield Services Ltd jumped the most since October, after US crude held near $47 a barrel. A gauge of real estate companies dropped 0.4 percent, led by China Resources Land Co. Hsin Chong Group Holdings Ltd plunged by a record as shares resumed trading after Anonymous Analytics rated it a "strong sell." The Shanghai Composite Index advanced 0.4 percent.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to trim production following an informal meeting in Algiers. Concern over a global glut has weighed on crude prices for at least the past two years. The Hang Seng Index has gained 14 percent this quarter, Asia's biggest advance, as mainland inflows swelled via an exchange link with Shanghai and traders scaled back bets for higher US borrowing costs. Mainland markets will be shut next week for holidays.

"In the short term oil prices will support energy stocks," said Sam Chi Yung, senior strategist at South China Financial Holdings Ltd in Hong Kong. "Since China holidays are coming up and the stock connect is closed, Hong Kong market's turnover will be slow in general."

The Hang Seng Index rose to 23,739.47, while the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index climbed 0.8 percent, extending its quarterly gain to 12 percent.

The Shanghai Composite Index has advanced just 2.4 percent in the period. Trading volume on the CSI 300 Index was 37 percent below the 30-day average for this time of day.

Net buying of Hong Kong shares through a link with Shanghai totaled 58.7 billion yuan ($8.8 billion) this month, compared with purchases of just 1.75 billion yuan in the other direction. That's helped narrow a valuation gap between dual-listed shares in Hong Kong and Chinese mainland exchanges to near the smallest since 2014. The connect is closed from today until Oct 11.

The Shanghai Composite will end the year at 3,075, according to the median forecast in a poll of 10 strategists and fund managers. That implies a 13 percent drop over the 12-month period, the steepest in five years, and a gain of 2.9 percent from Wednesday's close. Fading prospects for monetary easing, a slowing economy and the risk of higher US borrowing costs spurring yuan weakness were among the factors weighing on the nation's shares, the survey showed.

Bloomberg
BEIJING - China will substantially improve its shale gas yield in the next decade and beyond, according to official guidelines.

Annual output is expected to reach 30 billion cubic meters by 2020 and then jump to a range of 80 to 100 billion cubic meters in another ten years, according to a document released by the National Energy Administration (NEA) Friday.

The goal represents a huge increase from the current level, 4.5 billion cubic meters last year, according to NEA data.

To realize this ambition, China will ramp up government subsidies, introduce more investors to the cash-starved sector and encourage cooperation with foreign companies in advanced prospecting technology.

China's exploitable shale gas reserves are estimated at 21.8 trillion cubic meters, with 544.1 billion cubic meters discovered.

Currently, only the United States, Canada, China and Argentina commercially produce shale gas.

The world's biggest energy producer and consumer, China is promoting the use of clean energy for greener growth.

The government has vowed to increase the proportion of natural gas used in its energy consumption to more than 10 percent from the current 5.9 percent. The global average is 24 percent.
View of a logo of Alipay, the mobile payment service of Alibaba Group, in a hotel in Nantong city, EastChina's Jiangsu province, May 21, 2016. [Photo/IC]

International airports have become the new battlefield for the country's top internet companies as they gear up for over-seas expansion by providing Chinese outbound travelers with more e-wallet services.

The timing is ideal, as millions of tourists pack their bags right before the National Day holiday, from Oct 1 to 7.

China's online search giant Baidu Inc announced on Thursday a partnership with Israeli startup Travelers Box to provide a convenient way for Chinese travelers to exchange their unused foreign money before returning home.

Through the service, travelers can choose to credit their Baidu Wallet accounts by depositing money at Travelers-Box kiosks at airports in some of the most popular countries for Chinese tourists, including Japan, Italy and Canada.

The service, which charges 7 percent of the total deposit as a service and exchange fee, is available at five international airports, with six more by year's end.

Whitney Yan, a Baidu spokeswoman, said the service will save people the trouble of taking their spare foreign money home, then having to exchange it into yuan.

"Sometimes, you don't want to waste your spare money buying goods you don't really want. If you don't have time to go to a bank, the money is likely to sit in your drawer," she said. Li Chao, an analyst with iResearch Consulting Group, said that the rising number of Chinese outbound travelers and their increasing spending overseas are only part of the reason companies are looking to airports for business.

"Fierce competition has dragged down the profits of digital payment services in China. Looking abroad is in line with their internationalization strategy and the goal to be more profitable. And the best way to start is with Chinese outbound travelers," he said.

Alipay, China's largest online payment service, struck a deal on Tuesday with 10 overseas airports to introduce its payment services starting in October. Included are airports in Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand and Thailand. The company said it will include more services at airports in the future.
Apple CEO Tim Cook looks at Apple watches being worn by Chinese fitness students in Beijing, on August 16, 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Apple Inc has set up its first Chinese research and development center in Wangjing area of Beijing, with registered capital of 100 million yuan ($14.99 million), as the US tech giant wrestles with tumbling smartphone sales and mounting competition from local rivals.

The R&D unit will have about 500 employees and its total investment will eventually reach 300 million yuan, according to the official WeChat account of the administrative committee of Zhongguancun Science Park.

Apple declined to comment on the story. The news came shortly after Tim Cook visited Beijing in August, promising to open its first independently operated R&D center in China by the year end.

The unit will focus on developing computers, softwares, audio and video devices as well as other consumer electronics, for Apple's customers in China and around the world.

Zhongguancun Science Park, located in Beijing, is arguably the most intensive scientific, education and talent resource base in China. It boasts almost 40 premier universities and colleges such as Peking University and Tsinghua University, as well as more than 200 scientific institutions.

Nicole Peng, research director at Shanghai-based consultancy Canalys, said the move marked a significant change in Apple's perception of the China market.

"China is no longer just a big buyer of its consumer electronics products. As the country makes big strides in the internet and information technology, it becomes an important part of Apple's global research and development efforts," Peng said.

Also, China has become a trendsetter in many aspects and the analysis of Chinese consumers' preferences and usage habits can now reflect a broader trend among Asian buyers, she added.

In May, Apple pumped $1 billion into Didi Chuxing, China's largest ride-hailing platform.

During his latest visits to Beijing, Tim Cook also held extensive meetings with app developers, highlighting the firm's recognition of China's research capabilities.

Jin Di, research manager at International Data Corp China, said the R&D center is a well-calculated step to improve the localization of its products as local brands Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and Oppo catch up quickly.

"Chinese consumers are highly fragmented. A local R&D team can help Apple better understand local players' product and marketing strategies and keep track of what is going on in the rapidly changing market."

Apple launched its latest iPhone earlier this month, but IDC forecast that the iPhone 7 will not be a huge hit in China given that it has few features which can resonate with local consumers.

In the quarter ended in June, Apple saw a 33 percent drop in sales in China, marking its highest decline in all regions, while domestic brands Huawei and Oppo saw surges in shipments of 15 percent and 124 percent, respectively.


Visitors try out a Blackberry smartphone at an expo in Bangalore, India.[Photo/Agencies]

It's official. BlackBerry Ltd, the Canadian company that invented the smartphone and addicted legions of road warriors to the "CrackBerry", has stopped making its iconic handsets.

Finally conceding defeat in a battle lost long ago to Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, BlackBerry is handing over production of the phones to overseas partners and turning its full attention to the more profitable and growing software business.

It's the formalization of a move in the making since Chief Executive Officer John Chen took over nearly three years ago and outsourced some manufacturing to Foxconn Technology Group.

Getting the money-losing smartphone business off BlackBerry's books will also make it easier for the company to consistently hit profitability.

"This is the completion of their exit," said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners. "Chen is a software CEO historically. He's getting back to what he knows best: higher margins and recurring revenue."

Chen should be able to execute his software strategy as long as he keeps costs in line and maintains cash on the balance sheet, Gillis said.

BlackBerry said it struck a licensing agreement with an Indonesian company to make and distribute branded devices. More deals are in the works with Chinese and Indian manufacturers. It will still design smartphone applications and an extra-secure version of Alphabet Inc's Android operating system.

"I think the market has spoken and I'm just listening," Chen said in a discussion with journalists. "You have to evolve to what your strength is and our strength is actually in the software and enterprise and security."

The new strategy will improve margins and could actually increase the number of BlackBerry-branded phones sold, Chen said, as manufacturers license the name that still holds considerable sway in emerging markets like Indonesia, South Africa and Nigeria.

Bloomberg
It's hard to imagine now what it must have been like to be a Red Army soldier on the Long March.

Two years of effort, struggle and sacrifice ultimately succeeded in allowing the armies of the Communist Party of China to make their grand plan of a strategic shift a reality.

But the victory came at a terrible cost, with barely more than a quarter of those who began the march making it to the end.

I was invited to retrace the steps of those soldiers through Sichuan province, and as I was whisked along in one of four air-conditioned buses on smooth, modern highways, through tunnels and over bridges, it was easy to underestimate what was required of them 80 years ago.

Even as I looked out, on our first day, across the river at Anshun, where those tired soldiers - already eight months into their journey - had packed themselves into ancient boats to cross the raging torrent, I found it hard to visualize how much they must have suffered for their cause.

But suffer they did, especially at this point in the mass tactical shift, because although they ultimately succeeded in traversing the province, Sichuan proved costly to the army, both in terms of time and lives.

Countless hundreds died from the exertion required and the battles they fought as they passed through the rough, unforgiving terrain to be reunited with their comrades - so many, in fact, that an authoritative figure for the death toll doesn't exist, even now.

It's thought that at least 370 soldiers from Sichuan's Aba prefecture were killed, yet the army beat on - circling through the mountains and striking further north to the relative safety in Northwest China.

It was only on the third day of our trip, following in the footsteps of those brave soldiers, that some small part of the suffering they endured finally came home to me.

We had been driving for almost two hours through a cold September morning up a steep, winding mountain track that was eaten away by landslips from below and strewn with boulders from above. As we climbed ever higher, the clouds descended around us until all that could be seen ahead or to the side was a blanket of white.

When we finally reached the summit of Jiajin Mountain, 4,114 meters above sea level, we clambered out of our bus into the thin air. Snow dusted the ground, and it was only thanks to a thick, woolen sweater and some short, sharp blasts on a can of supplemental oxygen that I was able to avoid feeling dizzy.

It was at this moment, in the bitter cold, that I first began to truly appreciate what those Red Army troops went through.

In all, those tens of thousands of soldiers crossed dozens of mountain ranges like this one to reach their final destination.

And as I stood looking out across the windswept peaks, the torment they had endured was finally revealed to me.

What a relief it must have been, I thought, for those troops to finally reach the grassland that rounded off our trip.

Their determination, heroism and courage formed the basis of the modern China we know today.

And just as in the West, where we remember the many who gave their lives in both World Wars to ensure that future generations would not live under tyranny, China rightly remembers its heroes of the Long March, whose bitter struggles would ultimately help build a better tomorrow.

(China Daily 09/28/2016 page6)
The checklist of things that hotels, restaurants, museums, airports and other tourism-related businesses in Washington, DC, should provide to attract Chinese tourists includes accepting China UnionPay and having Chinese social media accounts, free Wi-Fi and smoking rooms.

On Tuesday, representatives from the tourism industry and related businesses across the greater DC area gathered at a conference focusing on the Chinese tourism market, on the eve of the weeklong National Day holiday.

The conference, hosted by marketing organization Destination DC, was also part of the Welcome China program initiated recently by Destination DC to help the area to better accommodate Chinese visitors.

Through the program, local businesses can earn Welcome China certification by meeting at least three of a list of 12 requirements in a particular category. The requirements include providing Mandarin-speaking staff, Chinese subtitles on videos and audio tours in Chinese.

"This is our first entrance into a certification program, so we're going to do a lot to promote the program out to the customers," said Theresa Belpulsi, vice-president of tourism and visitor services at Destination DC.

About 2.6 million Chinese visited the United States last year. Washington, DC, with record arrivals of about 300,000 visitors from China last year, has witnessed a 635 percent growth in Chinese visitors over the past 10 years, according to Scott Johnson, president of Travel Marketing Insights.

"One out of every nine Chinese visitors that comes to the United States actually comes to Washington," said Elliott Ferguson, president of Destination DC. "So not only are we trying to grow the number of Chinese coming to Washington, but also the number coming to the United States."

"Clearly, China is going to outpace all other markets in the next five years," Johnson said, showing a graphic projecting that Chinese arrivals will increase by 96 percent over the next five years.

The goal is to attract about 500,000 Chinese visitors annually by 2020, according to Belpulsi.

Mavis Zhang, vice-president of SinoMedia, noted an increase in younger, repeat and independent travelers.

Last year, Chinese visitors spent an average of $10,300 in the United States.

Yuan Yuan in Washington contributed to this story.
The body of a female victim was retrieved by rescuers after a rain-triggered landslide hit a village in East China's Zhejiang province, authorities said on Thursday.

Later, the bodies of a child of 6 or 7 years of age and an elderly person were recovered as rescuers raced against time to dig out survivors.

Rescuers and a sniffer dog search for survivors at the landslide site in Suichang county, Zhejiang province, on Thursday.[Lin Yunling/For China Daily]

As of Thursday evening, 13 people had been rescued and about 20 were missing after the landslide caused by Typhoon Megi hit Sucun village in Lishui at about 5:30 pm on Wednesday, the local government said.

A Sucun villager surnamed Zhan, who is 25 and seven months pregnant, was having dinner with her family when the landslide slammed into her house and swallowed her daughter and parents-in-law.

Lin Juxiang, 72, was helping her 78-year-old husband, whose right foot was injured, limp toward safety. Then Lin suddenly heard her neighbor Zhan's cry for help.

"You are hurt and can't help," Lin told her husband. "You be safe. I will meet you after I save her." She used a bamboo stick to reach out to Zhan and pulled her to safety.

Zhan's left leg was fractured, so Lin became her crutch. As they were fleeing, Lin saw the mudslide coming toward them, so they climbed to safety atop a large boulder. Two hours later, the rescue team found them neck deep in mud and water.

"I was going to save her. If I had just one breath left, I would still save her," Lin said.

After being reunited with her husband at the hospital in Suichang county, Zhan went to the intensive care unit, while Lin rested in a hospital bed. They were in stable condition on Thursday.

Zhan and her husband and Lin were among the 13 people rescued from the landslide, which buried 20 houses and flooded 17 others with about 400,000 cubic meters of debris.

Among the missing was a township cadre who was helping villagers relocate, said Zhou Ruichen, the deputy county mayor.

Villager Zheng Quanwei, 56, who was having dinner about 200 meters away from the scene, said: "I heard a loud noise and rushed outside. It was getting dark, but I could see some collapsed houses on the hillside. I couldn't help but burst into tears."

Villager Su Guohong, 58, fled in such a hurry that he lost one of his shoes. "The rocks were flowing down like water. The road split in front of me," he said.

Pan Zhaoxiang abandoned her housework and ran up the mountain with a group of people. They didn't dare to come down until 7:30 pm on Wednesday.

"When I left my home, I saw two cars being washed into the river. Some people were shouting 'Help!' I am still so scared now," she said.

The local government issued the highest-level environmental hazard response immediately after the landslide. By Thursday, 1,200 rescuers from 10 special disaster relief groups had joined the rescue effort to perform a range of duties, from operating excavators to delivering supplies, the local government said.

"Life is paramount, every second counts," the Suichang county government said on its website. More than 1,460 local residents had been relocated to safer areas as of Thursday morning.

At the site of the disaster, rocks continued to tumble down the mountain, creating barrier lakes.

More than 100 people were resettled in a temporary relocation site in a nearby village. Many villagers from Sucun are elders whose children are studying or working in cities.

By Thursday, Typhoon Megi had swept through 97 counties in Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces, forcing 590,000 people to relocate and causing 2.6 billion yuan ($390 million) in direct economic losses, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

The typhoon weakened into a tropical depression as it went deeper into China. However, Typhoon Chaba was en route to East Asia and may hit China and Japan in the next week, the China Meteorological Administration said.

Xinhua contributed to this story.
Tourists visit the Bund in Shanghai on Tuesday. It is among 98 sites on the 20the-Century Chinese Architechtural Heritage List.[Yan Daming/For China Daily]

Expert says architects' spirit worthy of saving for later generations

A national list of architectural masterpieces was released in Beijing on Thursday to remind people of disappearing heritage.

Ninety-eight sites were inscribed into the first edition of the 20th-Century Chinese Architectural Heritage List, which was drafted by the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics and the Architectural Society of China.

Landmark architecture of New China, like the Great Hall of the People and the Monument to the People's Heroes, ranked high on the list.

Renowned Western-style architecture from the early 20th century was also included, such as the Bund in Shanghai; the Russian-style Saint Sofia Cathedral in Harbin, Heilongjiang, and Tianjin's Marco Polo Square, a former Italian community.

College campuses host another major type of architecture. Old buildings at Tsinghua University, Nanjing University and Wuhan University are among the examples.

"Many of the included structures have abundant stories and are witnesses of historical vicissitude, and they are thus alive," said Shan Jixiang, head of the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics. "However, more historical communities from the 20th century outside the list are endangered."

He added that the new list will make people aware of preserving more recent architectural sites for future generations.

"When restoring them, they should be treated as cultural heritage sites rather than general construction. Otherwise, historical information will be irreversibly lost," he said.

As an architect, Shan criticized the way China became a playground for foreign designers' maverick blueprints in the first decade of the 21st century.

"Masterpieces of the 20th century prove that Chinese architects' spirit and techniques are well inherited," he said. "And they deserve to be passed on to modern times."

"The list shows that a new type has been added into categories of immovable cultural heritage sites," said Gu Yucai, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. "This meets common practice in the rest of world."

Still, Ma Guoxin, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, pointed to the lack of sufficient legal oversight to protect the heritage of the last century.

"There is a void in legislation concerning these sites, and a tailored rule is urgently needed to avoid further sabotage," Ma said.
China understands and supports Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's fight against drug crimes and would like to work out a joint action plan with its Asian neighbor in the campaign, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a news briefing in Beijing on Thursday.

"Illicit drugs are the common enemy of mankind. Fighting against all drug-related crimes is a shared responsibility of all countries," he said.

Duterte's war against illegal drugs has been criticized by the United States and the European Union since the Philippine president took office.

Duterte will visit Beijing on Oct 20 and 21, according to the Philippine Star newspaper, and is expected to seek China's cooperation in his campaign against illegal drugs.

The Foreign Ministry has not yet confirmed the exact date, but said that China is looking forward to a visit by Duterte as soon as possible.

"We have expressed welcome for President Duterte on many occasions," Geng said at an earlier briefing.

Chen Qinghong, a researcher in Southeast Asian and Philippine studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said the two countries have found common ground for cracking down on drug crimes, calling such cooperation a "natural development".
The police in Kunming, Yunnan province, arrested a 25-year-old man suspected of killing 19 people aged 3 to 72, in a remote southwestern village on Thursday afternoon.

The Ministry of Public Security sent a team to investigate the case along with local authorities.

Few details are known since the investigation is in its early stages, but the provincial public security authority said it did not involve terrorism.

Yunnan provincial public security authorities confirmed that 19 villagers from Yema village, Huize county, Qujing city - including four children - were found dead on Thursday morning. The victims were from six families.

The suspected killer, Yang Qingpei, a resident of the village, was arrested at 2 pm on Thursday in Kunming, about 200 kilometers away from the where the crime occurred, the city police said.

Though no official details about motives were released, an anonymous source claiming to be the suspect's student told Chengdu Business Daily that the victims were relatives of Yang, including his uncles.

Yang is married and has worked in Kunming for years, but has been in debt as a result of gambling, the source said, adding that he intended to borrow money from his relatives but was rejected and killed them on Wednesday night.
A photo taken on Sept 29 shows the catering services area, an area renovated from an ancient icehouse in the newly opened part of Museum Palace in Beijing. [Photo/VCG]

Tourists who plan to visit Beijing's Palace Museum during the National Day holiday are lucky as mysterious parts of it will be opened to public for the first time on Thursday, according to chinanews.cn.

New historical sites, including a bridge and trees planted in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), will be seen for the first time by the public.

In the newly opened area, an ancient icehouse is in its last stage of renovation for catering services and will be put into use soon. And a VR studio is available for reservation of students' group.

It's reported that the opening area of the Palace Museum will reach 76% of its total area by the end of this year, 11% up from last year, thanks to a series of new measures.
A paper used during the labor process tells the patient about the beginning of the procedure and how to cooperate with doctors. [Photo/thepaper.cn]

Labor pain is one of the most unbearable experiences in the world so many women take the help of doctors to get through the ordeal. But how do doctors guide and instruct a woman who cannot speak or hear? Well, doctors in Shanghai found an answer that's not exactly pathbreaking, but nevertheless effective.

At 7:44 pm on Sept 20, the staff of Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University successfully helped a 30-year-old deaf-mute woman give birth to a girl by writing down all encouraging words and instructions on paper, thepaper.cn reported on Thursday.

The paper carries instructions about the labor process. [Photo/thepaper.cn]

The patient was admitted in the morning, but her inability to convey her feelings or hear the doctors made the labor process difficult both for her and the staff. What made it even more painful was that she had lumbar operations twice before, which meant she could not be administered anesthesia as there was a risk of injuring her nerves.

"Painless labor was more dangerous for her. But that meant she had to be tougher in the next 10 or so hours," said Mao Liping, head nurse of the maternity ward, who came up with the idea of using written notes.

"The operation didn't start until she smiled when the anesthetist asked her to cheer up," she said.

The paper highlights the word "push" and uses smaller font size for "when you feel the pain" and "cheer up". [Photo/thepaper.cn]

After 13 hours of efforts by both the woman and the hospital staff, the doctor concluded that the baby would arrive at 7:15 pm, so the staff decided to ask a sign language expert to temporarily join the team. The translator quickly wrote down all the instructions given by midwife Zhou Chunxian, and also explained them through sign language.

Through the whole process, dozens of papers were used to relay the doctors' orders. They even highlighted some words to help the patient understand the procedure.

"Effective communication was the key to the safe delivery of this baby and trust and understanding between the two parts was also indispensable," said Mao.
Visitors take a selfie with the Victoria Harbor in background in Hong Kong, Sept 22, 2016. [Photo/VCG]

With the National Day holiday (Oct 1Oct 7), or the Golden Week, around the corner, Hong Kong is geared up to welcome mainland tourists, reported Xinhua News Agency on Thursday.

The border crossing and police departments will step up patrol of shops exclusively receiving tour groups from the mainland, with major attractions to open longer to cater to tourists during the Golden Week.

The Hong Kong SAR Government will send more staff to border crossing facilities to coordinate transport and facilitate customs clearance during the holiday week.

According to Hong Kong Tourism Board, the number of mainland visitors going to Hong Kong fell for 12 months before a brief rebound in July.

To reverse the trend, the tourism industry is taking measures to offer better services to mainland tourists and better safeguard their rights.

The Hong Kong Travel Industry Council will send more staff to patrol commercial districts and answer phone inquiries from visitors on time.

Major attractions are also introducing measures to attract mainland visitors.

Hong Kong Disneyland is selling three-day pass priced at 755 yuan ($113) for visitors from neighboring Guangdong province from Sept 15 to Oct 31, while the Ocean Park has teamed up with social networking platforms, such as weibo, to promote its Halloween activities.

As tourists from Chinese mainland now have so many choices, the number of mainland tourists to Hong Kong will drop during the National Day holiday, Joseph Tung Yiu-chung, the executive director of the HKTIC, told Xinhua.

The city will receive 200 tour groups from the mainland everyday during the holiday week, down about 30 percent year-on-year, projected HKTIC Chairman Jason Wong Chun-tat.

As for individual tourists, booking data from Ctrip, a leading online travel agency in China, indicate that Seoul has beaten Hong Kong to become the number one overseas destination for this coming golden week.

Despite the squeeze felt in the tourism industry, Joseph Tung Yiu-chung said Hong Kong is still appealing to mainland visitors because of its proximity to the mainland, convenient shopping experiences, and the same language and food shared with the mainland.
Top officials affirm commitment to openness and engagement with world on eve of nation's 67th birthday

President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and other top leaders arrive to attend a National Day reception at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday. PHOTOS BY FENG YONGBIN / CHINA DAILY

Top leaders signaled China's growing openness to the outside world and reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining peace on Friday, the eve of the National Day holiday.

On Friday, leaders including President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang embarked on a series of events and meetings in Beijing, including a ceremony honoring martyrs, a grand reception and meetings with foreign guests.

As he met with leading foreign experts working in China who received this year's Friendship Award, Li noted that China is ready to welcome more talent from abroad as the country becomes more open and inclusive.

On Thursday, Vice-Premier Ma Kai conferred medals on the 50 foreign experts and praised their contribution to the country's development at an awards ceremony in Beijing.

Li observed that the foreign experts in China include both young and old, and the combination of their brainpower and great experience could "help yield a greater boost to China's modernization process and world peace and development".

He said China is offering greater openness, inclusiveness and convenience for outstanding foreign talent, and the country will speed up facilitation of their application for a permanent residence permit.

Li and others also greeted foreign ambassadors and envoys assuming their new offices in China. Li said China is committed to peace and development, and will join hands with countries to "achieve robust, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth".

As the leaders attended a reception on Friday evening, Li, in a speech, reiterated China's concept of "building the community of shared destiny".

Su Ge, president of China Institute of International Studies, noted that China's diplomacy this year has demonstrated greater readiness to contribute to global governance, including hosting the G20 Leaders Summit in early September.

"China's tangible actions are showing to the world that it is a contributor and a mover for world peace, common development and international cooperation," Su said.

Earlier Friday morning, leaders joined veterans, family members of martyrs and representatives from all walks of life gathered at the Monument to the People's Heroes at Tian'anmen Square.

They attended a ceremony to honor deceased national heroes on the annual Martyrs' Day.

Friday marked the third Martyrs' Day on the eve of the National Day, since China's legislature approved Sept 30 as Martyrs' Day in 2014.

A red carpet covered paths surrounding the monument, and attendees presented flowers in memory of the people's heroes.

This year is also the 80th anniversary of the Long March, a famous military maneuver carried out by the Red Army of the Communist Party of China in the early 1930s.

Contact the writer at zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn

Xinhua contributed to this story.
Fancy a Kindle? Take the Long March quiz

It's difficult to fathom, but the Long March began when 86,000 Red Army soldiers somehow snuck out of the besieged Jiangxi province, with Nationalist leaders being none the wiser.

It's said it took Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek up to three weeks to learn of the retreat - apparently because sentries turned a blind eye, still hedging their bets on who would be victorious in China's bloody civil war.

I share his pain.

Eighty-two years on, finding an army veteran - particularly for a foreigner - is no easy task.

It's quite an important prerequisite when producing a video about the Long March, so you can understand my relief as we're given the chance to speak to a survivor on day one of the six-week media tour.

Ahh, the naivety.

A press conference with 101-year-old Wang Chengdeng begins promisingly enough. A band of adoring local reporters fire questions, as Wang - decked out in a Red Army uniform - eats up the limelight, barely taking a breath as he seemingly recalls his life story.

As it wraps up, I turn to my Chinese colleague. "So was that good stuff?" I ask, all-but-certain of a positive response.

"Haha, no. We can't use any of that," he replies.

I'm confused: "What do you mean? Was there a problem with the shot? Bad audio?"

"No," he tells me. "I couldn't understand a thing he was saying."

It turns out I wasn't the only one. In fact, it takes some work before we find someone who could  to an extent.

Such is the nature of China's swathe of regional dialects.

It may all look the same to a fresh-off-the-plane foreigner, but the places here - and its people - can differ dramatically. Even if they are just a two-hour flight apart.

Fast forward to the last day of the tour, and my luck hasn't improved. Now in Wuqi, in north-west China's Shaanxi province, I'm about to return to Beijing with a video about China's civil war that has too much of me, and little of who matters.

Enter 95-year-old Wang Fang - a soldier who fought in China's war against the Japanese, during which the Communists and Nationalists briefly formed an unlikely alliance amid World War II.

He's here - medal around his neck - for the media tour's closing ceremony. We pounce.

"So  can we use that?" I ask my new Chinese colleague after the interview.

"Yeah we can!" she tells me. "We'll need to check with someone who knows this dialect, though.

"I understood about 30-40 per cent."

And I thought Beijing was hard
Stacy Julius from South Africa has been studying in China for 10 years and she is still curious about Chinese culture and cities.

When she had a bird's eye view of the container terminal at Dalian Port, one of the busiest ports in China, she was excited.

"How can we enjoy tax exemption in bonded areas? Are the logistics convenient?" The 28-year-old student kept asking questions in Chinese during her visit to the Jinpu New Area, a state-level new area in Liaoning province, on June 17.

Julius is studying her inter-national trade doctorate at Dongbei University of Finance and Economics.

She now speaks fluent Chinese. If people listen to her without seeing her face, they might think they are talking with a Chinese local.

She likes to be called by her Chinese name and introduces herself by using the Chinese zodiac system.

"My name is Zhu Siwen. I was born in 1988 and my Chinese zodiac is dragon." She is satisfied with that name and often explains every word patiently. "Zhu means the jewelry that South Africa produces, Si reminds me of learning to think, and Wen is cultural transmission."

Julius loves the city of Dalian because of its beautiful environment, convenient traffic and good social security.

"People are nice," she added, explaining that she has lost her mobile phone several times and every time people have returned it to her.

And her favorite, of course, is the Chinese food, especially the delicious seafood in Dalian.

"Chinese food is my happy trouble. I have gained 10 kg since I first came to China, though I kept playing volleyball and badminton," said Julius.

In March 2006, when Julius graduated from high school in South Africa, she was sent to a language university in Beijing to study Chinese for a semester.

She came to study in China due to her father's suggestion. Her father is a foreign trade merchant who visited China with then-President Nelson Mandela in 1999. When he returned to South Africa, he told Julius and her brother that China is a great country, and they both should learn Chinese.

"In the beginning, I planned to study in China for a semester but now I have been here for over 10 years," she said.

Julius became very interested in China's 5,000-year civilization.

"After that semester, I fell in love with China and was reluctant to go back so soon." She eagerly found ways to stay and learned about a scholarship for international students that is supported by the Chinese government on the Internet. Her application was approved.

Her brother is studying for his master's degree in Music in Shenyang at present and her parents often come to China to do business.

"Currently, the economy of Northeast China is facing downward pressure, but I'm optimistic about the future. When I get my doctorate, I'll definitely stay here," said Julius.

Stacy Julius (left) hosts a graduation ceremony for overseas students at Dongbei University of Finance and Economics on June 22.Liu Xiaodong / For China Daily

(China Daily 09/30/2016 page6)
Conclusion does not assign blame but says the Boeing 777 was shot down by a BUK missile system

Moscow on Wednesday described as "biased" and "politically motivated" the Dutch-led inquiry into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, which concluded the plane was shot down by a missile transported from Russia.

"Russia is disappointed that the situation around the investigation of the Boeing catastrophe is not changing," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.

"The conclusions of Dutch prosecutors confirm that the investigation is biased and politically motivated," she said.

She accused the Joint Investigative Taskforce of "arbitrarily designating a guilty party and inventing the desired results".

The task force presented its findings on Wednesday after a two-year investigation into the crash of Flight MH17, which killed all 298 people on board in July 2014.

The conclusion did not assign blame but said the Boeing 777 was shot down by a BUK missile system from an area in eastern Ukraine controlled by militias, and that the system was brought in from Russia and then taken back there.

The ministry statement said the task force "excluded Moscow from fully participating in the investigation process" while embracing Ukraine as a "full member of the JIT" and giving Kiev an opportunity to "falsify evidence and twist the case in its favor".

"Russia is practically the only (party) that sends true information and discloses more and more new data," the statement said.

Yet the "whole 'body of evidence' of the Dutch prosecutors was provided by Ukraine," it said.

The task force said on Wednesday that Moscow had only provided part of the information that it had requested.

Families of the victims, about two-thirds of whom were Dutch, were told of investigators' findings at a closed-door meeting earlier Wednesday.

The United States welcomed on Wednesday the preliminary results of the inquiry, saying it supported Washington's suspicions of Russian involvement.

Washington was quick to blame Ukrainian militias after downing, despite angry denials from Moscow.

Russia's Defense Ministry on Monday released what it claimed were new radar images showing that there was no missile fired from rebel-held territory on that day, which contradicted some of its earlier declarations.

Russia's Almaz-Antey missile maker, which produces BUK surface-to-air systems, said in a briefing on Wednesday that the inquiry did not include its findings.

The state-controlled firm last October alleged the plane was downed from disputed territory by an outdated version of the BUK missile that is no longer in use by the Russian military.

Dutch prosecutors said they only received Almaz-Antey's data this month and did not find that it outweighed the probe's conclusions.

A Malaysian investigator inspects the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, near the village of Hrabove (Grabovo) in Donetsk region, Ukraine, on July 22, 2014.Maxim Zmeyev / Reuters

(China Daily 09/30/2016 page11)
US Congress rejects a call by Barack Obama not to move forward with the proposed law

Congress on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected President Barack Obama's veto of legislation allowing relatives of the victims of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, the first veto override of his presidency, just four months before it ends.

The House of Representatives voted 348-77 against the veto, hours after the Senate rejected it 97-1, meaning the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act will become law.

The vote was a blow to Obama as well as to Saudi Arabia, one of the United States' longest-standing allies in the Arab world, and some lawmakers who sup-ported the override already plan to revisit the issue.

Obama said he thought the Congress had made a mis-take, reiterating his belief that the legislation set a dangerous precedent and indicating that he thought political considerations were behind the vote.

"If you're perceived as voting against 9/11 families right before an election, not surprisingly, that's a hard vote for people to take. But it would have been the right thing to do," he said on CNN.

Obama's 11 previous vetoes were all sustained. But this time almost all his strongest Democratic supporters in Congress joined Republicans to oppose him in one of their last actions before leaving Washington to campaign for the Nov 8 election.

Veto overrided

"Overriding a presidential veto is something we don't take lightly, but it was important in this case that the families of the victims of 9/11 be allowed to pursue justice, even if that pursuit causes some diplomatic discomforts," Senator Charles Schumer, a top Senate Democrat, said in a statement.

Schumer represents New York, site of the World Trade Center and home to many of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks, survivors and families of victims.

The law, known as JASTA, passed the House and Senate without objections earlier this year.

Support was fueled by impatience in Congress with Saudi Arabia over its human rights record, promotion of a severe form of Islam tied to militancy and failure to do more to ease the international refugee crisis.

The law grants an exception to the legal principle of sovereign immunity in cases of terrorism on US soil, clearing the way for lawsuits seeking damages from the Saudi government.

Riyadh has denied long-standing suspicions that it backed the hijackers who attacked the United States in 2001. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals.

Family members had tied their last push for the bill to the 15th anniversary of the attacks this month, demon-strating outside the White House and Capitol. On Wednesday, two fire trucks displayed a giant US flag out-side the Senate.

"We rejoice in this triumph and look forward to our day in court and a time when we may finally get more answers regarding who was truly behind the attacks, "TerryStrada, whose husband died in the attacks, said in a statement.

(China Daily 09/30/2016 page12)
Historical figures audiences encounter during the performance include Zhang Qian, the first diplomat who was sent by an emperor of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) to visit Central Asia. Photos provided to China Daily

A show which debuted at the first Silk Road Dunhuang International Cultural Expo gives visitors a real-life experience of the region's history. Deng Zhangyu reports from Dunhuang, in Gansu province.

If you want to experience what it feels like to encounter historical figures in the flesh and hear their stories in person, the Encore Dunhuang show is for you. Staged in a desert in Dunhuang, in Gansu province, the show lets you meet, talk to and feel the emotions of figures from Dunhuang's history.

The show lets you encounter characters from 2,000 years ago and from the recent past as welllike the Taoist priest who in 1900 found the Mogao Grottoes full of manuscripts, which are now dispersed in different museums across the world.

Within 90 minutes, members of the audience walk through four rooms in a time-travel-like performance, experiencing key moments from the history of the city, which was once an important stop along the Silk Road, a trade route that was used to transport goods between East and West.

Among the historical figures you encounter are Zhang Qian, the first diplomat who was sent by an emperor of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) to visit Central Asia.

Then, you have an old general, telling his story of how he sent 10 groups of troops to Chang'an, the capital city of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), to inform the emperor that the Silk Road had been revived.

Just like models at a fashion event, the historical figures walk down a ramp while the spectators stand around.
Writer Fang Fang [Photo provided to China Daily]

Author combines perspectives to shed light on difficult times, she tells Mei Jia.

Fang Fang has always been an outspoken voice among the established Chinese writers born in the 1950s.

In her works, she is straightforward in examining life's misery for people living at the bottom, and she is equally direct in criticism of unfairness she perceives in awarding literary prizes, even if that means trouble and even a lawsuit for herself.

"I need to fight for my right to criticize. Though it was just an accidental event ignited by two of my micro blog updates, I was involved and I decided to stay in the battle," says the 61-year-old Wuhan-based writer, who was in Beijing for her new book launch.

Such controversies and "energy-consuming headaches" forced Fang to stop working on her latest novel, Ruan Mai (Bare Burial), for a year before it was released by People's Literature Publishing House last month.

"Bare burial" is a phrase known to few Chinese, especially younger people. It means burying the dead directly in the earth without a coffin, or even without a shroudan indecent act in the minds of traditional Chinese.

Fang first learned the phrase from a longtime friend whose mother has Alzheimer's disease but remembered an old horror. "Don't bury me barely," the woman kept telling her daughter, who bought a decent coffin when her mother was cremated.

Fang was struck by the words. "A folk tale goes that people being barely buried can't go to an afterlife. To me, a living person who refuses past memories is also barely buried in time and history."
The Citroen car on show was once used for an expedition spanning 120,000 kilometers from France to China in 1931. Photos Provided to China Daily

The wind blows away the clouds in a small city in Dunhuang in Northwest China's Gansu province, but it can't douse the passion of visitors swarming into three giant-tower-like buildings looking over rows of dunes, where the first Silk Road Dunhuang International Cultural Expo - the biggest cultural feast in this tourist city of less than 200,000 residents - is being held.

Long lines can be seen outside the entrance to the international exhibition space.

More than 60 countries and regions connected with the ancient Silk Road are presenting their art and cultural shows in the western wing of the three-tower complex, abou the size of an airport.

Sun Xiaonan, along with her 5-year-old son, is there to visit the expo for the second time on Sunday.

They spend a lot of time at the French exhibit taking photos of a miniature Eiffel Tower, examining a Citroen car that was used for an expedition spanning 120,000 kilometers from France to China in 1931, and admiring the antiques and oil paintings brought in from museums in France.

The mother, a local resident who spent 50 yuan for her ticket, says: "My friends and colleagues have all come to visit the expo with their families. It's very fresh and new for me - to understand the culture outside China."

She adds many of the visitors have also flown in from other cities in Gansu province to visit the expo.

The French pavilion is divided into four parts and covers art, culture, architecture and history.
Tang Xianzu (Left) and William Shakespeare [Photo/Xinhua]

To mark the 400th anniversary of the deaths of Tang Xianzu and William Shakespeare, a thematic exhibition opened in China Cultural Center in Brussels on Thursday night.

With the title of "Dialogue Across Time and Space -- Homage to Tang Xianzu and William Shakespeare," the exhibition takes the Tang-Shakespeare conversation as an entry point.

It narrates the life story of Tang and his classics through sections of "The Era and the Legend", "Fantasy and Reality" and "Me@Tang", which lead visitors to a clash and integration of oriental and western cultures.

Virtual Reality (VR) technology has also been used to create an immerse sense of ancient Chinese culture. A lot of visitors itched for a try.

"You know what?! I dreamed to be in China again just now," Dominique Barea, a local resident who has been in Shanghai once, said excitedly: "There is old wooden architecture, delicate decorations, gentle and quiet Kun Qu...It's just cosy!"

Yan Zhenquan, director of the China Cultural Center in Brussels, hosted the opening ceremony of the exhibition. Claire Chantrenne, musicologist and curator of the Asian Collections at the Museum of Music Instruments in Brussels also participated into the ceremony.

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the deaths of Tang Xianzu and William Shakespeare. The exhibition is scheduled to last till October 15.

Related:

Easy Talk: Shakespeare is for all time
Modern people are paying more attention to exercise and many celebrities are leading the trend, while in ancient China there were also many fitness lovers. Let's take a look at some noted figures' fitness stories of the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

A statue of ancient poet Lu You [Photo/IC]

Ancient poet Lu You: chosho

As a noted productive poet, Lu You from the Song Dynasty wrote more than 20,000 poems in his lifetime. The reason why Lu You could write so much poetry was because he was talented, but more importantly, he also lived a long life. According to historical records, he lived to be 85 years old, the longest living poet in the Song Dynasty.

However, Lu You was weak and susceptible to diseases when he was a child. When he took part in the keju imperial examinations as a teenager, he was so sick that he had to stop and hand in the paper in advance. Then how could Lu You live such a long life with such a poor constitution?

Lu joined the military as an adviser in his middle ages and started to exercise his body and learn martial arts. After training for two years, Lu could shoot down a flying eagle using a bow and arrow, and he even killed a tiger.

During his later years, Lu You started the body building called chosho, or shouts, a long and loud cry. Chosho was quite popular in ancient times, which was not roaring or whistling, but an elegant, serious and skillful health method. When ancient people did chosho, they opened their body, breathed in deep and then breathed out in rhyme.

Chosho can help increase vital capacity, relax your body and put you in a good mood. For Lu You, chosho helped him get rid of diseases and medicine. When asked about the secret of his longevity, he said, "After reading so many medical books and eating so many medicines, I find chosho is the most effective way for me."
Steamed shrimp with soy sauce is the most popular dish with visitors. Photos by Yang Feiyue/China Daily

Hangzhou chef shops near and far to serve good food at resort hotel, Yang Feiyue reports.

Chef Hu Chuanqing brings external and local culinary elements together at Hangzhou's Xanadu Resort.

"I believe in serving good food to my guests, whether it's local or not," says the 47-year-old, who's been in the catering business for 25 years. He's now running the kitchen in the Crowne Plaza's Taoyuan Chinese restaurant.

Born in Xiaoshan, an underdeveloped district then in Zhejiang province's Hangzhou, Hu's grasp of catering was deepened when he got a chance to work in Shanghai from 1992 to 1994.

"At that time, Shanghai people loved our local dish Dongpo pork, and I was good at cooking it, so I got the slot," Hu says. Made from a slab of pork belly, the lengthy "red cooking" time of more than three hours results in fat without much of its greasiness.

Working in the big city for two years, Hu returned to Xiaoshan and worked his way up as head chef in various well-known restaurants.

Since 2000, Hu has visited places with well-developed catering industries, including Guangdong province's Guangzhou and Shenzhen, Hong Kong and the Sichuan provincial capital, Chengdu.
Following the launch of the Michelin guide for Shanghai, the first on the Chinese mainland, a galaxy of chefs and owner-chefs at Michelin-starred restaurants around the world are due in Shanghai for the Savour Food Festival.

Initiated in Singapore five years ago and introduced to Shanghai successfully last autumn, this year's event is joined by chefs from five restaurants beyond the city and another seven local chefs.

The big stars to expect for the five-day event running from Oct 4 to 7 include Alvin Leung from Bo Innovation in Hong Kong, and Dennis Huwae from the Netherlands' &Samhoud Places. Most dishes will be cooked on site by the chefs, most priced at 60 yuan ($9) and the rest at 90 yuan.

Location: No 688 Shenchang Road, The Hub (Hongqiao Xintiandi), Shanghai

Related:

Tastes of West Lake
A ship loads containers at a terminal in Qingdao, Shandong province. [Photo/China Daily]

Comments on the first US presidential debate abound. Many focused on what people heard or how they interpreted what they heard. What was conspicuously absent in the debate was the two candidates' readiness, or at least courage, to redefine the United States' role in free trade and globalization.

The performances of the candidates should not be seen as a matter of course, a deliberate performance of technical ambiguity in the face of popular politics.

By the way, the attempt at the debate to make China a scapegoat for the alleged evils of free trade and loss of jobs in the US was ill advised, especially because less than a month ago, at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, some foreign business leaders said it is China that is championing free trade and globalization now.

To put its principles into practice, China has been making sincere efforts to reduce overcapacity and lower manufacturing costs.

It has not attempted to stop factory jobs, which flourished in the country for decades, from relocating to neighboring countries with cheaper labor cost.

It's not that China has never been threatened by unemployment. But look at the opinions in the media, even social media, to see that even those with the utmost patriotic fervor seldom complain about foreigners stealing Chinese jobs.

China has declared to the world that it is not interested in engineering a drastic currency devaluation, something many other countries, developed and developing, have done to protect their economies.

China is investing and spending (through tourists) more abroad than the amount it receives from overseas as investment and tourism revenue.

And it has been reiterating its commitment to reform, even though the process is becoming increasingly difficult.

All these are China's real efforts to promote free trade and globalization. They are important actions to back up its principles at a time when shunning principles has become not only a fad for campaigning politicians, but also a threat to millions of workers in the developing world.

China's principle on free trade and globalization is different, and better, from the developed world's: It does not come attached with political strings, let alone outside intervention and regime change.

It is based on the belief that economic development, especially for impoverished communities, should come before they reach the stage where they can choose their way of life.

China's globalization concept used to be sneered at by its arrogant critics, who nowadays, in face of the rising "new right" in their societies, would rather not talk about it.
A Chinese worker assembles a new energy car on the assembly line at an auto plant in Zouping county, East China's Shandong province, Dec 16, 2014. [Photo / IC]

"Innovative Development" is the first of the Five Major Development Concepts, President Xi Jinping's guiding strategy to transform China's economy. Innovation occupies the top spot because it signals that China's leaders are enhancing the role of reform. Reform requires change, change requires doing things differently, and doing things differently requires innovation.

In investigating the Five Concepts for Closer to China with R.L. Kuhn, my weekly program on CCTV News (Sundays at 9:30 am and 9:30 pm), I looked for two kinds of innovationin science and technology, as well as in management and processes.

I found both kinds of innovation at Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, or COMAC, which is developing the country's large commercial aircraft, beginning with the C919. Building such aircraft requires sophisticated technology, systems and processes, and innovation is essential for all three.

For innovation to succeed, nurturing talent and fostering an environment that appreciates innovation are essential. State-owned enterprises are often rigid, not very conducive to disruptive change or friendly to individual initiative. So can COMAC stimulate the kind of innovation that is required to compete with Boeing and Airbus?

I discussed innovation, and how it can be enhanced, with COMAC Chairman Jin Zhuanglong.

"Our work emphasizes innovation, entrepreneurship, and creative development," Jin said. "We have innovated our management systems and governance. We have less than 10,000 personnel, but we need to develop two or even three major commercial aircraft. The key lies in innovation. We've put forward a six-dimensional management model; we must manage our planning, technologies, quality, airworthiness, finances and personneland we must coordinate them all."

Jin will not sacrifice quality. "Our goal is to raise China's manufacturing percentage of domestic-made aircraft. But if certain components made in China are not up to our standards, we invite tenders from across the globe to guarantee quality, even while we gradually improve localized products. I see no conflict between independent development and international cooperation. Rather, they complement each other. If we do not open up to the outside world, if we do not adopt some of the world's most advanced materials and technologies, then our future would be bleak. Overall, though, we must adhere to our principlesspecifically, China designs the aircraft and improves the systems."

Jin spoke of "painful growing pains". He said: "We must be prepared for a period of suffering, so we work step by step, slowly and surely; we do not expect instant success, we are not anxious."

The example he gives is the ARJ21, China's regional jet. "We have undertaken 10 years of research to ensure its safety, to enhance its competitive position."

China's bid to build its own civil aircraft began much earlier. In the 1970s, when China was still very poor, it designed and constructed three Y-10 four-engine models. In 1980, one made its maiden flight, but the program was halted.

On the COMAC property in Shanghai, on a large lawn in front of an original Y-10 aircraft, is a modern sculpture with a simple but powerful inscription: "Never Give Up!"

That's the spirit of innovation!

The Chinese government is determined to promote innovation nationwide, particularly in science and technology, but also more broadly, because it realizes that not only industry, but also the whole country's new developmental model requires innovative ideas. For example, high-tech industrial parks provide services from incubation facilities for start-ups to industrial supply chains for efficient production. In addition, regional coordination seeks to integrate and upgrade area innovation capabilities.

But beware innovation-based businesses! They are more complex, and less predictable, than businesses based on low-cost manufacturing. Innovation cannot be commanded top-down. It cannot be bought solely with money. What determines market success is often not obviousand subtle effects, not in one's control, can make or break new products.

The success rate for innovation is by nature low. This means an innovation-based economy must accept failure. If all of your ideas work, it means you have too few ideas. Innovation is a disruptor; it does not respect tradition, seniority or authority. China is committed to innovation. Innovation can change China.

The author is a public intellectual, political/economics commentator, and international corporate strategist.
The Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region government recently issued a prohibition order banning alcoholic beverages at official receptions. In the past two years, provincial governments in Zhejiang, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Jiangsu, Hunan and Anhui have issued the same order.

According to the Xinjiang government, some special cases, for example foreign affairs receptions or those for investors, can be exceptions to the rule provided the disciplinary department approves of it.

In late 2013, the central government issued a directive making clear in detail the requirements for official receptions. The directive, along with a previous austerity regulation of the Party, prompted local governments to ban alcoholic beverages at official banquets.

The prohibition order has been welcomed by the public. But many doubt whether the order will be effectively enforced. In some places, it is a common practice among civil servants to empty water bottles and fill them up with liquor at official banquets to bypass the prohibition rule. And restaurants and hotels readily replace liquor with tea or some other expensive beverage on the bill, allowing those officials to get reimbursements from the financial department.

Some people suggest the prohibition order should give citizens the right to report to the disciplinary department any violation of the prohibition order by officials at public receptions. If the authorities really have zero tolerance toward liquor being served at official banquets, they should seriously consider that suggestion.
Cao Tong, the chairman of Xiamen International Financial Technologies Ltd, is delivering a speech.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Reporters note:

Before interviewing Cao Tong, the chairman of Xiamen International Financial Technologies Ltd, a firm whose main business is building an online platform for Asset-backed security (ABS) products, several financial reporters told me that it would be definitely a good chance to ask him why he gave up his high-profile career in the banking industry and decided to devote himself to internet finance. Cao Tong has long been known as a young backbone in Chinas banking system. He used to be the vice-president of Exim Bank of China until 2014, and was also the vice-president of China Citic Bank for more than six years. In 2015, he worked as president of Webank, the first Internet Bank in China which is initiated by Tencent Company and used to be encouraged by Premier Li Keqiang as: "leading as a pioneering role in Internet Finance industry." In a wide-ranging interview, he discussed the potential market of Chinas ABS products, and his philosophy about how internet finance would deeply effect or even become a game changer for the industry.

1, We noticed that ABS products have been quite hot in recent years. In the 2016 ranking of financial institutes who issued ABS products, the ABS products of seven institutes reached over tens of billions of yuan. Whats the reason behind this boom? How would you evaluate the future volume of this market?

Chinas ABS market is different from those of western countries, especially at a time when most corporates are processing transformation, which means massive corporates are stepping into professional financing market. Naturally, not only highly rated corporates have the need of financing, the structure of the corporates in need may include multiple layers.

You could see ABS as a kind of financial product, or a technology, even a theory. Fundamentally, it needs to separate the credit rating part from rating the corporate itself, hence evaluate, separate and match the risks of the assets. So if you observe this technology theoretically, its really suitable for those high performing companies to finance during economic downturn, it also offers opportunities for many ordinary companies or even some less competitive ones.

It means good companies naturally could own good assets to cope with the economic downturn, while, on the other hand, badly performing companies could also own high-quality assets to cope with any economic cycle. So ABS is a way of financing which is aimed at assets itself, instead of variety of corporates. If you see ABS as purely a theory, technology or a financial product, it may offer quite a solution for most companies, especially at this stage of our economy. During this round of our countrys economic transformation, we estimate that the gross volume of bond traded products for direct financing would continue to expand, which would reach 200 trillion yuan in the next few years. Among these products we predict there exists 100 trillion yuan that needs to process asset securitization. To facilitate such a huge share of markets development definitely has the need of solid infrastructure building, such as constructing provincial-level assets trading platform, implementing asset securitization, or formulating detailed regulations and systems by authority, and better theory construction.

2, Some expert have claimed that the dilemma we are faced with when fostering asset securitization in China is that authorities still offer bail-out with implicit guarantees, which makes ABS products lose their competitiveness, and thats the reason why Chinese ABS products are not able to follow the principle of risk-based pricing. Whats your view?

The necessity to breakdown this kind of bail-out with implicit guarantees has no doubt. Because its even hard to imagine that theres no risk to buy a trading product, definitely it has risks fundamentally. The key solution to this problem is to build a mechanism that could achieve effective risk diversification. While ABSs strengths might be exactly one part of the right answer.

Initially, lets assume that we break down this kind of bailing out, that more risks may exist among market, while if you look into those products that in risks, most of them are not ABS. Secondly, through asset securitization, products are naturally classified into levels like Senior Tranch and Mezzanine Tranch, so as for average investors, they should choose the products labeled as Senior Tranch, let the professional investors operate with products rated as high-risks. Thirdly, I dont encourage ABS products to be promoted to individual buyers, the concept of Accredited Investor is really necessary, there should be a access threshold. This kind of product should not be separated into many tiny parts then sell them to average investors, it should match with qualified professional investors.
I ndia's Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Ranbir Singh (L) briefs media about the attack conducted by Indian military in New Delhi, India, Sept 29, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan on Thursday summoned Indian high commissioner in Islamabad, Gautam Bambawale, to Foreign Office and lodged a strong protest over the killing of two soldiers by Indian troop fires at Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan controlled Kashmir, local Urdu TV Channel Geo reported.

Pakistani Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry handed over the protest note to the Indian envoy, strongly condemning the unprovoked firing across the LoC, Geo TV quoted officials from the Foreign Office as saying.

Pakistan had sought a prompt reply from the Indian authorities over their forces' violation of the ceasefire at the LoC.

Bambawale was summoned after Indian forces opened fire at the LoC, which started at 2:30 a.m. and lasted till 6:30 a.m. local time on Thursday and killed two Pakistani soldiers.

Earlier in the day, India's Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Ranbir Singh claimed that Indian forces entered Pakistan on the other side of LoC and carried out deadly "surgical strikes" on Wednesday night, however Pakistan army rejected the claims.

There have been no surgical strikes by India, instead there has been fire along the LoC to the east of Pakistan initiated and conducted by India, a spokesman of the Pakistani military said.

The Pakistani Foreign Office also issued a statement and said, "Pakistan strongly condemns unprovoked ceasefire violations at the LoC by Indian forces, which is a continuation of a pattern of ceasefire violations committed by the Indian forces. The valiant Armed Forces of Pakistan have given and will continue to give a befitting response to any aggression."

"We can assure India that any such aggression will not go unanswered or unpunished. Pakistan is ready to defend its people and territory from any Indian aggression or Indian State sponsored terrorism on the Pakistani soil," the statement added.

The LoC is seen as a de facto border that divides Kashmir into India and Pakistan controlled parts. The LoC is heavily guarded by military on both sides. Kashmir is claimed by both in full. Since their independence from Britain, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir.

Tension between the two states escalated after an attack at a military camp in Indian controlled Kashmir on Sept. 18, which killed at least 17 Indian soldiers. India said Pakistan was responsible for the attack, saying that the attackers infiltrated into the Kashmir from the Pakistani side, but Pakistan denied the accusation.
The world's largest producer of products for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) opened stores this week in New York and California to capitalize on the growing interest in the alternative medicine practice.

Beijing-based Tongrentang Group Co Ltd, or Tong Ren Tang (TRT), also is opening an outlet in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Sunday. The New York stores are in Manhattan and Flushing, Queens, which has a large population of Chinese. The California outlets are in Los Angeles and San Francisco, also home to a large Chinese community.

In addition to products, Tongrentang also provides health services like acupuncture and massage therapy.

Founded in 1669 by the Yue family in a Beijing storefront, Tongrentang was appointed to provide medicine for the royal pharmacy of the imperial palace of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) for eight generations of Qing emperors spanning 188 years. Tongrentang began expanding overseas in 1993 when it opened a retail pharmacy in Hong Kong before it returned to China in 1997.

"Tongrentang is a time-honored brand in China so most Chinese Americans, even second and third generation, will recognize our name," said Helen Wang, director of overseas investments for the company.

She said the company hopes to build off that brand recognition. "We think the increasing interest in acupuncture will motivate Americans to consider TCM," Wang said.

TCM originated in ancient China and has evolved over thousands of years. Practitioners use herbal medicines and various body practices, such as acupuncture, to treat or prevent health problems, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, the US government's lead agency for research on medical practices that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine.

TCM has been gaining acceptance in the US and other Western nations, but is still considered primarily a complementary approach to health care. The use of acupuncture as a pain-management tool has been increasing along with Chinese herbal therapy which represents a major part of TCM.

In 2014, the Cleveland Clinic, a major US medical center, opened a herbal clinic as part of the hospital's Center for Integrative Medicine.

Wang said a Tongrentang outlet is not like a traditional US pharmacy. "We are similar to a natural health store in that we sell herbal supplements and provide services like acupuncture and massage," she said. "All of our service providers meet the license requirements that are mandated in each location."

Shares of the company began trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2013.

The Tongrentang location on Madison Avenue in New York City is an established TCM clinic, which will be expanded to include a retail operation, according to Wang.

"This was an acquisition for us. In addition to acupuncture and massages, it will offer Chinese medical consultation and products for herbal treatments," she said.
The name Guo Pei attracted little press among the Western fashion crowd, until pop star Rihanna wore her "poached egg" gown to the Met Ball in New York last year.

Now, 30 years after entering the fashion industry as China's homegrown high-end designer, Guo has been propelled into global fashion fame.

On Tuesday, New York-based China Institute hosted the Blue Cloud Gala in celebration of its 90th anniversary. Guo was one of the honorees.

The moment she walked into the hall, you saw her creativity  a simple black dress with handcrafted golden dragon embroidery over the shoulders. Similar designs by Guo were featured at January's Paris Couture Week, where she presented her collection to the world as the first Chinese guest member of the Chambre de Syndicale de la Haute Couture.

Guo started her speech at China Institute with a smile.

"English, little little," she said, and switched to Chinese. Mandarin is still her only spoken language. Her art speaks it too.

Guo Pei's sumptuous fashion expression is rooted in Chinese culture. She recreates images from traditional imperial court design and renders its hallmarks with exotic Western silhouettes. She believes it is her responsibility to convey a "China value" through her work.

"I am a product of changing China," said Guo. "I appreciate our culture and want the whole world to see it."

Guo's loyalty to her country, both as a citizen and an artist, is easily identifiable. She has often been chosen to dress stars at state-sponsored events, like the Beijing Olympics and the New Year's Gala.

Yet looking back at her career, Guo said that the most exciting moment was when two of her dresses went on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the 2015 spring Costume Institute show, China: Through the Looking Glass.

"I couldn't sleep for days," she said. "They are reflections of the pride I have for Chinese culture. The honor belongs to China."

Guo is always confident that real aesthetic resonates. Though fashion in China is still nascent in her eye, Guo sees a bright future in the next generation of designers from China.

"Fashion design is not a job, or a career," she said. "It's the choice of a lifetime. So my advice to young Chinese designers is to slow down. Don't panic. Don't be afraid to wait for the right moment to come."

Xiaotian Zhang in New York contributed to this story.
Boys make their way through the rubble of damaged buildings in the rebel held area of al-Kalaseh neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria, September 29, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

MOSCOW -- The possible decision of the United States to suspend cooperation with Russia on the Syria settlement would play right into the hands of terrorist groups, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday.

Earlier on Thursday, the US State Department spokesman John Kirby said that Washington is "serious about the potential of suspending bilateral engagement with Russia" on promoting a diplomatic solution to the Syria crisis.

"The best of them (gifts) will be Washington's rejection of cooperation with Russia on the Syrian settlement," Zakharova wrote on her Facebook page, adding that if the decision is taken, it will be a "great holiday" for terrorists.

The US Secretary of State John Kerry threatened on Wednesday to cut all cooperation with Russia if the Syrian government troops backed by Moscow kept bombing Aleppo, which Moscow denounced as "emotional breakdown" resulting from Washington's inability to keep its promise in their bilateral truce deal.

Despite the threatening statements, Russia has said it sees no alternative to a diplomatic settlement of the Syrian crisis with the United States.
National Grid gas distribution business [Provided to China Daily]

China's reported interest in acquiring a controlling stake in British power supplier National Grid's gas distribution business grabbed the headlines but analysts say the profitability of any deal will depend on whether the Chinese consortium can go beyond investing to become the operator as well.

Unlike a financial investor, the operator of such a strategically important entity would be able to recoup consistent returns from the power distribution process, and not just in the form of dividends and capital appreciation.

As the operator, Chinese participants would improve their reputations and be better placed to win similar contracts in other international markets, something that is particularly significant in the context of China's ambitions to lead infrastructure development among the Belt and Road countries.

The Chinese consortium seeking to gain a stake in the National Grid's gas distribution business is said to include China's State-owned utility company China Gas, and Chinese conglomerate Fosun.

While the National Grid has refused to identify any bidders, the FT reported the presence of the Chinese consortium and named its participants, citing advising bankers from Goldman Sachs as a source.

The gas distribution network, which is valued at an estimated 11 billion pounds ($14.3 billion; 12.8 billion euros), serves 10.9 million homes and businesses nationwide. National Grid will sell 51 percent and become the minority shareholder.

The potential deal follows heightened attention on Chinese investment following Beijing's partial funding of the 18-billion-pound nuclear power plant set to be built at Hinkley Point by France's EDF.

The Hinkley Point project and interest from China in the National Grid point to a trend of China internationalizing its infrastructure and utility sector strengths, with the UK as a first step toward selling in other developed markets.

China's desire to prove its infrastructure strength in the UK's rigorously regulated market coincides with the UK's need to upgrade its infrastructure, which will require help from additional foreign capital after existing infrastructure funding from the EU falls post Brexit.

National Grid first announced the planned sale of its gas distribution network in 2015 as an effort to return some cash returns to its investors and reinvest in higher-return assets.

In 2015, National Grid Chief Executive Steve Holliday called the gas distribution business "a good business, but a mature business", suggesting the disposal would help the company reach the higher end of its target to deliver 5 to 7 percent asset growth a year.

Such a statement implies the power distribution business is an investment with little risk that is suitable for long-term investment, and a good opportunity for foreign investors to familiarize themselves with the UK market.

Danae Kyriakopoulou, head of research at the think tank Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), said the level of returns for China Gas will depend partly "on whether the deal extends to distribution rights on top of financial ownership" because acquiring distribution rights would lower the risk and allow China Gas to bring more Chinese supply chains into the operation.

National Grid is yet to say whether the responsibilities for operations will be transferred to the new majority stake owner. Its current proposal to transfer existing gas distribution licenses to a new subsidiary company that will be put in charge of the distribution task is awaiting UK government approval.

The likelihood of China Gas or other firms that win the bid ultimately participating in operations is not yet known, but the presence of utility firms as bidders  including China Gas and Singapore Power  point to such a possibility.

Other bidders, mainly pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, are likely to be eyeing long-term stable financial gains.

Paul Doris, a partner with the law firm Watson, Farley & Williams, said China Gas could gain a long-term investment in an important part of the UK's infrastructure that produces stable index-linked returns and yields millions of pounds in dividends annually.

Doris said the ability of China Gas to source financing for the deal, its scale and experience in operating target assets are among its advantages. In addition, UK and European markets' increasing familiarity with Chinese conglomerates and State-backed entities also help.

The boost in the reputations of Chinese infrastructure firms participating in the UK market could help them to grow in European economies, something Kyriakopoulou said is increasingly significant from a strategic perspective, although tight fiscal policies could mean investments may not start coming through until a few years' time.

"This gives Chinese investors a critical window of opportunity to build a reputation with investments in the UK, so that they are ready to bid for other European projects when the need and financing capacity arises for them," she said.

National Grid gas distribution business [Provided to China Daily]

What can China Gas learn from Hinkley Point?

China Gas and Fosun's reported bid for the National Grid's gas distribution business came weeks after the UK's new government led by Prime Minister Theresa May gave the green light to Hinkley Point, the EDF-led 18-billion-pound nuclear project that has a Chinese financial contribution.

Despite the approval, and Chinese investor China General Nuclear Corp's statement welcoming the decision, additional conditions and frameworks that the UK government announced alongside the Hinkley Point decision suggest a subtle tightening of the UK's grip regarding foreign participation in its infrastructure sector.

Such a change in government sentiment would give cause for concern, not just for CGN's plans for Bradwell, but also the bid from China Gas for the National Grid's gas distribution business and other potential Chinese investment in the UK's infrastructure sector, including High Speed 2, the UK's new fast train project aimed at better linking London with Manchester. That project, set to be completed by 2033, has already attracted Chinese investors' interest.

The new legal framework for future foreign investment in the UK's critical infrastructure will "ensure that the full implications of foreign ownership are scrutinized for the purposes of national security", and that the government will hold a golden share in future infrastructure projects that have foreign investment, giving it important sway over decisions.

The previous British government, led by David Cameron, never mentioned the need for the British government to hold an equity stake in infrastructure projects, nor did it raise the topic of scrutinizing foreign investment for national security purposes.

Andrew Shepherd, senior energy and infrastructure analyst at BMI Research, said May is "attempting to find some middle ground" by introducing a new framework that allows China to make its planned investment in Hinkley Point but that means future nuclear projects will see the UK government having "more oversight than if it was a purely private sector" project.

British media has reported that May's government is more concerned about Chinese investment because of comments from critics such as Nick Timothy, May's joint chief of staff, who was quoted by The Guardian last year as saying China could "build weaknesses into computer systems (at Hinkley Point) which will allow them to shut down Britain's energy production at will".

"May does not appear to be as enthusiastic about unfettered Chinese investment as David Cameron and (ex-chancellor) George Osborne. She does, however, want to demonstrate that the UK is open to foreign investment," Shepherd said.

The new framework could hamper future Chinese investment in the UK's nuclear sector, in particular the proposed Bradwell project that is set to use Chinese technology and have CGN as the majority stakeholder.

Within the Hinkley Point announcement, the UK government also stated it plans to review the Enterprise Act 2002 with a view to considering the inclusion of infrastructure as a new sector in which government ministers can intervene, where appropriate.

"It seems likely that the UK government will scrutinise bids for critical infrastructure projects from foreign investors, especially foreign state-backed entities and sovereign wealth funds, more closely in the future, particularly where they seek to operate the infrastructure assets in question," said Doris.
The European Union is speeding up the process of ratifying the Paris Climate Change Agreement, giving hope it will enter into force by the end of this year if the EU's legislative body votes for it on Tuesday.

Before the European Parliament'scoming vote, India will also ratify it on Sunday. The big emitters' quick actions come inthe wake of Beijing and Washington's approval of the agreement before the G20 Summit in early September in China.

The European Parliament said on Friday that it will vote on Tuesday on its consent to the ratification of the Paris climate agreement by the European Union, after European Council gave its green light on Friday.

Giovanni La Via, Environment Committee chair of European Parliament, said the decision would allow the EU to remain a leader in climate action ahead of the next round of talks due to take place in Marrakech, Morocco in November.

"I welcome the decision by environment ministers to allow for a timely EU ratification," said La Via. "This decision will permit Parliament to conclude the agreement and will send a strong signal and highlight the leadership of the EU and its Member States and their continuing efforts to address climate change at international level."

He added: "The prospect that the Paris Agreement might enter into force without the EU as a signatory, considering the EU's leadership on the fight against climate change, its role in the Kyoto Protocol, and its continuous efforts towards a subsequent universal treaty, would have been unthinkable."

On Monday evening, the Environment Committee will meet to vote on its recommendations to plenary.

Next week, the European Parliament will hold a debate with the Council and Commission on priorities for the next round of talks. The Parliament will send a delegation led by La Via to Marrakesh to follow the talks closely and work with its counterparts.

The Paris Agreement will enter into force after the date on which at least 55 Parties (out of 197) to the Convention, accounting in total for at least an estimated 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession with the UN Depositary.

To date 61 parties, including the US and China, have ratified or approved the agreement, accounting for 47.79 percent of global carbon emissions, while India will ratify the Paris Agreement on the 2nd of October.

To contact the reporter: fujing@chinadaily.com.cn
(Photo : Getty Images) The US and China have called on India and Pakistan to resolve their dispute over Kashmir.

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The United States and China on Wednesday called on Pakistan and India to peacefully resolve their differences over Kashmir. There has been tension between both nations after an attack on an Indian military base in Uri left 18 Indian soldiers dead.





"The United States has continued to encourage India and Pakistan to find a way to resolve their differences peacefully and through diplomacy. And we have condemned violence, particularly terrorist attacks." Press Secretary Josh Earnest said during a news briefing at White House.



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Earnest added that America is hopeful that both countries will find a way to resolve their differences "through diplomacy and without resorting to violence."



He made the statement in response to a question about India's recent decision to pull out of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit that is scheduled to be held in Islamabad later this year. India's decision to withdraw from the South Asian regional summit is seen as a diplomatic tactic to isolate Pakistan.



Meanwhile, China has backed America's stance that New Delhi and Islamabad must resolve their differences on Kashmir peacefully.



Beijing "hopes that Pakistan and India will strengthen channels for dialogue, appropriately handle any differences, improve bilateral relations and together protect the region's peace and stability," China's Deputy Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin told Pakistan's special envoys to China for Kashmir.



China's position on Kashmir has flip-flopped over last the few days. Last week, an article in a leading Pakistani newspaper claimed a top Chinese diplomat said that Beijing completely supports Pakistan's stance on Kashmir.



The article quoted the diplomat saying "We're and will be siding with Pakistan on Kashmir issue...There is no justification for atrocities on unarmed Kashmiris in...[India-] held Kashmir and the Kashmir dispute should be solved in accordance with aspirations of the Kashmiris."



However, China, on Monday, said that it is not aware of any such comments made by any Chinese diplomat, adding that the Kashmir dispute is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan.



The Kashmir issue has been a bone of contention between the two countries ever since British India was spilt on religious lines in 1947. Both countries have fought three wars over the region.



With both countries in possession of nuclear weapons, Kashmir is widely considered as a nuclear flash point.



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(Photo : Getty Images ) US has decided to move forward with its plans to deploy THAAD system in South Korea.

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Despite China's strong opposition, the United States has decided to move forward with its plans to deploy a missile defense system in South Korea.



A senior State Department official revealed that Washington will deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system to South Korea "as soon as possible."



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"Given the accelerating pace of North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)'s missile tests, we intend to deploy on an accelerated basis -- I would say as soon as possible," Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel said during a hearing of the House foreign affairs subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.



Russel also tried to allay Chinese apprehensions regarding the THAAD deployment in South Korea. He pointed out that the deployment is aimed at countering North Korean threat in the region.



"This is a defensive measure aimed not at China, but at North Korea. It is a defense based decision, not a political decision," the diplomat said. "And it is part of a layered system of defense that will augment many military installations and systems currently in place."



In June this year, Washington and Seoul announced their decision to place THAAD missile defense system with US forces' base in South Korean territory. Russia and China raised serious objections to the planned deployment saying that it would provoke North Korea and affect the peace and stability in Korean Peninsula.



It can be noted that United States has been trying to placate China and Russia over the issue since then. Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping also conveyed his country's opposition to US President Barack Obama over the planned deployment.



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(Photo : Getty Images ) China says it attaches importance to Pakistan's stance on Kashmir.

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China has once again reacted to the ongoing standoff between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region.



China's Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Liu Zhenmin has said that China "attaches" importance to Pakistan's position on the Kashmir issue.



Liu made the remark during a meeting with a Pakistan delegation on Wednesday.



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"Liu listened to Pakistani envoys' briefings on the Kashmir condition and Pakistan's standpoint on related issues, and emphasized that China has been concerned about the Kashmir condition and attaches importance to Pakistan's standpoint on related issues," a foreign ministry statement said.



Liu asked India and Pakistan to set up a bilateral communication system and resolve their disputes through dialogue.



"Liu expressed China's expectations that Pakistan and India would intensify bilateral communications, appropriately manage differences, improve the bilateral relations and maintain regional peace and stability by joint efforts," the statement added.



China's foreign ministry has said that Beijing is in touch with both nations over the issue. "As for the tension between Pakistan and India, recently the Chinese side has been in communication with both sides through different channel," China's foreign ministry spokesperson Gen Shaung said on Thursday.



A recent terrorist attack on an Indian military base in Uri sparked a fresh diplomatic row between New Delhi and Islamabad. India has accused the Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed of organizing the assault that left 18 Indian military personnel dead. Pakistan, on the other hand, has denied any involvement in the attack saying that New Delhi is trying to tarnish its image globally.



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(Photo : getty images.) China on Thursday said that it will consider serious 'countermeasures' if US deploys anti-missile system in South Korea.

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China on Thursday said that it will consider countermeasures against the plan of the US to deploy an anti- missile system in South Korea. However, Beijing did not elaborate on what countermeasures it would take.



"We will pay close attention to relevant developments, and consider taking necessary actions to protect national strategic security and the regional strategic balance," Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Yang Yujun told a monthly news briefing.



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Yang warned that "Chinese people mean what they say." As to what that statement means, Yang did not provide further explanation.



China has repeatedly expressed anger over the decision of the US and South Korea to deploy THAAD or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense. The decision to deploy anti-missile system was taken earlier this year, after North Korea continued to defy international pressure over its controversial nuclear program.



China fears that the THAAD will be able to track its own military capabilities, and its deployment will increase further tension in the Korean peninsula. Russia has also expressed similar concern over THAAD.



China's warning of "countermeasures" comes day after it disapproved US decision to sanction a Chinese firm in connection with North Korea's nuclear program. US alleged that the Chinese firm was involved in money launder to facilitate North Korea's nuclear program.



China officially maintains its objection against North Korea's nuclear ambition and will earnestly implement UN's latest sanction against Pyongyang. This, despite the fact that China is North Korea's closest ally and also largest trading partner.



However, experts claim that China is fearful that over-isolation can lead to complete political breakdown in North Korea, which can lead to huge refugee problem on China-North Korea border.



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(Photo : Getty Images) Chinese authorities have arrested a man suspected of killing 16 people in Yunnan province.

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Police in China have arrested a 27-year-old man as a suspect in the killing of 19 people in Yunnan province.



The name of the suspect is Yang Qingpei, according to information provided by Yunnan police. The suspect was arrested in the provincial capital Kunming. A video showing the suspect being arrested has gone viral on Chinese social media.



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The murders had sent shockwaves across China, where mass killing is very rare. Xinhua reported that the 19 victims belonged to six different families and were found in the different parts of a remote mountainous village called Yema.



The 19 victims reportedly included three children; one was a three-year-old girl.



The motive behind the killing is still under investigation. However, local police have so far ruled out terrorism.



Many Chinese people have expressed shock and anger over the mass killing on social media.



Last year, Chinese authorities hanged three people for a mass stabbing at the Kunming railway station, which left 31 people dead and over 140 injured. The disturbing incident, which took place on March 1, 2014, was dubbed by Chinese state media as China's 9/11. Chinese President Xi described the incident as a "violent terrorist" attack. The Chinese government blamed the attack on separatists from Xinjiang province, where the Uyghur Muslim community is engaged in a low-intensity insurgency to form an independent nation.



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(Photo : Getty Images) EuropaCorp CEO Christophe Lambert attends a EuropaCorp press conference to announce the successful signing of a new 450 million dollar 5 year credit facility with JP Morgan, SunTrust Bank and OneWest Bank during the 67th Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2014 in Cannes, France.

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China's Fundamental Films has agreed to acquire 27.9 percent stake in Luc Besson's EuropaCorp for $67 million, the company announced on Thursday.



"The capital increase will enhance EuropaCorp's ability to produce and distribute English-language films and series worldwide," Besson said in a statement. "We're delighted to strengthen our strong ties with Fundamental Film and the booming Chinese market."



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The move will make the Shanghai-based film production company the second largest shareholder in EuropaCorp, with Besson's holding firm Front Line still the top shareholder with 31.58 percent stake, down from 43.8 percent, the Deadline reported.



"We are delighted to become the second-largest shareholder in EuropaCorp and strengthen our relationship with Luc Besson's studio. We are extremely confident in their ability to achieve its strategic goals and enthusiastic about the opportunity to work with it in this new phase of its development," Mark Gao, chairman of Fundamental Films, said.



The agreement builds upon the output deal first signed in 2012 and was extended in 2015, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The deal produced hit movies including Lucy and Taken. They have also co-produced several titles including Transporter trilogy reboot. Furthermore, Fundamental also recently took a big equity stake in Besson's upcoming mega production Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.



The agreement between EuropaCorp and Fundamental Films has already received approval from both boards in a series of meetings on Sept. 28 and 29, and a shareholder vote is expected before the year ends, Yahoo! Movies reported.



EuropaCorp will release 11.43 million shares in the deal, valued at $5.83. The company is expected to remain open for public trading following the deal, which is still subject for regulatory approval.



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TagsFundamental Films, EuropaCorp, Luc Besson, Movies, Chinese movie market, Acquisition
(Photo : getty images.) According to close sources, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is planning to carry a huge business delegation during his visit to China later next month.

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Philippine President Rodrigo R. Duterte will be bringing with him a huge business delegation when he visits China later next month, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.



The report, if true, signals Duterte's intent to set aside ongoing squabble over the maritime dispute and forge a strong commercial relation with China.



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Sources claim that nearly two dozen Filipino businessmen would join the highest official of the Philippines. Invitation to business groups to submit names of people, who wish to join the delegation, have already been sent across.



However, there is still no information about the business delegation's schedule in China and the issues they would be discussing with Chinese officials.



China and Philippines relation have nosedived ever since China lost the South China Sea case against the latter in the Permanent Court of Attribution earlier this year. The verdict had dismissed Beijing's historical claim over the maritime territory.



Rodrigo Duterte, however, has been determined to rebuild his country's bilateral relations with China despite rising tension over the verdict. This was vindicated on Wednesday when he said that next week's joint military exercise with United States would be already be the last staging of such drill in the Philippines.



His reportedly unexpected decision, some say, could be regarded as an indication that he wants to move away from historical alliance from United States, which for decades has militarily and diplomatically supported Philippines to counter China's assertiveness in South China Sea. The decision is likely to be welcomed by Chinese leadership.



Despite the recent friendly overtures, it can be recalled that Rodrigo Duterte has made some serious allegations against China. He recently accused Beijing of bullying "Filipino fishermen and being dishonest about its activities" in the disputed Scarborough Shoal.



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(Photo : PLAN) Shandong receives its island.

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China's second aircraft carrier now building will become the most powerful warship in the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) because of its offensive airpower; the most sophisticated radar system in the fleet and laser weapons later on.



The carrier "Shandong," now known as "Type 002" is set for commissioning in 2020 after which is will become the flagship of the North Sea Fleet and the East Sea Fleet of the PLAN.



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Analysts believe the Shandong will displace between 60,000 to 70,000 tons. Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Company in Liaoning began building the carrier in 2015.



Shandong will probably carry 48 aircraft, a number larger than that of the Liaoning, China's only aircraft carrier that can take 36 aircraft. It will house up to 32 J-15 jets, a huge boost to its offensive firepower, with the other aircraft complement remaining more or less the same.



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.



Cao Weidong, a researcher at the People's Liberation Army Navy Naval Military Studies Research Institute, said China's first indigenous aircraft carrier will probably have an Active Phased Array Radar (APAR) system that can simultaneously track hundreds of aerial and sea surface targets while guiding missiles to these targets.



Cao also confirmed the Shandong will embark some 50 aircraft of various types. More tellingly, the new carrier might be armed with solid state lasers to shoot down drones.



The Naval Military Studies Research Institute is the think tank of PLAN.



Cao confirmed the installation of the carrier's "island" and said this is the last step in building the carrier superstructure. Outfitting the Shandong will follow.



He noted that island installation takes at least half a year, but "our aircraft carrier will be ready to enter water at the end of this year or early next year, which is pretty fast." On the island are two rectangular structures for the X-band APAR. Cao said APAR meets the combat needs of Shandong.



He said the Shandong's radar system is far better than the Liaoning's. APAR is expected to enhance the Shandong's combat capability because of its longer detection range and better target acquisition.



Other military experts were quoted by Chinese media as saying laser weapons on the Shandong will reinforce its defensive systems and overall combat performance. Cao noted that existing laser weapons in military powers like the U.S. aren't powerful enough to destroy incoming missiles and large vessels.



Laser weapons, however, are certainly one of the directions China's future weapons development will take.



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Tagsshandong, Aircraft carrier, china, People's Liberation Army Navy, Liaoning, Cao Weidong, People's Liberation Army Navy Naval Military Studies Research Institute
(Photo : Getty Images) President Barack Obama has ordered Pentagon officials to watch their words on China in an effort to diffuse tensions between the two countries

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The US National Security Council (NSC) has ordered the Pentagon to tone down its way of words on China and banned them from publicly using the phrase "great power competition" in describing the military challenges posed by China's People's Liberation Army (PLA).



Chinese analysts said on Thursday that the gag order issued over the weekend showed Washington's desire to stabilize ties with China in the final months before President Barack Obama steps down from the presidency.



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The analysts said changing tack on the US rhetoric on Chinese military challenges was a sure sign that the White House was exerting efforts in easing its tensions with Beijing over their dispute in the South China Sea.



Gag order



In a report published this week in the US Navy Times, it said the NSC had issued a gag order on Pentagon leaders over the weekend urging them to use less agitating language on China and ordering them to strike out the phrase ' 'great power competition' in all its future public and private communications.



The publication said President Obama found the phrase 'inflammatory' saying the term ' inaccurately framed the US and China as on a collision course.'



Despite such change in China rhetoric, military experts warned that China's massive claims to the East and South China Seas as well as its continuous artificial island building and construction of military facilities were all against US interests, the report said.



Rhetoric



Su Hao, an international relations professor at China Foreign Affairs University, said the rhetoric of Pentagon officials including US Defense Secretary Ash Carter often came across as hawkish and pitted Washington against Beijing.



"China-US relations seem to have been hijacked by the South China Sea issues, or by the military, which does not fairly describe the comprehensiveness of the bilateral ties," Su said.



Su said it was imperative for President Barack Obama to leave office with a stabilized Sino-US relations despite their disputes over the South China Sea,



"If US President Barack Obama leaves Sino-US relations in chaos to his successor, that would not be desirable," Su added. "The White House must carefully consider how to stabilise relations."



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TagsPentagon, gag order, Washington, Beijing, National Security Council, china, President Barack Obama
(Photo : US Navy) CAT protecting a carrier.

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A new anti-torpedo torpedo is being deployed aboard U.S. Navy aircraft carriers to protect against deadly "wake homing torpedoes" fired from submarines such as Russia's Type 53-65 heavyweight torpedo built to sink aircraft carriers and China's Yu-6 heavyweight torpedo.



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This U.S. Navy anti-torpedo torpedo called the "Countermeasures Anti-Torpedo" or CAT is the sharp end of the "Anti-Torpedo Defense System" (ATTDS). This system is currently installed on five aircraft carriers and will be fully operational by 2022.



The system is able to detect, classify, track and destroy incoming enemy torpedoes. The overall system consists of a sensor, processor and CAT, which is described as a small interceptor missile.



CAT is a first-of-its-kind "hard kill" countermeasure for ships and carriers designed to defeat torpedoes.



ATTDS has completed three carrier deployments. The ATTDS Program of Record plan for future ships includes additional carriers and Combat Logistic Force ships.



Earlier this year, ATTDS was installed and operated on the USNS Brittin (TAKR-305) over a six day period during which the latest system hardware and software was tested.



The emergence of a specifically-engineered torpedo defense system is important for the Navy since it comes a time when many weapons developers are concerned about the vulnerability of carriers to sophisticated weapons such as long-range anti-ship missiles and hypersonic weapons.



The ability to protect carriers from submarine-launched torpedo attacks adds an important element to a carrier's layered defense systems.



Torpedo defense for surface ships, however, involves another portion of the threat envelope and is a different question. SSTD is being rapidly developed to address this.



The complete system consists of a Torpedo Warning System Receive Array launched from the winch at the end of the ship, essentially a towed sensor or receiver engineered to detect the presence of incoming torpedo fire.



The Receive Array sends information to a processor, which then computes key information and sends data to CAT attached to the side of the ship. The crew then makes the decision about whether to fire a CAT.



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Tagsanti-torpedo torpedo, U.S. Navy, Countermeasures Anti-Torpedo, Anti-Torpedo Defense System, submarine, torpedo
(Photo : Getty Images) Chinese ambassador Zhao Jianhua said China is throwing its all out support to President Duterte's drug war and other anti-crime campaign

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China's ambassador to the Philippines has said China-Philippine relations have started to thaw and that ties between the two countries are improving 'beautifully" under the term of President Rodrigo Duterte.



Chinese ambassador Zhao Jianhua said that Manila continues to warm to Beijing following the recent US criticisms on Duterte's war on drugs which had angered the president.



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In an embassy reception on Wednesday, Zhao showered praises on Duterte saying China is in full support of the President's war on illegal drugs amid condemnation from the international community, including the US, for allegedly violating human rights and conducting extrajudicial killings.



Drug war policy



"The Chinese side fully understands and firmly supports the Duterte administration's drug war policy and the fight against other crimes," said Zhao on Wednesday..



Duterte had earlier called on Beijing to take action against major Chinese drug lords involved in illegal drug trade in Manila and who have been operating from the mainland.



He said all the materials being used to manufacture illegal drugs in the Philippines all came from China.



Friendly interactions



Zhao said the two nations have been engaged in 'friendly interactions' since Duterte assumed the presidency three months ago.



"The clouds are fading away. The sun is rising over the horizon and will shine beautifully on the new chapter of bilateral relations," Zhao said in a copy of his speech released during the reception.



The improved China-Philippine ties come on the heels of a soured relationship between Duterte's predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, and China after the former filed a territorial case against Beijing over their longtime dispute in the South China Sea before an international arbitral court in 2013.



July 12 ruling



The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) had ruled last July 12 that China had no legal basis to its 'historic claims' to almost the entirety of the South China Sea and had violated the Philippines' right to explore resources within its exclusive economic zone.



Beijing rejected the ruling and dismissed it as 'illegal' and 'null and void.'



Chinese President Xi Jinping had earlier pointed out that "Beijing would not accept any" future talks, actions, and propositions by any state based on the ruling.



Duterte has said that although war was never an option in resolving the dispute, he would, however, push for diplomacy to convince China to accept the ruling.



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TagsChinese ambassador Zhao Jianhua, China-Philippine relations, Philippine drug war, extrajudicial killings, President Rodrigo Duterte, Chinese President Xi jinping, Philippines, South China Sea, china
(Photo : Getty Images ) Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has compared his anti-drug campaign with the Holocaust.

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China has said it supports Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs.



China's foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said on Thursday that China supports Duterte's campaign against illegal drug trade in the Philippines.



He stressed that the new Filipino regime under the leadership of Duterte has enacted policies that prioritize combating drug-related crimes.



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"China understands and supports Duterte's efforts to combat drug-related crimes," Geng said. "We stand ready to have anti-drug cooperation with the Philippines and formulate a common action plan for it."



Geng said that the Chinese government is also determined to crack down on illegal drug trade and drug-related crimes.



Philippine President Duterte on Wednesday reiterated his government's commitment to combat drug-related crimes comparing his anti-drug campaign with the Holocaust.



"Hitler massacred 3 million Jews. There are 3 million drug addicts. I'd be happy to slaughter them," he said.



In July, the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled against China in favor of the Philippines in a long-standing territorial dispute over island and reefs in the South China Sea.



China dismissed the verdict and described it "illegal" and "null and void." Beijing is laying claim to almost 80 percent of disputed South China Sea.



The Philippines, which calls disputed territory the West Philippines Sea, has repeatedly urged China to respect the ruling.



Philippine President Duterte is also planning to visit China in October to discuss the issue. Beijing has welcomed Duterte's planned state visit and said that Chinese officials are in touch with their Filipino counters to finalize the exact schedule of Duterte's first state visit to China.







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Tagschina, Philippines, war on drugs, South China Sea, Rodrigo Duterte
(Photo : Getty Images) Participant hold their laptops in front of an illuminated wall at the annual Chaos Computer Club (CCC) computer hackers' congress, called 29C3, on December 28, 2012 in Hamburg, Germany.

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China's criminal hacking community has at least 400,000 hackers, and its proliferate activities are sucking 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) out of the country's economy annually, Zheng Bu, a former executive of cybersecurity firm FireEye, revealed.



The results of a 2016 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) survey revealed a 417 percent year-on-year increase of "detected security incidents" ranging from malware, ransomware, stolen data, among others, according to the International Business Times. The survey was conducted on 330 CEOs and IT directors of both local and international companies in China and Hong Kong.



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"There is a large criminal ecosystem in China," Bryce Boland, chief technology officer of FireEye's Asia-Pacific region, said.



The report further revealed that predators particularly prey on customer databases as China begins to fully embrace on the mobile payment services such as WeChat Wallet and Alipay. Furthermore, automatic connections to a public WiFi, which are common to China, can be an attractive avenue for hackers to access data.



"Hackers in China often make a decoy Wi-Fi access points, and if you connect to them, they can access whatever is on your phone," Mangesh Fasale, a malware analyst at F-secure, warned.



The report showed that at least 50 percent of institutional hacks were inside jobs. Sensitive client information such as usernames and credit card details are commonly and easily leaked since people register their personal information online like when going to websites or trade shows, Kenneth Wong, PwC's cybersecurity head for China and Hong Kong, said.



Lester Ross, a partner in the Beijing office of law firm WilmerHale, pointed two reasons why hackers hack. "First, to extort, to force a company or individual to pay money in order to resolve a problem. And second, to extract proprietary information to benefit somebody else, possibly another company or the government."



However, given China's widespread government restrictions on security technology, businesses and individuals are having a hard time fighting against cyber threats, Bloomberg reported.



China's new proposed cybersecurity law aims to further tighten the belt as it requires both local and foreign firms in China to host corporate data exclusively on Chinese servers. It also obligates hardware, network equipment, and other services to get accreditation from local authorities before being used or sold in the country.



"China is trying to have more control over cybersecurity technology, which is not something that's ever done to increase the quality of cybersecurity," John Pescatore, director at SANS security, said.



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Tagscyber crime, Cyber Criminals, cybersecurity, hackers
(Photo : Getty Images) Tibets new chief Wu Yingjie has said that countering the Dalai Lama's influence in Tibets ethnic affair will be his highest priority.

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Countering the Dalai Lama's influence in the Tibet's ethnic affair will be our "highest priority," China's Communist Party's new Secretary for Tibet Wu Yingjie said. The statement comes nearly a month after his appointment as Tibet's new chief.



"First, we must deepen the struggle against the Dalai Lama clique, make it the highest priority in carrying out our ethnic affairs, and the long-term mission of strengthening ethnic unity," Wu said Wu in a speech published in the Tibet Daily on Friday.



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Wu called for efforts to expose the reactionary nature of the Dalai Lama, crack down on his separatist and subversive activities, and eliminate harmful elements that damage Tibet's ethnic unity.



China considers the self-exiled Tibetan spiritual leader as a separatist leader, whose sole aim is to seek Tibet's separation from mainland China. He is often seen traveling across the world, meeting world leaders and delivering speeches at international forums to garner support for Tibet's independence movement.



The Dalai Lama's globetrotting activities has often attracted strong criticism from Beijing, which sees it as a blatant challenge to China's sovereignty over Tibet. China maintains that its rule has brought political stability and economic development in the Himalayan Buddhist region.



However, the Dalai Lama and other critics allege that China continues to suppress Tibet's cultural and spiritual identity. Beijing strongly dismisses these allegations.



Tibet was officially incorporated into mainland China in 1959 after a failed uprising. The uprising's failure forced the Dalai Lama to flee to India and since then has been living in exile in India's northern state of Himachal Pradesh.



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Tagschina, Tibet, China and Tibet, Dalai Lama, China Dalai Lama, Tibet independence
(Photo : getty images.) A Chiese state owned newspaper claims that India will deploy its Rafale fighter jet aircraft to its borders with Pakistan and China.

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China's state-owned tabloid Global Times has warned that India will deploy its newly-acquired Rafale fighter jet aircraft at to its border regions with Pakistan and China. The warning comes just as New Delhi launched a surgical attack across the border to dismantle suspected terrorist camps in Pakistan.



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"Last week, India signed an inter-governmental agreement with France in New Delhi for the purchase of 36 Rafale jet fighters in flyaway condition for $8.82 billion from French company Dassault. The jets can carry tactical nuclear warheads, and this means India's nuclear deterrence capability will be greatly improved," Global Times said.



The newspaper cited a Shenzhen television report to warn that "India will deploy its new French-made fighters in the disputed areas bordering Pakistan and China." It further accused India of hyping up the so-called "China threat" and indulging in an arms purchasing spree.



The nationalistic tabloid noted that the aircraft are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, claiming that India's nuclear deterrence capability has greatly enhanced.



New Delhi's agreement to acquire 35 Rafale fighter aircraft from France is considered a breakthrough deal for India's air force. The Rafale acquisition is expected to fill a critical gap in India's air defence and also compete against state-of-the-art aircraft owned by Pakistan and China.



India's military build-up has been traditionally underpinned by wariness over its neighbors Pakistan and China. India shares a hostile relationship with both countries due to festering border disputes. The most volatile border dispute being Kashmir, which is responsible for the ongoing tension between India and Pakistan.



The northern Himalayan region of Kashmir is claimed by both India and Pakistan. Both countries have fought three wars to settle the dispute.



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Tagschina, Pakistan, India and Pakistan, India and China, Rafale Fghter Jet Aircrafts
(Photo : YouTube Screenshot) A Chinese doctor on board an Air Canada flight has been hailed a hero after saving the life of a passenger.

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A Chinese doctor on board an Air Canada flight has been hailed a hero after saving the life of a passenger who suffered from epilepsy mid-flight using only a spoon and a few toothpicks.



Dr. Tian Yu was one of the passengers of flight CA1478 bound for Urumqi in Xinjiang province from Kashgar on Sept. 23 when a fellow passenger was found unconscious and foaming at the mouth, according to the Stuff.nz.



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"It was a male passenger aged between 35 and 40," the Chinese doctor told Shanghai Daily. "He seemed dazed and was foaming at the mouth."



Tian, a 38-year-old medic from the rheumatology department of Shanghai's Longhua Hospital, responded scene when he heard an in-flight announcement calling for a doctor on board.



After inferring that the patient was suffering from epilepsy, Tian asked for a towel and a spoon from the flight attendants.



He reportedly used his fingers to remove the vomit from the patient's mouth to stop the passenger from choking. He then placed the spoon wrapped with the towel to prevent the patient from biting his own tongue, Daily Mail reported.



Tian, who has knowledge on traditional Chinese medicine, then used toothpicks to stimulate key acupuncture points, including the baihui aperture and sishencong aperture, the Telegraph noted.



"There was no needle available on the plane, and toothpicks were the best replacement I could find," he told Shanghai Daily.



After five minutes of stimulation, the patient was reported to have regained consciousness and was able to sit and ask for water.



After about 20 minutes, the plane successfully landed at the Urumqi Diwopu International Airport where the patient was picked up by the paramedic team for further treatment.



According to Express, stimulating the brain through applying pressure points is a known remedy for seizures in Chinese medicine. It is also believed that epileptic fits could occur by the pressure and oxygen changes on aircraft.



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Tagsdoctor, Tian Yu, hero doctor, epilepsy, flight emergency, Air China, Air China doctor
(Photo : Raytheon) THAAD's X-band AN/TPY-2 radar system.

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China might join Russia in deploying the joint missile shield and land attack missiles to counter the deployment of the United States' Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to South Korea by late 2017.



In another angry announcement, China yesterday threatened to take unspecified but "necessary action" to ensure THAAD, especially its powerful radars that can see thousands of kilometers into China, doesn't compromise its national security.



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"China has made clear its stance on several occasions with regard to THAAD," said foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.



"Its placement on the Korean Peninsula will not resolve security issues of relevant countries, nor will it help realize denuclearization and maintain peace and stability on the peninsula."



He said the deployment "will hurt strategic and security interests of countries and undermine the strategic balance in the region... China firmly opposes it and we will take necessary measures to maintain the strategic balance," he added.



What infuriates China isn't the THAAD interceptor missiles but the powerful THAAD radar that detect and guide these missiles onto their targets. It believes, and rightly so, these radars will degrade the capabilities of its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) aimed at the continental United States (CONUS).



The radar used by THAAD is the X-band AN/TPY-2. This has two configurations: a Terminal Mode with a range of 600 km and a Forward-Based Mode whose exact range remains secret but might be anywhere from 1,500 km to 3,000 km, according to experts.



China is worried THAAD's radar might provide early tracking data to the U.S. ballistic missile defense system, especially the Ground Based Interceptors responsible for defending CONUS, thereby degrading China's ability to hit the United States with its nuclear warhead ICBMs.



One of THAAD's missions is strengthening U.S. defenses against North Korean ballistic missile attack on CONUS.



Last July, China and Russia said they planned to establish a joint missile warning system to neutralize what they see as national security threats stemming from THAAD's radar coverage.



Russia argues the detection abilities of THAAD's radar will allow the U.S. to spy on Russian and Chinese ballistic and aerodynamic targets up to 1,500 kilometers away. From South Korea, the Americans can peer into the Russian territory and China's, as well, said the Russians.



An appropriate response to THAAD "could be the creation of a unified system of Russia and China, a sort of missile defense system," said military expert and Deputy Director of Institute of CIS countries, Vladimir Yevseyev.



China claimed THAAD would destabilize the regional security balance without achieving anything to end North Korea's nuclear program.



"The Chinese side will consider taking necessary steps to maintain national strategic security and regional strategic balance," warned China's Ministry of National Defense in June.



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Woman says police told her to stop praying in her own home, but ... 30 September, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , |

LOUISBURG, Kansas (Christian Examiner)  A former nurse who claims she was threatened with arrest after a complaint about her noisy radio also says she was told by police officers she could not pray in her own home before going to jail.

Now, Mary Anne Sause  who is Catholic and was not actually arrested  has filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit alleging Louisburg police violated her First Amendment rights.

The case is on appeal because the district court dismissed her first filing, executed without the aid of an attorney, with prejudice. That means Sause could not amend her original complaint and refile it with the aid of legal counsel. The district court also said the case contained "allegations far from stating a plausible claim."

The appellate court will have to decide if Sause can move forward with the claim.

This is not, however, the first time Sause has launched a claim the court deemed implausible.

In 2011, she filed assault charges against Mark Pederson, the manager of a Kansas City abortion clinic, for reportedly body slamming her during a scuffle outside of the clinic. Sause was reportedly protesting abortion at the time.

Pederson was found not guilty because numerous eyewitness accounts didn't support her version of the story.

She also filed another pro se case (a case filed without a lawyer) over the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services' placement of her child in the state's foster care system. She claims the state's court case reflected "inaccuracies in her parenting history" and the child was taken "into custody" by the state in violation of federal law.

The court dismissed that case, as well.

In the current suit, which stems from an encounter in 2013, Sause alleges two police officers arrived at her home late at night and demanded entry. According to her account, the officers continued to knock but she refused to let them enter because they did not identify themselves.

No American should ever be told that they cannot pray in their own home. The right to pray in the privacy of one's own home is clearly protected by the First Amendment.

When they returned later, Sause did admit them to the home and they demanded to know why they were not let in before. She replied that they had not identified themselves.

Sause then claims she showed the officers a copy of the U.S. Constitution and one of them replied that it was "just a piece of paper" which "doesn't work here." Once in the home, the officers also told her to prepare to go to jail and searched for an offense with which they could charge her.

Sause, who is on permanent disability and lives in government housing, claims she then asked an officer if she could pray. He said she could and she got on her knees to pray. When the other officer came back into the room, Sause alleges she was ordered to stop praying.

The two officers named in the complaint are Jason Lindsey and Lee Stevens (spelled "Stevans" in the original court case).

"The police are supposed to make you feel safe, but I was terrified that night. It was one of the worst nights of my life," Sause said in a statement from First Liberty Institute and Gibson Dunn, the law firms representing her.

"No American should ever be told that they cannot pray in their own home," Stephanie Taub, associate counsel for First Liberty Institute, said. "The right to pray in the privacy of one's own home is clearly protected by the First Amendment."

Sause's attorneys claim she "seeks a meaningful day in court" to vindicate her rights and the lower court was wrong to dismiss her first lawsuit.

"Regardless of whether she ultimately prevail on the merits of her claims, she plausibly alleged that the officers unlawfully interfered with her constitutionally protected religious liberty  the right to pray in her own house," the filing said.

Sause should be allowed to correct any legal deficiencies in the original filing dismissed by the lower court and have the case heard, Bradley Hubbard, an associate with Gibson Dunn, said.

"As Ms. Sause explained in her complaint, two Louisburg police officers abused their power and violated her First Amendment rights by ordering herunder threat of arrest and without any legitimate law-enforcement justificationto stop praying in her own home," Hubbard said.

Sause was eventually ticketed for "Interference with Law Enforcement" and "Disorderly Conduct."

The Louisburg Police Department and the city have not responded publicly to the complaint.
Christian workers imprisoned under charges related to tarnishing Sudans image are innocent, but their arrests serve the Sudanese government as a warning to others against criticizing the Islamist regime, sources said.



Foreign diplomats and international rights activists have taken notice of the case since Morning Star News in December 2015 broke the story of the arrest of two pastors that month. As part of a recent upsurge in harassment of Christians, Sudan accuses the Sudanese pastors and a foreign aid worker of waging war against the state and spying in the course of allegedly gathering information on persecution of Christians and on bombing civilians in the Nuba Mountains.



Prosecutors in Sudan this week presented flimsy evidence against the two pastors and the Czech medical-aid worker charged with crimes calling for the death penalty, a defense attorney told Morning Star News.



Prosecutors on Monday (Sept. 26) called on officials of Sudans National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) to present as evidence a video said to be taken from the computer of Czech aid worker Petr Jasek showing a foreigner talking with civilians from the Nuba Mountains area of South Kordofan, where an insurgency is fighting government forces, the attorney said.



The prosecution presented a video whose content has nothing to do with the case against Jasek  it only showed a foreigner talking to some people in South Kordofan, he said. For certain, this shows a NISS policy to intimidate others into refraining from criticizing the government.



Jasek and two Sudan Church of Christ pastors, the Rev. Kwa Shamaal and the Rev. Hassan Abdelrahim Tawor, are charged with trying to tarnish the image of Sudans government by collecting information on persecution of Christians and on genocide in the Nuba Mountains. The charges include collecting information for other parties hostile to Sudan.



They are accused of conducting intelligence activities and providing material support for Nuba rebels in South Kordofan under two charges that carry the death penalty  waging war against the state (Article 51 of the Sudanese Criminal Code) and spying (Article 53).



After showing an English-language video said to be recovered from Jaseks laptop, the court on Monday (Sept. 26) postponed the hearing so that a translation into Arabic could be made.



The Voice of the Martyrs released a statement this week saying Jaseks family has asked the aid organization to bring his case to the attention of U.S. Christians for prayer and advocacy.



These men are not spies, Voice of the Martyrs spokesman Todd Nettleton said in the statement. They were not inciting a revolt. They arent pushing a political agenda. These four are simply trying to serve and help. Only tyrants consider helping people a crime, and the four men should be released immediately.



Also charged is Abdulmonem Abdumawla of Darfur, who was arrested in December after he began collecting money to help a friend, Ali Omer, who had needed treatment for burns suffered in a student demonstration. Abdumawla contacted Abdelrahim Tawor, who donated money for Omers treatment, which apparently raised the ire of Sudanese authorities, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).



Omer had been injured during a demonstration at Quran Karim University in Omdurman last year that left him with severe burns that required regular medical care, according to CSW. A senior member of the student wing of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) died when 150 NCP students attacked Darfuri students at a meeting at Sharg El Nil College in Khartoum in April 2015, CSW reported.



Since then, Darfuri students have been increasingly targeted by the NISS, which has violently suppressed peaceful student demonstrations against government repression, CSW reported. NISS is said to be staffed by hard-line Islamists with broad powers to arrest people the government deems undesirable.



Abdelrahim Tawor, along with other pastors, was arrested after attending a missions conference in Addis Abba, Ethiopia last year. Upset by the conference, NISS official interrogated Abdelrahim Tawor about accusations that those in attendance spoke of Sudans government persecuting Christians, a claim church leaders deny.

Shamaal, head of missions for the SCOC, was arrested on Dec.18, 2015, as was Abdelrahim Tawor. Shamaal was released on Dec. 21 but was required to report to NISS offices daily, a requirement that was removed on Jan. 16. Shamaal was re-arrested on May 25.



Most SCOC members have roots among the ethnic Nuba in the Nuba Mountains of Sudans South Kordofan state, where the government is fighting an insurgency. The Nuba along with other Christians in Sudan face discrimination, as President Omar al-Bashir has vowed to introduce a stricter version of sharia (Islamic law) and recognize only Islamic culture and Arabic language.



The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir in connection with war crimes in Darfur. Due to its treatment of Christians and other human rights violations, Sudan has been designated a Country of Particular Concern by the U.S. State Department since 1999, and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended the country remain on the list in its 2016 report.



Sudan ranked eighth on Christian support organization Open Doors 2016 World Watch List of countries where Christians face most persecution.

If you would like to help persecuted Christians, visit http://morningstarnews.org/resources/aid-agencies/ for a list of organizations that can orient you on how to get involved.

If you or your organization would like to help enable Morning Star News to continue raising awareness of persecuted Christians worldwide with original-content reporting, please consider collaborating at http://morningstarnews.org/donate/?

Publication date: September 30, 2016
Today (Friday) is International Blasphemy Day, a day on which people are encouraged to voice their opinions against repressive laws that outlaw criticism of religion.

The day comes just a month after a report on religious freedom was released from the U.S. State Department, saying that blasphemy and apostasy laws undermine human rights.

All residents of countries where laws or social norms encourage the death penalty for blasphemy are vulnerable to attacks... This is particularly true for those who have less power and are more vulnerable in those societies, like women, religious minorities, and the poor, the report said.

One of the most recent and noteworthy cases of punishment for blasphemy and apostasy is the case of Christian mother Asia Bibi in Pakistan.

Bibi had been on death row since 2010 after being accused by her former colleagues of blaspheming the Prophet Mohammad.

In 2015, she was placed in solitary confinement. Next month, she will face an appeals court.

In Algeria, Slimane Bouhafs was sentenced to three years in jail for insulting Islam on Facebook.

In Egypt, four Coptic Christians are seeking asylum in Switzerland after they were convicted of blasphemy earlier this year for pretending to pray while reciting verses from the Quran.

Then, in the most recent case, an elderly pastors wife in Nigeria was beaten to death in June by a mob, following reports that she had blasphemed.

Publication date: September 30, 2016
Christian priests in Nigeria are increasingly under attack from those who are hostile to the Christian faith.

ChristianToday.com reports that the most recent incident of violence against priests in Nigeria occurred when three priests were attacked and one was kidnapped, allegedly by Fulani herdsmen.

Two of the priests were injured in the incident. One of the priests was shot in the head and was taken to a hospital for treatment. Another priest, Fr. Emmanuel Dim, Rector of Tansi Major Seminary, was kidnapped and is reportedly being held for ransom.

However, director of communications for the diocese of Nnewi in Anambra State, Fr. Hyginus Aghaulor, stated that "The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria has decided and directed that ransom should not be paid for the kidnap of any of its priests and anybody that is demanding for ransom for the release of any priest kidnapped is wasting time. If anybody or group goes ahead to pay ransom for the release of any priest, the person or the group is on his own."

Aghaulor added that persecution of priests is becoming more and more common in Nigeria.

"One begins to wonder if Catholic priest have become [an] endangered species, he said.

Aghaulor places much of the blame on government officials:

"While innocent people are left unprotected, we have seen barrage of military wares and personnel protecting the pipelines in Niger Delta, as if oil is more important than people's life. Why should people be killed without provocation in their own traditional lands?" he asked.

Publication date: September 30, 2016
Crossway has decided to reverse the changes it had finalized in ESV Bible, after the alterations were heavily criticized by leading Bible experts and church leaders.

The non-profit Christian publication ministry had changed 52 words from 29 verses out of over 775,000 words and 31,102 verses.

"I'm glad Crossway made this decision about the ESV, and I'm glad to see them change their minds in an admirable way," Desiring God editor Bryan DeWire tweeted.

Bible translators at ESV had worked for 17 years before they finalized the changes, which were slated to be made permanent.

The controversial changes in ESV included tweaking of Genesis 3:16 which in NIV says, "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." Crossway wanted to change it to "your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you."

Scot McKnight, Northern Seminary New Testament professor, told The Christian Post that the word 'contrary' sounds like God cursed women to be rebellious against their husbands.

"This new translation of Genesis 3:16 suggests the curse against the woman is an act of God (a curse) that seals estrangement, alienation and tension between females and males. By so rendering this verse, the ESV creates the impression that females and males are contrarians with one another," he said.

"Some think they make women rebellious and men authoritarian in response. That is a sad and potentially dangerous interpretation for it gives the wrong kind of males a ready-made excuse for domination."

Writing for the Patheos blog, McKnight says that the Hebrew word "el" used in Genesis 3:16 means "unto" or "towards," and has a terminative implication in the sentence.

"It is a preposition indicating the termination of movement. That is its primary meaning. If I leave my office and walk to my house, I would use the preposition 'el.' Towards," he said.

Other verses which were changed in the ESV included 1 Kings 8:48, which has been changed from "If they repent with all their mind and with all their heart in the land of their enemies," to "If they repent with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies."

James 2:10 was also changed, from, "For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it," to "For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it."

"We have become convinced that this decision was a mistake," Crossway president and CEO Lane Dennis said in a statement. "We apologize for this and for any concern this has caused for readers of the ESV, and we want to explain what we now believe to be the way forward. Our desire, above all, is to do what is right before the Lord."
After Los Angeles Open Door Presbyterian Church (LAODPC) lost a previous lawsuit regarding the seizure of its church property, it received a favorable response from an appeals court which reversed the lower courts decision.

The church was building a new sanctuary worth tens of millions of dollars, when the Evangelical Christian Credit Union seized the property in 2012 after the church failed to make payments for several months. The church took the ECCU to the Los Angeles Superior Court and sued the credit union for fraud and breach of contract for damages. However, in February of 2012 the church lost the lawsuit.

On September 19, an appeals court overruled the lower court decision, allowing the church to once again move forward with the lawsuit. However, Chun Kyung Kim, an elder of the church, said the church is currently considering the next steps to take.

This article has been translated by Rachael Lee. For the original in Korean, visit kr.christianitydaily.com.
One person died and about 114 were injured when a New Jersey transit train crashed at Hoboken station on Thursday morning.

The train did not slow down upon reaching the station and smashed the track stop barriers and hit the interior wall of the Hoboken Terminal, bringing down the roof and concrete on the platform.

The incident happened at around 8:45 AM, when the train was carrying 250 passengers.

"You felt like this huge, huge bang," passenger Steve Mesiano told NBC. "The lights went off, and then you started to see like -- I was in the window seat, so I could see like outside, what was happening, and the roof just collapsed on the first car."

People broke the emergency windows to get out, helping other passengers to get out before the first responders arrived.

"Once we got off we noticed that people were stuck and they had to come through the windows," Jaime Weatherhead-Saul, a passenger who was between standing between the first and second cars said. "And the conductor came off and he was completely bloodied."

Train operator Thomas Gallagher, 48, was severely injured in the accident but was released from the hospital after treatment. He was working as an NJ Transit employee for 19 years, and had an experience of 10 years as an engineer.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said he was cooperating with the investigators.

The cause of the accident is not yet known.

"We have no indication that this is anything other than a tragic accident but ... we're going to let the law enforcement professionals pursue the facts," Christie said in a news conference.

The train was not equipped with an anti-collision system known as positive train control, which automatically slows down or stops trains running on high speeds.

The NJ Transit has been instructed to install PTC systems, but the railroads had requested to postpone the deadline last year.

"PTC has been one of our priorities, we know that it can prevent accidents, whether it is involved in this accident that is definitely one of the things we will look at carefully," said T. Bella Dinh-Zarr, Vice Chairman at National Transportation Safety Board.

Over 100,000 people travel via NJ Transit trains daily to commute between Jew Jersey and New York.

The Hoboken Terminal was constructed as far back as in 1907, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It has been restored many times and was last repaired in 2012.
You try walking across Seattle alone. At night. Barefoot.

My college roommate did all the time. I didn't understand it, just as I didnt understand his quiet demeanor, his watchfulness from the edges, or his aversion to typical college-life distractions. His after-dark disappearances intrigued me. So I took to walking with him. I wore hiking boots, and still I struggled to match his incredible stride. As I did, my own pacein walking and in livingpermanently changed. I came to value the rewards of adventures off the beaten path, of being quiet in good company. And I found a compassionate friend.

I think of Michael when I watch Tom McCarthys large-hearted 2003 comedy The Station Agent.

And I watch it frequently. I see myself in Joe: the talkative food-truck barista (Bobby Cannavale) who sets up shop next to an obsolete train depot in Middle-of-Nowhere, New Jersey. I think of Michael when I watch Fin (Peter Dinklage): a soft-spoken loner who moves into that depot for the solitude, and who eventually surrenders, accepting Joes gregarious, uninvited companionship.

Its remarkable: Watch how Joe and Fin, like an oversized puppy playing with Grumpy Cat, become complementary. Watch how they transform one other through the simple, shared experience of long walks and short silences.

How might the world be changed if we went strolling, in quiet attentiveness, with those we would rather avoid?

My comparison of my roommate and Fin only goes so far. I dont know where Michaels quiet nature came from, but its obvious what made Fin so disinclined to talk with anybody: Hes been mocked, abused, and avoided for his dwarfism. He has every reason to withdraw from society, to forget ...

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In this biweekly feature, we seek to encourage the local church by remembering the times when things were much, much worse.

At first glance, a beard may seem like an unremarkable thingjust a bit of protein, really, sort of like a fluffy toenail for your face. Many grown men, myself included, cant even grow them.

And yet, for many men throughout religious history, theyve been a big deal. The law of Moses commanded men not to trim the corners of their beardsa custom that Orthodox Jews still practice to this day. Many of the Reformers grew long beards, possibly to signify their break with the traditionally clean-shaven Catholic clergy. Even Baptist minister Charles Spurgeon, in an apparent attempt to win a most overstated case for anything ever competition, famously advised his students that growing a beard was a habit most natural, scriptural, manly, and beneficial.

So yeah, beards can be unreasonably important sometimes. One time, they even contributed to one of the deepest, oldest, and ugliest rifts in all of Christendom: the Great Schism.

Of course, anyone with a cursory knowledge of church history knows that until approximately A.D. 1054 , there was basically one united church for the geographic area that used to be the Roman Empire. The western, Latin-speaking half of the empire fell in 476, but its church hung around well past that. Meanwhile, the Eastern, Greek-speaking half, which became known as the Byzantine Empire, was still a thing into the 15th century. Ostensibly, one of the forces that united these two very different halves of the church was the Nicene Creed: a couple hundred words that articulated their shared beliefs.

But then the Western Church had to go ...

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In the shifting battle lines of the mommy wars, scientific studies have become an increasingly common weapon. Research gets employed by both sides and on nearly every issue. Whether breast-feeders versus formula-feeders, anti-vaxxers verses vaccine advocates, or a range of other issues, parents rely on a wave of child development scholarship to defend their positionsand often add fuel to the fire.

We have the Internet to thank, mostly. Young moms have all done it. We Googled our parenting questions or relied on information posted by our friends on Facebook. According to a Pew Research report, 66 percent of mothers and 48 percent of fathers say they have found useful parenting information on social media. About a third said they asked a parenting question of their social network sometime in the last month.

Reflecting on her first six years of parenting, Jennifer Richler writes on The New York Times blog Motherlode: Google was my parenting manual and my What to Expect When Youre Expecting.

With all that searching, scientific studies and claims ranging from shoddy to sound inevitably appear in the results. A simple query generates everything from data gathered at the Center for Disease Control to industry-funded organizations to grassroots websites and mommy blogs, all citing peer-reviewed studies and quoting doctors. For each study claiming to be evidence supporting one thing, theres another study on the other side.

Discerning pseudo-science from bona fide science takes some work and forces us to realize that research isnt as straightforward as we might hope. Along with the rest of a generation of Googling parents, Christian mommas seeking wisdom for the right strategies for raising healthy ...

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The Austin Stone Community Church's Revolutionary New Kids Worship Album 'Only Jesus' is Now Available for Preorder at onlyjesu.us



AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 30, 2016 /



The album features 10 songs cowritten and recorded in collaboration by Austin Stone Worship and KIDS team members. Each song was created specifically for children and their families to have a powerful experience worshiping Jesus by singing, dancing, and exploring basic truths of the gospel.



"Our desire was more than to just make a good worship album for kids," said Jesse Reeves, Austin Stone Creative Director of Family Ministries. "In the end we wanted a full resource that would invite kids and parents to discover truths about God together as a family. We wanted music that families could sing along to in the car and at home, music that centered everyone's hearts on the truths of Scripture."



As though these incredible new kids worship songs were not enough to give children everywhere an exciting way to engage with Jesus, the team really wanted to take this album to the next level for kids worship. Coming free with the album, therefore, is an enriching Bible study guide for families to study the meanings of the songs and a full set of "Just-Dance" style interactive dance and lyric videos to show kids and their families how to dance and sing along to each song.



"While a kids worship album is a tremendous resource for teaching our kids to worship, with 'Only Jesus' we found ourselves wanting to go all out," said Austin Stone Worship Pastor Aaron Ivey. "What better way to enhance the worship experience than to create a rich theological study and some high-quality, high-energy, super-fun dance videos for families to enjoy together!"



For the devotional, the team behind the album produced a simple and helpful guide for families to study the songs' topics together. The Family Worship Guide is designed to help kids and parents study each of the album's songs twice over the course of a month. The guide's 20 studies lead participants to discover the rich truths of the gospel infused in each song.



"To pair with this amazing, engaging album, we wanted a family worship guide that parents could read to children and that older children could read on their own, so everyone in the family could learn rich theological truths," said Austin Stone KIDS Director John Murchison. "Above all, we wanted to make a resource that would bring families together to worship our King!"



"Only Jesus" is available for preorder now at the album website,



For additional information, photos, interviews, music, and more, contact Austin Stone Communications Director John Yeng at



About The Austin Stone Community Church

The Austin Stone Community Church was established in 2002 and has grown from a small gathering of 100 to nearly 8,000 weekly attendees. The mission of the church is to exalt the name of Christ in our city, our nation, and around the world, aiming to be a community who gives glory to Christ above all things and welcomes all people to join us in worshipping Him. Twelve Sunday services are held weekly at five different locations in Austin. For more information, visit



About Austin Stone Worship

Austin Stone Worship is a collection of worship leaders, musicians, songwriters, storytellers, and artists serving and equipping the church with content rich in theology, mission, and expression. It exists to exalt the name of Jesus Christ here and now, always and forever. As a ministry of The Austin Stone Community Church, ASW is dedicated to proclaiming the beautiful gospel of Christ in their city and to the world, while challenging believers to live a fully devoted life to Jesus. They train worship leaders and artists, developing them in strong theology as well as practical skills through two-year worship leader residencies, internships, worship pastor intensives, and online worship leader development. For more information, visit

Share Tweet Contact: John Yeng, The Austin Stone Community Church , 713-653-4712, john.yeng@austinstone.org AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 30, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- Austin Stone Worship is partnering with The Austin Stone Community Church KIDS Ministry and other staff members to release a revolutionary new kids worship album, "Only Jesus." The album will be released with a complementary devotional guide and interactive dance videos for every song. Preorders are available now through the album's release on Friday, October 7, 2016, and every preorder comes with two instant song downloads!The album features 10 songs cowritten and recorded in collaboration by Austin Stone Worship and KIDS team members. Each song was created specifically for children and their families to have a powerful experience worshiping Jesus by singing, dancing, and exploring basic truths of the gospel."Our desire was more than to just make a good worship album for kids," said Jesse Reeves, Austin Stone Creative Director of Family Ministries. "In the end we wanted a full resource that would invite kids and parents to discover truths about God together as a family. We wanted music that families could sing along to in the car and at home, music that centered everyone's hearts on the truths of Scripture."As though these incredible new kids worship songs were not enough to give children everywhere an exciting way to engage with Jesus, the team really wanted to take this album to the next level for kids worship. Coming free with the album, therefore, is an enriching Bible study guide for families to study the meanings of the songs and a full set of "Just-Dance" style interactive dance and lyric videos to show kids and their families how to dance and sing along to each song."While a kids worship album is a tremendous resource for teaching our kids to worship, with 'Only Jesus' we found ourselves wanting to go all out," said Austin Stone Worship Pastor Aaron Ivey. "What better way to enhance the worship experience than to create a rich theological study and some high-quality, high-energy, super-fun dance videos for families to enjoy together!"For the devotional, the team behind the album produced a simple and helpful guide for families to study the songs' topics together. The Family Worship Guide is designed to help kids and parents study each of the album's songs twice over the course of a month. The guide's 20 studies lead participants to discover the rich truths of the gospel infused in each song."To pair with this amazing, engaging album, we wanted a family worship guide that parents could read to children and that older children could read on their own, so everyone in the family could learn rich theological truths," said Austin Stone KIDS Director John Murchison. "Above all, we wanted to make a resource that would bring families together to worship our King!""Only Jesus" is available for preorder now at the album website, www.onlyjes.us , and on the iTunes and Google Play Stores. Preorder today and get two instant song downloads! To share your "Only Jesus" experience on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, use #aswOJ.For additional information, photos, interviews, music, and more, contact Austin Stone Communications Director John Yeng at john.yeng@austinstone.org or visit www.austinstoneworship.com/ojmedia About The Austin Stone Community ChurchThe Austin Stone Community Church was established in 2002 and has grown from a small gathering of 100 to nearly 8,000 weekly attendees. The mission of the church is to exalt the name of Christ in our city, our nation, and around the world, aiming to be a community who gives glory to Christ above all things and welcomes all people to join us in worshipping Him. Twelve Sunday services are held weekly at five different locations in Austin. For more information, visit www.austinstone.org About Austin Stone WorshipAustin Stone Worship is a collection of worship leaders, musicians, songwriters, storytellers, and artists serving and equipping the church with content rich in theology, mission, and expression. It exists to exalt the name of Jesus Christ here and now, always and forever. As a ministry of The Austin Stone Community Church, ASW is dedicated to proclaiming the beautiful gospel of Christ in their city and to the world, while challenging believers to live a fully devoted life to Jesus. They train worship leaders and artists, developing them in strong theology as well as practical skills through two-year worship leader residencies, internships, worship pastor intensives, and online worship leader development. For more information, visit www.austinstoneworship.com
Pro-life Film 'Voiceless' to Get Advance Screening in Front of the U.S. Supreme Court Contact: Rev. Patrick Mahoney, 540-538-4741



WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- After initially denying Church on the Hill and Movie to Movement's request to preview the groundbreaking new film "Voiceless" in front of the Supreme Court on October 2, Court officials have granted permission.



After two weeks of communications and meetings with Court officials, in which the screening request was denied three separate times, and less than 48 hours away from filing a lawsuit to assert Church on the Hill and Rev. Patrick Mahoney's First Amendment rights, the Court reversed course and settled on a plan to screen "Voiceless" in front of the Court.



According to organizers, this is the first time the Supreme Court has ever permitted a film to be shown in front of the Court. This is not only a historic victory for free speech and the First Amendment, but also a powerful opportunity to give a voice to the millions of innocent children who have no voice of their own.



The award-winning film "Voiceless" introduces viewers to a discharged soldier who discovers an abortion clinic operating across the street from his Philadelphia church. He struggles to motivate his church to get involved in protecting unborn babies, and eventually must decide whether to risk it all to fight for what is right.



Filmmakers say that "Voiceless" is the first pro-life film that powerfully addresses the reasons why most people don't engage the injustice of abortion. This film is brilliantly designed to inspire and motivate the church to action.



Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Pastor of the Washington, D.C. based Church on the Hill and Director of the Christian Defense Coalition states, "We celebrate this historic victory for the First Amendment and free speech by showing the film 'Voiceless' on the most hallowed public space in America. That is, the public sidewalk in front of the United States Supreme Court. As we had to fight to have this powerful film shown, we will continue to be a loud and prophetic voice for human rights and justice working to end the violence of abortion. We will continue to be a 'voice' for the 'voiceless' until abortion ends up on the scrapheap of history like slavery and segregation."



"Voiceless" Executive Producer Jason Jones said, "I served as executive producer on 'Voiceless' and founded Movie to Movement to use art to overturn laws that deny legal protection to the child in the womb. We are making a statement at the Supreme Court that the child in the womb demands full legal protection from the violence of abortion, and even if the Court refuses to recognize the inalienable rights of the human person, we will continue to proclaim them through the power and beauty of film."



Constitutional attorney Catherine Glenn Foster said, "This is an unprecedented victory for the First Amendment, and we are delighted that the Supreme Court is partnering with us in affirming the constitutional rights of all Americans. On October 2, we will be screening the powerful pro-life film 'Voiceless' in front of the Supreme Court, the first film ever permitted to be shown there. We are using this historic opportunity to give a voice to the more than one million children tragically aborted every year in America alone, and invigorate the church to speak out against the violence of abortion. The First Amendment guarantees that every American can use his or her voice to advocate for life, and this film reveals the need for each one of us to honor our duty to speak out for the least of these, our fellow man."



"Voiceless" will be shown on Sunday, October 2, at 6:30 P.M. on the eve of the Supreme Court's 2016 Term and in the midst of a heated presidential race, with both candidates making the Supreme Court a central issue in their campaigns.



There will be also be a candlelight prayer vigil as part of the October 2 film presentation.



"Voiceless" opens in theaters nationwide on October 7.



For more information or interviews call:



Rev. Patrick Mahoney at 540.538.4741

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Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Against Pro-Life Group for Exposing Planned Parenthood's Top Medical Waste Hauler Contact: Mark Harrington, Created Equal, 614-419-9000, mark@createdequal.org



COLUMBUS, Ohio, Sept. 30, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- Yesterday, Judge Margaret A. Marcoullier of the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit Court of Illinois released her decision on Stericycle, Inc. v. Created Equal (and Mark Harrington). Judge Marcoullier dismissed all three charges against Created Equal and Mark Harrington: defamation, false light, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.



The temporary restraining order was denied.



Read Judge Marcoullier's decision in favor of Created Equal: bit.ly/2dv08n1



Over the past six months, arguments were presented in a lawsuit by Stericycle, Inc. against the pro-life group Created Equal. The Thomas More Society, a national non-profit law firm, represented Created Equal and its Executive Director Mark Harrington, against the temporary restraining order. This order was intended to stifle Created Equal's first amendment protected message that Stericycle is "enabling" abortion giant Planned Parenthood to kill preborn children.



Created Equal launched #ProjectWeakLink on March 29, 2016 by distributing informational postcards in the Lake Forest, IL area, which is home to Planned Parenthood business partner Stericycle. On March 31 Created Equal was notified by Stericycle's attorneys that the company was seeking a temporary restraining order to stop the campaign.



Created Equal's #ProjectWeakLink was devised after a Michigan abortionist's leaked statement that abortion clinics are "one incineration company away from being closed." Additionally, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine's investigation of Planned Parenthood confirmed that Stericycle disposes of aborted fetuses for Planned Parenthood.



Mark Harrington, National Director for Created Equal said, "Pro-life free speech and the rule of law prevailed today. Corporate bullies like Stericycle are not immune to exposure for their involvement in abortion-killing. If Stericycle is really concerned about the effects of our awareness campaign on their public image, then they will cease enabling Planned Parenthood by transporting, and disposing aborted babies and the instruments used to kill them. If they continue to partner with the abortion industry, the campaign to expose them will continue."

The "David vs. Goliath" courtroom match-up teamed the small advocacy group and the Chicago-based pro-bono attorneys of the Thomas More Society against the corporate behemoth, Stericycle, and its legal team, headed by Chicago's former chief U. S. Attorney, Scott Lassar, who headed up a team of litigators from Sidley Austin LLP.



"This latest dismissal of Stericycle's lawsuit constitutes another signal victory for free speech on the part of ordinary citizens," stated Tom Brejcha, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Society. "The court recognized that no business is immune from public criticism of practices that citizens deem profoundly objectionable on moral or legal grounds," he explained. "Those companies like Stericycle that partner with the abortion industry are not exempt from critiques even when  as in this case  the critiques have been scathing and vigorous."

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home World Brawl breaks out between Muslims and Christians during Egypt Eid celebrations

Egyptian authorities have arrested 37 men in connection to a riot between Muslims and Christians in the village of Asem on the outskirts of Minya city in Egypt.

The riot, which occurred during the Eid celebrations, was reportedly started by two young men who were fighting over a donkey cart. Gangs of men allegedly joined in and started throwing rocks. One man was injured and a car was damaged during the brawl. Christians said that a beauty salon and three animal enclosures were set on fire.

The police put a stop to the fight and cordoned off the village. The authorities arrested 20 Muslims and 17 Christians. Local members of parliament (MPs) came and spoke to the suspects to calm the tensions at the village.

Minya has been the site of sectarian violence these past few months.

Last May, a mob of 300 Muslim men stripped a 70-year-old woman naked out on the street after it was rumored that her son had an affair with a Muslim woman. The men also looted and set fire to her house. Other witnesses said that six other Christian homes were set on fire.

"They burned the house and went in and dragged me out, threw me in front of the house and ripped my clothes," said the 70-year-old woman who wanted to remain anonymous, Express reported. "I was just as my mother gave birth to me and was screaming and crying."

In July, 5,000 people attacked Christians for trying to build a church in Baidaa. Naim Aziz Moussa said that he had offered up the two floors at his home as a place for worship for the villagers. Speculations about the church started to spread after visits from a Coptic priest.

"We don't want a church, we will knock down the church building, Egypt is an Islamic country," the mob reportedly shouted.

Moussa stated that the mob of more than 5,000 who attacked his home included young and old, men and women.

"The building was ransacked, including our home. My brother's nearby new flat was also destroyed," said Moussa, World Watch Monitor reported.

Six Muslims and six Christians were arrested by the police. The Christians were charged with building without permission and praying without a permit. Moussa, who was one of the arrested Christians, has been told by the police that he can only go home if he reconciles with the attackers.

Egypt has relaxed its law on building and renovation of churches but critics believe that Christians will still face obstructions because officials want security services, which the Church says are biased against Christians, to have the final word on church constructions.
home World China orders Sichuan church to stop religious activities

A church in Sichuan province in China has been ordered to stop Christians from performing religious activities such as singing hymns, praying and chanting inside the church building.

Zhang Daichun, a member of the house church was handed a document titled "Notice of Order to Reform" on Sept. 2 with a threat to impose administrative penalties if the church fails to adhere to the order within 15 days.

The notice ordered the church to stop allowing foreign pastors and non-government appointed clerics to preach and conduct religious activities. The church was also ordered to stop Christians from performing religious activities such as singing hymns, praying and chanting.

The house church in Sichuan is just one of many churches facing harassment from Chinese authorities throughout the Communist country. House churches from Guangdong, Zhejiang, Anhui and Henan have been subjects of harassment in an ongoing crackdown on Christianity, China Aid reports.

The government recently released a draft of the revisions on the Regulations on Religious Affairs which will officially be implemented in October.

The draft, which contains nine chapters and 74 articles, includes restrictions against "organizing citizens to attend religious trainings, conferences and activities abroad," "preaching, organizing religious activities, and establishing religious institutions or religious sites at schools," and "providing religious services through the internet."

A pastor who only went by the name Zhou observed that the revised regulations demonstrate the Communist Party's intention to take control full of religion, according to a separate report from China Aid.

"The government wants to control everything, even the smallest aspects," said Zhou, adding, "One characteristic of this draft is the empowerment of local government bodies all the way down to the communities. This revision will further reduce the possibility of loosening religious control in China. It is becoming impossible."

Gao Baosheng, a pastor of the Unites States-based Chinese church, noted that the laws against religion are becoming more specific and detailed. He added that the revisions will result in "a religious winter so harsh that we must seek guidance from God."

About 20 lawyers, academics and religious leaders have sent a letter to the Chinese parliament to raise their objections against the proposed rules.
home US Christian author Philip Yancey questions evangelical support for Donald Trump

Best-selling Christian author Philip Yancey has expressed his concern about the enthusiastic support given by the evangelicals to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

In a recent interview with Evangelical Focus, Yancey pointed out Trump's problematic characteristics and questioned the reasoning behind the evangelicals' enthusiastic endorsement of the candidate.

"I am staggered that so many evangelical Christians would somehow paint a man who is a bully, who made his money by casinos, who has had several wives and several affairs, as someone that we could stand behind," said Yancey

"I can understand why maybe you choose these policies that you support, but to choose a person who stands against everything that Christianity believes as the hero, the representative, one that we get behind enthusiastically is not something that I understand at all," he adds.

The author noted that the church's close association with the state has caused problems for Christians in the past because the church was judged by the state's flaws.

"There are countries in Europe where the church is set back for decades and decades, because they have been stained by how they sold their soul for power," he stated.

Yancey also noted that the situation in the United States is becoming more like the early church as the culture grows more secular. He explained that the church stood out in a pagan society like the Roman Empire because it was radically different.

Some Evangelical leaders have been increasingly outspoken in their support for Trump, but there are still leading evangelicals who are standing firm in their opposition to the Republican nominee.

Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has explained in the past that he cannot vote for a candidate who has boasted of his adulterous affairs.

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention, cited Trump's racist remarks as one of the reasons why he refuses to vote for the real estate mogul.

In contrast, Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress has been outspoken in his support for Trump. He characterized the Christians who refuse to vote for the Republican nominee as "weak," "namby-pamby" and too "proud."
home US Donald Trump adds Catholic advisory panel to campaign

Donald Trump's campaign announced the formation of an advisory panel composed of Catholic leaders to advise the Republican nominee on issues that are important to Catholics.

According to the statement released by Trump's campaign last week, the Catholic Advisory Group will be a part of the Faith and Cultural Advisory Committee of Trump's campaign.

Members of the panel include former U.S. senator Rick Santorum, Rev. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, Matt Smith of American Conservative Union, former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating and Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List.

Joseph Cella, founder of National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, will serve as the liaison between Trump's campaign and the members of the panel.

Congressman Sean Duffy, a member of the advisory group, argued that Trump will fight for issues and policies that concern Catholics while Hillary Clinton openly opposes the teachings of the Catholic Church. He noted that Clinton worked against the Church when she was the First Lady and during her terms as a U.S. senator and secretary of state.

"Catholics are particularly concerned that she would pack the Supreme Court with 3-5 young ideological liberals whose decisions will have far reaching and long lasting implication for the Catholic Church and the lay faithful on everything from the pro-life issue, to religious liberty to health care and educational mandates, just to name a few," said Duffy, referring to Clinton.

Pavone, who is also a member of Trump's pro-life coalition, explained in an interview with the Christian Post that being a member of the group does not necessarily equate to an endorsement of Trump but he said that he will personally cast his vote for the candidate.

According to a poll from the Public Religion Research Institute, Trump trails behind Clinton by 23 percentage points among Catholic voters. Pavone surmises that the Republican nominee can close the gap by focusing on the issues in which the Democratic party contradicts Catholic doctrines.

"When it comes to the sanctity of life, marriage, family, and religious freedom, it is not only that the party has the wrong policies, but it abandons the principles underlying those policies," said Pavone.
home US Evangelicals vow to defy abortion and gay marriage laws in new 'Declaration of Dependence'

Evangelical Christians have expressed their firm opposition to abortion rights and same-sex marriage in a document titled "Declaration of Dependence."

The document contains a pledge to refuse government mandate to support or fund abortions and oppose "same-sex marriage, polygamy, bestiality, and all other forms of sexual perversion prohibited by Holy Scripture."

"Therefore, we, the undersigned - not only as Christians but also believing we have the constitutional right as Americans to follow these time honored Christian beliefs - commit to conducting our churches, ministries, businesses, and personal lives in accordance with our Christian faith and choose to obey God rather than man," the document concluded.

The "Declaration of Dependence" appeared as a full-page advertisement in the Sunday edition of the New York Times.

The has already been signed by over 70,000 people on its official website. Some of the original signatories include David Barton of WallBUilders of Aledo, Texas, Kenneth Copeland of Newark, Texas, Jerry Boykin of the Family Research Council and James Dobson of Focus on the Family.

Andrew Wommack, the author of the document, has stated that he intends to show all the signatures to lawmakers.

"We are asking for 1 million signatures," said Karen Conrad, director of marketing for Andrew Wommack Ministries.

According to the website the document will be promoted through media coverage, television broadcasts, news programs and newspaper advertisements. $500,000 have already been committed to promote the document in major newspapers and digital campaigns.

When asked whether the "Declaration of Dependence" is aimed at a specific court case, Conrad replied, "It's probably more (aimed) at the elections than anything."

A critic writing for Christian Today has noted that the document's language is designed to appeal to voters. The critic also pointed out that two of the signatories, namely Dobson and Copeland, are members of Trump's evangelical advisory board. Other signatories such as Barton and Boykin have also expressed their support for the Republican nominee.

The critic has warned that there may be other worse campaigns than the "Declaration of Dependence" before the elections.
home World Package with Quran note triggers security scare in East London church

A mysterious package with a note referencing the Qur'an caused a security scare at the St. Peter and St. Paul's Church in Chingford.

The note on the package reads, "Please do not read unless you are an expert on the Quran [sic]. Very seriously dangerous. Please."

The package turned out to be the Good News Bible wrapped in a tea towel. It was found outside the church by Jessica Worth who was in the area for a Zumba class.

"At first I thought it was a joke because nothing has ever happened like that in Chingford," Worth told the Standard. "But after we spoke about I thought I'd best report it because it was at a church," she added.

Rev. Andy Trennier said that he was called to the scene after the package was found.

"To be honest I thought it was which was a good news bible wrapped up in a tea towel but the officers were very professional and dealt with it seriously," said Trennier. "We're a popular, very busy, urban church so we do get people with mental health problems leaving notes in the place."

A Met Police spokeswoman stated that police were called but the package was not considered to be suspicious.

Trennier told Premier that he is trying to keep the churchyard and the building open as much as possible. He believes that it is the best way to deal with the situation.

Last month, Experts warned that the risk of terrorist attacks on churches in Britain increased after the murder of a French priest inside a church in Normandy last July. Nick Tolson, director of National Churchwatch, said that smaller churches are more likely to be targeted by terrorists as seen in the Normandy church attack.

The National Churchwatch issued a 12-page guidance advising churches to put bouncers on its churchdoors to guard the church against potential terrorist attacks. The document also suggested that churches should install CCTVs and alarms that could be set off by church personnel.
home Entertainment Phil Robertson in new documentary 'Torchbearer' to challenge post-Christian worldview

A new documentary titled "Torchbearer" featuring "Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson will be challenging the post-Christian worldview when it hits select theaters on Oct. 7.

The film, directed by veteran filmmaker Steve Bannon, features footages from real-life events from world history. Robertson guides the viewers to a tour in Athens, Rome, Paris and even the Nazi death camp in Auschwitz to examine what happens to societies without God's guidance.

Robertson also delves into historical events such as the creation of the atomic bomb, the Holocaust and the Civil Rights movement.

In an earlier interview with Bannon for Breitbart, Robertson shared what he thought about the places he visited in Europe while making the film.

"When I was in those places that you just mentioned a Auschwitz, and where the French Revolution took place, and those ruins where I thought about the Romans and how they slaughtered our brothers and sisters on a scale of what ISIS is currently doing a and I'm telling you the truth that it was actually overwhelming," said Robertson.

"When I stood on Mar's Hill where the Apostle Paul gave that speech and introduced Christianity to the Greeks, when I stood there... it was the most overwhelming feeling I've experienced in my life on the Earth in the last 70 years," he added.

Robertson stated that he is hopeful that people will repent and turn to God. He proceeded to call on Americans and the U.S. government to do so.

The film was produced by David N. Bossie, who is currently the deputy campaign manager of Donald Trump. Bannon, who is the CEO of Trump's presidential campaign and former executive chairman of Breitbart News, co-wrote the film with Robertson's nephew, Zach Dasher and Breitbart Senior West Coast Editor Rebecca Mansour.

The film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in France last May. It had its debut at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last July.

"Torchbearer" will also be released on other platforms such as Comcast, iTunes, Amazon, Dish, Vudu and more.
home World Christian and Islamic clerics demand total ban on abortion in Russia

The top Christian and Muslim clerics in Russia have signed a petition calling for a total ban on abortions, assisted reproduction and the use of contraceptives with abortifacient effects.

The Russian Orthodox Church announced on Tuesday that the head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, has discussed with pro-life activists and signed the petition which has already gathered about 500,000 signatures.

Kirill was supported by the top Islamic Mufti of Russia, Talgat Tadjuddin, who said that he is willing to add his signature on the petition because he believes that abortion "is child murder," Newsweek reported.

Abortion is currently legal in Russia within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. In cases of rape, it is legal to abort the pregnancy within the first 22 weeks.

"We, the citizens of the Russian Federation, support the scrapping of our country's existing practice of legal killing of children before birth," the petition declares.

A spokesman for the church claimed that the petition was only a request to exclude abortions from state-funded health care coverage, not a legal ban.

Anna Kuznetsova, who was recently appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin as the children's ombudsman, also supports the ban, claiming that abortion can lead to drug and alcohol addictions as well as depression, Express reported.

Legislators are already preparing draft laws as a response to the campaign. Sergei Chesnokov, head of the pro-life group For Life, said that the signatures will be submitted to Putin after it reaches one million.

"We had hundreds of thousands signing the petition. It will be millions signing it after the patriarch," said one petition organizer.

Russian MP Gennady Noschenko warned against the ban. He believes that women in desperate situations will go ahead with an abortion despite the ban and said that it will pose a huge risk to a woman's health.
home US Texas School District paints over Ten Commandments following legal threats from atheist group

A school district in Texas has painted over a Ten Commandments mural at an area high school after an atheist activist group sent a letter of complaint stating that the mural infringes on religious freedom.

"After consultation with legal counsel, community members and students, I have decided as the Superintendent of O'Donnell ISD that the Ten Commandment mural will no longer be on display beginning Sept. 16, 2016," Dr. Cathy Amonett, Superintendent of O'Donnell Independent School District, said in a statement, KCBD reports.

Amonett received the letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) earlier this month. The FFRF demanded the removal of the Ten Commandments mural as well as the scripture displayed on the wall of O'Donnell High School.

"By displaying a religious message in its entryway, O'Donnell ISD infringes on its students' constitutionally protected religious freedom," the FFRF wrote, adding, "By endorsing a religious message, the school district violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment."

After receiving the letter, Amonett had the mural covered with a black paper but it was allegedly torn down by students in protest. It was later covered up with the American Flag. The students posted sticky notes with Bible verses on the wall to challenge the removal of the mural.

About 100 residents, many of whom were in favor of keeping the mural, attended a public meeting regarding the controversy. Amonett decided to paint over the mural despite the support from the residents to avoid a lawsuit.

"Although the district's students and community members strongly support the preservation of the mural as it is, I have decided that its continued display in the commons area of the school is not in the district's best legal interests," she stated.

She commended the students for standing up for their beliefs and expressing themselves in a mature way. She explained that the current legal climate in the United States would not allow the school to continue displaying the mural.

Prior to the removal of the mural, Texas Senator Charles Perry issued a statement in support of the students. He cited the case of the Kountze Cheerleaders who were forbidden from putting Bible verses on their banners. The Texas Supreme Court ruled in favor of the cheerleaders in January.
home World Thousands march in Mexico City to protest gay marriage and gender ideology

Thousands of Mexicans marched on the streets of Mexico City on Saturday to protest against the proposed amendment to legalize gay marriage. Marchers were also protesting the planned implementation of sex education inspired by gender ideology.

City officials estimated that about 20,000 people participated in the protest called "March for the Family." The march organizers and church officials say that about 400,000 to 450,000 gathered at the event.

Protesters were chanting and carrying signs with slogans like: "You can see it, you can feel it, the family is defending itself," "Biology, not ideology" and "The family, united, will never be defeated."

The organizers have written a manifesto declaring their opposition to gender ideology.

"We manifest our profound disagreement with gender ideology; an ideology that, lacking an objective foundation, seeks to impose itself in the laws, in schools, in families, in the media," the organizers wrote, adding, "Gender ideology claims to be the defender of diversity, but it doesn't support plurality, and therefore it doesn't permit criticism nor dissent; it discredits, slanders, and persecutes."

Pope Francis has voiced his support for the march on Sunday. "I join willingly the bishops of Mexico in supporting the efforts of the Church and civil society in favor of the family and of life, which at this time require special pastoral and cultural attention worldwide," the Pope said during his weekly blessing.

Mexico's National Commission for Human Rights issued a statement a day before the march, claiming that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violates the principle of equality.

Over one million people participated in a related protest held on Sept. 10. LGBT groups have organized a counter-protest but there have been no reports of any clashes.

Mexican President Enrique PeAa Nieto, who considers himself as a Catholic, announced the proposal to legalize gay marriage last May. His party, Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), reportedly fell to minority status when it was defeated in the elections in June. Some believe that Nieto's embrace of the homosexual agenda is the cause of his party's defeat.
7 Christians Punished Under Draconian Blasphemy Laws

Today marks International Blasphemy Day  designed to encourage people to speak out against repressive laws that forbid the criticism of religion.

Around a quarter of the world's countries have blasphemy laws, and more than a tenth penalise apostasy  the renunciation of religious belief. Breaking these laws can result in harsh punishments, and even death in some cases.

An annual report on religious freedom released by the US State Department in August said that one of its main concerns with regards to religious liberty is blasphemy and apostasy laws, which it said "conflict with and undermine universally recognized human rights".

In many Islamic societies, "societal passions associated with blasphemy  deadly enough in and of themselves  are abetted by a legal code that harshly penalizes blasphemy and apostasy," the report said.

"All residents of countries where laws or social norms encourage the death penalty for blasphemy are vulnerable to attacks... This is particularly true for those who have less power and are more vulnerable in those societies, like women, religious minorities, and the poor."

It highlighted the issue of false accusations, "often lodged in pursuit of personal vendettas or for the personal gain of the accuser", and said mob violence as a result of these accusations is "disturbingly common".

Courts which hand down punishments for blasphemy "severely curtail the religious freedom of their residents," the report warned.

Here are four recent cases of Christians suffering as a result of repressive blasphemy laws around the world.

Asia Bibi in Pakistan

Christian mother-of-five Asia Bibi has been on death row since 2010, after being accused by her former colleagues of blaspheming against the Prophet Mohammad  a charge she denies.

She was last year reportedly put in solitary confinement in her prison in Multan, eastern Pakistan, over fears she may be attacked by vigilantes. Persecution charity Release International has warned that one Muslim cleric has offered 500,000 rupees  about 4,000  to anyone who manages to kill her.

Bibi will next month face an appeals court, and campaigners have set up a petition urging Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to abolish the "iniquitous" blasphemy laws.

At least 95 per cent of the Pakistani population is Muslim, and Islam is enshrined in the constitution as the state religion. The US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) last year said the country represented "one of the worst situations in the world for religious freedom" and accused the Pakistani government of failing to provide adequate protections for faiths other than Islam. It argued that repressive blasphemy laws in particular are used to target religious minorities.

These laws prescribe life imprisonment for the desecration of the Qur'an and the death sentence for "defiling" the Prophet Mohammad, and accusations of incidents have often prompted mob violence. According to the Centre for Research and Security Studied in Pakistan, more than 62 people have been killed in such incidents since 1990. More than 40 people are currently on death row for blasphemy, the majority of whom are members of religious minorities.

Slimane Bouhafs in Algeria

An Algerian court this month sentenced 49-year-old Slimane Bouhafs to three years in jail for "insulting Islam" in a series of Facebook posts.

He had previously been charged with blasphemy and given five years in jail  the maximum punishment  but this was reduced by an appeals court.

The court's judgement said Bouhafs had "shared four distorted Koranic verses and photos offensive to the Prophet, as well as articles denigrating the Islamic religion," and that his conviction was on the basis of a series of online posts between May and June 2016.

These included "a caricature representing the Prophet Mohamed as a terrorist" and other posts "slandering Islam as a religion of intolerance and hatred."

Human Rights Watch said Bouhafs had shared on Facebook an open letter he had written to the secretary general of the UN, in which he denounced the "Islamisation of Algerian society" and the repression of Ahmadi Muslims and Christians.

There are just 39,000 Christians among Algeria's population of more than 40 million, which is predominantly Muslim. The country ranks 37th on persecution charity Open Doors' list of places where it is most dangerous to be a Christian, and the charity has said the government is coming under increasing pressure to implement more Islamic legislation by Islamist groups.

Conversion from Islam (or an attempt to convert someone else) is illegal and Muslim converts are forced to worship in secret. Only Muslims may hold public assembly and churches are often denied registration.

Four Coptic Christian teenagers in Egypt

Four Coptic Christian Egyptian teenage boys are now seeking asylum in Switzerland after being convicted of blasphemy by a court in Minya in February this year.

Mueller Edward, 17, Bassem Hanna, 16, and Alber Ashraf, 16, were sentenced to five years in prison, while Clinton Yousef, who at the time was aged 15, was placed in a juvenile facility.

They were charged with blasphemy after being filmed by their teacher pretending to pray while reciting verses from the Qur'an in January 2015. The students are shown in the video laughing and one appears to pretend to slit the throat of another, apparently mocking ISIS-style beheadings.

They were sentenced for "contempt of Islam and inciting sectarian strife".

However, they were later released and allowed to travel to Turkey, where they sought a humanitarian visa to Switzerland. Their teacher, Gad Younan, was sentenced to three years in prison in December 2015, and was expelled from his village.

The Egyptian penal code forbids citizens from "ridiculing or insulting heavenly religions or inciting sectarian strife". According to the USCIRF, this law is used to "detain, prosecute, and imprison members of religious groups whose practices deviate from mainstream Islamic beliefs".

Blasphemy cases in Egypt have risen since the revolution in 2011, and the majority of those sentenced to jail have been Christians, Shi'a Muslims and atheists.

Bridget Agbahime in Nigeria

An elderly pastor's wife, Bridget Agbahime was beaten to death by an angry mob in June following allegations that she had blasphemed.

The 74-year-old was accused by a fellow shop owner on June 2, and a mob of 500 soon gathered. According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a Muslim trader tried to hide Agbahime and her husband inside her shop, but the mob broke in and beat her to death in front of her husband.

A local lawyer told CSW that the allegation of blasphemy was "a pure lie... She [Agbahime] was killed because of envy over a shop".

Nigeria has two parallel court systems, Customary and Sharia, both of which forbid blasphemy.

Open Doors has ranked Nigeria as one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a Christian, and blasphemy accusations are believed to be on the rise in the country.
Archbishop Of York Accuses Europe Of 'Shunting' Refugees To 'Soft Touch' Britain

The Archbishop of York John Sentamu has called on both Europe and the UK to admit responsibility for the ongoing refugee crisis.

The archbishop suggested that mainland European countries were trying to "shunt" migrants toward the UK, and thus absolve themselves of responsibility. These nations see Britain as a "soft touch" said Sentamu yesterday, The Times reports. He also called on Britain to do more to help Syrian refugees.

The Archbishop strongly criticised European nations of the Schengen region, established in 1985, which allows free movement without passport checks from Africa or the Middle East all the way to the English Channel.

This means refugees can cross Europe with no obligation for countries to support them. "Every nation has been shunting them and shunting them in the hope they will end up in the UK," Sentamu said. He called on the Schengen area countries to "own up to what they have created".

He added, "I think it should be that, wherever the asylum seekers arrive in that particular place, you have a responsibility for their care, their love," according to the Daily Mail.

Sentamu was himself a refugee, he came to the UK from Uganda in 1974, fleeing the brutality of Idi Amin.

He spoke in support of David Cameron's policy to send aid to neighbouring middle-eastern countries, helping refugees to eventually return home if peace returns. Although he criticised the Schengen nations of Europe, the Archbishop said Britain should accept responsibility for crisis in the middle east too. He said the turmoil in the region was at least in part rooted in the invasion of Iraq: "Britain and America should put up their hands and say: 'We created this'," he said.

Sentamu was speaking at the Henley Literary Festival, promoting his new book Agape Love Stories, which was released yesterday. The book features different individuals writing about "how an experience of God's agape love gave them hope and changed lives."
Could Evangelical Christians Soon Be Running Brazil?

Evangelical Christians are expected to influence big advances in local elections in Brazil this weekend.

Evangelicals and their favoured candidates at the polls are benefiting from a recent ban on companies funding election campaigns in Brazil.

Individuals are still allowed to make personal donations to election campaigns.

Brazil's massive evangelical revival that has taken off in the last decade in particular is now seeing influential pastors directing their congregations, who often number many thousands, to donate to invididual politicians.

Conservative Christians in particular are benefiting from this.

Marcelo Crivella, a founder of the Brazilian Republican Party (PRB) and a bishop in the the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, is heading the polls to be mayor of Rio de Janeiro.

Crivella is the nephew of Edir Macedo, the bishop who heads the Crivella's church, who preaches the "prosperity gospel" and is in his own right one of the world's wealthiest men.

Celso Russomanno in Sao Paulo, also running for the PRB, has climbed to second place, according to Datafolha.

The conservative Christian preachers and politicians campaign against corruption, gay marriage and abortion.

Evangelical churches in Brazil have grown rapidly in political influence.

Two years ago The Guardian reported: "Their political clout is visible. While the Catholic church has long exerted influence behind the scenes, evangelical pastors flex their political muscle overtly. Last year (2013), the biggest public demonstration in Brazil was not one of the many political protests, but a March for Jesus rally that drew more than 800,000 people on to the streets of Sao Paulo."

Michael Temer, 75, a Catholic, appointed several influential evangelicals to top posts when he became acting President and then President of Brazil after Dilma Rousseff was removed and then impeached.

One was Marcos Pereira, another bishop in the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, and a devout conservative who is also a creationist.

Only last month, Southern Baptists returning to the United States with testimonies of widespread revivals in churches, communities, prisons and schools, following a mission in Brazil.

The Washington Post reported earlier this year: "Just as the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority emerged as a force in the United States in the 1980s, Brazilian evangelical leaders have gone from the political sidelines to the center. Their movement is not a coordinated effort to take power, they insist, but a grass-roots backlash against secularism, homosexuality and changes introduced during 13 years of Marxist-inspired Workers' Party rule."

And this week Bloomberg analysed the political and financial aspects: "Sunday's nationwide elections for mayors and city council in over 5,500 municipalities will provide the first snapshot of Brazil's politics in the aftermath of impeachment. They will indicate which parties are well-positioned to support candidates in the 2018 presidential race."

Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes, who heads Brazil's top electoral authority, the TSE, told Reuters: "Ending corporate donations has, in fact, favored rich candidates who have their own resources." In addition, under the new rules which ban corporate donations, wealthy candidates are allowed to give up to 10 percent of their own income to their own campaigns.

Additional reporting by Reuters.
Do Bible Readings In Church Make You Nod Off? Justin Welby Has Your Number

The Archbishop of Canterbury has criticised Anglicans who use Bible readings as a "mental snooze break" to take a quick 40 winks in church.

In what appears to be a comment on his own Church of England, Justin Welby laments the problem of "Biblical illiteracy".

He says: "In some parts of the Anglican Communion - thankfully not all of them - we are caught out by the fact that people don't know their Bibles at all. Perhaps the only time they hear it is when they go to church and they hear it read.

"And as one of my tutors at theological college once said, too often the Bible readings are a mental snooze break where you can just take 40 winks before you get on with the main bit of the service again."

He goes on to praise the Anglican churches in "other" provinces.

He could reasonably be inferred to be referring to churches in places such as Nigeria.

He says: "And I go to other parts of the Anglican Communion where the Bible is taken immensely seriously, where every month a new reading plan comes out for the following month, where tens of thousands, even millions of people, actually read the Bible seriously, week by week, and it has a huge impact on them."

Welby is speaking in a video that is part of a "Bible tool-kit" to help Christians come to know and understand the Bible.

The Bible in the Life of the Church project launched today includes 120 different online articles and guides to the Bible from around around the world.

"I see this project as utterly foundational for our life together. I can hardly stress that enough," says Welby. "It's incredibly exciting." He says the Bible can be a "hugely exciting" journey of discovery.

In the series of four vidoes linked to the project, the Archbishop says: "When people say we need to read the Bible better, it's one of those nice ideas but we all struggle to know what that means in practice."

People have "no idea" where to find stories or books in the Bible, he adds.

He confesses that the first time he tried to read it, he approached it as a book to read from cover to cover. That was not the right way to approach it, he says.

He suggests three things. The first is knowing the Bible.

Second is to treat it as a "library" rather than a book. The Bible is "inspired by God in order that we might know God more clearly and better."

Thirdly, and most important, is allowing oneself to be "transformed" by it. Christians need to allow themselves to be changed by the Bible, he says. He describes working with a Christian who had suffered terribly in a war-torn area - and how this man went from hatred to forgiveness by studying the Book of Jonah.

Stephen Lyon, of the project, said the aim was to encourage "deeper engagement".

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said he hoped the resources would help towards "fuller biblical literacy" among Anglicans.

The project was produced following a request by the Anglican Consultative Council when they met in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2012, according to Gavin Drake, writing for Anglican News. It follows Bilc's first publication, Deep Engagement; Fresh Discovery, which was published that year.

The Anglican Communion Office has sent thousands of printed copies of the new resources, together with a memory stick, to all primates and archbishops as well bishops and theological colleges throughout the Anglican Communion.
Evangelical Leaders Slam Trump Campaign As 'Morally Unacceptable'

A group of evangelical leaders have slammed Donald Trump's campaign as "morally unacceptable" for Christians.

They launched "A Declaration by American Evangelicals Concerning Donald Trump" petition in an effort to persuade others to join them. The multicultural collection of leaders include Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine, Soong-Chan Rah from North Park Theological Seminary Chigago, Barbara Williams Skinner of the Skinner Leadership Institute and Gary Vanderpol of Denver Seminary.

"We believe that racism strikes at the heart of the gospel," the leaders said in the online petition. "We believe that racial justice and reconciliation is at the core of the message of Jesus.

"Because we believe that racial bigotry has been a cornerstone of this campaign, it is a foundational matter of the gospel for us in this election, and not just another issue.

"We cannot ignore this bigotry, set it aside, just focus on other issues," the leaders added. "No matter what other issues we also care about, we have to make it publicly clear that Mr Trump's racial and religious bigotry and treatment of women is morally unacceptable to us as evangelical Christians."

The declaration said the election in November was "not a usual election" and argued "our Christian discipleship is at stake in the ways we respond".

The group said they were "Americans of African and European descent, Latinos, Asian American, and Native Americans" and attacked the "narrow labels of our community" that perpetuate stereotypes about evangelicals.

"We are women and men, as well as younger and older evangelical Christians," they said. "We come from a wide range of denominations, churches, and political orientations."
Evolution: Solid Science Or A Compromise With Paganism?

Is Tim Keller really a pagan after all? He is a highly-regarded pastor and teacher on the neo-Calvinist end of the theological spectrum, who wouldn't normally be thought of as any kind of liberal. However, he doesn't believe in a literal six-day creation, and so for hard-liners like Ken Ham, he's beyond the pale.

That's perhaps a little unfair. Interviewed by Janet Mefferd, Ham  founder of the Answers in Genesis organisation and creator of the Ark Encounter attraction  said he wasn't questioning the salvation of Keller and others who rejected the Genesis account as factual history. "It's not a salvation issue per se," he said but it is "an authority issue".

And Ham said Christians who accept evolution and the idea that the Earth is millions of years old are following "the pagan religion of this age", which is an "attempt to explain life without God".

Ham was being interviewed about a new book, How I Changed My Mind About Evolution (Monarch, 10.99). He didn't like it at all. "When you compromise God's word with millions of years and evolutionary ideas, you're no different to the Israelites who took the pagan religion of the age  or the Canaanites, or whatever  and incorporated it into their thinking," he says.

Why do they do it? "They want the respectability of the academic world and they're not going to be published in the academic world if they stand on a literal six-day creation like we do."

Keller isn't one of the contributors to the book, but he has written a thoughtful paper for the Biologos website in which he says he is fine with evolution though believes it's important to believe in a literal Adam and Eve. He concludes: "My conclusion is that Christians who are seeking to correlate Scripture and science must be a 'bigger tent' than either the anti-scientific religionists or the anti-religious scientists."

The book that started the row  or continued it  has some heavyweight contributors. Scot McKnight contributes a chapter on 'Who's Afraid of Science?' John Ortberg writes on 'Boiling Kettles and Remodeled Apes', noting that he's seen "too many young people in too many churches exposed to bad science, shoddy thinking, false claims and misguided ideas" about science, then go off to university, find they were wrong and lose their faith. British theologian NT Wright writes fascinatingly about the historical and sociological background to the whole science and religion debate, and why America is so much different from Britain. Arguments about Genesis, he says, are "bundled with larger issues, gaining a lot of their apparent heat from those larger problems rather than from their own innate difficulties".

And no less a figure than Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, writes movingly about his journey to faith and how it was fed by science.

It's a very good book, and anyone who's thinking about these questions seriously needs to read it. My own cards on the table: I changed my mind about evolution too, many years ago. I think it throws up theological problems, but I can deal with those. What I can't do is rewrite science in order to make it lead to a conclusion that it just doesn't lead to. And I'm really sorry  I've never met Ken Ham, but I've seen him interviewed and he seems like a thoroughly decent bloke  but I think that's what he's doing.

In his Biologos paper, Tim Keller  and if you aren't familiar with his work, he really is a genuine conservative evangelical who has no truck with softy liberalism  asks a series of questions about evolution, the first of which goes straight to Ham's concerns about authority. Here's the q and a:

Question #1: If God used evolution to create, then we can't take Genesis 1 literally, and if we can't do that, why take any other part of the Bible literally?

Answer: The way to respect the authority of the Biblical writers is to take them as they want to be taken. Sometimes they want to be taken literally, sometimes they don't. We must listen to them, not impose our thinking and agenda on them.

I think that's exactly right. And when we do that, we can start reading Genesis as it was meant to be read, as an exhilarating, profound theological statement about God, creation and humanity. Until then we're locked in a sterile argument that stops us hearing what God is actually saying. It's time to end it.

Mark Woods is the author of Does the Bible really say that? Challenging our assumptions in the light of Scripture (Lion, 8.99). Follow him on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods
God And The Presidency: Ronald Reagan's Fight For Freedom

Where was God in the Presidential debate? So asked Christian Today this week, and indeed, although God and faith have received some mention from both Trump and Clinton, religious dialogue has played almost no role in the presidential election.

For some this may seem insiginificant, andsince the US is technically a secular countya good thing. But despite the Constitution's official separation of church and state, for better or for worse God has historically been a common focus in the White House, a unifying element for Presidents who would otherwise be opposed to one another.

No doubt, God has often been merely a bargaining chip or a vague symbol of piety, and such an approach is typified in Donald Trump and the lip-service he plays to secure the Evangelical vote.

However, if we gaze into the past we can glimpse a profound, though complex, faith which has inspired the offices of America's presidents. Beginning a new series as we run up to election day, here we look at the faith of a daring but divisive president: Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan had a religious upbringing: he was the son of a Catholic father and fundamentalist mother, and grew up in the Disciples of Christ church in Dixon, Illinois. As Jeremy Lott writes, "Though Reagan grew away from his religious upbringing, he never repudiated it." Many religious themes - providence, good versus evil, religious liberty and a belief in the power of faith, hope and charity - were central to Reagan's presidency.

Fighting the Good Fight

Reagan is most famous for his crusade against Communism, which was inspired by a minister who warned him of the Communist threat, shaping American politics domestically and internationally for years to come. Reagan was afraid that ignoring this threat was akin to ignoring the evils of the Nazis - and he was determined to stand up and fight.

He declared the Soviet Union to be the "Evil Empire", a stance which defined his foreign policy. He famously called on Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!" [the Berlin Wall] and once joked: "I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." Reagan's antagonistic rhetoric led some to accuse him of nuclear sabre-rattling, and perhaps Reagan's aggression did generate more heat than light. However for Reagan, freedom was at stake. As biographer Paul Kengor writes: "[Communist Russia] was an atheistic empire, and what really appalled Reagan was you had these inherently religious, good Russian people who were being held captive to an ideology."

In Reagan's words: "To those who would crush religious freedom, our message is plain: You may jail your believers. You may close their churches, confiscate their Bibles, and harass their rabbis and priests, but you will never destroy the love of God and freedom that burns in their hearts. They will triumph over you."

Freedom not Fear

At the heart of his fight against communism was his belief in liberty. Freedom from government interference and freedom for the pursuit of the good. Again as Kengor writes: "He believed that God wanted people to be free...God intended for people to be free, and he believed in those inalienable rights that John Locke, and Thomas Jefferson described: life, liberty, and happiness. Reagan believed in that. God intended people to be free. Any intrusion on those basic freedoms was unbiblical."

In his inaugural address in 1981 he said, "[N]o arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."

Reagan believed that America was the land of the free, and though not a Christian country, and country where you were free to be Christian. At the heart of this was the providence of God which had made it so. As he said in one speech, "I've always believed that this blessed land was set apart in a special way, that some divine plan placed this great continent here...[for] people who had a special love for freedom and the courage to uproot themselves, leave their homeland and friends to come to a strange land. And, when coming here, they created something new in all the history of mankinda country where man is not beholden to government, government is beholden to man."

Facing the future with the Bible

Reagan fought for traditional socially conservative issues such as anti-abortion legislation, and prayer in schools, but in probably his most overtly Christian move, he declared 1983 to be the Year of the Bible. He announced this in one particularly religious speech, printed here by Christianity Today. Addressing a gathering of Religious broadcasters, he said: "The American people are hungry for your message, because they're hungry for a spiritual revival in this land. When Americans reach out for values of faith, family, and caring for the needy, they're saying, "We want the word of God. We want to face the future with the Bible.''

For Reagan the Bible was not simply a cultural totem of conservative allegiance, but rather the word that had the power to bring hope and revival to a needy land.

He said famously: "I'm accused of being simplistic at times with some of the problems that confront us. But I've often wondered: Within the covers of that single Book are all the answers to all the problems that face us today, if we'd only look there...The Bible can touch our hearts, order our minds, refresh our souls."

Reagan's answer to the terror of Communist Russia was, in this speech at least, not some alternative regime, but the humble Rabbi to whom the Bible pointed. In his words: "Think of it: the most awesome military machine in history, but it is no match for that one, single man, hero, strong yet tender, Prince of Peace. His name alone, Jesus, can lift our hearts, soothe our sorrows, heal our wounds, and drive away our fears. He gave us love and forgiveness. He taught us truth and left us hope...With His message and with your conviction and commitment, we can still move mountains. We can work to reach our dreams and to make America a shining city on a hill."
'Immensely Significant': Justin Welby And Pope Francis To Mark 50 Years Of Chrisian Unity

The Archbishop of Canterbury will meet Pope Francis for the third time next week to celebrate 50 years since an Anglican Centre was founded in Rome aiming to "promote Christian unity in a divided world".

The week-long summit in Rome will climax with a service in the monastery from which St Augustine was sent to evangelise Britain in 597 AD. At the service 19 pairs of Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops will be commissioned to work together in "joint mission".

Justin Welby and Pope Francis have met twice before after being installed within a week of each other in 2013.

The bishops will take part in a simultaneous summit that starts in Canterbury on Friday before they travel to Rome on Monday to join Justin Welby and Pope Francis. Before they leave the UK the 36 bishops, representing 19 regions around the world, will visit the shrine of St Thomas a Beckett where Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Robert Runcie historically prayed together in 1982.

The highly symbolic programme is designed to highlight closer ties between two Churches that spent centuries in conflict. "It is an immensely significant occasion," said Bishop David Hamid, co-chair of International Anglican Roman Catholic Commission on Unity and Mission (IARCCUM), which chose the bishops. He said there had been "extraordinary progress" between the two churches in the last 50 years.

"The common faith we have discovered through our years of dialogue now compels us to act together, sharing in Christ's mission in the world," he said.

A spokesman from Lambeth Palace told Christian Today the bishops' commissioning "recognised Catholics and Anglicans can do a lot together locally in terms of mission".

The Anglican Centre in Rome was established in 1966 after a meeting between Archbishop Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI where the Pope gave Ramsey his papal ring. Welby will wear the same ring during the visit.

The Director of the Anglican centre, Archbishop David Moxon, hailed the celebration as a "new chapter in the history of the Christian Church".

He said: "The Anglican Centre has worked for fifty years to help Roman Catholics and Anglicans work together, pray together, study and talk together.

"The journey we are on demands the laying-down of old fears and misconceptions of each other, and the building up of a shared story together."

Welby recently joked that Pope Francis would beat him in a fight

"For a lot of reasons, the Pope would (win)," he said in response to a child's question at Greenbelt Festival. "He's got a bigger stick than me. He's got a bigger hat then me. He's bigger then me. He's better than me."
In Death, Peres Brings Together Palestinian President And Israeli PM

US President Barack Obama said today that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's attendance at the funeral for Israeli elder statesman Shimon Peres was a reminder of the "unfinished business of peace" in the Middle East.

In a 20-minute eulogy in honour of the former Israeli president and prime minister, who died on Wednesday aged 93, Obama said Peres had always strived for a resolution of Israeli-Palestinian conflict that treated both sides equally.

"Even in the face of terrorist attacks, even after repeated disappointments at the negotiation table, he insisted that as human beings, Palestinians must be seen as equal in dignity to Jews and must therefore be equal in self-determination," he said.

Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shook hands and exchanged brief words at the funeral.

"Long time, long time," Abbas told Netanyahu and the prime minister's wife Sara, after shaking his hand before the start of the state ceremony.

Welcoming Abbas, as participants recorded the encounter on their cellphones, Netanyahu said of his attendance: "It's something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people and on behalf of us."

But Abbas's rare visit to the city, a short drive through Israeli military checkpoints from Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, seemed unlikely to yield anything more than handshakes.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been frozen since 2014 and Netanyahu and Abbas, deeply divided over Jewish settlement on land Palestinians seek for a state and other issues, have not held face-to-face talks since 2010.

Abbas was given a front-row seat between European Council President Donald Tusk and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Obama briefly greeted the Palestinian leader with a kiss on each cheek before walking down the line to stand next to Netanyahu.

Obama and Netanyahu were to deliver eulogies at the cemetery, which overlooks the Jerusalem forest and a verdant valley, in what could be an opportunity for the president to encourage Israelis and Palestinians to revive peacemaking.

US officials have held open the possibility of Obama making another formal effort to get peace negotiations back on the agenda before he leaves office in January, possibly via a UN Security Council resolution.

With time short between the end of the funeral and the start of the Jewish sabbath at sundown, no plans were announced for any diplomacy on Friday. Obama and Netanyahu, who have had a testy relationship, last held talks on September 21 in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Britain's Prince Charles, French President Francois Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former British Prime Ministers David Cameron and Tony Blair were also on a long list of foreign dignitaries attending the funeral.

Peres will be buried in a Jewish religious ceremony, in a plot between two former prime ministers, Yitzhak Rabin and Yitzhak Shamir. Rabin was assassinated by an ultranationalist Israeli in 1995 over the interim peace deals that he and Peres reached with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"A light has gone out," Obama said in a statement after Peres died in a hospital near Tel Aviv on Wednesday, two weeks after suffering a stroke.

Outside Israel's parliament on Thursday, an estimated 50,000 Israelis filed past Peres' flag-draped coffin as it lay in state.

Former US President Bill Clinton, arriving in Israel a day before the burial, visited the plaza in front of parliament to stand, head bowed, in front of Peres' casket.

The leaders of Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel, were not on the roster of participants issued by Israel's Foreign Ministry. But the Egyptian foreign minister was scheduled to attend and King Abdullah of Jordan sent a telegram of condolences.

Obama was leading a delegation of 33 US officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leader in the House of Representatives.

Israel laid on heavy security, deploying some 8,000 police and intermittently closing the main highway between Tel Aviv's airport and Jerusalem for Obama's motorcade.

Additional reporting by Reuters.
Iranian Woman Stabbed To Death In Australia After Converting To Christianity

A young woman from Iran who converted to Christianity has been stabbed to death.

Nasrin Abek, aged 35, was found in her apartment in Sydney, Australia with multiple stab wounds. Her husband Amir Darbanou, aged 42, has been charged with murder. The couple lived in the wealthy Potts Point suburb Sydney.

Darbanou was charged yesterday after police force an entry into the home, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The dead woman's father had allegedly called police having himself received a phone from Darbanou on Wednesday night.

The victim's father told the Sydney Morning Herald that his distress had been made even greater because he had to contact police several times before they investigated.

Darbanou appeared before the Central Local Court in Sydney this morning and entered no plea. He did not apply for bail but it was refused in any case.

Police knew of no history of domestic violence involving the couple but neighbours reported screaming coming from the apartment on Wednesday night, according to local reports.

Abek, a hairdresser, moved from Iran to Australia four years ago and had recently become a Christian.

Police Superintendent Mick Fitzgerald said he believed they had recovered the murder weapon during the search of a nearby rubbish dump. He said the police were not looking for any other suspects. Fitzgerald was quoted as saying: "Any incident of violence, let alone domestic violence, is tragic and we ask anyone if they've got any information about any loved one or any friend who may be involved in any domestic incident to come forward, to contact us, because we need to know."

Darbanou will appear before the court again in November.
Most Americans Think Religious Institutions Should Be Forced To Provide Contraception

The American public is widely uncompromising on religious freedom issues, according to a Pew Survey which shows two-thirds say employees should be forced to provide contraception in health insurance plans for their workers.

Only three in ten of adults polled say that businesses should be allowed to refuse to cover birthMost control for their employees for religious reasons.

The Pew Research Centre survey of more than 4,500 American adults explored recent controversies over 'religious freedom' issues.

Pew said in its report: "One of the goals of the survey was to see how many Americans feel torn because they can understand where both sides are coming from on these issues. The short answer is: not many."

However, the poll found that the public was more evenly divided on the question of whether businesses with religious objections should be able to refuse to provide wedding services, such as catering or flowers, to same-sex couples.

Nearly half (49 per cent) say that such businesses should be required to provide these services to same-sex couples as they would for heterosexual couples.

But almost the same amount of people (48 per cent) say businesses should be allowed to refuse services to same-sex couples if they have religious objections to homosexuality.

Similarly, on the debate about bathroom use by transgender people, around half of Americans (51 per cent) say transgender people should be allowed to use public restrooms of the gender with which they currently identify, while nearly as many (46 per cent) say transgender individuals should be required to use restrooms of the gender they were born into.

"It's interesting to see that so many Americans are in agreement about the question about the provision of birth control in employer-provided health care," said a senior researcher at Pew, Jessica Martinez.

"You see a lot more division on the other two topics we asked about," she added, referring to wedding services for gay couples and bathroom use by people who are transgender.
My Cross: Is Sweden's Church Failing To Stand Up For Persecuted Christians?

It's harmless, surely? Three Swedish priests respond to the murder of Fr Jacques Hamel by Muslim extremists by encouraging people to share images of the cross in support of persecuted Christians everywhere. The Mitt Kors (My Cross) movement took off and has now grown to 10,500 members. Its Facebook group has countless images of crosses and expressions of support for suffering Christians.

But the group has also faced a backlash from people who say it's encouraging anti-Islamic hatred. And criticisms have come not just from outside the Church, but within it, infuriating the Mitt Kors founders and leading to accusations that the Church is failing to stand up for Christians because of a misguided political correctness.

Mitt Kors was founded by Annika Borg, Johanna Andersson and Helena Edlund, all then ministers in the Church of Sweden. Andersson has since left, angry and disappointed at what she says is the group's treatment by the Church.

The row first broke when the Church's communications manager, Gunnar Sjoberg, criticised the movement on his personal Facebook page, saying: "The call seems seditious and unChristian in the contradictions that already exist. Do we want to draw the matter to the religious war?"

A well-known commentator, Goran Rosenberg, wrote about the ambiguous nature of the symbol of the cross, saying that for a Jew it could never be simply a "symbol of light". Rosenberg argues that most victims of Islamist terror are Muslims and objects to singling out Christians as objects of particular concern. He says the campaign evokes the image of a "nascent religious war" and has "a political agenda whose most predictable consequence is an increased polarisation between 'Christians' and 'Muslims' and the transformation of a cross on [the] neck to a collective declaration of war".

The head of the Church of Sweden, Archbishop Antje Jackelen, was drawn into the row as well. She had faced criticism for not immediately condemning Jacques Hamel's murder (she was on holiday) but in an interview with the Expressen newspaper she implicitly criticised Mitt Kors movement. Jackelen pointed out that she was not expected to speak out about the killings in Munich or the death of priests in Mexico; this, she implied, was specifically because it was a Muslim killing a Christian priest. And she said of persecuted Christians: "They are baptised into the Christian church and as Christians, we have a special bond with our Christian brothers and sisters, but it is the same baptism that gives us the mission to care for, to help a vulnerable person completely regardless of creed, nationality, race and gender . We do not help people because they are Christians, but because we are Christians."

It is this insistence that Christians should show solidarity with people in need whatever faith they belong to, and not just other Christians, that has polarised opinion. It has also led to Mitt Kors becoming a lightning rod for wider debates about immigration and Sweden's treatment of refugees.

Sweden has historically been a humanitarian superpower when it comes to refugees, accepting more in proportion to the size of the country than any other nation in the developed world. But the cracks are showing. It has toughened rules for asylum-seekers. Its social services are struggling to cope. There is gang violence involving migrants. The right-wing Sweden Democrats party is on the rise.

The tensions are admitted by Rev Dr Cristina Grenholm, secretary for the Church of Sweden, who also points out that the Church is in the vanguard of caring for refugees. "For example, in many parishes there are cafes where refugees learn elementary Swedish by talking to volunteers, some of whom were once refugees themselves," she told Christian Today.

While it was good that refugees are are "integrated in our society and that they do not become isolated", she says: "We do not support the right-wing requirement that refugees should be quickly assimilated."

And what about Mitt Kors? Grenholm says some of the Church's bishops have joined the group, as well as the president of the general synod. "However, some voices have pointed to the risk that the cross may be used as a sign that marks distance towards others, rather than being a sign of peace. At the same time, the archbishop has pointed to the positive effects of the group, since it has helped people to share their own stories of what Christian faith means to them."

Asked whether Christians should be more concerned about other Christians than about Muslims, she repeats the archbishop's line: "We reach out to others, not because they are Christians, but because we are Christians."

But none of this satisfies the defenders of Mitt Kors  or those who attack the Church for its liberalism on refugees and its reluctance to stand up, as they see it, for Christianity. One of these is Ann Heberlein, an academic and broadcaster, who alleged in an Expressen article that the Church "does not want to lead a Christian community" and points to its criticisms of Mitt Kors as a reason for its decline. She said the Church leadership "want to lead a general ethical association for humanistic values of the most vulgar kind". Heberlein herself comes from a particular position: she is said to have resigned from the Sydsvenskan newspaper after its culture editor had forbidden her from writing critically about Islam and immigration on her private Facebook page, though he denied doing so.

But the Mitt Kors founders themselves fiercely reject attempts to identify themselves or their movement with Islamophobia or a right-wing agenda. One of them, Annika Borg, told Christian Today the resistance to the movement came from "a small, although loud, group in the elite of the Church of Sweden and from leftists". Of Gunnar Sjobberg's original post she said: "At first we did not take it seriously, because it is completely absurd to argue as he did: that Christians should not wear their crosses and show solidarity with persecuted sisters and brothers. Unfortunately the words from the office in Uppsala began to spread."

She said they were "deeply disappointed" by the Church's response to the initiative, which was overwhelmingly popular: "How does one explain to people that the Church has a problem with the cross and do not want to provoke by showing it? That is how the unfortunate response and silence  lack of support - from this elite has been perceived.

"What message does it send to the 6,2 million members of the Church of Sweden? To the refugees from Syria and Iraq who have been persecuted for their faith?"

And she flatly denies that the group is anti-Islamic: "There is absolutely no basis for these outrageous accusations against us and the group."

Borg has also pointed out, in an article in response to Rosenberg's, that she belongs to a network linked to "theologically liberal and moderate Muslims in North Africa working against violent Islamism"; hardly likely if she were Islamophobic herself.

However, for one of the three Mitt Kors founders, it's all been too much. Johanna Andersson wrote of feeling harassed and bullied by the Church, and resigned her ministry last month. She has, she says, been called "unChristian" and "xenophobic" and could no longer cope with the abuse; some was so extreme she has consulted her lawyers.

She also wrote an open letter to Archbishop Jackelen following the latter's Expressen interview last Sunday, accusing her of casting aspersions on Mitt Kors and "baselessly connecting us with hidden agendas".

In Jackelen's reply, she denied criticising the Mitt Kors Facebook group, saying "on the contrary, I believe that there is a need to share personal stories about the cross and the Christian faith". But she said that among the reactions to Jacques Hamel's murder, "we also saw many who wanted to make this a Muslim attack on the entire Christian world" and that some wanted "to paint a cultural and civilisational struggle between the Christian world and the Muslim world".

She referenced a tweet she had received saying "We have bought a fine cross, now hanging in the windshield of the car. Islam go to hell. " This "crusade rhetoric" was a "devastating development", she said.

What's clear about the Mitt Kors row is that against the wishes and intentions of its founders, it has been dragged into a much wider debate about how the Church  and Swedish society  deals with cultural tension, refugee policy, xenophobia and the right response to Christian persecution. And what seems to have happened is that in an attempt to assert the value of all human life and to stress that the Church is there for everyone, the Church's leadership has alienated many by its reluctance to stand up for Christians in particular. As Borg told Christian Today: "The Church has taken the strange position that if they point out the fact that Christians are eradicated in the Middle East, they automatically take a stand against somebody else."

Clearly, Mitt Kors is a simple statement of faith and solidarity, just as its founders said. Also clearly, its message can be hijacked by right-wing Islamophobes. But is the answer to that to discourage people from wearing the cross  which Jackelen herself says she does not want to do  or from caring for Christians in particular?

To put it another way: does showing solidarity with persecuted Christians automatically mean that you don't show solidarity with persecuted Muslims? And that question is a version of one Sweden has had to ask itself during the refugee crisis: how far can we continue to open our arms to everyone, and still remain ourselves?

It has not been answered yet.

Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods
Obama Faith Adviser: Trump Is The 'Most Secular, Least Prepared, Least Qualified And Most Dangerous Candidate In Modern History'

Michael Wear is a wise head on young shoulders. At just 28, he has already served on both of Barack Obama's successful presidential election campaigns, in 2008 and 2012, and as 'head of faith outreach' for the President.

Now a public speaker on faith and a campaigner on social justice, Wear, along with writer and professor Alan Noble, has set up a new group for centrist Christians, Public Faith, and has a new book coming out: Reclaiming Hope:Lessons Learned in the Obama White House About The Future of Faith in America.

"I am quite excited for Reclaiming Hope to be released in the UK in February [it is released in the US in January]," Wear, who follows the fortunes of the UK church, tells Christian Today. "And while I am not ready to talk about too many of its conclusions, I can tell you that it is a work of conviction, and that I hope it will provide readers with insight into the Obama Administration and some of the cultural and religious changes we've seen over the last eight years. Most importantly, I wrote the book to provide resources to Christians as we look ahead, and seek to be faithful in our time."

The former Obama staffer's own faith background is intriguing: he is a Catholic-turned-evangelical. Born into a "culturally Catholic" Italian family and upbringing in Buffalo, New York state, Wear was intensely political, and actively "antagonistic" towards faith. But then one day, as a freshman in high school, someone handed him Paul's Letters to the Romans, and "it turned my world upside down," Wear has said. Some 72 hours later he became a Christian, which "changed everything".

After graduating, Wear became one of the youngest White House staffers in modern American history, serving in the White House faith-based initiative during Obama's first term, where he led evangelical outreach and helped manage the White House's engagement on religious and values issues, including adoption and anti-human trafficking efforts.

Now, he talks with authority beyond his years about both politics and religion and, though he has called the liberalisation of Hillary Clinton's position on abortion "morally reprehensible", Wear also praises Clinton and denies that she has kept relatively quiet about her Methodist-based faith on the campaign.

"I actually contest that," he says. "What has been lacking is direct outreach to the faith community broadly, not invocations of her faith. During the primary, particularly before South Carolina, she put her faith front and centre. Throughout the general election, she has been citing John Wesley, and talking about the influence her youth pastor had in her early moral formation. She picked a running mate [Tim Kaine] who served as a missionary, and is a regular church-goer. She might be the most religiously literate nominee the Democratic Party will have for a long time."

Though Wear refuses at this stage to say how he will vote on 8 November, he is scathing about Clinton's Republican rival, and the "racism, xenophobia and misogyny" of his campaign. "Donald Trump is the most secular, least prepared, least qualified and most dangerous nominee either party has nominated in the modern era," he says. "He abuses those who stand in his way, and he shames those who stand with him. He has stoked America's most tender divides for his own personal benefit. Whether the racism, xenophobia and misogyny of his campaign is one of intention or ignorance does not matter, as it would not matter if he was making decisions for our country. He does not contain an ounce of the grace or thoughtfulness of the man he wants to succeed, the understanding of the job and the aspirations to service of the woman he is running against, or the character and commitment to conservatism of the Republican Party's previous nominees. He lacks substance, and we sorely need leaders of substance in the United States today."

In contrast, he still has great admiration for his former boss, whom Wear is confident will continue to play a prominent public role.

"I will miss so much about President Obama, but I have no doubt he will continue to lead and be visible as a private citizen," says Wear. "I am actually quite excited to see what he does next."

Asked about the doubts held by large sections of the public over both candidates to succeed Obama, Wear appears to acknowledge the point. "The person who succeeds him will hopefully understand the American people's doubts, and view those doubts not as an excuse to hunker down and become overly protective and insulated, but to reach out."

During Obama's presidency, a debate has rumbled between the White House and some religious, particularly Catholic institutions about religious freedom, and exemption on areas such as contraception cover for employees. Does Wear believe that religious institutions are under attack from Washington? "I do not like to use language like 'attack', because I do not believe many of our conflicts around religion are the result of direct affronts. Rather, in this time when religious assumptions are no longer taken for granted, we are seeing more tension points arise in public affairs, especially around issues of freedom, and whether a freedom to submit to certain constraints of morality is consonant with a free society. There is absolutely no doubt that as society secularises, politicians begin to see opportunities to use that development to their advantage by stoking conflict around these issues."

Why did Wear feel the need to set up Public Faith, a platform for leading Christians which is billed as "A Christian voice for the common good"?

"There were really two main factors. First, we felt like many of our peers had their own individual voices and platforms, but in politics and in public, individual platforms only go so farespecially when so many claim to be speaking for Christians as a whole. We wanted to provide a vehicle for shared expression among like-minded Christians. Second, there is a growing cynicism and temptation of political withdrawal among many Americans, including Christians. This is driven in part by the increased polarisation of our politics, as well as the frivolity and carnival atmosphere of our presidential election. Yet, we do not believe disengagement is the answer. We think there is a better way."

If Wear is damning of that "increased polarisation" in politics and the "frivolity" of presidential elections, he strikes, in contrast, an optimistic note about the future of the Christian faith in the UK as well as the US, two countries which some commentators have dismissed as "post-Christian" nations.

"I am confident about the survival of the Christian faith in the US and the UK, because I am confident in the church's leadership: Jesus Christ," he says. "The future of the church is completely secure with him, as are our individual futures."

Wear believes that the UK has benefited from an established church, in contrast to the separation of church and state in the US, and even that the US church has much to learn from the UK and elsewhere. "Culturally, I tend to believe that the establishment of the church in the UK has provided something of a foothold, a guarantor of inclusion, for Christianity as the UK has secularised," he says.

"As I study and talk with church leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, I'm becoming more open to the idea that while strict separation is a great strength in a time when religious narratives are dominant, such separation has different effects in a time of secularisation. Still, I do think this is a great time of opportunity for the church on both sides of the Atlantic. If I may add one comment on this point, it is that I have suggested to American church leaders that we have much to learn from our brothers and sisters in the UK, who have already faced many of the questions we have just begun to be asked in the States. My prayer is that the American church will humble itself enough to seek help, to seek guidance, and therefore potentially avoid some of the potholes and landlines down the road ahead."
'Priests Are An Endangered Species' In Nigeria: One Kidnapped, Two Shot

A senior Nigerian priest has been kidnapped after the car in which he was travelling was stopped, allegedly by Fulani herdsmen.

Fr Emmanuel Dim, Rector of Tansi Major Seminary, was with two other priests, who were both injured when they were attacked on Monday. One of them, Fr Chukwuemeka, a university chaplain, was shot in the head and is receiving treatment in hospital.

According to the director of communications for the Diocese of Nnewi in Anambra State, Fr Hyginus Aghaulor, Dim is still being held by the kidnappers, who are demanding a ransom of N2.5 million (about 6,000 or $8,000).

However, Aghaulor said: "The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria has decided and directed that ransom should not be paid for the kidnap of any of its priests and anybody that is demanding for ransom for the release of any priest kidnapped is wasting time. If anybody or group goes ahead to pay ransom for the release of any priest, the person or the group is on his own."

He said: "One begins to wonder if Catholic priest have become [an] endangered species."

The kidnapping is the latest in a spate of incidents involving clergy in Nigeria. On the same day a Vincentian priest whose name has not been confirmed was kidnapped with his brother. Another priest, Fr Emmanuel Ugwu, was kidnapped in August and a seminarian was murdered.

Aghaulor criticised the governors of southeastern Nigeria, saying: "While innocent people are left unprotected, we have seen barrage of military wares and personnel protecting the pipelines in Niger Delta, as if oil is more important than people's life. Why should people be killed without provocation in their own traditional lands?"

Conflict between the Muslim Fulani herdsmen and the Christian population reflects clashes between nomadic pastoralists and settled farmers, whose ways of life are in tension.
Standing ovation as Justin Welby and Vincent Nichols declare unity

The heads of the Anglican and Catholic churches in the UK received a standing ovation at the Royal Albert Hall after praying for Christian unity and talking openly about the challenges of achieving it.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Vincent Nichols were interviewed on stage at the HTB Leadership Conference by Nicky Gumbel, in what Gumbel called a "historic" moment.

The two leaders discussed their friendship, and spoke about initiatives around which they've united, such as working against human trafficking. "What joins us together is that sense that is is the Lord Jesus Christ who reaches out to us and calls us together," Welby said. "The call of the Church [is] to repent of our divisions and seek unity in Christ so that the world may know Jesus."

Nichols and Welby are both credited with establishing warmer relations between the Anglican and Catholic Churches; it is the disunity of the Church that destroys peace, Welby said. "We destroy the peace of the Church and the Church's capacity to be a peacemaker, to bring the peace of Christ to this world, when we are not peaceful with each other  when we fight, destroy and tear each other, as Paul said to the Galatians."

Nichols explained that he and Welby have "an implicit trust in each other", which has not always been the case with Anglican and Catholic leaders. "It is not something that is heavy, that we work at because it's an uphill struggle, but it's much more like a breeze coming from behind us that catches our sails and helps us to go forward," he said.

They both spoke with great respect about Pope Francis, and of his commitment to unity. Francis emanates a "profound sense of global authority, a profound sense of global wisdom... a deep commitment to human relations and above all relations both with the core and those on the edge," Welby said.

"When we've met we've talked principally about prayer, the Lord Jesus Christ and the poor. I've come away from each meeting with a renewed determination and inspiration...[to be] drawn back to the face of Christ."

Nichols thanked the Pope for helping people to see the Christian gospel in a new way, and the Catholic Church "through fresh eyes". He praised Francis' humility and rootedness, sharing that the Pontiff had told him that he had never once lose his sense of deep peace since taking on the role.

"We need people to see our unity," Welby added. "If invisible symbols were effective, Jesus need never have been born as a human being. But visible symbols reach out and break into the hearts of human beings [and] demonstrate the reality of the love of God in Jesus Christ.

"When we are visibly united, it speaks more powerfully to the world...than we can ever begin to imagine, and we cripple our witness when we are not united," he added. "We release a power of witness in the world of who Jesus is, of hope, [and of] life."

There was strong sense of the personal importance of unity to the three leaders on stage. They also appeared to be in agreement about how to bring it about  a combination of human endeavour, God's leading and love for one another.

Reconciliation is "not something we negotiate and construct," Nichols said, "but something we receive in two places: on our knees and in the service of the poor."
Just as 32-year-old Atascocita resident Chelcie Daniels was about to celebrate her son's first birthday, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Daniels always made sure she was up-to-date on her medical appointments including her well-woman exam and encouraged her husband, Marcus, an assistant band and orchestra director at Humble High School, to stay updated on his medical exams. She also made sure her two children kept up with their appointments.

With no family history of breast cancer, Daniels went to her well-woman exam at Care for Women and knew something could possibly be wrong when the doctor had a certain look on her face.

"When I went in for my well-woman check, I didn't have any concerns or thoughts that I could have breast cancer," Daniels said.

"I've always been a person who has stayed on my doctors' appointments; not just for me, but for my kids, too. I have to make sure I'm healthy because if I am sick, who will take care of my children and the household especially since my husband works a lot."

During her exam, Daniels told the doctor that she had been feeling a lot more tired and anxious than usual but wasn't sure if it could be attributed to a change in hormones or keeping up with her son, Maxwell.

"My doctor, Stephanie Champion at Care for Women, was feeling my right breast, she had a look on her face as if she was thinking about something which began to make me feel more anxious that something was wrong," Daniels said.

"When Champion finished, she said everything looked pretty normal, but she was concerned about a lump she felt in my right breast. She referred me to get an ultrasound and mammogram. At first, I wasn't worried because she didn't make me feel like it was a big deal."

After her first ultrasound and mammogram, she was called back for more imaging and mammograms.

After the ultrasound, a radiologist came in to examine Daniels as well and the silence was deafening.

"I could hear both the radiologist and the ultrasound technician swallow because it was that quiet," Daniels said.

"My nerves were shot; it ran through my head at that point that I have breast cancer. I remember lying on the table, saying a prayer and tears streaming down my face."

Daniels' initial feeling was not to be scared, but concerned because of her family and kids.

Daniels was then scheduled for an appointment at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Doctors scheduled a biopsy for Daniels' right breast and the lymph node under her right arm. She spent all day at University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and met with a team of doctors.

It was official - Daniels was diagnosed with a late II-early stage III ductal carcinoma in situ which means the cancer was in the milk ducts and had spread to her right lymph node as well.

"I think the initial oncologist might have been a little more emotional than us because she didn't want to tell a 32-year-old woman with a 1-year-old son that she has breast cancer," Daniels said.

"I remember it vividly - she was sitting there saying, 'I don't know why I have to tell you this that you have breast cancer.' At that point, I thought, 'How am I going to do this?' My initial thoughts were about my babies; my children are too young to lose their mom."

On the way back to the car to head home, Daniels could feel the tears start falling. One of the hardest parts for Daniels was telling her mom and everyone else.

"For me, I'm the one who takes care of everything," Daniels said. "I take care of my sister who has special needs. I let out the tears and decided to call my mom to tell her the diagnosis."

For the next three weeks, Daniels underwent MRIs, PET scans and numerous doctor appointments to develop a treatment plan with a team of doctors.

The treatment plan developed for Daniels consisted of two different kinds of chemotherapy for six months, a single mastectomy surgery and then radiation for five days a week from anywhere to six to 32 weeks.

"When I looked at all of the doctors, nurses and the doctors' interns; the only thing that came out of my mouth was this might be every woman's wish to have people lined up to touch her boobs," Daniels said.

"I decided you have to find humor in everything because that's the only thing that will get me through all of this."

At this point, Daniels has just completed her first round of chemotherapy and she says the cancer is responding well to the treatment.

One of Daniels' goals throughout her treatment is to remain strong for her kids because she doesn't want them to remember that she is sick or that she couldn't do something because of her cancer.

She is hoping to complete her chemotherapy treatments the first week of November so she can have surgery and recover while her family is home during the holidays and start radiation in the New Year.

"Cancer doesn't define me; my life doesn't stop because I have cancer. When my daughter, Paige, is 17 years old, I want her to say my mom is a breast cancer survivor but I don't really remember it," Daniels said. "The crazy thing is something horrible like breast cancer has given me so much more confidence in myself. For me, losing my hair and my breast; that's just temporary; if you have to take my breasts for me to be here with my kids and my family; take them all you want.

"You don't know how strong you are until you have to do it; I have a huge support system and so excited so many people have come forward to help us during this time. All of the support and love we have received gives me hope because, in the craziness of today, there are good people out there willing to help. At the end of this story, it will say: Chelcie Daniels - survivor."
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Darlene Taylor, a 16-year breast cancer survivor, reviewed the results of her most recent mammogram with Dr. Magda Ghobashy, breast radiologist and medical director at Houston Methodist Breast Care Center at The Woodlands. For Taylor, the news was positive and quick.

"It was a terrific experience. I didn't have to go home and wait for the results; I found out I was cancer-free on the same day as my mammogram," said Taylor, a resident of The Woodlands.

Taking the wait time out of breast cancer screening, most women will agree, is invaluable.

Taylor understands that now, but admitted, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000, the weeks before the fateful phone call didn't bother her at all.

"A lot of women sit and worry about what the results might be, but I didn't. I had no family history of breast cancer and I had never had a questionable mammogram, so I was shocked to learn I had breast cancer."

Ultimately, Taylor decided to have a second opinion and set up additional appointments with radiologists and oncologists, driving from one office building to another. She was happy to learn that women who are diagnosed today can experience Houston Methodist's all-encompassing care approach to treating breast cancer, without driving to multiple locations.

The breast care center, which opened on The Woodlands campus last spring, offers a spa-like environment and features imaging equipment including advanced 3-D mammography technology that allows physicians to look through the tissue of the breast from multiple angles.

"This technology gives us access to clearer images and improves early detection of invasive breast cancers by providing more accurate pictures than standard 2-D mammography, often reducing the need for additional testing," said Ghobashy.

Once a patient's mammogram is complete, Ghobashy reviews the images and meets with the patient. Should the test reveal cancer, the patient can immediately go from Ghobashy's office to the next-door office of Dr. Loren Rourke, breast surgical oncologist and Houston Methodist regional breast program director.

Dr. Rourke's clinical expertise includes advanced breast surgery techniques, such as nipple sparing mastectomies; and she is the first doctor in The Woodlands to use the new SAVI SCOUT radar location system during breast conservation surgeries. A better alternative to wire localization, SCOUT is an FDA-cleared device used to precisely locate and direct the removal of a tumor during a lumpectomy or surgical biopsy procedure.

According to The American Cancer Society, 58 percent of women diagnosed with early-stage (I or II) breast cancer have breast conservation surgery and 36 percent will have a mastectomy.

Many women who have a mastectomy will choose to have reconstructive surgery. Dr. S. Benjamin Albright, plastic and reconstructive surgeon with Houston Methodist, is also part of the breast care team with an office adjacent to the breast care center.

Having the breast surgical oncologist and plastic reconstructive surgeon located on the same floor as the breast care center shows that Houston Methodist strives to offer the ultimate patient experience, providing unparalleled care, quality and convenience.

"At Houston Methodist, we approach breast cancer treatment in a collaborative and multidisciplinary way," Rourke said. "I explain to patients, it's like a road trip. The medical team is in the car with the patient. Sometimes I am in the driver's seat, while other times I sit in the back. Although much of the communication and collaboration occurs behind the scenes, we know that keeping the car moving provides a seamless experience for the patient."

"It's so important to have that cohesive team taking care of you," Taylor said. "If your oncologist needs to visit with your radiologist or your plastic surgeon, they are right there on the same floor. They can find out what they need to know and get right back to you."

While the team at Houston Methodist Breast Care Center at The Woodlands is ready to make your breast health journey as comfortable as possible, Taylor reminds women, the first step is up to them.

"Take the time to have a mammogram," Taylor said. "For me, it was a lifesaving decision."
Kingwood resident Sheila Keyes had been monitoring the indentation on her torso under her left arm for a couple of weeks before she was scheduled for her annual mammogram in 2007.

"I didn't have any lumps, but when I raised my arm, there was an indention as though it had been pushed in with a ball," Keyes said. "It was just like a big dimple. It happened to be around the time of my yearly mammogram, so I went in for my annual exam."

On May 18, 2007, Keyes, 45, was diagnosed with stage 2 invasive ductile carcinoma at 45-years-old.

"My husband had recently returned from Iraq, so at the same time he was trying to get reacclimated and go back to work, we suddenly had to deal with cancer too," Keyes said. "It was pretty devastating."

At the time of diagnosis, Keyes and her family were living in Monroe, Louisiana, where she received her treatment.

Keyes underwent surgery in June 2007. Her left breast and several nodes were removed.

She began chemotherapy in July 2007.

"I had six rounds of chemo," Keyes said. "Losing my hair was probably the most traumatic part of the experience because I could pretend I wasn't sick until I looked in the mirror. It was really hard to deal with the change in my appearance."

Every morning, Keyes would find herself facing a crushing reminder of what she had lost.'I would cry every day'

"The first thing I saw when I stepped out of the shower in the morning was the loss of my breast and hair," Keyes said. "I would cry every day."

Finally, she decided it was time to replace the pain with something positive.

"I found a way to handle my breast and hair being gone," Keys said. "I bought some cork board squares and covered up the side of the mirror that was visible from the shower. Every card and note people sent me, anointed cloth people prayed over, arm bands and anything positive I received, I pinned on to the cork board. Then, when I stepped out of the shower, I could see the things I did have instead of the things I did not have."

After three chemotherapy treatments, Keyes was once again faced with an unexpected hurdle.

"They put the port implant into my chest to administer the chemo through so that they wouldn't have to stick me every time," Keyes said. "I did three chemo treatments through the port, but before the fourth treatment, I got very sick from an infection. At first, they didn't know where it was coming from, but then it turned out that the port was infected.

"I went through emergency surgery to take out the port and then the rest of the chemo treatments had to be done through my hand. At one point during treatment, the medication leaked out of the vein and a red streak started going up my arm during chemo. They stopped immediately, but it was so weird. I developed a raised blister on the outside of my skin and I was just thinking, 'If this is what it's doing to the outside of my body, what is it doing to the inside?' It left a pretty bad scar. Thankfully it faded, but it did collapse some veins."

Wouldn't stop living

Throughout the hardships of her experience battling cancer, Keyes refused to miss out on positive life experiences.

"There were a lot of good things in my life throughout this as well," Keyes said. "The doctor told me I couldn't accompany my husband on a trip to Canada, but I wasn't going to miss it. I told him I was going and the doctor said I needed to bring my medical paperwork because he was certain I would end up in the hospital.

"I was not going to let this keep me from living. I wore the paper mask, used a lot of hand sanitizer and cleaned everything I touched. I made it through the trip and made it home with no problems."

With no family history of breast cancer and no indicators of meeting the criteria for being at a high-risk, Keyes exemplifies the importance of annual mammograms for all women.

"Things that can make you high risk are having children later in life, not breast feeding and having a family history of breast cancer and I didn't fall into any of those categories so I had no reason to think I would fit that mold," Keyes said. "Thankfully, because of early detection I was able to get the cancer taken care of."

Since moving to Oakhurst in Kingwood, Keyes has been a patient of Dr. Mary Crow with Millennium Physicians in Kingwood. She is still cancer-free and has even been able to stop the estrogen-inhibiting medication she had been taking for six years. She is in the process of undergoing gene testing out of concern for her daughters.

Dealing internally

"The day you are diagnosed is the day you become a breast cancer survivor; I have been a survivor since May, 18 2007," Keyes said. "In the beginning, I was very reluctant to talk or acknowledge that I had breast cancer. I tried to continue as if nothing was going on. I'd put on a wig, make-up, smile and just deal with it internally. I didn't wear pink ribbons or participate in cancer walks."

Keyes did come to terms with her experience. She has participated in cancer walks with her daughters and is a part of the Hope breast cancer support group at the Kingwood Medical Center.

"What I have taken from this experience is that you never know how strong you can be until you don't have a choice," Keyes said. "When faced with a difficult situation like breast cancer, the only choice we have is to be strong and do what needs to be done to survive."
Breast cancer is a challenge that many women face in their lifetime, but not every woman faces it twice like Sandra Windt, who has battled the disease two times in 10 years with her family standing by to give her support.

Windt has lived in the community of Shepherd, Texas, with her husband since 1979. Together they raised six children. Both sides of the family had little history with cancer outside of Windt's brother who died at the age of 39 when Windt's children were still young enough for the cause of death to have little impact.

In July 2004, Windt was diagnosed with breast cancer for the first time, which proved to be a very daunting situation for the entire family.

"We had never been through anything like that before--ever," said Windt. "I really think it was worse for them [the family] than it was for me."

Windt says her family supported her throughout the ordeal although Windt noted that the feeling of helplessness was prevalent.

"The only thing they knew to do was to just be there," she said.

The family overcame the challenge as Windt went to M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston for chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

However, the ordeal did not end as breast cancer struck Windt once more, this time in February 2013. The return of the disease did not hold the same fear over Windt this time as the disease was more familiar to her.

"One of the fears is fear of the unknown," she said. "The second time after having been through it, I wasn't as scared. I wasn't as frightened."

Having the same form of cancer strike you twice within 10 years may prove to be overwhelming for some women, but Windt says facing the disease requires one to be upbeat and understand that the affliction can be overcome.

"You have to have a positive attitude. That's what's important," she said. "You have to have faith."

Windt took chemotherapy treatments the second time but did not require radiation. She attributes this in part to the advances in medical technology.

"They changed the chemo up a little bit," she said. "Hopefully it won't come back again."

While the future remains uncertain for Windt, she states that she is prepared to fight breast cancer once more with more courage than ever before.

"I'll just deal with it again," she said. "And I don't think I will be as frightened this time."

Windt encourages anyone who is experiencing breast cancer to not give up hope and to understand that it isn't a death sentence.

"You just have to set your mind to it and say okay, this is what has to be done," said Windt.

"You've got to have faith, you've got to trust in God and you need to do what the doctors tell you to do."

Sandra Windt has survived two battles with breast cancer. She has learned to be less fearful of the disease while maintaining a positive attitude along with the support of her family.
John Stumpf walked into a firing line Thursday when he appeared before lawmakers who were furious over revelations that Wells Fargo & Co. may have opened 2 million customer accounts that were fictitious or unauthorized.

Attacks from members of the House Financial Services Committee ranged from implying that he sold shares in 2013 because he knew the scandal would tank the stock to assertions that he should be imprisoned and that the entire board should be ousted.
Jerry Baker/for the Chronicle

Todd Caliva, who has held leadership roles in Houston area hospitals for many years, has been named to the top post at Clear Lake Regional Medical Center, according to a statement from the Nashville-based HCA hospital chain's Gulf Coast Division.

Caliva will take the reins as CEO of the 531-bed, full service acute-care hospital on Oct. 24. He previously was CEO of HCA-affiliated West Houston Medical Centers, a position he had held for a decade.
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The French Riviera has long enticed the glamorous traveler; and the food of the Cote d'Azur has enthralled foodies for generations.

Now that sunny, coastal food has come to the Montrose, delivered by a French chef trained mostly in Nice.

Cafe Azur has opened at 4315 Montrose with chef/owner Sidney Degaine at the helm. He and his wife/operating partner, Maria, have opened their first U.S. restaurant in the former home of Brasserie Max & Julie.

FIRST LOOK: Eloise Nichols Grill & Liquors

"I can't bring the Mediterranean to Houston, but I can bring the food," Degaine said.

That food acknowledges the coast of southeastern France but the menu also entices with dishes that sound plucked from a classic French bistro and other plates from neighboring Italy.

Appetizers include marinated branzino with blood orange and lemon; sea bream tartare with artichokes and asparagus; octopus with potatoes, capers and lemon; crispy artichokes with lemon ricotta; bruschetta of pancetta with tomatoes, arugula and pesto; seared foie gras with crispy duck confit and cherry sauce; and a "perfect egg" with potato foam and chanterelle mushrooms.

Pasta options include linguine with fresh summer black truffles; fettuccine with ox cheek daube; ravioli of lobster, foie gras and white truffle oil; Gulf shrimp fettuccine with sauce Americaine.

And for the mains: red snapper in bouillabaisse broth; dorade with ratatouille; seared jumbo sea scallops with cauliflower, bacon and peas; whole roasted branzino baked in salt curst; and salmon with Swiss chard, pearl onions and barley. The turf options: rack of lamb with roast potatoes, steak frites, steak tartare with fries, duck breast with creamy polenta and turnips, and beef tenderloin with foie gras, mashed potatoes and truffle sauce.

The restaurant's wine menu is heavy on the rose, Degaine said.

Cafe Azur is decorated to suggest coastal dining with its white walls and tablecloths accented by pops of turquoise and yellow; the patios are lush with greenery.

The restaurant is open Tuesday through Thursday from 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. (happy hour until 7 p.m.); Friday and Saturday from 5 to midnight (reverse happy hour from 10 p.m. to midnight); and Sunday from 5 to 9 p.m. The restaurant expects to serve brunch soon.

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Cafe Azur, 4315 Montrose, 713-524-0070; azurhouston.com
A man Coast Guard officials are calling a "Good Samaritan" rescued a 70-year-old man whose sailboat capsized, authorities said Thursday.

The Hobie Cat sailboat capsized at 3 p.m. Thursday about a mile off Sunny Beach in Galveston. The man and his son went into the water. Both were wearing life jackets, Coast Guard officials said.

A man who saw the boat capsized immediately called the Coast Guard. He said the older man, who has not been identified, was attempting to swim to the shore. But, he was out of sight by the time his son managed to upright the boat, authorities said.

The Coast Guard sent a boat and an MH-65 Dolphin Helicopter to search for the man. Galveston's police department and its beach patrol also joined the effort.

Almost two hours later, the capsized boater was spotted by the same man who called in the initial report. He was about a mile away from where the sailboat flipped.

The crew of the Coast Guard's response boat brought the man to their station in Galveston where he was reunited by his son. Neither required medical attention, officials said.
A Tomball businessman pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in a scheme to defraud one of his clients, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston announced Thursday.

John Blake Tinkle, 60, the owner of Tinkle Management Inc.(TMI), admitted filing false invoices totaling about $13 million from 2008 to 2015 for shipping supplies that were never delivered, officials said.
Hempstead was the most dangerous city in the greater Houston area to live in during 2015, according to newly released data from the FBI.

Hempstead saw 119 violent crimes and 239 property thefts. According to the FBI's data, there would have been 1,714 violent crimes if the city had a population of 100,000, the most in the greater Houston area.
A man under investigation for tax fraud pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of children after almost 200 photographs and videos of child pornography were discovered on his computer, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston announced on Thursday.

Benjamin Guidry, 33, had been the target of the Internal Revenue Service since May 2015 when investigators seized computers at Financial Precision Group, his Houston-area tax preparation business.

Several files on the computer's external hard drive had titles that led the IRS to believe they might contain child pornography. They also found text messages on his cell phone that appeared to be "inappropriate" communications with a minor and video of a minor, authorities said.

Federal investigators later searched Guidry's home and found clothing worn by one of the minor victims along with other items linking him to the videos. They also seized another cell phone and several computers there, officials said.

In one of the videos, the child was protesting what was happening to her and may have been under the influence of drugs. Some of the videos were apparently taken by cell phones and an iPad propped up on the back of a toilet, officials said.

On Thursday, Guidry pleaded guilty in federal court to two counts of sexual exploitation of children. In the plea agreement, he also admitted causing a $224,000 to $500,000 tax loss to the government.

Sentencing has been set for Jan. 5. He faces up to 30 years in prison for each count of child abuse and five years for the tax fraud. He also could be fined up to $250,000, officials said.
WASHINGTON (AP)  A black motorcyclist posed no threat to the life of the District of Columbia police officer who shot and killed him, an attorney for the man's relatives said Thursday as he called for city officials to release more information about the circumstances of the shooting.

Attorney Jason Downs said many unanswered questions remain about the death of Terrence Sterling, 31, of Fort Washington, Maryland, but he said Sterling, who was unarmed, did not collide with a police car with any great force. Police have said Sterling was shot after he intentionally rammed the passenger-side door of a police car while trying to flee a traffic stop.

The officer who shot Sterling, 27-year-old Brian Trainer, a four-year veteran of the department, was wearing a body camera, but he did not turn it on until after the shooting, police said. Police have not disclosed the officer's race. Downs said his understanding is that the officer is white.

"From witness accounts, Mr. Sterling wasn't doing anything to present a threat to this particular officer and in fact, this officer is violating a general order by trying to block Mr. Sterling in," Downs said Thursday. "It appears that Officer Trainer fired his weapon from the safety of his police vehicle when Mr. Sterling did not pose any threat to him whatsoever."

Trainer has been placed on administrative leave, as is routine in cases when officers fire their weapons.

Downs spoke to reporters alongside Sterling's parents, sister and aunt, all of whom declined to comment. Downs said they were still grieving and stunned by the body-camera footage they viewed Wednesday of Sterling bleeding on the sidewalk from a gunshot wound to the neck as an officer performed CPR. Sterling died of wounds to the neck and back, according to the city's chief medical examiner, who did not detail how many times Sterling was shot.

The family was allowed to see an additional 60 to 90 seconds of body-camera footage that was not made available to the public, Downs said. That footage shows a police union representative arriving to assist the officer who shot Sterling and advising him to turn his camera off, Downs said.

The hasty arrival of the union representative raises questions about whether police officers called the union before calling an ambulance for Sterling, he said.

According to a timeline released by city officials, gunshots were heard just before 4:30 a.m. and two ambulances were dispatched at 4:30 a.m., arriving within minutes.

Downs also said it's likely that additional video exists of the shooting, either from surveillance cameras in the area or from high-resolution satellite cameras that monitor the nation's capital, and he called on city officials to release any such footage as soon as possible.

A spokeswoman for Mayor Muriel Bowser, Nicole Chapple, said she is not aware of any additional video and that if it exists, it would remain in the possession of investigators from the U.S. Attorney's office.

Sterling had worked as a heating and air conditioning technician for 12 years, Downs said. He refused to release additional details about Sterling's personal life.

It's not clear what Sterling was doing in Washington in the early-morning hours of Sept. 11 when he was shot. Police said officers stopped Sterling after getting a report of a motorcyclist driving erratically, but Downs said he's not certain that Sterling was the same motorcyclist who prompted the initial report.

His death has led to protests from activists affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement.

"The family is hopeful that any protests moving forward remain peaceful," Downs said, "but peace is only possible if this investigation is completely transparent."

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Follow Ben Nuckols on Twitter at https://twitter.com/APBenNuckols.
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Two Bay City ISD schools went into lockdown on Friday after the threat of "creepy clowns" circulated over social media across Texas and the Houston area.

Both Bay City High School and Cherry Elementary were placed on lockdowns Friday. Dekaney High School in Spring ISD and Westside High School, Northside High School and Tanglewood Middle School in Houston ISD received similar threats.

All the schools determined the threats were part of a hoax.

The social media warning came from an Instagram account called "Aint Clownin Around," which has since been de-activated. The post said someone would be "at all high schools this Friday" to kidnap students or shoot teachers as they walked to their cars.

A rash of creepy-clowned themed sightings and threats has emerged nationwide since August, when residents in Greenville County, South Carolina, said clowns were trying to lure children into wooded areas.

RELATED: 2 arrests, some schools closed amid clown threats in Ohio

Since then, sightings have been reported from Florida to Oregon. Schools and school districts across the country reported similar clown threats to those in the Houston area.

The Associated Press reported that the Reading Community City School District in suburban Cincinnati closed schools Friday after a woman told authorities that a male dressed as a clown grabbed her around the neck and made a threat against students. Jefferson County schools, which surround Denver, Colorado, were also threatened.

AL.com reported that police arrested three people in Alabama linked to threatening Facebook posts involving "creepy clowns" that caused some schools in that state to go on lockdown.

READ MORE: Scientists explain why clowns are so creepy

In Central Texas, Waco ISD, Connally ISD and Gatesville ISD investigated similar threats on Friday, according to Waco's KWTX.

Bay City ISD Superintendent Keith Brown wrote a letter to parents and said the two schools were placed on lockdown "as a precaution."

"Please know that no specific threat was made to any school within our district," Brown wrote. "We ask parents and students to confirm facts and be cautious of what they share on social media."

IN VIRGINIA: Police arrest teens wearing clown masks, chasing children

Houston ISD called parents of Northside High, Westside High and Tanglewood MIddle and told them those schools had been targeted by the same threat.

"We immediately notified (Houston Independent School District) Police, and officers determined the threat was not credible," the call said. "However, HISD Police have assigned extra officers to patrol our campus as a precautionary measure."

Spring ISD officials also sent a letter to parents saying they had extra security at Dekaney High School after it was threatened.

"Although this was determined to be a hoax and your students are safe at school, please know that we have taken precaution with extra security at our campuses," the district wrote, adding, "we do appreciate students and parents alerting our Spring ISD Police Department to potential threats."




Holding people as prisoners has been around for a while, but we rarely realize the exact point when prisons are opened.

The Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville was only partially completed when it booked its first inmates 167 years ago on Oct. 1, 1849, according to Donald R. Walker's article in Handbook of Texas Online. The building was the state's first enclosed prison, hence its nickname, the Walls unit.
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On this date in 1955, actor James Dean was killed in a two-car collision near Cholame, Calif.

He was just 24 years old and seemed to have an illustrious film career ahead of him but he would die inside his newly purchased Porsche 550 Spyder.

On Sept. 17, just days before his death, Dean shot a public service announcement commercial for the National Highway Safety Committee with actor Gig Young. Dean signed off with Take it easy driving. The life you might save might be mine.

RELATED: James Dean's last film 'Giant' turns 60

Sadly, within 13 days, Dean would be dead from his injuries sustained in the car crash.

On Sept. 22, eight days before is death, Dean had finished up shooting his scenes for the film Giant which would solidify his screen legend, posthumously. It wasnt released into theaters until the end of 1956.

Few people know that his role in Giant was based on oilman Glenn McCarthy, the man who founded the former Shamrock Hotel here in Houston, at Main and Holcombe.

Beaumont-born McCarthy, known as the King of the Wildcatters, was the basis for the Jett Rink character in the Edna Ferber novel Giant.

Close friends of McCarthy would later say that although Deans character was based on him, the real McCarthy was much louder and more irreverent than the person Dean created for the film.

In his time, McCarthy would discover 11 oil fields and become known as a gritty, hard-living magnate of the highest or lowest order, depending on who he was dealing with. Those scenes at the end of Giant when Rink is a drunken, gray-haired lout depict the McCarthy most people knew.

RELATED: Legendary oilman Glenn McCarthy won - and lost - big

In 1949 he built the famous 18-story Shamrock Hotel for a then-astounding $21 million, with $1 million of that spent on an opening bash. McCarthy was worth more than $200 million at the time so he could afford the extravagance.

By 1955 the hotel was owned by the Hilton hotel empire and out of McCarthys debt-ridden hands. He spent his later years in La Porte.

The hotel needed serious refurbishing by the time it was donated in the mid-80s to the Texas Medical Center. Plans were soon made, though, to demolish it, to the horror of Houston preservationists.

Who knows, maybe it could have become one of those new-fangled boutique hotels with some tweaking, like the Hotel ZaZa (formerly the Warwick) overlooking Mecom Fountain at Main and Montrose.

McCarthy died in 1988 in a Houston nursing home, 18 months after the Shamrock was demolished.
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Of the 1 million American expatriates living in Mexico  mostly retirees  the majority are Democrats, but there are a few who support Republican candidate Donald Trump.

It's an unlikely show of support, considering that Trump has repeatedly characterized Mexican immigrants in the U.S. as criminals and "rapists." Not surprisingly, the vast majority of Mexican citizens stand against the controversial presidential candidate.

RELATED: Trump shames ex-beauty queen for sexual past

Still, Karen and Ed Cage are retirees living in Ajijic, Mexico, who say they will vote for Trump on Election Day.

"Dadgummit! They broke the law coming in  and they took American jobs. I want the wall built!" Ed Cage told the Guardian, a publication which branded the group "Gringos for Trump."

"Trump loves Mexico. He loves Mexicans. He employs Mexicans," Karen Cage told the paper. "He simply wants everyone to enter [the United States] legal." (Story continues below.)

Others, some who preferred to remain anonymous, agree with Trump and blame the media for his lack of support from Mexicans.

SEE ALSO: Clinton's 'nasty' Trump ads are mostly his own words

That widespread disdain from Mexicans could be clearly seen in late August, whenTrump visited with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. Several Mexicans were outraged that Nieto extended the invitation and posed happily with Trump in several photos. It dropped Nieto's already abysmal approval rating even lower.

READ MORE: Dismissing risks, Trump goes all-in on Bill Clinton's past

At the time it seemed as though Trump might be walking back his proposal to build a wall along the Mexican-American border. Since then, he's restated his intention to build it and to have Mexico's government pay for it.
The summers final Live on the Waterfront concert was held Wednesday evening at Prince Arthurs Landing. The popular series in Thunder Bay has completed nine weekly shows that began on July 13. Wednesdays concert was unique as it was held one hour later in the evening to mesh with the 10 p.
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Much has been made of fact checking this election cycle. Not enough focus has been put on idea checking. Unfortunately for free-market conservatives and libertarians, we cant count on the Republican nominee to articulate why progressive economic ideas are so often so wrong. There were many frustrating examples in the first debate of Donald Trump failing even to challenge Hillary Clintons obvious conceptual whoppers. Worse, when Trump did attempt a defense, he often cast free enterprise and business in a negative light. Trump simply cantor wont, because its not what he truly believescombat the falsehoods of progressivism, or honestly and skillfully defend free enterprise and business in general.

Lets start with Clintons claim that shes going to pay for her laundry list of Bernie-Sanders-inspired new benefits by simply, in her words, having the wealthy pay their fair share and close the corporate loopholes. We certainly can debate what everyones fair share really should be. But Trump missed the chance to demonstrate the multiple mendacities, direct and implied, in her statement. Most important, he didnt point out that the countries Clinton and Sanders admire pay for the life of Denmark (reminiscent of the Obama administrations famous life of Julia) with far more regressive taxes, looking at the relevant total share of taxes paid, not just marginal tax rates on the rich, than here in the U.S.A. Honest liberal pundits have pointed out that to achieve the state with the size and scope desired by progressives, they will have to tax everyone much more, particularly the middle class. No matter what you think about the fair share that the rich should pay, no serious person thinks taxing the wealthy alone will pay for a Scandinavian-style welfare state. Purely adding to the tax burden of the rich has never worked at this scale, mainly because there arent enough rich people to tax (theres a reason we call them the 1 percent or even the 0.01 percent). The middle class, on the other hand, are legion and easily taxed.

To fund her goalsand I admit it can be done even if I dont think it should be doneClinton would need to tap the middle class in a big way through increased payroll taxes, higher marginal income-tax rates applied to median incomes, and a hefty, regressive, value-added tax or other consumption tax. In other words, the middle class must pay for its own benefits. That may in fact be what most Americans desire, but Clinton doesnt frame the choice honestly. Rather, she perpetuates the fantasy that a far larger state with far more benefits can be obtained simply by taxing the rich a bit more. Trump couldve done a great service to the American people by explaining that this free lunch (free except to the rich) doesnt exist.

The next Clinton statement was truly bizarre. Trickle down did not work, she said. It got us into the mess we were in 2008-2009. We can all debate trickle down economicsincluding my view that its a good marketing line for statists but doesnt represent what small-government advocates actually propose, or what they think happens when taxes are lowered on everyone, not just the rich. But, few think that a main cause of the global financial crisis was the Bush tax cuts. The Left thinks that it was Wall Street and deregulation (mostly they blame Bill Clintons deregulation, by the way). The Right thinks that it was too-loose monetary policy and misguided federal housing incentives warping the real-estate market. Let the debate rage on. But few, other than Clinton, seem to believe that the only cause worth citing is trickle-down economics. Again, Trump didnt say a word to clarify (or make her clarify) this bizarre and intentionally divisive political accusation.

Trump also failed to explain or to defend business when he was accused of paying no taxes himself. He mostly conceded the point and said, That makes me smart. Thats not necessarily false, but he had the chance to say that most everyone in America attempts, hopefully (though not always) within the law, to minimize their taxes. And, in fact, the complexoften arbitrarytax code we currently labor under encourages this, and is itself a large economic drain. His only nod to this was a reference to carried interest, a tiny symbolic side issue hes tried to appropriate from the Left. He couldve admitted that, just like the Clintons and everyone else in America, he looks to minimize his taxes legally. He couldve pointed out that when Warren Buffett crusades for higher taxes on the wealthy, he usually admits that he takes full advantage of the tax code as it is now. Instead, Trump left people with a bad taste in their mouths regarding smart businessmen paying little or nothing in tax. As a separate matter, he failed to point out that the rich and business actually do pay a ton of taxes in this country, and tales of their super-low rateswhile not total fictionare the tiny exception and not the rule. But perhaps thats asking too much from one of the possible exceptions to the rule himself.

When Clinton said I think my husband did a pretty good job in the 1990s, Trump responded only with accusations about Nafta. He didnt ask how Bill Clintons record during the 1990sa time when a famous Democrat could and did say the era of big government is overapplies in 2016. He didnt ask why Hillary is running far to the left of her husbands governing style. You cant cite a track record you implicitly repudiate; but you wouldnt have learned that from Trump.

When Trump was accused of rooting for the collapse that became the global financial crisis, he said, Thats called business, by the way. Every business person in America cringed at that moment. He mightve pointed out that leaders who see things coming are preferable to those who are caught by surprise. He mightve said that its a businesspersons job to make the best possible forecast, and to act on it. We lionize the heroes of Michael Lewiss book The Big Short for foreseeing and profiting from the crisis. Trump mightve specifically said: Whats the difference here, Mrs. Clinton? Why didnt you see it coming while you were the senator from New York Statehome of Wall Streetand act to prevent it? You didnt even warn us about it. He mightve even pointed out that in rooting for the real-estate collapse, he was actually rooting for a normal bear marketyes, to profit, but also to bleed off speculative excess quickly and prepare the economy for the next leap forward (for instance, I proudly admit that I was rooting for the tech bubble to collapse in 1999-2000 when my firm was betting against some insane valuations). Trump should have clearly stated that he certainly wasnt rooting for the devastating recession caused by the financial system seizing up. He mightve pointed out that if more business people had seen what was happening and moved to profit from it earlier, the real-estate bubble wouldve been pricked, or at least caused less devastation. But, no, he left us with an even stronger version of the false narrative that Clinton intendedthat what we call business is really just preying on regular peoples misery.

Throughout the debate, Clinton advanced numerous four Pinocchio economic stories. Trump repeatedly failed to call her on them, or to represent the free market, or even the business community, remotely well. Every time this type of chance is missed, more voters are lost to the falsehoods of ever-bigger government, anti-business hysteria, and class warfare. That we have a Democratic nominee who is overtly hostile to economic liberty is, sadly, not surprising. That we have a Republican nominee who is incapable or unwilling to argue for freedom and the prosperity it brings is something worse.

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
Achizitie de Servicii Tehnice de creare a plantatiilor forestiere de protectie din cadrul primariei Andrusul de Jos si a primariei Vadul lui Isac, r. Cahul
This years first presidential debate focused more on personality than any other in US historybefitting a match-up featuring two of the least popular candidates ever.

And if the next two debates shape up like the first, the debate season as a whole would set a new high-water mark for the proportion of debate questions involving personality traits.

Moderator Lester Holt used the first debate to challenge Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to defend their character and assure the public they possess the qualities needed to sit in the Oval Office. Of Holts 13 questions to the candidates, five concerned personal characteristics.

According to a CJR analysis of all 547 questions asked in presidential debates* since 1960, Mondays showdown featured a far higher percentage of these type of questions than any other year.

Concerns about character, experience, and judgment have been voiced at debates in every presidential election year going back to the Kennedy-Nixon tilts in 1960. On Monday night, however, the 38 percent of inquiries devoted to personal characteristics was nearly double the portion of personal questions asked of Bill Clinton and Bob Dole over three debates in 1996the previous peak of questions on the topic.

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On Monday, Holt asked Donald Trump about his evasiveness on releasing his tax returns, his perpetuation of the birther lie, and comments toward women. Meanwhile, Holt challenged Clintons transparency in her decision to use a private email server. Finally, both candidates were given the opportunity to explain why voters should trust their judgment when it came to foreign entanglements.

Gallup polls released in the days leading up to the debate showed 63 percent of US adults viewed Trump unfavorably. Clinton didnt fare much better, with 55 percent of those polled feeling the same of her. Additionally, neither Trump nor Clinton broke 35 percent when Americans were asked whether they viewed the candidates as honest and trustworthy.

With two debates still to go, questions about issues like gun control, education, economic policies, and a host of other concerns will likely lower the overall focus on personal qualities. But the fact Holt chose to home in on this topic during the first event when Trump and Clinton shared a stage tells us that character matters, perhaps in this election more than any other.

Given the questions surrounding issues like the candidates charitable foundationsneither of which were mentioned on Mondayviewers should expect to see both Trump and Clinton challenged again to defend their character at each of the upcoming debates.

Here are some other observations from our analysis of more than a half-century of presidential debates:

On race, the song remains the same

Hours before Clinton and Trump took to the debate stage on Monday, the mayor of Charlotte declared an end to a curfew imposed over the weekend in response to protests over the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott.

Holt addressed the situation in one of his questions, saying, The share of Americans who say race relations are bad in this country is the highest its been in decades, much of it amplified by shootings of African-Americans by police, as weve seen recently in Charlotte and Tulsa. Race has been a big issue in this campaign, and one of you is going to have to bridge a very wide and bitter gap. So how do you heal the divide?

Since the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin touched off a wave of protests, the discussion of race relations has been a vital part of political discourse. But questions about race and the civil rights of minorities have been a feature of presidential debates for decades. A look at the questions candidates have faced reveals a country still struggling with issues that have long plagued us.

In the section below, weve chosen five questions from presidential debates since 1960. See if you can match the questions with the years they were asked. (See an answer key below.)

Years: 1976, 1980, 1992, 2000, 2016

Would you support or sign, as president, a federal law banning racial profiling by police and other authorities at all levels of government? Racial division continues to tear apart our great cities.Why is this still happening in America, and what would you do to end it? There is racial confrontation in the schools, on jobs, and in housing, as [minorities] seek to reap the benefits of a free society. What do you think is the nations future as a multiracial society? Last week, you said weve got to do everything possible to improve policing, to go right at implicit bias. Do you believe that police are implicitly biased against black people? Now, civil rights groups have complained repeatedly that theres been lack of progress and commitment to an integrated society during your administration. So how are you getting the job done for blacks and other minorities and what programs do you have in mind for the next four years?

Major topics MIA

Over the years there have been a number of critical topics that received little attention from debate moderators. Equal pay for men and women was the subject of a question only once, in 2012, but it has been an issue even before 1963, when John F. Kennedy signed into law the Equal Pay Act. In a related matter, minimum wagea hot button issue often mentioned by candidates while campaigningwas brought up only once in a moderators question, in 2004.

Gun control and immigration are two other subjects that make surprisingly few appearances. Questions about immigration were asked in 1984, 2004, and 2012. As for gun control, it isnt an infrequent topic of debate questions but is far outnumbered by other topics. Questions on gun control have come up 11 times, while there have been more than 70 questions on personal characteristics.

Questions about hot-button social issues, including abortion and gay marriage, seem to correlate with specific moments in history. Questions on abortion were first asked in the 80s when President Ronald Reagan advocated for pro-life positions, and there were fierce debates about overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. None of the above topics was directly mentioned in questions from Monday Trump v. Clinton throwdown.

Do some countries matter more than others?

Foreign policy questions, especially as they relate to military involvement and national security, make consistent appearances in presidential debates. More rare, however, are inquiries about specific nations. When individual countries are mentioned, perhaps not surprisingly, the focus has been on a select few.

On Monday, Lester Holt chose not to ask the candidates about US involvement in any specific country, though he did ask an open-ended question about who might be behind the cyber attacks the US has suffered. Holt also mentioned Iraq in the context of Trumps early support for the 2003 invasion, but the purpose of the question was to compare the candidates judgment.

Our analysis counted questions with a main thrust focused on US relations with or intervention in a specific country. Unsurprisingly, the USSR/Russia has received by far the most attention from debate moderators, panelists, and audience questioners over the years.

None of this is particularly surprising given where American strategic interests have ranged over the past four decades. What is striking, however, is just how little interest the rest of the world receives.

Watching 40 years of US presidential debates, one could be forgiven for imagining that Africa, most of Latin America, and even much of Europe are of little importance to the American electorate. (The map below shows which countries have been mentioned in debate questions, weighted by how often they were mentioned.)

*The analysis does not include the 1980 John Anderson-Ronald Reagan debate in which then-President Jimmy Carter declined to participate.



Answer key: 1. 2000, 2. 1992, 3. 1980, 4. 2016, 5. 1976

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Carlett Spike and Pete Vernon are the authors of this piece. Spike is a CJR contributor and Vernon is a CJR Delacorte Fellow.
Former Indy Racing League driver Sam Schmidt has done a lot in the 16 years since an accident left him paralyzed from the neck down. He runs a racing team and a foundation. Hes raced a sailboat using his chin. But the man who raced in the Indianapolis 500 hasnt been able to drive around his neighborhood  until now.

On Wednesday, Schmidt is set to receive the first license restricted to an autonomous vehicle in the U.S. The license allows him to drive on Nevada roads in his specially modified Corvette, which requires no hands on its steering wheel or feet on its pedals. Schmidt uses head motions to control the cars direction.

Fully driverless cars  several steps beyond the car that Schmitt is driving _ are expected to reach U.S. roads in the next five to ten years, and the disabled community is eager for their arrival. More than 4 million people in the U.S. need assistance with daily tasks like eating or leaving home, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Others have less severe disabilities but are still unable to drive.

Disabled people are less likely than the non-disabled to be employed and are more likely to experience poverty, the bureau says. But that could change with the arrival of self-driving cars.

Its coming. Were looking for something to help us get that level of independence, Schmidt told The Associated Press.

Schmidt is the bridge to that future. His car isnt fully autonomous; it uses four cameras to monitor his head and transmit his movements to the tires. He breathes into a tube to accelerate and sucks the air out when he wants to brake.

The car isnt practical for most people. Centennial, Colorado-based Arrow Electronics bought and modified Schmidts $80,000 2016 Corvette Z06. It spent an additional six figures on cameras, sensors and computers and even more to add a steering wheel and brake pedals on the passenger side.

Schmidts license requires that a licensed driver accompany him in the passenger seat to take over in case of emergency. When he drives, Schmidt must follow a pilot car. He cant drive in ice or snow. Those restrictions could eventually be eased, Nevada officials say.

Some in the disabled community would like to move directly to fully self-driving cars which wouldnt require licenses at all, says Henry Claypool, policy director of the Community Living Policy Center at the University of California, San Francisco.

There are some people who are just so isolated that it really compromises their ability to enjoy their basic civil rights, Claypool said.

But Claypool says its important to be patient and work with the industry now so when autonomous vehicles do arrive, theyre accessible.

There are real barriers to transportation and we need to be clear about what those are and make sure we leverage the technology to address them, said Claypool, who is wheelchair-bound but drives a $62,000 modified minivan.

Many companies are thinking inclusively. Google has worked closely with the blind while developing its self-driving cars. Tesla Motors has said its working on an urban transport vehicle that would accommodate wheelchairs. Arrow is working on other projects, including a modified bicycle for a paraplegic athlete.

Sam is our astronaut, said Joe Verrengia, Arrows global director of social responsibility.

Arrow is making its design and software freely available in the hope that other companies will build on what it has done. Over the next 18 months, Schmidt hopes to modify a more advanced, semi-autonomous car that could drive itself for short stretches and could help him override potential mistakes. Right now, for example, he could accidentally turn the car if he looks to the side when he means to go straight. A car that was watching the road ahead could correct that.

But for now, the license means an end to 16 years in the passenger seat of a conversion van for trips around town.

My wife hates driving that van. It makes us look like were 75 and retired, said Schmidt, 52.

Schmidt is thrilled by the pace of improvement in technology. Within the first year of his partnership with Arrow, in an earlier version of his Corvette, Schmidt completed qualifying laps at the 2014 Indianapolis 500. Earlier this year, he raced to the summit of Pikes Peak.

Me driving is a lifetime-old problem and these people came together and solved it in seven months, he said. When you have the right people and the right resources and everyone concentrates on the goal, it gets done.

Schmidt, who co-owns the racing team Schmidt Peterson Motorsports and is chairman of the Conquer Paralysis Now foundation, can hardly narrow the list when asked where he wants to drive first. One stop is the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he won a race in 1999. Hed also like to cruise down the Las Vegas strip.

And one simple pleasure: A trip to the drive-thru at In-N-Out Burger.

It might be kind of fun just to sit there in line with 15 other people, he said.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The FBI will have up and running within two years a database that tracks instances of police use of deadly force, FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers Wednesday at a congressional hearing that reflected the sustained political interest in the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

The database is intended to capture how often police officers kill citizens in the line of duty and to correct a record-keeping gap that Comey said has resulted in uninformed conversations, based on anecdotes and not facts, about use of force. Demands for more complete records have grown in the past two years amid a series of high-profile deaths at the hands of police officers.

Everybody gets why it matters, Comey said of the planned database at an oversight hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

Much of the hearing, though, focused on the FBIs handling of the now-closed investigation into Clintons use of a private email server as secretary of state. Republican lawmakers demanded to know why the Justice Department had granted immunity to multiple individuals interviewed during the investigation, including Clintons former chief of staff, and questioned whether someone in a less-powerful position than Clinton would have received the same treatment.

The FBI recommended against prosecution in July and the Justice Department closed the matter. Comey again rejected the idea of a double-standard and that political considerations were factors in the case.

You can call us wrong, but dont call us weasels. We are not weasels, Comey said.

It was the second time in two days that Comey has faced questions from members of Congress. He is the sole witness as the House Judiciary Committee reviews the FBIs performance in what is likely to be the agencys final oversight hearing this year.

On Tuesday, Republican senators on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee pressed Comey on whether anything could have been done differently to prevent recent acts of extremist violence, such as the Orlando nightclub massacre or the Manhattan bombing. Comey told senators that the FBI is transparent about mistakes, but under questioning from Republicans, he did not agree that anything should have been done differently.

Republicans in the last two days have seized on revelations that the Justice Department granted some form of immunity to nearly a half-dozen individuals tied to the Clinton email investigation.

Comey said agents granted immunity to Cheryl Mills, Clintons former chief of staff, because they wanted to inspect her laptop as part of the investigation. The immunity deal was limited to information contained on her laptop, Comey said.

Republicans have assailed Comeys decision not to prosecute Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president, accusing her of mishandling classified information.

It defies logic and the law that she faces no consequences for jeopardizing national security, said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia.

Comey also is likely to be grilled about a former State Department employee who helped set up the email server. The House could vote as soon as Thursday on a resolution to hold computer specialist Bryan Pagliano in contempt of Congress.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Every month, TDIs Division of Workers Compensation receives hundreds of requests for records of workers compensation claims that can date back to the 1960s.

DWC first checks to make sure the person requesting the confidential records has a right to them. Then staff may find the records with a few keystrokes on the agency network. But, until now, as many as two million claim files created from 1992-2005 were only available on paper.

To improve data security and make it quicker and easier to fulfill record requests, the division started work in September to convert its backlog of hard copy records to digital format. The massive project has a goal for all claims file records from present day to 1992 to be accessible electronically by August 2017

We now use multiple resources to respond to a records request, said David Ekrut, DWC director of records management. Once the claim files are digitized, there will be a single point of contact for each request and records staff will be able to access all the claim files in real time.

The division keeps its oldest claim files from before 1992 on microfilm and microfiche.

A vendor will scan claim files and store the encrypted data until it can be imported into the divisions TxCOMP system. Ekrut said all files leaving the division records warehouse will be carefully catalogued so that staff can continue to locate them when requests come in.

If we receive a call from an injured employee, an employer, or an insurance carrier for a claims file and it is an eligible request  we will continue to respond in a timely manner.

The TxCOMP system is used statewide by division staff to look up claims and make status updates.

Workers compensation claims files can vary in size from a single page to hundreds of thousands of pages, Ekrut said. He estimates that up to 21,000 boxes of files will be scanned, freeing up much of the storage space in the divisions 24,000-square-foot warehouse in southeast Austin.

Source: Texas DWC
New Mexicos superintendent of insurance pleaded Wednesday for more time to recover unpaid taxes on insurance premiums and investigate at least one company, after an outside audit uncovered $193 million in uncollected state revenue.

Insurance Superintendent John Franchini told a legislative oversight committee that two undertrained clerks had been left for several years to review premium taxes submitted four times a year by roughly 2,000 insurance companies, even though the work was intended for six employees.

Franchini said the collections office will be fully staffed by next week and that the agency will need two months to recover overdue funds and complete an investigation initiated in December 2015 that now involves at least one insurance provider.

A state-commissioned review by audit and accounting firm CliftonLarsonAllen found that five major insurance companies had underpaid taxes by $193 million. The audit results were made public last week without naming the companies.

The missing funds have come to light as New Mexico confronts a major budget shortfall that may require a special legislative session to replenish exhausted operating reserves and address a general fund deficit forecast for the current year.

The state insurance superintendent said he long suspected there were problems and was supportive when the Legislature authorized in 2014 a review of the system for collecting taxes on premiums for health, property, life and other insurance.

At the same time, Franchini said he felt somewhat reassured as annual tax collections climbed steadily to $329 million last year  a consequence of the states Medicaid expansion. There wasnt a bell ringing, he said.

State Auditor Tim Keller urged lawmakers on Wednesday to commission a more thorough outside audit of premium tax collections to help recover unpaid taxes and ensure future collections, estimating the costs and benefits for a variety of financial reviews and possibly litigation.

Theres a notion of urgency now, Keller said. We do feel its important to keep the spotlight on this.

Lawmakers expressed puzzlement after Franchini provided a lower estimate of $100 million for unpaid premium taxes. Franchini said that the investigation by his agencys fraud bureau prevented him from saying more.

Brandon Fryar, the Albuquerque-based president of Presbyterian Health Plan, told lawmakers he was confident that Presbyterian paid its premium taxes appropriately, but he still welcomed a second-party review.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
BEACHWOOD, Ohio - A gripping new exhibit on the 1960s civil rights movement that opened Thursday at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage shows how history moves in cycles that all too often repeat.

The show, "This Light of Ours,'' examines the work of nine activist photographers who documented marches, sit-ins and bloody beatings of black and white protesters in the Deep South.

It's a sad, painful and deeply relevant exercise in deja vu.

The show's timing seems eerily prescient at a moment of deep unrest over police shootings of unarmed blacks, and of a presidential campaign in which racism and racial tension are overriding themes.

With scores of black-and-white photos, the exhibition delves into the middle years of the 1960s, specifically exploring the role of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, in organizing protest marches, demonstrations and voter registration drives in the Deep South.

At least one iconic image will hold a special jolt for Clevelanders: Herbert Randall's shocking 1964 photo of Arthur Lelyveld, then senior rabbi of Fairmount Temple, bandaged and bloody after being beaten with a tire iron at a civil rights protest in Hattiesburg, Miss.

Documenting MLK

The show also touches at length on images of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in moments public and private, leading marches, speaking in churches, walking children to a school integration effort in Grenada, Miss., or confiding to his Southern Christian Leadership Conference lieutenant, Andrew Young.

And, wrenchingly, there is Bob Fitch's somber close-up portrait of King's body resting in its casket during his funeral in Atlanta after his assassination in 1968.

But the show's true focus is on the SNCC and its role in supporting nonviolent action against Jim Crow bigotry and injustice.

Through the lenses of the nine photographers, we see college-age activists, most of them white, learning at the Western College for Women in Oxford, O., now Miami University, how to protest peacefully when attacked.

We see the same young people in the South, devoted to making change by teaching science classes, registering voters, and facing police violence shoulder to shoulder with blacks.

Courageously facing hate

Among the show's most powerful moments is Bob Adelman's 1963 shot of protestors being deluged with fire hoses by police at Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, Al.

The black bodies of the protestors, compressed into the left side of the image, recoil against a jet of water sprayed from the right, outside the frame, by police we never see.

Now on a five-year tour, the exhibition was conceived and led by Leslie Kelen of Salt Lake City, director for the past 33 years of the nonprofit Center for Documentary Expression and Art, which uses film, oral history and other techniques to explore cultural, ethnic and spiritual diversity regionally and nationally.

Review

Whats Up:

"This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement."

Venue:

Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Where:

2929 Richmond Rd., Beachwood.

When:

Now through May 14, 2017.

Admission:

Adults, $12. Free to members and children under 5.

Information:

Go to maltzmuseum.org or call 216-593-0575.

In an interview at the Maltz, Kelen described himself as a Hungarian Jew and the son of Holocaust survivors who relishes his public role in Salt Lake City, which he described as "a blue city in a red state, surrounded by a vast conservative sea."

He said the civil rights photography show was warmly received when it debuted there, and that it has become even more relevant in recent years.

The project was funded in part by the Bruce W. Bastian Foundation, whose namesake and founder made a fortune by co-developing the WordPerfect software, and who is a vocal supporter of gay marriage. Kelen said.

Kelen said his original goal was to explore how photography shaped and portrayed the civil rights movement, but rejected the theme as too broad.

Photographers with a mission

After conferring with experts, he narrowed the scope to focus on the nine SNCC-affiliated photographers, whose mission was to use media to promote social change.

Kelen said he felt the photographers, including Fitch, Adelman, Randall, Matt Herron, Tamio Wakayama, Maria Varela, George Ballis, Bob Fletcher, and David Prince, were influenced by Farm Security Administration photographers who documented the Depression, including Dorothea Lange and Arthur Rothstein.

The difference is that the 1960s photographers had single lens reflex cameras with faster, more light-sensitive lenses and films better suited to capturing split-second moments of action than the most advanced cameras of prior decades.

Given the close engagement of the photographers with the SNCC, their work raises fascinating questions about whether their work is journalism or advocacy.

At the same time, given the ugliness of the racism documented by the show, it's hard to imagine that normal rules of journalistic balance applied.

Tough content

Some viewers may feel the show needs to be accompanied by an advisory about disturbing content, including a 1965 Herron photograph of a white woman in Bogalusa, La., brandishing a sign using the N-word, saying "N----- don't you wish you were White."

The Maltz Museum has also magnified the show's impact by creating three-dimensional settings that evoke items documented in the exhibition.

These include a burned cross defiantly emblazoned with the word "Freedom," and a steel cage of the kind used in the South to corral protesters, which, as the show states, was called a N----- wagon.

The show further contextualizes the civil rights era with a multi-media display that includes photographs of demonstrators marching to protest the police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, and LeBron James wearing an "I can't breathe" t-shirt, referencing the death of Eric Garner in police custody in New York.

A message for young people

Kelen and Ellen Rudolph, director of the Maltz, said they felt the show's challenging content is relevant not only because of current events, but because they feel it's important to remind a younger generation of the realities of racism in the U.S. in the 1960s.

But most of all, they want to impress on young viewers that the students who joined SNCC helped bring about massive change.

"This is about everyday people who stood up to achieve the Voting Rights Act [of 1965] and who moved the needle on discrimination in this country," Kelen said. "You can't help but draw parallels to what's going on in this country today."
wellness-nutrition-2

Formation Data Systems' CEO gives tips on successful startups.

(Courtesy photo)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- It's rare to have a local sales executive say that he can get you some time with a CEO of a well-financed Silicon Valley startup company. So when things like that are said, you say, "sure would love to chat."

And then it happened.

Michael C. DeAloia

During a quick trip to Cleveland recently, Mark Lewis, chairman and CEO of Formation Data Systems, along with Rick Walsworth, vice president of marketing, took time to talk about life in Silicon Valley, how to position a startup in a mature marketplace, the selection of a financial partner and the power of the first client. In this case, Formation's first client was the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Who would have thought that a Silicon Valley company's first client would be in a Rust Belt city like Cleveland? And yet it's true.

Formation is a Fremont, California, based company that has modernized enterprise data storage with its new FormationOne software storage platform. Historically, enterprise level storage has been done on large-scale, super-expensive hardware arrays. Think of EMC storage devices.

But, Formation has foregone the device and has concentrated on software that can compress the data and store 10 times as much data on a device. And when the world is drowning in data - any chance a company can compress costs on the storage of its data it will.

According to Lewis, the technology itself is "10 years tested, and getting market acceptance." Half of Formation's business is hosting providers who are seeking cost savings, especially when competing with Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure.

To Lewis the new Formation technology is "a once in a 30-year disruptive technology for the data storage industry." Once executives figure out that they can replace their entire EMC environment with Formation's software, a new paradigm will be realized.

Turns out Silicon Valley companies screen their investors, too, which is just smart protocol. An entrepreneur really needs to understand his or her financing sources. Other key questions to ask: What can they bring to the growth equation? What are their sources of funding?

As Lewis noted, "We sought out investors who had a deep understanding of the market." Turns out in the storage market place, innovation is acquired not home grown. During his time at EMC, Lewis helped his now competitor acquire 31 companies. These 31 acquisitions brought EMC a whole new set of features. Meaning if Formation begins to cement market acceptance an exit is almost assured based upon the key players in the storage market place.

This is an important note to young entrepreneurs - think through the exit.

When talking about startup costs, Lewis noted that the economics of a startup are much lower than they used to be. Investors and venture capitalists now have a mind set to deploy less capital into a startup software business, but have the expectations to a similar -- if not larger -- financial return.

A key lesson for any entrepreneur: understand your financial path, including the expectations of returns from your investment group.

For the Formation crew, it meant working diligently with Third Point Ventures in Menlo Park, California, and Pelion Venture Partners in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, to have a fair valuation and clear understanding of financial expectations.

So what's the ultimate goal for Formation?

Lewis said he wants to build a large private company with his management team and investors. He's trying to shy away from an IPO, which he said could bring too many headaches into the equation. He firmly believes that Formation is the first brand to build a disruptive technology since NetApp.

Now it's time to scale the business. And that's where being based in the Silicon Valley has its benefits. Cleary there is great access to skilled engineers, although they are expensive talent. Formation now has 50 employees - 35 of which are engineers.

These are exciting times for this Silicon Valley firm. The vision and strategy the company has employed in seeking its financial partners, forming its exit and creating a disruptive technology for an industry lacking true research and development are great lessons for any entrepreneur to learn.

DXY Anniversary. I was recently invited to DXY Solutions' 10th anniversary as an operating company. Dan Young founded DXY in the fall of 2006 as a software development firm that specialized in mobile applications. Young's biggest challenge at the time was educating the company's enterprise clients - Diebold, Standard Register and FedEx - about the virtues of mobile applications. Then the iPhone was launched in 2007. DXY has been on the big growth curve ever since. The Ohio City based enterprise has gone global with offices in Germany and the United Kingdom.

The DXY offices take up a significant part of the basement in an apartment building on West 28th Street and it evokes the look and feel of a tech company in Silicon Valley. But DXY is all home grown. It's a challenge to keep alive a software company for 10 months, much less 10 years.
MORELAND HILLS, Ohio -- Suspicion, Hiram Trail: A resident reported late morning on Sept. 23 that an older man was picking mushrooms in her yard, and when she asked him to leave, he refused, although he did move on after picking a few more.

Police found his van about 15 minutes later at SOM Center Road and Juniper Lane, and while the man argued that he was simply picking mushrooms, police explained the village's trespassing ordinance to him and let him go with a warning.

Criminal damaging, Basswood Lane: A caller said he was advised by his neighbor on the evening of Sept. 24, informing him that his home was "T.P.'d," or riddled with rolls of toilet paper, and his driveway had been painted white. The caller asked an officer to check the property.

Dispute, Berkeley Avenue: A man told police that his uncle came to a work site and tried to pick a fight with him around noon on Sept. 23. He believed his uncle may have been drinking and was a passenger in a blue Dodge last seen heading toward Chagrin Boulevard.

Animal (miscellaneous), Bentleyville Road: A utility locater working in the area around 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 23 reported that a dog had chased him onto the top of his truck, and was continuing to bark by the truck. Police spoke with the homeowner in question about 3 p.m.

Noise complaint, Basswood Lane: A resident reported at 4:52 a.m. on Sept. 22 that a neighbor was playing loud music and using a power tool. Speaking with the offender shortly after 5 a.m., police explained the village noise ordinance in further detail.

Suspicious activity, Jackson and Chagrin River roads: A caller advised late on Sept. 20 that there were "people smoking dope" inside a pickup truck. Police were unable to locate any suspects.

Disturbance, Creekview Circle: A resident reported what sounded like a fight with about 20 juveniles in the cul-de-sac shortly after 12:30 a.m. Police determined that there was no fight at the parentally-supervised Homecoming party that was ending shortly, with parents currently picking up their kids.

Suspicion, Skyline Drive: Shortly after 9 a.m. on Sept. 22, a resident reported two men in a white van who appeared to be doing some kind of surveillance work. Police spoke with the land surveyors, who said they would be in the area for a while.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Opening statements are scheduled to begin Friday for a 21-year-old man charged with aggravated murder who faces the death penalty in the 2015 massacre at a barbershop in Warrensville Heights.

Douglas Shine Jr. is accused of gunning down three people inside the Chalk Linez barbershop on Feb. 5, 2015, by order of a heroin kingpin. It is the second time this year someone in Cuyahoga County will face the death penalty.

Brandon White and Walter Barfield, members of the Loyal Always gang, were shot to to death, barbershop owner William Gonzalez and several others were injured Feb. 5, 2015 in a shooting that prosecutors say was part of an ongoing beef between the gang and Tevaughn "Big Baby" Darling's drug operation.

According to prosecutors, Shine's criminal history began when he was a juvenile. He was convicted of two robberies, an assault, two criminal damaging incidents, four burglaries and an attempted burglary by the time he was 15 years old.

Over the next year he committed another robbery, two felonious assaults, another burglary and unlawful carrying of a concealed weapon, and pleaded guilty to a series of offenses in five separate criminal cases. He served four years in prison and was released on Dec. 22, 2014.

The barbershop massacre spawned a series of revenge killings and arrests. Here's a look back at the Warrensville Heights killings and the events that led to the shootings and the trail of death that followed.

April 24, 2014 -- Loyal Always gang members Stefon "Ching" Robinson robbed Tevaughn "Big Baby" Darling during a dice game. He later told police, that he knew Darling would seek retribution.

Jan. 12, 2015 -- Another Loyal Always member, Deandre "Prada" Gordon, robbed Darling at his home in Bedford Heights with a .45 caliber hand gun, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office said. Gordon shot Darling in the foot, stole money and drove away in Darling's rental car.

Jan. 20 -- Robinson was part of a five-man card game inside his grandmother's home on Angelus Avenue. He phone rang and he walked outside. Shine jumped from a minivan and shot Robinson 13 times with a .9mm handgun, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office said. Robinson survived.

Jan. 22 -- Police respond to a call of shots fired at the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive and and Corlett Avenue. Witnesses tell police they saw a man fire 7 to 10 shots. The man jumped out of a GMC Acadia and got into a white Toyota Avalon. Police later learned that the GMC was being driven by Lashawn Roby, a known associate of Shine, and determined that Walter Barfield fired shots at Shine, reports say.

Jan. 24 -- A man later identified as Shine opened fire on a car driven by Brandon White, police said. The shooter missed White's Ford Taurus, but hit another car on East 149th Street three times.

Feb. 5 -- A man dressed in all black walked into the Chalk Linez Barbershop in Warrensville Heights about 8:30 p.m. Shine walked up to Barfield, smiled and fired two shots at close range, prosecutors say. Armed with a gun in each hand, Shine turned and opened fire on the remainder of the barbershop, prosecutors say. William Gonzalez and Brandon White are also killed and three others were injured. It is the deadliest shooting in the suburban city's history.

Feb. 13 -- Shine is arrested after police surround the Clement Avenue home where he was hiding, police said. Officers tracked him down by following the owner of the GMC Acadia from the Jan. 22, 2015 shooting on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. Lashawn Roby rented a Volkswagen Passat after the barbershop shooting, and was seen visiting to the Clement Avenue home, according to court filings. Roby later pleaded guilty to attempted obstruction and was sentenced to 180 days in jail.

Feb. 19 -- Aaron Ladson, the brother of barbershop shooting victim Brandon White, told investigators that he saw Shine walk in and out of the barbershop during the shooting. He was taken to county jail "for his own protection," according to motions filed by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty. His attorney on several outstanding drug cases, Ralph DeFranco, successfully filed a motion in court to have Ladson released. DeFranco also represented Shine's cousin, Darling.

March 16 -- DeFranco's motion was granted, and Ladson was released from county jail. He would stay under GPS monitoring at his grandmother's house on Harvard Avenue.

April 28 -- Prosecutors file new charges against Shine, this time including underlying felony specifications that level the death penalty as the maximum sentence if Shine is convicted at trial.

June 4 -- Ladson, who needed to attend a pretrial hearing for his pending drug cases, walked to his car in the driveway of his grandmothers home. A hitman in a black SUV driven by Lawrence Kennedy fatally shot Ladson, investigators said. The gunman was seen leaving in a white Honda Accord.

June 7 -- Lawrence Kennedy was shot and killed in an alley off Corlett Avenue. Police believe a member of the Loyal Always gang shot him in retaliation for another, unrelated killing. Kennedy was the last witness to Ladson's shooting.

Aug. 13 -- Deandre Gordon is convicted of aggravated robbery for the Jan. 22 break in at Darling's home. Darling testifies in court, admitting that he is a drug dealer, according to the prosecutor's office. Judge Nancy Margaret Russo later sentenced Gordon to 10 years in prison.

Sept. 9 -- Police arrest Darling on drug trafficking charges, along with Duane "Worm" Washington.

Oct. 29 -- Corrections officers at Cuyahoga County Jail discovered notes in Darling's jail cell. Prosecutors believe the notes show he was planning to have Washington take responsibility for the drug enterprise. "Your best bet is to cop-out, take responsibility for your own actions. Because the longer you let this case sit you are giving the Fed's the opportunity to pick this up and you know we don't need those problems," Darling wrote to Washington, according to a court filing by the prosecutor's office.

Nov. 7 -- McGinty filed an unusual motion claiming that defense attorney Ralph DeFranco had become an unwitting accomplice to Darling's criminal enterprise when he filed the motion to have the now-dead Ladson released. The motion also claims that Darling paid for attorneys representing his co-defendants in the drug conspiracy case. The prosecutor asked the judge to determine whether there was a conflict of interest in the case.

Nov. 9, 2015 -- DeFranco resigns from Darling's case and a public defender is appointed. Darling is sent to solitary confinement, where he remained until he was sentenced to prison seven months later. DeFranco told cleveland.com he had "nothing to do with any of that enterprise nonsense."

Feb. 4 -- Shine's brother, Kevin McKinney, is indicted on aggravated murder charges in the killing of Aaron Ladson.

April 26 -- Darling pleads guilty to felony conspiracy and drug trafficking charges. Co-defendants Washington and Laurie Jones and Rodney Willis also pleaded guilty.

April 28 -- Darling is sentenced to 14 years in prison, protesting during the hearing that he was "railroaded" and had been unable to contact his lawyer as a result of restrictions imposed on him in county jail.

May 16 -- A Cuyahoga County grand jury delivers a new indictment against Shine, claiming that he recruited McKinney to kill Pudge Ladson. For the first time, McKinney is also implicated in the barbershop massacre shooting.

June 7 -- Marcus Ladson, cousin of barbershop shooting victim Brandon White, is found guilty of murder and sentenced to 127 years in prison. He was sentenced for the murder of Curtis Avent III, a death for which prosecutors were unable to determine a motive, and attempted murder in a series of unsuccessful revenge shootings stemming from the barbershop massacre.

Sept. 7 -- The trial against Shine begins in Cuyahoga County Court of Common pleas. Defense attorneys argue in pretrial motions that several witnesses who picked Shine out of a photo lineup shouldn't be allowed to testify. Judge Joan Synenberg ordered that witnesses faces and voices cannot be recorded during trial, given the track record of assassination incidents stemming from the massacre. Jury selection for the high-profile trial is expected to take up to a month.
Cleveland police car stock

A 27-year-old Cleveland man riding in a friend's car was shot in the abdomen by gunman chasing him in two vehicles, police said.

(File photo)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A man riding in a friend's car was shot when gunmen chasing him in two vehicles opened fire.

Two bullets pierced the passenger door of a 1989 Chevrolet Caprice and struck the 27-year-old man's abdomen about 9:30 p.m. Monday in Cleveland's North Broadway neighborhood, according to a police report.

The woman driver told police she noticed two vehicles started to chase them on East 49th Street. When she turned onto McBride Avenue, bullets started whizzing past the car. The woman stopped in front of her house, and the gunmen continued to fire at the car and her house as they sped by, the report says.

Witnesses who asked to remain anonymous told police that the assailants were in a Honda Civic and a Lincoln Navigator, and that there were two different guns used, the report says.

One of the shooters sat outside of the open passenger window of the Civic and fired shots from a black revolver as he leaned forward across the top of the car, the report says.

The witnesses said it appeared the attackers were targeting the man and not the woman.

Bullets also struck the woman's house, police said.

Police have not identified any suspects and continue to investigate.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The man who crashed into an Ohio State Highway patrol trooper was driving about 78 mph at the time of the deadly crash, prosecutors say.

Joshua Gaspar, 37, was speeding on Interstate 90 and tailgating the car in front of him shortly before hitting and killing Trooper Kenneth Velez, who was conducting traffic enforcement on the left side of the highway, according to a court filing by Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Margaret Troia.

Gaspar had received a dose of methadone 14 minutes before hitting Velez, the filing says.

Gaspar's doctor, Richard DeFranco, wrote defense attorney Jon Sinn a letter that says he's treated Gaspar for years with methadone. Gaspar takes a therapeutic dose of the prescription drug because he's battling an addiction to prescription painkillers. DeFranco wrote that amount of the drug would not impair Gaspar's ability to drive.

DeFranco wrote that he tested Gaspar the day after the crash and that the test results showed he only had a therapeutic level of methadone in his system. No other drugs were found in Gaspar's tests, the letter says.

Prosecutors spelled out the new details in a filing asking Matia to set a high bond in the case.

Gaspar pleaded not guilty Friday to two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, one that accuses him of being intoxicated at the time of the crash and one that says the crash was caused by Gaspar's reckless driving.

He's also charged with a misdemeanor count of intoxicated driving. Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge David Matia kept Gaspar's bond at $1 million, despite his defense attorney arguing that Gaspar was not intoxicated at the time of the crash.

Troia's filing says Gaspar received a dose of methadone at 12:34 p.m. Sept. 15. He got in to a 4,300 pound car and "began speeding at high rates of speed along major public highways and tailgating vehicles" until he hit Velez nine miles later at 12:48 p.m., the prosecutor's filing says.

The officers who spoke to Gaspar immediately following the crash suspected he was impaired.

"Gaspar's eyes were constricted, his voice was low and raspy and he seemed confused about details being described to him," the prosecutor's filing says.

Gaspar failed on-scene sobriety tests -- including a nystagmus test, a walk and turn test, a one-leg stand test and the finger-to-nose test, according to prosecutors.

The prosecutors say although the accident reconstruction investigation is still in its early stages, early results show Gaspar was driving about 78 miles per hour in a 60 zone on Interstate 90 near the Lakewood-Cleveland border when Gaspar swerved to avoid a car that slammed on the brakes in front of him.

"This forced Defendant to swerve quickly and dramatically in NASCAR fashion into the left berm of the highway where his right tire crossed completely over the road's rumble strip," Troia wrote.

When Gaspar swerved, he missed the car but hit the 48-year-old trooper. Troia also noted in her filing that Gaspar was traveling at an even higher speeds since he would have slowed down before swerving.

The filing also said cruiser dash cameras recorded "a large portion of the accident on video."

Troia also wrote that Gaspar has eight prior convictions for speeding from 1997 to 2002.

He also has previous felony convictions for drug possession, ripping off an 88-year-old client who paid $2,000 for work on his home that Gaspar never performed and for selling prescription narcotics to an undercover informant in Alabama in 2014.

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osuoval.jpg

Ohio State University raised more than $3 billion from hundreds of thousands of donors.

(Ohio State University )

COLUMBUS, Ohio - More than 750,000 donors contributed a total of $3 billion to Ohio State University's most successful fundraising effort in its 146-year history.

The But for Ohio State campaign had a $2.5 billion goal.

The number of contributions is believed to be the most donors ever to a higher education campaign, the university said.

"The support of Buckeye Nation is historic," President Michael V. Drake said in a statement. "The generosity of our alumni and friends is changing lives and helping to elevate Ohio State as a nationally competitive flagship university. Our community and communities around the world will benefit for generations to come."

The campaign, which launched in 2009 and ended this month, raised more than $520 million for student scholarships and support.

The name came tfrom the words of L Brands CEO and former trustees chairman Leslie H. Wexner, who committed $100 million his alma mater.

"But for Ohio State, I would never have been able to go to college," Wexner said.

Here are the campaign highlights:

$3,004,563,961 raised in total.

More than 39,000 student scholarships.

More than $852 million raised for faculty and academics, including 96 endowed chairs and professorships.

$1 billion raised for research.

But for Ohio State donors would fill Ohio Stadium seven times, and there would be a very long line waiting to enter.

Ohio State's previous major fundraising campaign, Affirm Thy Friendship, raised $1.23 billion when it concluded in 2000, an amount that exceeded all gifts received during the university's previous 123 years, officials said.

The current campaign surpassed its $2.5 billion goal with nine months still remaining in the campaign.

The But for Ohio State campaign supported the academic mission and vision of the university under several priority areas: placing students first, driving research and innovation, elevating faculty and the academic enterprise, and creating modern learning environments.

The university released a video showing the impact of the campaign.
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A Franklin County Common Pleas judge has denied an attempt by Ohio's largest online school, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), to avoid having to show how much time its 15,000 students spend on classwork to be paid ny the state.

(Patrick O'Donnell/The Plain Dealer)

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio can try to make the state's largest online school, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), return money to the state for having no proof of how much time students spent learning, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Jennifer French ruled this afternoon.

French denied a request from the school for a preliminary injunction to stop the state from attempting to recover some of the $109 million the school was paid for the 2015-16 school year.

But ECOT can still try to block that process in a hearing before the state school board and through a larger and still-ongoing court fight.

"There is a public interest in ensuring that our children are receiving the education that our taxpayers are funding," French wrote. "This may be occurring at ECOT and other eschools but ODE (Ohio Department of Education) has no way of knowing whether it is occurring because there are no records being maintained to ensure that it is."

She added: "There must still be accountability for the hundreds of millions of dollars in public money that are directed to such schools every year."

ECOT spokesman Neil Clark said the school will appeal the ruling as far as the state Supreme Court, if needed, to stop the state's "vendetta" against e-schools.

"We had hoped the trial court would have seen through ODE's charade at trial," he said. "We believe that once the politics are put to the side, ultimately our arguments will prevail."

The Department praised the ruling, while also issuing findings against seven smaller e-schools in the state for overstating their enrollments.

"The court properly recognized that there is a public interest in ensuring that charter schools receive their correct funding and that Ohio's children are receiving the educational services for which taxpayers are paying," spokesperson Brittany Halpin said.

While the ruling is far from final, French took a harsh view of several of ECOT's arguments, particularly its reliance on a 2003 funding agreement between the school and the Ohio Department of Education.

The agreement called for ECOT to be paid for the number of students enrolled at the school, without any requirement to document how much time students spend on their lessons. It was the major block to the state's demand for that documentation to justify ECOT receiving all $109 million of its state funding for the 2015-16 school year.

Earlier this week, the department ruled that ECOT was paid for 9,000 more students than it should have, placing as much as $64 million of that money at risk.

An attendance review found that the school had what it considered proper documentation for only 6,300 of its 15,300 students - a 59% gap.

The school's lawsuit, however, had claimed that 2003 agreement was still in effect and that any demand for that documentation violated the law.

French dismissed that argument.

"The Court finds that interpreting the Funding Agreement in the manner ECOT suggests, and enforcing an outdated 2003 agreement, would be in violation of public policy," French wrote.

She added that the contract is not binding because it would "require the State to continue paying hundreds of millions of dollars per year, without any ability to determine whether students are in fact participating in any curriculum at ECOT at all."

Because the school in the past has not had to provide documentation of the work that its students do, school leaders have said it's unfair to expect the documentation retroactively for the just-finished 2015-16 school year.

French rejected that argument, noting that the state has told online schools for years that how long students spend online could be part of any attendance and payment review.

She also noted that prohibitions of state laws being applied retroactively do not apply to public bodies.

"As a matter of law, the Court finds that because ECOT is a public school, it cannot assert retroactivity concerns," she wrote.

The school also claimed that state law does not say how long students must spend online or working on coursework, so long as an online school offers students at least 920 hours of educational opportunities.

French ruled, however, that the state can expect documentation of the duration of these activities. Lawyers for the state had pointed to a portion of state law which says that no more than 10 hours per day of student activity can count toward that total, which they said shows that how long students spend is part of the equation.

French agreed.

"That (portion of law) also means that the duration of a student's participation is something that needs to be "credited" to a community (charter) school," French wrote. "In other words, the Court finds that the duration of participation matters in determining whether a student has been offered (i.e., supplied) 920 hours of learning opportunities to a given student."

Clark was still resolute that the school, not the state, will prevail.

"ODE broke its contract with ECOT and the department changed the rules and applied them retroactively while applying them to some schools, but not others," he said. "We are filing an immediate appeal of this ruling and remain confident that the law is on our side in this case."
St. Edward High School new addition

St. Edward High School president Jim Kubacki speaks in front of an artistic rendering of the Ken Layden '80 Center for Entrepreneurship, which will be built in 2017 following a $2.5 million donation to the school. The donation, made by a Class of 1980 alumnus, is the largest single donation to the school to date.

(Jane Morice, cleveland.com)

LAKEWOOD, Ohio - TV personality and Cleveland native Phil Donahue and his wife, actress Marlo Thomas, were at St. Edward High School Thursday night to help announce the single largest donation in school history.

The $2.5 million gift from Gregg Lowe - a 1980 alumnus and technology executive - and his wife Diana will be used to build a Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, according to a news release.

Donahue, who was part of St. Edward's first graduating class, and Thomas also helped publicly launch a fundraising campaign for the all-boys high school. The campaign, Courage to Act, aims to raise a total of $18 million, according to a St. Edward High School news release.

Donahue spoke for about 30 minutes to a group of about 200 people about his fond memories at the high school - from his time on the marching band to working as a cartoonist for the school newspaper.

Thomas spoke briefly as well, saying that her husband still brings up memories from his high school days and that she knows how strongly her husband's experience at St. Edward shaped him as a person.

The entrepreneurship center will be named after another 1980 alumnus, Ken Layden. He brought the idea of developing an entrepreneurship center to the school before he died of cancer in 2008, high school president Jim Kubacki said in the news release.

"We are so proud that Ken could take something he was so passionate about and create a lasting legacy by sharing that passion with the young men of St. Ed's," Layden's mother, Wilma Layden, told the school.

The center will be added to the Joseph and Helen Lowe Center, which was built in 2008 to house the high school's pre-engineering program, the news release says. Construction is to begin in June 2017.

In addition to creating the entrepreneurship center, the money raised through the fundraising campaign will be used to build "a Commons - a dining hall at the front of the school and a striking new rotunda to serve as a welcoming entrance," the release says. Some of the money -- about $4 million -- will also be used for tuition assistance programs.

Donahue is best known for his namesake talk show, which aired for nearly 30 years on television nationwide. He also had a short-lived political show, "Donahue," on MSNBC from July 2002 through February 2003.
PENSACOLA, Florida -- A woman is suing a former Escambia County deputy, saying he unnecessarily used a Taser on her and then attempted to apologize by sending her a cake.

On the cake was the message "Sorry I Tased You."

The lawsuit was filed by Stephanie Byron in federal court against former deputy Michael Wohlers in connection with an incident that occurred in June 2015, the Palm Beach Post reports. The suit also targets Sheriff David Morgan.

The lawsuit says Wohlers had finished his shift and went to visit Byron at an apartment complex where she works, according to the Pensacola News-Journal.

The suit claims Wohlers began harassing Byron about her personal life, then took her sweet tea and refused to return it. When Byron tried to retrieve the tea, Wohlers used his stun gun, hitting Byron in the chest and throat, the suit says.

Wohlers then held Byron down with a knee to her chest and removed the Taser prods, the suit claims.

Reports say Wohlers has declined to comment on the lawsuit, but his lawyer has denied the allegations.

Byron is seeking unspecified damages for physical injuries, mental anguish and humiliation.

According to the Post, Wohlers resigned as a deputy in July 2015 after being investigated for misconduct. He currently is restricted from serving at any law-enforcement agency in Florida for one year.

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Drunken driving, York Road: On Sept. 5, police were called about a weaving Hyundai Sonata that nearly drove into a ditch on York Road. An arriving officer located the car driving on Sunrise Boulevard.

The Sonata appeared to be driving aimlessly through the complex. While talking to the driver, the officer smelled alcohol. When told about the driving complaint, the driver said, "I could just park it and stay for the night."

When asked if he had been drinking, the man said, "I'm just hanging out here now." He later admitted to drinking earlier in the evening. The man also demanded his lawyer. After he failed a field sobriety test, the driver was arrested for drunken driving.

It turned out he was underage. He was also cited for not driving in marked lanes.

Drunken driving Royalton Road: On Sept. 7, police were dispatched to Royalton Road where there was a disabled 2005 Chevy Trailblazer. An arriving officer located the SUV in a shallow ditch.

The driver was unsteady and slurring her speech. She admitted to drinking two glasses of wine. The woman would not agree to a field sobriety test. She also called the officers Nazis.

That's when she was arrested for drunken driving. While being handcuffed, she scratched an officer. The woman was cited for failing to drive in marked lanes and resisting arrest.

Disorderly conduct, Royalhaven Drive: On Sept. 11, police were dispatched to Royalhaven Drive regarding a severely intoxicated man walking up and down the street hitting mailboxes.

An arriving officer found the man, who was shirtless and shoeless with a bloody nose, laying on his back in a front yard. The officer talked to a homeowner, who said he invited the man over.

However, when the guy got drunk, he wanted to drive home. That's when the homeowner ended up in a struggle. The man was arrested for disorderly conduct.

Assault, Pineforest Drive: On Sept. 9, police responded to a Pineforest Drive apartment regarding a woman being assaulted. The caller said two brothers, who had been drinking, were fighting.

The caller had been shoved into a wall of mailboxes. That's when she called the police. The officer talked to one of the intoxicated brothers. He told the officer the other brother pushed her into the mailboxes. The other brother was arrested for assault.

Marijuana possession, Drake Road: On Sept. 9, police observed a speeding and weaving black Honda Civic on W. 130th. The officer pulled over the Civic on Drake Road.

While talking to the Strongsville driver, the officer said he was dazed and disoriented. The man said he was headed home. While searching the car, police found a prescription bottle with marijuana. At first the man denied smoking. The officer then found a baggie of marijuana in his pocket.

He was cited for drug abuse, possession of drug paraphernalia, speeding and not driving in marked lanes.

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Detroit icons, Ford and GM, were founded more than 100 years ago. One of the city's youngest, Zomedica Pharmaceuticals, went public a year ago.

Since it emerged from bankruptcy reorganization nearly two years ago, Detroit's economic revival has attracted a range of public and private investment. Investors in the handful of companies that call the Motor City home have produced mixed returns over the years.

The list covers a wide range of industry sectors, from banking to broadcasting, according to S&P Capital IQ.

Among the biggest gainers: Saga Communications, a broadcast company that owns a chain of TV and radio stations in more than two dozen markets. Founded in 1986, the stock has risen more than sevenfold in the last 10 years.

Domino's Pizza, based in nearby Ann Arbor, Michigan, has also served up big gains for investors; the stock is up fivefold over the last decade. Founded in 1960, the company operates some 13,000 outlets in 80 countries.
U.S. crude prices ended the month nearly 8 percent higher, supported in the final week of September by planned OPEC output cuts, but profit-taking after a two-day rally capped gains for benchmark crude on Friday.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled up up 41 cents at $48.24 a barrel. Global benchmark Brent crude futures were down 19 cents at $49.05 a barrel by 2:36 p.m. ET (1829 GMT).

On a weekly basis, WTI had climbed about 8.5 percent, while Brent was up nearly 7 percent from last Friday's close. For the third quarter, U.S. crude was roughly flat.

Also on Friday, the U.S. oil rig count rose by 7 to a total of 425, marking the 13th time in the last 14 weeks the tally has ticked up, oilfield services firm Baker Hughes reported. At this time last year, U.S. drillers were operating 614 oil rigs.



U.S. drillers in the third quarter added 95 oil rigs, the greatest increase in any quarter since 2014, but the pace of additions has slowed as crude holds below $50 a barrel despite OPEC's first plan in eight years to cut output.


Total government spending on just tourism marketing, promotion and visitor-related infrastructure is expected to top $413 billion this year, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. That's up 10 percent from five years ago, and it's expected to increase another 29 percent over the next decade.

The Seychelles, an archipelago northeast of Madagascar, spends more than 22 percent of its budget  excluding defense and welfare costs  on total travel and tourism expenditures, according to WTTC figures reported by the World Economic Forum. The Dominican Republic and Jamaica also spend a hefty portion of their national budget on tourism, 22 and 17 percent, respectively. Jordan, Iceland and Singapore spend more than 10 percent.



Spending millions on marketing campaigns makes sense for many countries, which rely on tourists for a significant share of their GDPs. A modest investment can also yield a solid return: The Visit Denmark campaign reported a return of $16 in revenue for each dollar spent, while Tourism Ireland found a return of 10 percent for its television and online advertising, according to a WTTC report.

Smaller nations may have little choice if they want to keep their economies working. Countries like Seychelles (21 percent of GDP comes from tourism), Malta (14 percent), Mauritius (11 percent) and Barbados (11 percent) are especially reliant on foreign visitors. Cape Verde, Croatia and Cambodia are also dependent for more than 10 percent.

"For many of these countries, if they didn't have travel and tourism, they wouldn't have the GDP or economies that they have," said Rochelle Turner, director of research at WTTC. "It's key to many small island states around the world. It's so important and so integral."
USA Today has decided to end its 34-year-old policy of not taking sides in a presidential election, declaring in an editorial: "Trump should not be president."

"This year, the choice isn't between two capable major party nominees who happen to have significant ideological differences," the editorial published Friday says. "This year, one of the candidates  Republican nominee Donald Trump  is, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, unfit for the presidency."



The editorial lists eight reasons, including that he is "erratic," "ill-equipped," "traffics in prejudice" and "is a serial liar."

The newspaper, however, said the "editorial does not represent unqualified support for Hillary Clinton."
Want instant credibility? Line your office bookshelves with the best, most erudite business books out there. For some help, CNBC looked back at some of the most influential business books of the past decade, as well as recommendations by moguls like Mark Zuckerberg and Warren Buffett, to put together this list of books every executive should keep in their office to look smart. And hey, if you have some time, they're worth a read too.



Ed Catmull, president of Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios, shares how Pixar became the creative powerhouse it is today. Full of great management and entrepreneurship lessons, "Creativity, Inc." is one of Zuckerberg's favorite reads.

2. "The Everything Store"

Written by journalist Brad Stone, this book offers a comprehensive look into how Jeff Bezos turned an online book retailer into a global retail empire. "The Everything Store" won the 2013 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.



A favorite of technology titans, including Bezos and the late Steve Jobs, "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Clayton Christensen argues that companies improve by embracing disruptive innovation. Michael Bloomberg, CEO and founder of Bloomberg, described the book as "absolutely brilliant."

4. "The Tipping Point"

Malcolm Gladwell's bestseller "The Tipping Point" explains why some ideas catch fire and a few people are able to impact many. Entrepreneur and author of "The Four-Hour Work Week" Tim Ferriss said the book is one of his favorites.



This collection of New Yorker stories by writer John Brooks offers a rare glimpse into the upper echelons of corporate America. The book became one of Bill Gates' favorite business reads after Buffett recommended it to him in 1991.



6. "The Idea Factory"

"The Idea Factory" by journalist and author Jon Gertner shows how collaboration between business and science has led to many successful businesses. It's another of Zuckerberg's favorites.



7. "When Markets Collide"

In this book, former PIMCO CEO Mohamed El-Erian offers expert insight into what caused the 2008 credit crisis. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has called the book "extremely accessible and compelling," and it won the 2008 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

After studying the world's poorest people across five continents, MIT economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo explain that developed nations and their citizens can provide aid that would actively improve poor societies. The book snagged the 2011 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.



Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's book is an eye-opening account of the obstacles women still face in the workforce.

According to El-Erian, men would especially benefit from reading it. In an article for Fortune Magazine, he wrote: "Managers, and especially male managers, are well-advised to think of Sandberg's book as one that speaks effectively to a general theme that we should all recognize and appreciate: There is a very strong business case for inclusion and diversity."

10. "Rise of the Robots"

Tech entrepreneur Martin Ford takes a hard look at the robot revolution and what that could mean for human jobs in the future. The book won the 2015 Financial Times and McKinsey & Company Business Book of the Year Award.



11. "China Shakes the World"

James Kynge, former bureau chief for the Financial Times in Beijing, explores the history of China's economy. It won the 2006 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs award for most influential business book.



12. "Capital in the Twenty-First Century"

French economist Thomas Piketty's English translation has become a national bestseller. The 700-page read is an in-depth investigation of income inequality and its destructive impact across the globe.

13. "Zero to One"

"Zero to One," by entrepreneurs Peter Thiel and Blake Masters, explains how you have to do something new in order to be successful. John Sculley, the former president of Pepsi and ex-CEO of Apple, told Business Insider that this book is his top recommendation for tech entrepreneurs.

Columbia Journalism School dean and former New America Foundation think tank CEO Steve Coll gives readers a comprehensive history of oil and gas giant ExxonMobil. The book details how the company was able to navigate crisis such as the Exxon Valdez spill to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Raghuram Rajan, governor of the Reserve Bank of India and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, dives into the 2007 financial crisis in this book. Rajan argues that there were several other factors besides the mortgage bubble that contributed to the crisis.



16. "Lords of Finance"

This Pulitzer Prize-winning book tells the story of how the heads of the Central Banks of the U.S., U.K., France and Germany made decisions that would lead to the Great Depression. The book, written by Liaquat Ahamed, won the 2009 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

17. "Jack: Straight from the Gut"

In a 2001 letter to shareholders, Warren Buffett praised this book by long-time GE executive Jack Welch. It follows Welch's ascent to the top and discusses the importance of mentors, experiencing failure and making tough decisions.



18. "The Last Tycoons"

William D. Cohan's book examines the secretive investment bank Lazard. The title won the 2007 Financial Times and McKinsey & Company Book of the Year Award. Blankfein described the book as a lesson in "how to handle big egos."



19. "The World Is Flat"

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman examines how the internet and global supply chains are making the world "flatter" or more globalized than ever before.
Activist hedge fund Elliott Management said it bought 8.1 percent stake in Mentor Graphics , calling on the company to increase shareholder value and pursue "strategic opportunities."



Mentor Graphics is the latest technology firm the hedge fund has targeted, following successful campaigns at Qlik Technologies , Riverbed , Informatica and Compuware , which all sold to private equity firms after Elliott invested.

Elliott said in a filing Thursday it had initiated a dialogue with the board of directors after taking a roughly $200 million stake in the company.

Elliott's broad range of investments across the tech industry are overseen by portfolio manager Jesse Cohn, who also leads its private equity investing arm, Evergreen, based in Menlo Park, California.

In June, it partnered with Francisco Partners to acquire Dell's software assets in a deal worth more than $2 billion that was an offshoot of its campaign against storage company EMC Corp .

Mentor Graphics, based in Wilsonville Oregon and run by Chief Executive Wally Rhines, is no stranger to activist investors or takeover offers. Billionaire activist Carl Icahn won a proxy fight in 2011 that secured him three board seats, although he exited his investments in the company in April after six years.

The company, which sells its software to semiconductor companies that use it to design and test their chips, also fended off a hostile takeover by rival Cadence Design Systems in 2008.

The semiconductor industry which Mentor serves has also been consolidating at a rapid pace. NXP Semiconductors , worth about $24 billion in market value, is in early talks with Qualcomm about a potential merger, sources said Thursday.

Mentor's shares are about flat year-over-year and have recovered since falling more than 30 percent after a disappointing earnings outlook last fall.

The company's shares spiked 6.5 percent to $26.30 in after-market trading on Thursday.

Mentor Graphics shares, which closed Thursday's session at $24.69, should be valued at $29.07, according to StarMine data.
Actress and former Miss Universe Alicia Machado campaigns for Hillary Clinton on August 20, 2016 in Miami, Florida.

Alicia Machado on Friday criticized Donald Trump's overnight Twitter rant about her, saying the presidential contender's campaign has tried to "discredit and demoralize" her.

Machado, a former Miss Universe winner who Trump ridiculed for gaining weight, began publicly supporting Hillary Clinton after she brought up Trump's past comments about Machado in the first presidential debate Monday. Trump stood by his criticism of Machado after the debate and called her "disgusting" in a late-night tweetstorm.

In an Instagram post that showed Machado, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Venezuela, draped in an American flag, Machado called Trump's tweets an attempt to "humiliate" her.

"The Republican candidate insists on discrediting and demoralizing a woman, which is one of his most frightening features," Machado said (in a rough translation from Spanish).

She later commented in a tweet.

Tweet 1



Machado said that she would continue to support Clinton, and that she "continued to stand firm" on her experience as a Miss Universe.

Clinton brought up Machado in Monday night's first presidential debate to highlight Trump's past comments that many considered disrespectful to women and Hispanics. His late-night tweets only resurrected those concerns.



Clinton's account tweeted on Friday asking, "What kind of man stays up all night to smear a woman with lies and conspiracy theories?", then piled on the ridicule in the early hours of Saturday.

Tweet 2
"This is the first R&D Center that Apple has directly invested in China. In the future, this R&D center will be dedicated to researching and developing in the areas of computer hardware and software, telecommunications, video and audio equipment, consumer electronic products, information technology and other advanced technologies," Zhongguancun wrote on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, on Thursday.

The announcement was made on social media by the Zhongguancun Science Park Administrative Committee, the landlords that run the site where Apple is opening its facility. It is located in Beijing's version of Silicon Valley, the Zhongguancun Science Park.

Apple is opening a 300 million yuan ($45 million) research and development center in Beijing, its first ever in China, as the U.S. technology giant looks to reverse declining sales in the country.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment but instead pointed to a statement made in August in which the firm said it would be opening a new R&D center in China that gave no mention of a location.

The move comes as the iPhone maker looks to reverse falling sales and regulatory hurdles in China. It saw revenues in Greater China fall 33 percent year-on-year in its fiscal third quarter, and services such as the iBooks Store shut down earlier this year.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook has been on a charm offensive in China, visiting the country twice already this year and meeting with top government officials. Apple also in Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing in a move it hoped would help it understand the Chinese market better.

Analysts said the new R&D center will help it get closer to the Chinese consumer, and could create synergies with Didi as it looks to new areas like cars.

"International firms must look at China differently. It is not just a market to sell products. They need to put in a lot of research on China consumer behavior because it's going to set the trend for other developing markets. It will be great to get a lot of consumer data in China and put it in to global product planning," Nicole Peng, analyst at Canalys, told CNBC by phone.

"It makes sense to have an R&D center that's close to all these tech companies in China for closer collaboration."

- Additional reporting by CNBC's Haze Fan.
The following are excerpts from an interview with CNBC reporter Julia Chatterley and the leader of Greece's New Democracy Party, Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Athens.







JC: Thank you so much for speaking to us today. The government believes we are on the path of a pickup in growth and that 2017 is going to be quite spectacular by eurozone standards. How likely is that in your view?





KM: I don't have much doubt about the ability of the economy to recover. If you take into consideration the policies of this government is implementing. First of all we need to point out that Greece in 2014 was actually in the process of coming out of a very deep recession, As a result of the policies of the current government would be the last two years we've had a recession in 2015. A recession in 2016 and we hope that we will have a mild recovery in 2017. Problem is that this government is implementing the wrong policies as it is implementing the wrong fiscal mix. It is overtaxing the productive economy and it does not engage in meaningful structural reforms that will attract foreign investment so as much as I would like to believe the economy is going to recover. I have serious doubts that it will happen with these types of policies.





JC: I mean I can list a number of the tax hikes that we're seeing corporation tax has gone higher. There's taxes on those taxes VAT heating on the islands have been quite heavily penalized. What would you be doing then would you be reversing those at all?





KM: What we've said from the very beginning is that there is room for a different type of fiscal policy while maintaining you're seeing more short term fiscal targets. We have proposed very specific tax cuts, taxing corporate taxation from 29 to 20 percent and 30 percent cut in property tax. These approximately would cost between 1.3 in 1.4 billion euros. And we have identified spending cuts that are of equivalent size. So what we basically say is that there is room for further spending cuts in Greece.





JC: Where would you be cutting spending?





KM: There is still discretionary spending on public administration side that can be contained. And of course if you look at the periphery of the Greek city, the state controlled enterprises there is a constant overshoot in spending which is tolerated by the current government and I'll tell you why it's tolerated because this this government is still behaving in the all clientelistic manner of the of the many previous governments did





JC: Your party included because I guess that was the criticism





KM: Yes that is true to an extent. But I have decided from the moment I was elected that I want to take a very clean break with the past and I was also minister of administrative reform and I implemented a very specific policy when it when it came to making the public administration more efficient. So personally no one can accuse me of engaging in clientelistic tactics, which is exactly what this government is doing.





JC: So basically they're doing the opposite of what they promised to do when they came into power?





KM: You know I think what they're doing is pretending to implement real reforms. There is great dissent within this government even if you look at privatisations: decisions which may be taken at the level of the prime minister are frequently overturned by ministers. We should not forget that this is a government which at heart is a radical leftist group of people. And I don't think that they have fundamentally changed their ideologies. They were forced to sign a third bailout program which back in 2013 was completely unnecessary. They're trying to implement it but they don't believe in these types of reforms. And if you want to send a real signal to the international investment community to the national capital markets that Greece really is changing we need the government that is fully fully committed to these types of reforms. That is the main reason why we're actually asking for an early election. I believe we have the full capacity to win this election. That's at least four of polls indicate. And should this happen Greece will have a competent pro reform government. And I think that this government will be in a position to attract foreign investment and will be in a position to implement policies that could deliver the true growth potential of the economy.





JC: Do you think this bailout allows enough scope for Growth policy in Greece.





KM: Look technically the bailout runs until 2018. And. A key the problem is if this government has committed to maintaining primary surpluses of three and a half percent practically for the next decade. Now I have my serious doubts whether this is actually doable. And I've been making the case that post 2018 we need to reconsider the level of primary surpluses and probably bring them down to 2 percent. 2% is still a very tight fiscal policy but we need a little bit of fiscal space to manoeuvre to further cut taxes not increase spending but to further that taxes and to use these tax cuts to fuel the recovery. A lot of economists agree with this approach so does the governor of the Bank of Greece which the problem is there's this government have the ability to deliver the necessary structural reforms and to keep our side of the bargain because we need to be consistent with the framework of the agreement. And though the bulk of the agreement contains structural reforms we as New Democracy as the main centre right party are fully committed to actually implement these structural reforms. But I think that post 2018 our European creditors need to reconsider the threshold for the primary surplus.





JC: So it's obviously time that is going to be the debt talks as well I mean at present Prime Minister Tsipras is suggesting that he can get further details on these debt talks by the end of the year. From what you're hearing. From my sense I'm not sure that the Germans in particular are going to be willing to deal with this without significantly more progress from the Greek government..





KM: First of all I need to point out that the first review was supposed to be completed back in November 2015, we're now September of 2016. And technically it is not complete. Now that gives you an indication of the pace of performance under this government. Obviously if you want to rebuild the credibility of the country that's probably not a very good idea to move at this at this pace. Now we were all hoping that some good news on their on the debt front will emerge relatively soon. I cannot predict what will happen. Obviously it is in the national interest of the country to obtain some sort of debt relief





JC: But you can't rely on it





KM: I very much stress the importance that we need to be fully accountable for our own actions. And there's a huge difference between a party that fundamentally believes in reforms that is pro business by nature, that believes in entrepreneurship and that is friendly to private investment and a government which pretends to reform while, at heart, maintaining its hard core practically neo-Marxist ideology.





JC: Wolfgang Schauble said this week that he believes that the IMF should and will be part of the solution here in Greece going forward. How do you feel now because the last time we spoke he was saying actually you want this to be a European thing and you'd like the IMF separated.





KM: Again I cannot predict what will happen on. On that front. It's probably too early to tell. I mean again I very much insist on us keeping our own commitments. The IMF. Has a. Valid point in making the case for lower primary surpluses. At the same time I fundamentally believe that we have a much greater capacity as a country to reform than the IMF gives us credit. At the end of the day Greece's problem is profoundly political. We need the political leadership and a competent government that believes in these types of reforms. If you look at other bailout countries it is sort of sad that you know after six years Greece is the only country that is still a part of a bailout program. The reason being that back in 2015 we paid the price of populism. We elected a populist government that promised to tear up the memorandum and at some point collided with reality. And unfortunately for for the of the country Reality won. So what we need is in a sense to determine a new narrative. I call that the politics of post populism. I think this is also a relevant discussion for Europe in a way which is also facing populist threats from right and left. And make the case for competent citizens-centred policies. Greece having gone through the experience of populism has understood that populist governments don't normally go anywhere. They may be good at getting elected but they're terrible once in power. So that's why I think the pendulum is swinging back and we said I think it's swinging back in our direction. We already have a very clear lead in that in all polls and this is happening just a year after the election and I think we're putting forward a very pragmatic realistic reform program we're not over promising. We're telling Greeks that this is not going to be an easy path but at least what we're offering them some hope. I hope which is based on the truth rather than on lies





JC: The government's hoping that access to the QE program will unlock key investment in Greece. Do you believe that?





KM: Access to QE is obviously is going to be a positive development but by itself it's not enough. Mr. Tsipras seems to have this theory of the compressed coil, that something miraculously is going to bring back growth. Well it doesn't work that way. You need very specific policies. You need a competent government, you need lower taxes, you need less regulation. You need reforms on all fronts and you need to make a plausible case for why Greece is an attractive investment destination, which by the way I think it is. So that's why I think that with a different government we can really achieve a sustainable growth that will far exceed the growth that we currently see in the Eurozone. But my fundamental belief is that it's not going to happen with this government. Hence we are calling for an election.





JC: There are those that say actually that your party is not ready for an election, that you've got internal divides, that even though you're 5-10 points, depending on which poll you look at, ahead of Syriza at this point, it's still not enough to form a majority government.





KM: Well I don't know if it's enough for a majority government, only time will tell. What I do know is that this party lost a national election by seven percentage points a year ago, elected a new leader last January and now we're ahead between eight and 10 percentage points in the polls. So this is still a pretty big swing and we're building up on this momentum. I think we presented a very credible economic plan A week ago. I think it was well received. We're constantly fine tuning our policy proposals and we're ready, we're ready to both win an election and we are ready to govern.





JC: Do you still feel as though your in a process of rebranding the party, as you said you want to break with the past. I noticed your offices are very different to those that I have been to in the past.





KM: Well. It is always a challenge to take a traditional Party that has played a significant role in modern Greek history and change it towards the better but that was a mandate I received when I was elected the leader of New Democracy. This is what I'm doing. We're bringing in new people, bringing in new ideas and we want to make politics attractive again for young people who unfortunately have turned their back to politics and public service. It's not an easy task. It's a challenge everywhere in Europe, there's a lot of mistrust with politicians everywhere. That's why I fundamentally believe that we need to be brutally honest even if sometimes what we say takes people by surprise. And it does take them by surprise because they are used, especially in Greece, to always listen to politicians over promise and think in terms of you know handing out benefits to people. That's why when I propose specific tax cuts I was also bold enough to identify specific settlement cuts. No politician has ever done that in Greece, they would only tell people the good things but never tell them the hard measures that we need to implement. But I fundamentally believe that we have paid a very heavy price for populism in Greece and we need to leave this this era behind and I think that Mr. Tsiprisa's government is in a sense the last chapter in A book of a post-Junta populism in Greece. We want to be the first chapter of a new book and I think that's exactly what we will do.





JC: Greece has also paid a heavy price over the years for corruption and for vested interest. How do you break that.





KM: By making it clear to everyone that we need to stick to the rule of the law. That may sound simple. And obvious, but it was never the case. Look what's happening now with the government, a government which came into power by making the case that it wants to tackle vested interests and tackle the old oligarchic establishment. It is doing exactly, I wouldn't say the same, even worse things then the previous governments did in a sense in trying to build a new oligarchy, trying to control media, put in people who are friendly to the government, control the number of TV channels in Greece- this is unthinkable. I mean in an era of digital communication here comes the government and says I will only grant out four TV licenses thus creating a technical sort of oligopoly in order to control who gets those media licenses.





JC: So replacing one oligopoly with another





KM: So that's not the way to go. I mean we're in favor of pluralism, of free competition and at the end of the day it's the market that will decide how many TV channels can survive in Greece and not the government or you know the minister who in charge of this process who happens to be Mr.Tsipras's best friend. No, it doesn't work like that.





JC: This also ties to what we're seeing or what we're hearing about the banking sector too because the central bank has expressed some concerns particularly with regards the Exec committee at Attica Bank I believe I believe. We've subsequently seen a raid on the offices of the wife of the central bank governor. She said that was politically motivated. What do you make of what's going on?





KM: I will not comment publicly on any Judicial investigation, what I will say however is that I have full trust in the governor of the Central Bank of Greece And I think he has done a good job supervising banks. And I think that Attica Bank is a very problematic case that needs to be investigated further and it is no coincidence that one of the people bidding for a TV channel, a person rather friendly to Syriza, happens to be owning a construction company which obtains contracts from the government while at the same time he's also a preferential client of Attica Bank which granted him significant and very very substantial loans in 2015, violating every proper sort of banking procedure. So there's a little interesting triangle there which just unravelled as these things have become public but which has cast A big sort of shade on what's happening on this front.





JC: Are you concerned that the government is pressuring the central bank governor?





KM: We have seen comments by, unofficial and also some official comments, by government officials which in my mind constitute a clear intervention that violates the independence of the central bank of Greece.





JC: So when you hear that the economy minister says they have an excellent relationship and they're working very well together





KM: Well we've seen other comments which sort of don't necessarily agree with this approach, it is important for the central, for the governor of the Bank of Greece to do his job and to be fully independent and I'm sure that's what he will continue doing.





JC: I want to ask you about the pension system because for me this is also a critical element in the longer term growth of the country and something that the creditors are saying needs to be tackled. What's your plan B for the pension system?





KM: We've had, we've implemented, we've already implemented significant pension reform. Over the past five years and a lot of pensions have actually been reduced and pensioners have paid the price. The fundamental problem of the pension system has to do with the nature of the demographics. With an economy that has an unemployment of 25 percent we don't have enough people that contribute to the pension system so we need to outgrow the problem. And again the only way to actually outgrow the problem is by attracting foreign and domestic investment and creating more jobs, that's why all our emphasis in our programs is placed on job creation. It is quite possible that, you know, in the medium term we will need another Pension Reform, that we need to encourage more private savings, more private investments into private pension plans. All this is still not happening in Greece but the fundamental problem of the system right now is that we don't have enough people who contribute into the system





JC: So more needs to be done to tackle growth as much as anything else?.





KM: I mean we all talk about growth, everyone likes growth but the real question is how do your bring about growth and Greece, What I want to stress, is a country with a significant natural comparative advantage, be it tourism, renewable energy, the agricultural secotr, services ,Education, health even high tech and a highly skilled labor force that is relatively cheap by European standards. Asset prices have gone down significantly as a result of the crises. There is room for further infrastructure investment in Greece, significant room for private public partnerships in areas ranging from desalination to waste management. There's a lot of opportunity here. But the country's held back. By its politics and I happen to believe that it's held back by this, by this specific government which almost pushed the country to the brink of the abyss back in July 2015 and has frankly been unable to regain credibility ever since.









KC: So you're painting a picture here of a country that offers great opportunity potentially to investors out there. But at the same time you're warning of an incompetent government that's potentially corrupt and suspect on a number of different levels. So what is the message to investors here?





KM: The Message to investors is that no matter how you look at it, Greece in the medium or long term is an excellent investment opportunity. We will sort of the politics sooner rather than later. There will be an election. We cannot force an early election. But I am fundamentally optimistic about the medium to long term prospect of this country. We have again, I want to stress, we have very, very talented people and lots of natural competitive advantage- just look at our tourism sector. There's so much investment that the sector requires in terms of upgrading our hotels, building new hotels building second homes, doing it in the right way, in a sustainable way, not over building this beautiful landscape. But we still have not used our cultural heritage to the extent that we can in terms of making Greece a unique destination. Athens is a fantastic city for city breaks, year long and everyone who comes here has a, has a great time. There's so much investment this country can attract, so in the medium to long term I remain very very optimistic about the prospects of the country. And I also have a lot of trust in, in Greek people. We will sort out the domestic politics one way or another.





JC: When do you get your election then?





KM: That I don't know. And I don't have a crystal ball. We're pushing for an election sooner rather than later. And I want to also send a very clear signal that the international investor community should not be afraid of an early election in Greece, every time we hear about an election in Greece we are worried that we'll plunge again into an era of uncertainty. It's not going to happen. I'm very confident that we will win the next elections and I'm confident that Greece will finally get the government it deserves.
CNBC's Jim Cramer said Friday that German lender Deutsche Bank probably won't pay the proposed $14 billion settlement to the U.S. Justice Department due to the political friendship between President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In the past couple of weeks, Deutsche Bank has been hit with billions in fines from the DOJ and reports that the German government won't help the bank.



Concerns over Deutsche Bank's future have dominated market sentiment in Europe and elsewhere.

"I do think that the Justice Department at a certain point will react to some politics," Cramer said on "Squawk Box."



Cramer continued to say on "Squawk on the Street," that "at a certain point, Obama and Merkel are friends. ... They're not going to wipe out a company with 100,000 employees when President Obama is in good relationship with Merkel. On the way out, it is not going to be [Obama's] game, set, match to wipe out this company. So, what I'm saying is the $14 billion now from what I understand is going to be reduced dramatically."

Cramer's comments come even after a Reuters report said Friday that Obama and Merkel did not discuss U.S. authorities' demands for Deutsche Bank to pay the proposed fine, and a Finance Ministry spokesman said the German government denies reports that it is working on a rescue plan.

Separately, the bank has said there is no reason to worry about the proposed fine. And Deutsche Bank's CEO sought to reassure his staff on Friday about market concerns.

 CNBC's Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.
watch now

As the world did not end in Deutsche Bank apocalypse on Friday, Jim Cramer turned his attention to the stocks and events he will watch next week. All eyes will turn to the Fed, as one crucial number could put a rate hike back on the table. Here are the stocks and events on Cramer's radar next week: Monday: Possible Deutsche Bank/Justice Department settlement, ISM Manufacturers report

Deutsche Bank : If the Justice Department and Deutsche Bank agree to a settlement that doesn't exceed the $5 billion to $6 billion in legal reserves that Deutsche Bank has, Cramer expects the market to greet the news positively. Friday: Non-farm payroll, German industrial production and Chinese PMI

Non-farm payroll: After a weak employment report in August, expectations are lower for September. A weak jobs number could actually be a good thing for the market, Cramer said, because it will keep the Fed on hold through the end of the year. Any increase in wages will be viewed as a cause for concern. German industrial production: Some investors are concerned that Deutsche Bank's problems could signal a new slowdown in Europe. A weak number from Germany coupled with complicated Deutsche Bank drama could start the chatter for fiscal stimulus. "I honestly can't understand what the Germans are so afraid of. They need it!" Cramer said.

The report of a possible settlement between Deutsche Bank and U.S Department of Justice did not shock Cramer on Friday. "The truth is Deutsche Bank was never in that much danger. So, why was everyone pretending like this company was the German Lehman, code-name for disaster?" Cramer said. Instead, the lack of accountability on Wall Street and in the media bothered Cramer. If commentators predict something positive and they are wrong, they get hounded on it for the rest of their lives. But no one ever gets punished for being too negative. Hence, he saw a profound bearish bias in the media for the Deutsche Bank story. "The next time someone tells you the sky is falling and we are facing a crisis that could be the next Lehman, please, I'm begging you, take it with a grain of salt, if not a whole box of Morton's," Cramer said. Meanwhile, exchange stocks have recently emerged as a raging bull market on Jim Cramer's radar. And it seemingly appeared out of nowhere. "The exchange stocks are experiencing a renaissance on Wall Street, thanks to a huge wave of consolidation that has wiped out so much of the competition. And in this environment, I think the group can keep moving higher," Cramer said. In addition to operating well-known stock and futures markets, many exchange plays provide data and technology services for institutional investors around the world.

Gary Hershorn | Getty Images
Dear Colleagues,

You will have seen speculation in the media that a few of our hedge fund clients have reduced some activities with us. That is causing unjustified concerns. We should consider this in the context of the bigger picture: Deutsche Bank overall has more than 20 million clients.

I understand if you feel concerned by the extensive coverage on this issue. Our bank has become subject to speculation. Ongoing rumors are causing significant swings in our stock price.

It is our task now to prevent distorted perception from further interrupting our daily business. Trust is the foundation of banking. Some forces in the markets are currently trying to damage this trust.

Deutsche Bank has strong fundamentals. Let me mention some of the most important facts at this point:

1. We fulfill all current capital requirements and our restructuring is well on track. We completed the disposal of the British insurer Abbey Life this week and the sale of our stake in the Chinese Hua Xia Bank will be finalized soon. This will further improve our capital ratio.

2. We have significantly decreased our market and credit risk in recent years. At no point in the last two decades has the balance sheet of Deutsche Bank been as stable as it is today.

3. Despite low interest rates and a difficult environment we posted a pre-tax profit of about 1 billion euros in the first half of 2016. Before extraordinary items like restructuring costs, we earned about 1.7 billion euros. This demonstrates the operating strength of Deutsche Bank.

4. In a situation like this, the most important factor is our liquidity reserves. Currently they still amount to more than 215 billion euros. This is an extremely comfortable buffer. This is clear proof of how conservatively we have planned. This is acknowledged by numerous banking analysts.

There is therefore no basis for this speculation. Nor can uncertainty about the outcome of our litigation cases in the US explain this pressure on our stock price, if we take the settlements of our peers as a benchmark.

You have all done a tremendous job over the past few days. You are the ones who are in constant contact with our clients and making it clear how Deutsche Bank is really doing. You are Deutsche Bank  that is impressively clear. All of us in the Management Board highly appreciate it.

You will hear back from me soon. Please keep working as you have been doing so far. We are and we remain a strong Deutsche Bank.

Yours sincerely,

John Cryan
Despite its current challenges, Deutsche Bank is not struggling as much as current speculation suggests, Mark Yusko, CEO of Morgan Creek Capital Management, told CNBC on Friday.

Not only does the German banking powerhouse have a lot of capital cushion, it's not holding a lot of terrible assets that were seen in the United States during the financial crisis, Yusko said on "Squawk Box."

Deutsche Bank's stock has been cut in half this year, with losses accelerating in recent weeks on concerns over a capital crunch in the face of a proposed settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice that could reach $14 billion and on reports of hedge fund selling.

The German lender's shares hit another all-time low in European trading Friday, but recovered late in the session to end higher. After record lows Thursday on Wall Street, Deutsche Bank's stock that trades in the U.S. was sharply higher midday Friday.

Any comparison of the German institution to investment banks in the U.S. is "silly," Yusko said, arguing that heading into the 2008 crisis Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were subject to significantly more distress and funding imbalance than Deutsche Bank today.

"The U.S. banks were so highly levered at the time, which they shouldn't have been, and things started to unravel because they were bad assets, they were bad loans. I don't think you have that problem in Germany today," he said.

Deutsche Bank won't likely have big woes, he said, and may end up being a solid long-term buy. But where the German bank may struggle, he acknowledged, is getting back on its feet in the industry, since "banking is a confidence game."
In the heart of Berlin, few people if any seemed to have noticed the international concerns about the parlous state of Deutsche Bank 's stock price.

Visits to multiple newsstands did not yield a single front-page headline about the bank  although the planned layoffs at Frankfurt-based Commerzbank did make one paper's front.



Word of Deutsche Bank's troubles had clearly not reached many Berlin residents by midday.



"I haven't heard anything about Deutsche Bank todaymaybe there was some problem with investors and other banks?" Christof, who runs a coffee shop in Berlin, told CNBC Friday morning.
Deutsche Bank (DB) stock has been cut in half this year, with losses accelerated in recent weeks on concerns of a capital crunch in the face of a proposed settlement by the U.S. Department of Justice that could reach $14 billion and reports of hedge fund selling. (CNBC)

Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan sought to reassure his employees in an internal letter today, writing the bank has strong fundamentals and recent media reports were causing "unjustified concerns." Read the full text of the letter here. (CNBC)

Rival German lender Commerzbank saw shares plummet this morning, after announcing job cuts and a plan to slash its dividend. Other European lenders like Unicredit, Barclays, and Credit Agricole also saw hefty losses in Friday trading. (CNBC)

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), nearly three-quarters owned by U.K. taxpayers, plans to separate its retail operations from the higher risk portions of its businesses. The overhaul was designed to meet new rules in Britain following the 2008 financial crisis. (Reuters)

Wells Fargo (WFC) has been nosediving this month, as fallout from the bank's sales practice scandal intensifies. CEO John Stumpf on Thursday was grilled again on Capitol Hill, where he denied there was an "orchestrated effort" to defraud customers. (CNBC)

CNBC's Becky Quick reports Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) is a major Wells Fargo shareholder, told Stumpf the secret account mess was bigger than the bank CEO had thought, and that his interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer did not go well.

Och-Ziff Capital Management Group (OZM) will pay $412 million to settle allegations the hedge fund bribed officials in several African countries. Founder Daniel Och agreed personally to pay $2.2 million to settle a recordkeeping violation. (NY Times)

Salesforce (CRM) is calling on European regulators to investigate possible antitrust issues with Microsoft's (MSFT) proposed $26 billion acquisition of business social media company LinkedIn (LNKD). Salesforce lost out to Microsoft in the bidding to buy LinkedIn. (Reuters)

A Tesla (TSLA) car in Autopilot collided with a bus in northern Germany, but the electric automaker said Wednesday's accident was unavoidable because the bus swerved. The Tesla driver was slightly injured but none of the 29 bus passengers were hurt. (Reuters)

The black box from the train involved in Thursday's the wreck at the Hoboken, New Jersey station has been recovered. One person died and more than 100 others were injured. Commuters this morning face modified service, as the investigation continues. (NBC News)

Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Israeli president Shimon Peres was remembered as a "great man" today, as world leaders including President Barack Obama gathered for the 93-year-old's funeral. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also attended. (NBC News)

The USA Today has broken with its 34-year history of not taking sides in the presidential race. The publication's editorial board wrote Donald Trump is "unfit for the presidency." But the newspaper did not give unqualified support for Hillary Clinton.

The U.S. does not own the internet, but it's held the oversight contract for the organization that runs its address book for many years. That's set to change today, when the contract with the nonprofit organization in charge of all domain names expires. (USA Today)
Trump went into the first debate on Monday once again in a national tie with Clinton and with swing state polls trending in his direction. He needed only a reasonably strong showing in the debate to consolidate his gains and make a play for remaining undecided voters, especially suburban women.

It happened in late July, when Trump enjoyed a slim national lead only to destroy it with a bizarre convention featuring an angry, ranting acceptance speech followed by a weeks-long smear campaign against Gold Star parents whose son died in Iraq. And it's happening again now.

There is a very clear pattern in Donald Trump 's strange run for the presidency. Every time the GOP nominee closes the gap on Hillary Clinton , he blows himself up.

Trump, who declined rigorous preparation for the debate, failed to go after Clinton on her emails with any vigor and leaped at Clinton's obvious bait by defending his comments about a former Miss Universe's weight gain. And then Trump inexplicably invoked his attacks on Rosie O'Donnell as a "disgusting pig" as something that the TV host "deserved."

Reputable national polls showed Trump lost the debate by a huge margin while Trump and his surrogates clung to unscientific and thoroughly useless internet insta-polls to promote the idea that he "won" the debate. And just like with the Gold Star Khan family, Trump continued to wallow in the Miss Universe story while suggesting he plans to try make former President Bill Clinton's affairs a centerpiece of his campaign strategy.

If you went into a lab to try to design a strategy to repel undecided women from your candidacy, you could not come up with a more perfect result.

Once again on the defensive, Trump launched into an unhinged Twitter rant on Thursday night and Friday morning, completely dispensing with the modicum of restraint exhibited during his rise in the polls over the late summer.

Trump tweeted that Clinton was "duped and used" by former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado, urging followers to "check out sex tape and past." He went on to refer to Machado as "disgusting" and suggested  without any evidence  that the Clinton campaign may have helped Machado become a U.S. citizen in order to "use her in the debate."

Trump kept up the Twitter assault into Friday morning with posts assailing the media. At 3:20 a.m. he tweeted: "Anytime you see a story about me or my campaign saying 'sources said,' DO NOT believe it. There are no sources, they are just made up lies!"

And at 8:50 a.m.: "Remember, don't believe 'sources said' by the VERY dishonest media. If they don't name the sources, the sources don't exist."

The damage from Trump's disastrous debate and subsequent meltdowns is already starting to pile up. Clinton has moved back to a 3-point advantage in the national polling average. And that figure includes the Los Angeles Times/USC poll that consistently shows a large advantage for Trump that is out of step with all other national polls. The L.A. Times poll relies on a static survey of the same respondents and has other methodological issues that could make it an outlier.

Trump's improvement in state polling is also eroding. The first poll in Florida taken after the debate found Clinton leading Trump by 4 points. Clinton can win the White House without Florida. Trump cannot. If the GOP nominee loses either Florida or Ohio (where he maintains a solid lead), he has no chance of getting to 270 electoral votes.

All of this brings up the question of why Trump is so bent on self-destruction every time he appears poised to possibly win. In the "South Park" view of the election, Trump is actively trying to lose when his Democratic opponent won't allow him to do it. It's possible this is actually what's going on, though if it is, it's probably happening at a subconscious level.

The GOP nominee's behavior at least suggests that deep in his psyche he does not believe that he is prepared for the presidency. And there is probably some truth in the idea that Trump really doesn't want the job as it would so drastically alter his gilded lifestyle.
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The leftist Syriza government has set Greece's economy back two years, the leader of the country's main opposition party told CNBC, as he called for snap elections. "We are ready to win the election and we are ready to govern," Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the leader of the conservative New Democracy party, said in Athens. New Democracy was Greece's ruling party for three years under Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who was succeeded by firebrand Alexis Tsipras of the Syriza party in September last year.

"We have to point out that Greece, back in 2014, was actually in the process of coming out of a very steep recession. As a result of the policies of the current government, we basically lost two years. We have had a recession in 2015, a recession in 2016 and we hope that we will have a mild recovery in 2017," Mitsotakis told CNBC on Thursday.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis Alkis Konstantinidis | Reuters

The European Commission sees the Greek economy shrinking this year by 0.3 percent. The economy shrunk each year on an annual basis between 2008 and 2013, before posting narrow growth in 2014 and shrinking 0.2 percent in 2015.

"The problem is that this government is implementing the wrong policies; is implementing the wrong fiscal mix; is overtaxing the productive economy and has not engaged in meaningful structural reforms that will attract foreign investment. So as much as I would like to believe that the economy is going to recover I have serious doubts that it will happen with these types of policies," Mitsotakis told CNBC. In January, Mitsotakis succeeded Samaras, under whom he served as Minister of Administrative Reform and E-Governance, as party leader.

If a snap election were called, Mitsotakis might be in a good position to become Greece's next prime minister, as polls steadily show New Democracy with a lead over Syriza. However, the vote need not be held until 2019.

Demonstrators protest against austerity measures in Athens, Greece. Angelos Tzortzinis | AFP | Getty Images
In visits to the Detroit area last month, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump pledged to inject new life into the region, unlocking new jobs and growth in areas evolving after manufacturing losses.

In Warren, Michigan, Clinton described a budding "comeback" there, pledging to spread the "revitalization" to areas of the state that have not yet recovered from the auto industry's drubbing during the recession. Trump, just days earlier in Detroit, discussed an American Dream that "long ago vanished" for many in the city, outlining crime and unemployment problems that he, not Clinton, was equipped to fix.

The reality for Detroit and other former manufacturing hubs in swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania sits somewhere between the candidates' depictions. Both Trump and Clinton chose the Detroit area to make their speeches, as it not only represents a shifting U.S. economy but also sits in a state that will help to determine who controls the White House.

"The one thing that Trump's overlooked is there's been a turnaround in Detroit recently," said Stephen Spurr, an economics professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, who noted that the city still faces hurdles in crime, infrastructure and education.



The comments the candidates made about the Motor City provide a blueprint of their campaign messages and how they would address economic growth throughout the country. While their economic visions contrast, some of their plans for renewal do overlap.

The Detroit area's unemployment rate of about 6 percent is worse than about 5 percent for the U.S., but has fallen from more than 7 percent in January 2015, according to the Labor Department. The area's unemployment rate sits lower than it did in January 2006 before the financial crisis.

Detroit still lags the recovery seen by the broader U.S., but its economy has shifted in recent years. "Professional and business services," "trade, transportation and utilities" and "education and health services" now employ more people than manufacturing, the Labor Department said. Total nonfarm payrolls in the Detroit area increased 2.3 percent in July from the previous year.

So how would both candidates try to boost growth? Clinton wants to raise additional government cash through tax increases on the wealthy, aiming to put $10 billion into what she calls "Make it in America" manufacturing partnerships. She proposed to invest in job training for displaced manufacturing workers, simplify tax filing for small businesses and expand broadband access.

Trump's renewal efforts focus largely on unlocking growth through across-the-board tax cuts. He supports income tax reductions for all tax brackets, as well as a reduced 15 percent corporate tax rate and end to the estate tax on the wealthy. He also wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and end the Trans-Pacific Partnership, claiming trade changes will save millions of American jobs.

Most independent analyses have raised concerns about the American deficit growth under Trump's tax plan, even after economic growth is taken into account.

Spurr also identified infrastructure as a key need for Detroit, and both candidates have pledged to inject money into that. Clinton said in her Warren speech that she wants to create an infrastructure bank, claiming "$25 billion in government seed funding could unlock more than $250 billion and really get our country moving on our infrastructure plans." She would also use tax hikes on the wealthy to fund that investment.

Trump has repeatedly pledged to boost infrastructure spending, but his method of payment is less clear. He said in Detroit that the "new wealth" created by the tax cuts will help to boost investment in infrastructure and the military.

Spurr said he sees flaws in Clinton's plan, but believes it would prove more effective than Trump's. In particular, he said he does not think Trump's tax cuts can be implemented without stifling social services or ballooning the national deficit.

So who has made strides in Michigan and the Rust Belt overall? Clinton will likely win the heavily Democratic Detroit, and has a 5-point advantage in an average of recent polls of Michigan, according to RealClearPolitics.

Trump has an average 2-point lead in Ohio in recent polls, while Clinton holds a 1.8-point average advantage in Pennsylvania.

Tune in to CNBC at 1 p.m. ET on Monday, when "Power Lunch" heads to Detroit to get a read on Motown's revival, the auto industry and Michigan's economy in this election year. Quicken Loans founder and developer Dan Gilbert will be co-host.


Attorney General Loretta Lynch Allison Shelley | Getty Images

Deutsche Bank finds itself in the center of a panic, and some analysts are pointing fingers at U.S. regulators. Germany's biggest bank fell under fresh scrutiny beginning on Sept. 16 when it surfaced that the U.S. Department of Justice was demanding it pay a $14 billion fine for its mortgage lending activities during the housing bubble. Shares of Germany's biggest bank plunged on Thursday on reports that a handful of its big hedge fund clients were limiting their exposure to Deutsche Bank, though the bank has characterized those media reports as "unjustified concerns." Certainly, the Justice Department is not the only organization scrutinizing Deutsche Bank: The IMF released a report this summer stating that that Deutsche Bank poses a than any other bank in the world. But the size of that Justice Department fine has many analysts talking. "We see little practical or political upside for the Justice Department to press Deutsche Bank for a penalty that is so large that it could destabilize the bank and provoke a new financial crisis," Jaret Seiberg, managing director at Cowen, said in a Thursday note. Like many analysts, he said he expects the final settlement to be negotiated to a lower price.

The Department of Justice declined to comment to CNBC, as did Deutsche Bank.



Some market participants worry that Deutsche Bank can't pay the billions in fines without some help from the German government or the European Central Bank. As of June 30, the bank had 5.5 billion euros ($6.17 billion) in litigation reserves.

"Certainly this appears to be severe. The size of the fine is severe. It may be intended to be severe. It may in fact prove to be devastating, and I wonder if the regulators thought that through," said Michael Farr, CEO and founder of financial consulting firm Farr, Miller & Washington.

He said he does not think a failure of Deutsche Bank would cause a banking crisis. "I think it really depends on how nervous investors get," he said, adding that a possible outcome for the bank could be a merger with another bank.

A plunge in Deutsche Bank's shares to record lows in New York trade Thursday temporarily left the financial institution with a market value of less than $17 billion, though the stock rebounded sharply on Friday.

Size of US bank settlements compared with issuance of mortgage-backed securities

Indications of diminishing confidence in the firm picked up this week. Selling began Monday following a weekend report that German Chancellor Angela Merkel ruled out state aid for her country's largest lender and any interference in the Justice Department investigation, according to a Reuters translation. One of the messages the German chancellor may have wanted to send was to tell the United States, "if you take down Deutsche Bank, it's going to affect you as much as it did us," said George Friedman, chairman of Geopolitical Futures, an online publication that forecasts global events. The last few days have seen various statements in which German authorities and Deutsche Bank representatives, including CEO John Cryan, have repeatedly said there is no need for government support.

The Department of Justice has been relatively quiet in contrast. Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Bill Baer said at a conference Tuesday how banks generally could receive credit for their cooperation with investigations into residential mortgage-backed securities. And rather than make an official government announcement, The Wall Street Journal was the first to report two weeks ago that the Justice Department had proposed the $14 billion settlement. Deutsche Bank then confirmed the news in a press release.

"My guess is the U.S. regulators would (have) called it off if you thought it would really damage Deutsche Bank," said Maris Ogg, president at Tower Bridge Advisors. "You've got to worry about, certainly the U.S. regulators are not going to bring a bank down that's going to jeopardize the system."

Foreign bank, bigger fine?

Even if the fine is eventually negotiated lower, some speculate one of the reasons for the huge starting figure from the Department of Justice is the fact that Deutsche Bank is a European bank rather than an American one.

The DOJ "ran into a political green light because there was action to punish," David Bahnsen, chief investment officer of HighTower's The Bahnsen Group, said in an email. And since Deutsche Bank is a "non-U.S. bank they could take a shot at it."

Deutsche Bank would be the first European bank to settle on residential mortgage-backed securities with the DOJ. Others on the radar include Barclays, Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS.

On Friday, the Financial Times reported, citing sources, that the U.S. Department of Justice hopes to combine cases against Barclays, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank into a multibillion dollar settlement. All four parties declined to comment to the newspaper. Looking at the relative volume of mortgage-backed securities issued by U.S. banks during 2005 and the actual fines they paid, Goldman Sachs analysts in a Wednesday note estimated Deutsche Bank will likely face a settlement in the range of $2.8 billion to $8.1 billion.

'Individuals commit crimes'
China has taken its love of glass structures one step further  and perhaps too far with an innovative glass-walled public toilet that was unveiled this week in Hunan province.

The first tourists to see the glass-walled toilets, opened on Thursday and situated in the scenic Shiyanhu Ecologic Park in Changsha, were, unsurprisingly, shy of giving them a test-run given that they don't give the user much privacy.

With only frosted glass to separate the cubicles from each other and fully transparent glass for the outer walls, floor and roof, China's media reported that a mirrored coating had yet to be applied to the outer glass surfaces.



"We wanted to make it something unique  exciting and adventurous," Yang Lang, an employee at the park was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post.
Cuban earned his first million by age 32 when he sold his first company, MicroSolutions. Less than 10 years later, he sold his second company, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo for $5.7 billion and became a self-made billionaire at age 40.

After graduating from Indiana University, he said, he set off for Dallas, moved into a three-bedroom "dump" with five friends , and worked as a bartender to make ends meet.

Mark Cuban's childhood was "as middle class as you can get," he told Dale Hansen on Dallas News channel WFAA.

It's safe to say the "Shark Tank" investor and Dallas Mavericks owner is set when it comes to money  but how much money does he think is "enough"?

"'Enough' is what it takes to not worry about the bills," Cuban said in his debut monthly column in the October issue of Men's Fitness. "'A lot' is enough that you never have to worry about working again."

But it doesn't stop there. "'F you' money means you can rent a jet to go wherever you want, whenever you want, and no party is out of reach," the billionaire explained.

"'F everyone' money means you can have your favorite band in your backyard, not care how much it costs, and lend them your jet to get there."

Cuban seems squarely in that latter category and is loving every minute.

When Men's Fitness asked about his smartest purchase, he answered, "A plane." When asked about his dumbest, he said, "Let's see. ... If I could remember them, I could list you a couple hundred bar tabs with my buddies."

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank."


President Barack Obama touches the coffin of Shimon Peres after delivering his eulogy during the funeral at Mount Herzl Cemetery on September 30, 2016 in Jerusalem, Israel. Getty Images

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Some 6,000 mourners attended the event, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In a 20-minute eulogy, Obama said Peres showed that that justice and hope are at the heart of the Zionist ideal, and had always strived for a resolution of Israeli-Palestinian conflict that treated both sides equally. "Even in the face of terrorist attacks, even after repeated disappointments at the negotiation table, he insisted that as human beings, Palestinians must be seen as equal in dignity to Jews and must therefore be equal in self-determination," he said. He said Abbas's attendance was a reminder of the "unfinished business of peace" in the Middle East. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid tribute to him as "a great man of the world." He added: "Israel grieves for him. The world grieves for him." Clinton said Peres was Israel's "biggest dreamer" and called him a "wise champion of our common humanity." He described a meeting where Israeli and Arab children together sang John Lennon's "Imagine."

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (L), Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres (C) and Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin display their Nobel Peace Prizes December 10, 1994 in Oslo, Norway. Yaakov Saar | GPO | Getty Images
Despite growing concerns over the extrajudicial murders in the Philippines, the country will likely emerge as an improved investment destination, Mark Mobius said on Friday.

"Of course, it's a tragedy that anybody gets killed, but in the context of what's happened in the Philippines in the past and the commitment to law and order, I'm not too worried about it," the storied emerging markets investment cheerleader said on the sidelines of the Asia Private Equity and Venture Capital Summit in Singapore.

Mobius, who joined Franklin Templeton in 1987 to lead the Templeton Emerging Markets Fund, is currently the executive chairman at Templeton Emerging Markets Group.

The new Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's "law-and-order" agenda has been blamed for a surge in extra-judicial killings. More than 3,800 people have been killed in Duterte's crackdown on drugs since the June 30 inauguration, Reuters reported last week.

The parliament has also been told of murders allegedly ordered by the Philippine president during his tenure as mayor of Davao city. Duterte has denied the allegations, but has also made comments indicating he condoned both those murders and ones since he took the country's top office.

In remarks that Mobius was likely unaware of, Duterte on Friday likened himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in a complimentary manner and said he would "be happy to slaughter" three million drug users and peddlers in his country, Reuters reported. Mobius didn't immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on whether the remarks change his views.



But Mobius was unconcerned about the investment climate in the country.

"The concern about the illicit killings is a minor issue. The big issue is how they implement true law and order and the degree to which Duterte is able to do that," Mobius said in his remarks at the conference.

Mobius did cite some concerns about how Duterte's "brash" remarks may affect foreign perceptions of the country.

The firebrand Duterte, who's style has often been compared with U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, has sparked concerns in markets due to his erratic outbursts, which have included threatening China with a "bloody" confrontation over disputes in the South China Sea.
But shortly after, reports of Note 7s exploding in China surfaced, forcing Samsung to issue a recall there too .

The South Korean electronics giant was forced to recall of 2.5 million of its Note 7 phablet this month after reports that the device was exploding and catching fire. Samsung acknowledged issues with the battery. But the company initially did not include China as part of the recall as Note 7s supplied in the country had a different battery maker.

Samsung acted with "arrogance" and "double standards" in the handling of its Galaxy Note 7 recall in China, state broadcaster CCTV wrote in a damning opinion piece on its website.

CCTV however accused Samsung in being discriminatory to its Chinese customers in the way it handled the recall. The broadcaster said that while Samsung issued a video apology to U.S. users, all Chinese consumers got was a 200 word statement.

"Samsung Electronics said they wanted to be an enterprise that's favored by the Chinese people, however it's not easy for China to like them. Samsung also wants to be the enterprise that contributed to Chinese society, but contribution requires sincerity instead of arrogance," CCTV wrote.

"Samsung made it look like they are fixing their mistakes, but in fact they are hold double standards on the recall of its products. With a less than 200 words statement, Samsung excluded China from the markets where Note 7 would be recalled and replaced. Samsung's discriminative policies have caused significant dissatisfaction among Chinese consumers."

CCTV's condemnation is likely to hinder Samsung as it looks to continue momentum in its smartphone division in China. Samsung, like Apple, is also trying to boost its presence in China, a market it once dominated but has now fallen behind local players such as Huawei and Oppo.

Earlier this week, Samsung said it had received around 60 percent of recalled Galaxy Note 7 devices in Europe with a similar figure returned in the U.S. and South Korea. In Europe, the company also said the Note 7 would go back on sale from October 28.

- Additional reporting by CNBC's Haze Fan.
"The problem is if the Fed starts to buy stocks, what is the mechanism by which that's going to help the real economy?"

"I get that because there's concern about what will happen when we do get another recession with rates where they are," he said in an interview with " Closing Bell ."

Russ Koesterich, head of asset allocation for BlackRock's Global Allocation Team, said the Fed is clearly trying to convince investors it is not out of bullets.

While the Federal Reserve appears to be floating the idea of buying equities in the future, two market experts told CNBC on Friday that they have concerns about such a plan.

Janet Yellen, chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, pauses while speaking during a meeting of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in Washington.

On Thursday, Fed Chair Janet Yellen told bankers in Kansas City that the central bank might have the ability to help the U.S. economy in a future downturn if it could buy stocks and corporate bonds.

"It could be useful to be able to intervene directly in assets where the prices have a more direct link to spending decisions," she said.

Right now, the Fed is barred by law from buying corporate assets.

It's not the first time this has come up. During congressional testimony earlier this week, Yellen said unlike the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan, the Fed can't purchase equities. She suggested lawmakers may want to consider changing the law.

And in a speech in August at the central bank's annual Jackson Hole Summit in Wyoming, Yellen said, "Future policymakers may wish to explore the possibility of purchasing a broader range of assets."

However, Koesterich said the Fed has taken the wealth effect about as far is it can go.

"We've seen household wealth in the U.S. now at $89 trillion, relative to disposable income it's close to the highs of '07," he said. "It's not clear to me that pushing that up even higher is going to have the effect on the real economy."

Jim Bianco, president of Bianco Research, said he would be uncomfortable with the Fed buying stocks because it would allow them to cast proxy votes.

"When controversial CEO pay or mergers or some kind of other deal comes up  there's the Fed potentially making a critical decision on the management of a company," he said. "And that's not good for them to be in that position."

Plus, capitalism is about giving money to good ideas and taking it away from bad ideas, he said. The Fed doesn't want to make those choices because it doesn't want to be seen as political, and would therefore distort the process, he explained.

That said, Bianco doesn't see Congress passing a law that would give the Fed the power to buy stocks anytime soon.

CNBC's Linda Sittenfeld, Steve Liesman and Reuters contributed to this report.
Facebook is already dominant in mobile advertising, and the company has the opportunity to become even more so through its messaging services  What's App and Facebook Messenger.

The company sees natural fits for brands on its messenger apps, Facebook executives said during a press question-and-answer session during Advertising Week in New York.

"Consumers are naturally behaving with businesses [on Facebook Messenger]," said Andrew "Boz" Bosworth, Facebook's vice president of engineering for ads and pages, at the event. "Marketers can take greater advantage of that."

Bosworth said plans for monetization aren't fleshed out, and right now the focus is on building a great consumer experience on its messenger apps. But there are natural behaviors that lend themselves to advertising. For example, Brazilian users already connect with restaurants using What's App at a very high rate, he said.

"Our goal as a company is to make your Newsfeed experience great. If we can make advertising work because it is great content for people, that's where the win is," said Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook.

EMarketer projects that 2.19 billion people will use messaging apps by 2019. In February, What's App announced it hit its 1 billion user mark worldwide. During Facebook's 2016 Q1 call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said 900 million people used Facebook Messenger, which was recently broken out into a separate app from Facebook.

Other popular messaging apps such as Line, WeChat and QQ have leveraged bots and other marketing tools for advertising revenue. Experts said bots can help brands have personalized conversations and give recommendations to consumers, who can chat from the comfort of their own device. Consumers are welcoming the virtual concierges, especially in Asian countries where the use of messaging apps is prevalent.

However, Facebook recently ran into a little bit of legal trouble with What's App in Germany, when the Hamburg data protection commissioner ordered the company to stop collecting and storing data on the app's users. He also asked the company to delete all information it had on its 35 million German users. The commissioner said that users should have the right to decide if they want to connect their What's App account to Facebook.

Sandberg said that Facebook works with regulators around the world, and emphasized that What's App's users consent to using the app.
Shares of Deutsche Bank were leaping in New York trade Friday on a report that it was near a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, but there's reason to be skeptical about the number being cited.

Shares of Deutsche Bank have extended their gains, up about 14 percent in afternoon trading, after an AFP report that Germany's biggest bank is close to a $5.4-billion dollar settlement with the Justice Department over mortgage bonds. CNBC has not independently confirmed the report.

But if the number was correct, under German capital market rules Deutsche Bank would be required to confirm the amount by now. Its failure to do so indicates the number is not correct. Any eventual settlement, however, would almost certainly be well below the reported $14-billion opening bid by the Department of Justice in its talks with Deutsche.



Deutsche Bank is not publicly commenting on the supposed $5.4-billion figure.
One clue to the storytelling in a similar engraved image of this work published in Europe differs from this work displayed to American audiences. In the engraved work, the lady's glove is dropped carelessly to the floor, in the area where we see the curious small dog standing in this image.

An interesting visual document humanizing the problem of counterfeit money in the mid-19th century by American painter Daniel Huntington is set to be offered on Oct. 5 in New York City as part of Doyles American Paintings, Furniture and Decorative Arts auction.

The painting, estimated at $35,000 to $55,000, depicts a complex narrative relating to the problem of counterfeit notes both in the United States and England in the 1850s.

The Counterfeit Note was painted by Huntington in 1858 while he was traveling in Europe and exhibited the next year in London at The Royal Academy of Arts, where it was exhibited under the title The Doubtful Note. It was also reproduced as an engraving in the July 23, 1859, edition of The London Illustrated Times.

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The picture then crossed the Atlantic Ocean and traveled to New Yorks National Academy of Designs 35th Annual Exhibition in 1860. It would be exhibited again in 1862 at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where it was offered for sale and would soon sell to a New York collector, R.M. Olyphant. At the auction of his collection in 1877 it realized a then-impressive $475.

Temptation, illusion and deception: Dubreuil's paper money art: The late 19th century trompe loeil artist Victor Dubreuil is certainly enigmatic, as are the paintings depicting currency contemporary with his era that he created.

Huntington was best known for his historical compositions and portraits, making this narrative genre painting unusual among its works. It was clearly created to show off his talents in painting a variety of surfaces and effects. As Doyles describes, it is an opulent picture, so rich in visual detail that it is a feast for the eyes. The variety shop is stocked floor to ceiling with inventory: baskets and buckets, brushes and cookware, straw hats and bright shawls hanging on rods up to the rafters, and bolts of vivid fabrics stacked neatly on shelves. Huntington must have delighted in the diversity of colors and textures as much as the challenge presented by so complex a composition.

Unfortunately for numismatists, the note in the picture is not depicted with enough specificity to allow identification, though audiences clearly understood that the merchants were inspecting a note to evaluate its legitimacy.

A rich narrative

Henry Tuckermans 1867 Book of the Artists: American Artist Life discussed then-contemporary art, singling out this picture and its rich narrative. Tuckerman described the picture as follows: a foreign-looking man, in dress, expression, and air, typical of the roguish adventurer; he has evidently made a purchase and tendered a large bank-note in payment; this note the old shop-keeper is inspecting behind the counter, while his shrewd wife whispers her suspicions in his ear, and points significantly over her shoulder at the strange customer, who, with assumed indifference but cunning glances, awaits the result.

He contrasts this swarthy gentleman with the girl in the foreground, observing, outside the counter sits a beautiful girl, dressed with a taste so appropriate, that we should think her costume alone would win scores of admirers; unconscious of what is going on she is ostensibly occupied in examining the quality of a fabric before her; but her air of refinement, the pure intellectuality of her countenance, and a certain superiority to the people and the scene around her, impress the spectator the more from the contrast; a lovely and tasteful English girl, she throws a beautiful charm over the whole.

Mysterious man, beautiful girl

What is the girls role in the narrative? Is she an accomplice of the foreign-looking man providing a cover for him to pass the counterfeit note, or merely an innocent bystander?

Audiences in the mid-19th century were used to reading meaning into pictures and these narrative scenes enjoyed broad popularity.

Stephen Mihm, writing in his 2009 book A Nation of Counterfeiters, placed this painting in a larger group of pictures where a well-dressed confidence man captures, then betrays the trust of his victims.

He wrote, Critics had different interpretations of the work when it was unveiled in the 1850s, but they generally agreed on one thing: the genteel bespectacled man with the walking cane (itself a totem of respectability) was trying to pass a counterfeit note. The shover, equal parts gentleman and confidence man, looks out of the corner of his eyes, a faint smile playing on his lips. As for the well-dressed woman seated in front, she too may be in on the fraud: note that her glove has been dropped in a most unladylike fashion on the floor. In the subtle vocabulary of genre painting, as among the appearance-obsessed middle classes, such details mattered. Perhaps she is his accomplice, trying to distract the storekeeper. An opening gambit like this helped set the stage for the opening act in this theatre of exchange: the passing of the counterfeit note. (Mihms reference to a glove, which is no longer part of the painting, was based on a London newspaper engraving. A dog now appears in place of the glove and may be a modification.)

These counterfeit note scams were widespread at the time and the circumstances were often reproduced in contemporary newspapers, largely due to the increasing ridiculousness of the situations.

Buyers want the best in rare coins and fine art: The Investment Column: Both markets are somewhat thinly capitalized when compared to other asset classes, both deal with often unique objects that generally have clear comparables in terms of quality, desirability and rarity, and there are relatively high transaction costs when buying or selling.



Most typically, a flashy customer would engage a shopkeeper to show him items. A few minutes later another customer  his accomplice  would come in, looking plain, proper, and playing the part of a trustworthy individual.

The flashy man would purchase an item using a counterfeit note and when the note was questioned the accomplice would pronounce it as genuine, providing seemingly independent verification.

As counterfeit notes improved in quality, so did the ingenuity of those individuals trying to pass off false notes. These stories were often presented as lessons in morality: both in terms of the obvious badness of those passing the initial false note and the subsequent challenges faced by modest shopkeepers holding a bad note. Should they absorb the loss or pass the note on, to another unassuming individual?

These stories were well-known to audiences viewing the picture and the meaning went far beyond an entertaining picture of good-looking people engaged in bad acts.
During the Civil War, the populace had to make do with money substitutes like small denomination paper notes to compensate for the loss of small denomination coins from circulation.

Coin Lore column from Oct. 17, 2016, Weekly issue of Coin World:

As Union forces closed in on New Orleans in April 1862, the city carried on as best it could, though cotton, the wealth of the South, was burned by the bale on the levies to prevent it from falling into Union hands, and precious metals were removed from the city.

The Confederacy suspended specie payments Oct. 16, 1861, to, in the words of Louisiana Gov. Thomas O. Moore, force acceptance of Confederate Treasury notes as a currency of real value. Commerce was conducted in Confederate bills, privately issued bank notes and much cursed shinplasters. Shinplasters, notes denominated below $1, replaced coins during the war.

Coffeehouse owner George W. Holt, a prolific issuer of shinplasters, advertised a few weeks before the Union takeover that his bills were good.

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The week before the Union takeover, the presidents of the citys 13 banks met to discuss how to settle accounts before the city fell. All but one or two decided to liquidate.

New Orleans The Daily True Delta reported, Some redeemed their outstanding circulation and deposits in either gold or silver, as suited the views of the claimants, while others offered to redeem their bills only in specie: and a third class restricted its movements to the redemption of their bills at 50 percent in specie and the balance in Confederate treasury notes.

At the time, Confederate currency had depreciated to the point that it took nearly $2 in Rebel paper money to buy a gold dollar.

On Friday, April 25, Union warships easily subdued the forts defending New Orleans, sailed to the citys riverfront and demanded surrender.

The Daily True Delta reported the next day: The war movements during the past week have almost entirely absorbed the public mind, to the exclusion of financial and other operations of ordinary interest. The banks, or a majority of them, redeemed their circulation in specie up to Wednesday [April 23] when an official notice to discontinue was received from the government at Richmond. ... The enemys approach, however, would have in any event caused a suspension of operations, and the removal of the precious metals to points of safety has claimed no inconsiderable portion of the time of our most active financiers.
'Mercury dime' that was taken into space for sale

A pre-sale estimate of $5,000+ has been placed on this space-flown Apollo 8 sterling silver Robbins medal.

The crew of the Apollo 15 spacecraft Endeavor signed this Series 1953-B Red Seal $2 note that was carried into space. Commander David Scott signed the back of the note twice.

The 1944 Winged Liberty Head dime is one of 52 dimes recovered in 1999 from Astronaut Gus Grissom's spacecraft that sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean upon its return to Earth on July 21, 1961, following a successful suborbital flight.

RR Auction's Oct. 13 to 20 online sale offers space-flown artifacts, including this 1944 Winged Liberty dime carried aboard the Liberty Bell 7 Mercury spacecraft in 1961. The dime is marked QQ43 to the right of the fasces.

Coins, paper money and medals that have flown aboard American spacecraft are among the lots to be offered in an online sale Oct. 13 to 20 by RR Auction.

Of the lots offered, 517 are dedicated to space collectibles. A 22.5 percent buyers fee will be added to the final total hammer price of each lot won.

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Among the lots to be offered are a 1944 Winged Liberty Head dime salvaged in 1999 from Astronaut Virgil Ivan Gus Grissoms 1961 Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft; a Series 1953B $2 United States note signed by the crew of Apollo 15; and a space-flown Apollo 8 Robbins medal from Astronaut Charlie Dukes personal collection.

Liberty Bell 7 dime

The 1944 Winged Liberty Head dime was one of 52 dimes recovered July 20, 1999, from Grissoms Liberty Bell 7 Mercury spacecraft. Manufactured by McDonnell Aircraft Corp. for the July 21, 1961, space mission, the space capsule traveled to the edge of space, an altitude of 188 miles, during a successful suborbital flight before returning to Earth and sinking 16,000 feet to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, the first manned spacecraft to be lost at sea. Grissom nearly drowned.

The dime to be offered in the sale is marked QQ43 in a vertical line on the reverse, to the right of the fasces, just below the E in E PLURIBUS UNUM.

Winged Liberty Head dime: The Winged Liberty Head dime  popularly known as the "Mercury dime" for Liberty's resemblance to the Roman messenger god  is considered by many the most attractive U.S. 10-cent coin. How much are "Mercury dimes" worth?

Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by Curt Newport, the underwater salvage expert who spearheaded the 1999 spacecraft recovery expedition, the dime has an estimate of $5,000+.

Grissom was killed on Jan. 27, 1967, along with fellow astronauts Ed White and Roger Chaffee during a pre-launch test for the Apollo 1 mission at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (then known as Cape Kennedy), in Florida.

Signed $2 bill

The three-man crew of Apollo 15  David R. Scott, Commander; Alfred M. Worden, Command Module Pilot; and James B. Irwin, Lunar Module Pilot  signed the back of a Series 1953B $2 United States note carried aboard the Endeavor spacecraft. An additional certification on the notes back is also signed by Scott.

Apollo 15 was the first extended scientific exploration of the moon, conducted from July 26 to Aug. 7, 1971.

According to the auction lot description: Carried as a good luck symbol on many space flights, a total of fifty two-dollar bills were flown to lunar orbit on this mission. Another package of currency was taken to the lunar surface, but accidentally left behind.

The note carries an estimate of $5,000+.

Dukes Apollo 8 medal

From Astronaut Charles Duke Jr. personal collection is a triangular-shaped, sterling silver Robbins medal taken aboard the Apollo 8 spacecraft for the mission Dec. 21 to 27, 1968.

Duke served as the Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 16 in 1972

The Apollo 8 medals obverse bears a raised rendition of the missions insignia, showing the Earth and moon separately within the loops of an orbital 8. The reverse is stamped with the dates of the mission, the serial number, 261, and STERLING for the silver content.

According to Spaceflownartifacts.com, The famous Robbins medallions have been produced for, and flown on, every manned U.S. mission since Apollo 7. Minted by the Robbins Company, of Attleboro, Mass., the sterling silver medallions for each mission were paid for by the crews and available for purchase only by NASA astronauts at the time.

The 1.5-inch by 1.25-inch Apollo 8 Robbins medal has an estimate of $5,000+.

For more information, visit the auction firms website.
Columbias War on Poverty: Not too early to think about Christmas
Family starts over after losing home, pets in Wooldridge fire

The McComb family called Wooldridge home before losing everything material to wildfire. What hurt the most was the loss of their pet dog Olaf.
By Katie Fretland of The Commercial Appeal

A 26-year-old man pleaded guilty to second-degree murder this week in the 2014 killing of Quinten Fifer at a hotel.

Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Bobby Carter sentenced the defendant, Darius Love, to 20 years.

Fifer, 22, was shot at least 14 times Feb. 8, 2014, according to the Shelby County District Attorney General's Office. He had arrived at the Deluxe Inn in the 3500 block of Lamar while his 2-year-old son, his girlfriend and a teenager were in the car.

Javonte Thomas, 21, was previously convicted in the case and sentenced to life for first-degree murder for firing into the car at Fifer.

Investigators said Fifer had wounded Thomas' brother three months earlier in a shooting. Love and Thomas were driving together before the murder when they spotted Fifer.
SHARE Photographer unknown/courtesy Mid-South Fair Anita Wood was the grand winner in the 1954 Youth Talent contest at the Mid-South Fair. She was also first alternate to the Fairest of the Fair in 1956.

Sept. 30

25 years ago: 1991

For docents and volunteers, the "Catherine the Great" exhibition, which closes today, has been "like a little factory" operating on rigid schedules with shifts, positions to be staffed, productivity awards and incentives. It has taught 1,700 workers about the determination and desires of Catherine the woman, the wealth, pomp and expansion of the Russian Empire and the role of serfs in Enlightenment-era Russia. For many, the idea of serfdom is not far from their own unpaid role as servants of a government, Memphis's, that has saved more than $450,000 through its free workforce during the 5-month exhibition.

50 years ago: 1966

Lewis Randolph Donelson, retired food broker and member of a pioneer Tennessee family, died last night at his home at 134 East Cherry Drive after an illness of several months. He was 84. He was the father of Lewis R. Donelson III, Memphis attorney and Republican political leader. Mr. Donelson was born in Nashville and moved to Memphis with his family as a child and was educated in the public schools of this city and at the University of Virginia from which he was graduated in 1904. He had served for many years as a trustee of the Ladies Hermitage Association, the group that maintains the former residence of President Andrew Jackson at Old Hickory, Tenn. Mr. Donelson had been president of both Shelby Warehouses, Inc., of Memphis and the Donelson & Poston food brokerage firm.

75 years ago: 1941

Plough, Inc. yesterday sold two carloads of aspirin to the United States Army. It will take about 20 days to produce the 50,000,000 aspirin, said J.C. Ozier, secretary-treasurer of Plough, Inc.

100 years ago: 1916

BERLIN  Germany will persevere until victory is here, the Reichstag was told yesterday by Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg. He attacked Britain as Germany's "most egotistical, fiercest and most obstinate enemy."

125 years ago: 1891

The several committees of the Confederate Historical Society met in Capt. R.J. Black's office last evening and reported progress in the duties assigned them. Col. C.W. Frazer presided.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton holds up an American made Knotty Tie as she speaks after taking a tour of Knotty Tie Company in Denver, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2016. The Knotty Tie Company makes and manufactures ties and scarves by hand in Denver. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

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By Michael Collins of The Commercial Appeal

Dolores Huerta feels Hillary Clinton's pain.

The Mexican-American civil-rights icon knows all too well what she says are the sexist stereotypes Clinton is confronting in her campaign to become the nation's first female president.

Huerta fought many of the same battles herself when she first started organizing farm workers and fighting for migrant rights six decades ago.

"When you are a woman and you are out front, you are definitely going to get attacked because there are people who don't believe women should be in positions of power," Huerta said. "There are people who don't accept that."

Huerta's detractors often asked why she wasn't home taking care of her children. Others doubted she could be trusted or believed. When she completed a project, someone would ask if she'd done it herself or if a man had helped.

Huerta says she got through those tough times the same way Clinton is getting through the presidential campaign: By ignoring the critics and staying focused.

"And you have to work twice as hard," she said.

Huerta, now 86 and living in Bakersfield, Calif., is still fighting for the working poor, women and children, just as she has most of her life.

She and labor leader Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers Union and led a successful, nationwide boycott against California's grape industry in 1965 to attain better pay and working conditions for farm workers. They also coined the phrase "Si, se puede," or "Yes, we can," which became the motto of the farmers' union and the slogan for Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2008.

Today, Huerta helps the Clinton campaign's outreach to Latino voters. In July, she spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia and blasted GOP nominee Donald Trump for insulting Latinos "as if we were second-class citizens, like we are newcomers to this country."

To refute that depiction, Huerta points to her own family history: Her great-grandfather fought in the Civil War on the Union side. Her father served in World War II and the Korean War. Huerta herself was born in New Mexico.

"To make it look like people of color are intruders to the United States, it runs counter to history," she said.

Trump's anti-immigrant remarks and vows to wall off the nation's southern border are hateful and "very damaging to the psyche of the country," Huerta said.

"Everything he's doing is against what this country stands for," she said.

Trump's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Huerta, who sits on the board of the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way, has been traveling the country to spread the message that Latinos can keep Trump out of the White House  if they get out and vote.

Latinos are an important voting bloc for Democrats, but they have a spotty record of showing up at the polls.

A record 11.2 million Latinos voted in the 2012 presidential election, but Latino voter turnout rate lagged significantly behind other groups, according to the Pew Research Center. Just 48 percent of eligible Hispanic voters turned out in 2012, down from 49.9 percent in 2008.

By comparison, black voter turnout was 66.6 percent in 2012. Among whites, it was 64.1 percent.

Huerta's message to Latinos as the election approaches: vote.

"We need to make sure our voices are heard," she said.
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Kendrick Sneed

Memphis

We need a good dialogue between the community and police.

Some good officers will remain silent because they fear being reassigned to an unwanted work detail or career advancement. Therefore, an opportunity to improve relations between the community and police suffers.

We live in a data-driven age in which production is important to those in charge. A statistics-driven police agency will continue to hurt certain communities, particularly low-income communities that rely on police services the most.

Aggressive policing oftentimes victimizes certain individuals

or low-income communities with bogus traffic stops or unreasonable suspicions. That type of policing harms the safety of law-abiding citizens. Law enforcement agencies must evaluate how police fight crime.

Citizens are not exempt from knowing how to interact with law enforcement as well. At the end of the day, police officers and citizens both want to go home. Traffic stops should not end in death.
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By Alyssa Rosenberg

The "war on women" started as a Democratic talking point intended to delegitimize Republican positions on abortion, rape and domestic violence. But over the past couple of days, we haven't even needed a policy debate or a slightly hyperbolic political slogan for a number of Republicans to do a truly impressive job of demonstrating just how much they personally hate women.

First, Donald Trump created a pre-debate stir by suggesting that he would invite Gennifer Flowers, who claims she had an affair with Bill Clinton, to attend his first contest with Hillary Clinton. Trump's suggestion was a response to Clinton's decision to give tickets to Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and a businessman who has consistently questioned whether Trump's business successes and claims of charitable giving are real.

By the standards of this presidential campaign, nothing is shocking anymore, but Trump's jibe suggested that raising Bill Clinton's failures as a husband was in some way a response to criticisms of Trump's professional and philanthropic life. If Trump wanted to raise questions about whether Hillary Clinton has consistently supported women who report sexual harassment or rape, he could have suggested that he might invite Juanita Broaddrick or Paula Jones. Instead, he chose a woman who allegedly had a consensual relationship with Bill Clinton. The point wasn't to critique Hillary Clinton's behavior as a public figure. It was to shame her as an inadequate wife.

Flowers wasn't at Hofstra University on Monday, of course  Trump is nothing but bluster and reversals. But the nastiness continued. During the debate, pollster Frank Luntz shared a text that he said he'd received from a Republican member of Congress saying Clinton "just comes across as my (b----) wife/mother." Totally aside from the fact that defining Clinton's collected, occasionally funny, performance in a debate where she was constantly interrupted and lied about as shrill or unpleasant suggests that there is literally nothing a woman can do that won't cause some moron offense, this is an astonishingly nasty thing to say about one's own spouse or mother.

Not to be outdone, Trump called in to "Fox and Friends" Wednesday morning to dig in on one of the charges Clinton leveled against him. While he initially seemed to believe Clinton was making up a story about his harassment of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, asking "Where did you find this?" just hours later Trump was leaning into the story, saying Machado "gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem."

While Trump was bemoaning the difficulties a woman's body caused him, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, a man with all the personal charm of a cockroach, declared that "after being married to Bill Clinton for 20 years, if you didn't know the moment Monica Lewinsky said that Bill Clinton violated her that she was telling the truth, then you're too stupid to be president."

This raises an interesting series of questions. Does Giuliani think that his second wife and the mother of his children, Donna Hanover, is a fool for attempting to keep their marriage together in light of what her divorce lawyer ultimately described as Giuliani's "notorious adultery"? Does he think Ivana Trump is stupid for trying to maintain her marriage to Donald Trump even after Trump began cheating on her with Marla Maples?

Is Giuliani really so devoid of personal feeling or political strategy that he thinks people who are cheated on, even repeatedly, regularly and blithely admit it immediately and in public? The answer to that last one, at least, is probably yes, since Giuliani is the sort of person who holds a news conference to announce his separation from his second wife and to praise the woman who will become his third wife without informing the current wife that he plans on going public.

It's also worth pondering, given that men like Trump and Giuliani tend to portray their adulteries as part of a process of trading up from their earlier wives, what Giuliani expected from Judith Nathan, that third wife. Since Giuliani famously used the impotence that resulted from his prostate cancer treatments as a defense in his second divorce, does he think Nathan would have been justified in swapping him for a healthier partner?

I get the point, not that I didn't get it before. If I speak up, I'm a shrill nag. If my weight fluctuates at all, I'm a gross, inconvenient fatty. If my husband cheats, it's on me. If I try to defend or salvage my marriage, I'm a stupid dupe.

Men like Trump and Giuliani have advanced ideas like these so the women in their lives will be cowed, thin and complaint, while if they err, they're swashbuckling and strategic. The idea that we should trust men who hate us in private to protect us in the public sphere is the ultimate insult to our intelligence.

Alyssa Rosenberg blogs about pop culture for the Washington Post's Opinions section.
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By David Ignatius

BOGOTA, Colombia  The pathway to compromise is never easy to find, at home or abroad, but it was visible in Colombia this week in the peace agreement that ended a 52-year guerrilla war. What opened this route was good political leadership.

President Juan Manuel Santos asked Colombians who had suffered from the FARC insurgency to forgive those they regarded as terrorists. FARC's leader, Rodrigo Londono, asked for forgiveness, in turn, "for the pain we have caused in this war." The cycle of rage and recrimination paused long enough to get a deal, which the Colombian public is expected to ratify in a referendum Sunday.

Now contrast this exercise in responsible government with the political pot-shot taken by the U.S. Congress on Wednesday in overriding President Obama's veto of a bill to allow families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for damages. Voting for 9/11 families and against Saudi Arabia proved an irresistible package in an election year, as the 97-to-1 Senate vote showed.

Saudi Arabia's refusal to admit its mistakes helped create this congressional car wreck. What a difference it would have made if the Saudis had expressed regret  not for the 9/11 attacks (there's no credible evidence the government was responsible), but for tolerating the Sunni religious extremism from which the jihadists emerged. That would have signaled a new day in Saudi Arabia.

But this bill should never have come to a vote, let alone a veto override. In its feel-good, retroactive retaliation against the Saudis, Congress has compromised the principle that governments can't be sued in foreign courts. If other countries follow suit, American soldiers and diplomats abroad could be at risk every time they enter a country that believes the U.S. has killed its citizens unjustly or committed "war crimes."

Obama and CIA Director John Brennan practically begged Congress to refrain from the override, to no avail. Senate leaders said they might consider legislation limiting the bill's scope if it provoked strong foreign reaction. Perhaps we have become a country where Congress has to go over a cliff before it thinks about a parachute. That has been the case with budget issues, and now foreign policy.

Let's return to Colombia for a lesson in how politics and good policy can sometimes converge. The key to the FARC peace deal was Santos's ability to create space for reconciliation with FARC rebels, rather than insist on their capitulation. As any negotiator knows, successful deals are the ones that allow each side to preserve its dignity and self-respect. Politicians too often insist on the purity of seeking total victory, even if the practical result is a continuing impasse.

Santos, a former defense minister, felt strong enough to ignore the usual political calculations and offer the insurgents seats in Colombia's parliament and a chance to claim land in a process of "transitional justice." Some Colombians don't feel so generous. Former President Alvaro Uribe has rejected the deal, and millions of Colombians will probably vote against it Sunday. But Santos understands how wars end.

America figures in Colombia's reconciliation story in ways that remind us of what good foreign policy looks like, even as Congress is showing the worst face. The U.S. has been helping Bogota suppress the FARC insurgency since the 1990s, when the Clinton administration launched "Plan Colombia." Steadfast support for an ally, through three different administrations, weakened the FARC to the point that peace was possible.

Colombia was the opposite of the Middle East roller coaster: It was a sustained, consistent, limited approach that used all the tools of U.S. power, overt and covert, to get the right result.

Obama facilitated the final stages of negotiation by reconciling with Cuba. FARC's rebellion had been sustained for more than a half-century in part by an anti-Americanism engendered by U.S. sanctions against Fidel Castro. When Obama dismantled sanctions against Cuba, he made reconciliation possible for the Colombian left. It's no accident that the Colombia peace talks took place in Havana.

Traveling this week in Latin America with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, I've seen how the U.S. opening to Cuba has created more space, paradoxically, for centrist politicians. Officials in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia have explained that it's easier to support free-market reforms when anti-Americanism has receded. Obama has taken away the leftists' oxygen.

Good policy is impossible when politicians play to public fears and prejudice. The virtuous cycle of reconciliation and reform that we're seeing in Colombia benefits everyone once it gains momentum. But first, strong leaders have to defy the politics of expediency  the popular but shortsighted approach demonstrated this week in Congress.

David Ignatius' email address is davidignatius@washpost.com.
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By Jim Jordan

Hillary Clinton spent part of Monday night, as well as the last year and a half, trying to convince the American people why she's the best choice to be the next president of the United States. The entirety of her pitch seems to be that she's the most qualified candidate due to her record as a U.S. senator and secretary of state. But, in reality, it is her record as secretary of state that disqualifies her from consideration.

Look no further than Clinton's disastrous handling of the situation in Libya. For Clinton it was simple: Libya was supposed to be the crowning jewel of the Clinton-Obama foreign policy. It was the perfect example of how it's supposed to work: No boots on the ground, oust a dictator, and help usher in the Arab spring.

But Libya  specifically Benghazi  turned out to be anything but a crowning achievement and, in fact, would ultimately disqualify Clinton from ever serving as commander-in-chief.

For months, the Clinton State Department failed to heed numerous warnings about the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi. When other nations pulled out of Libya, U.S. assets remained on the ground, despite the fact that more than 200 security incidents took place. In fact, Benghazi had gotten so dangerous that one State Department diplomatic security agent called it a "suicide mission" and said "there was a very good chance that everyone was going to die," referring to Americans remaining in the country.

But the State Department ignored these warnings. Nothing would get in the way of the Clinton-Obama foreign policy legacy.

And then it happened.

On Sept. 11, 2012, Ambassador Chris Stevens' residence in Benghazi was overrun in a coordinated terrorist assault carried out by an al-Qaida-aligned group. The attack claimed the lives of Stevens and Sean Smith, a U.S. foreign service officer. The residence was torched and the ambassador was dragged through the streets. Stevens was the first U.S. ambassador to be killed in the line of duty since 1979.

Next, the coordinated terrorist attack hit the CIA annex building, roughly a mile away, where occupants endured hours of assault. That attack ultimately claimed the lives of CIA contractors and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.

But before the attack had even ended in Benghazi  and before any U.S. military assets were ever deployed to assist Americans  the political spin in Washington began. While Woods was still on the roof of the CIA annex fighting for his life, Clinton, presidential adviser Ben Rhodes, and other Obama administration officials were trying to reclaim the narrative with a 10:08p.m. State Department press release.

They would soon go on television and blame the coordinated terrorist assault on a YouTube video, claiming the attack started as a spontaneous protest in response to the video.

Think about that: A spontaneous protest using rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, and truck-mounted artillery.

Publicly, Clinton allowed one story to be told to the American people, while she told a very different story  the truth  privately. She and her cohorts publicly blamed "inflammatory material posted on the internet" even as privately she told her daughter that terrorists had killed our people. She also told the Egyptian prime minister that it was a planned attack, not a protest.

Repeatedly, she claimed there was no information to suggest it was a pre-planned attack  despite a senior State Department official in Libya saying it was a well-planned attack.

Remember the context: This took place 56 days before a presidential election and the Clinton-Obama foreign policy legacy was on the line. At every turn Clinton was more concerned with politics than getting the truth to the American people  including the victims' families.

When Sean Smith's remains were being returned to the United States, Clinton told his mother that the video was responsible. She also told Tyrone Woods' father that she was going to have the filmmaker responsible arrested, knowing full well that this was a coordinated terrorist attack and that no U.S. forces had taken off before the attack had ended.

For Clinton, politics trumped the truth and honoring the memories of the lives lost in Benghazi. That alone disqualifies her from ever being commander-in-chief.

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, serves on the Benghazi Select Committee and is chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. He wrote this for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
A judge in Texas has fixed for Friday the hearing in a suit filed by four state attorneys general against a decision by the U.S. to transfer by month end oversight of some key internet technical functions to a multistakeholder body.

The attorneys general of Arizona, Oklahoma, Nevada and Texas filed late Wednesday a suit asking the federal court for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction on the proposed transfer of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

ICANN, under contract with the Department of Commerce, administers the IANA functions, which include responsibility for the coordination of the DNS (Domain Name System) root, IP addressing, and other internet protocol resources. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency within the Commerce Department, said last month it will go ahead with its plan to transfer supervision of the IANA functions to a multistakeholder body on Oct. 1, in line with a plan first announced in March 2014.

The lawsuit comes after Republicans in the Senate failed to include a provision blocking the transfer in a resolution on government funding.

The Republicans have said that the transfer would lead to authority passing to authoritarian regimes that censor the internet, though their critics say that what is being transferred are technical functions such as the coordination of the DNS functions, which really have no connection with censorship or blocking access to the internet to users.

The attorneys general wrote in their complaint to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas that they are concerned that the U.S. will lose control of the the top-level .gov domain, which is used by the states. The NTIA currently has the authority to authorize changes performed by ICANN. Should NTIA fail to renew the contract and relinquish its approval authority, ICANN could take unilateral actions adversely affecting the .gov address, according to the complaint.

The only control that the U.S. would have to safeguard .gov and .mil top-level domains is outlined through an exchange of letters, "which are non-binding and lack the certainty of a legal contract that would guarantee U.S. Control and ownership in the future, added the attorneys general, who expressed concern that at some point ICANN could eventually delete the .gov top-level domain name or transfer it to some other entity.

ICANN has in the exchange of letters said it will not redelegate .mil, .gov, .us and .edu top-level domains, administered by the U.S., "without first obtaining express written approval from NTIA." Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz, want the government to certify to Congress that the U.S. has secured sole ownership of the .gov and .mil top-level domains and a contract for the exclusive control and use of the domains in perpetuity.

The attorneys general have also held that the IANA functions are U.S. government property and their disposal would hence require approval of Congress, which has not been obtained so far. They cite from an IANA contract, entered into on Oct. 1, 2012, which declares that [a]ll deliverables provided under this contract, including the automated root zone are the property of the U.S. Government.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, a Congressional watchdog, recently said in a legal opinion provided at the request of legislators that "it is unlikely that either the authoritative root zone filethe public 'address book' for the top level of the Internet domain name systemor the Internet domain name system as a whole" is U.S. government property.

Another prong of the complaint of the state officials is that the transfer has implications related to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. By the transfer, the U.S. government is handing over control of the vast democratic forums of the Internet to private parties," and giving those parties free reign, according to the complaint.

The AGs have argued that the threatened injury outweighs any harm to defendants from a court order, which is an argument that is likely to weigh in their favor when the judge decides on their immediate demand for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction on the decision of the federal government. The officials have also asked for a judgment and permanent injunction against the transfer.

Tech companies, including Google, have supported the transition of the IANA functions to ICANN. The U.S. governments contract with ICANN was always meant to be temporary, and since ICANN was created in 1998, the U.S. "has invited the global Internet community to decide the Internets future in a bottom-up fashion," wrote Kent Walker, general counsel at Google, in a blog post Monday.
Wi-Fi communications in vehicles, whether from the factory or in aftermarket devices, will increase from 6.9 million per year in 2015 to 61 million per year in 2020 -- and this will usher in a new era of consumer services and applications, according to a new report from Gartner.

Over the next four years, the total number of connected cars and trucks will reach 220 million, a number that will drive a huge uptick in the delivery of digital content, such as streaming music and video, navigation and location-based services.

Connected vehicles increasingly will be able to direct drivers to, and pay for, parking spaces, fuel and other services, and the technology will eventually enable increased levels of automated driving, Gartner's report stated.

For example, three years ago Audi rolled out its Audi Connect wireless parking-payment program, which connects cars and parking lots' services. The technology not only lists the location of area lots, but allows parking barriers to be raised -- and automatically pays for spaces.

The Audi Connect service also provides drivers a list of area gas stations along with real-time pricing information.

Gartner

Internet-connected vehicles will also enable innovations in related businesses, such as insurance, car rental, car- and ride-sharing services, and electric vehicle charging.

"Connected vehicles will streamline many of the processes currently in use in the businesses. For example, a rental car could be provisioned remotely, allowing the customer to pick it up and drop it off without having to go to an office," said James Hines, a research director at Gartner and the report's author. "They will also enable new modes of operation; for example, when combined with autonomous driving capability, connected vehicle technology will allow a customer to request a ride and a vehicle could be automatically dispatched to the customers location."

Connected vehicles will improve access to EV charging by locating available stations and paying for charging services; they'll also be able to monitor the state of charge of the battery in the vehicle, Hines said.

"Many of these functions are performed with smartphones today, but connected vehicle technology will allow tighter integration with the in-vehicle systems, which will enable a higher degree of automation of these funtions," he added. "The connected vehicle is the foundation for fundamental opportunities and disruptions in the automotive industry and many other vertical industries."

By 2018, embedded communications modules will overtake mobile device tethering via dongles attached to vehicle OBD II ports as the dominant mode of connectivity in cars, the report stated. Since 1996, all vehicles have had standardized OBD (onboard diagnostic) ports, which allow mechanics to check the status of various vehicle subsystems.

Over the past several years, the insurance industry has been utilizing OBD ports to offer rate discounts when drivers agree to plug dongles into them, which allow insurers to track a vehicle's driving history.

Internet connectivity will also be critical in supporting new automated driving functions, such as adaptive cruise control, collision avoidance and lane departure warning systems, all of which require real-time camera and sensor data processing and pattern recognition.

From 2016 through 2020, Gartner predicts, uture connected car applications will drive a 150% increase in demand for contextual information, such as image detection and geolocation.

Gartner

"As cars become more automated, they are being equipped with an increasing array of sensing technologies, including cameras and radar systems," Hines said. "Many automobiles will use image detection as the primary means to identify and classify objects in the vicinity of the vehicle so they can provide more sophisticated responses and even have autonomous control."

Improving fuel efficiency and reducing emissions will necessitate sophisticated engine and transmission control systems, which are relatively low-level functions well suited to vehicle microcontroller units.

As human-machine interaction technologies -- such as touch control, gesture control, gaze control and speech recognition -- increase, so too will the need for more sophisticated middleware. Middleware will also support consumer telematics services that allow the car to communicate diagnostic and maintenance information and address driver and passenger queries, as well as support over-the-air software updates.

As middleware grows to process the tsunami of new data, cars and trucks will require more powerful processing hardware, which is what is precipitating the shift from 8-bit microcontrollers to 32-bit processors in vehicles, Garter stated.

The automobile chip business is already booming and has become one of "the hottest target markets for semiconductor makers," according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Over the past year, according to the WSJ, chip makers have penned a total of $75 billion worth of deals with the auto industry.

Today, the WSJ reported that Qualcomm is in talks to acquire Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors for more than $30 billion. The deal would make Qualcomm the largest supplier of chips for cars.

In 2014, Freescale became the first top microchip supplier to announce an automotive-grade Ethernet chipset and software, paving the way for car makers to install 100Mbps networks in vehicles.

Freescale's processors connected in-car electronics, such as telematics and infotainment systems, to Wi-Fi routers over standard two-wire twisted pair cable, versus CAT 5, making it robust enough to serve as a networking topology for vehicles.

By 2020, many cars will have 50 to 60 Ethernet ports and even entry-level vehicles will have 10, according to a study by research firm Frost & Sullivan. (Premium vehicles will likely have more than 100 Ethernet nodes by then.)

Hackers are taking notice

As connectivity grows, however, so too will potential cybersecurity holes. The federal government and carmakers have already expressed concerns about the potential for increased vehicle cyber attacks.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) released guidance to the auto industry (PDF) for self-driving and highly automated vehicles, which included security recommendations. For example, the DOT stated, consumers should receive "meaningful data privacy and security notices," along with choices about "collection, use, sharing, retention, and deconstruction of data, including geolocation, biometric, and driver behavior data that could be reasonably linkable to them personally."

NHTSA

Additionally, this month, Volkswagen announced it would form a cybersecurity company headed by Yuval Diskin, the former head of Israel's security agency.

KPMG

Security is on consumers' minds. In July, KPMG released a survey of 449 car-owning consumers. Some 70% stated they are concerned about the possibility of their car being hacked within the next five years, and if their car was hacked, 79% said it would leave them with a negative perception of the automaker.

The concern cuts across generational lines, with 83% of baby boomers and 74% of millennials saying a hack would damage their view of that automaker, the KPMG report stated.

"Cyberattacks are affecting nearly every single company we encounter, but we're not seeing those attacks drive enough proactive business action as evidenced by the rate of investment made in information security," Greg Bell, KPMG's Cyber U.S. Leader, said in a statement. "We're still seeing companies taking a passive or reactive approach toward cybersecurity, when in fact cyber should be a top-line business issue thought about and practiced company-wide."
Spreadsheet software that will understand natural-language questions about your data is certainly a cool concept. Microsoft Power BI's cloud service -- its analytics platform, not Excel -- has offered this capability for a while, but having it percolate down to spreadsheets will put it before many more potential users.

I've been taking Google Sheets Explore for a test drive this afternoon. First thoughts? It's got a lot of potential, but at the moment I'd caution you not to depend on it to understand exactly what you mean in the same way that, say, Google search can sometimes figure out what you want even if you've misspelled a word.

Here's why. One of the sample problems Google uses in its blog post about Explore is "what are the top three items by sales price?" That's a pretty clear question and a fairly simple response: Return the three items with the largest sales price.

But what if your spreadsheet has catgories as well, and you want the three priciest items in each category? I tried to find out something similar, using a spreadsheet with a month's worth of commercial airline flights arriving in Boston. When I typed in a question asking for the top three delays by airline, I got the three most-delayed flights altogether (along with which airline was responsible for each). Typing "What were the top three ARR_DELAY grouped by Airline" didn't work. Neither did "What were the top three ARR_DELAY for each Airline?"

When I asked "What was the Mean ARR_DELAY by Airline" I received the appropriate response. "Average ARR_DELAY" worked as well. However, "What was the Median ARR_DELAY by Airline" returned the median for all flights. That's curiously inconsistent behavior, especially since Google Sheets pivot tables can calculate medians by group. For those who were hoping Explore would be a simple way to type out natural-language instructions whenever you want a pivot table, the platform isn't quite there, at least yet.

Next up: Counts by group. "What is the COUNT of each Airline" gave me just the total number of rows in my spreadsheet. So did "What is the count by Airline" If I typed in "Airline," I got a list of unique Airlines in the data.

Was this an impossible request? No, it turns out that "Distribution of Airline" is the correct phrase to get a count grouped by Airline. ("Airline Distribution," however, couldn't be understood.) "Count of [some other column] by Airline" also ended up giving me a count of records for each Airline.

I'll be the first to admit that "Distribution of [variable of my choice]" is a lot easier to remember than creating a new pivot table. But if Explore is truly designed to be "natural language" as opposed to a simplified SQL requiring specific syntax, it needs some better understanding.

To be fair, Power BI has similar problems understanding my queries, although it sometimes seems to provide a bit more guidance while developing questions. Being a BI tool, it has some other advantages, such as natural-language requests for visualizations -- you can ask it to generate a graph of your results. Google Sheets Explore offers some automated visualizations of your data, and you can easily add those to your spreadsheet with a single click. But as far as I can tell, if a visualization isn't generated in Explore automatically, there isn't a way to ask it to make you one.

But back to Explore's natural-language capabilities. One of the best tips for using this new functionality is to look carefully at the Answer text which displays just under your question and above your results. It will tell you how it interpreted your question, such as "Average of DEP_DELAY by Airline" if you asked it "What is the mean of DEP_DELAY by airline?" That's probably the best way to ensure what you've requested is also what Sheets has understood.
Cllr Andrew Wood represents the Canary Wharf Ward on Tower Hamlets Council.

One of the most important, but least appreciated, government policies of the last five years has been the localism agenda initiated by the Localism Act of 2011, delivering real power into local peoples hands. However, it is a policy that we as a Party do not talk enough about and it rarely intrudes into the national press. Neighbourhood Planning is one the most important of the new powers. It can, if used imaginatively and with ambition, have a material impact on your local area.

Nicholas Boys Smith of Create Streets wrote here a few weeks ago about the practical effect of Neighbourhood Planning. But I want to talk about the Neighbourhood Planning process itself and why you should start a Neighbourhood Plan. That is provided nobody else in your local area has already done so  you may need to get your skates on, it is a policy that 2,000 groups across the country have already started.

Put simply, it is a fantastic way to engage with local people in a way that is likely to engage many more people than almost anything else you are likely to do. Planning is about where you live or work, what it will look like, how it develops and the future. It is one of the few subjects that can bring people together from across the community.

For example, the Forum I helped set up, the Isle of Dogs Neighbourhood Planning Forum within three months of its inception had three times as many members as the local Conservative Party Association, while covering a smaller area. We were already attracting twice as many people to meetings as have ever attended an association AGM.

So far there have been more than 200 referendums, all yes votes with an average yes vote of 89 per cent: these are almost North Korean democracy levels of support

It is true that some Neighbourhood Plans start off as a NIMBY tool to try and stop development but that is very much dependent on the leadership and how they are started. Neighbourhood Plans cannot stop development but they can shape it and help deliver a more sustainable solution that provides more homes as well as infrastructure. It may be that your Neighbourhood Plan delivers a policy as St Ives did on second homes that perhaps does not sit well with all Conservatives. But if we really believe in localism and decentralisation then we have to trust local people to make local decisions that works for them. National legislation will rarely work equally well for every single part of the country.

People feel disenfranchised about politics but here we can give them back real power over their local area. Which is perhaps why some Councils resist or delay the setting up of Forums. My Council took sixteen months to recognise us. A week before they did so, they removed a third of the areas residents had voted on. But for Neighbourhood Planning to work it cannot be seen as a party political effort, it has to really involve everybody in the local community in order to have legitimacy and support.

Perhaps one of the main reasons to do a Neighbourhood Plan is the ability to guide how 25 per cent of the Community Infrastructure Levy should be spent. While it is unlikely that your area will earn 67 million in CIL within sixteen months as mine has done, the amounts at stake could be considerable. Having a Neighbourhood Planning referendum also replaces the first step in setting up a new Parish Council. The combination of a new Parish Council and a Neighbourhood Plan together have a real ability to transform governance of an area, but again, the decision on whether to take this step or not is up to residents.

If you have not already started a Neighbourhood Plan in your area, I urge you to do so. They are not party political tools and will bring in people with whom you do not necessarily see eye to eye at all times but there are few other ways where you can implement government policy, engage so widely with the community, and build strong relationships with many local people. The only downside is that they are a lot of work but there is support available and the process becomes easier with more groups who go through the systems. Parliament is about to consider the new Neighbourhood Planning Bill which will further improve the process.

If you want to find out more visit our website. We are also holding a fringe event at Conference about Neighbourhood Planning on Monday 3rd October 3.45pm in the Dolce Room Hyatt Hotel within the secure zone. It is titled Neighbourhood Planning in the fastest growing place in the UK or how to get 89 per cent of the vote
After decades of dodging and delays, we could have a decision on airport expansion within a month. Downing Street has made it known that the Prime Minister, who personally chairs the Cabinets aviation sub-committee, intends to make a decision by mid-October (though of course she may take the opportunity to comment on it in her conference speech), and it looks highly likely that Heathrow will get the nod.

Heathrow may not be ideally located, but it is where it is, and it would be an error to continue to allow dreams of perfection to block the urgent need for new airport capacity in the South East. Its all very well floating visions of moving the whole airport lock, stock and barrel, but the nation is still running a sizeable deficit. Similarly, while Heathrow expansion faces local opposition so would any other site. Every time politicians opt for the easier option of delaying the inevitable row, they harm British businesses and pass up new economic opportunities. For all Cameron and Osbornes talk of the global race, they havered for far too long on making a call that is essential to our ability to compete.

So even if the decision isnt going to please everyone, it will at least be good to have a decision at all. For May, who came in for some flak over her delay to Hinkley Point, it will be an opportunity to act when her predecessors (Labour and Conservative) preferred to delay and to emphasise that she meant it when she talked of a proper industrial strategy.

The question is, what happens after the Government makes its mind up?

Politically, theres the obvious benefit that the London mayoral election is now out of the way. And while Sadiq Khan is opposed to a third runway at Heathrow, one can imagine that the Government views it as less awkward to have a row with a Labour mayor rather than a Conservative one. A protracted battle with Khan could be uncomfortable  a protracted battle with Goldsmith would have been worse.

Speaking of Zac, lets not forget that May will still have to win a Commons vote for expansion. Ministers have briefed the Financial Times that they have crunched the numbers and are confident of victory, but to do so they will have to overcome a likely Tory rebellion. Opponents in the Cabinet such as Boris Johnson and Justine Greening would ordinarily bound by collective responsibility, but May is reportedly planning a free vote to minimise the strife within her new administration. Goldsmith said last year that he regrets his pledge to trigger a by-election if Heathrow gets the green light, but still intends to go through with it.

Heathrow have played a clever political game in building support among MPs across the rest of the country  they have deployed the benefits of an improved hub to secure the support of various regional airports, and have signed up a lot of non-London MPs in the same way. Yesterday, they redoubled their efforts on that front, offering to introduce extra flights and discounts for domestic passengers even before any new runway is built, contingent on getting the go-ahead for the project. As a result of this campaign, they certainly have a sizeable base of support in Parliament, but given the slim majority and a Conservative free vote they will still need the backing of at least some Labour MPs to be sure of victory.

Fortunately for the airport, and the Prime Minister, Jeremy Corbyn has inadvertently ridden to the rescue. With John McDonnell (whose seat is in West London) bitterly opposing the scheme, the issue has become bound up in the ongoing civil war between the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Oppositions leadership. Rebels in the PLP are reported to be planning a move to make support for Heathrow Labours official policy, even without Corbyns backing. As a result, the Labour leader is now uncertain as to whether to try to whip his MPs or accept a free vote to avoid further conflict.

If the Government does decide soon, and if the vote is won, then the political plaster would at last have been ripped off. It makes sense for a new Prime Minister to take that short-term pain early on in her first term  as Cameron discovered, delay only causes a Government to sink deeper into the mire. There could yet be more political discomfort to come as a result of approving the scheme when West London voters find more planes flying over their houses, but a new runway wouldnt open until 2026. That is sufficiently distant that it feels manageable  or by then it could even be someone elses problem.
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Cloud News

Google Rebrands Enterprise Business As Google Cloud, And Apps As G Suite

Joseph Tsidulko

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Google executives made the case Thursday for why the internet giant should be considered a serious enterprise technology vendor, highlighting recent customer wins and cutting-edge cloud services.

To drive home that point, Diane Greene, Google's cloud chief and former VMware CEO, introduced a rebranding of Google's rapidly expanding enterprise cloud businessto Google Cloudafter a few years experimenting with various monikers.

Customers would always ask, "Is Google really serious about the enterprise?" Greene told attendees of the company's Horizon event in San Francisco. "It was kind of driving us crazy because we were very serious about the enterprise. That's why we were all there."

A couple of months ago, however, "the question started dissipating," Greene said. "People started getting it."

When Greene first came to Google almost a year ago, the enterprise division she took charge of was officially called Google For Work, but internally, and often externally as well, went by Google Enterprise. The pithier Google Cloud reflects its enterprise maturity.

Google Cloud includes the stack of cloud servicesCompute Engine, App Engine, Apps as well as Chrome, Android, and popular services like maps, search, advanced analytics and machine learning.

At Horizon, leaders of various Google business units introduced enterprise customers like Snap (formerly Snapchat), Evernote and Airbus to the stage and demonstrated technologies available through Google Cloud Platform, the burgeoning network of cloud data centers, with emphasis on artificial intelligence and its implications for driving business productivity.

Horizon, held at a decommissioned U.S. mint, also served as the formal introduction of another significant rebranding.

Google launched its cloud business a decade ago with Apps, its groundbreaking office productivity suite, which initially was a showcase for Gmail, said Prabhakar Raghavan, vice president of the Apps business.

That suite of Software-as-a-Service toolsfrom Drive to Docs to Sheetshas now been upgraded and infused across-the-board with artificial intelligence, he said.

Going forward, Apps will be called G Suite, Raghavan told attendees.

Machine learning is "something Google invested in pretty much from the beginning," Greene told attendees. The technology now operates across the company's products, and cloud customers are using it to solve previously forbidding problems.

Urs Holzle, Google's senior vice president for technical infrastructure, said Google spent $9.9 billion on upgrading its cloud infrastructure in 2015just shy of the combined spend of rivals Amazon and Microsoft.

Google's public cloud differentiates itself in a number of ways from those competitors, Holzle said, especially around networking infrastructure and analytics features.

Holzle unveiled a new version of Google's Big Query analytics platform, called Big Query for Enterprise. That product, which allows users to update tables, transitions the product from an analytics query to a full data warehouse, he said.

The next step from analytics, as far as deriving more value from data, is machine learning, he said. That technology, by which computing systems train their predictive capabilities, has always put up a high hurdle to adoption.

Google wants to change that, he said.

Google now offers a number of pretrained machine learning models as services, such as one that converts voice to text.

And Google's cloud-based machine learning platform, Google ML, is ready to be rolled out in beta, available to all partners and users.

Paul Vallee, CEO of Pythian, a Google partner based in Ottawa, Canada, told CRN machine learning makes just about every customer believe they have an opportunity to compete in the market with their data by doing things like increasing their fraud detection rate or analyzing customer behavior.

Intense customer interest in that technology is why Pythian is eager to be a beta partner of Cloud ML, he said.

"Everyone believes there is a competitive advantage to be seized with data. Modern machine-learning platforms like Cloud ML bring a rapid turnkey way to validate whether a model can support a business thesis," Vallee told CRN.

A decade ago, only the world's foremost artificial intelligence experts could implement machine-learning solutions; with cloud-based platforms, average business users can beat those experts' results in far shorter time, Holzle said.

Those technologies will increasingly be delivered through a NoOps model, Holzle said, available without having to provision virtual machines.

Google's "moving away from virtualized hardware to scalable services, scalable data," he said.

Brian Stevens, vice president of cloud platforms, told attendees that G Suite will introduce a service called Quick Access that monitors user activity patterns, then employs machine learning to try to offer stored files as they are needed, speeding the time to access data.

Another new collaboration component of the suite, Team Drives, helps "get away from notion that content is owned and managed by individuals," Stevens said.

Vallee, of Pythian, told CRN that while much has been made about Google needing to prove it offers enterprise-ready technology, he's never seen any doubt of that capability in the marketplace.

Google's original cloud strategy involved internet-scale applications, replete with audit and compliance capabilities, as well as encryption of data at rest and in transit, "which all enterprises need to care about in the modern era.

And because Google built its cloud in a Platform-as-a-Service model, it essentially solidifies its market share, he told CRN.

"Every application written and running in GCP is already treating infrastructure as code and not lifted and shifted in," he said.
A 500 kilometer circle around Tianjin finds 11 major cities and a population of 220 million people.

In Tianjin itself, GDP was up over nine percent in the first half of the year, according to deputy mayor Haishan Zhao.

Cruise traffic is doing well too, with year-over-year growth at 74.5 percent with 97 homeport calls in 2015.

He pointed to favorable policies for cruise ships, as well as a strong support network in suppliers, logistics and recruitment in an address at China Cruise Shipping, behind held in Tianjin, which offers cruise ships its Free Trade Pilot Zone.

"It implements a 'single window' for international trade," Zhao said. "Our homeport is the only one that is located in a free trade pilot zone. Therefore the homeport can enjoy policy support from the state, as well as free trade policies."

The free trade regulations extend further, to travel agencies for outbound business, in addition to more relaxed customs and immigration policies for crew on ships calling in Tianjin.

Zhao said he hopes the policies in place help build up Northern China's cruise industry further.

There is also a purchasing group that launched in 2011 in Tianjin, linking businesses looking to supply ships to the cruise lines.


The Queen Mary 2 gave a royal welcome today to what it called Bostons top Instagram dogs, Nacho and Bear, in the new kennel area on the recently refurbished ship at the Black Falcon Cruise Terminal.

Cunards flagship sailed into Boston to debut its significant refit said to cost in the range of $132 million. The work includes new contemporary interior designs and guest experiences, many of which take their design inspiration from the original Queen Mary, which debuted into service 80 years ago.

As the only passenger vessel to carry dogs and cats, the QM2 has expanded its kennel service during the renovation, adding 12 new kennels for a total of 24. In addition, the ship extended the kennel area, adding an owners lounge, new pet playground, and expanded the outdoor area to accommodate an historic British lamp post and American fire hydrant so canines from both sides of the pond feel at home. A full-time Kennel Master takes care of daily pet responsibilities including feeding, walking and cuddling the pets onboard.

Cunards pet-friendly policy is said to date back 176 years to the maiden voyage of the Britannia in 1840 when the ship sailed with a cow to provide fresh milk for passengers. Famous canines such as Rin-Tin-Tin, Elizabeth Taylors pampered pups and the Duke of Windsors dogs traveled on Cunard.


P&O Cruises Pacific Eden today became the largest cruise ship to visit Gizo in the Solomon Islands as part of a history-making voyage. Todays visit to Gizo, which is the capital of the Western Province, Solomon Islands, is P&Os inaugural call to the port and the first of two maiden visits for Pacific Eden in the Solomon Islands this week.

When Pacific Eden berths at Honiara tomorrow (Saturday), she also becomes the first cruise ship  and the largest vessel  to call at the new Honiara City wharf. P&O Cruises President Sture Myrmell thanked the City of Gizo community for todays special welcome for Pacific Edens 1,500 guests. Prior to P&Os call, only smaller expedition style ships have visited the city.

The Pacific Eden has the honor of being the largest cruise ship and the first P&O vessel to visit the City of Gizo - a major event for the community, Myrmell said. From the moment our guests got off the ship, they were made to feel welcome. Our ships tenders were greeted and escorted to shore by a traditional war tomoko canoe, paddled by 26 locals.

The main road was closed to create a pedestrian walk and lined with traditional arts and crafts stalls staffed by locals, including wood carvers from all over the Western Province who came to the city to sell handcrafted souvenirs.

The Solomon Islands craftsmanship is world-class and its wood carvers are renowned for beautiful work that features Mother of Pearl shell inlay, he said.

There were also locals selling fresh coconuts and entertainers showcasing the areas cultural dancing and music.

I would like to thank the people of the City of Gizo for putting on a wonderful welcome for our guests, providing an experience of the Pacific that they will never forget, Myrmell added.

The Pacific Eden, which is on a 10-day voyage to ports in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands from Cairns, will visit Honiara tomorrow, becoming the first cruise ship and also the largest vessel to call at the new wharf in Honiara Port. P&O will host a special lunch onboard for members of the Solomon Islands Government, the community and Australias High Commissioner to the Solomon Islands, Andrew Byrne.

The government and people of Western Province have made an enormous effort to ensure that this visit is successful. Im confident we will look back on this visit in years to come as the dawn of a new era for tourism in Solomon Islands, Byrne said.

The Pacific Eden will return to Gizo and Honiara at the end of October. She will make a further three visits to Solomon Islands in 2017.
Westport Restaurant week returns from Sunday October 2 to October 16! Popular restaurants like Matsu Sushi, Little Barn, Rive Bistro, Artisan, and more are offering special prix fixe menus. Lunches cost $15, $20, or $25 while dinners cost $25, $30, or $35. Some restaurants are also offering brunch.

Milford Restaurant Week takes place this week, too. Join them from October 3-9 for prix fixe lunches and dinners. Participating restaurants include Archie Moores, Bridge House, Bin 100, Stonebridge, and more. Prix fixe dinners will be $20.95 or $27.85 while a prix fixe lunch menu will be offered at $14.95.

Get ready for a Compin' and Stompin' Jazz Jam at Walrus + Carpenter on Tuesday October 4. Ian Tait, Scott Packham and Ted Morcaldi will team up to play a mix of swing, modern and fusion from 7:30-10:30pm.

The 7th Annual Drink Pink for a Cause takes place at Bernards & Sarahs Wine Bar on Wednesday October 5 from 6-8pm. Guests are encouraged to make a $20 donation at the door to help Anns Place, a local non-profit that supports cancer victims and those affected by the disease. The evening includes live music, cocktails, small bites, and raffles. Return to Sarahs Wine Bar on Sunday October 9 for a Spanish Wine Tasting Dinner with Tapas and Paella.

Changes afoot at MIRO Kitchen in Fairfield. MIRO Kitchen is proud to announce that Chef Howard McCall, (previously sous-chef at MIRO Kitchen) will now lead the kitchen as Executive Chef. They are also introducing a happy hour menu for the autumn and winter seasons.

On Saturday October 8, Bar Sugo is hosting a pizza making class starting at 11am. Call 203-956-7134 to reserve.

The Connecticut Garlic & Harvest Festival takes place on the Bethlehem Fairgrounds on October 8 and 9. The weekend features cooking demos, specialty foods, and all things garlic!

Hoptoberfest arrives in Shelton on October 8. Try wings from at least 10 restaurants including Dew Drop Inn. Sample over 80 craft beers and listen to live music.

Fleishers Craft Butchery has announced its line-up of fall butchery classes. Tickets are available on their website along with dates, times, and topics to be covered. Get your space early these classes sell out quickly!

World of Beer-Milford has added five seasonal menu items: Prosciutto & Spiced Apple Flatbread, PB&J Wings, Green Chili Chicken Nachos, and a WOBtoberfest Brat Burger. Enjoy them alongside limited edition seasonal beers.

Basso Cafe in Norwalk has debuted a seasonal Fall Harvest Menu. They have also added a happy hour Tuesday-Friday from 4-6pm. It features $4 beer, $9 cocktails, $9 wines, and tapas under $10.

Seymour, Oxford, Derby, and Ansonia have united to form a Greater Valley Restaurant Week. From October 3-8, approximately 20 restaurants are offering prix fixe menus and other specials. For participating restaurants, menus, and additional details, see: http://www.connecticutrestaurantweek.com/restaurant-weeks-ct/greater-valley-restaurant-week/
Businessman John R. Price has dropped his 2016 senate bid, clearing the way for Republican state Rep. Dan Carter, of Bethel, to secure the Independent Party endorsement.

Price, of Wallingford, acknowledged that his move cedes the endorsement to Carter, but did not say Friday if he would vote for his opponent.
WESTPORT  Two men were arrested in separate incidents for possession of narcotics without the proper container.

Michael Ramsey, 49, of Akron, Ohio was with his vehicle that had broken down on the Sherwood Island Connector early Wednesday when police arriving to assist him smelled a strong odor of marijuana, Lt. David Farrell said.
BRIDGEPORT - A former crime figure has been thwarted in his attempt to bar the reopening of a Stratford pub adjoining his property.

Superior Court Judge Dale Radcliffe on Friday rejected an appeal by Success Inc. to the opening of J&Rs Pub on the site of the former The Village Pub on Success Avenue.

Gus Curcio is president of Success Inc. The Stratford resident has long been linked by federal prosecutors to the Genovese crime family. He has served federal prison time for loan-sharking, extortion and obstruction of justice.

The record provides overwhelming support for the approval of the special case application and easily exceeds the threshold of substantial evidence, the judge ruled.

Jonathan Klein, the lawyer for Success Inc., did not return an email for comment.

In October 2014 a fire of what fire officials described as Suspicious origin, severely damaged the Village Pub at 590 Success Ave. in Stratford.

The building was rebuilt and one of the former owners of the The Village Pub submitted an application for special permit approval for a liquor location to the Stratford Zoning Commission to reopen as J&Rs Pub, according to court records.

During a public hearing on the application Nicholas Owen, who is not a lawyer but describes himself as a consultant, opposed the application on behalf of Success Inc. which owns a restaurant and other businesses next door to the pub.

Despite Owens claim the former pub had security problems and that a reopened pub would draw city residents to the area, the zoning commission approved the application.

Success Inc. then appealed to Superior Court.

Nicholas Owen, in an attempt to torpedo the special case application, attempted to make a public safety argument by presenting nine police reports, some of which did not involve the property in question or The Village Pub, the judge ruled. The spokesman for Success Inc., in his zeal to undermine the special case application has succeeded only in reinforcing the claims made by the applicant.
Grants to fund fishing instruction for Hispanic families in the state are available through the George H.W. Bush Vamos A Pescar Fund, but applications for the money are due by Oct. 31.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection will award the grants from the $15,000 available to established non-profits offering fishing education and that can match the grant award dollar for dollar, state officials said on Friday.

Qualifying programs will provide multiple hands-on and on-the-water learning opportunities to fish from shore or fish from a boat. Programs should also teach and reinforce water safety and provide hands-on conservation and aquatic stewardship activities, according to a press release.

Community fishing programs that provide bilingual instruction, operate with minimal overhead and follow up with participants after the program will be given preference, the guidelines say.

The DEEP has been working to raise awareness of the great fishing in and around our urban neighborhoods, said deputy commissioner Susan Whalen. This grant money will help build upon those efforts.

The DEEP publishes its brochures on freshwater and saltwater fishing in Spanish and conducts other outreach to the Hispanic community, she said.

We would like to build upon this foundation by collaborating with community organizations and non-profits who can help us connect their families with these opportunities and the many benefits of fishing, added Whalen.

Bass Prop Shops CEO Johnny Morris donated $125,000 in honor of the first President Bush to Bushs Vamos A Pescar Fund. The nationwide program also receives other corporate and private donations.

Visit TakeMeFishing.org and VamosAPescar.org for more information on the programs.

For more information applhying for the grant money, contact Mike Beauchene at 860-424-4185 or mike.beauchene@ct.gov
CultNews101.com: news, links, resources. Cults101.org: resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations and related topics. CultMediation.com: offers resources designed to help thoughtful families and friends understand and respond to the complexity of a loved ones cult involvement. Intervention101.com: to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement. CultRecovery101.com: assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.
Well, folks, the City Hall group that cousin Neil fondly refers to as the Wing Nuts are hoping and praying you dont see the facts and figures before you cast your ballot in November. The Cuban cigar-smoking crowd with their gold toothpicks is afraid of the truth.

Liabilities as of Fiscal Year 6/30/2015 for Culver City

1. Accounts payable $8,512,275

2. Accrued wages payable $2,100,383

3. Accrued interest payable 294,617

4. Deposits payable $4,788,316

5. Unearned revenue $4,141,369

6. Due other governments $447,157

Non-Current liabilities due within one year $8,123,073

Due in more than one year $309,265,441

Deferred inflows:

Difference between projected and actual $365,555,789

earnings on pension plan investments

Where else but in Texas? Data show $93.6 million was paid to 101 men and women over the past 25 years for being wrongfully imprisoned, per The Texas Tribune.

My eyes are bloodshot and yours would be too if you didnt get any sleep for the past four days. Ive been trying to figure out the best place to spend my Social Security $2.50 monthly increase. Perhaps the 99 Cent Store would be my best bet but the cost of gasoline would make it a foolish idea.

I just bet you know of someone who would like a job. Well, Cousin Neil recently found out from friends in New England more than half of the top jobs in the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authoritys engineering and maintenance department remain unfilled.

And in Dubuque, Iowa, Mercy Hospital Medical Center and its pharmacy will soon begin distributing heroin and opiate overdose rescue kits that include two nasal injection doses of naloxone.

It seems all over our great country we are finding unsafe levels of lead in the water. Take, for instance, the Fort Worth school district that is replacing hundreds of drinking fountains this summer. Shocking but true, according to an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

A new program in the District of Columbia public school system places 500 students in six-week career-ready internships. Do you think our district should look into this? I surely do and while they are doing that, why not gradually shut down the Japanese program in favor of Chinese?

Recently, like most of us, Ive been concerned with the quality of the water coming through the pipes here in Culver City. Many know I read, when we are home, at least three newspapers each day, perhaps five or six when we are on vacation. Theodorsia and I enjoy turning the pages of small town papers. A short while ago I spoke to the Assistant Superintendent of the Culver City Unified School District  my friend, your friend, everybodys friend, Mike Reynolds, and was informed the district in June 2016 had tests run on every water fountain in every school and, just to be safe, they did the tests on two separate occasions. The Golden State Water Company has always tested the purity, as mandated by state regulations, without any problems. No matter where you drink the water, its safe, thanks to Golden State and Mike Reynolds.

Mayor de Blasio of New York City just signed into law single occupant restrooms at bars, restaurants, and other public places. Unisex signs will replace Men and Women.

Need a liver transplant? You could bet your bottom dollar Theodorsia and I would use our Blue Cross PPO and travel up to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center where, since 1984, they set the national record by performing 6,000 operations. This year alone UCLA surgeons have performed 90 operations, with 421 people waiting.

It was a Freedom of Information request by the American Civil Liberties Union, with results publicized by The Wall Street Journal, which opened peoples eyes regarding the federal government taking millions of pictures every year, spying on mainly innocent people traveling over bridges, tunnels, highways, rural roads, etc. Will the Feds decide to micro-chip babies next? It wouldnt surprise me.

.

On page 72 of the September 2016 issue of Rachael Rays Every Day there is mention of a Culver City company called the Maple Block Meat Company. Butcher-turned-pit master, Adam Cole, takes his beef, pork and poultry very seriously. He starts with the choicest cuts of hormone- and antibiotic-free meat. Well, you get the picture, so go to the Maple Block.

The United States Army, as of the first of August, rotated about 1,000 soldiers from Fort Hood, Texas to Afghanistan. These troopers from the Historic 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment will train, advise and assist loyal government troops as they battle Islamic militants. There are over 100 women who have volunteered to join cavalry, armor and infantry units. Command Sergeant Major of the Army, Dan Dailey, says the Army needs more female soldiers to step up for combat jobs.

Are you living in sin? Are you afraid the L.A. Police will knock down the front door at 2 a.m. and give you and your partner just enough time to throw on a bathrobe before being taken to the station? Well, perhaps you should either get wed or move to Florida where, on April 6 Governor Rick Scott signed legislation that removed a 148-year-old law prohibiting unwed couples from living together.

For those who missed an article, all my commentaries can be found at http://www.culvercityobserver.com by placing Rubenstein in the websites search box.
Prosser, defense propel Berlin past Penns Manor in Appalachian Bowl

Berlin Brothersvalley made it 2 wins in a row for the WestPAC in the Appalachian Bowl with convincing victory over Penns Manor at Windber Stadium.
Movie junkies, independent filmmakers and friends gathered together at the Rec Room on Broad Avenue Monday night for the preview party reveal of the full 185 films lined-up for the Indie Memphis Film Festival held in November.

This year, we are showcasing several films that are likely Oscar and Sundance contenders, Ryan Watt, executive director of Indie Memphis, said. We also have some people coming to the festival that are very impactful in the national film community.

Indie Memphis Film Festival will be from Nov. 1-7 with films playing in downtown, midtown and for the first time, east of Memphis. Attendees will have the chance to screen documentaries, short films and independent features at the Halloran Theater, the Hattiloo Theatre, Circuit Playhouse, Malco Studio on the Square, Collierville Malco and Malco Ridgeway.

MovieMaker Magazine named Indie Memphis Top 50 Film Festivals Worth The Entry Fee 2016.

Watt said over 10,000 people are expected to attend the festival this year.

Its a way for Memphis filmmakers to be seen and recognized, and it introduces Memphis filmmaking to the rest of the country, David Appleby, University of Memphis film professor, said. The festival is a home for Memphis filmmakers.

The location of the festival has not hindered its ability to attract impressive guests in past years either.

Memphis native and former Saturday Night Live cast member Chris Parnell, director Craig Brewer (Footloose and Empire), writer Larry Karaszewski (The People vs. OJ Simpson) and actors Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) and Angela Bassett (American Horror Story) are just a few names that have attended the festival in the past.

Some of films showcased at the festival have gone on to earn Academy Award nominations and awards. In 2012, Undefeated won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

A number of films presented at this years festival carry serious, heavy and even dark themes with prominent actors such as Greg Kinnear, Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams and Kristen Stewart who may ignite Oscar buzz for their performances.

The line-up is also not without its bizarre stories, such as Nicole Haimes Chicken People, that follows the trials and tribulations of those who breed exotic chickens in the world of competitive poultry. The documentary selection will also feature a few racial hot topic pieces such as Raoul Pecks I Am Not Your Negro and Prichard Smiths The Invaders.

Film festival admission costs $10 per general ticket and $15 for special screenings, $100 for 12 films festival pass ($80 for members) and $250 for a VIP all access festival pass ($200 for members).

It legitimizes Memphis filmmaking, Appleby said.

Appleby attends the Indie Memphis Film Festival every year.

Launched in 1998, Indie Memphis is a non-profit organization dedicated to connecting the diverse and intricately artistic Memphis community through independent film, hosting year-round programs and a world-class film festival. It is also a two-time Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences grant recipient and the only film organization to receive annual funding from ArtsMemphis.
But . . . b-b-b-but we're British, dammit! Such was my first reaction to this week's news that a well-meaning American has begun handing out badges to travellers on the London Underground, bearing the legend 'Tube chat?'

As an accompanying flyer makes clear, Jonathan Dunne's chilling or heartwarming idea (you decide which) is that we should wear them to let our fellow passengers know we would welcome a natter to pass the time on our journey.

'You'll benefit from a daily chat,' he says. 'Start using it today!'

A well-meaning American Jonathan Dunne has begun handing out badges to travellers on the London Underground, bearing the legend 'Tube chat?'

For the first time in my life, I found myself initially inclined to agree with Jack Monroe, the female-born former food writer on the Guardian, who now identifies as 'non-binary transgender' and prefers to be referred to by the pronoun 'they'.

In a succinct tweet, they  or perhaps someone masquerading as them (you can never be sure on Twitter)  commented: 'I feel like civilisation is ending.'

Agonising

Others were quick to concur. 'Anyone comes near me with one of these, I'm heading out the window,' tweeted the broadcaster Jeremy Vine.

Indeed, as I write, most of the Twitterati are recoiling in horror at the very thought of talking to strangers  and strangers in London, of all places, the world capital of reticence, the cold shoulder and British reserve.

As the comedian Matt Thomas puts it in a tweet: 'This is an affront to everything I love about London. Fight this, by God, fight it!!' Somebody else comments: 'If I wanted to talk to strangers on my commute, I'd move back to Yorkshire.'

Nobody understands the feeling better than I. A Londoner born and bred, I find it painful enough when I bump into somebody I know at the station and face the agonising choice between seeming unfriendly and having to make small talk all the way to the centre of town so early in the day.

For the first time in my life, I found myself initially inclined to agree with Jack Monroe, the female-born former food writer, who now identifies as 'non-binary transgender'

Like Jeremy Corbyn, who gave the excuse when he refused to be interviewed live on the Today programme this week, 'I am not a morning person'.

For me, the journey to work is a time of blessed solitude between the rigours of home and the office  an opportunity to read the papers, recover from my all-too-habitual excesses of the night before and compose my mind for the day ahead.

The idea of spending my 40-minute journey trying to think of things to say to friends or neighbours fills me with dread. And if I'm like that with acquaintances, how much worse it would be if the belief got around that it was perfectly acceptable for strangers to strike up conversations on the train.

Indeed, I thought at first that the Tube Chat? campaign might be a practical joke  a wind-up on the lines of the famous New Statesman competition of the Sixties, in which readers were invited to offer misleading advice to foreigners visiting the capital.

As I never tire of repeating, one of the winning entries (along with 'London barbers are delighted to shave patrons' armpits') was: 'On entering an Underground train, it is customary to shake hands with every passenger.'

But then, the more I've considered this, the more I've come to believe it may not be such a blood-freezing idea after all.

Of course, plenty of objections spring to mind. One is that the sort of people who actually do try to chat to strangers in London tend almost by definition to be eccentrics  the very people with whom most of us would least like a chin-wag. As one wit puts it, we might as well wear badges saying: 'Weirdo magnet.'

The idea of spending my 40-minute journey trying to think of things to say to friends or neighbours fills me with dread

Certainly, this accounts for the extreme wariness of a woman to whom one of my female colleagues (not, actually, all that dangerously weird) dared to speak on the train the other day.

Noticing that her fellow-passenger was reading a book she had loved, my friend said: 'I'm so envious of you reading that. Isn't it brilliant?'

Eccentric

She tells me the woman with the book was so alarmed to be addressed that she gave her a tight, terrified smile, edged away from her  and got off at the next station to move to a different carriage!

But then it's precisely because so few people talk to strangers in London that those who do are thought eccentric. If it were to become accepted practice among the sane, the risks of being bearded by a nutter would be much reduced.

After all, in parts of the country where people do talk to each other  and there are plenty  you won't see passengers moving to different carriages just because someone makes an innocent remark about a book.

Mind you, I wouldn't advise any daughter of mine, if I had one, to wear a badge signalling her availability for a chat. But then if I had one, I would probably keep her under permanent armed guard. It's just as well all my offspring are male.

Another objection I've seen raised on the internet is that Tube Chatters will annoy everyone else in the carriage with their prattle. But if you're anything like me, you don't mind a bit when passengers talk to each other on public transport.

Far, far more irritating and anti-social are those who spend the entire journey talking on their mobile phones  whether jilted women moaning to their girlfriends about how cruelly they've been treated, or ghastly young executives demanding a file on their desk as soon as they reach the office.

Whatever they may be talking about, they seem to be saying: 'Nobody on this train exists except me.' How much more civilised it would be if they talked to somebody in the flesh, and the rest of us could hear both sides of the conversation.

There's another reason, too, why I wish this campaign well. In this age of internet trolls constantly competing with each other to make the nastiest and most hurtful remarks that spring to their pathetic minds, isn't it good to be reminded occasionally that the great majority of the population are actually quite nice?

In my trade of journalism  a favourite target of the trolls, who pour torrents of internet abuse on much of what we write  we tend to get a jaundiced view of the general public.

Dispiriting

Though I keep telling myself I mustn't read the comments appended to my columns online, I often do. So it has become a dispiriting feature of my Friday mornings to read hundreds of disparaging remarks, questioning the marital status of my late parents, speculating about the dimensions of my genital organs or simply informing me that I'm an 'idiot' or a 'yawn' (with 8,349 green arrows, signifying others' agreement).

So on those rare occasions when readers recognise me in the street and ask if I'm Tom Utley, I always steel myself to be told I'm a moron who deserves an agonising death (581 green arrows). Yet never once, in all my 40 years in this trade, has anyone been anything but civil to me in the flesh.

Whether truthfully or not, I've even been told on occasion: 'I enjoy your column.' And that transforms my day.

As for the trolls, spewing venom pseudonymously from their attic bedrooms, even they seem to realise that it's simply not the done thing to be offensive to strangers in the flesh. It's as if it takes the physical presence of their targets to remind them that we're all human beings, with feelings to match.

So, yes, it may well cheer gloomy Londoners up to cast off that British reserve and get chatting on the Tube. Just don't expect me to talk to you in the mornings, when I'm not at my brightest or best.
First the good news.

The 21billion merger of the London Stock Exchange with its German rival Deutsche Boerse is a ringing endorsement of Britain's economic future.

It is also further proof of just how wrong the Project Fear doom-mongers were in predicting that a Leave vote would cause confidence to collapse.

But that aside, the Mail has serious doubts about whether losing a business which has been the cornerstone of our free-trading economy for centuries is in this country's best interests.

The Mail has serious doubts about whether losing a business which has been the cornerstone of our free-trading economy for centuries is in this country's best interests

While the deal is billed as a merger, in reality the Germans have the upper hand. The new firm will be run by the boss of the Frankfurt exchange, whose shareholders would hold 54.4 per cent of the stock, and report its profits in euros.

We are told it will keep its London headquarters, but in previous deals such promises have been cynically broken before the ink is dry.

Thankfully, in Theresa May, we finally have a Prime Minister who recognises the need for an industrial strategy that stops our crown jewels being sold abroad.

When she launched her campaign for the Tory leadership, she cited the takeover attempt two years ago by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer of the UK's AstraZeneca.

'A proper industrial strategy' she said, 'should be capable of stepping in to defend a sector as important as pharmaceuticals.' She is absolutely right.

Given the EU is already investigating the LSE deal on competition grounds, why aren't UK regulators  or for that matter ministers  also calling it in?

The Mail is a firm believer in the power of free markets to create and spread wealth. But no other country would allow such a precious national asset to fall into foreign hands, so why should Britain?

Sense from Sentamu

The Mail has long admired the sensible and plain-speaking Archbishop Sentamu, from whom wailing trendy vicars could learn a great deal

At last, a senior Church of England clergyman who speaks the truth!

Yesterday the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, spoke eloquently about the real causes of the squalor and misery of the Calais Jungle.

While so many of his colleagues moan about this country not taking more migrants, he blames EU countries who are 'shunting' them across the continent to the Channel in the hope they end up in Britain.

He also, rightly, points the finger at the border-free Schengen zone  so beloved by Brussels and now falling apart under the weight of the migrant crisis  as the root of the problem.

'I hope the Schengen countries can resolve it because it is their free movement of people. Britain did not sign Schengen, they signed it,' he says.

His view is that the Jungle is 'a creation of the Schengen countries and they ought to own up to what they've created'. We couldn't agree more.

The Mail has long admired the sensible and plain-speaking Archbishop Sentamu, from whom wailing trendy vicars could learn a great deal.

Limit abuse inquiry

After the resignation last month of its third chairman in two years, it was hard to see how the historic child abuse inquiry could descend any further into chaos.

Then, on Wednesday night, its most senior lawyer, the 408,000-a-year QC Ben Emmerson was suspended. Yesterday, another senior lawyer also quit.

The Mail has every sympathy with victims of child sexual abuse, and their desperate search for answers.

But the inquiry could last a decade and cost 100million and this week's farce raises doubts about its very future.
The nation is waiting with bated breath for Pippa Middleton's wedding to hedge fund manager James Matthews next year.

And several top bridal designers have shared their elegant designs of what they think the Duchess of Cambridge's sister would dazzle in on the big day.

From minimalist column gowns to embellished lace two-pieces, these sketches capture what could be the perfect gown for the world's most famous sister - and might even rival Kate's iconic Alexander McQueen pick of 2011.

Scroll down for video

Top bridal designers have shared sketches for what Pippa Middleton could wear for her wedding to hedge fund manager James Matthews, 40, next year

Pippa is set to tie the knot after James went down on one knee during a weekend in the Lake District in August

One option by Mira Zwillinger features a plunging Bardot neckline with delicate handmade branches and blooms, offset by a full lightly-pleated skirt of silk-chiffon

Pippa is set to tie the knot with James, 40, after he went down on one knee with a 200,000 4 carat asscher cut ring, during a weekend in the Lake District in August.

Kate is expected to be a maid of honour at the ceremony while Pippa's nephew and niece Prince George and Princess Charlotte are also expected to play starring roles.

Friends say Kate and Pippa have already discussed dress designers and these extravagant designs, which appear in Brides magazine, may just sway them.

One option by Mira Zwillinger features a plunging Bardot neckline with delicate handmade branches and blooms, offset by a full lightly-pleated skirt of silk-chiffon.

Charlotte Simpson's creation is strictly minimal and modern in design, featuring a sharply tailored bodice with a nipped-in waist and a high neckline

Meanwhile, Ian Stuart's two-piece is sartorially worlds away from the classic bridal gown, with its innovative coat and champagne silk-mikado dress combination

Kate married Prince William in an iconic lace gown designed by Sarah Burton, creative director of Alexander McQueen in April 2011

Maid of honour Pippa stole the show at the royal wedding with her stunning dress and svelte figure - and her pert rear also garnered a global online fanbase

The nude and blushing pink colourway would highlight Pippa's complexion, while the cinched-in waist would flaunt her trim figure.

An unconventional choice, the gown would ensure the 33-year-old looks ethereal and fresh on her big day, but still elegant.

By contrast, Charlotte Simpson's creation is strictly minimal and modern in design, featuring a sharply tailored bodice with a nipped-in waist and a high neckline.

The fluid train, open back and beaded embroidery along the hips add a sense of romance, while the silk-tulle veil rounds off the look.

Meanwhile, Ian Stuart's two-piece is sartorially worlds away from the classic bridal gown, with its innovative coat and champagne silk-mikado dress combination.

Stephanie Allin's offering, with its long lace-embroidered sleeves, V-neck and romantic full A-line skirt, is very similar to Kate's wedding dress

Designer to the stars Romona Keveza's dress features long sleeves, a sharply cinched-in waist and a soft, sweeping skirt made of Chantilly lace

Andrey Savin opted for a bohemian-style number with a back and sleeves crafted from unbeaded French lace

The award-winning designer said: I think Pippa will decide to wear a completely different style from her sisters wedding gown - and her iconic maid-of-honour silhouette.'

Pippa could, however, choose to go for a gown similar to Kate's wedding dress in 2011 by Sarah Burton, the creative director of Alexander McQueen.

If so, this design by Stephanie Allin could be exactly what she wants, with its long lace-embroidered sleeves, V-neck and romantic full A-line skirt.

Teamed with a dramatic lace-edged veil, Pippa could be a dead ringer for her older sister when she ties the knot in this wistful yet clean-cut design.

Wild & Gorgeous designers opted for a page boy style interpretation for George, given a fresh spin thanks to the white Converse. And for Charlotte they designed an 18th century-inspired dress with a tiered skirt of lace and gossamer, blue sash and trumpet sleeves

Designer Nicki Macfarlane went for a decidedly different route for Prince George, opting for a black silk suit with Eastern-style accents like the Mandarin collar and sleek lines

For Charlotte, MacFarlane created a romantic silhouette with a dress ensconced in layers of printed tulle, complete with a flower garland

Romona Keveza, who has dressed A-listers like Angelina Jolie, Kate Hudson, Taylor Swift, Kendall Jenner and Jennifer Hudson for the red carpet, offered a dramatic off-the-shoulder gown.

The New-York based designer's dress features long sleeves, a sharply cinched-in waist and a soft, sweeping skirt made of Chantilly lace.

Read the full story in Brides magazine November/December issue

Andrey Savin opted for a bohemian-style number with a back and sleeves crafted from unbeaded French lace.

Meanwhile, a dramatic lace overlay with scallop edging and a slit down the centre, placed over the skirt would transform the gown for the ceremony.

Not excluding the other royal stars of the wedding, designers also helpfully created outfits for Pippa's niece and nephew Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

Lucy Enfield and Sophie Worthington of Wild & Gorgeous opted for a page boy style interpretation for George, given a fresh spin thanks to the white Converse.

And for Charlotte they designed an 18th century-inspired dress with a tiered skirt of lace and gossamer, blue sash and trumpet sleeves.

Designer Nicki Macfarlane went for a decidedly different route for Prince George, opting for a Eastern-style black silk suit.

Accents like the Mandarin collar and sleek lines add to the Oriental feel, and are intended to reflect 'Pippa's love of world travel'.

For Charlotte, MacFarlane created a romantic silhouette with a dress ensconced in layers of printed tulle, complete with a flower garland.

Read the full story in Brides magazine November/December issue.
They married more than 12 years ago, but it seems Crown Princess Mary and her husband Frederik have no trouble maintaining the romance.

The Danish royals have taken to the dance floor at a ball in Washington, D.C, impressing onlookers with their rhythmic moves.

A video shows the couple taking turns to spin each other around on the dance floor, and while other couples joined in the fun, Mary and Fred only had eyes for each other.

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Spinning around: Crown Princess Mary and her husband Frederik danced together at a ball in Washington, D.C

Showing off their moves: The Danish royals took turns spinning each other around, and could barely contain their smiles

The ball was held at the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building in Washington in celebration of the U.S. Denmark Trade Mission.

The couple are currently in the U.S for a business tour.

Crown Princess Mary recycled a dress from her wardrobe for the occasion, choosing to wear a strapless gown by the Danish label Julie Fagerholt Heartmade.

Keeping rhythm: Frederik moved the hand holding Mary's up and down to the beat

The colourful design made sure Mary stood out on the dance floor, as she and Frederik danced to a cover of Stevie Wonder's Isn't She lovely.

The royals could barely contain their laughter as they took turns spinning under each other's arms.

Rather than simply sway to the music, Frederik moved his hand holding Mary's in a jig up-and-down to the beat.

Beautiful: Mary wore a printed strapless gown by the Danish label Julie Fagerholt Heartmade for the occasion

Elegant: She paired the gown with a black patent clutch and large sapphire earrings

Mary first wore the floor-length gown she wore to the ball on a tour of New York in 2009 where she attended the American-Scandinavian Foundation Dinner.

This time she paired the colourful design with a black patent clutch and large sapphire earrings, her long hair swept back in a loose do at the nape of her neck.
Time to grow up? Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber

So many women seem to be slipping out of marriage with the gleeful ease with which they once slipped out of silk stockings.

First Brad and Angelina split at her insistence, after being together for 12 years and raising six children. Then came the bombshell break-up of golden Hollywood couple Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber, because she reportedly needs her freedom. They never married but have two beautiful blond boys and 11 years together.

Now television presenter Zoe Ball and her husband Norman Cook have 'reached the end of the rainbow' and split following an 18-year relationship. They married in 1999 and have two children, a boy aged 16 and an eight-year-old-daughter, but Zoe is 'bored'.

Of course marriages and relationships break down all the time. Couples make plans and then life gets in the way. However, the common thread running through these freshly broken families, the ribbon of mortification that connects them all, is the reason for the split. Or lack thereof.

Boredom, ennui and selfish parental power struggles all loom large. Instead of being responsible adults in charge of little children, these women seem to be behaving like spoilt teenagers themselves.

According to sources, Angelina and Brad have been having screaming rows about the kids for years. He is the disciplinarian who wants them to have a settled upbringing and education; a proper base in one of their homes, preferably in New Orleans.

Brad and Angelina are said to have disagreed on how to parent their six children, seen in 2011

In contrast, she wants to keep shuttling the brood between their homes in France, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York and wherever the couple happen to be working. Jolie once said: 'I'm trying to raise them to live a truly global life.'

To which the question must be: For God's sake, why? Wouldn't they be better with regular teachers, schoolmates and a toy box always in the same place?

I'm with Brad on this point: children need stability and routine.

One has to wonder why the Jolie-Pitts went ahead and had three children and  even more crucially, adopted more  without first agreeing on a joint approach to the basic principles of parenting. It seems to me that Ange is always keener on impressing the watching world than tending to her own troubled flock. And, ultimately, it is all about the pair of them, not the kids.

Meanwhile, Naomi Watts has split from Schreiber after more than a decade together. The couple said in a statement 'The best way forward for us as a family is to separate as a couple'.

Zoe Ball and Norman Cook married in 1999 and have two children, a boy aged 16 and an eight-year-old-daughter, but have now split

That must be confusing for the children.

But apparently Schreiber, 48, wants to settle down but Watts decided that she wasn't ready for this step.

Whaaat? She's a 47-year-old mother-of-two, not a dimpled ingenue standing on the kerb, wondering what to do with her life. If she didn't want to settle down, shouldn't she have thought about that before bringing children into the equation?

In the meantime, down on the Hove seafront, Zoe Ball is finding teetotal hubby Norman 'boring' after 18 years together. This is not a new situation. She had an affair with one of his best friends four years after they married, but Norman forgave her and they reconciled. Now, according to friends of the couple, she 'wants loads of booze and sex with a new lover in his 20s'.

To be fair, perhaps quite a few bored 45-year-old mums feel the same way, but are far too responsible to throw it all away for the cheap thrill of a housewives' fantasy.

Not Zoe. Last year, she was photographed snogging boy band star TayTay Starhz (yeah, right) in a London nightclub. The 23-year-old told the Sun newspaper this week: 'She gave me the impression she was single. She lunged at me and I bet I wasn't the first or the last. There were tongues. I'm cringing now, because she is old enough to be my mum.'

How charmless of him  and how embarrassing, particularly for Zoe's teenage son. But should we be surprised by her behaviour?

In 1999, Zoe was the original ladette, moseying off to her wedding with a cowboy hat on her head, a cigarette between her lips and a bottle of Jack Daniel's in her hand. Now she is surely far too old to be behaving like this?

Time for some Jan-advice. Earth calling Zoe Ball. Come in, Zoe, your time is up. First, it's not the Nineties any more. Second, it's not about you when you have children. And third, the grass is never really greener on the other side. It is strewn with pitfalls and snakes. As you are finding out.

Sometimes one wonders why these people bother to get married, establish partnerships and have children, only to throw it all away with such casual cruelty.

Surely there comes a time in everyone's life when you must put childish things behind you? Yet there seems to be an entire generation out there for whom the normal rules don't apply.

They get hitched on a whim and get pregnant without a second thought. And when things are not going their way, they plough all their energies into a Search For The Real Me instead of trying to repair the family they created.

Midlife crises may affect women just as much as men, but let's not cloud the issue or tart it up into something it is not. Quite often it is selfishness: Peter Pan's pretty sister who just won't grow up.

So, so happy for Gwynnie and her perfect skin...

Just when you thought this week couldn't get any worse, Gwyneth Paltrow has published a photograph of her make-up free face to commemorate her 44th birthday. Hurrah! Not.

'I am embracing my past and future,' the actress and health guru tweeted, beneath a disgustingly radiant snap of her looking about 14 years old.

Of course, Gwyneth was perhaps sneakily advertising her infamous 'moon dust' health supplement (42 per jar) that she mixes into her breakfast smoothies (170 of ingredients, thank you).

Gwyneth has published a photo of her make-up free face to commemorate her 44th birthday

In a birthday statement that our own dear Queen would baulk at, Gwyn shared that as she's grown older, she's come to feel more comfortable in her skin.

'One of the most interesting things about being a woman is that around the time you turn 40, you get what I like to call a software upgrade and some amazing new features.'

Yes. Some are lucky enough to get a new nose, courtesy of a lovely doctor. Others get another chin. Not so lucky. Here is my birthday question: does she call it 'moon dust' because so many of us would be happy to tell her to stick it where the sun don't shine?

In the meantime: Happy birthday, Gwyneth.

No make-up! So BRAVE.

Take your feet off those seats!

Badges to encourage passengers to chat to each other have been launched on London Underground, to the horror of commuters.

Still, the new button badges would be very useful in Scotland, where 'tube' has another meaning altogether, describing a particularly dense and stupid person who is quite possibly getting on your pure wick (nerves). The only button I want to see on public transport is an emergency one that reads: 'Press For Armed Response Unit. To Be Used In the Event Of Passengers Putting Their Feet On The Seats'.

Oh, and ejector seats for those eating smelly fast food would also be welcome.

Badges to encourage passengers to chat to each other have been launched on London Underground, to the horror of commuters

A British holidaymaker was arrested in Majorca for abandoning her seven-year-old son to go out partying. The child was heard crying through the night  but his 25-year-old mum didn't arrive back at the hotel until breakfast time.

What was she thinking? What if he became ill? What if someone came into the room? Madeline McCann's parents would be the first to tell her that the worst can and does happen.

Did she think of her little boy when she was out having fun? Probably not. Just another case of me, me, me  I'm important and I need to have a good time at the expense of everyone else. I hope she's ashamed of herself.

Benedict and Tom are the ultimate luvvie double act

Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston

Never mind his Gucci ads in the furry slippers with the Afghan hounds, unforgettable as they might be. Now all eyes are on Tom Hiddleston's new photo shoot for an arty publication.

In the latest edition of Interview magazine, Hiddles puts on his best moody face to pose in an assortment of perv-leather trousers and questionable caps in a bombed-out basement. He tries his best but, come on, he looks about as butch and forbidding as a biker Tweety Pie.

If the pictures are bad, the words are worse. Instead of being confronted by a journalist who might ask embarrassing questions about T*yl*r Sw*ft, Hiddleston is 'grilled' by his great friend, the actor Benedict Cumberbatch. The result is something that takes the concept of being a luvvie, multiplies it by 1,000 luvvie-watts and transports it to the high altar of luvvieness in the Church of St Luvvie, Luv-land.

'Tom,' says Benedict, 'you're an equally eloquent writer and actor. And you've got a great reputation as a cineaste. You do amazing things for charity.'

Tom does not demur and goes on to explain what jogging is. 'Just me out there in the elements, with only my own legs to propel me forward, being in the world,' he says.

'Yes, there's something so mobile about you,' agrees Benedict, as the two thesps go on to swap their greatest fears.

BC fears passing time, while TH fears that he might in future regret things he has not done. But what about the things he has done, especially in these past few months?

Is Hiddleston on some kind of penance, a form of high-profile flagellation which will only stop when he finally ridicules himself in front of the entire world?
Mother-of-three Lauren Kertland can fit into her wedding dress for the first time since she wore it 15 years ago after losing 35 kilograms in 32 weeks.

The 35-year-old, from Queensland's Hervey Bay, was eating deep fried chicken wings and chicken strips in a wrap for lunch every day.

Her spiral into an unhealthy lifestyle, where she also had four drinks a night, after her sister's death led her to reach her heaviest weight of 94 kilograms.

Lauren Kertland (centre at her heaviest) lost 35 kilograms in 32 weeks. For the first time, she was able to fit into her wedding dress (right in 2015) - the same one from 15 years ago (left)

The extra weight led to Ms Kertland developing a heel condition called plantar fasciitis which left her in excruciating pain when she walked or got up.

Plantar fasciitis happens when the connective tissue that runs along the sole from the heel to the ball of the foot becomes inflamed.

'If you stand in a shop all day long or if you get off your feet, the pain was even worse,' Ms Kertland told Daily Mail Australia.

'Getting up at night time to go to the toilet, you could barely walk. I was nearly crying I was in that much pain.'

Ms Kertland's doctor was also concerned about her high blood pressure.

It was not just her health that was suffering but her self-esteem as well.

The 35-year-old, from Queensland's Hervey Bay, was eating fried chicken wings and strips in a wrap for lunch every day.

Her spiral into an unhealthy lifestyle, where she also had four drinks a night, led to her reaching her heaviest weight of 94 kilograms. Pictured is Ms Kertland now

The 35-year-old Queensland mother also bought her first pair of jeans in 15 years

The mother said she had not bought any clothes in the past five years or even longer.

'I just bought my first pair of jeans the other day. I haven't bought jeans in 15 years. I just didn't feel comfortable in them. Yuck,' Ms Kertland said.

'Before losing weight I felt sluggish, I felt horrible. I didn't want to get dressed.

'My husband would not go near me when I tried on clothes because I would feel horrible and throw it on the floor.

'Now I grab something from my wardrobe and that's it.'

WHAT LAUREN USED TO EAT Breakfast - skipped Morning tea - skipped Lunch - Deep fried chicken wings/sweet chilli chicken strips in a wrap Afternoon tea - skipped Dinner - Pasta or potatoes Advertisement

WHAT LAUREN EATS NOW Breakfast - Rapid Loss shake Morning tea - a piece of fruit Lunch - Sandwich or tuna and salad Afternoon tea - a boiled egg or tin of tuna Dinner - Vegetable or chicken curry soup Advertisement





Ms Kertland can even fit into her wedding dress from 15 years ago.

'Some people say I looked better 15 years later,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'I just wanted to prove to myself that I could back in it and I wanted to surprise my husband on our 15-year anniversary.'

Instead of fried foods, Ms Kertland has now turned her eating habits around by munching on tuna and salad, and pieces of fruit as snacks.

She also credits Rapid Loss shakes for her weight loss, which she has for breakfast.

The extra weight led to Ms Kertland (left is her before the weight loss and on the right is her after the weight loss) developing a heel condition called plantar fasciitis

She credits Rapid Loss shakes for her weight loss, which she has for breakfast

Ms Kertland said her sister Sharon's death had triggered her unhealthy lifestyle

'I do believe [the shake] has boosted my metabolism as well,' Ms Kertland said.

'I can pretty much eat anything I want and do what I want.

'The shakes have something in them to kick start weight loss.'

The mother has been able to keep the weight off for a year and now weighs 59 kilograms.

But at one point she was down to 57 kilograms.

Ms Kertland said her sister Sharon's death had triggered her unhealthy lifestyle.

'I lost her in 2008, she was my twin sister,' she said.

'It makes you think you're only here for a short time, and do what you want, eat what you want. I didn't really care about it at the time.'
From dancing at royal balls in Washington to visiting the US Chamber of Commerce, Crown Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik have had a busy schedule during their visit to the United States.

And at their latest engagement, the couple have proven that they're not scared to get hands-on when required.

Mary was photographed on Thursday playing doctor at a visit to a medical company, helping out a man in a giant swing.

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Hands on! Princess Mary plays doctor at a visit to a medical company in the United States

All smiles: Mary and Crown Prince Frederik are visiting Boston and Washington DC this week

The royals were snapped having visiting the headquarters of Guldmann Inc, the American division of the larger Danish company Guldmann a/s.

The company makes patient aids, like wheelchair lifts and ramps, or in this case, swings.

Mary and Fred were shown around the company building before watching a demonstration of some of the products.

Fascinating: The couple visited the American headquarters of Danish company Guldmann on Thursday

Interesting: Mary seemed to be mostly having a good time, smiling and laughing at demonstrations of Guldmann's products

Mary seemed to enjoy herself, laughing and applauding during the demonstration.

She looked stunning as per usual, wearing a floral dress and black coat with mid-length sleeves.

She paired the outfit with a blue clutch, drop earrings and a glittering bracelet.

Serious: The company makes patient aids such as wheelchair lifts and patient swings

Quick trip: Mary and Fred are leaving the United States on Sunday evening to travel back to Denmark

Fred also seemed to enjoy himself at the event, but both him and Mary looked suitably solemn at different parts of the tour.

He opted for a grey suit, white shirt and red striped tie. He also opted to wear a pin on his lapel showing both the Danish and US flags.

The couple are in the United States until Friday, and will be meeting with the Mayor of Boston and visiting the Boston Hospital before flying home.
Women are selling their used underwear to male customers for thousands of pounds online.

The market may seem niche but it has proven to be very lucrative with women earning up to $5,000 (3,850) for a single pair.

The Independent reported that the unusual business saw a spike in sales following an episode of Orange is the New Black on Netflix.

Women are selling their used pants for up to $5,000 (3,850) for a single pair to online customers with pants worn for longer fetching more money

In the episode the business venture is bought into the spotlight when protagonist Piper sells her used pants.

Following the episode in June last year there was a rise in Google searches for the used lingerie.

One such website to see an increase in sales is US based business Sofia Gray which sees customers between the age of 18 and 35 purchasing the worn briefs.

Claiming to be the 'largest and safest' marketplace to sell used underwear anyone can log on to buy the products while remaining completely anonymous.

As well as a lengthy wear, customers also look for underwear that has been worn to the gym or that the wearer has had sex in

There has been a reported increase in Google searches for the product after Netflix series Orange is the New Black saw the character Piper (pictured) using the business

Prices range between completely complimentary to $5000 (3,850) with longer wears, and pants that have been worked out or masturbated in increasing the price.

Alex Matthews Co-founder of the company says told the Independent that a buyer did once pay the top price for a pair of pants that were worn for three weeks straight.

Sofia Gray may be an American site but the trend is seeing interest in the UK too with students opting to sell their used pants online to raise extra cash.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a 21-year-old from Hampshire told Save the Student that she signed up to an underwear trading website, which had a 15 monthly fee.

The young woman said that she managed to make 100 a month by selling just one or two items a week.

With sending such intimate items in the post, the girl said she was always careful to never include any personal information.
Breast cancer survivors have joined forces to bravely answer the provocative question what did breast cancer give you? in a series of videos to raise awareness for the disease.

The videos highlight the challenges faced by women who have been affected by breast cancer and the remarkable ways in which they have overcome them.

The candid revelations came following research by The Estee Lauder Companies UK & Ireland, which revealed that 72 per cent of women who are currently being treated for breast cancer, or have survived breast cancer treatment, say that there are positive aspects to come from their experience with breast cancer.

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Breast cancer survivors, including Lara Honnor, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014, aged 31, have joined forces to bravely answer the provocative question 'what did breast cancer give you?' in a series of videos to raise awareness for the disease

One lady who features in the video is Jo Bayles, who was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer in 2015, aged 40.

To regain her sense of self that she felt she lost during treatment, Jo started going to a specialist gym to help build her strength back up. She has since been inspired to become a personal trainer for cancer patients and shares her experience and fitness advice for others.

Speaking candidly, Jo said: 'Breast cancer made me stronger (mentally and physically). At the time of my diagnosis I felt an overwhelming sense of fear and desperation, which is something I thought Id feel for the rest of my life.

'I was an active mother who loved playing with my two boys, from long walks to mucking around on Brighton beach; I enjoyed and treasured these special every day moments. After finding out that I had breast cancer, I was temporarily robbed of these joyous times that were part of my everyday life, as the cancer treatment was tough and by the end it left me feeling constantly weak, tired and with no energy.

One lady who features in the video is Jo Bayles, who was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer in 2015, aged 40. To regain her sense of self that she felt she lost during treatment, Jo started going to a specialist gym and has been inspired to become a personal trainer for cancer patients

'I lost faith in my body as I became someone I didnt recognise, Id lost Jo and believed the cancer had stripped me of my abilities forever. As if by chance, I stumbled across the charity Cancer United, and its gym specific for cancer patients called CU Fitter.

'Joining the gym and being introduced to my personal trainer Dwayne Clevett was a complete turning point for me in rediscovering myself. But after taking training very slowly, at my own pace, my energy levels started to increase and my confidence grew.'

'I lost faith in my body as I became someone I didnt recognise, Id lost Jo and believed the cancer had stripped me of my abilities forever,' she said

She also revealed that suffering with breast cancer gave her a new focus, adding: 'I truly am able to take so many positives from this experience as since being "released into the wild", as my oncologist puts it, I was inspired to retrain as a personal trainer for cancer patients with CU Fitter yo give back and support others like I was supported.

'I have never felt so happy and positive and this is having a ripple effect with all my family and friends too.'

Another lady in the video is Lara Honnor, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014, aged 31. She blogged about her experience during treatment and since recovering from the disease, completed a sky-dive for charity and even proposed to her boyfriend this year.

Lara tells her story in a bridal make-up tutorial video alongside Bobbi Brown UK Senior Pro Artist, Hannah Martin.

'Breast cancer gave me good skin,' she revealed in the video. 'Surprisingly, my chemo gave me really good skin - I didnt get spots during treatment at all. This is likely because the chemo kills everything or maybe its the radioactive glow that makes your skin look so good!?

Lara also reveals that breast cancer gave her confidence to try different looks. She explained: 'I experimented with loads of styles when I lost my hair during treatment, like wearing leopard print turban or a bright purple wig, paired with colourful lipsticks.

'Before I had cancer, I had one look that I always stuck with, and it does start to get boring. Cancer pushed me to change myself. In fact, every part of your life changes - so you can either let it take over your life and make feel really down, or you just embrace it and have some fun.'

Lara tells her story in a bridal make-up tutorial video alongside Bobbi Brown UK Senior Pro Artist, Hannah Martin

On a more creative level, Lara says suffering with the disease encouraged her to start a blog, which she hails 'very cathartic'.

'I didnt always want to phone friends up crying on the phone, I didnt always want to be miserable, so blogging was a great way to release all of my emotions and feeling; and it was great to share my experiences with others who could relate and engage with the content I shared,' she said.

She also revealed that her cancer - and running her blog - gave her hope in humanity.

The best thing that cancer gave Lara was her husband - she even says the reason she got married is because of cancer.

'By sharing my story it reached on my blog so many people going through cancer got in touch with me. I truly believe a problem shared is a problem halved, not even halved, cut up into tiny pieces and you only have to deal with one tiny piece!'.

But the best thing that cancer gave Lara was her husband - she even says the reason she got married is because of cancer. A mutual friend posted about her blog on her Facebook page and Mikey (who is now her husband) read it and decided to send her a message to tell her that he loved the blog.

He suffers from cystic fibrosis and could relate to so many of the things that she had written about. The pair exchanged messages a couple of times and then the messages led to phone calls.

'We then we met up, and it was like wed known each other forever. Were now happily married, and our big day took place in Brighton on the beach, on the bandstand where we first met.'

Lara concluded: 'Its impossible for me to feel only negative when looking back on my experience of breast cancer as it gave me an entirely new life and outlook on the way I see the world.

'I started a blog and met my husband because of cancer, and even proposed to him on Leap Day this year - something that I never would have done if I hadnt had cancer. I cant speak for everyone but its definitely made me a braver person as its made me want to embrace lifes challenges.'

Catherine Turner found out she had breast cancer aged 51. During her treatment Catherine, a writer and yoga teacher, found that yoga was essential to helping her cope and aided the recovery process - she shares her advice and a relaxing sequence for those suffering in a new film alongside bestselling cookery writer and fellow yoga teacher Madeleine Shaw

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women; and one in eight women in the UK will develop the disease during their lifetime.

For the first time, The Estee Lauder Companies UK & Ireland is releasing a limited edition BCA Beauty Box to raise additional vital funds for BCRF, which goes on sale online from 3rd October. The BCA Beauty Box includes eight products from Estee Lauder, Clinique, Origins, Aveda, Smashbox and Bumble and bumble. At a price of 20.00 RRP (value 66.00 based on RRP of full sized product), 12 from the sale of each Box will be donated to BCRF.

Whats more, The Estee Lauder Companies UK brands are further contributing to The 2016 BCA Campaign by selling Pink Ribbon Products or making donations to BCRF including: Aveda, Bobbi Brown, Bumble and bumble, Clinique, Darphin, Estee Lauder, Jo Malone London, La Mer, Lab Series, Origins and Smashbox.

A spokesperson said: 'Some remarkable things have been achieved in the face of this terrible disease. The BCA Campaign aims to celebrate the power of solidarity and encourage others to share their own experiences.
An entrepreneur has blasted 'creepy' comments left on her LinkedIn page after she posted a picture of herself picking up an industry award.

Charlotte Miskell, 29, from Manchester, received the prize for Best B2C E-Commerce website at last week's Northern E-Commerce Awards.

But after sharing a celebratory picture online she was inundated with comments about her 'tasty' legs, breasts and choice of dress - the majority from men.

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Charlotte Miskell received the prize for Best B2C E-Commerce website at the Northern E-Commerce Awards at Emirates Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, on September 21

Charlotte, who is the managing director at Contour Cosmetics Ltd, Niko Pro Ltd and Sweetheart Marketing, wore a lavender fishtail gown with a plunging neckline for the event at Emirates Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, on September 21.

But she told MailOnline how a proud moment in her career had almost been ruined by the endless comments from 'trolls' which are still pouring in now.

'I've never had anything like this before,' she admitted. 'I use LinkedIn a lot for contacting buyers who stock our products.'

'I put the picture up last Thursday so it's been over a week and the comments are still coming, it's crazy.'

Charlotte, who is the managing director at Contour Cosmetics Ltd, Niko Pro Ltd and Sweetheart Marketing, wore a white fishtail gown with a plunging neckline for the event

The beauty entrepreneur told MailOnline how a proud moment in her career had almost been ruined by the endless comments from 'trolls' which are still pouring in now

Among the nearly 250 comments was one from a London-based marketing director who wrote: 'What was the award for..? got distracted.. sorry LOL' while one man typed: 'Yes, and everybody looked at the trophy, right...'

A programme analyst who had connected with Charlotte online wrote: 'I find the blatant use of a push up - just fine,' adding a winking face emoticon.

One LinkedIn member describing himself as a sales manager for a fashion company commented on Charlotte's 'tasty legs' - with a sales executive adding: 'Looks like the company has some great assets..'

While a Germany-based strategy manager simply wrote: 'Sorry... wasn't listening...'

Others commented that they 'didn't know where to look', calling Charlotte's picture 'very sexy', with one man even writing that 'inappropriate attire WILL lead to inappropriate comments.' He added: 'Welcome to the 21st century.'

One follower wrote: '1,420 men did not read the print... they were too busy looking at the upper body... enjoy boys.'

Another LinkedIn user added: 'I think it's the trophy's fault, the arrows are pointing to all of the wrong/ right places - well done to A. The award. And B. To your wonderful and crowd pleasing achievements x.'

While a design engineer wrote: 'Stuff the products. Stereotypically sex always Works! I wonder if the judge's were Men? Awful makeup by the way (sic.).'

However it wasn't all men commenting, with a female author blasting Charlotte's picture as being 'full of sex'.

Eventually Charlotte's brother David Miskell felt compelled to jump to her defence. Congratulating her on her success, he wrote: 'This was an awards evening where evening dress is required.'

He added: 'To those those who have left creepy comments - your connections and hopefully your customers and employers have seen them; I hope karma is kinder to you than you have been to my sister!'

Among the nearly 250 comments on the photograph (not pictured) was one from a London-based marketing director wrote: 'What was the award for..? got distracted.. sorry LOL'

Charlotte said: 'A few women have commented, but it's primarily men saying the image is "full of sex" and "shameful". Apparently it's my neckline that's the issue'

Charlotte eventually decided to respond to the comments herself, writing: 'The dress I chose to wear is not what this image is about. It's about the success of my business'

Charlotte told MailOnline: 'A few women have commented, but it's primarily men saying the image is "full of sex" and "shameful". Apparently it's my neckline that's the issue.

'I was shocked and embarrassed that people I work with would have seen [the comments]. At one point I thought, shall I take it down? But it's just an evening dress and I wanted everyone to see how well the company is doing.'

She added: 'I've also had married men commenting on the picture who are twice my age. You just wouldn't expect it. I mean, these people work for companies - do their companies know that they're commenting?'

Charlotte eventually decided to respond to the comments herself, writing: 'The dress I chose to wear is not what this image is about. It's about the success of my business. What a very sad state of affairs, I didn't realise we had gone back 100 years.

Charlotte said: 'These comments have been going on for almost a week. I will wear whatever I wish whether you like the dress or not is not my concern'

Charlotte wrote: 'I've lost so much respect and use of LinkedIn for a professional networking website. It seems it's more like cat fishing for the over fourties. Good god [sic.]'

'If half of you spent as much time on your career and business as you do commenting on young women's pictures you too might have an achievement worth sharing.'

The following day she hit back again, adding: 'These comments have been going on for almost a week. I will wear whatever I wish whether you like the dress or not is not my concern. I'm hardly going to take fashion tips off middle aged balding men.

'So if the only thing you have to say is something about my appearance - don't bother. Your comments don't concern me or are of any relevance or interest to my connections who the majority are successful and professional peers I look up to.

'I've lost so much respect and use of LinkedIn for a professional networking website. It seems it's more like cat fishing for the over fourties. Good god [sic.].'
Keeley Hawes is talking about her role in the new series of acclaimed BBC1 thriller The Missing when she suddenly breaks down in tears.

Its quiet, self-contained emotion rather than wails of misery, but its enough to make you realise how deeply her role as troubled mother Gemma Webster is affecting her.

I feel like Ive been put through the wringer, says Keeley, one of TVs hottest properties after her recent performances in Line Of Duty and The Durrells.

After its rip-roaring success in 2014 The Missing is back for a second series starring Keeley Hawes, David Morrissey and Abigail Hardingham in the new story line

The subject matter  the loss of a child, the return of a child and lots more that I cant reveal  is grim to film and very emotionally painful to talk about. As a mum its very close to home.

'Not that I regret taking on the role. Its a brilliant story and its fulfilling to do intense, eight-minute scenes after The Durrells, which is all so jolly.

WHY SERIES ONE HAD US HOOKED When Tony Hughes lost sight of his five-year-old son Oliver momentarily while watching a football match in a crowded French bar during a family holiday in 2006, his life changed for ever. The boy simply disappeared, never to be found, and over eight episodes, most of which focused on events eight years later, we saw how Tony (James Nesbitt, below, with Oliver Hunt as his son) had become an alcoholic, lost his wife Emily (Frances OConnor) to Mark Walsh (Jason Flemyng), the English detective assigned to the case, and teamed up with veteran French detective Julien Baptiste (Tcheky Karyo) in a desperate, obsessional bid to find his son. Property developer Ian Garrett (Ken Stott), a man with some very seedy secrets, and paedophile Vincent Bourg were both suspects in Olivers disappearance although, in the final episode, his death was revealed to have been the result of a terrible accident. Alain Deloix, proprietor of the hotel in which the family had been staying in the town of Chalons du Bois, had knocked down Oliver after he had strayed from the bar and on to a nearby road. In a deathbed confession, Deloix admitted being drunk when his car struck Oliver and inveigling his magistrate brother into hiring a Romanian gangster to kill the boy, who had survived the collision. Despite the evidence to the contrary, Tony continued to search for his son, clinging to the theory that the absence of a body was proof he was still alive. Sadly, he was wholly deluded. Advertisement

Were on the outskirts of Brussels where the eight-part drama, set on a fictional British Army base at Eckhausen in Germany, is being filmed.

Its the follow-up to the multi-award-winning first series about the disappearance of five-year-old Oliver Hughes while on holiday in France and the increasingly desperate attempts of his father Tony, played by Cold Feets James Nesbitt, to find him.

Shown in 2014, it was a TV masterpiece, although the final episode in which a bearded, mad-eyed Tony hammered on the door of a flat in Russia to be confronted by a blond teenager who might, just might, bear a resemblance to Oliver, divided viewers.

Brothers Jack and Harry Williams, the writers of both shows, have since confirmed it wasnt Oliver. For this sequel theyve flipped things around.

The starting point here is not the disappearance of a child but the return of one, Alice Webster (played by Abigail Hardingham), who vanished 11 years earlier at the age of 11 from the base where her soldier father Sam (David Morrissey) was stationed.

The family  Sam, Gemma and their son Matthew, whos now 21  dont know how to deal with her return, explains David.

Theyve dealt with the grief of her disappearance well, its been a unifying experience for them, and while theyre obviously carrying a lot of pain, theyre together. But they dont know how to deal with her return. It splits the family.

For mum Gemma theres an additional problem. As much as shes grieved for her missing daughter for 11 long years, she finds her herself feeling emotionally cold towards her when she returns.

Shes just not feeling it, says Keeley. She wants to, she really wants to, but that maternal feeling just isnt there any more. And thats so hard to play for me.

Im a mother [she has three children  Myles, 16, Maggie, 11, and Ralph, ten  the youngest two with her husband Matthew Macfadyen] and Im used to playing characters who have maternal instincts.

On The Durrells I play the mum Louisa, and I cant help but feel like a mother figure to the younger actors who play my children, so to suddenly be confronted with a character who has none of those feelings for her daughter goes completely against the grain.

James Nesbitt played Tony Hughes in the 2014 series which ended in a shocking plot twist

Keeley, a BAFTA nominee for her performance as DI Lindsay Denton in Line Of Duty, admits that her children are the reason shes shied away from shows like The Missing in the past.

I dont like being reminded of how dangerous the world theyre growing up in has become, so Ive always said no to shows that would upset me. They make you think about your own children, make you wonder how youd feel if something terrible happened to them.

My daughter was roughly the same age as Madeleine McCann when she went missing, so I was thinking about how I would feel if the same thing happened to her and it was painful. The problem is, theres a kind of morbid fascination to stories like Madeleines disappearance. When I see stories about her I think, Oh God, I dont want to read this, but I cant help it. Im hooked, I have to read it.

THE GENIUSES BEHIND THE SHOW The Missing is the brainchild of Jack and Harry Williams (far right), the screenwriting brothers quickly proving themselves to be the masters of the taut, dark thriller that keeps us guessing until the end. Their most recent series One Of Us, a tale of adultery, murder and dark family secrets in the stormy Scottish Highlands, was one of the BBCs late summer highlights, and now theyre back with a sequel to the show that made their name. Jack and Harry grew up in London, with a writer for a father and a TV producer for a mother. Their older brother Ned is also a TV director. Everyone talked about books and stories in our house, says Harry, 35. They resisted the media world for a time, playing in a band called Alaska, before starting to write comedy together. Its hard to write comedy, Jack, 37, says. You have to make the characters and story work in the same way as drama, but then you need to make it funny. And everyone disagrees over what is funny. Their fascination with the dark side of human psychology made the switch to eerie drama inevitable and theyre the only British writers whove managed to capture the dark, slow-moving mood of European hits such as The Killing. It helps that their sleuth in The Missing, Julien Baptiste played by Tcheky Karyo, is so thoroughly French. We love writing for his character, says Jack. He has a wealth of experience, and things in his past that are driving him on. Well find out more about him this time. So does that mean he could return for a third series? Perhaps  if Jack and Harry can force themselves back to work. We just want to be on set the whole time, Harry says. Its far more fun than sitting at your computer, swearing at your brother! Advertisement

That was also what happened with the script for The Missing. It has a thriller element which kept me reading. It was like picking up a brilliant novel, it drew me in from page one even though its so grim, so torturous pretty much right from the off. Theres one scene where Sam and Gemma enjoy a very brief moment of happiness but thats it!

Viewers are bound to make a comparison between the cases of Madeleine McCann and Alice Webster when they tune in to the show, even though Alice has returned while the McCanns can only hope that their daughter comes back to them.

When I was researching my role I read quite a lot about Kate McCann and her continuing belief that her daughter will be returned to her and her family, says Keeley. She talked about opening her eyes every morning and thinking to herself, Todays the day its going to happen, and I cant imagine what that must be like.

Dressed in a less than fetching green raincoat and with her face devoid of make-up, Keeley cuts a rather dowdy figure as she chats about the show. Theyve put me in some s**t clothes, she laughs, set me down next to a tractor factory in Belgium and let me get on with it!

One wonders just how much more difficult the shoot would have been for her without David Morrissey as her co-star. David is hilarious, and extremely helpful when it comes to filming, says Keeley. Weve known each other for years, which always helps. We appeared together in a BBC adaptation of Dickens Our Mutual Friend 18 years ago when we were both very baby-faced. And Laura Fraser [who plays Sergeant Eve Stone, the military policewoman assigned to the case] is a terrible giggler, which was a big surprise to me. We take our work very seriously but its nice to have a chance to let off steam.

David, who lives in London with his novelist wife Esther Freud and their three children Albie, 21, Anna, 18, and Gene, 12, seems less emotionally affected by the subject matter. Does he bottle up his parental anxiety?

Im certainly a worrier when it comes to being a parent, says David, a smoothly spoken Liverpudlian who now enjoys global recognition thanks to his role as a despotic ruler in hit US zombie series The Walking Dead.

If one of my kids is trying to grab a jar from the top shelf Im full of dread. My wifes much more trusting whereas Im there saying, Be careful! My son Albie said he wouldnt go on holiday with me again if I kept telling him to be careful, so I must say it a lot!

Like the first series of The Missing, which was told partly in the present and partly in flashback, the new story timeshifts too. Theres a snippet from 2003, when Alice goes missing, the only clue to her disappearance being the sighting of a van close to where she was last seen.

Most of the action takes place in 2014, when she appears again, and in the present day with Davids character having noticeably changed over the past two years. Hes suffered some kind of accident thats left him with burn-like scars on his face and back, says David.

Having the prosthetics put on has been quite a palaver. Lily, the make-up woman, does a fantastic job but its still taking nearly two hours to apply the scars.

Although series two is about a new case involving a new family, there is one survivor from series one  dogged, retired French detective Julien Baptiste, played by Tcheky Karyo.

Alice Webster talks about encountering Sophie, a girl whose disappearance Baptiste investigated 12 years ago, during the years she was missing, so suddenly hes a detective again, says Turkish-born Tcheky.

French detective Julien Baptiste (Tcheky Karyo) returns from series one

He thinks hes on to something, he thinks he can finally solve the Sophie case. He springs back into work, even though his family want him to stay at home.

Theres a certain irony to Baptistes family trying to prevent him from going back to work. Tchekys real-life wife didnt want him to appear in series one of The Missing for pretty much the same reason.

I had a very young child, Louise, and another on the way when they asked me to work for six months on the first series, with an option to hire me for three years after that, explains Tcheky, 62.

So I said no initially. Then three months later I read the script again and realised I had to do it. Now Id sign on for as long as I could.

Tcheky is quietly spoken with a warm smile but he says hes not afraid to speak his mind on set when the need arises.

I love working with British people like Keeley and David because theyre reserved and Im not so we complement each other perfectly. Im not afraid to yell if I have to. I think we work well together. I bring the volcano, they bring the ice!

So what of that ambiguous ending to series one that left some viewers confused? The sight of little Olivers trademark squiggly man drawn in the snow on a car windscreen in Moscow raised hopes that he was still alive and his fathers desperate searching wasnt in vain.

Even executive producer Charlie Pattinson admitted, We didnt think there was any ambiguity about the ending but clearly in the minds of some viewers there was and we may have messed up.

Which means theres no ambiguity at all about the end of series two. The producers have gone to great pains to make sure theres no uncertainty, says Keeley.

I know there were still question marks in peoples minds at the end of series one and, for that matter, at the end of the two most recent series of Line Of Duty, with some people being confused about the endings. But with this? Not a chance. The final outcome will be crystal clear.
A woman has been left squirming in horror after being confronted with some some very intimate pictures of her mother-in-law.

The Mumsnet user stumbled across a series of naked shots after her partner's mother asked her to transfer photos on to a disc from her phone.

And she turned to the parenting website, asking if she should carry on and say nothing or delete the images.

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Mumsnet user MrsFizzy was shocked to find pictures of her mother-in-law's vulva and breasts after she was asked to help transfer some photos from her phone to a disc (picture posed by model)

Describing her dilemma with her MIL, a Mumsnet abbreviation for mother-in-law, MrsFizzy opened by saying: 'Oh my f****** god.'

She explained: 'MIL asked me if I wouldn't mind transferring all her pictures from her old phone, her camera and other memory cards on to discs for her and to make some back ups.

'No problem, says I. Happy to help. Oh, and can you make sure there are no duplicates either and don't bother transferring blurry pics etc. I agree to that, what a helpful DIL I am.

'So there I am, trawling through hundreds of pictures, dutifully removing dud ones and transferring the rest.

Then I come to the phone. Lovely pics of grand kids, oh, look, there's FIL's surprise party, aww cute kitty, then out of the f****** blue is my MIL's VULVA! oh God, there are loads. Boobs, vag the lot.

'What do I do??? I can't tell her I've seen them. But do I transfer them over? Delete them? THIS is what you get for trying to be helpful!'

While many people sympathised, some couldn't help seeing the funny side of the situation.

'Transfer over,' DerekSprechenZeDick replied. 'Just see it as you've seen your partner's first home.'

SaucyJack suggested having them 'printed on to giant photo canvas' for her father-in-law's Christmas present.

Arfarfanarf agreed that she should transfer them over.

'She will know you know but neither of you will ever speak of it. It's the British Way,' she said.

'Or, you know, you could have yourself some Photoshop fun. That's the Evil Way.'

'Sorry but that has made my morning!' ArchiesMamaBird replied. 'Maybe she secretly hates you and and asked you to transfer them over knowing full well that you would see them and never be able to tell anyone about it.

'I suggest lots of wine and trying to block this out as a bad memory. If not, there's always counselling.'

Mycatstares said she should count herself lucky there were 'no homemade videos thrown into the mix!'

Others did their best to offer more sensible advice.

Flanderspigeonmurderer recommended deleting them and having 'hypnotherapy to get rid of the memory'.

WhatchaMaCalllit suggested putting them in a separate photo for 'very personal photos'.

'When she asks what the folder is, say "I didn't want to delete them but I also didn't want to have to ask you about them either so I just created a separate folder for them", and move on to talking about the weather or whatever.'

Blueturtle6 suggested the addition of gin to make things easier.

'Drink a lot of gin, send her a text asking if she want's them copied over, less mortifying than conversation, then drink more gin.

To make matters worse, MrsFizzy explained her mother-in-law was planning to take her photos to Tesco and get them printed off.

'She's gonna check them first, right?' she said. 'But then as soon as she does she will know I've seen them.'

'I'm going to have to delete them I think. If she didn't know they were there then no harm done and if she did know they were there then she'll have to admit that to me and I doubt she'd do that.'

She added: 'There are some things that just can't ever be unseen. Why did I not do this this evening when it would be a more acceptable hour to consume copious amounts of alcohol.'

Youarenotprepared agreed that MrsFizzy should not transfer the photos to the disc.

'Whatever you do DON'T PUT THEM ON THE DISC otherwise you will just be sharing your pain with half of Tesco or humiliating her when they come up on the big screens when she takes the disc in to print,' she said.

2016Hopeful also advised against transferring.

'She probably thinks they are deleted. If she wants more pics she can take them at a later date. Best for your future relationship that she thinks you haven't seen them!!! ' she said.

Jackie0 suggested it could actually be used to MrsFizzy's advantage.

'Golden opportunity to style it out and be the very best DIL who may never be criticised or fallen out with for all time until the end of time,' she said.

Ijustwannadance poured fuel on the flames by bringing up the idea of an affair.

'Just a thought, but maybe the photos weren't meant for your father-in-law,' she said. 'She could've been sexting someone else.

'Delete the photos. Don't put that horror on poor Tesco techy or other unsuspecting family members who may be getting a copy of the disc given to them. Then you might need some therapy.'

PikachuBoo tried to make things a little better by suggesting she'd taken the photos for medical reasons.

'Maybe she was examining a sore patch or something?' she said.

'I've photographed my sore vulva on a number of occasions to see what's going on, or to see how something progresses over few days. I hope to hell I've deleted them all.'

Pictis, however, had very little sympathy for the situation.
Hospital staff moved Cagney into the delivery room so that he could witness the birth of his son, Levon Robbie

He was in ICU recovering from surgery when Jessica Li went into labor

The 26-year-old from Boulder, Colorado, has undergone three brain operations since he was diagnosed

brain cancer, three weeks before his fiancee's due date

Cagney Wenk was diagnosed with stage four glioblastoma, an

A man who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer three weeks before his fiancee's due date has told of his joy after he was permitted to watch the birth of his first child.

Cagney Wenk, 26, from Boulder, Colorado, was still in ICU recovering from one of three brain operations since his diagnosis when Jessica Li went into labor.

Emotional pictures and video footage show how staff at Boulder Community Hospital moved Cagney into the delivery room with an ICU nurse, medicine and medical equipment so that he could witness the birth of his son Levon Robbie.

Hospitalized: Cagney Wenk, 26, pictured with his son Levon moments after his birth, was diagnosed with stage four Glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer

New family: His diagnosis came three weeks before his fiancee Jessica Lee, pictured with Cagney and Levon, was due to give birth

Pure joy: Cagney, from Boulder, Colorado, looked elated as he heard his son cry for the first time

Ordeal: Cagney, pictured with Jessica, has undergone three brain operations since he was diagnosed

Reunited: Cagney, pictured by Jessica's bedside, was in ICU recovering from surgery when she went into labor

Levon was born just after 2am on September 18, weighing eight pounds eight ounces.

A moving video shows the moment Cagney hears his son cry for the first time and says: 'Oh my God.'

Shortly after the birth, Levon was placed in Cagney's arms and he was able to cut his son's umbilical cord.

He later wrote on Facebook: 'I feel so happy cancer ain't got nothing on me [sic].'

Footage shows him talking about why they chose the middle name Robbie - after an important man in Cagney's life.

Helpful: Hospital staff moved Cagney into the delivery room so that he could witness the birth of Levon Robbie

Special moment: Cagney was also able to cut the umbilical cord, pictured

Moving: A video shows the moment Cagney hears his son cry for the first time and says, 'Oh my God'

New parents: After the birth, the couple's two beds were moved closer together so that Cagney could see the baby more clearly

Meaning: Footage shows Cagney talking about why they chose the middle name Robbie - after an important man in his life

He said that he 'has taught me many life lessons I wouldn't have learned otherwise, it's an honor to name him Robbie.'

After the birth, the couple's two beds were moved closer together so that Cagney could see the baby more clearly.

Pictures show them lying hand in hand, both wearing their hospital tags.

Cagney audibly sighed and smiled as the baby was placed on him and he shook hands with his son.

The couple thanked staff at Boulder Community Hospital for 'accommodating' them so that they could both witness their son's birth.

First meeting: Cagney audibly sighed and smiled as the baby was placed on him and he shook hands with his son

New arrival: Levon was born just after 2am on September 18 at Boulder Community Hospital

Thumbs up: A GiveForward campaign for Cagney and his new family has so far raised $21,000 of its $50,000 target

Emotional: The couple were pictured hand in hand both wearing their hospital tags

Content: After the birth, Cagney wrote on Facebook, 'I feel so happy cancer ain't got nothing on me [sic]'

Sarah Broccolucci,a photographer, doula and videographer, offered to record the birth in response to an appeal by organization Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.

'The atmosphere in the room was serene and joyful. The hospital staff and their family were amazing and the room was filled with love and support,' the mother-of-four told Today Parents.

She added: 'For me, it was a reminder that every day we have here is a gift and to try and make the most of it.'

A GiveForward campaign to help the new family is raising money to help the family with medical treatment and hospital bills and medical costs for Levon.
Tesco bosses have been left red-faced after some unfortunate wording was spotted on the product description of a kids' toy sold on its website.

Mother Kat Shaw was left surprised when she was looking into buying the My First Spa set for her two-year-old daughter and saw that it was described as giving children the chance to make their own 'labial moisturiser'.

The science-based toy is supposed to teach children about different skin treatments and how to create your own remedies.

My First Spa, pictured above, teaches children about different skin treatments and how to create their own remedies

Kat Shaw posted a note on Tesco's Facebook page after spotting the unfortunate wording on the supermarket's website

Mrs Shaw posted a note on Tesco's Facebook page pointing out the worrying wording.

She wrote: 'I was very excited today to see that your 'My First Spa' set is half price in your toy sale. "10, bargain!" I thought, "perhaps I'll buy it for my soon to be three-year-old so we can have a "girly" night in.

'I was so looking forward to making our own scented oils, special eye treatments and exfoliating scrubs.

'I'm not entirely convinced that she (or indeed anyone) will require the 'labial moisturiser' though.

'Perhaps you might want to reconsider this wording on the website? It's ever so slightly unfortunate.'

The supermarket has since apologised for the error and have removed it from their site 'while we correct it'

A member of Tesco's customer care team responded, saying: 'Oh my, I'm very sorry about the poor wording on this product description.

'I will ensure this is fed back to our Commercial Team.'

The full description of the toy on Tesco's website, which has since been taken down, read: 'Learn to create with Science4you.

The product, which retails for 10, accidentally included a spelling error, telling children they could create their own 'labial moisturiser'

The science-based toy, pictured above with the apparatus included, was pointed out by a mother on Tesco's Facebook page

'My First Spa teaches children about scented oils, special eye treatments and different exfoliating scrubs as well as massage oils.

'They will find out how cucumber can remove that tired look in the eyes and make their own labial moisturiser.

'They can also create rose tonic and learn about its calming properties or discover the facial benefits of yoghurt and honey or chocolate and banana.

'Children can set up their own spa and invite family and friends to try out the homemade products and massage techniques.'
Six outfits worn by Baroness Thatcher have been donated to the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) by the former prime minister's children - but there is no handbag.

The ensembles and a hat were worn by the late prime minister at 'significant moments in her public and private life'.

Highlights from the former prime minister's wardrobe will go on public display in December, in the museum's fashion gallery.

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Margaret Thatcher at the Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool, October 1987, wearing a blue wool suit by Aquascutum, which will go on display at the V&A in December

The outfits have been donated to the V&A by Baroness Thatcher's children, Sir Mark Thatcher and Carol Thatcher, and her grandchildren Michael Thatcher and Amanda Thatcher.

The collection includes a royal blue wool suit - with statement shoulder pads - a silk hat with feathers worn at Sir Denis's funeral and a wool crepe, fuchsia-pink suit.

Britain's first female PM, who famously was never seen without a handbag, used her wardrobe to reflect her role as a stateswoman, recalling in her memoir The Downing Street Years: 'I took a close interest in clothes, as most women do: but it was also extremely important that the impression I gave was right for the political occasion.'

The blue wool suit and matching silk blouse were designed by the British company Aquascutum, who provided Baroness Thatcher with tailored suits throughout her career.Jean Muir

The brocade suit worn by Baroness Thatcher to the Lord Mayor's Banquet in 1988 will also form part of the display

Aquascutum also designed 'one of the most spectacular pieces' - an evening suit of pink brocade with floor length skirt and a sleeveless, iridescent silk opera cape with sweeping train.

It was made for the Lord Mayor's banquet in 1988 at London's Guildhall.

The gift also includes a caramel silk crepe day dress with a floral print by Daphne Scrimgeour, the Baroness's personal dressmaker.

The prime minister wore the dress, which featured her trademark soft neck-tie detail, for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in New Delhi in 1983 - where she was photographed with Indira Gandhi, the prime minister of India.

The Jean Muir dress the former Prime Minister wore to meet Japan's Crown Prince Akihito in Tokyo in May 1986 has also been donated by her family

The gift also includes a long navy blue silk dress with gold flower motifs and flower shaped belt buckle designed by Jean Muir, which was worn when Baroness Thatcher met Crown Prince Akihito of Japan.

Baroness Thatcher once said that she 'made almost no concessions to formal dress', adding: 'I believe that the public really likes its leaders to look business-like and well turned out'.

A wool crepe suit in striking fuchsia-pink, a colour favoured by her husband Sir Denis Thatcher - by London based couturier Tomasz Starzewski, and a printed silk dress and black coat with matching lining, are also among the items.

Margaret Thatcher with Indira Gandhi at the Commonwealth Conference in November 1983 in Delhi, India.Her silk crepe day dress was made by her personal dressmaker Daphne Scrimgeour

A wide brimmed, black slub silk hat with feathers and velvet-flecked tulle, designed by Deida Acero, was worn by Baroness Thatcher at Sir Denis's funeral in 2003 and for the funeral of former US president Ronald Reagan.

The V&A said that the outfits belonging to the former prime minister, who died in 2013, would 'form an important addition to the museum's fashion collection'.

Claire Wilcox, senior curator of fashion at the V&A, said: 'Baroness Thatcher was an internationally recognised political figure who used her wardrobe as a strategic tool to project power and inspire confidence.

One of the most poignant items in the collection is the hat the former Prime Minister wore to her husband Denis' funeral in 2003

'She was notable for supporting the British fashion industry, and patronised many of the leading designers of the day.

'Baroness Thatcher learnt to dress for the camera whilst in office, and... amended her wardrobe after the House of Commons became televised in November 1989.

'This gift constitutes a record of the working wardrobe of one of the most influential and powerful women of the 20th century, and will form an important addition to the Museum's fashion collection.'

Tim Reeve, deputy director of the V&A, said: 'I am delighted that this important selection of outfits has been given to the V&A and will be part of the national collection of dress.

'These carefully selected pieces tell an important story about Margaret Thatcher as a person as well as reflecting a significant period in British political history in the late 20th century.
Six years after being matched to Ingo Gruda from Munster, Germany, and receiving their transplants the nine-year-old girls are now thriving

With none of their family able to donate, the girls signed up to Be the Match, a program that helps volunteer donors connect with patients

platelets and in need of a bone marrow transplant to survive

Two twin sisters who were saved by a stranger's generous bone marrow transplant recently had the chance to meet - and dance with - the man who saved their lives.

Elizabeth and Kathryn Girtle of Minnesota were diagnosed with congenital amegakaryocytic thrombocytopenia (CAMT)  which made them unable to develop blood platelets - when they were just three years old.

In order to survive, the girls were told that they needed a bone marrow transplant, but finding a match proved difficult.

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A big moment: A pair of nine-year-old twins from Minnesota had the chance to meet the German man who donated his bone marrow to them four years earlier

Getting together: Elizabeth and Kathryn Girtle even had the chance to dance with Ingo Gruda from Munster, Germany, during a gala earlier this month

The girls' brother was not a match and their parents weren't able to donate because they were carriers of the condition.

So, the twins were signed up to Be the Match, a donor program that helps patients get connected with volunteer donors looking to lend a hand.

In three months, they received life-changing news: the program found the girls a donor. Though he was anonymous at the time, the volunteer they found was man named Ingo Gruda from Munster, Germany.

In May 2011, Elizabeth became the first of the Girtle twins to receive the transplant, aged three. The following year in June, after the twins turned four, Kathryn had her own transplant.

Back and forth: Ingo was flown over for the event after the girls' doctor Dr. Shakila Khan of the Mayo Clinic, submitted their story to Be the Match

Growing up: At just three years old, the twins were diagnosed with a condition that kept them from producing blood platelets

The girls' mother Michelle spoke to Ingo over a translated phone call.

'He had told us his story about when he got the phone call when he was at work,' she told ABC. 'He's a construction worker and was on the scaffolding. He sat down and started to cry. That touched me.

'He said that someone asked if somebody got hurt and he said, "No, someone's going to be reborn." For me, that showed he knew the meaning of what he was doing.'

Today, the kids are nine years old and thriving all thanks to Ingo. And, this year, Elizabeth and Kathryn's doctor, Dr. Shakila Khan of the Mayo Clinic, submitted their story to Be the Match in hopes that a meeting between the girls and their donor could be arranged.

Touching moment: Ingo was connected with the Girtler family through Be the Match

Strong: One of the girls had her surgery in 2011 in age three and the other in 2012 aged four, both were successful

A normal life: Elizabeth and Kathryn are now nine years old and were over the moon to show their donor their gratitude

At a gala organized by the group, Ingo was flown from Germany to Minnesota earlier this month so he could come face to face with the twins he saved four years earlier.

There, he and Elizabeth and Kathryn got to know each other and even took to the dance floor together in a heartwarming moment caught on tape.
A 53-year-old man tried to recreate his 18-year-old daughters modelling poses like-for-like using the same location and even the same dressing gown in a funny series of photos.

In January this year, Kendel Divarco, from Glendale, California, was flown to the Green Valley Ranch resort in Las Vegas for a professional photo shoot after she won a modelling competition.

When, by chance, her father Vince recently stayed at the same hotel for a conference, he decided to use the opportunity to create his own amusing version of the shoot.

Dad and daughter: Kendel Divarco, 18, of Glendale, Arizona, did a photo shoot in Las Vegas earlier this year, which he father Vince, 53, later recreated

Striking a pose: Earlier this month, Vince found himself staying at the same hotel where the shoot took place, the Green Valley Ranch resort in Las Vegas

Sporting a series of fetching outfits, Kendel posed in and around the hotel in locations such as the pool, leaning against windows and even lounging in her room sporting a bathroom.

Then, earlier this month, Kendel's parents were in Vegas for a work convention and found themselves staying in the exact same hotel.

Looking at the photos from her glamorous shoot, Vince found the locations where the images were taken and mimicked her poses at each own for his own series of pictures.

He lounged by the pool, pouted for the camera and even showed off bedroom eyes in a bathrobe.

Happy family: When Vince staged the shoot he was staying with his wife at the hotel while there for a work conference

Making moves: Vince did his best to mimic his daughter's pout in the series of photos

A joker: Vince later told Huffington Post that people can be too serious and should 'just try to have a little fun sometimes'

Making it big: Vince is a regular prankster but thinks that this time 'maybe weve outdone ourselves'

'Were so serious in our everyday lives we just try to have a little fun sometimes,' Vince, 53, told Huffington Post.

'Were always pulling something like that. Maybe weve outdone ourselves. I dont know what were going to do to top that.'

After completing his session, Vince sent the resulting series of pictures off to his daughter, who then shared them onTwitter.

'My parents stayed in Vegas at the same hotel I stayed in for my modeling shoot and....' she wrote along with several side-by-side comparisons.

Proving popular: Kendel shared the images later on Twitter, where they were retweeted more than 4,500 times

A new career? Daughter Kendel reckons her dad could have a future in the industry

Since being shared Sunday the 18, the images have been retweeted more than 4,500 times and gained over 10,000 likes.

Luckily, Kendel was able to see the humor in the situation and has actually said that she is 'happy' that they went viral.
A pet owner has won the admiration of cat lovers across the world after he made his adopted kitten his own miniature stack of pancakes.

Chase Stout, who lives in Nevada, Iowa, was left in charge of pet feeding duties while his girlfriend Kenzie Jones went away.

The aviation worker decided to spice up Mr Wilson's feeding routine by making him a miniature version of his own meal and sharing the pictures on Twitter.

Cute: Chase Stout and his girlfriend Kenzie Jones from Nevada, Iowa, recently adopted kitten Mr Wilson, pictured eating miniature pancakes

Snap! When the aviation worker was left in charge of feeding duties while Kenzie was away he made a stack of miniature pancakes for the kitten that matched his own, pictured

Popular: He shared a picture of Mr Wilson tucking into his stack on Twitter with a caption, pictured, which has since been liked by more than 80,000 users

To further tease Kenzie, he sent her a text message asking her whether the cat, who they only adopted recently, 'likes chocolate chips in his pancakes'.

He shared a screengrab of his message - along with Kenzie's anxious response - online with pictures of the two pancake stacks and Mr Wilson eating them.

'When your girlfriend goes out of town and tells you "don't forget to feed our cat,"' he wrote.

His tweet has been liked by more than 80,000 users and re-tweeted more than 40,000 times while one woman said she would 'marry' a man who treated her cat with such respect.

Chase and Kenzie also have a dog, Huey, who Chase said is 'best friends' with the new cat.

Chase said he made Mr Wilsons pancakes just like I did mine, with the exact same ingredients just poured into miniature versions.

Method: Chase, pictured with Kenzie, said he made Mr Wilson's pancakes 'just like I did mine' but using less batter

Joker: Chase, who also has a dog, Huey, pictured right, tried to trick Kenzie by sending her a text message, pictured left, asking about chocolate chips

'Obviously I had a stack of three so my man Wilson had to have a stack of three as well,' he told BuzzFeed News.

He added: 'He seemed to [like them], but just like any kitten, his attention span quickly changed his interest onto something else.'

Chase said Kenzie was impressed by his efforts, claiming she found them 'adorable'.

He said he is aware that feeding kittens chocolate is not advisable, so he did not put them in, but mentioned them as a joke to get Kenzie's attention.

Twitter user Vikki Moriarty, from Chicago, said she had great admiration for Chase, writing: 'I'd marry whoever did this for my cat.'

Meanwhile, Shant Reganyan suggested Chase move on to waffles next.
A toddler in Michigan has become an online sensation after helping his dad pull off an incredible surprise proposal.

Joshua Womble and Sade Robinson of Warren, Michigan, have been together for three years and are parents to adorable son Christian, who celebrated his second birthday last Sunday.

But the birthday of their little boy wouldn't be the only big landmark moment of the day for the couple, as Joshua had arranged a surprise.

Happy family: Joshua Womble and Sade Robinson of Warren, Michigan, were engaged at their son Christian's second birthday on Sunday

Looking in: Joshua proposed with the help of his boy, who pulled the ring out of a gift box at his birthday party

The party was held at Joshua's mother's house and was a day full of singing, laughter, cake and, of course, presents. But not all of the gifts on the table that day were for Christian.

In a video of the big moment, the toddler is handed a shining silver box. He takes off the lid to reveal some bright pink tissue paper.

Then, Christian reaches into the present and pulls out a small, black jewelry box. As Sade is watching her little boy, Joshua drops to one knee beside her.

Paying attention: As mom looks on in the video, Christian picks up the box and hands it over to his father

Big moment: At that moment, Joshua dropped to his knee, which is when Sade realized what was going on

Total shock: Sade admitted that she had no idea that Joshua was going to propose

The tiny tot looks at the jewelry box, turns and hands it straight to his kneeling father, which is when Sade finally realizes what is going on.

She raises her hands to her face in shock as everyone at the party lets out a cheer, before eventually saying yes.

The video was eventually posted on Twitter by Joshua's sister, who wrote: 'Congratulations to my brother and future sister-in-law! The proposal couldn't have went more perfectly. I'm so happy for you two!'

The rock: Joshua was pleased with his proposal as well, calling it 'the handoff of the year'

Since being shared on Sunday, the video has been retweeted more than 11,000 times and gained over 15,000 likes on the social media website.

Speaking to BuzzFeed, Sade revealed that she was totally blindsided by the proposal, and that having their son involved just made it even better.

'It made it so much more special,' she said. 'That was the part that made me cry.'
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Whenever Aidan Turner is on screen in an episode of Poldark, all eyes are on the rugged actor - with many waiting eagerly for the next shirtless scene.

But if you manage to look away from the star, who plays the title role of Ross Poldark, you may notice the elaborate and colourful feasts that feature in the background of the BBC drama.

The spectacular array of jellies, cakes and pies on display in a handful of episodes are all thanks to the hard work of Poldark's resident food stylist, 43-year-old Genevieve Taylor, from Bristol.

With the next spread to be featured in episode five on Sunday, Genevieve talked to FEMAIL about the triumphs - and near disasters - involved in creating an 18-century Cornish feast for both the eyes and the tastebuds.

Poldark's food stylist Genevieve Taylor works for hours to create the sumptuous feasts which feature in a handful of episodes of the BBC drama, such as this one at Killewarren, which starred in episode three

It's hard to believe that the food in these pictures was hand made by one woman in her own kitchen.

But Genevieve now fondly recalls the hours and hours it took to create the giant pies, huge jellies and three-tiered cakes when the second series was being filmed last year.

'It was great fun. It was like playing,' she remembered.

But she came close to a few disasters.

Several of the large jellies featured in the feasts suffered cracks on set - which had to be patched up with flowers and other foliage.

'Most of the filming was in big stately homes owned by the National Trust and they didn't want me using their kitchens understandably so my workstation on location was often just a trestle table under a giant umbrella out in the car park,' Genevieve explained.

This feast, complete with three-tiered fruit and nut cake and wobbly lemon jellies, was at Killewarren in episode three

This magnificent feast, which features one of Genevieve's giant pies and an extravagant Wedgwood-inspired three-tiered cake, will feature in episode five at Warleggan House, to air on Sunday

'I was driving really carefully around these country lanes.

'I didn't have any disasters en route but I did have a few jelly traumas on set. Jellies are so tricky - there's no guarantee with them.

'They either turn out okay or they crack, and a few did crack on set, so the lovely florist jumped in with some flowers and foliage to plaster over the cracks so they were still able to be used.'

Though Genevieve has spent her career in TV - including working on adverts for Hellman's Mayonnaise and Sainsbury's - she had never created food for a historical drama such as Poldark before she was asked to join the team last year.

It required a lot of research, and she turned to centuries-old cookbooks for inspiration for what to make for a realistic 18th-century feast.

Genevieve turned to historic cookbooks for inspiration for what to make for her 18th-century style feasts, such as the one above

'They did love a pie,' she explained. 'And they loved intricate pastry work which was just for visual purposes because they tended not to really eat the pastry as it was just vessel for holding whatever was inside.

'Quite often, the pastry would just be discarded, but it had to be very elaborate for looking at.

'They also developed a very sweet tooth because sugar suddenly became more accessible because of trade.

'They did a lot of preserving fruit in sugar syrups and liked fancy icing, marzipan, and sugar paste.'

Everything had to be made in Genevieve's own kitchen at home - which caused some problems for her as much of 18th-century feast food is supersized.

A large decorated salmon with cucumber fake scales, which featured in episode three at the Penvenens' Killewarren, was a particular challenge.

A large decorated salmon with cucumber fake scales, which featured in episode three at the Penvenens' Killewarren, was a particular challenge for Genevieve as it didn't fit in her oven at home

Another of Genevieve's lavish feasts, that features in the current series of Poldark. The pie in the centre was a real meat pie, and cut open to look as if it had been eaten

'I bought this great big salmon from my fishmonger, brought it home and then couldn't get it in my oven,' she laughed.

'I had to take the biggest roasting dish I had and force it in and curl it into a c-shape just to try and get it in, so I had to bake it quite tightly coiled.'

The giant pies also came close to failing.

For the feast in episode five, which will air on Sunday, she had to make two giant pies - a savoury pie and a sweet pie topped with pears and apple slices, and decorated with pastry leaves.

The pies were what she describes as 'fake pies' as they were actually hollow within, and made around two Quality Street tins.

One of the two giant pies Genevieve had to make. This pie was a sweet and topped with 'wet sucket' pears and apple slices, with decorative pastry leaves on the outside. The pie was so big it had to be held together with toothpicks while baking

Genevieve's Wedgwood-inspired three-tiered cake, which took her 16 to 18 hours to ice around three polystyrene bases

'It was tricky as I could see the pastry sliding down as it was cooking, so I had to wrap it in cardboard until it was set enough that it would support its own weight,' she explained, describing the process she used to make the sweet pie.

'I used quite a lot of toothpicks to hold the thing together.'

But it was a close call as to whether the savoury pie could be featured at all.

'That was the one that kept cracking and actually you can't see it in the pictures but the reverse of that had a big crack going down it,' said Genevieve.

'But it was massive as you can imagine, as it was shaped around two big Quality Street tins and the pastry had to support itself around that while it was cooking, which was asking a bit much really.'

Although much of the food she made was edible - including delicate marzipan apples and fruit, and a large, meat pie - anything that wouldn't be eaten on camera into was often empty inside.

For the elaborate Wedgwood-inspired green and white three-tiered cake, for instance, she did not bother to bake an actual cake but iced around polystyrene instead.

Genevieve handmade these delicate marzipan fruits, including mini apples, pears and oranges

Another of Genevieve's spectacular cakes, which feature on the show. This one is covered in delicate swan icing decorations

The intricate icing still took her an incredible 16 to 18 hours to complete, however.

'At one of the harvest suppers the sequence they were shooting was at the end of the feast so it needed to look like it had been tucked into and enjoyed, so I made a proper big pork game pie,' explained Genevieve.

'But when something wasn't going to be eaten and it was more for decoration, I just didn't see the point of wasting lots of lovely ingredients.

'Because to make a big three tiered cake would have taken packets and packets and butter and loads of eggs and it just seems wrong if it's not going to be eaten.'

But most of the decoration on the outside of the food is entirely edible.

The large sweet pie that will feature in the feast at Warleggan House in episode five, airing on Sunday, is topped with 'wet suckets' - a historic way of preserving fruit.

Another three-tiered cake is also entirely edible, and made from a rich almond sponge, and decorated with fruit and nuts in a spiral pattern

Genevieve said: 'It takes weeks to make it. You boil the sugar syrup and then leave to soak and then boil the syrup and leave to soak and you do that everyday for two weeks, so they very gradually dehydrate and glace all the way through.

'But I found it really difficult to do it, and I don't think I did it properly.

'But the pears at the end of the two-week process looked pretty good. I put them on top of a pie as they were shiny and nice.'

Another three-tiered cake is also entirely edible, and made from a rich almond sponge, and decorated with fruit and nuts in a spiral pattern.

'They loved symmetry in the 18th century,' Genevieve explained.

Poldark continues on Sunday on BBC One at 9pm.
FEMAIL compared them to the dairy equivalents and rated them out of five

As any vegan will tell you, dairy-free alternatives to cheese can vary widely in quality.

So some may consider Sainsbury's decision to launch an entire range of vegan cheeses this week as brave to say the least.

The cheeses use coconut oil instead of milk to create replicas of some of the UK's most popular cheeses, including alternatives to Wensleydale with cranberries, cheddar with caramelised onions, Greek-style feta and cream cheese.

The idea is that the cheeses - all 2.25 as part of the supermarket's Deliciously FreeFrom range - would be right at home on any cheese board, and taste just as good whether you're a vegan or not.

FEMAIL food writer Imogen Blake (pictured) tries the Wensleydale-style vegan cheese with cranberries (right), which is made from coconut oil, and compares it to the normal Wensleydale with cranberries (left) from Sainsbury's

The range includes seven new vegan cheeses, which include cheddar-style (as a block or grated), Wensleydale-style with cranberries, Greek-style (a coconut-based alternative to feta, cheddar-style with caramelised onion and soft cheese-style in original and garlic and herb flavours.

But if you think replacing milk with coconut oil makes them healthier then think again, as most of these cheese are just as high in saturated fats as their dairy equivalents - if not higher.

The new range is part of the supermarket's relaunch of their Deliciously FreeForm range - which also includes vegan wines.

But how do the cheeses compare to the real deal: the original dairy versions that they are trying to replicate?

FEMAIL put five of the new Sainsbury's range to the test - with mixed results.

We've also asked resident MailOnline vegan Annabel Fenwick Elliott to give her thoughts on the new range.

WENSLEYDALE-STYLE WITH CRANBERRIES

Can you tell which is which? The vegan Wensleydale-style cheese (left) is pink because the cranberries have bled into the white 'cheese' while the dairy version (right) is a yellow, creamy colour

Side by side, the vegan cheese looks strange against the creamy yellow block of normal Yorkshire Wensleydale, which is popping with dried red cranberries.

The 2.25 dairy-free vegan 'Wensleydale-style' on the other hand is pure white, and the cranberries have bled into theblock, turning it strangely pink.

But on taste, the two are much more similar.

The original Wensleydale is creamy with bursts of the sweet cranberries. Perfect for a festive cheeseboard.

The vegan version is sourer, and tastes creamier on the tongue. The cranberries are lost as the flavour of the 'cheese' is more intense.

It's also 75p more expensive than the normal Wensleydale, which is priced at 1.50.

On balance, I prefer the dairy Wensleydale. But if I didn't know better, I may have just thought the vegan version was a slightly sub-par Wensleydale.

VERDICT The Deliciously Free From vegan Wensleydale-style cheese (left) can't compare to Yorkshire Wensleydale (right) but is a decent alternative COULD YOU TELL? On looks, it's clear which one is the vegan cheese. But on taste, it's much harder to tell the difference between the two. There is a distinction, but if you didn't know better, you may not have been able to guess it was dairy-free. WOULD YOU OPT FOR VEGAN ALTERNATIVE IN FUTURE? Probably not, but if it was the only option available, I wouldn't be disappointed. WHAT DID A VEGAN THINK? Annabel says: 'At first, it's a bit jarring, but then suddenly it's delicious. It does leave a bit of a dodgy aftertaste though, but overall I liked it.' RATING: 3/5 Advertisement

GREEK-STYLE

Imogen's colleague Unity Blott (pictured) tries the vegan alternative to feta - and unlike Imogen, finds it pleasant enough

Feta is one of my favourite cheeses, and I use it every week mashed with avocado on toast and sprinkled onto pasta dishes as a salty seasoning.

So I was excited to try the dairy-free alternative.

But I was left disappointed. As soon as you open the packet of the dairy-free alternative to feta, a sour pong emanates.

For me, it tastes the same way as it smells - sour, and absolutely revolting.

The texture of the 2.25 vegan cheese is far less crumbly than that of a normal feta, and rather rubbery instead.

For this test, I forced my colleague Unity to help me as she regularly buys Sainsbury's 1.35 own brand of normal Greek-style feta.

'It's a bit less tangy,' she said. 'The consistency is different, but that doesn't bother me.

'It's a bit underwhelming, but edible.'

But the cheese seems to grow on her and our other colleague Luisa, who at first bite said it tasted as if it was 'rotting'.

So much so, that when it came to asking Unity if she would replace the dairy version with this vegan alternative, she said she would.

But Luisa worried about the potential environmental impact of increasing the demand for coconuts from overseas to make these cheeses, as the dairy alternatives are made in the UK.

VERDICT Imogen hated the Deliciously Free From Greek-Style vegan cheese but Unity rated it COULD YOU TELL? Yes. They dairy and dairy-free cheeses hardly resemble each other. WOULD YOU OPT FOR A VEGAN ALTERNATIVE IN FUTURE? For me, definitely not. But Unity said yes, as it is easier to handle due to its lack of crumbliness. A divisive result. WHAT DID A VEGAN THINK? Annabel says: 'It has a very m ild flavour and would be good in a salad. I liked it but it was a bit boring.' RATING: 1/5 (but Unity gave it a 3/5) Advertisement

SOFT CHEESE (ORIGINAL)

The lighter dairy soft cheese (right) looks and tastes almost identical to the vegan alternative (right), made from coconut oil

The only difference between the 2.25 vegan alternative and Sainsbury's 1.20 lighter soft cheese is that the dairy-free version is slightly duller in colour, with an almost pink tinge.

Otherwise, they spread the same and they look the same. It's uncanny.

The dairy cheese is thick, mild and creamy, as is the vegan version.

The only slight difference between the two is that the dairy-free has a hint of a tang. Otherwise they taste almost identical.

VERDICT Sainsbury's lighter soft cheese (left) looked and tasted almost identical to the vegan alternative (right) COULD YOU TELL? Only a slight difference in colour between the two, but if it was on the plate and I didn't know, I don't think I'd be able to tell. WOULD YOU OPT FOR THE VEGAN ALTERNATIVE IN FUTURE? Yes, this one tastes no different to a dairy cream cheese and I liked the tang. WHAT DID A VEGAN THINK? Annabel says: 'Could have fooled even me!' RATING: 5/5 Advertisement

SOFT CHEESE (GARLIC AND HERB)

The Deliciously FreeFrom Garlic&Herb vegan alternative (right) looks and taste almost exactly the same as the dairy version (left)

Again, the only difference between the two is that the vegan alternative is slightly discoloured.

Otherwise, it's almost impossible to tell the dairy-free from the dairy.

The normal cheese is very creamy, and has a pungent garlic taste, uplifted by the dried herbs.

The vegan alternative tastes almost exactly the same - except it tastes lighter on the tongue, and even creamier.

For the first time, I actually prefer this cheese to the dairy equivalent.

The only downside is that the dairy is 1.05 cheaper than the vegan version - but it may be worth spending a few extra pennies on.

VERDICT Imogen would buy the vegan version (bottom) over Sainsbury's lighter garlic and herb (top) as it tastes lighter and is creamier COULD YOU TELL? Again, only a small difference in colour, but I wouldn't be able to tell the two apart without labels. WOULD YOU OPT FOR THE VEGAN ALTERNATIVE IN FUTURE? Yes, the vegan version actually tastes lighter and creamier than the dairy equivalent. WHAT DID A VEGAN THINK? Annabel says: 'I loved this one.' RATING: 5/5 Advertisement

CHEDDAR-STYLE WITH CARAMELISED ONIONS

Sainsbury's Cheddar-Style with Caramelised Onions (pictured) went down a treat with food writer Imogen

In the packet, the block of 'cheddar-style' vegan cheese looks remarkably similar to a normal chunk of the English cheese.

But looking a little closer, it's much smoother - almost like plastic.

Sainsbury's didn't send us a dairy version to try this against as the nearest equivalent it sells is the 1.50 Cheddar with Silverskin Onion and Herb, but I am well versed in caramelised onion cheddars as these are one of my preferred options on a cheeseboard.

The consistency is closer than that of a normal Cheddar, and in the mouth, tastes much creamier.

The cheese turns to almost a soft cheese consistency while chewing the oatcake underneath.

But the flavour is lovely, tasting exactly like sweet onions that you might get on top of a burger or hot dog.

VERDICT Sainsbury's Deliciously FreeFrom Cheddar-Style with Caramelised Onion was more rubbery and looked like plastic compared to normal cheddar COULD YOU TELL? From the texture and consistency, you can tell this isn't a normal Cheddar cheese. But close your eyes and the taste is exactly the same. WOULD YOU OPT FOR THE VEGAN ALTERNATIVE IN FUTURE? You just can't beat the original. But if you're a vegan, this is a good substitute. WHAT DID A VEGAN THINK? Annabel says: 'I loved this one, it's creamy and full of onion flavour. A big thumbs up from me.' RATING: 4/5 Advertisement

OVERALL VERDICT

I was really impressed with the range. Aside from the 'feta', which I wouldn't touch with a bargepole, I could happily eat any of these instead of the dairy equivalents.

Though I would always stick with real Cheddar and Wensleydale, the vegan soft cheeses actually tasted better than their dairy equivalent.

Resident vegan Annabel also loved the range.

Resident vegan Annabel was very impressed with the range

She said: 'I was really, really impressed.

'Vegan cheese is an acquired taste for sure, you have to stop comparing it to real cheese and make a new category for it, but Im used to it now.

'I love the nut-based ones, and these Sainsbury's ones are great too in a similar way.
With many things in life, quality is more important than quantity. And it seems that sex is no exception.

Research shows that women have fewer nights of passion as they get older  but they often enjoy them more.

This may be partly due to them being more adventurous, an American medical conference heard.

Women have fewer nights of passion as they get older  but they often enjoy them more, partly due to them being more adventurous, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh found

The confidence that comes with age, better communication skills and the realisation that intimacy and affection is as important as sexual fireworks are all also likely play a role.

The theories come from University of Pittsburgh researchers who spoke in depth to 39 women about how their sex lives changed with age.

The women were aged between 46 and 59  putting them around the age of the menopause.

The volunteers suffered loss of libido and other changes related to hormonal fluctuations of the menopause.

However, many blamed their low sex drive on stressful jobs or family life or on a rocky relationship.

And several of the women said their libido was much higher than that of their spouse, the North American Menopause Society's annual conference in Orlando heard.

But some women also said their love lives had got better  with some saying that they enjoyed sex more, despite having it less often.

The theories come from University of Pittsburgh researchers who spoke in depth to 39 women about how their sex lives changed with age (file picture, posed by model)

These women said they were more confident now than when younger.

They were also better able to communicate their needs to their partner and willing to broach delicate subjects such as the use of Viagra.

Some had adapted their lovemaking to compensate for age and menopause-related body changes.

Adjustments included spending more time on foreplay, trying new sexual positions and putting more emphasis on intimacy than passion.

Holly Thomas, the study's lead author, said: 'One of the most enlightening findings of this study was the large number of women who had successfully adapted to any negative changes by modifying their expectations regarding sexual activity, putting more emphasis on the emotional and intimacy aspects of sex, or adapting the sex acts themselves..'

Denise Knowles, a sex therapist with Relate, said that as we get older, we have more time to relax, leading to sex being something to enjoy, rather than simply schedule.

She added: 'And maybe we are more confident and have more of a 'what the heck attitude'.'

Dr Pam Spurr, a relationship expert and agony aunt, said: 'There is a lot of good news in this recent study highlighting how, with age, women gain more wisdom about their sexual responsiveness and pleasure.

'Such self-knowledge helps them rekindle the spark that might've been lost.'

The findings echo those of a British study which found that women enjoy sex more as they get older.

The University of Manchester researchers said that in some cases sex may indeed have become more satisfying with age.
An anorexic teenager who's body has started to shut down as a result of her eating disorder has been given a bed at a specialist clinic to keep her alive.

Adele Clay, 25, from Stockport, was taken to hospital after her heart rate dropped to a dangerous level as a result of hypothermia.

She has suffered from eating disorders since she was 12 - binge eating on food all day and forcing herself to throw up.

Her mother, Yvonne, 47, claims her condition became so bad that numerous hospitals turned her down for being 'too unwell', the Manchester Evening News reports.

But after issuing a desperate plea to save her daughter's life, Miss Clay was finally offered help in London.

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Adele Clay, 25, from Stockport, was taken to hospital after her heart rate dropped to a dangerous level from hypothermia. Her mother, Yvonne, 47, made an emotional plea for her to be given help after she claims she was refused treatment for being 'too unwell'

Mrs Clay: 'We keep asking for help but no one is giving it.

'The consultants told us she wasnt unwell enough, and now they say shes too unwell.

'We are begging for help now. We know its her last hope, her last resort, she can feel her body shutting down and its terrifying.

'We dont want to lose her and we are keeping the faith but its like living on eggshells.

Her hypothermia occurred because she has lost a huge amount of fat cells - the body's natural insulation method

'Every time we hear something drop upstairs Rick is straight up there checking in case shes collapsed.

'We are waiting and watching her all the time and its killing us.'

The family claim they were initially told clinics wouldn't admit her unless she was sectioned.

However, because she is willing to go in on her own merit she isn't allowed.

Her eating disorders began at school, often forcing herself to starve or over-eat to make herself sick.

Miss Clay, who believes she was born with an eating disorder, often escaped from sessions at specialists clinics and hospitals.

She was sent to another centre in London for 12 months - which appeared to be helping her.

But unfortunately she relapsed multiple times in the last three years and reached her lowest point ever.

Her eating disorders began when she was just 12 years old at school, often forcing herself to starve or over-eat and make herself sick (pictured as a teenager)

But as a result of the heartbreaking cry for help, Miss Clay has been offered a bed at a specialist clinic in London. In the video, her mother said: 'We are begging for help now. We know its her last hope, her last resort, she can feel her body shutting down and its terrifying'

Up until just two weeks ago, she would often force herself to throw up her food after binge eating all day.

It became so bad that she couldn't repeat the same process every day because her body was so weak.

Her drastic weight loss has caused her to lose a huge amount of fat cells - the body's natural insulation.

Therapists have assessed her multiple times but seem to have no idea what sparked the problem.

The family hoped she would be treated at a specialist unit at Cheadle Royal Hospital, run by The Priory Group, but her mother claims she had been refused treatment there.

A Priory spokesman said: 'While Priory cannot comment on individual cases, it always works closely with the NHS, wherever possible, to ensure that patients receive the most appropriate, specialist care for them, when and where Priory hospitals can provide it.'

Dr Michael Gregory, Clinical Director, Specialised Commissioning NHS England North, said: 'NHS Englands North West specialised mental health team is working with the family and the local Clinical Commissioning Group to ensure Adele gets the care she needs.'
A 12-year-old almost died after a birthmark on her brain popped 'like a balloon'.

Rachel Cunningham spent 23 days in a medically-induced coma after collapsing at school having complained of a headache.

She is now battling to walk and talk again following the catastrophic bleed on her brain.

Her parents explained how she was walking between classes at school when she suddenly vomited, collapsed and stopped breathing.

School friends alerted teachers, who called 999 and she was rushed to Lewisham hospital Accident and Emergency.

There, she was given an emergency CT scan, revealing the massive brain haemorrhage.

Rachel Cunningham, 12, uffered a massive brain haemorrhage and needed emergency surgery at King's College Hospital in London to remove the clot. She spent 23 days in a coma

Her mother Deborah Cunningham, 33, was told Rachel needed emergency surgery to remove the clot.

She phoned Rachel's father and her ex-partner Shane Rainey, 38, at his home in Dromore, County Down, telling him she was in a critical condition and he should come to London.

The warehouse worker caught the first available flight, so he could be with Rachel when she came out of surgery.

He said: 'It was touch and go at that stage. It's so hard to explain how I felt. It was all so surreal.

'The flight over was horrendous, because I just had to sit there. There was nothing I could do.

'Her mum was phoning me and every time, I thought it could be bad news. I was in so much shock.'

When Rachel finally woke up, she wasn't able to move at all but is now on a three-month intensive therapy programme

The fit and healthy 12-year-old was walking between classes at Sedgehill Secondary School when she suddenly vomited and collapsed

Doctors said Rachel had a birthmark on her brain which had burst and damaged an artery, filling her head with blood and putting pressure on her brain.

WHAT CAN TRIGGER A BRAIN HAEMORRHAGE? A subarachnoid haemorrhage is an uncommon type of stroke caused by bleeding on the surface of the brain. It's a very serious condition and can be fatal. There are usually no warning signs but a subarachnoid haemorrhage sometimes happens during physical effort or straining  such as coughing, going to the toilet, lifting something heavy or having sex. The main symptoms of a subarachnoid haemorrhage include: a sudden agonising headache  which is often described as being similar to a sudden hit on the head, resulting in a blinding pain unlike anything experienced before

a stiff neck

feeling and being sick

sensitivity to light (photophobia)

blurred or double vision

stroke-like symptoms  such as slurred speech and weakness on one side of the body

loss of consciousness or convulsions It requires immediate emergency treatment at hospital. Source: NHS Choices Advertisement

'It was described to us as being like a balloon popping, which then ruptured two arteries,' said Mr Rainey.

'We didn't know she had this, there had been no obvious signs. She was a healthy, normal 12-year-old.'

After coming through the five hour surgery, she spent 23 days in a coma in intensive care in King's College Hospital.

Her parents sat by her beside and played voice messages from her friends, in a bid to get a response from their daughter.

'Her eyes would flicker open,' he said.

'Doctors said it was just a reflex but we thought it was more. As soon as we opened her eyes, we got her friends in.'

When Rachel finally woke up, she wasn't able to move at all, but within a few days, she had improved enough to be able to squeeze her dad's hand and wiggle her toes.

'From the day she woke up, she remembered everything,' he explained.

'A few weeks ago she remembered collapsing and vomiting before the injury and she can remember being in King's and not being able to move.

'She said she felt like a brick,' he said.

For four weeks, Rachel communicated by spelling out sentences using an alphabet board and squeezing her dad's hand for yes or wiggling her toes to say no.

Rachel, pictured at Halloween last year, was fit and healthy before the bleed on her brain

Rachel was unable to move at all when she came out of her coma but is now able to get around in a wheelchair

In April, she was moved from intensive care to the Lion rehabilitation ward at King's to start a three-month intensive therapy programme, where she had to begin the process of learning to walk again.

Her family are astonished with her progress in the last seven months and say it shows her determination and strong spirit.

The brave schoolgirl has learned how to stand and hopes to walk properly one day

'When I look back and see how far she's come now, it's amazing. At one stage, she couldn't even move her eyes.

'She has a lot of fight and she still has a great sense of humour. Through the therapy on the programme, she was able to move her right hand and move her legs.'

In July, Rachel was transferred to the Children's Trust rehabilitation centre in Tadworth, Surrey, for three more months of intensive treatment, including physiotherapy and hydrotherapy.

She still uses a wheelchair but can write and speak, although she has poor coordination and her speech is slow.

Every day she is making progress - recently learning how to crawl.

She can also stand, using a walking frame for short periods of time.

'We're so proud of her,' Mr Rainey said.

'She's pushing the boundaries herself and is taking risks to get better.'

Her therapy is due to end in October and her parents are trying to fundraise through a GoFundMe page, to allow her to get more specialist treatment, so she can walk again.

When she is discharged to her home in Catford, her daily therapy will be reduced to once a week and her parents want to find private treatments to help her recovery.

'We hoped that by the time she had left here she would be walking, but we believe she will walk at some stage.
BIOGRAPHY

ROSE HILTON

by Ian Collins

(Lund Humphries 35)

Rose Hilton is an artist whose work is bright with strength and joy. The joy comes from the strength, as this book shows. But it has not been an easy journey.

For 16 years, Rose was married to the artist Roger Hilton. He was 20 years older than her and, despite the fact she was a budding artist in her own right, she subsumed herself to his genius.

They got together when she was a promising young painter in her 20s and he was already a famous artist. Once he had been to bed with her, he said threateningly: Im the painter in this set-up.

For 16 years, Rose was married to the artist Roger Hilton (both pictured). He was 20 years older than her and, despite the fact she was a budding artist in her own right, she subsumed herself to his genius

His highly original avant-garde paintings are now rightly seen as among the most robust and innovative productions of British art of the Sixties, but it was art that came into the world at a price.

He is described here as the bad boy of British art (plenty of rivals for the title must exist!). As winner of the prestigious John Moores prize in Liverpool, he was asked by photographers at the presentation to show more passionate pleasure. So he took a kick at his own canvas.

Once settled down in Cornwall, he became the pub bore every landlord dreads. Outings with the poet W. S. Graham would often end with one shouting: Youre the worst painter who ever lived! and the other: Youre a rotten poet!

Roses marriage to him saw stormy seas. I loved Roger so much I would have followed him anywhere, she said, adding ominously, Cornwall was a good place to be shipwrecked in.

89m Record price for a painting by a British artist (Francis Bacon) Advertisement

As life progressed, alcohol began to dominate him. Rose, Roger and their two sons moved to a small cottage up a rutted track near Zennor - a place called Botallack Moor, a bleak landscape pitted with deserted tin mines, rocks, and the magnificent but cruel outlines of the coast, where Roger made many unsuccessful attempts to cure himself of alcoholism.

There were inevitable visits to clinics, such as The Priory, but it killed him in the end, and must have had the most devastating effect on his young wife.

She loyally liked to claim he was not a hopeless drunk, rather a functioning alcoholic, but for the final four years of his life he was more or less bedridden.

For the last Christmas of his life, Rose escaped to Florida. Come back at once, Im dying, he wired her. Not yet, Im living, she wired back.

As this celebratory book shows, Roses life has been one that would have made most of us howl.

Many women would have been eaten up with resentment that Roger could not endure the idea of a rival painter in his marriage, so that Roses great and very different talents were put on hold for the duration of her life with him.

He died when she was 44, but it took a decade for her to recover and to find her true style.

She was born into a huge family in Kent  the fourth child in a family of eight. Bob and Louie Phipps, her parents, remained devoted to one another until deep old age (they lived to 99 and 93).

They belonged to the Plymouth Brethren and yearned to be missionaries, but had to content themselves with running a bakery.

They did so in the village of Downe, somehow managing to avoid contamination by the ideas of Downes most famous Victorian resident, Charles Darwin, who died nearly 50 years before Roses birth in 1931.

ROSE HILTON by Ian Collins

In Downe, the Phippses defected to the Baptists, and although Rose would leave behind much of her childhood faith, she retains a love of hymns and of singing which, I think, somehow translates itself into the joyousness of her painting.

Rosemary, as she was then called, showed an early talent for drawing and painting.

She eventually arrived at the Royal College of Art - presided over, as it happens, by Robin Darwin, the great Victorians grandson. The Royal College was Roses launch pad. In spite of contracting tuberculosis, which interrupted her studies, she was a star pupil and won prizes - including the coveted Abbey Scholarship, which took her to Rome in 1958.

Because of her devotion to her husband, Rose held back her artistic instincts. Once after shed done an oil painting, he came home and said: I can tell youve been at it. I can smell the turps.

Sometimes, a deliberate act of renunciation strengthens an artists inner life and mysteriously hones their talent. The Jesuits forbade Gerard Manley Hopkins to write for some years, and when they allowed him to start again, it was extraordinary - the most innovative poetry of the 19th century.

Rose Hiltons work really began only after she was 60. It celebrates joy - the female body, light on the sea, subtly lit interiors.

As this book shows, she has a deep gift of happiness, and of love.

As well as being a devoted wife, shes had a string of loyal friends and admirers - something which makes her remote house, to this day, a place of merriment, for all the sorrows it has seen.
AND ON THAT BOMBSHELL by Richard Porter

AND ON THAT BOMBSHELL

by Richard Porter

(Orion 7.99)

Once upon a time, Top Gear was a sensible, magazine-style show in which fuel economy was assessed and classic traction engines were driven and almost nothing caught on fire.

Hard to imagine  and even harder to believe that the riot of anarchic, middle-aged male silliness that Top Gear became in the hands of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May was first presented by the improbably cosy pairing of Angela Rippon and Noel Edmonds.

As a child in the Eighties, Richard Porter was obsessed with Top Gear. He joined the show as a researcher and eventually served as its script editor for 13 years.

He is, in short, a repository of Top Gear mythology, and his ferociously funny memoir is essential reading for anyone still mourning the shows glory years.

From the genesis of the Stig to the high (and low) points of Star In A Reasonably Priced Car, this is petrol-head nostalgia of the highest octane.

JOY RIDE by John Lahr

JOY RIDE

by John Lahr

(Bloomsbury 12.99)

John Lahrs father was Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion in the 1939 film of The Wizard Of Oz.

An early photograph shows the young John in his fathers dressing-room as Bert, wearing a furry lion suit, applies his make-up.

He has been star-struck ever since. Lahr was the New Yorkers senior drama critic for 20 years, and in the introduction to this collection of his writings on playwrights, directors and productions, he complains testily that theatre criticism is on the decline, hijacked by an obsession with lifestyle and celebrity.

More winningly, he writes of theatre as a joy ride, and his profiles of such figures as David Mamet (who pointedly gave Lahr a knife as a gift) and a mortally ill Harold Pinter (an actor in the habit of watching himself go by) are luminous with insight and love for every aspect of the act of dramatic creation.

A WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME by Jeremy Gavron

A WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME

by Jeremy Gavron

(Scribe 8.99)

On the afternoon of Tuesday, December 14, 1965, Hannah Gavron dropped her younger son at nursery school and drove to a friends flat in Primrose Hill.

There she wrote a brief note and turned on the gas oven.

The coroner concluded that Mrs Gavron had taken her own life, but was unable to explain why an academically brilliant, happily employed young woman with a young family should take such a tragic step.

The son Hannah took to school that winters day was Jeremy.

He was four years old and until he was 16 he believed that his mother had died of a heart attack.

Even when he learned the truth, he could summon almost no memories of Hannah. It was not until his own brush with mortality 30 years later that he decided to write about her life.
THE MYSTERY OF THE THREE ORCHIDS by Augusto De Angelis

THE MYSTERY OF THE THREE ORCHIDS

by Augusto De Angelis

(Pushkin Vertigo 7.99)

Classic crime is spreading its net. The latest catch is a golden-age mystery writer who, up to now, has been little known outside his native Italy.

Setting his novels against a background of pre-war Milan, Augusto De Angelis works the familiar theme of hunt the murderer, but with a flourish that sets him apart from the traditional British low-key detection.

In The Mystery Of The Three Orchids, the unveiling of a new collection from a leading fashion house is pitched into disarray when a body is found.

That the victim, the young assistant of the owner, has been dumped on her bed adds to the general hysteria that frustrates the redoubtable Inspector De Vincenzi.

What is the significance of a single orchid at the scene of the crime, a motif recurring at two more murders?

And how does a link to Chicago gangsters fit into the picture?

A stylish policeman with a lively intelligence, De Vincenzi earns his place in the detectives hall of fame.

PUSHING UP DAISIES by M. C. Beaton

PUSHING UP DAISIES

by M. C. Beaton

(Constable 14.99)

A Beaton novel is like The Archers on speed. Along with the everyday story of country gossip, backbiting and petty rivalries, a murder or three is stirred into the cauldron to occupy the talents of feisty private detective Agatha Raisin.

The first victim is a landowner who upset the locals with plans to build on their allotments. Hot on the case, Agatha is also hot in her pursuit of unsuitable lovers.

But fired up by a liberal supply of junk food and gin, this bundle of vivacity takes it all in her stride.

After a second contestant in the unpopularity stakes is found buried in a vegetable patch, the plot accelerates as the irrepressible Agatha tramples on the snobbery and pomposity of county society.

Never one to pass on the outrageous or ridiculous, M. C. Beaton is the unrivalled farceur of crime.

IN AT THE DEATH by Francis Duncan

IN AT THE DEATH

by Francis Duncan

(Vintage 8.99)

Crime fiction is spattered with unlikely amateur sleuths, but none odder than Mordecai Tremaine. A gentle romanticist and, of all things, a retired tobacconist, Tremaine devotes his autumn years to helping Scotland Yard.

In At The Death takes him to the industrial north, where the challenge is to identify the killer of a society doctor who doubled as a controversial local politician.

As in all good mysteries, there is a plethora of suspects with secrets they would rather not share.

But the indefatigable little pensioner with his pince-nez slipping off his nose, strips away the veneer of deception that protects the guilty.

Old hands at this game will have no trouble in awarding the black spot. But the story and characters are strong enough to hold our interest.
The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has issued notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) demanding an independent inquiry into the alleged suicide case of bureaucrat BK Bansal and his family who accused the central agency of harassment in their suicide notes.

The womens panel chief Swati Maliwal has also sought an action taken report for the matter.

DCW chief Maliwal said a notice had been issued to CBI director Anil Kumar Sinha asking him to conduct and unbiased inquiry into the matter.

The DCW has issued notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation demanding an independent inquiry into the alleged suicide case of bureaucrat BK Bansal and his family

Maliwal has also threatened legal action against the CBI if it fails to furnish the details of the case within 48 hours.

The DCW notice reads: Prima facie, this appears to be a shocking instance of alleged victimization and abetment of suicide of the family of an accused.

"The Delhi Commission for Women is deeply concerned, and has taken up the case of the alleged torture and suicide of the wife and daughter of Mr. Bansal.

The home of former Director General Corporate Affairs B K Bansal, who committed suicide along with his son in New Delhi

According to DCW officials, the womens panel has also sought transparency due to the involvement of the senior officials in the case.

Since the accused officers in the case are high-ranking officers of the CBI and the name of a senior politician is also being alleged, the DCW has demanded the list of steps which have been undertaken by the CBI to ensure transparency and independence of probe into the allegations of Bansal, said a senior DCW official.

The official added that the womens panel sought details of whether an FIR for abetment of suicide has been filed against those named in the suicide note.

We have also asked the CBI of the possibility of conducting narco tests on all those named in the suicide note, the official added.

Yogesh Bansal allegedly committed suicide with his father, after his mother's suicide

The notice comes two days after Bansal along with his son Yogesh committed suicide at their East Delhi residence on Tuesday.

Bansal was a former Director General (DG) in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and was being probed by CBI in a graft case.

According to senior NHRC officer, the panel has also taken a serious view of the alleged illegalities and human rights violation by the CBI.

DCW observed that the police is supposed to investigate the offences as per law by investigating human rights cases amicably.

They cannot be allowed to resort to physical assault, mental and physical torture of an alleged offender or his family members. It is supposed to be a protector and defender of human rights.

Corporate affairs director general BK Bansal, whose wife and daughter committed suicide, was arrested by the CBI last weekend

"Therefore, it fully endorses the reported statement made by BK Bansal in the suicide note to the effect that even if he was at fault in the case, why were his wife and daughter pushed to suicide? NHRC said in a statement.

In a detailed suicide note which Bansal left behind, he had named senior DIG officer Sanjeev Gautam, along with two female officers and another officer, who, he alleged, had played a pivotal role in torturing his family.

It also alleged that Gautam also dropped the name of a top BJP leader to intimidate him during questioning.

Bansal's wife Satyabala and daughter Neha had also committed suicide on July 19 soon after Bansals arrest.

In his suicide note, Bansal wrote, "On July 18 and 19, 2016 two CBI female officers, named Amrita Kaur and Rekha Sangwan, slapped my wife, scratched her and then abused her.

"DIG Gautam later asked one of the lady officers to torture my wife and daughter to an extent that both of them were just left to die."
Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a statement: 'Our intent for a peaceful neighborhood should not be mistaken as our weakness'

comes as a response to the killing of 18 Indian soldiers in Uri by alleged Pakistan-backed militants

The Indian Army's elite commandos crossed the Line of Control and hit militant launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir with surgical strikes, killing 38 jihadis and two of their handlers.

The move comes as an unprecedented retributive response to this months deadly attack on the Uri military base.

This is the first time India has publicly acknowledged such an attack in an indication of the Narendra Modi governments muscular approach to dealing with terrorism and threats to its security.

The Indian Army's elite commandos crossed the Line of Control and hit militant launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir with surgical strikes, killing 38 jihadis and two of their handlers

The daring raid triggered a nationwide alert for retaliatory strikes by Pakistan even though the neighbouring country denied that Indian troops crossed the LoC, instead claiming that that just two of its soldiers were killed in intensive cross-border firing.

Analysts see the move as a massive departure from Indias previous policy of strategic restraint.

The dramatic strikes turned out to be a carefully planned and well-executed operation in which maximum damage was inflicted in a covert offensive action that lasted just four hours.

It started shortly after midnight and was over by 4am, before the break of dawn.

The retaliatory response came around 10 days after 18 Indian Army soldiers were killed in a pre-dawn raid by Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists carrying incendiary ammunition in Kashmirs Uri town on September 18.

Sources said Pakistan were slow to respond before eventually launching a counter-offensive by opening heavy mortar and artillery fire which continued till 7am.

By that time, Indian army commandos had accomplished their task and returned safely.

Around 25 commandos split in small groups were flown close to LoC in armys Dhruv helicopters and they sneaked across the fence to strike at the terrorists waiting to enter Jammu and Kashmir

The LoC was crossed at seven locations in four sectors in PoK - Bhimber, Kel, Tatta Pani (Hotspring) and Leepa.

Around 25 commandos split in small groups were flown close to LoC in armys Dhruv helicopters and they sneaked across the fence to strike at the terrorists waiting to enter Jammu and Kashmir.

Armed with M4 assault rifles, grenades, smoke bombs, Under-Barrel Grenade Launchers (UBGLs), night-vision devices and helmet cameras, the Indian commandos struck the targets with precision, highly placed military officials said.

The attack, which took place around three kilometers inside PoK, caught the jihadis by surprise.

Indian Border Security Force (BSF) personnel stand guard at the India-Pakistan Wagah Border, about 35 km from Amritsar after the Punjab state government issued a warning to villagers to evacuate from a 10 km radius from the India-Pakistan border Narinder Nanu (AFP)

Sources said the entire operation was recorded on camera. The footage will be made available later, said officials.

The armys response came days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a speech that many saw as a call for restraint even as the government went ahead with diplomatic means to isolate Pakistan.

Military intelligence officials had been keeping a sharp eye on the terror launch pads and militant movements across the LoC for almost a week, sources said.

A flurry of activity followed the strike, which was made public in the afternoon at an unprecedented briefing addressed by the Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Ranbir Singh.

India's 'surgical strikes' killed 38 jihadis and two of their handlers

Based on receiving specific and credible inputs that some terrorist teams had positioned themselves at launch pads along the LoC to carry out infiltration and conduct terrorist strikes inside Jammu and Kashmir and in various metros in other states, the Indian army conducted surgical strikes at several of these launch pads to pre-empt infiltration by terrorists, he said,

Singh said he had also spoken to his Pakistani counterpart and expressed concern over the infiltration attempt.

The announcement was made after Prime Minister Modi chaired a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) where the DGMO gave a detailed presentation of the operation.

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar, national security adviser Ajit Doval and army chief Dalbir Singh monitored the whole operation in a 'war room' in South Block.

The PM was kept up to date on all developments.

Modi's War Room: Defence minister Manohar Parrikar, national security adviser Ajit Doval and army chief Dalbir Singh monitored the whole operation in a 'war room' in South Block

A nationwide alert was sounded as the government anticipated retaliation by Pakistani forces.

The border areas were vacated and the air force and navy were put on standby.

Even during the 1999 Kargil war India didn't cross the LoC. However, this time the government gave a clear mandate to the army to go across the border and attack.

The Indian Army maintained that the targets of the strikes were terrorists and asked the Pakistan army to cooperate.

The Pakistan foreign office summoned Indian high commissioner in Islamabad Gautam Bambawale and registered a protest against cross-border firing killing two Pakistani soldiers.

Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a statement: Our intent for a peaceful neighborhood should not be mistaken as our weakness.

Our valiant forces are fully capable of defending the territorial integrity of the country.

Indias bold move has given new dimension to the tactical operations.
Pakistan was in full denial as to the extent of the so-called 'surgical attacks' carried out by the Indian Army.

Radio Pakistan reported that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif claimed that the countrys armed forces are fully capable of defending the territorial integrity of the country.

Sharif also warned that Pakistans intent for a peaceful neighbourhood should not be mistaken as its weakness.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has strongly condemned the unprovoked aggression of the Indian forces along the LoC

He said Pakistan can thwart any evil design to undermine its sovereignty. He strongly condemned the unprovoked aggression of the Indian forces along the Line of Control.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan military said two of its soldiers were killed in a ceasefire violation by India along the LoC.

Sharif paid rich tributes to the soldiers who have been reportedly killed in the firing.

Prime Minister Sharif reviewed Pakistan's defence preparedness, holding talks with Army chief Raheel Sharif and other top aides.

During better times: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif

Sharif and Raheel had a telephone conversation during which they discussed situation at the Line of Control, local media reported.

Raheel apprised Sharif over the incidents at the LoC, the reports said, adding that the Army chief told him that Indian claims of surgical strikes were baseless.

Sharif told the Army chief that the entire nation was good morale and was committed to defend the motherland alongside the armed forces.

Tense situation: Indian army soldiers keep guard on top of a shop along a highway on the outskirts of Srinagar

Sharif has convened a cabinet meeting on Friday, his office said in a statement.

At the top of the cabinet's agenda will be the discussion on present Kashmir situation, UNGA visit and bilateral meetings of the PM in New York.

Foreign secretary (Aizaz Chaudhry) will brief the cabinet before the discussion, the statement said. Sharif was also briefed on the LoC situation by National Security Adviser (NSA) General Nasir Janjua after Indian Army carried out surgical strikes against terror bases across the LoC.

The NSA submitted a comprehensive report on the LoC situation to Sharif, the Prime Ministers Office said. It added the prime minister was briefed regularly on the situation on the LoC by the security institutions.

Kashmir unrest AFP (AFP)

While denying the Indian Army action, Pakistan on Thursday said that Indian troops had responded to cross-border fire from the Indian side that killed two soldiers and injured nine more.

There has been no surgical strike by India, instead there had been cross-border fire initiated and conducted by India which is an existential phenomenon, Pakistan Army said in a statement.

As per rules of engagement, it was strongly responded to by the Pakistani troops.

The notion of surgical strike linked to alleged terrorists bases is an illusion being deliberately generated by India to create false effects.

"This quest by the Indian establishment to create media hype by re-branding cross-border fire as surgical strike is fabrication of truth, it said.

'Dialogue is the only solution': Pakistani activists from NGOs carry placards as they shout slogans during a peace rally in Lahore

Pakistan has made it clear that if there is a surgical strike on Pakistani soil, it will be strongly responded to, the statement said.

Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said Indias claim was not true.

India violated LoC and only used light weapons in the firing, he said, adding that Pakistan forces gave befitting reply to Indian firing.

Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has also rejected Indias claim of surgical strikes. Pakistan is ready to respond to any such strikes, PAF said in a statement.

Earlier Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif strongly condemned the aggression by India along the LoC.
The BJP has launched the Progressive Panchayat in Haryanas Mewat district as a measure to counter the negative perceptions over the beef biryani controversy that erupted here besides flagging the law-and-order issues.

The panchayat was launched by Union minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi - the prominent minority face of the party.

The event was held at Bichore village under Punhana tehsil.

The BJP has launched the Progressive Panchayat in Haryanas Mewat district as a measure to counter the negative perceptions over the beef biryani controversy that erupted

Naqvi was accompanied by his Cabinet colleague Rao Inderjeet Singh, besides state Public Works Department minister Rao Narbir Singh.

According to Naqvi, the panchayat had nothing to do with the vote-bank politics, rather to promote the development agenda of the Narendra Modi government.

BJP will host 100 such panchayats across the country to spread awareness on the development agenda.

I was informed by my Cabinet colleague that a large number of antinational elements had taken shelter here.

"Today is such a day (in the context of surgical strike in PoK) when we have to fight together at home to defeat these forces.

"Our PM is working round the clock and is capable of protecting national integrity and sovereignty, Naqvi said.

Mewat is one of the most backward districts of Haryana which hit the headlines for wrong reasons - controversy over beef biryani and gang rape of women.

According to Naqvi, the panchayat had nothing to do with the vote-bank politics, rather to promote the development agenda of the Narendra Modi government

When asked about the beef biryani controversy, Naqvi said:

The controversial beef issue can be termed as unfortunate. He also added that the Modi governments agenda is only development.

Panchayat Gram Panchayat is the grass-roots level statutory institution of rural self-government in India. The state government establishes a Panchayet in the name of a particular village. Members are elected by public votes. Panchayat means means "assembly" Advertisement

"In Bichore village, theres scarcity of water supply and people have to walk at least two kilometres to reach a hand pump.

Our living standards have not changed despite change in governments. We get electricity for just about three hours every day.

"We walk kilometres to fetch water needed for cooking and washing clothes, said 41-year-old Sabina Khatoon.

Rao Inderjeet Singh blamed previous Congress government for the problems which the people in this minority-dominated district are facing.

Drinking water is a problem here and we have proposed the development of Kotla lake. We want the planning board to acquire land for this purpose and develop the lake, he said.

We would like to connect Mewat with Rajasthans Alwar district using the vast rail network.
The surgical strikes on terrorist bases along the LoC brought about a sigh of relief for the NDA government, which was under pressure to punish the perpetrators of Uri attack.

However, questions remain as to why it took 11 days to examine Narendra Modis idea of strategic restraint.

Unlike its predecessors, the Modi government has given tactical and operational autonomy to the armed forces.

The 'surgical strikes' on terrorist bases along the LoC brought about a sigh of relief for the NDA government. However, questions remain as to why it took 11 days

This resulted in the Indian Army crossing the LoC and inflicting significant casualties on the terrorists and those who are trying to support them.

The Modi governments initial response to terrorist attack on Uri Army base was measured despite Pakistani provocations, including an earlier strike at the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot, in January.

There were signs that India was losing patience and there seemed to be a push for retaliation in order to avoid a domestic backlash.

Modi was reviewing the governments options and in his first public reaction in Kozhikode last week, he made a case for strategic restraint.

The Modi governments initial response to terrorist attack on Uri Army base was measured despite Pakistani provocations (pictured - Modi and Sharif)

The challenge

Modi laid down a challenge to ordinary Pakistanis, asking them if they could find solutions to development issues faster than India could: I want to tell the people of Pakistan, India is ready to fight you.

"If you have the strength, come forward to fight against poverty. Let's see who wins. Let's see who is able to defeat poverty and illiteracy first, Pakistan or India, he said.

His speech, which drew a stark contrast between an India which exports software and a Pakistan which exports terror, befuddled his critics and his supporters alike but there is a strategic logic to Modis arguments.

There is a sense at the highest echelons of government in New Delhi that Modis overtures towards Pakistani civilian government have not been reciprocated.

He had invited Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to his governments swearing- in ceremony, hoping to start a new chapter in Indo-Pak ties.

But since then there have been more downs than ups. The Modi government had recognised from the beginning that a quest for durable peace with Pakistan is a non-starter.

All that matters is the management of a neighbour that is often viewed as a nuisance by Delhi.

For India, the real challenge is China which has pledged $46 billion worth of investment in Pakistan and made Islamabad a proxy in its struggle for supremacy vis-a-vis New Delhi.

Indian soldiers are seen at their positions following at attack by militants at the Pindi Khattar belt of the Arnia border sector, some 45 kms from Jammu district

Modi as a pragmatist also recognises that his agenda of enhancing regional cooperation in South Asia will remain unfulfilled without a thaw in India-Pakistan tensions.

At a time when interconnectivity is the norm across the world, two neighbours cannot remain forever locked in a spiral of perpetual hostility and violence.

But Modi's decision to engage with Pakistan was seen by some as another instance of Delhi's "on again, off again" inconsistent approach towards Pakistan.

Sections within his own party were against overtures to Pakistan. And then the Pakistani military also decided to reassert its supremacy on India policy by provoking Indian military on the border and by a series of terror attacks in India, the latest of which happened on Sunday.

It also decided to ratchet-up the pressure on Kashmir by provoking the local populace against India so as to internationalise the Kashmir issue during the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly.

The civilian government of Nawaz Sharif, weakened by corruption charges against its leader, had no option but to give in to the militarys aggression.

Sharif, howsoever well-intentioned, failed to demonstrate that he could take on the all-powerful military over the issue of India.

Islamabad also went back to its earlier position now that there could not be any dialogue with India unless the issue of Kashmir was on the agenda.

Differences

Pakistan would like to change the status quo in Kashmir while India would like the very opposite.

Indian army personnel in action inside the Army Brigade camp during a terror attack in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir

India hopes that negotiations with Pakistan would ratify the existing territorial status quo in Kashmir.

These are irreconcilable differences and no confidence-building measure is likely to alter this situation.

India's premise has largely been that a peace process will persuade Pakistan to cease supporting and sending extremists into India.

Pakistan, in contrast, has viewed the process as a means to nudge India into making progress on Kashmir, which is essentially a euphemism for concessions.

Policies

The government wants to fundamentally reshape the underpinnings of India's Pakistan policy.

It started with a view that India should continue to talk - there is nothing to lose in having some level of diplomatic engagement - even as it decided to underline what it felt were the costs of Pakistan's escalatory tactics with targeted attacks on Pakistani forces along the border.

After years of ceding the initiative to Pakistan, the Modi government wanted to dictate the terms at the negotiating table.

But as the present outcry in India underscores, this is easier said than done when nuclear weapons are a strategic reality and where Pakistan relies on non-state proxies to wage its battle against India.

Like its predecessors, the Modi Government too recognised the limitations of overt military responses to target Pakistani provocations.

New Delhi is yet to find a way which adequately punishes Pakistan without crossing the nuclear threshold.

This is partly a result of Indias tardy defence modernisation programme and partly of its institutional dysfunctions.

But in the end, the government chose to launch a pincer attack: to work diplomatically towards ensuring Pakistans isolation and allow the army to speak in a language that befits a bunch of loony terrorists.
Dark days: Deutsche has endured a tough week after investors questioned its stability

Deutsche Bank shares staged a dramatic recovery today after reports emerged that it could only have to stump up $5.4billion (4.1billion), rather than $14billion (10.5billion), as part of a US Department of Justice settlement.

The German lender's shares had slipped to 9.98 at one point, their lowest level since the 1980s, but recovered and were last trading 7.5 per cent up at 11.70.

Deutsche's US shares were 13 per cent up at $12.96.

The morning collapse followed reports overnight that 10 hedge funds had reduced their exposure to the lender and have taken their business elsewhere.

The news spooked investors, who continued a dramatic sell-off until late in the day, when a fresh report by Agence France-Presse suggested that a $14billion (10.5billion) settlement proposal, linked to the sale of mortgage-backed securities during the financial crisis, may be reduced to $5.4billion.

Jasper Lawler, analyst at CMC markets, said: 'Deutsche Bank shares recovered all of the day's sharp losses on rumours the fine will be announced at the weekend as $5.4billion.

'Even at 5.4billion dollars, Deutsche Bank would likely to raise capital, though the size may make a rights issue more palatable and makes a government bailout much less likely.'

Prior to the rally, chief executive John Cryan was forced to write an open letter to staff, saying that the news about hedge funds has sparked 'unjustified concerns'.

'We should consider this in the context of the bigger picture: Deutsche Bank overall has more than 20 million clients.

'I understand if you feel concerned by the extensive coverage on this issue. Our bank has become subject to speculation. Ongoing rumours are causing significant swings in our stock price.

Reassurance: Boss John Cryan has emailed his staff, telling them the bank has become the object of 'hefty speculation' and that 'rumours' are causing the share price to fall

'It is our task now to prevent distorted perception from further interrupting our daily business. Trust is the foundation of banking. Some forces in the markets are currently trying to damage this trust.'

The rollercoaster rise was described by the chief executive of the Berlin stock exchange as investors 'playing with dynamite'.

Artur Fischer blamed a disconnect between perception and reality for the dramatic plunge in the bank's share value.

Asked on BBC Radio 4's World At One if the markets were playing with fire, Mr Fischer said: 'Definitely. You could say playing with dynamite.'

As share prices in the troubled bank continued to tumble, Mr Fischer said: 'The market bets that the German government will do a bailout even though there is no need for that at this point in time at all.
The rise of NatWest continues as owner RBS completes the ring-fencing of its retail banking operations.

The lender, which is still 73 per cent owned by the Government, must separate its investment banking operations from its High Street arm by 2019.

As a result NatWest will become the company's main brand in England, Wales and Western Europe, while it will use RBS in Scotland.

Reshape: Natwest,which is still 73 per cent owned by the Government, must separate its investment banking operations from its High Street arm by 2019

Its investment banking arm will be known as NatWest Markets.

Chief executive Ross McEwan said: 'Our proposed structure under the ring-fencing legislation and our brand strategy are key elements of the bank we are becoming.

The future ring-fenced structure of the bank is not only designed to be in compliance with the new regulatory requirements and objectives but will better reflect who we are and what we stand for: a bank that is focused on its customers.'

Earlier this week RBS revealed it is to pay 845million to a US regulator to settle two claims over mis-sold mortgage bonds in the run-up to the financial crisis.
Shares in ingredients business Treatt surged after investors were treated to a strong trading update.

The manufacturer and supplier of flavour and fragrance ingredients said it expects pre-tax profit for the year to September 30 to be comfortably above expectations.

Treatt said there had been encouraging signs of success in China and North America and in key beverage sectors.

Tasty: Treatt said it expects pre-tax profit for the year to September 30 to be comfortably above expectations

Treatt has also reached a final settlement in a dispute with the sellers of Earthoil Group, an essential oil business which it acquired back in 2007. There had been litigation concerning the earn-out of the business.

Treatt will pay 900,000 as a full and final settlement. The firm said the relocation of its UK site is progressing well, with discussions with landowners at an advanced stage.

It expects to provide a progress update in November. Shares soared 10.8 per cent, or 20.5p, to 210p.

Elsewhere in the food sector Norish revealed revenue had climbed almost a third to 15.6million.

The company, which provides storage, freezing, picking and order assembly services to food firms, said operating profit had risen to 490,000 in the first half, up from 380,000 a year ago.

STOCK WATCH - INDEPENDENT OIL AND GAS Independent Oil and Gas plunged on a disappointing update. The firm got back the initial results from its Skipper North Sea oil project and samples showed the oil at the site was heavier than anticipated. Independent said the findings were not in line with what it had observed so far and determining the commerciality of the site might take several months. One oil expert said: 'If it weren't virtually impossible, it would look like something may have happened to the sample.' Shares fell 39.1 per cent, or 10.75p, to 16.75p.

The business more than halved its net debt to 3.3million and has been investing in various divisions including to increase its blast freezing capacity at a site in Wrexham  Norish owns two of only three cold stores in the UK licensed for the export of pork to China.

Norish said investing in its cold storage assets should reduce costs and increase productivity. Shares advanced 3.4 per cent, or 1.5p, to 45.5p.

LoopUp fell down despite an encouraging first set of results since listing on the stock exchange in August.

The business, which operates a conference-call app for mobile phones and tablet computers, said revenue had climbed a third to 6.4million in the six months to June 30.

The operating loss of 212,000 in the first half of 2015 has been turned into a profit of 520,000 in the same period this year, the business said. Some 76 per cent of users who signed up in the first six months of 2016 have already used the service.

Chief executive Steve Flavell said profit in the second half of the year would be moderated by investment plans, but added that he is confident in meeting expectations. Panmure Gordon has a 'buy' rating on the stock with a target price of 150p.

Shares fell 0.4 per cent, or 0.5p, to 122.5p.

The outlook was worse for video broadcast service Vislink, which reported an operating loss of 32million in the first six months of the year, down from a loss of 800,000 12 months earlier.

Net debt grew from 1.2million to 8.8million over the period, and revenue slipped from 26.6million to 22.6million.

Vislink said there was a strong order pipeline for the second half of the year and the board has now initiated a business improvement plan. Shares plummeted 43 per cent, or 6.88p, to 9.12p.

Property firm Sigma Capital took a tumble despite reporting that revenue had almost tripled to 2.8million.

The business reported a pre-tax profit of 1.2million in the six months to June 30, compared to a loss of 410,000 in the same period last year.

Sigma manages the planning, construction and letting of rental properties.

The group said a critical shortage of homes meant the outlook for the business is very positive. It revealed a major funding agreement with the Homes and Communities Agency, which is sponsored by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Initial funding of 45million will be used by Sigma to scale up the delivery of new rental homes.

But delays in the first half of the year mean the group is rebasing its expectations in the short term. Shares dived 13.2 per cent, or 11p, to 72.5p.

The FTSE 100 finished the day 0.3 per cent, or 20.09 points, lower at 6899.33. Burberry climbed 1.9 per cent, or 26p, to 1379p as RBC upgraded the stock and added 200p to its target price, now 1400p.

Capita was the biggest faller, still reeling from the previous day's profit warning which caused shares to shed more than a quarter of their value.
Property prices in Britain's main technology hub cities and towns have surged in the last five years, according to data.

While London remains arguably the tech capital of Europe, clusters of high growth tech companies based elsewhere have supercharged local housing markets.

In Cambridge, which has 15 tech jobs per 1,000 people, house prices have soared 58.7 per cent in the last five years to reach 442,518, the analysis of Office for National Statistics and Tech City UK data by Property Partner shows.

Cambridge hub: The city has one of the highest concentration of tech jobs in Britain - and house prices have surged

Furthermore, Reading, which has 14 tech jobs per 1,000 people have seen prices rise by nearly 60 per cent to 307,718 and Oxford, which has 13 per 1,000, 49.7 per cent to 415,484.

Prices around the 'silicon roundabout' in Old Street, London, have risen 75.5 per cent since 2011 to reach 541,914, the data shows.

While this growth is impressive, in the last year, it has slowed to 4.3 per cent.

In Cambridge, Reading and Oxford, values have risen 8.4, 18.5 and 6.2 per cent in the same period, suggesting the boom may have peaked in the tech-heavy pocket of London.

Daniel Gandesha, chief executive of crowdfunding platform Property Partner, said: 'The digital economy is expanding rapidly, creating new jobs and opportunities across the UK - but it's not evenly spread.

'As a large-scale buyer of residential property up and down the country, we know that tech clusters drive local incomes and in turn house prices.

Silicon roundabout: The Old Street area of London has been a tech hub - but property growth has slowed in the last year

'Alongside key infrastructure projects and regeneration, tech clusters are changing neighbourhoods such as Deansgate in Manchester and Cambridge.

'Innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship in the tech sector is not only transforming everything we do on a daily basis but is also strengthening the British economy.'

TECH HUBS: HOW PROPERTY PRICES HAVE SOARED Location Tech concentration(Tech jobs per 1,000 residents) Average house prices July 2011 Average house prices July 2016 % change 1 year % change 5 years Performance v UK average over 5 years Cambridge 15 278,894 442,518 8.40% 58.70% 31% Reading 14 192,547 307,718 18.50% 59.80% 32% Oxford 13 277,502 415,484 6.20% 49.70% 22% Manchester 10 122,780 151,944 9.30% 23.80% -4% Southampton 10 150,874 198,642 12.00% 31.70% 4% Exeter 7 196,810 235,848 6.50% 19.80% -8% Ipswich 7 130,930 177,998 11.40% 35.90% 8% Leicester 6 118,935 151,541 12.10% 27.40% -1% Brighton 6 245,827 355,688 14.40% 44.70% 17% Bristol 6 175,367 255,168 15.40% 45.50% 18% UK average - 170,965 219,515 8.30% 28.40%

Manchester, Southampton, Ipswich and Leicester are the emerging key regional clusters.

Despite lower growth over five years, the most affordable property markets in the top ten, all four have seen house price growth outperforming the wider UK over the past 12 months by 1, 3.7, 3.1 and 3.8 per cent respectively, according to the research.

Home to Amazon and American Express respectively, Bristol and Brighton are increasingly attracting tech workers looking to relocate from London.

Despite already having relatively expensive housing markets, inward tech investment has helped boost local prices by 15 per cent in the past twelve months and 45 per cent over five years, outperforming the UK average.

Exeter is the one area in the top ten which hasn't performed as strongly as other tech cities.

Despite a significant tech cluster around Exeter University led by equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube, house prices have closely tracked the regional average.
Conman: Jonothan 'Jonny' Piper, 30, promised returns of up to 200 per cent

A fraudster who claimed to trade in fine wines but instead conned investors out of almost 3million to buy fast cars and expensive trainers has been jailed.

Jonothan 'Jonny' Piper, 30, pretended to be a wine broker and promised returns of up to 200 per cent to elderly investors who handed over their fine vintages.

Piper, who pleaded guilty in court, sold the collections and broke off contact with investors, pocketing the cash which he spent on Bentleys and Mercedes.

His criminal lifestyle saw him buy hundreds of pairs of limited edition trainers, go to One Direction concerts and live in an expensive flat in Wanstead, London.

Sentenced yesterday at Snaresbrook Crown Court to five and a half years in prison, Piper admitted his 'trainer obsession' on Facebook, where he was pictured riding quadbikes and relaxing in hot tubs.

Investors were mis-sold expensive collections and either did not receive the wine they were promised or were misled over the value of potential returns.
Deutsche Bank shares bounced back after hitting a new low on rumours that it had negotiated down a crippling 10.8billion fine.

Shares in the beleaguered German lender leapt 13.2 per cent after it appeared to strike a deal with the US Department of Justice over penalties for mis-selling toxic bundles of mortgage debt in the run-up to the financial crisis.

It was feared the original fine could destroy the bank, which has lost more than half its value in the past year and is now worth just 13billion.

But last night it was claimed that crisis talks had resulted in the amount being cut to a more manageable 4.2billion.

Lifeline: Shares in beleaguered German lender Deutsche Bank leapt 13.2% after it appeared to strike a deal with the US Department of Justice

The 6.6billion reduction will be a potential lifeline for the bank.

The DoJ and Deutsche both declined to comment on the claims. But they still sparked a wild swing in Deutsche's share price, which had initially plunged 9 per cent to an all-time low in morning trading after ten hedge funds pulled money out of the stricken lender.

Artur Fischer, head of the Berlin stock exchange, said markets had been 'playing with dynamite' by driving down the share price. 'Deutsche has to come up with some good news,' he said. 'The market has to be put at ease.'

There are growing concerns for the European banking system.

Fellow German firm Commerzbank is axing 9,600 jobs by 2020 and withholding dividends to pay for a 950million restructuring programme.

And yesterday it was reported Dutch financier ING was preparing to announce thousands of job cuts as part of a restructure.

The German government has repeatedly denied it would rescue Deutsche if it went to the wall, despite reports a secret bailout plan had been drawn up.

Chief executive John Cryan  who is said to be in America and locked in talks with US officials  said the bank did not need state support and had not asked for it.

Talks: Deutsche's British boss John Cryan

The lender has been described by the International Monetary Fund as the world's most dangerous bank.

If it were to fail, there are concerns that the eurozone and even the European Union might come crashing down with it.

It would be the biggest shock to the financial system since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 and could set off a fresh crisis.

But a taxpayer bailout would potentially deal a fatal blow to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's credibility ahead of next year's elections.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the Eurogroup of finance ministers for countries in the single currency, yesterday said Deutsche must survive 'on its own'.

A report on Thursday night that ten hedge funds had moved part of their listed derivatives holdings to other firms sent shares crashing.

Investors feared it showed a dangerous loss of confidence in the bank, although most of Deutsche's more than 200 derivatives-clearing clients have made no changes.

In a memo to staff yesterday, Cryan said that market reaction was overblown and the lender was on solid ground.

He said the bank's fundamental strength was reflected in its 185bn of liquidity reserves.
Facebook is at the centre of an anti-Semitism row after it emerged that its automatic translation software was spewing out vile, anti-Jewish diatribes.

One post written in German, which criticised neo-Nazis, was wrongly translated to produce a rant about dull hollow, dirty Jews who were a disgrace to our country.

Another post in Hebrew, written by Israel's Education Minister Naftali Bennett, was twisted by the software to suggest a Holocaust victim was killed by 'the master race'.

When MailOnline brought the error to Facebook's attention it apologised and claimed to have solved the problem, but declined to say what had gone wrong.

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Facebook is at the centre of an anti-Semitism row after it emerged that its automatic translation software was spewing out vile diatribes. One anti-Nazi post written in German was wrongly translated to produce a rant about dull hollow, dirty Jews

The glitch was picked up by blogger Ingrid Stone who told MailOnline she was 'horrified' by the translation of the word 'Nazi'

Another post on the site in Hebrew, written by Israel's Education Minister Naftali Bennett, was twisted by the software to suggest a Holocaust victim was killed by 'the master race'

The disturbing glitch, which warps the meaning of posts by replacing the word 'Nazi' with an offensive or random term, was found to occur in German and Hebrew, and may affect other languages.

It was first spotted by blogger Ingrid Stone who told MailOnline: 'As a British Jew, I was absolutely horrified when I discovered the way that Facebook had translated the word "Nazi".

'At first, I thought there must be some sort of mistake and then I wondered if the Facebook translate feature had been hacked.'

As a British Jew, I was absolutely horrified when I discovered the way that Facebook had translated the word "Nazi". 'At first, I thought there must be some sort of mistake and then I wondered if the Facebook translate feature had been hacked. Blogger Ingrid Stone

The glitch comes after Facebook was repeatedly accused of turning a blind eye to anti-Semitic material on its platform while removing harmless content on Jewish themes.

Facebooks policy explicitly forbids organisations and people dedicated to promoting hatred.

But in August, Facebook ruled that an image of a white man choking a Jew, accompanied by a diatribe that said, I will not rest until every single filthy, parasitic [Jew] is rounded up and slaughtered like the vermin that they are, was acceptable.

The following month, the social media giant ruled that a picture of a shovel filled with human ashes, accompanied by the slogan how to pick up Jewish chicks, also did not breach its official policy.

By contrast, Facebook has removed harmless Jewish material such as the Humans of Jerusalem page, which shared street photography of people in the city.

Jewish community groups have expressed concern that the social media giant is not taking anti-Semitic hatred seriously enough.

In August, Facebook ruled that an image of a white man choking a Jew, accompanied by a diatribe against Jewish people was acceptable

The translation glitch comes after Facebook was repeatedly accused of turning a blind eye to anti-Semitic material. Pictured: The page Death to Israel was not removed from the site

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was raised in a Jewish household but is now avidly atheist. Facebook said it had fixed the glitch and apologised for any offence caused

We have to remain vigilant against anti-Semitic forces that are ever-present in all echelons of society, and social media is no different, said Rabbi Jonny Hughes of the United Synagogue.

The inaction to address anti-Semitic incidents provides the arena in which anti-Semitism can thrive. It adds the oil to the fire and allows evil to prosper.

In January, Surat HaDin, an Israeli law firm, carried out an experiment in which it created two Facebook pages, one anti-Semitic and the other Islamophobic.

Only the page showing Islamophobia was removed, it said, while the anti-Semitic one was not.

The firm is now suing Facebook in the United States, accusing it of allowing Islamic extremists to incite violent attacks against Jews on the platform.

The German post which was mistranslated was made by the Berlin-based designer Uwe Framenau. I am still shocked that something like that happened,' he said.

'I do feel it was something pretty intentional, since why should Nazi mean Jew? This turns everything upside down, in a very frightening fashion.

Taken down: Facebook removed harmless Jewish material such as the Humans of Jerusalem page, which shared street photography of people in the city (pictured above)

The Hebrew post, published in Marchby Mr Bennett,originally said, This picture shows Meir Dagans grandfather, Ber Erlich, kneeling minutes before his murder by the Nazis.

However, Facebook translated it as, minutes before his murder by the master race.

Facebook has a bad track record for removing anti-Semitic content on their site, and many Jewish people find that their complaints fall on deaf ears,' said Jonathan Sacerdoti, a leading campaigner against anti-Semitism.

Even if this is a glitch, Facebook needs to be transparent about how things like this happen, as they are deeply shocking to Jewish people.

We are extremely sorry for this deeply unfortunate mistake which was caused by a fault in our translation system. Facebook spokesman

The concern is always the there is something more sinister lying behind a glitch in automated programming, and if that is the case, why not just tell us?'

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was raised in a Jewish household but is now avidly atheist. He has however praised Buddhism as a belief.

Technology experts have called for Facebook to be more transparent in the way it handles these complaints, raising fears that the social media giant has been subjected to systematic infiltration by hackers.

Will Frances, a specialist in social media, told MailOnline: Someone is being malicious somewhere. The question Facebook needs to ask is, where is that point of failure?

If Facebook is just solving one isolated problem, that doesnt help anyone. The company should be open about where the point of failure is and tell us what theyre doing about it.

The Hebrew post by Mr Bennett originally said, This picture shows Meir Dagans grandfather, Ber Erlich, kneeling minutes before his murder by the Nazis. Facebook translated it as: minutes before his murder by the master race

Israeli users have long been aware that Hebrew variants of the word Nazi have produced a range of offensive and bizarre translations on Facebook, including Germany, self-esteem, Axis and even my Mom.

The growing row comes after the social media giant was forced into a humiliating U-turn on its decision to censor an iconic Vietnam War photo of a naked girl escaping a napalm bombing.
Molly Hudgens, who has worked at Sycamore Middle School in Pleasant View, Tennessee, for the last 19 years, has been called a hero after convincing a 14-year-old boy to give her a loaded gun he allegedly wanted to use to kill teachers

A school counselor prevented a potential school shooting after a student told her he had a gun and intended to kill teachers and police officers.

Molly Hudgens, who has worked at Sycamore Middle School in Pleasant View, Tennessee, for the last 19 years, has been called a hero by locals after deescalating the situation.

On Wednesday, a 14-year-old boy went to school asking to speak with Hudgens.

When he began asking her alarming questions, she asked if he had a gun.

He told her he did.

Hudgens then talked with the boy for 45 minutes until he agreed to give her the a loaded semi-automatic pistol and additional ammunition, according to the Tennessean.

The student handed over a Taurus Millennium 45-caliber pistol.

During the conversation the student said although he wanted to kill teachers and police officers, he didn't want to kill students.

Hudgens said no specific people were named or targeted.

'My previous training and experience granted me the opportunity to help a student in need while protecting our school family as well,' Hudgens said in a statement.

Hudgens then talked with the boy for 45 minutes until he agreed to give her the a loaded semi-automatic pistol and additional ammunition

Cheatham County Sheriff Mike Breedlove said the boy told Hudgens he was having problems and was hiding the gun under his clothes.

'She was an amazingly brave person to be in there that long with this young man.

'She did something even the most experienced law enforcement officer might not do.

'She's a hero in our community,' Breedlove said.

Breedlove said the student was taken into custody without incident and charged with possession of a weapon on school property and with threatening school employees.

In a statement recorded by the police, Hudgens said: 'My previous training and experience granted me the opportunity to help a student in need while protecting our school family as well'

He is in the Williamson County Jail awaiting his next hearing.

Police have not revealed the student's identity or how he came into possession of the gun.

Sycamore Middle School and High School were placed on 'lockout' as a precaution for the rest of Wednesday.
The United States Marine Corps will soon have a more modern weapon of warfare that will allow it to wreak havoc both at sea and on land.

An American defense contractor this week unveiled a new amphibious combat vehicle, the ACV 1.1.

Manufactured jointly by BAE Systems and IVECO Defence, the new 34-ton, eight-wheel drive vehicles allow the Marines to sail from ships and reach land, where it can accelerate to speeds of 70 miles per hour, according to Fox News.

IVECO Defence is a branch of IVECO, a defense subsidiary of Italian carmaker Fiat.

The Italian company will produce key components of the vehicle, but the construction of the hull and the final assembly will be done at BAEs plant in York, Pennsylvania, according to Breaking Defense.

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Incorporating lessons from its service in Iraq and Afghanistan, the new models offer Marines more protection from explosives as well as mines. It is seen above on land

While at sea, it could launch from a ship and sail from up to 12 nautical miles

The Marines want the ACV 1.1 to replace its aging fleet of amphibious assault vehicles that were once a staple of its service during wartime.

The new models will enable the Marines to maneuver better on land, something that it did not do effectively as demonstrated in recent land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Breaking Defense.

The ACV 1.1 features a new six-cylinder engine with 700 horsepower

The ACV 1.1 features a new six-cylinder engine with 700 horsepower.

At 29 feet long, 10 feet wide, and nine feet high, it can carry up to 16 soldiers per unit, according to Fox News.

So how would it work?

At 29 feet long, 10 feet wide, and nine feet high, it can carry up to 16 soldiers per unit

Once it reaches land, it could travel up to 250 miles. Its total range is approximately 350 miles

While at sea, it could launch from a ship and sail from up to 12 nautical miles, according to Fox News.

Once it reaches land, it could travel up to 250 miles. Its total range is approximately 350 miles.

Incorporating lessons from its service in Iraq and Afghanistan, the new models offer Marines more protection from explosives as well as mines.

A Pennsylvania-based defense contractor, BAE Systems, unveils its new ACV 1.1 at an exhibition in Quantico, Virginia, earlier this week

BAE Systems is set to produce up to 16 prototypes of the vehicle to be tested. If the Marines are satisfied, they can order more models.

Another option that the corps is considering is the Terrex 1.
An Ikea pop-up food truck will be hitting the road and giving away their meatballs for free.

The Swedish furniture giant will be giving away their iconic meatballs, kottbullar served with lingonberry and gravy, at three locations around Sydney between October 1 to 5.

The free meatballs mark the launch of the new 2017 catalogue, but to get your hands on the delicious meal customers will have to download the Ikea app and share a picture of their meatballs on social media using the hashtag #IKEAcatalogue2017.

An Ikea food truck will be treating their Australian customers to free Swedish meatballs

Customers can get their hands of the iconic dish once they download the Ikea app and share a picture of their meatballs on social media using the hashtag #IKEAcatalogue2017

The food truck will travel around to three different locations around Sydney from October 1 to October 5

Tim Prevade, IKEA Australia Range Manager said: 'The 2017 catalogue celebrates life at home, including life in and around the kitchen.'

'We know that the kitchen is the hub of the home for Australians and felt there was no better way to celebrate than bringing a taste of our Swedish kitchen and some of the 500 new products that have just landed in store, to Sydneysiders,' Mr Prevade added.

IKEA Logan store manager, Renea Robson said they are expecting to sell 1.5 million meatballs in Australia this year.

'They're essential for us. It's a reason to visit the store, but it should also be a reason not to leave the store,' she told Broadsheet Sydney.

Ikea is expecting to sell 1.5 million meatballs to Australian customers this year

Pop-up Ikea truck will make its way to Canberra and Melbourne during October

The food truck has so far made an two day appearance in Brisbane's Queens Mall.

Sydneysiders looking to get their hands on some kottbullar can visit the Marsden Park on October 1, Chatswood Mall on October 4 and First Fleet Park at The Rocks on October 5.

It is set to make an appearance in Canberra on October 7 at Garema Place in Canberra Centre.
Anti-monarchy shadow chancellor John McDonnell has been approved to join the Privy Council by the Queen.

The senior Labour figure, who once declared he wanted to see a public execution of papier-mache models of the Royal Family, will have to go to Buckingham Palace to be sworn in.

Sources close to Mr McDonnell have previously suggested he would never kneel before the monarch at the ceremony.

Anti-monarchy shadow chancellor John McDonnell has been approved to join the Privy Council by the Queen

If so he follows in the footsteps of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who shook hands with the Queen when he joined the Privy Council last year.

Mr McDonnell will also have the title Right Honourable bestowed on him. In exchange he must vow to be a 'true and faithful servant unto The Queen's majesty'.

The hard-left politician, who has been accused of being an IRA sympathiser, will also have access to secret briefings from the security services.

He once suggested the terror group should be honoured for their campaign of bombings, which he claimed brought the British government 'to the negotiating table' during the Northern Ireland peace process.

He provoked an outcry in 2010 by suggesting he would like to travel back in time and assassinate Margaret Thatcher.

Mr McDonnell's promotion to the Privy Council triggered alarm from Tory grandee Lord Tebbit, himself a victim of the IRA. The former Cabinet minister in the Thatcher government sustained injuries during the Brighton hotel bombing of 1984 and his wife was paralysed.

Suggesting Mr McDonnell was not fit to be a Privy Counsellor, the peer added: 'He cannot take that oath honestly. His name must have been put forward by the Leader of the Opposition.

He provoked an outcry in 2010 by suggesting he would like to travel back in time and assassinate Margaret Thatcher

'His comments about the IRA, the Royal Family and wanting to assassinate Margaret Thatcher should all disqualify him from the position.' Asked if his appointment cheapened the Privy Council, Lord Tebbit said: 'It does underline how there are Privy Counsellors and there are Privy Counsellors. Not all are privy to everything being said at the Privy Council.'

Those appointed to the council traditionally kneel before the Queen and kiss the ring on her hand. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn became a member in November last year. He revealed afterwards that he and the monarch 'shook hands like adults'.

When Mr McDonnell was first tipped to join the Privy Council himself, Labour sources said he would 'abide by any rules in place', but added: 'As we saw with Jeremy, kneeling is no longer required'. His spokesman could not be reached for comment yesterday. Mr McDonnell is one of the most anti-establishment and controversial figures to be appointed to the Privy Council, which advises the monarch in carrying out her duties.

Those appointed to the council traditionally kneel before the Queen and kiss the ring on her hand

He has faced criticised as one of the main figures in Momentum, the pro-Corbyn group accused of being a party within the Labour Party. Female MPs say they have become targets for online abuse at the hands of hard-Left supporters who have infiltrated the party to solidify Mr Corbyn and Mr McDonnell's grip.

The shadow chancellor was also embroiled in a row over misogyny when he said he wanted to 'lynch' former welfare minister Esther McVey, who he described as a 'stain on humanity'. He refused to apologise despite being invited to do so in front of her on TV recently.
Taxpayers have racked up a 100million legal bill defending Royal Bank of Scotland and its disgraced former bosses, including Fred Goodwin

Taxpayers have racked up a 100million legal bill defending Royal Bank of Scotland and its disgraced former bosses, including Fred Goodwin.

The state-backed bank, which received a 46billion bailout from taxpayers in 2008 to save it during the financial crisis, is battling a 4billion lawsuit.

The legal claim has been lodged on behalf of about 27,000 investors who claim they were misled into supporting a 12billion share sale to shore up the bank just five months before it collapsed.

Investors claim RBS and its executives duped them by covering up its precarious finances. Many lost a large part of their life savings when the bank was bailed out months later and its share price plunged.

The lawsuit could see Fred Goodwin  nicknamed Fred the Shred for his ruthless approach to business  finally forced to account for his actions in court. Goodwin was stripped of his knighthood over the implosion of RBS, but still enjoys a 342,500-a-year taxpayer-funded pension.

A court filing by RBSs lawyers showed it has run up costs of 86.2million, including fees of 6.1million for individual directors name in the lawsuit.

RBS is legally obliged to foot legal costs of former executives for actions taken while they worked there. Once VAT is added, the total cost is 103.4million, which will be indirectly paid for by taxpayers, which still own 72 per cent of RBS.

The case, set to begin in March, is expected to last six months and legal sources have suggested the bill could double. RBS is also braced for billions of pounds in fines in America for mis-selling toxic bundles of mortgage debt.

An RBS spokesman said: We continue to strongly contest these claims.
Every teenager in Europe will get a free rail ticket to go backpacking around the continent on their 18th birthday in a desperate scheme to win support for the EU.

MEPs have dreamt up the plan that could cost billions of pounds a year to promote a sense of belonging in Europe  but it was last night dismissed as bribery by Eurosceptics.

Under the scheme, youngsters would receive a free one-month Interrail pass when they turn 18.

The tickets would allow them to travel on railway lines in 30 European countries including scenic routes through the Swiss Alps and along Norwegian fjords.

Every teenager in Europe will get a free rail ticket to go backpacking around the continent on their 18th birthday in a desperate scheme to win support for the EU

Proponents have called for the giveaway to begin as soon as possible, meaning Britain could face picking up the tab while still an EU member.

And MEPs will next week discuss proposals drawn up by Manfred Weber, leader of the EPP, which is the largest group in the European Parliament, after the other parties yesterday approved it being added to the agenda.

Mr Weber, a German MEP, claimed that young generations have a key role to play as a counter-weight to rising Euroscepticism.

The EU has to give them the means to discover who their neighbours are and what opportunities another member state can bring to any single European, he said.

He has requested that the European Commission launch the 18th birthday Interrail pass for Europe programme as soon as possible.

It would give anyone living in the EU a free ticket as soon as they became an adult.

Those from member states that are not part of Interrail (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus and Malta) would be given bus and ferry tickets so they could join in.

One month Interrail tickets currently cost 479 euros (415). According to EU statistics, around 5.5million people turned 18 last year.

If 50 to 70 per cent of them took up the scheme, it would cost 1.1billion to 1.6billion.

Ukips transport spokesman Jill Seymour MEP said: Young people across Europe would prefer for the EU to solve the chronic youth unemployment crisis rather than this blatant attempt at bribery.

The 50 per cent of young people in Greece who are struggling to put food on the table will find no solace in a free ticket to Berlin, nor will the millions of British tax payers who will be footing the bill.

MEPs have dreamt up the plan that could cost billions of pounds a year to promote a sense of belonging in Europe  but it was last night dismissed as bribery by Eurosceptics

Tory MEP David Campbell Bannerman said: This shows why Britain needs a high-speed non-stopping train out of the EU.

Interrail tickets are a great way to see Europe at reasonable cost, but this EU loyalty card giveaway is complete nonsense. Which parallel universe are they living in?

Travelling round Europe you see very clearly how the EUs euro-straightjacket impoverishes European nations.

This is an example of fiddling whilst the EUs empire burns. It is a huge waste of money and irrelevant to the terrible economic problems now facing the Eurozone.

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker earlier this month announced plans for the creation of a 100,000-strong civilian corps of young people to react to emergencies inside the bloc such as the migrant crisis.

Young people across the EU will be able to volunteer their help where it is needed most, to respond to crisis situations, like the refugee crisis or the recent earthquakes in Italy, he said. I want this European Solidarity Corps up and running by the end of the year.

And by 2020, to see the first 100,000 young Europeans taking part.
It took Tim Webb 90 exhausting minutes to reel in this huge fish  but it paid off when he found he had landed the world's biggest carp.

The British angler lured the monster with a bait of bread and rice before the gruelling battle at a lake in Ban Pong, Thailand.

His catch weighed 222lb, nearly 16 stone, beating the Siamese carp record by more than 70lb.

Tim Webb, 57 (right), originally from Crawley, West Sussex, spent 90 exhausting minutes reeling in the 222lb fish which has become the world's largest catch of Siamese carp

Mr Webb owns a fishery nearby and bought the carp from the lake owner for his own waters, paying a sum thought to be several thousand pounds.

The fisherman, 57, originally from Crawley, West Sussex, said: 'As soon as I felt it on the end of my line I knew I had something special. I was elated but shattered afterwards.'

He was so fond of his catch that he decided to buy it from the lake and put into his own fishery, Palm Tree Lagoon, which is about 25 miles away.

He laid a tarpaulin down in the back of a pickup truck, filled it with water and, with the help of six people, hoisted the carp in the back.

It was then wrapped in a wet blanket and lifted into Tim's 3.5 acre lake, which attracts thousands of British anglers each year.

Siamese carp are the biggest species of carp in the world and they are found naturally in river basins in Asia.

Mr Webb's catch dwarfed the 150lbs record specimen caught by Brit Andy Harman in Thailand earlier this year.

It was also more than three times the size of the biggest carp ever caught in Britain which was by angler Tom Doherty who reeled in a 70lbs specimen in Shropshire just two weeks ago.

Mr Webb's catch dwarfed the 150lbs record specimen caught by Brit Andy Harman in Thailand

He said: 'It's an amazing feeling to reel in a fish that is well over the world record.

'I had to fight it hard for a long time because in effect I was reeling in a small car.

'There were one or two hairy moments but I managed to bring it to the bank. I was elated but shattered afterwards.'

Mr Webb agreed with the owner of the lake to buy the record carp but would not disclose how much he paid for it, although it is thought to be several thousands of pounds.

He added: 'It was amazing to actually take it away with me and put it in my own lake.

'Having a fish of that size generates a lot of interest, people will want to come and have a go at trying to catch it.'
Shabir Ahmed, 63, the leader of an Asian grooming gang that preyed on girls as young as 13 in Rochdale and Bolton, has lost a human rights fight to overturn his conviction

The leader of an Asian grooming gang that preyed on girls as young as 13 has lost a human rights fight to overturn his conviction.

Despite destroying the lives of dozens of young girls in Rochdale and Bolton, paedophile Shabir Ahmed claimed he was the victim of a conspiracy to scapegoat Muslims.

In a kick in the teeth for his victims, the 63-year-old pervert attempted to exploit controversial human rights laws to argue that his criminal convictions were unsafe.

He is serving a 22-year jail sentence after being found guilty in 2012 of befriending vulnerable teenagers, plying them with alcohol and raping them.

Ahmed, known as Daddy, took his case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) claiming that his all-white jury was biased  a breach of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, guaranteeing a fair trial.

He claimed jury members passed information about their deliberations directly to far-right organisations who were hostile to the defendants.

He argued that because then British National Party chairman Nick Griffin had posted on social media that some defendents had been found guilty before verdicts had been returned, it showed the jury was impartial.

But judges in Strasbourg unanimously threw out his case, insisitng that there was 'simply no proof' jurors acted improperly. They dismissed the claim as 'manifestly ill-founded'.

Rejecting the divorced father of four's legal bid, the ECHR said: 'If it had been proven that a juror had passed confidential information on the jury deliberations to far-right organisations, this would suggest that the juror and the jury as a whole had lacked impartiality.

'However, there was simply no proof that that had happened. There was no evidence to establish that it [the jury] had been impartial.'

It said there were 12 safeguards at the trial to ensure the jury at the Liverpool Crown Court trial was unbiased.

Complaints of jury impartiality had also previously been investigated by the UK' s Criminal Cases Review Commission and found to be without substance, the ECHR noted.

In what critics will see as a massive abuse of human rights laws, takeaway worker Ahmed also argued that the case against him had been 'tailored by police to fit anti-Muslim prejudice'.

He said this was a breach of Article 3 of the convention, which prohibits inhuman and degrading treatment.

He moaned that media coverage of the trial had breached Article 8  his right to a private and family life  while there had also been a breach of Article 14 as he claimed he had suffered racial and religious discrimination.

Ahmed, who is serving his sentence at HMP Wakefield, told the ECHR that the trial was all part of a conspiracy to besmirch Muslims.

But the court threw out his 'wide range of other complaints'. It said: 'None of the evidence before it [the ECHR] demonstrated that there was substance to these claims.'

Ahmed was the ringleader of a child sex exploitation ring grooming girls as young as 13 for sex. If the victims did not submit they were plied with cheap vodka and raped.

The pervert was given a 19-year sentence for conspiracy, two rapes, aiding and abetting rape, sexual assault and sex trafficking.

He was later jailed for a further 22 years, to run concurrently, for 30 child rapes after a separate trial. The court heard that he repeatedly raped a young Asian girl for more than a decade, treating her as a 'possession' to use for his own sexual gratification.

During the trial he had launched a series of tirades, including one in which he tried to blame Western society for allowing young girls to 'parade on the streets' where they could be preyed on by men such as him.

Earlier this year, the Mail reported how Ahmed was the latest in a series of of serious foreign criminals attempting to avoid being kicked out of Britain by claiming their human rights had been violated.
When rescuers finally found Cassie Olczak, 16, this morning, she said: 'I'm so sorry... and I'm really hungry'

Missing teen Cassie Olczak had been living in the bush for five days - until a passing motorist spotted her walking along the side of a busy highway.

The 16-year-old was found in an OK condition on the side of the Princes Highway, Waterfall, at about 9am Friday.

When rescuers finally found her this morning, Daily Mail Australia can reveal Cassie said: 'I'm so sorry... and I'm really hungry.'

Her relieved mother Connie Olczak told reporters finding her daughter after more than 100 desperate hours was 'just a miracle.'

'(It is) the most amazing feeling in the world,' she said. 'I can't describe it.

'I felt like I was living in a movie and I just had to keep looking at her - "oh my god, it's actually her."

She greeted Cassie with a big hug and said: 'Just sit there and tell us what you need'.

Her daughter was a bit 'hesitant' and it's understood she had suffered some cuts and bruises, as well as a bump to her head, and was suffering exposure to the elements.

But she was in good health - even though it was unclear what she had been eating and drinking the past week.

Scores of SES and police officers have spent the past week scouring the Royal National Park for the girl, who was last seen at Waterfall Station about 7.40pm Sunday.

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The 16-year-old (left) had been missing since Sunday after spending the day with friends in Earlwood. Her mother, Connie (right) issued desperate public pleas for help

Huge operation: Scores of SES workers and police have spent the past five days scouring Sydney's south to find the apologetic 16-year-old girl

Police and SES crews had been scouring the nearby Royal National Park for clues at the time of her discovery

Acting Superintendent Mick Fitzgerald said the enormous search had been impeded by the 'harsh terrain' of the area.

It is unclear what, if anything, Cassie has been eating and drinking for the past week.

Detectives haven't questioned Cassie at length as she is getting treatment at Sutherland Hospital for her exposure to the elements.

Found: Cassie Olczak

Police and Ms Olczak have been deluged with tip offs since she went missing after separating from a friend.

Members of the public claimed to have seen her everywhere from the Max Brenner chocolate shop in Parramatta to Emu Plains, at the base of the Blue Mountains.

Connie has confirmed her daughter was believed to be on a 'substance' when she went missing.

She had also fired off a series of emotional emails in the days before she returned from Abu Dhabi on Saturday.

Cassie had been visiting her civil engineer father, Darius, in the United Arab Emirates.

The 'very emotional' messages were out of character for her daughter, Connie told KIIS FM.

'Sadly Cassie made poor choice in friends! Let's pray doesn't cost her life !!!!'

'The day before she came home she did put some very emotional emails because we laughed (and said) "oh my god look at Cassie shes actually displaying affection"'.

Connie said her daughter was 'similar to someone with minor autistic traits where they're not super cuddly... But she has a heart of gold'. She stressed she didn't mean that remark in a 'negative' way.

Ms Olczak said a 'substance' was involved in her daughter's disappearance. 'But we don't know what.'

The investigation into Cassie's disappearance took a bizarre twist earlier this week when Connie had a public spat with the teenager's friend who was the last person to see her.

'Sadly Cassie made poor choice in friends! Let's pray doesn't cost her life !!!!' she said.

Cassie's mother, Connie, launched a scathing public attack on one of her daughter's friends

The friend who last saw her then claimed Cassie was 'not happy (where) she was'. 'Everyone could see this... 'event' was not (unexpected),' the friend said.

'But no please continue to attack me because that will surely help (you) find your daughter'.

Daily Mail Australia understands investigators even seized the friend's phone in their investigation.

Connie was coy when asked about reports Cassie was upset over a boy, but did confirm Cassie had a disagreement with a friend before she left.

Ms Olczak was last seen on CCTV footage at Waterfall train station, about 7.40pm on Sunday

She was meant get off the train at Hurstville but CCTV cameras captured the girl getting off the southbound train alone at Waterfall Railway Station

Police said Cassie was caught on security cameras walking out of the train station and has not been seen since

Cassie was supposed to be travelling to Hurstville but security camera footage captured her getting off about Waterfall railway station - about 25 kilometres away.

Police believe she may have been groggy and disoriented.

Her mother told a press conference: 'She's beautiful, she's five foot 10, she's a stunner. She had a modelling contract.

'I believe she is disorientated and jetlagged from a long flight home the night before.

'I also think she may be scared. She's not a super social person, she'll stick to herself.

'If she hears this, your friends and family are desperate for you to come home. Please come home.

'If anyone knows anything you are not in trouble. We just need information.'

Connie said her daughter had gone a long time without food or water and had no access to bank accounts.

'I need her home, my gut tells me she is alive,' she said.

Cassie had just finished school and is due to begin a TAFE hairdressing course next week.

She went to visit friends on Sunday but they sent her home when they noticed she was disorientated.

SES officers decked out in orange gear up for another day of searching for the missing girl

Police searching for the young women on Wednesday before they halted the search

They had to stop as it was too dark to continue their search, but returned on Thursday

Her mother Connie Olczak said Cassie (left, right on a missing poster) may have been given a substance before she went missing
Terence Brady, a former Daily Mail cookery writer, playwright, actor and author, has died aged 77.

He was married for 52 years to fellow acclaimed novelist Charlotte Bingham, with whom he wrote a string of 1970s television classics such as Upstairs Downstairs, No Honestly, and later Pig In The Middle, in which he also starred.

Last night she said: 'My beloved Terence died peacefully in my arms. He loved doing the cooking column for the Mail  except at Christmas, when he was always stuck as to what to do with turkey!'

Terence Brady, a former Daily Mail cookery writer, playwright, actor and author, has died aged 77

The Honourable Miss Bingham, 74, the daughter of the Seventh Baron of Clanmorris  an MI5 spy  rose to fame in the 1960s with her book Coronet Among The Weeds, a humorous expose of high society written when she was 18.

She married stage actor Brady in 1964  after he proposed 9,345 times and sent her 121 red roses  and their literary partnership endured to the end.

One of their biggest joint hits was the stage adaptation of Rosamunde Pilcher's bestselling novel The Shell Seekers.

Aside from his many literary accomplishments, Brady became a respected breeder of thoroughbred racehorses and eventers.

The couple have two children, Matthew and Candida, and lived in Somerset with their dogs and horses.
Theresa May faces mounting pressure to investigate a German takeover of the London Stock Exchange

Theresa May faces mounting pressure to investigate a German takeover of the London Stock Exchange after European watchdogs began a probe into the deal.

Authorities on the continent fear the institution's planned 21billion merger with Deutsche Boerse could damage competition and harm rival firms.

The European Commission has now launched a detailed investigation in an attempt to understand exactly what the economic impact would be. However the British government has so far refused to examine the deal  which critics warn is not in the national interest.

Campaigners yesterday called for the Prime Minister to act on her promises of a new industrial strategy  and block the takeover if it does not work in Britain's favour.

John Longworth, former head of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: 'Our largest stock exchange is being sold to a foreign company without any inquiry.Competition authorities and the Government should look into it.

'Having stated the Government will take a different view of this sort of thing, this is an early test for Mrs May.'

Labour MP John Mann, a member of the influential Treasury select committee, said: 'There's a serious question about the viability of this merger. Of course the Government should look into it  it's not in the national interest.'

Earlier this week, European commissioner Margrethe Vestager said she was concerned the deal could break rules designed to prevent monopolies.

Campaigners yesterday called for the Prime Minister to act on her promises of a new industrial strategy

The Commission said there were risks to competition in several areas of financial markets, including clearing and trading in complex investments such as derivatives and exchange traded funds.

Deutsche Boerse and the London Stock Exchange both have massive business in areas which are of key concern for regulators. Miss Vestager said: 'Financial markets provide an essential function for the European economy.

'We must ensure that market participants continue to have access to infrastructure on competitive terms. We have opened an investigation to assess the proposed merger.'

February 13 has been set as the cut-off date for the probe, but this could be extended to April.

Deutsche Boerse and the London Stock Exchange both have massive business in areas which are of key concern for regulators

The deal was waved through by shareholders on both sides, and was described as a merger of equals. But Deutsche's shareholders would get a controlling stake, its chief executive Carsten Kengeter would run the business and profits would be reported in euros.

Alongside the competition concerns, British critics fear this would essentially place a critical national institution in foreign hands.

Not in national interest

Tory grandee Sir Bill Cash has repeatedly called for Business Secretary Greg Clark to block the deal under the 2002 Enterprise Act  which allows him to intervene if it is not in the public interest. Sir Bill said earlier this week: 'There's so much uncertainty about this  it raises serious questions about mergers, acquisitions and competition policy.'

Mrs May has not spoken publicly about the merger, but she is known to favour a more interventionist approach on foreign takeovers.

While campaigning to become Prime Minister, she referred in a speech to US firm Pfizer's failed attempt to take over British drug maker AstraZeneca. 'A proper industrial strategy wouldn't automatically stop the sale of British firms to foreign ones,' she said.

'But it should be capable of stepping in to defend a sector that is important to Britain.'

Why WE should be deciding the fate of City's crown jewel

The proposed 21billion merger between the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) and its German rival Deutsche Boerse provides a golden opportunity for Prime Minister Theresa May to live up to her promise to carefully scrutinise overseas takeovers.

The London exchange sits at the heart of the City and is the dominant institution for settling and clearing billions of pounds of financial payments in Europe.

The proposed 21billion merger provides a golden opportunity for Prime Minister Theresa May to live up to her promise

The European Commission has now announced that it will be conducting a full probe into the deal, which would make the German exchange the dominant shareholder in the LSEG.

The EC will assess the impact on competition for share dealing, options trading and clearing for settlement of transactions across the European Union.

So far, Brexiteers have been reluctant to interfere with the transaction, which would appear to show that the UK is still open for business  and to foreign investment  despite June's vote for Britain to leave the EU.

But letting the bloc's competition commissioner take charge of a probe that is vital to the future of the City of London looks like an act of supreme folly.

There is an ironclad case for Britain's own regulator  the Competition and Markets Authority  to investigate the deal's impact on Britain's booming financial services industry in the wake of Brexit.

There is widespread concern in the City that if the deal goes ahead, the centre of gravity for share and options dealings in the euro and other currencies could shift from London to Frankfurt  undermining the role of the Square Mile as a global financial centre. Under the terms of the deal, which has already won approval from shareholders, the London Stock Exchange would report its financial results in euros and be headed by Deutsche Boerse's German chief executive Carsten Kengeter. It has been promised that its operational headquarters would be in London.

The European Commission has now announced that it will be conducting a full probe into the deal, which would make the German exchange the dominant shareholder in the LSEG

The LSEG is regarded as one of the three pillars of the City, along with the insurance market Lloyd's of London and the Bank of England. Tracing its origins back to 1698, it is by a long chalk the largest cash market for shares, bonds and other financial products in Europe. In the recent past it has fended off takeover efforts from the New York Stock Exchange, Deutsche Boerse, the Scandinavian exchange OMX and the aggressive Australian private equity investor Macquarie.

By remaining independent it has grown in leaps and bounds, adapting seamlessly to the complexities of digital trading.

As the LSEG is a vital part of the City's infrastructure, failure of the Government to investigate the impact of the deal on the UK's trade in services with the rest of the world would be a dereliction of duty  particularly when Frankfurt and Paris are vying to steal Britain's leadership in financial services.

By remaining independent The LSEG has grown in leaps and bounds, adapting seamlessly to the complexities of digital trading

It is to the credit of the forensic competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, a Dane, that she is willing to take up the cudgels against big corporate power.

However, it should be obvious in Downing Street that the fate of one of Britain's most distinguished institutions should not be adjudicated by the European Union. Post-Brexit, it borders on ridiculous to leave the task of assessing the competition implications to a European Commission in which we want no part.
A ruling by European human rights judges has forced police to warn gangsters that their lives might be in danger - at vast expense to taxpayers.

An ex-justice minister last night revealed how senior officers are having to spend time and money issuing the villains and drug lords with 'threat to life notices'.

This is despite the fact they are putting themselves in peril through their own actions and it is diverting resources away from protecting 'innocent, law-abiding citizens'.

The European Court of Human Rights has decided that not passing on intelligence that another gangster wants to hurt them infringes their right to life.

The European Court of Human Rights has decided that not passing on intelligence that another gangster wants to hurt them infringes their right to life meaning police are having to tell them

Dominic Raab, who left the Government in July, said the farce had been exposed to him by police as he gathered evidence for a British Bill of Rights

He told House magazine: 'One of the things that happened because of Strasbourg  not the European Convention itself, but the judges  is they expanded through mission creep the scope of the Convention without any democratic accountability, to say that if police forces were aware of a risk to someone they must notify them.

'Now, that may be good policy. But turning it into a human right that can be enforced in court is crazy.

'One of the things I learnt as we started to gather evidence for the Bill of Rights, talking to Greater Manchester police, is that they now - as a result of that ruling - have to give tip-offs and notify gangsters who are fighting each other. And that absorbs a huge amount of their time.

'Now I'm not saying you should let gangsters fight it out, but I don't see why police resources  and this was the evidence we heard  should be displaced giving threat to life notices and tipping off gangsters who are engaged in gang warfare with each other, when I would like to see that taxpayer's money and police focus on dealing with and prioritising threats to innocent, law-abiding citizens.'

He added: 'It's crazy that the unchecked expansion of human rights means precious police resources are squandered protecting gangsters from each other - rather than prioritised to protect law-abiding citizens.'

The revelations will trigger new controversy over the failure by David Cameron's Government to scrap the Human Rights Act or take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights.

David Cameron promised a decade ago to take firm action to end abuse of human rights law but the plans remained on the drawing board.

Proposals by Mr Raab and former justice secretary Michael Gove were shelved as a result of the referendum.

The new Justice Secretary, Liz Truss, is now reviewing the plans  with no date fixed for their publication.

Prime Minister Theresa May has ruled out leaving the court altogether. She is in favour of full withdrawal but accepted that the plans would not be approved by Parliament.

The ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (pictured) has forced police to warn gangsters that their lives might be in danger - at vast expense to taxpayers

Earlier this month, Mrs Truss told MPs: 'There are changes that could be made but that is really a matter that we need to develop in the proposals that we will be putting forward in due course.'

There have been at least 2,000 'threat to life' notices issued by 27 police forces who answered freedom of Information requests in the UK since 2012.

The true figure will be far higher as the likes of West Midlands, Merseyside and Greater Manchester did not reply.

The letters - also known as Osman warnings - are issued by police if they become aware of a 'real and immediate' threat to somebody's life, but there is not enough evidence to justify the police arresting the possible offender.

They are named after Ali Osman, who was murdered by Paul Paget-Lewis, a teacher at his son's school, in 1988.

Paget-Lewis formed a 'disturbing' attachment to Mr Osman's 14-year-old son Ahmet, then 14, and at one point told police he was considering committing a massacre.

In March 1988, he stole a gun, killed Mr Osman and shot and seriously injured Ahmet.

The Osman family successfully argued in the European Court of Human Rights that the Metropolitan Police had breached Mr Osman's right to life because it had all the information it needed to deal with the threat.

The National Police Chiefs Council insists that Osman warnings have proved 'highly effective in the overwhelming majority of cases.'
Theresa May is ordering sweeping changes to stop lawyers targeting British troops.

The Prime Minister said proposals would be announced within days to bring an end to legal firms trying to impugn the name of the Armed Forces.

The blitz is expected to focus on making it no longer worthwhile for ambulance-chasing lawyers to bring vexatious cases.

It is likely to include a crackdown on no-win, no-fee agreements and a time limit on claims.

In her first visit to a military base as PM, Mrs May said: What we need to take action on... is this issue of vexatious claims. The issue of those legal firms that are trying to impugn the name of our Armed Forces.'

In her first visit to a military base as PM, Mrs May said: What we need to take action on... is this issue of vexatious claims. The issue of those legal firms that are trying to impugn the name of our Armed Forces.

We need to ensure that when the men and women of our Armed Forces go out there on our behalf, willing to sacrifice themselves for our safety and for our defence, that they have our full confidence and backing in doing that  and thats what we will give them.

Mrs Mays intervention will be seen as an attempt to restore faith in the military for soldiers who feel they have been hung out to dry by commanding officers and the Government.

In recent days, serving troops have threatened legal action against the MoD and have even offered to throw themselves at the mercy of the International Criminal Court at The Hague to escape the British justice system.

Military chiefs fear that the witch-hunt of troops, many of whom have been dragged through as many as five probes for one incident a decade ago, is damaging morale.

Potential recruits are being told by former officers not to join up because of the MoDs appetite for cannibalism. Government sources said the crackdown announced by Mrs May would focus on stopping law firms profiting from cases against the MoD and soldiers at taxpayers expense.

Potential recruits are being told by former officers not to join up because of the MoDs appetite for cannibalism. Government sources said the crackdown announced by Mrs May would focus on stopping law firms profiting from cases against the MoD and soldiers at taxpayers expense

A cost limit on so-called conditional fee agreements, known as no-win, no-fee deals, would remove the incentive for lawyers to use third-party agents to trawl for business.

A time limit on new claims would mean that, in future wars, it would not be possible to lodge cases a decade or more after the fighting is over. It could also stop new claims pouring in over Iraq and Afghanistan.

Whitehall insiders said current investigations by the Iraq Historical Allegations Team were not being scrapped, and the changes were intended to stop similar cases being brought against troops in the future.

Mrs May spoke out during a visit with Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon to meet soldiers from 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment at Picton Barracks in Bulford, Wiltshire.

The PM said: If there are credible allegations of criminal behaviour, of course those should be investigated but what we need to take action on is this issue of vexatious claims.

Tory MP Johnny Mercer, a former Army captain, said: It is a step in the right direction, but... until you change the fatally flawed application of EU human rights law in combat we will leave ourselves open to persecuting our troops.
Police have recorded a 93 per cent decrease in complaints against officers using body cameras that record how they handle incidents, a study shows.

The fall over a year came with a rise in the use of the devices.

The global study, which involved West Midlands Police, West Yorkshire Police, Cambridgeshire Constabulary and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, suggests the 'observer effect' of the cameras influences the behaviour of both officers and the public.

Police have recorded a 93 per cent decrease in complaints against officers using body cameras that record how they handle incidents

Researchers at the University of Cambridge said the result 'assumes BWCs (body-worn cameras) reduce officer non-compliance with procedures, improve suspects' demeanour, or both'.

Study leader Dr Barak Ariel said in his report: 'Cooling down potentially volatile police-public encounters to the point where official grievances against the police have virtually vanished may well lead to the conclusion that the use of BWCs indeed signals a profound sea change in modern policing.'

Another recent study showed many of Britain's 45 territorial police forces have not fully introduced 'body cams', and at least one has no plans to do so.

Both the Home Office and the National Police Chiefs' Council have said the use of body cameras is an operational decision for each force.
Brussels is seeking to prevent violent extremism by putting on classical music concerts for young people.

MEPs have voted to spend one million euros (860,000) on the promotion of EU values through music despite calls to cut spending.

Member states had been seeking to reduce the total budget for next year to 156.4billion euros (135.4billion).

But the European Parliaments budget committee has reversed all planned cuts, pencilling in an extra 4.7billion in spending.

Among the additional projects to get funding is a scheme aimed at preventing radicalisation leading to violent extremism through music.

The proposal says: At a time when the EU is facing many challenges, this pilot project aims to bring together young talented musicians from all 28 EU member states to bring visibility to Europes core values and assets, building bridges among people through classical music.

The pilot project will aim to reach out to the younger generation in Europe, especially those most at risk of radicalisation by bringing together through concerts and mentoring schemes young classical musicians and young people of diverse backgrounds.

Ukip MEP Paul Nuttall last night said: These people obviously live in cloud cuckoo land. The Islamist hotbed of Molenbeek is just down the road from the parliament  why dont they take their workshops there and see what difference it makes?

We need proper solutions so lets get tough on the real causes of radicalisation. This patronising nonsense from the EU will only make things worse.

The EUs Committee of the Regions, which has no legislative or policy-making power, was also granted an additional 31,000 euros (27,000) for tea and biscuits at its meetings.

Members of the budget committee approved the extra spending on refreshments for the Brussels-based talking shop that plays only an advisory role on EU legislation.

The Committee of the Regions 350 members, who are elected representatives serving in local authorities, meet six times a year to discuss EU policies.
The middle classes' vote for Brexit was a revolt against mass immigration and the remote political class, according to a study.

The report, co-written by an ex-senior adviser to David Cameron, delivers a blistering analysis of why 17million voters decided enough was enough.

It found a majority in every social group chose Leave  except households earning 60,000 or more.

Middle and working-class voters ignored the Project Fear tactics of David Cameron and George Osborne (pictured) as they suffered a 'deeper malaise' and had little to lose

Middle and working-class voters ignored the Project Fear tactics of Mr Cameron and George Osborne as they suffered a 'deeper malaise' and had little to lose in a country they felt was 'far less fair than it used to be'.

The report by the Centre for Social Justice and the Legatum Institute says Brexit is an opportunity to regain control of Britain's borders and make society stronger.

It is also serves as a rebuke to Remain campaigners who have described the referendum as a mere 'opinion poll' which Parliament should be free to ignore. The CSJ's Philippa Stroud and James O'Shaughnessy of the Institute say the vote was 'a heartfelt cry from millions who feel Westminster no longer knows, or even cares, how it feels to walk in their shoes'.

They write: 'It is perhaps no surprise that the vote disregarded the dire warnings of the Establishment  Their threats and warnings showed the Establishment understood little of the lives of the 52 per cent that voted Leave.'

The result had 'given a voice' to those who felt disenfranchised, they add.

The report concludes Brexit is a critical first step to wider social reform and that altering immigration trends of the past 15 years will help 'address the immediate and damaging issues of low wages and public service pressures'.

'The Government must get on with delivering the will of the British people and implementing Brexit,' it says. 'But it must also learn the deeper lessons of the referendum vote and act to give many more people a genuine voice and stake in their country.'

Lord O'Shaughnessy's comments will be bruising for Mr Cameron, who gave him a peerage. He was the ex-PM's policy director at No 10. The upper AB social class was the only one in which a majority backed Remain, according to polls by Lord Ashcroft featured in the report.

Social classes C1, C2, D and E all had a majority for Leave. Some 64 per cent of C2s  the skilled workers whom Mrs Thatcher turned into blue-collar Tories  voted to Leave.

Of people in households earning more than 60,000 a year, 65 per cent backed Remain. The figure plunged to 38 per cent among those earning less than 20,000 a year.

Many Leave voters had 'nothing to lose', the report finds, pointing out that they were disproportionately poorer, older and less highly educated than Remain backers.

While immigration was the most quoted reason for choosing Brexit, voters' focus was not migrants themselves, but the impact of uncontrolled migration on wages, housing, schools and health care.
The shortcomings of Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe as Commissioner of the Met are expected to be laid bare with the publication of the report into the Operation Midland inquiry.

But his position already looked precarious, and it seemed only a matter of time before he followed his predecessors in leaving Britains top police post early.

Here, we reveals how he fell from grace.

The shortcomings of Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe as Commissioner of the Met are expected to be laid bare with the publication of the report into the Operation Midland inquiry

Top cop who ran out of allies

Both Hogan-Howes predecessors, Sir Ian Blair and Sir Paul Stephenson, had stepped down early because of scandals or blunders.

The new commissioner, a clever, tough talking northerner who had old fashioned ideas about crime and punishment, was initially perceived as a much needed safe pair of hands.

But by February this year, Hogan-Howe, 58, was a dead man walking.

Theresa May, who was then Home Secretary, announced then that he was to be given only a 12-month extension when his original five-year 280,000 contract expired this month.

Hogan-Howe had wanted to stay on another three years, which would have made him one of the longest serving commissioners ever.

He did not realise quite how badly he had been damaged.

Mrs May had once been a staunch supporter, but her perception of him shifted. Operation Midland was not the only fiasco on Hogan-Howes watch.

His credit had run out and he had grown short of powerful allies.

When he sat alongside Mrs May at a police gala dinner this spring fellow guests noted that the pair hardly exchanged a word all evening.

The irony is that politicking is something upon which Hogan-Howe has long prided himself.

Having joined his local South Yorkshire force in 1979 he first achieved senior rank on Merseyside before being was promoted to Assistant Commissioner at the Met in 2001.

He returned to Merseyside as chief constable and after a spell as one of Her Majestys Inspectors of Constabulary became Met Commissioner in September 2011.

Both Hogan-Howes predecessors, Sir Ian Blair and Sir Paul Stephenson, had stepped down early because of scandals or blunders

100m persecution of the Press

Before the top job was in the bag Sir Bernard had assiduously courted those in the media who could be of use to his ambition.

The hypocrisy of this charm offensive of private drinks and lunches would not be forgotten by those journalists when, shortly after Hogan-Howe became commissioner, the shutters came down and he went to war on the popular press.

Proportionality has long been a keyword at New Scotland Yard; you would not send 50 officers to attend a small road traffic accident.

How then to explain Hogan-Howes prosecution of Operations Elveden, Weeting and Tuleta, which the Met set up in response to the News of the World phone hacking scandal?

The force had been criticised in the past for going soft on investigating allegations against journalists. Hogan-Howe was not going to be soft.

In 2011-12 scores of journalists and their contacts, who included policemen, were arrested by his officers.

The suspects were often summoned from their beds in heavy-handed dawn raids as if they were dangerous gangsters.

Sometimes the police involved were drawn from already overstretched anti-terror and murder teams.

At its height 195 officers were dedicated to the press investigation.

But what did they show for it?

Of the dozens of journalists arrested under Operation Elveden  the investigation into press payments to public officials  only two were ever convicted, one of whom is appealing.

Some of those arrested were on bail for years before their cases went to trial. Many cases were thrown out before reaching that stage.

Journalists lost their jobs and homes, their health was ruined and more than 100 million was spent in public money and defence costs.

Relations between press and police hit a new low and officers were very wary of talking to journalists.

Critics saw the exercise as an attack on press freedom. Proportionality had become a joke.

But Hogan-Howe was unmoved.

Before the top job was in the bag Sir Bernard had assiduously courted those in the media who could be of use to his ambition

2m sex abuse witch-hunt

Indeed, he was to repeat his error in a second high profile and highly politicised investigation.

Operation Midland was launched in the autumn of 2014 when a middle-aged man, whom the police called Nick to protect his identity, made a number of startling allegations.

Nick claimed that as a boy he had been sexually abused by a ring of public figures at, among other places, an apartment block in Dolphin Square, close to Westminster.

Among those he named were former MP Harvey Proctor, former Home Secretary Lord Brittan, former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath and the former Chief of Defence Staff Lord Bramall.

Nicks most extraordinary and disturbing allegation was that the VIP gang had murdered three other abused boys.

Hogan-Howes men swung into action in a style with all the hallmarks of the press-related overkill.

Brittan, who died of cancer in January 2015 aged 75, was interviewed over a rape allegation.

He died not knowing that police had concluded he had no case to answer.

The home of Lord Bramall, a 92-year-old Normandy veteran with a wife in the last stages of dementia, was searched by 20 officers and he was interviewed under caution.

Before they had even had time to corroborate Nicks story the head of the Met investigation had said that the police believed Nick and that his claims were credible and true.

Hogan-Howe later said that Midland was a very thorough and professional inquiry.

In March this year Operation Midland was closed. It had cost 2 million.

No evidence had been found to support Nicks outlandish fantasies.

Hogan-Howe commissioned the Henriques report and no doubt hoped the fuss would die away.

His efforts to distance himself from the day-to-day mechanics of the inquiry did him no credit.

A legacy in tatters

Yesterdays Met press statement about Hogan-Howes departure did not mention Operation Midland.

Instead it claimed that crime in London had fallen by 18 per cent since he became commissioner.

The commissioner has also defended police numbers against budget cuts.

But what of the headline achievements during his time in office?

Two of the Mets biggest successes were in fact the legacy of previous regimes.

The January 2012 conviction of two of the racist killers of black teenager Stephen Lawrence, 19 years after his murder, were due to police work carried out years before.

The safe Olympics which Hogan-Howe delivered in 2012 and for which he in part received his knighthood, was an operation that had similarly been five years in the planning.

Now, Hogan-Howes most remarkable legacy is quite how isolated a figure he is as he leaves his job.

After the London mayoral elections in May he could no longer look to City Hall for support.

It was an open secret that the new Labour mayor Sadiq Khan did not want to have as his police commissioner a man so-closely linked to his Tory predecessor Boris Johnson.
It has been over 18 months since a team of doctors in a Houston hospital performed a highly complicated operation to separate conjoined twins  and the results could not be any better.

Pediatric specialists at Texas Children's Hospital are gushing over the progress made by Adeline Faith Mata and her sister, Knatalye Hope Mata.

The girls, who were born Texas in April 2014, were separated when they were just 10 months old after a 26-hour surgery that had never before been successful.

Elysse Mata and her husband, John Eric Mata, were told that their twin girls would be conjoined and when they were born it was found their shared the same chest wall, lungs, pericardial sac (the lining of the heart), diaphragm, liver, intestines, colon and pelvis.

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Formerly conjoined twins Knatalye Hope Mata (right) and her sister, Adeline (left), are reported to have made excellent progress in the 18 months since they underwent surgery

Each girl weighed about three-and-a-half pounds at birth.

In February, a team of more than 26 clinicians, including 12 surgeons, six anesthesiologists and eight surgical nurses at the Texas Children's Hospital operated to separate the 10-month-olds.

The 26-hour surgery was the first time twins conjoined at the chest and abdomen in this way had been separated successfully.

Now, as both girls continue to be monitored by doctors, they are said to be making considerable progress.

Knatalye and Adeline Mata share a special moment at the end of their appointment

Dr. Fadel Ruiz, pediatric pulmonologist at Texas Children's Hospital, examines Knatalye and Adeline during a follow-up visit

Knatalye runs down the hallway with her stroller in tow. Cass said: 'She recovered well from her chest surgery and is now returning to full activity'

Dr. Ruiz is seen here examining Adeline. Cass said that she is making good progress and that doctors hope to have her off a ventilator soon

'Knatalye and Adeline are doing awesome! Neither have experienced any complications and they are both making steady progress,' Dr. Darrell Cass told CW39 TV.

Cass, the lead surgeon on the case, is co-director of Texas Children's Fetal Center.

Knatalye recently underwent an operation to remove metal struts used to stabilize her rib cage and complete the closure of her chest wall. Doctors are satisfied with her progress.

'Knatalye is running!' Cass said. 'She recovered well from her chest surgery and is now returning to full activity.'

On February 17, 2015, a team of 26 doctors performed a complex operation to separate Knatalye and Adeline, who were just 10 months old at the time

The 26-hour surgery was the first time twins conjoined at the chest and abdomen in this way had been separated successfully

Knatalye and Adeline are seen here just hours before they were separated by surgeons

Elysse Mata kisses her daughters just before they undergo a complex operation to separate them at Texas Children's Hospital

The family prays for the health of Adeline after doctors completed the 26-hour operation to separate her from her sister Knatalye

'Her pelvis bones remain somewhat spread apart and she will benefit from surgical revision in order to ensure good hip function down the road,' he said.

'We anticipate she may undergo this procedure in the next six to 12 months. She is being weaned from the G-tube and is learning to eat on her own.'

As for Adeline, Cass said that she is making good progress and that doctors hope to have her off a ventilator soon.

'Despite her tracheostomy, she is eating well, even better than her sister!' he said.

'Her pelvis has healed well and we do not anticipate she will need further pelvic surgery.'
The teenager slept at the teacher's house on at least seven

The wife of a teacher who had sleepovers with and sent thousands of 'increasingly intimate' text messages to his 13-year-old student before she committed suicide has claimed the trio were a 'little family'.

Angela Mepham told an inquest into the death of New Zealand schoolgirl Reiha McClelland that she now regrets not reporting the 'intense' relationship between the 13-year-old Gisborne High School student and her 42-year-old husband, Sam Back.

Ms Mepham, also a teacher, said she was not aware how frequently Ms McClelland and her husband were texting and emailing, but noted their relationship was 'overpowering' and that the young girl had become emotionally reliant on Mr Back.

Angela Mepham (left) said she now regrets not reporting the 'intense' relationship between New Zealand schoolgirl Reiha McClelland and her 42-year-old husband, Sam Back (right)

Mr Back had sleepovers with and sent thousands of 'increasingly intimate' text messages to the 13-year-old student (pictured) before she committed suicide in 2014

The inquest heard Mr Back sent McClelland a love letter and text messages agreeing that she could sleep at his house if 'all your bases are covered'.

In another text sent to the schoolgirl Mr Back said he wanted to climb into her window so he could tell her 'how glad I am that you are here', the New Zealand Herald reported.

Ms McClelland, who met Mr Back in intermediate school, stayed at the couple's house on up to seven occasions, with Ms Mepham citing difficulty at home as the reason she reached out to them for the 'emotional support she wasn't getting'.

She claimed Ms McClelland, who suffered with mental health issues, became 'inconsolable' when she tried to take her home to her parents after police caught the trio in a parked car, the New Zealand Herald reported.

Ms McClelland stayed at the couple's house on up to seven occasions, with Ms Mepham citing difficulty at home as the reason she reached out to them for 'emotional support'

The inquest heard Mr Back (pictured) sent McClelland a love letter and text messages agreeing that she could sleep at his house if 'all your bases are covered'.

'She was digging her fingernails into my arms, hyperventilating in the footwell of the car. She was the most inconsolable I have ever seen a human being.'

Ms Mepham told the inquest she just 'let it happen' when Mr Back and the schoolgirl wanted to have a sleepover because she had difficulty saying no the persuasive teen, the New Zealand Herald reported.

'Reiha had a way about her that it was quite difficult when she talked you through things,' Ms Mepham told the inquest.

'In some ways, and this is no excuse, you felt you needed to do what she asked,' she added.

Ms Mepham told the inquest she was not 'upset' about her husband's relationship with the young girl and testified he had the best intentions, but conceded she should not have kept the relationship from police, the school or her parents.

Ms Mepham (right) told the inquest she was not 'upset' about her Back's (right) relationship with the young girl and testified he had the best intentions

'I'm not upset at his choices. He's a good man, a very good man and only does things for the goodness of others,' she said.

But Ms McClelland's father Bruce, who only found out about the extent of the relationship after his daughter's death in 2014, claimed the teacher had been grooming her, according to the New Zealand Herald.

'[Back] was sexually grooming her He had really worked on her and developed a strange bond,' Mr McClelland told police.

'He's an absolute mongrel I'll try to be dignified but these teachers are... I can't really say what they are,' he told the inquest.

Ms McClelland's father Bruce (pictured) claimed the teacher was 'sexually grooming' her

Mr McClelland and his wife learned about the relationship when they caught their daughter (pictured) sneaking out at night and found her carrying her passport in a car with the couple

Mr McClelland and his wife Hinemoa learned about the relationship when they caught their daughter sneaking out at night and found her carrying her passport in a nearby car with Mr Back and Ms Mepham.

The Education Council's Disciplinary Tribunal de-registered Mr Back and censured Ms Mepham after finding them guilty of serious misconduct following the young girl's death.

No criminal charges were laid.
Nova Scotia, Canada initiates study, stay program for Indian students

ANI, New Delhi | Published : 29th September, 2016

Nova Scotia, Canada has launched a new pilot program to help recruit and retain international post-secondary students from key markets that includes India.

Indian students are opting international study programs and students from Pune have been going to Canada for higher studies. Canada has always been a great study destination for Indian Students, Nova Scotia Study and Stay program is an endeavor to make international studies more favorable for Indian students. Students interested in pursuing university, college or post-graduate are eligible to apply for the high studies.

Study and stay is one of the first initiatives from the province's innovation team, which includes representatives from government, post-secondary institutions, students, and the private sector that will make recommendations in key areas like student recruitment and retention, experiential learning, and entrepreneurship.

The pilot is managed by EduNova, a co-operative industry association of education and training providers in Nova Scotia, and a leader in collaborative international recruitment activities.

It will recruit 50 international students from China, India and the Philippines who will start their studies at Nova Scotia post-secondary institutions in September 2017.

Michael Hennigar, International Student Recruitment Officer, Acadia University, Nova Scotia, who is in India to promote the Study and Stay programme on behalf of Nova Scotia Universities, said, "Students will receive customized supports and mentoring throughout their studies and after graduation to help them launch their careers in Nova Scotia."

The province will invest USD 549,500 in the pilot program. Funds will help cover recruitment travel, events and materials, and supports for students.

Students who successfully gain entry to the Study and Stay Program will travel to Canada to pursue their University or College studies in September of 2017. Students will be provided with enhanced support throughout their studies in Nova Scotia to ensure each student gains the education, tools, and community connections needed to launch a successful career and fulfilling life in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Study and Stay is a comprehensive international student support and career transition program focused on specific tasks that include: employment-related events, activities, workshops, and a career mentorship and experiential workplace learning component. Participants will be supported as they transition from 'student' to 'professional' over the course of their studies, benefiting from this unique program.

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A couple wanted by police over a crime spree in Perth ran from officers leaving a two-year-old boy behind on his own.

Edward Norman Walley and Anain Victoria Whitehead bolted as police moved in to arrest them in the Perth suburb of Mandurah. They are wanted for a number of burglaries and thefts in the area

Ms Whitehead was initially taken into custody on Thursday after she was spotted riding a bicycle in Mandurah with a man and a young child with her.

Edward Norman Walley (left) and Anain Victoria Whitehead (right) ran off when approached by police

Police followed the group of people to a house on Forrest Street in Mandurah, but when officers appeared the couple ran off leaving the two-year-old boy behind on his own.

The woman was found a short time later and identified as Ms Whitehead, but police still have not found the man and his identity has not been verified.

The child was taken into police care and arrangements for his continuing care will be made and the child's identity confirmed.
A toxicology report indicated she had valium in her

emerged in court that Kylie Maybury died from suffocation

He was charged with

A six-year-old girl tragically abducted from the streets of Melbourne when she went to buy sugar more than 30 years ago died of suffocation and had drugs in her system.

Shocking details have emerged in Melbourne Magistrates Court into the death of Kylie Maybury who disappeared in 1984 on Melbourne Cup day after she went to buy sugar and was allegedly kidnapped in Preston.

The cold case detectives were relentless in their pursuit of the killer, which led to the arrest of Gregory Keith Davies, 74, who was charged back in June for the alleged kidnap, rape and murder of the young girl on November 6 and 7, 1984.

Kylie Maybury disappeared in 1984 on Melbourne Cup day on her way to buy sugar at the shops and was found murdered in the gutter the next day

Gregory Davies was charged in June for the alleged kidnap, rape and murder of Ms Maybury

The court heard on Thursday the six-year-old, who was found dumped in a gutter after she disappeared, died from suffocation and a toxicology report indicated she had valium in her system.

The prosecution are alleging Mr Davies gave young Kylie Maybury the drug, which the defence denies.

The defence team's lawyer Amit Malik wants to question the mother, Julie Maybury, to find out if her daughter had access to valium before she disappeared.

Julie Maybury (Pictured) to be cross-examined about the drug found in her daughter's system

'The mother says there's no way she took valium,' the lawyer said. 'We want to explore if she could have while she was out of sight.'

The court hearing on Thursday was determining how many witnesses will give evidence when Mr Davies faces court next year.

Detectives have previously been determined to find witnesses and anonymous callers who could have vital evidence in the case.

In the past, a potential witness approached Kylie's neighbour, Lorna Simpson, while she was searching for the girl.

The woman said she saw a girl fitting Kylie's description in a white station wagon with a male driver.

Two anonymous callers also contacted police two weeks after the murder and 13-years later in 1997.

Mr Davies has unsuccessfully asked to have his DNA destroyed taken for the investigation.
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A wildfire in a mostly remote area of California's Santa Cruz Mountains has now destroyed eight homes and sent a firefighter to the hospital, officials said Thursday.

The firefighter had a leg injury but details of his condition have not been released, according to CBS San Francisco.

The blaze has been burning for three days and has burnt six-and-a-half square miles and was threatening 325 structures. It is at 34 percent containment.

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Cal Fire tweeted this image on Thursday, and said the fire has been 34 percent contained

The fire has burned six-and-a-half square miles and was threatening 325 structures. Cal Fire tweeted this image on Thursday

A firefighter is pictued battling a wildfire near Morgan Hill on Wednesday

A growing and destructive wildfire moved toward remote California homes in the Santa Cruz Mountains on Wednesday as it scorched its way through bone-dry brush and trees

Despite the destruction to eight properties, cooler weather and additional firefighters had officials hopeful Thursday that the blaze would be contained in days.

Full containment was expected by Monday, though wind gusts of up to 35mph forecast for Friday night could complicate the firefight, state fire Capt. Mike Perez said.

Mandatory evacuations were lifted Wednesday for Santa Cruz County.

But evacuation orders remained in effect for neighboring Santa Clara County, where most of the threatened structures are located, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.

Firefighters ignite a backfire to stop the Loma fire from spreading near Morgan Hill on Wednesday

Firefighters knock down walls of a building structure while battling the Loma fire

An inmate firefighter examines a burning structure while battling the blaze

Firefighters are seen working Wednesday along a dozer line on a steep hill during the Loma Fire

A vintage car rests in a driveway after the Loma fire burned through Loma Chiquita Road near Morgan Hill on Wednesday

Fremont firefighter Collin Spencer hoses down a hot spot while battling the Loma fire

Alameda County firefighter Wally Armstrong cools down hot spots in front of a residence leveled by the wildfire

The blaze broke out Monday during a statewide heat wave that brought witheringly low humidity and temperatures in the upper 90s.

A 10-degree drop in temperatures and increased humidity helped fire crews.

The cooling trend was expected to last through the week.

It was among several blazes burning during a time of year when the drought-stricken state sees its largest and most damaging wildfires, state forestry officials said.

To the north in Sonoma County, investigators say a grass fire that destroyed four homes in Petaluma may have been started by a discarded cigarette.

Ten homes were also damaged by that fire, CBS San Francisco reported.

An inmate firefighter watches as an air tanker drops retardant while battling a wildfire near Morgan Hill on Wednesday

An air tanker drops retardant to create a fire break. The blaze broke out Monday during a statewide heat wave that brought witheringly low humidity and temperatures in the upper 90s

Smoke from a wildfire billows over a valley not far from Morgan Hill in this image
The owner of a hospitality establishment on the Gold Coast has resorted to drug testing his employees after ongoing problems with workers addicted to ice.

The Gold Coast Bulletin reported that the man was more concerned with ice users than he was with the Gold Coast's ongoing battle against bikie crime.

'We have had a heap of problems with staff on ice and stealing money from us and things like that,' the man said.

The owner of a hospitality establishment in Queensland says he is now doing employee drug tests

The man said a number of employees had been caught stealing money from his establishment

The man said the drug was causing a high rate of employee turn over.

'I have had to fire heaps of staff because of ice,' he said.

The Gold Coast Bulletin reported that ice arrests had tripled: 'from 372 in the 2008-2009 financial year to 1330 for 2015-16'.

But not everyone seems to be on board with the idea of drug testing employees.

The Gold Coast Bulletin reported that ice arrests had tripled: 'from 372 in the 2008-2009 financial year to 1330 for 2015-16'

Tim Martin, who runs The Bedroom and Sin City on the Gold Coast, says it's too intrusive.
Police have launched a desperate appeal for information about a 16-year-old boy who vanished from a busy shopping centre.

The boy was last seen near the Bell Street Mall, in Toowoomba, north Queensland, at 11.30am on September 26.

He has not made contact with his family or the police who are concerned about his welfare.

The missing 16-year-old boy (pictured) has not made contact with his family or police since his disappearance on September 26

The boy is c aucasian, 170 cm tall, slim build and has blonde hair and blue eyes.

He was last seen wearing a grey T-shirt, black trousers and black sneakers.

Anyone with information which could assist with this matter should contact Crime Stoppers anonymously on 1800 333 000.
The police officer who shot dead an unarmed black man in Tulsa earlier this month was so mentally focused on what was unfolding in front of her that she was unable to hear the gunshot that was fired, her attorney claimed in court on Thursday.

Betty Shelby, who was filmed by dashboard and helicopter cameras firing at Terence Crutcher, 40, on a highway in Oklahoma on September 16, was experiencing 'auditory exclusion' - a condition in which people involved in highly stressful situations fail to hear surrounding sounds.

'She didn't hear the gunshot, didn't hear the sirens coming up behind her just prior to the shot,' her lawyer, Scott Wood, said on Thursday.

'And it's not only a common phenomenon described in literature, but it's the No. 1 perceptual distortion by people I have represented who have been involved in shootings  diminished sound or complete auditory exclusion.'

Wood said that this assertion will not be a decisive aspect of her case.

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Betty Jo Shelby, the Tulsa police officer who shot and killed Crutcher, was arrested and charged with manslaughter. She is pleading not guilty to the charge. Seen above left in a booking photo and right in her uniform

Terence Crutcher (seen left with his arms raised) is filmed moments before he is shot by Shelby (second from right). The footage does not offer a clear view of the actual shooting

Crutcher (seen left with his twin sister Tiffany) was killed by Shelby on September 16, 2016. Shelby and other officers were responding to a stalled vehicle

Nonetheless, he believes that juries ought to appreciate what officers endure during tense moments on the job.

'It's just one of the many facts that have happened, and I don't think our defense turns on whether or not she knew they were there,' Wood said.

David Klinger, a professor of criminology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, is also a former Los Angeles police officer.

Shortly into his career, he fatally shot a suspect.

Klinger told the Associated Press that high-stress situations involving shootings often bring about 'perceptual distortions' such as hearing loss.

'Other researchers have documented the phenomenon of muted sound or full auditory exclusion where you don't hear anything in a variety of circumstances outside of policing,' Klinger said.

Other distortions include tunnel vision and altered perception of time, in which situations are experienced in slow motion.

Crutcher (left and right) had left class at Tulsa Community College Friday when his SUV stalled in the street

Tulsa prosecutors filed manslaughter charges against Shelby, saying the officer 'reacted unreasonably' and was 'emotionally involved to the point that she overreacted' when she shot Crutcher.

It comes after dashcam and aerial footage of the shooting and its aftermath showed the victim walking away from Shelby with his arms in the air.

If convicted, the police officer faces between fours years and the maximum sentence of life in prison.

The footage of the moments before and after the shooting does not offer a clear view of when Shelby fired the single shot that killed Crutcher.

Her attorney has said Crutcher was not following police commands and that Shelby opened fire when the man began to reach into his SUV window.

But Crutcher's family immediately discounted that claim, saying the father of four posed no threat to the officers, and police said Crutcher did not have gun on him or in his vehicle.

Shelby, who joined the Tulsa Police Department in December 2011, was en route to a domestic violence call when she encountered Crutcher's vehicle abandoned on a city street, straddling the center line.

Shelby did not activate her patrol car's dashboard camera, so no footage exists of what first happened between the two before other officers arrived.

The police footage shows Crutcher approaching the driver's side of the SUV, then more officers walk up and Crutcher appears to lower his hands and place them on the vehicle.

A man inside a police helicopter overhead says: 'That looks like a bad dude, too. Probably on something.'

The officers surround Crutcher and he suddenly drops to the ground. A voice heard on police radio says: 'Shots fired!'

The officers back away and Crutcher is left unattended on the street for about two minutes before an officer puts on medical gloves and begins to attend to him.

Police also said they found a vial of PCP in Crutcher's vehicle after the deadly shooting.

PCP or phencyclidine, also called angel dust, can cause slurred speech, loss of coordination and a sense of strength or invulnerability.

At high doses, it can cause hallucinations and paranoia.

Hundreds of mourners gathered to pay their respects to Crutcher during a funeral service at Antioch Baptist Church in Tulsa this past Saturday

Wood said earlier this month that his client was emotionally wounded over the shooting.

'She is very distraught about the incident,' he said.

'The fact that she has taken a human life but at the same time she wants the Cructher family to know she meant no ill will.'

'This wasn't done out of hate or anger. She stopped there that day to help somebody.'

'Things didn't go the way they should have. And it ended up as an officer-involved shooting.'

Heartbroken: Attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons, left, comforts Tiffany Crutcher, twin sister of Terence Crutcher. At right is Rev. Joey Crutcher, her and Terence's father

Wood said it is 'important to remember' that Shelby was on the scene for around a minute-and-a-half before the shots were fired.

Wood said that she had a reputation of having a 'cool head on her shoulders.'

'This wasn't her first week on the job,' Wood said. 'Betty is a field-training officer. The department has picked her to train new officers, and people will tell you this isn't Betty Shelby to overreact to a situation.'

Wood said Crutcher escalated the situation by not communicating with Shelby, disobeying her commands and walking away from her.
A man has taken on a 'six beers in 60 minutes' challenge to raise awareness for Australian men 'who can handle their alcohol'.

Hugh Beveridge was filmed chugging the beers in Armatree, New South Wales, in protest at the 'nanny state government'.

Between gulps, Mr Beveridge also states that he is raising awareness for men who respect women, are chivalrous and work with animals.

Thirsty? Hugh Beveridge took on a 'six beers in 60 minutes' challenge to raise awareness for Australian men 'who can handle their alcohol'

'I'm taking the six beers in 60 minutes challenge to raise awareness for hardworking Australian males who are married, over 40, have children, work hard and pay their taxes. Here goes,' he says.

'It's also raising awareness for males all over New South Wales who can handle their alcohol and don't need a nanny state government to tell us we can't,' he adds.

Mr Beveridge, whose video has been watched more than 200,000 times in less than a day, says he is also drinking for 'males who treat women with respect and believe chivalry is alive and well'.

He continues: 'And raising awareness for males who like working with animals and earn an income with animals and treat their animals well and dont need a nanny state government or some minority little whining group telling us we can't.'

It is not clear what government restrictions or organisation he is referring to.

At the start of his fourth beer - 27 minutes into the challenge - Mr Beveridge discusses religion and the arrival of the British First Fleet in Australia in the 18th century.

Down it: Mr Beveridge was filmed chugging the beers protest at the 'nanny state government

'Boozy: Between gulps, Mr Beveridge also states that he is raising awareness for men who respect women, are chivalrous and work with animals

'I'm also raising awareness for males who won't or don't want to be killed in the name of religion and are happy to leave whatever god there may be alone,' he says.

'I'm also raising awareness for males who were born here and have nothing to do with what happened on the 26th of January 1788. I wasn't there, the English were.'

The next clip shows Mr Beveridge being told he has just a couple of minutes to finish off his final beer.

'Two-and-a-half minutes, easy. I'm going to do this easy,' he says as he downs what remains of beer number six to complete the challenge in 58 minutes.

At the start of his fourth beer - 27 minutes into the challenge - Mr Beveridge discusses religion and the arrival of the British First Fleet in Australia in the 18th century

Completed: Mr Beveridge finished the six beers challenge in a time of 58 minutes

'Done. Now, I nominate Nick Moses. No no, he only drinks gin and tonics, f***ing p***y,' he adds.

It is not clear whether Mr Beveridge was referring to the government's recommended alcohol consumption guidelines, which warn that drinking more than two beers a day can be harmful.

Official advice in New South Wales is that drinking more than four schooners of light beer a day or four small glasses of wine can be dangerous.
State Education department said it is not considering the proposal

The programme hopes to prevent gender identity bullying in schools

Non-gendered toilets for Victorian schools have been proposed by controversial Safe Schools co-founder Roz Ward.

The 'inclusive toilet design' proposal has been put forward to the state's Education Department.

It also includes an alternative plan for toilets to be self-contained unisex cubicles which have an outside area where teachers can supervise and stop 'gender identity' bullying, The Herald Sun reported.

Non-gendered toilets for Victorian schools have been proposed by controversial Safe Schools co-founder Roz Ward (pictured)

Ms Ward has also sent an email to Victorian Gender and Sexuality Commissioner Rowena Allen and Anna Brown from the Human Rights Law Centre.

'Our advice if a school is planning on building toilet 'blocks' would be to have an equal number of unisex/non-gendered, male and female options,' she wrote in the email.

However an Education department spokesperson said the Victorian State Government was not considering the proposal.

'The Government is not considering the mandatory introduction of non-gender toilets in government schools,' they said in a statement.

Ms Ward co-founded, developed and directs Safe Schools Coalition Victoria.

The programme is being taught across Victoria to create safe and supportive school environments for same sex attracted, intersex and gender diverse people and to reduce homophobic bullying.

Government was not considering non-gendered toilets at government schools at this time, The Herald Sun reported.
Parts of Australia have been battered with wild weather this week and the rain is set to continue over the long weekend - except if you live in some major cities.

Those in Sydney and Brisbane will manage to have a fairly dry weekend despite the superstorm that has wreaked havoc over the entire south-east of the country.

While Sydney is set to enjoy a sunny 27 degree day on Sunday, parts of central NSW are bracing for more floods as the state is hit by the tail end of the storm cell that has been lashing South Australia.

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South Australia was battered with wild weather this week and the rain is set to continue over the long weekend

Conditions are easing across South Australia, but thousands of residents remain without power and flood warnings have been issued for many of its rivers.

Residents already facing a massive clean up after Wednesday's storms that blacked out the entire state have been warned to brace for flooding as many rivers are set to peak at around midday on Friday.

The intense low-pressure system hit Victoria on Thursday and continues to lash parts of NSW and Tasmania on Friday.

So how does the long weekend weather shape up across the country?

Residents in South Australia are already facing a massive clean up after Wednesday's storms

Adelaide was battered by winds of up to 140km/h earlier this week -the highest ever recorded in its history, as torrential rain poured down across South Australia

New South Wales

Sydney is set for a fairly dry weekend with partly cloudy weather on Saturday and tops of 27 degrees on Sunday for the NRL grand final.

Possible rain is forecast for the city on Monday with maximum temperatures of 25.

Storms are forecast for much of the state on Friday, with a severe weather warning issued for central and northern NSW and the Hunter region.

Swollen rivers in the flood-ravaged areas near Forbes are expected to continue rising with more rain expected over the weekend.

The SES is urging holiday-makers heading inland to plan their trips to avoid floodwaters.

While Sydney is set to enjoy a sunny 27 degree day on Sunday, parts of central NSW including Forbes (pictured) are bracing for more floods

Swollen rivers in the flood-ravaged areas near Forbes (pictured) are expected to continue rising with more rain expected over the weekend

South Australia

The storms may have passed but some South Australian communities are still at risk of flooding after two days of wild weather.

Of most concern for emergency services are areas in the Barossa Valley, north of Adelaide, and around the Onkaparinga catchment, south of the city.

Rivers in those areas are still rising.

Rain is forecast to ease on Friday and Saturday with tops of 22 degrees in Adelaide.

The major city can expect possible showers again from Sunday, which will continue for the first half of next week.

Surfers in Adelaide took advantage of the rough conditions on Thursday due to the storm front

Now that the storm has passed, many are getting to work on the clean up

South Australia was plunged into darkness on Wednesday night after the storms caused a state-wide blackout

Victoria

Melbourne is set for a wet weekend with showers forecast until Monday.

Rain and strong winds are expected overnight on Saturday and for most of Sunday.

Temperatures in Melbourne will hit a high of 18 on Saturday, 23 on Sunday and 16 on Monday.

Flood watch warnings are still in place for parts of Victoria after heavy rain and strong winds lashed the state on Thursday.

Tasmania

Heavy rain has been lashing Tasmania as the intense low-pressure system moved its way across from Victoria.

Rain is set to ease on Friday before starting up again on Sunday.

Temperatures in Hobart will hit 18 degrees on Saturday, 20 degrees on Sunday and 17 on Monday.

Strong wind gusts up to 100km/h and rain up to 40mm is expected along the south-east on Friday.

Winds of more than 90km/h shown smashing into Adelaide on this map, with even worse hitting Kangaroo Island

South Australia has been drenched by heavy rains which caused flash flooding across the state, while gale force winds caused damage to homes, bus stops and cars

Queensland

Brisbane is set for a mostly sunny weekend with a top of 24 degrees on Friday.

It will be sunny on Saturday and Sunday with maximum temperatures of 28 degrees.

A shower or two is expected for Monday with a top of 27.

Despite the fine weather, the Bureau of Meterology has issued flood watch warnings for parts of the state - including the Dawson, Balone and Moonie river areas.

Western Australia

Showers are predicted for much of the weekend in Perth after a cold front swept through late in the week.

Saturday will reach of top of 19, Sunday will have a max of 18 and a top of 19 degrees is predicted for Monday.

Northern Territory

Darwin is exempt from the rainy weather targeting the rest of the country.

Maximum temperatures of 33 degrees are forecast until Monday.
Indie band Bon Iver released their new album this week, celebrating with a series of listening parties around the world.

However the most hipster one of all may have taken place in Melbourne on Thursday night.

Hundreds of hipsters turned out to huddle in a laneway and listen to 22, A Million on a cassette tape player.

Indie band Bon Iver held listening parties for their new album across the world, pictured is the event in Melbourne, Australia

Bon Iver released their new album on September 30, despite it being leaked online last week

A photo of the meet shows people sitting cross-legged in front of the tape player, which was sitting on a simple wooden table.

Some music fans stood quietly behind them, while others took photographs of the strange scene.

In the days leading up to the launch Bon Iver had been teasing fans with a series of posts to their Instagram page.

In the days leading up to the launch Bon Iver had been teasing fans with a series of posts to their Instagram page

The images included a city, address, time and date.

The Melbourne event was the only one in Australia, held on Johnston Street in Fitzroy alongside a mural of the band's new album cover.

Listening parties were also held in Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Brooklyn, and LA, despite the fact the album leaked last week.
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, v. TYSHAWN MCDADE, Defendant-Appellant, MELKUAN SCOTT, AKA Mel, AKA Young God, AKA Young, AKA YG, ARTHUR STANLEY, AKA Wigs, AKA P, AKA Peno, JEFF ANTOINE, AKA Little Homie, RASHAWN DUBOSE, AKA Chubbs, AKA Trev, GREGORY THOMAS, AKA Quanny, AKA Jim Jim, AKEEM MANOO, AKA Keeme, RICARDO HOWE, AKA Dino, AKA Tyson, NEHELIAH BARNETT, AKA Nelly, AKA Ney, AKA Neagmiah, AKA Nehemiah, RAYMOND RIVERA, AKA White Boy, KYRIN-ROBERT JACKSON, AKA KY, TAFARIE GREEN, AKA Farie, IRIS PEREZ, AFESHA MANOO, AKA Fesha, AKA Fee, HORACE STARKS, JR., AKA Head, AKA Little Head, JAMIE COLEMAN, AKA City, ARNOLD THOMPSON, AKA B, JERROD HALL, AKA Slime, RAQUIM SMITH, AKA Bud, AKA Butter, AKA Rakim, JAMAL HOWELL, AKA Squizzy, RASHAWN HILL, JASON WATSON, AKA Noggin, SHAQILLE BROWN, AKA Shaq, MICHAEL MORRISON, AKA Nazzie, Defendants.* No. 15-2593-cr Decided: September 28, 2016

PRESENT: JON O. NEWMAN, GUIDO CALABRESI, REENA RAGGI, Circuit Judges. APPEARING FOR APPELLANT: VITO A. CASTIGNOLI, Esq., Milford, Connecticut. APPEARING FOR APPELLEE: JOHN H. DURHAM, Assistant United States, Attorney (Marc H. Silverman, Assistant United, States Attorney, on the brief), for Deirdre M., Daly, United States Attorney for the District of, Connecticut, New Haven, Connecticut.

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment entered on August 14, 2015, is AFFIRMED.

Defendant Tyshawn McDade stands convicted after a jury trial on substantive and conspiratorial counts of distribution of and possession with intent to distribute cocaine base. See 21 U.S.C.  841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), (b)(1)(C), 846; 18 U.S.C.  2. The jury specifically attributed 100 grams or more of cocaine base to McDade, and the district court sentenced him to concurrent 132-month prison terms, above his 120-to-125-month Guidelines range. On this appeal, McDade challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conspiracy conviction, as well as certain evidentiary rulings. We assume the parties' familiarity with the facts and record of prior proceedings, which we reference only as necessary to explain our decision to affirm.

1. Sufficiency of the Evidence

A defendant challenging the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction bears a heavy burden because, although our standard of review is de novo, we must affirm a conviction if any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Brock, 789 F.3d 60, 63 (2d Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted).

To prove a drug trafficking conspiracy, the government must demonstrate (1) the existence of the charged conspiracy and (2) defendant's knowing participation therein. See United States v. Story, 891 F.2d 988, 992 (2d Cir. 1989). McDade's sufficiency challenge is directed only to the second element and rests on the buyer-seller defense. See, e.g., United States v. Brock, 789 F.3d at 6364 (describing buyer-seller defense). This challenge fails on the merits because the record evidence, viewed most favorably to the verdict, allowed a reasonable jury to find that McDade and conspiracy leader Scott had more than a buyer-seller relationship; rather, they shared a conspiratorial purpose to advance other transfers. United States v. Parker, 554 F.3d 230, 235 (2d Cir. 2009); accord United States v. Brock, 789 F.3d at 63.

Testimony by surveillance officers and a confidential source established that on March 3, 2014, McDade accompanied Scott to a location where Scott arranged a sale of 500 grams of crack to the source; that Scott and McDade subsequently returned to McDade's home; that McDade went inside for five minutes, whereupon the two men traveled to an arranged meeting place; and, there, McDade removed a one-ounce sample of crack from his pocket, handed it to the source, and received $800 in return, which he conveyed to Scott. This evidence would allow a rational jury to conclude that McDade was not simply buying drugs from Scott but helping Scott supply drugs to others. Indeed, that conclusion was reinforced by recorded conversations indicating that McDade had fronted Scott the crack needed to complete a sale to another buyer on December 16, 2013. Further, on at least one occasion in the summer of 2013, Scott fronted crack to McDade. A rational jury could have concluded from the totality of this evidence that McDade personally assisted Scott in transferring drugs to others, and that there existed prolonged cooperation between the parties, a level of mutual trust, standardized dealings, [and] sales on credit between Scott and McDade, all of which demonstrated McDade's joinder in Scott's conspiracy to distribute drugs. United States v. Brock, 789 F.3d at 64 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Insofar as McDade points to other evidence that he contends is inconsistent with his participation in the drug conspiracy, he fails to show that such a conclusion is compelled as a matter of law. Accordingly, we must assume the jury resolved all evidentiary conflicts and drew all reasonable inferences in favor of the government. See United States v. Salameh, 152 F.3d 88, 151 (2d Cir. 1998). When we do that here, we conclude that the evidence was sufficient to allow the jury to find that McDade knowingly joined the charged conspiracy.

2. Evidentiary Rulings

a. Co-Conspirator Statements

McDade faults the district court's admission into evidence of various recorded conversations under Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(2)(E) (permitting introduction of hearsay statements in furtherance of conspiracy) on the ground that a preponderance of the evidence failed to show his membership in the scheme. See United States v. Mandell, 752 F.3d 544, 552 (2d Cir. 2014) (holding that Rule 801(d)(2)(E) requires preponderance showing of (1) conspiracy, (2) declarant's and defendant's membership in scheme, and (3) statement being made during and in furtherance of conspiracy). We review Rule 801(d)(2)(E) admissions only for clear error, which is not evident here. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court concluded that the contents of [McDade's] multiple wiretap conversations with [ ] Scott are not reasonably susceptible to any interpretation other than that they were for an illicit purpose of furthering a conspiracy's cocaine transactions. United States v. McDade, No. 3:14-CR-00081 (JAM), 2015 WL 5157201, at *3 (D. Conn. Aug. 31, 2015). We identify no error, let alone plain error, in that conclusion. Further, as already discussed, witness testimony demonstrated that McDade actively assisted Scott in crack sales to others.

b. Other Evidence

McDade cursorily challenges the district court's admission of certain physical evidence collected during searches of properties associated with co-conspirators, as well as evidence of undercover buys in which he was not involved. While McDade does not identify a basis for these challenges, because he argues that there is no evidence that he knew about or own[ed] or ever possess[ed] the challenged items of evidence, Appellant's Br. 1819, we assume he relies on Fed. R. Evid. 403 (allowing introduction of evidence that is more probative than prejudicial). We review a Rule 403 ruling for abuse of discretion, see United States v. Miller, 626 F.3d 682, 68889 (2d Cir. 2010), and find none here. The trial court properly concluded that the challenged evidence was relevant to show the existence of and scope of the alleged crack cocaine conspiracy, United States v. McDade, 2015 WL 5157201, at *3, an element distinct from McDade's joinder in the scheme, see United States v. Story, 891 F.2d at 992. While some of the evidence seizedspecifically, gunssuggested violence, the district court carefully instructed the jury that McDade himself was not alleged to have engaged in any violence. This allowed the government to offer evidence probative of the scheme, see, e.g., United States v. Vegas, 27 F.3d 773, 77879 (2d Cir. 1994), while ensuring against undue prejudice to McDade.

3. Conclusion

We have considered McDade's remaining arguments and conclude that they are waived and, in any event, without merit. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

FOR THE COURT:

CATHERINE O'HAGAN WOLFE, Clerk of Court

FOOTNOTES

. Insofar as McDade also challenges the district court's denial of his post-trial motions for a judgment of acquittal, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 29, and a new trial, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 33, because these rested on the same sufficiency and evidentiary challenges that we identify as meritless, we need not review these rulings separately here.

. McDade mentions in passing other decisions by the district court that he had previously contended were error, but offers no arguments on appeal. Accordingly, any challenges to these decisions are deemed waived. See Norton v. Sam's Club, 145 F.3d 114, 117 (2d Cir. 1998) (Issues not sufficiently argued in the briefs are considered waived and normally will not be addressed on appeal.); accord United States v. Brown, ---F.3d ----, 2016 WL 3254735, at *10 (2d Cir. 2016). Even if McDade could clear this procedural hurdle, his challenges would fail on the merits.
Charles Wasko is mayor of West York, a small town just 30 miles south of Harrisburg

The mayor of a small Pennsylvania town who has posted racist images on his Facebook page is being urged to resign.

Charles Wasko, the mayor of West York, which is located approximately 30 miles south of the state capital of Harrisburg, has shared Internet memes comparing President Barack Obama to an orangutan.

He also posted an image showing actor Clint Eastwood in one of his films holding a noose.

The caption on the photo reads: 'Barry, this rope is for you. You wanna bring that empty chair over here!'

A number of local officials in the West York borough council have called on Wasko to resign.

The council's president, Shawn Mauck, told the local newspaper York Dispatch that the posts are 'disgusting'.

'I almost don't know what to say,' Mauck said. 'I kind of want to throw up.'

The mayor dismissed the criticism, telling the York Dispatch that the controversy was 'bulls**t that's going on up at the borough office.'

Wasko was elected mayor in 2013.

Offensive: This meme shows orangutans transported in a wagon with the words 'Kenya or bust' written on it. The caption above reads: 'Aww... moving day at the White House has finally arrived'

West York is a township with a population of approximately 4,500 people. It is almost 90 percent white, according to the latest census figures.

The images on the mayor's Facebook page and the resulting fallout prompted senior law enforcement officials in the town to clarify that the views do not represent those of the local sheriffs.

'This in no way reflects the ideology of this department,' acting police chief Matthew Millsaps said.

Millsaps told the York Dispatch that he was 'disturbed' by the images.

West York's entire police force consists of eight officers  two of whom are minorities. There is one Hispanic and one African-American woman on the force.

'Of particular concern are any images with undertones of violence - lynching or that are threatening in nature,' Millsaps said.

The picture of Eastwood and the noose is particularly incendiary given the history of violence toward African-Americans in this country  many of whom were lynched and hanged.

The NAACP has said that it will seek to mobilize public opposition to Wasko.

'We call upon them, other council members and the West York community to take a stand against the mayor's actions that are based on racial bias and stereotypes and that exceed any protections of political speech,' Sandra Thompson, who heads the York branch of the NAACP, told the York Dispatch in an email.
A desperate search is underway for an elderly woman who has gone missing in the middle of the night from her home.

June Tom, 75, was last seen around 11pm by her husband, Charles, before they went to bed at their Beerwah home, north of Brisbane, on Thursday night.

The next morning, Mr Tom woke up to find that June was not beside him.

June Tom, 75, is believed to have climbed out of her window in the middle of the night and left her home in Beerwah, north of Brisbane

The couple's son, Matt, told Daily Mail Australia he is concerned for her well as she is a diabetic and possibly has dementia.

He said his mother climbed out the window in the middle of the night so to not wake up her husband.

Mr Tom said his mother had been told that her younger brother had died earlier in the week and may have headed to the Gold Coast.

'She very close to her little brother. That was our assumption, that she wanted to be with that part of the family,' he said.

'Or trying to go back to her hometown of Molong, near Orange in New South Wales. But their family property isnt there any more, it's got built housing,' he added.

It is believed Mrs Tom may still be in her sky blue nightgown and thongs.

Police are searching along Peachester home, Mrs Tom may still be in her sky blue nightgown and thongs

Mrs Tom is described as Caucasian, 165 cm tall, of a slim build and with black shoulder length hair.

Police are conducting searches along the Peachester Road area, a semi rural area surrounded by farms.
The touching moment a young Marine returned home and surprised his mother while she was at work has been captured on camera.

Kendall Wilson, 19, returned home to Fort Worth, Texas, after spending six months on a base in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

The teenager was still wearing his uniform when he strolled into his mother's hair salon unannounced.

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The touching moment a young Marine returned home and surprised his mother while she was at work has been captured on camera

Tonya Wilson is seen washing a client's hair at the start of the clip, but quickly is overcome with emotion after seeing her son for the first time in half-a-year.

The mother immediately starts crying and says, 'oh my god, Kendall', when her son walks into the salon while carrying a bouquet of flowers, the News Flare video shows.

She then wraps her arms around him tightly and laughs.

The laughter eventually turns into tears of joy, before Tonya pulls back from her son and says: 'you surprised me'.

Kendall Wilson (right), 19, returned home to Fort Worth, Texas, after spending six months on a base in Jacksonville, North Carolina, to see his mother, Tonya (middle), and brother, Christian (left)

Tonya Wilson (left) was shocked in the video when her 19-year-old son walked in wearing his uniform and carrying flowers (right)

Kendall leaned in to give him mom a kiss in the emotional video (left), which started by showing Tonya Wilson's surprise (right)

Kendall then leans in and gives his mom a kiss on the cheek, before handing her the flowers.

She later took to social media to celebrate her son coming home.
Wife Crystal, 30, is currently in Paris and he doesn't appear to be with her

However Hef's rep claims he is fine, adding his back problems over recent years have made it a bit more challenging for him to get around

Concerns have been raised about the health of Hugh Hefner amid rumors the Playboy founder makes visitors sign a confidentiality agreement.

Hefner is unwell  and its led to a dramatic weight loss, a source told Page Six, adding he now appears to weigh just a mere 90lbs.

But in a bid to keep the 90-year-olds condition a secret, visitors reportedly have to sign a waiver if they want to visit.

He looks like he is down to around 90 pounds and supersick, the source told Page Six.

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Concerns have been raised about the health of Hugh Hefner (above, in October last year with his wife Crystal)

His people are really trying to keep this under wraps. You even have to sign a confidentiality agreement to go up to see him.

But a representative for Hefner  who hasnt been seen in public in months - told Page Six that he is fine, adding his back problems over recent years have made it a bit more challenging for him to get around.

The spokesman added that Hefner is still enjoying his life and still very involved in the day-to-day activities of editing the magazine.

DailyMail.com has contacted Hefners reps for comment.

Hefner looked frail in a picture (above) with Playboy's 2016 Playmate of the Year Eugena Washington in May

Hefner had shared a picture of himself dressed in purple silk pajamas at his Midsummer Nights Dream Party in August, but reportedly didn't attend

Hefner had shared a picture of himself dressed in purple silk pajamas at his Midsummer Nights Dream Party in August.

However, reports say he didnt attend and his son Cooper hosted it instead.

The 90-year-old recently sold his Playboy Mansion for $100million and has not been spotted out in Los Angeles, according to Page Six.

Last year, model Carla Howe said Hefner was too ill to attend his famously raucous parties.

Hef is so frail, he goes everywhere with a group of nurses, she said.

Meanwhile, Hefners 30-year-old wife Crystal Hefner has been posting pictures of herself alone in Paris.
The mother of the infant known as Baby Kate took the stand to testify in the murder trial of the four-month-old's father, more than five years after the child disappeared in west Michigan.

Katherine Phillips, also known as Baby Kate, vanished on June 29, 2011, and has been missing since.

The youngster's father, Sean Phillips, is already in prison for unlawfully imprisoning his daughter, but is now being tried for intentionally killing her.

The baby's mother, Ariel Courtland, was the first witness called in the murder trial by the prosecution in a Ludington courtroom.

Courtland told the court that when she found out she was pregnant with Kate, she argued with Phillips over what to do. Her lawyers said the child was a dirty secret he wanted to get rid of.

Phillips initially insisted Ariel should have an abortion, and then pushed for the baby to be given up for adoption, she told the court.

Ariel Courtland (above), the mother of the infant known as Baby Kate, holds her daughter's carseat as she testifies in the murder trial of the four-month-old's father, Sean Phillips, in Michigan on Thursday

Katherine Phillips, also known as Baby Kate, has never been found after she disappeared on June 29, 2011 when she was just four-months-old. Above Assistant Attorney General Donna Pendergast shows a photo of Baby Kate

Baby Kate's father, Sean Phillips (above in court on Friday), is already in prison for unlawfully imprisoning his daughter, and is now being tried for intentionally killing her

While testifying for several hours, Courtland described the moments after she realized that Phillips had driven off with Baby Kate, 9and10news reported.

She explained that they were driving together in his car when they stopped at her apartment complex so she could grab the stroller quickly.

When she walked back out with the stroller, Phillips was gone, she said.

'I walked outside and saw that he wasn't there, so I shoved the stroller back so I could go look around, not in the actual unit but the hallway, real quick,' Courtland said.

'I was scared but I wasn't panicked yet, because I didn't think anything wrong was happening.'

The prosecutor asked Courtland: 'When you say 'really wrong' you mean other than he had left with your daughter?'

She replied, 'Well, I thought that he was mad so he went and sat somewhere, I didn't know if it was serious-serious.'

While testifying for several hours, Courtland (above) described her relationship with Phillips, what lead up to him taking Baby Kate, and the communications they had once he was in jail

Phillips (above) is charged with murder in the disappearance of his 4-month-old daughter. He is already serving time in prison for unlawfully imprisoning his daughter

She testified that she tried to reach Phillips after he took off with the baby.

'I started calling Sean repeatedly trying to get through to him and see where he was at,' Courtland said.

'We drove through the beach, just trying to see if we could see him anywhere, if he was driving anywhere.'

The mother also described their relationship as a couple, and said they often argued about Baby Kate.

Before she was born, Courtland said that Phillips favored her getting an abortion.

After Baby Kate arrived, Phillips reportedly was pushing Courtland towards giving her up for adoption, while not wanting to publicly claim the baby as his child.

She said Phillips became upset when she printed out birth announcements, and that he was mad she listed him as the father on an insurance applicatio through the Department of Human Services.

That paperwork eventually led to the father being contacted about paying child support.

'He was mad about it, because he didn't believe what I said,' Courtland said.

She added that he thought she was after the money.

The prosecution in the case claim Phillips (above) lied to authorities several times to cover up killing the infant, and also said Phillips is the only one with a motive for wanting the baby dead

The prosecution in the case started the trial with a passionate opening statement saying that Phillips saw Baby Kate as a dirty secret that he wanted to get rid of.

They claim he lied to authorities several times to cover up killing the infant, and insist he is the only one with a motive for wanting the baby dead.

His defense lawyer argued that he was a good father to the baby and that there is no evidence to convict.

There has been no direct evidence there was a death. There's no blood, no physical evidence, no body. There's even evidence, too, in their continued investigation that even they don't believe she is dead beyond a reasonable,' his defense attorney David Glancy said.

The prosecution said that there is plenty of evidence for the jury to come back with a guilty verdict at the end of the trial that's expected to take a few weeks.
A smiling Harriet Wran was spotted sipping coffee and enjoying lunch with her mother on the same day her ex-boyfriend was jailed for more than a decade.

The daughter of former NSW Premier Neville Wran was pictured on Thursday in Sydney's affluent Double Bay for the first time since being released from jail two weeks ago.

Dressed in her gym gear, the 28-year-old recovering meth addict looked relaxed as she enjoyed life outside prison while dining with her mother Jill and a friend.

As Wran smiled, bought flowers and hugged her friend tightly, her ex-boyfriend Michael Lee, 37, was being sentenced to at least 13 years for a 'senseless' stabbing murder of a small-time drug dealer.

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A smiling Harriet Wran was spotted sipping coffee and enjoying lunch with her mother Jill in Sydney's Double Bay on Thursday

The daughter of former NSW Premier Neville Wran was pictured on Thursday in Sydney's exclusive Double Bay for the first time since being released from jail two weeks ago

Daniel McNulty was stabbed to death in his squalid inner-Sydney housing commission flat in August 2014.

Lloyd Edward Haines, 31, who knew Lee had a knife but did not anticipate it would be used, was jailed for at least 11 years.

They both pleaded guilty in the NSW Supreme Court to murder and armed robbery.

Their sentencing came a fortnight after Wran was released from jail after serving her two-year minimum term for being an accessory after the fact of murder and robbery.

Her murder charge was dropped after she pleaded guilty to the two lesser charges.

Dressed in her gym gear, the 28-year-old recovering meth addict looked relaxed as she enjoyed life outside prison while dining with her mother Jill and a friend

Wran smiled, bought flowers and hugged her friend tightly during the outing on Thursday

Wran was released from jail after serving her two-year minimum term for being an accessory after the fact of murder and robbery over Redfern drug dealer Daniel McNulty

Wran and her mother Jill were pictured buying flowers in Double Bay. Jill was present at most of her daughter's court appearances as she faced trial

Wran's outing in Double Bay came as her ex-boyfriend Michael Lee, 37, was being sentenced to at least 13 years for a 'senseless' stabbing murder of a small-time drug dealer

The trio had gone to the unit to get drugs back in 2014 and spontaneously decided to rob Mr McNulty which led to a violent struggle between the occupants and Lee and Haines.

When jailing Wran in July, Justice Ian Harrison said it was unlikely she would ever have been caught up in the events that night if she had not suffered from mental illness, including a long-running battle with bulimia and drug addiction.

Wran came from a wealthy well-known family, grew up with a loving father and went to some of Sydney's most exclusive private schools.

While Lee and Haines had led much less privileged lives, being expelled from school in year seven, having troubled relationships with their fathers and difficult childhoods.

Wran's murder charge was dropped after she pleaded guilty to the two lesser charges
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The auction of a derelict Sydney mansion at the centre of a family feud has ended in heartbreak.

Morella, in Mosman on Sydney's prestigious North Shore, was sold for $6.6 million and left the late Anthony Parer's 83-year-old sister, Marianna, heartbroken.

The harbourside home was bought by Chinese man Edward Wei who was 'very happy' with the outcome, news.com.au reported.

The former family home of the Parers was inherited by Anthony's carer Chew 'Chewee' Ho Hong who was recognised as his defacto partner and had lived with him until his death.

But the surviving Parers have never acknowledged Ms Hong as one of the family and tensions boiled over on Thursday at LJ Hooker's Mosman auction rooms.

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The heritage listed property called Morella in the exclusive suburb of Mosman on Sydney's north shore has been abandoned for 15 years and now features graffiti covered walls, smashed windows, scattered debris and a crumbling interior

 Slide me  The derelict estate, which is used as a 'hangout' zone for teenagers and squatters, was once the home of Leonardo Parer and his wife Helena brought up their three children - Antony, Marianna and Sarita

The heritage listed property called 'Morella' was sold for $6.6 million on Thursday at LJ Hooker's auction rooms in Mosman

The former prized home, which now features graffiti and crumbling interiors, was built in 1939

'It's a terrible story... I just got out of hospital this morning because I had a very bad reaction to all this,' Marianna, who made the trip from Montreal in Canada, to see her beloved childhood home go under the hammer, said.

'This is just the realisation that my whole life, my young life is gone.'

Marianna recalled the friends she had down the street and riding the bus with them to school.

The house was left in a derelict state after Anthony moved out in 2001, leaving it open to squatters and graffiti vandals.

Set within the exclusive suburb of Mosman, the heritage listed property was abandoned for more than a decade with graffiti covered walls, smashed windows, scattered debris and a crumbling interior.

Anthony, who had moved to the state's north, died last year and his mother Helena, who is the listed homeowner, passed away in 1989.

Morella has had a troubled recent past with police called to the property on a regular basis at night by neighbours because of vandals, according to realestate.com.au.

The sale of the former prized home was handled by LJ Hooker Lower North Shore agents.

It was built in 1939 by wealthy Sydney couple Leonardo and Helena Parer who lived there with their three children - Antony, Marianna and Sarita.

The home has fallen into disrepair since its last known resident, Anthony Parer, left in 2001. Mr Parer died last year and his mother Helena, who is the listed home-owner, passed away in 1989

The Parer family were known for their renowned surname with an impressive family tree.

Leo's father and entrepreneur Michael, who migrated from Spain to Australia where he married Maria Carolin, started the Parer Empire in Melbourne.

Within 40 years, he had invested in 30 hotels and restaurants.

Leo's brother Ray Parer, who was an aviator Lieutenant in Papua New Guinea, joined the Australian Flying Corps in World War I while his cousin Damien Parer was a world famous wartime photographer and cinematographer.

Leo, who was born in Melbourne and was the eldest of nine children, was a director and engineer of Stanford X-ray Company, which was established by his cousin Stan Parer.

The home has been abandoned for 15 years and is now a popular meeting place for teenagers and squatters

The family's once grand home once graced the pages of the April 1943 issue of Australian Home Beautiful magazine

The kitchen has been completely trashed over the past decade with a badly rusted, missing floorboards and no cupboards

The only comparable feature between the lavish mansion it once was and the dump it has turned into is the property size

The stunning view is one of few things that have not changed since the grand home's appeared in a magazine in 1949

The family's grand home graced the pages of the April 1943 issue of Australian Home Beautiful magazine in a six-page spread

The family's grand home graced the pages of the April 1943 issue of Australian Home Beautiful magazine in a six-page spread.

'There are so many interesting things to talk about in Leo Parer's house that it is rather difficult to know where to begin,' the article reads.

'An immense circular loggia is built out from the central hall facing the water. Its short Corinthian pillars support an equally huge open sun deck reached from the bedroom above.'

Leo passed away in 1968, his wife Helena tragically died in 1989 and Sarita in 1979.

The last family member to have lived inside the property was their son, Anthony, who moved out of the home in 2001 to live in northern NSW, during which the estate was left abandoned.

Property records list his mother Helena Monica Parer as the owner of the home.

One of the few comparable features between the lavish mansion featured in the magazine and the dump it has turned into is the size of the property.

Most of the windows are smashed, the skirting boards have lifted away from the floors and political messages coat the walls

Empty spray cans litter the floor of the once grand property, which has now become a playground for teenagers

A 1943 article described Morella's beautiful finishes and furniture that graced the rooms of the four-bedroom and two-bathroom home

The 1943 article described the beautiful finishes and furniture that graced the rooms of the four bedroom and two bathroom home. The only fixture that suggests such opulence is a smashed grand piano standing among hanging ceiling beams, broken glass and debris.

The exterior of the home has been overshadowed by overgrown shrubs and creepers climbing high to the roof.

Residents have raised concerns with authorities for more than a decade after the abandoned home gradually fell into disrepair over the past 15 years.

Disturbed neighbours have heard teenagers spraying graffiti and smashing up glass bottles and windows late at night, with some claiming they've also seen squatters inside the property.

Most of the blinds have been ripped down and windows smashed by vandals leaving it wide-open

A Mosman Council spokeswoman said they have repeatedly taken action over the years to have the home secured and the property maintained but the fencing is continually damaged by trespassers

Residents have raised concerns with authorities for more than a decade after the abandoned home fell into disrepair

The exterior of the home has been overshadowed by overgrown shrubs and creepers climbing high to the roof

The sprawling four bedroom, two bedroom mansion was named 'Morella' after the street it was built on in Mosman

Neighbours have reported hearing teenagers spraying graffiti, and smashing up glass bottles and windows late at night

The once prized mansion looks messy and rundown when viewed from the manicured lawns of neighbouring properties
A 35-year-old hairdresser was allegedly stabbed to death by her husband inside their apartment because he was upset she had converted to Christianity.

Amir Darbanou was charged with the murder of his wife Nasrin Abek after her body was found inside their apartment in the affluent suburb of Potts Point on Thursday.

The 42-year-old, from Iran, was allegedly enraged that Ms Abek had recently converted to Christianity and killed the hairdresser in a frenzied knife attack on Wednesday night, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

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Amir Darbanou (right) allegedly stabbed his wife Nasrin Abek (left) to death as she converted to Christianity

He was charged with murder after her body was found inside their apartment in the affluent suburb of Potts Point on Thursday

Police made the gruesome discovery when they forced entry into the couple's home at about 6.20am on Thursday after Ms Abek's father raised concerns for her welfare.

Mr Darbanou had allegedly called his father-in-law in Iran to tell him Ms Abek was dead on Wednesday night and was arrested after her body was found the next day.

Ms Abek's father said his heartache over her death had been made worse by the fact he had to contact police 'several times' before they would act.

He said he became concerned when he had not heard from her for a 'prolonged period', Nine News reported.

The 42-year-old, who reportedly 'stalked' his wife, did not enter a plea or apply for bail when he appeared in Sydney's Central Local Court on Friday.

Police said there was no known history of domestic violence between the couple, who had been living in Australia for four years on bridging visas, but neighbours had reported hearing screaming coming from the apartment on Wednesday night.

Police said there was no known history of domestic violence between the couple but neighbours had reported hearing screaming coming from the apartment on Wednesday night

Ms Abek moved from Iran to Australia four years ago and recently converted to Christianity

Mr Darbanou (right) allegedly called his father-in-law in Iran to tell him Ms Abek (left) was dead on Wednesday night and was arrested after her body was found the next day

Superintendent Mick Fitzgerald said officers believe they recovered the knife allegedly used to kill Ms Abek during a search of a nearby garbage tip

One neighbour, who did not want to be identified, said she heard blood-chilling screams come from the apartment at about 4.40pm, but only silence after.

She overheard detectives saying there was 'a lot of blood splatter' inside the apartment as they scoured the front yard for the murder weapon.

Superintendent Mick Fitzgerald said officers believe they recovered the knife allegedly used to kill Ms Abek during a search of a nearby garbage tip, but at this stage of the investigation it was 'too early to tell'.
Billionaire Gina Rinehart has ended a bizarre interview with an ultra-conservative academic by listing Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan quotes.

The mining magnate - who is worth an estimated $14billion - spoke about her respect for the two late leaders in an interview with David Flint for his Conversations with Conservatives YouTube channel.

Mrs Rinehart used the interview to praise the Australian swimming team and went on to discuss government red tape, but it was the end of her chat that raised eyebrows.

Billionaire Gina Rinehart has ended a bizarre interview with an ultra-conservative academic by listing Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan quotes. Pictured, the interview on YouTube

In an unusual twist, Mrs Rinehart elected to end the interview - which has been viewed just a few hundred times - with a long list of her favourite quotes from Reagan and Thatcher.

She told Mr Flint, who had earlier quoted Reagan himself, that she had chosen a few more because we 'should still learn from great people like this and how much they contributed to their countries'.

Reeling off the Iron Lady's words first, Mrs Rinehart said: 'She said, "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money".

'She also said, "If you set out to be liked you will be prepared to compromise on anything at any time and you will achieve nothing".'

Mrs Rinehart went on to list quotes Thatcher made about 'economic liberty', capitalism and how she was 'a very clever lady who did so much for her country'.

'If I could move on now to another great leader, ex-president Ronald Reagan,' the billionaire said before listing a series of his quotes.

She said, repeating Reagan's words: '"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on, for them to do the same".

She continued: '"Government's first duty is to protect the people, not ruin their lives".'

Mrs Rinehart elected to end the interview with a long list of her favourite quotes from Reagan and Thatcher

Mrs Rinehart reeled off more nuggets on taxation and welfare, before finishing the interview with a final Reagan quote.

'And if I could finish on: "No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life that we will see on this earth".'

Mrs Rinehart has spent up to $5million funding the Australian Olympic team

The mining magnate, who was at the Olympics in Rio when she was interviewed online by Mr Flint, started the conversation by speaking of her pride in Australia's athletes.

Mrs Rinehart has spent up to $5million funding the Australian Olympic team and said she had seen some 'magnificent performances'.

'Just to be able to compete at this world level is outstanding in itself,' she said.

'These athletes are trying so hard. Sometimes they can't do everything they wish - but they really are fantastic. They put so much work and effort into being among the world's best.'

Mrs Rinehart was particularly proud of 17-year-old swimmer Tamsin Cook, who won silver in the 4x200m freestyle relay and came sixth in the 400m freestyle final.

The billionaire went on to criticise the amount of bureaucracy in Australian government at a local and national level.

Mrs Rinehart spoke of her respect for the late world leaders, who are pictured together at a G7 summit in Toronto in 1988

'I think we need to learn a lot from Ronald Reagan,' she said.

'No one man can do everything but he certainly had some of the right ideas,' she added, before reeling off more words from the former president.

She quoted him as saying: "'Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.'"

Mrs Rinehart also bemoaned the amount of regulation she has faced in setting up mining operations across Australia.

She said she needed 4,000 permits, approvals and licenses for the Roy Hill project in Western Australia, and 5,000 for another mine in Queensland.
Chelsea Clinton has been pictured taking a private jet to an event devoted to environmental issues.

While campaigning on behalf of her mother, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton flew to Asheville, North Carolina, the site of a 'clean energy roundtable' on Wednesday, according to Breitbart.

The event, which was staged by the Clinton campaign, brings together high-profile leaders in business and public life to discuss ways to preserve the environment.

Clinton flew to Asheville from Greenville, North Carolina, which is approximately a five-hour drive and around 330 miles.

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Chelsea Clinton is seen boarding a private plane in Greenville, North Carolina, for a flight to nearby Asheville, which is a five-hour drive

Footage of Chelsea Clinton boarding the jet was first posted by the NTK Network.

Earlier in the election season, the Clinton team pledged that it would run a 'carbon neutral' campaign by having its surrogates and operatives use more environment-friendly modes of transportation rather than private jets.

Asheville has gained a reputation in recent years as an up-and-coming town that boasts of an increasingly 'green' economy.

Chelsea Clinton spoke at a 'clean energy roundtable' which brought together business and community leaders to discuss ways to tackle climate change. She is seen above speaking at the Democratic National Convention in July

While campaigning against Democratic rival Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire this past November, Hillary Clinton broke her pledge to stay carbon neutral when she was seen boarding a private plane just hours after receiving an endorsement from a powerful environmental group.

Video footage obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com shows the Democratic front-runner climbing aboard a Learjet model 60 aircraft at the Lebanon, New Hampshire municipal airport.

Chelsea Clinton is seen in Greenville on a photo shared on Twitter before she boarded a private jet to a clean energy roundtable in Asheville on wednesday

In November, Hillary Clinton boarded a private jet after receiving an endorsement from an environmental group during her primary battle with Democratic rival Bernie Sanders

Chelsea Clinton is seen left speaking during a fundraiser in March and her mother Hillary is seen right at Des Moines International Airport in Iowa on Thursday

America Rising, a conservative opposition research group, shot the video from inside the civil aviation terminal in the town of Lebanon, a stone's throw from Dartmouth College.

Clinton was on campus to participate in a roundtable event hosted by Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business.
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, v. VINCENT JACKSON, Defendant-Appellant. No. 15-1744 Decided: September 28, 2016

Present: ROBERT A. KATZMANN, Chief Judge, RICHARD C. WESLEY, PETER W. HALL, Circuit Judges. For Appellee: WAYNE A. MYERS, Assistant United States Attorney, for Richard S. Hartunian, United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York, Albany, NY. For Defendant-Appellant: GWEN M. SCHOENFELD, Law Office of Gwen M. Schoenfeld, LLC, New York, NY.

ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, and DECREED that the order of the district court is AFFIRMED.

Defendant Vincent Jackson appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (D'Agostino, J.), entered May 21, 2015, convicting him of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C.  922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). Specifically, he argues that the firearm and ammunition evidence on which his conviction was based should have been suppressed because that evidence was recovered during an unconstitutional search. We assume the parties' familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal.

Jackson was previously convicted of possession with intent to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C.  841(a) and was sentenced principally to sixty months in prison. Shortly after he was released, he violated the terms of his supervision and was sentenced to an additional six months in prison. On November 15, 2012, Jackson began serving his second term of supervised release in the Northern District of New York. He consented to a special condition of release that provided:

You shall submit your person, and any property, house, residence, vehicle, papers, effects, computer, electronic communications devices, and any data storage devices or media, to search at any time, with or without a warrant, by any federal probation officer, or any other law enforcement officer from whom the Probation Office has requested assistance, with reasonable suspicion concerning a violation of a condition of probation or supervised release or unlawful conduct by you. Any items seized may be removed to the Probation Office or to the office of their designee for a more thorough examination.

App. 37 (emphasis added). On March 18, 2013, he was charged in New York state court with misdemeanor assault, and the district court imposed conditions of home detention and electronic monitoring while those charges remained pending. Subsequently, Jackson's electronic monitoring reports revealed that he traveled to New York City without permission on at least five occasions between June 17 and July 16, 2013.

On August 28, 2013, Jackson was riding as a passenger in a vehicle that was pulled over by state police in Plattsburgh, New York. One of the other occupants of the vehicle, Julie Rabideau, had previously been convicted of a federal narcotics trafficking crime. Jackson had approximately $2500 in cash on his person, mainly in denominations of $10 and $20. He told the officer that the money came from his job as a construction worker. However, the Probation Office had no record of Jackson working in that business. The stop did not result in any arrests. Jackson did not notify the Probation Office that he was questioned by a law enforcement officer. Several days later, state police stopped the same vehicle again in Plattsburgh. Rabideau was in the vehicle with another woman, and Jackson was not present. During a search, the police found a small safe containing cocaine packaged for sale, as well as composition notebooks with titles such as Accounts and Payroll containing handwritten ledgers. The two women were arrested.

On September 10, 2013, Probation sought and obtained an arrest warrant for Jackson based on three violations of supervised release: (1) traveling to New York City without authorization; (2) associating with a convicted felon; and (3) failing to report a law enforcement contact. Jackson was arrested the next day when he reported to the Probation Office. Later that day, Probation conducted a warrantless search of Jackson's residence pursuant to the search condition of his supervised release. During the search, the officers recovered a loaded handgun and ammunition from a nightstand from Jackson's bedroom. They subsequently searched two cellphones that Jackson frequently used and found photographs of the handgun as well as outgoing messages containing the photograph and text stating, Now I need bullets. App. 68-69. Jackson was then charged with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Before trial, Jackson moved to suppress the evidence obtained from his apartment. The district court denied his motion, holding that the uncontested evidence clearly establishes that the Probation Officer had reasonable suspicion to believe that Defendant was engaged in criminal activity and that he was repeatedly violating the terms and conditions of his supervised release. Addendum 8. Jackson was convicted following a jury trial and was sentenced principally to ninety-two months in prison. He now appeals the district court's denial of his motion to suppress.

The Fourth Amendment protects the right of private citizens to be free from unreasonable government intrusions into areas where they have a legitimate expectation of privacy. United States v. Newton, 369 F.3d 659, 664 (2d Cir. 2004). Ordinarily, reasonableness requires authorities to obtain a warrant supported by probable cause before searching a private residence. See United States v. Julius, 610 F.3d 60, 64 (2d Cir. 2010) (citing Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873 (1987)). However, the law recognizes an exception to this requirement where the government has special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement. Griffin, 483 U.S. at 873 (internal quotation marks omitted). This exception applies to individuals, such as Jackson, who are serving a term of federal supervised release. See id. at 875; see also United States v. Reyes, 283 F.3d 446, 45758 (2d Cir. 2002).

A releasee's expectation of privacy is further diminished where he has consented to a search condition. See United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 118 (2001) (stating that the existence of a search condition is a salient circumstance); United States v. Edelman, 726 F.3d 305, 310 (2d Cir. 2013) ([P]ersons on supervised release who sign [waivers] manifest an awareness that supervision can include intrusions into their residence and, thus, have a severely diminished expectation of privacy. (alterations in original) (quoting Newton, 369 F.3d at 665)). In light of these considerations, the Supreme Court has held that [w]hen an officer has reasonable suspicion that a probationer subject to a search condition is engaged in criminal activity, there is enough likelihood that criminal conduct is occurring that an intrusion on the probationer's significantly diminished privacy interests is reasonable. Knights, 534 U.S. at 121. Under such circumstances, the Fourth Amendment does not require the officer to obtain a warrant. Id. at 12122.

In evaluating whether an officer had reasonable suspicion to justify a search, courts look to the totality of the circumstances to determine whether the officer had a particularized and objective basis to suspect the person searched of criminal activity. United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002) (quoting United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 41718 (1981)). A mere hunch is insufficient, id. at 274 (internal quotation marks omitted), but the likelihood of criminal activity need not rise to the level required for probable cause, and it falls considerably short of satisfying a preponderance of the evidence standard. Id.

Jackson concedes that, pursuant to the search condition, the Probation Office could search his residence based upon reasonable suspicion concerning a violation of a condition of probation or supervised release or unlawful conduct by [him]. App. 37. However, he argues that the facts known to Probation did not supply reasonable suspicion of any such violation or unlawful conduct. This argument is unavailing.

At the time of the challenged search, Probation was aware that Jackson, who had a history of trafficking in narcotics, had made five unauthorized trips to New York City. It was further aware that he had ridden in a vehicle with a woman who had been convicted of a drug trafficking offense, and that she was subsequently arrested in the same vehicle while in possession of drugs and items related to drug trafficking. In addition, Probation was aware that Jackson had been stopped with a large sum of cash in small denominations on his person, lied to the police about its origins, and failed to report the stop to Probation as required by the terms of his supervised release. Even if each of these facts, viewed in isolation, would not necessarily establish reasonable suspicion that Jackson had become involved in drug trafficking, when considered in the aggregate, they certainly do. See United States v. Lee, 916 F.2d 814, 820 (2d Cir. 1990). Accordingly, the district court properly denied Jackson's motion to suppress the evidence recovered from his residence.

We have considered all of Jackson's arguments and conclude that they lack merit. For the reasons given, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

FOR THE COURT:

Catherine O=Hagan Wolfe, Clerk
South Park lampooned the first presidential debate on Thursday nights episode  which saw a character inspired by Donald Trump admit: I dont know what the f*** Im doing.

The shows creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, have a famously down-to-the-wire schedule  meaning the episode saw their take on the debate days after it occurred.

And in season 20s third episode, titled The Damned, the election was presented as a choice between a douche and a turd sandwich.

But when the Trump stand-in admits he is not fit to be president and implores viewers to vote for his opponent, a Clinton lookalike, she repeatedly tells America that he is a liar.

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South Park lampooned the first presidential debate on Thursday nights episode

Mr Garrison (above), the show's Donald Trump stand-in, admits he's not fit to be president

In the opening question, moderator Lestor Holt asks the candidates: How will you deal with ground troops in Syria?

But instead of answering the question, Mr Garrison, the shows too-tanned Trump stand-in, says he needs to come clean.

I dont know what the f*** Im doing, he says.

Ive got to come clean. I had no idea I would get this far but the fact of the matter is, I should not be president OK?

The Hillary Clinton lookalike spouts off the line her advisers told her to no matter what he said

Backstage, the Clinton character's advisers brand her a 'turd sandwich' for blowing it

I will f*** this country up beyond repair. I am a sick, angry, little man.

Please, if you care at all about the future of our country, vote for her.

He adds: Shes the one who at least has some experience. Shes not as bad as you think, I promise. And unlike me, shes actually capable of running this country.

But before the debate, Turd Sandwich  as the satirical cartoons Clinton character is named  was instructed by her advisers to respond with the same line no matter what Mr Garrison says, which she does.

My opponent is a liar and he cannot be trusted, she says.

What he is saying is simply not true. Do not believe it.

South Park's down-to-the-wire animation schedule means the creators address the debate just a few days after it happened

The show featured Lestor Holt, who moderated Monday night's debate, in the episode

I am giving you this, lady, I am giving you this, an exasperated Mr Garrison replies. What the f*** are you doing?

An one of her annoyed advisers, watching the debate from backstage, adds: Oh my God, she is such a turd sandwich!

And despite Mr Garrisons repeated attempts to urge people to vote for her, she simply repeats that he is a liar.

Please shut up! Get out of your own way! he adds.

As a result, after the debate, Americans are more supportive of Mr Garrison  a man who tells the truth and isnt just another politician  than ever, while Turd Sandwich wrecked her chances at what could have been an easy victory.
The female officer who shot dead an unarmed black man in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has entered a not guilty plea on a first-degree manslaughter charge.

Officer Betty Shelby, 42, said nothing except the word 'yes' when acknowledging her name at her first court appearance on Friday.

Her attorney, Shannon McMurray, entered the not guilty plea on her behalf as Terence Crutcher's family sat in the courtroom.

Shelby is charged in the September 16 death of Crutcher.

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Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby (pictured, center in white shirt) pleaded not guilty on Friday to manslaughter charges in the shooting death of Terence Crutcher

Shelby, 42, (pictured, center in white shirt) is said to have 'reacted unreasonably' when she fatally shot Crutcher, according to a court document

Shelby stood silently, only answering 'yes' when asked if she was Betty Shelby, while her lawyer entered the 'not guilty' plea

She was charged on September 22 - six days after the shooting - with first-degree manslaughter

The Crutcher family attorney said that they weren't surprised by the not guilty plea and were anticipating that is how Shelby would plead.

Prosecutors allege Shelby acted unreasonably when she shot 40-year-old Crutcher after she encountered his vehicle abandoned on the street.

Shelby turned herself in on September 22 and was later released on bail

If convicted, she faces at least four years in prison, lawyers said.

Shelby told investigators she feared for her life.

As she left court, she appeared solemn, flanked by her attorney and police before entering a vehicle.

She was formally charged on September 22 with manslaughter and turned herself in early September 23.

Shelby was released on $50,000 bond about 20 minutes after turning herself in and was scheduled for her court appearance on Friday.

On Thursday, her lawyer Scott Wood said Shelby experienced 'auditory exclusion' - a condition in which people involved in highly stressful situations fail to hear surrounding sounds.

'She didn't hear the gunshot, didn't hear the sirens coming up behind her just prior to the shot.

'And it's not only a common phenomenon described in literature, but it's the No. 1 perceptual distortion by people I have represented who have been involved in shootings  diminished sound or complete auditory exclusion,' Wood said.

The Crutcher family attorney said that the family wasn't surprised by the not guilty plea and were anticipating that is how Shelby would plead (pictured, Terence Crutcher)

In two videos provided by Tulsa police, Crutcher can be seen with his hands in the air shortly before he was shot

Wood said this would not play a large part in Shelby's defense but that the jury should take it into consideration.

'It's just one of the many facts that have happened, and I don't think our defense turns on whether or not she knew they were there,' Wood said.

Shelby, who joined the Tulsa Police Department in December 2011, was en route to a domestic violence call when she encountered Crutcher's vehicle abandoned on a city street, straddling the center line.

In two videos provided by Tulsa police, Crutcher can be seen with his hands in the air shortly before he was shot.

Shelby's attorney has said Crutcher was not following police commands but his family refutes that claim

Crutcher's death came just before the shooting of another black man by police, Keith Lamont Scott, of Charlotte, North Carolina

The shooting isn't clear in dashcam and aerial footage and Shelby never turned on her dashcam, so it's unclear what happened before other officers arrived.

Police released the police helicopter and dashcam videos, in a bid for transparency.

Shelby's attorney has said Crutcher was not following police commands and that Shelby opened fire when the man began to reach into his SUV window.

Crutcher's family refutes that claim.

Crutcher's death came just before the shooting of another black man by police, Keith Lamont Scott, of Charlotte, North Carolina, which sparked massive protests of police brutality over several days in the city.

The incidents have intensified scrutiny over the use of excessive force by police against minorities.

Officials released the videos, one of which was taken from a police helicopter and the other from a dashboard camera in a patrol car, in a bid for transparency (protests in Tulsa, pictured)

The shooting death of both men, both black, by police officers have sparked national protests and scrutiny of the use of excessive force (protests in Tulsa, pictured)

Tulsa police have said Crutcher was unarmed and there was no weapon in the vehicle.

Shelby's next court appearance is set for November 29.
Jon Voight has claimed that search engine giant Google is 'certainly working for' Democratic prsidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

The actor, who is supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump, made the claims to TMZ at Los Angeles International Airport.

A male voice off-camera told Voight that Trump claimed 'Google had hid all the negative press, headlines about Hillary after the debate'.

'Probably true,' Voight responded.

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Jon Voight has claimed that search engine giant Google is 'certainly working for' Democratic prsidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Voight is pictured at the Values Voter Summit earlier this month

Voight said in the interview: 'Google's certainly working for Hillary, there's no doubt about that.'

The star also claimed while in the airport: 'Listen, the mainstream media has been in the tank for the Democrat party.'

'This is real,' he asserted.

Asked about who he thought should be the next debate moderator, Voight said: 'Well, it's a tough situation, because I think the next moderator is also from the left so we're gonna have to see if they can be properly fair.

'But also, it's going to be - so far as I know, if I'm correct, it's gonna be you know, like a town hall kind of thing, where the people are in the audience will ask the questions.

'Then we're gonna say, are they setting up - are people - set up within the audience?'

Voight explained: 'Well you know, I'm sure that people want to win, I mean that's the way it is.'

Trump and Voight are pictured together at the Values Voter Summit on September 9

Trump said at a rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday: 'A new post-debate poll that just came out, the Google poll, has us leading Hillary Clinton by two points nationwide.

'And that's despite the fact that Google search engine was suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton. How about that.'

'The Google poll' was a reference to a Independent Journal Review poll that Google Consumer Surveys had conducted, according to The Verge.

The website said that 'Google Consumer Surveys is a poll service of debatable quality'.

In June, SourceFed posted a video on YouTube titled Did Google Manipulate Search for Hillary? which has been viewed more than 1million times.

In the video, SourceFed says it 'has discovered that Google has been actively altering search recommendations in favor of Hillary Clinton's campaign'.

The Hollywood actor and the Republican presidential candidate embrace on September 9

The theory, however, has been disproven, the New York Times reported.

Google told the Washington Times in June: 'Google Autocomplete does not favor any candidate or cause. Claims to the contrary simply misunderstand how Autocomplete works.

'Our Autocomplete algorithm will not show a predicted query that is offensive or disparaging when displayed in conjunction with a person's name.
A man has been charged over an alleged rampage where he killed two cats and bashed two men with a metal pole.

The 39-year-old man is alleged to have gone the rampage on Thursday morning on the streets of Roebourne, north of Perth, Western Australia.

The man assaulted a 73-year-old man with a metal pole just in Sherlock street. Between 7am and 8am,

A 39-year-old man has been taken into police custody after he allegedly bashed a 50 and 73-year-old man in Roeburn, Western Australia (Roebourne police station pictured)

The man is believed to have continued on to Sholl street where he attacked a 50-year-old man with the same metal pole.

Police arrested him and took him into custody.

The injured men were taken to the Nickol Bay Hospital where they were treated for serious injuries including a broken nose and fractured cheek bone.

It is also alleged that when police went to the man's home, they found two dead cats. He will face Karratha magistrates court on Friday (stock of Karratha city)

Police also allege that when attended the man's home officers found two cats that appeared to have been recently deceased.

The 39-year-old man has been charged with causing grievous bodily harm, assault, animal cruelty and possessing drug paraphernalia.
Home Depot has shelved a controversial Halloween product that customers complained was 'inappropriate' and 'too scary'.

The prank product, called the 'Scary Peeper', has been given the boot from stores across Canada after complaints flooded in about the bizarre item.

Scary Peeper says the 'original' version of its terrifying product is designed to, 'simulate a 'Peeping Tom' looking in through a window'.

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Home Depot has shelved a controversial Halloween product that customers complained was 'inappropriate' and 'too scary'

The product looks like a man's face with his hands cupped around the side of it, while wearing a blue hoodie, and can be attached to a window with a suction cup.

However, according to CNN Money, the intended joke didn't go over well in Canada, with people saying it was reminiscent of a: 'notorious serial killer and rapist from the 1980s was a voyeur.'

A spokesman for the store told the website the 'Scary Peeper' has been removed from all 182 Home Depot stores across Canada.

One person echoed the complaints against the product on Home Depot's website, saying it was inappropriate and 'not fun'.

The prank product, called the 'Scary Peeper', has been given the boot from stores across Canada after complaints flooded in about the bizarre item

Home Depot customers called the product 'inappropriate' and said it should not be sold in stores

'I find this in very bad taste for all the attacks done on women and children. Not just of recent, but for many years,' the customer wrote.

However other customers wrote on the website that they loved the product, which had an average rating of 4.5 stars.

Scary Peeper's vice president, Emily Dowtin, apologized to anyone offended by the toy.

The company, Scary Peeper, also sells other creepy products, including a Tapping Peeper (pictured)

Another of its items is the Scary Peeper Giggle, which is similar to the company's 'classic' product but has its face painted like a clown (pictured)

'We offer our sincerest apologies to anyone who has been offended by our products, and certainly, to those who have been victimized by voyeurs,' Dowtin told CNN Money.

'Violence towards women is a serious issue, and our products are not intended to make light of serious crimes.'
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas entered Israel for the first time in six years today and shook Benjamin Netanyahu's hand in the defining moment of Shimon Peres' funeral.

US President Barack Obama also used his eulogy to call for an end to hostilities and said Mr Abass's decision to visit Jerusalem was 'a gesture and a reminder of the unfinished business of peace.'

Mr Peres, who helped set up the post-war Israeli state, died on Wednesday aged 93, two weeks after a major stroke.

The statesman was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1994 with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for signing the Oslo Accord in the hope a two-state solution would bring peace to the region.

Today the country's two leaders shook hands and Mr Abbas said: 'It's been a long long time' - the Israeli Prime Minister responded: 'It's something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people and on behalf of us.'

It came as an emotional Bill Clinton paid tribute to Mr Peres, one of the founding fathers of modern Israel, calling him a 'wise champion of humanity'.

The former US president gripped his coffin and looked close to tears as he joined 70 world leaders and royals including Tony Blair, Prince Charles and King Felipe of Spain who all wore a Jewish skullcap at the ceremony on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

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Symbol of hope: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (left) is also at the funeral - his first visit to Israel since 2010 - and shook Benjamin Netanyahu's hand saying it had been a 'long long time'

Plea: US President Barack Obama eulogises former Israeli President Shimon Peres, comparing him to Nelson Mandela, the Queen and other great figures of the 20th century - and hoped his funeral could kickstart a peace process

The former US president, pictured here touching the coffin, joined 70 world leaders and royals including Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Prince Charles and King Felipe of Spain at the ceremony on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem

Emotional: Bill Clinton looked close to tears as he said farewell to his friend, former Israeli President Shimon Peres

Poignant: The grandchildren of Shimon Peres lay a wreath on the grave of their grandfather during the burial ceremony as a President Obama looks on and smile ruefully

Prince Charles represented the royal family at the funeral - and smiled at an anecdote during the ceremony

Heartbroken: Tsvia, the daughter of former Israeli President Shimon Peres is comforted by her family as she mourns during her father's funeral

Former leaders: David Cameron and Tony Blair sat together and posed for this pictured during today's funeral

A meeting between the Abbas and Netanyahu is extremely rare - they have not held face-to-face talks since 2010 - but the gesture will raise hopes of new negotiations.

But Mr Abbas' decision has led to some criticism in the Arab world, with some branding him a 'sellout' and a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' for shaking hands with a president who was bombing the Gaza Strip for days in May.

Shimon Peres's daughter Tzvika Walden, who broke down during the funeral, made mourners laugh with anecdotes about the father she loved so dearly

The funeral was Jerusalem's biggest security operation for at least two decades with 8,000 police and soldiers lining the streets as the country's former prime minister was laid to rest.

On the streets of Jerusalem, as pedestrians were held up at cordons as VIPs left, members of the public were discussing Peres' legacy. 'Maybe the dream of peace went with him,' said Tanya Sindorf, 42, as she rocked her baby. 'If he couldn't succeed, I'm wondering if others can.'

Tami Kadira, 30, took the opposite view, seeing the fact that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attended as a sign of hope. 'Abbas came, so maybe people will say that we have a partner for peace.'

In a eulogy to the former Israeli president in Jerusalem Friday, Clinton called Peres a 'wise champion of our common humanity.'

Describing a meeting where Israeli and Arab children together sang John Lennon's 'Imagine', he said: 'He imagined all the things the rest of us could do. He started life as Israel's brightest student, became its best teacher and ended up its biggest dreamer'.

'He lived 93 years in a state of constant wonder over the unbelievable potential of all the rest of us to rise above our wounds, our resentments, our fears to make the most of today and claim the promise of tomorrow'.

He said: 'I am honoured the family asked me to tell what he meant to someone who is not a citizen of this country I love so much, but who was nevertheless blessed and inspired. And I think in many ways is representative of millions more he touched though he never met.

'Israel watched him grow from a young genius doing his best to create undefeatable defence forces to a long life to become a wise champion of our common humanity. Someone who wanted the best for our children. Yes the Israeli children but the children of his neighbours and the larger world'.

He will be buried next to his so-called 'partner in peace' Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish nationalist in 1995.

Eight thousand officers are on duty as US President Barack Obama, French President Francois Hollande, German President Joachim Gauck and Prince Charles attending.

The main road into Jerusalem is closed off to the public for the hours immediately before and after the state funeral, which is taking place at the Mount Herzl national cemetery.

President Barack Obama flew into Israel this morning to pay his respects to Shimon Peres, the former leader whose six decades of work shaping this tiny nation into a powerful and industrious force generated tremendous respect from Obama.

He said he reminded him of 'giants of the 20th century' like Nelson Mandela in his eulogy for the Nobel Peace Prize winner in Jerusalem on Friday.

Afterwards he hugged Mr Peres' family and other dignitaries but only shook the hand of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The pair are understood to have a strained relationship.

Earlier Mr Netanyahu hailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres as a 'great man of the world' on Friday as he eulogised the man who was once his political rival at his funeral.

'Shimon lived a life of purpose,' Netanyahu told world leaders and other mourners gathered at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl cemetery.

'He soared to incredible heights. He was a great man of Israel; he was a great man of the world. Israel grieves for him, the world grieves for him, but we find hope in his legacy, as does the world.'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bows his head and observes a moment of silence after laying a wreath near the grave of Shimon Peres

Salute: Guards place the coffin of former Israeli President Shimon Peres on a podium for his funeral

Poignant: Knesset guards carry the flag-draped coffin during the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres at the Mount Herzel national cemetery in Jerusalem

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands before the coffin after saying: 'He was a great man of Israel; he was a great man of the world'

Respect: Outgoing US President Obama was also joined by former president Bill Clinton at Mount Herzl Cemetery

Laying hands: Israel's President Reuven Rivlin pays his respects at the flag-draped coffin of Shimon Peres

Tributes: U.S. President Barack Obama speeches next to the flag-draped coffin of former Israeli President Shimon Peres during his funeral at the Mount Herzel national cemetery

Close: The US President stood with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hugged Chemi Peres, the son of former Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize winner

Anglo-French meeting: Prince Charles, left, greets French President Francois Hollande seriously at the start of today's funeral

VIPs: Prince Charles and Tony Blair both flew into Tel Aviv in private jets ahead of the funeral in Jerusale

His daughter Tzvika Walden, who broke down during the funeral, made mourners laugh with anecdotes about the father she loved so dearly.

President Obama comforts relatives of former Israeli President and Prime minister Shimon Peres, who he said reminded him of 'giants of the 20th century' like Nelson Mandela

She said: 'He was described as a great negotiator, as someone who always found a way to get what he wanted. To me he was young man who used his creative skills to get us to eat, who cut sandwiches in to triangles and diamonds.

'He would say: 'Try this, it's a Burmese sandwich' My father pulled out all the creative stops, and used every trick of the trade to tempt us to open our mouths, eat and grow.'

She added: 'In the eyes of the public he will be remembered as one who dined with kings. I remember him at the table of a French restaurant, when he whispered in my ear: 'This tastes good but it's nothing compared to your mum's salad.' To him, Israeli cucumbers and tomatoes were the finest delicacies'.

Mr Peres was known for his sense of humour and recently appeared in a film made by his daughter where he was working in a petrol station on the pumps.

Son Yoni said that when asked what he would like written on his grave, Mr Peres answered without hesitation that he 'was too young to die'.

Earlier, a military honour guard took Mr Peres' casket from the parliament building and escorted it, with his family, to a vehicle. The guard recited Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead.

The casket will make the short journey to Mount Herzl, Israel's national cemetery, where Mr Peres is to be buried alongside most of the country's past leaders.

The funeral took place on Mount Herzl, where Peres is buried alongside other Israeli leaders - but far from the more private grave of his wife Sonia, who died in 2011.

Mourners came from all of Israel's communities: rabbis in black coats, leaders of Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia holding ceremonial colourful umbrellas, Imams dressed in white, and representatives from churches.

The singer David D'or reduced many of the people gathered, Israelis and foreign visitors alike, to tears when he sang one of Peres' favourites - 'Our Father, Our King,' in Hebrew.

Israeli President Rivlan gave an emotional tribute after touching his coffin.

Mr Rivlin said to Mr Peres: 'You were not only a man of vision, you were a man of deeds.'

The former leader, who succeeded him as president in 2014, said Mr Peres had the ability 'to conceive what seemed to be the inconceivable, and see it to fruition'.

He said: 'You strived until your final breaths to reach the pinnacle of the Zionist dream: an independent, sovereign state, existing in peace with our neighbours.

'Yet you also knew that true peace could only be achieved from a position of strength, and you were sure to secure the path to this goal.'

British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said afterwards: 'The eulogies encapsulated the depth of Peres as an statesman who was respected internationally and as a family man. It shows that you can be a great statesman and a great father and grandfather.

'We saw at the cemetery the depth of feeling for this man'.

ABBAS AND NETANYAHU'S HISTORIC HANDSHAKE - BUT IS IT ANOTHER FALSE DAWN? 2016: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara speak to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - the leaders have not help face-to-face talks since 2010 Today's symbolic gesture by Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu could be a step towards reconciliation. The leaders have been at loggerheads for years and recently Abbas accused Israel of ethnic cleansing after Netanyahu made the same allegation over Palestinians wanting a Jew-free state in the West Bank. The men met briefly last year at a NATO meeting - but they did not speak and have not held face to face talks since 2010. But today world leaders including President Obama were piling on pressure to try to find a way forward. The first major breakthrough - and handshake - came in 1979 at Camp David, the US President's ranch, and involved an agreement with Egypt and set up a framework to 'solve the Palestinian problem'. A famous image showed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin clasp hands in front of a delighted Jimmy Carter. Israel would leave Sinai - but President Sadat was assassinated and Israel and Palestine continued their feud. Politically the Palestine Liberation Organisation kept the country out in the cold until 1993, when the most historic handshake between the country's leaders was also one of the hesitant. And with it, Israel and its sworn enemy the PLO set the course for peace in the Middle East that sadly never became permanent. 1979: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin clasp hands in front of a delighted Jimmy Carter in a deal also aimed at solving the Palestinian problem 1993: The handshake that made history. Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin and his old enemy Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat set the seal the White House after decades of a bitter blood feud. This was the moment no one had dared hope for, orchestrated for a worldwide TV audience by then President Clinton on the South Lawn of the White House. At his right hand was Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin, 71, a former general in the 1967 Six Day War when Israel grabbed the occupied territories, including Gaza and the West Bank, from the Arabs. To his left was Yasser Arafat, 64, mastermind of a long terrorist war against Israel. Once bitter enemies, they were risking their political lives on an agreement giving Palestinians self-rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho in return for official recognition of the Jewish state. Rabin, consumed by years of hatred, needed gentle persuasion from the President to take Arafat's hand and give the briefest of shakes. A year later the men would win the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Shimon Peres for his role in negotiating the Oslo accords, which envisioned an independent Palestinian state. Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish settler angered by the Oslo peace accords they had agreed. In 2001 Mr Peres further strengthened relations by shaking Mr Arafat's hand - but in recent years the two countries have returned to conflict. 2001: Shimon Peres is pictured (left) shaking hands with the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 2001. Peres, Arafat and the third Nobel Peace Prize winner Yitzhak Rabin are all now dead. Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish settler angered by the Oslo peace accords they had agreed Advertisement

Bereft: Family members of former Israeli President Shimon Peres walk behind his flag-draped coffin during a ceremony at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament

Laid to rest: Members of the Knesset guard carry the flag-draped coffin of former Israeli President Shimon Peres, during a ceremony at the Israeli Parliament, before it is transported to Mount Herzl Cemetery ahead of his funeral in Jerusalem

Respected: Mr Peres helped set up the post-war Israeli state and was later awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1994

Final journey: Mr Peres' body starts from the Knesset, Israel's parliament, to a plot in Israel's most famous cemetery

Moving: Mr Peres' famaily hold eachother as they follow the statesman's coffin on its journey to his final resting place

Cast list: The event was by world leaders and royalty including Barack Obama, pictured arriving in Israel today, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Prince Charles and King Felipe of Spain

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, left with his security entourage, arrives for the funeral of former Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize winner

U.S. President Barack Obama is greeted by Israeli Foreign Ministry Director General Dore Gold - former French president Nicolas Sarkozy also attended

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson was followed into the funeral by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (L), Mexican President Enrique PeOa Nieto (2nd L) and Spanish King Felipe VI (far right) speak

CAST LIST OF WORLD LEADERS ATTENDING TODAY'S FUNERAL US President Barack Obama US Secretary of State John Kerry Former US president Bill Clinton Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Prince Charles of Great Britain British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas French President Francois Hollande German President Joachim Gauck Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau King Felipe VI of Spain Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte European Union foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini European Council President Donald Tusk UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process Nikolai Mladenov Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry Advertisement

Peres served stints as prime minister, president and foreign minister during his lengthy political career. He welcomed Obama on his first trip to Israel as president back in 2013 as the two men sought to start a peace process with the Palestinians that has so far failed.

The United States delegation includes former President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State John Kerry and about 20 members of Congress and several administration officials.

Air Force One landed in Tel Aviv early Friday morning and Obama was then driven to Jerusalem's Mount Herzl cemetery. This is Obama's second trip to Israel as president and he is expected to return home shortly after the service ends.

The two leaders enjoyed a friendly relationship and a mutual admiration of the other's intellect and intentions. Upon his passing, Obama said no one did more over the years than Peres to build the alliance between the U.S. and Israel.

It is the largest such gathering in Israel since the funeral of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated by a Jewish nationalist in 1995.

Peres died on Wednesday from complications following a stroke. He was 93.

Former US President Bill Clinton has joined Israeli leaders and crowds of mourners paying their respects to former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, whose body is lying in state ahead of his funeral today.

Mr Clinton joined Israel's President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein and opposition leader Isaac Herzog lay wreaths beside Peres's flag-draped coffin at a plaza outside parliament this morning, where it will remain until 9pm.

None of the leaders said a word in the solemn, silent ceremony.

Enhanced security is in in place throughout, with 8,000 officers taking part in the operation, police said.

The Shin Bet internal security service also deployed hundreds of officers, some of them under cover.

'This operation consists of police preparations held in a short time,' Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said in a statement after carrying out an assessment.

'We are in a sensitive period, including terrorist threats,' he added, saying officers were on 'high alert'.

The funeral is taking place on a Friday, part of the weekend in Israel, and ahead of the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah, beginning Sunday evening.

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, run by Islamist movement Hamas, were also calling for demonstrations to mark the anniversary of the start of the second intifada in 2000.

The Israel Airports Authority said they were expecting 750 takeoffs and landings in a 24-hour period, compared to an average of around 400.

'When you are doing an operation with these people from oversees, from Prince Charles to Obama, it is a huge operation in security,' a spokesman said.

Ofer Zalzberg, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group think-tank, said security forces had likely been working on plans since Peres had a stroke on September 13.

Peres died at a hospital in Tel Aviv on Wednesday aged 93 after suffering a major stroke.

In a career spanning seven decades, he held nearly every major office, serving twice as prime minister and as president from 2007 to 2014.

He won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for his role in negotiating the Oslo accords, which envisioned an independent Palestinian state.

Thousands gathered to pay their respects as Israel's former Prime Minister and President Shimon Peres lay in state outside parliament (pictured)

People line up to pay respects to former Israeli President Shimon Peres at the Knesset plaza in Jerusalem
The University of Texas at San Antonio is offering a class this fall that students may want to get Bey-hind and in formation as it's all about Beyonce's visual album Lemonade.

The course, titled 'Black Women, Beyonce and Popular Culture,' will begin by exploring how the superstar's popular visual album is a 'meditation on contemporary black womanhood,' before advancing and diving into the 'theoretical, historical, and literary frameworks of black feminism,' according to the syllabus.

Professor Kinitra Brooks developed and is teaching the class that's being held three times a week.

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The University of Texas at San Antonio is offering a class this fall that students may want to get Bey-hind as it's all about Beyonce's (above) visual albulm Lemonade

The course is titled 'Black Women, Beyonce and Popular Culture' as Professor Kinitra Brooks developed and will be teaching it. Classes will be held three times a week (Beyonce file above)

She created a timeline and divided the class sessions into themed groups based on the arc of the album. The course began with 'Formation' and ends with 'All Night.'

Beyonce's visual album is not the only basis for the course, as additional reading will include books by Toni Morrison, Warsan Shire and Patricia Hill Collins.

Despite the course appearing like it could be easy to pass for anyone who has listened and watched Queen Bey's 55-minute avant-garde film repeatedly, guess again, as Brooks has made it extremely clear that it won't be.

' You will work harder in this course than you ever have before. Be ready to read, write, and think in challenging ways,' Brooks wrote in the syllabus.

The class will begin by exploring how Lemonade is a 'meditation on contemporary black womanhood,'before advancing and diving into the 'theoretical, historical, and literary frameworks of black feminism' (Beyonce file above)

She created a timeline and divided the class sessions into themed groups based on the arc of the album. The course began with 'Formation' and ends with 'All Night' (Beyonce file above)

'You will be reading the equivalent of a little less than a book a week. Please make sure you are ready, willing, and able for this type of rigor.

'Studying race, gender, class and pop culture theory is incredibly fun...and incredibly hard.'

Brooks added: ''There is no shame in deciding you are not ready. You do not have to be a member of the Beyhive.

'I simply ask that you are willing to be uncomfortable  to have your thoughts and ideas challenged  and then to work/read/write your way through that un-comfortability in order to become a stronger critical thinker.'

Brooks will offer extra credit for students who wear a Beyonce-themed costume to the UTSA class on Halloween, which is on a Monday this year. (file above)

Brooks will offer extra credit for students who wear a Beyonce-themed costume to the UTSA class on Halloween, which is on a Monday this year.

This isn't the first time a college has offered a course about the award-winning songstress.

In 2014, Rutgers University offered a class called 'Politicizing Beyonce'.
More than 150 protesters clashed with police as they tried to disrupt an award ceremony honouring John Howard in Sydney today.

The former prime minister was at the University of Sydney to collect a doctorate when the crowd of demonstrators attempted to storm the Great Hall.

Police rushed to hold back the tide of anti-war activists, who delayed the ceremony by 15 minutes and could be heard chanting outside when it finally got underway.

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More than 150 protesters clashed with police as they tried to disrupt an award ceremony honouring John Howard in Sydney today

The crowd of protesters surged towards the entrance of the hall and used megaphones to chant: 'Racist, sexist, anti-queer. Howard is not welcome here'

The former prime minister was at the University of Sydney to collect a doctorate when the crowd of demonstrators attempted to storm the Great Hall

The crowd of protesters surged towards the entrance of the hall and used megaphones to shout: 'Racist, sexist, anti-queer. Howard is not welcome here.'

Police appeared to have been caught off guard as the ceremony was delayed by 15 minutes to deal with the group, but they could still be heard shouting outside as Howard received his doctorate.

One of the demonstrators, a man, was arrested and charged with breach of the peace, a New South Wales Police spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia.

The protesters, who are against Howard's decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003, were met by a counter-demonstration from supporters of the controversial prime minister.

In his speech after accepting the honorary doctorate, Howard, 77, admitted that he did made mistakes in office

More than 100 academics from the University of Sydney - which Howard graduated from in 1961 - boycotted the ceremony

Police rushed to hold back the tide of anti-war activists, who delayed the ceremony by 15 minutes and could be heard chanting outside when it finally got underway

In his speech after accepting the honorary doctorate, Howard, 77, admitted that he did made mistakes in office.

'I often reflected upon the things that we got right, as well as acknowledging from time to time the things we hadn't got right,' Mr Howard said.

'Being an intense Australian nationalist, I always thought the balance of the things we got right was quite decisive.'

More than 100 academics from the University of Sydney - which Howard graduated from in 1961 - boycotted the ceremony.

Police appeared to have been caught off guard as the ceremony was delayed by 15 minutes to deal with the group

The protesters could still be heard shouting outside as Howard received his doctorate

The protesters, who are against Howard's decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003, were met by a counter-demonstration from supporters of the controversial prime minister

The University of Sydney said it was honouring Howard 'in acknowledgement of his achievements including world-leading gun law reform, leadership in East Timor and contribution to Australia's economic reform'

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie said the decision to award Howard with a doctorate was 'preposterous'.

'This is the man that took us to war on a lie, and helped create the current anarchy in the Middle East and the terrorist threat we all live with today,' Wilkie said.

He said Howard, along former US president George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair, had the 'blood of countless people on their hands' and should face trial for war crimes.
A Syrian rescue worker has been filmed breaking down in tears as he heroically pulled a 30-day-old baby girl from the rubble of a bombed building, in the city of Idlib on Thursday.

White Helmets volunteer Abu Kifah recovered the girl alive after two hours of desperate digging and held her close before the pair were rushed off in an ambulance to one of Syria's horrendously overcrowded hospitals.

The footage proved too much for BBC newsreader Kate Silverton, who cried live on air after watching the clip.

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Saved: Syrian White helmet volunteer Abu Kifah and his colleagues were able rescue a 30-day-old baby from under the rubble in the city of Idlib on Thursday

Heartbreaking: After recovering the baby girl, Abu Kifah burst into tears and held her tight to his chest while he got into an ambulance and took her to one of the makeshift hospitals in Idlib

She continued reporting the next story but tears could be seen running down her cheeks.

Speaking about the display of emotion, Silverton later tweeted: 'To all of you sending thoughts - thank you - no words really - my job to be inscrutable & impartial but I am also human.'

One viewer tweeted: '[D]emonstrating utmost poise & professionalism following an extremely distressing piece on Syria. Kudos, Kate.'

At least 11 civilians, including seven children, died during attacks on Idlib, nearby Jarjanaz and central Hama province on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

An agonising 365 days have now passed since Russia began its 'barbarous' and relentless bombing campaign on Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

Putin's bombs have killed more than 3,800 civilians in this time, a monitoring group said on Friday as international outcry mounted.

'Bombs are raining from Syria-led coalition planes and the whole of east Aleppo has become a giant kill box,' Doctors Without Borders (MSF) director of operations Xisco Villalonga said on Friday.

The aid charity appealed to the Syrian government and its Russian ally to stop bombing rebel-held eastern Aleppo, warning they were provoking a 'bloodbath' among civilians in the city.

Emotional: BBC presenter Kate Silverton broke down in tears as she reported the story

She later tweeted: 'To all of you sending thoughts - thank you - no words really - my job to be inscrutable & impartial but I am also human'

'The Syrian government must stop the indiscriminate bombing, and Russia as an indispensable political and military ally of Syria has the responsibility to exert the pressure to stop this,' he said.

The United Nations has warned that a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Aleppo unlike any witnessed so far in Syria's brutal five-year war, which has claimed more than 300,000 lives.

According to the UN, only around 35 doctors remain in eastern Aleppo, where an estimated 250,000 people have been under siege by government forces since early September.

The MSF statement cited numbers from the east Aleppo health directorate, showing that from September 21 to 26, the few hospitals still functioning in the rebel-held part of the city received some 278 dead bodies, including at least 96 children.

Inhumane: The tiny baby girl wailed after she suffered cuts and bruises to her face but survived being crushed under rubble

Indiscriminate bombing: Abu Kifah is seen holding the baby girl to his chest and weeping

Frantic: Syrian men carry injured people amid the rubble of destroyed buildings following an air strike on the rebel-held northwestern city of Idlib on Thursday

More than 822 wounded were also taken in, including at least 221 children, it said.

'All intensive care units are full. Patients have to wait for others to die so they can be moved to an available bed in intensive care,' Abu Waseem, manager of an MSF-supported trauma hospital in east Aleppo, warned in the statement.

'We only have three operating theatres and yesterday alone we had to do more than 20 major abdominal surgeries,' he said, pointing out that 'hospital staff is working up to 20 hours a day. They cannot just go home and let people die.'

MSF said it had last been able to deliver medical supplies to east Aleppo in August, and warned that the huge number of wounded was rapidly depleting the stocks in the remaining hospitals.

Innocent: Wounded Syrian children await to receive treatment at a hospital following the air strike on the rebel-held northwestern city of Idlib on Thursday

Bloodbath: An injured Syrian man receives treatment after the air strike on Idlib. Numerous doctors and nurses and medical facilities have been hit or targeted in recent weeks

Rescuers from the Syrian Red Crescent and the White Helmets struggle to free civilians trapped under the rubble in Idlib on Thursday

Syrian men search for people under the rubble of destroyed buildings after at least five air strikes hit various areas in the city of Idlib on Thursday

'Now, with a complete siege on the city, attacks on humanitarian convoys and intensive bombing, we are powerless,' Villalonga said, warning that 'if this intensity of bombing continues, there may not be a single hospital standing in a few days.'

He demanded that the bombing stop, and that the sick and wounded be evacuated from the city.

'Anything short of this is confirmation of what many are dreading, that the world has abandoned the people of Aleppo to a violent, agonising death,' he said.

Fighting in Syria's besieged eastern Aleppo has killed 338 people in the past few weeks, including 106 children, and 846 have been wounded, including 261 children, a World Health Organization official said on Friday.

'We are asking for four things: stop the killing, stop attacks on health care, let the sick and wounded out and let the aid in,' Rick Brennan, WHO's head of emergency risk management and humanitarian response, told a U.N. briefing in Geneva.

'The situation really is unfathomable.'

Assad's regime and its key backer Russia are under growing pressure from world governments to halt a new offensive pounding rebel-held areas of Aleppo.

Crying out for help: A Syrian boy awaits treatment at a make-shift hospital following air strikes on rebel-held eastern areas of Aleppo on September 24

A Syrian man carries a baby after removing him from the rubble of a destroyed building following a reported air strike in the Qatarji neighbourhood of Aleppo

A Syrian man carries his son to a field hospital after the Syrian and Russian army carried out an airstrike on Merce town in Aleppo

Children play with water from a burst water pipe at a site hit by an air strike in Aleppo's rebel-controlled al-Mashad neighbourhood on Friday

More than 100,000 children remain trapped in east Aleppo

AS THE WORLD WATCHES IN HORROR, RUSSIA BEEFS UP ITS AIRFORCE IN SYRIA Russia has reinforced its air base in Syria with several bombers and is ready to send ground attack aircraft as it intensifies support for Syrian government troops after the collapse of a ceasefire plan, Russia's Izvestia daily reported on Friday. A group of Su-24 and Su-34 frontline bombers have already arrived at the Hmeymim base, Izvestia wrote, quoting an unnamed military official. 'If need be, the air force group will be (further) built up within two to three days,' he said. 'Su-25 ground attack fighters designated to be sent to Hmeymim have already been selected in their units and their crews are on a stand-by, awaiting orders from their commanders.' U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday said there is no point pursuing further negotiations with Russia over Syria, leaving Washington without a backup plan and scrambling to develop new options to stop the mounting carnage. As the U.S.-Russian ceasefire plan for Syria fell through, U.S. officials have told Reuters that President Barack Obama's administration had begun considering tougher responses - including military options - to the Russian-backed Syrian government's assault on Aleppo, the country's largest city. However, Russia said it would press ahead with the air war in support of the regime, warning that Washington's refusal to work with Moscow on a settlement would be a 'gift to terrorists.' 'If Washington's threats to halt cooperation become concrete decisions, then there is no longer any doubt that the rebels are under the White House's protection and in the streets, terrorists will celebrate,' Russian foreign ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said. Russia and the United States have traded blame for last week's collapse of a ceasefire deal that would have marked the first step in a new effort to end the war that has killed 300,000 people since 2011. An estimated 10,000 Syrian-led ground troops have amassed east of Aleppo on Friday, CNN reports, in what is believed to be preparation for a final ground assault on rebel-held areas. Advertisement

Russian and Syrian war planes have been accused of using incendiary devices on civilians

More than 9,300 people have been killed in the Russian raids since September 30, 2015, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The toll includes more than 2,700 jihadists from the Islamic State group and around 2,800 fighters from various rebel factions, the British-based monitor said.

At least 20,000 civilians have been wounded in the Russian raids, it said.

The Observatory -- which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information -- says it determines what planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said the death toll from Russian strikes could be even higher given the number of people killed by unidentified warplanes.

Moscow said on Thursday that it would press on with its bombing campaign in Syria, ignoring a threat by Washington to suspend its engagement over the conflict following escalating attacks on rebel-held parts of Aleppo.

Syrians react as the bodies of children are pulled from the rubble of a budling following government forces air strikes in the rebel held neighbourhood of Al-Shaar in Aleppo on September 27, 2016

A Syrian man walks past a bus set ablaze following a reported air strike in the rebel-held Salaheddin district of Aleppo

Regime and Russian aircraft have carried out a barrage of strikes on east Aleppo since the Syrian government announced an offensive last week to retake all of the divided city.

The bombardment has been some of the worst in Syria's five-year civil war, and follows the failure of a short-lived ceasefire brokered by Russia and the United States.

Moscow and Washington have traded blame for last week's collapse of the ceasefire deal that would have marked the first step in a new effort to end the war that has killed 300,000 people since 2011.

US Secretary of State John Kerry admitted Thursday that months of diplomacy to end the war had hit a dead-end.

People walk on the rubble of damaged buildings at a site hit overnight by an air strike in the rebel-held area of Seif al-Dawla neighbourhood of Aleppo on Friday

Injured Sabah Sheikh Qasim, six, was taken to hospital after she was pulled out from the wreckage of a five-storey building hit by Assad regime forces' air strikes in Shaar town of Aleppo

'I think we are on the verge of suspending the discussion because, you know, it's irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place, to be sitting there, trying to take things seriously,' he said.

US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned what they called 'barbarous' Russian and Syrian regime air strikes on Aleppo during a phone call, the White House said.

UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien told the Security Council in New York that Aleppo is descending into a 'merciless abyss of a humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed so far in Syria.'

More than 100,000 children remain trapped in east Aleppo, he said.

Two of the largest hospitals in the city's east were bombed on Wednesday in what UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described as a war crime.

Save the Children said that bunker-busting bombs meant it was too dangerous for children to return to even underground schools in Aleppo when classes resume this weekend.
Pakistan's Defence Minister has warned it will 'eliminate India' with nuclear weapons if the country 'dares to impose war'.

His comments came as Pakistan blamed 'cross-border fire' from India for the death of two of its soldiers in the disputed region of Kashmir.

Fears are growing that the two old enemies may go to war again.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif reportedly told Pakistani TV channel SAMAA on September 26: 'We will destroy India if it dares to impose war on us. Pakistan army is fully prepared to answer any misadventure of India.

'We have not made an atomic device to display in a showcase. If a such a situation arises we will use it and eliminate India.'

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif reportedly threatened Pakistan could destroy India with nuclear weapons

Indian Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers patrol a street in Srinagar as the city remains under curfew following weeks of violence in Kashmir

India has evacuated more than 10,000 villagers living near the border with Pakistan, amid concerns that there could be a military escalation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government on Thursday ordered federal and state security forces to upgrade surveillance along the frontier in Jammu and Kashmir state, part of the 3,300-km (2,100 miles) border between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

The evacuation was launched after India said it had launched strikes across the Line of Control, or de factor border, into Pakistan-ruled Kashmir against suspected militants preparing to carry out attacks in India.

'Our top priority is to move women and children to government buildings, guest houses and marriage halls,' said Nirmal Singh, deputy chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

'People who have not been able to migrate were instructed not to venture out of their houses early in the morning or late in the night.'

India and Pakistan have gone to war four times since they gained independence from Britain in 1947 and diplomats are concerned the situation in Kashmir may be the trigger for another conflict.

India said it had conducted 'surgical strikes' along the disputed border with Pakistan - known as the Line Of Control - in a bid to thwart attacks by those it claims are 'terrorists'.

Pakistan and India often trade fire in Kashmir, which is split between the two countries and claimed by both in its entirety.

Both countries have troops stationed on the strategic Siachen Glacier, which is so cold that soldiers are regularly warned not to fall asleep while on duty for fear of freezing to death.

Earlier this month 18 Indian soldiers were killed in an attack by Kashmiri rebels, who New Delhi suggests are supported by Pakistan.

Pakistani Army soldiers carry a coffin containing body of their comrade Imtiaz Ahmed, who was killed during clashes across the Line of Control, the defacto border between Pakistani and Indian administered Kashmir

People gather around the coffin of a Pakistani soldier, killed along the border in Kashmir, during his funeral in Faisalabad on September 29

The Indian army's director general of military operations, Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh (pictured) told the media today it had targeted 'terrorist launchpads' in Kashmir

Earlier this month Kashmiri 'terrorists' attacked this Indian Army base at Uri, killing 18 soldiers

India said the attack on the Uri army base was carried out by a Pakistan-based group called Jaish-e-Mohammed.

More than 80 people have been killed in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir since July, many of them civilians shot by the army.

India and Pakistan are both now believed to possess nuclear weapons, which makes the current tensions even more alarming.

Indian soldiers (left) and Pakistani troops (right) are both stationed on the Siachen Glacier, at the eastern end of the disputed border in Kashmir

Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, India's director-general of military operations, said today it had carried out 'surgical strikes' on Wednesday night.

Pakistan's military said two of its soldiers had been killed by 'cross-border fire' and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned India's 'naked aggression'.

Lt Gen Singh said: 'Some terrorist teams had positioned themselves at launchpads along the Line of Control.'

He said they had 'very specific and credible' intelligence about 'terrorist launchpads' near the villages of Bhimber, Kel and Lipa.

India has a large military presence in Kashmir, which has a Muslim majority. Many Kashmiris want to be independent or part of Pakistan

Lt Gen Singh said: 'Significant casualties have been caused to these terrorists and those who are trying to support them.

'The operations aimed at neutralising the terrorists have since ceased.'

He said the operation was designed to stop those who planned 'to carry out infiltration and terrorist strikes in Jammu and Kashmir and various other metros in our country'.

Lt Gen Singh said: 'The operations were basically focused to ensure that these terrorists do not succeed in their design of infiltration and carrying out destruction and endangering the lives of citizens of our country.'

India's Prime Minister Narenda Modi (left) and Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (right) are seen meeting in 2014 but since then tensions have grown markedly

But Pakistan reacted angrily. A statement by the military read: 'There has been no surgical strike by India, instead there had been cross-border fire initiated and conducted by India.

'As per rules of engagement same was strongly and befittingly responded by Pakistani troops.

'The notion of surgical strike linked to alleged terrorists' bases is an illusion being deliberately generated by Indian to create false effects.

'This quest by Indian establishment to create media hype by rebranding cross-border fire as surgical strike is fabrication of truth.'

Kashmiri demonstrators hurl stones at an Indian police vehicle during a protest in Srinagar last month

Indian Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers patrol along the border between India and Pakistan near Jammu in 2013

On Tuesday India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced he would not attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Islamabad in November, a major snub to Pakistan.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since they gained independence in 1947.

The Indian-controlled part has a Muslim majority and there are a number of armed separatist groups who are fighting to break free from New Delhi.

China said this week it hoped 'Pakistan and India will strengthen channels for dialogue, appropriately handle any differences, improve bilateral relations and together protect the region's piece and stability' but it is widely believed to be backing Pakistan.
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. DESHAWN KING, a/k/a Wop, a/k/a Mike DeShawn King, Appellant No. 15-1417 Decided: September 28, 2016

Before: CHAGARES, RESTREPO, and VAN ANTWERPEN,* Circuit Judges.

OPINION **

DeShawn King (Appellant or King) entered an open guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, in violation of 18 U.S.C.  1594, and four related substantive counts, under 18 U.S.C.  1591, each involving different victims. Ultimately, King was sentenced to 293 months in prison, a $1,000 fine, and 15 years of supervised release, which included several special conditions. King now appeals, raising two separate issues, neither of which was preserved. First, King argues that the District Court erred by failing to properly advise him under the recusal statute, 28 U.S.C.  455(a) & (e), before accepting his waiver of the District Court's involvement in a potentially disqualifying event. Second, King argues that the District Court erred by imposing two special conditions of supervised release regarding minors that are not reasonably related to Mr. King's history and are more restrictive than necessary. For the reasons that follow, we will vacate the portion of the judgment that imposes the special conditions of supervised release restricting King's interaction with minors and remand the case to the District Court to either: (1) provide an explanation and justification for those special conditions and reimpose them, or (2) enter an amended judgment omitting those special conditions of supervised release. We will affirm the judgment of the District Court in all other respects.

I

By his own admission, King's crimes were abhorrent. Appellant's Br. 3. King and his co-defendant, Daniel Blount, were involved in a conspiracy to distribute heroin, which also involved a prostitution business in and around Allentown, Pennsylvania. Appellant's Br. 4. King and Blount convinced heroin addicts who purchased drugs from them to work for them in exchange for heroin, money, and housing. Appellant's Br. 4. King and Blount collected the money earned by the women, and manipulated the women's access to heroin. Appellant's Br. 4. To force their continued participation in this repugnant enterprise, King and Blount would threaten and assault the four women under their control. Simply put, King and Blount were violent and abusive pimps and drug dealers.

King and Blount were indicted on September 5, 2013. Count One charged King and Blount with conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion, under 18 U.S.C.  1594(c); Counts Two and Three charged King and Blount with sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, under 18 U.S.C.  1591(a); and Counts Four and Five charged King and Blount with attempted sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, under 18 U.S.C.  1591 and 1594(a). App. 26-37. King entered an open guilty plea on January 10, 2014. In doing so, King understood that these crimes carried a mandatory minimum term of 15 years in prison, and that the maximum term was life in prison.

The Honorable James Knoll Gardner conducted King's sentencing hearing over the course of two days, January 15, 2015, and February 6, 2015. Approximately halfway through the first day of the sentencing hearing, Judge Gardner summoned counsel for King and the Government to sidebar. At sidebar, Judge Gardner informed counsel that approximately a year earlier he had attended the last five minutes of an Inn of Court meeting, during which a panel of members gave a presentation based on the facts of King's case. Judge Gardner explained that he had arrived late to the meeting, was distracted by other events while he was there, and did not pay attention to the presentation. After hearing this, the Government lodged no objection and King's attorney requested two minutes to speak with his client. Thereafter, King spoke privately with his attorney for approximately one minute. King's attorney then returned to sidebar and informed Judge Gardner that King has no problem whatsoever with Your Honor continuing with this hearing. App. 182. The sidebar then concluded and Judge Gardner conducted an on-the-record colloquy with King regarding this Inn of Court meeting. During that colloquy King acknowledged that he: (1) had time to speak with his attorney about Judge Gardner's attendance at this meeting; (2) had time to ask his attorney any questions he had and that his attorney answered those questions to his satisfaction; (3) understood his attorney's answers to those questions; (4) had enough time to speak with his attorney about this issue; and (5) had no problem with Judge Gardner's continued involvement in his sentencing. App. 182-84. Both attorneys declined the District Court's invitation to add anything to the colloquy, and neither objected. After hearing from witnesses and counsel for the parties, the District Court adjourned the sentencing proceedings before imposing a sentence.

The second portion of King's sentencing hearing took place on February 6, 2015. In the three-week interval between the first and second days of his sentencing hearing, King did not move for the recusal of Judge Gardner or otherwise object to Judge Gardner's continued involvement in the sentencing. In addition, King did not object to Judge Gardner's involvement on February 6, 2015, either before or after King's sentence was imposed. Ultimately, the District Court ordered that King be imprisoned for a term of 293 months on each of Counts One through Five, all running concurrently. King's sentence also included a $1,000 fine, and 15 years of supervised release. King's supervised release carried numerous special conditions. Among other things, those conditions required King to: (1) report to the United States Probation Office any regular contact with children of either sex under the age of 18; and (2) not obtain employment or perform volunteer work which includes regular contact with children under the age of 18. App. 217. This timely appeal followed.

II

The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C.  3231. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  1291. On appeal, King raises two issues: (1) whether the District Court sufficiently advised King of his rights under the recusal statute, 28 U.S.C.  455(a) & (e), before accepting King's waiver of the District Court's involvement in a potentially disqualifying event; and (2) whether the District Court erred in imposing two conditions of supervised release that restricted King's interactions with minors. We address each issue in turn.

A

The federal recusal statute, 28 U.S.C.  455, provides, in relevant part, that:

(a) Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.



(e)  Where the ground for disqualification arises only under subsection (a), waiver may be accepted provided it is preceded by a full disclosure on the record of the basis for disqualification.

The test for recusal under  455(a) is whether a reasonable person, with knowledge of all the facts, would conclude that the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned. In re Kennsington Int'l Ltd., 368 F.3d 289, 301 (3d Cir. 2004). Under subsection (a), questions of impartiality must be viewed on an objective basis, so that what matters is not the reality of bias or prejudice but its appearance. Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 548 (1994). King argues that [t]he district court correctly identified that the discussion about Mr. King's case at the Inn of Court meeting he and his law clerks attended created a reasonable basis to question to court's impartiality. Appellant's Br. 11. We disagree.

Judge Gardner's limited attendance at the Inn of Court meeting was far too brief and his involvement was far too tangential to create a situation in which Judge Gardner's impartiality might reasonably be questioned. 28 U.S.C.  455(a). Accordingly, while it was prudent judicial practice for Judge Gardner to advise all counsel and King of this situation prior to imposing a sentence, the alleged ground for disqualification here did not necessitate a waiver from King under 28 U.S.C.  455(e).

Our precedential opinion in United States v. Ciavarella, 716 F.3d 705 (3d Cir. 2013), informs our resolution of this issue. In Ciavarella, the defendant/appellant affirmatively sought the recusal of the district court judge because, among other things, the judge received nearly 200 letters from the public regarding the case and responded to seven of those letters. Id. at 721. Despite the fact that some of those seven responses expressed the judge's personal opinions about the defendant and the case before him, we found that section 455(a) did not require recusal. Id. at 723. By contrast, Judge Gardner's extra-judicial involvement with King's case was much less significant  he attended the last five minutes of a presentation that was based on King's case. In addition, the record reflects that Judge Gardner wasn't paying attention during his brief attendance  he only learned about the presentation topic on the following day, after his law clerk informed him. Furthermore, unlike the judge in Ciavarella, at no time did Judge Gardner express his personal opinions about King or King's case. It is clear that Judge Gardner's interaction was more fleeting and less consequential than the interaction of the judge in Ciavarella, whose recusal we held was not required under section 455(a).

In sum, Judge Gardner's impartiality could not reasonably be questioned under these circumstances, and thus did not require recusal under section 455(a) or a waiver under section 455(e).

B

King argues that it was plain error for the District Court to impose two special conditions of supervised release that impaired King's interactions with minors. The Government agrees. As do we.

Though district courts have broad discretion in fashioning special conditions of supervised release, this discretion is not unfettered. United States v. Heckman, 592 F.3d 400, 405 (3d Cir. 2010). A district court may impose conditions of supervised release if they are required by statute, or if they are reasonably related to the nature and circumstances of the offense, the history and characteristics of the defendant, the achievement of adequate deterrence, the protection of the public, and the defendant's rehabilitative needs. See 18 U.S.C.  3583(d)(1); United States v. Pruden, 398 F.3d 241, 248 (3d Cir. 2005). The conditions must involve no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary to promote these enumerated purposes. 18 U.S.C.  3583(d)(2); see Pruden, 398 F.3d at 248. A reasonably related condition must relate in a tangible way to the crime or something in the defendant's history. Pruden, 398 F.3d at 249; Heckman, 592 F.3d at 405.

[A] condition with no basis in the record, or with only the most tenuous basis, will inevitably violate  3583(d)(2)'s command that such conditions involve[ ] no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary.  Pruden, 398 F.3d at 249. Accordingly, a district court must provide an on-the-record explanation and justification for the sentence it imposes, including special conditions of supervised release. See United States v. Miller, 594 F.3d 172, 184 (3d Cir. 2010) (We have consistently required that district courts explain and justify conditions of supervised release.); see also United States v. Tomko, 562 F.3d 558, 567 (3d Cir. 2009) (en banc) (noting that District courts must provide their explanations and justifications while going through three steps at sentencing, because those explanations and justifications are necessary to facilitate meaningful appellate review).

The Government concedes that the conditions that restricted King's interaction with minors are not reasonably related to the nature and circumstances of King's offense. Appellee's Br. 27. In addition, the record is devoid of any explanation or justification for the imposition of the special conditions related to minors. We agree with the parties that these conditions must be vacated.

King asks us to remand this case for resentencing. He argues that a full resentencing avoids any speculation over the reason for the district court's error. Appellant's Reply Br. 6. On the other hand, the Government believes that the appropriate remedy is to remand the case for the limited purpose of vacating the special conditions relating to minors, and direct the district court to enter an amended judgment reflecting this change while leaving all other aspects of the judgment intact. Appellee's Br. 28. Here, we do not believe that a full resentencing is necessary. Accordingly, we will vacate the portion of the judgment that imposes the special conditions of supervised release relating to minors and remand the case to the District Court to either: (1) provide an explanation and justification for those special conditions and reimpose them, or (2) enter an amended judgment omitting those special conditions of supervised release.

III

For the foregoing reasons, we will vacate the portion of the judgment that imposes the special conditions of supervised release relating to minors and remand the case to the District Court to either: (1) provide an explanation and justification for those special conditions and reimpose them, or (2) enter an amended judgment omitting those special conditions of supervised release. We will affirm the judgment of the District Court in all other respects.

FOOTNOTES

. This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and, pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7, does not constitute binding precedent.

. Judge Gardner explained that he was so distracted that he did not even realize the presentation was based on the facts of King's case he only discovered this fact the day after the presentation when one of his law clerks who attended the Inn of Court meeting explained the connection.

. Neither of King's claims were preserved, so our review is for plain error. United States v. Dahl, --- F.3d ----, 2016 WL 4394538, at *2 (3d Cir. Aug. 18, 2016). Plain error requires a finding of (1) an error; (2) that is plain; (3) that affects substantial rights; and (4) which seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. United States v. Tai, 750 F.3d 309, 313-14 (3d Cir. 2014) (citation omitted).

. We disagree with King's argument that the District Court, in raising this issue, implicitly acknowledged that the Inn of Court meeting triggered 28 U.S.C.  455(a). Appellant's Br. 11. Indeed, the record reflects that it is Judge Gardner's practice whenever [he] ha[s] any connection with a case, no matter how slight, to advise counsel of that on the record. App. 179-80 (emphasis added).

. We note that: (1) Judge Gardner informed all counsel of the circumstances at sidebar; (2) King briefly and privately spoke with his counsel about the circumstances; and (3) Judge Gardner conducted and on-the-record colloquy with King about the circumstances, after which King agreed to have Judge Gardner continue with the sentencing hearing.

. In considering this appeal we are mindful of the crucial role that section 455 plays in our system of justice, as it addresses not only fairness to the litigants but also the public's confidence in the judiciary. In re Sch. Asbestos Litig., 977 F.2d 764, 776 (3d Cir. 1992). Nevertheless, we are confident that neither purpose is offended by our decision today. The circumstances presented by this appeal are insufficient to negatively implicate either judicial fairness to King or the public's confidence in the judiciary.

. If the District Court elects to reimpose these two special conditions of supervised release on remand, the Court must provide a sufficiently detailed explanation of its reasoning to permit meaningful appellate review. Miller, 594 F.3d at 188.

RESTREPO, Circuit Judge.
Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte likened himself to Adolf Hitler as he declared he would be 'happy' to slaughter three million drug users and dealers.

During the rambling speech on his arrival in Davao City after a visit to Vietnam, Duterte said that he had been 'portrayed to be a cousin of Hitler' by critics as he raised the rhetoric in his anti-drugs war.

In the latest of a string of controversial comments, he said he would be purge the country of the criminals, just as the Third Reich leader tried to wipe out Jews.

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Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte likened himself to Adolf Hitler as he declared he would be 'happy' to slaughter three million drug users and dealers

Police investigators examine the body of a suspected drug dealer today following a police operation against illegal drugs in Calookan city, east of Manila

The comments come after a number of shocking images emerged of three suspected drug dealers killed in another police operation in the country's war on drugs.

Duterte said: 'Hitler massacred 3million Jews ... there's 3 million drug addicts...I'd be happy to slaughter them,' Duterte said.

Historians say that 6million Jews were killed by the Nazis under Hitler before and during World War II.

'If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have...,' he said, pausing then pointing to himself.

'You know my victims. I would like (them) to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition.'

He was voted to power in a May election on the back of a vow to end drugs and corruption in the country of 100 million people.

Two days before the election, outgoing President Benigno Aquino (pictured) compared Duterte's popularity to Hitler's

He took office on June 30 and over 3,100 people have been killed since then, mostly alleged drug users and dealers, in police operations and in vigilante killings.

His comments triggered shock and anger among Jewish groups in the United States, which will add to pressure on the US government to take a tougher line with the Philippines leader.

Duterte recently insulted President Barack Obama and in a series of remarks he has undermined the previously close relationship between Manila and Washington.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Digital Terrorism and Hate project, called them 'outrageous'.

'Duterte owes the victims (of the Holocaust) an apology for his disgusting rhetoric.'

The Anti-Defamation League, an international Jewish group based in the United States, said Duterte's comments were 'shocking for their tone-deafness'.

'The comparison of drug users and dealers to Holocaust victims is inappropriate and deeply offensive,' said Todd Gutnick, the group's director of communications.

He added: 'It is baffling why any leader would want to model himself after such a monster.'

Members of SOCO. (Scene of the Crime Operatives) process the crime scene and remains of suspect Regie Sarmiento, 26, after he died in a shoot out between police and drug dealers

Two days before the Philippines election, outgoing President Benigno Aquino had warned that Duterte's rising popularity was akin to that of Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s.

'I hope we learn the lessons of history,' Aquino said in widely reported remarks. 'We should remember how Hitler came to power.'

Duterte has been scathing about criticism of his anti-drugs campaign and has insulted the UN and the EU, as well as Obama, at various times in recent weeks.

On Friday, reacting to critical comments on his war on drugs by US Senators Patrick Leahy and Benjamin Cardin, Duterte said: 'Do not pretend to be the moral conscience of the world. Do not be the policeman because you do not have the eligibility to do that in my country.'

Three suspects were arrested (pictured), as well as the three who were killed, in the police operation last night

PRESIDENT DUTERTE CALLS OBAMA A 'SON OF A WHORE' AS HE VOWED NOT TO BE LECTURED ON HUMAN RIGHTS Rodrigo Duterte called Barack Obama a 'son of a whore' earlier this month as he vowed not to be lectured on human rights before a meeting in Laos. Duterte bristled at warnings he would face questioning by the US president over a war against drugs in the Philippines that has claimed more than 2,400 lives in just over two months. 'You must be respectful. Do not just throw away questions and statements. Son of a whore, I will curse you in that forum,' Duterte told a news conference shortly before flying to Laos to attend a summit. He added: 'We will be wallowing in the mud like pigs if you do that to me.' Obama initially responded by calling Duterte a 'colourful guy', but then called off the meeting after the international media reported heavily on the issue. Duterte responded by claiming the media had exaggerated the comments and said he would be sitting next to the US President in an upcoming dinner. But Obama snubbed him again by sitting elsewhere after the comments, which are said to have damaged the long-standing relationship between the two nations. Duterte recently insulted President Barack Obama and in a series of remarks he has undermined the previously close relationship between Manila and Washington Advertisement

He also reiterated there will be no annual war games between the Philippines and the United States until the end of his six-year term, placing the longstanding alliance under a cloud of doubt.

It also may make Washington's strategy of rebalancing its military focus towards Asia in the face of an increasingly assertive China much more difficult to achieve.

Still, US Defence Secretary Ash Carter, speaking before the latest remarks from Duterte, said Washington had an 'ironclad' alliance with Manila.

A senior US defence official, also speaking earlier, told reporters that the United States had a long enduring relationship with the Philippines regardless of who was president.
Andrew Saunders has appeared in court charged with the murders of Zoe Morgan, 21 and Lee Simmons, 33

A hotel worker has appeared in court accused of a murdering a young couple after they finished their night shift at Matalan.

Andrew Saunders is charged with killing store workers Zoe Morgan, 21 and Lee Simmons, 33, who were stabbed outside their workplace in Queen Street, Cardiff on Wednesday morning.

Saunders, 20, from Castleton in Gwent, appeared at the city's magistrates' court today, having been charged with their murders last night.

Saunders, wearing a dark grey polo shirt and jeans, heard he would next appear at Cardiff Crown Court on October 3.

He spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth.

Saunders, wearing a dark grey polo shirt and jeans, heard he would next appear at Cardiff Crown Court on October 3.

Miss Morgan's family have paid tribute to 'a beautiful daughter, sister, granddaughter and auntie who had a heart of gold and would do anything for anybody'.

They said: 'She was taken away from us tragically, too soon, and has left a massive hole in our lives that will never be filled. Zoe will always be in our hearts forever and always. We are all brokenhearted.'

Zoe Morgan, 21 and Lee Simmons, 33, were stabbed to death as they left a night shift this week

Colleagues are devastated after the attack near the store, where flowers have been placed

The bodies of window dresser Ms Morgan, of Llandaff North, and shop assistant Mr Simmons, of Grangetown, were discovered at 5.50am on Wednesday.

Colleagues broke down in tears on Thursday, their first day back at work since the double tragedy.

More than 24 hours from the deaths, there remained a sense of shock and disbelief that a young couple lost their lives on one Britain's busiest shopping streets.

Hundreds of pounds have been donated to a JustGiving page in memory of Miss Morgan, describing her as 'fun, sweet and exceptionally kind and honest'.

She had recently graduated from the University of South Wales in June with an honours degree in fashion marketing and retail design.

Miss Morgan and Mr Simmons met at work and had been dating for around four months

A card on flowers at the scene stated the couple would be 'missed by their Matalan family'

Colleagues said Miss Morgan and Mr Simmons had been dating for four months and struck up a romance while working together.

A candle lit vigil in memory of the murdered Matalan couple will be held by friends and family on Monday evening near to Zoe's home in Cardiff.

Her brother Macauley, 19, said: 'Thank you so much everyone for what your doing for my sister.
Theresa May will order sweeping changes to stop British troops who serve in future wars being hounded by lawyers.

The Prime Minister said new proposals would be announced in the next few days to bring an end to law firms trying to impugn the name of the armed forces.

The blitz is expected to focus on making it no longer worthwhile for ambulance-chasing lawyers to bring vexatious cases.

Theresa May renewed her pledge to crack down on hounding of troops as she visited 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment at their barracks in Salisbury yesterday

It is likely to include a crackdown on no-win, no-fee agreements and a time limit on claims to stop cases against soldiers who were simply doing their jobs.

In her first visit to a military base since becoming Prime Minister, Mrs May said she would give servicemen and women who put their lives on the line her full confidence and backing.

She said: What we need to take action on... is this issue of vexatious claims. The issue of those legal firms that are trying to impugn the name of our armed forces.

We need to ensure that when the men and women of our armed forces go out there on our behalf, willing to sacrifice themselves for our safety and for our defence, that they have our full confidence and backing in doing that and thats what we will give them.

Mrs Mays intervention in the crisis will be seen as an attempt to restore faith in the military by soldiers who feel they have been left to rot and hung out to dry by their superiors and the state.

In recent days serving troops have threatened legal action against the MoD and have even offered to throw themselves in front of The Hague to escape the British justice system.

Military chiefs have expressed concerns that the witch-hunt of troops, many of whom have been dragged through as many as five probes for one incident a decade ago, is damaging morale.

The Daily Mail has revealed how potential young recruits are being told by former senior officers not to join the British military because of the MoDs appetite for self-cannibalism.

Government sources said the crackdown announced by Mrs May would focus on stopping law firms profiting from pursuing cases against the MoD and soldiers at taxpayers expense.

Plans on the table include an attack on so-called Conditional Fee Agreements, also known as no-win, no-fee arrangements.

A strict limit on the costs which the lawyers can claim would immediately remove their incentive to use third-party agents to trawl for business. A time limit is also expected to be introduced on the filing of new claims.

This would mean that, in future wars, it would no longer be possible for cases to be lodged a decade or more after the fighting or occupation is over. It could also stop new claims pouring in over Iraq and Afghanistan.

Whitehall insiders said the Iraq Historical Allegations Team (Ihat), which is examining 1,668 allegations of wrongdoing by soldiers, is not being scrapped and described the changes as forward looking.

They are intended to stop similar cases being brought against UK troops in the future.

But cases that are already in the system will not be halted, meaning the agony for the troops and their families will continue.

Mrs May spoke out during a visit with Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon to meet soldiers from 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment at Picton Barracks in Bulford, Wiltshire.

The Prime Minister said: It has been great to come here and meet men and women who are serving in our armed forces and who make such sacrifices for us and who serve with such pride and distinction.

Their families make sacrifices too and we should never forget that.

She added: It is right when they go out there and are fighting for us that they have the confidence in what they are doing.

Mr May said she was determined to stop legal firms who were trying to 'impugn' the name of the armed forces

Mr May was accompanied on the visit by Lt Col Paddy Ginn, commander of 1st Mercian (next to the PM) and army chief General Sir Nicholas Carter

What we know is if there are credible allegations of criminal behaviour, of course those should be properly investigated but what we need to take action on, and what we have taken action on already, is this issue of vexatious claims.

We have already taken action to deal with that and we are looking at seeing what we can do and I am hoping we will be able to announce some further steps in the next few days.

She said the Government was looking at further action, including tackling no-win, no-fee agreements used by law firms.

She added: We have taken action and we are looking at the whole issue of the no-win, no-fee firms who are trying to create this industry of making claims against our armed forces.

Tory MP Johnny Mercer, a former Army captain, said of Mrs Mays planned crackdown: It is a step in the right direction but handwringing by politicians about lawyers is not the point.

Until you change the fatally flawed application of EU human rights law in combat, we will leave ourselves open to persecuting our troops. This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what we are asking them to do on operations.

Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded forces in Afghanistan, added: I very strongly welcome what she says. It is long overdue that the Prime Minister of this country stuck up for our troops rather then sell them down the river.

I know she has personal affinity with the military, her grandfather was regimental sergeant major and shes very proud of that.

I am confident she will do everything she can to stop this ridiculous situation where troops are being hounded by lawyers.

Last week Mrs May discussed the witch hunt when she met with the heads of the Royal Navy, Army, and Royal Air Force at the MoD.
Ben Needham's sister has voiced her fear that the toddler may never be found - as the search for the missing youngster was thrown into chaos.

Leighanna, who was born three years after Ben went missing on the Greek island of Kos in 1991, today admitted she was unsure whether she wanted to know his fate.

The search for the toddler was halted for three hours on Friday after the owner of land near the farm where Ben was last seen alive demanded all digging should stop.

But investigators have been allowed back to the Iraklis site and the search is 'back up and running' after officers negotiated with landowner Stefanos Troumouhis.

Ben Needham's sister Leighanna (pictured) has spoken of her fear that the missing toddler with never be found - as the landowner of the search site called for all digging to stop

The search for the toddler was halted for three hours on Friday after the owner of land near the farm where Ben was last seen alive demanded all digging should stop

But investigators have been allowed back to the Iraklis site and the search is 'back up and running' after officers negotiated with landowner Stefanos Troumouhis

Speaking about the ongoing search on Good Morning Britain, Leighanna said: 'None of us want to believe that we're going to find something there.

'Because that's 25 years of fighting and pain and hurt that could have been ended 25 years ago.

'Do we want to find him there, and it all be over? Do we want him not to be there, and then live the next 10, 20 years, the rest of our lives, not knowing?

'We're a family that's lived in hope - and what do you do when that hope's all gone? How do you continue when there's nothing left?'

Now 22 and a mother herself, Leighanna said she wanted to bring Ben home for their mother, Kerry.

'To bring him home - for my mum. That's my mum's one dream - that he would come back,' she said.

Leighanna, who was born three years after Ben (left) went missing on the Greek island of Kos in 1991, said her 'one dream' would be to find the toddler for her mother, Kerry (right)

Appearing on Good Morning Britain today, Leighanna said: 'We're a family that has lived in hope and what do you do when that hope's all gone  how do you continue?'

Landowner Stefanos Troumouhis, 33, made an attempt to block the search after a 1,500-year-old burial site was discovered next to the Iraklis farmhouse

Landowner Stefanos Troumouhis, 33, (left) made an attempt to block the search, but Detective Inspector Jon Cousins (right) said the search is now back on

Hours after her emotional interview, landowner Stefanos Troumouhis, 33, made an attempt to block the search.

He voiced his concerns after a 1,500-year-old burial site with five historic graves was discovered next to the Iraklis farmhouse.

A magistrate 'ordered' investigators to stop work immediately - but the search has now resumed after officers negotiated with Mr Troumouhis.

Speaking after the search resumed, Detective Inspector Jon Cousins said: 'Yesterday as you are all aware we unearthed a burial site of archaeological interest as a result of which that site had to be secured properly and work ceased this morning.

'There have then been a lot of discussions with the Greek authorities and with the landowner himself in relation to what has been happening this morning.

'I am pleased to say that we are now back up and running and we are continuing with this investigation. My main aim being to find answers for Ben's family and the people of Kos.'

Work to find answers about Ben's disappearance will now continue 'as planned', while the Society of Archaeology on Kos continues to manage the site.

Landowner Stefanos Troumouhis, 33, made an attempt to block the search after a 1,500-year-old burial site was discovered next to the Iraklis farmhouse.

The future of the search for the toddler has been thrown into uncertainty after the landowner of the farmhouse where Ben vanished has raised concerns about the excavation

As many as five adults bodies have been uncovered - but there is still no sign of the Sheffield toddler who disappeared on the island of Kos 25 years ago

Police searching for Ben Needham have stumbled upon a 1,500-year-old burial site in the grounds of the Greek farmhouse where he vanished, pictured is where the bodies were found

Police were forced to leave the site for three hours - but the search is now 'back up and running' after officers negotiated with Mr Troumouhis.

Work to find answers about Ben's disappearance will now continue 'as planned', while the Society of Archaeology on Kos continues to manage the site.

DI Cousins was due to travel to visit Ben's family who are staying near the island.

But as soon as he was made aware that Mr Troumouhis had instructed a lawyer in an attempt to halt the search, DI Cousins rushed back to the site today.

On Thursday, investigators searching for the missing toddler uncovered as many as five adult bodies in the historic burial site on the land.

The discovery of the 'undisturbed' tombs came hours after police announced they had found area of 'decomposition' near a cesspit which could be Ben's body.

Police said there could be no digging near the historic graves which were found yards from the derelict farmhouse.

The historic burial site was discovered in the grounds of the Greek farmhouse where Ben vanished, pictured is where the bodies were found

Police are also focusing on a fig tree after photographs revealed it was not present when the Sheffield toddler disappeared on the Greek Island 25 years ago

'There are nutrients in the soil that are consistent with the decomposition of something,' DI Cousins said

The graves are understood to date back to 500AD - when Greece was considered one of the Balkan provinces of the Roman Empire - and the discovery was handed over to local archaeologists.

'It is a historical burial ground and it is not connected in any way to this investigation,' DI Cousins said.

Detective Inspector Jon Cousins said they are trying to 'rule in or rule out' whether decomposed matter found in the soil could be related to Ben's disappearance.

When asked whether they could discount that the decomposed matter could be related to Ben's body, DI Cousins said officers were keeping 'an open mind'.

Earlier on Thursday he revealed the remains of a dog and a bat were discovered along with other unidentified matter at the Kos site.

He said scientists are still carrying out 'groundbreaking' tests on the soil samples, originally taken in April 2015, which were found near the underground cesspit.

Investigators digging behind the farmhouse where missing toddler Ben Needham was last seen alive are also focusing their search on a cesspit at the Kos site (pictured)

The remains of a dog and a bat have been discovered along with other matter, pictured is a police officer and a member of the Greek rescue service looking inside a septic tank today

Detective Inspector Jon Cousins said scientists are carrying out 'groundbreaking' tests on soil samples found near a cesspit, pictured is an oficer looking inside a septic tank today

Forensic police decided to return to test another area of decomposition which was deemed 'of interest' because scientists have not been able to determine what it is.

'There were signs of some decomposition,' DI Cousins told reporters on day four of the renewed search.

'One area of decomposition has not been ruled out yet and that is what we are working on.

'There are nutrients in the soil that are consistent with the decomposition of something. The scientists have been unable to determine what it is.

'It is groundbreaking work, we are able to narrow down the decomposed matter to specific animals.

'One of the samples have been revealed to be canine remains and another is a specific species of bat.'

One rescue worker, wearing breathing apparatus, was even seen being lowered into a cesspit near the farmhouse as part of the search.

The samples are still being examined back at a laboratory in Aberdeen.

Experts involved in the Body Farm project in Texas have also been drafted in to help in the investigation.

'I SWAM THROUGH EXCREMENT LOOKING FOR BEN' A lifeguard has told how he swam through human waste when he was lowered into a cesspit as part of the search for Ben Needham. Rafael Gerasklis, 25, from Kos, donned breathing apparatus when he inspected the cesspit on the land behind the farmhouse where Ben was playing in July 1991. He lined the bottom of the pit, believed to be around 10ft deep, with plastic before collecting samples of soil. Mr Gerasklis said the cesspit had been 'smelly' and 'warm'. Speaking yards from the spot where Ben was last seen, Mr Gerasklis told of how he has grown up hearing about the boy. 'There was huge publicity (at the time) and over the years the name 'little Ben' was talked about around the island,' he said, through a translator. A police officer is seen lowering his arm into the cesspit on the farmland in Kos 'It's hard to imagine how something like this could happen on an island like Kos. 'It's not something that happens every day. 'It's not easy here for somebody to walk away with a child without anybody noticing.' Many volunteers have joined the search alongside their full time jobs with some arriving in the morning having completed the night shift and others offering assistance after leaving work. The team consists of doctors, paramedics, teachers and an army officer, among others, many of whom are said to see being involved as a 'matter of pride'. Advertisement

A member of the Greek rescue service carries a piece of debris for further evaluation on Thursday

South Yorkshire Police and members of the Greek rescue service excavate a site in search of missing toddler Ben Needham

Forensic police officers are pictured searching the field in Kos on Thursday

The samples are still being examined back at a laboratory in Aberdeen, pictured are forensic officers searching the field in Kos

Police said the graves could date to just after 500AD - when Greece was considered one of the Balkan provinces of the Roman Empire - and they handed the discovery over to archaeologists

DI Cousins said he wanted to 'discount' that the unidentified matter in the soil samples may be human waste from the farmhouse

DI Cousins said he wanted to 'discount' that the unidentified matter may be human waste from the farmhouse.

The cesspit, which is buried underground, is not believed to have existed on the site 25 years ago.

Police are also focusing on a fig tree after photographs revealed it must have been planted after the Sheffield toddler disappeared on the Greek Island 25 years ago.

Officers launched a fresh bid to discover what happened to the toddler after a new witness came forward to claim he may have been run over by a digger and buried.

The witness alleged digger driver Konstantinos Barkas, who was working at the farmhouse, killed Ben.

Barkas died last year aged 62. His family have denied he had anything to do with the boy's death and he was interviewed by police after Ben disappeared.

British officers and members of the Greek rescue team search land on the south eastern Greek island of Kos this morning

A police officer could be seen taking pictures of the ground as teams of investigators worked at the site

A police officer holding a plastic evidence bag kneels down to pick up an item from the ground

But his friend reportedly saw the driver  known as Dino  'sweating and shaking' after returning from the police station.

Barkas allegedly told the friend 'it's possible' there could have been a tragic accident.

Acting on this information, a team of officers from South Yorkshire Police travelled to the Greek holiday island of Kos to begin the search earlier this month.

Earlier this week, police found pieces of light-coloured fabric during a search of the olive grove close to where Ben went missing.

The items have now be sent off for forensic testing.

Ben was wearing a white buttoned T-shirt with a green motif and brown leather sanders with a buckle when he vanished.

He was not wearing any shorts as he had wet them earlier in the day and his grandmother had hung them on a tree to dry.

A team of officers scour the ground for clues as they start the excavation process this morning

Ben's sister said her family was 'preparing for the worst' when police began the painstaking search

A new witness has claimed that 'Dino Barkas (pictured), who died of cancer last year, may have killed him in an accident with his JCB digger

Detective Inspector Jon Cousins, who is leading the new search, said the pieces of fabric - one of which was six inches square - were of 'slight interest'.

Another line of inquiry focuses on the sandals Ben was wearing on the day he disappeared.

Officers also studied a photograph taken around 10 days after his disappearance and noticed that the tree which now stands in the olive grove was not there at the time.

The picture, taken by a British press photographer, is the only record of the area from the time and police are now using it to aid them in a new search for Ben.

Detective Inspector Jon Cousins, who is leading the new search, said: 'This is the only record we have of the time that Ben disappeared in 1991.

'We have been able to analyse that with the experts who are here now and...look at the fauna and tree growth around it and as such, we are having a look at the area around a tree at the base of the farmhouse as we believe that may not have been there at the time.'

On the day he disappeared Ben's grandparents were renovating the property and looking after him while his mother, Kerry, was at work at a nearby hotel.

Photographs have emerged showing the inside of the house, which have remained virtually untouched since Ben Needham's last tragic holiday in 1991

On Wednesday, officers from South Yorkshire police allowed the Daily Mail access to the derelict farmhouse (pictured) where Ben was last seen

The family had moved from Sheffield to the Greek island of Kos in search of a better life but their adventure turned into a tragedy when Ben vanished on the afternoon of 24 July 1991.

He was aged just 21 months and has never been seen since.

Ben's mother Kerry, 43, from Sheffield, said she is trying to keep an 'open mind' about the search.

On Wednesday, officers from South Yorkshire police allowed the Daily Mail access to the derelict farmhouse where Ben was last seen.

The run-down building, in the small hamlet of Iraklis, around one mile from the seafront, has been renovated since the Needham family was last there.

It comprises of just three rooms: a kitchen and two other living rooms.

The property sits next to a dusty track and is surrounded by farmland and waste ground.

TIMELINE: A 25-YEAR SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH Here is a timeline of events charting the disappearance of Sheffield toddler Ben Needham on the Greek island of Kos 25 years ago. July 24 1991: Ben Needham vanishes while playing near the grounds of a farmhouse in the Iraklis region of Kos, which his family are renovating. His mother, Kerry Needham, and grandparents raise the alarm with local police and conduct a full search of the area. July 26 1991: Eyewitness reports claim a boy matching Ben's description was found at the local airport on the day he disappeared. That boy has never been traced. September 1991: The Needham family return to England due to illness but vow to continue the search. June 2003: The Metropolitan Police issue an image of what Ben might look like at age 12 - 14 years old. 2004: An anonymous businessman offers a reward of 500,000 for information leading to Ben's safe return. October 2010: Another public appeal is made by Ben's mother in the run-up to what would be his 21st birthday. May 2011: The BBC airs a programme called Missing 2011, which includes a piece on Ben's story and the campaign to find him. September 2011: Greek police on Kos officially re-open the case and grant the family a face-to-face meeting with the island's prosecutor. October 2012: South Yorkshire Police in Kos begin digging up mounds around the property where Ben went missing to look for his remains. December 2013: Ben's mother accuses then-Prime Minister David Cameron of not giving her case the same backing as he gave the parents of Madeline McCann. It comes as a dossier is produced containing reports from eight witnesses, none of who know each other, who all saw a boy possibly matching Ben's description with the same Greek family. December 2014: Lawyers representing Ben's family say they may take legal action to try to force the Government to make a decision about funding a new police investigation. January 2015: The Home Office agrees to fund a team of British detectives to help search for the toddler. March/April 2015: Three generations of Ben Needham's family travel to Greece to follow up a 'strong' lead that a man living there believes he may be the missing Brit due to having no photographs of himself under the age of two and no knowledge of where he was born. The man is later ruled out. May 2015: Ben's family make a fresh appeal on Greek television for information regarding the disappearance. May 2016: The Sun newspaper publishes a report that members of the police operation go on an 'eight-hour booze-up' in Kos during the latest stage of the investigation. September 2016: Ben's family are told to 'prepare for the worst' by detectives leading the investigation, amid the belief the 21-month-old was crushed to death by a digger - the driver of which died in 2015. It comes as police arrive in Kos to begin excavation work in the belief the boy's remains may be buried near the farmhouse The excavation, at what is now an olive grove, is expected to take up to 12 days, police say Digging began after a fresh line of inquiry suggested 21-month-old Ben may have been crushed to death by a digger near a farmhouse his grandparents were renovating Advertisement
She was sad one person's opinion could have affected

A lesbian traffic controller was left 'confused and saddened' after someone posted an anti-gay marriage sticker on the traffic sign she was standing in front of.

Jasmine Andersen was directing traffic at the Perth Royal Show for agriculture and was upset to find a 'keep marriage man and woman' sticker branded on her traffic sign on Thursday.

'Does anyone by any chance know who is responsible for this hatred?' Ms Andersen wrote on Facebook.

'I'd love to speak to them.'

A lesbian traffic controller was left 'confused and saddened' after someone posted an anti-gay marriage sticker on her traffic sign at work

Another person posted saying the anti-marriage equality stickers were found all over Claremont, a western suburb of Perth, according to WAtoday.

Ms Anderson said one person's opinion could have potentially had an impact of thousands of people passing the sign and didn't think vandalism was the right way to go about their message.

'I certainly wasn't angered. More confused and saddened. Because who knows what the effect it will have on the community,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'Personally, I wouldn't put stickers or graffiti with any message on anyone's house or car.'

The anti-marriage equality sticker found on Jasmine Andersen's sign was posed on Facebook

The sticker didn't go down well with the Perth-based Greens senator Rachel Siewert using the damage one bumper-sticker had on one young gay lesbian as an example of how damaging a national plebiscite could have on the LGBTIQ community.

'Young LGBTIQ people, some of whom may still be coming to terms with their sexuality, do not need to see hurtful slogans when entering or exiting the Perth Royal show,' Ms Siewert told WAtoday.

'Events like the Royal Show should be a safe space for everyone. For the LGBTIQ community who saw this sign, they're basically being told "you're not welcome here".

'This is a disgraceful example of how the plebiscite can be hurtful before it has even begun.'
A report that Germany's largest bank is close to a cut-price fine deal with American authorities over the sale of toxic mortgage bonds has helped boost its share price.

Deutsche Bank, which employs about 100,000 people, has been engulfed by crisis after being handed a demand for up to $14 billion earlier this month by the Department of Justice for mis-selling mortgage-backed securities.

The bank is fighting the fine but would have to turn to investors for more money if it is imposed in full. The German government this week denied a newspaper report that it was working on a rescue plan for the bank.

Deutsche Bank shares were indicated down 8.83 percent in Frankfurt earlier today but a report that Germany's largest bank is close to a cut-price fine deal with American authorities over the sale of toxic mortgage bonds has helped boost its share price

Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chairs meetings of euro zone finance ministers, said that Deutsche Bank must survive 'on its own', without assistance from the German state.

Markets around the world were thrown into turmoil earlier today after shares in Germany's biggest lender plummeted nearly nine percent in Frankfurt amid fears about its viability.

By 0725 GMT, its shares had shed 8.83 percent to 9.91 euros ($11.07), after news that a number of hedge funds had pulled money out of the German giant owing to concerns over its financial strength.

Traditional Frankfurt rival Commerzbank was pulled down with Deutsche, losing 7.3 percent to trade at 5.38 euros.

European stocks also started to lower.

Britain's FTSE 100 fell 1.1 percent to 6,847.05 while France's CAC 40 sank 1.7 percent to 4,366.89.

Germany's DAX lost 1.6 percent to 10,243.71. Futures augured a tepid start on Wall Street. S&P futures and Dow futures both lost 0.2 percent.

German banks have found their profits squeezed by the European Central Bank's ultra-low interest rates and Commerzbank, the country's second largest lender, is cutting almost 10,000 jobs.

The lurch followed a Bloomberg report on Thursday that a number of hedge funds that clear derivatives trades with Deutsche had withdrawn some excess cash and adjusted positions, a sign that counterparties are wary of doing business with it.

DEUTSCHE BANK BOSS'S EMAIL TO STAFF: Deutsche Bank's chief executive sought to reassure his staff on Friday that Germany's largest lender remained robust, telling them that the departure of any hedge fund clients was small compared to the bank's vast customer base. Chief Executive John Cryan's letter, seen by Reuters, addresses reports of the departure of 'some few' hedge fund clients, blaming 'speculation' and 'certain forces' for what he called unsettling media coverage. People familiar with the matter told Reuters that one large hedge fund in Asia had pulled out collateral from Deutsche amounting to $50 million in the last two days, while other sources said this had happened elsewhere, albeit on a small scale. On Friday, Cryan sought to put the moves into perspective. 'We should look at the complete picture,' Cryan said in the letter to the bank's workforce of around 100,000. 'Deutsche Bank has more than 20 million customers.' Cryan said the bank was stable, with a sufficiently large capital cushion. 'We are and remain a strong Deutsche Bank.' Advertisement

'Risk sentiment waned overnight as worries about global banks weighed on markets,' said Alex Wijaya, senior sales trader at CMC Markets in Singapore. 'Stock markets worldwide are rattled by the latest development at Deutsche Bank.'

One large hedge fund in Asia had pulled out its collateral from Deutsche amounting to $50 million in the last two days, while another fund which had a 'smallish amount' with the bank was monitoring the situation closely and had not pulled out yet, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

AFP sources confirmed that 10 hedge funds had pulled funds out, including Millennium Partners, Capula Investment, and British fund Rokos Capital Management.

Another person with knowledge of the development said it was common to see fluctuations in balances among hedge fund clients, and these actions represented a small portion of the bank's more than 800 clients in the hedge fund business.

In a statement on Friday, Deutsche reiterated its trading clients remained largely supportive.

'We are confident the vast majority of them have a full understanding of our stable financial position, the current macroeconomic environment, the litigation process in the U.S. and the progress we are making with our strategy,' it said.

A separate Asian hedge fund source said 'sophisticated investors' would have already pulled out excess cash or unwound positions held at Deutsche, and, therefore, there would not be a huge wave of these withdrawals.

'We haven't heard any talk that someone stopped trading with that bank in the interbank market. It's just some hedge funds (that have stopped trading with Deutsche),' a trader at a Japanese bank said.

'Basically we do have collaterals for most trades and they are reviewed daily. So the situation is a bit different from before the Lehman crisis. Also, the amount of the fine is not set yet.'

A statue is seen next to the logo of Germany's Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, Germany

Barry Bausano, chairman of Deutsche's hedge fund business, told CNBC that its prime brokerage division, which services hedge funds, was 'still very profitable' but said there was 'no question we have a perception issue.'

Fabrizio Camelli, head of the Deutsche wealth management business, said the bank was seeking to reassure customers and had not seen 'any noticeable outflow of client funds.'

'Of course some of our customers are asking what is up with Deutsche Bank at the moment. We are telling them that we are doing better than it might seem from outside,' he told Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily.

The money markets are 'playing with dynamite' by driving down Deutsche Bank's share price, the chief executive of the Berlin stock exchange warned.

Artur Fischer blamed a disconnect between perception and reality for the dramatic plunge in the bank's share value.

Asked on BBC Radio 4's World At One if the markets were playing with fire, Mr Fischer said: ' Definitely . You could say playing with dynamite.'

As share prices in the troubled bank continued to tumble, Mr Fischer said: 'The market bets that the German government will do a bailout even though there is no need for that at this point in time at all.

'We have a disconnect between perception and reality. Reality is what you have in the balance sheet of Deutsche ... they have three times as much capital than what the share value is, so the reality is actually much better than the perception. But the perception at the end counts, so people act on perception.

The Deutsche Bank headquarters are seen in Frankfurt, Germany. In July the bank barely scraped through European stress tests - designed to gauge its ability to withstand a crisis.

'Deutsche will have to come up with some good news. The market has to be put at ease. I'm pretty sure that in the long weekend we have ahead of us we will hear some positive news coming out of Deutsche.'

The immediate cause of Deutsche's crisis is a fine, disputed by Deutsche, of up to $14 billion by the U.S. Department of Justice over its sale of mortgage-backed securities.

Profits at Germany's lenders have been squeezed by the European Central Bank's money-printing policy. They have been seeking to boost revenue by passing on costs to corporate customers and increasing fees for retail depositors.

Deutsche's shares were seen down 6.2 percent in Frankfurt before market open on Friday, after the bank's U.S.-listed shares fell more than 9 percent in New York on Thursday after touching a record low in Europe this week.

Berlin has denied planning any repeat of the taxpayer-funded bailouts that Germany and other Western states staged during the global financial crisis.

This followed a newspaper report earlier in the week that the government had made provisional plans to rescue Deutsche.

Politicians are reluctant to back a group disliked by many Germans because of its pursuit of investment banking abroad that resulted in billions of euros of penalties for wrongdoing.

Eckhardt Rehberg, parliamentary budget spokesman for the ruling conservatives, signalled he would oppose any support.

'At the present time I would rule out any capital help. That would not be the right way to go,' he told Reuters, echoing similar comments by Hans Michelbach, who heads the conservatives in the parliamentary finance committee.

But Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of DoubleLine Capital, said investors betting that Berlin would not rescue Deutsche could find themselves nursing big losses.

'The market is going to push down Deutsche Bank until there is some recognition of support. They will get assistance, if need be,' said Gundlach, who oversees more than $100 billion at Los Angeles-based DoubleLine.

The immediate cause of Deutsche's crisis is a fine, disputed by Deutsche, of up to $14 billion by the U.S. Department of Justice over its sale of mortgage-backed securities.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's popularity has declined because of her open-door policy for migrants, and if Deutsche Bank were to require state help, her standing as the leader who successfully steered Germany through the financial crisis could also be called into question.

Deutsche got through the global crisis without state aid, but Commerzbank, Germany's second-biggest lender, needed an 18.2 billion euro bailout in 2008 and the state still holds a 15 percent stake.

The problems of Deutsche, once Germany's flagship on Wall Street, are awkward for Berlin, which has berated many euro zone peers for economic mismanagement and pushed for countries such as Ireland and Greece to cope with their banking problems alone.

Austrian finance minister Hans Joerg Schelling also sought to play down fears over Deutsche, saying the case could not be compared with Lehman Brothers, the U.S. investment bank whose collapse in 2008 sent shock waves around the world.

'We have all the measures in place at a European level to stabilise financial markets,' he told Reuters.

Like many of its peers, Deutsche has faced a series of lawsuits that often trace back to the boom years before the crash. Its litigation bill since 2012 has already hit more than 12 billion euros ($13.5 billion).
Vice President Joe Biden launched a scathing attack on Donald Trump during an appearance on The Tonight Show - branding the presidential hopeful 'callous' and suggesting he stood for 'a lark'.

The Vice President also claimed last night that the Republican candidate lacks the world knowledge required for the job.

He told host Jimmy Fallon: 'Ive never known a candidate who knows as little about the world as this man does.

'I dont even think he understands how much damage he does by what hes already said.'

Scroll down for video

The interview concluded with Fallon and Biden donning shades and eating ice cream

He quipped that Trump had just 'found out' that Crimea is part of Ukraine and said he has done little to ease fears in Europe about Russian president Vladimir Putin's intentions.

Asked about the candidates' debate earlier this week, Biden - who first crossed himself and quipped, 'Forgive me father, for I'm about to sin' - said: 'I've never seen anybody who knew as few facts.'

Biden also accused Trump of being 'callous', saying his comments about tax and a drop in house prices had startled him.

The vice president said: 'What amazes me about Donald Trump, and he's probably a decent guy, is his lack of sensibilities.

'I mean the way he talks about, "Well, I was rooting for the housing market to fail, because that's business." That's not business, that's callous.

'Or that, "I paid no taxes and that makes me smart", what does it make the rest of us, suckers?'

Biden branded Trump 'callous' for his comments over the housing market and paying taxes

Vice president Joe Biden was scathing about Donald Trump, saying he had 'never known a candidate who knows as little about the world as this man does'

And addressing the audience he asked: 'Can you think of any president, any president that you've read about, studied or knew, that would say anything like that?

'Name me one president who would do that, it angers me quite frankly.'

The Vice President continued: 'I mean, just pay your fair share for God's sake.'

He said voters are feeling uneasy and are taking longer to make up their minds.

'They) Are uneasy, I dont think theyve made up their minds yet, but it has surprised me how well he did in the Republican primaries and that hes still in the game,' said Biden.

'He just seems to.Ive never known a candidate who knows as little about the world as this man does.

'Its almost like the guy didnt really intend to do this. He thought this was a lark that could go somewhere and my God, here we are guys. OMG, he WENT there!'

The interview ended with the pair donning sunglasses and eating ice cream - a nod to a photo of Biden that Fallon said he had taken a shine to.

This picture of vice president Joe Biden inspired host Jimmy Fallon to bring out shades and ice cream at the end of the interview

Fallon has interviewed both Trump and Clinton this month.

He closed his segment with the Republican by messing up his hair, after asking if he could do one silly thing with him since he might be president the next time he appears on the show.

Making a joke of Clinton's recent 'medical episode', he pulled out a surgical mask and put it over his face as the Democrat laughed hysterically.

He was heavily criticised for giving Trump an easy time - a fact he acknowledge on air by presenting Clinton with a bag of softballs and joking: 'Yeah, that was what I gave him. I'll give them to you later in the interview.'
This video shows the emotional moment a radio host broke down in tears reading a teacher's report about his daughter helping other children at school.

Vaughan Smith, a presenter for ZM radio station in New Zealand, was overcome as he read out the end of term report live on air on Friday.

Mr Smith choked up at the start of reading out the message, which told of his daughter Indie's kind-hearted nature among her kindy classmates.

Vaughan Smith, a presenter for ZM radio station in New Zealand, was overcome as he read out his daughter's end of term report live on air

Mr Smith was already choked up at the start of reading out the message, which told of his daughter Indie's kind-hearted nature among her kindy classmates

'I've noticed so much about your personality, through observation I can see what a sociable girl you are,' the proud father read out as he tried to cover his eyes from view.

'You get along with everyone in the kindy room. I can see that you already show lots of empathy towards others. You're already thinking about other children throughout the day.'

Mr Smith struggling to hold back tears as he read about two acts of kindness Indie had performed in class.

The teacher's note continued: 'Earlier in the term, I took these pictures of you helping out another child who was upset because she was trying to do some writing at a table. She had noticed this and had approached her to see if she was OK.

'The next thing I knew you were giving her suggestions and showing her how to use letters and with your help she soon perked up and it was really nice of you to step in.

'You often demonstrate your ability to identify worth and understand other people's feelings.'

Mr Smith's voice cracks as he reads that his daughter has just one more term left at kindy, as he realises that his little girl is growing up. Mr Smith is pictured with Indie (left) and his youngest daughter

In the video, as Mr Smith chokes up, one of his colleagues can be heard shouting: 'You've made that!'

'I know and I don't know how,' he replies.

Continuing with the report, he says: 'You seem to understand what other children are feeling and you often talk about what you would feel like that if you were in their situation.

'In this photo you were helping a child with a floor puzzle. She had become stuck doing it for some time before you helped her. It was just normal for you to get down and help out.

'She went on to play with you for the rest of tha r morning and it was the start of a new friendship blossoming.'

Mr Smith struggling to hold back tears as he read about two acts of kindness Indie had performed in class

The report also called Indie a 'social butterfly' with lots of friend, adding that she has learned how to take turns and listen to others over the last few months.

Mr Smith's voice cracks as he reads that his daughter has just one more term left at kindy, as he realises that his little girl is growing up.

His colleagues laugh and mention that he has taken Indie's first day of school off so he can drop her at the gates.

Mr Smith turns back to the teacher's report and says: 'You demonstrate so many valuable skills that I already know by the time you start school next year you're going to be a valuable member of the new school class.
Parents have been warned to stop using the All 4 Bubs Lunar Cot immediately and seek a refund over major safety concerns.

The $449 product which was available for purchase on the companys website between January 1, 2014, and January 23, 2016, can potentially trap a childs head and neck.

The cot was tested by consumer advocate CHOICE and was found to be the worst cot they have examined.

Parents have been warned to stop using the All 4 Bubs Lunar Cot over safety concerns

'This is quite possibly one of the worst cots we have ever seen. We strongly urge any consumer who has purchased this cot to stop using it immediately and seek a refund,' CHOICE Head of Media, Tom Godfrey said.

CHOICE submitted their finding to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission who also issued a warning notice.

'The product does not comply with the Australian mandatory safety standard,' the ACCC said.

'The cot fails various design, construction, performance and labelling requirements.'

The cot was also considered to be a choking hazard and the bars were found to be easily detachable.

'Whether it's dodgy cots or flimsy mattresses, kids' safety has to be the priority. It's clear a number of companies are putting profit first,' Mr Godfrey said.

The cots were found to be a head and neck entrapment hazard (left), chocking hazard and the bars are easily detachable (right)
The former boyfriend of Amanda Knox has insisted he and his ex are also victims of the Meredith Kercher murder.

Raffaele Sollecito and Knox were convicted of the 2007 murder in Italy, but later exonerated after a long-running series of court cases.

Sollecito has now claimed that he and Knox are victims of the case too, and told how he is trying to 'rebuild his image'.

Raffaele Sollecito, the ex-boyfriend of Amanda Knox, has insisted he and Knox are also victims of the Meredith Kercher murder ahead of the release of a new documentary on the case

Knox (pictured, left, this week) and Sollecito were convicted of the 2007 murder of British student Ms Kercher (right) but later exonerated following protracted legal proceedings

Sollecito said: 'People never understood the truth about this case. They never knew about us. The victim is Meredith Kercher, but there are other two victims who are alive.'

Speaking to BBC's Newsnight ahead of a new Netflix documentary into the case, he added: 'I need to rebuild my image before I can rebuild my life... to reach the people and tell them "hey, I'm a normal guy".'

He said he and Knox now have 'a good relationship', adding: 'We don't talk too much because we are very distant, and we are caring about our lives.'

Sollecito is now seeking compensation for his legal fees, which he says have cost his family more than 770,000.

He said: 'I don't think about my future, my life, any more. I just think about what I have to do next month.

'For me, whatever happens after next month, even the world can be destroyed, but I don't think about next year or anything.'

Both Sollecito and Knox are interviewed in the new documentary set to appear on Netflix

The documentary, entitled Amanda Knox, features interviews with Sollecito and Italian prosecutor Giuliano Mignini.

British student Miss Kercher was murdered in November 2007 in Perugia.

Knox, Kercher's roommate and an American student studying abroad, and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were arrested and convicted of the murder.

Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison, Sollecito to 25.

Three years later, Rudy Guede was convicted for the murder and sexual assault of Kercher and the convictions of Knox and Sollecito were overturned in 2011.

The decision allowed Knox to return home to Seattle after spending four years in jail.

But she and Sollecito were tried again in 2014, and were again found guilty.

But they were finally exonerated by the Italian Supreme Court in 2015.

Knox appeared on US television this week. When asked if the documentary would add to the distress of the Kercher family, she blamed Italian prosecutors for their mistakes

Knox and Sollecito were arrested and later convicted over what police thought was suspicious behaviour in the aftermath of Miss Kercher's death. Sollecito insists he was comforting her

Knox has also spoken about the new documentary and was asked about how she thought the Kercher family would deal with yet another trawling over of the case.

She replied: 'For them that's never going to end and that's the really sad part about this tragedy.

'As soon as the prosecutor made this about [me] she's been lost in all of that. But that doesn't change the fact that we have an obligation to everyone who could be innocent to find out the truth.'

Appearing on US television show Good Morning America, Knox, 29, said she wanted to be involved in the film to show the 'nightmare' she had been through.

'I think I'm trying to explain what it feels like to be wrongfully convicted - to either be this terrible monster or to be this regular person who is vulnerable,' she said.

Miss Kercher was found dead at this house in Perugia, Italy, in November 2007. Another man, Rudy Guede, was jailed for her murder

She added: 'What I'm trying to convey is that a regular person like me - just a kid who was studying abroad, who loves languages - could be caught up in this nightmare where they're portrayed as something that they're not.

'There remains the fact that I'm in a unique position as an exoneree. Once an exoneree always an exoneree. I can't go back to my life that I had before, and neither can the other exonerees that are out there.'
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. RAYMOND ZARECK, Appellant No. 16-1215 Decided: September 29, 2016

Before: AMBRO, SMITH, and FISHER, Circuit Judges

OPINION*

A jury convicted Raymond Zareck of being (1) a felon in possession of a firearm and (2) a drug user or addict in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C.  922(g)(1), (3) and 924(e)(1). After this Court vacated his initial sentence on a narrow legal error, the District Court conducted a limited resentencing and sentenced Zareck to 188 months in prison. This was the same sentence he received initially. Zareck now appeals his sentence for the second time. We will affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

In April of 2009, police arrested Zareck after he sold drugs to a confidential informant as part of a controlled buy. During a subsequent search of Zareck's home, officers found a shotgun, ammunition, and a number of other incriminating items. Based on this, a federal grand jury indicted Zareck on one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C.  922(g)(1), and one count of being a drug user or addict in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C.  922(g)(3). A jury convicted Zareck on both counts.

At sentencing, because Zareck had three previous convictions for serious drug offense[s] prior to committing the instant offense, the District Court concluded that he qualified as an armed career criminal under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), thus triggering the fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence under 18 U.S.C.  924(e)(1). Consistent with  4B1.4(b)(3)(B) of the United States Sentencing Guidelines (U.S.S.G.), the District Court therefore set Zareck's offense level at 33. It also relied on these previous drug convictions to calculate Zareck's criminal history category under U.S.S.G.  4A1.1, resulting in a criminal history category of IV and an advisory Guidelines range of 188 to 235 months imprisonment. Based on this range, the Court sentenced Zareck to 188 months in prison on the  922(g)(1) felon-in-possession count, and a concurrent 188 month sentence on the  922(g)(3) drug-user-in-possession count.

Zareck then appealed his convictions and sentence to this Court, arguing that his previous state-court drug convictions did not qualify as serious drug offenses for purposes of his ACCA enhancement and that the District Court erred by imposing separate sentences for each of the  922(g) convictions even though those convictions were based on the same conduct. The government conceded that it was error for the District Court to impose separate sentences for each of Zareck's convictions under  922(g)(1) and (3). As for the first point, a panel of this Court summarily rejected Zareck's argument that his state-court convictions were not serious drug offenses, calling this argument meritless. United States v. Zareck, 588 F. App'x 100, 100 n.2 (3d Cir. 2014) (Zareck I). The panel vacated his sentence and remanded to the District Court to determine under which subpart of  922(g) to impose sentence and to resentence Zareck accordingly. Id. at 101.

On remand, the District Court determined that the offense level (and therefore the Guidelines range) was the same under both counts. And because the panel in Zareck I had already considered and rejected Zareck's arguments regarding the treatment of his state-court convictions as predicate offenses for purposes of the ACCA enhancement, the District Court concluded that it did not need to give de novo consideration to these arguments. Instead, the Court on remand allowed Zareck to try to satisfy the standard for obtaining reconsideration by showing that relevant law has changed, by presenting previously unavailable evidence, or by demonstrating that manifest injustice would result absent reconsideration. Because he failed to meet this burden, it stayed with its original findings regarding Zareck's status as a career criminal under ACCA and again imposed a sentence of 188 months in prison solely on the  922(g)(1) felon-in-possession count. Zareck then filed a timely notice of appeal.

II. ANALYSIS

On appeal (for the second time), Zareck raises two principal arguments. First, he claims it was error for the District Court to limit the scope of the resentencing to simply selecting the appropriate subpart of  922(g) to sentence him under; instead, he argues that the Court should have conducted a de novo resentencing. Second, he claims that the District Court erred by treating his state-court convictions as predicate offenses under ACCA. We address each argument in turn.

A. Scope of Mandate for Resentencing

Zareck claims that, because the panel opinion in Zareck I did not specify whether his resentencing should be de novo or limited to only certain issues, the District Court should have conducted a de novo resentencing. We disagree.

In United States v. Ciavarella, 716 F.3d 705 (3d Cir. 2013), we explained that [d]istrict courts should resentence de novo when an interdependent count of an aggregate sentence is vacated. Id. at 734 (citing United States v. Davis, 112 F.3d 118, 123 (3d Cir. 1997)). Counts are interdependent when they result in an aggregate sentence, not sentences which may be treated discretely. United States v. Miller, 594 F.3d 172, 180 (3d Cir. 2010). But when vacating a count of conviction does not affect [the defendant's] total offense level, Guideline range, or sentence,  resentencing de novo is not required. Ciavarella, 716 F.3d at 735.

Zareck explicitly acknowledges that his initial sentence did not involve interdependent counts. Nevertheless, he argues that vacating one of the two  922(g) counts materially changed the picture before the [District] Court on resentencing. Appellant Br. 16. Besides this bare assertion, however, Zareck fails to explain how the picture looked any different upon resentencing  either in terms of the  3553(a) factors or with reference to any other relevant metric  such that de novo resentencing was required. And, based on our own analysis, neither can we perceive any material change.

Zareck's reliance on the Supreme Court's decision in Pepper v. United States, 562 U.S. 476 (2011), is similarly unavailing. In Pepper, the Court held that a sentencing court must be permitted to consider evidence of post-sentencing rehabilitation when resentencing a defendant whose initial sentence has been overturned on appeal. Id. at 490. But Zareck did not attempt to present to the District Court any evidence that he has been rehabilitated since his initial sentencing. Nor does he claim on appeal that he would have presented such evidence had the District Court conducted a de novo resentencing.

We conclude, therefore, that the District Court did not err by limiting the scope of Zareck's resentencing to the issues for which this Court in Zareck I remanded for resentencing.

B. State-court Convictions as Predicates under ACCA

Because we conclude that the District Court correctly limited the scope of Zareck's resentencing, and because Zareck I already considered and rejected Zareck's arguments regarding his eligibility for the ACCA enhancement based on his previous state-court drug convictions, see Zareck I, 588 F. App'x at 100 n.2, we review his ACCA arguments only to ensure that the prior determination was not so clearly erroneous as to result in manifest injustice. In re City of Phila. Litig., 158 F.3d 711, 718 (3d Cir. 1998) ([T]he [law of the case] doctrine does not preclude our reconsideration of previously decided issues in extraordinary circumstances such as where: (1) new evidence is available; (2) a supervening new law has been announced; or (3) the earlier decision was clearly erroneous and would create manifest injustice.).

The first of Zareck's ACCA predicate convictions involved a pair of prescription drug sales to the same confidential informant that took place about a week apart back in 1988. Based on these, Zareck was charged with, and entered a plea of nolo contendere to, two counts of violating 35 Pa. Cons. Stat.  780-113(a)(30), which prohibits the manufacture, delivery, or possession with intent to manufacture or deliver, a controlled substance. His second conviction came after Zareck engaged in three prescription drug sales over the course of about six weeks later in 1988. Again, he was charged with multiple counts of violating 35 Pa. Cons. Stat.  780-113(a)(30). Again, he entered a plea of nolo contendere on all counts. Then, in 1990, Zareck was caught selling prescription drugs to an undercover agent. He was again charged with multiple counts of violating 35 Pa. Cons. Stat.  780-113(a)(30), as well as several other state-law counts. This time, a jury convicted him.

Zareck first argues that these three state-court drug convictions cannot serve as three separate predicate offenses under ACCA because they were all part of a larger course of conduct and thus should have been treated as a single conviction for purposes of the ACCA enhancement. Appellant's Br. 22-23. Zareck is wrong. Per United States v. Schoolcraft, 879 F.2d 64 (3d Cir. 1989), we apply the  separate episodes' test, id. at 74 (quoting United States v. Towne, 870 F.2d 880, 889 (2d Cir. 1989)), whereby individual convictions may be counted for purposes of [the ACCA] sentencing enhancement so long as the criminal episodes underlying the convictions were distinct in time, id. at 73. Each of Zareck's state-court convictions was based on different drug sales to different individuals, with months, if not years, separating each transaction. Thus, the District Court did not err  much less clearly so  in concluding that the convictions should be counted separately for ACCA purposes.

Zareck's next set of arguments centers on whether his state-court convictions constitute serious drug offenses under ACCA. As an initial matter, it is clear that a conviction under 35 Pa. Cons. Stat.  780-113(a)(30) can serve as a predicate offense under ACCA, so long as the controlled substance at issue conviction carries with it a maximum sentence of at least ten years. See United States v. Abbott, 748 F.3d 154, 158-59 (3d Cir. 2014). On appeal, Zareck does not argue that the controlled substances for which he was convicted under this statute fail to meet this requirement. Thus, we cannot conclude that the District Court clearly erred in concluding that Zareck's convictions constituted serious drug offenses under ACCA.

Nevertheless, Zareck claims that two of his three state-court convictions cannot count as ACCA predicates because they resulted from pleas of nolo contendere. Unfortunately for Zareck, however, all that matters under ACCA is whether the defendant has three previous convictions. 18 U.S.C.  924(e)(1) (emphasis added). Under Pennsylvania law, any adjudication of guilt constitutes a conviction for purposes of  924(e)(1), United States v. Jefferson, 88 F.3d 240, 243 (3d Cir. 1996), and a plea of nolo contendere appears to have the same legal effect as a guilty plea, see Eisenberg v. Com., Dep't of Pub. Welfare, 512 Pa. 181, 185 (1986) (A plea of nolo contendere, when accepted by the court, is, in its effect upon the case, equivalent to a plea of guilty.  The judgment of conviction follows upon such plea as well as upon a plea of guilty. (quoting Commonwealth v. Ferguson, 44 Pa. Super. Ct. 626, 628 (1910))). Thus, Zareck cannot hide behind his nolo contendere pleas to contest his ACCA status.

We conclude that the District Court did not clearly err in finding Zareck eligible for the sentencing enhancement under ACCA.

III. CONCLUSION

We will uphold the District Court's judgment of conviction and sentence.

FOOTNOTES

. As alleged in the indictment, Zareck was previously convicted of several state-court crimes punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.

. The District Court had subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C.  3231. We have appellate jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.  1291 and 18 U.S.C.  3742(a).

. Whether the District Court erred by conducting a limited resentencing presents a legal question subject to plenary review. See United States v. Diaz, 639 F.3d 616, 619 (3d Cir. 2011).

. Miller and Davis provide examples of aggregate sentences involving interdependent counts. In Miller, the defendant was convicted of (among other crimes) one count of receiving child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. 594 F.3d at 175-76. At sentencing, the district court grouped the two child pornography offenses together and used the count with the highest offense level (the receipt count) to determine the group's offense level in order to calculate the defendant's Guidelines range. Id. at 180-81. After we ordered the district court to vacate one of the defendant's child pornography counts on double jeopardy grounds, the district court vacated the receipt count and resentenced the defendant. Id. at 176. Because the counts were grouped at the initial sentencing, we concluded that the defendant's sentence was an aggregate sentence requiring de novo resentencing. Id. at 181.Similarly, in Davis, the defendant was convicted of various drug offenses and of using a firearm in connection with a drug trafficking offense. 112 F.3d at 119. The drug counts and the firearm count were grouped at sentencing. After we vacated the defendant's firearm count and remanded for resentencing, the district court applied a sentencing enhancement (for possessing a firearm during a drug trafficking offense, see U.S.S.G.  2D1.1(b)(1)) that the court previously was unable to apply because of the presence of the firearm count. We upheld the court's application of this enhancement after concluding that the defendant's initial sentence was an aggregate sentence involving interdependent counts. Thus, de novo resentencing was required. Id. at 121.

. Zareck does not claim that he has found previously unavailable evidence to support his arguments, nor that there has been any intervening change in the law since the Court in Zareck I rejected his career criminal arguments. Indeed, he explicitly relies solely on the manifest injustice exception to the law of the case doctrine.

. Zareck was also charged with multiple counts of violating 35 Pa. Cons. Stat.  780-113(a)(14), which criminalizes [t]he administration, dispensing, delivery, gift or prescription of any controlled substance by any practitioner or professional assistant under the practitioner's direction and supervision 

. According to the government, at least one of the  780-113(a)(30) counts in each of Zareck's convictions was based on a controlled substance the maximum penalty for which is fifteen years. We need not confirm the accuracy of this information since Zareck does not challenge it on appeal.

. Finally, Zareck appears to argue that his convictions under  780-113(a)(30) are invalid because he was a registered pharmacist at the time he committed the offenses. Whether Zareck is correct is of no moment at this stage; except in the narrowest of circumstances not applicable here, defendants facing a sentencing enhancement under ACCA are unable to collaterally attack the validity of their predicate state-court convictions. Custis v. United States, 511 U.S. 485, 487 (1994).

SMITH, Circuit Judge.
A transgender babysitter has admitted beating, burning, starving and killing her alleged boyfriend's four-year-old son after the helpless youngster was left in her care.

Kryzie King, 29, was told she will be behind bars for at least 22 years after pleading guilty to the second-degree murder of Myls Dobson at Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday.

Prosecutors revealed in court that the boy had probably been dead for 24 hours before King, who is said to have been dating the boy's father, even called 911.

Myls (pictured) was removed from the custody of his mother, Ashlee Dobson (left) in 2012. His babysitter was found guilty of his 2013 murder on Thursday

King also admitted several counts of assault and related charges for burning, beating and starving the boy.

Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg said Myls' father Okee Wade left his son with King at a luxury apartment in Hell's Kitchen, New York, in the middle of December 2013.

Wade never returned and ended up behind bars for fraud.

Myls had been removed from the custody of his mother, Ashlee Dobson, in 2012.

She posted on Facebook on Thursday: 'Today On My Way To Court For Justice For Myls Dobson. Rest In Paradise Baby Boy You Will Never Be Forgotten.'

Okee Wade (pictured) left the child with Kryzie King at her 11th floor apartment in this high rise in Hell's Kitchen (right) a few weeks before Christmas 2013. He was later jailed for fraud. He has denied ever dating King or any other transgender people

King, apparently annoyed that she had been left in charge of the boy over Christmas, took out her anger on the innocent youngster, whose body was found on January 8, 2014.

When an autopsy was carried out on Myls, he was covered in burns and bruises and had not eaten for weeks.

Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg said: 'In order to punish him she bound Myls Dobson and gagged him.'

At the time New York was suffering from record low temperatures due to the Polar Vortex, a pocket of cold air which moves down from the North Pole.

Ms Blumberg said King put him 'out on the balcony in her apartment in the freezing cold during the Polar Vortex wearing just a short sleeved T-shirt and his underwear.'

Ashlee Dobson (pictured, center) broke down in court and had to be comforted by relatives in 2014 when King first appeared charged with killing her son

He was also hit with electrical cords and belt buckles and burned with a hot toaster oven rack.

District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr said: 'With this plea, Myls Dobson's murderer has now been brought to justice and will be held accountable for the inexplicable cruelty and suffering caused to an innocent and helpless four-year-old boy.'

Ms Blumberg said: 'The medical examiners determined that although the defendant called the police on the morning of January 8, at approximately 10.50 in the morning, it's likely Myls Dobson died either on the very, very late evening of January 6, 2014 or the early morning hours of January 7, 2014.'

Myls' great-aunt, Linda Dobson, told the New York Daily News: 'No person would do something like that to a child' and she called King a 'monster'.

After her arrest King tried to claim she had planned a wonderful Christmas for Myls.

On Thursday, shortly before King appeared in court, Myls' mother posted a selfie and a status update in which she wrote: 'I'm going to be on the news tonight. Tune in everybody!!!'

She said: 'I went out and got a tree for Christmas so me and Myls could have fun putting it together. I have cancelled my plans to go Jamaica just so I could make Myls feel like he was at home.'

King, who worked as a hairstylist and model, claimed to have spent $900 on a video games console as a Christmas present for him.

The judge, Justice Robert Stolz, said King would be formally sentenced on October 21.
These pictures reveal the jet-set lifestyle of a Russian businessman arrested this week on suspicion of being a key player in the human organ trafficking trade.

Boris Volfman, 32, was previously detained in Turkey on suspicion of seeking to harvest organs from impoverished Syrian refugees and give them to wealthy clients.

His latest brush with the law came when he was held in Tirana, Albania, accused of being involved in a human organ trafficking racket stretching across the Atlantic from Costa Rica to Kosovo.

Social media pictures give an insight into his glamorous life with his Ukrainian wife Yuli Guralnik.

Social media pictures give an insight into his jet-set lifestyle with his Ukrainian wife Yuli Guralnik (pictured)

Pictures reveal the glamorous lifestyle of Russian Boris Volfman who has been arrested on suspicion of being a key player in the human organ trafficking trade, pictured with his wife

In December 2015, Volfman was pictured being detained at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport on suspicion of seeking to harvest organs from impoverished Syrian refugees

The father-of-one can be seen enjoying business class travel and luxury resorts at exotic locations - such as Thailand and Rome - with his wife.

Volfman is understood to own a penthouse in Istanbul as well as an apartment block in the Mediterranean.

Far from lurking in the shadows despite a succession of police probes into his operations in several countries, Volfman runs a website openly boasting of the ability to bypass waiting lists for people in need of kidney, heart or liver transplants.

It is linked to his company called Leshem Shamaim, or 'In the Name of Heaven'.

'It's God's work,' he has claimed.

He insists no laws are broken, and has denied he deals in trafficked organs.

His detention this week is linked to a human organ scandal in Kosovo capital Pristina involving illegal transplantation surgeries at a private clinic called Medicus.

The owners of the clinic were jailed for eight and seven years respectively after the original criminal trial in 2013, and an anaesthetist for three years.

Volfman had been arrested in Israel - where he also has citizenship - on the same case in 2012 and was held for two weeks in detention.

Volfman, 32, (pictured) was previously detained in Turkey on suspicion of seeking to harvest organs from impoverished Syrian refugees and give them to wealthy clients.

The father-of-one can be seen enjoying business class travel and luxury resorts at exotic locations - such as Thailand and Rome - with his wife

It is alleged donors in Russia and other Soviet countries were promised 11,500 for selling kidneys but in the end were paid less.

The European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo say Volfman had been linked to syndicate which had carried out 30 illegal operations, reported local news agency Kossev and Russia's Sputnik.

Reports in Tirana this week also say that bank transactions between two Volfman-owned Albanian companies have been frozen amid money laundering suspicions.

Prosecutors were quoted as alleging that he was involved in 'illegal organ transplants'.

Earlier, in December 2015, Volfman was pictured being detained at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport on an Interpol red notice.

A court ordered that he be extradited to Israel on suspicion of organ trafficking and fraud after flying from Bangkok, Turkey's Dogan news agency reported.

Daily newspaper Vatan cited sources saying he had intended to 'harvest organs from desperate Syrian refugees'.

An investigation by The New York Times in 2014, said Volfman had done time in prison in 2007 after being charged with the abduction of a man who he had used him to hack into hospital databases in search of kidney patients.

He pleaded guilty to reduced charges and was sentenced to two months in jail.

Citing court and government documents, he was also described as one of three 'central operators in Israel's irrepressible underground kidney market' who for years ' pocketed enormous sums for arranging overseas transplants for patients who are paired with foreign donors'.

Volfman is understood to own a penthouse in Istanbul as well as an apartment block in the Mediterranean

Volfman, who was arrested this week, is pictured here with his wife in March 2014. He runs a website openly celebrating his operation's ability to bypass waiting lists for people in need of kidney, heart or liver transplants.

He was described as 'self-confident, earnest and smoothly reassuring' with 'piercing blue eyes, a shag of jet black hair and a distinctive tattoo that drapes his right shoulder'.

The investigation indicated the sums of money that could be made for acting as a broker in the transplant business.

If a person decides to break the law, that's between that person and the law. Boris Volfman

He indicated a fee of around $30,000 for accompanying clients abroad and providing contacts, medical testing, transport, lodging and translation, it was reported.

A kidney transplant client was told by Volfman to make a $10,000 advance payment and take another $140,000 in cash to Sir Lanka for her surgery.

'In our company, we don't have any contact with the organ,'' Volfman was quoted as saying.

'All we can do is obligate the client to make sure that this is not something that has to do with organ trafficking. If a person decides to break the law, that's between that person and the law.'

However, his methods in the transplantation business have led to concerns in places as far afield as Costa Rica, Peru and Singapore, reported the New York Times.

His first contact with the lucrative organ sale was when he sold his own kidney in Sri Lanka as a young man, it has been reported.

Meanwhile, his website justsavelives.com states: 'If your kidney, heart or liver has failed, the best way to return to a normal life is to undergo an organ transplant.

The couple are pictured here during a holiday in August this year

'Due to the complexity of any organ transplant procedure, people who need an organ transplant often enter a very long waiting list and while waiting, their medical condition gets worse.

'With more and more transplants being done daily throughout the world, the level of expertise for transplant doctors and hence the success rate of transplants is increasing.

Our company has proven knowledge, hundreds of success stories and a considerable amount of accumulated experience in the field of organ transplantation ~ focusing on heart, liver and kidney transplants. Volfman's website justsavelives.com

'The long term survival rates from both a live donor and a deceased donor have also increased exponentially in recent years.

'Transplants have dramatically improved many people's lives and enabled them to be active, healthy members of their community.

'On top of the health advantages a transplant has over ongoing medical treatment, there are significant cost benefits to transplants when compared with the ongoing cost of treatment (such as dialysis for those suffering from renal failure) in the long run.

'Our company has proven knowledge, hundreds of success stories and a considerable amount of accumulated experience in the field of organ transplantation ~ focusing on heart, liver and kidney transplants.

Volfman can often be seen posing in designer clothes in his social media snaps

Volfman, 32, was previously detained in Turkey on suspicion of seeking to harvest organs from impoverished Syrian refugees and give them to wealthy clients

'We employ professional consultants in all relevant fields to make sure our organ transplant patients get the best service possible.

'Our company provides all of the necessary services for organ transplants in accordance with the applicable law.'
Mayor of Oersdorf Joachim Kebschull, 61, was taken to hospital after being struck from behind with a lump of timber

A German mayor was clubbed unconscious 'by neo-Nazis', moments before a planning meeting to consider a new refugee centre in the village.

Joachim Kebschull, 61, was taken to hospital after being struck from behind with a lump of timber in an attack in Oersdorf in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein.

It happened as a riot broke out at a Berlin refugee centre last night when 50 asylum seekers attacked security personnel who had to be rescued by police.

One guard was rushed to hospital with head injuries after the refugees turned on the staff, smashed up furniture and looted the building.

The mayor of Oersdorf had received death threats over plans for a centre in Schleswig-Holstein in the past, which infuriated right-wingers.

Before the meeting on Thursday the mayor had received a threatening letter with the words: 'Who doesn't want to hear must feel' and 'Oersdorf for the Oersdorferners'.

Two bomb threats had postponed earlier planning meeting attempts.

Police say the attackers are believed to be from the local far-right scene and are now searching for them after they made their escape.

In Berlin, around 50 migrants smashed up furniture to use as weapons to attack the guards at their accommodation block in the northern district of Reinickendorf.

Locked in a room, the security personnel called police saying they feared for their lives. Thirty officers turned up to rescue them.

Trouble broke out when the lights in the former gymnasium were suddenly turned on by security personnel after they discovered one of their offices had been broken into and looted.

It is believed that neo-Nazis were responsible for the attack, moments before a planning meeting about a proposed new refugee centre. Pictured is a rally in Germany in January, with people holding banners that say 'refugees not welcome'

Outside, some of the guards' cars were vandalised. Angry refugees turned on the staff and began beating them as they fled to find a safe place.

When police arrived they described most attackers as intoxicated. One guard was rushed to hospital with head injuries.

Police said they will press charges of disturbing the peace, grievous bodily harm and property damage.

Alcohol is banned in refugee centres as many young men struggle to cope with its effects after arriving in Germany from Muslim countries where it is banned.
Last month, at the same hospital, a worker suffered blistered lips after consuming a drink that is believed to have been 'laced with bleach'

Autopsy showed that they were killed by a disinfectant chemical

Japanese police are hunting for an 'angel of death' serial killer who may have caused the deaths of 48 elderly patients at one hospital by poisoning their intravenous drips.

Suspicions were aroused after an autopsy showed that two elderly men were recently poisoned at Oguchi Hospital near Tokyo.

Victims Sozo Nishikawa and Nobuo Yamaki, both 88, died on September 18 and 20 respectively.

Autopsy results showed that they were killed by a chemical found in antiseptic. The chemical is the same as one in a disinfectant used at the Oguchi Hospital's nurse's station, Jiji Press news agency said. Intravenous drip bags were found pierced with the disinfectant inside.

Police are investigating if 48 elderly patients may have been killed by disinfectant being injected into their intravenous drips at Oguchi Hospital in Japan (file photo)

Since the two deaths police have found 10 more pierced drip bags, among a set of 50, that were stored behind a nurses' station on the fourth floor of the hospital.

Police believe the drips may have been injected with the disinfectant during a lightly staffed three-day public holiday.

They are now investigating whether a further 46 patients - who all died on the fourth floor - were poisoned in the same way.

The huge number of deaths occurred over 82 days from July 1 this year.

A hospital official admitted to Kyodo News that they were alarmed by the rise in deaths: 'We see many people pass away due to the nature of this hospital, but we had the impression that the number of those dying was increasing a bit.'

Police believe the drips may have been injected with the disinfectant during a lightly staffed three-day public holiday at Oguchi Hospital in Japan (file photo)

The investigation comes two months after the murder of 19 people at a centre for the mentally disabled in Kanagawa Prefecture about 60km west of Tokyo (pictured). It was Japan's worst killing spree in decades

The fact that many of the bodies have already been cremated has hampered investigations.

At the same hospital, last month, a worker suffered blistered lips after consuming a drink that is believed to have been 'laced with bleach', Japan Times reports.

The investigation comes two months after the murder of 19 people at a centre for the mentally disabled, Japan's worst killing spree in decades.
Two Van Gogh paintings stolen in 2002 have been recovered by anti-Mafia police in Naples, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam says.

The museum said on Friday that the paintings are in 'relatively good condition', however they both lack their frames and show signs of some damage.

The two stolen paintings, once valued to be worth $100 million, are the 1882 work 'Seascape at Scheveningen' and the 1884/85 work 'Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen.'

Police in Naples said the paintings are of 'priceless value' and were discovered during a raid as part of a crackdown against a Naples-based Camorra crime clan.

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The painting 'The Beach At Scheveningen During A Storm' by Vincent Van Gogh is presented during an Italian investigators' press conference in Naples on Friday

The painting 'View of the Sea at Scheveningen' was one of two oil painting by Vincent Van Gogh worth millions of dollars which was snatched by thieves on December 7, 2002

Police found the paintings wrapped in cloth in a safe in a house in Castellammare di Stabia, near Pompeii, after a tip off from a suspected drugs gang leader.

Mario Cerrone reportedly told police about the paintings' locations after he was arrested along with several other suspected drug traffickers linked to mafia clans in northern Naples, La Repubblica reports.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi informed his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte about the police operation before the funeral in Jerusalem of former Israeli leader Shimon Peres, a source in Renzi's office said.

The paintings were stolen on December 7, 2002, at around 8am - two hours before the museum opened. Neither of them were insured.

Axel Ruger (R), director of Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum, stands next to the painting 'Congregation Leaving The Reformed Church of Neunen' by Vincent Van Gogh after it was found

The painting 'Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen' was the other oil painting that was stolen

Journalists and tourists gathered outside the closed Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, on December 7, 2002

WHY ARE THE PAINTINGS SPECIAL? 'Seascape at Scheveningen' is the only painting from Van Gogh's period in The Hague (1881-1883) that the Dutch museum had in its collection. 'It is one of the only two seascapes that he painted during his years in the Netherlands and it is a striking example of Van Gogh's early style of painting, already showing his highly individual character,' the museum said. Meanwhile, 'Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen' was painted by Van Gogh for his mother. It is a small canvas that shows the church where Van Gogh's father was a Minister. 'In 1885, after his father's death, Van Gogh reworked the painting and added the churchgoers in the foreground, among them a few women in shawls worn in times of mourning. This may be a reference to his father's death,' the museum said. Advertisement

The thieves used a 15-foot ladder to climb onto the museum's roof and break into the building, escaping by sliding down a rope.

Two men were later caught and convicted of the theft thanks in part to DNA evidence linking them to the scene. They were sentenced to 4 years and 4 years six months, respectively, but the paintings were not recovered.

At the time, the museum director John Leighton said: 'They have no market value since they were not for sale, but comparable paintings sold for several million dollars.'

On Friday, current museum director Axel Ruger said: 'The paintings have been found! That I would be able to ever pronounce these words is something I had no longer dared to hope for.

'It is not yet certain when the works will come back to Amsterdam.

'But I fully believe that we can, once more, count on the unconditional support of the Italian authorities.'

It is not yet clear when the paintings will return to Amsterdam.

Van Gogh was born in the Netherlands in 1853, and died in France in 1890 of a gunshot wound, which was apparently self-inflicted.

Director of Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum Axel Ruger, left, and Naples Prosecutor Giovanni Colangelo, shake hands as they stand next to the historic artwork

Museum director Axel Ruger said: 'The paintings have been found! That I would be able to ever pronounce these words is something I had no longer dared to hope for.'

Both stolen pieces are of major art historical interest, the museum said. 'Seascape at Scheveningen' is the only painting from Van Gogh's period in The Hague (1881-1883) that the museum had in its collection.

'It is one of the only two seascapes that he painted during his years in the Netherlands and it is a striking example of Van Gogh's early style of painting, already showing his highly individual character,' the museum said.

Meanwhile, 'Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen' was painted by Van Gogh for his mother.

It is a small canvas that shows the church where Van Gogh's father was a Minister.

'In 1885, after his father's death, Van Gogh reworked the painting and added the churchgoers in the foreground, among them a few women in shawls worn in times of mourning. This may be a reference to his father's death,' the museum said.

Vincent Van Gogh painted this portrait of himself in 1888, mimicking an earlier portrait by another Dutchman, Rembrandt van Rijn. The painting is part of the collection of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam

Two police officers guard the rear of the van Gogh museum after the burglary in 2002
The anguished mother of a man killed by police in a San Diego suburb said she could not believe her family left violence-wracked Uganda only to have her son shot to death in the United States.

'We have come from a war zone,' Pamela Benge, mother of Alfred Olango, said through sobs, wearing large dark glasses to cover her tears. 'We wanted protection. That's why we're here... I thought a lovely nice country like this would protect us, we just need protection, that's all.'

Benge said at a news conference Thursday that she had grieved and prayed for other parents who had lost children in recent shootings by police in the U.S., but 'didn't know that the next time it would be me.' She now understands their suffering.

Pamela Benge, center, spoke at a press conference in San Diego to address the killing of her son, Alfred Olango Olango, a Ugandan refugee shot by an El Cajon police officer on Tuesday

'We have come from a war zone,' Pamela Benge, mother of Alfred Olango, said through sobs, wearing large dark glasses to cover her tears

'There is nothing as painful,' she said as family members stood nearby wiping tears from their eyes. 'It is so much that you cannot swallow it. You try to swallow it, but the pain overweighs you. It is so bitter.'

Alfred Olango, a refugee from Uganda was killed on Tuesday after police say he drew something from his pocket and extended his hands in a 'shooting stance'

Alfred Olango's family gathered with lawyers and religious leaders and urged people to continue demonstrating but implored them to do it peacefully to honor his memory.

Thursday's third night of protests, however, were more violent and destructive than gatherings on the previous two nights.

Between 50 and 75 people marched through streets and blocked intersections until police had to use pepper-spray balls to break them up.

Some got into fights with drivers who were angry over blocked traffic, at times breaking car windows and in one case pushing a man off his motorcycle, police said. Some threw bottles at police.

Two men, ages 19 and 28, were arrested for failing to end an unlawful assembly, police said.

Olango, who is black and came to the U.S. from Uganda in 1991, was unarmed when he was killed. But police say he failed to put his hands up and comply with orders, finally pulling an e-cigarette device from his pocket and pointing it directly at the officer who shot him.

El Cajon police released a still image from the video of Olango grasping the object in both hands and aiming it at the officer.

The family urged authorities to release the entire video of the shooting. A lawyer representing them said that authorities were misinforming the public by only showing the single image.

'It's a wonderful way if you're litigating a case in the media,' attorney Dan Gilleon said. 'It fits a perfect narrative for them.'

'We wanted protection. That's why we're here... I thought a lovely nice country like this would protect us, we just need protection, that's all,' the heartbroken mother said

In an emotional appearance before reporters, Benge said her son Alfred was joyful and loving and was not mentally ill. She explained how the family had come to the U.S. for protection

A frame from cellphone video taken by a witness, appears to show Olango in the 'shooting stance' as two officers approached with weapons drawn

The El Cajon mayor defended the decision to release the single frame, saying it accurately represented the situation the two officers faced.

'I thought it was way too incendiary to not release something,' Mayor Bill Wells said.

Wells said he reached that decision with the police chief and District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis to release the image to counter reports from people saying Olango had his hands in the air and was begging not to be shot.

Dozens of demonstrators on Wednesday protested the killing of Olango in El Cajon

A man covers his eyes with police tape during the protest. Pamela Benge told reporters Thursday that she was praying for the deaths of unarmed black men to come to an end

Wells said he met with leaders of the black community Thursday who told him releasing the video immediately could help prevent violence. Wells said he wants to talk to the district attorney to discuss why the video should not be released immediately.

The San Diego district attorney's office, which controls when videos of officer-involved shootings are released, said there is no time frame for when it will release the video.

The fatal shooting happened less than two weeks after black men were shot and killed by police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Charlotte, North Carolina, where violent protests broke out.

A police officer talks with a man during a protest. Olango's mother, Pamela Benge insisted that her son was not mentally ill, but was instead distraught over the loss of a very close friend

Police in both those cities have released videos of the shootings.

When Olango arrived as a refugee in 1991 and was twice ordered deported because of a 2001 conviction for selling cocaine, U.S. immigration authorities said.
A popular blogger was livestreaming her morning commute when her phone was snatched by a masked robber on a bike.

Rebecca Casserly, 28, was talking to the camera when the device was stolen in a shocking incident watched by her 3000 plus viewers.

Ms Casserly let out a scream as the screen went black. Afterwards, a man's voice could be heard, along with the sound of the bike pedals turning.

Rebecca Casserly, 28, was talking to the camera and interacting with her 3000 plus viewers on a London street before the incident

Ms Casserly has captured her walk to Highbury and Islington tube station more than 200 times as part of her daily 'coffeescope'.

But for today's slot she filmed from her balcony, after she was told by police that gangs of robbers had regularly targeted commuters.

She told MailOnline: 'Every day, I get a coffee on my way to work and chat to people on periscope. I've done it every day for a year and a half.

'Then a man with mask covering half his face came up to me and smashed the phone straight out of my hand.'

Ms Casserly has reported the incident to police.

She added: 'The police came and said that there have been gangs of people targeting the rush-hour crowd.

'I've had hundreds and hundreds of messages of support from all over the world, the support is amazing.'

Ms Casserly, whose Twitter handle is @BoopFashionista runs a blog dedicated to fashion, beauty and travel, BecBoop.
A mobile phone has been seized from notorious gang boss Bassam Hamzy after he tried to flush it down the toilet inside his high security jail cell.

It is believed the Brothers 4 Life boss was using the phone when corrective services officers raided his Goulburn's SuperMax prison cell on Thursday night.

He tried flushing the phone down but officers had expected this and had cut the water to his cell, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Hamzy is serving a long sentence over a 1998 shooting murder, running a drug syndicate and ordering kidnappings from his prison cell.

A mobile phone has been seized from notorious gang boss Bassam Hamzy (pictured) after he tried to flush it down the toilet inside his high security jail cell

It is believed the Brothers 4 Life boss was using the phone before attempting to flush it down the toilet as corrective services officers raided his prison cell on Thursday night

It's the second time in as many weeks the high-risk inmate was caught with contraband at the NSW prison and has resulted in an investigation to figure out how the phone was smuggled in.

'Staff approached the cell by stealth, which caught the inmate off guard,' Acting Assistant Commissioner Angie West said in a statement on Friday.

A hand-held mobile phone detector picked up mobile signals which sparked the search.

Acting Assistant Commissioner West said prisoners will go to extraordinary lengths to introduce contraband and the phone was likely smuggled into the prison through 'internal secretion methods'.

'Inmates who gain access to contraband when housed at other correctional centres have been known to secrete items internally and our staff cannot undertake internal searches,' Ms West said.

It's the second time in as many weeks the high-risk inmate was caught with contraband at the NSW prison and has resulted in an investigation to figure out how the phone was smuggled in

A seven centimetre mobile linked to Hamzy was discovered hidden inside a book's spine in the SuperMax library at SuperMax on September 15

Hamzy is serving a long sentence in Goulburn's SuperMax prison (pictured )over a 1998 shooting murder, running a drug syndicate and ordering kidnappings from his prison cell

A seven centimetre mobile linked to Hamzy was discovered hidden inside a book's spine in the SuperMax library at SuperMax on September 15.

The gang boss was caught with a mobile phone when he was a prisoner at maximum security Lithgow jail in 2008.
A German woman who was kidnapped in Syria last year and gave birth while in captivity has escaped with her baby to Turkey this week.

The woman, believed to be freelance journalist Janina Findeisen, is said to have been taken in October last year after being lured to Syria with the promise of exclusive information.

She reportedly had her baby in December while begin held by a group demanding 5million euros for her release, but escaped this week and met police in Ankara on Wednesday.

The woman, believed to be freelance journalist Janina Findeisen (pictured), is said to have been taken in October last year after being lured to Syria

She reportedly had her baby in December while begin held by a group demanding 5million euros for her release, but escaped this week and met police in Ankara on Wednesday

The German foreign ministry said: 'The German woman and her baby who was born while she was held hostage are in good condition considering the circumstances.'

It added: 'The German government is relieved about the outcome of this case given the extremely difficult overall situation in Syria.'

The woman and her baby are now under the care of German consular officials and members of the German federal police in Turkey.

German mass circulation newspaper Bild said the woman was a freelance journalist who had worked for Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily and broadcaster NDR.

Reporters without Borders Germany, a non-profit group, welcomed the news.

'This case shows again the incalculable dangers to which journalists are continually exposed in the Syrian war,' said Christian Mihr, the group's director.

He said it was important that most German media outlets had refrained from writing about and sensationalising the case.

A ministry spokeswoman said she could give no further details about the case, citing privacy considerations. The German federal police was not immediately available to comment.

Focus news magazine reported on the case in February, naming the woman as 27-year-old Janina Findeisen, who published under the pseudonym Marie Delhaes.

She reportedly had her baby in December and has since escaped from war-torn Syria (pictured, stock image from Aleppo this week)

It said the woman had been held by a faction within the Islamist Nusra Front militant group, recently renamed Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS), which demanded the ransom.

JFS on Wednesday tweeted a denial that it was behind the kidnapping, claiming it freed the woman and her child from the prison where they were being held by an unnamed 'small group', the SITE Inteligence Group reported.

Focus, citing federal police sources, reported in February that Findeisen had been lured to Syria by a woman she knew from Bonn with the promise of exclusive information about Islamist militants.
Friends and family of Cassie Olczak have arrived at the family home with gifts after the 16-year-old was found five days after she disappeared into the bush.

The teenager was 'starving' when she was found by a motorist at 9am on Friday morning, walking next to the Princes Highway in Waterfall where she was last seen.

Four women were seen visiting the Olczak home, two with a large bunch of flowers which were left at the gate.

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A young woman has delivered flowers to Cassie Olczak's home after she was found

Cassie had been missing for five days - her mother used that time to plead for answers - the flowers were left at the gate

When rescuers finally found Cassie Olczak, 16, this morning, she said: 'I'm so sorry... and I'm really hungry'

Another woman appeared to comfort a friend outside the home after delivering an animal carry-cage to the home.

When rescuers finally found her this morning, Daily Mail Australia can reveal Cassie said: 'I'm so sorry... and I'm really hungry.'

Her relieved mother Connie Olczak told reporters finding her daughter after more than 100 desperate hours was 'just a miracle.'

'(It is) the most amazing feeling in the world,' she said. 'I can't describe it.

Two women were seen embracing outside the girl's family home after she was founf

The women looked relieved that Cassie - who had been missing for five days was found safe

One woman delivered and animal crate to the home on Friday afternoon

'I felt like I was living in a movie and I just had to keep looking at her - "oh my god, it's actually her."

She greeted Cassie with a big hug and said: 'Just sit there and tell us what you need'.

Her daughter was a bit 'hesitant' and it's understood she had suffered some cuts and bruises, as well as a bump to her head, and was suffering exposure to the elements.

But she was in good health - even though it was unclear what she had been eating and drinking the past week.

Scores of SES and police officers have spent the past week scouring the Royal National Park for the girl, who was last seen at Waterfall Station about 7.40pm Sunday.

A man was seen at the doorway of the home - Cassie's family were active in searching for her

The 16-year-old (left) had been missing since Sunday after spending the day with friends in Earlwood. Her mother, Connie (right) issued desperate public pleas for help

Huge operation: Scores of SES workers and police have spent the past five days scouring Sydney's south to find the apologetic 16-year-old girl

Police and SES crews had been scouring the nearby Royal National Park for clues at the time of her discovery

Acting Superintendent Mick Fitzgerald said the enormous search had been impeded by the 'harsh terrain' of the area.

It is unclear what, if anything, Cassie has been eating and drinking for the past week.

Detectives haven't questioned Cassie at length as she is getting treatment at Sutherland Hospital for her exposure to the elements.

Police and Ms Olczak have been deluged with tip offs since she went missing after separating from a friend.

Members of the public claimed to have seen her everywhere from the Max Brenner chocolate shop in Parramatta to Emu Plains, at the base of the Blue Mountains.

Connie has confirmed her daughter was believed to be on a 'substance' when she went missing.

She had also fired off a series of emotional emails in the days before she returned from Abu Dhabi on Saturday.

Cassie had been visiting her civil engineer father, Darius, in the United Arab Emirates.

The 'very emotional' messages were out of character for her daughter, Connie told KIIS FM.

'Sadly Cassie made poor choice in friends! Let's pray doesn't cost her life !!!!'

'The day before she came home she did put some very emotional emails because we laughed (and said) "oh my god look at Cassie shes actually displaying affection"'.

Connie said her daughter was 'similar to someone with minor autistic traits where they're not super cuddly... But she has a heart of gold'. She stressed she didn't mean that remark in a 'negative' way.

Ms Olczak said a 'substance' was involved in her daughter's disappearance. 'But we don't know what.'

The investigation into Cassie's disappearance took a bizarre twist earlier this week when Connie had a public spat with the teenager's friend who was the last person to see her.

'Sadly Cassie made poor choice in friends! Let's pray doesn't cost her life !!!!' she said.

Cassie's mother, Connie, launched a scathing public attack on one of her daughter's friends

The friend who last saw her then claimed Cassie was 'not happy (where) she was'. 'Everyone could see this... 'event' was not (unexpected),' the friend said.

'But no please continue to attack me because that will surely help (you) find your daughter'.

Daily Mail Australia understands investigators even seized the friend's phone in their investigation.

Connie was coy when asked about reports Cassie was upset over a boy, but did confirm Cassie had a disagreement with a friend before she left.

Ms Olczak was last seen on CCTV footage at Waterfall train station, about 7.40pm on Sunday

She was meant get off the train at Hurstville but CCTV cameras captured the girl getting off the southbound train alone at Waterfall Railway Station

Police said Cassie was caught on security cameras walking out of the train station and has not been seen since

Cassie was supposed to be travelling to Hurstville but security camera footage captured her getting off about Waterfall railway station - about 25 kilometres away.

Police believe she may have been groggy and disoriented.

Her mother told a press conference: 'She's beautiful, she's five foot 10, she's a stunner. She had a modelling contract.

'I believe she is disorientated and jetlagged from a long flight home the night before.

'I also think she may be scared. She's not a super social person, she'll stick to herself.

'If she hears this, your friends and family are desperate for you to come home. Please come home.

'If anyone knows anything you are not in trouble. We just need information.'

Connie said her daughter had gone a long time without food or water and had no access to bank accounts.

'I need her home, my gut tells me she is alive,' she said.

Cassie had just finished school and is due to begin a TAFE hairdressing course next week.

She went to visit friends on Sunday but they sent her home when they noticed she was disorientated.

SES officers decked out in orange gear up for another day of searching for the missing girl

Police searching for the young women on Wednesday before they halted the search

They had to stop as it was too dark to continue their search, but returned on Thursday

Her mother Connie Olczak said Cassie (left, right on a missing poster) may have been given a substance before she went missing
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CHAO FAN XU, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. WAN FANG KUANG, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. YING YI YU, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GUO JUN XU, Defendant-Appellant. No. 15-10016, No. 15-10017, No. 15-10018, No. 15-10022 Decided: September 28, 2016

Before: W. FLETCHER, CHRISTEN, and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges.

MEMORANDUM *

Defendants Chao Fan Xu (Chaofan), Guo Jun Xu (Guojun), Wan Fang Kuang (Wanfang), and Ying Yi Yu (Yingyi) appeal, for the second time, the sentences imposed following their convictions for racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to transport and transact in criminally derived funds in violation of 18 U.S.C.  1957 and 2314, and immigration fraud. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.  1291 and 18 U.S.C.  3742. For the following reasons, we vacate and remand.

1. In defendants' first appeal, we held that on remand the district court could not apply a one-level sentencing enhancement under U.S.S.G.  2S1.1(b)(2)(A) for a substantive violation of 18 U.S.C.  1957. See United States v. Chao Fan Xu, 706 F.3d 965, 993 (9th Cir. 2013), abrogated on other grounds by RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Cmty., 136 S. Ct. 2090 (2016). On remand, however, the district court continued to apply a one-level sentencing enhancement under U.S.S.G.  2S1.1(b)(2)(A). This was error. See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007) (stating that failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range constitutes significant procedural error); United States v. Carty, 520 F.3d 984, 991 (9th Cir. 2008) (All sentencing proceedings are to begin by determining the applicable Guidelines range. The range must be calculated correctly.).

We cannot determine whether the district court would have imposed the same sentence if it kept the correct guidelines range in mind throughout the process. See United States v. MunozCamarena, 631 F.3d 1028, 1031 (9th Cir. 2011) (declining to find harmless a district court's incorrect application of an enhancement because it was unclear whether the district court would impose the same sentence if the correct guidelines range were kept in mind throughout the process (citation omitted)). We therefore conclude that material errors affected the district court's guidelines calculation and that we must vacate defendants' sentences and remand this matter for resentencing. We decline to reach defendants' arguments regarding the substantive reasonableness of their sentences.

2. Defendants argue that in calculating the sentencing guidelines range for racketeering conspiracy, the district court incorrectly considered approximately $20 million in transfers to the United States. The government cites no persuasive authority in support of its position that the transactions were properly considered. At resentencing, the district court based its guidelines calculation on the predicate racketeering offense of engaging in monetary transactions in criminally-derived funds, 18 U.S.C.  1957(a), and properly relied on U.S.S.G.  2S1.1(a)(2). Section 2S1.1(a)(2) provides for a base offense level of 8 plus the number of offense levels from the table corresponding to the value of the laundered funds.

The applicable commentary defines laundered funds as the funds involved in the transaction  in violation of 18 U.S.C.  1956 or  1957. U.S.S.G.  2S1.1 cmt. n.1 (emphasis added). As we explained in defendants' first appeal, the government failed to prove a substantive violation of 18 U.S.C.  1957 because the government could not trace any funds to fraudulent activity that occurred within the jurisdictional reach of the statute of conviction. See Chao Fan Xu, 706 F.3d at 992; see also RJR Nabisco, 136 S. Ct. at 2101 (holding that 18 U.S.C.  1957 applies to some conduct outside the United States when the defendant is a United States person (quoting 18 U.S.C.  1957(d)(2)). The government did not cure this deficiency at resentencing. Because the government failed to prove that any transactions occurred in violation of   1957, the district court erred in increasing defendants' base offense levels using the $20 million in funds transferred to Las Vegas.

The government's attempt to rely on  2S1.1 Application Note 3(B) is also unavailing. Note 3(B) only applies where a transaction  results in the commingling of legitimately derived funds with criminally derived funds. U.S.S.G.  2S1.1 cmt. n.3(B) (emphasis added). It is uncontested that the $20 million transferred to Las Vegas was previously commingled in China. The transactions that resulted in commingled funds in the Ever Joint account occurred in China. On remand, the government did not show that any of the transactions were accomplished by U.S. persons. Therefore, the government did not show that the transactions that resulted in commingled funds were within the jurisdictional reach of the United States.

The government's reliance on the commentary to U.S.S.G.  2E1.1 is equally unavailing. The government argues that the district court could treat each underlying [predicate] offense as if contained in a separate count of conviction, U.S.S.G.  2E1.1 cmt. n.1, and, in this way, sentence defendants as if they had committed a substantive 18 U.S.C.  1957 violation. The government cites no binding authority in support of this argument. Nothing in the guidelines allows the district court to calculate defendants' base offense levels using the $20 million without satisfaction of 18 U.S.C.  1957's tracing requirement.

The district court's findings are insufficient to support the government's alternative argument that the district court considered the $20 million under 18 U.S.C.  3553. See Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 356 (2007) ( [T]he sentencing judge should set forth enough to satisfy the appellate court that he has considered the parties' arguments and has a reasoned basis for exercising his own legal decisionmaking authority.).

3. Defendants argue that the district court violated Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32(i)(3)(B) by insufficiently explaining its imposition of a two-level position-of-trust enhancement. Rule 32 applies only to factual objections. See United States v. Petri, 731 F.3d 833, 836 (9th Cir. 2013). Defendants do not argue that the district court inadequately explained its resolution of factual disputes, only that it inadequately explained the legal basis for the sentences. Defendants' legal arguments did not trigger the district court's fact-finding duties under Rule 32(i)(3)(B).

4. The district court ordered defendants to pay $7.8 million in restitution. In conspiracy cases, a district court may base restitution on a defendant's criminal conduct in the course of the scheme, conspiracy, or pattern of criminal activity. 18 U.S.C.  3663, 3663A. For purposes of restitution orders in conspiracy cases, criminal conduct includes related conduct for which [a defendant] was not convicted, but non-criminal conduct cannot serve as the basis of a restitution order. See United States v. Lawrence, 189 F.3d 838, 846-48 (9th Cir. 1999). We previously held that loss determinations using 18 U.S.C.  1957 did not provide sufficient grounds for the district court's restitution order given the  inability to trace Defendants' fraudulent activity to actual  losses. Chao Fan Xu, 706 F.3d at 994. On remand, the district court did not expressly clarify what criminal conduct formed the basis of its restitution order. We remand for clarification regarding the legal basis of the restitution order.

VACATED AND REMANDED.

FOOTNOTES

. This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

. We refer to defendants by their first names to avoid confusion among the defendants who share the same surname.

. Wanfang and Yingyi have already completed their terms of imprisonment and supervised release. The government concedes, however, that their appeals are not moot because Wanfang and Yingyi are still subject to a restitution order. Wanfang and Yingyi adopt the arguments of Chaofan and Guojun, but only the restitution issues affect Wanfang and Yingyi.
A children's TV presenter was forced to fight a family court battle over her child after discovering her partner was cheating on her with four other women.

Katy Ashworth, star of CBeebies show I Can Cook, planned to move to Australia to be with New South Wales-based partner Ben Alcott and their child.

But after heading out to Australia for a 'trial period', the 30-year-old presenter discovered Alcott was having multiple affairs and brought the child back to the UK.

Alcott then forced a family court battle over where the child lived, claiming the youngster was 'habitually resident' in Australia.

A family court judge in Britain has now ruled in Ashworth's favour, meaning the child can stay with her.

CBeebies presenter Katy Ashworth has won a court battle to keep her child in the UK

A ruling by Judge Alex Verdan, in the family division of London's High Court, means the presenter's victory can be reported for the first time today.

The judge concluded that the child was not wrongfully removed from Australia by Ashworth.

Judge Verdan said Ashworth had always been the child's primary carer and travelled to Australia with the child in April.

'The father says this was a permanent move,' said the judge. 'The mother says it was a trial attempt to see if their relationship would work out long term.'

He said Ashworth and the child stayed Mr Alcott's home for three nights - and returned to the UK shortly afterwards.

The judge added: 'The main reason the mother left Australia was that she discovered material on the father's computer which indicated to her his infidelity.'

The judge branded Mr Alcott 'inconsistent, unreliable and unconvincing', but he denied

He said Ashworth had emailed Mr Alcott saying: 'Ben. I know everything. I'm done. Have packed up and left.'

She emailed again, after arriving back in the UK, adding: 'Thank goodness I found out all the lies before moving to Australia with you for good.'

Judge Verdan said Ashworth had discovered evidence suggesting that Mr Alcott was having relationships with four other women.

He said she had found 'women's clothing' and 'more importantly' messages on his Mr Alcott's computer from other women.

Mr Alcott accepted that 'on any reckoning' his personal life was 'very complicated' and said it was 'very difficult to balance the different female interests in his life' as his 'decks were very crowded'.

Ruling in Ashworth's favour, Judge Verdan stated: 'I found the mother's evidence to be clear and consistent and supported by the documents.

'I found the father's evidence to be inconsistent, unreliable and unconvincing.'

The judge added: 'My conclusion is that any agreement by the mother to move to Australia was based on a fundamentally flawed premise.

'If the mother had known the true state of affairs I am satisfied that in all likelihood she would not have moved to Australia with (the child) even for a trial period.'

Ashworth discovered Alcott was having affairs after travelling to Australia for a 'trial period'

Judge Verdan concluded that the child had never 'acquired habitual residence in Australia'.

'I concluded that (the child) was not integrated to a sufficient degree in a social and family environment in Australia and that the mother was probably not integrated at all... (The child) had not put down roots.'

The judge added: 'The mother did not wrongfully remove (the child) from Australia.'

Speaking after the case, Mr Alcott told MailOnline he would still be able to see the child, but the child would be based in the UK.

He denied having four affairs, saying: 'Her version of me cheating is talking to anyone.'

He added: 'I feel like I have been made to look bad when really I was just the poor idiot who spent six years waiting around.

'To be honest, I am incredibly sad  this is the worst possible outcome for any family. I am extraordinarily sad and I will be for a long time.

'I am very sad and I would do anything to go back six months and have the opportunity to change it, I would do anything to have our family together.'

The case was heard at the High Court in London earlier this month but fuller details can be reported for the first time today

Judge Verdan had previously allowed reporters to attend the hearing but had barred the publication of the names of the people involved.
Tony Blair (pictured arriving in Tel Aviv, today for the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres) came within days of quitting as prime minister to stand for president of the European Commission, Alastair Campbell revealed today

Tony Blair came within days of quitting as prime minister to stand for president of the European Commission, one of his closest advisers has claimed.

The diaries of Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair's high-profile director of communications in No 10, suggest the ex-PM sounded out the likes of then French president Jacques Chirac and then German chancellor Gerhard Schroder on the possibility of him taking over the top job in Europe.

Serialised in The New European, Mr Campbell claims that Mr Blair only abandoned the plan because he feared he was being driven out of office by the well documented battle between Mr Blair and his then chancellor Gordon Brown.

Mr Campbell's diaries also claim that Mr Blair openly talked about quitting on the night he won his third election in 2005, which saw Labour's majority significantly reduced.

The diaries cover the period from 2003 to 2005, after Mr Campbell had resigned over the Iraq war but still remained a confidant of Mr Blair in an unofficial capacity.

Mr Blair is said to have plotted his move to become European Commission president in 2004.

Mr Campbell told The New European: 'A lot of the time the press exaggerated our difficulties.

'This was one period where, if anything, they underplayed them because they didn't know just how bad things were.

'This was the closest Tony got to leaving and at the time I was terrified it would get out because it was one of those stories that would have taken on its own momentum.

The diaries of Alastair Campbell (pictured last week in London), Mr Blair's high-profile director of communications in No 10, suggest the ex-PM sounded out the likes of then French president Jacques Chirac and then German chancellor Gerhard Schroder on the possibility of him taking over the top job in Europe

'Tony had pretty much had enough and was being ground down by Gordon. In the end he realised that and decided he had to stay and see it though.

'Then came another on-off saga when he decided he was going to sack Gordon.'

Mr Campbell said it was 'amazing' Mr Brown and Mr Blair were able to work together in the 2005 general election, given the depth of division at the heart of New Labour.

Mr Blair is said to have decided to sack Mr Brown in January 2005, and won John Prescott's support for a 'back me or be sacked' strategy.

Mr Blair reportedly stood down from such a bold move, despite having serious misgivings about his former friend's temperament to do the top job.

Other claims outlined in the first extract include Mr Campbell being sounded out by Mr Blair to become his full-time representative in Iraq.
Pleaded not guilty: Steven Garrott, 57, has denied two counts of sexual assault and three counts of attempted rape on a girl under 13

A caretaker charged with attempted child rape has been allowed to remain living on school grounds while he awaits trial, prompting a protest from angry parents.

Steven Garrott, 57, denied two counts of sexual assault and three counts of attempted rape on a girl under 13 at Cambridge Crown Court a fortnight ago.

But his bail conditions have allowed him to continue living in a house in the grounds of the infant and nursery school in Letchworth, Hertfordshire.

And with almost half a year until his trial next February, 30 angry parents gathered outside the home as two police cars guarded the scene.

Garrott was later ushered out of the property by two officers, although police insisted he had not been removed due to concerns over his safety.

The parents recognise that Garrott may have done nothing wrong, but feel that until his trial is over and while he cannot work at the school, he should not be living in the house either.

The charges do not relate to the school but Garrott, who plays Santa at the school Christmas fair every year, was suspended on March 31 this year before his arrest.

Home: Garrott's bail conditions have allowed him to continue living in a house (pictured left) in the grounds of the infant and nursery school in Letchworth, Hertfordshire

Parents recognise that Garrott may have done nothing wrong, but feel that until his trial is over and while he cannot work at the school, he should not be living in the house (circled) either

News of his living arrangements has been met with uproar from parents, some of whom are refusing to let their children go to the school.

A source said 42 children were taken out of school today, many in protest at his living arrangements.

One woman, whose daughter attends the school, said: Its disgusting. We always used to see him locking the gate but he suddenly disappeared around February time.

'I cant believe hes been allowed to continue living in that house. Hes metres away from the school. He should be somewhere else.

Officers from Hertfordshire Constabulary were at the school yesterday and today to reassure parents but it seems to have had little effect.

Another woman who has children at the school said: A police officer was at school in the morning trying to calm everything down.

Pictured on the grounds: One woman, whose daughter attends the school, said she used to see Garrott (above) 'locking the gate but he suddenly disappeared around February time'

News of his living arrangements has been met with uproar from parents, some of whom are refusing to let their children go to the school

It didnt work and a lot of parents ended up taking their kids home anyway. The most annoying this is the school arent telling us anything.

Today, the schools headteacher sent a letter home to parents stating she could understand the shock, upset and anxiety caused.

It read: By now most of you will have become aware of the charges against Mr Garrott.

I need to start by expressing how I absolutely and completely understand why this news would cause shock, upset, and anxiety to parents.

Firstly I want to now assure you that Mr Garrott is no longer living on the premises.

The letter continues: It goes without saying that this has been an incredibly challenging and distressing time.

On the scene: Officers from Hertfordshire Constabulary were at the school yesterday afternoon and today to reassure parents but it seems to have had little effect

Going forward I know that we will pull together as a school and community to support each other through this difficult time.

Speaking from outside her house, Garrott's ex partner Rebecca Gould, 38, said: He was an ex. We were not together very long.

I cant believe hes been allowed to continue living in that house. He's metres away from the school. He should be somewhere else Parent of pupil at the school

I had heard the rumours about it but he denied it. I have got children and this has got nothing to do with me. We are not together anymore.

Garrotts bail conditions include the requirement that he should not contact directly or indirectly either of the alleged victims.

He is also not allowed to have unsupervised contact with a child under the age of 16 unless this is authorised by social services.

A Hertfordshire Constabulary spokesman said: Steven Garrott from Letchworth is charged with two counts of sexual assault by penetration of a female under the age of 13, three counts of attempted rape of a girl under 13 and sexual assault of a girl under 13.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged Hungarians to reject European Union migrant quotas in a referendum on Sunday

Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged Hungarians to reject European Union migrant quotas in a referendum on Sunday, evoking the fear of a militant attack to rally people to the polls in a vote that looks uncertain to reach the required turnout.

Orban has been at the forefront of opposition in Europe to the position taken by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has said Europe had an obligation to take in refugees.

Since last September, when hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East crossed Hungary on their way to richer countries in Western Europe, Orban has sealed the southern border with Serbia and Croatia to migrants with a razor wire fence and around 8,000 army and police.

While opinion polls show support for a rejection of the quotas topping 80 percent among those who say they will vote, they forecast turnout will not top the 50 percent required by the constitution for a referendum to be valid.

Turnout in referendums has historically been lower in referendums than parliamentary elections in the country, and votes on EU and NATO membership also fell short of the 50-percent mark.

Migrants walk down a street from Keleti train station in Budapest, Hungary, September 5, 2015

Riot police stand guard in front of a migrant reception centre in Roszke, Hungary, September 4, 2015

Orban said an overwhelming rejection would empower the government to defend the country and fight in Brussels for a change in migration policy, adding he was ready to start negotiations as soon as next week.

'If there are more 'no' votes than 'yes' votes, that means Hungarians do not accept the rule which the bureaucrats of the European Commission want to forcefully impose on us,' Orban told TV2 late on Thursday.

'The more migrants there are, the greater the risk of terror,' he said. 'We would like to preserve Hungary a safe country like it is now.'

In the past two months, the government placed billboards nationwide that link migration to violent attacks. They also threaten the nation with millions more migrants.

'Did you know? Since the start of the migration crisis, the number of harassment cases against women has jumped in Europe', some billboards say.

Many people in the street echo the campaign slogans.

'They (migrants) don't know how to behave, they steal, they rape women, they carry weapons, they organise and do terrorist things,' Iren Botos, a retired chemistry teacher, said in Budapest.

A migrant is detained after the train they were traveling in from Budapest arrived in Bicske, Hungary, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015

A migrant pulls a boy inside a train through a window at the Keleti train station in Budapest last year

EU officials have privately expressed alarm about the campaign, which they see as stoking tensions.

'This is a domestic Orban exercise. If it emboldens him further, that is no good news for the EU,' one diplomat said.

Analysts and rights groups say the referendum could strengthen Orban's position and allow him to keep the issue of migration on the agenda ahead of national elections in 2018. It has already cemented support for his Fidesz party.

'The publicly financed anti-refugee propaganda has blatantly demonised migrants, suggesting that migration is responsible for terrorism, that migration - as such - endangers Hungarian culture,' the human rights group Helsinki Committee said.

The only visible campaign against the referendum comes from a small spoof called the Two-Tailed Dog Party. Their posters are mocking the government's anti-immigrant rhetoric but are unlikely to have substantial impact.

Relocation of migrants in the EU has failed to start on a large scale a year after it was agreed and the eastern member states have shown little sign of bowing to political pressure to take in refugees.
This is the shocking moment a police officer is filmed rifling through the contents of a passenger's suitcase as he was finally caught stealing from tourists.

Footage shows Brian Stephens searching for high-value items in suitcases in the baggage room, leading a sniffer dog around to try and disguise his theft as a police duty.

He is seen opening one suitcase, sorting through the contents and putting a few items in his rucksack while constantly looking around the empty room to check no-one is watching.

Footage shows Brian Stephens searching for high-value items in suitcases in the baggage room

The officer is seen leading a sniffer dog around the cases to try and disguise his theft as an official police duty

He is seen picking out a suitcase to riffle through while constantly looking around the empty room to check no-one is watching

Stephens then closes the suitcase and opens another one beneath at the ANR Robinson International Airport on the Caribbean island of Tobago.

But he was caught in the act in an investigation launched after numerous European passengers reported items including cameras and clothing had gone missing when they arrived at London Gatwick.

The officer pleaded guilty to three counts of misbehaviour in public office in October 2008, but he was spared jail and instead issued with a $150,000 fine (17,0000).

Justice Gillian Lucky told him admitted that a non-custodial sentence was lenient but pointed out that Stephens would lose his job as a police officer as a result of the conviction.

He opens one suitcase (pictured), sorting through the contents and putting a few items in his rucksack

Stephens then zips up the cases as if nothing has happened (pictured). He was spared jail and instead issued with a $150,000 (17,0000) fine

Stephens was caught on CCTV at the Robinson International Airport on the Caribbean island of Tobago (pictured). He will be forced to pay $50,000 of his fine immediately and then monthly installments of $5,000 until the sum is paid off

Stephens will be forced to pay $50,000 immediately and monthly installments of $5,000 until the sum is paid off.
Federal investigators are sifting through the wreckage of a train crash in New Jersey to determine what happened before it barreled through a station and crashed into a barrier, causing a young mother to be killed by falling debris and injuring more than 100 others.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board will be looking to determine how fast the commuter train was going when it crashed at the busy Hoboken station Thursday morning.

Their investigation will seek to answer many questions, including whether a system designed to prevent accidents by overriding the engineer and automatically slowing or stopping trains that are going too fast could have helped if it had been installed on the line.

Authorities have obtained the rear black box from the train that crashed into Hoboken Terminal on Thursday. But it has been too dangerous so far to obtain the front black box

Investigators have already recovered one of the train's two black boxes, this one located in the back of the train. But it wasn't safe enough yet for investigators to extract the second recorder from the engineer's compartment because of the collapsed roof and the possibility of asbestos in the old building, NTSB vice chairwoman T. Bella Dinh-Zarr said. The device contains information on the train's speed and braking.

Dinh-Zarr told the Today show on Friday that they are now requesting to interview the train's engineer, Thomas Gallagher, who reports state was found slumped over at the wheel of the controls in the front of the train. He was hospitalized after the accident, and released late Thursday.

Officials said he was cooperating with investigators. Gallagher has worked for NJ Transit for 29 years, and a union roster shows he started as an engineer about 18 years ago.

NTSB officials are seeking to interview train engineer Thomas Gallagher (left) on Friday. Pictured on the right is Fabiola Bittar de Kroon (with her husband), the 34-year-old mother who was killed in the crash

More than 100,000 people use New Jersey Transit to commute from New Jersey to New York City each day. The NJ Transit portion of the Hoboken station will remain closed on Friday, slowing the morning commute for those making connections there.

As investigators began their probe, the family of Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, the crash's sole fatality, was in mourning. De Kroon had recently moved to New Jersey from Brazil after her husband got a job with an international liquor company and he was away on a business trip at the time of the crash.

She had just dropped her toddler daughter off at daycare before rushing to catch a train, according to daycare director Karlos Magner.

'She was dropping off the daughter, I was closing up the stroller,' he recalled. 'We had a good talk for like a minute. And she said she was in a rush.'

In an interview with Brazilian outlet G1, Fabiola's mother says the family is arranging to fly to the U.S. so they can bring her body back to her home country.

Shortly after, the NJ Transit train ran off the end of the track as it was pulling in around 8:45am, smashing through a concrete-and-steel bumper. As it ground to a halt in the waiting area, it knocked out pillars, collapsing a section of the roof.

More than 100 people were injured in the crash. A woman is wheeled away from the Hoboken Terminal train station on a stretcher Thursday after the crash

The train crashed over the bumper block at the end of the tracks and into the main area of the terminal where people wait for trains, bringing down part of the canopy

De Kroon was killed by debris, and 108 others were injured, mostly on the train, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said. Scores were hospitalized, some with serious injuries including broken bones.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said investigators will determine whether the explanation was equipment failure, an incapacitated engineer or something else.

Some witnesses said they didn't hear or feel the brakes being applied before the crash. Authorities would not estimate how fast the train was going. But the speed limit heading into the station is 10 miles per hour.

'The train came in at much too high rate of speed, and the question is: 'Why is that?'' Christie said.

Cuomo, a Democrat, and Christie, a Republican, cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the role that the lack of positive train control played or didn't play in the tragedy.

Emergency personnel arrive at the scene of a train crash in Hoboken, N.J. on Thursday, September 29, 2016

The NTSB has been pressing for some version of the technology for at least 40 years, and the industry is under government orders to install it, but regulators have repeatedly extended the deadline at railroads' request. The target date is now the end of 2018.

Over the past 20 years, the NTSB has listed the lack of positive train control as a contributing factor in 25 crashes. Those include the Amtrak wreck last year in Philadelphia in which a speeding train ran off the rails along a curve. Eight people were killed.

In 2011, a Port Authority Trans-Hudson, or PATH, commuter train crash in a separate section of the Hoboken station injured more than 30 people. The NTSB found the engineer failed to control the speed of the train as it entered the station and investigators also determined a contributing factor was the absence of positive train control.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, left, speaks during a news conference on the train crash at the Hoboken Terminal as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, right, listens on Thursday

'They'll have to answer for themselves, but at the end of the day if safety is job one ... then you have to have a better record than New Jersey Transit has right now,' said Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, noting that the transit agency said in a 2016 report with the Federal Railroad Administration that it didn't have positive train control on any locomotive or segment of track.

'That means zero across the board,' he said. 'They need to do better than zero across the board.'

A spokeswoman for NJ Transit referred all questions about the investigation, including questions about positive train control, to the NTSB.

Even without positive train control, there are still safeguards in place in Hoboken.

NJ Transit trains have an in-cab system that is designed to alert engineers and stop locomotives when they go over 20 mph, according to an NJ Transit engineer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the accident.

Passengers on board the train said it felt like the train never even braked as it approached the station

Trains like the one in Thursday's crash also are equipped with an alerter system - a sort of dead man's device - that sounds a loud alarm and eventually stops the train if the engineer goes 15 to 20 seconds without touching the controls.

But it was unclear whether those mechanisms kicked in or would have made a difference if they had.

Michael Larson, an NJ Transit employee working in the terminal about 30 feet away, said he saw the train go over the 'bumper block' and lift up into the air, stopping only when it hit the wall of the station's waiting room.

As the train hurtled into the depot amid concrete dust and dangling electrical wires, 'I couldn't believe what I was seeing,' he said.

Tom Spina, a maintenance supervisor for a private company was in the terminal after having worked the night.
Cyclists are furious after a council blunder led to a cycle lane being blocked by a metal barrier.

The railing, on Chester Road in Birmingham, is next to a pedestrian crossing, but there are no alternative routes for cyclists.

One rider, Michael Scott, claims the barrier could cause a serious crash - although it is visible for 20 feet.

One cyclist, 32-year-old Michael Scott, is worried the barrier could cause a serious crash

Mr Scott is angry at Birmingham City Council for installing the barrier 20 feet away from a blind corner

The 32-year-old called the lane 'very dangerous' and called for the council to take action.

He said: 'You come off a busy roundabout and it's pretty much a blind corner and then the cycle lane just stops about 20 feet up.

'It's very dangerous, and it looks like it's only recently been placed there.'

Mr Scott said that the barrier left cyclists with no choice but to ride on the pavement or go onto the 40mph road.

He added: 'The only reason I can think of for having it there is to stop cars crashing into pedestrians.

The railing, on Chester Road in Birmingham, is next to a pedestrian crossing, but there are no alternative routes for cyclists

Mr Scott said: 'The only reason I can think of for having it there is to stop cars crashing into pedestrians'

'But even then you could have done that by putting the barrier along the pavement.'

Mr Scott said that it was risky for cyclists to divert off the cycle path.

'You could possibly hit a person on the pavement or you have to go onto the road, which is very busy.

'It could easily cause a bad crash.'

Birmingham City Council have been contacted for a comment.
Nissan has threatened to scrap its planned investment at its Sunderland plant unless the Government guarantees compensation for any tariffs imposed on exports after Brexit.

Carlos Ghosn, Nissan's chief executive, said the car manufacturer could not afford to delay investment decisions until the Government had completed Brexit negotiations with the EU and demanded ministers commit to help car makers who export to Europe plan for the future.

He was backed by the UK's car makers' trade body, which called on Theresa May's government to act to protect the estimated 814,000 jobs that rely on the sector.

Carlos Ghosn (pictured), Nissan's chief executive, said the car manufacturer could not afford to delay investment decisions until the Government had completed Brexit negotiations with the EU and demanded ministers commit to help car makers who export to Europe

Car makers fear that the UK will end up trading with Europe on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, which would effectively add 10 per cent to the price of a UK-made vehicle sold in the EU.

The WTO terms are the default trade rules that will be applied to British exports to Europe and vice-versa if the Brexit negotiations fail to agree a better deal. They are seen as the most basic trade terms and are the ones used for Russia's trading relationship with Brussels.

Nissan's plant in Sunderland is the largest car factory in Europe and employs 6,7000 workers, who make the Juke, Qashqai and Leaf models - many of which are exported to the continent.

The plant has the capacity to make half a million vehicles a year. Sunderland voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU in the June 23 referendum, with more than six in ten voters backing Brexit.

Mr Ghosn said Nissan 'would like to stay' in the UK but said the firm would have to consider leaving the UK 'if the conditions do not justify that we stay'.

His comments echo those from fellow car manufacturer Toyota, which said the introduction of tariffs after Britain's exit from the EU would make it 'very, very tough' to run its UK plant.

Theresa May (pictured visiting soldiers at the military barracks in Salisbury yesterday) is under pressure to offer a guarantee to car manufacturers that they will not lost out from a hike in tariffs following the UK's exit from the EU

Nissan has threatened to scrap its planned investment at its Sunderland plant unless the Government guarantees compensation for any tariffs imposed on exports after Brexit. Pictured, the Nissan plant in Sunderland

The pressure from the industry comes ahead of the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, which starts on Sunday.

It is set to be a crucial four days as Theresa May and other ministers are expected to give more details on what kind of deal Britain is pursuing in Brexit negotiations with the EU.

Some expect the Prime Minister to announce the timetable for triggering Article 50 - the formal process for leaving the EU, which sets a two-year time limit on exit talks. She is expected to trigger the mechanism in January or February, although some believe she will give herself wiggle room by saying she will start the process in spring.

Turning up the pressure on the Government, Mr Ghosn told reporters at the Paris motor show yesterday: 'If I need to make an investment in the next few months and I can't wait until the end of Brexit, then I have to make a deal with the UK government.

'You can have commitments of compensation in case you have something negative.

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox (pictured visiting a Euro Flight simulator appeared to endorse Britain adopting WTO trade terms after leaving the EU, despite them being seen as the most basic trade rules

'If there are tax barriers being established on cars, you have to have a commitment for carmakers who export to Europe that there is some kind of compensation.

'If these kinds of principles are accepted we can go ahead because it will neutralise some of our concerns.

'We would like to stay. We're happy, we have a good plant, which is productive but we cannot stay if the conditions do not justify that we stay.'

Urging action from the Government, SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said: 'The government must do all it can to maintain the competitiveness of the UK automotive sector, which has been hugely successful in boosting exports, creating jobs and generating economic growth in recent years.'

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox appeared to endorse Britain adopting WTO trade terms after leaving the EU, despite them being seen as the most basic trade rules.
A 5,000-hour workload would probably be enough to deter most from a past time - but a 79-year-old train fanatic has gone full steam ahead with constructing an exact replica of an 1870s locomotive.

David Young spent three years painstakingly recreating steam engine Samson with the help of just one surviving photo.

The train, which is based on the original 1874 narrow gauge engine, was built at Beamish Museum, in County Durham.

David Thomas Young painstakingly recreated steam engine Samson over three years and more than 5,000 hours

Retired safety engineer Mr Young was never a hand-on mechanic but has steamed ahead with recreating the train

His workload was the equivalent of working round the clock for 208 days straight.

Mr Young, a retired safety engineer of Fatfield, near Sunderland, said: 'I was never a hands-on mechanic, I was more an engineer sat behind a desk. This is basically a hobby gone mad.

'I'm from a generation where if you wanted things you had to make it.'

He is following in the footsteps of his great, great grandfather, Thomas Young, who worked at Hetton Colliery Engine Works.

The locomotive was officially launched yesterday by volunteer David and partner Paul Jarman, Beamish's assistant director transport & industry, with whom he worked on the project.

The one surviving photo of the original 1874 narrow gauge engine that he has worked off for the project

The modern-day replica created by Mr Young at Beamish Museum matches the original photo accurately

He is following in the footsteps of his great, great grandfather, Thomas Young, who worked at Hetton Colliery Engine Works

Mr Young and his partner used the only surviving photo of Samson, two engravings and a contemporary trade magazine description to skilfully create from scratch a close reproduction of the original.

Mr Jarman, who has worked with Mr Young on projects for around ten years said: 'Dave came to Beamish originally to kill some spare time and serve as an outlet for his creative talents and he has been putting in over 40 hours a week.'

The book of Samson, written by Mr Jarman tells the story of recreating the steam locomotive, which worked on the tramway to Cornish Hush mine in Weardale.

It was responsible for transporting lead ore from the lead mine to the crushing plant where it was processed.

The vehicle had not fully developed her in this August 2015 picture showing it still very much under construction

As well as the reconstructed train, made up of parts such as these, there is also an accompanying book about Samson

Visitors will be able to see Samson in action at Beamish this Saturday and Sunday, in The Colliery Yard from 12pm to 3.30pm

Mr Jarman added: 'Like the construction of the engine, production of the book has been something which I have been very passionate about.

'To bring David's story to a wider audience and also shine the spotlight on parts of railway history not widely known outside specialist circles.

'It is a strange feeling to finally see Samson in steam after spending so long thinking about its creation and wondering how the original designers approached the various aspects visible in the 1870s photograph.

'David has done a fantastic job turning this limited evidence into the steam locomotive we see here now.'

David described his project as 'basically a hobby gone mad' having invested more than 5,000 hours in it

The original engine was responsible for transporting lead ore from the lead mine to the crushing plant where it was processed

This picture of the most basic structures used was taken in January 2013, when the reconstruction idea was in its infancy

Mr Young added: 'I was born shortly before world war two and it was nothing like the wealth or the facilities we have now. I learnt to file in an old air raid shelter with a candle for lighting.

'I'm quite anxious that we should get people educated to do this sort of work.

It is not a rocket science by any means. It is primitive, it is simple working, but there is a huge demand for people who have the skills.'

The original Samson was built for the London Lead Company by Stephen Lewin, of Poole, Dorset, and was used in Weardale for a quarter of a century, before being scrapped around 1904.
The mother of a 13-year-old girl whose body was found wrapped up in a trunk at a landfill site will face criminal charges - with prosecutors claiming the corpse was kept at her home for a year.

Geanna Durham's body was discovered in Oklahoma City in February this year, but she is believed to have died as far back as May 2014.

Her mother, Reshawnda Durham, 29, is accused of moving her daughter's body to Scott Street Mini Storage in late April or early May 2015. Her remains were then dumped in the landfill site.

What killed the teenager remains unclear, but investigators say they do not have enough evidence to proceed with murder charges.

Prosecutors believe Geanna Durham died in May 2014, but her body was not found until February this year

Geanna's mother Reshawnda Durham, 29, is accused of failing to report the discovered remains, and unauthorized removal of a dead body

The landfill site where Geanna's body was found. The 13-year-old is believed to have died in May 2014

Staff at the storage center were alleged to have been told to put the body in a dumpster before it could be found.

Reshawnda Durham has been charged with failing to report discovered remains, and unauthorized removal of a dead body.

Her friend and landlord, Walter Ray Pelfrey, 76, faces charges of unlawful removal of a body and being an accessory after the fact. He also faces an alternative count of desecration of a human corpse.

Reshawnda Durham's friend and lanlord Walter Ray Pelfrey, 76, faces charges of unlawful removal of a body and being an accessory after the fact. He allegedly helped the mother move the teenager's remains to the landfill site

Investigators have been unable to determine how Geanna died. She was last seen at her school on May 2, 2014

He is accused of misleading detectives by saying Durham was not using a storage space at the facility, and ordering that the body was removed.

Deputy Attorney General Megan Tilly told News9: 'It is our belief that Geanna Durham died at her home in May of 2014 and we believe that the body may have stayed at that residence for approximately a year before it was moved to a storage unit sometime in late April or May of 2015.'

But Tilley said a Medical Examiner's report after the discovery of the skeletonized corpse has not been able to identify a cause of death.

It is thought Geanna's body was kept at her mother's Oklahoma City home for a year after her death, according to prosecutors

The landfill site in Oklahoma City where the teenager's body was found after being put in a dumpster

'We do not feel at this time we have enough evidence to proceed with murder charges,' she said.

Durham allegedly told police her daughter had moved out of state to be with her father in Florida, but when contacted by investigators he said he had not seen Geanna for more than a decade.

An employee allegedly told investigators that Durham had a storage unit for around a year, and Pelfrey ordered it to be cleaned out and her name removed from records before police searched it.

Geanna's body was moved to a storage facility by her mother a year after she died, prosecutors allege

It is further claimed that Pelfrey ordered the body to be put in a dumpster after it was found by a member of staff.

The body and trunk were recovered from the Spencer landfill.

Tilly added: 'Of course it is tragic and of course there is so much that we don't know which only compounds the tragedy.

'How she died, why the death was concealed. We hope that we will be able to find the answers to these questions but we don't know if we will.'
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. EDWARD TERRAN FURNACE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. G. GIURBINO; K. BERKLER; R. S. MARQUEZ; E. W. FISCHER; M. VALDEZ, Institutional Gang Investigator at Salinas Valley State Prison; R. L. MARTINEZ, Lt., Institutional Gang Investigator at Salinas Valley State Prison, Defendants-Appellees. No. 13-17620 Decided: September 29, 2016

Before: Alex Kozinski, Jay S. Bybee, and Morgan Christen, Circuit Judges. COUNSEL Rajeev Muttreja (argued), Jones Day New York, New York; Glen Nager, Jones Day, Washington, D.C.; for Plaintiff-Appellant. Jose A. Zelidon-Zepeda (argued), Deputy Attorney General; Thomas S. Patterson, Supervising Deputy Attorney General; Jonathan L. Wolff, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General; Office of the Attorney General, San Francisco, California; for Defendant-Appellee.

OPINION

SUMMARY *

Prisoner Civil Rights

The panel affirmed the district court's dismissal, on preclusion grounds, of a California state prisoner's 42 U.S.C.  1983 action, alleging that prison officials wrongfully classified him as a gang member in retaliation for filing a previous  1983 suit against the defendants' colleagues.

Prior to filing this  1983 suit, the prisoner filed a habeas petition in California state court, alleging that his gang classification and placement in secured housing violated his federal constitutional rights, which was denied.

The panel held that California claim preclusion law governed whether, in light of his earlier state habeas petition, the prisoner's  1983 claims could be brought in federal court. The panel rejected the prisoner's claim that the primary rights that were allegedly violated in his  1983 suit were distinct from the primary right he sought to vindicate in his habeas action in California state court. The panel concluded that the same primary right  the prisoner's right to be free from unlawful gang validation and placement in the segregated housing unit  was at issue in both suits. The panel also rejected the prisoner's argument that the identity of the parties was different between this  1983 action and his prior habeas action.

The panel declined the prison officials' request to assess a strike, based on the district court's dismissal of this case, against the prisoner under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 28 U.S.C.  1915(g).

BYBEE, Circuit Judge:

Edward Furnace is a prisoner at Salinas Valley State Prison. Furnace alleges the Appellees wrongfully classified him as a gang member in retaliation for filing a  1983 suit against the defendants' colleagues. After Furnace filed a habeas petition, California courts rejected his claims on the ground that there was sufficient evidence to support the gang validation. Furnace then filed the present action under 42 U.S.C.  1983 for violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights, based on violation of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause. The district court dismissed his suit on claim preclusion grounds. We affirm.

I. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW

In 2006 Furnace filed a  1983 suit against eleven Salinas Valley Prison officials (none of whom is involved in this suit) for allegedly denying him visitation rights and other privileges. These defendants filed a motion to dismiss in 2008, which was denied. Furnace alleges that shortly after that, R.L. Martinez and M. Valdez, gang investigators at Salinas Valley, were ordered to validate [Furnace] as a prison gang member to intimidate and retaliate against him for filing the earlier suit. The decision to classify Furnace as a member of the Black Guerilla Family (BGF) was based on prison officials finding in Furnace's cell the contact information of a validated BGF gang member as well as books, a CD, and a newspaper article relating to BGF.

Furnace filed an internal administrative appeal, claiming that the classification lacked evidence, was retaliatory, and was racially motivated. While the appeal was pending, K. Berkler, R.S. Marquez, and E.W. Fischer, also gang experts at Salinas Valley, again classified Furnace as a gang member. His internal administrative appeals were denied, and he was placed in the prison's secured housing unit (SHU).

Furnace then filed a pro se habeas petition in California Superior Court. He named D. Adams (the prison warden), R.L. Martinez, Valdez, Berkler, R.S. Marquez, and Fischer as respondents (and others not involved in this appeal). He alleged that his gang classification and placement in secured housing lacked sufficient evidence, that it was done to intimidate and retaliate against Furnace for filing the earlier suit, and that it violated his federal constitutional rights to free speech, equal protection of the law, and due process. Furnace sought to be removed from secured housing and to have his record cleared of any allegation that he was gang affiliated.

The Superior Court denied Furnace's petition on the ground that there was sufficient evidence to support the gang validation, without directly addressing whether the classification was retaliatory or racially discriminatory. Furnace filed another habeas petition in the California Court of Appeal, making the same allegations. The court denied his petition, holding, first, that there was sufficient evidence to support the validation and, second, that the validation did not violate his First Amendment rights. The court denied rehearing, and the California Supreme Court summarily denied review.

In February 2012, Furnace filed this  1983 suit in federal district court. Furnace named as defendants Berkler, Marquez, Fischer, R.L. Martinez, and Valdez, plus G. Giurbino (collectively, Appellees), who allegedly supervised the other Appellees. Furnace's complaint alleged that his classification was illegal and retaliatory in violation of his First Amendment rights, and a violation of his right to equal protection and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. Furnace asked for declaratory relief, money damages, as well as injunctive relief to release him from the security housing unit and to expunge his prison file of any allegation that he is associated with BGF.

The district court granted the Appellees' motion to dismiss on the ground that Furnace's suit was barred by claim preclusion. The court concluded that both the state action and the instant one arise out of the same incident and involve the same actors allegedly performing the same act of initiating gang validation procedures and ultimately validating [Furnace] as an active gang member without proper procedural protections. Because Furnace sought to vindicate the same primary right in federal court as he [had] previously in state court, his claim was precluded. Furnace timely appealed. On appeal, Appellees ask us to assess a strike against Furnace under the Prison Litigation Reform Act for having filed a duplicative suit.

II. ANALYSIS

This appeal raises two main issues. First, Furnace contends that the district court erred in dismissing his First Amendment and equal protection claims under California claim preclusion principles. Second, the Appellees ask us to assess a strike against Furnace under the Prison Litigation Reform Act. We affirm the district court and decline to assess a strike against Furnace.

A. Claim Preclusion

Under the Full Faith and Credit Statute, 28 U.S.C.  1738, federal courts must give the same preclusive effect to state court judgments, including reasoned habeas judgments, as the rendering state court would. Gonzales v. Cal. Dep't of Corr., 739 F.3d 1226, 123031 (9th Cir. 2014) (citing Migra v. Warren City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 465 U.S. 75, 81 (1984)). Accordingly, California claim preclusion law governs whether, in light of his earlier state habeas petition, Furnace's  1983 claims may be brought in federal court.

In California, [c]laim preclusion arises if a second suit involves: (1) the same cause of action (2) between the same parties [or parties in privity with them] (3) after a final judgment on the merits in the first suit. DKN Holdings LLC v. Faerber, 352 P.3d 378, 386 (Cal. 2015) (citing Mycogen Corp. v. Monsanto Co., 51 P.3d 297, 301 (Cal. 2002)). Furnace makes two arguments in response to the Defendants' claim preclusion defense. First, he argues that the primary rights that were violated here are distinct from the primary right he sought to vindicate in his habeas action in California state courts. Second, he argues that the identity of the parties is different between the two suits. We address each argument in turn.

1. Primary Rights

California courts, unlike federal courts, do not determine whether two suits involve the same cause of action by applying the same transaction or occurrence or common nucleus of operative facts test. Instead, California courts will hold that two suits involve the same cause of action when they involve the same primary right. Brodheim v. Cry, 584 F.3d 1262, 1268 (9th Cir. 2009). Under this theory a cause of action is comprised of a primary right of the plaintiff, a corresponding primary duty of the defendant, and a wrongful act by the defendant constituting a breach of that duty. Mycogen, 51 P.3d at 306. The most salient characteristic of a primary right is that it is indivisible: the violation of a single primary right gives rise to but a single cause of action. Id. Thus, in California, if two actions involve the same injury to the plaintiff and the same wrong by the defendant then the same primary right is at stake even if in the second suit the plaintiff pleads different theories of recovery, seeks different forms of relief and/or adds new facts supporting recovery. San Diego Police Officers' Ass'n v. San Diego City Emps. Ret. Sys., 568 F.3d 725, 734 (9th Cir. 2009) (quoting Eichman v. Fotomat Corp., 197 Cal. Rptr. 612, 614 (Ct. App. 1983)). The critical focus of primary rights analysis is the harm suffered. Brodheim, 584 F.3d at 1268 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). California's primary rights theory can be complicated, and we have cautioned against wielding the primary right brush  too carelessly and noted the possibility that different primary rights may be violated by the same wrongful conduct under certain circumstances. San Diego Police Officers' Ass'n, 568 F.3d at 734 (internal quotation marks omitted). But in this case, we have circuit precedent on point that requires us to affirm.

The facts of Gonzales v. California Department of Corrections will sound familiar. There, Gonzales was validated as a gang member and placed in the SHU. 739 F.3d at 1229. After exhausting his administrative remedies, and a series of state habeas proceedings, he filed a  1983 suit alleging that (1) the gang validation violated his rights to free speech and association under the First Amendment; (2) the validation regulations were applied in a racially discriminatory manner; (3) he was classified as a gang member as retaliation ; [and] (4) his validation  violated his due process rights. Id. The district court dismissed the suit on claim preclusion grounds. Id. at 1230.

On appeal, Gonzales argued that his retaliation, First Amendment, and Equal Protection claims [were] not precluded, because those claims arose under a distinct primary right, from his earlier due process claim. Id. at 1233 (internal quotation marks omitted). Specifically, he argued that his earlier inadequate evidence/due process claim was procedural while his First Amendment and Equal Protection Clause arguments were inherently substantive, and he pointed to our decision in Brodheim as having recognized a procedural/substantive divide. Id. We noted that in Brodheim, the two harmsone substantive, one proceduralwere distinct because [t]hey were caused at different times, by different acts, and by different actors. Id. (quoting Brodheim, 584 F.3d at 126869). By contrast, Gonzales was challenging the same actions by the same group of officials at the same time that resulted in the same harm. Id. at 1234. Accordingly, the procedural/substantive distinction for identifying a distinct primary right was of no use, because whether a party alleges a different remedy or asserts a different legal theory  is irrelevant under California claim preclusion doctrine. Id. Since Gonzales's claims would be barred in California's courts under California's claim preclusion doctrine, they were barred in federal courts under the Full Faith and Credit statute. Id. at 1230.

Gonzales requires that we affirm. Furnace challenges the same actions by the same group of officials at the same time that resulted in the same harm. Id. at 1234. In his state court action, Furnace raised a due process claim, challenging the evidentiary basis of his gang validation and SHU placement. He also claimed that the validation and SHU placement were retaliatory, racially motivated, and violated his First Amendment rights. And, like the plaintiff in Gonzales, Furnace attempts to argue that the primary right he sought to vindicate in the state proceedings is somehow distinct from the rights he now seeks to vindicate. But, as the California Supreme Court has made clear, a plaintiff's primary right is the right to be free from the particular injury suffered and must therefore be distinguished from the legal theory on which liability for that injury is premised. Mycogen, 51 P.3d at 30607. At heart, Furnace has always complained about the same alleged injury: his gang validation and SHU placement. He has come up with numerous legal theories as to why it was unlawfullack of evidence, retaliation, and racial discriminationbut it does not change the primary right he seeks to vindicate, and Gonzales makes that point clear. See Gonzales, 739 F.3d at 1233 (the plaintiff's primary right was his protected liberty interest in remaining free from SHU placement and the harm suffered was his gang validation and indeterminate SHU detention).

Furnace raises two principal arguments in an effort to get around our holding in Gonzales. First, he argues that a claim challenging the sufficiency of the gang evidence is qualitatively different from a claim that the gang classification was the result of retaliation for the exercise of First Amendment rights or was racially motivated in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Second, he argues that he may maintain this suit for damages because he could not have obtained damages in his prior habeas action. Furnace's points are technically correct; but, in the context of California's primary rights doctrine, both are irrelevant.

First, we recognize that Furnace's sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim, which he raised in his state habeas proceedings, and his retaliation and racial discrimination claims, which he raises here, are distinct claims. But they are both part and parcel of the same primary rightFurnace's right not to be wrongfully placed in the SHU. They are alternative arguments for accomplishing the same resulthis release from the SHU. The primary rights doctrine under California claim preclusion forecloses Furnace's ability to file separate suits challenging the same wrong.

Second, it is also true, but again irrelevant, that Furnace could not have obtained damages through habeas. Habeas, by its very nature, is an action to challenge the fact or length of custody for which the remedy is release from custody, Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 554 (1974); it is not an action in damages, Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 494 (1973). We know of no reason, however, that Furnace could not have brought his  1983 action instead of his state habeas action, see Shoemaker v. Harris, 155 Cal. Rptr. 3d 76, 84 (Ct. App. 2013), or, even better, joined his habeas and  1983 actions to seek alternative forms of relief, Cal. Penal Code  1473(d) ([The state habeas statute] shall not be construed  as precluding the use of any other remedies.). And therein lies the problem. Having lost his habeas case, Furnace has made a new run at the officials through  1983. The U.S. Supreme Court has held, and the California courts have agreed, that  1983 suits cannot be used to collaterally attack the validity of a conviction. Thus, the  principle that civil tort actions are not appropriate vehicles for challenging the validity of outstanding criminal judgments applies to  1983 damages actions that necessarily require the plaintiff to prove the unlawfulness of his conviction or confinement. Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 486 (1994); see also Susag v. City of Lake Forest, 115 Cal. Rptr. 2d 269, 273 (Ct. App. 2002) ([The] requirement [that a plaintiff can pursue relief under  1983 only after obtaining habeas relief] avoids a collateral attack on the conviction and relitigation of issues of probable cause and guilt, and protects the strong judicial policy against inconsistent resolutions.). The Heck principle means that a  1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus. Heck, 512 U.S. at 48687.

Heck is not directly on point here, but the principle will help us focus in this case. Heck prohibits the use of  1983 to attack the validity of a conviction, because a recovery in the damages action would necessarily imply that the conviction was wrongfully obtained. The judgment of conviction and the judgment for damages would be inconsistent, and there would be no means to reconcile the two. Like the Heck principle, one reason for California's primary right doctrine is to avoid piecemeal litigation and the possibility of inconsistent judgments. See, e.g., People v. Barragan, 83 P.3d 480, 494 (Cal. 2004) ([T]he purposes of the res judicata doctrine include preventing inconsistent judgments which undermine the integrity of the judicial system  (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted)). Furnace has already challenged his placement in the SHU in habeas and lost; he cannot now challenge his placement through  1983 without collaterally attackingand thereby rendering inconsistentthe judgment denying him habeas relief. If he were successful on his  1983 claim against the officials who put him in the SHU, it would necessarily be inconsistent with the judgment that he was not entitled to habeas relief.

For example, were he to prevail here, Furnace would be entitled to damages for the time he has been wrongfully placed in the SHU and, in fact, he might be entitled to damages on a continuing basis if he were left in the SHU. The Appellees would be in the untenable position that California courts have said he is lawfully housed in the SHU, while the federal courts would have concluded that he is unlawfully housed in the SHU. Following the California judgment, the warden might have a duty by virtue of his office to keep him in the SHU, while after the federal judgment, the warden (and others) would be personally liable for damages if they keep him there. The two judgments would be irreconcilable. It is of no consequence that  1983 is a different remedy from habeas; both are means of challenging the lawfulness of his placement. The primary rights doctrine prevents such inconsistent judgments by requiring a party to bring all of his claimsas many causes of action, or theories of recovery, or remedies as he hasin a single suit. See Mycogen, 51 P.3d at 302 (Res judicata precludes piecemeal litigation by splitting a single cause of action or relitigation of the same cause of action on a different legal theory or for different relief. (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted)); id. at 307 (The primary right must also be distinguished from the remedy sought: The violation of one primary right constitutes a single cause of action, though it may entitle the injured party to many forms of relief, and the relief is not to be confounded with the cause of action, one not being determinative of the other. (second emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted)); Eichman, 197 Cal. Rptr. at 614 ([I]f two actions involve the same injury to the plaintiff and the same wrong by the defendant then the same primary right is at stake even if in the second suit the plaintiff  seeks different forms of relief  (emphasis added)). The district court correctly held that in these circumstances, Furnace's retaliation, First Amendment, and Equal Protection claims involved the same primary right at issue in the Furnace's earlier state habeas proceeding. Gonzales, 739 F.3d at 123334.

We hold that the same primary rightFurnace's right to be free from unlawful gang validation and placement in the SHUwas at issue in both suits.

2. Identity of Parties

As we suggested above, Furnace's suit involves challenging the same actions by the same group of officials at the same time that resulted in the same harm. Id. at 1234 (emphasis added). Furnace asserts that the defendants in this suit are different from the defendants in his state habeas suit. And Appellees counter that California claim preclusion only requires identity of the party against whom preclusion is sought. Neither party is entirely correct on these points, though we ultimately conclude that the requisite identity of parties is met.

Appellees rely solely on California issue preclusion case law to sustain the proposition that only the party against whom preclusion is sought need be the same in both suits. See, e.g., Lucido v. Superior Court, 795 P.2d 1223, 1225 (Cal. 1990). California's claim preclusion case lawwhich has distinct requirementsprevents relitigation between the same parties or parties in privity with them. DKN Holdings, 352 P.3d at 386 (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted). That said, we cannot agree with Furnace that the defendants in this action were not defendants in Furnace's state habeas proceeding. At the time of his state habeas petition, he named the then-warden, D. Adams, et al. as respondents. He made numerous references to prison officials throughout the petition, and most importantly, he specifically named R.L. Martinez, M. Valdez, Keri Berkler, R.S. Marquez, and Everett W. Fischer as respondents.

Accordingly, because Furnace's suit involves (1) the same cause of action (2) between the same parties [or parties in privity with them] (3) after a final judgment on the merits in the first suit, we affirm. DKN Holdings, 352 P.3d at 386.

B. PLRA Strike

The Appellees ask us to assess a strike against Furnace under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 28 U.S.C.  1915(g). Under  1915(g), a prisoner can lose the ability to file suits in forma pauperis (IFP) if he has, on 3 or more prior occasions, while incarcerated or detained in any facility, brought an action or appeal in a court of the United States that was dismissed on the grounds that it is frivolous, malicious, or fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. Appellees assert that since this suit duplicates claims brought in an earlier action it is malicious within the meaning of the PLRA. See Pittman v. Moore, 980 F.2d 994 (5th Cir. 1993). The Appellees therefore want us to deem the district court's dismissal as Furnace's first strike.

The question of whether Furnace's dismissal in this case was frivolous, malicious, or dismissed for failure to state a claim is not germane at this point. Generally, district courts do not issue these strikes one by one, in their orders of judgment, because nothing in the PLRA requires them to do so. Andrews v. King, 398 F.3d 1113, 1119 n.8 (9th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). And by extension, nothing in the PLRA requires us to do so at this time. Typically it is not until a defendant challenge[s] a prisoner-plaintiff's IFP status, id. at 1120, that a backwards-looking inquiry is done to assess whether on 3 or more occasions, the prisoner-plaintiff's suit was dismissed on the grounds that it [wa]s frivolous, malicious, or fail[ed] to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, 28 U.S.C.  1915(g). Accordingly, we decline the Appellees' request to assess a strike.

III. CONCLUSION

The judgment is AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

. This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

. We review de novo a dismissal on res judicata grounds, ManufacturedHome Communities Inc. v. City of San Jose, 420 F.3d 1022, 1025 (9th Cir. 2005), as well as the district court's interpretation of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, Andrews v. King, 398 F.3d 1113, 1118 (9th Cir. 2005).

. Furnace claims that in Gonzales we said that the parties' dispute [was] in defining the primary duty, Gonzales, 739 F.3d at 1233, and that he is disputing his primary right, not the Appellees' duty. This argument is unavailing. Rights and duties are correlativethey do not exist independent of each other. The possession of a right necessarily implies the existence of a duty; conversely, to say that a party has a duty means that someone is possessed of a right. As California has explained, a cause of action is comprised of a primary right of the plaintiff, a corresponding primary duty of the defendant, and a wrongful act by the defendant constituting a breach of that duty. Mycogen, 51 P.3d at 306 (emphasis added)). Here, as in Gonzales, Furnace's primary right is the right not to be unlawfully determined to be a gang member and placed in the SHU; and it correspond[s] to the Appellees' duty not to unlawfully label an inmate a gang member and place him in the SHU.

. We offer no definitive opinion whether, under California law, Furnace could, in fact, have brought both an action in habeas and a  1983 law in the same suit, nor do we offer any opinion whether Furnace could have decided to forego his habeas action and bring only a  1983 suit. What we hold is that he cannot bring them seriatim.

. We recognize that some California appellate cases lend support to Furnace's claim that the ability to be free from retaliation and/or discrimination might be a distinct primary right from the substantive outcome of an adverse administrative decision, see Agarwal v. Johnson, 603 P.2d 58, 72 (Cal. 1979) (holding that Title VII claim was distinct primary right from defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims under state law); Henderson v. Newport-Mesa Unified Sch. Dist., 154 Cal. Rptr. 3d 222, 226, 23740 (Ct. App. 2013) (claim that teacher was not properly given first priority in hiring under state statute arose under distinct primary right from discrimination claim); George v. Cal. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd., 102 Cal. Rptr. 3d 431, 43841 (Ct. App. 2009) (ALJ's retaliation claim arose under distinct primary right from wrongful suspension claim), and that some cases might suggest that the availability of differing remedies would counsel against the application of claim preclusion, see Shoemaker v. Harris, 155 Cal. Rptr. 3d 76, 84 & n.13; Branson v. Sun-Diamond Growers of Cal., 29 Cal. Rptr. 2d 314, 323 (Ct. App. 1994); Roberts v. Redlich, 244 P.2d 933, 935 (Cal. Dist. Ct. App. 1952). These decisions all arose in very different contexts, predate our decision in Gonzales, and do not, in any event, shake our confidence that Gonzales was rightly decided.

. The only current defendant not named was Giurbino, a party who was nonetheless in privity with the other officials due to his supervisory relationship in the prison system. DKN Holdings, 352 P.3d at 389 (noting that privity is found where separate defendants' interests are closely align[ed] like between a corporation and its employees, a general contractor and subcontractors, an association of securities dealers and member agents, and among alleged coconspirators (emphasis added) (citations omitted)).

. Alternatively, the Appellees argue that Furnace failed to state a retaliation claim because his placement in the SHU was supported under the some evidence standard. See Superintendent v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 455 (1985). Because we affirm the district court on claim preclusion grounds, we decline to address the Appellees' argument, as well as Furnace's response, that a retaliation claim can survive a motion to dismiss in the face of some evidence supporting a SHU placement. See Bruce v. Ylst, 351 F.3d 1283, 1289 (9th Cir. 2003); Hines v. Gomez, 108 F.3d 265, 269 (9th Cir. 1997).

. We do note our skepticism, however, of labeling Furnace's suit malicious merely because of its repetitiveness. The fact that Furnace had a good faith argument that his claims were not barred by California claim preclusion weighs against finding Furnace's suit malicious or frivolous.

Opinion by Judge Bybee
Miss Millward has since travelled back to revisit the spot where Alex fell

A holidaymaker fell to his death from a cliff top in Turkey after stopping to take in the sea view.

Alex Grayson, 26, and his Leanne Millward had been sitting on a grassed area in Antalya when Mr Grayson lost his footing and plunged 130 feet, an inquest heard.

Miss Millward, who had been standing a couple of yards away, told the hearing that there was nothing she could have done to save him.

'Alex got up to walk back to the path. It was a grass verge and the grass was overgrown,' she said. ' His foot just disappeared, he just went.

Alex Grayson, 26, and his Leanne Millward had been sitting on a grassed area in Antalya when Mr Grayson lost his footing and plunged 130 feet, an inquest heard

I can't remember much from that moment. I was in that much shock.'

Mr Grayson, from Kimberworth, Rotherham, was pronounced dead after his body was recovered and taken to hospital.

He died from multiple fractures including two to his left leg and several broken ribs.

The hearing in Doncaster was told the couple, who had been together for 18 months, had spent the day by the hotel pool before going out for a meal in the evening.

They were walking back to their hotel at 2 am on May 1 when they stopped to look at the sea.

Miss Millward told the hearing that there was nothing she could have done to save him

Miss Millward added: 'We had both had a few drinks but we were fine. He was in good spirits.'

The inquest heard it was very dark at the cliff edge and there was no cordon in place.

Miss Millward has since travelled back to Turkey to revisit the spot where the tragedy took place.

She said: 'It was really difficult to judge what was the path and the bit that went down. But it didn't feel like a dangerous place.

'There had been a few people that day on the edge so it must be somewhere they go quite often in the daytime.'

Miss Millward saw her partner after she pushed her way into a room but she was taken straight out.

Later she was given Mr Grayson's belongings by one of the hospital staff.

'She came in and gave me his watch,' she added. 'That was how she told me. She didn't say anything, she just looked at me.'
'Why would someone steal from someone elderly?' asked the 75-year-old

Ms Dougal, who has four great grandchildren, cried over the cruel theft

A disabled great grandmother has been left housebound after a pensioner drove off in her 1,000 mobility scooter - while she was in a bible reading glass.

The thief, who used a walking stick, was helped by a male accomplice who disabled the lock before pushing the woman away.

Pensioner Sarah Dougall, 75, had gone to an evening bible class in New Cross, south east London.

The female suspect (left) arrived with a walking stick and a man who pulled a shopping trolley

She had parked her scooter outside the class hidden behind two bins. The retired catering assistant had been at the class for just 90 mins.

But when she came out, the mother of six, who has eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, was shocked to see her scooter had gone.

She said: 'I came out and I was talking to some friends and I looked around and couldn't see my scooter.

'I was so shocked, I just did a double take and said: 'Where is my bike?'

'I couldn't believe what had happened. My friend from the class took me home and I just cried.

'I couldn't understand why someone would steal a mobility scooter. Why would someone steal from somebody elderly?'

She shines a torch on the vehicle as the man inspects the scooter and then disables the lock

Once the woman has hopped on to the scooter, the man starts to push her away on it

But CCTV footage, which the victim's son Jonathan Dougall collected from Kingdom Hall, where the scooter was stolen, revealed the crime was even more shocking.

The theft, which took place on September 8 at around 8pm was carried out by two elderly suspects.

The man and woman are seen approaching the burgundy Revo SCUK64 scooter in its parking spot.

The female suspect, who walks with a stick and was wearing a distinctive patterned jacket, shines a torch on the vehicle as the man spends several minutes inspecting it, before reaching underneath to disable the lock.

The woman is then seen climbing into the seat and loading her bag onto the scooter before the man pushes her slowly away.

The pair disappeared, and the victim discovered her scooter gone as she left Bible class

Mrs Dougall, who has lived in her council house in Nunhead, south east London, for 35 years, is dependent on the mobility scooter.

Ms Dougall, who has a bad leg, has been left unable to get around without her scooter

She has had it for a year, after two operations on her leg, which has painful blisters on it.

She said: 'I don't like being a burden on my children. I needed that scooter for going to the doctors, the shops and my slimming world meetings.

'You always think you are just going to grow old, but all the problems that come with it - you don't expect them.'

She said of the thieves: 'The fact they are older makes it worse. The woman had a stick herself.

'How could she do this to someone else with mobility problems?'

Sarah has felt depressed since the theft and has had to call on her children to take her to doctor's appointments.

She spends most of her time living alone.

The pensioner said: 'The fact it is local makes it worse.

'I had broken a bit of the right arm rest off, so if they are using it someone must have seen it around.

'I don't have any savings, I live in a council house. I just want to get living again.'

'You always think you are just going to grow old, but all the problems that come with it - you don't expect them' said the 75-year-old who can't believe she was targeted by a fellow OAP

Mrs Dougall's son Jonathan Dougall, 40, said his mum was a kind-hearted and generous person.

The musician from Deptford said: 'When you take the key out it automatically goes into lock down - you can't leave it on a hill.

'You have to know what you're doing and you can see in the video they were there for eight minutes.

'It's not easy to do. Almost certainly they must have owned one or done it before.'

Mrs Dougall, who was born in Glasgow but moved to England when she was 11, said: 'I just want it back.

'If they just hand it back I won't prosecute, it will mean they are honest people.'

Her children have launched an online appeal to raise A1,000 for a replacement scooter.

A Met Police spokesperson today confirmed that police are investigating.

They added: 'There are two suspects, one male and one female, who are both white and of large build.'

Anyone with information is asked to call police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
A prominent Atlanta businesswoman died from a gunshot wound to the back when a handgun that was in her husband's possession accidentally discharged as the couple rode in an SUV together last weekend.

Atlanta police spokeswoman Kim Jones said 63-year-old Diane McIver was in the front passenger seat while her spouse, attorney Claude 'Tex' McIver, was sitting in the backseat. The couple were accompanied by a close family friend who has not been named.

Mark Guilbeau, an investigator with the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office, tells The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that her cause of death has been listed as homicide  the death of a person at the hands of another.

Tragic couple: Atlanta businesswoman Diane McIver, 63 (left), was reportedly shot dead by her husband, attorney Tex McIver (right), when a handgun in his possession accidentally discharged

As of Friday morning, no charges have been announced and few other details have been released by investigators.

McIver was president of Corey Airport Services, a successful Atlanta-based marketing company where she had worked for more than 40 years.

Her husband is a partner in the Atlanta office of Fisher Phillips LLP specializing in labor and employment law. He is also a vice president of the Georgia State Election Board, and as of August, a member of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Gun Violence.

The fatal incident took place at around 10.40pm last Sunday as Diane and Tex McIver were riding in a 2013 Ford Expedition from their sprawling farm in rural Putnam County to their apartment in the Buckhead section of Atlanta.

According to The Fulton Daily Report, cited by Patch Buckhead, as the SUV was riding along Piedmont Avenue, past Piedmont Park, Diane McIver reportedly became concerned about carjackers after seeing some people make their way towards their SUV and handed a handgun to her husband, who was in the backseat.

Georgia ranchers: The McIvers were riding in an SUV from their sprawling farm in Eatonton, Putnam County (pictured) on Sunday night when the incident took place

Pied a terre: Diane and Tex McIver own an apartment in a luxury complex in Buckhead, Atlanta (pictured)

Family spokesman Bill Crane said the gun was wrapped in a plastic grocery bag, and the lawyer was in the process of getting it out when it went off, shooting his wife in the back through the seat.

Sad irony: Mr McIver is a member of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Gun Violence

It was a tragic accident, said Crane.

Diane McIver was rushed to Emory University Hospital, where she succumbed to her injures shortly before 1am Monday.

Atlanta police have been reluctant to release details of the shooting. An incident report that was put out by the department on Wednesday made no mention of any other occupants of the Ford SUV other than the victim, Diane McIver.

'This is one of those situations were working through very slowly,' police Sgt. Warren Pickard said. 'We want to get it right.'

Diane was a vivacious, beautiful, entertaining woman who was a lot of fun to around, Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills told the station 11Alive.
A six-year-old girl in China has cheated death after falling four stories off her apartment building.

The child was said to be locked inside her room by her mother so that she could focus on doing her homework, reported SNRTV, a television station of Shaanxi Province.

A surveillance video has captured the incredible moment the girl climbed up instantly after smashing onto a car and falling to the ground.

CCTV footage captures the girl smashing onto a car after falling from the window in Xi'an

She landed on the ground hard after falling four stories out of her apartment building

According to the report, the accident happened in Xi'an, provincial capital of Shaanxi province, on September 26.

The incident happened only a few minutes after the girl had been locked up.

The girl's father, surnamed Yang, told SNRTV: 'She was asked to do homework after school.

'She is naughty and didn't want to do her homework, so her mum locked her at home.'

It took the parents around five minutes to realise that their daughter had fallen from the window.

It was unclear where her parents were at the time of the accident.

The girl immediately sat up after falling off at high speeds from the window of her room

After hearing a loud bang, the owner of the car rushed out to check what had happened

The surveillance clip shows the girl falling off at high speeds, hitting the windshield at the back of the car before bouncing onto the ground.

After she got up from the ground, several men can be seen approaching her.

One of the them is thought to be the owner of the vehicle.

He told the reporter from SNRTV that he was at home at the time of the accident and heard noise coming from outside.

The man then rushed to watch the surveillance footage shot by a camera he had installed near the parking space.

From the footage, he saw an object falling onto his vehicle, so he rushed out to check the situation.

The owner said: 'The girl was sitting on the ground. I asked her if she got hurt, She said it doesn't hurt.'

A big hole was left on the car's rear windshield. Shattered glass could be seen on the ground.

The girl told the car owner that she had fallen off from the fourth floor of the building.

More neighbors arrived at the scene.

A man can be seen in the video shouting in a bid to get the attention of the girl's family.

Shortly, a woman believed to be the girl's mother arrived and talked to the girl.

The girl's mother arrived at the scene shortly and took the girl to hospital for a checkup

A big hole was left on the car's rear windshield. Shattered glass could be seen on the ground

The steel bars of the window in her room were bent.

Mr Yang believed his daughter had fallen off the building after climbing onto the windows, causing the metal bars to bend.

The girl was admitted into hospital for checkups and a CT scan.

Miraculously, doctors said she only suffered minor concussions.
Advertisement

Some dream of an early retirement but many in Ghana have chosen to take their profession to the grave - literally.

Crazy coffin designs in the African nation show how the dead have been buried in caskets shaped like a pineapple, a camera and even a beer bottle, to represent their jobs in life.

As well as work-related coffins, some choose to have theirs shaped like animals, including a lion and even a beetle, to symbolise their clan totems.

To die for: Crazy coffin designs in the African nation show how the dead have been buried in caskets shaped like a camera and even beer and coke bottles, to represent their jobs in life

Ascension: This person was buried in a casket shaped like a plane to represent a job in the aviation industry (pictured)

A toast: It seems that these two people may have worked in the service industry, perhaps bar or cafe owners, opting to be buried in coffins shaped like a lager (left) and a coke (right) bottle

Six feet over: These coffins, stored on the top floor after being constructed, are shaped like a sack of wheat, a mobile phone and what appears to be an eagle

Wild side: As well as work-related coffins, some choose to have theirs shaped like animals, including a lion and even a beetle, to represent their clan totems

The tradition of the custom coffins has developed among Christians in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana since the 1960s. Before that, the special coffins were reserved only for chiefs and priests.

Workers seem capable of fashioning coffins in almost any designs, from planes, to pineapples, milk cartons and even mobile phones.

Photojournalist Christina Czybik, from Hamburg, Germany, captured these images while travelling through Ghana and Togo with King Bansah, Queen Gabi and the royal delegation earlier this month.

Miss Czybik, 37, discovered the tradition of Ghana's fancy coffins while researching her trip and was immediately intrigued.

On trend: The tradition of the custom coffins has developed among Christians in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana since the 1960s. Before that, the special coffins were reserved only for chiefs and priests

Fond farewell: Now, anyone can choose what they want to be buried when they die, and some of the options are quite unusual

Under the sea: This coffin appears to be shaped like a crustacean, perhaps made for someone in the fishing industry

Big fin-ish: This casket is shaped like a fish and is likely to belong to someone who makes their living from the sea or perhaps represent a sea creature on a tribal totem

Icing on the cake: This casket looks as though it may be shaped like an iced bun, perhaps belonging to someone in baking

Last drink: The coffins stored here are shaped like a plane in the colours of Ghana's flag (left), a beer brewed in Nigeria and what appears to be a taxi

Natural: An image of caskets designed like (left to right) a crustacean, a fish, a pineapple, and what appears to be a cow

She said: 'Before I travelled to Ghana I did some research on the photo stories I could work on. I found this tradition of 'Fancy Coffins' and was immediately intrigued.

'These fantasy coffins- or 'okadi adekai' as they call it in their language - are mainly used by people in southern Ghana.

'They use them because of their belief in the afterlife. They believe death is not the end and that life continues in the next world.

'People in Ghana are great craftsmen, they have a great talent to build furniture, wooden art, musical instruments, these fancy coffins and much more. They are very proud of their crafts.

Flying high: Caskets shaped like a plane and a bird, in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana since the 1960s

Food for thought: Christina Czybik, from Hamburg, Germany, captured these images while travelling through Ghana and Togo with King Bansah, Queen Gabi and the royal delegation earlier this month

Working holiday: Miss Czybik, 37, discovered the tradition of Ghana's fancy coffins while researching her trip and was immediately intrigued

Master at work: A worker starts form the very beginning in the process of making the amazingly ornate coffins

'A couple of these coffins have been already displayed in modern art museums and art galleries all around the world - every coffin is a real piece of art.

'For some people it might feel morbid. In our lines of latitude where people are very religious, this topic is most often heavily burdened by grief, darkness and mourning.

'I find it very refreshing that we do have other cultures and traditions in the world that look at this sad topic from a different angle, that still find a beautiful way to celebrate the life of the beloved ones that have gone too soon in a respectful and individual way.
A decorated ex-Army lieutenant colonel and doctor murdered his wife in their family home before driving to their son's university more than an hour away to shoot him and then kill himself.

Nasir Siddique shot his 58-year-old wife Zarqa in the head in their home in Bel Air, Maryland, on Wednesday afternoon. Her body was found in the bathtub hours later.

The 57-year-old, who retired from the military in 2010 after 30 years of service in medical branches, then drove some 60 miles to the University of Maryland where his son, Farhad, was a student.

He killed the 19-year-old, who would have been 20 on Thursday, in his beloved red jeep before turning the gun on himself to take his own life.

Police recovered their bodies in Siddique's car at around 10.30pm in the parking lot of Farhad's student accommodation. Zarqa's body was found around 15 minutes earlier at the family home.

Nassir Siddique (left), who retired from the US Army as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2010, shot his wife Zarqa in their Maryland home before driving to find their 19-year-old son Farhad (right together) to shoot him and then kill himself

Their daughter Laila was studying at Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania at the time.

'She is doing about as well as can be imagined,' Hartford County Sheriff's Office Major William Davis said on Thursday during a press conference.

It's not yet clear what drove Siddique to murder his wife and son but police have suggested notes found in their home may indicate his motive.

'The contents of those notes are still part of the active investigation.

'While detectives continue to work to determine a motive, the details of those notes will not be released,' a spokesman for Hartford County Sheriff's Office said on Friday.

Officers from the sheriff's office were called to the family's Bel Air home on Wednesday after receiving two calls raising concerns for the family's wellbeing.

The couple also has a daughter, Laila (above with the rest of her family), who was studying at Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania at the time

Siddique's body along with that of his son was found in his jeep on Wednesday night (above)

The 57-year-old shot his son in his red jeep wrangler. He previously took to social media to share how much he loved the car (above with his mother in 2012)

Farhad was killed hours before his 20th birthday on Friday. The student was majoring in physiology and neurobiology and was in his junior year of college

Siddique and his wife attended President Obama's inauguration in 2009, a year before he retired from the military

The Lieutenant Colonel and his wife posed with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at the event. At the time she was Speaker of The House

One was from the University of Maryland's police which had received a missing report from Farhad's friends when he did not show up for class.

They found Zarqa's body in the bathtub at 10.14pm. The 58-year-old is understood to have worked for the schools system helping students with severe disabilities.

Minutes later officers from Prince George's County Police Department near the university found her son and husband.

Friends of Farhad, who has been described as 'gentle' and 'kind' in tributes since his death, said he often visited home but never spoke of his family.

Brent McGuire, who shared a room with the victim in his freshman year, told the university's student newspaper, The Diamondback: 'I thought it was a good relationship.'

The university shared its grief in a statement which read: 'This is a tragedy that will be felt by our entire community.

'During this time of loss, we extend our deepest sympathy to the families and friends of the victims.'

A prayer will be held for Farhad by the Muslim Student Association of which he was a member.

Siddique was a staunch supporter of both President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. He attended a debate involving the latter with his family some years before his retirement

The father-of-two (above at his retirement ceremony with his family) served in the US Army for 30 years

'Our hearts are saddened by the loss of Farhad Siddique, a dear friend and brother to many in the University of Maryland community.

SIDDIQUE'S MILITARY AWARDS Legion of Merit Meritorious Service Medal x 4 Army Commendation Medal x 2 Army Achievement Medal Army Good Conduct Medal National Defense Service Medal x 2 Global War on Terrorism Service Medal Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon Army Service Ribbon Army Staff Identification Badge Driver Badge Advertisement

'He is remembered as a hardworking, compassionate individual who helped others in any way he could,' the association said in a statement on Thursday.

Farhad was majoring in physiology and neurobiology and was in his junior year. During his time at the university he helped other students study before exams.

The student's parents had been married for 26 years. They celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in 2014 in gushing social media posts and appeared to have a happy relationship.

Between 2005 and 2010, Siddique was assigned to work in Washington DC. During these years he rubbed shoulders with Vice President Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi.

He even attended President Obama's with his wife.

A proud father, regularly commented on his son and daughter's social media accounts.

He served in the Preventative Medicine and Medical Service Corps branches.

His military record reveals he was a decorated member of the US Army with 16 awards.

Zarqa's body was found in a bathroom at the family's home in Bel Air, Maryland (above)
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich hailed GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump as a 'gentleman' for not bringing up Bill Clinton's affairs during Monday's debate with Hillary Clinton.

Gingrich, who oversaw impeachment of the president in the 1990s, said he was 'very proud' that Trump didn't bring up the Clinton baggage, since daughter Chelsea Clinton was in the audience.

'Im very proud that at the very end when she attacked and went off on this whole rant about women  and you could see his face  in the Republican primary he would have just smashed her, Gingrich said on Thursday on the Sean Hannity Radio Show.

Gingrich cited the presence of Chelsea Clinton, who sat in the front row for the debate  a point Trump also has made. The candidate said he held back during the debate, where a Gallup poll had Clinton winning the contest by about two-to-one.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says Donald Trump was a 'gentleman' for not bringing up Bill Clinton's affairs during the first presidential debate

He thought about it, and Im sure he said to himself, a president of the United States shouldnt attack somebody personally when their daughter is sitting in the audience, the former speaker told Fox News host Sean Hannity on his radio show.

And he bit his tongue, and he was a gentleman, and I thought in many ways that was the most important moment of the whole evening. He proved that he had the discipline to remain as a decent guy even when she was disgusting, Gingrich said, in comments reported by Buzzfeed.

Gingrich was referencing the moment in the debate when Hillary Clinton mentioned times Trump has insulted women, including calling the former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado 'Miss Piggy' because of her weight gain.

Gingrich, who spoke at the GOP convention, oversaw Bill Clinton's impeachment in 1998

'He proved that he had the discipline to remain as a decent guy even when she was disgusting,' said Gingrich, hailing Trump for not bringing up Bill Clinton's affairs during the debate. Gingrich oversaw Bill Clinton's impeachment, a proceeding that involved the president's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky

It was a signature moment of the debate, though the former speaker, himself a former presidential candidate, described the moment as a set-up.

Gingrich's comments came just hours before Trump unloaded on Machado in early morning tweets.

'Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?' Trump asked in one missive.

'Using Alicia M in the debate as a paragon of virtue just shows that Crooked Hillary suffers from BAD JUDGEMENT! Hillary was set up by a con,' Trump wrote in another tweet.

Gingrich said Trump 'bit his tongue' during the debate as a courtesy

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (left) said earlier this week that former Miss Universe Alicia Machado (right) wasn't 'supposed to gain 60 pounds' after being named Miss Venezuela

Trump sent out an early morning tweet attacking the 'disgusting' Alicia Machado and urged people 'check out sex tape and past,' a possible reference to a Spanish reality TV show she appeared on

Trump said Clinton's bringing up Machado during the debate without checking out her background showed 'BAD JUDGEMENT!'

Gingrich oversaw the impeachment of President Clinton in the 1990s.

At a campaign rally in New Hampshire Thursday, Trump brought up impeachment and Bill Clinton's 'sordid' past, a reference to the Monica Lewinsky scandals and other affairs.
Scot pilot Rankin destroyed 17 enemy aircraft on his own during WWII

Air Commodore James Rankin destroyed 17 enemy aircraft during his 'inspirational' service in the Second World War

The stunning medal collection of an RAF war hero pilot and Spitfire Ace are set to reach tens of thousands of pounds at auction.

British pilot Air Commodore James Rankin destroyed 17 enemy aircraft on his own during his 'inspirational' service in the Second World War.

His bravery and prowess saw him awarded a Distinguished Service Order as well as a Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar and the Belgium Croix de Guerre.

Rankin, who came from Edinburgh in Scotland, is revered by historian's as one of Britain's best pilots and leaders of the time.

His glittering medal haul is expected to fetch at least 60,000-80,000 when they are put up for auction on December 6 at Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers in Essex.

Ivan Macquisten, former editor of Antiques Trade Gazette, said: 'This group is worthy of joining the Imperial War Museum's collection.

'I can't think of anything as important in this area that has come up for sale since 2012, when the Battle of Britain fighter ace 'Cat's Eyes' Cunningham's triple DSO took nearly 400,000 at auction.'

Alongside the medals, the auction house will offer the pilot's citations and two albums of photographs of Rankin and his men from the war, as well as newspaper cuttings.

Rankin's glittering medal haul is expected to fetch at least 60,000-80,000 when they are put up for auction on December 6

Rankin (centre front) is revered by historians as an inspiring leader and skilled pilot

Also included is a German Luftwaffe Pilot's wrist compass, presented to Rankin by a German airman who he had shot down; investiture tickets to Buckingham Palace; and a visitors book from June 1942 to 1965 with autographs from fellow aces.

Such was Rankin's skill and guile that at one point, he shot down six planes in 12 days, including two within the space of a minute.

Sworders' Director John Black said: 'Exceptional and outstanding are two overused words, but not here.

Rankin's bravery and prowess saw him awarded a Distinguished Service Order as well as a Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar and the Belgium Croix de Guerre.

As well as Rankin's impressive medal collection, the auctioneers will offer a collection of the pilot's photos, citations and other souvenirs

'Rankin was not just an Ace in the true sense of the word, but an inspirational leader who gave his all when it meant the most.
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This might be one of the most dangerous yet breath-taking car journeys in the world.

A new drone video has emerged showing the dangerous mountain tunnel chiselled out of a vertical cliff in Taihang Mountains.

The footage, posted to Youtube by CCTV News yesterday, is believed to capture the awe-inspiring Guoliang tunnel in central China's Henan Province.

Before the tunnel was completed, the Guoliang village was connected to the outside with a path consisted of 720 stone steps

Secluded: Guoliang village, perched on a vertical cliff in central China, is connected to the outside world with a stone tunnel

The formidable Guoliang tunnel was hand-carved by 13 men from an ancient village perched on top of the cliff at an altitude of over 1,700 metres (5,500 feet).

The 1,250-metre-long (4,100 feet) passage is the only way to drive to the 600-year-old Guoliang village, which perches on top of the 200-metre-tall (656 feet) cliff.

Before the road was built in 1972, the only way for the local villagers to reach outside had been a perilous near-vertical path that consisted of 720 stone steps.

Despite the tough natural surroundings, resilient locals have carved a tunnel in the mountain with their bare hands.

Dangerous: The 4,100-foot-long cliff-corridor was chiselled by 13 men with bare hands between the 1960s and 1970s

Hand-carved tunnel: It took the villagers five years to finish the tunnel, which is about 16 feet high and 13 feet wide

Incredible: Led by Shen Mingxin, the then head of the village, they sold goats and herbs to buy hammers and steel tools

The Guoliang village, dubbed 'the most dangerous village in China', has been home to a small group of farmers for more than six centuries, according to People's Daily Online.

Led by Shen Mingxin, head of the village at the time, a team of 13 men sold goats and herbs to buy hammers and steel tools.

It took them five years to finish the winding tunnel, which is about five metres high (16 feet) and fours metre wide (13 feet).

The village, situated in the Taihang Mountains, has been home to a small group of farmers for more than six centuries

As one of the most secluded communities in China, the village is reported to have 83 families with a total population of 329

The rocky road was made to be wide enough to be driven along, during which time they used up more than 12 tons of drill rods and 4,000 hammers.

The corridor has 35 'windows' that were originally created to dispose of rock debris and to let in light and air, but these are now used as viewing posts for tourists.

As one of the most secluded communities in China, the village is reported to have 83 families with a total population of 329.
East London has spawned Britain's first cafes for cereal and cats - but now hipsters can now head out to eat posh toast for 10.

A new pop-up restaurant is set to open in Homerton next month where chefs match gourmet bread topped with meat, cheese and even rose petals all matched with craft beers.

It is being set up by a company called 'Pretty F****** Good Toast', who will serve slices of sourdough at the Machine No.3 pub from October 5.

Diners eat at a new pop-up toast restaurant where chefs match bread topped with gourmet meat, cheese and other ingredients - all matchedwith craft beers

For 10 diners will be served gourmet toast like this topped with asparagus, Marmite, cheese and rose petals

Menu: You could plump for a slice with seaweed butter, smoked haddock and wood sorrel or harissa, walnuts, gruyere and dandelion with pancetta added for an extra 2

For 10 diners will be served toast topped with thyme butter; duck salami, parmesan, dark chocolate and water celery.

You could plump for a slice with seaweed butter, smoked haddock and wood sorrel or harissa, walnuts, gruyere and dandelion with pancetta added for an extra 2.

PFGT founder Dave Darmanin says: 'We take all the ingredients, skill, finesse and twiddly-bits of fine dining, and serve it up on toasts so fancy you could wear them on your head at Ascot Ladies Day'.

While his business is raising a great deal of interest, it is already being lampooned online.

Toby Earle tweeted: 'There's a toast pop-up restaurant coming to Hackney because toast has for too long been the preserve of Michelin starred restaurants'.

Antonia Powell wrote on Twitter: 'I mean...toast already pops up enough on its own'.

Brian Whelan said: 'Bare brick walls, local craft beer, sourdough based menu. A toast bar, for a generation that's run out of ideas.

Maria Kaffa tweeted a link to the menu and said: 'RIP sanity' and commentator Andrew, wrote: 'Great choice of location as the bearded ones can easily be persuaded to eat any pretentious rubbish put in front of them. If the place has asterisks in its name it must be good'.

Jokes: For some the thought of a toast pop up has caused mirth - but it is likely to be popular

The toast pop-up is the latest in the long line of quirky new east London eateries.

With 120 cereals, 20 types of toppings and 12 varieties of milk, self-confessed cereal obsessives Alan and Gary Keery took their love for breakfast to new heights with UKs first cereal cafe.

The identical twins establishment in Brick Lane, London offers a menu of over 100 cereals from around the world.

Open from 7am to 8pm, The Cereal Killer Cafe serve breakfast, lunch and dinner in an environment bursting with cereal memorabilia from the Eighties and Nineties.

It went so well they opened another branch in nearby Camden a year later.

2014 saw the birth of London's first cat cafe, offering locals a chance to to take their cats out for tea and cakes.

Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium marketed itself to people who live in small flats and who are unable to keep pets, but want a little bit of relaxing animal attention.

Cat cafes first took off in Japan 10 years ago but this was the first to set up shop in the capital city.

Cereal obsessives Alan and Gary Keery took their love for breakfast to new heights with UKs first cereal cafe.
Kathy Tompa will spend 15 years in prison after she admitted she had a sexual relationship with the 15-year-old boy for six months

A mother from Georgia pleaded guilty on Thursday to seducing her daughter's 15-year-old boyfriend and having sex with him.

Kathy Tompa from Alpharetta, was sentenced to 15 years in jail, the same length of time her victim has been alive.

Tompa was originally charged with child molestation and rape in May. She admitted that she had been having a sexual relationship with the teenager for at least six months.

As reported by WSB Atlanta, in court, the boy's mother told the judge that her son had to move out of the area because of the humiliation it caused him.

'She stole my son's innocence,' she said. 'She stole his childhood. I'm angry with her and I'm angry with myself.'

The court heard how Tompa had been in contact with the boy since December 2015 and had sent sexually explicit text messages to each other.

Tompa, seen here heading into court, had been in contact with the boy since December 2015 through sexually explicit text messages. At one point, she groomed the boy for a sexual relationship with her daughter before persuading him to have sex with her

She even groomed the boy to have sex with her own daughter before then persuading him to have sex with her.

'She was advising him on how to kiss her daughter, how to touch her daughter, when would be an appropriate time to touch her buttocks, what would be the appropriate time and manner to remove her shirt,' Forsyth County Assistant District Attorney Heather Dunn told the judge.

Tompa eventually invited him to her home for sex late one night while her husband was away on business.

The teen's parents noticed that their son's mood began to change and his grades at school began to slip.

Even after noticing something was unusual and the boys parents took away their son's computers, Tompa then bought him a cell phone and installed Facebook and Snapchat she could continue talking to him.

The mother also helped the teenager sneak out of the house and hide the affair from his parents.
A conservative Arizona newspaper is facing death threats and losing subscriptions after it broke with tradition by endorsing Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump for US president, a senior editor said Friday.

The Phoenix-based Arizona Republic, the state's largest newspaper, announced in an editorial on Tuesday that it is backing a Democrat for the first time since it was founded in 1890 on the grounds that Trump is neither conservative nor qualified to be president.

The paper's editorial board said that while Clinton did not lack flaws, she was also the 'superior choice' by far.

NOT FUNNY: After breaking tradition and endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, members of The Arizona Republic's editorial board started receiving death threats

NO LONGER DOMINANT: Donald Trump was expected to win the backing of conservative editorial pages at the Republic, the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Dallas Morning News, but it didn't pan out that way

SHOVE: Trump tweeted Friday that he was happy to see newspapers lose subscribers after abandoning him, but he didn't mention the death threats in Arizona

The backlash began shortly after it published the endorsement, with outraged readers sending a deluge of angry emails and canceling subscriptions, said Phil Boas, who runs the paper's editorial page.

'We got a lot of angry callers and we've had quite a few cancellations,' he said, adding that the editors had expected blowback and did not regret its decision.

The paper also received some threatening phone calls and a death threat, he said without elaborating.

USA Today set another precedent on Thursday, when its editorial board took a side in a presidential race for the first time in its 34-year history, although without issuing a straight endorsement.

Publishing scathing criticism of Trump, the national paper urged readers to oppose a candidate it said is 'dangerous' and 'unfit for the presidency.' It went on to call him 'erratic,' 'ill-equipped,' 'reckless,' someone with a 'checkered' business past, and a 'serial liar.'

Despite the threats against the Arizona Republic, its editorial board feels 'very good' about endorsing Clinton, Boas said.

HAMMER BLOW: The Arizona Republic's editorial in favor of Hillary Clinton called her 'the only choice'

'We know that it's the responsible decision and choice to endorse Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump,' he said, adding that he did not believe regular readers were surprised, given the numerous scathing editorials about Trump previously published.

'About a year ago, we began writing very strong editorials about Trump because of his behavior on the stump, which to us seemed authoritarian,' Boas said. 'We started raising the alarm about him... cautioning that what this man is saying is dangerous.'

The Arizona Republic joins a growing list of conservative-leaning US newspapers to back the Democratic candidate during this year's divisive presidential campaign. A handful of others have opted to back Libertarian Gary Johnson.

The Cincinnati Enquirer, an Ohio paper that has supported Republicans for almost a century, said last week that it was backing Clinton because 'Trump is a clear and present danger to our country.'

TREND: The Dallas Morning News was expected to endorse Trump, but went the other way

The Dallas Morning News  based in the Republican-dominated state of Texas  also broke a 75-year streak earlier this month by backing Clinton, describing her as the 'only serious candidate.'

Both papers have also faced backlashes over their decision, with readers canceling subscriptions.

Trump tweeted Friday morning that voters 'are really smart in cancelling subscriptions to the Dallas & Arizona papers & now USA Today will lose readers!'

'The people get it!'

Boas, who describes himself as a lifelong Republican, said his paper's decision to back a Democrat for the presidency was an easy decision given Trump's policy proposals and behavior.

'We would be shocked and horrified if our own kids, our own teenagers, behaved like him,' he said, adding that he understood Republicans' mind-set but felt 'a lot of them are in denial.'
A California woman who was left with a 'huge' surgical instrument stuck inside her is suing the clinic who carried out the operation.

Michelle Doig-Collins, from Rancho Santa Margarita, near Los Angeles, has filed a lawsuit against The Surgery Center after surgeons allegedly left the probe in her vagina during a routine procedure in April.

She had been suffering from a lot of pain before the operation but she was surprised that after the surgery she actually started feeling worse.

Mrs Doig-Collins (right) said she spent more than two months in excruciating pain. She said of the surgical probe (left): 'I had this thing in me for 11 weeks'

Mrs Doig-Collins took antibiotics but nothing helped and matters came to a head on July 3 when she collapsed in agony on the floor of the restroom.

She told CBS News: 'My toilet paper got caught on a metal probe.'

The 'huge' surgical instrument had been left inside her vagina.

Her husband Eddie rushed her to the emergency room and an X-ray finally gave an explanation for the pain.

She very well could have died. She could have got sepsis or some other horrible infection Jeff Greenman

Mrs Doig-Collins, who has three children, said: 'I had this thing in me for 11 weeks.'

Her attorney Jeff Greenman, who is an expert in medical malpractice, told CBS: 'How did no one see this?

'She very well could have died. She could have got sepsis or some other horrible infection that didn't go away.'

Around 4,000 Americans a year have a 'retained surgical item' left inside them after an operation.

The Surgical Center at Saddleback, in Laguna Hills, was not available for comment.
A man with a knife was arrested at gunpoint outside a Subway restaurant after allegedly brawling at a nearby hotel.

The arrest followed a fight at the Frankston's Pier Hotel in Melbourne's south east which left a 25-year-old man with a cut to the head, The Age reports.

Dramatic footage shows police holding a gun to the 27-year-old's head as he was taken into custody on Friday night.

Dramatic footage shows police holding a gun to the 27-year-old's head as he was taken into custody on Friday night after an alleged brawl

A witness told 7News that the 27-year-old allegedly stabbed a man before he was cut with broken glass.

A police spokeswoman told The Age two men were taken to Frankston Hospital, both in stable conditions.

Footage taken at the scene shows one unidentified man with gauze on his head and blood on his face being attended to by paramedics.

The man was arrested a 'short distance away at a fast food outlet' with non-life-threatening injuries.

The police spokeswoman said the cause of the altercation was still undetermined.

The arrest followed a fight at the Frankston's Pier Hotel in Melbourne's south east which left a 25-year-old man with a cut to the head
that Jesse Osborne fatally shot his father before going on the rampage at the South Carolina elementary school

A 6-year-old boy wounded in a school shooting in South Carolina is clinging to life.

The family of Townville Elementary School student Jacob Hall released a statement to The Greenville News late Thursday, saying the boy is on life support at the hospital.

The family says the child sustained a major brain injury due to losing about 75 per cent of his blood after being shot in the leg.

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Jacob Hall (left) is on life support after being shot in the leg at his elementary school on Wednesday

Older brother Gerald Gambrell tells the paper the family is 'hoping for a miracle' and the family has asked for people to pray for Jacob.

State Rep. Alan Clemmons, who is a friend of the family said: 'He died twice, and was revived, during medical transport and again during surgery.

Jesse Obsorne, 14, is believed to be the shooter in the case. The suspect is due in court for the first time Friday morning

'He's in ICU now where a team of doctors are working to stabilize him. Once stabilized, he will face yet another surgery. PLEASE join me in fervent prayer for little Jacob's recovery. Thank you!!!'

The boy, another student and first-grade teacher Meghan Hollingsworth were wounded when teen gunman Jesse Osborne showed up at the rural school and began shooting on Wednesday. The 14-year-old suspect was due in court Friday for an initial hearing.

Anderson County Solicitor Chrissy T. Adams says the public wouldn't be allowed in because the suspect is a juvenile. She also says prosecutors won't provide additional details about the shooting.

Jesse is also believed to have murdered his father before going on the shooting rampage at the school.

The shooter had been home schooled by his parents Jeffrey and Tiffany since last year, when he was expelled for brining a hatchet to school, but had protested that he had been 'hard done by' and had suffered bullying.

He was nicknamed 'Little Jesse' because of his stature, a source said told DailyMail.com.

Osborne called his grandmother, who lives less than a minute from the murder scene and told her he had shot his father dead.

He was in tears when he made the call from his cellphone telling her he had killed her son.

Police are examining reports that the handgun may have jammed when he attempted to kill children at the school shortly after the murder of his father.

What happened at his middle school last year will now be at the center of the police probe.

The school district confirmed it was being asked about Jesse's history before he was expelled.

'Individuals have reported that the alleged shooter was a student in our district last school year,' the district said in a statement to DailyMail.com.

It's reported that Jesse (left) killed his father, Jeffrey Osborne (right), before going on the rampage at Townville Elementary School in South Carolina on Wednesday

'While information is always provided to law enforcement as they investigate crimes, the district is unable to share confidential information about individual students with the general public or the media.'

In addition to Jacob, Jesse shot another student and first-grade teacher Meghan Hollingsworth (pictured). The other two victims have since been released from the hospital

His father was also disclosed to be a convicted criminal. In April 1991, Osborne snr was convicted of a marijuana offense after a court bench trial at South Carolina.

More than four years later, in December 1995, the murdered father was found guilty of criminal domestic violence.

The following year in March, he was convicted of property damage.

He had also been declared bankrupt with three separate companies filing liens against him dating back to 2005, but he had been carrying on with a poultry farming business up to his death.

The Osborne family said in a statement that they 'cannot express the devastation we feel at the loss of our beloved Jeff.'

Jeffrey Osborne's wife learned of the school shooting from local media and was contacted by police who told her that her son was in custody.

Her mother-in-law, who received the tearful call from her grandson that he had shot his father, declined to comment.

The shooting sent shockwaves through the small community of just 4,000 near the Georgia border
Lost-at-sea mom Linda Carman was considered a suspect in the shooting death of her multi-millionaire father, her lawyer revealed on Friday.

Carman and her son Nathan - who is now being quizzed about her death - were both under suspicion after nursing home magnate John Chakalos was found dead at his Connecticut home in 2013. Neither was ever charged.

Linda was questioned because she had once been accused of assaulting the nursing home magnate as they argued about money and hospital treatment for Nathan, attorney Gerald Klein told the Boston Herald.

Linda Carman was heard telling her father: 'You can't cut me off', and claiming he had $300million as they argued in Mount Sinai Hospital, Klein said.

Chakalos, then in his mid-80s, suffered injuries to his head but did not want his daughter charged as she would have faced a mandatory year in jail for assaulting a senior.

Two years later Chakalos was shot to death and both his daughter and grandson fell under suspicion.

Lost-at-sea mom Linda Carman (left) and her son Nathan (right) - who is now being quizzed about his mother's death - were both under suspicion after her father John Chakalos was murdered three years ago

On Interstate 91 in Vermont, there is a billboard offering a $250,000 reward for anyone with information leading to an arrest in the death of Chakalos, who was found shot to death at his Connecticut home in 2013

Police requested an arrest warrant for Nathan, now 22, but it was declined by prosecutors who wanted more information.

'It was a homicide where there was no forced entry, there was nothing stolen, so the police zeroed in on possible family members for the motive,' Klein told the Herald, adding 'She was a suspect.'

Linda said at the time that neither she nor Nathan could have killed the 87-year-old man as they were on a fishing boat off Rhode Island at the time.

But she later told police that they had planned to meet at 3am the following day, but Nathan failed to show.

Police in Windsor, Connecticut, say Nathan is still a person of interest in Chakalos's murder. He is also being questioned about the presumed drowning of his mother last week when his fishing boat, the Chicken Pox, went down in 1000ft-deep Block Canyon, south of Rhode Island.

Authorities in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, are considering charging him with reckless endangerment as he had been seen making alterations to the 31ft vessel that could have made it unsafe. He was rescued from a life raft after spending eight days adrift.

Nathan Carman (left) has denied being involved in the death of his grandfather, who was killed in 2013, after he was rescued following a doomed fishing trip with his mother, Linda (right)

Carman, whose behavior was described as 'odd' and 'offensive' during a nationwide search after he went missing as a teenager, was rescued this week after spending eight days on a life-raft off Rhode Island

The search for his mother, the only other person aboard, has been called off as the Coast Guard says there is no chance of her still being alive.

Nathan had a history of violence according to a search warrant application issued by police several months after his grandfather's death.

Cops asked to search the apartment where Carman lived in Middletown, Connecticut, eight months after Chakalos, 87, was shot to death in his palatial home, 30 minutes away in Windsor.

Carman first hit the headlines in 2011 when he went missing after telling his parents that he was going fishing. His parents said he was upset after the death of his horse, 'Cruise'

Chakalos' wife, Rita, had died of cancer just 30 days earlier

They based the search request on claims that Carman - who suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism - had used 'recent threats or acts of violencetoward himself or others' and his alleged 'history of the use, attempted use or threatened use of physical force.'

'During the course of this investigation, investigators learned from various sources that Nathan Carman was capable of violence when his coping mechanisms were challenged,' Det Sgt William Freeman and Det Christopher Iovene wrote in the document.'

Information was obtained by investigators that Nathan had several episodes demonstrating this while attending Middletown High School.

Family members also made investigators aware of an incident in which Nathan, as a child, held another child "hostage" with a knife.

Nathan Carman's attorney said the fishing boat sank in a 'tragic accident'. He also made a distress call saying he heard a 'funny noise' before water rushed into the boat

Chakalos (right), a World War II paratrooper was shot dead weeks after his wife Rita (left) died of cancer in 2013

Carman is seen with his grandmother shortly before she died. His grandfather's murder investigation is still active

'Additionally, it was learned during this investigation that Carman had demonstrated a familiarization with firearms,' although they said during interviews he attempted to distance himself by insisting on three separate occasions that that 'was a long time ago.'

Carman was 19 when his grandfather was murdered. A search of his apartment found guns, but not the .308 caliber weapon that killed Chakalos.

However, cops discovered that he had bought a .308 rifle from a New Hampshire gun store.

'Nathan, thus far, has concealed this info from investigators and failed to disclose this during any interviews with Windsor Police,' they wrote.

The old man kept a collection of vintage World War II guns that could have matched the murder weapon and only Carman, who was the last person to see the wealthy real estate and nursing home magnate alive, knew exactly how many weapons Chakalos had  and whether any were missing.

'Investigative efforts to establish the exact number and type of firearms owned and possessed by the victim met with negative results through interviews with family members and inquires of state and national firearms databases,' the two detectives wrote.

'The only family member who appeared to have specific information on these firearms is Nathan Carman,' they added. They said he had stopped cooperating and had refused to take a polygraph test.

When cops interviewed staff and neighbors at Carman's apartment complex, they found more worrying accusations.

After his grandfather's death, Carman left Middletown and bought a 160-year-old, four-bedroom house in Vernon, Vermont, for $70,000. He has extensively remodeled the house himself, adding two stories, while sleeping every night in his truck, neighbors say

Nathan Carman's home in Vernon, Vermont, was searched by police this week after he was brought back to shore. His mother Linda is missing, presumed dead

The former apartment of Nathan Carman is seen Thursday, September 29, 2016, in Middletown, Connecticut

'One person, who wished to remain anonymous, described Nathan as "a time bomb waiting to go off",' the officers wrote. 'Another person, who also wished to remain anonymous, described Nathan as "Murder boy," based solely upon their personal experience with Nathan, (and) believed he possessed the propensity for violence.'

During the apartment search, police found handwritten notes 'containing details on making self-propelled Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's),' the detectives wrote.

'In addition he had notes pertaining to sniper rifles on an areal (sic) video stabilizing platform and camera with facial recognition data machines.'

Sgt Freeman spoke to members of Carman's family who, he said, 'expressed enough fear that they hired armed private security to protect them in their homes.'

Prosecutors declined to issue an arrest warrant for Carman at the time, saying they needed more information.

Nearly three years later no-one has faced charges in the high profile case and the Chakalos family has offered a $250,000 reward for information.

Nathan Carman remains 'a person of interest in the case,' Windsor Police say. He had been due to meet his mother at 3 am on the day after his grandfather's death to go on a fishing trip, but he did not show.

On Sunday, Carman was picked up 100 miles out to sea, by a Chinese freighter, the Orient Lucky.

Nathan Carman, right, disembarks at the US Coast Guard station in Boston. He later left with his father, Clark, who had flown in from his home in California

Relatives of Nathan Carman said he had Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism

The pair were in this boat when it sank off the coast of Rhode Island last week

He said the Chicken Pox had gone down in Block Canyon, where the waters drop off suddenly from 200 ft. to 1,000 ft. He claimed that while he was grabbing supplies of food and water for the life raft, he lost sight of his mother.

Nathan and Linda Carman had set sail from the Ram Point Marina in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, around 11 pm on September 17. Linda had told a friend they were going to an area around Striper Rock, 80 miles closer to shore and in much shallower waters.

Police are investigating to see if Nathan had deliberately made his boat less safe by removing trim tabs and failing to correct problems with his bilge pump. Fellow boater Mike Iozzi told the Boston Globe that Carman had told him the tabs 'don't make the boat respond well.'

Iozzi said Carman had fixed the boat with sealant, and that he had warned him not to go out too far at night. 'I don't know what happened,' Iozzi said. 'The guy upstairs probably knows what happened.'

Carman has denied being responsible in the deaths of either his grandfather or his mother, who, along with three sisters, was left the bulk of Chakalos's $42 million fortune. He told the Associated Press he did everything he could to find his mother.

'What happened on the boat was a terrible tragedy that I am still trying to process and that I am still trying to come to terms with,' he said.

'I don't know what to make of people being suspicious,' he added. 'I have enough to deal with.

'I would not have taken my mom out fishing with me had I not believed the boat was seaworthy.'

Carman disembarking from a boat after his rescue earlier this month

Carman said Chakalos, his grandfather, was 'like a father to me and I was like a son to him.'

'He was the closest person in the world to me, and I loved him and he loved me, and I had absolutely nothing to do with his death,' Carman said.

His father Clark Carman, also insisted Nathan was not responsible for either death.

'There were only two people in his life, his mother and his grandfather, the older Carman told The Hartford Courant.

'There was no motive. There was nothing to gain with John dying, he had everything to lose. He's not the type of individual who's aggressive. He'd walk away from a situation rather than attack. Really it's not in his mental makeup.'

Nathan Carman first hit the headlines in 2011 when he went missing after telling his parents that he was going fishing. A description issued by Middletown Police said: 'He may appear to be extremely agitated or may make statements that those who may encounter him fay find 'odd' or 'offensive.'

His parents said he was upset following the death of his horse, 'Cruise.'

He was found four days later after taking a bus from Connecticut to Virginia, where he bought a moped, saying he intended to ride it to Florida.

After his grandfather's death, Carman left Middletown and bought a 160-year-old, four-bedroom house in Vernon, Vermont, for $70,000.
Police wearing balaclavas dramatically shot out the tyres of a suspects car today.

Fears were sparked in Robroyston, Glasgow, this morning after shots were heard near a supermarket where a man was shot dead in a gangland attack in 2010.

But Police Scotland later clarified that their officers were carrying out an unspecified operation when they fired vehicle tyre deflation rounds to stop a car.

Stopped: Police Scotland said their officers were carrying out an operation in the Robroyston area of Glasgow today when they fired vehicle tyre deflation rounds to stop a car

Probe: Police said 'vehicle tyre deflation rounds were discharged directly into vehicle tyres'

A police spokesman said: Around 10.55am Police Scotland officers carried out an intelligence-led operation in the Robroyston area of Glasgow.

As part of the operation, vehicle tyre deflation rounds were discharged directly into vehicle tyres. This is a recognised and practised tactic.

(It) is used specifically to disable a vehicle and was deployed in order to reduce any potential wider impact to the public and to maximise their safety.

As a result, and in line with the routine procedure, this incident will be referred to the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner for review.

Police at the scene: Fears were sparked in Robroyston this morning after shots were heard near a supermarket where a man was shot dead in a gangland attack in 2010

Investigation: Police Scotland said no-one was injured or hurt as part of the operation

Police said the incident will be referred to the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner

Enquiries are continuing at this time. No-one was injured or hurt as part of the operation.

No-one has been arrested in connection with the incident.

Glasgow gangster Kevin Gerbil Carroll was shot dead in the Asda car park in January 2010.
Secret stash: Corey Davis (pictured), 32, who arrested in Scranton, Pennsylvania, during undercover drug buy, was found hiding 110 small bags of heroin in his buttocks

Police say a Pennsylvania man suspected of dealing drugs was found hiding 110 small bags of heroin in his buttocks.

Corey Davis, of Carbondale, was arrested Thursday in Scranton, where police conducted an undercover drug buy.

Police say they found the other drugs when they searched the 32-year-old Davis after his arrest.

Davis remained Friday in the Lackawanna County jail, where he was unable to post bond.

Online court records show he faces a preliminary hearing October 6. He doesn't have an attorney listed to comment on his behalf.
Jeb Bush is denying a report that claimed he's voting for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. Bush says he hasn't made a decision and suggested he may not cast a ballot at all.

'If everybody didn't vote, that would be a pretty powerful political statement, wouldn't it?' he said, according to CNN, after he was asked what would happen if other voters followed his lead.

The Republican politician's father George H.W. Bush had his plans to cross party lines at vote for Hillary Clinton revealed by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy.

Bush said at a Thursday event in Massachusetts at a venue named after Townsend's uncle, John F. Kennedy, that he thought her behavior was 'a little inappropriate' and trashed her for taking advantage of his father.

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Jeb Bush said at a Thursday event in Massachusetts at a venue named after Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's uncle, John F. Kennedy, that he thought her behavior was 'a little inappropriate' and trashed her for taking advantage of his father

'I thought it was a little inappropriate for a person to overhear a frail, 92-year-old man, in a private setting, at a reception for the Points of Light foundation -- which focuses on volunteerism -- to hear this and immediately go on Facebook and put it on there and then go on national television and not even show up at the board meeting,' he said. 'I thought that was inappropriate.'

He did not use Townsend's name as he assailed her for betraying his father.

Earlier this month the Democrat posted a photo of herself with the 41st President of the United States on the social media platform that said, 'The President told me he's voting for Hillary!!'

The photo was taken at the Bush family home in Kennebunkport, Maine, during a board meeting for the international non-profit founded by the former president.

George H.W. Bush's spokesman, Jim McGrath, would not say at the time who the elderly Republican president intends to support in November.

'The vote President Bush will cast as a private citizen in some 50 days will be just that: a private vote cast in some 50 days,' he said.

Jeb Bush has said he has no intention of voting for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Neither meet the 'threshold' to sit in the Oval Office, he said Thursday.

'I'm at peace with my decision,' he said, at the same time claiming, 'I haven't made up my mind what I'm going to do.

Bush told reporters after a speaking engagement at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of government, 'It's a secret ballot.'

George H.W. Bush (left) reportedly told Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend (right), the former Maryland lieutenant governor and daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy that he would be casting his vote for Hillary Clinton in November, according to her Facebook post

At a private luncheon Wednesday Bush reportedly told an attendee who complained about Trump and Clinton to vote for Johnson.

'There was an old man talking to Jeb across the table and said, "I can't bring myself to vote for Hillary and Trump," and Jeb looked at him and mouthed the word "Johnson," silently,' a New York Daily News source said.

Bush says the source was mistaken.

'I don't think so,' he told reporters asking about the conversation.

The failed presidential candidate said he's not 'angry' about losing the GOP nomination to Trump, although the loss was 'really disappointing.'

'I'm not going to change who I am. I'm not going to be angry,' he said.

Ripping Trump, however, he said, 'I'm committed to my views and I fight for my views, but the idea that you're weak if you're warm-hearted or you believe that someone that disagrees with you is an evil person, man we got to stop that. That is just dangerous for our democracy.'




Bohuslav Sobotka (pictured) told Theresa May to take action after he linked the killing of a Czech national in London to Britain's Brexit vote

The Czech prime minister has told Theresa May to take action after he linked the killing of a Czech national in London to Britain's Brexit vote.

Bohuslav Sobotka phoned his British counterpart to say his country was 'disturbed by the increase in hateful attacks in Britain aimed at the citizens of EU member states' following the death of 31-year-old businessman Zdenek Makar last week.

A 29-year-old Briton has been charged with his murder. Mr Makar was pronounced dead in the street near ALL Saints DLR station in Poplar, east London after a chicken shop brawl in London on September 21.

Two others, a man aged 19 and a 16-year-old boy, have been bailed until early October pending further investigations.

Mrs May sent her condolences to the Czech premier but Downing Street stressed that police did not consider racism to have been the motive.

Speaking on the phone last night, Mr Sobotka told Mrs May: 'The Czech government finds it unacceptable to see Czechs attacked because of their origin and being treated as second-class citizens.

'Therefore I asked the British prime minister... to let me know what measures her government will adopt to stop these hateful attacks.'

The Czech prime minister has told Theresa May (pictured visiting the Macmillan Cancer support charity in her Berkshire constituency today) to take action after he linked the killing of a Czech national in London to Britain's Brexit vote

Zdenek Makar (pictured) was brutally beaten to death with a bike chain after buying a meal from a chicken shop

Zdenek Makar (pictured), 31, was killed after a brawl in a chicken shop in Poplar, east London, last week

Theresa May (pictured) was told to take action by her Czech counterpart after the killing of a Czech national in the streets of London last week, which he linked to June's Brexit vote

A Downing Street spokesperson said Mrs May told Mr Sobotka that 'while we understood this particular incident was not considered to be a hate crime, the UK Government condemned hate crime in the strongest way possible and it had no place in British society.

The spokesperson added: 'They agreed that the UK and the Czech Republic enjoyed excellent bilateral relations and that the relationship would continue to go from strength to strength, particularly in defence and commercial areas.'

The killing of the Czech national follows the murder of a Polish man in August.

Police in Harlow, northeast of London, are investigating the August 27 murder of 40-year-old Polish factory worker Arek Jozwik as a possible hate crime although they have said the motive is still not clear.

Earlier this month Mrs May expressed her "deep regret" over attacks on Polish citizens living in the UK in a phone call to her counterpart in Warsaw.

The Prime Minister told Beata Szydlo that "hate crime has no place in UK society", Downing Street said.

Two Polish officers also joined British police in the town after two Poles were also attacked outside a pub there on September 4.

Mr Makar was pronounced dead in the street near ALL Saints DLR station in Poplar, east London after a chicken shop brawl in London on September 21

Friends lit candles and lay flowers next to pictures of their friend Zed, who was beaten to death over a 'trivial' row

British police said in July that hate crimes surged before and after the June 23 referendum in which voters chose to exit the EU following a campaign dominated by a divisive debate about immigration.

The latest figures from the National Police Chiefs' Council, released earlier this month, showed a 49 per cent rise in incidents in the last week in July, compared with the previous year.

Although police attributed the increase in part to greater vigilance by officers and greater awareness among the public, more than 3,000 incidents were reported to police across the country between June 16 and 30, up 42 percent on the same period last year, according to the National Police Chiefs' Council.

The most common offence reported was harassment, including assault, verbal abuse and spitting.

Poland has also urged London to protect its nationals living in Britain, of whom there were about 831,000 in 2015, following the Brexit vote.

Czech authorities put the number of their citizens working in Britain at some 37,000.

During Mrs May's phone conversation with Czech PM Mr Sobotka, she also pledged to retain strong ties with EU countries after Brexit.
Annie Korkki, 37, who worked for JP Morgan Chase in Denver, and Robin Korkki, 42, a trader from

Two sisters who were found dead in their hotel room on a paradise island in the Indian Ocean died from fluid on the lungs, authorities say  with a drug overdose seemingly the most likely cause.

An autopsy found that Robin Korkki, 42, and her sister Annie, 37, had the same cause of death.

Robin died from acute pulmonary edema while her younger sister died of acute pulmonary and cerebral edema, according to the autopsy.

The condition is commonly found as a cause of death in people who have taken drug overdoses, according to medical websites.

Minnesota natives Annie Korkki, 37, (left) and Robin Korkki, 42, (right) were found dead inside their resort villa a week into their vacation in the Seychelles island off the coast of Africa. An autopsy found they both had fluid on their lungs, authorities say

The sisters were discovered in their villa at the Maia Luxury Resort and Spa on Thursday 22 September. They were on a lengthy trip to Africa before they went to the Seychelles

Investigation: Police moved in on the Maia resort after the discovery of the two bodies

Luxury resort: The $1,800-a-night villa where the sisters' bodies were found remains closed off more than a week after the discovery

Slice of paradise: The resort is on Mahe Island, one of the Seychelles archipelago

Fun time: Robin Korkki, 37, enjoys a glass of wine on vacation before her tragic death

The sisters pictured in a September 19 photo while on vacation in Seychelles. They had been vacationing on the tropical island since September 15 and had extended their stay from September 22 to September 24

Police on the island told DailyMail.com that toxicology tests were now being carried out on samples taken from both bodies.

The results will not be known for several weeks.

The death of the two women, who had been on the island for over a week, appeared to be a mystery as they had not been physically attacked and prior to their deaths in good health.

Both women appeared healthy and happy as they posted photos of themselves at the luxury $1,800 a night Maia Resport and Spa.

Staff at beachfront resort told police the women had to be helped to their room overlooking the Indian Ocean after having too much to drink.

The women had been drinking alcohol throughout the day on Wednesday and were helped to their room by resort staff around 8.15pm that night, authorities said.

In this September 17 photo from their vacation showing Annie, she commented on the photo, calling the trip 'indescribable'

Annie is pictured jumping on the beach during their holiday in this September 19 photo

The sisters (pictured) were described as adventurous women who 'wanted to experience life to the fullest'

It was the last time they were seen before they were found dead on Thursday morning, according to police.

They were found unresponsive, lying on the bed fully clothed.

Police said various medications had been taken from the room for analysis but said there was no sign of forced entry or physical harm to the women.

The sisters' mother Sue and brother Mike are on the island and have been told the bodies can be flown back to the US from the tropical island 900 miles from the coast of Africa.

Seychelles Police spokesman Jean Toussaint told DailyMail.com toxicology tests would be carried out on the island of Mauritius at a forensic pathology lab.

He said the results are not likely to be known for several weeks.

'The autopsy has given the cause of death but toxicology tests have to be carried out,' said Toussaint.

'Robin Korkki died from acute pulmonary edema and her sister Anne died from acute pulmonary and cerebral edema.

'Further analysis is need and we can expect the results in a matter of weeks. The investigation is still on going.'

The sisters were staying at the at the Maia Luxury Resort in the Seychelles off the coast of Africa

Annie and Robin pictured left and center with Caitlin Korkki. Their brother said their mother Sue and brother Mike, are currently in Seychelles making arrangements to bring the women back to the US

According the Mayo Clinic website pulmonary edema is the build up of fluid on the lungs.

It is most commonly caused by the heart failure. The website says: 'Fluid collects in the numerous air sacs in the lungs, making it difficult to breathe.

'In most cases, heart problems cause pulmonary edema.

'But fluid can accumulate for other reasons, including pneumonia, exposure to certain toxins and medications, trauma to the chest wall, and exercising or living at high elevations.'

Locals on the island speculated that the women had taken cocaine.

'It is a big problem here and lots of tourists taken the drug. It is quite easy to get hold of,' said one local who would only give her name as Rose.

Police refused to say if any illegal drugs were found in the sister's bedroom.

An itinerary found at the sister's hotel room showed the pair were touring Africa and had already spent time in Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar.

The sisters often shared photos of themselves drinking and having fun on their social media pages

In one snap, Annie pretends to hold a sign that says 'We want beer' featured in a life-size photograph

In another, Annie shares a shopping list for Christmas Eve, which features Fireball and beer first, then later white wine

The sisters didn't shy away from sharing snaps of their beverages of choice, which was often bottles of beer

After receiving several glow sticks while at work, Annie asked her followers 'Who wants to go raving?!?!'

The women were due to leave on September 22 but extended their stay at the resort until the 24.

A hotel worker who was unable to gain entry to the room found the bodies on September 22.

The Korkki sisters were originally from Minnesota.

Ann Korkki worked as a senior administrative assistant for JPMorgan Chase in Denver, while Robin Korkki was based in Chicago where she worked as Head of FX and Metals at Allston Trading, according to their professional websites.

They had posted updates on their trip, with Annie calling it 'indescribable'.

The death of the two women stunned friends and family in Minnesota

'The family is in shock,' Chris told KMSP of his sisters' deaths.

'Everyone is trying to understand and come to terms with what happened.'

The women, who were found dead on September 22, were due to leave that day but extended their stay at the resort until the 24

Photos of Annie show her having fun on grocery store ride and celebrating a birthday with cake

The sisters appeared to travel quite often, as they are pictured above on a sailboat with two unidentified people

Along with their warm-weathered vacations, the sisters can be seen taking on the ski and snowboarding slopes on social media

A Giveforward page has been started to help the family with expenses of returning the sisters to the United States.

A note on the page written by Kim Haller, who organized the fundraising account, describes the women as 'loving sisters and best friends.'

Family members in the Seychelles were unavailable for comment.

The Seychelles is located more than 900 miles off Africa's east coast and is a tourist destination with its beaches, natural reserves, warm weather and coral reefs.

The Maia Luxury Resort and Spa is a twelve-acre property on the secluded Anse Louis located on the island of Mahe.

The five-star hotel's 30 suites, ten ocean-front villas and 20 panoramic villas, each offers guests private pools, a 24-hour personal butler and views of the Indian Ocean, according to its website.

Annie captioned a photo of a broken wine glass 'enthusiastic wine drinking' while another photo featuring glasses of champagne was captioned: 'fancy ladies!'

An itinerary found at the sister's hotel room showed the pair were touring Africa and had already spent time in Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar

Annie, seen wearing a shirt donning the phrase, 'F*** yeah!' and another advertising for an artisian village in Colorado, is the younger of the two sisters
A German woman has been arrested after police found a case in her apartment which had a living baby girl inside along with the skeleton of a second infant.

Hanover police said a 19-year-old man living with the woman, 22, in the northern city discovered the case on Thursday and reported it to police.

The living baby was reported to be in stable condition at a local hospital.

A newborn baby found inside a case along with a dead infant's skeleton is recovering in hospital (file photo)

The woman, whose name was not released in line with German privacy laws, was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter.

A post-mortem examination is being conducted on the remains of the second child to determine a cause of death.
A Lyft driver has been arrested and charged with raping a woman he picked up from a Florida bar.

Peter Solomon, 49, is accused of assaulting the woman in a derelict house after collecting her from Knight's Pub, close to the University of Central Florida in Orlando in July.

He has been charged with sexual battery, kidnapping and false imprisonment - but police fear he could have more victims.

The alleged victim used the Lyft app to call a cab at about 11pm on July 1. Solomon then turned up in a Dodge Grand Caravan, police said.

Lyft driver Peter Solomon, 49, (pictured) allegedly picked up a woman at a bar in Orlando, Florida, took her to an abandoned house, raped her and then dropped her off on a street a few blocks away

Instead of driving her home to nearby Winter Park, he allegedly pulled into the driveway of a derelict house and dragged her inside.

The woman has told police there were two other men in the house, but it is not clear if they played part they played in the incident.

She told police she tried to escape but Solomon caught her, forced her into a bedroom, threatened her if she resisted and then raped her.

Orange County sheriff's deputies were alerted when the woman covertly rang 911 but they were unable to trace her.

The woman told police Solomon then made her get back into his car and drove her around for about five minutes.

Police say she was then able to make another discreet 911 call.

Lyft (pictured) takes precautions to screen their drivers and promote safety. But the company says they have 'no responsibility' for the actions or conduct of the drivers

Sergeant Tammi Edwards, of Orlando Police Department, told WFTV: 'She was talking out loud like she was having a normal conversation with the driver, and she was able to give landmarks.'

The woman told police Solomon forced her to get out of the car in the Azalea Park suburb of Orlando.

She then called her mother, who rushed out to pick her up.

Sgt Edwards said: 'She has been a very strong victim from the beginning, up until now.

'She knew where she started. She knew where she wanted to go, and he took a different path.'

Orlando Police said there could be more victims and they urged any women who recognized Solomon to get in touch.

Lyft, and its rival Uber, both take precautions to screen their drivers and promote safety but their drivers are not vetted in the same way as licensed cab drivers.

In an article on Cnet it was pointed out that Lyft's terms and conditions say: 'Lyft has no responsibility whatsoever for the actions or conduct of drivers or riders.
An unsuspecting Virginia bartender was sitting at home Monday night watching American Horror Story on FX when she began receiving text messages and calls about the first presidential debate.

The trickle quickly turned into a flood, and before all was said and done, 26-year-old Tripp Diaz was inundated with a whopping 13,000 texts and an additional 600 calls from strangers wishing to discuss Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Given that Diaz has no obvious connection to the realm of politics, she was initially mystified as to why people from all over the country wished to share their opinions about the outcome of the debate with her.

But Diaz eventually learned from an acquaintance that she had C-SPAN to thank for her sudden and unwelcome popularity: the channel accidentally plastered her phone number on TV during Monday's face-off between the candidate, which was the most watched debate in US history, with more than 84 million Americans tuning in.

Epic fail: C-SPAN accidentally flashed Trip Diaz's number on the screen (obscured above) asking viewers to comment on the first presidential debate Monday

Blowing up her phone: Diaz (left), a bartender from Virginia and a registered Democrat, received some 13,000 texts from strangers, including the one seen on the right

Ironically, Diaz herself decided to skip watching the debate, having made up her mind already about whom she's going to vote for in November, she told the site DCist.

At the conclusion of the prime-time broadcast at 11pm, C-SPAN flashed Diaz's phone number on the screen and invited viewers to call and text to comment on the candidates' performances.

On Monday night, a frustrated Ms Diaz took to Facebook, writing in an expletive-filled status updated aimed at C-SPAN: 'Dude....my number? People will not stop calling me and if another f***ing Trumphead hits my line, I'm going to lose my s***. 1500 texts\ hundreds of calls.......and counting.....Kill me'

By the time Diaz turned in for the night, she had close to 8,000 text messages on her phone. She woke up in the morning to an additional 4,500, as well as hundreds of missed phone calls.

Must-see TV: Monday's face-off between the candidate, which was the most watched debate in US history, with more than 84 million Americans tuning in

Facebook venting: At the height of the text and call avalanche, Diaz took to social media to express her frustration at C-SPAN

She was forced to put her device in airplane mode overnight just so she could sleep, she told the station WJLA.

C-SPAN spokesman Howard Mortman later admitted that the channel made a mistake and they have apologized to Diaz for the mix-up that has rendered her phone unusable for a while.

Unswayed: Diaz says she is voting for Clinton in November and the comments she has received have done nothing to change her mind

Diaz, who is a registered Democrat and is backing Clinton, says the barrage of comments she got aren't influencing her decision  they're just driving her crazy.

She said most of the messages were from Trump supporters, which she said were more entertaining than the 'reasonable' and 'boring' missives from pro-Hillary voters.

Some of the messages were racist or sexist in tone, according to Diaz, and included unflattering Photoshopped images of the Democratic candidate.

Then there was one recent call from a man who dialed Diaz's number thinking it was C-SPAN and said he supports Trump because he does not 'give a f*** about [N-word].
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It once stood as a grand hotel and has a proud history, having housed injured soldiers during the First World War.

But these haunting photos show how the 56-bedroom building in Porthcawl, South Wales, is now abandoned.

The Rest, as it is known, had a price tag of 4million last year and had full planning consent for 68 apartments.

Now it is being developed by Acorn Property Group, and will accommodate 34 flats and 30 new-build apartments.

Abandoned: The Rest, a Grade II-listed building in Porthcawl, South Wales, was built as a convalescent hotel in the 1860s

Faded glory: A room sits abandoned inside the hotel, which once heaved with injured soldiers during the First World War

Dating back 150 years: A corridor inside The Rest in South Wales, which once stood as a grand hotel and has a proud history

Up close: An intricate railing (left) and an honour board (right) at the 56-bedroom building, which is now abandoned

Looking out to the water: The view from inside the building, which was used as an auxiliary military hospital from 1915

The building, which sits on a clifftop overlooking Rest Bay, was built as a convalescent hotel in the early 1860s.

And the Grade-II listed building was subsequently used as an auxiliary military hospital from 1915.

Between the wars it provided care for 2,500 wounded soldiers from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

The Rest returned to civilian use as a convalescent hotel in 1946, before it closed in 2013.

Photographer Shaun Ashford, 25, visited the historic site and captured the Victorian buildings empty interiors.

Still standing: The Grade-II listed building sits on a clifftop overlooking Rest Bay in the Welsh coastal town of Porthcawl

Corridor: Between the wars it provided care for 2,500 wounded soldiers from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada

Sponsor: A plaque inside the hotel, which returned to civilian use as a convalescent hotel in 1946, before it closed in 2013

Eerie: A radiator collects dust (left) while a fireplace sits empty (right) at the hotel, which had a price tag of 4million last year

Left behind: Plastic flowers found inside the empty hotel, which has full planning consent for 68 apartments

Plaque: The first patients admitted to The Rest included survivors of the Tynewydd Colliery disaster in 1877

Victorian: Photographer Shaun Ashford, 25, visited the historic site and captured the Victorian buildings empty interiors

Mr Ashford from Cardiff said: These photographs show what happens once the doors are closed and the building has been forgotten about. I always feel very privileged to be able to photograph derelict buildings.

I love the fact that I am able to walk around a place that was once busy and noisy when its now empty, silent and very deserted.

Since closing three years ago, the only occupants left inside The Rest are dusty documents, such as booking forms, medical notes and staff time sheets.

Opening the door to the past: Mr Ashford said he 'always feels very privileged to be able to photograph derelict buildings'

In a bundle: Medical documents dating back 23 years were among the items found by Mr Ashford inside the empty hotel

Site plan: Since closing three years ago, the only occupants left inside The Rest are dusty documents, including photographs

Construction work: This was another of the dusty photographs found inside the building by photographer Mr Ashford

Old papers: Among the dusty documents found inside the hotel were booking forms, medical notes and staff time sheets

Designs: Floor plans found inside the empty hotel, which was built with the backing of Florence Nightingale

The first patients admitted to The Rest, which was built with the backing of Florence Nightingale, included survivors of the Tynewydd Colliery disaster in 1877, after the miners had spent ten days trapped underground.

Mr Ashford spent three hours exploring the three-storey building and photographed a number of its now worn features, including intricate railings on staircases and inscriptions found throughout the property.
However, the report says that as recent as April 2016, they have found continued problems at the center

, the director of the center resigned and eight staff members were fired

Staff at a Colorado home for disabled people claimed the center was haunted by ghosts after government inspectors found evidence the residents were being physically and sexually abused.

A recently published report from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services reveals that residents at the Pueblo Regional Center were physically assaulted by their carers, and even forced to perform sexual favors.

In one incident, investigators found that some of the residents had words like 'die' and 'kill' scratched into their skin.

When confronted with the evidence, the staff members blamed the scars on 'paranormal activity'.

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Staff at the Pueblo Regional Center (pictured) blamed abuses on residents on 'paranormal activity'

Perhaps the most disturbing of all was a case involving a resident who performed a sex act on a staff member in exchange for a soda. Another resident was burned with a hairdryer to raise her body temperature.

All of these abuses happened before November 2015, but the agency says that they still found serious problems at the center as recently as this past April.

In the wake of the allegations, the director of the center resigned and at least eight staff members were fired.

The Colorado Department of Health Services (CDHS) oversees the center.

The report recommends that the center not accept any new residents until the facility is up to par, and it also wants the state to pay back the federal government millions in Medicaid funding that went towards the home during the period of abuse.

The state plans to appeal both recommendations.

'We are confident that all of the changes that PRC has made since the uncovering of abuse and neglect will result in a better environment for both our staff and our regional center residents. We have made a lot of progress in regional center operations and we look forward to working with our state and federal partners to continue our improvement efforts,' a statement from the CDHS reads.
She burned for three days but police found a bone in her charred remains

Tied her to tree trunk, dowsed her with flammable liquid and set her alight

Wrote sentence on paper, saying 'the majority' decided to '

An elderly woman has been burned alive for 'being a witch' in the Amazonian rainforest because villagers thought she was giving people cramp.

Rosa Villar Jarionca, 73, was judged by 40 people who sentenced her to death then but her on a pile of wood and set her alight in the Shiringamazu Alto area of Peru.

The villagers continued to burn her remains for three days to try and dispose of them, but 20 armed police arrived to investigate and found her bones.

An elderly woman was tied to a tree trunk (pictured), dowsed in flammable liquid and burned alive for being a witch in remote community in the Peruvian Amazon

A video purporting to be of the killing shows someone throwing a match on the woman and her going up in flames

Hugo Mauricio, prosecutor of the district Puerto Bermudez, said they identified her using one bone, which they found almost totally intact on September 20.

He added: He said: 'We found what appear to be totally burned human remains. She is believed to have been burning for three days in order not to have remains.'

The killing took place in a remote area where there is no mobile phone signal near the city of Oxapampa, in the central Peruvian department of Pasco.

Mr Mauticio said the 40 judges convened in the village ruled that she was using magic to cause permanent cramping in several villagers.

Victim, Rosa Villar Jarionca, 73

A sentence written in Spanish was found in the area, which read 'by agreement of the majority we have decided to eliminate this lady'.

The act, drafted and signed by municipal authorities, indicates that the punishment was to serve as an example to the community and to other communities.

The woman was allegedly tied to a tree trunk, surrounded by branches and was sprayed with an flammable liquid before finally being burned alive.

A video has emerged that purports to show a young man throwing a match on the woman and her going up in flames.

The case is still being investigated by authorities who want to identify the aggressors.
A percussion instructor at a Texas high school has been fired after students got a hold of her cellphone and shared her nude photos.

Officials with the Katy Independent School District said the unnamed female teacher at Katy High School misplaced her phone just before the start of the current school year.

Students eventually found the device, and were able to access it because the phone was not protected by a security code.

Ousted: A female percussion instructor at Katy High School in Texas was let go after students found her phone containing lewd photos of herself

According to the school district, the students came upon some nude images of the instructor while perusing through her photo gallery.

They then shared the X-rated pictures with others, KTRK reported.

The private photos, which school officials described as 'inappropriate' in nature, then reportedly went viral in the Katy High School community.

The administration learned of the incident on September 15 from a parent whose child had reportedly seen the saucy snapshots.

That same day, the percussion instructor was called in and told that she could no longer teach in Katy.

Four students at Katy High are facing punishment for allegedly disseminating the teacher's private images

The woman, who was being paid by the Katy Booster Club, has also been struck from the district's list of approved contractor vendors.

So far, four students have been identified by the Katy ISDs police department in connection to the dissemination of the lewd photos.
Denzel Washington usually plays good guys in the movies but his namesake has been in trouble with the police for trying to strangle Aretha Franklin.

The victim was not the 74-year-old soul legend but the assailant's mom, who is 52.

The American Gangster star's namesake took a plea deal in New York this week and walked away without any jail time.

Celebrity: Oscar winner Denzel Washington and Aretha Franklin attend the singer's 72nd birthday celebrations in March of 2014. The American Gangster actor shares the same name as a man who was arrested for strangling his mother, who shares the same name as the Grammy winner

The Manhattan resident was also sent on an anger management program.

The altercation happened inside the mom's apartment in a building on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

The New York Post reported the complainant's attorney saying: 'I am informed by Aretha Franklin that she observed the defendant place his hands around her neck and apply pressure, thereby causing redness, bruising and substantial pain to her neck.'

Washington, whose namesake is currently starring in a remake of The Magnificent Seven, copped a plea to harassment and was sentenced to a conditional discharge.

The 61-year-old actor is a good friend of the 'Queen of Soul' and attended her 72nd birthday at New York's Ritz-Carlton Hotel in 2014.

Franklin has won more than a dozen Grammy Awards while Washington won the Best Actor Oscar for Training Day in 2002 - in which he played a murderous and corrupt cop.

He has also been nominated for The Hurricane, in which he played boxer Rubin Carter, who was wrongly convicted of murder.
The UN has warned of a 'humanitarian catastrophe' in the war-ravaged city

The World Health Organisation believes 338 people have been killed in the last seven days in the bombing campaign

The heartbreaking reality facing children in the war-ravaged Syrian city of Aleppo is laid bare in a video showing children swimming in a crater caused by bombing.

In a city which has been bombed heavily by forces loyal to Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad and his Russian allies, young children are filmed getting some respite.

The water-filled hole is the result of a bomb falling on the rebel-held neighbourhood in the east of the city.

Drinking water pipelines fill the hole, allowing the group of young boys to enjoy a rare moment of happiness amid the tragedy that surrounds them.

It is thought that a family died in the bombing that created the crater in eastern Aleppo

It is thought that a family died in the bombing that created the crater, which was filmed by Orient News.

In the past week 338 people, including 106 children, have been killed by fighting in the city, which Syrian and Russian forces have pledged to reclaim from rebels.

The figures were released today by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which said 846 people are known to have been injured, including 261 children.

Brennan said WHO has had supplies for 140,000 people ready for weeks, but the security situation prevented it from taking essential medical equipment into the city.

Children were filmed enjoying a rare moment of respite amid all the tragedy in Aleppo following a huge bombing campaign

An estimated 338 people have died in bombing in Aleppo over the past week, according to the World Health Organisation

Asked if WHO had permission from Damascus to send in medical supplies if the security situation allowed, he said negotiations to get access were continuing and he met Syria's deputy minister of health last week.

'They are aware of the urgency of the situation,' he said.

Syrian regime forces advanced in the city today, backed by a Russian air campaign that a monitor said has killed more than 3,800 civilians in the past year.

The crater was caused by a bomb falling on the neighborhood in rebel-held east Aleppo

The Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity accused Syria's government and its ally Moscow of provoking a 'bloodbath' in the city, saying the eastern rebel-held portion had become 'a giant kill box'.

Damascus's bid to recapture all of the divided northern city has prompted the UN to warn of 'a humanitarian catastrophe'.

Just over a week after it announced an operation to recapture all of Aleppo, the army was advancing both in northern and central Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor and state media.
A GoFundMe page raising money to help a mother pay for her baby's funeral has been shut down after the woman was charged over her death.

Alexa Coria's daughter RaeLynn Martinez died on September 8 in Fort Collins, Colorado, after being struck with a chair by her mother's boyfriend.

A friend of Coria's set up an online donations page on her behalf to help pay for the 11-month-old's funeral but it was shut down on Thursday when the 24-year-old was arrested.

Coria, who has two other children, is accused of lying to police by telling them her daughter's death was an accident, and child abuse resulting in death.

A GoFundMe page (above) raising money to pay for the funeral of RaeLynn Martinez was shut down after her mother, Alexa Coria, was arrested over her death

Her boyfriend Juan Canales-Hernandez, 24, confessed to hitting RaeLynn with a chair while he was looking after her last week.

He initially told officers and staff at Poudre Valley Hospital, where the baby died, she had hurt herself trying to pull herself up, The Coloradoan reports.

The GoFundMe page had raised $1,500 by the time Coria was arrested. All of the money has been returned to donors.

In a description for its purpose, Coria's friend Olivia Ayotte pleaded: ' We are asking for funds to help out Alexa and her family in their time of need.

'As a close friend and neighbour of Alexa and her family we are asking for help with funeral costs.

'All donations will go directly to Alexa Coria herself and is aware this campaign is set up' (sic).

Coria was arrested on Thursday, with police alleging she lied to staff at the hospital where her daughter died about how she was injured.

'They told doctors, and later police, that the 11-month-old had accidentally fallen while trying to pull herself up.

Coria, 24, is accused of lying to police by telling them her daughter's death was an accident. Juan Canales-Hernandez, the woman's boyfriend, (right) confessed to killing the 11-month-old earlier this month by hitting her with a chair

RaeLynn was at home with her mother's boyfriend in Fort Collins, Colorado, when the attack took place on September 8. She has two older siblings

'However, doctors determined that the life-threatening injuries were the result of non-accidental trauma,' a Fort Collins Police Services statement said.

The woman who set up the GoFundMe page maintains that her friend did no wrong.

'Alexa is a damn good mom and any friends would know that,' she said, adding that the mother-of-three hadn't been given he chance to give 'her side'.

Coria was booked into Larimer County Jail on Thursday where she awaits a court date.

He admitted to hitting her with the chair after a post-mortem examination revealed she had died as the result of deliberate trauma to the head.
They covered up the crash by claiming it was caused by engine failure

Cocky pilot wanted to force the mechanics on the ground to have to duck

A former RAF mechanic has spilled the beans on how a cocky Spitfire pilot's prank ended in a runway crash - and how fellow servicemen helped cover it up.

Corporal Dick Finch has finally revealed the truth about the incident at a Malaysia air base after 70 years.

The 95-year-old regaled how the pilot, who was a week away from being sent home, plucked up the courage to fly a Spitfire low across the airfield, forcing the others who had gathered to duck.

Dick Finch (pictured left today, aged 95) has finally revealed the truth about the incident at a Malaysia air base after 70 years (on the right, he is shown during his time in the RAF)

But the stunt backfired spectacularly for Flight Lieutenant Brooks, who careered into the concrete and badly damaging the plane, Spitfire NM823.

Mr Finch, from Stock, Essex, revealed how the cocky pilot would have faced severe disciplinary action should the incident been reported to officers.

But instead, mechanics at the air base concocted a story where by the plane crash had been caused by 'catastrophic engine failure'.

Mr Finch, who witnessed the crash, told The Mirror: 'He survived uninjured but he was jolly lucky nobody found out or he'd have been in serious trouble.

Mr Finch, who served in the Second World War as a mechanic before leading a repair team at Penang Airport in Malaysia, is pictured in the grounded Spitfire

'He would certainly have been punished and wouldn't have been allowed to go home.

'It didn't seem fair, so I told a few lies and the rest is history  the pilot was very thankful.'

Mr Finch, who served in the Second World War as a mechanic before leading a repair team at Penang Airport in Malaysia, wrote about the incident in his diary.

In the entry for June 29, 1946, he writes how Flight Lieutenant Brooks 'swooped down too low and 'pranged' the aircraft.
This embarrassing video shows a teenager escape the clutches of two police officers - one of whom responds by walking after the fleeing suspect.

To make matters even worse, the youth has now gone on social media to taunt police about their failure to arrest him.

And after checking their records for two days, British Transport Police finally admitted they don't know from their incident log whether their officers ever 'caught up with him'.

This embarrassing video shows a teenager escape the clutches of two police officers

The fiasco is believed to have been filmed outside a railway station in Clyebank, West Dunbartonshire, last Saturday.

The 90-second untitled clip has been viewed 100,000 times.

The video starts as the hooded male tries to wrestle free from the two officers and asks: 'Right, what have I done?'

An unknown voice from behind the camera repeatedly asks: 'What's he done?'

The apprehended male continues to move around in the road, dragging the two officers with him.

The voice behind the camera says: 'We've done nothing.

'You can arrest us all you want, we were sitting here waiting on someone and you've started pulling him about. Look at the way you're treating him.'

The fiasco is believed to have been filmed outside a railway station in Clyebank, West Dunbartonshire, last Saturday

As he is being held by the police, he tells a girl to 'get this number in your phone rapid', before reading out his mother's number and explaining that he wants her to tell his mum that the 'police are taking me for f*** all.'

One officer then tells the other lad to 'go away with that phone' as he tries to handcuff the boy he's holding.

However, the boy manages to wriggle free of both officers and runs off up the road whilst the person behind the screen laughs and shouts 'some boy'.

Only one of the officers is clearly seen to be running after the man. The other appears to be walking.

The teenager in the footage has a public Facebook page which reveals he has left school and is working at a college in the Glasgow area.

Viral footage: The 90-second untitled clip has been viewed 100,000 times

He wrote: 'They didn't catch me. They ended up bouncing in the van to find me but they couldn't.'

Asked if police turned up at his door, he continued: 'No mate. I did f*** all. They told us to move away from the station I said f*** it, i'm off, then that happened.'

Facebook users slammed the actions of the two officers.

Paul Anthony wrote: 'They should have taken him to the ground hard then cuffed him instead of doing the St Bernard's waltz.'

Liam Pemberton asked: 'Were those coppers for real or what?'

Rhianne Pope, National Media Relations Manager for the British Transport Police said: 'I've found the incident and can see that our officers spoke with a group of young people in relation to public order offences.
Waleed Aly has blasted former Liberal politician Wyatt Roy for travelling to Iraq's volatile war zones against the advice of the Australian government.

The 26-year-old was caught in crossfire between Islamic State and Kurdish Peshmerga forces on Thursday in Iraq near an area Australians are legally banned from visiting.

The Project host took the 26-year-old to task on Friday's edition of the program, accusing him of jeopardising the operations of Australian armed forces who could have been called upon to rescue him.

Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull has weighed in on the scandal with a warning he would issue Mr Roy some 'very sage and stern advice' on his return to the country.

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Waleed Aly (left) has blasted former Liberal politician Wyatt Roy (right) for defying the advice of theAustralian government to travel to Iraq

'You defied the advice of a government that until very recently was your own,' Aly said on the program.

'Australian resources might have been deployed which is a total distraction. You're a former minister of a government. This is just stupid isn't it?'

Mr Roy said the topic needed context, arguing he had a longstanding interest in the Middle East and was following the directions of the Peshmurga forces.

'The reality is I was there with the Kurdish regional government, and with the Peshmurga forces, and that that was a decision they made.

'They were comfortable and supportive of where I was and what I was doing with them,' he said.

Mr Turnbull was less understanding, claiming 'Australians should not go to those parts of the world,' on 3AW radio.

Mr Roy, who lost his Queensland seat in July's election, says he travelled to Iraq because he wanted to see the conflict for himself

Julie Bishop was scathing in her criticism of Mr Roy, saying he acted in defiance of government advice in travelling to a war zone.

In footage supplied to SBS, Mr Roy appears to be caught up in gunfire, telling the broadcaster the danger of being hit was too serious to flee initially

In addition to the Prime Minister's pledge, Mr Roy will face questions from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

'He has placed himself at risk of physical harm and capture, and acted in defiance of government advice,' she said.

Ms Bishop urged other Australians not to follow Mr Roy's example.

Labor's foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong said Ms Bishop should come clean about whether she had prior knowledge of Mr Roy's trip.

She pointed to Australia's ambassador in Israel tweeting pictures of himself with Mr Roy before the former MP travelled to Iraq.

The American University of Iraq posted a photo of Mr Roy (far left) attending a question and answer forum with some students on Wednesday

Ms Bishop urged other Australians not to follow Mr Roy's example.

Australians are banned from visiting the Mosul region, which is about 125km east of where Mr Roy was on the front line.

Federal politicians have lined up to admonish him for treating his trip to Iraq like a 'Contiki tour'.

Labor defence spokesman Richard Marles said it was a 'massive lapse of judgement'.

'We are talking about a war zone. This is not a Contiki tour,' he told the Nine Network.

'This is profoundly stupid, profoundly selfish.'

Mr Roy has been slammed by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop who said he acted in defiance of government advice in travelling to a war zone
Sunday morning will see most Australians lose an hour's sleep as their clocks jump forward in line with daylight savings.

At 2am everybody in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, NSW and the ACT will have to wind their clocks forward one hour.

For most mobile phones this will happen automatically but other clocks will have to be changed manually.

Many Australians will lose an hour sleep on Sunday night as NSW. Victoria, the ACT, South Australia and Tasmania move into daylight savings time (file image)

Clocks will go forward one hour at 2am - giving people more daylight hours in the evening (file image)

Daylight savings will give people in these states an 'extra hour' of sunshine at night during the summer months.

The clocks are turned back to regular time in April as the country prepares to transition into the winter months.

Daylight savings is not observed in Western Australia, Queensland or the Northern Territory.

Each year the clocks go forward on the first weekend in October.
President Obama is known for his calm and collected demeanor, but former President Bill Clinton tried his patience on Friday as he held up their departure from Israel.

The current and former American presidents flew into Tel Aviv early Friday morning to attend the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres.

After the funeral, the presidents were scheduled to get right back on Air Force One to jet back to Washington, DC, for a dinnertime arrival.

President Obama boarded the plane first and grew exasperated as expert schmoozer Clinton pushed back their take-off by dawdling on the tarmac.

Video shows an exasperated Obama, standing in the entryway of Air Force One, clapping Clinton on and motioning for him to come inside the plane.

'Bill! Let's go!' the president is heard yelling, before walking out of view.

President Obama and former President Bill Clinton flew to Israel early Friday morning to attend the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres. President Obama is pictured above boarding Air Force One after the funeral

After a few minutes on the plane, having taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, Obama grew impatient, reappeared and motioned for Clinton to stop dawdling and get on the plane

Obama looked put out when Clinton did not immediately heed his order to get on the plane

About a minute later, when Clinton still had not boarded, Obama walked back to the entryway and yelled 'Let's go' yet again, clapping and waving impatiently.

When Clinton ignored him a second time, Obama sighed in annoyance.

The president eventually grew so impatient that he walked out onto the stairs, motioned at Clinton to come in and yelled 'Bill! Let's go, I'll take you home'.

It was only then - after hollering at the former president for a third time - that Clinton walked up the stairs at last.

President Obama continued to motion for Clinton to join him on the plane, and even clapped him on

Eventually, an exasperated Obama walked out on the stairs of the plane and yelled 'Bill! Let's go, I'll take you home!'

Clinton finally made his way up the stairs after President Obama yelled at him for a third time

The two hugged as they boarded the plane together, en route back to the U.S. finally

As he walked up the stairs, Clinton raised up his arms as if to say 'Sorry, not sorry'.

The two then shook hands and boarded the plane together.

Since the beginning of his presidency, Obama has made it a point to eat dinner with his wife and daughters every night.

According to his official schedule, Obama is estimated to get back to Washington, DC around 7:30pm on Friday, after making a stopover in Bangor, Maine to refuel.
An off-duty policewoman who was caught on CCTV attacking two customers in a late night row at McDonalds has been thrown out of the profession.

PC Karen Fraser identified herself to colleagues after police were called to a fight at the fast food joint in Empire Way, close to Wembley Stadium, in London at 2am on December 6, 2015.

Fraser claimed her memory of the incident was clouded by drink. But an examination of the CCTV actually showed her as the aggressor in the brawl.

She could be seen punching one man, swinging and slapping at another and scratching a third.

PC Karen Fraser was seen getting into a drunken fight whilst off duty in McDonald's, near Wembley Satadium, London, (pictured) and she identified herself to police colleagues when they arrived

The probationer, having acted as a constable since September of that year, initially provided no further assistance in an interview at Wembley Police Station on December 10. But in a second interview three months later she accepted her behaviour could have been seen as threatening and accepted a caution before apologising.

Fraser, attached to Barnet Borough, faced a Metropolitan Police Misconduct Hearing yesterday to answer charges that her actions had breached the standards of professional behaviour.

Assistant Commissioner Helen King said: Your conduct falls significantly below what is expected from police officers.

Speaking at Fraser's Metropolitan Police Misconduct Hearing yesterday, Assistant Commissioner Helen King (pictured) said her 'conduct falls significantly below what is expected from police officers'

This is a breach of the standards of professional behaviour relating to honesty and integrity and discreditable conduct.

Your conduct amounts to gross misconduct and the breaches are considered to be so serious as to justify your dismissal.

AC King duly found the allegations against Fraser proven.

PC Andy Wrigley, appearing of Frasers behalf, told the tribunal Fraser had offered to resign before the hearing took place.

PC Fraser would like to apologise for any embarrassment she has caused to the Metropolitan Police Service, he said.

AC King added that Fraser's behaviour was s exactly the type which drained police resources and the night-time economy

She understands the proceedings that we are going through today and she does apologise unreservedly.

The tribunal heard that Fraser had previously worked as a PCSO from 2008 through to September 2015.

But AC King said that her behaviour was exactly the type which drained police resources and the night-time economy.

Off-duty officers are expected not to contribute to the level of violence their on-duty colleagues are dealing with, she added.

She then continued her actions by volunteering herself as a witness by providing a statement that contained a number of omissions.

The Assistant Commissioner finished by ruling Frasers actions had undermined her ability to be put forward as a witness in criminal proceedings in the future.

PC Fraser, who was not present but represented at the hearing, accepted breaching the standards of professional behaviour in relation to honesty and integrity as well as discreditable conduct.
at New Broadcasting House couldn't believe the cheek

A BBC worker was ridiculed by colleagues after sticking a note on a water-cooler ordering co-workers to stop plugging it in because he likes his drinks at 'room temperature'.

The unnamed worker stuck the crumpled A4 printed note on the water cooler at New Broadcasting House in London this week demanding colleagues stop plugging it in.

The note reads: 'A polite request - Please DO NOT plug in the watercooler. I like my water at room temperature.

A note appeared on a BBC office water-cooler (pictured) asking people to stop plugging it in because the writer enjoyed their drink at 'room temperature'. A series of counter notes mocking the original then appeared on the cooler

'I am fed up with having to bend over to unplug the machine, so please DO NOT PLUG it back in.'

Other workers at New Broadcasting House could not believe the cheek and started to add their own posts to the original note in the basement changing rooms at the 1bn BBC HQ.

One colleague wrote: 'But 90 per cent of everyone else likes it CHILLED!!!'.

While another pointed out that there were 'two taps' on the water cooler - one which provided chilled water and the other with 'room temperature water'.

The disgruntled colleague added : 'With the machine plugged in and switched on the right tap is chilled water and the left is room temperature.

'This you'd realise if you spent a little less time trying to bend the entire world to your will.'

A note branding the demand a 'Middle class problem' was also attached to the original.

Another co-worker said 'Get over yourself' and 'Heath alert. SOS mayday'.

One comment in red pen read: 'If this cooler is switched on and off we need water purification tablets.'

BBC Broadcasting House (pictured) told the writer to 'get over yourself' and branded them a 'whinger'. Others pointed out there was actually a room temperature water tap next to the cold, adding they'd have realised if they 'spent a less time trying to bend the world to their will'

The photo of the water cooler note was shared among various BBC workers, but has now been leaked to the wider world.

Simon Spence wrote: 'Well, of all the problems in the world this must be top of the agenda for the BBC - temperate water.

'It's like an episode of W1A.'

Another commenter said it would be a good idea to 'gaffa tape' the plug into the wall to stop the 'whinger' from constantly removing it.

One BBC worker said: 'There is a black tap and a white tap - the black one for chilled water and the white one for ambient room temperature water - it's not that difficult to work out.
Tragic case: Bab Nolan, 21, has yet to learn of the fate of her husband, Paddy, in Kent

A mother sedated after a horror crash two weeks ago still does not known her husband has died and her two-year-old sons life hangs in the balance.

Bab Nolan, 21, has yet to learn of the fate of her husband, Paddy, or that doctors are battling to save her son David who is on life support in a critical condition.

Tragedy struck when the couples car and caravan overturned on the A2 dual carriageway in Kent as they headed to Dover for a trip to Germany.

Mr Nolan, a 29-year-old groundworker who lived near Faversham, Kent, was killed at the scene.

Both Mrs Nolan and David were airlifted to separate London hospitals to receive emergency care from specialist trauma medics.

Mr Nolans brother Felix spoke of the familys agonising wait for positive news but admitted that it doesnt look good for David, adding: Hes not made any meaningful improvement and its looking increasingly bad.

Felix Nolan said doctors wanted to speak to Mrs Nolan about her son and were waiting for her to recover sufficiently to give her the heartbreaking news.

Family: Tragedy struck when the couples car and caravan overturned on the A2 dual carriageway in Kent as they headed to Dover for a trip to Germany

He added: She came round a bit but was not aware of anything and they put her back to sleep while she continues to be treated.

But they want her to see her son and be there to make any decisions. Well know in the next few days.

We are all praying and theres still hope while theres breath in his body. The doctors are doing their utmost best. Its up to God now but anything can happen.

Felix Nolan said the family had been overwhelmed with messages of support and thanked everyone for their kindness.

Troubling time: Mr Nolan was killed at the scene. Both Mrs Nolan and David were airlifted to separate London hospitals to receive emergency care from specialist trauma medics

Police have appealed for witnesses to the crash involving Paddy Nolans black pick-up and caravan.

It happened on the coastbound carriageway of the A2 at Harbledown at around 2.30pm on September 15.

Two air ambulances, police, paramedics and fire crews were called to the scene.
A cleaner who was molested at a five-star Paris hotel by a member of a Qatari prince's entourage has been awarded 50,000 in compensation.

The Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome in the French capital was found by a tribunal to have failed to alert the police on the evening of the incident, allowing the culprit to flee.

The victim was awarded 57,000 after the Paris labour relations tribunal found that the luxury hotel and the company that provides its cleaning crew lacked sufficient safeguards against such incidents.

Staff at the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome in the French capital were found by a tribunal to have failed to alert the police on the evening of the incident, allowing the culprit to flee

The victim was awarded 57,000 after the Paris labour relations tribunal found that the luxury hotel and the company that provides its cleaning crew lacked sufficient safeguards against such incidents

It ordered the Park Hyatt to pay the cleaner 20,000, while the service provider must pay 27,000 over the incident involving a member of the entourage of a Qatari prince back in 2010.

The cleaner, a Ginean national who is now aged 33 and requested anonymity, was fired in January 2011 for refusing to transfer to another hotel after reportedly attempting suicide and taking sick leave on several occasions for 'post-traumatic stress'.

The tribunal ruled that her dismissal was 'tantamount to discrimination'.

The hotel was also faulted for failing to alert the police on the evening of the assault, 'which allowed the aggressor to flee' the following day.

'It's a first in the area of sexual harassment,' the cleaner's lawyer Maude Beckers said.

The Park Hyatt said it was in 'total disagreement' with the ruling and would appeal.
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They may have only spent a few hours in their 95 a night, three-star hotel in northernmost Canada this week.

But it seems as if the staff of the Coast High Country Inn, in the former goldrush town of Whitehorse in the Yukon, were leaving nothing to chance.

In anticipation of William and Kates short overnight stay on Tuesday, they ripped out the existing carpets and replaced them, put in new windows, redid the bathroom, installed new furniture, including a bed, and repainted the walls in a calming grey colour specifically to please the couple.

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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge spent a few hours in their 95 a night, three-star hotel in northernmost Canada this week

In anticipation of their Royal visit, staff of the Coast High Country Inn, in the former goldrush town of Whitehorse in the Yukon, were leaving nothing to chance - and carried out a complete revamp

A suite with Jacuzzi next door was also converted into a dressing room and down the hall, the owners turned a third room into a private dining room for the couple.

In a further effort to make their top suite, currently known as the Premium Jacuzzi King Room, more aesthetically pleasing for their visitors, they borrowed seven works of original First Nations art in the Yukon governments permanent collection to hang in the suite and other rooms occupied by senior members of their entourage.

It now boasts, the hotels management say, the worlds most famous three star hotel room.

Now the firm wants to recoup its investment by installing a photograph of the couple in the room, which boasts a fireplace, kitchenette and double Jacuzzi tub, and renaming it the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge Suite or, perhaps, the Royal Suite.

Weve been bandying around some possibilities. One we thought of was the Royal Suite, said Dylan Soo, the hotels general manager.

We would like to leverage it as a premium room, or a special or celebrity room at least.

That means a price hike from its current level of 200 Canadian dollars per night (around 153).

We are thinking of a putting a 20 to 30 dollars premium on it, he added.

A suite with Jacuzzi next door was also converted into a dressing room and down the hall, the owners turned a third room into a private dining room for the couple

The Duchess has looked suitably stylish and elegant throughout her tour of Canada, seen here in a pillarbox-red woollen coat

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge pictured during their visit to the MacBride Museum in Whitehorse, Canada, on Tuesday

Staff ripped out the existing carpets and replaced them, put in new windows, redid the bathroom, installed new furniture, including a bed, and repainted the walls in a calming grey colour specifically to please the couple

Mr Soo says he also needs to get a picture of the couple to go in the room, after they refused to pose for one with the hotel staff.

One of their stipulations was no pictures. We would have loved to have had a picture them in our guest room or with one of our staff. We did request it. They did deny that request. So we left it at that, he revealed.

Mr Soo, who learned in May that the couple would be staying at the hotel, declined to disclose the cost of the revamp for the royal visit and specifically for renovating their suite.

We had a budget but as the visit got closer the important thing was to get it done well, he said. The Cambridges and their staff hired out the whole of the top floor while Canadian officials involved in the visit took the rest of the rooms in the three-floor 82-room hotel.

As far as Mr Soo is aware, the couple enjoyed their stay but he and most of his staff had little direct contact with William and Kate.

Staff who took up food, including an evening platter and a light breakfast in the morning, handed it over to royal aides who took it into the couple. Few staff saw them.

There was a five-second walk through the lobby. They were talking to each other. There was no conversation with anyone who works at the hotel, Mr Soo said.

Dylan Soo, the hotels general manager, learned in May that the couple would be staying at the hotel (pictured), but declined to disclose the cost of the revamp for the royal visit

Northern Vision Development, which also owns two other hotels in Whitehorse  believes the royal visit has put the High Country Inn on the map

It is also not clear if they actually ate their evening meal in the hotel. One source claimed that although food was sent up them, William and Kate decided to order out for a pizza.

Northern Vision Development, which also owns two other hotels in Whitehorse - the Gold Rush Inn and the Edgewater Hotel  believes the royal visit has put the High Country Inn on the map.

Although it is one of the most expensive hotels in the area, not everyone has been so impressed, as the Mail revealed last week.

Guests have described rooms as being on the small side  one TripAdvisor review said it the smallest we've come across in all our travels around the world  and others complained about yellow water from the hot top or said the rooms were tired, dated and cramped.

Mr Soo insists that, in spite of a small number of unfavourable reviews, it has been unfairly portrayed.
Not announced if he was being charged as a juvenile or an adult and his attorney waived probable cause hearing

diminutive schoolboy who is charged with one murder and three attempted murders

No pictures were allowed of the

The boy accused of murdering his father and attempting to murder three others at an elementary school appeared before a court today as his mother sobbed throughout.

Jesse Osborne, who turned 14 three weeks ago, was brought before Anderson County Court to face charges of murder and three attempted murder counts.

He faced the Judge Edgar Long wearing a yellow uniform from the South Carolina Detention Center with the initials of the unit on his back with a large 'J' for Juvenile emblazoned on it.

He wore no socks and was given a pair of white prison issue slippers, also known as 'sliders'. He had a blue identity tag on his left wrist.

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In court: Jesse Osborne, 14, was not photographed as he appeared in the courtroom on Friday, dressed in a prison jumpsuit and handcuffed as he was led in by deputies. He was photographed with a toy gun when he was younger

Support: Tiffney Osborne broke down as she was helped into court by friends to watch her son appear in court charged with murder and attempted murder

Also affected: Patsy Osborne (right), the boy's grandmother was also in court. He phoned her to say he had shot his father

United front: The alleged murderer's mother (front) and grandmother (rear) - who lost their husband and son respectively - were in court to watch the 14-year-old appear

Hearing: Judge Edgar Long presiding over the hearing for Jesse Osborne, 14, at Anderson County Court, Anderson, South Carolina.

No plea: Frank Epps, the lawyer for Jesse Osborne, is waiving a probable cause hearing

The alleged shooter, who is known in his home town as 'Little Jesse' was flanked by his 6ft 10in attorney Frank Epps,who made no bail application.

Epps said he would waive a probable cause hearing. The teen will remain in custody for at least another 48 hours.

The defendant, with his blonde hair swept leftwards over his forehead, said nothing and was not handcuffed.

The charges were put without the names of the alleged victims being given to the court.

The prosecutor Stephanie Looper said a continued detention was sought because of 'the nature of the crimes with which he is charged.'

No details of the charges were put before the court, but the teen was arrested after his father Jeffrey was gunned down at home in Townville.

Two six-year-olds and a teacher were also shot at the nearby Townville Elementary School.

Osborne's widow Tiffney sat in the court weeping alongside her mother-in-law Patsy.

The teenager will next appear before the court in six weeks time after his defense waived the right to appear again in ten days time.

The judge banned the media from publishing pictures of the youth in the courtroom, but allowed the live streaming of the proceedings.

The hearing did not address whether the prosecution will move to try him as an adult.

The suspect's mother, Tiffney Osborne cried throughout the hearing.

She declined to speak to DailyMail.com after the hearing. Her son was transported back to the Greenville juvenile facility.

'Little': Jesse Osborne, seen with this mother Tiffney, is alleged to have shot his father Jeffrey to death then driven in a black pick-up to the local elementary school and opened fire

Victim and 'shooter': Jeffrey Osborne was allegedly gunned down by Jesse at the family home. The father, 47, had previous convictions for violence and marijuana posession

Jeffrey Osborne, 47, was allegedly shot dead by his 14-year-old son before the teen went on a shooting rampage at a nearby elementary school

Osborne was said to have opened fire at Townville Elementary School, in Townville, S.C., wounding three people, the youngest just six, shouting : 'I hate my lifeI hate my life.'

Police investigating the background to the shooting have been told the shooter had been thrown out of West Oak Middle School for having the weapons in the classroom.

The shooter had been home schooled by his parents since last year, but had protested that he had been 'hard done by' and had suffered bullying.

He was nicknamed 'Little Jesse' because of his stature, source said.

Hero: Jamie Brock was hailed by the people of Townville for disarming Jesse Osborne but modestly said he was not a hero

Osborne called his grandmother, who lives less than a minute from the murder scene and told her he had shot his father dead.

He was in tears when he made the call from his cellphone telling her he had killed her son.

Police are examining reports that the handgun may have jammed when he attempted to kill children at the school shortly after the murder of his father.

What happened at his middle school last year will now be at the center of the police probe.

The school district confirmed it was being asked about Jesse's history before he was expelled.

'Individuals have reported that the alleged shooter was a student in our district last school year,' the district said in a statement to DailyMail.com.

'While information is always provided to law enforcement as they investigate crimes, the district is unable to share confidential information about individual students with the general public or the media.'

His father was also disclosed to be a convicted criminal. In April 1991, Osborne snr was convicted of a marijuana offense after a court bench trial at South Carolina.

More than four years later, in December 1995, the murdered father was found guilty of 'criminal domestic violence'.

The following year in March, he was convicted of property damage.

He had also been declared bankrupt with three separate companies filing liens against him dating back to 2005, but he had been carrying on with a poultry farming business up to his death.

The shooter was apprehended by local firefighter Jamie Brock who managed to wrestle the shooter to the ground and pin him down until police arrived.

Brock said Thursday: 'The true heroesare the teachers that put their lives on the line to protect their students.'

He paid tribute to the school's principal and added: 'They deserve to be called heroes and to them I tip my hat.'

CLINGING TO LIFE: SIX-YEAR-OLD SHOOTING VICTIM JACOB Jacob Hall is on life support after being shot in the leg at his elementary school on Wednesday A sIx-year-old boy wounded in a school shooting in South Carolina is clinging to life. The family of Townville Elementary School student Jacob Hall released a statement to The Greenville News late Thursday, saying the boy is on life support at the hospital. The family says the child sustained a major brain injury due to losing about 75 per cent of his blood after being shot in the leg. Older brother Gerald Gambrell tells the paper the family is 'hoping for a miracle' and the family has asked for people to pray for Jacob. State Rep. Alan Clemmons, who is a friend of the family said: 'He died twice, and was revived, during medical transport and again during surgery. 'He's in ICU now where a team of doctors are working to stabilize him. Once stabilized, he will face yet another surgery. PLEASE join me in fervent prayer for little Jacob's recovery. Thank you!!!' The boy, another six-year-old and first-grade teacher Meghan Hollingsworth were wounded. They are both recovering. Praying for Jacob: The entire community of Townville is now united behind the six-year-old boy who suffered severe blood loss Advertisement
Police defended footage of the incident which was in September 2014

Smith, 32, is suing the department, claiming they applied excessive force

Slammed his upper half so hard on to the vehicle his head smashed glass

Lorain Police Narcotics Detectives marched him over to patrol car

Pele Smith was stopped in Lorain, Ohio, by police for jaywalking

Police dashcam footage shows officers slamming a black suspect onto the hood of their vehicle so firmly his head smashed the windshield glass.

Pele Smith is suing Lorain Police Department for damages over the violent incident on September 4, 2014.

The convicted heroin dealer was in the street when police were investigating complaints of drugs being sold near a school in Lorain, Ohio.

Officers encountered Smith, who was well-known to them, on their way and stopped him, calling him over to one of their undercover vehicles because they said he was jaywalking.

The footage was recently released by the police department through a public records request.

Dashcam footage taken from inside a police car shows a suspect being slammed on to the hood with such force the windshield glass breaks

When he raised his hands on approach, officers took him the ground. He had swallowed drugs he was carrying moments earlier.

The video, which was released after public record requests, then shows him being led towards the vehicle by two of the detectives while two followed.

He was pushed on to his front on the hood of the car, smashing the glass windshield on impact.

Smith later admitted tampering with evidence, obstructing official business and resisting arrest after being offered a plea deal which would keep him out of jail.

He is currently living in a halfway house in Ohio.

Speaking to DailyMail.com on Friday, his lawyer Mark Petroff described the footage as 'shocking and disturbing'.

Four Lorain Police Narcotics Detectives were responding to a separate call when they came across Smith in the street. They stopped him, claiming he was jaywalking

The video shows two officers behind the 32-year-old, who has previous drug convictions, before he was pushed onto the hood

Smith, is seen protesting after having his face smashed in to the glass by the detectives. Officers say they saw him swallowing drugs before they arrested him

The man bled from his head afterwards. He was later taken into custody charged with tampering with evidence, obstructing official business and resisting arrest

'I think that we believe the dashcam video supports most of the claims we've made.

'It speaks for itself. It's disturbing, it's shocking - you don't expect to see that.

'The police report itself says they stopped him because he was jaywalking. This isn't jaywalking in downtown Manhattan, it was on a residential street with minimum traffic and somehow escalated to his face being pushed in to the car windshield.

'It would require a lot of force to do that.'

Mr Petroff stopped short of suggesting the incident had been racially charged, but said: 'They are all white. He is black.'

Smith accepted a plea deal which kept him out of jail last year. He is currently living in a halfway house

Lorain Police Department released a statement on Friday to defend the detectives' actions, insisting that the video 'does not tell the complete story'.

'Normally the Lorain Police Department does not comment on pending litigation. However public record requests have been made regarding the dashcam video and, without clarification, the short video could be misunderstood.

'Although it is not easy to watch, police officers explain all of their actions in their police reports.

'The Lorain Police Department and City of Lorain deny all allegations as outlined in the lawsuit and the case is currently pending before the federal district court in Cleveland.

'The video does not tell the complete story,' said Chief of Police Cel Rivera.

The 32-year-old has previous drug convictions including one for dealing heroin
Krom, who was then 17, said her parents did not approve of premarital sex

Received an 18-year sentence after killing her newborn daughter in 2006

Panna Krom, now 26, came out of prison on Friday in Niantic, Connecticut

A Connecticut woman who drowned her newborn daughter in a toilet 10 years ago has been released from prison.

Panna Krom, now 26, walked free Friday in Niantic. The state pardons and parole board agreed to commute her 18-year sentence earlier this month.

Krom, who was 17 when she gave birth, said she killed her daughter because she feared the reaction of her parents, who did not approve of premarital sex.

Her parents came to see her take her first steps as a free woman Friday. Krom said she had missed her family and was 'grateful' for her release.

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Panna Krom, now 26, walked free Friday in Niantic, Connecticut (pictured). She drowned her newborn daughter in a toilet 10 years ago

Krom (pictured after her release Friday), who was 17 when she gave birth, said she killed her daughter because she feared the reaction of her parents (her mother is pictured left)

Krom shed happy tears after her release and hugged her family, who visited her weekly during her sentence.

'The moment I see her walk out, the tears just come out,' her mother Chan Krom told WFSB. 'But right now, it's the happy moment of my life. I have no words to describe.'

'I couldn't wait to pick her up. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't wait to come here [and] give her a good hug and tell her "sweetheart lets go home," ' her father Song Krom added.

Krom's lawyers had argued her sentence was harsher than those in similar cases and that she had been a model prisoner.

Video Courtesy WFSB

The state pardons and parole board agreed to commute her 18-year sentence earlier this month. She is pictured at the hearing during which the board agreed to release her

But Danbury State's Attorney Stephen J Sedensky III said that Krom had agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter in 2008 and wasn't eligible for parole until 2019.

Krom admitted she killed her baby because she had hidden her pregnancy from her family.

Krom (pictured bottom-center) now wants to work to help pregnant teenagers

'I missed my family the most,' she said Friday. 'I am just so grateful to be with everyone. I just can't believe this day is finally here.'

During her time behind bars, Krom earned a high school diploma and completed six semesters of college work with high grades.

'I now know how irresponsible actions can result in dire consequences, a notion that my 17-year-old mentality could not accept,' Krom previously told the board of pardons and parole.

Krom said that when she drowned her baby, she was not aware of Connecticut's Safe Haven law, which allows a mother to anonymously drop off a newborn at a hospital with no legal repercussions.

She said she plans to work to educate other young women about that law.
A former postal worker in Tennessee has reached a plea deal after she was accused of keeping nearly 2,700 pieces of undelivered mail inside her home.

Kathy Gross pleaded guilty to an obstruction charge in Greeneville federal court on Tuesday, the Kingport Times-News reported.

She faces up to six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.

A former postal worker in Tennessee has reached a plea deal after she was accused of keeping nearly 2,700 pieces of undelivered mail inside her home (file)

Postal officials first investigated Gross in November after they discovered she failed to complete deliveries on her route and missed multiple parcel scans.

Investigators said they found piles of undelivered mail throughout her home, some hidden under clothes and inside trash bags.

Gross said she panicked and had become depressed while going through a divorce.

She claimed 'the reason why she didn't deliver the mail was because she was going through a rough time in her life, suffering from a deep depression and anxiety because her husband was unfaithful,' the Kingport Times-News wrote.

Gross has since resigned from her job.

She says she neither threw away nor opened any of the mail.
A yearling deer stuck in a fence outside a Pennsylvania home was freed by after an animal control officer used a hacksaw to cut it loose.

Carrie Gross Pestronk said her son spotted the animal struggling between the bars outside their family's Gladwyne home while on the way to school on Friday morning.

She called authorities in Lower Merion who then contacted animal control to come and free the animal.

A yearling deer stuck in a fence outside a Pennsylvania home was freed after an officer used a hacksaw to cut it loose

Video recorded by Pestronk showed Lower Merion Animal Control Officer Ed Boegly sawing the the fence before kicking one bar down with his foot.

The deer then jumped through and then took off into the wooded area.

'I think [the deer] understood we were trying to help him,' Pestronk told Philly.com.

Pestronk had to use two blades in order to free the deer.

The ordeal unfolded at around 9am when the mother-of-two asked for help in a community network Facebook group for Lower Merion residents.

Video recorded by Carrie Gross Pestronk showed Lower Merion Animal Control Officer Ed Boegly sawing the vertical bars of the fence. He had to use to blades to free the animal

Boegly pictured moving one of the bars out of the way with his foot (left) before stepping back and watching the deer prepare to jump over the fence and scurry off (right)

She wrote that the deer was alive and that she had notified police and animal rescue, but that they had not arrived and did not know who else to call for help, according to Philly.com.

Pestronk wrote: 'I am standing outside with the animal. He is struggling. Is there anyone else I can call for help?'

Shortly after, she was flooded with advice and suggestions, with some saying she could use a crowbar to widen the gap so the deer could get through.

Another person told her to act with caution, fearing the deer might kick if she got too close.

After realizing it was no longer wedged in between the fence, the deer jumped through then fence and then took off into the wooded area

On the Lower Merion Police Department's Facebook page on Friday, oficeres wrote calling Boegly a hero

When Boegly arrived, he initially was unable to free the deer.

He left, but came back a short time later with tools to cut the fence.

Following the ordeal, Petronsk said she was happy the animal made it out safely.

On the Lower Merion Police Department's Facebook page, officers called Boegly a hero.
A Eurostar passenger has caused outrage after he demanded free food because of a delay caused by a death on the line.

Mathew Read, who describes himself as a bowling alley general manager, was called out by Twitter users for being insensitive, but he said: 'If I'm stuck here it's their duty to look after me. It's not like what I say can bring them back is it?'.

His comments sparked outrage on social media, for which he later apologised, with one user saying: 'Someone died and he's after free food - what a world we live in.'

Passengers were delayed after a person died on the line in France, causing a major re-routing operation for Eurostar.

While some accepted the wait, Mr Read was in less forgiving mood.

Addressing the outburst, Ian Seabrook said: 'Says a lot about modern society. Shameful.'

After a torrent of abuse, Mr Read later apologised on social media for any offence his tweets had caused.

He said: 'Just thought I would apologise again for my insensitive behaviour earlier.

'I behaved like an absolute entitled idiot and I deserve the grief I've been getting.

'I couldn't be more ashamed.

'I'm sorry.'

A Eurostar spokeswoman told MailOnline she was aware of the tweets and that they were being monitored.

She added: 'We are aware they have been received.

'When there are delays, passengers can go to our website to claim compensation and if the delays are particularly long, we always provide refreshments.'

The spokeswoman believed a person had been hit on the line near Hondeghem.

The incident involved the train that left London for Paris at 3.30pm.

An hour later, it hit the person in the town between Calais and Lille.

It caused thousands of passengers to be delayed when the issue was compounded by a power failure.

Eurostar staff advised people who could to leave the train and rebook travel for Saturday.

Eyewitnesses said hundreds of 'agitated' passengers got off the train to re-book and uniformed police officers were deployed to keep matters orderly.
Mitchell Butler-Eldridge (pictured), 28, from Kings Lynn, Norfolk, was jailed for five years at Cambridge Crown Court for causing death by dangerous driving

A driver who dangerously overtook a lorry then crashed head-on into a Mini, killing its two occupants, has been jailed.

Witnesses described Mitchell Butler-Eldridge dangerously overtaking a series of vehicles in his Volkswagen Passat on a five-mile stretch of the 60mph single-carriageway A10 near Littleport, Cambridgeshire.

He veered back into an oncoming carriageway, smashing head-on into a Mini driven by 24-year-old Tim Wildbore - who was on his way to work with colleague Andrew Thornewell, 28.

Prosecutor Sally Hobson told Cambridge Crown Court that one witness described Butler-Eldridge as being on a 'death wish', and another said the motorist was a 'bit of a lunatic'.

One driver said he and an oncoming motorist were forced to take avoiding action to prevent a crash with the overtaking vehicle in an earlier incident.

Ms Hobson said 28-year-old Butler-Eldridge lost control after steering sharply in front of a lorry he had overtaken near Brandon Creek in Norfolk, between Littleport and Downham Market before smashing head-on into Mr Wildbore's Mini.

Mr Wildbore, of Littleport, and Mr Thornewell, of Ely, both worked at RJ Herbert Engineering near Wisbech.

The Mini was being driven 'entirely safely' at around 40mph, with the Passat travelling at speeds of up to 80mph, Ms Hobson said.

Andrew Thornewell, 28, from Ely, (pictured left) and Timothy Wildbore, 24, from Littleport (pictured right) died in the car crash on the A10 near Littleport on February 18, 2015. Mr Thornewell was engaged to marry his fiancee Emma Shackleton in May that year

Both men died at the scene just before 7am on February 18, 2015.

Butler-Eldridge was taken to hospital after the crash, and one witness described himself as being 'too angry to go to the help the defendant' after the crash.

Ms Hobson said: 'The crown says this defendant was driving dangerously and doing so for a prolonged period of time and gave no or very little consideration to other road users.

'In doing so, he killed two blameless young men.'

Mr Thornewell was engaged to marry his fiancee Emma Shackleton in May 2015.

She told the court how two police officers knocked on her door to break the devastating news to her.

She said that day was a 'blur of tears' that she would never forget.

Most of the wedding plans were in place, including the stag and hen parties, and having to go to the bridal shop to see the wedding dress she would never get to wear was 'difficult to say the least'.

The primary school teacher, whose birthday was three days after the crash, said her 'life and world around [her] was destroyed'.

Mr Thornewell's father told the court he was 'consumed by anger' by the crash caused by Butler-Eldridge (pictured)

Mr Thornewell's father Paul read a statement written by his wife which said the family was 'paralysed with grief'.

He said they still have their wedding invitation pinned to the kitchen noticeboard to remind them of 'what should have been'.

He added they regarded Butler-Eldridge as a 'mindless idiot' and they had no forgiveness for him.

Mr Thornewell said: 'He was more intent on getting from A to B and was taking any risks. His poor decision has had a catastrophic effect on me.

'I'm still consumed by anger as the road traffic collision was totally avoidable.'

Butler-Eldridge, from King's Lynn, admitted two counts of causing death by dangerous driving at an earlier hearing.

When asked to give an account of what happened he said he drove round a corner and everything went black, the court heard.

Ian Bridge, mitigating, said Butler-Eldridge was normally a 'careful driver' who had never come to the attention of the police and, in a letter read in court said: 'From the deepest depths of my heart I'm truly sorry for being the cause of this accident.'

Judge Jonathan Haworth said there was no way any sentence could compensate for the loss of the families.

He said: 'I've no doubt this was a continuous course of overtaking at speed.'

He told Butler-Eldridge: 'You found yourself on the outside of an articulated lorry on a comparatively narrow road no doubt hard to the pedal trying to get past the lorry, and it's in those circumstance that when you pulled in you lost control.'
Campaigners calling for the history to become part of national

Tory grandees are campaigning for a 1million Spitfire monument to be built in Hyde Park, London to honour Polish pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain.

Former party chairman Lord Tebbit is backing the plan and ex-deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft has offered to help fund the memorial to the 145 airmen who played a vital role in defeating the Luftwaffe.

Campaigners also want the Polish contribution to the war effort to be included in the national curriculum to highlight the historical alliance between the countries following a spate of xenophobic attacks on Poles in Britain in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote.

A spitfire and a Hurricane over Beauty Head: Plan for Polish Spitfire aces who fought in the Battle of Britain to be remembered in 1million memorial in London

Designs for the memorial, which are also backed by a Polish government minister, are still being considered, but the initial proposal is for a structure representing a Spitfire, the iconic aircraft that played a vital role in thwarting the Nazi airforce between July and October 1940.

It is hoped it will be built in time for the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain in 2020.

Lord Ashcroft (left) and Lord Tebbit (right) are both campaigning for a memorial to the 145 Polish airmen who played a vital role in defeating the Luftwaffe and hope the history will become part of school curriculum

Polish pilots destroyed more than 200 Luftwaffe planes during the Battle of Britain and the Polish Squadron 303 became Fighter Commands most successful unit in the battle with 126 kills in 42 days.

Lord Tebbit, who was an RAF and airline pilot before entering parliament, said that without the support of the Poles the battle would have been lost, leaving the country exposed to a planned invasion by Hitler.

By sheer weight of numbers, the Luftwaffe were winning, he said. We had no shortage of aircraft, but we were running out of pilots Just in time, came the battle-hardened Poles, who had escaped the Germans and were here, eager, skilled, to fight for their country and ours.

They turned the battle. The Luftwaffe backed off. The invasion of Britain was cancelled.

A monument to the Polish airmen exists outside RAF Northolt beside the A40 in West London (pictured), but campaigners do not believe this is prominent enough

In total, 200,000 Polish servicemen fought in the Second World War under the British High Command, more than the total number currently in the British Armed Forces.

Despite their heroic contribution to the war effort, Polish servicemen were banned from taking part in the London Victory Celebration of 1946 for fear of offending Stalin, whose Soviet forces were occupying Poland.

BATTLE-HARDENED POLISH PILOTS WERE MOST EXPERIENCED IN RAF Following the German invasion of Poland, many Polish pilots - a great number of whom had fought the Luftwaffe - escaped and made their way to France and Britain. In June 1940 the Polish Government in Exile formed a Polish Air Force in the UK, with two fighter squadrons - 302 and 303 - composed of Polish pilots and ground crews, with British commanding officers. The two fighter squadrons went into action in August. Most of the Polish pilots had hundreds of hours of pre-war flying experience and were among the most experienced in the battle. They had learned from combat experience to fire from close range. Between them the Polish pilots claimed 201 aircraft shot down. 303 Squadron, in which Brigadier General Tadeusz Sawicz served, claimed the highest number of kills - 126 - of all Allied squadrons in the Battle of Britain. The Polish War Memorial on the outskirts of RAF Northolt was dedicated in 1948 as a commemoration of the Polish contribution to Allied arms. Advertisement

A monument to the Polish airmen exists outside RAF Northolt beside the A40 in West London, but campaigners do not believe this is prominent enough.

Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski, who was born in Warsaw, said: These truly were the Few that Winston Churchill referred to, and without these brave men the war would have been prolonged and many more men, women and children would have been killed. That is why I am calling on the British Government to make this symbolic gesture by erecting a monument in a central London location, such as in the vicinity of Buckingham Palace or the Parliament, which will commemorate the Polish pilots.

Ben Harris-Quinney, chairman of the Bow Group, the Tory think-tank, which is organising the campaign, said: We proudly campaigned for Brexit, but we didnt campaign to make Polish people feel unwelcome in Britain

No one can deny the significance of the Polish contribution to the Battle of Britain, and its a story everyone in Britain needs to hear.

Lord Ashcroft has said: I would gladly contribute to a memorial to the many Poles that fought with us in World War II.

Senator Anna Maria Anders, Polish minister for international dialogue, hailed it as a tremendous idea. She said: There is a lot of concern in Poland about what has been happening in the UK. A gesture like this would serve to calm everybody down. The UK still loves Poland and Poland still loves the UK.
Several students at a Florida high school have landed in hot water after dressing up as members of the Ku Klux Klan for Homecoming Week.

The incident took place Thursday at Wiregrass Ranch High School in Pasco County, where students were invited to dress up as different characters.

Photos and videos that were shared on the popular social media app Snapchat captured three students dressed up in white sheets and pointy hoods with holes cut out for their eyes, calling to mind the traditional garb of Clansmen.

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Pasco County school officials have not released the identities of the trio, only saying that they were upper classmen, and that two of them were Hispanic and one Middle Eastern.

A fourth student at the school was photographed with a Confederate flag draped over his shoulders like a cape, but he later put the flag away at the request of school staff.

That student is not expected to face any punishment, reported the station WFLA.

Parent Dee Green tells the station Fox 13 that her son, who is a 10th-grader at the school, texted her Thursday morning to tell her about the offensive outfits, and she brought it to the attention of administrators.

Photos of the three students in KKK-inspired outfits quickly went viral on social media.

The incident took place Thursday at Wiregrass Ranch High School in Pasco County during Homecoming Week

When asked about their Dress-up Day getups, the trio claimed they came as ghosts, but district officials rejected that explanation.

Usually ghosts don't have pointed hats, said Pasco County School Superintendent Kurt Browning. It was pretty clear, when I saw the video, what was being depicted in the video.

On its Facebook page, the Pasco County School District wrote that it will not tolerate such offensive harassment!

The three student who sparked the controversy will face disciplinary action, which could include a 10-day suspension.
Reform would make it easier to prosecute those behind

British victims of terrorism are today launching a campaign to make it easier to bring their attackers to justice.

Relatives and survivors are determined to change the law so there are fewer obstacles to hauling terrorists and their supporters before the courts.

An umbrella organisation representing more than 11,500 UK victims of terror is spearheading a fundraising drive to try to bring about a 'much-needed and long overdue' shake-up of legislation.

Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tackling Terrorism, said: This is a vital and important project that I believe will be the first step in changing the law to provide better protection and access to justice to our countrys victims of terrorism who, for too long and too often have been sidelined.

Reforms would make it easier for them to prosecute the terrorist organisations, foreign states and officials behind atrocities anywhere in the world in which Britons are murdered.

Currently, if the British government will not or cannot bring prosecutions, then the victims must do it themselves but face several barriers.

Innocent Victims United is launching a 25,000 crowd-funding initiative to pay for lawyers to carry out a legal review of how existing laws are failing and to produce a policy paper on how they could be changed.

Campaigners want to axe a three-year time limit on bringing cases, scrap immunity that shields states and officials from prosecution, and give UK courts jurisdiction over terror acts against British citizens.

And terrorist organisations should be directly liable for their acts and those of their members, rather than being protected because they are illegal entities.

Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tackling Terrorism, said: This is a vital and important project that I believe will be the first step in changing the law to provide better protection and access to justice to our countrys victims of terrorism who, for too long and too often have been sidelined.

Kenny Donaldson, spokesman for Innocent Victims United, an umbrellas organisation for terror victims, said: This initiative is an attempt to develop policy and amend legislation to move the Government to finally step up to the plate to support those who have borne such a heavy personal cost.

Reforms would make it easier for them to prosecute terrorists like Lee Rigby's killers Michael Adebolajo (left) and Michael Adebowale (right) when Britons are murdered

Matthew Jury, of McCue & Partners solicitors, which is carrying out the review, said: The UK should be supporting UK victims in pursuing justice, not making it more difficult.

'Our government can and must do better. If the law did not place so many barriers in their way, the Army Council of the Real IRA could have been brought to justice for Omagh and UK victims of Libyan terrorism might have received compensation, rather than being denied justice.
Williams was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia after his death

She revealed their final words to one another were: 'Goodnight, my love'

The night before he took his own life the pair enjoyed a final 'long date'

He could not sleep, forgot words in conversations and was often anxious

The actor was increasingly frustrated with his worsening brain function

Susan Schneider recalled the months before her husband's death in August 2014

Robin Williams' widow has revealed intimate moments of the actor's final months of life, recalling in heartbreaking detail how a rare brain disease robbed him of his sanity.

Susan Schneider, the star's third wife, told how he grew increasingly frustrated as the symptoms of Lewy Body Dementia set in, gradually taking hold of his body until his suicide in August 2014.

'It felt like he was drowning in his symptoms, and I was drowning along with him,' she said in a moving article published by the medical journal Neurology.

Characterizing her husband's illness as a 'terrorist', she revealed that he would become frustrated over forgetting words and was unable to sleep in the months before his death.

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Robin Williams' widow Susan (seen above together in 2013) has told in heartbreaking detail how the couple spent their final months together before his suicide in 2014

'He hated that he could not find the words he wanted in conversations. He would thrash at night and still had terrible insomnia.

'At times, he would find himself stuck in a frozen stance, unable to move, and frustrated when he came out of it,' she wrote.

Before his death, the pair enjoyed a romantic weekend together which his wife described as 'like one long date'.

With neither of the couple getting enough rest due to the actor's condition, doctors had told them to sleep in separate bedrooms.

Sharing their final words to each other, Schneider wrote on Friday: 'When we retired for sleep, in our customary way, my husband said to me, Goodnight, my love, and waited for my familiar reply: Goodnight, my love.

'His words still echo through my heart today.'

The 63-year-old was found dead the following morning.

Two months earlier, while filming Night At The Museum 3, he had trouble 'remembering just one line', Schneider continued.

'This loss of memory and inability to control his anxiety was devastating to him,' Schneider said.

He was also suffering digestive problems, poor sense of smell and had trouble going to the bathroom, she said.

Williams was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease on May 28, two months before he took his own life at the coupe's home in Tiburan, Northern California.

The actor had been suffering the symptoms of Lewy Body Dementia beforehand but it had gone undiagnosed.

The actor visited a rehabilitation center in Minnesota two months before his death, visiting a Dairy Queen while he was in the area (above). It was one of his final public appearances during which he displayed a frailer demeanor than had been seen before

The actor's wife (above during an emotional appearance on Good Morning America after his death) said he could no longer remember some words and was having trouble sleeping in the months before his death

The 63-year-old took his own life before being diagnosed with the rare condition. In one of the last photographs taken before his death, he appeared red-faced and tired

An autopsy revealed after his death that it had been plaguing his brain function for months.

LEWY BODY DEMENTIA The form of dementia affects 1.4 million Americans every year. The term refers to any form of dementia in which there are lewy bodies (abnormal build-ups of protein in cells) present. It is commonly misdiagnosed or mistaken for Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease. Symptoms include: Impaired thinking

Fluctuations in cognition, attention or alertness

Problems with movement including tremors, stiffness, slowness and difficulty walking

Visual hallucinations (seeing things that are not present)

Sleep disorders, such as acting out ones dreams while asleep

Behavioral and mood symptoms, including depression, apathy, anxiety, agitation, delusions or paranoia

Changes in autonomic body functions, such as blood pressure control, temperature regulation, and bladder and bowel function Advertisement

Despite the misdiagnosis, the comedian was aware he was losing his mind and was dissatisfied when he was told he had Parkinson's Disease, said his widow.

'We had an answer. My heart swelled with hope. But somehow I knew Robin was not buying it.

'Robin was losing his mind and he was aware of it.

'Can you imagine the pain he felt as he experienced himself disintegrating?'

Tests carried out after his death revealed he had likely suffered hallucinations, a common symptom of Lewy Body Dementia, but had not revealed them to his doctors or relatives.

The star had overcome battles with depression and alcohol years earlier.

In the months before his death, he visited a rehabilitation facility in Minnesota.

At the time a representative said the trip was to 'focus on his continued commitment to sobriety'.

Schneider said this week that her husband's death brought not only the loss of her husband but that of her 'best friend'.

'Not only did I lose my husband to LBD, I lost my best friend.

'Robin and I had in each other a safe harbor of unconditional love that we had both always longed for.

Schneider and Williams married in 2011. It was the actor's third marriage

Schneider said her husband (above together in 2011) had grown increasingly frustrated with his worsening brain function. The actor was diagnosed with Lewy Body Disease posthumously

'When LBD began sending a firestorm of symptoms our way, this foundation of friendship and love was our armor,' she wrote.

The pair were married for three years before the actor's death on August 11, 2014.

Susan has since campaigned to raise awareness of brain diseases, specifically Lewy Body Disease which affects roughly 1.4million people across the country every year.

After his death, she claims lawyers acting on behalf of his three children from previous marriages took their wedding gifts from her home when divvying up his estate.
Steven Williams sat stone-faced in a central Florida courtroom Friday as he was sentenced to 35 years in prison for murdering his ex-wife, cutting up her body with a chainsaw and then dissolving the remains in acid.

Williams, a former Air Force sergeant, learned his fate after pleading no contest in May to second-degree murder in the grisly killing of Tricia Todd.

He received an additional five years, to be served concurrently, for child neglect, because he left the couple's two-year-old daughter alone to dump his ex-wife's dismembered body in a park.

Killer's smirk: Steven William (left) is seen smirking before a court hearing Friday during which he was sentenced to 35 years for murdering his ex-wife, Tricia Todd (right)

Todd's remains were found in a container full of acid in the Hungryland State Preserve

The sheriff's office reported that 30-year-old Tricia Todd, an Air Force veteran and mother-of-one, went missing in April, and Williams, himself an Air Force sergeant, was arrested a short time later in North Carolina.

He eventually confessed and led authorities to her remains in Hungryland Wildlife and Environmental Area.

Authorities say Williams had put Todd's body parts in a tub of acid.

Todd, who worked as a hospice nurse, was last seen 'smiling and in good spirits' as she picked up groceries from a Publix supermarket in Hobe Sound on April 26, just a few hours before she vanished.

After leaving the store, the mother was told by her ex-husband that their two-year-old daughter was not feeling well.

Williams - who had traveled from North Carolina to visit the toddler - went with Todd to Martin Memorial South Hospital that night.

Haunting image: Todd was last seen alive smiling inside a Florida grocery store on April 26, just a few hours before she vanished

Williams, an Air Force airman (left), eventually confessed to killing Todd (right), cutting up her body and disposing of the remains with the help of acid

Do-gooder: Todd, a veteran of the US Air Force, worked as a hospice nurse and Florida

She went to the bed and breakfast where her ex-husband was staying and was said to have left at around 2am the next day.

Todd was reported missing later that morning when she failed to pick her daughter up from the hospital.

Her car was later found near her home with the keys still in the ignition. Her credit cards and phone - which was missing - had not been used.

Police and volunteers spent weeks searching for Todd until in late May Steven Williams finally confessed as part of a plea deal to killing and dismembering the woman.

During a brief sentencing hearing Friday, Williams showed little emotion, but right before he was led into the courtroom he was seen with a smirk on his face.

Stone-faced: Williams showed no emotion during his sentecing Friday, even when the victim's relatives addressed him directly

The station WPBF reported that Judge Lawrence Mirman called his crime horrific and said that the sentence was 'clearly less than full justice' for the victims family, but noted that without the plea deal they would never know what happened to her.

When Tricias father, David Todd, got up to deliver his victim impact statement, he addressed Williams directly and told him that he has forgiven him and that he prays for him.
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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge took to a 25ft Haida war canoe to announce their arrival in a remote archipelago off the west coast of Canada today.

This was no raiding party though.

Paddling along with 10 rowers to the beat of a pacer's drum, the royal couple went to Haida Gwaii, formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands, in British Columbia on a charm offensive on the penultimate day of their eight-day tour of Canada.

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The Royal couple were joined by warrior paddlers and several rowers on the penultimate day of their eight-day Canada tour

Having arrived at the island, William and Kate visited a wood carving exhibition on a tour of the Haida Heritage Centre

Sitting in the middle of the canoe, Elder Guujaw sang traditional songs to help keep the Royal couple and their fellow rowers in time with the drummer as they paddled

The Duchess of Cambridge looked radiant in a Smythe jacket over a blouse by Somerset by Temperley, and matching Zara jeans - and topped it off with a traditional scarf gifted to her by the people of Haida Gwaii

Their fibreglass canoe was a replica of the traditional red cedar vessels used by the Haida Nation for centuries.

Accompanied by 10 warrior paddlers, three community leaders, and two Scotland Yard bodyguards, William and Kate - in a Smythe jacket, blouse by Somerset by Temperley, and Zara jeans - paddled for around 20 minutes through the crystal clear waters of the Kayilnagaay to a beach and heritage centre at Skidegate on Graham Island, one of 150 islands in the chain.

The couple's vessel was a replica of the community's historic Lootaa canoe - translated as 'wave eater', which is now a museum piece.

After disembarking from their canoe, William and Kate received an official welcome at the Haida Heritage Centre and Museum.

The Duchess of Cambridge looked a tad squeamish as she picked up a large fish by the gulls, before motioning to William and the boat crew

William and Kate enjoyed a world-class fishing trip on the stunning waters of the Hectate Strate - and even returned with a catch

Kate looks on as she's given an expert fishing lesson on the boat before checking out the catch and inspected the crabs and fish

The inquisitive Duchess didn't hesitate as she picked up and inspected large crabs while out on a fishing trip later in the afternoon

Their conversations were animated and Kate was laughing at numerous points - although it wasn't long before the cold wind got to her while out on the water

Upon arrival on the beach, the Duke and Duchess received a First Nations welcome and a tour of the Haida Heritage Centre

Back on dry land and Kate seems somewhat shocked by something learned about local fish in a talk at the Haida Heritage Centre

Once inside the museum, William and Kate were addressed by the President of the Haida Nation and watched a cultural performance from around 30 local children

One of the adorable performers watched by Kate and William at the Heritage Centre as they were entertained by the people of Kaay Linagaay

The busy day has seen William and Kate treated to a cultural performance, a fishing trip and a tour of the island

On its official Twitter account, Kensinginton Palace explained the couple were shown Haida totem poles by carver Guujaaw in the Haida Heritage Carving House

Later on in their visit, the pair learnt about the importance of the new Haida Gwaii Hospital for members of the community

After learning about the totem pole carving, William and Kate enjoyed a lunch made with fresh and locally-sourced produce

No raiding party: The couple interacted with members of the community and happily waved for the cameras as they explored the island

Never ones to shy away from having a spot of fun while on royal duty, the couple threw themselves into their visit, laughing and joking with their fellow rowers

The pair looked as stylish as ever as they took to the water - Kate in a Smythe jacket, blouse by Somerset by Temperley, and Zara jeans and William in a checked shirt and navy jumper

As they near the end of their tour of Canada, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were a picture of happiness, laughing and joking as they took in the incredible sights of Haida Gwaii

ROYAL COUPLE ARE GIVEN SCARVES TRIMMED WITH SEA OTTER FUR The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge sported scarves trimmed with sea otter fur on their visit. The couple were given the garments as a sign of welcome and respect by the local First Nations Haida Community. The woven raven's tail scarves are a sign of wealth and rank among the Haida people, who in times gone by had to travel by canoe to trade for the wool on the mainland. But a closer look showed that they were trimmed with fur, often a controversial issue for British royals. Local resident Denise Ross told Mail Online that the fur was sea otter, which was worn only by matriarchs, Chiefs and their wives or persons of great standing in the community. She said the fur would most likely have been brought in from Alaska or Bella Bella, with whom the Haida people had a trading agreement. Advertisement

Kate was in her element as she paddled along to the beat of a pacer's drum, clearly delighted as she made her way to the remote island

William and Kate stepped out of the canoe before greeting elders, children and the chief in Haida Gwaii

With her hair perfectly and elegantly styled in a plaited Alice band and wearing a woven raven's tail scarf, Kate looked stunning as she greeted elders

Once out on the water, Randy Pryce took the Duke and Duchess to both sides of the boat, showing them how to throw a fishing line out on each side. The pair looked interested and appeared to ask questions while the demonstration took place

The Haida people gave the Royal couple a talk about the history and culture of the remote island - and they could be seen listening intently

The couple wore woven raven's tail scarves around their necks - a sign of wealth and rank among the Haida people who in times gone by had to travel by canoe to trade for the wool on the mainland

Accompanied by 10 warrior paddlers, three community leaders, and two Scotland Yard bodyguards, William and Kate paddled for around 20 minutes from a jetty around to a beach

The Duchess of Cambridge was seen giggling as she took to a 25ft Haida war canoe to a remote archipelago off the west coast of Canada

Kate is no stranger to rowing, and was a 'secret weapon' for the Sisterhood, above, a team of amateur rowers bidding to become the first all-female crew to cross the Channel in a traditional Chinese dragon boat

During their visit, the Duke and Duchess learnt about traditional carving techniques and the totem pole

The Duchess of Cambridge looked suitably chic in her colour-coordinated khaki green Smythe jacket and Zara jeans, completing her look with a woven brown belt and minimalist jewellery

Inside the centre they were addressed by the President of the Haida Nation and watched a cultural performance from around 30 local children.

The couple walked in wearing woven raven's tail scarves around their necks - a sign of wealth and rank among the Haida people who in times gone by had to travel by canoe to trade for the wool on the mainland.

They sat entranced as they watched several displays including a woman's dance in honour of their daughter Charlotte - the Haida are a matriarchal society - and a man's in honour of George.

Kate was also left giggling after a dance to represent the Haida people's relationship with the animal and spirit worlds.

'He's looking for a princess,' said the narrator cheekily, as a man hopped around with a wooden mask in the shape of a frog.

William also gave a short address - ironically his Haida was better than the French he spoke earlier in the week. He said: 'Women of High Esteem, Chiefs, Friends, Aan t'alang isis ska-wada-gee id ga dalang kil laa, haaw - thank you very much for having us here.'

The name Haida Gwaii was created in the early 1980s to recognise the the history of the indigenous population. It means 'islands of the people'.

Legislation to formally change the name was given royal assent in 2010.

Nowadays they are renowned as the Canadian Galapagos for their endemic wildlife, which includes 140 different bird species.

The royal couple went to Haida Gwaii, formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands, in British Columbia on a charm offensive

For the penultimate day of their eight-day tour of Canada, they flew by helicopter onto Graham Island after travelling up from their base in Victoria on a military plane

The Duchess of Cambridge looked resplendent as she stepped out of the canoe and onto the island, where she met the President of the Haida Nation

The Duchess looked to be deep in thought on the journey, before she received a First Nations welcome on the beach

The team were pictured making their way by canoe to Haida Heritage Centre and Museum at Kaay Llnagaay on the island of Haida Gwaii

The Duke and Duchess got stuck in, each taking an oar and helping paddle across the water as they chatted animatedly to their guide

After disembarking from their canoe, William and Kate received an official welcome at the Haida Heritage Centre and Museum

Arriving at the island, William bravely gave a short address in the native tongue - much to the delight of the Haida people

The name Haida Gwaii was created in the early 1980s to recognise the the history of the indigenous population. It means 'islands of the people'

The Duchess strode ashore, putting on an impeccable sartorial display in her chic khaki outfit and cowboy-style boots

Kate was, as ever, perfectly dressed for the occasion as she confidently made her way up a hill and onto the island after disembarking the canoe

Taking in all the sights and sounds of the island, the Duke and Duchess were treated to a number of talks about the history of the area

Members of the Haida Gwaii community helped the couple from their canoe before showing them around their island - which is steeped in history and culture

Legislation to formally change the name of the island to Haida Gwaii was given royal assent in 2010 - and today it was clearly given the royal seal of approval

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge discussed maternity care on the remote island of Haida Gwaii with two young mothers when they opened a brand new hospital this afternoon.

The couple spoke to 30-year-old Vivian Roberge who was with her third child, four-month-old Eden who was born at the nearby Queen Charlotte hospital.

Eden, who was teething, caught the duke's attention.

'Good luck with that,' joked the prince when Ms Roberge told him she was teething.

Ms Roberge told the couple that she gave birth to her first child off the island and said: 'It was a very different experience to having a baby on the island. It's going to mean a lot to people here to have a hospital where they will be able to have their babies here at home.'

The new hospital has eight acute care beds and a modernised labour and birthing centre.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge discussed maternity care with two young mothers when they opened a brand new hospital

Carla Russ, 37, from Haida Gwaii and her three year old daughter Shyanne also met the Duke and Duchess.

Shyanne was playing on the floor with a pile of building bricks during the royal visit.

'George would love those,' said Kate and William, adding: 'they don't have much of an attention span though. Your little girl is doing very well.'

The couple also paid a visit to 89-year-old Stan McKenzie who will be the hospital's first patient when it officially opens in November.

'Are you looking forward to coming here?' Kate asked Mr Mckenzie, who has dementia but can now be cared for on the island.

William asked: 'What was the other hospital like?'

Mr Mckenzie's daughters Shirley and Darlene said their father had been looking forward to the trip for months.

'He was very excited about meeting the Duke and Duchess,' said Darlene. 'He remembers meeting the queen in Victoria in the 50s. He said it was 'pretty nice' meeting William and Kate and said how pretty Kate is.'

There was also brief plaque unveiling ceremony when Terry Lake, the Minister of Health for British Columbia, thanked the couple for coming.

'We are honoured by their visit to open the newest hotel in our province,' he said in a short speech.

Before leaving the new hospital - which cost 50million Canadian dollars to build - the couple unveiled the plaque and received a bouquet of flowers.

When they left the hospital they stood in the sunshine and waved at crowds who had gathered outside.

Eager fans gathered near the Haida Heritage Centre and Museum at Kaay Llnagaay, as they tried to catch a glimpse of the Royal couple

As William chatted to the warrior paddlers and community leaders, Kate joined in the rowing with gusto

Their fibreglass canoe was a replica of the traditional red cedar vessels used by the Haida Nation for centuries

They were greeted by community leaders including former president of the Haida Nation, Ms Lyndale George, a member of the Skidegate Band Council and Ernie Gladstone, superintendent of the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve

The pair shook hands with their hosts, clearly delighted to be greeted with such a warm and hospitable welcome

The Royals were treated to a lively and entertaining performance by local schoolchildren and community members - which left Kate in a fit of giggles

Whether she was wearing a scarf made of otter fur, or a lifejacket, the Duchess of Cambridge continued to look elegant throughout the day

The Duke of Cambridge smiled after the crowd applauded him when he addressed them in Haida

Looking a bit green around the gills there, Kate! The pair went fishing for salmon and crabs in the afternoon

After their trip to the hospital, William and Kate enjoyed a world-class fishing trip on the stunning waters of the Hectate Strate - and even returned with a catch.

The couple arrived at the Queen Charlotte ramp in Haida Gwaii to board their Highland Ranger fishing boat, Kate having donned a red woollen jumped by Really Wild Clothing to ward off the wind.

Owner, operator and captain of the boat, Danny Robertson, 48, said the Duke and Duchess had been looking forward to the fishing excursion: 'I heard they're both into the outdoors so this is a great opportunity for them to experience the incredible scenes here.

'It's a great day for fishing. Very calm waters, good weather.

'We'll be fishing for salmon but you get lots out here - halibut, rock cods, steel head trout.'

After meeting youngsters from the Skidegate Youth Centre, including Jenna Shelford, Xiilla Guugaaw, Reece Burton, Kobe Adams, who were due to accompany them, the royal couple put on red life jackets before pulling out of the dock on to the lake.

William chatted to fishing guide Randy Price as the boat began to pick up speed, while Kate sat down to put a khaki green coat on.

Their boat hit the water at high speed, heading to the nearby BC Tel Point for their first stop - to fish for salmon.

The Duchess of Cambridge watches a cultural performance from around 30 local children at the Haida Heritage Centre

The couple arrived at the Queen Charlotte ramp in Haida Gwaii to board their Highland Ranger fishing boat, Kate having donned a red woollen jumped by Really Wild Clothing to ward off the wind

Before leaving the new hospital - which cost 50million Canadian dollars to build - the couple unveiled the plaque and Kate received a bouquet of flowers

After meeting locals on their fun-filled and action-packed tour, the couple flew back to Victoria by helicopter

After meeting youngsters from the Skidegate Youth Centre , the royal couple put on red life jackets before pulling out of the dock on to the lake

The couple arrived at the Queen Charlotte ramp in Haida Gwaii to board their Highland Ranger fishing boat

Once out on the water, Mr Pryce took the Duke and Duchess to both sides of the boat, showing them how to throw a fishing line out on each side. The pair looked interested and appeared to ask questions while the demonstration took place.

With the baited lines out, their boat slowly crawled the wall of the lake at a slow speed, giving William and Kate a chance to chat to the four teenagers from the Skidegate Centre.

After 15 minutes the couple moved into Captain Robertson's control deck, where they were given a demonstration and spoke about the area. Haida Gwaii is famous for fishing and plays a key role in the region's agri-tourism economy.

Ten minutes later, Kate left William speaking with the captain and rejoined the four teens on the main deck. Their conversations were animated and Kate was laughing at numerous points - although it wasn't long before the cold wind got to her and she started blowing into her hands.

After 15 minutes crawling the wall of the lake, Pryce called the couple over to help reel in the fishing lines.

William was first to give it a go but proved unlucky after the group were greeted by an empty hook.

But William and Kate still got to see local salmon up close - a large previously-caught salmon was produced from a cool box and held up by the guide.

It was then on to check two crab traps that has been put out the previous day next to Sky Ass island.

As they headed over, Will and Kate waved to locals who were gathered on the banks nearby.

The Duke and Duchess watched intently as the first rack was pulled in empty. But it was a successful catch with the second rack - producing three large Dungeness Crabs, much to the delight of Kate who gasped and said, 'They're so big!'

Without even being prompted, brave Kate asked the guide if she could hold one, and he let them pick up one each from the cage for them to inspect.

With the temperature continuing to drop, their boat made its way back to their starting point before the couple flew back to Victoria by helicopter.

The Skidegate Youth Centre serves the youth of Skidegate and surrounding areas engage in safe and meaningful social, recreational and educational activities.

Its programme focuses on confidence building, physical activities and creativity, while achieving social and life skills.

Without even being prompted, brave Kate asked the guide if she could hold a fish, and he let them pick up one each from the cage for them to inspect

Kate looked to team members on the boat for support and advice as she gingerly picked up a huge fish by the gills
One of the last remaining survivors of the Royal Navy's Dunkirk rescue operation has died aged 99.

Vic Viner, who spent six days and nights on the beaches during the Second World War rescue mission in 1940, died on Thursday, his family said.

The 99-year-old, who served with the Navy between 1933 and 1947, was a 'beach master' during the evacuations and marshalled troops off the sand and onto the little ships.

One of the last remaining survivors of the Royal Navy's Dunkirk rescue operation has died aged 99. Pictured is Operation Dynamo as men wait in an orderly fashion for their turn to be rescued

Vic Viner, who spent six days and nights on the beaches during the Second World War rescue mission in 1940, died on Thursday, his family said

Disembarking at an English port on 31 May 1940 - the faces of these troops of the British Expeditionary Force show their relief at being back on British soil

Dunkirk Veterans Reunited. Sam Kershaw, Eric Roderick, Tom Cooke, Vic Viner, John Garrett, Robert Halliday, Michael Weller Bentall, Romeo Jenkins, George Druitt

Mr Viner was believed to be one of the last surviving Royal Navy veterans to take part in Operation Dynamo.

Ian Gilbert, former commodore of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships (ADLS), paid tribute to Mr Viner, 'a great individual with a superb personality' who 'never seemed to think of himself as somebody who was well into their 90s'.

'He was very significant for us as he was the last survivor of what was known as the Royal Naval beach masters,' he said.

'They were landed by the Royal Navy on the beaches of Dunkirk and their job was to marshal the troops in an orderly fashion to get them onto the boats.

'He's certainly the last Royal Navy veteran that I know that took part in Operation Dynamo.'

Mr Viner's older brother, Albert, was one of 300 men who died on MV Crested Eagle on May 29 when it was bombed by German planes during the rescue mission.

Mr Viner, who was 23 at the time, was on the beach when the Thames paddle steamer was hit.

He watched as flames tore through the vessel, killing all on board, and later discovered that his 25-year-old brother was one of those to have died.

Mr Viner was believed to be one of the last surviving Royal Navy veterans to take part in Operation Dynamo

Ian Gilbert, former commodore of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships (ADLS), paid tribute to Mr Viner, 'a great individual with a superb personality' who 'never seemed to think of himself as somebody who was well into their 90s'

The day before Operation Dynamo began on May 27, Mr Viner was ordered aboard a destroyer and told to take one of its small boats and pick up soldiers from the beaches

Speaking at a service to remember those who lost their lives on the vessel last year, Mr Viner said: 'It's a great honour to be here, and I am very proud.

'I have only got a year and 303 days to go before I am 100. Bert, up there, he is probably looking down saying, 'Go on brother, keep going'.'

The day before Operation Dynamo began on May 27, Mr Viner was ordered aboard a destroyer and told to take one of its small boats and pick up soldiers from the beaches.

'When I got back on my fourth trip my colleague beside me said, 'You have got blood on your hands'. I looked down and there was blood all the way down - we had sweated blood,' he told the Press Association last year.

Mr Viner was then sent to the beaches and instructed by Captain William Tennant - who oversaw the Dunkirk evacuations - to make 'order out of chaos'.

He was stationed at the Bray-Dunes, just north of Dunkirk, for nearly a week during the operation.

'It was terrible, course it was - being bombed every day, no food, no water, stinking like mad,' he said.

'You can't tell anybody what it was like, you had to have been there.'

The veteran recently met with film director Christopher Nolan, who is making a film based on the Dunkirk evacuations, to share his personal experience

Patrick Viner, 43, said his grandfather, whose stock phrase was 'all's well', believed the secret to his long life was 'a glass of wine and chocolate'

The veteran recently met with film director Christopher Nolan, who is making a film based on the Dunkirk evacuations, to share his personal experience.

'I think it was a fairly amazing experience for Christopher - less so for Vic, who was completely unfazed by anybody,' Mr Gilbert said.

Surrey-based Mr Viner had two children, Michael and Elizabeth, and two grandchildren.

Patrick Viner, 43, said his grandfather, whose stock phrase was 'all's well', believed the secret to his long life was 'a glass of wine and chocolate'.

'I think he decided he had done everything he wanted to do,' Patrick said.
Four days after the end of the first presidential debate, the bipartisan commission that organized the event acknowledged that there was a problem with Donald Trumps audio equipment.

Trump immediately seized on the admission  once again suggesting the problem might have been set in motion on purpose.

'I mean, working that microphone was a hell of a lot more difficult than working crooked Hillary Clinton, that I can tell you!' Trump told a crowd of supporters in Novi, Michigan, where he recounted the breaking news about the debate's AV system.

Trump complained about his mic just moments after the first presidential debate concluded when, as DailyMail.com first reported, he groused about a defective mic.

Trump also asked if the inferior equipment might have been given to him on purpose.

AV CLUB: The commission on presidential debates confirmed that there were problems with the audio in the debate hall on Monday  four days after presidential candidate Donald Trump complained about a defective mic

On Friday, the commission on presidential debates acknowledged for the first time that there was a technical problem.

Regarding the first debate, there were issues regarding Donald Trumps audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall, the commission said in a brief statement.

Those who watched the debate on television had little trouble hearing both candidates as they sparred and frequently interrupted each other.

But some who watched it live confirmed they had some difficulty hearing Trump at times, although Trump's attacks, quips, and even some of his under-the-breath sighs were audible to those who watched it on TV.

Rigged? Trump said he believed the microphone was defective - and pictures showed that it seemed easier for Clinton to reach hers

Trump gloated about the admission by the presidential debate commission during a rally in Novi, Michigan

Spin room claim: Trump made his intervention about the microphone as he toured the spin room, telling DailyMail.com he believed it was defective

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus, who watched the debate from the hall, at first he wasn't aware of it when asked about it by DailyMail.com immediately after the event, but then mentioned the problem.

'There were times it was softer than Hillary's  that is true,' Priebus said.

The issue may have dealt not with the microphone, but with audio monitors that play sound back to the participates and amplify it for the in-house crowd at Hofstra University on Long Island.

DOES THE CARPET MATCH THE DRAPES? Donald Trump visited a replica of the Oval Office at the Gerald Ford museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan Friday

Trump delivered an extended riff on the incident  using his own microphone before thousands of supporters.

'And by the way, it was just announced by the commission that holds the debate that Donald Trumps microphone was defective,' Trump said.

'They just announced it  just came out a little while ago that the microphone in the big room was defective,' Trump said, referencing the single-sentence statement by the commission.

'When you have a situation like that, and you know its bad, and you think they have 100 million people watching. What do you do  stop the show?'

He once again planted seeds of doubt. 'I wonder why it was bad? Think of that. I wonder why it was bad? It was so bad.'

' Trump first floated the idea of a rigged audio visual system just moments after the debate ended, even as he declared himself satisfied with his debate performance

'And they also gave me a defective mic, did you notice that?' Trump told members of media afterward. 'My mic was defective within the room.'

The commission's statement didn't specifically refer to a microphone, but rather to the audio inside the debate hall.

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A questioner at first laughed at what could be the latest Trump inquiry into a 'rigged system' and asked if somebody got paid.

'I wonder. Was that on purpose?' Trump asked. 'But I had a mic that wasn't working properly' he continued.

Reporters getting a live feed of the event could hear the GOP candidate. The mic even picked it up when Trump spoke under his breath, sighing 'huh' after Clinton accused him of having a long record of engaging in racist behavior.'

Trump otherwise liked how he did, saying 'Overall I thought it was great, and if you look at all of the polls '

Different heights: The different ways in which the podium for each candidate had been engineered could be seen when they were pictured together. It appeared to make it easier for Clinton to reach the microphone

He also didn't immediately complain when asked about moderator Lester Holt. 'I felt it was fine,' he said.

DailyMail.com spoke with four Trump partisans who were present in the debate hall.

None could recall having trouble hearing him. None would say so on the record.

A Trump campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about whether or not the Republicans microphone was in fact malfunctioning on Monday night.

However pictures appeared to show it was easier for Clinton to reach the microphone than it was for Trump.

The Commission on Presidential Debates had allowed Clinton one partisan advantage, a taller podium than Trump's in order to minimize their 10-inch height difference - she is 5'4" to his 6'2".
Refusing to let go, a blood-soaked baby boy in Syria desperately clings to a nurse beside his brother after their house was hit by a devastating airstrike.

This is the truly heartbreaking reality of Aleppo, captured on camera at a hospital in the bombed-out city.

Traumatised the toddler did not want to release his grip of the medical worker treating him for his injuries.

Traumatised a toddler refuses to let go of the nurse treating him for his injuries

The short clip was posted by the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), who wrote the child arrived at one of their hospitals in Aleppo earlier today

The short clip was posted by the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), who wrote the child arrived at one of their hospitals in Aleppo earlier today.

'This is what #ChildrenOfSyria endure everyday,' they wrote.

'This is the agony of #Syria's children.'

According to SAMS, 13 deaths were recorded by their medical personnel on the ground.

Their hospital also received over 40 wounded, including children.

'He was hit in an airstrike. We don't know whether it was the Russian or Syrian government,' the non-profit told MailOnline.

Medical personnel on the ground reported 13 dead and at least 40 injured after airstrikes from forces loyal to the Syrian government

They also revealed that astonishingly in the east of the city just 29 doctors are left.

Mohamed Abu Rajab, a nurse at a SAMS-supported hospital in eastern Aleppo City, said: 'Life in Aleppo has become very dire. No camera or no pen can describe what we're experiencing here.

'Aleppo has been forgotten. Aleppo has been abandoned.'

'Hospitals are overwhelmed. There's a severe shortage of medical supplies and specialized doctors. There's only one neurosurgeon, two general surgeons, and three orthopedic surgeons left in the besieged city.

'Aleppo has been abandoned': A nurse at the hospital said there is a severe shortage of supplies

Hospitals have been overwhelmed and medical workers on the ground say they do not have the resources to save the wounded 'streaming into the hospitals'

'Not enough hands and resources to save all these wounded people streaming into the hospitals. We ran out of anesthetics. Doctors are treating patients on the floor.

'The only neurosurgeon left in eastern Aleppo City performed a brain surgery on a patient on the floor without anesthetics.'

The footage comes as bunker-busting bombs have put Aleppo children in so much risk they will not be able to return to underground schools.

Since Russian bombings began a year ago today thousands have been killed and at least 100,000 children still remain trapped in Aleppo alone.

The United Nations has warned a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in the city unlike any witnessed so far in Syria's brutal five-year war, which has claimed more than 300,000 lives.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge sported scarves trimmed with sea otter fur on their visit to a remote Canadian island today.

The couple were given the garments as a sign of welcome and respect by the local First Nations Haida Community.

The woven raven's tail scarves are a sign of wealth and rank among the Haida people, who in times gone by had to travel by canoe to trade for the wool on the mainland.

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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge sported scarves trimmed with sea otter fur on their visit today

The woven raven's tail scarves are a sign of wealth and rank among the Haida people

But a closer look showed that they were trimmed with fur, often a controversial issue for British royals.

Local resident Denise Ross told Mail Online that the fur was sea otter, which was worn only by matriarchs, Chiefs and their wives or persons of great standing in the community.

She said the fur would most likely have been brought in from Alaska or Bella Bella, with whom the Haida people had a trading agreement: 'A long time ago there were many sea otters here but they were hunted and traded to extinction.

'But they are very plentiful in other areas of the country and most likely the fur would have been brought in from Alaska or Bella Bella, as we having a long-standing trading agreement with the Heiltsuk people,' she said.

The scarves are however trimmed with fur - often a controversial issue for British royals

Sea otter fur is worn only by matriarchs, Chiefs and their wives or persons of great standing in the community

'The Raven's Tail scarves are a sign of great respect and are only worn by matriarchs and Chiefs.

'It is wonderful that William and Kate have come to visit us here and very normal that they would be given these scarves.'

The scarves were given to the couple as a gift from the local community

Sea otters are the second smallest marine mammals.

Unlike others, they do not have a layer of blubber to help them keep warm.

Instead, sea otters have the densest fur in the animal kingdom, ranging from 250,000 to a million hairs per square inch, which insulates them.

Sea otters are a keystone species, meaning their role in their environment has a greater effect than other species.

As predators, sea otters are critical to maintaining the balance of the near-shore kelp ecosystems.

Without sea otters, the undersea animals they prey on would devour the kelp forests off the coast that provide cover and food for many other marine animals.

Sea otters eat urchins, abalone, mussels, clams, crabs, snails and about 40 other marine species and need to eat approximately 25% of their weight in food each day to support their high metabolism.

Historically, sea otters numbered between several hundred thousand to more than a million.

But due to the fur trade, worldwide numbers plummeted down to a total of 1,000-2,000 in the early 1900s.

Today, there are estimated to be just over 106,000 worldwide,.
A man who was Tasered twice during a confrontation with the police died at an apartment complex in California early Friday morning.

Police responded to two domestic disturbance reports after 2am in Pasadena, and found a 36-year-old black man armed with a knife.

He was not named by police, but Reginald Thomas was identified by the mother of his four children Shainie Lindsay, who also said he was bipolar, KTLA reported.

Police restrained Thomas after he failed to comply with their orders, only to realize he was no longer breathing once he was in handcuffs. Efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful and he died on the scene.

Reginald Thomas, 36, (pictured) was Tasered twice during a confrontation with the police and died at an apartment complex in California early Friday morning

Police (pictured, at the 200 block of East Orange Grove Boulevard), responded to two calls reporting a family disturbance around 2am on Friday

A family disturbance was first reported from a cellphone around 2am on Friday, but the Pasadena Police Department had trouble pinning down a location, ABC reported.

More than half an hour later, police received another call reporting the same disturbance at the 200 block of East Orange Grove Boulevard.

A struggle was audible from the call, and police learned the identity of a man armed with a knife and a fire extinguisher, who may have also been under the influence of drugs, according to Steven Katz, of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

It remains unclear who called 911. Katz said a man placed the calls and Lindsay told KTLA: '[Thomas] called the police on himself. He wanted help.'

Officers arrived to find Thomas in the apartment with Lindsay and two teenagers, the LA Times reported.

He was uncooperative and tried to re-enter an apartment during the confrontation that led officers to Taser him twice, police said.

After he was restrained and handcuffed, officers realized Thomas was no longer breathing and started performing CPR until paramedics arrived.

He was eventually pronounced dead on the scene.

Shainie Lindsay (pictured), the mother of his four children, said Thomas had a history of mental illness and had been committed in psychiatric facilities

Six officers of the Pasadena Police Department were involved, and protesters gathered outside the apartment complex on Friday afternoon demanding their names be released

An investigation involving the LA County Sheriff's Office and the District Attorney's Office is ongoing (pictured, people gathered outside the apartment complex where Thomas died)

Katz said there was no indication that officers used an 'impact weapon' such as a baton, and added no firearm had been deployed.

But Lindsay cried as she recounted the brutal scene, telling KTLA: ' They was wrestling with him, was kicking him in the head and beating him with the baton stick. Then, after that, they was doing CPR and then he was dead.'

Thomas, who had a total of eight children, struggled with mental illness and had been committed in psychiatric facilities, according to family members.

Lindsay said it was not Thomas' first run-in with the police, and added: 'He was a good father, and they didn't have to kill him. He just wanted help. He didnt want to die.'

Lindsay's brother Forrest Elder said he thought Thomas' race was a contributing factor to his death.

Six officers of the Pasadena Police Department were involved, and protesters gathered outside the apartment complex on Friday afternoon demanding their names be released.
More than 100 pages of steamy text messages were included in the lawsuit

He then allegedly told her she'd have to get her breast implants removed when they 'got engaged' because they were a gift from her husband

The pair had unprotected sex after getting drunk at a lunch and Cedeno, who is married, told Pacelli he hoped she would get pregnant, suit states

Said Cedeno tried to seduce her within a week after she hired him in June

A Manhattan woman is suing her divorce attorney for allegedly seducing her after her marriage collapsed and then trying to ruin a reconciliation with her husband.

Atesa Pacelli filed a lawsuit against Peter Cedeno, claiming he 'manipulated' her into having sex with him during her 'highly contentious' divorce from Anthony Pacelli.

Pacelli, 41, and her husband of eight years are suing Cedeno, who is married, for malpractice, sexual assault and professional negligence.

The stay-at-home mother has also reported Cedeno, 48, to the state ethics committee.

Pacelli said that Cedeno began trying to seduce her within a week after she hired him in June, telling her she was 'beautiful' and looked '10 years younger than her age'.

Atesa Pacelli, 41, is suing her divorce attorney Peter Cedeno, 48, and is claiming he seduced her after her marriage collapsed and then tried to ruin a reconciliation with her husband

The pair first had sex after a court hearing when they got drunk at lunch and then went back to Pacelli's home, according to the New York Daily News.

Cedeno allegedly got naked and laid on Pacelli's bed while she was in the bathroom and then took 'advantage of her intoxicated condition', according to the lawsuit.

He allegedly told Pacelli that he was 'really turned on' by the fact that they didn't use a condom.

Cedeno also said that he 'would be happy' if Pacelli got pregnant from their encounter because 'that way you can't ignore me', the lawsuit states.

He then complimented Pacelli's breasts, but when she revealed they were implants that had been an engagement gift from her husband the lawyer said she'd have to get rid of them in the future, the lawsuit states.

'Cedeno asserted that once "We get engaged, you're taking them out since you put them in for another guy"', court papers state.

More than 100 pages of text messages between Pacelli and Cedeno were included in the lawsuit, including many that illustrated their sexual relationship.

Pacelli claimed Cedeno 'manipulated' her into having sex with him during her 'highly contentious' divorce

'I need your lips on my nipples sometime in the near future, or else I'm going to get very frustrated,' Pacelli wrote in one, telling him 'my body misses you'.

'You're a troublemaker,' Cedeno wrote to her in another exchange. 'But you're good to look at.'

Cedeno also tried to impress Pacelli and 'assert his masculinity' by bragging that he liked to speed more than 120 mph and 'outrun cops', the suit alleges.

He also allegedly claimed that he was addicted to pornography and that he had shot someone before taking the bar exam, according to the New York Post.

Pacelli also sent Cedeno a number of selfies, including two bikini pictures and one that showed her in workout clothes with a winky face emoji that read: 'Has my selfie game improved? You be the judge...on my way to "bang it out", as they say'".

The lawsuit alleges that Pacelli and Cedeno had sex at least one more time after their post-lunch rendezvous.

Anthony Pacelli then allegedly saw the text messages six days later on his wife's iPad and 'had a panic attack'.

Cedeno allegedly told Pacelli that she should date 'an older guy' who 'would know how to treat her' when he found out the couple was reconciling, the suit states.

He also threatened to fight Pacelli's husband if he ever told Cedeno's wife about their affair, according to the lawsuit.

The Pacellis are now living together in their Manhattan apartment.

Cedeno's attorney said that he 'fully denies' having a sexual relationship with Pacelli 'while he was engaged as her lawyer'.
Donald Trump demanded Friday that President Obama pledge not to pardon Hillary Clinton for her crimes  hours after visiting the grave site of Gerald Ford, whose legacy was defined by the Nixon pardon.

Speaking to a rally that drew thousands of people to a packed events center in Novi, Michigan, Trump once again blasted Clinton for her email scandal, and singled out associates who took immunity deals from the FBI during its investigation  an inquiry that ultimately did not lead to any charges being brought against the former secretary of state.

Directing remarks to his Democratic rival, Trump said: Can you promise that not one of the five people who were granted criminal immunity will ever be allowed to serve in a Clinton administration if that ever happens?

Then he addressed his remarks to President Obama, who helped engineer Clintons rise by nominating her as his secretary of state.

And heres a demand Im making today to president Obama, Trump said, to boos from the crowd. Mr. President: Will you pledge not to issue a pardon to Hillary Clinton and her co-conspirators for their many crimes against our country and against society itself?'

BEG YOUR PARDON: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is demanding that President Obama not pardon Hillary Clinton for her 'crimes'

'No one is above the law,' Trump said.

Trump made his no-pardon request just hours after visiting the Gerald Ford museum in Grand Rapids, Fords birthplace. Trump placed flowers on the grave of Ford and the late first lady Betty Ford.

Fords legacy as president is dominated by his own controversial decision to pardon Nixon, preventing Clinton from being tried for any crimes connecting to the Watergate break-in.

Speaking to a crowd of thousands who packed an event center outside of Detroit, Trump spoke repeatedly about the loss of manufacturing jobs in Michigan and other Rust Belt states.

Trump blasted Bill and Hillary Clinton for making paid speeches for up to $500,000  and accused them of taking your jobs.

Donald Trump lays a bouquet of flowers at the grave of former U.S. president Gerald Ford and his wife Betty Ford at the Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Ford's presidential legacy was defined by his pardon of President Nixon

Trump said Hillary Clinton gets rich by 'taking your jobs and your money away from you and away from your state'

GRAND RAPIDS, MI - SEPTEMBER 30: Students watch as Donald Trump tours the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum

Mr. President: Will you pledge not to issue a pardon to Hillary Clinton and her co-conspirators for their many crimes against our country and against society itself?'

Trump spoke to thousands of supporters in Novi, Michigan. Many of them chanted 'Lock her up!' when he mentioned Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton has made a living raking in donations from special interests that have raided our factories and ripped the jobs right out of Michigan and every other state, Trump said to boos from the crowd.

Thats how she gets rich. By taking your jobs and your money away from you and away from your state, Trump said.

Trump referenced the millions the Clintons earned making paid speeches after Bill Clinton left office.

Did they get their moneys worth? Maybe they did  Not for the speeches, Trump said.

The FBI investigated her for her private email server, but she was not charged with a crime.

Trump said he might spend more than $100 million of his own money on his presidential campaign, and asked Hillary Clinton why she isn't spending some of her money. Earlier, he visited Kent County GOP headquarters

HISTORY: Trump tours the Gerald Ford museum in Grand Rapids

Trump diverted from talking about Clinton taking big contributions from hedge funds to talk about campaign funding.

And by the way  Im spending a lot of money on my campaign and why isnt she spending some money on hers? he asked.

Im spending $100 million. I think Ill go over $100 million dollars, he predicted.

When they call me they say, Mr. President: you have to do this you have to do that. I say: I dont have to do anything for anybody!

Its time to rebuild the United States of America. Were going to do it our country is going to be greater than ever before. Were going to be the smart country again.

At one point, Trump blasted the Clinton and Obama for wanting to give away the Internet.
Earlier this week, a Tesla car crashed into a tourist bus on a motorway in northern Germany with the driver claiming he had activated the car's autopilot system.

But the firm says that autopilot was not to blame for the crash.

Instead, it says that the collision was unavoidable because the bus swerved into the vehicle's lane.

Scroll down for video

Earlier this week, a Tesla car crashed into a tourist bus on a motorway in northern Germany with the driver claiming he had activated the car's autopilot system (stock image)

COMMUNICATING CARS The US Department of Transportation may propose requiring all new cars to have vehicle-to-vehicle communication, known as V2V, as early as this autumn. The federal government estimates that V2V connectivity could ultimately prevent or reduce the severity of about 80 percent of collisions that don't involve a driver impaired by drugs or alcohol. The benefits of connected and automated vehicles go well beyond safety. They hold the potential to significantly reduce fuel use and carbon emissions through more efficient traffic flow. No more idling at red lights or in rush hour jams for commuters or freight haulers. Connected self-driving cars also promise to bring safe mobility to those who don't have cars, don't want cars or cannot drive due to age or illness. Everything from daily living supplies to health care could be delivered to populations without access to transportation. Advertisement

The crash happened in the German town of Ratzburg.

In a statement, Tesla said: 'We have spoken to our customer, who confirmed that Autopilot was functioning properly and that his use of Autopilot was unrelated to the accident.'

Tesla's Autopilot, introduced last October, helps drivers steer and stay in lanes and is intended to assist, but not replace, drivers.

It has been the focus of intense scrutiny since it was revealed in July that a Tesla Model S driver was killed while using the technology in a May 7 collision with a truck in Florida.

Since then, there have been various reports of accidents involving Teslas whose drivers were using Autopilot, including a fatality in China, but it is not clear what role, if any, the driving assistance system played.

There have also been reports of serious accidents prevented because of Autopilot.

Police in Ratzeburg said in a statement that the 50-year-old driver from Brandenburg drove into the back of a Danish tour bus as it was returning to the inside lane after overtaking.

Police said they planned to investigate 'why (Autopilot) did not work.'

The Tesla driver was slightly injured but none of the 29 bus passengers were hurt, the statement added.

Tesla denied that Autopilot was at fault, saying the bus swerved into the car's lane and side-swiped the Tesla, making a collision 'unavoidable,' the spokeswoman said.

'We can only do so much to prevent an accident,' she said, adding that Tesla was in contact with German police.

The Silicon Valley automaker said this month it was updating the semi-autonomous driving system with new limits on hands-off driving and other improvements.
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A team of explorers say they have revealed an underwater cave to be the world's deepest, at 404 meters (1,325 feet) down, near the eastern Czech town of Hranice.

Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski, who led the team, told The Associated Press he felt like a 'Columbus of the 21th century' after making the discovery.

Starnawski, 48, determined that the flooded limestone Hranicka Propast, or Hranice Abyss, which divers have explored for decades, was at least 404 meters deep.

On Sept. 27, 2016, the robot went to the record depth of 404 meters (1,325 feet) revealing the abyss to be the world's deepest flooded cave, during the 'Hranicka Propast - step beyond 400m' expedition led by Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski and partly funded by the National Geographic.

A NEW RECORD The flooded limestone abyss measures 404 meters (1,325 feet) deep. That beats the previous record holder, 392-meter (1,286-foot) Pozzo del Merro in Italy, by 12 meters (39 feet). Advertisement

He scuba dived to a narrow slot at 200 meters' depth and let through a remotely operated underwater robot, or ROV, that went to the depth of 404 meters, or the length of its cord, but still did not seem to hit the bottom.

In 2015, Starnawski himself passed through the slot and went to 265 meters' depth without reaching the cave's bottom.

After diving that far down, Starnawski had to spend over six hours in a decompression chamber.

To explore the cave further, he needed a robot.

A remotely-operate underwater robot, or ROV, is exploring for the cave's bottom, which it did not find, despite descending to the depth of 404 meters (1,325 feet), the length of its cord, and revealing it to be the world's deepest known flooded limestone sinkhole.

In the flooded Hranicka Propast, or Hranice Abyss, in the Czech Republic Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski, left, and Bartlomiej Grynda, right, are reading images from a remotely-operated underwater robot, or ROV, that went to the record depth of 404 meters ,1,325 feet, revealing the limestone abyss to be the world's deepest flooded cave, during the 'Hranicka Propast - step beyond 400m' expedition led by Starnawski and partly funded by the National Geographic.

Speaking on the phone from his home in Krakow, southern Poland, Starnawski said Tuesday's discovery makes Hranice Abyss the world's deepest known underwater cave, beating the previous record-holder, a flooded sinkhole in Italy called Pozzo del Merro, by 12 meters (39 feet.)

The Czech Speleological Society said it thinks the cave is even deeper and will yield additional records.

On Tuesday, when the robot was 404 meters deep, 'it was as deep as its rope could go, but the bottom was still nowhere in sight,' the society said in a statement.

Diving in the cave is a challenge because of muddy areas and a water temperature of 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit.)

In this underwater photo taken Aug. 21, 2015, in the flooded Hranicka Abyss, Czech Republic, Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski is seen examining the limestone crevasse and preparing for a 2016 expedition to measure it depths.

IThe screen of a remotely-operate underwater robot, or ROV, indicating it has reached the depth of 403 meters (1322.18 feet) in the cave, revealing it to be the world's deepest known flooded limestone sinkhole.

The water's mineral composition also damages equipment and hurts any exposed skin, Starnawski said.

This map shows a cross-section of the flooded Hranicka Propast, or Hranice Abyss, in the Czech Republic

'But that is the only price to be paid for this discovery, and it was worth paying,' he said.

On Saturday, he plans to dive to 200 meters again to bring the robot back through the narrow passage.

'My intention was not to achieve the deepest dive by a human, but to assist the exploration by the ROV,' he told Nat Geo.

'In this cave we wanted to explore beyond the 400-meter limit.

'It can't be done, so far, by a scuba diver in the cave. So I invited Bartlomiej Grynda from GRALmarine, with his custom-built ROV, to send the robot as deep as possible to explore the cave.

'The results were astonishing.'

He said National Geographic, which first reported the discovery , covered some of the expedition's cost.

The limestone formation developed in an unusual way, he told National Geographic last year, that suggested it could extend down a great distance: hot water saturated with carbon dioxide bubbled up like a volcano, which wore away the rock from the bottom up.
It suggests that those wanting to attract the opposite sex should surround themselves with lots of friends who are less good looking than they are

When it comes to attracting the opposite sex, it appears the company you keep can make all the difference.

A new study has shown the 'ugly friend effect'  where surrounding yourself with people who are less attractive than you can make you appear better looking than you really are  is real.

Researchers discovered that volunteers would rank a person  male or female  as better looking when they were alongside less attractive people than they would be when judged alone.

The research shows having an ugly friend (still from the TV show Ugly Betty pictured) can boost your chances of attracting a member of the opposite sex

The findings confirm a long-held belief that having ugly friends can boast your chances of attracting a member of the opposite sex on a night out.

BOOST YOUR SEX APPEAL Other tips for enhancing appeal include surrounding yourself with lots of members of the opposite sex - the 'Hugh Hefner effect'. The Playboy founder is not in the first flush of youth but makes himself appear more desirable by constantly being photographed with buxom beauties. Anthony Little, a psychologist at Stirling University, said: 'If you were just looking at Hugh Hefner's physical attractiveness you might not be that impressed with him. 'But as soon as you see him with beautiful women you might infer other traits, for instance, you might infer he is a multi-millionaire or charming or witty. 'He somehow becomes more attractive.' The effect extends to the animal kingdom. When researchers placed toy female grouse near a male bird, other hens flocked to be near him. Advertisement

It was recently highlighted by the teen comedy movie The Duff  standing for Designated Ugly Fat Friend  where a high school pupil learns she is the ugly friend in her group.

But the findings also suggest that the effect only works if you are the only attractive member of a group.

When two or more attractive people are viewed alongside those who are not so good looking, it causes onlookers to be more critical of their appearance.

Dr Nicholas Furl, a psychologist at Royal Holloway University of London who led the new study, said: 'Rightly or wrongly, the way people look has a profound impact on the way others perceive them.

'We live in a society obsessed with beauty and attractiveness, but how we measure and understand these concepts is still a grey area.

'The presence of a less attractive face does not just increase the attractiveness of a single person, but in a crowd could actually make us even more choosey.

'We found that the presence of a 'distractor' face makes differences between attractive people more obvious and that observers start to pull apart these differences, making them even more particular in their judgement.'

There are countless films where a less attractive character is used to make the others seem more appealing (Bridesmaids pictured) but the research found that when there is more than one attractive person in a group it can make onlookers more critical of their looks

Researchers say our beauty obessed society means we judge people's attractivness based on how good looking the people around them appear to be. They say the effect works for both men and women

The study, which is published in the journal Psychological Science, asked a group of participants to rate pictures of different male and female faces for attractiveness one at a time.

They were then asked to assess the same faces but this time surrounded by 'undesirable' faces.

These 'distractor faces', as the researchers describe them, caused the original faces the participants looked at to seem more attractive.

Participants were then shown two attractive faces, alongside a 'distractor' face and asked to judge between them.

The presence of the less attractive face was found to make the viewers more critical between the two attractive faces.

Having an ugly friend can give you a boost when it comes to attracting the opposite sex, a new study has found. It showed that people see faces as being more attractive when they are surrounded by less good looking faces (still from the teen film The Duff pictured)

Dr Furl said: 'It's perhaps not too surprising that we are judged in relation to those around us.

'This is a trope often seen in teen movies and romantic comedies, where a character associates themselves with a less attractive friend to elevate their own dating stakes.

'Last year's film The Duff explored how the main character felt being physically compared to her friendship group.

'As in life, this film showed that how we perceive beauty and attractiveness isn't fixed.

'There are many other ways in which we decide who we are attracted to.
Earlier this month, the UK government called for a ban on plastic microbeads to be enforced by 2017, following reports that they were toxic.

And it appears that microplastics could be causing much further widespread damage than first predicted.

Researchers have discovered the first evidence of microplastics being ingested by deep-sea animals.

And it appears that microplastics could be causing much further widespread damage than ever predicted. Researchers have discovered the first evidence of microplastics being ingested by deep-sea animals, including hermit crabs (pictured)

WHAT ARE MICROPLASTICS? Microplastics are small particles that are less than five millimetres long, and include both microfibres and microbeads. The researchers found plastics including polyester, nylon and acrylic  which can enter the sea via the washing of clothes made from synthetic fabrics. Ingesting the tiny particles can prevent animals from consuming their natural prey, leading to starvation and even death. These creatures also face the threat that this debris may be toxic. Advertisement

Researchers from Oxford University spent time at two sites in the mid-Atlantic and south-west Indian Ocean.

They discovered plastic microfibres inside a range of deep-sea creatures, including hermit crabs, lobsters and sea cucumbers at depths of 300-1800 metres.

The finding marks the first time that microplastics have been shown to be ingested by animals at such depths.

Dr Michelle Taylor, lead author of the study, said: 'An important aim of this research expedition was to collect microplastics from sediments in the deep ocean  and we found lots of them.

'Given that animals interact with this sediment, such as living on it or eating it, we decided to look inside them to see if there was any evidence of ingestion.

'We found plastic microfibres inside a wide range of animals, including corals, squat lobsters and sea cucumbers.

'What's particularly alarming is that these microplastics were found in the deep ocean, thousands of miles away from land-based sources of pollution.'

Microplastics are small particles that are less than five millimetres long, and include both microfibres and microbeads.

The researchers discovered plastic microfibres inside a range of deep-sea creatures including hermit crabs (claw pictured), lobsters and sea cucumbers at depths of 300-1800 metres

Microplastics are small particles that are less than five millimetres long, and include both microfibres (pictured) and microbeads

In the study, the researchers found plastics including polyester, nylon and acrylic  which can enter the sea via the washing of clothes made from synthetic fabrics.

Deep-sea creatures feed on 'marine snow'  a shower of organic material that could include the dangerous microplastics.

Using an underwater vehicle, the researchers were able to carefully collect the animals to test whether they had ingested any microplastics.

Deep-sea creatures feed on 'marine snow'  a shower of organic material that could include the dangerous microplastics. Pictured is a sea pen - a type of coral

In the study, the researchers found plastics including polyester, nylon and acrylic  which can enter the sea via the washing of clothes made from synthetic fabrics

MICROPLASTICS FROM CLOTHES A new study has found that more than 700,000 microscopic fibres could be released into waste water during each use of a domestic washing machine. Many of them are likely to pass through sewage treatment and into the environment. The research found that laundering an average washing load of 6 kilograms could release an estimated 137,951 fibres from polyester-cotton blend fabric, 496,030 fibres from polyester and 728,789 from acrylic. Advertisement

Dr Claire Gwinnett, Associate Professor in Forensic and Crime Science at Staffordshire University who also worked on the study, said: 'Using forensic laboratory techniques, we have identified that microplastics are present in ingested material from deep sea creatures.

'Forensic science is still a fairly new science, but we are delighted that our work and techniques are starting to inform other sciences and important environmental research such as this.'

Dr Taylor added: 'While we can't say for sure what the source of these microplastics is, it's possible they could have entered the ocean from synthetic clothing, carpet cleaning or fishing nets  there are so many of these plastics out there.

The synthetic fibres were found in a range of species, including sea cucumbers (pictured)
What do we have in common with a T-Rex, an elephant and a pet dog?

This is not the start of an unusual joke - the answer is our forearms.

Up until now, all four-legged animals were thought to have forearms made up of two, elongated and parallel bones

But now a strange reptile that lived 212 million years ago is making scientists reconsider the evolution of four-footed creatures.

The bizarre creature, neither a dinosaur nor a lizard, had forearms unlike any known tetrapods today (artist's impression pictured). It ripped away tree bark with a massive claw to get at hidden insects

THE UNUSUAL FOREARMS Four-limbed animals with a backbone are called tetrapods. In nearly all tetrapods, the forearm is made up of two, elongated and parallel bones, that connect to a series of much shorter, wrist bones at the base of the hand. But in drepanosaurus, the two bones are not parallel. Instead, the ulna is a flat, crescent-shaped bone. Also, the two wrist bones that meet the end of the ulna are long rather than short. Advertisement

The bizzare creature, neither a dinosaur nor a lizard, had forearms unlike any known tetrapods today.

The fossils were found at the Hayden Quarry in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico.

Scientists from Yale University in Connecticut say the creature defies the convention on how reptiles evolved.

Drepanosaurus had a bird-like head on a chameleon-like body.

'This animal stretches the bounds of what we think can evolve in the limbs of four-footed animals,' said Dr Adam Pritchard, a postdoctoral researcher at Yale and lead author of the study.

'Ecologically, Drepanosaurus seems to be a sort of chameleon-anteater hybrid, which is really bizarre for the time. It possesses a totally unique forelimb.'

Drepanosaurus was neither a dinosaur nor a lizard.

It was a one to two-foot long reptile from an extinct group of animals called drepanosaurs, and shares a common ancestry with lizards, crocodiles, and dinosaurs.

The only other known Drepanosaurus fossil was a badly crushed skeleton found in northern Italy more than 30 years ago.

The paper, published in the journal Current Biology, suggests Drepanosaurus was the size of a cat and lived in the trees.

The US team made 3D reconstructions of the reptile based on scans of dozens of bones, to make the surprising finding.

In nearly all tetrapods, the forearm is made up of two, elongate and parallel bones, that connect to a series of much shorter, wrist bones at the base of the hand. But in drepanosaurus, the two bones are not parallel

Scientists analysed 212-million-year-old Drepanosaurus arm fossils that were discovered at the Hayden Quarry in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico (map shown)

Four-limbed animals with a backbone are called tetrapods.

In nearly all tetrapods, the forearm is made up of two, elongated and parallel bones, that connect to a series of much shorter, wrist bones at the base of the hand.

But in drepanosaurus, the two bones are not parallel.

Instead, the ulna is a flat, crescent-shaped bone. Also, the two wrist bones that meet the end of the ulna are long rather than short.

'The bone contacts suggest that the enlarged claw of Drepanosaurus could have been hooked into insect nests,' Dr Pritchard said.

'The entire arm could then have been powerfully retracted to tear open the nest. This motion is very similar to the hook-and-pull digging of living anteaters, which also eat insects.'

Palaeontologist Dr Nicholas Fraser, of National Museums Scotland told the BBC the Triassic period was a 'melting pot of experimentation'.

'The unconventional rules in the Triassic,' he said.
The International Space Station has been a beacon of what can be achieved when countries work together to venture out into our solar system.

But now the United Nations is planning to enter the space race itself after signing a deal to launch a space plane into low Earth orbit in 2021.

It is hoping to give those countries too poor to afford their own space programme the chance to send payloads into orbit around the Earth.

The UN has signed a deal with Sierra Nevada to send one of its Dream Chaser space planes (pictured) on a 14-day mission into low Earth orbit in 2021. It is the first time the UN has launched its own space mission and will allow developing nations to take part

The UN's Office of Outer Space Affairs has signed a deal with private space firm Sierra Nevada to have the sole use of one of its Dream Chaser space planes.

WHAT IS DREAM CHASER? The Sierra Nevada Corporation began developing the Dream Chaser as a replacement for Nasa's Space Shuttle. The space plane is designed to carry up to 6 tons of cargo into low Earth orbit after being launched on the back of a rocket. It will then land like a traditional aircraft on a runway when it returns to Earth. The company says it will be able to deliver cargo and eventually astronauts to the International Space Station. Advertisement

It will be the first time the UN has launched its own mission into space.

Some have compared the UN's entrance into the space race to the early days of the Space Federation in Star Trek.

Developing countries will be the first to be offered a chance to take part in the 14-day mission, but any member state of the UN will be able to participate.

Speaking at the International Astronautical Congress in Mexico, Simonetta Di Pippo said: 'The space arena is growing increasingly diverse as private industry actors become more involved in space technologies and exploration.

'At UNOOSA we are committed to helping all countries benefit from space technologies and capabilities.

'I am pleased that SNC has partnered with us to provide such tangible opportunities in pursuit of this goal.

'It's great to see a company like SNC bring their expertise to UNOOSA's holistic approach to capacity building and our goal of bringing the benefits of space to all.'

The Dream Chaser space plane (pictured) has been developed by a private company and is due to have its first test flight in orbit in November this year

The Dream Chaser space plane is designed to deliver around 6 tons of payload into low Earth orbit before landing like a traditional aircraft on a runway back on Earth (artist's impression)

The UN said it was expected experiments in microgravity, remote sensing and space hardware testing to be included in the first flight.

However, it also said it is looking for commercial sponsors to help fund the mission, raising doubts over whether enough cash will be found to get it off the ground.

The Sierra Nevada Dream chaser is a reusable space plane that looks like a mini-Space Shuttle.

It is designed to deliver around 6 tons (5,500kg) of payload into a low Earth orbit or to the International Space Station.

The UN mission will aim to let countries without their own space programme launch experiments into orbit and test hardware aboard the Dream Chaser (pictured)

The first orbital flight is due to take place in November this year before it will begin making deliveries to the ISS for Nasa in around 2019, if successful.

A second version of the Dream Chaser is being designed to transport up to seven crew members and cargo to low Earth orbit.

Mark Sirangelo, corporate vice president for space systems at Sierra Nevada, said: 'Our vision, in partnership with the UN, is to provide UN Member States with affordable access to space and a range of multi-mission opportunities using the Dream Chaser spacecraft to host a wide range of payloads.

'Countries will be able to customize their participation level commensurate with the maturity of their space capabilities and national desires, while engaging their universities, industrial companies and government laboratories, and most importantly, their people.
Amateur scientists toying with powerful gene editing technology in their garages could pose a future risk to human health and the environment, a new report warns.

It highlights a growing trend for so-called 'biohackers' who use new technology to modify the DNA in living organisms outside of traditional research institutions.

While most of these groups of amateur researchers are attempting to solve problems like creating new flavours of beer, some could do more harm.

A new report has warned that powerful gene editing technology (stock picture) could pose a risk in the future as more people get their hands on cheap kits that allow them to alter the properties of living organisms

The report by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics points to 100 kits that can effectively 'cut and paste' DNA in yeast or bacteria to alter their properties.

HOW DOES CRISPR WORK? CRISPR-Cas9 technology precisely changes target parts of genetic code. Unlike other gene-silencing tools, the CRISPR-Cas9 system targets the genome's source material and permanently turns off genes at the DNA level. The DNA cut  known as a double strand break  closely mimics the kinds of mutations that occur naturally, for instance after chronic sun exposure. But unlike UV rays that can result in genetic alterations, the CRISPR-Cas9 system causes a mutation at a precise location in the genome. When cellular machinery repairs the DNA break, it removes a small snip of DNA. In this way, researchers can precisely turn off specific genes in the genome. Advertisement

This technology, known as CRISPR-Cas9, can be used without needing a high level of scientific knowledge, unlike other gene editing techniques, which need expensive equipment and specialist training.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics said the 'comparatively low cost, ease of use and availability' of these new gene editing kits, which can be purchased online, meant they were accessible to unregulated users.

This raises the prospect that scientists could either deliberately or accidentally create an organism that could be harmful if released into the environment.

It added: 'These may include DIY 'garage' scientists, school and undergraduate students, and others with an interest in biological research and the possibilities - whether potentially beneficial or harmful - raised by genome editing.'

The report comes just weeks after a leading molecular biologist at Oxford University warned that the technology could be used to develop new types of biological weapons.

Indeed the FBI is so concerned about the activities of biohackers it has set up a special branch within its Weapons of mass Destruction Directorate to engage with them.

There is a flourishing biohacking community in many parts of the world with amateur groups getting together to develop home-made approaches to studying biology.

FBI WARNINGS OVER GENE EDITING TECHNOLOGY The FBI has concerns about how this might be used and is attempting to engage with scientists working in this area to help establish ways of tackling potential risks. Supervisory Special Agent Edward You from the FBI's Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate said last year: 'Synthetic biology poses some incredible benefits, but there are some risks involved too. 'Now is the time to be able to identify the vulnerabilities and then start setting up mitigation measures.' In 2010, Mr You warned that as technologies for editing genomes and conducting biological research become less expensive, the risks involved will increase. He said: 'You're having the barrier of entry to do something mischievous, or actually outright nefarious, getting lower, so individuals or groups will be able to conduct potential harm more so than before.' Advertisement

For example, one group in London want to fiddle with yeast to alter the flavour of beer, which apparently one group based in London is already attempting.

Biohackers in Japan hope to reintroduce a gene into blue carnations sold in Japan to revert them back to their natural white state.

Another group is hoping to use CRISPR technology to re-engineer yeast to produce a protein found in milk called casein to create a new type of vegan cheese.

The Nuffield report stated CRISPR-Cas9 was even being used by school pupils in a synthetic biology contest called the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition.

Hugh Whittall, director of the Nuffield Council for Bioethics, said: 'There is no evidence that we've seen that there are people with things going on in their garages, but ... this is one of the things that we need to be aware of, be conscious of the possibility.

'It goes back to this question of whether the control mechanism in terms of the supply of the kits and materials is adequate.'

CRISPR-Cas9 was introduced in 2012 and is rapidly transforming biological research.

The system uses certain proteins that allow DNA to be cut and edited at precise, targeted locations.

Human reproduction and livestock farming were identified as two key areas of concern by the Nuffield Council. Both will be the subject of further inquiries by dedicated working parties.

Nuffield Council member Karen Yeung, Professor of Law and director of the Centre for Technology, Ethics and Law at King's College London, said: 'One of the features of this technology is it makes it more accessible to a broader range of users.

'This however has the knock on effect that it may be more difficult to keep a watching brief and monitor effectively what's actually being done in these areas.

The CRISPR gene editing technology has heralded a new era in the ability to edit and modify the genes of living organisms. Some biohacker groups have adopted the technology (CRISPR-CAS9 complex illustrated) to modify yeast and plants

'We identify that as a potential area of concern.'

In the field of human reproduction, gene editing has the potential to eliminate inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis.

There are more than 4,000 known single gene conditions that are thought to affect around one per cent of births worldwide.

But producing babies from embryos whose inherited DNA has been altered is illegal in the UK and still highly controversial.

Critics point to the dangers of irreversible changes being passed onto future generations and the possible creation of 'designer babies'.

Prof Yeung, who will chair the Nuffield Council working party on reproductive applications, which meets for the first time next week, said: 'It is only right that we acknowledge where this new science may lead and explore the possible paths ahead.'

CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing can be used to edit the DNA in bacteria like Escherichia coli (pictured). While normally harmless in the cut, these bacteria can also cause food poisoning

Genome editing in farm animals has already been proposed for pigs, sheep, cattle and chickens, raising questions of food safety and animal welfare.

Animals whose genes have been edited may fall into a grey legal area because it is not clear that their meat, eggs or milk would be classified as genetically modified food.

Potential applications of the technology included pigs protected against swine flu, chickens that only produced female offspring for egg production, and hornless cattle that could safely be kept in confined spaces.

Dr Andy Greenfield, from Oxford University, who chaired the review working group, dismissed suggestions that farmers might secretly make use of gene editing technology.

He joked: 'A kind of evil Old Macdonald? There are entry barriers. It's not that it's so easy to do that you can just have a shed at the end of the field.

'It would be difficult to do this secretly. It's not so quick and easy that it could be happening across Suffolk.'

Dr Greenfield was most concerned about 'frivolous' use of CRSPR-Cas9 gene editing.
California is one step closer to making driverless cars a reality.

A bill signed on Thursday gives self-driving vehicles the freedom to travel on public roads without steering wheels, brake pedals or accelerators and most importantly, without human drivers.

However, the new legislation only applies to a pilot project by the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, who has chosen two sites in California for testing.

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A bill signed on Thursday gives self-driving the freedom to travel on public roads without steering wheels, brake pedals or accelerators and more importantly, without human drivers - such as the two shown testing Google' self-driving car

WHAT DOES THE BILL SAY? A bill signed on Thursday gives self-driving vehicles the green light to travel on public roads without steering wheels, brake pedals or accelerators and most importantly, without human drivers. However, it only applies to a pilot project by the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, which has designated two sites for testing. The sites include an autonomous-vehicle testing facility, which is the former Concord Naval Weapons Station, and also at the San Ramon Bishop Ranch office park that hosts public roads. Officials have applied a few restrictions such as vehicles cannot cruise faster than 35 miles per hour, must be insured for $5 million and can only be tested in certain areas. Advertisement

Prior to this bill, California only permitted the testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads if a human was in the drivers seat and capable of taking immediate manual control of the vehicle in the event of an autonomous technology failure or other emergency.

Although it seems officials are easing up on the laws, they have applied a few restrictions in the new bill - vehicles cannot cruise faster than 35 miles per hour, must be insured for $5 million and can only be tested in certain areas, reports The Mercury News.

Manufactures are also required to share testing data with the government, which will then evaluate the safety of these vehicles.

The Contra Costa Transportation Authority has chosen to conduct tests at an autonomous-vehicle testing facility, which is the former Concord Naval Weapons Station, and at the San Ramon Bishop Ranch office park that hosts public roads.

Driverless shuttles from the French company EasyMile will be tested in this area  the firm has been on hold pending passage of the bill, reports Reuters.

And although these busses are only permitted to travel around the private office park, they will have to cross a public road at some point in order to loop back into the designated area.

Honda has been testing self-driving cars at the former naval facility, now called the GoMentum Station, for some time now, and Otto Motors, a division of a Canadian robotics firm, has been developing autonomous trucks there as well.

A few restrictions are listed in the new bill - vehicles cannot cruise faster than 35 miles per hour, must be insured for $5 million and can only be tested in certain areas. Uber has been testing its autonomous vehicles (pictured) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but with human drivers

IN A SELF-DRIVING VEHICLE, WHAT WOULD YOU USE THE EXTRA TIME DOING? Response US UK Australia China India Japan I would not ride in a self-driving vehicle 23.0 23.0 21.2 3.1 7.8 33.0 Watch the road even though I would not be driving 35.5 44.0 43.4 36.1 30.7 33.2 Read 10.8 7.6 6.5 10.5 10.2 5.6 Text or talk friends/family 9.8 5.5 7.9 20.8 15.0 7.4 Sleep 6.8 7.2 7.1 10.8 4.7 12.6 Watch films/TV 6.0 4.2 5.7 11.3 12.3 6.2 Work 4.8 4.9 5.1 5.4 16.3 0.7 Play games 2.0 1.9 2.0 1.3 2.1 1.2 Other 1.4 1.7 1.0 0.7 0.8 0.2

Contra Costa Transportation Authority has said Google and Apple have expressed interest in using the facility.

Its no surprise that California is the first state to allow self-driving cars on public roads, as one of the early pioneers in the industry, Google, started there.

However, another state who has a major hand in self-driving technology is in the midst of also passing a new bill for self-driving cars.

THE RACE TO SELF DRIVING TAXIS: LYFT VS. UBER General Motors & Lyft's autonomous Taxis General Motors announced a $500 million investment in Lyft earlier this year as a joint effort to develop a fleet of self-driving taxis. Although the idea seemed like a distant dream, the duo has announced plans for a testing program on public roads by 2017. This legislation only applies to a pilot project by the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, which has designated two sites in California for testing. GM and Lyft plan for a testing program on public roads by 2017 that will use Chevrolet Bolt electric taxis The program will use Chevrolet Bolt electric taxis and 'include real customers in a yet-to-be disclosed city'. In addition to the testing program, Lyft is working on a new app that will be used for the autonomous cars. The app is still a prototype, but will list the option for an autonomous car and there is a GM OnStar assistant to answer questions or report issues while you're en route to your destination. Uber's self-driving car Uber says the self-driving Volvo XC90 cars will have human backup drivers to begin with, but the move will surely worry the country's 327,000 Uber drivers who will eventually be replaced by autonomous vehicles. Uber co-founder and chief executive officer Travis Kalanick has said that the company's goal is to replace human drivers with driverless vehicles as 'quickly as possible'. The $300million Volvo deal will provide SUVs to Uber and see vehicles outfitted with cameras, lasers and sensors to help them navigate the city's streets. An unspecified number of autonomous Ford Fusions will also pick up passengers. The Volvo has 22 camera lenses, a laser on the roof and laser sensors at the corners. Its cameras, sensors and laser can see more than 100 meters in all directions. Advertisement

The state senate unanimously voted to let firms and researches test self-driving cars on Michigan roads without a person at the wheel earlier this month.

The legislation is being handled as an economic development measure to keep and attract researchers and establish more jobs in the state  an area that has suffered from an economic downfall.

'I want to make sure we plant the flag here and we maintain the lead in terms of automotive research and development,' Kowall told CNN Money.

This bill would also let self-driving cars test on all roads within state lines, including interstates and US highways, he continued.

Kowall also explained that there are no federal law prohibiting these cars, but at the moment every state requires them to have a human driver at the wheel.

If the self-driving car is involved in an accident, the bills also explains that its maker is liable for damage.

THE TOWN WHERE ONLY ROBOTS CAN DRIVE At first glance it seems like any other city, with five lane roads, intersections, buildings and even pedestrians waving as you pass. However, M City, in Ann Arbor, is devoid of one thing - people. The University of Michigan opened the $6.5m, 32 acres Mcity, the world's first controlled environment specifically designed to test the potential of connected and automated vehicle technologies that will lead the way to mass-market driverless cars today Ford has become the first major car maker test autonomous vehicles at Mcity  the full-scale simulated real-world urban environment at the University of Michigan. The $6.5 million facility will be outfitted with 40 building facades, angled intersections, a traffic circle, a bridge, a tunnel, gravel roads, and plenty of obstructed views. Occupying 32 acres at the University's North Campus Research Complex, it includes approximately five lane-miles of roads with intersections, traffic signs and signals, sidewalks, benches, simulated buildings, street lights, and obstacles such as construction barriers. Advertisement

The state has also made it very clear that any company that adds an aftermarket autonomous system to a vehicle is also assuming the risk that the car will get into an accident.

And every company that wants to test their driverless cars without a human at the wheel is required to prove that the vehicle is not a major threat to its surroundings.
If SpaceX founder Elon Musk's plan to establish a city on Mars sounds like science fiction, then consider the name of his first passenger ship.

The answer lies in 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,' the comic series about the travels and travails of Earth's last surviving man.

Musk is leaning toward the name 'Heart of Gold,' the starship in the novel wtih Infinite Improbability Drive.

This artist's rendering provided by SpaceX on Tuesday, Sept 27, 2016 shows the company's proposed Interplanetary Transport System passenger module on the surface a moon orbiting the planet Jupiter.For his first passenger ship, he is leaning toward the name 'Heart of Gold,' the starship in the novel 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.'

MUSK'S SCI FI NAMES Musk already has plumbed 'Star Wars' for names, as well as work by the late Scottish science fiction writer Iain M. Banks. SpaceX's Falcon rocket is a nod to the Millennium Falcon piloted by Han Solo. It's powered by Merlin engines. Then there are the two ocean platforms used for booster landings after liftoff: 'Just Read the Instructions' and 'Of Course I Still Love You' from Banks' 1988 novel 'The Player of Games.' Advertisement

'I like the fact that it's driven by Infinite Improbability,' Musk said in presenting his long-awaited Mars colonization plan this week, 'because I think our ship is also extremely improbable.'

'But the acronym is not the best,' he chuckled.

All aboard the HOG?

The name generated applause at the International Astronautical Congress in Mexico, where Musk provided elaborate details of his bold plans to fly scores of humans to Mars and set up a self-sustaining city with 1 million people, as big as San Jose, California.

For the past decade, Musk has borrowed from science fiction and fantasy when naming his rockets, engines, capsules and other space doodads.

Another billionaire's aerospace startup, Blue Origin, pays homage to America's original Mercury astronauts with its names. Long-established NASA and United Launch Alliance prefer mythology and astronomy.

Musk already has plumbed 'Star Wars' for names, as well as work by the late Scottish science fiction writer Iain M. Banks.

SpaceX's Falcon rocket is a nod to the Millennium Falcon piloted by Han Solo. It's powered by Merlin engines.

Then there are the two ocean platforms used for booster landings after liftoff: 'Just Read the Instructions' and 'Of Course I Still Love You' from Banks' 1988 novel 'The Player of Games.'

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' dates back further; the late English author Douglas Adams published the novel in 1979, based on his hit radio series.

And there's the Dragon capsule currently used to haul cargo to the International Space Station for NASA and, in another year or two, U.S. astronauts.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveils his plans to colonize Mars during the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexic

The capsule was named for 'Puff the Magic Dragon,' a jab at those who scoffed when Musk founded the company in 2002 and set the space bar exceedingly high.

SpaceX went on to become the first private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and return it safely to Earth in 2010.

NASA traditionally has dipped into mythology for names: Projects Mercury and Apollo, and the Saturn V moon rocket.

THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY Late English author Douglas Adams published the novel in 1979, based on his hit radio series which first aired a year earlier. Late English author Douglas Adams published the novel in 1979, based on his hit radio series which first aired a year earlier. A BBC television adaptation of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy broadcast in January and February 1981 on UK television station BBC Two. It follows the journey of Eath's last surviving man, Arthur Dent, following the demolition of the planet Earth by a Vogon constructor fleet to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Dent is rescued from Earth's destruction by Ford Prefect, a human-like alien writer for the eccentric, electronic travel guide The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by hitchhiking onto a passing spacecraft. Following his rescue, Dent explores the galaxy with Prefect and encounters Trillian, another human that had been taken from Earth prior to its destruction by the President of the Galaxy, the two-headed Zaphod Beeblebrox, and the depressed Marvin, the Paranoid Android. The most recent film version, from 2005, Pictured left to right: Marvin (WARWICK DAVIS, voice by ALAN RICKMAN), Zaphod (SAM ROCKWELL), Ford (MOS DEF), and Arthur (MARTIN FREEMAN) on Vogsphere. Advertisement

The space shuttles were named after seafaring ships of yore: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour.

Shuttle prototype Enterprise was the exception, named after the 'Star Trek' starship at fans' request.

United Launch Alliance also favors mythology, with its longtime Atlas rocket and even bigger, still-in-development Vulcan.

Then there are the constellations for inspiration.

Orion, the hunter, is the spacecraft in which NASA plans to send astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit, most notably Mars. Cygnus, the swan, is Orbital ATK's capsule for space station shipments.

Gemini, the twins, was NASA's two-man-per-capsule program that bridged Mercury and Apollo.

FILE - In this Friday, Sept. 17, 1976 file photo, cast members from the television series Star Trek, from left, Leonard Nimoy who portrayed Spock; George Takei who was Sulu; DeForest Kelly who was Dr. McCoy and James Doohan, who was Scotty, attend a ceremony for the space shuttle prototype Enterprise in Palmdale, Calif. Most of the shuttles were named after seafaring ships of yore: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. The prototype Enterprise was the exception, named after the 'Star Trek' starship at fans request. (AP Photo)

FILE - In this Tuesday, March 8, 2016 file photo, science fiction models, including the starship Enterprise from Star Trek and a Jules Vern-type space vessel, are displayed in the lobby of space venture company Blue Origin in Kent, Wash. (AP Photo/Donna Blankinship)

Orbital ATK also turned to the heavens for naming its Antares rocket after the superbright star.

At Blue Origin, the reusable suborbital rocket and capsule are called New Shepard for Alan Shepard, the first American to fly in space.

The orbital version will be New Glenn for John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.

Company founder Jeff Bezos suggests New Armstrong may soon be in the offing for Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong, the first man to step onto the moon.

Blue Origin's unmanned rocket New Shepard prepares to land in an area near Van Horn, Texas. The ship was named after astronaut Alan Shepard. The private space company run by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos completed its fourth successful unmanned rocket launch and safe landing in West Texas using the same vehicle.

FILE - In this Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016 file photo, a mockup of NASA's Orion spacecraft hits the water in a simulated ocean splashdown test at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. Orion, the hunter constellation, is the spacecraft in which NASA plans to send astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit, most notably Mars. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Optimistically, according to Musk, 'Heart of Gold' could blast off from Florida in late 2024 and arrive at the red planet in 2025. A Mars-launching window is available only every 26 months.

'I would stress that's an aspiration and within the realm of possibility, but a lot of things need to go right,' Musk said Tuesday.

FILE - In this Thursday, May 29, 2014 file photo, Elon Musk, CEO and CTO of SpaceX, listens to a question during a news conference in front of the SpaceX Dragon V2 spacecraft, designed to ferry astronauts to low-Earth orbit, at the headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. The capsule was named for 'Puff the Magic Dragon,' a jab at those who scoffed when Musk founded the company in 2002 and set the space bar exceedingly high. SpaceX went on to become the first private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and return it safely to Earth in 2010. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

FILE - In this Thursday, May 29, 2014 file photo, Elon Musk, left, CEO and CTO of SpaceX, talks with invited guests inside a mockup of the SpaceX Dragon V2 spacecraft at the headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. The capsule was named for 'Puff the Magic Dragon,' a jab at those who scoffed when Musk founded the company in 2002 and set the space bar exceedingly high. SpaceX went on to become the first private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and return it safely to Earth in 2010. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Musk knows better than anyone things don't always go right in rocketry.

His Falcon 9 rockets are grounded for the second time in a year, this time by a massive fireball during prelaunch testing at the pad on Sept. 1.

'This is just a small thing on a long road,' Musk told reporters after his address. 'There will probably be other failures in the future.'

He anticipates the risk will be greatest, in fact, for the pioneers aboard 'Heart of Gold.'

FILE - In this Tuesday, March 22, 2016 file photo made with a long exposure, hundreds line the beach north of the Cocoa Beach Pier in Florida to watch launch of the Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Cygnus, the swan constellation, is Orbital ATK's capsule for space station shipments. (Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today via AP)

FILE - In this May 27, 2016 photo made available by SpaceX, their Falcon rocket booster lands on a platform in the Atlantic Ocean after launching a satellite into orbit. Its name is a nod to the Millennium Falcon piloted by Han Solo in the Star Wars movie series. It's powered by Merlin engines. (SpaceX via AP)

FILE - In this Dec. 17, 2015 file photo, workers look over documents in the assembly building for Antares rockets during a tour of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. Orbital ATK turned to the heavens for naming its Antares rocket after the superbright star. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)
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At first glance, there seems to be nothing unusual about Ridley Road Market.

Like any other London market, there are stalls selling fresh fruit and vegetables, cheap electronics, artificial jewellery and other bits and bobs.

Then, the smell hits you.

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It is illegal in the UK and many other countries, which were forced to adopt strict rules following disease outbreaks that were linked to the import of wild meat. But commercial hunters can make huge amounts of money  some well over $1,000 a month

THE NEXT FOOD PANDEMIC Bushmeat is illegal in many countries that were forced to adopt strict rules following disease outbreaks that were linked to the import of wild meat. Experts are worry that this meat will carry disease capable of jumping from animals to humans - a zoonotic disease. Black death, Spanish flu and HIV  causes of the three biggest known pandemics  are all zoonotic diseases, and so, almost certainly, will be the next big one Bushmeat in Africa has been shown to be the source of scourges such as HIV. More recently, bushmeat may be to blame for the 2014 Ebola outbreak, which sent a chill down the spines of epidemic experts. One of the biggest issues around the international bushmeat trade is that we don't have a good idea of how big the problem really is. To prevent a pandemic, experts say we can find ways to reduce the occurrence of spillovers, by reducing bushmeat consumption in Africa and the rest of the world. Second, we can develop a strategy to deal with a spillover when it occurs, to stop it from becoming an outbreak. Advertisement

Behind the makeshift stalls are butchers' shops.

There's a dozen of them within 100 metres, each displaying a panoply of meats and hung carcasses.

There are beef ribs, pork shoulders, lamb shanks, chicken thighs  all the standard offerings found at most butchers.

But there are also more unusual cuts like lamb heads, ox kidneys, cow hooves and others I don't recognise.

Some of the butchers show questionable hygiene: they handle meat with bare hands, blood oozes out onto shop floors and flies settle on some of the meat.

Most things are unlabelled.

None of this deters shoppers, but it's not what I expected from a market that has already been under the spotlight for selling smuggled bushmeat.

Bushmeat is a catchall phrase for the meat of wild animals found in the tropics, principally West and Central Africa.

It is illegal in the UK and many other countries, which were forced to adopt strict rules following disease outbreaks that were linked to the import of wild meat.

Humans have, of course, hunted and eaten wild animals for hundreds of thousands of years.

Before we invented agriculture and domesticated animals, wildlife was a key source of nutrition (and still is in some parts of the world).

Without such hunting, we would never have become the planet's dominant species.

But the equation has changed.

There are now too many of us and too few of them.

Worse still, the imbalance we've created has opened us up to diseases that would have otherwise remained in wild animal 'reservoirs'.

If a specific set of circumstances align, an infectious disease that jumps from an animal to a human can spread rapidly and kill indiscriminately in our hyperconnected world.

Officials say the next pandemic will be hard to predict and will have a huge impact on society. Experts are worry that this bushmeat will carry disease capable of jumping from animals to humans - a zoonotic disease

In a related story, Yepoka Yeebo reported from Ghana's largest bushmeat market to understand why people eat wild meat.

The desire for such forbidden fruits has fuelled an illegal trade in wildlife meat across the world, estimated to be worth billions of dollars every year.

What risk does this trade carry for spreading disease?

A US government report believes that the next pandemic will be a black swan event, which means, like the 9/11 attacks, it will be hard to predict and will have a huge impact on society.

We may not be able to stop such an event from occurring.

But bringing the bushmeat trade under control will help conserve endangered species and give us more time to prepare for whatever that black swan might be.

BUSHMEAT ON THE RISE The study found that bushmeat was eaten at least once a month by 44 per cent of urban households in the Amazonian cities of Borba and Novo Aripuana. A total of almost 79 per cent of 153 households surveyed said they have eaten bushmeat in the last 12 months. Urban households reported consuming 15 species of mammals, 12 species of birds, 62 fish and seven types of reptiles. Among them are endangered, vulnerable and threatened creatures such as lowland tapir, peacock bass and yellow spotted river turtles. Advertisement

Infectious diseases are caused by pathogens of all shapes and sizes  from single molecules called prions to multicellular parasites like tapeworms.

The diseases they cause range from the mild, like the common cold, to the devastating and fatal, like rabies.

Together, infections cause one in five deaths every year, and make billions of us ill.

Fortunately, not all pathogens are capable of creating the next pandemic.

Black death, which killed a third of Europe's population in the 14th century, was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.

With modern antibiotics, we generally don't need to worry about bacteria  at least not until a superbug resistant to all antibiotics finds a way of spreading.

But some infections have the potential to cause what scientists simply call the next big one.

'Next' because this sort of thing has happened before  think about the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic  and 'big one' because the scale and cost to society can be tremendous.

The next big one could be a known threat, such as Ebola or bird flu, or it could be something you've never heard of.

The experts I spoke to agree that the agent most likely to cause the next pandemic will be a virus  more specifically, an RNA virus.

These viruses are the betes noires of infectious-disease specialists, and are responsible for influenza, MERS, Ebola, SARS, polio, HIV and many more infections you've probably heard of.

Bushmeat in Africa has been shown to be the source of scourges such as HIV. More recently, bushmeat may be to blame for the 2014 Ebola outbreak, which sent a chill down the spines of epidemic experts

BUSHMEAT LAWS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA The US has created laws that control the preparation, consumption and trade of meat in an attempt to ensure the animals are treated appropriately, kept healthy and sold legally. Bushmeat is illegal to ship, mail or carry into the US, and if it is found, officials will confiscate the animal carcass and destroy it. Anyone caught trying to sneak bushmeat into the country or even have it imported are subject to a fine. However, experts reveal that thousands of pounds of primate parts, antelope and other types of bushmeat are smuggled in every year. Legal authorities for Control of Communicable Diseases (CDC) have created a list of restricted animals: dogs, cats, amphibians, monkeys, bats, birds from specified countries, civets and African rodents. However, there are no CDC regulations regarding the importation of live fish. Source: Control of Communicable Diseases Advertisement

They also cause lesser-known diseases with the potential to become the next big one: Marburg, Lassa, Nipah, Rift Valley fever and CrimeanCongo haemorrhagic fever to name a few.

(In early September a man died from CrimeanCongo haemorrhagic fever in Spain, reportedly the first case in Western Europe in someone who hadn't travelled to areas affected by the disease.)

Unlike the cells that make up living things, viruses are lean.

They carry only as much genetic code as needed to enter a cell and take over its machinery.

RNA viruses lack the genetic code to make an error-correcting enzyme called DNA polymerase.

This means that they suffer many times the mutation rate of any other kind of organism.

Such a high mutation rate would be considered a curse for a large organism, but for RNA viruses, it is a boon.

Most mutations will render a virus less powerful, but every so often one will give it a nasty new power, say the ability to be more harmful to a new host.

Although bushmeat is risky, people in poor countries like Ghana (pictured) cannot afford to eat farmed meat like chicken and mutton. They are forces to hunt cane rat, duiker and other meat if they want to survive

If such an evolved virus were to find a new host, it could unleash a new epidemic.

The other thing that experts are quite sure about is that the next big one will be a zoonotic disease  one capable of jumping from animals to humans.

The fear of such an event, often called a 'spillover', is why bushmeat gets a bad rap.

Unlike smallpox and polio, which have been eradicated and nearly eradicated respectively, zoonotic diseases cannot be eradicated  unless we can also eradicate all the species that serve as reservoirs for these pathogens.

Black death, Spanish flu and HIV  causes of the three biggest known pandemics  are all zoonotic diseases, and so, almost certainly, will be the next big one.

In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a list of the top emerging diseases that are 'likely to cause severe outbreaks in the near future'.

It's no coincidence that all the diseases on the list are zoonotic diseases caused by RNA viruses, which turn animals  mostly wild ones  into reservoirs to hide in.

To understand why WHO worries about them, consider the example of the influenza virus H5N1.

Between 2003 and 2014, this RNA virus, which causes bird flu, infected some 600 people, killing more than half of them.

BUSHMEAT CRISIS IN THE AMAZON THREATENS WILDLIFE Alarming evidence has revealed that Brazilian city dwellers are regularly dining on endangered animals. Scientists warn the taste for bushmeat in urban environments poses a particular threat to Amazonian wildlife. They say that the voracious appetite for jungle-dwelling creatures is two-fold: The high level of poverty makes the animals attractive because they are free, while at the other end of society creatures, such as the yellow-spotted river turtle, are treated as delicacies. Experts from Lancaster University and Brazil interviewed households in two Brazilian 'prefrontier' cities  those that are surrounded by more than 90 per cent of their original forest cover. They found that virtually all urban households in the cities of Borba and Novo Aripuana consumed jungle wildlife for food. Almost all of the 153 households  99 per cent  eat fish found in the forests at least once a month, while 79 per cent eat bushmeat made up of both mammals and birds. Nearly half of the households surveyed  48 per cent - said they eat turtles and tortoises, with 28 per cent feasting on crocodile-like caimans. Some of the species being eaten are classed as endangered, vulnerable and threatened. These include the white-lipped peccary  a type of forest pig  which despite being 'near threatened',was eaten by 19 per cent of those surveyed. Some 15 per cent of people living in the Amazonian cities have eaten 'vulnerable' lowland tapir and 22 per cent of households have feasted on equally vulnerable yellow-spotted river turtles. Rare fish including arapaima, tambaqui, dourada and filhote have also ended up on between 15 and 29 per cent of dinner plates, with the vulnerable peacock bass proving a catch for 59 per cent of households. Advertisement

Though the current known strains of virus can kill, they do not have the capacity to pass from one human to another.

This is what, according to WHO, keeps most cases of H5N1 restricted to directly spilling over from a host reservoir, mainly wild ducks, into humans.

But a 2012 study in ferrets showed how easily this flu virus could acquire mutations that would enable it to pass from one mammal to another.

Scientists at the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands transferred H5N1 virus from the nose of one ferret to another and then to another.

They repeated this ten times, and, at the end of the experiment, through mere random mutation and replication, the virus had acquired the ability to transfer from ferret to ferret without any more help from the scientists.

The implication of their study, which was mired in controversy, is that such a crucial mutation could indeed come about as a matter of chance.

In the case of ferrets, scientists rolled the dice ten times to hit upon a deadly and easily transmissible strain.

We don't know how many rolls will be needed to achieve a similar effect in a human strain.

What we do know is that every humananimal interaction, such as every bushmeat kill, represents a chance roll of the dice for the virus to jump into a new species.

Risky or otherwise, there's a huge market for hunted animals across the world. All wild meat is dangerous to some extent. Consider the 2012 outbreak of trichinellosis in Europe, the first in more than 20 years

Pheasants are a delicacy in the UK.

In the USA, elk is a popular game meat.

Ostriches provide the leanest red meat you can buy in South Africa.

Marmot, an oversized squirrel, is a delicacy in Mongolia.

The list goes on.

Risky or otherwise, there's a huge market for hunted animals across the world.

All wild meat is dangerous to some extent.

Consider the 2012 outbreak of trichinellosis in Europe, the first in more than 20 years.

Researchers in Italy found that uncooked sausages made from wild boar meat were responsible for infecting more than 30 people with the pathogen Trichinella britovi.

An outbreak of anthrax in the Yamal Peninsula region of Russia this year has so far claimed the lives of 2,349 reindeer, four dogs and a 12-year-old boy (having infected 25 humans).

The origin may have been an infected reindeer carcass that died 75 years ago during a previous anthrax outbreak.

A warming globe may have caused the carcass to thaw, and the pathogen Bacillus anthracis probably contaminated the surrounding soil.

But some wild meats are a lot more dangerous than others.

Tropical forests are home to a much higher number of species than other kinds of forest, which means their inhabitants can carry more kinds of disease-causing microbes than wild animals in other parts of the world.

Though in absolute terms the amount of bushmeat consumed beyond rural Africa is small, its price is fueling the proliferation of professional hunters. A cane rat in London can cost more than 3 and a monkey in France can cost more than 100, which fuels illegal trade

Bushmeat in Africa has been shown to be the source of scourges such as HIV.

More recently, bushmeat may be to blame for the 2014 Ebola outbreak, which sent a chill down the spines of epidemic experts.

The writer David Quammen warned in his 2012 book Spillover that scientists had predicted a big Ebola outbreak.

For decades, careful work had spotted Ebola spillovers across West and Central Africa.

None had, however, killed more than a few hundred people.

The 2014 outbreak looked different, and that's what was worrying.

It was spreading faster, while maintaining its notoriously high kill rate (nearly 70 per cent).

By the time it ended two years later, it had infected 28,000 people and killed more than 11,000. It didn't spread beyond West Africa, but it raised alarm far beyond.

Though we have been studying Ebola for decades, we didn't know then, and still don't know now, some of the most basic things about the virus.

For example, what is the animal reservoir from which Ebola spills over? (Read our related piece on searching for Ebola's hiding place.)

Our lack of preparation was astounding  there was no vaccine against Ebola and to develop one would have taken years.

To prevent a bushmeat-born outbreak we can find ways to reduce the occurrence of spillovers, by reducing bushmeat consumption in Africa and the rest of the world

Even with the vaccine candidates we now have, it will take at least a year to get a vaccine tested, approved and manufactured  and this testing can only happen during an Ebola outbreak to ensure the results of trials are reliable.

The 2014 outbreak showed that we are not even close to being prepared to deal with the next big one.

The only upside was that the world began to take spillovers more seriously.

Many African countries stepped up their fight against illegal bushmeat, with some adding bats, the suspected Ebola reservoir, to the list of species banned from being hunted.

The Guardian highlighted the practice of eating 'smokies'  a West African delicacy that is illegal in the UK.

Newsweek ran a story about how New Yorkers are able to easily buy illegal bushmeat (in which, though they didn't detect Ebola, researchers found other possible human pathogens, such as simian foamy virus and herpes virus).

The most pertinent report, however, came from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

It noted the steps that would be required for a European to be infected with Ebola through bushmeat: '1) the bushmeat has to be contaminated with [Ebola]; 2) the bushmeat has to be (illegally) introduced into the EU; 3) the imported bushmeat needs to contain viable virus when it reaches the person; 4) the person has to be exposed to the virus; and 5) the person needs to get infected following exposure.'

EFSA then concluded that, although it doesn't have the probabilities for each of those steps to assess the absolute risk of an Ebola spillover in Europe, based on past experience of such events not occurring, it can be 'assumed' that the risk is low.

And, yet, it's this kind of event that has the potential to cause havoc.

The second way to prevent infectious disease from bushmeat is to develop a strategy to deal with a spillover when it occurs, to stop it from becoming an outbreak

The National Intelligence Council, which is essentially the US government's futurism department, describes a spillover pandemic as a black swan event.

The writer and former stockbroker Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who developed the theory of black swan events, says that it's futile to attempt to predict them.

Instead, we must prepare for negative ones (and, of course, learn to exploit positive ones).

So what can we do to prevent or prepare for a bushmeat-borne outbreak?

First, we can find ways to reduce the occurrence of spillovers, by reducing bushmeat consumption in Africa and the rest of the world.

Second, we can develop a strategy to deal with a spillover when it occurs, to stop it from becoming an outbreak.

But before we can start reducing the number of wild animals killed for bushmeat, we need to understand the various answers to one question  why do people eat it?

In rural parts of Africa, people rely on bushmeat for sustenance.

Cane rat, duiker and other hunted meat is usually cheaper than farmed meats such as chicken and mutton.

That is why the transition from eating wild meat to domestic meat hasn't happened in many places in West and Central Africa.

'To grow domestic animals is quite difficult,' says Michelle Wieland of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

'There is no pasture. There are a lot of tsetse flies.'

'In a small town in Central Africa, a mother must make a choice whether to spend the little she has to buy a quarter kilogram of chicken or one kilogram of bushmeat,' she adds.

'People prefer to eat fish and wild animals, because they are almost free.'

However, in the right situation and with help from governments, some places have made that transition.

'In Cameroon, ten years ago, they were emptying the forests. Every corner you turned, there were hunting camps. When I went back this year, there weren't any,' says Liz Greengrass of the Born Free Foundation.

'There are many reasons. These areas were probably over-harvested. There is better law enforcement today. Many have turned to cocoa farming.'

Beyond accessibility and affordability, there's a more nuanced, human side to what we choose to eat.

'Most people prefer eating what they've grown up eating,' says Greengrass.

FOOD SHOPS IN LONDON BUSTED FOR SELLING BUSHMEAT An undercover investigation has revealed a shocking trade in illegal 'bushmeat' at a London market in 2012 - including the sale of dead rats for human consumption. Charred sheep skins, another favourite in west Africa known as 'smokies', are also being sold by butchers at the Ridley Road market in Dalson, east London. A BBC investigation using hidden cameras uncovered at least six butchers selling the illegal meats, breaking UK food safety laws. Bush meat: Cane rats and 'shocking' quantities of illegal and 'potentially unsafe' meat have been sold to the public in east London, a BBC London undercover investigation has found West African and environmental health sources said the market was known for illicit meat. The butchers were filmed preparing to sell smokies, which are made by using a blow torch on the skin of a sheep or goat to give it a charred flavour. Confronted with the evidence gathered by the BBC, Islam Halal Meat, Punjab Halal Meat and Fish, and Dalston Butchers denied they were selling illegal meat. The practice is outlawed under UK and European food laws for reasons of public safety and animal welfare. Dr Yunes Ramadan Teinaz, a chartered environmental health practitioner, said: 'Behind the illicit trade in smokies are criminals who don't observe the law and are just after financial gain. 'It is disgusting and outrageous that the local authorities don't take action and remove this meat from the human food chain.' One Hackney butcher sold a researcher some of the illicit meat and said: 'Don't tell anyone, otherwise there will be trouble.' Advertisement

She believes that a lot of demand comes from those who were born in rural areas and then migrated to African cities or even to the West.

Hence, in urban Africa and in the rest of the world, bushmeat is generally treated as an exotic food and commands a higher price than farmed meat.

Though in absolute terms the amount of bushmeat consumed beyond rural Africa is small, its price is fuelling the proliferation of professional hunters.

A cane rat in London can cost more than 30. A monkey in France can cost more than 100. The prices in the home country can be less than a tenth of those commanded in the West.

'Commercial hunters can make huge amounts of money,' says Greengrass  some well over $1,000 a month, many times the average monthly income of a citizen of a West or Central African country.

And, from the perspective of conservation, Michelle Wieland believes that hunting for trafficking purposes  feeding people in cities or sending the meat internationally  is a bigger problem than people consuming bushmeat to get enough protein to survive.

A 2008 report estimated that more than 1 million tonnes of wildlife is eaten in Africa, which is forcing many species towards extinction.

'Individuals bring [bushmeat] back [to the West] for personal use or for family and friends,' says Jenny Morris of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, the professional body of environmental health workers.

'What's less clear is how much of a commercial trade there is. Because it is a high-value product and it isn't allowed to be sold, there is commercial trade in it, but proving that is much harder.'

In 2012, a BBC investigation found that butchers at Ridley Road Market in London were selling bushmeat.

It wasn't on display, but asking nicely could get you a cane rat, a larger cousin of a house rat that is found in West Africa and considered a delicacy there.

The investigation also revealed that between 2009 and 2012, despite having been made aware of the sale of illegal meat, environmental health officers had only made two enforcement visits.

Worse, none of the shops had had their licences revoked. (The local council says that the number of enforcement visits since 2012 has gone up considerably.)

One of the biggest issues around the international bushmeat trade is that we don't have a good idea of how big the problem really is.

In the UK, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) publishes annual reports about seizures of illicit goods entering the UK.

In 2014, it caught some 40 tonnes of meat from across the world.

However, it doesn't say how much of that was bushmeat. (I received no response from DEFRA about why they don't specify what type of meat is seized. The UK Border Force declined to share any information.)

YOUR TASTE FOR BUSH MEAT IS KILLING OF SPECIES The world's largest gorillas have been pushed to the brink of extinction by a surge of illegal hunting in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and are now critically endangered, officials said earlier this month. With just 5,000 Eastern gorillas (Gorilla beringei) left on Earth, the majestic species now faces the risk of disappearing completely, officials said at the International Union for Conservation of Nature's global conference in Honolulu. Some people hunted gorillas (pictured) for bushmeat, which is contributing to their extinction Four out of six of the Earth's great apes are now critically endangered, 'only one step away from going extinct,' including the Eastern Gorilla, Western Gorilla, Bornean Orangutan and Sumatran Orangutan, said the IUCN in an update to its Red List, the world's most comprehensive inventory of plant and animal species. One of the two subspecies of Eastern gorilla, known as Grauer's gorilla (G. b. graueri), has drastically declined since 1994 when there were 16,900 individuals, to just 3,800 in 2015. Some people hunted gorillas for bushmeat, while activities like mining and charcoal production and human settlement also infringed on gorillas' habitat. Advertisement

It is estimated that only 10 per cent of the bushmeat that comes to the UK is stopped at the border.

We also don't know what the bushmeat being seized actually is.

'Currently, it's seized, it's bagged, and then incinerated before it even formally enters the UK, without anybody inspecting it for species or pathogens,' says Rob Ogden.

In 2005, Ogden, now President of the Society for Wildlife Forensic Science but then part of a company he set up called Wildlife DNA Services, convinced the UK government to do something about the bushmeat problem.

'Look, we said, we'd like to know what's coming in,' he remembers.

With help from Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs and DEFRA, Ogden and his colleague Ross McEwing began their work.

'We went to Heathrow. Set up a lab. Got a sniffer dog to look at passenger luggage and pick up any kind of food products. Then from those samples we extracted DNA and sequenced it.'

Their 2007 report analysed 230 meat samples.

Seven were recognised as wild meat (four pangolins, one marsh buck, one cane rat and a wild pig species).

They even analysed some samples bought by local authorities in London markets with help from the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

All three of these samples were cane rat. (A full copy of the report was kindly provided to me by Ogden.)

At the Experimental Burger Society in London, you taste of exotic meats without risks, thanks to a supplier called Freedown Food. Their list includes crocodile from Namibia, ostrich from Spain, halal bison from Canada, and zebra (pictured) and antelope from South Africa

Following the report, Ogden convinced the FSA to develop a standardised method to detect wild meats.

But then the government's interest declined and, as far as he knows, it's never been used.

'I don't think [officers] are routinely going to markets and trying to identify illegally sold wild meat, or testing it even when they are seizing it. When they know it's illegal, they have grounds to confiscate it and send it for incineration. It rarely goes to prosecution. If they don't need to know the details at the species level to confiscate it, then they are unlikely to test it,' Ogden says.

A 2013 DEFRA report backed up his claim, stating that 'no laboratories have carried out any bushmeat or exotic meat analyses owing to lack of demand from [local authority] clients'.

The 2008 recession also had an effect.

'Especially after the financial crisis, every department we've talked about has been abolished or contracted,' Ogden says.

'There aren't resources for doing things that aren't immediately and directly the responsibility of a department.'

Bushmeat also suffers another bureaucratic hurdle  because multiple government departments are involved in wildlife trade, the responsibilities around managing bushmeat are also split.

DEFRA deals with international bodies that set wildlife trade regulations, for example; the Home Office deals with border security to confiscate wild meat moving through ports and airports; the FSA works with local authorities to stop the sale of bushmeat, and so on.

WEST AFRICA AT HIGHEST RISK OF BAT-TO-HUMAN VIRUS Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia are most at risk from bat viruses jumping to humans and causing new diseases that could lead to deadly outbreaks, scientists warned on Tuesday. Approximately 60 to 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases are so-called 'zoonotic events' -- where animal diseases jump into people -- and bats in particular are known to carry many zoonotic viruses. The tiny animals are the suspected origin of rabies, Ebola, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and possibly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and could cause other as yet unknown epidemics in future. Experts are worry that bushmeat will carry disease capable of jumping from animals to humans - a zoonotic disease. Studies show West Africa is at highest risk of this occurring with bats Scientists at University College London (UCL), the Zoological Society of London and Edinburgh University aimed to map out the highest-risk areas, using a variety of factors including large numbers of bat viruses found locally, increasing population pressure, and hunting bats for bushmeat. The research, using data published between 1900 and 2013, found that overall West Africa -- the epicentre of the recent Ebola outbreak -- is at highest risk for zoonotic bat viruses. The wider sub-Saharan Africa region, as well as South East Asia, were also found to be hotspots. Liam Brierley, a PhD student at Edinburgh University who worked with Jones, said the risk of bat to human virus transmission is being driven higher by large and increasing populations of people and livestock expanding into wild areas such as forests. 'People in these areas may also hunt bats for bushmeat, unaware of the risks of transmissible diseases which can occur through touching body fluids and raw meat of bats,' he said. Advertisement

For Europe as a whole, the most recent estimate of the size of the illegal bushmeat market comes from a study of seizures made at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris in 2010.

Marcus Rowcliffe of the Zoological Society of London and his colleagues confiscated nearly 200 kg of bushmeat during those seizures.

With the help of statistical analysis, Rowcliffe and his colleagues estimated that about five tonnes of bushmeat enters Europe every week.

'The volume and nature of import and trade suggests the emergence of a luxury market for African bushmeat in Europe. Imports are supplying an organized system of trade and are not solely being brought for personal consumption,' Rowcliffe and his colleagues wrote in their study.

'This is indicated by the large size of many individual bushmeat consignments, and the presence of traders within Paris who are able to supply bushmeat to order.'

Reports suggest an operation held in Belgian airports in 2013 caught similar amounts of bushmeat, which indicates that the international trade is still rife.

However, there haven't been any more recent estimates.

Rowcliffe told me that he tried to update his own analysis from 2010 but found that governments either didn't have the data or weren't willing to share.

Without data, and without governments having the appetite and commitment to get more, it's hard to know the scale of the problem of illegal bushmeat smuggling.

But one way to reduce it  and the risk of a spillover  no matter where it's happening, is to find a sustainable source for the 'wild' species people have a taste for.

At the Experimental Burger Society in London, you can get a taste of exotic meats without the attendant risks, thanks to a supplier called Freedown Food.

The company told me that they comply with all UK and European regulations.

Their list includes crocodile from Namibia, ostrich from Spain, halal bison from Canada, and zebra and antelope from South Africa.

Things could have been different if we'd had a vaccine ready for Ebola or Zika. Experts say vaccines are the best insurance policy against the next big one, meaning in the event a food pandemic occurs. Pictured are doctors carrying a body during the Ebola outbreak in 2014

Even some countries known to be hotspots for bushmeat are looking at this kind of option.

For example, the Ghanaian delicacy of cane rat is being farmed in Accra, the capital of the country, for its urban residents.

Other common species of bushmeat, such as duikers, porcupines and squirrels, could also potentially be farmed, and perhaps lessen the demand for endangered bushmeat species such as apes, monkeys, elephants, pangolins and big cats.

It's possible too that city dwellers would be happy to pay a little extra to know that the animals on their plates were treated well and are disease-free.

The reality is that, even with greater support from governments and more sustainable ways of meeting demand for 'wild' species, the bushmeat trade is unlikely to stop completely.

Rural consumption in West and Central Africa is impossible to regulate.

And, like the illegal drug trade, there will always be people willing to pay for certain products and sellers willing to find ways to smuggle them.

So, what can we do to prepare for a spillover and prevent it from becoming a full-blown pandemic?

The poorest countries in the world cannot afford to invest much, if anything, in epidemic preparedness and prevention.

And, as infectious diseases do not respect borders, a joined-up approach is vital.

So, we should be thinking globally, and the obvious candidate to lead on this is WHO

Sadly, WHO is an imperfect candidate.

An independent analysis of its response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak found three big problems: a lack of preparation, an underestimation of risks and a lack of money.

WHO learned the lessons the hard way and has since worked greatly to improve.

The organisation's response to the 2015 outbreak of Zika, which is a less deadly disease than Ebola but has spread more widely, has been better.

WHO sounded the alarm relatively early and used some money from an emergency fund it had created after the Ebola inquiry.

Yet, it couldn't stop the spread of Zika, which has now affected more than 60 countries and territories across South America, North America, Africa and Asia.

Things could have been different if we'd had a vaccine ready for Ebola or Zika. But vaccine development is not WHO's job.

Fortunately, there are a small but growing number of organisations working to fill this crucial gap.

One is the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which was set up in the 1940s as a malaria-fighting unit.

One of its key goals today is to understand emerging infectious diseases.

Supporting CDC's work is the non-profit Global Viral.

Since 2003, it has been collecting blood samples from bushmeat hunters across Africa.

Its aim is to detect novel viruses and develop early-warning systems to prevent pandemics.

Most recently, in August 2016, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) began its work.

It hopes to create vaccine candidates for all emerging infectious diseases and in the priority order that WHO has set out.

The premise is simple: vaccines are the best insurance policy you can buy against the next big one.

After spending millennia with wild animals, we are finally understanding more about the invisible, microbial connections that tie us together.

While we coexist without problems for much of the time, it only takes one spillover to change the world.

We may not be able to predict when and what the next big one will be. But there is one thing we do know.

We need to be ready.
If you're flying with a low-cost airline, you might want to think twice about getting a coffee on board.

Research has revealed that one airline charges 2.55 for a coffee - and that the same drink can be made at home for the equivalent of six pence per serving.

That represents a mark-up of over 4,000 per cent.

Research into the price of instant coffees sold on board flights reveals the mark-up can sometimes be over 4,000 per cent

Kayak.co.uk looked at the prices for coffee on five low-cost airlines departing from the UK - Ryanair, easyJet, Thomas Cook, Flybe and Jet2 - and compared them with the cost of making the same beverage at home.

While some mark-ups can be expected, given that in-flight overheads and staffing costs are larger than the average kitchen, Kayak found that some airlines have hiked prices by over 4,000 per cent.

For example, the cost of a cup of Lavazza coffee on Ryanair is the equivalent of 2.55 when converted from euros.

But if you purchased the same coffee at supermarkets, available in 100g tins for 3, each serving comes in at just six pence.

This means a mark-up of 4,150 per cent was applied to the coffee.

Similarly, while easyJet charges the least for a cup of coffee out of the five low-cost airlines, 2.30 was still a 2,775 per cent mark-up.

THE PRICE OF A CUP OF COFFEE Airline Cost of cup of coffee on board Cost for same brand in supermarket (per serving) Mark up per cup Ryanair 2.55 (converted from euros) 6p per serving (100g tin) 4,150 per cent EasyJet 2.30 8p per serving (100g tin) 2,775 per cent Thomas Cook 2.80 31p (cost per sachet) 803 per cent Flybe 2.50 31p (cost per sachet) 706 per cent Jet2 2.60 41p (cost per sachet) 534 per cent

The Illy instant coffee the carrier uses is available in supermarkets for just 4 for 100g or around 50 servings at eight pence each.

However, a spokesperson for easyJet told MailOnline Travel: 'The figure provided by Kayak is inaccurate and overstated.

'We sold over three million cups of premium Illy coffee in the last year, demonstrating that passengers find our products good value.

'Providing an on-board range of food and drink brings with it associated supply chain costs, such as loading and security processes which are not incurred by high street shops or supermarkets.

'These factors inevitably affect the prices we charge, however, we regularly benchmark our pricing across a variety of competitors and are confident of being in line with the market.'

Ryanair had the biggest coffee mark-up at 4,150 per cent. It would cost just six pence to make the same brew at home

For Thomas Cook, Flybe and Jet2, the coffees served on board were available from supermarkets in like-for-like sachets.

The Kenco Cafe Latte on Thomas Cook Airlines costs 2.80, the most expensive of the five airlines, but it's available from supermarkets at just 31 pence per sachet.

Flybe serves the same product for 2.50, although this is still the equivalent of a 706 per cent mark-up.

It's Jet2 that's offering the coffee with the smallest mark-up at 534 per cent.

The Starbucks VIA instant coffee it serves on board costs 2.60 but the individual sachets are 41 pence each.

A Jet2 spokesperson told MailOnline Travel: 'We offer our customers quality Starbucks coffee on board our flights at great value prices.

'In a Starbucks store, you would pay 2.60 for a Grande Latte, which is exactly what you pay for a coffee on board our flights. This offers excellent value for a quality cup of coffee on a flight.'

MailOnline Travel contacted all the airlines featured in the study for comments.

Suzanne Perry, Marketing Director at Kayak, said: 'We're very aware that airlines are providing a service when it comes to offering hot drinks on board  meaning they incur additional costs and passengers are paying for the convenience of enjoying a hot beverage at 40,000ft.

'However, for International Coffee Day, we wanted to demonstrate to passengers just how much their cup of coffee is marked-up when compared to supermarket prices, allowing them to consider an alternative. Sachets can be cheaply purchased from supermarkets, or even picked up free from hotel rooms. So why not be savvy about it and pack a sachet or two instead, and then just ask for some hot water on the flight?
On September 29, 1916, American oil magnate John D. Rockefeller became the world's first confirmed U.S. dollar billionaire - his wealth went on to peak at an estimated $336billion.

And it appears 100 years on, the U.S. still reigns when it comes to wealth.

Data released by Forbes reveals where today's billionaires live in the world, with almost a third of them residing in America.

On September 29, 1916, American oil magnate John D. Rockefeller became the world's first confirmed U.S. dollar billionaire - his wealth went on to peak at an estimated $336 billion

Money map: Data released by Forbes reveals where today's billionaires live in the world, with almost a third of them residing in America

In the first quarter of 2016 the worlds billionaire population stood at 1,810 in 67 countries.

Of that number 540 billionaires were found to be based in the U.S., more than any other country.

Coming in at second place was China with 251 billionaires, followed by Germany with 120 people boasting ten-figure-plus bank accounts.

India and Russia also made the top five, with the UK coming in at seventh, with 50 top-tier tycoons.

WHERE THE WORLD'S BILLIONAIRES LIVE IN 2016 1. United States - 540 2. China - 251 3. Germany - 120 4. India - 84 5. Russia - 77 6. Hong Kong - 64 7. United Kingdom - 50 8. Italy - 43 9. France - 39 10. Canada - 33 11. Switzerland - 32 12. Brazil - 31 13. South Korea - 31 14. Turkey - 30 15. Japan - 27 16. Sweden - 26 17. Australia - 25 18. Taiwan - 25 19. Spain - 21 20. Indonesia - 20 Advertisement

The Middle East and Africa was the region with the lowest concentration of billionaires, while Asia Pacific came out on top.

Europe was shown to have the largest number of countries with cash-loaded citizens.

With one of the largest economies in southeast Asia, Indonesia made it on to the list at 20th place, with 20 billion dollar residents.

On the people front, Bill Gates topped the list of the worlds richest billionaires for the 17th time in 22 years.

Though the 60-year-old Microsoft head is $4.2 billion poorer than 2015, his net worth of $75 billion has put him in the top spot of the spot on Forbes' World Billionaires list for the third year in a row, after overcoming Mexicos Carlos Slim Helu in 2014.

Helu came in fourth in Forbes 2016 list of 1,810 billionaires, behind Gates, Zaras Amancio Ortega and business mogul Warren Buffett, respectively.

With a net worth of $75billion, Microsoft head Bill Gates hit the top spot on Forbes' 2016 World Billionaires list for the third year in a row

Zaras Amancio Ortega (left) is worth $67billion. Warren Buffett (right), 85, of Berkshire Hathaway came in third on the billionaires list, with a net worth of $60.8billion

Mexico's Carlos Slim Helu (left) came in fourth on the list with $50billion, while Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos (right) took the fifth spot on the billionaires list with $45.2billion

Others who made the top ten included Amazons Jeff Bezos (fifth), Mark Zuckerberg (sixth), Oracles Larry Ellison (seventh), Michael Bloomberg (eighth), and David and Charles Koch (tied at ninth).

While 221 people fell off the billionaires list this year, 198 people joined the ranks.

Twenty-nine from the 2015 list died, while another 29 rejoined the list after having fallen off.

Noteable drop-offs included fashion designer Tory Burch, Sam Adams head Jim Koch and Dicks Sporting Goods chief Edward Stack.

FIT FOR A BILLIONAIRE! THE BEST PRESIDENTIAL ROOMS IN THE WORLD REVEALED Intercontinental, Hong Kong Price per night: 9,607 ($12,468) Sold as Asias 'most spectacular' presidential suite, InterContinental Hong Kong's luxury five-bedroom space - complete with double height ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows - spans 7,000 square feet. Among the amenities on offer is a round-the-clock personal butler service, a gym, a private sauna and steam room. Stepping outside, the suite boasts a 2,500-square-foot rooftop terrace decked out with an infinity swimming pool and Jacuzzi overlooking Victoria Harbour and the city skyline. Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo Price per night: 10,287 ($13,355) The Mandarin Oriental's presidential suite on the 36th floor in Tokyo has one large master bedroom with a king-sized bed swathed in Egyptian cotton linens. The giant master bedroom also boasts a walk-in wardrobe, while the adjoining white-marbled bathroom features a Jacuzzi bathtub positioned next to the window overlooking the cityscape. Additional accommodation includes a dark wood paneled dining room with seating for eight people, a separate study, living room, pantry, hall and powder room. Four Seasons Resort Hualalai, Hawaii Price per night: 10,287 ($13,355) Forget high-sky views. The Four Seasons Hualalai in Hawaii ups the ante with its Presidential Villa, where guests can breeze out from their three-bedroom bungalow to the beach. The tropical-feel suite includes a large outdoor deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean, complete with sunbeds and a hot tub. For a real Hawaiian experience guests can wash off in an outdoor lava-rock shower after a spot of swimming. The living room is also open air - perfect for a stargazing session. Mandarin Oriental, Washington D.C. Price per night: 11,473 ($15,000) Washington D.C. is the political hub of America, so the presidential suites in the city's top hotels scrub up pretty sharp. The five-star Mandarin Oriental doesn't disappoint with a three-bedroom penthouse complete with views of the National Cathedral, Lincoln Memorial and Potomac River. Features include giant four-poster king beds, a walk-in closet, 24-foot living room, an infinity edge bathtub and study with leather walls. The Beverly Hills Hotel Price per night: 13,094 ($17,000) The Beverley Hills Hotel has welcomed dozens of famous faces, from Elizabeth Taylor to Marilyn Monroe to the Duke of Windsor. And its one-bedroom presidential suite promises to make guests feel as pampered as possible. Featuring oak furnishings and candy-coloured velvet furnishings, amenities include a 'den' to hideaway in, a fireplace, a professional chef's kitchen, a piano and a 'luxurious' marble bathroom complete with an outdoor shower for two. Other room highlights include round trip LAX airport transfers, complimentary flowers, a fresh fruit platter and bottle of Krug champagne. Hotel Principe di Savoia, Milan Price per night: 17,716 ($23,000) The 500-square-metre Presidential Suite on the 10th floor at Hotel Principe di Savoia in Milan has welcomed celebrities, presidents and royalty from Queen Elizabeth to George Clooney. In the luxurious living room - stocked with a treasure trove of fine art and antiques - youll find a welcoming marble fireplace, while the dining room is furnished with French crystal. There are three bedrooms and the Pompeii-style spa has a large private swimming pool, whirlpool, Jacuzzi, sauna and Turkish bath. St. Regis, New York Price per night: 26,959 ($35,000) Located in the heart of Manhattan, the St. Regis New York's presidential suite on the 16th floor boasts stunning views over Central Park. The three-bedroom apartment comes complete with numerous balconies, a wood-paneled library, full kitchen and a spa-style bathroom with a Jacuzzi tub. Other perks include 24-hour butler service, a complimentary bottle of Champagne and free in-room movies. Ciragan Palace Kempinski Hotel, Istanbul Price per night: 27, 557 ($35,700) Formerly the palace of an Ottoman Sultan, the Ciragan Palace Kempinski is the jewel of Istanbul. Its presidential suite is certainly fit for sovereignty with two bedrooms, a library, powder room and views out over the Bosphorus strait. For those who like to arrive in style, there are boat and helicopter services available. Fans of the opulent five-star hotel include Prince Charles, Liz Hurley, Uma Thurman and Giorgio Armani. The Raj Palace, Jaipur, India Price per night: 41,248 ($53,550) The gold-encrusted Raj Palace offers guests a choice of two presidential suites: the Shahi Mahal and Maharajas Pavilion, the latter of which is a four-story, four-bedroom apartment. The roomy 16,000-square-foot abode includes a 'luxurious' private lounge and bar on the first floor, museum on the second floor, a library and dining room on the third floor, and a private rooftop terrace and spa pool on the top deck. One of the most impressive rooms is the double-height reception room, with a giant chandelier, topped off with lashings of red velvet and gold leaf furnishings. Hotel President Wilson, Geneva Price per night: 62,392 ($81,000) Where do the rich and famous stay when they're planning a getaway on the shores of Lake Geneva? Michael Jackson, Richard Branson, Rihanna and Bill Gates have all enjoyed stays here, the world's luxurious hotel suite - a snip at only 62,392 ($81,000) a night. The 12-bedroom Royal Penthouse Suite of the President Wilson hotel in Geneva, Switzerland, is believed to be the most expensive hotel suite in the world. Occupying the entire eighth floor of the hotel and spanning a massive 18,000 sq/ft, it boasts a gym, Jacuzzi, Steinway grand piano, private butler, chef and its own security team. Advertisement




Tracy Morgan is the father of four children.

And on Wednesday the 47-year-old was every bit the doting dad as he went shoe shopping with his daughter Maven in Los Angeles.

Tracy affectionately wrapped an arm around the apple of his eye, age three, while also having a tub of gummy candies handy for their sweet tooth.

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The apple of his eye! Doting dad Tracy Morgan went shopping for new shoes for his little girl Maven, three, at Undefeated in Los Angeles on Wednesday

While shopping for new shoes for Maven, the comedian gave his little girl his undivided attention as they sat next to each other inside the shop.

Little Maven was adorably styled in a ruffled blue dress as she wore her hair back into a high ponytail with braids.

Her father, meanwhile, kept it casual in a white graphic print T-shirt, blue sweatpants, and trainers.

He also wore a chain necklace and an extremely eye-catching gold ring, which had his first name etched into it.

All good! The former Saturday Night Live star flashed a peace sign as he strolled outside with his pal

Tracy protectively held his daughter's hand as they strolled out into the crowd together.

Certainly, the father-of-four was enjoying every moment out with his daughter, as he flashed a peace sign towards photographers while stepping out of the store.

Tracy and his wife Megan Wollover welcomed Maven in July 2013, and the couple tied the knot two years later in August 2015.

Daddy's little girl: Tracy protectively led his little girl through the crowd, hand-in-hand

The 30 Rock star also has sons Gitrid, Malcolm, and Tracy Jr. from his previous marriage to Sabina.

Nowadays, Tracy has returned to the road for his latest stand-up tour, Picking Up The Pieces.

He will be performing at The Novo in Los Angeles on Thursday before traveling up north for a gig at Monterey, California.

There's no missing that! Morgan sported some extremely eye-catching jewelry, including a gold ring that had his first name etched onto it

On June 7, 2014, Tracy miraculously survived after a Walmart truck on the New Jersey Turnpike hit the limousine he was riding in, but the crash left him severely injured.

'I thought I was going to die for a long time. My thoughts  I was in a very dark place. I was sitting right here, contemplating suicide. I couldn't walk,' he told Rolling Stone magazine.

His friend and mentor Jimmy Mack died at the scene and three others traveling with him were badly hurt.

Family matters: Tracy and his wife Megan Wollover welcomed Maven in July 2013, and the couple tied the knot two years later in August 2015 (pictured in September in New York)

Morgan spent eight days comatose in hospital and was blind for six days after regaining consciousness, and when he got home he was a prisoner in his second floor bedroom unable to walk or manage the stairs, as revealed in his Rolling Stone interview.

He suffered a traumatic brain injury that left him in need of cognitive therapy, and battled feelings of guilt that led him to seek psychiatric help, the story added.

Earlier this year the driver of the Wal-Mart truck, Kevin Roper, who crashed into the comedian's limo, was indicted and pleaded not guilty to vehicular homicide, aggravated manslaughter and eight counts of aggravated assault.

Prosecutors have claimed that Roper had not slept for more than 24 hours prior to the crash.

MyCentralJersey.com reports that Kevin's next court date has been scheduled for November 9.
There's a new addition to the hit NBC show, This Is Us.

Sam Trammell, 47, will join the likes of Sterling K. Brown, Mandy Moore, Milo Ventimiglia and Justin Hartley.

The show centres on a group of people born on the same day, who are specifically turning 36.

New cast member: 47-year-old Sam Trammell will join the likes of Sterling K. Brown, Mandy Moore, Milo Ventimiglia and Justin Hartley for NBC's show, This Is Us

The True Blood actor has signed up for a recurring role on the new NBC dramedy.

He is set to play the role of Ben, the front man of a popular blues/jazz band. He'll make his first appearance later this year.

Trammell, who starred on the huge hit The Fault in Our Stars, played shape-shifting Sam on True Blood during its seven-season run.

His TV guest appearances also include House, Dexter, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Childrens Hospital.

Dramedy: The True Blood actor has signed up for a recurring role on the new NBC dramedy. Justin Hartley (L) and Chrissy Metz (R) pictured in a scene

Happy couple: Milo Ventimiglia plays Jack who is married to Rebecca played by Mandy Moore

This Is Us is has already received critical acclaim and is from the writers and directors of the comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love, starring Ryan Gosling and Steve Carell.

It follows a group of people born on the same day and the challenges and highs they are currently experiencing.

Rebecca, played by Mandy Moore, and Jack, played by Milo Ventimiglia, are a married couple expecting triplets in Pittsburgh.

Kevin, played by Justin Hartley, is a handsome television actor growing bored of his fly bachelor lifestyle.

Different but the same: The show centres on a group of people born on the same day, who are all 36

Randall, played by The People v. O.J. Simpson's Sterling K. Brown, is a married man with a family who seeks to find his father who abandoned him.

Chrissy Metz' character is struggling with her weight but through the challenge she finds a man.
She's been rocking 1950s styles in Woody Allen's latest project.

And Kate Winslet was spotted on set once again on Thursday, as she shot scenes inside a diner, juggling an armful of empty glasses.

Perhaps the practice winning all those award gongs has paid off as the 40-year-old deftly carried them in her arms in Coney Island, New York.

Acting: Kate Winslet was spotted on set once again on Thursday, as she shot scenes inside a diner

She looked a little harassed as she got into character as a waitress, but the Oscar winner was focused on the task in hand, who won for The Reader in 2008.

Her usually-blonde and wavy tresses have been dyed strawberry blonde for the role, and styled in 50's curls.

And she was once again dressed in a period costume of a turquoise dress and white sandals.

On Wednesday she joined fellow English actress Juno Temple on location of the as-yet-untitled project, which is set in the New York beachside community in the 1950s.

Waitressing: The 40-year-old looked harassed as she got into character in Coney Island, New York

Run like the Win-slet: Kate clocked up impressive speed in a pair of heels

Wait your turn: This sailor didn't seem to grasp the urgency of the situation

Uh-oh: The actress gripped the receiver as she appeared to receive some worrying news

Bigger problems: Her hair disheveled from her earlier sprint, the star looked apprehensive as she hung up

Animated: The actress appeared to be having a lively conversation down the phone

On set: Kate was seen receiving instructions from Woody Allen in between takes

The actress has been pictured several times since filming for the movie commenced.

On Tuesday Justin Timberlake and Winslet filmed a heated argument scene.

Timberlake's character is a man named Mickey Rubin while little is known about Winslet's character.

Windswept: The star struggled to get her locks under control due to the wind

Matching: On Wednesday she joined fellow English actress Juno Temple on location of the as-yet-untitled project, which is set in the New York beachside community in the 1950s

Tuned out: Juno nattered away to her colleague, but Kate's mind appeared elsewhere

Lead role: The actress has been pictured several times since filming for the movie commenced

Titanic fight: On Tuesday Justin Timberlake and Winslet filmed a heated argument scene.

Drama: The actress has been pictured several times since filming for the movie commenced

Prolific: It's Woody Allen's 48th film and he was spotted on set on Wednesday

Family: The director was joined on set by his adopted daughter-turned-wife Soon-Yi Previn

The storyline like most of Allen's films is being kept under wraps.

The feature also stars James Belushi and is expected to be released in 2017.

It's Allen's 48th film.

Flower power: Juno Temple were also seen on set in a bright yellow dress

On the move: The actress' character appeared to be on the move, carrying a small suitcase

Vintage chic: The blonde's 50s pin-up look was completed with cute accessories

Smoking hot: The star was having a cigarette break in between takes on set

In action: Kate and Juno joined forces for a scene together in NYC




She has always been keen on keeping her fab figure in great shape.

But even the likes of model and TV presenter Kelly Brook like to break the rules every now and again.

The buxom personality, 36, was the VIP guest at the Just Eat bash in central London, where she certainly commanded attention on Tuesday.

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All you can eat: Kelly Brook was hosting the Just Eat bash in central London on Thursday

Never one to shy away from showing off her body, the former Big Breakfast star left little to the imagination in a tartan dress.

Strapless in design, it deftly drew attention to her buxom bosoms thanks to a plunging neckline.

Drawn in at the middle thanks to a patent-leather belt, it also proudly displayed her generous curves.

Capping the look with a pair of black heels, she was clearly keen to amp-up the sex appeal.

Tasty! Never one to shy away from showing off her body, the former Big Breakfast star left little to the imagination in a tartan dress

Hungry eyes: Loving life as she worked the room, Kelly couldn't help but resist eating canapes with flavours from across the globe

Where to look? Strapless in design, Kelly's dress deftly drew attention to her buxom bosoms thanks to a plunging neckline

Wearing her brown hair in a sleek side-parting, she also brandished the customary red lipstick and thick eye make-up.

Loving life as she worked the room, Kelly couldn't help but resist eating canapes with flavours from across the globe.

Not that she was the only famous face there, of course.

Strike a pose: Wearing her brown hair in a sleek side-parting, she also brandished the customary red lipstick and thick eye make-up

Suck it up, Kel! The brunette gingerly tasted a rather quirky-looking concoction

TV chef Gizzi Erskine was also in attendance at the bash, offering a considerably more relaxed style.

Embracing the autumnal weather, she mixed a pair of skinny dungarees with a black polar neck jumper.

Former Pussycat Doll Ashley Roberts - who rarely misses a party - stepped out in a blue dress, while hip-hop star Kelis looked classy in high-waisted trousers and a crushed velvet top.

Better the denim you know? TV chef Gizzi Erskine was also in attendance at the bash, offering a considerably more relaxed style

Social butterfly: Former Pussycat Doll Ashley Roberts - who rarely misses a party - stepped out in a blue dress

Trick me: Hip-hop star Kelis looked classy in high-waisted trousers and a crushed velvet top

All white on the night! Kelly later wrapped herself up in a coat Shirley Bassey would've loved
Paige Butcher gave birth to Eddie Murphy's baby girl - and his ninth child - on May 3.

The Australian-born model gave the funny man another reason to be proud as the couple attended producer Jeffrey Katzenberg's Hand and Footprint Ceremony in Hollywood, California on Thursday.

Paige, 37, looked stunning in a skintight pale pink mini-dress that showcased her figure, which was amazingly toned for one who gave birth four months ago.

Striking: Eddie Murphy's girlfriend eclipsed him as she flaunted her post-baby figure in a tight pink mini-dress at Jeffrey Katzenberg's Hand and Foot Ceremony in Hollywood on Thursday

Eddie, 55, led his lady love by the hand as they crossed the signature sidewalk in front of TCL Chinese Theater.

The blonde stunner had no qualms wearing a dress that clung to every curve of her physique.

Indeed, her stomach seemed remarkably flat and her arms seemed sculpted as if she'd just been lifting free weights.

Something to smile about: The 55-year-old funny man was in the best of moods thanks in part to Paige no doubt

Chic in pink: Paige had no qualms wearing a dress that clung to every curve and then topped it off by adding a fashionable handbag

Eddie looked casual in black jeans and black T-shirt along with fashionable black trainers.

He took to the podium to say a few words in praise of the DreamWorks CEO.

The Beverly Hills Cop star then posed with Katzenberg and a couple of other guests including 20th Century Fox Co-Chairman Stacey Snider and actor Jim Parsons.

Out in force: Eddie was pleased to pose with the DreamWorks CEO along with 20th Century Fox Co-Chairman Stacey Snider and actor Jim Parsons

Eddie and Paige welcomed Izzy Oona Murphy on May 3 - her first child and Eddie's ninth.

The Shrek actor and his former wife, Nicole Mitchell, 47, have five children together - Bria, 25, Myles, 22, Shayne, 21, Zola, 15, and Bella, 13.

Eddie also has a 26-year-old son, Eric, with his ex-girlfriend Paulette McNeely and a 25-year-old son Christian, from a previous relationship with Tamara Hood.

The comedian also has an eight-year-old daughter, Angel, with Spice Girls star Mel B.

Paige and Eddie have been dating for four years after meeting on the set of the film Big Momma's House 2 in 2006.
Radio hosts Kyle and Jackie O are known for their rather hilarious antics.

But it was their 'intern Pete' that caused a stir during a live-to-air segment on Friday's Sunrise.

While crossing over to Sydney's Cronulla with a mass of die-hard NRL Sharks supporters, a near-naked Pete was seen cheering on rival team Melbourne Storm.

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Gatecrasher! Kyle and Jackie O's 'intern Pete' crashed a Sunrise live cross in Cronulla, Sydney on Friday

The hilarious clip saw the radio host's intern invade the heart of Cronulla, home to Sharks, wearing just a pair of snug briefs and a Melbourne Storm scarf wrapped around his neck.

Accessorising with a blue clown-style wig and pair of dark sunglasses, Pete was heard yelling out 'go the Sharkies!' while waving his arms in the air.

The Sunrise reporter, clad in Shark's apparel and positioned in front of a group of die-hard supporters, looked on in bewilderment as to what just took place.

The hilarious segment comes just days ahead of NRL's highly-awaited grand final that sees the Melbourne Storm and Cronulla Sharks go head to head.

Wrong team! The hilarious clip saw the radio host's intern invade the heart of Cronulla, home to Sharks, wearing just a pair of snug briefs and a Melbourne Storm scarf wrapped around his neck

Antics: The popular radio hosts are usually at the centre of a number of hilarious pranks

Breakfast program Sunrise has had their fair share of bizarre moments captured to camera this week.

Reporter Steve Hargrave thought it would be pretty apt to ask actress Eva Green who she would poo on, if she were a bird in real life.

But things turned rather awkward, when the 36-year-old star of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, was left stumped by the question and was seen shaking her head in puzzlement.

What a birdbrain! Sunrise reporter Steve Hargrave (pictured) thought it would be pretty apt to ask actress Eva Green who she would poo on, if she were a bird in real life during an awkward interview on Thursday

'And if you were a bird, anyone in the world, whose head would you poo on?' Steve Hargrave asked the Hollywood A-list actress.

Completely confused, Eva responded, 'What? If I were a...WHAT?'

'If you were a bird, who's head would you poo on? Anyone..in the world..,' the Sunrise reporter continued, now hoping to take back his odd question.

'If I were a bird... sorry, my brain. The blood has stopped going to my brain,' Eva managed to muster.

Puzzled: Seen looking completely bewildered, 36-year-old Eva responded, 'What? If I were a...WHAT?'

Tim Burton's latest film centres around Miss Peregrine's School for Peculiar Children, with Eva's character houses children with special abilities.

The film also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Asa Butterfield and Ella Purnell.
She recently shared a topless photo to Instagram after enjoying a half-naked dip at Miami Beach.

But on Wednesday, Catherine McNeil was uncharacteristically covered up as she strutted her stuff down the runway for Lanvin's 2017 Spring/Summer show at Paris Fashion Week.

The 27-year-old looked chic and fashion-forward in a loose pair of pinstripe pants.

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Stylish: Catherine McNeil covered up for Lanvin's 2017 Spring/Summer show at Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday

She wore a white dress shirt, and further covered up in a striped robe-style jacket.

The famed model added a unique twist to the ensemble by sporting sliders on her feet instead of heels or dress shoes.

Cat, who is a former flame of Australian actress and DJ Ruby Rose, first began her modelling career when she won the Girlfriend model search competition at just 14 years old.

Stripey: The 27-year-old sported striped pants and a robe-style jacket

Stepping out: The brunette beauty wore black sliders on her feet

Superstar: Throughout her career, she has modelled for the likes of Valentino, Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent

Throughout her career, she has modelled for the likes of Valentino, Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent.

She famously took a short break from modelling in 2010 - shortly after her split with Ruby Rose - but returned by 2012.

The brunette beauty recently caused concern among her fans for her noticeably slender physique.

Daily Mail Australia contacted a representative for the model for clarification on her health, but they declined to comment.
First there was the not-so-subtle product placement for a $700 Dyson hairdryer on The Bachelor, with Alex Nation blow-drying her already dry locks with the appliance.

And on Thursday night, an eye-shadow palette by Maybelline on The Bachelorette was next blatant advertisement for a brand on a reality show.

When Georgia Love, 27, was preparing for her date with Courtney, she looked longingly at a Blushed Nudes Palette before applying it to her lids.

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Cringworthy: Twitter users criticised the blatant Maybelline eye shadow palette product placement during The Bachelorette on Thursday night

The confusing part was that the brunette beauty already had a full face of make-up on - including eye-shadow.

Twitter went into overdrive when the scene played, slamming the Maybelline promotion.

'That product placement on The Bachelorette tho HAHAHA' said one user.

'Phew! We finally got some classic Bachelorette product placement. I was starting to get worried,' another quipped.

Promotion: When Georgia Love, 27, was preparing for her date with Courtney, she looked longingly at a Blushed Nudes Palette before applying it to her lids

The scene started with Georgia walking into the bathroom.

'I'm so glad Courtney has decided to play his date card,' she said.

Maybe she's born with it: The stunning brunette was seen slowly applying the product

The former TV reporter then walked to the basin, and looked longingly at the make-up palette.

'I was getting a bit worried that I'd given him this rose and he didn't know what to do with it or didn't want to use it,' she continued.

She then picked up the makeup case, and started applying the eye-shadow slowly.

Looking lovely: The former TV presenter slightly grinned into the mirror, and admired how fantastic her eyelids looked

'I think I'm just relieved at the moment that he's shown me that he actually wants to take me on a date,' she explained.

Georgia then finished applying her make-up with a slight smile, admired how fantastic her eyelids looked, and walked off.
Wherever she travels, Kim Kardashian knows how to be the showstopper.

And the reality star went for another eye-catching ensemble as she showed off her new gold grill in an Instagram post while at Paris Fashion Week on Thursday.

The 35-year-old KUWTK star showed off her new look as she flashed a gargantuan diamond ring and generous view of her decolletage.

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The couple that grimaces together: They both bared their teeth for the camera in her SnapStory

According to People, Kim popped the grill on a shopping trip after taking in the Balmain runway show.

The diamond ring was a gift from rapper husband Kanye West, who gave it to her last week to replace her already impressive engagement ring.

Her caption on the Instagram photo consisted solely of three diamond emojis.

Three gems: From Paris Fashion Week on Thursday, Kim Kardashian uploaded an instagram selfie flaunting the gargantuan diamond ring husband Kanye West gave her, as well as her cleavage and a gold grill over her teeth

Evening-wear: Kim wore a glittering Balmain dress to match her new grill as she headed to the Balmain Paris Fashion Week show

Power couple: Kim's husband Kanye West was by her side for the Balmain show

The 35-year-old's SnapStory on Thursday night saw her baring the grill again as she and Kanye attended the Balmain after-party.

Kim wore a jaw-dropping gold and silver sequined Balmain dress that included a sloping neckline.

Voluminous sleeves hid her arms entirely, but the high-cut hem flashed her enviably toned legs as she strutted alongside the rapper.

Shimmering and glimmering: The 35-year-old wore a robe-like dress with gold and silver sequins

Always with him: The 39-year-old wore a bar pendant 'Saint' - the name of his and Kardashian's infant son and second child - written on it

Right this way: His black Adidas T-shirt featured the company's logo sitting in a laurel wreath

Wheel Three: Kourtney Kardashian accompanied the couple to the after-party

Scene-stealer: The 37-year-old was topless except for a sequined silver bra

She completed the ensemble with black cat-eye sunglasses. The ring went with her, of course, to the party.

Kanye, 39, wore a black Adidas T-shirt with a laurel wreath wrapped about the company logo.

A gold pendant hung about his neck, with 'Saint' - the name of their infant son - written on the bar. They are also parents to three-year-old daughter North.

Two years on: The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star married her third husband in 2014

A night off from the children: In addition to Saint, they have a three-year-old daughter called North

Moving up: West gave his wife her new enlarged ring last month, replacing the engagement ring with which he proposed to her

Another gold pendant, perhaps with 'North' - the name of their three-year-old daughter - scrawled on the bar, had been tucked underneath his shirt.

Images of flowers and insects were splashed across his denim jacket, which featured a thick woolen lining and often slid off his shoulders.

He rounded out his aesthetic with navy sweats splotched with red designs, as well as with black socks and black trainers.

Time to go: Kanye, Kim and Kourtney are shown leaving the Balmain afterparty in Paris

Fashion fans: The rapper and the Kardashian sisters are major fashion fans

Double trouble: Kim and Kourtney took center stage at the afterparty

Working it: The reality stars rocked matching metallic outfits

Kourtney, the eldest Kardashian sister, served as an incredibly conspicuous third wheel, going topless except for a sequined silver bra.

Her gold robe-like skirt matched her sister's, and though it stretched a bit lower, she lifted it to flash her svelte stems.

Black strapped stilettos matched her hair, which she had slicked back severely for the event.

Famous couple: Kanye and Kim brought the star power to the afterparty

Cool party: Balmain creative director Olivier Rousteing joined Kourtney, Kim and Kanye

Golden girl: Kim glowed in the shimmering dress with plunging neckline

Dramatic entrance: All eyes were on Kim as she arrived at the afterparty

The Balmain show unveiled the brand's spring 2017 collection and counted among its catwalk models none other than Gigi Hadid.

This June, Qatari investment fund Mayhoola, which is frequently reported as being tied to the Emir himself, acquired Balmain. According to the Paris-based financial daily Les Echos, the offer was as high as 485 million ($544 million).

Backstage at Thursday's show, creative director Olivier Rousteing - who is close friends with Kim and Kanye - commented on Balmain's new state of affairs to Vogue, saying: 'The Balmain Army has shed its armour. Whatever I do, even if I cover up my girls, people can say it's vulgar.

'But this is what it is,' the 30-year-old insisted. 'I think it's really chic, really French. It's Paris how I see it.'

Good times: Kourtney shared the fun from Paris on Snapchat

Social media: Kim also shared a Snapchat of her and Kourtney out in Paris
Leading man: Tom with wife Rita at the Stand Up To Cancer fundraiser earlier this month

Tom Hanks has twice played the dashing academic Professor Robert Langdon on screen  the hero of author Dan Brown's best-selling novels The Da Vinci Code and Angels And Demons  and he's about to take up the role for a third time in Inferno.

In this one, the cool Langdon is on a bullet-dodging race against time across Europe to prevent 'an extinction-level event'.

But Hanks is the first to admit he's the exact opposite of Langdon, a Harvard university lecturer in religious iconology and symbology, who uses his history knowledge to tackle assassins, solve crimes and save mankind, if not the planet.

'Let me tell you a story,' Hanks says, shaking his head  it's one of his great pleasures in life to tell self-deprecating tales. 'I was working out in a gym, and a woman on an exercise machine suddenly began fighting for her breath. She collapsed on the floor and . . . I just froze. It was a real deer-in-the-headlights moment  I didn't know what to do.'

The cool Professor Langdon would have instantly taken charge, of course. But not Hanks. 'Three other people helped her, while I just stood there. The woman was fine in the end, luckily, not that it was down to me. And when she'd recovered, she looked over at me and said: "Well, thanks, Tom Hanks!" '

He's being typically self-effacing of course. When it comes to offering love, strength and practical support in times of personal crisis, Hanks is in the front line  as his wife, Rita Wilson, found when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2014.

Back on the big screen: Hanks as Professor Robert Langdon with co-star Felicity Jones

'Tom supported me, encouraged me, gave me hope, determination and purpose,' she said. She is now happily recovered after a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction, and acknowledges he was her rock during what was a very difficult time.

'But that wasn't my burden,' he points out quickly when we meet in Los Angeles. 'It was my wife's. I would say that there's a moment where there's only one thing to do and that's to reprioritise everything and do the right thing, and I think I did that.'

He adds: 'But my task wasn't so great  it was just to be attentive and supportive, and if you can't do that, well, then you're a coward.

'It isn't brave to be the husband of somebody who's battling cancer  the brave one is the one who's actually doing it!'

Tom, dressed in his usual off-screen 'uniform' of dark-on-dark  black shirt worn with black jacket and trousers  says: 'All I can do is to bow down before the courage of my wife.'

As he has previously admitted, he and Rita were fortunate because they could afford the best healthcare in the world.

'But one thing we found is that there are people who, when they find you have a certain illness, particularly cancer, will immediately try to make money off you.

When it comes to offering love, strength and practical support in times of personal crisis, Hanks is in the front line  as his wife, Rita Wilson, found when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2014. Pictured, the couple at a New York event earlier this month

'They do this by pushing procedures that might have a degree of science behind them that might make them accurate, but some are complete quackery. These people only add to the difficulty of what is going on because they are dealing in false hopes.

'They are predators and it is astounding how much of it is going on.'

But with Rita being given the all-clear  and looking fantastic, as she showed when she and Tom appeared at a fund-raiser for the Stand Up To Cancer charity in LA on September 9  the closely knit Hanks family has given a collective sigh of relief.

His children are grown-up now  lookalike son Colin, the father of his two granddaughters, Olivia and Charlotte, is 38 and a successful actor; Elizabeth, 33, is a writer; Chester (Chet) is an aspiring rapper who has been brave enough to go public with his struggles with addiction  'you've got to applaud the bravery and honesty when it comes out of your own house,' Tom says  while Truman, 21, is still in college.

No regrets, then? Just one, he says. 'When my son Colin was small, I was going somewhere and he wanted to come with me. He was upstairs at the window calling down to me: "Dad! Dad!" but I got into the car and drove away.

'He was only four, and I could have taken a moment and been a decent dad and gone to him.

Hanks with Rita on September 6

'But I was young and stupid. I only had one kid at the time and I thought: "It's not going to make that big a difference." And as it turned out, it made a huge difference to me because nothing has been the same since.

'I regret that moment, because I only had the moment to do it in and I didn't. And that has haunted me.'

He stops and sighs, looking wistful. 'But you know something?' he says, 'I mentioned it to him not long ago. I said: "Do you remember that time when you were four and I was getting into the car and you kept calling to me and I didn't say anything?"

'And he just looked at me like I was crazy, and said: "No! I don't remember that!" '

The key to Hanks's charm is that he's an ordinary man who got very lucky indeed, and is never about to let himself forget it. He studied acting at California State University, then paid his dues around the American sitcom scene of the early Eighties.

After just one appearance in Happy Days  playing a character seeking revenge on The Fonz for pushing him  he made friends with one of the show's young stars, Ron Howard, who played the cheerful red-head Richie Cunningham and who was later to become the acclaimed director of the Dan Brown movies.

Along the way, he married and then divorced his college sweetheart, the late actress Samantha Lewes, and became a first-time father at 21, which he now acknowledges was somewhat too young.

By 1988, he was a 32-year-old single part-time father with a string of film flops under his belt. His career prospects were looking less than glittering.

'But that's why an actor's life is either the greatest or the worst. Because if you have some degree of faith and confidence in your ability, and a little bit of sheer serendipity, you can walk into a building at 10.15am with nothing, and walk out at 10.27am with the job that will change your life.'

In his case, he says, the film was Big, the fantasy comedy in which he played a small child transported into the body of a man.

'At the time, I had two kids, I was divorced, I was living in a basic house and I had tax problems. But by the time the film came out I had married Rita, the film actually did well and I remember a specific moment when I thought: "You know what, I'm going to be OK.

' "If nothing else happens past this, I will be able to pay my rent and fix my car and buy my kids Christmas presents." '

Inferno reunites him with Ron Howard. It will be the fifth time they've worked together, including the 1984 comedy Splash.

Mainly filmed in Florence and Venice, with other scenes shot in Budapest and Istanbul, it opens with Professor Langdon waking up in an Italian hospital with amnesia.

He teams up with a doctor (Felicity Jones) whom he hopes will help to recover his memory.

They embark on a race across Europe  following clues in the medieval poet Dante's Inferno  with just 48 hours to stop a madman unleashing a virus that would wipe out half the world's population.

The film is whipping up interest and looks set to become another blockbuster. Hanks  who spoke about Inferno at a press conference in Hollywood yesterday  says he loves the Dan Brown stories and sees Professor Langdon as a saviour, though 'as a rule I think bad guys are better roles to play'.

He jokes that even when he tries to play a baddie, people insist on seeing the good side of him.

'I've been in movies where I've played a killer. And people say: 'Ah, but you were such a nice killer, Tom.' I say: 'No, I killed 12 people.' 'Ah, but they were bad people, Tom. You did a good thing killing them.'

'In The Green Mile I played an executioner. "Ah, but you did it in a good way, Tom, you had a conscience about doing it . . ." '

Hanks turned 60 earlier this year. 'I'm liking getting older,' he says. 'I've always felt good at whatever age I'm at. You try to get a good night's sleep and you try to get some exercise and not take life too seriously. I have diabetes, but I'm controlling my blood sugar and my knees haven't gone bad.

'And, listen, I'm a grandfather and I have four fabulous kids. They're all funny and more or less self-supporting. And I'm still here! I win!'
Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children (12A)

Verdict: Peculiar in more ways than one

Rating:

Peculiar is an adjective that could be applied to any of Tim Burton's films but here's one that helpfully has it in the title, the director's energetically loopy, impressively starry adaptation of the best-selling 2011 novel by Ransom Riggs.

The book was aimed at 'young adults', but it's harder to identify the film's target audience. The 12A certificate suggests that it's directed squarely at children, but it contains some deeply unsettling if not downright alarming images, and besides, any child who hasn't read the book, or any grown-up for that matter, will find great swathes of the plot all but unfathomable.

You'll need a PhD in nonsense to understand exactly what is going on.

Peculiar is an adjective that could be applied to any of Tim Burton's films but here's one that helpfully has it in the title, writes BRIAN VINER

Here's my own best guess. Jake (Asa Butterfield) is a Florida teenager whose closest relationship is with his grandpa Abe (Terence Stamp, as wooden as ever, but it's still a pleasure to see those cheekbones).

When Jake finds Abe about to die, following some sort of attack in which his eyes were plucked out, the old man declares there's something he should have told him years before. And how.

For it turns out that Jake is a 'Peculiar', just as Abe was, meaning a child with strange or supernatural gifts.

Jake has been raised listening to Abe's bedtime stories, about how he escaped from Poland to Britain before World War II and lived with other uniquely gifted children in a home on an island just off the Welsh coast.

Here's my own best guess. Jake (Asa Butterfield) is a Florida teenager whose closest relationship is with his grandpa

The home was run by the eccentric, pipe-smoking Miss Peregrine (Eva Green), who had the ability to metamorphose into a falcon.

It all sounds like outlandish make-believe, yet Abe has a collection of faded photographs to back up his stories. Jake believes them, fervently. Jake's father (Chris O'Dowd), convinced that his son has 'mental health issues', takes him to see a psychotherapist (Allison Janney). She recommends that father and son should travel together to the Welsh island, so that Jake might learn to separate fact and fantasy.

It should be a bonding experience, too, except that Jake's dad is too bored and self-absorbed to bond, leaving Jake alone to explore the island, and indeed to stumble back into 1943, where he finds Miss Peregrine's school and is gradually accepted into the fold.

He learns what the other children's talents are before he knows his own, with invisibility and uncommon strength merely the most prosaic of them.

One girl can start fires with her fingertips, another has a monster's mouth in the back of her neck. Jake's 'special' friend is Emma (Ella Purnell), who is lighter than air but can also manipulate it in strange ways. Needless to say, Burton has great fun with these peculiarities, all of which, sooner or later, are deployed in the service of the plot.

The home was run by the eccentric, pipe-smoking Miss Peregrine (Eva Green), who had the ability to metamorphose into a falcon

Ah, the plot. Just when you think you have its number, real weirdness sets in. Miss Peregrine is an 'ymbrine', meaning not just that she can take the form of a bird, but also that she can create a time loop, picking a particular day  in this case September 3, 1943  which she and the children live over and over.

That night, a German bomb falls on the school, but she is able to stop it seconds before it lands, and wind back to the start of the day.

In the meantime, a set of baddies known as the Hollows, and led by the dastardly, shape-shifting Barron (Samuel L. Jackson), are in pursuit of immortality, with Miss Peregrine and her proteges standing in their way. This is when Jake discovers his own peculiarity, leading to a bonkers denouement on Blackpool prom, of all places.

Judi Dench and Rupert Everett add further A-list heft to the supporting cast

Judi Dench and Rupert Everett add further A-list heft to the supporting cast, and the screenplay is by Jane Goldman, whose marriage to Jonathan Ross has become the least interesting thing about her.

She has now written two X-Men films, and actually brings something of the X-Men vibe to this, though it plainly owes more to Harry Potter than anything else.

What she fails to do is simplify it. The last thing Burton needs, with his fondness for dark surrealism, is a labyrinthine story to tell.

But the special effects are great, an underwater scene is superbly realised, and there are probably more reasons to see the film than not. Just don't expect to understand it.

Keeping up with Jones is a chore

Free State of Jones (15)

Verdict: Tendentious history lesson

Rating:

Like Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, Free State Of Jones takes us back and forth in time but so long-windedly, at two hours and 20 minutes, that one's fascination with the basic story  a true, little-known episode during and just after the U.S. Civil War  peters out into a series of heavy sighs and surreptitious time-checks. Rarely have I so wanted a film to finish, with so little evidence that it was about to oblige.

Matthew McConaughey plays Newton Knight, a Mississippi farmer who was a medic on the Confederate side, but deserted rather than fight for the vested interests of rich plantation owners.

Matthew McConaughey plays Newton Knight, a Mississippi farmer who was a medic on the Confederate side

Instead, he holed up in a Jones County swamp with a self-styled militia of fellow rebels and renegade slaves, and declared the county an independent state, with allegiance to neither North nor South. Later, he settled down with former slave Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and fathered a second family.

It's a cracking story which writer-director Gary Ross systematically undermines, by making his film far too much of a noble history lesson. And when the drama doesn't tell it to his satisfaction, he resorts to captions. In case they don't do the trick, either, he flashes forward to 1940, when old Newt Knight's great-grandson, for the crime of being one-eighth black, was put on trial for marrying a white woman. Emancipation made precious few inroads into endemic racism, you see.
The National Theatre has signed Imelda Staunton to head a big new production

The National Theatre has signed Imelda Staunton to head a big new production of the musical Follies  featuring a landmark score by Stephen Sondheim  next year.

The garlanded actress has been wooed back to the National by its artistic director Rufus Norris.

Staunton made her debut there as Mimi, a Hot Box girl, in Richard Eyres 1982 Guys And Dolls. She advanced to the choicer role of Miss Adelaide when Guys And Dolls was revived a few years later.

Norris has partnered Staunton with director Dominic Cooke, who has been enjoying a hot streak since directing a sizzling revival of Ma Raineys Black Bottom at the NT, and the powerful second series of Hollow Crown films for BBC TV.

Follies is a huge undertaking for the National, and will be a centrepiece of next years programme. Boasting a book by James Goldman and some of Sondheims most celebrated music and lyrics, it tells of a reunion of performers who played the fictional Weismann Follies on Broadway between the wars, and who meet up again in 1971  30 years after their last show.

It focuses on two of the former chorus girls  Sally and Phyllis  who turn up with their husbands in tow, and revisit the ghosts of Follies past.

Ms Staunton will play Sally, now a housewife from Phoenix, unhappily married to Buddy, a travelling salesman.

But she believes shes in love with Ben, a wealthy politician and businessman, now wed to her former best friend Phyllis. The boys used to wait for the girls at the stage door.

Janie Dee (pictured left, with Vivienne De Courcy), who won an Olivier award when she appeared in Carousel at the National, will play Phyllis

Janie Dee, who won an Olivier award when she appeared in Carousel at the National, will play Phyllis.

Staunton will fall into Follies after a run in Whos Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? at the Harold Pinter Theatre from February 22.

Itll be nice to do that double whammy, she joked. She added that initially she had protested she couldnt possibly play Sally. What are you talking about? I cant sing that  Im 20 years too old!

But shes relishing the challenges. Theyre all tough things to do. But its good. People say women dont get roles to do but  touch wood  Ive been extremely lucky, she added.

Follies will run in the autumn of 2017, most likely opening in the Olivier Theatre. Staunton said she would follow it with the Broadway transfer of Gypsy (for which Sondheim wrote the lyrics) in 2018.

That show was a massive, award-winning hit for her at the Chichester Festival Theatre and later the Savoy.

Staunton made her debut there as Mimi, a Hot Box girl, in Richard Eyres 1982 Guys And Dolls

'Guys and Dolls', featuring, from left: Fiona Hendley, Belinda Sinclair, Sally Cooper, Rachel Izen - and Imelda Staunton

Janie Dee, meanwhile, said Follies resonated with her because she danced in sequins and tights when she was 18.

I was a showgirl once. Not exactly the Follies, but the end of the pier. With the Krankies, the actress told me, during a break from rehearsing for a performance with music to be staged at the Barbican on October 4.

Janie Dee said Follies resonated with her because she danced in sequins and tights when she was 18

(Shes playing Cleopatra, from Anthony And Cleopatra, and Beatrice  from Much Ado About Nothing  and the show will be repeated at the Hollywood Bowl.)

Dee noted that Follies brings the main characters, and the spectres of their younger selves, to the stage. They keep replaying the past, but you cant turn back time, she said.

The musical was originally staged on Broadway in 1971 and has some fabulous songs including Beautiful Girls, Im Still Here, Dont Look At Me, In Buddys Eyes and Broadway Baby.

Some critics felt Goldmans book was uneven; though he did revise it for Cameron Mackintoshs production at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 1987.

These days, most folks consider Follies to be pure theatrical treasure.

And with Dominic Cooke putting it together , Dee said the NT had a master director who would mine the text for all its hidden gems.

Now that Staunton and Dee have been contracted, casting on the other major glamorous roles will begin.

The National Theatre told me that they will officially announce Follies on October 11.

Florence has a sprinkling of star dust

Florence Pugh goes through an extraordinary transformation in the film Lady Macbeth.

We first meet her character, Katherine, as an innocent bride humiliated by her abusive husband on their wedding night, when shes made to strip while he watches and pleasures himself.

You see that shes such a child in that situation, the 20-year-old actress told me.

Florence Pugh goes through an extraordinary transformation in the film Lady Macbeth

Soon, Katherine is cavorting with farm hand Sebastian (played by Cosmo Jarvis) and is an innocent no more.

We tapped into the whole fiery side of that relationship, Pugh said of the intricately choreographed scenes.

The movie, directed by William Oldroyd and produced by the BFI and BBC Films, caused a sensation at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Altitude Films soon snapped it up for release in the UK (its out next year), but its also being shown at the London Film Festival on October 14 if you cant wait till then.

Pugh made her debut in Carol Morleys film The Falling, and though it was not a large role, it was clear she had that indefinable star quality. I certainly noticed her  and so has Screen International, which has named her as one of its Stars of Tomorrow.

Matt Mueller, the magazines editor, told me they have a solid track-record for talent-spotting and had picked up on the likes of Emily Blunt, James McAvoy and Benedict Cumberbatch well before they officially popped.
They've famously kept their public appearance to a near minimum.

And on Thursday evening Alexa Chung made sure to keep her arrival at boyfriend Alexander Skarsgard's latest film screening in London a low-key affair.

The 32-year-old fashion journalist arrived alone at the Picturehouse Central as she dutifully support her boyfriend, 40, at the War On Everyone event.

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Subtle show of support: On Thursday evening Alexa Chung made sure to keep her arrival at boyfriend Alexander Skarsgard's latest film screening in London a low-key affair

Alexa, who has been dating the Swedish actor since last year, arrived in a chic yet subtle ensmeble.

Opting to embrace the capital's autumnal weather, the model and clothes deisgner donned a large black overcoat that featured tuxedo stylings.

She added an office casual vibe to her look by teaming an white open-neck shirt with skinny jeans.

And injecting some punk-rock spirit into her attire for the evening, Alexa rounded her relaxed ensemble with a pair of black Converse All-Stars.

The man of the moment: The 32-year-old fashion journalist arrived alone at the Picturehouse Central as she dutifully support her boyfriend, 40, at the War On Everyone event

Keeping a low-profile: Alexa, who has been dating the Swedish actor since last year, arrived in a chic yet subtle ensmeble

Keeping her whole look in-line with her low-key approach to the evening, the model only accessorise with a small black handbag and a few items of jewellery.

She wore her brown locks swept into a centre-parting, allowing her tousled tresses to fall to her shoulders.

As she made her way into the screening, Alexa looked set to enjoy the movie, clasping a drink in one hand.

Her boyfriend and the man of the moment, Alex, cut a seriously suave figure in a grey two piece suit, shirt and tie, and tobacco oxford lace-ups.

Suve Swede: Her boyfriend and the man of the moment, Alex, cut a seriously suave figure in a grey two piece suit, shirt and tie, and tobacco oxford lace-ups

The boys are back in town: The chiseled leading man arrived alongside his co-star, Michael Pena, and looked to be in high spirits

The chiseled leading man arrived alongside his co-star, Michael Pena, and looked to be in high spirits.

Earlier in the year it was rumoured that an engagement could be on the cards between Alexa and Alexander.

'Alexa has told friends that [an English stately home] would be her dream wedding location  and now they are saying that they wouldn't be surprised if an engagement was on the way,' a source previously told Grazia magazine.

'Alexa's relationship with Alex is going great. That's why she was happy for him to meet her family  she would only ever introduce someone she was serious about to them.'

However Alex denied the couple had decided to tie the knot in an interview in July.
She has recently returned from a trip halfway around the world to Milan.

And perhaps Sofia Richie was still battling the remnants of jet lag on Thursday.

The 18-year-old headed off to lunch with her friend Bronte Blampied at Mauro's Cafe in West Hollywood in a pair of satin trousers and furry lilac slides.

Still jet lagged? Sofia Richie sported satin trousers and furry slides for lunch in West Hollywood on Thursday

Clad in an outfit resembling something akin to pajamas, Sofia looked casual and cosy as she was seen strolling through the parking lot, likely back to the car, in the company of her friends.

The model, who is the daughter of Lionel Richie, had her hair slicked back into a high bun with a few loose strands hanging across her forehead.

Bedroom chic! Clad in an outfit resembling something akin to pajamas, Sofia looked casual and cosy as she returned to her car in the company of her friends

Gal pals: The model was joined by her friend Bronte Blampied for lunch

She also sported a black graphic print shirt and wore a vibrant red pedicure.

Sofia accessorized the look up with a pair of beige sunglasses, gold choker necklaces, and a bracelet to match.

And the model had a piece of Milan with her.

Super stylish: She also sported a black graphic print shirt and wore a vibrant red pedicure

A special gift: Richie captioned a snap of herself with the stunning handbag earlier this week, 'Thank you Stefano & Domenico for my lovely bag. What an amazing evening @dolcegabbana'

The teen carried the beautiful lilac and turquoise hand bag she received as a gift while attending the Dolce & Gabbana show earlier this week.

Bronte, who is friends with Sofia's ex Justin Bieber, kept it casual as well in jean shorts and a white tank top.

Sofia had spent the past few days enjoying the sights at Milan Fashion Week - one of them being Brandon Thomas Lee, the dashing 20-year-old son of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee.

Her Instagram posts featured him posing on a Segway in front of the iconic 19th century Porta Sempione on Monday, as well as 'Destroying Milano' by puttering down a road on the machine last Sunday.

She seemed to rather enjoy herself in the Lombard capital, posing in front of the Duomo di Milano in a Moschino top on Saturday and sitting front row alongside Cameron Dallas at the Dolce & Gabbana show on Sunday.
She won an Oscar for Best Actress in 2002 for her performance in The Hours.

But Nicole Kidman's career triumph apparently went unnoticed by her future husband, country star Keith Urban.

During an interview with Sydney radio show Nova 96.9's Fitzy And Wippa on Friday, the rocker said he had never watched the film.

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'Nah!' Nicole Kidman's career triumph apparently unnoticed by her future husband Keith Urban - who revealed he has not watched her Oscar-winning performance in The Hours

The 48-year-old was asked directly if he had watched 'every one of Nicole's movies'.

Keith replied: 'N o, not all of them. I haven't seen The Hours, for example'.

One of the hosts said, rather surprised: 'That's what she got the Oscar for though.'

Another suggested: 'Hasn't she sat you down and said "Keith, you have to watch this with me tonight"?'.

Keith responded: 'Nah!'

'That's what she got the Oscar for though': There was a surprised response in the studio as Keith made the confession on Sydney radio show Nova 96.9's Fitzy And Wippa on Friday

But it does not appear Keith's viewing habits have affected his happy relationship with Nicole.

The couple first met at the G'Day USA gala honouring Australians in Hollywood in January 2005.

They married 17 months later in Sydney and have two daughters together - Faith Margaret, five, and Sunday Rose, eight.

Career highlight: Nicole Kidman used prosthetics to transform into British author Virginia Woolf in The Hours, which explores three connected tales of women in different eras

On Thursday, Keith revealed the secret to his 10-year marriage on 2Day FM's Rove & Sam breakfast show.

'We just love being together, more than anything,' he said.

'We're best friends and we love doing everything together - we're the priority,' he added. 'Everything else comes after that.'
Alessandra Ambrosio clearly commanded the runway at the Balmain show during Paris Fashion Week on Thursday.

The leggy 35-year-old supermodel carried on that stylish theme while heading to the designer's star-studded afterparty.

Alessandra traded her catwalk attire for a colourfully beaded mini-dress with sheer paneled front that allowed a peek of cleavage and more besides.

Lady of Paris: Alessandra Ambrosio radiated charm in a colourfully beaded frock while attending the Balmain afterparty in Paris on Thursday

The thigh-skimming hemline revealed Alessandra's bare, tanned and amazingly toned legs that got a lift from her T-strap heels.

Alessandra was smiling ear to ear while strolling to the festive gathering, her brunette tresses piled up into a loose updo.

A pair of very large hoop earrings framed her face while a small orange bag blended in well with the shimmery network of orange, fuchsia, blue, purple and gold of her dress.

Sparkly: The 35-year-old supermodel showed off her tanned legs as she strolled along in T-strap high heels

Ready to party: She had walked the runway at the Balmain show during Paris Fashion Week and was ready to let loose

The bash also boasted the glamorous likes of Kim Kardashian and her sister Kourtney.

Kim - also a Balmain fave - was wearing a shimmery and draping bronze number that showcased her hourglass figure.

Kourtney dropped jaws in her silver bra and harem pants ensemble that showed off plenty of skin.

Crowning achievement: Alessandra wowed at the party after dazzling in two ensembles on the catwalk

She flows: The Brazilian beauty wore a tan suede ensemble and a flowing patterned number during the Balmain show

But neither had the poise required to walk Balmain's show in not one, but two fabulous outfits.

Alessandra wowed in a flowing number featuring the designer's signature patterning.

And then she dazzled in a tan suede jacket with leg-baring skirt.

Alessandra has been on a whirlwind travel spree of late including working on a photoshoot in the Maldives for the November cover of GQ Brazil.
She's been romantically linked to a number of celebrities, including actor Firass Dirani and former Gold Coast Titans player Kevin Gordon.

And on Thursday, reality star Zilda Williams rubbed shoulders with NRL bad boy Willie Mason during a tequila-fueled night out at Sydney's trendy Bungalow 8 bar.

The 33-year-old reality star documented her antics with the 36-year-old ex-Bulldogs player on Snapchat and Instagram, before deleting all traces of the wild night out from social media the next morning.

What's going on? Zilda Williams enjoyed a tequila-fueled night out at Sydney's Bungalow 8 with NRL bad boy Willie Mason on Thursday

In the video, the Christchurch-born babe exclaims 'Guess who I found?' before turning the camera to reveal fellow Kiwi 'Big Willie,' who is standing next to a busty brunette as he playfully gives Zilda's iPhone the middle finger.

In a following shot, Big Willie has his arm affectionately wrapped around Zilda while a caption reads '10 margaritas.'

Zilda, who shows off her famous E cup assets in a plunging grey dress, is seen holding an alcoholic beverage as she gets close to the controversial athlete.

'Guess who I found?' Zilda tells the camera as she turns around to reveal a cheeky Big Willie

Despite the nature of the video and photos, Zilda insisted that were was nothing going on between the pair when contacted by Daily Mail Australia for comment.

'I was at an event with my girlfriends and we bumped into Willie in the VIP area,' she revealed.

'We all had a drink and a dance together as a group, then left. That's it!'

'I was at an event with my girlfriends and we bumped into Willie in the VIP area:' Zilda told Daily Mail Australia that nothing happened with her and Willie when contacted for comment

'We all had a drink and a dance together as a group, then left. That's it!' the reality star insisted

When asked why she deleted evidence of the allegedly wholesome night out from social media, the aspiring actress explained that she didn't want anybody to get the 'wrong impression' about what went down.

Zilda made headlines last year when she was photographed on a date with former Gold Coast Titans player Kevin Gordon before her appearance on Channel Ten's The Bachelor had even aired.

A few months later, she was spotted holding hands with Firass Dirani in an alleyway at 4am after hosting a party for the Aussie A-lister's new movie, Hacksaw Ridge.

Love addict: The Kiwi-born bombshell, who previously looked for love on The Bachelor, was seen with Aussie A-lister Firass Dirani last year

On the prowl: The former Maxim centerfold was also seen enjoying a date with athlete Kevin Gordon before her episode of The Bachelor had even aired

The Bachelor bombshell, who was famously dumped by Sam Wood, dated a mystery man this year, but the pair quietly split in June.

As for Big Willie, the 36-year-old is one of the most controversial players in NRL history.

Willie, who has played for both the Roosters and the Bulldogs, has been involved in a number of scandals, including urinating in public and a drink-driving charge.

The star athlete was last known to be with long-term partner Clare Hallinan as of 2013, but it's unknown if the pair are still together or not.
The city was in a grip of an autumnal heat wave.

And Elle Fanning ensured things were just a little hotter when she stepped out in a skimpy top with no bra on in Los Angeles on Thursday.

The actress Neon Demon lovely looked in fine form indeed as she sauntered along the sidewalk in her visually arresting ensemble in the trendy Studio City area.

Red hot: Elle Fanning looked in fine form indeed as she stepped out in Los Angeles on Thursday

Elle, 18, was in a jolly mood as she padded around in her plunging red top, white trousers and colour-coordinated Velcro strapped trainers.

And no wonder for she heading for a bite with her mother Heather Joy at chic eatery Il Tramezzino.

The fashion forward actress rounded off her look with a pair of trendy thick-rimmed sunglasses, which boasted yellow-tint lenses.

Elle's look was all the more remarkable due to how startlingly different it was to the one she sported at a fashion just days before.

She looked like almost a different person as she ramped up the glamour quotient at the ASOS dinner, which featured the unveiling of their 2016 holiday collections on Tuesday.

Bra-vo: She added extra allure to her look by eschewing lingerie

No wonder she's smiling: She heading out for a bite with her mother Heather Joy

The little mermaid: Her trendy top had a quirky logo at the bust

Turning heads as she posed for snaps at Simon House in California, the Malificent favourite wowed in a trendy navy blue ensemble.

Billowing out over her lithe frame, the culotte style jumpsuit featured a pair of puffed sleeves that added a quirky village theatre pantomime quality to her outfit.

But it is not all afternoon sunshine strolls and glamorous evening events for the starlet however.

For Elle recently completed filming Live By Night, directed by and starring Ben Affleck, which is set in the Prohibition Era of the 1930s, centering around a group of individuals involved in organized crime.

Who needs rose-tinted spectacles: She was seeing the world through yellow lenses instead

She blue them away: She was classically elegant at the ASOS Dinner in Beverly Hills Tuesday
He tweeted out sister Kylie Jenner's phone number in a spat over his baby shower earlier this week.

And now Rob Kardashian's pregnant fiance Blac Chyna has given the reality star a taste of his own medicine as she tweeted out his private cell phone number while ranting about 'b****es' calling him.

'To assure that your man is not texting no b**ches, just tweet his number out. How does that feel Rob, how you feel?' asked Blac in a Snapchat video, before turning to Rob, who was standing just out of frame.

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Trouble brewing: On Thursday, Blac Chyna decided to take a page out of Rob Kardashian's playbook, by tweeting out his cellphone number during a bizarre rant on Snapchat

Strategic: While it wasn't clear what sparked the outburst, apparently her plan was meant to neutralize any illicit contacts Rob had by drowning him in spam messages

'Feels good,' replies Rob, who is heard handling a swarm of text messages.

Blac, 28, goes on: 'Change your number Rob.

And she adds: 'To all these females who want to keep text his phone because they had his number before want to be like 'you and chyna good?. We good, we straight,' he said.

Rob can be heard chuckling in the background as his phone is blowing up with messages.

While it wasn't clear what sparked the outburst, apparently her plan was meant to force Rob to change his phone number and lose touch with some female contacts.

Strange: The 28-year-old former model decided on an instructional tone for her video, which included the app's flower garland filter

Obviously, Rob utilized a similar tactic earlier in the week when he tweeted out half-sister Kylie Jenner's number in a fit of rage over a baby shower set to exclude pregnant mother Blac Chyna.

Then, earlier on Thursday, Rob apparently took to social media again, though this time it was to express his excitement for a newly planned shower.

The 29-year-old appeared to throw some digs at his family by posting dozens of Armenian flags - even though his sisters are the ones that aren't invited this time.

Red flag! Rob Kardashian got excited about his new baby shower on Snapchat on Thursday... and appeared to be waving all the Armenian flags in his sisters' faces

'Baby shower Sunday can't wait!!' he exclaimed in an emoji-filled snap, filled mainly with Mexican flags.

He then followed it up with two more posts featuring no less than 53 Armenian flags, despite the fact the world's most famous Armenian family will not be there.

This one is being hosted by Chyna's friend Sylvia Karapetian in Woodland Hills with around 60 guests in attendance... and only one of them named Kardashian.

The baby shower drama kicked off last week when it emerged the Kardashians had organised two separate baby showers for Chyna and Rob, because they couple were not speaking.

On and off: The baby shower drama kicked off last week when it emerged the Kardashians had organised two separate baby showers for Chyna and Rob, because they couple were not speaking

'Baby shower Sunday can't wait!!' Rob exclaimed in an emoji-filled snap, filled mainly with Mexican flags. He then followed it up with two more posts featuring no less than 53 Armenian flags, despite the fact the world's most famous Armenian family will not be there

Rob then decided against going to his when he found out it was being filmed for Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

When his sisters told him Chyna couldn't come without him, he went on a Twitter rant, which culminated in him posting Kylie Jenner's number on the internet.

The source explained to Us Weekly magazine exactly how it went down: 'Here's what happened: Kim threw the shower. Kylie [was] the one that Rob called and told he wouldn't go to the shower, because she mentioned it was being filmed.

On camera: The couple are reportedly now living in separate houses to keep them away from each other's throats, and have been getting on much better because of it. On Wednesday Rob posted a couple of snaps of Chyna's pregnant belly, as they watched for any sign of movement from their daughter

'He [then] got really upset and told her he wasn't going, but that Chyna still wanted to go. Chyna was all dressed up and ready to go, [but] Kylie then told him that Chyna wasn't invited if he wasn't going to be there.

'She said it was his shower and Chyna could come if they were together - but if he was going to screw them by not going, then Chyna couldn't come. That's when Rob exploded. It caused a huge fight between Rob and Chyna too, so that's when Rob went off on Kylie on Twitter.'

The couple are reportedly now living in separate houses to keep them away from each other's throats, and have been getting on much better because of it.

On Wednesday Rob posted a couple of snaps of Chyna's pregnant belly, as they watched for any sign of movement from their daughter.
Million Dollar Listing star Ryan Serhant broke down in tears as he came clean about the realities of his stressful job while planning his exorbitant wedding to Emilia Bechrakis.

But first, the celebrity broker, 32, hired Brad Pitt's wedding planner, the comically flamboyant Kevin Lee.

'That character in Father of the Bride, played by Martin Short, was modeled after Kevin,' said Ryan proudly, deeming him 'the best' and 'most famous' wedding planner in the world.

The pressure hits him: Million Dollar Listing star Ryan Serhant broke down in tears as he came clean about the stresses of his job while planning his exorbitant wedding to Emilia Bechrakis

'We're not feeding these people diamonds': Serhant and Emilia Bechrakis could not believe their ears as they learned that their destination wedding had a million dollar price tag

'He did Brad Pitt's wedding, twice, so I should be a piece of cake for him,' predicted the Manhattan-based realtor.

Kevin was horrified that they hadn't done 'anything' yet and estimated the cost, for 150 people, at $1 million.

'No f**king way, we're not feeding these people diamonds,' scoffed Ryan who was holding the four-day event in Greece.

Kevin refused to work on their nuptials unless they committed to the lofty figure.

Only the best! The celebrity broker, 32, had hired Brad Pitt's wedding planner, the comically flamboyant Kevin Lee

Bad news: Kevin was horrified that they hadn't done 'anything' yet and estimated the cost, for 150 people, at $1million

Hard to digest: Their wedding planner refused to work on their nuptials unless they committed to the lofty figure

Ryan downed his drink: 'Great, now I have to make a million extra dollars,' he stressed.

To try and shift some homes he threw a party in his office.

Next was ring shopping: 'I'm a girl, I like diamonds,' said Emilia who was already in the jewelry store with Kevin.

Cheers: Ryan downed his drink: 'Great, now I have to make a million extra dollars,' he stressed

Diamonds are a girls best friend! Emilia was in the jewelry store with Kevin while her husband-to-be was trapped at a party

'Diamonds make me smile, a lot,' she cooed, as she tried out a $700,000 necklace and other extortionate sparklers.

Ryan, trapped at the party with his clients, didn't show up.

'Kevin has become by surrogate husband,' sighed Emilia, 31.

Makes her happy: 'Diamonds make me smile, a lot,' she cooed, as she tried out a $700,000 necklace and other extortionate sparklers

Bling bling: The reality star tried on a stunning yellow diamond ring

Oh well: 'Kevin has become by surrogate husband,' sighed the bride-to-be

Just 42 days before the wedding Ryan was fraught with work, and texting over lunch.

'There's so much pressure on my shoulders,' he barked.

His fiancee became irate when he couldn't converse with her, and failed some rudimentary tests about her personality.

Work calls: Serhant was at a work party while his fiancee tried on jewelry

Disappointment: His fiancee became irate when he couldn't converse with her, and failed some rudimentary tests about her personality

Glued to his phone: Just 42 days before the wedding Ryan was fraught with work, and texting over lunch

'I know everything about you,' he boasted, before failing to identify several key elements of her personal history.

In true New York style he went to see a therapist  revealing that his nickname as a child was 'Cryin' Ryan' but he later learned to 'toughen up'.

'I trained myself as a little kid to turn it off,' he said.

Getting personal: In true New York style he went to see a therapist

Old wounds: The Bravo star revealed during his session that his nickname as a child was 'Cryin' Ryan' but he later learned to 'toughen up'

'Later, in real estate, that became by biggest asset,' he admitted.

Ryan later broke down in tears: 'I don't think people really understand how hard it is to do what we do, we make it so glamorous and so fast and so sexy and so exciting,' he sobbed.

'It's so emotionally draining,' he whined.

Support system: Ryan's therapist was all ears as he offered his suggestions

'It's emotionally draining': Ryan later broke down in tears as he sobbed, 'I don't think people really understand how hard it is to do what we do, we make it so glamorous and so fast and so sexy and so exciting'

Ryan, who is worth an estimated $20 million, took Emilia for a walk, to the place they first met.

'The last thing I want is to lose you, because of a lack of communication,' he said, offering up red roses and a new proposal.

'I want to work on us forever you are my first priority,' he told her.

More than just a walk in the park: Ryan, who is worth an estimated $20 million, took Emilia for a walk, to the place they first met

Touched: Emily wiped away tears as was moved by Ryan's gesture

The show Million Dollar Listing New York: Ryan's Wedding had opened 71 days before the event.

The couple were bickering about a trip to Wisconsin, for his nana's 90th birthday.

'Emilia and I are fighting all the time,' he said, while she kvetched about what to pack.

Showing he cares: The star offered up red roses and a new proposal

'You are my first priority': The reality star was bent down on one knee during his heartfelt gesture

'What happens if we have to go to dinner? I can't imagine that we can go shopping in Wisconsin,' she moaned.

'It's not like Middle Earth, it's just Middle America,' he snapped.

Emilia was angry that he hadn't found his baptism certificate, because they couldn't get married in a Greek church without it.

Meanwhile: The couple traveled to Wisconsin to visit Ryan's family

Joining the fun: Ryan did an exercise class with nana, in her assisted living compound

In Wisconsin they relaxed and Ryan did an exercise class with nana, in her assisted living compound.

Much to nana's disgust Ryan wore a very skimpy vest.

Meanwhile Emilia confided in Ryan's mother.

That won't do: Much to nana's disgust Ryan wore a very skimpy vest

Meanwhile: Emilia confided in Ryan's mother

'Since we got engaged everything has shifted,' she said.

'He delegates... then he's not happy with the way it's done he was never like that before,' she complained.

'You're not going to change him,' warned his mother calling him 'very busy'.

Her side of the story: 'Since we got engaged everything has shifted,' Emilia said

Giving her two cents: 'I think he's really trying,' she assured her

'I think he's really trying,' she assured her.

At nana's birthday dinner Emilia was shocked to learn that Ryan had been baptized as a Christian, instead of a Catholic like her.

'This is a really big problem,' she fretted.

Sinking in: At nana's birthday dinner Emilia was shocked to learn that Ryan had been baptized as a Christian, instead of a Catholic like her

No small feat: 'This is a really big problem,' she fretted

'This entire time, probably years, I thought Ryan was Catholic we can't get married in a church,' she wailed.

He decided he would convert to please her.

She told him they needed a wedding planner.

Bad news: 'This entire time, probably years, I thought Ryan was Catholicwe can't get married in a church,' she wailed

Cuddles: He decided he would convert to please her

'If it keeps you calm there's no price that I wouldn't pay,' he said.

'This trip has been so good,' she said, noting that back in New York they sometimes go 'days without really talking to each other'.

Million Dollar Listing New York: Ryan's Wedding, continues next week on the Bravo channel.
They're the celebrity couple that openly promote a zen-like state.

So it comes as no surprise to hear Teresa Palmer and Mark Webber will name their unborn son Forest - a name associated with a sense of calm.

The 34-year-old director and proud father-to-be, took to Instagram on Friday captioning a beachside snap: 'Forest, we're so excited to meet you'.

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Proud: Mark Webber (left) 34, took to social media to reveal the name chosen for their unborn child. Pictured with wife Teresa Palmer (right) 30

He also added in the hash-tags #comingsoon, #3boyz and #proudpapa.

The image featured the names of the couple's sons Bodhi and Isaac, as well as the name Forest, written in the sand alongside a love heart.

Adelaide native Teresa, 30, is already a mother to two-year-old Bodhi Rain and Mark's eight-year-old son Isaac Love from a previous relationship.

Putting it in writing: An image shared to Instagram on Friday featured the names of the couple's sons Bodhi and Isaac, as well as the unveiling of Forest, written in the sand alongside a love heart

Vocal: Teresa hasn't been shy in keeping her social media followers up-to-date with her second pregnancy

Mark revealed in the June issue of Marie Claire Australia that he fell in love with the stunning Australian actress long before the couple even laid eyes on each other.

After meeting on Twitter, when Teresa got in touch about a movie he had directed, the pair soon began writing letters to each other over email, while on opposite sides of the US.

'We made a pact that we weren't going to speak until we met each other in person [back in LA],' Mark explained. 'So for 40 days all we did was write'.

Doting: The stunning actress has certainly taken to motherhood according to her loved-up snaps captured to social media

Not slowing down: The blonde starlet hasn't let pregnancy get in the way of leading an active lifestyle

Admitting that in less than five letters in he knew he was in love, the director told her so via email.

While Teresa wanted to take it slow with Mark, at the time a single dad to six-year-old Isaac from a previous relationship, she admits it was the perfect start to their romance.

'I wish I could tell all my single girlfriends to fall in love over email,' she told the magazine.

'Not only are you forced to look at yourself, but you really get to know a person without physicality or sex getting in the way'.

The couple married in December 2013, just a few months before their first child Bodhi Rain was born.
It's dubbed the grand slam of indoor show jumping but this star was showing her competitive edge too.

AnnaLynne McCord turned heads with her fit physique and form-fitting attire at the Longines Masters of Los Angeles event on Thursday.

The former 90210 star exuded confidence in a pair of skintight red leather trousers and a clingy halterneck top along with a hair-raising 'do.

Looking sharp: AnnaLynne McCord had the competitive edge as she attended the Longines Masters of Los Angeles on Thursday

AnnaLynne, 29, stands at 5 ft 7 in tall but that bouffant hairstyle probably added a few good inches to her slender frame.

She also wore a pair of black suede booties to increase the heightened effect.

Her sharp features were accentuated by bronze shadow and shimmery lip gloss, while dangling hoop earrings lent a whimsical flair.

Fit and fabulous: The 29-year-old actress looked fantastic in red leather trousers with a clingy top and black suede boots

Top knot: AnnaLynne added height thanks to a bouffant hairdo

The event, which took place in Long Beach, California, celebrated some of the world's best equestrians as they compete over four days for top honors in show jumping.

Jessica Springsteen, the daughter of Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa, was among the riders competing for the prize.

AnnaLynne also got a chance to mingle with some other celebrity watchers including Iggy Azalea and Kaley Cuoco, who is quite the equestrian herself.

Easy rider: Jessica Springsteen - the daughter of Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa - competed at the event dubbed the grand slam of indoor show jumping

Radiant and revealing: Iggy Azalea showed off her taut midriff in shimmery harem pants and a black crop top

McCord showed as much support on Sunday while attending The Rape Foundation's annual brunch at Ron Burkle's Greenacres estate in Beverly Hills.

It strikes close to home, as AnnaLynne revealed two years ago that she was sexually assaulted when she was 18 years old.

'Someone makes one decision one night, and it changes the rest of your life. You don't forget,' the actress told People at the charity fundraiser.

Wouldn't miss this: Kaley Cuoco, who is quite the equestrian herself, attended the event with beau Karl Cook

AnnaLynne has spoken out against sexual assault on college campuses on previous occasions.

'I often say, "I didn't sell my body for money but I did sell it to feel some feeling of love,"' she admitted to People. 'Because that's what we need. We're all the same, we want to be loved.'
She's been showcasing her svelte figure for years.

And on Thursday evening Paris Hilton again looked dressed to impress as she turned up for a night out at the trendy Chiltern Firehouse in London.

The 35-year-old hotel heiress donned a black, thigh-skimming sequin mini dress for her outing, which highlighted her toned limbs.

Party girl: On Thursday evening Paris Hilton turned up for a night out at the trendy Chiltern Firehouse in London

Some delicate fishnet stockings added a slight edge to the outfit, while she finished off the ensemble with a pair of high-heel black booties.

Said booties must be a favourite of the reality star, as she's been spotted in the same pair several times over the course of the last few days in London.

The sometime model also opted to ward off the chill with a fur-trimmed coat, while a shiny black alligator skin handbag completed her monotone look.

Other accessories included a pair of gold chandelier-style earrings and some oversize cat-eye shades.

Eye-catching: The 35-year-old hotel heiress donned a black, thigh-skimming sequin mini dress for her outing, which highlighted her toned limbs

Blending in: The sometime model also opted to ward off the chill with a fur-trimmed coat, while a shiny black alligator skin handbag completed her monotone look

Her famous blonde tresses were parted loosely on the right and swept over her left shoulder.

As usual the socialite's make-up was exquisite, and consisted of blush and peach lipstick, which ensured a pristine visage.

Later, it appeared that Paris had tired of the fur look, and exchanged it for a very colourful jacket that sported stained glass-style embroidery.

They go with everything: The booties must be a favourite of the reality star, as she's been spotted in the same pair several times over the course of the last few days in London

Not too creative: Paris has been spotted in the same booties several times, which is odd for the fashion maven

Meanwhile, while she's been in the limelight for over a decade, the fast food spokeswoman has apparently started toning down her appearances lately.

She has traded in her reality television days for a career as celebrity DJ and recently spun the turntables for Philipp Plein's cocktail party in Milan, Italy.

She also recently returned from Serbia where she played in a club in Belgrade on Saturday.
Carmen Electra proved she still has all the right moves as she celebrated the opening of Sin City's sexy new show Cherry Boom Boom at the Tropicana on Thursday night.

The former Baywatch babe and Playboy pin-up, 44, knocked it out of the ballpark in a red dress with a heart-shaped plunging neckline.

The figure-hugging dress featured cut-outs down each side that accentuated her curvaceous figure.

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Stunner: Carmen Electra was vivacious in bright red as she celebrated the opening of the Cherry Boom Boom show at the Tropicana in Las Vegas on Thursday night

The tanned beauty wore a pair of black peek-a-boo heels and carried a black purse.

Carmen's platinum blonde hair was sleekly styled and she emphasized her eyes with lashings of black mascara.

The one-time Prince muse completed her look with a touch of blush and some pale pink lip color.

Former Baywatch babe: Carmen's platinum blonde hair was sleekly styled and she emphasized her eyes with lashings of black mascara

Hey there: Carmen flashed a beaming smile and a big wave as she hit the red carpet

Working it: The curvy 44-year-old showed off her famous figure in the skintight dress that had a plunging heart-shaped neckline and cut-outs down each side

Prince made Carmen - born Tara Leigh Patrick - a star after she moved to California in 1991, and he penned the song Carmen On Top for her.

Following his death earlier this year, the Pussycat Doll made the talk show rounds this year - with appearances on FABLife, Kocktails with Khloe, The Doctors, Hollywood Today Live, and Today.

Designer clad: The actress and TV personality paired her dress with a pair of black peek-a-boo heels and carried a black purse

Buxom blonde: The one-time Pussycat Doll completed her look with a touch of blush and some pale pink lip color and a white manicure

Strike a pose: Carmen posed with actress Sharon Ferguson at the bash
She's the Australian actress who has landed roles in American television series 24 and Windfall.

And Sarah Wynter gave her fellow acting counterparts a run for their money, as she stunned at Amazon's Goliath premiere in Los Angeles on Thursday.

The 43-year-old blonde beauty looked flawless in a chic white frock that accentuated her blemish and wrinkle-free complexion.

What's her secret? Australian actress Sarah Wynter, 43, stunned on the red carpet in a chic white frock at Amazon's Goliath premiere in Los Angeles on Thursday

Sarah took to the red carpet in an elegant white frock that featured an embellished bodice.

The form-fitting top-half of the dress drew attention to her slimline figure, while strategically placed draping from the waist added a feminine touch.

Keeping accessories to a minimum, the Newcastle-born star elongated her legs with a pair of pointy-toed snakeskin heels, a metallic clutch and simple stud earrings.

Effortless: The blonde beauty took to the red carpet in an elegant white frock that featured an embellished bodice

Svelte: The form-fitting top-half of the dress drew attention to her slimline figure, while strategically placed draping from the waist added a feminine touch

Tressed to perfection: Drawing attention to her blemish and wrinkle-free complexion, Sarah slicked her blonde tresses back off her face with the ends falling in loose waves around her shoulders

Drawing attention to her blemish and wrinkle-free complexion, Sarah slicked her blonde tresses back off her face with the ends falling in loose waves around her shoulders.

Opting for a neutral makeup palette, the former face of Country Road highlighted defined brows, lashings of mascara, a touch of blush on her cheeks and a nude lip.

Sarah, who moved to New York when she was 17 to study drama, made headlines in 2014 following her public divorce.

Stunning: Opting for a neutral makeup palette, the former face of Country Road highlighted defined brows, lashings of mascara, a touch of blush on her cheeks and a nude lip

The actress split from her husband Dan Peres, a top New York editor, amid rumours of infidelity.

The pair live apart in upstate New York, where they co-parent three young children.

Sarah and Dan wed in a lavish private residence opposite the Sydney Opera House.
Khloe Kardashian wore lacy lingerie on Thursday while catching a departing flight at Los Angeles International Airport.

The 32-year-old reality star had her sheer white teddy with plunging neckline tucked into distressed blue skinny jeans.

Khloe was spotted walking barefoot as she made her way through airport security.

Travel style: Khloe Kardashian wore sheer lingerie and denim on Thursday while catching a flight out of Los Angeles International Airport

The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star had her long ombre locks down around her shoulders.

She arrived at the airport with a faded denim jacket over her Gooseberry Intimates bodysuit.

Khloe completed her look with open-toed heels and black sunglasses.

The trip apparently couldn't come soon enough for Khloe amid a week of family drama, after her brother Rob Kardashian tweeted sister Kylie Jenner's phone number in a fury over what he thought was a baby shower snub.

Taking off: Khloe was headed out after a week of family drama and did so in sexy style in her Gooseberry Intimates bodysuit

Airport stroll: The reality star layered on a jacket as she made her way through security

Get me out of here  Khloe (@khloekardashian) September 30, 2016

She tweeted 'Get me out of here' on Thursday night followed by another tweet of just plane and heart-eyed happy face emojis.

Khloe was spotted last week with new boyfriend Tristan Thompson, 25, at the Nobu restuarant in Malibu, California.

The Cleveland Cavaliers center and Khloe went public earlier this month with their romance.

Double denim: The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star wore double denim

She works out: Khloe showed off her gym-honed body in distressed skinny jeans

Khloe just arrived back to Los Angeles on Wednesday as she's been busy lately.

She was in New York City last week to promote her new denim line Good American.

The new brand is scheduled to launch on October 18 and is centered on jeans available from sizes 0 to 24 for women of all shapes and sizes.

Busy star: The TV personality was headed out again after arriving in LAX on Wednesday

Proud sister: Khloe shared a post of sister Kourtney and Kim Kardashian, raving 'Goals!!!! Shut that s*** down!!!!' over their matching metallic Balmain looks

Khloe teamed up with fashion executive Emma Grede for the line that will be featured in Nordstrom and e-commerce website.

She may have been heading to Paris for Fashion Week, as she tweeted an admiring photo of sisters Kourtney and Kim Kardashian ahead of the Balmain show.

'Goals!!! Shut that s**t down!!!!' she raved in the caption.
The Fall was back for another bout of sadistic psychological chess played out between Jamie Dornan and Gillian Anderson, subjecting viewers to its usual unbearable tension but in the opposite way we expected.

There were no exchanges between Belfast Strangler Paul Spector and DS Stella Gibson. In fact, it was a tribute to the brooding menace Dornan exuded that Spector was virtually silent throughout.

The start of series three jettisoned its trademark, sparing the audience the traditional horror of having to endure the sight and the sensation of Spector creeping around the house of his victims, dressing them up as his first love, and murdering them.

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High drama: The Fall was back for another bout of sadistic psychological chess played out between Jamie Dornan and Gillian Anderson

Instead it was mostly set in Belfast General Hospital and more like the most sinister episode of Casualty than a crime drama.

This was The Fall taking its time, like a stalker. Like the control freak-turned-serial killer it centred on.

It picked up where it left off after Spector had been shot by aggrieved husband James Tyler just as Gibson had finally found Rose Stagg, the missing radiologist Spector had abducted and left for four days in the boot of his car.

Brooding menace: The episode was mostly set in Belfast General Hospital and more like the most sinister episode of Casualty than a crime drama

This time it was about Spectors survival not his victims with DS Gibson in the strange position of having to protect him having spent the previous two series hunting him, trying to bring him down. So episode one was not about Spector killing but about him living - or dying.

Given that Dornan was the star of the show, frankly the latter always seemed unlikely, even if the doctors did stress that he had suffered massive internal bleeding, lost half his blood volume and needed a new spleen.

Were losing him! a medic inevitably shouted during surgery, failing to add the Holby City mantra of hes crashing.

It was at this point Dornan had his only word of dialogue: mother.

A welcome return: The episode picked up where it left off after Spector had been shot by aggrieved husband James Tyler just as Gibson had finally found Rose Stagg

Spector had lost consciousness and we saw him in his mind - in a tunnel walking towards the light before hesitating, torn between joining his dead mother and his daughter calling daddy look what I found.

When the surgeon announced he was stable again it was as if Spector had made it happen by force of will.

It may not have had any of The Falls usual twisted attacks and calculated threat but the longer the hospital drama continued the worse the tension was. We knew something bad was coming.

Admittedly Spector didnt seem in any condition to escape.

Hes been given muscle relaxant and is on a ventilator, his doctor said. Hes going nowhere.

Hard to read: As usual Gillian Anderson played DS Gibson as a glacial enigma

Talk about tempting fate. Hadnt he seen the previous two series?!

DS Stella Gibson hadnt learnt her lesson either, telling Roses catatonic figure: youre safe now. Everythings going to be OK. #WordsNotToSayInTheFall

Sure enough, even though Gibson had specified that Rose Stagg and Spector her attacker be kept apart, after he survived his surgery they ended up just yards apart, down in ICU, with alarmingly few police to guard them.

It was only in the final minutes that writer Alan Cubitt cranked up The Falls familiar sense of terror and even then it was through the most minimal, almost subliminal, sinister details that we could tell were significant but didnt yet know how.

Was it our imagination and anxiety for example, or did the nurse looking after Spector exactly fit his type  the profile of the women he had murdered?

Strange turn of events: This time it was about Spectors survival not his victims with DS Gibson in the strange position of having to protect him having spent the previous two series hunting him, trying to bring him down

Was she aware that Spector had  chillingly  opened his eyes?

Spectors young daughter discovered from his wifes laptop why hed been arrested when she saw the headline The Face Of A Killer above her fathers picture. (She took the news alarmingly calmly.)

Then there was the way the camera dwelt on the nurse pinning the get well soon mummy drawing by Roses bed - more ominous than reassuring, like a beacon announcing who she was.

Equally the most shocking scene of the night should have been the most gentle.

When Spectors nurse told Stella Gibson sternly you shouldnt be in here. Please leave! surprisingly the Detective Superintendent simply did, crossing the ward to another patient.

Is that you? the old lady muttered struggling to look at Stella. Ive been so worried. Thank God youre safe sweetheart. Im glad youve come.

Whether it was Stellas mother or a stranger who reminded her or that Stella was using as a substitute for comfort remained a mystery.

Man of few words: It was a tribute to the brooding menace Dornan exuded that Spector was virtually silent throughout

As usual Gillian Anderson played DS Gibson as a glacial enigma.

When she went to check on the officer who had been shot in the attack on Spector, the only expression of affection she allowed herself was one simple touch of his cheek.

There may be some nerve damage, DS Anderson revealed. It could be the end of my career.

Really? Gibson sighed elegantly, before managing merely to console him Im sure its not.

When Rose Staggs husband started to crack under the guilt over her abduction and crying why she had seemingly left the house willingly with Spector, Stella kept her emotions equally intact.

Tom, I need you to listen to me right now, she said, almost whispering. The most common instinct in the face of this kind of threat is to freeze. If she didnt fight, if she didnt scream, if she was silent and numb, its because she was petrified.

Changing it up: The start of series three jettisoned its trademark, sparing the audience the traditional horror of having to endure the sight and the sensation of Spector creeping around the house of his victims

Whether that was also why Gibson herself obeyed the nurses instruction to leave or explained the expression of cold neutrality on her face as she saw Spector was alive and his proximity to Rose wasnt clear.

What she needs to know is that shes safe, Stella had told Tom Stagg earlier. Be patient. Be tender. Tomorrows another day.

Yes, you thought, it is - unfortunately.

Spector hadnt moved or spoken once yet but even the way he lay there breathing on the ventilator was terrifying.

DS Gibson surely sensed it like the rest of us.

From here on in, everything in The Fall was only going to get worse.
East 5th St. will undergo sidewalk replacement and streetscape enhancements to add lights and trees along the streets starting on Monday.

During this time, parallel parking only will be allowed along E. 5th Street and the road will be closed to thru traffic from the ramp off Houston St. Work for this project is expected to continue until Wednesday, Oct. 26.
He's just been named the face of a children's activity tracker, alongside his daughter Ella.

And it appears Steve 'Commando' Willis is making the most of his family time.

The Biggest Loser trainer stepped out on the red carpet at the Nickelodeon Slimefest in Sydney on Friday with his three children: 17-year-old Brianna, eight-year-old Ella and five-year-old Jack.

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Family fun: Steve 'Commando' Willis stepped out with his three eldest children from his previous marriage at the Nickelodeon Slimefest in Sydney on Friday

The fitness expert cut a casual figure in black denim shorts and a navy blue t-shirt as he posed behind his youngest daughter.

He teamed the outfit with a black and grey hoodie and accessorised with a black skull and bones cap.

Steve's bronzed skin and leg tattoo was on display at the child-friendly music festival, though he covered his ankles with a pair of star-patterned socks and added a pair of worn converse sneakers.

Ella, who appears in the Garmin Vivofit Jr. advertisement as a miniature version of her father, looked every part the rising star.

Fighting fit: Eight-year-old Ella Willis partnered with her adoring dad in an advertisement for a children's activity tracker

She posed with one leg crossed over the other and her arms crossed as she entered the event with her father and brother.

The precocious primary school student wore a blue and white striped jumpsuit for the occasion.

Steve's eldest child, Brianna, also attended the event, rocking a casual-chic look in a grey jumper teamed with a pair of ankle-length khaki chinos.

The teenager was ready for action on the day, as she tied her brunette hair back and finished off the outfit with a pair of black sneakers.

A smaller family: The Commando welcomed his first child, Axel, with fellow Biggest Loser trainer Michelle Bridges in December

Jack also cut a cool figure as he prepared for a big day out with dad.

He wore a pair of dark blue jeans with what appeared to be a checkered shirt, worn under a black hooded coat.

The boy finished off his outfit with a Slimefest snapback cap and a pair of black Converse sneakers.

Steve has another child, nine-month-old Axel, who he shares with former Biggest Loser trainer Michelle Bridges.

Reality romance: The fitness power couple met on The Biggest Loser and have been together for three years

Michelle, 45, welcomed the birth of her son with her partner of three years Steve, 40, in December.

The Newcastle-born personal trainer is often pictured bonding with her first child on social media and fans often point out how the blue-eyed baby bares a striking resemblance to her.

However, the first time mother credits Steve for his resounding support in helping her navigate parenthood.

'I turn to him a lot because he is just so relaxed about being a dad,' she told The Morning Show after her son's birth.

'He is so sweet. He is very good at it...well he [Axel] is his fourth child so he [Commando] is an old hand at it.'
She became Australia's sweetheart two weeks ago after she was brutally rejected by The Bachelor Richie Strahan.

But heartbroken Nikki Gogan, 28, smiled through her recent letdown while promoting her sister's jewellry brand on Friday.

In an Instagram snap shared to her page, the Perth-based is seen posing in front of a white brick wall peering downwards with a serene smile.

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'The teeny tiny star was a special 'good luck' gift from my precious sissy': heartbroken Nikki Gogan, 28, smiled through her recent let-down while promoting her sister's jewelery brand on Friday

Adorning her neck was a pair of delicate gold necklaces from her sister's jewellery line Savvy Brands.

In the caption she wrote: 'If I had a pretty penny for every time I'd been asked about the necklaces I wear... Check out @savvybrands taking pre-orders on both N O W.'

'My 'N' was a 'dear Nikki, love Nikki' present to myself (I'm big on those) and the teeny tiny star was a special 'good luck' gift from my precious sissy as I embarked on the ultimate adventure,' she added, presumably referring to her recent foray into the world of reality TV.

Going back: Nikki is heading back to Bali on a girls trip where the finale of The Bachelor was filmed and where she was dumped by Richie Strahan (seen here with him in the paradise)

She completed her post with the hashtags #savvybrands and #savvysister.

It comes after news hit that Nikki will return to Bali for a girls trip with a gaggle of fellow Bachelor evictees, despite having suffered rejection at the hands of Richie in Bali weeks earlier.

Faith Williams revealed that she and Perth real estate agent were heading back to Bali next month in an Instagram post Thursday, in which she shared a photo of an infinity pool overlooking the beach.

Girls trip: Taking to Instagram on Thursday, Faith shared a shot of an infinity pool overlooking the beach

Taking to Instagram on Thursday, Faith shared a shot of an infinity pool overlooking the beach.

In the post, she tagged their former love rivals Janey Birks and Rachael Gouvignon.

She captioned the shot saying she was counting down until their getaway.

Crushed: Nikki was left heartbroken on the finale when Richie told her he had chosen mother-of-one Alex Nation

'Eleven more sleeps until I get to catch up with my bachy (sic) babes in Bali! Can't wait to unwind and reminisce,' Faith wrote.

She added hashtags including 'memories' and 'excited.'

The Bachelor girls are all pals after their experience on the show and have been spotted in recent weeks hanging out.

Nikki was left heartbroken on the finale when Richie told her he had chosen mother-of-one Alex Nation.

Pals: The Bachelor girls are all pals after their experience on the show and have been spotted in recent weeks hanging out (seen is Nikki with Rachael, Faith, and Olena)

Nikki told The Daily Telegraph recently that she knew he had chose Alex as soon as she and Richie held hands at the final rose ceremony.

'The moment I got down the stairs... I knew he wasn't my Richie,' Nikki told the publication.

'It was a different energy. He wasn't holding my hand as tightly and his eyes were sad eyes, not excited, happy eyes that I was used to. He was just different.'

During the elimination, Richie gushed to Nikki about the bond they had created on the show, before admitting his 'heart is with Alex'.
They're an incredibly close-knit family unit.

And Kourtney Kardashian couldn't get enough of spending time with her mother Kris Jenner, 60, during their Paris Fashion Week stint, joining forces for a designer shopping spree on Friday morning.

The 37-year-old reality star and the showbiz momager were joined by Kris' companion Corey Gamble, 35, as they browsed the high end boutiques.

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Joining forces: Kourtney Kardashian couldn't get enough of spending time with her mother Kris Jenner, 60, during their Paris Fashion Week stint, enjoying a designer shopping spree on Friday morning

Kourtney was impeccably dressed in an off-duty outfit comprising a tiny, stomach-baring bralet.

The black, lace-up number boasted puffy, sheer sleeves and offered a glimpse of her flat stomach and defined abs.

The gym-loving star sported a pair of high-rise light denim jeans, worn rolled up at the ankle for a casual vibe.

Toned physique: Kourtney was impeccably dressed in an off-duty outfit comprising a tiny, stomach-baring bralet

Stocking up: The pair really didn't hold back at the Fendi boutique, emerging laden down with bags of purchases

Runs in the family: The pair both put on a very stylish display during their outing

Double trouble: Kris was accompanied by her partner Corey Gamble, 35, on their outing

She completed her attire with a pair of black peep toe heels and a matching clutch bag, accessorising with round shades and large gold earrings.

Kris was giving her a run for her money in the style stakes, sporting a dazzling, geometric print dress.

The mother-of-six added some serious style impact with a funky motiff coat, expertly clashing patterns.

Colourful: Kris was giving her daughter a run for her money in the style stakes, sporting a dazzling, geometric print dress

Here they come: The trio were hitting the designer boutiques in style first thing in the morning

Chic: Kourtney completed her attire with a pair of black peep toe heels and a matching clutch

Stylish: Kourtney's top boasted puffy, sheer sleeves and offered a glimpse of her flat stomach and defined abs

Glam: The mother-of-three accessorised with round shades and large gold earrings

Her partner Corey followed behind in a crisp white shirt and smart grey trousers.

Kris has always maintained a youthful image, and has even acquired a boyfriend to match in 35-year-old music executive Corey.

The star's rather dramatic ensemble at Paris Fashion Week the previous day nearly matched her daughters Kourtney and Kim in the fashion stakes.

Life of luxury: The trio have been enjoying the high life since arriving in Paris

Three's no crowd: Kris' partner Corey followed behind in a crisp white shirt and smart grey trousers

Kris attened the Off White 2017 Spring/Summer fashion show at Paris Fashion week sporting a sparkling black mini dress, fishnet tights and dramatic black eye make-up.

Her short black hair was slicked back, while she accessorised with a black choker and high heeled pointed boots.

The matriarch's hair was in stark contrast to her earlier appearance at the Balmain show, where she stepped out at sporting a black bowl cut with a heavy fringe.

The lady is a vamp: Kris sported a sparkling black mini dress and fishnet tights at the Off White 2017 Spring/Summer fashion show the previous night

Me and my man: Kris was accompanied by toyboy Corey, who sported an all-black ensemble

Share of the spotlight: Kris perfectly coordinated with daughters Kim and Kourtney

The reality star was accompanied by her music executive beau Corey who looked dapper in an all-black ensemble complete with heavy gold chain.

Kris perfectly coordinated with her daughters Kim and Kourtney who arrived at the show in rather racy ensembles of their own.

Kim sported her third outfit change of the day as she arrived with husband Kanye West dressed in a racy boob tube which made the most of her very ample assets.

The Kardashians arrive! The reality show family made a typically eye-catching appearance

All change: Kim sported her third outfit change of the day as she arrived with husband Kanye West dressed in a racy boob tube which made the most of her very ample assets

Fashionistas: The family are all fashion fans, with a number of them trying their hands at designing clothes ranges

She added a pair of leather and suede trousers with sheer panels at the knees and a long overcoat.

They were also joined by Kourtney, who had changed for the fourth time that day.

The oldest Kardashian daughter wore an extremely daring mix of a silk nightdress and thigh-high mesh boots.

A black suede jacket added to the look while her dark hair was pulled up into a sleek ponytail.
Pop sensation Justin Bieber has confirmed his plans to extend his Purpose world tour to Australia and New Zealand.

The 22-year-old hitmaker, who has been touring the globe with his Purpose Tour, made exciting announcement via Twitter on Friday by Tweeting: 'Oz and New Zealand dates next week #PurposeTour.'

Frontier Touring and radio network Nova are set to host the controversial star's performances, which are likely to take place early next year.

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Beliebers rejoice! Pop sensation Justin Bieber has confirmed his plans to extend his Purpose world tour to Australia and New Zealand

Speculation about whether Justin would drop Australian and New Zealand dates has been rife over the past few days thanks to the trending hashtag #whereareunowOZNZ.

Nova has also recently shared a post on Instagram depicting Gigi Hadid holding a sign emblazoned with the phrase '4 days' accompanied by the caption: 'Something big is coming in 2017! Be listening to NOVA 6am Tuesday 4 October to find out what #whereareunowOZNZ.'

Justin's Purpose tour has not been without its hiccups in recent months.

Gird your loins! The 22-year-old hitmaker, who has been touring the globe with his Purpose Tour, made exciting announcement on Twitter this Friday byTweeting: 'Oz and New Zealand dates next week #PurposeTour'

It's happening! Speculation about whether Justin would drop Australian and New Zealand dates has been rife over the past few days thanks to the trending hashtag #whereareunowOZNZ

Counting down: Nova has also recently shared a post on Instagram depicting Gigi Hadid holding a sign emblazoned with the phrase '4 days'

According to TMZ, Justin has been legally compelled to disrupt his busy schedule in favour of returning to Florida to give a taped deposition.

If Justin fails to comply, a judge will issue a 'writ of bodily attachment', meaning that the sheriff's deputies will forcibly compel his return, according to TMZ.

The deposition relates to a claim made by Photographer Manuel Munoz, who is suing the Grammy winner for 'unspecified damages' after Justin's bodyguard Dwayne Patterson allegedly tripped him and damaged his camera back in 2014.

Controverial: Justin's Purpose tour has not been without it's hiccups in recent months

Scandal: According to TMZ , Justin has been legally compelled to disrupt his busy schedule in favour of returning to Florida to give a taped deposition

In May this year, Justin revealed to his fans that unspecified legal problems also prevented Justin from performing the Argentinian leg of his Purpose tour.

He wrote on Twitter: 'Argentinian beliebers I would like nothing more than to bring the #purposetour there but until the legal conditions change there I can't.

He added: 'Argentina I do love you. It is in fact one of my favorite places to tour. I wish this was not the case. My lawyers say it is what it is.'

'If things were to change I would love to come but at this time I cannot. For everyone else in South America I look forward to seeing you'
He's never been shy about stretching in public and credits his extensive routine to American doctor Eric Goodman.

And Chris Hemsworth showed off his smooth moves to airport staff as he stepped off a plane in Melbourne on Thursday.

The 33-year-old was seen twisting and bending after a long ride in a private jet, as he returned home ahead of the AFL grand final on Saturday.

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Putting on a show: Chris Hemsworth began a series of stretches as soon as he stepped off a private jet in Melbourne on Thursday, as airport staff watched on with interest

Chris cut a casual figure as he eased his tense back, while dressed in slim-cut black jeans and a dark grey T-shirt.

He paired the look with his favourite white sneakers and a pair of designer shades.

The Thor:Ragnarok star accessorised with leather bands on one wrist and an oversized black watch on the other.

He appears to be visiting family in Melbourne and will attend the AFL Grand Final to cheer on his beloved Western Bulldogs.

Looks... pleasurable? The Thor:Ragnarok star had a look of intense pleasure on his face as he began to relieve the pressure on his back

Little bends: Dressed comfortably in slim cut black jeans and a grey t-shirt, the Hollywood hunk began to bend at the waist

Bigger bends: He then moved into a deep squat, causing his jeans to tighten around his pert posterior

The Hollywood hunk's jeans fit snugly around his pert posterior as he moved into a deep squat, seemingly undeterred by a nearby camera.

A satisfied look on his face indicated the series of stretches, which included squats of varying depths and a lot of twisting, were indeed taking pressure off his back.

Earlier this year, the father-of-three wrote an introduction for a book on stretching written by Dr. Eric Goodwin, and claimed he used the movements in his daily life and had 'never felt stronger.'

Long flight? The 33-year old looked happy to be back on solid ground after landing at Melbourne airport

That looks painful! Chris showed off his impressive flexibility as he twisted and turned on the tarmac

Twist and shout! Though the actor appeared to notice the camera, it did not deter him from completing his lengthy stretching routine

When the book, True To Form, was released, the Thor star took to social media to sing its praises.

'If you've ever suffered from back pain or want a stronger healthier body then check this book out, I incorporate it into my everyday workouts and daily movements and I've never felt stronger, it's incredible,' he wrote.

'Dr. Eric Goodman has spent years studying human physiology and movement, and has helped people of all ages and occupations heal and correct lifelong debilitating pain.

'Called Foundation Training, his practical program trains the posterior chain musclesshoulders, back, butt, and legsshifting the burden of support to where it belongs: the large muscle groups.'

Doing the hokey pokey? Aside from the twists and squats, the routine appeared to include a confusing set of leg raises

That's a bit cheeky! Chris thrust his bottom out as he returned to a squat position, which simultaneously showed off his muscular arms
It seems that Katie Price speaks about her nemesis Jane Pountney more now than she ever did back when they were the best of friends.

A day after revealing that she physically attacked the woman who had an affair with her husband Kieran Hayler, the former glamour model, 38, has shared how she keeps the painful memories of their indiscretion well and truly alive.

Speaking at An Evening with Katie Price in Sheffield on Thursday, she admitted that she often text messages snaps of Jane to Kieran to remind him of what he did.

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Picture not perfect: Katie Price has revealed that she constantly taunts her husband Kieran Hayler about cheating with ex-best friend Jane Pountney by sending him pictures of her

The mother-of-five, who remained married to Kieran despite his indiscretion, said she constantly taunts: 'This is what you could have been with.'

The Mirror reports her as adding: 'Jane is so familiar to me but when I think of her I think "Ugh". I look at her and it takes me back to the pain. I dont understand why Kieran did it.'

A night before, she spoke in Liverpool, where she opened up about the moment she found her friend-of-20-years 'w***ing him off' - leading to her horrific attack in front of Jane's children.

Furious: The 38-year-old glamour model spoke at An Evening with Katie Price in Liverpool the day before, opening up about the moment she found her friend-of-20-years 'w***ing off' - leading to her horrific attack in front of Jane's children

Katie is holding a string of nationwide talks in which fans can pay 75 to hear her speak about her life and times before enjoying a two course dinner.

In her shocking revelation she delved deeper into the soul-destroying moment she discovered Kieran kissing her married ex-best friend Jane, 49, while on holiday in Cape Verde in May 2014.

The Mirror reported that Katie revealed what happened after she found Jane intimately pleasuring Kieran: 'I got up and proper got her. I thought I was a cage fighter or something... I was that angry I just clutched her hair. I'm not hard but I've done training.

'And then Kieran called security. The worst thing is Jane's two kids came in and they saw me attacking their mum. Security walked in and I just wouldn't get off her.

Hurt: Katie has divulged many details of her heartbreak following Kieran Jane's illicit romance

Casual vibes: Katie was leading the way as she stepped out in Manchester

Painful: Last year, Katie explained the exact moment she found the duo together, leading to her heartbreak and very public rows

'I said: "What state is she in?" And she said that she had a black eye and I knocked her tooth out.'

Last year, Katie explained the exact moment she found the duo together, leading to her heartbreak and very public rows.

She said: 'I remember going down to the bar one day in Cape Verde to ask the staff if they had seen my husband.

'They pointed towards the beach and said he'd gone that way. I asked them if he was with anyone and they said no. At that point, I knew he had gone to meet her.

Talking away: Katie is holding a string of nationwide talks in which fans can play 75 to hear her speak about her life and times before enjoying a two course dinner

Hurtful: Katie and Jane had known each other for 20 years when the ten-month affair came to light, and the latter was even maid of honour at Katie's weddings to Alex Reid and Kieran

'So I started walking towards the beach and in the distance, I could see these two silhouettes on the sun loungers. My heart was racing because I knew it was them. Then there they were, kissing each other.'

Katie and Jane had known each other for 20 years when the ten-month affair came to light, and the latter was even maid of honour at Katie's weddings to Alex Reid and Kieran.

The stunning glamour model - who has children Jett, two, and Bunny, 23 months, with Kieran, as well as Harvey, 14, Junior, 11, and Princess, nine, from past relationships - insists she doesn't dwell on her spouse's cheating and things between them are better than ever.
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With two young daughters raise, Imogen Thomas has become accustomed to having her hands full of late.

And the former Miss Wales appeared to catch herself in a bit of a tangle on Thursday, when she was spotted adjusting her ample chest while wearing a pristine white bikini during her getaway to Las Vegas.

The 33-year-old brunette beauty stared intently at her chest as she made the most of the sunny Nevada climes while soaking in an outdoor hot tub.

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Soaking up the sun: Imogen Thomas was spotted enjoying a soak in an outdoor hot tub in Las Vegas on Thursday

Her barely-there halterneck swimwear was embellished on the straps, giving her outfit an extra touch of pizazz, while she teamed it with stylish sunglasses and delicate jewellery.

And while she enjoyed her moment of basking in the sun, the star appeared to be glued to her phone, as she chatted away on it for an extended amount of time. She later teamed her bikini with a white-and-black cap from Beyonce's Ivy Park range.

Earlier this year she released her own swimwear collection to great success - and was keen to try-on her creations in a series of recent selfies.

All that glitters...! The Welsh beauty's flattering two-piece of choice boasted embellished straps, adding a tough of pizazz

Hey dude! She perked up considerably when she appeared to spot somebody she knew while soaking up the sunshine

Curves: The former Big Brother star opted to wear a pristine white halterneck bikini, which highlighted her stunning curves

Shady lady: She shielded her eyes from the glorious Nevada desert sunshine with a stylish pair of tinted sunglasses

Golden girl: She accessorized with a gold body chain and matching bangle as she made the most of her day out in the sun

Lean back: She leaned back in the hot tub and appeared to be reflecting as she enjoyed some much-needed time off

The former Miss Wales took to her Instagram last month, to document herself trying on various two-pieces for her mini break - showing off her gorgeous womanly curves in the process.

Posing in the mirror, the mother-of-two looked incredible in an extremely low-cut white two-piece with glitzy gold embellishment on the bottoms and straps.

The top, held together by a single string, plunged straight down the centre of her bust, showcasing her ample breasts.

Keeping her hair away from her face in a tight plait, Imogen ensured all eyes were on her enviable hourglass figure and slender legs.

She nailed it! Her fingernails boasted white polish, giving her a perfect manicure that matched her pedicure

Keeping up with Kim: The star recently compared her changing shape after having two children to that of Kim Kardashian's

She means business! Earlier this year, Imogen released her own swimwear collection to great success

Model behaviour: The mother-of-two was keen to try on her swimwear creations in a series of recent selfies

Special announcement: Prior to jetting off to Las Vegas, she took to social media to announce her imminent trip

The season is the perfect reason: Welsh beauty Imogen's bikini range is aptly called Chasing Summer

Opting for flattering white, the Big Brother star enhanced her deeply bronzed skin, having already holidayed in Ibiza last month.

Clearly wanting to show off the skimpy number from her range, Imogen wrote: ''I'm off to Vegas for the wknd, this is the new south beach bikini #Vegas #vivalasvegas'

She also posted a selfie in a second bikini, giving fans a proper eyeful in the close-up shot.

Dressed in a burgundy bikini top with gold discs on the straps, Imogen displayed her plentiful assets and endless cleavage in full-frontal view of the camera.

In similar style, she wrote to followers: 'Trying on some bikinis for my wknd away! love this from @chasingsummeruk Of course'

Feeling Blue: The 33-year-old arrived at the pool wearing a white cap from Beyonce's recently-released Ivy Park range

The big search: She was later seen having a rummage around in her stylish and colourful beach bag

Always glam: Despite lounging her day away in a hot tub, Imogen ensured she remained glam as she applied lip gloss

Flip-flops: her black flip-flops sat waiting for her at the edge of the pool as she continued to make the most of the sun

Taking chage: The beauty founded her swimwear line last year, on the basis of her own struggle during bikini shopping

Struggle: Her website explains that she decided to launch the range after failing to find a well-fitting bikini for curvier women

Covering her face with different pairs of aviator sunglasses in the shots, Imogen gave a flavour of the complete beachwear outfits she will be rocking by the pool in Sin City.

Imogen excitedly shared her new designs with her followers, having released her swimwear range Chasing Summer in time for summer.

The TV personality founded the company last year, on the basis of her own struggle during bikini shopping.

Her website explains that she decided to launch the range after failing to find a well-fitting bikini for a curvier woman.

So in love: Imogen has been in a longterm relationship with Australian businessman boyfriend Adam Horsley

The proudest of parents: The loving couple are proud parents of daughter Ariana, three, and Siera, nine months

Seeking advice: On Friday, she took to Twitter to ask her followers for tips on remedies for long haul flights

Not taking a break from social media? She appeared to be transfixed on her phone as she enjoyed her relaxing break

Let's face it...: Imogen also recenntly took to Twitter to ask her followers for facial recommendations in south-west London

It reads: 'The dream came true when she started jotting down different designs at night and making them into a reality today!'

The former Big Brother contestant is taking the Stateside break after a busy year, combining her time as a businesswoman with raising her two young daughters - Ariana, three, and Siera, nine months - who she shares with Australian businessman boyfriend Adam Horsley.

The star recently compared her changing shape after having two children to that of Kim Kardashian's in an interview to promote Bio Oil.

She said: 'I think all of my pregnancy weight has gone on my hips and bum.

'I feel like I have a similar shape to Kim Kardashian when she was pregnant, all in the hips and bum! My breasts have become bigger as well, they are really heavy!'

Me and my girls: The brunette beauty often takes to social media to share shots of her adorable daughters

It's good to talk: The star was back on her phone again, as she embarked on yet another phone call during her time in the sun

Ladt of the rings: She sported a pair of gold rings on her finger, giving her barely-there ensemble an extra touch of glamour

Charitable: As well as being a mother and businesswoman, Imogen has been known to devote much of her time to charity
He returned from the dead in the last series of Game Of Thrones and helped reclaim his family home of Winterfell from the evil Bolton clan.

And Kit Harington, 29, was spotted looking casual as he worked on the next series of the popular fantasy epic in Northern Ireland.

The handsome star shared a goodbye hug with co-star Sophie Turner's body double as he left the set.

Fond farewell: Kit Harington was spotted looking casual as he worked on the next series of the popular fantasy epic in Northern Ireland

Kit tied his lustrous dark locks into a small knot, and he sported his familiar facial hair.

The star wore a plain jumper with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of jeans and a brown leather satchel over his shoulder.

The body double (who has been filming scenes as Sansa Stark) had long, free-flowing ginger hair which cascaded down her back, and she was make-up free as she hugged Kit.

She wore a cropped, grey, long sleeved top and high-waisted black trousers.

Kit recently recalled how he fell in love with his co-star Rose Leslie, who played the spirited wildling Ygritte, as they filmed season two of the hit HBO series in Iceland.

Rugged: The handsome star shared a goodbye hug with co-star Sophie Turner's body double

Time to go: Kit prepared to climb into his car on the rainy day

See you soon: The pair have obviously built a good rapport during their time on the show

Fresh-faced: The body double's long, free-flowing ginger hair cascaded down her back, and she was make-up free as she hugged Kit

Tidy: Kit tied his lustrous dark locks into a small knot and he sported his familiar facial hair

Dressed down: The star wore a plain jumper with the sleeves rolled, a pair of jeans and a brown leather satchel over his shoulder

In shape: Sophie Turner needed a double who could match her stunning physique

It is, he revealed, one of his fondest memories of the show in which he plays Jon Snow.

'Because the country is beautiful, because the Northern Lights are magical, and because it was there that I fell in love,' Kit told Vogue Italia.

He added: 'If you're already attracted to someone, and then they play your love interest in the show, it's becomes very easy to fall in love.'

Serious: Kit wore a stern expression on his face as he turned to leave

Bouncing back: Kit recently lost out to Bloodline's Ben Mendelsohn in the Supporting Actor In A Drama Series category at the Emmys

Hands on: Kit placed his hands on his satchel as the double and a member of the crew walked away

Game Of Thrones recently made history at the Emmy Awards, as the programme won three awards during the televised portion of the show to add to the nine it scooped off air, bringing its total to 38 - one more than previous all-time record holder Frasier.

In addition, it received the most nominations (24) and earned arguably the biggest prize of the night - Outstanding Drama Series.

Kit lost out to Bloodline's Ben Mendelsohn in the Supporting Actor In A Drama Series category.

To make matters worse, the star's surname was spelt wrong as his name flashed up on the screen when his nomination was shown.
Her sister Gigi is in Paris walking the runways for top designers for the French capital's fashion week.

But Bella Hadid, 19, opted to stay in New York this week and made time for a girl's night with Kendall Jenner, 20 on Thursday.

The duo headed to Japanese restaurant Nobu with Bella showing off her model physique in a skimpy crop top and sweatpants.

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Girl's night: Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid headed out for dinner at Nobu in New York on Thursday night

The brunette beauty donned a fur jacket over the top of her ensemble but still offered a glimpse of her toned torso and a touch of cleavage.

Kendall kept it casual too in a black turtleneck sweater tucked into some formal style trousers.

She layered on a long grey winter coat and matched her pal by hiding her eyes behind some stylish sunglasses.

Sporty chic: Bella, 19, flaunted her toned midriff in a white crop top and sweatpants for the outing

Fall style: Kendall looked pretty casual in all black and layered on a grey winter coat for the outing

While the girls gave Paris Fashion Week a miss, Bella's older sister Gigi is currently making waves on the catwalk.

The 21-year-old walked for Isabel Marant and Balmain on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Kendall made a visit to celebrity tattoo artist JonBoy at West 4 Tattoo earlier in the day and got a new inking inside her bottom lip.

JonBoy revealed Kendall's chosen design, the word 'Meow', by posting an Instagram shot of the KUWTK star pulling down her lip in front of a mirror.

Mixing it up: The model opted for a outfit consisting of formal pinstripe trousers with a black sweater and white trainers

In the spotlight: Bella's older sister Gigi is currently walking the runways at Paris Fashion Week. She's seen in the Balmain show (left) and Isabel Marant (right) on Thursday

Earlier in the week Bella and Kendall helped to celebrate pal Jordyn Woods birthday.

The daughter of Yolanda and Mohamed Hadid shared a bikini snap from their recent trip to Turks & Caicos for Kylie Jenner's birthday.

She wrote: 'Happy belated birthday beautiful Jordy I had to get back to NYC to find this picture of us because it's my favorite!!! You are such an incredibly bright light in anyone and everyone's lives that have the pleasure of meeting you. I have no doubt this year will be the greatest for u Love u Baby girl See u tonight.

Meow! Kendall got a new inking on Thursday when she visited JonBoy at West 4 Tattoo in New York
He welcomed twin girls Gracie Jane and Alice Rose, with his third wife Sally Humphreys in May.

But Ronnie Wood appeared to be taking a night off from his parenting duties on Thursday, as he headed for a low-key dinner in California.

The Rolling Stones rocker, 69, looked in high spirits as he ambled to Italian restaurant Cecconi's, West Hollywood in a casual shirt and jeans combo.

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Off-duty: Ronnie Wood, 69, looked in high spirits as he ambled to Cecconi's restaurant, West Hollywood on Thursday without his three-month old twins or wife Sally Humphreys in tow

The guitarist looked casually cool in a long-sleeved grey shirt, decorated with paler florals, layered on top of a more vibrant turquoise T-shirt.

He added jeans to the ensemble, clearly wanting to keep comfy and relaxed for the low-key evening out.

Showing his youthful style despite his 69 years of age, Ronnie completed the look with a pair of bright white trainers, and a light black necklace around his neck in true rockstar style.

Lookin' Wood! Ronnie looked casually cool in a long-sleeved grey shirt, decorated with paler florals, layered on top of a more vibrant turquoise T-shirt

Leaving his famous hair ruffled and flashing a smile for the cameras and waiting fans, Ronnie looked care-free after touching down in LA.

Ronnie has headed stateside to play a reunion show alongside his Rolling Stones bandmates.

The Paint It Black stars have booked an exclusive show on October 7 at the Empire Polo Club in Palm Springs, California, where they will play alongside fellow musical legends Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney.

However the trip across the pond sees the star leave his family - most importantly, his new twin girls - behind for an extended period of time.

It's casual: He added jeans to the ensemble, clearly wanting to keep comfy and relaxed for the low-key evening out

The three-month-old twins Gracie Jane and Alice Rose are Ronnie's fifth and sixth children, but the first for him and theatre producer Sally, who is 31 years his junior.

Sally and Ronnie started dating in 2012 when they met backstage at the Theatre Royal - where she was working at time.

They tied the knot at the Dorchester Hotel in London that December after a whirlwind six month romance, with Rod Stewart acting as the best man.

Ronnie already has son Jesse Wood, with his first wife and former model, Krissy Wood - with his firstborn now married to TV presenter Fearne Cotton.

Busy man: Ronnie has headed stateside to play a reunion show alongside his Rolling Stones bandmates

He also has daughter Leah and son Tyrone from his second marriage, to Jo Wood, and Jamie, Jo's son from a previous marriage, whom Wood adopted.

Ronnie, who has turned over a new leaf in life, has been quick to dismiss any suggestions he parents from a distance.

Speaking to Hello! magazine earlier this year he said: Im the burper, walker, nappy changer and Im still trying to work out when I can get to sleep in between all that.

Legend status: The Paint It Black stars have booked an exclusive show in Palm Springs, California, where they will play alongside musical legends Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney

I have played the guitar to them and when I get round to it I will do some drawings. At the moment Im just soaking up every moment we have.'

As if this was not enough proof of Ronnie's hands-on parenting, wife Sally also spoke out recently about the pair's direct and loving approach to their new children together.

She was forced to deny a report from the Sunday People that her husband has hired four nannies to ensure he gets the rest he needs to continue with his work.

Hitting back at the rumours, the brunette wrote on Twitter: 'Just read that we've hired four nannies! We haven't, that would be bonkers!! xx'
Dr. Josh Rice Jason Browning Dr. Mike Hayes Previous Next

Lee University students, faculty, and staff will soon come together for a time of personal reflection and spiritual growth during this semesters Convocation. The seven-service event will take place over a period of four days. President Paul Conn will open the series Sunday, Oct. 2.

I always enjoy Convocation week each semester, said Dr. Jimmy Harper, Lees campus pastor. Its a week in which we set aside some quality time to really dig into our relationship with God. We want it to be meaningful and engaging for our studentswe want this week to make a difference in their lives.

Dr. Josh Rice, a frequent and favorite chapel guest, will speak Monday evening. Rice currently serves as the pastor of leadership and community development at Mount Paran North Church of God in Marietta, Georgia. He earned his doctorate in New Testament studies from the Lutheran School of Theology, his master of divinity from Columbia Theological Seminary, and his bachelors degree from Lee University.

On Tuesday night, Lee alum Jason Browning returns to share the Word. He is an associate pastor at Westmore Church of God in Cleveland and has been in ministry since 2001.

Lees very own Dr. Mike Hayes will speak on Wednesday evening. Dr. Hayes, also a Lee alum, currently serves as the vice president for Student Development and as an assistant professor of educational leadership. He sponsors the Student Leadership Council and oversees the on-campus Summer Honors program for high school juniors and seniors.

To close Convocation on Thursday evening there will be a special U-Church event with Planetshakers performing. Planetshakers is based in Melbourne, Australia, at Planetshakers church. Their vison is to witness generations worldwide come together to praise God and see true encounters with Him that lead to lasting changes and global impacts.

Weeknight convocation services begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Conn Center with overflow seating in the Dixon Center. Each service will host live worship led by Lees Chapel Praise Band.

Morning services will take place on Tuesday and Thursday at 10:40 a.m. in the Conn Center and Dixon Center.

Lees Dr. Brad Moffett will speak in the Conn Center on Tuesday morning, while Kingdom Players will perform in the Dixon Center. On Thursday morning, the Conn Center will host a student-only event, while former United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales presents in the Dixon Center.

The university encourages all students and welcomes guests to attend and participate in this falls Convocation. For those unable to attend, all services will be live streamed at http://www.leeuniversity.edu/video/.

For more information, contact Campus Ministries at 614-8420.
She's in the throes of pregnancy and is emanating a radiant glow.

And Natalie Portman, 35, looked great in a sophisticated black overcoat as she attended the Dior SS17 Paris Fashion Week show on Friday.

The actress smiled brightly as she prepared to take her seat on the front row.

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Trendy: Natalie Portman, 35, looked great in a sophisticated black overcoat as she attended the Dior SS17 Paris Fashion Week show on Friday

Her bronde tress fell in loose waves over her shoulders, and her chestnut peepers were decorated with lashings of mascara.

The star's cheeks were full of colour and her teeth pearly white, while her lips were covered in a slick of pink.

She wore an elegant pair of delicate heels and sported a vibrant red pedicure.

Glowing: The actress smiled brightly as she prepared to take her seat on the front row.

Natalie is already the proud parent to son Aleph, who she welcomed in 2011 with Benjamin - her husband of two years, who she met while filming Black Swan in 2009.

In 2012, the pair tied the knot in an intimate Jewish ceremony, and Benjamin announced he was in the process of converting to Judaism before they moved to Paris.

Meanwhile, Kate Moss, 42, upped the glamour for her day of high-fashion in the French capital - sporting a chic denim shirt emblazoned with Elvis Presley-themed decoration, formal trousers and a sleek blow-dry.

Hail the fashion queen: Kate Moss, 42, looked glamorous in a chic denim shirt and a sleek blow-dry, as she embarked on her day out at Paris Fashion Week in France on Friday

The fashion icon looked as stylish as ever in a pair of formal tailored trousers, paired with a more trendy denim shirt.

The sleek black trousers were of slim fit and had a high waist, lengthening the famous pins she strutted down the catwalk with in her youth.

Adding an edgier vibe to the formal strides, the Rimmel ambassador layered an oversized blue denim shirt on top, which she left open at the front to reveal her model figure.

That's how it's done: Kate showed off her model prowess as she posed effortlessly at the prestigious Dior SS17 show

Denim dream: The fashion icon looked as stylish as ever in a pair of formal tailored trousers, paired with a more trendy denim shirt

Legs for days! The sleek black trousers were of slim fit and had a high waist, lengthening the famous pins she strutted down the catwalk with in her youth

Rock chic: Adding an edgier vibe to the formal strides, the Rimmel ambassador layered an oversized blue denim shirt on top, emblazoned with Elvis Presley themed decoration

The shirt was adorned with sporadic diamantes and featured printed images all relating to Elvis on it - such as his face, a figure of him dancing and the phrase 'Can't help falling in love' towards the bottom.

Not only stylish, the ode to the famous rocker simultaneously showed off the blonde's slightly grungy style that she is so famous for.

Keeping the look very current and on-trend, Kate added a thin black choker to her neck and dressed her feet with classic leather stiletto ankle boots, with a pointed toe.

Nothing like a Hound Dog: The shirt featured printed images all relating to Elvis Presley on it - such as his face on the right shoulder and the phrase 'Can't help falling in love'

Strike a pose! Kate oozed glamour and style as her hair blew in the wind, revealing her neck dressed with a slim black choker

Blonde bombshell: Her hair was styled into a chic and voluminous straight style, and split into a flattering centre parting at the front

Dressing her face with minimal glowing and bronzed make-up and accentuating her eyes with a slick of black liner, the Calvin Klein model enhanced her naturally striking facial features, which catch attention wherever she goes.

Her hair was styled into a chic and voluminous straight style, and split into a flattering centre parting at the front - clearly upping the glamour as she headed to one of the biggest fashion events of the year.

Carrying a simple black leather clutch, Kate exuded natural and effortless style as she headed to the FROW of the Dior SS17 showcase.

The fashion house's collection was its first under new artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri, and was said to mark the brand's new direction.

The collection was formed of the muted down tones of black, white and beige and featured an ample selection of feminine dresses - of soft, form fitting and boxy shapes.

Stunning: Dressing her face with minimal glowing and bronzed make-up and accentuating her eyes with a slick of black liner, the model enhanced her naturally striking facial features

Here she comes: Kate made her glamorous arrival at the event, surrounded by a whole team of security and helping hands

Loved-up? Kate's shirt was emblazoned with the words 'Can't help falling in love' - perhaps alluding to her new romance with aristocrat Nikolai von Bismarck

Good genes! Kate Moss' half sister Lottie, 18, also made a stylish arrival at the event in a pretty pink floral dress and coat, which she stylishly draped across her shoulders

Kate's new man Nikolai von Bismarck was nowhere to be seen, as she flew solo for the high-profile event.

The model has been flashing a diamond rock as of late, fuelling rumours of an engagement to the 29-year-old aristocrat.

The Sun has claimed that the couple have started making plans to have a low-key wedding in Greece after falling in love with the country during a summer break.

According to the paper 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.

The queen has arrived: Carrying a simple black leather clutch, Kate exuded natural and effortless style as she headed to the FROW of the Dior SS17 showcase

Work it: Kate commanded the cameras at the gorgeous venue

Ring on the finger? Kate kept the fingers of her left hand out of sight of the cameras, after endless speculation of an engagement to her 29-year-old man recently

'They fell in love with Greece after jetting there last month and got the ball rolling by planning the wedding while out there,' an insider claims, adding that unlike her traditional white wedding to Jamie, Kate wants a more intimate do.

'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,' a source said.

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.
She's long been a muse for Dior and is always their poster girl at high profile events.

But Jennifer Lawrence broke away from her usual glamorous aesthetic to fly the flag for the luxury fashion house's more casual offerings, sporting an characteristically dressed down ensemble on Friday.

The Oscar-winning actress attended the Spring-Summer 2017 ready-to-wear show at Paris Fashion Week in a simple vest top and cropped jeans.

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Laid-back look: Jennifer Lawrence broke away from her usual glamorous aesthetic to attend the Dior Spring-Summer 2017 ready-to-wear show at Paris Fashion Week on Friday

Outfit change: Jennifer later emerged in a sheer top and a leather jacket, channelling rock chic cool in her updated look

Jennifer's casual tank flashed a glimpse of her underwear, deliberately showing off her Christian Dior emblazoned bra straps.

The black T-shirt was tucked into her boyfriend style jeans, which were cut to mid-calf.

She styled up the look with a cute pair of Dior printed kitten heels to match her lingerie.

Designer touch: Jennifer's casual tank flashed a glimpse of her underwear, deliberately showing off her Christian Dior emblazoned bra straps

Jennifer added a touch of glamour by twisting her blonde locks into a chic updo, set off with an on-trend choker necklace and a statement single earring.

She later emerged in a sheer top and a leather jacket, channelling rock chic cool in her updated look.

The Hunger Games star has been a brand ambassador for the design house since 2012, and this year alone has starred in several of their campaigns for cosmetics and accessories.

Poster girl: The Hunger Games actress has been a brand ambassador for the design house since 2012

She said: 'I've had such a wonderful time working with Dior with couture, and there's such a synergy between the fashion and the beauty'

'I've had such a wonderful time working with Dior with couture, and there's such a synergy between the fashion and the beauty,' she said.

Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron, Marion Cotillard, and Robert Pattinson are also Dior brand ambassadors.

Jennifer was in attendance to watch creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri's very first fashion show for Dior.

This marks the first time a woman has been at the helm of the house in its 60 year history.

New aesthetic: Jennifer in attendance to watch creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri's very first fashion show for Dior
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The Dior show is one of the hottest tickets at Paris Fashion Week.

And the elite of the modelling industry including Karlie Kloss, Lottie Moss, Natalia Vodianova and Chiara Ferragni were leading the glamour as they arrived ahead of the Spring/Summer 2017 ready-to-wear show in the French capital on Friday.

Karlie stole the show in a chic tweed pencil skirt, showcasing her endless legs thanks to the high waist and the elegant side-split.

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Catwalk beauties: The elite of the modelling industry including Karlie Kloss, Lottie Moss, Natalia Vodianova and Chiara Ferragni (from left to right) were leading the glamour as they arrived ahead of the Spring/Summer 2017 ready-to-wear show in the French capital on Friday

The catwalk sensation expertly clashed patterns by pairing her statement skirt with a quirky white lace top, worn over a black vest.

She rounded off the look with classic black accessories, including a long duster jacket and a pair of patent kitten heels.

Rising star Lottie Moss also put on a very fashionable display, embracing the French fashion house's feminine aesthetic in a cute prom dress.

A Kloss above the rest: Karlie stole the show in a chic tweed pencil skirt, showcasing her endless legs thanks to the high waist and the elegant side-split

Super stylish: The catwalk sensation expertly clashed patterns by pairing her statement skirt with a quirky white lace top, worn over a black vest

Model of the moment: Rising star Lottie Moss also put on a very fashionable display, embracing the French fashion house's feminine aesthetic in a cute prom dress

Polka perfection: Veteran model Natalia Vodianova opted for an altogether more grown-up look in a sleek and stylish polka dot suit

The model of the model paired her semi-sheer, A-line number with a classic pale pink coat, covering her shoulders like a cape.

Giving her half-sister Kate Moss a run for her money, the 18-year-old newcomer completed her attire with covetable metallic heels and smart handbag.

Veteran model Natalia Vodianova opted for an altogether more grown-up look in a sleek and stylish polka dot suit.

Flower girl: Diane Kruger put in a summery show in a beaded floral skirt and matching waistcoat

'Can't help falling in love': Supermodel Kate Moss was her usual rock chic self as she posed up a storm

Hail the fashion queen: Kate looked glamorous in a chic denim shirt and a sleek blow-dry, as she embarked on her day out at Paris Fashion Week in France on Friday

Strike a pose! Kate oozed glamour and style as her hair blew in the wind, revealing her neck dressed with a slim black choker

Here she comes: Kate made her glamorous arrival at the event, surrounded by a whole team of security and helping hands

Striking a pose: Kate put on a casual-chic display in an oversized denim shirt featuring a range of motifs

Mirror image: Lottie is the spitting image of her supermodel older sister and has clearly inherited her stunning good looks

All white: Models were sent down the runway in quilted tip and tulle skirts with a futuristic vibe

The 34-year-old Russian beauty highlighted her long legs in the tailored trousers and went braless under the matching jacket for an extra touch of glamour.

Natalia, a devoted humanitarian, rounded off her look with bright red accessories and a slick of lipstick to match.

Guess model Chiara dared to be different in a quirky top, which flashed her flat stomach thanks to a slit running up to the chest.

Formal: Former model Milla Jovovich put in a sharp appearance in a floral slightly unbuttoned blouse tucked into a knee-length black skirt

Stunning: US model Arizona Muse posed before the Christian Dior 2017 Spring/Summer ready-to-wear collection fashion show

Pretty in pink: Arizona wowed in a chic pale pink dress as she checked out the Dior show

Friends in high places: Bond beauty and former model Olga Kurylenko caught up with shoe designer Christian Louboutin at the show

A chip off the old blog: Model Gabriel Kane Day-Lewis proved he has inherited his father Daniel Day Lewis' good looks

Stunning: Former The City star Olivia Palermo and model Johannes Huebl made a gorgeous couple at the show

Unusual! Olivia opted for blue lipstick as she and her husband arrived at the show together

Tutu madness! The legendary house debuted its first-ever collection under new artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri, who takes over from former creative director Raf Simons

Hell for leather: Models paraded along the catwalk in insect embellished garments and leather skirts

Lingerie chic: Underwear as outwear was common, featuring a sizeable Christian Dior logo

Logo chic: Hearts and bees were a common theme in the high end fashion house's new ready to wear line

New creative director: This marks the first time a woman has been at the helm of the house in its 60 year history

The designer and blogger paired her ensemble with shiny ankle boots and tiny black hotpants.

As well as the model contingent, a host of VIP guests including Rihanna flocked to the runway presentation.

Dior ambassadors including Jennifer Lawrence, Natalie Portman and Marion Cotillard were also in attendance, flying the flag for the luxury fashion house.

The stars were in attendance to watch creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri's very first fashion show for Dior.

This marks the first time a woman has been at the helm of the house in its 60 year history.

Natural: Fresh faces, bee-stung lips, fair brows and light make-up featured on the SS17 catwalk

French braids: In keeping with their Parisian location, the models wore French braids to edge up their buns

On-trend: Visible bra straps, 90s style chokers and statement earrings were rife
She put on numerous fashionable displays as she promoted her new film at Venice and Toronto Film Festivals last month.

And Gemma Arterton showed she was still on the top of her fashion game on Friday, as she cut a chic figure at the Dior SS17 show during Paris Fashion Week.

The British actress, 30, flashed her enviably slim legs for all to see in a quirky blue and brown co-ord, as she spun around in excitement for the show, whipping her hair and laughing as she did so.

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Show-stopping: Gemma Arterton, 30, flashed her enviably slim legs in a quirky blue and brown co-ord, as she spun around in excitement at the Dior SS17 Paris Fashion Week show

The Made in Dagenham star looked truly gorgeous in the set, which was formed of a crisp pale blue jacket and brown skirt, which flashed her famously slender legs for all in attendance.

The vintage-style jacket featured a classic split collar and three quarter length sleeves, and was of cropped length to show off the high-waisted skirt and Gemma's petite frame.

Meanwhile the brown skirt cut into a sleek A-line, lightly skimming and flattering her figure.

Vintage vibes: Gemma paired the co-ord with a pair of T-bar heels and a co-ordinating silver clutch bag

Jazzing up the outfit, both items of the set featured a metallic 3D fastening, shaped into small butterflies, down the left hand side - giving the illusion that the two pieces were connected as one.

Highlighting the metallic tones Gemma paired her look with a silver clutch bag, and amped up the vintage vibe with a pair of multi-tonal T-bar heels.

Clearly excited for the show, Gemma beamed for the cameras before performing a little spin, whipping her hair round effortlessly for the cute shots.

It seems the Dior show was an acting affair - with Jennifer Lawrence also attending the Spring-Summer 2017 ready-to-wear show at Paris Fashion Week in a simple vest top and cropped jeans.

Laid-back look: Jennifer Lawrence broke away from her usual glamorous aesthetic to attend the Dior Spring-Summer 2017 ready-to-wear show at Paris Fashion Week on Friday

Jennifer's casual tank flashed a glimpse of her underwear, deliberately showing off her Christian Dior emblazoned bra straps.

The black T-shirt was tucked into her boyfriend style jeans, which were cut to mid-calf.

She styled up the look with a cute pair of Dior printed kitten heels to match her lingerie.

Outfit change: Jennifer later emerged in a sheer top and a leather jacket, channelling rock chic cool in her updated look

Designer touch: Jennifer's casual tank flashed a glimpse of her underwear, deliberately showing off her Christian Dior emblazoned bra straps

Jennifer added a touch of glamour by twisting her blonde locks into a chic updo, set off with an on-trend choker necklace and a statement single earring.

She later emerged in a sheer top and a leather jacket, channelling rock chic cool in her updated look.

The Hunger Games star has been a brand ambassador for the design house since 2012, and this year alone has starred in several of their campaigns for cosmetics and accessories.

Poster girl: The Hunger Games actress has been a brand ambassador for the design house since 2012

She said: 'I've had such a wonderful time working with Dior with couture, and there's such a synergy between the fashion and the beauty'

'I've had such a wonderful time working with Dior with couture, and there's such a synergy between the fashion and the beauty,' she said.

Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron, Marion Cotillard, and Robert Pattinson are also Dior brand ambassadors.

Jennifer was in attendance to watch creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri's very first fashion show for Dior.

This marks the first time a woman has been at the helm of the house in its 60 year history.

New aesthetic: Jennifer in attendance to watch creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri's very first fashion show for Dior
Blake Lively has welcomed her second child with husband Ryan Reynolds.

The actress, 29, gave birth at a Manhattan hospital, reports Page Six.

The baby is a second child for Blake and Ryan, 39, who welcomed daughter James in December 2014.

And the newborn has already got friends in high places, with pop superstar Taylor Swift one of the child's first visitors.

Mom's the word: Blake Lively, seen in July, has welcomed her second child with Ryan Reynolds

Part of the squad: Blake and Ryan's pal Taylor Swift was one of the newborn's first visitors

Taylor is one of Blake's close friends. Last year, Taylor and Blake met up with each other while they were in Australia while the former was on her 1989 World Tour and the latter was shooting thriller movie The Shallows.

Then earlier this year, Blake and Ryan attended Taylor's star-studded Fourth of July party at her Rhode Island home.

When she's not hanging with her famous pals, Blake is looking after her daughter.

'Extremely fortunate': Blake, seen in July, says she loves being a mother, but does find it hard

She has said she feels extremely fortunate to be a mother, despite being constantly exhausted.

She said: 'It's tough when you get pooped on and barfed on, but having a baby is wonderful.

'Even when it's tough and I'm exhausted I think 'I am so fortunate. When you are looking at your child and she's laughing, it's hard to do anything else.'

Pals; Blake with friend Taylor Swift, who was one of her first visitors in hospital
The busy actress just returned home on Thursday after a few days in New York City.

And on Friday morning, Jennifer Garner appeared happy to be back on mom-duty as she was spotted with her son Samuel in Los Angeles.

The 44-year-old mother-of-three gave her four-year-old boy a big hug and kiss.

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Doting mama! Jennifer Garner appeared happy to be back on mom-duty as she was spotted embracing her son Samuel in Los Angeles on Friday after returning from NYC on Thursday

Jennifer walked hand in hand with her youngest child.

She dressed her svelte physique in a loose black tank top and skintight ankle-length workout leggings for their morning stroll.

The Wakefield actress slung a black sweater around her shoulders and completed the off-duty look with a bright pair of trainers.

The brunette beauty sported a pair of dark sunglasses and pulled her long locks back into a sleek pony-tail bun.

Sweet stroll: The 44-year-old mother-of-three and her four-year-old boy walked hand in hand together

She refueled on caffeine with a to-go cup of coffee while her free hand held onto her son's little fingers.

At one point, the multitasking mama took a phone call - which seemed to be a happy one as she was spotted flashing a large grin.

Meanwhile, Samuel looked cute in a red T-shirt and a coordinating pair of white and red striped shorts.

The little tyke looked sophisticated with a watch around his wrist.

Multitasking mom: The Wakefield actress took a phone call at one point and it seemed to be a happy one as she was spotted flashing a large grin

The Alias alum showered her child with love - picking him up in her arms and holding him close to her chest while balancing her phone in hand.

During the long embrace the mother and son duo shared a smile.

Samuel clearly adores his mother as he smiled widely back at his famous mom during their tender moment.

This comes soon after the busy actress returned home from the Big Apple, and it's evident she's happy to be back with her family.

Tender moment: The brunette beauty showered her child with love - picking him up in her arms and holding him close to her chest while balancing her phone in hand

'It's crazy town': 'I always feel like September is bananas, doing initial meetings, meetings for room mom, field trips. It's crazy, but good,' Jennifer recently told People magazine about juggling her three kids' schedules whom she shares with estranged husband Ben Affleck

She recently told People about her crazy schedule as she tries to organize her kids whom she shares with estranged husband Affleck: Violet, 10, Seraphina, seven and Samuel, four.

'Everything shifts,' the actress admitted. 'It's crazy town. I always feel like September is bananas, doing initial meetings, meetings for room mom, field trips. It's crazy, but good.'

Jennifer went on to explain: 'I said to my kids yesterday, "This has been a long week," Kids fight, they push and pull.

'The beginning of school is stressful for them and they take it out on Mom. I have to say, "You guys, this is a lot for me. I need a break!" We all have to chill out.'

Jen and Ben, who married in 2005, announced the end of their marriage in June of last year but they continue to live together at their Pacific Palisades property in California and as of yet neither of the stars have officially filed for divorce.

Still not divorced: Ben and Jennifer split in June 2015 and have been negotiating their divorce in private; here they are seen in 2014
She may have just emerged from a flight, but Rosie Huntington-Whiteley still looked chic in her casual ensemble on Friday.

The 29-year-old supermodel emerged at Narita International Airport dressed in a long knitted biscuit-coloured cardigan, teamed with black trousers and UGG boots.

Her long hair was worn parted and tousled, while dangling earrings and subtle make-up added to the understated look.

Casual: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley arrived at Japan airport on Friday

The star wheeled a black suitcase and perched an olive-green handbag on top.

Rosie has been busy in the Far East, attending an UGG promotion in Shanghai, China on Wednesday

The 29-year-old star was showing off her fabulous figure in a pair of form-fitting wet look leggings, teamed with a pair of the comfy boots.

She took to the stage with her usual grace as she addressed the audience at the event, where she was met with a rousing reception.

Laid back: Her long hair was worn parted and tousled, while dangling earrings and subtle make-up added to the understated look

Travelling light: The star wheeled a black suitcase and perched an olive-green handbag on top

Rosie recently opened up about her relationship with actor Jason Statham, who proposed in January with a five-carat Neil Lane diamond ring.

Speaking to Harper's Bazaar Australia, she said: 'I have an amazing relationship with my partner. He's by far the greatest influence in my life.'

The couple have been dating for six years and live together in Beverly Hills.

Casual chic: Rosie proved she can pull off a laid-back look when she attended an UGG promotion in Shanghai, China on Wednesday

Earlier this month, the blonde beauty attended New York Fashion Week - including at the coveted Ralph Lauren show, where she shared the front row spotlight with Ricky Lauren, Julianne Moore, Dylan Lauren, Annabelle Wallis and Jessica Alba.

Of late, the supermodel has landed campaigns with some of the world's biggest brands, including Dolce & Gabbana, Tommy Hilfiger and Topshop to name a few.

She is currently a spokesmodel for UGG and just released her newest shades of lip shines from her Rosie for Autograph make-up collection.

The catwalk queen has also landed in fifth place on Forbes' 2016 list of the world's highest-paid models, earning $9 million in the past year.
Angelina Jolie split from Brad Pitt not even two weeks ago and on Friday she made a temporary custody arrangement with him for their six children.

But in the middle of all this, the 41-year-old has managed to think of her next film, according to Variety.

The publication claims the Oscar winner is in talks to play real life Afghanistan war hero Major Mary Jennings Hagar in TriStar's Shoot Like a Girl.

New role? Angelina Jolie is in talks to play real life Afghanistan war hero Major Mary Jennings Hagar in TriStar's Shoot Like a Girl

Tops: She managed to save hundreds of men and women on and off the battlefield in the Middle East. For her efforts, she was awarded a Purple Heart

It is not known if the talks began before the split or more recently.

The last time the Oscar winner starred in an action movie was 2010's The Tourist. Since then she made the Disney adventure Maleficent and the drama By The Sea with Pitt.

The film is based on the upcoming memoir Shoot Like a Girl: One Womans Dramatic Fight in Afghanistan and on the Home Front.

New read: The film is based on the upcoming memoir Shoot Like a Girl: One Womans Dramatic Fight in Afghanistan and on the Home Front

The book covers Hagar's tours in Afghanistan as a helicopter pilot. (Jolie herself is already a pilot.)

She managed to save hundreds of men and women on and off the battlefield in the Middle East. For her efforts, she was awarded a Purple Heart.

Hagar also helped eliminate the militarys Ground Combat Exclusion Policy, That policy prevented female officers from serving in combat roles.

Tough times in her personal life: Jolie split from Brad Pitt not even two weeks ago and on Friday she made a temporary custody arrangement with him for their six children; her the family is seen in 2011

On Friday, DailyMail.com learned Brad and Angelina agreed to a temporary custody deal that will last three weeks.

The terms were reached on Friday with the help of the Los Angeles County Department Of Children And Family Services.

The deal involves Angelina getting physical custody of all six kids, a source close to the situation told DailyMail.com.

The Fury actor, 52, will get an initial monitored visit followed by other visits that may or may not be monitored. He has also volunteered to get random drug testing, and the entire family will undergo counseling.

Firmed up: Jolie filed for divorce on September 19; here they are seen during their last red carpet appearance in November

The source added: 'This temporary agreement will last until October 20. This is a completely voluntary agreement that has a structured decision-making plan. Neither Brad nor Angelina were forced to get counseling, they both volunteered to do so for the sake of the family.'

There was no longstanding agreement about custody in place, the insider also explained to DailyMail.com.

'There has been no ruling, this was just a completely voluntary agreement,' stressed the insider.

And Pitt was not pushed to have a monitored visit.

'There was also no requirement for any kind of monitoring. Both Brad and Angelina decided between them that the first visit would be done with a therapist. There was absolutely nothing mandated.'

She has the say for now: The 41-year-old actress gets custody of all six children; here they are pictured in 2014

Pitt's representative had no comment on the report.

According to TMZ, DCFS told the couple they had to make a deal now or go to court. They both agreed to make a decision quickly, it was alleged, for the benefit of the children.

Angelina gets physical custody of the children with Brad having visitation with certain restrictions.

When the Troy actor has his first visit, a therapist will be there. Their six children include Maddox, 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, 10, and 8-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.

Her new digs: The Maleficent star has been staying with the children at a rental in Malibu

Talking it out: Brad and Angelina will each submit to individual counseling, it was also claimed. And the entire family will have family counseling together, it was also alleged; here they are seen in 2011

The therapist then will suggest to either allow Brad subsequent unmonitored visits or insist on being present whenever he's around the kids, it was added.

Brad will also be subject to random drug and alcohol testing, something he volunteered to do.

TMZ, which claims to have talked to law enforcement sources, reported that the actor already went in for a urine test and it came out negative for alcohol and drugs.

There were no more specifics about the individual counseling that Brad and Angelina have suggested they do.

Better days: Their six children include Maddox, 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, 10, and 8-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne; here she is seen with Shiloh, Zahara and Pax in March

It was added that the entire family will have family counseling together.

The FBI has said it is gathering evidence about allegations Pitt was involved in a dispute on a private flight with his family on September 14, although the agency has not opened a formal investigation. Sources familiar with the allegations have said they center on the actor's treatment of his son Maddox.

Several outlets have reported that the incident was being investigated by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, but the agency said it could not confirm whether it was involved.

Their past: Here Jolie is seen in her last film, 2015's By The Sea with Pitt

Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt on September 19 and sought sole physical custody. They have been together for 12 years but wed in 2014 in France. Pitt has yet to respond with his own filing.

It was earlier claimed by TMZ that the two Hollywood veterans have still not come to an agreement on permanent financial support and property.

They own several homes together, including a compound in the Hollywood Hills and the stunning $60m Chateau Miraval estate in France.
Amber Rose said she felt 'body-shamed' by Dancing With the Stars judge Julianne Hough for a comment made during her Monday night performance.

But the 32-year-old video vixen squashed any bad feelings there may have been as she stepped out for a relaxing day at the salon in Los Angeles on Friday.

She was asked if things were amicable between the two blonde bombshells and Amber replied: 'Of course, everything is amazing. You know I love women, it's all good.'

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'It's all good': Amber Rose squashed any bad blood there may have been

The star - whose real name is Amber Levonchuck - seemed in good spirits for her afternoon outing in an all black ensemble.

She donned form-fitting drawstring sweatpants with a short sleeved T-shirt.

is currently competing on season 23 of ABCs Dancing With The Stars with her pro partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy.

In a clip obtained by E! News, the ex-girlfriend of rapper Kanye West replied to a comment on Loveline made by Julianne on the latest episode of the dance competition show.

Pampering: The 32-year-old video vixen enjoyed a relaxing day at the salon in Los Angeles on Friday

'It was a point in the dance where I had to lift my leg up and Maks [Chmerkovskiy] dipped me and [Julianne] said, "Oh, I'm uncomfortable," and instantly I felt, I did feel body shamed,' she admitted.

Amber continued: 'All the beautiful professional dancers that are on Dancing With the Stars, I mean they dress very sexy and they do the splits and they grind up on these guys and they look absolutely stunning and get a standing ovation.'

'And me, and my body, my hips, my ass, my breasts made her uncomfortable.'

Beauty in black: The star - whose real name is Amber Levonchuck - seemed in good spirits for her afternoon outing in her monochrome ensemble

However the professional choreographer and dancer clarified in a statement that her comment was edited out of context.

'To be clear, that was a produced package, not live coverage and they can put those sound bites anywhere,' Julianne said.

'My 'uncomfortable' comment was about the fact that I felt like I wanted more out of the performance  when someone is doing a hot, sexy dance like that without the right amount of energy that is required, it can be uncomfortable to watch.

'Trust me I'm ALL for a sexy booty dance!! We all know that!!' she added. 'And any kind of body shaming goes against everything I believe in.'

Practice! Amber later headed to Dancing With the Stars rehearsals in LA

Duet: She was joined by dancing partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy

Twerking it: Amber is currently competing on season 23 of ABCs Dancing With The Stars with her pro partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy

The founder of the Slutwalk Festival which calls for an end to rape culture admitted to being ridiculed constantly on a special slut-shaming based edition of her The Amber Rose Show on Monday.

Amber, aka Muva is a longtime advocate of womens rights and equality.

Woman get bullied constantly for things that we didnt do, or things that we did do, things that we were very comfortable doing, announced the host.

'Made her uncomfortable': The platinum blonde bombshell said she felt 'body-shamed' by Dancing With the Stars judge Julianne Hough for a comment made during her Monday night performance

Shaming is out of control, from slut shaming to body shaming to victim blaming, she added.

I get harassed so much in the clubit doesn't matter what I have on..theyll kind of like go underneath and like grab my ass, girls and guys, Amber explained.

You know, it doesnt matter what we have on, its not an invitation to touch us unless we say "Hey come and touch us", she raged.
United States investing in Niger air base

The United States is investing in a military air base capable of deploying drones in Niger's central city of Agadez, the Pentagon confirmed.

The United States already has a military presence in the country's southwestern capital of Niamey, where it stations MQ-9 Reaper drones and supports France's anti-jihadist Barkhane force, among others.

The US "has negotiated an agreement with the government of Niger to allow for the construction of a new runway and all associated pavements, facilities and infrastructure" at the base in Agadez, Pentagon spokeswoman Michelle Baldanza said.

A US-made Reaper drone operated by the French military as part of Operation Barkhane, at the French army base in Niamey, Niger Philippe Desmazes (AFP/File)

The Agadez site will remain Niger's and is not slated to become a US post like Djibouti, home to the only permanent US base on the African continent, she said.

Baldanza estimated the US investment will cost $50 million, though The Intercept, which first reported the story, said it is slated to cost $100 million.

According to the investigative news site, which obtained formerly confidential military documents, Niger is the only country in the region willing to allow a US base for MQ-9 Reapers, and has positioned itself to be a key hub for US military operations in the region.

"There's a trend toward greater engagement and a more permanent presence in West Africa -- the Maghreb and the Sahel," Adam Moore of the University of California Los Angeles told the site.
MON/3 Bubbly vs. Brews (A Startup Week Event)5:30-7:30 p.m.Chattanooga Chamber Alley: 811 Broad St.The purpose of this event is corporate matchmaking with local startups. If youre a startup, click here to register.MON/3  NEWtrepreneur? 10 Bookkeeping Mistakes to Avoid from the Start (StartUp Week)Noon  1:30 p.m.TN Small Business Development Center: 100 Cherokee Blvd.Speakers: Presented by Lynn Talbott, MBA, President of HRBiz and Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisorFree.Are you an entrepreneur, small business owner or considering starting your own business? Learn to keep your finances tidy  registration required at tsbdc.org TUES/4 Reality Check - Hixson High School7:30-10:30 a.m.Hixson High School: 5705 Middle Valley Rd.Reality Check teaches 9th graders budgeting and emphasizes the connection between education and income by allowing students to role-play as heads of household while trying to provide for their families on a set budget.Community volunteers needed to assist with this event - contact Cathy Humble at 423.763.4321 or chumble@chattanoogachamber.com.TUES/4 Member Orientation8:00-9:30 a.m.Chamber Board Room: 811 Broad St.Learn more about how the Chamber can benefit you and your business. For members and non-members. Free. Light breakfast.TUES/4  Pick the Brain of an Attorney (StartUp Week)10-11:00 a.m.TN Small Business Development Center: 100 Cherokee Blvd.Speakers: Charles G. Fisher, Grant Konvalinka & Harrison, P.C.Free. Registration required at tsbdc.org TUES/4 North Chattanooga Chamber Council Meeting11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.The INCubator: 100 Cherokee Blvd.$10WED/5 AM Networking sponsored by Choices Chattanooga and hosted by Two on the Roof8-9:30a.m.Chattanooga Airport: 313 Manufacturers Rd.Held the first Wednesday of every month, AM Networking brings between 75-135 business people together for an hour of networking and refreshments. AM Networking this month sponsored by Choices Chattanooga and hosted by Two on the Roof. Click here to register.WED/5  Googleize Your Business- Get Found Online (StartUp Week)12:30 2 p.m.TN Small Business Development Center: 100 Cherokee Blvd.Speakers: Josh Brown- TSBDC of Chattanooga, John Ying & Lucas Mayeur- DelegatorFree. Registration required at tsbdc.org WED/5  Social Media 101 (StartUp Week)3:305 p.m.TN Small Business Development Center: 100 Cherokee Blvd.Speakers: Lisa Brown, owner of 3E SocialFree. Registration required at tsbdc.org WED/5  Rising Star Award Reception (StartUp Week)5:15 6:30 p.m.TN Small Business Development Center: 100 Cherokee Blvd.Join the TSBDC, SBA, Chattanooga State Community College, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga for a free reception sponsored by Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union in honor of Jennifer Strain with Good Fortune Soap. Registration required at tsbdc.org THUR/6 Downtown Chamber Council Meeting7:30-9 a.m.WaterHouse Pavilion: 850 Market St.Speaker: Kim White, RiverCity Company$15THUR/6 Culture Conundrums: Scaling from Startup to Enterprise9-10:15 a.m.Chattanooga Public Library (4th Floor): 1001 Broad St.Join the Chamber, Co.Starters, and Skuid for a panel on workplace culture for businesses of any size, background, and field. Light breakfast provided. Click here to register.THUR/6  Ready? Set? Start! Small Business Orientation (StartUp Week)11:30 a.m.  1 p.m.TN Small Business Development Center: 100 Cherokee Blvd.Speakers: Josh Brown/Ivette Rios/Lynn Chesnutt, SBDC Small Business AdvisorFree. You want to begin your business, but you dont know where to start. We can help. Registration required at tsbdc.org THUR/6 East Ridge Chamber Council Meeting11:45-1 p.m.East Ridge Community Center: 1517 Tombras Ave.$10FRI/7 Ooltewah/Collegedale Chamber Council Coffee8:30-9:30 a.m.Wired Coffee Bar: 9447 Bradmore Ln.
World leaders bid farewell to 20th-century 'giant' Peres

World leaders bid farewell to Israeli elder statesman and Nobel Peace laureate Shimon Peres at his funeral in Jerusalem Friday, with US President Barack Obama hailing him as a giant of the 20th century.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was among the mourners at the city's Mount Herzl national cemetery and was seated in the front row, reportedly at the request of Peres's family.

Abbas knew Peres well and negotiated with him. In an extremely rare move, he shook hands and spoke briefly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon arrival.

US President Barack Obama touches the coffin of former Israeli president Shimon Peres after speaking during his funeral in Jerusalem on September 30, 2016 Abir Sultan (Pool/AFP)

Security forces were on high alert, with roads closed and thousands of officers deployed.

Some 70 countries were represented, with the range of leaders illustrating the respect Peres gained over the years in his transformation from hawk to committed peace advocate.

"In many ways he reminded me of some other giants of the 20th century that I had the honour to meet: men like Nelson Mandela, women like Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth," said Obama, who wore a black Jewish skullcap.

Leaders of Arab countries were overwhelmingly absent from the funeral.

Peres's death on Wednesday at the age of 93 after suffering a major stroke drew tributes from around the world for Israel's last remaining founding father.

An estimated 50,000 people filed past his coffin as it lay in state outside parliament in Jerusalem throughout the day on Thursday.

Former US president Bill Clinton was among those who paid their last respects there, appearing moved as he stood in silence before the coffin.

Clinton had helped usher in the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s, which resulted in the Nobel prize for Peres.

He also spoke at the funeral, giving a warm eulogy in which he said Peres's "critics often claimed he was a naive, overly optimistic dreamer. They were only wrong about the naive part."

Netanyahu, in his eulogy, called Peres a "great man of the world."

The two men had been political rivals, and Netanyahu recalled a late-night discussion on Israel's future with Peres in which they debated security and peace.

"Be at peace, Shimon, dear man, exceptional leader," he said.

Obama, who has had a testy personal relationship with Netanyahu, made a point of mentioning Abbas at the start of his eulogy and said his "presence here is a gesture and a reminder of the unfinished business of peace."

Obama said later, speaking of Peres, that "the Jewish people weren't born to rule another people, he would say".

The funeral took place under a white canopy in the leafy national cemetery, where many Israeli dignitaries are buried.

Around 8,000 police were deployed for the commemorations. Preventative arrests of both Jews and Palestinians were made ahead of the funeral to avoid potential disruptions, police said.

The last time such an event was held in Israel was the 1995 funeral for Yitzhak Rabin, Peres's rival in the Labour party but partner in negotiating the Oslo accords.

Eulogies were completed before midday and Peres's coffin was lowered into his grave next to Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish extremist opposed to the accords.

- Criticism from Arab nations -

In a career spanning seven decades, Peres held nearly every major office, serving twice as prime minister and as president, a mainly ceremonial role, from 2007 to 2014.

He won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for his role in negotiating the Oslo accords, which envisioned an independent Palestinian state.

He was also an architect of Israel's nuclear programme, with the country now considered the Middle East's sole nuclear-armed nation, though it has never declared it.

While Peres is hailed in the West as a peacemaker, many in the Arab world, including among the Palestinians, regard him as a "war criminal".

They have cited his involvement in successive Arab-Israeli wars, the occupation of Palestinian territory and his support for settlement building before his work on Oslo.

He was also prime minister in 1996 when more than 100 civilians were killed while sheltering at a UN peacekeepers' base in the Lebanese village of Qana fired upon by Israel.

Islamist movement Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, condemned Abbas for offering condolences to Peres's family, saying it "disregards the blood of the martyrs and the suffering of the Palestinian people".

Abbas, who signed the Oslo accords along with Peres, however called him a "brave" partner for peace.

There have been very few tributes from Arab nations, though Egypt was represented by Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Jordan too sent a minister.

They are the only two Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel.

- Naomi Campbell, Joe Biden -

Born in Poland in 1923, Peres emigrated to what was then British-mandated Palestine when he was 11.

He joined the Zionist struggle and met David Ben-Gurion, who would become his mentor and Israel's first prime minister.

Peres became director general of the nascent defence ministry at just 29.

After leaving office as president, he had sought to maintain an active schedule, particularly through his Peres Center for Peace.

He was hospitalised in January for heart trouble, but said he was eager to return to work upon leaving.

In March, he met British supermodel Naomi Campbell at his Peres Center for Peace during an event linked to International Women's Day. On the same day, he met visiting US Vice President Joe Biden.

Despite his reputation as a statesman, Peres never managed to outright win a national election. Many in Israel opposed to the Oslo accords also blamed him for what they saw as their failure.

But in later life, especially during his time as president, he came to be widely embraced.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) talks with US President Barack Obama at the Mount Herzl national cemetery in Jerusalem during the funeral of former Israeli president Shimon Peres on September 30, 2016 Menahem Kahana (Pool/AFP)

US President Barack Obama (L) attends the funeral of former Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl national cemetery Thomas Coex (AFP)

Shimon Peres Sabrina BLANCHARD, Thomas SAINT-CRICQ (AFP)

Family members walk behind the coffin of former Israeli premier Shimon Peres at the start of his funeral in Jerusalem Gil Cohen-Magen (AFP)
US orders families of govt personnel to leave DR Congo

The United States ordered families of government personnel stationed in the Democratic Republic of Congo to leave amid fears about escalating violence, the State Department said.

"The potential for civil unrest is high in parts of Kinshasa and other major cities," it said, referring to the country's capital in a travel warning.

"As a result of the deteriorating security situation, family members of US government personnel have been ordered to leave the country beginning September 29. Most official US government travel to the DRC has been halted."

Demonstrators gather in front of a burning car during an opposition rally in Kinshasa on September 19, 2016 Eduardo Soteras (AFP/File)

It noted that violent clashes this month between security forces and opposition protesters over the electoral process had resulted in deaths and the destruction of property.

"Very poor transportation infrastructure throughout the country and poor security conditions make it difficult for the US Embassy to provide consular services anywhere outside of Kinshasa," it added.

Last week's clashes left dozens dead in Kinshasa, where opposition groups were demanding the resignation of President Joseph Kabila.

He has ruled since 2001, and the constitution bars him from running for a third term. Although his current term ends on December 20, no date for new elections has been announced and there are fears he plans to stay in power.

The State Department warned travelers that armed groups, bandits and some elements of the Congolese military "kill, rape, kidnap, pillage, steal vehicles, and carry out military or paramilitary operations in which civilians can be indiscriminately targeted."

DR Congo's government accused the United States earlier on Thursday of sowing "chaos" after Washington placed two of Kabila's top allies on its sanctions blacklist.

The US Treasury on Wednesday said both the men were involved in violently putting down opposition to Kabila and undermining democratic forces in the country.

The burnt-out offices of the main opposition Union for Democracy and Social Progress party on September 20, 2016 in Kinshasa Junior Kannah (AFP/File)
Saudi Arabia and 9/11: What we know

A new US law allows survivors of terror attacks and victims' relatives to sue foreign governments, opening the way for Saudi Arabia to be targeted for its alleged role in the 9/11 attacks.

The kingdom firmly denies it had anything to do with the September 11, 2001 assault on New York and Washington, and warned Thursday of "disastrous consequences" for relations between the allies.

But what do we know about the allegations, and what might be revealed if the families of 9/11 victims seize on the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act to have their day in court?

The House voted 348-77 to reject the veto of a bill allowing 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia shortly after a 97-1 Senate vote to override it Spencer Platt (Getty/AFP/File)

- Saudi hijackers -

The Saudi government insists it had no official involvement in the attacks, and the official US investigations found no proven link.

But individual Saudis were involved: 15 of the 19 hijackers who seized passenger jets and crashed them into landmarks were citizens of the kingdom.

The attack was carried out by the Al-Qaeda movement, which was founded and led by Osama bin Laden, the son of a wealthy Saudi construction magnate with close ties to the royal family.

But Bin Laden himself had been banished from the kingdom in 1992 and was stripped of his Saudi citizenship by royal decree in 1994 after speaking out against the king.

The 9/11 Commission set up by President George W. Bush said in 2004 that "Saudi Arabia has long been considered the primary source of Al-Qaeda funding."

"But we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization."

- The '28 pages' -

Why, then, do suspicions remain? And why did an overwhelming majority of US lawmakers vote to override President Barack Obama's veto, passing a law to allow lawsuits against the kingdom?

Part of the answer lies in the so-called "28 pages," a section of a congressional report into the attacks that pre-dated the 9/11 Commission findings and was classified on Bush's orders.

For years, the mystery surrounding the missing section fed theories that the US administration had censored the passages to save Saudi officials from scrutiny and protect ties with the oil-rich ally.

But in July this year, under pressure from lawmakers and victims' families, Obama ordered the 28 pages to be released, and they do not definitively identify official Saudi involvement.

"While in the United States, some of the 9/11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi government," the document said.

One suspect on the US East Coast believed to be from the Saudi interior ministry appeared to fake a seizure during FBI questioning about his links to a hijacker.

He was later released from hospital and managed to flee the country before he could be questioned again.

In California, a suspected Saudi intelligence operative was believed to have provided "substantial assistance" settling two more hijackers in to American life.

The phonebook of an Al-Qaeda operative captured in Pakistan meanwhile pointed to US contacts, notably a company that managed a Colorado property of the then-Saudi ambassador.

- Follow-up investigation -

Releasing the material, the Obama administration said the leads turned up by the 2002 congressional probe and contained in the missing 28 pages have since been investigated.

"They don't shed any new light," spokesman Josh Earnest said, "or change any of the conclusions about responsibility for the 9/11 attacks."

People look over the north memorial pool during the 15th anniversary of September 11 at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, on September 11, 2016 in New York Bryan R. Smith (AFP)
Philippines' Duterte draws Hitler parallels in war on drugs

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday likened his deadly crime war to Hitler's efforts to exterminate Jews, as he declared he was "happy to slaughter" millions of drug addicts.

Duterte also railed against Western critics of his unprecedented law-and-order crackdown, which has left more than 3,000 people dead in three months and raised concerns about a breakdown in the rule of law in one of Asia's most chaotic democracies.

"Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I'd be happy to slaughter them," Duterte told reporters in his home city of Davao, although he vastly underestimated the number of people killed in the Holocaust by the Nazi leader's regime.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte speaks at Davao international airport on September 30, 2016 Manman Dejeto (AFP)

"At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have," he said, then paused. "But you know, my victims, I would like to be (sic) all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition."

Duterte, 71, won elections in May in a landslide after a campaign dominated by his pledge to eradicate drugs in society by killing tens of thousands of people.

The lawyer and former city prosecutor promised immunity for security forces if they were charged with murder, and on his first day in office urged residents of a Manila slum to kill drug addicts within their own community.

His police chief also urged addicts to burn down the homes of drug traffickers and kill them.

Since Duterte came to power on June 30, police have killed more than 1,200 people and about 1,800 others have died in unexplained circumstances, according to official figures.

A piece of cardboard, with "drug peddler" or "drug addict" written on it, is frequently placed on corpses that are left on the streets. This has led to the war on crime becoming known as "cardboard justice".

- 'Revolting, inhumane' -

Duterte has faced a barrage of criticism from Western governments and rights groups, but he has reacted defiantly and often with abusive language while insisting he is not doing anything illegal.

Duterte has branded US President Barack Obama a "son of a whore", called UN chief Ban Ki-moon a "fool" and used expletives in referring to the European Union while raising his middle finger.

His analogy with Adolf Hitler, whose campaign to wipe out Jews in Europe led to about six million deaths by the end of World War II, triggered more condemnation.

"Any comparison of the singular atrocities of the Holocaust with anything else is totally unacceptable," German foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer told reporters.

World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder described Duterte's comments as "revolting" and demanded he apologise.

"What President Duterte said is not only profoundly inhumane, but it demonstrates an appalling disrespect for human life," Lauder said in a statement.

- Hypocrisy -

Duterte on Friday also criticised the European Union and the United States for alleged inaction on the migrant crisis emanating from the Middle East.

"You US, EU. You can call me anything. But I was never into or I am never into hypocrisy like you," he said.

"There are migrants escaping from the Middle East. You allow them to rot and then you're worried about the deaths of about 1,000, 2,000, 3,000?"

In response to American criticism, Duterte has signalled he intends to downgrade military ties with longtime ally the United States, while forging closer relations with China and Russia.

Duterte said this week he intended to end joint military exercises with the United States.

The nations conduct war games regularly in the Philippines and coastal waters, which previous governments have intended as a form of deterrence against China's ambitions to control most of the South China Sea.

US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter responded to Duterte's comments by insisting on Thursday America's alliance with the Philippines remained "ironclad".

But Duterte on Friday insisted the war games next week involving more than 1,000 troops would be the last of his six-year term, as he hit out again at the United States.

"Do not pretend to be the moral conscience of the world," he said.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's law-and-order crackdown has left more than 3,000 people dead in three months Noel Celis (AFP/File)

Activists light candles for the victims of extrajudicial killings in the Philippine government's drug war in Manila on September 16, 2016 Ted Aljibe (AFP/File)
Fresh child abuse case exposes Myanmar's broken system

Scars lace across 16-year-old Than Than Ei's face, each line bearing testimony to the abuse she says she suffered at the hands of her adoptive family, the latest case of child abuse piling pressure on Myanmar's government.

She was just nine when her father sent her to be adopted by a family in Yangon. By her tenth birthday she had become their virtual slave, beaten with bicycle chains and kitchen implements almost daily for five years.

"My lips were whipped with an iron chain," she told AFP at her aunt's house in South Dagon, east of Yangon. "They also use it to slash my hands and threw hot water on them."

Than Than Ei, a 16-year-old Myanmar child slave, lives with deep scars on her face, hand and upper body after years of abuse Ye Aung Thu (AFP)

"As they did not feed me, I ate without their permission. Then they accused me of stealing food and crushed my fingers with pliers."

Her story is increasingly familiar in Myanmar, where tens of thousands of youngsters from poor families are also sent to work as servants in middle-class, urban households.

Activists say the government has done little to address the issue, while police and authorities regularly turn a blind eye to allegations against wealthy and powerful families.

"The justice system throughout the country is broken and generally not seen as protecting the rights of the least advantaged," said Matthew Smith, chief executive of Fortify Rights.

"Authorities in a position to help have been negligent."

The issue came to light this month with the case of two girls, aged 16 and 17, who described shocking abuse during five years held captive in a tailor's shop in Yangon.

The victims' families say police refused to help them free the girls, whose story of being beaten, burnt and stabbed by the shop owners hit headlines after they were rescued this month.

They were initially paid $4,000 in compensation but, under mounting public pressure, police pressed criminal charges and the president has ordered an enquiry into how authorities handled the case.

Six members of the tailor's family appeared in court on Thursday on human-trafficking charges.

- Justice delayed -

Campaigners say more needs to be done to address the issue in Myanmar, rated the seventh-worst country for child labour in the world by risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft.

Tackling the issue is one of the key challenges facing the new democratically elected government as it seeks to heal the country after 50 years of oppressive military rule.

But it is also a complex task given grinding poverty that leaves many families dependent on income from working children.

"We're going to find more and more of these types of cases," said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch Asia, urging lawmakers to get ahead of the issue.

Than Than Ei's family said authorities did nothing when alerted to what was happening.

Twice, neighbours complained but the local ward officer -- a relative of the alleged abusers -- did nothing.

Than Than Ei finally managed to flee the house and her uncle, Myo Oo, filed attempted murder charges against the family in July 2015.

One member of the family was arrested, but nothing was done for a year. Then last week police, galvanised by the tailor shop case, arrested three more people.

"If the authorities had helped us like this since the beginning, our case would not take this long," said Myo Oo. "I also want to ask them why."

Myanmar child slave Than Than Ei, 16, shows the deep scars on her hands and legs while she recovers at a relative's house in Yangon's South Dagon district Ye Aung Thu (AFP)

Tens of thousands of youngsters from poor families are sent to work as servants in middle-class, urban households, but many become virtual slaves and suffer physical abuse Ye Aung Thu (AFP)
Nairobi's famed National Park threatened by railway

Munching, the giraffe looks up towards the skyscrapers looming in the distance.

But this picture-postcard image of Nairobi, one where wild animals graze in the shadow of the cityscape, is at risk from a railroad.

A unique urban conservation site, the Nairobi National Park is a vast wildlife reserve where lions, hyenas and giraffes roam at will just seven kilometres (four miles) from the heart of town.

The foundation of the Standard Gauge Railway under contruction within the Nairobi National Park's boundary Tony Karumba (AFP)

But its singular setting could prove its undoing. Nairobi, one of Africa's fastest growing and economically advanced cities, is planning to build a Chinese-funded railway line across east Africa's oldest national park.

Urban projects have steadily nibbled away the edges of the 120-square-kilometre (45 square miles) reserve, with new roads laid, power lines strung across its southeast corner, a pipeline dug underground and clouds of dust blowing in from nearby cement plants.

Worse still, recent housing estates obstruct a key wildlife migration route on the park's southern flank leading to Kenya's other famed nature reserves, such as the Maasai Mara.

"In the 70s and 80s about 30,000 wildebeest came to the park every year. Nowadays, only about 300 come back regularly," said Sidney Kamanzi, who heads the Friends of Nairobi National Park group.

-'Nothing like this before'-

The latest threat to the park is part of a gigantic rail project -- currently at the heart of a legal battle -- which critics claim could do untold harm to the cityside sanctuary that is also home to zebras, crocodiles, hippos, rhinos, antelopes, buffaloes and hundreds of bird species.

Under the scheme, an elevated rail line will run across six kilometres of the park perched on pillars between eight and 40 metres (24 to 120 feet) tall.

"Chunks of the park have been taken away little by little, but there has never been anything like what they propose now," Kamanza said.

"The consequences will be disastrous," he said, although other conservationists are demanding an environmental impact study before passing final judgement.

Kenya, which sees itself as east Africa's economic heart, decided in 2013 to upgrade its national railway network to link traffic from the region's leading port, Mombasa, to Nairobi, and then on to regional neighbours Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan.

A first 483-kilometre (300-mile) section from Mombasa to a terminal east of the Nairobi National Park is to be completed in late 2017. The line is said to be Kenya's largest infrastructure project since independence.

But it is the second stage section linking Nairobi to Naivasha in the Rift valley, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) northwest of the capital, that is seen as most problematic to the park and its 150,000 yearly visitors.

To avoid the high cost of buying land near the reserve, the authorities decided on one of seven possible options -- to cut through the sanctuary despite loud objections by some environmental groups.

- 'The right thing for Kenya': Leakey-

Initially opposed to the idea, the state-run Kenya Wildlife Service has finally come out in favour, with KWS chairman, world-renowned anthropologist Richard Leakey, saying the costs of skirting the park would have been way too high.

My personal choice was that the park and the railway should be separate. However, the cost of going round and the implications to our economy and the taxpayer made no sense and we are trying to do the right thing for Kenya, Leakey said.

Kenya Railways hopes to begin work on the elevated track in January. It would last 18 months and be organised in three stages to avoid having to completely cut off half of the park during construction.

Pillars will be camouflaged, noise pollution reduced and freedom of movement maintained for the animals, the rail authorities have said.

But angry sceptics have taken the case to the country's environmental court on the grounds there was no impact study. The court has ordered the suspension of the stage two works pending a decision.

"The park is small and therefore fragile," said Paula Kahumbu, who heads Wildlife Direct, a nonprofit group.

"We don't want this affair to turn into an issue pitting economic development against conservation, because the two can co-exist," she added.

But other activists are worried the railway could spell the end of the iconic site.

"If the railway (line) is authorised, it could create a precedent that could mean the death of the park," said Sidney Quntai, who heads the Kenyan Coalition for the Conservation and Management of Fauna.

"Today it's a bridge (elevated track), but what will it be tomorrow?"

Urban projects have steadily nibbled away the edges of the 120-square-kilometre Nairobi National Park Tony Karumba (AFP)

The foundation of the Standard Gauge Railway can be seen under construction within the Nairobi National Park's boundary Tony Karumba (AFP)
First Thai babies diagnosed with Zika-linked microcephaly

Thai health authorities on Friday said microcephaly in two babies was caused by the Zika virus, in what is believed to be Southeast Asia's first confirmed case of a link between the sickness and the birth defect.

Tourism is expected to account for 17 percent of Thailand's GDP this year, and authorities will be desperate to prevent visitor numbers from tailing off after Friday's announcement.

"Two of the three infants (tested) had microcephaly due to the Zika virus," Wicharn Pawan, a disease control official at the Health Ministry told AFP.

Health experts have warned Asia is particularly vulnerable to the Zika virus, given that the Aedes aegypti mosquito -- which carries Zika, dengue fever and the chikungunya virus -- thrives in its congested cities Christophe Archambault (AFP/File)

The World Health Organisation (WHO) this week said any confirmed cases in Thailand would be the first identified in Southeast Asia.

Zika causes only mild symptoms in most, including fever, sore eyes and a rash. But pregnant women with the virus risk giving birth to babies with microcephaly -- a deformation that leads to abnormally small brains and heads.

There is no cure or vaccine for the virus, which has infected more than 1.5 million people, mainly in Brazil, since last year, according to WHO.

While Zika has been present in the region for years, there has been an uptick in the number of recorded cases in Southeast Asia in recent months.

The WHO has however noted that the rise in confirmed cases also comes in conjunction with heightened surveillance.

Thai authorities have been monitoring 36 pregnant women infected with the virus.

Earlier this week Thai doctors cleared two other babies with the condition of a link to Zika, a virus spread mainly by mosquitoes.

Virologist Praset Thongcharoen said "4.3 infants per 100,000", are born with microcephaly in Thailand, twice the global average.

The condition can also be caused by Down syndrome and other infections during pregnancy such as German measles and chickenpox.

Scientists warned this month that the world should prepare for a "global epidemic" of microcephaly as the virus takes root in new countries.

Tourism has buttressed Thailand's otherwise stagnant economy and authorities have been eager to reassure locals and visitors that the country is not experiencing a Zika epidemic.

Friday's news could deliver a blow to Thailand's "teflon" reputation as a tourist haven.

The industry has swiftly bounced back in recent years from coups, violent street protests and bomb attacks.

Before the Thai test results were announced, the United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel advisory urging pregnant women to "consider postponing nonessential travel to Southeast Asia countries with reports of Zika virus".

The news comes just one day before the start of "Golden Week", an annual Chinese holiday that sees a flood of tourists descend on neighbouring Thailand.

The kingdom is hoping to receive 33 million visitors this year, boosted by surging numbers of visitors from China.
India evacuates border villages after strikes on Pakistan

India evacuated thousands of people living near the border with Pakistan on Friday, a day after carrying out strikes along the de-facto frontier in disputed Kashmir that have dramatically escalated tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Authorities in parts of northern India said they were evacuating villages within 10 kilometres (six miles) of the border following Thursday's raids, which provoked furious charges of "naked aggression" from Pakistan.

In Jammu and Kashmir state, police said more than 1,500 had moved away from areas where there was a risk of cross-border shelling, as fears of military escalation mounted.

An Indian army soldier keeps vigil at an outpost near the India-Pakistan border in Abdullian, southwest of Jammu on September 30, 2016 Tauseef Mustafa (AFP)

"Most women and children have fled the village and taken shelter here," said one woman at a sports hall in Jammu's Ranbir Singh Pora town.

"Our men are staying back to take care of the cattle, but we are scared," said the woman, who gave her name as Bibi.

Indian sources said Thursday that commandos had carried out "surgical strikes" several kilometres (miles) inside Pakistan-controlled Kashmir on what they called "terrorist" targets.

The move followed a deadly assault on one of India's army bases in Kashmir that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants, triggering a public outcry and demands for military action.

Indian and Pakistani troops regularly exchange fire across the disputed border known as the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir, but sending ground troops over the line is rare.

Islamabad has dismissed the talk of surgical strikes across the heavily militarised LoC as an "illusion" and said two of its soldiers had been killed in small arms fire.

- 'Always on the edge' -

Images from the northern Indian state of Punjab showed people piling bedding and cooking equipment onto trailers and cramming into crowded buses as security forces stood guard.

Jaswant Kaur said people in his village of Chak Allah Baksh in Punjab had been told to leave their homes.

"Of course it's not a nice feeling to leave your home, crops, cattle and everything else behind," the 55-year-old told AFP.

"Living here means we are always on the edge. We are really distressed."

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, facing international calls for restraint, told a cabinet meeting that Pakistan's commitment to peace "must not be construed as weakness".

The United Nations has said it is watching the situation "with great concern", calling on India and Pakistan to exercise restraint, while Washington also called on both countries to improve communications to reduce tensions.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said in a statement it had protested India's "frivolous" surgical strikes claim to ambassadors from UN Security Council members China, France, Russia, the UK and the US in Islamabad Friday, calling on them to help ensure peace in the region.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they gained independence from Britain seven decades ago, two of them over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised hopes of a new era in relations with Islamabad when he paid a surprise Christmas Day visit to Sharif in December.

But relations have unravelled in the nine months since, culminating in the Indian military's strikes this week.

On Tuesday New Delhi said it was pulling out of a key regional summit due to take place in Islamabad in November, citing an increase in cross-border attacks.

Since then four other countries have pulled out of the November summit, forcing the host country Friday to announce it was postponing the event in a humiliating blow.

India's withdrawal came days after Modi warned Pakistan that India would push to make it a pariah state, accusing it of "exporting terrorism in all corners".

Pakistan meanwhile said it had sent envoys to apprise the Chinese government of what it called the "deteriorating situation" in Jammu and Kashmir.

Islamabad has repeatedly accused India of committing human rights abuses in its only Muslim-majority state, which has been roiled by deadly clashes between police and protesters since the death of a popular militant leader in July.

A number of armed separatist groups in the Indian-controlled part of the picturesque Himalayan territory have for decades been fighting to break free from New Delhi.

Map of Kashmir showing the de facto Line of Control between India and Pakistan

Pakistani military officials, relatives and residents of Faisalabad carry the coffin of a soldier killed in firing along the Line of Control in Kashmir on September 29, 2016 Khalil Rehman (AFP)
UN condemns death of 15 Afghan civilians in US airstrike

The United Nations has denounced the death of 15 civilians, including a child, in a US air strike against Islamic State militants in eastern Afghanistan, calling for an independent investigation into the killings.

The drone attack occurred Wednesday in Achin district, a hotbed of IS insurgents in Nangarhar province near the border with Pakistan, as villagers gathered to welcome a tribal elder who had returned from the hajj pilgrimage.

"UNAMA condemns the killing of at least 15 civilian men and the injuring of at least 13 others, including at least one boy, in the strike," the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said late Thursday.

An injured Afghan man receives treatment at a hospital following a suspected US drone airstrike in the Achin district of Nangarhar province on September 28, 2016 Noorullah Shirzada (AFP)

"Civilian victims of the strike included students and a teacher, as well as members of families considered to be pro-gvernment."

Afghan authorities had previously put the civilian death toll at between three and 13.

The American military acknowledged it had conducted the "counter-terrorism airstrike" on Wednesday, adding it was still probing the incident.

"United States Forces - Afghanistan takes all allegations of civilian casualties very seriously," the US military said in a statement, highlighting the challenge of targeting IS insurgents making steady inroads in Nangarhar.

"Daesh is killing innocent Afghan men, women, and children. They continue to put innocent lives at risk by deliberately surrounding themselves with civilians and dressing in female attire," it said, using the Arabic acronymn for IS.

Islamic State first emerged in Afghanistan in late 2014 and has since violently challenged the much larger Afghan Taliban movement in parts of the country's east.

But the fighters have steadily lost territory in recent months because of stepped-up US airstrikes and a ground campaign by Afghan forces in Nangarhar.

Civilian and military casualties caused by NATO forces have been one of the most contentious issues in the 15-year campaign against the insurgents, prompting harsh public and government criticism.

A US air strike killed eight Afghan policemen earlier this month in the southern province of Uruzgan in the first apparent "friendly fire" incident since American forces were given greater powers to strike at insurgents in June.
10/30/2022

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Cyprus orders plane hijacking suspect extradited to Egypt

A Cypriot court ruled on Friday that an Egyptian man accused of hijacking a plane and diverting it to Cyprus can be extradited to Cairo for his alleged crimes.

Nicosia District Court judge Dona Constantinou was satisfied that Seif al-Din Mohamed Mostafa, 58, would get a fair trial in Egypt and would not be persecuted for his political beliefs.

"I have no doubt that the offences described in the extradition request are offences which can constitute an extradition order," the judge's ruling said.

Egyptian national Seif al-Din Mohamed Mostafa is accused of using a fake suicide belt to seize the EgyptAir plane flying from Alexandria to Cairo in March and redirecting it to Cyprus George Michael (AFP/File)

"The offences are part of the common criminal code and under no circumstances can they be considered political," she added.

Mostafa listened to the proceedings pensively and gave no outward sign of emotion.

Defence lawyer Robertos Vrahimi said he has been instructed by his client to appeal the decision and has 10 days to do so.

Mostafa is accused of using a fake suicide belt to seize the EgyptAir plane flying from Alexandria to Cairo in March and redirect it to the Mediterranean island.

The hijacking ended peacefully with his arrest and the release of the 55 passengers after a six-hour standoff.

Constantinou said that when Mostafa was arrested he gave "no political motive whatsoever" for his actions.

Egypt requested Mostafa face trial under a bilateral agreement.

The defence argued that Mostafa should not be extradited because he would not receive a fair trial and there was a possibility he could be tortured.

It was claimed that as an opponent of the regime in Egypt he would not get justice.

- Fair trial assurances accepted -

But the court said it was satisfied that Mostafa would get a fair trial and would not be targeted because of his previous history of activism.

The judge said that Mostafa had no recent trouble with the authorities and he was even issued with a legal passport to travel.

"He travelled without the authorities banning his exit from the country which would be expected if the authorities were persecuting him as claimed."

The judge's ruling said the court had no reason to doubt the assurances given by the Egyptian authorities to Cyprus that Mostafa's human rights would be respected.

"Based on the evidence placed before me I judge that all the conditions have been met under the 1996 extradition agreement between the Cyprus Republic and the Arab Republic of Egypt," said Constantinou.

In June Mostafa gave his reasons why he hijacked an EgyptAir plane and should not be extradited.

He painted himself as a liberal who wanted democracy for an Egyptian people subjected to "abductions, disappearance, illegal detention and extrajudicial killings".

Mostafa said his motive for hijacking a domestic Egyptian flight on March 29 was to seek asylum in Italy and tell the world about the "repressive" Cairo government.

He urged the court not to extradite him to Egypt as he would become a "dead man walking".

"If I am extradited to Egypt my fate would be torture and death. Perhaps I shall be found hanged in my prison."

He requested asylum in Cyprus but it was refused as the authorities deem him a "perpetrator of serious crimes".

The Cypriot justice ministry says Egypt has given assurances of a fair trial and that the extradition request has nothing to do with politics.
Saudi soldier killed, 3 civilians hurt by Yemeni shells

Shelling from Yemeni rebels killed a Saudi border guard and wounded three civilians including a Bangladeshi, the interior ministry said on Friday.

The Tuwal district of Jazan, on the Saudi frontier with Yemen, came under fire on Thursday afternoon, wounding the border guard corporal, a ministry statement said.

He died on the way to hospital.

More than 100 civilians and Saudi Arabian soldiers have died in strikes and skirmishes along the frontier since a Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen Mansour Hadi (AFP/File)

Two Saudis and a Bangladeshi national were wounded by Huthi rebel shelling of Tuwal the same day, the Civil Defence agency said in a separate statement.

More than 100 civilians and Saudi Arabian soldiers have died in strikes and skirmishes along the frontier since a Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen on the side of the internationally-recognised government in March last year.

The coalition began air strikes after the Huthis and their allies, troops loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, overran much of the country.

Riyadh feared the Huthis would take over all of Yemen and move it into the orbit of Shiite Iran, Sunni Saudi Arabia's regional rival.

In Yemen, more than 6,600 people have been killed, most of them civilians, according to the United Nations.
British aristocrat's son faces Kenya drugs trial

A British aristocrat's son due to face trial in Kenya on Monday for smuggling 100 kilogrammes (220 pounds) of cocaine knew nothing about the illegal shipment, foreign investigators believe.

Jack Marrian, a 31-year-old sugar trader, faces a possible life sentence if found guilty of smuggling cocaine worth $6 million (5 million euros).

But the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) -- which worked with Spanish police to track and seize the shipment in late July -- believe Marrian and his co-accused, Kenyan clearing agent Roy Mwanthi, knew nothing of the drugs concealed in a sugar consignment from Brazil.

British national Jack Alexander Wolf Marrian (C), flanked by police officers, appears in court in Nairobi on August 8, 2016, where he faces charges of trafficking 100 kilos of cocaine from Brazil to the port of Mombasa

"We got information from our office in Spain. The intelligence was that their Spanish counterparts had information about a container that had suspected drugs in it," said Melvin Patterson, a DEA spokesman.

Spanish police believe the drugs were intended to be unloaded in Valencia and sold on the lucrative European market, but something went wrong and they were shipped onward to Kenya.

"A criminal group based in Valencia, Spain, tried to get cocaine out of a container, but failed," Patterson said.

- 'Rip-on, rip-off' -

When the shipment arrived in Mombasa, Kenyan anti-narcotics police discovered the plastic-wrapped bricks of cocaine hidden among sacks of sugar as well as a duplicate seal.

Experts say this is a sure sign of the "rip-on, rip-off" or "blind hook" smuggling technique whereby cartels secretly stash their illegal products inside a legitimate consignment removing the drugs at a stop en route and replacing the broken seal with the replica.

"The Spanish stressed that this was a 'rip-off' load and the recipient of the container would have no knowledge that it was being used to transport drugs," said Patterson.

Marrian and Mwanthi are due in court in Nairobi on Monday at the start of their trial. Both deny the charges.

His case has caused a sensation in his native Britain, where the aristocratic background of his mother Lady Emma Clare Campbell of Cawdor and his attendance at top private schools, including the alma mater of Prince William's wife Catherine, have caught the eye of the press.

Sources familiar with the case suggest the two men were taken into custody because of public and political pressure to make an arrest after news of the bust broke in local media.

Kenya is a hub for heroin trafficking via the so-called "southern route" - from the poppy fields of Afghanistan and Pakistan to consumers in Europe via the Indian Ocean and East Africa - but cocaine trafficking is less common with West Africa the far more popular transshipment point for moving the drug from South America to Europe.
Five things that led to India's strikes in Pakistan

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised hopes of a new era in relations with Islamabad when he paid a surprise Christmas Day visit to his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.

In the months since, relations between the nuclear-armed archrivals have unravelled, culminating in the Indian military's strikes this week on militants along the de-facto border with Pakistan in Kashmir that prompted a furious response from Sharif.

Here are five reasons why the strikes occurred.

Indian Border Security Force (BSF) personnel stand guard at the India-Pakistan Wagah Border, about 35 km from Amritsar on September 29, 2016 Narinder Nanu (AFP)

- Pathankot attack -

Just days after Modi's holiday visit to Sharif, militants from across the Pakistan border launched an audacious attack on an Indian airforce base that left seven soldiers dead.

India blamed the raid at Pathankot in Punjab state on a Pakistan-based militant group that also staged a 2001 attack on the Indian parliament.

Modi urged Sharif to take action against those responsible, which the Pakistani premier promised to do. But India became frustrated with what it sees as Pakistan's lacklustre response.

"India responded to that attack with measure and reason. Modi invited Pakistan investigators to come over and gather evidence for example, and such a strategy wasn't successful," said Ashok Malik, senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a policy organisation in New Delhi.

- Deadly Kashmir protests -

Indian-administered Kashmir erupted in violence in July after a popular militant leader was killed in a gun battle with security forces.

India slapped a curfew on the restive Himalayan region to try to stem the protests, and internet and mobile phone services were snapped.

But residents continued to take to the streets to protest Indian rule, with more than 80 people killed in the ongoing unrest, mostly in clashes with security forces.

Kashmir is divided between Pakistan and India, but both claim the territory in full and they have fought two of their three wars over its control.

Militant groups, some based in Pakistan, have battled India's security forces for years for independence of the Muslim-majority territory from India or its merger with Pakistan.

Sharif accused India's security forces of carrying out brutalities against unarmed civilians during the protests, further stoking tensions between the neighbours.

- Uri army base -

On September 18, militants staged a predawn raid on an Indian army base near the de-facto border dividing Kashmir, killing 19 soldiers -- the worst such attack in 14 years.

India blamed the attack at Uri on Pakistani-based militants, the same group blamed for the Pathankot attack.

Modi vowed to punish those responsible, while also launching a diplomatic drive to isolate Pakistan, including by pulling out of a regional summit, in a major snub to Pakistan.

- Public Pressure -

The Uri attack triggered public fury and demands for military action, including from senior members of Modi's own party.

"Modi was under pressure for quite sometime to respond militaristically after dovetailing with Nawaz Sharif failed," said Mohan Guruswamy, chairman of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Delhi-based think tank.

Others predicted Modi would respond eventually with military action, given his credentials as a strong Hindu nationalist.

"This government, more so than others, was expected to respond because Modi is seen as a tough leader, he is seen as a leader who is going to punish those who hurt India," Malik said.

But Malik also said Modi was left with no choice because of what the army said was substantial intelligence of militants preparing to attack Indian towns and cities.

- International opinion -

India may have also been counting on the fact that Modi enjoys a closer relationship with Washington than his predecessors, and therefore international reaction to India's strikes might be muted.

"The diplomatic pressure to dissuade India from retaliating is not there," Malik said.
Renault signs Iran auto venture

French carmaker Renault said Friday it would start a joint venture in Iran, tapping into the country's fast-growing car market as it opens up to foreign investment after the end of Western sanctions.

The venture, in which Renault will hold a majority stake, includes a new production plant that is to raise Renault's production capacity in Iran to 350,000 vehicles per year from 200,000 now, it said in a statement.

Iranian Industry Minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh called Renault, which has been active in Iran for more than 12 years, "the ideal partner for this project".

Renault sales in Iran rose by 56 percent in 2015 from a year earlier to 51,500 vehicles, giving it a market share of 4.8 percent Kazuhiro Nogi (AFP/File)

Renault chief Carlos Ghosn said Iran's car market is projected to reach two million vehicle market by 2020, giving it "undeniable potential".

The factory is to roll out its first Symbol and Duster models in 2018, Renault said.

The venture will, for the first time, give Renault its own distribution network in Iran, complete with sales and aftersales services, it said.

Renault sales in Iran rose by 56 percent in 2015 from a year earlier to 51,500 vehicles, giving it a market share of 4.8 percent. Growth continued to be strong in the first eight months of this year, the company said.

Iran has tried to attract foreign companies back since Western sanctions over Tehran's nuclear programme ended a year ago.
Moroccan left hopes to offer 'third way' at polls

As campaigning heats up ahead of next week's parliamentary elections in Morocco, Nabila Mounib wants to offer voters an alternative to ruling Islamists and the liberal opposition.

The country's only female party leader, Mounib heads up a leftist coalition that calls for a constitutional monarchy and genuine political reform.

The North African kingdom has long been considered among the most liberal nations in the Arab world.

Morocco's only female party leader, Nabila Mounib heads up a leftist coalition that calls for a constitutional monarchy and genuine political reform

But its parliament has limited legislative clout, even after King Mohamed VI agreed to a new constitution curbing his near-absolute power in 2011 following region-wide popular revolts.

The Federation of the Democratic Left (FGD) is campaigning for the October 7 poll under the slogan: "With us, another Morocco is possible".

In an interview with AFP, Mounib said her movement offers a "third way" between the ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) and the liberal opposition Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM).

"Those two parties don't respond to the aspirations of Moroccans to establish a real democracy," she said.

"We position ourselves between them, and propose the way of genuine political reform via a separation of powers."

Over the last few months, the 56-year-old academic has carved out a prominent space in Moroccan politics with her outspoken criticism of other political parties and the royal palace itself.

She dismissed what she believes is a false dichotomy between conservatives and modernists.

"The party that calls itself conservative (the PJD) has shown that in economic terms it is a follower of neoliberalism with all its harmful effects," she said.

"Meanwhile the other side, abusively called modernist, has never talked of modernity."

- Left in disarray -

The FGD is a coalition of three leftist groups including Mounib's Unified Socialist Party (PSU).

It comes from a long tradition of leftist parties which were harshly repressed during the reign of King Hassan II.

King Mohamed VI, who succeeded his father in 1999, took a more lenient stance. But the left has been in disarray for a decade.

"The program of the left is obsolete and has not reinvented itself since the 1980s," said Abdellah Tourabi, a Moroccan columnist and political scientist.

He said leftists in Morocco are intellectually and ideologically stuck in the past, opening the door for more conservative, Islamist parties.

"The left can no longer seduce its historical base, namely the urban middle classes," Tourabi said.

"Another force has taken its place today -- the PJD. It wins the most seats in the major cities, where the left used to triumph."

That is a dynamic Mounib hopes to tackle. She was a prominent supporter of Morocco's Arab Spring-inspired February 20 Movement, calling for a parliamentary monarchy.

Mounib says the 2011 constitution did not go far enough -- but that has not entirely alienated her from the palace.

In late 2015, the King sent her on a delicate diplomatic mission to persuade Sweden not to recognise Western Sahara, controlled by Morocco, as an independent country.

The trip was a success, in part thanks to her leftist connections.

- Disillusioned -

Mounib's political ambitions received a boost in mid-September when a local newspaper published an open letter signed by a hundred figures from academia, the arts and civil society, calling on her to turn the FGD into a force for change.

The letter criticised those "who say that reform is possible but continue to work with the corrupt" and "those who call themselves progressives but condone authoritarianism under the cover of fighting religious fundamentalism."

Those words could hit home among Moroccans who are disillusioned with politics. Turnout was just 45 percent at the last poll in 2011, which Mounib's party boycotted.

This time round, with 30 parties competing, the FGD is hoping to end the radical left's long exile and win more than 300,000 votes nationally.

"The echoes are favourable and the surge of sympathy is indisputable," said Omar Balafrej, another figure of the FGD, whose candidates have pledged to pass up on their parliamentary salaries if elected.

In April, Mounib made waves by polling third on a list of politicians most likely to head the next government.

"She has a certain freedom of tone," said TelQuel, the magazine that ran the poll.
Watchdog unable to say if chemical weapons used in Sudan

The global chemical weapons watchdog said Friday that it was unable to support allegations that Sudanese government forces used suspected toxic arms in war-torn Darfur.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said it had examined a report released on Thursday by Amnesty International.

Amnesty said more than 30 such attacks were believed to have been carried out on several villages as part of a massive military campaign against rebels in Darfur's Jebel Marra between January and September.

Internally displaced people pictured in a camp in Sortoni, in northern Sudan's Darfur state on February 9, 2016

It alleged between 200 and 250 people may have died as a result, backing up its allegations with interviews with over 200 survivors and photographs of children suffering from apparent chemical burns.

The group said its investigation "has gathered horrific evidence of the repeated use of what are believed to be chemical weapons against civilians, including very young children, by Sudanese government forces in one of the most remote regions of Darfur over the past eight months".

But the OPCW said: "Without further information and evidence being made available, it is not possible at this stage to draw any conclusions based on the content of the report."

It said in a statement that it had read the relevant parts of the report and also noted the response of the Sudan government.

Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations, Omar Dahab, rejected Amnesty's report as "baseless and fabricated."

"The ultimate objective of such wild accusation is to steer confusion in the ongoing processes aimed at deepening peace and stability... in Sudan," he said in a statement.
DR Congo rebel leader back in court after hunger strike

Congolese former rebel commander Bosco Ntaganda was back in court Friday for the first time after ending a hunger strike that sparked a two-week stand-off with judges at his war crimes trial.

Looking drawn and dressed in a dark suit, Ntaganda took his place in the dock behind his defence lawyers at his trial in the International Criminal Court, with a witness giving testimony.

The once-feared rebel leader from the Democratic Republic of Congo is on trial at the Hague-based ICC, where he has denied 18 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Bosco Ntaganda, the once-feared rebel leader from the Democratic Republic of Congo, is on trial at the Hague-based ICC, where he has denied 18 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity Michael Kooren (POOL/AFP/File)

But saying he was "ready to die", Ntaganda had decided to refuse food "in the ultimate act of protest" lawyer Stephane Bourgon said earlier this month, after judges maintained tight restrictions on his visitors saying they feared he might tamper with witnesses.

Ntaganda however ended his hunger strike last week after winning permission to appeal the judges' decision and after arrangements were made for him to see his wife, Bourgon said.

Once dubbed "The Terminator", Ntaganda, born in 1972, has denied the charges arising out of savage ethnic attacks carried out in DR Congo by his rebel Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (FPLC) in 2002-2003.

His trial opened in September 2015 after he walked into the US embassy in Kigali in 2013.

The eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has been mired for two decades in ethnically-charged wars, as rebels battle for control of its rich mineral resources.
Chinese man slaughtered 19 after family argument: police

A man has confessed to killing 19 people in a village in southwestern China after an argument with his parents over money, official media said Friday.

The suspect, named Yang Qingpei, confessed to murdering his parents after returning to his hometown village of Yema in China's mountainous Yunnan Province and asking them for money, Xinhua news agency cited local police as saying.

He then proceeded to kill 17 neighbours, including children, to prevent them discovering and reporting the murders, it said.

Police stand outside a court in Kunming, the capital of southwest China's Yunnan province where a man was arrested over the killing of 19 villagers

Yang, who was born in 1989, was arrested in the provincial capital of Kunming, some 200 km (124 miles) away, after 33 hours of "arduous investigation", a statement on the official social media account of the Yunnan police showed.

Earlier reports showed the villagers were found dead at their homes on Thursday morning.

A list with the victims' names circulating online showed they included 11 males and eight females, with the youngest a three-year-old girl and the oldest 72.

Four names were minors under 18, the list showed.

Yunnan officers have verified the list and the news release, Beijing News reported, adding that the police have said there was no link to terrorism.

The Ministry of Public Security sent a working group to oversee the case and manage local authorities in the investigation, reports said.
F1 driver Kevin Magnussen questions halo after fire drama

Kevin Magnussen said he was unsure about the halo cockpit safety system being trialled after having to flee his burning Renault Friday, saying five seconds is "too long" to escape.

Magnussen, who had completed just one lap in Friday's first practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix, was forced to leap to safety when flames enveloped his engine outside the Renault garage.

"Get Kev out," came the cry on team radio and Magnussen quickly released his safety belts and removed his steering wheel, ejecting in a flash as the fire took hold behind the cockpit.

Renault driver Kevin Magnussen's car on fire in the pit lane during practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang on September 30, 2016 Mohd Rasfan (AFP)

With Renault suspecting a faulty valve leaking fuel as the cause of the fire, Magnussen revealed he had no idea that the car was in trouble as he cruised to the garage.

"I didn't know," Magnussen told reporters. "Everything worked well on the car on the in lap. I just felt the heat."

The halo is designed to protect drivers from flying debris and impacts, and was developed after Jules Bianchi died from head injuries following a crash in the Japanese Grand Prix two years ago.

It was tested in practice at Sepang by Sergio Perez on Friday and world champion Lewis Hamilton ran a trial in Singapore two weeks ago.

But there are fears it can restrict the ability to get out of the car quickly in an emergency, and drivers have been given a target of extracting themselves within five seconds.

"Personally I've never run the halo so I'm not the best person to ask," Magnussen told reporters after practice ended, but added he felt the target time should be shorter.

"In my opinion five seconds is too long. If the car is on fire you don't want to take five seconds."
The Chattanooga Fire Department started a new fire academy on Friday and it may be the largest in the department's history. The 36 recruits will go through 27 weeks of rigorous mental and physical training, including instruction on fire suppression, vehicle extrication, hazardous materials and many other related disciplines. The firefighters must also go through medical training and be EMT certified to be a Chattanooga firefighter.





This class includes the 14 firefighters the department was able to hire with the $1.8 million Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant, making this the largest fire academy anyone in the department can remember.
Myanmar man jailed for calling president 'crazy' on Facebook

A man has been jailed for nine months after calling Myanmar's president "crazy" in a Facebook post, his wife said Friday, in the latest use of a junta-era defamation law under the new civilian government.

Aung Win Hlaing was convicted under Myanmar's telecommunications law for calling President Htin Kyaw an "idiot" and "crazy" in online posts, his wife Hnin Hnin Win told AFP.

"He was sentenced to nine months on 23 September," Hnin Hnin Win said, adding the case was brought by a local member of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), the party led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

A man has been jailed for nine months after calling Myanmar's president President Htin Kyaw, pictured here in July, "crazy" on a Facebook post Damir Sagolj (POOL/AFP/File)

"One of the NLD's people complained about him to the court... Now he is in Taung Kalay prison in Karen state," she said.

Her husband wrote the comments after a presidential order shut down a committee on which he worked, she added.

An NLD MP from the Karen regional parliament, Thant Zin Aung, confirmed a local member from the party had brought the case, but emphasised it was in a private capacity.

AFP was unable to reach local police or court officials for comment.

While many freedoms have flourished since Myanmar's army started rolling back its power in 2011, activists say authoritarian legislation is still being used to silence criticism of the government.

The telecommunications law was passed in 2013 as part of a push by the former army-backed transitional government to open the sector to foreign investment.

But the broadly worded law, which bans defaming people through any telecommunications network, was also used frequently by the former regime to punish critics.

Despite sky-high hopes Suu Kyi's government will usher in a new era of free expression, several people have been prosecuted for defamation since her party took over in late March after winning the first democratic elections in a generation.

In July a local official in central Magway region was charged with defamation for referring to Suu Kyi with a slur on Facebook.
Key quotes from Shimon Peres funeral

US presidents present and past joined Israeli leaders and Shimon Peres's children in delivering the eulogies at the Nobel Peace laureate's funeral in Jerusalem on Friday.

Here are some of the key quotes:

US President Barack Obama:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) talks with US President Barack Obama at the Mount Herzl national cemetery in Jerusalem during the funeral of former Israeli president Shimon Peres on September 30, 2016 Menahem Kahana (Pool/AFP)

"He reminded me of some other giants of the 20th century that I had the honour to meet: Men like Nelson Mandela, women like Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, leaders who have seen so much, whose lives span such momentous epics, that they find no need to posture for traffic in what is popular in the moment."

"It is that faith, that optimism, that belief even when all the evidence was to the contrary, that tomorrow can be better, that makes us not just honour Shimon Peres but love him."

"Shimon accomplished enough things in his life for 1,000 men but he understood that it is better to live until the very end of his time on earth with a longing not for the past, but for the dreams that have not yet come true -- an Israel, secure in a just and lasting peace with its neighbours."

On Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who was seated in front row at the funeral, the US president said his "presence here is a gesture and a reminder of the unfinished business of peace."

Former US President Bill Clinton:

"He started off life as Israels brightest student, became its best teacher, and ended up its biggest dreamer"

"His critics often claimed he was a naive, overly optimistic dreamer. They were only wrong about the naive part. He knew exactly what he was doing by being overly optimistic."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

"Shimon lived a life of purpose."

"He soared to incredible heights. He was a great man of Israel; he was a great man of the world. Israel grieves for him, the world grieves for him, but we find hope in his legacy, as does the world."

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin

"Your death is a great personal and national loss, as it is also the end of an era, the end of the era of giants whose life stories are the stories of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel."

"This is our profound feeling today. A feeling of the end of an era in the nation's life, the end of a chapter in our lives."

Tzvika Walden, daughter

"My father, you were a lover of life, who sprung like a lion at daybreak to fulfil his mission. For so long, I tried to catch up with you. But now, heed my loving words, you have earned a well-deserved rest."

Chemi Peres, son

"You always preferred the possibilities offered by the imagination to clinging to memories of the past. The legacy you leave to us is the world of tomorrow."

"Farewell my teacher and mentor. Farewell beloved father and grandfather. We will travel the path of light you left us."

Yoni Peres, son

"When asked what he would like to have inscribed on his tombstone after death, he said, without hesitation, 'He was too young to die'."

Amoz Oz, author and friend

"Peace is not only possible, it is inevitable, because we have no other place to go, nor do the Palestinians"

"There were two tendencies in him -- on the one hand a deep respect for reality and its constraints, and the other an impulse to change that reality, and even further, the capacity to change himself."

US President Barack Obama touches the coffin of former Israeli president Shimon Peres after speaking during his funeral in Jerusalem on September 30, 2016 Abir Sultan (Pool/AFP)
Sting back to rock and striving to stay optimistic

As Sting took up the refugee crisis for his latest album, he met in Berlin with musicians who fled Syria. The rock legend asked for their permission to record his song.

"I felt it was important to have that sanction," Sting told AFP of the track "Inshallah," in which he envisions himself on a boat like a refugee desperate for safety.

The song appears on Sting's album "57th and 9th," which comes out November 11 and marks the most rock-driven work in years by the former Police frontman.

After selling more than 100 million albums, Sting says he is fortunate not to worry about commercial considerations, but wanted a change with his latest album Angela Weiss (AFP)

The long politically engaged artist and Amnesty International supporter, who turns 65 on October 2, also reflects somberly on his own mortality on the album.

Sting asked the Syrians to share their stories and performed with them a version of "Inshallah" -- which means "God willing" in Arabic -- for the album's deluxe edition.

"'Inshallah' is a beautiful word from the Arabic language which is kind of resignation -- it's God's will, it shall be -- or it's a word that describes some sort of hope, courage," Sting said.

"I don't know what the political solution is," Sting said of the refugee crisis that brought more than one million asylum seekers to Europe's shores last year alone.

"But I think if there is a solution, it has to be rooted in empathy -- for the victims of the war that's going on in Syria at the moment for example, the victims of poverty in Africa, and perhaps in the future the victims of global warming."

Climate change also figures on the album in the track "One Fine Day" in which Sting playfully prays that skeptics are right and that the planet's fast-rising temperatures are all a hoax.

"I would love everything to be fine and for us just to carry on what we're doing with impunity. But of course all of the scientific evidence is pointing the other way," he said.

Sting said he chooses to remain upbeat despite what he sees as a rightward turn in the world.

"As a life strategy I've thought that optimism was the best route to take in most things, and I still do, but it's getting more difficult to be optimistic," he said.

"I think the strongman trope -- the man we have in Turkey or in Russia or in the Philippines -- people wanting this strong alpha male, chest-beating type of leader, and the Trump phenomenon here, it would indicate a certain anxiety and fear in the world generally. And of course they feed on that, and they feed it," he said.

- Still an Englishman in New York -

"57th and 9th" opens in robust rock form with "I Can't Stop Thinking About You," a love song with a charging drive.

Sting's studio return to his rock roots comes after a decade of experimentation including a lute album, a symphonic interpretation of Police songs and the Broadway musical "The Last Ship" about his shipbuilding hometown in northern England.

After selling more than 100 million albums, Sting said he was fortunate not to worry about commercial considerations -- but wanted a change.

"The most important aspect of music, in my opinion, is surprise," he said.

The album's title came from the Manhattan intersection where Sting, who lives with his actress wife Trudie Styler near Central Park, would cross each day as he walked to the studio.

New York "has always inspired me -- its architectural drama, the clamor of the city, the traffic, the noise.

"You see stories on the street -- you hear stories, people speaking very loudly on the phone, very intimate conversations," he said with a laugh.

Yet Sting said he appreciated the city as an outsider.

"I'm an Englishman in New York," he said with a smile as he referenced one of his best-known songs. "I'm still very much that alien, and enjoy that."

- Reflecting on mortality -

Conscious of being a foreigner, Sting steers clear of partisan stands on US politics, although he said he was following the election "extremely closely" and quipped that few people would have trouble guessing where he stood.

He shows no such reticence on British politics, saying he was "horrified" by the June 23 vote to leave the European Union after a campaign full of "fear-mongering nonsense."

Despite appearing in strong health, Sting is increasingly reflective after the deaths this year of fellow music greats including David Bowie and Prince.

On the new album's song "50,000," Sting sings to a rock guitar about past glories and staring himself down in the bathroom mirror.

Sting said that, with more than half of his life clearly behind him, it was time to reflect on death.

"That's not to be morbid. I think to accept one's mortality is actually enriching because every day counts, every experience counts."

Sting performs during the Guitar Festival at Los Califas bullring in Cordoba, Spain in July 2015 Cristina Quicler (AFP/File)
Shimon Peres: five key facts on former Israel premier

Shimon Peres, former Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, was buried on Friday in Jerusalem in the presence of world leaders. Here are five key facts about him:

- Oslo accords -

Peres was one of the architects of the Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians, reached in 1993 and 1995. The agreements provided for limited Palestinian autonomy and were intended to lead to a final peace agreement.

In a career spanning seven decades, Shimon Peres held nearly every major office in Israel, serving twice as prime minister and as president from 2007 to 2014 Jack Guez (AFP/File)

Peres was foreign minister under his Labour party rival Yitzhak Rabin. Both men along with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for their work on Oslo.

He was also involved in peace efforts with Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries with peace treaties with Israel.

Peres never lost faith in the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"I think it's the only thing which is possible in order to bring an end to terror, violence and hatred," he said earlier this year in an interview with Time magazine.

- Hawk turned dove -

Peres was a hawk who later became a dove. He said he was converted after 1977, when Egyptian president Anwar Sadat made a historic visit to Jerusalem, leading to the first Arab-Israeli peace treaty.

"I didn't change, I think the situation has changed," Peres told Time.

"As long as there was a danger to the existence of Israel, I was what you would call a hawk... The minute I felt the Arabs are open to negotiation, I said that's what we prefer too."

- Founding father -

He was seen as Israel's last remaining founding father and held nearly every major office in a career spanning five decades.

He was prime minister between 1984 and 1986, then again from 1995-1996 after Rabin's assassination. He served as president, a mainly ceremonial role, from 2007-2014.

He also served as foreign, defence and finance minister.

- Nuclear efforts -

As director general of the defence ministry in the 1950s, Peres oversaw the development of Israel's nuclear programme with assistance from France.

Israel is now considered the Middle East's sole nuclear power, but it has never declared it, maintaining a policy of ambiguity.

"Dimona (the site of Israel's nuclear reactor) helped us to achieve Oslo," he said in the Time interview.

"Because many Arabs, out of suspicion, came to the conclusion that it's very hard to destroy Israel because of it, because of their suspicion. Well if the result is Dimona, I think I was right. Anyway, we've never threatened anybody with nuclear bombs, and we've never tested it."

- Ben-Gurion as mentor -

Born in Poland in 1923, Peres emigrated to what was then British mandatory Palestine when he was 11.

He joined the Zionist struggle in the 1940s and met David Ben-Gurion, who would become Israel's first prime minister and Peres's mentor.

Elected to parliament in 1959, he served almost without interruption until becoming president in 2007.
Russia dismisses Syria campaign death toll allegation

Russia on Friday dismissed an accusation its bombing campaign in Syria has killed thousands of civilians, insisting it has stopped jihadists taking over as it marks a year since it began air strikes.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday that more than 9,300 people -- including some 3,800 civilians -- had been killed in the year of Russian air strikes in Syria in support of President Bashar Al-Assad.

"We do not consider as reliable the information on the situation in Syria coming from this organisation, which is based in the United Kingdom," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Men carry injured people through the rubble of destroyed buildings following a reported air strike on the rebel-held northwestern Syrian city of Idlib on September 29, 2016 Omar Haj Kadour (AFP)

The toll released by the Observatory includes more than 2,700 jihadists from the Islamic State jihadist group and around 2,800 fighters from various rebel factions.

The monitor also said that at least 20,000 civilians have been wounded in Russian raids.

Peskov said that the Russian campaign's main objective had been to "assist Syrians and the Syrian army in the fight against terrorism."

"Taking into account that the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra aren't sitting in Damascus, this is probably a positive result of the support our air force has provided to the legitimate armed forces of Syria," Peskov said.

Russia has been accused of indiscriminately bombing Aleppo's opposition-controlled east as it helps an assault currently being conducted by Syrian government troops to capture all of the country's second city.

A short-lived truce brokered by Moscow and Washington earlier this month could have led the two countries to coordinate strikes against jihadists, but the deal quickly unravelled.

The United Nations has warned that a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Aleppo unlike any witnessed so far in Syria's brutal five-year war, which has claimed more than 300,000 lives.
Boko Haram region could become world's worst crisis: UN

Without more donor support the emergency caused by Boko Haram will become the world's worst humanitarian crisis, a top UN official said Friday, as a massive appeal remained just a quarter funded.

United Nations assistant secretary general Toby Lanzer said the suffering in northeast Nigeria and surrounding areas was the worst he had ever witnessed.

"I have worked in Darfur," Lanzer told reporters, referring to the war-torn Sudanese region. "The scale and the depth of suffering that I have seen (in Nigeria) is unparalleled in my experience."

Women and children wait in a queue to visit a Unicef nutrition clinic, in the Muna informal settlement, which houses nearly 16,000 internally displaced people in the outskirts of Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria Stefan Heunis (AFP)

Nigeria-born Islamist group Boko Haram has waged a brutal insurgency in the country's northeast, with violence spreading more recently to western Cameroon as well as the south of Chad and Niger.

The UN has appealed for a $739 million to cover needs across the entire affected region -- known as the Lake Chad Basin -- but has received commitments for just $197 million (176 million euros).

"If we don't engage in a much more comprehensive manner, including scaling up our emergency relief programmes, what awaits us down the line is the biggest crisis facing any of us, anywhere," Lanzer said.

More than nine million people are in "desperate" need of aid, Lanzer said.

The United Nations had not declared a famine in the Lake Chad Basin, but Lanzer warned that 65,000 people were living in "famine-like conditions".

The UN has also said that up to 80,000 children in the region could die if they do not get food aid within the next year.

When Boko Haram violence was at its peak through 2013 and 2014, the UN and other aid groups were unaware of the gravity of needs because access to conflict-ridden areas was largely impossible.

Nigeria's military has since made gains against the extremists and emergency workers have moved in, unveiling a catastrophe unrivalled "anywhere except that of Syria," Lanzer said, warning the Lake Chad could overtake Syria in terms of the scale of the needs.

The Boko Haram conflict, which began in northeast Nigeria in 2009, has displaced an estimated 2.6 million people.

At least 20,000 have died in violence blamed on the Islamists, but the numbers killed by causes linked to the conflict are likely much higher.

Boko Haram using children as suicide bombers Jonathan JACOBSEN, Laurence SAUBADU (AFP)
Egypt MP ridiculed for proposing college virginity tests

An Egyptian member of parliament is facing ridicule for saying that universities should perform virginity tests on female students.

Ilhamy Agina reportedly told an Egyptian newspaper on Thursday that virginity should be a prerequisite for admission to university.

He argued that it would help to end the practice of unregistered "customary" marriages that appeal to Egyptian youths who cannot afford formal weddings.

An Egyptian member of parliament is facing ridicule for saying that universities should perform virginity tests on female students Gianluigi Guercia (AFP/File)

"Any girl who enters university must be examined to prove she is a maiden," Agina reportedly told the Youm 7 newspaper.

His comments sparked derision on social media.

"Didn't I tell you the bottom is still far, and worse is to come?" rights lawyer and dissident Gamal Eid wrote on Twitter.

"We have a member of parliament obsessed with sex," wrote liberal dissident and journalist Khaled Dawoud.

Agina told AFP on Friday his remarks had been misinterpreted and that he has decided to boycott the media.

"People have been attacking me since yesterday and they're upset and such. I've decided not to deal with the media," he said.

"I did not make a demand, I made a suggestion. There's a big difference between a demand and a suggestion."

He said the Youm 7 reporter had asked him about the government's role in ending customary marriages, so he suggested the virginity tests.

"I said, well, it's not the government's right to ask a girl or a man whether they've had a customary marriage," he said.

"But maybe, maybe... just as a suggestion that may or may not be implemented: the government could tell university hospitals to conduct drugs and virginity tests.

"And then the university can tell the student's parents," he added.

It was not the first time Agina has made controversial remarks.

He previously said he supported female genital mutilation, which is illegal but is still widely practised in Egypt.
Germany tells Philippine envoy Duterte Hitler remarks 'unacceptable'

The German government on Friday told the Philippine ambassador that comments by President Rodrigo Duterte likening his deadly crime war to Hitler's efforts to exterminate Jews were "unacceptable".

Duterte, 71, won elections in May in a landslide after a campaign dominated by his pledge to eradicate drugs in society by killing tens of thousands of people.

In comments Friday, he drew parallels between his campaign to wipe out the drug problem and Adolf Hitler's genocidal drive.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte delivers a speech at the Davao international airport on September 30, 2016 Manman Dejeto (AFP)

"Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I'd be happy to slaughter them," Duterte told reporters in his home city of Davao.

"At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have," he said, then paused. "But you know, my victims, I would like to be (sic) all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition."

Nazi Germany slaughtered some six million Jews by the end of World War II.

The German foreign ministry said in a statement that it had asked the Philippine envoy "to come to the ministry for a discussion on this issue".

"Any comparison of the singular atrocities of the Holocaust with anything else is totally unacceptable," ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer told reporters earlier and reiterated in the statement.
Deutsche Bank pressure eases as US fine looks smaller

Heavy market pressure on Deutsche Bank eased Friday as a knowledgeable source told AFP the US fine over toxic debt it sold would be only $5.4 billion, not the $14 billion originally demanded.

A person familiar with the talks between Deutsche Bank and the Department of Justice said an agreement could come in the next few days to settle the US government charges that the bank knowingly sold high-risk mortgage securities ahead of the 2008 financial crisis.

The final amount of the settlement could also be slightly different, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Deutsche Bank shares were up 16 percent to 11.70 euros in Frankfurt Daniel Roland (AFP/File)

The news powered the shares of Germany's biggest lender dramatically higher as worries about its financial stability under the pressure of a potentially massive US fine ebbed.

US-traded shares of the bank finished up 14 percent at $13.09, while in Frankfurt, in part due to different market hours relative to the timing of the news, shares added 6.4 percent at 11.57 euros.

Deutsche Bank and the Justice Department declined to comment on the news of a deal, as did the German finance ministry.

But worries about the impact of the case on Deutsche Bank had spread through markets and into the political realm over the past week, unnerving investors.

Adding to the rising concerns were conflicting reports in German media on whether Berlin would come to the troubled bank's aid if necessary.

-'No basis for speculation'-

Then late Thursday the bank's US-traded shares plunged on news that a number of hedge funds that clear derivatives business through Deutsche Bank had pulled out money.

The shares also tumbled as the Frankfurt stock market opened Friday, falling by more than nine percent at one point, hitting a historic low of 9.90 euros.

This sparked fears that a banking meltdown reminiscent of the 2008 crisis was in the making, potentially dragging other European banks and global markets down with it.

Deutsche Bank chief executive John Cryan managed to lift the mood with a letter to staff Friday insisting the bank was not at risk.

"At no time in the last two decades has Deutsche Bank been as safe as it is today," Cryan wrote.

"In a situation like this, the most important factor is our liquidity reserves. Currently they still amount to more than 215 billion euros ($241.7 billion)," he said.

"This is an extremely comfortable buffer. This is clear proof of how conservatively we have planned."

"There is therefore no basis for this speculation," he added. "Nor can uncertainty about the outcome of our litigation cases in the US explain this pressure on our stock price, if we take the settlements of our peers as a benchmark."

- Bailout less likely -

The bank has suffered for months from perceptions of a weak capital base. In June it flunked the US Federal Reserve's stress test.

A month later Deutsche was among the worst performers in a European Banking Authority stress test, although Cryan insisted the exercise had demonstrated the institution's resilience to future crises.

A settlement with US authorities of $5.4 billion would be just shy of the total Deutsche Bank has set aside in provisions for outstanding legal actions.

CMC Markets analyst Jasper Lawler said that improved match of figures "may make a rights issue more palatable and makes a government bailout much less likely."

Still, the US toxic mortgage-securities case is just one of 8,000 legal challenges burdening Deutsche Bank. An investigation by New York regulators over allegations of money laundering at its Moscow office looms.

Deutsche Bank smi, Vincent LEFAI (AFP)
Jordanians rally against Israeli gas deal

Hundreds of Jordanians took part in a demonstration Friday in the centre of Amman to protest a deal signed this week to import natural gas from Israel.

Demonstrators carried banners reading "No to financing the Zionist entity from the pockets of Jordanian citizens" and "No to gas imports from the Zionist enemy."

The protest was called by trade unions and political parties opposed to the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, half the population of which is of Palestinian origin.

Jordanians protest in Amman on September 30, 2016 against the government agreement to import natural gas from Israel Ahmad Alameen (AFP)

"Gas from the Zionists is a disgrace," demonstrators chanted.

A US-led consortium leading the development of Israel's offshore gas reserves announced the signing on Monday of a deal to sell natural gas from its Leviathan field to Jordan.

US firm Noble Energy, the lead partner, said the contract with the National Electric Power Company of Jordan (NEPCO) was for 300 million cubic feet (8.5 million cubic metres) per day over a 15-year term.
MEMPHIS AND CHARLESTON RAILROAD, 1857

Chartered in 1846, the Memphis and Charleston Railroad (M&C) junctioned with the line of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad (N&C) at Stevenson, Alabama, in 1857, and through a lease with the latter reached Chattanooga the same year. At the time, it was the sole east-west railroad existing in the South. It was also the first railroad to include sleeper cars, and was unique in making more money from passenger service than by hauling freight.

During the Civil War, the U.S. Military Rail Roads operated the line of the M&C that came into Chattanooga as the Memphis and Charleston Railroad (Eastern Division), which ran from Decatur, Alabama, to Chattanooga. The western portions were almost entirely destroyed, or at lest rendered unusable.

In 1877, the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railroad leased the M&C but continued to operate it as a separate line. In 1883, the M&C became part of Baron dErlangers Queen and Crescent Route. In 1887, the railway company went into receivership and was purchased by the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railway (ETV&G). With ETV&G, the M&C became part of Southern Railway (SOU), its assets becoming SOUs Chattanooga and Memphis Division.

Scottsboro

Scottsboro was both a schedule stop and a coupon station as well as a town literally created for the railroad. After Bellefonte, the seat of Jackson County, Alabama, refused the railroads offer to have a depot in or near its town, one of its more progressively inclined citizens, Robert Scott, moved a few miles away to build a depot called Scotts Station. The brick freight depot built by the M&C at the corner of North Houston and East Maple Streets now serves as the Scottsboro Depot Museum. It is one of three antebellum railroad depots left in Alabama. The courthouse was moved here from Bellefonte in 1868.

During the Civil War, Scottsboro was established as the headquarters for the 15th Corps of the (Union) Army of the Tennessee. The only engagement here took place late in the conflict on 8 January 1865, when Confederate forces under Brig. Gen. Hylon Lyon attacked the Union garrison in an attempt to seize the town but were driven off.

Scottsboro became well-known during the Great Depression as the site of the trial of the Scottsboro Boys. After they had been convicted by an all-white jury of the rape of two white women (who had hopped the same Memphis-bound train) and some sentenced to electrocution, Amy Licht, chairperson of the Unemployed Council in Chattanooga, learned of their plight while in jail awaiting trial for sedition (of which she and her fellow defendants were exonerated). The Unemployed Councils across the country were set up by the Trade Union Unity League, the labor arm of the Communist Party USA. Licht contacted the partys legal arm, the International Labor Defense, and it was the lawyers of that organization who provided the bulk of the legal work which ultimately led to their freedom.

The post office of Scotts Mill was established here in 1854, changing to Scottsboro in 1859.

Hollywood

In 1857, the M&C established this schedule stop under the name Bellefonte Depot two miles northwest of the county seat by that name, which had voted against the railroad. In the 1880s, the railroad changed the name of its station to Hollywood.

The town of Bellefontes fortunes rapidly declined after their refusal of the railroad. Citizens such as Robert Scott moved away. The courthouse burned in the early years of the war, and in 1868 the county seat moved to Scottsboro. Its post office, established in 1822, closed in 1895. It is now a noted ghost town. The town was named after the Removal era internment camp here, Camp Bellefonte.

When the M&C first built their depot, a post office briefly operated in 1857 under the name Bellefonte Depot but did not survive until the end of the year, probably due to its proximity to the town and post office of Bellefonte. Postal service was reestablished at this station under the name Samples in 1883 when the residents incorporated as a town by that name. The name of the post office changed to Hollywood along with that of the town in 1887.

Fackler

This schedule stop was at the unincorporated community of Jackson County, Alabama, by that name and was the reason for this communitys beginning.

During the Chattanooga Campaign of the Civil War, the 90th Illinois Volunteer Infantry was based out of here.

The post office of Fackler was established in 1869.

Stevenson

When the M&C made the connection to the N&C here, it joined with the latter to build a larger joint depot. That depot was destroyed during the Civil War, and the Government House between the tracks of the two railways was used instead. After the war, it became the official Stevenson Depot until 1872, when the two railways built another joint-effort depot, the one that now stands in the heart of town.

For more information, see the entry for Stevenson under section for the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad.

Chattanooga

In Chattanooga, the M&C used Union Depot until coming under the control of the ETV&G.

For more Chattanooga information, see that entry under the Western and Atlantic Railroad.

Chuck Hamilton

<natty4bumpo@gmail.com>
For many Israelis, Peres's death leaves behind few peacemakers

The death of Nobel laureate Shimon Peres led to a surge of nostalgia in Israel over his peace efforts, but his ideals have become increasingly absent from the country's political scene.

The former president and prime minister won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in negotiating the Oslo accords with the Palestinians and spent the latter years of his life defending his pursuit of the goals they represented.

But more than two decades later, the peace process that the Oslo accords began has stagnated, and Israeli politics has undergone a marked shift to the right.

Members of the Israeli Knesset guard stand around the coffin of former Israeli president and prime minister Shimon Peres during his funeral at the Mount Herzl national cemetery in Jerusalem on September 30, 2016 Menahem Kahana (POOL/AFP)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is seen as the most right-wing in Israel's history, and key members of his coalition say openly that they oppose a Palestinian state.

"Even though world leaders sing the praises of Peres as a hero of peace, in that area, Peres was a has-been," Yossi Alpher, former aide to ex-prime minister Ehud Barak, said of the last remaining founding father of Israel, who died Wednesday at age 93.

Netanyahu has joined in praising Peres even though the two men were political rivals.

At Peres's funeral on Friday, Netanyahu in his eulogy called him a "great man of the world" and recalled late-night discussions with him on the future of Israel.

"He said that peace was true security -- if there is peace, there will be security," Netanyahu said at the funeral in Jerusalem attended by a range of world leaders.

"I told him, 'Shimon, in the Middle East, security is an essential condition for peace, and for the establishment of peace' ... My friends, you know what surprising conclusion I came to? We were both right."

After Peres's death, Netanyahu had poignantly noted that it was the first day in the existence of Israel without him, referring to his presence at the founding of the country in 1948.

An estimated 50,000 people streamed past his coffin as it lay in state outside parliament on Thursday, bringing together Israelis of all backgrounds and political beliefs.

But while Peres was widely lauded both in Israel and abroad for his transformation from hawk to peace advocate and statesman, his death will have little impact on current Israeli politics and diplomacy, a number of analysts said.

Peres served as president between 2007-2014, but that role in Israel is largely ceremonial.

- 'Learn lessons' -

Ilan Greilsammer, political science professor at Bar Ilan University, said that Peres had ceased to have much influence in both areas as he grew older.

"For numerous years, he had been in the role of the sage," he said.

"He benefited from a moral authority, but wasn't involved with the activist left, which is in any case in bad shape."

Peres won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the Oslo accords, which envisioned an independent Palestinian state.

But a year later, Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist opposed to the agreements, while in 2000, the bloody second Palestinian intifada erupted.

Islamist movement Hamas, which calls for Israel's destruction, has also come to power in the Gaza Strip.

Many Israelis have since turned their backs on peace and the Oslo accords, while polls show that the Labour party, which Peres once led, has dropped significantly in popularity.

No charismatic leader has emerged from the young activist guard.

While many Israelis still say they support a two-state solution in theory, Netanyahu himself ruled it out ahead of 2015 elections only to later backtrack.

Settlement construction in the occupied West Bank has meanwhile continued, slowly eating away at the land Palestinians view as part of their future state.

Gun, knife and car-ramming attacks by young Palestinians in recent months have only increased the bitterness between the two sides.

"World leaders who go to the funeral for Peres should know that the Oslo process has been discredited for years," said Alpher.

"And that we should -- Israelis, Palestinians, the international community -- learn lessons from it, which Peres never did."

While Peres's peace efforts are being lauded, his role as the architect of Israel's undeclared nuclear programme may prove his more lasting contribution.

Israel is now considered the Middle East's sole nuclear-armed nation.

"I prefer to remember Peres for his contribution to Israel's security," Alpher said.

Shimon Peres Sabrina BLANCHARD, Thomas SAINT-CRICQ (AFP)
Moscow accuses US of sparing Syria jihadist group

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday accused the United States of protecting a jihadist group in Syria in its effort to overthrow the beleaguered regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

In an interview aired Friday on BBC World News, Lavrov said Washington had vowed to "take as a priority an obligation to separate the opposition" from the former Al-Qaeda affiliate once known as Al-Nusra Front, but that it had not done so.

"We have more and more reasons to believe that from the very beginning the plan was to spare Nusra and to keep it just in case for Plan B or stage two, when it would be time to change the regime," Lavrov said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov addresses the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York Timothy A. Clary (AFP/File)

Moscow has repeatedly accused the US of failing on its commitment to persuade rebel forces to distance themselves from jihadist groups such as Al-Nusra, which changed its name to Fateh al-Sham Front in July after renouncing its ties to Al-Qaeda.

A short-lived truce brokered by Moscow and Washington earlier this month could have led the two countries to coordinate strikes against jihadists, but the deal fell apart as both sides blamed each other for its failure.

Moscow has been accused of indiscriminately bombing Aleppo's opposition-controlled east as it helps an assault currently being conducted by Syrian government troops to capture all of the country's second city.

The United Nations has warned that a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Aleppo unlike any witnessed so far in Syria's five-year war, which has claimed more than 300,000 lives.

Russia has said it would continue its Syrian bombing campaign in spite of US warnings that Washington would suspend talks unless Moscow stopped its assault on Aleppo.

In a phone call with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday, Lavrov stressed Moscow's "readiness to continue to consider additional possibilities" to work with the United States on normalising the situation in Aleppo, Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Lavrov also stressed Russia "remains open for dialogue with the United States on all key issues" regarding Syria, the statement said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday that more than 9,300 people -- including some 3,800 civilians -- had been killed in a year of Russian air strikes in Syria in support of Assad.
Hanks, Streep on star-studded guest list for Rome fest

Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep will top a star-studded guest list at next month's Rome film festival, organisers announced Friday.

Hanks is to receive a lifetime achievement award on the opening day and will be honoured by a retrospective of some of his most successful films at the festival, which runs from October 13-23.

Streep is coming to do a question-and-answer session for fans as part of the promotional tour for British director Stephen Frears' new film that she stars in: "Florence Foster Jenkins".

Actor Tom Hanks attends the screening of The Warner Bros. Pictures "Sully" in West Hollywood, California, on September 8, 2016 Valerie Macon (AFP/File)

Also booked for an interactive event is US director Oliver Stone, who will be presenting -- just a few weeks before the presidential election -- his latest work "Snowden" about the American whistle-blower.

The festival opens with Barry Jenkins's "Moonlight" an acclaimed drama about the identity problems of a young gay black man in Miami, and will feature a number of world premieres.

Among them is "Naples '44", a documentary narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch based on acclaimed British travel writer Norman Lewis's experiences as an intelligence officer in the city at the end of World War II.

Other highlights include Iranian drama "Immortality", Chinese 3D martial arts blockbuster "Sword Master", Australian film "Goldstone", and Gavin O'Connor-directed thriller "The Accountant" starring Ben Affleck.

The festival closes with Kolkata-based story "Lion", which features Nicole Kidman and "Slumdog Millionaire" star Dev Patel.
UN sets up inquiry into Syria aid convoy bombing

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday announced he is setting up a board of inquiry to investigate the bombing of an aid convoy in Syria last week that killed 18 people.

US officials have said that Russian planes carried out the air strikes on September 19 that hit the 31-truck convoy bringing aid to a town west of the besieged city of Aleppo.

Moscow has denied the accusation and the Russian military is carrying out its own investigation of the bombing that destroyed 18 trucks and damaged a warehouse.

A damaged truck carrying aid is seen on the side of the road in the town of Orum al-Kubra on the western outskirts of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on September 20, 2016 Omar haj kadour (AFP/File)

The internal UN panel "will ascertain the facts of the incident" and report to Ban, who will "decide what further steps to take," said a UN statement.

Ban urged all sides to fully cooperate with the probe.

The United Nations has warned that the attack on the aid convoy could amount to a war crime.

UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien told the Security Council on Thursday that the area around the convoy that was "clearly marked UN and Syrian Arab Red Crescent" became a "killing zone" during two hours of heavy bombing.

The strikes on the convoy in Urum al-Kubra claimed the life of the local head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, Omar Barakat, as well as 12 volunteers and five drivers.

Another 15 drivers were wounded, many civilians were killed and wounded, and the warehouse as well as a nearby medical clinic severely damaged, O'Brien said.

The aid chief stressed that all actors on the ground were informed of the convoy's movement in line with UN procedures for all deliveries of humanitarian assistance.

"We do not yet have all the details," O'Brien said. "However, it is not too early to make clear the consequences of this shameful attack."

"If the attackers knew of the humanitarian convoy and intentionally directed an attack against it, they committed a war crime."

The bombing of the aid convoy took place just hours after the Syrian military announced the end of a week-long ceasefire negotiated by Russia and the United States.
Handshakes, Hebrew and humour as Peres laid to rest

The gathering of world leaders for Friday's funeral of Israel's ex-president Shimon Peres featured a rare show of Israel-Palestinian detente, US President Barack Obama's attempt at Hebrew and just a touch of humour.

- Handshake -

On arrival at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl national cemetery, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who knew Peres well and had negotiated with him, shook hands with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu before exchanging pleasantries with him and his wife, Sara.

Members of the Knesset (parliamentary) guards stand beside the flag-draped coffin of former Israeli President Shimon Peres during the burial ceremony at the funeral at Mount Herzl National Cemetery Ronen Zvulun (POOL/AFP)

The last substantial public meeting between Abbas and Netanyahu was in 2010, though there have been unconfirmed reports of secret meetings since then.

The rare gesture sparked debate among Palestinians.

- Pre-ceremony -

Under heavy security, with roads closed and thousands of officers deployed, dozens of world leaders descended on Mount Herzl accompanied by a small army of officials, aides and bodyguards.

Before proceedings began, the master of ceremonies felt compelled to remind the distinguished gathering as they greeted each other that they were at a funeral.

Britain's Prince Charles was present, though not in an official capacity, and no Arab leader save from Abbas attended.

- Bibi grieves -

Netanyahu acknowledged that he and his "political adversary" Peres had not always seen eye to eye but the prime minister was soon overcome with emotion.

His brother Yoni was killed 40 years ago during an operation to free Israeli hostages in Uganda. Yoni was buried at Mount Herzl by then defence minister, Shimon Peres.

- Bill Clinton too -

The former US president, a black kippa cap atop his white hair, welled up as he fondly remembered Israel's elder statesman.

"He started off life as Israel's brightest student, became its best teacher, and ended up its biggest dreamer," he said.

Two decades ago, Clinton's memorable eulogy at the funeral of assassinated Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin -- who along with Peres won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Oslo Accords -- ended with the words "Shalom Haver" ("Goodbye, my friend").

- Moving tribute -

Peres's favourite prayer, "Avinu Malkeinu", was performed by Israeli artist David d'Or.

Chemi, one of Peres's two sons, broke down within the first few bars, hiding tears with hands pressed to his face.

- A touch of laughter -

His other son, Yoni, used his comments to poke gentle fun at his father's advanced age, saying the 93-year-old former president was "too young to die".

Peres's daughter Tsvia recalled her father's favourite dish, a tomato and cucumber salad prepared by his wife Sonia, who died in 2011.

- Obama tries his Hebrew -

"Toda Raba Haver Yakar," US President Barack Obama said during his turn at the lecturn -- "Thank you, my dear friend."

Also wearing the traditional Jewish kippa, Obama invoked a parallel between his path and that of Peres, who was born in a tiny Jewish "shtetl" in rural Poland.

"I think our friendship was rooted in the fact that I could somehow see myself in his story, and maybe he could see himself in mine," Obama said.

- Peace for 'all people' -

The traditional Jewish funeral prayer, the Kaddish, was recited by Peres's three children by his grave.

It was the voice of Tsvia that rose above the others. At the final blessing, which calls for peace "for the people of Israel", she added her own universal prayer: "And for all people."

Moments later, the coffin was lowered into the ground and slowly disappeared beneath piles of earth.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) shaking hands with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas at the funeral of Israel's former president and prime minister Shimon Peres Amos Ben Gershom (GPO/AFP)

Former US president Bill Clinton delivers a speech during the funeral of former Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres Thomas Coex (AFP)
Sony closes on Michael Jackson's stake in music publisher

Sony said Friday that it had closed its $750 million purchase of Michael Jackson's stake in a music venture behind a vast trove of hit songs.

The Japanese company announced in March that it was buying the Jackson estate's 50 percent stake in Sony ATV Music Publishing, which owns the rights to several million titles.

Sony in a statement said it closed on the purchase after meeting conditions including regulatory approval.

Sony ATV Music Publishing was set up in 1995 as a joint venture between Michael Jackson and Sony Kazuhiro Nogi (AFP/File)

The European Commission announced on August 2 that it was approving the deal, seeing no threat to competition in the music market.

Jackson became active in music publishing as he rose to superstardom in the 1980s after a chat with Paul McCartney who explained the significance of such companies, which collect and distribute royalties to songwriters.

Sony ATV Music Publishing, set up in 1995 as a joint venture between Jackson and Sony, owns rights not just to the late King of Pop's hits, but songs by other music legends including The Beatles, Marvin Gaye and Bob Dylan.

It also features songs by younger stars such as Kanye West, Pharrell Williams and Lady Gaga.
14 soldiers killed in anti-Boko Haram operations: Niger

Niger's army said Friday that 14 of its soldiers and scores of Boko Haram fighters had been killed during a multi-month sweep operation in the nation's southeast.

Defence ministry spokesman Colonel Moustapha Ledru told state television that "123 terrorists" had been killed and "a large quantity of arms recovered from the insurgents."

It was not possible to independently verify this number.

In late July of 2016 a multinational force, drawn from Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, was formed to tackle Boko Haram insurgents and clear them out of towns and villages Issouf Sanogo (AFP/File)

Ledru said 14 soldiers were killed and 29 wounded in the joint operations with Chad's military took place between July and September 28.

They targeted the Diffa region, which lies just across the border from the Islamists' stronghold in northeastern Nigeria.

Ledru said the "terrorists" who had been killed had "infiltrated" into Diffa from Nigeria, adding that two fighters had been captured.

Boko Haram's seven-year insurgency has left at least 20,000 people dead in Nigeria and border areas of neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, and made more than 2.6 million homeless.

Attacks in Niger's Diffa region began in February 2015.

In late July this year a multinational force, drawn from Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, was formed to tackle the Islamic insurgents and clear them out of towns and villages.
EU extends sanctions on Libyan parliament head

The EU extended on Friday by six months the sanctions against the head of Libya's internationally recognised parliament as well as two former officials, for blocking peace efforts by failing to get behind the UN-backed unity government.

Libya has had rival administrations since mid-2014 when a militia alliance took over Tripoli, setting up its own authority and forcing the recognised parliament to flee to the remote east.

But in a blow to the Government of National Accord (GNA) supported by the United Nations and Western powers, the internationally recognised parliament headed by Aguila Saleh gave it a no confidence vote in August.

United Nations' envoy to Libya Martin Kobler (L) shake hands with the head of the internationally-recognised Libyan parliament, Aguila Saleh, in the eastern city of Tobruk on April 18, 2016 STRINGER (AFP/File)

The other two ex-officials facing a new round of sanctions are Khalifa Ghweil and Nuri Abu Sahmein -- both former top figures in an unrecognised authority that has since ceased to function.

The sanctions, which have been in place since April and were rolled over on Friday to April 2017, ban travel in the European Union for the three men and a freeze on any of their assets in the EU.

The European Council, which groups the 28 EU leaders under former Polish premier Donald Tusk, said in a statement it "remains concerned by the situation in Libya and in particular the acts that threaten peace, security and stability of the country."

Libya is facing "political impasse" and "hazardous military developments", the UN envoy to the North African country Martin Kobler warned on Tuesday, highlighting the impact of violence on civilians.

The nation has been ravaged by unrest since the fall and death in 2011 of dictator Moamer Kadhafi and has also seen the jihadist Islamic State group establish a foothold.

Libya has Africa's largest oil reserves, estimated at 48 billion barrels, but production and exports have slumped dramatically after years of crisis.

France will host an international meeting on Libya next week featuring several countries in the region including Egypt and Gulf states.
UN chief offers to mediate over Kashmir tensions

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday offered to act as mediator between India and Pakistan to defuse rising tensions over disputed Kashmir.

The offer came after Pakistan's ambassador met with the UN chief and urged him to personally intervene, while India said it did not want to aggravate the situation.

Ban called on "both sides to exercise maximum restraint and take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation," a statement from his spokesman said.

Activists of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) shout anti-India slogans during a demonstration in Karachi on September 30, 2016 Asif Hassan (AFP)

The UN chief said India and Pakistan should address differences through diplomacy and dialogue, and offered to mediate.

"His good offices are available, if accepted by both sides," the UN spokesman said.

Tensions between the two arch rivals have been boiling since the Indian government accused Pakistan-based militants of launching an assault on an army base in Kashmir earlier this month that killed 18 soldiers.

India on Thursday said it had carried out "surgical strikes" several kilometers (miles) inside Pakistan-controlled Kashmir on what they called "terrorist" targets.

"This is a dangerous moment for the region," Pakistan's Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told AFP after meeting with Ban at UN headquarters in New York.

"The time has come for bold intervention by him if we are to avoid a crisis, because we can see a crisis building up."

Lodhi accused India of creating "conditions that pose a threat to regional and international peace and security."

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric earlier said the UN chief "would welcome all proposals" or initiatives aimed at de-escalation.

Ban is following the situation "with great concern," said Dujarric, citing the escalating rhetoric between the two countries and the increased tensions along the line of control separating Kashmir between Pakistani- and Indian-controlled areas.

- India says no desire to aggravate tensions -

A UN military observer mission (UNMOGIP) is looking into reports of ceasefire violations along the line of control and will report to Ban, he added.

"UNMOGIP has not directly observed any firing across the line of control related to the latest incident," he added.

In a statement to AFP India's mission to the United Nations said "India has no desire to aggravate the situation," and that "our response was a measured counter-terrorist strike."

"It was focused in terms of targets and geographical space," the mission said. "It is reflective of our desire to respond proportionately to clear and imminent threat posed by terrorists in that instance.

"With our objectives having been met that effort has since ceased."

The Pakistani ambassador said she had suggested to Ban that plans for a visit to India and Pakistan expected in November could be brought forward to avert a crisis.

Lodhi also met this week with the current Security Council president, New Zealand Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, to ask that the top UN body keep a close eye on developments.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they gained independence from Britain seven decades ago, two of them over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.
Comic writer confirms Wonder Woman is 'queer'

The writer of the Wonder Woman comic series has confirmed the superhero is bisexual, putting an end to a long held debate on whether she'd had relationships with other women.

Speculation has been rife for many years over the sexuality of the Amazonian princess, who hails from the island Themyscira, which is populated solely by female warriors.

Although she becomes romantically involved with a man who washes up on the island, storylines over the years have implied, if not explicitly stated, that she has also been in love with women.

Speculation has been rife for many years over the sexuality of Wonder Woman, a comic book character who hails from a fictional island populated solely by female warriors Bill Wechter (AFP/File)

Greg Rucka, who returned to DC Comics this year to craft the "Rebirth" series commemorating Wonder Woman's 75th year in print, told the Comicosity news website Wonder Woman was "queer."

The word -- which has several definitions -- was defined by the interviewer as "involving, although not necessarily exclusively, romantic and/or sexual interest toward persons of the same gender."

"When you start to think about giving the concept of Themyscira its due, the answer is 'how can they not all be in same sex relationships?' right? It makes no logical sense otherwise," said Rucka, who worked on the character throughout the 2000s.

"You're supposed to be able... to have a fulfilling, romantic and sexual relationship. And the only options are women. But an Amazon doesn't look at another Amazon and say, 'You're gay.' They don't. The concept doesn't exist."

The announcement was mostly welcomed as good news on social media, although not all fans were happy.

"I just found out some people are actually upset Wonder Woman is queer. As if -- what -- you're paranoid Wonder Woman might not date you?" tweeted Mike Drucker, a television comedy writer.

There were no clues to Wonder Woman's bisexuality when Warner Bros screened the first trailer for the upcoming standalone "Wonder Woman" at San Diego Comic-Con in July.

The Amazonian heroine, played by Gal Gadot, is seen leaning over soldier Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) after he has washed up on her island.

"You're a man?" she asks him, and he replies: "Yeah, do I not look like one?"
Greater Emmanuel Church, 400 Tunnel Blvd., is hosting a Community Outreach HarvestFestival and Trunk or Treat from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 29.Activities include Winter coat giveaways, free food, bounce houses, games, and prizes."Join us for the complete package of family fun, offering hope during a time when the community must truly come together in unity," officials said.
US: Talks with Russia on Syria 'on life support'

Two days after threatening to suspend talks with Russia on the crisis in Syria, the United States confirmed Friday that negotiations continue but insisted they are "on life support."

US Secretary of State John Kerry called Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for the third day in a row, but received no sign that Moscow is ready to halt the Syrian regime's assault on Aleppo.

On Thursday, amid much criticism at home and abroad that the threat to break off US-Russian bilateral talks on Syria was hollow, Kerry insisted that he was "on the verge" of ending them.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and United States Secretary of State John Kerry speak during the International Syria Support Group meeting, September 22, 2016 in New York Bryan R. Smith (AFP/File)

And that's where matters remained 24 hours later, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, while introducing a new metaphor to describe how close the rival capitals are to a rupture.

"This is on life support, but it has not flatlined yet," he told reporters when asked why Kerry believes it is worthwhile to keep the diplomatic channel open while Russian jets pound Aleppo.

"It's egregious, it's horrific, it's in clear violation of international standards or norms, humanitarian norms and international law," Toner said.

And he agreed that "at a certain point" Washington would have to look again "to see if it becomes futile to continue to believe in a diplomatic process."

"That said, I just can't definitively say we're there at that point yet. We're very close but we're not there yet."

Earlier, Lavrov had hit out in an interview with the BBC, suggesting Washington may be trying to protect jihadist rebels from assault in order to later use them against Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Toner dismissed this charge out of hand. "It left me shaking my head, he said. "It's absurd."

A short-lived truce brokered by Moscow and Washington earlier this month fell apart as both sides blamed each other for its failure.
Israeli stabbed, Palestinian attacker killed: police

A member of the Israeli security forces was stabbed and seriously injured Friday in the West Bank town of Qalandia, a police spokeswoman said, adding that the Palestinian attacker was then gunned down.

The 28-year-old attacker, a Jerusalem native, approached an Israeli checkpoint and stabbed a member of the security forces, who was rushed to hospital. Fellow security forces members then shot the Palestinian dead, police said.

Violence since last October has killed 231 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese national, according to an AFP count.

Israeli medical staff walk an injured soldier (2-R) following a stabbing attempt at the Qalandia checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem on September 30, 2016 Ahmad Gharabli (AFP)

Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks. Others were shot dead during protests or killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza.

Many analysts say Palestinian frustration with the Israeli occupation and settlement building in the West Bank, the complete lack of progress in peace efforts and their own fractured leadership have helped feed the unrest.
US police release video of fatal shooting of black man

Following days of protests, police in San Diego on Friday released video footage of the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man, saying the decision was made to counter "misinformation" being circulated about the incident.

The grainy cellphone and surveillance videos show the victim, Alfred Olango, 38, a Ugandan immigrant, pacing back and forth as he is confronted by two police officers in the parking lot of a strip mall.

He is then seen being tasered and shot as he points an object at one of the officers.

Protesters face off with police in El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego, California on September 28, 2016, in response to a police shooting the night before of Ugandan refugee Alfred Olango Bill Wechter (AFP/File)

The cylindrical object turned out to be a vape inhaler.

The deadly confrontation in El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego, has prompted daily street demonstrations that turned violent late Thursday after protesters blocked some streets, hurling bottles and rocks at passing vehicles and police and smashing car windows.

One person was also pulled off his motorcycle.

Davis said police used tear gas to disperse the crowd and five people were arrested.

"Our goal today is to clarify and hopefully calm the community's concerns regarding the recent officer-involved shooting," police chief Jeff Davis told reporters on Friday as he released the video footage.

"Our only concern at this point was community safety," he added. "We felt that the aggression of some of the protesters was escalating to the point where it was necessary to release some information."

Davis said several stores had shut down on Friday and schools had let out students early, fearing more violence.

The shooting took place as the United States is reeling from a string of police shootings of black men, including one earlier this month in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and another in Charlotte, North Carolina, that also ignited protests and heightened racial tensions.

Local officials in El Cajon have vowed a thorough and transparent investigation and initially refused to release the video of the incident pending the outcome of a probe.

Davis said the two officers involved in the incident -- both 21-year veterans -- had been placed on administrative leave.

He said Olango's family had declined to watch the video earlier in the day and the decision to release it was to dispel any "misconceptions" about what happened.

The police confrontation with Olango took place after his sister called police three times saying he was acting erratically and walking into traffic.

According to local media reports, it took police 50 minutes to dispatch officers to the scene.

Olango's mother, Pamela Benge, said on Thursday that her son had had a breakdown after losing a friend but was not mentally ill.

"My son was a good, loving young man," she said tearfully. "I wanted his future to be longer than that. I wanted him to enjoy his daughter."

She said the family had arrived as refugees in the United States 25 years ago, fleeing unrest in Uganda.

- 'Came from war zone' -

"We came from a war zone," she said. "I thought a lovely nice country like this would protect us. We just need protection, that's all."

The family initially immigrated to New York as refugees in 1991 but then eventually moved to southern California.

Olango attended school in San Diego before dropping out, according to media reports, and worked as a cook at a Hooters restaurant.

Several local African-American community leaders welcomed the release of the video on Friday and urging the community to remain calm.

"It is okay to protest, but we want folks to protest in peace," said the Reverend Gerald Brown, executive director of the United African-American Ministerial Action Council.

"We want to make sure that everyone's safe, everyone gets home," he added, standing alongside the police chief at the news conference.

"We want to make sure that the (police) officers are safe, as well."

According to a document obtained by AFP, US immigration authorities twice unsuccessfully tried to deport Olango, once for transporting and selling drugs and later for a firearms conviction.

In both instances, Ugandan authorities refused to issue travel documents allowing Olango to return to his homeland, US authorities said.

He was released from custody both times, as US law dictates that immigrants cannot be held indefinitely if their country of origin refuses to allow them back.

Protesters lock arms in front of a police line in El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego, California in response to a police shooting the night before of Ugandan refugee Alfred Olango Bill Wechter (AFP/File)
Pentagon chief reassures ASEAN ministers over future US commitments

Pentagon Chief Ashton Carter met Friday with Southeast Asian defense ministers to discuss regional security issues and reassure them America's "rebalance" to Asia will continue under the next US administration.

The rebalance -- or "pivot," as it is sometimes called -- has been a cornerstone of President Barack Obama's foreign policy, with a shifting of focus away from the Middle East and toward the Asia-Pacific region.

In opening remarks at an informal summit in Hawaii, Carter told defense ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that the United States would reaffirm its commitment to strengthen cooperation on the shared security challenges in the region, including the return of hundreds of jihadists from Iraq and Syria.

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter told defense ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that the United States would reaffirm its commitment to strengthen cooperation on the shared security challenges in the region Brendan Smialowski (AFP/File)

"And we'll make plans to further catalyze the Asia-Pacific's principled and inclusive security network," he said.

Key among these is China's growing reach across the South China Sea.

Beijing has in recent years rapidly expanded its physical presence in the strategically vital waterway, turning small maritime features, islets and reefs into much larger islands capable of holding military facilities.

Carter, who was expected to speak to the press later Friday, has repeatedly stressed that the US military will ignore Beijing's contentious South China Sea claims, and keep operating in waters and airspace surrounding the islands.

"The United States would like to help all our nations see more, share more, and do more to keep Southeast Asia's vital waterways open and secure," Carter said.

A senior US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was confident America would retain its Asia focus whatever the result of November's presidential election.

"We've got a good thing going," he said.

"There are a lot of opportunities left over. And we want to make sure that our position in the region is solid for the next president."

The Pentagon chief was due to meet privately with all 10 defense ministers, including the Philippines' Delfin Lorenzana.

The dialog comes after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte this week vowed to end joint military exercises with the United States.

The firebrand leader's comments were just the latest in a string of attacks against America. He has called Obama a "son of a whore" and extended overtures to China, potentially upsetting a strong US-Philippine alliance dating back more than 60 years.

Duterte won elections in May in a landslide after a campaign dominated by his pledge to eradicate drugs in society by killing tens of thousands of people.
E.Guinea asks ICJ to have case against leader's son dropped

Equatorial Guinea has asked the UN's top court to tell France to suspend its legal proceedings against the son of the central African nation's president, the International Court of Justice said in a statement on Friday.

French prosecutors accuse Equatorial Guinea's vice-president Teodorin Obiang -- the son of the country's leader -- of looting state coffers to fund his lavish tastes.

Among his alleged purchases are the famous white glove of pop star Michael Jackson's, private jets and sprawling properties.

Teodorin Nguema Obiang, the son of Equatorial Guinea's president, arriving at Malabo stadium for ceremonies to celebrate his 41st birthday Jerome Leroy (AFP/File)

In 2012 French prosecutors ordered the seizure of the Obiang family's six-storey mansion on Avenue Foch -- one of the poshest addresses in Paris -- as well as several luxury cars and vintage wines.

In its request to The Hague-based ICJ on Thursday, Equatorial Guinea recalled a case it filed before the court in June, claiming that France had breached the vice-president's immunity.

Thursday's request comes after Obiang was ordered to appear before a French criminal court on October 24.

"Equatorial Guinea consequently notes the urgency of its request," the ICJ statement said.

Malabo wants the ICJ to order Paris to put the criminal case on hold and for the Avenue Foch property "be treated as premises of Equatorial Guinea's diplomatic mission in France".

It also wants the ICJ to tell France to "refrain from taking any other measure that might cause prejudice to the rights claimed by Equatorial Guinea... or compromise the implementation of any decision which the Court (ICJ) might render".

Obiang's father, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1979, is Africa's longest-serving leader, and extended his 36-year rule in April when he was re-elected with 93.7 percent of the vote.
The Latest: Kidnapping victim's lawyer wants life sentence

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)  The Latest on the plea change of a man charged with a California kidnapping that was initially dismissed as a hoax (all times local):

4:30 p.m.

An attorney for the victim of a kidnapping initially dismissed as a hoax says a judge should sentence the man convicted of the abduction to life in prison despite prosecutors' plan to recommend no more than a 40-year term.

FILE - This undated file photo released by the Vallejo Police Department shows Denise Huskins. Matthew Muller, a disbarred Harvard University-trained attorney, was set to plead guilty in a kidnapping case in California that police initially dismissed as a hoax, the U.S. Attorney's office said Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016. Muller was expected to enter a new plea on Thursday, said Lauren Horwood, a spokeswoman for the office in Sacramento. Muller previously pleaded not guilty to a kidnapping charge that prosecutors say stemmed from his abduction of Huskins from her Vallejo home in March 2015. (Vallejo Police Department via AP)

Douglas Rappaport said at a news conference on Thursday that the victim, Denise Huskins, and her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, are worried that Matthew Muller will commit more crimes if he is released. Huskins and Quinn appeared at the news conference with him, but they did not speak.

Muller, a disbarred Harvard University-trained attorney, pleaded guilty Thursday to kidnapping Huskins in March 2015 and holding her for ransom.

Quinn said kidnappers broke into the couple's Vallejo, California, home, took Huskins and demanded $17,000 as ransom.

Huskins turned up safe two days later in her hometown of Huntington Beach, where she says she was dropped off. After she reappeared, Vallejo police called the kidnapping a hoax.

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11:30 a.m.

A disbarred Harvard University-trained attorney has pleaded guilty to a bizarre kidnapping that police initially dismissed as a hoax.

Matthew Muller admitted in federal court in Sacramento on Thursday that he snatched the woman and held her for ransom last year.

The 39-year-old previously pleaded not guilty to abducting Denise Huskins in March 2015.

Her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, said kidnappers broke into the couple's Vallejo home, took Huskins and demanded $8,500 as a ransom.

Huskins turned up safe two days later in her hometown of Huntington Beach, where she says she was dropped off. After she reappeared, Vallejo police called the kidnapping a hoax.

Huskins sued, accusing police of wrongly likening the case to the movie "Gone Girl" and damaging the reputations of her and her boyfriend.

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1:15 a.m.

A federal official says a disbarred Harvard University-trained attorney is set to plead guilty in a kidnapping case in California that police initially dismissed as a hoax.

Lauren Horwood, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Sacramento, said Wednesday that defendant Matthew Muller is expected to enter a new plea Thursday. He previously pleaded not guilty to a kidnapping charge.

Horwood did not provide further details on the plea change and no documents were immediately available laying out specifics.

A call to Muller's attorney, Thomas Johnson, was not immediately returned.

Prosecutors initially charged Muller with kidnapping Denise Huskins from her Vallejo home in March 2015.

Huskins' boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, reported that kidnappers broke into the couple's home, abducted Huskins and demanded money.

Huskins turned up safe two days later in her hometown of Huntington Beach, where she says she was dropped off.

Vallejo police at first dismissed the kidnapping as a hoax, though the city has since apologized to Huskins.

FILE - This June 2015, file booking photo released by the Dublin, Calif., Police Department, shows Matthew Muller after he was arrested on robbery and assault charges. Muller, a disbarred Harvard University-trained attorney, was set to plead guilty in a kidnapping case in California that police initially dismissed as a hoax, the U.S. Attorney's office said Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016. Muller previously pleaded not guilty to a kidnapping charge that prosecutors say stemmed from his abduction of Denise Huskins from her Vallejo home in March 2015. (Dublin Police Department via AP, File)
Amnesty: Hundreds trapped in Libya's Benghazi amid fighting

CAIRO (AP)  An international rights group expressed alarm Friday over the fate of hundreds of Libyan and foreign nationals trapped for months amid fighting in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Amnesty International said that nearly 130 families and hundreds of foreigners in the southwestern Benghazi neighborhood of Ganfouda have been cut off from the outside world, with dwindling food and fuel supplies.

"Time is running out for civilians in Ganfouda, who are being left to die trapped by the fighting," said Magdalena Mughrabi, deputy director of Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa Program.

FILE - In this Feb. 23, 2016 file photo, a civilian fighter holding the Libyan flag stands in front of damaged buildings in Benghazi, Libya. Amnesty International, an international rights group expressed alarm Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, over the fate of hundreds of Libyan and foreign nationals trapped for months amid fighting in the eastern city of Benghazi. Amnesty International said that nearly 130 families and hundreds of foreigners in the southwestern Benghazi neighborhood of Ganfouda have been cut off from the outside world, with dwindling food and fuel supplies. (AP Photo/Mohammed el-Shaiky, File)

The fighting has raged in Benghazi since 2014 when forces commanded by powerful military commander Khalifa Hifter began a campaign against militants there, including branches of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. Hifter, supported by British, French, and American military advisers and special forces, has managed to take control over much of the city. Ganfouda is one of the few districts where the militants have put up fierce resistance against Hifter's National Libyan Army forces.

However, international groups have been appealing for the creation of safe corridors to evacuate civilians trapped in Ganfouda.

Amnesty quoted a resident who identified himself as Mohamed as saying that residents are in desperate need for humanitarian supplies, especially the youngest residents.

"The children look like skin and bones because of the lack of food and poor nutrition . If they could just drop us some food for the children or get them out of here, even if that meant leaving the rest of us, that would be fine," he said.

Residents have taken to hosting displaced families whose houses were destroyed by airstrikes and shelling.

"We're living like animals," according to another resident whom Amnesty identified as Samir. He added that he has taken three families into his house bringing the number of residents to 24.

Amnesty feared that civilians caught in crossfire are facing mass punishment, under the pretext that they are supporters or sympathizers of the extremist Islamic militants.

"Civilians should not be used as human shields, and those who wish to leave must be protected from arbitrary detention, torture or any other abuses," said Mughrabi.
Mother killed in train crash had recently moved from Brazil

HOBOKEN, N.J. (AP)  Fabiola Bittar de Kroon was in a rush to catch the train.

When she dropped off her toddler daughter at daycare on Thursday morning, she barely had a moment to chat.

"She was dropping off the daughter, I was closing up the stroller," daycare director Karlos Magner recalled. "We had a good talk for like a minute. And she said she was in a rush."

Workers examine a section of the roof at the Hoboken station where a train crashed into the building, Thursday Sept. 29, 2016 in Hoboken, N.J. A rush-hour commuter train crashed through a barrier at the busy Hoboken station and lurched across the waiting area Thursday morning, killing one person and injuring more than 100 others in a tangle of broken concrete, twisted metal and dangling wires. (AP Photo/Joe Epstein)

De Kroon sprinted off to the Hoboken Terminal.

A short time later, a train traveling too fast crashed through a barrier and into the station, killing de Kroon amid falling debris and injuring more than 100 other people.

Daycare director Maria Sharp said de Kroon, who had recently moved to the United States from Brazil with her husband and daughter, was very involved, always wanting to know how her daughter was growing academically.

"You just saw a smile on her face every time she came to pick up her daughter," Sharp said, "and that's what I keep seeing."

De Kroon, 34, worked for the software company SAP in its legal department in Brazil until earlier this year, when she moved to New Jersey after her husband got a job with an international liquor company.

SAP spokesman Andy Kendzie said the company was "shaken by the news" of the train crash and de Kroon's death. He said the company expressed its deepest condolences to de Kroon's family and friends and to all of those affected by the "tragic event."

Cecilia Marques, a former co-worker at a company that specialized in travel to Brazil, said she was saddened and shocked by the news of de Kroon's death.

"I am speechless and feel like the world stopped for some moments," Marques said. "I had the privilege to get to know and work with Fabiola for some years, and I can say she was a great, talented, big and genuine heart."

De Kroon, a 2011 master's degree graduate from Florida International University's College of Business, previously lived in Florida but was a Brazil native, according to her Facebook account.

Dolf Wiemer, a former LG Electronics co-worker who lives in Brazil, said he knew the couple well and in April had visited them before they moved to the U.S. De Kroon was excited about the change and her husband's major career move, Wiemer said.

The de Kroons, he said, were "an international couple not avoiding any adventure by even moving countries in (pursuit) of a better (life)."

"Even if this means that you have to follow your partner and have to get used to other cultures and ways of living," he said. "It is tragic that she had to be in such a bad place at that time while pursuing their dreams of life."

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Trimble reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press writer Verena Dobnik, in New York, contributed to this story.

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Neighbor: Veteran engineer in deadly crash 'loves his work'

MORRIS PLAINS, N.J. (AP)  The engineer at the controls of a speeding commuter train that crashed into a station on Thursday, killing one person, has been in the railroad business for nearly three decades, and neighbors said he loves the work and they're heartbroken for him and his family.

Engineer Thomas Gallagher was cooperating after the rush hour crash at Hoboken Terminal, which killed a woman waiting on a platform and injured more than 100 other people, authorities said.

Gallagher, 48, was seen slumped over the controls after his train rammed through a barrier and came to a rest in the waiting area. He was hospitalized briefly. He's expected to speak with federal investigators, the National Transportation Safety Board said.

In a photo provided by William Sun, people examine the wreckage of a New Jersey Transit commuter train that crashed into the train station during the morning rush hour in Hoboken,, N.J., Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. The crash caused an unknown number of injuries and witnesses reported seeing one woman trapped under concrete and many people bleeding. (William Sun via AP)

Gallagher, a married father of teenage daughters, has worked for New Jersey Transit for 29 years, an agency spokeswoman said. A union roster shows he started as an engineer about 18 years ago.

A police car guarded Gallagher's home in Morris Plains on Thursday night. Hours earlier, police escorted a woman into the home so she could collect a few things.

Next door neighbor Penny Jones said she heard about the crash while out of the house and figured she'd ask Gallagher about it when she got back. Reporters told her he'd been involved.

"It was very shocking," Jones said. "I'm just heartbroken for them, they're just wonderful people."

Penny Jones' husband, Tom Jones, went over to Gallagher's home, where he said the engineer's daughters, mother and mother-in-law appeared upset and dumbfounded.

Gallagher attended Fairleigh Dickinson University from 1986 to 1990, according to his LinkedIn page. He listed his profession as "loco engineer," using railroad shorthand for locomotive.
The 16th annual Chattanooga Dances! concert will be presented in the Center for Creative Arts Auditorium next Thursday at 7 p.m.

Chattanooga Dances! highlights the citys non-profit dance organizations along with those schools that maintain a full dance curriculum. Companies appearing on this years concert will be Ballet Tennessee, Barger Academy of Fine Arts, Baylors Verve, Center for Creative Arts Project Motion, Chattanooga Ballet, and GPSs Terpsichord.



"The evening will showcase Chattanoogas diverse dance community in works ranging from ballet to modern to jazz choreography. The concert includes both professional and student choreographers. Join us for this unique evening when Chattanoogas dance organizations appear on the same stage. Audience and dancers alike can celebrate the richness of the dance community in Chattanooga and experience a taste of what each organization has to offer. The Chattanooga Dances! concert has become an anticipated event over its history as a valuable collaborative arts experience," officials said.



Karen Wilson, director of dance at Center for Creative Arts believes the concert is not only a showcase for Chattanooga's arts community but an example of cooperation and collaboration between Chattanoogas public and private schools as well as among diverse dance organizations; a collaboration which all arts group in the city believe is important in showing the community what can be accomplished by working together.



The annual event builds partnerships between Chattanooga's dance organizations. We are the only city in the state that brings their dance community together to perform on one stage, said Jessica Laliberte Bowman of CCA.

Felicion McMillon of Barger Academy also values the community involvement, Barger Academy Movement makers have had the opportunity to perform many places in Chattanooga and beyond, but the performance opportunity that we always get extremely excited about is Chattanooga Dances! This will be our 4th year participating in Chattanooga Dances. This concert is, in my opinion, one of the best evenings of dance that Chattanooga has to offer.



The Center for Creative Arts sponsors this yearly event. Tickets are available at the door for $5. For more information call 423-209-5942.
The body of a North Carolina teenager - whose adoptive parents were convicted of tax fraud related to her 2011 disappearance - was found this week, officials said.

The remains of Erica Parsons, who was 13 when she was last seen, were discovered in the Pageland Mount Croghan area of South Carolina, Chesterfield Sheriff Jay Brooks said.

Information from a person close to the case helped investigators find the body, according to Brooks.

Her adoptive father, Sandy Parsons, had told investigators where to find her body, which was found near where his mother lived, the Charlotte Observer reported.

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The remains of Erica Parsons (pictured) were discovered in Chesterfield County, South Carolina on Tuesday, authorities said

Erica's adoptive parents Casey (right) and Sandy Parsons (left) were convicted of tax fraud related to her 2011 disappearance in March 2015

A relative reportedly said the adoptive father had bragged from prison - where he is serving eight years for tax fraud - that authorities would not be able to locate Erica's body without him because it was hidden somewhere that not even hikers or hunters would venture.

Sandy Parsons, who only recently started cooperating with detectives on the case, confided through a third party with investigators where her body would be found.

It is not known what prompted him to begin working with the authorities after years of denying anything to do with his adoptive daughter's disappearance.

The skeletal remains found on Tuesday were positively identified as Erica Parsons by the North Carolina Medical Examiner's Office, the Rowan County Sheriff's Office said in a news release.

Authorities in Rowan County, along with the FBI, had obtained leads in August that Erica was 'more than likely deceased.'

Sandy Parsons had reportedly told investigators where to find Erica's body, which was found near where his mother lived. A picture of a younger Erica on the left, while on the right an age-progressed image shows about what she would look like as an older teen

Investigators have not said exactly how the teen died, however they are expected to release more details in the case next week.

The probe into her disappearance and death is continuing, the sheriff's office said.

Both the Parsons claimed that Erica went to live in Asheville with a woman they believed to be her biological grandmother, Irene 'Nan' Goodman, but that woman has never materialized.

They repeated this claim on a nationally-televised interview with Dr Phil soon after her disappearance in 2011.

Testimony at the 2015 fraud trial of adoptive parents Casey, 41, and Sandy Parsons, 42, unveiled a pattern of abusing Erica, the couple's niece, who lived with the family in Rowan County from 2000 until she disappeared in 2011 at age 13.

The remains of Erica Parsons were discovered in the Pageland Mount Croghan area of Chesterfield County, South Carolina (shown above on a map)

She was not reported missing until 2013, when Erica's adoptive brother, James Parsons, contacted Rowan County authorities after his parents had kicked him out.

He told deputies that Erica had been missing for two years.

The last time he saw her was in 2011 when she was standing in a corner as punishment and 'looked like a zombie', he said in court.

He said Erica said she did not feel good and could not breathe well, and that the next morning she was gone.

His parents had left early that day, which was unusual, before returning later when they told him she had gone to live with her biological grandmother, he said.

Sandy (left) and Casey Parsons spoke to Dr Phil about Erica's disappearance in 2013. Sandy Parsons has recently started talking to detectives about the case

Erica had been missing since November 19, 2011, when she left her adoptive parents' home on Miller Chapel Road in Salisbury (pictured)

Authorities searched the home of Erica Lynn Parsons' adoptive parents after she was reported missing (pictured), uncovering a treasure trove of evidence

The girl, who was developmentally disabled and partially deaf, lived a life of horror in the family's home.

Erica's birth parents, Carolyn Parsons and Billy Dean Goodman, had relinquished their parental rights just before she was taken in by Casey and Sandy Parsons, the Charlotte Observer reported.

Carolyn Parsons had given up Erica, born on February 24, 1998, because she could not afford to raise her and did not want Erica to struggle as she did, living a life in homeless shelters and foster care.

Teresa Goodman, the sister of Erica's biological father, had reportedly offered to take Erica but was told other plans had been made for the girl.

Erica was then sent to live with Casey and Sandy Parsons when she was five months old. She was officially adopted by the couple in 2000.

In 2004, welfare authorities in Rowan County had investigated reports that Erica was being abused, according to the Charlotte Observer.

Erica's stepmother told welfare authorities that she had gone to live with one of her sisters, and the inquiry was apparently closed.

That year, Erica had been sent to live with Casey Parson's sister, Robin Ashley, because she 'lost control' and did not want to end up killing the girl, according to Ashley's testimony.

Erica went on to live with Ashley a second time before her disappearance.

Ashley testified that Casey Parsons despised Erica's birth mother, which was why she did not bond with the child.

'She couldn't stand to look at her face because she reminded her of Carolyn Parsons,' Ashley testified.

After staying with Ashley, Erica returned to Casey and Sandy's home in 2005.

Testimony from the couple's 2015 fraud trial described in graphic detail the abuse Erica endured before her disappearance (the couple pictured in 2014)

In March 2015, Casey Parsons (pictured) was sentenced to 10 years in prison for tax fraud

A relative reportedly said the adoptive father (pictured) had bragged from prison - where he is serving eight years for tax fraud - that authorities would not be able to locate Erica's body without him because it was hidden somewhere that not even hikers or hunters would venture

Occasionally, Erica would visit Carolyn Parsons. The last time came in January 2011 at a fast-food restaurant when Erica arrived wearing a cast and a splint.

The adoptive parents told her Erica had fallen out of a tree.

However, testimony from the couple's 2015 fraud trial described in graphic detail the abuse Erica endured before her disappearance while living with Sandy and Casey Parsons.

That included being fed dog food or no food at all, being excluded from family activities and having her arm broken by one of her siblings.

Erica was home-schooled and was often isolated from other children, being locked in a closet inside the family's home, according to testimony.

Sometimes, she was beaten for relieving herself on the floor while locked inside the closet, her adoptive stepbrother said in court.

James Parsons also testified that as punishment, Erica often had food withheld from her and that if she stole food, she would be fed canned dog food by Casey Parsons.

He said that he along with the couple's other children frequently would abuse Erica while often being encouraged to do so by their mother, who he said he witnessed punishing the girl with violence.

Erica's birth parents, Carolyn Parsons (left) and Billy Dean Goodman, relinquished their parental rights after she was born

Those punishments included beating Erica with a belt and bending her fingers back, he said.

Meanwhile, his father would strike Erica on the top of her head with his fist, to point that she developed a bald spot from scabbing, he said.

James testified he would also physically abuse the girl using his fists and belts, and said that one time he broke Erica's arm.

He said that he abused her from the time he was five all the way until he was 16 years old.

'I didn't want to hit her no more,' he said under oath. 'I couldn't stand it.'

Investigators have said Casey and Sandy Parsons have been uncooperative, though neither has been charged in the girl's death or disappearance.

The couple has maintained they left Erica at a McDonald's in Mooreville in December 2011 so her biological grandmother could collect her and take her to Asheville in North Carolina for three weeks.

After Erica was reported missing, investigators searching the Parsons' Miller Chapel Road home in Salisbury uncovered a treasure trove of evidence.

The investigation into the disappearance and death of Erica Parsons (pictured at Christmas time in 2010) is continuing, the sheriff's office said

Officials found stained drywall and baseboards with traces of Erica's blood and other DNA, thought to be from urine and saliva, investigators told the Charlotte Observer.

There were also five photos of Erica, showing her standing in a corner on different days, that were recovered from a computer inside the home.

Despite her disappearance, federal prosecutors said the couple continued to collect the checks, including monthly adoption assistance checks for $634.

In March 2015, Casey Parsons was sentenced to 10 years in prison for tax fraud and her husband, Sandy, to eight years.

'I've sentenced more than 1,000 people,' U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder said to Casey Parsons before handing down her sentence.

'I cannot think of another case that has troubled me more.'

Schroeder based his decisions in part on a pre-sentencing report that focused on testimony from the 2015 fraud trial.
Families of US personnel ordered to leave Congo amid unrest

WASHINGTON (AP)  The State Department is halting most official U.S. government travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo and ordering family members of U.S. government personnel to leave the country.

Violent clashes broke out in Congo amid political turmoil earlier this month. Americans have been warned about traveling in the African nation for several weeks.

In an updated travel warning issued Thursday, the State Department says continued instability is being reported in Congo. The warning says the potential for civil unrest is high in parts of the capital, Kinshasa, and other major cities.

Congo's electoral commission has decided a presidential election scheduled for November won't be possible, sparking deadly clashes between security forces and demonstrators.
3 Chinese fishermen dead after clash with SKorea coast guard

SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  Three Chinese fishermen likely died from smoke inhalation after a fire erupted when South Korean coast guard officers threw "flashbang" grenades into their boat, which had been fishing illegally, officials said Friday.

The latest in a series of violent clashes between South Korea's coast guard and Chinese fishing boats venturing farther from their increasingly barren home waters occurred Thursday when a South Korean coast guard vessel tried to stop the Chinese boat from suspected illegal fishing about 70 kilometers (45 miles) from an island off South Korea's southwestern coast.

The vessel, which carried 17 fishermen, initially resisted and fled before South Korean coast guard officers managed to board the boat and threw flashbang grenades into its locked steering room, the coast guard said in a statement. Flashbang grenades are non-lethal devices that produce a blinding flash of light and loud sound.

In this Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016 photo provided by the South Korean Mokpo Coast Guard, a Chinese fishing boat catches fires during an inspection by the South Korean coast guard in the water off Hong Island, South Korea. South Koreas coast guard said three Chinese fishermen have been found dead when a fire broke out on their boat after the coast guard fired a flashbang grenade at the vessel to stop it. (South Korean Mokpo Coast Guard via AP)

A fire erupted on the boat and three fishermen found lying in the boat's engine room later died, the coast guard statement said.

Coast guard officers said the three likely died after inhaling toxic smoke but that autopsies were planned to find the exact cause of their deaths. Authorities will also investigate if the flashbang grenades caused the fire.

The 14 surviving fishermen were taken to a South Korean port for questioning, according to the coast guard.

Beijing's Foreign Ministry said Friday that China had asked for consultations on the incident and for assistance to the survivors and families of those killed.

"We have asked the South Korean side for an urgent dialogue on this matter, and we have urged a fair and thorough investigation to be conducted," Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said.

Earlier Friday, Seoul's Foreign Ministry expressed regret over the deaths, but noted the Chinese boat was fishing illegally and had tried to flee to avoid an inspection.

The incident came at a time when generally cordial relations between Beijing and Seoul have suffered a sharp downturn over South Korea's decision to deploy an advanced U.S. missile defense system that China says threatens its security.

Chinese fishing boats have been going farther afield to feed growing domestic demand for seafood as catches have decreased in waters close to China's shores.

Chinese boats have regularly had violent clashes with South Korea's coast guard, and in 2014, a South Korea coast guardsman fatally shot the captain of a Chinese fishing vessel who was violently resisting an inspection.

In 2012, a Chinese fisherman died after being hit by a rubber bullet fired by a South Korean guardsman. A year earlier, a South Korean coast guard officer was killed in a clash with Chinese fishermen.

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A year after mudslide killed 280, little change in Guatemala

SANTA CATARINA PINULA, Guatemala (AP)  One year after a huge landslide killed at least 280 people near Guatemala's capital, the neighborhood once known as Cambray II remains a grim wasteland.

The wrecked walls and foundations of homes are half-buried in the mud. Abandoned shoes, toys, appliances and clothing litter what is, literally, a graveyard.

Despite two weeks of digging following the Oct. 1, 2015, disaster, when an unstable hillside collapsed on the squatter community, at least 70 people still remain missing, presumably buried forever under soil considered too unstable for further digging.

This Sept. 20, 2016 photo shows shoes scattered on the ground near the site where a landslide hit the El Cambray neighborhood one year ago in Santa Catarina Pinula on the outskirts of Guatemala City. One year after a massive landslide killed at least 280 people, abandoned shoes, toys, appliances and clothing litter what is, literally, a graveyard. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

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EDITOR'S NOTE: You can watch survivors of the mudslide recount the fateful day on the Associated Press photo blog .

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Officials estimate there are 8,000 places in Guatemala where the threat of floods, mudslides and other disasters make it too risky to live. Yet none of those communities has been successfully relocated in the year since the disaster.

The government budgeted about $2.6 million to build new homes for the survivors of Cambray II on land that was seized from a drug trafficker. But only about 30 of 181 planned homes have been constructed so far.

Despite a mandatory evacuation order, a half dozen families remain. They scattered when journalists approached, apparently fearful of losing the only place they could afford.

Sonia Ramos lives only about 50 yards (meters) from the edge of the mudslide, and has been told her house is unsafe.

"We have no place else to go," Ramos said. One year ago, the yard of her home became an impromptu morgue. Now it's a patch of dust or a pit of mud, depending on the rains.

"Sometimes, I'm afraid," she said, but shrugged, as if to say there is nothing to be done.

Human solidarity seems to have replaced official response.

Ramos took in 18-year-old Carlos Cac Pedroza, whose mother and siblings died in the mudslide. She'd seen him go to the barren spot where his family's house once stood, lie down and toss dirt on himself, saying he wanted to die.

Cac Pedroza could have stayed with other relatives, but didn't want to leave. He stared at the ground when asked why.

"I would be lost if I left," he said. "I don't know how to live anywhere else."

Officials blamed a current and former mayor for diverting a river that runs along the base of the hillside, saying it eroded the slope. Both have denied responsibility and are out on bail.

For survivors, the psychological scars have not faded.

Samuel Morales, 43, lost his wife and three children in the mudslide.

Unable to find the body of his son, Kevin Samuel, after hours of digging with a shovel, Morales watched as backhoes and bulldozers were brought in.

He saw his son's body brought up by a backhoe.

"The boy came up whole; he was hanging on the claw of the backhoe," Morales recalled. "But when the machine pulled him out, his head shattered," leaving the father to pick up the remains of the skull with his hands.

Morales had buried his family, he thought, when the national forensic agency contacted him six months after the tragedy, saying that more pieces of his wife's body had been found.

He buried those in a second grave niche, next to the first.

"It has been a very hard year, of crying and crying," Morales said.

This Sept. 27, 2016 photo shows the abandoned neighborhood El Cambray, bottom, seen from the the Santa Catarina Pinula cemetery where one can also see downtown Guatemala City, one year after a mudslide unleashed at least 105 million cubic feet (3 million cubic meters) of earth on the neighborhood. The official explanation is that the river that runs along the base of the hillside had been diverted into a channel that eroded the slope. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

This Sept. 27, 2016 photo shows a dog lying in front of an abandoned home in the neighborhood El Cambray in Santa Catarina Pinula on the outskirts of Guatemala City, one year after the neighborhood was destroyed by a mudslide. Officials estimate there are 8,000 places in Guatemala where the threat of floods, mudslides and other disasters make it too risky to live. Yet none of those communities has been successfully relocated in the year since the disaster. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

This Sept. 27, 2016 photo shows abandoned homes in the El Cambray neighborhood, where a deadly landslide hit one year ago in Santa Catarina Pinula on the outskirts of Guatemala City. Resident Sonia Ramos is one of those who refuses to leave. She lives only about 50 yards (meters) from the edge of the mudslide, and has been told her house is unsafe. We have no place else to go, Ramos said. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

In this Sept. 20, 2016 photo, Carlos Cac Pedroza, 18, who lost his mother and seven of brothers in a mudslide one year ago, poses for a portrait in the El Cambray neighborhood of Santa Catarina Pinula where the mudslide destroyed the area on, still his home on the outskirts of Guatemala City. Another resident who ignored the mandatory evacuation order took in Pedrozo after seeing him go to the barren spot where his familys house once stood, lie down and toss dirt on himself, saying he wanted to die. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

This Sept. 27, 2016 photo shows a car parked in the abandoned neighborhood of El Cambray in Santa Catarina Pinula on the outskirts of Guatemala City, one year after a mudslide destroyed the neighborhood. The area is cordoned off, barred by a red gate under a mandatory evacuation order that has been ignored by a half-dozen frightened souls who fled when reporters arrived. Like many others, they apparently cannot afford to live anywhere else. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

This Sept. 27, 2016 photo shows the street address and light meter of a home in the abandoned neighborhood El Cambray in Santa Catarina Pinula on the outskirts of Guatemala City, one year after a mudslide destroyed the neighborhood. The 181 homes that were supposed to be built for the survivors of Cambray II havent been built yet. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

This Sept. 27, 2016 photo shows a man dismantling the roof of an abandoned home in the neighborhood El Cambray in Santa Catarina Pinula on the outskirts of Guatemala City, one year after a mudslide destroyed the neighborhood. The government budgeted about $2.6 million to build the new homes on a 10-block parcel of land that was seized from a convicted drug trafficker. But for bureaucratic reasons, only about 30 homes have been constructed so far. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

This Sept. 27, 2016 photo shows men searching abandoned homes for things to sell in the neighborhood El Cambray in Santa Catarina Pinula on the outskirts of Guatemala City, one year after a mudslide destroyed the neighborhood. The government budgeted about $2.6 million to build new homes on a 10-block parcel of land that was seized from a convicted drug trafficker. But for bureaucratic reasons, only about 30 homes have been constructed so far. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

This Sept. 20, 2016 photo shows abandoned homes in the neighborhood El Cambray in Santa Catarina Pinula on the outskirts of Guatemala City, one week after a mudslide destroyed the neighborhood. Despite two weeks of digging following the Oct. 1, 2015, disaster, when an unstable hillside collapsed on the squatter community, at least 70 people still remain missing, presumably buried forever under soil considered too unstable for further digging. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

This Sept. 23, 2016 photo shows children with signs that read in Spanish "No more false promises," left, and "What happened with what you promised us Mr. President," outside the Communications and Infrastructure Ministry in Guatemala City. The 181 homes that were supposed to be built for the mudslide survivors of Cambray II, far from the looming brow of the half-collapsed hill, havent been built yet. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

In this Sept. 21, 2016 photo, Samuel Morales gets emotional as he visits the graves of his family at the cemetery in Santa Catarina Pinula on the outskirts of Guatemala City. Samuel's wife and three sons died when their home was buried by a landslide one year ago. It has been a very hard year, of crying and crying, Morales said. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

This Sept. 20, 2016 photo shows a child's room decorated with handprints inside an abandoned home in the neighborhood El Cambray in Santa Catarina Pinula on the outskirts of Guatemala City, one year after a mudslide destroyed the neighborhood. The mandatory evacuation order was ignored by a half-dozen residents who apparently cannot afford to live anywhere else, and for the survivors, the psychological scares have not faded. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
NTSB has yet to interview injured engineer in deadly crash

HOBOKEN, N.J. (AP)  National Transportation Safety Board investigators held off questioning the engineer in the deadly Hoboken train crash because of his injuries Friday and struggled to lift clues from the train's black box recorders.

Authorities want to know why the NJ Transit commuter train with engineer Thomas Gallagher at the controls smashed through a steel-and-concrete bumper and hurtled into the station's waiting area Thursday morning. A woman on the platform was killed, and more than 100 others were injured.

NTSB vice chair T. Bella Dinh-Zarr said the board, the lead agency in the investigation, has been "in touch" with Gallagher, but "unfortunately, as you may know, he was injured, so we're scheduling the interview with him."

This Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016 photo provided by a passenger who was on the train when it crashed shows wreckage at the Hoboken, N.J. rail station. The commuter train barreled into the station during the morning rush hour, coming to a halt in a covered area between the station's indoor waiting area and the platform. (AP Photo)

She said blood and urine were taken from him and sent for testing, standard procedure in train accidents.

However, a government official said that investigators from one of the other agencies taking part in the probe interviewed Gallagher three times Friday. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity, would not disclose what Gallagher said but described him as cooperative.

Meanwhile, the NTSB retrieved the event recorder that was in the locomotive at the rear of the train but hasn't been able to download its data and has gone to the manufacturer for help, Dinh-Zarr said. The event recorder contains speed and braking information.

The NTSB also hasn't been able to extract a recorder from the forward-facing video camera in the train's mangled first car, Dinh-Zarr said. She said the wreckage cannot be safely entered yet because it is under a collapsed section of the station's roof.

Investigators were also reviewing security video from the station, setting out to inspect the nearby tracks, and gathering records on the crew members' training, scheduling and health, Dinh-Zarr said.

The engineer, conductor and brakeman "have been very cooperative," she said.

Gallagher, 48, a NJ Transit engineer for about 18 years, was pulled from the wreckage, treated at a hospital and released. Authorities have given no details on his injuries.

"The one thing we know for sure is that the train came into the station too fast. Why that is, we don't know," New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said. "Was it error by the engineer? Did he have some type of medical emergency or circumstance that rendered him unable to control the train? Was there some equipment failure that didn't allow him to slow down?"

Gallagher's union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said it could not comment because it is taking part in the investigation. The other parties to the investigation are the Federal Railroad Administration, NJ Transit and two other railroad unions.

Witnesses said they did not hear or feel the brakes being applied before the crash. Authorities would not estimate how fast the train was going before it hit the bumper at the end of its track. But the speed limit into the station is 10 mph.

Bumpers are meant mainly to denote the end of a track, not to stop a fast-moving train, said David B. Clarke, who runs the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Some bumpers are designed to absorb the impact if a slow-moving car gets loose, but the maximum speed one can handle can be as low as 5 mph in some cases, he said. Trains are supposed to stop well clear of bumpers, Clarke said.

Falling debris from the crash killed 34-year-old Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, who had just dropped her toddler daughter off at day care before rushing to catch a train. Sixteen of the injured remained hospitalized, two in intensive care.

More than 100,000 people use NJ Transit to commute from New Jersey to New York City each day. The NJ Transit portion of the Hoboken station remained closed Friday, slowing the morning commute.

The wreck has raised questions of whether technology called positive train control would have made a difference if NJ Transit had installed it. The GPS-based system is designed to prevent accidents by automatically slowing or stopping trains that are going too fast.

Railroads are under government orders to install positive train control by the end of 2018. The deadline has been repeatedly extended at the industry's request.

___

Sisak reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press writers David Porter and Dake Kang; Megan Trimble in Philadelphia; Jennifer Peltz in New York; and Joan Lowy in Washington contributed to this report.

New Jersey Transit workers lay down pallets and boards for commuters to walk on a flooded hallway adjacent to the site of a train crash at the Hoboken Terminal, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, in Hoboken, N.J. Commuters are using alternative travel in and out of Hoboken a day after a commuter train crashed into the rail station, killing one person and injuring more than 100 people. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Formerly high-flying Chinese officials sentenced for graft

BEIJING (AP)  Two formerly high-flying Chinese provincial officials were sentenced to prison on Friday for corruption and bribe-taking, the latest targets to fall in President Xi Jinping's years-long campaign against graft at all levels of government and state industry.

The charges against Wan Qingliang and Wang Min reflect the widespread practice of exchanging cash and gifts for jobs and appointments that themselves may offer lucrative opportunities for self-enrichment through corruption.

Wan, former party boss of the southern industrial center of Guangzhou, was sentenced in the southern city of Nanning to life in prison for receiving 110 million yuan ($17 million) over a 14-year period, in exchange for arranging jobs and granting other illegal favors.

In this May 28, 2012 photo, Wan Qingliang, then-Communist Party chief of Guangzhou, speaks at a lawyers' conference in Guangzhou in southern China's Guangdong province. A pair of formerly high-flying Chinese provincial officials, Wan and Wang Min, were sentenced to life in prison Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, for corruption and bribe-taking, the latest targets to fall in President Xi Jinping's years-long campaign against graft at all levels of government and state industry. (Chinatopix via AP)

The Nanning Intermediate People's Court had said earlier that Wan was charged with taking bribes from 15 companies and individuals from 2000 to 2014, when he served in various government positions in Guangdong, one of China's most prosperous provinces of which Guangzhou is the capital.

Meanwhile, a court in the eastern city of Jingbo said Wang, the former Communist Party secretary and top official in the northern transportation hub of Jinan, was sentenced to 12 years after being found guilty of accepting 18 million yuan ($2.7 million) in bribes, either directly or through relatives, to approve real estate projects and arrange jobs and appointments.

Additionally, 2 million yuan ($300,000) of his personal property should be confiscated, the court ruled.

It wasn't clear if either man planned to appeal, although such moves have grown rare as prosecutors sometimes go relatively lightly on defendants in exchange for their cooperation.

Xi has vowed to end corruption and government waste, although critics have accused him of using the campaign to attack political rivals. Some Chinese also complain that the drive has resulted in bureaucratic paralysis as officials refuse to perform certain standard tasks out of fear of being accused of bribe-taking.
Lawyer: Jury should hear about cop's 'auditory exclusion'

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)  A lawyer for a white Oklahoma police officer charged in an unarmed black man's death says she was so hyper-focused on the situation that she didn't hear other officers arrive or the deadly gunshot she fired.

Tulsa officer Betty Shelby experienced what is commonly called "auditory exclusion," a condition in which people in high-stress situations often don't hear sounds around them, attorney Scott Wood said. A not guilty plea to a first-degree manslaughter charge was entered on Shelby's behalf Friday and her next court date was set for Nov. 29.

"She didn't hear the gunshot, didn't hear the sirens coming up behind her just prior to the shot," Wood said Thursday. "And it's not only a common phenomenon described in literature, but it's the No. 1 perceptual distortion by people I have represented who have been involved in shootings  diminished sound or complete auditory exclusion."

FILE - This undated file photo provided by the Tulsa Oklahoma Police Department shows officer Betty Shelby. Police say Tulsa officer Shelby fired the fatal shot that killed Terence Crutcher on Sept. 16, 2016. Shelby's attorney Scott Wood said Thursday, Sept. 29 that she was so hyper-focused on the situation that she didn't hear other officers arrive on the scene or even the deadly gunshot she fired from her handgun. Officer Shelby is expected to enter a not-guilty plea at her arraignment on Friday. (Tulsa Police Department via AP, File)

He said that while Shelby's defense won't hinge on whether she was aware of other officers when she shot 40-year-old Terence Crutcher on Sept. 16, it would be important for jurors to know.

"It's just one of the many facts that have happened, and I don't think our defense turns on whether or not she knew they were there," Wood said.

Auditory exclusion is commonly reported by officers who fire their weapons, said David Klinger, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Klinger, a former Los Angeles police officer who fatally shot a suspect just four months into the job, interviewed 80 law enforcement officers involved in 113 separate cases where they shot citizens. Diminished sound was officers' most commonly experienced perceptual distortion, reported in 82 percent of the cases either before or after the shooting, or in some cases both, his study shows.

"Other researchers have documented the phenomenon of muted sound or full auditory exclusion where you don't hear anything in a variety of circumstances outside of policing," Klinger said.

Other distortions include tunnel vision and altered perception of time, in which situations are experienced in slow motion.

Prosecutors allege in court documents that Shelby "reacted unreasonably" by escalating the situation with Crutcher, who she encountered after coming across his vehicle abandoned in the middle of a north Tulsa street. Videos from a police helicopter and a dashboard camera of the shooting and its aftermath showed Crutcher, who was unarmed, walking away from Shelby with his arms in the air, but the footage does not offer a clear view of when Shelby fired the single shot.

Shelby told investigators Crutcher refused repeated requests to stop and get on his knees and that she feared for her life and thought Crutcher was going to kill her, according to an affidavit filed with the manslaughter charge.

Another officer, who arrived on the scene after Shelby had already drawn her firearm, used a stun gun on Crutcher, but Wood said Shelby never even realized that officer was there until after she fired the deadly shot.

Despite the research, Lori Brown, a professor of sociology at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, said she believes it's dangerous to think a police officer would use auditory exclusion as a possible explanation for killing a man who was not doing anything aggressive.

"My response would be to focus on the research on implicit bias that, sadly, most of us have, even African-Americans, about black men, especially a larger black man and the fact that we tend to see them as threatening even when their behavior is in no way aggressive," Brown said. "This may be why the same behaviors in white men often end peacefully but can result in the death of a black male."

Shelby, 42, faces between four years and life in prison if convicted. She surrendered to authorities after being charged last week and is currently free on $50,000 bond.

Crutcher's shooting came four months after former Tulsa County volunteer sheriff's deputy Robert Bates was sentenced to four years in prison on a second-degree manslaughter conviction in the 2015 death of an unarmed black man. Bates has said he confused his stun gun with his handgun. A police investigator maintained Bates experienced "slip and capture," a high-stress phenomenon in which a person's behavior "slips" off the intended course of action because it's "captured" by a stronger response.

___

Follow Sean Murphy at www.twitter.com/apseanmurphy

Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby is led from the Tulsa County Sheriff's office into a courtroom in the Tulsa County courthouse, in Tulsa, Okla., Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Shelby is charged with first degree manslaughter in the Sept. 16, 2016 killing of Terence Crutcher. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

The Rev. Joey Crutcher, left, and his wife, Leanna Crutcher, right, the parents of Terence Crutcher, are led from a courtroom following the arraignment of Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby in Tulsa, Okla., Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Shelby is charged with first degree manslaughter in the Sept. 16, 2016 killing of Terence Crutcher. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

The Rev. Joey Crutcher, left, the father of Terence Crutcher, and his daughter Tiffany Crutcher, right, the sister of Terence Crutcher, wait in a hallway in the Tulsa County courthouse for the arraignment of Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby in Tulsa, Okla., Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Shelby is charged with first degree manslaughter in the Sept. 16, 2016 killing of Terence Crutcher. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Sept. 11 families can now sue the Saudis but will it matter?

NEW YORK (AP)  Just because Congress has allowed Sept. 11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia over claims it had a role in the terror attacks doesn't mean such a case will ever go before a jury.

Already, a federal judge has blasted the legal case at the heart of the debate as notoriously weak and full of "largely boilerplate" accusations. And the revised law that passed this week over President Barack Obama's veto gives the Justice Department sweeping authority to put the case on hold and fails to eliminate sovereign immunity from protecting Saudi Arabia's assets.

"The bill really is the worst of both worlds  everything Saudi Arabia complained about and very little of what the plaintiffs thought they were getting," said Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor who has closely tracked the litigation for nearly a dozen years.

FILE- In this Sept. 28, 2016 image taken from video and provided by C-SPAN2, the floor of the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington is shown as the Senate acted decisively to override President Barack Obama's veto of Sept. 11 legislation. Although Congress has allowed Sept. 11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia over claims it had a role in the terror attacks, a federal judge has blasted the legal case at the heart of the debate as notoriously weak and full of "largely boilerplate" accusations. And the revised law that passed this week over President Barack Obama's veto gives the Justice Department sweeping authority to put the case on hold and fails to eliminate sovereign immunity from protecting Saudi Arabia assets. (C-SPAN2 via AP, File)

Still, some families are enjoying a victory, including Kathy Owens, whose husband, Peter, died in the 2001 attacks.

"If our government had investigated and prosecuted the financiers of 9/11, we wouldn't have had to do it," said Owens, among a group of victims' relatives who traveled to Washington to stage a rally and work the halls of Congress.

Claims  and the kingdom's denials  of Saudi involvement in the 2001 attacks have swirled for years.

Fifteen of the 19 attackers were Saudis, and U.S. investigators looked into some Saudi diplomats and others with Saudi government ties who had contact with the hijackers after they arrived in the U.S., according to now-declassified documents. The 9/11 Commission report found "no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded" the attacks' al-Qaida masterminded, but the commission also noted "the likelihood" that Saudi-government-sponsored charities did.

So far, hundreds of victims' relatives have signed on to the 12-year-old case, which accuses employees of the Saudi government of directly and knowingly assisting the attack's hijackers and plotters and of fueling al-Qaida's development into a terrorist organization by funding charities that supported them.

U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan last year criticized much of the new evidence that lawyers for families say has emerged to strengthen their claims, including offers to testify at a trial from the imprisoned Zacarias Moussaoui  known as the "20th hijacker."

In tossing out Saudi Arabia as a defendant, Daniels called some of the new claims "entirely conclusory" and others "largely boilerplate." The case was on appeal, but based on Congress' intervention, it will now likely be returned to the lower court, and the same judge.

Still, plaintiffs say just airing their argument in court would be a victory in itself. "We're less interested in any kind of financial gain than we are in bringing the truly guilty into court and making our case known," said Alice Hoagland, who lost her son, Mark Bingham.

But they also are hoping for a financial award: "It's the only tool that I know that we have" to make accountability hit home, Owens said.

The Saudi government has said it has been "wrongfully and morbidly accused of complicity," in fighting extremists and is trying to close their funding channels. Officials staunchly opposed the lawsuit legislation, and Obama has said it "would be detrimental to U.S. national interests."

Plaintiffs such as Owens don't buy that argument: "It's asking us to accept the murder of 3,000 people so we don't get sued someday?" They suggest the administration's real concern is protecting what the families see as an unworthy ally.

But some other 9/11 relatives think it's a mistake to try to cram the complexities of 9/11 into a courtroom.

Donald Goodrich, who lost his son Peter, has "a powerful doubt that any fact not now known will significantly change the picture for me." A civil trial lawyer himself, he notes that a jury would be focusing on a specific aspect of Sept. 11, not weighing it within the broader consideration of international relations and national security.

"I want to leave it where it belongs ... and not color it and potentially tip the balance of it through a private litigation process," Goodrich said. "The things that are needed to keep us safe are so very different from the issues that are going to be tried in the lawsuit."

In this April 20, 2006 photo, Alice Hoagland, whose son Mark Bingham died on United Airline's Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, speaks to reporters in front of U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. Congress has allowed Sept. 11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia over claims it had a role in the terror attacks but some judges have questioned the strength of the case. Plaintiffs like Hoagland say just airing their argument in court would be a victory in itself. "We're less interested in any kind of financial gain than we are in bringing the truly guilty into court and making our case known," she said. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones)
Man charged with murder in University of Illinois shooting

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP)  A Champaign teenager has been charged with murder in a weekend shooting at a party near the University of Illinois campus that killed one and injured three other people.

Robbie Patton was arraigned Friday in Urbana. The 18-year-old appeared by video from the Champaign County Jail and barely spoke as the charges against him were read. Patton answered "yes sir" several times as a judge asked him whether he understood the charges.

Patton unexpectedly turned himself in at the jail late Thursday night.

This undated photo provided by the Illinois Department of Corrections shows Robbie Patton. Champaign police said Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016, that an arrest warrant for a first-degree murder charge has been issued for Patton in the deadly shooting at a party Sunday, Sept. 25 on the University of Illinois campus in Champaign, Ill. (Illinois Department of Corrections via AP)

He is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 22-year-old George Korchev Sunday on Green Street, an area near campus known for bars and restaurants. Three other people were injured.
Obama: Peres won his wars but understood the need for peace

JERUSALEM (AP)  President Barack Obama hailed Shimon Peres Friday as a man who showed the world that justice and hope are at the heart of the Zionist ideal and saw "all people as deserving of dignity and respect."

Wearing a Jewish skullcap as a sign of respect and reverence, Obama said he was the 10th president to fall prey to Peres' charms and that they forged an unlikely friendship, despite the nearly four-decade gap in their ages and starkly different backgrounds.

"It was so surprising to see the two of us, where we had started, talking together in the White House, meeting here in Israel," he said. "I think both of us understood that we were here only because in some way we reflected the magnificent story of our nations."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, talks with US President Barack Obama at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl national cemetery during the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Shimon Peres was being laid to rest on Friday in a ceremony attended by thousands of admirers and dozens of international dignitaries  in a final tribute to a man who personified the history of Israel during a remarkable seven-decade political career and who came to be seen by many as a potent symbol of hopes of Mideast peace. (Menahem Kahana, Pool via AP)

"The last of the founding generation is now gone," Obama said, speaking just to the left of Peres' casket draped in blue and white. Peres died at 93 Wednesday, two weeks after suffering a stroke.

Obama and other world leaders hailed Peres for his vision and his leadership in securing a strong defense. But they also spoke of his never-ending quest for peace. Obama said Peres understood the Palestinians must be seen as equal in dignity to Jews and therefore must be equal in self-determination.

"Shimon never saw his dream of peace fulfilled," noted Obama, speaking at Israel's national cemetery, Mount Herzl.

"The region is going through a chaotic time," the president said. "Threats are ever-present and yet he did not stop dreaming and he did not stop working."

In many ways, he said, Peres reminded him of other giants like Nelson Mandela and Queen Elizabeth, leaders "who speak with depth and knowledge, not in sound bites."

Former President Bill Clinton, in his eulogy, said he was in awe of what he called Peres' endless capacity to move beyond the most crushing setbacks to seize the possibilities of each new day. "He never gave up on anybody; I mean, anybody," Clinton said.

Peres, whose name is synonymous with Israel's history, served stints as prime minister, president and foreign minister. He welcomed Obama on his first trip to Israel as president in 2013, as the two men sought to restart a peace process with the Palestinians that has so far failed.

The United States delegation included Clinton, Secretary of State John Kerry and about 20 members of Congress and several administration officials.

Air Force One landed in Tel Aviv at daybreak Friday, and Obama headed back to the airport as soon as the service ended. He participated in the eulogy portion of the service and walked to the grave site with family members and other world leaders. Obama watched as the coffin was lowered and 10 wreaths were placed next to the grave.

The two leaders shared similar visions for a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Peres' son-in-law and personal physician, Dr. Rafi Walden, said Obama had called the family the night of Peres' death and spoke to Peres' daughter, Tzvia. "We are deeply moved," Walden said.

Obama awarded Peres the Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor, in 2012, saying "Shimon teaches us to never settle for the world as it is."

In turn, Peres bestowed the Medal of Distinction on Obama, making him the first sitting U.S. president to receive Israel's highest civilian honor.

"This award speaks to you, to your tireless work to make Israel strong, to make peace possible," Peres said in 2013. "Your presidency has given the closest ties between Israel and the United States a new height, a sense of intimacy, a vision for the future."

Those who worked with both men said they shared mutual respect and affection.

"Even a man into his 90s, Peres was always thinking about the future," said Dennis Ross, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former adviser to Obama. "I think that captured the president's imagination and added to the respect for him."

Ross, who said he spoke often with Peres during the past three decades, said the Israeli leader believed that Obama's heart was in the right place. But "he wasn't always convinced that the president fully understood the nature of Israel's predicament in the region," Ross said.

U.S. President Barack Obama, center, attends the burial ceremony of former Israeli President Shimon Peres at Mount Herzl Cemetery in Jerusalem, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Shimon Peres was being laid to rest on Friday in a ceremony attended by thousands of admirers and dozens of international dignitaries  in a final tribute to a man who personified the history of Israel during a remarkable seven-decade political career and who came to be seen by many as a potent symbol of hopes of Mideast peace. (Ronen Zvulun, pool via AP)

FILE - In this March 21, 2013 file photo, President Barack Obama and Israeli President Shimon Peres raise their glasses in a toast after Obama received the Israeli Medal of Distinction from Peres during a State Dinner at President's residence in Jerusalem, Israel. Both were Nobel Prize laureates who labored for peace in the Middle East but failed to achieve it. Now, their joint efforts are at an end as President Barack Obama prepares to pay a final tribute to Shimon Peres in Jerusalem. Obama boarded Air Force One Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016, to fly to Israel to join dozens of world leaders at the funeral of Peres, the 93-year-old former prime minister, president and elder statesman. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

FILE - In this June 13, 2012 file photo President Barack Obama looks at Israeli President Shimon Peres after awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a dinner in the East Room of the White House in Washington. Both were Nobel Prize laureates who labored for peace in the Middle East but failed to achieve it. Now, their joint efforts are at an end as President Barack Obama prepares to pay a final tribute to Shimon Peres in Jerusalem. Obama boarded Air Force One Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016, to fly to Israel to join dozens of world leaders at the funeral of Peres, the 93-year-old former prime minister, president and elder statesman. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
TNECD Commissioner Randy Boyd will visit Gestamp on Tuesday as part of Manufacturing Week.

Commissioner Boyd will hear from students involved with Gestamps work-based learning programs as well as Hamilton County and Cleveland city high school students enrolled in robotics-certification classes.

Gestamp Chattanooga 3 (Chassis) is at 4120 Jersey Pike.
2 dead, 15 injured in fire at hospital in western Germany

BERLIN (AP)  Police say two people have died and 15 have been injured in a hospital fire in western Germany.

More than 200 firefighters battled the blaze at Bochum's Bergmannsheil hospital.

Police said in a statement that the fire appeared to have started in a patient's room on the 6th floor at about 2:30 a.m. (0030 GMT) Friday.

Flames emanate from the roof of the Bergmannsheil hospital in Bochum, western Germany, Friday morning, Sept. 30, 2016 after a fire broke out. At least two people died in the fire. (Marcel Kusch/dpa via AP)

The Bergmannsheil hospital was built in 1888 to treat workers injured in the coal mines of the surrounding Ruhr area. It is considered one of the world's first specialist accident and emergency clinics.

Fire fighters spay water onto the roof of the Bergmannsheil hospital in Bochum, western Germany, Friday morning, Sept. 30, 2016 after a fire broke out. At least two people died in the fire. (Marcel Kusch/dpa via AP)

The photo shows the destroyed roof of the Bergmannsheil hospital in Bochum, western Germany, Friday morning, Sept. 30, 2016 after a fire broke out. At least two people died in the fire. (Marcel Kusch/dpa via AP)

Fire fighters stand in front of the Bergmannsheil hospital in Bochum, western Germany, Friday morning, Sept. 30, 2016 after a fire broke out. At least two people died in the fire. (Marcel Kusch/dpa via AP)
Pope in Georgia: Vaguely Russia rebuke, warm Georgia welcome

TBILISI, Georgia (AP)  Pope Francis issued a vague rebuke to Russia on Friday and received an unexpectedly warm welcome from the leader of the Georgian Orthodox Church as he mixed geopolitics with religion on the first day of a three-day trip to the Caucasus.

During a speech with the Georgian president at his side, Francis insisted on Georgia's "sovereign rights" in a veiled reference to two breakaway regions over which Russia has effective control. Francis backed Georgia's demand that residents who fled during a brief 2008 war with Russia be allowed to return home.

But the appeal was in some ways dwarfed by the surprisingly heartfelt welcome Francis received from Patriarch Ilia II, the ailing Orthodox leader who is the most respected figure in Georgia. Crouched over his cane, Ilia welcomed Francis as "my dear brother."

Pope Francis takes a seat during his meeting with Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Iliya II in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

"May the Lord bless the Catholic Church of Rome," Ilia said in toasting the pope at the Orthodox patriarchate. "May the Lord give a long life to Your Holiness, Pope Francis."

It was a vastly different welcome than in 1999, when St. John Paul II visited Georgia. At that time, Catholic-Orthodox tensions were so high that the Georgian Orthodox Church urged its faithful to stay away from the pope's Mass. Ilia, who has been patriarch since 1977, referred to John Paul as a head of state, not a religious figure, and declined to share his call for improved ecumenical relations.

This time around, Ilia is sending an official delegation to Francis' Mass on Saturday. And on Friday, he stressed the ancient ties of their churches.

"We have lived in brotherly love for 20 centuries. I must say that we also had many problems, but we have overcome those problems with prayers and God's blessing," Ilia said.

Georgian analysts say the turn-around in attitude has nothing to do with personalities but is based on Georgia's geopolitical ambitions. Georgia is anxious to join NATO and is pursuing an eventual membership in the 28-nation European Union. The papal visit is being seen in Georgia as the government's attempt to win allies among Europe's Catholic nations.

Not all in the Georgian church shared Ilia's view, however. A few dozen hard-line Orthodox faithful opposed to Francis' visit demonstrated outside the airport and also outside the Chaldean church where Francis held a peace prayer for the people of Syria and Iraq. The demonstrators toted banners that read: "The Vatican is a spiritual aggressor," and "Death of papism."

But in another sign of warm ties, the Georgian Church defended its decision to host the pope and criticized the protests.

"We would like to stress that we view as unacceptable the negative statements made in public by some men of the cloth of the Georgian Orthodox Church regarding this official visit, and we urge them and everyone to be calm," the Georgian Orthodox Church said in a statement. "The pope is definitely conducting the Mass for Catholics, and we cannot consider this an act of proselytism."

Francis has made a point of engaging as many Orthodox patriarchs as possible, seeking to mount a common Christian front in the face of attacks against Christians by Islamic extremists in the Middle East.

In his remarks upon arrival Friday, Francis never once mentioned Russia or the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s. Russia effectively gained complete control over both regions after a brief war with Georgia in 2008. Georgia considers the territories "occupied" and has demanded that the more than 200,000 people displaced by the fighting be allowed to return home.

Francis backed Georgia's call, saying the region's different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups should be allowed to "coexist peacefully in their homeland, or to freely return to that land if for some reason they have been forced to leave it."

"I hope that civil authorities will continue to show concern for the situation of these persons, and that they will fully commit themselves to seeking tangible solutions in spite of any unresolved political questions," he added.

A 2014 U.N. report said authorities in control of South Ossetia and areas around it still don't let ethnic Georgians return to their former homes, apart from one district. The report also spoke of South Ossetia's de-facto authorities detaining Georgians crossing into the areas of their control, such as when farmers go to retrieve stray cattle.

Francis has been outspoken in denouncing the plight of refugees and insisting on their rights to both seek asylum abroad or to return home when security conditions permit. He has used many of his trips to press the point, praying for dead migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and bringing home with him a dozen Syrian refugees from Lesbos, Greece.

Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili thanked the Holy See for refusing to recognize what he called Russia's "occupation."

Georgia is overwhelmingly Orthodox, and Catholics represent less than 3 percent of the population. But residents  both Catholic and Orthodox  seemed pleased that Francis' visit showed a united Christian front against Islamic religious extremism.

"I think in the 21st century, when such things are happening in the world, when in many regions Christians face the threat of almost complete annihilation, we should all get united in order to protect peace," said Lali Sadatierashvili, a Catholic who raised in western Georgia, where she had to hide her beliefs during Soviet times. "Pope Francis' visit to Georgia is a call for peace, a call to overcome our differences."

Bachuka Gelashvili, a 50-year-old engineer, waited Friday outside the Kashveti church for the pope's visit.

"Yes, there are people among us Orthodox who are against (the visit) but this is all church internal politics," Gelashvili said. "I am and will remain Orthodox but it should not stop our contacts. We share the same God."

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Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.

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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

Pope Francis walks with Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Ilia II after his landing in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Pope Francis is flanked by Vatican Spokesman Greg Burke during his flight to Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Pope Francis is wrapping up a Caucasus pilgrimage that began in June in Armenia and ends this weekend with a visit to two other countries with tiny Catholic communities: the Orthodox Christian bastion of Georgia and the largely Shiite Muslim nation of Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Francis salutes reporters during his flight to Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Pope Francis is wrapping up a Caucasus pilgrimage that began in June in Armenia and ends this weekend with a visit to two other countries with tiny Catholic communities: the Orthodox Christian bastion of Georgia and the largely Shiite Muslim nation of Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Francis meets with Patriarch Ilia II, head of Georgia's church in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Pope Francis is wrapping up a Caucasus pilgrimage that began in June in Armenia and ends this weekend with a visit to two other countries with tiny Catholic communities: the Orthodox Christian bastion of Georgia and the largely Shiite Muslim nation of Azerbaijan. (L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP)

Pope Francis, right, meets Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Pope Francis is wrapping up a Caucasus pilgrimage that began in June in Armenia and ends this weekend with a visit to two other countries with tiny Catholic communities: the Orthodox Christian bastion of Georgia and the largely Shiite Muslim nation of Azerbaijan. (L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP)

Pope Francis presents Georgian President Georgi Margvelashvili and his wife Maka Chichua, right, with a souvenir during their meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (Leli Blagonravova/Presidential Press Service via AP)

Pope Francis reads a speech during his meeting with Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Iliya II, center right, in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Pope Francis meets with Patriarch Ilia II, head of Georgia's church in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Pope Francis is wrapping up a Caucasus pilgrimage that began in June in Armenia and ends this weekend with a visit to two other countries with tiny Catholic communities: the Orthodox Christian bastion of Georgia and the largely Shiite Muslim nation of Azerbaijan. (L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP)

A gust of wind blows Pope Francis' mantle as he delivers his speech in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/Shakh Aivazov)

Pope Francis delivers a speech as Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili, right, listens to him, in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/Shakh Aivazov)

Pope Francis listens to Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/Shakh Aivazov)

Pope Francis delivers a speech as Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili sits beside him, in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/Shakh Aivazov)

Pope Francis holds his skull cap while listening to a speech of Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/Shakh Aivazov)

Bishops follow Pope Francis' meeting with the Assyro-Chaldean community in the Chaldean catholic church of St. Simon Bar Sabbae in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Francis meets the Assyro-Chaldean community in the Chaldean catholic church of St. Simon Bar Sabbae in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Pope Francis issued a vague rebuke to Russia on Friday and received an unexpectedly warm welcome from the leader of the Georgian Orthodox Church as he mixed geopolitics with religion on the first day of a three-day trip to the Caucasus. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Francis listens to Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Iliya II during their meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Iliya II, right, presents Pope Francis with an icon during their meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Pope Francis arrives for a meeting with the Assyro-Chaldean community in the Chaldean catholic church of St. Simon Bar Sabbae in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Pope Francis issued a vague rebuke to Russia on Friday and received an unexpectedly warm welcome from the leader of the Georgian Orthodox Church as he mixed geopolitics with religion on the first day of a three-day trip to the Caucasus. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Francis holds a glass during his meeting with Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Iliya II in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

The Georgian flag waves as Pope Francis arrives to meet with Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Iliya II, in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Pope Francis meets with Patriarch Ilia II, head of Georgia's church in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Pope Francis is wrapping up a Caucasus pilgrimage that began in June in Armenia and ends this weekend with a visit to two other countries with tiny Catholic communities: the Orthodox Christian bastion of Georgia and the largely Shiite Muslim nation of Azerbaijan. (L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP)

Pope Francis frees a dove after meeting with the Assyro-Chaldean community in the Chaldean catholic church of St. Simon Bar Sabbae in Tbilisi, Georgia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Georgian President Georgi Margvelashvili, center right, welcomes Pope Francis in his office in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. (Leli Blagonravova/Presidential Press Service via AP)
Syrian monitor: Russian airstrikes killed 9,300 in past year

BEIRUT (AP)  A year of Russian airstrikes on areas outside government control in Syria have killed more than 9,000 people, displaced tens of thousands and caused widespread destruction, an opposition monitoring group said Friday.

On Sept. 30 last year, Russia began an air campaign backing the ground forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, turning the balance of power in his favor in many areas  including the northern province of Aleppo and the suburbs of the capital Damascus.

Opposition activists have blamed Russia for most of the recent airstrikes against rebel-held neighborhoods of east Aleppo city that have killed more than 320 civilians in the past two weeks and demolished many buildings.

In this photo provided by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, Syrians inspect damaged buildings after airstrikes by government helicopters on the rebel-held Aleppo neighborhood of Mashhad, Syria, Tuesday Sept. 27, 2016. A year after Russia waded into the war in Syria, aiming to flex its national security muscles and prop up beleaguered Syrian President Bashar Assad, Moscow appears no closer to one of its military goals: getting the U.S. to coordinate combat operations in the civil war. And prospects of a diplomatic resolution seem dim. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP)

The anniversary came as violence in different parts of Syria claimed more lives Friday, mainly in Aleppo city where at least 12 people were killed and dozens more wounded.

A Syrian opposition monitoring group that tracks Syria's civil war said a year of Russian airstrikes have killed 9,364 people in the war-torn country.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead include 3,804 civilians, among them 906 children. The dead also include 2,746 members of the Islamic State group and 2,814 from other rebel and militant groups, including al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria.

Russia on Friday is marking one year since it launched its air campaign in Syria in support of Assad. In light of that, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a warning to Russians abroad about possible "provocations," urging them to exercise caution.

A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia's involvement in Syria is justified by the fact that militants have not managed to capture the capital, Damascus. Marking the 1st anniversary, Dmitry Peskov said that Putin never gave a timeline for how long the bombing mission might last and still won't.

Russia's declared goal was to support the Syrian government of Russia's long-term ally Assad and Peskov insisted that in that respect the operation has been a success.

If it wasn't for the Russian involvement, the Islamic State group and other "terrorists" would have been "sitting in Damascus," he told reporters.

Regarding figures cited by the Observatory on casualties as a result of the airstrikes, he said he would not comment reports by "a group based in the U.K." The Observatory relies on a network of activists on the ground inside Syria.

Also Friday, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow is doing all it can together with the Syrian government to help the U.N. arrange weekly pauses in Aleppo to deliver humanitarian goods. "It's the Nusra-controlled people in eastern Aleppo who refuse," he said referring to the al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham Front, which used to be known as the Nusra Front.

Speaking to BBC about his country's military operations in Syria, Lavrov said: "We are not using any munition which is prohibited by the United Nations. I can assure."

The backers of the opposition blasted the Russian intervention.

"Russia claims to be committed to a political solution in Syria, yet since its military intervention, the brutal Assad regime still clings to power. Russia's action has not curbed the regime's atrocities," said Britain's Special Representative to Syria, Gareth Bayley. "Russia has proved to be either unwilling or unable to influence Assad and must bear its responsibility for the Assad regime's atrocities."

A video posted on the opposition's Shaam News Network described Russia's military operations in Syria as "a year of crimes." It said that after a year of airstrikes Russia has not been able to defeat the insurgents.

Russia continues to blame the U.S. government and U.S.-backed insurgents for the collapse of a cease-fire earlier this month after only one week. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in a phone call Friday that Washington must force the factions it supports to split from the Fatah al-Sham Front, according to Lavrov's office. The front is deeply intertwined with multiple other factions regarded by Washington as moderates.

The State Department has threatened to end all diplomatic discussions with Moscow on Syria if the assault on Aleppo continues. On Friday State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters that the threat remains on the table.

"We're on the verge because we have not yet seen them take the type of actions we are looking for them to take," Toner said.

"This is on life support," he said of U.S.-Russian diplomacy. "But it's not flat-lined yet."

A year after the airstrikes began, Syrian troops pushed into rebel-held eastern Aleppo, a move that was highly unlikely before the Russian airstrikes began.

The Observatory said government forces captured a hospital in the city a day after regaining control of a nearby Palestinian refugee camp.

The Syrian military said government forces are strengthening their positions in the largely abandoned Handarat refugee camp and took control on Friday of the Kindi hospital, an unused structure that has been damaged by years of war.

The Observatory said the hospital is on the northern edge of the city, just 2 kilometers (1.3 miles) from a major intersection north of Aleppo known as the Gondol roundabout.

State TV also reported intense fighting in the central Suleiman al-Halaby area where it said troops captured several buildings. The area is home to a main water station that supplies Aleppo, Syria's largest city and former commercial center, with drinking water.

The Local Coordination Committees, another monitoring group, said eight soldiers were killed in clashes with rebels near the water station.

Syrian government forces have been on the offensive in Aleppo for days under the cover of intense airstrikes. State news agency SANA said rebels shelled the government-held part of Aleppo, killing 20 and wounding 55.

The Civil Defense volunteer first responder forces said airstrikes in Aleppo killed 24 people, adding that search operations are continuing to recover more people trapped under the rubble. The Observatory said Friday's airstrikes on several rebel-held neighborhoods in the city killed 12 adding that the death toll was expected to rise.

The U.N. health agency decried an "unfathomable" situation for medical care in rebel-held parts of Aleppo, pleading for a halt to the violence that has prevented aid and support from entering.

Dr. Rick Brennan, emergency risk director for the World Health Organization, said the security situation is too dangerous for outside medical personnel to enter rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

Speaking Friday to reporters in Geneva, Brennan appealed for permission to evacuate the sick and injured. He said 846 people have been wounded, including 261 children, in the last couple of weeks.

He said fewer than 30 doctors doing work that's "beyond heroic" are now in eastern Aleppo, where at least 250,000 people live under siege.

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Twitter, 'lies' and videotape: Trump shames beauty queen

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP)  Plunging deeper into campaign controversy, Donald Trump publicly shamed a former beauty queen on Friday for her "disgusting" sexual past and then  in one of presidential history's more bizarre moments  encouraged Americans to watch a "sex tape" he said would support his case.

The tweet-storm that Trump launched into at 3:20 a.m. started a day of did-that-just-happen moments that ended with Clinton's campaign calling Trump an adult film star. Even many of Trump's supporters shook their heads at their candidate's latest outburst, worried it could further hurt him among the nation's women, many of them already skeptical, whose votes he'll badly need to win election.

"Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?" read a missive from Trump posted on Twitter at 5:30 a.m. That referred to 1996 Miss Universe Alicia Machado, a Venezuela-born woman whose weight gain he has said created terrible problems for the pageant he formerly owned.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump signs a hat after a rally, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, in Novi, Mich. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Unsurprisingly, Trump's pre-dawn Twitter tirade ricocheted across the campaign trail.

Trump's campaign accused the media and Hillary Clinton of colluding to set him up for fresh condemnation, to which Clinton retorted, "His latest twitter meltdown is unhinged, even for him."

Machado took to Facebook to say his tweets were part of a pattern of "demoralizing women," calling them "cheap lies with bad intentions." Planned Parenthood said it showed that Trump's "misogyny knows no bounds." And Clinton said they showed anew why someone with Trump's temperament "should not be anywhere near the nuclear codes."

With less than 40 days left in the election, Trump's broadside threw his campaign into a fresh round of second-guessing the candidate's instincts and confusion about what to do next. To believers in traditional political norms, it seemed like the opposite of what was needed to win over females, Hispanics and young Americans whose support could well determine the election.

Shaming Machado over intimate details from her past could be particularly risky as Trump tries to win over more female voters, many of whom are turned away by such personal attacks. It also risks calling further attention to the thrice-married Trump's own history with women.

What kind of a man, Clinton asked, "stays up all night to smear a woman with lies and conspiracy theories?"

Even Trump's most vocal allies seemed at a loss for words.

"He's being Trump. I don't have any comment beyond that," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a top supporter. Generally chatty and occasionally critical of Trump, Gingrich said tersely that Trump sometimes does "strange things," but that Clinton lies. "I'll let you decide which is worse for America."

But Trump's inner circle followed his lead by refusing to concede any missteps. Trump didn't mention the tweets Friday evening as he rallied supporters in Michigan. Instead, he returned to Twitter to invoke Clinton's famous ad from her 2008 campaign portraying her as the best candidate to pick up an urgent call at the White House at 3 a.m.

"For those few people knocking me for tweeting at three o'clock in the morning, at least you know I will be there, awake, to answer the call!" Trump wrote.

Machado has been thrust to center stage in the campaign since Clinton noted Monday in the first debate that Trump had mocked her publicly for gaining weight after she won Miss Universe. If that was a trap laid by Clinton, the irrepressible Trump dug himself deeper the next day by saying Machado's "massive" weight gain had been "a real problem."

That gave Clinton's campaign the opening it wanted. Her team circulated videos featuring Machado accusing Trump of destroying her self-confidence and arranged for reporters to interview her, just as many voters were starting to cast early ballots. Clinton's spokesman said she called Machado Friday to thank her for her courage.

Said Trump spokeswoman Jessica Ditto, "This is the single biggest coordinated media attack in history."

His Twitter taunts referred to footage from a Spanish reality show in 2005 in which Machado was a contestant and appeared on camera in bed with a male contestant. The images are grainy and do not include nudity, though Machado later acknowledged in the Hispanic media that she was having sex in the video.

Muddying the waters: an explicit 2000 Playboy video with a cameo by Trump. In a short clip posted on the website BuzzFeed, Trump pours a bottle of champagne on a Playboy-branded limo on a New York street, surrounded by a gaggle of women.

"There's been a lot of talk about sex tapes today and in a strange turn of events only one adult film has emerged today, and its star is Donald Trump," said Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill, adding he hadn't seen the film.

Clinton's campaign has highlighted Machado's status as a new U.S. citizen and her plans to cast her first vote for the former secretary of state. But spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said Clinton did not help Machado become a citizen.

For Republicans, the outburst seemed to foreclose any possibility that Trump, in the campaign's final weeks, might reinvent himself as someone with the discipline and restraint that many voters want in their commander in chief. Trump's allies have implored him to stick to attacks on Clinton's family foundation, her emails or her long history as a political insider, critiques that fall further out of view whenever he sparks a new controversy.

In another risky move, Trump warned voters this week that a Clinton victory would bring former President Bill Clinton's sex scandal back to the White House. The fresh rehash of the 1990s Monica Lewinsky scandal came despite Trump's insistence that he's been courageously restrained in not bringing it up.

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Lederman reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Jersey City, New Jersey, Catherine Lucey in Fort Pierce, Florida, and Sigal Ratner-Arias in New York contributed to this report.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump visits the Kent County Republican Headquarters, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, in Grand Rapids, Mich. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton smiles as she meets attendees during a campaign stop in Fort Pierce, Fla., Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016, in Bedford, N.H. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Russia fighting in Syria for a year, still at odds with US

WASHINGTON (AP)  A year after Russia waded into the war in Syria, aiming to flex its national security muscles and prop up beleaguered Syrian President Bashar Assad, Moscow appears no closer to one of its military goals, getting the U.S. to cooperate in the skies or on the ground in the civil war, and prospects for a diplomatic resolution seem dim.

The yearlong offensive of airstrikes and ground combat in Syria, however, has showcased some of Moscow's newer military capabilities and underscored President Vladimir Putin's willingness to go to war to protect an ally  particularly one that hosts a critical Russian base on the Mediterranean Sea. More broadly it put Russia at the center of the conflict, which provided an opening for diplomatic cooperation between the U.S. and Russia to end the civil war. But it also further complicated the U.S.-led campaign to wipe out Islamic State militants who created their safe haven amid the chaos.

The diplomacy was collapsing this week with the U.S. threatening to end all Syria-related cooperation unless the bombardment of Aleppo stopped and Russia responding that the U.S. was encouraging extremist attacks on Russian assets.

In this photo provided by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, taken Sept. 23, 2016, a destroyed ambulance is seen outside the Syrian Civil Defense main center after airstrikes in Ansari neighborhood in the rebel-held part of eastern Aleppo, Syria. A year after Russia waded into the war in Syria, aiming to flex its national security muscles and prop up beleaguered Syrian President Bashar Assad, Moscow appears no closer to one of its military goals: getting the U.S. to coordinate combat operations in the civil war. And prospects of a diplomatic resolution seem dim. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP)

For its part, Russia has demanded that the U.S separate the anti-Assad rebels it has supported from al-Qaida-linked militant groups, who often intermingle. But the U.S. has been unable to do so, and instead has said it remains focused on defeating the Islamic State in Syria.

The bickering and diplomatic stalemates have threatened to stymie other U.S.-Russian issues, such as economic sanctions or the annexation of Crimea.

As members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday demanded to know what the Obama administration's "plan B" was for Syria, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out the administration's view of Russia's position.

"The leverage (the U.S. has) is the consequences for Russia of being stuck in a quagmire that is going to have a number of profoundly negative effects," Blinken said. Among them, he said, is that Russia will be seen throughout the world as complicit with Syrian President Bashar Assad as well as with Hezbollah and Iran "in the slaughter of Sunni Muslims," the country's largest religious group.

Under blistering criticism from senators, Blinken said the administration was "actively considering other options" for how to end the bloodshed. The civil war in Syria has cost 500,000 lives and caused the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

A year ago, worried about its naval base on Syria's coast and determined to shore up Assad, Moscow began to build up its military in Syria, sending in equipment, aircraft, fighter jets and troops.

Against a backdrop of an early failed U.S. program to train moderate Syrian forces, Putin began launching airstrikes in Syria on Sept. 30, 2015. Moscow insisted that it was targeting the Islamic State extremists. But in the ensuing months, the Russian airstrikes have pounded rebel strongholds and civilians, largely in areas where there is no Islamic State presence. According to U.S. and coalition officials, as well as humanitarian groups on the ground, the Russians have bombed hospitals, schools and recently a U.S. aid convoy, killing throngs of innocent civilians either deliberately or inadvertently, because of their use of powerful but imprecise "dumb" bombs.

Concerned about safety in the increasingly crowded skies over Syria, the U.S. set up a communications link with Russia to de-conflict the airspace and reduce the risk of collisions. That minor cooperation will continue even if the prospects of other cooperation are ruled out.

According to U.S. officials familiar with the discussions, the Russians made it clear to the Pentagon from the start that a key long-term goal was joint military coordination with the U.S.  a move military officials and others stridently opposed.

Russian leaders, said one senior U.S. official, had a singular focus during the talks with defense officials and that was to be able to project themselves as military allies with the United States..

The official was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly so spoke on condition of anonymity.

Senior Russian officials from Putin on down have said that Russia got involved in Syria to prevent the country from slipping into complete chaos and to combat terrorism.

Russia hoped to be able to shift the main focus from Ukraine to Syria in Russia-West relations and make itself an indispensable player in Syria, Russian officials have said.

"Putin had several objectives entering into Syria; one was to demonstrate Russia is a global power," said Evelyn Farkas, a former U.S. deputy assistant defense secretary who is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington. "He needed to show his people that Russia is an important nation."

But last week, the negotiations to set up a joint military implementation center collapsed, and it became clear that Russia was not going to make good on its publicly stated effort to control Assad or force the government to abide by the cease-fire.

"I think this has proven to be tougher than the Russians expected," said Derek Chollet, a former assistant defense secretary for international affairs and now a senior adviser at the German Marshall Fund. "I see no evidence that Russia's intervention in Syria is increasing its diplomatic or political influence" around the world.

"In fact, if anything, what I've heard from Europeans is that the intervention in Syria last year was so shocking in its brutality that it quashed any sort of momentum there was to lift sanctions against Russia in Ukraine," he said.

Meanwhile, the fighting, according to experts, has revealed an array of technological and strategic weaknesses within Russia's military and its command structure, including its lack of precision targeting, a cumbersome decision-making process and, at times, limited real-time awareness about what is going on at the battlefield.

The U.S.-led coalition has also had its share of mishaps on the battlefield, including an airstrike that mistakenly hit dozens of Syrian soldiers just as the cease-fire began earlier this month  plunging the talks into turmoil.

Russia's military campaign in Syria, however, did allow Moscow to showcase in combat for the first time its long-range cruise missiles, launched from the air and from the sea.

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Associated Press writers Richard Lardner in Washington and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

In this photo provided by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, Syrians inspect damaged buildings after airstrikes by government helicopters on the rebel-held Aleppo neighborhood of Mashhad, Syria, Tuesday Sept. 27, 2016. A year after Russia waded into the war in Syria, aiming to flex its national security muscles and prop up beleaguered Syrian President Bashar Assad, Moscow appears no closer to one of its military goals: getting the U.S. to coordinate combat operations in the civil war. And prospects of a diplomatic resolution seem dim. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP)
French military bolsters Iraq presence for Mosul offensive

PARIS (AP)  French warplanes are flying over Iraq after the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier rejoined the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State extremists  and as the coalition prepares to try to take back the key city of Mosul.

France, which has suffered repeated attacks at home from IS-linked extremists, is ramping up its military presence in Iraq ahead of the offensive in Mosul, the largest city held by the extremists. The Iraqi government has been gearing up with support from the United States and other allies for the mission, which could mark a turning point in the fight against IS.

A French defense official said Friday's mission "in no way" constitutes the beginning of the battle for Mosul. The French official, speaking anonymously in line with defense policy, said preparations are still underway with the U.S. and other partners to coordinate the Mosul offensive. She would not provide details of Friday's operation for the security of the pilots.

FILE - In this Jan.12, 2016 file photo, a Rafale jet fighter is catapulted on France's flagship Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. French warplanes are flying over Iraq Friday Sept. 30, 2016 after France's Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier rejoined the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State extremists and the coalition prepares to try to take back the city of Mosul. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)

French planes have flown 32 missions over the past week, with Rafale jets destroying four targets with airstrikes and backing up Iraqi ground forces, according to a French military statement.

The Charles de Gaulle returned to the zone this week after undergoing maintenance in France, and is now on its third mission in the region since the French military started targeting IS two years ago in Iraq.

France expanded its airstrikes to IS targets in Syria last year. After an attack on Nice on Bastille Day in July killed 86, French President Francois Hollande ordered an artillery battery sent to Iraq to bolster the operation.
Major attacks by US designated Pakistani militant group

ISLAMABAD (AP)  Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, or the Freedom Movement, a breakaway Taliban faction and a U.S.-designated terrorist group, has claimed responsibility for many of the most brutal militant attacks carried out in recent weeks and months in Pakistan.

Here is a look at some of the major attacks the group has claimed.

 Sept 18: Gunmen killed three Pakistani soldiers in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

In this Monday, March 28, 2016, photo, Pakistani Christians mourn deaths of their family members and friends in a deadly suicide bombing claimed responsibility by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, in Lahore, Pakistan. One of Pakistans most vicious militant groups, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, has dramatically stepped its attacks over the past month in what appears to be a backlash to military operations against it. It has eclipsed the Pakistani Taliban as the main militant group in a country where multiple armed extremist factions operate. (AP Photo/B.K. Bangash)

 Sept 16: A suicide attack killed 36 worshippers in a Sunni mosque in the northwestern tribal region of Mohmand.

 Sept 13: A roadside bomb killed two policemen in the southwestern city of Quetta.

 Sept 13: A suicide attack in the southwestern city of Shikarpur was prevented by a police officer, who later died.

 Sept 11: Gunmen killed a police inspector and a doctor in Peshawar.

 Sept 8: Gunmen killed two policemen in the Arabian Sea port city of Karachi.

 Sept 8: Four policemen were shot and killed in Peshawar

 Sept. 2: Twin suicide attacks on a Christian colony near Peshawar

Sept. 2: Bombing at a district court in northwest Mardan killed at least 12 people.

Sept. 2: Two security forces killed in Mohmand tribal area.

Aug. 8: Suicide bomber attacks hospital in Quetta killing nearly 80 people.

March 27: Suicide bombing hit Christians celebrating Easter in the city of Lahore, killing more than 70 people.

March 7: Suicide bombing killed 17 people and wounds 31 in a crowded court in the northwest.
Albania police seize 3 tonnes of cannabis, 13,000 plants

TIRANA, Albania (AP)  Albanian police say they have seized three metric tons of cannabis and destroyed some 13,000 plants in a northern district.

A statement Friday said that a day earlier in Mat, 90 kilometers (55 miles) north of the capital, Tirana, after three days of operation destroying the cannabis plants police found the half-dried drug at a house ready to be packed for transport. The owner is being sought.

This year police have destroyed more than 1.8 million plants, three times more than last year, and seized tons of the drugs destined for Italy, Greece, Kosovo and Montenegro.
sexually assaulted her and her drinks were spiked

Rapper Freddie Gibbs was cleared of the attack in a court in Vienna

US rapper Freddie Gibbs has been acquitted of drugging and raping a 17-year-old woman in a hotel room by an Austrian court. He is pictured in court on Friday

U.S. rapper Freddie Gibbs has been cleared of drugging and raping a 17-year-old girl in a hotel room by an Austrian court.

The Vienna regional court gave Gibbs, 34, whose real name is Fredrick Tipton, the benefit of the doubt that he not had sex with the alleged victim.

According to the charge sheet reported by local media, Gibbs took the girl and a 16-year-old friend back to his hotel after a concert in Vienna on July 5, 2015.

It said both girls had been drinking heavily backstage and their drinks were possibly spiked.

At the hotel he was alleged to have had sex with the 17-year-old, who was too intoxicated to resist.

She made the claims after having flashbacks of what allegedly happened eight months later, leading to his arrest in France in July and his extradition to Austria.

Gibbs, released on bail in August, had denied the charges. He had faced up to 10 years in jail if convicted. The verdict can still be appealed.

Gibbs frequently sings about sex, drugs and sexual violence towards women.

In one on his songs called 'Go For It', he sings the lyrics: 'I'm the type of n**** to hit you with the dope.

He was charged in August with 'sexual abuse of a defenseless or psychologically impaired person'.

The rapper, 34, who frequently sings about sex, drugs and sexual violence towards women,was seen arriving in court on Friday just before he was cleared of the charges

His lawyer Thomas Kralik said his client maintained throughout the legal battle that he had neither abused nor had sexual contact with the woman.

'He strenuously denies (the accusations),' Kralik said when the musician was arrested in August, adding that Gibbs also had nothing to do with the woman's drink being spiked.

His album, Pinata, was selected by several publications as among the best of 2014.

The singer was touring Europe to promote his new album 'Shadow of a Doubt' when he was arrested.

He had to cancel shows in the French cities of Marseille and Strasbourg as well as in Porto, Portugal, plus the next stage of his tour in Canada.

Gibbs frequently sings about sex, drugs and sexual violence towards women. In one on his songs called 'Go For It', he sings: 'I'm the type of n**** to hit you with the dope'
Serbian police arrest migrants who fled airport detention

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP)  Serbian police say they have arrested two migrants after they fled from detention at Belgrade airport.

Police said Friday that the two Tunisians face charges of illegal border crossing and people-smuggling. They say the men escaped Thursday from temporary detention facilities at the airport.

Police gave no more details, but local media have reported migrants arrived on a plane from Tunisia and were not allowed into Serbia. Reports say they broke through the detention room wall.

Serbia has been a transit country for people from the Middle East, Africa or Asia seeking to reach the European Union. Most of the migrants use land routes to enter Serbia from Bulgaria and Macedonia.
Thailand confirms SE Asia's first Zika-linked birth defects

BANGKOK (AP)  Authorities in Thailand have confirmed that two cases of babies with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, were caused by the Zika virus, the first such cases found in Southeast Asia.

Dr. Prasert Thongcharoen, a senior Health Ministry official, said in a statement Friday that the linkage to Zika was confirmed by laboratory tests in two of three cases of babies afflicted with microcephaly. The results were inconclusive in the third case.

The World Health Organization urged countries in the region to take stronger measures to contain the virus. The U.N. agency said the cases are the first of Zika-associated microcephaly in Southeast Asia.

FILE - In this June 26, 2013, file photo, a Bangkok Metropolitan Administration worker fogs a home with mosquito repellent in Bangkok, Thailand. Thai authorities have confirmed that two cases of babies with microcephaly  abnormally small heads  were caused by the Zika virus commonly transmitted by mosquitos, the first time the linkage has been made in Southeast Asia. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)

"Zika virus infection is a serious threat to the health and wellbeing of a pregnant woman and her unborn child. Countries across the region must continue to strengthen measures aimed at preventing, detecting and responding to Zika virus transmission," WHO Southeast Asia regional director Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh said in a statement.

Zika generally causes a mild flu-like illness, but a major outbreak in Brazil last year revealed that it can result in severe birth defects when pregnant women are infected.

The disease is spread primarily by mosquitoes, and WHO urged private citizens as well as governments to take strict mosquito control measures.

Mosquitoes are a constant concern in Thailand because they also transmit malaria, dengue fever and chikungunya.

Statistics issued by Thai health officials show more than 300 confirmed Zika cases since the start of the year.

On Thursday, U.S. health officials advised pregnant women to postpone travel to 11 countries in Southeast Asia because of Zika outbreaks. The advisory covered Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Zika has existed in some areas of Southeast Asia for years, and some residents may be immune. But it said a number of U.S. travelers have become infected in the region in the last year.

WHO said travelers to areas with Zika virus outbreaks "should seek up-to-date advice on potential risks and appropriate measures to reduce the possibility of exposure to mosquito bites and sexual transmission of Zika." But it advised pregnant women "not to travel to areas of ongoing Zika virus transmission."
Saudi Arabian border guard killed by shell fired from Yemen

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP)  Authorities say a Saudi border guard has been killed by a shell fired from Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is battling Shiite rebels.

Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said in a statement Friday that the attack happened Thursday in Saudi Arabia's Jazan province, which borders Yemen. Al-Turki blamed Yemen's Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, for launching the attack.

Cross-border fire has killed security agents and civilians since a Saudi-led coalition launched a campaign in Yemen in March 2015.

Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, has been at war since the Houthis swept into the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.
Spain's Socialists line up for crucial leadership battle

MADRID (AP)  A growing leadership battle within Spain's main opposition Socialist party could tear the 137-year-old organization apart and hurl the country toward an unprecedented third election in a year.

Party heavyweights aired their differences across the media Friday, indicating a crucial weekend federal committee may be unable to resolve the schism between those for and against leader Pedro Sanchez.

The split was triggered by a party executive board revolt against Sanchez on Wednesday. The burning issue is whether the party should help end Spain's nine-month political impasse by allowing acting conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to form a government.

In this photo taken Friday June 24, 2016, Spanish Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez, left and former socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez wave together during a rally on the last day of election campaigning, in Madrid, Spain. Felipe Gonzalez said Wednesday Sept. 28, 2016, that he feels "cheated" by current Socialist party leader Pedro Sanchez for failing to end Spain's nine-month political deadlock. (AP Photo/Paul White)

Sanchez insists the party agreed to block Rajoy. If he prevails, Spain is unlikely to be able to form a government before an Oct. 31 deadline and fresh elections will be called.

If his opponents win, Sanchez could be removed and Socialist lawmakers instructed to abstain and let Rajoy and his Popular Party through.

Rajoy has headed a caretaker government following inconclusive elections in December and June. His party won the most seats in both elections and now lacks just a handful of votes or abstentions in Parliament to form a government.

Wednesday's rebellion came after party icon and former Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez revealed that Sanchez had told him they would abstain in the Rajoy vote. But the Socialists went on to block Rajoy twice. Opposition to Sanchez has also soared because of the party's worst-ever results in the two elections.

Many believe that whatever happens, Rajoy will be the only winner.

"The Spanish left is broken; there is no alternative to a Popular Party-led cabinet," said Antonio Barroso of the Teneo Intelligence political risk consulting group in a note. "If Rajoy is not appointed PM before 31 October, new elections will only strengthen his party further and make his re-election more likely."

Sanchez called the meeting of the near 300-member committee to propose a leadership election Oct. 23. His detractors say he no longer has authority and that a caretaker administrator should be appointed.

FILE - In this June 24, 2016 file photo, Spanish Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez, center, gestures next to former Spanish Premier Felipe Gonzalez, center right, during a election rally on the last day of campaigning, in Madrid, Spain. Felipe Gonzalez said Wednesday Sept. 28, 2016, that he feels "cheated" by current Socialist party leader Pedro Sanchez for failing to end Spain's nine-month political deadlock. (AP Photo/Paul White, FILE)
World leaders and his family eulogize Israel's Shimon Peres

JERUSALEM (AP)  Former Israeli President Shimon Peres was buried Friday after a funeral attended by scores of world leaders and dignitaries. He died earlier this week aged 93, after suffering a stroke. Peres' family, Israel's prime minister and president, U.S. President Barack Obama and former U.S. President Bill Clinton eulogized him at the ceremony.

Here are some of the highlights of their words:

"I could not be more honored to be in Jerusalem to say farewell to my friend Shimon Peres who showed us that justice and hope are at the heart of the Zionist idea. A free life in a homeland regained. A secure life in a nation that can defend itself by itself. A full life in friendship with nations who can be counted on as allies always. A bountiful life driven by simple pleasures of family and by big dreams. This was Shimon Peres' life; this is the state of Israel. This is the story of the Jewish people over the last century, it was made possible by a founding generation that counts Shimon as one of its own."

U.S. President Barack Obama condoles family members, after the burial ceremony at the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres on Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Shimon Peres was being laid to rest on Friday in a ceremony attended by thousands of admirers and dozens of international dignitaries  in a final tribute to a man who personified the history of Israel during a remarkable seven-decade political career and who came to be seen by many as a visionary and symbol of hopes of Mideast peace. (Ronen Zvulun/Pool photo via AP)

"In many ways he reminded me of some other giants of the 20th century that I have had the honor to meet, men like Nelson Mandela, women like Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth  leaders who have seen so much, whose lives spanned such momentous epics that they find no need to posture or traffic in what's popular in the movement."

"We gather here today with the knowledge that Shimon never saw his dream of peace fulfilled. The region is going through a chaotic time. Threats are forever present. And yet he did not stop dreaming, and he did not stop working."  U.S. President Barack Obama.

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"He started life as Israel's brightest student, became its best teacher and ended up its biggest dreamer."

"He lived 93 years in a state of constant wonder over the unbelievable potential of all the rest of us to rise above our wounds, our resentments, our fears to make the most of today and claim the promise of tomorrow,"  former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

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"Your death is a great personal and national loss, as it is also the end on an era, the end of the era of giants whose life stories are the stories of the Zionist movement and the state of Israel. This is our profound feeling today. A feeling of the end of an era in the nation's life, the end of a chapter in our lives." __Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.

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"He was a great man of Israel. He was a great man of the world. Israel grieves for him. The world grieves for him. I loved you. We all love you. Farewell Shimon. Dear man, great leader."  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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"Much has been said about his forbearance and infinite patience. He measured long and short on a timeline of two thousand years of history when weighing the state of the nation, but in nanoseconds when waiting for a text to be printed. He was ready with his new corrections even before the ink was dry. A day after lending me a book, he was astonished to learn that I had not yet finished reading it."

"I remember him at the table of a French restaurant, when he whispered in my ear, 'it tastes good, but nothing compares to your mother's salad.' To him, Israel's cucumbers and tomatoes were the finest of delicacies."  Peres' daughter, Tzvia Walden.

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"When asked what he would like to have inscribed on his tombstone after death, he said, without hesitation, 'He was too young to die.' Indeed, my dear father, this is how I feel - you left us prematurely. There is so much more you could have done,"  Peres' son, Yoni Peres.

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"You always preferred the possibilities offered by the imagination to clinging to memories of the past. The legacy you leave to us is the world of tomorrow,"  Peres' son, Chemi Peres.

U.S. President Barack Obama pauses as he speaks at a memorial service for former Israeli President Shimon Peres at Mount Herzl national cemetery in Jerusalem, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Peres died early Wednesday from complications from a stroke. He was 93. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Former US President Bill Clinton speaks at a memorial service for former Israeli President Shimon Peres at Mount Herzl national cemetery in Jerusalem, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Peres died early Wednesday from complications from a stroke. He was 93. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

People pay respect at the grave of former Israeli President Shimon Peres after his funeral at the Mount Herzel national cemetery in Jerusalem, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

People pay respect at the grave of former Israeli President Shimon Peres after his funeral at the Mount Herzel national cemetery in Jerusalem, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
By the numbers: 12 years chasing a comet

BERLIN (AP)  It's been 4,595 days since the Rosetta space probe was lifted into orbit on the first stage of its 12-year mission to chase down comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Here is a look at some of the other numbers, big and small, surrounding the mission:

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Picture shows view into the control room at the European Space Agency sea in Darmstadt, Germany, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Rosetta will be impacted on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Friday, marking the end of the twelve years lasting Rosetta mission. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

SPACE ODYSSEY

As journeys go, this one was epic. According to the European Space Agency the Rosetta probe has travelled some 7,971,290,298 kilometers (4,953,359,791 miles) during its lifetime  almost 21,000 times the distance from the Earth to the moon.

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HIGH-SPEED CHASE

In order to catch up with a comet the Rosetta probe had to swing around Earth and Mars, using the planets' gravity to pick up speed. That's because 67P is flying through space at a breathtaking pace of up to 34 kilometers per second (21 miles per second).

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DUCK SHAPE

As Rosetta got close to 67P scientists were surprised to see that the comet is made up of two 'lobes' connect by a thin neck, prompting some to liken its shape to that of a rubber duck. While big for a duck, it's still small by cosmic standards: just 4.1 kilometers (3 miles) across at the largest point. The comet weighs some 10 billion metric tons (11 billion tons), though it is steadily losing matter as it hurtles through space.

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TIN CAN

Compared with the comet, Rosetta is tiny. The span of its solar wings is 32 meters (105 feet) from tip to tip. The probe itself measures just 2.8 x 2.1 x 2 meters. Philae is even smaller  just 1 cubic meter, or about the size of a washing machine.

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SOLAR FLY-BY

Comet 67P follows an elliptical course that takes it from close to Jupiter's orbit  some 850 million kilometers (528 million miles) away from the sun  almost to Earth's orbit, about 186 million kilometers (115 million miles) from the sun, and back over the course of 6 years.

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VAST TREASURE

The instruments on board Rosetta and Philae have collected a wealth of data that scientists say will take many years to fully analyze. In total the probes sent 218.25 gigabytes of data home to Earth.

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STAYING POWER

Scientist say that one of the main benefits of the Rosetta mission compared with previous missions  apart from the world's first landing on a comet  was the length of time that the probe spent in 67P's orbit. During its 786 days flying alongside the comet, Rosetta was able to observe its evolution across several 'seasons' as 67P flew toward and then away from the sun again.

A model of orbiter Rosetta hangs from the ceiling in a conference room at the European Space Agency ESA in Darmstadt, Germany, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Rosetta will be impacted on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Friday, marking the end of the twelve years lasting Rosetta mission. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

The artist impression provided on the website of the European Space Agency ESA on Sept. 29, 2016 shows ESA's Rosetta cometary probe. The spacecraft will be crash landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Sept. 30, 2016. (J. Huart/ESA via AP)

A model of orbiter Rosetta hangs from the ceiling in a conference room at the European Space Agency ESA in Darmstadt, Germany, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Rosetta will be impacted on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Friday, marking the end of the twelve years lasting Rosetta mission. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
The Latest: Germany saw 820,000 asylum-seekers last year

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP)  The Latest on the flow of migrants into Europe (all times local):

1:30 p.m.

Germany says a total of 890,000 asylum-seekers entered the country last year, but that the count this year so far is dramatically down.

A migrants cooks on the beach, on the northeastern Greek island of Chios, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. More than 3,500 refugees and migrants are stuck on Chios island, since the European border closures earlier this year. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Friday that even though the 2015 number is lower than the more-than 1 million initially registered entering the country  some of whom were counted twice or were simply passing through  it's "still very high."

He said that "this number cannot be allowed to be repeated" and said measures to keep the influx down, like an agreement with Turkey, have been effective.

He says this year Germany has counted some 210,000 new arrivals, "which shows the different measures are working."

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This item has been corrected to show the number of asylum-seekers entering Germany last year was 890,000, not 820,000.

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1:10 p.m.

Border police in southwestern Romania are investigating 15 migrants on suspicion they illegally entered the country from Serbia.

Police on the night patrol spotted a group of 11 people early Friday, walking across a field 300 meters (yards) away from the Serbian border.

A statement said none of the group of eight men, a woman, a 2-year-old and a baby had identity documents. Police said eight were Syrians, and there was one Iraqi, a Sudanese man and a Palestinian. They said they had entered Romania from Serbia and were trying to reach Western Europe. The adults were aged 20 to 30.

Also Friday, border police found a family of four Iraqis near the border with Serbia. They were taken for questioning.

The 15 are being investigated on suspicion of illegal entry to Romania.

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10:50 a.m.

Serbian police say they have arrested two migrants after they fled from detention at Belgrade airport.

Police said Friday that the two Tunisians face charges of illegal border crossing and people-smuggling. They say the men escaped Thursday from temporary detention facilities at the airport.

Police gave no more details, but local media have reported migrants arrived on a plane from Tunisia and were not allowed into Serbia. Reports say they broke through the detention room wall.

Serbia has been a transit country for people from the Middle East, Africa or Asia seeking to reach the European Union. Most of the migrants use land routes to enter Serbia from Bulgaria and Macedonia.

The Balkan country has stepped up border checkups to curb the influx after thousands got stuck here.

Children write and paint at a refugee camp on the northeastern Greek island of Chios, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. More than 3,500 refugees and migrants are stuck on Chios island, since the European border closures earlier this year. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)
The Latest: Investigators say train crew 'very cooperative'

HOBOKEN, N.J. (AP)  The Latest on a commuter train that crashed into a station in New Jersey, killing one person and injuring more than 100 others (all times local):

7:20 p.m.

The National Transportation Safety Board says it appreciates that crew members of a train involved in a deadly New Jersey crash have been "very cooperative."

In a photo provided by William Sun, people examine the wreckage of a New Jersey Transit commuter train that crashed into the train station during the morning rush hour in Hoboken,, N.J., Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. The crash caused an unknown number of injuries and witnesses reported seeing one woman trapped under concrete and many people bleeding. (William Sun via AP)

NTSB investigators say they've contacted the train's engineer but have held off questioning him because of his injuries and have struggled to lift clues from the train's data recorders.

Engineer Thomas Gallagher has been a New Jersey Transit engineer for about 18 years. He was pulled from the wreckage Thursday and was briefly hospitalized. He hasn't spoken publicly.

Authorities want to know why the commuter train smashed through a steel-and-concrete bumper at the Hoboken (HOH'-boh-kehn) Terminal and hurtled into a waiting area, killing a Brazilian woman on the platform and injuring more than 100 other people.

More than 100,000 people use NJ Transit to commute from New Jersey to New York City each day. The NJ Transit portion of the Hoboken station remained closed Friday, slowing commutes.

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5:30 p.m.

Federal investigators say the probe into a train that crashed into a rail station in New Jersey is in the fact-gathering phase and it may be up to two days before there is full access to the site.

Bella Dinh-Zarr, a vice chair for the National Transportation Safety Board, says Friday that investigators are working on a number of avenues, including collecting records and security video from Hoboken Terminal and making contact with train passengers and others on the platform.

Dinh-Zarr says there is plenty to be done even without access to the cars, which is being hindered by a fallen canopy and debris at the site.

A New Jersey Transit train rammed into the terminal on Thursday morning, killing a woman on the platform and injuring more than 100 other people.

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4:55 p.m.

A U.S. government official says the engineer of a train that crashed into a station in New Jersey has answered questions and been cooperative with investigators.

The official also said Friday that engineer Thomas Gallagher's blood and urine have been sent for testing, but results aren't yet available.

The official isn't authorized to talk about the ongoing federal investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

Gallagher's New Jersey Transit train rammed into the Hoboken Terminal on Thursday morning, killing a woman on the platform and injuring more than 100 other people.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board have recovered a recorder from the back of the train. They were still working to access a second recover that would have access to the forward-facing camera.

 Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo in Hoboken contributed to this report.

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3:35 p.m.

Federal investigators are asking anyone who witnessed the deadly train crash in New Jersey to get in touch with them.

The New Jersey Transit train rammed into the Hoboken Terminal on Thursday morning, killing a woman on the platform and injuring more than 100 other people.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Friday that accounts from people who were aboard the train or standing on the platform can help them learn more about what happened.

Investigators are working to determine what caused the crash.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says the only thing known so far is that the train came into the station too fast.

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2:15 p.m.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he's been told the investigation into the deadly train crash at the Hoboken station could take at least seven to 10 days.

Christie says the only thing clear so far is that the train came into the station too fast before crashing through barriers and stopping against the terminal building. One woman was killed and more than 100 other people were hurt.

Contractors were working to prop up a canopy Friday so investigators could safely get to the front car.

Sixteen people injured in the crash remained hospitalized Friday. Thirteen patients were at the Jersey City Medical Center, including two in intensive care.

Two patients remained at Hoboken University Medical Center. One patient was in fair condition at St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center.

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12:40 p.m.

Fifteen people injured when a train crashed into a rail station in New Jersey are still hospitalized.

A spokesman for the Jersey City Medical Center said Friday that 13 patients remain there, including two in intensive care. Those patients are in guarded condition, which is a step above critical condition.

Mark Rabson says 11 patients are expected to go home Friday.

A spokesman for Hoboken University Medical Center says two of the 23 patients that came there needed to stay overnight.

The condition of a patient who had been at a third hospital wasn't immediately known.

Investigators are working to determine what caused the crash.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says that the only thing that is known so far is that the train came into the station too fast.

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10:30 a.m.

The National Transportation Safety Board says investigators are having trouble extracting a recorder from the forward-facing camera on the train that crashed into a rail station in New Jersey.

NTSB media spokesman Christopher O'Neill said Friday that investigators are struggling to retrieve the recorder from the wreckage in Hoboken without damaging it.

He says that recorder should show what was ahead of the train before it crashed Thursday during morning rush hour.

The NTSB also recovered the event data recorder that should reveal what inputs were made to train controls. Investigators also recovered an event recorder that should tell them how fast the New Jersey Transit commuter train was going when it slammed into the terminal, killing a woman on the platform and injuring more than 100 other people.

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7:45 a.m.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators have recovered the event recorder from the train that crashed into a rail station in New Jersey.

They're hoping the recorder will tell them how fast the New Jersey Transit commuter train was going when it slammed into the Hoboken Terminal on Thursday morning, killing a woman on the platform and injuring more than 100.

Investigators also plan to interview the engineer and other crew members.

They're also trying to secure the crash site and ensure it is safe for them to comb through the wreckage.

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7:30 a.m.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson says investigators in the train crash at a rail station in New Jersey have ruled out terrorism and should have some answers soon.

He told MSNBC's "Morning Joe so far there's "no suspicions of terrorism or foul play, anything of that nature,"

When asked about the security of the U.S. train system in general, Johnson says Transportation Security Administration has stepped up its rail safety efforts despite its primary focus on aviation.

He says the agency also has to be concerned about trains, public transportation, and public events.

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6:50 a.m.

Commuters are returning to work by roads, rails and river one day after a train crashed into a rail station in New Jersey.

New York Waterway on Friday resumed service from the Hoboken Rail/Ferry Terminal and is accepting New Jersey Transit tickets into Manhattan.

NJ Transit's rail service remains suspended in and out of Hoboken while officials investigate what caused Thursday's crash, which killed a woman and injured more than 100. They also are assessing the structural damage to the terminal.

PATH and Hudson-Bergen Light Rail service has resumed from Hoboken. There is expanded bus service.

The Main, Bergen and Pascack Valley lines are operating on a weekend schedule, originating and terminating in Secaucus.

Metro-North is honoring all Pascack Valley Line and Port Jervis Line rail tickets and the MTA is running buses.

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12:30 a.m.

Federal investigators are sifting through the wreckage of a train crash in New Jersey to determine what happened before the train barreled through a station too fast, smashing through a concrete-and-steel bumper.

A 34-year-old mother was killed by falling debris during the crash Thursday and more than 100 others were injured.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board will be attempting to determine how fast the commuter train was going when it crashed at the busy Hoboken station and ground to a halt in the waiting area.

Among the questions facing investigators is whether a system designed to prevent accidents by overriding the engineer and automatically slowing or stopping trains that are going too fast could have helped if it had been installed on the line.

This Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016 photo provided by a passenger who was on the train when it crashed shows wreckage at the Hoboken, N.J. rail station. The commuter train barreled into the station during the morning rush hour, coming to a halt in a covered area between the station's indoor waiting area and the platform. (AP Photo)

Afternoon rush hour commuters wait for their train track announcement in Penn Station, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016, in New York. A rush-hour N.J. Transit commuter train crashed through a barrier at the busy Hoboken station and lurched across the waiting area Thursday morning, killing one person and injuring more than 100 others in a grisly wreck. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

The skyline of New York's borough of Manhattan is seen behind the Hoboken, N.J. rail station after a train crash at the facility on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. A commuter train plowed into the bustling terminal during the morning rush hour. (AP Photo/Joe Epstein)

Emergency officials stand outside of the Hoboken Terminal following a train crash, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016, in Hoboken, N.J. A commuter train crashed into the rail station during the morning rush hour, causing serious damage. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

This photo provided by Ian Samuel shows the scene of a train crash in Hoboken, N.J., on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. A commuter train barreled into the New Jersey rail station during the Thursday morning rush hour, causing serious damage. The train came to a halt in a covered area between the station's indoor waiting area and the platform. A metal structure covering the area collapsed. ( Ian Samuel via AP)

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, left, speaks during a news conference on the train crash at the Hoboken Terminal as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, right, listens, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016, in Hoboken, N.J. A commuter train crashed into the rail station during the morning rush hour, causing serious damage and injuring dozens. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

A woman is wheeled away from the Hoboken Terminal train station on a stretcher Thursday Sept. 29, 2016, after a New Jersey Transit commuter train from New York barreled into the station during the morning rush hour, in Hoboken, N.J. (AP Photo/Karen Matthews)

Emergency personnel arrive at the scene of a train crash in Hoboken, N.J. on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. A commuter train barreled into the New Jersey rail station during the Thursday morning rush hour, causing serious damage. (AP Photo/Joe Epstein)
The Latest: Ivanka Trump promotes dad's childcare proposals

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Latest on the U.S. presidential race (all times EDT):

8:30 p.m.

Donald Trump is out with a new ad starring his daughter, Ivanka, one of the GOP nominee's most effective advocates.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump takes the stage at a rally, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, in Novi, Mich. (AP Photo/John Locher)

The ad appears aimed at women and touts Trump's recently announced proposals for childcare tax credits and paid maternity leave through unemployment insurance.

The mother of three and business executive says her father "understands the needs of a modern workforce" and supports policies that "allow women to support their families and further their careers."

The ad comes as Trump risks damaging his already low standing with women following a week of sparring with a former Miss Universe winner who gained weight when Trump owned the pageant.

___

8 p.m.

The BuzzFeed website is reporting that Donald Trump made a cameo appearance in an explicit 2000 Playboy video.

In a short clip posted on the site, Trump is seen pouring a bottle of champagne on a Playboy-branded limo on a New York street, surrounded by a gaggle of women.

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said late Friday, "There's been a lot of talk about sex tapes today and in a strange turn of events only one adult film has emerged today and its star is Donald Trump." Merrill said he not seen the video.

Friday morning, Trump tweeted that former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, a Clinton supporter, was "disgusting." He urged followers to check out her "sex tape"  apparently referring to footage from a Spanish reality show in 2005.

___

7:40 p.m.

A former lawyer for one-time Miss Universe Alicia Machado says she still faces the possibility of arrest in her native Venezuela as a result of alleged threats she made to a judge.

Ricardo Koesling tells The Associated Press, "The case remains in limbo," though he considers the risk of arrest minimal.

Machado was accused in 1998 of driving the getaway car for her then-boyfriend after he shot at his brother-in-law in what prosecutors said was a failed murder attempt. Koesling said the case was dropped for lack of evidence. However, the judge in the case later accused Machado of making a death threat against him and his children.

The AP did not find any indication in court records that the judge filed a formal complaint against Machado.

___

7 p.m.

Donald Trump is once again questioning the integrity of the U.S. voting system, encouraging his supporters to visit polling locations on Election Day to make sure everything is "on the up and up."

Trump tells his supporters at a Michigan rally to "go to your place and vote" and then "go pick some other place and go sit there with your friends and make sure it's on the up and up."

He's claiming that voting fraud is "a big, big problem in this country" but "nobody has the guts to talk about it."

Voting fraud is, in fact, very rare. But a Homeland Security Department official said Friday that hackers have targeted the voter registration systems of more than 20 states in recent months.

Trump says voter fraud "would be one hell of a way to lose."

___

6:05 p.m.

Donald Trump is demanding President Barack Obama make a pledge not to pardon Hillary Clinton, who has not been charged with nor convicted of any kind of crime.

Speaking at a rally in Novi, Michigan, Trump says he is making "a demand" of Obama.

"Mr. President, will you pledge not to issue a pardon to Hillary Clinton and her co-conspirators for their many crimes against our country and against society itself?" he asks.

Neither Clinton nor her allies have been charged with any crime related to her use of a private email system as secretary of state.

The FBI decided after a lengthy investigation not to recommend charges against her or her aides pertaining to their handling of classified information.

___

6 p.m.

Donald Trump is raising questions about his microphone problems during Monday's debate with Hillary Clinton.

He notes that the Commission on Presidential Debates announced earlier Friday that there was an issue with Trump's microphone. His audio was quieter at times than Clinton's inside the debate hall.

He says, "Working that microphone was a hell of a lot more difficult than working Crooked Hillary Clinton."

The Republican is also encouraging his supporters at a rally Friday evening in Michigan to ask why he had issues and Clinton did not.

He says: "I wonder why it was bad. Think of that."

___

5:55 p.m.

Donald Trump says Hillary Clinton is lying about her support for an international trade deal.

Trump said during a Friday evening rally in Michigan that Clinton once described the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership as "the gold standard" of trade deals when she was secretary of state. Clinton now says she opposes the deal.

Trump charges that countries that stand to benefit from the deal donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation.

The New York businessman says of Clinton, "If she gets the chance, she will put the Oval Office up for sale."

Trump has faced questions about business practices at a foundation that bears his name.

___

5:45 p.m.

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson's doctor is calling the candidate "extremely physically fit."

The former New Mexico governor is a triathlete and has climbed the highest peaks on all seven continents. He released a letter from his doctor Friday afternoon that says he has "extraordinarily good health" for a 63-year-old.

Health worries have dogged 68-year-old Hillary Clinton after she collapsed during a pneumonia spell earlier this month. Clinton supporters have also questioned the health of Donald Trump, who is 70.

___

4:45 p.m.

The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates says there was indeed a problem with Donald Trump's microphone during Monday night's first general election debate.

The commission says on its website that "there were issues regarding Donald Trump's audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall."

There was no noticeable issue with the sound on television.

The GOP nominee complained about his mic the morning after the debate, even suggesting he may have been sabotaged.

Rival Hillary Clinton had mocked the complaint, saying anybody who complains about a microphone "is not having a good night."

___

4:30 p.m.

Hillary Clinton says Donald Trump's flurry of late-night tweets targeting former Miss Universe Alicia Machado was "unhinged, even for him."

At a rally Friday in Coral Springs, Florida, Clinton questioned what kind of person gets up at 3 a.m. to send angry tweets.

Trump tweeted in the early morning hours that Machado was "disgusting" and "a con" and encouraged Americans to "check out" her non-existent sex tape.

Trump has been targeting Machado since Clinton, at Monday's debate, cited derogatory comments Trump had made about Machado after she gained weight. Clinton cited it as an example of his disrespect toward women.

Clinton says Trump's "latest twitter meltdown is unhinged, even for him." She says it underscores that Trump is "temperamentally unfit to be commander-in-chief."

___

3:25 p.m.

Donald Trump is defending his early-morning tweets attempting to shame a former Miss Universe, saying it shows he'd be awake for a 3 a.m. call.

Trump tweeted that, "For those few people knocking me for tweeting at three o'clock in the morning, at least you know I will be there, awake, to answer the call!"

A memorable Hillary Clinton ad in 2008 questioned whether then-rival Barack Obama was prepared to face emergencies. As a phone rang, the announcer said, "It's 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?"

Trump has tried to use the ad against Clinton, accusing her of being asleep when late-night calls came in during the attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi. Clinton says she was awake all night after the attacks.

___

2:35 p.m.

Donald Trump says he has "big plans" for the final month of the campaign.

The Republican presidential nominee noted Friday that his campaign hasn't spent much yet on television ads. He said he plans to put to good use the approximately $18 million he says he raised for his campaign and Republican partners on the day after Monday's debate.

He said, "We have some big plans for the final month."

Trump made the comments Friday during a brief appearance at the Kent County Republican headquarters.

He did not address his series of early-morning tweets in which he called a former Miss Universe "disgusting" and referred to her "sex tape."

___

2:25 p.m.

Donald Trump's campaign is defending his early-morning tweets shaming former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. It's denouncing what it calls "the single-biggest coordinated media attack in history."

Spokeswoman Jessica Ditto said via email that, "Of course Mr. Trump is going to defend himself" against what the campaign sees as a coordinated attack effort by the media and rival Hillary Clinton's campaign.

At Monday's presidential debate, Clinton cited disparaging remarks Trump had made about Machado as examples of the Republican nominee's disrespect for women.

Trump took to Twitter overnight to accuse Clinton's campaign of being "duped" by "a con" and encourage Americans to check out what he called Machado's "sex tape."

Ditto said she expects the campaign "to continue calling out examples of bias and defending ourselves as we deem necessary."

___

2:05 p.m.

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill says that Hillary Clinton called Alicia Machado on Friday to express gratitude to the former Miss Universe who has become caught up in the maelstrom of the presidential campaign

The Democratic presidential candidate's call came after rival Donald Trump attacked Machado in early-morning tweets.

At Monday's presidential debate, Clinton mentioned disparaging remarks Trump had made about Machado as examples of the Republican nominee's disrespect for women. Trump has responded with attacks on Machado, including Friday's tweets.

Clinton says she appreciated Machado's courage through what she calls a "war of some pretty unpleasant words."

Merrill says Machado promised to continue supporting Clinton and said she would stand up to the attacks.

The two women spoke for about five minutes,

___

2 p.m.

If newspaper endorsements equaled victory, Hillary Clinton would be in line for a historic landslide.

The Democratic presidential nominee has been endorsed by dozens of papers ranging from such expected backers as The New York Times to such once-certain Republican advocates such as The Dallas Morning News, the Arizona Republic and the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, is supported by far fewer publications.

But the endorsements may highlight more than editorial boards' disdain for the Republican presidential nominee. They may also illustrate the decline in newspapers' power to shape opinions and the strength of Trump's anti-establishment appeal.

Readers may not let editorials tell them how to vote, but they care enough to respond. About a dozen people demonstrated outside the Dallas Morning News after it backed Clinton.

___

1:30 p.m.

Mike Pence says too much is made of Donald Trump's tweets.

The Republican vice presidential nominee was speaking Friday in Fort Wayne, Indiana, hours after Trump unleashed a flurry of tweets shaming former Miss Universe Alicia Machado.

The Indiana governor said Democrats and the media are to blame for focusing on "he said this, he tweeted that."

At Monday's presidential debate, Democrat Hillary Clinton mentioned disparaging remarks Trump had made about Machado as examples of his disrespect for women.

In one tweet Friday, Trump said: "Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?"

___

1 p.m.

A new ad from Donald Trump's presidential campaign is seizing on recent comments his rival made questioning why she isn't further ahead in the presidential race.

The ad uses footage of Hillary Clinton asking, "Why aren't I 50 points ahead, you might ask?"

The ad then references FBI criticism of Clinton's use of a private email system while she was secretary of state. It also mentions policies she supported that Trump argues allowed the Islamic State group's reach to spread.

The campaign says the ad will air nationally as part of its ramped-up spending on television advertising.

Trump's campaign has been dramatically outspent by Clinton's when it comes to ads.

___

12:50 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is promoting her plans for enhancing public service opportunities.

In a speech in Fort Pierce, Florida Friday, Clinton laid out her proposals to increase national service. She wants to triple the size of the AmeriCorps program, grow the Peace Corps and create a new national service reserve program.

Clinton said she thinks America is strongest when people work together. She said Republican Donald Trump favors a "strongman approach."

Under the new program, people would enroll, receive training and then state and local leaders could call on their help during in natural disasters or emergency situations. Clinton wants to sign up 5 million people, focusing on people under 30.

The speech is one of several positive policy addresses from Clinton as she tries to draw a contrast with Trump.

___

12 p.m.

The city of Phoenix is demanding that Donald Trump's campaign stop using the image of Phoenix police officers in a campaign advertisement.

The city sent a cease-and-desist letter Thursday. It says the campaign violated federal and state law by using copyrighted material, including images of officers in uniform and at work.

The ad features images of uniformed officers greeting Trump and shaking his hand.

City Attorney Brad Holm said in the letter that the advertisement "unmistakably and wrongfully" suggests that Phoenix and its officers support Trump's campaign.

The state's campaign chairman, Phil Lovas, said he cannot comment on the letter because he has not seen it.

___

11:50 a.m.

The New York state attorney general is confirming that the Trump Foundation is not registered in New York as a charity to solicit donations.

But Attorney General Eric Schneiderman isn't saying if Donald Trump's foundation violated any laws.

The foundation is registered in the state as a charity. But state law requires a different registration for charities that solicit more than $25,000 a year from the public.

The registration issue was first reported by The Washington Post. The newspaper has also detailed foundation spending that personally benefited Trump.

Scheiderman, a Democrat whose office oversees New York charities, has been investigating the Trump foundation.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

___

11:40 a.m.

A spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton says neither the Democratic presidential nominee nor her campaign helped a former Miss Universe get U.S. citizenship.

Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri spoke to reporters Friday after Donald Trump unleashed a series of tweets criticizing Alicia Machado, the former beauty pageant winner. Trump also claimed Clinton had helped Machado get U.S. citizenship, but offered no proof.

Palmieri called on Trump to stop attacking Machado and apologize.

Machado has been in the spotlight since Monday night's debate, when Clinton cited derogatory comments Trump had made about her as examples of the Republican's disrespect for women.

Palmieri said Clinton will address Trump's comments at an event in Florida later Friday

___

11:15 a.m.

Hillary Clinton is describing as "unhinged" a Donald Trump tweet attacking a former Miss Universe. She says his temperament is "dangerous for a president."

She says Trump's early-morning tweets accusing Alicia Machado of having a criminal record and a sex tape are "lies and conspiracy theories."

The Democratic presidential candidate's response to Trump came in her own series of tweets Friday.

She tweeted: "When something gets under Donald's thin skin, he lashes out and can't let go. This is dangerous for a president."

Clinton has not mentioned Machado since the Monday night debate. That's when she pointed to reports that Trump called the 1996 pageant winner "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping" as examples of his disrespect for women.

___

8:05 a.m.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson says hackers are taking aim at state and local election officials, and that at least one recent attempt was successful.

Johnson tells MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Friday that "exactly who did it" remains under investigation. Last month, the FBI warned state elections officials to boost their election security after hackers targeted data systems in at least two states, Illinois and Arizona. Johnson did not identify a location in his remarks.

Johnson said local election officials should reach out to the federal government to learn how to protect computer systems. With thousands of vote counting systems, "there is no one single point of failure," he said. But to prevent problems, he said, local officials should be vigilant.

___

7:45 a.m.

Hillary Clinton plans to call on young people to participate in national service.

The campaign says the Democratic presidential candidate will announce plans Friday for a new national program designed to help people under 30 engage in public service.

She'll present her proposals in a speech Friday in Port St. Lucie, Florida.

It is the latest in a series of policy speeches designed to offer an affirmative message in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign. Clinton's campaign is seeking to contrast her approach with what they call Republican Donald Trump's "self-centered message."

___

7:25 a.m.

Donald Trump is doubling down on his attacks on a former Miss Universe.

Trump unleashed a series of tweets early Friday saying that rival Hillary Clinton had shown bad judgment in using Alicia Machado "as a paragon of virtue."

In one tweet, Trump said: "Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?"

He offered no proof that Clinton had a role in Machado's citizenship. The "sex tape" reference was apparently about risque footage circulating online of Machado from when she appeared on a Spanish reality show.

At Monday's debate, Clinton cited Trump's past references to Machado as "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping" as examples of Trump's disrespectful comments about women.

___

3:15 a.m.

Donald Trump is warning voters that a Hillary Clinton victory would bring her husband's sex scandal back to the White House.

Injecting Clinton's marital troubles into the 2016 campaign is Trump's latest effort to bounce back from Monday night's widely panned debate performance. In contrast, Clinton has delivered a mostly positive message in the days since her debate performance re-energized her candidacy.

Clinton is stressing that her plans will solve the kind of kitchen-sink problems facing American families  the high cost of childcare, mounting student debt and unpaid family leave.

Trump is promising lower taxes and "jobs, jobs, jobs," but he has also intensified the dire warnings and personal attacks that have defined his outsider presidential bid.

Trump urged followers to check out Machado's 'sex tape'  apparently referring to footage from a Spanish reality show in 2005. But reportedly Trump himself made a cameo appearance in an explicit 2000 Playboy video

Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, also had some things to say about Trump's comments toward the former Miss Universe. She said Trump's flurry of late-night tweets targeting Machado was 'unhinged, even for him'

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks to a guest during his visit to the Kent County Republican Headquarters, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, in Grand Rapids, Mich. (AP Photo/John Locher)
The Latest: Boy still in critical after school shooting

TOWNVILLE, S.C. (AP)  The Latest on a school shooting in South Carolina (all times local):

4:30 p.m.

A 6-year-old boy remains in critical condition two days after authorities say a teenager wounded him when he opened fire at a South Carolina elementary school.

Fire Chief Billy McAdams, center, speaks with reporters about a school shooting during a news conference in Townville, S.C., on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. McAdams was among the first two officials to arrive on the scene of the shooting, which injured two students and a teacher at a rural elementary school. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

Greenville Health spokeswoman Sandy Dees said Jacob Hall was still critical Friday afternoon.

Jacob was shot in a main artery in his thigh when authorities say a teen shot into a door as a first-grade class left for recess Wednesday afternoon.

His family said in a statement that Jacob sustained a major brain injury due to the amount of blood he lost.

His great-aunt Rebecca Hunnicutt told WYFF on Thursday night that Jacob has been unconscious since arriving at the hospital.

But "as long as his heart's beating, we've got hope."

She says "we're praying for a miracle and we're expecting a miracle."

Another student and teacher injured in the shooting were treated and released Wednesday.

___

12:15 p.m.

A 14-year-old South Carolina boy accused of killing his father and wounding three people during a school shooting has been charged as a juvenile with murder and three counts of attempted murder.

The teen appeared in juvenile court on Friday wearing a yellow jail jumpsuit without any restraints. A judge ordered him to continue to be held.

The teen is accused of killing his father at their home on Wednesday before driving a pickup truck to a nearby elementary school and opening fire. Two students and a teacher at Townville Elementary were wounded. One of the students, a 6-year-old boy, is in critical condition at a hospital.

___

12 p.m.

A judge in South Carolina is allowing media in the courtroom for a hearing for a teenager accused of killing his father and shooting three people at an elementary school.

The juvenile is suspected of fatally shooting his father before driving a few miles away and opening fire on Townville Elementary School, wounding two students and a teacher. The teen was in court Friday for the initial hearing.

Authorities have not released a motive.

___

9:25 a.m.

Online donors have given more than $80,000 to help the family of a 6-year-old South Carolina boy who was critically injured in a shooting at a rural elementary school.

A gofundme page set up by a friend of Jacob Hall's family on Thursday already had raised about $83,000 by Friday morning.

A note from the person who established the fundraising drive, Travis Paige, says the boy's parents have to miss work to be with him in the hospital and need financial assistance.

Authorities say the boy, another student and a teacher were wounded when a teen gunman showed up at Townville Elementary School and began shooting on Wednesday. They say the youth killed his father with multiple gunshots at home before going to the school.

The suspect is due in court Friday for an initial hearing.

___

7:30 a.m.

A 6-year-old boy wounded in a school shooting in South Carolina is clinging to life.

The Greenville News (http://grnol.co/2dJQVut) reports that relatives of Townville Elementary School student Jacob Hall released a statement late Thursday saying the boy is on life support in a hospital.

The family says the child sustained a major brain injury due to the amount of blood he lost after being shot in the leg.

Older brother Gerald Gambrell tells the paper the family is "hoping for a miracle."

Authorities say the boy, another student and a teacher were wounded when a teen gunman showed up at the rural school and began shooting on Wednesday. The suspect is due in court Friday for an initial hearing.

___

3:10 a.m.

A judge in South Carolina will decide whether authorities can continue holding a teenager arrested after a school shooting that left two students and a teacher wounded in a rural community.

The juvenile who authorities say is suspected of fatally shooting his father before the violence at Townville Elementary School was due in court Friday morning for an initial hearing.

Anderson County Solicitor Chrissy T. Adams says the public wouldn't be allowed in because the suspect is a juvenile. She also says prosecutors won't provide additional details about the shooting, which occurred Wednesday.

One of the students is still hospitalized in critical condition.

Judge Edgar Long presides over a hearing of a 14-year old, who was charged as a juvenile Friday, Sept. 30, 2016 in Anderson, S.C., with murder and three counts of attempted murder after authorities say he killed his father and opened fire on students at a playground, wounding three people. The Associated Press typically does not identify juveniles charged with crimes. Authorities have not released a motive for the school shooting or killing. (Ken Ruinard /The Independent-Mail via AP, Pool)

Fire Chief Billy McAdams speaks with reporters about a school shooting during a news conference in Townville, S.C., on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. McAdams was among the first two officials to arrive on the scene of the shooting, which injured two students and a teacher at a rural elementary school. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

A Townville Elementary student looks out of the window of a school bus as she and her classmates are transported to Oakdale Baptist Church, following a shooting at Townville Elementary in Townville Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016. A teenager killed his father at his home Wednesday before going to the nearby elementary school and opening fire with a handgun, wounding two students and a teacher, authorities said. (Katie McLean/The Independent-Mail via AP)

Korrie Bennett hugs Heather Bailey after recovering their children following a shooting at Townville Elementary in Townville Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016. A teenager killed his father at his home Wednesday before going to the nearby elementary school and opening fire with a handgun, wounding two students and a teacher, authorities said. (Katie McLean/The Independent-Mail via AP)

A bicyclist rides past a sign urging prayer for victims of a school shooting in Townville, S.C., on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. Authorities say two students and a teacher were wounded by a gunman at an elementary school. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)
Sheriff: Tip led deputies to remains of missing teenager

SALISBURY, N.C. (AP)  The skeletal remains of a North Carolina teenager missing since 2011 have been recovered in a rural South Carolina community after a tip from a person close to the case, a sheriff said.

The tip helped investigators find the body of Erica Parsons in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, on Tuesday, Sheriff Jay Brooks said. The site is about 80 miles south of the girl's former home in Salisbury, North Carolina, and near where her adoptive father's mother lived, the Charlotte Observer reported (http://bit.ly/2dsH9sp).

North Carolina medical examiners confirmed the remains are those of the teen, the Rowan County, North Carolina, sheriff's office said in a statement late Wednesday. They said a key tip to finding the body surfaced in August.

No one has been charged with the girl's disappearance or death, but a federal judge last year admonished her adoptive parents for inflicting years of abuse on the child last seen when she was 13.

Although the federal prison sentences that Sandy and Casey Parsons are serving stemmed from fraud the FBI uncovered as agents assisted in the search for Erica, it will be up to state officials to determine exactly how she died and whether criminal charges are warranted, Charlotte FBI Special Agent John Strong said in a statement Friday.

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder said when he sentenced her adoptive mother, Casey Parsons, to 10 years in prison for tax fraud that it was likely Erica was dead. Her husband, Sandy Parsons, received an eight-year sentence. The couple collected more than $12,000 in government benefits to help raise Erica even after she was no longer living with them.

"I cannot fathom the hatred you had in your heart for that little girl," Schroeder told Casey Parsons. "In my view, you are morally bankrupt."

Schroeder described Sandy Parsons, who had a fifth-grade education, as "a follower" of his wife's actions.

Erica lived with her adoptive parents in Rowan County from 2000 until she disappeared in 2011 at age 13. She wasn't reported missing until 2013.

Her adoptive parents said they gave Erica to her biological father's mother in Asheville, but the woman was never found. Casey and Sandy Parsons appeared on the nationally syndicated "Dr. Phil" show in 2013 to explain Erica's disappearance and deny harming the girl.

But a pre-sentencing report submitted as part of their federal case focused on testimony describing in graphic detail the abuse the girl endured before her disappearance. That included being fed dog food or no food at all and being excluded from family activities.

The Parsons' 21-year-old biological son, James Parsons, testified last year that he and other children in the family routinely abused Erica. Parsons said he abused the girl from the time he was age 5 until he was 16, once breaking her arm, before deciding he would no longer hit the girl. Food was often withheld from her as punishment, he said.

Casey Parsons encouraged the other children to abuse Erica, and he saw his mother often beat her, James Parsons said.

"She would beat her with a belt if she didn't listen," James Parsons said. Sandy Parsons would hit Erica with his fist on top of her head," James Parsons said.

Investigators who searched the Parsons home in August 2013 found traces of Erica's blood and either saliva or urine inside a closet, FBI agent Tara Cataldo testified in 2015.
Police search Connecticut home of woman lost at sea

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (AP)  Police have searched the home of a woman who went missing at sea during a fishing trip with her son and is presumed dead.

Officers were seen removing bags, envelopes and boxes from 54-year-old Linda Carman's home in Middletown on Thursday night. They have said they are investigating "the facts and circumstances" surrounding her disappearance.

Local police and officers from South Kingstown, Rhode Island, conducted the search.

This Monday Sept. 26, 2016 photo shows the home of Nathan Carman in Vernon, Vt. Authorities said police from South Kingstown, R.I. searched the home Monday evening. Carman, 22, who spent a week at sea in a life raft before being resuced by a passing freighter described how he frantically looked for his mother as his fishing boat sank in the Atlantic, the Coast Guard said Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016. (AP Photo/Wilson Ring)

Carman and her 22-year-old son, Nathan Carman, left a South Kingstown marina on Sept. 17. Nathan Carman was found alone in a life raft by the crew of a passing freighter on Sunday about 100 nautical miles south of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. He told the Coast Guard their 31-foot-long boat sank and he doesn't know what happened to his mother.

Linda Carman's disappearance is being investigating by local, state and federal officials in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Vermont.

A lawyer representing Linda Carman's three sisters said Friday the family is grateful for the efforts of the rescue team.

"As we continue our search for answers, the family has faith that our state and federal investigators are bringing maximum resources to bear, so that the family can have some degree of closure and an opportunity to heal," said Daniel Small, the Boston-based attorney.

Police searched Nathan Carman's home in Vernon, Vermont, on Monday and seized a modem, a cellphone SIM card and a letter. A search warrant indicated investigators think he was handling some boat motor repairs himself and the vessel might not have been seaworthy.

The case also has placed renewed attention on the unsolved killing of Linda Carman's father and Nathan Carman's grandfather, John Chakalos, a wealthy real estate developer found shot to death in his Windsor home in 2013. Court documents show Windsor police applied for an arrest warrant charging Nathan Carman with murder but a prosecutor didn't sign the warrant and asked for more information.
Netherlands summons Russian envoy over MH17 probe criticism

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP)  The Netherlands summoned Russia's ambassador Friday to complain about Russian criticism of the Dutch public prosecutor's office over the probe into the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

The Russian ambassador was called to the foreign ministry in The Hague over statements that the Dutch say question the office's "professionalism, integrity and independence."

The international criminal investigation concluded that a missile which destroyed the Malaysian passenger jet over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people aboard, was fired from rebel-controlled territory by a mobile launcher trucked in from Russia and hastily returned there.

Wilbert Paulissen of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) speaks on the preliminary results of the investigation into the shooting-down of Malaysia Airlines jetliner flight MH17 during a press conference in Nieuwegein, Netherlands, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016. The disaster claimed 298 lives. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said "given the convincing nature of the evidence, Russia should respect the results that have been presented, rather than impugning the investigation and sowing doubt."

Asked about the ambassador, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov sought to portray it as a positive development.

"This is certainly good news, the head of our mission in the Netherlands will relay our thoughts on the subject," Peskov told reporters Friday. "Dialogue is always a good thing."

In a tit-for-tat move, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced later that the ministry would call the Netherlands' ambassador to explain Moscow's critical view of the Dutch probe's conclusions. She added the ministry would complain about Dutch investigators' refusal to take into account "objective information" provided by Russian experts.

The Russian Defense Ministry has denied that any Russian air defense missile systems have ever been sent to rebels in Ukraine.
Museum planned in suburban New York to honor Navy SEALs

SAYVILLE, N.Y. (AP)  A new museum is being planned in suburban New York to honor Navy SEALs.

Officials say the museum could open in 2018 at a county park on eastern Long Island.

It will be named for Lt. Michael P. Murphy . The Medal of Honor recipient died along with 18 others in a gun battle in eastern Afghanistan in June 2005.

Their story was chronicled in the book and film, "Lone Survivor."

The museum would be the third honoring SEALs. The others are in Fort Pierce, Florida and Coronado, California.
Chinese frigates pay port call at Myanmar's old capital

THILAWA, Myanmar (AP)  Two Chinese naval frigates are paying a port call near Myanmar's old capital, Yangon.

The Zhoushan and the Xiangtan berthed Friday at Thilawa, the deep-water port south of the city, as Myanmar military dignitaries waved in welcome.

China has been wooing its fast-growing neighbor after relations cooled earlier this decade. Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party won an election in November 2015, has shown a renewed willingness to embrace China, the country's top trading partner and investor, since her government took power in March.

Myanmar navy officers wave to welcome the arrival of a Chinese navy ship Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, in Yangon, Myanmar. Two Chinese frigates, the Zhoushan and the Xiangtan, are both paying a friendly port call at the Thilawa port in Myanmar's old capital Yangon. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

"Our two militaries are friends and partners. We are close brothers," China's ambassador to Myanmar, Hong Liang, said after the ships' arrival.

The five-day visit is meant to strengthen cooperation and communication, the Chinese government said.

The Zhoushan and Xiangtan are returning from a four-month mission to escort Chinese and other ships transporting humanitarian aid in the Middle East.

It is the second such port call in Myanmar in recent years.

Captain Wang Hong Li, commanding officer of 23rd Chinese naval escort task force, greets local Chinese upon arrival at the Thilawa International Port, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, in Yangon, Myanmar. Two Chinese naval frigates are paying a port call at the Thilawa port of Myanmar's old capital Yangon. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Chinese navy officers stand on deck upon arrival at Thilawa International Port Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, in Yangon, Myanmar. Two Chinese frigates, the Zhoushan and the Xiangtan, are both paying a friendly port call at the Thilawa port in Myanmar's old capital Yangon. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Captain Wang Hong Li, commanding officer of 23rd Chinese naval escort task force, center, walks along with Hong Liang, China's ambassador to Myanmar, right, to greet local Chinese people and Myanmar navy officers at the Thilawa International Port Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, in Yangon, Myanmar. Two Chinese naval frigates are paying a port call at the Thilawa port of Myanmar's old capital Yangon. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)
Germany: Baby girl found in suitcase beside infant skeleton

BERLIN (AP)  A 22-year-old woman is under investigation for manslaughter after German police found a suitcase in her apartment with a newborn baby girl inside along with the skeleton of a second infant, Hannover prosecutors said Friday.

A 19-year-old man living with the woman in the northern city discovered the case on Thursday and reported it to police. Authorities rushed the newborn to the hospital, and she is now in stable condition.

Hannover prosecutors' spokeswoman Kathrin Soefker told The Associated Press investigators are now trying to determine who the father of the babies is, and an autopsy is being done to determine the cause of death of the second infant.

A residential house in the borough of Vahrenwald in Hannover, Germany, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. The skeleton of a dead newborn and a living baby have been found in a suitcase inside a flat of the residential house. (Julian Stratenschulte/dpa via AP)

The woman, whose name wasn't released in line with German privacy laws, has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter.
Dueling truths follow Indian raid in Pakistani Kashmir

ISLAMABAD (AP)  In New Delhi, they say that highly trained Indian soldiers slipped across the de facto border and into Pakistani-controlled Kashmir in a daring nighttime raid, killing anti-India militants preparing to launch attacks.

In Islamabad, they say only one Indian soldier made it across the border  and he was captured  with Pakistani forces easily driving back the other Indians, who retreated as soon as they encountered resistance.

India says none of its soldiers were killed. Pakistan says eight Indian soldiers died.

FILE - In this Sept. 24, 2016 file photo, an Indian Border Security Force soldier looks at the Pakistan side of the border through a binocular at Ranbir Singh Pura, about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Jammu, India. In New Delhi, they say that highly trained Indian soldiers slipped across the de facto border and into Pakistani-controlled Kashmir in a daring nighttime raid, killing anti-India militants preparing to launch attacks. In Islamabad, they say that only one Indian soldier made it across the border, and he was captured, with Pakistani forces easily driving back the other Indians, who retreated as soon as they encountered resistance. The dueling tales of courageous forces serve politics on both sides of the border, with powerful forces in each country able to proclaim their courage in the face of aggression. (AP Photo/Channi Anand, File)

Who is telling the truth? No outsider knows for sure. The region where the fighting occurred is deep in the Himalayas, along the Line of Control that has long split Kashmir between India and Pakistan. Access to the area is restricted on both sides. Officials in both countries are leaking select details to reporters, while announcing almost nothing openly.

But one thing is clear: The dueling tales of courageous forces serve politics on both sides of the border, with powerful forces in each country able to proclaim their courage in the face of aggression.

Tension along the India-Pakistan border has grown sharply since a deadly Sept. 18 attack on an Indian military base in Kashmir. New Delhi blamed the attack on militants belonging to the outlawed group Jaish-e-Mohammed, which has its headquarters in Pakistan. Islamabad denies that.

In India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been facing increasing demands in his own party to punish Islamabad for the attack, the story of a successful raid ratcheted down that pressure.

In Pakistan, where the military wields immense power behind the scenes, the story of killed and retreating Indian soldiers weakens the criticism it began to face after India announced its "surgical strike" in an unusual Thursday announcement on live TV.

While politicians have long massaged the truth to their own benefit, the practice has been taken to an extreme in both Pakistan and India.

"They do exploit situations and spin things to take away public attention from their real problems," said I.A. Rehman, a member of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Many of the most basic facts are now in dispute. India said the raid had targeted "terrorist launch pads," inside the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir, where a string of anti-Indian militant groups have long had bases. Later, a high-ranking Indian official speaking on condition of anonymity said that Indian troops had crossed the Line of Control on foot, attacked the militant bases and crossed back into Indian territory without suffering a single death. A "significant" number of militants were killed, officials said.

On Friday, though, Pakistani officials, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said Pakistani forces had seen the Indians as they approached the Line of Control, and easily pushed them back with gunfire that left eight dead.

The officials also said that one Indian soldier had been captured just on the Line of the Control and was now in Pakistani custody. India acknowledges that one of its soldiers is in Pakistani custody, but insists he was not involved in the raid and had accidentally strayed into the wrong area. Lost people from both countries are fairly common along the mountainous length of the Line of Control, which is poorly marked and often unfenced.

Both countries denied the other's version of what had happened.

As usual, the villagers who live near the Line of Control paid a price for the tension.

On Thursday, Indian authorities evacuated thousands of villagers living close to the frontier to temporary shelters, said Pawan Kotwal, a top regional official.

But with the border area largely calm, he said most returned to their farms after daybreak Friday.

The villagers are familiar with the drill, though evacuations have been rare since tension along the border declined dramatically following a 2003 India-Pakistan cease-fire accord.

"People living in border areas know things by experience," he said. "They would only need some assistance in case of urgent evacuation."

Meanwhile, Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged gunfire at two forward posts along the Line of Control overnight Thursday, Indian officials said. No casualties were reported.

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Sharma reported from New Delhi. Associated Press writers Tim Sullivan in New Delhi, Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar, India, and Zarar Khan in Islamabad contributed to this report.

FILE - In this Saturday, Sept. 24, 2016 file photo, an Indian Border Security Force soldier stands guard beside a fence at the India-Pakistan border area, as a Pakistani Rangers post is seen on the other side of the border at Ranbir Singh Pura, about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Jammu, India. In New Delhi, they say that highly trained Indian soldiers slipped across the de facto border and into Pakistani-controlled Kashmir in a daring nighttime raid, killing anti-India militants preparing to launch attacks. In Islamabad, they say that only one Indian soldier made it across the border, and he was captured, with Pakistani forces easily driving back the other Indians, who retreated as soon as they encountered resistance. The dueling tales of courageous forces serve politics on both sides of the border, with powerful forces in each country able to proclaim their courage in the face of aggression. (AP Photo/Channi Anand, File)

An Indian army convoy moves near the highly militarized Line of Control dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan, in Akhnoor, some 62 kilometers from Jammu, India, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. In New Delhi, they say that highly trained Indian soldiers slipped across the de facto border and into Pakistani-controlled Kashmir in a daring nighttime raid, killing anti-India militants preparing to launch attacks. In Islamabad, they say that only one Indian soldier made it across the border, and he was captured, with Pakistani forces easily driving back the other Indians, who retreated as soon as they encountered resistance. The dueling tales of courageous forces serve politics on both sides of the border, with powerful forces in each country able to proclaim their courage in the face of aggression. (AP Photo/Channi Anand)
Erdogan comments on historic treaty irk opposition, Greece

ANKARA, Turkey (AP)  Comments by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan questioning a historic treaty that defined Turkey's current-day borders have sparked anger inside Turkey and in Greece.

Erdogan suggested in an address on Thursday that the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which Turkish nationalists negotiated with the Allies, cannot be considered a "victory" because Turkey had lost to Greece several islands near its coast that were part of the Ottoman Empire.

His words angered Turkey's main opposition party, whose late leader negotiated the treaty. It argued Lausanne had reversed the stiff conditions of a previous treaty that had been negotiated by Ottoman leaders.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses a group of local administrators in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. Erdogan hinted on Thursday that the three-month state of emergency declared following the failed July 15 coup could be extended to over a year. Erdogan dismissed criticism over plans for Turkey to prolong the state of emergency, saying no one should determine a "calendar or roadmap" for Turkey. (Murat Cetinmuhurdar, Prime Ministry Press Service, Pool via AP Photo)
New York City's iconic Carnegie Deli to close Dec. 31

NEW YORK (AP)  New York City's iconic Carnegie Deli is closing its flagship location on Dec. 31.

Spokeswoman Cristyne Nicholas says owner Marian Harper "emotionally announced the news" to employees on Friday. She says workers will have their jobs through the busy holiday season.

Harper's father bought the Manhattan deli from the original owners in 1976. The deli first opened in 1937.

Harper will focus on licensing the brand and selling products for wholesale distribution.

Carnegie will still have locations in Las Vegas; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; New York's Madison Square Garden; and at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Queens.

The popular tourist destination is a few blocks from Carnegie Hall and is known for its massive pastrami sandwiches and pop culture cameos. Scenes from Woody Allen's "Broadway Danny Rose" were shot there.

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Flooding closes schools, blocks roads along Atlantic coast

WASHINGTON (AP)  Flooding has closed schools and blocked roads after heavy rains pummeled parts of Maryland, Virginia and Delaware.

Flood warnings and advisories are in effect Friday along much of the Atlantic coast. Some school systems closed on Maryland's Eastern Shore and some schools in Delaware and Virginia's Eastern Shore opened late.

The heaviest rains in Delaware on Thursday were in Sussex County. The News Journal (http://delonline.us/2dIWA3R) reports that the University of Delaware's Delaware Environmental Observing System recorded more than 12 inches of rain in Harbeson.
Malls, stores consider new ways to protect shoppers

NEW YORK (AP)  More sophisticated cameras. Security robots. Customers feeling shaken by recent attacks at U.S. malls may not notice huge changes  but mall operators are testing and putting in place new technologies and other measures to offer people more protection without intruding too much on their shopping time.

Mall executives say shoppers have been adamantly opposed to airport security tactics like metal detectors. So they're trying other things, and increasingly using mass notifications that let them send text and email alerts to tenants within seconds in case of a crisis.

Concerns about safety have been heightened by the attacks. Those included a shooting in the makeup area of a Macy's store near Seattle, where five people died, as well as stabbings at a Minnesota mall where ten people were injured before a police officer shot the assailant.

In this April 19, 2016, photo, provided by Stacy Dean Stephens, Knightscope K5 security robots, at right, and background left, patrol alongside a pier, in San Diego. The robots can identify a vehicle parked in a certain location for too long or sense intruders at odd hours. The company expects to have several large mall developers in California start using the robots in late 2016. (Stacy Dean Stephens via AP)

Justin Dye, 41, of Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, said he has felt more on edge when he goes to his local mall.

"You're not paranoid. But you are alert of the people around you," he said. The father of two said he now looks for where the exits are, and in a store he scouts for dressing rooms or back offices should he need to hide. "I'm always thinking about if something could happen, where would I go, and what should I do?" he said.

The recent attacks are "awful tragedies," and at the top of retailers' minds, said Lisa LaBruno, a senior vice president at the Retail Industry Leaders Association trade group. She was attending an already-scheduled meeting about security this week with store executives. "They are committed to reassessing the situation and identifying ways in which they can mitigate risks."

Still, she and other industry experts acknowledge that mall and store operators don't have much control over actually stopping any incident from happening. They do say they hope to minimize any threat and focus on keeping people safe.

Shopper surveys done every April by the International Council of Shopping Centers show that people aren't interested in metal detectors or similar tactics, the trade association said. "They don't want to be impeded as they go about their lives," said Malachy Kavanagh, a spokesman for the mall association.

Dye's among those who doesn't want to deal with the hassle of metal detectors; he said he'd rather see more armed security guards at shopping centers.

The mall group spent $2 million to develop terrorism training programs after the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S., and shopping centers have made more changes since then. A 2007 shooting in Omaha, Nebraska, when a 19-year-old man fatally shot eight people was an impetus for malls to alter their approach. Malls began working with the Homeland Security Department on plans for first responders enter the building to try to stop the shooter, rather than wait for backup as had been the practice.

In the past two years, retailers and malls have offered enhanced training for workers  some use videos of active-shooter scenarios; others have store associates act out the parts. At Macy's, for example, active shooter training has been a requirement for all employees since 2014. Mall operators are also running more evacuation drills, and are collaborating with police departments that may train at malls when they're closed.

Technology is key too, though experts say there isn't one single thing that can thwart an attack.

Kavanagh says Homeland Security officials are working with malls on testing cameras with facial recognition that can detect people with criminal records and also cameras that read license plates and send alerts if a criminal or someone on a terrorist watch is around. DHS is also looking at creating virtual walls in open spaces to block drones equipped with handguns and other weapons, he said.

"As technology progresses, there has to be a counter-measure," Kavanagh said.

Colin J. Beck, a sociology professor at Pomona College and author of "Radicals, Revolutionaries and Terrorists," said that it's hard to protect malls from being targets. But he says measures like automatic scanning of license plates and faces in public spaces open up "questions of infringement on constitutional rights and potential abuse."

Some measures had a bumpy beginning. Security robots made by startup Knightscope read license plates, can identify a vehicle parked in a certain location for too long or sense intruders at odd hours.

But the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, California, scrapped a pilot test of the 300-pound robots this summer after one of them knocked over a 16-month-old. (The toddler was OK).

Stacy Dean Stephens, vice president of sales and marketing at Knightscope, said the company has since made improvements and expects to have several large mall developers in California start using the robots later this year.

"We learned an awful lot from the incident, and have moved on," he said.

One of the most-used tactics is the mass notifications which can be used for weather, power outages or more serious scares. Pocketstop, a Dallas-based company that sends such notifications, said business among shopping centers is up 33 percent over the past 12 months.

While less than 1 percent of the incidents involve a shooting or attack, it's on top of stores' minds, said CEO Daniel Wagstaff.

By next year, the company will launch a notification service for customers using the mall's Wi-Fi. Wagstaff said the move is tricky.

"The last thing we want to do is promote fear in our consumer. We want people to be safe, but we don't want to scare people," he said.

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Follow Anne D'Innocenzio http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio
Site of Oregon college shooting set to be demolished

ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP)  A college hall in Oregon where a mass shooting took place last year is set to be demolished in October.

The demolition of Umpqua (um-quaw) Community College's Snyder Hall is scheduled to begin the week of Oct. 17, more than a year after the shooting, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported (https://is.gd/ScUbrp). A new building is expected to be ready for classes by next fall.

The college closed the building of classrooms and offices after Chris Harper Mercer killed nine people and injured nine others at Snyder Hall before dying in a shootout with police Oct. 1, 2015.

On Friday the college held a moment of silence for the one-year anniversary of the shooting.

A 16-member panel of students, teachers and others started meeting in November to consider options for the building. The committee wanted Snyder Hall to look different but remain part of the campus.

Anne Marie Levis, a college spokeswoman, said the college had decided to hire Andersen Construction, a company that recently completed the school's new health, nursing and science building, to build the new Snyder Hall.

Lawmakers have approved $6 million to replace Snyder Hall and improve security across campus. The rebuild is estimated at $4.2 million.

Part of that funding will go to create a meditative garden, which will occupy the ground of classrooms 15 and 16 where the shooting happened

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Stolen Fernandez jersey returned to Tampa high school

TAMPA, Fla. (AP)  A high school jersey once worn by Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez and stolen after his death has been returned to the Florida school.

Hillsborough County Public Schools said in a news release Friday that the jersey was returned Thursday.

Officials said a family saw a large envelope leaning up against the ticket booth at Alonso High School with the words "Jose's jersey" written on it. The family took the envelope into to the school Friday morning. The jersey was inside.

It was taken Wednesday night following a vigil for the 24-year-old, who died over the weekend in a boating accident in Miami Beach.
Gunmen kills 6 civilians, 1 police officer in Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP)  Unknown gunmen killed six civilians in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province while attackers killed a police officer in the southern city of Karachi in order to free two alleged killers he was escorting, officials said Friday.

Local administrator Mohammad Younus of Baluchistan's Panjgur district said gunmen killed six people from the same family in an isolated house. The victims include a father, his two sons and two female relatives, said Younus, adding that the motive for the killings was still under investigation.

Baluchistan is the scene of an ongoing low-intensity insurgency by Baluch separatist groups, and Islamic militants also operate in the area.

In southern port city of Karachi, four gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on a car in which police officers were escorting two men accused of killing a policeman back from a court hearing, said Mushtaq Maher, the city police chief.

He said the attackers killed one officer and critically wounded another while a third officer escaped unhurt. Maher said the two suspects were also allegedly involved in the narcotics business.

Karachi has been the scene of ongoing gang wars and a longtime hotbed for criminal activity. Attacks on police and paramilitary rangers were frequent in the recent years, but have been reduced after a year-long crackdown by the rangers.

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South African rangers kill 3 suspected poachers

JOHANNESBURG (AP)  South African authorities used a helicopter to recover the bodies of three suspected poachers who were fatally shot by rangers in a wildlife park where rhino poaching has increased in recent weeks.

Richard Schouten of IPSS Medical Rescue, a private group, said Friday that a recovery team on Thursday carried the bodies of the suspects out of a deep ravine and winched them up, one by one, to a military aircraft.

The three men were shot on Wednesday in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi park in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province.

Schouten says authorities told him that the rangers acted in self-defense.
Birthright Israel: 'A gift from 1 generation to another'

NEW YORK (AP)  For some young Jews, it's almost become a rite of passage: taking a free trip through Birthright Israel.

Since the organization launched 16 years ago, it's brought 500,000 Jews to Israel. They come from 66 countries, but about three-fourths are American. The only requirement is that participants be 18 to 26 years old, with at least one Jewish parent (or one Jewish grandparent if they're from the former Soviet Union).

Birthright Israel was founded by philanthropists Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt. Today funding comes from the Israeli government, Jewish nonprofits and individual donors, including the conservative billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam.

In this Sept. 21, 2016 photo, Gidi Mark, CEO of Birthright Israel, is interviewed in New York. The organization offers free trips to Israel for young Jewish adults ages 18 to 26. Since its inception in 1999, more than 500,000 young Jewish adults from around the world have taken Birthright trips. About three-fourths of participants are American. The program is funded by the Israeli government, Jewish nonprofit organizations and philanthropists. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Birthright Israel CEO Gidi Mark calls the free trips "a gift from one generation to another." The Associated Press interviewed Mark in New York about the organization's goals and how it has evolved.

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AP: What's your mission?

MARK: The real gift we give young people is the ability to think. This is a crucial time in their lives, leaving parents' homes, asking, 'Who am I? Who am I going to be?' We give them 10 days to forge their own identities.

Brandeis University has done research that shows Birthright increases feelings of attachment to the state of Israel by 40 percent. It increases the number of Jews marrying Jews by 45 percent. It increases the willingness to raise their children Jewish if they have a non-Jewish parent. ... Forty-five percent of our participants from the U.S. come back to Israel within five years.

AP: How do you handle controversy over Israeli politics?

MARK: We used to hear complaints that a speaker was too right-wing and about 50 percent complain the other speaker was too left-wing. We decided to go and take the best speakers in Israel and give them guidelines of messages that anybody could feel very well with. We started this last year and for the first time we did not receive one complaint.

We have thousands of people who are very critical of Israeli policy. But after 10 days in Israel they take ownership of what's going on in Israel, including the criticism. We don't say Israel is impeccable.

We add eight Israelis to each group of about 40 participants. Among eight Israelis there are nine opinions. If we want to control content, we cannot.

We don't allow preaching, not religiously, not politically.

AP: Do Birthright participants meet with Palestinians?

MARK: A large part of participants do meet with Arabs living in Israel from all walks of life.

AP: How do you keep Birthright Israel trips safe?

MARK: Luckily we have a very clean record after half a million participants. Parents were concerned about going into the Middle East, it's a volatile area. But Israel has become relatively safe in the eyes of Americans, partly because of what's going on here (in the U.S.) and what's going on in Europe.

We have one security guard joining each and every one of the groups. We constantly change itineraries if we need to. We don't go to regions that might have any potential of violence. Each and every one of the groups has an emergency button that goes directly to the national emergency room and every group is monitored 24/7.

AP: How much of the Birthright Israel experience is religious?

MARK: Only 2 percent of our participants consider themselves Orthodox. I believe close to 40 percent define themselves as Reform, about the same number define themselves as "just Jewish," and don't belong to any movement.

We do the blessings for Shabbat ... but we take religion as part of a very broad tradition in a positive way. No coercion.

We also from time to time make huge bar mitzvah ceremonies and Hebrew naming ceremonies, which are very moving.

We try to show them that Judaism is not about religion only. Religion is part of many faces of Judaism. There is culture, art, history, social relationships.

AP: How has Birthright Israel changed?

MARK: You cannot compare Birthright Israel today to Birthright Israel five years ago.

First of all we diversified the offerings. We have 40 different types of groups. Groups for foodies, for theater, for journalists, for bloggers, for doctors. Groups for people who have Asperger's or Crohn's disease or are disabled or LGBT or film writers.

We would also like to extend the time they spend in Tel Aviv and improve it. We've opened the first-ever visitors center in Tel Aviv to showcase Israeli's high-tech industry. We've started to bring Birthright Israel groups there to meet with entrepreneurs.

AP: Spending a night in the desert seems to be something a lot of participants find memorable.

MARK: For thousands of them, just to lie on the ground and look at the sky like Moses and Abraham, it's a new experience. They are really excited about it. We give them binoculars and telescopes to see falling stars, to see something they would never forget.

AP: Birthright is famous for its hookup culture.

MARK: We are not the police. We are lucky to have decided from day one we don't deal with minors. Anything they do, they do with mutual respect.

AP: Are there many Birthright marriages?

MARK: I personally know of hundreds of marriages that came from Birthright trips and I can tell you there are hundreds of children. In two years we are going to have the first child of Birthright parents come on a trip.

In this 2015 photo provided by Birthright Israel, a Birthright Israel group tours Masada, the ancient fortress on a plateau in the desert overlooking the Dead Sea in Israel. Birthright Israel offers free trips to Israel for young Jewish adults ages 18 to 26. Since its inception in 1999, more than 500,000 young Jewish adults from around the world have taken Birthright trips. About three-fourths of participants are American. The program is funded by the Israeli government, Jewish nonprofit organizations and philanthropists. (Sylvie Rosokoff via AP)

In this 2015 photo provided by Birthright Israel, a Birthright Israel group tours Mount Herzl, the site of Israel's national cemetery. Birthright Israel offers free trips to Israel for young Jewish adults ages 18 to 26. Since its inception in 1999, more than 500,000 young Jewish adults from around the world have taken Birthright trips. About three-fourths of participants are American. The program is funded by the Israeli government, Jewish nonprofit organizations and philanthropists. (Sylvie Rosokoff via AP)

In this 2015 photo provided by Birthright Israel, Birthright Israel visitors tour the Kotel or "wailing wall" in Jerusalem. Birthright Israel offers free trips to Israel for young Jewish adults ages 18 to 26. Since its inception in 1999, more than 500,000 young Jewish adults from around the world have taken Birthright trips. About three-fourths of participants are American. The program is funded by the Israeli government, Jewish nonprofit organizations and philanthropists. (Sylvie Rosokoff via AP)

In this 2015 photo provided by Birthright Israel, a Birthright Israel group tours Masada, the ancient fortress on a plateau in the desert overlooking the Dead Sea in Israel. Birthright Israel offers free trips to Israel for young Jewish adults ages 18 to 26. Since its inception in 1999, more than 500,000 young Jewish adults from around the world have taken Birthright trips. About three-fourths of participants are American. The program is funded by the Israeli government, Jewish nonprofit organizations and philanthropists. (Sylvie Rosokoff via AP)
Man gets prison for starting fire in California forest

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)  A 29-year-old man has pleaded guilty to starting an August wildfire that destroyed homes and burned more than 45 square miles in California's Sequoia National Forest.

The Los Angeles Times reports (http://lat.ms/2dvKhcs) that a federal judge sentenced Angel Gilberto Garcia-Avalos to 13 months in prison and ordered him to pay $61 million in restitution for the Aug. 16 fire.

The fire destroyed six homes and caused evacuations in Kern and Tulare counties.

He was driving off-road illegally when his car got stuck on a berm and his catalytic converter and muffler ignited dead grass.

The judge said he made no effort to get help after the blaze erupted.

Later, Garcia-Avalos, a Mexican national, reported to his probation office and was detained for deportation proceedings. He had previous convictions for burglary and car theft.

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US website: NKorea may be building new missile submarine

WASHINGTON (AP)  North Korea may be building a new submarine for launching missiles, a U.S. website that monitors the isolated nation's weapons development said Friday.

The website, 38 North, said that commercial satellite imagery strongly suggests a new naval construction program is underway at the Sinpo South Shipyard where North Korea has built most of its submarines.

International concern over the North's naval capabilities has intensified since it successfully tested a submarine-launched missile from a submerged position off Sinpo in August that flew an estimated 500 kilometers (310 miles) toward the seas around Japan. Development of that capability would add a weapon that is harder to detect before launch than its land-based missiles.

In its analysis Friday, 38 North said a large circular component seen in imagery from Sept. 24 suggests North Korea could be building a submarine larger than its current experimental vessel that is being developed for missile launches. However, the evidence is inconclusive.

"Given the North's active program to develop a submarine-launched ballistic missile, the construction of a new submarine to carry them makes perfect sense. If that proves to be the case, it is just one more indication that Pyongyang is moving full steam ahead in deploying an operational weapon," said Joel Wit, a former State Department official and editor of 38 North.
Gabon gets anti-poaching helicopter from South African group

JOHANNESBURG (AP)  A South African foundation is providing a helicopter and other anti-poaching equipment to Gabon, whose forest elephants have been heavily targeted by traffickers.

The Ichikowitz Family Foundation said Thursday that it will also provide ranger training and establish a dog-training academy program in Gabon. The announcement was made during a Johannesburg meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES.

In a statement, the foundation and Gabon's national parks agency praise Gabon's president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, for efforts to protect the Congo basin rainforest.

The foundation's founder, Ivor Ichikowitz, heads the Paramount Group, a company that previously provided defense equipment to Gabon.
2 arrests, some schools closed amid clown threats in Ohio

CINCINNATI (AP)  Two people were arrested and some Ohio schools were closed Friday amid a rash of reported threats involving clowns against students in three suburban Cincinnati districts.

A reported early Friday attack on a woman in Reading, Ohio, by a person dressed as a clown prompted Reading Community City School District officials to cancel classes for the day. A woman told Reading police she was smoking a cigarette on her porch when someone wearing a clown costume appeared and grabbed her by the throat. The person told her, "I should just kill you now" and "Some students and teachers would wish they were never born at the Jr. and Sr. High School today," police said.

The district said it would supply extra security for a homecoming parade and football game Friday night. A school dance scheduled for Saturday is to go on as planned.

Also Friday, officials at a high school in Miami Township, north of Cincinnati, said a student was arrested and removed from campus for making a threat about clowns on social media.

"The social media message was a copycat of the clown threats that have been becoming more frequent in our area and around the country. At no time were students and staff in any danger," Milford High School principal Josh Kauffman said in a statement posted on Facebook.

A juvenile was arrested in Colerain Township on Thursday night in connection with a clown threat there involving threatened harm to Colerain High School students.
Mark Kirk Is Skipping Out On Debates In Chicago

By aaroncynic in News on Sep 30, 2016 4:59PM



Mark Kirk / Getty Images / Photo: Gabriella Demczuk

Incumbent Senator Mark Kirk is changing up plans to debate Rep. Tammy Duckworth, backing out of several high-profile conversations that candidates traditionally have with their opponents and Chicago media.

According to NBC5s Ward Room, Kirk will only participate in three debates, nixing conversations with the Sun-Times Editorial Board, WTTW public debates, and one with ABC7, Univision and the League of Women Voters. The Senator will only participate in a downstate debate in Springfield, a Latino forum broadcast by WGN, and the Chicago Tribunes Editorial Board.

Kirks decision to skip out on the other debates comes while hes trailing in several polls. An Emerson College poll released on September 22 gave Duckworth a 2-point lead over Kirk, at 41 to 39 percent, and a mid-September Loras College poll put Duckworth at 5 points over Kirk, at 41 to 36 percent.

Forgoing the debates, all of which would take place in Chicago, could hurt Kirk even more. The Loras poll shows Duckworth holding a much larger lead with voters in the city, at 54 to 21 percent, according to NBC5.

The Duckworth campaign seized on the opportunity to criticize Kirk, calling the move disappointing, but not surprising. Mark Kirk doesnt want to answer for the 10 lies he told about his military record in his last campaign, or the lies hes telling about Tammys record in this campaign, said campaign spokesperson Matt McGrath. He certainly doesnt want to answer for the 16 years hes been in Washington siding with Wall Street banks and corporate special interests at the expense of Illinois families.

The Kirk campaign did not immediately respond to request for comment.
World's deepest underwater cave found in the Czech Republic

WARSAW, Poland (AP)  A team of explorers say they've discovered that a cave in the eastern Czech Republic is the world's deepest flooded fissure, going at least 404 meters (1,325 feet) deep.

Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski, who led the team, told The Associated Press on Friday that he felt like a "Columbus of the 21th century" to have made the discovery near the Czech town of Hranice.

Starnawski, 48, determined Tuesday that the flooded limestone Hranicka Propast, or Hranice Abyss, which divers, including him, have explored for decades in its upper parts, was at least 404 meters deep. He scuba dived to a narrow slot in the rock formation at 200 meters down, then sent a remotely operated underwater robot, or ROV, that went to the depth of 404 meters, or the length of its cord, but still did not hit the bottom.

In this photo taken Sept. 27, 2016 in the flooded Hranicka Propast, or Hranice Abyss, in the Czech Republic Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski, left, and Bartlomiej Grynda, right, are reading images from a remotely-operated underwater robot, or ROV, that went to the record depth of 404 meters ,1,325 feet, revealing the limestone abyss to be the world's deepest flooded cave, during the 'Hranicka Propast - step beyond 400m' expedition led by Starnawski and partly funded by the National Geographic. (AP Photo/ Marcin Jamkowski)

In 2015, Starnawski himself passed through the slot and went to 265 meters down without reaching the cave's bottom, which made him want to do more exploring. But after diving that far down, Starnawski had to spend over six hours in a decompression chamber, and decided he needed a robot instead.

Speaking on the phone from his home in Krakow, southern Poland, Starnawski said Tuesday's discovery makes Hranice Abyss the world's deepest known underwater cavity, beating the previous record-holder, a flooded sinkhole in Italy called Pozzo del Merro, by 12 meters (39 feet).

The Czech Speleological Society said it thinks the cave is even deeper and will yield additional records. When the robot was 404 meters deep "it was as deep as its rope could go, but the bottom was still nowhere in sight," the society said

Diving in the cave is a challenge, because of its muddy areas and a water temperature of 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit). The water's mineral composition also damages equipment and injures exposed skin, Starnawski said.

"But that is the only price to be paid for this discovery, and it was worth paying," he said.

A cross-section map he made of the cave ends with question marks in an unexplored area where he believes the fissure goes deeper.

On Saturday, he plans to dive to 200 meters again to bring the robot back through the narrow passage. The device was made especially for the expedition and operated by a Polish firm, GRALmarine.

Starnawski said National Geographic, which first reported the discovery , covered some of the expedition's cost.

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This story has been corrected to show that the water temperature in the cave is 15 degrees Celsius, not 7 degrees.

In this photo taken Sept. 27, 2016 in the flooded Hranicka Propast, or Hranice Abyss, in the Czech Republic is pictured the screen of a remotely-operate underwater robot, or ROV, indicating it has reached the depth of 403 meters (1322.18 feet) in the cave, revealing it to be the world's deepest known flooded limestone sinkhole, during an expedition led by Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski. The robot went to the depths of 404 meters, the length of its cord, but appeared not to have reached the bottom,,during the 'Hranicka Propast - step beyond 400m' expedition that was partly funded by the National Geographic. (Krzysztof Starnawski Expedition via AP)

In this underwater photo taken Aug. 21, 2015, in the flooded Hranicka Abyss, Czech Republic, Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski is seen examining the limestone crevasse and preparing for a 2016 expedition to measure it depths. On Sept. 27, 2016 Starnawski and his Polish-Czech team discovered that the cave goes 404 meters (1,325 feet) down, making it the world's deepest known flooded abyss. (Krzysztof Starnawski of the Krzysztof Starnawski EXPEDITION via AP)

This map made available to The Associated Press by Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, shows a cross-section of the flooded Hranicka Propast, or Hranice Abyss, in the Czech Republic that Starnawski's Czech and Polish team recently revealed to be the world's deepest known flooded cave. On Sept. 27, 2016, the team used a remotely-operated underwater robot, or ROV, to search for the cave's bottom. It went to the record depth of 404 meters (1,325 feet) but still has not found the bottom, during the 'Hranicka Propast - step beyond 400m' expedition led by Starnawski and partly funded by the National Geographic. (Krzysztof Starnawski Expedition via AP)

In this underwater photo taken Sept. 27, 2016 in the flooded Hranicka Propast, or Hranice Abyss, in the Czech Republic a remotely-operate underwater robot, or ROV, is exploring for the cave's bottom, which it did not find, despite descending to the depth of 404 meters (1,325 feet), the length of its cord, and revealing it to be the world's deepest known flooded limestone sinkhole, during an expedition led by Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski, 'Hranicka Propast - step beyond 400m' that was partly funded by the National Geographic. (Krzysztof Starnawski Expedition via AP)

In this underwater photo taken Aug. 15, 2015 in the flooded Hranicka Propast, or Hranice Abyss, in the Czech Republic is seen Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski exploring the limestone abyss and preparing for deeper exploration with the use of a remotely-operated underwater robot, or ROV. On Sept. 27, 2016, the robot went to the record depth of 404 meters (1,325 feet) revealing the abyss to be the world's deepest flooded cave, during the 'Hranicka Propast - step beyond 400m' expedition led by Starnawski and partly funded by the National Geographic. (Krzysztof Starnawski of EXPEDITION via AP)
Islamic State suspect extradited to Germany from France

BERLIN (AP)  A suspected member of the Islamic State group who turned himself in to French authorities and revealed plans of an attack plot has been extradited to Germany.

Federal prosecutors said Friday that Saleh A., a 29-year-old Syrian whose last name wasn't given in accordance with German privacy laws, was turned over on Thursday.

He and three other men face charges in Germany of membership in a terrorist organization for allegedly plotting an attack in the western city of Duesseldorf. Prosecutors say they all were arrested before they had formed a concrete plan.
Pro-refugee mayor of German town assaulted, no suspects yet

BERLIN (AP)  Police say the pro-refugee mayor of a tiny town in northern Germany was assaulted outside a town hall meeting where the construction of a new asylum-seekers' home was to be discussed.

Oersdorf municipal mayor Joachim Kebschull went to his car to get his laptop Thursday night when he was hit in the head by an unknown assailant with a piece of wood, the dpa news agency reported Friday.

The 61-year-old was briefly knocked out and taken to the hospital but is now in good condition.

It's not known whether the attack was related to the mayor's stance on accommodating asylum-seekers, but officials say he and other town authorities have received xenophobic threats.
BMW issues recall for new Takata air bag problem

DETROIT (AP)  Another potentially deadly problem has surfaced with Takata air bags, this one forcing BMW to recall over 4,000 SUVs in the U.S. and Canada.

The new problem was traced to improper welds, and it's separate from the trouble that has caused the largest automotive recall in U.S. history.

The latest recall, unveiled Friday in documents posted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, affects certain BMW X3 and X4 SUVs from the 2015 model year, and X5s from 2014 and 2015. The driver's front air bag inflator can separate from a plate, shooting out metal and other debris. "This may result in injury or death to vehicle occupants," BMW said in the documents.

FILE - This July 6, 2016, file photo, shows the logo of Takata Corp. at an auto supply shop in Tokyo. BMW is recalling 4,000 SUVs in the U.S. and Canada to fix a new and potentially deadly problem with Takata air bag inflators. The company says in government documents that the drivers front inflator can separate from a plate, shooting out metal and other debris. Dealers will replace the drivers air bag at no cost starting Nov. 11, 2016. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi, File)

No injuries have been reported, and NHTSA says the problem inflators from this manufacturing lot were not installed in any other vehicles made by BMW or other automakers. The agency says the inflators will be tested as a precaution to make sure there are no other problems. BMW says the inflators were not part of any earlier Takata recalls.

"Indications thus far are that this issue is isolated to approximately 4,000 parts, and we are unaware of any injuries as a result of the issue," Takata said in a statement, adding that it continues to investigate and work with BMW to address concerns.

It's a new problem for Takata in addition to the one that brought the recall of 69 million vehicles in the U.S. and about 100 million worldwide. In those vehicles, the ammonium nitrate used by Takata to inflate air bags can deteriorate when exposed to high heat and humidity. That can cause it to burn faster than designed, blowing apart a metal inflator canister and sending shrapnel into drivers and passengers. As many as 15 people, including 10 in the U.S., have been killed by exploding Takata inflators, and more than 100 have been hurt.

According to the documents, Takata traced the problem to incorrect welds at a factory in Mexico. The defect was discovered after BMW was told of a July 22 crash in Georgia involving a 2014 X5 in which shrapnel from the air bag caused "unusual damage to the vehicle interior."

Dealers will replace the driver's air bag at no cost, but parts aren't available yet. Until replacement parts are ready, BMW says its dealers will provide loaner cars to people who request them, provided they are available. BMW plans to start notifying owners on Nov. 11.

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Pakistan blames India for postponement of SAARC conference

ISLAMABAD (AP)  Pakistan's Foreign Ministry says it remains committed to hosting the 19th SAARC Summit, which has been postponed after India's decision to abstain.

The Summit of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation was scheduled to take place in Islamabad on Nov. 9-10. Bangladesh also announced it would abstain. The ministry statement blamed the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying it was exploiting recent tensions over cross-border violence in the disputed territory of Kashmir.

The statement also questioned the sincerity of Modi's call to fight against poverty in the region.
Canada geese are loud, aggressive and annoying, but worst of all they poop everywhere  a messy problem vexing cities across the country trying to keep their parks clean and safe.

'Geese and their waste ruin youth sports and picnics, make it unpleasant for the elderly who like to walk in the parks, and the waste gets all over dogs' paws,' said Annissa Essaibi George, a Boston city councilor who this week introduced a measure to drive the messy pests from the city's parks, playgrounds, ballfields, golf courses and waterways.

The poop can make humans sick and pollute waterways, said the first-term councilor, a mother of four whose family trips to the park have been ruined by goose poop.

Canada geese feeding along the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass. Traditionally, this is the time of year when two things appear in the sky: falling autumn leaves and honking Canada geese migrating south.

WHAT CAN BE DONE? Boston officials said all humane options are on the table. That could include the use of dogs, bright lights and noisemakers, relocation or egg sterilization. The city parks department already uses an egg sterilization program, but it's apparently not enough. The National Park Service last year hired a contractor to keep Canada geese off the National Mall. Advertisement

Communities large and small across the nation are dealing with the goose problem, said Paul Curtis, an associate professor of wildlife science and management at Cornell University.

The National Park Service last year hired a contractor to keep Canada geese off the National Mall.

The city of Ithaca, New York, home of Cornell, last year launched a goose control project, he said.

The geese causing the problems were thought to be near extinction not so long ago, so they were protected, and the population grew virtually unchecked, said Curtis, who specializes in human/animal conflict.

'We sort of brought this on ourselves,' he said.

They are not the migratory geese seen flying south in a V-formation every fall.

The geese that force people to keep their eyes on the ground and dance around little cylinders of poop are called resident geese.

They stay year-round, tend to be bigger than migratory geese, live longer and have more young.

They eat grass voraciously, and each adult can produce a pound or more of feces per day, Curtis said.

They have few predators and are not hunted as much as migratory geese because they tend to gather in urban areas.

Andrew Helger, owner of Arlington, Massachusetts-based Southern New England Goose Patrol, is on the front lines of the goose problem.

BEWARE THE RESIDENT GEESE The geese causing the problems were thought to be near extinction not so long ago, so they were protected, and the population grew virtually unchecked They are not the migratory geese seen flying south in a V-formation every fall. The geese that force people to keep their eyes on the ground and dance around little cylinders of poop are called resident geese. The geese causing the problems were thought to be near extinction not so long ago, so they were protected, and the population grew virtually unchecked They stay year-round, tend to be bigger than migratory geese, live longer and have more young. They eat grass voraciously, and each adult can produce a pound or more of feces per day, Curtis said. They have few predators and are not hunted as much as migratory geese because they tend to gather in urban areas. Advertisement

He and his two border collies have been hired by towns, business parks, apartment complexes and golf courses to get rid of geese.

The collies, using their herding instincts, scare the birds away but don't harm them.

'I've been doing this seven or eight years now, and every year it gets worse,' Helger said.

Essaibi George's measure will be discussed at a future meeting of the City Council's Committee on Parks and Recreation, where experts and members of the public will get a chance to speak.

She said all humane options are on the table.

That could include the use of dogs, bright lights and noisemakers, relocation or egg sterilization.

The city parks department already uses an egg sterilization program, but it's apparently not enough.

'Our park system is important to me,' Essaibi George said.
New hearing ordered for Brown student accused of sex assault

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP)  A federal judge says Brown University must hold a new disciplinary hearing for a student who said he was wrongly accused of sexual assault and suspended for two years.

U.S. District Court Judge William Smith this week said the Ivy League university in Rhode Island breached its contract with the student identified as John Doe. Among the issues was that Brown used a different definition of "consent" than the one in place at the time of the encounter.

Smith says nothing in his decision prevents Brown from retrying Doe. He stressed he wasn't addressing whether Doe was responsible.
In death, Peres brings Israelis, Palestinians together

JERUSALEM (AP)  Even in death, Shimon Peres managed to bring Israelis and Palestinians together.

With peace efforts in a deep freeze, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made his first trip to Jerusalem in six years to attend Peres' funeral Friday, shaking hands and making small talk with his longtime adversary, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and challenging the government's narrative that he is not a reliable partner for peace.

It was a fitting tribute to Peres, who was the mastermind of the historic Oslo interim peace accord with the Palestinians in 1993. Despite years of setbacks, he remained Israel's most outspoken advocate for peace until his death.

This image made from video released by the Israeli Prime Minister's office shows Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, left, shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, at the funeral for former President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Shimon Peres was being laid to rest on Friday in a ceremony attended by thousands of admirers and dozens of international dignitaries  in a final tribute to a man who personified the history of Israel during a remarkable seven-decade political career and who came to be seen by many as a visionary and symbol of hopes of Mideast peace. (Israel Prime Minister's office via AP)

The Oslo process is in tatters after two decades of on-again, off-again negotiations and sporadic bouts of violence. The sides have only held two brief, failed rounds of negotiations since Netanyahu took office in 2009. The two leaders rarely speak and spend more time accusing one another of hindering peace prospects.

Friday's encounter was brief but cordial. As Abbas arrived, Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, greeted him. Mrs. Netanyahu invited the Palestinian leader to come back for a visit.

Netanyahu and Abbas exchanged handshake at an international summit in France last year, but have not had a working meeting since 2010.

"Long time. Long time," Abbas said.

"Thank you for coming," Netanyahu responded. "Thank you, Mr. President."

Turning his attention to Abbas' aides, Netanyahu said: "Thank you for coming here. It's something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people and on behalf of Israel."

During the ceremony, Abbas sat in the front row, alongside other world leaders.

While many came from great distances, it was Abbas, whose West Bank headquarters are just a half-hour from Jerusalem, who may have had the most difficult journey.

With the breakdown of peace talks, and during a wave of low-level violence over the past year, Abbas and Netanyahu have become bitter nemeses. At home, Abbas also faced great internal pressure to skip the event.

Palestinian officials said Abbas, who signed the Oslo accord at the White House with Peres in 1993, felt a duty to honor him.

"Our participation in Peres' funeral today was a message of peace to the Israeli people," said Hussein al-Sheikh, a Palestinian Cabinet minister who joined Abbas' delegation. "Peres was our partner for peace in the Oslo accord, and we appreciate his efforts to bring peace, the peace that was not accomplished because of the resistance faced by the political parties that want to perpetuate the occupation."

But they held out little hope that Friday's meeting would lead to any changes.

Netanyahu has offered to meet with Abbas anywhere, anytime. But Abbas has refused to resume talks without a halt to Israeli settlement construction on occupied lands and a planned release of prisoners that Netanyahu canceled. Otherwise, he says a meeting will be nothing more than a photo opportunity.

Netanyahu, whose government is dominated by pro-settler politicians who oppose Palestinian independence, has rejected Abbas' demands. The U.S., France and Russia have all tried to relaunch talks but have been unable to bridge the gaps.

President Barack Obama, who has had a chilly relationship with Netanyahu, praised the Palestinian leader for making the trip, saying: "His presence here is a gesture and a reminder of the unfinished business of peace."

Obama also appeared to be sending a message to the Israeli leader as he lauded Peres' legacy and compared him to "giants of the 20th century" like Nelson Mandela and Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.

"People who speak with depth and knowledge, not in soundbites, they find no interest in polls or fads," he said. Peres "knew better than the cynic that if you look out over the arc of history, human beings should be filled not with fear but with hope."

Abbas faced a much tougher reception with his own people. Although Peres was widely seen as a visionary and peace activist in the West, he was a controversial figure in the Arab world.

Animosity toward Israel remains high, and Peres is often remembered for his links to unpopular Israeli policies. As one of Israel's founding fathers, Peres was associated with the "naqba," or catastrophe, that befell the Palestinians in the war surrounding Israel's creation, when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced from their homes.

Peres also helped turn Israel into a nuclear power in the 1950s, and he was an early defender of efforts of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, a position he later abandoned. Many hold Peres responsible for an Israeli artillery strike that killed dozens of civilians in Lebanon in 1996 while he was prime minister.

The rival Islamic militant group Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas' forces in 2007, called on Abbas not to go to the funeral. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a smaller political faction, also urged him to skip the funeral of the "Zionist war criminal." Even the leaders of the Arab faction in Israel's parliament skipped the funeral.

Yasser Zaatreh, a writer and a political analyst in the West Bank, tweeted Friday: "Handshakes and smiles between Abbas and Netanyahu at Peres funeral. Shame on him and shame on who is defending him."

Makdi Khaldi, a diplomatic adviser to the Palestinian president, said Abbas had decided to attend after receiving an invitation from the Peres family, but he also felt it served the "Palestinian interest."

"President Abbas is ready to go anywhere in the world to achieve peace, even if some people internally oppose such moves," he said.

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Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.

This image released by the Israeli Government Press Office shows Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, left, shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, at the funeral for former President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Shimon Peres was being laid to rest on Friday in a ceremony attended by thousands of admirers and dozens of international dignitaries  in a final tribute to a man who personified the history of Israel during a remarkable seven-decade political career and who came to be seen by many as a visionary and symbol of hopes of Mideast peace. (Amos Ben Gershom, Israeli Government Press Office via AP)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, center, sits next to European Council President Donald Tusk, left, during the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres at Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, center, sits next to European Council President Donald Tusk, second left, during the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres at Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, center, sits next to European Council President Donald Tusk, second left, during the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres at Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Egyptian ForeignMinister Sameh Shoukry, right, also attends. (Stephen Crowley/Pool Photo via AP)
Not guilty plea entered in Tulsa officer's manslaughter case

TULSA, Okla. (AP)  A not guilty plea has been entered on behalf of an Oklahoma police officer charged with first-degree manslaughter in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man.

Tulsa officer Betty Shelby did not say anything at her first court appearance Friday, other than acknowledging her name. Her attorney, Shannon McMurray, entered the not guilty plea on her behalf.

Shelby is charged in the Sept. 16 death of Terence Crutcher, whose family sat in the first two rows of the courtroom Friday in Tulsa. Prosecutors allege Shelby acted unreasonably when she shot the 40-year-old Crutcher after she encountered his vehicle abandoned on the street.

Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby is led from the Tulsa County Sheriff's office into a courtroom in the Tulsa County courthouse, in Tulsa, Okla., Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Shelby is charged with first degree manslaughter in the Sept. 16, 2016 killing of Terence Crutcher. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Shelby, who is white, told investigators she feared for her life.

Shelby's next court appearance is set for Nov. 29.

FILE - This undated file photo provided by the Tulsa Oklahoma Police Department shows officer Betty Shelby. Police say Tulsa officer Shelby fired the fatal shot that killed Terence Crutcher on Sept. 16, 2016. Shelby's attorney Scott Wood said Thursday, Sept. 29 that she was so hyper-focused on the situation that she didn't hear other officers arrive on the scene or even the deadly gunshot she fired from her handgun. Officer Shelby is expected to enter a not-guilty plea at her arraignment on Friday. (Tulsa Police Department via AP, File)

The Rev. Joey Crutcher, left, and his wife, Leanna Crutcher, right, the parents of Terence Crutcher, are led from a courtroom following the arraignment of Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby in Tulsa, Okla., Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Shelby is charged with first degree manslaughter in the Sept. 16, 2016 killing of Terence Crutcher. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Snags in Europe plan to relocate migrants from Greece, Italy

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP)  Hungary is holding a referendum on Sunday against future European Union quotas for accepting asylum seekers, but schemes already in place to ensure EU member countries are taking in a fair share of the migrants reaching Europe hardly are working now.

The EU decided in September 2015 to move 160,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece to other European countries. There, refugees with a "high chance" getting asylum would wait for a decision on their applications and, in case of success, receive permission to settle in the country to which there were relocated.

Under this system, Hungary would receive 1,294 asylum seekers and Slovakia would get 902. Both countries reject the mandatory quotas and are challenging the EU's sharing scheme at the European Court of Justice.

A migrant woman crosses from Serbia to Hungary in Horgos, Serbia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Hungarians will vote Sunday in a referendum which Prime Minister Viktor Orban hopes will give his government the popular support it seeks to oppose any future plans by the European Union to resettle asylum seekers among its member states.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Here's a by-the-numbers look at how the migrant issue is playing out within the 28-nation bloc:

ASYLUM SEEKERS IN EUROPE

Eurostat, the EU's statistical office, says there were 1.25 million first-time asylum applicants in the EU during all of last year and 1.44 million in the 12 months before Sept. 21.

Germany led the EU in 2015 with 441,800 first-time applicants, followed by Hungary with 174,435 and Sweden with 156,110.

While Germany and Sweden are destination countries for refugees and migrants, Hungary is almost exclusively a transit country and often the first EU country where people heading north from Turkey and Greece register.

Next on the list are two more destination nations: Austria, with 85,505 applications in 2015, and Italy with 83,245.

At the bottom are Croatia with 140 first-time applicants, Estonia with 225 and Slovenia with 260.

PROTECTION GRANTED

Germany is also first in the EU in approving asylum requests, having granted some sort of international protection to 140,910 refugees in 2015.

Sweden is second with 32,215, Italy third with 29,615 asylum seekers recognized last year. France (20,630) and the Netherlands (16,540) round out the top five.

Latvia approved only 20 asylum applications, followed by Croatia with 40 and Slovenia's 45.

Eurostat said Hungary approved 505 asylum requests in 2015.

ASYLUM SEEKER RELOCATION

The European Commission said just 5,651 asylum seekers of the EU target of 160,000 had been relocated from Greece and Italy as of Sept. 27.

France welcomed the most, 1,952, but was expected to receive 19,714 under the EU quota plan.

The Netherlands had 726 relocations out of 5,947 pledged, while Finland took in 690 asylum seekers out of the 2,078 it was assigned.

Austria, Hungary and Poland did not admit any asylum-seekers from the relocation pool.

HUNGARY'S CASE

The Hungarian government's assorted objections to the relocation scheme have led to Sunday's referendum which, while not legally binding, has boosted both Prime Minister Viktor Orban's popularity and anti-migrant attitudes among Hungarian citizens. Orban says support for the government's position in the referendum will make it harder for Brussels to ignore Hungary's quota nihilism.

"The referendum will decide how strong a sword we can forge in the fight against the Brussels bureaucrats," Orban told Hungarian news site Origo.hu.

Orban thinks future EU relocation quotas could compel the country of 9.8 million to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees, many of them Muslims he says would spoil Hungary's homogenous society along with its Christian identity and culture.

"We are only defending the right to remain unchanged," Orban said this week on state television. "We Hungarians love Hungary the way it is."

A migrant from Afghanistan holds on to a fence after crossing to Hungary from Serbia in Roszke, Hungary, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Hungarians will vote Sunday in a referendum which Prime Minister Viktor Orban hopes will give his government the popular support it seeks to oppose any future plans by the European Union to resettle asylum seekers among its member states. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
To mark the 400th anniversary of the deaths of Tang Xianzu and William Shakespeare, a thematic exhibition opened in China Cultural Center in Brussels on Thursday night.

Tang Xianzu (Left) and William Shakespeare [Photo/Xinhua]

With the title of "Dialogue Across Time and Space -- Homage to Tang Xianzu and William Shakespeare," the exhibition takes the Tang-Shakespeare conversation as an entry point.

It narrates the life story of Tang and his classics through sections of "The Era and the Legend", "Fantasy and Reality" and "Me@Tang", which lead visitors to a clash and integration of oriental and western cultures.

Virtual Reality(VR) technology has also been used to create an immerse sense of ancient Chinese culture. A lot of visitors itched for a try.

"You know what?! I dreamed to be in China again just now," Dominique Barea, a local resident who has been in Shanghai once, said excitedly: "There are old wooden architecture, delicate decorations, gentle and quiet Kun Qu...It's just cosy!"

Yan Zhenquan, director of the China Cultural Center in Brussels, hosted the the opening ceremony of the exhibition. Claire Chantrenne, musicologist and curator of the Asian Collections at the Museum of Music Instruments in Brussels also participated into the ceremony.

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the deaths of Tang Xianzu and William Shakespeare. The exhibition is scheduled to last till October 15.
No charges against police officer in Union Station shooting

WASHINGTON (AP)  Prosecutors say no charges will be filed against an off-duty Baltimore County police officer who fatally shot a knife-wielding man at Washington's Union Station last year.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia announced Friday that it had completed its review of the Nov. 14, 2015, shooting of Rashad Bugg-Bey. It found insufficient evidence that the officer used excessive force.

Prosecutors say 25-year-old Bugg-Bey had slashed a female relative's face with a knife at Union Station. The off-duty Baltimore County officer saw the woman screaming and running.
Senators: Some mail-in voter registration deadlines defy law

Two Democratic senators say nine states are violating federal law with their mail-in voter registration deadlines for the November election, potentially disenfranchising thousands of people by blocking applications as many as three days earlier than other states.

U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Patrick Leahy of Vermont asked the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to intervene and work with election officials in those states to ensure compliance with the National Voting Rights Act. The states cited in their letter Thursday are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah and Washington.

"The right to vote is too precious to have something so simple to fix potentially prevent so many Americans from participating in the upcoming Election," the senators wrote.

FILE - In this March 16, 2016 file photo, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, left, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., right, depart the White House, in Washington. Schumer and Leahy said multiple states are violating federal law with their mail-in voter registration deadlines for the November election, blocking applications as many as three days earlier than other states and potentially disenfranchising thousands of people. In a letter this week, the pair have asked the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to intervene and work with election officials in nine states to ensure compliance with the National Voting Rights Act. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

The calendar appears to be the culprit.

The deadline for registering by mail under federal law  30 days before the election  falls on a Sunday this year. The next day happens to be Columbus Day, when there will be no postal service, preventing registrations from being postmarked. All other states have adjusted their deadlines to account for the long holiday weekend, accepting registration applications postmarked by Tuesday, Oct. 11.

Utah is among them, despite being cited in the senators' letter, said Mark Thomas, the state's director of elections. State law says nearly all registration deadlines must be moved forward if the deadline falls on a Sunday or holiday, and that's what Utah has done for this fall's general election, he said.

Election Assistance Commission spokesman Bryan Whitener said the agency is reviewing the senators' request.

This year is the first presidential election in which a key enforcement provision of the Voting Rights Act is no longer in effect, and voting rights groups have been aggressively calling attention to any potential for disenfranchisement.

Four of the nine states with the earlier registration deadlines were previously required by a section of the Voting Rights Act to obtain U.S. Justice Department approval before changing voting procedures.

A 2013 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court set aside the preclearance requirement, opening the way for a wave of new voting laws. Fourteen states have new restrictions on voting or registration in place this year. Experts say the potential for voter confusion is high as courts block or strike down some provisions while upholding others.

The voter registration deadlines cited by the senators apply only to applications that are mailed in. All these states also offer in-person registration, although their rules vary and may require more effort or limit the voter's choices. Rhode Island offers same-day registration on Election Day, but limits these voters to ballots only for president and vice president.

Still, the number of people mailing in applications can be significant. During the 2012 presidential election, at least 55,000 people in New York state were registered to vote after applying on the last possible day, according to data collected by the state Board of Elections and provided by Schumer's staff. The number was nearly 39,000 for the same election in Washington state.

Rhode Island officials said they were surprised to hear about the senators' letter; they thought they were meeting the 30-day requirement by requiring postmarks no later than Sunday the 9th. Officials there and in Alaska said the deadline would not be changed. Carol Thompson with Alaska's Division of Elections noted that Columbus Day is not a state holiday and state offices would be open.

In Washington state, Secretary of State Kim Wyman emailed local election officials earlier this week recommending they honor an Oct. 11 postmark for applications, and on Friday said that all had agreed to do so. Arkansas election officials said despite the state's Oct. 10 deadline, applications postmarked Oct. 11 would be accepted.

The issue has been contentious in Arizona, a state previously covered under the Voting Rights Act. Democrats asked the secretary of state to change its deadline of Monday, Oct. 10.

Secretary of State Michele Reagan, a Republican, has no plans to do so, said her spokesman, Matt Roberts. One reason, he said, is that pushing back the deadline would cut into the time counties have between processing registrations and early ballots.

"Without legislation, it's difficult to deal with some of this stuff because you're really opening a Pandora's box of problems," Roberts said. "We're still confident that we made the right decision."

He said Reagan intends to ask lawmakers next year to pass legislation that would call for the early voting deadline to be postponed a day if it falls on a holiday. In the meantime, the office is encouraging people to register electronically and to take action before the deadline.

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Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska; Rachel La Corte in Olympia, Washington; Claudia Lauer in Little Rock, Arkansas; Matt O'Brien in Providence, Rhode Island; Michelle L. Price in Salt Lake City; and Terry Tang in Phoenix contributed to this report.

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Louisiana governor heading to Cuba next week for trade talks

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP)  Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Friday that he is traveling to Cuba next week for a trade mission, seeking to build economic ties with the island nation now that the U.S. is moving to normalize relations between the countries.

The five-day trip, which begins Monday, will include Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain, Economic Development Secretary Don Pierson and Transportation and Development Secretary Shawn Wilson. About 50 other state, local, education and business officials also will participate.

"We want Louisiana to be first in line to any new opportunities with Cuba, particularly the import, export and foreign direct-investment possibilities that could range into the billions of dollars in the coming years," Edwards said in a statement.

The visit comes as President Barack Obama has re-established diplomatic relations with the one-time foe. The United States and Cuba severed diplomatic ties in 1961 amid the Cold War. Obama traveled to Cuba in March, the first by a sitting U.S. president in nearly 90 years, and he's named the first U.S. ambassador in more than a half-century.

Louisiana currently ranks as the top exporting state to Cuba and is seeking to bolster those relationships.

State lawmakers passed a resolution earlier this year urging trade talks with Cuba. Edwards' office said the Democratic governor's trip will include executives from five Louisiana port districts to discuss commercial opportunities with the country.

"There remains much work to be done before our nation's embargo on broader trade with Cuba is lifted," Edwards said. "However, there are new opportunities that can benefit Louisiana, and I am optimistic that we will be able to build on our existing trade partnership."

The governor's office said Edwards and the Louisiana delegation will attend an opening reception with Cuban officials Monday night; hold meetings Tuesday with the Cuban ministers of foreign affairs and foreign investment and the national port administration; visit the Port of Mariel and Port of Havana on Wednesday; visit farms and meet with the Cuban minister of agriculture on Thursday; and return to Louisiana on Friday.

Strain also traveled to Cuba in July with a state delegation.

"Cuba imports 80 percent of its produce, and Cuba is in great need of quality products Louisiana can provide," the Republican agriculture commissioner said in a statement.

The last visit to Cuba was by Democratic Louisiana Gov. Democrat Kathleen Blanco in 2005.

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Clinton calls Trump Twitter tirade 'unhinged, even for him'

CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. (AP)  Hillary Clinton is criticizing Donald Trump's Twitter tirade against a former beauty pageant winner, calling it "unhinged, even for him."

"Who gets up at 3 o'clock in the morning to engage in a Twitter attack?" Clinton asked at an event in Coral Springs. She said Trump's slew of tweets against 1996 Miss Universe Alicia Machado show that he is "temperamentally unfit" to be president.

Clinton raised Machado's name in the first presidential debate, noting Trump's mockery when Machado gained weight after winning Miss Universe in 1996. Trump denounced Machado in a television interview the next morning and resumed his attacks with the tweets Friday, questioning her sexual history and whether Clinton helped her become a citizen.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during a campaign stop in Coral Springs, Fla., Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Clinton reached out to Machado on Friday afternoon to thank her "for all she has done and the courage she has shown," according to campaign spokesman Nick Merrill. He said Machado promised to continue supporting her and said she would stand up to the attacks.

Campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri said Clinton did not help Machado become a citizen.

The tweetstorm sparked a day of criticism focusing on the substance of Trump's remarks and how they derail his anti-Clinton message. At the same time, the tweets largely drowned out Clinton's policy speech, another example of the challenge she faces as she seeks to give voters a more uplifting message  and a reason to vote for her, not just against Trump.

Earlier in the day in Fort Pierce, Florida, Clinton focused her remarks on her plans to expand public service, acknowledging that some might question her choice of subject matter.

"Some might say, 'Well, hey, my gosh, you've only got 39 days to go, why aren't you out there beating up on your opponent and doing everything to get the vote out and all the rest of it?'" Clinton said. "Well, I'll do that. ... But I've been thinking about this for a long time."

During her speech, Clinton detailed her plans to enhance service opportunities. She wants to triple the size of the AmeriCorps program, add to the Peace Corps and create a new national service reserve program. Under her proposed service program, people would enroll, receive some training and then state and local leaders could call on their help during natural disasters or emergency situations.

Clinton said that service had been a priority of Republicans and Democrats in the past, but added, "I don't think you'll hear anything about this from my opponent."

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton waves during a campaign stop in Fort Pierce, Fla., Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton takes a selfie as she meets with attendees during a campaign stop in Fort Pierce, Fla., Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Ruling Bosnian Serbs, pro-EU group face-off in local votes

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP)  Bosnians will vote Sunday in local elections marked by a battle over who will run the municipalities in the part of the country run by Bosnian Serbs  a pro-European Union coalition or the already ruling separatist party with close ties to Russia.

Municipal councils and mayors will be chosen throughout the country, but the main contest will take place in Republika Srpska region between the party of regional President Milorad Dodik  the Alliance of Independent Social-Democrats  and a coalition called The Alliance for Changes.

Dodik advocates secession from Bosnia and has promised Bosnian Serbs a 2018 referendum on independence  something many of them have been seeking since Yugoslavia collapsed during the 1990s. The equally nationalistic coalition sees the future Republika Srpska as a semi-autonomous region within a Bosnia that is an EU member.

Bosnian Serb Milorad Dodik, President of the Bosnian Serb region of Republic of Srpska, attends a pre election rally of the "Alliance of Independent Social Democrats" party in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka, 240 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. Bosnians will vote in local elections on Sunday Oct. 2. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

The coalition led by the Serb Democratic Party focused its pre-election campaign on bread and butter issues, but also published details of Dodik's alleged corruption and accused him of throwing the region into poverty during his decade in power.

However, Dodik managed to shift voter's attention away from the accusations by holding, a week before the regional elections, a divisive Bosnian Serb referendum over a disputed Republika Srpska holiday that the country's constitutional court had banned because it discriminates against non-Serbs.

The court also banned the referendum, but Dodik conducted it anyway and portrayed the court's actions as an attack on Serb autonomy. Voters overwhelmingly approved the holiday, although non-Serbs mostly boycotted the vote.

The opposition says the "unnecessary" referendum cost taxpayers 750,000 euros ($840,000) and was used as a ploy by Dodik to divert attention from serious issues facing the region.

Each of Bosnia's two regions  Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation  has its own government, president and parliament, but the two are linked by a shared state-level government, parliament and a three-member presidency comprised of a Muslim Bosniak, Christian Orthodox Serb and Roman Catholic Croat.

In general elections two years ago, Dodik's party lost the Serb posts in the state elections to the opposition coalition, but retained power in the regional parliament and government. Since his opponents joined the central government, Bosnia made progress toward obtaining EU membership and begun major socio-economic reforms. Dodik has called them Serb traitors.

A poor showing for Dodik's party in Sunday's municipal elections, following the loss at the national level, would be a sign of his diminished popularity among Bosnian Serbs after more than a decade in which he has gone unchallenged.

A Bosnian man stands next to a poster of Igor Radojcic at a pre election rally of the "Alliance of Independent Social Democrats" party in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka, 240 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. Bosnians will vote in local elections on Sunday Oct. 2. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

Bosnian people cheer at a pre election rally of the "Alliance of Independent Social Democrats" party in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka, 240 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. Bosnians will vote in local elections on Sunday Oct. 2. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

Bosnian Serb Milorad Dodik, President of the Bosnian Serb region of Republic of Srpska, greets supporters aftera pre election rally of the "Alliance of Independent Social Democrats" party in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka, 240 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. Bosnians will vote in local elections on Sunday Oct. 2. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

Bosnian people pass by an election poster of Samir Residat, the candidate for the Democratic Front (DF), in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Bosnians will vote in local elections on Sunday Oct. 2. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

Bosnian people cheer and wave Bosnian Serb flags during a pre election rally of "Alliance of Independent Social Democrats" party in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka, 240 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. Bosnians will vote in local elections on Sunday Oct. 2. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

Bosnian Serb Milorad Dodik, President of the Bosnian Serb region of Republic of Srpska,speaks to supporters at a pre election rally of the "Alliance of Independent Social Democrats" party in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka, 240 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. Bosnians will vote in local elections on Sunday Oct. 2. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

Bosnian people are reflected in an election poster of Denis Challenger, the candidate for the Democratic Front (DF), in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Bosnians will vote in local elections on Sunday Oct. 2. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

A Bosnian girl stands in from of a poster of Milorad Dodik at a pre election rally of the "Alliance of Independent Social Democrats" party in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka, 240 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. Bosnians will vote in local elections on Sunday Oct. 2. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

Bosnian Serb Milorad Dodik, centre rear, President of the Bosnian Serb region of Republic of Srpska, greets supporters at a pre election rally of the "Alliance of Independent Social Democrats" party in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka, 240 kms northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. Bosnians will vote in local elections on Sunday Oct. 2. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)
Attack on train kills at least 3 in Republic of Congo

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo (AP)  A police spokesman says armed men have attacked a train carrying security forces in Republic of Congo's Pool region, killing several people.

Auxence Itoua Langa said Friday that individuals opened fire with automatic weapons on a group of gendarmes about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the capital, Brazzaville. He said several people died, but did not give a figure.

A police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak to media, said the conductor and two gendarmes died.

The army has been deployed in the region since April after attacks by former militiamen known as Ninjas Nsiloulou killed at least 17 people. Amnesty International said the military launched airstrikes then, killing 30.
Clinton in a landslide _ in endorsements: Do they matter?

NEW YORK (AP)  "A clear and present danger to our country." ''Xenophobia, racism and misogyny." ''Beneath our national dignity."

Those aren't excerpts from attack ads by Hillary Clinton's campaign. Those are longtime Republican newspapers disavowing Donald Trump.

If newspaper endorsements equaled victory, Clinton would be in line for a historic landslide. She has been endorsed by dozens of papers ranging from such expected backers as The New York Times to such once-certain GOP advocates as The Dallas Morning News, the Arizona Republic and the Cincinnati Enquirer, which on Sept. 23 called for "a leader who will bring out the best in Americans, not the worst."

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton meets with attendees during a campaign stop in Fort Pierce, Fla., Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

On Friday, USA Today ended its tradition of not taking sides and published an anti-endorsement, contending that Trump "lacks the temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty that America needs from its presidents." The paper didn't back Clinton but advised readers to "Stay true to your convictions." The same day, The San Diego Union-Tribune endorsed Clinton  the first Democrat it has endorsed in its history.

Trump, meanwhile, is supported by far fewer publications. They include a paper owned by son-in-law Jared Kushner (the New York Observer) and the National Enquirer, a tabloid whose parent company is run by Trump friend David Pecker and whose content usually focuses on celebrity scandal.

Trump scorned the negative editorials Friday, tweeting that "The people are really smart in cancelling subscriptions to the Dallas & Arizona papers & now USA Today will lose readers! The people get it!"

"I don't read USA Today," he said later to WZZM13 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, "It's not much of a newspaper as far as I'm concerned."

If Clinton's overwhelming advantage among editorial boards mirrors the revulsion Trump has inspired from officials in both parties, the endorsements may also illustrate the decline in newspapers' power to shape opinions and the strength of Trump's anti-establishment appeal. Polls show Clinton trailing in Texas, Arizona and Ohio despite the unexpected support of GOP papers. During the primaries, the venerable conservative paper the New Hampshire Union Leader endorsed Chris Christie, only to have the New Jersey governor lose the state decisively, drop out and back Trump. The Arizona Republic favored John Kasich in the state's GOP primary, but Trump won easily, and the Ohio governor finished fourth.

"Newspaper endorsements don't have nearly the impact they used to," says Mark McKinnon, co-host of Showtime's political show "The Circus" and a longtime adviser who has worked with former President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the GOP's 2008 presidential candidate. "There are just way too many other sources of information for voters today."

"They are just part of the wave," says political historian Rick Perlstein, who is in the midst of a multivolume series on the rise of the conservative movement and has written in depth about elections of the 1960s, '70s and beyond. "They don't start anything, and probably didn't determine much  but betoken a widespread disgust in the air."

Readers may not let editorials tell them how to vote, but they care enough to respond. Dallas Morning News editor Mike Wilson recalls a group of about a dozen people demonstrated against the endorsement across the street from the paper. Wilson went down to talk with them. In a series of tweets, he described a discussion that began angrily but settled into a serious dialogue. "I got a few words in and persuaded zero people," he tweeted.

Wilson said he's received some messages from Clinton supporters thanking the newspaper for the editorial, but hasn't heard that it changed anyone's mind. "They're not really meant to end arguments, they're mean to start discussions, and this one certainly did that," he said.

"One of the reasons we exist is to take editorial positions on things that can improve lives in our community," he said. "That is one of the core functions of a newspaper."

Peter Bhatia, editor and vice president of audience engagement at the Cincinnati Enquirer, said he knows that the impact of editorial endorsements has lessened. "The days of people taking the endorsements of an editorial board and going into the polling place with them are pretty much long gone," he said. But he still considers it an important obligation. The newspaper's editorial board came to consensus pretty quickly so they decided to get it out.

As anticipated, some readers lashed out. Bhatia said he received some 150 angry emails and there were some canceled subscriptions. "I am impressed by how thoroughly rehearsed some of the attacks on Hillary Clinton are," he said. "They have a very familiar bent to them."

He also cites their incivility, but doesn't find that unusual in the internet age. He said there also have been a few dozen positive notes. He said he gave an interview to CBC radio in Canada and got a long email from someone who found his arguments convincing.

Just one problem: The person lives in Canada and can't vote.
The Latest: Fourth night of protests of police shooting

EL CAJON, Calif. (AP)  The Latest on a police shooting of an unarmed black man in a San Diego suburb (all times local):

10 p.m.

At least 100 people are out on the streets of El Cajon, California, for a fourth night of protests of the police shooting of unarmed black man.

Pamela Benge, center, spoke of her son, Alfred Olango, at a press conference on Thursday Sept. 29, 2016, in San Diego, Calif., to address the killing of Olango, a Ugandan refugee shot by an El Cajon police officer on Tuesday. In an emotional appearance before reporters, Benge said her son Alfred was joyful and loving and was not mentally ill. (AP Photo/Don Boomer)

The Friday night protest came hours after the release of a video showing the Tuesday shooting of Alfred Olango.

The group blocked intersections as they marched through the streets. At one point, the protesters tried to walk onto an interstate freeway, but they were blocked by police.

There were not yet any reports of violence, vandalism or arrests.

There were fears of unrest after protesters threw bottles and a brick at police and had to be broken up with pepper-spray balls on Thursday night. Five people were arrested after that protest.

Police Chief Jeff Davis says the increasingly aggressive protests prompted authorities to release the video earlier than expected.

Everyone from black community leaders to police to the victim's family urged protesters to be peaceful.

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4:50 p.m.

A lawyer for the family of an unarmed black man killed by police in California says video shows an officer provoked the man before opening fire.

Attorney Dan Gilleon says cellphone footage released by police on Friday shows what he calls "a cowboy with his gun drawn provoking a mentally disturbed person" into reacting.

Police say Alfred Olango was shot Tuesday after he pulled something from his pocket and took a shooting stance toward the officer, who shot him.

It turned out Olango was holding an e-cigarette device with a barrel-like tip.

El Cajon police Chief Jeff Davis says authorities decided to make the video public after protests over the shooting became increasingly violent. There have been several rock- and bottle-throwing incidents and arrests.

Some protesters had called for release of the video.

Gilleon contends that police didn't give the family enough time to gather and see the video before a news conference.

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4 p.m.

Government and other leaders have urged residents and businesses in the city of El Cajon, California, to stay home and shut down after protests of the police shooting of an unarmed black man have grown increasingly violent.

Daryl Priest, president of a local business association, urged downtown businesses to shut down Friday before authorities released video of the shooting of Alfred Olango and to stay closed until Sunday.

The city's school district let students out early on Friday so they could get home before any unrest develops.

The protests were peaceful in the first nights after Tuesday's shooting, but on Thursday night some protesters threw bottles and one threw a brick at police officers. Others pushed a man off his motorcycle. Five people were arrested.

Police Chief Jeff Davis says the increasing violence prompted the release of the full video sooner than expected, with hopes that speeding the process would reduce unrest.

Many people in the city were worried that in the short term, the video would fuel aggressive protests.

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3:15 p.m.

The head of the San Diego NAACP is applauding the public release of videos showing a police officer police shooting an unarmed black man.

NAACP president Andre Branch joined El Cajon police and public officials Friday at a news conference on the release of the videos of Tuesday's shooting of Alfred Olango.

Branch says full disclosure to the public builds trust and demonstrates respect.

He spoke shortly before the videos were shown.

Branch and other black leaders in the area had urged the release of the video footage after authorities initially released only a single still image earlier in the week they said showed Olango in a "shooting stance" during the confrontation with officers.

Police Chief Jeff Davis says Olango's family was invited to watch the video footage before it was made public but declined the invitation. Davis says he does not know why.

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3 p.m.

Police have released two videos showing the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by an officer in a San Diego suburb.

The videos show the officer almost immediately fired when the man suddenly raised both hands in what has been described as a shooting stance.

Another officer who just walked up fired a stun gun.

El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis says the decision to release the videos Friday came after small but increasingly violent protests.

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12:55 p.m.

Police say they will release videos of the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by an officer in a San Diego suburb.

The release expected later Friday comes after protesters and the family of the dead man demanded to see the full cellphone video from which a single frame had been released showing the man in what was described as a "shooting stance."

They claimed the image had been "cherry-picked" to support the police version of the shooting.

A police statement said the video and an unspecified surveillance video will be distributed at a 2 p.m. PDT briefing at the El Cajon Police Department.

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10:50 a.m.

Pastors have led dozens of people in a prayer for healing in a San Diego suburb following days of angry and sometimes violent protests over the police killing of an unarmed black man.

Ministers on Friday said they are hurting over the death of Ugandan refugee Alfred Olango and called for unity outside El Cajon police headquarters.

Police say Olango was fatally shot after he quickly drew an object from his pocket and pointed it at an officer in a "shooting stance." Police were responding to a report of a mentally unstable man.

Clergy emphasized that diversity is a strength in the community where thousands of refugees make their home. Minsters who attended had immigrated from Jordan, Vietnam and Iraq.

One minister speaking in Arabic called for peace.

In this Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016 frame from video provided by the El Cajon Police Department, a man, second from left, faces police officers in El Cajon, Calif. The man reportedly acting erratically at a strip mall in suburban San Diego was shot and killed by police after pulling an object from his pocket, pointing it at officers and assuming a "shooting stance," authorities said. Some protesters claimed the man was shot with his hands raised, but police disputed that and produced the frame from cellphone video taken by a witness that appeared to show the man in the "shooting stance" as two officers approached with weapons drawn. (El Cajon Police Department via AP)

Demonstrators yell at police during a protest Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016, in El Cajon, Calif. Dozens of demonstrators on Wednesday protested the killing of Alfred Olango, a Ugandan refugee shot by an officer after authorities said he pulled an object from a pocket, pointed it and assumed a "shooting stance." (AP Photo/Julie Watson)

This undated cellphone photo released by Dan Gilleon, the attorney for the family of Alfred Olango, shows Alfred Olango, the Ugandan refugee killed Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016, in El Cajon, Calif. The fatal police shooting of Olango, who drew something from his pocket and extended his hands in a "shooting stance" happened about a minute after officers in a San Diego suburb arrived at the scene where a mentally unstable man was reportedly walking in traffic, a police spokesman said Wednesday. (Olango Family via AP)

A man covers his eyes with police tape during a protest, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016, in El Cajon, Calif. Dozens of demonstrators on Wednesday protested the killing of a black man shot by an officer after authorities said the man pulled an object from a pocket, pointed it and assumed a "shooting stance." (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

A police officer talks with a man during a protest Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016, in El Cajon, Calif. Dozens of demonstrators on Wednesday protested the killing of a black man shot by an officer after authorities said the man pulled an object from a pocket, pointed it and assumed a "shooting stance." (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
A topical disc from rock 'n' roll's Southern conscience

NEW YORK (AP)  Two shootings nearly 85 years apart drove the creation of the Drive-By Truckers' pointed new music.

Patterson Hood was inspired by Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 and other police shootings to write "What it Means," a rumination on racism. His bandmate Mike Cooley went back further for "Ramon Casiano," a 15-year-old Mexican immigrant killed in 1931 by Harlon Carter, a teen-ager who grew up to transform the National Rifle Association from a sportsman's group to fierce advocates for less restrictive gun laws.

The songs are the heart of a disc among the most topical, and best, in this Georgia-based rock band's 20-year career. "American Band" also has songs about the Confederate flag, an Oregon school shooting, religious hucksters, culture wars and disaffected youth  and some personal takes on depression and Southern identity.

Members of the alternative country band Drive-By Truckers, from left, Brad Morgan, Mike Cooley, Patterson Hood, Jay Gonzalez, and Matt Patton pose for a photo, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016, before playing a show in Seattle. The band's latest album "American Band," was released on Friday. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

While the Truckers usually prefer elaborate artwork on their albums, this disc's cover is a photo of the stars and stripes. Releasing it Friday, a month before the election, is no coincidence, either.

"I'd like to think that we could have taken the world by storm if we had written some sweet love songs," Cooley said. "We might have been more successful if we had taken that route."

Quite possibly. More easily forgotten, too.

The Truckers first attracted attention with 2001's "Southern Rock Opera," a concept album about growing up in the South. Their progressive perspective defies and challenges stereotypes. The New York Times turned to Hood for an essay on the Confederate flag, and a song about racism in law enforcement from white men with Southern accents will likely reach people who tune out "Black Lives Matter" protests.

Hood wrote "What it Means" two years ago.

"I was honestly hoping that it would be outdated, and we would just move on and not put it on (the album)," he said. "But it keeps being relevant, unfortunately."

Their Alabama upbringings helped define their world view. Hood's father was a musician who played on Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett records. Cooley said he was in his 30s before he heard anyone refer to the Civil War as the "War of Northern Aggression." A backdrop of "Southern Rock Opera" was the damage done to the South and its economy by the resistance some whites had to the civil rights movement.

"I feel like we're in an era and age where we're kind of watching this happen on a national scale right now," Hood said. "I can't really draw a large distinction between what (Donald) Trump is doing and what (former Alabama Gov. George) Wallace was doing and saying, except I think Wallace was a smarter person."

Hood moved recently to Portland, Oregon, a relocation that informs "Ever South," about how leaving one part of the country doesn't mean it leaves you. In "Baggage," he also writes about his own struggles with depression, a subject he was compelled to write about by public reaction to the death of comic Robin Williams.

The Drive-By Truckers have seen personnel shifts through the years, including, most famously, a stint by Americana star Jason Isbell. Hood and Cooley remain their center. They write separately, pushing each other in a friendly competition. The band is at its best when both writers are at their best, and Cooley's emergence from a writer's block the past few years has deepened their work.

"I'm probably his biggest fan," Hood said. "Nothing makes me happier than getting a whole bunch more Cooley songs to play."

The release a few months ago of Cooley's "Surrender Under Protest," about the killing of nine people in Charleston, S.C., church and the subsequent fight over the Confederate flag, previewed the direction of "American Band." It also attracted a strong reaction on social media, a hint they were working on something provocative.

Not that Cooley noticed. "He doesn't look at the Internet," his partner said.

"I've never used it," Cooley said. "I went to middle school and I don't want to go back."

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Follow David Bauder at twitter.com/dbauder. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/david-bauder
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Feng Xiaogang's new directorial movie I'm Not Madame Bovary celebrated its triumph in two international festivals in Beijing.

A scene from I'm Not Madame Bovary. [Photo/Mtime]

The movie, adapted from a hit novel written by Liu Zhenyun, won the Prize of the International Federation of Film Critics for Special Presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept 18.

In the just concluded 64th San Sebastian Film Festival, the film claimed the Golden Shell, the event's top prize for best picture and the best actress award.

Feng says he tries hard to set aside all his past experience and habits to make this unlikely satire.

The film will be released on the Chinese mainland on Nov 18.
Colombia's rebels pave road to peace with apologies

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP)  For the third time in a week Colombia's largest rebel movement has asked forgiveness from its victims during the country's decades-long conflict.

Leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia traveled Friday to the Gulf of Uraba region to meet with residents in the town of Apartado where a rebel unit in 1994 killed 35 people, including two children, during a street party. What came to be known as the massacre of La Chinita, for the poverty-stricken neighborhood where the killings took place, was one of the bloodiest of the era.

The apology, made during a ceremony also attended by government officials, comes just two days before Colombians vote on whether to ratify a peace deal between the FARC and the government ending 52 years of hostilities. Polls show the referendum will pass by a wide margin but turnout is expected to be low, a sign of how many Colombians continue to distrust the rebels, who under the terms of the accord will be spared jail time if they confess their crimes.

A boy shows his hand painted with the word "Yes" in Spanish during an event attended by Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos to promote the "yes" vote in the upcoming referendum on the peace deal he signed with rebels Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, in Soacha, in the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Colombians go to the polls on Oct. 2 in a referendum where they will be asked to ratify or reject the accord. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

The FARC are believed to have targeted Apartado because many demobilized fighters from a rival guerrilla army had abandoned the armed struggle and made a political toe-hold in the banana-growing region of northwest Colombia.

Residents of the neighborhood, many of them dressed in white shirts, said they welcome the FARC's act of contrition but want the rebels to follow up with acts of reparation and truth-telling about what led to the tragedy. In an effort to turn a page on the past, they're also proposing that the street where the killings took placed be renamed "Hope."

Images from the encounter broadcast on Caracol TV showed the rebel leader known as Pastor Alape carrying a white carnation in his hand symbolizing peace.

The ceremony follows FARC leader Ivan Marquez's donation Thursday of a Christ statue to a church in western Colombia destroyed in a 2002 bombing by the rebels that left dozens dead.

On Monday, FARC leader Rodrigo Londono apologized for the rebels' crimes during a peace signing ceremony with President Juan Manuel Santos.

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos speaks during an event to promote the "yes" vote in the upcoming referendum on the peace deal he signed with rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, in Soacha, on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Colombians go to the polls on Oct. 2 in a referendum where they will be asked to ratify or reject the deal. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
Analysis: Trump won't change; he can't let go of a grudge

WASHINGTON (AP)  Donald Trump will not change.

He may surround himself with new staff and even listen to their advice for a while. He may stick to a scripted, more measured message if it looks to be working.

But he'll always be the man who can't let go of a grudge, whether it's with a judge who ruled against him or a military father whose son was killed fighting for the United States overseas.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, in Novi, Mich. (AP Photo/John Locher)

He'll always be the man who embarrassed a young beauty queen about her weight, then defended his comments two decades later when Hillary Clinton raised them in a debate. And the man who on Friday  just 38 days away from potentially being elected president of the United States  deepened his highly personal criticism of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado in a pre-dawn Twitter tirade.

"Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?" Trump wrote in a message timestamped 5:30 a.m.

Some voters may applaud Trump's moves. Some may prefer his stubborn refusal to censor himself. Enough voters may ultimately elect him president.

But Trump's pattern of abrasive behavior has left him deeply unpopular with many Americans, particularly women and minorities, who hold significant sway in presidential elections. If Trump does win in November, he'll have to figure out a way to lead a country where many people believe he's racist, sexist and uncivil.

Most Republican leaders long ago gave up hope that Trump would make a full-scale pivot into a more palatable politician in the general election. But they've still found ways to rationalize their support for him, to look past his most volatile moments and offensive rhetoric.

Some Republicans hinge their hopes on a belief that if Trump is elected president, he'll surround himself with high-quality experts to help guide his decision-making. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, both of whom have their own designs on the White House, argue a Trump presidency would at least give them a chance of implementing conservative legislation in Congress, while a Clinton White House would be nothing more than an impenetrable roadblock.

But Republicans might also worry that Clinton's ability to get under Trump's skin so easily has provided a blueprint that world leaders like Russia's Vladimir Putin could use to rile him as president. And they should have no illusions that the brash businessman can control his belligerent behavior and avoid offending many Americans.

Trump's decades in the public eye are littered with examples of long-held grudges with business associates and demeaning comments about women. One of his first moves after clinching the Republican nomination was to start a feud with U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, claiming his Mexican heritage made him biased against Trump in a legal case. Trump emerged from the party conventions this summer locked in an ugly fight with Khizr Khan, an American Muslim whose son was killed serving the U.S. Army in Iraq.

The latest controversy came at one of the most critical stages of the campaign  on the debate stage in front of a televised audience of 84 million people and with early voting already underway in some states.

Trump struggled in Monday night's debate to fend off Clinton's criticism of comments he made about Machado two decades earlier. When Clinton accused him of calling the former Miss Universe "Miss Piggy," he said, "Where did you find this? Where did you find this?"

Rather than let the matter go, he defended himself the next morning, apparently blind to how offensive his comments seemed.

"She gained a massive amount of weight," said Trump, who owned the pageant at the time she won. "It was a real problem. We had a real problem."

Surely by week's end, Trump was aware that his criticism of Machado risked damaging his campaign and giving Clinton fresh fodder to argue that he is too thin-skinned to serve as commander in chief.

That made his decision to keep the story alive Friday and deepen his denigration of Machado all the more perplexing.

"Using Alicia M in the debate as a paragon of virtue just shows that Crooked Hillary suffers from BAD JUDGEMENT! Hillary was set up by a con," Trump wrote in one of three early morning messages about the Venezuelan-born Machado, who is now an American citizen.

Clinton advisers can hardly believe their good fortune as the race barrels toward the finish line. The Democrat has been dragged down by decades of her own baggage and has struggled to persuade voters she is honest and trustworthy. And the race with Trump is far closer than most Clinton supporters expected.

But the core of Clinton's case against Trump has always been that the Republican is too hypersensitive to be trusted in the Oval Office. And just over five weeks from Election Day, Trump is giving her more evidence.

"When something gets under Donald's thin skin, he lashes out and can't let go," Clinton wrote in her own Twitter message Friday. "This is dangerous for a president."

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Julie Pace has covered the White House and politics for The Associated Press since 2007. Follow her at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
United fails to renew liquor license; 2 dry days at Newark

NEW YORK (AP)  Airlines often frustrate road warriors with delays and cancellations. But this week United Airlines did something more egregious: it temporarily stopped serving free booze at two of its lounges.

This wasn't the result of some cost-cutting measure or attempt to rein in drunk, unruly passengers. It was an administrative error: somebody at the airline never renewed its liquor license.

So on Wednesday and Thursday the two United Clubs in Terminal C of Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey couldn't serve any beer, wine or spirits until the matter was resolved with Newark City Hall. (The club in Terminal A sits in Elizabeth, New Jersey, but is closed for construction. But if open, it could have served liquor.)

FILE - In this July 25, 2013, file photo, a United Airlines plane takes off from Newark Liberty International Airport, in Newark, N.J. United Airlines let is club liquor license lapse in Newark, leading to two days, Wednesday, Sept. 28 and Thursday, Sept. 29, without alcohol. The membership club offers free drinks to frequent fliers. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

The license issue was resolved by Friday morning and travelers were once again able to get free cocktails before jetting off.

"We resumed service this morning and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience," said United spokesman Rahsaan Johnson.

The Chicago-based airline has spent the last year trying to win back once-loyal business travelers who abandoned the airline over frequent delays.

It has made progress by improving its on-time performance, unveiling new lounges and business class seats and reaching new labor contracts that are expected to increase employee morale and service.

But this week's hiccup  at one of the airline's most important and busiest airports  just shows how many obstacles it still needs to overcome.

A renewal package for the liquor license was sent to United Airlines in May but it was never returned, according to Marjorie Harris, press secretary for the City of Newark. The license expired on June 30 but United and its vendor who runs the lounge, Sodexo, didn't notice the lapse until this week. The two clubs immediately stopped serving liquor.

Membership in the clubs can cost up to $550 a year, although many passengers get in for free through certain United-branded credit cards. Passengers who pay for expensive international business class tickets or premium cabin tickets on transcontinental flights are also allowed into the club. There are snacks, a quiet place to sit, free Wi-Fi and  a favorite of business travelers  a long bar with basic drinks for free.

The airline has to pay two separate fees to obtain a liquor license: one to New Jersey state government and one to Newark's Alcoholic Beverage Control Division. The check to the state was cashed but the check to the city was not, Harris said, "because the paperwork was not completed."

Harris said United was utilizing its license from the City of Elizabeth for the Terminal A lounge to serve liquor in Terminal C in the City of Newark. Neither the airline nor Harris could explain how United was legally using a license from one municipality to serve liquor in another.

The next hearing of the Newark's Alcoholic Beverage Control Board is on Oct. 17. If United gets its paperwork and payment in and processed, its renewal can be heard during that hearing.

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Attorneys general cast doubt on Utah land push

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  A new legal analysis from a group of Western attorneys general casts doubt on many of the arguments Utah has put forward in its push to gain control of millions of acres of federal land.

The report, based on two years of work , doesn't address every argument Utah has floated, but it points out decisions by the Supreme Court and other federal courts that could put Utah on shaky ground if it sues the U.S. government for control. The analysis was drafted by lawyers from seven Republican attorneys general, three Democrats and one independent.

It was obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request.

The Conference of Western Attorneys General, made up of the top law officers in 15 western states and three U.S. territories, voted 11-1 to approve the report at their annual meeting in Idaho this summer.

Critics say it's one more sign that a lawsuit, which could cost up to $14 million, has little chance of succeeding.

The findings align with legal experts but contrast with the opinion of a team of outside lawyers hired by Utah who concluded last year that the state has some legitimate arguments to make and recommended Utah sue. Utah lawmakers have so far agreed to pay the team up to $2 million for their work.

Politicians can try to make a case before the public and Congress that their state has been treated unfairly, but the attorneys general group seems to be signaling that a court battle isn't the way to go, said John Leshy, a professor at University of California Hastings College of Law who was the Interior Department's top lawyer during the Clinton administration.

The group is "basically saying this is a loser," Leshy said. "I think you read this thing if you're a practicing lawyer and go, 'God, do they have a case?'"

Messages left with defenders of Utah's lands push were not returned Friday.

Supporters of the largely Republican lands push say Western states where the federal government owns large portions of land have less power and earning potential from their land compared with states in the East. They also argue the federal government is a poor manager, citing overgrown forests ripe for catastrophic wildfires as an example.

Officials in many Western states are pushing for greater control but Utah has gone further than any other state, passing a law demanding more than 30 million acres and hiring a team of lawyers to help prepare a case.

Utah's GOP-controlled Legislature is in favor of a lawsuit, but the decision rests with Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes.

Dan Burton, a spokesman for Reyes, said Friday that the office is still reviewing the matter and did not have a comment on the report and what it might mean for Utah.

Reyes is a member of the Conference of Western Attorneys General, but Burton said Friday evening that while Reyes and another lawyer from his office were at the group's meeting in Idaho, neither of them were present for the vote on the report. Burton said they were attending other meetings happening at the conference at that time but didn't have details about them.

Chris Coppin, the attorneys general group's legal director, declined to say which state voted against the report.

The lawyers that worked on the report came from attorneys general offices in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

Any attorney who worked on the group had the option of writing a dissent, but Coppin said no one took that option.

Coppin declined to characterize the report's findings and their implications for Utah's case.

Wyoming Attorney General Peter Michael, a Republican who oversaw the report, also declined to characterize the report's findings or the viability of any lawsuit.

Michael said the language in the report was very detailed and precise and couldn't be summarized in a few sentences. "The report speaks for itself, just like a legal brief does," he said.

He declined to respond to critics who say it shows that any lawsuit would be unlikely to succeed and wouldn't say if his own office is considering a lawsuit similar to Utah's.

Overall, the report found that the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the Property Clause of the Constitution gives the U.S. government the right to own public lands and keep them public and the exclusive power to decide whether to dispose of them or sell them off.

While the court hasn't directly ruled on whether the U.S. government can keep the public lands forever, the court has made past statements indicating that the government can and has also found the government's authority under the Property Clause of the Constitution "has no limitations."

The report also says that while newer, Western states may be at an economic disadvantage with large portions of their land under federal control, legal arguments that federal land ownership unconstitutionally keeps them from having Equal Footing and Equal Sovereignty with older, Eastern states are weak.

One argument Utah has raised that attorneys general did not explore is whether any state's founding document gives it a claim to the land. The organization said the circumstances of each's state joining the union were unique and they'll leave that analysis to each state.

Messages seeking comment were not returned Friday by Rep. Ken Ivory, a state lawmaker who has spearheaded Utah's lands push, and Rep. Keven Stratton, a lawyer and Republican who chairs the Utah committee working on the lands transfer push.

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Stars line up for debut of Dior's first female designer

PARIS (AP)  Rihanna and Natalie Portman dressed to the nines. Jennifer Lawrence opted for jeans. And most of the stars passed unnoticed amid the sea of celebrities awash inside Paris' Rodin Museum on Friday.

The great equalizer for them all was a chance to glimpse one of the year's biggest fashion spectacles: the hugely-awaited debut from Christian Dior's first female designer.

But were the high expectations met?

A model wears a creation for Christian Dior's Spring-Summer 2017 Ready to Wear fashion collection presented Friday, Sept. 30, 2016 in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Here are the highlights of Friday's Spring-Summer 2017 ready-to-wear collections.

CHRISTIAN DIOR'S "NEW LEXICON"

Being the first woman in history to head up one of the most influential dressers of women in history, Maria Grazia Chiuri certainly had to make a statement during her first Dior show.

Make it she did.

Most debuts at storied fashion labels pay homage to the house DNA  and this should especially be the case at grand Dior, which saved post-war French fashion with 1947's groundbreaking "New Look."

But in Friday's show, Grazia Chiuri, the former Valentino designer, was having none of it.

Gone were the references to the famed Bar Jacket, the full, thick A-line skirt, and any flavors of the post-War style.

In its place was what the program notes termed a whole "new lexicon" of style, and Grazia Chiuri did indeed give the collection her unique stamp.

Sadly, the designs themselves fell a little flat and not sufficiently vibrant to live up to the bold move away from the DNA.

To her credit, Grazia Chiuri made a creative attempt to explore gender boundaries by channeling the uniforms of fencers with quilted embroidered combat jackets, cropped sporty pants and, yes, high fashion sneakers and knee-high sneaker boots.

It was an intelligent way of highlighting the concept of gender in the Dior show  given greater resonance by the fact she's the first woman designing at the house.

The gender musing continued in diaphanous tulle corsets that were described as "unoppressive" because of their loose fit.

But there was simply too much repetition in the 64-piece collection.

The styles felt a little low-energy because of a pared-down color palette  and where detailing and embroideries emerged they came across a little saccharine.

One look, a black dotted tulle and lace top, looked visually incoherent against sporty white crisp menswear pants and white strap sandals.

Nevertheless, the designer should be praised for the ambitious effort to liberate herself creatively and to rework the Dior aesthetic.

MILLA JOVOVICH LIKES CHANGE

"Fifth Element" star and veteran model Milla Jovovich says the spate of new designers at the helm of Hermes, Lanvin, Saint Laurent and now Christian Dior is a "great thing"

"Anytime you've got fresh air into a really amazing old house, it's always fun. It's nice to have this new generation," the stunning 40-year-old said from the front row at the Dior show.

"Dior took quite a long time to choose the new person, for obvious reasons. They're such an important house. And Maria (Grazia Chiuri), I'm sure, is going to do a great job," Jovovich added.

ISABEL MARANT ROCKS BACK TO THE 80s

Isabel Marant dived into a reference book about the 1980s for her typically sexy spring-summer display.

High, tight waists led the eye to round, voluminous shoulders and oversize sleeves worn by some of the moment's hottest models. Gigi Hadid opened the show in an oversized cream coat dress.

But there was more to the collection.

Intricate floral prints and half-moon shoulders rendered in thick textures conjured up the vestimentary styles of the 19th century, as well as patterns that came back into vogue during the 20th century hippy era.

One floral look, featuring a separate armor-like blue bodice and contrasting patterned sleeves, had a historic vibe, but was rendered contemporary by a micro mini sporting a provocatively placed zipper.

The necessary disco minis that are synonymous with the feminine Marant made sure this collection will please her loyal clientele.

ISSEY MIYAKE IS WEARABLE

It was all about the wearable at Issey Miyake.

Loose, sack-dress hybrids  highlighted by jagged shards of metallic colors inset across the body and gathered at the hem  opened the designer's Spring-Summer show.

They contrasted nicely with the model's sharply cut hair and the cubic geometry of Japanese "Geta" platform shoes.

Indeed, Oriental references defined much of the aesthetic from the French-Japanese house.

Oversized cross-over jackets were tied chicly at the side with thick belts and paired with baggy shorts.

But what would an Issey Miyake show be without his signature pleated techno-fabric styles?

Sure enough, they appeared toward the middle of the show, in some of the 40-piece-strong collection's best looks.

Abstract three-dimensional dark blue dresses sported panels like tectonic origami  at once stiff and soft.

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Thomas Adamson can be followed at http://Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP

A model wears a creation for Christian Dior's Spring-Summer 2017 Ready to Wear fashion collection presented Friday, Sept. 30, 2016 in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

A model wears a creation for Christian Dior's Spring-Summer 2017 Ready to Wear fashion collection presented Friday, Sept. 30, 2016 in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

A model wears a creation for Christian Dior's Spring-Summer 2017 Ready to Wear fashion collection presented Friday, Sept. 30, 2016 in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

A model wears a creation for Christian Dior's Spring-Summer 2017 Ready to Wear fashion collection presented Friday, Sept. 30, 2016 in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

A model wears a creation for Christian Dior's Spring-Summer 2017 Ready to Wear fashion collection presented Friday, Sept. 30, 2016 in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri acknowledges applause at the end of Christian Dior's Spring-Summer 2017 Ready to Wear fashion collection presented Friday, Sept. 30, 2016 in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

A model wears a creation for Christian Dior's Spring-Summer 2017 Ready to Wear fashion collection presented Friday, Sept. 30, 2016 in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)
Deal will allow Pitt visitation with children

LOS ANGELES (AP)  Angelina Jolie Pitt and Brad Pitt have reached a temporary custody agreement that will allow the actor to visit with his six children, sources said Friday.

Two sources familiar with the agreement but not authorized to speak publicly said the agreement will be in place for three weeks. It calls for Pitt's first visit with his children to be monitored by a therapist, but that may not be a requirement for subsequent visits.

The sources say both actors have agreed to undergo individual counseling.

FILE - In this Jan. 15, 2007 file photo, Brad Pitt, and actress Angelina Jolie arrive for the 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif. The couple have reached a temporary agreement that will allow the actor to visit with his six children, sources familiar with the arrangement told The Associated Press on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Jolie Pitt filed for divorce last week. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)

Calls to the offices of Pitt's attorney, Lance Spiegel, and Jolie Pitt's lawyer, Laura Wasser, were forwarded to recorded messages stating their firms do not comment on clients.

Jolie Pitt filed for divorce on Sept. 19, and her attorney said the following day her decision was "for the health of the family." Her filing sought sole physical custody of their six children, who range in ages from 8 to 15.

The temporary agreement has not been filed with the court, and Pitt has not yet responded to the case.

The FBI has said it is gathering evidence about allegations Pitt was involved in a dispute on a private flight with his family on Sept. 14, although the agency has not opened a formal investigation. Sources familiar with the allegations have said they center on the actor's treatment of his 15-year-old son, Maddox.

Several news outlets have reported that the incident was being investigated by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, but the agency said it could not confirm whether it was involved.

Pitt and Jolie had been one of Hollywood's highest-profile couples, establishing a joint foundation for charitable work and spending their time off-screen as a family.

Pitt skipped Wednesday's premiere of Terrence Malick's new documentary "Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience," which he narrated. In a statement, Pitt said he was skipping the premiere because he was "currently focused on my family situation and don't want to distract attention away from this extraordinary film."

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Sotomayor rallies Puerto Rico women during visit to island

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)  Justice Sonia Sotomayor is using a visit to her parents' native island to urge Puerto Rican women to develop their skills and challenge themselves as she shared stories about her failures.

The U.S. Supreme Court's first Hispanic justice delivered a nearly hour-long speech mostly in Spanish to some 500 people on Friday at a free event prior to a summit for professional women.

The crowd smiled as Sotomayor went row by row and squeezed women's hands as she encouraged them to recognize their talents and to work hard regardless of obstacles they might encounter.

She recalled how she cried in private during the Judiciary Committee hearings for her nomination because she was so hurt at reading that someone had written she was not intelligent enough and that she was hard on people.

"That caused me tremendous pain," she said. "I had fought and worked hard my entire life. I thought I had a real good reputation."

Sotomayor said that at one point, she decided she was not going to go through with the nomination, adding that some friends talked sense into her as they listed all her accomplishments.

She said she believes people who don't feel fear are conceited, and she stressed that honesty was an important quality to her in friends.

"Don't say to me, 'Yes you can,'" she said. "They tell me how I can make up for the things I am worried about."

Sotomayor also recalled facing obstacles as a young girl growing up in a public housing complex in the Bronx. She told the audience how a teacher ripped up an essay she had written in English because it made no sense. After that moment, she said, she spent the next four years teaching herself how to write properly because writing in English did not come naturally to her.

"And now, what do I do?" she said.

Laughter erupted often as Sotomayor spoke.

Marta Nieves, a 45-year-old director of a Puerto Rico advertising agency, said she was motivated by the speech.

"I found it extremely realistic," she said.

Sotomayor did not take questions from reporters, and she warned she would not talk about politics or any Supreme Court cases during a brief question-and-answer period.

However, in one of her replies, she noted that Puerto Rico was "suffering" amid a decade-long economic crisis as it prepared for the imposition of a federal control board that occurred Friday. She urged the audience to read up on political theory.
Police call for cease-fire in dangerous Paintball Gun War

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP)  Connecticut police are calling for a cease-fire in a Paintball Gun War before something tragic happens.

The New Haven Police Department on Friday issued a warning that many paintball guns resemble assault-style weapons and officers can't quickly determine if the guns are real when answering emergency calls.

Police this week have responded to a dozen calls about shootings in which paintball and BB guns were involved. They say some of the incidents have resulted in serious injuries and other incidents have led them to engage in dangerous pursuits.

A 10-year-old girl was shot in the head by a BB gun on Thursday.
Hunger-striking ex-Gitmo detainee asks Uruguay for answers

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP)  A hunger-striking former Guantanamo prisoner is threatening to stop drinking liquids to press Uruguay's government into allowing him to leave the South American country and reunite with his family.

Uruguay took Abu Wa'el Dhiab in along with five other former Guantanamo prisoners in 2014. Dhiab has been on a hunger strike for more than 50 days demanding to join his wife and children in Turkey or in another nation.

Dhiab spoke Friday at the apartment where he has been living in Montevideo. He accused Uruguay's government of failing to keep promises to reunite him with his family and he gave the government a Monday deadline to respond.

Former Guantanamo detainee Syrian Abu Wa'el Dhiab listens to a question as he holds a press conference at his apartment in Montevideo, Uruguay, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. Uruguay's government says it is searching for another country to take Dhiab who is threatening to die on a hunger strike if he's not allowed to reunite with his family elsewhere. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)

Although he seemed gaunt, Dhiab spoke for more than an hour during the press conference that was translated into English and Spanish.

The 45-year-old Syrian said that when he left the U.S. military base, he signed a two-year commitment to stay in Uruguay because officials told him that his family would meet him in his new home.

"Uruguay didn't respect that first promise," Dhiab said. "After such a long wait, it's impossible to believe in the Uruguayan government."

Dhiab grabbed international attention through hunger strikes during his 12 years of confinement. He was released from Guantanamo in December 2014, but he could not return to his war-torn homeland and was taken in as a refugee by Uruguay.

In July, he set off alarms when he vanished for several weeks, before turning up in Venezuela, which sent him back to Uruguay.

Dhiab said that before he arrived in Venezuela, he traveled to a city on the Uruguay-Brazil border that has an Arab community to pray during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

"It was the first Ramadan that I was going to spend among Muslims in 15 years," he said, adding that press reports at the time had tainted his name.

"The media had a role that caused me a lot of harm," Dhiab said. "They were repeating things that were absolutely false, saying that a terrorist was in Brazil ahead of the Olympic games."

Dhiab was detained in 2002 for suspected ties to al-Qaida and held without charge like hundreds of others at Guantanamo before the U.S. government cleared him for release.

Christian Mirza, Uruguay's liaison with the six resettled detainees, has said that Lebanon, Qatar and Turkey have all rejected taking in Dhiab. But Mirza said Friday that the government will continue to look for options for Dhiab.

"Our main interest is that he remains alive and that we can find a country that will welcome him."

Former Guantanamo detainee Syrian Abu Wa'el Dhiab, speaks during a press conference in his apartment in Montevideo, Uruguay, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, where he said he is going to stop drinking water on Monday, to press officials into speeding up his relocation to another country. Uruguay's government says it is searching for another country to take Dhiab. Dhiab, who is currently on a hunger strike, says they are taking too long to relocate him. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)

Journalists crowd round a table for a press conference called by former Guantanamo detainee Syrian Abu Wa'el Dhiab, in his apartment in Montevideo, Uruguay, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, where he said he is going to stop drinking water on Monday, to press officials into speeding up his relocation to another country. Uruguay's government says it is searching for another country to take Dhiab. Dhiab, who is currently on a hunger strike, says they are taking too long to relocate him. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
Bail reduced for 2 arrested at Holland Tunnel with weapons

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP)  A New Jersey judge has reduced bail for two Pennsylvania residents who were arrested in June with another man for trying to drive into New York City with a cache of weapons.

Dean Smith and Kimberly Arendt had been jailed on $75,000 cash bail. The judge on Friday reduced their bail to $25,000 cash, with the option of posting 10 percent.

Both families are working to post bond.

The co-defendants and another Pennsylvania resident, John Cramsey, were detained as they prepared to enter the Holland Tunnel.

Cramsey, whose daughter died of a heroin overdose in February, posted online shortly before the arrest that he was heading to New York to "rescue" a 16-year-old girl whose friend had overdosed. He's already been released on bond.
Writer and director Guo Jingming's new motion-capture animated film "L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties" tried to be the first of its kind in China but has failed even before its release.

The cast and crew pose for group photo at the premiere of "L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties" in Beijing on Sept. 29. [Photo / China.org.cn]

Guo cast a lot of the hottest names in China  including Fan Bingbing, Amber Kuo, Yang Mi, Kris Wu, Aarif Lee, Chen Xuedong, Roy Wang and William Chan  for his new release. As they appeared on red carpet at the premiere held in Beijing on Thursday, the house was brought down by screaming from fans.

Based on his fantasy novel that has sold 2 million copies, "L.O.R.D" is Guo Jingming's follow-up to his top-grossing "Tiny Times" films. The action-adventure odyssey is set in a world of warring sorcerers, lords and beasts, and the story depicts the endless battles of four kingdoms as they fight for power and domination of the ultimate realm.

"L.O.R.D" is billed as the first motion-capture animated film in China, though the visual effects were mocked by many internet users as "cheap video game visuals" when its trailer was first released online.

But for the director, this is a bold move. "When a person makes the first step, then many movies like this will be born. I'm the first one to do the motion-capture animated film. I felt that I can provide a direction for everyone to discuss and refer to. I think it is already worthwhile. "

The studio Original Force was in charge of the visual production. The studio was established in 1999 to provide state-of-the-art animation for many worldwide television and gaming clients, such as Disney, DreamWorks Television, Sony, Tencent and Electronic Arts.

"I was very hurt and upset when people attacked and mocked the film," the founder of Original Force Harley Zhao said. "This is not a live action film with visual effects as people expected. This is just a 100 percent animated feature, and you cannot ask it to be the same with live action movies."

He added that they used brand new technologies and process to make the film, and that "no one in Chinese animation industry has ever done this.

However, the film has already suffered from a low rating of 3.5/10 on the Chinese movie review site Douban.com.

But Luo Zhong, a film critic, said the film needs more recognition for its brave attempts with new technology, as well as for successfully building an intact fantasy world. "Put away your bias for Guo Jingming and keep an open mind, maybe you will see more."

Fan Bingbing, who just won the Silver Shell for Best Actress award at the 65th San Sebastian International Film Festival for her performance in "I Am Not Madame Bovary" directed by Feng Xiaogang, praised "L.O.R.D" after the premiere screening. "I believe this film will become the top film during the National Day season."

China's National Day holiday will last 7 days starting on Oct. 1. Guo's film already opened on Sept. 29 and will compete with Zhang Yibai's romantic feature "Belonged To You," Dante Lam's action film "Operation Mekong" and Wong Jing's comedy "Mission Milano."

Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation.
A woman has filed a lawsuit against JetBlue Airways for mixing up her 5-year-old son with another boy and flying him to the wrong city.

Maribel Martinez charged in the lawsuit that she suffered 'great emotional distress, extreme fear, horror, mental shock, mental anguish and psychological trauma' when she went to meet her son's flight and he wasn't on it.

The little boy, Andy Martinez, had been mistakenly put on a flight to Boston's Logan Airport instead of the flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport on August 17.

Raphael and Maribel Martinez comfort their son Andy after a press conference at their lawyer's office in New York on September 30

According to the court papers, JetBlue staff at Logan Airport escorted Andy to a woman he had never seen before and told him he was being reunited with his mother.

Meanwhile, a boy who was supposed to be on the flight to Boston had been put on Andy's New York-bound flight and was presented to Martinez.

It took three hours for JetBlue to sort out what had happened and put the mother and son on the phone with each other, the lawsuit charges.

Attorney Sanford Rubenstein (left), Maribel Martinez (centre), and her husband Raphael Martinez (right) at a press conference on September 30

Both boys had flown out of Cibao International Airport in the Dominican Republic.

The boy who was flown to New York instead of Boston has not been publicly identified.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. Martinez's attorney, Sanford Rubenstein, said she also hopes to shine a light on JetBlue's practices and prevent such a mix-up from happening again.

A spokesman for JetBlue Airways Corp., which is based in New York, said the company doesn't comment on pending litigation.

MailOnline Travel has contacted JetBlue for additional comment.
IMF leader cites 'historic milestone' for China

WASHINGTON (AP)  Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, is calling the inclusion of China's renminbi as the fifth currency in an elite group of the world's reserve currencies an "important and historic milestone" for the international financial system.

Lagarde said the expansion of the IMF's key currencies to include the Chinese renminbi was a recognition of the progress China has made in reforming its monetary and financial systems.

Lagarde spoke on Friday at IMF headquarters in Washington, one day before the Oct. 1 expansion of the IMF's basket of reserve currencies to include the renminbi, which is also known as the yuan.

FILE - In this Wednesday, June 22, 2016, file photo, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde speaks during a news conference, in Washington. On Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, Lagarde called the inclusion of Chinas renminbi as the fifth currency in an elite group of the worlds reserve currencies an important and historic milestone for the international financial system. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

The other currencies in the basket are the U.S. dollar, the Japanese yen, the British pound and Europe's common currency, the euro. The last change to the basket was the addition of the euro in 1999.

China, now the world's second-largest economy, had mounted a lengthy campaign to be included in the IMF's Special Drawing Rights currency basket. This is a virtual currency the IMF can use for emergency loans and IMF member countries can use to bolster their own reserves in time of crisis.

In her comments Friday, Lagarde said China's inclusion acknowledged the advances China has made "in liberalizing and improving the infrastructure of its financial markets. The continuation and deepening of these efforts, with appropriate safeguards, will bring a more robust international and financial system, which in turn will support the growth and stability of China and the global economy."

The IMF's executive board had approved inclusion of the Chinese currency in the currency basket last November when it made a finding that the renminbi had met the standard of being "freely usable."
Israel: Palestinian killed after stabbing security officer

JERUSALEM (AP)  Israeli police say forces shot and killed a Palestinian who stabbed a security officer in the West Bank.

Spokeswoman Luba Samri said the Palestinian pulled out a knife at a checkpoint near Jerusalem on Friday night and attacked a security officer seriously wounding him. Officers at the scene opened fire and killed the Palestinian attacker, she said.Palestinian assaults, mainly stabbings, have killed 34 Israelis and two visiting Americans since they began a year ago, around the Jewish high holidays.

About 218 Palestinians have been killed during that period. Israel says the vast majority of them were attackers.
CEO indicted in fraud scheme that collapsed Puerto Rico bank

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)  The former CEO of an international pharmaceutical company was indicted Friday in a more than $100 million fraud scheme that authorities say led to the collapse of one of Puerto Rico's largest banks.

The U.S. Justice Department said Jack Kachkar faces eight counts of wire fraud from his time as chairman and CEO of Inyx Inc. from 2005 to 2007.

He is accused of using fake customer invoices as collateral to obtain loans from Westernbank and allegedly lied about imminent repayments. Officials said the bank had provided the loans and lines of credit in exchange for a security interest in the company's assets, as well as its subsidiaries.

Authorities said Kachkar then misappropriated $25 million and used a portion of that money to buy a jet, expensive cars and high-end property in Miami. They said he also appropriated another $9.6 million in fraudulent revenue to a bank account in his associate's name

An attorney for Kachkar did not return a message for comment.
Pentagon chief troubled by Philippine president's comments

KO OLINA, Hawaii (AP)  Defense Secretary Ash Carter hinted Friday at U.S. impatience with the Philippine government over inflammatory comments by President Rodrigo Duterte.

At a news conference, Carter was asked his view on pursuing greater military collaboration with the Philippines in light of Duterte's latest remarks. Earlier Friday the Philippine leader compared his bloody anti-crime war to Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust and said he would be "happy to slaughter" 3 million drug addicts.

Carter said he had not discussed Duterte's comments with his Philippine counterpart, Delfin Lorenzana, who attended a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations hosted by Carter at an Oahu resort.

With the US and Hawaii flags fluttering in the background, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter speaks at a press conference during a defense ministers meeting of ASEAN , Friday, Sept. 30, 2016 in Kapolei, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

"Just speaking personally for myself, I find these comments deeply troubling," Carter said.

The Pentagon chief noted that the Philippines is a longtime U.S. treaty ally.

"Like all alliances, it depends on the continuation of a sense of shared interests," he added. "So far in U.S.-Philippine history we have had that. We look forward to continuing that. But that's something that we continue to discuss with the Philippine government."

When Carter visited the Philippines in April, he praised the strength of the partnership. Earlier this week in San Diego, he called U.S.-Philippine defense relations "ironclad."

That seeming closeness took a sharp downturn when Duterte was elected president in June. In early September, President Barack Obama canceled a meeting with Duterte after the Philippine leader publicly called him a "son of a bitch." Later, Duterte said he regretted the comment.

Earlier this week, Duterte said joint military exercises of Filipino and American troops scheduled for next week will be the last such drills, although his foreign secretary quickly said the decision was not final. Duterte said the Philippines will maintain its military alliance with the United States because they share a 65-year-old mutual defense treaty.

Aides to Carter said he likely would seek clarification in Hawaii from Lorenzana regarding the future of U.S.-Philippine military exercises. Lorenzana is well-known to U.S. officials after serving for more than a decade at the Philippine Embassy in Washington prior to taking the defense portfolio after Duterte was elected.

Earlier Friday, Carter he wants to encourage more regional cooperation in Asia and the Pacific on key issues like maritime security and combatting terrorism.

As part of a broader Obama administration push to "rebalance" its security interests by paying greater attention to Asia and the Pacific after 15 years focused mainly on the Middle East, Carter is pitching the idea of an Asian security "network."

"The network will help us uphold important principles like resolving disputes peacefully; ensuring countries can make their own choices free from foreign coercion and intimidation; and preserving the freedom of overflight and navigation guaranteed by international law," he said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter arrives at a press conference during a defense ministers meeting of ASEAN , Friday, Sept. 30, 2016 in Kapolei, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)
Obama to Bill Clinton after Peres funeral: 'Let's go!'

JERUSALEM (AP)  President Barack Obama was left cooling his heels after attending the funeral for Israel's Shimon Peres as former President Bill Clinton chatted on the tarmac.

Video recorded at Jerusalem's airport shows Obama in the doorway of Air Force One, engines running in preparation for the return to Washington. The president is rolling up his sleeves and looks anxious to be on his way home.

At one point, Obama yells, "Bill, let's go." He claps his hands to get Clinton's attention and motions for Clinton to come aboard.

U.S. President Barack Obama waves as he boards Air Force One at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, en route to Washington after attending the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem. Shimon Peres was being laid to rest on Friday in a ceremony attended by thousands of admirers and dozens of international dignitaries  in a final tribute to a man who personified the history of Israel during a remarkable seven-decade political career and who came to be seen by many as a visionary and symbol of hopes of Mideast peace. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Seconds later, Obama exits the plane, stands at the top of the staircase and shouts, "Bill, let's go, I gotta get home."
Federal judge rejects suit over US control of internet group

AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  A federal judge has rejected an attempt by three conservative states to block the U.S. government from ceding oversight of some of the internet's core systems.

U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks Jr. in Galveston, Texas, denied Friday a lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona.

They sought to keep the Commerce Department from relinquishing oversight of ICAN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

The internet relies on the domain name system, or DNS. That includes directories helping computers on the network send data. ICAN has overseen the directories since 1998.

Some conservatives opposed ceding oversight, which was approved by Congress as part of a temporary spending bill.
'Great deal of work still to be done' strengthening bank IT systems, MP warns

Bank customers are still being left "exposed" after a series of IT failures at Britain's biggest lenders, a senior Conservative MP has warned.

Andrew Tyrie, who chairs the influential House of Commons Treasury Committee, is calling on the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) to take action to strengthen the resilience and security of bank IT systems.

He cautioned that customers remained " more exposed than necessary" to the risks of IT failures and were ultimately left "paying the price".

Committee chair Andrew Tyrie is calling for the resilience and security of bank IT systems to be strengthened

Mr Tyrie wrote to the regulators in January after high-profile issues at Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC.

But he said banks continued to suffer IT glitches and was urging the regulators to provide assurances they were "getting on with it".

He said: " Banks continue to suffer failures and breaches of their IT systems, exposing millions of customers to uncertainty, disruption and sometimes distress.

"We can't carry on like this. Responsibility for sound IT systems is often lacking at the highest levels of management, and ultimately customers pay the price."

HSBC customers endured two days of online banking glitches in January, following just a month after nearly 8,000 RBS customers were blocked from trying to retrieve cash from old bank accounts.

In a letter to Mr Tyrie earlier this year, HSBC revealed that around 63,000 customers were affected by the IT failure and said it cost the group 1.1 million in fees and charges waived as well as compensation to those impacted.

HSBC added that it had two IT issues in 2015, which cost it 166,400.

RBS boss Ross McEwan wrote to Mr Tyrie in response to requests for information on its lost accounts glitch and insisted the issue was a "process error", not an IT failure.

Mr McEwan added that 7,920 customers were impacted with an average account balance of 44.

Mr Tyrie said: "Customers remain more exposed than necessary to the risks of IT failures, including delays in paying bills and an inability to obtain access to their own money.

"The proliferation of remote and online banking, including the use of biometric data for customer identification, may also be increasing the risk of unauthorised access to their accounts. A great deal of work still needs to be done."
Child sex abuse probe not working, survivors warn after senior lawyer quits

The national probe into child sex abuse will not work in its current form, a key group representing victims and survivors has warned.

The Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was thrown into disarray on Thursday after the resignation of its senior lawyer, prompting calls for it to be broken up.

C hairwoman Professor Alexis Jay said she had accepted Ben Emmerson QC's decision to step down from the post of senior counsel after two years.

The resignation of Ben Emmerson QC has thrown the national probe into child sex abuse into disarray

The development was labelled a "disaster" for the problematic inquiry that has been blighted by resignations and is on its fourth chairwoman.

Raymond Stevenson, from the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association, told the Press Association survivors needed to be "convinced this is not just a circus" following Mr Emmerson's resignation.

Mr Stevenson, whose group represents those affected by abuse at children's homes in Lambeth, south London, called for a meeting with Home Secretary Amber Rudd and suggested the inquiry be split up into smaller, separate ones with their own chairman.

He said: "We don't see it (the inquiry) working in its current form. We didn't see it working two years ago. It was never going to work, it's too cumbersome.

"It's almost like it was set up to fail. People don't want the truth to come out."

Speaking on BBC Two's Newsnight, Labour MP Chuka Umunna said it was "simply not credible" to say the inquiry was functioning properly.

"This is a dysfunctional inquiry and we need urgent reassurance by the chair that she is getting a grip of the situation," he said.

Mr Umunna is a member of the Home Affairs Committee, and his Streatham constituency falls within Lambeth.

He has recommended that the 13 separate strands of the inquiry be split and given their own chairman who reports to an overarching investigation chaired by Prof Jay.

Mr Emmerson was suspended on Wednesday night amid reports he was about to resign. His departure was announced just hours after it was revealed his junior colleague Elizabeth Prochaska had also left her role.

Prof Jay said: "There is no truth in suggestions that he has resigned due to a difference of opinion with me about the next steps for the inquiry."

Prime Minister Theresa May had earlier said that the "really important" inquiry would go ahead as planned, amid claims that it was in "crisis".

Former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald described Mr Emmerson's departure as a "categorical disaster".

In his resignation letter, posted on the inquiry's website, Mr Emmerson said he remained "totally committed to securing a fair and just result for those who matter most, the victims and survivors of childhood abuse".

He said: "Shortly after you took over, you announced a review of the inquiry's ways of working to identify any changes that may be necessary in the public interest.

"When you decided to re-appoint me as counsel to the inquiry in early September, I had my personal doubts about whether I was genuinely the right person to steer that review process.

"Since then, it has become clear to me that I am not the person to take this review forward on your behalf.

"It is now time for someone else to take the helm with a different leadership of the counsel team. There is no truth in suggestions that I have resigned due to a difference of opinion with you about the next steps for the inquiry."

The inquiry has been dogged by controversy since it was set up by Mrs May in 2014 and is already on its fourth chairwoman.

Prof Jay took over after the inquiry was rocked by the sudden resignation as chairwoman of senior New Zealand judge Dame Lowell Goddard, who cited the "legacy of failure" from its beginnings as one of the reasons for standing down.

The inquiry, expected to take five years, will look at various institutions and public figures and scrutinise the police, Crown Prosecution Service, Labour Party and the security and intelligence agencies, as well as people of public prominence associated with Westminster.

Mrs May had earlier backed the inquiry, saying it retained both her and Ms Rudd's confidence.

She said: "I set the inquiry up when I was home secretary and the current Home Secretary has made clear the original terms of reference were the right ones and I think that's important.

"We should always remember why it is that the inquiry was set up in the first place and when those terms of reference were set they were agreed with victims and survivors and it is victims and survivors who are at the heart of this inquiry."

In a statement following Ms Prochaska's resignation the inquiry said it was aware that recent events were "unsettling, particularly for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse and all those who are engaged with the inquiry's work".

It added: "It has been said that the inquiry is in crisis. This is simply not the case, and the chair and panel are united in their determination to see this important work through to a conclusion."

Labour MP David Winnick, who sits on the Home Affairs Committee, called on Ms Rudd to give a statement to the Commons when it returns on October 10.
John Lewis boss quits store chain to run in West Midlands mayoral race

John Lewis managing director Andy Street is to step down on October 28 after being chosen as the Conservative candidate for metropolitan mayor of the West Midlands.

The department store chain said on Friday that his successor will be announced in "due course".

Mr Street joined the retailer as a graduate trainee and has spent 31 years at the company, including a nine-year stint as managing director.

Andy Street is due to deliver a speech at the Conservative Party conference this weekend.

He said: "It has been a privilege to lead John Lewis through a transformational period in the retail industry, and I am confident that we have built a business which will continue to thrive while being loyal to its principles.

"The success of John Lewis is down to the hard work and dedication of thousands of Partners across the country, and I know that they will continue to serve our customers with distinction."

Chairman Sir Charlie Mayfield paid tribute to the veteran employee, saying he leaves "the brand with great momentum for the future".

On Thursday night, Mr Street said voters in the West Midlands faced "a critical election" in May.

"It will determine how we create wealth here and what type of society the West Midlands will become. I promise to work tirelessly to convince voters that I am the man to lead us through these decisions.

"The opportunity we now have is unprecedented. Our economy is being renewed, but we have much more to do to ensure everybody feels the benefit. Our mission is therefore to build the economic powerhouse of Britain in an inclusive way."

Mr Street is due to deliver a speech at the Conservative Party conference, which takes place in Birmingham this weekend.

He joined John Lewis in 1985 after reading politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) at Oxford.

As well as heading the firm, he has served on a number of government bodies, including the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Group.

He has also been chairman of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership, which is tasked with driving regional economic growth.
Three ministry-level departments have jointly released a new regulation to further crack down on cheating and other malpractices in China's civil servant exam.

The new rule, introduced by the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, and the State Administration of Civil Service, will take effect on Oct. 1.

The new rule was modified to follow amended criminal law, imposing tougher penalties.

It said that test sitters found serious cheating or assisting in the organization of cheating will be banned from becoming civil servants for good.

Applicants who violate serious test regulations and disciplines will be disqualified from the test, and that record will be kept up to five or more years.

Recruiting personnel will be expelled or face criminal sanctions if they are caught organizing or planning test fraud.

Another new aspect of the rule makes clear the process of how to deal with different test sitters who have identical answers, which usually happens with the help of secretive, high-tech cheating devices.
EU countries 'cannot see Britain as a soft touch' on refugees, says Archbishop

The Archbishop of York has demanded that EU nations offer asylum to refugees in their own countries rather than "shunting" them ever more towards the UK.

John Sentamu, the second most senior member of the Church of England, blamed the existence of the Jungle camp in Calais on the Schengen zone, which allows free movement across European national borders.

He said EU nations had failed to give assistance to migrants passing through their countries and questioned how the Government could be certain that members of Islamic State were not among those seeking refuge, the Daily Mail reported.

Archbishop of York John Sentamu said the Schengen countries should 'own up' to what they have created in the Jungle migrant camp in Calais

Speaking at the Henley Literary Festival, which is sponsored by the newspaper, he said the Schengen countries should "own up" to what they have created in the migrant camp in France, which is home to around 10,000 people and from where scores of refugees try to cross to the UK every week.

Dr Sentamu, himself an asylum seeker who fled Uganda in the early 1970s, said: "I think it should be that, wherever the asylum seekers arrive in that particular place, you have a responsibility for their care, their love.

"Schengen countries have not done that with the Jungle and I, for one - as much as I am sympathetic and I feel sorry for the number of people genuinely seeking asylum - I think really the issue lies with the Schengen countries and they cannot see Britain as a soft touch."

The Archbishop said asylum seekers were only able to move freely through Europe because of the agreement, adding: "Every nation is shunting them and shunting them and shunting them in the hope that they will end up in the UK.

"I just hope that the Schengen countries can resolve it because it is their free movement of people. Britain did not sign the Schengen Agreement."

He also suggested Britain should police Libyan waters in the Mediterranean Sea to prevent migrant trafficking.

Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said Dr Sentamu had spoken out about an "awkward truth", adding: "The Schengen states would be wise to listen."

Dr Sentamu's comments come after the Archbishop of Canterbury earlier this month joined cross-party calls for the Government to speed up reuniting children living in the Calais camp with their families in the UK.

The Most Rev Justin Welby warned of continual reports of delays in bringing across "really quite young children", saying that where children have families in the UK there is "no reason" why they should not be brought across "within the day".

The Archbishop of Canterbury welcomed a refugee family to live in a cottage in the grounds of Lambeth Palace, his London home, in July.

He said at the time: "Refugees, like all people, are treasured human beings, made in the image of God, who deserve safety, freedom and the opportunity to flourish."

According to the UN's refugee agency, more than 3,200 people have died or gone missing attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year.

Almost 300,000 people have attempted the journey and thousands remain stranded in Greece and Italy in poor living conditions.
NHS will get more money as a result of Brexit, insists Iain Duncan Smith

Iain Duncan Smith has denied the British public were misled in the run-up to Brexit, insisting that the NHS will stand to gain from Britain leaving the European Union.

The prominent Brexiteer said he was happy with the way things were progressing, 100 days on from the historic vote on June 23.

And he dismissed claims about the cost of exiting the EU, saying it was small in comparison to the "billions" the UK gives the EU each year.

Leading Brexiteer Iain Duncan Smith said he was happy with the way things were progressing, 100 days on from the historic EU referendum

Questioned over the controversial 350 million figure that the Vote Leave campaign promised could go to the NHS, he told ITV's Good Morning Britain: "The 350 million is the amount of money per week, approximately ... that actually goes across to the European Union.

"The amount that we get back through things the European Union gives you back  nets out  at about 200 million.

"But the reality is we will take all our decisions about what happens to that money when we leave. That's a fact of life."

Asked how much the NHS should be given, the former Cabinet minister, who was not given a job by new Prime Minister Theresa May, replied: "That's completely up to the Government.

"The reality about the money is that the NHS will be able to get more money as a result of the fact that we don't send all of that money over to the EU.

"But the priorities of that, if the health service is the number one priority, the Government has to decide that, then they will have more money to spend on that."

A poll by Mr Duncan Smith's think-tank, the Centre for Social Justice, showed that people who voted to leave essentially still want to leave and people who voted remain were "drifting away", he said.

Asked about a report by the Institute for Government think-tank which estimated the cost to the UK of just negotiating Brexit to be 65 million, Mr Duncan Smith said this was not a lot of money compared with the amount Britain gives to the EU each year.

He also played down fears over Britain's trading future, saying it was in the best interests of the EU to ensure a good relationship post-Brexit because "they do more trade with us than we do with them".
UK's first national anti-cybercrime centre to open with 700-strong team

Britain's first national centre for combating cyber criminals is set to open next week, as the threat posed by online attacks continues to increase.

Terrorists, hackers and online gangs will be targeted by intelligence bosses at the new National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in central London.

A team of around 700 people are expected to be advancing the Government's war against cybercrime.

The centre's pooling of expertise in fighting cybercrime will help make the UK 'the safest place to live and do business online'

It is hoped that the new organisation will both respond to attacks and reduce the risk of future threats, as well as providing leadership in cyber security.

Pooling expertise at the centre will help make the UK "the safest place to live and do business online", its CEO said.

Previously, GCHQ said one of the first tasks will be to work with the Bank of England to produce advice for the financial sector for "managing cyber security effectively".

In the summer of 2015, the listening post was dealing with 200 cyber national security incidents a month, the then chancellor George Osborne said in a speech last year.

But the likelihood of anyone becoming a victim of cybercrime is also on the rise, with crime survey figures suggesting there were some two million computer misuse offences in the year which ended in March.

It fuelled concerns that the face of crime is changing and there were subsequent suggestions that people were more likely to be "mugged" online that in the street.

The centre will be led by Ciaran Martin, who was formerly the director general for cyber security at GCHQ.

Mr Martin said: " Our role is helping to make the UK the safest place to live and do business online. So we're going to tackle the major threats from hostile states and criminal gangs.

"But we're also going to work tirelessly to automatically protect people from those smaller scale and deeply damaging attacks that cause so much disruption and frustration.

"We'll also continue our work helping people and businesses understand better what they need to do to protect themselves."

Ben Gummer, Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, said: "London leads the world in so many ways already. It is only right that we establish the country's first Cyber Security Centre in the heart of the capital as Britain continues to lead in tackling this global issue.
Banks adopting blockchain 'dramatically faster' than expected-IBM

By Jemima Kelly

LONDON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Banks and other financial institutions are adopting blockchain technology "dramatically faster" than initially expected, with 15 percent of top global banks intending to roll out full-scale, commercial blockchain products in 2017, IBM said on Wednesday.

The technology company said 65 percent of banks expected to have blockchain projects in production in three years' time, with larger banks - those with more than 100,000 employees - leading the charge.

IBM, whose findings were based on a survey of 200 banks, said the areas most commonly identified by lenders as ripe for blockchain-based innovation were clearing and settlement, wholesale payments, equity and debt issuance and reference data.

Blockchain, which originates from digital currency bitcoin, works as an electronic transaction-processing and record-keeping system that allows all parties to track information through a secure network, with no need for third-party verification.

But while almost every major bank has said it is looking into the technology, widespread financial adoption has been thought to be at least 5 to 10 years away. Consultancy Oliver Wyman said in a report in February it would take at least a decade for blockchain to overhaul core parts of the financial industry.

"The industry is hurtling toward blockchain adoption far faster than many expected," IBM said in its report. "2017 looks to be the year banking on blockchains shifts from zero to sixty."

The company also conducted a separate survey of 200 other global financial markets institutions, 14 percent of which intended to implement commercial blockchain products in 2017.

"First movers are setting business standards and creating new models that will be used by future adopters of blockchain technology," said IBM Banking and Financial Markets general manager Likhit Wagle.

"These early adopters are better able to anticipate disruption, fighting off new competitors along the way."

Microsoft and Bank of America Merrill Lynch said on Tuesday they had teamed up on a new project using blockchain in trade finance, aiming to create a framework that could eventually be sold to other businesses.
In China, cancer hotels are a bleak reality for patients and families who can't afford hospital beds as they await treatment.

Many patients who come from rural areas to the country's big cities are looking for better medical treatment and the hotels have become a cheaper alternative to expensive hospital beds.

More than three million people are diagnosed with cancer in China every year and hospitals in the country are beginning to struggle with the numbers.

Family dinner: Yuan Yunping wipes sweat from his face as he eats dinner in his room at the accommodation where some patients and their family members stay while seeking medical treatment in Beijing

On their way home: Pan prepares to check out of the accommodation, where he had been staying with his wife while she received treatment

Away from home: Wang who suffers from cervical cancer travelled 450 miles to the capital

Beijing is one of the major Chinese cities where cancer hotels that serve as temporary accommodation for patients and their families exist.

Patients often travel hundreds of miles to hospitals in larger cities because smaller cities do not provide adequate care for those with cancer.

These patients then struggle to pay for treatment and are often left living on a small budget.

Liu, a 46-year-old migrant worker brought his wife to the capital to see a specialist in May after she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. They travelled more than 450 miles from Inner Mongolia for his wife's treatment.

He says: 'There's an imbalance between the big cities and small ones. Good doctors don't want to work in small places.'

Resting: Huang suffers from rectal cancer and came from Inner Mongolia for treatment

Guest: Yuan Yuping watches tv in the hotel as he awaits treatment for a melanoma on his foot

Treatment: Wang takes her medicine at the accommodation she resides in with her husband

Patient: Huang shows her CT scan as she sits inside her room in the temporary accomodation

A room at the hotel sets the couple back 70 yuan a night (8.15), which is half the cost of a hospital bed.

Staying at the hotel does have its advantages, with the couple able to have their privacy along with being able to cook for each other.

According to a manager at the hospital, most patients stay between several months to a year.

For most people, the financial burden of the treatment can be overwhelming.

According to official data, 44 per cent of families are pushed into poverty due to costly medical bills.

A man walks past the accommodation in the capital, home to those seeking treatment

Bleak: The residents' groceries hang in plastic bags at the temporary accommodation block

A desolate place: A man pushes a wheelchair inside the 'cancer hotel' in Beijing

Pan, 60, came to the hotel with his wife after she was diagnosed with rectal cancer in 2013.

We are farmers, we have already spent over 270,000 yuan (31,444) since 2013' Pan, resident of Beijing 'cancer hotel'

He said: 'The hardest part for us is the money. We are farmers, we have already spent over 270,000 yuan (31,444) since 2013.'

Many people turn to friends and family to help them cover the costs of the bill.

Pan said: 'Only half our costs can be covered by the medical insurance.

'We're not city folk who can lend out thousands of yuan at a time. Families in our area are poor. We have to borrow money for treatment.'

Health insurance covers almost all 1.4 billion people in China however coverage is basic meaning that people have to fork out at least half the cost of the bill.

According to the World Health Organisation, cases of cancer are beginning to rise in China with 2.2 million men and women dying each year.

A couple sit in their room inside the 'cancer hospital' in Beijing which costs 70 yuan a night
U.S. House panel lambastes Wells Fargo boss over phantom accounts

By Patrick Rucker and Dan Freed

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Sept 29 (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers called on Thursday for Wells Fargo & Co chief John Stumpf to resign and a top House Democrat demanded the bank be broken up because it is too big to manage.

Stumpf's second trip to Capitol Hill on Thursday went no better than his first as lawmakers from both parties rebuked his handling of sales abuses and said the bank had damaged customer trust as well as the broader banking system.

Wells Fargo staff opened checking, savings and credit card accounts without customer say-so for years to satisfy managers' demand for new business, according to a $190 million settlement with regulators reached early this month.

U.S. Representative Maxine Waters, the committee's senior Democrat, faulted the bank for identity theft in the fraud and called for Wells Fargo to be dismantled because it was too big to manage.

She called the sales abuses "some of the most egregious fraud we have seen since the foreclosure crisis." After the hearing, the California lawmaker told reporters she would introduce legislation to break up Wells Fargo.

The bank has said as many as 2 million accounts may have been wrongly opened and Stumpf promised to undo any harm to customers.

The chief executive said, however, that Wells Fargo did not expect to see disgruntled bank customers in court.

Wells Fargo is offering arbitration for its unhappy clients, Stumpf said. Pushed about whether he would waive that mandatory arbitration rule and allow customers to sue, Stumpf said: "No."

Members of the House Financial Services Committee blasted Stumpf over the bank's culture, his compensation and whether the right people were being punished for opening fee-generating, phantom accounts.

The episode has been a stunning reversal for Stumpf, long regarded as a safe pair of hands in the industry for navigating Wells Fargo successfully through the financial crisis. Stumpf again heard lawmakers calling for him to step aside.

Jeb Hensarling, the Republican chairman of the committee, said in his opening statement he had lost faith in Wells Fargo, which does some of his banking.

"Mr. Stumpf, I have a mortgage with your bank," Hensarling said. "I wish I didn't. I wish I was in the position to pay it off because you have broken my trust as you have broken the trust of millions."

Wells Fargo shares fell 2.07 percent to $44.37. Since Sept. 7, the last trading day before the scandal broke, its stock has lost 11 percent, or about $27 billion in market value, based on Reuters data. The stock is trading at its lowest since early 2014.

BROKEN TRUST

Republicans on the committee have often advocated easing Wall Street regulations, but they were among Stumpf's strongest critics at Thursday's hearing.

Asked by Representative Sean Duffy, a Republican from Wisconsin, about whether Wells Fargo employees 'stole,' Stumpf said: "In some cases, they did."

"I am deeply sorry that we didn't do the right thing," Stumpf said in response to a lawmaker who said the scandal had eroded the bank's market value.

Representative Steve Pearce, a Republican from New Mexico, faulted Stumpf for saying the company's board could eventually be relied on to sanction the executives responsible.

"I, sir, think you ought to submit a resignation and your board cannot hold off action on that," he said.

Representative Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, asked the committee to summon other Wall Street chiefs, including from Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp , to determine if they had imposed sales demands and quotas on their employees.

"I don't think, Mr. Stumpf, that you should be alone in this joyous experience," Sherman said.

Stumpf said the bank was strengthening oversight of sales tactics, changing procedures for issuing credit cards and had paid back past and current customers for any fees incurrent on the ghost accounts.

Earlier this week, the bank took back $41 million in stock awarded to Stumpf, an unprecedented rebuke to a major U.S. bank chief executive officer.

Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York raised questions about $13 million in stock sales by the CEO in 2013 after he learned about the abuses. Stumpf said he sold stock with proper approvals and added the sales were made "with no view about what was going on."

The affair has triggered lawsuits, more investigations and wiped more than $20 billion from the bank's market value.

While Wells Fargo may be shielded from some customer actions, the bank may just be starting to face heightened regulatory scrutiny.

On Thursday, the bank agreed to pay the Justice Department $4.1 million to resolve allegations it illegally repossessed cars owned by U.S. service members. In a separate settlement of similar allegations, the bank will pay a $20 million settlement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
California shooting shows slow adoption of police body cameras

By David Ingram

Sept 29 (Reuters) - After El Cajon, California, police shot dead an unarmed black man said to be mentally ill, they released a photo from a bystander's cell phone video, showing the man in a "shooting stance" against the officers.

The image does not show clearly if 38-year-old Alfred Olango was holding anything and officials had no police body camera video showing the officers' view of the shooting. Police said they recovered a vape smoking device, not a gun, from the scene.

Officials voted months ago to purchase body cameras for police in the city of 100,000 residents 15 miles (24 km) northeast of San Diego. They have not yet been delivered, the police department said in a statement.

After controversial police killings in several cities including Ferguson, Missouri, Chicago and North Charleston, South Carolina, pressure has mounted for the nearly 18,000 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies across the United States to issue the cameras to their officers.

Yet the rollout has been slow.

About 95 percent of U.S. law enforcement agencies had a camera program or intended to adopt one, according to a December 2015 survey conducted jointly by the Major Cities Chiefs Association and Major County Sheriffs Association.

To speed things along, the U.S. Justice Department on Monday granted a total of $20 million to 106 law enforcement agencies to help purchase body cameras. But even that sum would cover just a sliver of what it would take to outfit all police officers in the United States, experts said.

SUSPICION OF CAMERAS

Some localities have resisted body cameras, citing the cost of storing data, distrust of how video will be used or lack of research into its usefulness.

"The technology is just not there yet, and the cameras show only a small point of view," said Shannon Martin, a city council member in Port St. Lucie, Florida. The city is among those that have debated cameras but not bought them.

In Madison, Wisconsin, mistrust between residents and police is high enough that some residents were concerned that police would manipulate video content and use it against marginalized communities.

"I don't think it would resolve the issues we're facing. It would give the police another tool to harm the community," said Veronica Lazo, who co-chaired an advisory committee on the subject in Madison.

Many police departments support body cameras, saying videos will vindicate officers in the vast majority of cases.

A video can be a "tremendous asset" that gives context to an officer's actions, said Martin Mayer, a California lawyer who specializes in defending government agencies including police departments.

"What it does provide in many instances is not only the perspective of the officer, but also what leads up to the use of force," Mayer said.

Pockets of police continue to resist. Some unionized police officers have sued cities over being required to wear cameras. Others worry body cameras may make officers too inhibited, constantly watching what they say.

"The industry shoved this down everybody's throat, and political people threw up their hands and said, 'We've got a panacea here,'" said Eugene O'Donnell, a former New York City police officer who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Footage is often inconclusive or subject to interpretation, especially for those not trained on what to look for.
6-New Jersey train rams into station, kills bystander, injures 114 others

By Frank McGurty and Amy Tennery

HOBOKEN, N.J., Sept 29 (Reuters) - A commuter train plowed into a station in New Jersey at the height of Thursday's morning rush hour, killing a woman on the platform and injuring more than 100 people as it brought down part of the roof and scattered debris over the concourse.

Witnesses described terrifying scenes as the front of the train smashed through the track stop at high speed and into the Hoboken terminal, toppling support columns and creating chaos at one of the busiest transit hubs in the New York City area.

"We have no indication that this is anything other than a tragic accident but ... we're going to let the law enforcement professionals pursue the facts," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said at a news conference in Hoboken alongside New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Train #1614 originated in the town of Spring Valley in New York state and was at the end of its hour-long journey when it crashed.

The train's engineer, or driver, was injured and taken to hospital but later released, officials said, without providing details.

Media identified the engineer as Thomas Gallagher, citing unnamed sources, and said he was cooperating with investigators.

U.S. National Transportation Safety Board vice chairman Bella Dinh-Zarr told a separate news conference in Hoboken that investigators would retrieve the event recorder, which tracks speed, braking and other data, from the rear of the train on Thursday night.

She said the train was operating in a "push-pull configuration" in which locomotive-hauled trains can be driven from either end. The train had an engine that was pushing four cars including the controlling, or cab, car in front, officials said.

"Our investigation will continue here on scene for seven to 10 days," Dinh-Zarr said.

The train was on track five when it hit the Hoboken terminal building at about 08:45 a.m. (1245 GMT).

The New Jersey medical examiner's office identified the victim as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, of Hoboken. The woman was a former employee in the Brazilian legal department of SAP, the technology company said in a statement. Her LinkedIn page said she was a corporate lawyer who attended Florida International University.

Broadcaster NBC New York reported de Kroon had recently moved from Brazil to New Jersey with her husband and child.

Christie told CNN 114 people were injured. The Chinese Consulate General in New York told Xinhua news service at least one of the injured was Chinese.

Cuomo said it was obvious the train came into the station too fast, but it was unclear why. The cause could be human error or technical failure, Cuomo said. He added that it was too early to say whether an anti-collision system known as positive train control (PTC) could have prevented the crash.

PTC is designed to halt a train if the driver misses a stop signal and advocates cite it for helping to combat human error.

The crash renews focus on the mandatory anti-collision system that has been plagued with lengthy, contentious delays. According to a report by NJ Transit to the Federal Railroad Administration for the first half of 2016, the public transport system does not have PTC in operation on its 326-mile network.

New Jersey Transit ranked second for the most train accident reports nationwide for commuter railroads from January 2007 through June 2016, behind Amtrak.

New Jersey Transit had 271 accidents, or 18 percent of the total, compared with Amtrak's 44 percent, according to data from the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration Office of Safety Analysis.

Mike Larson, who works as a machinist for NJ Transit, was 30 feet away from the train just before it slammed into the platform. He told The Journal News of Westchester County, New York, that the train's speed appeared to be about 30 mph (48 kph).

The speed limit in the station is 10 mph (16 km) per hour, the NTSB's Dinh-Zarr told reporters.

The terminal, listed on the New Jersey Registry of Historic Places, was designed in the Beaux Arts style and construction finished in 1907. It is on the Hudson River's west bank across from New York City. Its station is used by commuters traveling into Manhattan from New Jersey and New York state.

Hoboken is the last stop on the lines it serves.

A couple of hundred emergency workers spent the morning shuttling in and out of the station, some carrying the injured on stretchers to ambulances. Federal investigators later began examining the wreckage.

Linda Albelli, 62, from Closter, New Jersey, was sitting in one of the train's rear cars and described how she had felt something was wrong a moment before the impact.

"I thought to myself, 'Oh my God, he's not slowing up, and this is where we usually stop'," Albelli said. "'We're going too fast,' and with that there was this tremendous crash."

'RUNAWAY TRAIN'

As investigators searched for clues to the cause of the accident, some said it could have been prevented.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a Democrat on a senate committee that includes transportation matters, said the crash was "hauntingly similar" to past tragedies involving insufficient or unsafe practices or equipment. Blumenthal has advocated for the roll out of the anti-collision system.

"This catastrophe was caused by a runaway train - traveling too fast and out of control. There is no excuse," Blumenthal said in a statement. He said there was an urgent need for better safety technology, new equipment and improved training.

The historic green-roofed Hoboken Station is served by NJ Transit commuter trains connecting much of New Jersey with the country's largest city, as well as the Port Authority Trans-Hudson subway-like system known as PATH, a light rail service and ferry service to New York.

In May 2011, a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey train crashed at Hoboken station, injuring more than 30 people. An investigation by the NTSB determined excessive speed was the main cause of the accident.

An NTSB official said the agency would look at similarities between that crash and Thursday's.

The crash was the latest in a string of fatal train crashes in the United States. The worst in recent years involved an Amtrak train that crashed in Philadelphia in May 2015, killing eight people and injuring more than 200.
At United Nations, Pakistan flags rising tension with India

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Pakistan's U.N. envoy asked the president of the United Nations Security Council on Thursday to informally brief the body on the country's escalating tension with neighboring India and said she will discuss it with U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday.

Indian officials said elite troops crossed into Pakistan-ruled Kashmir on Thursday and killed suspected militants preparing to infiltrate India and carry out attacks on major cities, in a raid that raised tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Pakistan's U.N. Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told Reuters she met with New Zealand's U.N. Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who is president of the 15-member Security Council for September.

"I brought to his attention the dangerous situation that is building up in our region as a result of Indian provocation," she said. "Our call to the international community is avert a crisis before there is one."

India's U.N. mission was not immediately available to comment.

Pakistan said two of its soldiers had been killed in exchanges of fire on Thursday, but denied India had made any targeted strikes across the de facto frontier that runs through the disputed Himalayan territory.

The raid raised the possibility of military escalation between the neighbors that could wreck a 2003 Kashmir ceasefire. Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full, but govern separate parts, and have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.

"Pakistan is showing maximum restraint but there are limits to our restraint if India continues with provocations," Lodhi said. "Right now our effort is just to tell everyone 'this is what's happened so far, watch this space because it's a very dangerous space'."
Pentagon chief calls U.S. alliance with Philippines 'ironclad'

By Yeganeh Torbati

SAN DIEGO, Calif., Sept 29 (Reuters) - The United States has an "ironclad" alliance with the Philippines, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Thursday, countering statements by the southeast Asian nation's president that have thrown bilateral relations into deepening uncertainty.

Carter spoke a day after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has branded President Barack Obama a "son of a bitch," declared upcoming U.S.-Philipppines military exercises "the last" and ruled out any joint navy patrols.

"As it has been for decades, our alliance with the Philippines is ironclad," said Carter, speaking to American sailors aboard the U.S.S. Carl Vinson at its home port in San Diego.

Through a "landmark" recent agreement, "the United States is supporting the modernization of the Philippine Armed Forces," he said.

Duterte has engaged in near-daily outbursts against the United States for the last month, raising questions about whether Manila's next moves could complicate regional diplomacy.

Among other measures, the firebrand leader has said he will order the pullout of the remaining U.S. special forces stationed in the Philippines' restive south.

The comments have cast doubt over an alliance that both countries have sought to strengthen amid shared concerns about China's military clout and pursuit of broad maritime claims. The Philippines and China have long sparred over sovereignty in the South China Sea.

Carter also noted the Maritime Security Initiative, under which the United States is providing tens of millions of dollars to the Philippines.

Despite his inflammatory comments, Duterte has said the Philippines will maintain security agreements with Washington, and Philippines Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay said Duterte had only ruled out joint patrols beyond the Philippines' 12-nautical mile territorial waters. U.S. officials said this week that they had not seen formal requests from the Philippines to stop the joint patrols.

Carter also spoke broadly about the U.S. "rebalance" toward the Asia-Pacific region, and touted strong bilateral relationships with countries in the area, including Thailand, Japan, South Korea, and Australia.

Carter is due to host defense ministers from southeast Asian countries in Hawaii this week, including the Philippines. Such gatherings have recently been dominated by China's claims on parts of the South China Sea. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.

In a visit to the Philippines in April, Carter announced expanded military ties, including regular rotations of U.S. troops and military equipment and joint patrols in the South China Sea.
A ceremony is held at the Tian'anmen Square in Beijing to honor and remember deceased national heroes on the Martyrs' Day, Sept. 30. [Photo: Xinhua News Agency]

Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior leaders attended a ceremony Friday at Tian'anmen Square in Beijing to honor and remember deceased national heroes on Martyrs' Day.

Veterans, family members of martyrs and representatives of all walks of life gathered at the Monument to the People's Heroes at Tian'anmen Square to mark the country's third Martyrs' Day on the eve of National Day.

The marble monument, the foundation of which was laid on Sept. 30, 1949, stood tall against a blue sky. Eight carvings depicting major episodes in Chinese revolutionary history since the First Opium War (1840-1842) adorn the monument's pedestal.

Premier Li Keqiang, top legislator Zhang Dejiang, top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng, senior leader Liu Yunshan, top discipline inspector Wang Qishan and Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli also attended the event and presented flowers to the people's heroes with other participants.

A military band played trumpets to commemorate martyrs before the ceremony started.

At 10 a.m., a crowd of around 3,000 people sang the national anthem. They then bowed their heads in silent tribute to those who devoted their lives to the liberation of the Chinese people and the development of new China, which was founded in 1949.

Following a patriotic song by school children in white shirts and red scarves, the uniform of China's Young Pioneers organization, 18 honor guards laid nine baskets of flowers in front of the monument.

The baskets were presented in the names of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, China's top legislature, the State Council, the top political advisory body, the Central Military Commission, democratic parties and non-party individuals, mass organizations, veterans, senior cadres and the families of martyrs, as well as China's Young Pioneers organization.

President Xi straightened red ribbons on one of the baskets and led a group of senior officials in a walk around the monument to pay tribute.

School children and other participants followed them and laid bouquets of chrysanthemums at the foot of the monument.

Martyrs, as defined by the government, are "people who sacrificed their lives for national independence and prosperity, as well as the welfare of people in modern times, or after the First Opium War."

It is estimated that China has about 20 million martyrs.

China's legislature approved Sept. 30 as Martyrs' Day in 2014 to commemorate those who lost their lives fighting for national causes.

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Egypt asks Interpol to take Mubarak-era businessman off watchlist

CAIRO, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Egypt gave the green light on Thursday for Interpol and the European Union to drop charges against Hussein Salem, a businessman ally of deposed president Hosni Mubarak, a senior justice ministry official said.

Salem and his family gave up 75 percent of their wealth in August in a deal that allowed them to return to Egypt without facing prosecution.

Salem, who also holds Spanish citizenship, was arrested under an international warrant in 2011 in Spain, where he fled after the popular uprising that ended Mubarak's 30-year rule.

"The prosecution had sent instructions to take Salem and his family members off airport watchlists on Sept. 27 and asked the Interpol to take him off its Red Notice Wanted list today," justice ministry spokesman Judge Khaled al-Nashar told Reuters.

The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) is an intergovernmental agency designed to promote international cooperation in criminal investigations.

Nashar said Egypt also sent notice to Spain, Switzerland, and Hong Kong to take Salem off their watchlists and that of the European Union.

The actions will allow Salem and family members to return to Egypt.

An Egyptian court had sentenced Salem in absentia to seven years in jail and fines totalling more than $4 billion in 2011 after convicting him of money laundering and profiteering.

He later faced graft-related charges associated with gas exports to Israel but was cleared in 2014.

Salem was a major shareholder in East Mediterranean Gas (EMG). Egyptian opposition groups had long complained that EMG was selling gas at preferential prices to Israel and other countries, depriving Egypt of potential revenues.

Egypt's Illicit Gains Authority recovered 5.3 billion Egyptian pounds (US$596.85 million) in the reconciliation deal with the Salem family.

The deal was part of a wider reconciliation effort with wealthy businessmen who fled Egypt after the uprising.
ECB's Nowotny says Europe not facing new banking crisis

BERLIN, Sept 29 (Reuters) - European Central Bank Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said on Thursday he did not believe that Europe faced a new banking crisis similar to that seen in 2007 and 2008, but the financial sector was clearly in a transitional phase.

"I wouldn't overdramatize it. We're in a transitional and learning phase," Nowotny told Reuters before an event hosted by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung foundation, when asked about the concerns triggered by new banking requirements to be finalised by the end of the year.

He said financial institutions would have to learn to deal with the new requirements, adding that the changes made sense and were moving in the right direction.

During the event, Nowotny described as overblown warnings by some critics that the euro could fail as a currency, and said the problems were with certain member states.

"I don't see any particular challenges that are remniscent of the crisis in 2007 and 2008," the Austrian central bank governor said.

Nowotny declined to comment specifically on Deutsche Bank while speaking with Reuters.

Deutsche's U.S.-listed shares hit a record low amid growing concerns about the bank's stability in the wake of a fine of $14 billion imposed by the U.S. Justice Department over its sale of mortgage-backed securities.

He told the event that it was important to consider all the consequences before letting any financial institution go bankrupt, noting that such a decision always triggered concerns about other institutions.

Nowotny said central bankers were still divided over Basel III banking rules, which are to be completed by the end of the year, but banks would likely face higher capital requirements. Selling assets was the quickest way to raise capital, he said.

The Basel Committee made up of regulators from nearly 30 countries has come under intense pressure from the banking industry and European governments to rein in the reforms it is now completing.
VW's Skoda to ponder U.S. production amid market push

By Andreas Cremer

PARIS, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Volkswagen's Czech division Skoda said it will assess the possibility of building cars in the United States as it considers selling in the world's second largest auto market where its parent continues to grapple with an emissions scandal.

Skoda, Volkswagen's (VW) mass-market brand, will start deliveries in Iran, South Korea and Singapore next year and will take time until the end of 2017 or later to decide whether to enter the United States, Skoda's chief executive, Bernhard Maier, said.

"Based on today's knowledge, a corresponding localization will be necessary to achieve a positive business case," Maier said in an interview at the Paris auto show on Thursday.

"A large number of factors" including analyses of market conditions and rivals, product outlook and sales operations will determine the final decision, he said.

"Ultimately, the business case has to be positive" to approve a U.S. market entry, he said.

The move reflects VW's growing optimism that a series of new products and a campaign to enhance its image will repair the damage done in the United States since its rigging of emissions tests broke over a year ago.

Though Skoda has been assessing the potential of the U.S. market for several months, it is in no rush to decide as it is tied up with an expansion course designed to curb dependence on volatile core markets and secure future growth.

"We really have our work cut out," said Maier, citing plans to add more sport-utility vehicles after unveiling the seven-seat Kodiaq SUV in Paris as well as advancing zero-emission technology and connected services.

Skoda will start importing fully built cars to Iran sometime next year and has signed preliminary accords with local partners to prepare partial CKD production in the country, the CEO said.

Taxation of cars with engine sizes below 1.6 litres which are common in Skoda's model range are particularly favourable, said Maier, who estimates that over 2 million cars will be sold per year in Iran following the country's nuclear deal with the West to end sanctions.

Separately, Skoda eyes record auto sales and profit this year, thanks to the first full year of deliveries of its Superb flagship model and stronger-than-expected demand for all model lines, Maier said.

Skoda has a five-digit number of pre-orders for the Kodiaq and aims to double its Chinese sales to about 600,000 cars by 2020-21 from over 300,000 this year due to SUV deliveries, he said.
After military raid, India looks at more ways to pressure Pakistan

By Sanjeev Miglani

NEW DELHI, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Beyond Thursday's raid by Indian special forces into Pakistan's side of divided Kashmir, New Delhi is considering new economic and diplomatic measures to bring pressure to bear on its neighbour, Indian officials said.

In a rare public acknowledgement, Indian officials said teams of elite troops crossed the de facto border dividing the nuclear-armed rivals in the Himalayan state, killing several militants it believed were planning to attack major cities.

The raids were a direct response to an attack earlier this month on an army base in Kashmir that India blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

Pakistan denied India had conducted raids on territory it administers and said it was not involved in stoking trouble in Indian-controlled Kashmir. It has demanded New Delhi produce credible evidence to back its claims.

Some Indian officials said the military was not planning further attacks or a major military offensive against Pakistan.

But they said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government was debating whether to use New Delhi's rising economic and diplomatic weight to squeeze Pakistan, a country one-fifth its size and with an economy seven times smaller.

"The objective is not just to go across the border and kill 10-12 people," said an Indian security official involved in the daily consultations since the Sept. 18 attack on an army base in the border town of Uri in which 18 Indian soldiers were killed.

"The objective is to bring about a change in Pakistani behaviour, and for that you need to move on multiple levels.

"The strategy will involve all instruments of national power. Military is only one of the options," added the official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Options under consideration include choking trade with Pakistan that takes place through third countries such as the United Arab Emirates, officials said, even though it is limited and in India's favour.

New Delhi is also considering building dams on rivers running into Pakistan and intensifying diplomatic pressure, hoping that it can show other countries how militants based in Pakistan impact the rest of the world, the officials added.

According to one of them, India could try to dissuade international companies from conducting business in Pakistan.

ON THE OFFENSIVE

The steps being considered signal a far more assertive posture by India under Modi's nationalist administration than the previous government, but it risks further escalating tensions between the countries.

Recent Indian governments have held off launching military strikes, including when gunmen from Pakistan mounted a three-day assault on Mumbai in 2008, for fear it could invite retaliation from Pakistan that could escalate into a nuclear conflict in the worst-case scenario.

One Indian security official described the new Indian approach as moving from a "defensive posture to defensive offence", under which India works on the vulnerabilities of Pakistan - its economy, internal security and international image as an unstable nation, home to militant Islamist groups.

"Pakistan's vulnerability is many times higher than that of India," the official said.

Hours after Thursday's raid, one Indian government official said New Delhi would review its economic relationship, including trade flows, with Pakistan.

But he downplayed the possibility of India taking measures such as blocking travel between the two countries, saying the reality of policy-making was much more sober.

BLOCKING TRADE

Official trade between India and Pakistan was a modest $2.6 billion in 2014, but informal trade is estimated to be closer to $5 billion, with jewellery, textiles and machinery exported from India through third-country ports such as Dubai.

India's informal imports from Pakistan through the same channels consist of textiles, dry fruits, spices and cement.

Indian security planners said a crackdown on such trade, in which some former members of Pakistan's powerful military are believed to be active, would help increase the pressure.

The head of Pakistan's Board of Investment, Miftah Ismail, said sanctions had usually not worked elsewhere in the world.

He said there was little trade between the two countries, and since much of it was in India's favour, any restrictions would affect India more than Pakistan.

"If India does (go ahead with economic sanctions), Pakistan will somehow react, and we will further impoverish the people in both countries," said Ismail, who is also a special assistant to the Pakistan prime minister.

"I don't see anything good coming out of this."
Peru's Congress approves Kuczynski's economic reform package

LIMA, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Peru's Congress voted overwhelmingly to give centrist President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski 90 days to legislate his initial batch of economic reforms, clearing the way for higher corporate taxes and a lower value-added tax rate.

The green light marked an initial victory for Kuczynski in a Congress controlled by the right-wing Popular Force party, which summoned his ministers to defend his proposed policies in several special sessions in recent weeks.

Lawmakers in the single-chamber Congress voted 99-17 in favor of Kuczynski's request for legislative powers to implement his proposed economic policies, and unanimously gave him 90 days to do so.

Kuczynski had initially asked for a 120-day window.

Every president in Peru this century has received special powers from Congress for pushing out initial reforms.

Kuczynski has proposed cutting the value-added tax rate to 17 percent from 18 percent next year to broaden the payer base, while also hiking corporate taxes to help rein in the fiscal deficit.

The 77-year-old former investment banker, who narrowly won June's presidential election, also plans to overhaul state bidding agency Proinversion to push out more infrastructure projects through private-public partnerships.

The finance ministry has said the reforms will revive investments and allow economic growth to quicken to at least 5 percent per year in coming years, from about 4 percent now.

Congress also granted Kuczynski special powers for legislating reforms aimed at fighting crime and corruption and restructuring state-owned energy company Petroperu.
Philippines leader likens himself to Hitler, wants to kill millions of drug users

MANILA, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte appeared to liken himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Friday and said he would "be happy" to exterminate three million drug users and peddlers in the country.

In a rambling speech on his arrival in Davao City after a visit to Vietnam, Duterte told reporters that he had been "portrayed to be some cousin of Hitler" by critics.

Noting that Hitler had murdered millions of Jews, Duterte said: "There are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I'd be happy to slaughter them.

"If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have...," he said, pausing and pointing to himself.

"You know my victims. I would like (them) to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition."
Brazil slams Panama for not helping in Petrobras graft probe

BRASILIA, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Brazil's top prosecutor's office complained on Thursday that Panama had failed to deliver banking information requested over a year ago in the massive corruption investigation surrounding state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA.

Brazilian prosecutors suspect financial institutions were used to move offshore millions of dollars in graft money from the scheme at the company known as Petrobras, and pay bribes to Brazilian politicians. They said lack of cooperation from Panama had frustrated their investigations

"Brazilian authorities reiterate the need for a rapid reply to the requests made to Panama," the office of Brazil's prosecutor-general said in a statement, adding Panama had so far failed to comply with international conventions on penal cooperation.

The statement was issued two days after a meeting with Panamanian prosecutors who showed up in Brasilia for an unscheduled meeting where Brazil's requests for bank documents relating to the Petrobras probe were discussed.

Prosecutors have long criticized Panama for not cooperating with efforts to investigate corruption practiced by Brazilian companies in that nation - and in particular the projects that the country's largest engineering group Odebrecht has worked on there.

"Panama is our biggest problem, to tell you the truth," Carlos Lima, a lead prosecutor on the Petrobras investigation, told Reuters earlier this year. "There have always been obstacles to working with them."

Panama's prosecutor general's office said the Brazilians canceled a meeting with its prosecutors on Thursday. It said in a statement the Panamanian prosecutors traveled to Brazil because their Brazilian counterparts had refused to go to Panama to explain what they needed. The Brazilian statement said prosecutors had visited Panama twice and provided the details Panama asked for.

In July, Brazilian police launched an investigation of Panama's FPB Bank, which allegedly worked with the "Panama Papers" law firm to transfer abroad money that came in part from a multibillion-dollar price-fixing and bribery scheme at Petroleo Brasileiro SA.

Police said FPB Bank was under investigation for "financial crimes, laundering of assets and transnational criminal organization" for offering private banking services without the authorization of Brazil's central bank.

Offshore companies registered by the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, the subject of a huge data leak earlier this year dubbed the Panama Papers, helped FPB Bank get clients' money out of Brazil illegally, police said at the time.

FPB Bank said in July it had no operations in Brazil and that accusations it was involved in the corruption scheme were "erroneous."
Panama Papers dents new Panama incorporations, seen down 20 pct

PANAMA CITY, Sept 29 (Reuters) - The number of new companies incorporated in Panama is on track to drop around 20 percent this year following the massive leak of offshore financial data known as the Panama Papers, the government said on Thursday.

Finance Minister Dulcidio De La Guardia told an investment forum that new openings of companies in Panama had been falling by about 7.5 percent per year since 2008, before accelerating this year after the Panama Papers scandal.

"If the current trend continues, the portfolio of companies incorporated in Panama is going to drop by about 20 percent this year," De La Guardia said.

Details of the Panama Papers were published in early April, embarrassing a clutch of global business and political leaders and sparking criticism of Panama for its lack of transparency.

De La Guardia said the decline in company openings after 2008 was due to higher transparency requirements by the isthmus nation. The data leak scandal had not affected the Panamanian economy nor its credit rating, the minister added.
Three Chinese fishermen killed in confrontation with South Korea coastguard

SEOUL, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Three Chinese fishermen were killed on Thursday in a fire that broke out on their boat when South Korean coastguard men trying to apprehend them for illegal fishing threw flash grenades into a room they were hiding in, a South Korean official said.

The three men were believed to have suffocated, a coastguard official in the South Korean port city of Mokpo said, adding that the incident was being investigated.

Disputes over illegal fishing are an irritant in relations between China and U.S. ally South Korea, even as their economic relations grow close. They also share concern about North Korea's nuclear weapon and missile programmes.

The fire broke out in the boat's steering room, said the official, who is not authorised to speak with media and declined to be identified, told Reuters by telephone.

A Chinese embassy official in Seoul could not be reached for comment and China's foreign ministry in Beijing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

South Korean authorities were questioning the 14 surviving crew and coastguard members involved in the operation, the official added.

South Korean coastguard vessels regularly chase Chinese boats for fishing illegally and violent confrontations have occurred in the past.

The Chinese boat, caught fishing in waters off the southwest of the peninsula, about 70 km (43 miles) southwest of Hongdo Island, would be brought in to a South Korean port later on Friday, the official said.

In June, South Korea and the United Nations Command, which overseas the Korean War armistice, launched a joint operation to keep Chinese fishing vessels from operating illegally off South Korea's west coast.
United Nations says U.S. drone strike kills 15 civilians in Afghanistan

KABUL, Sept 30 (Reuters) - At least 15 civilians were killed and another 13 wounded in a U.S. drone strike in eastern Afghanistan, the United Nations said late on Thursday, calling for an independent investigation into the incident.

The airstrike occurred in the early morning on Wednesday, hitting what U.S. officials said was an Islamic State target in Achin district of Nangarhar province.

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said some militants may have been killed in the strike, but many of the victims were civilians, including students, a teacher, and members of families considered to be "pro-government".

"UNAMA reiterates the need for all parties to the conflict to adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law," the United Nations said in a statement.

"UNAMA calls on the government and international military forces to launch a prompt, independent, impartial, transparent, and effective investigation into this incident."

The civilians had gathered in a village to welcome the return of a local elder who had completed the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and were sleeping when the strike occurred, according to witnesses.

The U.S. military command confirmed it conducted an air strike in Achin aimed at Islamic State militants, but said it is gathering information on the allegations of civilian casualties.
Philippines' Duterte likens himself to Hitler, wants to kill millions of drug users

By Karen Lema and Manuel Mogato

MANILA, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte appeared to liken himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Friday and said he would "be happy" to exterminate 3 million drug users and peddlers in the country.

Although the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama played down the remark, Duterte's comments triggered shock and anger among Jewish groups in the United States, which could create pressure on the U.S. government to take a tougher line with the Philippines leader.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a newsconference following a meeting Southeast Asian defence chiefs in Hawaii that he personally found Duterte's comments "deeply troubling", though the matter wasn't discussed at the meeting.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner had earlier described Duterte's remarks, made in a rambling speech in Davao City, as "a significant departure" from America's partnership with the Philippines "and we find them troubling."

Duterte told reporters that he had been "portrayed to be a cousin of Hitler" by critics.

Noting that Hitler had murdered millions of Jews, Duterte said, "There are 3 million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I'd be happy to slaughter them.

"If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have ...," he said, pausing and pointing to himself.

"You know my victims. I would like (them) to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition."

U.N. special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Adama Dieng, expressed alarm and urged the Philippines leader to exercise restraint in his use of language, a U.N. statement said.

Dieng also called on Duterte to support an investigation into the reported rise in killings resulting from his anti-drug campaign, the statement said.

In August, Duterte threatened to withdraw the Philippines from the United Nations after it called for an end to the killings.

In Washington, a State Department spokeswoman, Anna Richey-Allen, had repeated concerns about reports of extrajudicial killings but offered no response to Duterte's comment referring to Hitler.

A White House official on Friday stuck to a strategy of stressing Washington's long-standing ties with Manila, saying, "We continue to focus on our broad relationship with the Philippines and will work together in the many areas of mutual interest."

How relations between the U.S. and the Philippines evolve will depend more on what Duterte does than on what he says, administration officials have said.

U.S. officials had said they would use the defence chiefs meeting in Hawaii to clarify comments by Duterte that throw into doubt his commitment to military ties with the United States, including joint exercises and patrols.

While expressing his own unease with Duterte's comments, Carter described Washington's partnership with Manila as "an alliance of independent and strong nations."

"And like all alliances it depends on the continuation of a sense of shared interests. So far in US-Philippine history we have had that. We would look forward to continuing that but that's something that we continue to discuss with the Philippine government," he said.

'TONE-DEAFNESS'

Since Duterte took office on June 30, more than 3,100 people have been killed since then, mostly alleged drug users and dealers, in police operations and vigilante killings.

Duterte, who was elected in May on the back of a vow to end drugs and corruption in the country of 100 million people, has insulted Obama and in a number of remarks he has undermined the relationship between Manila and Washington.

On Friday, reacting to critical comments on his war on drugs by U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy and Benjamin Cardin, Duterte said: "Do not pretend to be the moral conscience of the world. Do not be the policeman because you do not have the eligibility to do that in my country."

Jewish groups quickly condemned Duterte's Hitler comments.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Digital Terrorism and Hate project, called them "outrageous".

"Duterte owes the victims (of the Holocaust) an apology for his disgusting rhetoric," Cooper said.

The Anti-Defamation League, an international Jewish group based in the United States, said Duterte's comments were "shocking for their tone-deafness".

"The comparison of drug users and dealers to Holocaust victims is inappropriate and deeply offensive," said Todd Gutnick, the group's director of communications. "It is baffling why any leader would want to model himself after such a monster."

Duterte has said there will be no annual war games between the Philippines and the United States until the end of his six-year term, and his hostility may make Washington's strategy of rebalancing its military focus towards Asia in the face of an increasingly assertive China more difficult to achieve.

Murray Hiebert, a Southeast Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, said Obama was "taking the long view" in dealing with Duterte. Obama leaves office in January.

Malcolm Cook, a senior fellow at Singapore's ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, said the U.S-Philippines alliance was not necessarily at risk, but Washington could seek to focus on ties elsewhere in the region.

"We are all in some sense becoming, by necessity, desensitised to Duterte's language," he said.
Romania - Factors to watch on Sept. 30

Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Friday.

INTEREST RATES

Romania's central bank holds a rate-setting meeting. Analysts widely expect policymakers to keep the benchmark rate unchanged at a record low 1.75 percent.

UNEMPLOYMENT

Romania's statistics board to release August unemployment data at 0600 GMT.

DEBT PLANS

Romanian debt managers are expected to release October debt issuance data. They sold domestic debt worth 4.33 billion lei ($1.09 billion) in September, and tapped foreign markets for 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) worth of 2028 eurobonds.

BUCHAREST STOCK EXCHANGE

Global index provider FTSE Russel said late on Thursday it has put Romania's capital market on its watchlist for possible upgrade to secondary emerging market status from frontier.

CEE MARKETS

Warsaw's stock index .WIG20 eased on Thursday, bucking a rise in Central European equities driven by rising crude prices, after Poland's ruling party firmed its grip on economic policy with a government reshuffle announced late on Wednesday.

EUROBOND

Romania's finance ministry will decide at the end of October whether to pre-finance 2017 needs through another eurobond or whether it has finished tapping foreign markets for the year, Finance Minister Anca Dragu said on Thursday.

For the long-term Romanian diary, click on

For emerging markets economic events, click on

For an index of all diaries, click on
Poland - Factors to Watch Sept 30

Following are news stories, press reports and events to watch that may affect Poland's financial markets on Friday. ALL TIMES GMT (Poland: GMT + 2 hours):

DATA

Poland's statistics office to release September CPI flash data while the central bank will publish September CPI expectations at 1200 GMT.

DEBT

Poland's finance ministry to publish details of debt supply in October at around 1300 GMT.

RETAIL TAX

The EU's decision to suspend a Polish retail tax was a political game play and Poland will appeal to it, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna quoted Prime Minister Beata Szydlo as saying.

RAIFFEISEN POLBANK

Analysts estimate that Raiffeisen's Polish unit is worth 3.4 billion zlotys ($886.48 million) excluding its Swiss franc-denominated mortgages portfolio, Rzeczpospolita daily said. It also speculates, that Raiffeisen will ask the regulator to give it more time for negotiations aimed at selling its Polish unit.

EESTI ENERGIA

Enefit, owned by Estonia's state-owned power group Eesti Energia, plans to sell electricity and gas to business clients in Poland, Puls Biznesu daily said quoting Eesti Energia CEO.

ENEA

Poland's state-run utility Enea plans to invest around 26.4 billion zlotys ($6.88 billion) by 2030, it said in a strategy published late on Thursday.

****Reuters has not verified stories reported by Polish media and does not vouch for their accuracy.****
Italy's economy minister says Monte Paschi rescue plan will work

MILAN, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The plan put together by JP Morgan and Mediobanca to save Italian bank Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena is well designed and will be a success, the country's economy minister said in a newspaper interview on Friday.

"I am absolutely confident it will work," Pier Carlo Padoan told La Stampa daily.

The minister also said the Sept. 30 deadline to sell four small banks that Italy rescued in November last year would be extended.
Thailand confirms two cases of Zika-linked microcephaly - health ministry

BANGKOK, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Thailand confirmed on Friday that Zika had caused two cases of microcephaly, a condition that results in babies being born with small heads, the first time microcephaly had been linked to Zika in Southeast Asia.

"To summarise we have found two cases of small heads linked to Zika, the first cases in Thailand," Prasert Thongcharoen, an adviser to the Department of Disease Control, told reporters in Bangkok.

The World Health Organisation said this was the first Zika-linked microcephaly in Southeast Asia.
Thailand confirms two cases of Zika-linked microcephaly, first in region

By Aukkarapon Niyomyat

BANGKOK, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Thailand confirmed on Friday that the Zika virus had caused two cases of microcephaly, a condition that results in babies being born with small heads, the first time it has been linked to Zika in Southeast Asia.

The confirmation came a day after U.S. health officials recommended that pregnant women postpone nonessential travel to 11 Southeast Asian countries, including Thailand, because of the risk of mosquito-borne Zika.

"We have found two cases of small heads linked to Zika, the first cases in Thailand," Prasert Thongcharoen, an adviser to the Department of Disease Control, told reporters in Bangkok.

He declined to say where in Thailand the cases were found.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a statement the cases were the first of Zika-linked microcephaly in Southeast Asia.

U.S. health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size that can lead to severe developmental problems in babies.

The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last year in Brazil, which has confirmed more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly that it considers to be related to Zika infections in the mothers.

Zika has spread extensively in Latin American and the Caribbean over the past year or so, and more recently it has been detected cropping up in Southeast Asia.

Thailand has confirmed 349 Zika cases since January, including 33 pregnant women, and Singapore has recorded 393 Zika cases, including 16 pregnant women.

Some health experts have accused Thai officials of playing down the risk of Zika to protect its thriving tourist industry but Prasert dismissed that.

"Thailand is not hiding anything and is ready to disclose everything," he said, adding that other countries in Southeast Asia might also have cases of Zika-linked microcephaly that they have not disclosed.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday people should consider postponing travel to Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste (East Timor), and Vietnam.

The CDC has already issued a "travel notice" for Singapore, and said such a warning would be considered for the new countries if the number of cases rose to the level of an outbreak.

Thailand's confirmation of Zika-linked microcephaly comes ahead of China's week-long "Golden Week" holiday with Thailand expecting 220,000 Chinese visitors, up from 168,000 for the week in 2015, Tourism Authority of Thailand governor Yuthasak Supasorn told Reuters.

NO VACCINE

The Thai health ministry said on Tuesday it was investigating four suspected cases of Zika-linked microcephaly in three babies and an unborn baby.

The three babies were born with small heads but it was not clear from ultrasound results whether the 37-week unborn baby had a head size smaller than normal.

The ministry ruled out a link between Zika and microcephaly in two of the cases on Tuesday. But Prasert said tests had to be carried out again on one of those cases.

There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected.

There are also no specific tests to determine if a baby will be born with microcephaly but ultrasound scans in the third trimester of pregnancy can identify the problem, according to the WHO.

Zika is commonly transmitted through mosquitoes but can also be transmitted sexually.

Another health ministry adviser urged everyone to work to stop the spread of mosquitoes but said people should not panic.

"Don't have sex with a Zika-infected person. If you don't know if they are infected, then use a condom," the adviser, Pornthep Siriwanarangsan, told reporters.

"We can't stop women from becoming pregnant ... but we mustn't panic."

Microcephaly in babies can lead to respiratory problems related to malformation of the brain, a very serious threat to the lives of babies in the first year of their lives.

Children with microcephaly face lifelong difficulties, including intellectual impairment.
Czech Republic - Factors To Watch on Sept 30

PRAGUE, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Czech financial markets on Friday. ALL TIMES GMT (Czech Republic: GMT + 2 hours) =========================ECONOMIC DATA========================== Real-time economic data releases.................... Summary of economic data and forecasts........... Recently released economic data.................. Previous stories on Czech data............. **For a schedule of corporate and economic events: http://emea1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/Apps/CountryWeb/#/2E/events-overview ==========================NEWS================================== INTERVENTIONS: The Czech central bank on Thursday delayed the earliest possible end of its weak-crown policy until the second quarter of next year and at the same time confirmed it expected to refloat the crown in mid-2017, narrowing the corridor for the likely return to standard monetary policy tools. Story: Related stories: FINANCE MINISTRY: The Czech state debt management chief Petr Pavelek has been appointed deputy finance minister in charge of the country's budget, the ministry said on Thursday. Story: Related stories: CEE MARKETS: Warsaw's stock index .WIG20 eased on Thursday, bucking a rise in Central European equities driven by rising crude prices, after Poland's ruling party firmed its grip on economic policy with a government reshuffle announced late on Wednesday. Story: Related stories: ---------------------- MARKET SNAPSHOT ------------------------ Index/Crown Currency Latest Prev Pct change Pct change close on day in 2016 vs Euro 27.014 27.015 0 -0.06 vs Dollar 24.076 24.106 0.12 3.16 Czech Equities 874.57 874.57 0.95 -8.55 U.S. Equities 18,143.45 18,339.24 -1.07 4.12 Pvs close or current levels vs prior domestic close at 1500 GMT ======================PRESS DIGEST============================= RAILWAY STATION: Grandi Stazioni could lose its 30-year lease of the Main Railway Station in Prague, where it is supposed to complete a general reconstruction by October 16. Lawyers at the state's Railway Infrastructure Administration (SZDC) proposed their management not to extend the contract, possibly worth billions of crowns, with the Italian company if it does not meet the deadline. Grandi Stazioni is 60-percent owned by Italy's state railways, Ferrovie dello Stato. E15, page 1 (Reuters has not verified the stories, nor does it vouch for their accuracy.) For real-time stock market index quotes click in brackets: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX For updates on CEE currencies TOP NEWS -- Emerging markets Prague Newsroom: +420 224 190 477 E-mail: prague.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (Reporting by Prague Newsroom)
MEDIA-Trump would open new chapter in U.S.-Russia ties, Ifax cites adviser

* If Republican candidate Donald Trump is elected president of the United States, he will open a new chapter in relations with Russia, but this will depend on Moscow's readiness to act as a responsible player in the international arena, Trump's foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos told Interfax news agency in an interview;

* Given the low level of trust between the two nations, tensions in the Baltics and conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, Russia and the U.S. should immediately dial down the rhetoric and counter common threats together, he said;

* These threats include radical Islam which has spread across North Africa and the Middle East after the so-called "Arab Spring", Papadopoulos said;

* Containing the common threat of radical Islam could unite the efforts of the European Union, NATO, the U.S. and Russia;

* U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia for its role in the Ukraine crisis has led to Moscow turning to China, which it views as the main market for Russian goods, services and energy;

* It is not in the interests of the West to let Russia and China forge a geopolitical alliance - both Russia and the U.S. should view China as a rising superpower, as a potential threat, believes Papadopoulos;
UK's IG Group to buy DailyFX from FXCM Inc for $40 mln

Sept 30 (Reuters) - Online trading company IG Group Holdings Plc said it had agreed to buy news and research portal DailyFX and its associated assets from U.S. retail broker FXCM Inc for $40 million.

IG Group said the deal, which is expected to close by the end of October, would add about 5 million pounds ($6 million) to ongoing operating costs annually and add to earnings from IG's 2018 financial year.

Upon completion, the DailyFX business along with its web domains, source code, content and 34 employees will be transferred to IG, FXCM said.

FXCM, which is the largest U.S. retail broker, with about 200,000 customers worldwide and 88,000 in the United States, said it would use the proceeds from the sale to repay debt.

IG Group, which has over 152,600 active clients according to its website, said the deal would "significantly enhance" its ability to bring on new clients improve the retention rates of current clients.
Syrian army, rebels wage fierce battles north of Aleppo city

BEIRUT, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Syrian government forces and rebels waged fierce battles north of Aleppo on Friday, sources on both sides said, a week into a Russian-backed offensive by the Syrian army to take the entire city.

Syrian government forces made a significant advance on Thursday north of Aleppo, capturing the Handarat refugee camp, a few kilometers (miles) from the city. The sources gave conflicting reports on the outcome of Friday's fighting.

Hezbollah's Al Manar television said on Friday the Syrian army and its allies took full control of Handarat and the nearby Kindi Hospital area and continued advancing. Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shi'ite group, is fighting in support of the Syrian government.
Cyprus court orders extradition of Egyptian hijacker

ATHENS, Sept 30 (Reuters) - A court in Cyprus on Friday ordered the extradition of an Egyptian who hijacked an aircraft with a fake explosive belt, diverting it to the island in March.

Seif Eldin Mustafa, 59, failed to convince the Nicosia district court that he could not get a fair trial in his home country, the semi-official Cyprus News Agency reported.

Mustafa commandeered a domestic Alexandria-Cairo flight with 72 passengers and crew on board on March 29, ordering the pilot to divert to Larnaca airport on the Mediterranean island.

He surrendered about six hours later, after gradually releasing all passengers and crew unharmed. One passenger took 'selfies' with Mustafa which were posted on social media.
Gold rush: Chinese head out on holiday en masse, skirting Taiwan and Hong Kong

By Ryan Woo

BEIJING, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Millions of Chinese tourists are packing their bags for distant and not-too distant shores for the National Day holiday, with early indicators pointing to a slump in bookings for neighbouring Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The "Golden Week" break, which starts on Saturday in one of the world's biggest mass movements by plane, boat and train, offers an important snapshot of Chinese holidaymakers and their changing tastes and habits as economic growth at home stutters.

It is also a peak season for retailers outside China looking to lift their top line. Singapore is luring Chinese shoppers with discounts and promotions while South Korea is trumpeting a month-long Korea Grand Sale.

Shinsegae Duty Free in Seoul's Myeongdong area popular with Chinese has been making preparations since July.

"We are expecting many Chinese tourists, so we think sales will increase a lot," shop official Ahn Joo-yeon told Reuters.

Thailand expects 220,000 Chinese visitors during the break, up about 30 percent from last year, Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor Yuthasak Supasorn told Reuters, despite a doubling in visa fees, a spate of bombings in the south of the country and fears of the spread of the Zika virus.

Thailand confirmed on Friday that Zika had caused two cases of microcephaly, a condition that results in babies being born with small heads, the first time the condition had been linked to Zika in Southeast Asia.

"So far there has been no impact (from Zika fears) on our Thailand route," said Wang Yanfei, market and PR manager at Shanghai Spring International Travel Service, the parent of Spring Airlines.

"We will give warnings and tips on our group notices. Team leaders will remind travellers of Zika and mosquito issues before the tour starts."

Thailand's tourism authority said it expects Chinese visitors to spend 7.8 billion baht ($225 million) during the Oct. 1-9 break, up 39 percent from a year earlier.

Total tourist spending in China and by Chinese abroad is expected to surge 13.5 percent to 478 billion yuan ($72 billion) during the holiday, according to China Travel Academy, a government-backed research institute.

That would be four times Iceland's gross domestic product.

But the number of mainland tourists visiting Taiwan, a self-ruled island China considers a breakaway province, has taken a tumble.

The decline reflects deteriorating relations with Communist Party rulers in Beijing since President Tsai Ing-wen, of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, took office in May.

"WE STILL WELCOME CHINESE TOURISTS"

Chinese tourists travelling alone and in groups during the holiday will slump 50 percent from a year ago to 30,000, Taiwan's tourism bureau said.

"The drop in Chinese tourists numbers is mostly owing to political factors," said Chiu Chui-cheng, a deputy minister of Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan's China policymaking body.

"We still welcome Chinese tourists."

China says it is natural its tourists are avoiding Taiwan given the current tensions between the two sides and what Beijing views as Taipei's insensitive handling of a July bus crash, deliberately caused by the driver who set the vehicle on fire, killing 24 Chinese tourists.

Taiwan's tourism bureau does not publish estimates for mainlanders' spending during the holiday. It projects full-year spending of T$110 billion ($3.5 billion) versus T$140 billion for 2015.

A reduced appetite for luxury due to a slower Chinese economy and a crackdown on extravagance has also hit visits to the former British colony of Hong Kong, which has been racked by pro-democracy protests and anti-China sentiment in recent years, infuriating Beijing.

Paul Leung, chairman of the Hong Kong Inbound Travel Association, expects a 20-30 percent slide in mainland tour groups from about 300 tours a day last year.

"For tour operators, Golden Week is no longer a golden period," said Joseph Tung, executive director of the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong.

Due to short flight times and looser visa policies, South Korea and Japan have remained popular.

Beijing has protested against a U.S. decision to deploy an advanced anti-missile system in South Korea, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system, to counter missile threats from North Korea. China worries the system's radar will be able to track its own military capabilities.

"There are some travellers putting off going to South Korea because of the THAAD issue," said a sales official at Qucheng Travel Agency in Shanghai.
Italy jobless rate stable in August at 11.4 pct, employment edges up

ROME, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Italy's unemployment rate was stable as expected at 11.4 percent in August, national statistics bureau ISTAT said on Friday, adding that some 13,000 jobs had been created compared with the month before.

August's jobless rate was in line with the median forecast in a Reuters survey of 13 analysts.

Unemployment in the euro zone's third largest economy has been oscillating between 11.4 percent and 11.7 percent for the last year.

In August the youth unemployment rate, measuring job-seekers between 15 and 24 years old, declined to 38.8 percent from 39.2 percent, but remained above June's level of 37.2 percent.

Italy's overall employment rate, one of the lowest in the euro zone, edged up in August to 57.3 percent from 57.2 percent, July's rate was revised down from a previously reported 57.3 percent.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi adopted a labour market reform last year easing firing restrictions in large firms and offering temporary fiscal incentives for employers who offer workers permanent contracts rather than temporary ones. Those incentives are being gradually phased out this year. ISTAT gave the following data:
Kyrgyzstan to downgrade OSCE ties after govt critic attends conference

BISHKEK, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The government of Kyrgyzstan plans to downgrade the status of local office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the cabinet said on Friday, after the human rights watchdog invited Bishkek's outspoken opponent to a conference.

The move follows the cancellation of a cooperation treaty between Kyrgyzstan and the United States for similar reasons: Washington had given a human rights award to a man convicted and imprisoned in Kyrgyzstan.

Kadyrzhan Batyrov, a businessman and an ethnic Uzbek community leader, has lived in Sweden since 2011 and has been sentenced in absentia to a prison term at home on charges of being involved in the 2010 ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan in which hundreds died.

Batyrov spoke at an annual OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw this month, and his presence there angered the Bishkek government.

On Friday, a spokeswoman for Kyrgyzstan's foreign ministry said it had sent a formal note to the OSCE, informing the organisation that it plans to downgrade the status and the mandate of the OSCE centre in Bishkek.

The spokeswoman said Kyrgyzstan had planned such a move before the Warsaw conference because it believes the OSCE office has completed its mission of aiding democracy-building in the former Soviet republic.

"At the same time, the recent incident related to the presence of Kadyrzhan Batyrov, wanted (in Kyrgyzstan) for criminal offenses, at the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw last week has prompted the Kyrgyz side to notify the OSCE about this sooner," she said.

Kyrgyzstan is more liberal than its autocratic Central Asian neighbours, but also much more volatile politically. Violent protests in 2005 and 2010 toppled two of its presidents and the latter was followed by clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks who are a significant ethnic minority in the country's south.

Last year, Kyrgyzstan cancelled a cooperation treaty with the United States in protest against the award of a U.S. State Department human rights prize to Azimjon Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek journalist and activist who is serving a life sentence on charges of inciting ethnic hatred.
Syrian army, rebels wage fierce battles in Aleppo

BEIRUT, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Syrian government forces and rebels fought battles in the centre of Aleppo and north of the city on Friday, a week into a Russian-backed offensive by the Syrian army to take the entire area, a war monitor and sources on both sides said.

There were conflicting accounts on the outcome of Friday's fighting. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a Syrian military source said government forces had captured territory north of Aleppo and buildings in the city centre.

An aerial bombardment of rebel-held areas continued on Friday, with heavy air strikes in the Shaar district where incendiary material struck a complex of medical buildings, the complex's director and other medical workers said.

Syrian state television reported that a child had been killed and others injured by rebel shelling in the government-held al-Ithaa neighbourhood of Aleppo.

Rebel sources however denied there had been any additional advances north of the city by government forces that seized the Handarat camp area north of Aleppo on Thursday. A rebel official said government forces had advanced in the Suleiman al-Halabi district of central Aleppo, but were then forced to withdraw.

The Syrian military and its allies launched a Russian-backed offensive one week ago aimed at capturing rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo that are home to more than 250,000 people.

Aleppo, Syria's largest city and commercial hub before civil war began in 2011, has been divided into government and opposition sectors for four years.

A water station was bombed in Suleiman al-Halabi, on the front line to the north of Aleppo's Old City, dealing a further blow to a water system already badly damaged during the offensive.

The Observatory blamed government forces. A Syrian military source, however, said rebels had blown it up and state media later said that insurgent shelling of Suleiman al-Halabi and the adjacent government-held al-Midan district had killed 15 people.

The Islamist Jabhat Fateh al-Sham group, formally known as the Nusra Front until it broke its formal allegiance to al Qaeda in July, said that eight of its fighters had been killed fighting at Suleiman al-Halabi.

ADVANCE AND RETREAT

The Observatory, a British-based war monitor, reported heavy bombardment by government forces and "back and forth" fighting in the Suleiman al-Halabi neighbourhood.

The Syrian military source said government forces captured several buildings in the area and were "continuing to chase the remnants of the terrorists fleeing them".

The rebel official however said government forces had "advanced and then retreated", losing "a number of dead". Zakaria al-Malahifji, an official for the Fastaqim rebel group that is present in Aleppo, said the insurgents still controlled the water plant.

In the fighting north of Aleppo, the Observatory and a television station operated by Hezbollah said government forces had taken the Kindi Hospital area adjacent to the Handarat Palestinian refugee camp, a few kilometres (miles) from the city. Hezbollah is a Lebanese group fighting alongside the army.

But rebel sources denied that the government had captured the Kindi Hospital area, saying fighting was still going on.
Spain marks monthly record for tourist arrivals in August

MADRID, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Spain hosted 10.1 million foreign tourists in August, the National Statistics Institute (INE) said on Friday, 5.8 percent more than a year earlier and marking a monthly record for arrivals as the influx of visitors bolsters the economy.

Spain's thriving tourism industry has fuelled a jobs surge over the summer months, extending an economic recovery throughout a period of political uncertainty triggered by two inconclusive national elections.

In the first eight months of 2016, the number of tourists rose more than 10 percent from the same period in 2015 to 52.5 million, INE said, putting Spain on track to surpass last year's record 68.1 million arrivals for the full 12 months.

Security fears in competing destinations across the Mediterranean and in the Middle East have helped lure more tourists than ever to Spain's shores. Northeastern Catalonia, home to vast stretches of beaches, was the most visited region in Spain, followed by the Balearic Islands.

Britons remained the most numerous visitors to Spain and arrivals from the United Kingdom were up 3.9 percent year-on-year in August. But this marked a slowdown compared to previous months and follows the UK's vote to leave the European Union, after which the British pound weakened against the euro.
Australian storm disrupts supply of raw materials to Asia

By James Regan and Tom Westbrook

SYDNEY, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The world's fourth biggest copper deposit Australia's Olympic Dam remained indefinitely idle on Friday and production at some of the country's major steelworks halted, after a massive power outage, disrupting supply lines of raw materials to Asia.

The power outage across South Australia state on Wednesday, caused by severe storms, has paralysed some of the world's largest sources of copper, uranium, lead and precious metals.

BHP Billiton said on Friday said it could not say when it would be able to restart its Olympic Dam mine, which is also the world's single biggest supplier of uranium.

"We just don't know at this stage," a spokesman said.

Prices on the London Metal Exchange have started to rise as commodities traders bet on Asian buyers scouring raw materials elsewhere.

Lead futures galloped to the highest price in 16 months after the world's biggest lead smelter, located in South Australia and a key supplier to Chinese battery manufacturers, went down due to power failure.

The owner of the smelter, which churns out 185,000 tonnes of lead annually for customers in Asia, Belgium-based Nyrstar , warned it could be two weeks before operations resume.

"You can't remove this much metal from the market for that amount of time and not expect people to scramble around for new supplies," said a metals traders in Sydney, who has been buying lead futures since the storm hit on Wednesday.

South Australia's Whyalla steelworks, which competes directly with Chinese producers of steel reinforcing bar and long products, has seen production halt after molten metal started cooling and solidifying in its blast furnace.

Production of 3,500 tonnes of steel a day and nearby mining of iron ore to feed the mill have stopped and it could be up to a week before power is restored, the mill's financial administrator, Mark Mentha, said.

While most of South Australia's ports reopened on Friday and ground transport was returning to normal, there may be little to put on ships.

"This storm is unlike anything we'd seen before and it's hard to say when things will get back to normal," a spokesman for the ports said.

Nigel Long, acting chief executive of the South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy warned the state risks an exodus of investment in raw materials.

"If the security of electricity cannot be guaranteed, then the resources industry is likely to look elsewhere," Long said.

Australia over the past two decades shifted its economic reliance from Europe and the United States to the emerging Asian powerhouses, which have come to regard the country as "Asia's quarry."

Countries including France, China, India and Japan rely on uranium from Australia to power nuclear generators, the majority of which is mined in South Australia.
EUROPE POWER-German forward prices higher, while coal and oil weaken

FRANKFURT, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Benchmark European forward electricity recouped some of the ground lost late on Thursday which had dented a recent rally.

The rise to levels not seen in more than year was driven by a report saying France might extend routine nuclear outages for additional checks, which threatens to tighten supply in the region as winter approaches.

This factor was still working its way through market prices, traders said on Friday.

"There is more buying from France again ahead of the weekend," a German trader said.

German markets will be closed on Oct 3 for unification day celebrations.

The German benchmark Cal'17 year-ahead baseload contract was at 29.65 euros ($33.17)/MWh a megawatt hour (MWh), up 20 cents from the previous close.

While markedly down from the 30.5 euros intraday high on Thursday, it is still a level last seen a year ago.

The less liquid equivalent French contract increased by 15 cents to 38.6 euros/MWh, having rallied to 39.5 euros on Thursday.

Coal, which accounts for more than 40 percent of German generation, was slightly off by 0.2 percent at $64.85 a tonne for prices into Europe in 2017.

This level, still the highest since mid-February 2015, reflects the renewed power market strength and global demand.

Front-year EU carbon allowances were 1.4 percent up at 5.09 euros a tonne.

Crude oil dropped as investors took profits following a 7-percent rise in the last two sessions, amid doubts that planned OPEC cuts will make a substantial dent.

Spot power was mixed for the coming days.

Germany's Monday price was down, reflecting the holiday and higher wind output, with Tuesday's rose on cooler weather forecasts.

The French Monday price was up on lighter renewable supply that day, prior to anticipated thermal plant additions.

German Monday baseload was at 27.8 euros and Tuesday at 34.5, compared with 34 euros paid for Friday.

The French contract for Monday rose 3.75 euros over what was paid for Friday to 44 euros.

Thomson Reuters data showed German average daily temperatures will be 6 degrees Celsius down next week from Friday's level and those in France will shed 3 degrees.

In eastern Europe, the Czech year-ahead 2017 contract , which had risen in line with Germany, was untraded, having closed at 30 euros/MWh.
Turkey pulls plug on 20 radio, TV channels in post-coup emergency decree

By Ayla Jean Yackley

ISTANBUL, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Turkey has ordered the closure of 20 television and radio stations, including one that airs children's programmes, on charges they spread "terrorist propaganda", adding to fears that emergency rule is being used to stifle the media.

President Tayyip Erdogan has said he wants a three-month state of emergency, imposed after a failed coup attempt in July, to be prolonged past October so authorities can eradicate the threat posed by a religious movement blamed for the attempt, as well as Kurdish militants who have waged a 32-year insurgency.

The banned channels are owned or operated by Kurds or the Alevi religious minority, according to Hamza Aktan, news editor at IMC TV, a news broadcaster slated for closure. He cited a copy of the decision obtained by his channel, which was based on powers given the government in a decree issued in July.

"This has nothing to do with the coup. It is an effort to silence the last independent media covering the Kurdish issue and violations committed by the state," Aktan told Reuters.

IMC has aired reports looking at security forces' conduct during 14 months of military operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has killed thousands.

Among the 12 shuttered television channels are Govend TV, which plays folk music, and Zarok TV, which airs Kurdish-language children's cartoons. The decision also shut 11 radio stations for harming national security, Aktan said.

"Turkey is targeting a wide swath of cultural and political expression by shuttering minority broadcasters," Robert Mahoney of the Committee to Protect Journalists said. "When the government sees even children's programming as a threat to national security, it is clearly abusing its emergency powers."

RULE BY DECREE

An official at the Radio and Television Supreme Council, the state watchdog, confirmed 20 stations were being closed.

Erdogan argues the state of emergency is helping authorities swiftly root out supporters of the military uprising by bypassing parliament to enact laws and suspend rights.

Turkey blames U.S.-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen for masterminding the coup in which 240 soldiers, police and civilians were killed trying to stop rogue troops who had commandeered fighter jets and tanks to bomb parliament and shoot protesters. Another 100 people behind the putsch were killed.

Some 100,000 state employees suspected of links with the Gulen movement have been purged, and 32,000 people are in jail for their alleged role in the coup. Gulen denies involvement.

Authorities have also targeted the media, arresting dozens of members of the press to make Turkey the world's biggest jailer of journalists and shutting down scores of media outlets.

Aktan and other IMC staff continued airing segments on Friday while waiting for police to arrive at their offices. Other stations on the closure list were raided and sealed off on Thursday, newspapers and CPJ said.

IMC, founded in 2011, has faced other punitive measures. In February, its satellite feed was cut while prosecutors investigate if it supports the PKK.
Thailand confirms first Zika-linked microcephaly in Southeast Asia

By Aukkarapon Niyomyat

BANGKOK, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Thailand reported on Friday the first confirmed cases in Southeast Asia of microcephaly linked to mosquito-borne Zika, as the World Health Organization urged action against the virus across the region.

The confirmation of two case of microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size, came a day after U.S. health officials recommended that pregnant women postpone non-essential travel to 11 Southeast Asian countries because of the risk of Zika.

"We have found two cases of small heads linked to Zika, the first cases in Thailand," Prasert Thongcharoen, an adviser to the Department of Disease Control, told reporters in Bangkok.

He declined to say where in Thailand the cases were found but officials have said they were not in Bangkok.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the cases were the first of Zika-linked microcephaly in Southeast Asia and the virus infection represented a serious threat to pregnant women and their unborn children.

"Countries across the region must continue to strengthen measures aimed at preventing, detecting and responding to Zika virus transmission," Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, the WHO's regional director, said in a statement.

U.S. health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, which can lead to severe developmental problems in babies.

VIRUS SPREADING

The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last year in Brazil, which has confirmed more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly that it considers to be related to Zika infections in the mothers.

Zika has spread extensively in Latin American and the Caribbean over the past year or so, and more recently it has been cropping up in Southeast Asia.

Thailand has confirmed 349 Zika cases since January, including 33 pregnant women, and Singapore has recorded 393 Zika cases, including 16 pregnant women.

Some health experts have accused Thai officials of playing down the risk of Zika to protect its thriving tourist industry, but Prasert dismissed that.

"Thailand is not hiding anything and is ready to disclose everything," he said, adding that other countries in Southeast Asia might also have cases of Zika-linked microcephaly that they have not disclosed.

The WHO said Thailand's response was an example for the region.

"Thailand's diligence underscores the commitment of health authorities to the health and wellbeing of the Thai public, and provides a positive example to be emulated," Singh said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday people should consider postponing travel to Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste (East Timor), and Vietnam.

The CDC has already issued a "travel notice" for Singapore, and said such a warning would be considered for the new countries if the number of cases rose to the level of an outbreak.

Thailand's confirmation of Zika-linked microcephaly comes ahead of China's week-long "Golden Week" holiday with Thailand expecting 220,000 Chinese visitors, up from 168,000 for the week in 2015, Tourism Authority of Thailand governor Yuthasak Supasorn told Reuters.

NO VACCINE

There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected.

There are also no specific tests to determine if a baby will be born with microcephaly, but ultrasound scans in the third trimester of pregnancy can identify the problem, according to the WHO.

Zika is commonly transmitted through mosquitoes but can also be transmitted sexually.

Another Thai health ministry adviser urged everyone to work to stop the spread of mosquitoes but said people should not panic.

"Don't have sex with a Zika-infected person. If you don't know if they are infected, then use a condom," the adviser, Pornthep Siriwanarangsan, told reporters. "We can't stop women from becoming pregnant ... but we mustn't panic."

Health authorities in the region said they were stepping up monitoring, but there has been little testing and officials said the real number of cases was bound to be higher than the confirmed figure.

"We do not test everybody, we test only those who are symptomatic," said Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubia, health secretary in the Philippines, which has reported 12 Zika cases.

"Yes, we are positive that the number is higher because we are not testing everyone."

Malaysia, which has reported six cases of Zika, including two in pregnant women, said it would seek information from Thailand on the particular strain of the Zika virus there.

"We are taking serious notice of the reports in Thailand, and we will reach out to the Thai authorities for more information ... so that we can be more prepared," Malaysia's health minister, Subramaniam Sathasivam, told Reuters.

Authorities in Vietnam, which has reported three cases of Zika, ordered stepped up monitoring of pregnant women.

In Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, head of disease outbreak and surveillance Dwi Oktavia said there had been no sign of any increase in birth defects there. Indonesia had one Zika case in 2015 but has confirmed none since then.

Microcephaly in babies can lead to respiratory problems related to malformation of the brain, a serious threat to the lives of babies. Children with microcephaly face lifelong difficulties, including intellectual impairment.
Rangers try gaming technology to protect African wildlife

By Neha Wadekar

NAIROBI, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The campaign to track down poachers and protect endangered species in Africa's embattled reserves is tapping into the technology used in the virtual world of online poker and other computer games.

A U.S.-funded initiative is applying artificial intelligence and game theory algorithms to predict the movement of poachers, helping rangers who are testing the new technology in Uganda to find illegal hunters and their animal traps.

"We're trying to predict future poacher attacks or where poachers may strike next based on what we have observed in the past on our patrols," Professor Milind Tambe from the University of Southern California, who is leading the initiative, said.

"Each conscated snare represents an animal's life saved," Tambe, whose team is developing technology called Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security (PAWS), told Reuters by phone.

Across Africa, a battle against poaching is raging but often being lost. African elephant numbers, for example, fell by 20 percent between 2006 and 2015 because of a surge in ivory poaching, according to conservationists.

There have been some successes. Uganda has seen its elephant population recover from a nadir of 700 to 800 in the 1980s after years of chaotic rule and dictatorship to reach about 5,000 now. But officials say poaching is back on the rise.

"Elephant poaching has started to increase in the last five years, which is a major concern, and that's linked to the global price of ivory," said Andy Plumptre, director of the Albertine Rift Program for the Wildlife Conservation Society in Uganda.

The problem is not just big time poachers seeking ivory, which can sell for $1,000 a kilogram ($450 a pound) or more. Illegal hunters are sometimes locals seeking meat to eat or sell to pay school fees.

Killing game, meanwhile, has knock-on effects. It destroys prey chased by carnivores such as lions and leopards, causing their numbers to drop too.

PAWS

This is where PAWS, which is being tested in Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National Park, aims to assist in the fight against poaching. The system helps rangers map routes in the same way mathematical computer models predict how a rational human reacts and create opponents for online poker and other games.

"We want to deliver the software so the local rangers can use it with minimum training," Tambe said, adding that Queen Elizabeth National Park offered 18 years of ranger-collected data on illegal activities to help perfect the technology.

In the past month since the latest round of testing began, rangers using PAWS have found 10 antelope traps and elephant snares waiting to be triggered, a far better score card than they could usually expect without technological assistance.

Sometimes success still comes too late, one patrol using PAWS found an elephant carcass with tusks sawn off.

Tambe has used game theory software to improve efficiency of U.S. law enforcement and government agencies since the early 2000s, but realised the techniques could also protect wildlife.

Initial PAWS testing has also taken place in Malaysia, and the programme has been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Army Research Office.

PAWS faces its own challenges, however.

Poor mobile and internet connectivity in the park could prevent the rangers from using the software accurately and in real-time.
Missing Van Gogh paintings turn up in Italian mafia country house

By Toby Sterling and Steve Scherer

AMSTERDAM/ROME Sept 30 (Reuters) - Two stolen Vincent Van Gogh paintings worth millions of euros were found in an Italian country house belonging to an alleged mafia drug smuggler, police said on Friday, 14 years after they disappeared in a daring heist in Amsterdam.

Italian investigators displayed the recovered artworks - a sea scene and a church where the painter's father was minister - to reporters in Naples, saying each was worth an estimated 50 million euros ($56 million).

"It is a great day for us today to see the works and to know that they are safe and that they are in safe hands," said Axel Ruger, director of Amsterdam's Van Gogh museum, who was present when the paintings were shown to reporters.

"We may have to be a bit patient, but we hope that we will have them soon back where they belong," he said, adding the museum would respect Italian legal procedures.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi informed his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte about the police operation before the funeral in Jerusalem of former Israeli leader Shimon Peres, a source in Renzi's office said.

The paintings were found wrapped in cloth inside a safe in a country house south of Naples that prosecutors said belonged to Raffaele Imperiale, a 41-year-old businessman accused in January of running an international cocaine trafficking ring together with high-ranking mobsters from a clan made famous in the 2008 film "Gomorra".

Imperiale is a fugitive and Italian investigators suspect he is living and running a construction business in Dubai. But the arrests of 11 members of his alleged ring in January, including one man who turned state's witness, led investigators to the paintings.

Along with the artworks, which Naples prosecutor Giovanni Colangelo said were probably purchased with drug proceeds, police seized a small airplane, boats, 49 properties, and 88 bank accounts worth some 20 million euros.

AUTHENTIC

The paintings vanished in 2002 after a heist in which thieves used a ladder to climb onto the Van Gogh Museum's roof and break into the building. They escaped by sliding down a rope in a robbery considered by the U.S. FBI as one of the top ten global art crimes.

Two men were later caught and convicted of the theft thanks in part to DNA evidence linking them to the scene. They were sentenced to 4 years and 4 years, six months, respectively, but the paintings were not recovered.

Colangelo said the artworks were found "a few days ago", and Italian and Dutch experts were called in to authenticate whether they were indeed the stolen works.

"The paintings are definitely authentic," Colangelo said.

The recovered works, "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen" (1884/5) and "View of the Sea at Scheveningen" (1882), are both from relatively early in Van Gogh's short, tempestuous career.

The Van Gogh Museum said the paintings had been removed from their frames, but appear to have suffered only slight damage.

The Scheveningen painting is one of only two sea scenes Van Gogh painted in the Netherlands, and "an important example of Van Gogh's earliest painting style, in which he already appeared rather unique", the museum said.

The museum said on Friday a patch of paint in the lower left corner had been chipped off.
Dutch government rebukes Russian ambassador over MH17 remarks

AMSTERDAM, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The Dutch Foreign Ministry summoned Russia's ambassador in The Hague for a diplomatic rebuke on Friday after Moscow made remarks critical of the criminal investigation into the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

Earlier this week, a team of international investigators presented findings showing that the missile launcher used to shoot down MH17 over Eastern Ukraine in 2014 came from Russia and was returned there afterward - despite Russian denials of involvment in the conflict in Ukraine.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said Russian reactions to the investigation's findings "cast doubt on the integrity, professionalism and independence" of the investigators.

"The Russian Ambassador has been made to understand that such unfounded criticism is unacceptable," the ministry said in a statement.
EU leaders seek to agree shortcut to launching Paris climate deal

By Alissa de Carbonnel

BRUSSELS, Sept 30 (Reuters) - European Union states aimed on Friday to agree a shortcut to ratify the Paris climate deal and trigger its entry into force next week, keen for a rare political breakthrough at a time of discord over migration and Britain's vote to leave the bloc.

Faced with the embarrassing prospect of being left out when the pact to curb global warming that they had championed takes effect, EU leaders - at a summit held earlier this month in Bratislava - hatched the plan to bypass lengthy ratifications by each of the 28 member states.

When France raised doubts over an individual ratification process so sluggish that the head of the EU executive described it as "ridiculous", it was agreed "that the EU cannot just talk, but also has to deliver on its promises", a bloc official said.

"We need a win... We need some good news," an EU diplomat told Reuters.

Poland sought concessions for its coal-fired economy ahead of Friday's special gathering, so EU environment ministers were aiming for a way to break with normal procedure and lock collectively into the Paris accord.

"There is one member state that will not make the discussion easy," Spain's Isabel Garcia Tejerina said, alluding to Poland.

Germany drew a red line over Poland's demands. "We cannot start horse-trading over the different national ideas on climate policy," Environment Minister Jochen Flasbarth said.

When EU regulators unveiled plans in July for spreading the burden of the bloc's climate goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 to at least 40 percent below 1990 levels, Poland objected to its target.

POLAND SIGNALS GO-AHEAD DESPITE CONCERNS

"The fact that we are a member of the EU cannot be a brake to our economy," Polish Environment Ministry spokesman Pawel Mucha said on Friday.

However, in a signal that lifted hopes for a deal, the Polish government gave the go-ahead to domestic approval of the Paris pact this week, with Mucha saying it could be adopted by parliament in "the coming days."

If ministers can seal a fast track for the EU, the world's No. 3 emitter, it will tip into force an accord to keep planet temperature rises "well below" 2 degrees Celsius - less than a year after the deal was reached by envoys from nearly 200 states and before the next U.N. climate talks round in November.

"It's about keeping our (EU) international leadership role in fighting climate change. We can't fall to the back of the pack," Austria's minister, Andrae Rupprechter, said.

Any agreement struck on Friday would then need to be endorsed in a vote by the European Parliament on Oct. 4.

But the EU shortcut, dubbed "institutional creativity" by France's minister, ultimately hangs on trust that each of the 28 will follow through with their own ratifications. If they do not, those who have gone ahead could be stuck with fulfilling the promised emissions cuts of the bloc as a whole.

Cementing the Paris accord before the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 8 would also make it harder to unravel if Republican Donald Trump, who has opposed it, wins that vote.

To take effect, it needs ratification by 55 countries that account for 55 percent of global emissions. So far, 61 nations representing 47.8 percent of emissions have ratified, led by China and the United States. India is set to ratify on Sunday.
Bulgaria bans full-face veils in public places

SOFIA, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Bulgaria's parliament on Friday banned the wearing of face veils in what in what was deemed to be an attempt to boost security in the wake of Islamist militant attacks in Europe.

The "burqa ban" law, pushed by the nationalist Patriotic Front coalition, echoes similar moves in other western European countries such as France, Netherlands and Belgium who have banned the wearing of burqas or niqabs in public.
Mongolia requests financial assistance from IMF

BEIJING, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Mongolia has sought financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as it grapples with balance of payments woes and looks to stabilise its economy, the IMF said on Friday.

Discussions will begin next week when Mongolian officials visit Washington D.C. to attend the annual meetings of the IMF, the organisation said in a statement, without saying how much was sought.

"The Mongolian authorities have made a request for financial assistance from the IMF to support their economic program, which is intended to address balance of payments pressures and stabilize the economy," spokesman Gerry Rice said in the emailed statement.
Bulgaria bans full-face veils in public places

By Angel Krasimirov

SOFIA, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Bulgaria's parliament on Friday banned the wearing of face veils in public in a move supporters said would boost security after Islamist militant attacks in Europe, but which drew criticism from Amnesty International.

The "burqa ban" law, pushed by the nationalist Patriotic Front coalition, echoes similar measures in western European countries such as France, the Netherlands and Belgium which have various laws banning the wearing of niqab full-face veils or head-to-toe burqas.

People who do not comply with the ban in Bulgaria face fines of up to 1,500 levs ($860), as well as suspension of social benefits.

The ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms refused to take part in the vote, which followed full-face veil bans in public in several Bulgarian towns. It said the ban would incite ethic and religious intolerance.

The ruling centre-right GERB party said the ban has nothing to do with religious outfits but is only aimed at boosting national security and allowing better video surveillance.

"The law is not directed against religious communities and is not repressive," senior GERB lawmaker Krasimir Velchev said. "We made a very good law for the safety of our children."

According to the law, clothing hiding the face may not be worn in government offices, schools, cultural institutions and places of public recreation, but exceptions are allowed for health or professional reasons.

Human rights group Amnesty International said the ban violated Bulgarian women's rights to freedom of expression and religion, calling it part of a disturbing trend of intolerance, xenophobia and racism in the Black Sea state.

"Women in Bulgaria should be free to dress as they please and to wear the burqa or the niqab as an expression of their identity or beliefs," Amnesty International's Europe Director John Dalhuisen said.

"Legitimate security concerns can be met with targeted restrictions on the complete covering of the face in well-defined high risk locations and not through a blanket discriminatory ban such as this."

A minority of Muslim women in Europe cover their faces, but their veils have become symbols for some Europeans troubled by security, immigration and Muslim integration.

Muslims make up about 12 percent of Bulgaria's 7.2 million population and most belong to a centuries-old community, largely ethnic Turks.

Muslim women in the country traditionally do not wear niqabs or burqas, except for a small group in the Roma community who have recently started, sparking tensions in the city of Pazarzhik.
Slovenia to shut down nuclear power plant Krsko for maintenance

LJUBLJANA, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Slovenia will shut down its sole nuclear power plant Krsko (NEK) from overnight on Friday for regular maintenance that takes place every 18 months, NEK's spokeswoman Ida Novak Jerele told Reuters.

She said the plant, which is jointly owned by Slovenia and Croatia, is due to resume operations on around Nov. 1. The maintenance is not expected to have any environmental impact.

Jerele said work will include a security upgrade needed for a new hydro power plant on the river Sava about 8 km (5 miles) from NEK and due to start operating next year. NEK is located next to the Sava river.
Gas shortages turn Nigeria's Dangote to coal to make cement

ABUJA, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Nigeria's Dangote Cement has turned to locally-mined coal to fire its cement plants because of gas shortages due to militant attacks on Nigerian facilities and to lower its production costs.

"All our cement plants have been converted to coal," Aliko Dangote, the company's billionaire majority owner and chairman, told a business conference on Thursday, adding they would use 12,000 metric tonnes of coal each day.

Dangote is shifting to coal rather than gas to fire the kilns which produce clinker, an ingredient of cement.

BUA Group, said it is also switching one of its plants in northern Nigeria to run on coal to fire its kiln to address fuel shortages. It said technological advances have helped in the processing of coal to reduce emissions. Dangote's main cement plant is located in Nigeria's Kogi State.

BUA Group said its other plants in the south of the country still run on gas to heat the kilns.

Coal's use to generate U.S. electric power fell in April to its lowest monthly level since 1978, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a June report. Natural gas, meanwhile, surpassed coal as the United States' top fuel source for the third straight month, the EIA said.

But gas shortages have plagued Nigeria, with militants in the oil heartland of the Niger Delta regularly disrupting the West African nation's oil and gas production.

Dangote, Africa's biggest cement producer, has an annual production capacity of 43.6 million tonnes and targets output of between 74 million and 77 million tonnes by the end of 2019 and 100 million tonnes of capacity by 2020.

The company has invested more than $5 billion to expand outside its home market in the past few years.
Duterte visit to China may lead to changing alliances in East Asia

By Manuel Mogato and Benjamin Kang Lim

MANILA/BEIJING, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte travels to China next month on a visit that could redraw alliances in East Asia after his incendiary comments about the United States and active courting of Washington's chief rivals.

The friendly relationship between the Philippines and the United States has been one of the pillars of Washington's strategic military rebalance to Asia under President Barack Obama. But the alliance has been under strain since Duterte came to power three months ago and chafed at U.S. criticism of his bloody war on drugs, which has led to the killing of more than 3,100 alleged drug users and dealers by police and vigilantes.

He has insulted Obama and then made it clear the Philippines will pursue a much more independent foreign policy than it has in the past.

That has included the Philippines extending an olive branch to China, despite the two countries being locked for years in a bitter territorial dispute in the South China Sea. Duterte has also spoken of reaching out to Russia.

"Ever since President Duterte took office, China and Philippines have been engaging in friendly interactions, which have yielded a series of positive results," Zhao Jianhua, the Chinese ambassador to Manila, said at a Chinese National Day reception at the embassy this week.

"The clouds are fading away. The sun is rising over the horizon, and will shine beautifully on the new chapter of bilateral relations," Zhao said.

Duterte plans to visit Beijing from Oct 19-21, and hold talks with both President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. Diplomatic and business sources in Manila have said he will be accompanied by about two dozen businessmen, which could lead to deals being forged that could underpin any improved bilateral ties.

But key to a successful visit will be an understanding of how to approach the dispute over the South China Sea. Beijing has angrily rejected a decision by an international court in July that ruled China's claims to the waterway were invalid, after a case was brought by the Philippines.

Duterte wants China to abide by the ruling and allow access to the Scarborough Shoal, a traditional fishing ground for Chinese, Filipino and Vietnamese fishermen. But he has not insisted on the ruling being implemented and said he would like to negotiate on the row.

"Duterte giving us face means we have to rethink our policy," a source with ties to China's leadership and the military told Reuters. "We have to reciprocate his courtesy."

FISHING RIGHTS

Getting Filipino fishermen access to the Scarborough Shoal would be a major win for Duterte and add to his already sky-high domestic popularity. According to a recent survey, he has a record high approval rating of 92 percent even as he faces international opprobrium for the killings.

"When Duterte visits China next month, his agenda will focus on trade, investments and fishery cooperation with China, including access to Scarborough," a Philippines foreign ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Zha Daojiong, an international relations professor at China's Peking University, said a deal over renewed Philippines access to Scarborough Shoal could be expected at the visit. But he said it would be a verbal rather than written agreement to avoid formally acknowledging the international court's ruling, which upheld the historic fishing rights of both states.

"There's many ways this meeting could be productive...even if there is likely to be some caution on both sides," Zha said.

Officially, Beijing has yet to confirm Duterte's visit, but the foreign ministry has said it welcomes a visit by him at an early date.

The Global Times, an influential tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, said in an editorial last week it could lead to a new chapter in ties.

"A new, positive interaction between China and the Philippines, starkly different from the Aquino era, may be unveiled," it said, referring to the previous Philippines president, Benigno Aquino.

"Duterte shows stark differences from his predecessor in diplomacy and style. He seems to prefer more balanced diplomatic relations with other countries rather than being too reliant on the U.S."

HITLER

Duterte has this month struck at the heart of ties with the United States by saying the two countries would not hold any joint naval patrols during his six-year tenure and calling for the withdrawal of U.S. special forces stationed in the restive south of the country. On Friday, he outraged Jewish groups by appearing to compare himself to Adolf Hitler, which could heap more pressure on Washington to publicly turn against him.

Despite the uncertainty, U.S. officials have maintained that all remains well.

"As it has been for decades, our alliance with the Philippines is ironclad," Defence Secretary Ash Carter said on Thursday, speaking to American sailors aboard the U.S.S. Carl Vinson at its home port in San Diego.

But analysts think damage has already been done.

"Officials in Washington must now be seriously worried about the trajectory of U.S.-Philippine relations," said Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore's ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute.

"Especially military-to-military issues such as joint exercises and U.S. access to Philippine bases, and whether Duterte will try and cut a deal with Beijing over the South China Sea that will allow China to advance its maritime claims."

But not everyone in China is rushing to embrace Duterte, because of his extreme unpredictability. Last month, despite the new-found bonhomie, the Philippines said at a summit of Asian nations in Laos that it was "gravely concerned" about Chinese boats preparing to build structures at the disputed Scarborough Shoal.
U.S. drone strike kills 15 civilians in Afghanistan, United Nations says

KABUL, Sept 30 (Reuters) - At least 15 civilians were killed and 13 wounded in a U.S. unmanned aircraft strike in eastern Afghanistan, the United Nations said, calling for an independent investigation into the incident.

The airstrike early on Wednesday morning hit what U.S. officials said was an Islamic State target in the Achin district of Nangarhar province.

Government officials said the strike killed some militants, but the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported the victims were civilians, including students, a teacher, and members of families considered to be "pro-government".

"UNAMA reiterates the need for all parties to the conflict to adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law," the United Nations said in a statement late on Thursday.

"UNAMA calls on the government and international military forces to launch a prompt, independent, impartial, transparent, and effective investigation into this incident."

All the civilians reported killed were men, it added.

The men had gathered in a village to welcome a local elder on his return from completing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and were sleeping when the strike happened, witnesses said.

The strike occurred in a remote area near the Pakistan border that has become a stronghold for Islamic State in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military command confirmed the air strike in Achin was aimed at Islamic State militants, but said it was gathering information on the allegations of civilian casualties.

"We take every possible measure to avoid civilian casualties in these operations, and will continue to work with Afghan authorities to determine if there is cause for additional investigation," U.S. forces said in a statement.
Argentina judge rules Barrick mine to remain suspended

BUENOS AIRES, Sept 30 (Reuters) - A judge in Argentina ruled on Friday to keep Barrick Gold Corp's operations at Veladero mine suspended, saying repairs were not sufficient to reopen it after a leak of processing solution containing cyanide earlier this month.

State news agency Telam said the judge's decision was based on a report from mining police in San Juan province that said the Toronto-based company had not installed security cameras and sensors as the local government had required.

A Barrick representative in Argentina said the company had not been notified of the decision.

Telam also said the judge overseeing the case, Pablo Oritja, would go on vacation on Friday.

Barrick, the world's largest gold producer, announced the spill at Veladero, one of its five main mines, on Sept. 15. The province had fined the miner nearly $10 million for a September 2015 leak.

Barrick President Kelvin Dushnisky told Reuters on Sept. 19 that he thought the mine could start operating again in two weeks.

The repairs would include lifting a berm, or raised bank, over which the processing solution flowed, he said at the time.
EU fast-tracks Paris climate deal to brink of entering into force

By Alissa de Carbonnel

BRUSSELS, Sept 30 (Reuters) - European Union states agreed on Friday on a fast-track, joint ratification of the Paris accord to combat climate change, pushing the landmark global pact to the brink of entering into force.

The 2015 Paris deal will guide a radical shift of the world economy away from fossil fuels. Friday's agreement by environment ministers from all EU 28 member states marks a rare political breakthrough for the bloc at a time of uncertainty over Britain's departure and discord over the migration crisis.

"What some believed impossible is now real," tweeted European Council President Donald Tusk, whose home country Poland had been the main state resisting such a swift accord.

European Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete hailed a "historic" decision and said the deal answered criticisms that the EU had lost leadership on climate change. "In difficult times, we get our act together," he said.

December's Paris accord, by almost 200 nations, aims to slash greenhouse gas emissions by shifting away from fossil fuels to limit global warming to "well below" two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times.

EU approval is a milestone because it would push the deal over the threshold required for ratification, of nations representing at least 55 percent of global emissions. China and the United States, the top emitters, ratified the pact this month.

"The Paris Agreement sends an unequivocal market signal," said Stephanie Pfeifer, CEO of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, which includes investors managing over 13 trillion euros ($14.6 trillion) in assets.

The decision by the EU, which accounts for about 12 percent of global emissions, needs approval by the European Parliament in a vote on Oct. 4. That in turn has to be endorsed by ministers, a process that could be done in a day.

If the Paris accord threshold is reached next week, it will formally enter into force after 30 days - ahead of the next round of climate talks in November in Marrakech, Morocco.

Cementing the accord before the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 8 would make it harder to challenge if Republican Donald Trump, who has opposed it, beats Democrat Hillary Clinton, a strong supporter.

So far, 61 nations representing 47.8 percent of emissions have ratified. India, with 4 percent, is set to ratify on Sunday.

POLAND SATISFIED

Poland sought concessions for its coal-fired economy ahead of Friday's special gathering, so EU environment ministers found a way to break with normal procedure and lock collectively into the global pact.

"This is a success. Polish interests will be secured," Polish Environment Minister Jan Szyszko said.

Asked what reassurances Warsaw had been given, he said: "Even if I got them ... then this would just be a gentleman's agreement ... undoubtedly there is still a lot of work ahead."

The EU shortcut, dubbed "institutional creativity" by France's minister, ultimately hangs on trust that each of the 28 will follow through with their own ratifications. If they do not, those who have gone ahead could be stuck with fulfilling the promised emissions cuts of the bloc as a whole.

Canete said the notion that some parliaments might not ratify the accord is "a scenario I do not think is possible".

Still, when EU regulators unveiled plans in July for spreading the burden of the bloc's climate goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 to at least 40 percent below 1990 levels, Poland objected to its target.

Paris sets out a goal of phasing out greenhouse gas emissions sometime between 2050 and 2100 as part of efforts to limit heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.
OFFICIAL CORRECTION-First U.N. special envoy for Somali refugees amid 'asylum fatigue'

By Katy Migiro

NAIROBI, Sept 30 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The United Nations has appointed its first special envoy for Somali refugees to ensure they receive protection, following accusations by a rights group that Kenya has been forcing them out of the world's largest refugee camp in a bid to close it.

Kenya, which says the returns are voluntary, called last week at the U.N. General Assembly for more funding to repatriate more than 300,000 Somali refugees living in Dadaab camp on its northern border.

"The Special Envoy will first help to maximise efforts to search (for) solutions for Somali refugees and asylum seekers at national and regional level and strive to enhance dialogue... to help maintain asylum," the U.N. said in a statement on Friday.

Former Kenyan ambassador to Somalia, Mohamed Abdi Affey, was appointed in response to "recent security and political gains in parts of Somalia, along with growing pressures on host countries and related asylum fatigue," it said.

One million Somali refugees are living in exile in neighbouring Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti and Yemen and some 1.1 million Somalis are displaced within Somalia, it said.

Kenya hosts the largest Somali refugee population followed by Ethiopia, U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) spokesman Duke Mwancha told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Affey, who also served as special envoy to Somalia for the east African bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), has been appointed for an initial period of six months.

He will work to boost funding for humanitarian and development projects supporting the reintegration of Somali returnees, the U.N. said.

Returns from Kenya to Somalia have increased since Kenya announced in May that it would close Dadaab, saying the camp had been infiltrated by "terrorist cells".

Some 31,000 Somali refugees have voluntarily returned home from Kenya since December 2014, Mwancha said.

Human Rights Watch said this month Kenya is harassing Somali refugees to return when it is not safe to do so.

Hunger is worsening in Somalia due to poor rains, with five million people now short of food, the U.N. said.

Kenya says Somali Islamist group al Shabaab has used Dadaab as a recruiting ground. The east African nation has been hit by a string of attacks by al Shabaab, including on a shopping mall in Nairobi and a university in the northeast.
Mauritania intensifies crackdown on anti-slavery activists, says campaigner

By Nellie Peyton

DAKAR, Sept 30 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Mauritanian anti-slavery activists jailed last month have been tortured in detention and transferred to a remote desert location in an "intensification of repression" by the state, a leading campaigner said.

The West African nation in August jailed 13 members of the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA) for up to 15 years for their role in June protests by residents of a slum in the capital Nouakchott, many of whom are former slaves.

Slavery is a historical practice in Mauritania, which became the last country worldwide to legally abolish it in 1981.

Today some 43,000 people or at least one percent of the population live as slaves, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index. Yet other estimates put the number as high as 20 percent in a country that is a focus of activism by the modern anti-slavery movement.

The 13 activists have been tortured and were this week moved to the desert north where they are cut off from their families, doctors, and lawyers, according to members of the IRA in the northern town of Zouerate who were informed of the relocation.

Mauritanian government officials did not respond for requests to comment.

"This intensification of repression is equal to the intensification of the fight (against slavery)," Biram Dah Abeid, head of the IRA and an opposition politician, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Dakar, Senegal.

"Our colleagues suffered physical and psychological harm," he said, adding that people cannot even visit the prisoners' families for fear of being watched by the government.

The activists said they were not present at the protests and that the trial was an attempt by the state to discredit the IRA.

Anti-Slavery International called the sentences a "devastating blow" to the Mauritanian anti-slavery movement.

A European Union delegation said last month it was concerned by "credible allegations" of torture and violations of legal procedures in the case against the activists, and urged the Mauritanian authorities to investigate.

The Haratin, who make up Mauritania's main "slave caste", are descended from black African ethnic groups along the Senegal river. They often work as cattle herders and domestic servants.

The West African nation criminalised slavery in 2007 and a new law passed last year makes the offence a crime against humanity and doubles the prison term for offenders to 20 years.

The jailing of two slave-owners in May and the release of Abeid and activist Brahim Bilal, who had been in prison for 18 months after taking part in an anti-slavery march, were hailed as a turning point in the fight to end the practice.
In ex-Soviet Georgia, pope issues veiled criticism of Russia

By Philip Pullella and Margarita Antidze

TBILISI, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Pope Francis called for respect for international law and the sovereign rights of nations as he arrived in Georgia on Friday, an implicit criticism of Russia, which keeps troops in two breakaway areas of the ex-Soviet state.

But Francis measured his words carefully, in an apparent attempt not to hurt the Vatican's increasingly warm ties with the Kremlin-backed Russian Orthodox Church.

Georgia won independence in 1991 but the Kremlin's shadow still looms large. Russia, which fought a short war with Georgia in 2008, is one of the few countries that recognise the contested areas of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states.

Speaking at the welcoming ceremony at the presidential palace, Francis, in a clear reference to the Georgian situation, said relations between states in the region "can never lay aside respect for the sovereign rights of every country within the framework of international law."

In his address minutes before the pope spoke, Georgian President Georgy Margvelashvili said there was a political desire for all people to live in dignity.

"But this mission cannot be accomplished in the light of violations of the rights of civilians and the territory being occupied by a neighbouring country," the president told the pope.

While not specifically mentioning Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Francis supported the right of displaced people to "freely return to that land."

The government says about 300,000 people have been forced from their homes by the conflict over the disputed territories. Moscow has opposed U.N. resolutions backing their right of return.

Georgia, which wants to join the European Union and NATO, has accused Russia of practising "creeping occupation" by slowly moving fences delineating the breakaway areas from the rest of Georgia's territory.

"We are just 40 km (25 miles) away from barbed wire fences preventing civilian populations - neighbours, relatives, family members - from having contact with each other," the president said.

Before the trip started, Georgia's ambassador to the Vatican, Tamara Grdzelidze, told Reuters in an interview that while she did not expect the pope to use the word "occupation", she had hoped that he would defend the country's "territorial integrity".

Less than one percent of Georgia's population of about 3.7 million are Catholic. The overwhelming majority belong to Orthodox Christianity, which broke with Rome in 1054.

Under Francis, who was elected in 2013, the Vatican has made a concerted effort to improve relations with Orthodox Christians in the hopes of an eventual reunion. Earlier this year, he held a historic meeting with Kirill, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

But the Georgian Orthodox Church, one of the most conservative in the Orthodox world, is opposed to dialogue with Rome.

Some of its more hard-core members protested at the airport. They held signs reading: "Vatican is a spiritual aggressor" and "Pope, arch-heretic, you are not welcome in Orthodox Georgia".

During the Soviet period, the Kremlin oppressed the Russian Orthodox Church and viewed it with suspicion. But Russian President Vladimir Putin, who says he is a believer, has forged close ties with the Church, which has in turn backed some of his policies.
Turkish investment bank Unlu says aims to close Iranian deal soon

ISTANBUL, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Turkish investment bank Unlu & Co aims to complete the acquisition of an Iranian brokerage in the next six months and become the first Turkish financial services firm to operate in Iran since the easing of sanctions, its chairman said on Friday.

World powers in January lifted most sanctions against the Islamic Republic in return for Tehran complying with a deal to curb its nuclear ambitions, ending years of economic isolation. Turkish trade with Iran has since risen some 30 percent.

"We aim to conclude the acquisition in the next three to six months," Mahmut Unlu, chairman and chief executive of Istanbul-based Unlu & Co, told a news conference.

The bank, which specialises in mergers and acquisitions and portfolio management, has also established an open-ended fund to invest in Iranian companies and has been hired by a Turkish consumer goods firm to find acquisition targets in Iran, Unlu said.

"The Turkish company we are advising is in talks to buy a majority stake in an Iranian firm. It will be a $60-70 million deal," he said, without giving further details.

In line with its target of being a regional investment bank, Unlu & Co also aims to start operations in Egypt. Unlu said the bank aimed to be operating in all three countries within the next five years.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said this month that Turkey aims to normalise relations with Egypt, strained since the Egyptian army, under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, ousted Mohamed Mursi as president following mass protests in 2013.
Argentina judge rules Barrick mine to remain suspended

BUENOS AIRES/TORONTO, Sept 30 (Reuters) - A judge in Argentina ruled that Barrick Gold Corp's operations at its Veladero mine would remain suspended, saying repairs were insufficient to reopen it after a leak of processing solution containing cyanide earlier this month.

Judge Pablo Oritja's decision was based on a report from mining police in San Juan province that found Barrick had not installed security cameras and sensors as required, state news agency Telam said on Friday.

A spokesman for the province said Oritja had extended the temporary suspension of operations on Thursday until Barrick completes additional work at Veladero, one of its five core mines.

Barrick President Kelvin Dushnisky told Reuters on Sept. 19 that he thought the mine could start operating again in two weeks.

Toronto-based Barrick said on Friday that it had completed "critical" work required by authorities for the resumption of operations and was awaiting a final resolution of the matter.

The world's largest gold producer by output, Barrick does not expect the suspension to cause it to miss its 2016 consolidated production forecast, said spokesman Andy Lloyd.

Barrick said provincial regulators ordered work in seven areas, including maintenance of the exterior perimeter of the leach pad liner and raising the exterior berm, or bank, over which the processing solution flowed.

The company gave no estimate of the costs of the work or suspension. It will finalize them once the mine is back in operation, Lloyd said.

Telam said Oritja would go on vacation on Friday, meaning another judge could handle the case.

Barrick has not said how much processing solution was spilled. Tests by United Nations investigators in October showed the year-earlier spill had not contaminated local water supplies.
After Nissan ultimatum, Jaguar Land Rover says Brexit must be fair for all

By Costas Pitas

LONDON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Jaguar Land Rover will "realign its thinking" on investment after Britain's vote to leave the EU and if Nissan gets a Brexit compensation deal then other automakers would need a level playing field, Britain's biggest carmaker said.

Chief Executive Ralf Speth also told Reuters on Friday that there were signs that some customers in Europe, Jaguar Land Rover's biggest market, no longer wanted to buy British cars.

Speth responded to comments by Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn, who said on Thursday he would halt new investment in Britain without a pledge of compensation for tariffs imposed on UK-built cars in the event of a 'hard Brexit'.

"We are the only car manufacturer in the UK to do all the work in terms of research, design, engineering, production planning in the UK," Speth said.

"We want to have fair treatment and a level playing field at the end of the day," he told Reuters by telephone from the Paris auto show.

Britain is not expected to begin formal divorce talks from the European Union until 2017, which will last two years, but there are growing concerns among carmakers about the implications of a 'hard Brexit', which would leave firms paying tariffs to export UK-assembled cars to EU markets.

Carmakers Nissan and Toyota both warned on Thursday that tariffs could hurt production in Britain and Volkswagen-owned brand Skoda urged Britain, Europe's second-largest car market, to clarify the situation as soon as possible.

Britain's business ministry did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Speth said Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which built one third of Britain's 1.6 million cars last year, would face a double hit in the event of 'hard Brexit' with tariffs on exported cars and imported parts and technology hurting competitiveness.

"If we face higher tariffs than anybody else then it's quite clear that it's reducing the competitiveness of our products especially in Europe," he said. "The order of magnitude cannot be calculated right now."

Two sources told Reuters in June that the firm estimates its annual profit could be cut by 1 billion pounds ($1.3 billion) by the end of the decade if Britain returned to WTO tariffs of 10 percent, according to internal documents.

FUTURE INVESTMENT?

Speth also raised concern that some European consumers might be shunning British brands in the wake of the Brexit vote, referring to comments by European sales representatives.

"They have the very first customers in their showrooms (who) clearly highlight that they don't want to buy British products any more," he said.

Any blow to the British car industry, which was dogged by wild-cat strikes and poor productivity in the 1970s and 1980s, could undo years of recent progress with output currently expected to reach a record high of 2 million by 2020.

JLR said its long-term investment strategy has not changed as a result of the vote but the firm would now have to think again after Britons backed leaving the European Union on June 23.

"We have to realign all of our thinking and work on how to handle this Brexit best," Speth said. Asked if that included investments, he replied: "Everything."

Over 800,000 jobs depend on Britain's overwhelmingly foreign-owned car industry and big carmakers backed continued membership during the campaign, seeing benefits from open trade and standardised rules.

Britain's car industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders warned on Friday that a lack of clarity over a potential deal risked future growth.

"The current uncertainty is not conducive to attracting manufacturing investment to the UK," Chief Executive Mike Hawes said.

However, Speth left open the possibility of new investment in Britain such as an electric battery and car plant if the conditions, including pilot testing and support from science, were right.
France wants investigation into alleged Sudan chemical weapons use

PARIS, Sept 30 (Reuters) - France said on Friday it wanted an international investigation to decide whether Sudanese government forces had used chemical weapons in Darfur after allegations in a "worrying" report by Amnesty International.

The rights group said on Thursday the government has carried out at least 30 likely chemical weapons attacks in the Jebel Marra area of Darfur since January using what two experts concluded was a probable blister agent.

Foreign ministry spokesman Romain Nadal, describing the report as "worrying", said it carried very serious allegations which had to be investigated.

"We think that the report raises questions for the international community and so the relevant institutions should look closely into it and examine the seriousness of the claims to establish the reality," he told reporters.

The rights group estimated that up to 250 people may have died as a result of exposure to the chemical weapons agents.

Sudanese U.N. Ambassador Omer Dahab Fadl Mohamed said on Thursday in a statement that the Amnesty report was "utterly unfounded" and denied that Sudan possessed any kind of chemical weapons.

Nadal said Paris wanted The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the Hague to investigate thoroughly as well as the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) to shed some light on events.
An Israeli Jewish man mourns in front of the coffin of former Israeli president Shimon Peres (portrait) at the plaza outside the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, on September 29, 2016 in Jerusalem. [Photo / Xinhua]

Former Israeli Prime Minister and President Shimon Peres, who passed away at the age of 93, will be remembered as one of his country's greatest leaders.

As he devoted his life dealing with an issue as complicated and ambiguous as the Arab-Israeli conflict, his death has generated contradictory comments.

Most Israeli media portray him a "champion of peace," while several Arab commentators associate him with Palestinian suffering in the West Bank and Gaza and portray him a "settlement mastermind." Naturally, neutrality is absent amid increasing emotionalism in the long-standing conflict.

Endeavoring to assess the legacy of Shimon Peres from a external perspective, his role as a nuclear pioneer has first to be stressed. Peres founded his country's nuclear program critically enhancing its security.

Although an "open secret," Israel has managed to send a clear message to its neighbors in the Middle East to carefully consider the repercussions of an attack against it. Its will to hide the nuclear activity does not at all limit the significance of this achievement in its foreign and defense policy nowadays. The Peres name is synonymous with Israel's success.

More importantly, his contribution to the 1993 Oslo Accords deserves special attention. These accords confirmed the will of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to benefit by the new momentum of the post-Cold War era and explore opportunities for a sustainable peace process.

Subsequently, one year later, the architects of the agreement, namely then PLO leader Yasser Arafat, Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Much of what Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed to in the Oslo Accords was consistent with the previous Camp David approach. They started with a transitional period of five years to try and negotiate and find mutually-accepted solutions to particularly difficult issues such as borders, sovereignty, arms control, refugees and Jerusalem.

However, the fact Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people, and the PLO recognized Israel's right to exist, was an unprecedented breakthrough. Oslo also gave some hope to the Palestinians for the future establishment of their own state by transferring to PLO control a small piece of territory, the town of Jericho in Gaza.

The 1995 assassination of Rabin by an Israeli religious extremist opposed to the peace process showed how unpredictable factors could affect it. Peres, who succeeded Rabin as Premier, made important progress in bridging some of the differences with PLO with the exception of the status of Jerusalem  to be settled at a later stage. He also facilitated the resumption of talks with Syria, aided by then U.S. President Bill Clinton.

Nonetheless, Peres failed to inspire a feeling of security among ordinary Israeli citizens. In his attempt to reassure them of his ability to do so, he largely risked making some irresponsible decisions at the foreign policy level. In 1996 a massive Israeli attack against Lebanon ended with the killing of numerous innocent civilians in a UN camp. As a result, Peres lost the ensuing election to the Likud Party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also the current premier.

The political career of Peres did not finish in 1996. In 2001, he was appointed foreign minister and, in 2005, vice premier. Two years later, he became the ninth president of Israel, remaining an important political figure in the Middle East until his very last days generally more dovish than hawkish.

All in all, the vision of Shimon Peres to make the Middle East peace process a tangible reality did not yield positive results. The Oslo Accords collapsed, so he could not achieve what he wanted. Although he never stopped hoping as a great visionary, Israel and the Palestinian Authority have still  23 years later  a long way to go in order to live in peace and for the latter to establish its own state.

Both sides are responsible for this state of affairs, and many scholars attribute the failure to the poor implementation of the negotiating terms. Nevertheless, following the death of Peres a discussion should be perhaps revitalized on whether the 1993 agreement did indeed constitute an opportunity to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Opposed to conventional wisdom, someone might argue that it caused internal cleavages in Israel, resulting in deterioration of its international position and also outlined the will of the Palestinian Authority  previously the PLO  and Hamas to subvert Israel.

George N. Tzogopoulos is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/GeorgeNTzogopoulos.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
New Slovenian finance minister sees no need for faster privatisation

By Marja Novak

LJUBLJANA, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Slovenia's new finance minister Mateja Vranicar Erman said on Friday that consolidating the public finances and improving the management of state-owned firms are her main goals, while she saw no need to speed up privatisations.

The country has been more reluctant than some of its central and east European peers to sell its major companies, including banks, insurers and energy firms, and the government still controls about 50 percent of the economy.

"Privatisation has to be well-considered, in the interest of the (current) owner and with the goal of maximizing the sales price. I do not see a need to speed it up," Erman told Reuters.

The first woman to hold the post, she was appointed to head the finance ministry last week after predecessor Dusan Mramor resigned in July for personal reasons.

Erman said the government is still determined to sell the country's largest bank, Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB) as demanded by the European Commission, although the process has been delayed due to market volatility following Britain's June vote to leave the European Union.

"We made an obligation to sell NLB by the end of 2017 and we are working towards fulfilling that obligation," said Erman.

NLB is by far the largest of about 30 state firms that are due to be privatised this or next year.

After the country narrowly avoided an international bailout for its mostly state-owned banks in 2013, Slovenia's economy has been growing since 2014. It expects an expansion of 2.3 percent this year, similar to the growth rate seen in 2015.

Last year, it managed to reduce the budget deficit to below 3 percent of GDP, the EU ceiling, for the first time in seven years, and Erman said she was determined to keep reducing the budget deficit and national debt in line with EU rules.

She said Slovenia could issue new debt of up to 3.5 billion euros next year to cover its budget needs and repay bonds maturing in 2017, and might also seek to prefinance debt that is due to mature in 2018 and 2019.

Debt should fall by about 1.2 percent of GDP per year in the coming years from 83.1 percent of GDP in 2015, she said.

The government has pledged to bring the deficit to zero by the end of 2020 although Erman said it would have to resist growing pressures to reduce taxes and increase public spending to meet that goal.

Erman said Slovenia's business environment was favourable even after parliament on Tuesday increased tax on corporate profits to 19 percent from 17 percent to compensate for a cut in personal income tax for those with higher salaries.

"With the change we increased the effective corporate tax rate to 12.85 percent from 11.4 percent previously as we did not cut tax incentives," Erman said. "Slovenia thus remains the sixth most competitive EU country regarding the corporate tax level according to European Commission data."
Russia said to send more warplanes to Syria, diplomacy 'on life support'

By Dmitry Solovyov and Ellen Francis

MOSCOW/BEIRUT, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Russia is sending more warplanes to Syria to ramp up its air campaign, a Russian newspaper reported on Friday, as the United States said diplomacy to halt the violence was "on life support" but not dead yet.

Fighting continued to intensify a week into a new Russian-backed Syrian government offensive to capture rebel-held eastern Aleppo and crush the last urban stronghold of a revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that began in 2011.

Moscow and Assad spurned a U.S.-Russian brokered ceasefire agreed to this month and launched attacks on rebel-held areas in Aleppo in potentially the most decisive battle in the Syrian civil war.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by telephone for a third straight day, with the top Russian diplomat saying Moscow was ready to consider more ways to normalise the situation in Aleppo.

But Lavrov criticised Washington's failure to separate moderate rebel groups from those the Russians call terrorists, which had allowed forces led by the group formerly known as the Nusra front to violate the U.S.-Russian truce agreed on Sept. 9.

The United States made clear on Friday that it would not, at least for now, carry through on the threat it made on Wednesday to halt the diplomacy if Russia did not take immediate steps to halt the violence.

"This is on life support, but it's not flat-lined yet," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters. "We have seen enough that we don't want to definitively close the door yet."

In a 40-minute discussion with Syrians, diplomats and others on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York last week, Kerry said the administration had failed to make any threat of military force that give him leverage with Russia.

"I think you're looking at three people, four people in the administration who have all argued for use of force, and I lost the argument," Kerry told the group, according to a recording of the session obtained by The New York Times.

NO ALTERNATIVE TO DIPLOMACY?

U.S. officials and analysts argued the White House has few alternatives. "If we do walk away from this diplomatic process, as ... moribund as it is, what are the options?" Toner asked.

"They can't afford to," said Chas Freeman, a retired U.S. ambassador. "You can't do international business with silence and ostracism."

The White House put on hold for now proposals to end the talks despite the possibility that continuing them would erase whatever credibility Washington has on Syria, risk encouraging Assad and his Russian backers to continue the carnage, and prompt Saudi Arabia and other Assad opponents to arm rebel groups with better weapons without consulting Washington.

It also would leave the United States vulnerable to attacks that it failed to intervene to halt war crimes, proponents of ending the diplomacy argued, according to officials familiar with the internal discussions.

According to the tape, however, Kerry told the Syria group last week that as the bombing of Aleppo had escalated, "There's a different conversation taking place."

CIA director John Brennan said in an interview on Friday that Russia's actions in Syria over the last several weeks have shown that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not been serious about negotiating a political solution to the conflict.

"I think that pushing back against a bully is appropriate," Brennan told Reuters. "I think that is very different than rushing in and bombing the hell out of a place."

Military options that administration officials say are still being discussed include providing more sophisticated arms, logistical support, and training to Syrian rebel groups, though not shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, either directly or via Gulf Arab states or Turkey, these officials said.

Another idea, they said, was first to attempt humanitarian relief flights over Aleppo or other embattled areas, escorted by fighter jets, to see how the Russians and Syrians respond. Further down the list would be launching an air or cruise missile strike on a Syrian base, with a tentative list already drawn up of what one official said was "slightly more than a dozen" Syrian airbases, barrel-bomb factories and other targets.

However, senior officials concluded there is no alternative to leaving the door open to talks for now because any immediate action would risk provoking an open conflict with Russia.

According to the tape of his meeting with the Syrian group in New York, Kerry warned that if the U.S. started using muscle, "then everybody ups the ante, right? Russia puts in more, Iran puts in more; Hezbollah is there more and Nusra is more; and Saudi Arabia and Turkey put all their surrogate money in, and you all are destroyed."

SU-24 AND SU-34 AIRCRAFT

Western countries accuse Russia of war crimes, saying it has targeted civilians, hospitals and aid deliveries in recent days to crush the will of 250,000 people trapped inside the besieged rebel-held sector of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city before the war.

Moscow and Damascus say they have targeted only militants.

Russia joined the war a year ago, tipping the balance of power in favour of Assad, who is also supported by Iranian ground forces and Shi'ite militia from Lebanon and Iraq.

The Kremlin said on Friday there was no time frame for its military operation in Syria. The main result of Russian air strikes over the past year is that "neither Islamic State, nor al Qaeda nor the Nusra Front are now sitting in Damascus", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Russia's Izvestia newspaper reported that a group of Su-24 and Su-34 warplanes had arrived at Syria's Hmeymim base.

The Su-25 is an armoured twin-engine jet that was battle-tested in the 1980s during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. It can be used to strafe targets on the ground, or as a bomber.

Russia's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment. The U.S. State and Defense Departments declined comment on the Izvestia report.

Syrian government forces and rebels fought battles on Friday in the city centre and north of Aleppo, where government troops had recaptured a Palestinian refugee camp on Thursday that already had changed hands once since the start of the attack.

The sides gave conflicting accounts of the outcome of Friday's fighting. North of the city, the military said it had captured territory around the Kindi hospital near the refugee camp. Rebel sources denied the army had advanced there.
Mosul offensive to start soon, says French defence minister

CONCARNEAU, France Sept 30 (Reuters) - An Iraqi government-led offensive to retake the northern Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State will start soon, France's defence minister said on Friday after French warplanes took off from the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to strike the militant group.

The United States on Thursday increased the number of troops it has in Iraq to more than 5,000 as part of a U.S.-led coalition providing air support, training and advice to the Iraqi military, which collapsed in 2014 in the face of Islamic State's territorial gains and advance towards Baghdad.

Iraqi forces, including Kurdish peshmerga forces and mostly Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias, have retaken around half of that territory over the past two years. Mosul, the largest city under the hardline group's control anywhere across its self-proclaimed caliphate, is likely to be the biggest battle yet.

"The battle for Mosul has not started yet. (The operations today) are the extension of our support for the coalition," Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters at a naval shipyard in northwestern France. "There will soon be the main attack."

The carrier, which arrived in the eastern Mediterranean this week, holds about 1,900 personnel and is accompanied by an attack submarine, several frigates and refueling ships as well as fighter jets and surveillance aircraft.

Eight war planes took off for a mission over Iraq earlier on Friday, according to the defence ministry.

France, the first country to join U.S.-led air strikes in Iraq, has stepped up aerial operations against Islamic State, including in Syria, after several attacks by the group in France.
"Seismic swarm" rattles Iceland volcano, flight alert raised a notch

STOCKHOLM, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Iceland raised its aviation alert by a notch on Friday after several earthquakes hit one of the country's biggest volcanoes, the strongest tremors since a string of quakes last month raised concerns over a possible eruption.

The alert only moved to the second lowest level of the four colour scale, but in 2010, ash from an eruption of the nearby Eyjafjallajokull volcano resulted in a major part of Europe's airspace having to close for several days.

The Icelandic Met Office said two quakes, the largest with a magnitude of 3.7, had shaken the Katla volcano in southern Iceland and that "an intense seismic swarm" had been experienced since Thursday morning.

"Due to the unusually high level of unrest at the Katla volcano, we raise the aviation colour code from green to yellow," it said.

The warning levels for aviation run from green, through yellow and orange, to red. Yellow implies that a "volcano is experiencing signs of elevated unrest".

The Katla volcano has not had a major eruption since the beginning of the last century. However, scientists thinks a large eruption is overdue, although it still might be decades before it happens.

Last month, the volcano was rocked by two quakes measuring 4.5 and 4.6 in magnitude respectively, a level not recorded since 2011.
Anger in Africa at U.S. police killing of Ugandan immigrant

By Elias Biryabarema

GULU, Uganda, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The killing of Alfred Olango by police officers in the United States this week provoked shock and anger in the Ugandan town he left more than two decades ago to escape poverty and conflict.

The 38-year-old was shot in El Cajon, California, by two officers responding to a report of a mentally unstable man walking in traffic, after he pointed an object at them that turned out to be an electronic cigarette.

It was the latest in a string of shootings of mostly unarmed black men by police officers in the United States that have led to sometimes violent protests.

"He ran away from problems to safety and they treat him like that? Is it because he's black? Why?" said Olango's uncle Simon Nyeko in the northern Ugandan town of Gulu, weeping at his home of a few thatched huts at the end of a dirt road.

Family friend Otti Jino, 77, said he was saddened by the killing. "We need our son back here in Uganda to be buried here," he added.

Olango's mother, Pamela Benge, who lives in the United States, said on Thursday her son was suffering a mental breakdown when confronted by police. His brother said he had two daughters.

More than two decades earlier, he had fled his village of Koch Goma that was devastated by an insurgency against the government. He initially found refuge in the nearby town of Gulu with extended family. In 1991, he travelled to the United States.

"I don't see a reason why somebody would shoot an unarmed, innocent man," said Steven Ojok, 34, a friend of Olango's from Gulu who now lives in Kampala. He said he had kept in touch with him until two days before his death.

He said his last text message from Olango was sent on the Sunday before he died. It read: "You know what, man, I am taking my daughter for dinner."

'BRUTALITY'

Some African officials accused the United States of double standards.

"Do they have a right to give us lectures anymore?" Ugandan government deputy spokesman Shaban Bantariza told Reuters, when asked for comment on Olango's killing.

"They're always castigating us and chastising us for what they call police brutality here, and then the police brutality in their place is incomparable," he said.

Zimbabwe's Information Minister Chris Mushohwe took aim at U.S. Ambassador Harry K. Thomas Jr, saying he had condemned Zimbabwe's security forces for using water cannons on protesters but failed to "talk about the cold-blooded and callous murder of people of his colour in his own home backyard".

"We want to hear these people, if they are really concerned about human rights and democracy, condemn what is happening in the United States," the minister said about the black U.S. envoy, in comments reported by Zimbabwe's Herald newspaper.

In Liberia, a former colony founded by freed slaves from the United States, businesswoman Cynthia Holmes, herself one of a minority of Liberians who are descendants of those slaves, said she was saddened by the killing.

"America is not the place to be right now," she said in the capital Monrovia, named after former U.S. President James Monroe. "We (black people) are a target."

Olango had had previous run-ins with the U.S. authorities. After securing permanent residency status, he lost it in 2001 after a conviction for selling cocaine. In 2005, he pleaded guilty to possession of a weapon by a felon. As of 2006, a deportation order was pending.

The federal records say Olango went to the United States because Uganda's president at the time had threatened to kill his family because his father worked for a previous leader.
Switzerland agrees extra $825 million for IMF poverty fund

ZURICH, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Switzerland has agreed an extra 800 million Swiss francs ($825 million) for the International Monetary Fund to support economic reforms in poorer countries.

The cash, which needs parliamentary approval, will be made available for the IMF's Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT), which provides loans to support economic growth in countries like Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

The money comes on top of the nearly 900 million francs already committed by Switzerland to the PRGT.

"The additional funding requirement is explained by the fact that the IMF increased the access of poorer countries to concession resources in July 2015, and the current commitments are already above the trust's envisaged average annual lending capacity," the Swiss State Secretariat for International Financial Matters said in a statement.

"The IMF anticipates a rise in funding needs due to the uncertain global economic situation," it added.

Separately, the cabinet also approved an extension in the maximum terms for monetary assistance for programmes to help countries facing systemic economic crises.

The timeframe could now be increased from seven years to 10 years, to reflect the complexity and long-term nature of support schemes like the IMF has provided to Greece and Ukraine.
U.S. building $100 million drone base in central Niger

By Emma Farge

DAKAR, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The United States military said on Friday it is building a $100 million temporary base for surveillance drones in Agadez, central Niger, to help the West African country combat militant groups and protect its borders.

Niger, a security ally of the West, is grappling simultaneously with incursions from jihadist group Boko Haram across its southern border with Nigeria as well as roaming al Qaeda-linked groups in its vast desert spaces.

Security sources have also expressed concern about a possible southern influx of Islamic State fighters into Niger and Chad from Libya where they are retreating from Libyan forces.

"At the request of, and in close coordination with, the Government of Niger, United States Africa Command is establishing a temporary, expeditionary cooperative security location in Agadez, Niger," said a U.S. Africa Command spokesperson in an emailed response to Reuters.

"Agadez is an ideal, central location to enable ISR collection (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) to face the security threat across the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin region," she said. The $100 million covered initial costs for construction, fuel and equipment.

Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou was re-elected in March having promised to boost security in the poor, semi-arid state. However, the southern region of Diffa, which borders the Boko Haram stronghold in northeastern Nigeria, is still in a state of emergency and subject to regular attacks.

Government officials in Niger were not immediately available for comment on Friday.

The United States first said it was considering establishing a drone facility adjacent to an existing Agadez airbase in 2014.

It already has forces in Niger's capital Niamey and will eventually relocate them to Agadez, the U.S. Africa Command spokesperson added. Intelligence gathered by the drones will be shared with other partners in the region such as Nigeria, Chad, Mali among others, she said.

Agadez is also a major transit point for African migrants seeking a northwards path towards Europe.

The new facility is the latest example of the United States' deepening military ties with the fragile Sahel region, a semi-arid band stretching from Senegal to Sudan.

In May, it signed a defence deal with Senegal to ease the deployment of troops to the country.
Greece says Erdogan's remarks on islands "dangerous" to relations

ATHENS, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Greece on Friday accused neighbouring Turkey of endangering ties between the two NATO allies by questioning the wisdom of an almost century-old treaty that established the modern boundaries between the two countries.

At a speech in Ankara on Thursday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the Treaty of Lausanne, a 1923 peace accord which forged modern Greece and Turkey's borders, was essentially a defeat for Turkey because it "gave away" islands to Greece.

Ties between Greece and Turkey have suffered strains over the years, because of squabbles over sea boundaries between the two countries and because of divided Cyprus, ethnically split between its Greek and Turkish Cypriot populations since 1974.

The two countries almost went to war over an uninhabited islet in the Aegean in 1996. But tensions have eased over the years, particularly after each rushed to the other's aid in separate earthquakes affecting both countries in 1999.

"Questioning the Treaty of Lausanne, which established norms in Greco-Turkish relations (and) the status quo in the Aegean and its islands, is dangerous to relations between the two countries and to the broader region," Tsipras's office quoted him as telling senior government officials.

Greece, Tsipras said, would not respond in a similar manner.

At the Ankara speech on Thursday, Erdogan said: "We gave away islands to Greece that we could reach with a shout in Lausanne. Is this victory? They tried to trick us into believing that Lausanne was a victory.
German hard line on Italy may rebound with Deutsche in crisis

By John O'Donnell

FRANKFURT, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Germany's insistence that Italy accept tough conditions in tackling its problem lenders may rebound now that Berlin faces a banking crisis of its own.

After months of argument over how to deal with bad debts in the Italian financial system, Deutsche Bank instead took centre stage on Friday, with its share price near record lows and its chief executive trying to reassure staff and markets that Germany's biggest bank remains robust.

For many in Italy, including Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, this diverted attention from the country's own difficulties in recapitalising the likes of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

Renzi went easy on expressing any Schadenfreude on Friday, but knocked the ball back into the German court. "We have always said that the European Union has to do everything in its power to fix the problems of the banking sector and the main worry focuses on the German lenders," he told national broadcaster RAI.

He is not alone. The International Monetary Fund has named Deutsche as a bigger potential risk to the wider financial system than any other global bank.

With Monte dei Paschi struggling to persuade investors to back its third recapitalisation in as many years, Economy minister Pier Carlo Padoan acknowledged Italy had to get its own house in order, but not in isolation.

"Just like the problem of bad bank loans must be solved within a reasonable time frame, so it should be for Deutsche Bank's problems," he told La Stampa newspaper.

Rome and Berlin have been at odds for months over demands that Italian savers should shoulder the burden of a rescue of Monte dei Paschi, Italy's third biggest and oldest bank.

Rome had tried to shield institutional investors and ordinary Italians who put their savings into the bank's bonds, while Berlin had wanted them to suffer losses as a condition for allowing state support.

An official familiar with the German government's stance, had told Reuters it wanted to prevent Italy tapping European funds to solve its banking problems, a move that would mean Berlin footing part of the bill.

Germany points out that while the Italian government is saddled with heavy debts, citizens' personal savings are high, meaning private investors should play a role in bank rescues. "The state is poor," said the official. "The Italians are rich."

Renzi's government opposes such a step, fearing it would be unpopular before a referendum on constitutional reform in December.

'SOFTER LINE'

Although Germany is far stronger economically than Italy, Deutsche Bank's great size poses a greater problem than any individual Italian lender.

As they prepare for national elections in 2017, politicians in Berlin also oppose any state bailout of Deutsche, a bank unpopular among many voters because of its aggressive expansion on Wall Street that resulted in billions of euros of fines.

The possibility that Deutsche could run short of capital if it is overwhelmed by penalties puts Berlin in a more vulnerable position than before, possibly undermining any push for a tough solution for Italy.

"They have taken a very doctrinaire line with the Italians," said Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank. "Maybe this gives Germany cover to soften their line."

While final approval for state aid for banks lies with the European Commission, Germany's position, as the euro zone's largest economy, is nonetheless important.

Throughout the euro zone debt crisis, Berlin tried to insulate its lenders and citizens alike from the problems of countries such as Greece. This caused ill feeling in states that were forced into bailouts as well as in some, like Italy, that did not need one.

Tilford believes that an amicable end to the tensions between Germany and Italy is now important both for tackling the banking problems and for the unity of the 19-member euro currency area.

"What Germany has sought to do since the start of the crisis is avoid any costs to its banks or taxpayers," he said. "The big fault line in the euro zone is between Italy and Germany."

Others believe, however, that even the problems at Deutsche will do little to change Germany, which has lectured other European countries on how to manage their economies and finances better throughout the debt crisis.
German minister heads to Iran, business ties still limited

By Andrea Shalal

BERLIN, Sept 30 (Reuters) - German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel heads to Iran next week with a planeful of industry executives keen to rebuild trade ties, but remaining U.S. sanctions and political concerns are holding back a hoped-for business boom.

Gabriel says a German-Iranian business commission will meet for the first time in 15 years, and forecasts concrete business deals will be announced, but he has also said Tehran must accept Israel's right to exist and stop military support for Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in order to normalise ties.

He is making his second visit to Tehran since the Islamic Republic reached a deal with world powers in July last year to lift economic sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear programme, in return for curbs on its nuclear activities.

Industrial giant Siemens AG and automaker Daimler will be among the first German firms to benefit from opportunities in Iran, but they are proceeding carefully and only after legal reviews.

Exports to Iran jumped 15 percent in the first half of the year to 1.13 billion euros and could reach 4 bln euros in the full year, said Michael Tockuss, head of the Hamburg-based German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce.

He cited signs of movement in the German banking sector, which has been reluctant to underwrite business deals for fear of running foul of remaining U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran for what Washington says is Tehran's money laundering, support for terrorism and human rights abuses.

"Economic cooperation won't perform miracles but it can open up countries and stimulate societal change," Gabriel, who leads the Social Democrats, junior partner in the ruling centre-right coalition, told the online site weekly magazine Der Spiegel.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a fellow Social Democrat, in February invited Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to visit Germany.

But Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, anxious about managing ties with two fierce Iran foes, Saudi Arabia and Israel, oppose a state visit now.

NO "RED CARPET" FOR ROUHANI FOR NOW

"Rolling out the red carpet for Rouhani in Europe could be misunderstood as a signal that Iran is already an accepted partner in the world community," said Juergen Hardt, foreign policy spokesman for Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU).

Hardt said he expected Gabriel to hammer home Germany's concerns about Iran's support for Assad's "terror regime" in Syria, its "unspeakable" anti-Israeli rhetoric and human rights abuses in Iran.

Ilse Aigner, economy minister of the German state of Bavaria, says she raised those concerns during two visits to Iran over the past year, but says hardliners could oust Rouhani unless he produces tangible benefits from the nuclear deal.

Aigner returned from Tehran earlier this month with agreements by three Iranian banks to open branches in Munich, which she says could smooth the way for more trade and investment in coming years.

One big issue for small- and medium-sized firms is the inability to secure letters of credit for shipments of goods, said Werner Schroeppel, managing director of IMO GmbH, which exports components for wind energy facilities in Iran.

Schroeppel's firm is now using third parties to do business in Iran, but hopes the process can be streamlined so it can take part in an expected boom in Iran's wind energy sector.

"The sanctions have been dropped, but the tools what we need to do business successfully are still not there," he said.

The Europaeische-Iranische Handelsbank AG in Hamburg offers such instruments already, but Germany's two biggest banks, Commerzbank AG and Deutsche Bank AG say they remain cautious.

Michael Sabet, an Iranian-German business executive whose company imports tonnes of saffron from Iran, is upbeat that more banks are ready to provide letters of credit which he said could save up to 3 percent of the cost of a deal.
In 49 BCE, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River (in Northeast Italy), in defiance of the Roman Senate. It was a red line not supposed to be crossed, with deterrence posed by the forces of Pompey, the Roman military and political leader.

What followed is now an iconic phrase when Caesar declared "Alea Icta Est," which, in Latin meant "the die is cast." He took up the challenge and was able to enter Rome victorious.

On Thursday night, Indian armed forces crossed a Rubicon of sorts, when its special forces and para commandos were air-dropped into the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir across the so-called "line of control," where they carried out operations against some seven or eight camps, and, according to an Indian government statement, killed over 30 Islamic and Kashmiri insurgents, as well as two Pakistani soldiers. There were no Indian casualties. By dawn, the Indian forces were back home.

This is an intensely significant action. In 2015, India crossed the border into Myanmar chasing terrorists in what was, at the time, the only known Indian surgical strike in its neighborhood during peacetime, or without any call for help.

Of course Indian forces have operated in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives in the past, but none of these actions was during peacetime. This is an obvious break from the military doctrine of "strategic patience" and proves the Myanmar operation was not a one-off. This is a new strategy of sudden, shock attacks aimed at neutralizing threats while seeking to and stay below the threshold of retaliation.

India immediately called in the envoys of all the major powers, including the U.S., Russia, China, the U.K. and France, and briefed them about the operation. It is curious that this operation comes only hours after Susan Rice, head of the American National Security Agency, had a telephone conversation with her Indian NSA counterpart, Ajit Doval, pledging all support in any action against terrorists.

The Chinese government, however, expressed concern over the situation in Indian-occupied Kashmir, saying Beijing places great importance on Pakistan's position, and that dialogue and negotiations are the only way to reach a solution in this protracted dispute of over 60 years.

According to sources, India has a video recording and photographs as well as evidence of cross- border strikes by alleged terrorists, but hesitates to show them so as not to humiliate Pakistan too much and stress its desire for de-escalation.

However India still holds the cards and will produce them if need be, say in the face of any Pakistani denial. India's obvious desire to keep the U.S. in the loop also signifies that India wants Washington to let Pakistan know there is no desire to see further escalation, in case direct communications break down.

India is obviously attaching much importance to its ties with the U.S., much more than any other power, in perhaps the most significant acknowledgement of a new close partnership.

The risks are enormous, though. First of all, India didn't even cross the LOC during the heady days of the Kargil War (in mid-1999, when the two countries clashed in the Kargil region of Kashmir), so this new brashness is a clear departure from previous restraint.

This is the "Modi Doctrine" in action, where India takes the idea of deterrence to new heights, and also showing this has its limitations as Caesar proved. For example, according to the Indian strategic doctrine, Pakistan uses proxies to escalate confrontation feeling safe under a nuclear umbrella and believing India is helpless to act.

This, however, has proved not to be the case. Now, it is up to Pakistan to retaliate where India's deterrence and diplomatic clout is assumed to work well.

However, a single nuclear exchange in the subcontinent would result in 21 million deaths in a flash, with radiation fallout experienced from Iran to Cambodia, from Siberia to New Zealand. The entire region's ecosystem, ozone layer and temperature will be permanently damaged affecting over 4 billion people, including citizens and soldiers of China and U.S. It's foolish to imagine nuclear war once begun can be contained locally.

At this stage, fortunately, the risks seem low. There was more jingoism during the 1999-2001 period. Reaction in both countries is muted. That is definitely a good sign. It must not encourage other countries to act rashly, while India has signaled its resolve successfully with minimal credible deterrence as well.

That should be the end of the matter. There's no military solution for Kashmir, harsh as it may sound. If the real nuclear die is really cast, it will end up being the last act of Pakistan as well as the Republic of India and will unleash hell in the entire Asian landmass for the next 400 years.

Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn
Production at Nigeria's Warri refinery not affected after nearby explosion -union

YENAGOA, Nigeria Sept 30 (Reuters) - Crude oil production at Nigeria's Warri refinery has not been affected by an explosion heard near the site, the country's oil labour union said on Friday.

"No one has been able to pinpoint the explosion but there was a big bang around Warri axis yesterday and for now no production was affected," said Cogent Ojobor, zonal chairman of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG).
Liberia passes law to create seats in parliament for women

By Kieran Guilbert

DAKAR, Sept 30 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Women's rights activists in Liberia on Friday welcomed a new law creating parliamentary seats reserved for women, young people and people with disabilities, in a country where women are poorly represented in politics despite having a female leader.

Liberia's House of Representatives on Thursday passed the Equal Representation and Participation Bill, creating five seats for female politicians, one for youths and one for people with disabilities in the nation's lower house of parliament, according to the United Nations agency U.N. Women.

"The long-awaited passage of this bill is great news for women in Liberia," said Mary Wandia, programme manager at the rights group Equality Now. "Liberian women and girls have been failed for too long on several fronts".

Liberia boasts the first woman freely elected as a head of state in Africa, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

However only one in nine seats in Liberia's parliament are held by women, according to the World Bank. The West African nation ranks 40th out of 54 African countries for the number of women in parliament, and 149th out of 191 worldwide, U.N. Women said.

"Girls can aspire to join a space that is welcoming, that expects them," said Peterson Magoola of U.N. Women. "Women will know that Liberia cares to hear their perspectives and include it in decision making," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

While the law has been hailed as a positive move to encourage women's participation in politics, it may have unintended consequences, said Tamba Johnson of the Women of Liberia Peace Network (WOLPNET), based in the capital Monrovia.

Male politicians may seek to persuade voters that aspiring female candidates should be chosen only for the seats reserved for women, Johnson said.

"The allotted seats will always be flagged by men when it comes to elections," Johnson said. "I feel the future political arena for women will become gradually gloomy over the years."
Five soldiers killed, 10 wounded in ambush in northern Mexico

MEXICO CITY, Sept 30 (Reuters) - An armed attack on a military convoy in Mexico's northern state of Sinaloa left five soldiers dead and at least 10 wounded, the local prosecutor's office said on Friday.

The attack took place in the early morning on the edge of the city of Culiacan in the home state of the Sinaloa Cartel, whose former leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was recaptured in January.

"It seems that it was an ambush...we think it was an attack by the local cartel," an official at the prosecutor's office said.
Philippine leader's Hitler comments 'troubling' -State Department

WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department on Friday called "troubling" Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's comments likening himself to Adolf Hitler and saying he would be happy to exterminate 3 million drug users.

"America's ... partnership with the Philippines is ... based on a mutual foundation of shared values and that includes our shared belief in human rights and human dignity," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. "President Duterte's comments are a significant departure from that tradition and we find them troubling."
Russia to summon Dutch ambassador over MH17 investigation

MOSCOW, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The Russian Foreign Ministry will summon the Dutch ambassador in Moscow on Oct. 3 to explain Russia's reasons for not accepting the findings of an investigation into the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the ministry said on Friday.

A team of international investigators on Wednesday presented findings showing that the missile launcher used to shoot down MH17 over Eastern Ukraine in 2014 came from Russia and was returned there afterwards - despite Russian denials of involvement in the conflict in Ukraine.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry summoned Russia's ambassador in The Hague for a diplomatic rebuke on Friday after Moscow made remarks critical of the MH17 investigation

The ministry, citing spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, said that Moscow will explain its reasoning for not accepting the methods of the international investigation, which took the probe "in a wrong direction".
GRAINS-Corn jumps on positioning, new signals of feed demand

By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO, Sept 30 (Reuters) - U.S. corn futures jumped on Friday on quarter-end positioning and government crop data that signaled livestock producers had not cut back on feeding the grain in favor of wheat, as some traders had expected.

Prices rose after the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in a quarterly crop report, said 1.738 billion bushels of corn were in storage as of Sept. 1. That was fewer than analysts on average had expected, indicating that livestock producers had fed more corn to their animals than anticipated, said Brian Hoops, president of brokerage Midwest Market Solutions.

End-of-quarter short covering was noted as helping the rally, after the USDA issued its data, ED&F Man Capital Markets analyst Charlie Sernatinger said in a note to clients.

The agency further fueled ideas that livestock producers had stuck with corn as feed, instead of switching to wheat, by reporting that 2.527 billion bushels of wheat were in storage at the start of the month. That topped analysts' expectations.

In a separate report released at the same time, it estimated that U.S. all-wheat production was lower than analysts had expected at 2.31 billion bushels.

Some traders and analysts had projected that wheat feeding would increase in the past quarter because prices were under pressure from massive global supplies.

From June to August, the USDA raised its estimate for wheat used for feeding and other "residual" purposes by 65 percent to 330 million bushels. The department is likely overstating that usage by 100 to 125 million bushels, Rich Feltes, head of market insights for R.J. O'Brien, said after seeing Friday's inventory data.

"We had felt like USDA was overestimating wheat feeding from the beginning, that there was too much cheap corn and sorghum out there," said Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist for INTL FCStone. The other crops can also be fed to livestock.

Chicago Board of Trade most-active corn gained 7-1/2 cents to $3.36-3/4 a bushel. The contract had been trading lower before the USDA issued its stocks data.

Most-active wheat was 3 cents higher at $4.02 a bushel, and soybeans were up 3-3/4 cents at $9.54 a bushel.

The corn rally was expected to fizzle quickly, as U.S. inventories remain historically large after massive domestic harvests. A record-large harvest this autumn is expected to add to supplies.

"The bottom line is we still have a lot of corn and we have even more wheat," Suderman said.
U.S. urges Iran to free activist serving lengthy prison term

WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday it was "deeply troubled" that Iranian courts had upheld a 16-year prison term against journalist and human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, and it urged Tehran to release her on humanitarian grounds.

"No one should be jailed for peaceful, civic activism," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told a news briefing, noting reports indicated Mohammadi's health was "rapidly deteriorating while in prison" and she had been barred from communicating with her two young children.

"Given these circumstances, the imposition of this prison sentence is particularly harsh and unjustified and we call on the government of Iran to provide Mohammadi with adequate medical care and to release her on humanitarian grounds," Toner said.

Mohammadi was arrested last year after launching a campaign to end the death penalty in Iran. She was sentenced to 16 years in prison in May for founding the anti-death penalty movement, which was deemed to be an illegal splinter group.

Mohammadi, a vice chair of the Center for Supporters of Human Rights, had previously been sentenced to five years in prison for conspiring against the Islamic Republic and one year for anti-government propaganda due to her human rights activism.
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Russia sees no alternative to a diplomatic settlement of the Syrian crisis with the United States, despite the "emotional" statements from Washington, a senior Russian diplomat said Thursday.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Thursday reiterated Moscow's stance, while blaming Washington for failing to fulfill its obligations and commitments, which Moscow believed has caused the collapse of the Russia-U.S. brokered truce accord.

The United States on Wednesday threatened to suspend cooperation with Moscow if the Syrian government troops backed by Russia kept bombing the opposition.

"If the civil war in Syria continued, extremists could attack Russian interests, and perhaps even Russian cities," U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday.

Such statements were an "emotional breakdown" resulting from Washington's inability to keep its promise to separate the so-called moderate opposition from terrorist groups, said Ryabkov.

Moscow and Washington are now stuck in a major difference in the time for humanitarian pauses in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. Russia has offered a 48-hour pause, while the United States is in favor of introducing a week-long one, a longer cessation of fire that Russia believed would help terrorists to resupply and regroup.

On Sept. 10, Russia and the United States announced a landmark agreement of a nationwide cease-fire in Syria, which both sides hoped would lead to their countries' military cooperation to end more than five years of bloodshed there.

However, crossfire has resumed in the first hours after the week-long truce deal expired on Sept. 19, with both parties trading accusations of failures to implement the deal.
About 30km out from the frontier, the MiG-29K sparked off an explosive reaction on the ground. Across the Line of Control in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, an entrenched network of air defence radars sounded the red alert signalling an inbound enemy aircraft.

Sure, minor airspace violations across the frontier took place pretty often, mostly as manoeuvers to test defences or simply cock a snook at the other side. But the Pakistani ground radars that night had been whipped into their most frenzied state in decades.

Every pair of radar eyes within a 40-kilometre stretch was now locked on the speeding Indian MiG-29K, expecting it to arrogantly swerve any moment back into safe airspace with a flourish, the way Indian pilots usually did.

With the terror attack in Mumbai still on, Pakistan had been prepared for this sort of posturing in the air that night. Except, this MiG-29 wasn't turning.

The damn pilot had opened his engines to full power.

Sirens went off across the air defence network on the other side, with emergency protocol swivelling every last sensor in the area straight in the direction of the incoming fighter plane.

On the radar screen in the X2, the MiG-29K's blue triangle silently went across the Line of Control just under 14 kilometres to the north of where the helicopter waited, hovering. In the fighter cockpit, the pilot held his breath as he watched his own radar screen show him zoom over the militarised frontier and into some of the most hostile airspace in the world.

"Go! Go! Go!" Lieutenant Commander Saraswati shouted, still clutching her now fully assembled sniper rifle, as Akeela immediately gunned the chopper out of its hover, switching off all communication and cabin lights, pitching forward and snaking through a narrow network of ridges and valleys, ever higher, ever closer to the Line of Control.

The X2's rotors mere feet from rock and trees, Akeela and Vikramaditya threaded the aircraft carefully through a path just forty feet above the ground, the helicopter's inherent stealth now made better by the perfect hiding place that treacherous terrain afforded.

"Three minutes till we cross," Vikramaditya called out. With the screaming fighter drawing all hostile eyes towards it and providing what the X2 hoped would be a wafer-thin window of cover, the helicopter edged onward toward the frontier.

The MiG-29K, now well into airspace over Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, slowed briefly as the pilot pulled up on his stick, sending the jet suddenly nose up and soaring higher. The radar warning receivers in his cockpit were already blaring, confirming that not only had he been spotted, he was being tracked at every move now. He smiled. And he knew there was nothing to smile about.

Four minutes to play. Three minutes till the X2 crosses. And another minute to keep the ground radars occupied.

Zooming up over a big grey cloud deck, the MiG-29K tore into a tight left turn, edging deeper into enemy airspace. He needed to spread himself around if he was going to take on what was sure to come at him at any moment.

Three minutes was an eternity up here, the pilot thought as he ducked back beneath the clouds, deciding it was best to keep the ground visible even if it meant making himself more vulnerable. Gunning down his throttle to conserve fuel, he correctly guessed the two things that were happening on the ground not far from where he had penetrated Pakistan-controlled airspace.

Two Pakistan Air Force F-16 Falcon fighters were scrambled from the Sargodha air base. Fighters that would arrive on the scene in minutes, not to chase the Indian intruder away, but either force him to land in Pakistan - or shoot him down. But there was still time to deal with that.

The MiG-29K pilot knew he would have a more immediate danger to deal with. And only seconds after he had the thought, his missile approach warning system confirmed he was right.

Roaring up from the ground in a hiss of smoke and light, a pair of Chinese-built LY-80 anti-aircraft missiles screamed towards the MiG-29K. The missiles were being guided by radar on the ground that had trained every single one of its beams straight at the enemy airplane in its airspace.

This wasn't an overreaction by any stretch.

The MiG-29K was a warbird. Its presence in this airspace was openly hostile. The weapons it carried could have blown a frightening hole in any Pakistani establishment unfortunate enough to have been chosen by its pilot and laser-guided targeting systems.

The man in the cockpit steeled himself, pulling rapidly out of a climb and readying himself to dodge two missiles that knew nothing except to destroy themselves against him in the next few seconds.

His missile warning system was now a high-pitched wail, a recorded female Russian cockpit voice calmly informing the pilot that his aircraft was about to come in contact with 70 kilogram warheads designed to explode just feet away from their target, sending white-hot shards of pre-fragmented shrapnel slicing through everything in their way.

Metal. Glass. Flesh.

Cover of Incursion, by Shiv Aroor, Juggernaut, 2016.

[Excerpted with permission of Juggernaut Books from Incursion by Shiv Aroor, exclusively available on the Juggernaut app. Read the full excerpt here.]
At 12pm today, September 29, the Director General Military Operations (DGMO), Lieutenant-General Ranbir Singh, held a press conference along with the spokesman of the ministry of external affairs, a rather unprecedented affair, in recent memory. It followed a meeting of the Cabinet Committe on Security(CCS) chaired by the PM and attended among others by the DGMO.

What actually made it even more unprecedented was the announcement made here that the Indian Army had crossed over the Line of Control (LOC) to conduct surgical strikes 2km across the border. The DGMO announced that the Indian forces neutralised terrorist launch pads and those who aided them, and caused significant casualties.

While the war-mongering news anchors and the moustached retired generals were immediately pressed into service on national channels as part of the ongoing verbal warfare post the Uri attacks, it might be necesary to put things in perspective.

A couple of days after the Uri attacks which claimed 18 Indian soldiers, the DGMO had addressed a press conference and announced that the Indian Army will retaliate at a time and place of its choosing. So, is this the retaliation that was promised to us?

Many strategic experts agree that it is not the first time the Indian Army has actually crossed the LOC to inflict casualties across the border. They point out specifically to an instance in 2013. However, this is probably the first time that the military has officially owned up to any such operation. And the government made it a point to relay it.

Even in the past, the UPA government had supposedly given a free hand to the military to deal with cross-border firing and retaliate in kind. But the general consensus was that escalations had to be avoided.

After the Modi government was sworn in, there was a slight difference in approach wherein the military was asked to retaliate not just in kind but to make sure that it inflicted significant costs on Pakistan. Not that it seemed to have too much of an effect on Pakistan.

While the LoC skirmishes went on, India tried its best to engage with Pakistan despite repeated setbacks.

Even as the Pathankot attack happened within a week of Prime Minister Modis surprise stopover at Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharifs home in Lahore, there was an attempt to play it down and give the civilian leadership in Pakistan a fair chance to make sure that they made amends and brought the guilty to trial.

Modi government was repeatedly taken for a ride by Pakistan. (Photo: PTI)

But the Modi government was once again taken for a ride by Pakistan with no reciprocity extended, even after India allowed Pakistan access to the airbase in Pathankot to a team that also included a representative of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

With the government losing face on a regular basis, and with Indias policy on Pakistan reeking of incoherence as it swung from one extreme to the other, and also in the backdrop of the trouble breaking out in Kashmir post the assasination of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, the Uri attack happened.

While the outpouring of public opinion was hard to ignore, the government seemed to be at a loss to respond to the situation in real-time as the various arms spoke in multiple voices. Though the DGMO came up with the right to strike back at a time of their choosing a couple of days later, slowly but surely, strategic restraint was being bandied about once again.

Now that there has been some sort of retaliation, the question arises whether this was really such a huge deal if such strikes were conducted even earlier. The difference being, that in earlier instances there was never any acknowledgement of these strikes, with plausible deniability being the keyword.

But this was also a reflection of the public anger, whipped up in part by the media, over repeated transgressions by Pakistan.

Napoleon Bonoparte famously said, "Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult," by which count this had become one too many violations for the Modi governemnt to ignore. It was also necessitated on account of the prime ministers belligerent speeches while in the Opposition.

Another question that has to be explored is whether this could cause an escalation or a retaliation by the Pakistani establishment. The initial responses from across the border suggest that Pakistan has taken it in its stride by refusing to acknowledge that this was actually a cross-border strike but merely "unprovoked firing on the border".

It clearly indicates that Pakistan is not risking an escalation but preparing for what they know best: Covert operations of various degrees through "non-state actors" aided by their military and intelligence establishment.

In the aftermath of bellicose statements from the Indian side post Uri, Pakistans defence minsister had gone on to state that they wouldnt be shy of using nuclear weapons if it was deemed necessary in the event of a strike by the Indian forces. These imature statements too pushed Pakistan into a corner when it came to callibrating their response in the context of the strike today.

There is also a consensus among strategic experts that this is the maximum extent to which India could have possibly gone as we still do not have the capabilities to go for precision strikes well beyond the border.

We not only lack intelligence capabilities but also the special forces and equipment (including low-flying helicopters and night-vision equipments), which would have to perform synchronously to deal with such an emergency and give a "fitting" response to Pakistan.

This, again, speaks volumes about the lack of vision and preparedness of our successive governments despite repeated violations and attacks from across the border since 1999.

It remains to be seen what the fallouts of this strike ares going to be. Whatever it might be, this action by the Indian forces comes as a much-needed face-saver for the Modi government and also in the nick of time.
The "surgical strikes" on terrorist bases along the LoC on Wednesday night have brought about a sigh of relief for the NDA government, which was under pressure to punish the perpetrators of Uri attack.

However, what took it 11 days to occur needs to be examined in the light of Narendra Modi's strategic restraint.

Unlike its predecessors the Modi government has given tactical and operational autonomy to the armed forces which resulted in the Indian Army "crossing the LoC" and inflicting significant casualties "on the terrorists and those who are trying to support them" - at the right time.

The Modi government's initial response to terrorist attack on Uri Army base was measured despite Pakistani provocations, including an earlier strike at the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot in January.

There were signs that India was losing patience and there seemed to be a push for retaliation in order to avoid a domestic backlash. Modi was reviewing the government's options and in his first public reaction in Kozhikode last week, he made a case for strategic restraint.

The challenge

Modi first threw a challenge to ordinary Pakistanis, asking them if they could find solutions to development issues faster than India could.

"I want to tell the people of Pakistan, India is ready to fight you. If you have the strength, come forward to fight against poverty. Let's see who wins. Let's see who is able to defeat poverty and illiteracy first, Pakistan or India," he said.

His speech, which drew a stark contrast between an India which exports software and a Pakistan which exports terror, befuddled his critics and his supporters alike but there is a strategic logic to Modi's arguments.

There is a sense at the highest echelons of government in New Delhi that Modi's overtures towards Pakistani civilian government have not been reciprocated.

He had invited Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to his government's swearing-in ceremony, hoping to start a new chapter in India-Pakistan ties.

But since then there have been more downs than ups. The Modi government had recognised from the beginning that a quest for durable peace with Pakistan is a nonstarter.

All that matters is the management of a neighbour that is often viewed as a nuisance by Delhi.

PM Narendra Modi. (Photo credit: PTI)

For India, the real challenge is China which has pledged $46 billion worth of investment in Pakistan and made Islamabad a proxy in its struggle for supremacy vis-a-vis New Delhi.

Modi as a pragmatist also recognises that his agenda of enhancing regional cooperation in South Asia will remain unfulfilled without a thaw in India-Pakistan tensions.

At a time when interconnectivity is the norm across the world, two neighbours cannot remain forever locked in a spiral of perpetual hostility and violence.

But Modi's decision to engage with Pakistan was seen by some as another instance of Delhi's "on again, off again" inconsistent approach towards Pakistan. Sections within his own party were against overtures to Pakistan.

And then the Pakistani military also decided to reassert its supremacy on India policy by provoking Indian military on the border and by a series of terror attacks in India, the latest of which happened on Sunday.

It also decided to ratchet up the pressure on Kashmir by provoking the local populace against India so as to internationalise the Kashmir issue during the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly.

The civilian government of Nawaz Sharif, weakened by corruption charges against its leader, had no option but to give in to the military's aggression.

Sharif, howsoever well-intentioned, failed to demonstrate that he could take on the all-powerful military over the issue of India.

Islamabad also went back to its earlier position now that there could not be any dialogue with India unless the issue of Kashmir was on the agenda.

Differences

Pakistan would like to change the status quo in Kashmir while India would like the very opposite. India hopes that negotiations with Pakistan would ratify the existing territorial status quo in Kashmir.

These are irreconcilable differences and no confidence-building measure is likely to alter this situation.

India's premise has largely been that a peace process will persuade Pakistan to cease supporting and sending extremists into India.

Pakistan, in contrast, has viewed the process as a means to nudge India into making progress on Kashmir, which is essentially a euphemism for concessions.

Policies

The government wants to fundamentally reshape the underpinnings of India's Pakistan policy.

It started with a view that India should continue to talk - there is nothing to lose in having some level of diplomatic engagement - even as it decided to underline what it felt were the costs of Pakistan's escalatory tactics with targeted attacks on Pakistani forces along the border.

After years of ceding the initiative to Pakistan, the Modi government wanted to dictate the terms for negotiations.

But as the present outcry in India underscores, this is easier said than done when nuclear weapons are a strategic reality and where Pakistan relies on non-state proxies to wage its battle against India.

Like its predecessors, the Modi government too recognised the limitations of overt military responses to target Pakistani provocations.

New Delhi is yet to find a way which adequately punishes Pakistan without crossing the nuclear threshold.

This is partly a result of India's tardy defence modernisation programme and partly of its institutional dysfunctionalities.

But in the end, the government chose to launch a pincer attack: to work diplomatically towards ensuring Pakistan's isolation and allow the army to speak in a language that befits a bunch of loony terrorists.
After days of speculation over what India will do after the Uri attack, which claimed the lives of 19 soldiers, the answer has come. In a press conference, the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) announced that India conducted a "surgical strike" on multiple terror launchpads across the Line of Control (LoC).

The strike was conducted by the special forces of the Indian Army who were dropped by helicopter for the operation. Up to 38 terrorists, with and without uniform, were killed.

The well planned and executed operation was preceded by nearly a week of drone and satellite surveillance of the launchpads. Reports say there is drone and camera footage of the operation which will probably be released in due course and it should be for the "psychological operation" value it carries.

This is not the first time the Indian Army has conducted operations across the LoC. Covert operations have always been undertaken at various times to achieve tactical objectives. What was different this time is that India announced such an operation after it took place.

It marks a significant change in policy and it's a political decision to send a message across, both to Pakistan which continues its terror campaign against India unabated, and also to the people of India who have been demanding action against Pakistan.

Special forces are a vital part of militaries worldwide. It allows for covert action deep inside enemy territory to achieve various objectives. One of the most famous operation is the Israeli operation in Entebbe in Uganda in 1976 when it rescued hostages after an Air France plane was hijacked.

There were calls in India for such an operation after Indian Airlines flight IC814 was hijacked, which resulted in the release of Maulana Masood Azhar along with two other terrorists. Masood Azhar's group Jaish-e-Mohammed is behind the Uri attack as also many attacks in the past, including the Pathankot attack and Parliament attack.

A recent "famous" successful special forces operation was the one conducted by US Navy Seals to kill Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad in Pakistan.

Special forces' operations are increasingly being used by western militaries. The US has deployed its special forces in as many as 135 countries. Special ops allow militaries to carry out strikes without diplomatic ramifications.

In many cases, such as the Abbotabad raid, it was made sure that the intended target was indeed there and neutralised along with avoiding collateral damage. These operations are never announced unless there is a political message to be conveyed, which is why India announced its surgical strike across the LoC.

The US has extensively deployed its special forces in Syria and Iraq to fight the ISIS while not having a large number of "boots on the grounds". They are used to kill terrorist leaders and disrupt their network.

Coming back to the operation conducted by India, the announcement is a well thought out escalatory move. It puts the onus on Pakistan to respond and that response will put it in a spot.

India informed Pakistan's DGMO that such an operation took place and that 38 terrorists were killed. Pakistan cannot aggressively respond to this as it will face international criticism. If Pakistan does not react, it will face problems at home especially from the large number of terrorists organisations that it has propped.

The immediate reaction from Pakistan was interesting. The Pakistan Army's media wing, ISPR, denied any surgical strike took place while Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the strike as naked aggression.

A "famous" successful special forces' operation was the one conducted by US Navy Seals to kill Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad, Pakistan. (Photo credit: India Today)

It is possible Sharif is trying to get back at the hugely popular Army chief General Raheel Sharif who is looking for an extension of term. Pakistan's defence minister confirmed the killing of two Pakistan armymen in the "attack". ISPR maintains that only cross-border firing took place which resulted in the killing of the two soldiers.

Pakistan is denying the attack even as reports say India has drone and camera footage from the special forces of the operation. India should release this footage after carefully reviewing it so that it can show the people of Pakistan the lies it is fed by its Army.

The denial represents that Pakistan does not want an escalation with India. After all the nuclear sabre-rattling Pakistan did, warning against any military operation, the overt announcement of the strike has meant India has finally called Pakistan's nuclear bluff which it used as a cover to keep running its terror campaign with impunity.

The denial by Pakistan's Army is also to save face domestically and allows India to undertake more such operations and announce publicly and test the Pakistanis. They cannot use their much vaunted tactical nuclear weapons to deter special forces' operations. At best they can resort to artillery fire across the LoC.

The international reaction or the lack of it shows that the hard work done by PM Narendra Modi and his team is paying off. There is little sympathy for terrorism across the world after a spate of global terror attacks and more so with Pakistan, which is increasingly recognised as the epicentre of terror. There is a Bill in the US Congress to declare Pakistan a terrorist state.

The US response to the Indian strike has been tacitly welcoming and supportive. White House spokesman Josh Earnest, when asked about the strike, said: "The US is firmly committed to our partnership with India and to our joint efforts to combat terrorism.''

He also said: ''The US continues to be concerned by the danger that cross-border terrorism poses to the region and we fully expect Pakistan to combat and delegitimise UN-designated terrorist groups.''

Pakistan has not received any support from what it calls higher than mountain, deeper than ocean and sweeter than honey friend, China. Or it's benefactor, Saudi Arabia or Turkey.

It should be a norm to neutralise terrorists before they infiltrate across the LoC. It will not only ensure there will be no loss of lives, civil or military on our side, but also send a message that India will come down hard on terrorism and is proactive.

The danger of losing special forces during an operation will remain. India should look to enhance its special operations' capability so that it can strike deeper within enemy territory.

The recent op was about 3km behind enemy line. Capabilities such as drones, electronic warfare equipment, communication equipment, satellite reconnaissance etc. have to be strengthened. India exercises with the US special forces regularly and we can learn a lot from them and also acquire their ultra modern equipment.

There was of course a domestic political message behind the strike as well - to assuage the rising feeling that the Modi government was not doing anything to punish Pakistan after numerous terror attacks and the feeling that it was no different from the previous UPA government.
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Chinese ambassador to Lebanon Wang Kejian said China has provided aid worth 550 million yuan (83 million U.S. dollars) to the country since 2010.

His remarks came at a reception in Beruit on Wednesday to celebrate the incoming 67th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

China has also provided humanitarian aid worth 45 million yuan (6.8 million U.S. dollars) and two million U.S. dollars in cash to help the Lebanese government shelter the Syrian refugees in the country, the ambassador said.

Meanwhile, he said Lebanon could play a unique role in China's Belt and Road initiative.

"Lebanon, despite its small area, has great potential in trade, banking, media and publishing," Wang said.

On peacekeeping missions in Lebanon, he said, China has so far sent 410 troops to the country.

The year 2016 marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Lebanon.

According to the ambassador, delegations from the two countries have paid a number of mutual visits for training and study in 2016.
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After scoring big in Monday's first U.S. presidential debate, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is likely to see a boost in the polls, making it more difficult for rival Donald Trump to catch up, experts said.

Clinton and Trump squared off on national TV on Monday night in their first one-on-one debate, which Clinton is perceived to have won.

Experts said Trump missed a number of opportunities in the debate, such as talking about the economy, the no. 1 issue of concern for Americans and an area in which the billionaire businessman has an advantage. While Trump came charging out of the gate at the start, Clinton dominated him more and more as the night went on.

Clinton's win should help her rise in the polls, although the impact may be limited, experts said.

"I think that Hillary will see a limited bounce from the debate," Dan Mahaffee, an analyst with the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, told Xinhua, explaining that more educated and moderate Republicans will swing to Clinton.

But now is not the time for Clinton to rest on her laurels, as she will need to maintain her momentum and continue to highlight her experience, while also continuing to bait Trump into making gaffes that cause him to appear unsuited for the presidency.

"The Clinton campaign has done a perfect job of that with the growing back-and-forth between Trump and former beauty queen Alicia Machado. As he attacks her, he appears more and more like a petty bully rather than a potential statesman," Mahaffee said, referring to Trump's recent cracks about the former Miss Universe's weight gain.

"Trump needs to refocus on real issues, and not try to pursue personal attacks on Ms. Machado," Mahaffee said.

Trump needs to restore his more presidential bearing as soon as possible, and undo a lot of damage at the second debate on Oct. 9, Mahaffee said.

In the three weeks prior to the Monday debate, Trump had a good run and has started to close Clinton's lead in the polls, as the controversial billionaire toned down his insulting rhetoric and focused on the issues.

The brash businessman for the past year has become infamous for hurling insults at rival candidates and for what many critics call controversial and over-the-top statements.

While that earned Trump much respect from his supporters, it has also alienated him from many independent and undecided voters, said Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies of the Brookings Institution.

West also said that Clinton will get a bounce out of her debate performance. "She has received great reviews for her ability to control the narrative and place Trump on the defensive," he told Xinhua.

As for Trump, he is already gearing up to get personal in the next debate, drudging up husband and former U.S. President Bill Clinton' s many extramarital affairs.

"The next debate is likely to be much nastier on his part. He already is pointing to Bill Clinton' s infidelities as something he plans to discuss," West said.

But that may not help him, as such news is 20 years old and many young voters were babies when those scandals occurred.

Experts said Trump needs to go after Clinton on her recent scandals. Those include her perceived mishandling of the 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which ended in the death of a U.S. ambassador.

Other scandals include Clinton's use of a personal email account and server while she was secretary of state, which critics said compromised U.S. national security, and the alleged "pay to play" game involving the Clinton Foundation, which reportedly gave preferential access to the donors while Clinton was secretary of state.

"Trump needs to refocus attention on the Clinton Foundation. As long as the campaign is a referendum on Trump, he loses. He needs to show that he is the agent of change, while she represents the status quo," West said.

As of Thursday, Clinton is ahead of Trump by 3 percentage points in Wednesday' s Real Clear Politics average of polls.
Public Storage is a REIT focused on acquiring, developing, owning, and operating self-storage facilities in the US and Europe. The company is a member of the S&P 500 and the FT Global 500 and is the worlds 4th largest REIT by market cap. Along with its holdings of self-storage facilities, the company owns a 42% stake in business park company PS Business Parks and is also in business selling packing and storage supplies. The company is headquartered in Glendale California.

The company was founded in 1972 by B. Wayne Hughes and Kenneth Polk who used the leverage of investments from RELPs to grow the business. The original plan was to use the storage warehouses as a means of generating income until the properties were more valuable. The surprise is that demand for storage space was high and led to unexpected profitability.

The company has more than 1,000 locations by 1989 and then, in 1995, it transformed itself into a publicly traded REIT. The transformation was spurred by tax changes that made RELPs obsolete. The transformation was done via a merger with Storage Equities which gave up its name in favor of Public Storage. The company grew again with the acquisition of Shurgard in 2006 but it has since been spun off as its own publicly traded company. Public Storage retains 36% ownership in Shurgard.

As of September 2022, the company owned and operated 2,807 self-storage facilities in 39 states. The total area of rental space exceeded 2 million square feet serving nearly 2 million customers and generating close to $3.5 billion in annual revenues. Shurgard lays claim to another 239 facilities in the EU which amounts to another 13 minion square feet of storage space. PS Business Parks, Inc, which trades under the ticker (NYSE: PSB) owns and operates 28 million square feet of commercial space.

Advantages of Public Storage include scale, leverage, and the balance sheet. The companys size and scale mean that more than half the US population lives within driving distance of a Public Storage facility. The company gives leverage through its three-pronged acquisition, development, and redevelopment strategy which are all supported by the balance sheet. The companys balance sheet is set up for growth and is able to self-fund most new projects.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE:ARE), an S&P 500<sup></sup> urban office real estate investment trust ("REIT"), is the first, longest-tenured, and pioneering owner, operator, and developer uniquely focused on collaborative life science, technology, and agtech campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, with a total market capitalization of $31.9 billion as of December 31, 2020, and an asset base in North America of 49.7 million square feet ("SF"). The asset base in North America includes 31.9 million RSF of operating properties and 3.3 million RSF of Class A properties undergoing construction, 7.1 million RSF of near-term and intermediate-term development and redevelopment projects, and 7.4 million SF of future development projects. Founded in 1994, Alexandria pioneered this niche and has since established a significant market presence in key locations, including Greater Boston, San Francisco, New York City, San Diego, Seattle, Maryland, and Research Triangle. Alexandria has a longstanding and proven track record of developing Class A properties clustered in urban life science, technology, and agtech campuses that provide our innovative tenants with highly dynamic and collaborative environments that enhance their ability to successfully recruit and retain world-class talent and inspire productivity, efficiency, creativity, and success. Alexandria also provides strategic capital to transformative life science, technology, and agtech companies through our venture capital platform. We believe our unique business model and diligent underwriting ensure a high-quality and diverse tenant base that results in higher occupancy levels, longer lease terms, higher rental income, higher returns, and greater long-term asset value.
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.
BlackRock, Inc. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm primarily provides its services to institutional, intermediary, and individual investors including corporate, public, union, and industry pension plans, insurance companies, third-party mutual funds, endowments, public institutions, governments, foundations, charities, sovereign wealth funds, corporations, official institutions, and banks. It also provides global risk management and advisory services. The firm manages separate client-focused equity, fixed income, and balanced portfolios. It also launches and manages open-end and closed-end mutual funds, offshore funds, unit trusts, and alternative investment vehicles including structured funds. The firm launches equity, fixed income, balanced, and real estate mutual funds. It also launches equity, fixed income, balanced, currency, commodity, and multi-asset exchange traded funds. The firm also launches and manages hedge funds. It invests in the public equity, fixed income, real estate, currency, commodity, and alternative markets across the globe. The firm primarily invests in growth and value stocks of small-cap, mid-cap, SMID-cap, large-cap, and multi-cap companies. It also invests in dividend-paying equity securities. The firm invests in investment grade municipal securities, government securities including securities issued or guaranteed by a government or a government agency or instrumentality, corporate bonds, and asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities. It employs fundamental and quantitative analysis with a focus on bottom-up and top-down approach to make its investments. The firm employs liquidity, asset allocation, balanced, real estate, and alternative strategies to make its investments. In real estate sector, it seeks to invest in Poland and Germany. The firm benchmarks the performance of its portfolios against various S&P, Russell, Barclays, MSCI, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch indices. BlackRock, Inc. was founded in 1988 and is based in New York City with additional offices in Boston, Massachusetts; London, United Kingdom; Gurgaon, India; Hong Kong; Greenwich, Connecticut; Princeton, New Jersey; Edinburgh, United Kingdom; Sydney, Australia; Taipei, Taiwan; Singapore; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Washington, District of Columbia; Toronto, Canada; Wilmington, Delaware; and San Francisco, California.
Ashford Hospitality Trust is a real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on the hospitality industry. The companys portfolio is concentrated in upper upscale, full-service hotels across the US. The portfolio strategy seeks to optimize total returns by maximizing the value of new acquisitions while paying dividends over time. The company boasts a geographically diversified portfolio of dominant branded full-service hotels. Ashford Inc externally advises Ashford Hospitality Trust.

Ashford Hospitality Trust is the culmination of decades of real estate experience dating back to the 1960s. Now based in Dallas, TX, the company was founded and went public in 2003. The company is geared to withstand the ups and downs of the hospitality and hotel cycles. The company is committed to disciplined capital market activities, has a successful transaction track record, and brings value-added asset management to the table.

Ashford Hospitality Trust is guided by five principles that best describe the company. These are Ethical, Innovative, Profitable, Engaging, and Tenacious and all key components of its reputation for integrity.

The companys portfolio is well-diversified across brands and includes but is not limited to Courtyard, Crown Plaza, Embassy Suites, Hampton Inn, Hilton, Marriot, Ritz-Carlton, and Sheraton. Properties are located in 25 of the 50 US states and Washington, D.C. targeting the top 25 markets in the nation. The company also owns a number of private and boutique names as well.

Ashford Hospitality Trust was founded by Monty J. Bennet who is the Chairman of the Board as well as Chairman, CEO, and President of Ashford, Inc which also trades on the NYSE. Mr. Bennet has more than 25 years of experience in the hospitality industry including owning and operating major hotels.
Kimco Realty Corp. is a real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on open-air mall-style properties in the US and is among the largest mall REITs on the market. The firm has been in business since the post-war boom of the 1966 and trading on the public markets since 1991. The name is a blend of the founders names, Martin Kimmel and Milton Cooper, who merged their assets in order to form the larger company.

The stock was added to the S&P 500 in 2006 and has held its position ever since. Kimco is also know for being the first vertically integrated REIT meaning it is internally managed and advised, and provides its own asset and property management. The firm raised $120 million with its IPO and was worth $11.4 billion in October 2022.

As of October 2022, the company laid claim to more than 530 properties enclosing 92 million square feet of retail space. The properties are primarily located within grocery-anchored shopping centers and mixed-use assets in suburban areas. The tenant-focus is on a diverse blend of essential and/or necessity-based goods or services that drive multiple consumer trips per week and provide stable income.

Kimco Realty is headquartered in Jerico, N.Y., but does not limit its investments by geography. The companys properties are located in 1st-ring suburbs surrounding major metropolitan areas from coast to coast. One area of focus is high-barrier-to-entry coastal properties in population-dense vacation zones while another is the rapidly expanding Sun Belt.

The firm offers a variety of services and features apart from property rentals that include curbside pickup zones and many others that enhance the tenant and consumer experience. Other features include digital maintenance requests, Click Pay, and a Discount Program. Some of the markets served by Kimco Realty include New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Miami, and Atlanta.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday faced intense scrutiny from allegations he had knowingly violated the embargo by the U.S. against Cuba during the 1990s, which if true, could hurt him amongst the Cuban Americans in Florida an important state in the presidential race.

Newsweek published a story that said a company owned by Trump spent up to $68,000 on a trip exploring possibilities for business in Cuba during 1998, which would be a violation of the strict U.S. embargo that at that time was in place.

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A spokesperson for Trump Kellyanne Conway said in an interview on television Wednesday that the GOP candidate had spent money in Cuba exploring possible business ventures, but she later said that she had not said he broke any law or violated the Cuba embargo.

Trump denied those allegations during a Thursday interview while in New Hampshire, where he was campaigning and looked to discredit the Newsweek reporter who was behind the story.

Trump said he never did any deal in Cuba nor did he do anything in the Caribbean Island nation. However, he did say the reporter had a very bad reputation.

This report could be a significant liability to Trump politically amongst the Florida Cuban Americans. Florida remains an important battleground state in Trumps battle to win the White House against Hillary Clinton.

Both candidates are in a deadlock in Florida polls, and this new issue could cause the older Cuban Americans some great concern across the state.

Those particular voters are 100% behind the embargo and expressed disdain for the White Houses decision to open up new relations with the Caribbean Island nation.

A conservative strategist based in Florida opposed to the GOP candidate said it is always a bad thing when voters feel they have been played and find out a candidate they currently support has been hypocritical on a particular issue that carries such emotion, as does the Cuba embargo.

Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio a former challenger in the primary of Trump, who is also running for reelection, urged Trumps campaign to address the questions over the report but did say he would not make a further comment until he had more information about the alleged spending.

The article, said Rubio, makes troubling and very serious allegations and he added he would reserve judgment until he knew all the facts.
The Town of Dunn held an open house to dedicate its new building  on Highway 25 across from Downsville School  on Sept. 11. The new town building has a sand/salt shed, a four-door shop area, and a hall that can be rented in the future with a kitchen and bathrooms. The previous land owners were Ted and Gary Watland and their sister, Gloria Miller, with her husband Glen.

The dedication ceremony started with picture of the current town board, workers and the people who sold the land to the town, followed by a flag dedication. The Menomonie Honor Guard presented arms while Eagle Scouts Michael and Logan La Roque raised the flag and Navy veteran Ericka Hovland sang the national anthem. Town Chair Don Heit called fo a moment of silence for the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

Dunn County established the Town of Dunn on Aug. 11, 1856. The Town had its first official meeting in April 1857. The town is 160 years old. The original town seat was in Dunnville until 1875. Board meetings were held in various houses and a school house.

The first town hall was built for $450 in 1885 on east side of river. It was sold to the Methodist Church in 1890 and another own hall was built. In 1967, the three-door town garage in Downsville and is currently up for sale.

I have attached a photo that shows two of the four previous land owners.
A federal judge on Friday ordered the state of Wisconsin to investigate reports that Division of Motor Vehicles employees gave incorrect information to a person seeking a voter identification card before the Nov. 8 election.

U.S. District Judge James Peterson's ruling came shortly after reports ran in The Nation and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detailing what happened when Zack Moore, a 34-year-old homeless man, went to the DMV to get a card in order to comply with the state's voter ID law.

Moore, according to a recording described in the reports, was told by DMV employees he could not get an ID or temporary voting credentials without a birth certificate, which he did not have.

The recording was provided to those outlets by Molly McGrath, national campaign coordinator with VoteRiders. The group, which opposes voter ID laws, also works to help people obtain IDs in states that require them for voting.

Peterson ordered the state in July to "inform the general public" that credentials valid for the November election would be given to anyone who entered the process to apply for a free state-issued ID, even if they lack documentation like a birth certificate.

"These (media) reports, if true, demonstrate that the state is not in compliance with this court's injunction order, which requires the state to 'promptly issue a credential valid as a voting ID to any person who enters the IDPP [identification petition process] or who has a petition pending,'" Peterson wrote in his order, issued Friday afternoon.

The judge instructed the state to investigate the allegations detailed in the media reports and provide a report to the court by Oct. 7.

"The report is concerning and is not consistent with DMV protocol. Judge Petersons order for an investigation is consistent with investigation already begun by DMV in response to the story, and we intend to investigate and report to the court as ordered," said Department of Transportation spokeswoman Patty Mayers. "DMV remains committed to working with all eligible voters to ensure they receive free identification, as required for voting."

A spokesman for Attorney General Brad Schimel said the Department of Justice will comply with the order.

"We agree Gov. Walker and the state have some serious explaining to do about these latest reports of legal voters being disenfranchised. Even one legal voter disenfranchised by bureaucratic malfeasance requires immediate action. Gov. Walker and the legislature must convene immediately to put the unconstitutional voter ID law on hold for this election," said Scot Ross, executive director of One Wisconsin Institute, one of the plaintiffs in the case that resulted in the order.

In his July decision, Peterson overturned laws that limited in-person absentee voting to one location. Peterson also struck down laws that limited early voting hours and eliminated weekend voting, increased the residency requirement for voters from 10 days to 28 days, prohibited distributing absentee ballots by fax or email and required "dorm lists" used as proof of residence to include citizenship information, and a provision of the voter ID law banning the use of expired but otherwise qualifying student IDs at the polls.

Peterson in July found the IDPP system did not require "wholesale invalidation," but that it did not act as an effective safety net for qualified electors who struggle to obtain proper IDs.

"The IDPP is pretty much a disaster," Peterson wrote, later referring to it as a "wretched failure."

Under Peterson's July ruling, once a petitioner submits sufficient materials, the state Division of Motor Vehicles must "promptly issue a credential valid for voting, unless readily available information shows that the petitioner is not a qualified elector entitled to such a credential." The state must also "inform the general public" of that process.

"Petitioners and the public must be informed that these credentials have a term equivalent to that of a driver license or Wisconsin ID, and that they will be valid for voting until they expire or are revoked for good cause," Peterson wrote.
A 75-year-old Charlottesville man has been charged in connection with a fatal collision with a pedestrian at the Shops at Stonefield late last month.

Franklin Pollock Reider faces one charge of reckless driving, which police say led to the death of 57-year-old Bonnie Baha, of San Marino, California, in an Aug. 21 incident at the Albemarle County shopping center.

In a statement, police said they arrested Reider following an investigation that included witness interviews, accident reconstruction analysis and an inspection of mechanical damage and digital data gathered from Reiders vehicle.

Reckless driving is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and $2,500 in fines.

Baha, a top executive with a California investment management firm, was visiting Charlottesville with her family to drop off her son, a first-year student, at the University of Virginia. She, her husband and her daughter were crossing the street toward the shopping area when police said a driver was turning left from Bond Street onto District Avenue toward Hydraulic Road when the vehicle struck them.

She died at UVa Medical Center. Her husband and daughter were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Baha was the director of global developed credit for Los Angeles-based investment management firm DoubleLine Capital. She helped Jeffrey Gundlach turn DoubleLine into a $100 billion asset management firm.

For a quarter century Bonnie was my trusted colleague and dear friend, Gundlach said in an statement in August. She was honest and direct, with a sardonic wit perfectly matching her investment skepticism helping shape the DoubleLine philosophy.
Virginias rising rate of on-time graduation is good news indeed.

As of last year, the commonwealth already was graduating more than 90 percent of students who entered high school.

This week, it was announced that more than 91 percent of students graduated on time in 2016.

The increase continues an upward trend, which was true as well for most individual school districts in Central Virginia.

In fact, most area school districts blasted past even the high state rates. Some of the most impressive figures came from smaller or rural school systems.

 Madison County led the pack. There, on-time graduation reached 96.5 percent in 2016, up from 95.2 percent in 2015.

 Albemarle County schools reported a 95 percent on-time graduation rate, up from 94.3 percent in 2015.

 Fluvanna County reached 94.4 percent, up from 92.8 percent last year.

 Orange County had a rate of 93.8 percent in 2016, a jump from 90.7 the year before.

 Louisa County achieved a 92.7 percent on-time graduation rate, compared to 90.4 percent in 2015.

 An especially striking increase belonged to Nelson County, where the rate rose 8.1 points  to 92 percent from 83.9 percent.

 Buckingham County increased its on-time graduation rate slightly, to 91 percent from 89.9 percent.

Figures at two area schools belied these trends.

Greene County easily bested the states on-time graduation rate  but dropped two points from last year, achieving 93.3 percent in 2016.

Charlottesville failed to match the states rate  but improved its position over last year, and inspiringly so: The city graduated 89.4 percent of its students on time this year, compared to 84.9 percent in 2016. Thats the second-best improvement in the region.

Each of these school systems has plenty to celebrate, whether it beat the states numbers or bettered its position from last year.

And these arent meaningless statistics. They represent real gains that are translated into real success for students.

Students who graduate on time deserve to celebrate, too. Their achievements indicate initiative, perseverance, and skill. Such factors carry over into success in life; the payoff from graduation isnt just a degree  its the accumulation of life lessons that affect future decisions.

While the personal impact of such successes, one student at a time, must not be underestimated, it also would be shortsighted to overlook the value these statistics have for the larger community.

Good graduation rates signal a good education level, which in turn makes our area attractive to potential employers. Employment opportunities in turn help fuel a solid and growing economy.

The more students who graduate on time, the better for all of us.

Our congratulations to the school districts for their achievements  and to the individual students whose successes made it happen.
With the craziness in the presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump this year, we are fortunate to have Jane Dittmar running for Congress in the 5th District.

Residents of Central Virginia should support her election because she will protect and strengthen Social Security. Jane Dittmar believes in helping the most vulnerable among us to ensure that future generations of Central Virginia residents are not left out in the cold.

As we reflect on Social Security's enactment, lets remember Franklin D. Roosevelts famous words upon signing the Social Security Act into law on Aug. 14, 1935:

Today a hope of many years' standing is in large part fulfilled.  [W]e have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.

Social Security has helped generations of seniors and families in Central Virginia cover basic costs of living like food, housing, and prescription drugs. Its importance cannot be overstated for the thousands of Central Virginia residents who rely on it for their survival.

After a lifetime of hard work, every resident should have access to a secure and stable retirement.

Jane Dittmar would continue to support President Roosevelts vision of hope and protection for the most vulnerable residents of Central Virginia.

As I reflect on Central Virginias rich history, I am deeply honored to be a part of the Jane Dittmar for Congress team, because she truly embodies the spirit of passionate public service. There is nothing more rewarding than making a difference in the lives of others.

With our collective renewed commitment, there is no limit to what Jane Dittmar can achieve in Washington as Central Virginias representative for Virginia's 5th Congressional District.

So, remember to vote; your life may depend on it!

Melvin Burruss

Louisa County
FRANKFURT - Germany - The ominous signs are afoot, a black moon, x-factor back on the telly and a never ending Brexit that is full of promises with no action.

Markets hate uncertainty, and so do the fund managers who are withdrawing their cash from Deutsche bank faster than a Theresa May false promise.

A run on this major bank would certainly hit things pretty hard. Were already seeing a slight drying up of liquidity in the markets but if this is another Lehmans moment it could be squeaky bum time for the money men, and the rest of the populace.

The big boys are running with their money from Deutsche bank, but what about the every day Joe in Germany, the depositors? They could lose every penny in their bank accounts, but the Germans are oh so cool, calm and collected, no one seems to be batting an eyelid over the prospect that their bank balance could be swallowed up into a massive financial black hole worse than any Greek could imagine.

Let us not worry needlessly my German friends, you have a whole weekend and bank holiday Monday to think about if it is too late to take your money out of your account. Of course, by Tuesday, it really could be too late.

So ist das Leben..
MOSCOW - Russia - Vladimir Putin does not care if the West blames him for the murder of 298 people on the MH17 downed passenger plane.

Russian president, and arch nemesis of the West, Vladimir Putin, has denied any direct involvement of the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines MH17 passenger jet over Russian held territory in Donetsk, Ukraine on July 17th 2014.

I told my deputy, the Russian BUK missile launcher must be returned to Russia after it shoots down the plane or he will have to file a lost property ticket, and those launchers dont come cheap. Its on his head. I dont think his meagre pay packet could cover the cost if anything happened to it.

All we had to do once the operation was complete is deny all knowledge and blame the Ukrainians. The fact that the air disaster recovery team found shrapnel embedded deep in the fuselage coming from a Russian BUK missile is neither here nor there. Thats their problem, not ours.

So, why did we kill 298 innocent people in a commercial jet in cold blood? Why not? Russians do not have to give reasons for anything. We do this, we do that, and if you get in our way, we do more bad things. Thats war comrade.

In addition to Putin and his cronies denying any involvement, no one will ever be brought to justice for the vile crime of blowing up a passenger jet with innocent women and children onboard.

As for the West, theyre too scared to do anything about it, a typical sordid end to the whole putrefying episode.
The pact with Rajasthan and Inox Ltd is for a 50 MW wind power project in the state.

New Delhi: Shares of NHPC rose nearly 5 percent today after the company signed a power purchase pact with Rajasthan as well as Inox Ltd for a 50 MW wind power project in the state.

The stock gained 4.93 per cent to Rs 25.50 on BSE.

At NSE, shares of the company went up 2.46 per cent to Rs 24.95.

"...a wind power purchase agreement has been singed among Rajasthan Government, NHPC and Inox on September 28 for a 50 MW wind power project in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan," NHPC said in a filing to BSE yesterday.

As per the PPA, Rajasthan government will purchase the power generated from the project, the filing said. During 2015-16 fiscal, NHPC power stations achieved generation of 23,404 million units.
Mumbai: Industry needs to innovate and redesign electrical equipment that can use the abundant domestic coal which has high fly ash content so as to reduce dependence on imports, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal said today.

"There is a need for us to become self-reliant and self-sufficient as we have to fight the competition on economic and fair terms," Goyal said at an event organised by the industry body IEEMA.

"Some of our equipments like boilers have been designed in such a way that there will be coal shortages and that might be forced to depend on imports. But today, with a surplus coal production, we need to develop boilers and other equipment that can use the domestic coal," the minister said.

He said the country imports nearly USD 10 billion worth of electrical equipment and this needs to change. Explaining the need to lower or end import dependence, he recalled how the nation's defence preparedness was compromised when a foreign government refused to part defence equipment that we needed the most then.

"The surgical strike carried out by the Army yesterday reminds me of the time when we were standing helpless after a country decided not to give us the equipment that we needed.

"And today we are dependent on some inimical countries for critical spares and equipment and if at any critical juncture, the power sector got crippled for lack of spares and adequate equipment, can we handle that?" he asked.

Goyal also said he has asked the state-run equipment manufacturer BHEL to redesign some of the boilers to take a larger intake of the high fly ash coal, rather than being dependent on cleaner coal from abroad.

"We aspire that we become the laboratory of the world," the minister said. Goyal said he has also asked National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC) to innovate and look at technology to replace the existing 35 year-old equipment at its 690 MW Salal project in Jammu and Kashmir with higher capacity equipment to increase the output by 50-100 per cent.

"I have asked NHPC to look at the technology used in other countries like America, Canada, Brazil as to how we can increase the output, may be through replacing the old equipment with higher capacity ones.

"As setting up of new hydro projects is challenging mainly due to issues like land availability, cost, R&R, it will be feasible to expand the capacity of existing plants," Goyal said.
The Nitish Kumar-led Alliance government had first banned the manufacture, trade, sale, consumption of country-made liquor, but later imposed a blanket ban on all types of liquor.

New Delhi: Liquor stocks today surged up to14 per cent after the Patna High Court struck down the Bihar government's decision to completely ban liquor in the state.

Shares of Empee Distilleries jumped 13.92 per cent, Globus Spirits advanced by 11.47 per cent and Pioneer Distilleries zoomed 9.85 per cent on BSE. GM Breweries soared 8.42 per cent, Tilaknagar Industries surged 7.83 per cent and Radico Khaitan went up by 6.21 per cent.

Among others, Associated Alcohols & Breweries rose by 3.44 per cent and United Breweries gained 2.81 per cent. In a setback to the Bihar government, the Patna High Court today quashed the government notification completely banning liquor in the state, saying it is ultra vires to the Constitution.

A division bench of the court quashed the April 5 notification of the state government to stop consumption and sale of alcohol in the state. The April 5 notification is ultra vires to the Constitution, hence not enforceable, the court said in its verdict.

The Nitish Kumar-led Grand Secular Alliance government had first banned the manufacture, trade, sale, consumption of country-made liquor since April 1, but later imposed a blanket ban on all types of liquor including foreign liquor in the state.
On Tata Steel's India operations, the ratings agency said its profitability has declined by around 35 per cent.

New Delhi: A sharp rise in coking coal prices globally can bring the profitability of Tata Steel (TSL) under pressure, Fitch Ratings said today. "TSL's profitability could also come under pressure from the sharp increase in international coking coal prices since August 2016," it said in a statement.

There is also uncertainty over the period of regulatory protection from imports will be sustained. Government lowered the number of products under minimum import price (MIP) from 173 to 66 in August 2016 and extended the duration until October 4, 2016, it added.

Besides, it imposed anti-dumping duties on the remaining products, however, the duration is six months, Fitch said. Though, Tata Steel announced completion of sale of its unprofitable Long Products Europe business, there is uncertainty around its plans to restructure the remaining key assets in Port Talbot, UK and IJmuiden, Netherlands as well as issues, like UK pension liabilities remaining unresolved, it said.

TSL is in discussions with strategic players, including ThyssenKrupp AG, to explore the feasibility of a joint venture for its remaining European business. "We assume the status quo remains, and hence, a further restructuring of assets presents a risk to our estimates," Fitch said.

On Tata Steel's India operations, the ratings agency said its profitability has declined by around 35 per cent y-o-y to Rs 7,560 per tonne in 2015-16 fiscal due to weak steel prices and competition from imports.

TSL's Q1 2016-17 EBITDA/tonne remains significantly less than the 2014-15 average, although profitability has improved following an upswing in realisations after government imposed protectionist MIP in February 2016, it said.

Domestic demand growth has been anaemic so far in 2016-17, with consumption over April to August 2016 increasing at just 1.3 per cent (2015-16: 5.9 per cent). Meanwhile, producers, including TSL, are looking to increase sales volume following recent capacity expansion.

TSL started commercial operations for the first phase of its greenfield plant at Kalinganagar in Odisha with a capacity of 3 million tonnes per annum (MTPA). TSL expects to ramp up output gradually and is targeting volume of 1 MTPA in 2016-17. Apart from higher sales, the new plant will improve TSL's product-mix, as it specialises in producing high-grade flat products, the ratings agency said.

Fitch Ratings has maintained the Rating Watch Evolving on the 'BB' Long-Term Issuer Default Rating of TSL and 'B' Long-Term IDR of Tata Steel UK Holdings Limited.

The steel producers' ratings were placed on Rating Watch Evolving on April 1, 2016 after it announced on March 29, 2016 that it is exploring options for portfolio restructuring in Europe, including potential divestment of its UK operations.

"TSL managed to sell a key loss-making asset in May 2016, but the final structure of the group and its debt remains unclear and will affect TSL's rating," it added.
Disney India officially drew the curtains on Hindi film production recently, due to the losses they faced in the last few years. Disney India, which owns UTV Motion Pictures, announced last month that it intended to focus on its Hollywood film distribution and television licensing and merchandising business instead, effectively pulling the plug on its Hindi film production business.

There are also reports that owing to the back-to-back box-office debacles of Kya Kool Hai Hum 3, Azhar and Great Grand Masti, Balaji Motion Pictures too intends to shut down.

At a special event of Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival with Star, filmmaker Karan Johar said that studios shutting down isnt something new, and hence is not a matter for panic.

Were not in grave crisis, said Karan, who owns Dharma Productions, one of the biggest production houses in the country. There is absolutely no crisis looming large. There is a reason why studios start, and theres a reason why they shut. If theres one thing in common between all the panelists, it is that we are all filmmakers trying to tell stories.

Scoffing at the dread in the air over the situation, Karan recounted, The other day, someone thrust a mic in my face when I was coming out of the airport, asking Will Indian cinema vanish? I was like When did this happen? When studios came up, it was surprising; when some of them are leaving, its equally surprising. The producer, the director, and the film will always survive. We were trying to control budgets, ever since I can remember. The congenial problem has remained.

Producer Siddharth Roy Kapur, the managing director of Disney India, said he looked at the situation as a great opportunity to improve the financial condition of the film industry. In every time of crisis, there is a time of opportunity as well. I think it is an interesting time for the industry right now to take stock and figure out whats going on and see what we can do for the next generation of Indian cinema to actually be much more effective financially than it has been over the last few years, he said.
'Pink' which was being screened in the country, is not being exhibited any more.

Mumbai: Amid the heightening tension between India and Pakistan over the terror attacks in Uri and the Indian armed forces' surgical strikes in the neighbouring country in retaliation, the film industries of both the countries have also got themselves involved in the matter.

After the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association (IMPPA) said on Thursday that they had decided to not work with Pakistani artistes till normalcy returns, theatres in Pakistan have also decided to stop screening of Indian films in the country to express solidarity with their armed forces and film actors', reports Dawn.

Popular theatre chains like Lahores Super Cinemas, Karachis Nueplex Cinemas and Atrium Cinemas have decided to stop the screening of Indian films. While Super Cinemas and Nueplex Cinemas announced their decision on Facebook, Atrium Cinema revealed its decision on its website.

Nadeem Mandviwalla, a well-known film exhibitor, distributor and owner of the Atrium cinemas in Lahore and Karachi, said that the boycott would be unanimous until the situation improved. Saleem Khan of the famous Capri cinema in Karachi said they had stopped showing Indian films since last night.

Pakistan's film industry fears it may suffer a 70 percent business loss if Indo-Pak ties worsen and Bollywood films are banned in the country. The fear among the industry people has been growing as they feel if the situation does not improve there would be calls to ban Indian films eventually.

Amitabh Bachchans critically acclaimed Pink, which was being screened in these theatres, is not being screened anymore. Pakistani films 'Janaan', 'Actor In Law', 'Maalik' and 'Zindagi Kitni Haseen Hay' and Hollywood releases 'Sully', 'Storks' and 'The Magnificent Seven', 'Howl' and 'Deepwater Horizon' are some of the films that are being shown currently in these theatres.
Mumbai: Reports of Disney India pulling the plug on its Hindi movies production business and Balaji Motion Pictures shutting shop got experts speculating about future of studios in India but filmmaker Karan Johar doesn't think it's a sign of worry and he says India cinema will survive this phase too.

"We are not in grave crisis. There is absolutely no crisis that is looming large. There is a reason why studios start, there is a reason why they end. If there is one thing in common between all the panelists is that we are all filmmakers trying to tell stories," he said.

The filmmaker was speaking at a special event of Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival with Star. Johar, who owns Dharma Productions, one of the biggest film production companies in the country, said ouster of studios is not something new and hence people should not panic.

"The other day someone thrust a mic on my face while I was coming out of the airport saying 'Will Indian cinema vanish?' I was like 'When did this happen?' "When studios came it was surprising, when some of them are leaving it is equally surprising. The producer, the director and the film will always survive. We were trying to control budgets since I could remember. That congenial problem has remained," he opined.

Producer Siddharth Roy Kapur, the managing director of Disney India, said he looks at the situation as a great opportunity to improve the financial condition of the film industry.

"In every time of crisis there is a time of opportunity as well. I think it is an interesting time for the industry right now for us to take stalk and figure out what's going on. See what we can do for the next generation of Indian cinema to actually be much more effective financially than it has been over the last few years," he said.

Disney India, which owns UTV Motion Pictures, announced last month it is going to focus on its Hollywood films distribution and television and licensing and merchandising businesses effectively pulling the plug on its Hindi film production business. There have been reports that owing to the back-to-back box-office debacles like Kya Kool Hai Hum 3, Azhar and Great Grand Masti, Balaji Motion Pictures is shutting down.
After Vai Raja Vai in 2015, actor Gautham Karthik has had no release in 2016. However, the actors three films  Rangoon, Indrajith and Muthuramalingam are in different stages of production. That apart, Gautham has also been signed on by director Kannan of Settai fame.

Speaking to DC, Gautham says, Evan Thanthiran is a film on reverse engineering. I cant talk about my character right now. We have planned to commence the shoot on October 12.

The first-look posters of the film were released by actor Suriya yesterday.

About his upcoming film Muthuramalingam, Gautham states, This film is a different experience for me as I had to play a village character. I had to learn silambam and it was difficult to master the local dialect as well. We have completed the dialogue portions and only one song is pending.

Sharing screen space with veteran actor Napoleon, was also an unforgettable memory for Gautham. He is a wonderful actor to work with. The experience he brought to the sets was so inspiring. There is a lot to learn from him. We had outdoor shoots, and he was undeterred by the crowd that gathered at the shooting spot, he adds. He further disclosed that he has been listening to several scripts and would announce his upcoming projects soon.
Tamannaah has been busy promoting her upcoming film Abhinetri in Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai since the film, in which she plays a dual role, is set to release in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi.

A few days ago, the actress was seen promoting her Tamil film along with Prabhu Deva and director A.L. Vijay in Chennai. After seeing her rigorous promotion of the film, producer R.K. Suresh had a few words to say about the actress at the Nadigar Sangam, a union for film, television, and stage actors in Tamil Nadu.

He complained that he had made Dharma Durai with Tamannaah as the female lead but she did not turn up for the promotions of the film when the film released in August. Her role in the film was opposite Vijay Sethupathi.

The producer has requested the Nadigar Sangam to take action against the actress for not promoting his film.
These "cancer hotels" have sprung up near hospitals around the country (Photo: AP)

Beijing: In the shadow of one of China's top cancer hospitals in Beijing, a catacomb-like network of ramshackle brick buildings has become a home-from-home for hundreds of cancer patients and their families waiting for treatment.

The cluster of nine buildings, connected by dark, narrow passageways, offers cheap accommodation for patients unable to afford a coveted hospital room, a reflection of the vast inequalities in China's overburdened healthcare system.

These "cancer hotels" have sprung up near hospitals around the country to house some of the more than three million people diagnosed with cancer in China every year.

Patients often travel hundreds of miles to city hospitals because of poor facilities in their home regions, creating a wave of cancer "refugees" often living on a shoe-string as they struggle to pay for care.

"There's an imbalance between the big cities and small ones. Good doctors don't want to work in small places," said Liu, 46, a migrant worker who brought his wife more than 750 km (450 miles) to see a specialist in the capital in May.

His wife, Wang, 42, was diagnosed with cervical cancer at the beginning of the year, and was told by family she should leave her hometown in Inner Mongolia for treatment.

"If you have some serious illness then you'd better go to Beijing," said Liu. Both husband and wife asked that only their surnames be used to protect their privacy.

A manager of one of the hotels said most patients stayed for between several months and a year while they waited for treatment.

Financial burden

The costs all add up. A cheap train ticket for Wang and Liu's 16-hour journey was 321 yuan ($48), while a room at the hotel sets them back about 70 yuan a night, half the price of a hospital bed.

Their simple room, with a translucent blue shawl hanging across the door, had a television and fan. They can also cook at the hotel.

The financial burden for Chinese patients with serious conditions like cancer or diabetes can be overwhelming. Official data shows that up to 44 percent of families pushed into poverty were impoverished by illness.

Stories abound of patients or their relatives going to extremes to pay for care: turning to unapproved treatments, sleeping rough or even donning fancy dress in public to raise funds.

State health insurance does reach nearly all of China's 1.4 billion people, but coverage is basic, meaning patients, on average, foot almost half the bill. That can rise much higher for chronic or complex diseases like cancer.

"The hardest part for us is the money," said Pan, 60, who came to the Beijing cancer hotel with his wife, Huang, after she was diagnosed with rectal cancer in 2013. "We are farmers, we have already spent over 270,000 yuan ($40,500) since 2013."

Many people turn to friends, relatives or shadowy lenders to pay for travel and treatment. Many end up in queues outside hospitals paying ticket touts or doctors to speed things up.

"Only half our costs can be covered by the medical insurance," said Pan.

"We're not city folk who can lend out thousands of yuan at a time. Families in our area are poor. We have to borrow money for treatment."
CHENNAI: Pearl Human Care, a health care company owned by G.V. Sampath, on Thursday announced establishment of Naruvi Hospitals in Vellore to provide world-class health facility to people in and around the town who travel to far-away Chennai and Bengaluru for advanced medical treatment.

For this, Mr Sampath, son of VIT Chancellor G. Viswanathan, has tied up with Detroit-based Henry Ford health system, which will infuse a combination of clinical best practices and provide advanced digital technology. Mr Sampaths Pearl Human Care will build the hospital in Green Circle in Vellore at a cost of Rs 330 crore.

Land acquisition is complete and we hope to begin construction of the hospital by the end of this year. The hospital will be functional from January, 2019, Mr Sampath said, adding that Henry Ford would give all technical expertise and train doctors.

Our research says nearly 10,000 to 15,000 people from Vellore travel to Chennai and Bengaluru for advanced treatment. And CMC has reached saturation point and nearly 2,000 patients return everyday without a bed. We would like to tap those patients, he said.
Mumbai: A 80-year-old woman was tortured allegedly by her son, daughter-in-law and grand daughter by hanging her upside down to a ceiling fan, police said on Thursday.

The trio was arrested on Thursday. The incident came to light after a purported video of the said act went viral. The video was submitted to the DN Nagar police station by an NGO - Nari Sangh.

"The woman's son Surendra Vaid (47) used to tie her using a bedsheeet and hang her to the fan upside down and switch on the fan. The family made a video of the act from their cell phone," said senior police inspector Dhanaji Nalawade.

As per the complaint filed last night, the woman was being tortured in this way for three years. We have arrested Surendra, his wife Babita (43) and their daughter Akshaya (19), said the official.

The woman was rescued. However, during enquiry, Surendra claimed that his mother was mentally ill and she used to move out of home. The did the act only to frighten her, police said.

The accused were produced in the court. While Surendra got police custody till today, his wife and daughter were given judicial custody, added Nalawade.
Mumbai: A 24-year-old man from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, has been charged for allegedly killing a girl after she blocked him on Facebook.

According to reports, Amti Yadav, a software engineer, reportedly befriended 16-year-old Priya on Facebook about a year ago, using a fake profile, where he is listed as a woman named Priyanshi.

Once he revealed his true identity to the victim, she cut of all ties with him and reportedly blocked him on Facebook. But by now, he was already in possession of her address and her mothers number.

Upset over the developments, Amit reportedly stormed into Priyas flat and attacked her mother with a knife. Priya tried to intervene, but he stabbed her repeatedly killing her on the spot, following which he attempted to kill himself by jumping off the second floor of the building. But he did not succeed in his attempts.

The police have registered a case and are investigating the matter.
Editor's note: The following editorial was submitted by the Center for Survivors in Columbus.

October serves as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. This is a time to recognize the victims, survivors, family members and loved ones of those affected by domestic violence.

Domestic violence affects all communities and does not discriminate among any factors, such as race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, income levels or any other variables. On average, nearly 20 people are victims of physical abuse by an intimate partner every minute in the United States.

Recently, many states have begun to review gun laws for offenders who have committed acts of domestic violence as the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases risks of homicide by more than 500 percent.

With one in four women and one in seven men affected by domestic violence, nearly everyone knows someone who has experienced the devastating effects of domestic violence.

What can you do to support ending violence in our communities?

If you know a friend or loved one who has experienced domestic violence, please understand that each victim's/survivors story is their own to share. If someone shares their story with you, listen, let them know what happened was not their fault, and refer them to speak to an advocate. If they are thinking about leaving an abuser, talk to them about safety planning prior to leaving. No woman, man or child deserves to be abused.

Education and information concerning domestic abuse, recovery issues and healthy relationships are available at the Center for Survivors. Please feel free to contact us 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 1-800-658-4482. The Center for Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Survivors is a nonprofit agency serving the counties of Boone, Butler, Colfax, Nance, Platte and Polk. Our services are free and confidential.

The Center for Survivors is holding its annual Domestic Violence Vigil at 6 p.m. Thursday in Frankfort Square. Sheryl Korger, the sister of domestic violence victim Lynne Ditter, will be our featured speaker for the evening. Mayor Mike Moser will be present to read a proclamation declaring October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month in Columbus.

Please join us in recognizing the victims, survivors and family members of those affected by domestic violence. Together we can make a stand to end domestic violence in our communities.

Sources:
Bengaluru: Students of Alliance University in Anekal are caught in the crossfire of an ongoing tussle between two brothers and a sister, who own the college property. The students have expressed displeasure over increased security checks on the campus. They allege they have to flash their ID cards not just at the gate, but even inside the college premises while accessing their classrooms and administrative offices, said a source from the college.

It may be recalled that in February this year, the university Chancellor, Dr Madhukar G. Angur, was slapped with a rape case, accusing him of sexually abusing his 31-year-old niece several times over a period of three years. The police, however, suspect that the case was the result of a property dispute and were probing deeper into the case.

The tussle between Madhukar G. Angur, Sudheer G. Angur and their sister Shaila Chebbi over the multi-crore worth property has been continuing over the last six to seven months. On Thursday, armed with a court order reinstating him as Chancellor, Madhukar, along with his supporters, came to Alliance campus to reclaim his position. Expecting trouble from his brother and sister, Madhukar had also brought the police.

When Sudheer and Shaila objected to his entry into university premises, a heated argument ensued between the two parties. The police had to intervene and arrest seven members. They included Sudheer, Shaila and her husband Govind, who were protesting against Madhukar.

It is also said that Sudheer Angurs wife Sujatha, sister of Sandalwood actor Sudeep, was also arrested. However, no confirmation was received by the police in this regard. Meanwhile, Madhukar has reclaimed his Chancellor position at the university and rampant security checks continue within the college premises.
No civilian movement was hampered. At the AOC Secunderabad, the AOC Administration building, JCOs club, EME Secunderabad were locked. (Photo: PTI) (Representational image)

Hyderabad: Sensitive divisions of the Army in Cantonment shut their gates on Friday; the restrictions may be in place for the next 2-3 days.

Entry to Secunderabad AOC administration building, EME centre, Bison division  Bolaram, Andhra and Telangana sub area- Bolaram has been restricted to only Army employees.

The restrictions are seen as part of the security measures taken following the surgical strikes by the Indian Army against terror camps in POK. The night restrictions at the AOC will remain as usual. No civilian movement was hampered. At the AOC Secunderabad, the AOC Administration building, JCOs club, EME Secunderabad were locked.

A source said, There are orders from the high command to tighten security at AOC, EME and sub areas sensitive establishments. The restrictions have been announced for a day or two. However, they may be extended further.

However, all the four gates  Gough Road, Safilguda Road, Allahabad and Wellington were open to civilian movement.
The division bench of the Supreme Court discussed in detail the communication between CM Siddaramaiah and Karnatakas counsel, Fali S. Nariman which seems to have set the tone for the order that Karnataka should release 6,000 cusecs daily for six days to TN.

Bengaluru: The Karnataka governments decision to go by popular sentiment overruling the advice of its advocates like Fali S. Nariman to deal with the ongoing Cauvery crisis seems to have boomeranged. As a result, the state is on the verge of losing the apex courts trust which is likely to cast a shadow on the main petition of the state challenging the final order of the Cauvery river water tribunal, which is due to come up for hearing on October 18.

The division bench of the Supreme Court discussed in detail the communication between CM Siddaramaiah and Karnatakas counsel, Fali S. Nariman which seems to have set the tone for the order that Karnataka should release 6,000 cusecs daily for six days to TN. In reply to Mr Siddaramaiahs letter to Mr Nariman explaining why he could not release water to Tamil Nadu, Mr Nariman wrote back to Mr Siddaramaiah saying the state must obey the order and he and the legal team, as officers of the court, cannot defend the act of disobedience based on a political decision as stated by Chief Minister in his letter. Justice Dipak Misra appreciated the stand taken by Mr Nariman during the hearing and came down heavily on Karnataka while passing the order.

The facts pertaining to inflow into four reservoirs and total storage may not substantiate Karnatakas argument that it is struggling hard to meet the drinking water requirements of Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mandya and several villages in the Cauvery basin.

In hindsight, with 32.08 tmcft water in its reservoirs and an inflow of over 10,000 cusecs on Friday, the state could have easily averted the crisis by adhering to the September 27 order to release 6,000 cusecs for three days.

On September 27, the court was considerate towards Karnataka in spite of the state legislature passing a resolution reserving water for drinking only. By releasing 1.5 tmc of water, it could have tried to win the confidence of the court.

Fridays happenings should be enough to make the ruling Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party and JD (S) rethink their strategy. While the Janata Dal (Secular) played the jingoistic card, the BJP failed to skilfully craft a rear guard strategy through the Union water resources ministry.

The Congress and the government tried to drag Prime Minister Narendra Modi into the controversy so that if it had to release water to Tamil Nadu, it could easily pass on the blame to the Prime Minister.

However, with the Supreme Court sounding a warning on Friday that Karnataka shall not be bent upon to take an obstinate and stand of defiance as one does not know when wrath of the law will fall upon them, the strategies of all three parties seem to have gone awry.

Though the SC order is premature, the direction to constitute CMB is a healthy development. With this, an independent authority can help the SC pass further orders on the fair ability of water. In my personal view, people in TN are not going to die if water is not released. In that sense, the order to release water is premature. However, since SC, on an emergency basis, has ordered the Centre to constitute CMB seeking a report, we can expect the court to be more considerate while passing orders in the future by considering the factual report which will be placed by an independent authority. Howsoever, the SC could have waited till the report of the authority before passing its order  Justice M.F. Saldanha, Former Karnataka High Court Judge

It sounds like a prejudged order. The SC should have heard in detail Karnatakas argument. According to me, the state has failed to make SC understand its position with regard to water level and our advocates too failed to make it understand with a detailed technical report. It is well settled by Article 262 that water disputes have to be decided by Tribunals and not by any court. On formation of CMB, the matter is pending before the three-judge bench and the two-judge bench should not have passed such a direction. It may not be desirable to seek the change of the two-judge bench now. The best thing the state can do is to approach the three-judge bench to hear the matter and seek to keep the two-judge bench order in abeyance till it decides on the matter. M.T. Nanaiah, Senior Advocate

Blame Nariman for setback: BS Yeddyurappa

State BJP president B.S. Yeddyurappa on Friday alleged that senior counsel Fali S Narimans silence in the Supreme Court during a hearing on release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu resulted in a setback for Karnataka.

In a statement here, he said Mr Nariman and his team failed to draw the attention of the bench consisting Justices Dipak Misra and U U Lalit that the question of establishment of the Cauvery Water Management Board was being heard by another bench of the apex court. It was deplorable and unexplainable that the lawyers failed to even mention it, and their conduct was shocking and disappointing, he added.

He said leaders of his party were repeatedly demanding that the state move an application that the Cauvery dispute should be heard by another bench, but the government did not pay heed to it. This resulted in an order detrimental to the interests of Karnataka. We will, however, continue to support the government as long as it is committed to protect the interests of farmers and those who depend on Cauvery for irrigation and drinking, he added. He said Union ministers H.N. Ananth Kumar and D.V. Sadananda Gowda, Shobha Karandlaje, MP, leader of Opposition in the Assembly Jagadish Shettar and himself had met Union water resources minister Uma Bharti and explained in detail the precarious condition in the Cauvery basin. The delegation of BJP leaders appealed to her to send a team of experts to study the ground situation, but the suggestion was rejected by TN.
Bengaluru: Stunned by another harsh order of the Supreme Court on release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu, CM Siddaramaiah invited leaders of all parties for discussion on Saturday on the next step to be adopted by the state government as the apex court warned that none would know when the wrath of the law would fall on them.

With the court also insisting that the government should announce the name of its nominee for Cauvery Water Management Board by 4 PM on Saturday, Siddaramaiah has decided to seek opinion of leaders of all parties, Union ministers, and members of both Houses of Parliament tomorrow. The state government has opposed formation of the Board besides adopting a stand that the dispute should not be heard by the SC under the Inter-State Water Disputes Act, according to official sources.

The Chief Minister extended his stay in New Delhi by a day after attending a meeting convened by Union water resources minister Uma Bharti to help the riparian states arrive at an amicable agreement and end the vexed dispute on Thursday.

He chose not to react on the latest order of the Supreme Court to release of 6,000 cusecs every day for six days from October 1, and returned to the city with ministers M B Patil and T.B. Jayachandra.

Order is tragic, says HD Deve Gowda

Terming the Supreme Court order directing Karnataka to release water to Tamil Nadu as 'tragic and hurried,' former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda expressed his displeasure against Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti and even Karnatakas counsel in the apex court Fali Nariman.

Speaking to reporters here on Sunday, Gowda said that he would study the courts directive in detail and take a decision in a day or two on the future course of action.

There is no point in talking about it, Gowda said. "When the special leave petition (SLP) filed by Karnataka is coming up for hearing by October 18, the Supreme Court has hurriedly asked the Central government to form the Cauvery Management Board (CMB). I don't want to say anything about this. All I want to do is request people of the state to maintain peace. I am still alive,'' he remarked.

Expressing his displeasure against the Union government, Gowda said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had not said that he would not release water during Thursdays meeting with Bharti.

All he did was to request Bharti to send a team to the Cauvery basin states to assess the ground situation, to which Tamil Nadu objected. "They don't want the truth to come out. All they want is water to be released,'' he said.

"The states counsel Nariman refused to argue for us as Karnataka has not released water. However, he could have told the court that formation of the CMB was not on the courts agenda. He did not even say that,'' Gowda added.
Patna: In a major setback to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the grand secular alliance government, the Patna High Court on Friday struck down the Bihar Prohibition Act by terming it illegal and unconstitutional.

Giving his first reaction on the High Court verdict JD (U) leader and party spokesperson Niraj Kumar said, Legal options are open we will first examine the verdict and then take steps accordingly.

According to Additional Advocate General Lalit Kishore verdict doesnt affect ban on country made liquor but only quashes state governments April 5 notification which prohibits sale, consumption and possession of IMFL in Bihar.

He further added that, after the ban was imposed on April 5 state government had cancelled all licences which means that sale of liquor by old licence holders will be illegal.

The verdict allows people to buy and consume liquor from other states. A Public Interest Litigation was filed a day after Nitish Kumar government had declared Bihar a total dry state.

The petition contended that the state governments decision violated human rights of a citizen about their drinking and eating habit. The state government later passed the amended liquor bill 2016 during the monsoon session giving more teeth to the prohibition act.

The new act was termed as draconian as it had the provision to punish even adult family members of the person caught consuming or possessing liquor in the state. The verdict may also hamper the political prospects of Nitish Kumar who had launched a massive campaign against liquor consumption in other states advocating harsh act to impose Bihar like prohibition.
New Delhi: Violating the ceasefire again, Pakistani troops opened fire from small arms along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir's Akhnoor district.

This is the fifth ceasefire violation in the month of September and the third in the past 36 hours.

"There was small arms firing (from Pakistan on forward posts) along the LoC in Pallanwala, Chapriyal and Samnam areas of Jammu district during the night," Deputy Commissioner, Jammu, Simrandeep Singh said.

He said the firing started at 0030 hours and ended at 0130 hours. There was no loss of life or injury to anyone in the firing, he said.

on Thursday, Pakistani troops had resorted to firing in Balnoie area of Mendhar sector without any casualty.

On September 28, the Pakistan Army had violated the ceasefire by opening fire on Indian Army posts along the LoC in Sabzian area Poonch sector.

Pakistani troops had fired on Army posts along LoC in Poonch sector on September 6.

On September 2, Pakistan troops had violated the ceasefire by firing on forward Army posts along the LoC in Akhnoor sector.

Last year, 16 civilians were killed and 71 others injured in 405 incidents of cross-border firing by Pakistan, the officer said.
New Delhi: A day after surgical strikes, Home Minister Rajnath Singh reviewed the security situation in the country on Friday, particular along the border with Pakistan in the wake of the surgical strikes by the Army on terror launch pads in PoK.

During the hour-long meeting, the top security brass of the country briefed the Home Minister about the situation along the border and steps being taken to foil any Pakistani design to attack BSF posts besides safety of civilian population living in forward areas.

The Home Minister instructed the officials to ensure that the forces posted along the border remain on alert as situation along the Indo-Pak border continues to be volatile after yesterday's surgical strike by Army, official sources said.

Those who attended the meeting include National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and top officials of security and intelligence agencies.

BSF, which comes under the Home Ministry, has already put all its units along the Indo-Pak border on "high alert".

Orders have been issued to all its units along IB in Jammu, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat to step up vigil and bolster their numbers at the posts by bringing in all personnel who are in the reserve.

BSF has also restricted all civilian movement along borders with Pakistan.The border guarding force has also been asked by the Home Ministry to provide manpower to local administration for helping in evacuating people from border villages to safer locations.

India carried out 'surgical strikes' on terror launch pads across LoC yesterday, inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists and those who are trying to support them.

The announcement of the sudden action by the Army was made yesterday by DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, 11 days after the terror strike by Pakistan-based JeM on an Indian Army camp in Uri in Kashmir which left 18 Indian soldiers dead.
Chennai: A dream holiday at Zurich became a nightmare to a family due to deficiency and unfair trade practice adopted by an international airline. They have approached Consumer Forum seeking compensation for re-scheduling the flight from Chennai to Abu Dhabi last year.

In the petition, Sujit Kumar of Velacherry, submitted that he was planned to spend vacation along with his wife and two children at Zurich, Switzerland last year. He booked flight tickets with Etihad Airways to reach Zurich through Abu Dhabi. He paid Rs 2.14 lakh for the tickets. They were scheduled to depart at 10 pm on May 13, 2015, from Chennai and reach Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, airport at 12.55 am on next day.

The counsel for the petitioner, Sanjay Pinto said they were expected to board the connecting flight 2.05 am and reach Zurich at 6.55 am. He said we had only an hour to catch the connecting flight at Abu Dhabi.

However, when they reached Chennai airport at 7.30 p.m to board flight to Abu Dhabi, he was shocked to notice that the flight was delayed and it was re-scheduled to leave Chennai at 1 am on May 14.

After lot of pleading, the Etihad Airways staff offered them an alternate route through Rome and they would reach Zurich at 6.55 pm after a delay of 12 hours. They had come forward to offer flight passing through Geneva.

As a result of unfair trade practice adopted by Etihad Airlines staff, he purchased alternate tickets from Emirates Airlines for Rs 1.52 lakh and hence he paid `42,532 extra for one way travel. The Etihad Airlines staff had not refunded the amount.
There are 78 lakh Muslims living in AP; of which 16 lakh Muslims are from the above-said groups. They complain that their children are barred from BC reservation as the government treats them as developed, while they are actually poor. (Representational image)

Guntur: Syeds, Pathans and Moghuls of the Muslim community are struggling for their livelihood. The three Muslim groups belonged to the ruling class for centuries. The government, taking this into consideration, denied them BC-E reservation in AP despite their penury.

There are 78 lakh Muslims living in AP; of which 16 lakh Muslims are from the above-said groups. They complain that their children are barred from BC reservation as the government treats them as developed, while they are actually poor.

Students Syed Ali, Pathan Subhani and Asif Khan said that officials are refusing their application for BC-E caste certificates. Muslim Aikya Vedika state president Sk. Jalil said the then British government gave reservation to Muslims but the present government is creating differences by categorising groups. He claimed that only a few Syeds, Moghuls and Pathans are financially well-off. A Majority of them are poor.

He said that the Vedika organised a meeting on Muslim matters on September 18 at Mangalagiri but the police foiled it, which shows the attitude towards the minority community.

Sk Jalil said that many Syeds, Pathans and Moghuls are working as wage labourers, autorickshaw drivers and foundry workers earning Rs 100 to 300 per day. They said that the old ruling class has become the working class. He demanded that the government issue BC-E certificates to Syeds, Moghuls and Pathans.

Indian Union Muslim League AP president Basheer Ahmed objected to the categorisation of Muslim groups and demanded that all Muslims be put under BC-E category due to poor economic conditions. He said that Muslims are 14 per cent in AP; so the government should give political reservation to Muslims by reserving 24 MLA seats and matching MP seats.

An Intermediate first ye-ar student, Syed Rafi said, My parents are labourers and I am trying for BC-E certificate for the past three years but in vain. He said that he was forced to become part-time worker to pay for his college fee, books and materials. The government should allow all Muslim groups to be eligible for the four per cent reservation under BC-E category, he said.
New Delhi: A member of special operation steam that carried out surgical strikes across LoC received minor injury during exfiltration but it was not due to any enemy or terrorist action, Army sources said today, trashing reports in Pakistan about Indian casualties during the operation.

They said some Pakistani TV channels are playing "morphed" video clips showing Indian Army casualties as part of "black propaganda".

"One member of the team involved in Surgical Operation received minor injury during exfiltration. The injury is not on account of any enemy or terrorist action," the sources said.

The Indian Army sources said, in another incident, a soldier from 37 Rashtriya Rifles had inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan side of LoC in Mendhar Sector and Pakistan has been informed by the DGMO about it on the hotline.

On Thursday, India said it carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.

Pakistan, however, dismissed it as "fabrication of truth" and a "quest" by India to create media hype by rebranding cross-border fire as surgical strike.
COLUMBUS  As students filed into her classroom and took their seats, Linda Mentink took her place in front of the piano.

A song was selected by the students, who opened the spiral-bound music books on their laps. Mentink, though, reached to her right to run her fingers over the buttons and raised dots on a device sitting on the bench beside her.

The small, wireless machine helps the Bible Baptist School music teacher with the notes. Blind since birth, Mentink relies on her memory and the electronic Braille device to play music when she is teaching class twice a week at the local school.

Mentink realized she wanted to be a music teacher while attending the Wisconsin School for the Visually Handicapped in Janesville. She was a student with other blind or visually impaired children who were taught a typical curriculum of reading, writing and math, along with Braille.

Mentink went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree with a certification to teach K-12 students and has given private piano and voice lessons since graduating from college. She taught for a year at the school in Janesville before moving in 2004 to Columbus, where she took a teaching job at Bible Baptist.

When shes not in the classroom, Mentink plays the piano for chapel services.

Mentink said she never felt limited by her blindness while growing up.

My mother was told by my doctor to treat her normally, dont treat her any different from the other kids, said Mentink, who lived at the Wisconsin school during the week and traveled to her home 60 miles away on the weekends.

Her education and support from the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) has helped her live independently.

Shane Buresh wants other blind and visually impaired people in the area to lead similar lives, which is why he is looking into starting an NFB chapter in Columbus.

Our main goal is to help blind people be participant members in every aspect in society and to be first-class citizens, said Buresh, who is involved with the NFB chapter in Lincoln.

He led a meeting Tuesday evening to gauge interest in the plan and provide guidance for a possible startup here. The meeting was also a prelude to next weeks National Federation of the Blind of Nebraska state convention to be held Oct. 7-9 at Ramada-Columbus.

The convention will feature several demonstrations, breakout sessions and a banquet. Registration can be completed at www.ne.nfb.org or at the event.

Buresh, like Mentink, has been blind his entire life. The 42-year-old has been involved with NFB for several years. His wife, Amy, serves as the organization's president.

NFB, which started in 1940, pushes for advocacy and opportunities for the blind.

We can accomplish nearly all the jobs that exist, even though that sounds fanciful. Every time I think there is something a blind person cant do, I find one who does it," Buresh said. "I used to say that blind people cant be medical doctors, but then I went to the national convention for this organization and there was a (blind) medical doctor on the agenda."

Mentink has been involved with NFB since 1975 and was part of the local Visually Impaired Persons (VIPs) group until it recently disbanded. She said these groups provide a supportive environment for those who are blind.

We can encourage each other and encourage them to not be afraid of your blindness. Even if you have partial vision, there are certain ways you can do things to make it easier for you, she said.

Buresh estimates there are 15 to 30 blind people in the community who could benefit from a local chapter. Family members are also welcome to get involved.

There are even sighted family members who want to be a supportive part of the group. Its for anyone who wants to advance blind people, Buresh said.

For more information on the group, call Buresh 402-440-4732.
Patna: The Patna High Court on Friday struck down the Bihar Prohibition of Liquor Act, calling it illegal.

The Bihar government had instituted a tough prohibition law this year to prevent consumption of liquor in the state. Starting April 1 this year, country-made liquor was banned. Then the ban was extended to Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL).

But the Nitish Kumar government went even further and introduced a provision in the law that allows action against all adult members of a family if liquor is found on their premises or one of them is suspected to have consumed it.

A division bench of the court comprising Chief Justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari and Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh quashed the April 5 notification of the state government to stop consumption and sale of alcohol in the state.

The April 5 notification is ultra vires to the Constitution, hence not enforceable, the court said in its verdict.

The same bench had on May 20 reserved its order on a batch of writ petitions filed by Liquor Trade Association and many individuals challenging the liquor law in Bihar brought by Nitish Kumar government with stringent penal provisions.

Earlier this month, 18 people died in a hooch tragedy in Bihars Gopalganj district. However, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar refused to term the tragedy as a failure of prohibition saying such incidents have happened in states where there was no ban on liquor.

Listing the virtues of the decision to declare Bihar a complete dry state in April last, Kumar said, "Steps taken by the state government (on alcohol ban) cannot be retreated."

On the loss of about Rs 5,000 crore revenue due to the prohibition, he said, "Around Rs 10,000 crore of the people are saved due to the liquor ban, which will be spent on good things and in turn further enhance the state's GDP."

The Court quashed the April 5 notification of the state government which had completely banned trade, manufacture and consumption of alcohol, Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) as well spiced and domestic liquor.

On the basis of experience in course of implementation of the Excise law, the state government had incorporated some additional provisions by way of Amendments enhancing duration of jail term, amount of penalty, arrest of adult members of a family in the event of recovery of liquour from home and community penalty among others.

The amended liquor legislation, after passage from both houses of the Bihar Legislature during recently concluded Monsoon session, was approved by the state Cabinet. It has got consent of Governor Ramnath Kovind too.

The Amended Liquor law was expected to be notified on October 2 next.

Asked about the fate of Amended Liquor legislation expected to be notified on October 2, Additional Advocate General Lalit Kishore said the court today quashed the April 5 notification.

"I would be able to talk more on the subject only after seeing the order of the court," he said.

Excise Commissioner A K Das said, "I cannot say anything at this moment as I have not seen the court's order".

Noted lawyer Rajiv Bhawan had appeared on behalf of the Bihar government on May 20 to defend the liquor law. Senior Advocate Y V Giri, who had appeared on behalf of

Restaurant and Bar Association, had argued that the Amended Act was itself "unconstitutional" because it creates unreasonable restrictions on choice of livelihood of a person which is protected under Article 21 of the Constitution.

The content of the petitions filed on behalf of Liquor Trade Association and some individuals were also on similar lines.

The court's order quashing liquor notification would be a severe jolt to the government.

The Chief Minister had taken up the cause of prohibition on a mission mode and has been continously monitoring the implementation of the alcohol ban in the state.

Kumar has also toured many places in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab championing the cause of prohibition.

As per the last data provided by the state Excise department on September 2, 11,679 litre of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) and 92,291.47 litre of country liquor were seized from April to August this year.

However, the ban on the sale and consumption of toddy had been lifted by the state government under pressure from JD(U) ally Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

The Jharkhand wing of the JD(U) had earlier accused Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of hatching a conspiracy against the liquor ban in the state.
New Delhi: Security agencies were apprehending that militants operating in Jammu and Kashmir could step up attacks against security forces and civilians following the surgical strike conducted by the Army targeting terror launch pads in PoK.

Quoting intelligence inputs, government sources said there is high probability of terror attacks being carried out by militants who have already sneaked into Jammu and Kashmir following instructions from their masters based in Pakistan.

These attacks may target mostly security forces serving in the Kashmir Valley and civilian areas in Jammu region. "We have put security forces in Jammu and Kashmir on high alert and asked them to be extra vigilant taking into account the prevailing situation," a source said.

There have been reports that after yesterday's operation, some terror camps along LoC were shifted to deep inside the PoK, sources said quoting intelligence inputs.

They said evacuation of civilians in some areas in Jammu and Kashmir and in Punjab has been done and they will not return till the situation becomes normal.

The sources also said the Indian soldier, who inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan, could be a "deserter" as he walked out of a group of soldiers and strayed into the Pakistani territory.

Army sources had said yesterday that "one soldier from 37 RR with weapon has inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control. Pakistan has been informed by the DGMO on the hotline."

Government has already issued a country-wide alert asking the states to heighten vigil to foil any attempt by Pakistan-based terror groups to carry out attacks amid apprehensions of backlash by terrorists.

India carried out 'surgical strikes' on terror launch pads across LoC on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists and those who are trying to support them.

The announcement of the sudden action by the Army was made yesterday by DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, 11 days after the terror strike by Pakistan-based JeM on an Indian Army camp in Uri in Kashmir which left 19 Indian soldiers dead.
Chennai: DMK President M Karunanidhi on Friday urged the Tamil Nadu government to "put an end to rumours" regarding the health of AIADMK supremo and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa by providing proper information to the people, while wishing his arch rival a speedy recovery.

"As I had already mentioned, though I differ with her ideologically, it is my desire that she recovers soon and take up official duties as usual," he said and wished her a speedy recovery.

Karunanidhi said although Apollo hospital, where the Chief Minister is recuperating from fever and dehydration, was issuing bulletins about her health, "some unwanted rumours" were deliberately being floated by "some persons."

"Some persons are spreading unwanted rumours about her health on the social media and to put an end to these, proper information about the Chief Minister's health must be made available to the people," he said in a statement.

Karunanidhi suggested that photographs of the Chief Minister be released through the media to quell any kind of rumours being circulated about her health.

Jayalalithaa (68) was admitted to the hospital on September 22 after she complained of fever and dehydration. She has been advised to stay for a few days at the hospital.

Meanwhile, AIADMK slammed the rumour mongers and said efforts were being made to confuse people and party workers. "Some persons are trying to create confusion among people and party workers by spreading rumours," party spokesperson C R Saraswathy said.

She pointed out that Jayalalithaa has been, among others, monitoring the Cauvery situation from the hospital while also announcing festive bonus for state government employees on Wednesday.

Expressing concern over rumours being spread through social media, the spokesperson said such platforms should be used in a constructive way.
New Delhi: About 70-80 commandos from two separate battalions of Para Special Forces (SF) were carried out the attacks and destroyed seven terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) in the early hours of Thursday.

The commandos had combed a staggering area of 250 km to target the terror launch pads.

According to a report in The Indian Express, after midnight, commandos of 4 Para SF crossed the LoC at the Tutmari Gali area in the Nowgam sector of Kupwara, while those of 9 Para SF crossed between Balnoi and Nangi Tekri in the Poonch area.

They used shoulder-fired Carl Gustav 84mm rocket launchers and automatic grenade launchers to destroy the launch pads, according to the dailys sources. Mi-35 attack helicopters were also kept on stand-by for any emergency, but the Air Force bases were not informed about the ground operation.

According to a report in NDTV, the commandos had to trek for ten hours, before they could reach the launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) that were in the range of 2 to 3 km from the LoC. The area had been under surveillance for over a week.

Read: A day after surgical strikes, Pak army opens fire on Indian posts along LoC

The operation had received a go ahead only on Wednesday afternoon and helicopters were flown out in pairs to carry out the operation. They conducted several sorties to divert Pakistans attention into certain sectors, including Uri, so facilitate easy movement of the commandos.

After an arduous trek of ten hours, the commandos crossed the LoC in Poonch and Nowgam sectors and reached their targets by 1:45 am. NDTV quoted its sources as saying that it is was an almost moonless night, which was very crucial to the operation, helping the commandos go unnoticed.

They returned to the Indian side of the border by 4:30 am on Thursday and the operation was officially called off at 8 am.

Read: India turns heat on Pakistan to release jawan taken captive

By the time Pakistan reacted to the surgical strikes, Indian troops were back to their bases, almost unscratched. Only one jawan sustained minor injuries from the mine he had stepped on at the Indian side of the LoC.

The Army chief congratulated all ranks of Udhampur-headquartered Northern Command for the successful planning and conduct of surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads.

One soldier, who had been captured by Pakistan on Thursday, was not part of the surgical strikes team and had inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control. The government said it is doing all it can to secure his release.
Top defence experts on Thursday termed the surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the LoC in PoK as an operational necessity. (Photo: PTI/Representational)

New Delhi: India took several steps to lay the groundwork for surgical strikes, and made sure several major countries knew about the increase in infiltration from Pakistan into India, before conducting the strikes across the Line of Control on Thursday.

According to a report, the government presented mounting evidence gathered by India including captured terrorists. The evidence was presented to the P-5 countries and key nations such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE, all allies of Pakistan.

Next, India launched a diplomatic-political offensive, which included giving information to the Pakistan envoy and responding to the country at the United Nations.

After Modis speech in Kerala, India re-examined the Indus Waters Treaty, and also decided to review Pakistans Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status.

DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh was cautious, describing the surgical strikes as being along the LoC but the operation was conducted across the LoC, said the report. Singh also immediately informed his Pakistani counterpart of the strikes, calling it a one-off and expressing sympathy for Pakistani soldiers killed. It was pitched as a counter-terror operation instead of a military strike, giving Pakistan less room to complain on the international stage and pressuring it to restrict retaliatory action. Nevertheless, India expects some retaliatory action from the enemy nation, said the report.

After the strikes, national security adviser Ajit Doval had a phone conversation with his US counterpart Susan Rice. The subsequent White House readout said that the US strongly condemned the Uri attack instead of commenting on the strikes.

The government briefed the President, vice-president, former PM Manmohan Singh and the Kashmir leadership before going public with the news of the surgical strikes, said the report.
New Delhi: The Indian Armys Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) on Thursday provided clear information on the surgical strikes conducted across the Line of Control (LoC) in response to the Uri attack from Pakistan.

According to a report, in the spectrum of military options available to the Army this was the most plausible, and the most expected. Moreover, the information was handled in a highly professional way, which is a departure from the past.

India correctly assessed that the threshold of Pakistani red lines would be higher than that affected a surgical operation across the LoC, former commander of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps writes in a newspaper. Moreover, seven strikes instead of just one or two added to the credibility of the operation.

Read: India raids PoK after 45 years, destroys 7 terror launchpads along LoC

What is a surgical strike in military terms? It is an operation where trained troops rapidly move into enemy territory and head for a selected objective, to target it and are not diverted by any other opportunities that may arise until the identified objective is neutralised.

It can be carried out stealthily, or with the use of precision strikes by long-range weapons. Such weapons may be used if the element of surprise is lost during the operation. But a fire assault by long-range weapons would not be construed as a surgical strike in the subcontinental sense. For the US though, using drones to strike targets in far-off countries is seen as an acceptable example of a surgical strike.

Ground incursions to a depth of maximum 3-4 km must have been made during the operations, said the report. Deeper operations would require helicopter transportation where chances of sustaining heavy casualties are high.

Intelligence on terrorist concentrations in the pre-winter season is usually available with the Army and has been used well in this attack.

Pakistan has so far rubbished the strikes, but this could just be a strategy to buy time for assessing the situation. The Pakistani establishment was likely taken by surprise at the strikes, but is likely to retaliate in some way. It could be in the garb of a terror strike by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) or the United Jihad Council (UJC) or other such terror groups.

India-Pakistan is the hybrid form of conflict which requires a hybrid response. But apart from diplomatic and economic measures, using the military option is also necessary to complete such a response, said the report. The PM needs to be complimented for his decision and handling of the response, the report in the Times of India adds.

However, a strong follow-up is now required. India must stay ahead of Pakistan diplomatically in order to achieve a measure of long-term success, says the report.
New Delhi: Hours after Supreme Court on Friday set aside the Patna High Court order granting bail to controversial RJD leader Shahabuddin in a murder case, he surrendered before Siwan district court and was sent to divisional jail.

The apex court had ordered that either the gangster-turned- politician should surrender or Bihar police should take him in custody "forthwith".

Shahabuddin said that he found out about the cancellation of his bail through other people, adding that he is yet to receive the order himself. "I surrendered here the moment I heard about the court's decision from people. I will abide with it as I have always respected the Supreme Court's order," he said.

A bench comprising Justice P C Ghose and Amitava Roy directed the state government and the lower court to ensure that the trial in the Rajiv Roshan murder case is concluded "expeditiously as contemplated under the law".

Meanwhile, the court issued notice to Shahabuddin and Bihar government on another plea seeking cancellation of bail granted to him in a murder case of two brothers of Roshan.

Shahabuddin has been awarded life imprisonment in the twin murder case and the Patna High Court had granted him bail in this matter as well.

The apex court, which yesterday reserved its verdict on two appeals challenging the grant of bail to him by the Patna High Court, had rebuked Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government, which has RJD as its coalition partner, for its lax approach in opposing the bail granted to the RJD strongman in various cases at different judicial forums including the High Court.

Bihar government, which had drawn flak from the court since the beginning of the hearing on appeals, was questioned yesterday for not providing a copy of the charge sheet to Shahabuddin for 17 months in the Roshan murder case.

Roshan, the eyewitness to the gruesome killings of two of his younger siblings, was also killed few days before his proposed testimony in the murder case of his brothers.

The bench had referred to the trial court records and said it cannot simply go by "inferences" drawn from various happenings in lower courts, as the order sheets revealed that police records were not provided to the accused.

Lawyer Prashant Bhushan, appearing for Siwan-based Chandrakeshwar Prasad who lost his three sons in two separate crimes, had vehemently opposed Shahabuddin's contention that he was not provided the case records including charge sheet for 17 months after it was filed in the trial court.

Senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, appearing for Shahabuddin, had said there was concerted efforts to delay the trial and for that reason, the chargesheet was not provided to him.

Moreover, the prosecution did not have evidence to prove Shahabuddin's involvement in the conspiracy to murder, he had said.

Senior advocate Dinesh Dwivedi, representing Bihar government, had said every factor should be taken into account and court should not "unleash this man to the society" as "liberty is not absolute" and only one eyewitness remained.

Shahabuddin, who was granted bail by the Patna High Court on September 7, was released from Bhagalpur Jail on September 10. He was in jail for 11 years in connection with dozens of cases against him.

On September 19, the apex court had sought a response from Shahabuddin on a separate plea filed by Siwan resident Chandrakeshwar Prasad, challenging the bail granted to him by Patna High Court, in the murder case of his third son.

The apex court is also hearing a separate plea filed by the widow of journalist Rajdev Ranjan, who was murdered in Siwan allegedly at the instance of Shahabuddin, seeking transfer of the case to Delhi.

Kalawati Devi, wife of Chandrakeshwar Prasad and the mother of three youths who were brutally killed by henchmen of the controversial politician, had also moved the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of bail granted to him in the case in which he has already been sentenced to life.
New Delhi: One more soldier, who was critically injured in the Uri attack, on Friday died of his wounds, taking the toll to 19.

The soldier was undergoing treatment at Army's Research and Referral Hospital here. He succumbed to his injuries, defence sources said.

The Uri Army base was attacked by heavily-armed Pakistani terrorists on September 18 in which 18 soldiers were killed.

The terrorists are suspected to have come from a militant training camp located at a place called Pir Chana Sai in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK). During interrogation, two persons who were arrested for allegedly helping the four terrorists as "guides" said that they had started their journey from Pir Chana Sai in Gyarahbad in PoK where the militants have a training camp, official sources said.

The two -- Faisal Hussain Awan and Ahsaan Khursheedboth residents of Muzaffarabad in PoK, were produced before a designated court in Jammu which remanded them in NIA's custody.

The duo has since been brought to the national capital where they would be interrogated by a joint team of officials of various security agencies besides being subjected to scientific tests.

During their preliminary interrogation, the two have reportedly admitted to having facilitated infiltration by a group of four JeM militants who carried out the Uri army camp attack.

India has reacted strongly to the deadliest attack on the Army in Jammu and Kashmir in a quarter-century-old insurgency that sparked an outrage with the Prime Minister strongly condemning it.

The External Affairs Minister raised the issue of Uri attack at the UNGA in a strongly worded speech that left the Pakistan struggling to deny the accusations, toeing the traditional line that India was making unfound allegations.

Meanwhile, India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, seen as a reprisal for the Uri attack.
New Delhi: All attempts are being made to secure the release of an Indian soldier, who inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Friday.

Singh said the government has taken note of the reports which stated that an Indian soldier is in Pakistan's captivity.

"All attempts are being made to secure his release," he told reporters here.

The Home Minister also said that New Delhi will take up the matter with Islamabad for his early release.

Indian Army sources had said yesterday that "one soldier from 37 RR with weapon has inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control. Pakistan has been informed by the DGMO on the hotline."

The sources had said that his crossing over was not related to the surgical strikes.

"Such inadvertent crossing by Army and civilians are not unusual on either side. They are returned through existing mechanisms," they had said.

The Indian Army had yesterday rejected as "false and baseless" reports in a section of Pakistani media that eight Indian soldiers were killed and one captured by Pakistani military in retaliatory fire.

Indian Army sources said, "As regard (to the) report of killing of eight Indian Army personnel reported in sections of Pakistan media, the report is completely false and baseless."

Army's reaction had came after Pakistan's Dawn News reported that Pakistani military has claimed that it has killed eight Indian soldiers and captured one while retaliating to India's firing at the first line of defence at the Line of Control (LoC) at Tatta Pani.

India had carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the Army inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.
According to Yelahanka traffic police, the duo consumed alcohol and partied till 1.30 am, after which they set off on a common friends bike for a joyride. (Representational image)

Bengaluru: A joyride on a friends motorbike after consuming alcohol proved costly for two youths who died on the spot after the bike rammed into a compound wall in Yelahanka New Town early Friday.

The deceased have been identified as Adarsha Vasudeva, 23, the rider, a first year MBA student of Sambhram Institute of Technology in Jalahalli East and pillion rider Isaac Antony, 24, a B. Tech graduate, who came to city in search for a job. Both of them were friends and temporary residents of Yelahanka New Town and hailed from Kerala, the police said.

According to Yelahanka traffic police, the duo consumed alcohol and partied till 1.30 am, after which they set off on a common friends bike for a joyride. The accident happened around 2.30 am when Adarsha lost control of the bike and crashed into a compound wall of a building nearby.

As the family members of the two deceased are yet to reach Bengaluru from Kerala, the post-mortem did not happen until Friday evening, the police said.
Ahmedabad: D G Vanzara, a key accused in the Ishrat Jahan and Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter cases and currently out on bail, will be launching an NGO to "protect the human rights of the victims of terrorism."

Apart from Vanzara, former Gujarat DGP S S Khandwawala and former Maharashtra DGP K P Raghuvanshi are also a part of the NGO--Justice for Victims of Terrorism.

The NGO will fight for the rights of terror victims by providing them legal assistance through a team of legal experts, and offer them platform to voice their opinions and concerns, he said, adding that the organisation has been registered and would be formally launched here on October 9.

Vanzara has been designated as General Secretary of the NGO, while Khandwawala will be the Chairman and Raghuvanshi the Vice Chairman of the organisation. V D Gajjar, who is Vanzara's lawyer in encounter cases, will be the Secretary.

"Terrorism is a global problem and India is also facing it. There are many NGOs in the country that are working to defend the human rights of terrorists. The rationale behind our NGO is to protect the human rights of victims of terrorism," said Vanzara, who was the former chief of Gujarat Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS).

"There are many innocent people who have been victimised because of terror strike. Our objective through the NGO is that human rights of victims of terrorism should also be defended and they should also be helped. We will give them legal assistance and take care of their welfare, and also provide them a platform to speak about their victimisation," he said.

Former Intelligence Bureau Special Director Rajinder Kumar and Justice (retd) B J Sethna will be the chief guests of the inaugural function of the NGO's launch, which will be presided over by Justice (retd) B C Patel, member of National Human Rights Commission and former chief justice of Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir high courts.
Hyderabad: Finance minister Etela Rajender on Thursday slammed Congress and Telugu Desam leaders for levelling baseless allegations against the TRS government over irrigation projects, flood havoc and new districts.

He challenged that he will rub his nose on the ground if Opposition proves that successive governments in the past had allocated over 3,500 cusecs of water to Kakatiya Canal as claimed by some Opposition leaders.

Mr Rajender warned that punishment was inevitable for those supporting AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu while living on Telangana soil.

People rejected Congress and TD, these parties are living in the dark. TD termed agriculture as a waste and farmers demanding 7-hour power supply were fired upon. The TRS government has stood by the people in rains and flood, he said.

Mr Rajender added, Congress turned Jalayagnam into Dhanayagnam. From 2005 to 2014, it did not give waters to even 5 lakh acres. No work was done on projects announced by the Congress. One of them is the `400 crore Mid Manair project
CHENNAI: Despite the DMDK becoming the first party to name candidates for all 200 wards in Chennai corporation, there are widespread doubts over its sustainability as a key force in the state politics as it stares into a challenging and uncertain political future.

For a party, which was the most sought after ally in the political arena for the Assembly elections, fortunes have hit the rock bottom after the poll debacle and wave of exodus. After the first round desertions before the elections, another wave of exodus followed the election results. Again, another round of desertions has begun ahead of the local body elections.

The exodus followed DMDK leader Vijayakanths rejection of pleas from partymen to boycott local body polls. The actor is determined to show the partys strength in local body elections and prove that the DMDK is a force to reckon with. In the 2011 civic body elections, the DMDK put up candidates in almost all the local bodies in the urban areas and vigorously entered the fray in the villages too for the posts of union and district panchayats.

Vijayakanth snapped ties with the AIADMK and entered the race after making seat adjustments with CPM in the 2011 polls and secured over 10 per cent votes.

But, 2016 seems to be a different ball game altogether as the party functionaries are finding it tough to get the candidates as well as the financial resources to field nominees throughout the state. The nomination of 200 nominees at one go for Chennai appears to be a desperate ploy to boost the cadres morale and alter the public perception.

The DMDK which derived its strength from the other northern districts earlier, finished in the third place in only eight out of the 100 seats it contested. It is here the partys chances of revival appear very dim and the party is finding it hard to get people who can get decent number of votes.

Political analyst Aazhi Senthilnathan said DMDK may not be able to get 10 per cent votes as it did last time. Party functionaries with local support have winning chances and there can be some partymen with local influence left in the party.

The partys vote share had come down to five per cent from 10 per cent in the 2014 Parliament polls and to 2.5 per cent in the 2016 Assembly polls. A further dip will mean the end of the road for a party which rejected the offer of king-maker and wanted to be the king, just a few months ago.

Congress cadres threaten to fight DMK

The DMK on Thursday released the list of candidates for Madurai, allocating just seven of the 100 wards to the Congress, even while Congress functionaries in a few cities threatened to contest against DMK nominees. The Dravidian party has allocated seven out of the 103 wards for which it released the list of nominees.

DMK general secretary K. Anbazhagan announced the list for Madurai corporation and said his party would put up nominees in 88 wards. While seven seats went for the Congress, Manithaneya Makkal Katchi got two wards and Union Muslim League one. The candidates for two more wards will be announced later, he said.

Despite TNCC president S. Thirunavukkarasar glossing over the resentment in the Congress, partys Tiruchy district secretary Jerome Arockiaraj, a loyalist of former TNCC president E.V.K.S. Elangovan, openly expressed discontent over the allocation. He said Tiruchy is one of the strong areas of the Congress and added that he could not avoid a situation of Congress men contesting against DMK candidates, if the allotment for the national party is not increased.

The Congress is trying to get more wards in the prestigious metropolis of Chennai and are pitching for 22. But, the DMK, which has released a list of candidates for 103 wards had given just seven to the Congress. The Congress lost all the seats it was given in and around the city, in the 2016 Assembly elections, while the DMK managed to beat the AIADMK in most of the city constituencies.

In an interesting fight at Sivakasi municipality in South Tamil Nadu, Congress and DMK have worked out a deal with Tamil Maanila Congress to defeat the AIADMK. The agreement was worked out at the local level by functionaries of the three parties.
New Delhi: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will be launching her campaign for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections from Allahabad on November 19, which is the birth anniversary of her grandmother, the late Indira Gandhi.

The choice to lauch her campaign from Allahabad is significant since the Nehru-Gandhi family home, Anand Bhawan, is located in the city.

Vadra will pay homage to family ancestors before embarking on her first campaign outside Rae Bareli and Amethi, the constituencies of her mother Sonia Gandhi and brother Rahul Gandhi.

According to highly placed sources in the Congress, the route map of Ms Priyanka Gandhi Vadras campaign is being drafted.

She will be campaigning for those seats where the Congress is in a good position and only a push will be needed to win the seat. We have identified around 100 seats and Ms Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will be campaigning in about 50 seats in the first phase, said a party strategist.

In her speeches, Ms Vadra is expected to lay emphasis on the need to strengthen her brother Rahul, thus sending a clear message that she is not ready to take over party responsibilities and is campaigning only to help her brother to revive the Congress in Uttar Pradesh.

Ms Vadra, however, will not be sharing the dais at any meeting with her mother Sonia or brother Rahul. Party sources said that barring a few paces, Ms Vadra will mostly be campaigning on her own.

However, all party posters will show Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Ms Vadra in equal prominence.

Mr Rahul Gandhis campaign will end in October and we will be preparing an impact report on his Kisan Yatra. Ms Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will lead the second phase of the campaign in November and Mrs Sonia Gandhi will campaign in the final phase, the source said.

A dedicated group of workers are already drafting the talking points of her speeches that will be specific to various constituencies.

Priyanka mostly speaks extempore, but we have been asked to list out issues that are specific to important constituencies, the source added.

This story originally appeared in the Asian Age
Chinsurah: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said landowners in Singur will get possession of land after Durga Puja festival.

"After Puja all land owners will get their land back. It will be fit for agriculture," Banerjee said after an administrative review meeting here in Hooghly district.

She said she was happy to be part of the fight of farmers who were getting back their land.

State minister Partha Chatterjee said they were never against industries, but against having industries on a multi-crop land.

"We were never against the Tatas. We told them you can do the factory on the other side," he said.

According to him, 1,768 land owners have so far taken cheques from the government while 10,747 'parchas' (land deeds) have been given so far.
Based on receiving specific and credible inputs that some terrorist teams had positioned themselves at launchpads along the Line of Control to carry out infiltration and conduct terrorist strikes inside Jammu and Kashmir and in various metros in other states, the Indian Army conducted surgical strikes at several of these launchpads to preempt infiltration by terrorists. The operations were focused on ensuring that these terrorists do not succeed in their design to cause destruction and endanger the lives of our citizens. During these counter-terrorist operations significant casualties were caused to terrorists and those providing support to them. The operations aimed at neutralising terrorists have since ceased. We do not have any plans for further continuation. Thus spake Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, the director-general of military operations, on September 29.

However, much remains unclear as the operational details have been consciously left opaque. Does the open acknowledgment of operation along the LoC as opposed to across the LoC represent a strategic shift? Or is it a tactical one-off to quench the public cries for retribution? This becomes germane as many former service chiefs have now publicly stated that this is only a first in terms of its public profiling. Has the government factored in the mitigation measures in case of an escalation spiral? Is the country ready to go all out if the push comes to shove? Or is it just a transitory but collective physiological catharsis? Would these new methods lead to a change in the behaviour of the Pakistani deep state? Finally, has India called Pakistans nuclear bluff? Prior to the proclamation of this yet unnamed operation by the Army, Pakistans defence minister had threatened India in an interview on September 26. He said: Tactical weapons, our programmes that we have developed are for our protection. We havent kept the devices that we have just as showpieces. But if our safety is threatened, we will annihilate them (India).

He had made a similar comment on Geo TV on September 17, a day before the terrorist attack in Uri, stating: We are always pressurised (sic) time and again... that we have more tactical weapons than we need if anyone steps on our soil and if someones designs are a threat to our security, we will not hesitate to use those weapons for our defence. Given that Pakistans armed forces are believed to be the custodians of their nuclear assets and the strategic plans division (SPD) is charged with the remit of management and administration of the countrys tactical and strategic nuclear weapons stockpile, the question still hangs  how much seriousness should be ascribed to the Pakistani defence ministers bellicose sabre rattling? However there is an alternative reality too that should not be igno-red. In Pakistan, there is a National Command Authority that oversees the operations of the Pakistani Army, Air Force and Navy strategic commands. The Prime Minister of Pakistan is the chairman of this command, with the defence, foreign, interior, finance and science ministers as its members.

The service brass are represented by the chairperson of the joint chiefs of staff, the three service chiefs, the commander of the marines and the director-general of the SPD who also functions as the secretary of the National Command Authority. Sadia Tasleem of the Quaid-i-Azam Universitys department of defence and strategic studies in Islamabad in her writings for the Carnagie Endowment Project entitled Regional Voices on the Challenges of Nuclear Deterrence Stability in Southern Asia, articulates: Whatever the specifics of Pakistani nuclear doctrine may be, it is safe to assume the doctrine as a whole is specific to India. Therefore, it is best to consider this doctrine as it has evolved and as it exists today  primarily based on Pakistans perception of security threats emanating from India. She further adds Since the early years of its nuclear programme, Pakistan has refused to declare a no-first-use policy; the country retains the option of using nuclear weapons first in the event of a war. This policy appe-ars to have remained constant because of the growing conventional weapons asymmetry in Indias favour. Thus, by keeping the first-use option open, Pakistan aims to deter any kind of attack against its territory. There is a broad consensus in both the academic and policy communities in favour of retaining the first-use option.

Thus two things are exceedingly clear that Pakistans nuclear weapons programme is India-specific and that there is a broad consensus in Pakistan that the first-use option must be retained. Since Pakistan has denied that any surgical strike had taken place there seems to be no immediate danger. Still India, erring on the side of caution, is getting its border villages evacuated as it anticipates a blowback. However, given that if there is going to be a public pronouncement of every action along the LoC, the action-reaction scenario could quickly spin out of control. India, therefore, needs to redouble its efforts to defang Pakistans nuclear programmee by exhibiting to the international community how irresponsible a nuclear weapon state Pakistan is as manifested not only in the recent statements of its defence minister but its proliferation record including, but not limited to, the A.Q. Khan nuclear Wal Mart. Of course, it is easier said than done for Pakistan invests a lot of time, money and energy in trying to convince the world about the safety, stability and reliability of its nuclear programmme.

There are, however, big chinks in its armour and that is in the form of the wild rhetoric around the much-vaunted desire to flaunt its battlefield nuclear weapons or tactical assets that sets alarm bells ringing in responsible quarters around the world. While it worries the United States and other responsible nuclear weapons states, it must equally worry China given that it has North Korea on its northeastern border and Pakistan on its southwestern border  both notoriously pugnacious in their nuclear brandishing. While brinkmanship under a nuclear overhang may be a tactical response, strategic smartness ultimately entails creating an international coalition that impels Pakistan to eschew its weapons of mass destruction. Remember the missile flying time between India and Pakistan and vice versa is much less than the response time.
Salesforce has strongly opposed Microsoft as it inches closer towards taking over Salesforce. (Representational image)

American cloud computing company Salesforce has expressed dissatisfaction as Microsoft closes in on a deal to acquire Linkedin for $26.2 billion.

Salesforce, which is a direct competitor to software giant Microsoft, is trying to block the take over; it claims that Microsoft purchasing Linkedin would significantly hurt competition.

The cloud computing major said the acquisition of Linkedin would give Microsoft access to all of the social networks data and it might be reluctant on sharing with competitors alike.

According to Wall Street Journal, Burke Norton, Salesforces chief legal officer, said there are several discrepancies related to privacy issue involved in the deal, and called for an investigation from the US and European Union (EU).

He further pointed out that Linkedins acquisition by Microsoft threatens the future of innovation and competition.

Too late?

While Salesforce have raised questions of the deal, it has been learnt that Microsofts take over plan has already been reviewed by copious regulators from unnamed countries, subsequently giving a green signal to the deal.

In a classic scenario of a company face-off, Brad Smith, Microsofts chief legal officer, gave a fitting reply to Salesforce, informing them the deal has already been cleared to close in the United States, Canada, and Brazil.

Taking a dig at Salesforce, Smith said: Were committed to continuing to work to bring price competition to a CRM market in which Salesforce is the dominant participant charging customers higher prices today.

As of now, Salesforce hasnt filed a formal complaint against the takeover, but sources confirmed that the company has already completed a form sent by the EU. These forms are handed out to companies who face risk from such major deals.

Salesforce also made it clear that it wants to work closely with regulators, lawmakers and other stakeholders to deem this merger as anticompetitive.

The EU had earlier assured that it will closely look into data deals which had the potential to affect competitors and violate privacy. No formal investigation has begun yet.

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Facebook said that the data will be used for their internal analysis and will help the company improve their services ahead and also help in targeting advertisements to users on Facebook.

In an official statement to Deccan Chronicle, WhatsApp said that they will comply with the orders issued by the Delhi High Court on September 23. The Delhi High Court ruled in favour of the PIL filed by two Indian students which opposed to Facebook and WhatsApps decision on sharing users data with their entire platform. The court directed WhatsApp to stop sharing users data collected up to September 25 with its parent company Facebook Inc.

Also read: WhatsApp twist: High Court allows new privacy policy enforcement

On September 23, a division bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal asked WhatsApp not to share users data collected over the year up to September 25, with Facebook or any other company. Facebook-owned WhatsApp had changed their privacy policy on August 25 which stated that the messaging platform will be sharing their users data with the parent company Facebook Inc and all other companies below Facebook.

This data will be used for their internal analysis and will help the company improve their services ahead and also help in targeting advertisements to users on Facebook. Users had a 30-day time frame to decide if they want WhatsApp to allow their data to be shared across and September 25 was the last date for users to opt in or out.

Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, on behalf of WhatsApp, said that the messaging service, under its new privacy policy, will only share the users name and phone numbers from his contact book with Facebook and its companies.

Also read: WhatsApp removes option for sharing information with Facebook

WhatsApp does not have access to any data as it provides end-to-end encryption. We only have access to the person's name and number which is also obtained by online consent. We are abiding by the central government's regulations for messenger apps. We are not dealing with sensitive information at all, Luthra said.

Senior advocate Pratibha M Singh, who represented the two Indian students (petitioners) Karmanya Singh Sareen and Shreya Sethi, argued that WhatsApp is sharing the entire data with Facebook even if users opt out of the new policy.

The bench slammed WhatsApp to remove all user data collected before September 25, and of those who deleted their accounts before the platforms new privacy policy that took effect from September 25. The High Court had also directed the TRAI to take the matter into priority and consider bringing WhatsApp and similar OTT-based services under regulation.

However, there was no action confirmed from WhatsApp or Facebook after the HC ruling.

In Germany, the government had too ruled against the data sharing move by WhatsApp, and Facebook did not comply with the decision. Facebook has now planned to appeal against the said ruling in Germany, reported Reuters.

While many reports claim that Facebook could appeal to the higher court in India too, it was believed that WhatsApp would continue to share the data with Facebook. We reached out to WhatsApp to find out if they were following the Delhi High Courts ruling and they replied in positive.

WhatsApp will comply with the order from the Delhi High Court. We plan to proceed with the privacy policy and terms update in accordance with the Courts order. The courts emphasis on the importance of user choice and consent is encouraging, a WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement to Deccan Chronicle via email.

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Samsung said it takes reports of Note 7 fires in China very seriously and has conducted inspections on such devices.

Samsung the world's biggest smartphone maker, said on Sept. 29 more than 1 million people globally are now using Galaxy Note 7 smartphones with batteries that are not vulnerable to overheating and catching fire.

Samsung on Sept. 2 initiated a voluntary global recall of at least 2.5 million Note 7 smartphones due to faulty batteries causing some of the flagship devices to catch fire, a deeply embarrassing crisis for a firm that prides itself for its quality control. The recall could cost the company billions of dollars and tarnish its brand image, analysts say.

The South Korean firm has said the Note 7 phones that were sold starting on the official Sept. 1 launch date use a different battery than the recalled devices. But a string of reports by users in China, the world's top smartphone market, that their Note 7s caught fire have dogged Samsung in a country where they have already fallen out of the top five in terms of market share.

Samsung, in a statement issued on its China website, apologised to its consumers for failing to providing a detailed explanation why the smartphones on sale in China were safe, as they used batteries that came from a different supplier to those that could overheat.

"Currently, the brand new Note 7 products that have been swapped in overseas markets are using identical batteries to those that were supplied and used for the Chinese version," Samsung said.

Samsung said it takes reports of Note 7 fires in China very seriously and has conducted inspections on such devices. Batteries for the burnt phones were not at fault, Samsung said, adding its conclusion was also backed up by independent third-party testing.

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The airstrike occurred in the early morning on Wednesday, hitting what US officials said was an Islamic State target. (Photo: AP)

Geneva: At least 15 civilians were killed and another 13 wounded in a US drone strike in eastern Afghanistan, the United Nations said late on Thursday, calling for an independent investigation into the incident.

The airstrike occurred in the early morning on Wednesday, hitting what US officials said was an Islamic State target in Achin district of Nangarhar province.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said some militants may have been killed in the strike, but many of the victims were civilians, including students, a teacher, and members of families considered to be "pro-government".

"UNAMA reiterates the need for all parties to the conflict to adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law," the United Nations said in a statement.

"UNAMA calls on the government and international military forces to launch a prompt, independent, impartial, transparent, and effective investigation into this incident."

The civilians had gathered in a village to welcome the return of a local elder who had completed the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and were sleeping when the strike occurred, according to witnesses.

The US military command confirmed it conducted an air strike in Achin aimed at Islamic State militants, but said it is gathering information on the allegations of civilian casualties.

"We take every possible measure to avoid civilian casualties in these operations, and will continue to work with Afghan authorities to determine if there is cause for additional investigation," US forces said in a statement.
A Filipino student protests against the killings being perpetrated in the unrelenting War on Drugs campaign of President Rodrigo Duterte (Photo: AP)

Davao, Philippines: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday likened his deadly crime war to Hitlers efforts to exterminate Jews, as he declared he was happy to slaughter millions of drug addicts.

Duterte also railed against Western critics of his unprecedented law-and-order crackdown, which has left more than 3,000 people dead in three months and raised concerns about a breakdown in the rule of law in one of Asias most chaotic democracies.

Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines). Id be happy to slaughter them, Duterte told reporters in his home city of Davao shortly after returning from Vietnam.

At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have, he said, then paused. But you know, my victims, I would like to be (sic) all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition.

Duterte won elections in May in a landslide after a campaign dominated by his pledge to eradicate drugs in society by killing tens of thousands of people. Since Duterte came to power on June 30, police have killed more than 1,200 people and about 1,800 others have died in unexplained circumstances, according to official figures.

His analogy with Hitler, whose campaign to wipe out Jews in Europe led to about six million deaths by the end of WWII, triggered more condemnation. Any comparison of the singular atrocities of the Holocaust with anything else is totally unacceptable, German foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said.
Wollongong: An Australian man has been sentenced to 12 years in jail for sexually abusing his teenage daughter for over a decade and fathering several children with her.

According to a report in Daily Mail, the man had pleaded guilty of repeated sexually abuse of his child and incest offence at the Wollongong District Court on Thursday.

The man is also accused to sexually abusing his two siblings, including his younger brother in 1980. He pleaded to the charge of homosexual intercourse with a male under 10 years.

He first raped his daughter when she was just a child and continued to sexually assault her for 11 years. The psychologist of the accused said that the man dealt with his personal problems by indulging in sexual acts and was highly sexualised. He is a repeat offender and began committing sexual offences at a very young age and his first victims were his own siblings, when they were just children.

The court was told that his daughter had suffered emotionally, psychologically and physically due to the years of abuse at the hands of her father. He had even impregnated her several times during the course of abuse. On one occasion, she had to undergo abortion, which was arranged by her father.

The man was accused of subjecting her to severe abuse and causing a gross breach of the trust that every daughter must have in her father.
Gloria Macleod was refused entry to the UK at Inverness airport on Monday after being told she did not have the correct visa. (Photo: Facebook)

London: An Indian woman, who lives in Scotland with her Scottish husband and two young daughters, is faced with the threat of being deported and separated from her family as she did not have the "correct type of visa."

Gloria Macleod, whose husband Robert grew up in Dingwall in the Scottish Highlands but is currently working in Dubai, was refused entry to the UK at Inverness airport on Monday after being told she did not have the correct visa.

She was placed on a temporary admission order, which expires tomorrow.

Local MP Ian Blackford is in talks with the UK Home Office about Macleod's situation, which could see her daughters left in the care of elderly grandparents if she is deported.

Macleod, an Indian passport holder, travelled from the UAE with her husband and their children Siobhan, 11, and Meaghan, 10, who are British citizens, to Scotland to set up a family home in Dingwall.

The children were enrolled in a local school in the area.

She holds a UK C-visit passport, issued by the British Consulate in Abu Dhabi in December 2009 and is valid for 10 years.

To allow her to stay with her children in Dingwall, Macleod and her husband made an application to stay in the UK while Robert Macleod continued to work in Dubai.

Blackford said the Macleods were advised by the Visa Office, acting on behalf of the UK Immigration Service, that this application had to be lodged in person in Dubai after which she would be able to return to the UK.

"Macleod followed exactly the instructions given to her by the immigration service and is now being penalised for this. Her visa is still current and has not been violated in any way. I have yet to fathom any reason why these actions have been taken," the MP said.

"What is beyond understanding is the attitude of the Home Office, who are removing a mother from her family, leaving two young girls in the care of elderly and infirm grandparents for no apparent reason. This must not be allowed to happen and I will do all I can to stop this madness immediately," he added.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "A visitor visa cannot be used to enter the UK for the purpose of permanent residence. It is the responsibility of those seeking to enter the country to ensure they hold the correct type of visa. Macleod was granted temporary admission to the UK and we are considering further representations in relation to her case.
It is not clear whether the girl told her mother about the sex attacks before she left Russia, or whether her father was with them. (Photo: File)

Moscow: A 10-year-old British girl who had travelled to Russia with her mother was repeatedly raped for a week, said reports.

The pair was supposed to stay with another British man who has an estate in the village of Porechye, in Volokamsk district in the north-western Moscow Oblast region.

But the 53-year-old man was not at his estate when the assaults happened.

The sex attacks reportedly happened over a period of several days between 8th and 14th August. However, instead of taking any action, the girls mother chose to return to France before they made a complaint.

French police then contacted their Russian counterparts who launched a probe, said reports.

It is not clear whether the girl told her mother about the sex attacks before she left Russia, or whether her father was with them.
In this photo provided by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, shows wounded receiving treatment at a local clinic after airstrikes hit Aleppo, Syria. (Photo: AP)

Moscow: The Russian military said on Thursday that its ready to resume contacts with its US counterparts over the situation in Syria, even as US Secretary of State John Kerry threatened to cut all cooperation with Moscow on Syria unless an onslaught on Aleppo ends.

Lt Gen Viktor Poznikhir of the military's General Staff said that Russian experts are ready to travel to Geneva to restart consultations with the US to search for possible ways of normalizing the situation in Aleppo. A US-Russian truce in Syria has collapsed and the Syrian government forces backed by Russian warplanes have launched an attempt to take control of the rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo.

Mr Kerry said Wednesday the US is preparing to suspend US-Russia bilateral engagement on Syria, including talks on a possible counter-extremist partnership, unless Russian and Syrian government attacks on Aleppo end.

More than 250 people are believed to have been killed in the besieged city in the last week. Poznikhir didn't make any reference to Kerrys statement, saying only that Russia was ready to continue discussions.

Its expected that Russian experts will be sent to Geneva shortly to resume consultations with the American side, he said. We hope that American partners are also ready for joint work, he said.
"View of the Sea at Scheveningen" by Van Gogh was one of the stolen paintings.

Rome: Italian police have recovered two paintings by the Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh that were stolen in Amsterdam 14 years ago, as part of an operation against the Camorra mafia group that operates around Naples.

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam said the paintings had been removed from their frames but appear to have suffered only slight damage. It was not immediately clear when they would be returned to the museum, which is the largest repository of Van Gogh's work.

The paintings, "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen" (1884/5) and "View of the Sea at Scheveningen" (1882), are both from relatively early in Van Gogh's short, tempestuous career.

Italian financial police seized "assets worth tens of millions of euros from a Camorra group involved in international cocaine trafficking", according to a statement. They said the assets included the paintings, which were "priceless".

"They're safe," said Van Gogh Museum director Axel Rueger said in a statement. "I no longer dared to hope that I could ever say that, after so many years."

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi informed his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte about the police operation before the funeral in Jerusalem of former Israeli leader Shimon Peres, a source in Renzi's office said.

In the 2002 heist, thieves used a ladder to climb onto the museum's roof and break into the building, escaping by sliding down a rope.

Two men were later caught and convicted of the theft thanks in part to DNA evidence linking them to the scene. They were sentenced to 4 years and 4 years six months, respectively, but the paintings were not recovered.

The Scheveningen painting is one of only two sea scenes Van Gogh painted in the Netherlands, and "an important example of Van Gogh's earliest painting style, in which he already appeared rather unique", the museum said.

The museum said a patch of paint in the lower left corner had been chipped off.

The painting of the Nuenen congregation where Van Gogh's father worked as minister was made for his mother and finished after his father's death in 1885. It appears undamaged but further investigation is needed to determine both paintings' exact condition and restoration needs, the museum said.
Locals panicked as a result of the attack, and Frontier Corps personnel reached the site to initiate investigations. (Photo: Representational Image)

Tehran: Iran border guards on Thursday fired three mortar shells into Pakistan s restive Balochistan province, triggering panic among the local population.

Mortar shells fired by Iranian border guards landed in the district of Panjgoor, a provincial government official said.

Two of the shells landed near Frontier Corps check-post, while the third landed at Killi Karim Dad, the Dawn quoted the official as saying.

No property or human loss was reported in the shelling.

Locals panicked as a result of the attack, and Frontier Corps personnel reached the site to initiate investigations.

Security forces tightened security at the border after the incident.
Hanadis lust for revenge reportedly comes from the fact that Al Qaeda and ISIS have together murdered two of her husbands, her father and three brothers since 2003. (Photo: Facebook)

Baghdad: An Iraqi housewife and militia commander named Wahida Mohamed alias Um Hanadi, has attained notoriety for her acts of violence against Islamic State (IS) members, and has received personal death threats from its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Her crime? She has been fighting ISIS in its various forms since 2004, and employs gruesome methods of executing her victims.

According to reports, Um Hanadi kills ISIS terrorists, beheads them and cooks their heads. She also publishes pictures of herself hoisting the heads of decapitated extremists in the air.

Um Hanadi told CNN, I fought them. I beheaded them. I cooked their heads, I burned their bodies.

Hanadis lust for revenge reportedly comes from the fact that Al Qaeda and ISIS have together murdered two of her husbands, her father and three brothers since 2003.

ISIS and Al Qaeda have tried to kill Hanadi six times between 2006 and 2014, but failed. Most have been car bomb plots. She has suffered several wounds to her arms and head as a result of the attacks.

Leading a brigade of 70 militia, she has driven ISIS from her Iraqi village armed with only Kalashnikovs, said the reports.

Um Hanadi reportedly claims that she is even higher on ISIS hit list than the Iraqi prime minister. Despite her head, arms and legs being littered with shrapnel wounds, she refuses to stop fighting, said the reports.
Islamabad: Fuming over Indias decision not to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) summit in Islamabad, Pakistan on Wednesday termed the move as unfortunate.

Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said, While we have not received any official communication in this regard, the Indian announcement is unfortunate, he said.

However, Pakistan said it will go ahead and host the event in November. Zakaria said Pakistan will host the 19th Saarc summit in November, Radio Pakistan reported on Wednesday. Besides India, three other Saarc members  Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan  have pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding of the meet.

Under the Saarc charter, the summit is automatically postponed or cancelled even if one member country skips the event.

Decoding Saarc

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) is regional inter-governmental organisation in South Asia

Who are its members?

Its member-states are India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Basic info

It was founded in Dhaka in 1985. Its secretariat is based in Kathmandu.

What is its purpose?

Desirous of promoting peace, stability, amity and progress in the region through strict adherence to the principles of the United Charter and Non-Alignment

Figure this

3% of worlds total area is represented by Saarc countries

21% of worlds population is reflected in Saarc

9.12% of global economy, as of 2015, happens to be in Saarc
Beijing: Day after surgical strikes, China apprehends that India will deploy the 36 nuclear-capable Rafale fighter jets to be acquired from France in the border regions of China and Pakistan to enhance its deterrence capability, a media report here said.

India will deploy the new French-made fighters in the disputed areas bordering Pakistan and China, state-run Global Times reported quoting Shenzhen Television.

A recent report by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said India is the largest arms importer in the world, the newspaper said.

Increased arms imports into the Asian region are primarily due to the unstable security environment in the Middle East and concerns from China's neighbours over its rise.

The Rafale fighters in flyaway condition carry tactical nuclear warheads, and this means India's nuclear deterrence capability will be greatly improved, Shenzhen Television reported.

"India also wants to purchase the Rafale technology from Dassault but France refused, meaning France has no intention to help India promote its military industrial system," Zhao Gancheng, director of South Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies said.

While India is rapidly expanding its military capabilities spending an estimated USD 100 billion on new defence systems, many other countries with an advanced military industry are also competing for India's market, such as Russia, the US and Israel, the daily quoted SIPRI report as saying.

Zhao said before this deal with France, India was also considering the US-made F-16s. "India picked French-made jet fighters because they are cheaper and have a nuclear deterrence capability," he said.

SIPRI's list of the top 10 arms importers for 2011-2015 has nine Asian or Asia-Pacific countries.

Many of China's neighbours are also on the list of top 10 importers, such as Vietnam, South Korea and India, he said. "Due to the South China Sea dispute and the increasing power of the Chinese navy, countries like Vietnam and the Philippines are very concerned, but the US is not helping China solve the problem peacefully," said Song Zhongping, a Beijing-based military expert.

"The US government and media are hyping the 'China Threat Theory,' trying to convince countries in Asia that China is on the offensive," he said.

India recently signed Rs 58,000 crore deal for Rafale fighter jets, equipped with latest missiles and weapon system besides multiple India- specific modifications that will give the IAF cutting edge capability over arch rival Pakistan.

These combat aircraft comes equipped with state-of-the-art missiles like 'Meteor' and 'Scalp' that will give IAF a capability that had been sorely missing in its arsenal. The features that make the Rafale a strategic weapon in the hands of IAF include its Beyond Visual Range (BVR) Meteor air-to-air missile with a range in excess of 150 km.

Its integration on the Rafale jets will mean IAF can hit targets inside both Pakistan and across the northern and eastern borders while staying within India's territorial boundary.

The report came a day after India said it carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.

Pakistan at present has only a BVR with 80 km range. During the Kargil war, India had used a BVR of 50 km range while Pakistan had none. However, Pakistan later acquired 80-km-range BVR, but now with 'Meteor', the balance of power in the air space has again tilted in India's favour.

'Scalp', a long-range air-to-ground cruise missile with a range in excess of 300 km, also gives IAF an edge over its adversaries.
Lahore: An honourary title given to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif by Queen Elizabeth II was on Friday challenged in the Lahore High Court on the grounds that it was a "mark of slavery" and against the "national interest".

The 'knighthood' given to Sharif by the British monarch in 1997 was challenged in the court by barrister Javed Iqbal Jaffery.

"Sharif has become prime minister again and the LHC has been requested to order him return the title to the British Queen as he had lowered dignity of Pakistanis by accepting a title of slavery," Jeffery said.

The petitioner said Sharif's decision to receive the title was also a violation of the Pakistan Constitution Articles 2-A and 249 as he should have taken the Parliament and the Cabinet into confidence before agreeing to receive the title.

The court will fix the date of hearing in the case next week.
SAARC leaders at last year's summit which was held in Dhulikel in Nepal.

Colombo: Following Indias footsteps, Sri Lanka on Friday announced that it is pulling out of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit, which was scheduled to be held in Pakistan this November.

Sri Lankas decision comes just two days after Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Bhutan too decided to pull out of the summit, citing that the environment is not conducive to host such a meet.

Regret that prevailing environment in region is not conducive for holding 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad on 9th & 10th November. General Provisions of SAARC Charter require decisions at all levels shall be taken on the basis of unanimity and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States as well, a statement from the Sri Lankans Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Without naming Pakistan, Sri Lanka also attacked the country over the issue of terrorism. We condemn terrorism in all forms and stress in this regard need to deal with issue of terrorism in region in decisive manner, the statement said.

"As a founding member of SAARC, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our regions peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation," the statement added.

India had pulled out of the SAARC summit on Tuesday, saying that the current atmosphere was not conductive for holding a successful summit; the same reason had been cited by all the other countries that followed suit.

The Ministry of External Affairs had issued a statement, saying, "India has conveyed to current SAARC Chair Nepal that increasing cross-border terrorist attacks in the region and growing interference in the internal affairs of Member States by one country have created an environment that is not conducive to the successful holding of the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad in November 2016."

"In the prevailing circumstances, the Government of India is unable to participate in the proposed Summit in Islamabad", the statement said.

Diplomatic tensions between India and Pakistan have been rising since the September 18 attack on an Army base in Jammu and Kashmirs Uri that killed 18 Indian soldiers.

India on Thursday carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launchpads across the LoC, inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday called a special Cabinet meeting to discuss the latest tension with India and the situation on the LoC, a day after Indian Army conducted surgical strikes on terror launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The Prime Minister chaired the meeting, which is "expected to put across collective response of the nation to the challenge thrown by the latest events," Radio Pakistan reported.

Read: India turns heat on Pakistan to release jawan

In their remarks before the meeting, members of the Cabinet reiterated the resolve of the government to 'defend the motherland' at all costs.

Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said support to the "just struggle of the Kashmiri people would remain priority of Pakistan and it would not back down on this account".

He said India is indulging in "diversionary tactics" in a bid to deflect attention of the international community from its "brutalities" against Kashmiris.

Read: India raids PoK after 45 years, destroys 7 terror pads along LoC

He added Pakistan would confront India diplomatically but "our armed forces are also fully prepared to defend the country".

Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif reiterated that Pakistan does not want escalation of tension but it is "ready to meet any eventuality".

He said Pakistan would respond "befittingly" to any firing by India across the Line of Control (LoC).

The Defence Minister said India is displaying irresponsible attitude" and trying to play to the gallery in a bid to "hoodwink" its public opinion.

He said India cannot suppress legitimate aspirations of Kashmiri people.

In a first, India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, with the Army saying it inflicted "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK, days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned Uri attack would not go unpunished.

Minister for Commerce Khurram Dastgir said India is creating artificial tension in its attempt to divert attention of the world from its atrocities against Kashmiris.

Minister for Kashmir Affairs Chaudhry Barjees Tahir said the world pledged right to self-determination through UN resolutions decades back and now the fifth generation of

Kashmiris is protesting for this right. He said Indian policy of suppression of legitimate struggle of Kashmiris would neither benefit India nor the region.

Secretary Foreign Affairs Aizaz Chaudhry is expected to brief the Cabinet on the Kashmir issue and tensions between Pakistan and India along the LoC.

The Cabinet meeting came amid reports that Pakistan's UN Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi is meeting the world body's chief Ban Ki-moon to inform him about the "continued provocations" by India along the LoC.
Jamali's decision comes after heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, particularly after India carried out surgical strikes against terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control.

Islamabad: Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali has cancelled his visit to India next month, citing "present conditions", media reports said on Friday.

Jamali has refused to attend the global conference slated to be held in India from October 21-23, Radio Pakistan reported.

In July, Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale had personally invited CJP Jamali to the conference on national initiative to strengthen arbitration and enforcement.

Read: India raids PoK after 45 years, destroys 7 terror pads along LoC

In a letter to the Indian Supreme Court, Jamali said that in the "present conditions" he could not attend the meeting, the News International reported.

The decision was made due to tense situation between the two countries, the report said.

A senior Supreme Court official said that though the Foreign Office recommended that the CJP may attend the conference, Jamali has refused to visit India in light of prevailing circumstances, the Express Tribune reported.

Jamali's decision comes after heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, particularly after India carried out surgical strikes against terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control.

Earlier this week, India officially pulled out of the upcoming South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) conference to be held in Islamabad.
Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday postponed the SAARC Summit to be held in Islamabad next month after India along with four other member states of the regional grouping decided against attending the meet.

"Pakistan deplores India's decision to impede the SAARC process by not attending the 19th SAARC Summit at Islamabad on 9-10 November 2016," the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.

It claimed that the spirit of the SAARC Charter is "violated" when a member state casts the shadow of its bilateral problems on the multilateral forum for regional cooperation.

Read: Day after surgical strike in Pakistan, Sri Lanka too pulls out of SAARC

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was looking forward to welcome the SAARC leaders for their participation in the summit. All preparations had been made for "successful" holding of the summit, the statement said.

It alleged that decision by India to "derail the summit" effectively "contradicts" Prime Minister Narendra Modi's own call to fight against poverty in the region.

"India's decision to abstain from the Summit on the basis of unfounded assumptions on the Uri incident is a futile effort to divert attention of the world from the atrocities" by India in Kashmir, the Foreign Office said.

"Pakistan attaches great importance to regional cooperation under the umbrella of SAARC. Therefore, Pakistan remains committed to hosting the 19th SAARC Summit at Islamabad at the earliest so that the objectives of regional cooperation under the SAARC umbrella can be pursued more vigorously," it said.

The Foreign Office said a new set of dates for holding of the summit in Islamabad will be announced soon, through Nepal, which is currently the SAARC Chair.

"Accordingly, we have conveyed the same to the Prime Minister of Nepal," it said.

Besides India, four other SAARC members -- Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan -- pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding of the meet.

Citing continuous cross border terrorism by Pakistan, India had announced earlier this week that "in the prevailing circumstances, the Government of India is unable to participate in the proposed Summit in Islamabad."

SAARC member states include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung on Thursday told Delhi Police to show concrete results on checking crimes against women by adopting a policy of zero tolerance against tormentors of women.





Jung advised police to activate local committees and engage with local NGOs working with women in their areas. He also instructed that patrolling be intensified, particularly in areas, which are more vulnerable and prone to such incidents.



Jung, who controls Delhi Police, held the review in the backdrop of the AAP government and Delhi Commission for Women Swati Maliwal accusing him of failure to improve law and order and making women feel safe.



The attacks on Jung and Delhi Police got louder after the gruesome stabbing of a woman by her spurned lover in Burari on September 20. The incident revived memories of a similar attack on a woman in Anand Parbat in 2015 in which the victim was stabbed several times.



He issued the directions in a meeting with Police Commissioner Alok Kumar, Special Commissioners (Law and Order), Joint Commissioners (all ranges), all DCPs and issued instructions for strict action and compliance with those.



Jung alerted the officers about hardships faced by people from North East states residing in Delhi and cautioned them to be careful of any targeted crime against them.



He said that individual responsibility of officers, including SHOs of the area, shall be fixed if there are crimes against people from North East states residing in Delhi.



On communal harmony, he said police must isolate elements trying to disrupt peace and communal harmony and deal with them strictly. SHOs should intensify their engagement with peace committees and regularly engage with people in their areas.



Jung also highlighted the issue of growing incidents of motor vehicle thefts and snatching and directed personnel of all ranges and districts to work concertedly towards bringing crimes down through greater intelligence gathering and by being extra vigilant.



He directed the DCPs to ensure that the conduct of SHOs and their subordinate staff, especially when dealing with the public, is of the highest standards. He instructed the police personnel on duty to demonstrate sensitivity to people and their issues.



There can be no substitute for honesty and hard work. Please remember the two most sacred books for you are the Constitution of India and the CrPC, he said.
DCW chief Swati Maliwal was on Thursday questioned by the Anti Corruption Branch at her office for over two hours in connection with alleged irregularities in recruitment in the womens panel.





A five-member team of the ACB visited the DCW office around 3 PM and interrogated Maliwal for over two hours, said a senior ACB officer. Maliwal was served a notice by the ACB on September 21 that she will be interrogated on September 29.



Maliwal has submitted a written reply that runs into 20 pages to the questionnaire that she was given on September 19 by the ACB officers who had interrogated her. The questionnaire had 27 queries and Maliwals answers will be analysed and further investigation will be carried out in the matter, he said.



The ACB had taken up the probe on a complaint by former DCW chief Barkha Shukla Singh, who said several AAP supporters were given plum posts in the womens panel.



After the questioning, Maliwal, in a series of tweets, said that she has nothing to hide and will cooperate in investigation.



ACB questioned me on 27 points. Gave them all information. Have nothing to hide. Will cooperate in investigation. Not scared even of jail (sic), she tweeted.She wrote that she is not scared of going of jail.



Even if I am sent to jail, I will continue my fight against the unjust system to seek empowerment of women, she tweeted. Singh, in her complaint, had listed the names of 85 people who, she claimed, got jobs without requisite credentials.



The ACB had been probing the matter for the last two-three months and based on the questioning of Maliwals employees, it was found that due procedure was not followed in appointments, and an FIR under relevant section of Prevention of Corruption Act and sections 409 (criminal breach of trust) and 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the IPC was registered against the womens panel chief.



The ACB will also be questioning some Delhi government officials and the complainant will also be questioned again to seek clarity on some points, said the ACB officer.




Kader along with his accomplice Ali Khan was arrested by a special team of Kolkata Police in a joint operation with Delhi Police from their hideout in an apartment in Ghaziabad last night, the officer said.





Sources in Kolkata Police said the duo would be brought to the city on transmit remand and likely be produced at a local court tomorrow.





The victim, a mother of two, was gangraped on February 6, 2012 by five men who had offered to drop her home from a night club at city's Park Street area.





Acting on a tip off that Kader, absconding since the incident, sleuths of Kolkata Police started tracking his mobile calls, he said.





Soon after he was located somewhere near New Delhi, sleuths started zeroing on him. On Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar's instruction, a special team was formed to nab Kader.





"We had information that Khan has returned to the country and was having regular interaction with his family members in Kolkata over phone. We started tracking their numbers and found that calls from a particular number from Ghaziabad were made... We started tracking it and found that it was Kader's," the officer said, adding that Kader had rented the apartment in Ghaziabad under a psuedo name.





It was learnt that Kader was hiding in Bangladesh and after running out of cash he returned to Delhi through Nepal.





After keeping him under surveillance for almost a week, a joint team of Delhi Police and Kolkata Police team raided his hideout last night and arrested him, the IPS officer said.





A few days later when the victim filed her complaint, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had termed the incident as "sajano ghatana" (fabricated case), triggering a controversy.



Damayanti Sen, the then Kolkata Police Joint Commissioner (crime) had pursued the case and identified the five accused. She was later shunted out from her post.

Three of the five accused were arrested and two including prime accused Kader Khan absconded.



Nine months after the victim died of meningitis in March 2015, the city sessions court had convicted the accused persons  Ruman Khan, Naser Khan and Sumit Bajaj  and sentenced them to 10 years rigorous imprisonment.

Over four years after the infamous Park Street gangrape case, Kolkata Police has arrested the prime accused Kader Khan from Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad district.
All attempts are being made to secure the release of an Indian soldier, who inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said today.





Singh said the government has taken note of the reports which stated that an Indian soldier is in Pakistan's captivity.



"All attempts are being made to secure his release," he told reporters here. The Home Minister also said that New Delhi will take up the matter with Islamabad for his early release.



Indian Army sources had said yesterday that "one soldier from 37 RR with weapon has inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control. Pakistan has been informed by the DGMO on the hotline."



The sources had said that his crossing over was not related to the surgical strikes."Such inadvertent crossing by Army and civilians are not unusual on either side. They are returned through existing mechanisms," they had said.



The Indian Army had yesterday rejected as "false and baseless" reports in a section of Pakistani media that eight Indian soldiers were killed and one captured by Pakistani military in retaliatory fire.



Indian Army sources said, "As regard (to the) report of killing of eight Indian Army personnel reported in sections of Pakistan media, the report is completely false and baseless."



Army's reaction had came after Pakistan's Dawn News reported that Pakistani military has claimed that it has killed eight Indian soldiers and captured one while retaliating to India's firing at the first line of defence at the Line of Control (LoC) at Tatta Pani.



India had carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the Army inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.
Scientists have identified five different genes in dogs which may be responsible for their unique ability to communicate and cooperate with humans.





Four of these genes also show similarities to certain conditions in humans, researchers said.



"Our findings are the first to reveal genes that can have caused the extreme change in social behaviour, which has occurred in dogs since they were domesticated," said Professor Per Jensen from Linkoping University in Sweden, who is the leader of the research group.



The dog is the oldest domesticated animal and during thousands of years it has adapted to a life among humans. During this period dogs have developed unique abilities to communicate and cooperate with humans.



In this respect, they are widely superior to their wild ancestors, the wolves, researchers said.



Facing a difficult task, most dogs seek contact with a human, apparently to solicit help. In similar situations, wolves generally attempt to solve the problem themselves.



Researchers wanted to study the behaviour of the dogs by presenting them with an unsolvable problem.



The task was to open a tight lid to obtain a treat. Almost 500 beagles with similar earlier experiences of human interactions were part of the behavioural studies.



Scientists used video recordings to quantify the willingness of the dogs to seek physical contact with a person in the room when the problem turned out to be too difficult.



For more than 200 of the dogs also the DNA was studied. By using a method called GWAS (genome-wide association study), the researchers examined a large number of genetic variants throughout the genome.



GWAS can be used to find out if a particular genetic variant is more common among individuals with a particular trait, such as contact seeking behaviour in this case.



It turned out that the contact seeking dogs more often carried certain genetic variants.



"We found a clear association with DNA-regions containing five different interesting genes," said Mia Persson, PhD-student at Linkoping.



"If the associations we have found can be confirmed in other dog breeds it is possible that dog behaviour also can help us to better understand social disorders in humans," Jensen added.



The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.
More than 3,800 civilians have been killed in one year of Russian air strikes in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad, a monitoring group said today as international outcry mounted.



Assad's regime and its key backer Russia are under growing pressure from world governments to halt a new offensive pounding rebel-held areas of the battleground city of Aleppo.



More than 9,300 people have been killed in the Russian raids since September 30, 2015, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.



The toll includes more than 2,700 jihadists from the Islamic State group and around 2,800 fighters from various rebel factions, the British-based monitor said.

At least 20,000 civilians have been wounded in the Russian raids, it said.



The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information, says it determines what planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.



Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said the death toll from Russian strikes could be even higher given the number of people killed by unidentified warplanes.



Moscow said yesterday that it would press on with its bombing campaign in Syria, ignoring a threat by Washington to suspend its engagement over the conflict following escalating attacks on rebel-held parts of Aleppo.



Regime and Russian aircrafts have carried out a barrage of strikes on east Aleppo since the Syrian government announced an offensive last week to retake all of the divided city.



The bombardment has been some of the worst in Syria's five-year civil war, and follows the failure of a short-lived ceasefire brokered by Russia and the United States.



Moscow and Washington have traded blame for last week's collapse of the ceasefire deal that would have marked the first step in a new effort to end the war that has killed 300,000 people since 2011.



US Secretary of State John Kerry admitted yesterday that months of diplomacy to end the war had hit a dead-end.



"I think we are on the verge of suspending the discussion because, you know, it's irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place, to be sitting there, trying to take things seriously," he said.



US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned what they called "barbarous" Russian and Syrian regime air strikes on Aleppo during a phone call, the White House said.



UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien told the Security Council in New York that Aleppo is descending into a "merciless abyss of a humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed so far in Syria."



More than 100,000 children remain trapped in east Aleppo, he said.



Two of the largest hospitals in the city's east were bombed on Wednesday in what UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described as a war crime.



Save the Children said that bunker-busting bombs meant it was too dangerous for children to return to even underground schools in Aleppo when classes resume this weekend.



The "ferocious assault" on Aleppo could deprive almost 100,000 school-age children of an education, said the charity, which supports 13 schools in the city, eight of them underground.
Aviation regulator DGCA has partially lifted the ban on use of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 in flights, allowing passengers to use the device purchased after September 15 which has "green battery charge indication".



The ban remains on Galaxy Note 7, which has seen battery overheating, manufactured before September 15 and having a white battery charge indication on the screen.



On September 9, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) prohibited the use of Galaxy Note 7 on board flights as also carrying them in checked-in baggage following a series of incidents of the smart phone's battery exploding in various countries.



The restrictions do not apply to "Samsung Galaxy Note 7 purchased after September 15, 2016, which have green battery charge indication on their screen," DGCA said in a notice.



In a statement, Samsung said customers can identify the new Galaxy Note 7 with the green battery icon. Devices displaying this visual icon are safe to charge and use during the flight, it added.



"It is important to note that Samsung has not sold a single unit of Galaxy Note7 in India so far. The 'green battery icon' will apply to all Galaxy Note7 units that will be sold to customers in India when it is launched," the company said.



The public notice, issued on Thursday, comes days after Samsung executives met DGCA officials. The meeting also came against the backdrop of a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 catching fire on an IndiGo flight from Singapore during landing at Chennai airport on September 23.



According to the latest DGCA notice, Samsung has recalled Galaxy Note 7 sold before September 15 that have white battery charge indication on their screens.



Meanwhile, the investigation is progressing on the fire incident involving Galaxy Note 2.

Sources said initial findings indicate that the incident happened due to "some external damage" to that particular Galaxy Note 2.



Earlier this month, Samsung recalled its Galaxy Note 7 devices after finding some of their batteries exploding or catching fire.
Director of a medical consultancy firm and close aide of a wanted gangster was arrested from South West Delhis Dwarka, police said on Thursday.





A resident of Palam Village, Prashant Vashishth, 33, was providing logistic and financial help to Nafe Singh, a gangster against whom several cases of murder were registered in Chhawla police station.



Some years ago he came in contact with Nafe Singh for some investment in a piece of land in village Ghummanhera. Vashishth was purposefully providing logistic and financial support to Singh so that he can use him in future, said a police officer.



Singh, who has been on the run for the last nine months, was financially helped by Vashisth.



In the last few months, Vashishth has given financial assistance of around R 13 lakh to Singh. In lieu of his financial help, Singh had promised him a plot in in village Ghummanhera. He also procured an English pistol from Singh, said a police officer.



Vashishth was arrested when he came to meet Singh at a school in Dwarka sector 10 on September 26. A loaded pistol of .32 calibre with four live cartridges was recovered from his possession.



Studied up to class 12, Vashishth started his career as a marketing executive 15 years ago. He used to provide medical services to patients on commission basis, and had attended various colloquium, seminars and conferences in many hospitals.



In 2005, he was arrested at Tilak Marg police station for claiming medical claims on forged bills. With the passage of time, he gained perfection in providing medical consultancy and services to the patients in various hospitals and worked on commission basis.
The long porous nature of the land border between India and Nepal and the almost complete absence of immigration procedures make Nepali girls and boys more vulnerable to getting trafficked into India, a report by an NGO points out.





A six month appraisal on child trafficking by Caritas India, an NGO of catholic bishops, has highlighted key trends across the Indo-Nepal border with a view to evolve directions for future interventions.



The findings come almost a month after a couple, along with six of their associates, was arrested by Delhi Police for their involvement in human trafficking.



They had been running several brothels in Delhis GB Road and the syndicate that they were running is suspected to have trafficked more than 5,000 girls from Nepal and different states of India.



"In majority of cases, local uncles (someone from the same village or neighbourhood) take the child away from their home and drop them at exploitative destinations," the report said.



As per the findings, trafficking of boys from Nepal to India across the land border at Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and other places is at present rampant and growing over the past few years.



Both Nepalese girls as well as boys get trafficked across the Indo-Nepal land border from Nepal to India. The age of 13 years is the watershed year that conclusively precipitates trafficking.



Boys are mostly trafficked for labour sector exploitation. Serious lack of local wage opportunities is the strongest predisposing factor that functions as the push factor. However, the presence of centrally organized criminal syndicate is not observed or confirmed, the findings said.



The study also highlights callousness on the part of service providers. For instance, at the state as well as at the civil society sector, the system of proper data management and case management is absent.



Several skill sets such as psycho social counselling is also missing at the level of personnel operating on ground.



The report in its recommendations have urged government and civil societies to put more emphasis on protecting potential victims from exploiters by means of education, intensify vigilance at transit points, increased engagement with the children and adolescents between the age of 13 and 18 in human resource development, ensure compulsory education upto the age of 13 years, strengthen victim assistance services and Juvenile Justice system, revive pre-existing child protection institutions, and encourage safe migration and tracking via biometric record.



There is also the need to seal of the Indo-Nepal border and introduction of strict verification procedures through official gates and closer scrutiny.



Although the exact number of people exploited in 2016 is not known, an earlier report by the Ministry for Home Affairs shows that the number of cases of human trafficking reported in 2015 alone was 46 when compared to 8 in 2012. The unofficial figures is expected to be much higher.
To deal with the problem of overcrowding in government schools in the capital, the Delhi government is in the process of identifying land and reallocating students, with a special focus on schools in North-East area.





Many schools in Delhi's north-east district have a peculiar problem of "over-population" in classrooms as the district shares border with Uttar Pradesh and many students from places outside the Delhis border such as Ghaziabad get admission in the schools located in areas such as Karawal Nagar, Yamuna Vihar, Gokalpur, Dayalpur, Shahdara, Sonia Vihar, etc.



The idea is to dencongest classrooms by identifying land in other areas where students of the overcrowded schools will be transported through buses.



The government has already identified some land in Burari in north Delhi where classrooms will be built for students from schools which adjust over 100 students in one class at a time.



"North-east is a very difficult area. It is the most congested. Since students cannot be asked to go to far away areas on their own, a bus service like in private schools will be run. We will identify few spots and pick up students from there. The cost will be borne by the government," said a government official.



The official, however, added that implementing the plan will take at least two years. Where the government schools in other parts of the city have an average of 1,000-1,500 in terms of students and run in two shifts, in this district, the average number is around 6,000 and many schools run in four shifts.



The schools in the district have also recently seen mass failures and subsequent protests. Even the Delhi High Court had expressed concern this month over the sad state of affairs at an overcrowded government school in Sonia Vihar area.



"To execute this, we need to identify more land and start building schools. This will take at least two years. We are trying to locate a lot of land from any government agency, be it DJB, Revenue, DUSIB," the official said.



Till then, the government is focussing on increasing the classrooms in existing schools. The official added that every school in the district is getting new rooms built in a bid to manage the problem.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the possibility of emergence of nuclear suicide bombers from Pakistan if jihadists get access to the country's atomic weapons, a media report has said.





"We live in fear that they're going to have a coup, that jihadists are going to take over the government, theyre going to get access to nuclear weapons, and youll have suicide nuclear bombers. So, this could not be a more threatening scenario," the New York Times said, quoting Clinton as saying in an audio being hacked from Democratic Party's computers.



"Pakistan is running full speed to develop tactical nukes in their continuing hostility with India," the former secretary of state told a close door fundraiser in Virginia in February, the paper reported, citing 50-minute audio that appeared on the website of The Washington Free Beacon.



During the fund raiser, responding to a question on modernisation of nuclear weapons, the daily said, Clinton went beyond the question to warn of an emerging nuclear arms race, naming Russia and China as well as Pakistan and India.



"This is one of the most dangerous developments imaginable," Clinton said.



Such remarks from the former secretary of state gains significance in view of an interview of Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif to the local TV channel in which he threatened to unleash nukes against India.



"If our safety is threatened, we will annihilate them (India)," Asif had said.

The United States appears to have taken a strong note of Asif's recent statements on use of nuclear weapons.



"Nuclear capable states have the responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities," a state department official told PTI when asked about the statements being made by the Pakistani leader.



Earlier, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had said while India has generally shown responsible behaviour with nuclear technology, China conducts itself professionally, nuclear weapons in Pakistan are entangled in history of tensions.



Meanwhile, in an opinion 'Consequences of Pakistani Terrorism: Raids signal that India wont tolerate more attacks in Kashmir', The Wall Street Journal warned that Pakistan increasingly risks becoming a "pariah state" if it continues with policies.



It said if Pakistan wants to prevent an escalation of violence it needs to shut down the terror groups it continues to support. "That should start with Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two major jihadist groups that operate openly in Pakistan and are prime suspects in these attacks," it said.



"Both groups are supported by its military despite being on United Nations lists of terrorist organizations," the daily said in the hard-hitting opinion piece, a day after India carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir against terrorists planning to sneak into the country.



The Journal noted that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently offered closer economic and diplomatic ties to Pakistan as long as it stops supporting terrorism.



Pakistan, it argued, needs a new vision centered on improving the lives of its people.


Karnataka has maintained its inability to release water to Tamil Nadu citing low storage in its reservoirs and drinking water needs of Bengaluru and neighbouring districts. Both the Legislative Assembly and the Council on September 23 had also adopted a resolution not to provide water for any other purpose except to meet drinking needs, citing "acute distress" and "alarmingly low levels" in dams.



The opposition BJP and JD(S) have expressed disappointment over the Supreme Court's order and the stand taken by Nariman, representing the state in the case. Terming court order as "shocking", BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa said the order to release 6,000 cusecs till October 6, does not note of the ground realities.



Yeddyurappa said BJP has been seeking replacement of Nariman and also that the state government has to go before another bench as it may not get justice from the current bench. "...BJP as a national party suggests Chief Minister not to release water by sticking to the decision taken by both the houses of the legislature, we are with you," he said.



Former prime minister and JD(S) Supremo H D Deve Gowda said, "Whatever might have been his differences over the issue of release of water, Nariman could have said one sentence to the Court when it ordered the constitution of Cauvery Management Board."



He opined that the senior advocate could have said the "issue (where Karnataka has challenged the final order of the Cauvery Tribunal) is coming up before a Supreme Court bench on October 18."



Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has convened an all-party meeting here tomorrow to discuss future course of action in the wake of fresh Supreme Court order for release of 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water per day till October 6 to Tamil Nadu.The Chief Minister has convened an all-party meeting of floor Leaders of both Houses, MPs, including central ministers representing the state, and Ministers concerned of Cauvery basin and district in-charge Ministers, CMO officials said. Taking Karnataka to task for its repeated "defiance" by flouting its orders over release of, the apex court today asked it to release 6,000 cusecs water from tomorrow till October 6 to Tamil Nadu, warning "no one would know when the wrath of the law" would fall on it.A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and U U Lalit also directed the Centre to constitute the Cauvery Water Management Board by October 4. After the apex court verdict, sporadic protests were reported from Mandya and Mysuru districts where police have made elaborate security arrangements.Speaking in New Delhi, Karnataka Water Resources Minister M B Patil said the government will decide further course of action after going through the judgment and discussing with the legal team headed by advocate Fali Nariman. Nariman told the bench he has unequivocally said he would not argue for Karnataka till the orders of Supreme Court are complied with.
Singaporean low-cost long-haul carrier Scoot has envisioned a route expansion in India, in a bid to tap the burgeoning demand among Indians travelling abroad.





Scoot, part of the Singapore Airlines Group, began its India operations on May 24, 2016, with a flight from Chennai to Singapore Changi Airport, taking over operations from sister low-cost carrier Tigerair. It subsequently launched a service to Amritsar.



Extending its horizon in India, Scoot will commence a service to Jaipur on October 2, with fares ranging from Rs 4,699 for the economy class (between October 2, 2016, and March 25, 2017). Jaipur was an untapped market, and an interesting trend seen here is that a lot of people from Delhi would take flights abroad via Jaipur, Scoot Country Head (India) Bharath Mahadevan told DH.



Explaining Scoots India strategy, Mahadevan said that the airline is bullish on tier I and II cities, hinting at Madurai, Pune, Chandigarh, and Bengaluru, to be in focus. However, we can take definitive decisions on expanding our service to the said destinations, depending on the outcome of future bilateral discussions in this regard (between India and Singapore), Mahadevan clarified, adding that there is huge demand seen emerging out of towns such as Jalandhar, Erode, Salem, and Ludhiana, as well.



Eight additional 787s



Scoot is one of the few low-cost carriers with a fleet boasting of 12 large wide-body Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, with a two-class configuration  Ecocomy Fly and ScootBiz. It will be receiving eight additional 787s in three years.



Scoots offering  which includes large planes and long-haul destinations  stands in between full-service carriers with wide-body planes (Singapore Airlines), and typical low-cost ones with narrow-body single-aisle aircraft (Tigerair). This enables the airline to fly more people at a given time, while the latter can enjoy flights abroad with an affordable ticket.



Talking about the Indian market, Mahadevan said, Tier II cities have huge demand, and complement the flight traffic coming out of metros. Also, the middle-class population in metro cities holds huge latent demand, as all traditional carriers are going full at those destinations, and wont drop prices to attract that demand. These carriers already enjoy 80% load factor, which soars even more during the holiday season. A low-cost airlines model is largely aimed at developing the leisure market, enjoyed by families.



India is among the five fastest-growing aviation markets globally with 275 million new passengers, and around 70% of seats in the domestic market are handled by low-cost carriers.



From October, Scoot, along with Tigerair, will handle 50 flights to India a month.
In a major breakthrough, the Kolkata Police arrested Kader Khan, prime suspect in the Park Street gang-rape case nearly five years after the incident. A special team from the Kolkata Police, in a joint operation with the Delhi Police, tracked down Kader to an apartment at Sector 52 in Uttar Pradeshs Ghaziabad, where he was living under the alias Faisal Khan. After watching the apartment for several days, police in plain clothes confirmed Kaders identity and picked him up on Thursday evening.



At the time of the arrest, his friend Ali Khan, also a suspect in the case, was with him. Kader and Ali tried to escape from the police, but were apprehended after a chase. Both the suspects were hiding in the apartment for a few months, the police said. Sources said Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar, an expert in anti-cyber crime operations, along with Deputy Commissioner (South Division) Murlidhar Sharma guided the teams. Sources said Kader initially took shelter with business contacts in Bangladesh, but returned to India after he ran out of money. We received information that (Kader) Khan returned to India and was regularly calling his family members in Kolkata. Surveillance of their phones led to his location, an officer said.



Kader and Ali are being brought down to Kolkata on transit remand and would be produced at a city court on Saturday. Officers are interrogating Kader to find out the names of those who provided him money and shelter since 2012.



The two were absconding since the gang-rape of a 37-year-old woman, who they met at a nightclub in Kolkatas Park Street on February 5, 2012. Kader had struck a conversation with the woman at the nightclub and offered her a lift back home in his car. After she got into the car, Kader and his four friends took turns to rape her in the moving vehicle, before throwing her out at a traffic intersection.



The woman lodged a police complaint a few days later, leading to the arrest of Ruman Khan, Naser Khan and Sumit Bajaj. Kader and Ali fled the city. The victim died due to encephalitis in March 2015. A city court in December 2015 convicted Ruman, Naser and Sumit, sentencing them to 10 years rigorous imprisonment.
The Supreme Court on Friday gave Karnataka the last chance to comply with its order to release 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water per day to Tamil Nadu from October 1 to 6.





A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and U U Lalit censured the state for disobeying the courts previous order. Karnataka should not be bent upon maintaining any obstinate stand of defiance as one knows not when the wrath of law shall fall on one, it noted.



Though the court asked the Union government to set up the Cauvery Management Board by October 4 to assess the ground situation in the river basin, it again ordered Karnataka to release 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water per day to Tamil Nadu from October 1 to 6, notwithstanding the resolution adopted by the states legislature that the precious resource would be used only for drinking purpose.



The court said it could have taken steps to ensure strict compliance of its order but since it directed the setting up of the Cauvery Management Board and sought a report on October 6  the date of next hearing  it preferred to reiterate its order of September 27.



We are granting this opportunity as the last chance... we are sure Karnataka, being part of the federal structure of the country, would rise to the occasion and not show any deviancy till ground report is made available, the bench said.



Citing Article 144 of the Constitution which mandates all authorities to act in aid of the Supreme Court, the bench said, Unfortunately, Karnataka, despite being a state, is flouting the order and in fact creating a situation where the majesty of law is dented.



Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi informed the court that no breakthrough could be achieved at the meeting of the Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Tamil Nadus PWD Minister E K Palaniswamy chaired by Union Water Resources Minister Umar Bharti in New Delhi on Thursday. But he concurred with the courts suggestion on constituting the board.



The bench directed the Centre to intimate Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala on Friday itself and ask them to nominate the members by 4 pm, Saturday, so that it can be formed by October 4. Tamil Nadus counsel, senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, said, We are not saying yes or no to any order of the court. We have been treated shabbily. Any order passed by the court is not going to be obeyed by Karnataka.


It was curtains down on the four-month annual monsoon season which brought just about normal rainfall across the country with some regions witnessing deficient showers to the tune of 30%. According to the weather office, the June to September monsoon season brought 862 mm of rainfall for the country as a whole, which works out to 97% of the long period average.



The IMD defines normal rainfall as plus or minus 4% of the long period average of 887.5 mm. The actual rainfall during the monsoon season was much less than the 106% forecast by the India Meteorological Department scientists who had expected the La Nina weather pattern to set in, bringing showers till October.



Rainfall has been excess or normal in 27 of the 36 sub-divisions or 85% of India. Coastal Karnataka and South Interior Karnataka witnessed 21% deficient rainfall, while Kerala received 34% less showers than normal.



The rain deficient regions include Assam & Meghalaya (30%), Punjab (28%), Haryana-Chandigarh-Delhi (27%) Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat region (24%). Excess rainfall has been recorded in East Rajasthan (32%), Konkan & Goa (22%), Marathwada (21%) and Madhya Pradesh (19%).



The monsoon began to withdraw from northwest from September 15 onwards, but the progress has been sluggish due to the presence of a cyclonic circulation over South Chhattisgarh and adjoining Vidarbha. Indias 91 main reservoirs held 117.2 billion cubic metres of water as of September 29.




Various organisations on Friday staged protests in Mandya district against the Supreme Courts direction to the state to release 6,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu for six days.





Condemning the apex court order, Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, BJP, Kannada Sene and other organisations staged protests near the Visvesvaraya statue and on Bengaluru-Mysuru highway in Mandya for some time. Raitha Sangha members forcibly closed the post office and BSNL office in Srirangapatna to vent their ire.



Mandya District Raitha Hitharakshana Samiti president and former MP G Madegowda warned of intensified protests if the state government decides to release water to Tamil Nadu as per the Supreme Court order. The Siddaramaiah-led government should stick to the resolution passed in the legislature recently and not release water under any circumstances, he stated.



Following the Supreme Court order on water release and constitution of the Cauvery Management Board on Friday, prohibitory orders under CrPC Section 144 have extended till October 6 in the Cauvery river basin districts of Mysuru, Mandya, Chamarajanagar.



As many as 4,000 security personnel have been deputed across Mandya district to ensure law and order. Paramilitary force personnel are guarding the Krishnaraja Sagar (KRS) dam in Srirangapatna taluk.




Karnataka on Friday night decided to approach the Supreme Court on Saturday seeking modification of its order on releasing 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu till

October 6.





Karnataka Water Resources Minister M B Patil, who held a meeting with the Karnataka legal team headed by Fali S Nariman, is learnt to have decided to file an application in the Apex Court.



"If the review petition is rejected, as a next course of action, the state government has also decided to file a petition in the Apex Court seeking constitution of a larger bench," sources said.

In the application, the state government will seek modification of the September 20 and September 30 orders.



In the September 20 order, the court ordered Karnataka to release 6,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu for 10 days and directed the Ministry of Water Resources to constitute the Cauvery Management Board in four weeks.



On September 30, the court directed Karnataka to release 6,000 cusecs of water for six days and constitution of Cauvery Management Board by October 4.



PM holds meet on Cauvery



Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with senior members of his Cabinet on the Cauvery issue soon after the Supreme Court ordered Karnataka to release 6,000 cusecs of water per day to Tamil Nadu from October 1 to 6, reports DHNS from New Delhi.

Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti briefed him on the situation in the two states.


A section of legal experts on Friday suggested that the state government face contempt proceedings by sticking to the resolution passed in the state legislature to use the available Cauvery water only for drinking.





Retired Karnataka high court judge justice K L Manjunath termed as pervert the Supreme Court order to Karnataka to release 6,000 cusecs of water per day for six days to Tamil Nadu. I dont understand head or tail of the order. How can Karnataka release water when it is not available? It is better the government faces contempt charges and take the issue to its logical end, he added.



Judicial discipline warrants a two-judge bench not to pass any order on a subject pending before a larger bench. Why has the two-judge bench showed such urgency? There was no need for it to order the Centre to establish the Cauvery Management Board within four days, he said and added that the government should approach Chief Justice of India T S Thakur and seek change of the bench.



Senior advocate Ravi



B Naik said that the Supreme Court appeared to be testing the state government. It wants to know whether Karnataka respects the court. The court has presumed that Karnataka has abundant water. Hence, such an order has been passed. It is better the government faces contempt of court, he added.



Under contempt proceedings, the court issues a show-cause notice for not obeying its order to release water. The government can use it as an opportunity to place the factual position before the court in the form of a reply. The court may understand the situation if proper justifiable reasons are given. Otherwise, the government has to respect the court and release water. The resolution passed in the legislature cannot be the subject matter of the court, he said.



Former advocates general of Karnataka Ashok Harnahalli and B V Acharya slammed senior counsel representing the state in the Supreme Court Fali Nariman for not defending the states stand. The advocate representing the state in the Supreme Court did not defend the resolution passed in the state legislature. What is the use of taking such a decision if it is not defended before the court? Harnahalli asked and warned that the government will face serious consequences if it fails to implement the order now.



Acharya said Nariman, by not defending the resolution passed in the legislature, has earned the respect of the court at the cost of the states interest.



He suggested that the government comply with the order to release water and approach the court, seeking suspension of its other order on the constitution of the Cauvery Management Board.




With Sri Lanka too joining India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan to underline that the situation is not conducive for holding the Saarc summit in Pakistan, Islamabad on Friday formally postponed the conclave.



Pakistan, however, stated that it remained committed to hosting the 19th summit of the eight-nation bloc in its capital itself, albeit on later dates. A new set of dates for holding the 19th Saarc summit in Islamabad will be announced soon, through the chair of the Saarc (Nepal), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Pakistan government announced, while accusing India of derailing the summit.



Indias decision to abstain from the summit on the basis of unfounded assumptions on the Uri incident is a futile effort to divert attention of the world from the atrocities by India in Kashmir, the Pakistan foreign office said.



Pakistan claimed that the spirit of the Saarc charter is violated when a member state casts the shadow of its bilateral problems on the multilateral forum for regional cooperation.



Lanka pulls out

Sri Lanka too made it clear on Friday that it shared the view of India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Sri Lanka regrets that the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the 19th Saarc Summit in Islamabad on November 9 and 10, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Sri Lankan government said in a statement posted on its website on Friday.



Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia. As a founding member of Saarc, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our regions peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation, the government of the island nation stated.


With Wednesday nights surgical strikes across the LoC throwing up new security challenges, the BJP has decided not to go overboard but offer matured response to what it calls is a paradigm shift in dealing with cross-border terrorism.



BJP president Amit Shah has conveyed this to its leaders and spokespersons given the tendency to drum it up to exploit patriotic fervour and for political gains ahead of the Assembly polls in important states of Uttar Pradesh (UP), Gujarat, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Manipur.



The party leaders do not rule out that Shahs decision to cancel his byte despite informing reporters on Thursday was to avoid a hype to the operation. The BJP chief instead merely released a statement, saying that the clear response to destroy terror breeding centres indicated a rise of new India under Prime Minister Narendra Modis leadership. He also hailed the army for carrying out the strikes successfully.
Pakistan had recently denied permission to a senior official of the High Commission of India in Islamabad to travel to Lahore to attend a conference of the Asian Trade Promotion Forum (ATPF).



India remained unrepresented at the conference of the ATPF that was hosted by Pakistan Trade Promotion Forum in Lahore from September 24 to 26. This happened at a time when Indias troubled relations with Pakistan worsened further after the killing of 18 soldiers in a cross-border terror attack on an Indian Army camp at Uri in Kashmir on September 18. The ATPF is a conglomeration of trade promotion organisations in Asia. It was set up in 1987 and now has 24 members  all trade promotion organisations of the countries in Asia.



Sources said that Rajesh Agnihotri, the counsellor (trade) at the High Commission of India in Islamabad, was expected to travel to Lahore to attend the ATPF conference as the Indian Trade Promotion Organisation was not in a position to send an official from New Delhi.
A day after the cross-border surgical strike, Indias entire western border is in a heightened state of alert anticipating response either from the Pakistan military or from the terror groups supported by them.



While leaves have been curtailed in the Armys Western and Northern commands, in an unusual step, the Indian Air Force repeated a rapid mobilisation-cum-air defence exercise in the western theatre within a gap of two weeks.



The IAFs Exercise Talon which involves Western Air Command bases ranging from Adampur in Jammu and Kashmir to Halwara in Punjab took part in the exercise. All these bases are now on a high state of alert.



The massive air exercise involving fighter jets, air borne early warning systems (AWACS), special operation platforms and helicopters happened first around September 15 and once again between September 27-30.



The aim was to assess and sort out the issues encountered in the first phase. I agree it is unusual as same exercise is not repeated within such a short notice, said a WAC official.



The Western and Northern command of the Army that monitor Indias border with Pakistan have fortified its positions. While leaves were not being cancelled outright, sources told DH both commands had curtailed the leaves.



Not everyone is getting the leaves. We expect an increase in the infiltration attempts more in the south of Pir Panjal range, said an official. Western Army Commander Lt Gen Surinder Singh, who took over two weeks ago, traveled to Jalandhar-based 9 Corps on Friday to take stock of the operational preparedness. A week before Singh reviewed the security in Jammu-Pathankot region and visited forward posts in Jammu, Samba and Pathankot where he interacted with field commanders and troops.



Northern Army Commander Lt Gen D S Hooda tightened the security grid in Jammu and Kashmir. The command, which received a special appreciation from the Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh for planning and executing the surgical strike, strengthened its guard. Three Northern Command formations  19 Division in Uri, 28 Division in Kupwara and 25 Division in Rajouri  played key roles in carrying out the cross-border operations.


With evacuation ordered in about 1,000 villages close to the Punjab-Pakistan border on Thursday, scores of villages wore a deserted look in less than 24 hours. But there are many villages where people have refused to move out. In fact, there are reports of villagers returning to their homes a day later.



After all, a displacement of such a magnitude for a long duration is not easy. Paddy is ready for harvest in the fields. Earnings through agriculture is their bread and butter.



In border town Fazilka, like in many other border districts, government schools, community centres and Sikh shrines have turned into relief centres for hundreds of displaced families. Classrooms have turned into dormitories.



A few pedestal fans attempt to keep tempers cool. Community kitchens are being organised for food three times a day. Villagers say they dont know for how long this arrangement will continue. The government is aware of the looming crisis. A failed paddy harvest could be disaster in an election year.



The government says farmers in these sensitive zones will be allowed to harvest their crop at the earliest and priority will be accorded to displaced farmers when it comes to procurement. Paramjit Singh, 78, of Naushehra village says he will not move out until his crop is harvested. How can I leave my standing crop. I have a bank loan to pay. How will my family survive if the crop is damaged," he asks. Eighty-year-old Pyar Kaur also refuses to leave her village home. I didnt move out during 65 war, 71 war. Why will I go now. We will support the Army if the situation deteriorates, she says.



In Taran Taran district, there are reports of several ATMs running out of cash. Petrol filling stations witnessed a beeline for the second day on Friday with people in panic.

The men folk in many villages have chosen to stay back, allowing children and women to stay with family friends and relatives faraway.



Bundles of tightly tied bedsheets with wearables and utensils stuffed inside are all that many of these displaced families are taking along to safer places.



Panic move

Many, like state Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh, have questioned the panic move by the government to evacuate villagers even before the Army has been fully mobilised and moved in. Almost every village house has more than one cattle. This too is posing a dilemma to leave their settlements.


The Patna High Court on Friday quashed the Bihar government order banning the sale and consumption of Indian-made foreign liquor. This has come as a severe jolt to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who relentlessly pursued the prohibition policy and had made Bihar a dry state from this fiscal.



Besides, the high court termed the government notification ultra-vires to the Constitution and hence, was not enforceable. The order was passed by the division bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari and Justice Navniti Prasad Singh. With this, the April 5 notification of the state government to stop the consumption and sale of alcohol in the state stands quashed.



The amended prohibition law will, however, come into force with effect from October 2. Nitish Kumar has convened an emergency Cabinet meeting in this regard on October 2, a source said here on Friday.



Initially, the Nitish regime had banned the manufacture, trade, sale and consumption of country-made liquor since April 1, but later imposed a blanket ban on all types of liquor, including IMFL, in the state.



As a consequence, several petitions were filed by liquor traders in the court challenging the government notification, which had stringent penal provisions. The division bench had on May 20 reserved its order.



Following the high court ruling on Friday, Nitish convened a crucial high-level meeting with top ministers and bureaucrats and discussed threadbare the amended liquor legislation, which has been passed by both the Houses of the state legislature and given consent by Governor Ramnath Kovind. The amended liquor law is expected to be notified on October 2, when the nation celebrates Gandhi Jayanti.



Additional Advocate General Lalit Kishore said the court had quashed the April 5 notification. However, he refused to comment on whether the high court ruling would have any effect on the new prohibition law, which is likely to come into force from Sunday. I will be able to comment on the issue only after going through the ruling of the high court, Kishore observed.


The Union government on Friday warned states against possible terror strikes in the hinterland in retaliation to the surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.



The ministry of home affairs issued advisories asking the states to be on alert for the next 10-15 days, following inputs from the Intelligence Bureau. Official sources said they do not want to leave any stone unturned in ensuring the safety of citizens. The inputs suggest that Pakistans retaliation to the surgical strikes could be in civilian areas.



With the festive season round the corner, security has been beefed up in crowded places like markets, railway and metro stations as well as airports across the country, they said.



A senior home ministry official, however, said there was nothing to worry as there were no specific inputs on possible attacks by Pakistan. All measures are in place and have been strengthened as required, the official said. Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday reviewed the security situation, especially along the border areas.



During the hour-long meeting, top officials explained to Singh the preparedness of the security establishment in dealing with any retaliatory strikes by the Pakistani forces. The home minister was also briefed on the ceasefire violations by Pakistan.



The meeting was attended by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and top officials of the security and intelligence agencies. The Border Security Force has been put on alert on the international border with Pakistan and asked to ably help the army along the Line of Control.



The forces have already increased the number of personnel on the international border in Jammu, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat by bringing in all personnel in reserve.



The entire western border is in a heightened state of alert. While the army personnels leaves in the Western and Northern commands have been curtailed, the Air Force repeated a rapid mobilisation-cum-air defence exercise in the western theatre within a gap of two weeks.



The IAFs Exercise Talon, which involves the Western Air Command bases ranging from Adampur in Jammu and Kashmir to Halwara in Punjab, took part in the exercise. The Coast Guard too is on extra alert to ensure that there is no repeat of a 26/11-type attack. To avoid any casualty, civilian movement along the borders with Pakistan has been restricted, the officials said.


The Supreme Court on Friday gave Karnataka one last chance to comply with its order to release 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water per day for six days to Tamil Nadu. A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and U U Lalit also slammed Karnataka for flouting the order, saying, Karnataka should not maintain any obstinate stand of defiance as one knows not when the wrath of law shall fall on one.



Though the court asked the Union government to set up the Cauvery Management Board by October 4 to assess the ground situation in the river basin areas, it again ordered the state to release 6,000 cusecs of water every day from October 1 to 6 to Tamil Nadu, despite the resolution by the Karnataka Assembly for giving priority to drinking purpose. The court said it could have taken steps to ensure strict compliance of its orders.



But since the court directed setting up the Cauvery Management Board and sought a report from it on October 6, the next date of hearing, it preferred to reiterate the direction for release of water passed on September 27.



We are granting this opportunity as the last chance... we are sure Karnataka, being part of the federal structure of the country, would rise to the occasion and not show any deviancy till the ground report is made available, the bench said.



Citing Article 144 of the Constitution, which mandated all authorities to act in aid of the Supreme Court, the bench said, Unfortunately, Karnataka, despite being a state, is flouting the order and in fact, creating a situation where the majesty of law is dented.



Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi apprised the court that no breakthrough could be achieved in the meeting of the Karnataka chief minister and Tamil Nadus PWD minister, having been chaired by the Union water resources minister, here on Thursday. He, however, agreed to the courts suggestion for constituting the Cauvery Management Board, as directed by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, by October 4.



The bench directed Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala to nominate their members to the board by Saturday so that it can be formally constituted by October 4.



Tamil Nadus counsel, senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, expressed his anguish and said, We are not saying yes or no to any order of the court. We have been treated shabbily. Any order passed by the court is not going to be obeyed by Karnataka.



During the hearing, the bench took on record a letter shot off by Karnatakas counsel, senior advocate F S Nariman, to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, wherein he expressed his inability to make any submission on behalf of the state, which could not release water in deference to the courts orders.




The Supreme Court on Friday pulled up Delhis Health Minister Satyendra Jain for maintaining that no officer was willing to take orders from the AAP government to check chikungunya and dengue deaths.



The court asked the minister to give names of those officers by Monday. A bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit took exception to the assertion made by Jain in an affidavit submitted to the court in his personal capacity.



What kind of the statement is this? What is the evidence that no officer is willing to take responsibility? You cant treat people of Delhi like this, the bench told Delhi governments counsel senior advocate Paras Kuhad.



Tell us the names of those officers who are not obeying your orders, the bench further asked. Kuhad, on his part, agreed to give the names, but sought permission to file it in a sealed cover.



Why should you give it in a sealed envelope...you have made the statement in an open affidavit. You have to provide the names of those officers in an open affidavit, the bench told the counsel.



The bench gave the minister time till Monday to file his additional affidavit. The court also rejected Kuhad's plea for time till Tuesday due to personal difficulty. Tell your government to engage somebody else, we can't keep the matter pending for long, the bench said.



The courts direction came after senior advocate Ajeet Kumar Sinha, appearing for Delhi lieutenant governor cited the ministers affidavit, saying they were abdicating their responsibility.



The court had earlier, on September 26, sought response from the Delhi government on a suo motu plea relating to the death of a 7-year-old boy in Delhi due to dengue after reportedly being denied treatment by five private hospitals and subsequent suicide by his parents last year. It had appointed senior advocate Colin Gonsalves as amicus curiae to assist the court. Over 2,600 chikungunya cases have been reported in Delhi till September 17, and the disease has caused 15 deaths so far.




Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Jagadish Shettar on Friday questioned why Bengaluru Urban Deputy Commissioner V Shankar has given a clean chit to Janata Dal (S) MLC C R Manohar when two enquiries have exposed his illegal land deals in Sarjapur on the outskirts of Bengaluru.



Addressing the media here, Shettar said two reports - one filed by IAS officer Munish Moudgil, as Commissioner of Land Records and Survey Settlement, and the other by a five-member officials committee - have established that the gomala land (grazing land) has been developed and sold to members of the BHEL Employees House Building Co-operative Society.



The sites have been formed on the encroached gomala land in survey no 47 of Adigaarakallahalli in Sarjapur. The officials committee, constituted by the Bengaluru Urban Deputy Commissioner, in its report submitted to the government on September 19, has observed that 67 acres of the total 103 acres of gomala land have been converted into sites.



The sites have been formed by Lion Estates and Properties, owned by Manohar. The government land, in the form of sites, has been unlawfully sold to hundreds of members. A memorandum of understanding was signed in 2006 between the developer and the society.



Shettar said Shankar, despite receiving the enquiry report which has also suggested that the government take stringent action against officials who have colluded with the property developer, went for a spot inspection recently.



He visited Adigaarahallahalli and said Manohar is innocent. The deputy commissioner should have taken action against the sub-registrar of Anekal who has issued khatas to site purchasers. This gives room to doubts about the role being played by Shankar in the scam which is to the tune of Rs 300 crore, he added.



Shettar said that Moudgil suspended two surveyors after he found the government land has been grabbed. The total extent of gomala land was 103 acres. Of these, the deputy commissioner retrieved 24 acres, while the remaining 67 acres have been sold to 41 people.



The survey no 47 was assigned with new numbers from 165-180 and sold as sites. The money earned from selling the sites is Rs 121.87 crore. Shettar also released copies of documents to support his charges.



The BJP leader said he failed to understand as to why officials are allowing Manohar to enjoy the government land. He said he would be writing to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Revenue Minister Kagodu Thimmappa to order a CID enquiry into the fake documents being created to sell the government land. The Inspector General of Registration should be asked not to allow registration of these sites, he said.



Manohar reacts

Manohar said that if the charges made by Shettar are proved, then he would write off his land to him. In a media statement, Manohar said Shettar lacks records to prove the charges he has made. I have purchased land as per law. The government has reclaimed its land after the enquiry. My portion of the land has been registered as per rules, he claimed.


The Bengaluru Urban district administration has given seven days to the Shamanur Shivashan-karappa Hospitals and Kannada actor Darshan Thoogu- deepa to respond to the accusation of encroaching on a stormwater drain at Halagevaderahalli in Raja-rajeshwari Nagar, west Bengaluru.



Notices have also been served on the owners of 70 other houses in Ideal Homes Layout. The authorities said they would be at liberty to demolish the buildings if the encroachers failed to convince them about the legality of the structures. The notices were released on Wednesday and handed over to the property owners on Thursday.



Ideal Homes Layout was formed on 233 acres and 21 guntas of land, with the second stage coming up on 53 acres and 34 guntas. A wasteland (kharab land), including a stormwater drain, passes through seven acres and 31 guntas, according to the authorities.



Around a decade ago, the affected people had filed a writ petition in the High Court of Karnataka which directed the district authorities to review the matter and take a decision. Accordingly, the deputy commissioner of Bengaluru Urban heard the case and directed the property owners to not take up any construction until the matter is resolved. In the final order in August 2014, the deputy commissioner directed the officials in the department of survey, settlement and land records to survey the wasteland in survey numbers 38 to 46 and 51 to 56.



The survey revealed that the hospital and Darshan have encroached on 22 guntas and two guntas, respectively. The hospital is run by S S Hospitals Pvt Ltd which is linked to former minister and Congress MLA from Davangere South, Shivashankarappa.



In the latest notice, Bengaluru South Tahsildar S M Shivakumar has stated that the buildings would be demolished and the entire cost of razing the structures would be slapped on property owners if they failed to present their case with genuine documents within seven days of receiving the notice. In addition, criminal action will be initiated under section 192 (A) of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964. DHs efforts to contact Darshan and the hospital management for their comment did not bear fruit.


In the tradition of Shakespeare in the Park, Playwrights Project presented Live Theatre at Home in the backyard of Carmel Valley resident Lynne Bath recently.

Bath, a board member of Playwrights Project, hosted an evening of informal theatre in which three well-known local actors performed material created by both children and adults involved in the organizations various programs.

For more than 30 years, Playwrights Project has brought playwriting to thousands of students throughout San Diego. The nonprofit organization was founded in 1985 by Deborah Salzer, with the late Edward Albee serving as Artistic Advisor. Under the leadership of Cecelia Kouma, executive director since 2007, the groups programs have expanded to serve adults, primarily from disenfranchised communities, including seniors, the foster care community, immigrants, active military, veterans and those involved in the justice system.

Playwrights Project is profoundly meaningful to me because its programs ignite a love of theatre in those who might never have known its magic, said Kouma. I am continually moved by the depth and creativity of the scripts developed by writers from all walks of life. They create characters that they care about, and they draw me into their journeys. The plays illuminate our shared humanity and help us look at the world differently.

Students in grades 3-12 participate in Playwrights Project through their schools, learning to write individual one-act plays in their Language Arts class. At the end of the program, professional actors visit the classroom to perform readings of the students completed scripts.

Kouma explained that when Playwrights Projects trained teaching artists visit classrooms they often have students write about inanimate objects so they dont feel uncomfortable revealing too much personal information about themselves.

In fact, many of the scripts read during the Live Theatre at Home event revolved around pencils, math homework and batteries  yet they were surprisingly moving.

The most important thing about Playwrights Project is that it gives all participants a voice, said Kouma. Some of their stories are shattering, but their plays celebrate resilience.

One of the most powerful scripts of the night, A Sorta Fairytale, revolved around a little girl neglected by her drug-addicted mother and rescued by an unlikely hero. Written by a foster youth based on her own experience, it brought audience members to tears and caused actress Hannah Logan to ask, Can I play a pencil now? to lighten the mood.

Truth is painful, said Logan. But not telling the stories of humanity creates a kind of wound that eats away at us and never heals. Writing can be a salvation, and assisting people in excavating stories that might otherwise remain untold or stuck inside them brings such joy to me. Its what compelled me to become involved with Playwrights Project.

Actor Fred Harlow agreed. I was cast as the father in a play called The Best Mistake, about a teenage girl who finds out her dad cant read. We performed it in front of a large group of people, many of whom had never seen a play before. During the talk back, a man stood up and said he was like the character I played and wanted to get help so he, too, could be the best father he could be. There were a number of people there who were involved with adult education so he was able to get the help he needed. I still get choked up telling this story.

Writing plays and seeing their own words come to life has been therapeutic in ways their creators never expected. A man serving an 87-year prison sentence wrote about finding his dad passed out when he was a little boy. His stepmom and others, convinced his dad was drunk, told him to ignore him. By the time they called for help, his father was dead, and the police said he could have been saved if they had been notified earlier. The man had been carrying around guilt over this for decades. Only by seeing what actually happened through the other characters could he finally realize that the adults were the guilty ones and they had failed him. This was cathartic for him.

Each year, Playwrights Project holds a statewide California Young Playwrights Contest, and all young writers up to age 19 are encouraged to submit their work. Winning scripts are produced by Playwrights Project and presented as Plays by Young Writers at The Old Globe in January.

Board member Kathy Krevat read a letter from her daughter, Devyn, who, as a fifth grader, had won a staged reading of her play, The Case of the Missing Pencil Tips, and, as a high school senior, won a full production of her play, Fairy Tale.

Thanks to Playwrights Project, I was able to see peoples reactions to my words and it ignited a passion in me, wrote Devyn. I will always be grateful for this experience and inspiration.

Actor Brandon Kelley, who starred in the original production of Fairy Tale, was also inspired by Playwrights Project. I feel such a strong connection with these young writers, he said. Having the chance to become a character that started from the mind of a child has brought out a creativity in me that I never knew existed.

To learn more about Playwrights Project, visit www.playwrightsproject.org or call (858) 384-2970
By James McAuley and Michael Birnbaum

29 September 2016 CALAIS, France (Washington Post)  So far, Donald Trumps plan to build a wall along the Mexican border is all talk. Last week, France and Britain actually began building one along theirs. Construction started here on a roughly mile-long concrete barrier intended to separate a sprawling migrant camp from the tunnels that offer passage to Britain, the latest attempt in what has become a global effort to throw physical barriers in the way of historic streams of human migration. From a razor-wire-topped border fence in Hungary to the sealed border of Macedonia and Greece to Trumps proposed wall , polarized societies across the world are finding that they can unite around keeping others at bay. The Great Wall of Calais, as the project is informally known, is considerably shorter than Trumps proposed partition of the United States and Mexico, but its message is much the same: keep out. The concrete wall, which will rise to 13 feet, extends a fence near the sprawling Calais migrant camp known as the Jungle, where more than 7,000 migrants have been stranded as they seek to enter Britain by all means possible. The concrete will be specially formulated to make it difficult to scale. The camp here has become one of the most visible symbols of Europes migration crisis: a squalid no mans land nestled between London and Paris, two of Europes wealthiest cities. The victorious British campaign to leave the European Union was partly fueled by concerns over immigration, while candidates for Frances presidential elections next year are already competing over being tough on migrant flows. Opponents of French President Francois Hollande have tried to turn the camp into a symbol of his weakness. Its something scary, this resignation, this lack of authority, Frances former president Nicolas Sarkozy said while visiting Calais last week. Sarkozys campaign to recapture the presidency has pulled anti-immigrant rhetoric from the surging far-right National Front party, which has vowed to reestablish controls at Frances borders. [] The wall will prevent illegals trying to get to the U.K., British Home Secretary Amber Rudd told the House of Commons this month, defending the initiative against critics who called it a waste of money. [] The wall is not important, said Tariq Shinwari, a 26-year-old business administration graduate from Afghanistan who said he had lived in the Jungle for six months. People in here do not care about the wall  they care about the demolition. We have minors in here. If they demolish the camp, where will they go? [more]
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Work On Munnabhai 3 Will Begin From Next Year, Says Vidhu Vinod Chopra
A new kit that works in minutes will allow doctors to find out whether people with type 2 diabetes are suffering from inflammation.

The current test to detect inflammation takes several hours for the results to be obtained because blood cells need to be separated for analysis.

Created by scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, this new device is easy to use as it only requires a drop of blood and is cheap to produce.

Dr Hou Han Wei, a senior research fellow from NTUs Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine invented the new chip that forms the key component of the test kit.

He said: By designing very tiny channels on our chip, we are able to physically separate the various blood cells by size into the different outlets, like a coin-sorting machine.

The bodys immune system is made up of a significant amount of white blood cells. A neutrophil is a type of white blood cell, which increases when the body tries to heal or ward off an infection or inflammation.

The NTU teams findings showed that neutrophils can be used to determine whether people with type 2 diabetes are suffering from inflammation, and this new test kit allows the user to extract neutrophils from the blood sample.

Dr Hou said: Analysing these separated neutrophils could help indicate how bad an inflammation is and if there is an increased risk of infection for diabetic patients.

Hopefully in the future, clinicians can accurately tailor the right combination of drugs and thus offer a more targeted treatment approach for all diabetic patients.

It is thought that if people with diabetes can be grouped by their inflammation status, as well as blood glucose levels, it might help doctors determine better treatment for their patients.

Professor Bernhard Boehm, scientific director of the metabolic disease research programme at the NTU medical school, said: This new test kit will advance diabetes management by providing real-time signals related to a cluster of risk factors faced by patients.

It will lead the way to improvements in patient care, enabling chronic disease self-management and finally a healthier society.

A larger study focusing on using the device to tailor peoples treatment will now be carried out.
Introduction and a Sphex-iation

This story, spanning the farthest of human reaches, begins with a winsome wasp, the Sphex. Though it flies around quite haphazardly, the Sphex lives a very routine life. It digs a hole, lays its larvae, and then heads out to hunt. It paralyzes its prey, drags it to the entrance of the hole, and enters to check that all is well, before taking dinner all the way home. Heres the fun part - The wasps behaviour only ever occurs in that sequence. If you displace the prey while the Sphex is scouting its den, the wasp will return the body to the entrance and go in to scout again. In fact it will repeat the exact same thing again and again, as many times as you, the experimenter, care to displace its childrens future food.

Clearly, biological programming exists. Yet while a wasp may not have the conscious ability to override its genetically predetermined behaviour, we mighty-minded humans certainly do.. Or do we? What does our consciousness do when it encounters the inexplicable? Seeing as, even rocket scientists are superstitious (which happens to be the meat of this article), are we genetically predisposed to such unfounded behaviour? The thought of space agencies sticking to superstitions makes it seem like they are run by the aunties next door, who incessantly suggest which stones are suitable for which character flaw or flavour of success.

Its no secret that we humans are an irrational lot, but to think that it pervades the institutions dedicated to rational thinking of the highest order! Baffling!

The very reason for the existence of Science is our need to predict the future and control the outcome to the best of our ability. Of course, in the process we also perform experiments and posit theories for explanation, but the central condition, is the reliability of results. If nothing else, the worst case scenario is that we learn what doesnt hold. Yet what most people dont realize, is that even in the best case scenario, there is always a margin of error. Even if it is inconceivably small, error (or think of it as uncertainty) must always exist. Science is not an exact science.

In a way, the whole system of Science is a very accurate (and precise) superstition, and all theories and explanations are just logically convincing sells. Yet, in another way, superstition is a weak science (with mostly illogical sells). All that matters from any perspective, is that there are results. If believing a superstition and following its rituals increases the odds of success, thats good enough reason to continue! Much like the argument behind Pascals Wager, better safe than sorry!

So without further ado, we present to you, a range of tried and tested superstitions employed by successful space agencies from across the globe!

Space Superstitions Galore!

If youre a long time reader of this magazine, were assuming that youre decently knowledgeable and that youve probably heard of Yuri Gagarin, the first human to reach space. On 12 April, 1961, on the way to the launch site, he finally felt the magnitude of the feat he was about to set out to accomplish. Like any nervous person, he got an insurmountable urge to urinate. Unable to hold it in, he asked the bus to stop, unzipped his space suit and relieved himself on the tyre of the bus. Lo and behold, his mission was a success, and future Russian cosmonauts took this critical detail of the proceedings to heart, replicating it without fail.

Space Superstition No. 1! If youre a spacebound Russian male taking off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, take a leak on the right-side back tyre of the bus that takes you to the launchpad! (Ladies bring their urine in vials, in case you were wondering.)

Gagarins was the first successful launch, and the aim being to increase the odds of success, any deviation from that process would be risking failure. Its no wonder Yuri Gagarins actions became a template for many rituals of present day procedures. Strapped in and with nothing to do just before launch, he asked mission control to play him some music. They obliged with a collection of Russian love songs. Today they oblige with a wider variety, after ceremoniously playing the original songs played to Gagarin.



A sight no cosmonaut ever gets to see.

Another Russian space superstition relating to (but not inspired by) Yuri Gagarin is the tradition of signing in the guestbook of Gagarins office in Zvyozdniy Gorodok. Since his passing, Gagarins office has been maintained to resemble its state as it was while he walked the earth. Some time between training and take-off, soon-to-be space goers make it a point to visit this office, which is an important part of the space travel heritage of humankind. Gagarins guestbook contains the signatures of all of the hundreds of cosmonauts who have travelled to space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Also, none of these cosmonauts have seen their rocket ship being towed to the launch site, because they are superstitiously forbidden to do so. Instead, they have to go for a haircut.

Signatures have come to be the conventional representative mark of any individual, and people who have an increased probability of not existing in the near future often feel better by making their mark while they can. The crew of a space flight do this by recording their signature on a number of places other than Gagarins guestbook, beginning with the official signing off of the spaceship itself. Every crew member also signs a wall in the museum at Baikonur, after the customary signing of the bedroom door that signifies their last night on Earth. After successful reentry and recovery, astronauts sometimes also sign the charred outer shell of their space capsule.

Baikonur is the first and largest operational space launch facility in the world, having been the launch site of many successful missions (and a few major mishaps) over more than 50 years. There is a boulevard at Baikonur called the Avenue of Heroes, where a tree is poignantly planted for every launch that takes place. Even without delving in superstitions, this boulevard can be considered sacred. The trees represent every mission and its members, a living legacy of those who returned, and a memorial for those who did not. Speaking of the dead, you must be dreaming if you ever hear of a Russian space mission launching on the 24th of October. This fated date marks two terrible tragedies, pre-launch disasters that claimed the lives of more than a hundred people in 1960 and 1963. Since then, October 24 is stay-on-earth day. The launch crew also has a tradition of writing a womans name in the frosting that forms on the supercooled pipes during fueling. Someone skipped this once, 47 people died. Needless to say, it is a permanent ritual since then.



Guess who lost the poker game?

On a lighter note, a superstition on the theatrical level of Space Superstition No.1 - On the night before launch, the cosmonauts watch a movie. And not just any movie, they watch The White Sun of the Desert, a classic Russian twist on a Western film. On every launch, the crew even take a talisman with them, which, more often than not, is a stuffed animal toy! This one is halfway between superstition and science. The inanimate critter tied to the console serves as the mascot of the mission, but also performs the serious role of giving the crew a visual confirmation of having successfully left Earth, by floating. How cool are the rituals of spacebound Russians!

The only other nation that has been at it long enough to have dedicated space superstitions is the United States of America. If an astronaut does decide to have breakfast before the launch, you can bet its going to be scrambled eggs and steak! This was the iconic last earth-breakfast devoured by the first Americans in space - Alan Shepard and John Glenn. However, in todays age of press conferences, the pre-launch breakfast is a more official affair. Another tradition permeating the pre-launch breakfast at NASA is that the crew is presented with a cake portraying the mission emblem. The tradition itself though, is that no one eats the cake. Perhaps deforming the emblem would be an ill omen, or perhaps no one was hungry the first time it was officially served. Well never know.

NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory launched the Ranger mission in the 1960s, spaceflights intended to fly around and take photographs of the moon. However, the Ranger mission soon turned into a series of missions as all of the first six launches were unsuccessful. On the seventh try they got lucky, or perhaps they didnt get unlucky. Either way, the thing that was most noticeably different the seventh time was that someone had got a jar of peanuts to the control room and shared it around. Since then, mystical powers of sending Americans successfully to space have been attributed to peanuts in the control room.

While the Russian cosmonauts hydrate their bus tyres, their astronaut counterparts do their own thing en route to the launch pad. In this superstitious ritual, the crew plays poker and the cards continue to be dealt until the commander loses. Only then can the launch proceed.

On the Earth-ridden side, ever since STS-1, the director of the Launch Control Centre treats his co-workers to a meal of beans and cornbread after a successful launch, a time for celebration and bonding for the entire team.

Back home in our industrious nation, the act of faith chosen by our scientists is limited to seeking blessings, limited to a particular God in a particular temple. Various news agencies have reported that the scientists of ISRO enhance their odds by praying to Lord Balaji at Tirupati, often along with a miniature model of the launch vehicle. Dr. CNR Rao, an eminent scientist, has been quoted as terming this practice superstitious. Yet, in the context of our entire nation, so seeped in various spiritual traditions, it hardly seems illogical! The only other remotely superstitious action was the naming of PSLV-14 directly after PSLV-12. Even if it was a decision based on imagined consequences, it is certainly a one-time deal. It is indeed great to know that ISRO concentrates where it should, on science!



The place for official divine permission (for entering outer space) in India

Of course, in the uncertain and risky business of fighting gravity and sending people to space, its no surprise that superstitions arise. The infinitely many variables and the complexity of their relationships ensures that no mortal (or group thereof) can comprehend the big picture, let alone sanely handle the pressure and responsibilities of such a launch event. If you noticed that the Russians have the more superstitions, you should also be informed that they have fewer fatalities. Maybe there is something to it after all. As long as it increases the odds, whatever the rationality, superstition is here to stay!
Those using the devices purchased after September 15 are now allowed to use and charge their phones during a flight

Indias aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has lifted restrictions placed on carrying the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones on commercial airplanes. However, this will only be applicable on devices purchased after September 15. The regulator had earlier banned the use of the smartphones in flights after several units started catching fire. This comes a few days after Samsung officials met with DGCA regarding an incident involving a Galaxy Note 2 phone catching fire onboard an IndiGo flight.

Users will be able to identify the new Galaxy Note 7 units as they will have a green battery icon. The company says that devices displaying this icon are safe to use and charge during the flight. A Samsung India spokesperson stated, It is important to note that Samsung has not sold a single unit of Galaxy Note 7 in India so far. The green battery icon will apply to all Galaxy Note 7 units that will be sold to customers in India when it is launched.

A few days ago, a safe Galaxy Note 7 unit had reportedly exploded while charging. Chinese user named Hui Renjie claims that his new phone had exploded while charging, burning two of his fingers and damaging his Macbook. Renjie says that he was visited by a Samsung representative, who offered to take the phone away. However, he said didnt trust Samsung to reveal the reason for the fire.
AIM-listed Advanced Oncotherapy raised 10m from a share placing to fund the development of the first proton therapy centre in London.

The company raised the funds through the issue of 10m shares of 25p each to a new price of 100p per share to new and existing shareholders. The company will provide an open offer to existing investors under same terms as the subscription.

The 10m will be used to continue development of the companys LIGHT (linac image guided hadron technology) system, at the first proton therapy centre in Londons Harley Street.

The funds raised will also go to the collaboration with manufacturer Thales, to produce eight LIGHT systems a year.

The subscription was led by senior management, board members, and MK Trust, a Japanese financial institution, which subscribed for 5m shares or 7.3% of the issued share capital.

MK Trust is owned by Miky Kamabra, who will become a senior advisor to the company and oversee its development in the Asian market.

The shares will be admitted to trade on AIM on 7 October and following admission the share capital with comprise of 68.7m shares, none in treasury.

Chief executive Michael Sinclair said the company had made progress with the development of the LIGHT systems and has bought production forward with Thales, which the capital raised will help fund.

He added: "Given the huge opportunities that we see in the Asian market we are delighted to receive the support of MK Trust in this subscription and we believe the contribution from Miky Kambara to our commercial plans for Asia will be highly valuable.

In May, the company signed an agreement with a fund advised by Metric Capital Partners , a pan-European private capital fund manager, to invest 24m in a financing facility to support the the installation of the LIGHT machine in Harley Street, and was conditional on a future 25m injection to fund a manufacturing base for the LIGHT system.

The company agreed with Metric to waive this condition and to make the full 24m available for drawdown, subject to completion of the subscription and implementation of an additional financing plan.

Shares in Advanced Oncotherapy were down 2.75% to 109.89p at 1042 BST.
Africa-focused gold and base metal exploration and development company Alecto Minerals announced its unaudited interim results for the six months to 30 June on Friday, with revenue rising to 0.11m, from 0.04m year-on-year.

Its operating loss widened as a result of higher administration expenses, however, to 0.29m from 0.26m.

The AIM-traded firm said progress was made during the period, towards becoming an African focused gold producer.

A feasibility study was delivered at Matala Gold Project in Zambia, with additional gold ounces identified and a Design, Build and Operate contract secured.

It confirmed that joint venture agreements had been entered into on three Malian gold exploration projects, providing it exposure to value upside at a low cost.

Randgold has a 65% interest in Kossanto West and is funding all costs up to and including the completion of a pre-feasibility study, and a joint venture had been established with Kola Gold solely funding all costs to complete a scoping study to earn an interest of 65% of Karan Gold Project in Mali.

Letter of intent was also in place with Ashanti Gold, for Ashanti to earn an interest in the company's Kossanto East Gold Project.

We have delivered on a number of our stated objectives for our African gold portfolio during the period, said chairman Gerald Chapman.

Our activities at Matala in Zambia have both created value and validated our production strategy.

We are close to securing vendor finance to cover the very low capex required to deliver gold production and with an NPV of $35.2m and an Internal Rate of Return of 66%, it is clear that this project has robust economics.

Chapman said for a company of Alectos size, the board believes that asset provides the firm with an excellent opportunity to generate cash flow and prove production capabilities.

We are also evaluating larger projects with a view to building Alecto to become a profitable African metals producer.

We are also pleased to have secured value accretive paths for the rest of our portfolio via joint ventures. I believe that Alecto is now poised for significant growth in the next 12 months.

At 1236 BST, shares in Alecto Minerals were down 23.81% at 0.08p.
The owners of Brightons most popular attraction, the Brighton Pier Group, reported that revenue remained flat during a transformational year that saw the acquisition of its namesake iconic landmark.

For the year ended 26 June, revenue remained relatively flat at 22.6m, a slight rise of 1.3% from last year.

Pre-tax profit rose 80% to 900,000 and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose about 28% to 2.3m.

Brighton Pier Group returned to profitability with an increase of basic earnings per share to 4.2p from -0.3p.

The AIM-listed company has two divisions, the Brighton Marine Palace and Pier Company, which owns and operates the Brighton pier, and Eclectic Bars, an operator of bars across the country.

In April, the company bought The Brighton Marine Palace and Pier Company, by way of a reverse takeover, for 18m, which was part-funded by a share placing of 8.5m and 13m in debt financing from Barclays bank.

The company said during its first full summer of ownership the pier business has traded in line with expectations.

The Eclectic Bars business remained cash generative, contributing 2.3m to full-year EBITDA thanks to a rise in midweek student numbers, an increase in the number of student nights and improved midweek sales.

The significant savings were made on head office costs, as well as rebasing of costs across the company, with a 2.25% margin improvement due to the re-negotiation of Electric Bars principal supply contracts, which brought additional profit, together with a logistics benefit through having a single drinks supplier.

Brighton made other progress during the year as reflected in the Derby Lola Lo bars return to profitability, the launch of Smash, a new 'ping pong' bar in Reading, and the sale of the Sheffield and half of the Liverpool sites.

Chairman Luke Johnson, said: "This has been a transformational year for the group. The acquisition of The Brighton Marine Palace and Pier Company, and the operational and financial improvement made within our bars division, mean the group is well positioned to drive the growth of our business.

Our ambition is to become a leading, experience-led attractions business in the UK. I believe we now have the right group structure and experienced management team to deliver that ambition."

Shares in Brighton Pier Group were up 0.67% to 134.40p at 0819 BST.
AIM-listed Irish hotel operator Dalata Hotel Group agreed to buy the operating interest in four star Double Tree by Hilton hotel in Dublin for 2.5m, and will start a 25 year lease with the new propertys owners.

German investor Deka Immobilien agreed to buy the freehold of the property from the legal owner Sussex Road Nominee and BNY Mellon Trust, a trustee for the beneficial owner, BRE Ireland Property Fund.

Once the acquisition is finalised in November Delata will start its 25-year operating lease, subject to conditions such as periodic rent reviews, agreed with Deka, the new owners of the property.

The acquisition is subject to approval from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and Deka completing the purchase of the freehold in the hotel.

The hotel, which will be rebranded Clayton, had revenues of 29.5m in 2015 and pre-tax of 2.2m. If it had traded under the terms of the operating lease the hotel would have contributed 4.3 m to Dalata Groups earnings before interest, tax, amortisation and depreciation (EBITDA) last year.

Shane Casserly, head of development and strategy at Dalata, said: The hotel will be an excellent addition to our portfolio and the Clayton brand. We will continue to invest in the property to ensure that it retains its position as the leading venue for large conferences and functions in the city.

The hotel, on the corner of Sussex Road and Burlington Road in the Dublin city centre, has 502 bedrooms, two bars, a restaurant, lounge, 24-hour gym and conference rooms.

Shares in Dalata Hotel Group were down 2.09% to 340.25p at 1251 BST.
Cause-based commercial mobile virtual network operator The People's Operator announced its half year results for the six months to 30 June on Friday, with revenue after donations of 1.703m - an increase of 182%.

The AIM-traded firm narrowed its loss to 3.95m, from 4.36m a year ago, and had cash and cash equivalents at period end of 3.1m.

Average blended revenue per subscriber in the UK was 12.42 per month, and its average UK customer acquisition costs remained significantly below industry standards at an average of 6.34.

The Peoples Operator also claimed a low monthly subscriber churn rate of 3.1%.

On the US side of operations, average revenue per subscriber was $21.88, with all customers on pre-paid plans.

Average US customer acquisition costs were $12.27, a figure The Peoples Operator claimed was far below that of the competition.

Post period end, the company reached agreement for a 1m loan from Barclays Bank on standard commercial terms, for general working capital purposes, repayable over two years.

It also indicated major shareholders intended to provide further funds for growth.

Over the first half of this year we have seen The People's Operator continue to develop its business and brand in both the UK and the US, said executive chairman Jimmy Wales.

Our operations in the US remain encouraging particularly since launching with T-Mobile in April.

Since April we have focused on our cost base to ensure that the business can operate in line with the available resources and have concentrated our activities on profitable subscribers and users rather than on absolute subscriber numbers.

Wales said the board was comfortable that it has now proved its ability to attract profitable customers at an acquisition cost far below that of competitors.

I am delighted that on the back of the progress we have made so far Mrs Juliet Rosenfeld, myself and Mark Epstein, all major shareholders in the company, are prepared to invest further funds to allow us to accelerate the acquisition of profitable customers in both the United States and the UK.

This is a significant demonstration of faith in the business model and the company.
Vodafone: UBS reiterates buy with a target price of 310p.

British Land: HSBC reiterantes buy, 738p target.

Ophir Energy: Deutsche Bank keeps at neutral with a 95p target.

Homeserve: UBS reiterates neutral with a 610p target.

Intercontinental Hotels: Credit Suisse keeps at outperform with a 3550p target.

Wolseley: JP Morgan keeps at neutral with a target price of 4350p.

Dominos Pizza: UBS reiterates neutral with a target price of 350p.

Halma: Credit Suisse stays at outperform with a 1040p tar get.

Capita: JP Morgan reiterates neutral with a target of 760p.

Hammerson: HSBC maintains buy with a 658p target.

Intermediate Capital Goup: Jefferies keeps at buy with a 954p target.

RPC: Deutsche Bank reiterates buy with a 1000p target.
Focus will shift back to the US jobs market next week, with data referencing the month of September set for release on Friday.

While few analysts expect the Fed's November policy meeting will yield any changes, upcoming monthly jobs reports will likely continue to be a key ingredient informing US rate-setters' deliberations when looking out to December's meeting.

A raft of figures on the state of the British economy are also scheduled to be published next Friday, including data on industrial production, foreign trade and the Halifax home price survey.

The other big day in terms of UK data will be Tuesday, with Markit's service sector PMI and BRC shop price data set to come out.

Euro area and US service sector PMI's are also expected on Monday.

Lastly, on Thursday the European Central Bank will publish the minutes of its most recent policy meeting held on 8 September.

Monday October 03

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Avesco Group, Gulf Marine Services, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group, New Europe Property Investments, Novae Group, Phoenix Group Holdings (DI), Portmeirion Group, Puma Vct VII, Robinson, RSA Ins 7 3/8%pf

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Auto Sales (US) (20:00)

Construction Spending (US) (15:00)

ISM Manufacturing (US) (15:00)

ISM Prices Paid (US) (15:00)

FINALS

James Halstead, Seeing Machines Ltd.

AGMS

Vela Technologies

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Park Group, Pinewood Group

Tuesday October 04

INTERIMS

Quantum Pharma

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Croda International, Greencore Group

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Producer Price Index (EU) (10:00)

FINALS

Bluefield Solar Income Fund Limited, CAP-XX Limited, Revolution Bars Group, SCS Group

AGMS

Angle, Ncondezi Energy Limited (DI)

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS

Greggs, St Ives

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

PMI Construction (09:30)

Wednesday October 05

INTERIMS

Tesco

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Rathbone Brothers, Savills

QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE

JP Morgan Chase & Co

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Balance of Trade (US) (12:30)

Crude Oil Inventories (US) (15:30)

Factory Orders (US) (15:00)

ISM Non-Manufacturing (US) (15:00)

MBA Mortgage Applications (US) (12:00)

Retail Sales (EU) (10:00)

GMS

Puma Vct VII

EGMS

Public Power GDR SA (Reg S)

AGMS

Artemis Alpha Trust, Hargreaves Services

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS

Topps Tiles

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

BRC Shop Price Index (00:01)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Stagecoach Group

Thursday October 06

INTERIMS

Morses Club

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

888 Holdings, Centaur Media, Churchill China, Crest Nicholson Holdings, HSS Hire Group

INTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATE

AA , Air Partner, Andrews Sykes Group, Aquatic Foods Group , Ascential, Aviva, Balfour Beatty, Barr (A.G.), Bodycote, Burford Capital , Cello Group, Cenkos Securities, Central Asia Metals, Cobham, Ebiquity, Elecosoft, Fisher (James) & Sons, Hastings Group Holdings , Highland Gold Mining Ltd., ICG Enterprise Trust, IDOX, Johnson Service Group, Judges Scientific, Keywords Studios, Kingfisher, Learning Technologies Group , Menzies(John), Mortgage Advice Bureau (Holdings) , Netplay TV, Premier Technical Services Group , Rightmove, Saga , SIG, Smith & Nephew, StatPro Group, Synthomer, Travis Perkins, TT Electronics, Unite Group, WPP, XLMedia

QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Albion Technology & General VCT, British Land Company, Fair Oaks Income Fund Limited , Investors Capital Trust 'A' Shares, Mercantile Investment Trust (The), Merchants Trust, Schroder Income Growth Fund, Torchmark Corp.

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Continuing Claims (US) (13:30)

Initial Jobless Claims (US) (13:30)

FINALS

DFS Furniture

IMSS

Dunelm Group

SPECIAL EX-DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

JPMorgan Mid Cap Inv Trust, Photo-Me International

AGMS

Taptica International (DI)

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Factory Orders (GER) (07:00)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Diageo, PZ Cussons, South32 Limited (DI)

FINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Abbey, Alumasc Group, Ashley (Laura) Holding, Begbies Traynor Group, Eckoh, HML Holdings, JPMorgan Mid Cap Inv Trust, Mid Wynd International Inv Trust, Murgitroyd Group, Photo-Me International, Produce Investments, Redde, Sky

Friday October 07

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

1pm, Admiral Group, Berendsen, Camellia, Cape, Capital Drilling Ltd. (DI), Centamin (DI), Clarke (T.), Countrywide, Devro, Drax Group, Eurocell , Fyffes, Glanbia, Grafton Group Units, Greggs, H&T Group, InterContinental Hotels Group, International Personal Finance, Irish Continental Group Units, Lavendon Group, Martinco , PPHE Hotel Group Ltd, Regus, Shire Plc, STV Group, Taylor Wimpey

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

Blackrock North American Income Trust , Land Securities Group, Regional REIT Limited

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Consumer Credit (US) (20:00)

Industrial Production (GER) (07:00)

Non-Farm Payrolls (US) (13:30)

Unemployment Rate (US) (13:30)

Wholesales Inventories (US) (15:00)

FINALS

Progility

SPECIAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Admiral Group, Carr's Group

EGMS

Sable Mining Africa Ltd. (DI)

AGMS

Abbey, Legendary Investments

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Balance of Trade (09:30)

Halifax House Price Index (08:30)

Industrial Production (09:30)

Manufacturing Production (09:30)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

AdEPT Telecom, Conviviality, Fletcher King, Goodwin Plc, Micro Focus International, Miton UK Microcap Trust
Speculation in the media of clients leaving have "no basis", Deutsche Banks boss said in a letter sent to staff.

Our bank has become object of heavy speculation -- renewed rumors have sparked marked swings in shares.

Our job is that this distorted perception from outside doesnt influence our business in a stronger way. There are some market forces, that want to weaken this confidence in us, he said.

In Cryans opinion, not even the outcome of litigation in the States justifies the share price decline, when one looks at the final settlements reached by the US government with rivals.

Deutsche Bank has a strong foundation.

As of 0953 BST the lenders shares were clawing back some of their ovenright losses and trading at 10.26.
President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte drew a parallel between himself and Hitler saying he will happily slaughter three million drug dealers on Friday, Reuters reported.

Hitler massacred 3 million Jews, now there are three million drug addicts. Id be happy to slaughter them. At least if Germany had Hitler the Philippines would have, he said, pointing at himself.

Both figures quoted in his statement were incorrect. Hitler massacred six million Jews as well as other minorities during the Holocaust and according to recent figures released earlier this week in the Philippine, the number of drug users in the country is closer to 1.8m, just 1.8% of the population, according to local news website Rappler.

You know my victims I would like them to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition, Duterte went on to say.

Over 3500 alleged drug dealers and addicts have been killed since Duterte came into power, the majority of which were killed by vigilante militia.

The Filipino president told the press that he was "portrayed to be some cousin of Hitler" when critics accused him of inciting a genocide.

Two days prior to the Philippines presidential election, the then President Benigno Aquino had warned that Duterte's rising popularity was similar to that of Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s.

"I hope we learn the lessons of history, we should remember how Hitler came to power," said Aquino.

His comments led to an outcry amongst the Jewish community.

US-based Jewish group the Anti-Defamation League said the comments were "inappropriate and deeply offensive."

The groups communications director Todd Gutnick said: "The comparison of drug users and dealers to Holocaust victims is inappropriate and deeply offensive. It is baffling why any leader would want to model himself after such a monster".

"What President Duterte said is not only profoundly inhumane, but it demonstrates an appalling disrespect for human life that is truly heart-breaking for the democratically elected leader of a great country," said World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Digital Terrorism and Hate project, called them "outrageous" and demanded an apology to the victims of the Holocaust for this disgusting rhetoric.
More than three-quarters of European online customers are willing to exceed minimum order thresholds for free delivery, but Brits are most likely to be put off by poor performing sites, according to new research.





The YouGov research (surveying 8000+ European online shoppers) from JDA and Centiro shows that three quarters of UK shoppers would switch to another retailer if they experienced problems with an online order, which is far higher than shoppers in elsewhere in Europe.

Other key findings include:

 1 in 2 European shoppers experienced and issue with an online order in the last 12 months

 Click & Collect is gaining popularity with almost half (49%) of Europeans having used the service over the past 12 months, up by 17 per cent since 2014

 UK shoppers still have the highest expectation when it comes to free deliveries, with almost three-quarter (72 per cent) expecting standard (3-5 days) delivery to be free (Sweden posted 61 per cent, Germany 55 per cent and France 55 per cent

 The emergence of the serial returner in Germany (23%) and the UK (19%) where a growing number of online shoppers are buying multiple items with the intention of returning goods they did not want.

The JDA/Centiro Customer Pulse Report Europe 2016, conducted by YouGov, polled 8,190 adults online across the UK, Germany, France and Sweden.

It revealed that despite this willingness to spend more with retailers, European online shoppers continue to be intolerant of poor service.

Overall, nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of respondents stated they would likely switch to an alternative retailer as a result of a poor experience with an online home delivery, or when using a Click & Collect service. UK online shoppers were the least tolerant, with nearly three-quarters (74 per cent) stating they would likely switch to an alternative retailer.

Ongoing online home delivery problems fuels Click & Collect growth

The research reveals that 1 in 2 European shoppers experienced a problem with an online order in the last 12 months. As problems with home deliveries continue, Click & Collect is gaining increasing popularity among European online shoppers. Almost half of those surveyed (49 per cent) stated they had used this service over the past 12 months, growing by 17 per cent since 2014. The French (59 per cent) and the UK markets (54 per cent) saw the highest rate of adoption of Click & Collect services over the last year.

Despite the growing popularity of Click & Collect, more than half (54 per cent) of European adults that used the service had encountered an issue. This figure is lower in the UK (45 per cent), due in part to it being a more mature market for Click & Collect. In other regions where issues were more frequent (Germany 65 per cent, France 56 per cent, Sweden 56 per cent) retailers are still learning and refining how to run an effective in-store Click & Collect service.

The growth of online retail shows no sign of slowing down  with retailers competing ever more aggressively for sales and offering an increasing array of fulfillment options. Delivering a high level of service in an efficient and profitable manner remains a challenge for many retailers, said Jason Shorrock, vice president, retail strategy EMEA at JDA. As our research shows, last-mile issues continue to negatively impact the customer experience and customers are more willing to go elsewhere if their expectations arent being met. The good news for retailers is that customers appear to be willing to exceed order thresholds if it qualifies them for free delivery or collection. Now, more than ever, it is important for retailers to ensure they are offering outstanding customer service, or they risk damaging customer relationships and revenue.

Differing responses to minimum order values

When ordering goods online for home delivery, cost (50 per cent) continues to be the most important factor for European online shoppers, followed by convenience (26 per cent) and speed (18 per cent). Interestingly, speed was much more important for German (21 per cent) and French (21 per cent) online shoppers than those in the UK (16 per cent) and Sweden (12 per cent).

Over the last 12 months, many retailers have introduced measures such as minimum order values and charges for Click & Collect orders, as they look to boost the profitability of their online operations. Despite the majority (79 per cent) of European online shoppers indicating they would be happy to exceed minimum order thresholds, the research shows that behaviour differs by delivery option. Twenty-five percent would do so for same-day delivery and 22% for next-day delivery, but this drops to 15 per cent for standard (3-5 days) delivery. Responses also varied by geography, with a third (33 per cent) of UK respondents exceeding minimum order values to qualify for next-day delivery, compared to just 16 per cent of French respondents.

Regarding free delivery, UK respondents had the highest expectations with almost three-quarter (72 per cent) expecting standard (3-5 days) delivery to be free. In comparison, this expectation was far less in Sweden (61 per cent), Germany (55 per cent) and France (55 per cent).

Returns remain a conundrum for European retailers

Returns continue to put stress on European retailers from both an operational and margin perspective. The research shows that 30 per cent of European online adults return items bought online twice up in an average year, with a further 25 per cent returning items three or more times. Overall, 46 per cent of European online shoppers returned items as a result of them not meeting their expectations. A further 16 per cent stated they bought multiple items with the intention of returning the goods they did not want. Significantly, that figure was higher in Germany (23 per cent) and the UK (19 per cent) specifically, which indicates a possible trend towards serial returners in those regions.

Processing online returns continues to pose an operational and financial challenge for retailers. At the same time, the returns experience is having an increasing influence on who consumers shop with online, said Niklas Hedin, CEO of Centiro. A significant number of customers are now buying multiple items online with the intention of sending back those they dont want. It will become increasingly important for retailers to identify these serial returners  so they can better tailor their returns offering and use it as a source of greater customer engagement.

Stores to retain a key role in online retail

According to the research, online home delivery (61 per cent will be the most popular way to shop in five years time. However, a significant number of European shoppers stated they will use Click & Collect (28 per cent) or use the store to shop and pick up in store (35 per cent), or shop and opt for home delivery (21 per cent). This indicates that the store will continue to play a significant role in the retail industry in the future.

Another trend is the increased use of third-party fulfillment services to enable shoppers to pick up their goods from locations such as train stations and convenience stores. More than a quarter (27 per cent) of European adults online said they would use such services in the future, with it being especially popular in Sweden (37%) and France (36 per cent).

It is clear that there are differing levels of maturity within the European online retail market and customer behaviour varies from country to country. For international retailers, it is important to understand these regional differences so they can tailor their approach to meet local needs. Key to this will be mining the volume and variety of customer data to generate and use insights to serve shoppers in a much more personal and segmented manner. Aligning this insight with their supply chains will help retailers deliver a better and more cost-effective service to their customers, added Jason Shorrock.

All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. The results are based on data from JDAs Customer Pulse Reports 2016. The total sample size was UK (2,096), France (2,057), Germany (2,023), Sweden (2,014). Fieldwork was undertaken between April  May 2016. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been given an even weighting for each country to produce an average value.

www.jda.com

www.centiro.com
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Blue Jackets goalie Merzlikins, family threatened verbally

Aleksandra Merzlikins, the wife of the Blue Jackets goalie, has posted online about verbal abuse and threats directed at her family by fans.
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NEW YORK (AP)  U.S. stocks skidded Thursday as drug companies and banks absorbed large losses. Drugmakers faced scrutiny over price increases, while banks fell as investors worried about the stability of Deutsche Bank and other financial institutions.

Stocks were slightly lower in morning trading, and they fell hard at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time on renewed concerns about Germany's largest bank. EpiPen maker Mylan fell after legislators called for an investigation of the company. The price of oil continued to rise, which sent oil drilling and equipment companies higher. Stocks gave up most of their gains from the last two days.





. . .
Did Congress set the stage for high drug prices?

Congress expanded taxpayer-financed coverage for drugs without mechanisms for dealing with costs, instead relying mainly on market forces.



By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

Associated Press

WASHINGTON  Lawmakers are venting outrage over high prescription drug costs, but if Congress is looking for culprits, it might want to look in the mirror.

Republican- and Democratic-controlled Congresses, and presidents of both parties, may have set the stage for the startling prices that have consumers on edge.

In the last 13 years, Congress passed major legislation that expanded taxpayer-financed coverage for prescription drugs but lacked explicit mechanisms for dealing with costs, instead relying mainly on market forces. Lawmakers look like unwitting enablers in the eyes of some experts.

Congress in attempting to expand access to prescription drugs has inadvertently created a situation where price increases are much more rapid, said economist Paul Ginsburg, a former congressional adviser on Medicare who now directs the Brookings Institution health policy center.

Government-sponsored coverage injected more dollars into the market for medications, and new consumer protections curtailed some blunt instruments insurers used to control costs, such as annual and lifetime limits on the dollar value of coverage.

The history we see over and over again is that when the government steps in as a guaranteed payer without regard to price, it will be taken advantage of, said Dr. Peter Bach, director of Memorial Sloan Kettering's Center for Health Policy and Outcomes.

Congressional indignation was on display recently as House members grilled Mylan CEO Heather Bresch about price increases for her company's EpiPens, prefilled syringes that deliver a rescue drug for people suffering life-threatening allergic reactions. The company was accused of gouging patients, but there was little introspection about the role of government.

It's not like a secret signal went out from Capitol Hill that it was OK for Mylan to charge $608 for an EpiPen two-pack. Instead, government policies foster an environment that makes it easier to introduce new medications at a high price and to charge more for existing drugs.

It has dramatically changed the pricing environment, explained Ginsburg. If a manufacturer sets the price higher, there will be less resistance to that price because a lot more people will be able to access that drug than in the past. The rational thing for the manufacturer would be to raise the prices both of existing drugs and newly introduced ones.

Consider the following:

 Passed in 2003 under President George W. Bush, Medicare's Part D prescription benefit provided drug coverage to seniors. Medicare was forbidden to negotiate prices. Instead, private insurers and pharmacy benefit managers would keep costs in check. For a while it seemed to be working amid greater use of generic drugs. But expensive new specialty drugs and price increases for some older medications changed things. A feature of the program that protects beneficiaries from catastrophic costs has allowed drugmakers and insurers to pass the bill for very expensive medications on to taxpayers.

 Enacted in 2010 under President Barack Obama, the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, expanded coverage for the uninsured. It made prescription drugs an essential benefit, and barred dollar limits on insurance coverage. The drug industry supported the legislation and, according to documents released by House Republicans, got a White House commitment not to seek Medicare rebates opposed by drugmakers. The administration helped defeat an attempt to let patients import lower-cost drugs from abroad.

 Obama's health care law provided makers of cutting-edge biologic drugs 12 years of protection from generic competitors, not a shorter period sought by consumer advocates.

It's not clear to what extent Part D and the ACA may have directly caused the very large increases in drug prices in the last five years or so, said Rick Foster, formerly Medicare's chief actuary, or number-cruncher. Having said that, it wouldn't surprise me if the significant increase in insurance coverage  and especially the catastrophic protection  contributed to the drug price increases.

The drug industry, a formidable lobby, rejects such speculation.

Fundamentally, we disagree that there is not adequate cost containment for medicines built into Part D, or the ACA, said Lisa Joldersma, vice president of policy and research with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

We think the market is best able to manage the holistic picture and to strike the right balance across cost containment, access and continuous innovation, she added.

The public seems receptive to government action. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Thursday shows strong support for requiring drug companies to disclose how they set prices (86 percent), Medicare negotiations (82 percent), price limits on costly drugs to treat cancer and diseases like hepatitis (78 percent), and allowing Americans to import medications from Canada (71 percent).

Rep. Xavier Becerra, a senior California Democrat, says he doesn't believe Obama's overhaul and Bush's prescription benefit are responsible for high-cost drugs. But he still thinks Congress has to act.

I don't think there's anyone who doesn't believe we need to do more aggressive oversight of the industry, said Becerra.

It may be getting late, suggests Urban Institute economist Eugene Steuerle.

Government simply cannot provide monopoly power and at the same time say that it will pay a price set in the private market by those companies, said Steuerle. Turning the power of the purse over to monopolists is absurd.




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SALEM, Ore. (AP)  A janitorial company has been permanently banned from Oregon government work after an investigation revealed widespread underpayment of workers.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries conducted the investigation which prompted a settlement between Cornerstone Janitorial and the state.





. . .
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By MARI YAMAGUCHI

Associated Press

TOKYO  Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe used a meeting with his Singaporean counterpart on Wednesday to promote Japan's Shinkansen bullet train technology for use in a planned high-speed railway linking Singapore and Malaysia.

Abe, serving as top salesman for Shinkansen trains, held talks with Lee Hsien Loong at the state guest house  a venue for top-level hospitality  instead of the usual Prime Minister's Office. Japan is bidding for a planned railway linking Singapore and the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.





. . .
Shakespeare Festival receives $5M gift

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP)  The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has received a $5 million donation, the second-largest individual contribution the festival has ever received.

The Medford Mail Tribune reports that Roberta and David Elliott gave $5 million to endow the Festival's Artistic Opportunity Fund, which allows the festival to pursue significant artistic opportunities.

The festival presents and eight-month season of 11 plays that include works by Shakespeare and inspired by Shakespeare, including classics, musicals and new works.

The festival draws more than 400,000 people to almost 800 performances every year and employs approximately 575 theater professionals.









Previous columns:
Pacific Place remodel set to start next year

The owner of Pacific Place, Madison Marquette, said it has completed the purchase of the malls parking garage for $87 million and is preparing to do a complete remodel of the retail space that will start next year.

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray announced that the garage would be sold to the Washington D.C.-based company three months ago. Madison Marquette bought the retail portion of the mall in 2014 for $271 million. The five floors of retail space total 335,000 square feet.

The city built the garage in 1998 and has operated it since then at submarket rates. There are six levels and 1,200 parking spaces  making it one of the largest garages downtown.

In a statement released Thursday, Madison Marquette said the garage deal was linked to a $207 million loan from Wells Fargo that it will use to buy the garage and redevelop the mall.

Madison Marquette said work is scheduled to start in 2017, with a complete remodel of the interior and exterior, including new entries that will open the center to the busy streets of Seattle, one of the fastest growing cities in the nation.




In honour of Banned Books Week, were taking a look at some of the most controversial writing ever published.

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of objections to books in schools, bookstores, and libraries. Since then, says the American Library Association, more than 11,300 books have been challenged  some for reasons that might surprise you.

American Psycho

If you believe in the right to read, these are the contentious tales that belong on your bookshelf.

Before Christian Bale brought him to life, Patrick Bateman was ruffling feathers in novel form. The story of the businessman-slash-serial-killer contains highly detailed and disturbing depictions of violence and murder, as well as graphic sexual content. Because Batemans victims are primarily women, American Psycho has also be called extremely misogynistic.

Brave New World

Brave New World may be less cited than George Orwells 1984 when it comes to dystopian literature, but it seems to have aggravated a greater number of readers. Ireland yanked it from shelves for its controversial themes around child birth, religion, and the traditional family. Some critics in the US also felt it was unfit for schools and libraries.

The Catcher in the Rye

Young Holden Caulfield has challenged censors for decades. The Catcher In The Rye is frequently removed from classrooms and school libraries for being unacceptable, obscene, blasphemous, negative, foul, filthy, and undermining morality. Oddly enough, its both the most banned and the second most taught book in American schools.

The Color Purple

Alice Walkers Pulitzer Prize-winning story about a courageous black womans struggle for empowerment features rape, spousal abuse, and homosexuality. The book has repeatedly been challenged for its depictions of sexuality and violence. Other censors have cited offensive language, troubling ideas about race relations, and unsuitability for a younger age group as reasons for banning.

The Grapes of Wrath

Kern County, California, is both the setting of Steinbecks novel and the first place where it was banned (1939). Detractors faulted the authors sympathy for the poor, socialist tendencies, use of profanity, and sexual references. Objections continued well into the 1990s, both in the United States and abroad.

The Harry Potter Series

The beloved boy wizard isnt beloved by all. Some religious groups take offense to the witchcraft portrayed in the explosively popular series. Of particular concern to them is the positive portrayal of witchcraft in literature aimed at children. The Harry Potter books have consistently appeared on most challenged books lists since 2000.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The first ban of Mark Twains American classic called it trash and suitable only for the slums. The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn is one of the most challenged books in history, with todays critics calling it racially insensitive and oppressive, and expressing concern that it perpetuates racism.

Lolita

A book about a man who becomes obsessed with, then embarks upon a relationship with, a 12-year-old girl is bound to be controversial. Nabokovs novel was called the filthiest book I have ever read by the editor of the Sunday Express, banned in various countries, and labeled pornography by a variety of authority figures over the years.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Stephen Chboskys cult-favourite coming of age story is a haunting modern classic in the vein of The Catcher in the Rye. Like that novel, it was met with hefty critiques for vivid descriptions of sex, abuse, and drugs. The book has been removed from library shelves in some places and regularly makes the American Library Associations top 10 most challenged books list.

The Satanic Verses

Its not exactly the shocker of the century that something called The Satanic Verses would spark controversy. Many in the Islamic community saw the books portrayal of Islam as blasphemous. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, forcing the author into hiding for a decade. Copies of the book were burned at rallies and several people associated with its publication were attacked.

Tropic of Cancer

Millers largely autobiographical book focuses on expats living abroad in France, particularly the lives of a struggling writer and his friends and colleagues. Turns out expat writers have all kinds of salacious sexual encounters, and not all readers are ok with that. A Pennsylvania judge called it, a cesspool, an open sewer, a pit of putrefaction, a slimy gathering of all that is rotten in the debris of human depravity. Orwell called it the most important book of the mid-1930s.

Ulysses

Many tremble in fear at the thought of reading this inscrutable novel, which the author himself said he hoped would keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant. Early critics who managed to get past the challenging prose banned the book in Ireland, Great Britain, and the United States for colourful depictions of sexual acts and bodily functions. Despite the severe disapproval from some, Ulysses is considered one of the greatest works of English literature.
A trilateral meeting of transport ministers of India, Iran and Afghanistan on Thursday decided to push forward with the International Transport and Transit Corridor project that will connect landlocked Afghanistan to the Iranian port of Chabahar and further to India through sea routes. India's minister of road transport and highways and shipping Nitin Gadkari on Thursday held discussions with minister of transport and civil aviation of Afghanistan, Mohammadullah Batash and minister of road and urban development of Iran, Abbas Ahmed Akhoundi in New Delhi on the trilateral agreement on development of the Chabahar port and special economic zone. The three countries had, on 23 May 2016, signed an agreement on developing the Chabahar port as a hub port for regional connectivity. At Thursday's meeting the ministers reiterated the importance of Chabahar as a hub for regional connectivity and their commitment to work towards this objective. It was decided to organize a connectivity event involving all stakeholders at Chabahar within two months to increase awareness about the new opportunities offered by Chabahar Port. It was decided to evolve protocols related to transport and transit, ports, customs procedures and consular affairs. It was also decided to convene an expert level meeting of senior officials of the three countries within one month in Chabahar. The ministers expressed satisfaction that the three countries are taking prompt measures for completing internal processes for the ratification of the agreement. They also exchanged views on the next steps to be taken for an early implementation of the Agreement. Development of Ports, Road and Rail connectivity will open up new opportunities leading to new jobs and prosperity in all three countries. Trade is recognized as driving economic growth and development, the implementation of the agreement would provide the eco-system for the private sector to seize the business opportunities emerging due to substantial reduction of logistic costs for trade among the three countries.










In a travel advisory for pregnant women and those trying to get pregnant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they should "consider postponing nonessential travel" to 11 countries, including Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, East Timor and Vietnam.

The CDC said for Singapore, pregnant women "should not travel" there.

The agency issued a stronger warning for Singapore compared to the rest of the region as Singapore was currently experiencing a large Zika outbreak, with 400 people diagnosed with virus since the end of August.

Zika was first detected in Southeast Asia back in the 1960's and according to scientists the virus had been circulating throughout the region since then.

According to Dr Denise Jamieson, chief of the Women's Health and Fertility Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, several countries had reported occasional cases or small outbreaks of Zika.

However, in the past month, health officials had started to detect more Zika cases around the region. Apart from the outbreak in Singapore, cases had cropped up Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Thailand was currently investigating cases of microcephaly to check whether they were linked to Zika infection, the World Health Organization said yesterday.

"Although we believe the level of risk for Zika virus infection in Southeast Asia is likely lower than in Latin America - where the virus is spreading widely - we still feel there is some risk to pregnant women in Southeast Asia," Jamieson said, www.npr.org reported.


Canada's Kirkland Lake Gold to buy Australia's Newmarket Gold for C$1 bn

Canada's Kirkland Lake Gold yesterday struck a deal to buy Australia's Newmarket Gold for about C$1 billion ($764 million) in stock, in order to create a new mid-tier gold company.

Under the terms of the deal, existing shareholders of Newmarket will receive 0.475 for every share of Newmarket. The exchange ratio is a premium of 9.4 per cent, which implies a consideration of C$5.28 per Newmarket common share based on Kirkland's closing price yesterday.

The implied equity value is C$1.01 billion.

Post closing, Kirkland Lake Gold and Newmarket shareholders will own approximately 57 per cent and 43 per cent of the combined company, respectively.

The combined company, to be renamed Kirkland Lake Gold, will have a market cap of around C$2.4 billion and produce over 500 koz [thousand ounces] of gold annually.

Kirkland operates its flagship Macassa Mine Complex in Kirkland Lake gold camp, as well as the Holt, Holloway and Taylor gold mines located in northeastern Ontario.

With the addition of Newmarket's Fosterville Gold Mine located in the state of Victoria, Australia and its other gold producing Cosmo and Stawell mines, the targeted gold production of the combined company will be over 500 koz for the full year ended 2016, Kirkland said in a statement.

Tony Makuch, president and CEO of Kirkland, said, "The combination with Newmarket is a very attractive opportunity for our shareholders . We see several opportunities to grow this company within the expanded portfolio, where the combined teams will have the financial and technical capabilities to execute on our progressive growth strategy."

''The Transaction with Kirkland Lake Gold accomplishes Newmarket's goal of becoming a quality, low cost +500,000 ounce per year gold producer while providing our shareholders with an immediate premium on their shares. The combination of our two flagship mines, Fosterville and Macassa, will be the cornerstone of an exciting new mid-tier gold producer with an attractive growth profile and operations in two of the best mining jurisdictions in the world,'' said Douglas Forster, president and CEO of Newmarket.


A 30-year-old man has appeared in court charged in connection with a fire in Letterkenny that is estimated to have caused 500,000 of damage.

Nine cars were destroyed in the fire at a carpark under an apartment complex at Rosemount Lane in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Paul McGinley of Glen Hola, Gortahork appeared at a special sitting of Letterkenny District Court on Friday morning on ten charges connected to the incident.

Inspector Goretti Sheridan told Judge Paul Kelly that estimates put the damage in the region of half a million euro. She said specialist engineers will be assessing the scene on Friday and that a combination of structural damage and smoke damage to apartments and shops will see the cost run into hundreds of thousands of euro.

Garda Emmet Brady of Letterkenny Garda Station told the court he charged McGinley at 10.34 pm on Thursday. McGinley made no reply to nine charges of criminal damage and one charge of burglary.

During the 20-minute hearing Inspector Sheridan objected to bail because of the seriousness of the charges and the extent of the damage caused. She added that McGinley will be facing more serious charges relating to the incident.

Solicitor Frank Dorrian said his client did not pose a flight risk and did not hold a passport.

Judge Kelly said he was refusing bail because he was concerned that was a risk McGinley would not appear at his trial. He remanded McGinley in custody to appear at Letterkenny District Court on Monday, October 3rd.

The court heard that a second man arrested in connection to the incident is in Letterkenny University Hospital for supervision.
Unusually large numbers of Portuguese man owar marine animals have been washing up on Irish beaches from Donegal to Cork and Irish Water Safety has issued a warning to bathers to exercise extreme caution.

Local authorities in Donegal, Cork, Kerry, Clare, Galway and Mayo have reported them on their shores mainly in south and southwest facing bays.

The stingers of the Portuguese man owar remain venomous even after death, and contact with the skin can result in severe repercussions up to and including death.

This is the worst Portuguese man owar infestation off Irish coasts in over 100 years and appears to have happened because of a combination of tropical air and slack northerly winds which have led to the waters off the west coast warming to 15 degrees over recent months, creating an ideal setting for the venomous organisms.

In a statement Irish Water Safety warn that surfers, kite surfers, swimmers, kayakers, divers and walkers need to keep a vigilant eye open for these creatures which give a very strong sting and to some people can cause anaphylactic shock or seizures.

It also issued the following advice for members of the public who come in contact with one of the creatures:

Ensure you dont get stung yourself when aiding others.

 Remove any attached tentacles with a gloved hand, stick or towel.

 Do not rub the affected area, this may result in further venom release.

 Rinse the affected area with sea-water - do not use fresh water, vinegar or urine.

 Apply a dry cold pack to the area - ie place a cold pack or ice inside a plastic bag and then wrap this package in a t-shirt or other piece of cloth.

 Seek medical attention if there is anything other than minor discomfort. Note the sting can cause anaphylactic shock, if you are feeling unwell go to A&E for treatment.

Irish Water Safety added that spring tides caused by a new moon on Saturday will see larger areas of the coast exposed to man o war, and beach-goers in the south, west and northwest have been warned to avoid them.
Home Four wheelers 2016 Paris Motor Show: Renault Kwid Will Not Be Exported To Brazil oi-Rajkamal

Renault's latest runaway success, the Kwid will not be exported to Brazil from India, instead, it will be made in Brazil. The announcement was made during the 2016 Paris Motor Show by Bernard Cambier, Renault's chairman for Africa, the Middle East and India.

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PRESS RELEASE

Statement by the staff of the European Commission and the European Central Bank following the first post-programme surveillance mission to Cyprus

European Commission staff, in liaison with staff from the European Central Bank (ECB), visited Cyprus from 26 to 30 September to conduct the first post-programme surveillance (PPS) mission. This visit also served as specific monitoring in the framework of the EU Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure. It was coordinated with an International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff visit. Staff from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) also participated in the mission on aspects related to its Early Warning System.

The reforms undertaken by Cyprus during the programme have started to bear fruit with robust economic growth and positive developments in the financial sector. Fiscal consolidation has been crucial for strengthening the credibility of the policy framework and facilitating market access of the sovereign. It is important to safeguard these achievements, including by withstanding the increased expenditure pressure. We note that the reform momentum has significantly weakened, with crucial legislation still awaiting adoption. Therefore, the mission encouraged the authorities to renew their efforts on this front to improve Cyprus's growth potential and attract more foreign investment.

Economic growth in 2016 has been stronger than expected, supporting fiscal performance. Growth has been driven by tourism and private consumption, which was supported by the effect of declining prices on real income and improving labour market conditions. Real GDP growth in 2016 is expected to exceed 2%, and to remain strong in 2017. Unemployment is perceptibly declining, albeit long term and youth unemployment remain very high. Fiscal consolidation has continued and the governments 2016 primary surplus target for 2016 is within reach. With the improved economic environment, the pressure for fiscal relaxation has increased. This should be resisted as fiscal risks remain significant; and because the downward path of public debt still remains to be firmly anchored. It is essential that legislative steps with a budgetary impact, such as the abolition of the immovable property tax, be compensated through well-specified measures at all government levels. In light of the fiscal risk, the mission underlined that fiscal discipline needs to be pursued, including by containing the public sector wage bill.

Accelerated loan restructuring efforts and the more supportive economic environment have led to a decline in the outstanding stock of non-performing loans (NPLs). However, NPLs remain at a very high level. The return of confidence has allowed banks to broaden their deposit base, improve liquidity and capital buffers. Their profitability, however, is constrained by a declining net interest margin and the need for additional provisioning. While new lending is strengthening, total credit to the economy continued to contract due to necessary balance sheet deleveraging, including through loan write-offs and restructurings. The mission underlined the need to pursue more forcefully the loan restructuring efforts, by making full use of all available tools, in order to accelerate the pace of reduction of NPLs.

The new insolvency and foreclosure frameworks are important achievements, but their implementation has to be stepped up. These tools are essential to help reduce the high levels of private debt and NPLs, as they provide debtors and creditors with diversified and efficient means to resolve unviable debts and reallocate economic resources to more productive uses. Their use has been limited so far due to the increasing recourse to debt-to-asset swaps, which is welcome; but also due to slow administrative capacity building and the reluctance of some stakeholders to engage in time-consuming procedures. The mission highlighted the need to increase administrative capacity and strengthen the efficiency of legal proceedings, in order to facilitate the use of the insolvency and foreclosure frameworks.

The pace of structural reform has considerably slowed. In the view of the mission, it is crucial to renew the reform momentum, including by legislating critical, but much delayed reforms. This includes key areas, such as public administration and the national health system. To further improve the business environment and attract more investment, progress needs to be achieved in key areas such as setting up a sustainable and efficient title deeds transfer system, modernising the justice system, and pursuing the efforts towards privatisation and the reform of the electricity market.

The mission would like to thank the Cypriot authorities and the IMF for their constructive and open discussions. The next PPS mission will take place in spring 2017.

For media queries, please contact Nicos Keranis, tel.: +49 69 1344 7806.
Even Trumps outreach is coded to play to the worst stereotypes of the right

Its now almost impossible to tell the difference between Donald Trump and the hordes of online trolls who back him.

He traffics in batshit conspiracy theories, stays up late to harass women online and then brags about it as a symbol of his virility.

For a while, even after he launched his campaign with a tirade of hate against Mexican immigrants, it hard for some people to see why a New York punchline whose daughter has converted to Orthodox Judaism has become the vessel for the most vile spewing of online antisemitism and bigotry weve ever witnessed. But Trumps recent escapades show exactly why hes become the hero to leagues of white nationalists who would take his victory as his own.

Its about policies and and its about loyalty.

Trumps hyper nationalistic agenda is one of the only consistent elements of his campaign. All threats are foreign and the only way to seal ourselves from them to literally seal ourselves.

Scratch the surface of this retreat into nostalgia for a past where white privilege wasnt contested and you end up with an outsourcer who is ranting against outsourcing, a man who rants against immigrants who hires immigrants over citizens and a law and order candidate who cant get himself to follow the law.

Trumps messaging is entirely patriarchal and tied into the sort of authoritarianism that doesnt prompt or even allow questioning of Daddy. And it helps that hes running against the first woman major party nominee.

But Trump also nurtures the support of racist trolls by never outwardly attacking them. Hes made glancing disavowals, but never via his primary mode of signaling to them  Twitter.

Also, his choice of targets  Judge Curiel, the Khans, Alicia Machado  seem to resemble the exact sort of people a white nationalist might target online. And his extraordinary wrath has never been extended on David Duke or any white racist. Its completely reserved for Obama, Clinton, Curiel, Khan, Machado and lots of other women and minorities whom the racist Alt-Right just happens to hate.

Even Trumps outreach is coded to play to the worst stereotypes of the right.

His recent attempts to pose in front of minority communities might have hoped to have a side effect of reassuring wavering moderates but his underlying message remained pure white nationalism.

Even in front of an African-American crowd, he suggests that we should subject innocent non-white people to widespread police harassment because of something someone who shares their race or ethnicity might have done in the past, a policy white people will never have to worry about, Paul Waldman explained.

Trump even took his racial purity message a step further in mid-September, Waldman points out, by saying that banning refugees, isnt only a matter of terrorism, but also a matter of quality of life.

This is why Trump scares this shit out of every minority group in America. The idea that our mere presence hinders the majoritys quality of life is an excuse that justifies almost anything.

Look at what Trump has casually proposed: mass deportations, erasure of war crimes laws, the end of birthright citizenship, religious tests And add to that the typical conservative policies he backs: overturning Roe v. Wade, deregulating Wall St., uninsuring 20 million, transferring trillions to the rich

Its genuinely terrifying, unless youre a rich white dude  like the guy who created Dilbert, Scott Adams.

Adams has become a leading voice of Trump supporters, though he claims to have endorsed Clinton because he fears for his life. So his argument is that Clinton is a fearsome killing machine who is dumb enough to be fooled by a hollow endorsement. And then last weekend he endorsed Trump because thats how seriously scared he was.

I consider my self-inflated sense of importance an asset, Adams wrote last year, as Ben Dolnick reports in an excellent profile on the cartoonist for Slate  No One Understands Donald Trump Like the Horny Narcissist Who Created Dilbert.

Its ridiculous bullshit and its all just about raising his profile and amusing himself.

Theres nothing new in this kind of trolling.

Heres Sartre back in 1946 describing anti-Semites as the original trolls. True of the alt-right today. pic.twitter.com/Q6Pam4tCxU  Matt OBrien (@ObsoleteDogma) August 29, 2016

This sort of bad faith arguing as sport is the kind of thing a man who never has to worry about losing his basic rights, being uninsured or not being able to feed his family can amuse himself with in his spare time. Its the luxury of having nothing to lose and believing that when Trump becomes king youll be the last against the wall.

But its also a reminder that politics is mostly about identification.

Racist trolls believe in Trump because they see themselves in Trump. And the terrifying thing is Trump continues to have no problem with that.
The charter school debate is no longer about charter schools vs. public schools (charters are not public schools  that myth has been exploded), or even about for profit vs. not for profit charters (the evidence HERE suggests this is really a difference without a distinction).

No, the real issue here is about the true purpose of education, and whether continuing to support two separate but unequal, and inequitable, school systems is doing anything to improve education for all children. By any objective measure, the answer is a resounding NO!

The charter lobby has attempted, through spending millions of dollars on PR and marketing, to redefine the purpose of education from one about producing well-rounded citizens who are capable of making valuable contributions to our society and leading fulfilling lives, to a business-driven agenda of producing workers for corporate America. The latter purpose now drives much of our state and federal education legislation, which is rife with references to 21st Century Skills, and insuring that high school graduates are stamped as being college and career-ready.

This is a radical repurposing of a public goal to meet the needs of private corporations, and is echoed in the mission and vision statements of the leading charter school management companies:

Success Academy: Build exceptional, world-class public schools that prove children from all backgrounds can succeed in college and life; and advocate across the country to change public policies that prevent so many children from having access to opportunity.

This is less a mission statement than the beginning sentence of a business plan. At Success Academy, children are referred to as scholars, and are judged on a one-size-fits-all scale: your value as a student is determined by your test scores, and eventually, your hirability. These goals are accomplished through adhering to uncommonly strict and harsh behavior management strategies, and by establishing an authoritarian classroom environment that is focused more on controlling students actions than on engaging them as learners.

KIPP: To create a respected, influential, and national network of public schools that are successful in helping students from educationally underserved communities develop the knowledge, skills, character and habits needed to succeed in college and the competitive world beyond.

As with Success Academy, the KIPP mission statement begins with a focus on the success of the business model, and only refers to students for their usefulness in helping KIPP meet its organizational goals  emphasizing the competitiveness of the world those children are about to enter. KIPP has also been criticized for manipulating their network schools graduation and college matriculation rates, using millions of taxpayer dollars on exorbitant administrator salaries, excessive travel and hospitality expenses, and non-transparency in terms of disclosure requirements.

National Heritage Academies: National Heritage Academies (NHA) partners with local school boards to build and manage no-cost public charter schools. NHAs system of schools is designed to eliminate the achievement gap and provide a public school choice to families so that their children are prepared for success in high school, college, and beyond.

More success, and more empty college and beyond rhetoric. Yet, behind the chains claims of valuing diversity, and embracing accountability, NHA has been sued for failing to provide required special education services for their students, and their administrators have discourage(d) parents from enrolling special-needs children at National Heritage  and to help place the children in Grand Rapids public schools instead. At NHA, the welcome sign is apparently only turned on if your child doesnt need special education servicesthen its time to head back to the good old public schools, where the doors are always open and all children are welcomed.

Charter advocates are currently busy working to increase the number of charter schools in Massachusetts, even though the quality of schools in the state is among the best in the nation. Youd think this crusade must be the result of public opinion and that parents were coming out in great numbers to demand more school choice and better options for their children  but youd be wrong.

Consider the following exchange between Jennifer Berkshire (aka, Edushyster) and researcher Maurice Cunningham, on the sources of support for charter schools in Massachusetts, as reported by Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post:

EduShyster: Theres a well-funded effort underway to paint the campaign to lift the charter cap in Massachusetts as a progressive cause. But what youve found in your research is that this is basically a Republican production from top to bottom. Cunningham: Thats right. There are a handful of wealthy families that are funding this. They largely give to Republicans and they represent the financial industry, basically. Theyre out of Bain, theyre out of Baupost, theyre out of High Fields Capital Management. Billionaire Seth Klarman, for example, has been described as the largest GOP donor in New England, and he gives a lot of money to free market, anti-government groups. Then on the campaign level, you have Republican strategist Will Keyser who certainly knows his stuff, and Jim Conroy who certainly knows his stuff. They know how to make something look like a grassroots campaign that really isnt. EduShyster: By *make something look like a grassroots campaign that really isnt,* what you really mean is that this is an entirely community-driven, grassroots campaign, correct? Cunningham: No. There is no grassroots support behind this campaign whatsoever. What do we look for to measure grassroots support? We look for a campaigns ability to find people who will essentially volunteer, who feel strongly about an issue and are willing to do the work that a campaign needs done. Two examples: signature collecting and canvassing door to door. Great Schools Massachusetts isnt able to do either one of those things. When they had to get signatures in 2015, they wound up paying $305,000 to a signature gathering firm. And thats because they dont have people who are strong believers who will go out on the street and volunteer and be passionate and do the things that people do when they really care about an issue. Or look at Democrats for Education Reform. When they backed Dan Rizzo in the special Senate election earlier this year, they had to pay for canvassers because they dont have people who feel strongly enough about the positions they take. The idea that these are community groups is completely manufactured.

Recent polls in the state show that voters are against lifting the cap on charters by a 7-point margin, with 11% of the population still undecided. The charter lobby sees Massachusetts as an important test case for their plan to privatize the schools  if their strategy works there, it can work anywhere.

But there is scant evidence that lifting these caps and increasing the numbers of charters has a positive impact on student learning. For example, there are only 22 charters in Boston, while Detroit has 94. The 2 cities are roughly the same size, so whats the difference? In Massachusetts, the states tight regulatory statutes governing the opening of new charters have slowed the pace of charter growth, and kept overall school quality high.

In Michigan, on the other hand, the combination of a strong charter lobby and a virtually unregulated charter sector has created what education researcher David Arsen calls a chaotic situation. Detroits school facilities are in a state of critical disrepair; necessary repairs cant be afforded, and large areas of the city have no schools, while other neighborhoods are flooded with options.

Very few people in Detroit would point to the explosion of charter schools, over half of which are of the for-profit variety, as a good thing for the citys educational health and vitality. The problems created by competition and choice will not be solved by competition and choice.

But this is an argument that makes no impression on the charter lobby. Their goals are not about kids, schools, and education; they are focused on dollars, cents, and profits.

And thats not up for debate.

[CC image credit: NY Photographic | via Blue Diamond Gallery]
McLaren Technology Group, which manufactures Formula One and luxury supercars, last week denied rumors that it was engaging in discussions with Apple regarding a possible purchase or strategic investment.

Apple has been pursing a highly secretive project to develop its own venture in the electric and autonomous vehicle space, code-named Project Titan, and it recently entered negotiations with McLaren on a potential deal, according to The Financial Times.

We can confirm that McLaren is not in talks with Apple in respect of any investment or acquisition, spokesperson Wayne Bruce told the E-Commerce Times.

When we asked specifically if Apple had approached the company about a potential deal, Bruce responded, Such is the nature of our business that a variety of different companies have confidential discussions with us and must remain so.

Led by CEO Ron Dennis, McLaren is known in the industry as a long-standing innovator in the European racing and luxury performance car circuits. It built the 12C and 12C Spider and the McLaren P1, and it is known for using lightweight carbon fiber materials that give its vehicles a unique combination of speed and durability.

The company is pursuing its own strategy of autonomous vehicle technology, Bruce said, confirming earlier reports that its focus was on adding autonomous safety features to its line of performance cars.

Apple Retools

Such a tie-up could make sense for Apple, given its history of failed negotiations and its desire to kick-start its car development project to catch up with rivals Tesla and Google, among others.

Having McLaren by their side would give [Apple] a unique position in the automotive arena, a step above what Tesla, Faraday Future and Karma automotive have in mind for their future losses, said Vishwas Shankar, mobility research manager at Frost & Sullivan.

Apple, after many failed talks with German OEMs, needs a partner with global appeal, he told the E-Commerce Times.

McLaren has a number of proprietary patents related to its proficiency in race technology, high-tech medical devices and research, Kelley Blue Book analyst Michael Harley told the E-Commerce Times.

Second Front

Apple also has entered talks to buy startup Lit Motors, which has developed an electric self-balancing motorcycle, according to a New York Times story following up on the FT report. The Times piece cites three anonymous sources.

Lit Motors C-1 is actually a two-wheeled, electric-powered vehicle that looks like a miniature car, with a windshield, roof and doors, and steering wheel. Otherwise, it has features similar to a motorbike or scooter. It uses two gyroscopes to keep it upright, and it uses a steer-by-wire system with sensors.

Several former engineers from Lit Motors currently work for Apple, according to the Times report.

The rumors come at a critical time for Apple. Its autonomous vehicle project earlier this month suffered a partial closure with layoffs of dozens of employees, according to the NYT.

The company this summer lost a key executive, Bart Nabbe, to startup Faraday Future.

A feeding frenzy is developing, with major tech companies maneuvering to snap up resources that will help them win the race to dominate the autonomous vehicle business, suggested Steven Polzin, director of mobility policy research at the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida.

Its interesting how the players are being pretty aggressive to stakeout collaborations and partnerships, and nobody wanting to be left out, he told the E-Commerce Times, but its not clear how well thought through some of their relationships are.
Alphabet think tank Jigsaw and startup Moonshot CVE last week demonstrated a new counterterrorism technology tool during a Brookings panel.

The groups have been collaborating on an international effort to steer social media users away from Islamic State terrorist propaganda. They have developed sophisticated algorithms to target potential ISIS sympathizers and recruits with counter narratives when they search for certain terms online or through social media.

During an eight-week pilot program, the groups presented targeted advertising and curated videos to more than 300,000 people who searched for specific terms that were known to be calling cards for ISIS propaganda. They laid out their results at the Brookings event.

The organizations hope to extend the effort to dissuade potential domestic extremists from violent hate groups and other radical influencers in the U.S.

Teen Recruits

Users as young as 13 have been going online with naive ideas about joining ISIS, noted Yasmin Green, head of research and development at Jigsaw. The program targeted those users, without passing judgment on their ideas, with videos that give a balanced and graphic picture of life under the terrorist group.

The start for us was really wanting to reach an audience that was already sympathetic to the Islamic State, Green said during the Brookings panel discussion.

The researchers not only conducted online targeted advertising research, but also followed it with actual field study, taking trips around the world to talk to some of the young people who had shown an interest in joining ISIS.

The program has shown some promise in sending potential sympathizers in another direction, but the impact of this kind of work is limited, observed Susan Hennessey, a Brookings fellow in national security and former National Security Agency attorney.

Its not clear how well the technology is targeting people who are really at risk, she told the E-Commerce Times, noting that the metrics on the kind of person who actually would join versus the kind of person who would remain an inactive sympathizer are not fully developed.

Recent court cases show that potential extremists are influenced by direct human relationships more than online recruitment or influence, in terms of converting them from interested spectators to actual terrorists, Hennessey said.

The Jigsaw program follows Obama administration efforts to get Silicon Valleys help in developing strategies to counter extremist activity on social media. The San Bernardino shooting last year was among the more high-profile domestic incidents reflecting ISIS ability to use the Internet to radicalize susceptible people.

The CVE Task Force at DHS is working to strengthen engagement between the federal government and the [private] sector to counter violent extremism online, said DHS spokesperson Neema Hakim.

The tech sector can help by addressing violent extremist content online that violates the terms of service, he told the E-Commerce Times.

Social Media Crackdown

Facebook, Twitter and other social media have taken their own steps to counter violent extremism online, either through enhanced enforcement of terms-of-service violations, or more proactive methods to steer users away from radical or violent material.

Twitter last month announced that it had suspended an additional 235,000 accounts for violating its terrorism-related policies. It announced the suspension of 125,000 accounts earlier this year.

Daily suspensions increased 80 percent from last year, Twitter said, with a spike in suspensions taking place right after terrorist incidents.

There is no magic algorithm for monitoring terrorist activity, the company noted, but it has been using proprietary spam-fighting tools in an effort to stay on top of it, and it has been sharing information with other social media platforms.

Twitter has been working with various organizations around the world, like True Islam in the U.S., Imams Online in the UK, and Parle-moi dIslam in France, spokesperson Nu Wexler told the E-Commerce Times, and Twitter representatives have attended summits convened by the French Interior Ministry and the Indonesian National Counterterrorism Agency.
A desperate search is underway for Buddy the Penguin after he was snatched from his enclosure at a South African oceanarium by two young men and released into the wild on Sept. 21.

Buddy was born in captivity and cant survive in the wild. Bayworld

Surveillance video shows the men pull up to Bayworld where they scaled the wall to get inside the park. Inside Buddys enclosure, the two can be seen taking selfies before one of them takes off his shirt, presumably to wrap Buddy up, and the two take off with the penguin in tow.

Staff noticed Buddys absence the next day when they couldnt find him for his monthly medical examination.

Once word got out about Buddys disappearance and the video was released, the two young men apparently responsible for taking Buddy came forward.

The individuals stated that they did not agree with the penguins being kept in captivity and that their intention was to capture and then release a penguin back into the wild, Bayworld said in a statement.

Bayworld trainers and experts said Buddy, who was born in captivity, will be under a lot of stress and will most likely starve because he doesnt know how to hunt for food.

They only eat pilchards (sardines), between seven or eight a day, and they also have to get their daily dose of vitamins, Cherie Lawrence, curator for marine mammals and seabirds, told HeraldLive.

Bayworlds Marine Living Collections curator Dylan Baily told jacarandafm that while Buddy is healthy and could live up to three weeks in the wild, he simply does not have the experience necessary to survive.

Wild juvenile penguins, called blues, will spend up to two years at sea learning their environment and how to fend for themselves, Baily said.

since Buddys disappearance. We even had to feed her in the nest so she wouldnt have to leave the chick by themselves.

Unfortunately, their efforts appeared to have failed. The first chick died earlier this week with second dying just days later. Their cause of death is not yet known.

A spokesman for Bayworld said the search for Buddy would continue Friday. He has a tag attached to his flipper with the number 2 6 6 (red blue blue).
The Zika virus, transmitted by the same mosquito as dengue fever, has spread with alarming speed throughout South and Central Americaand scientists in Brazil suspect that global warming is exacerbating the problem.

Although the virus, named after the Ugandan forest where it was first identified, usually causes only mild symptoms and often passes undetected, it has been associated with a surge in the number of cases of babies born with microcephaly, which can cause brain damage.

The Aedes egypti mosquito has now spread to 80 percent of Brazil. Photo credit: James Gathany / Wikimedia Commons

The World Health Organization (WHO) has now declared the situation an international public health emergency.

The numbers are alarming. Until last year, while dengue fever claimed many victims, Zika was unknown in Latin America. Since first detected in April 2014, there have been more than 4,000 births of babies with suspected microcephaly in Brazil, compared with a previous yearly average of 154.

Twenty-four countries in South and Central America have reported cases of microcephaly and the rapid spread of the virus is being attributed by some scientists to global warming.

Abnormal Warming

Last year was the hottest on record, with temperatures for the first time about 1 C above pre-industrial levels. But in some parts of Brazil, average temperatures rose by between 3 and 5 C, according to data from the Centre for Weather Forecasting and Climate Studies at Brazils National Institute for Space Research. The abnormal warming of the Pacific caused by El Nino contributed to this.

Studies by Brazilian scientists show that the Aedes egypti mosquito has spread to 80 percent of the country, an area of 6.9 million sq km (2.6 million square miles)four times larger than a decade ago.

Paolo Zanotto, a virologist at the University of Sao Paulos Biomedical Sciences Institute, is co-ordinating a network of laboratories studying the Zika virus.
Around the nation, big utility companies are successfully lobbying lawmakers and regulators to restrict individual and corporate access to solar power, denying people significant savings on electricity bills and the opportunity to take part in the growing green energy economy.

Big utility companies are successfully lobbying lawmakers and regulators to restrict individual and corporate access to solar power. Photo credit: Shutterstock

In third-party solar financing, a non-utility company installs solar panels on a customers property at little or no up-front cost, sometimes selling the solar energy back to the customer at rates typically lower than a utility would charge.

Duke Energy, the largest utility in the U.S., has so far succeeded in keeping third-party solar illegal in North Carolina, but conservative and liberal factions alike are trying to change that, in different ways.

At least four statesFlorida, Kentucky, Oklahoma and North Carolinacurrently ban third-party sales of solar energy. Twenty states have murky laws and in the remaining 26, companies are allowed to install solar panels on customers roofs and sell energy generated from these panels to the customer. But major electric utilities that burn coal or natural gas are ill-equipped to change their business models to accommodate renewables, which explains their frequent opposition to state initiatives that expand solar access.

When you get fully disrupted, youve got to find a new model, Zach Lyman of the energy consulting firm Reluminati told Rolling Stone. But utilities are not designed to move to new models; they never were. So they play an obstructionist role.

Utility monopolies are threatened by rooftop solar for three main reasons:

The more rooftop solar installations, the fewer new power plants are built by utilities, which are able to finance these building projects by raising rates on customers and in some states they have a guaranteed rate of return on their investments.

Customers with solar panels buy less energy from the grid, operated by the utilities.

Utilities often have to pay owners of home solar installations for the surplus energy their panels return to the grid.

While purchasing utility-scale solar farms to increase its profits, Duke Energythe most powerful political entity in North Carolinahas actively campaigned against solar policies that benefit individuals.

Duke Energy has claimed that rooftop solar hurts the poor by causing rate increases and has even targeted black leaders with this misleading message.

The company opposed the Energy Freedom Act, a bipartisan bill to legalize third-party solar. Although that bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. John Szoka, died in committee last year, future legislative attempts could face similar opposition from Duke Energy.

Meanwhile, Duke Energy purchased a majority stake in California-based REC Solar, which operates solar projects and sells the energy to commercial customers in other states where third-party sales are legal.

A Conservative Push for Solar Freedom

Rep. Szoka hopes to pass something similar to the Energy Freedom Act next year. Seventy-nine percent of North Carolinians support third-party solar sales, but at least some in the legislature prefer to ignore the citizens preference. North Carolina lawmakers have also allowed the states solar tax credit to expire.

Rep. Szoka, a mortgage lender, was stationed at the largest military installation in the country, Fort Bragg, during his career as a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army. Now representing a district that surrounds the city of Fayetteville and includes Fort Bragg, Szoka first spoke of the militarys energy consumption when explaining why he proposed the bill.

Third-party solar sales to the military would save money while increasing energy security, Rep. Szoka argued, noting that on-site power generation would decrease the militarys dependence on the electric grid, which is vulnerable to attacks. Rep. Szoka also says his bill would help the military base to fulfill a Department of Defense mandate that facilities get 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025.

The state representative says theres a strong free-market argument for third-party solar. What made America great is free enterprise, he says. We need to unleash entrepreneurs in our state to do what they do best.

He also cites private property rights, ratepayer savings and job creation as compelling reasons to legalize third-party solar.

Rep. Szokas 2015 bill to legalize third-party contracts had wide support from major corporations with business in the state including Wal-Mart, Target, Volvo and Macys. These and other businesses wrote a letter to all state legislators, saying that power purchase agreements (third-party sales) would allow them to avoid major up-front expenditures, the risks of operating solar arrays and fluctuating energy rates.

Big-Energy Insider Stands in Solars Way

The legislatures Joint Legislative Commission on Energy Policy had scheduled a March 1 press conference to announce the formation of a subcommittee that would study renewable energy issues such as third-party solar, net metering and the states Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (REPS). But on Feb. 29, they canceled the announcement because Rep. Mike Hager reconsidered his position and withdrew his support for  the comprehensive study, said Szoka.

Rep. Szoka had a long conversation with Hager this week but hasnt yet succeeded in changing Hagers mind.

Rep. Hager, who worked for 17 years at Duke Energy prior to his election as a Republican state representative, has been a staunch opponent of renewable energy, as Facing Souths Sue Sturgis has consistently reported.

Hager has tried to end renewables requirements for utilities, pushed for legalized hydraulic fracturing, downplayed the dangers of coal ash contamination and supported offshore drilling.

Duke Energy is the top corporate contributor to Hagers political campaigns, with Piedmont Natural Gas in second, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Hager is also tied to the controversial corporate bill mill, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has played a key role in attacks on solar in North Carolina and other states.

With Hager a vice-chair of the House committee on public utilities and co-chair of the Joint Legislative Commission on Energy Policy, renewables-friendly legislation will continue to face an uphill battle in the North Carolina General Assembly.

Hager and I are on opposite sides of a few energy issues on solar, wind and REPS, but were in agreement [a study] is whats good for the state, Szoka told DeSmog earlier this month, before Hager cancelled the announcement. I hope and pray we can negotiate.

A Nonprofits Civil Disobedience

While Szoka has tried to free North Carolina from utility monopolies via legislation, environmental nonprofits have tried to affect change through activism. Seeking a clarification to state law on third-party financing, NC WARN installed solar panels on the roof of Faith Community Church in Greensboro, selling the electricity to the church at a rate much lower than Duke Energy would charge.

The case is now before the North Carolina Utilities Commission. NC WARN Executive Director Jim Warren says that the law does not strictly prohibit sales between nonprofits. Additionally, the state constitution prohibits monopolies, he says and Duke Energy is just that.

Despite Duke Energys calls for a $1,000-per-day fine on the small nonprofit, NC WARN continues defying the energy giant and maintains that it is acting lawfully.

SolarCity, other solar companies and NC Interfaith Power and Light (represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center) have joined the case as interveners on NC WARNs side and the Christian Coalition of North Carolina has submitted a letter of support.

Its tragic and infuriating, at the very time when climate science experts are demanding that we begin making big reductions in carbon, for Duke Energy to use its clout in the wrong direction, says Warren. Were going to continue throwing everything we can at changing their business model. We have no choice.

Greenpeace is also standing up to Duke Energy and last year protested Duke Energys opposition to rooftop solar outside its annual shareholder meeting.

Monica Embrey, who leads Greenpeaces national campaign on Duke Energy, says, Its incredibly problematic that Duke Energy is denying access to homeowners, churches, schools and small businesses while reaping all of the benefits for itself  Everyone deserves access to solar and renewable energy options.

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Before Kenneth Cohen retired from his post earlier this year as ExxonMobils longstanding vice president of public and government affairs, he published a blog reasserting the companys support for a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Cohens Dec. 2 column was part of a broader public relations campaign to deflect allegations that ExxonMobil had downplayed evidence its own scientists uncovered about climate change and defrauded its shareholders and the public at large.

ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson (center) and Vice President of Public and Government Affairs Kenneth Cohen (right) claim their company has supported a carbon tax since 2009.

Cohen stressed that ExxonMobil believes the risks of climate change are real and  warrant constructive action and traced the companys support for a carbon tax back to a January 2009 speech by company CEO Rex Tillerson. Since then, Cohen said, ExxonMobil has been actively promoting it as the most viable way to curb carbon emissions in its communications with shareholders, journalists, government officials andmost especiallyfederal lawmakers, who are in a position to do something about it. ExxonMobil executives, he said, have echoed that message in countless private briefings with members of Congress on carbon tax policy options.

Is that right?

A cursory look at just who ExxonMobil funds on Capitol Hill and how they vote tells a very different story. That funding is significant. From 2010 through 2014, the company spent $6.4 million to elect lawmakers and another $64.2 millionmore than any other oil and gas companyto lobby them.

Given this largesse, one would expect a significant percentage of ExxonMobils beneficiaries to support its position on a carbon tax. Thats usually how it works. There may not be a demonstrable quid pro quo, but contributions guarantee access and access guarantees influence. In this case, however, an overwhelming majority of ExxonMobil-funded senators and representatives consistently oppose a carbon taxas well as other measures to address climate change.

That makes me wonder: Just what have ExxonMobil lobbyists been telling Congress during those countless private briefings?

Encouraging Inaction

Although neither the House nor the Senate has voted on a stand-alone carbon tax bill in recent years, since 2010 legislators have voted on a handful of amendments that put them on record on the issue.

The vote tallies speak for themselves.

In March 2013, for example, Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehousewho has never received ExxonMobil moneyoffered a budget resolution amendment that would ensure that all revenue from a fee on carbon pollution is returned to the American people. Thats exactly what ExxonMobil claims to support: a revenue-neutral carbon tax.

Whitehouses amendment was defeated by a 58 to 41 vote. Forty-eight of the senators on the floor that day received campaign contributions from ExxonMobil between 2010 and 2014. Of those, 39-33 Republicans and six Democratsopposed the amendment. In other words, more than 80 percent of the legislators ExxonMobil funded voted against the companys stated position.

Five months later, the House approved an amendment that would prevent the Obama administration from imposing a carbon tax without congressional approval. Steve Scalise, an ExxonMobil-backed representative from Louisiana, tacked the amendment onto a bill that ultimately died. His amendment passed on a 237 to 176 vote and nearly 90 percent of the representatives who voted for it204 Republicans and eight Democratsreceived ExxonMobil contributions.

More recently, in March 2015, the Senate voted 58 to 42 in favor of a budget resolution amendment introduced by Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt prohibiting a carbon tax. Thirty of the 40 senators who received ExxonMobil campaign contributions, including Blunt, voted in favor of the amendment.

Besides these amendment votes, another way to gauge where ExxonMobil-funded lawmakers sit on this issue is to take a look at what they cosponsoror ignore. Here again, the record is clear.

In March 2013, for instance, 156 House members cosponsored a resolution introduced by Rep. Scalise expressing the sense of Congress that a carbon tax would be detrimental to American families and businesses and is not in the best interest of the United States. Including Scalise, 146 cosponsors93 percentwere funded by ExxonMobil.
It wasnt just Exxon that knew fossil fuels were cooking the planet.

New investigative reporting by Neela Banerjee with Inside Climate News revealed on Tuesday that scientists and engineers from nearly every major U.S. and multinational oil and gas company may have for decades known about the impacts of carbon emissions on the climate.

Between 1979 and 1983, the American Petroleum Institute (API), the industrys most powerful lobby group, ran a task force for fossil fuel companies to monitor and share climate research. Photo credit: Felipe Sasso / Albert Mock / Mike Mozart / Kristian Bjonard

Between 1979 and 1983, the American Petroleum Institute (API), the industrys most powerful lobby group, ran a task force for fossil fuel companies to monitor and share climate research, according to internal documents obtained by Inside Climate News.

According to the reporting:

Like Exxon, the companies also expressed a willingness to understand the links between their product, greater CO2 concentrations and the climate, the papers reveal. Some corporations ran their own research units as well, although they were smaller and less ambitious than Exxons and focused on climate modeling, said James J. Nelson, the former director of the task force.

It was a fact-finding task force, Nelson said in an interview. We wanted to look at emerging science, the implications of it and where improvements could be made, if possible, to reduce emissions.

The CO2 and Climate Task Force, which changed in 1980 its name to the Climate and Energy Task Force, included researchers from Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, Amoco, Phillips, Texaco, Shell, Sunoco and Sohio, among others.

One memo by an Exxon task force representative pointed to 1979 background paper on CO2, which predicted when the first clear effects of climate change might be felt, noting that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was rising steadily.

And at a February 1980 meeting in New York, the task force invited Professor John A. Laurmann of Stanford University to brief members about climate science.

In his conclusions section, Laurmann estimated that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would double in 2038, which he said would likely lead to a 2.5 degrees Celsius rise in global average temperatures with major economic consequences,' Banerjee reports. He then told the task force that models showed a 5 degrees Celsius rise by 2067, with globally catastrophic effects,' Banerjee reports.

The documents show that API members, at one point, considered an alternative path in the face of these dire predictions:

Bruce S. Bailey of Texaco offered for consideration the idea that an overall goal of the Task Force should be to help develop ground rules for energy release of fuels and the cleanup of fuels as they relate to CO2 creation, according to the minutes of a meeting on Feb. 29, 1980.

The minutes also show that the task force discussed a potential area for research and development that called for it to Investigate the Market Penetration Requirements of Introducing a New Energy Source into World Wide Use. This would include the technical implications of energy source changeover, research timing and requirements.

Yet, Banerjee notes, by the 1990s, it was clear that API had opted for a markedly different approach to the threat of climate change.

The lobby group teamed up with Exxon and others to form the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), which successfully lobbied the U.S. to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol.

The damning revelations are the latest in an ongoing investigation into what the fossil fuel industry knew about climate change and then suppressed for decadesall while continuing to profit from the planets destruction.

Reports that Exxon, specifically, lied about climate change were published early October in the Los Angeles Times, mirroring a separate but similar investigation by Inside Climate News in September. Those findings set off a storm of outrage, including a probe by the New York Attorney General.

Nelson, a former head of the API task force, told Banerjee that with the growing powers of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the early 1980s, API decided to shift gears.

They took the environmental unit and put it into the political department, which was primarily lobbyists, he said. They werent focused on doing research or on improving the oil industrys impact on pollution. They were less interested in pushing the envelope of science and more interested in how to make it more advantageous politically or economically for the oil industry. Thats not meant as a criticism. Its just a fact of life.

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Yellowstone National Parks wildlife has been in the news quite a bit in recent weeks. Last week, the park sent 100 bison to slaughter as part of its annual cull. Activist groups, such as the Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Buffalo Field Campaign, have been fighting to stop what they argue is the unnecessary killing of Americas last wild herd of bison.

The National Park Service is scheduled to capture and facilitate the killing of up to 900 bison inside Yellowstone Park this season. Photo credit: Yellowstone National Park

The park service claims they reduce the wild bison population due to the threat of brucellosis, a livestock disease originally brought to North America by Eurasian cattle. But Buffalo Field Campaign said, There has never been a documented case of wild bison transmitting brucellosis to livestock.

Another iconic species of the Yellowstone ecosystem is also under threat, according to conservationists. Earlier this month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed removing Yellowstone grizzly bears from the Endangered Species List, arguing their numbers have recovered substantially.

The restoration of the grizzly bear in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho during the last three decades stands as one of Americas great conservation successesa testament to the value of the Endangered Species Act and the strong partnerships it drives, the Fish and Wildlife Service said. The Yellowstone grizzly bear population has rebounded from as few as 136 bears in 1975 to an estimated 700 or more today.

However, conservation groups, such as the Humane Society of the United States and the Center for Biological Diversity, have vowed to fight the proposed delisting, saying its premature and would pave the way for state-supported trophy hunts, such as those that take place for the areas wolves.

Yellowstones bison, bears and wolves, along with its hundreds of other species, serve a critical role in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The area is one of the largest nearly intact temperate-zone ecosystems on Earth, according to the park service.

And its home to one of the largest elk herds in North America, one of the few grizzly bear populations in the contiguous U.S. and the largest free-roaming, wild herd of bison in the U.S.

These photos of Yellowstones wildlife show why the area is such an incredible and unique place thats worth protecting:

[instagram https://instagram.com/p/9866uGkntx expand=1]

[instagram https://instagram.com/p/8RulJBOp-b expand=1]

[instagram https://instagram.com/p/BCv0HdlyUGV expand=1]
Tribal leaders from the U.S. and Canada signed a joint treaty today opposing the proposed delisting of Yellowstone grizzly bears by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS). More than 50 federally recognized tribes, backed by the 900,000-member Assembly of First Nations, support the treaty.

The USFWS has been working to remove the Yellowstone grizzly bear from the threatened species list under the Endangered Species Act since 2005. Trophy hunters have been waiting for the opportunity to put a grizzly head on their walls ever since.

Grizzly Bears at Risk of Being Hunted for the First Time in Decades https://t.co/1XYPyaYEri @ConservationOrg @environmentca  EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) March 12, 2016

In 2007, the Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear population was delisted, but a court challenge was upheld and it was returned to the threatened species list in 2009. The bears survived another court challenge when the USFWS appealed the decision to overturn the delisting, but an appellate court ruled in favor of the bears in 2011. Now, the USFWS is back for another try.

Chief Stanley Grier of the Piikani Nation. Native News Online.net

The grizzly bear has been significant to the Blackfoot people since the time of our Creation, said Chief Stanley Grier of the Piikani Nation, where one of several treaty ceremonies will take place today.

It is cultural genocide. I wouldnt put it any other way, said Blackfeet councilwoman Cheryl Little Dog. To delist and allow trophy hunting of the grizzly bear is the government again saying to our people, Forget how sacred the grizzly bear is. Forget your sacred ways.'

Grizzly bears once roamed the American West from Californiawhere it is on the state flagto the Great Plains and south to Mexico. By 1975, when the grizzly was added to the threatened species list, it was down to just two percent of its traditional range, and just 136 bears were left in the the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystemwhich includes Yellowstone, Grand Teton and John D. Rockefeller national parks, along with national forests, the National Elk Refuge and some state and private lands in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.

Map of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. National Park Service / Yellowstone Spatial Analysis Center

Today, there are about 150 grizzly bears with home ranges in Yellowstone National Park, and between 674 and 839 in the 34,375-square-mile Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The USFWS contends that this equates to recovery of the bears to a sustainable population. Conservationist Jane Goodall and 57 other scientists and experts disagree.

In May, they called on the USFWS to keep the bears protected. In July, a post on the Defenders of Wildlife blog noted:

These grizzlies are also still isolated. Years of protection and conservation work have created a relatively safe landscape for the bears in this region, but not necessarily beyond it. With dangerous roads and human development criss-crossing a patchwork of habitats, it will be a difficult journey for Yellowstone grizzlies to safely travel to other grizzly bear populations or for bears from other populations to get to the Yellowstone ecosystem  something Yellowstone bears need to help the species remain healthy and resilient to change.

https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/728622873536020482 with the legal authority to trophy hunt our sacred relative, the grizzly bear, is a continuation of that pattern, said Tom Poor Bear, vice president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, earlier this year.

The treaty signed today makes a statement about the core interests of Native American and Native Canadian peoples in the survival of the grizzly bear.
A mysterious Zika case in Utah has been solved and it shows we still dont know everything about the virus.

Back in July, a 38-year-old man stumped experts when he was diagnosed with the Zika virus, even though he hadnt traveled to any Zika-infected areas or had sexual contact with someone who did. He also lived in Salt Lake City, an area not considered a hospitable environment for the Aedes Aegypti mosquito that transmits the virus.

So far, the only ways Zika is known to be transmitted is through a bite from an infected mosquito, sexual contact with an infected person, contact with infected blood or a pregnant mother to her baby.

After tracking how this man could have gotten the virus, they discovered that he had visited a 78-year-old friend in a Utah hospital, just seven to 10 days before his symptoms began.

Eight days before the elderly man was admitted to the hospital, he had returned from a 3-week trip to the southwest coast of Mexico where it was learned he contracted Zika from mosquitoes, according to a new paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

During the 38-year-olds visit, the paper says he helped the nurse re-position his friend and had wiped the mans eyes. Thats it.

The paper concludes:

Given the very high level of viremia in Patient 1, infectious levels of virus may have been present in sweat or tears, both of which Patient 2 contacted without gloves. Transmission of the infection through a mosquito bite appears to be unlikely, since aedes species that are known to transmit ZIKV have not been detected in the Salt Lake City area. In addition, the second case occurred 7 to 10 days after contact with the index patient in the hospital, which implicates direct contact during hospitalization.

So can Zika be transmitted through someones sweat or tears, and how easily?

In a study published on Sept. 6, traces of the virus were detected in the tears of mice, but there hasnt been any studies conducted yet on sweat.

It should not be able to pass through unbroken skin, Sankar Swaminathan, the chief of infections disease at University of Utah Health Care, and first author on the paper, told The Atlantic. Meaning the man probably either had a cut somewhere on his skin, or he inadvertently touched his eyes, nose or mouth, and the virus entered his body.

What scientists are now looking into with this case is the severity of the elderly mans infection. Four days after he was admitted into the hospital he died and, while he was elderly, was reportedly not immunocompromised.

His blood had 200 million copies of the virus per milliliterwith a typical infection youd expect to see hundreds of thousands, and 1 million would be considered high, Swaminathan said, which lead to progressive respiratory and renal failure, metabolic acidosis and hepatitis just before his death.

A factor being considered is that because he had contracted dengue in his past, its possible remaining antibodies from that somehow worsened his infection. He also may have had a genetic immune deficiency that just happened to be very specific to this virus, and the fact that he had a very high viral load of the virus in his system is what likely led to it being transmitted in this way, Swaminathan said.

There have been 13 fatal cases in adultsnot counting deaths from Zika-related Guillain-Barremany of which had pre-existing conditions. While this case is definitely scary, mosquitoes and sexual transmission are still the main worries in the spread of the virus.

For the general public, this doesnt really change very much, Swaminathan said.
ECSU, Roanoke-Chowan Community College Partner on Criminal Justice, Social Work Degree Programs

AHOSKIE, NORTH CAROLINA - Elizabeth City State University and Roanoke-Chowan Community College (RCCC) have signed an agreement that will provide students in the Ahoskie area region the chance to earn a bachelors degree in criminal justice or social work.

On Thursday, September 29, 2016, ECSU Chancellor Thomas Conway traveled to RCCC in Ahoskie to sign a Memorandum of Understanding between the two institutions. Chancellor Conway joined RCCC President Jimmy Tate to sign the MOU and usher in a new opportunity for mutual cooperation in an effort to educate future leaders in Northeast North Carolina.

This is a big day for ECSU, said Chancellor Conway, addressing a room packed with an estimated 30 staff, faculty and guests. We want everybody to know we are opening a pipeline between RCCC and ECSU.

That pipeline is a bi-lateral agreement giving students in the Ahoskie area the opportunity to earn an associates degree in either criminal justice or social work. Students at RCCC will then move on to earning a bachelors degree in those disciplines from ECSU, while remaining on site, at home

We are part of the community, said Chancellor Conway. I am extremely proud to join with leaders like Jimmy Tate to make this a reality for this community.

ECSU Provost Vann Newkirk noted that this agreement with RCCC will expand affordable education to this region.

Also jobs, said Provost Newkirk. When you train people in a region, they stay in that region.

Provost Newkirk said one of the advantages of the agreement is that it offers smaller class sizes. Small class sizes allow for more one-on-one time between the instructor and student, he said.

Letita Harris is a mother of ECSU senior Brittney Ruffy. She is also an RCCC student. Harris spoke to the crowd, expressing her gratitude to the RCCC faculty for making her education possible. As a working adult, RCCC, she said, has worked with her to assist her when scheduling conflicts between her full time job and classes arises.

That sort of cooperation, she said, will make it possible for her to continue with her education in criminal justice, earning a bachelors degree from ECSU while continuing to attend classes on the RCCC campus.

This is the second such agreement signed by ECSU in the past two weeks. On Sept. 20, a similar agreement was signed with Halifax Community College in Weldon.

Both the HCC and the RCCCC programs are pending SACSCOC approval.
Getting through civil services examination is the dream of many aspirants. A candidate who gets into the Indian Administrative Services gets exposure to diverse roles such as that of a commissioner, chief secretary, collector, cabinet secretary or can head public sector units. The opportunity to bring about positive changes in the lives of millions draws aspirants to the career. It is therefore no surprise that close to four and a half lakh students appear for the UPSC examination each year. However, only a few hundred candidates manage to crack the exam. So it becomes imperative to understand what are those qualities that set those few apart from the rest? Self-discipline A strong sense of self-discipline is essentially required and key to success in achieving any goal. IAS preparation may involve 9-12 months of intensive study and this cannot be achieved without having a set routine. Good management and optimal utilisation of the time are the essential components of self-discipline. There are many parts of general studies that are important in clearing the CSE; however, a deep understanding of sociology is important if youre looking to clear IAS. Self-discipline does not imply studying the prescribed course books every day. Aspirants should have burning desire to know whats happening in the world around them and keep themselves abreast with the news on magazines, television and newspapers. Needless to say, a keen interest in reading is also a great quality to have for IAS aspirants. Leadership Through all the three stages of examination, UPSC primarily checks a candidates leadership quality. Coherent and organic approach to preparation will get candidates through the preliminary (stage I) and main (stage II) but the interview will observe the candidates personality. IAS officers should be endowed with an ability to articulate their point of view to their superiors and peers conclusively besides having a high emotional intelligence. They are goal-oriented and able to influence others to devote themselves to the same goal. This is what makes the dynamic and effective leaders in their unique field of work. To exhibit traits of a good leader, aspirants should have good interpersonal as well as communication skills. Strong Resolve Even before starting their preparation, candidates start scoping their chances of getting through the examination, which proves to be a deterring factor for most of the aspirants. Hence, its pertinent to stamp out this mental block before preparation. An aspiring IAS candidate should have strong resolve to become an officer and influence the lives of his/her countrymen. It would also be futile to engage yourself in preparation due to peer pressure or your parents insistence. (The author is director, Chanakya IAS Academy)
Making sure local schools are preparing students to succeed in todays global economy is the single best thing we can do to create jobs. And at a time when Democrats and Republicans in Washington cant seem to agree on a lot, mayors across the country are working together from both sides of the aisle to improve educational outcomes at the local level more than ever before.

Cities have an incredible stake in what our children learn. Ask their mayors, and theyll tell you the first questions they hear from companies trying to recruit employees are: How skilled is the workforce? How good are your local schools?

In response, many mayors have committed to improving education as a top priority. The U.S. Conference of Mayors committee on jobs, education, and the workforce recently highlighted the work of many of our colleagues who have offered innovative solutions and leadership to improve their cities schools.

But in some communities, education has not been seen as a mayoral issue. That is certainly the case in our home state of Arizona, where we both serve as mayors and where education is not traditionally viewed as an issue within the municipal wheelhouse. But mayors from across the state, Democrats and Republicans alike, have come together to take action because the consequences to our cities of failing to improve our education systems are severe.

According to a 2014 report by the Arizona Mayors Education Roundtable, of which we are both members, the state stands to lose up to $7.6 billion each year in decreased earnings and increased spending on health, crime, and public assistance as a result of our current high school dropout rate. In the cities we lead, Phoenix and Mesa, we stand to suffer economic losses of $1.4 billion and $516 million, respectively, per graduating high school cohort. These losses are dwarfed by those related to the states estimated 183,200 disconnected youths, the 16- to 24-year-olds who are not actively involved in either school or work, who will cost Arizona more than $127 billion over their lifetimes.

Mayors play a crucial but often overlooked role in improving our education systems. A mayors influence in the community can help reshape the way all of us approach education policy and initiate change that leads to improved education outcomes. By using their ability to convene a broad range of effective stakeholders, mayors can facilitate the important communitywide conversations about education challenges and solutions that empower their districts to pursue effective strategies for reform.

We believe its time for all mayors to place education front and center."

In Mesa, for example, after sobering conversations with local superintendents that described a growing skills gap among its youngest learners, the mayors office convened an Early Childhood Education Task Force. The task force, made up of 13 community leaders and early-childhood-education experts, is taking a hard look at the data on early education and the impact it has on a robust workforce. In the coming months, this task force will offer a final report with proposed solutions detailing how the communityboth public and private sectorscan work together to close the gaps and ensure that all of Mesas kids arrive to kindergarten ready to learn.

And, through a bipartisan effort of the Arizona Mayors Education Roundtable, 16 mayors from cities large and small across the state are working together to improve high school graduation rates and reduce the number of disconnected youths in our cities. Along with our fellow mayors, we are bringing together key partners, including business and education leaders, to create local action plans that keep education policy and practice responsive to the specific needs of schools and students in the community.

Both of us have seen the difference committed and active mayors can make through drawing attention and resources to improve education in their cities. But this type of work isnt happening everywhere. We believe its time for all mayors to place education front and center if we want to make sustained improvements to our communities for the sake of our kids and our constituents, even in communities where mayors have not traditionally been involved in education issues. We hope that Arizonas bipartisan mayoral collaboration could serve as a national model to address our most important education issues.

As mayors, we have the bully pulpit. We can use it not only to draw attention to the importance of education, but also to mobilize a diverse set of stakeholders, from both sides of the aisle, to enact meaningful and long-term improvements to our schools. Together, we can strengthen our schools, our cities, and our economy.
US soybean industry marks 60th year of trade with Japan

The US Soybean Export Council (USSEC) recently marked the industry's six decades of work in Japan with a reception in Tokyo.

Around 250 industry partners were in attendance in the reception held on September 12. The event featured remarks by dignitaries including US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy and Japan Oilseed and Processors Association President Takao Imamura.

A number of women leaders who represented USSEC at the reception also took part in a luncheon dialogue on women in leadership with female members of Japan's oilseeds and soybean industry.
Chief Minister candidates to face public's questions

Members of the public will have the chance to grill the three candidates who want to be the Island's next Chief Minister next week.

The Positive Action Group are holding a question and answer session with Kate Beecroft, Alf Cannan and Howard Quayle - giving the public a chance to hear the trio's policies.

The Chief Minister election takes place the following day in a special sitting of Tynwald.

The meeting - which is being held at the Manx Legion Club from 7.30pm on Monday - will be broadcast live on MTTV.

Roger Tomlinson from PAG told the online channel why it's important for the public to get this opportunity [play audio].

Media

Roger Tomlinson
The water resources department (WRD), Government of Maharashtra has published the Prarup Masuda Godavari Khore Jala Sampatti Arakhada (Draft Godavari Basin Water Resources Plan [henceforth the Plan]) and made it available to the general public for comments on its website. The Plan is part of the overall transformations being brought about in the states water sector through the water sector reforms. Under the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority Act, 2005, river basin organisations are entrusted with preparing river basin plans. The following comments on the Plan are made with reference to the Vidarbha region, which has long suffered backlogs in terms of irrigation and other development indicators.

The Plan is divided into two partsthe first provides general information, water resources development and management plans, flood control plans, water quality management plan, groundwater plan, water audits for surface and groundwater, and recommendations for future use for the whole Godavari Basin as well as for each of the 30 sub-basins. The second part provides a series of data-tables regarding completed, under construction, and proposed water projects (major, medium and minor), as also present and future inter-basin water diversions.
The Italian-speaking Swiss canton of Ticino has supported stricter controls on foreign workers in a referendum on 25 September. The campaign for the poll was started by the conservative Swiss Peoples Party (SVP) and eventually won 58 percent of votes. In the poll, voters were presented with a choice between favoring local workers over foreign workers with the same professional qualifications.

In Ticino, which borders with Italy, most foreign workers also come from Italy. Italian Foreign Minister, Paolo Gentiloni, said that the vote does not have to have a practical impact for the time being. However, this move is very symbolic and reflects the worsening ties between the EU and Switzerland at the time when Brussels is trying to revive EU-Switzerland Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons (AFMP).

Free movement of persons is a central pillar of the EUs relations with Switzerland. Therefore, both sides are still at odds about what to do with a 2014 Swiss referendum on immigration quotas (this includes cross-border commuters, asylum seekers, job seekers from the EU and third countries) that would violate a bilateral pact ensuring freedom of movement for EU workers. The 2014 poll basically called into question the EU-Swiss agreement on the free movement of persons, requesting that the Swiss Federal Council renegotiate this agreement with the EU.

The European Commission condemned Ticinos vote and said that the referendum will not make the already difficult EU-Swiss talks on freedom of movement any easier. Margaritis Shinas, Commissions chief spokesperson, commented on the latest Swiss referendum by stressing that We take note of yesterdays vote in Ticino, which we understand still requires approval by the federal government. The EU and Switzerland have been in intense talks for months now to find a solution how to implement the Swiss popular vote on free movement, in a way that respects obligations under the free movement agreement.
The European Union criticized the appointment of Ali Bongo as Gabons president who was sworn in Tuesday (27 September) after the countrys top court controversially approved the validity of the presidential election. The EU along with many African countries questions the validity of the election that resulted in riots in Gabons capital Libreville and left 50 people killed, according to the opposition. The ruling party said the deal toll was three. Moreover, the vote had a suspiciously high turnaround and voting irregularities. The European Unions electoral observer mission commented that the EU regretted that Gabons top court had been unable to satisfactorily rectify anomalies observed during the count.

On Tuesday during the ceremony, President Bongo said he would defend the constitution and rule of law  I pledge to devote all my efforts for the good of the Gabonese people and to ensure their well-being and respect and defend the constitution and the rule of law. The Tuesday ceremony, which took place in the seafront presidential palace, was accompanied by cannons being fired and was attended by few African leaders, such as the presidents of Mali, Togo, Niger and Sao Tome and the prime ministers of Chad, Senegal, Morocco and the Central African Republic.

Ali Bongo is the son of former President Omar Bongo, who was the leader of Gabon from 1967 until his death in 2009. During his fathers presidency, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1989 to 1991, represented Bongoville as a Deputy in the National Assembly from 1991 to 1999, and subsequently was also Minister of Defense from 1999 to 2009. The second mandate of Ali Bongo was criticized by the African Union, the United Nations as well as the EU, which had hoped for a transparent vote.
Written by ACM



*Reims/RoF Annual Congress - Tau Palace/Angelo Marcopolo/- Final Decisions have not yet been taken, on Crucial, Long-Term, Strategic Choices concerning Funds for High-Tech Projects in Strasbourg region's "Competitivity Pole", said, in Substance, the Prime Minister of France, Manuel Valls, in Reply to a relevant "Eurofora"s Question, during an exceptional Gathering, at en extension of the Historic Cathedral of Reims, in Tau Palace, organized this Evening by the New President of the 18 Regions of France's union, Philippe Richert from Strasbourg, (recently Elected President of the New, "Greater East" Region of Alsace, Lorraine and Champagne-Ardennes).



Most Interestingly, Valls, (who spoke to "Eurofora" Tonight, shortly After a Recent Important Collective Meeting with Universitarians and Private sector Big Companies, etc, in Strasbourg's "International Space University" : See our relevant NewsReport at ....), did Not Exclude at all that, perhaps, a Chance for a Fresh, New Look, might, eventualy, be given on such a Crucial and Long-Term issue, at least on some Controversial aspects of the overall Deal, especially After several, Converging, more Recent Changes and Developments, concerning Both Strasbourg's Local "Euro-Metropole", the latest Regional Reform and Elections, as well as some partialy relevant New Projects also on Trans-Border Cooperation, between certain Important European Countries' neighbouring Regions, among the 5 EU-core States which have Now become closely inter-Linked by Common Borders at the New, "Greater East" Strasbourg's Region, which brings Together France, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium, (See., f.ex. : http://www.eurofora.net/newsflashes/news/newstrasbourgbigregionprefect.html).



Inded, the French Prime Minister revealed to "Eurofora", first, that Final Decisions on that matter have Not Yet been Taken by the National Government, and, (after Carefuly asking us for more Concrete Details to Clarify the main point at issue), he Concluded by Pointing at a possibility for more relevant Debates, Proposals, Compromises, etc., in forthcoming Decisions, on which he appeared ready to Speak and Work, Together also with President Richert, (who was also actively Present at that Earlier Collective Gathering on High-Tech Projects' long-term Funding in Strasbourg : See "Eurofora"s NewsReport from ISU, at : http://www.eurofora.net/newsflashes/news/frenchprimeministeroninnovationprojects.html ), already from "Tomorrow", as he told us, i.e. on Wednesday, September 29, 2016 Annual "Regions of France"'s Convention's Plenary session, here in Reims, where he has been Invited as Key-note Speaker.







One among those Pending, Controversial Issues, is also the Fact that, by Focusing Only on some Bio-Tech. projects, including, particularly, Genetics, Implants, etc, with an almost Total Exclusion of all Other areas of Science and Modern Technologies, (even some particularly linked to Strasbourg's well-known status as also "a European Capital", since it has the Chance to Host both PanEuropean CoE's HeadQuarters, as well as EU Parliament's full Week-long Plenary Sessions each Month, ECHR, EU-Ombudsman, Shengen area's Secretariat, EUROCORPS, etc), that ISU Meeting discussions appeared Needing at least to Examine also certain other, Partialy Alternative Projects' possible Choices, in order to Strengthen Strasbourg area's "Competitivity Pole", in a more Relevant, Inclusive and Balanced way.



This also Matches the Fact that, Meanwhile, the University of Strasbourg has Decided to Change his President, since its 1st and Long-term Head, Professor Alain Beretz, a Pharmacologist Expert, ended his Mandate, passing the hand to his Collegue (and fomerly 1s Vice-President, in Beretz's Team), Professor Deneken, a Theologian, (Comp. various, old and recent, Beretz and Deneken's Replies to "Eurofora"s Questions at several Press Conferencies, f.ex., also at: ....+ ...).

In Addition, France, Germany and Switzerland have also Launched, Recently in Strasbourg, in the presence of the Competent EU Commissioner in charge of Scientific Research, a Pioneer and comprehensive Project by Creating Together the 1st "Euro-Campus" in History, which aims to Unite the InfraStructures, as well as Open a Way for Joint Research Projects, including all or most of the Universities and other public Research centers, located in the "Superior Rhine" ("OberRhine") Euro-Region, which is Chaired by its President, Hans-Jochen Schiewer, an Internationaly active Professor of Theology at nearby Fribourg, (See President Schiewer's replies to "Eurofora"s Questions, during and after the Press Conference on the Creation of that Pioneer 1st Euro-Campus, f.ex. at : http://www.eurofora.net/newsflashes/news/eusciencecomissioneronchinaandeuuniversitiesgroup.html + ...).



+ Moreover, (and most Importantly, concerning These Days' "Regions of France"'s Annual 2016 Convention at Reims : Comp. Supra), the Latest Big Reform of Regional DeCentralisation in France, by Creating a brand New "Great East" Region, which Extends Now throughout all 3 Former Regions of Alsace, Lorraine and Champagne-Ardennes, has Recently incited to advance towards also Starting to Build at least some New, Joint Projects, useful to All that, much Wider Area, which, until now, used to have Not one, but .. 6 Differend "Competitivity Poles", that will, logicaly, have, from Now on, to Find an overall Coherence for the forseable Future, (Comp. ibid).

(../..)
Written by ACM





*Reims/Convention Palace/Angelo Marcopolo/- Experienced New President of French Regions' union, and recently Elected Head of Strasbourg's New "Great East" Region, which now Extends along the Borders of 5 European core States : France, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium, (i.e, potentialy inter-Linking Geneva, Strasbourg, Luxembourg city and Brussels' European, Paneuropean and International Organisations' Headquarters in our Continent), former Minister on Territorial matters, Philippe Richert, (a ChristianDemocrat/EPP Top Politician), speaking to "Eurofora" at several occasion Today, on the sidelines of his Press Conference, Together with other Key Officials, and just after his Concluding Speach, at the 1st Annual Conventions of the recently Reformed 18 Regions of France, shortly after Fresh Elections of all their Political Leadership, (See : ..), strongly Stressed, in substance, the particular Importance of a New Period Ahead for Regional Decentralisation, Defended the Development of Digital New Networks throughout all concerned Territories, in principle against some "Digital Divide" well-known Risks, but also Pointed at the Importance for certain Crucial Final Decisions on New Big Regions' public Funding instruments, to be made by the French National Assembly in Paris during the Next few Months.

Symbolicaly speaking in the Historic City of Reims, in whose Cathedral the World-Famous Mythic Figure of Joan of Arc had Strived to Coronate the King of France who would Liberate the Country from a former English Military Invasion and Occupation of its Western Regions in the Past, (putting an End to a "100 Years War", and Starting a Long era of Peace, between the two Neighbouring Countries), Richert, at first, Smiled at "Eurofora"s half-Joking, half-Serious Query about the Fact that, instead of guessing, during this 2-Days long Collective Top Political Gathering with freshly Elected Representatives throughout All France, perhaps, Who might be "coronated King" at the Crucial, forthcoming French Presidential Elections of April/May 2017, on the Contrary, it seems, in Conclusion of the various Developments and Anouncements made during these 2 Days, that, in real Practice, it was rather another kind of "King" that was "Consecrated" now at Reims : that of the New French Regions' union...



- Indeed, "the former simple "Association of French Regions", "does No Longer Exist : We have Now Created the <<Regions of France>> (RoF) union my Friend", brightly Smiled President Richert, spontaneously reacting to the above-mentioned "Eurofora"'s unusual Query, speaking under "RoF"s brand New Logo...



Philippe Richert, who is due to Topicaly Meet, Tomorrow in Strasbourg, also with his German counterpart, the Popular Winfried Kretchmann, President--Prime Minister of the Neighbouring German Lander of Baden-Wurttemberg, who has also served, until Recently, as President of the National BundesRat (Senate-like) in Berlin, which brings Together all Regional Lander of Germany, (almost as De Gaulle had notoriously wished to do also for France, with a Popular Referendum, as Early as, already Back on 1969), stressed that, in his view, the recent Advances towards a Wider Regional DeCentralisation in France, should be closely Linkes with a "Modernisation" of Regions, including in Research and New Technology, so that they would Better respond to several current Social, Economic and Political Challenges which concern Citizens Today.



+ In this regard, inter alia, Richert was also invited by "Eurofora" to react to a Call by French Senate President Gerard Larcher, (that he had invited to Speak Today in Reims' Convention Center during the RoF's Annual Plenary Top Political Gathering), to urgently Act adequately in order to "Prevent a Gap among (various) Territories", throughout France's 18 Regions, which extend from Paris' area up even to OverSeas Territories located f.ex. in the Indian or Pacific Oceans, or in the Caraibean, Latin-America, etc.

He chose to Focus, in Priority, to "Digital Networks", (a Topical Issue, which was Discussed Today at RoF's 2016 Annual Convention in Reims, but also throughout all the EU Countries Nowadays, as results also by a relevant Franco-German-EU Summit Ysterday Evening in Berlin, between Chancellor Angie Merkel with the French and EU Commission's Presidents Hollande and Juncker : Comp."Eurofora"s NewsReport at .....) :



- Indeed, "there must be No Digital Divide accross our Territories", Philippe Richert topicaly Replied to the above mentioned "Eurofora"s Query, as a matter of general Principle. And, at any case, already, as far as it concerns, at least, "in (Strasbourg's initial Region) Alsace, we have Recently Decided to Boost Modern, Broadband Digital Networks throughout the Entire Territory of the Region", he Reminded, as a Concrete Example, pointing at Recent Decisions signed between Richert and former Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron in Strasbourg, (See relevant Richert and Macron' Statements at "Eurofora"'s NewsReport from that event, at ....).

++ However, such Topical Issues, are interLinked, in real practice, also with some Important public Funding Issues, which are currently Pending in fact, including a landmark and Welcomed Strategic Decision to pass from a State Grant, decided annualy, to a systematic Quota of VAT, almost automaticaly reconducted each year, as far as All 18 French Regions are concerned, whose Principle was anounced officialy Today by Prime Minister Manuel valls here in Reims (Comp. + other Valls' statements to "Eurofora", at http://www.eurofora.net/newsflashes/news/frenchprimeministervallsonhightechfunding.html).



=> In this regard, President Richert, stressed, in Conclusion, that he Hopes for a Final Decision on 2017, and not on 2018, in that Key Issue, which depends, in practice, from Decisions to be Taken in Paris' National Assembly "in the fothcoming Days/Weeks", along the "Vote of the Annual Budget", as he confirmed to "Eurofora".

To this Fundamental Pending Issue, is also Added a purely Financial matter, on the Total Amount of public Funds for the New Regions' wider Competences transfered by the State, which is estimated by the RoF at about 600 Millions , while Valls' current Anouncement stays at 450 Millions , at the same moment that, in many Other European Countries, including, f.ex., not just Federal Germany or Belgium, but also Unitary States such as Italy, Spain, Nordic Countries, etc., the various Regional self-Administered entities benefit, Comparatively, from a much Higher Funding than in France nowadays, Philippe Richert clearly pointed out at FoR's 2016 Convention, (both during his Press Conference, Together with other FoR's Officials,and at his Concluding speech in the Plenary).

Something which should, however, logicaly also include a Comparative Estimation of each Country's regionaly DeCentralized main Competences, as well as Figures in terms of National GDP percentages, in order to give a Complete image of the real situation in practice, of an Issue which appears to be, at any case, undeniable.

(../..)
MUNICH, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Results highlight the benefits of reduced dose edoxaban compared to warfarin in a

potentially higher risk venous thromboembolism (VTE) patient population[1]

Daiichi Sankyo Europe GmbH (hereafter Daiichi Sankyo) today announced data from a new analysis of the phase 3 Hokusai-VTE study, which showed that a reduced dose of LIXIANA(R) (edoxaban, once-daily 30 mg) was as effective and well-tolerated in preventing recurrent VTE episodes as the standard 60 mg edoxaban treatment regimen, and safer than warfarin in preventing bleeding events in patients meeting the criteria for dose reduction.[1],[2]

Hokusai-VTE, the largest single comparative trial of a NOAC in patients with VTE to date, was a randomised, double-blind trial of 8,292 patients with acute VTE.[2] In the Hokusai-VTE trial, patients with a creatinine clearance of 30-50 ml/minute, body weight less than or equal to 60 kg or receiving certain P-glycoprotein inhibitors were given a reduced dose of 30 mg edoxaban once- daily. Of those patients that qualified for dose reduction, 733 were randomised to receive the reduced 30 mg edoxaban dose and 719 received a matching dose of warfarin.[1] Patients receiving standard treatment regimens, 3,385 were treated with 60 mg edoxaban and 3,403 treated with warfarin, adjusted to maintain the international normalised ratio between 2.0 and 3.0.[1]

This new analysis, published in the peer-reviewed journal Thrombosis and Haemostasis, found that the reduced edoxaban 30 mg dose resulted in lower blood levels of edoxaban, but preserved efficacy against recurrent VTE in dose reduced patients compared to patients that received the full 60 mg edoxaban dose (Hazard Ratio [HR]=0.96; 95 % Confidence Interval [CI]: 0.61-1.52).[1] Dose reduced patients also had fewer clinically relevant bleeds, a key adverse event, compared to similar patients taking warfarin (7.9% vs 12.8% HR=0.62; 95 % CI: 0.44-0.86; p < 0.01 for superiority).[1]

"The Hokusai-VTE study identified higher bleeding rates in warfarin-treated patients who met the criteria for dose reduction compared to those that did not, indicating that there is a sub-set of patients who could benefit from a safer therapy," said Dr Peter Verhamme, Associate Professor of Cardiology at KU Leuven, Belgium and lead author of the new analysis. "It is therefore reassuring to see that a reduced dose of once-daily edoxaban offers an alternative to those patients treated with warfarin who meet the criteria for dose reduction, with an enhanced safety profile."

VTE is the formation of blood clots in the vein and is a potentially fatal condition. [3] VTE is the collective term for pulmonary embolism (PE) and deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) and represents a major health problem in the EU, with over 1.5 million VTE events in Europe every year.[4] Incidence is also seen to be rising with the ageing population.[1] Anticoagulant therapy, such as edoxaban, helps to prevent blood clots from forming and can help prevent thromboembolic events.[1]

"We welcome this sub-analysis of the Hokusai-VTE study, which builds on the existing wealth of data on edoxaban and supports the understanding of different treatment strategies for patients with VTE," said Oliver Appelhans, Senior Vice President, Head of Cardiovascular Products, Business Development & NPP at Daiichi Sankyo Europe GmbH.

About the Hokusai-VTE Study

The Hokusai-VTE global phase 3 study was the largest single comparative trial of a NOAC in patients with VTE, which evaluated once-daily edoxaban versus warfarin in 8,292 patients with either acute symptomatic deep vein thrombosis (DVT), pulmonary embolism (PE) or both. The Hokusai-VTE study was designed to reflect clinical practice using a flexible treatment duration of 3-12 months in a broad spectrum of VTE patients, including initial use of parenteral anticoagulant (heparin) for at least five days, the proven global standard of care. Edoxaban demonstrated non-inferiority to warfarin for the primary efficacy endpoint of recurrence of symptomatic VTE, and was found to be superior in the primary safety endpoint of clinically relevant bleeding compared to warfarin.[2]

About VTE

VTE is an umbrella term for two conditions, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE). DVT is a disease caused by a blood clot found in deep veins, usually within the lower leg, thigh or pelvis, although they can occur in other parts of the body as well.[3] PE occurs when part of a clot detaches and lodges in the pulmonary arteries, causing a potentially fatal condition.[5]

VTE is a major cause of morbidity and mortality.[6] In 25 EU countries VTE exceeds 1.5 million events per year and the annual incidence of VTE in developed countries is estimated to be 1-3 per 1,000 adults.[4],[7] A prior incidence of a VTE is the most significant risk factor of a second occurrence, and after the age of 50, the risk doubles every ten years.[8]

About Edoxaban

Edoxaban is an oral, once-daily, direct factor Xa (pronounced "Ten A") inhibitor. Factor Xa is one of the key components responsible for blood clotting, so inhibiting this makes the blood thin and less prone to clotting.

The edoxaban Summary of Product Characteristics can be viewed here: enlace

Extensive Clinical Research Program for Edoxaban

Daiichi Sankyo is committed to expanding scientific knowledge about edoxaban, as demonstrated through our research programs evaluating its use in a broad range of cardiovascular conditions, patient types and clinical settings in atrial fibrillation (AF) and venous thromboembolism (VTE). The extensive edoxaban research program includes multiple RCTs (randomized, controlled trials), registries and non-interventional studies, with the goal of generating new clinical and real-world-data regarding its use in AF and VTE populations. Daiichi Sankyo expects that more than 100,000 patients will participate in the edoxaban clinical research program, including completed, ongoing and future research.

The RCTs include:



- ENSURE-AF (EdoxabaN vs. warfarin in subjectS UndeRgoing cardiovErsion

of Atrial Fibrillation), in AF patients undergoing electrical cardioversion;

- ENTRUST-AF PCI (EdoxabaN TReatment versUS VKA in paTients with AF undergoing PCI), in

AF patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention;

- Hokusai-VTE Cancer (Edoxaban in Venous Thromboembolism Associated with Cancer), in

patients with cancer and an acute VTE event.

In addition, global and regional registry studies will provide important real-world-data about the use of edoxaban and other oral anticoagulants in everyday practice, and include:



- ETNA-AF (Edoxaban Treatment in routiNe clinical prActice in patients with non

valvular Atrial Fibrillation);

- ETNA-VTE (Edoxaban Treatment in routiNe clinical prActice in patients

with Venous ThromboEmbolism);

- EMIT-AF/VTE (Edoxaban Management In diagnostic and Therapeutic procedures-AF/VTE);

- Prolongation PREFER in AF (PREvention oF thromboembolic events - European Registry) in

patients with AF.

We are committed to adding to the scientific body of knowledge around edoxaban in a variety of AF and VTE patients, including those who are vulnerable.

Daiichi Sankyo in Antithrombosis

(CONTINUA)
Cool. The abstracts for the anticipated upcoming meeting of the Royal Society in London, New trends in evolutionary biology: biological, philosophical and social science perspectives, are now available.

The descriptions dont give a sense of what kind of fireworks to expect, if any. Of course, theyre purposely written in anodyne prose  no bomb-throwing. Like this from Gerd Muller, associated (like others organizers) with the Third Way of Evolution, who has spoken about replac[ing] the Modern [Evolutionary] Synthesis, not merely improv[ing] it. His talk is titled, The extended evolutionary synthesis:

Since the last major conceptual integration in evolutionary biology  the Modern Synthesis of the 1940s  the biosciences have made significant advances. The rise of molecular biology and evolutionary developmental biology, the recognition of ecological development, niche construction and of multiple inheritance systems, the -omics revolution and the science of systems biology, among other developments, have provided a wealth of new knowledge regarding the mechanisms of evolutionary change. Some of these results are in agreement with the classical Synthetic Theory and others reveal different properties of evolutionary change. A renewed and extended evolutionary synthesis unites pertinent concepts emerging from these novel fields with elements from the standard theory, but it differs from the latter in its core logic and predictive capacities. Whereas the classical theory had concentrated on genes and adaptive variation in populations, the extended framework emphasises the role of constructive processes, environmental induction, and systems dynamics in the evolution of organismal complexity. Single level and unilinear causation is replaced by multilevel and reciprocal causation. Among other consequences, this entails a revised understanding of the role of natural selection in the evolutionary process. The extended evolutionary synthesis complements the traditional gene centric perspective and stimulates research into new areas of evolutionary biology.

We dont want to raise anyones expectations too high.

Heres a metaphor that may help in clarifying whats happening. Imagine a city surrounded by a high wall. Some precincts within the city are very well mapped and tended. Others, however, have been neglected for decades, or simply allowed to go to ruins. Of late, an intrepid group of builders has moved into the neglected districts, and begun to fix them up. This creates a stir within the city: its being extended, and in some ways, improved.

But the high wall is always there, as an absolute barrier to free movement or development. The Royal Society meeting will explore what can be done within the walls of naturalism or materialism, to fix evolutionary theory (meaning theories about the origin and diversification of living things by natural processes). Yet if one reads through the abstracts, long-unsolved problems, such as the origin of life itself (which, pace evolutionary biologists, most definitely is a part of the evolutionary picture), the origin of complex systems, animals, etc.  all those stand untouched.

Because there is only so much one can do within the walls of naturalism. If life is not the product of undirected physical processes, then one simply will not be able to solve that problem, no matter where one goes within the city. You have to open the gates and see what may be waiting outside, as we do here at Evolution News.

Many of the new evolutionary ideas, mechanisms, and lines of evidence are fascinating and worthwhile in their own right, but the main problems of evolution are unsolved  because those problems only arise on the assumption that materialism/naturalism is true.

Photo: Royal Society, entrance, Carlton House Terrace, London, by Tom Morris (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
The Euro to Pound Rate Returns to Opening; Goldman Suggests Lower Deutsche Fine

Speculation that the fine facing Deutsche Bank may be significantly lower than markets fear has allowed the EUR/GBP exchange rate to recover to opening levels.

According to Goldman Sachs, the Department of Justice (DoJ) is likely to agree a settle with Deutsche Bank of between US$2.8 billion and US$8.1 billion, not the US$14 billion figure currently flouted.

Euro Exchange Rate Falls as Deutsche Bank Shares Drop

The Euro (EUR) slumped against the Pound (GBP) this morning as shares in the Deutsche Bank dropped to a 30 year low as they dipped below $10 earlier today. Despite upbeat sentiment prevailing yesterday, the news that ten hedge funds had cut ties to the bank late last night sent Deutsche bank share prices spiralling back down.

Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan was quick to reassure staff that hefty speculation and that new rumours were to blame for the fall in share prices, as he claimed that Deutsche Bank was the strongest it had been in 20 years.

Investor sentiment towards the Euro is markedly downbeat as the prospects of the largest bank in Germany, the single most powerful economy in the Eurozone, failing has sparked fears over the collapse of the single currency.

Current Euro / Pound Sterling (GBP) Exchange Rates

On Monday the Pound to British Pound exchange rate (GBP/GBP) converts at 1

FX markets see the pound vs pound exchange rate converting at 1.

Today finds the pound to us dollar spot exchange rate priced at 1.16.

The live inter-bank GBP-AUD spot rate is quoted as 1.807 today.

Please note: the FX rates above, updated 31st Oct 2022, will have a commission applied by your typical high street bank. Currency brokers specialise in these type of foreign currency transactions and can save you up to 5% on international payments compared to the banks.

Pound Sterling (GBP) Gains Limited vs Euro (EUR) with British Economy Still Directionless 100 days after Brexit

Bloomberg reports that UK firms still have little idea of what to expect over Brexit as Prime Minister Theresa May is still yet to provide a clear direction on how the exit will happen. UK companies are becoming increasingly reluctant to hire and invest as they wait for some concrete information on what will happen between the UK and the Eurozone.

This uncertainty for businesses is unlikely to improve in the near future as the government has delayed triggering article 50 until next year, with negotiations likely to carry on over two years.

The Pound is therefore likely to remain weak for the foreseeable future, as traders seek other more stable markets to invest in. This may mean we see a EUR GBP exchange rate rebound next week.

EUR GBP Exchange Rate Fluctuates as Fox Hints at Hard Brexit

British secretary of state for international Trade Liam Fox claims that Brexit would be a golden opportunity for Britain in a speech suggested that the UK would become a newly independent member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

This will add to market fears that the UK government is pursuing a hard Brexit that will see the UK lose its access to the single market in favour of gaining greater controls over immigration.

Business uncertainty in the wake of Brexit has caused investors to generally react negatively to any talk of Britain potentially losing free access to the European market, and Foxs comments will likely cause some volatility in the EUR GBP exchange rate.

Euro Pound Forecast: Sterling Gains on Positive Data Today

Euro (EUR) exchange rates saw a slight rebound with the release of the latest Eurozone Consumer Price Index (CPI), as it grew to 0.4% in September against 0.2% the month before, although at 0.8% it remains disappointing for the year. Euro gains were quick extinguished however as data showed that the European Unemployment rate failed to improve in August.

The Mornings data was more positive for Sterling as GFKs consumer confidence index increased from -7 to -1 in September, the largest monthly rise since June 2015. Meanwhile the UKs GDP also saw an increase as it rose to 0.7% in the second quarter, adding pressure to the EUR GBP exchange rate.
British expats look set to win the right to vote in UK elections regardless of how long they have lived abroad in a move that has been widely welcomed.Currently British expats who move abroad can vote only if they have lived overseas for less than 15 years. After that they are disenfranchised and many were bitterly disappointed that they were not able to vote in Junes referendum on the countrys membership of the European Union.  Now Prime Minister Theresa May has confirmed that she wants to change the law and this could mean expats being able to vote in the next General Election expected in 2020.The Electoral Commission, which overseas voting in the UK, estimates that 5.5 million British citizens live overseas, but it only had 106,000 on voting lists for the 2015 general election, which was the highest number ever recorded.According to Alex Robertson, director of communications at the Electoral Commission, a lot of expats arent aware that its possible to register as an overseas voter for certain UK polls.He pointed out that it is easy for expats to vote as they can register online. They normally vote in the constituency where they last stayed when in the UK.It has been an issue that has been around for a long time and the previous Prime Minister David Cameron had promised to bring the measure in during this Parliament as part of his general election manifesto, but did not do so in time for the historic referendum.One expat who has been at the forefront of campaigning for votes for all British citizens living overseas is 93 year old Second World War veteran Harry Schindler, who has lived in Italy for many years.He confirmed that he has received a letter from May assuring him that a Parliamentary Bill will be introduced in time for the next General Election.
For numerous employment prospects in the top industries in the globe, including mining and ore processing, machine manufacture, textiles, clothes, weapons, and more, people like to relocate there. You must first obtain document attestations for Chinese Embassy before travelling to China for any of these reasons.In China, embassy attestation is crucial since any use of documents or certifications that have not been verified by the embassy is invalid. The attestation process used by the Chinese Embassy is organized and includes numerous steps of verification by various government administrative bodies. There are numerous attestation services offered by embassies that might assist you with the China Embassy Attestation procedure. A requirement for obtaining a visa is embassy attestation; without it, the application is likely to be rejected.
Hello everyone,



Have been a big fan of the Expat forum with its endless detailed topic threads.



The reason for my first post here has been my inability to find out complete information about driving licence procedure in Ras Al Khaimah.



I have my own company in the RAK freezone, and am living in Dubai. I have a 12 year old Indian driving licence, so I would need to take driving classes as well.



Does anyone know the exact detailed procedure on getting the driving licence in RAK?



The driving schools in Dubai provide detail info on their websites, and their YouTube channels, but sadly such similar info is not provided by their RAK counterparts.

Most RAK driving schools I called up, they wanted me to visit in person to find out more info, and they were unwilling to divulge information on phone.



Would appreciate any & every help,

TIA
Need some advice please.



My fantastic long-term tenants have just given their notice that they are leaving our studio in one month. Would like to now if it is better for us to rent as furnished, and if so, what furnishings are required.



The kitchen and shower room are fitted out, and there is a washing machine in the kitchen. Would I need to supply dishes, pots and pans, utensils, towels, bed, bed linens, table in order to rent as furnished? Or can I rent it semi-furnished and still qualify under the "furnished" category?



I really don't know how long I would like to rent it for because we are thinking of moving into it in several years and I need the easiest way for tenants to vacate the place. I think if the place is unfurnished it will be harder to give notice to tenants? I bought a weekly magazine but it really didn't answer any of my questions.



Thanks for any responses. I'm sure I will be asking more questions.
Friday, September 30, 2016

September 30, 2016

Fraud Friday  Bogus $2.3 Million SBA Loan Results in 6 Colorado Family Member Fraud Convictions

By Bob Coleman

Editor, Fraud Friday

A Colorado family fraud affair has come to an end.

Jose Ricardo Sarabia-Martinez has been found guilty of bank fraud in obtaining $5 million of SBA and mortgage loans. His wife, brothers and parents previously pled guilty.

These individuals engaged in a fraudulent scheme to gain access to an SBA guaranteed loan program and further their criminal enterprise, says Inspector General Peggy E. Gustafson. SBAs guaranteed loan programs are only eligible to persons meeting specific character standards to guard against those driven by greed or other criminal motives. I want to thank the Colorado Office of the Attorney General and our law enforcement partners for their cooperation in bringing these individuals to justice.

Jose was found guilty of:

(1) Violating the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act

(2) Forgery involving SBA, a California bank, and the State of Colorado

(3) Criminal impersonation

(4) Theft of funds from various lenders.

Jose obtained a $2.32 million SBA-guaranteed loan to refinance his office building and other existing debt.

To obtain the loan, he concealed his extensive criminal history and the fact that he was currently on probation.

He falsified documents related to his debts.

The scheme primarily centered on mortgage fraud including manipulating multiple real estate transactions through fraudulent statements, material omissions, false identification and notary commissions, and straw buyers to buy and sell real estate.

This case and other mortgage fraud cases investigated by CBI shows the considerable damage groups have caused in the mortgage and banking industry and in our communities where these foreclosures have occurred and individuals have had their credit destroyed, says Colorado Bureau of Investigations Director Ron Sloan. We are committed to investigating these far-reaching crimes to reduce the impact on those targeted by these complex schemes.

Investigators found more than 100 boxes with paperwork of suspicious transactions.
Friday, September 30, 2016

In an article in its business section that screams desperation, the Washington Post examined the earth-shattering issue of whether PetSmart sells sexist dog costumes for Halloween. I suppose an argument can be made that this really is newsworthy, since the fact that some feminists and those in the throes of end-stage political correctness mania have actually registered objections about this does confirm the theory, bolstered by our current Presidential campaign, that the nation is losing its collective mind, and not all that slowly, either.

Apparently PetSmart places gender labels on its Halloween dog costumes, so firefighter and police officer outfits are for male dogs, while the owners of female dogs must choose between a pink cowgirl costume and pink loofah. On the website BaxterBoo.com, female canines are pointed towards the sweetheart nurse garb or the ever-popular French maid.

Never mind that: who wants to be caught dead doing anything on a website called Baxter Boo?

Scott Lawrie, who co-hosts a gender-focused podcast called, She will not be ignored, told the Post,

It seems silly on the surface, but this is part of a larger message were sending, that there are certain jobs for men, and certain jobs for women. The career options for women  and dogs  need to go beyond pink loofahs and pink cowgirls.

No, Scott, its silly all the way down:

1. First of all, why is a feminist website comparing women with dogs?

2. The dogs dont know the difference, so it is not as if they are being steered into traditional male or female roles. Besides, Im sure that both male and female dogs in police costumes are determined to brutalize unarmed black men

3. Im curious: How is anyone supposed to tell whether a castrated male dog is wearing a sexist costume or not? Are people really doing up-close examinations to decide whether to be offended or not? Have you done this, Scotty? Hmmmm? Come on, admit it!

4. Sending a message are we? Is there really a subset of children whose view of gender is decisively influenced by dog costumes? I would think species confusion would be a greater danger, as in, I want to be a police officer, that Shih Tzu is dressed as a police officer, maybe I really am a Shih Tzu. Children identifying as dogs would be a problem worthy of a Post feature, but I dont see it looming. Boys becoming nascent Donald Trumps because they see a poodle wearing a ballerina outfit seems even less likely.

Scott also reveals that his research shows that non-career costumes for kids ranging from lobsters to pumpkins to dinosaurs, also bear the male/female labels. Wait: does that mean that girls are being subtly steered away from identifying as dinosaurs or pumpkins? Damn this sexist society! And what gender are dog costumes for children supposed to be? The Post is silent. This seems like lousy reporting to me.

The article does raise some legitimate issues, like the fact that Halloween costumes for dogs sometimes carry the same unethical gender price mark-up as womens clothing and hair products, such as shampoo and conditioner. At Party City, for example, Supergirl and Wonder Woman doggie costumes were priced 30 percent higher than Superman costumes ($16.99 versus $12.99). Batgirl costumes, meanwhile, were selling for $19.99, a 33 percent premium on Batmans $14.99 price tag. To be fair, this just might be the market system at work: maybe there is more demand for Supergirl, Wonder Woman and Batgirl costumes because more dogs want to be Supergirl, Wonder Woman and Batgirl on Halloween.

Wait: if the wearer is a dog, whats the difference between a Supergirl and Superman outfit? And why arent the dogs dressing as Krypto, a.k.a Superdog, Superboys pet?

I never knew for sure whether Krypto was a male or female. I mean, theres no physical evidence either way. And why arent kids given the opportunity to dress as Krypto? Why cant they identify as a cartoon super-dog of the opposite sex, whatever that sex is? Do cartoon dogs even have genders? What does gender even mean for a two-dimensional drawing? Im so confused!

The real, honest-to-pete newsworthy item in the report by Abha Bhattaraiand if he gets another assignment like this, Id suggest he call up an employment lawyer, because this may be ethnic bias at work, unless Abha is a womans name, in which case it may be gender and ethnic biasis that 16 percent of Americans say they plan on costuming their pets for Halloween this year, according to the National Retail Federation. The most popular costumes for pets were gender-neutral pumpkins, hot dogs and bumblebees, writes Abha, who just told us that pumpkin costumes were gender specific.

Well, which is it? Maybe this assignment was too tough for Abha after all. Hold that call.

Never mind the pumpkins, though, for the point is this: dogs arent props. Making them wear stuff on their heads, muzzles, feet or bodies to make humans say Awwww! or laugh at them is unethical, an abuse of power, and an abuse of love. For the most part, dogs hate wearing clothes, though some will tolerate it, because they will tolerate almost anything to make their humans happy. Ethical, kind, considerate humans, however, dont abuse their dogs this way, because it is cruel, selfish and stupid.

This apparently has escaped the notice of PetSmart, the Washington Post, Abha Bhattarai, and a lot of dog owners.

Shame on all of them.
The U.S. Department of Labor sued the San Antonio unit of Martin Marietta Materials Inc. for refusing to reinstate a Texas quarry worker after he took three months of leave to take care of his sick wife  in violation of the Family Medical Leave Act, the agency said Thursday.

The Labor Department wants Martin Marietta to reinstate Clyde Wagner and pay $12,886 in back wages and damages. The U.S. is also seeking an injunction against future Family Medical Leave Act violations against the North Carolina-based company.

Wagner worked in Martin Mariettas asphalt unit in San Antonio. Martin Mariettas materials unit employs about 330 workers in the San Antonio area.

According to the lawsuit, Wagners wife suffered a stroke in June 2015, later fell and fractured an ankle. On Sept. 21, 2015, Wagner requested FMLA leave to care for his wife. The request was approved Oct. 2, 2015.

On Oct. 24, 2015, Martin Marietta Materials sold its asphalt unit at which Wagner was employed to Old Castle Materials. Martin Marietta allowed its asphalt unit employees to transfer to Old Castle Materials as part of the sale.

Martin Marietta Materials did not notify Wagner of the sale or the opportunity to transfer his employment, according to the lawsuit.

On Dec. 23, 2015, Wagner reported to work and was told his position had been eliminated by the sale to Old Castle Materials. On Jan. 5, 2016, Martin Marietta confirmed that his employment would terminate as of Jan. 8, according to the lawsuit.

Workers should not have to choose between their jobs and their health, said Betty Campbell, regional administrator for the Wage and Hour Division in Dallas, in a prepared statement.

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The law is very clear on these matters: employees must be allowed to take FMLA without fear that they will lose their job. This lawsuit demonstrates that the division will use every enforcement tool available to make sure employees are not denied their rights under the law, Campbell added.

Martin Marietta Materials did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit Thursday.

dhendricks@express-news.net
Before Wells Fargo & Co. was fined $185 million for creating fake customer accounts and pilloried by Congress, investors and the general public, it took Jon Wayne Heating & Air to court.

The bank sued the San Antonio company for up to $1 million two years ago over late fees and interest charges Jon Wayne allegedly owed the bank through Wells Fargos Home Projects credit card program, which provided a way for customers to finance products and services purchased from the company, according to court documents.

Jon Wayne has turned the tables on Wells Fargo in a countersuit filed last week, saying a number of persons who were not the companys customers received credit cards and used them to make purchases with other merchants, according to the filing last Monday in state district court in Bexar County. Late fees and interest charges were incurred, but Wells Fargo refunded those amounts and subsequently sued Jon Wayne to recover the money, the company alleged.

Jon Wayne said Wells Fargo was trying to shift blame for its own fraudulent conduct, according to the lawsuit. The claim was made less than three weeks after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and others fined the bank to settle allegations that its employees secretly opened more than 2 million deposit and credit card accounts without customers permission to achieve sales targets and bonuses.

Jon Waynes lawsuit said Wells Fargo refunded late fees and charges to local customers because the bank was worried that federal and state investigations would find that it wasnt able to produce those customers credit applications, which would subject the bank to penalties and fines.

They were kind of cover trying to cover their tracks, said Henry Christopher Jr., Jon Waynes general counsel. Were theorizing, of course, but we believe thats what happened. We think this dovetails into what was going on.

The bank disputes Jon Waynes claims.

We disagree with the allegations, and we will vigorously defend ourselves in the lawsuit, Wells Fargo spokeswoman Helen Bowen said in an email, declining further comment.

Jon Wayne was part of the Wells Fargo credit card program from 2010 through 2013. During that period, credit applications were provided to thousands of customers, Christopher said. The cards were only supposed to be good for purchases with Jon Wayne, according to the contract, said Dennis Drake, a lawyer representing the company in the litigation. The cards offered a period of no interest to entice customers to apply.

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Jon Wayne didnt learn that Wells Fargo hadnt received the credit applications until after the company exited the program in 2013, Drake said. Jon Wayne said in its suit that the applications were sent to Wells Fargo. The applications could have been lost in the mail or misplaced, destroyed or lost by Wells Fargo, the company added.

It wasnt until recently  before the massive fines were imposed on Wells Fargo on Sept. 8  that Jon Wayne also learned that the cards were issued to others who were not customers of the company, Drake said. The cards were used to buy goods and services unrelated to Jon Wayne. Those purchases incurred the late fees and interest charges that Wells Fargo later refunded to the customers, the suit said.

Wells Fargos decision to refund late fees and interest was neither reasonable nor necessary except for Wells Fargos desire to avoid penalties and fines that (it) feared would arise from its other intentional and negligent wrongful acts that were being investigated, Jon Wayne said. It added that there is no basis for Wells Fargo to recover from Jon Wayne late fees and interest that the bank voluntarily chose to refund customers.

pdanner@express-news.net

Twitter: @AlamoPD
The Excellence in STEM Education program at St. Marys University just got a financial boost.

A $5.3 million federal grant, announced by U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, will go to St. Marys science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs. The grant  which allots about $1.1 million each year for five years to the university  is funded by the U.S. Department of Educations Hispanic-Serving Institutions STEM and Articulation Program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income and Hispanic students obtaining STEM degrees.
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A crowd of elementary students equipped with blue foam hands with the words Celebrating our propane buses erupted into cheers as Jenna Bush Hager, NBC News correspondent and daughter of former President George W. Bush, entered the J.B. Passmore Elementary School outdoor patio Thursday morning.

How many of you rode to school on a bus? Thats a lot of blue hands, Bush Hager said in front of a podium as many students raised their hands.

Bush Hager was speaking on behalf of the Propane Education and Research Council, a program run by the propane industry that promotes and educates consumers on the benefits of propane usage. Northside Independent School District was one of four districts across the nation that PERC selected for a grant because of its long-standing use of propane fuel in the districts school buses.

Reduce, reuse, recycle, are some words we know. We have to save our planet, so we can learn and grow, sang a group of third grade students to Bush Hager and representatives from PERC and Adopt-A-Classroom.

As PERCs national spokesperson, Bush Hager thanked Northside ISD for its propane efforts by surprising Passmore elementary teachers with a $10,000 grant for school supplies, which would be purchased through the nonprofit Adopt-A-Classroom  double what the other three selected districts were awarded.

Northside ISD began switching some of its school bus gas engines to propane in 1981. Now almost half of the districts 916 buses are fueled by propane, and Superintendent of Schools Brian Woods said his goal is to have 90 percent of its school buses running on propane within the next 15 years.

Propane usage is a cause Bush Hager said she undertook after learning of the positive effects it can have on school children and the environment. Bush Hager was an elementary school teacher in Washington, D.C. and is currently chair of the United Nations Childrens Fund, or UNICEF, Next Generation.

It wasnt so long ago  but it sort of was  that I went to school here, in Texas. I went to a public school in Dallas and I rode on those diesel buses, Bush Hager recalled. And I had to wait in line with a big cloud of black smoke in my face. That probably wasnt so good for me, was it? And it wasnt so good for our earth. And as yall sang so beautifully, more beautifully than I could do it I promise you that, its important that we take care of this beautiful place that we live in.

Buses that run on propane are quieter, she said, which lets bus drivers better monitor the students behavior and prevent possible bullying. Its also more energy and cost efficient, PERC CEO Roy Willis and Bush Hager said, making it better for the environment and allowing school districts to put money that would otherwise have gone to gas toward its students.

Principal Veronica Arteaga said she learned in August that Passmore was selected to represent Northside ISD for the PERC grant.

We were ecstatic as a community to be a part of it, to be able to host. And this, she said, holding the large poster of a $10,000 check, this was a big surprise.

It feels great to support these amazing teachers  I think sometimes in our country we dont necessarily realize how important a job it is, Bush Hager said, emphasizing that most school teachers in the United States take money from their own pocket to spend on school supplies.

Cieara Neaves, who was 10 on Thursday but turns 11 on Friday, was chosen to be a class ambassador for the grant-awarding ceremony. She got to meet Bush Hager in person and said she was really excited that her teachers would be getting the money.

They do a lot for us, they have to teach all day and spend a lot on us, so its good that they have this to help, she said.

You dont want to pollute the environment because youd be doing bad things to the earth, she added.

sfosterfrau@express-news.net
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K ABUL  Ahmad Nasrullah passed the afternoon watching TV as the tea cakes and cream rolls stacked in his bakerys display cases continued their gradual surrender to staleness. He had seen few customers since opening at 6 a.m. for a reason at once familiar and dispiriting.

Another attack, he said. Business will be bad for a week. This is what happens every time.

Two days earlier, five miles from the shop his family has owned for 40 years, insurgents had launched a raid on the American University of Afghanistan. After a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb to breach a security wall, two gunmen entered the campus and opened fire. The hours-long siege in late August killed 14 people and wounded dozens more.

In the following days, public life slowed in this capital city of some 4 million people, a conditioned response to the recurring violence that has riven the country since U.S. forces invaded 15 years ago this month.

Their arrival offered the illusion of a brighter future as they sought to oust the Taliban government. President George W. Bush authorized military action against the Islamic regime for refusing to turn over Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida founder who orchestrated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

More Information Timeline of war Oct. 7 2001: President Bush announces U.S. and British forces have begun air strikes in Afghanistan, after the Taliban refuses to hand over Osama bin Laden, blamed as the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. August 2003: NATO sends troops to Afghanistan as part of a peacekeeping mission. NATO troops will eventually increase to 11,000. October 2004: In the first democratic election in Afghanistan history, interim leader Hamid Karzai wins the presidency. December 2006: The U.S. begins to focus most of its attention on the conflict in Iraq, while it continues to keep just under 20,000 troops in Afghanistan. November 2008: Taliban leaders refuse peace talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai until foreign troops leave the country. May 2009: U.S. boosts its troop presence in Afghanistan to over 50,000 as the war begins to reignite. June 2010: Gen. David Patraeus takes over operations in Afghanistan after Gen. Stanley McCrystal is fired for making incendiary comments about the war. May 2011: A Special Forces operation kills Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. June 2011: Obama outlines a plan to start bringing troops home and hand off control of security to Afghanistan by 2014. July 2016: There are approximately 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Obama announces plans to drop the number to 8,400 early next year, before leaving office. See More Collapse

The fall of the Taliban that December, coupled with the forming of a new government headed by Hamid Karzai, inspired belief that peace might prevail in Afghanistan for the first time since the Soviet Union invaded in 1979.

The vision of a national rebirth has instead clouded over, even as the U.S. government has poured $800 billion into the war and reconstruction efforts. The conflict has claimed the lives of nearly 2,400 U.S. troops, more than 21,000 Afghan military personnel and at least 31,000 civilians.

The bloodshed has surged in the almost two years since the U.S. military ended major combat operations and ceded the lead security role to Afghan forces. The United Nations reported in July that the war killed 1,601 civilians during the first half of this year, the highest six-month total since the agency started tracking casualties in 2009.

Taliban militants have carried out numerous suicide bombings in Kabul with brutal efficiency and mounted offensives on provincial capitals from Kunduz in the north to Helmand in the south. Al-Qaida operatives circulate in as many as a quarter of the countrys 34 provinces, and ISIS has emerged as a threat in pockets of the east.

For Nasrullah, 30, who has never known a year without war, the potential for change appeared as scarce as his customers.

I have heard a lot of talk of things getting better since the Americans came, and every time, it has not come true, he said. There is hope one day, and then overnight, it is gone.

The unrest persists as Pakistan, Iran and the European Union force hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees to return to their homeland.

They encounter a country with a national government plagued by corruption and a stagnant economy burdened with an unemployment rate of 40 percent. More than a third of the population of 32 million lives below the international poverty line of $1.90 per day.

Earlier this year, John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, warned that the country had slipped into a perilous state. Mir Ahmad Joyenda, deputy director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent policy institute based in Kabul, echoed the pessimism.

The U.S. and the international community have let Afghanistan down, he said. They flooded Afghanistan with billions of dollars and there was no accountability. Then they left. So you now see a country that still has problems with security, governance and economic growth, and there isnt evidence that the situation will improve.

The country has shown progress in a handful of areas, including education and health care. School enrollment has reached 10 million nationwide, a tenfold increase over 2001, while the infant mortality rate has fallen by a quarter and life expectancy has climbed from 45 to 62 years.

Women have made modest gains in Kabul and other large cities, where they attend college, hold government jobs and own businesses, pursuits still largely unavailable to them outside urban centers.

Yet an ongoing exodus of young Afghans suggests a collective absence of faith in the countrys prospects. Three-fourths of the population is under age 35, and weary of chronic violence and economic malaise, a rising tide of educated young adults pursue their ambitions abroad. Almost half of the 180,000 Afghans who sought asylum in Europe last year were 30 years old or younger.

In leaving, they take with them perhaps the countrys best chance to break loose of its ravaged recent past.

Three of Nasrullahs six brothers migrated to Europe during the last decade. Bound by family obligations, he chooses to remain, his expectations for the country as low as the smog that cloaks its traffic-choked capital.

We keep waiting for a better life, but there is nothing, he said. Now people feel like there is no reason to stay.

Year after year

The explosion that began the assault on the American University of Afghanistan rattled the windows of Fahim Habibis corner shop. Customers dove to the floor as soda cans and juice boxes tumbled from shelves.

Habibi stepped outside and saw students clambering over a school security wall that stands across a dirt road from his store. He ran over to help them down as gunfire erupted on the campus.

Like Nasrullah at his bakery a few miles away, Habibi understood that the attack would hurt business. The cycle repeats with a frequency in Kabul that only outsiders find surprising.

Militants killed 64 people in April when they targeted the compound of an Afghan intelligence agency. Eighty people died during a peaceful protest march in July after two suicide bombers detonated their explosives. In early September, less than two weeks after the university siege, three bombings on the same day killed 36 people.

Many are leaving the country because the security isnt good, said Habibi, 32, who had spent the morning replacing items on shelves. His white pants were flecked with the blood of an injured student whose escape he aided a day earlier. There have been many discussions about improving security, year after year, and still these kinds of things happen. People feel terrorized.

The Afghan military assumed control of the countrys security last year. Most of the 9,800 U.S. troops remaining in the country work in support of the NATO-led mission to train Afghan forces.

President Obama intended to cut that figure by roughly half before leaving office in January. He reversed course this summer, announcing plans to keep 8,400 troops in place amid conditions in Afghanistan that he described as precarious.

The Afghan military, midwifed into existence by U.S. forces in 2002 and nurtured in the ensuing years, has struggled to subdue the insurgency. Some 6,000 Afghan troops died in 2015, more than double the number of American fatalities in 15 years of war, and through this July, casualties were 20 percent above last years toll.

Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has estimated that the Taliban controls 10 percent of the country and jeopardizes another 25 percent. The U.S. military has dispatched Special Forces operatives and fighter jets, attack helicopters and drones to reinforce Afghan troops during sustained clashes with insurgents in several provinces this year.

In general, Afghan security forces are not losing, said Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghan Analysts Network, a nonprofit research group. But its not them who typically show the initiative. Its the Taliban that is more often forcing the offensive.

The Afghan National Army, with 150,000 soldiers, leads combat operations and receives backup from various national police agencies whose ranks total 200,000. Along with the armys small size, a fledgling air force that provides little combat support and the countrys vast, impossible terrain, ground forces must cope with a perpetual dearth of equipment, supplies and fuel.

In September, troops on patrol in the eastern province of Nangarhar, near the countrys border with Pakistan, complained about a lack of ammunition, radios and food. They faulted the American and Afghan governments alike.

The U.S. and the international community built our army, said Maj. Malang Jan Safai, the units deputy commander. But we need equipment, we need supplies. They treated Afghanistan like it was disposable. If we were equipped like the foreign troops, we could fight any enemy in the world.

His soldiers walked through a small farming village in the district of Achin, where they had waged a days-long battle against ISIS fighters in mid-August.

Men and children stepped from mud-walled homes to greet them with fresh naan and green tea. The soldiers handed out copies of We Are United, a military magazine that urges civilians to cooperate with security forces in resisting insurgents.

Nezafat Islamul, a shopkeeper in the village, took a copy of the magazine and thanked soldiers for driving out ISIS. Then he shared worrisome news.

We are still getting threats from Daesh, he said, referring to ISIS by its Arabic acronym. People are living in fear. It is like a cloud coming toward us. We know the army will fight them. But the army cant be everywhere all the time.

The amity between soldiers and civilians contrasted with the frustration troops felt toward Afghan politicians and defense officials in Kabul. Capt. Abdul Wahdat, a platoon commander, recalled the anxiety of his men as they began running low on bullets while fighting ISIS.

We ask them in Kabul to send more, and we get nothing, said Wahdat, 25, who wore a small Afghan flag affixed to the front of his armored vest. This is something that we have to deal with a lot. We will fight as long as it takes because this is our country, our future. But we need the support of our government or we will never see the war end.

Variations on that lament reverberate across much of the army. Javid Hakim, who covers eastern Afghanistan as a senior editor for the online news publication Pajhwok, has written about troops enduring long delays to receive uniforms, spare vehicle parts and paychecks, among other necessities.

He blamed public and military officials who accept bribes to ship supplies and equipment to certain units at the expense of others beset by shortages. The malfeasance weakens the military in far-flung provinces and, in turn, removes obstacles for insurgents seeking to penetrate Kabul.

Taking bribes is how people gain power in a poor country, and it comes at a big price for the soldiers, Hakim said. You cannot fight a war without food, without ammunition, without vehicles. But this is our problem: Corruption is hurting the military and at the same time the international community has pulled back. We are stuck.

Why would you stay?

The subject of corruption swirled inside Balman Muhammadis barbershop two days after the university attack. Ali Haider Said, a 24-year-old student at Kabul University, drew a connection between unethical officials and the countrys security and economic woes.

If you have leadership that isnt honest, it is a very big problem, he said, gesturing beneath the barber gown he wore as Muhammadi trimmed his hair. It means money and resources that should be used to build up the military and make business stronger and create more jobs arent going to those things.

Another customer, sitting on a couch as he waited his turn in the chair, stood up as Said finished talking.

If the situation stays like this, Afghanistan is lost, said Abdul Fadah, 24, who runs a fabric store. You understand why people are leaving.

Muhammadi, 23, nodded as he stepped back from Said to assess his handiwork.

If things get worse, he said, I will try to get out of the country.

President Ashraf Ghani succeeded Hamid Karzai in 2014 and pledged to root out the governments culture of corruption and reinvigorate the economy. His struggle to deliver has sharpened the disaffection of young adults, who are tuning out his appeals to staunch the brain drain that carried previous generations of Afghans to other countries, away from violence and toward opportunity.

Ghani took office months after an election marred by accusations of voter fraud between him and his opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, and their political standoff resulted in a pact that installed Abdullah as the countrys chief executive.

Ghanis reform agenda has since foundered as the two men argue over the direction and details of the presidents policy ideas. The tension spilled into public view in August, when during a TV interview Abdullah described the government as paralyzed under Ghani and suggested the president, famous for his obstinance, lacked the temperament to lead.

Their feuding has blunted the hopes of young Afghans that the government could exhume itself from the patronage and nepotism that marked Karzais decade in office.

People are taking sides and fighting for their personal interests instead of for the country, Hakim said. If just one of them ran the country  either one  it would be better. But this situation, it creates problems.

Muhammadis barbershop stands around the corner from Butcher Street, where sheep and cow carcasses hang on hooks in front of vendor stalls. His customer traffic has fallen off the past two years as insurgents exploit the diminished presence of Western troops.

We are worried, Muhammadi said. Business is absolutely down since the new government came in. Ghani isnt helping the economy or security.

The loss of billions of dollars in foreign funding the last two years has further thwarted Ghanis plans. Afghanistans economy grew by only 1.5 percent in 2015, stunted by the withdrawal of most international troops and aid organizations.

The vanishing of that mirage economy has deepened exasperation with the inertia sired by Ghani and Abdullahs forced union.

Ghani is too much of a micromanager and a hardhead, and Abdullah just doesnt have any ideas, said Ruttig of the Afghan Analysts Network. Im desperately looking for something positive and I cant find it.

His words could serve as the motto for educated adults in their 20s and 30s who regarded the university siege as symbolic of a parallel war on their dreams.

Rather than heed a grass-roots campaign called Afghanistan Needs You, launched by activists last year in an effort to persuade young Afghans to rebuild the country, the men in Muhammadis barbershop think the future lies beyond their homelands borders.

Even if you find job opportunities, your life isnt safe here. So why would you stay? Said asked. I have no hope here. I will try to go anywhere.

The car bomb that blew a hole in the universitys security wall caused heavy damage to a school for blind students next door. The day after the blast, Homayoun Azizi, a teacher at the academy, picked his way down a hallway strewn with shattered glass and wood splinters.

Standing before a damaged window frame, Azizi, who is blind, wondered when  or if  his school would reopen.

We need to educate our children for a better future, he said. But how can we do that when the attacks dont stop? What can they do if the jobs arent here? The country doesnt have a chance if the children dont have a chance.

Zubair Babakarkhail and Qadir Sediqi contributed to this report.

mkuz@express-news.net

Twitter: @MartinKuz
The City Council approved a deal Thursday that will begin converting San Antonios Convention and Visitors Bureau into a nonprofit spinoff, a move advocates say will make the agency more nimble but opponents say will weaken government oversight.

To illustrate his vote against the deal, Councilman Rey Saldana dug deep into his archives Thursday for a poster that he said exemplified why council oversight is necessary for an agency charged with marketing San Antonio to the world. He presented a draft illustration composed by an Austin advertising agency that could have been part of a massive marketing campaign for the city  though ultimately wasnt  that shows the city in an old-fashioned way.

The image depicts minorities in the role of servants and reflects an ad campaign that was not filtered for cultural sensitivities, he said after the meeting. Because of the objection of some council members in 2012, we were able to halt the use of the image. The fact is, the council will no longer have the final say on these ads after (Thursdays) vote.

Richard Oliver, the CVBs director of communications, said the new Visit San Antonio, or VSA, will continue having a very inclusionary process on these things and noted that the image made public Thursday by Saldana was scrapped early on not only because of council feedback but also concerns voiced by community stakeholders helping the CVB shape its ad campaign.

The image, which would have been part of the citys ongoing Unforgettable campaign, incorporates several images from San Antonio. Besides the Tower of the Americas and San Fernando Cathedral, the picture shows a character from one of the attractions across from the Alamo, a chef blowing fire into the air, a Mexican soldier in historic garb and several people dressed up for el Dia de Los Muertos.

In the foreground, there are two Latinas. One has a basket of flowers strapped to her back. The other is standing behind a pot of chili, with a bag of Fritos spilling onto a wooden table, and holding a molinillo, a traditional wooden whisk used to make Mexican hot chocolate. In front of the two Latinas are two Anglo women admiring a colorful dress.

What is most offensive about this is that theres an old Latino woman who could be my grandmother carrying a bag of flowers and continuing to put off this image that were just a service-industry-oriented city, Saldana said during the meeting. Thats not who we are. Thats not who San Antonio needs to continue to be.

The image didnt make the campaign, the councilman said, because he, Councilwoman Rebecca Viagran and then-Councilman Diego Bernal were offended by those images and spoke up.

In that campaign, there were several illustrations that showed the images of a San Antonio that we have been trying to move away from for such a long time, that this is a tired and sleepy town, that this is a place to come for a weekend, go down to the River Walk, have a margarita, have a mariachi playing in the background, he said. That story would have been backed by millions of dollars for several years to portray a certain image of what San Antonio is. And as much as we try to compete for a brand of our city that is 21st century, that is cutting edge, that is all the unique things that are coming to the city, I just felt burned and jaded by that experience.

Saldana said Thursday that he worries that such things could slip through because VSA will have a board of directors comprising 19 voting members, only two of whom are council members.

The plan to privatize the CVB began in earnest in May 2015, when Mayor Ivy Taylor appointed a task force to study the departments structure. Several months later, the group recommended that the department transition to a nonprofit agency. On Thursday, the council approved a management agreement and $23.3 million in funding for fiscal year 2017.

In fiscal year 2015, the council appropriated $20 million to the department, and in fiscal year 2016, the appropriation increased to $21.5 million, according to the citys budget documents.

The vast majority of board members will come from the tourism industry  from lodging to museums and the culinary and transportation industries. They will oversee VSA, which will make periodic reports to the council on what its doing to sell San Antonio.

Several industry leaders spoke in favor of the change, saying the privatized agency will be more nimble and allow San Antonio to better compete against other cities that also have private agencies heading up marketing efforts. The only resident who spoke against the measure was council gadfly Jack M. Finger.

Taylor said the shift from the public CVB to the private VSA will benefit the citys efforts to market itself, though she did note that the agency needs to ensure it represents the diversity in San Antonio.

We have gone through a long and thoughtful process to develop a structure that will help to assist the industry and move us into a very important phase, Taylor said just before the 7-2 vote to approve. Its time for us to step up our game, so to speak.

jbaugh@express-news.net

Twitter: @jbaugh
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Geology experts will descend on (and under) the Boerne area this weekend to offer hands-on training on all things related to caves, springs and groundwater.

About 30 to 40 slots are still available for the Texas Hydro-Geo Workshop, now in its third year, said organizer Geary Schindel, chief technical officer for the Edwards Aquifer Authority. The Boerne areas Cave Without A Name is hosting the workshop.

Using the cave and others nearby as living laboratories, attendees can learn about cave geology, cave exploration and mapping techniques and the ecosystems that depend on these underground worlds, to name a few. Other sessions will demonstrate first-hand how to test water quality or operate a water well drilling rig.

And just for fun, Saturday night features a yodeling and hog-calling competition in the cave.

The event is meant to help college students and young professionals get direct field experience, though laypeople are welcome to attend as well, Schindel said.

A lot of the students arent necessarily getting the field experience they may have gotten earlier, he said. So we thought what wed do is expose them to things like how to read a map, how to read a compass, how to take a water sample.

Many of the scientists gathering from across the country are united by their interest in carbonate rocks, such as the limestone that forms the Hill Country and other formations ranging from the Ozark Mountains to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.

The workshop is exceptional, said George Veni, executive director of the National Caves and Karst Research Institute based in Carlsbad. I havent seen anything like it anywhere in the country.

Veni will teach sessions on cave geology and the Texas Commission on Environmental Qualitys methods of identifying karst features.

We actually start at the back of my pickup truck where I show all the tools, he said. I take my pack that I take into the field and start pulling out one thing after another.  Theyre amazed at all the stuff Im pulling out, and everything has a purpose.

Keynote speaker Maureen Muldoon from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh is an expert on that states Door Peninsula, a finger of land underlain by dolomite jutting out into Lake Michigan.

Registration is $60 and will take place 4 to 9 p.m. Friday and 7 to 11 a.m. Saturday at Cave Without a Name, 325 Kreutzberg Road near Boerne. Sessions run 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to noon Sunday.

bgibbons@express-news.net, Twitter: @bgibbs
WINONA, Ohio  Columbiana County Farm Bureau honored Doug Wiley, DVM, and State Rep. Tim Ginter at its annual meeting Sept. 27.

The meeting at Winona Friends Church was filled with Farm Bureau members, politicians and special guests, including Frank Burkett III, Ohio Farm Bureau president; Mike Boyert, OFBF state trustee; and Adam Sharp, OFBF executive vice president.

Awards

The Distinguished Service Award, the highest honor given by the county Farm Bureau, went to local veterinarian, Doug Wiley.

The award is given to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the local community and the industry of agriculture. It is selected by the three previous winners.

Wiley grew up in Ellsworth Township in Mahoning County and is a graduate of Canfield High School. He studied dairy science at Ohio State University and was accepted at OSUs College of Veterinary Medicine. While at Ohio State, Wiley met his wife, Beth, also an agriculture major, and the two married in 1980.

In 1984, Wiley and partner, Fred Bennett, DVM, took ownership of a veterinary clinic in Lisbon. They later moved the clinics location and expanded the business, which now has six vets and 24 other staff members taking care of large and small animals.

The Wileys have three children, who also attended OSU, and their family life focused around Crestview schools, 4-H and church.

Doc Wiley, as many know him, has now been practicing veterinary medicine for 34 years and serves on the Food Animal & Equine Advisory Board at OSU. This group focuses on how to develop students into better veterinarians through education, internships and other experiences, while trying to keep the cost and student loan debt to a minimum.

State Rep. Tim Ginter was also honored with the Friend of Agriculture Award, which is presented by the Ohio Farm Bureau for good government political action.

Scholarships

The Columbiana County Farm Bureau scholarship winners were announced: Megan Amos, United Local; Rachel Amos, United Local; Austin Lowmiller, Minerva; and Zebediah Zehentbauer, United Local.

Nick Kennedy, OFBF organizational director, noted the countys financial loss for the year and that their membership was down for the year. But the countys Farmers Share Breakfast was more successful then they imagined, feeding more than 1,300 people.

Transition

During the presentations, the new state president Frank Burkett III said it has been a year of transition at the national and state level. The transition for American Farm Bureau was the election of a new national president, Zippy Duvall. OFBFs state president, Steve Hirsch, had been appointed to the Nationwide board of directors, giving him, Burkett, a chance to be OFBFs president.

Additionally OFBF hired a new executive vice president, Adam Sharp. He succeeds Jack Fisher, who retired after 20 years as executive vice president.

Sharp spoke to the group in Winona, sharing his background and dedication to Ohio agriculture. He plans to visit and host discussions in all 88 counties during his first year in office.

I want to know your thoughts: What should we start doing? What should we stop doing? Where can we make improvements, Sharp said.

Legislatures know who we are and what we stand for, he added. We can work together to make our county, state and national Farm Bureaus stronger than ever.

Sharp discussed his involvement with both national presidential campaigns, and said that he and others at OFBF have engaged with both parties to educate, share and to serve as resources around agricultural issues.

Candidates need to how important agriculture is to this state, he said.

Learn more about Sharp and his plans and focus from a question and answer session with Katy.
This papier-mache Halloween lantern is actually horrifying

Most jack-o'-lanterns are made from pumpkins, but this particular papier-mache pear is a unique, antique find.
Two competitions to find butchers who are top of the chops in Wales are set to take centre stage at this years Royal Welsh Winter Fair in Builth Wells in November.

The Welsh Young Butcher Competition is joined again on the busy show programme by the Welsh Pork Butcher Competition, which made a successful debut last year.

Both competitions will be held in the Carcass Hall on Monday, November 28, with the Welsh Young Butcher prize, which is open to competitors under the age of 25 years on January 1, 2016, decided in the morning.

The Welsh Pork Butcher contest, which is open to butchers of all ages who currently live or work in Wales, follows in the afternoon.

Last years Welsh Pork Butcher champion Clinton Roberts

The Welsh Young Butcher competition is organised by award-winning work-based learning provider Cambrian Training Company, who are also collaborating with Keith Brown, the Royal Welsh Agricultural Societys meat production competitions chief steward, to jointly run the Welsh Pork Butcher contest.

Sponsored by Hybu Cig Cymru, the Welsh Young Butcher contest is a stepping stone to UK-wide competitions, with the winner having the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of talented butchers like Matthew Edwards from Vaughans Family Butchers, Penyffordd.

Champion Welsh Young Butcher Peter Rushforth from Swans Farm Shop, Treuddyn, Mold successfully defended his title last year

Apart from having the kudos of being named Wales best young butcher, the winner will receive a cheque for 130, while the runner up will receive 70 and all four finalists will receive a trophy.

This year, the young butchers will be challenged to produce a display of meat in two hours from a whole top rump of Welsh Beef, a shoulder of PGI Welsh Lamb, a whole pork belly and a whole chicken.

In the pork butcher competition, which is being sponsored by Cambrian Training Company, butchers will be given two hours to create an innovative and creative display from half a Welsh pig, using either modern or traditional methods and packaging to best promote Welsh Pork to consumers.

Butchers in both contests must choose cuts to maximise saleability and product value, with the judges looking for new, creative ideas, cutting and display techniques, added value, HACCP and personal hygiene and maximum yield from the carcasses.

A panel of judges will select four finalists in each competition from the applications, which must be submitted by Tuesday, November 1.

Platform 'for the best butchers'

Arwyn Watkins, Cambrian Training Companys managing director, said: These two competitions provide the perfect platform for the best butchers in Wales of all ages to showcase their skills at a major event.

"Its a great honour to be the best in Wales at your chosen vocation.

I would encourage people visiting the show to come and watch these highly skilled butchers demonstrate their skills and meat display techniques.

Mr Brown said the Welsh Pork Butcher is designed to give butchers of all ages an opportunity to have their skills recognised while at the same time promoting Welsh Pork.

We are always trying to find new and innovative ways to promote Welsh Pork, he added.

Cambrian Training Company delivers apprenticeships which are funded by the Welsh Government with the support of the European Social Fund.
Poultry sector will be a key driver for growth in Northern Ireland, agri-food minister Michelle McIlveen said during a visit to Moy Park, one of Europe's leading poultry producers.

"Poultry producers, and the wider agri-food sector, are important players when it comes to growing our local economy.

"Looking ahead we know the importance of focusing on improving the quality of Northern Ireland agri-food products rather than focusing on simply improving production levels," Miss McIlveen said as she met with Janet McCollum, Chief Executive of the billion pound business which employs some 6,400 people here.

"I was very impressed to hear about the companys recent 25million investment and its operating model which involves a close and highly effective working relationship with their poultry farmers.

"I will continue to work to deliver growth for the sector including support for companies such as Moy Park by exploring new export markets.

Global forecasts

"Our recently introduced 12 million Sustainable Use of Poultry Litter (SUPL) loan scheme helps develop new sustainable ways to utilise poultry litter," Minister Michelle McIlveen continued.

"It has made good progress thanks to the work of Moy Park in partnership with government."

As well as visiting the factory, the Minister visited nearby farmer Neil Symington who supplies poultry to Moy Park, one of the UKs top 10 food companies and Northern Irelands largest private sector business.

"As global forecasts indicate a growth in demand for poultry meat, it is important for me to meet with Moy Parks senior management and hear the challenges facing them, and the wider sector, in the months and years ahead."

Janet McCollum, Moy Park Chief Executive said she was delighted to welcome DAERA Minister Michelle McIIveen to Moy Park: "As one of Europes leading food companies, the visit offered a fantastic opportunity to showcase to the Minister our high standards in agriculture, animal welfare and food safety.

"Farming is at the heart of our business  we partner with 600 farmers across Northern Ireland, who supply poultry to the highest quality and welfare standards  and we were delighted to have the Minister visit one of our farming partners near Dungannon."

The Minister also promised to continue to push for access to Chinas markets for poultry meat but stressed that breaking into new markets was often a "lengthy" process.
The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has told the farming sector to "transform itself" to help battle worldwide issues.

The agricultural sector must transform itself not only to achieve food and nutrition security for all, but also to help address global challenges such as climate change and antimicrobial resistance, FAO Director General Jose Graziano da Silva said today at the biannual meeting of FAO's Committee on Agriculture.

The Director-General noted how "agriculture is at the very heart" of a recent series of ground-breaking international agreements, including the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

"Sustainable agriculture is paramount to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, to sustain natural resources, to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change, to achieve healthier food systems and to build resilience against crises and natural disasters," Graziano da Silva said.

But he noted that while past developments in agriculture have led to major improvements in productivity, "progress has been uneven" and that "greater emphasis must be placed on the social and environmental dimensions of sustainability".

Joachim von Braun, Director of University of Bonn's Center for Development Research, underscored the need for scientific innovation in agriculture to go hand-in-hand with policy reform.

"Agriculture and food systems are transforming, and that must be supported by a sound cooperation between science and policy," von Braun said.

Action on antimicrobial resistance and climate change

Graziano da Silva, noting that the "role of agriculture goes beyond generating food and income," referred to FAO's recent commitment to curb antimicrobial resistance.

"We at FAO believe that antibiotics and other antimicrobials should be used in agriculture to cure diseases and to alleviate suffering.

"Only under strict circumstances they could be used to prevent an imminent threat of infection," the Director-General said.

Graziano da Silva also pointed to growing international recognition that agriculture can play a transformative role in addressing the impacts of climate change.

Countries are set to gather for the COP 22 summit in Morocco in November to put into motion their pledges on climate change, and FAO "stands ready to assist governments, especially of developing countries to have access to international resources that are available to finance these actions," he said.
Ulster Farmers Union has warned that uncertainty around the Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC) scheme is creating "major difficulties" for farmers making management decisions this autumn.

Hill farming chairman, Ian Buchanan said it has been five months since the end of the government consultation on whether the ANC scheme should continue.

"We are still waiting for a decision," Mr Buchanan said.

"Uncertainty around whether or not we will have a scheme after 2017 is making it impossible for farmers to make decisions about the future," said Mr Buchanan.

Examples of this frustration, says Mr Buchanan, include sheep producers trying to plan their breeding season and farmers questioning the value of taking conacre (the letting by a tenant of small portions of land prepared for crops or grazing) in severely disadvantaged areas.

"Direct support and agri-environment payments remain the biggest source of income"

"Due to the tight margins in livestock production, the decision on support will decide whether or not some severely disadvantaged land is farmed in the future," Mr Buchanan said.

"This underlines how important the ANC scheme is for supporting productive farming in these areas."

If the government opts to end the ANC scheme it would result in the "immediate loss of 20 million a year to farmers in severely disadvantaged areas," the Ulster Farmers Union said.

The continued delays to the introduction of the new agri-environment scheme will also hit farm incomes, with suckler herds particularly badly affected.

'Production will decline in disadvantaged areas'

"Despite some recent improvements in beef and sheep prices, margins are slim," Mr Buchanan explained.

"Direct support and agri-environment payments remain the biggest source of income on these farms. This has been recognised by neighbouring regions.

"They have encouraged investment, because they understand the contribution these farmers make to the wider economy, the environment and rural communities," he said.

Mr Buchanan added that if this approach is not adopted here production will decline in severely disadvantaged areas.

"This would be to the detriment of the agri-food industry, while marginal areas no longer farmed would fall quickly into disrepair  a situation that would not be easily reversed," he said.
A Welsh dairy producer is set to invest 14m to expand its facilities and recruit 60 more staff after winning a supply contract from a supermarket.

Tomlinson's Dairy in Wrexham are currently the largest processor of liquid milk in Wales with a throughput of around 95 million litres of milk per annum.

The council said in a report that the applicant is proposing to extend the site to enable the business to supply milk and cream to the stores of a major national retailer located within Wales and parts of England.

"This will result in the dairy processing in the region of 195 million litres of milk.

"The full development will generate a further 60 full times jobs at the site. The development represents a 14m investment in the existing business. This will be of considerable benefit to the local economy.

"Furthermore the development will benefit the construction sector when the buildings are erected and other associated site works carried out."

Wider rural economy

Tomlinson's has not provided any details regarding the number of jobs the development will secure in the wider rural economy, however the continued prosperity of dairy farm industry in North East Wales is dependent upon it being able to sell the milk it produces.

Wrexham planners have recommended the three-phase application for approval ahead of a planning committee meeting on Monday.

The local council said the development will make an important contribution to the local economy and the wider rural economy.

"It will not adversely impact upon the appearance of the site or the wider landscape and subject to the measures required by condition below, will not adversely impact upon residential amenity or highway safety. I am therefore satisfied that is accords with relevant UDP policies."
Food valued at 1.8bn wasted on UK farms each year, report says
Frazee family carved voting message into its corn maze

By Diego Flammini

Assistant Editor, North American Content

Farms.com

With the presidential election less than two months away, one farm family in Indiana is encouraging others to vote. And, it is using a corn maze to spread the word.

The Frazee family runs a corn maze at Hogan Farms in Brownsburg, Indiana. They carved Get Out & Vote into the nine-acre corn field along with an American flag and the White House.

This years a very important year for the election, Lisa Frazee told WISH TV. Its very important for everybody to get out and vote.

Frazee said an artist drew the design on grid paper, and her son took about two days to cut the maze.

This election campaign has seen its fair share of farmers using their fields to express opinions about the presidential candidates.

In Brookshire, Texas, Dewberry Farm carved both Donald Trump and Hillary Clintons likenesses into its eight-acre field, along with the hashtag #Noooo!

In Canton, Ohio, Jerry Slankard used cow manure to spell out No Trump on his field.

In New Castle, Indiana, Kade Kroger carved the businessman's name into his field after he was unable to attend a Trump event.

In Sevierville, Tennessee, a farmer carved Make America Great Again (which is Donald Trumps campaign slogan) into his corn maze.

But Chuck Starritt, who's farm the message is on, told WVLT the slogan on his farm is meant to encourage people to enjoy time with friends and family.
"It's a bit of a festival day, but you know you can pay a bit more because the quality is there and the yield is there so you know you will get it back at the end of the day," buyer Terry Russell said.
Did Cumberland County Commissioners break the NC Open Meetings Law?

The commissioners met behind closed doors to discuss a pay raise for the vice chair position.
Och-Ziff Capital Management Group resolved one of the biggest FCPA enforcement actions ever Thursday, agreeing to pay the DOJ and SEC $412 million for criminal and civil violations.

Och-Ziff CEO Daniel Och agreed to pay nearly $2.2 million to settle SEC charges that he caused FCPA violations.

Och-Ziff will pay $199 million to the SEC to settle civil charges of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The hedge fund giant also entered into a three-year deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department in a parallel criminal proceeding, with a criminal penalty of $213 million.

The DPA charged Och-Ziff with two counts of conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, one count of falsifying its books and records, and one count of failing to implement adequate internal controls.

Och-Ziff subsidiary OZ Africa Management GP LLC pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information filed in federal court in New York City.

OZ Africa was charged with a conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA. Formal sentencing was set for March 29, 2017.

At $412 million, Och-Ziffs settlement with the DOJ and SEC is the fourth biggest FCPA enforcement action ever.

This case marks the first time a hedge fund has been held to account for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the DOJs David Bitkower said.

The SEC charged Och-Ziff with violating the anti-bribery, books and records, and internal controls provisions of the FCPA.

The settlement requires Och-Ziff to retain a compliance monitor for three years.

The SEC settled the enforcement action with an internal administrative order and didnt go to court.

Och-Ziff CFO Joel Frank also agreed to settle SEC charges. A penalty will be assessed against him at a future date, the SEC said. He caused violations in Och-Ziff transactions in Libya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the agency said.

Frank and Daniel Och consented to the SECs order without admitting or denying the findings.

The SEC ordered Och to pay $1.9 million in disgorgement and nearly $274,000 in interest to settle charges he caused violations in two Och-Ziff transactions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Och-Ziffs affiliated investment adviser OZ Management violated the anti-fraud provisions of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, the SEC said.

Och-Ziff and OZ Management agreed to pay the SEC about $173 million in disgorgement and $25.8 million in interest, for a total of $199 million.

In August, U.S. authorities arrested a Gabon national and charged him with conspiracy to bribe officials in at least three African countries to help win mining rights for a joint venture involving Och-Ziff.

The DOJ said Samuel Mebiame, 43, the son of Gabons former prime minister, acted as a fixer for the joint venture.

He was arrested in Brooklyn.

Mebiames father, Leon Mebiame, was prime minister of Gabon from 1975 to 1990. He died in December 2015.

Och-Ziff said last month it doubled its reserve for an FCPA settlement with the DOJ and SEC to about $414 million.

New York-based Och-Ziff was founded in 1994 by Daniel Och. Its one of the biggest institutional alternative asset managers in the world, with about $39 billion under management.

Och-Ziff received subpoenas from the DOJ and SEC beginning in 2011 requesting information about investments its funds made in Africa, among other things.

The SEC said Thursday it detected the FCPA violations while examining the way Och-Ziff was obtaining investments from sovereign wealth funds overseas.

The SECs investigation found that the hedge fund used intermediaries, agents, and business partners to pay bribes to high-level government officials in Africa.

According to the SECs order, bribes induced the Libyan Investment Authoritys sovereign wealth fund to invest at least $300 million in Och-Ziff managed funds.

In January and October 2008, Och-Ziff transferred a total of $3.75 million to Libyan Agents shell company. Libyan Agent then directed the transfer of approximately $2.5 million from those funds to an account held by Tunisian Agent for the benefit of the two senior [Libya Investment Authority] officials, including the son of Colonel Gaddafi. During this period, Libyan Agent also directed payments of more than $1 million through his network of offshore companies to benefit his longstanding patron in Libyas state security services.

Och-Ziff recorded the money paid to the Libyan Agent as Professional Services  Other.

This designation was inaccurate; the payment was for an introduction and to pay bribes, and not for professional services, the SEC said.

Other bribes were paid to secure mining rights and influence government officials in Chad, Niger, Guinea, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Och-Ziff engaged in complicated, far-reaching schemes to get special access and secure significant deals and profits through corruption, the SECs Andrew Ceresney said.

The SEC said Och-Ziff executives ignored red flags and corruption risks and permitted illegal transactions to proceed.

Kara Brockmeyer, chief of the SEC Enforcement Divisions FCPA Unit, said: Firms will be held accountable for their misconduct no matter how they might structure complex transactions or attempt to insulate themselves from the conduct of their employees or agents.

* * *

The SECs September 29, 2016 order In the Matter of Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC, OZ Management LP, Daniel S. Och, and Joel M. Frank is here (pdf).

___

Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. Hell be the keynote speaker at the FCPA Blog NYC Conference 2016.
For more than a year, France has been working on improving its legislation to enact a new anti-corruption law in order to reach the same standards as the FCPA, the UK Bribery Act or the Brazilian Clean Company Act.

In 1993, a significant improvement had been made to Frances anticorruption battery with a law nicknamed Law Sapin; name of the minister who then supported the law. Since 2012, Michel Sapin has been back in the French government and has been working on the 2.0 version his anticorruption law.

Last week during a conference, he confirmed that considering procedural specificities under French law, the bill adopted at the Lower House in committee a few days ago, would be the final one in spite of the debates occurring through October. Therefore, it is now time to have a closer look at the bill and assess if it changes anything in reality, and if we must now be scared of Frances capacity to go after French and non-French companies suspected of transnational corruption.

Prohibitions: First, we should note that the law does not anticipate significant change in the practices prohibited. The existing legislation is already one of the most stringent in the world and covers passive and active corruption both domestic and international, as well as domestic influence peddling. Facilitation payments and private bribery are also prohibited. The new law will extend prohibition to international influence peddling. Books and records provisions are also already existing under French law.

Compliance Programs: This was expected for a long time. French law now institutionalizes compliance programs and the compliance profession preventing corruption. Such program shall include a code of conduct, trainings, due diligence, a whistleblowing line and other typical features. On the due diligence, we note that the bill requires companies to perform due diligence on its clients. Depending on who the clients are, it will be very impractical and sometimes impossible to do so. The law also requires due diligence on first line suppliers and on intermediaries. A review of all direct suppliers will necessitate tremendous efforts from companies. Besides, the company will have to create a mapping of its corruption risk which according to the rapporteur of the law during the debates at the Lower House in June, will have to take into consideration the past. A review of past practices within the company may reveal to be necessary to meet this requirement.

According to article 8 of the bill, all companies of more than 500 employees and generating revenue of more than 100 million euros will have to set up a compliance program to prevent corruption. It applies (i) to companies meeting those criteria and (ii) to companies belonging to a group of companies, which meets those criteria. In the latter case, the parent company must be headquartered in France. The law awards a six-month period as from the publication date of the act to implement the program (i.e. approx. around May 2017).

Note that the responsibility to set up such a program lies with both the executives of the company and the company itself. Failing to set up a compliance program can lead to an administrative fine of up to 200,000 euros against the executive and 1 million euros against the company. Such sanctions would be declared by the Anticorruption Agency, which would discover the absence of proper compliance program, after the executives and the company fail to follow the recommendations of the Agency to improve the compliance program within a period that can be of up to three years.

Considering that the fine is not criminal and the time awarded to follow recommendations, there is not much incentive from French law to quickly set up a compliance program. Besides, unlike the UKBA or the Brazil Clean Company Act, it is not expressly stated that having a compliance program will be taken into consideration in the frame of a potential settlement. Therefore, smaller companies not meeting the criteria of 500 employees and 100 million euros may have no incentive from French law to set up a compliance program.

Whistleblowers: Whistleblowers are significant to unveil corruption acts and lead to investigations. The new law awards strong protection for whistleblowers and precisely defines the route to follow to benefit from such protection. Besides, anonymous whistleblowing, which was negatively viewed until now by the powerful French agency on data privacy, is now fully approved by the law. Revealing facts that can lead to discovering the identity of an anonymous whistleblower can even be sanctioned by two years imprisonment.

Leniency: French law already provides that the individual author or accomplice of bribery, corruption or influence peddling benefits from imprisonment reduced by half if he or she comes forward to the authorities and enables the authorities to stop the crime or to identify the other authors or accomplices.

Anti-corruption Agency: The French Service Central de Prevention de la Corruption set up in 1993 and which lacks of means for its missions, will be replaced by a French Anticorruption Agency anticipated to be headed by famous anticorruption judge Xaviere Simeoni. She is notably known for her work in a high-profile corruption case involving a former French President.

Such agency will be in charge of (i) assisting companies in setting up their compliance program, (ii) performing controls, (iii) sanctioning inefficient compliance programs and (iv) supervising monitorships. Guidelines are anticipated to be issued by the agency, but not necessarily as detailed as the US or UK guidance.

In terms of budget, significant means will be awarded to the agency. The current anticorruption service only has 16 employees. The new agency shall have between 60 and 70 employees and 10 to 15 million euros. It may seem low compared to similar agencies in other jurisdictions, but a comparison with the French Anticompetition Authority proves the contrary. Such authority, which does an outstanding work, is ranked 5 Stars like the U.S. FTC or the UK Competition Commission. However, it only has 185 employees and a budget of 2O million euros

Nevertheless, we wish the agency had been set up as an independent authority centralizing all aspects of prevention, investigation and sanction, instead of the current situation where all is split among various stakeholders. It could have been similar to the French Anticompetition Authority, which is active for each of preventing, investigating and sanctioning anticompetitive practices.

Enforcement: A new office of Attorney General for financial crimes, including corruption, has been set up in 2014. Such office is actively collaborating with the various administrative services such as TRACFIN of the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The office was created with 15 judges and 10 employees and its resources were significantly improved in 2015 and 2016. The office is investigating more and more cases, including for transnational corruption; most of them are not yet public.

The main reason why French justice has not sanctioned definitively any company for transnational corruption is the length of the procedure and the difficulty to find relevant evidence. No settlement was possible; companies had to be brought to court. That issue is now resolved with the possibility for companies only to settle acts of bribery, influence peddling and money laundering without admitting guilt.

Enforcement by French authorities is now also extraterritorial and allows to reach out to crimes fully committed outside France.

Sanctions: In terms of sanctions, France already had one of the most stringent laws in the world: 10 years imprisonment and a criminal fine of 1 million euros which can be increased to twice the profits made through the crime, for individuals bribing. Such criminal fine is multiplied by five for companies bribing. Sanctions also include publication of the judgment, exclusion from public bids or even liquidation of the company.

A new sanction introduced with the law is the monitorship under the supervision of the Anticorruption Agency (which will not act as a monitor itself) for up to three years.

Also, in case of settlement, the company has to pay (i) up to 30% of its average annual revenue calculated on the three prior fiscal years, (ii) costs of the procedure and costs of legal, financial, accounting and tax experts and (iv) damages to the victim if identified. A settlement by the company does not preclude the authorities to prosecute the individuals. A press release by the Office of the Attorney General discloses the settlement.

Statute of Limitation: The statute of limitation remains of three years as from the moment when the illegal facts can be detected by the authorities if they were hidden.

Conclusion: France has enforced domestic corruption law quite seriously against individuals in many high profile domestic corruption cases prosecuted over the years. France now also has all the means to be efficient in fighting transnational bribery and to limit the US DoJs involvement in French companies practices by means of extraterritoriality. Practitioners will look closely at the activity of the French Anticorruption Agency and the Office of the Attorney General to check if times are really changing in the international arena.

___

Nicolas Tollet is an Attorney at Law admitted to the Bars of Paris, New York and the United States Supreme Court, specialized in anticorruption compliance since 2008. He has been actively involved in the drafting of the law Sapin 2 with members of the French Lower House of the Parliament. He is also the founder of The European Compliance Network and a lecturer at the University of California Berkeley.
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds have welcomed their second child.

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds

The 29-year-old actress has given birth to her second child with the 'Deadpool' actor, though as of yet the gender and the name of their new addition has yet to be revealed.

A source told E! News online: "They are so excited."

The newest addition to Ryan and Blake's family joins their 22-month-old baby girl James.

According to New York Post's Page Six column, the baby was born at a Manhattan hospital. The publication also reports that musician Taylor Swift was present at the hospital to welcome the newborn on Friday (30.09.16).

The news comes after the 'Cafe Society' actress recently complained that being pregnant in New York was horrible, especially during the hot summer months.

She said: "It should be illegal to be pregnant in New York in July...I swear, I'm going to make my water break just so I can cool down."

And 39-year-old Ryan hasn't ruled out the idea of more children in the future, as he previously said the pair would "love to have a big family".

He said: "We'd love to have a big family. We both come from big families--my parents did four, Blake's did five. A lot of people say it's crazy, but we'll only know when we're there, you know?"

The 'Green Lantern' star also hinted at his desire for a bigger family when he previously called parenting "the best thing" that could possibly have happened to him.

He said: "There's nothing on earth more grounding than having a baby. It's the best thing that could ever happen to someone."
Johnny Depp is to star in the 'Murder on the Orient Express' remake - his first film role since his divorce from Amber Heard.

Johnny Depp

The 53-year-old actor hasn't had the easiest time over the past few months as he's been locked in a bitter legal battle with his now-ex-wife, but it seems things could now be on the up as he's just been cast as Ratchett in the forthcoming revamped picture.

Depp jumped onboard the project after holding discussions with director Kenneth Branagh - who will also star as Detective Hercule Poirot - and reading the script penned by Michael Green that he's adapted from Agatha Christie's novel.

Michelle Pfeiffer and Daisy Ridley have also been added to the stellar cast and will portray Mrs. Hubbard and Mary Debenham.

Dame Judi Dench has been signed to the role of Princess Dragomiroff, while Lucy Boynton is Countess Andrenyi.

Branagh has almost picked out his entire ensemble but there are still a few major roles left to cast before filming kicks off.

Christie's novel, which was published in 1934, follows the brutal murder onboard the famous train as Belgian detective Hercule Poirot attempts to solve the mind-boggling case.

Branagh told Deadline: "Christie's 'Murder...' is mysterious, compelling and unsettling.

"I'm honoured to have this fantastic group of actors bring these dark materials to life for a new audience."

James Prichard and Hilary Strong, both of Agatha Christie Ltd., will executive produce, while Ridley Scott, Simon Kinberg, Mark Gordon and Branagh will produce the film.

'Murder on the Orient Express', which was originally made into a film in 1974, will begin shooting in November in London.
Pete Wicks has been branded "a complete dog" after he messaged his ex partner whilst on holiday with his girlfriend Megan McKenna.

Megan McKenna and Pete Wicks

The 26-year-old 'The Only Way Is Essex' - who began dating his ITVBe co-star earlier this year - has allegedly exchanged explicit texts with model Jacqui Ryland, 30, who he dated in secret for two months in January this year, whilst on a "boring" getaway in Barcelona, Spain, with Megan.

And it has been reported by The Sun online Pete - who is nicknamed Pirate Pete - was fed up of Megan not drinking whilst the pair were away and was regularly "slagging off" his beau to Jacqui, which saw him confess he missed his romance with the 30 year old and was planning to break up with Megan after six-months of dating when they returned to England.

Speaking to The Sun online, Jacqui said: "Why is he doing all these big public affections with her when actually he is just a complete dog? I always thought he was a really nice guy who was respectful to women. I was attracted to his banter.

"So when his dog died I just messaged him to say sorry. The conversation just started back up and before you knew it the old Pete was back being flirty.

"To say you never know what's around the corner and to say stuff like she doesn't drink - it's almost slagging her off. He was making slide little remarks that actually if I was her I'd be really hurt by that."

Among the suggestive messages exchanged between Pete and Jacqui were implications Pete would rekindle his romance with the mother of three if he was single.

One message from Jacqui read: "Not my fault you got into a relationship."

To which the tattooed star replied: "O shut up! It's not my fault either! Imagine if I hadn't...reckon we would still have been talking now?

"It's a shame, it ain't just you that misses [being single] it to be fair!"

And when asked why he embarked on a new romance, the reality TV personality replied: "You never know what's gonna happen!!"

However, Jacqui has admitted she was "shocked" her conversation became sexual and has titled Pete a "loverat".

She said: "He was doing the public affection thing with her and then sending me these messages.

"I think he has this whole public perception of him that he is this big-hearted guy - but I think he is very clever. He totally wooed me at the beginning.

"He was messaging me as she sat next to him at the pool. He even sent me a voice note. How he got away with that I don't know.

"I think given the chance, and had he felt he would have got away with it, I think he would have met up with me. There is a loverat within him."

And Jacqui has admitted she feels "really sorry" for the 24-year-old brunette beauty.

She added: "I just feel really sorry for Megan. Clearly she is a girl who wears her heart on her sleeve and I think he could potentially really hurt her."

Meanwhile, Megan - who was gifted a Rolex watch by her beau for her birthday four days ago - has taken to social media to slam Jacqui as she retweeted a comment, which described Jacqui as the "worst type of girl".

The tweet read: "This girls says she 'feels sorry' for Megan McKenna but told the whole world instead of just telling her? Worst type of girl.(sic)."

And Megan - who has been in Marbella, Spain, with Pete and fellow cast members to film 'The Only Way is Marbs' - has revealed she "can't wait" to return home.

She tweeted: "Can't wait to get back to Essex and have a famous McKenna roast dinner... Mum best get them potatoes on for me the weekend (sic)."

Despite the cyber infidelity Pete has recently gushed about Megan and has branded them both as a "misunderstood couple".

He tweeted: "We are a misunderstood couple but I can't put in to words how lucky I am to have a bird that stands by me like she [email protected]_Mckenna_ (sic)."
Telecom technology major Ericsson India has launched 'Baank-e-Loom', a CSR initiative, which envisages digital development of the handloom weavers' community in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh. The company will empower traditional handloom weavers in embracing new technologies, designs and marketing, by employing information communication technology (ICT) tools.According to Ericsson, the Barabanki handloom community faces several challenges like lack of information, lack of awareness, inability to market products profitably, and direct access to the market.

Telecom technology major Ericsson India has launched 'Baank-e-Loom', a CSR initiative, which envisages digital development of the handloom weavers' community in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh. The company will empower traditional handloom weavers in embracing new technologies, designs and marketing, by employing information communication technology (ICT) tools.#

As part of the Baank-e-Loom initiative, Ericsson will address these concerns of the local weaver population through ICT training and help better market their products. It will set up an ecommerce portal to market their products.An information resource centre, a part of the initiative will provide digital literacy, English speaking courses and digital information services to the local handloom weavers. (AR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Fiji is taking part in a global effort to reach a deal that regulates carbon emissions in the international aviation industry at the 39th Triennial Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) currently being held in Montreal, Canada (27 September - 7 October).

ICAO has 191 member states and the Fijian Delegation, led by Attorney-General and Minister responsible for civil aviation Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, has joined these countries to discuss a wide-range of aviation-related issues, with a focus on developing a global market-based measure scheme to reduce carbon emissions.Given the projections for significant increases in air travel over the next few decades, it is vital that we put forward a regulatory framework that will limit environmental impacts and that simultaneously accommodates for the economic realities of small island developing states, said the AG.ICAO Council elections will also be held during the Triennial Assembly.-ENDS-
University Partnerships Programme (UPP), the leading provider of on-campus infrastructure and support services in the UK, today announces that it has been appointed as preferred bidder to deliver a new student accommodation scheme for the University of Hull valued at around 130 million.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929006162/en/

Watercolour image of the West Campus Residences Project at the University of Hull.

The 43-year partnership between the University and UPP will provide a further 1,450 students with a room, helping to meet the growing demand for high quality, on-campus accommodation.

The scheme will comprise a mixture of new build and estate transfer and UPP will raise the required investment and handle the design, construction and operation of the scheme. The construction value of the project is more than 80 million.

This latest partnership boosts UPP's portfolio to around 31,500 rooms through long term partnerships with 15 leading universities across the UK. Once the transaction is complete, UPP will have invested approximately 2.2 billion in universities across the UK since 1998, demonstrating the appetite amongst long term institutional investment for the higher education sector.

Sean O'Shea, Group Chief Executive of UPP, said: "We're delighted to be investing in the University of Hull. Our partnership will enable more students to live on campus at the heart of this fantastic institution. This scheme responds to the growing demand from students for high quality, on-campus accommodation, as well as the University of Hull's commitment to offering the best student experiences. UPP's research into the experiences of students shows satisfaction with the non-academic side of university is higher among first year students who live in purpose built student accommodation.

"Our business model recognises not only the inherent value of higher education to students, but also the contribution universities can make to the UK economy and society. We are committed to driving investment into the UK's higher education sector and plan to invest a further 1 billion into universities over the next two years that will help deliver world class infrastructure and continue attracting the brightest and best students from across the world."

The proposed scheme has been designed to respect and reflect the traditional architecture of its location, and aims to create an active community hub for the University of Hull's students. The development will be on the west side of the campus, close to the new 28 million Health Campus, currently under construction. Nine accommodation blocks will form around a central plaza at the top of a 'street', which will offer facilities such as a newsagents and a central recreation area with a cafe.

The around 130 million investment is in addition to the University of Hull's 200 million strategy to provide an "outstanding" experience for its students, which includes new and refurbished buildings, IT structure and student services.

Subject to gaining planning permission, construction is targeted to begin in May 2017 with work due to be completed by the end of 2019.

ENDS

Notes to editors

About University Partnership Programme:

University Partnerships Programme (UPP) is the leading provider of student accommodation infrastructure and support services in the UK. We have around 30,000 rooms under management or in construction through long term partnerships with 14 leading UK universities. With over 700 employees, we work to deliver the very best student experiences, together with great universities.

We offer bespoke partnerships of typically 40-50 years which enable universities to make the most of their assets, free up resources and improve services available to students. We design and develop high quality, affordable student accommodation on campus. Our innovative approach means our interests are aligned with those of each university partner.

Founded in 1998, we have since invested approximately 2.2 billion in universities across the UK. We have established a long term growth strategy to ensure we remain well positioned to meet the growing demand for investment within the UK's higher education sector, while at the same time helping our partners achieve their long term ambitions. In 2013, we outlined a five-year growth plan in which we aim to invest a further 1 billion in delivering the very best student experiences, as well as expand our portfolio to more than 40,000 rooms.

In 2013, UPP made its debut 382.1 million public bond issuance. With a multicurrency programme size of 5 billion, the issuance was the first of its kind within the sector and illustrates our ongoing ambition to bring long term institutional investment to higher education in the UK. In 2014, UPP launched a new tranche of 149.7 million index linked senior secured notes under its investment grade programme.

All figures as at 31 August 2015.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929006162/en/

Contacts:

UPP

University Partnerships Programme:

Katie Johnson, Head of Communications

+44 (0)207 398 7200

katie.johnson@upp-ltd.com

or

Lodestone Communications:

Martha Dalton

+44 (0)7971 138 459

martha.dalton@lodestonecommunications.com
TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - September 29, 2016) - Gran Colombia Gold Corp. (the "Company") (TSX: GCM) (OTC PINK: TPRFF) announced today that the civil situation in Segovia and Remedios in the Department of Antioquia, Colombia, has come to a peaceful conclusion following extensive discussions between representatives of the national and regional governments, the Company and the local mining collective that instigated the civil strike last week which impeded the Company's workers from safely reporting to work. To resolve the situation, the parties agreed to create a Mesa Institucional, a roundtable with representatives from all parties, to analyze and propose solutions to improve social and economic matters in Segovia and Remedios. In addition, the Company will continue its negotiations with each of the illegal mines located within the Company's mining title at its Segovia Operations to enter into contractual relations similar to those it has with 41 other mining cooperatives working within its mining title. The first set of negotiations, supported by USAID and/or the government of Antioquia acting as moderator, will commence in the second week of October with representatives of the Cogote mine.

Commenting on the news, Lombardo Paredes, Chief Executive Officer of the Company said "we are pleased to see this civil unrest come to an end. We appreciate the support we have received from the various levels of government and from our employees who remained at the mine site during the past 10 days to provide essential support in our mines, the plant and the camp to enable us to return to normal operations today. We believe that our contract mining model, under which more than 2,500 miners in Segovia and Remedios are currently working with the Company, is fully aligned with the requirements of the mining regulations in Colombia, including health and safety, environmental management, tax and royalty obligations, and is beneficial to the historical mining communities in which we operate."

The impact of this disruption on Company's production in September is still being fully assessed but is not expected have a significant effect on the Company's total production for the year.

About Gran Colombia Gold Corp.

Gran Colombia is a Canadian-based gold and silver exploration, development and production company with its primary focus in Colombia. Gran Colombia is currently the largest underground gold and silver producer in Colombia with several underground mines in operation at its Segovia and Marmato Operations. Gran Colombia is currently advancing a project to develop a modern, large-scale, gold and silver mine at its Segovia operations.

Additional information on Gran Colombia can be found on its website at www.grancolombiagold.com and by reviewing its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information:

This news release contains "forward-looking information", which may include, but is not limited to, potential strategies for the Company's future. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Gran Colombia to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements are described under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Information Form dated as of March 30, 2016, which is available for view on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this press release and Gran Colombia disclaims, other than as required by law, any obligation to update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, results, future events, circumstances, or if management's estimates or opinions should change, or otherwise. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

For Further Information, Please Contact:

Mike Davies

Chief Financial Officer

(416) 360-4653

investorrelations@grancolombiagold.com
Manufacturing experts from the US, Europe and Asia gathered at Intel, Hillsboro for two-days of presentations and discussions about the latest developments and future of automation in the semiconductor and photovoltaic industries. Sponsored by the Automation Network Dresden (AND), the conference featured speakers from Boeing Spectrolab, SolarWorld, Texas Instruments, Intel, Cimetrix, Meyer Burger and Agilion GmbH, among others.

The conference touched on a broad range of timely topics. Speakers from Texas Instruments and Fabmatics GmbH discussed successful automation efforts both in mature 200mm fabs and with automation-averse tools. Intel discussed their efforts to drive increased diversity among their manufacturing suppliers and how their RealSense hardware and depth-perception software can be leveraged into automation workflows. Efforts to drive big data analytics and IoT to the factory floor were presented by both Dresden University of Technology and Agilion GmbH. Other topics included the role of equipment data models in semiconductor production systems, SAP process automation in the manufacturing environment, and overviews from industry experts about the latest trends and the future of photovoltaic and IC manufacturing.

Every year at the evening event, the Automation Network Dresden awards the "Innovation Award for Automation" to a leader in manufacturing automation. This year the award was presented to SolarWorld for their cutting-edge migration of a high-volume manufacturing execution system (MES) to a cloud platform.

Travis Stevens, president of SYSTEMA USA Corporation, described this year's event as "Successful the feedback was positive. I know of no other event in the US that is specifically dedicated to bringing manufacturing experts together to discuss the latest innovations in the semiconductor automation solution space. We look forward to bringing this unique opportunity to the US again in the future."

The Automation Network Dresden is a consortium of four Dresden-based companies AIS Automation Dresden GmbH, Fabmatics GmbH (formerly HAP GmbH and Roth Rau Ortner GmbH), SYSTEMA GmbH and XENON GmbH all of which are premier experts in automation through software and hardware. The next innovationsforum for automation will take place in Dresden on January 19-20, 2017. Visit http://and-innovation.de/ for more information about AND and upcoming events or contact Heather Bonin.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929006447/en/

Contacts:

SYSTEMA USA Corporation

Heather Bonin, 541-760-7215

systema@systema-usacorp.com
CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/04/16 -- Precision Drilling Corporation (TSX: PD)(NYSE: PDS) ("Precision") announced today the closing of its previously-announced private offering of US$350 million aggregate principal amount of 7.75% Senior Notes due 2023 (the "Notes") in a transaction that was exempt from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"). The Notes were guaranteed on a senior unsecured basis by current and future U.S. and Canadian subsidiaries of Precision that also guarantee Precision's revolving credit facility and certain other future indebtedness. As previously announced, Precision will use the net proceeds from the offering, together with cash on hand, to redeem all C$200 million of its outstanding 2019 notes, redeem US$250 million of its outstanding 2020 notes and for other debt repurchases. Precision has since repurchased US$53 million of its outstanding 2021 notes. Precision estimates that after these redemptions and repurchases its total debt levels and annual interest expense will decrease by approximately C$139 million and C$4 million, respectively, and Precision will have no principal payments due until November 2020. After these transactions are completed, Precision will have reduced its total debt by approximately C$213 million in 2016.

Kevin Neveu, Precision's President and Chief Executive Officer, stated: "While customer sentiment has improved and forward visibility has firmed, commodity volatility and uncertainty remain key features in our industry. We believe that it is prudent in this environment to continue to reinforce our capital structure by reducing total debt levels, optimizing our debt maturities and seeking to reduce debt levels through operating cash flows over the longer term. Management remains focused on protecting our liquidity, sustaining our field performance and remaining poised to take advantage of a rebound."

The Notes and the related guarantees were offered only to qualified institutional buyers in reliance on the exemption from registration set forth in Rule 144A under the Securities Act, and outside the United States to non-U.S. persons in reliance on the exemption from registration set forth in Regulation S under the Securities Act. The Notes and the related guarantees have not been registered under the Securities Act, or the securities laws of any state or other jurisdiction, and may not be offered or sold in the United States without registration or an applicable exemption from the Securities Act and applicable state securities or blue sky laws and foreign securities laws.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, nor shall there be any sales of the Notes in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.

About Precision

Precision is a leading provider of safe and High Performance, High Value services to the oil and gas industry. Precision provides customers with access to an extensive fleet of contract drilling rigs, directional drilling services, well service and snubbing rigs, coil tubing services, camps, rental equipment, and wastewater treatment units backed by a comprehensive mix of technical support services and skilled, experienced personnel.

Precision is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Precision is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the trading symbol "PD" and on the New York Stock Exchange under the trading symbol "PDS".

Contacts:

Precision Drilling Corporation

Carey Ford

Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

403.716.4566

403.716.4755 (FAX)

Website: www.precisiondrilling.com




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 02/23/17 -- Rupert Resources Ltd. ("Rupert" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: RUP)(FRANKFURT: R05) is pleased to announce that pending regulatory approval, it has retained the services of BlackX Management GmbH ("BlackX") to provide investor relations and communications services, with the goal of expanding the Company's exposure within the German speaking financial community.

BlackX is a Germany based investor relations firm that is led by Marc Reinemuth, who has over 10 years market experience in the resource sector.

BlackX will initially be engaged for a period of six months, which can be renewed for additional six month periods under the same terms. BlackX will be paid EUR60,000, in two installments, for the initial six month period of engagement. In addition, subject to regulatory approval, BlackX will be granted options to purchase 200,000 common shares, exercisable at a price of $1.08 per share for a period of two years and vesting in accordance with the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange.

Except as set forth in the agreement between the Company and BlackX, the Company is not aware of BlackX having any other interest, directly or indirectly, in the Company or its securities, or any right or intent to acquire such an interest.

About Rupert

Rupert is a Canadian based gold exploration and development company that is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "RUP". The Company owns the Pahtavaara gold mine, mill, and exploration permits and concessions located in the Central Lapland Greenstone Belt in Northern Finland (see the Company's November 9, 2016 press release). The Company also holds a 100% interest in the Gold Centre property, which consists of mineral claims located in the Balmer Township, Red Lake Mining Division of Ontario.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains statements which constitute "forward-looking statements", including the statements with respect to regulatory approval for the engagement of BlackX, beliefs and current expectations of the Company with respect to the future business activities and operating performance of the Company. The words "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect" and similar expressions, as they relate to the Company, are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are based on the opinions, assumptions and estimates of management considered reasonable at the date the statements are made, and are inherently subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other known and unknown factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. These factors include the general risks of the mining industry, as well as those risk factors discussed or referred to in the Company's annual Management's Discussion and Analysis for the year ended February 29, 2016 available at www.sedar.com. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements except as otherwise required by applicable law.

Contacts:

Rupert Resources Ltd.

Brian Hinchcliffe

President and Chief Executive Officer

Tel. +1 (914) 815 2773

info@rupertresources.com

www.rupertresources.com




CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese yen continued to be lower against its major rivals in the European session on Friday. The yen weakened to more than a 10-month low of 115.16 against the greenback and a 3-day low of 145.10 against the pound, from yesterday's closing values of 114.03 and 143.49, respectively. The yen dropped to 121.69 against the euro and 113.05 against the Swiss franc, compared to Thursday's closing quotes of 121.02 and 112.19, respectively. The yen declined to a 1-year low of 82.52 against the kiwi, 7-1/2-month lows of 86.09 against the aussie and 87.36 against the loonie, down from Thursday's closing values of 81.79, 85.09 and 86.44, respectively. If the yen extends slide, it may possibly find support around 118.00 against the greenback, 148.5 against the pound, 126.00 against the euro, 116.00 against the franc, 84.00 against the kiwi, 88.00 against the aussie and 89.00 against the loonie. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Significant increase in progression-free survival was observed with nintedanib; this did not translate into an overall survival benefit

Learnings from this study will help refine oncology research strategy for the future benefit of patients

Boehringer Ingelheim today announced the LUME-Colon 1 trial, investigating nintedanib* plus best supportive care (BSC) versus BSC alone, met one of the co-primary endpoints of progression-free survival (PFS) in pre-treated patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), who no longer responded to, or tolerated, other available treatments. While nintedanib showed clear anti-tumour activity and significantly reduced the risk of disease progression by 42% versus BSC, this did not translate into an overall survival (OS) benefit, the second co-primary endpoint. The data showed that the adverse events were consistent with those observed in previous oncology trials, with no new or unexpected safety signals.

Lead investigator Professor Eric Van Cutsem, M.D., PhD, Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Leuven in Belgium, commented, "The data confirmed nintedanib is an active compound that was well-tolerated and had a significant effect in stabilising disease for patients with advanced colorectal cancer. Unfortunately, this benefit did not lead to an increase in overall survival and we are currently analysing the data to better understand this outcome."

LUME-Colon 1 results will be presented today at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2016 Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark, 7-11 October (abstract LBA20_PR Proffered Paper, Gastrointestinal tumours, colorectal 1, Sunday 9 October, 14:45-16:15 CEST).

Mehdi Shahidi, M.D., Vice President and Global Head of Medicine, Oncology, Boehringer Ingelheim said, "The ultimate goal of our oncology programmes is to develop treatments that will change clinical practice to benefit the lives of patients and their families. While the outcome of the LUME-Colon 1 trial is not what we had hoped for, we continue to learn and evolve our research strategy with every study result from our development programme."

Nintedanib in combination with docetaxel was approved in the EU in 2014 for use in adults with locally advanced, metastatic or locally recurrent non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) of adenocarcinoma tumour histology after first-line chemotherapy.

Nintedanib continues to be studied in other cancers, such as malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). Data from the Phase II LUME-Meso [NCT01907100] trial investigating nintedanib for patients with MPM will be presented at the World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) in December. The Phase III part of this global study is currently recruiting patients.

About LUME-Colon 1

LUME-Colon 1 [NCT02149108] is a Phase III double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled study designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of nintedanib plus best supportive care (BSC), versus placebo plus BSC in pre-treated patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) refractory to other available treatments. LUME-Colon 1 enrolled 768 patients with mCRC and was conducted at 150 sites worldwide, with locations in the U.S., Europe and Asia, amongst others. Patients received either oral nintedanib 200mg twice daily plus BSC, or matching placebo plus BSC. BSC is defined as the best palliative care per investigator decision. A statistically significant improvement in PFS was observed (HR=0.58, p<0.0001, median PFS: nintedanib 1.51 vs placebo 1.38 months) but no difference in OS (HR=1.01, p=0.8659, median OS: nintedanib 6.44 vs placebo 6.05 months). The most frequent =Grade 3 adverse events were liver related elevations (16% vs 8%) and fatigue (9% vs 6%).

* Nintedanib is approved in the EU under the brand name Vargatef for use in combination with docetaxel in adult patients with locally advanced, metastatic or locally recurrent NSCLC of adenocarcinoma tumour histology after first-line chemotherapy. Nintedanib is under regulatory review by health authorities in other countries outside the EU. Nintedanib is not approved in other oncology indications.

Intended audiences: This press release is issued from our corporate headquarters in Ingelheim, Germany and is intended to provide information about our global business. Please be aware that information relating to the approval status and labels of approved products may vary from country to country, and a country-specific press release on this topic may have been issued in the countries where we do business.

For references and notes to editors, please visit: http://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/press-release/phase-iii-nintedanib-trial-results-patients-metastatic-colorectal-cancer

For more information, please visit: www.boehringer-ingelheim.com

Further Media Channels

www.facebook.com/boehringeringelheim

www.twitter.com/Boehringer

www.youtube.com/user/boehringeringelheim

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161008005037/en/

Contacts:

Media Contact

Boehringer Ingelheim

Corporate Communications

Media + PR

Julia Knebel

55216 Ingelheim/Germany

Tel.: +49 (6132) 77-95614

Fax: +49 (6132) 77-6601

Email: press@boehringer-ingelheim.com
LONDON, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Social campaign platform MegaShouts.org can become a game changer in digital activism, says a recent study released by the London School of Economics Associate Researcher, Silvia Masiero (Reinventing Digital Activism from Within: From Reach to Impact through Megashouts.org).

Traditional models of digital activism, such as online petitions, have obtained remarkable success on a global scale because they have lowered the cost of commitment, by reducing it to just a few clicks. At the same time, this has attracted critiques in terms of the actual capability of converting reach into impact, argues Dr. Masiero.

"At MegaShouts.org, action is both on cost and on benefit, so that low cost of commitment is matched by mechanisms dedicated specifically to monitor the impact of campaigns, making it tangible and observable" states the study.

"MegaShouts.org is a unique platform working as a powerful social campaign amplifier far beyond online petitions," explains company founder Marco Camisani Calzolari. "The system allows individuals and organisations to generate public support thanks to the ability to engage VIPs, send direct messages to decision makers, and raise money to further promote the issues at stake".

"Engagement does not consist in a simple signature", contends Dr. Masiero. "The gist of the social diffusion is digital amplification, which increases the effect of people's voices without requiring high knowledge of ICTs. The model launched by MegaShouts.org has devised a way to do so, quickly and systemically turning potential supporters into digital activists."

"This emerging platform reinvents the notion of reach, putting it in a finalistic relation with the objective of each campaign" concludes the study. "This is what makes it capable to increase the impact of social diffusion, articulating a clear mechanism to monitor the real effects of its campaigns"

Marco Camisani Calzolari is a social entrepreneur, a university lecturer and a writer. His studies on fake Twitter and Facebook followers generated a considerable amount of international buzz, being extensively reviewed by Reuters (Robots crowd Twitter brand profiles: study), Financial Times (Twitter bots are boosting brands - survey), Guardian (Hot or bot? Italian professor casts doubt on politician's Twitter popularity), Daily Telegraph (Human or 'bot'? Doubts over Italian comic Beppe Grillo's Twitter followers) and the Economist (Beware the tweeting crowds). He lives in London.

###

Complete report:

https://megashouts.org/static/pdf/Megashouts_LSE_Report.pdf

Contacts:

Andrea Giannotti

Protagoras PR

+44(0)7825892640

giannotti@protagoras.co.uk


ABU DHABI and DUBAI, UAE, November 3, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

DarkMatter clients to receive full endpoint visibility, data risk management and deep forensic capabilities

DarkMatter, an international cyber security firm headquartered in the United Arab Emirates and Guidance Software, makers of EnCase and EnForce, an automated risk management platform, today announced a partnership agreement to help DarkMatter clients leverage the powerful capabilities of forensic security tools.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161103/435787 )



Under the agreement, DarkMatter will integrate Guidance Software products, including EnCase Endpoint Security, EnCase Endpoint Investigator, and EnForce Risk Manager, into its comprehensive cyber security solutions for clients across the Middle East. Guidance solutions will help DarkMatter clients find, assess, respond to, and remediate hidden cyber threats within their networks.

With the exponential growth in data and the ever-increasing cost of a breach, organisations across the Middle East, and the world, are looking for complete cyber security solutions. As cyber-attacks become more advanced, security teams are shifting focus beyond traditional perimeter protection technologies to focus on rapid detection and response. Gartner estimates that by 2020, 60 per cent of security budgets will be focused on detection and response, an increase from less than 10 per cent two years ago.[1]

Commenting on the partnership, Rabih Dabboussi, DarkMatter's Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Business Development said, "Forensic cyber security tools are being demanded by our clients with increasing regularity as a result of the rising sophistication of cyber threats. This collaboration with Guidance Software will add to our mission to provide planning, detection, protection and recovery capabilities to digital environments in order to offer a heightened level of cyber security resilience to digital transformation."

Rabih Dabboussi continued, "Partnerships with leading global technology providers is part of DarkMatter's go-to-market strategy, and we look forward to our clients enjoying the added active cyber security defence posture ushered in through our cooperation with Guidance Software."

Forensic security solutions from Guidance deliver unrivalled 360-degree visibility into endpoints, unmatched data collection, and automated incident response and remediation capabilities. The agreement announced today will help DarkMatter deliver the best possible solutions for its customers and support Guidance's development in the region.

"At Guidance, we are strengthening our capabilities and delivering the industry's most powerful forensic security solutions to help our customers reduce digital risk and protect their networks against today's advanced threats," said Guidance Vice President for EMEA Rafik Hajem. "Scaling our business and providing our customers with the comprehensive solutions they demand requires partnering with the best cyber security providers. Guidance is committed to growing our business in the Middle East through this strategic partnership with DarkMatter."

About DarkMatter

DarkMatter is transforming the cyber security landscape. Headquartered in the UAE and operating globally, we're the region's first and only fully integrated digital defence and cyber security consultancy and implementation firm. Our elite team of global experts deliver advanced, next-generation solutions to governments and enterprises across the cyber security spectrum.

We help clients simplify the enormous complexity of today's ever-evolving cyber threats. Our vision is to secure the future by protecting its technologies. Innovation and Research are cornerstones to our development and the activities in these areas underpin our entire range offerings, including Secure Communications, Public Key Infrastructure and Big Data & Analytics products.

They also extend to our activities in Governance, Risk & Compliance, Cyber Network Defence, Managed Security Services, Infrastructure & System Integration, Test & Validation Labs, and Smart Solutions.

For further details, visit http://www.darkmatter.ae

For more information on Guidance software products and services contact sales@guid.com.

About Guidance Software

Guidance (NASDAQ: GUID) exists to turn chaos and the unknown into order and the known-so that companies and their customers can go about their daily lives as usual without worry or disruption, knowing their most valuable information is safe and secure. The makers of EnCase, the gold standard in forensic security, and EnForce', an automated cyber risk management platform, Guidance provides a mission-critical foundation of market-leading applications that offer deep 360-degree visibility across all endpoints, devices and networks, allowing proactive identification and remediation of threats. From retail to financial institutions, our field-tested and court-proven solutions are deployed on an estimated 33 million endpoints at more than 70 of the Fortune 100 and hundreds of agencies worldwide, from beginning to endpoint.

For more information aboutGuidance Software, please visitguidancesoftware.com, "Like" ourFacebook page, follow us onTwitter, or follow our LinkedIn page.

Guidance Software, EnCase and EnForce' are trademarks owned by Guidance Software and may not be used without prior written permission. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.

[1] "New Research on Dealing with Advanced Threats," Gartner
DUBLIN, October 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global Next Generation Sequencing Market Analysis & Trends - Industry Forecast to 2025" report to their offering.



The Global Next Generation Sequencing Market is poised to grow at a strong CAGR of around 23.0% over the next decade.

This industry report analyzes the global markets for Next Generation Sequencing Market across all the given segments on global as well as regional levels presented in the research scope. The study provides historical market data for 2013, 2014 revenue estimations are presented for 2015 and forecasts for 2020 till 2025.



The study focuses on market trends, leading players, supply chain trends, technological innovations, key developments, and future strategies. The market is segmented on the basis of Technology, Product, End-User, and Application. With comprehensive market assessment across the major geographies such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Latin America and Rest of the world the report is a valuable asset for the existing players, new entrants and the future investors.

The study presents detailed market analysis with inputs derived from industry professionals across the value chain. A special focus has been made on 23 countries such as U.S., Canada, Mexico, U.K., Germany, Spain, France, Italy, China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, etc.



The market data is gathered from extensive primary interviews and secondary research. The market size is calculated based on the revenue generated through sales from all the given segments and sub segments in the research scope. The market sizing analysis includes both top-down and bottom-up approaches for data validation and accuracy measures.



Key Topics Covered:



1 Market Outline

1.1 Research Methodology

1.2 Market Trends

1.3 Regulatory Factors

1.1.1 US

1.1.1 Europe

1.1.1 China

1.4 Product Analysis

1.5 Application Analysis

1.6 Technology Analysis

1.7 Strategic Benchmarking

1.8 Opportunity Analysis



2 Executive Summary



3 Market Overview

3.1 Current Trends

3.1.1 Decreasing costs of next generation technology and genome sequencing

3.1.2 Recent Technological Developments in Global Next Generation Sequencing maket

3.1.3 Complexity involved in storage of NGS data

3.2 Drivers

3.3 Constraints

3.4 Industry Attractiveness



4 Global Next Generation Sequencing market by Technology

4.1 Whole genome sequencing

4.2 Targeted resequencing

4.3 Whole exome sequencing

4.4 RNA sequencing

4.5 Chip sequencing

4.6 De Novo Sequencing

4.7 Methyl Sequencing

4.8 Pyrosequencing

4.9 Sequencing By Synthesis (Sbs)

4.10 Single Molecule Realtime Sequencing (Smrt)

4.11 Ion Semiconductor Sequencing

4.12 Sequencing By Ligation (Sbl)



5 Global Next Generation Sequencing market by Product

5.1 Workflow Products

5.2 Instruments & Consumables

5.3 Software services



6 Global Next Generation Sequencing market by End User

6.1 Research Centers

6.2 Biotech & Pharma Firms

6.3 Hospitals and clinics

6.4 Government institutions

6.5 Others



7 Global Next Generation Sequencing market by Application

7.1 Drug Discovery

7.2 Diagnostics

7.3 Personalized medicines

7.4 Infectious Diseases

7.5 Genetic Screening

7.6 Agriculture and Animal Research

7.7 Biomarker Discovery

7.8 Others



8 Global Next Generation Sequencing market by Geography



9 Leading Companies

9.1 Agilent Technologies, Inc.

9.2 Bgi (Beijing Genomics Institute)

9.3 Biomatters, Ltd.

9.4 Dnastar, Inc.

9.5 GATC Biotech Ag.

9.6 Genomatix Software Gmbh

9.7 Illumina, Inc.

9.8 Knome, Inc.

9.9 Life Technologies Corporation

9.10 Macrogen Inc.

9.11 Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Ltd.

9.12 Pacific Biosciences

9.13 Perkin Elmer, Inc.

9.14 Qiagen N.V.

9.15 Roche Holding Ag



For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/4rdjw6/global_next

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716


BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Swiss franc climbed against most major counterparts in early European deals on Wednesday, as falling oil prices and some disappointing U.S. corporate earnings sapped investors' appetite for risk.



Oil held on to its overnight losses after API data showed a larger-than-expected build in U.S. crude stockpiles. Data from American Petroleum Institute showed an inventory build of 4.8 million barrels last week, larger than expected, and following a 3.8 million draw in the previous week.



Investors are skeptical over the proposed output cut by the OPEC at November meeting, amid disagreement among oil producing nations.



The Energy Information Administration will release official inventories data later in the day.



Apple posted its first decline in annual sales and profit in 15 years and technology giants 3M and Caterpillar reported weak earnings reports, dragging down stocks.



The franc showed mixed performance in the Asian session. While the franc fell against the euro and the yen, it rose against the pound. Against the greenback, it held steady.



The franc advanced to a 6-day high of 0.9913 against the greenback, off its early low of 0.9958. If the franc extends rise, 0.98 is likely seen as its next resistance level.



The franc was trading higher at 105.10 against the Japanese yen, up from previous low of 104.62. The franc is seen finding resistance around the 107.5 region.



Survey data from the Shoko Chukin Bank showed that Japan's small business confidence strengthened in October.



The small business sentiment index rose to 48.3 from 47.7 in September. The index strengthened for the second consecutive month.



The Swiss currency rose back to 1.0820 against the euro, from an early low of 1.0836. The next possible resistance for the franc is possibly seen around the 1.06 mark.



Survey report by research group GfK showed that German consumer confidence is set to weaken to a 7-month low in November as weak global growth is expected to affect the domestic activity.



The forward-looking consumer sentiment index fell to 9.7 from 10.0 in October.



Although the franc edged up to 1.2084 against the pound at 2:55 am ET, it reversed direction in a short while. The pair was trading at 1.2105, compared to Tuesday's closing value of 1.2117.



Looking ahead, U.S. advance goods trade balance for September, wholesale inventories for September, Markit's U.S. flash PMI report for October, U.S. home sales data for September and U.S. crude oil inventories data are set to be published in the New York session.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
Regulatory News:

Skanska has, as a part of the joint venture Mid-Coast Transit Contractors, signed a contract with the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) to construct the Mid-Coast Trolley in San Diego, USA. The total contract value is USD 922M. Skanska will include its share of the contract, worth USD 307M, about SEK 2.6 billion, in the order bookings for Skanska USA Civil in the third quarter 2016.

The Mid-Coast Trolley will extend existing service from the Old Town Transit Center to the University City community, serving major activity centers such as the Mission Bay area, the VA Medical Center, the UC San Diego, and Westfield UTC Transit Center. The 18.5 kilometer, or 11.5 mile, project includes nine new stations.

This new service will enhance direct public access to other regional activity centers and improve travel options to employment, education, medical, and retail centers for commuters, and visitors.

Mid-Coast Transit Contractors is a joint venture with Stacy and Witbeck, Herzog and Skanska. Stacy and Witbeck is the joint venture lead.

Construction is under way and the project is slated for completion 2021.

Skanska USA is one of the leading development and construction companies in the country, consisting of four business units: Skanska USA Building, which specializes in building construction; Skanska USA Civil, specialized in civil infrastructure; Skanska Infrastructure Development, which develops public-private partnerships; and Skanska USA Commercial Development, which develops commercial projects in select U.S. markets. Headquartered in New York, Skanska USA has more than 10,000 employees and its 2015 revenues were SEK 54.5 billion.

This and previous releases can also be found at www.skanska.com

The information provided herein is such as Skanska AB is obligated to disclose pursuant to the EU market securities act (EU) no. 596/2014.

Skanska is one of the world's leading construction and project development companies, focused on selected home markets in the Nordic region, other European countries and North America. Supported by global trends in urbanization and demographics, and by being at the forefront in sustainability, Skanska offers competitive solutions for both simple and the most complex assignments, helping to build a sustainable future for customers and communities. The Group currently has 43,100 employees in selected home markets in Europe and North America. Skanska's sales in 2015 totaled SEK 155 billion.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929006487/en/

Contacts:

Skanska USA

Jay Weisberger, +1 206 494 54 69

Communications

or

Skanska AB

Andreas Joons, +46 (0)10 449 04 94

Press Officer

or

Direct line for media, +46 (0)10 448 88 99

www.skanska.com
BEIJING, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Qihoo 360 Technology Co. Ltd. ("Qihoo 360" or the "Company"), a leading Internet company globally, launched today 360 TurboVPN, the company's VPN (Virtual Private Network) solution for the users concerned about the privacy of their Internet communications.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413283LOGO

360 TurboVPN is born to complement the protection for PC offered by 360 Total Security, by shielding the user's communications with end-to-end, bank-level encryption. This tool protects users' online privacy and anonymity, and allows them to access geo-restricted content.

One of the key characteristics of 360 TurboVPN is its simple user interface and ease of use, a common property for all products of the company. No special configuration is required to start using TurboVPN. A single click is enough to start to get protected by TurboVPN.

"With this new service we aim to extend the protection for our users beyond the limits of their devices, shielding their communications and protecting their data as it's transferred online," - states Zhou Hong Yi, CEO of Qihoo 360.

A VPN has become a necessity in the current Internet landscape, where hackers not only target the personal devices but also the information transmitted through the different networks, such as airports' or restaurants' free Wi-Fi. A VPN encrypts user's information during its transmission across Internet, preventing hackers from accessing to it.

360 TurboVPN launches endorsed after a successful Pioneer Program, where selected users have been able to experience an early version of the application during months, providing valuable feedback that has been included in this first official release.

360 TurboVPN is now available for free download from https://www.360totalsecurity.com.

About Qihoo 360

Qihoo 360 Technology Co., Ltd. is a leading Internet company globally. The Company is also the number one provider of Internet and mobile security products in China as measured by its user base, according to iResearch. Qihoo 360 also provides users with secure access points to the Internet via its market leading web browsers and application stores. The Company has built one of the largest open Internet platforms in China and monetizes its massive user base primarily through online advertising and through Internet value-added services on its open platform.

For more information about 360 Total Security visit https://www.360totalsecurity.com or its Facebook page.




RHODES, Greece, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Pooran Chandra Pandey named as institute's first CEO

named as institute's first CEO Andrea von Knoop joins DOC Supervisory Board

DOC Research Institute ("DOC", or the "Institute"), an independent international think tank headquartered in Berlin, is pleased to announce the results of a Supervisory Board meeting held on September 29.

Meeting ahead of the formal opening of the 14th annual Rhodes Forum, the DOC's annual flagship public event, the Board named Pooran Chandra Pandey as the DOC's inaugural CEO, and welcomed Andrea von Knoop as a new member of the Supervisory Board. Both appointments take effect immediately.

Pooran Chandra Pandey joins the DOC from UN Global Compact Network India, where he served from 2011 to 2016 as Executive Director. In that role he led Indian companies and other stakeholders in promoting key principles of human rights, anti-corruption, environmental protection and labour standards.

On his appointment, Pooran Chandra Pandey said: "I am excited to be joining this organisation, which has such a key role to play in reducing conflict and tensions in the world, and developing practical solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems through a process rooted in mutually respectful dialogue and an understanding of our common interests and challenges."

"Throughout my career I have sought to address some of the greatest challenges humankind faces - from natural disasters and resource pressure to access to education, empowering marginalised communities, and environmental protection. In this new role I look forward to continuing my work within a new forum. The Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute has formed at a time in which global tensions are running high, and I believe it has a real role to play in delivering practical positive change."

Andrea von Knoop said: "It is a privilege to be joining the DOC Research Institute as the organisation launches its mission. From my personal experience and involvement in dialogue-based initiatives between East and West I am deeply convinced of the need to foster mutual understanding to tackle the many challenges our world faces today, and look forward to contributing to this process as a member of the Supervisory Board."

For news from the Rhodes Forum follow us on Twitter (@DOCResearchInst) and Facebook (@DOCResearchInstitute) and using the hashtags RhodesForum and DOCResearch

Notes to editors:

About Pooran Chandra Pandey:

Pooran Chandra Pandey is one of India's leading experts on advocacy, economic and social development work, management and the voluntary sector. From 2011 to 2016, he served as Executive Director for UN Global Compact Network India. Prior to taking up that post, he was Director at the Times Foundation, one of India's leading corporate foundations working in the areas of health, education, environment, women's empowerment, and disaster management. From 2004 to 2007, he was CEO at Voluntary Action Network India, the country's largest association of voluntary organizations, comprising 2,400 members within India.

Credited with pioneering the notion of involving civil society, businesses and government through a consensus-building approach for inclusive social dividends, Pooran Chandra Pandey has led the launch of national public service campaigns within India such as Lead India, Teach India and the social impact awards.

Specialising both in development and humanitarian assistance, he has also chaired and co-chaired a number of Indian Government task forces and committees developing national policy on the voluntary sector, implementing the UN Handbook, non-governmental charter of good governance, rationalisation of policies for NGOs, and the foreign contribution regulation act.

Pooran Chandra Pandey holds holds a BA and MA from the University of Allahabad, an M.Phil in International Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, and was also a Chevening Scholar in Leadership and Global Organization at the London School of Economics.

About Andrea von Knoop:

Andrea von Knoop has more than 40 years of business experience between Germany and Russia. She currently serves as Senior Counsel to EY Russia. Previously she was General Director for Management Consulting at Arthur Andersen.

From 1993 through 2007, Andrea von Knoop served as the Head of the Delegation of German Industry and Commerce. She has been Chairwoman of the German Business Association in the Russian Federation since its foundation in 1995. Her professional career also includes 13 years of working with major German banks in international business.

Among numerous other awards in both Germany and Russia, she was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (First Class) and the Order of Friendship - the highest decoration in Russia for foreign citizens - by the country's respective presidents.

About DOC:

Rooted in a tradition of seeking dialogue-based solutions to humankind's most pressing issues, Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute builds on the work and achievements of its predecessor organization, the World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations, bringing together global thought leaders from academia, public policy, business and civil society to debate and develop practice-based policy advice.

The roots of the organization date back to 9 November 2001, following an initiative by Iranian leader Mohammad Khatami, when UNESCO Member States unanimously adopted the 'UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity' and the UN General Assembly presented its Global Agenda for Dialogue Among Civilisations, setting out the principles of intercultural dialogue to be defended and objectives to be achieved. The World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations emerged as a practical endeavour to implement this initiative, and has since evolved into what is today Dialogue of Civilisations Research Institute.
BRUSSELS, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

EFQM leads excellence and provides the most challenging Award process, recognising Role Model organisations around the globe.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160927/412482LOGO )



EFQM is a not for profit membership foundation with 25 years' experience of supporting organisations, from Europe and beyond, reach sustainable Excellence and even exceed it. With its carefully designed portfolio of services and a network strong of 30.000 organisations from all sectors, size and maturity, EFQM is recognised by institutions and acknowledged by leaders as a key partner to success.

The Assessment and Recognition scheme offered by EFQM, as part of its portfolio, provides organisations with a challenging and independent assessment of their performance across the EFQM Excellence Model at any point of their continuous improvement journey. It culminates with the EFQM Excellence Award Progamme (EEA) which recognises Role Model organisations in Europe and beyond. Reviewed last year to deliver the highest added value possible to organisations entering it, the Award is supported by one of the most challenging assessment process, making the recognition even more prestigious.

This year, the EFQM Excellence Award Jury recognised Ayuntamiento de Alcobendas as EFQM Excellence Award Winner 2016.

Leon Tossaint, EFQM CEO, comments this news: "Ayuntamiento de Alcobendas is a municipality that goes the extra mile for its citizens, sometimes delivering activities over and above its legal mandate to satisfy and exceed its customers' needs despite a sometimes difficult environment. The Jury recognised that Alcobendas demonstrates Role Model approaches, behaviour and results in various areas such as: Economic planning and management toward sustainability, responsible management and transparency but also Participation of its stakeholders in process and service design and decision of municipal policy. Alcobendas really shows what a model municipality should look like!"

EEA Applicants have all in common their passion for Excellence and the will to share their expertise with the rest of the EFQM Community. They all have been driving improvements across their organisation, step by step, for so many years that it became part of their DNA. Going through regular assessments ensures that they always have the external perspective allowing them to move forward and remain high-performing and competitive.

Any organisation with the ambition to drive excellence as a way to become a global leader is welcome most to enter the EFQM Assessment and Recognition scheme, and for the very best, even the EFQM Excellence Award Programme.

About the EFQM Excellence Award Programme

Award Applicants are excellent organisations with an indisputable track record of success in turning strategy into action and continuously improving their performance. The EFQM Excellence Award Programme is supported by one of the most challenging assessment processes. To assess organisations and identify role model practices, an international team of 5 to 7 experienced, specifically trained managers spend one week on site and an average of 500 hours in total per applicant. They review the management system and interview individuals as well as groups to analyse how effective the organisation is against the EFQM Excellence Model. The feedback report prepared by the assessors provide a wealth of value adding input to help the organisation improve at a strategic level. The reports are then presented to an independent jury that decides the level of recognition for each Nominee.
WMC Retail Partners plc

("WMC" or "the Company")

Unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2016

I welcome the opportunity given by this Interim Report to update shareholders on both our progress and some potentially significant and exciting developments at our Cornish Market World site. Firstly dealing with our half-yearly results themselves for the six months to June 30th 2016, unaudited figures show a not unexpected loss of 78,000 - a major improvement on the 226,000 loss for the same period last year, even though 42,000 of the improvement relates to the release of earlier provisions. Once again our traditional markets broadly held their own in a difficult trading environment with occupancy slightly up on last year. Our move into apprenticeship training has proved disappointingly slow, primarily due to bureaucratic red tape beyond our control. However our Consulting activities, ably led by Executive Director Andrew Sparrow, have made notable progress with this company being appointed for new projects in, amongst others, Manchester, Chester, Wood Green and Swindon. Pleasingly, in some cases, what started as time limited projects have now developed into either extended pieces of work, or discussions regarding retaining WMC's involvement over the lifespan of the development project. These projects see WMC advising on a broad range of issues including market relocations, internal design, retail mix, events strategies and estate management protocols.

Turning to Cornish Market World ("CMW"), shareholders will be aware that this has been loss-making for a number of years - a real drag on overall group results. Unfortunately the market never really recovered from being severely flooded in 2010 and despite our considerable success in building up the adjacent "Kidzworld" Activity Centre, overall results continue negatively although there has been a distinct improvement in market occupancy and optimism.

In my last Chairman's report I referred to our continuing dialogue with our landlord, the Council, and prospective tenants to deliver a more profitable and certain future at CMW. I am now pleased to report that we are close to signing a new agreement on more acceptable and certain terms. A further announcement will be made when this has been completed.

Finally I would like to report to shareholders that Paul Fice, our former Company Secretary and Finance Manager, retired in July after many years of loyal service. I would like to thank Paul for all he did for us and to wish him well in his new business venture. We welcome Ken Riley as his replacement. Ken has settled in well and his wide previous commercial experience should be a very considerable benefit to us as we embark on our new exciting developments.

Lord Lee of Trafford DL FCA

Chairman

CONSOLIDATED PROFIT AND LOSS ACCOUNT

Six months Six months Year to ended ended 31 30 June 30 June December 2016 2015 2015 Unaudited Unaudited Audited '000 '000 '000 Turnover 2,048 2,149 4,307 Cost of sales (1,687) (1,898) (3,516) Gross profit 361 251 791 Administration expenses (370) (388) (644) Operating (loss)/profit (9) (137) 147 (Loss)/profit on sale of business and fixed assets 0 (15) 12 Interest receivable 0 1 1 Interest payable (69) (75) (147) (Loss)/profit on ordinary activities before taxation (78) (226) 13

Tax on (loss)/profit on ordinary activities 4 45 (1) (Loss)/profit on ordinary activities after taxation (74) (181) 12 Minority interest 4 3 15 (Loss)/profit for the financial period (70) (178) 27 Basic (loss)/earnings per share in pence (1.2) (3.0) 0.45

30 June 30 June 31 December 2016 2015 2015 Unaudited Unaudited Audited '000 '000 '000 Fixed assets Intangible - positive goodwill and other intangible assets 149 119 157 Tangible assets 7,470 7,889 7,521 7,619 8,008 7,678 Current assets Stocks 9 8 7 Debtors: amounts falling due within one year 847 751 528 Debtors: amounts falling due after one year - - - Cash at bank and in hand 26 34 196 882 793 731 Creditors: amounts falling due within one year (1,041) (1,588) (1,080) Net current liabilities (159) (795) (349) Total assets less current liabilities 7,460 7,213 7,329 Creditors: amounts falling due after more than one year (3,769) (3,422) (3,330) Provisions for liabilities and charges (189) (186) (422) Net assets 3,502 3,605 3,577 Capital and reserves Called up share capital 3,000 3,000 3,000 Share premium account 250 250 250 Revaluation reserve 386 1,072 388 Share based payment reserve 82 79 82 Profit and loss account (235) (827) (165) Equity shareholders' funds 3,483 3,574 3,555 Equity minority interest 19 31 22 Total shareholders' funds 3,502 3,605 3,577

Notes to the Interim Results

1 Accounting policies

The interim results have been prepared on the same basis and using the same accounting policies as those used in the preparation of the statutory accounts for the year ended 31 December 2015.

2 Going concern



In common with the majority of other companies, the current economic conditions create uncertainty.

The Group is funded by cash reserves and bank loans, which have been substantially reduced over the past couple of years, primarily through property sales. The loan is currently in negotiation for renewal and extension with business plans and cashflow forecasts until 2020. For this reason, the directors continue to prepare the financial statements on a going concern basis.

3 Earnings per share

The calculation of earnings per share is based on the result for the period divided by the weighted average number of shares in issue, being 5,999,449 (30 June 2015: 5,999,449 and 31 December 2015: 5,999,449) ordinary shares of 50p each.

4 Interim dividend

The Directors have declared no interim ordinary dividend (2015: Nil) per share. A preference dividend of 1.5875p per share was paid on 1 July 2016.

5 Accounting

The results for the half year ended 30 June 2015 and 2016 are unaudited and do not constitute statutory accounts within the meaning of section 434 Companies Act 2006.

The financial information for the period ended 31 December 2015 has been extracted from the statutory accounts for that year which have been filed with the Registrar of Companies and the auditors have given an unqualified audit opinion.

For further information please contact:



WMC Retail Partners Plc.

Ken Riley, Company Secretary Tel: +44 (0) 1952 242019



Grant Thornton UK LLP (Corporate Adviser)

Colin Aaronson/Harrison Clarke Tel: +44 (0) 207 383 5100


On the initiative and by the decision of the Board of Agrowill Group, AB (company code 126264360, registered address Smolensko st. 10, Vilnius, hereinafter - the Company) the ordinary general meeting of shareholders of the Company is being convened on 24 October 2016, at 10.30 a.m.The meeting will be held in the conference room at the hotel "Amberton", address L. Stuokos-Guceviciaus st. 1, LT-01122 Vilnius.The registration of the shareholders begins at 10 a.m.Only those persons who will be shareholders of the Company at the close of the record date of the general meeting of shareholders may participate and vote at the general meeting of shareholders.The record date of the meeting shall be 17 October, 2016.Agenda of the Meeting:1. Changing the name of the Company;2. Changing registered address of the Company;3. Amendments to the Articles of Association of the Company;4. Regarding of the power of attorney.Shareholders of the Company shall have a right to participate and vote at the general meeting of shareholders personally or by power of attorney, or represented by the person with whom an agreement on the transfer of voting rights is concluded.The total number of the Company's shares of EUR 0.29 par value each and the number of shares granting voting rights during the general meeting of shareholders is the same and amounts to 187,416,252.ISIN code of the Company's shares is LT0000127466.A person attending the general meeting of shareholders and having a voting right must provide a person's identification document. A person who is not a shareholder must additionally provide a document confirming his/her right to vote at the general meeting of shareholders.Each shareholder shall have a right in the manner established by the laws to authorise other (natural or legal) person to attend and vote at the general meeting of shareholders on his/her behalf. At the general meeting of shareholders an authorised person shall have the same rights as would be held by the shareholder represented by him/her, unless the authorized person's rights are limited by the power of attorney or by laws. The authorized person must provide a power of attorney certified in the manner established by laws. A power of attorney issued in a foreign state must be translated into Lithuanian and legalised in the manner established by laws.The Company does not establish special form of power of attorney.Shareholder shall have the right to authorize through electronic communication channels another person (natural or legal) to participate and vote in the meeting on shareholder's behalf. Such authorization shall not be approved by the notary public. The power of attorney issued through electronic communication channels must be confirmed by the shareholder with a safe electronic signature developed by safe signature equipment and approved by a qualified certificate effective in the Republic of Lithuania. The shareholder shall inform the Company on the power of attorney issued through electronic communication channels by e-mail info@agrowill.lt no later than until the last business day before the meeting at 12.00 p.m. The power of attorney and notification shall be issued in writing. The power of attorney and notification to the Company shall be signed with the electronic signature but not the letter sent via e-mail. By submitting the notification to the Company the shareholder shall include the internet address from which it would be possible to download free of charge software to verify an electronic signature of the shareholder.A shareholder or a person authorised by him/her shall have a right to vote in writing in advance by filling in the general ballot paper. Upon a shareholder's request, the Company, not later than 10 days before the general meeting, shall send the general ballot paper by registered mail free of charge. The general ballot paper is also provided on the Company's website at www.agrowill.lt. The filled-in general ballot paper and the document confirming the voting right (if any) must be submitted to the Company sending by registered mail or providing them against signature at the address of the registered office of the Company indicated in the notice and received by the Company not later than on the last business day until the meeting.The Company is not providing the possibility to attend and vote at the general meeting of shareholders through electronic means of communication.The shareholders holding shares that grant at least 1/20 of all votes shall have the right of proposing to supplement the agenda of the general meeting of shareholders. Draft decisions on the proposed issues shall be submitted together with the proposal or, if the decisions do not need to be approved, explanations on each proposed issue of the general meeting of shareholders shall be presented. Proposal to supplement the agenda must be presented to the Company sending them by registered mail or providing it against signature at the address of the registered office of the Company indicated in the notice. The agenda will be supplemented if the proposal is received not later than 14 days before the general meeting of shareholders.Each shareholder holding shares that grant at least 1/20 of all votes at any time before the general meeting of shareholders or during the meeting shall have the right of proposing draft resolutions on the issues already included or to be included in the agenda of the general meeting of shareholders, as well as the additional candidates to the members of the Supervisory Council of the Company (if elected). The proposed draft decisions must be presented in writing sending them by registered mail or providing them against signature at the address of the registered office of the Company indicated in the notice.The shareholders shall have the right to present questions related to the agenda issues of the general meeting of shareholders to the Company in advance in writing, by providing the shareholder's personal identification number and consent to process personal data - personal identification number in the letter which should be sent to the Company by registered mail or delivered against signature. The Company undertakes to respond if the questions are received not later than 3 business days before the general meeting of shareholders. Responses of a general character shall be posted on the Company's website www.agrowill.lt. The Company will not respond personally to the shareholder if the respective information is posted on the Company's website.The shareholders could get familiarised with the documents possessed by the Company related to the agenda of the meeting, including notification on convocation of the meeting, information about the total number of the Company's shares and the number of shares granting voting rights during the general meeting of shareholders, draft resolutions, and other documents to be submitted to the general meeting of shareholders as well as to get information regarding execution of the shareholders' rights at Agrowill Group AB, at the address Smolensko st. 10, Vilnius, or on the Company's website at www.agrowill.lt.Vladas Bagavicius Member of the Board Tel. +370 5 2335340
MOUNTAIN VIEW (dpa-AFX) - Google rebranded Thursday its business-to-business cloud computing brand as Google Cloud and also enhanced some enterprise applications with new intelligent capabilities. Google Cloud brand includes Google's all cloud services, including the Google Cloud Platform, enterprise mobility, and Chromebooks. Google Apps for Work has been named as G Suite that includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Hangouts, Sheets and Slides. These are a group of applications Google provides to organizations for making their employees more productive. Google has also announced new features aimed at emphasizing collaboration. Docs, Sheets and Slides will get new features to make it easier to create files quickly with the help of Google intelligence. Google Calendar's new update will make it easier to schedule meetings, while Drive's new feature will make it easier for teams to use. The new Team Drives feature lets organizations set up groups that own files inside Google Drive. This is in opposite to the product's previous design that required every document, spreadsheet or slide deck to have a single person own it. Diane Greene, senior vice president of Google's enterprise business, said the cloud name made more sense than the previously thought Google Enterprise. Greene added that the firm has made good progress courting customers and improving its technology. Google's all new features are said to be similar to the ones offered in Microsoft's Office 365. According to Reuters, Google, which trails Amazon and Microsoft in cloud market share, is gaining under Greene. Google's 33 percent rise in other revenue in its most recent quarter is said to be largely from gains in cloud computing. Recently, Google has acquired cloud software company Apigee Corp for about $625 million. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Draft resolutions of the ordinary shareholders meeting of Agrowill Group AB (company code 126264360, registered address: Smolensko st. 10, Vilnius) which will take place on October 24, 2016:1. Changing the name of the Company.-To change the Company name to AUGA group.2. Changing registered address of the Company.-To change the Company registered address to Konstitucijos ave. 21c, Vilnius.3. Amendments to the Articles of Association of the Company.-With respect to above decisions taken amend the Articles of Association of the Company and approve the new wording of the Articles of Association .4. Regarding of the power of attorney.-To authorise (with the power to delegate) the General Manager of the Company to sign the amended wording of Articles of Association of the Company as well as to sign any and all documents and execute any actions in order to register new Articles of Association of the Company in the Register of Legal Persons.Attached:1. Draft of the Articles of Association. 2. General voting ballot.Vladas Bagavicius Member of the Board tel. +370 5 233 5340Attachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=588112
AUGA: new organic food brandOn September 30, 2016 AB Agrowill Group introduced a new organic food brand AUGA, which is to become available for Lithuanian consumers in October. Agrowill Group announced the plan to change the company name to Auga Group.The history of AUGA started 2 years ago, when Agrowill Group took a decision to change the culture of conventional farming and started organic production. The company created a vision - organic food can be affordable for everyone.The company aimed at developing the new Lithuanian agriculture that would change the current situation and would promote Lithuania around the world. It raised a lot of new questions. Is it possible to grow and produce without harming the environment? Is it possible to align organic farming with modern technologies? Is it possible to produce clean food at fair price and make it available to everyone?"The situation of agriculture in Lithuanian and globally is not acceptable. In many cases farming results not in producing clean food, but in creating profits for chemical industry. Lithuania is one of the cleanest countries in the world, therefore we have a unique opportunity to use this advantage and to develop ecological agriculture. To achieve the results we need to change conventional farming principles and to invest in new technologies. Some individual organic farms do it, but they lack scale in order to make organic food available for a wider circle of consumers. Moreover, people, especially in our region, still lack knowledge and trust that so called ecological products are really what they are. One of our objectives is to create this trust with a brand that would be open, transparent and would speak for itself." - Kestutis Juscius, chairman of the board of AB Agrowill Group, spoke about the issues of organic farming during the press conference.The demand for organic products has been growing globally for about a decade. Consumer expectations for clean food are increasing in Lithuania as well. The representative survey conducted by the research company Spinter tyrimai showed that 76 percent of population associate the consumption of organic products with health and quality of life. Similar number (74 percent) of people in Lithuania would support the idea of banning the use of any chemical fertilizers in agriculture.The aim to meet consumer expectations and to address the issues of agriculture has led Agrowill Group to start the biggest investment project in company's history. Now it got the name AUGA.AUGA is a Lithuanian verb, that means "to grow", to strive upwards. According to K. Juscius, AUGA is not just a word or a brand name - it is a philosophy and vision of the company, that aims to represent Lithuania globally."In cooperation with the biggest creative agencies in Lithuania we spent a long time looking for a word that would best represent our idea and would reflect the process of producing organic food. We were seeking this name to be short, easily and similarly pronounced in all main languages, because our market is global. However, the main criteria was the Lithuanian origin and meaning of the word, because we want it to represent Lithuania." - spoke K. Juscius.AUGA brand name will be placed on a wide range of organic food products. Fresh and preserved champignons, potatoes, carrots, beetroots will appear in retail already this October. Next year the assortment will be extended with diary, grain and poultry products.All AUGA products are marked with Lithuanian and European Union ecological certificate signs. It means that while growing and producing AUGA products minimal environment impact was caused, no chemical fertilizers were used, the soil was taken care of, aiming to make use of side products in the process, and there are no GMO or synthetic additives in the food.The company has taken the major and irreversible decision to engage in ecological and sustainable framing and food production business. Special attention was paid to product packaging. AUGA preserved champignons and vegetables are packed in innovative doypacks that produce significantly less CO2 emissions during the product lifecycle compared to a glass jar of the same size. "While growing organic food we look for the best and most efficient solutions, create and apply innovative technologies, cooperate with inventors and engineers. We aim to create new technologies of ecological farming to be able to share them with our fellow farmers in Lithuania and abroad." - said K. Juscius.In the press conference Agrowill Group also announced its plans to change the name of the company to Auga Group. According to K. Juscius, renaming the company is a natural step reflecting the changes in the group. The process of changing the company name is planned to finalize in November.About Agrowill GroupAB Agrowill Group, managing the companies of organic farming is one of the biggest companies of such type in Europe. The company is following the principles of sustainable business and applies the environmentally friendly organic farming technologies in all of its agricultural and production processes. Agrowill Group is listed on Vilnius and Warsaw stock exchange.For more information: Kristina Karnickaite UAB "Integrity PR" Sv. Ignoto g. 5, Vilnius 01144, Lithuania T: +370 616 89310 F: +370 5 268 5133 Skype: kristna1 kristina@integrity.ltAttachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=588021
ZURICH, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of the global operations management team at a financial technology (fin-tech) company that supports over 200 international businesses and their 1.5 million employees, Turkish national Turan Akgul needs to have a strategic view of how the world does business, and he is especially interested in emerging markets. He is based in Switzerland so he signed up for the China Europe International Business School's (CEIBS) Global EMBA Program which began its Zurich cohort on September 26.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160928/412733

"I believe this century will belong to China," 42-year-old Akgul said hours before classes officially began at the campus nestled along the shores of Lake Zurich. For someone in his field, China's fin-tech market could have vital lessons to offer as it includes the likes of major players such as Alibaba's Alipay and Yuebao, plus Tencent's WeChat Payment.

Akgul is also eager to learn more about Africa. "I consider Africa a fast growing continent, where the opportunities are huge. I wanted to have a truly international EMBA experience with a focus on emerging markets. That is why I chose the CEIBS Global EMBA. In addition to studying in Europe, I am also really looking forward to the electives we will do in Shanghai and Accra."

The program, offered from CEIBS' European Campus, the Lorange Institute of Business in Zurich, has Akgul studying alongside 28 peers from Europe, China and Africa. Participants are about 39 years old, on average; almost 28% are females; 24% have Masters Degrees or above and they have decades of experience in a wide range of industries. There is a mixture of participants from private companies, state-owned enterprises and government. Classes will be available in Zurich, Accra and Shanghai with electives in major cities around the world.

Akgul has spent his entire career in the international banking sector, and is working out of Equatex Ltd.'s Zurich office. He is in charge of business process management for the company's global operations. He has extensive expertise in client relationship management and change process management, but is still eager to expand his knowledge in these and other related areas.

Change management, for example, is an area that fascinates him. He is convinced that change should be an integral part of any company strategy, as only companies which are agile and innovative will survive. "At the personal level, I would like to have new insights in international business management," he added. "At the same time I would like to learn about innovative tools, with which I can master challenges within a company's management cycle and add value to the business. I would also like to further enhance and develop my soft and management skills in order to be better prepared for today's challenging business world."

The Zurich class is the second cohort of the CEIBS GEMBA. Its curriculum is identical to the one offered to participants in Shanghai, ranked among the Financial Times Top 20 for the last six years, where the latest class began on September 4.

For more information on the CEIBS GEMBA Program click here.

About CEIBS

Headquartered at its largest campus in Shanghai, China Europe International Business School is mainland China's leading business school, with three programmes globally ranked by the Financial Times. CEIBS offers MBA, Finance MBA, Executive MBA, Executive Education and PhD programmes. Established in 1994 as a non-profit joint venture between the Chinese and European governments, CEIBS also has campuses in China's political capital, Beijing, and Zurich in the heart of Europe. CEIBS also offers programmes from its facilities in Shenzhen to China's south and Accra in Ghana.




RHODES, Greece, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

DOC Research Institute ("DOC", or the "Institute"), an independent international think tank headquartered in Berlin, announces that the 14th Rhodes Forum 2016 "The Chaos of Multiplicity: An Urgent Call for Dialogue" has opened in Greece. This key international event brings together leading experts from government, business and academia to discuss pressing global issues. It runs from 30 September to 1 October 2016.

Held each year since 2002 on the Greek island of Rhodes, the Forum has consistently attracted high-ranking participants from over 70 countries. Every year, key guests and speakers include acting and former presidents and senior officials, members of the international academic community and business elite, representatives of international NGOs, diplomats and the media.

This year's Rhodes Forum is pleased to note the number of high-profile serving politicians who have been able to attend, including Czech President Milos Zeman. Engagement at this level speaks to the acute need for events such as the Rhodes Forum, which provide a vital platform for wide-ranging discussion of the pressing issues the international community faces today - from global security to economic development.

The agenda of the 14th Forum will comprise a number of overarching themes, including:

civilizations against the new barbarism

alternative economic models

human ecology

global inclusive development

reconciliation and peace between East and West

new strategies for growth based on infrastructure investment.

In previous years the Forum has been organised by the World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations (headquartered in Vienna). Now, as part of the WPF's transformation into the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute this long-standing event will be organised by DOC RI (headquartered in Berlin).

For news from the Rhodes Forum follow us on Twitter (@DOCResearchInst) and Facebook (@DOCResearchInstitute) and using the hashtags RhodesForum and DOCResearch

About DOC RI:

Rooted in a tradition of seeking dialogue-based solutions to humankind's most pressing issues, Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute builds on the work and achievements of its predecessor organization, the World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations, bringing together global thought leaders from academia, public policy, business and civil society to debate and develop practice-based policy advice.

The roots of the organization date back to 9 November 2001, following an initiative by Iranian leader Mohammad Khatami, when UNESCO Member States unanimously adopted the 'UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity' and the UN General Assembly presented its Global Agenda for Dialogue Among Civilisations, setting out the principles of intercultural dialogue to be defended and objectives to be achieved. The World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations emerged as a practical endeavour to implement this initiative, and has since evolved into what is today Dialogue of Civilisations Research Institute.

For further information, contact: media@doc-research.org
SHANGHAI, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Invitation to members of the press to attend an information event and visit the HVG Hopfenverwertungsgenossenschaft e.G. stand at China Brew & Beverage 2016 from October 11 to 14, 2016, at the Shanghai New International Expo Center.

In just a few weeks, the biggest international trade fair for brewing and beverage technology in Asia, the "China Brew & Beverage Exhibition" in Shanghai, will be opening its doors. From October 11 to 14, it is estimated that 52,000 attendees will visit the numerous stands and presentations concerning the most important issues in the beverage industry, establish contacts, and assess the latest trends. HVG Hopfenverwertungsgenossenschaft e.G. will be represented in Hall 1 at stand no. 1P213, and is inviting visitors to a presentation as part of its information campaign co-financed by the EU. The stand will provide information about the European quality schemes relating to hops and the advantages of German hops. There will be an information event on the subject of "German aroma hops and their role in the beer industry" for hop experts and brewers presented by experts from HVG Hopfenverwertungsgenossenschaft e.G. on October 13, 2016 from 09:00 to 13:00 in seminar room W1-M1. You can find more information at: http://www.DeGuoPijiuhua.eu .

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160930/413729LOGO )



HVG Hopfenverwertungsgenossenschaft e.G. stand, October 11 to 14, 2016, Hall 1, no. 1P213.

The campaign led by HVG Hopfenverwertungsgenossenschaft e.G. together with hop-growing associations from the German growing regions of Tettnang, Elbe-Saale, and Hallertau, as well as the producer cooperative HVG Spalt, communicates information about the advantages of European products, with special emphasis on the high quality of German hops. Hops grown in Germany fulfill important criteria relating to food safety, quality, and monitoring and almost 100 percent of production is covered by the European Union's quality schemes, such as the protected geographical indication (PGI) or protected designation of origin (PDO). HVG Hopfenverwertungsgenossenschaft e.G. Chairman, Dr. Erich Lehmair, as well as Carlos Ruiz, International Sales Manager, will inform visitors to the stand about the advantages of these schemes, the EU regulations relating to hops, and the opportunities that traceability affords.

Information event on the subject of "German aroma hops and their role in the beer industry," October 13, 2016, from 09:00 to 13:00, room W1-M1.

The subject of "aroma hops" is of particular interest in China. The diverse spectrum of German hop varieties delivers classic aroma hops to produce both mild and fine aromatic beers for the Chinese market. The presentation will explain the role of aroma hops in the beer industry, examining in detail the different components of hops, such as bitterness, aroma, polyphenols, and the various hop varieties. The information event is aimed in particular at beer brewers, hop experts, as well as trade representatives. It will be led by Carlos Ruiz, International Sales Manager at HVG Hopfenverwertungsgenossenschaft e.G. and will be conducted in English with consecutive translation into Mandarin by an interpreter. To allow us to better plan the information event, please send your registration by email to c.ruiz@hvg-germany.de.

HVG Hopfenverwertungsgenossenschaft e.G.

Kellerstrae 1

85283 Wolnzach

Germany



Phone: +49-8442-9571-00

Fax:+49-8442-9571-69

E-mail:contact@hvg-germany.de



Any queries should be directed (in English, please) to:

Dr. Erich Lehmair, Chairman of HVG Hopfenverwertungsgenossenschaft e.G.

E-mail: e.lehmair@hvg-germany.de

Phone: +49-8442- 9571-66


LONDON, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Sernova Corp. (TSX VENTURE: SVA)(OTCQB: SEOVF)(FRANKFURT: PSH), a clinical stage company developing disruptive regenerative medicine technologies for the long-term treatment of chronic diseases including diabetes and hemophilia, is pleased to announce today the appointment of Scott Langille as Chief Financial Officer.

"Sernova is pleased to have attracted a senior executive with extensive experience in corporate and operational finance, in all facets of life sciences including brand and generic pharmaceuticals, medical devices and biotechnology with a highly developed ability to attract and manage pharma partnerships, acquisitions and mergers," remarked Dr. Philip Toleikis, Sernova's President and CEO.

Mr. Langille's most recent pharma successes includes CFO of Tribute Pharmaceuticals, a diversified healthcare company with a primary focus on the acquisition, licensing, development and promotion of healthcare products in Canada and the U.S. Mr. Langille was responsible for strategic direction, business development initiatives, investor relations, corporate financing, financial operations and supply chain, and supported Tribute to a successful M&A event with Pozen to create Aralez Pharmaceuticals.

Prior to joining Tribute in September of 2007, Mr Langille was CFO of Virexx Medical Corp., a Canadian public biotech company, where he was responsible for strategic direction, business development initiatives, investor relations, corporate financing activities and financial operations. Prior to Virexx, he was Vice President at Biovail Pharmaceuticals and earlier held management positions at AltiMed Pharmaceuticals and Zimmer Canada.

Commenting on his appointment, Mr. Langille said, "I am excited to have the opportunity to join Sernova at this important juncture and look forward to working with the management team and Board to leverage my relevant experiences to create substantial value for our shareholders."

We wish Ralph Deiterding, Sernova's previous CFO, well in his future endeavors.

Forward Looking Information This release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although Sernova believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements. Forward-looking statements, are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of Sernova's management on the date such statements were made. Sernova expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Contacts:

Sernova Corp.

Philip Toleikis, Ph.D.

President and CEO

(604) 961-2939

philip.toleikis@sernova.com

info@sernova.com



Ray Matthews & Associates

(604) 818-7778

www.raymatthews.ca




Regulatory News:

In conjunction with a conversion of shares, the company is obliged, according to the Financial Instruments Trading Act (1991:980), to disclose information concerning the change.

During September 2016, 1,270 Series A shares were converted to Series B shares at the request of shareholders. Accordingly, the total number of votes in the company totals 598,458,302.

The total number of registered shares in the company amounts to 419,903,072, of which 19,839,470 are Series A shares, and 400,063,602 are Series B shares.

Skanska is one of the world's leading project development and construction groups with expertise in construction, development of commercial and residential premises, and public-private partnerships projects. Based on its global green experience, Skanska aims to be the clients' first choice for Green solutions. The Group currently has 43,000 employees in selected home markets in Europe and North America. Skanska's sales in 2015 totaled SEK 155 billion.

This and previous releases can also be found at www.skanska.com/media

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005291/en/

Contacts:

For further information please contact:

Andre Lofgren, Senior Vice President,

Investor Relations, Skanska AB,

tel +46 (0)10 448 13 63


MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Dynacor Gold Mines Inc. (TSX: DNG) (OTC: DNGDF) (Dynacor or the Corporation) is particularly pleased to announce that it has begun operating its modern Veta Dorada ore processing plant located in Chala, Peru. Initial ore purchases from its more than 200 small and medium sized miners are going well and according to expectations. The Corporation expects to pour its first gold bar shortly.

Start-up Timeline

-- Ore purchasing and crushing at the Veta Dorada plant (Chala) was initiated on the 17th September; -- Production at Huanca stopped on the 24th of September; -- Key personnel were transferred to Chala; -- Production at Veta Dorada began on Monday the 26th of September; -- Veta Dorada plant started operating at an initial rate of 250 tpd without any problem; and -- Huanca plant: Recovery of the gold in the circuit and clean-up of the plant for the next 2-3 weeks.

Jean Martineau the Company's CEO and President recently stated "Starting up the Veta Dorada ore processing plant in Chala is a game changer for Dynacor. We only lost one and a half days of production during the transfer process and I would personally like to thank all our employees for all their hard work that has made this possible. We are looking forward to reaching commercial production at the plant's 300-tpd full capacity as soon as possible."

The Veta Dorada plant is a fully permitted 300-tpd (102,000-tpy) ore processing facility that has been specifically designed for processing gold mineralized ore from multiple ore suppliers. The carbon in-pulp (CIP) plant also includes a state of the art pressurized desorption unit, a fully equipped laboratory and a foundry.

ABOUT DYNACOR GOLD MINES INC.

Dynacor is a gold ore-processing and exploration Corporation active in Peru since 1996. The Corporation differentiates itself from pure exploration companies as it generates income from its wholly owned ore-processing plant. Dynacor's basic share count at 38.5 million outstanding is in the lowest quartile of the resource sector. The Corporation's assets include three exploration properties, including the advanced high-grade gold Tumipampa property, a 85,000 TPY gold and silver ore processing mill at Huanca and its new now operating Veta Dorada 300-tpd (102,000-tpy) ore processing plant located in Chala (Southern Peru). The Corporation's strength and competitive advantage comes with the experience and knowledge it has developed while working in Peru. Its pride remains in maintaining respect and positive work ethics toward its employees, partners and local communities.

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

Certain statements in the foregoing may constitute forward-looking statements, which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Dynacor, or industry results, to be materially different from any future result, performance or achievement expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These statements reflect management's current expectations regarding future events and operating performance as of the date of this news release.

Dynacor Gold Mines Inc. (TSX: DNG)

Website: http://www.dynacor.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/DynacorGold

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dynacor-Gold-Mines-Inc/222350787793085

Shares outstanding: 38,480,911

Contacts:

Dynacor Gold Mines Inc.

Jean Martineau

President and CEO

514-393-9000 Ext. 228 or 224



Dale Nejmeldeen

Director, Investor Relations

604-492-0099

M: 604-562-1348

nejmeldeen@dynacor.com




GLASGOW, Scotland, December 1, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Energy efficiency and resource management certification for UK data centres

iomart (AIM: IOM), the managed cloud services provider, has added another important accreditation to its extensive portfolio of industry standards.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121126/579634 )



iomart has achieved ISO 50001:2011, the international standard for Energy Management Systems. ISO 50001 is the standard for energy use and consumption. It provides a framework to integrate energy efficiency into the daily operations of global companies.

Obtaining this standard demonstrates that iomart's approach to energy management complies with the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) and meets the objectives of the Climate Change Agreement (CCA).

Steve Flockhart, Head of Information Assurance and Compliance for iomart, said: "Performance and compliance are key requirements for any business moving to the cloud. Achieving ISO 50001 means our customers can be sure that energy efficiency and environmental management are important drivers for how we manage the resources and assets we have within our data centres and how we deliver our services."

Along with ISO 14001, the standard for Environmental Management Systems, achieving ISO 50001 means that iomart is one of the cloud companies leading the way in its approach to energy and environmental management. iomart works with Schneider Electric to analyse energy efficiency across its multiple UK data centres and to ensure it meets regulatory requirements.

Steve Wilhite, Senior Vice President of Energy & Sustainability Services at Schneider Electric said: "In any industry, energy and environmental management make business sense but efficiency and reliability are often seen as at odds. iomart has proven otherwise. ISO 50001 certification just adds to the steps it's taken to deliver always-on services while optimising the use of energy and other critical resources."



iomart is proud to have achieved more industry certifications than any other cloud and managed services provider in the UK.

Steve Flockhart added: "iomart is committed to delivering cloud and managed services to the highest standards on behalf of our customers across the private and public sector."

-ends-

Contact:

Jane Robertson

PR Manager

jane.robertson@iomart.com

+44(0)141-931-6400

@iomart
ROME (dpa-AFX) - Italy's producer prices continued to decline in November but the pace of decrease slowed from prior year, figures from the statistical office Istat showed Friday. Producer prices decreased only 0.3 percent on a yearly basis in November after easing 0.6 percent in October. Prices fell 0.3 percent on domestic market and by 0.2 percent on foreign market. Month-on-month, producer prices slid 0.1 percent, the same pace of decline as seen in October. This was the second consecutive fall in prices. Prices were expected to grow 0.2 percent. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.




HKTDC Communication and Public Affairs Department Nick Waters Tel: +852 2584 4517 Email: nick.waters@hktdc.org

HONG KONG, Sept 30, 2016 - (ACN Newswire) - "Think Asia, Think Hong Kong", the largest Hong Kong trade promotion ever staged in Germany, concluded yesterday (29 Sept), after welcoming more than 1,500 participants to high-profile events in Dusseldorf and Frankfurt (28 Sept) and in Hamburg and Munich (29 Sept).Watch our video here: https://youtu.be/xBFEiDbgGgwOrganised by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), the flagship promotion explored the potential for closer bilateral ties in trade, finance and investment between Hong Kong and Germany. The two-day promotion included thematic seminars, on-site consultations and networking activities. More than 460 business matching meetings were arranged during "Think Asia, Think Hong Kong".Margaret Fong, Executive Director of the HKTDC, said: "With Hong Kong long recognised by German companies as the gateway to China, they find our city a trusted partner in helping them to expand to all of Asia. Their keen interest is reflected in the encouraging turnout and active participation in our business matching meetings. I look forward to welcoming many more German companies, big and small, to Hong Kong in the coming months."Speaking at the seminar in Dusseldorf, Vincent HS Lo, Chairman of the HKTDC, said, "With knowledge of international business practises and an understanding of China's operating environment, we (Hong Kong) provide a crucial bridge when China invests overseas."The Hong Kong delegation was led by Carrie Lam, Chief Secretary for Administration of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government, while guests of honour from Germany included Thomas Geisel, Mayor of Dusseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia; Dr Herbert Jakoby, Head of the Department for Foreign Trade, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Energy and Industry State of North Rhine-Westphalia; and Frank Horch, Senator, Minister of Economy, Transportation and Innovation of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. "Hong Kong has for a long time been a regional hub for business and a reliable partner for us here in Germany," said Mr Horch, during the seminar in Hamburg.Mayor Geisel said Dusseldorf had been effective in attracting overseas investment, noting that the Chinese community in the city had grown in recent years to include some 5,000 Chinese residents and around 400 Chinese companies.Tapping Chinese mainland and Asia markets through Hong KongHeavyweight speakers at the seminar in Dusseldorf included Hans Michael Jebsen, Chairman, Jebsen & Co Ltd; Martin Brudermuller, Vice Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors and Chief Technology Officer, BASF SE; James Thompson, Chairman, Crown Worldwide Group; Sabine Stricker-Kellerer, Senior China Counsel, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP; Royce Yuen, CEO, MaLogic Holdings Ltd; Michael Hennig, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Aumund Asia (HK) Ltd; Hans Joachim Isler, Managing Director, H.D. Isler & Co Ltd; and Thomas So, President, The Law Society of Hong Kong.They shared their insights on Hong Kong's advantages as a business and financial hub in Asia.Speaking on the sidelines of the seminar, Mr Jebsen, whose company was founded as a shipping agency in Hong Kong in 1895, said, "Hong Kong has the advantage of having an established culture; a culture in the legal field, in the financial field and you have the stock exchange culture and a culture of trade and trust, and all this takes a lot of time to build."New areas for financial services collaborationIn Frankfurt, a seminar jointly organised with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), analysed opportunities related to offshore renminbi business and China's Belt and Road Initiative. Norman Chan, Chief Executive, HKMA, said both the internationalisation of the renminbi and the Belt and Road Initiative are important "reaching out" strategies for China. "The Belt and Road Initiative is an important part of the growth story for China because of its increasing capacity to export capital and technology," said Mr Chan.Benjamin Hung, Regional Chief Executive Officer, Greater China and North Asia, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd, echoed Mr Chan's sentiment, describing the Belt and Road Initiative as "one of the largest and most exciting trading and investment corridors in the next decade." Meanwhile, another panel speaker, Li Jiuzhong, Executive Director and Chief Risk Officer, Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited, predicted that the Belt and Road strategy would "accelerate the internationalisation of the renminbi", adding that Hong Kong would play a part in the process.Other prominent speakers included Gerrit Schneider, Chief Financial Officer, Europe; Manager, Investor Relations, General Electric; Steve Gross, Senior Managing Director, Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets; and Lutz Raettig, Vice President, Frankfurt Chamber of Industry and Commerce.Potential for cooperation in shipping, logistics and technologyThe seminar in Hamburg was jointly organised with the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce to examine ways to use Hong Kong's logistics and maritime strengths to tap opportunities related to the Belt and Road Initiative.Speaking at the seminar, Ms Fong, Executive Director, HKTDC said, "As one of the world's busiest ports and a natural deep-water port, Hong Kong also offers real benefits to the shipping business. With our low taxes, a stable business environment and international experts providing professional services, the Hong Kong flag is a preferred choice for international vessel owners."Jens Meier, Chief Executive Officer, Hamburg Port Authority, added that, the Belt and Road Initiative also includes Hamburg and is one of several areas through which the two cities can strengthen collaboration.In Munich, the technology-focused seminar was jointly organised between the HKTDC and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks (HKSTP) Corporation. Speakers included Nicholas Yang, Secretary for Innovation and Technology, HKSAR Government and Marian Gaultney, Head, International Collaboration & Business Development, HKSTP."Hong Kong is an ideal place for testing German technology before entering the Chinese mainland market," said Mr Yang.Other speakers highlighted Hong Kong's access to a large pool of potential customers and manufacturing hubs on the Chinese mainland.Forging closer business links between Hong Kong and Germany"Think Asia, Think Hong Kong" got underway in Frankfurt on Tuesday (27 Sept) with the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the HKTDC and Hessen Trade and Invest to strengthen cooperation in promoting bilateral business ties.This was followed by a gala dinner attended by top business and government leaders. Guests of honour were Bernadette Weyland, State Secretary, Ministry of Finance, State of Hessen and Hong Kong's Chief Secretary for Administration Mrs Lam.Ms Weyland said there was great potential for more business and trade between Germany and China, including Hong Kong and Frankfurt. "Trade is trust, which means we really need to know each other and need to build relationships, not just over the telephone or through emails, but by being together, like tonight, and spending a special moment together," she said.Germany is Hong Kong's largest trading partner in Europe with bilateral trade of nearly US$16 billion (EUR 14.34 billion) in 2015. Currently, more than 600 German companies have operations in Hong Kong.Think Asia, Think Hong Kong website: http://www.thinkasiathinkhk.com/2016HKTDC 50th anniversary Website: http://50.hktdc.comGala Dinner (27 Sept)HKTDC Photo Link: http://bit.ly/2drryt6Frankfurt seminar (28 Sept)HKTDC Photo Link: http://bit.ly/2dili9eDusseldorf seminar (28 Sept)HKTDC Photo Link: http://bit.ly/2dc27SfHamburg seminar (29 Sept)HKTDC Photo Link: http://bit.ly/2dw2VRvMunich seminar (29 Sept)HKTDC Photo Link: http://bit.ly/2dewIMsAbout HKTDCThe Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. The HKTDC is the international marketing arm for Hong Kong-based traders, manufacturers and services providers. With more than 40 offices globally, including 13 on the Chinese mainland, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a platform for doing business with China and throughout Asia. The HKTDC also organises international exhibitions, conferences and business missions to provide companies, particularly SMEs, with business opportunities on the mainland and in overseas markets, while providing information via trade publications, research reports and digital channels including the media room. For more information, please visit: www.hktdc.com/aboutus. Follow us on Google+, Twitter @hktdc, LinkedIn.Google+: https://plus.google.com/+hktdcTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/hktdcLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/hong-kong-trade-development-councilSource: HKTDCContact:Copyright 2016 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
PARIS, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

GLM's new, luxury electronic vehicle has been unveiled at Salon Mondial de l'Automobile in Paris. GLM G4 is a new car concept: what a luxurious vehicle should be and not merely the extension of existing internal combustion engine models. Founded in Kyoto, GLM has contributed unprecedented EV technology and aesthetics to the automotive industry, together with Japanese dedication to ruthless efficiency and pursuit of perfection.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413472 )



If EV means Electric Vehicle, GLM interprets it as Exotic Vehicle.

GLM G4 belongs to the exotic car segment, a standout example of the luxury electric vehicle it combines a fluid but robust exterior, four doors and supreme internal comfort allowing 4 passengers to cover distance in style.

GLM worked on advanced technologies to achieve results, improving the driving efficiency and performance using a multi-source power model. Two packages are loaded front and back on the GLM G4 in order to control coordination and improve performance. GLM G4 features a multi stage transmission that improves the performance and is not affected by the powertrain output. The reduction of switching loss and the improvement of electric efficiency are realized by the IGBT systems. The car structure is light and solid incorporating a chassis structure comprised of composite materials.

System total output is above 1000Nm (>101kgm) and 540PS (400kW) with a twin motor application to split torque depending on driving mode: the vehicle accelerates 0-100km/h in less than 3.7 sec and cruises at 250km/h.

This is coupled with a multi stage transmission system, which consumes the minimum current at city-to-autobahn cruising speeds.The twin motor system is coordinated to continuously calculate the road surface and give maximum traction. Amalgam chassis with light and stiff multi-merit package incorporates a chassis structure using optimum materials.

"The Automotive industry is changing and in the next few years the EV market will see significant growth, taking shares of internal combustion vehicles market. GLM's mission is to be at the forefront and push the boundaries of EVs. Our 'key enabler' technologies and the concept of 'application to variants' will be applied for dissemination of EVs which you would witness in near future" - Hiroyasu Koma, GLM CEO.

Developing EV technology not only concretely contributes to a low-carbon society but provides an exciting driving experience: this is our vision and daily inspiration."

GLM G4 performance:

0-100km/h 3.7sec Power 400kW (540PS) Torque 1000Nm (101kgm) Top speed 250km/h (155mph) Range 400km (248mile) a"NEDC

http://glm.jp/

Media contact: AD MIRABILIA - Martina D'Aguanno, +39-02-4382191, daguanno@admirabilia.it




BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Hungary's producer prices continued to decline in August, figures from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office showed Friday. The total producer price index fell at a faster pace of 2.8 percent year-over-year in August, following a 2.3 percent decrease in July. The measure has been falling since August 2015. Domestic market producer prices dipped 3.3 percent annually in August and foreign market prices went down by 2.6 percent. During the first eight months of the year, total producer prices slid 2.0 percent compared with the corresponding period last year. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Ingersoll-Rand plc (NYSE:IR), a world leader in creating comfortable, sustainable and efficient environments, will release its 2016 third-quarter financial results on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2016, at 6:30 a.m. ET.

On the same day, Michael W. Lamach, chairman and chief executive officer, and Susan K. Carter, senior vice president and chief financial officer, will hold a conference call for analysts and investors, beginning at 10 a.m. ET, to review the company's results.

A real-time, listen-only webcast of the conference call will be broadcast live over the internet. Individuals wishing to listen can access the call through the company's website at www.ingersollrand.com.

A replay of the earnings webcast will be available at approximately 1 p.m. ET, Oct. 26, 2016, on the company's website or by calling (855) 859-2056 or (404) 537-3406 conference code 88405207. The replay by telephone will be available through 1 p.m., Nov. 2, 2016.

About Ingersoll Rand

Ingersoll Rand (NYSE:IR) advances the quality of life by creating comfortable, sustainable and efficient environments. Our people and our family of brands including Club Car, Ingersoll Rand, Thermo King and Trane - work together to enhance the quality and comfort of air in homes and buildings; transport and protect food and perishables; and increase industrial productivity and efficiency. We are a $13 billion global business committed to a world of sustainable progress and enduring results. For more information, visit www.ingersollrand.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005259/en/

Contacts:

Ingersoll-Rand plc

Media Relations:

Misty Zelent, 704-655-5324

mzelent@irco.com

or

Investor Relations:

Zac Nagle, 704-655-4469

zachary.nagle@irco.com
CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Vogogo Inc. ("Vogogo" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: VGO) announces today that, pursuant to the previously announced share purchase agreement dated January 1, 2015 in which it acquired all of the issued and outstanding shares of Vanado, Inc. (the "Agreement"), the Company has issued an aggregate of 500,000 common shares in the capital of Vogogo ("Shares") pursuant to the Agreement at a deemed value of $83,500 based on the 5 day VWAP of the Shares on the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") ending on September 9, 2016.

Vogogo also announces that in connection with the changes in management and cost reduction initiatives of the Company, an aggregate of 1,225,000 stock options have been cancelled as of the date hereof.

About Vogogo Inc.

Vogogo Inc. has provided payment processing and related transaction risk services. The Company has developed software that administers multiple electronic payment types in the US, UK and Canadian markets. During 2016, Vogogo has discontinued its payment providing services and the Company is assessing alternative business opportunities.

READER ADVISORY

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements. All information, other than information regarding historic fact that addresses activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future is forward-looking information. Forward-looking information contained in this news release includes, but is not limited to the Company assessing alternative business opportunities. The words "will," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "intent," "may," "project," "should," and similar expressions are intended to be among the statements that identify forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements are founded on the basis of expectations and assumptions made by Vogogo. Readers are cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of such information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of Vogogo. Vogogo does not have any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements except as expressly required by applicable securities laws.

Contacts:

Gino DeMichele

Interim Chief Executive Officer and President

403-648-9292




Alytus, Lithuania, 2016-09-30 14:17 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The following resolutions were made during the Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders held on 30 September 2016: THE AGENDA QUESTION: Regarding formation the revaluation reserve. THE DECISION: To change the valuation methodology of real estate and movable property in accounting policy of AB "Snaige", stating market value of real estate and movable property, concluded by independent valuators, in financial statements for 9 months. To form the revaluation reserve for reflection of value difference between book and market value. To authorize the General Manager of the Company Gediminas Ceika (with the right to reauthorize) to perform all necessary actions relating implementation of approved decisions by the extraordinary shareholders meeting. Managing Director Gediminas Ceika +370 315 56206

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
DENVER, CO -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Ubiquitech Software Corp. (OTC PINK: UBQU), with pending name change to HempLife Today, is announcing its first CBD product utilizing the proprietary new NanoTech Infusion Process that infuses more hemp plant terpenes and other beneficial plant materials into the finished CBD product.

New CannazALL CBD "Shatter" the most potent CBD product the company now offers.

At 95% pure CBD this incredible new product is the most CBD potent that the Company currently offers. In addition, by utilizing the new NanoTech Infusion Process this new "Shatter" has up to 200% more naturally occurring hemp plant terpenes, sterols and botanicals, believed to have additional health benefits for the millions seeking a superior CBD therapy regimen.

The NanoTech Infusion Process was first announced in a press release dated 9.27.2016, and the new CannazALL CBD Shatter will be permanently added to the HempLifeToday.com products page on October 15, 2016, but can be purchased starting today at https://www.hemplifetoday.com/lp/new-cbd-shatter/.

100% THC free product

This new product is used for "dabbing" which is a more effective version of vaping, and is the best delivery system for CBD to the human body via any type of vaping process. In addition, this new product is 100% THC free for those who are sensitive to even natural legal trace amounts of THC.

"We are more than a month ahead of schedule in adding this incredible new product to our CannazALL hemp based CBD line," said James Ballas, CEO. "This is our second new product announced this month and we are growing this company at a faster rate than our current business plan shows, so this is very exciting for all of us."

This new product expands the current line of CannazALL CBD products that now includes:

New (THC free) CBD "Shatter"

250mg CBD Perppermint Tincture

500mg CBD Peppermint Tinture

300mg CBD Concentrated Oil

800mg CBD (THC free) Concentrated Oil

1,000mg CBD Soluble Powder

25mg CBD Gelcaps

60mg CBD e-Liquid

CBD Skin Salve

CBD Wax Crumble

All CannazALL products are derived from hemp and contain only legal limits of trace amounts of THC, except for the special THC free products formulated. CannazALL products are legal and the company delivers to all 50 states.

About Ubiquitech (HempLife Today)

Ubiquitech Software Corp, through its subsidiaries is a dynamic multi-media, multi-faceted corporation utilizing state-of-the-art global internet marketing, Direct Response (DRTV) Television, Radio, and traditional marketing, to drive traffic to the new and emerging multi-billion dollar industries like its subsidiary HempLifeToday.com.

HempLifeToday focuses on the exciting and dynamic new thinking in the world today that recognizes the important health and life enriching enhancement that CBD Oil from the Hemp plant can bring. Through its network of quality USA growers HempLifeToday.com has developed multiple and proprietary CannazALL CBD oil products that include; It's popular CBD Tinctures, Oils, GelCaps, CBD Powder, Skin Salve, Wax Crumble, and e-liquid, all offered @ www.HempLifeToday.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Words such as "expects," "intends,' "believes,' and similar expressions reflecting something other than historical fact are intended to identify forward-looking statements, but are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including the timely development and market acceptance of products and technologies, the ability to secure additional sources of finance, the ability to reduce operating expenses, and other factors described in the Company's filings with the OTC Markets Group. The actual results that the Company achieves may differ materially from any forward-looking statement due to such risks and uncertainties. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward- looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release.

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3062229



Contact:

Investor Relations

E-mail: Investors@UbiquitechSoftware.com




DENVER, CO--(Marketwired - September 30, 2016) - MediaNews Group Inc. ("MNG"), the largest shareholder of Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: MWW) ("Monster" or the "Company"), with an ownership interest of 11.6% of Monster's outstanding shares, today announced that it intends to nominate a slate of seven highly qualified candidates to replace Monster's existing Board of Directors.

MNG also announced today that it has delivered an open letter to Monster's shareholders, which introduces MNG's nominees to the Board:

Daniel W. Dienst, has been a Director, Chairman and/or Chief Executive Officer of four public companies, including, most recently, Chief Executive of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc., and has significant experience in special situations, turnarounds and media businesses, with a track record of creating significant value for shareholders;

Joseph Anto, Senior Vice President of Strategy/M&A for MNG, a leading multi-platform news/information company with over $1 billion in annual revenue;

Ethan Bloomfield, job board executive and entrepreneur with significant experience growing and managing high-performing sales team;

Heath Freeman, President of Alden Global Capital LLC, a $1.6 billion investment firm, and Vice Chairman of MNG

Kevin Gregson, experienced corporate governance executive and Americas Leader for Insurance Industry at Towers Willis Watson;

Lowell Robinson, former CFO of several prominent media and technology companies including Advo and HotJobs and experienced public board director; and

Hon. Gregory Slayton, former U.S. Chief of Mission (defacto Ambassador) to Bermuda, successful technology executive/investor, was an early investor and previously on the advisory boards of Google and Salesforce.com

The full text of the letter follows:

September 30, 2016

Dear Fellow Shareholders:

MediaNews Group Inc. ("MNG"), currently has an ownership interest of approximately 11.6% of the outstanding shares of Monster Worldwide, Inc. ("Monster" or the "Company"), making us the Company's largest shareholder.

We believe that Monster is deeply undervalued and that, with proper management and board oversight, significant opportunities exist to create substantial value. However, we have significant concerns about the flawed and unorganized sale process that led to the current deal with Randstad, the poor operation of the business that has led to continued destruction of shareholder value, and the fact that the Company was buying back stock at more than $6 per share in Q4 of 2015, only to agree to sell the business for $3.40 per share months later. These issues, in addition to others we have outlined in our previous letters, cause us to have NO confidence in the current board and CEO, as they have proven time and again their inability to make the right strategic and operational decisions to maximize value for shareholders.

As a result, we will be filing today a preliminary consent solicitation statement with the SEC, stating our intention to seek the removal and replacement of the existing seven Monster directors with our slate of highly qualified nominees, who, collectively, have served on 16 public company boards. These nominees have been carefully selected and, as described in detail later in this letter, have a very relevant and diverse set of skills across areas such as finance, sales management, corporate governance, restructuring, technology and operations. Most importantly, if elected, this group of nominees is prepared to ensure that the interests of all shareholders are properly represented and will focus on executing a plan to create significant shareholder value.

Additionally, one of our nominees, Daniel W. Dienst, is a superb candidate to serve as the Company's CEO and is prepared to serve in that position to execute the much needed turnaround at the Company. We believe that if our slate of nominees is elected, the new Board, subject to its review of the Company and exercise of its fiduciary duties, will appoint Mr. Dienst as CEO. He would initially serve as interim CEO while the new board conducts a search for a full-time CEO, and he would be considered for that position as well. Mr. Dienst is a proven executive with a track record of creating substantial shareholder value in situations that required significant change. His leadership at Martha Stewart Living OmniMedia, Inc. led to a successful sale to Sequential Brands, Inc. in December 2015 and prior to that, from 2008 to 2013, Mr. Dienst served as the Group Chief Executive Officer of Sims Metal Management, Ltd., the world's largest publicly listed metal and electronics recycler, processing and trading in excess of 15 million tons of metal annually from 270 facilities on five continents. Monster needs new leadership -- both at the board and executive level -- to turn around the business and we are confident we have the right solution with our nominees and Daniel W. Dienst as CEO.

We are confident that you will find the team of professionals we are nominating to be extremely well-qualified to serve as directors of Monster and that Mr. Dienst will have an immediate impact on the business if appointed CEO. We will commence our formal solicitation once our solicitation statement passes through SEC review and goes "definitive" which we hope will be within a few weeks. We have provided detailed biographies of each of our nominees below and look forward to engaging with shareholders in the near future to discuss our detailed views on Monster.

Below are the biographies of MNG's Nominees, as well as links to our previous letters:

Daniel W. Dienst

Mr. Dienst served as a director and the Chief Executive Officer of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., a media and merchandising company, from 2013-2015, where he led the turnaround of the famous brand and orchestrated its successful sale in 2015 to Sequential Brands, Inc. for $353 million. Prior to his service at Martha Stewart Living, Mr. Dienst had a distinguished career in the steel and metals industry, having served as the Group Chief Executive Officer of Sims Metal Management, Ltd. from 2008-2013, the world's largest publicly listed metal and electronics recycler, processing and trading in excess of 15 million tons of metal annually from 270 facilities on five continents. He had previously sold Metal Management, Inc., a company that he founded and served in the capacity of Chief Executive Officer from 2004-2008, to Sims for $1.7 billion in 2008. Mr. Dienst also served as Chairman of the Board and Acting Chief Executive Officer of Metals USA, Inc., one of the nation's largest steel processors, after its reorganization and until its going private sale to an affiliate of Apollo Management, L.P. in 2004. Mr. Dienst is also experienced in the financial markets, having served as a Managing Director of Corporate and Leveraged Finance at CIBC World Markets Corp., a diversified global financial services firm, from 2000-2004. From 1998-2000, he held various positions within CIBC, including Executive Director of the High Yield and Financial Restructuring Group. Previous to his time at CIBC, he served in various capacities with Jefferies & Company, Inc., a global investment banking firm. Mr. Dienst also recently served from 2014-2015 as a Director of 1st Dibs, Inc., a venture-backed e-commerce business owned by Benchmark Capital, Spark Capital, Index Ventures and Insight Venture Partners. Mr. Dienst holds a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis. and a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School.

Mr. Dienst's qualifications as a director include his executive experience as a CEO and director of 4 public companies, his expertise in turnarounds, special situations and corporate transactions and his experience in the media sector.

Joseph Anto

Mr. Anto is currently a Senior Vice President at MediaNews Group, Inc. (d/b/a Digital First Media), the second largest newspaper company in the U.S. by circulation, where he has served since 2013. From 2014-2015, he was Vice President of Business Development for MediaNews Group and also CEO at Jobs in the US, a subsidiary of MediaNews with regionally focused job board sites in New England. From 2013-2014 he was Managing Director at Digital First Ventures, the strategic investing division of MediaNews Group. In 2009 he co-founded RumbaTime, LLC, a fashion brand focused on timepieces and accessories and served as the Company's CEO until 2012. From 2006-2009 Mr. Anto was a Senior Analyst and Director of Investments at Harbinger Capital Partners, a multi-strategy investment firm, where he managed one of the largest merchant power investment portfolios in the sector, accounting for approximately 30% of the Fund's assets and completed M&A and debt financing transactions totaling over $4 billion in value. Prior to his time at Harbinger, Mr. Anto was an associate at ABS Capital Partners, a later-stage venture capital firm, and an analyst at First Union Securities in their technology investment banking group. He has previously served on the boards of private merchant power companies Kelson Energy Inc. and Kelson Canada and was also previously on the board at Rumbatime. He has a BBA from Emory University and an MBA from Columbia University.

Mr. Anto's qualifications as a director include his expertise as a previous CEO of a job board business, his executive experience, particularly in the media industry, and his expertise in turnarounds and corporate transactions.

Ethan Bloomfield

Mr. Bloomfield is currently the CEO of vitalfew, inc, a consulting and advisory business which he founded in 2015. He also serves on the board of governors for TaTech, a leading industry association which enables the interaction of companies in the recruitment technology space. He has been a member since 2006 and on the board of governors since the first board was elected by the membership. In 2016, he co-founded and is also the current CRO of ConversationDriver, a company that utilizes software to help organizations improve efficiencies is sales outreach. From 2012-2015, he served as the Senior Vice President of Sales and Business Development at recruitment technology company, ZipRecruiter, which he joined in 2012 as the 20th employee and the first in sales. In his role at ZipRecruiter he developed the entire sales organization, which he grew from concept to over 120 reps when he left the company. Previously he was Vice President of Business Development at JobTarget, a company that provides technology to organizations that want to offer their own web-based job boards to their members. While at JobTarget, he was instrumental in launching innovative new products and also led the acquisition of two companies. Mr. Bloomfield holds a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Mr. Bloomfield's qualifications as a director include his expertise in recruitment technologies, developed over a career spanning more than twelve years in the space. He is widely recognized as a thought leader in the sector and, in addition to advising or having advised almost 30 companies in the industry, he is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.

Heath Freeman

Mr. Freeman is the President, a Founding Member, and Director of Alden Global Capital, LLC, a $1.6 billion New York-based investment firm focused on deep value, catalyst driven investing. He has been with the firm since its founding in 2007, and has been its President since 2014. Mr. Freeman currently serves as Vice Chairman of MediaNews Group, Inc. (d/b/a Digital First Media), the second largest newspaper business in the United States by circulation with over $1 billion of annual revenue, owning newspapers such as The Denver Post, San Jose Mercury News and Orange County Register. He also serves on the compensation committee and leads the strategic review committee for MNG and has served on its board since 2011. Mr. Freeman is a co-founder and serves on the board of SLT Group, Inc. (d/b/a SLT) a private fitness business based out of New York and started in 2011, which recently took in a large growth investment from North Castle Partners, a private equity firm focused on the health and wellness space. Mr. Freeman also co-founded City of Saints Coffee Roasters in 2013, a third wave coffee roaster, wholesaler and retailer based out of Brooklyn, NY. Prior to Alden, from 2006 - 2007, Mr. Freeman worked as an Investment Analyst at New York-based Smith Management, a private investment firm. Prior to that, from 2003 - 2006, Mr. Freeman was an investment banking analyst at Peter J. Solomon Company, a boutique investment bank, working on mergers and acquisitions, restructurings and refinancing assignments. He has previously served on the boards at The Philadelphia Media Network, The Journal Register Company and RDA Holdings, among others. Currently, Mr. Freeman also serves as Chairman of the Advisory Board for Jewish Life at Duke University's Freeman Center and he also graduated with a BA from Duke University.

Mr. Freeman's qualifications as a director include his experience as an investor, investment banker and board member of multiple companies with expertise in finance, compensation, turnarounds, corporate transactions and significantly improving value at underperforming companies.

Kevin Gregson

Mr. Gregson has served as the Americas Leader for the Insurance Industry for Willis Towers Watson plc since 2013. Prior to his role at Willis Towers Watson, Mr. Gregson was a Managing Director at Alvarez and Marsal Holdings, LLC, a financial advisory services company focused primarily on the financial services industry, from 2010-2013. Mr. Gregson has over thirty years of experience in developing and implementing business solutions for global organizations. Prior to joining Alvarez and Marsal, Mr. Gregson served as founder and president of Bridge Pointe, LLC, a Bermuda-based insurance and reinsurance company and advisory services firm that provides innovative insurance solutions for insurers and corporate sponsors. Previously, he was a co-founder and principal of the Gregson Group, a business advisory firm helping companies align business strategies with organizational and human capital strategies. He is currently a director at Fidelity & Guaranty Life, a provider of life insurance and annuity products, where he serves on the audit, compensation and related party transactions committee. Mr. Gregson holds a B.A. from the University of Delaware and has attended the Executive Finance Program at the University of Michigan.

Mr. Gregson's qualifications as a director include his experience advising companies on complex business and financial issues for thirty years, and his expertise in corporate governance, strategy, and financial/operational performance improvement.

Lowell Robinson

Mr. Robinson is a highly regarded financial and operating executive with thirty years of senior-level strategic, financial, governance, turnaround and M&A experience. He has also been on seven public company boards, and has experience serving as Chairman of the Board as well as Chairman of audit and compensation committees. From 2006-2009, Mr. Robinson was Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer for Miva, Inc., a digital marketing company, and was instrumental in Miva's turnaround and subsequent sale. He was previously Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of HotJobs.com, an online job board, where he was responsible for all finance and administrative functions at the company. After bringing the company to profitability a year ahead of expectation, HotJobs was sold to Yahoo! for $500 million, representing a 75% premium to market. Prior to joining HotJobs, Mr. Robinson was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for PRT Group, a software and IT services company, where he raised $62 million in its initial public offering. In 1994, Mr. Robinson was recruited by the CEO and Warburg Pincus to serve as the Chief Financial Officer of Valassis Communications, Inc. (f/k/a Advo, Inc.), a Fortune 500 company and the largest direct marketing company on the New York Stock Exchange with $2 billion in revenues. Over a three-year period, shareholder value increased 300% due to operational initiatives which he led, in addition to paying out a one-time $10 special dividend. Previously, Mr. Robinson held senior financial positions with Citigroup, Mars, Inc. and Kraft Foods Group, Inc. He is currently on the board at EVINE Live Inc., and has previously served on the board of The Jones Group, Inc., where he chaired the audit and compensation committees, in addition to having served on the boards of five other public companies over the course of his career. Mr. Robinson holds a B.A. from The University of Wisconsin and an M.B.A. in finance from Harvard Business School.

Mr. Robinson's qualifications as a director include his C-level executive experience at multiple companies, his experience serving on the boards of seven public companies and his expertise in finance, corporate governance, turnarounds and corporate transactions.

Gregory Slayton

The Hon. Gregory Slayton has served as the Managing Director of Slayton Capital, an international venture capital firm that has been an early investor in some of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley history, since 2002. He was an early investor in Google and Salesforce.com and served on the advisory boards of both companies. From 2005-2009, Mr. Slayton was the United States Chief of Mission (defacto Ambassador) to Bermuda, serving under both the Bush and Obama Administrations. From 2000-2002, he served as Chief Executive Officer of ClickAction Inc., an email marketing services company that was acquired by InfoUSA Inc., and prior to this, he was Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of MySoftware, which merged with ClickAction in 2000. He has also served as Distinguished Visiting Professor at Peking University and as a visiting professor at UIBE Business School, Beijing & Szechuan University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Mr. Slayton has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Time and three Harvard Business School case studies. He has lived and worked extensively in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America, and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of the Philippines, where he completed a Masters in Asian Studies with honors. Mr. Slayton holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, having graduated from both institutions with honors.

Mr. Slayton's qualifications as a director include his experience as an investor in technology companies, his executive experience as CEO of multiple companies, his experience serving on the boards of four public companies and his expertise in technology, operations and international markets.

http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/medianews-group-opposes-monster-worldwide-sale-to-randstad-2152095.htm

http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/medianews-group-reiterates-opposition-to-monster-worldwide-sale-to-randstad-2157376.htm

Sincerely,

MediaNews Group, Inc.

About MediaNews Group, Inc.

MediaNews Group, Inc. (d/b/a Digital First Media) is a leader in local, multiplatform news and information, distinguished by its original content and high quality, diversified portfolio of local media assets. Digital First Media is the second largest newspaper company in the United States by circulation, serving an audience of over 40 million readers on a monthly basis. The Company's portfolio of products includes 67 daily newspapers and 180 non-daily publications. Digital First Media has a leading local news audience share in each of its primary markets and its content monetization platforms serve clients on both a national and local scale.

MediaNews Group, Inc., Joseph Anto, Ethan Bloomfield, Daniel W. Dienst, Heath Freeman, Kevin Gregson, Lowell Robinson and Gregory Slayton (collectively, the "Participants") intend to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") a definitive consent statement and accompanying form of consent card to be used in connection with the solicitation of consents from the stockholders of Monster Worldwide, Inc. (the "Company"). All stockholders of the Company are advised to read the definitive consent statement and other documents related to the solicitation of consents by the Participants if and when they become available, as they will contain important information, including additional information related to the Participants. Should the Participants engage in such a solicitation, the consent statement and an accompanying consent card will be furnished to some or all of the Company's stockholders and will be, along with other relevant documents, available at no charge on the SEC website at http://www.sec.gov/ or from Okapi Partners at 212-297-0720 or info@okapipartners.com.

Information about the Participants and a description of their direct or indirect interests by security holdings will be contained in the preliminary consent statement on Schedule 14A to be filed by the Participants with the SEC on September 30, 2016. This document will be available free of charge from the sources indicated above.

Investor Contact:



Joe Anto

MediaNews Group

212-634-9642



Michael Fein & Jon Einsidler

Okapi Partners

212-297-0720

info@okapipartners.com



Media Contact:



Alexandra Gambale

Peppercomm

212-931-6170
PORTLAND OR -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Eastside Distilling, Inc. (OTCQB: ESDI), the Portland, Oregon-based producer of award-winning craft spirits, has launched in Florida with an initial order by its distributor. The order includes the company's Burnside Bourbon, Burnside Oregon Oaked Bourbon and Barrel Hitch American Whiskey.

Florida marks the 22nd state where Eastside's spirits are now available for purchase. According to BIIG Research, Florida ranks as the nation's number two state for the consumption of distilled spirits, just behind California where Eastside entered in April 2016. Eastside is now selling in all five top liquor consumption states, which in addition to California and Florida, includes New York, Illinois, and Texas.

"Our entry into Florida represents important progress in our national rollout campaign that we began early last year," said Eastside president and CEO, Steven Earles. " A little over a year ago, our markets outside Oregon represented only about 5% of sales. Having now entered 17 new states, our percentage of sales outside Oregon has grown to more than 40%."

"We believe that entering so many new states over such a short period of time positions us for a strong finish to the year," continued Earles. "As recently reported, we had our largest single shipment of about 2,000 cases to an East Coast customer earlier in September 2016, putting us on track for another year of growth and expansion."

Eastside recently attracted news coverage, with NBC Portland affiliate, KGW-TV, featuring an interview in September 2016 with the company's master distiller, Mel Heim, the first female master distiller west of the Mississippi. The interview, which includes a tour of Eastside's production facility on Portland's Distillery Row, is available here.

Heim was also recently invited to co-host the Women in Whiskey Seminar at the Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits invitation only World Whiskey Expo being held this Saturday, October 1, 2016 at Southern Glazer's 1.1 million sq. ft. distribution center in Lakeland, Florida. The Women in Whiskey Seminar is a ladies-only "Taste & Learn" event, where attendees will be able to experience the differences between bourbons and whiskies as presented by some of Southern Glazer's "most prestigious brands."

The presentation will feature Eastside's line up of award-winning bourbons and whiskeys, including Burnside Bourbon, which received a Gold Medal and a 90-point "exceptional" rating from the Beverage Tasting Institute, and Burnside Oregon Oaked Bourbon, which earned a Silver Medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Eastside's Barrel Hitch American Whiskey received a Triple Gold Medal for 'Best in Show' at the 2015 MicroLiquor Spirit Awards, while the company's Cherry Bomb, made with real Oregon cherries, received Gold Medals from the MicroLiquor Spirits Awards and the American Wine Society for its irresistible blend of tart sweet flavor and top-notch whiskey.

About Eastside Distilling

Eastside Distilling, Inc. (OTCQB: ESDI) is located in Southeast Portland's Distillery Row, and has been producing high-quality, master crafted spirits since 2008. Makers of award winning spirits, the company is unique in the marketplace and distinguished by its highly decorated product lineup that includes Barrel Hitch American Whiskies, Burnside Bourbon, Below Deck Rums, Portland Potato Vodka, and a distinctive line of infused whiskeys. All Eastside spirits are master crafted from natural ingredients for unparalleled quality and taste. The company is publicly traded under the symbol OTCQB: ESDI. For more information, visit: www.eastsidedistilling.com or follow the company on Twitter and Facebook.

Important Cautions Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain matters discussed in this press release may be forward-looking statements. Such matters involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including the following: changes in economic conditions; general competitive factors; the Company's ability to continue as a going concern; acceptance of the Company's products in the market; the Company's success in obtaining new customers; the Company's ability to obtain additional capital, the Company's success in product development; the Company's ability to execute its business model and strategic plans; the Company's success in integrating acquired entities and assets, and all the risks and related information described from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the financial statements and related information contained in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 13, 2016 Examples of forward-looking statements in this press release include but are not limited to the Company's belief that it is positioned for a strong finish to the year and that the Company is on track for another year of growth and expansion. The Company assumes no obligation to update the cautionary information in this release.

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3062191



Company Contact:

Eastside Distilling

Tel 971-888-4264

inquiries@eastsidedistilling.com



Investor Contact:

Robert Blum, Joe Diaz or Joe Dorame

Lytham Partners, LLC

(602) 889-9700

esdi@lythampartners.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- DuSolo Fertilizers Inc. (TSX VENTURE: DSF) ("DuSolo" or "the Company") today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Tembo Capital Mining Fund LP extending the maturity date of the Company's convertible debenture in the amount of $750,000 and due on September 30, 2016 (the "Loan") by one month, until October 31, 2016. The terms of the Loan were previously announced by the Company on September 29, 2015.

The extension will allow the Company and Tembo to complete discussions regarding the repayment or potential re-structuring of the Loan as it continues to work on the development of its Bomfin Project in Brazil.

ABOUT DUSOLO

DuSolo Fertilizers Inc. is focused on developing a fully integrated process to produce and sell phosphate based fertilizers within the Cerrado region of Brazil as part of a nationwide effort to increase domestically sourced fertilizers and achieve agricultural self-sufficiency.

On behalf of DuSolo Fertilizers Inc.

Giles Baynham, Chief Executive Officer and Director

Forward-looking statements

Certain information contained in this press release constitutes "forward-looking information", within the meaning of Canadian legislation. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur", "be achieved" or "has the potential to". Forward looking statements contained in this press release may include statements regarding the future operating or financial performance of DuSolo which involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties which may not prove to be accurate. Actual results and outcomes may differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in these forward-looking statements. Such statements are qualified in their entirety by the inherent risks and uncertainties surrounding future expectations. Among those factors which could cause actual results to differ materially are the following: market conditions and other risk factors listed from time to time in our reports filed with Canadian securities regulators on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made as of the date of this press release and DuSolo disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable securities legislation.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange Inc.) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

Contacts:

DuSolo Fertilizers Inc.

604-757-1354

778-776-3400 (FAX)

info@dusolo.com

www.dusolo.com




WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Gold futures were little changed for a third day Friday morning amid lingering uncertainty about the next Federal Reserve rate decision. The Fed left markets in limbo last week with a confusing policy statement that hinted at a single rate hike this year despite the sluggish economy. Gold for December was up $1.50 at $1327 an ounce, but is set for a modest weekly decline. The precious metal is getting a boost from its safe haven status due to concerns about the European banking sector and the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency. On the economic front, the Commerce Department is scheduled to release its personal income and outlays for August at 8.30 am ET. Forecasters call for monthly growth of 0.2 percent each in personal income and spending. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited and The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limitew d take no responsibility for the contents of this announcement, make no representation as to its accuracy or completeness and expressly disclaim any liability whatsoever for any loss howsoever arising from or in reliance upon the whole or any part of the contents of this announcement.

Zhejiang Expressway Co., Ltd.

(A joint stock limited company incorporated in the People's Republic of China with limited liability) (Stock code: 0576)

PROPOSED ISSUE OF H SHARE CONVERTIBLE BONDS

UNDER GENERAL MANDATE

This announcement is made by the Company pursuant to Rule 13.09(1) of the Listing Rules and Section 307(B) of the Securities and Futures Ordinance.

The Company announces that on 30 September 2016, the Board approved a proposal to submit to the Shareholders at a General Meeting to be convened in due course for consideration and approval of a proposed offer and issue of H Share Convertible Bonds. Such proposed H Share Convertible Bonds would have an aggregate principal amount of up to USD400 million or its equivalent. The funds raised by any issue of the H Share Convertible Bonds are intended to be used for satisfying the operation needs of the Company, adjusting the debt structure, replenishing general working capital and project investments etc.

The Conversion Shares will be issued pursuant to the General Mandate granted to the Directors at the annual general meeting of the Company held on 6 May 2016 to allot and issue additional H Shares.

A circular containing, among others, details of the proposed issue of H Share Convertible Bonds and a notice to Shareholders convening the General Meeting will be dispatched to Shareholders as soon as practicable.

THE PROPOSED ISSUE OF H SHARE CONVERTIBLE BONDS IS SUBJECT TO, AMONG OTHERS, THE APPROVAL OF THE SHAREHOLDERS AT THE GENERAL MEETING, THE ENTERING INTO OF DEFINITIVE LEGAL DOCUMENTATION TO CONSTITUTE THE H SHARE CONVERTIBLE BONDS AND MARKETCONDITIONSANDTHEREFOREMAY OR MAY NOT MATERIALISE. SHAREHOLDERS AND INVESTORS SHOULD EXERCISE CAUTION WHEN DEALING IN THE SECURITIES OF THE COMPANY.

This announcement is made by the Company pursuant to Rule 13.09(1) of the Listing Rules and Section 307 of the Securities and Futures Ordinance.

PROPOSED ISSUE OF H SHARE CONVERTIBLE BONDS UNDER GENERAL MANDATE

1. Backgroud

The Company announces that on 30 September 2016, the Board approved a proposal to submit to the Shareholders at a General Meeting to be convened in due course for consideration and approval of a proposed offer and issue of H Share Convertible Bonds. Such proposed H Share Convertible Bonds would have an aggregate principal amount of up to USD400 million or its equivalent. The funds raised by any issue of the H Share Convertible Bonds are intended to be used for satisfying the operation needs of the Company, adjusting the debt structure, replenishing general working capital and project investments etc.

The Conversion Shares will be issued pursuant to the General Mandate granted to the Directors at the annual general meeting of the Company held on 6 May 2016 to allot and issue additional H Shares.

Incompliance with theArticlesof Association, the proposedissue ofHShare Convertible Bonds requires approval of the Shareholders by special resolution. Accordingly, the Company proposes to convene a General Meeting for the consideration and approval of the proposal.

The proposed issue of H Share Convertible Bonds also requires the obtaining of approvals and/or consents from the relevant PRC regulatory authorities including the CSRC. The timing of any actual offer and issue of H Share Convertible Bonds will depend on, among other things, investor demand and market conditions.

2. Granting of authority to the Board to deal with mattersrelating to the proposed issue of H Share Convertible Bonds

It is proposed to be submitted to the Shareholders for consideration and approval the granting of authority to the Board to deal with all matters relating to the proposed issue and listing of H Share Convertible Bonds in the absolute discretion of the Board in accordance with the applicable laws and regulations and the Articles of Association. Details of the authorities proposed to be granted to the Board will beincludedin a circularcontaining,amongothers, details of the proposed issue of HShare Convertible Bonds and a notice to Shareholders convening the relevant General Meeting.

3. Reasons and benefits for the proposed issue of H Share Convertible Bonds

The Board believes that the proposed issue of H Share Convertible Bonds will provide the Company with a further source of funding. The Board considers that the proposed issue of H Share Convertible Bonds will improve the debt structure of the Company, increase the general working capital of the Company and enhance the Company's investment capability.

GENERAL MEETING

The General Meeting will be convened to approve the special resolution regarding the proposed issue of H Share Convertible Bonds.

Acircularcontaining,among others,details of the proposed issueof HShare Convertible Bonds and a notice to Shareholders convening the General Meeting will be despatched to Shareholders as soon as practicable.

THE PROPOSED ISSUE OF H SHARE CONVERTIBLE BONDS IS SUBJECT TO, AMONG OTHERS, THE APPROVAL OF THE SHAREHOLDERS AT THE GENERAL MEETING, THE ENTERING INTO OF DEFINITIVE LEGAL DOCUMENTATION TO CONSTITUTE THE H SHARE CONVERTIBLE BONDS AND MARKET CONDITIONS AND THEREFORE MAY OR MAY NOT MATERIALISE. SHAREHOLDERS AND INVESTORS SHOULD EXERCISE CAUTION WHEN DEALING IN THE SECURITIES OF THE COMPANY.

DEFINITIONS

In this announcement, unless the context specifies otherwise, the following defined expressions have the following meanings:

"Articles of Association" the articles of association of the Company "Board" the Board of Directors "Company" Zhejiang Expressway Co., Ltd., ajointstocklimitedcompany incorporated in the PRC with limited liability, whose shares are listed on the main board of the Stock Exchange "Conversion Shares" HShares which fall tobeallotted and issue upon exercise of the conversion rightsattached to the H Share Convertible Bonds "CSRC" China Securities Regulatory Commission of the PRC "Director(s)" the director(s) of the Company "General Mandate" the generalmandate granted to the Directors by the Shareholders pursuant to an ordinary resolution passed at the annual general meeting of the Company held on 6 May 2016 to allot, issue and/or deal with additional

H Shares representing up to the limit of 20% of H Shares in issue on the date of the passing of the relevant resolution "H Share(s)" overseas listed foreign shares in the share capital of the Company with a nominal value of RMB1 per share, which are listed on the main board of the Stock Exchange "HShareConvertibleBonds" the convertible bonds with an aggregate principal amount of up to USD400 million proposed to be issued by the Company, which are convertible into H Shares. "General Meeting" the general meeting of the Shareholders of the Company to be convened for the purposes of, among other things, approval of the special resolution regarding the proposed issue of H Share Convertible Bonds "Hong Kong" the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the PRC "Listing Rules" Rules Governing the Listing of Securities on The Hong Kong Stock Exchange "PRC" the People's Republic of China (for the purpose of this announcement, excludesHongKong,Macauand Taiwan) "RMB" Renminbi, the lawful currency of the PRC "Shareholder(s)" holder(s) of the share(s) of the Company "Stock Exchange" The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited "USD" United States dollars, the law currency of the United States of America "%" per cent.

On behalf of the Board

ZHEJIANG EXPRESSWAY CO., LTD.

ZHAN Xiaozhang

Chairman

Hangzhou, PRC, 30 September 2016

As of the date of this announcement, the executive Directors of the Company are: Mr. ZHAN Xiaozhang, Mr. CHENG Tao and Ms. LUO Jianhu; the non-executive Directors of the Company are: Mr. WANG Dongjie, Mr. DAI Benmeng and Mr. ZHOU Jianping; and the independent non-executive Directors of the Company are: Mr. ZHOU Jun, Mr. PEI Ker-Wei and Ms. LEE Wai Tsang Rosa
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 30, 2016) - Coronet Metals Inc. (TSXV: CRF) (FSE: 2CM) (OTC Pink: CORMF) ("Coronet" or "the Company") is pleased announce the awarding of a sonic drilling contract for the White Caps Gold Mining Project tailings and mine dumps. The Company has engaged BoartLongyear ("Boart") to conduct the drilling who are one of the leading experts in using Sonic Drilling to drill tailings and mine dumps. The crews will be mobilized by late October, to commence the approximate 2-week program.

Through its wholly-owned subsidiary, "White Caps Gold Mining Company Inc." ("WCGMC"), the Company controls the former producing White Caps Gold Mine and processing mill, along with an estimated 250,000 tonnes of historic tails and mine dumps materials*.

6 holes have been proposed to drill the White Caps mine dumps and 23 holes for drilling the White Caps tailings dumps totaling approximately 2,700 feet (820 meters). This work, together with ongoing metallurgical work (see below) will form the basis to confirm and upgrade the historical estimates of the gold bearing tailings and mine dumps as a NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource estimate. The drilling program was designed by Coronet's team and the drill core-logging/mapping and sampling will be overseen by a local Geologist with 20+ years' experience overseeing drilling programs in the area

Further to the June 23, 2016 press release, the Company has initiated hydrometallurgical process development work at an independent laboratory in Vancouver. The laboratory conducted extensive testing on the White Caps tailings and dumps material to determine optimal processing in order to maximize gold recoveries. The initial results continue to support favorable grades, but more importantly the process was successful in extracting the gold from the material and the recoveries were excellent. The results were sent to two independent laboratories to further verify the results. The independent results are complete and are presently being compiled. The Company plans to report these results in the next few weeks.

In addition to the above project the Company is actively pursuing other near-term, promising high value gold and silver projects. The projects the Company is reviewing, all play to its existing strategy of acquiring precious metals mining projects which have the potential for both near-term cash flow and exploration upside in safe, mining friendly, jurisdictions The goal is to derive low cost production from high value deposits and pay for these acquisitions from cash flow as opposed to issuing stock which is dilutive for its shareholders.

* References to tonnages are historical estimates. The estimated tonnage of 250,000 tonnes was provided by the two different mining (name the company) engineering companies in October 2011 that the Company engaged to provide an estimate. The stockpile measurement is a technique to measure the volume and weight of commodity stockpiles. It is a scientific/ instrumental method, using Total Station equipment to determine the volume of the stockpile quantity. While the Company believes that the historical tonnage estimate is useful to guide future work on the project it cautions readers that these historical estimates should not be relied upon.

About Coronet Metals

Coronet Metals Inc. is engaged in the business of acquiring, exploring and developing natural resource properties, with a focus on precious mineral properties/projects which have the potential for both near-term cash flow and significant exploration upside potential. Coronet's White Caps Gold Project is near the town of Manhattan in Northern Nye County. The Project is well in line with its strategy of acquiring precious metals mining projects which have the potential for both near-term cash flow and exploration upside.

The Company has launched a fresh new web site so please visit www.coronetmetals.com for more information on the project, the history of the area and up to date information regarding its near-term plans, execution and strategy.

Forward Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking statements and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations are risks detailed from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulations.

The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. As a result, the Company cannot 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 law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation services provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION AND ENQUIRIES:

Theo van der Linde

President and CFO

Tel: +1 604-336-3193

Email: tvanderlinde@coronetmetals.com
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 30, 2016) - The Jenex Corporation (TSXV: JEN.H) ("Jenex" or the "Company").

Jenex would like to announce the Company has made tangible progress in its product development efforts related to its next generation insect device. Jenex has worked closely with engineering, industrial design and legal experts with a detailed plan to develop a device subject to financing or signing of a licensing contract. The new insect device will provide Jenex with intellectual property including trademark opportunities. The intellectual property for the Therapik device has expired and the Company no longer holds the patent or trademark for Therapik. Jenex will report further information on product development in the near future. As previously reported Jenex continues to pursue the retail channel for its InterceptCS device and continues to investigate a proposed financing or licensing contract to finance product development and marketing.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. More particularly, this press release contains statements which include the timing of closing the offering, the anticipated use of proceeds and the receipt of the required approvals. The forward-looking statements are based on certain expectations and assumptions made by Jenex. Although Jenex believes that those expectations and assumptions are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because Jenex can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. In addition to other risks, the closing of the offering could be delayed if Jenex is not able to obtain necessary approvals when planned and the offering will not be completed at all if approvals are not obtained or some other condition to the closing is not satisfied. Accordingly, there is a risk that the offering will not be completed within the anticipated time or at all. The intended use of the net proceeds of the offering by Jenex might change if Jenex determines that it would be in the best interests of Jenex to use the proceeds for some other purpose. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date hereof. Jenex disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable securities laws.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For Further information please contact:

The Jenex Corporation

Rob Fia

CEO & Chairman

Phone: (416) 722-4994

e-mail: rfia@thejenexcorporation.com

NOT FOR DISSEMINATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES


CVS 2017 is the place for meeting all experts from vending, self-service and OCS industries

Take advantage of trade show pre-registration discounts

Exhibitor and sponsorship opportunities still available

SHANGHAI, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Following the successful 2016 China International Self-service, Kiosk & Vending Show (CVS), which welcomed more than 17,000 trade visitors, organizer Shanghai UBM Sinoexpo International Exhibition Co., Ltd, has announced that the 2017 edition of the trade fair will open its doors from April 26-28, at the Shanghai New International Expo Center, as part of HOTEL PLUS.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413303

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160929/413307

Launched in 2004, CVS has always been a platform for product launches and exclusive debut appearances by large and small enterprises. CVS presents all solutions and innovations involving the themes of automated sales solutions, coffee, hot beverages, additional products, snacks, beverages, filling products, multi-payment solutions, parts and components.

As the leading trade show in this industry, CVS provides attendees with vital business growth and relationship-building opportunities through education, networking and exposure to hundreds of new products and services.

A not-to-be-missed appointment:

The largest and longest-running networking platform dedicated to the vending, self-service and OCS industries in China.

Top brands as FUJI BINGSHAN, LEIYUNFENG, AUCMA, LE VENDING and BAIXUE make their appearances at the show every year. It is the best place where they offer their products to decision makers and achieve success.

"China's vending industry has developed for decades, and China Vending Show has been dedicated to this industry for 13 years," said Zhang Haipeng, General Manager of Qingdao AUCMA at the 13th CVS Show in 2016. "As the most professional platform to connect providers and buyers, the show plays an important role in promoting the development of this industry. We hope the show keeps leading industrial trends and meeting market demands and becomes more and more successful."

Create More Business Channels and Meet New Partners Outside of the Industry

CVS 2017 will be held as part of HOTEL PLUS, a total solution for commercial properties. Covering an exhibition area of 200,000 square meters, HOTEL PLUS is expected to attract 2,000 exhibitors and 100,000 professional buyers from various industries.

HOTEL PLUS provides a good opportunity to promote vending and self-service equipment and solutions across various industries.

Enjoy the Highest Amount of Attention

Exhibitors can make use of a wide variety of tools to achieve efficient communication results and become involved in a strong communication campaign integrating both the sector experts and media, and building up traditional visitors' loyalty: invitations, e-news, e-mailings, press releases, we-chat and public relations.

They can also gain critical company exposure, interact face-to-face with key prospects, demonstrate products and technology, and connect with industry heavyweights - all in one results-oriented environment that brings all your markets right to you.

Look Who's Exhibiting!

Six months in advance of the event, many leading brands from across the vending industry are already confirmed as exhibitors including: LE VENDING, FULEI, YANGHUA ELECTRONICS, FUJITSU, N&W, HAPPYLINE, HANTAI, HUAHAIDA, JIAFENG Electrical, Inhand, ICT, Caimore, Pyramid, Supermax and Silkron.

So don't delay; start taking advantage of this opportunity. If you have already confirmed your booth space, send details of your show special(s) and we'll start promoting your participation. If you haven't already confirmed your booth space, contact us now for early bird savings.

Contact:

Ms. Kim Chen

+86-21-33392569

kim.chen@ubmsinoexpo.com

Website: www.chinavending.com.cn

About Shanghai UBM Sinoexpo International Exhibition Co., Ltd:

Shanghai UBM Sinoexpo International Exhibition Co., Ltd is a professional O2O event company that operates trade shows/events/online B2B platforms. It is a joint venture between Shanghai Sinoexpo International Exhibition Ltd and UBM Asia Ltd., a division of UBM plc listed on the London Stock Exchange.

With over 20 years of professional experience, Shanghai UBM organizes 62 international trade shows covering an exhibition area of 900,000 square meters and attracts more than 350,000 professional buyers from around the globe. Headquartered in Shanghai, UBM Sinoexpo operates three regional offices in Beijing, Guangzhou and Zhongshan, China with a total headcount of more than 350.
Western is an integrated Canadian forest products company, and is the largest coastal British Columbia woodland operator and lumber producer. The Company has an annual available harvest of approximately 6.1 million cubic metres of timber, of which approximately 5.9 million cubic metres is from Crown lands. Western has a lumber capacity in excess of 1.1 billion board feet from seven sawmills and two remanufacturing plants. Principal activities conducted by the Company include timber harvesting, reforestation, sawmilling logs into lumber and wood chips, and value-added remanufacturing. Substantially all of Western's operations, employees and corporate facilities are located in the coastal region of British Columbia, with sales worldwide.

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
OAKVILLE, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Saint Jean Carbon Inc. ("Saint Jean" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: SJL), a carbon science company engaged in the exploration of natural graphite properties and related carbon products, is pleased to announce the Company has entered in to an agreement to increase its lithium holdings by 27 claims, bringing the total claims to 109. The claims are contiguous with the Whabouchi Lithium Project the Company acquired in August 2016. The new claims are located in the James Bay region of Quebec and lie approximately 45 kilometres southeast of the village of Nemaska. The area is linked by a network of all-season roads to the mining centre of Chibougamau, 300 kilometers to the south. An airport and a network of high-voltage hydroelectric transmission lines service the area.

Paul Ogilvie, CEO, commented: "The added claims gives the Company a significant presence in the region where many other successful development operations are progressing nicely. We feel our properties give us a real advantage in our research and development work, which is being carried out at the universities. This enables us to move closer to being a full electric materials supply company in the future. These expanded claims also offer us greater areas to explore and attract joint venture partners. Our overall strategy to be able to supply the complete chemistry for an lithium-ion battery in future starts with owning the raw material."

The Property is comprised of one large block of 27 mineral claims covering 1,458 hectares (14.5 km2) located on the southern margin of the volcano-sedimentary Mountain Lake belt. The Property neighbours to the north Hinterland Metals Inc. and Durango Resources to the south. The Property is located approximately 15 kilometres southeast of Nemaska Lithium Inc.'s Whabouchi hard-rock (spodumene) lithium project. Nemaska's Whabouchi property contains measured plus indicated resources of 27,991,000 tonnes of 1.57 per cent lithium dioxide. Nemaska recently released a positive feasibility study that includes the construction of a mine and concentrator at Whabouchi and a hydrometallurgical plant in Shawinigan, Quebec. The mineralization hosted on the Company's property is not necessarily consistent with that hosted on Nemaska's, Whabouchi property.

The terms of the purchase of the 27 mineral licenses are a one-time issuance of 1,000,000 shares of the capital stock of the Company to the vendors upon TSX VENTURE approval of the agreement.

The Company will start a compilation of historic geological data relevant to the Property. A multiphase exploration program on the property will commence in late October or early November. The program will consist of prospecting and a detailed mapping of exposures of pegmatite granites, to be followed by ground geophysical surveys. If the initial rock sampling and geophysical results are favourable, a diamond-drilling program will follow.

Christian Derosier, P.Geo., PhD., is the qualified person (QP) as defined in National Instrument 43-101 and, acting on behalf of Saint Jean Carbon, has reviewed and approved the technical content of this news release.

About Saint Jean Carbon

Saint Jean is a publicly traded carbon science company, with interest in graphite mining claims in the province of Quebec in Canada. For the latest information on Saint Jean's properties and news please refer to the website: http://www.saintjeancarbon.com/

On behalf of the Board of Directors

Saint Jean Carbon Inc.

Paul Ogilvie, CEO and Director

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: This news release contains forward-looking statements, within the meaning of applicable securities legislation, concerning Saint Jean's business and affairs. In certain cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "intends" "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved".

These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, and are naturally subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances that may cause actual results to differ materially. The forward-looking statements in this news release assume, inter alia, that the conditions for completion of the Transaction, including regulatory and shareholder approvals, if necessary, will be met.

Although Saint Jean believes that the expectations represented in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that these expectations will prove to be correct.

Statements of past performance should not be construed as an indication of future performance. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors, including those discussed above, could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Any such forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.

All of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking information is provided as of the date of this press release, and Saint Jean assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.

Contacts:

Saint Jean Carbon Inc.

(905) 844-1200

info@saintjeancarbon.com




SHANGHAI, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --The 38th China International Furniture Fair (CIFF) Shanghai hosted from September 7 to 10 at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (NECC) in Shanghai brought the public's attention to pioneering furniture design concepts and products, highlighting modern architecture's relationship with art through a series of exhibitions, forums and dialogue seminars.

The EAST design show was one of the most popular exhibitions at the 38th CIFF, designers and artists of nine brands and 24 studios from China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia and more displayed unexpected home furniture and decor works and shared the ideas behind the creations as well as the future trend of furniture industry at forums with institutions, buyers and e-commerce representatives.

The show featured two special events, the "EASTOOL Design Show" presented the big ideas of the small folding stool and "48 Stands Youth Collection" showcased various works by young designers.

Spanish artist Cristobal Gabarron presented another solo exhibition titled "Gabarron's Hub for Artistic Creation by Siza," which showed the complete design of La Casa Gabarron (The Gabarron House) project by Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza, including Siza's first drawings, designs, architectural and manuscript models as well as a large number of photos and videos by Siza and Gabarron. Siza is among the most celebrated and influential architects in the contemporary era and winner of the 1992 Pritzker Prize.

The Pinnacle Awards, also known as the American furniture Oscars, hosted its first exhibition of the first tour in China at the 38th CIFF that included home furniture and decor designs of diverse styles. American architect Campion Platt, Ralph Lauren Home Asia-Pacific representative Brent Smith and Arteriors Home international sales manager Henry Hart also joined the first design master salon on September 8.

"The CIFF is committed to building the bridge to link furniture designers with manufacturers, institutions and buyers, we are very honored to introduce international design maestros and young talents to more audiences and we hope to carry it forward in future CIFF exhibitions," said committee staff of CIFF.

About CIFF

As the first and largest furniture fair in China, the 38th CIFF is organized by China Foreign Trade Center (Group), Guangdong Furniture Association, China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Light Industrial Products and Arts-Crafts and hosted by China Foreign Trade Guangzhou Exhibition General Corp.




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Gray Rock Resources Ltd. (the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: GRK) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a binding letter agreement (the "Agreement") with DeCoors Mining Corp. ("DeCoors") to acquire the Surprise Lake Property, located near Atlin, British Columbia, consisting of 32 mineral claims, and covering an area of 5,144 hectares, more or less. The Agreement also includes six other early-stage mineral exploration properties comprising a further 55 mineral claims, all located in British Columbia. In consideration of the acquisitions, the Company will issue to DeCoors for the Surprise Lake Property 4.0 million common shares (the "Gray Rock Shares"), and reimburse DeCoors for its location and exploration costs on the Surprise Lake Property up to a maximum of $30,000. The other properties will be acquired for only nominal consideration. In addition, DeCoors will retain a 1.5% NSR on each of the purchased properties, until the Company has paid $2.0 million under the NSR of any property placed into commercial production. Each NSR will be subject to the Company's exclusive option to purchase all of any part of the NSR at any time at the rate of $666,667 for every one-third of a NSR (i.e., 0.5% NSR), or $2.0 million in the aggregate for the total NSR.

The Surprise Lake Property covers two documented mineral occurrences on file with the British Columbia Geological Survey (Surprise and Cabin Silver), and the recent discovery in July, 2016 of visible gold in bedrock along Otter Creek. The gold is hosted by quartz vein stockwork and variably pyritic pale green and graphitic phyllite wall rock, proximal to the northerly trending Otter Creek Fault. Studies of this bedrock are currently underway by the BC Geological Survey to determine the age, petrology and geochemical associations. The extent of this mineralization is the primary focus of the current property exploration.

"With the improved market conditions, we have set out to build a solid portfolio of well-located projects in British Columbia," said Gray Rock President and CEO David Wolfin. "The Surprise Lake Property represents an exceptional opportunity for the Company and Gray Rock will be able to pursue exploration with field crews already in place."

The Surprise Lake Property is partly underlain by the Atlin Ophiolitic Assemblage, which is composed of a sequence of mid Jurassic, relatively flat-lying, thrust slices of metabasalt and lesser ultramafic rocks. Placer gold deposits in the Atlin camp, situated in stream valleys occurring within erosional windows through the carbonatized, relatively flat lying thrust faults within the ophiolitic assemblage, are considered to be derived from auriferous quartz lodes originally hosted by the ophiolitic crustal rocks. Large parts of the Surprise Lake property are situated within the drainage basins of several prolific gold placer streams including Pine, Spruce and Otter Creeks.

The scientific technical disclosure relating to the Property in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Jean Pautler, P. Geo., a Qualified Person within the context of NI 43-101.

In addition to the consideration described above, DeCoors will have the right to nominate up to two (2) directors to the board of the Company; one at the closing of the Agreement and another at the next annual general meeting of the Company.

The Gray Rock Shares will be subject to a four month and one day hold period from the date of closing of the Agreement.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

David Wolfin, President & CEO

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This release contains statements that are forward-looking statements and are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning the specific factors disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in the Company's periodic filings with Canadian securities regulators. Such information contained herein represents management's best judgment as of the date hereof based on information currently available. The Company does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement.

Contacts:

Gray Rock Resources Ltd.

David Wolfin

President & CEO

(604) 682-3701

www.grayrockresources.com




Reykjavik, 2016-09-30 15:47 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Orkuveita Reykjavikur (OR; Reykjavik Energy) and Magma Energy Sweden, the parent company of HS Orka, have reached an agreement on changes to a bond, scheduled to mature in its entirety in December 2016. The value of the bond is approximately USD 72 million. The agreement stipulates a payment of one-half of the bond's outstanding principal and issuance of a new bond to mature in H1 2018. The agreement is subject to OR's Board's approval. Interests of the new bond will be 5%. These changes will be considered by the Central Bank of Iceland.

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
SAGUENAY, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

Canada has an extraordinary pool of talented graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. They provide fresh and creative solutions for today's challenges, as well as strategies for a more diversified, knowledge-based economy that will help everyday Canadians and strengthen the middle class. The Government of Canada is committed to developing this talented generation, and working with Canadian postsecondary institutions, non-governmental organizations and the private sector to create research and training opportunities for them.

That is why today, at the Universite du Quebec a Chicoutimi, the Honourable Diane Lebouthillier, Minister of National Revenue, on behalf of the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science, announced $107 million in funding to support students and postdoctoral researchers in a diverse range of fields in the social sciences and humanities.

Also announced today were the 19 recipients of this year's Canada Graduate Scholarships to Honour Nelson Mandela, as well as the renewal of funding for the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN)-a $14.5 million partnership between the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Quotes

"The study of social sciences and humanities allows us to deepen our knowledge of the world around us and to find solutions to important issues. The Government of Canada is proud to support the work of talented students and researchers from Canada that help build stronger and more resilient communities, and ensure the growth of the middle class through evidence-based decision making."

- The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science

"These grants will contribute to building a stronger social sciences and humanities research community in Canada. I look forward to the partnerships that will spring from this investment, including opportunities for greater evidence-based policy decisions afforded by the renewed partnership with the Canadian Research Data Centre Network."

- The Honourable Diane Lebouthillier, Minister of National Revenue

"Supporting the next generation of graduate students and researchers is essential to building a vibrant and long-term culture of discovery and innovation in Canada. Now and in the future, what will keep our country competitive is our ability to help people understand, shape and adapt to innovation-which is wholly within the realm of social sciences and humanities."

- Ted Hewitt, President, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

"The awards named for Nelson Mandela honour his legacy and remind us of the importance of safeguarding basic human rights and supporting the healthy development of our children-our future. At CIHR and SSHRC, we congratulate the recipients of these awards. We trust this special distinction will be a source of inspiration and motivation throughout their careers."

- Dr. Alain Beaudet, President, Canadian Institutes of Health Research

"The SSHRC-CIHR funding is vital in enabling the CRDCN national network of university researchers to capitalize on Statistics Canada data to address research and policy issues of high priority for Canadians in such areas as income and employment, immigration and settlement, education and social development, and population health and health care."

- S. Martin Taylor, Executive Director, Canadian Research Data Centre Network

Quick Facts

-- Today's announcement of close to 2,400 new fellowships and scholarships is the result of competitions administered by SSHRC. -- The Canada Graduate Scholarships to Honour Nelson Mandela were launched in 2014 to honour the life and legacy of the anti-apartheid leader and first South African president elected in a fully representative democratic election. The awards recognize distinguished young scholars conducting research in one or more of five areas championed by the former president of South Africa: national unity; democracy, freedom and human rights; leadership; children's participation in society; and children's health. -- The CRDCN is a national system of university-based research data centres. Since 2000, the CRDCN has given university, government and other approved researchers local access to a vast array of social, economic and health data from Statistics Canada. Graduate students, professors and researchers have access to 27 Research Data Centres and branches located at university campuses across the country. By analyzing social, economic, demographic and health data, social scientists provide knowledge that can inform evidence-based policy and improve the lives of all Canadians.

Related products

- Canada Graduate Scholarships Program-Master's Scholarships recipients list

- Canada Graduate Scholarships to Honour Nelson Mandela recipients list

- Canada Graduate Scholarships (CIHR) to Honour Nelson Mandela recipients list: Master and Doctoral

- Canada Graduate Scholarships Program-Doctoral Scholarships recipients list

- http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/results-resultats/recipients-recipiendaires/2015/doctoral-doctorat-eng.aspx

- SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowships recipients list

Associated links

- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

- Canadian Institutes of Health Research

- SSHRC Talent program

- Canada Graduate Scholarships to Honour Nelson Mandela

- Canadian Research Data Centre Network

Follow SSHRC on Twitter: @SSHRC_CRSH

Follow Minister Duncan on social media:

Twitter: @ScienceMin

Instagram: sciencemin

Contacts:

Veronique Perron

Press Secretary

Office of the Minister of Science

343-291-2600



Media Relations

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

343-291-1777

ic.mediarelations-mediasrelations.ic@canada.ca



Yoan St-Onge

Communications Advisor

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

613-947-6560

yoan.st-onge@sshrc-crsh.gc.ca



Media Relations

Canadian Institutes of Health Research

613-941-4563

mediarelations@cihr-irsc.gc.ca



Sarah Fortin

Media Relations

Canadian Research Data Centre Network

sarah.fortin@crdcn.org




GATINEAU, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Commissioner of Official Languages Graham Fraser will release his report titled Early Childhood: Fostering the Vitality of Francophone Minority Communities on October 3. Representatives of federal institutions, as well as Francophone minority community stakeholders, including representatives of the Commission nationale des parents francophones, the Federation des communautes francophones et acadienne du Canada and the Forum des leaders, will be present.

Media are invited to attend this event.(i)

Date: Monday, October 3, 2016 Time: 3 p.m. EDT Subject: Release of the report titled Early Childhood: Fostering the Vitality of Francophone Minority Communities Who: Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages Location: Salon des Nations (A), Crown Plaza Gatineau-Ottawa, 2 Montcalm Street, Gatineau

(i)Note: Media are also invited to attend our launch events in many of our regional offices. Please contact us for more details.

Follow us on Twitter and on Facebook.

Contacts:

Nelson Kalil

Manager, Public Affairs

Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages

819-420-4714 / Toll-free: 1-877-996-6368

Cellular: 613-324-0999

nelson.kalil@clo-ocol.gc.ca




MANCHESTER, England, September 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

EDM, a leading global provider of training simulators to the civil aviation and defence sectors, welcomed UK Minister, Dr Liam Fox, to its headquarters yesterday.

Visiting Manchester to give a speech to business leaders about free trade, the Secretary of State for International Trade met with EDM's's Managing Director, Tony Bermingham and other Directors for a round-table discussion about the company's exporting success and how the government can better support British businesses selling goods overseas. The MP for North Somerset also enjoyed a tour of the company's 100,000 square feet facility during which he was shown a range of the company's market-leading training simulators for civil aviation and defence customers.

EDM has grown its workforce from 150 to 220 in the past 12 months and is on course to increase its turnover by 50% by the end of the financial year as the company continues to win major contracts globally. This year alone EDM has announced major orders from Cathay Pacific, China Southern Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Singapore Airlines and counts Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and Thales amongst its customer base. In 2015, the company won the Manchester Evening News Business of the Year and the Insider North West Excellence in International Trade Awards.

International Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox said: "EDM is a prime example of where British business can reach new heights by seizing global opportunities. With 96% of its business coming from exports this year and a new 2m US contact announced today, EDM is driving new jobs and spreading the benefits of free trade across Manchester."

"It was fantastic to welcome the Secretary of State for International Trade to EDM this week," said Tony Bermingham, Managing Director of EDM. "We enjoyed showing the Minister around our facility and discussing how we've been successfully exporting our products all over the world for the past 15 years."

For more information about EDM visit: http://www.edm.ltd.uk

About EDM

EDM is a leading global provider of training simulators to the civil aviation, defence, rail and other industries. Combining the highest engineering standards with leading-edge technologies, EDM providesairlines withDoor Trainers, Cabin Service Trainers, Cabin Emergency Evacuation Trainers andFull SizeMockups and defence organsiations withProcedure Trainers, Maintenance Trainers, Ejection Seats, Simulators and Full Size Replicas. Serving organisations worldwide from its UK headquarters, EDM is committed to delivering exceptional quality and value to its clients to help them enhance safety and operational efficiency.
Today, Westinghouse Electric Company and NAEK Energoatom, the National Nuclear Energy Generating Company of Ukraine, released a joint statement discussing the companies' future partnership to sustain the safety of Ukraine's nuclear reactor fleet. The statement was issued during a visit to Kiev by a special delegation of chief executive officers, including Westinghouse's Interim President and CEO Jose Gutierrez, led by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The joint statement follows.

"Today, NAEK Energoatom and Westinghouse are pleased to announce that we have reached agreement to significantly deepen our partnership that will provide technology and knowledge transfer to enhance the safety and operations of Ukraine's nuclear power fleet.

"In light of Ukraine's strong reliance on nuclear energy and commitment to the highest operational and safety standards; together with Westinghouse's unparalleled experience in providing industry leading technology and operating performance enhancements, Energoatom and Westinghouse have agreed to begin work on a Safety Optimization Program (SOP). The SOP will deliver continued safety improvements to the Ukrainian nuclear fleet that will meet the highest international safety benchmarks as well as specific requirements associated with the European Union's standards as specified by the Western European Nuclear Regulatory Association (WENRA). These safety improvements, which also complement the substantial safety-related work already underway through the Safety Upgrade Program administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), will additionally bring significant operating improvements to Ukraine's nuclear power plants. The benefits of these operational improvements are intended to increase the annual availability of Ukrainian nuclear power plants that would result in substantial increases in power supply, profitability and meet safety requirements required for export of power to the European Union.

"The SOP will bring together the best practices of global operating experience and advanced technology combined with Ukrainian experts and industries such as Westron and Turboatom. This agreement to proceed on a Safety Optimization Program represents a significant new partnership between NAEK Energoatom and Westinghouse in providing joint support to Ukraine's nuclear energy."

To learn more about Westinghouse Electric Company and our vision to be the first to innovate the next technology, practice or solution that helps our customers generate safer, cleaner, more reliable energy visit www.westinghousenuclear.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005440/en/

Contacts:

Westinghouse

Courtney Boone, Vice President, Global Communications, 412-374-2707

booneca@westinghouse.com
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
LOS ANGELES CA -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Organic & Natural Health Association will host its first in a series of consumer health retail educational events on Saturday (Oct. 1) in Los Angeles. The inaugural consumer health event, named "The Power of Nutrients," is in partnership with Lassens Natural Foods & Vitamins, the 45-year-old California-based health food store. Keynote speakers for the all-day event will include three-time New York Times best-selling author, Dr. Joseph Mercola; internationally recognized clinical pharmacist and board certified clinical nutritionist, James LaValle, R.Ph., CCN; executive director of GrassrootsHealth, Carole Baggerly; and TV host and traveling chef, Charles Chen.

The event will take place at The Cathedral Sanctuary at Immanuel Presbyterian event space (3300 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles) and is open to the general public. Participants pay just $10 for all-day access to the educational series program, healthy cooking demonstrations, free health beverage and coffee samples, exclusive Lassens coupons, giveaways and healthy meals for purchase by local food trucks. Tickets are available for purchase at www.powerofd.org/register.

"The retail membership program is a key component for Organic & Natural Health to really connect with the consumer who is interested in living a healthy lifestyle," said Karen Howard, CEO and executive director of Organic & Natural. "This is just the beginning. We plan to organize many more of these events. It's important for us to provide more direct access for consumers to leading experts in the natural health industry so they can understand the value and science of nutrients and where to find them in retail stores."

Organic & Natural Health's next retail educational event is scheduled for April 23 in partnership with the Syracuse, New York, health food store, Natur-Tyme. For more than 15 years Natur-Tyme has hosted a popular annual spring health fair at the New York State Fairgrounds and this time will combine efforts with Organic & Natural Health to host an expert speaker lineup including Mercola, as well as renowned internal and integrative medicine specialist, Dr. Dana Cohen; renowned naturopathic and functional medicine doctor, Geo Espinosa, ND; and pharmacist, author and media personality known to consumers nationwide as, "The Herbal Pharmacist," David Foreman, R.Ph. Tickets to the Natur-Tyme event will be available for purchase early 2017.

"The Power of Nutrients" consumer retail program aligns with Organic & Natural Health's consumer outreach commitment that started this year with a focus on the benefits of vitamin D. Howard says their plan is to have a new nutrient focus each year that will engage consumers to participate in more population-based nutrient research spearheaded by GrassrootsHealth in order to scientifically prove how specific nutrients have a direct impact on disease prevention.

To join Organic & Natural Health's retail membership program or learn more about "The Power of Nutrients" consumer health series call 202-660-1345 or visit: http://www.organicandnatural.org.

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Media Contact:

Amy Summers

212-757-3419

Email Contact

Pitch Publicity




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- This Saturday October 1 at 1:00 p.m. at Queen's Park, there will be a rally mobilized by the Labour movement and its community partners. Precarious workers will share their stories to underscore the need for changes in the Employment Standards Act and the Labour Relations Act.

The Rally for Decent Work coincides with the Changing Workplaces Review, which will make recommendations for updating Ontario's long-outdated employment laws. The Rally for Decent Work will call on the government to use its Changing Workplaces Review to address the steep rise in precarious work across Ontario, and adapt our laws to protect workers who are trapped in jobs that are low-wage, part-time, contract, or temporary.

"These workers are suffering under our outdated laws. As precarious workers they face poor standards, a lack of stability in their earnings and scheduling, and obstacles to unionization," said OFL President Chris Buckley.

The OFL demands that when our government reviews its laws, it ensures that all changes improve basic conditions for workers across the province, whether those workers are in a union or not.

According to the Fight for $15 and Fairness, less than 25 percent of all workers are now fully protected by the ESA.

"People like us are left out," said caregiver Kristina Torres, who is a migrant worker supporting the Fight for $15 and Fairness. "There are too many exemptions in the laws that make migrant workers vulnerable. We are terrified of speaking out even when we do have rights because of the risk of deportation. We need laws that protect everyone."

Along with its partner organization Fight for $15 and Fairness, the OFL calls on the government to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, with no special categories that are paid a lower rate. All changes in the Employment Standards Act and the Labour Relations Act must work together to set a fair minimum standard for all workers. No worker should be stuck in precarious work.

The OFL's www.makeitfair.ca campaign takes on issues of inequality in the workforce, and coincides with the province's "Changing Workplaces Review." The campaign gives voice to unions' demands for across-the-board changes to the Employment Standards Act and the Labour Relations Act that would improve standards for every worker and make it easier for them to join a union.

The OFL represents 54 unions and one million workers in Ontario. For information, visit www.OFL.ca and follow @OFLabour on Facebook and Twitter.

Rally speakers/ precarious workers are available for media interviews in advance of or after the rally.

Background:

The OFL's submissions to The Changing Workplaces Review identified a number of areas in which changes to government regulations could be made to raise employment standards for all Ontarians, whether or not they are in a union.

The OFL has identified the steep rise in precarious work (contract, temporary, part-time and low-waged jobs) as a growing problem for Ontarians, many of whom need to cobble together multiple jobs or multiple contracts in order to meet their basic needs.

The OFL submission to the Changing Workplaces Review "Labour. Law. Reform." can be found here.

The Fight for $15 & Fairness is a campaign supported by community, labour, student and faith groups across Ontario. It is calling for sweeping reforms, including fair scheduling; further regulating temporary agencies; investing in pro-active, public enforcement of employment laws; imposing meaningful fines for labour law infractions; legislating seven paid sick days; an end to contract flipping; easier access to unions and more. Central in the campaign is the demand for a $15 minimum wage for all workers, regardless of age, student status, job or area of work. For more information, visit 15andfairness.org.

Rally speakers will include:

Laura Kaminker (CUPE Local 1989):

She recently was involved with a strike that won a $15 dollar wage for pages and stronger rights for part-time workers in Mississauga libraries.

Tim Hum (UFCW Local 175):

Will talk about his experience as a precarious worker. He was a worker at Wings Food Products, who endured a 22-month strike before getting an agreement with the employer.

Erendira Bravo

Construction worker and organizer from the Latin American community (Toronto), who is part of the Fight for $15 and Fairness. Erendira will talk about the misclassification of workers, in particular contractors, as well as equal pay for equal work, and proactive enforcement.

Deb Henry (Unifor Local 414):

Grocery store worker who will talk about fair scheduling, paid sick days and $15 minimum wage.

Ted Hext (VP Ontario Federation of Union Retirees):

Will discuss senior citizens being forced to work longer, and ending up in poorly paid, precarious jobs.

Marjorie Knight (Organizer with Fight for $15 and Fairness):

Will speak on the impact of low-wage, precarious work and the issue of decent hours, and low wages.

Marilou Martin (OPSEU Local 557):

Will set her address on an organizing drive of part-time college workers, the need for card-check certification, and equal rights for all workers with no exceptions or exemptions.

Jana Papuckoski (USW Local 5296):

A hospital security guard, will talk about the effects of contract flipping and successorship rights.

Sulieman Bacharat (Unite Here Local 75):

Hotel worker and union organizer - part of the Trump and Renaissance Hotel organizing campaigns. He'll discus the difference between working in a union and non-union workplace.

--COPE 343--

Contacts:

Ontario Federation of Labour

Meagan Perry

Director of Communications

416-894-3456

mperry@ofl.ca



Fight for $15 & Fairness

Nil Sendil

Communications Coordinator

(cell): 647-710-5795

nil@workersactioncentre.org




WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Hillary Clinton is under-performing in key states and with key demographics she must do well to win in November, the Republican party said Thursday citing recent headlines in US media. 'Clinton campaign in 'panic mode' over Florida black voters,' reads a news headline on Politico. 'Hillary Clinton's campaign is in panic mode. Full panic mode,' Politico quoted Leslie Wimes, a South Florida-based president of the Democratic African-American Women Caucu. Bloomberg, under the headline 'The Clinton Campaign Has a Millennial Math Problem,' wrote: In New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and other northern states, the Democratic nominee still has to close the deal with Bernie Sanders holdouts. According to New York Times,'Clinton is not poised to match the gains Mr. Obama made among nonwhite voters over previous Democratic nominees.' That brings the pace of Democratic gains down to the slow crawl of demographic change, it added. Washington Post reported that lagging support among Hispanic voters for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and congressional candidates in crucial races has stoked deep concern that the party and the presidential campaign are doing too little to galvanize a key constituency. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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WASHINGTON, DC -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Last night, Gallaudet University honored Ronald C. Burdett for his many contributions to the Deaf community by naming a campus room after the alumnus -- the "Ron Burdett, '70, Seminar Room." Academic leaders, colleagues and community members were on hand to congratulate Burdett, a prominent member of the Deaf community and Sorenson Communications, LLC vice president of community relations.

Gallaudet President Roberta J. Cordano said, "Ron is an inspiration to us all. With this dedication, we honor his many accomplishments as an educator and administrator, including his years as a senior leader responsible for outreach with Sorenson. Ron embodies advocacy, equality, and inclusion and is and has long been a role model for our emerging deaf and hard of hearing leaders."

Sorenson Communications, LLC Chief Executive Officer Scott Sorensen noted, "Ron's contributions to the Deaf community are expansive -- in his academic career, in his advocacy for functional equivalence in communication technologies and in the charitable work he has performed in each community in which he has lived. We are so proud of him. He has made all the difference at Sorenson, and we are honored to have him as a friend and colleague."

Over the past decade, Burdett built and maintained positive relationships with key organizations within the Deaf community, including the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and other government and Deaf agencies to ensure that Sorenson Video Relay Services (SVRS) met the necessary FCC mandates to benefit the Deaf community. Burdett attended more than 350 community gatherings in more than 150 cities -- some in rural towns, some in populated areas. He shared important information about new communication technologies and services at Deaf-sponsored expos, schools, town halls and in peoples' homes.

Burdett graduated from Gallaudet with a degree in computer studies and a minor in business administration. He later earned a master's degree in special education and rehabilitation from California State University, Northridge. After graduating from Gallaudet, Burdett worked for Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Stanford University and Ohlone College, in Fremont, Calif. At Ohlone, he was dean of deaf studies and special services. Burdett served as president of the California Association Post-Education of the Disabled, which oversaw 107 community colleges, eight California state universities and three universities of California.

After retiring from Ohlone in May 2004, Burdett moved to St. George, Utah, where he became director of the Southern Utah Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Program under the state Division of Services to the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing.

In 2006, Burdett joined Sorenson Communications, LLC. "I have many stories about how being able to communicate in our own native language -- American Sign Language, has made our lives better. I have loved it. I am so lucky!" he says.

About Sorenson Communications, LLC

Sorenson Communications, LLC (www.sorenson.com) is a provider of industry-leading communications products and services for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing. The company's offerings include Sorenson Video Relay Service (SVRS), the highest-quality video interpreting service; the Sorenson ntouch VP videophone, designed especially for use by Deaf individuals; ntouch PC, software that connects users to SVRS by using a PC and webcam; ntouch for Mac, software that connects users to SVRS by using an Apple computer; ntouch Tablet, which turns the Apple iPad with a front-facing camera into a larger-screen mobile VP; and ntouch Mobile, an application empowering SVRS communication via mobile devices.

About Gallaudet University

Gallaudet University, federally chartered in 1864, is a bilingual, diverse, multicultural institution of higher education that ensures the intellectual and professional advancement of deaf and hard of hearing individuals through American Sign Language and English. Gallaudet maintains a proud tradition of research and scholarly activity and prepares its graduates for career opportunities in a highly competitive, technological, and rapidly changing world.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has denied a recent Newsweek report that he violated the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, claiming the reporter has a bad reputation.



'I never did business in Cuba,' Trump said in an interview with NH1 News in New Hampshire on Thursday. 'There's this guy who has very bad reputation as a reporter. You see what his record is. He wrote something about me in Cuba.'



'No, I never did anything in Cuba,' he added. 'I never did a deal in Cuba. I heard about it last night for the first time.'



The article from Newsweek senior writer Kurt Eichenwald claims a company controlled by Trump once violated the U.S. embargo against Cuba by secretly conducting business on the communist island.



The article published on Newsweek.com on Thursday cited interviews with former Trump executives, internal company records and court filings.



Eichenwald said documents show the company, then known as Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, spent a minimum of $68,000 for its 1998 foray into Cuba by funneling the cash through an American consulting firm.



The consulting firm subsequently instructed senior officers with Trump's company how to make the transaction appear legal by linking it to an after-the-fact charitable endeavor, Eichenwald said.



Eichenwald seemed to take pleasure in the attack from Trump, who frequently bashes media sources that are critical of him.



'@realDonaldTrump announced I'm a terrible reporter. Finally! My oldest son was thrilled,' Eichenwald said in a post on Twitter.



Eichenwald also posted a document he says proves Trump's company sent a consultant to Cuba and discussed hiding it as charitable effort, calling the real estate tycoon a 'liar.'



Democratic rival Hillary Clinton jumped on the report, claiming it adds to the long list of actions and statements that raise doubts about Trump's temperament and qualification to be president and commander in chief.



While the statute of limitations ran out long ago, preventing any potential criminal charges, the report could affect Trump's support among Cuban-Americans in the crucial swing state of Florida.



(Photo: Michael Vadon)



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- TransAlta Corporation (TSX: TA) (NYSE: TAC) will release its third quarter 2016 results before market open on Friday, November 4, 2016. A conference call and webcast to discuss the results will be held for investors, analysts, members of the media and other interested parties the same day beginning at 9:00 a.m. Mountain (11:00 a.m. Eastern). The media will be invited to ask questions following analysts.

Please contact the conference operator five minutes prior to the call, noting "TransAlta Corporation" as the company and "Jaeson Jaman" as moderator.

Dial-in numbers: Toll-free North American participants call: 1-800-319-4610A FREE Outside of Canada & USA call: 1-604-638-5340

A link to the live webcast will be available on the Investor Centre section of TransAlta's website at http://www.transalta.com/investors/events-and-presentations. If you are unable to participate in the call, the instant replay is accessible at 1-855-669-9658 (Canada and USA toll free) or 1-604-674-8052 (Outside of Canada) with TransAlta pass code 0837 followed by the # sign. A transcript of the broadcast will be posted on TransAlta's website once it becomes available.

About TransAlta:

TransAlta is a power generation and wholesale marketing company focused on creating long-term shareholder value. TransAlta maintains a low-to-moderate risk profile by operating a highly contracted portfolio of assets in Canada, the United States and Australia. TransAlta's focus is to efficiently operate wind, hydro, solar, natural gas and coal facilities in order to provide customers with a reliable, low-cost source of power. For over 100 years, TransAlta has been a responsible operator and a proud contributor to the communities in which it works and lives. TransAlta has been recognized on CDP's Canadian Climate Disclosure Leadership Index (CDLI), which includes Canada's top 20 leading companies reporting on climate change, and has been selected by Corporate Knights as one of Canada's Top 50 Best Corporate Citizens and is recognized globally for its leadership on sustainability and corporate responsibility standards by FTSE4Good.

For more information about TransAlta, visit our web site at transalta.com, or follow us on Twitter @TransAlta.

Contacts:

Investor Inquiries:

Jaeson Jaman

Manager, Investor Relations

Phone: 1-800-387-3598 in Canada and U.S.

Email: investor_relations@transalta.com



Media Inquiries:

Stacey Hatcher

Manager, Communications

Toll-free media number: 1-855-255-9184

Email: ta_media_relations@transalta.com




GIBSONS, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 12/10/16 -- Western Economic Diversification Canada

The Sunshine Coast celebrated the announcement of $360,000 in Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program funding to the Gibsons Community Building Society, which will support the development of the new Nicholas Sonntag Marine Education Centre and multi-purpose room space located at the Gibsons Public Market.

This new Centre will benefit Sunshine Coast residents by adopting modern technology that will reduce its environmental impact and provide a new education centre and recreation space. This project will also involve the participation of the Squamish First Nation.

Pam Goldsmith-Jones, Member of Parliament for West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast - Sea to Sky Country, on behalf of the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for Western Economic Diversification Canada, made the announcement today in Gibsons.

The Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program is part of Canada 150 Celebrates, the Government of Canada's celebration of our country's 150th anniversary of Confederation. Budget 2016 provided an additional $150 million over two years to Canada's Regional Development Agencies to deliver further community funding across the country, starting in 2016-17, with Western Economic Diversification Canada (WD) being responsible for administering the program in Western Canada.

Through investments in community infrastructure, the Government of Canada will invest in projects that seek to renovate, expand and improve existing community infrastructure, with a focus on recreational facilities, projects that advance a clean growth economy, and projects with a positive impact on Indigenous communities.

Quotes

"Projects that involve strong partnerships with Indigenous communities and contribute to a cleaner, greener environment are priorities for this Government. I am proud to note that in addition to meeting these goals, the residents of Gibsons will benefit from this new and improved amenity."

-- Pam Goldsmith-Jones, Member of Parliament for West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast - Sea to Sky Country

"We are very grateful for this significant federal government support of the Nicholas Sonntag Marine Education Centre at the Gibsons Public Market. We look forward to creating an important learning destination where residents and visitors of the Sunshine Coast will experience inspiring and lasting connections to our local Salish Sea waters for generations to come."

-- Pam Robertson, President of the Gibsons Community Building Society

"We are thrilled to receive this support from the federal government which reinforces how this community development project demonstrates a partnership with government, community and the corporate sector. The CIP 150 funds celebrates our heritage which is a part of Canada's celebration of our history, but also encourages economic development and building healthy communities for our future"

-- Gerry Zipursky, Executive Director of the Gibsons Community Building Society

Stay Connected

Twitter: @WD_Canada, @canada150th, @MinisterISED,

Hashtags: Canada150 / CBC2017 / RadioCanada2017

Website: Western Economic Diversification Canada, Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program, Gibsons Community Building Society

Facebook: @canada150th

Instagram: @canada150

WD Toll-Free Number: 1-888-338-WEST (9378)

TTY (telecommunications device for the hearing impaired): 1-877-303-3388

Additional Links

Government of Canada Announces Support for Community Infrastructure in British Columbia

Backgrounder: The 150th Anniversary of Confederation in 2017

IF THERE IS A DISCREPANCY BETWEEN ANY PRINTED VERSION AND THE ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THIS NEWS RELEASE, THE ELECTRONIC VERSION WILL PREVAIL.

Contacts:

Ben Stanford

Regional Communications Manager

Western Economic Diversification Canada

604-666-7038

ben.stanford@canada.ca



Nancy Grenier

Director of Communications and Marketing

Gibsons Community Building Society

Gibsons, British Columbia

604-741-3421

ngrenier@telus.net




HAUPPAUGE, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 --



Highlights:

Ride Allegheny supports Operation Second Chance

Rural route from Pittsburgh to Maryland lacks cellular coverage for long stretches

Globecomm satellite phones help charity organizers stay connected

Globecomm, a leading global communications solutions provider, today announced that it will donate two satellite phones to Ride Allegheny, a charitable bicycle trek from Pittsburgh to Maryland that benefits wounded veterans. The phones will enable ride organizers to contact public safety officials if there is an emergency when the riders are beyond the range of cell phone coverage.

"We're so pleased once again to be able to help the organizers of Ride Allegheny and we wholeheartedly support the cause of helping our veterans who were wounded in the line of duty," said Jason Juranek, Globecomm CEO/CFO. "At Globecomm, we take pride in our ability to deliver connectivity anywhere, anytime and here's a perfect example. The riders will be traversing some of the most remote routes in western Pennsylvania and western Maryland, and the satellite phone units that we donate will help them stay in touch no matter where they are during their journey."

Ride Allegheny commences Sept. 29 in Pittburgh with over 100 riders traveling more than 300 miles and concludes in Gaithersburg, MD on Oct. 2. Ride Allegheny has partnered with Operation Second Chance by providing support to the needs of soldiers and their families to cover the gaps that are not covered by the U.S. Government. Since 2005, the event has raised over $2 million for Operation Second Chance.

"We greatly appreciate Globecomm's donation of two satellite phones for our charity bike ride," said David Baseheart, Ride Allegheny planning committee member. "Our organization supports wounded veterans recovering from conflict injuries, and the contributions of generous companies like Globecomm helps us make fundraising more effective for the cause."

For more information on Ride Allegheny, visit www.rideallegheny.org.

About Globecomm

Globecomm is a leading global solutions integrator and data management company, offering wireline, wireless, IoT and satellite solutions that address the needs of industrial, commercial, media and government markets in more than 80 countries. The company employs technology expertise to help customers solve mission-critical problems for Industrial IoT, consulting services, system design and integration, maritime and mobile communications, media services, data analytics and networking. Based in Hauppauge, New York, Globecomm also maintains offices in Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, the Netherlands, South Africa, Germany, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan. For more information, please visit www.globecomm.com.

Contact Information:



Michael Keeley

michael.keeley@globecomm.com




MCLEAN, VA -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC) announces its intent to sell its eighth and final scheduled offering this year of Structured Agency Credit Risk (STACR) debt notes, pending market conditions. Through the award-winning and innovative STACR program, Freddie Mac transfers a significant portion of the mortgage credit risk on certain single-family loans to private capital market investors.

Citigroup Global Markets and Barclays Capital will serve as co-lead managers and joint bookrunners.

With the STACR 2016-HQA4 offering of loans with LTVs ranging from 80 to 97 percent, Freddie Mac holds the senior loss risk in the capital structure and a portion of the risk in the Class M-1, M-2 and M-3 tranches, and the first loss Class B tranche.

STACR 2016-HQA4 has a reference pool of single-family mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of more than $13.8 billion. The reference pool consists of a subset of 30-year fixed-rate single-family mortgages acquired by Freddie Mac.

Freddie Mac has led the market in introducing new credit risk-sharing initiatives with STACR, Agency Credit Insurance Structure (ACIS) and Whole Loan Securities (WLS(SM)), and was the first agency to market these types of credit risk transfer transactions. The company has since grown its investor base to more than 200 unique investors, including insurers and reinsurers. Since 2013, the company has transferred a significant portion of credit risk on nearly $570 billion of UPB on single-family mortgages. Additional information about the company's single-family risk sharing offerings is available at http://www.freddiemac.com/creditriskofferings/. Freddie Mac also has a STACR issuance calendar to help investors plan their allocations.

This announcement is not an offer to sell any Freddie Mac securities. Offers for any given security are made only through applicable offering circulars and related supplements, which incorporate Freddie Mac's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on February 18, 2016; all other reports Freddie Mac filed with the SEC pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act) since December 31, 2015, excluding any information furnished to the SEC on Form 8-K; and all documents that Freddie Mac files with the SEC pursuant to Sections 13(a), 13(c) or 14 of the Exchange Act, excluding any information furnished to the SEC on Form 8-K.

Freddie Mac's press releases sometimes contain forward-looking statements. A description of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed in these and other forward-looking statements can be found in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, and its reports on Form 10-Q and Form 8-K, filed with the SEC and available on the Investor Relations page of the company's Web site at www.FreddieMac.com/investors and the SEC's Web site at www.sec.gov.

Freddie Mac was established by Congress in 1970 to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation's residential mortgage markets. Freddie Mac supports communities across the nation by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Today Freddie Mac is making home possible for approximately one in four home borrowers and is the largest source of financing for multifamily housing. Additional information is available at FreddieMac.com, Twitter @FreddieMac and Freddie Mac's blog FreddieMac.com/blog.
OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

The Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of International Trade, announced today that the Government of Canada has negotiated import conditions securing new market access for greenhouse peppers from British Columbia to Japan, effective immediately.

Exports of B.C. greenhouse peppers to the Japanese market could reach $20 million annually, according to the B.C. Greenhouse Growers' Association. Japan is a key destination for Canadian agricultural products, and this new market access will allow B.C. greenhouse growers to take advantage of the many opportunities.

Quick facts

-- Japan is Canada's third-largest agricultural export market. In 2015, Canadian exports of agriculture, agri-food, and fish and seafood products to Japan totalled $3.8 billion, with key exports including canola ($1.0 billion), pork ($821 million), wheat ($406 million), and soybeans ($324 million). -- In 2015, Canadian exports of fresh peppers (Capsicum annuum) to the world were valued at $330 million, while B.C. exports of fresh peppers to the world totalled $90 million in 2015. -- Japanese imports of fresh peppers from all countries were valued at $169 million in 2015.

Quotes

"The Government of Canada continues to work to create new opportunities for Canadian farmers and agri-food exporters in key markets all over the world. I am pleased that producers can start exporting B.C. greenhouse peppers to Japan, because this will maximize the export returns of Canadian farmers and help to grow the country's middle class."

-Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food

"Japan is an important market for Canadian businesses, and I was very pleased to advocate for our exporters during a working visit to Japan in May. When our producers and exporters succeed abroad Canadians and our middle class benefit here at home. New access for Canadian peppers is a reflection of our government's strong support for British Columbian farmers, and I look forward to building on this success and furthering our trading relationship with Japan."

-Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of International Trade

Additional links

Canada-Japan Relations

Japan - Fact sheet

Follow us on Twitter: @AAFC_Canada

Like us on Facebook: CanadianAgriculture

Follow us on Twitter: @CanadaTrade

Like us on Facebook: Canada's international trade - Global Affairs Canada

Contacts:

Guy Gallant

Director of Communications

The Office of the Honourable Lawrence MacAulay

613-773-1059



Media Relations

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Ottawa, Ontario

613-773-7972

1-866-345-7972



Media Relations Office

Global Affairs Canada

343-203-7700




MUMBAI, India, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Vedanta Limited announces that Arun Kumar, who is currently Deputy Chief Financial Officer at Vedanta, has been appointed Chief Financial Officer of the Vedanta group.

Arun takes over from DD Jalan, Vedanta's group Chief Financial Officer, and Whole-time Director of Vedanta Limited, who superannuates effective September 30th, after almost 16 years with the group.

Anil Agarwal, Chairman, Vedanta said, "I have worked closely with DD, and thank him for his sound advice, integrity and commitment, which has made a positive impact to Vedanta's journey. DD's business insight in the role of CFO for the last decade has empowered the Vedanta team, and I am pleased that the company is well positioned to deliver on its strategic initiatives, with Arun taking up the mantle."

DD Jalan joined the Group in 2001 and as a key member of the Executive Committee, he has played a significant role in the listing of Vedanta at LSE and NYSE, and working closely with Business CEOs in achieving business objectives. DD will continue to provide transition support to the leadership team.

Arun Kumar joined Vedanta in 2013 as CFO for the company's Aluminium & Power business. In 2014, he moved into his current role as Executive Vice President Finance & Deputy CFO, responsible for enhancing the capability of the finance function in the areas of accounting, risk management, driving value creation, strategic planning, re-financing, board reporting and governance and direct taxation. As a Chartered Accountant, Arun has over 21 years of experience at global companies such as Hindustan Unilever India and General Electric. Prior to Vedanta, Arun was the CFO for General Electric's Asia-Pacific Lighting & Appliances businesses based out of Shanghai.

About Vedanta Limited (Formerly Sesa Sterlite Limited.)

Vedanta Limited is a diversified natural resources company, whose business primarily involves producing oil & gas, zinc - lead - silver, copper, iron ore, aluminium and commercial power. The company has a presence across India, South Africa, Namibia, Australia and Ireland.

Vedanta Limited is the Indian subsidiary of Vedanta Resources Plc, a London-listed company. Governance and Sustainable Development are at the core of Vedanta's strategy, with a strong focus on health, safety and environment and on enhancing the lives of local communities. The company is conferred with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) 'Sustainable Plus Platinum label', ranking among the top 10 most sustainable companies in India. To access the Vedanta Sustainable Development Report 2016, please visit http://sd.vedantaresources.com/SustainableDevelopment2015-16/

Vedanta Limited is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange in India and has ADRs listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

For more information please visit www.vedantalimited.com

Disclaimer

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" - that is, statements related to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address our expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "should" or "will." Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain. For us, uncertainties arise from the behaviour of financial and metals markets including the London Metal Exchange, fluctuations in interest and or exchange rates and metal prices; from future integration of acquired businesses; and from numerous other matters of national, regional and global scale, including those of a political, economic, business, competitive or regulatory nature. These uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different that those expressed in our forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150422/740375

For further information, please contact:

Roma Balwani

President - Group Communications and Sustainable Development

Tel: +91-22-6646-1000

gc@vedanta.co.in
Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Europe Thermal Imaging Market (2016-2022)" report to their offering.

Thermal imaging is a technique that is widely used to improve the visibility and enhance clarity of objects even in dark environmental conditions with the help of infrared light. The gradual decrease of cost for thermal cameras has been a major driving factor for the market. Additionally, deployment of thermal cameras in devices such as CCTV cameras, and smart phones among others also contribute to the fast growing industry.

The market for thermal imaging is largely driven due to surging demand for thermal cameras in smartphones and their declining prices. Nevertheless, alternate competing technologies would be a restraining factor for the market growth. Despite superior benefits of thermal imaging products, manufacturing highly accurate cameras has always been a major challenge.

The report highlights the adoption of Personal Identity Management. Based on the component type, the Thermal Imaging market is segmented into Hardware, Software and Services. Based on service Type, the market is segmented into Professional, and Managed Services. The market is segmented into Military Defence and Industrial, Commercial, Residential bases upon the End User type. The Applications highlighted in this report include Surveillance, Threat Detection, Predictive Maintenance, Radiology, Commercial Residential Security, R&D and Surveys, Fire fighting, Automotive and Others. The surveillance application is further segmented across Airborne Systems, Maritime Systems and Land Systems.

Based on Country, Europe Thermal Imaging market is segmented into Germany, UK, France, Russia, Spain, Italy and Rest of Europe. Germany remained the dominant Country in the Europe Thermal Imaging market in 2015. Russia would witness highest CAGR during the forecast period (2016-2022).

Companies Mentioned:

Honeywell International, Inc.

BAE Systems

Flir Systems, Inc.

Danaher Corporation

L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc.

Axis Communications AB

Raytheon Company

Thermoteknix Systems Ltd.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Market Scope Methodology

2. Executive Summary

3. Market Overview

4. Europe Thermal Imaging Market By Component Type

5. Europe Thermal Imaging Market By End User Type

6. Europe Thermal Imaging Market By Application

7. Europe Thermal Imaging Market By Country

8. Company Profiles

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/w29p4b/europe_thermal

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005749/en/

Contacts:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

Related Topics: Optoelectronics
MNG's Consent Solicitation isan Attempt to Derail the Randstad Offer and Take Control of the Company Without Paying a Control Premium

MNG has Not Made an Offer to Acquire Monster - the Randstad Transaction is the Single Best Offer on the Table

MNG has No Plan to Maximize Value for Stockholders;MNG's Tactics Undermine the Deal and are Likely to Destroy Value

Monster Board of Directors Unanimously Recommends that Stockholders Tender into Randstad Offer, Which Offers Immediate and Certain Cash Value

WESTON, Massachusetts, Sept. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: MWW) ("Monster" or "the Company") today set the record straight in response to MediaNews Group, Inc.'s ("MNG") letter dated September 30, 2016.

"MNG, which is owned by activist hedge fund Alden Global Capital, is not offering Monster stockholders anything for their shares," said Tim Yates, CEO of Monster. "Instead, MNG's consent solicitation is an attempt to derail the Randstad transaction and take control of the Company without paying stockholders a control premium. The consent solicitation launched by MNG follows its accumulation of Monster shares after the Randstad transaction announcement, and does nothing to benefit existing Monster stockholders. As such, Monster's Board unanimously recommends that stockholders tender into Randstad's offer, which provides stockholders immediate and certain value."

Monster's Board of Directors unanimously believes the transaction with Randstad Holding nv (AMS: RAND) ("Randstad") represents the best path forward for Monster stockholders:

Randstad's offer provides substantial and certain cash value to Monster stockholders Monster's Board negotiated a transaction with Randstad that delivers a substantial premium and a prompt and certain closing. The transaction provides Monster stockholders with immediate and certain cash value of $3.40 per share. This value represents a 22.7% premium to Monster's closing stock price on August 8, 2016 , the last trading day prior to the announcement, and a 29.4% premium over the 90-day average stock price. The transaction with Randstad is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2016. The Board received a fairness opinion and related analysis when it made its decision.



Discussions with other interested parties yielded no alternative proposal The Company conducted a public strategic alternatives process in 2012 and 2013. Over the past six months, the Board actively engaged in extensive discussions with two private equity firms and three strategic buyers. Only Randstad submitted a written, detailed offer. After the Randstad transaction was announced, a private equity firm approached Monster about a potential transaction at $3.60 per share. Following due diligence, the firm decided to terminate discussions and not submit an offer.



Risk of significant negative impact on Monster's stock as standalone company Monster continues to face significant challenges as a standalone company, including pricing pressure and increasing competition, which jeopardize near term results. Monster's Board recognized that enhancing Monster's competitive position in the current environment will require continued investment, and the Company will likely operate in a low growth environment with substantial margin pressure for several years. If the Randstad transaction does not close, the Company's stock price could trade down to or below the pre-announcement price of $2.77 per share and stockholders could lose significant value.



MNG's activist campaign has no plan MNG has not put forth a proposal to acquire the Company and its intentions are not clear. Without having performed due diligence, MNG has developed a "plan" under which it will restructure Monster's operations to curtail further revenue declines and significantly increase profitability as a standalone company while dramatically cutting costs, while ignoring the significant cost reductions that have already been executed. "We contend that termination of the Randstad offer would be disastrous for MWW shareholders." (Avondale Partners - August 22, 2016 ) i



MNG is not presenting Monster stockholders with all the facts MNG's "plan" is built on flawed and uninformed assumptions. Here are the facts: MNG is not offering Monster stockholders anything for their shares. MNG and its activist hedge fund owner Alden Global Capital have limited experience in the recruiting industry and a questionable track record. MNG is asking stockholders to reject an all-cash, premium offer in exchange for the hope that an undisclosed strategy will deliver significantly greater value sometime in the future.



As previously announced on August 9, 2016, Monster entered into a definitive agreement with Randstad under which Randstad will acquire Monster for $3.40 per share in cash.

Evercore is serving as financial advisor to Monster and Dechert LLP is serving as legal counsel.

About Monster Worldwide

Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: MWW) is a global leader in connecting people to jobs, wherever they are. For more than 20 years, Monster has helped people improve their lives with better jobs, and employers find the best talent. Today, the company offers services in more than 40 countries, providing some of the broadest, most sophisticated job seeking, career management, recruitment and talent management capabilities. Monster continues its pioneering work of transforming the recruiting industry with advanced technology using intelligent digital, social and mobile solutions, including our flagship website Monster.com and a vast array of products and services. For more information visit www.monster.com/about.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this Press Release regarding the planned transaction, the expected timetable for completing the planned transaction, future financial and operating results, future capital structure and liquidity, benefits of the panned transaction, general business outlook and any other statements about the future expectations, beliefs, goals, plans or prospects of the board or management of the Company include forward-looking statements. Any statements that are not statements of historical fact (including statements containing the words "expects," "intends," "anticipates," "estimates," "predicts," "believes," "should," "potential," "may," "forecast," "objective," "plan," or "targets" and other similar expressions) are intended to identify forward-looking statements. There are a number of factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements, including: uncertainties as to the timing of completion of the planned transaction, the ability to obtain requisite regulatory approvals, the tender of a majority of the outstanding shares of common stock of Monster Worldwide, Inc., the possibility that competing offers will be made and the satisfaction or waiver of the other conditions to the consummation of the planned transaction; the potential impact of the announcement or consummation of the planned transaction on relationships, including with employees, suppliers and customers; and the other factors and financial, operational and legal risks or uncertainties described in the Company's public filings with the SEC, including the "Risk Factors" sections of the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, as well as the tender offer documents filed and to be filed by Randstad North America, Inc. and Monster Worldwide, Inc. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date the statement was made.

Additional Information and Where to Find It

Randstad North America, Inc.'s tender offer for shares of Monster Worldwide, Inc.'s common stock commenced on September 6, 2016, and, in connection with the offer, Randstad North America, Inc. and its subsidiary, Merlin Global Acquisition, Inc., filed a tender offer statement on Schedule TO with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") and Monster Worldwide, Inc. filed a solicitation/recommendation statement on Schedule 14D-9 with the SEC. Monster Worldwide, Inc.'s stockholders are strongly advised to read the tender offer statement (including the offer to purchase, letter of transmittal and related tender offer documents) and the related solicitation/recommendation statement on Schedule 14D-9 filed by Monster Worldwide, Inc. with the SEC because they contain important information about the proposed transaction. These documents are available at no charge on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. In addition, copies of the Offer to Purchase, Letter of Transmittal and other related materials are available free of charge by contacting MacKenzie Partners, Inc., the information agent for the tender offer, toll-free at (800) 322-2885 (or at +1 212-929-5500 collect if you are located outside the U.S. and Canada), or by email to monster@mackenziepartners.com.

i Permission to use quotation neither sought nor obtained.

Logo- http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150113/168978LOGO
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Activist investor Ralph Whitworth died on Thursday at the age of 60, after battling throat cancer. Whitworth died at UC San Diego Medical Center. Whitworth had resigned as chairman of Hewlett-Packard Co. in July 2014 and took a leave of absence in order to focus on his health. He had co-founded Relational Investors LLC along with David Batchelder. Whitworth has served on 11 corporate boards in the U.S., and his San Diego-based company, Relational Investors LLC, once had $6 billion in assets. In a WSJ report, Whitworth is described as 'a leading pioneer in activist investing who sparked change at companies like Home Depot and Hewlett-Packard.' Whitworth had graduated from University of Nevada. According to reports, Whitworth and his family committed $1 million to fund a tutoring program aimed at helping high school students in Humboldt County prepare for college. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
CHARLOTTETOWN, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

The Government of Canada values the role of post-secondary institutions as they help equip young Canadians with the education and training they need for future careers that will help them join a strong, healthy middle class. Today's combined federal and provincial investment of $20.84 million for research infrastructure in Prince Edward Island will do just that by fostering the training needed for the well-paying middle-class jobs of today and tomorrow.

The funding was announced by the Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, on behalf of the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, and by the Honourable Wade MacLauchlan, Premier of Prince Edward Island.

The Government of Canada's Innovation Agenda aims to make this country a global centre for innovation-one that creates jobs, drives growth across all industries and improves the lives of all Canadians. This investment exemplifies that vision in action and will help create the well-paying middle-class jobs of tomorrow.

The funding includes an investment to renovate the University of Prince Edward Island's (UPEI) century-old Dalton Hall, with the goal of transforming it into an eHUB and Student Success Centre. The renovations to Dalton Hall will align student services and programs to support work-integrated learning, career readiness, and diversified opportunities for learning and working on the Island. The creation of an eHUB will allow the university to develop students to their full potential through experiential learning. This aligns well with provincial strategies for low-cost entrepreneurship spaces in post-secondary facilities and a focus on recruiting and retaining young people to grow the province's population.

The Government of Canada and Province of Prince Edward Island are each providing $2.875 million for the project. The university will contribute an additional $409,900.

In total, the Government of Canada, the provincial government, the institutions themselves and private donors are investing $23.27 million in universities and colleges throughout Prince Edward Island. Federal funding will be allocated through the Post-Secondary Institutions Strategic Investment Fund, which will enhance and modernize research facilities on Canadian campuses and improve the environmental sustainability of these facilities.

As a result of these investments, students, professors and researchers will work in state-of-the-art facilities that advance the country's best research. They will collaborate in specially designed spaces that support lifelong learning and skills training. They will work in close proximity with partners to turn discoveries into products or services. In the process, they will train for-and create-the high-value, middle-class jobs of the future. And their discoveries will plant the seeds for the next generation of innovators.

That is how the Strategic Investment Fund will jump-start a virtuous circle of innovation, creating the right conditions for long-term growth that will yield benefits for generations to come.

On July 4, 2016, the Government of Canada and the governments of the four Atlantic provinces launched the Atlantic Growth Strategy, which involves targeted actions to stimulate Atlantic Canada's economy, including supporting key infrastructure projects that contribute to long-term growth and position the region to capitalize on emerging opportunities. Today's announcement builds on this commitment.

Quotes

"This once-in-a-generation investment by the Government of Canada is a historic down payment on the government's vision to position Canada as a global centre for innovation. That means making Canada a world leader in turning ideas into solutions, science into technologies, skills into middle-class jobs and start-up companies into global successes. Investments like this also support our Atlantic Growth Strategy, designed to stimulate the region's economy and address its challenges while building on Atlantic Canada's competitive advantages, such as its strong export potential, growing innovation ecosystem and skilled workforce."

- The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development

"Investments like these in Atlantic Canada will support our world-class researchers and position Canada as a global leader in research excellence and innovation. Through the Strategic Investment Fund, we are providing Canada's students with the education and training they need to join a strong, healthy middle class."

- The Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food

"We are pleased to support collaboration and excellence between our post-secondary institutions and to equip students with the tools they need to launch successful, enterprising careers here on Prince Edward Island. These investments will contribute to the recruitment and retention of future students while providing them with enhanced support to further their academic and professional success."

- The Honourable Wade MacLauchlan, Premier, Prince Edward Island

"With the creation of the new UPEI eHUB and Student Success Centre, we will significantly enhance our students' access to the support services and programs they need to succeed in the classroom and in the workforce. Placing the UPEI eHUB and Student Success Centre in Dalton Hall, one of the oldest buildings on our campus, meets the evolving needs of today's students while acknowledging our university's history. On behalf of the university community, I thank the federal and provincial governments for their support and investment in UPEI."

- Dr. Alaa Abd-El-Aziz, President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Prince Edward Island

Quick facts

-- The Government of Canada is providing $10.42 million for research infrastructure at institutions in Prince Edward Island. The University of Prince Edward Island has been awarded $2.875 million in federal funding for its project. -- The Government of Canada's Innovation Agenda is designed to ensure Canada is globally competitive in promoting research, translating ideas into new products and services, accelerating business growth and propelling entrepreneurs from the start-up phase to international success. -- The targeted, short-term investments under the Post-Secondary Institutions Strategic Investment Fund will promote economic activity across Canada and help Canada's universities and colleges develop highly skilled workers, act as engines of discovery, and collaborate on innovations that help Canadian companies compete and grow internationally. -- The Post-Secondary Institutions Strategic Investment Fund supports the Government of Canada's climate change objectives by encouraging sustainable and green infrastructure projects. -- On July 4, 2016, the Government of Canada and the governments of the four Atlantic provinces unveiled the Atlantic Growth Strategy, a homegrown, prosperity-focused and evidence-based strategy to stimulate the region's economy and address both long-standing and emerging regional challenges. -- The Atlantic Growth Strategy is aimed at stimulating economic growth in the region by focusing joint federal-provincial efforts and resources on the following five areas of action: skilled workforce and immigration, innovation, clean growth and climate change, trade and investment, and infrastructure. -- As part of the Atlantic Growth Strategy, both levels of government will work together on key infrastructure projects.

Associated links

- Post-Secondary Institutions Strategic Investment Fund website

- Post-Secondary Institutions Strategic Investment Fund backgrounder

- Innovation Agenda backgrounder

- Atlantic Growth Strategy

Follow Minister Bains on social media.

Twitter: @MinisterISED

Follow the Atlantic Growth Strategy on Twitter: AtlanticGrowth

Contacts:

Philip Proulx

Press Secretary

Office of the Minister of Innovation,

Science and Economic Development

343-291-2500



Media Relations

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

343-291-1777

ic.mediarelations-mediasrelations.ic@canada.ca




WASHINGTON, DC -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Private water companies, public utility officials and water industry leaders from across the country will gather in San Diego, California, October 2-4 for the National Association of Water Companies' (NAWC) 2016 Water Summit. This year's Summit will address water challenges ranging from cybersecurity to the water-energy nexus as experts and thought leaders collaborate to share solutions.

"The National Association of Water Companies is bringing together leaders from the public and private sectors for our annual Water Summit to discuss solutions to the unique challenges facing the water industry," said Michael Deane, NAWC executive director. "This year is also important as we bring more focus on the importance of new public policy and cybersecurity strategies."

Each year, the NAWC Water Summit strives to provide a dynamic forum for leaders in the water industry, public officials and other key stakeholders to exchange ideas and share solutions that sustain businesses and communities. This year's keynote speakers are Michael Webber and A. Stanley Meiburg.

Michael Webber is Deputy Director of the Energy Institute, Josey Centennial Fellow in Energy Resources, Co-Director of the Clean Energy Incubator at the Austin Technology Incubator, and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas.

Webber is a leader and teacher in the field of energy technology and policy, explaining how energy and water supplies are linked and how problems in either can be crippling for the other. His newly released book, Thirst for Power, offers a new, holistic way of thinking about energy and water. In laying out an optimistic approach with an array of sustainable solutions for energy and water, he reveals their interdependence and the seriousness of the challenges. Webber will deliver the Water Summit's keynote address on Monday, October 3.

Stanley Meiburg, Ph.D., Acting Deputy Administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has broad experience in management of the agency across the spectrum of the EPA's activities, and has received numerous awards, including recognition as a Distinguished Federal Executive in 2012 and as a Meritorious Federal Executive in 1997. He received EPA's Gold Medal in 1990 for his work on the Clean Air Act Amendments, and Silver Medal in 1983 for work on state-federal relations. He will deliver the Water Summit's keynote address on Tuesday, October 4.

Other featured speakers include Philip Quade, Special Assistant to the Director of the National Security Agency for Cyber and Director of the NSA Cyber Task Force; Eleanor Allen, CEO of Water for People; Reese Tisdale, President of Bluefield Research; and leading public utility commissioners and NAWC member company executives.

"We have a terrific speaker lineup again this year and NAWC is honored to welcome our keynoters and all of our distinguished speakers, moderators and panelists participating in this year's Water Summit. These experts and thought leaders will set the stage for new thinking and collaboration about the water challenges we face and the solutions for the water sector," Deane said.

The 2016 NAWC Water Summit will be held at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront in San Diego. To learn more, visit NAWC.org or click here.

About the NAWC

The National Association of Water Companies (NAWC) is the voice of the private water industry and the organization exclusively representing this group of quality water service providers, innovation drivers, creative financiers and responsible partners. To learn more about NAWC, visit NAWC.org or follow them on Twitter and Facebook.

Philip McGowan

615-610-0316

philip.mcgowan@finnpartners.com




VANCOUVER, BC and CALGARY, AB -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Grow Financial Inc. and Celero today announced a partnership to offer best-in-class financial technology solutions to credit unions across Canada.

This partnership will initially be launched offering Grow's digital and omni-channel lending solution with member onboarding solutions and other product roll-outs planned in the coming months.

Through this partnership, Celero and Grow will deliver a platform of Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions to Canadian Credit Unions, allowing them to access and offer innovative financial technology tools in the areas of consumer and small/medium enterprise lending, digital mortgages, digital compliance, member onboarding, financial education and big data analytics.

"We are excited to collaborate with Celero in combining our digital banking tools and technology expertise with their experience in integrating innovative technology solutions into their network of credit unions and financial institutions," said Kevin Sandhu, CEO of Grow. "Working with such a well-established and innovative banking technology provider will help us fulfill our mission of improving Canadians' financial well-being using state-of-the-art technology and data analytics."

"Celero is committed to bringing the best IT solutions and services to credit unions and financial institutions across Canada," said Elliott Lipsey, Vice President of Business Transformation at Celero. "We're looking forward to partnering with Grow to provide innovative digital banking solutions that will enhance the ability of credit unions to increase their competitive advantage and grow their business in a rapidly changing financial services landscape."

Celero is pleased to welcome Grow to its Celero FinTech Conference in Lake Louise, Alberta, October 4 - 6, 2016. Credit unions and financial service organizations from across Canada come together at this annual event to learn more about leading-edge technology solutions that are shaping the delivery of financial services to Canadian consumers.

ABOUT CELERO: Celero is a leading provider of IT solutions to financial institutions across Canada and is consistently ranked among the world's top financial technology companies on the annual FinTech 100 list. A full-service information technology company, Celero provides complete banking solutions, IT planning, systems integration, hosting, support, maintenance and professional services. Celero meets the unique needs of financial institutions and delivers world-class reliability through our Canadian-based data centers, employees, and operations. For more information about Celero, visit celero.ca.

ABOUT GROW: Grow is a leading Enterprise Fintech company, serving consumers through partnerships with top global financial institutions. By leveraging technology and data to reinvent the banking experience, Grow makes personal finances understandable and anxiety-free. Grow's technology is powering a new generation of data-driven banking products and services, including digital personal loans, mortgages, instant customer onboarding and account opening, advanced data analytics, and real-time compliance and identification tools. For more information about Grow, visit poweredbygrow.com.

Contacts:

Grow Financial Inc.

Sean O'Connor

VP Partnerships

(604) 353-7186

sean.oconnor@poweredbygrow.com



Celero

Dean Rathwell

Director, Marketing, Strategy and Communications

(306) 566-1759

dean.rathwell@celero.ca




SAN RAMON, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- The perfect home is waiting for homebuyers at TRI Pointe Homes' Move-In Ready Buying Event. Select from the most favored homes complete with the most sought after upgrades. Home shoppers who purchase a Move-in Ready home by November 13, 2016 will also receive a special customized bonus.

"Our Move-In Ready Buying Event makes it possible for families to select the perfect home and be able to move in before the end of the year," said Susan Cleary, Marketing Manager for TRI Pointe Homes. "For anyone wondering when they should make the move? Now is the perfect time to purchase a home at any of our communities."

Visit a New Home Gallery today and discover TRI Pointe Homes' commitment to quality and great customer service. Their unsurpassed style for spirited entertaining or intimate moments only needs a new resident's special touch to make life's memories unforgettable.

TRI Pointe's communities are located throughout Alameda, Solano, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, and San Joaquin counties including: Ventana in Tracy; Sundance in Mountain House; Redstone in Vacaville; Blackstone at the Cannery in Hayward; Berkshire, Hawthorne, Marquette at Barrington in Brentwood; Cadence and Symmetry at Alameda Landing in Alameda; and Parasol in Fremont.

Stylish interior appointments, designs that are both beautiful and functional, and energy-efficient features that address the needs of families, make living in a TRI Pointe Homes' residence one of the best values in the region.

The best thing about this move-in campaign is if home shoppers act now, they will have the opportunity to choose from among the most popular homesites that feature stunning decor and design options, Cleary added.

"The Right Home, Right Now event is underway. Come visit our TRI Pointe Homes' communities today and the home of your dreams will be your reality just in time for the holidays," Cleary said. "The only thing we're waiting on is you."

For a complete listing of TRI Pointe Homes locations, visit https://www.tripointehomes.com/northern-california/

With a growing number of new home communities throughout Northern California, TRI Pointe Homes, Inc. is a member of TRI Pointe Group (NYSE: TPH), headquartered in Irvine, California. The company is one of the top 10 largest public homebuilders by equity market capitalization in the United States, supported by the significant resources, economies of scale and thoughtful leadership of a national foundation. Additional information is available at https://www.tripointehomes.com/northern-california/.

Contact:

Fran Bangert

Kovach Marketing

714-335-9646

Email Contact






WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - New polls conducted following the first presidential debate show Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton leading Republican rival Donald Trump in three potentially key battleground states.



The polls showed Clinton with a four-point lead over Trump in Florida and seven-point advantages in both New Hampshire and Michigan.



A Mason-Dixon Polling & Research poll showed Clinton with a 46 percent to 42 percent advantage over Trump in Florida. The four-point gap is just outside the poll's margin of error but is wider than the two-point lead Clinton held last month.



The poll also found that Libertarian Gary Johnson is supported by 7 percent of likely Florida voters, while just 1 percent back Green Party candidate Jill Stein and 4 percent remain undecided.



'Despite small shifts that have given Clinton a post-debate bump, the race is still very competitive and the outcome will hinge on where and among whom voter turnout is higher,' said Mason-Dixon Managing Director Brad Coker.



A separate WBUR poll found that 42 percent of likely New Hampshire voters support Clinton, while 35 percent back Trump. Johnson comes in third at 13 percent, and another 4 percent prefer Stein.



WBUR noted the survey also found that voters believe Clinton was the clear winner in Monday night's debate by a wide margin.



'She had what appeared to be a very good performance -- voters rated it very positively in the debates,' Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group, told WBUR. 'And seems to have stopped the slide that she was experiencing going into the debate.'



Additionally, the results of a Detroit News-WDIV-TV poll show Clinton with a 42 percent to 35 percent lead over Trump in Michigan, with Johnson at 9 percent and Stein at 3 percent. Nine percent remain undecided.



Likely Michigan voters were also more likely to say that Clinton won the first presidential debate, with 52 percent saying the former Secretary of State came out on top.



Michigan has voted for the Democratic candidate in each of the last six presidential elections, but Trump is hoping to put the state in play and is making his fifth visit to Michigan since accepting the nomination on Friday.



All three polls showed significant gender gaps, with women favoring Clinton and men backing Trump. The polls also showed that neither candidate is particularly well liked.



The Mason-Dixon survey of 820 likely Florida voters was conducted September 27th through 29th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.



The WBUR poll of 502 likely New Hampshire voters was conducted by MassINC from September 27th through 29th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.



The Detroit News-WDIV-TV survey of 600 likely Michigan voters was conducted by Glengariff Group from September 27th through 29th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.



(Photo: Gage Skidmore)



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
Editor's note: While many national environmental and energy reporters were covering the first arguments being made in the legal challenge to Clean Power Plan in detail, I chose not to. Instead, today we published an interview with BNEF's Nathan Serota explaining why CPP is not the most pressing issue for the solar industry right now. - Americas Editor Christian Roselund The stories came fast and heavy this week. And while solar advocates don't always win in policy fights, this was a both a good week and a busy one for solar and storage. Topping the list, on Monday California Governor Jerry Brown signed four new laws which will dramatically increase distributed energy storage in the state. California provided more sunny news, with state regulators denying a challenge to the state's "net metering 2.0" by utilities and other parties. In Nevada, a task force convened by Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval has recommended ...

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
VANCOUVER, BC -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- CVR Medical Corp. (TSX VENTURE: CVM) ("CVR Medical") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a consulting agreement effective as of September 27, 2016 with Brisco Capital Partners Corp. ("Brisco Capital") for the provision of investor relation services.

Brisco Capital will initiate and maintain contact with the financial community, shareholders, investors and other stakeholders for the purpose of increasing awareness of CVR Medical and its activities. The agreement between CVR Medical and Brisco Capital is for an ongoing basis that may be terminated by either party by 30 days of written notice and is subject to acceptance from the TSX Venture Exchange. Brisco Capital will receive a monthly retainer of $6,500 plus applicable taxes at the start of each month, plus expenses. In addition, CVR Medical has granted an aggregate of 350,000 incentive stock options with an exercise price of $0.21. The stock options will vest immediately upon grant and the common shares issuable upon exercise will be subject to a four-month hold period. The 350,000 stock options granted to Brisco Capital are part of the aggregate 6,000,000 stock options that were previously granted and announced by news release on September 15, 2016.

About CVR Medical

CVR Medical is a company that is involved in an equal parts joint venture with CVR Global Inc. (the "Joint Venture"). The Joint Venture operates in the medical industry focused on the commercialization of a proprietary subsonic, infrasonic, and low frequency sound wave analysis technology and has patents to a diagnostic device designed to detect and measure carotid arterial stenosis. CVR Medical is managed by a proven technical team. CVR Medical trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol CVM.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD:

(signed) "Peter Bakema"

CEO, President & Director

This press release contains forward-looking information that involves various risks and uncertainties regarding future events related to the Joint Venture. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or developments to differ materially from those contained in the statements and are not guarantees of future performance of the Company. No assurance can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will occur or, if they do occur, what benefits the Company will obtain from them. These forward-looking statements reflect management's current views and are based on certain expectations, estimates and assumptions which may prove to be incorrect. A number of risks and uncertainties could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including: (1) a downturn in general economic conditions in North America and internationally, (2) the inherent uncertainties and speculative nature associated with commercialization of technology and the practice of medicine, (3) a change in health regulations, (4) any number of events or causes which may delay or cease commercialization and development of the Joint Venture, (5) the risk that the Company or the Joint Venture does not execute its business plan, (6) inability to retain key employees, (7) inability to finance operations and growth, and (8) other factors beyond the Company's control. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and, except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results differed from those projected in the forward-looking statements

THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE INC. HAS NEITHER APPROVED NOR DISAPPROVED THE CONTENTS OF THIS PRESS RELEASE. NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

CONTACT:

Peter Bakema

CEO, President and Director

Telephone: (604) 669-0780



Brisco Capital Partners Corp.

Scott Koyich

President

Telephone: (403) 262-9888




Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Nuclear Decommissioning Services Market Global Forecast to 2021" report to their offering.

The global nuclear decommissioning services market is projected to reach USD 8.55 Billion by 2021, at a CAGR of 12.1% from 2016 to 2021. This growth can be attributed to nuclear accidents and rising political pressure for pre-closure of nuclear power plants.

Europe held the largest market share, followed by North America and Asia-Pacific. In 2015, Germany dominated the European nuclear decommissioning services market. This can be attributed to government support, followed by public concern for pre-closure of nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, the market is estimated to grow the fastest in the Asia-Pacific, owing to a higher number of nuclear power plants in Japan and South Korea. The figure given below indicates the market size of various regions by 2021, with their respective CAGRs.

The decommissioning cost on average ranges in between USD 600 Million to USD 750 Million. However, the actual cost incurred can be more than the average estimated cost since many factors are involved in decommissioning a nuclear power plant. These factors are restraining the growth of the nuclear decommissioning services market.

Companies Mentioned:

AECOM

Ansaldo NES (Nuclear Engineering Services Limited)

Areva Group

Babcock International Group plc

Enercon Services, Inc.

EnergySolutions

GD Energy Services-Nuclear

KDC Contractors Limited

Nuvia Group

Onet Technologies

Sogin S.p.A. (Societa Gestione Impianti Nucleari)

Studsvik AB

Westinghouse Electric Company

Key Topics Covered:

1 Introduction

2 Research Methodology

3 Executive Summary

4 Premium Insights

5 Market Overview

6 Nuclear Decommissioning Services Market Industry Trends

7 Nuclear Decommissioning Services Market, By Reactor Type

8 Nuclear Decommissioning Services Market, By Decommissioning Strategy

9 Nuclear Decommissioning Services Market, By Capacity

10 Nuclear Decommissioning Services Market, By Region

11 Competitive Landscape

12 Company Profile

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/dvtc59/nuclear.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005864/en/

Contacts:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

For EST Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

Related Topics: Nuclear Power
MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Orbite Technologies Inc. (TSX: ORT)(OTCQX: EORBF) ("Orbite", or the "Company") today announced that, further to its press release of September 21, 2016, production activities have commenced at its high purity alumina ("HPA") plant.

-- Commissioning and start-up of the digestion circuit was completed, as planned. The first batch of feedstock digestion commenced this afternoon and will be followed by another batch early tomorrow. -- Commissioning and start-up of the crystallisation circuit is well advanced and the first batches of liquor, produced in the digestion circuit, will be transferred to the crystallisation circuit over the weekend for first production of aluminum chloride hexahydrate ("ACH"). crystals. ACH crystals are the precursor to high purity alumina ("HPA"). -- Production will continue in batch mode in these two circuits as extensive testing will be carried out on the digester liquors and ACH crystals, to ensure production and purity criteria are met. Each full digestion and crystallisation batch cycle will initially take approximately 3.5 days to complete. -- Once the ACH crystals meet the purity criteria, they will be transferred to the decomposer and calciner circuit for HPA production. -- Once production and purity criteria are met in all three circuits, the plant will switch over to semi-continuous operation mode and commence ramp up to name plate capacity.

"We are very pleased to have now commenced the production sequence at our HPA plant," stated Glenn Kelly, CEO of Orbite. "We are entering a very exciting phase in our evolution as a company, and we would like to thank our employees and contractors for their sustained and concentrated efforts over the last months."

About Orbite

Orbite Technologies Inc. is a Canadian cleantech company whose innovative and proprietary processes are expected to produce alumina and other high-value products, such as rare earth and rare metal oxides, at one of the lowest costs in the industry, and in a sustainable fashion, using feedstocks that include aluminous clay, kaolin, nepheline, bauxite, red mud, fly ash as well as serpentine residues from chrysotile processing sites. Orbite is currently in the process of finalizing its first commercial high-purity alumina (HPA) production plant in Cap-Chat, Quebec and has completed the basic engineering for a proposed smelter-grade alumina (SGA) production plant, which would use clay mined from its Grande-Vallee deposit. The Company's portfolio contains 16 intellectual property families, including 37 patents and 91 pending patent applications in 11 different countries and regions. The first intellectual property family is patented in Canada, USA, Australia, China, Japan and Russia. The Company also operates a state of the art technology development center in Laval, Quebec, where its technologies are developed and validated.

Forward-looking statements

Certain information contained in this document may include "forward-looking information". Without limiting the foregoing, the information and any forward-looking information may include statements regarding projects, costs, objectives and future returns of the Company or hypotheses underlying these items. In this document, words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "likely", "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "intend", "plan", "estimate" and similar words and the negative form thereof are used to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether, or the times at or by which, such future performance will be achieved. Forward-looking statements and information are based on information available at the time and/or the Company management's good-faith beliefs with respect to future events and are subject to known or unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other unpredictable factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control. These risks uncertainties and assumptions include, but are not limited to, those described in the section of the Management's Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) entitled "Risk and Uncertainties" as filed on March 30, 2016 on SEDAR, including those under the headings "Recent increase in budgeted capital costs will require additional financing and may adversely impact our prospects", "We will need to raise capital to continue our growth" and "Development Goals and Time Frames".

The Company does not intend, nor does it undertake, any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information or statements contained in this document to reflect subsequent information, events or circumstances or otherwise, except as required by applicable laws.

Contacts:

NATIONAL Equicom

Marc Lakmaaker, External Investor Relations Consultant

416-848-1397

mlakmaaker@national.ca



For Media Inquiries:

NATIONAL Equicom

Scott Anderson, External Media Relations Consultant

416-586-1954

sanderson@national.ca




FRANKFURT, GERMANY -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- The Ultra-Broadband Forum 2016 entered its second day with intelligent discussions around "Business Innovation and Network Enablement in the Cloud Era". Huawei and leading global telecom operators, including BBF, Telefonica, TIM, KPN, Orange, du, as well as the Linux Foundation shared their viewpoints about the next steps in the development of Ultra-Broadband.

An intelligent world, in which all things are connected, smart and can be sensed, is coming towards us. As a result, telecom operators' business is fundamentally changing. David Wang, President of Huawei Network Solutions, said: "In the intelligent world, telecom operators should rethink their role and business model in the B2C, B2B and IoT markets. Huawei believes that telecom operators' core business proposition should be centered on the concept of FMC 3.0. By building up a ubiquitous, experience-driven, agile and on-demand ultra-broadband network, telecom operators will be able to monetize the business opportunities created by vertical market digital transformation."

The emergence of Gigaband connectivity is an accepted trend. The industry is witnessing the accelerating growth of 4K and VR along with large-scale enterprise digitalization and cloudification and the deepening development of industry IoT. The ultra-broadband all-connected network is going to be the major driving force of the emergence of all things sensing and all things connected and the fundamental building blocks of the intelligent world.

From telecom operators' point of view, FMC 1.0 was more about the broadband connection services which converged the fixed and mobile broadband networks. FMC 2.0 focused on the monetization of UBB through continuous optimization and development of content services, which are positioned as the basic service. On top of FMC 1.0 and 2.0, Huawei now releases the FMC 3.0 concept to facilitate operators redefining the scope of their business:

In B2C markets, operators need to position video as the core basic service to fulfill their customers' continuously growing expectations in user experience.





In B2B markets, since enterprise customers require integrated ICT services which can provide the "R.O.A.D.S" experience instead of basic communications services, operators need to cloudify themselves completely so as to meet enterprise customers' ever-growing demand of digitalization.





In addition, operators need to use IoT as an entry point into the digital transformation of vertical markets.

Based on the FMC3.0-centric business proposition, Huawei defines three directions for the development of telecom operators' ultra-broadband network:

Beyond human beings, connect everything: forging a network that compels the business success of the Smart Home and the Agile IoT by extending network coverage from "the last mile" to "the last inch".





Beyond bandwidth, focus on user experience: engineering the unified bearer transport network to enable the best possible experiences for families, individuals and enterprise customers.





Beyond network, embrace the cloud: building an end-to-end agile on-demand network which not only meets customers' needs of agile VPN and customized cloud services, but also enables operators to monetize the new cloud-based services.

The UBBF is jointly organized by the UN Broadband Commission and Huawei, to create a platform for communications between carriers, content providers, consumer electronics vendors, Internet service providers, and regulatory agencies worldwide. Through discussion of the future developments of ultra-broadband, the Forum promotes the commercial success of all industry members and the sound and sustainable development of the ultra-broadband industry ecosystem.

About Huawei

Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. Our aim is to enrich life and improve efficiency through a better connected world, acting as a responsible corporate citizen, innovative enabler for the information society, and collaborative contributor to the industry. Driven by customer-centric innovation and open partnerships, Huawei has established an end-to-end ICT solutions portfolio that gives customers competitive advantages in telecom and enterprise networks, devices and cloud computing. Huawei's 170,000 employees worldwide are committed to creating maximum value for telecom operators, enterprises and consumers. Our innovative ICT solutions, products and services are used in more than 170 countries and regions, serving over one-third of the world's population. Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company fully owned by its employees.

For more information, please visit Huawei online at www.huawei.com or follow us on:

http://www.linkedin.com/company/Huawei

http://www.twitter.com/Huawei

http://www.facebook.com/Huawei

http://www.google.com/+Huawei

http://www.youtube.com/Huawei

Media Contact

Miranda Liu

miranda.liu@huawei.com




Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate. (Copyright: Simon Davis/DFID)



Selangor, Malaysia, Oct 1, 2016 - (ACN Newswire) - After the Taliban attempted to assassinate Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani newspapers used common language to describe the attack, which suggests the media has influence in changing social perceptions of the group, according to research published in the Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (JSSH).Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest person to receive a Nobel Prize. She started writing a blog for BBC Urdu in 2009 and subsequently reported for other media about her life in the Swat valley under the Taliban, which banned girls from attending local schools. On 9 October 2012, she was attacked on a school bus by the extremist group, but survived. The incident received national and international media coverage despite Talibani threats.In a JSSH study, Noor Hayat and Juliana Abdul Wahab of Universiti Sains Malaysia analysed four leading Pakistani English language newspapers to determine how Malala Yousafzai and the Taliban were portrayed after the attack. In their analysis, the researchers used the "media framing theory", which in this study refers to the act of selecting certain aspects of a perceived reality and making them easier to communicate to highlight an issue, definition and/or solution of a topic.The researchers chose 29 editorials containing the word "Malala" that were published in the online editions of The News, Dawn, Daily Times and The Nation, between 10 October and 10 November 2012. These papers are considered more credible and influential to policy makers than those reporting in local languages.The team found that the editorials generally portrayed Malala positively: 58% referred to her as an "innocent girl" who stood up for girls' education, 25.3% called her "courageous" and 17.4% used the term "activist"; in particular, The Nation and Daily Times praised Malala's bravery more than the other two papers. By comparison, the Taliban was framed negatively with the word "fanatic" appearing in 48.2% of editorials, "terrorist" in 38.5% and "anti-development" in 14.3%.According to the researchers, their findings showed that newspapers were highlighting the Taliban's hardline actions against girls' education, in contrast to the different interpretations of its religious ideology that newspapers used to discuss in the past.Furthermore, Pakistani people now generally regard the Taliban as a group that calls itself Muslim and imposes Shariah law (also known as the Islam law), but which in reality defies all humanity and religion, the team added.They concluded that the Taliban's attack on Malala made it more unpopular overall, resulting in negative presentations in national newspapers and possibly a shift in how people perceive it.For more information about this research, please contact:Noor HayatSchool of CommunicationsUniversiti Sains Malaysia11800 Penang, MalaysiaEmail: noorhayatsargana@gmail.comMobile: +6017 282 8429About Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities (JSSH)Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities (JSSH) is published by Universiti Putra Malaysia in English and is open to authors around the world regardless of nationality. It is published four times a year in March, June, September and December. Other Pertanika series include Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science (JTAS), and Pertanika Journal of Science & Technology (JST).JSSH aims to develop as a pioneer journal for the social sciences with a focus on emerging issues pertaining to the social and behavioural sciences as well as the humanities. Areas relevant to the scope of the journal include Social Sciences - Accounting, anthropology, Archaeology and history, Architecture and habitat, Consumer and family economics, Economics, Education, Finance, Geography, Law, Management studies, Media and communication studies, Political sciences and public policy, Population studies, Psychology, Sociology, Technology management, Tourism; Humanities - Arts and culture, Dance, Historical and civilisation studies, Language and Linguistics, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Religious studies, Sports.The journal publishes original academic articles dealing with research on issues of worldwide relevance. The journals cater for scientists, professors, researchers, post-docs, scholars and students who wish to promote and communicate advances in the fields of Social Sciences & Humanities research.Website: http://www.pertanika.upm.edu.my/The paper is available from the following links: http://bit.ly/2dxctqXFor more information about the journal, contact:The Chief Executive Editor (UPM Journals)Head, Journal Division, UPM PressOffice of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (R&I)IDEA Tower 2, UPM-MDTC Technology CentreUniversiti Putra Malaysia43400 Serdang, SelangorMalaysia.Phone: +603 8947 1622 | +6016 217 4050Email: nayan@upm.myPress release distributed by ResearchSEA for Pertanika Journal.Source: Pertanika JournalCopyright 2016 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Horizon Minerals Corp. ("Horizon" or the "Company") (OTC PINK: HZNM) is pleased to announce an update on its corporate activities and expected work programs for 2016 and 2017. As previously announced on March 25, 2013, the Company changed its name from Safe Dynamics Corp. to Horizon Minerals Corp., with the intent to enter the mineral mining industry. The Company has now completed a review of its assets and believes it has a clear pathway to optimizing the value of its assets and create significant value for shareholders.

The Company's intent is to focus its corporate efforts on lithium, an energy metal commodity synergistic with the Company's existing business operations and technical capabilities. The Company's unique capabilities, newly applied to the lithium industry, will create increased shareholder value and expose the Company to rapidly expanding global demand for lithium. The Company has advanced its program of mining target identification, exploration and evaluation, and is now negotiating specific mineral claims for a prospective portfolio of lithium projects.

On August 10, 2016, the Company announced the engagement of Gold Exploration Management Inc. ("Gold Exploration"), a private corporation providing mineral exploration project management services. Gold Exploration has been actively involved in the evaluation of gold and lithium exploration concessions in Nevada, which hosts the only commercial producing lithium operation in North America - Silver Peak, owned and operated by Albemarle Corporation. The Company continues to evaluate opportunities through Gold Exploration and expects to update shareholders soon about the interim results of this engagement.

The Company is dedicated to responsibly identifying, acquiring and developing lithium mineral assets in mining-friendly jurisdictions. With the support of its technical advisors, the Company is systematically moving through the process of analyzing lithium prospects under the regulations of local authorities.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions as of the date of this news release. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations. They are not guarantees of future performance. Horizon cautions that all forward looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond Horizon's control. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to Horizon's business plan, Horizon's ability to raise sufficient financing and Horizon's limited operating history. There is no assurance that the anticipated events will transpire as planned. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, Horizon undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory body has reviewed nor accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Investors are advised to carefully review the reports and documents that Horizon files from time to time with the SEC, including its Annual, Quarterly and Current Reports.

Contacts:

Robert Fedun

President and CEO

1.587.984.2321




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust ("CAPREIT") (TSX: CAR.UN) announced today that it has completed the acquisition of an 87-suite luxury townhome property in London, Ontario.

The property is centrally located in North West London close to a large shopping centre, schools, restaurants, banks and fitness centres, and is a short drive from the University of Western Ontario, one of Canada's largest post-secondary institutions. Each townhome has three bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and a single car garage. The majority of suites include a finished basement, and all are sub-metered for hydro, water and gas. The complex, completed in June 2016, is 94% occupied and is near currently-owned CAPREIT properties.

CAPREIT paid approximately $22.5 million for the property, financed with its Acquisition and Operating credit facility.

"We are pleased to complete this exciting acquisition of a brand new, modern and luxury townhome property, which complements our growing London, Ontario portfolio," commented Thomas Schwartz, President and CEO. "The addition of this property demonstrates our commitment to diversifying our portfolio to reduce risk and strengthening our presence across Canada's strongest rental markets. By leveraging our proven property management program, we will add immediate and significant value to this asset by focusing on operating efficiency and reduced costs."

ABOUT CAPREIT

As one of Canada's largest residential landlords, CAPREIT is a growth-oriented investment trust owning interests in 48,190 residential units, comprising 41,747 residential suites and 31 manufactured home communities comprising 6,443 land lease sites located in and near major urban centres across Canada. For more information about CAPREIT, its business and its investment highlights, please refer to our website at www.caprent.com or www.capreit.net and our public disclosure, which can be found under our profile at www.sedar.com.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENTS REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

All statements in this press release that do not relate to historical facts constitute forward-looking statements. These statements represent CAPREIT's intentions, plans, expectations and beliefs and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could result in actual results differing materially from these forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are more fully described in regulatory filings that can be obtained on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Contacts:

CAPREIT

Mr. Michael Stein

Chairman

(416) 861-5788



CAPREIT

Mr. Thomas Schwartz

President & CEO

(416) 861-9404



CAPREIT

Mr. Scott Cryer

Chief Financial Officer

(416) 861-5771




LEXINGTON, KY -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Rhino Resource Partners LP (OTCQB: RHNO) ("Rhino" or the "Partnership") announced today that it has entered into an equity exchange agreement (the "Agreement") with Royal Energy Resources, Inc. (OTCQB: ROYE) ("Royal"), Rhino Resource Partners Holdings, LLC ("Rhino Holdings"), an entity wholly-owned by certain investment partnerships managed by Yorktown Partners LLC ("Yorktown"), and Rhino GP LLC, the general partner of Rhino.

Investment partnerships managed by Yorktown own substantially all of the outstanding common stock of Armstrong Energy, Inc. ("Armstrong Energy"), a coal producing company with mines located in the Illinois Basin in western Kentucky. The Agreement contemplates that prior to closing, Yorktown will contribute its shares of common stock of Armstrong Energy to Rhino Holdings. At the closing, Rhino Holdings will contribute those shares to Rhino in exchange for 10 million newly issued common units of Rhino. The Agreement also contemplates that Rhino GP, currently owned and controlled by Royal, will issue a 50% ownership of Rhino GP to Rhino Holdings in connection with the issuance of Rhino units for the common stock of Armstrong Energy. Closing of the Agreement is conditioned upon (i) the current bondholders of Armstrong Energy agreeing to restructure their bonds and (ii) Rhino refinancing its current revolving credit agreement with funds from an equity investment into Rhino to be arranged by Rhino Holdings. The Agreement is also subject to other standard closing conditions and required approvals. The parties anticipate the Agreement will be consummated on or before December 31, 2016.

About Rhino Resource Partners LP

Rhino Resource Partners LP is a diversified energy limited partnership that is focused on coal and energy related assets and activities, including energy infrastructure investments. Rhino produces metallurgical and steam coal in a variety of basins throughout the United States. Additional information regarding Rhino is available on its web site -- RhinoLP.com.

About Royal Energy Resources, Inc.

Royal Energy Resources, Inc. is a diversified energy company, with investments and holdings in coal, gas and renewable energy assets in North America. Royal is the majority equity owner of Rhino Resource Partners LP, and its general partner, Rhino GP LLC. Additional information regarding Royal is available on its web site -- royalenergy.us.

About Armstrong Energy, Inc.

Armstrong Energy, Inc., through its 100% wholly owned subsidiary Armstrong Coal, is a leading producer of steam coal in the Illinois Basin. Armstrong controls over 550 million tons of proven and probable coal reserves and operates six mines in Western Kentucky. Armstrong ships coal to utilities via rail, truck and barge and has the capability to provide low cost custom blend coal to fuel virtually any electric power plant in the Midwest and Southeast regions of the nation. Additional information regarding Armstrong is available on its web site -- www.armstrongenergyinc.com.

About Yorktown Partners LLC

Yorktown Partners LLC is a private investment manager founded in 1991 that invests exclusively in the energy industry. Yorktown has raised 11 private equity funds totaling over $8 billion. The investors in Yorktown's funds include university endowments, foundations, families, insurance companies and other institutional investors.

Forward-Looking Statements

Except for historical information, statements made in this press release are "forward-looking statements." All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that Rhino expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on Rhino's current expectations and beliefs concerning future developments and their potential effect on Rhino's business, operating results, financial condition and similar matters. While management believes that these forward-looking statements are reasonable as and when made, there can be no assurance that future developments affecting Rhino will turn out as Rhino anticipates. Whether actual results and developments in the future will conform to expectations is subject to significant risks, uncertainties and assumptions, many of which are beyond Rhino's control or ability to predict. Therefore, actual results and developments could materially differ from Rhino's historical experience, present expectations and what is expressed, implied or forecast in these forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the following: Rhino's inability to obtain additional financing necessary to fund its capital expenditures, meet working capital needs and maintain and grow its operations or its inability to obtain alternative financing upon the expiration of its credit facility; Rhino's future levels of indebtedness, liquidity and compliance with debt covenants; volatility and recent declines in the price of Rhino's common units; sustained depressed levels of or decline in coal prices, which depend upon several factors such as the supply of domestic and foreign coal, the demand for domestic and foreign coal, governmental regulations, price and availability of alternative fuels for electricity generation and prevailing economic conditions; declines in demand for electricity and coal; current and future environmental laws and regulations, which could materially increase operating costs or limit Rhino's ability to produce and sell coal; extensive government regulation of mine operations, especially with respect to mine safety and health, which imposes significant actual and potential costs; difficulties in obtaining and/or renewing permits necessary for operations; the availability and prices of competing electricity generation fuels; a variety of operating risks, such as unfavorable geologic conditions, adverse weather conditions and natural disasters, mining and processing equipment unavailability, failures and unexpected maintenance problems and accidents, including fire and explosions from methane; poor mining conditions resulting from the effects of prior mining; the availability and costs of key supplies and commodities such as steel, diesel fuel and explosives; fluctuations in transportation costs or disruptions in transportation services, which could increase competition or impair Rhino's ability to supply coal; a shortage of skilled labor, increased labor costs or work stoppages; Rhino's ability to secure or acquire new or replacement high-quality coal reserves that are economically recoverable; material inaccuracies in Rhino's estimates of coal reserves and non-reserve coal deposits; existing and future laws and regulations regulating the emission of sulfur dioxide and other compounds, which could affect coal consumers and reduce demand for coal; federal and state laws restricting the emissions of greenhouse gases; Rhino's ability to acquire or failure to maintain, obtain or renew surety bonds used to secure obligations to reclaim mined property; Rhino's dependence on a few customers and its ability to find and retain customers under favorable supply contracts; changes in consumption patterns by utilities away from the use of coal, such as changes resulting from low natural gas prices; changes in governmental regulation of the electric utility industry; Rhino's ability to successfully diversify its operations into other non-coal natural resources; disruption in supplies of coal produced by contractors operating Rhino's mines; defects in title in properties that Rhino owns or losses of any of its leasehold interests; Rhino's ability to retain and attract senior management and other key personnel; material inaccuracy of assumptions underlying reclamation and mine closure obligations; and weakness in global economic conditions.

Other factors that could cause Rhino's actual results to differ from its projected results are described in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Rhino undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements after the date they are made, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless required by law.

Investor Contact:

Scott Morris

+1 859.519.3622

smorris@rhinolp.com




Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE: TFX), a leading global provider of medical devices for critical care, urology and surgery, is committed to connecting clinicians with technology in a way that improves clinical practice and advances patient outcomes. Teleflex will present its innovative intraosseous vascular access system and products for rescue airway, atomization and intubation needs at the European Society for Emergency Medicine (EuSEM)in Vienna, Austria on October 2-5, 2016.

The main objective of EuSEM is to help and support European countries to implement the specialty of Emergency Medicine. Born as a society of individuals in 1994 from a multidisciplinary group of experts in Emergency Medicine, since 2005, EuSEM has also incorporated national society members. There are currently 33 European national societies of Emergency Medicine.

During the event, Teleflex will showcase its Arrow EZ-IO Intraosseous Vascular Access System and other products for rescue airway, atomization and intubation needs, and support an industry workshop on Free Open Access Medical Education (FOAM) entitled "FOAM Rises: Is it clean air or rotten gas?"

The Arrow EZ-IO Intraosseous Vascular Access System from Teleflex is an innovative and complete solution for rapid vascular access whether the emergency responder is facing difficult vascular access challenges or the need for fast intraosseous access for critical situations and life-threatening emergencies. This system is designed to provide the medical professional vascular access to the central circulation system within seconds1, delivering medications, intravenous fluids and blood products to adult and pediatric patients alike.

During EuSEM, Teleflex will also focus on the new LMA Protector Laryngeal Mask Airway. The LMA Protector Airway represents a new chapter in Teleflex's search for the optimum subglottic airway. With a fully silicone construction, Cuff Pilot Technology, dual gastric channels and the ability to intubate, the LMAProtector Airway is the most advanced second generation airway from Teleflex.

When IV drug delivery is problematic, the LMAMAD Nasal Device2 from Teleflex can come to the rescue delivering safe, painless and rapidly effective treatment. No needle. No trauma. No risk of needle stick injury. In addition, Teleflex will introduce a range of laryngoscopes featuring the TruLite Secure Single-Use Laryngoscope blade and handle, complementing our existing Anaesthesia portfolio to offer complete airway solutions.

The Teleflex Clinical Medical Affairs team will also be supporting a lecture held by Dr. Roger Harris, a senior staff specialist in the intensive care unit at the Royal North Shore Hospital and the Sydney Adventist Hospital (SAN). He is dual qualified in Emergency Medicine and Intensive Care and will present a lecture entitled "FOAM Rises: Is it clean air or rotten gas?" discussing the latest Free Open Access Medical Educational models and trends. The lecture will be held on Monday, October 3, 12:55 13:55 in the Forum/Room D. The Teleflex Clinical Medical Affairs team is dedicated to ensuring the safe and appropriate use of Teleflex products and using innovative educational programs to advance clinical practice and improve patient outcomes.

About Teleflex Incorporated

Teleflex is a global provider of medical technologies designed to improve the health and quality of people's lives. We apply purpose driven innovation a relentless pursuit of identifying unmet clinical needs to benefit patients and healthcare providers. Our portfolio is diverse, with solutions in the fields of vascular and interventional access, surgical, anesthesia, cardiac care, urology, emergency medicine and respiratory care. Teleflex employees worldwide are united in the understanding that what we do every day makes a difference. For more information, please visit teleflex.com.

Teleflex is the home of Arrow, Deknatel, Hudson RCI, LMA, Pilling, Rusch and Weck trusted brands united by a common sense of purpose.

Forward-Looking Statements

Any statements contained in this press release that do not describe historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on our management's current beliefs and expectations, but are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and changes in circumstances, which may cause actual results or company actions to differ materially from what is expressed or implied by these statements. These risks and uncertainties are identified and described in more detail in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Teleflex, the Teleflex logo, Arrow, Deknatel, EZ-IO, Hudson RCI, LMA, LMA Protector, MAD Nasal, Pilling, Rusch, and Weck are trademarks or registered trademarks of Teleflex Incorporated or its affiliates, in the U.S. and/or other countries. 2016 Teleflex Incorporated. All rights reserved.

References:

1Von Hoff DD Kuhn JG, Burris HA, Miller LJ. Does intraosseous equal intravenous? A pharmacokinetic study. Amer J Emerg Med 2008;26:31-8

2For use with drugs approved for intranasal delivery

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160930005422/en/

Contacts:

Teleflex Incorporated

Jake Elguicze

Treasurer and Vice President, Investor Relations

610-948-2836

or

Martina Teichmann-Zindler

Director Marketing Communications International

+49 (0)7151-406-538

martina.teichmann@teleflex.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 09/30/16 -- Northern Vertex Mining Corp. (TSX VENTURE: NEE) (the "Company") announces that effective immediately, Ken Berry, B.Comm, has been re-appointed as the Company's President and Chief Executive Officer, replacing incumbent President and CEO Dick Whittington, who has resigned from the Company. Mr. Berry is co-founder as well as Chairman of the Company and has played an instrumental role in acquiring the Moss project as well as helping to raise in excess of $47 million to advance the Company's now 100% owned Moss Mine Gold-Silver project in Western Arizona from the exploration stage to final feasibility. Mr. Berry will also assume the role of President at the Company's wholly owned Arizona subsidiary, Golden Vertex Corp.

Chairman and CEO Ken Berry states; "On behalf of our entire Board, I would like to thank Dick for his leadership during his tenure as CEO of the Company. Dick has played a key role in getting the Company positioned for the next step in its exciting growth. In particular, he led the Company's feasibility study team in last year's highly economic feasibility study, the arbitration with Patriot and, earlier this year, the subsequent purchase of the remaining 30% of the Moss project from Patriot. The Company now owns 100% of a development ready, near term production project which we are looking forward to expediting to production. We wish him all the best and continued success in the future.

"As President and CEO, I will continue to work closely with the Northern Vertex / Golden Vertex team in what I consider to be one of the best gold production opportunities in Arizona," Mr. Berry continued. "This includes liasoning with our Golden Vertex General Manager Joe Bardswich, who played a vital role in the success of our Phase I pilot production program and our Moss Mine Project Manager David Stone who will be a pivotal force in further streamlining our approach to upcoming construction and mine development operations."

Construction Team Remains Focused

As Northern Vertex's President and CEO, Mr. Berry brings over 20 years of senior level experience in capital markets and mine exploration and development. Among his accomplishments, as a co-founder and current Chairman of Kootenay Silver Inc., over the past two years Mr. Berry has helped guide Kootenay through a major transitional period that included the strategic acquisition of Canadian based Northair Silver Corp. and a carried interest to production option agreement with Pan American Silver Corp.

Mr. Berry will be working with Northern Vertex's recently appointed construction Project Manager, Dr. David Stone to oversee the design, procurement and construction activities of EPCM contractor M3 Engineering, our heap leach facilities consultant, our mine contractor and other site based contractors through to production. Dr. Stone has authored numerous prefeasibility and feasibility studies. He has extensive experience in the design and construction of heap leach mines dating back to the 1980's including Beal Mountain and Basin Creek in Montana, Yellow Aster in California, Manhattan in Nevada and Brewery Creek in the Yukon.

Joe Bardswich, P.E. (Arizona), the Golden Vertex General Manager will lead permitting activities, heavy construction mobilization and initial crew activation at the Moss mine site. Mr Bardswich has extensive experience in all facets of mining from contract miner, through to production supervision, mining engineering, heavy civil engineering and mine management in underground, open pit and alluvial operations in Canada, the U.S., Europe and Africa. Mr. Bardswich is a Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario and a life member of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (CIM) and is a "Qualified Person" as defined in NI 43-101 Standards for Mineral Disclosure. Mr. Bardswich is a graduate of the University of Windsor (B.A.Sc.,Civil Engineering) and received his Masters Degree (M.Eng. Mining) from McGill University.

Bob Cuffney, Consulting Geologist will continue to play a significant role as the company advances to commercial production at the Moss Mine. Mr. Cuffney will also be responsible to assist in the design and implementation of an anticipated systematic multi-phase drill and resource expansion program at the Moss project that is expected to run concurrently with the mine construction and production schedule. In addition to its existing gold-silver resource, over 95% of the Moss property remains largely unexplored. There is up to 3.0 kilometers of untested strike extent on the structure hosting the Moss resource itself. The Moss is a mineral rich property package that hosts over 200 historic mining disturbances. Geological mapping and airborne magnetics indicates a potential for up to approx. 21 km of untested strike in several structures. Surface sampling and mapping to date has identified several priority targets which will be the focus of the upcoming multi-phase exploration / drilling program.

Northern Vertex has contracted M3 Engineering & Technology Corp. of Tucson, Arizona, as the Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management ("EPCM") provider for the Company's Moss Mine Project. M3 will be responsible for the detailed design, procurement of the necessary equipment and supplies and managing the construction of all processing and auxiliary surface facilities required to support the planned 5,000 tonnes per day, open pit, heap leach, gold and silver mine as outlined in the Company's Feasibility Study released last year (see news release dated June 8th, 2015).

About Northern Vertex: Northern Vertex Mining Corp. is an exploration and mining company focused on the reactivation of its 100% owned Moss Mine Gold/Silver Project located in NW Arizona, USA. The Moss Mine Gold-Silver Project is an epithermal, brecciated, low sulphidation quartz-calcite vein and stockwork system which extends over a strike length of 1,400 meters and has been drill tested to depths of 370 meters vertically. It is a potential heap leach, open pit project that has been advanced to the Feasibility Study stage to ensure that technical, economic, permitting and funding requirements are met prior to proceeding with the development of the mine. The Company's management comprises an experienced management team with a strong background in all aspects of acquisition, exploration, development, operations and financing of mining projects worldwide. The Company is focused on working effectively and respectfully with our stakeholders in the vicinity of the historical Moss Mine and enhancing the capacity of the local communities in the area.

Qualified Persons:

The foregoing technical information contained in this news release has been approved by Mr. L.J. Bardswich, P.Eng., General Manager Moss Project, and a Qualified Person ("QP") for the purpose of National Instrument 43-101 (Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects).

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF NORTHERN VERTEX

"Kenneth Berry"

President & CEO

For further information, please visit www.northernvertex.com.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains statements about our future business and planned activities. These are "forward-looking" because we have used what we know and expect today to make a statement about the future. Forward-looking statements including but are not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work and analyses. Forward-looking statements usually include words such as may, intend, plan, expect, anticipate, believe or other similar words. We believe the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable. However, actual events and results could be substantially different because of the risks and uncertainties associated with our business or events that happen after the date of this news release. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. As a general policy, we do not update forward-looking statements except as required by securities laws and regulations.

2016 number 19

Contacts:

Investor Relations

604-601-3656 or 1-855-633-8798

www.northernvertex.com




(ASX:BSM)

Hello, Im Carolyn Herbert from the Finance News Network. Joining me from Australias only current graphite producer, Bass Metals Limitedis CEO, Tim McManus. Tim, welcome to FNN.Thank you.Can you start by giving us an introduction to Bass Metals?Bass is an Australian listed company. We most recently bought the Graphmada graphite mine in Madagascar. We have a market cap of about $16 million to $18 million, and we feel weve just started our journey in the graphite space. Most importantly, were the only producer of graphite on the ASX and were looking forward to expanding on that production.Now to your Graphmada graphite mine, whats the size of the resource and whats taking place?Graphmada is located in Madagascar. It has 5.7 million tonnes at 4.12 per cent total graphite content; were looking to expand on that. We have some drilling proposed for later this year. We have a 6,000 tonne per annum plant, and all the associated infrastructure with that. But at the moment its not running at its nameplate capacity, so its running at about 3,000 tonnes per annum. So we look to invest some capital, get that up and running and then expand into the market from there.What are the key milestones and expansion plans?We have two clear projects for the company. One is an operational improvement project where well invest money into existing infrastructure, improve our recoveries in our grade. The second project is an expansion project where well build an additional plant, take our capacity up to 20,000-25,000 tonnes per annum, do a fair amount of drilling to find the resource. With mining permits already in place, and there for 40 years, we can produce enough graphite for the long term.What are the economics of the project?This is the opportunity for Bass  we bought a breakeven project. It makes enough money to wash its face, as some would say. And then were looking to invest some capital to increase that production, expand into different markets and then build from there.Where will production go and what markets are you selling into?At the moment were selling into the US market, India and Europe. We sold about 1,500 tonnes last year. Were looking to increase that through to the nameplate capacity as I mentioned  to 6,000 tonnes. And then expand on that to take us to 20,000 tonnes. But the main two markets that were looking to really leverage off is the traditional market and refractories, and then the expandable graphite market. The battery market for us is a great opportunity, but thats down the track. We want to leverage off traditional markets at the moment.Now to finances, you recently completed a capital raising. How much did you raise and where will the funds go?We recently raised just over $7 million. A good portion of that is being spent at the moment, expanding and improving current production. Well look to spend probably about $0.5 million on drilling, starting in October and expanding our resource. And then longer term, well look to use some of that money to develop our expansion projects, and then seek investment for that capital investment.What are your financials targets for this financial year?This year were looking to continue to breakeven at the mine. And then expand on our production and become cash flow positive. For us thats very much around improving recoveries in the grade, through some moderate capital investment in the existing plant. So thats our main target. Were on track so far. Weve already improved our recovery in our grades. Were looking to see that become more consistent, and then develop our relationships in the market for that.Finally Tim. Where would you like to see the company 12 months from now, and over the longer term?Wed like our expansion project to be well in progress, looking to almost seek construction approvals and finance. We think our existing mine will be at a cash flow positive state; making approximately a couple of million dollars a year, at the 6,000 tonne per annum rate. And then the great opportunity to springboard for us is to build off that into the growing markets, like expandable graphite and batteries.Tim McManus, thanks for the introduction to Bass Metals.Thanks very much for your time.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray spoke out against Bollywood actor Salman Khan's support of Pakistani artistes, on Friday evening.

At an event on Friday, 30 September, Salman was asked for his opinion on the boycott of Pakistani artistes in India.

Khan had replied that artistes could not be equated with terrorists.

Salman had further added that the "ideal situation would have been peace [between the two countries]" but since there had been an attack on India, there "would be some reaction". He also pointed out that there was a difference between artistes who had gained appropriate visas and permission from the government to work in India, and the terrorists who perpetrated the Uri attacks that left 18 of our military personnel dead.

While Salman's statements garnered both support and criticism in equal measure on social media, MNS chief Raj Thackeray was vocal in what he thought of the superstar's comments.

In an interview with Times Now, Thackeray said:

"What we need to understand is that the soldiers who die defending our borders, it's not that they have some personal enmity with Pakistan. And the bullets that hit them aren't 'filmi' bullets. They're real, unlike the ones Salman faces in his movies."

He added that the question of art and artistes not being constrained by borders did not arise.

"Artistes don't drop from the sky," Thackeray told Times Now. "Even I'm an artiste."

The MNS has been among the most strident voices demanding the ouster of all Pakistani artistes from India. This week, they issued a diktat that all artistes from across the border should leave Indian soil within 48 hours, "or else face the consequences". The MNS also held protests outside the office of filmmaker karan Johar in Mumbai, asking that fawad Khan be removed from Johar's upcoming film Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. A similar demand was made concerning Mahira Khan's removal from Raees.

Thackeray said of the MNS' eviction threats: "The ones who were asked to leave in 48 hours, they were first asked if they would condemn [the Uri attacks]. It was only when they refused that they were asked to leave."

"What if the soldiers at the borders tomorrow decide to lay down their arms and say they want to attend a Ghulam Ali concert. Are the soldiers our servants?" Thackeray asked.

"I am told many times, that Pakistanis are nice people. What difference does that make? The only ones who come before us are the terrorists."

"In a country of a billion, are you saying that there is no talent in India that can be promoted, that we have to borrow their artistes?" Thackeray concluded.
As the big sales events in the e-commerce draw near India's top-notch the battle for market share by ecommerce companies have reached a fever pitch. However, the key to success lies in their ability to offer wide-ranging products envisaging smartphones, TVs and Home appliances .

For online retailers, these product categories have always contributed maximum sales because of the availability of variety of branded electronic goods besides reasonable discount offers available on them compared to the price tag in other retail outlets.

With the festive sale offer season ready to go live in the next 24 hours time, online retailers like Flipkart and Amazon are going extra mile to stitch exclusive deals with number of smartphone and TV companies. For Flipkart, this festive sale season will be of immense important in the wake of rising competition with its nearest rival Amazon, which is virtually gunning at its throat to dislodge its number one position through its big-bang expansion plans.

To start with, Flipkart will be holding its Big Billion Days sale between 2-6 October, and the Amazon India sale will be from 1-5 October. On Thursday, Flipkart said it will make its platform available for US tech giant Apple to sell the latest edition of iPhone on its platform from October 7. This is the first time that Apple has collaborated with an e-commerce company in India to sell a new iPhone version. "Flipkart will offer iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus... beginning on October 7," Flipkart said in a statement.

For smartphones, the Bengaluru-headquartered company has partnered with Samsung's Galaxy On8, Motorola's E3 Power and Xiaomi's Redmi 3S, while the online retailer has sealed exclusive deals with BPL and LeEco for TVs.

India's second-biggest online retailer Amazon, too, has got several smartphone players on its board for this festive sale season. It has struck exclusive smartphone deals with Lenova Z2 Plus, Lenova Vibe K5 and OnePlus 3, with a total of 57 exclusive smartphone tieups, says a Mint report.

For ecommerce companies, electronic goods form 70 percent of gross sales, and within electronics smartphones are the leaders followed by TVs, a Mint report said citing market researcher RedSeer Management Consulting.

Despite the exclusive partnerships, Flipkart may hold edge over its rivals due to additional sales its fashion etailers Myntra and Jabong could deliver this festive season.

According to a Business Standard report, Myntra is expecting a five-fold jump in daily sales during its upcoming festive season sale.

For this, Myntra has entered into exclusive partnerships with leading brands such as Forever 21, Marks & Spencers and French Connection for the five day festive sale, the BS report said.

To spruce up its fashion sales, Amazon India has signed deal with Aditya Birla Group-owned online fashion store abof, which will list more than 1,200 products in apparels, a Mint report said.

This launch from the house of Aditya Birla Group further enhances selection on Amazon Fashion that already includes brands from Madura Garments and Pantaloons," Mint report quoted Arun Sirdeshmukh, head, Amazon Fashion, India.

Not to be left behind, Amazon will be burning more cash not just on discounts but by offering freebies to customers in order to generate robust sales this festive sale season. According to a Times of India report, Amazon India will be offering a 2-bedroom flat in north Bengaluru through its lucky draw, and has partnered with developer Brigade group.

Similarly, the online retail giant has tied up with Chevrolet to gift two Cruze model cars, worth Rs 20 lakh each, and 8 Beat cars, worth Rs 4 lakh each, the ToI report said.

Amazon has already made a commitment to spend $5 billion in its Indian arm, and a media report yesterday said the company will invest another $2 billion here, taking total investment to $7 billion.

This comes a day after news reports said Walmart, the US-based and world's largest retail behemoth, is in advanced negotiations to invest $1 billion in India's largest online retailer Flipkart in return for a small stake in the latter.

Online retail companies are also likely to push sales of large appliances such as televisions, washing machines and refrigerators this festive season, the category ecommerce companies are betting big with huge potential.

Earlier this month, Flipkart said under its product exchange programme, it will keep prices of TVs lower by asking brands to do away with select non-essential features. In effect, the company said customers will get smart TVs of some big brands at prices the basic TVs are sold.

While the TV segment makes up for more than half of the large appliances business for the company, Flipkart has set a target to triple its market share to 20 percent of all LED TVs sold in the country in October.

Finally, ecommerce companies having robust exposure to categories like smartphones, fashion and large appliances will be able to dominate this October sale season, the Mint report said citing RedSeer Consulting.
In a setback to the Bihar government, the Patna High Court Friday quashed the government notification completely banning liquor in the state, saying it is ultra vires of the Constitution.

However, the ruling could come as a huge sigh of relief for the liquor companies, which have huge business interest in the state.

A division bench of the court comprising Chief Justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari and Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh quashed the 5 April notification of the state government to stop consumption and sale of alcohol in the state.

The 5 April notification is ultra vires to the Constitution, hence not enforceable, the court said in its verdict.

The same bench had on 20 May reserved its order on a batch of writ petitions filed by Liquor Trade Association and many individuals challenging the liquor law in Bihar brought by Nitish Kumar government with stringent penal provisions.

The state of Bihar has a sizeable number of distillery units attracting both Indian and foreign liquor companies. It has 74 breweries and plants which are operated by several big spirits companies such as Diageo Plc of the UK, United Breweries, Molson Coors and Pernod Ricard that supply to the state and other adjacent markets.

The Nitish Kumar-led Grand Secular Alliance government had first banned the manufacture, trade, sale, consumption of country-made liquor since April 1, but later imposed a blanket ban on all types of liquor including foreign liquor in the state.

Following the state government's decision to implement ban on liquor sales, spirit companies were expecting a 5-20 percent decline in sales in the market, a Mint report said in March.

According to brokerage Edelweiss Securities report in November, tax revenue from liquor sales in Bihar for FY15 stood at Rs 3,400 crore.

"Bihar contributes in low single digits to IMFL or Indian Made Foreign Liquor sales. Per capita consumption of IMFL in Bihar is likely to be much lower than the national average, given lower per capita income," the Mint report said citing Edelweiss report.

Recently, the World Economic Forums Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) ranked India at 39th position, moving ahead from last year's 55th position. A Firstpost report earlier this week said the GCI ranking is the result of a mix of factors including cheaper crude oil prices (reflected in improved macroeconomic fundamentals), a slew of reform initiatives initiated by the Modi-government to unclog the system, efforts to bring in investments and reforms in the financial sector.

However, foreign investors have always been sceptical about the Indian government's business policies over the years, forcing them to exercise caution on several occasions over their investment plans.

"India is the most difficult market in the world but you can't do stuff like that," the Economic Times report said quoting Carlsberg India Chief Executive Officer Michael Jensen.

In this interview in August, Jensen said that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had convinced him three year ago to invest in the state, which prompted him to spend a $25 million plant in 2014.

However, after being re-elected as chief minister of the state, Kumar decided to impose a complete ban on liquor sales, which has hurt its investment, the ET report said.

Despite the High Court ruling today, the Bihar government in all probability would soon approach the Supreme Court to keep the ban on liquor in the state intact. Till that time, liquor companies will continue to remain in the state of uncertainty.

With PTI inputs
After the Indian Army efficiently carried out surgical strikes on terrorists camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK), people in India congratulated the army and the central government for finally giving an appropriate response to Pakistan after the Uri terror attack.

And with good reason. The fact that the Indian Army personnel were able to destroy terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control without any casualty is truly admirable. Equally admirable was the decision of the Modi government to give a green signal to a proportionate response to the Uri attack in which 19 Indian soldiers were killed.

However, taking advantage of this situation, companies like MobiKwik, Burger Singh on Thursday announced special offers and discounts on their products.

Delhi-based food joint Burger Singh announced a 20 percent discount on its products.

Moreover, part of the coupon code in the offer was 'fpak', which again shows how Burger Singh was capitalising on hatred among sections of people in India.

MobiKwik, online mobile recharge platform, offered 20 percent cashback with special code named "ISTSTRIKE".

This shameless and flamboyant use of the anger among people to get more of their products sold obviously generated a lot of negative response on social media.

Terrible advertising by #BurgerSingh. Since when is an attack on TERRORISTS equal to one on all of Pakistan? Don't "fpak", F your immaturity  Surabhi Bhandari (@surabhi_27) September 29, 2016

What a complete fail by #BurgerSingh with its insensitive 'fpak20' discount code. Thanks for zero constructive input   Martha (@_MSalhotra) September 29, 2016

So our army carried out strikes on Terror camps so that Burgersingh can give 20% discounts on burgers https://t.co/s0zuviE734  Semi Bigot (@GreySasquatch) September 29, 2016

@MobiKwik Guys you just lost any chances of me using you again with your 1STSTRIKE promotion. Seriously?  Aishwarya Mishra (@aishmishra) September 29, 2016

At the same time, this marketing strategy actually worked to some extent, though, as there were tweets supporting Burger Singh and MobiKwik also.

Can we stop outraging & order the damn burgers? #BurgerSingh does it really well. I pray for more #SurgicalStrikes & offers @BurgerSinghs  Devarsi Ghosh (@devarsighosh) September 29, 2016

Apparently this burger joint in Gurgaon offered huge discounts on their orders celebrating #surgicalstrike  superb!! pic.twitter.com/CN1r64VsTG  Tavleen Singh Aroor (@Tavysingh) September 30, 2016

MOBIKWIK joins the wagon of celebration of indias surgical strike on porkistan...Good Initiative by @MobiKwik https://t.co/hGwE0I5LPU  Rakshit Suyal (@Being_Geek_) September 29, 2016

While there is no doubt about how wrong the decisions of Burger Singh and MobiKwik to use the Indian surgical strikes for a cheap marketing trick were, it is not at all surprising that this trick worked to some extent.

Because a large section of the Indian media has been doing something very similar to what Burger Singh and MobiKwik were doing. And when compared to the outrage generated against Burger Singh and MobiKwik, the outrage against the exaggeration and jingoism of the Indian media is negligible.

On Thursday night, a popular Hindi news channel showed an anchor praising the Indian Army while the words 'Elaan-e-jung' (call for war) were written in huge bold letters on a screen behind him.

An anchor on another Hindi news channel, in the most poetic way he could, stated how Pakistan was now 'shivering' because of the brave act of the Indian army.

On another established English news channel, the anchor and panelists were actually sitting in a newsroom that was more reminiscent of something out of Dr Strangelove than a newsroom. The news anchor brandished a pointer to show locations on a map of India  a pointer that looked eerily similar to the sort used by senior military officers when plotting out a plan for war.

Even before the surgical strikes, there were discussions held by the news channel with the words 'War Room' flashing on a screen in the newsroom, perhaps trying to hilariously give us the impression that we were actually in a war room.

In other words, if Burger Singh and MobiKwik were using the surgical strikes to sell products, a large section of the Indian media was using the surgical strikes to sell news and grab eyeballs.

In fact, that section of the Indian media has been using hatred against Pakistan for its own profit long before the surgical strikes.

The warmongering on TV news channels on Thursday night took place despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi having stressed on the importance of strategic restraint in his Kozhikode speech. Modi clearly gave a message to the aggressive calls for war when he said that a war must instead be fought against poverty and illiteracy.

The surgical strikes were certainly a proper response after the Uri attack. But the Indian media, instead of celebrating a warped sense of gleeful one-upmanship against Pakistan, should have remembered and mourned the death of the Indian soldiers after the Uri attack.

After all, the Indian surgical strikes took place to avenge those deaths in the Uri attack, not to satiate some hunger for war against Pakistan.

As this blog post in The Times of India says, "The media is the first to go to war. Its hysterical pitch provokes the tone of the national discourse. Mothballed retired generals emerge from their closets to argue how the war must be fought. They are joined by the crackpots of different political parties, including the ruling BJP, who demand that all Pakistanis be beaten and thrown out of India even if they are here on perfectly valid visas issued by our own Government."

The massive outrage against Burger Singh and MobiKwik is apt. But what we should realise is that a lot of us do not express outrage against something vastly more important.

When a TV news channel asks 'burning' questions which are literally on fire on our TV screens, it is insulting our intelligence. When a news channel tries to portray a newsroom like a war room, it is using our emotions for profit, just like Burger Singh and MobiKwik.

What Burger Singh and MobiKwik did was wrong, but what sections of the Indian media do to us every single day is much more wrong and deserves more of our outrage.

With inputs from PTI
Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has convened an all-party meeting on Saturday to discuss future course of action in the wake of fresh Supreme Court order for release of 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water per day till 6 October to Tamil Nadu.

The Chief Minister has convened an all-party meeting of floor Leaders of both Houses, MPs, including central ministers representing the state, and Ministers concerned of Cauvery basin and district in-charge Ministers, CMO officials said. Taking Karnataka to task for its repeated "defiance" by flouting its orders over release of, the apex court today asked it to release 6,000 cusecs water from Saturday till 6 October to Tamil Nadu, warning "no one would know when the wrath of the law" would fall on it.

A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and UU Lalit also directed the Centre to constitute the Cauvery Water Management Board by 4 October. After the apex court verdict, sporadic protests were reported from Mandya and Mysuru districts where police have

made elaborate security arrangements.

Speaking in New Delhi, Karnataka Water Resources Minister MB Patil said the government will decide further course of action after going through the judgment and discussing with the legal team headed by advocate Fali Nariman. Nariman told the bench he has unequivocally said he would not argue for Karnataka till the orders of Supreme Court are complied with.

Karnataka has maintained its inability to release water to Tamil Nadu citing low storage in its reservoirs and drinking water needs of Bengaluru and neighbouring districts. Both the Legislative Assembly and the Council on 23 September had also adopted a resolution not to provide water for any other purpose except to meet drinking needs, citing "acute distress" and "alarmingly low levels" in dams.

The opposition BJP and JD(S) have expressed disappointment over the Supreme Court's order and the stand taken by Nariman, representing the state in the case. Terming court order as "shocking", BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa said the order to release 6,000 cusecs till 6 October, does not note of the ground realities.
New Delhi: The Delhi Assembly on Friday passed a resolution congratulating the Army and the political leadership including Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the LoC, but the exercise too had its share of AAP-BJP tussle.

The Assembly, dominated by Aam Aadmi Party, has often seen sharp attacks by the ruling party on Modi, whose name was on Friday included in the resolution following a demand by Leader of the Opposition and BJP leader Vijender Gupta. BJP has just three MLAs in the 70-member House.

The resolution in its original form did not refer to any individual. "We congratulate the Prime Minister, the Centre, the

Union Home Minister, the Defence Minister and the chiefs of the armed forces. Let this line be added," Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said.

The resolution, introduced by Kejriwal and passed unanimously, also condemned the Uri attacks in which 19 soldiers were killed and warned Pakistan to desist from repeating such "misadventures" in the future. It also extended wholehearted support to measures to be taken by the Union government for protecting the country's territorial integrity and demanded that rogue elements responsible for causing hardship to the common people of the subcontinent be "isolated".

Earlier, Gupta said the resolution had certain shortcomings and demanded that Modi's name be inserted as even the Army Chief has "praised the political leadership". Gupta also urged Kejriwal to delete his 27 September tweet that read "Excellent article. On Uri, rather than Pak, India seems to be getting isolated internationally." The CM had shared an opinion piece on Indo-Pak tensions following the Uri attack.

"The tweet was made when the forces were on their way to the mission. It will have a negative impression when the world has focused its attention towards India," Gupta said. Ministers including Sisodia, Kapil Mishra and Gopal Rai participated in a brief discussion on the resolution.
The angels of good fortune rode on the shoulders of Indian soldiers who went in over the LoC and wiped out those terror camps.

The odds on something going wrong were very high. To drop paratroopers and send them into a battle zone without even a sprained ankle is incredible. For them to link up without losing a comrade or getting a chute tangled in a tree even more exceptional.

To not be seen by any farmer or other insomniac as they came in all the more fortunate. To get to seven separate sites and not be spotted by one sentry or terrorist taking a leak is picking up Murphys law and making a mockery of it.

If something can go wrong it willbut it didnt.

If Prime Minister Modi and the top echelons of his Cabinet and the armed forces were tracking the operation on screen, it must have been the most nail biting suspenseful four hours. It is always a calculated risk and no one knows how it will pan out till it is over. There is nothing romantic sending men into combat.

For those who often cavil over Indias failures in Intelligence, this time it was spot on.

Thats how good our guys are.

In 1971, during the battle of Basantar, the biggest tank battle since Rommel, our chaps got into those tanks like they were at an F1 rallythey had picked up large tins of biscuits from a Pakistani factory hanging from their machines and it was a matter of honour not to lose the tin. I was covering the war for the Times of India and rode the COs tank, scared to the bone and in slack-jawed admiration.

Ever since then I have always maintained the Indian soldier is probably the most disciplined in the world.

In fact the closest example of such precision and kismet to compare would be the Israeli raid in Entebbe Uganda in 1976 to rescue the passengers of the hijacked Air France flight. But they had casualties. A commando was killed, a hostage murdered and 45 Ugandan soldiers lost their lives.

In Black Hawk Down, the guts shown by US commandos in taking on Somalian militants was exemplary but they were caught out in the Mogadishu urban maze, the worst place to fight a battle.

Our guys did not get a scratch. While we do display our gratitude we should also display our awe that we had no casualties and were able to return home to base in tact.

Short of a Bruce Willis or Sly Stallone movie it is very rare and every Indian should feel blessed.

Somebody asked me last night why we havent released the pictures and the videos of the raid if the drones had cameras affixed to them. There are still some Indians who feel it is intellectually stimulating to sail on the was there a moonlanding cynical ship. Why they opt for that is beyond me, like they are disappointed our men in uniform performed at the most professional level possible.

Would they rather we had failed.

Like all the Kejriwals who cannot tweet a message of shabash to our boys so they can sleep safe at night.

For them one can say, showing pictures and videos is not a priority. India has nothing to prove. How many photos did you see of the raid in Abbotabad by the Americans? The material has to be studied, the teams debriefed, terrorists identified and then the government may decide to release them or not. Doesnt matter.

All too often the sanitised version works better and has more impact.

By that token we do not want our soldiers who went in to be identified or recognised and be targeted. But that said, one can only hope that the Indian government will quietly award these eagles for their courage and for making their country that much safer.

Thats the least we can do.
The Indian Army on Thursday said that one of its soldiers from the 37 Rashtriya Rifles with a weapon had "inadvertently crossed over" to the other side of Line of Control and termed the Pakistani media reports that eight of its soldiers had been killed as "completely false and baseless".

An Army release issued by the Defence Ministry said Pakistan had been informed on the hotline by the Director General Military Operations Lt Gen Ranbir Singh about the soldier crossing over the Line of Control.

It said that such inadvertent crossing by Army and civilians was not unusual on either side and they are are returned through existing mechanisms.

"One soldier from 37 RR with weapon has inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control. Pakistan has been informed by the DGMO on the hotline. Such inadvertent crossing by Army and civilians are not unusual on either side. They are returned through existing mechanisms," the release said.

Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has assured that the release of the Indian soldier was being taken up with Islamabad and all efforts are being made to ensure his early release. Singh said the government has taken note of the reports which stated that an Indian soldier is in Pakistan's captivity.

Indian Army sources had on Thursday said that that the 22-year-old soldier was not participating in the surgical strike but "inadvertently" strayed into Pakistani territory while on duty at an Army post, according to a report in NDTV.

However, according to a report in The Indian Express, diplomatic sources from Pakistan have said that Chandu Babulal Chauhan had been captured by Pakistani troops at Jhandroot, west of Mankote, and was now being kept at the military headquarters in Nikayal.

Apart from clarifying that Chauhan's crossing the border was not related to the surgical strike, the army press release also asserted that Pakistani media reports claiming eight casualties on the Indian side were false and baseless.

"As regard report of killing of eight Indian Army personnel reported in sections of Pakistan media, the report is completely false and baseless," the release added.

The clarification came as speculations of Indian casualties were ratcheted up after Dawn, a Pakistani news website, quoted Pakistani security sources as saying that Pakistan military had said it had captured an Indian soldier and killed eight others. Dawn later withdrew the story, replacing it with another that did not specify the number of Indian soldiers killed.

Dawn identified the soldier who crossed over as Chandu Babulal Chauhan, 22, from Maharashtra. Dawn said he had been shifted to an undisclosed location.

It said the soldier was caught after the Indian military fired across the Line of Control (LoC).

Dawn said the bodies of the dead Indian soldiers lay unattended at the Line of Control (LoC), which divides Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan. The Indian Army however strictly maintained that no Indian soldier has died in the strike, asserting that the army personnel who crossed over to PoK came back with "not one scratch," reported NDTV.

India on Thursday said that it had carried out "surgical strikes" on terrorist launch pads across the LoC, inflicting massive casualties. Pakistan has denied the surgical strikes ever took place terming the strike as "unprovoked firing" across LoC. A Pakistan army statement said "an exchange of fire between Pakistani and Indian LoC troops began at 2:30am and continued till 8 am in the Bhimber, Hotspring, Kel and Lipa sectors" and added that "Pakistani troops befittingly responded to Indian unprovoked firing on the LoC," according to a report in The Economic Times.
Those who planned and participating in destroying militant launch pads across the Line of Control on Wednesday night deserve kudos. The capture of an Indian soldier, apparently elsewhere on the LoC later that day, put a damper on the success. Yet, there was no detracting from the Special Forces daring operation. Politically and diplomatically, it went like clockwork  almost too good to be true.

The disastrous US operation in 1980  also using helicopters and para-commandos  to rescue its diplomatic staff from Iran highlighted the military and political risks of such operations in hostile territories  unless the home government and army have been persuaded to turn a blind eye, as has been speculated about some US operations in other countries. In this case, the political and military leadership opted with maturity for a proportionate response to the Uri attack, which had occurred ten days earlier. It would have been foolish to give in to the war hysteria that followed that attack  the high-profile success of which must have taken even its perpetrators by surprise.

Having upped the ante, the government must walk a tightrope with poise so that it does not lose the moral high ground  of appearing restrained. Coming across as irresponsible will undermine Indias diplomatic stand.

Destroying those launch pads in a coordinated triple strike from three different army division headquarters was an adequate response, but not an overly belligerent one. It was a measured move, a far cry from the sabre-rattling about war and calls for Pakistans dismemberment that had preceded. Aimed at militants poised to infiltrate, the operation did not even target the Pakistani state per se. One hears the army had information of 300 trained militants at those launch pads, ready to infiltrate. In light of the mayhem they could have caused, the strike was legitimate defence against aggression  even if one did not view it as a response to the Uri attack.

Consensus carefully constructed

No wonder it had the backing of the international community, by and large. The external affairs ministry did immense spadework on the sidelines of the UNGA. Indias right to respond post-Uri was explained to a host of countries, and major powers were brought on board. That work reached fever pitch on 26 September, the day External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj spoke on Indias behalf.

Once the General Assembly session closed that day (Tuesday morning in India), the stage was set for the strikes. More international calls followed on Wednesday. The government deserves even more praise for building consensus immediately after the operation. It reached out to explain its actions not only to the media, the spectrum of political party leaders, and the international community. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh also telephoned the range of state governments  a move reminiscent of Jawaharlal Nehrus federal inclusiveness.

Getting past nuclear blackmail

By penetrating only a couple of kilometres across the LoC within the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India has finally found an appropriate response to the nuclear blackmail which Pakistan has used for 30 years. It was in 1986 that General Zia-ul-Haq indicated to Indian interlocutors such as former foreign secretary MK Rasgotra that Pakistan had a nuclear weapon. True, the two countries only announced to the world that they had nukes in 1998, but India had tested one in 1974 and Pakistan had developed one (with Chinese help) by the mid-1980s.

It was in 1986 that the Punjab insurgency was pushed to a higher level. And it was only with that weapon-shield in place that Pakistan propped up Kashmirs militant insurgency from 1988. Of course, the Indian government made enough mistakes between 1984 and 1987 to put things in place for Pakistan. It split the National Conference and dislodged Farooq Abdullah. The replacement government, known as 'curfew raj', gave way to Governors Rule and then a shotgun Congress-NC marriage. Then came the rigging of the 1987 elections and violence against candidates and election agents who then became militants, assuming names such as Syed Salahuddin and Yasin Malik.

Successive Indian governments considered going to war against Pakistan over the Kashmir militancy at least thrice during the 1990s, but were deterred by Pakistans nuclear weapons. So jittery did the US become in May 1990 that Deputy National Security Advisor Robert Gates was told to fly directly from Moscow, where he was on a scheduled visit, to Islamabad and New Delhi. He met both prime ministers. The satellite pictures Gates showed them of the Pakistan armys suspicious (probably nuclear-weapons-related) movements over the past couple of days surprised both premiers.

By contrast, current US National Security Advisor Susan Rice vouchsafed support for the Indian strikes. A statement from her office about her calling her Indian counterpart within hours after the strikes confirmed the USs decidedly pro-India position. The US expects Pakistan to act against terror, the statement said.

Politically and diplomatically, it went like clockwork  almost too good to be true

Preparedness and balance

Now, there will no doubt be militant strikes within the Kashmir Valley sooner or later, because although Wednesday nights strikes may have prevented the crossing of a large number of potential infiltrators, a larger number has already entered the Valley over the past couple of years. Battles between militants and forces within the Valley are not new. But now that the battle has been taken to the opponents half of the field, India must be ready to face more aggressive responses.

Having upped the ante, the government must walk a tightrope with poise so that it does not lose the moral high ground  of appearing restrained. Coming across as irresponsible will undermine Indias diplomatic stand. Politically, the government might have a tough task ahead. It has been wise to spend so much energy on consensus-building. It has already announced that it is ready for 'anything'.

The question is whether Pakistan will opt for responses other than militancy in Kashmir and, if so, whether these will be on the borders or within India. A key question is whether Pakistans chief benefactor, China, will now urge de-escalation or back further belligerence against India.

An apocryphal Chinese curse says: 'May you live in interesting times'.

We do.
After a month-long agitation from the Maratha community, the Maharashtra government, on Wednesday, expressed its willingness to review the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act to prevent misuse of the act, one of the key focuses of the agitation. But as the data from the Home ministry suggests, only 14 convictions were made in such cases under the act, raising questions on whether reviewing the said act is a good idea after all.

The report published in The Times of India, said that at least 1,027 atrocity cases were registered across the state in 2016 till July, but the convictions made under the act, remained very low at just 14 convictions this year.

The act was recently amended to include new offences and to ensure speedy justice to victims.

The report also stated that according to data compiled by the state home department, headed by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, "Maharashtra has witnessed a steady decline in the number of atrocity cases".

However, according to NCRB records, Maharashtra has been seeing a steady rise in crimes against SC and STs over the last few years, increasing from 1,399 in 2012 to 2,299 by the end of 2015. The total number of crimes against SCs and STs stood at 2,093 in 2013 and 2,211 in 2014.

Between 2014 and 2015, Maharashtra's share in total crimes against SCs and STs, also increased from a statistically significant 3.8 percent to 4.1 percent. The number included IPC crimes along with the SC/ST (PoA) Act, the Protection of Civil Rights Act, the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act and other SLL crimes against STs.

Surprisingly, on Thursday, The Indian Express report stated that the Fadnavis government is set to recommend to the Centre that changes be made to the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act to ensure that the law is not 'misused'. "The state will propose that a preliminary verification be carried out by police before an individual is charged under the Act, to ensure people are not 'falsely implicated'," it said.

A review of the said act is one of the key demands of the Maratha agitation. The Marathas have been protesting across Maharashtra after the rape and murder of a girl from the community in Kopardi, Ahmednagar, in July.
Lucknow: Congratulating the Army for carrying out a successful anti-terror operation across LoC, BSP supremo Mayawati on Friday said the government should have given a go-ahead for it soon after the Pathankot attack. She also cautioned BJP against trying to go overboard in celebration or taking "electoral advantage" on the issue, saying the situation has also led to new security challenges for the country.

"By demolishing terror camps in LoC, the army has fulfilled the promise made by it to the people of the country after the Uri attack," Mayawati said in a statement in Lucknow.

"Giving a go-ahead for army action by the Modi government is a right but late move ... it should have been done soon after the Pathankot attack in January this year ... perhaps it could have saved the lives of 19 jawans in Uri," she said. The BSP chief also cautioned the Modi government not to get carried away by this.

"This is not the time for the Modi government to either celebrate in over-excitement or make the wrong attempt to take political and electoral advantage on the issue as the present situation has also posed many challenges before the country... there is a need to remain vigilant for security of the country and its citizens," she said.

"There is an immediate need to secure all international borders especially with Pakistan. This issue has been given very little importance in past two-and-half years resulting in continued terror activities causing loss of lives of civilians and jawans," she stressed.

The four-time UP chief minister also called for shunning the inconsistent policy of the past in this regard and allowing the army to continue its good work in national interest.

Criticising BJP president Amit Shah's claims of the present scenario as 'the dawn of new age', she said it was "politically motivated".

"A lot needs to be done to secure the borders and lives of people ... BJP should not start patting its own back over the developments," she said. "Is it not the wrong thinking of the NDA-BJP led central government and PDP-BJP led state government that instead of effectively deploying the army on the borders to check infiltration it was used to keep a watch on its own people in

Kashmir," she asked.

The BSP president called for equipping the army with all kind of modern equipment for securing international borders.
Colombo: In another setback to Pakistan, Sri Lanka on Friday pulled out of 19th Saarc Summit in Islamabad, becoming the fifth country to do so after India expressed its inability to participate in the summit.

"Sri Lanka regrets that the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the 19th Saarc Summit in Islamabad," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement in Colombo. The General Provisions of the Saarc Charter require that decisions at all levels shall be taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of Saarc Member States as well, it said in the brief statement.

The statement made no reference to the current tension between India and Pakistan, but it "condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations". It stressed on the need to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region in a decisive manner.

"Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia. "As a founding member of Saarc, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our regions peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation," the statement added.

Besides India, three other Saarc members  Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan  have pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding of the meet.

That development came after tensions ran high between India and Pakistan after militants stormed an Indian Army base in Uri on September 18, killing 18 soldiers. The militants belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist group.

Founded in 1985, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) currently has Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka as its members.
Jammu: Violating the ceasefire again, Pakistani troops opened fire from small arms along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir's Akhnoor district on Friday. However, there has been another ceasefire violation by Pakistan Rangers which started around 4am and is still going on, reported ANI.

This is the fifth ceasefire violation in the month of September and the third in the past 36 hours.

#FLASH Ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Pallanwala sector of Akhnoor (J&K) started around 4 am, firing still going on.  ANI (@ANI_news) October 1, 2016

"There were small arms firing (from Pakistan on forward posts) along the LoC in Pallanwala, Chapriyal and Samnam areas of Jammu district during the night," Deputy Commissioner, Jammu, Simrandeep Singh said on Friday night. He said the firing started at 12.30 am and ended at 1.30 am. There was no loss of life or injury to anyone in the firing, he said.

On Thursday, Pakistani troops had resorted to firing in Balnoie area of Mendhar sector without any casualty. On September 28, the Pakistan Army had violated the ceasefire by opening fire on Indian Army posts along the LoC in Sabzian area Poonch sector.

Pakistani troops had fired on Army posts along LoC in Poonch sector on 6 September. On 2 September, Pakistan troops had violated the ceasefire by firing on forward Army posts along the LoC in Akhnoor sector. Last year, 16 civilians were killed and 71 others injured in 405 incidents of cross-border firing by Pakistan, the officer said.
On Thursday morning, the Indian Army announced that it had conducted several strikes on terrorist camps across the Line of Control. According to the statement by the Director General for Military Operations, Lieutenant-General Ranbir Singh, operations took place in four sectors along the LoC  Bhimber, Hotspring, Kel and Lipa  at 12.30 am on 28 September and destroyed seven terrorist bases that were used to stage infiltrations into India. All facilities were between 500 and 3,000 metres from the LoC. Casualties are reported to include two Pakistani soldiers and 38 terrorists. Commandos were dropped at the LoC from where they crossed over into Pakistani-occupied Kashmir under the watchful eye of Indian drones. The action was undertaken after receiving "credible and specific information" about terrorists at the locations, planning attacks on major Indian cities.

Pakistan's initial reaction has been to deny these strikes, citing "usual" Indian cross-border shelling instead as the cause of death of two of its soldiers. This buys its leadership time to decide on how to respond, especially in light of the US' prompt statement expressing support for Indian counter-terrorism efforts. Though worded vaguely, its timing and general import leaves little doubt that Washington knew about and approved of India's military actions Wednesday night.

The Indian strike is truly genius  while representing almost nothing tactically, it has truly set the cat among the pigeons diplomatically and strategically. At an empirical level, India's action is a cross-border strike only by the grace of semantics  its Special Forces penetrated Pakistan-held territory only just beyond a good sniper's range and killed 38 terrorists, a number that could probably be replaced in hours. Normally, a cross-border strike evokes memories of Neptune Spear, Ajax, Moked or Thunderbolt. Nonetheless, this is nothing to be scoffed at  I had written in a previous article that India cannot hope to dissuade Pakistan from terrorism with cross-border strikes and should instead target Pakistan and its terrorist allies.

Wednesday's strike fits the mould perfectly.

The ingenuity of India's move comes in its diplomatic package. First, it sought to persuade the US of the justness of its cause  Washington can be a moralising bully as much as India's early prime ministers were. Second, it announced the strike publicly and reiterated that the operations were limited and had been halted  this dampened any escalatory opportunism by Pakistan. Furthermore, it was a booster shot for national morale, sagging after decades of receiving blows from across the border. Third, Delhi briefed the envoys of 22 nations, including the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, through its foreign secretary S Jaishankar on Wednesday's mission. This would consolidate international opinion behind Indian actions, especially since Pakistan has a glowing reputation for supporting terrorism.

The briefing was presumably to also reassure the global community that the military action was indeed limited, the conviction of which would lead to their diplomatic pressure on Islamabad to abjure from further provoking Delhi.

Strategically, India has called Pakistan's bluff that it would respond with nuclear weapons if the former dared to conduct raids into the latter's territory. Wednesday's raid is so small and insignificant that a nuclear response would seem insane by any standards. As several analysts in favour of striking back at Pakistan, including myself, have argued earlier, India must utilise the conflict space below Pakistan's nuclear threshold if it is to have any hope of curbing Pakistani shenanigans. This is exactly what Delhi has now done, challenging Islamabad to actually defend in public terrorists with nuclear weapons. And it seems, Islamabad has blinked.

The Indian strike is truly genius  while representing almost nothing tactically, it has truly set the cat among the pigeons diplomatically and strategically

There is no reason this bluff could not have been called earlier, but previous administrations imagined  and Pakistan allowed them to do so  that even the slightest response to the asymmetric war being waged from across the LoC would incur Pakistani nuclear retaliation. The Narendra Modi government has understood that the threshold had to be higher than that for it to have any meaning. Yet in all caution, Modi authorised only very shallow strikes at first  if Pakistan fails to live up to its rhetoric, future strikes may be even deeper and more significant as India improves its capability to conduct such strikes. Wednesday's raid has disregarded Pakistan's nuclear red lines and in all likelihood, pushed them back a bit.

Why did Modi not act earlier? Perhaps because he wanted to, on the world stage, give diplomacy a chance; perhaps the Indian military was not ready in the first two years of the Modi administration; or perhaps he wanted to dispel the stereotypes about him for domestic political reasons. This is all speculation and irrelevant to the national security debate. What matters is that the Indian government has finally acted boldly  and wisely  on the Pakistani-sponsored terrorism question and it is a much appreciated breath of fresh air.
There is a broad consensus after Thursday morning's daring surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads across the LoC by Indian Special Forces that we are on the cusp of a new dynamic between India and Pakistan. By shedding the posture of strategic restraint  whatever that meant  the Government of India, in one fell stroke, has called Pakistan's nuclear bluff. The primary task for planners in New Delhi will now be to assess and exploit this new-found space for extremely limited military action in meeting Pakistan's penchant for proxy warfare. As such, they will have to pay close attention to the emerging contours  and implications  of the new dynamic.

To belabour a point made in this piece: The cross-LoC action Thursday morning, and the lack of any visible conventional response by Pakistan, shatters a widely-held view that sub-conventional, conventional and nuclear rungs in subcontinental conflicts are inexorably linked when it comes to India responding to Pakistani provocations. The argument thus far had been this: Following a terrorist attack on Indian territory, any Indian military response  as long as it involved breaching the LoC or the International Border  would force Pakistan to riposte conventionally and then, through a spiralling action-reaction logic, lead to a general war under the nuclear overhang.

Pakistan itself has done much to promote this doomsday scenario. Hence, the bluster about tactical nuclear weapons to meet a possible Indian rapid  albeit shallow  conventional thrust into territories of its interest. Indian planners for far too long had bought this logic  of an irreversible climb up the escalation ladder  which acted to self-deter India. By carefully calibrating a surgical response, India has shown that this logic is, at the most fundamental level, flawed. There is indeed space for military action (of an extremely limited nature) to retaliate against Pakistani provocations.

Rawalpindi and Islamabad's reactions have been curious. By denying that Thursday morning's surgical strikes ever took place, it seeks to de-escalate the situation. This is, by far, the most convincing sign that Pakistan's military is not an irrational entity operating according to an exceptional logic that does not match standard strategic thinking. India has also implicitly assured Pakistan that Thursday's operations have been called off, reassuring Pakistan implicitly. What we have now, in other words, is a tacit understanding between both sides that further escalation will not be beneficial to either party. For all the talk of how South Asia is the most dangerous nuclear flashpoint on earth, both sides are playing a grown-up game.

This is not to argue, however, that there will not be any response from Pakistani side. Pakistan will do what it has done the best in the past: Leverage proxies to hit at India. In the short run, India will be well advised to prepare for terror strikes in Jammu and Kashmir, in the Indian heartland, as well as on Indian facilities and assets abroad  such as those in Afghanistan. India, in turn, will retaliate with further limited strikes as well as sub-conventionally, possibly through proxies of its own as well as through covert operations. (On the latter, one should remember that the decision to hit at terror facilities across the LoC comes on top of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Balochistan gambit announced last month from the ramparts of the Red Fort.)

Therefore, the new dynamic would be an oscillatory pattern involving the sub-conventional and the uncoventional (covert special operations support for proxies) or the semi-conventional (overt special operations alone) rungs. There is no escalation ladder for both countries to climb, New Delhi and Rawalpindi would quickly realise, if they haven't already. Instead, they will chase each other's tails  which works in New Delhi's calculations. Instead of a grand conflagration leading to a decisive war  which cockles the hearts of many in Pakistan and also, it must be said, in India, we are looking at an era where both sides will play tic-tac-toe with special operators, proxies, and border action teams.

There is indeed space for military action (of an extremely limited nature) to retaliate against Pakistani provocations

The other facet of the new dynamic is the irrelevance of the LoC in any Indian decision to take the fight to Pakistan. The American game theorist, military planner and Nobel Laureate Thomas Schelling  in his classic study on bargaining, strategy, and conflict  invented the notion of a 'focal point': A mental, geographical and/or psychological demarcation between adversaries locked in a conflict which neither side would breach. Focal points arise due to many extra-rational reasons such as history or cartography, and there is a tacit understanding between adversaries that breach of focal points will inexorably lead to instability. The Kargil war of 1999 and Thursday morning's surgical strikes have now decisively proved that the LoC is not a focal point for India and Pakistan.

This will eventually become extremely important in determining the long-run political solution to the Kashmir imbroglio.

The author is a fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi and a national security columnist for Firstpost. Views expressed here are personal. He tweets @AbhijnanRej
It's fortunate that the birth centenary of Pt Deendayal Upadhyaya (1916-1968)  political ideologue, thinker and progenitor of many innovative ideas that the BJP is now trying to implement  falls in a year when his successors are in government.

Otherwise, it would have been hard to know about a thinker who has not received enough credit for his role in shaping not just a homegrown political party but also ideas which are now culminating in Stand Up India, Startup India and Skill India.

In an important gesture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will release a 15-volume complete works of Deendayal Upadhyaya  former president of Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the forerunner of the BJP  on 9 October that will comprehensively showcase the thoughts, writings and life of the leader.

Compiled and edited by Mahesh Chandra Sharma, president of Ekatma Manav Darshan Anusandhan Evam Vikas Pratisthan, the 15-volume complete works  Deendayal Sampoorna Vangmay  showcases the relevance of Upadhyayas views  social, political and economic in present times, his ideas on entrepreneurship and self-development, perspectives on the Indian way of education and even adoption of all that is good in foreign ideas.

We collated and compiled the speeches, commentaries, writings, thoughts, anecdotes and various works of Deendayalji over a period of three years and converted it into complete works in 15 volumes, Sharma told Firstpost.

Sharma, a former Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan and author of Economic philosophy of Deendayal Upadhyaya has been working on Upadhyayas life and work for the last 30 years.

The relevance of Deendayaljis views  social, political and economic  in present times is evident in the various measures that the Narendra Modi government has tried to introduce through various schemes, such as encouragement to entrepreneurship and schemes like Startup, Stand Up, Skill India, Jan Dhan Yojna, etc. Deendayalji emphasised that Indias economy could be strengthened through decentralisation. He said higher productivity could be achieved by involving larger number of people in the process, he said.

The complete works to be released in English in 2017 will help readers to know about Upadhyayas political philosophy  Integral Humanism  the guiding philosophy of the BJP. Integral humanism speaks of synthesis of the material and the spiritual, the individual and the collective.

The society as a whole has to take steps to work on the principles laid down by Deendayalji. After the book release, itll be made available in the all the state libraries. Throughout the year, discussions will be organised, added Sharma.

The research organisation on Upadhyaya has also prepared a documentary on the 15 volumes, directed by Atul Jain, which will be presented during the release of the written works at Vigyan Bhawan on 9 October.

Contrary to general perception that Deendayaljis works were in Hindi, nearly 50 percent of his works were in English. He penned Political Diary  a regular column in English in the Organiser magazine, when KR Malkani was its editor; but he laid down a condition that he wouldnt write anything related to himself. This compilation provides an insight on revival of Indian economy, with a major thrust on skill-based education system. He welcomed modern technology but wanted it to be adapted to suit Indian requirements. He believed that the core strength in economic development lay in entrepreneurship in the small-scale sector, said editor of Organiser magazine, Praful Ketkar.

Several anecdotes and incidents mentioned in the 15-volumes highlight Upadhyayas multi-faceted personality and his thoughts on politics and policy-making.

One such incident is related to the only election (by-election from Jaunpur) he contested in 1963. Upadhyaya opposed the use of caste politics in election and told his party (Bharatiya Jan Sangh) workers that it would defeat the partys core ideology. Deendayal may win (the election), but Jan Sanghs ideology will get defeated, Upadhyaya had told his party workers.

Recalled Ketkar, Another incident shows how Upadhyaya, who was the president of Bharatiya Jan Sangh (1967-68) expelled seven of the nine Jan Sangh MLAs in Rajasthan for opposing the Zamindari Abolition Act. He was capable of bold, principled decisions.

Deendayalji, also the editor of Panchjanya and Swadesh was a true national thinker and was above partisan politics. He believed that politics was not the ultimate goal, but one should work for the larger national interest. This is important in the present political context for the BJP, added Ketkar, one of the members of the editorial board that prepared the complete works.
Isnt it rather unusual to find that both optics and politics appear to be riding the same wave-length after a long, long time in India? All political parties are now vying with each other to congratulate the army and the government for the surgical strike on terrorists camps across the LoC in PoK. And those, in the masses and media, who had otherwise been busy dissecting the dividing line between what a man called Narendra Modi says and does have fallen silent. Speechless. Even Arvind Kejriwal has joined the chorus singing Bharat Mata Ki Jai; Poora Desh Bharatiya Sena Ke Saath Hai.

The last time we had witnessed such a convergence of opposing political forces from ultra-left to extreme right in this country had happened way back 1971 when the countrys armed forces were about to enter East Pakistan to liberate Bangladeshis from the oppressive clutches of their masters in West Pakistan. Bangladesh is now geo-political reality thats here on to stay on the world map. Like it or not.

The lady who had guided Indias tryst with destiny in 1971 was Indira Gandhi. And the man who is spearheading the nations awakening now is Narendra Modi. Indeed, he is walking the talk. Marching ahead gustily.

There are too many similarities between the two leaders. While Indira was bold enough to ask her men in uniform to cross over to East Pakistan to do the needful despite the presence of the threatening Seventh Fleet of America on the Indian Ocean, Modi asked army commandos to dismantle terrorist launch pads in a surgical strike in PoK, undeterred by the fact that Pakistan has atom bombs in its armoury. Both the leaders succeeded in achieving their targets operation wise. Spectacularly.

There are at least two more striking similarities between the two leaders: First, both Indira and Modi mastered the art of diplomacy painstakingly before launching themselves into action. Second, both the leaders had an inborn gift for growing against adversity.

Remember, prior to the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, Madam Gandhi had a tough time convincing the whole world that India was placed in a precarious position because of the influx of millions of refugees from across the eastern borders. She held a series of meetings with top world leaders. She sent special envoys abroad. She unleashed all powers under her command to awaken all international institutions including the UN that were unaware of the new realities in the Indian subcontinent. And she did have the last laugh.

Now recall the untiring foreign visits of the current Prime Minister. He has been pleading before all world leaders to come together to fight the common menace of terrorism. Modi always explained Indias viewpoint on the subject forcefully. And see the results: After the surgical strike on PoK targets, the US National Security Advisor spoke to his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, saying: The US wants Pakistan to combat and de-legitimise UN-designated terrorist entities, including LeT and JeM.

Indeed, Modi has earned a lot of friends abroad. Leave Western friends aside for a moment, even China is seen to be treading rather cautiously. Here is how a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, reacted to the event: As for tension between Pakistan and India recently, Chinese side has been in communication with both sides through different channels.

You can now see why in modern geo-politics, you just cant swing into military action without a diplomatic cover. In fact, all diplomatic options have got to be exhausted before you make your move across the LoC. Both Indira Gandhi and Narendra Modi had learnt this lesson the hard way.

Finally, lets put the focus back on their basic resemblance  growth against adversity and aura of invincibility. Indiras transition from a baby doll to the iron lady of India was as spectacular as Modis journey from a tea-selling nobody to one of the strongest and most nationalistic leaders that the country has ever produced. Both had to battle it out against trying circumstances. While Indira grew despite the stranglehold of the famous Syndicate over the Congress, Modi blossomed into a great prime minister against the wishes of a host of adversaries  secularist doves and hard Hindutva hawks.

But there is a difference too: Indiras journey had come to an abrupt, unfortunate end in 1984. Modis reign has just begun. Who knows we are all set to see more and more heroics? Probably yes, sooner than later.
On Friday, the Supreme Court set aside the Patna High Court order granting bail to controversial RJD leader Shahabuddin in a murder case.

The apex court ordered that either the gangster-turned-politician should surrender or Bihar Police should take him in custody "forthwith".

Minutes later, he surrendered before the Siwan district court in Bihar and was sent to jail, reported ANI. "I don't care about what people say. I respect the judiciary," he said.

I don't care about what people say, I respect the judiciary system: Mohd Shahabuddin pic.twitter.com/SjZ5ItJrtK  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

He also said that he stands by what he said about Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. "My supporters will show them in the upcoming elections," he added.

A bench comprising Justice PC Ghose and Amitava Roy directed the state government and the lower court to ensure that the trial in the Rajiv Roshan murder case is concluded "expeditiously as contemplated under the law".

Meanwhile, the court issued notice to Shahabuddin and Bihar government on another plea seeking cancellation of bail granted to him in a murder case of two brothers of Roshan.

Shahabuddin has been awarded life imprisonment in the twin murder case and the Patna High Court had granted him bail in this matter as well.

SC said Rajeev Roshan case trial needs to be expedited and Mohammad Shahabuddin has to be sent back to jail: Prashant Bhushan pic.twitter.com/HaUoWD9vkG  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

The apex court, which on Thursday reserved its verdict on two appeals challenging the grant of bail to him by the Patna High Court, had rebuked Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government, which has RJD as its coalition partner, for its lax approach in opposing the bail granted to the RJD strongman in various cases at different judicial forums including the High Court.

A 7 September order of the Patna High Court had granted bail to Shahabuddin and he was released on 10 September from the Bhagalpur jail.

Chandrakeshwar Prasad's three sons  third one being Rajiv Roshan  were killed allegedly by Shahabuddin's henchmen. Rajiv Roshan, who was the sole witness to the killings of his brothers, was allegedly killed by Shahabuddin's henchmen, including his son Osama.

Prashant Bhushan, senior advocate who had filed one of the petitions against Shahabuddin, said on Friday, "Will move another petition asking Mohammad Shahabuddin be moved to a jail outside Bihar and trial to be through video conferencing."

Shahabuddin, a former lawmaker, was a controversial leader in Lalu Prasad's party RJD and is accused of over 40 cases of murder, extortion and kidnapping.

Family of victims of Mohd Shahabuddin express their happiness & gratitude, break down as they hear of Shahabuddin's bail cancellation pic.twitter.com/iMII83FFsJ  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

When Shahabuddin was set out on bail, the opposition in Bihar had accused CM Nitish Kumar of buckling under the influence of Lalu Prasad and facilitating Shahabuddin's release. Bhushan, who had filed one of the petitions, on Thursday argued before the apex court that Shahabuddin did not follow any rules and walked out of jail at will.

With inputs from agencies
The date, 30 September, 2016, is important for Bihar, its government, polity and people. It comes through two judicial pronouncements. One came from Patna High Court which struck down Nitish Kumar government's ban on liquor, declaring the 5 April, 2016 notification illegal. Second, pronouncement came from the Supreme Court, sending controversial RJD leader Mohammad Shahabuddin back to jail, after cancelling his bail. It's kind of a kahin khushi kahin ghum day for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Nashabandi or prohibition was his pet scheme, something on which he had put his personal prestige at stake and had hoped to fly high on the political scene and cover the distance from 1 Anne Marg in Patna to 7 Race Course Road (now called Lok Nayak Marg)  Prime Minister's official residence  in 2019.

Shahabuddin has a unique position in his political scheme of things. Sending the dreaded criminal-turned-politician to jail and vigorously pursuing cases against him had brought laurels to Nitish, who was given the title of Sushshan Babu in his regime between 2005-15. But soon after he aligned with Lalu Prasad Yadav's RJD, his status on Shahabuddin changed.

Likes of Shahabuddin could produce electoral dividends and Nitish went soft on him. Weak prosecution pleas allowed this don to secure bail in one case after another. His bails were not challenged by the government in the higher court, enabling him to come out of jail. Thanks to popular outcry, media pressure and senior advocate Prashant Bhushan agreeing to appeal against the high court order on behalf of victim's families that the Bihar government finally approached Supreme Court.

In his brief spell of freedom, Shahabuddin has served his political electoral purpose of solidifying Muslim votes for RJD-JD(U) alliance, even though he openly challenged Nitish's moral and stately authority. There are, however, some ominous signs for the Bihar chief minister. But it would have an impact on him only in a situation when he and Lalu Yadav part ways at some point in the future. For now, Nitish can smile, even laugh that he acted as per the wishes of people and as per the rule of law, yet being beneficiary of an alliance which supports Shahabuddin and the likes of him.

The high court order on declaring Bihar's prohibition policy is interesting, at least the way it is being interpreted now. The order has struck down notification on Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) but the ban on country-made liquor continues.

This means that those who can pay, can quench their thirst, and get slightly high. They are free to drink their favourite drinks or whatever is available to them and as many pegs. No police or excise department official can catch them, if they don't violate any other law, punishable under Indian Penal Code. It's kind of a freedom day for the tipplers.

But the freedom to IMFL of their choice or compulsion is only till the morning of 2 October, because on Mahatma Gandhi's birthday, Nitish government will come out with a revised state gazette notifications as per even harder penal provisions passed by the state Assembly and ratified by the Governor.

The new prohibition law to be notified in the next two days is truly draconian and its provisions are non-bailable. It lays down that those found with filled liquor bottle, empty bottle, remains of liquor bottles would be jailed for 2-10 years. All adult members of a family, where the bottle would be found, would go to jail and the onus to prove innocence would be on them. Consuming liquor in the state as it will be a penal offense but beware if you have consumed liquor in Delhi or Mumbai and flown to Patna on or after 2 October, the police and excise department could straightaway land you in jail.

So those going on a high from later this evening should be careful that they destroy all remains of a bottle and throw it in municipal dustbins before the morning of 2 October.

Going by the Patna High Court's order, the proposed prohibition law would also be struck down by the high court. But that will take its own time  someone challenging the modified draconian prohibition notification and high court arriving at a conclusion, after due hearing of both sides.

Till then a cat and mouse game will begin in Bihar. Nitish has a lot of homework to do. Around 14,000 people who were arrested under that annulled 5 April Prohibition Law would need to be freed from jail. And then make preparations to arrest fresh set of people under proposed 2 October Prohibition Law, only to free them after a few months. His proposed law is a bad law in nature and in all likelihood will meet the fate of the earlier law.

For those who have a taste of madhushala, its happiness today and tomorrow, sorrow from day after till judiciary gives them relief and hits at Nitish government.
Its not that Special Forces units of Indian Army acquired professionalism and capabilities to stealthily cross the Line of Control (LoC), enter Pakistans territory and kill terrorists and their Pakistani Army backers, in 10 days after Uri attack.

The courage and capability were always there with the Indian Army. They were there when the Indian Airlines flight IC 814 was highjacked on 24 December 1999 and taken to Kandahar or when the Indian Parliament was attacked on 13 December 2001 or when serial blasts in Mumbai suburban trains killed 209 people and injured 700 on 11 July 2006 or when the 11 September 2008 terror attack in Mumbai took place killing 164 people and injuring over 300 people.

What, however, was lacking was the courage of conviction on the part of the then ruling political establishments. Atal Bihari Vajpayee could never muster enough courage to give political clearance to the Indian Army to strike. Kargil was thrust on India and Vajpayee government had to give clearance to fight back. Vajpayee had no other option. India began retaliatory strike three weeks after it was reported that Pakistani Army had crossed LoC, infiltrated into Indian territory and occupied Indian Army posts.

Manmohan Singh though had been prime minister for 10 years but he was the one from whom people never really expected anything.

What has changed now, in the last 11 days since Uri army brigade headquarters terror attack is the political will and resolve to respond with firmness and clarity, that too without going for rhetoric. Narendra Modi has shown to the people of India and the world at large that he means business. The Prime Minister stood up to his projection as a no-nonsense, strong and decisive leader and let the world know that India should no longer be treated as a soft state. In this case, he let his action, not the words speak for him and his style of working.

Even while displaying the might of the Indian state, he had been conscious of the real objective  bust terror camps and launch pads, create fear in the heart of terrorists and their benefactors from the Pakistan Army at minimal cost. The strike was surgical, not impacting any other part other than busting the malignant tumour. As someone aptly put, "India crosses the line, with complete control."

The surgical strike on the intervening night of 28-29 September inside Pakistan Occupied Kashmir has been hailed as a "watershed moment" even by known Modi critics like the former diplomat and JD(U) leader Pawan Verma.

Lt Gen (Retd) Prakash Katoch wrote in Firstpost that the success of these actions also should be seen in the backdrop of the fact that the Pakistani Army was on high alert for the past 10 days, not to mention the night flights by F-16s over Islamabad, and Nawaz and his defence minister Khawaja Asif along with Minister for Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz and COAS Raheel Sharif talking of war and twitching their nuclear tails.

The exact number of casualties suffered on Pakistani side is still known, it is said the figures could be anything beyond 35 to 70 or even more. What Modi has been successful in achieving is that he has given a certain sense of security to people. He effectively channelized the current national mood of assertive nationalism to his government and to nation's advantage.

The political dividend of his bold and brave military move would obviously be huge for him and his party, the BJP. He will begin election campaigns in Uttar Pradesh and Uttrakhand from politically advantageous positions. It might also impact poll prospects of the border state of Punjab.

What has stood out is that besides focusing on strategic action part, military and diplomatic, Modi seems to have planned it well in advance how to address domestic constituency, take political parties in confidence and the people who mattered, so that India as a nation spoke in one voice and appeared united at this hour against Pakistan.

The most interesting part is that Modi himself has not spoken a word on the issue. Home Minister Rajnath Singh has been entrusted with the political management and Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj with external perception management and to reach out to Sonia Gandhi. Internal security management is, in any case, Rajnath Singh's official assignment as home minister.

Modi's decision to let Sushma reach out to Sonia Gandhi immediately after the CCS meet yielded desired effects. Even before all-party meet chaired by Rajnath Singh could begin at 4 pm on Thursday, the Congress president had set the tone: "Congress party stands with Government of India in its action today to protect our country's security and deal with the menace of terrorism from across the border. This is a strong message that conveys our resolve to prevent further infiltration and attacks on our security forces and our people."

Rajnath Singh had spoken to all chief ministers appraising them of the surgical strike and advising them to be on alert for any contingency situations that might arise in any of the states. It was heartening to see that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, a bitter political rival of PM Modi and BJP tweeted: "We sincerely congratulate the Central Government and our brave armed forces for the decisive action taken against terrorism." Rahul Gandhi too supported Modi government's move. By afternoon the political class was speaking in one voice.

For once, Modi has achieved that rare political unanimity in India. It's time for him to pat his own back, for long his rivals untiringly called him a divisive figure. Ironically, after two and half years in power at the Centre, he has proved to be the biggest unifier, at least as on date.
By Abheet Singh Sethi

Until five years ago, the USA and China shared an almost equal proportion of Pakistans arms imports: 39% and 38% respectively. Today, China supplies 63% of Pakistans armaments, with the USA dropping to 19% and second place, an IndiaSpend analysis reveals, as Pakistan mulls a response to Indias strike on terror camps across the border.

Chinas rise to becoming the worlds third-largest arms exporter was to a large degree helped by heightened demand from Pakistan, which now buys 35% of these exports and is Beijings biggest buyer (Bangladesh follows at 20%), according to this February 2016 report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The military supplies are bolstered by unwavering support at a time of heightened tension with India and faltering ties with the US (there was a 73% drop in US security aid over four years to 2015, The Wire reported in August 2016; the US also cancelled the subsidised sale of eight F-16 fighter jets).

Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Link 1 & Link 2

Last month, Pakistans ministry of defence production confirmed a contract with China for the purchase of eight conventional diesel-electric submarines, which will cost between $4 billion to $5 billion (Rs. 25,600 crore to Rs. 33,200 crore), Chinas biggest defence export deal.

The submarines could have a nuclear strategic capabilitythey could be used to launch nuclear-tipped land attack cruise missiles, providing Pakistan with a partial second-strike capability to rival Indias nuclear-submarine ballistic missiles.

The submarines are the latest of several big ticket arms purchases by Pakistan. Others:

 Between 250 to 300 JF-17 fighter planes jointly developed by China and Pakistan. These will form the backbone of the Pakistani Air Force. Nigeria has signed a memorandum of understanding to purchase an unknown number of JF-17 aircraft, according to IHS Janes, a defence/aerospace publication, making Pakistan a defence exporter.

 Four 2,5000-ton Zulfiquar-class frigates at a cost of $500 to $750 million. Three of these were constructed in China, the fourth in Karachi.

 Four 560-ton Azmat-class fast attack craft, essentially missile boats armed with eight C-802 anti-ship missiles meant for littoral defence. Three of four are being manufactured in Pakistan.

 600 Al Khalid tanks produced in Pakistan form the backbone of the Pakistan armys armoured corps. They are variants of Chinese Type 90-II tank.

 Nine HQ-16 medium range surface-to-air missile systems with a maximum intercept range of 40 km at a cost of $600 million.

 Four Karakoram Eagle airborne early warning & control aircraft (AWACS) at a cost of $278 million.

From 2011 to 2015, China sold $8.4 billion worth of arms, overtaking long-established arms exporters France ($8 billion) and Germany ($6.7 billion), although it still lags the leaders: the US ($47 billion) and Russia ($36.2 billion).

Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Figures in million US$ at constant 1990 prices

Chinas share in the international arms exports market has risen from 3.6% in 2006-10 to 5.9% in 2011-15. Frances market share has declined from 7.1% to 5.6%, and Germanys, from 11% to 4.7%, during this period.

Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

The period coincides with Chinas emergence as a major global power, seeking to challenge US hegemony across various areas and with enough heft to keep India unbalanced, either directly or through Pakistan.

(Sethi is a Mumbai-based freelance writer and defence analyst.)
Washington: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the possibility of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of jihadists, which she said was "a threatening scenario", according to a media report.

"Pakistan is running full speed to develop tactical nukes in their continuing hostility with India," the former secretary of state told a closed-door fundraiser in Virginia in February, The New York Times reported, citing 50-minute audio being hacked from the Democratic Party's computers.

"But we live in fear that they're going to have a coup, that jihadists are going to take over the government, theyre going to get access to nuclear weapons, and youll have suicide nuclear bombers. So, this could not be a more threatening scenario," the daily quoted Clinton as saying in the audio that appeared on The Washington Free Beacon website.

During the fund raiser, responding to a question on modernisation of nuclear weapons, the daily said, Clinton went beyond the question to warn of an emerging nuclear arms race, naming Russia and China as well as Pakistan and India.

"This is one of the most dangerous developments imaginable," Clinton said.

Such remarks from the former secretary of state gains significance in view of an interview of Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif to the local TV channel in which he threatened to unleash nukes against India.

"If our safety is threatened, we will annihilate them (India)," Asif had said.

The United States appears to have taken a strong note of Asif's recent statements on use of nuclear weapons.

"Nuclear capable states have the responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities," a state department official told PTI when asked about the statements being made by the Pakistani leader.

Earlier, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had said while India has generally shown responsible behaviour with nuclear technology, China conducts itself professionally, nuclear weapons in Pakistan are entangled in history of tensions.

Meanwhile, in an opinion "Consequences of Pakistani Terrorism: Raids signal that India wont tolerate more attacks in Kashmir", The Wall Street Journal warned that Pakistan increasingly risks becoming a "pariah state" if it continues with such policies.

It said if Pakistan wants to prevent an escalation of violence it needs to shut down the terror groups it continues to support. "That should start with Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two major jihadist groups that operate openly in Pakistan and are prime suspects in these attacks," it said.

"Both groups are supported by its military despite being on United Nations lists of terrorist organisations," the daily said in the hard-hitting opinion piece, a day after India carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir against terrorists planning to sneak into the country.

The Journal noted that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently offered closer economic and diplomatic ties to Pakistan as long as it stops supporting terrorism.

Pakistan, it argued, needs a new vision centered on improving the lives of its people.
Written by the Editorial Board of The Guardian Newspaper





The Independence Day of a country, as the qualifier suggests, is a triumphant expression of liberation. As always, it is a day of soulful national reflection and commemoration of the gallant attempts to lead the people away from the stranglehold of oppression and subjugation and to orientate them towards the best possible attainment of their destiny. However, as Nigeria marks 56 years of Independence tomorrow, any celebration, pomp and merry-making on Independence Day may be hollow, if proper stock-taking of the peoples national life is glossed over.



Despite the increasing hopelessness, confusion and lethargy occasioned by the present economic recession and seeming rudderless leadership that is unveiled in the perception of the common Nigerian, Independence Day enables all to reflect on the enormous challenges facing the country. Yet, it does more than that. It also points towards the future; it extricates us from lamentation and points us to genuine liberation.

Truly, Nigerians are justified to be angry and confused. In the last one year, the challenges have been overwhelming. Widespread insecurity has threatened national cohesion and promoted mistrust; the absence of sound economic policies and projections has put the nation in dire financial straits; nearly all states of the federation are unable to pay salaries. The lack of foresight, financial recklessness, imprudence, and the lack of will to consummate projects have been the bane of our nation. Nigerians have a right not to celebrate.

Notwithstanding these enormous challenges, this years Independence Day, the second for the Muhammadu Buhari administration, should also make us remember that countries pass through difficulties in order to become stronger and more prosperous. Nations get stronger, more viable and more respected only after they have genuinely withstood the throes of historical shortcomings thrust upon them by social needs. Given this truth about development dynamics, the commemoration of Nigerias Independence speaks to all Nigerians to review the present precarious existence with some hope.

One of the threatened values which Independence Day brings to mind concerns the unity of the country. Inherited structures of British colonisation that consolidated a forced unity as a people, and yet enabled us to carry on for the good of all Nigerians, are crumbling before our eyes. These structures, which include the armed forces, the civil service, among others, are being destroyed to our national peril. Independence Day, therefore, draws attention to a glorious past that gave Nigeria its greatness through these structures.

Besides this significance of unity, there is also the gargantuan image which Nigeria projects for the African and Black people in general. The success of Nigeria is a symbolic proposal of accomplishment for Africa and the Black race. Nigerias global exploits signal hope and promise for the Black people. As we mark this years Independence anniversary, Nigerian leaders and all should be cognizant of the challenge and responsibility that come with this impression: Nigeria is at the forefront of leadership in Africa, and if Nigeria disintegrates or is splintered, it will weaken the prospect of the Black race.

However, fostering this unity and sustaining a prestigious global image amount to nought if they are not determined by performance of the people. The well-being of Nigerians, their self-image, how Nigerian authorities govern their people, how Nigerians situate themselves in the scheme of global affairs, must reflect the powerful, united country and Africas iconic Big Brother which Nigeria connotes.

Although Nigerians expected too much from this administration given the excesses of the last regime and the promises of this ruling party are far from fulfilled, it would be uncharitable to dismiss the modest achievements of this government. True, Nigeria faces economic recession, and hunger stalks everyone in the land; yet, the progress made in the fight against Boko Haram is a commendable signature of this administration. The gains from the fight against Boko Haram and insurgency should not be sacrificed on the altar of hunger pangs. That the government is making frantic efforts to address insecurity of that magnitude is something Nigerians can leverage upon.

October 1, Nigerias Independence Day, is also another opportune moment to improve on such gestures. The Change mantra of this administration and its militaristic anti-corruption drive, is a principle that Nigerians can refine to move on to greatness. But to get this done would require the right people, with the right knowledge to do the right thing.

In short, it would require the requisite personnel and manpower to turn innumerable good policies into measurable and realistic frame-works for action towards the common good. This demands the harnessing of knowledgeable, talented, skillful, nationalistic and selfless Nigerians who would get things done by solving problems; those who have the wherewithal for home-grown solutions and who can stimulate the modalities for job-creation or wealth creation along those lines.

These sorts of people abound in Nigeria; they run the stable economies abroad. If Nigeria is to attain its destined goal, these are the people Nigeria needs in foreign affairs to mop up our battered image abroad. They are the ones Nigeria needs in agriculture, and not armchair theoreticians occupying positions just because they are party cronies. They are the ones who should manage our defence, and other areas of our national life in need of attention.

The message for tomorrow on Independence is this: That Nigeria is blessed with such manifold socio-economic transformers should give us hope. This, therefore, points to the fact that our present economic condition is not an indication of the end for Nigerians.
Huawei is all set to unveil Mate 9, the companys new flagship smartphone in the Mate series and the successor of last years Mate 8 smartphone at an event in Munich, Germany on November 3rd. According to latest renders, this will come with dual rear cameras with Leica SUMMARIT lenses, independent depth measurement chip, proprietary hybrid-focus technology, full manual control and RAW support, similar to the P9 and P9 Plus.

Huawei Mate 9 rumored specifications

5.9-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD display with 2.5D glass, 95% wide color gamut

Octa-Core Huawei Kirin 960 processor

3GB / 4GB / 6GBRAM, 64GB / 128GB / 256GB storage, expandable memory with microSD

Android 7.0 (Nougat) with Emotion UI

Hybird Dual SIM (nano SIM + nano SIM / microSD)

20MP Dual rear cameras with Leica SUMMARIT lenses, dual-tone LED flash, Laser AF

8MP front-facing camera

Fingerprint sensor

4G VoLTE, WiFi 802.11ac (2.4GHz/5GHz), Bluetooth 4.2 LE, GPS, NFC

4000mAh battery

Huawei Mate 9 is expected to come in Mystic Silver, Titanium Grey, Ceramic White, Champagne Gold, Mocha Gold, Amber Grey and Glazing Black colors.

According to latest rumors, Mate 9 3GB RAM with 64GB variant could be priced at 599 Euros (US$ 671 / Rs. 44,830 approx.), 4GB RAM with 128GB variant could cost 699 Euros (US$ 784 / Rs. 52,260 approx.) and the high-end 4GB RAM with 256GB storage version is expected to be priced at 789 Euros (US$ 884 / Rs. 58,950 approx.).

China will get 6GB RAM with 256GB variant that could cost 4699 yuan (US$ 704 / Rs. 46,980 approx.), cheaper 4GB RAM with 128GB version.

Source 1, 2
Google has re-branded Apps for Works as G Suite which will comprise of Calendar, Drive, Docs, Hangouts, Gmail, Maps for Work, Search for Work, Sheets and Slides.

The latest revamp comes 10 years after the launch of Google Apps for Work. As a result of the revamp, Google has announced new features for Drive, Sheets, Docs, Calendar, Docs and Slides. First up, Drive is getting a new Quick Access feature for Android will surface important files upfront at your fingertips. With the help of machine learning, the app will analyze your interaction with your co-workers, your recurring meetings, and activity in Drive. Google claims that Quick Access saves about 50% of the time an employee would usually spend finding a file. The Google Calendar is also getting updated with machine learning feature to make it easier to schedule meetings. The app will help you easily find a time when invitees are free, and it also suggests available rooms based on your previous bookings. And, when the list of invitees grows long and no times are available, Calendar will suggest times across the group where the conflicts are easiest to resolve, such as recurring 1:1 meetings.

Moving on, Explore in Google Sheets will now use Natural Language Processing to translate your question into a formula and offer an instant answer. Google is adding Explore in Docs with Machine learning that will automatically recommend related topics to learn about, images to insert and more content to discover. You can even use Explore in Docs to find a related document from Drive which saved the switching time between apps. In case of Slides, the update will help you enhance your presentations at work by offering layout suggestions and it will continue to learn and improve over time with frequent use. Finally, Google has also announced many improvements to teams. The latest versions of Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides will also allow you to restore deleted files.

Google has also launched Google Cloud which comprises of Google Cloud Platform, enterprise mobility, and Chromebooks. This essentially means, Google for Work, Googles Cloud Platform and the rest of the companys cloud-based services will now come under Google Cloud brand.

Diane Greene, Senior Vice President, Google Cloud said in a blog post,

Google Cloud isnt only the products. Its also how we work alongside companies, in an engineering-centric way. Because digital transformation and moving to the cloud are technical processes, we have customer engineers, customer reliability engineers, site reliability engineers, product engineers, all there to partner with our customers as they migrate, deploy and evolve. Our approach and our commitment to Google Cloud customers is simple: were in it together.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZmXEFGFeNA

Source: 1, 2 3
The shrinking value of the currencies of most developing economies is driving up food and fuel prices in ways that could deepen the food crises that many already face,... Read More
The world of investing can be a scary and dangerous place, even for those with plenty of experience. For that reason it's comforting for your portfolio to have a chunk of its capital in dividend stocks, which provide guaranteed income each quarter. The best scenario, though, is to find relatively unknown dividend stocks with some upside. Here are two great dividend stocks that you've probably never heard of.

Even Greece can't stump Lazard

The first company is Lazard Ltd. (LAZ 3.71%), a financial advisory and asset-management firm founded in 1848 and operating in 42 cities across 27 countries.

Lazard offers services such as merger and acquisition strategic advisory, private fund advisory, restructuring, and capital markets and capital structure advisory, among others, and it offers these financial services to a wide range of customers, including corporations, institutions, governments, and even individual clients. Halfway through 2016, Lazard had $192 billion in assets under management, and it generated more than $2.3 billion in revenue last year.

Despite not being a household name and barely known among individual investors, Lazard has a strong global reputation for advising complex scenarios; for instance, Lazard was hired for Greece's sovereign debt situation.

Here's the kicker: Because many people are unfamiliar with Lazard, and because it doesn't show up on a simple screen for dividend yield, many investors miss that Lazard pays a special dividend that makes its payout even more compelling.

Lazard's operating margins are a plump 25%. It has been consistently profitable and has a global footprint and diverse revenue streams with a respected reputation. The downside thus appears to be minimal.

The staffing king

Robert Half International Inc. (RHI 4.00%) is a compelling company for multiple reasons, but it's not a stock for the faint of heart -- more on that later. Let's start with what the company is: Robert Half pioneered the concept of professional staffing services back in 1948. The company's business is taking advantage of new hiring trends that reflect greater outsourcing, a rise in group staffing for project-oriented business, and the need to fill positions with temporary staff quickly.

There are multiple reasons to like Robert Half as a potential investment. Let's start with some intangible assets. Similar to Lazard, while Robert Half is relatively unknown to individual investors, it's built a strong brand and reputation through past results with employers, creating a network effect. Robert Half is the middleman between employers and potential employees looking for the largest number of opportunities -- a network that only improves as more employers and potential employees join the party.

Another reason Robert half is compelling is its rock-solid balance sheet. The company has essentially been debt free since 1995 and keeps a healthy pile of cash that has pushed its net debt levels into negative territory. That enabled the company to initiate a dividend roughly a decade ago and grow it consistently. It currently yields 2.3%.

Lastly, yet another positive for long-term investors is that Robert Half's management is experienced and focused on long-term strategies. Consider that CEO Harold Messmer became CEO in 1987 and many on his management team have served for more than two decades.

The reason Robert Half isn't for the faint of heart is that the company is vulnerable to economic downturns, as revenue and operating income plunged during the Great Recession. Further, Robert Half generated roughly 72% of its top-line revenue from temporary and consultant staffing during the first half of 2016, and 16% from permanent placement staffing -- with the rest coming from other services -- which leaves it very little diversification if there is a slowdown in temporary staffing demand.

If you're OK with that type of risk, Robert Half has an experienced management team focused on the long term, an excellent balance sheet, and a history of increasing its dividend consistently.
Its name is supposedly the second most understood word in the world, behind only "OK." It produces 3% of all beverages consumed on Earth. It's a company that transcends age, nationality, religion, and nearly any individual identifier you might choose. Of course, it's beverage titan Coca-Cola (KO 2.07%).

Unsurprisingly for a company of its seeming ubiquity, Coca-Cola's stock market history is as remarkable as the beverage giant itself. Worth just $25 million in 1919, Coca-Cola shares have soared in value to a market capitalization of roughly $180 billion today, and the stock has a powerful legacy of 53 years of consecutive dividend increases.

Company Name Ticker Symbol Market Cap P/E Ratio Dividend Yield The Coca-Cola Company NYSE: KO $180 billion 24.4 3.3%

Crucially, the market data above only tells a fraction of the company's vaunted investment history, so let's delve deeper into Coke's stock history and see whether Coke shares are a buy today.

Coca-Cola and its stock market history

Having traded on public markets for nearly a century, Coca-Cola has enjoyed a history nearly as colorful as the iconic brand it controls. Created in 1886 by Atlanta pharmacist John S. Pemberton, Coca-Cola's signature beverage gained an almost immediate following, selling an average of nine drinks daily at Jacobs' Pharmacy in its first year; its secret ingredient -- cocaine, which was legal at the time -- may or may not have had something to do with its instantaneous popularity. Either way, Coca-Cola quickly flourished in the years following its founding. Coke's ownership also traded hands several times in its early days, eventually falling under the control of a group of businessmen, led by Ernest Woodruff, who in 1919 purchased the company for $25 million and conducted Coca-Cola's IPO.

From there, Coca-Cola rapidly expanded its global footprint. Having separated its syrup and bottling operations prior to its IPO -- a business model that remains intact today -- Coca-Cola created its first international arm in 1926 to sell its syrup to bottlers in Belgium, Bermuda, China, Colombia, Germany, Haiti, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Spain. The 1930s saw further expansion into Australia, Austria, Norway, and South Africa. By the late 1950s, Coca-Cola was sold in over 100 countries, and international sales comprised roughly one-third of the company's gross revenues.

Today, an estimated 1.9 billion servings of Coca-Cola products are consumed in over 200 countries. Coke owns 20 different Coke brands that each generate at least $1 billion in sales annually. The company is truly everywhere, and its skyrocketing share-price appreciation in recent decades also speaks to Coke's successful recipe for driving investment returns.

Along the way, Coca-Cola stock has attracted the attention of a particularly noteworthy investor, billionaire Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway began purchasing Coke shares in 1988. Today, after additional purchases and stock buybacks, Buffett's company controls 9.3% of Coca-Cola's outstanding shares, making it the largest shareholder in the beverage powerhouse. More broadly, Buffett's interest in Coke speaks to the powerful economics of its business model.

Coke's business model involves producing the syrups for its various beverages, selling those ingredients to its bottling partners, and heavily marketing their products to consumers. As you might imagine, making and selling some of the most coveted syrups on Earth is a fantastically lucrative business. Case in point, Coke's operating margins and return on equity consistently hover above 20%, at times substantially besting that figure. However, the beverage world has changed to a certain degree in recent years, which has created some questions about Coca-Cola stock's long-term prospects.

Coca-Cola stock today

To be sure, Coca-Cola's economics remain absolutely fantastic. However, the company must find ways to address the likely continued decline of soda consumption, which recently hit a 30-year low in the U.S. The reasons behind this are complex and not unique to Coke.

With obesity affecting over one-third of the adult population in the U.S., fast-food and soft-drink companies have become targets of criticism from public-health experts. In fact, Coca-Cola cites "obesity concerns may reduce demand for some of our products" as the first risk factor in its annual reports. As should be expected, though, Coke isn't sitting idly by as the ground shifts underneath it. The soft-drink giant is hard at work implementing a plan it hopes will allow it to not just survive, but actually thrive in our increasingly health-conscious world.

No single, clean solution exists to fix Coke's problems, just several smaller ones. In 2007, Coke launched its "venturing and emerging brands" group, which has invested in or helped acquire a number of smaller, healthier brands like Honest Tea and Zico coconut water. The company has also decreased its portion sizes in some products, renegotiated contracts with its bottlers to help adjust for the changes in portion sizing, and initiated a $1 billion marketing program to help "reintroduce Coke into today's more health conscious marketplace."

Though Coke's reinvention plans are seemingly workable on paper, the analyst community isn't necessarily sold. The 22 sell-side analysts covering Coke see the company's sales falling, on average, 6% this year and a further 14.5% next year.

To be sure, it will likely take years for Coca-Cola to fully reorient its business; turning headwinds into tailwinds takes plenty of adjustment. However, thanks to its unbelievable brand strength, its dominant distribution network, and its exquisitely profitable products, Coke should have the resources necessary to adapt to changing consumer preferences and to continue to drive returns for its investors for years to come.
Outsourcing manufacturing and exporting jobs are a sore spot for many Americans, however some companies find good reason to stay put or break new ground. FOXBusiness.com's series 'Still Made in America' introduces us to a variety of companies keeping their production--and jobs--at home.

Anyone who hasn't been hiding under a rock or living in a remote cave knows that outsourcing American manufacturing jobs to foreign workers has been an alarming trend over the past few decades. Meadville, Pa., tool manufacturer Channellock, Inc., however, has found a way to reverse the loss and bring jobs home while remaining profitable. About 90% of its product line is made in the U.S.

President and Chief Operating Officer Jon DeArment says it's all about technology. The company's first foreign-built product was adjustable wrenches. Channellock had been purchasing American-made ones for resale under its brand, but executives grew unhappy with the tools, so they outsourced production to Spain. Then there were a few other items that were very complicated to manufacture, and the market was extremely competitive. DeArment says his company now has the technology to make these products efficiently at home and "we leveraged that to consolidate work centers to make high-quality items here in the U.S., and [they are] competitively priced."

While DeArment vows that "If we can make it here first, we're gonna do that. Absolutely," the commitment extends beyond his own company and employees. The company has gone overseas for parts of tools, but in one case, a foreign supplier was lost and Channellock had to scramble to find a replacement. Staffers worked with an old high school friend, who engineered a replacement and sourced it locally. "Then we can say that item is 100% made in the U.S.A," DeArment proclaims proudly.

Although the 350-employee Channellock has brought 10-15 jobs back to America, DeArment explains that the company's efforts are "not about creating jobs; it's more about maintaining jobs so we can grow and be competitive."And he sees that growth, about 5-10% annually. While the family-owned company does not release sales figures, a Pennsylvania-manufacturing website reported in 2009 that Channellock earned annual revenues in excess of $33 million.

And the money keeps rolling in because of one word: quality. "Our product line is pretty mature, so we focus on maintaining quality, and we leverage technology [to improve] the [manufacturing] process, explains DeArment. And he uses both aspects of his production to fight off cheap imports. But while the company has automated certain tasks--some handwork has shifted to robotics--individual employees have not been replaced. Some workers have been reassigned, DeArment notes, adding that management prefers to cut production staff by attrition. "We absolutely have a commitment to our workforce. It's the bedrock of our philosophy, one of our founding beliefs."

Not surprisingly, those beliefs come from Channellock's founder, George B. DeArment, a blacksmith who became less than thrilled with the tools commonly available in 1886. So he made his own and began selling them locally. He also made the four founding beliefs, which have served the company well for six generations over a span of 130 years and are favorites for family members to relate...

Channellock's Founding Beliefs

1. Good management is never far from the factory floor

2. People are more important than machines

3. Bigger isn't always better

4. Dedication to excellence is the surest way to surmount adversity and to prosper

If that sounds like a mouthful, skeptics might refer to Channellock's longevity and success. After all, the company manufactures hundreds of products, and instead of exporting jobs, it exports its wares to over 35 countries.

Back at home, staffers enjoy two unique benefits of working for Channellock: Under the Blue Chip program, when a worker suggests an improvement, a chip is earned, and 10 of them can be cashed in for time off. With the Falcon program, the company gives an annual award for dedication to continuous improvement at work and also to the community. A joint committee of management and employees reviews the nominees, and winners receive a substantial prize package that they pick themselves. Past choices have included a four-wheel ATV, new windows for the employee's home, vacation trips and a tractor. DeArment emphasizes that the company wants to reward employees for being visionary and dedicated, and "We're proud to do this every year."

But DeArment is ever mindful of the world outside Channellock's walls. Looking at the upcoming election, he observes, "[Over the years] trade deals have been good for low-cost items going to consumers but have cost us a lot of jobs. We see that impact first-hand, so we want fair trade not free trade."
Investigators on Friday examined the black box recorder recovered from twisted wreckage of a New Jersey commuter train for clues as to why it plowed into a landmark terminal, killing a woman on the platform and injuring scores of people.

The event recorder was removed late on Thursday from the locomotive at the rear of the NJ Transit train that slammed through a barrier at the end of the track and into the Hoboken station during the morning rush hour, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Christopher O'Neil said.

He said debris from the crash, with beams supporting the roof down and wreckage strewn about the site of the historic Beaux Arts rail terminal, was preventing investigators from reaching a second recorder in the train's front car. It may not be until Saturday that the device is recovered.

The recorders hold data that includes the train's speed, throttle position and use of brakes and could offer clues as to why the train, crowded mainly with commuters heading into Manhattan, failed to stop.

NTSB Vice Chairman Bella Dinh-Zarr said the investigation was expected to take seven to 10 days. The agency scheduled a news conference for 5:30 p.m. EDT (2130 GMT) on Friday.

"We've started the process and it's ongoing," O'Neil said. "There are some structural issues there, and the structure is unsafe, potential for collapse, that kind of thing. So that has to be resolved. We want to get there as quickly as possible, but we want to get there safe," O'Neil said.

Train No. 1614, originating in Spring Valley, New York, was at the end of its 17-stop hour-long southward journey when it crashed, toppling support columns in the early 20th century building. Witnesses described a scene of horror and chaos.

Witnesses and officials said the train came into the station too fast and never slowed, but it was unclear why.

It was too early to say whether an anti-collision system known as positive train control (PTC) could have prevented the crash, they said. PTC is designed to halt a train if the driver misses a stop signal, and advocates say it helps to address human error. None of NJ Transit's train are equipped with PTC.

Peter Goelz, a former NTSB managing director, said that PTC is most effective at higher speeds out on open track, adding it is far from clear it could have made a difference in Hoboken. He said other factors, such as the alertness of the locomotive engineer, or driver, could turn out to be more important.

Representative Bill Pascrell of New Jersey, who toured the site Thursday, again on Friday called for new safety measures on commuter rail systems including more federal funding for PTC. "Commuters need to feel safe in our trains and on our tracks," he said in a statement.

WOMAN, 34, KILLED

NJ Transit on Friday suspended train service in and out of the Hoboken terminal, one of the busiest transit hubs in the New York area, accommodating some 60,000 people a day.

The crash killed a 34-year-old Hoboken woman who was standing on the platform when the train slammed through the barrier, jumped off the tracks and skidded across the station concourse. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told reporters that 114 other people were injured.

NJ Transit said the train's engineer was Thomas Gallagher, a 29-year veteran of the railway, 10 of those as an engineer. He was taken to hospital for minor injuries and released, and is cooperating with investigators, officials said, without providing further details.

The NTSB also wants to speak with a conductor and a rear brake man who were also on the train, Dinh-Zarr said on Thursday.

Gallagher, who is married with two daughters, has a deep love for driving trains, said Penny Jones, 72, one of his neighbors in suburban New Jersey.

"He wanted to be a train engineer since he was very, very young," she said by phone, adding that she was heartbroken for what Gallagher went through even as the cause of the crash remained undetermined.

"No matter what, this is something they'll have to deal with the rest of their lives," she said, noting police officers were stationed outside the Gallagher house.

In 2011, a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey PATH train crashed at the Hoboken station, injuring more than 30 people. The NTSB determined the accident was caused mainly by excessive speed. The NTSB said it would also look for similarities between the two crashes.

New Jersey Transit ranked second for the most train accident reports nationwide for commuter railroads from January 2007 through June 2016, behind Amtrak. It had 271 accidents, or 18 percent of the total, compared to Amtrak's 44 percent, according to data from the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration Office of Safety Analysis.

The rankings in part reflect the heavy use of rail transit in the U.S. Northeast compared with other parts of the United States.

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Ian Simpson in Washington; Writing by Alan Crosby; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, Howard Goller, Grant McCool)
Microsoft might be putting its phone hardware business on the backburner, but it's going all in on artificial intelligence with a new division focused entirely on the emerging technology.

Redmond's new Artificial Intelligence team includes more than 5,000 computer scientists and engineers who will work to standardize AI. It will become the company's fourth major division alongside Windows, Office, and Cloud. Members of Microsoft Research, as well as the Information Platform Group, Bing and Cortana product groups, and the Ambient Computing and Robotics teams will join the AI division.

Harry Shum, previously EVP of Technology and Research, will lead the team, which he said "will provide greater opportunity to accelerate our innovation in AI, and to enable Microsoft to create truly intelligent systems and products from our customers."

"Today, AI is shifting the computer science research supply chain and blurring lines between research and product," Shum wrote in a blog post. "End-to-end innovation in AI will not come from isolated research labs alone, but from the combination of at-scale production workloads together with deep technology advancements in algorithms, systems, and experiences."

Earlier this year, Redmond open sourced the Computational Network Toolkit (CNTK), making its deep learning tools more accessible. The AI material is available via GitHub for anyone from deep learning start-ups to established companies processing huge amounts of data in real time.

Microsoft is also one of six industry giants to join forces for a new nonprofit, dubbed the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society. Along with Amazon, DeepMind, Google, Facebook, and IBM, Redmond wants to "maximize [the] potential [of AI] and ensure it benefits as many people as possible."

Here's to hoping that doesn't include the company's failed chatbot attempt: Tay went from happy-go-lucky, human-loving friend to full-on racist in one day.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.
Waze's ride-sharing service is branching out in San Francisco.

In May, Waze invited a handful of local employers and commuters to test a new carpooling option. The project was initially available to more than 25,000 employees at select companies (including Adobe and Walmart Global eCommerce), who were matched with drivers from the app's 700,000-plus Bay Area users.

Now, the pilot program is expanding to include anyone in the region, The Wall Street Journal reports. Participants can download the Waze or Waze Rider apps and register with a corporate email.

"The Waze Carpool trial has been gradually opening to new users and is currently available to commuters in the greater San Francisco Bay Area who wish to be part of the pilot," Waze told PCMag in a statement.

VIEW ALL PHOTOS IN GALLERY

Environmentally conscious folksor those without a car of their owncan grab a ride from a Waze driver heading in the same direction, cutting down on commuter traffic and parking lot congestion. Coordination, communication, and payment (riders and drivers share the cost of gas54 cents per milefor the trip) are automatically handled through the mobile apps.

Expect some early hiccups. According to one Journal reporter's account, the program "had some bugs": the app did not display the vehicle's location before pickup, nor could the driver use Waze's navigation system during the ride. "But overall it went smoothly," the journalist said.

The Journal says drivers and riders are limited to two rides per day (morning and evening commute).

Waze Carpool passengers must be at least 18 years old, so you can't use it to drop the kids off at school. Drivers must be 21 years or older.

Other ride-sharing services have tried carpooling, too. Lyft Carpool launched in March, but it was shut down in August because there weren't enough drivers using Carpool to make it worth Lyft's investment. Uber has been testing something called UberCommute in China (pre-Didi merger) and Chicago.

For more, see PCMag's reviews of Waze for iPhone and Android.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.
Image source: Coca-Cola.

Its name is supposedly the second most understood word in the world, behind only "OK." It produces 3% of all beverages consumed on Earth. It's a company that transcends age, nationality, religion, and nearly any individual identifier you might choose. Of course, it's beverage titan Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO).

Unsurprisingly for a company of its seeming ubiquity, Coca-Cola's stock market history is as remarkable as the beverage giant itself. Worth just $25 million in 1919, Coca-Cola shares have soared in value to a market capitalization of roughly $180 billion today, and the stock has a powerful legacy of 53 years of consecutive dividend increases.

Company Name Ticker Symbol Market Cap P/E Ratio Dividend Yield The Coca-Cola Company NYSE: KO $180 billion 24.4 3.3%

Data source: Google Finance.

Crucially, the market data above only tells a fraction of the company's vaunted investment history, so let's delve deeper into Coke's stock history and see whether Coke shares are a buy today.

Coca-Cola and its stock market history

Having traded on public markets for nearly a century, Coca-Cola has enjoyed a history nearly as colorful as the iconic brand it controls. Created in 1886 by Atlanta pharmacist John S. Pemberton, Coca-Cola's signature beverage gained an almost immediate following, selling an average of nine drinks daily at Jacobs' Pharmacy in its first year; its secret ingredient -- cocaine, which was legal at the time -- may or may not have had something to do with its instantaneous popularity. Either way, Coca-Cola quickly flourished in the years following its founding. Coke's ownership also traded hands several times in its early days, eventually falling under the control of a group of businessmen, led by Ernest Woodruff, who in 1919 purchased the company for $25 million and conducted Coca-Cola's IPO.

From there, Coca-Cola rapidly expanded its global footprint. Having separated its syrup and bottling operations prior to its IPO -- a business model that remains intact today -- Coca-Cola created its first international arm in 1926 to sell its syrup to bottlers in Belgium, Bermuda, China, Colombia, Germany, Haiti, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Spain. The 1930s saw further expansion into Australia, Austria, Norway, and South Africa. By the late 1950s, Coca-Cola was sold in over 100 countries, and international sales comprised roughly one-third of the company's gross revenues.

Today, an estimated 1.9 billion servings of Coca-Cola products are consumed in over 200 countries. Coke owns 20 different Coke brands that each generate at least $1 billion in sales annually. The company is truly everywhere, and its skyrocketing share-price appreciation in recent decades also speaks to Coke's successful recipe for driving investment returns.

KO data by YCharts.

Along the way, Coca-Cola stock has attracted the attention of a particularly noteworthy investor, billionaire Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway began purchasing Coke shares in 1988. Today, after additional purchases and stock buybacks, Buffett's company controls 9.3% of Coca-Cola's outstanding shares, making it the largest shareholder in the beverage powerhouse. More broadly, Buffett's interest in Coke speaks to the powerful economics of its business model.

Coke's business model involves producing the syrups for its various beverages, selling those ingredients to its bottling partners, and heavily marketing their products to consumers. As you might imagine, making and selling some of the most coveted syrups on Earth is a fantastically lucrative business. Case in point, Coke's operating margins and return on equity consistently hover above 20%, at times substantially besting that figure. However, the beverage world has changed to a certain degree in recent years, which has created some questions about Coca-Cola stock's long-term prospects.

Image source: Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola stock today

To be sure, Coca-Cola's economics remain absolutely fantastic. However, the company must find ways to address the likely continued decline of soda consumption, which recently hit a 30-year low in the U.S. The reasons behind this are complex and not unique to Coke.

With obesity affecting over one-third of the adult population in the U.S., fast-food and soft-drink companies have become targets of criticism from public-health experts. In fact, Coca-Cola cites "obesity concerns may reduce demand for some of our products" as the first risk factor in its annual reports. As should be expected, though, Coke isn't sitting idly by as the ground shifts underneath it. The soft-drink giant is hard at work implementing a plan it hopes will allow it to not just survive, but actually thrive in our increasingly health-conscious world.

No single, clean solution exists to fix Coke's problems, just several smaller ones. In 2007, Coke launched its "venturing and emerging brands" group, which has invested in or helped acquire a number of smaller, healthier brands like Honest Tea and Zico coconut water. The company has also decreased its portion sizes in some products, renegotiated contracts with its bottlers to help adjust for the changes in portion sizing, and initiated a $1 billion marketing program to help "reintroduce Coke into today's more health conscious marketplace."

Though Coke's reinvention plans are seemingly workable on paper, the analyst community isn't necessarily sold. The 22 sell-side analysts covering Coke see the company's sales falling, on average, 6% this year and a further 14.5% next year.

To be sure, it will likely take years for Coca-Cola to fully reorient its business; turning headwinds into tailwinds takes plenty of adjustment. However, thanks to its unbelievable brand strength, its dominant distribution network, and its exquisitely profitable products, Coke should have the resources necessary to adapt to changing consumer preferences and to continue to drive returns for its investors for years to come.

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.

Andrew Tonner has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Coca-Cola. 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.
A former Morgan Stanley stockbroker who participated in a $5.6 million insider trading ring involving stock tips passed on napkins and Post-it notes in New York's Grand Central Terminal was sentenced to three years in prison on Friday, federal prosecutors said.

Vladimir Eydelman, 44, was the third and final defendant sentenced over a scheme that ran from 2009 to early 2014, and was based on tips about transactions by corporate clients of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, a major U.S. law firm.

Eydelman was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp in Trenton, New Jersey, two years after pleading guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges. The defendant was also ordered to forfeit $1.24 million.

Lawyers for Eydelman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Prosecutors said Steven Metro, a Simpson Thacher managing clerk, would pass tips about mergers and other transactions the firm was working on to Frank Tamayo, a mortgage broker he knew from law school, at mid-town Manhattan bars or coffee shops.

Tamayo would then write the relevant ticker symbols on napkins or Post-its, pass the tips to Eydelman at Grand Central's main clock, and then chew up whatever the tips were written on until they were destroyed, prosecutors said.

The defendants traded ahead of at least 13 transactions, with Eydelman, formerly of Colts Neck, New Jersey, trading for himself, family, friends and clients, prosecutors said.

The scheme broke down after Tamayo began to secretly record the others, prosecutors said.

Tamayo, 43, of Brooklyn, was sentenced to one year in prison, reflecting his cooperation with prosecutors. Metro, 42, of Katonah, New York, was sentenced to three years, 10 months in prison. Both were sentenced this month.

Morgan Stanley and Simpson Thacher have terminated Eydelman's and Metro's respective employment. Neither firm was accused of wrongdoing.

The case is U.S. v. Eydelman, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey, No. 15-cr-00464.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler)
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What's happening?

Shares of Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB) are on the move on Friday, rising by about 14% as of 3:45 p.m. EDT.

So what

Deutsche Bank shares rose after the bank's CEO, John Cryan, wrote a message to the bank's employees to address reports that a handful of the company's hedge-fund clients had reduced the amount of business they do with the bank. Cryan noted that the report should beconsidered "in the context of the bigger picture: Deutsche Bank overall has more than 20 million clients."

Further helping the stock were reports that the bank may settle with the U.S. Department of Justice for as little as $5.4 billion, significantly less than the $14 billionoriginally suggested by the DOJ. Deutsche Bank has yet to confirm the actual figures.

Now what

Any billion-dollar settlement with the DOJ is significant as a percentage of the company's market cap. The current share price imputes a market value for the bank of just under $18 billion.

Earlier in the week, analysts worried that the settlement could force Deutsche Bank to raise capital, presumably with dilutive stock issuance. For now, though, markets seem pleased that a settlement with the DOJ may cost less than originally feared, potentially allowing the bank to avoid dilutive capital raises.

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.

Jordan Wathen has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is a California nonprofit which keeps track of millions of websites across the globe. ICANNs key function is to coordinate the Internet domain name system. The nonprofits contract with the Commerce Department runs out on September 30, which is significant because whoever controls ICANN has the ability to censor the internet. Concerns are mounting that without U.S. government in control, countries such as China, Russia or Iran could influence the organization and potentially clamp down on free speech. Hours before the Obama Administration plans to surrender control of ICANN, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton weighed in on the lawsuit filed by his state along with three others, Arizona, Oklahoma and Nevada to stop the Obama administration from relinquishing control of ICANN.

Paxton explained the potential fallout of handing away control of ICANN could be disastrous.

Its a private corporation, so anybody could be involved in this and you have the potential of limiting free speech, you have the potential of losing addresses and your domain name, a whole state could lose their domain name, so we dont know what could happen, Paxton told the FOX Business Networks Stuart Varney.

According to Paxton, the lawsuit is based on two main complaints against the governments decision.

We have several claims. One is that the Congress did not delegate this authority. Two, that Congress has the sole authority to basically give away property, theyre in control of property of the U.S. government. We cant have agencies just transferring property of the government.

Paxton views efforts to maintain control of ICANN as a significant issue that should transcend party lines.

You would think that this would be a non-partisan issue that everyone would care about. So I would think that there would be Democrats that would be in favor of protecting the internet as well because their free speech rights and their access to the internet will be affected just like Republicans.
At least one Republican agrees with President Obamas decision to veto a bill allowing families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia.

Despite Democrats and Republicans voting in a landslide to override the presidential veto on Thursday, former Republican New Jersey Governor Tom Kean joined the FOX Business Network and said he believes the President was right to reject the bill.

Once we pass a law like this it gives people around the world the right to pass similar laws and bring American citizens into their courts and sue American citizens, Kean said. And courts around the world dont always have the same system of judgment we do. American soldiers, American business people, American tourists, what have you, could get caught up in a way that we are not going to like. For that reason and a couple other reasons, I am sorry they did it.

The former Governor is also widely recognized for chairing the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, commonly known as the 9/11 Commission, which was signed into law in 2002. The commission was created to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

I have great sympathies for the families trying to blame and get money and all that. I have great sympathy for them. I just dont think this was the right remedy and I think the President was right and I think well regret doing it, he said.
With its combination of speed and off-road ability, the Ford F-150 Raptor is virtually without peers. There are many competent off-road machines, but they all move at a much more leisurely pace. Despite competing aggressively with Ford in all things truck, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) have repeatedly refused to build Raptor rivals. Until now.

The Ram Rebel TRX unveiled at the 2016 State Fair of Texas may only be a concept vehicle, but Ford had better hope Ram decides not to put it into production. Unlike the previous Ram 1500 Rebel and Ram 2500 Power Wagon, the TRX combines off-road ability with serious muscle.

Under the hood sits a 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi V8, which may have Mopar fans screaming "Hellcat," but Ram won't use that magic word. While it has the same displacement and boasts a supercharger, this engine does produce less power than the Hellcat V8s in the Dodge Challenger and Charger. Instead of 707 horsepower, the TRX musters 575hp. That's still enough to get the truck to more than 100 mph off-road, according to Ram. It's also over 100hp above the 450hp confirmed output of the 2017 Ford Raptor.

Related: Nissan's Navara EnGuard concept is a high-tech rescue vehicle

That power is sent to all four wheels through an eight-speed automatic transmission with paddle shifters, a fairly unusual feature on a big pickup truck. In addition to the more potent engine, engineers increased suspension travel by 40 percent compared to a standard Ram 1500 Rebel. The TRX also features a beefed-up rear axle, and 37-inch tires.

The exterior is just about as cool as the mechanical upgrades. Fender flares make the TRX look like a race truck, and accommodate its wider track. Ram also crafted a new hood to provide clearance for the V8's supercharger, and a bed "sport bar" straight out of the 1980s. The rock rails running below the doors incorporate side-exit exhaust pipes. Hopefully, Ram found a way to keep people's legs from getting burned by them.

Officially, the Ram Rebel TRX is just a concept, although rabid fans could eventually pressure Ram into putting it into production. That would be something to see. Ford's Raptor has gone unchallenged for too long.
Hes having a real stroke of bad luck.

A 21-year-old Australian man has been bitten by a venomous spider on his penis  for the second time in five months, according to a report.

Im the most unlucky guy in the country at the moment, the man who only identified himself as Jordan told the BBC.

Jordan, a tradesman, was using a portable toilet at a work-site building in Sydney Tuesday when the redback spider bit him on pretty much the same spot he was bitten the first time in the same location while going to the bathroom.

I was sitting on the toilet doing my business and just felt the sting that I felt the first time, he told the BBC. I was like, I cant believe its happened again. I looked down and Ive seen a few little legs come from around the rim.

Click for more from the New York Post.
A New Jersey dad has fulfilled his wifes dying wish by taking their son to Walt Disney World an effort made possible after a viral GoFundMe campaign he started Sept. 22 met its $10,000 goal within one hour of being launched.

Billy Webb, 33, said his wife of nine years, Kellie, 34, passed away Saturday after battling colon cancer for nearly four years. The Webbs, who met in April 2006 while stationed in the U.S. Army at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, share one son, Will, 7.

Earlier this summer, when Kellies cancer became terminal and doctors gave her upwards of one month to live, Billys father, Bill, asked her what she wanted to do before her health declined any further. The couple had always wanted to take Will to see Mickey Mouse in Orlando, so that made answering simple.

We always wanted to take him down there, Billy told FoxNews.com by phone while in his hotel room at Disneys Animal Kingdom Lodge. It was something that we always thought we had plenty of time to do.

Kellie served as a combat medic in the Army beginning in July 2004 and completed a 16-month tour in Iraq in 2007. Around the time Will turned 1, she departed for service in Haiti. In October 2014, she medically retired when her cancer became unmanageable. She was first diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2012.

Although Billy and Will had hoped she would be able to join them on the Disney trip, Kellie went into hospice on Thursday. Days before, doctors drained 610 milliliters of fluid from her chest, an episode that followed a severe reaction to the last of several rounds of chemotherapy that aimed to save her life.

Billy, who works in communications for the Army and is stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey, said about 200 people turned out for her funeral earlier this week in Toms River, New Jersey.

He said it means the world to be able to take Will to Disney. They plan to go to the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, and that Will, whom he described as a mamas boy who only ever knew his mother as sick, wants to do it all.

[Will] said something in the car to the effect of, I wish mommy was here, but I know shell be watching us, Billy said. We all have that same mentality: that we know she may not physically be here, but we know shes watching us, so were doing it in her honor, and thats the most important thing. Will was her world.

As of Friday afternoon, Kellies Final Wish GoFundMe campaign had raised nearly $35,000.
Uninsured, immigrant and minority communities in the United States may not be as aware of skin cancer as they should be, a recent study suggests.

At a medical clinic in southern Florida, researchers surveyed members of these communities and found that nearly 25 percent had never heard of skin cancer, or melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, and almost 21 percent believed - incorrectly - that dark skinned people were immune to the disease.

"The findings confirm that minority patients don't understand the risk and that they're misinformed," said Dr. Elizabeth Quigley, a dermatologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who was not involved with the study.

The risk of skin cancer is certainly much higher for whites than for people of color. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, out of every 100,000 people in the U.S. in 2013, about 30 white people developed skin cancer, compared to about 5 Hispanics and roughly 1 or 2 blacks and Asians.

But while people with lighter complexions are more prone to skin cancer, the American Academy of Dermatology warns that when it's diagnosed in patients with skin of color, it tends to be more advanced.

"They don't know that they have it, so they aren't checking for it," said Quigley.

What's missing are skin cancer education programs geared for people who don't speak English or who are illiterate, said lead author Dr. John Strasswimmer, a dermatologist who works at the Caridad Center in Boynton Beach, Florida and teaches at the University of Miami.

"Any of the brochures we have in our dermatology offices, or skin cancer information we give out to patients, is written for people who tend to be lighter skinned and more educated," Strasswimmer told Reuters Health by phone.

Strasswimmer and colleagues collected surveys in 2015 and 2016 from 206 participants. Most were women, on average in their 40s, and largely from Central America, Mexico, South America and the Caribbean. Most had not gone to college.

About 16 percent had ever asked a doctor about a suspicious spot on their skin, and almost 60 percent rarely or never checked their skin for spots, according to the findings published in JAMA Dermatology.

About 75 percent of respondents fell into the "low or inconsistent" category for sun safe behaviors such as wearing a hat or long sleeves, or using sunscreen.

Increased sunscreen use correlated with higher education.

Most common reasons for not protecting the skin included "it's too hot," "it's inconvenient," and "I don't have sunscreen, hat and/or long-sleeved shirt."

There was no connection between participants' skin color and their knowledge of skin cancer.

Nearly 90 percent of adults expressed a strong desire to learn more about skin cancer, however, which Strasswimmer finds encouraging.

"Even though there's a lack of awareness, there's a thirst for knowledge," he said.

Another study published in the same issue of the journal, found similar results among American Indian adults in rural New Mexico. Mary Logue and colleagues at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque asked 429 American Indian and non-Hispanic white adults how often they wore sunscreen or practiced other sun-safe behaviors.

American Indian respondents were less likely to practice sun safe behaviors than their white counterparts.

"Although (skin cancer is) less common in American Indians, it can be deadly for them too," said Strasswimmer. "That's why education outreach is so important."

Quigley pointed out that the research is helping to define an unmet need.

"Everyone is at risk for skin cancer," she said. It's important that people check their skin once a month for new or changing spots on the skin."
A person in Florida has caught a locally transmitted case of dengue fever, news sources reported Wednesday. The case is the first in which a person caught dengue from a mosquito bite within Miami-Dade County.

The person diagnosed with the viral infection has received treatment and is expected to fully recover, CBS Miami reported. The case is also Florida's second local dengue case of 2016, according to CBS Miami.

Dengue (pronounced den' gee) is a disease caused by four closely related viruses: DENV 1, DENV 2, DENV 3 and DENV 4, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It's spread when infected mosquitoes  usually the species Aedes aegypti, but sometimes the species A. albopictus  bite humans.

The virus cannot be spread directly from person to person; it must be carried by a mosquito, according to the CDC.

There are an estimated 100 million cases of dengue worldwide yearly, according to the CDC. Symptoms of the infection include high fever, severe headache, severe pain behind the eyes, joint pain, muscle and bone pain, and rash, the CDC said. Symptoms usually begin within 14 days after a person is bitten, and can last up to one week, CBS Miami reported.

There isn't a specific treatment for dengue, but people with the disease can take pain relievers, such as Tylenol, that contain acetaminophen; drink plenty of fluids; and consult with a physician, according to the CDC. If the person develops severe symptoms, such as vomiting or severe abdominal pain, he or she might have dengue hemorrhagic fever, a potentially fatal disease that can be treated if caught early, according to the CDC.

Officials in Miami-Dade County are conducting "aggressive mosquito-control efforts" in the area where the person was likely infected, CBS Miami reported. In general, to prevent the virus from spreading, people can get rid of standing water where mosquitoes breed, and use window screens and air conditioners to stop the insects from getting inside, according to the CDC. (Mosquitos prefer humidity, and air conditioners make the air inside drier.)

People can also wear long-sleeved shirts, pants and insect repellant to avoid mosquito bites, according to the CDC.

Florida isn't the only state to experience dengue. Hawaii had dengue outbreaks in 2001, 2011 and 2015, and Brownsville, Texas, had an outbreak in 2005. An outbreak in Key West, Florida, stretched from 2009 to 2011, Jonathan Day, a professor of medical entomology at the University of Florida, told Live Science in 2015.

However, there are no animals other than mosquitoes in the United States that can carry dengue, and so effective mosquito control can play a big part in getting rid of the disease, once the human outbreak ends, Day said.

Original article on Live Science.

Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The risk posed by the Zika virus to developing fetuses is likely far greater than current estimates suggest, a top U.S. health official said on Thursday.

Microcephaly, a rare birth defect in which babies develop abnormally small heads, is one of a constellation of Zika-associated problems increasingly being seen in children born to mothers infected during pregnancy with the Zika virus.

Other types of birth defects observed include seizures, deafness, blindness and a range of neurological and developmental abnormalities.

Earlier this year, a U.S. analysis estimated the risk of microcephaly following a mother's infection with the virus during the first trimester of pregnancy at between 1 percent and 13 percent.

That figure does not include the overall risk of risk of birth defects, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a panel discussion on Zika.

"If you're talking about any congenital defect I think it's going to be much higher than 13 percent," he said. "I think we're going to see something very disturbing."

The panel was presented by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in collaboration with Reuters. (http://tinyurl.com/hhepvwj)

The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency over Zika's link to microcephaly in February. The mosquito-borne virus has spread rapidly through the Americas, with Brazil hit hardest so far. On Wednesday, the U.S. Congress approved $1.1 billion to fund research and efforts to contain Zika.

Speaking on the same Zika panel on Thursday, Dr. Marcia Castro, an associate professor of demography at Harvard, said physicians in Brazil are studying the initial wave of babies impacted by Zika who are now reaching their first birthday.

In addition to seizures, agitation and frequent crying, these children are also exhibiting a severe type of reflux that prevents them from eating, she said, adding that it is unclear how long these children will live.

"Another study with mice shows Zika also affects the brain of an adult," she said, potentially impacting long-term memory and depression.

As of Sept. 17, Brazil had confirmed 1,949 cases of microcephaly linked to Zika, mostly concentrated in the country's northeast region. Another 3,030 cases are still under investigation. In the United States, the virus has infected tens of thousands of people on the island territory of Puerto Rico.

The spread of the virus in Miami, Florida, where a handful of locally transmitted cases emerged, has been limited through aggressive mosquito control.

"Puerto Rico is going through a terrible situation and we have to help them right now," Fauci said. "They really need our help."

With new Zika funding in hand, Fauci said the first priority will be to move forward clinical trials of five potential vaccines.
On March 30, 1981, at 2:25 p.m., President Ronald Reagan was leaving the Washington Hilton through a side door after speaking to a union group. Outside was a gaggle of staff, secret service, reporters, and bystanders, including one determined to end Ronald Reagans life at that moment.

As the president headed toward the car, a reporter barked out a question. With a smile, Reagan raised his left arm to deflect it. But he could not deflect what was about to fly in his direction. A few feet from the safety of the backseat of his presidential limo, Reagan heard what sounded like firecrackers. It was gunshots.

Secret Service agent Jerry Parr thrust Reagan into the car, landing on top of him. Jerry, get off, cried Reagan, I think youve broken one of my ribs. Noticing the frothy blood bubbles emerging through Reagans lips, Parr commanded the driver to get to a hospital fast. They reached George Washington University Hospital in minutes.

Only once Reagan was on the table did the doctors determine the terrible extent of the 40th presidents injury. John Hinckley had employed .22 Devastator bullets designed to explode on impact. One of the bullets had ricocheted off the armored car, flattened, and sliced into Reagans body through his left armpitso tiny that surgeons only discovered it after finding a hole in the presidents jacket. The projectile traveled downward, bounced off a rib, punctured a lung, and finally halted in Reagans chest, less than an inch from his 70-year-old heart. The president lost a huge amount of blood and proceeded to survive a perilously close call.

Of course, nearly all of this has been reported before. Never reported, however, was the unique reaction of Nancy Reagan. It was shared with me in February 2006 by Louis Evans, the longtime pastor of the National Presbyterian Church, who kept it to himself for 25 years. Knowing my work on Reagans religious faith, the aging Evans decided to share the story with me.

The Reagans attended the National Presbyterian Church during their first weeks in Washington. Evans was their new pastor. The day after the assassination attempt, a distraught Nancy was in need of spiritual counseling. She asked Evans to track down Donn Moomaw, who for two decades had been the Reagans pastor at the Bel Air Presbyterian Church in California.

Evans picked up Moomaw at the airport and brought him to the White House, where they were greeted by Mrs. Reagan in a room that included a small group of close friends: Frank Sinatra and his wife, the Rev. Billy Graham, and a Los Angeles businessman, the name of whom escaped Evans.

Nancy began by uttering words that shocked her friends. Im really struggling with a feeling of failed responsibility, she confided. I usually stand at Ronnies left side. And thats where he took the bullet.

Yes, Nancy had deep regrets: If only she had been next to Ronald Reagan as he strolled to that limousine, positioned between him and Hinckleys pistol, she could have taken that bullet for him.

Imagine that. It was a bracing thought to Evans then, and should be to us today.

When Evans informed me of this, I quickly shared it with the late Bill Clark. I was Clarks biographer at the time. Clark worked literally side-by-side with both Reagans, beginning way back when he was Governor Reagans chief of staff in Sacramento. He knew both very well. He was not at all surprised by Evans account. In fact, Clark waxed Biblical, telling me without hesitation: I agree with the Scripture that she would have laid her life down for her friendfor her best friend. She would have done that for him.

It was always understood that Nancy was Ronald Reagans supreme protector, the one who played bad cop and watched his back as he trusted everyone, regardless of their loyalty. Their son Ron once said that his dad trusted everyone and his mom trusted no one. Reagan left the White House with the highest approval ratings of any president since Eisenhower; she would never win a popularity contest. Nancy received a lot of bad press, not all of it undeserved. Yet, what Evans told me adds a heightened appreciation for Nancys commitment to her spouse.

Ronnie is my hero, Nancy once glowed. My life began when I got married. My life began with Ronnie. She was willing to give that life for him.

Nancy Reagans reaction to her husbands shooting should be seared into our memories of this First Couple, regardless of political differences. It is an inspiring image of one womans undying devotion to her life partnera woman who now at last is reunited with her Ronnie.


The funeral of Shimon Peres was exactly the kind of grand sendoff that he, himself, himself would have appreciated. In fact, he made sure it would be good by planning it himself.

Peres chose the venue, Jerusalems Mt. Herzl, where most of Israels dead leaders are buried. He picked his eulogizers. He even requested his favorite song-- "Avinu Malkanu," a Hebrew prayer Barbra Streisand serenaded him with three years ago, at his ninetieth birthday party.

The result was a ceremony fit for Nobel Peace Prize-winning elder statesmen. The assembly of mourners included European royalty, presidents and prime ministers of every continent, high officials of the U.N. and the EU, representatives of Jewish communities throughout the diaspora and, of course, Israels ruling elite. These dignitaries managed to sit through half a dozen eulogies with patience and even interest.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, a onetime political adversary, gave a graceful speech focusing on Peres early career and his role in founding Israels defense industries and its nuclear program.

Bill Clinton, a personal friend, praised Peres boundless optimism, a trait that enabled Peres to weather a seemingly endless string of humiliating electoral defeats over three decades). In the 1996 Israeli elections, Clinton himself tried, unabashedly but futilely, to help Peres beat Netanyahu. So far Bibi has not appeared to return the favor; Hillary has Donald Trump to thank for that.

The headliner of the day was Barack Obama, who swooped down in Air Force One a few hours before the funeral, accompanied by an entourage that included Secretary of State John Kerry, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and a couple dozen head of Democratic congressmen.

Somehow three or four Republicans also managed to slip in, but this was not a bipartisan moment.

Everyone knows that Peres, who first met JFK in 1963, was a lifelong honorary Democrat (just as Bibi is an unofficial member of the GOP). The only prominent Republican in sight was Sheldon Adelson, the biggest Republican donor this year. He flew in on his own plane.

Obamas speech was the grand finale. He began by paying tribute to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, who was seated in the front row. Obama called his presence, a gesture and a reminder of the unfinished business of peace.

Abbass decision to attend the funeral was a brave act. Peres, who was one of the main enablers of the West Bank settlement movement, is not popular among Palestinians. Hamas, which rules Gaza and threatens to win the next election in the West Bank (in the unlikely event that an election is ever held), declared the funeral a Day of Rage. A Hamas spokesman put it succinctly: The Palestinian people are very happy at the death of this criminal.

Arab public opinion wasnt much better. Al Jazeera called Peres, a murderer. Egypt and Jordan, two Arab countries at peace with Israel, sent only mid-level delegations. And the Israeli Arab faction in the Knesset, Israels parliament, boycotted the event entirely on the grounds that Peres was a Zionist.

That much is true. Shimon Peres was, as Obama put it in a statement issued the day of Peress death, was indeed, the very essence of Israel.

At the funeral, President Obama compared him to Nelson Mandela (and, oddly, Queen Elizabeth) and voiced his own high opinion of the Jewish State. Justice and hope are at the heart of the Zionist idea, he said. Sadly, Palestinians tend not to agree.

Obama also lauded Israel which, thanks to the efforts of Peres, as a nation that can defend itself, by itself. This is a small exaggeration. The U.S. and Israel recently concluded a multi-billion dollar defense aid deal. But the basic point is correct (and, I imagine, a great relief to Obama or any U.S. president). Israel is, in fact, the only country in the Middle East that does not require American troops to deal with Islamic barbarity, Iranian ballistic missiles, Syrian butchery--or enduring Palestinian revanchist fantasies.

The region is going through a chaotic time, Obama observed. Threats are ever present. And yet [Peres] did not stop dreaming and he did not stop working.

Shimon Peres, as prime minister, did seek a peace deal, but one on terms that Israel could live with.

The Palestinians refused, launched a massive bombing campaign and found Peres ready to fight.

Thats how it is in this part of the world. Israeli prime ministers, even the loveable ones, have to save the dreaming for when they are out of office.
Five years ago, President Obama took the extraordinary decision to target Anwar al-Awlaki, a charismatic American-born imam turned Al Qaeda terror plotter, for taking the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans. Al Awlaki was killed by a drone strike in Yemen on September 30, 2011.

Al Awlaki wasnt just an anti-American propagandist. He demonstrated a hands-on commitment to killing Americans. For example, Al Awlaki was in direct contact with Nidal Hasan before the Army psychiatrist went on a shooting rampage in 2009, killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas.

Al Awlaki also personally directed and supplied the explosives that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab hid in his underwear and tried to detonate on an airplane from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009.

Al Awlaki began the Al Qaeda magazine Inspire, which includes articles like, Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.

Awlakis influence shows no signs of abating, thanks in part to the ubiquitous presence of his violence-inspiring sermons on the internet. In a report released just last week, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) detailed 88 U.S. and European extremists who have been directly inspired by Awlakis calls to jihad.

Five years later, Al Awlakis influence shows no signs of abating, thanks in part to the ubiquitous presence of his violence-inspiring sermons on the internet. In a report released just last week, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) detailed 88 U.S. and European extremists who have been directly inspired by al-Awlakis calls to jihad.

Most recently, New York and New Jersey bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami included messages in praise of Al Awlaki in a notebook retrieved by U.S. law enforcement.

Sadly, he is simply the latest to fall victim to Al Awlakis incitement. CEPs report indicates that virtually every major American-Islamic terrorist in recent yearsAl Qaeda and ISIS adherents alikewere inspired by video and audio recordings of Al Awlakis sermons.

Last March, Orlando assailant Omar Mateen killed 49 people in the single deadliest gun attack on U.S. soil. Mateen was a known Awlaki follower and fan of his online recruitment videos.

Before killing 14 people with his wife last year, San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook regularly watched Al Awlakis lectures with his neighbor, sometimes for hours each day.

Mohammad Abdulazeezthe man who killed five U.S. servicemen in Tennessee last yearwatched al-Awlaki videos prior to carrying out his attacks, as did the 2013 Boston bombers, the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attackers, the 2012 Times Square bomber, and the 2015 Garland shooters.

Al Awlakis lectures are ubiquitous on YouTube, for example, where a search for Anwar al-Awlaki produces nearly 70,000 hits.

Among them are Al Awlakis Constants on the Path of Jihad lecture, wherein he rhetorically asks, who among his listeners are willing to terrorize the kuffar [non-believers].

Other lectures urge listeners to carry out attacks against Americans as jihad against America is binding upon myself, just as it is binding on every other able Muslim.

It does not have to be this way. The ability now exists to remove, permanently, the most horrific al-Awlaki videos and messages from the internet, and thereby reduce his enormous potential to inspire further violence.

CEP and Dartmouth computer science professor Dr. Hany Farid has developed a technology, called eGLYPH, which can efficiently find and remove extremist content that has been determined to violate the terms of service of Internet and social media companies.

It works like this: Once a person identifies an image, video or audio recording for removal, the algorithm extracts a distinct digital signature from the content. That digital signature is then used to find duplicate uploads across the internet.

In the case of Al Awlaki, once his most noxious videos are flagged and removed, they would automatically be discovered and removed every time an upload was attempted.

In a 2010 New York Times interview, a former colleague of al-Awlakifellow imam Johari Abdul-Maliksaid that Al Awlaki is a terrorist, in my book and cautioned shops not to carry even the earlier al-Awlaki CDs. According to Mr. Abdul-Malki, Al Awlakis lectures become a gateway for the unsuspecting.

The evidence clearly bears out his prediction. There is no longer an excuse for not addressing the continuing threat posed by Al Awlaki online. All that is missing now is a willingness to act.
When future generations read about the Great Gender Pronoun Wars of the early twenty-first century, they will most certainly learn of Grant Strobl  a noble and mighty king.

His Majesty is an unlikely title for a 21-year-old political science major from Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

Click here to join Todds American Dispatch: a must-read for Conservatives!

It was definitely activism by accident, he told me.

In less than 24-hours, the brave conservative single-handedly defeated an army of gender neutral activists at the University of Michigan.

Think David versus a gender confused Goliath.

The University of Michigan recently announced a new initiative to allow students to select their preferred gender pronouns through an online service.

It was designed as a way to help professors tell the difference between the guys and the gals and the zis and the zirs.

Asking about and correctly using someones designated pronoun is one of the most basic ways to show your respect for their identity and to cultivate an environment that respects all gender identities, wrote Provost Martha Pollack in an email to students and faculty.

Its all part of the universitys effort to foster an environment of inclusiveness.

The university actually created a pronoun committee to ensure that faculty members play a vital role in ensuring all of our community feels valued, respected and included.

It was in that spirit of inclusivity that Grant, a Fox News Campus Associate, decided to have a bit of fun.

He logged into the universitys computer system, clicked on the Gender Identity Tab and promptly declared his new designated pronoun.

You could put anything you wanted into the system, Grant told me. So I did.

And so it was in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Sixteen that Grant Strobl came to be known as His Majesty  Noble Ruler of the Wolverines.

Yes, good readers  Grant Strobl changed his designated pronoun to His Majesty.

His Majesty is not a pronoun, but neither is zir or zi, His Majesty told me. None of them are recognized in the English language. Everything is completely arbitrary now. You can identify as anything you want.

Want to be a shrubbery? What about a sloth? Well, you can be anything you want to be at the University of Michigan.

I thought it was definitely fitting to point out how absurd this new policy is by choosing His Majesty, His Majesty said. Its a recognized honorific and it is definitely absurd for anybody to be called His Majesty in America.

His Majesty, who is also the founding chairman of the Young Americans for Freedom chapter at the University of Michigan, has already generated a bit of outrage.

Plenty of students have been saying that Im not supportive of LGBT rights or LGBT students on campus, he said. They say Im disrespectful.

But His Majesty said thats just not true. He doesnt even expect his subjects to bow or curtsy.

As a Christian, I believe that all lives are valuable, he told me. I love all people. And I have no problem with people choosing a designated pronoun.

But the universitys young ruler is concerned that professors might be punished if they refuse to identify a student by their preferred gender pronoun.

Once we go down that road, its very dangerous for our society and our democracy, he said.

Quite frankly, Im taken aback by the lack of tolerance from the universitys LGBT community. If His Majesty wants to identify himself as royalty  who are they to object?

If they want me to be tolerant of their pronouns, they have to be tolerant to my new title, His Majesty said. Many of the students on campus who call for diversity  they only want diversity for ideas they agree with.

I hope His Majesty King Grant has a long and prosperous reign at the University of Michigan. Lets pray he can fight off the invading horde of leftwing intolerants.
Friday, September 30 marks the 40th anniversary of the Hyde Amendmentthe appropriations legislation first introduced in 1976 by Rep. Henry Hyde for fiscal year 1977 that bars states from using federal funds to pay for abortion.

The language of the Hyde Amendment, reintroduced for each budget, has changed somewhat over the years, eventually including exceptions in cases of rape, incest, and threats to a mothers life, but it consistently has stood for the principle that taxpayers should not be forced to pay for abortion on demand.

This is a straightforward principle, and polling consistently shows over 60 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding for abortion.

A Marist poll released this year found 68 percent of respondents oppose public funding for abortion, including 51 percent of those who consider themselves pro-choice.

This is understandable. It is inconsistent with the notion of choice for people to be forced to pay for a practice they rightfully consider a grave wrong. Indeed, the Hyde Amendment enjoyed bipartisan support for decades.

One might therefore think the amendment would be safe for the foreseeable future. That would be wrong, for two reasons.

First, the bipartisan support shown by the political branches of governmentthe president and Congressis apparently breaking down. ObamaCare, which passed without a single Republican vote, specifically permits public funding for plans that include abortion as long as the plans employ thinly veiled accounting gimmicks.

Even more alarming, this years Democratic National Convention adopted for the first time a platform specifically calling for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, a position Hillary Clinton took in January when she addressed the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

If only my side of the aisle continues to support the amendment, its survival as a legislative matter is uncertain.

Second, even if members of Congress hold firm in their support, it is possible that the popular will could be overridden by an activist Supreme Court.

Recent commentary has generally ignored this possibility, but it is real. In 1977, the Court held in Maher v. Roe that Roe v. Wade implies no limitation on the authority of a State to make a value judgment favoring childbirth over abortion, and to implement that judgment by the allocation of public funds.

The most basic respect for the democratic process should have made it obvious that representative government could respect the peoples preference for life in how it allocates their tax dollars. The vote in that case, however, was 6 to 3, and when a direct challenge to the constitutionality of the Hyde Amendment came in Harris v. McRae in 1980, the Court upheld the legislation on similar grounds by the narrowest margin of 5 to 4. The change of a single vote would have eviscerated the Hyde Amendment before its fourth anniversary.

Its fate may be even more precarious today. The vacancy created by the death of Justice Scalia creates the prospect for the most liberal Supreme Court in over 40 years. While none of the justices on either side of the Harris v. McRae decision are still on the Court, todays Court has shown a penchant for activism in ways that were unthinkable even during the 1970s.

Consider that in 1972, a Supreme Court that included three of the four future Harris dissenters summarily rejected without a written opinion the claim of a same-sex couple that the Constitution conferred on them a right to marry. That Court did not consider the question even a close one, yet todays court has no compunction about redefining marriage for all 50 states.

An unprecedentedly activist liberal Court, which could attain a supermajority given the expected retirement of additional justices over the next few years, would have an unbounded sense of what it could do by judicial fiat.

We should entertain no illusions about what is at stake in the election of congressmen who vote on bills and presidents who appoint judges.

We should stand committed as a country to the respect for life inherent in having our government refrain from subsidizing abortion. This includes taking extra care that we do not allow our elected leaders to staff the courts with judges who would undermine our ability to express this basic respect for life through a democratic process we can no longer take for granted.
In the annals of American criminals, John Hinckley Jr. ranks as one of the most heinous.

Technically, he committed no crimes. But that makes him no less violent and despicable than, say, O. J. Simpson.

It was bad enough that Hinckley escaped punishment for his actions when he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in his attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Now, U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman of Washington has compounded the injustice by ordering Hinckley released from a government psychiatric hospital.

Youre a free man, Mr. Hinckley. Have a nice day.

Lets not forget what he did.

On March 30, 1981, Hinckley was lying-in-wait outside the Washington Hilton Hotel armed with a fully loaded .22 caliber Rohm RG-14 revolver with exploding Devastator bullets. As President Reagan emerged, Hinckley fired six shots in rapid succession. Police officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy were shot in the back and chest, respectively. Press Secretary James Brady was shot in the head, critically wounded. He suffered severe brain damage.

Hinckleys final bullet ricocheted off the Presidents waiting limousine, penetrating his chest and lodging a mere fraction of an inch from his heart. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, perilously close to death. After two hours of surgery, the bullet was removed and the Presidents life was saved.

It was pure luck that that Hinckleys bullet stopped just shy of tearing into President Reagans heart. The course of history might well have changed dramatically had Hinckley succeeded.

The case against Hinckley was clear and strong. But Hinckley, like O. J. Simpson, was armed with money. Specifically, his parents oil wealth. They hired a top criminal defense team that argued insanity. Which, considering the evidence, should have been a joke.

But back in 1982, the legal framework of the insanity defense favored the accused. Once invoked, the burden shifted to the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hinckley wasnot insane. It was completely backwards and inimical to common sense. Nevertheless, it should have made no difference because the evidence of sanity was obvious and overwhelming.

Of course, the defense retained experts who opined that Hinckley suffered from schizophrenia and other mental disorders that were so severe he did not understand right from wrong. That is the legal standard and the pointy-headed shrinks bought into it hook, line and sinker. In my experience as a defense lawyer, you can buy an expert to say just about anything. So, no surprise there.

And, yes prosecutors hired their own experts who said just the opposite. But the evidence of Hinckleys sanity transcended the experts. He left an extensive paper trail proving his elaborate planning and premeditation to commit murder. He penned letters and notes outlining his intended design to kill the President. He admitted its wrongfulness. His actions were both clear-headed and deliberate. Hinckleys planning was careful and cautious. Cold and calculating. The very definition of sanity.

Did Hinckley suffer from a mental illness and/or personality disorder? Maybe. Was it severe and debilitating? Not for a minute. Did he understand right from wrong? Unmistakably.

But juries are easily misled, manipulated and fooled by skilled defense attorneys. They are sometimes naive and gullible. Just ask O. J. Simpson. Or Michael Jackson, were he alive. They know that justice can be subverted. The scales are not balanced.

And that is precisely what happened on June 21, 1982 when the jury returned its verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity on all 13 criminal charges. Hinckley dodged prison and took up residency at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Setting Hinckley free is dictated by federal statute, 18 U.S. Code, Section 4243 (d):

A person found not guilty by reason of insanity has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that his release would not create a substantial risk of bodily injury to another person due to a present mental disease or defect.

So, the fundamental question is whether Hinckley poses a substantial risk of harm. It requires a subjective judgment by Judge Paul L. Friedman, who was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton. Importantly, the law allows the judge enormous latitude and discretion.

He can listen to the experts. But really how reliable are they? After all, at trial several declared Hinckley unquestionably insane, while others said he was certainly not. Get the picture? They dont know. At best, they are merely guessing. Or hoping.

More revealing, perhaps, is how Hinckley has behaved during his time at St. Elizabeths. Lets review. He exchanged letters with serial killer Ted Bundy. He sought the address of mass murderer, Charles Manson. He continued his obsession over actress Jodi Foster, smuggling her photos and other materials into his room. In 2009, prosecutors objected to supervised visits to his mothers home because, they argued, Hinckley still posed a danger to others and had unhealthy and inappropriate thoughts about women.

As recently as 4 years ago, the Department of Justice opposed Hinckleys release, repeating its belief that he presented a serious threat to the public. DOJ argued that Hinckley was known to deceive his doctors. What a surprise. Hinckley eventually caught on and wised up. He began to behave. Or at least he pretended to. But is it the same phony act that allowed him to fool a jury?

In attempting to divine whether Hinckley will try to kill or harm again, we should consider relevant statistics. They are instructive.

On the low end, a study by the Pew Center on The States found that 43 percent of convicted felons find themselves back behind bars within 3 years after their release. The number jumps by 20 percent for those with mental illness. On the high end, a report by the federal governments Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 77 percent of released prisoners were arrested again within 5 years. The B-J-S report seems more comprehensive and reliable.

So, from a statistical point of view, it is probable or likely that Hinckley will harm someone again. Not good. And when you consider that an estimated 1,600 people are murdered each year by individuals with mental illness, it is truly frightening.

And yet, Judge Friedman assures us that Hinckleys doctors are persuaded that his psychotic symptoms, delusional thinking or violent tendencies are in remission. We are supposed to be comforted by that? Look up remission in any medical treatise and youll learn it can be a temporary decrease in the manifestation of a disease.

For all we know, Hinckleys remission could be fleeting. What if he stops taking his prescribed medication? He could turn violent and deadly in an instant. How would the judge or law enforcement know? Answer: they would not. There are numerous cases of people like Hinckley who have repeated their crimes after abandoning their meds.

Judge Friedman, in his 103 page opinion, seems to accept as faith the doctors conclusion that their patient presents no danger to himself or to others in the reasonable future. As opposed to what? The unreasonable future? What does that even mean? Now? Tomorrow? Next week or next month? It is the kind of vacuous language psychiatrists are addicted to using. And it is utterly meaningless when lives are in jeopardy.

There are some actions which are so evil, the perpetrator should never be set free. Under any circumstances. This case is one of them.

Judge Friedman had the discretion and power to keep John Hinckley Jr. locked up. His decision to set him free seems more than reckless.

It is a dangerous gamble with human life.
Donald Trump is openly considering playing the Monica card in the next debate. But does that make sense?

And is the whole subject of Bill Clintons past sexual misconduct about to get more media coverage?

It has been hovering on the horizon, but came into sharper focus when Trump declared at the end of the Hofstra debate: I was going to say something extremely rough to Hillary, to her family, and I said to myself, I can't do it. I just can't do it. It's inappropriate. It's not nice. Trump later said he was talking about her husbands affairs.

David Bossie, a longtime Clinton antagonist who is now Trumps deputy campaign manager, told Fox & Friends that if you look at Hillary Clinton's background and if you look at her being an enabler, really, in the '90s and really attacking these women, it goes against everything that she now tries to spout as a candidate for president.

Politico quotes several Republican senators as urging Trump not to go there. Georgias David Perdue: Thats a distraction away from the high ground hes got All of this [about Bill Clinton] really doesnt matter. People back home are concerned about the economy and security issues.

Mississippis Roger Wicker: I hope he doesnt. He oughta stick to how hes going to make life better for the average American worker.

Are they right? I covered all of this in the 1990s: Gennifer Flowers, Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Juanita Broaddrick and on and on. Its hardly a state secret that Hillary Clintons husband was impeached for lying about his sexual activities with Lewinsky, the former White House intern, or that Hillary initially defended him by going on the Today show and decrying a vast right-wing conspiracy. Just as she had sat with him in 1992 as he denied Gennifers allegations on 60 Minutes, only to admit a sexual relationship with her years later.

The view after impeachment was that her husbands reckless behavior generated enormous sympathy for Hillary, and she was elected to the Senate less than two years later.

Trump could try to undercut Clintons standing with women by arguing that she condoned her husbands behavior or played a role in attacking them. But this would also open the door to questions about Trumps three marriages, including his affair with Marla Maples, which fueled a feeding frenzy among New Yorks tabloids. Trump told an interviewer yesterday that he supposed he was fair game but "it's a lot different than his ... I have a very good history."

Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said that by targeting her marriage, Trump is trying to distract from his demeaning comments against women.

The Washington Post, in a piece titled Enabler or Family Defender?, reports that Clintons friends say they have seen her deal with Bill Clintons conduct before, bristling at threats and countering them with steely determination

Her detractors, though, say that Clinton has unfairly lashed out over the years at the women involved in her husbands indiscretions.

So what should the press do?

Its hard to argue that the media are too decorous to cover this stuff, since Bill Clintons misconduct drew saturation coverage for years. And some voters may be too young to remember it.

On the other hand, that was nearly two decades ago. And while a Hillary Clinton victory would put him back in the White House, she is the presidential candidate. Many commentators would undoubtedly scold Trump for what they would view as a sordid attack.

If Trump starts bringing up the subject, it is news that must be covered. Just look at how wild the media went over his Twitter message about bringing Gennifer Flowers to the debate after Clinton invited his nemesis Mark Cuban.

Whether these blasts from the past would help Trump's cause is anyones guess.
Republican attorneys general are making a last-ditch bid to block the Obama administration from ceding U.S. oversight of the internets domain name system, filing suit in federal court ahead of an imminent deadline for the hand-off.

The AGs from Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma and Nevada asked a judge late Wednesday to step in and stop the transition to an international oversight body, after GOP lawmakers failed to stall the move as part of a short-term spending bill.

Trusting authoritarian regimes to ensure the continued freedom of the internet is lunacy, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. The president does not have the authority to simply give away Americas pioneering role in ensuring that the internet remains a place where free expression can flourish.

Paxton was among the four Republican AGs who filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court Southern District of Texas, Galveston Division.

The U.S. government has been in charge of domain names for more than three decades, thanks to a Commerce Department agency's oversight of an obscure, but powerful, Los Angeles-based nonprofit called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

If the transfer takes place  as it is set to do on Oct. 1 -- the suit argues people will lose the predictability, certainty, and protections that currently flow from federal stewardship of the Internet and instead be subjected to ICANNs unchecked control.

The suit argues the looming transfer violates the property clause in the U.S. Constitution which prohibits handing over government property without Congress approval. The suit also claims the handoff would violate First Amendment rights and says ICANN, the nonprofit owners in control, would be unchecked and could start to censor speech.

Plans to transfer control over functions -- like the directories that help web browsers and apps know where to find the latest weather, maps and Facebook posts  have been in the works since the 1990s.

Momentum grew following the Edward Snowden leaks about U.S. government surveillance, and the Commerce agency said it would cede oversight. Since then the administration has tried to fast-track the transfer as a sign that the U.S. government isnt policing the internet -- and has disputed the warnings from Republicans and others.

In a blog post last month, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information Lawrence E. Strickling said the transition marks the final step of a commitment that dates back nearly two decades.

He said the new model will maintain the stability, security, and openness of the Internet that users across the globe depend on today.

Republicans in Congress, though, have long-objected to the transfer, which they called a giveaway to the rest of the world. They argue that handing over control to a non-government entity would give countries like Russia and China the ability to control online speech  something supporters categorically deny.

The new lawsuit also claims ICANN has a documented history of ignoring or operating outside of its governing bylaws.

Nothing protects the Plaintiffs from additional occurrences of ICANN oversight failures, the suit says.

Mark Grabowski, an internet law professor at Adelphi University in New York, agrees.

There is currently nothing prohibiting ICANN, post-transition, from eliminating or transferring what are essentially the Web addresses for U.S. government and military websites, Grabowski wrote in InsideSources.com.

He added, A company owned by or located in Russia or China could end up managing whitehouse.gov, fbi.gov or army.mil. Losing control of these web domains would put our nations security at risk.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who aggressively campaigned against the transfer, called it a a profound disappointment when a measure stalling the move was left out of the latest government spending bill. He called the Obama administrations actions dangerous and indefensible.

Protecting free speech online should be an issue that brings Republicans and Democrats together, Cruz told FoxNews.com in a written statement. Its an issue the American people overwhelmingly agree with and they expect us to defend internet freedom. That didnt happen in the Senates continuing resolution and I think that was deeply unfortunate.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai told the Sean Hannity Show on Wednesday that handing over the reins to ICANN is something that should worry anyone who cherishes free expression, and free speech rights generally, and could potentially cede oversight of the Internet to foreign governments who might not share our values.

Tech companies, however, have largely supported the plan.

In a Sept. 13 letter sent to Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress, the heads of Google, Facebook, Amazon and 20 other companies and trade groups urged lawmakers to support the plan.

FoxNews.com's Barnini Chakraborty and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Army has reversed course on a move to kick out a paralyzed veteran and strip his military benefits after congressional intervention and national media attention.

Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Brumit was paralyzed from the chest down after diving headfirst into shallow water in July 2015, attempting to rescue what he thought was a drowning girl.

The Army initially said his decision was reckless and negligent and said he was under the influence of alcohol and drugs at the time. Because of that, he was facing the likelihood of a discharge that could jeopardize his benefits.

Recent congressional attention and a public plea helped launch a review of Brumits case, which ended with the Army determining his injuries were sustained in the "line of duty," allowing him to keep receiving aid to pay his medical bills.

I feel blessed, and so thankful to so many people, starting with my dad, who is my caregiver, and stayed by my side to use any means necessary to right this wrong, a relieved Brumit told The Daily Beast on Thursday.

In the revised record, the Army concluded Brumits actions constituted simple negligence and occurred in the line of duty.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who had pushed for a review of Brumit's case, thanked the Army for its decision.

"This decision shows that even when a soldier's command makes the wrong call, the Army is willing and able to evaluate cases on the facts and correct the mistake," he said in a statement.

Brumit, who served eight combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, argued that the Army failed him as he struggled with PTSD, traumatic brain injury and substance abuse. After the July 2015 incident, he was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.1 percent and traces of cocaine in his system.

He has never denied he was drinking during the diving incident but insists he wasnt drunk when he made the decision to jump in the water.

Brumit reportedly heard a Coast Guard alert for a missing girl and thought he saw her. He jumped into the water, hit a sand bar and broke his neck.

In looking into Brumits case and his disability benefits, the Army conducted a Line of Duty probe to determine the circumstances of his injury. Their original determination that he was reckless had increased the likelihood he would face an other-than-honorable discharge and potentially lose benefits.

The Army said it revised its decision after taking into account the storm arising at the time of your injury; the confusion around multiple watercraft attempting to get back to shore; the swells both increasing and decreasing the depth of the water; the report of a missing girl; and, the fact that others in the same boat as yours had entered the water to assist in searching for the girl.
Chelsea Clinton opted to travel to a clean energy roundtable in this week in a private jet to campaign on behalf of her mother Hillary Clinton.

Clinton first attended two events in Greenville, North Carolina, stopping by a campaign office and then going to an event at East Carolina University to discuss college affordability.

After her two events in Greenville, Clinton was scheduled to attend a clean energy roundtable in Asheville, which is about a 5-hour drive away. But instead of driving or flying on a commercial plane, Clinton opted to a take a private jet. The NTK Network posted a tracking video that shows Clinton boarding the private jet on Wednesday.

The Clinton campaign pledged last year they would be carbon neutral on the trail and that they would be offsetting the carbon footprint of the campaign and that includes travel. The Clinton team has yet to fulfill this promise, however, as the campaign is using private jets to travel to events.

Hillary Clinton has a long history of using private jets rather than flying commercial. While Clinton was secretary of state, she once referred to commercial flights as burdensome.

The Clintons are not the only liberals who have left carbon footprints while lecturing others about how to travel without leaving their own. Former Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin OMalley and liberal billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer were seen leaving a green energy conference in 2014 in a Chevrolet Suburban, one of the least environmentally friendly vehicles on the market. Steyer has donated millions to various environmental groups and Democratic campaigns.
The campaign for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton seized the moment on a new report alleging that Donald Trump explored business opportunities in Cuba in the late 1990s, in an apparent violation of the U.S. trade embargo.

Clinton accused Trump of acting against U.S. interests by defying the sanctions in the past, suggesting that his personal and business interests ahead of the laws and the values and the policies of the United States of America.

According to a Newsweek report, the work was done by a consulting firm called Seven Arrows on behalf of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc., Trumps publicly traded casino company. The magazine said Trump reimbursed the consulting firm for $68,000 of business expenses for its Cuba work  even though neither Trump nor the firm had sought a federal government waiver that would have allowed them to pursue such activities.

Clinton told reporters aboard her plane that Trump appeared to violate U.S. law, certainly flout American foreign policy, and he has consistently misled people in responding to questions about whether he was attempting to do business in Cuba.

She reiterated that she supported President Barack Obamas decision to re-open ties with Cuba while she was secretary of state and will continue to do so if she becomes president. However, she said that the report shows that Trump put himself first.

This latest report shows once again that Trump will always put his own business interest ahead of the national interest - and has no trouble lying about it, the Clinton campaign said in a statement.

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said in an interview early Thursday that they paid money in 1998, but Trump ended up not investing on the communist island.

I know were not supposed to talk about years ago when it comes to the Clintons, but with Trump there is no statute of limitations, Conway added.

Fox News Tamara Gitt and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Democrat Russ Feingolds bid to win back the cherished Senate seat he lost six years ago to Republican Ron Johnson might be 2016s marquee rematch.

The Wisconsin race, which is drawing big money from outside the state, is one of about a half-dozen that could determine which party controls the Senate come January.

Feingold, after losing during an election year rife with anti-establishment furor, is working hard to get his job back  and for now, has the edge in the polls.

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee political analyst Mordecai Lee said the circumstances are different than in 2010, a midterm election where turnout was lower and the electorate skews Republican.

Now the advantage has turned topsy-turvy because now we're talking about a presidential election, high-turnout election -- you get those once-every-four-years Democratic voters, Lee said. So the advantage Ron Johnson had in 2010 is the advantage Russ Feingold has in 2016.

The election has captured so much interest that nearly $7 million is pouring into the Badger State from outside groups hoping to make an impact. About $4 million of that is earmarked against Feingold.

Johnson, who said he spent 37 years in manufacturing before entering the political arena, still touts himself as the outsider in this race.

I actually helped start a business here in Wisconsin that created good-paying jobs. I know how a business is run. I know what we need to grow our economy, he said Senator Feingold is the ultimate insider. A 34-year career politician.

Feingold said hes not the one who should be worrying about his record in the Senate.

I don't have to hide my identity. I am proud that I served in the U.S. Senate, Feingold said. But in this case, he's the senator and when you are the senator and you talk about national security and you don't show up for 50 or 60 percent of relevant hearings that have to do with homeland security, thats a problem.

Its hard to say how much influence the presidential candidates will have on the states Senate race. Wisconsin voters did not support either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the presidential primaries. Both Feingold and Johnson claim they would work well with whoever wins the nations top job.

The latest polls show Feingold with a comfortable lead over Johnson. RealClearPolitics, which averages results from several polls, currently shows Feingold up nearly 10 points.

And, in whats being billed as a show of confidence that Feingold will win the seat back, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee decided to cancel some plans for a major advertising blitz in Wisconsin.

Despite the polls, Lee thinks the race could be tighter than it seems. I think it's a real race. I think it's a competitive race, he said. I think its anybody's to win or lose.
Death was by a hangmans noose on Oct. 2, 1780.

Within days, word had reached Carlisle of the execution of Maj. John Andre for his role in the conspiracy to attack West Point during the Revolutionary War.

It is said some local residents mourned the loss of the young British officer who used to hunt small game in the countryside and waterfowl along the banks of nearby creeks.

Others no doubt greeted the news with grim satisfaction. They recalled scenes of escalating tension between townsfolk and Andre, as well as fellow prisoner of war Lt. John Despard.

Both men were housed in a small stone tavern on the northeast corner of Chapel Alley and South Hanover Street. A Mrs. Ramsey lived across the alley and would prove to be both a bane and benefit to Andre and Despard.

Andre in Carlisle

Source material on file at the Cumberland County Historical Society described Andre as a graceful, dashing young officer with a serious, but somewhat tender expression on his face. Born in England of French descent, he was a merchants son who, at age 20, left a job at a counting house to join the British Army.

Andre was captured at Saint Johns during the failed attempt by the Continental Army to invade Canada in the fall of 1775. Prisoners taken in the campaign were moved away from the fighting to prevent their escape.

Carlisle was made an important place of rendezvous for the American troops; and in consequence of being located at a distance from the theater of war, British prisoners were frequently sent hither for secure confinement, according to an article written by Rev. J.A. Murray. Andre and Despard were transferred to Carlisle from Lancaster in April 1776.

Murray drew material from an early history of Carlisle that described interactions the two officers had with local residents while they were in town. Then as now, rank had its privileges, and the British officers were allowed to hunt out to six miles from Carlisle so long as they wore their uniforms beyond the town limits.

This privilege was revoked after Ramsey spotted Andre and Despard talking to two suspected Tories who were loyal to the Crown. She immediately reported the infraction to the Committee on Public Safety.

The Tories, being pursued, were arrested somewhere between town and South Mountain, brought back, tried ... and imprisoned, the early history reads. Upon their persons were discovered letters written in French, but no one could be found to interpret them, and their contents were never known.

It was assumed the letters were meant for Andre and Despard. History records that Andre was proficient in French, German and Italian.

After this occurrence, Andre and Despard were not allowed to leave the town, the early history reads. They had in their possession fowling pieces (guns) of superior workmanship with which they had been in the habit of pursuing game within the limits of their parole; but now being unable to use them, they broke them to pieces, declaring that no damned rebel should ever burn powder in them.

A close call

The feeling was mutual. The two officers became objects of scorn as tempers flared and the Revolution gathered momentum. Soon it became too dangerous for Andre and Despard to walk the streets of Carlisle. They were often pelted with stones, garbage and curses. Andre wrote how one local resident even brandished a hatchet to remind him of its agreeable effect on the skull.

During their confinement, a man by the name of Thompson enlisted a company of militia in what is now Perry County and marched them to Carlisle, the early history reads. Eager to make a display of his own bravery and that of his recruits, he drew up his soldiers at night in front of the house of Andre and his companion and swore lustily that he would have their lives because, as he (Thompson) alleged, the Americans who were prisoners of war in the hands of the British were dying by starvation.

It looked bad for Andre and Despard. History records how Thompson and his men were upset the two officers were living in relative comfort and how it was believed that Andre had showed indifference to the mistreatment of colonists in Canada.

Thompson and his men wanted to lynch Andre and Despard, but Mrs. Ramsey intervened on behalf of the prisoners and convinced the militiamen to back down. Thompson was a former apprentice of Mr. Ramsey.

As he counter-marched his company, with a menacing nod of the head, he (Thompson) hollowed to the objects of his wrath You may thank my old mistress for your lives, the early history reads. On the following morning Mrs. Ramsey received from the British officers a very polite note, expressing their gratitude to her for saving them from the hacking sword of the redoubtable Thompson.

Andre had some choice words for Carlisle residents. He wrote that the town was inhibited by a stubborn, illiterate crew called the Scotch-Irish, sticklers for the Covenant, and utter enemies to the abomination of curled hair, regal government, minced pies and other heathen vanities ... A greasy committee of worsted-stocking knaves.

No longer safe, Andre stayed in his room and read constantly  his feet propped up on the window and his dogs at his side. Soon after their close call, Andre and Despard were transferred out of Carlisle to York  another town on the frontier of colonial Pennsylvania far removed from the fighting.

A love denied

Before they left, the officers sent Mrs. Ramsey a box of high quality candles requesting her acceptance of the donation as an acknowledgement of her many acts of kindness, the early history reads.

Aside from saving their lives, she occasionally spoke to the prisoners and offered them a loaf of bread. She declined their gift of candles saying she was too much of a patriot to accept a gratuity from the enemy.

Legend has it that Andre met a young girl during one of his hunting trips along the Conodoguinet Creek near Cave Hill. They became sweethearts and would rendezvous in a nearby grove, according to the book Here Lyes the Body: The Story of Meeting House Springs.

He planned to escape, take Kate with him and marry, but his plans were spoiled when he was suddenly removed from Carlisle, the book reads. His sweetheart learned of his fate as she waited for him on horseback ... They never met again.

Andre was later released as part of a prisoner exchange and was in Philadelphia when the British occupied the city. He became involved in the conspiracy with Benedict Arnold to leak sensitive information on the defenses of West Point to Henry Clinton, the British commander in New York.

Stopped by militia on his way to New York, Andre was caught with incriminating paperwork. He confessed his role and was hanged having been denied by George Washington the more traditional execution by firing squad.

As for Despard, he was with Lord Cornwallis when the British surrendered at Yorktown. Eventually, Despard rose to the rank of general, according to a July 7, 2015 column posted on lancasteronline.com.
If Hillary Clintons homebrew server ever got the Mary Shelley treatment, IT specialist Bryan Pagliano would make a fine Dr. Frankenstein  FBI documents reveal new details about how he painstakingly created the machine over a series of months while working in a room along Washingtons storied K Street.

According to files released last Friday evening, Pagliano worked to design and build the now-infamous server inside a room once used as part of Clintons campaign headquarters. On the street known as Washingtons power corridor, Pagliano even used computer remnants from Clintons failed 2008 presidential bid, where he had worked as an IT specialist.

The story of how the server came into existence became clearer thanks to witness interviews known as 302s. Though they were highly redacted, the bureau files include new details Pagliano revealed in a June 24 interview with the FBI.

In that interview, Pagliano said it was longtime Clinton Foundation aide Justin Cooper who asked him to build the server in the fall of 2008 and that Pagliano completed the work in early 2009. (Pages 155, 163)

After the servers completion in the makeshift lab on K Street, Pagliano stated that he rented a minivan and drove to Chappaqua New York to install the email server in the Clinton residence.

Pagliano and Cooper were separately interviewed by the FBI five times during the bureaus investigation into Clintons use of private server and private email for government business while secretary of state. According to the reviewed documents, Pagliano was interviewed first on Dec. 22, 2015 and again six months later on June 21, 2016.

Cooper was interviewed three times -- once in 2015 and twice in 2016 -- and appeared before Congress. Pagliano was one of five people who received limited immunity from the Justice Department, has taken the Fifth and refused to testify before Congress.

In his interviews with the FBI, Pagliano said that he could not recall any existing computer systems at the Chappaqua residence other than the Apple server described previously to the FBI.

Widely published reports including one in the New York Times indicated that Clinton was informally announced as Obamas choice of secretary of state on Nov. 22, 2008, with her formal nomination on Dec. 1. After working in her 2008 presidential campaign, Pagliano joined Clinton in the State Department as an employee and IT specialist, but he also continued to work on the homebrew server he built.

Pagliano, though, insisted to the FBI that he believed the email server he was building would be used for private email exchange with Bill Clinton aides.

In addition, it was during his second interview with the FBI in June, that Pagliano suddenly recalled being given a list of user names and passwords that Cooper asked to be transferred from Coopers Apple server to Paglianos system. (Page 164)

The 302 continued, Pagliano did not recall transferring an account for Hillary Clinton and does not know how her account was installed on the server he built.

Justin Cooper did not work for the State Department but stated in his March 2016 interview that he registered the domain, clintonemail.com, because he handled financial issues for the Clintons. Cooper continues to works for Clinton Foundation entities which include Teneo.

Despite handing out limited immunity deals to five people including Pagliano, FBI Director James Comey has stated that Clintons actions with her email practices were extremely careless -- but not criminal. As a presidential candidate once again, Hillary Clinton continues to refer to the server and her use of private email as a mistake.

Strikingly, Cooper also said in his March interview that Hillary Clinton had Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs) in both her New York residence as well as her residence in the District of Columbia (DC).

In his last interview with the FBI in June, Cooper suddenly remembered there were also two identical iMac computers inside what were supposed to be tightly secured rooms used to review classified materials. The interview states, Cooper recalled a personally-owned iMac computer in the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) of both the Washington, DC and Chappaqua, NY residences of Hillary Clinton.

Cooper added he did not have the combination to open the SCIF and admitted: The SCIF doors at both residences were not always secured. This on its face is a direct violation of security protocol.

Cooper added further insight into close aide Huma Abedins access to the SCIFs by stating Abedin was frequently there but did not know if Abedin could access the SCIF when it was secured.
A top aide to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton found herself in hot water in 2013 with the agencys security and law enforcement arm when she lost classified information while accompanying her boss on a diplomatic trip to Moscow, an incident that the FBI revisited earlier this year when it probed Clintons own problems handling sensitive data.

Monica Hanley, Clintons confidential assistant at the state department, was reprimanded and given verbal counseling by Diplomatic Security after she left classified material behind in the Moscow hotel, FBI documents show. The FBI spoke to Hanley, 35, in January as a part of its investigation into Clintons handling of top-secret and classified information when she was Secretary of State.

Diplomatic Security takes exposure of classified information very seriously, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy research at the Center for Immigration Studies, who formerly worked for the State Department. Part of their job is to look for classified material that people have left out. You can lose your security clearance if youre caught more than once, and that means you might lose your job. Its a big deal.

During her trip with Clinton to Russia, Hanley was given a diplomatic pouch that held Clintons briefing book and schedule for her Russian trip. Hanley brought the pouch and its contents into the Russian hotel suite, which she shared with Clinton, but she left behind some of those classified documents, the FBI report revealed.

Diplomatic Security, which protects the Secretary of State in the U.S. and abroad as well as high-ranking foreign dignitaries and officials visiting the United States, found the classified document in that suite during a routine sweep after Clinton and Hanley left the hotel. Agents subsequently informed Hanley the briefing book and document should never have been in the suite.

Despite having top secret clearance and being one of just three people working for Clinton with access to the top-secret communication room called a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, in Clintons residences in Washington and New York, Hanley had other lapses with State Department records.

After Clintons longtime friend Sidney Blumenthal was the target of an email hack in the spring of 2013, Clintons email company, Platte River Network, advised Clinton to change her personal email address, because he had been frequently corresponding with Clinton and her aides. Because Clinton did not want to lose her old emails, Hanley was given an extra Apple MacBook from President Bill Clintons Harlem, N.Y., office, and directed to transfer over all four years of Clintons emails. She completed the virtual process from her own apartment, which she said took several days because of the volume.

Hanley made another backup of the emails on a thumb drive, but the FBI report said that is lost. Hanley also recalled transferring the emails to a thumb drive but could not recall what happened to the thumb drive, the report stated.

The laptop remained in Hanleys apartment. Hanley moved at least once, and brought the MacBook with her to her new apartment, but she never recovered the thumb drive, the FBI report said.

After Hanley left the State Department in 2014, she realized she still had the laptop in her desk drawer, and she mailed it back to Platte River Network with directions to migrate the emails back to Clintons existing server and return the MacBook to Clintons current aide.

When the FBI first contacted Hanley in November, 2015, to schedule an interview, she reached out to Clintons current aide to ask for the whereabouts of the laptop, but the assistant told Hanley she did not recall receiving it from Platte River Network. Also missing were all of Clintons emails sent and received between January and March 2009, the FBI report showed.

The entire Clinton team used unsecured BlackBerry phones to communicate and Clinton also used her iPad to review email and news reports. Several of Clintons old BlackBerry phones that Hanley purchased also were not turned over to the FBI.

Justin Cooper, a longtime aide to Bill Clinton who also played a key role in setting up Hillary Clinton's email system, told FBI agents that he took Clintons discarded phones and would either break them in half or smash them with a hammer but there was no accounting of the number of phones discarded or where they were located.

While critics note Clintons hardware wasnt safeguarded, neither were her emails. When Clinton's server and email system went down during a storm, Hanley created a gmail account for Clinton to use while Clinton was in Croatia. Hanley, like other State Department employees, often used unsecured private email accounts instead of their State Department email, allegedly because the wireless connection in the plane they traveled in didnt sync with the State Department account.

The Inspector General, who at the direction of Congress, looked into whether Clinton and her team mishandled classified information, referred the case to the FBI because it determined classified and top secret documents were part of the record. The State Department subsequently designated 22 of the messages from Clintons account as top secret, which means they could cause exceptionally grave damage to national security if they are disclosed.

But on July 5, FBI director James Comey announced that the FBI had closed its investigation into Clintons use of a personal email system during her time as Secretary of State without recommending charges against anyone involved. The Attorney General immediately accepted the FBIs recommendation not to prosecute. The FBI released 189 pages of its report on the investigation last Friday.
Donald Trump thinks Justice Clarence Thomas is "very strong and consistent" and praises colleague Samuel Alito -- with those robed role-models in mind, the GOP nominee already has floated 21 people he thinks would be perfect companions on the Supreme Court.

Democrat Hillary Clinton, for her part, spontaneously "loved" the idea of a Justice Barack Obama, but has been coy on others she thinks deserve a bench nomination.

Even with the Supreme Court kicking off its term Monday, it is this election-year guessing game  over whom the eventual winner will nominate to fill the court vacancy left by Antonin Scalias death  thats captured the attention of court watchers.

The uncertainty, meanwhile, has left the court itself seemingly tip-toeing around major issues, as justices wait for a nomination  and confirmation  to break what is essentially a 4-4 split.

Nothing less than the ideological balance of the court is at stake on Nov. 8.

Despite recent GOP trial balloons hinting otherwise, President Obama's choice of Judge Merrick Garland may not get a Senate hearing and vote, leaving it for the next White House occupant to put his or her instant legacy-building stamp on the third branch of government.

A Clinton pick could signal a decisive shift to the left for the first time in decades.

"Any issue you care about, the Supreme Court is ultimately where it's going to be decided. There are a lot of people that rank this as an important issue for them during this election year," said Carrie Severino, chief counsel at the conservative Judicial Crisis Network.

She said if Clinton is elected, "it would have a very dramatic shift on the court, and an incredible impact for a generation."

The Supreme Court, meanwhile, churns along gingerly with an ideologically divided 4-4 bench, preparing to kick off its term Monday with a less-than-impressive docket so far. Caution over its short-term future may leave the justices reluctant to engage for now in divisive cases, absent a long-term five-vote majority.

Several appeals dealing with the death penalty, criminal law and voting districts have strong racial underpinnings, and will be argued this fall.

"When you think about the rights in the balance, whether it's racial equality, gender equality, reproductive access, religious liberty, all of these issues that go to the Supreme court, Americans care deeply about," said Elizabeth Wydra, president of the progressive Constitutional Accountability Center. "So I think they care deeply about who will be appointing the next justices."

Until then, some on the court worry an eight-member bench will shy from fully deciding contentious cases -- opting to rule on narrow aspects, or splitting evenly where no binding precedent is established.

"A tie does nobody any good," Justice Elena Kagan said earlier this month. "We're there to resolve cases that need deciding, answer hotly contested issues that need resolving, and you can't do that with a tie vote."

For issues like abortion, executive power, health care, and national security -- who sits on the Supreme Court matters. In the years between 1969 and 1993, Republican presidents placed 11 members on the high court, including two chief justices. Democrats got zero.

In the two-dozen years since, one Republican leader appointed only two justices -- Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts -- while a pair of Democrats successfully named four. Garland remains a wild card.

Members of the high court know that political reality all too well.

"It's likely that the next president, whoever she will be, will have a few appointments to make," an increasingly chatty Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in July.

Her recent comments on Trump drew bipartisan scorn. "He is a faker," she told CNN. "He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego."

Ginsburg offered regrets for her "ill-advised" remarks, but not a direct apology to Trump.

The GOP nominee also drew criticism for suggesting last month that "Second Amendment people" might not take kindly to Clinton's judicial choices if she wins in November. He denied suggesting violence against anyone for their views.

As for Clinton, legal and political sources close to her campaign are privately suggesting she, if elected, could preserve the status quo and re-nominate the well-liked moderate-liberal Garland next January, avoiding a bruising confirmation in her first 100 days with a potentially more left-leaning pick.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said last month he was convinced Clinton will stick with the 63-year-old Garland.

The nominee herself has said little about her options, except for one.

"I love that, wow," she told supporters in February when someone suggested she name her former boss, Obama.

Clinton also has said she has a "litmus test" for a justice nominee, and emphasized any potential appointments would have to support the Voting Rights Act and campaign finance reform.

Trumps list includes a mix of state and federal judges -- all conservatives. The Republican says he would appoint "pro-life" justices who are "very conservative" and "like Judge Scalia."
Donald Trumps campaign is signaling that Bill Clintons history of affairs and alleged sexual misconduct  as well as Hillary Clintons treatment of the women involved  is now fair game, after his Democratic opponent took the first shot by calling out his own negative comments toward women at Mondays debate.

The Republican nominee took a direct swipe at the former president during a New Hampshire rally on Thursday, in a sign of jabs to come.

"The American people have had it with years and decades of Clinton corruption and scandal," Trump said. "And impeachment for lying.  Remember that?"

Trump and his surrogates argue that Clinton opened the door when she raised accusations during Mondays debate that Trump called former Miss Universe Alicia Machado names like Miss Piggy and taunted her.

In an early morning tweet-storm, Trump hammered Clinton and Machado for teaming up against him -- and referenced Machados checkered past.

Meanwhile, Trump's campaign seems poised to openly discuss not only Bill Clintons sex scandals but Hillary Clintons alleged treatment of his accusers.

Part of it is  how Hillary Clinton has poorly treated women for many, many years, retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, a Trump supporter, told Fox & Friends on Friday.

If you look at her being an enabler, really, in the 90s and really attacking these women, it goes against everything that she now tries to spout as a candidate for president, David Bossie, Trumps deputy campaign manager, said on the same program.

Such comments are part of a new game plan. According to a talking points memo reported by CNN and NBC News, the campaign is urging surrogates to discuss how Hillary Clinton bullied women tied to her husbands controversies.

Hillary Clinton bullied and smeared women like Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky, according to the reported talking points.

The memo suggests stressing that the former first lady has been an active participant in trying to destroy the women who have made allegations against Bill Clinton.

The Democratic nominee, asked Thursday by reporters about the apparent Trump push to invoke her husbands controversies and impeachment, did not respond directly.

He can say whatever he wants to say.  and Im going to run my campaign talking about what I think the American people are interested in, Clinton said.

Before Mondays debate, Trump tweeted possible plans to invite Gennifer Flowers, Bill Clintons former mistress. The campaign did not follow through on the threat  though after Clinton was seen by many analysts as getting the better of Trump during that debate, the GOP nominee said he had been holding back and threatened to hit harder in the next round.

In the interim, the campaigns talking points appear to have been read by several surrogates.

There continues to be this conversation about what he has said but when you look at what she has done  Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky  My goodness, Monica Lewinsky had to start an anti-bullying campaign because of what the Clintons did, said Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Trump supporter, said during an interview on MSNBC on Wednesday.

Some Republicans are urging against Trump digging into the 90s past, including a Republican at the forefront of the impeachment push, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"It's totally the wrong direction to go," Gingrich said, according to The Washington Post. "He should not let them bait him into a swamp where they can revel in the mud."

Republican consultant Sarah Lenti told FoxNews.com Clinton was not right for bringing [Machado] into the debate and the campaign obviously sought her out. But what Trump would be better off doing is rolling out a new policy proposal every day that affects women in a positive way, by talking about national security in a way that goes beyond building a wall.

Clintons campaign insists any reference to either Bill Clintons past or Hillarys participation in his defense is simply a distraction tactic.

After his disastrous debate performance and his sexist attack on a former Miss Universe over her weight, Donald Trump is now trying to deflect by going after Hillary Clinton about her marriage," spokesman Brian Fallon said Wednesday in a statement.

But, after a period over the summer where Bill Clintons past seemed to fade as a campaign issue, its return to the political fray may be inevitable.

Juanita Broaddrick, who accused Bill Clinton of rape decades ago (an allegation he denies), has become more active on Twitter, attacking both Clintons and singling out Chelsea Clinton for defending her father.

That was after Chelsea Clinton told Cosmopolitan magazine that any attack on her parents was a distraction from his inability to talk about whats actually at stake in this election.

The discussion could cut both ways for Hillary Clinton herself. The Washington Post detailed how Clinton helped forge aggressive defenses as other women from her husbands past emerged after Flowers.

Lenti notes the respective attacks by Clinton, Trump and their surrogates harden support among their base voters, but do not expand their appeal among critical independent or undecided voters.

Whether Trump directly goes after Hillary Clinton on this front in the next debate remains to be seen, but he may have to be careful. A NBCNews|SurveyMoney poll taken after the first presidential debate showed 22 percent of likely women voters said the debate made them think worse of Trump and nearly a third said the debate improved their opinion of Clinton.

FoxNews.com's Jennifer Hickey contributed to this report.
Violence comes naturally to humans, but we are far less murderous than we used to be, a new study shows. Scientists in Spain who examined the tendency among more than 1,000 mammal species to kill their own found that humans have been "particularly violent" throughout our history, reports the AP.

Early humans killed each other at a rate of about 20 in 1,000, but got more violent during the Middle Ages when the rate shot up to 120 in 1,000.

After studying 600 human populations from the Stone Age to the present day, the researchers concluded that "lethal violence is part of our evolutionary history but not carved in stone in our genes, lead author Jose Maria Gomez tells the Guardian. Levels of violence are influenced by societal pressures and have "decreased significantly in the contemporary age," says Gomez. Still, the study published in the journal Nature found modern humans to be pretty dangerous, killing each other at a rate of about 13 in 1,000. At least we're not the worst. That title goes to, surprise, the meerkat. "Almost one in five meerkats, mostly youngsters, lose their lives at the paws and jaws of their peers," Ed Yong writes in the Atlantic. The meerkats were followed by two types of monkeys and assorted lemurs. The New Zealand sea lion, long-tailed marmot, lion, branded mongoose, and grey wolf round out the top 11. Not surprisingly, violence was more common among mammals who share territory than among loners like bats and whales. "Our study suggests that the level of lethal violence is reversible and can increase or decrease as a consequence of some ecological, social, or cultural factors," says Gomez. (A study found early humans may have killed off real-life hobbits.)

This article originally appeared on Newser: Humans Are Natural Killers But We're Not the Worst

More From Newser
Bones and tools found at an archaeological site near the city of Tres Arroyos, Argentina, lend more evidence to the idea that prehistoric people lived in the Americas before another group called the Clovis, researchers have reported.

Some of the bones found had signs that they had been butchered by people with stone tools. And dating the bones they discovered reveals that they were roughly 14,000 years old. Thats more ancient than when the Clovis people lived in North America, around 13,000 years ago, according to PLOS Research News.

Details in the study include the fact that about 14,064 years ago, ancient people hunted/scavenged an extinct horse (Equus neogeus) and giant ground sloth (Megatherium americanum), probably along the border of the temporary lake (or another body of water) located near the site, they wrote in the study, which was published in the journal PLOS ONE.

And in a sign that there may have been a designed butchering area, the researchers found a concentration of animal bones in a specific spot.

The scientist behind the study acknowledge that some of their findings could be explained without the presence of humans, but that its most likely that ancient people were in fact involved.

Ultimately, the researchers conclude in the study that the arrival of Homo sapiens into the Southern Cone at 14,000 years ago represents the last step in the expansion of modern humans throughout the world and the final continental colonization.
A new brand of Google phone is expected to make an appearance next week.

Google is expected to announce the Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL, according to reports at VentureBeat and Android Police. This follows months of rumors about the phones. The devices are slated to be rolled out at a Google event on October 4.

Key to the phones is the ditching of the Google Nexus brand. That line of phones  currently represented by the Huawei Nexus 6P and LG Nexus 5X  tends to emphasize the phone manufacturer. Since 2010, when the Nexus brand debuted, Nexus phone manufactures have included Samsung, LG, HTC, and Motorola.

On the other hand, Pixel  at least to date  has been an exclusive Google brand. Examples include the Google Pixel C tablet and the Google Pixel Chromebook. Its not clear what Google plans for the phones, however. HTC is reported to be the Pixel phone manufacturer. Google declined to comment when contacted by Foxnews.com.

This doesnt seem like a concerted move into the hardware space, Tuong Nguyen, an analyst with market researcher Gartner, told FoxNews.com. As in, I doubt Google is competing for hardware market share with the likes of Apple, Samsung, LG, Huawei, he said.

So the Pixel phones will likely continue to serve as a paradigm for OEMs [manufacturers], he said. As in, this hardware and experience is how we [Google] think our Android OS is best represented.

On the other hand, if Google did market it as a brand to compete in the mass market with Apple, they would really have to commit on marketing spend and customer support, Daniel Matte, an analyst with Canalys a market research firm, told FoxNews.com.

Whatever Google does with the Pixel brand, one thing seems clear: Google's hardware strategy is changing under Rick Osterloh, the former president of Motorola, who returned recently to Google as the senior vice president in charge of hardware. He was formerly at Lenovo (which acquired Motorola from Google in 2014).

What exactly is the Pixel phone?

The Google Pixel, the smaller phone, was first reported by Android Police back in June. Some of the rumored specs include a 5-inch 1080p (1,920-by-1,080) display, a quad-core processor, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a 12MP rear camera, and an 8MP front camera.

The Google Pixel XL will reportedly have a 5.5-inch QHD (2,560-by-1,440) display but otherwise offers specs similar to the smaller Pixel, according to Android Police.

The phones are expected to be available from Verizon in the U.S. An unlocked version would be purchased directly from Google. And the phones may be pricey, as much as $649 for the smaller phone, according to Android Police.
Samsung's issues with exploding devices may, oddly enough, extend far beyond the public relations disaster that was the recently recalled Galaxy Note 7. According to a report from ABC News, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has issued a warning in regards to top-loading Samsung washing machines after fielding numerous complaints about the machines exploding.

Hardly isolated incidents, the CPSC since 2015 has seen at least 21 reports from consumers involving exploding washing machines. In one story relayed by ABC News, one owner described the incident as being nothing short of harrowing.

"It was the loudest sound. It sounded like a bomb went off in my ear," owner Melissa Thaxton said during an interview. "There were wires, nuts, the cover actually was laying on the floor."

Thaxton added that her four-year old son, in the wake of the explosion, "was just screaming this scream that I didn't even know I could scream."

Exploding Galaxy Note 7 devices over the last few weeks caused no shortage of damage, but exploding washing machines, by mere virtue of their size alone, arguably pose much more of a grave threat to users. And that, of course, says quite a bit given what we've seen what exploding Note 7 devices can do. Over the past few weeks, Galaxy Note 7 devices have been responsible for parked cars becoming engulfed in flames and a large number of burn reports.

With the CPSC now taking action, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Samsung is now being sued for its exploding washing machine problem.

For those who own top-loading Samsung washing machines, the company advises users to only use "the delicate cycle when washing bedding and bulky items."

Samsung's full comments on the matter read:

"We are in active discussions with the CPSC to address potential safety issues related to certain top-load washing machines manufactured between March 2011 and April 2016. In rare cases, affected units may experience abnormal vibrations that could pose a risk of personal injury or property damage when washing bedding, bulky or water-resistant items.

Samsung is recommending that consumers with affected models use the lower speed delicate cycle when washing bedding, bulky or water-resistant materials. There have been no reported incidents when using this cycle. It is important to note that Samsung customers have completed hundreds of millions of loads without incident since 2011.

CPSC and Samsung are working on a remedy for affected consumers that will help ensure there are no further incidents. We will provide updated information to the public as soon as possible on this website."

If you own a top-loading Samsung washing machine, you can see if your machine is vulnerable by entering in your serial number here.
Just a couple of years after the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York Harbor, a statue of Christopher Columbus was erected to grace Barcelona's skylineand while the former represents freedom and friendship, local council members say the latter should be torn down for symbolizing the worst of colonialism, reports the Guardian.

The officials are formally requesting that the nearly 200-foot bronze figure, which went up in 1888, be dismantled, as well as all the adornments at the base of the columnincluding effigies of Columbus' sponsors, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, per the Telegraphthat "glorify the conquest of America and its 'museumification' through historical interpretation."

Instead, the far-left officials say, a better tribute would be some kind of structure signifying "American resistance to imperialism, oppression, and indigenous and African-American segregation." That's not all the CUP Capgirem members are looking to eliminate.

Also on the hit list: a statue of a slave trader outside Barcelona's post office, the Spanish flags that adorn municipal buildings, and Columbus Day celebrations on Oct. 12.

More from Newser

Other Spanish officials have voiced displeasure at the holiday in the past, with the mayor of the port city of Cadiz tweeting last year, "We never discovered America; we massacred and suppressed a continent and its cultures in the name of God."

The request has been met with some scorn by other parties, with one local leader sniffing, "Next thing you know, the CUP will ask for a statue of Kim Jong Un pointing at Ithaca." Meanwhile, Barcelona's deputy mayor said Tuesday that taking down the Columbus statue "is not part of the changes we currently have planned." A stolen Columbus letter was found in a US institution.

This article originally appeared on Newser: Barcelona Officials Want to Rip Down Columbus Statue
Thursday's tragic commuter train crash in Hoboken, N.J. has reignited long standing debates on various issues regarding rail safety in the U.S.

The New Jersey transit train that barreled into the station killing one person and injuring over a hundred people was a reminder of a similar rail incident where a train rammed into the bumping post at the same Hoboken terminal injuring 30 people only five years ago.

Josh Crandall of the public transit information site CleverCommute.com says that despite several high profile incidents over the years, not much has been done to improve safety-- or ease traveler concerns.

I dont know if we are getting more safe or less safe. We are getting more crowded, more delayed, trains are being cancelled and trains are going slower," Crandall told FoxNews.com.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the 2011 crash was caused by, the failure of the engineer to control the speed of the train entering the station. Contributing to the accident was the lack of a positive train control system that would have intervened to stop the train and prevent the collision.

Though Gov. Chris Christie says we dont know what happened yet, we do know that "the train came in at much too high of a speed.

Knowing the train did not show signs of braking has renewed the conversation on automatic breaking systems-- also known as PTC, Positive Train Control System. The NTSB has pushed for the use of positive train control on all rail systems and its been on the boards most wanted list of safety precautions for over twenty years. The Association of American Railroads says PTC technology is designed to automatically stop a train before certain accidents are caused by human error.

But according to New Jersey Transits last quarterly filing from July 2016, none of the companys 400 plus locomotives were equipped with PTC software, nor was any track. The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 originally mandated that PTC be installed in all freight and passenger trains by 2015 but an extension was issued until 2018 so that all railways could appropriately test their systems.

In reaction to the Thursdays accident, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) showed her frustration with Congress saying, I don't think we should have extended the deadline. If you extend the deadline, stop the trains.

A safety measure that can reduce fatal train crashes like the one in Hoboken seems to be an no brainer, but experts say a lack of funding has kept transit systems from adopting the technology. According to Politico, the Northeast corridor (Amtrak's busiest network) "only has this technology installed in three short sections.

Operators would have to put money into new equipment  a move that anyone with millions invested in existing technology might hesitate to make, according to BusinessInsider.

Dr. Robert Noland, Director of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center and Director of the PhD program in Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University says that New Jersey is in the midst of a transportation trust fund crisis.

"A lot of projects for bridges and other infrastructure were recently stopped. If its possible to automate to cars, why is there not a discussion to automate trains?" Noland told FoxNews.com. "There are automated subways and such. Its a matter of getting the money.

If money is what slows the progress of safety mechanisms being installed then Amtraks most recent $7 billion request from the government for railroad funding should help.

Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman, who retired in September, spoke to TheHill.com and admitted that the dated rail system needs work.

If you're just looking at the Northeast Corridor - and if you're really just thinking about the infrastructure - it's getting to be 100 years old, whether it's tunnels or whether it's some of our bridges."

But, Boardman continued, new funding could turn it around. "We're seeing very positive opportunities to make real improvement and real investment for the future in the specific infrastructure of the Northeast Corridor.

Wendell Cox, a former member of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission and editor of Demographia.com says safety needs to become a priority or the rail systems will fail.

Cox says, People will not ride if its not safe and although we dont know what happened yesterday, we shouldnt be killing people on our railroads. There is no more important thing as safety.
The fix is in. Even if she doesnt show up for the upcoming presidential debates, Hillary Clinton will be declared the winner.

Hillary will be declared the winner by the same media who covered for her when she disparaged millions of hardworking Americans, saying half of Trump supporters belonged in a basket of deplorables, consisting of racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic individuals.

People havent heard much about Hillarys deplorables comment because that kind of behavior doesnt fit the narrative. So her media friends changed the subject, reporting about important things like how cow farts contribute to global warming, rather than all the hot air rising from the Clinton campaign trail that could paint her in a negative light.

They have so much invested. Politico reports that many big media organizations like NBC Universal, News Corporation, Turner Broadcasting, Thomas Reuters, Comcast, Time Warner and Viacom made donations ranging from the low-thousands to the millions to the Clinton Foundation.

Its no wonder most Americans dont trust big media. A Rasmussen Reports survey in May found that 49 percent of likely U.S. Voters think most reporters are biased against Trump; by contrast, only 18 percent believe most reporters are biased against Clinton.

Thats why Hillary gets a pass for calling Trump supporters homophobes. Thats also why many media outlets failed to report when Fox News William La Jeunesse broke the news that the Clinton Foundation accepted millions in donations from real homophobes  foreign governments well-known for criminalizing homosexuality.

Heres deplorable:

The media salivate over trivial scuffles at Trump rallies which serve to paint Trump supporters in the worst possible light. But apparently, it wasnt newsworthy that the father of the Orlando Pulse Club terrorist who killed 49 people is an outspoken Hillary Clinton supporter who showed up at one of her rallies. In fact, Seddique Mateen held up the sign he made supporting Hillary during an interview with a local television station saying, Hillary Clinton is good for the United States.

Hillary says Trump supporters are racist. The media refuse to let go of David Duke despite the fact the Trump campaign let go of him long ago. In fact, Trump never heaped praise on David Duke they way Hillary Clinton did for fellow Democrat and former Klan leader, Sen. Robert Byrd. The Daily Caller reports that Clinton commemorated the late Sen. Robert Byrd, calling him her friend and mentor, saying he was a man of surpassing eloquence and nobility.

Obviously, Hillarys memory problem extends past her emails and Benghazi to include her recollection of her own partys ties to racism. And the media glosses over the fact that David Duke was a Democrat until 1989. He was no longer affiliated with the Klan when he joined the GOP.

At a recent press conference, Trump acknowledged President Obama was born in the United States. Shortly after the press conference, headline after headline appeared smearing Trump. Many called Trump a liar for saying the birther issue didnt originate with him.

What wasnt widely reported was that McClatchy D.C. bureau chief James Asher (@jimasher) said on Twitter on September 15 the birther rumor originated within Clintons own 2008 campaign: @HillaryClinton So why did your man #sidblumenthal spread the #obama birther rumor to me in 2008, asking us to investigate? Remember?

Or when Breitbart News reported that Patti Solis Doyle, a Hillary Clinton 2008 campaign manager admitted on Friday [September 16, 2016] that a Clinton campaign volunteer circulated the birther conspiracy theory...

Its no surprise a recent Gallup poll found that only 32 percent of Americans trust the media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly  a dwindling commodity in a day when its hard to distinguish between the National Enquirer and the New York Times.
One of the first things to do when visiting a new city is to check out the sites that make it famous. But are those popular tourist spots really worth the crowds?

If you're going to China, you cant leave without visiting the Great Wall, right? And if youre in Seattle, you must visit the famous Space Needle  it's one of the best observation points in the world. Traveling to New York City? Your visit isnt complete without a trip to the Statue of Liberty.

There's a reason why millions of people are drawn to these big attractions each year. They offer opportunities to learn about a different culture or explore religious sites, landmarks, museums and natural landscapes.

Not all tourist attractions live up to the hype-- but these are some of the many that do.

1. Great Wall of China, China

This is the largest man-made structure ever built, and one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. It stretches for more than 2,000 miles across Northern China and can be seen from space. Visitors can hike along the sections of the wall and even camp out overnight.

2. The Statue of Liberty, New York City

Located on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty is a universal symbol of political freedom and democracy. Visitors can climb 393 stairs to the observation deck and experience stunning views of New York City. Nearly 3.5 million people visit the Statue of Liberty each year. History buffs can then take a ferry to Ellis Island to learn more about how the U.S. came to be and immigration patters over time.

3. The Eiffel Tower, Paris, France

The Eiffel Tower is one of the most visited monuments in the world, and you don't have to spend a dime to enjoy its beauty. Tourists can take a picnic to the park outside and take in the historic tower. If you do go, glass lifts will transport you up to the top for panoramic views of Paris and its iconic sites.

4. Angkor Wat, Cambodia

The temple of Angkor Wat is located inside one of the most popular archaeological sites in Southeast Asia, Angkor. It is also one of the largest religious monuments in the world spanning over 400 acres. Approximately 5 million tons of sandstone was used to build it in the 12th century.

5. Las Vegas Strip, Las Vegas

There are tons of exciting adventures in Sin City. But one of the most crowded attractions-- and biggest tourist traps-- is the world famous Las Vegas Strip. It stretches about 4.2 miles and it's home to some of the world's top resorts and casinos. It may be filled with people but the lights, dramatic architecture and street shows make it a fun walk for tourists of different ages.

More from The Active Times:

15 Tourist Traps You MUST Avoid

25 Things You Didnt Know About Traveling To Hawaii

Outrageous Reasons Why People Have Been Kicked Off Airplanes

The 15 Best Vacations for Animal Lovers

6. Taj Mahal, India

The Taj Mahal is a must-see world heritage site. Its known as the jewel of Muslim art in India." But if you want to take in the Taj Mahal, book a trip soon. A 2010 survey revealed the attraction is facing a major threat from pollution. Experts believe the pollution and erosion combined could cause it to collapse. Efforts have since been enacted to preserve the white marble and other precious elements.

7. The Acropolis, Athens

The Acropolis, also known as Sacred Rock, is situated on a hill that rises in the basin of Athens. Comprised of the remains from several ancient buildings with great historical significance, this playground of ruins is a must for history and classic architecture buffs. The Parthenon is arguably the sites most famous attraction but there are plenty of unique buildings to marvel.
The body of a North Carolina teenager whose adoptive parents were convicted of tax fraud related to her 2011 disappearance was found this week, officials said Thursday.

The remains of Erica Parsons were discovered in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, according to Chesterfield Sheriff Jay Brooks. He said information from a person close to the case helped investigators find the body.

Testimony at the trial of Casey and Sandy Parsons unveiled a pattern of abusing Erica, who lived with the family in Rowan County from 2000 until she disappeared in 2011 at age 13. She wasn't reported missing until 2013.

In a news release, the Rowan County Sheriff's Office said the skeletal remains found Tuesday were positively identified as Erica Parsons by the North Carolina Medical Examiner's Office. The sheriff's office said the investigation into her disappearance and death is continuing.

Investigators have said Casey and Sandy Parsons have been uncooperative, though neither has been charged in the girl's death or disappearance.

The couple claimed the girl went to live in Asheville with a woman they believed to be her biological grandmother, but that woman has never materialized.

Despite her disappearance, federal prosecutors say the couple continued to collect benefits, including monthly adoption assistance checks for $634.

In March 2015, Casey Parsons was sentenced to 10 years in prison for tax fraud and her husband, Sandy, to eight years.

"I've sentenced more than 1,000 people," U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder said to Casey Parsons before handing down her sentence. "I cannot think of another case that has troubled me more."

Schroeder based his decisions in part on a pre-sentencing report that focused on testimony describing in graphic detail the abuse Erica Parsons endured before her disappearance. That included being fed dog food or no food at all, being excluded from family activities and having her arm broken by one of her siblings.
Authorities in Arkansas implemented a zero-tolerance policy against the creepy clowns that keep haunting residents.

Cross County Sheriff J.R. Smith posted a message on Facebook Tuesday to announce that the county had seen a clown sighting. Smith said theres been one report of four men dressed as clowns in Wynne.

Smith said hes not going to tolerate the intimidation tactics of the creepy individuals.

"If someone wishes to dress up and conceal their identity with the intent to scare or harass our citizens, they will be arrested and transported to the sheriff's office," Smith wrote on the social media page. "Not one citizen should be or will be subjected to this act of foolishness."

Smith addressed questions about whether being dressed as a clown would be ground for arrest. He explained that only those with the intent to intimidate and hide their identities behind a mask would be arrested.

"Were not talking about someone dressed as clown such as Bozo," Smith wrote.

Reports of killer clowns have surfaced in three others states  Virginia, Florida and Colorado  leaving several towns shaken.

Authorities in those states havent been able to locate the clowns.

Click for more from KMOV-TV.
If you are a product developer, I can almost guarantee youve dreamed of having your product sold at Walmart. For better or worse, its the holy grail of retail. But, for the reasons I've described before, getting a product into this biggest of box stores is no easy feat. And if you do get a deal, scaling up to meet demand can be just as challenging.

Related: The 7 Steps of Effective Product Development

That was why I was thrilled to discover that a Facebook friend of mine had gotten his Halloween-themed plush doll Ghoul on a Stool and accompanying picture book into Walmart this season. Juan Hernandez began selling Ghoul on a Stool just last fall. How did he do it? These are the top takeaways from our interview.

1. Invest in yourself.

Hernandez was in charge of logistics operations for 17 Pearl Harbor-based submarines when he left the U.S. Navy in 2012, after more than 20 years of service. He then made the wise decision to learn how to sell and promptly became a salesman at U.S. Foods, where he won the company's Rookie of the Year award.

Currently, he's taking college courses in business while he works; hes just five classes away from getting his masters degree, he told me. But his studies didn't detract from his entrepreneurial zeal. Far from it: On Halloween night in 2013, Hernandez said, he came up with the idea for Ghoul on a Stool. His children were already crazy for Elf on a Shelf, the wildly popular childrens picture book and plush toy.

Why not create something like that for Halloween? Hernandez immediately bought several domain names related to the concept. Crucially, as soon as Hernandez formulated an idea he wanted to bring to market, he began setting himself up for success.

Related: Landing a Spot in the Retail Big Leagues

2. Tap into existing resources, especially for prototyping.

To get his vision down on paper, Hernandez made his own drawings and drafted an outline of the story he wanted to tell. When he couldnt find a professional who would charge him less than $2,000 to write it, he asked his wife Charity, who had written poems in the past, to. It took her an hour, he told me. (Some writers had given him a bid of $5,000.) He then paid a friends sister to create the first plush ghoul.

After contacting about 50 illustrators and receiving their samples, he found an affordable freelancer online whose attention to detail he appreciated.

3. Vet potential partners extensively.

Hernandez began contacting potential contract manufacturers abroad after he prototyped Ghoul on a Stool. His diligence paid off: After getting in touch with nearly 100 companies, he found a plush products manufacturer who was prompt and consistent. He was always available. And he had integrity, which is important to me, Hernandez said. Everyone makes mistakes. Its really about being honest -- integrity is not something you can teach.

In fact Hernandez was so satisfied with his manufacturer's work, he asked him to take over manufacturing the Ghoul on a Stool picture book as well as the products packaging. His advice? Talk to people who have great products. Whos doing their manufacturing? Dont gamble. Ive heard a lot of horror stories about entrepreneurs who are being charged three to four times what I am.

4. Waste no time.

After Hernandez set up manufacturing, he took a leap of faith and put in a large order in May of 2015. We took a shot in the dark, to be honest. When we got the product back in September, we blew up. A seller who reached out to him got the product onto Amazon, where it became a number-one new release that year. (Amazon, which now sells his product directly, is currently sold out of it.)

5. Identify those who have achieved a similar goal and seek them out for advice and mentorship.

After watching Neal Hoffman's episode on Shark Tank, Hernandez reached out to the entrepreneur, who is the creator of Mensch on a Bench, the Hanukkah-themed picture book and doll. When Hoffman did not return his call, Hernandez was undeterred, and kept calling.

His experience as a salesman had taught him how important it is to keep knocking on doors. And, because Hoffman had just been on the show, Hernandez knew he was undoubtedly inundated with requests. 'No' means 'not right now.' You cant just give up, Hernandez said of his efforts. After a few tries, the two men connected. The prototype Hernandez mailed ultimately sealed the seal: Hoffmans wife loved it.

His persistence paid off in a big way: Hoffman offered to mentor him for free out of his "great respect for our Armed Forces," Hernandez explained.

It was then through David Scher, a friend of Hoffmans, that Hernandez was able to get Ghoul on a Stool into Walmart this fall.

6. Respect the power of Facebook.

Hernandez brought in no fewer than five other people to help him grow Ghoul on a Stools Facebook page, which has more than 70,000 likes to date. His strategy? To focus on how he could benefit his audience. People buy things from people they like, he said. They dont always remember what you said, but they remember how you made them feel. To that end, the company focused on sharing feel-good Halloween-related content, often created by fans of the toy themselves, and he networked with other similarly themed pages.

7. Have faith in your ability to figure it out.

Be cautious, Hernandez advises: There are a lot of people out there who want to put money in their own pocket, who will make you promises. Theyll say they can do this or that. Try to educate yourself first. At every turn, Hernandez relied on his own intuition and abilities, but he also drew on and created a powerful community to support him. Role models are essential, he said emphatically. All of what Ive accomplished, other people did first. I just followed their model. Find someone who can mentor you!

His second product, Puppy Stuffy, a dog toy, is coming out this fall. Hed also like to continue creating books that educate and inspire children to do the right thing, like the kind he grew up reading in his hometown, Corpus Christi, Texas, with his eight brothers and sisters. A lot of the books I read as a child were religious, about kids doing good things. They rubbed off on me, he said.

Related: Why Licensing is the Best Way to Get Your Product on Store Shelves

Sure sounds that way to me.
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The Latest on a police shooting of an unarmed black man in a San Diego suburb (all times local):

10:50 a.m.

Pastors have led dozens of people in a prayer for healing in a San Diego suburb following days of angry and sometimes violent protests over the police killing of an unarmed black man.

Ministers on Friday said they are hurting over the death of Ugandan refugee Alfred Olango and called for unity outside El Cajon police headquarters.

Police say Olango was fatally shot after he quickly drew an object from his pocket and pointed it at an officer in a "shooting stance." Police were responding to a report of a mentally unstable man.

Clergy emphasized that diversity is a strength in the community where thousands of refugees make their home. Minsters who attended had immigrated from Jordan, Vietnam and Iraq.

One minister speaking in Arabic called for peace.
The catastrophic train crash Thursday in Hoboken, N.J., has renewed debate over technology known as positive train control that potentially could have helped avert the disaster that injured over 100 and left one woman dead.

The National Transportation Safety Board has called for the tech to be installed for decades and did so again Thursday.

We're definitely in support of positive train control, NTSB Vice Chair Bella Dinh-Zarr said.

The investigation, though, is just beginning and no cause has been pinpointed.

Dinh-Zarr stressed that it remains to be seen whether PTC had to do anything with this accident.

The clamor on Capitol Hill for positive train control arose after a 2008 commuter train crash in California, and started up again dramatically after the 2015 Philadelphia Amtrak crash that killed eight. That train was going over 100 miles per hour around a 50 miles-per-hour turn.

Positive train control would have automatically limited the speed of that train, in that circumstance.

Congress had directed the National Railroad Administration to impose PTC on all Amtrak, freight rail and commuter lines by the end of 2015.

But rail companies protested, saying the deadline was unrealistic and would impose huge costs, even though the Federal Railroad Administration had provided more than $650 million in grant funds to passenger railroads, including nearly $400 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 funding. Congress relented anyway, extending the deadline to the end of 2018.

I dont think we should have extended the deadline, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said. The trains were still running -- if you're going to extend the deadline, then stop the trains, because the risk is there. But that will go a long way to saving lives, improving safety.

But Congress is also imposing competing pressures on rail carriers. On one hand, it wants to improve safety; on the other hand, it wants to reduce costs. Republicans, especially, have hammered Amtrak through the years for alleged inefficiencies and for its take of federal subsidies.

Last year, New Jersey Transit even threatened to shut down its rail line because it couldnt meet the PTC deadline.

At that time, New Jersey Transit said it anticipated full PTC implementation by 2018. Thats true with most freight systems in the U.S -- almost all of Amtraks Northeast Corridor now has PTC.



Fox News Doug McKelway contributed to this report.


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Defense Secretary Ash Carter is meeting in Hawaii with his counterparts from 10 Southeast Asian nations, even as U.S. relations with the Philippines grow shakier.

Carter said in opening comments to the meeting Friday that he wants to encourage more regional cooperation in Asia and the Pacific on many key security issues. He also cited concerns about Islamic extremism in Asia and problems linked to the Islamic State group.

A more immediate issue not mentioned by Carter in his formal remarks is a steep deterioration in relations with the Philippines.

In a speech earlier this week in San Diego, Carter called the U.S.-Philippines relationship "ironclad."

But that seeming closeness is in decline. President Rodrigo Duterte earlier this week said he will end joint military exercises of Filipino and American troops.
Authorities are requesting archived news footage from Salt Lake City television stations in search of potential clues relating to the unsolved killing of a 6-year-old girl who was abducted from her home more than 20 years ago.

Salt Lake City police Det. Richard Chipping said Wednesday the request does not come as a result of any new leads in the case. He said police remain "interested in any and all angles" that will help catch Rosie Tapia's killer.

At the time of her murder, a friend of Rosie's told investigators that a man was "leering" at her and Rosie about a week before her abduction, KSL.com reported.

The girl also told police that she had seen the same man being interviewed about Rosie's death on a local TV station but couldn't recall the name of the station, Salt Lake police detective Greg Wilking told the website.

Tapia's mother discovered her daughter missing from her bedroom on Aug. 13, 1995.

The child's body was found hours later in a canal near her home.

An autopsy showed she had been sexually assaulted and then drowned.

Rosie shared a basement bedroom with her other siblings inside the family's Salt Lake City apartment. The girl's brother, Robert, who was four at the time of Rosie's killing, reportedly told police he saw a man he did not know in their room that night. Robert said the man had a beard, and told him to go back to sleep, according to local news reports.

A $30,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to Rosie's killer.

Click for more from KSL.com

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Four public schools and a Catholic school in a Cincinnati suburb were closed Friday after a woman told police she was attacked overnight by a man dressed as a clown who made threats against students, Fox 19 Cincinnati reports.

The Reading City School District said it took the action as a precaution. The district runs two elementary schools, a middle school and a high school. Mount Notre Dame High School in Reading was also closed Friday.

"The victim stated that a male black subject, possibly a juvenile, assaulted her and made threats against Reading Junior and Senior High Schools for Friday. Superintendent Chuck LaFata was contacted and he decided to close the schools for the day," police said in a prepared statement, Fox 19 reported.

Police said the clown grabbed Kim Youngblood and threatened to kill her as she was smoking a cigarette on her porch, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

They said that during the attack the clown told Youngblood that some students and teachers would wish they were never born at the Jr. and Sr. High School.

The suspect fled and Youngblood was taken to a hospital for evaluation.

She told police her attacker wore a striped outfit, red wig and white clown mask, the Enquirer reported.

Since August, people in other parts of Ohio and other states, including South Carolina, Maryland and Georgia, have reported scary or suspicious encounters with people dressed like clowns, spreading fear through several communities.

Police say some of the reported sightings have been hoaxes.

Click for more from Fox 19 Cincinnati.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The skeletal remains of a North Carolina teenager missing since 2011 have been recovered in a rural South Carolina community after a tip from a person close to the case, a sheriff said.

The tip helped investigators find the body of Erica Parsons in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, on Tuesday, Sheriff Jay Brooks said. The site is about 80 miles south of the girl's former home in Salisbury, North Carolina, and near where her adoptive father's mother lived, the Charlotte Observer reported.

North Carolina medical examiners confirmed the remains are those of the teen, the Rowan County, North Carolina, sheriff's office said in a statement late Wednesday. They said a key tip to finding the body surfaced in August.

No one has been charged with the girl's disappearance or death, but a federal judge last year admonished her adoptive parents for inflicting years of abuse on the child last seen when she was 13.

Although the federal prison sentences that Sandy and Casey Parsons are serving stemmed from fraud the FBI uncovered as agents assisted in the search for Erica, it will be up to state officials to determine exactly how she died and whether criminal charges are warranted, Charlotte FBI Special Agent John Strong said in a statement Friday.

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder said when he sentenced her adoptive mother, Casey Parsons, to 10 years in prison for tax fraud that it was likely Erica was dead. Her husband, Sandy Parsons, received an eight-year sentence. The couple collected more than $12,000 in government benefits to help raise Erica even after she was no longer living with them.

"I cannot fathom the hatred you had in your heart for that little girl," Schroeder told Casey Parsons. "In my view, you are morally bankrupt."

Schroeder described Sandy Parsons, who had a fifth-grade education, as "a follower" of his wife's actions.

Erica lived with her adoptive parents in Rowan County from 2000 until she disappeared in 2011 at age 13. She wasn't reported missing until 2013.

Her adoptive parents said they gave Erica to her biological father's mother in Asheville, but the woman was never found. Casey and Sandy Parsons appeared on the nationally syndicated "Dr. Phil" show in 2013 to explain Erica's disappearance and deny harming the girl.

But a pre-sentencing report submitted as part of their federal case focused on testimony describing in graphic detail the abuse the girl endured before her disappearance. That included being fed dog food or no food at all and being excluded from family activities.

The Parsons' 21-year-old biological son, James Parsons, testified last year that he and other children in the family routinely abused Erica. Parsons said he abused the girl from the time he was age 5 until he was 16, once breaking her arm, before deciding he would no longer hit the girl. Food was often withheld from her as punishment, he said.

Casey Parsons encouraged the other children to abuse Erica, and he saw his mother often beat her, James Parsons said.

"She would beat her with a belt if she didn't listen," James Parsons said. Sandy Parsons would hit Erica with his fist on top of her head," James Parsons said.

Investigators who searched the Parsons home in August 2013 found traces of Erica's blood and either saliva or urine inside a closet, FBI agent Tara Cataldo testified in 2015.

Investigators plan to discuss the case further at a news conference next week, Rowan County deputies said.
2016 BRICS Labour & Employment Ministerial Meet held in New Delhi

Published: September 30, 2016

The 2016 BRICS Labour & Employment Ministerial Meet was held in New Delhi from September 27- 28, 2016 to deliberate on issues including job creation and social security for workers.

The two day meeting saw the participation of the five major emerging BRICS economies viz. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Key Facts

The meeting had dedicated sessions on employment generation, social security, inclusive development and formalization.

Fruitful discussions on areas of common labour and employment issues among the BRICS countries were held.

The BRICS Labour and Employment Ministerial Declaration was also adopted at the end of these discussions.

was also adopted at the end of these discussions. Member countries proposed strong interventions and actions in areas concerning social security, employment generation and formalization of labour markets leading to inclusive and sustainable development.

They also agreed to pursue bi-lateral social security agreements amongst the BRICS member states.

They also acknowledged the need to develop a network of lead labour research and training institutions in BRICS member states.

Month: Current Affairs - September, 2016

Topics: BRICS  Employment  Events  National  New Delhi

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Michigan State Police say a man has been killed by troopers in suburban Detroit after he sped away during a traffic stop and later emerged from his vehicle with a gun.

Lt. Mike Shaw says the fatal shooting occurred Friday near the entrance of Lower Huron Metro Park in Van Buren Township. The chase started miles away in Taylor.

Shaw says the man got out of his truck, ran to trees and pointed a gun at troopers. He says he doesn't know if the man fired the gun.

He says the fatal shooting could have been avoided if the man had cooperated during the traffic stop. Shaw says the man told troopers that he was a "sovereign citizen" and didn't need to cooperate.

The dead man had no identification.
A Tennessee school counselor is being called a hero Thursday after convincing a teenager to handing over a loaded handgun.

A 14-year-old boy went to Sycamore Middle School on Wednesday asking to speak with counselor Molly Hudgens, according to WKRN-TV.

Authorities said he told her he was having problems and was going to kill teacher and a police officer, but no students; he told her she was the only one who could talk him out of it.

She did.

Cheatham County Sheriff Mike Breedlove said Thursday that after they talked for 45 minutes in her office, the boy agreed to hand over the semi-automatic handgun he hid underneath his clothing.

"She was an amazingly brave person to be in there that long with this young man," Breedlove said. "She did something even the most experienced law enforcement officer might not do. She's a hero in our community."

The boy was taken into custody without injury, and has not been identified.

He is being held in Williamson County Jail on charges of possessing a weapon on school property and threatening school employees.

The sheriff did not say how the student got the gun or what problems prompted the threats.

Hudgens said in a statement that she credited her training and experience to help a student out and keep her colleagues and students safe.

The safety of our school is a responsibility I take very seriously as a school counselor, she added,

The district's policy of zero tolerance for weapons on campus requires his expulsion from school for not less than one year.

The incident happened on the same day a 14-year-old boy in South Carolina killed his father before opening fire at a school, injuring a teacher and two students.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Police say two people have died and 15 have been injured in a hospital fire in western Germany.

More than 200 firefighters battled the blaze at Bochum's Bergmannsheil hospital.

Police said in a statement that the fire appeared to have started in a patient's room on the 6th floor at about 2:30 a.m. (0030 GMT) Friday.

The Bergmannsheil hospital was built in 1888 to treat workers injured in the coal mines of the surrounding Ruhr area. It is considered one of the world's first specialist accident and emergency clinics.
An American missionary's bid to spread the Gospel in Russia is facing end times after authorities accused him of violating an anti-religion law that was sneaked into recently passed anti-terror legislation.

Christian pastor Donald Ossewaarde, 55, is the first American citizen to be charged under Russias new Yarovaya anti-terror laws that contain a provision that increases regulation on evangelism. Included is a full ban on any missionary activities in non-religious settings, meaning anyone who preaches outside of a church or designated religious center, faces stiff penalties.

Ossewaarde is due in court in the town of Oryol, 224 miles south of Moscow, after he held religious services in his home and posted advertisements for the service on bulletin boards in nearby housing blocks. The pastor was fined the equivalent of $630 for violating what is also known as the "anti-sharing beliefs amendment."

The Yarovaya laws have sent Russia careening back toward the days of the Soviet Union in terms of religious freedom, Jeff King, president of International Christian Concern, told FoxNews.com. Donalds case is likely just the tip of the iceberg; these laws affect everyone in Russia, not just foreign missionaries.

Ossewaarde, an Independent Baptist from Illinois who first began evangelizing in Russia during a 1994 visit there after the collapse of the Soviet Union, moved to Ukraine in 1999 and Oryol, Russia, three years later.

His wife, Ruth, has returned to Illinois, where their home congregation Faith (Independent) Baptist Church is located in Bourbonnais.

"I didn't feel that she was safe [here]," Ossewaarde told the Baptist Press. "After I had a thinly veiled threat against myself and my wife so I just figured it was time for her to go home."

Ossewaarde, who has traveled back and forth between Russia and the U.S. to raise money for his ministry, said he may follow his wife home soon. He has already referred his small group of congregants to the Russian Baptist Church.

"I want to complete the appeal process," he told the Baptist Press. "If I can successfully challenge this it will make it easier on other missionaries that would probably otherwise be prosecuted."

Many have criticized the new law and its anti-evangelism provisions, saying that its a means to block churches other than the Russian Orthodox Church from evangelizing to ethnic Russians.

Since the Yarovaya law was put into effect this past July, numerous missionaries have been charged and fined including

Sergei Zhuravlyov, a Ukrainian Reformed Orthodox Church of Christ representative, was arrested for preaching in St. Petersburg.

Ebenezer Tuah of Ghana, the leader of the Christ Embassy church, was arrested and fined 50,000 rubles for conducting baptisms at a sanatorium in the city of Tver.

Jim Mulcahy, a 72-year-old American pastor who is the Eastern European coordinator for the U.S.-based Metropolitan Community Church, was arrested and deported under the prohibition of missionary activities at non-religious sites. He promoted and held a "tea party" in Samara with an LGBT group. Authorities had targeted Mulcahy because they thought he may have been organizing a same-sex wedding.

While Ossewaardes family has returned to the United States, the pastor has stayed in Russia to fight the charges with assistance from ICC and legal counsel from the Slavic Center for Law and Justice.

We are very hopeful that the judge in this case will do the right thing and overturn Donalds case on appeal, King said. Were also encouraged to see the U.S. State Department taking an active interest by sending personnel to attend his trial. Russia should not be allowed to get away with crushing religious freedom at no diplomatic cost to itself.

Ossewaarde has been documenting much of his experience on his website since June. On Aug. 14, he recounted when he was detained.

Three policemen came into the house while we were singing. They did not knock on the door or ring the bell; they just walked in, he wrote. They wanted to ask questions, but I told them they would have to wait until after the service. I invited them to stay for the service. They were there for singing and the entire sermon.

After the service, they asked questions for about 45 minutes. They talked to all the people, too, and wrote reports, he added. They said they needed a complete package of documents on us just in case any questions arise. I asked if there had been any complaints against me. They said no.

The pastor also claims that he was fingerprinted and questioned in a locked room for nearly two and half hours before being charged with violating the new law for gluing two gospel tracts to a bulletin board at the entrance of an apartment building and for conducting a religious service in his home.
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The founding member of a banned Pakistani militant group has urged the army to take revenge on India for killing civilians in Kashmir.

Hafiz Saeed, founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group and head of its charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, led funeral prayers in the eastern city of Lahore on Friday for two Pakistani soldiers killed by Indian fire this week at the de facto border between the Indian and Pakistani-controlled portions of Kashmir.

He told several hundred people chanting anti-India slogans that Pakistan's army should teach India a lesson.

Pakistan has sharply criticized India over its clampdown in Indian-controlled Kashmir following the killing of a popular militant leader in July.

More than 80 civilians have been killed and thousands injured, mostly by government forces firing bullets and shotgun pellets at rock-throwing protesters.
Cyprus' president says an insistence by breakaway Turkish Cypriots to cede Turkey the right to militarily intervene under a hoped-for deal reunifying the divided Mediterranean island nation is "excessive and unjustified."

President Nicos Anastasiades says in a televised address Friday on the occasion of Cyprus' 56th anniversary of independence from British colonial rule that no modern state within the European Union has any need for third-country security guarantees.

He said any negotiated settlement to the island's 42 year-old ethnic division must eliminate any dependence on third countries.

Anastasiades said, while he acknowledges Turkish Cypriot mistrust of Greek Cypriots, he would not "satisfy unjustified concerns" at the expense of "existing and legitimate" Greek Cypriot fears.

Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded after a coup aimed at union with Greece.
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Worries over the financial stability of Deutsche Bank returned to the fore Friday, sending shares in Germany's biggest bank to a record low and rekindling broader concerns about Europe's financial sector.

Reports that hedge funds are moving their business out of the bank were the catalyst to the latest sell-off. At one moment in frenzied early trading, the bank's stock fell another 8 percent to below 10 euros a share for the first time, before recovering somewhat to trade 4.3 percent lower at 10.42 euros.

Deutsche Bank has been a growing concern for investors since U.S. authorities two weeks ago said they are seeking $14 billion from the bank to settle legal claims over its sales of mortgage securities, complex investments that were one of the key causes of the global financial crisis in 2008.

With the German government giving no sign it would be prepared to offer a bailout, and the bank heavily exposed to risky investments, notably in the derivatives markets, investors have grown increasingly jittery. That worry was relieved only temporarily by Deutsche Bank's move this week to sell an insurance subsidiary for just over 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) to shore up its capital buffers.

The latest unease over Deutsche Bank stemmed from reports that about 10 hedge funds had taken measure to reduce their exposure to the bank.

The turmoil prompted Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan to issue an open letter to employees in which he says the news about the hedge funds is "causing unjustified concerns" and should be seen in the wider context of the bank's 20 million clients.

"It is our task now to prevent distorted perception from further interrupting our daily business. Trust is the foundation of banking. Some forces in the markets are currently trying to damage this trust."

The bank, he insisted, is fundamentally strong, is meetings its capital requirements, is profitable and has "an extremely comfortable buffer" when it comes to liquidity, with reserves of more than 215 billion euros ($241 billion).

"There is therefore no basis for this speculation," Cryan said. "Nor can uncertainty about the outcome of our litigation cases in the U.S. explain this pressure on our stock price, if we take the settlements of our peers as a benchmark." U.S. bank Goldman Sachs, for example, paid a $5 billion settlement in a similar U.S. investigation.

Though Cryan's words seemed to have helped limit the damage in the markets Friday, analysts said it's difficult for a bank to turn around its fortunes once it has been tainted by speculation of financial trouble.

"In banking, perception is everything, and in times of stress investors tend to shoot first and ask questions later and when confidence starts to leak away the ensuing drip can very quickly turn into a waterfall ," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.

The wider worry, which has sent stock markets across Europe sharply lower on Friday, is that Deutsche Bank may prove to be a "Lehman moment" for the European banking sector. In September 2008, the U.S. government made clear that it was not going to bail out investment bank Lehman Brothers when it was in huge difficulty. Because Lehman was connected to many other banks, the decision to let it fall proved fateful: it triggered a collapse of confidence in the global financial system that pushed the world economy into its deepest recession since World War II.

"German Chancellor Angela Merkel says there will be no state bailout, but this might be a case of 'famous last words', as the history of banking crises often shows that major banks cannot be allowed to fail for fear of systemic risk affecting the financial system and negatively impacting the real economy," said Neil MacKinnon, global macro strategist at VTB Capital.

That's why many experts expect some sort of deal to help the bank, should it be needed. That may see bondholders take a hit or a possible merger of the bank with Commerzbank, which has its own financial problems.

The German government is also expected to pressure U.S. authorities to reduce the fine, as it would be in no one's interest for one of the world's most systemically important banks to go under.

One major difference to 2008 is that the European Central Bank has a range of tools to shore up liquidity in banks under its jurisdiction, the 19 countries that use the euro. As a result, Deutsche Bank should be able to avoid a funding squeeze and a potential run on deposits.

MacKinnon says that's not enough, though, and that the European banking sector is likely to remain under stress given the absence of much-needed efforts to restructure and raise money.

Shares in banks across the region were under pressure. Commerzbank was down 6 percent, Italy's UniCredit 4.4 percent and Spain-based Banco Santander 3.7 percent.

"It is insufficient just for the central bank to provide unlimited liquidity," he said. "As a result, investors need to be mindful of the potential for a market upset in the near term."

If Friday's stock market response is any indication, investors are heeding that advice.

___

Pylas reported from London.
The State Department is halting most official U.S. government travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo and ordering family members of U.S. government personnel to leave the country.

Violent clashes broke out in Congo amid political turmoil earlier this month. Americans have been warned about traveling in the African nation for several weeks.

In an updated travel warning issued Thursday, the State Department says continued instability is being reported in Congo. The warning says the potential for civil unrest is high in parts of the capital, Kinshasa, and other major cities.

Congo's electoral commission has decided a presidential election scheduled for November won't be possible, sparking deadly clashes between security forces and demonstrators.

Critics of President Joseph Kabila say the delayed election is an effort to keep Kabila in power.
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A pair of formerly highflying Chinese provincial officials have been sentenced to life in prison for corruption and bribe taking.

A court in the eastern city of Jingbo said Wang Min, the former Communist Party secretary and top official in the northern transportation hub of Jinan, was sentenced Friday after being found guilty of accepting 18 million yuan ($2.7 million) in bribes to approve real estate projects and arrange jobs and appointments.

Also Friday, Wan Chinglang, former party boss of the southern industrial center of Guangzhou, was sentenced in the southern city of Nanning for receiving 110 million yuan ($17 million) over a 14-year period.

The pair mark the latest ranking officials to fall in President Xi Jinping's years-long campaign against corruption at all levels of government and state industry.
The Netherlands has summoned Russia's ambassador to complain about Russian criticism of the Dutch public prosecutor's office over the probe into the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight 17.

The Russian ambassador was called Friday to the foreign ministry in The Hague over statements that the Dutch say question the office's "professionalism, integrity and independence."

The international criminal investigation concluded that a missile which destroyed the Malaysian passenger jet over Ukraine in 2014 and killed all 298 people aboard was fired from rebel-controlled territory by a mobile launcher trucked in from Russia and hastily returned there.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said that "given the convincing nature of the evidence, Russia should respect the results that have been presented, rather than impugning the investigation and sowing doubt."
The 3rd Annual Doe Run Apple Butter Festival will be held Saturday.

Event Coordinator Lisa Brotherton said the event is kind of a grassroots style event to present a positive image of the community and bring back community spirit.

The focus of the event is old-fashioned apple butter making, which is done in a big old copper kettle over an open fire, said Brotherton. We also make it a family-friendly event with live music, 40 different vendors with direct sales and crafters, kids games and pony rides. We have gotten bigger and better each year.

Brotherton said the first year they only had 20 vendors, last year they had 30 and this year they have 40 vendors planning to attend. She added people are already asking in advance for next year.

We are really looking forward to the growth and it really helps muster some pride in the community, said Brotherton. The event will be held at the Doe Run Community Park located at 5854 Buck Mountain Road from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Brotherton said along with the apple butter being cooked that day there will also be fresh Dutch oven-baked biscuits. Everyone will get free samples along with apple butter.

We already have premade some apple butter that will be immediately ready for sale, said Brotherton. Otherwise you will have to wait until it gets bottled, canned and ready to go. Its really neat to watch the process. We have several hundred jars already and they sell out each year.

Brotherton said it is a neat way to make sure the old tradition doesnt die out and a lot of smaller kids enjoy watching it.

Its fascinating for them to see the whole apple transition to the butter ... its really cool, said Brotherton. The whole process takes about seven hours, then once it breaks down and reduces you have to consistently stir it with a wooden spoon.

Event founder Rick Herbst said the Doe Run Park Board hosts a picnic in the park during the summer and he decided to hold this event after attending Kimmswicks event and saw there was another opportunity for the park to hold an event in the fall.

I decided apple butter should be the focus of it because no one in the immediate area does this that I am aware of, said Herbst. My sister use to tell me stories about our grandmother making apple butter with all the neighborhood ladies back in the 1950s and early 60s.

Herbsts sister convinced him to go to thrift stores and hunt for a copper kettle until he found one. He eventually located that kettle.

I then asked on Facebook if anyone was interested in participating, said Herbst. I got about eight ladies who wanted to get involved with it and it mushroomed from there. As far as we are concerned it has had an overwhelming response considering the size of the Doe Run community.

The kettle used for making the apple butter is 40 gallons and the process is a never-ceasing stirring operation.

We will stir from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the afternoon, because you cant stop or the apple butter will burn, said Herbst. When we have cold weather the fire gets really popular because everyone wants to stay warm."

Herbst stressed that if you havent seen apple butter made you should come out and watch the process.

There will also be concessions, horse rides, a bake sale, giveaways and a 50/50 raffle. Money raised from the event goes back into the park board coffer to fund maintenance and improvements to the park.
A year of Russian airstrikes on areas outside government control in Syria have killed more than 9,000 people, displaced tens of thousands and caused wide destruction, an opposition monitoring group said Friday.

On Sept. 30 last year, Russia began an air campaign backing the ground forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, turning the balance of power in his favor in many areas  including the northern province of Aleppo and the suburbs of the capital Damascus.

Opposition activists have blamed Russia as being responsible for most of the recent airstrikes against rebel-held neighborhoods of east Aleppo city that killed more than 320 civilians in the past two weeks and demolished many buildings.

A Syrian opposition monitoring group that tracks Syria's civil war said a year of Russian airstrikes have killed 9,364 people in the war-torn country.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead include 3,804 civilians, including 906 children. The dead also include 2,746 members of the Islamic State group and 2,814 from other rebel and militant groups, including Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria.

Russia on Friday is marking one year since it launched its air campaign in Syria in support of Assad. In light of that, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a warning to Russians abroad about possible "provocations," urging them to exercise caution.

Also Friday, Syria's military and the Observatory said government forces captured a hospital in the northern city of Aleppo a day after regaining control of a Palestinian refugee camp in the city.

The Syrian military said government forces are strengthening their positions in the Handarat refugee camp and took control on Friday of the Kindi hospital, an unused structure that was damaged in years of war.

The Observatory said the hospital is on the northern edge of the city just 1.3 miles from a major intersection north of Aleppo known as the Gondol roundabout.

State TV also reported intense fighting in the central Suleiman al-Halaby area where it said troops captured several buildings. The area is home to a main water stations that supplies Aleppo, Syria's largest city and once commercial center, with drinking water.

The Local Coordination Committees, another monitoring group said eight soldiers were killed in clashes with rebels near the water station.

Syrian government forces have been on the offensive in Aleppo for days under the cover of intense airstrikes. State news agency SANA said rebels shelled the government-held part of Aleppo killing four and wounding 10.

The U.N. health agency decried an "unfathomable" situation for medical care in rebel-held parts of Aleppo, pleading for a halt to the violence that has prevented aid and support from entering.

Dr. Rick Brennan, emergency risk director for the World Health Organization, said the security situation is too dangerous for outside medical personnel to enter rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

Speaking Friday to reporters in Geneva, Brennan appealed for permission to evacuate the sick and injured. He said 846 people have been wounded, including 261 children, in the last couple of weeks.

He said fewer than 30 doctors doing work that's "beyond heroic" are now in eastern Aleppo, where at least 250,000 people live under siege.


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"The legend begins at the end of the world, the birthplace of Terragonia, the beautiful goddess of Patagonia. Her body was wrought of precious metal in the crater of a volcano and tempered in the eternal ice of a huge mountain range. When the goddess opened her eyes for the first time, she was dazzled by the sun's reflection in a peaceful and vast ocean. Touched by such beauty, her feelings deeply inspired thousands of aromas from a diverse territory." Francisco Pereira

Terragonia is an independent perfumery dedicated to celebrating the aromatic identity of Chile by creating sophisticated and original fragrances with a Chilean label. The word Terragonia is a fusion of two words - Tierra (land) + Patagonia.

Patagonia is a geographical region located at the end of South America and includes the countries of Chile and Argentina. It is called the "End of the World".

The Beginnings of Terragonia Perfumes

The first steps of the perfume hosue date back to 2005 when the self-taught Francisco Pereira created his own aromatic accords while studying Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Concepcion. It was at this time that he made some aromatic bases with local essential oils that he eventually used in the Terragonia perfumes. In 2007 he was accepted into the prestigious school of perfumery ISIPCA France, where he learned the art and secrets of the composition of fine perfumes. Once back in Chile, as he always had the goal of creating fragrances with a national identity, he concentrated all of his efforts on creating prototypes of perfume for a Chilean label and the creation of a cosmetic laboratory. It was in 2013 that he set up his own perfume laboratory in the city of Pucon.

Francisco Pereira

Francisco has explained that the inspiration for his perfumes is the happiness that people feel when experiencing the scents of nature: A walk through temperate forests, that moment just before a snowfall, a visit to an exotic island, being in a desert in bloom, etc. He believes that our noses react to the great aromatic beauty and diversity of nature.

Torres del Paine, Chile

Composition Techniques

Francisco employs state of the art of the processes such as aromatic deconstruction by various chromatographic techniques (GC-O-AEDA, GC-MS, SAFE, etc.). This allows for the identification and quantification of aromatic chemical compounds. The artistic process of aromatic composition is determined mainly by intuition and Francisco's knowledge of raw materials.

The Fragrances

Terragonia currently offers 4 fragrances en their repertory, eaux de toilette in 50 ml bottles.

CANELO AMBROSIA

Canelo Ambrosia (Cinnamon Ambrosia) is the first fragrance to contain the essential oil of Chilean Canelo (Drimys winteri).

The essential oil has a very distinctive spicy aroma with citrus and woody nuances.

The cinnamon tree is sacred to the Mapuche indigenous people as a connection between heaven and hell.

Canelo Ambrosia opens with notes of tangerine, lemon and a subtle herbal note; the heart of the fragrance is composed of austral pepper (from the Canelo) and a hint of jasmine. The base is composed of oak moss and ambergris.

ROSA

Rosa takes its inspiration from the May Rose. It has an opening of geranium with a hint of green grass; notes of damask rose, violet and neroli slightly dominate the heart of the fragrance which ends with a sweet note of cotton candy.

LAVANDA

Lavanda contains essential oil of lavender from plants harvested and distilled specifically for this perfume. These plants are propagated in Futrono, southern Chile.

Cosechando Lavandas en Futrono

The aroma is herbal and camphorous, with middle notes of lavender and a vanilla background.

Lavandas en Futrono

FLOR DE LIMON

Flor de Limon is inspired by the flower of a lemon tree. It is composed of lemon verbena with a heart of neroli, apricot and light violet; a note of cotton candy completes the composition.

The Terragonia laboratory is located in Pucon, and the company takes its inspiration for the composition of its perfumes from the local mountains, woods, ponds, lakes and the imposing volcano Villarrica (Address: Camino Vecinal Lot B-A, Sector el Claro, Pucon, Chile). Also in the City of Concepcion there is a branch where perfumes are sold directly to the public (Address: Barros Arana 631, Galeria Universitaria Concepcion).

Volcan Villarica en Pucon, Chile

EXCLUSIVE GIVEAWAY FOR READERS IN CHILE!

Francisco Pereira is giving away 2 perfumes of your choice to 3 Fragrantica readers located in chile!

Leave a comment by 10/15/2016 at the original Spanish-language article HERE (at Fragrantica.es). Winners will be contacted by private message at Fragrantica.es.

Francisco, thank you very much for your generosity!

Article translated by Marlen Elliot Harrison

MEH
Scooters Coffee Opens First Location in Columbus, Nebraska

Nebraska Location to Celebrate Grand Opening with $2 Medium Drinks

September 30, 2016 // Franchising.com // Columbus, Nebraska - Scooters Coffee, the Midwest-based franchise that has experienced tremendous growth over the past year, will increase its Nebraska presence with the companys first-ever location in the town of Columbus (2117 23rd Street). On Friday, September 30, the new drive-thru coffee shop will celebrate its Grand Opening with $2 medium drinks all day.

We have experienced remarkable success in the state of Nebraska, especially in smaller to mid-sized towns that are familiar with our brand, stated Rob Streett, President and Chief Operating Officer of Scooters Coffee. Columbus is already welcoming Scooters Coffee with open arms, and we are extremely humbled by the enthusiasm this community has expressed for their first Scooters location.

Daria Springer and Kristen Stauffer will own this location. Growing up in the rural surroundings between Columbus and Schuyler I am thrilled to be able to bring Scooter's to this area that I know and love, said Daria. We got involved with Scooter's because of our love of the product and brand. We felt like the folks in Columbus deserved to experience what other major Nebraska cities have been experiencing for years as customers of Scooters Coffee.

With more than 150 stores open in 13 states, Scooters Coffee has signed agreements in two additional states throughout the country and will open more than 40 locations from coast to coast in 2016. Over the next few months, the company, which recently opened its first location in Arizona, boasts a robust grand opening pipeline. This summer, the company opened its first of many locations in Florida and added a second location to the Atlanta, GA metro area. It will also add several locations this year to expanding markets, such as Iowa, Kansas, Texas and Nebraska.

Scooters, which is based out of Omaha, Nebraska, handcrafts its pastries and roasts its own 100% shade-grown coffee, sourced through Arbor Day Foundation. In 2016, the company also added depth to its product profile, releasing a new line of Organic Hot and Iced Teas earlier this summer. In addition to its nearly-100% gluten-free beverage menu, Scooter's will soon add gluten-free food items to its extensive menu.

About Scooters Coffee

Founded in 1998 by Don and Linda Eckles in Bellevue, Nebraska, Scooters Coffee roasts only the finest coffee beans in the world at its headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. Scooter's success over 18 years of history is simple: stay committed to the original business principles and company core values. The Scooter's mantra, often recited to franchisees, customers and employees is: "Amazing People, Amazing Drinks...Amazingly Fast! It represents the company's business origins from 1998 and reflects a steady commitment to providing an unforgettable experience to loyal customers.

For more information, visit scooterscoffee.com,facebook.com/scooterscoffee, or ownascooters.com.

SOURCE Scooters Coffee

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The National Life Chain returns to the Parkland this weekend for its 24th year.

The annual event will take place from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Sunday on Karsch Boulevard, between Washington and Potosi streets. Participants are asked to park on side streets along the south side of Karsch between A and Potosi streets. They will be directed where to pick up signs.

"Life Chain is a peaceful, prayerful stand for life," said event coordinator Dotty Bach. "It is held each year in cities across the nation on the first Sunday in October. People simply gather along a major street in their town and hold signs asking God to protect life."

Bach said Life Chain is not sponsored by any local church but members from congregations throughout the area participate in the event.

"I would guess that there are about 30 churches represented," she said. "I always ask people to give me their name, address and what church they go to so I can kind of see where we're going."

Bach puts posters out asking people to come and telling them Life Chain is a time of meditation, not visiting.

"It's prayer for us as much as it is for the people that we're ministering to," she said. "We want to make sure people understand that we value life."

Bach emphasized that everyone is invited to participate in Sunday's Life Chain. There is no preregistration or cost to take part.

Church groups, such as Sunday school classes and Bible study classes are encouraged to take part, she said. Families are also welcomed. Bring water, lawn chairs, umbrellas and strollers as needed.

She noted that Jan. 22, 2017, will mark the 44th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

For more information about the National Life Chain, visit nationallifechain.org
A police presence was seen at area schools this morning after a clown scare was found on social media last night.

Washington County Sheriff Department Captain Zach Jacobsen said Kingston School Superintendent Alex McCall contacted him Thursday night saying, One of the teachers had received a threat on Facebook, but it was not directed to the teacher nor the school.

After the threat was found the superintendent and I both did a little research. We found that the clowns making the threat originated from St. Joseph, Missouri, said Jacobsen. The article about the clowns didnt have very credible information because the article was very short.

"This other Aint Clowning Around page basically explained that they had no involvement with this and this wasnt them. The title of the name wasnt even typed in the same punctuation, so it was clear it wasnt them.

Jacobsen added he wasnt able to find the Aint Clownin Around page or anything related, but there were local high school students who had also seen the post and they were sharing it.

The parents were sharing the law enforcement's and other agencies' reactions to this post, said Jacobsen. Then I made the decision to make an announcement about it and to (take extra) steps to prevent anything. We had deputies stationed at every school in the county.

Jacobsen went on to say that Friday morning one student made a claim of spotting a clown at one of the busiest intersections in the city limits.

There is a park next to it that leads right to the school at the intersection of Lead Street and Jefferson, said Jacobsen. One student, to my understanding, observed a man with black pants and a white shirt with face paint resembling a clown or a clown mask and no hair, standing in the park.

Jacobsen stressed no one else reported it and there were officers about 15 seconds away when the call went out and nobody could find the person.

Im pretty sure it a hoax just playing into this Facebook post, but at this point we cant take anything for granted, said Jacobsen. We are going to have officers stationed at school just like what we did this morning. We are just taking an overabundance of caution. At this point we dont have anything credible, its just a social media threat.

Jacobsen repeated that all this was done in abundance of caution and he cant emphasize this enough.

There was no credible information outside of the threat. It was not directed at any school in particular, it was just directed at schools in general, said Jacobsen. So this was specifically in an abundance of caution. I have released everything we know at this point. This is just a fad, this clown thing going around, people dont realize when they hit the send button what they truly are affecting.

It would have been really, really nice of all those folks who were sharing that original post to go to their local law enforcement instead of waiting until an administrator of a school at 10 p.m. at night found it, explained Jacobsen. The post that I saw was from a couple of hours earlier from when I saw it, so people had seen it but chose not to do anything with it other than share it instead of calling local law enforcement.

In addition to Washington County taking precautionary measures, the Central School District also had an added police presence at their schools on Friday.

Central High School Principal Brad Coleman said they had a couple students who reported that somebody else had seen a clown around the school outside one of the classrooms Thursday afternoon.

"We immediately investigated and we did not find a clown or substantiate the accusation," said Coleman. "So that was the end of it as far as I was concerned, until we started seeing these posts last night."

Coleman said students were sending around another post and he investigated it last night from home. "It was something that actually started across the country and from what I understand South Carolina is one of the first to report incidents of that post," said Coleman. "It then went around the country. Some of our students sent it to me last night, so I did a little bit more investigating and called our resource officer and she said they had no reports and they couldn't substantiate any of the allegations."

Coleman said this morning when they came into the school they reiterated to the students that it was a hoax.

"I asked the students this morning that if anybody had any credible evidence to please come forward ... nobody had," said Coleman. "We tried to assure them of their safety and security here at school the best we could. We did have a police presence at the school this morning because I contacted our resource officer last night and told her about the post."

Coleman said he also called the superintendent as well just because he wanted parents to feel safe and secure and know they were going to do anything they could to protect the students.

"So we wanted some officers here and the resource officer made sure she was here early," explained Coleman. "The Park Hills Police Department was patrolling the school just to make sure. This post is not credible, it's another wannabe post perpetuated to try to scare our students and parents."

Coleman stressed he hoped law enforcement could find the source of the posts and punish those people making the crazy accusations (and threats).

"Some people get scared when people make those kinds of threats against students and I can understand that," said Coleman. "I just hope our parents know that we do everything we can to provide our students with the safest and (most secure) environment we can."
I am very grateful for the opportunity to work with so many talented colleagues here at the Hutch and abroad. I look forward to using this award in expanding my research interests in developing quantitative, multiplexed targeted proteomics assays and enabling biomedical research, Whiteaker said.

Whiteaker, along with Paulovich  a Fred Hutch geneticist and oncologist in the Clinical Research Division  spearheaded development of the NCI Assay Portal, a crucial piece of the scientific framework needed to modernize the study of proteins and the role proteins play in cancer.

The portal, part of the NCIs Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium, is considered central to advancing medicine. In all diseases, proteins carry out the biological functions of our cells and form the basis of the majority of diagnostic tests and treatments. But more than 95 percent of human proteins cant be studied because science lacks precise laboratory methods, or assays, for detecting them and measuring their concentrations, Paulovich said.

In June, Paulovich was invited by Vice President Joe Biden to attend the National Moonshot Summit in Washington, D.C., where a new proteomics initiative was announced.

Dr. Whiteaker is an exceptional analytical scientist whose complementary experience and skills allowed me to apply my own background in oncology and genomics to clinical proteomics beginning over a decade ago, Paulovich said. Without Jeffs mass spectrometry expertise to complement my background, our interdisciplinary translational proteomics program would not have succeeded.

Whiteaker, Paulovich added, contributes integrally to all aspects of their mutual research program, which is now having a meaningful impact for the larger research community by providing validated and reproducible tools for quantitative, high-throughput, multiplexable measurement of proteins, and the application of these tools to address important questions in oncology.

I couldnt be more grateful to work with Jeff, and he is so deserving of this award, Paulovich said.

 Bill Briggs / Fred Hutch News Service
Atlanta Georgia Affordable No Tax Liability Obamacare Alternative Launched

An Atlanta, Georgia health insurance specialist has launched a new alternative to Obamacare for customers in the local area. You Select Health Insurance, prides themselves on helping people who want a more effective and affordable health insurance option.

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You Select Health Insurance, Atlanta's new health insurance specialist, has launched an alternative to Obamacare for Georgia residents. In a slightly different approach to its other services, the Georgia health insurance carrier will offer major insurance company products to individuals, families and small businesses. Obamacare (The Affordable Care Act) offers a traditional approach to major medical insurance. For many, it is not appealing, nor affordable. You Select Health Insurance is committed to educating the consumer about alternative methods for managing risk, accessing healthcare and restoring freedom of choice.

The web site explains that, where most current health insurance plans tend to be too expensive with unaffordable premiums, You Select Health Insurance will provide a more affordable health insurance alternative with premiums cut as much as two thirds. More information can be found on the company website at: http://YouSelectHealthInsurance.com.

You Select Health Insurance is a group of professionals with decades of experience in the specialized field of life and health benefits. The site was created to help those who can't afford high premiums through the Health Insurance Exchanges, while helping those who want a more effective choice when it comes health insurance.

The new solutions provided by You Select Health Insurance are government approved ACA (Affordable Care Act) compliant, with major industry providers that are one third to half the cost of Obamacare rates. The company site goes on to say that these plans give customers a choice of doctors with better coverage for those who qualify. Additionally there will be no tax liability for not having an Obamacare plan.

Steve Bolton, the Enrollment Manager at You Select Health Insurance, emphasised that the company strives to offer the best health insurance plans and benefits in the marketplace. The expert team is confident that the launch of their new ACA compliant health coverage alternative to Obamacare will offer small business owners a strong option for their employees.

He also added: "We believe in a free market approach to healthcare and risk management. While You Select Health Insurance may not be the only carrier with this kind of offering, local business owners, individuals, and families are choosing You Select Health Insurance because customers get the best available health coverage option at the absolute best price. Our goal is to help our customers. Together we can make a difference in America"

You Select Health Insurance is now serving the state of Georgia, and has been recognized as one of the most popular alternatives to Obamacare in the area. To receive a free quote for the most affordable plans and benefits, interested parties can call (770) 464-5550

For more information, please visit http://YouSelectHealthInsurance.com

Contact Info:

Name: You Select Health Insurance

Organization: You Select Health Insurance

Phone: (770) 464-5550

Release ID: 134956

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Pest and Termite Control Website Launch in Westchester County, New York

AAG Pest Solutions, Inc., is celebrating the launch of their new exterminator service website in Westchester County New York. We are offering great discounts for US Veterans, Senior Citizens, commercial and home owners clients.

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In a slightly different approach to launching its new Exterminator service, AAG Pest Solutions, Inc., a pest control company in the southern part of Westchester County has decided it will be launching a new website online that is going to make it easier for clients to contact them and learn about their pest control services. This is expected to take place Thursday 29th September.

Where most businesses tend to just post flyers and leave it at that, AAG Pest Solutions, Inc. has decided to be a little more innovative with the start of its new Exterminator service website.

Antonio Gonzalez, CEO at AAG Pest Solutions, Inc., says: "We wanted to be innovative with the launch of our new Exterminator service because we wanted to give our customers an easy way to connect with us.

It should be really worthwhile and we're hoping it will bring home owners and commercial clients to contact us without hassles.

AAG Pest Solutions, Inc. has always made a point of standing out when compared to other pest controls companies in the Southern Westchester County area. This launch celebration is just one of the many ways it does so.

This is a great chance for Southern Westchester County residents to eliminate pest control everywhere we are called to do our services. AAG Pest Solutions team are exterminators, providing rodent and pest control in the southern part of Westchester County, for home and commercial clients.

AAG Pest Solutions, Inc. has been serving the Southern Westchester County area since 2012. To date it has served over hundreds of customers and has become recognized as one of the most popular in the area. It can be found on 433 N Terrace Ave Mt Vernon, NY 10552 near the library of Mount Vernon.

Antonio Gonzalez also said: "While AAG Pest Solutions, Inc. may not be the only business with this kind of offering, local residents are choosing AAG Pest Solutions, Inc. because customers always get the service we say we would do."

When asked about the new Exterminator service, Antonio Gonzalez said: "I believes its going to be a hit because with our mobile responsive site, clients visiting our website thru their cell phones will make it easier for them to connect in just one click".

Further information about AAG Pest Solutions, and its new discount coupons for its exterminator services can be discovered at http://www.westchesterpestsolutions.com.

For more information, please visit http://www.multimarketingusa.com

Contact Info:

Name: Marvin Vasquez

Organization: Multi Marketing USA

Address: Westchester New York

Phone: (877) 653-9393

Release ID: 135235

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Howetek Creative Launches Customized Search Marketing Strategy

Howetek Creative is a Jacksonville, Florida-based internet marketing company. The firm specializes in Google search engine optimization, Facebook advertising and web design.

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Florida-based Howetek Creative and owner Gerry Howe is pleased to announce that they have created a customized search engine marketing strategy that is effective in capturing Google searchers and converting them into new customers. The millions of Google searches performed each day is a global marketplace opportunity. The company also specializes in Facebook advertising and web design. The digital marketing agency is dedicated to the acquisition of new customers for clients.

In today's digital age, there is no better way to find products and services than to use the Google search engine. Although millions of searches are done daily, the potential customer rarely looks beyond the first page of the search engine results page. In order to capture these searches and convert them into customers, it is necessary to ensure that the client's website reaches the fist page of Google. The Howetek Creative professional team has the knowledge and experience to promote the client's business web page.

Leveraging the power of Facebook is another effective marketing strategy in the digital age. There are over one billion active users of Facebook and its effectiveness in a marketing strategy is undeniable. Howetek has the tools to use Facebook advertising as the most powerful marketing platform in existence.

Speaking in a recent interview, Gerry Howe explained, "Regardless of what industry you are in, Facebook can work for you. Whether you sell products online or provide services, we can reach your potential customers. It is just a matter of putting the right ad in front of the right audience at the right time. We will create a custom strategy unique to your business and drive qualified leads to your website or doorstep."

The customized plan is based on a three-fold approach. The brand of the client is promoted in order to increase overall online visibility and exposure. Strategic targeting of the niche audience is carried out. Intelligent, data-driven techniques are applied in order to drive customer and revenue growth.

For more information, please visit https://howetekcreative.com

Contact Info:

Name: Gerry Howe, Owner

Organization: Howetek Creative

Address: 7964 Devoe St, Jacksonville, FL 32220

Phone: (904) 891-4313

Source: https://howetekcreative.com/responsive-web-design/

Release ID: 135213

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Frederick Wehba Launches The Wehba Foundation With Wife Susan

The organization's focus is on students, real estate ventures, and both corporate and small business opportunities.

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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, Frederick Wehba together with his wife Susan Wehba are proud to launch their faith based organization The Wehba Foundation to devote their time and energy toward implementing godly values toward various regional groups. The organization's focus is 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

Frederick Wehba -- Highlights Real Estate Trends for 2016: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/frederick-wehba----highlights-real-estate-trends-for-2016-2016-09-02-2160957

C Frederick Wehba - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CFrederickWehba

For more information, please visit http://www.ICMediaDirect.com

Contact Info:

Name: ICMD

Email: pr@icmediadirect.com

Organization: ICMediaDirect.com

Phone: 1.800.595.0821

Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxIeDA7M9Jg

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/frederick-wehba-launches-the-wehba-foundation-with-wife-susan/135275

Release ID: 135275

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Roberts Liardon Receives Second Honorary Doctorate Degree in Theology

An Honorary Doctorate degree is reserved for only the most distinguished scientists, intellectuals, artists, leaders, and humanitarians who have made significant contributions to civilization.

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Roberts Liardon, an internationally renowned author, public speaker, and spiritual leader, is honored to receive his second Honorary Doctorate degree - a rare and highly notable honor among the most prominent figures in society today. An Honorary Doctorate degree is reserved for only the most distinguished scientists, intellectuals, artists, leaders, and humanitarians who have made significant contributions to civilization. As a prolific writer and the founder of a global ministry, Liardon is being recognized for the positive effects of his efforts in helping the poor and needy at home and abroad, and for his role as an inspirational force in the Christian community for the past three decades. This honor will coincide with his 50th birthday, marking a momentous time in his life to be shared by the many people whose lives he has touched.

In December of 2011, Liardon received an Honorary Doctorate in Literature from The Wesley Synod of Canterbury England. His literary achievements include his work, "I Saw Heaven", a retelling of his own spiritual experience, which he wrote at the age of 17. The book sold over 1.5 million copies, and its popularity helped him quickly become one of the leading public speakers in the Christian community. Inspired by God, Liardon continued writing historical and self-help books, amassing to over 70 titles. His most popular work, "God's Generals", is a master biographical account of some of the most important revivalists in Christian history, and dynamic works such as "Breaking Controlling Powers", published in 1988 and "Sharpen Your Discernment", released in 1997. To date, he has sold over 15 million copies of his books in over 125 countries. Encouraged to write by his own divine life, the globally renowned author and humanitarian has proven himself to be a voice that speaks to the present generation of believers. His message is relevant, profound, and deeply appreciated by readers worldwide. His first Honorary Doctorate marked his remarkable literary achievements as a successful writer and inspirational force within the global Christian community.

His second Honorary Doctorate, this time in Theology, recognizes Roberts Liardon's lifetime of efforts, not just as an author, religious historian, and public speaker, but also as an active spiritual leader. For decades, he has been connecting and organizing Christians to do the Lord's work and moving hearts towards God. As a young man in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he created what is known today as Roberts Liardon Ministries. When Liardon was in his mid-twenties, he moved to Southern California and founded one of the largest Christian Churches and Bible Colleges in Orange County. The Church became a base for his ministry work, including offering food, assistance, and religious support to the needy. Inspiring nearly 500 men and women, his ministry is celebrated for traveling around the globe in support of worthwhile causes such as providing food for the hungry and educating young people about how to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Roberts Liardon has established himself as one of the most important Christian authors and orators of this century. Through his global ministry, Roberts Liardon Ministries, he and his staff have touched millions, helping those in need and actively working towards improving the lives of people at home and abroad. He has been recognized numerous times for his efforts, including an Honorary Doctorate degree in Literature and being voted as the most Outstanding Young Man in America on two separate occasions. Having been hosted by kings, presidents, and political and religious leaders across the globe, Roberts Liardon continues to write books, fulfill a demanding speaking schedule, and to mentor the new generation to create a positive change in the church and society.

Roberts Liardon - Spiritual Leader and Author: http://www.robertsliardonnews.com

Roberts Liardon -- To Release Sixth Volume of God's Generals: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/roberts-liardon-release-sixth-volume-043431941.html

Roberts Liardon -- Announces Plans to Build a New Church in Orlando: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/roberts-liardon-announces-plans-build-012921884.html

For more information, please visit http://www.ControlPR.com

Contact Info:

Name: ControlPR

Email: info@controlpr.com

Organization: ControlPR.com

Phone: 202.759.4575

Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3hbWzmDxHo

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/roberts-liardon-receives-second-honorary-doctorate-degree-in-theology/135268

Release ID: 135268

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Remote Keyloggers Announces the New Sierra Compatible Keylogger for Mac

( September 30, 2016 ) San Francisco, CA -- Last week Apple began shipping the macOS Sierra, named after the California mountain range that slightly crosses into Nevada. Sierra is compatible with virtually all post 2010 Macs and MacBooks, and is the first Siri compatible OS released by Apple. Like all Apple OS's Sierra is available for free download directly from the App Store and Mac users can play it safe by checking Apple's Sierra compatibility system checkup.

With the new release of Sierra come the problems inherent to all OS upgrades, especially for the software developers who build and maintain The Official Keylogger for Mac. Siri compatibility is a big change to the OS and making a keylogger capable of taking advantage of the voice activated intelligent assistant is a milestone for software developers and is expected to be a de facto feature relevant to all internet connected devices.

In making a Mac keylogger Siri compatible the developers needed to create a script designed to access the Mac's microphone upon voice command. This allows Siri's responses to be stored as a native M4A file on the Mac. Once captured the keystroke logger can optionally convert the audio file to MP3 or export it via speech-to-text to the Mac's keylogger reporting dashboard.

The integration of the Apple Watch with the newer Mac OS has been another factor users will need to consider when updating their OS. While the previous operating system did not have the capacity to unlock the Mac using the Apple Watch, Sierra is fully compatible with Apple's latest portable device. Sierra users will now be able to wake and unlock their Macs by simply flicking the wrist as has been seen with the latest iPhone and iPad. Because this type of device activation takes place with virtually no keystrokes being typed the developers were forced to implement a new method for activating the keylogger software without having it run as a system process.

The application will no longer be "woken" via keystroke but will begin reporting whenever two or more core system processes are running simultaneously. This is said to prevent the program from reporting during inactive hours, especially useful for users who wish to view their keystroke activity report hourly.

This newest version of The Official Keylogger for Mac features, keystroke recording, webcam access, microphone access and social network chat capture as well as a simple install via iCloud remote access module. Current beta features scheduled for release in 2017 are said to include iChat capture, GPS tracking and the ability to define specified users to be monitored. The remote installation feature has presently been deprecated as Apple users are being introduced to new 3rd party cloud storage services other than iCloud.

While still in beta until complete Mac Sierra compatibility all operational features from the previous Mac OSx are fully functional with new auto-updates scheduled for release over the 1st quarter of 2017. Remote Keylogger customers who own licenses for previous versions of the application can update for free at any time by contacting the development team.

To learn more about the developer's current and future projects users can visit the website and subscribe to their software's roadmap for future updates.

About The Remote Keylogger:

The Remote Keylogger is a software development company dedicated to parental monitoring applications, loss prevention, and remote accountability software. The development team is currently focused on transitioning its keyloggers to Mac's latest OS Sierra.

The development team is currently focused on making all previous Mac keylogging applications compatible with the new OS while taking advantage of the new Siri integration.

Future projects include launching in new Latin American markets as well as Asia with the first multi-national product to be an Android based keylogging application.

The company regularly posts updates and blogs about the status of current and upcoming projects as well as patches to older digital products.

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The Best Free Keylogger of 2017 Has Been Announced by the Official Remote Keylogger (Tue 23rd May 17)

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Stop Childhood Obesity Now - Mommy Please Creates "Try a Healthy Food Day"

Creating healthy children and sparking imagination is important to Mommy Please, creator of the famous 125 Healthy Toy Food Set. However, the company recently decided to combat the horrors of childhood obesity by starting a completely new day to celebrate.

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The organic, healthy habit forming play food set from Mommy Please has become the #1 new release in toy food sets on Amazon.com. In order to celebrate with their customers and combat childhood obesity, Mommy Please has announced "Try a Healthy Food Day."

"When we created the 125 piece play food set, we purposely included a wide variety of foods - both healthy and non-healthy. Children learn through play. We want them to learn about many food choices available at an early age," says customer spokesperson Elsie Murphy. "Customers are encouraged to have their child choose one of the healthier play foods they haven't yet eaten [in real life], and try it." Customers are then asked to share the reactions of their children as well as their stories and photos of food exploration on social media with the hashtag #NewFoodChallenge.

The Mommy Please play food set is made of BPA-free plastic, is toxin free, and is 100% safe for children ages 3 and up. The educational imaginative play set is made of brightly colored, durable plastic that is fun for children. The variety of foods includes French fries, hamburgers, chips, juice, milk, broccoli, bananas, corn, cucumbers, eggs, apples, grapes, asparagus, chicken and much more.

One verified purchaser on Amazon wrote "Great variety of food and kids LOVE them! My kids totally freaked when they saw these and then played with them for hours. I have been eating plastic food for days! Love them! All varieties of foods- things I have never seen as play food before like asparagus. Great variety too- milk, veggies, pizza, fries, fruits. Pretty much anything you could want. My 2, 4, and even 10 year old have been playing with these all week. They love to pretend to cook them and bring them to us, especially when we are cooking dinner. It's pretty awesome. They have even been playing restaurant for each other."

There have been over 500 happy customers that decided to share their stories and review the Mommy Please play food set on Amazon.com. An outstanding 99% of these reviewers have said they loved their play food set, and the average customer review is 4.8 out of 5 stars.

The Mommy Please Amazon play food set for kids is sold exclusively on Amazon.com for $24.99. Any order over $49 ships for free. Mommy Please offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee for their play food set. Customers can also return their set for a full refund, based on a Money Back "Happy & Healthy" Guarantee.

Find the set here: http://www.amazon.com/Play-Food-Set-For-Kids/dp/B01COI9EAC/

About: "Mommy Please has worked tirelessly to bring children a play set that will never cease to keep their imaginations going. We strive to ensure that happiness, education, and creativity are all incorporated into play time every single day. As a company that focuses on family values, Mommy Please intends to influence the lives of families around the world."

For more information, please visit https://www.amazon.com/Pretend-Food-Toy-Play-Set/dp/B01COI9EAC

Contact Info:

Name: Elsie Murphy

Organization: Mommy Please

Address: 3440 Hanifan Lane



Release ID: 135288

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R-G-M Launches New Web Properties and YouTube Channel for Lawsuit News

R-G-M.net launches a new website, YouTube Channel and informational kit aimed at people interested in lawsuits. The website, channel and info kits contain educational information, not legal advice, about specific lawsuits currently underway.

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R-G-M announced that they've launched a new website with news and information about medical lawsuits. The organization also launched a YouTube channel and several information kits containing news on Xarelto lawsuits specifically and how to connect with a Xarelto lawyer.

The new website, YouTube channel and digital information kits are available to anyone with internet access. The various web properties contain information about some current on-going lawsuits and how people can find out more about them. R-G-M does not offer legal advice, as they are not lawyers. Instead the website hopes to inform and update interested parties on what is happening with specific lawsuits.

An individual involved with R-G-M.net said: "We started the website to inform people about the lawsuits and some of the issues surrounding them."

R-G-M.net's representative goes on to say: "It's important to note, R-G-M is not a group of lawyers or legal experts. And there is no legal information or legal advice on the website. But interested parties can learn more about how to connect with a lawyer so potential cases can be discussed further."

Anybody interested in specific medical lawsuits and associated news can subscribe to the YouTube channel here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4eMekd315aLcrheKwhxANw

Alternatively, they are welcome to read more about Xarelto lawsuits and finding a Xarelto lawyer at R-G-M.net.

Some of the information presented in the websites, videos, slide presentations, PDF documents and more includes:

What Are the Lawsuits All About? - learn why people are suing Where to Find Lawyers - learn how to connect with a lawyer to discuss a potential case General Lawsuit Updates - news about what's happening in regard to the lawsuits

The site also features a blog with articles related to the lawsuits.

R-G-M.net is an information and news site about medical lawsuits happening in the USA. They provide information and news, not legal advice, Visit them today to learn more and find out the latest on what's happening with different cases.

Contact Info:

Name: Omar Iqbal

Organization: R-G-M.net

Address: 210-1600 Kenaston Blvd



Release ID: 135309

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Drew Mortgage Associates Announces New Customer Website (www.DrewMortgage.com)

Drew Mortgage Associates, Inc. is helping their potential clients learn about the Mortgage and Refinance Application Process plus learn more about their company using their newly launched website.

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Drew Mortgage Associates, Inc. has announced the launch of their new customer website: www.DrewMortgage.com. This new website allows and encourages potential clients to learn about the Drew Mortgage process in its entirety. It provides easy to use resources which help clients understand the mortgage application process in clear terms. Potential loan applicants can now access several financial tools, loan calculators, simplified loan program explanations and clarification of loan terms. The new website allows clients to complete an application through Drew Mortgage's secure online system which helps them close their mortgage purchase or refinance with greater speed and efficiency.

"Drew Mortgage knows that even the best website is no substitute for the personal touch and honest care for its clients, and this is where Drew Mortgage excels beyond their technology", Drew Mortgage CEO Douglas Rawan says of the company behind the website. Wayne Rawan, CFO, added "The quick response that Drew Mortgage's licensed Loan Officers give to applicants and clients is a testament to the professionalism, and hours of training that have made them one of the best mortgage firms in New England."

When asked about Drew Mortgage's reliability, Bruce Rawan, President, stated "Drew Mortgage works hard to deliver lower rates, provide quick approvals, timely closings, and straightforward responses to your questions every step of the way." He added, "Many of Drew Mortgage's clients were surprised to learn that Drew Mortgage often provides approvals for borrowers who were previously denied a loan by a bank or other traditional mortgage companies."

Drew Mortgage Associates, Inc. is licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Banking, with its corporate headquarters located in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts plus additional offices in Peabody and Boston. Drew Mortgage is proud of its A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and has just celebrated its 25th year in business.

If you are looking for mortgage lenders in the greater Boston area, then Drew Mortgage invites you to their new website and encourages you to submit an application today. Drew Mortgage Associates is the strongest mortgage and community lender in Central Massachusetts, and strives to help create the perfect plan to fit for your finances. Often called the best mortgage company in Central Massachusetts, Drew offers the most innovative and flexible array of private mortgage loan programs available plus various options for their customers to help them keep their mortgage affordable over time, making them the most preferred mortgage company in Massachusetts. If you are looking for your first time home loan, call Drew...It's what they do!

For more information, please visit http://www.drewmortgage.com

Contact Info:

Name: Christine Rawan

Email: crawan@drewmortgage.com

Organization: Drew Mortgage Associates, Inc.

Address: 196 Boston Turnpike Road Shrewsbury, MA 01545

Phone: 1-888-WHY-DREW

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/drew-mortgage-associates-announces-new-customer-website-www-drewmortgage-com/135176

Release ID: 135176

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Richmond UK Medical Treatment GP Twickenham Doctor Free Consultations Launched

A doctor's practice in Richmond has announced the launch of a free consultation service for new patients. Roseneath Medical Practice prides itself on offering individual, personalized treatment tailored to each patient.

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A Richmond doctor has announced the launch of a free consultation service for new local patients. Roseneath Medical Practice offers a professional and friendly service open seven days a week, with same day appointments available. Patients looking to take up the free consultation service can enjoy appointments without time limits as the team of experienced GPs prides itself on providing a friendly, caring service.

More information can be found on the practice website at: http://roseneathdoctorsrichmond.co.uk.

The site explains that the team of expert GPs at the doctors in Richmond, UK, uses its skills and knowledge to identify the root causes of illnesses and problems with its patients, and doesn't just treat the symptoms. This helps to ensure that patients can get the time and individual attention they need, rather than simply rushing them through the system.

It goes on to say that Rosenheath Medical Practice does not treat prescription medication as a cure-all remedy and concentrates on a wide range of preventative measures for its patients. They strive to empower patients and help them to realize their maximum health by working around preventive measures like nutrition, exercise and mind and body techniques that can help improve their overall wellbeing.

Interested parties looking to take up the free consultation service can usually get their appointments on the same day, as the practice strivers to offer convenient consultation times. Patients at Roseneath can enjoy immediate prescriptions, a wide range of medical tests, and referrals to specialists if required.

A full list of practice services is provided on the Roseneath website, and includes antenatal and post natal care, comprehensive and innovative diagnostics tests, childhood vaccinations, and a wide range of other healthcare services.

The practice provides a personalized service that is tailored to each individual's specific needs, with patients provided with facts so they can be sure that the choices they make are the best ones for their health and wellbeing. Roseneath can arrange home visits in Richmond, East Sheen, Twickenham and St Margaret's, with other areas that can be arranged ad the doctor's discretion.

For more information, please visit http://roseneathdoctorsrichmond.co.uk/

Contact Info:

Name: Aleks Polomska

Organization: Roseneath Medical Practice

Address: Corner of Mount Ararat & Paradise Road Richmond Surrey TW10 6PA

Phone: 02037718962

Release ID: 135393

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Sony Xperia XZ vs Apple iPhone 7: Guide For Best Buy Option

The battle between the two technology giants, Sony and Apple, never ends as they each released a new model of smartphones, the Sony Xperia XZ and Apple iPhone 7. There are some noted comparing factors on their specs and features to guide tech enthusiast on which segment is the best buy device.

First, the Apple iPhone 7 has an aluminum chassis packed with pressure sensitive Home button and ion-strengthened glass. It also includes a powerful fingerprint scanner to make it more secure. On the other hand, the Sony Xperia XZ has a metallic body with a little rounded edges. ALso, Taiwan is the first region where the XZ is being sold, according to GSM Arena.

It also features a Gorilla Glass protection and fingerprint sensor for added security. For the display, Sony Xperia XZ caters a 5.2 inch Full HD IPS LCD display screen with 1080 x 1920 pixels resolution. While the iPhone 7 displays a 4.7 inch screen with IPS LCD display and 750 x 1334 pixels resolution Retina HD screen and a 3D touch function.

For its performance specs, the Xperia XZ is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor with 3 GB RAM and storage option of 32 or 64 GB. The iPhone 7 has A10 Fusion quadcore chipset with 2 GB RAM and 128 GB. Additionally, Xperia XZ is operated with upgradable Android Marshmallow 6.0.1 while the iPhone 7 runs with the new advanced iOS 10 platform. It is also presumed to have a more advanced and updated iMessage feature, reports BGR.

Whether you go for Sony Xperia XZ or Apple iPhone 7, it depends on your taste in each specs and of course the budget. Meanwhile, after the pre-order period availability went live in the country, the Sony Xperia X Compact is now available for purchase in the whole United States. It is now being sold in Amazon for $500 and it comes in 3 different colors.

This is worth to mention that the retailer of this device was offering $450 during the pre-order period wherein a $50 credit was offered during checkout of the product. However, it seems to come to an end. So, if you plan to buy a unit, you can grab it for its normal price.

Sony Xperia XZ vs iPhone 7: Which is best for me?
Rick and Morty  Season 3 Air Date, Spoilers, News & Update: The Series Goes To Hawaii; Vin Diesel To Join Cast

Co-creator Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon requested to the network to bring the series to Hawaii. They even commented that they were very much surprised about the instant success of "Rick and Morty" which makes them more eager to continue for more adventures. There were rumors that the "Fast and Furious" actor Vin Diesel is likely to join the Adult Swim Series

Recently the news says "Rick and Morty" Season 3 will be aired by March 2017, but Dan Harmon teased that they have new target which is the end of this year as per Den Of Geek.

Vin Diesel is said that he will voice the character of D&D in "Rick and Morty" Season 3. In connection to that, during the speech of the co-creator Dan Harmon in San Diego comic-con he was seen talking to Vin and was requesting if he could dub a pivotal character in the series.

Another rumor that is anticipated to materialize in the upcoming "Rick and Morty" Season 3 will be Beth and Jerry. Rumors of both proceeding to divorce has risen. Their marriage is now on the rocks and Beth is almost suffocated by the attitude of husband Jerry, according to GamenGuide.

Rick and Morty for sure pic.twitter.com/UYW2wx810J  Robb The Basshead (@TheTripGod) September 29, 2016

"Rick and Morty" Season 3 will also feature on how Rick will retaliate against the gang of rats, but with the help of a zombie brained rat.The new season is going to have 15 episodes. Unlike the previous seasons which only have 11 episodes, the next season is longer. As for the air date, no precise date has been relayed.


'Scandal' Season 6 Spoilers, News & Update: Premiere Moved To 2017, Kerry Washington's Pregnancy An Issue? Olivia, Fitz Have A Baby?

"Scandal" season 6 is stirring up its very own scandal as its expected season premiere date will reportedly be postponed. Some fans are even wondering if "Scandal" season 6 will be scrapped once and for all.

The fans were eagerly anticipating "Scandal" season 6 premiere to be air along with its counterparts who will be premiering this fall. Suspicions of "Scandal" season 6 cancellation lighted up when the viewers saw "Notorious" filling its supposed slot alongside HTGAWM and "Grey's Anatomy.

Delayed Production

The fans who are worried that "Scandal" season 6 might be canceled can already be at ease. The producers explained in an interview with Variety that they are experiencing some delays because of Kerry Washington's situation. The lead star of "Scandal" season 6 is currently pregnant with her second baby so the mid-season rush to film the series will have to adjust.

Shortened Episodes

When Kerry Washington was pregnant with her first child, the series had to cut the number of episodes from 22 to 18. For her second pregnancy, the fans are already anticipating shortened number of episodes as well. However, their might be a chance to have a full "Scandal" season 6 season if the showrunners allow Olivia Pipe to have a baby in the series.

The previous season where Kerry Washington was pregnant with her first child was cut short because the writers couldn't find a way to incorporate pregnancy into Olivia Pipe's storyline. Will "Scandal" season 6 have a full season? Or will it be shortened once again because of Kerry Washington's pregnancy?

Perhaps the showrunner can find a way to make Kerry Washington's pregnancy fit into "Scandal" season 6. It's the best time to make Olivia Pipe pregnant especially since the fans are open to an Olivia-Fitz or Olitz baby.

As of writing, "Scandal" season 6 is targeted to hit the small screen by Jan. 2017. Stay tuned to GamenGuide for more "Scandal" season 6 spoilers, news and updates!
Samsung Galaxy S8 Release Date, News & Update: MWC 20177 Launch Brings Camera Tech Breakthrough

Samsung Galaxy S8 rumors have surfaced over the web which lead to the upcoming plans of the company with its next flagship device. One most talked about speculation about the device is the integration of a 12 and 13 megapixel dual lens camera with an iris scanner.

The alleged dual lens camera feature of the Samsung Galaxy S8 is suggested to be adapted from Apple's Iphone 7 Plus. Reports claimed that Samsung is going to build a 12-megapixel rear camera and integrate a 13-megapixel Sony camera in the device's dual-lens camera. This setup is expected to allow an in depth field focusing to generate an enhanced image quality.

The front facing snapper of the Samsung Galaxy S8 is rumored to upgrade to 8 megapixels for selfies and video chats. It is also speculated to sport an enhanced iris scanner which Samsung initially introduced with the Samsung Galaxy S7.

Samsung Galaxy S8 - here's what we think we know about it so far https://t.co/R4h70IbWsJ pic.twitter.com/txXiVDHfE6  MirrorTech (@MirrorTech) September 26, 2016

Another rumored specs of Samsung Galaxy S8 is an integration of a 4K display with a 3840 x 2160 pixels screen resolution that is compatible with Google Daydream. Additionally, Samsung has already highlighted an ultra-HD screen with a 5.5 inch screen and an 806 ppi pixel density at a tradeshow in California back in March. It is anticipated to be Samsung's secret weapon, reports Slashgear.

More rumored specs of Samsung Galaxy S8 include the Smart Glow feature. This feature refers to the LEDs that are suggested to circle the device's rear camera for notification alerts,. Another interesting speculation is that Samsung is creating two models for Galaxy S and Edge series.

The Edge series will reportedly be classified as the premium device that will sport a bigger battery capacity with a massive RAM space and slightly different screen quality. It is presumed that Samsung is gearing up for a big surprise, according to Forbes.

Samsung Galaxy S8 is expected to be launched at the MWC 2017 as Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge was unveiled in this year's MWC event. This leaves a good chance that Samsung Galaxy S8 will follow the same path. MWC 2017 is reportedly scheduled to a Feb. 27 or March 2 event date.
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Release Date, News & Update: Hows Company Post Massive Note 7 Recall?

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has been recalled, abruptly stopping the winning streak of Samsung. The South Korean tech giant has taken the top spot in ranking recently with its great demand and high sales of the Galaxy S7 series and the Note 7.

However, the late Galaxy Note 7 recall incident may have been a wrong move for Samsung at a wrong time. Recent reports have noted the reason for the recall which was due to the Galaxy Note 7 battery units which have exploded because of a problem with the housed cell. The Note 7 does not come with a replaceable battery unit as well.

This was expected to be the main reason why Samsung has voluntarily taken, the units back from its customers. The that were returned will reportedly be replaced by the tech giant. Samsung has also stopped the sales of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 all over the world.

It has only been two weeks since the sales have started, and Samsung had already been able to sell 2.5 million units of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 all over the world. However, this setback was not expected to affect China since Samsung is reportedly using a different battery unit on the units earmarked for this country, reports USA Today.

If the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 battery issue persists, Samsung may lose its winning momentum that had begun with the Galaxy S7 lineup. This may also give a breather to Apple, whose sales have declined for two consecutive quarters, according to Android Central.

However, the Galaxy Note 7 recall was expected to be a blessing to Apple. As already known, the iPhone maker is preparing to release the iPhone 7 series on Sept. 7. Samsung was expected to make the right call by voluntarily asking questions and to write about the purchased devices along with the inconvenience it caused to the customers that will affect the company in a long run.
Fairy Tail Chapter 504 Air Date, Spoilers, News & Update: Natsu versus Grey, Will The Two Fairy Tail Members Fight To Death?

"Fairy Tail" Chapter 504 release date which is expected to happen sometime next week. And fans can hardly wait; next chapter promises to fulfill the epic fight long predicted by numerous "Fairy Tail" spoilers.

In the previous "Fairy Tail" Chapter 503, Natsu escaped Dimaria's dungeon. In fact, escape is probably not the right term to use in this case. As Lucy regained consciousness, she was surprised to find that her previously tied hands were already unbound, the chair she was tied to smashed to pieces and a bloodied, barely coherent Dimaria was lying on the floor. While it was not revealed exactly what happened, the upcoming "Fairy Tail" Chapter 504 should clear things up, including the highly-anticipated revelation on what Natsu had become.

What Kind Of Monster Did Natsu Turn Into?

What exactly happened to Natsu? That is the question most fans want answered in the coming "Fairy Tail" Chapter 504 more than anything else.

Previously, Brandish had unintentionally awakened the entity that lie dormant in Natsu. Thinking it was just an anti-ethernano tumor, Brandish restored it to its former size to immobilize Natsu. But it was something else entirely according to "Fairy Tail" Chapter 504 spoilers.

There are those who still hope that Natsu could just be experiencing dragonification, believing it could be the lesser of two evils. However, most are convinced that the upcoming installment would feature a Natsu transformed into E.N.D. when "Fairy Tail" Chapter 504 release date come.

Dimaria Believes Natsu Became E.N.D.

This is also the conclusion reached by Dimaria which could be explained further when she recovers in "Fairy Tail" Chapter 504. Contrary to reports that Dimaria can teleport, one of her abilities is called Age Seal which can be activated by clicking her teeth which explains why the word CLICK appears everytime Diamaria does something instantaneously. She freezes time in her vicinity, leaving her opponents defenseless and the appearance that she can teleport once she lifts the spell.

Apparently, Natsu or at least the awakened E.N.D. if indeed that is what he had become, is immune to Dimaria's Age Seal in "Fairy Tail" Chapter 504. This immunity, according to Dimaria, can only be attributed to E.N.D., said to be the most powerful demon from the Books of Zeref.

'Fairy Tail' Chapter 504 Ominously Titled 'Rift'

The upcoming "Fairy Tail" Chapter 504 will finally see the face off between Gray and Natsu as E.N.D. Gray was even told by Invel during their fight that only he can defeat E.N.D. But, would the two really fight to the death without provocation? This might be the logical action for Gray had Natsu, after becoming E.N.D. became a mindless killing machine, a threat that must be eliminated in the upcoming "Fairy Tail" Chapter 504.

But the previous chapter show Natsu/E.N.D. far from being a mindless killing machine. First, he left Dimaria bloodied but still alive. Second, he untied the unconscious Lucy without harming her. And lastly, when he met with Gray in the last part, Natsu or E.N.D. recognized Gray. Will the two really go all out in the coming "Fairy Tail" Chapter 504 and forget their days of as members of Fairy Tail?

"Fairy Tail" Chapter 504 release date is expected to happen next week. Be sure to lock on to GamenGuide for updates.
Homeland Season 6 Spoilers, News & Update: Series Endorsing Hillary Clinton? Plot Suggests Female U.S. President, Donald Trump-Like Character Seen?

"Homeland" Season 6 may possibly face applaud or criticism, depending on your political views, for allegedly endorsing Hillary Clinton in the next presidential election. Some reports suggest that the plot of upcoming drama TV series will revolve around the upcoming election and the struggle of the first female U.S. president.

However, executive producers of "Homeland" Season 6 deny the endorsement of Hillary Clinton. The plot has already been brainstormed and finalized even before the election season began.

"Homeland" Season 6 will hit the small screen on Jan 15 next year, and the citizens of the United States have already decided by that time who they want to be the next president: Democrats' Hillary Clinton or Republican's Donald Trump.

Elizabeth Marvel will portray as Elizabeth Keane, the first female U.S President. Marvel does not look similar to Hillary Clinton, but rumours had it that a Donald Trump-like character will appear in "Homeland" Season 6. If this is confirmed, it will be an exciting political drama that fans should look forward to. Writers could, in fact, draw inspiration for their story lines all the things that are happening pre and post presidential elections.

"Homeland" Season 6's location will be true to its title as most of its location will be filmed mostly in the U.S. In fact, Claire Danes was seen shooting in New York with her onscreen daughter according to Daily Mail. Danes play the role of Carrie Mathison whose love partner Nick Brody, portrayed by Damian Lewis, was executed in public by hanging in season three. However, scenes in Abu Dhabi and Morocco were also reported to be two of the locations. For their final season, Alex Gansa said that he wants "Homeland" to be filmed in Israel according to Deadline.

Stay tuned to GameNGuide was we bring you the latest spoilers, news and update of "Homeland" Season 6.
Steven Universe Season 4 Air Date, Spoilers, News & Update: Will Fans See Another Steven Bomb Next Season?

"Steven Universe" season 4 is once again on hiatus after Cartoon Network aired its seventh episode. Series creator Rebecca Sugar has been mum on any update and this prompted fans to panic once more. How long will fans wait for the next episodes to air? Will they see another Steven Bomb when the cartoon series resumes air time?

Longer Hiatus for 'Steven Universe' Season 4?

"Steven Universe" season 4 is currently a hot topic over the internet, particularly on Reddit. In fact, Christian Daily spotted a Reddit thread, which discussed the obvious absence of the series on Cartoon Network. Many fans believe that "Steven Universe" season 4 may take a longer break than previously anticipated. It looks much worse when series creator Rebecca Sugar is all silent about the next part of season 4 as well.

However, some fans are saying that Cartoon Network and the team's silence about "Steven Universe" season 4 may mean that another Steven bomb may be in the works. For the past season, "Steven Universe" aired daily on Cartoon Network, giving fans a daily Steven Bomb since it aired in July. However, when the series started airing its fourth season , the daily Steven Bomb became a weekly affair.

What if Star Butterfly is fused with Steven??? (Art made by AngeliccMadness) #StarVsTheForcesOfEvil #StevenUniverse pic.twitter.com/xlemMzxaWI  Dipper Pines (@DipperPines5372) September 30, 2016

'Steven Universe' Season 4 To Change Schedule?

While many fans are worried about the long hiatus, "Steven Universe" season 4 may actually treat fans back to the daily Steven Bomb. The long hiatus may be a preparation for a big Steven Bomb ahead. Reddit user CaptainAlphaWalrus recently indicated that at least one Steven Bomb will be featured in fall. The user also expects "Steven Universe" season 4 to resume air time within a few weeks.

Stay tuned for more updates on your favorite Cartoon Network show "Steven Universe" season 4. Do you think season 4 will resume air time anytime soon? When do you think Cartoon Network resume air time for the series? Sound off with your comments below.
Rotary got started in Long Beach in 1917 when seven local businessmen met with a New York Rotarian who talked about his club there.
Residents in Linn and Benton counties planning to light their fall burn piles Oct. 1 will now have to wait. That's because the Fire Defense Board in Linn and Benton counties, have decided there will be no backyard burning allowed until otherwise notified.

The fall burn season normally runs Oct. 1 to Dec. 15, but that window is subject to change based on conditions.

The decision to extend the ban came last week, after board officials decided recent rainfall levels and brush conditions were too dangerous to allow burning, according to board member and Lebanon Fire District Chief Gordon Sletmoe.

But regardless of the official word, the thick smoke that filled the air in Albany Thursday afternoon is an indication that some residents have started burning anyway, with some residents in North Albany complaining to the D-H about neighbors jumping the gun. Albany Fire Department Chief John Bradner said that while he has not seen a spike in noncompliant burns, his crew does respond to some that have escaped, creating potentially dangerous blazes.

While residents are asked to call first to make sure burning is allowed, many simply assume its safe, based on the times of the year and conditions. Sletmoe said some residents can "get confused" when they see moisture, deciding it's all right to light the fires. But he cautioned that a recent rain does not necessarily mean conditions are safe.

"We will evaluate the conditions and make a decision at a later date when the ban can be lifted," he said. "We don't expect it to go on forever."

Sletmoe added that the moisture expected to come over the weekend could work to help lift the ban.

While residential burning is affected by the ban, large agricultural open burning is not. Also not affected by the ban are recreational and ceremonial fires, barbecuing and open field burning, known as propane flaming.

What is not permitted during the ban are any fires meant to burn backyard debris, which includes wood, needle or leaf materials from trees, shrubs or plants from property "immediately adjacent to a dwelling of not more than four family living units."

Once the ban is lifted, residents are asked to call the burn message line, 541-451-1904.
Toyota/Subaru of Corvallis held a grand opening on Thursday for its new 34,800-square-foot environmentally friendly building, which aims to be the first Net Zero Energy certified car dealership in the world.

It is our goal to have our dealership produce more electricity than we actually use, general manager Chip Edwards told the crowd.

The building at 800 N.W. Fifth St., which cost nearly $17 million and took three years to build, has enough solar panels on its roof that on a sunny day it could power 30 houses.

Among its other environmentally friendly features are:

 An onsite cistern that collects rainwater used to irrigate the property.

 A new type of pavement that allows rainwater to seep through to the ground.

 Thirty geothermal wells that are used to provide natural heating and cooling, further reducing energy costs.

In a brief interview after his presentation, Edwards said that the building will be well received in Corvallis, where sustainability and the environment are at the forefront of residents minds.

We have customers that roll up on a bike  and come up and buy a car. It happens once a week, he said.

The extra commitment to the environment pushed up the cost of the structure by an estimated $2 million to $3 million, but the facility also will have lower power and heating bills because of its design, Edwards said.

He added that owners Steve and Barbara Jackson, who also have two other Toyota dealerships, care deeply about giving back to the community and taking care of Mother Nature. He said the Jacksons wanted to set the bar high to lead the way and have others emulate their commitment.

The Jacksons are from Texas but originally hail from Oregon. Steve Jackson took over the dealership in 2013.

Toyota company officials presented the Jacksons with a katana  a traditional Japanese sword wielded by samurai and a symbol of honor, courage and integrity.

Steve Jackson drew the katana with a flourish and drew applause from the crowd. During a short speech, he thanked his employees and family.

The business also is shooting for LEED Platinum designation, another sign of ecosystem friendly construction. Only a small handful of Toyota dealerships nationwide have earned the Platinum certification.

To get the Net Zero Energy certification, architecture firm Gensler will have an independent third party monitor data from the new building.

Mike and Donna Gemperle of Corvallis were at the grand opening on Thursday because there had bought two Subarus and three Toyotas from the dealership.

Weve had a lot of service here over the years. We bought our first Toyota in 1968, Mike Gemperle said.

He said the energy efficient aspect of the building was pretty impressive.

Theres probably a lot of people here that think the same. Most people in Corvallis are pretty cognizant of that, he added.

Today, the Gemperles drive a plug-in Toyota Prius and a Tesla electric car.
A city task force is recommending a huge increase in the citys transportation maintenance fee to pay for streets improvements.

The task force, which is charged with coming up with revenue solutions to meet unmet needs, unanimously recommended the approach at a meeting Wednesday at City Hall. The task force consists of three members of the City Council and three citizen members of the city's Budget Commission.

Single-family residences currently are charged 72 cents a month for street maintenance, which is paid for in the city services bill that also includes charges for water, stormwater, wastewater, urban forestry and the transit system.

Task force members want to increase that 72 cent figure to $5 in a phased process that will be determined by the City Council. The goal would be to reduce the $3 million annual backlog in need street maintenance.

The current fee structure raises approximately $500,000 annually, while raising the fee would produce nearly $3.5 million per year. Restaurants, grocery stores, Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center and Oregon State University all would receive the same seven-fold phased-in increase if the council approves the package.

The system is organized under a formula that looks at the number of vehicle trips an entity is responsible for. Thus, under the proposed plan to increase the fee a restaurant would go from $15.53 per month to $107.85, Good Sam would go from $732.87 a month to $5,089.34 and OSU would go from approximately $3,400 to more than $23,000.

Task force member Mark OBrien, a Corvallis restaurant owner, expressed concerns about how much businesses would have to increase sales to make up for the higher tax. OBrien also said it was dangerous to implement such a fee increase without more public involvement.

The city plans to survey residents about its plans to raise revenue, but the document has not been drafted yet and wont go to residents until January at the earliest.

Im concerned that the revenue discussion is coming before the survey allows people to tell us what they want, said OBrien, a former councilor in Ward 1. Its putting the cart before the horse.

Other task force members said the street fee plan should be a slam-dunk with residents.

People in this city are concerned about roads. It seems like an easy path, said Karyle Butcher. Roads keep falling farther behind. Its not news to anybody.

Curtis Wright agreed.

If you talk to 20 voters, 21 of them will tell us to fix the streets, Wright said.

Task force chair Hal Brauner, councilor for Ward 9, noted that Corvallis pays the lowest rate for street maintenance of any Oregon city that has such fees.

We as elected councilors recognize the need, Brauner said, and here is what we are doing to do to fix it.

The plan will be heard by the full City Council in an Oct. 18 work session.

The task force also forwarded its strategic plan framework to the council. The plan notes that the group hopes to raise between $4 million and $13 million per year, with the key possible revenue options an extension of the current local option property tax levy, a local income tax or a local sales tax.

The task force also plans to look at utility rate increases to pay for infrastructure needs. Utility rates are determined in November, with any increases taking effect in February.

Any revenue proposals forwarded to the voters would go on the November 2017 ballot.

Task force members also discussed the survey, which would be handled by a consultant and would aim to gather at least 1,200 responses in a scientific sample.

What do I want, what do I have to pay and how are we going to do it, summed up Butcher about the survey information she was looking for.

Wright and City Manager Mark Shepard injected notes of caution into the proceedings.

I would hope if the survey comes back and people say dont do this that we wont do it, Wright said.

Shepard added that given the other work the city is doing on climate action, vision and housing this is going to be a lot of information for residents to absorb.

But this discussion about funding needs to happen now, not two years later, Shepard said.
A group of Ukrainian doctors are visiting the mid-valley this week as part of a Corvallis Sister Cities Association program sponsored by the U.S. Congress.

The five doctors, all in family medicine, have toured Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific, Northwest in Lebanon, and today will visit the neonatal intensive care unit at Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend in Springfield.

Pete Bober, chairperson of the Corvallis Sister City Associations Uzhhorod Council, said the visit is part of the sister cities program with funding provided by the Open World Leadership Center. According to Bober, the program is sponsored directly by the U.S. Congress and has three major goals for everyone involved: raise occupational awareness, create awareness of democratic processes and provide cultural exposure.

Bober said the visitors have met with elected officials, including Sen. Jeff Merkley and Rep. Peter DeFazio, are staying with local host families and are having cultural experiences, like visiting the coast. They also are doing occupational training work through their visits to health care facilities, he said. The group arrived from Uzhhorod, one of Corvallis sister cities, on Sept. 22 and depart Sunday.

Bober said President Dwight D. Eisenhower founded the sister cities program as a way to allow diplomacy to be done citizen-to-citizen rather than by government officials.

Politicians tend to focus on the differences it seems, but we actually find we have a lot in common, Bober said.

Bober added that the doctors selected for the program are the best and brightest, and after their exchanges many go on to prominent positions at home.

Nataliia Molanych, one of the visiting doctors, said some of the differences she observed were in insurance, as there is no public insurance like Medicare and Medicaid in Ukraine, and the structure of medical school. In Ukraine, doctors are in school longer, but their residencies are shorter.

It is a good experience to get to see the health care system in the United States, she said.

Vlasta Petrishchak, another visiting doctor, said she was impressed by the hands on training they saw for medical students. She added that shed like to see classes on what being a doctor is like taught at medical schools in Ukraine as they are in the U.S.

Nataliya Hryb, another doctor, added she was interested to see a Corvallis practice using microsurgery for things they would send people to a surgeon for in Ukraine, and she would like to see that type of care come to her country.

Petrishchak added that the doctors like getting to know Americans and experiencing American life.

We are also enjoying the program, she said.

Hryb said they also have met many people who were very friendly, particularly their host families.

The families we live with are very open-hearted, she said.
The Forestry and Natural Resources Program has been part of Philomath High School for many years.

It started as a small, dedicated club which participated in competitions through Associated Oregon Forestry Clubs on the state level. In 2010, AOFC stopped doing these competitions, but the program is still going strong. After AOFC competitions were ended, the group joined the Future Natural Resources Leaders to continue to compete and develop skills in a positive way.

The program is now an intracurricular program, mixing a group of students exclusively in the club with a larger group of students gaining skills directly through classroom education and club events. The classes range from forestry-based classes to classes based more on ecology and biology, such as introduction to fish and wildlife.

In the forestry classes students are taught essential skills in the industry such as log scaling, map reading, and using tools such as chain saws.

Partners in the logging and forestry industry are extremely important to the program, because they are the ones who are helping fund and provide materials for the forestry program.

In addition to a council of students who help guide and organize the department, there is an advisory board made up of local industry leaders and alumni from the program who offer advice, support and guidance to the staff and students to help the group reach its fullest potential.

The forestry program prepares students for many different careers such as the Oregon Department of Forestry, wildland firefighting, wildlife biology and many other careers. It also gives students the opportunity to learn both technical and physical skills and compete in them against other schools

Competitions are a good environment for students to demonstrate essential job skills in a more motivated, hands-on way. One advantage to taking forestry classes is it teaches students information that is also taught in science classes in a practical and tangible way.

In addition to learning how to fell trees and plot out land for tree planting, the forestry and natural resources program gives students the opportunities and ability to go out and actually practice these skills with professionals in the industry while gaining an appreciation for the natural world.

Another advantage to the forestry program is it gives students the opportunity to meet and learn from professionals who have been in the industry for many years. Students get to hear the perspective of workers who have only been there for a year or two and others who have been in the industry for over 20 years.

It is extremely beneficial for students to be able to learn from people with work experience because they hear a different and honest perspective of what the industry is really like.

The PHS Forestry and Natural Resources program is a vital part the schools identity and helps connect students to the heritage of their community. In addition to offering a unique learning experience, the department prepares students for college and career readiness in a way that few other programs have the ability to.
Although Google has been adding new imagery to Google Earth, they have not been updating historical imagery since June, so we cannot make a map of the latest imagery. We did, however, look at a few locations this month which have recent imagery, including the damage caused by the Erskine Fire in California and the trail of destruction left by the Jiangsu Tornado in China. We also discussed an image of Itu Aba Island in the South China Sea that Taiwan apparently wants censored.

Google added quite a lot of interesting 3D imagery this month, including two new countries, Malaysia and Tunisia. The imagery of Tunis has since been removed but that is probably only temporary. The imagery of Sfax, Tunisia remains and a second location, Ipoh, has been added in Malaysia. The city of Kumamoto of Japan was also updated with 3D imagery captured after the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake and we had a look at the signs of earthquake damage, most notably a lot of blue tarpaulins used to patch the roofs. Last month marked the 100th anniversary of the US National Parks Service and in honour of the occasion Google released 3D imagery of a number of US Parks. We created some Google Earth tours showing off the imagery. We also had a look at some volcanoes as featured in 3D imagery, including Mount Fuji in Japan, Mount Vesuvius in Italy and Mount Saint Helens in the USA.

DigitalGlobes latest satellite WorldView-4 was supposed to be launched this month. However, the launch was postponed till October. Terra Bella successfully launched several new SkySat satellites in a joint launch with Peruvian earth observation satellite PeruSAT-1.





We had a look at a number of interesting rotating islands around the world prompted by a story about one found in Argentina. If you havent already, be sure to also check out some further examples from the Google Earth Community.





We had a look at some circular geoglyphs that were recently studied in Peru.









We discussed two issues with modern facial recognition technology. Googles automatic facial recognition as used in Street View often blurs objects that should not be blurred, including a cow. At the same time, a recent study suggests that blurring imagery does not fool facial recognition software.





A partnership between Google, Oceana and SkyTruth released a program called Global Fishing Watch that monitors fishing activity around the world.







We released a KML file that catalogues ships that appear in Google Earths 3D imagery. The focus is on cruise ships, but ferries and a few other classes of ship are included as well.









We discussed the difficulty of trying to gather good satellite imagery in locations that have year round cloud cover.









We had a look at a study of land lost vs land gained done using Google Earth Engine.









In memory of 9/11 we created an animation using Street View imagery showing the new World Trade Center buildings.









We had a look at some weird altitude effects related to 3D imagery and Google Earth tours.









We had a look at imagery from Terra Bella of the damage caused by an earthquake in Italy and also looked at the Copernicus Emergency Management Service, which also gathered imagery of the event.







We had a look at declassified imagery from US spy satellites and were impressed by the resolution, although it is not quite as good as what is currently available in Google Earth.







We updated our contour drawing script to use Mapzen image tiles rather than their API and found that it works much faster, which allows for much higher resolution contours.







Google released a bug fix update to Google Earth which resolves many of the installation issues as well as fixing an annoying crash when moving placemarks around.
Accident in research laboratory : Gas alarm at University Clinic

Bonn A gas alarm went out from the University Clinic on the Venusberg on Thursday afternoon and 100 firefighters were called to the scene. A glass container had exploded in a research laboratory.

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Two persons were slightly injured in an accident involving hazardous substances at the Bonn University Clinic on the Venusberg. Seven others complained of respiratory irritation. The accident occurred on Thursday afternoon. Hospital spokeswoman Tanja Holthaus said there had not been any danger to patients or visitors at any time.

At around 3:45 p.m., an alarm went out to the fire department. It had been reported as a hazardous substance discharge at the University Clinic, said Lars Godel from the fire department management. This is for us not necessarily the most popular alarm, he added. It resulted in the deployment of 100 firefighters to the Venusberg. According to Godel, Everything went very well. They quickly covered and explored the terrain.

What exactly happened? Holthaus explained that a glass container had shattered in a research laboratory. Two people needed to be treated for cuts and a slight irritation of the mucous membranes caused by the spillage of the substance. The space was closed off immediately. Officials reported that the accident occurred during the mixing of substances. As is routine in such incidents, police will investigate for negligent bodily harm.

As to the content of the glass container, clinic spokeswoman Holthaus would only say this much: At issue was a gas that can irritate mucous membranes and for that reason, it could not be considered harmless.

Godel said the situation was quickly cleaned up because the accident site was in an enclosed space. After the affected people had been attended to and the situation discussed with a consultant, the fire department was no longer needed. In such cases, the hospital is responsible for cleaning up the damage.
BONN It will be busy around United Nations square this weekend when new businesses open their doors to the public, and music and childrens activities are offered.

The recently opened Bonn Marriott World Conference Hotel (sometimes referred to as the WCCB Hotel for World Conference Center Bonn), the GOP Variety Theater and the Wellness club Visiolife will hold Open Days on this coming Sunday and Monday. Visitors can check out the new places between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. on both of those days. Its the first time they have officially opened their doors to the wider public.
Bochum hospital : Two killed in hospital fire and many injured

BOCHUM Two were killed and at least 16 people injured in a fire overnight in a Bochum hospital. Firefighters fought the blaze for hours.

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Even three hours after the fire alarm was called in, flames were still shooting out of the hospital in Bochum. Outdoor blinds had melted into the facade of the building; windows were blown out. The smell of fire permeated the air.

It was a terrible scene at the Bochum Bergmannsheil Hospital early this morning. At least two persons were killed in the fire. Another 16 people were reported injured, 6 with life-threatening injuries.

Fire departments from neighboring communities were called to help and firefighters fought the blaze from two sides. Spotlights were used to illuminate the area.

Andreas Weber, the Chief Resident for Neurology, stood next to the crane extending from the fire truck. Like all the doctors, he was quickly alarmed. He said the evacuation had worked well, We practiced it last year.

All of the patients were brought to other buildings in the hospital complex. Police and rescue workers helped to transport them. The burning building stands approximately in the middle of the clinic, which has been expanded and reconstructed several times. It has been in operation since 1985.

In the top floor, there is an operating room, and it is believed that the fire broke out in a patients room just below that. In that area, there are also stations for patients who are paraplegic, said Weber.
Analysis of the first fossil bee nest from the Plio-Pleistocene of South Africa suggests that the human ancestor Australopithecus africanus lived in a dry savannah environment, according a study published September 28, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Jennifer Parker from University College London, United Kingdom, and colleagues.

Little paleoecological information is available for the site in South Africa where the first Au. africanus fossilthe Taung Childwas discovered. However, insect-related fossils, abundant at the discovery site, can yield insights into the paleoenvironment. Bees, for example, tend to build characteristic nests in characteristic conditions. Parker and colleagues analyzed CT scans of a fossil bee nest that was discovered near the Taung Child site to determine its internal structure and thus the kinds of bees that built it.

The fossil nest was exceptionally well preserved, and the structure of its cells and tunnels suggested that it was made by a ground-nesting solitary bee. These bees typically nest on bare, light, dry soil that is exposed to the sun, which bolsters other recent evidence that Au. africanus lived in dry savannahs. Insect-related fossils are common but largely overlooked at sites where human ancestors lived, the researchers said, and their work underscores the contribution such fossils can make to understanding the environments where human ancestors lived.

When Raymond Dart published his description of the Taung Child in 1925 he profoundly changed our understanding of human evolution, says study co-author Philip Hopley. In the 90 years following his discovery, attention of anthropologists has moved to other African sites and specimens, and research at Taung has been hampered by the complex geology and uncertain dating. New research at Taung is helping to reconstruct the environment in which this enigmatic little hominin lived and died.

Reference:

Jennifer F. Parker et al. Fossil Carder Bees Nest from the Hominin Locality of Taung, South Africa, PLOS ONE (2016). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0161198

Note: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Public Library of Science.
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Protecting the worlds oceans  an important goal of Germanys climate diplomacy

The worlds oceans are vital to our survival. They regulate the global climate and are a source of food and income for billions of people. Only a very small part of the seas enjoys legal protection, however. Our diplomats are working in New York right now to change this state of affairs.
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Heres What to Expect From the UPCOMING Oppo R9s Features oi -Prajith

Oppo is currently one of the largest smartphone manufacturer in China (only after Huawei, though). The Chinese smartphone manufacturer is best known for producing selfie-centric smartphones.

Earlier this year, Oppo has released the R9 and its bigger sibling the R9 Plus, which went on to become one of the best-selling smartphones of the company. And the numbers (around 20 million units in six months) only prove it. It was rumoured that the company will be launching the R9s, its next smartphone in the R9 series on September 12, but clearly, that didn't happen.

SEE ALSO: Amazon Best Deals: Top 10 Best Surround Sound Speakers You Can Get Right Now

Recently, the smartphone was spotted paying a visit to China's CCC, a Chinese certification authority. What this means is that the smartphone could launch anytime in October 2016. So, let's take a look at what to expect from the smartphone.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 SoC and 4GB of RAM

The rumour mill is pointing at different amounts of RAM. While few rumours say it'll come with 4GB of RAM, few other indicate that it would come with less than 4GB of RAM. In terms of chipset, it is expected to come equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 chipset.

5.5-inch Display

According to the rumours, the smartphone will sport a 5.5-inch display with a resolution of 1080x1920 pixels.

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16 MP selfie camera

Oppo R9 and R9 Plus's USP was their 16 MP selfie shooter, which is likely to be seen on the R9s as well. A 13 MP camera at the back will cater the needs of photography enthusiasts.

A 2,850mAh battery with Oppo's Super VOOC charging

The R9s is expected to feature a 2,850mAh battery that will likely come with Oppo's Super Voice technology for fast charging.

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Sony's Android Nougat Roadmap Out: List of Xperia Phones to Get Updated Soon Features oi -Harish Kumar

Sony is one of the manufacturers that released the list of Xperia smartphones that will receive the Android 7.0 Nougat update soon after its roll out. However, the company failed to mention a timeline for the updates back then.

Now, the Android Nougat update roll out for the Sony Xperia smartphones has been revealed and it seems that the flagship Xperia Z2 and X Performance smartphones will receive the update next month. The other Xperia smartphones will get the Android update after the two flagship smartphones.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Smartphones Available at NO COST EMI in India

The Xperia X and Xperia X Compact smartphones are slated to receive the Android Nougat update in November this year. Also, a few devices such as Xperia XA and Xperia XA Ultra are slated to get the Android 7.0 Nougat firmware update in early 2017.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Most-awaited 8GB RAM Smartphones of 2017

We at GizBot, have compiled a list of Sony Xperia smartphones that will receive the update in the coming weeks. Take a look at them from below.

Sony Xperia XZ Buy At Price of Rs 49,990

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Key Features 5.2-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Triluminos Display with Corning Gorilla Glass protection

Quad-Core Snapdragon 820 64-bit 14nm processor with Adreno 530 GPU

3GB RAM

64GB internal memory

expandable memory up to 256GB via microSD card

Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)

Hybrid Dual SIM (nano+nano/microSD)

Water Resistant (IP65/IP68)

23MP rear camera with Exmos RS sensor, 1/2.3 sensor, f/2.0 lens

13MP front-facing camera

DSEE HX, LDAC, Digital Noise Cancelling

Fingerprint sensor

4G VoLTE, WiFi 802.11 ac (2.4GHz / 5GHz) MIMO

Bluetooth 4.2, GPS/ GLONASS, NFC, USB Type-C

2900 mAh Battery with Qnovo's Adaptive Charging technology SEE ALSO: Reliance Jio 4G: List of All 4G Smartphones That Support the Service Sony Xperia X Performance Click Here To Buy

Key Features

5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Triluminos Display

Quad-Core Snapdragon 820 64-bit 14nm processor with Adreno 530 GPU

3GB RAM

32GB internal memory

expandable memory up to 200GB via microSD card

Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)

Dual SIM (Optional)

23MP rear camera with Exmos RS sensor

13MP front-facing camera

DSEE HX, LDAC, Digital Noise Cancelling

Fingerprint sensor

4G LTE / 3G HSPA+, WiFi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac (2.4GHz / 5GHz) MIMO

Bluetooth 4.2, GPS/ GLONASS, NFC

2700mAh Battery with Qnovo's Adaptive Charging technology Sony Xperia X Buy At Price of Rs 36,772

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Key Features 5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Triluminos Display

Hexa-Core Snapdragon 650 ( 4x 1.2GHz ARM A53 + 2 x 1.8 GHz ARM A72 ) 64-bit processor with Adreno 510 GPU

3GB RAM

32GB internal memory

expandable memory up to 200GB via microSD card

Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)

Dual SIM (Optional)

23MP rear camera with Exmor RS sensor

13MP front-facing camera

DSEE HX, LDAC, Digital Noise Cancelling

Fingerprint sensor

4G LTE / 3G HSPA+

WiFi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac (2.4GHz / 5GHz) MIMO

Bluetooth 4.2, GPS/ GLONASS, NFC

2630mAh Battery with Qnovo's Adaptive Charging technology SEE ALSO: Top 10 Budget 4G VoLTE Smartphones with Reliance Jio SIM Support Below Rs. 7,000 Sony Xperia X Compact Click Here To Buy

Key Features

4.6-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD Triluminos Display with Corning Gorilla Glass protection

Hexa-Core Snapdragon 650 64-bit processor with Adreno 510 GPU

3GB RAM

32GB internal memory

expandable memory up to 256GB via microSD card

Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)

Single nano SIM

23MP rear camera with Exmos RS sensor

5MP front-facing camera with 1/3.06 Exmor RS sensor

DSEE HX, LDAC, Digital Noise Cancelling

Fingerprint sensor

4G LTE, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4GHz / 5GHz)

Bluetooth 4.2, GPS/ GLONASS, NFC, USB Type-C

2700 mAh Battery with Qnovo's Adaptive Charging technology Sony Xperia Z5 Buy At Price of Rs 40,995

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Key Features

5.2-inch 1080p Triluminous display with Corning Gorilla Glass

Android 5.1 (Lollipop)

Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor with Adreno 430 GPU

64 bit capabilities and ultra-fast

3GB RAM

16 GB inbuit, 200 GB microSD Card support

4G LTE speeds

23 megapixel rear camera with Exmos RS sensor, 1/2.3" sensor, f/2.0 aperture, G lens, 4K video recording

5.1 megapixel front facing Camera

Fingerprint scanner integrated with power button

Water resistant, Protected from dust

2,930mAh Battery Sony Xperia Z5 Premium Buy At Price of Rs 44,990

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Key Features

5.5-inch (38402160 pixels) Triluminos Display at 806 PPI

Android 5.1 (Lollipop)

Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor with Adreno 430 GPU

3GB RAM

32GB internal memory

expandable memory up to 200GB via microSD card

23MP rear camera

5MP front-facing camera with Exmor R sensor, 25mm wide-angle lens

IPX5 / IPX8 rating for dust and water resistance

Dual SIM

Fingerprint sensor

Sony DSEE HX audio technology, LDAC codec

4G LTE / 3G HSPA+

WiFi

Bluetooth

3430mAh Battery with STAMINA mode Sony xperia Z5 Compact Click Here To Buy

Key Features

4.6-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) Triluminos Display with X-Reality for Mobiles

Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor with Adreno 430 GPU

2GB RAM

32GB internal memory

expandable memory up to 200GB via microSD

Android 5.1 (Lollipop)

23MP rear camera with Exmos RS sensor, 1/2.3 sensor, f/2.0 sensor, G lens, 4K video recording

5MP front-facing camera with Exmor R sensor, 25mm wide-angle lens

IP65/68 rating for dust and water resistance

4G LTE / 3G HSPA+, WiFi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac (2.4GHz / 5GHz) MIMO, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS/ GLONASS, MHL 3.0, NFC

2700mAh Battery with STAMINA mode Sony Xperia Z3 Plus Buy At Price of Rs 39,990

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Key Features 5.2-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Triluminos Display with Live Colour LED powered by X-Reality engine, 600 cd brightness

Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor with Adreno 430 GPU

3GB RAM

32GB internal memory

expandable memory up to 128GB via microSD card

Android 5.0 (Lollipop)

20.7MP Primary Camera with Exmos RS sensor

5.1MP front-facing camera with Exmor R sensor

Dual SIM (Z3+ Dual only)

IPX5 / IPX8 rating for dust and water resistance

Sony DSEE HX audio technology, LDAC codec

4G LTE /3G HSPA+

WiFi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac (2.4GHz / 5GHz) MIMO

Bluetooth 4.1, GPS/ GLONASS, MHL 3.0, NFC

2930mAh Battery with STAMINA mode Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet Click Here To Buy

Key Features

10.1 Inch Quad HD Display

2 GHz Snapdragon 810 Octa-Core Processor

3GB RAM

8.1MP Rear Camera

5.1 MP Font-Facing Camera

NFC

Bluetooth 4.0

LTE

Watter Proof And Dust Proof

6000 MAh Battery Sony Xperia XA Buy At Price of Rs 17,500

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Key Features 5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) curved glass edge-to-edge display

Octa-core (4 x 2.0 GHz + 4 x 1.0 GHz) MediaTek Helio P10 (MT6755) processor with 700MHz Mali T860MP2 GPU

2GB RAM

16GB internal memory

Up to 200GB expandable memory up to 200GB via microSD card

Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)

Dual SIM (nano+nano)

13MP Primary Camera

8MP front-facing camera

4G LTE, WiFi 820.11 a/b/g/n

Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, NFC

2300 mAh battery with Qnovo's Adaptive Charging technology Sony Xperia XA Ultra Buy At Price of Rs 27,190

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Key Features

6-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) display with Mobile BRAVIA engine 2

Octa-core (4 x 2.0 GHz + 4 x 1.0 GHz) MediaTek Helio P10 (MT6755) processor with 700MHz Mali T860MP2 GPU

3GB RAM

16GB internal memory

expandable memory up to 200GB via microSD card

Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)

Dual SIM (Optional)

21.5MP Primary Camera

16MP front-facing camera with flash

4G LTE, WiFi 820.11 a/b/g/n

Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, NFC

2700 mAh battery

Source: blogs.sonymobile

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Price Range at Which the Smartwatches are Available Online

The Fossil Q Marshal smartwatch for men and the Fossil Q Wander smartwatch for women are available at Flipkart with a priced at Rs. 21,995 each.

However, there is a Rose Gold (metal) Fossil Q Wander strap option available at a little higher price, Rs. 22,999.

Various Colors Available in the Market

The smartwatches will be available in a few classy strap colors including-Silver (metal), Black (leather), Rose Gold (metal) and Dark Brown (leather).

The smartwatches can also be interchanged between bracelets and straps with new 22mm ones. However, the straps aren't being still sold separately on Flipkart as of now, the option may be available in the near future.

Features: All You Need To Know

Both Fossil Q Marshal and Q Wander run on Android Wear and has a compatibility for iPhone 5 and higher iOS devices. The smartwatches are 45mm in diameter, has a sports 1.4-inch LED display at 320x190 display resolution with 229dpi, and is packed with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of inbuilt storage.

The user also has the opportunity to connect to other devices via its Bluetooth v4.1 and Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n) connectivity.

Powerful Battery is the Key Competency of these Smartwatches

Both the smartwatches house a battery of 360mAh, which has the capability to at least last up to 2 days and has a magnetic wireless charging facility for the batteries.

Water and Dust Proof Smartwatches

Besides being IP67-certified, both the smart devices are water and dust resistant. Additionally, A G-sensor, gyroscope, compass are other features that they offer to their users, along with built-in speaker and microphone to take up calls when on the Airplane mood.
Update: air strikes against Daesh

28 September 2016

British forces have continued to conduct air operations in the fight against Daesh

Latest update

- Friday 23 September  Typhoons struck two mortar positions in western Iraq, while a Reaper destroyed a truck loaded with rockets in the north.

- Saturday 24 September  a Reaper provided close air support to Iraqi operations in the Tigris valley and conducted four attacks on terrorist targets.

- Sunday 25 September  a Reaper again patrolled the northern Tigris valley, delivering four further attacks.

- Monday 26 September  Tornados destroyed two Daesh vehicles in the Qayyarah region, a Reaper destroyed another vehicle near Sharqat, and Typhoons bombed a terrorist position east of Mosul.

- Tuesday 27 September  Typhoons hit one mortar team near Qayyarah, and a second mortar team and an artillery piece to the north of Mosul.

Detail

Operations by the Iraqi army to clear the Tigris valley south of Mosul continue. On Friday 23 September, a Royal Air Force Reaper scouted ahead of the Iraqi advance near al Hawd. The Reaper's crew spotted a Daesh truck on the move, loaded with rockets. A direct hit from a Hellfire missile on the driver's cab and engine brought the vehicle to an immediate halt and a second missile safely destroyed its cargo. In western Iraq, two Typhoons patrolled to the north-west of Ramadi, where they used a pair of Paveway IV guided bombs against two terrorist mortar positions located within a palm grove.

On Saturday 24 September, a Reaper was again flown over the Tigris, near Qayyarah, where it provided surveillance support to a coalition air strike that destroyed a Daesh headquarters. The Reaper then turned its attention to several groups of extremists out in the open. Hellfire attacks struck one mortar team and two groups of terrorists. A few survivors of the attacks then boarded a motorboat, hoping to make their escape across the Tigris, but a fourth Hellfire sank them at the mooring.

On Sunday 25 September, a Reaper was again back in the skies near Qayyarah where it conducted four attacks on Daesh targets using its Hellfire weapons. Another mortar was destroyed, and three missiles eliminated a group of terrorists engaged in a close quarters fight with Iraqi troops.

The following day, Tornados used an Enhanced Paveway II guided bomb against a truck-bomb near Qayyarah and a Brimstone missile to destroy a light truck in the same area. Further south in the valley, near Sharqat, a Reaper destroyed another Daesh vehicle and then supported a coalition attack on an additional truck-bomb. Meanwhile, Typhoons operated to the east of Mosul, where a Paveway IV was used against a Daesh-held building.

Two flights of Paveway IV-armed Typhoons continued operations in northern Iraq on Tuesday 27 September. They conducted successful strikes on a mortar team near Qayyarah, plus a second mortar and an artillery piece to the north of Mosul.

Previous air strikes

Tuesday 2 August: With Iraqi ground forces continuing their offensive to clear Daesh from the area around Qayyarah, a Royal Air Force Reaper provided close air support. The Reaper observed terrorists attempting to salvage a heavy machine-gun from a truck that had been hit by a previous coalition strike and successfully engaged them with a Hellfire missile. A second group of extremists were also attacked with another Hellfire. UK aircraft then provided targeting support that allowed a coalition fast jet to destroy a mortar team. Over Syria, a pair of Typhoons were similarly supporting the Syrian democratic forces as they fought to secure Manbij. A number of buildings on the south-western edge of the town had been fortified by Daesh as a major defensive position. These were successfully struck by the Typhoons, using eight Paveway IV guided bombs, despite the proximity of the moderate Syrian forces.

Wednesday 3 August: Tornados destroyed a Daesh mortar position while patrolling the north and west of Mosul.

Thursday 4 August: Tornados were again active over northern Iraq and conducted a Paveway IV attack on a machine-gun position in the hills to the north-west of Tall Afar. Meanwhile, Typhoons destroyed two Daesh-held buildings in western Iraq, while assisting Iraqi forces in the Euphrates Valley.

Sunday 7 August: Daesh were observed to be attempting to extract oil from one of the eastern Syrian oilfields which had been successfully targeted by previous coalition air strikes earlier this year. Two Tornados attacked a convoy of tankers north of Abu Kamal. Four Paveway IVs and four Brimstone missiles accounted for a number of vehicles, denying the terrorists the oil revenue they desperately seek. In northern Iraq, a Reaper and Typhoons were again supporting the Iraqi operations around Qayyarah. The Reaper conducted Hellfire attacks on a mortar team that was firing on the Iraqis and on a set of rocket rails. It then helped other coalition aircraft to successfully target an improvised armoured vehicle. The Typhoons also used three Paveway IVs to destroy three Daesh-held buildings.

Monday 8 August: A Reaper flew overwatch for Iraqi ground forces operating near Qayyarah in northern Iraq on and used a Hellfire missile to destroy a terrorist vehicle as it was tracked at speed along an open road. To the east of Mosul, a light artillery piece had been identified, positioned within a building. This was successfully attacked by Typhoons with a Paveway IV guided bomb.

Tuesday 9 August: Typhoons were active over the same area, conducting attacks with Paveway IVs which destroyed three Daesh-held buildings and a vehicle some 20 miles south-east of Mosul. The same day, a Reaper was again assigned to support Iraqi operations near Qayyarah. Its crew observed a Daesh team setting up a mortar and attacked with a Hellfire. It then used a second missile to destroy a mechanical excavator which was being used to help plant improvised explosive devices and tear up the carriageway of the main highway, in an attempt to hamper the Iraqi advance.

Wednesday 10 August: A Reaper patrolled over Manbij, where Syrian democratic forces have cleared Daesh from much of the town. The Reaper intervened in close combat that developed just to the north of Manbij and successfully used Hellfires to clear two groups of extremists engaged in a fire fight with the Syrian moderates. Over Iraq, Typhoons bombed an armed truck concealed under trees some miles to the south-east of Hit. A number of secondary explosions followed as associated ammunition caught fire.

Saturday 13 August: A Royal Air Force Reaper remotely piloted aircraft provided overwatch to Iraqi ground forces clearing terrorist positions in the Qayyarah region of northern Iraq. A number of groups of Daesh fighters, armed with rocket-propelled grenades, were active in the area, but were tracked down by the Reaper's crew using the aircraft's very capable surveillance sensors. Three successful attacks were conducted using the Reaper's own Hellfire missiles, and the Reaper also made possible a further five attacks by coalition fast jets, which accounted for other groups of fighters, two vehicles and a mortar team.

Sunday 14 August: A second Reaper ensured that the Iraqi units continued to receive close support and this aircraft delivered two Hellfire attacks, again on Daesh rocket-propelled grenade teams.

Monday 15 August: Typhoon FGR4s, based at RAF Akrotiri and supported by a Voyager tanker, patrolled over western Iraq. Some miles north of Ramadi, they used a Paveway IV guided bomb against a terrorist mortar position.

Tuesday 16 August: Tornado GR4s and a Reaper conducted armed reconnaissance patrols over Syria; a coalition surveillance aircraft spotted a Daesh heavy artillery piece to the south of Manbij, and the Tornados were tasked to deal with it. The gun and an ammunition stockpile were concealed within a treeline at the edge of a road, but a pair of Paveway IVs struck their targets. The Reaper operated over south-eastern Syria, where it used a Hellfire to destroy an anti-aircraft gun mounted on a truck, around 40 miles north of Al Tanf.

Wednesday 17 August: A Reaper was again in action near Qayyarah, when it successfully engaged yet another group of Daesh terrorists armed with rocket-propelled grenades; a number of secondary explosions followed the impact of the Hellfire missile as the grenades caught fire. Typhoons also continued their patrols over western Iraq, along the Euphrates valley to the north-west of Ramadi, and here they used a Paveway IV to destroy an armed truck which the extremists had tried in vain to conceal under a large vehicle shelter.

Thursday 18 August: Tornados operating over northern Iraq. A coalition aircraft spotted a group of extremists hidden in a position beneath trees on the southern bank of the Great Zab River, and these were successfully attacked by the GR4s using a Paveway IV. The Tornados then conducted a further such attack on a Daesh machine-gun position, several miles to the south of Sinjar.

Friday 19 August: A Reaper and a pair of Tornados worked together near Qayyarah against a number of terrorist rocket and mortar teams. The Reaper observed a mortar firing from a compound at Iraqi forces, and responded with a successful Hellfire missile attack. The Reaper then provided support to the Tornados as they used a pair of Paveway IVs against a widely dispersed group of rocket-launchers. The Tornados also used a Brimstone missile to destroy a second mortar team, and another Paveway IV to strike an additional set of rocket rails.

Saturday 20 August: Another Reaper patrolled over Qayyarah, again hunting for a reported mortar team. The target was tracked down and successfully prosecuted using a Hellfire.

Sunday 21 August: a Typhoon flight bombed an armed truck a few miles to the north-west of Ramadi, on the northern bank of the Euphrates, while Tornados were active once more over northern Iraq; a Paveway IV attack struck a terrorist position to the south-west of Kirkuk, and a Brimstone missile was used to destroy a T-62 tank operated by Daesh to the north of Mosul.

Monday 22 August: Two Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s operated over northern Iraq. A group of Daesh extremists had been located, sheltering in a cave amongst hills on the southern bank of the Tigris, overlooking the river, some miles to the north-west of Mosul. The Typhoons used one Paveway IV guided bomb to attack the cave entrance, and a second to destroy the terrorists' vehicle, parked on a nearby track.

Wednesday 24 August: Iraqi security forces continue to mount offensive operations against Daesh near Qayyarah, and they were well supported by coalition aircraft, including an RAF Reaper and a pair of Tornado GR4s. The GR4s were primarily deployed in the reconnaissance role, but conducted two attacks with Brimstone missiles against terrorists engaged in combat with the Iraqi troops. The Reaper provided surveillance support to other coalition aircraft which delivered an air strike on a Daesh strongpoint, and carried out five attacks with its own weaponry: four Hellfire missiles accounted for two mortar teams and two groups of terrorists manoeuvring along narrow alleyways, and a GBU-12 laser guided bomb destroyed several rocket-launchers which another coalition surveillance aircraft had spotted set up outside the town.

Thursday 25 August: Typhoons, supported as is normal by a Voyager air refuelling tanker, patrolled the Euphrates valley west of Ramadi, where they used a Paveway IV to attack a Daesh-held building on the northern river-bank. Over Syria, a pair of Tornados used two Brimstone missiles to engage a number of terrorists spotted occupying positions under trees in farmland in the east of the country.

Saturday 27 August: A Reaper supported the Iraqi security forces advancing near Qayyarah. The aircraft spotted a heavy vehicle transporter being used by Daesh to move one of the mechanical excavators that are used to construct their fortified positions. Both the transporter and the excavator were destroyed by coalition fast jets, guided to the scene by the Reaper. The Reaper crew subsequently tracked an armed Daesh truck withdrawing from a nearby compound and attempted to conceal the vehicle in shed. A direct hit from a Hellfire missile destroyed the building and the truck inside.

Sunday 28 August: A Typhoon patrol over western Iraq used a pair of Paveway IV guided bombs to destroy a dispersed group of rocket-launching rails hidden amidst trees on the northern bank of the Euphrates.

Monday 29 August: Typhoons operating ten miles north of Mosul delivered a Paveway attack on a bunker and tunnel network. A number of secondary explosions ensued, most likely from stored ammunition.

Tuesday 30 August: Typhoons operating over the same area north of Mosul conducted successful attacks with Paveway IVs on a further three tunnels. An excavator preparing defences nearby was also destroyed.

Wednesday 31 August: A Typhoon patrol found its target 15 miles to the east of Mosul, where advancing Iraqi forces had identified a Daesh-held building. It was hit with a Paveway IV leading to number of secondary explosions.

Thursday 1 September: A Reaper remotely piloted aircraft operated over Raqqa in Syria, where its crew helped identify a large stockpile of explosive materials at an industrial site, awaiting the manufacture of improvised explosive devices and other home-made weaponry. An attack using Hellfire missiles destroyed much of the stockpile, and left the remainder on fire. Near Qayyarah, Tornados providing close air support to Iraqi ground forces conducted a successful Paveway IV attack against a weapons cache hidden in a line of trees.

Saturday 3 September: A Reaper kept close watch on a Daesh vehicle check-point in north-western Iraq, in the Tall Afar region, which was being used by the terrorists to harass local civilian traffic. The Reaper's crew waited patiently until there were no civilian vehicles in the area, then destroyed the check-point with a direct hit from a Hellfire.

Sunday 4 September: Typhoons patrolled over western Iraq and engaged a group of terrorists who had been spotted several miles north of Ramadi. Although they attempted to seek cover beneath some trees, the extremists were struck accurately by a Paveway IV.

Tuesday 6 September: Qayyarah remains the focus for significant Iraqi offensive operations, and Royal Air Force aircraft have continued to contribute to the supporting coalition air effort. Two Tornado GR4s used Paveway IV guided bombs and Brimstone missiles to attack a large dispersed group of mechanical excavators and heavy trucks being used by Daesh to construct defensive positions in the area; at least seven vehicles were destroyed outright.

Thursday 8 September: Tornados continued operations over northern Iraq. Intelligence had identified a bomb-making factory and associated terrorist training facility in neighbouring compounds to the west of Tall Afar. A pair of Tornados struck both targets accurately with Paveway IVs, then proceeded to provide close air support to local Iraqi forces, in the course of which they conducted a further successful Paveway attack against two rocket launchers. A second pair of Tornados meanwhile patrolled east of Mosul, where they used Paveway IVs against two groups of Daesh extremists who had been spotted by a coalition surveillance aircraft.

Friday 9 September: Typhoon FGR4s were tasked to engage a howitzer which Daesh were attempting to bring into position some miles north of Ramadi. The artillery piece and its towing vehicle were well-concealed under trees, but the Typhoons were nevertheless able to score a direct hit with a Paveway IV. Near Qayyarah, a Reaper remotely piloted aircraft spotted a mortar team as they uncovered their weapon and began firing at Iraqi positions, but a Hellfire missile quickly removed the threat.

Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 September: Reaper operations over Qayyarah continued. On Saturday, a Reaper used a Hellfire to destroy a vehicle-borne mortar team, then located a large group of twelve rocket launchers being readied for firing. A Hellfire from the Reaper killed the terrorist who was preparing the weapons for launch, and the Reaper was then able to guide a coalition jet to the scene, so that it could use its larger guided bombs to destroy the rocket launchers. The following day, another Reaper successfully used a Hellfire against a further terrorist mortar team near Qayyarah. In eastern Syria, Tornados provided support to the Syrian democratic forces by using a salvo of four Paveway IVs to demolish a large building in which Daesh fighters, including snipers, had fortified themselves.

Iraqi ground forces, having liberated first the nearby airfield, then the town of Qayyarah from Daesh, continue to conduct offensive operations in the surrounding area and north towards Al Hawd. They have been well supported by coalition aircraft, with Royal Air Force Reapers putting their ability to remain on patrol for extended periods of time to valuable use in hunting down Daesh mortar teams attempting to conduct harassing fire against the Iraqi advance. On Monday 12 September, one Reaper successfully located and attacked, using Hellfire missiles, three different terrorist mortars near Qayyarah.

Wednesday 14 September: Another Reaper accounted for a further two mortar teams, one near Qayyarah, the other closer to Al Hawd. The same day, Typhoon FGR4s patrolled further north, around Mosul; south-east of the city, they were tasked to engage two Daesh-held buildings which Iraqi forces had encountered out in the countryside. Both targets were demolished using Paveway IV guided bombs.

Thursday 15 September: A Reaper tracked terrorists carrying mortar ammunition near Al Hawd. The terrorists led them to a concealed mortar, which was duly struck with a Hellfire. In western Iraq, a group of Daesh had been identified hiding in a cave some ten miles south-east of Haditha; two Typhoons scored a direct hit on the cave entrance with one Paveway IV, then used a second to destroy their truck parked some distance away.

Friday 16 September: Tornado GR4s patrolled the Euphrates valley in western Iraq. North-west of Ramadi, they successfully attacked, using Paveway IV guided bombs, a Daesh-held building.

Saturday 17 September: a Reaper joined other coalition aircraft in a strike against a reported Daesh position south of Dayr az Zawr in Syria, but this was later alleged to have in fact been a position held by Syrian regime forces; a detailed investigation into the incident is being conducted by the coalition. In Iraq, however, a second Reaper provided effective close air support to Iraqi forces operating near Qayyarah. The Reaper provided surveillance support to two successful coalition air strikes on Daesh mortar teams, then used its own Hellfire missiles to destroy a 152mm howitzer and its tow vehicle.

Sunday 18 September: A Reaper was again active near Qayyarah when it destroyed a terrorist truck with a Hellfire missile. To the north of Mosul, Tornados employed an Enhanced Paveway II and a Paveway IV to strike a Daesh strongpoint and an armed truck, then used a second Paveway IV to attack a group of terrorists on foot. Intelligence had identified a Daesh facility in western Iraq, close to the Syrian border, and Typhoon FGR4s used three Paveway IV bombs against this target, then provided close air support to Iraqi forces operating north-west of Ramadi: three more Paveway IVs accounted for a group of rocket launchers and a weapons cache.

Monday 19 September: Operations in the area north of Ramadi continued when Tornados used an Enhanced Paveway II guided bomb to destroy a Daesh supply store, and two Paveway IVs to destroy a neighbouring headquarters. Tornados also operated over north-western Iraq, where a Brimstone missile was used to destroy a terrorist vehicle spotted some ten miles north-west of Tall Afar. Paveway IV-armed Typhoons bombed a Daesh fuel store north of Ramadi on Tuesday 20 September, whilst a Reaper flew overwatch for an Iraqi army brigade as it advanced near Sharqat. The Reaper provided support to two coalition air attacks which destroyed a truck bomb, another terrorist vehicle and a large group of extremists, then used a GBU-12 guided bomb to conduct its own attack on a further group of insurgents spotted in the open. The Reaper's crew tracked two terrorists as they went to a building and collected a second truck-bomb which was concealed under a carport, then followed the truck-bomb as it was driven away from an inhabited area. As the truck-bomb rendezvoused with another Daesh vehicle, it was struck with a Hellfire missile. Both vehicles were destroyed by the subsequent blast.

Wednesday 21 September: A Reaper and two flights of Tornados again provided close air support to Iraqi forces near Sharqat. A Hellfire from the Reaper killed a number of terrorists and badly damaged their nearby vehicle, while a Brimstone and two Paveway IVs from the Tornados struck another two groups of terrorists and a truck. The Tornados also used a Paveway IV to sink a barge that was being used to ferry a truck-bomb across the Tigris. A Reaper patrolled over eastern Syria and north-western Iraq, and destroyed a terrorist check-point in the Tall Afar region with a Hellfire. In western Iraq, Typhoons bombed a bunker on the northern bank of the Euphrates.

Thursday 22 September: Operations near Sharqat and Qayyarah continued. South-west of Sharqat, a Reaper kept watch as a terrorist truck collected weapons and equipment from three different locations; it was then destroyed with a Hellfire missile. The Reaper's crew then tracked a second vehicle, waited until the Daesh occupants got out, and struck them with another Hellfire. A Tornado mission conducted a successful Brimstone attack on an armed truck hidden in a culvert beneath a railway line near Qayyarah, then flew to the north-east of Mosul where a Paveway IV was used to destroy a Daesh-held building.

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Counter-ISIL Strikes Target Terrorists in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, Sept. 29, 2016  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

Officials reported details of yesterday's strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Strikes in Syria

Attack and fighter aircraft conducted eight strikes in Syria:

-- Near Abu Kamal, two strikes destroyed two ISIL oil tanker trucks, an oil wellhead and a pump jack. Three supply routes were damaged.

-- Near Raqqah, a strike destroyed two ISIL oil wellheads.

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, a strike destroyed an oil tanker truck.

-- Near Manbij, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit.

-- Near Mara, three strikes engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a bomb, a fighting position and a mortar system.

Strikes in Iraq

Attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft, as well as rocket artillery, conducted 10 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government:

-- Near Qaim, a strike destroyed an ISIL vehicle bomb-making facility.

-- Near Beiji, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a fighting position.

-- Near Haditha, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit.

-- Near Kisik, two strikes destroyed an ISIL fighting position and suppressed two ISIL mortar firing positions.

-- Near Mosul, four strikes engaged two ISIL tactical units and destroyed a front-end loader, a weapons cache and a vehicle.

-- Near Ramadi, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a vehicle and two trench systems.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat it poses to Iraq, Syria, the region and the wider international community. The destruction of targets in Syria and Iraq further limits ISIL's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said.

Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

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Coalition Shapes Mosul Fight by Removing ISIL Leaders From Battlefield

By Cheryl Pellerin DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29, 2016  The coalition supporting the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is helping to shape the Iraqi security forces' upcoming battle for Mosul, Iraq, by targeting and removing ISIL leaders from the battlefield, the Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman said today.

Air Force Col. John L. Dorrian briefed Pentagon reporters by video conference from Baghdad, noting that in the past 30 days alone, coalition airstrikes have targeted 18 ISIL leaders who supported terrorist efforts in Iraq and Syria.

Dorrian said 13 of the leaders were part of military, intelligence and communication networks in Mosul.

The spokesman said the counter-ISIL coalition continues to target and remove the terrorist group's leaders from the battlefield. Also, ISIL's intelligence, military operations, communications, finance and external operations networks are being disrupted and degraded, he said.

Degrading, Disrupting ISIL

The strikes have targeted ISIL's military commanders, administration and media officials, foreign-fighter facilitators, emirs, security commanders, communication leaders and senior Shura council leadership, Dorrian said.

"The people who replace these [leaders] have not established their bona fides with [ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi], his inner circle, and they're often not as seasoned as those they replace," he added.

"This is especially true around Mosul," Dorrian said, "as the coalition continues to be relentless in degrading and disrupting command and control of their fighters, softening their grip on the city and prepping the battlefield for the liberation."

In a two-day period in Mosul, the coalition removed Abdul Hamid al-Shishani, Abu Jabir al-Shishani and Abdul al-Rahman al-Shishani -- all ISIL Chechen foreign fighters responsible for administration and command of fighters in Mosul, Dorrian said, degrading ISIL's foreign-fighter footprint and capabilities in the city.

Pressuring ISIL

Coalition forces also eliminated Wa'il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayyad, also known as Dr. Wail, ISIL's minister of information and senior Shura member who was one of the top five most senior ISIL leaders and a direct associate of Baghdadi, the spokesman said. Wail was in charge of ISIL's media network, responsible for providing messaging guidance for propaganda and directions for terrorist attacks abroad. Dorrian explained.

"[Removing] the ISIL media head at this time when ISIL is under increased pressure will further disrupt their ability to maintain any illusion that things are going well for them," Dorrian said. "This is important because it affects foreign recruiting and foreign financing."

Another strike in Mosul killed Abu Ahmad Imarah, the ISIL Mutah Division leader. The division is the ISIL unit responsible for security in eastern Mosul. His removal disrupts ISIL military formations and affects the terrorist army's readiness for the Mosul liberation fight, Dorrian added.

The coalition also has removed Abu Jannat, ISIL's deputy military emir in Mosul, with another strike, the spokesman said. This action has further degraded ISIL's military operations around Mosul, he said, while applying more pressure to ISIL's leadership network.

Jannat, an Iraqi native, was responsible for military operations around Mosul, including the manufacture of chemical weapons and the defense of Mosul, Dorrian said.

Targeting ISIL's Enforcers

The coalition also is dismantling ISIL's terrorist law enforcement apparatus in Mosul, the spokesman said, noting that a coalition strike killed Abu Bakr, an emir of the East Mosul military police.

Abu Bakr is an Iraqi and considered by ISIL to be an effective member of their leadership and law enforcement apparatus, Dorrian said. The removal of Abu Bakr from the terrorist's network, he added, will continue to compound pressure on ISIL's military leadership in Mosul and reduce their ability to control the population.

Coalition attacks directly against ISIL leadership compound the impact of the relentless coalition air campaign, which is now well above 15,000 strikes, he added. The air campaign is dismantling ISIL's command and control network by destroying safe houses, weapons manufacturing and storage facilities, supply routes, oil revenue and money, Dorrian said.

More Troops

The 600 additional troops that President Barack Obama authorized this week to be deployed to Iraq will help the Iraqi security forces liberate Mosul, the spokesman said.

"Those forces will come into the country in the coming weeks to provide additional logistics and maintenance capability as we continue to provide advice and assistance to the Iraqi security forces," Dorrian said. "Part of the force upgrade will also provide increased intelligence support."

He added, "Just as the ISF is taking on the largest liberation fight to date in Iraq's second-largest city, we will be enhancing our support to them because of the size of the task and the number of troops involved."

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On USS Carl Vinson, Carter Highlights Asia-Pacific Rebalance

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

Sept. 29, 2016  The rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region is a critical national commitment that focuses on regional prosperity and sharpening the U.S. military edge, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said today in San Diego.

Asia-Pacific remains the "single most consequential region for America's future," the defense chief said, speaking on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.

The rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region, which President Barack Obama announced five years ago, includes diplomatic, economic and military components, he explained. All of the components, he said, are to ensure the Asia-Pacific region "remains a place where every nation can rise and prosper," even at a time of dramatic political, economic and security change in the region.

Carter highlighted security challenges in the region, including North Korea's "nuclear saber-rattling" that threatens allies and heightens tensions. Other challenges, he said, include maritime concerns that could hurt the region's prosperous future, as well as terrorism and transnational threats.

'Finest Fighting Force'

Carter complimented the 4,500 USS Carl Vinson crew members for their work supporting security interests around the world. The Vinson's mission, he said, is of "fundamental strategic importance." The sailors, he said, are part of the "finest fighting force the world has ever known."

The secretary lauded members in all the military services for their work addressing five major global challenges: Russian aggression and coercion, China behaving aggressively, North Korean missile and nuclear provocations, Iranian aggression and malign influence in the Gulf, and defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Rebalance Focuses on the Future

The rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region has three parts, Carter explained. The first phase began five years ago, when DoD enhanced its military force posture in the region; the second phase launched last year, when the U.S. made qualitative improvements to its force posture; and the third phase will cement the progress made in the first and second phases, the secretary said.

The United States will continue to invest and make high-tech improvements in its military assets to "sharpen our military edge so we remain the most powerful military in the region and the security partner of choice," he added.

Carter highlighted the strong ties the U.S. military has with its many allies in the region. America's regional partnerships are growing in number and strength, he said.

"The rebalance is about the future," he said, noting that the effort entails helping to unlock the tremendous potential in the region.

He highlighted the Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying it would bind the United States more closely with 11 other economies and is an opportunity the United States cannot afford to miss. In addition, partnerships and cooperation among Asian-Pacific nations are critical to regional security, he said.

Carter said he is traveling on to Hawaii for an Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting to discuss ways forward in ensuring security and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

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U.S. Department of Defense

Press Operations

News Transcript

Presenter: Colonel John Dorrian, Operation Inherent Resolve Spokesman; Captain Jeff Davis, Director, Defense Press Office September 29, 2016

Department of Defense Press Briefing by Colonel Dorrian via Teleconference from Baghdad, Iraq

CAPTAIN JEFF DAVIS: J.D., our apologies on that. And we -- we'll make efforts here to get that -- both the map and the video available to you later.

So want to make sure you can hear us, and we can hear you. And if so, Colonel Dorrian, we'll turn it over to you.

COLONEL JOHN DORRIAN: Very good. Thanks, Jeff. Good morning, everyone.

I'll provide some remarks and then I'll take your questions.

In Syria, Turkey -- Turkish military embedded Syrian opposition forces with coalition advisers. And supported by coalition air strikes, continue the offensive operations along the Mara line where they seek to retain villages and lines of communication in the area.

(CROSSTALK)

CAPT. DAVIS: I'm sorry, can we ask you to start over again? We had audio problems.

If you could just start from the top again. My apologies.

COL. DORRIAN: ... humanitarian relief.

OK. Yeah, no problem at all. I'll start from the top.

All right, good morning everyone. I'll provide some remarks, and then I'll take your questions.

In Syria, the Turkish military embedded Syrian opposition forces with coalition advisers, and supported by coalition air strikes, continued offensive operations along the Mara line, where they seek to retain villages and lines of communication in the area.

In Manbij, coalition forces assisted local forces conducting clearance operations in five schools, and facilitated the delivery of humanitarian relief to the citizens through local NGOs.

In Iraq, the ISF are making preparations to hand over control of the city of Shirqat to the Iraqi police and hold forces.

This is a typical pattern. ISF move in to liberate the city, clear it, and then hand over forces that keep Daesh from being able to re-infiltrate while efforts are made to remove explosive remnants of war.

COL. DORRIAN: Daesh continues to conduct harassing attacks against the ISF North of Qayyarah, and along the Euphrates River Valley, in the vicinity of Albu Diab. Where ISF forces regained the Bravo base, which is an ISF -- the ISF can now use as an outpost to pressure Daesh and are postured to continue clearing the remainder of the Dulab Peninsula.

The coalition continues to shape operations for Mosul and today I would like to give you some insight into coalition efforts to shape that effort through attacks against Daesh leadership figures.

We continue to target and remove Daesh leaders in both Iraq and Syria to disrupt and degrade their intelligence, military operations, communication, finance, and external operations networks.

In the last 30 days alone, coalition strikes have taken out 18 Daesh leaders who were supporting enemy operations in Iraq and Syria.

13 of these Daesh leaders were part of their military intelligence communication networks in Mosul, Iraq.

The strikes have targeted military commanders, administration officials, foreign fighter facilitators, amirs, security commanders, communication leaders, and senior shura council leadership.

The people who replace these leadership figures have not established their bona fides with al-Baghdadi, his inner circle, and they are often not as seasoned as those they replace. This is especially true around Mosul as the coalition continues to be a relentless in degrading and disrupting command and control of their fighters, softening their grip on the city and prepping the battlefield for the liberation.

In a two-day period in Mosul, we removed Abdul Hamid al-Shishan, Abdul Jabir al Shishani, Abdul Rahman al-Shishani, all Daesh Chechen foreign fighters responsible for administration in command of fighters in Mosul, degrading Daesh's foreign fighter footprint and capabilities within that city.

As you know, coalition forces eliminated Wa'il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad, A.K.A., Dr. Wai'il, Daesh's minister of information and senior shura member who was one of the top five most senior Daesh leaders and was a direct associate of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

He was in charge of Daesh's media network, responsible for providing messaging guidance for propaganda and directions for terrorist attacks abroad. The removal of the Daesh media head at this time, when Daesh is under increased pressure, will further disrupt their ability to maintain any illusion that things are going well for them.

This is important because the effects of recruiting foreign fighters and foreign financing. Another strike in Mosul killed Abdul Ahmed Imara, the Daesh muta division leader. The muta division is the Daesh unit responsible for security in eastern Mosul.

His removal disrupts Daesh military formations and affects their readiness for the Mosul liberation fight. We removed Daesh's deputy and military amir in Mosul, Abu Jannat, another strike, further degrading Daesh's military operations around Mosul and applying more pressure to the Daesh leadership network.

Jannat, an Iraqi native was responsible for military operations around Mosul, to include the manufacturer of chemical weapons in the defense of Mosul. Coalition is impacting ISIL's terrorist law enforcement apparatus in Mosul as well.

The coalition strike killed Abubakar and Amir east -- and of east Mosul military police. Abubakar is an Iraqi and considered by Daesh to be an effective member of their leadership in law enforcement apparatus.

COL. DORRIAN: Removing him from the network will continue to compound pressure on Daesh's military leadership in Mosul, and reduce their ability to control the population.

These attacks directly against Daesh leadership compound the effects of the coalition's relentless air campaign, which is now well above 15,000 strikes. The air campaign is dismantling Daesh command and control by taking away safe houses, weapons manufacturing, and storage facilities, supply routes, oil revenue, and money.

We -- we'll -- we'll skip the video.

Finally, I'd like to give you an update. You heard yesterday that the president approved the deployment of 615 additional troops to support the ISF as they -- as they liberate Mosul. Those forces will come into the country in the coming weeks to provide some additional logistics and maintenance capability as we continue to provide advice and assistance to the Iraqi security forces.

Part of the force upgrade will also provide increased intelligence support. The capabilities being put in place with this uplift in forces will be providing a lot of the same types of capabilities we've been providing. Just as the ISF is taking on a larger -- the largest liberation fight to date in Iraq's second largest city, we will be enhancing our support to them because of the size of the task, and the number of troops involved.

Now, we'll go ahead and open it up for some questions.

CAPT. DAVIS: Great. Andrew Tilghman with the Military Times.

Q: Hi, colonel. A little bit off of the -- the routine topic today. But I wanted to ask you about Ramadi.

Over the past few months, the coalition has reported almost daily airstrikes continuing in Ramadi on tactical units, check points, fighting positions. Just wondering if you could tell me a little bit about what the situation is there.

How many ISIS fighters do you estimate are still in Ramadi specifically, and -- and Anbar at -- at large, and you know does -- what is the current feeling among the commanders there about the Iraqi's ability to secure the gains that were made in Anbar over the past year?

COL. DORRIAN: Yep. One of the important things that it's -- that we really need to understand about the situation down along the Euphrates River Valley is that although a lot of these key areas have been liberated, Daesh is still present on the outskirts.

They're still in the periphery, and they would love nothing better than to get in, re-infiltrate some of the areas that they've been pushed out of, and begin to cause problems, sort of the terror insurgent-type threat that we've talked about in the past, and try to bleed away attention from Mosul.

So, what we've continued to do is to provide a lot of airstrikes and disrupt them. We're not going to wait for them to try to disrupt the Iraqi security forces or us.

We're going to go after them anywhere that they are, and keep them disrupted. And what this does is it sets conditions where the hold forces that have come in behind the main assault forces that pushed Daesh out are in a good position where they can hold that ground.

So, as far as the numbers of fighters, it's certainly a lot less than it used to be before. And we do see them under continued pressure.

I don't have numbers to offer. But, certainly it's a situation where they will try to reconstitute. And we're not going to let them do it.

CAPT. DAVIS: Great. Next to David Martin with CBS.

Q: I apologize if I missed this yesterday but one of the tasks that these 615 are supposed to do is, as I understand it, turn al-Assad into a 24 hour airbase put in the facilities for instrument landing. So, these are night operations by who and what is -- what is the significance of being able to conduct night flight operations from al-Assad.

COL. DORRIAN: Thanks. Well, we're flying both RPAs and the Iraqis also fly their aircraft out of there, fighter and attack aircraft so having that capability there allows us to get better intelligence insight into what the enemy is doing, it allows us to conduct strikes and it allows us to keep Daesh disrupted along the Euphrates River Valley.

So, this is something that we want to be able to do 24/7, 365 not just in daylight hours.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next to Ryan Browne with CNN.

Q: I just wanted to follow up with -- you were talking about this kind of campaign against the leadership in Mosul and you mentioned there were some Chechens who had been target and eliminated.

Can you talk a little bit about is the leadership of ISIS in Mosul, do we think the leadership is mostly foreign fighters like these Chechens or is more local Iraqis? And do we have a new estimate on terms of how many ISIS fighters are in Mosul total?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, I'll start with the numbers. We think anywhere from three to -- 3,000 to 4,500 fighters are in Mosul, somewhere in that ball park. It's a mixture of Iraqi and foreign fighters. You'll see all of those there.

You know, we continue to disrupt them, we continue to go after them anywhere that they can be found. They show no signs of really trying to leave Mosul at this point. Really, what they've done is they've continued to dig in, build elaborate defenses and so we're -- we're really ready for a tough fight there.

The Iraqi security forces are -- have been well trained to do urban style warfare. That's one of the things that we've done for refit and that's really what we're expecting so it is a mixture of Iraqis and foreign fighters. They do continue to flow in and some of them are fixed in place there.

Q: In terms of the leadership of the ISIS in Mosul, do we think that's mostly foreign or mostly Iraqi, at the leadership level? You mentioned these Chechens, I was just wondering how -- how common is it for foreign fighters to be calling the shots in Mosul?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, the Chechens hold kind of a special place within -- within Daesh and the reason for that is that many of them showed up and infiltrated into Syria and Iraq already trained or somewhat seasoned by some of the things that they've done elsewhere so you do often find Chechens in the leadership. There are foreign fighters but there are also a lot of Iraqis and Syrians.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next to Joe Tabet with Al Hurra.

Q: I don't know if you could give us a number about the size of the Iraqi forces that need to go into Mosul. And if this force will -- will also combine other military factions like the PMF or -- and the Peshmerga.

So if you could give us a ballpark figure -- (inaudible) figure about the size, the military size of the force that's going into Mosul.

COL. DORRIAN: Yes. Well, we think it will be anywhere from eight to 12 brigades of Iraqi army. We also expect the Iraqi police to be involved, because they're going to be a part of the effort to maintain security once areas have been liberated, to hold those areas so Daesh can't re-infiltrate.

We think it's going to be a very large battle. We do expect the Peshmerga to be involved, although the details of their involvement are still being worked out. And we also expect there to be tribal forces involved, and the details of their involvement are still being worked out.

All these things are being arranged by the Iraqi security forces and we -- we're going to follow their plan.

Q: Thank you.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next to Tony Capaccio with Bloomberg.

Q: Thanks, Jeff.

A couple of questions on the equipment. Is the U.S. surging any specialized assault equipment to the Iraqi security forces for the assault? IED equipment? Breaching equipment? Upgrades to their M1 tanks? Any specialized equipment that's being surged in right now?

And then I have a follow-up.

COL. DORRIAN: I'll have to -- I'll have to take that one for you, Tony. I do know that the Iraqis have tanks. They do have bulldozers and heavy equipment. I don't know if there is any new equipment being sent in for this particular battle. I would imagine that this is, given its size and scope, one where the entire resources of the Iraqis will be brought to bear to make sure they're successful.

Q: colonel, you come from the space community. Your last -- your last assignment was U.S. Air Force Space Command. To what extent are Air Force space assets being utilized in Iraq right now, especially to monitor Mosul and the surrounding areas? We don't hear a lot about that, but this is an area where you bring some expertise.

COL. DORRIAN: Well, one of the things that's important to understand is that there's no military operation of any significance anywhere in the world that doesn't depend on space. So, one of the key areas that it's being used is the global positioning system. All the munitions that the -- the U.S. forces use are precision-guided munitions. The majority of those are GPS-aided munitions.

We have military communications that are being used to support our forces as they're ongoing. We have military intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities in space that are watching what's happening in Mosul and other places around Iraq. We have overhead, persistent infrared capabilities that can be used to get intelligence capability from around Iraq.

All these things are critical capabilities and it's -- you know, we've used those things every single day.

Q: (inaudible) used? That's the one that we have up in the sky to monitor nuclear launches. I was hearing that actually it's being used somewhat in Iraq in a different role.

COL. DORRIAN: Yep. Yeah, overhead persisted infrared capability is something where you can monitor heat signatures.

So any time there's something you know of significance that happens on the battlefield, a lot of the time you can derive some intelligence. Probably can't get into a deep dive on that, but that's -- that's what it's used for.

It's a -- it's a pretty impressive capability, and it's one that really not a lot of people know about. And it's because we -- we can't tell you too many details.

CAPT. DAVIS: OK. Next with Laurent Barthelemy with Agence-France Press.

Q: Hello, colonel. I was wondering if among the 615 additional soldiers in Iraq that have been announced yesterday, some are -- are going to reinforce the special forces unit that is carrying raids against ISIL leadership?

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah, we -- we really don't discuss the ongoing operations, or really what our special operations forces are doing. So, I'm afraid I can't provide any insight into what our special operations forces are doing.

I can tell you that across the board, these forces are providing a lot of logistical capability, supply capability, handling of ammunition, intelligence capability, just all the things that we've been doing but supersized so that the Iraqis, as they take on the supersized task of liberating Mosul which is Iraq's second largest city, have all the capability that they're going to need to in order to be successful.

CAPT. DAVIS: The queue's empty. Actually, Lucas, and then come back (inaudible).

Q: As the operation against Mosul heats up, is there some concern that when you look at Ramadi, when you look at Fallujah, those cities are essentially leveled. Is that the plan for Mosul? I mean, is this whole city going to get destroyed when it's all said and done?

And then refuge -- aid groups and -- and Iraqi forces will go in to secure the place?

COL. DORRIAN: Lucas, I'd differ with you a little bit on that characterization. I understand the -- the damage in Ramadi was tremendous, but there was less in Fallujah compared to Ramadi.

And some of that has to do with the amount that the enemy fights. So if they build intricate defenses and then fall back into the city, they create a tremendous amount of damage as the Iraqi security forces have to go in there after them.

So, really there's no way to predict exactly what's going to happen in Mosul. All we know that you know the enemy gets a vote. And they have to be pushed out.

It's a necessary step here because they consider their Mosul their capital, and that must be taken away. It's an important step in defeating Daesh.

Q: Just one follow-up. Can you rule out that more U.S. troops will be going to Iraq in the near future?

COL. DORRIAN: We believe that you know this is all the forces that we're going to need in place in order to help the Iraqis liberate Mosul. So, anytime that we need forces, what we do is you know we make the determination what the requirement is and then we also consult with the Iraqis about what capabilities they need.

That's the determination between what we need, what we -- what we think they need, what they think they need and once that determination is made in military channels, our leadership goes up to the leadership and then the president makes the determination what we need.

I really can't get into you know, a speculative what might happen. But I can tell you we believe we have all the forces we need in order to help the Iraqis liberate Mosul.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next, back to Andrew Tilghman.

Q: Colonel, back to Anbar Province for a minute. Just real quickly, can you tell us the number of American troops that are at Al-Assad and also, more broadly, to what extent are these upgrades at Al-Assad driven by concerns about maintaining long term stability and keeping ISIS out of the Euphrates River Valley?

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah I don't think I can give you an exact number as I can tell you, it's an order of magnitude smaller than at the height of the -- the surge years. There were something like 20,000 troops, there.

I think there's less than a tenth of that, now. And you know, it's going to remain a modest presence. As far as what's needed in order to maintain security in the Euphrates River Valley, that's probably a crystal wall question to some degree and I think that's something that will be taken off in the months and probably years ahead with the Iraqis.

So we'll see what they need, we'll see what we -- what we recommend that they have. I can tell you that the capabilities that are being brought in there now are going to make sure that we have the ability to keep the lid on the Daesh presence, there.

CAPT. DAVIS: Luis Martinez?

Q: I have a question, John but before we get to that, doing the quick math less than a tenth of 20,000 would be just under 2,000. Is that what you're talking about? That's a pretty large number, actually.

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah I'm not going to give you a number, Luis. I think we'll have to owe that to you but it's less than a tenth. I think we'll leave it at that.

Q: OK the question I was going to as you was a couple weeks ago, we saw this video of that air strike I guess the pharmaceutical plant that was being used as a chemical weapon facility, I think it was in Syria.

Can you tell us why -- why -- was this such a large complex I mean was all of it being used to produce chemical weapons I mean given the amount of aircraft and the number of the initiatives that were dropped on it?

I mean what -- what necessitated such a huge drop of munitions on this plant?

COL. DORRIAN: Luis, I actually think that you might be talking about a strike we did earlier this month and that strike was on a pharmaceutical plant in Mosul. And what we believe is that Daesh were using that not only for chemical weapons but they were also using it as a facility where they had a large number of vehicle-born improvised explosive devices.

COL. DORRIAN: So whenever we see a presence like that, we're going to attack an area like that very vigorously and we're not going to leave some corner of the building available to them. Now, you know what we've told you and what is the case here is that Daesh has a very nascent capability, sort of a limited capability for chemical weapons. But it is not something that were going to -- that is not a problem we're going to admire, that is a problem we're going to get after.

So that is why it is a large strike and that is why they went after it with so many bombs.

Q: Thanks for the correction about (inaudible). Can I ask you also about (inaudible)?

Last time you were out you talked about how the -- the defenses that ISIS was building anticipation of an offensive were pretty vast.

How much of a tunneling network are you seeing that you described that week?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, they have had two years there in order to prepare these so, I -- I think this is one of those were from the air you can see a lot and there is probably a lot that you cannot see saw.

So I think in some ways it is a little bit of speculation, but we have seen elsewhere that Daesh are -- are very keen to build tunneling networks because it helps them to maintain in security and preserve their lives a little bit longer whenever clearing operations begin.

So we're going to anticipate a very tough fight. We're going to anticipate that they are going to do those kinds of things because we have seen them elsewhere. In the city the size of Mosul, that's going to, you know, slow things down and make it a complicated task.

But the Iraqis have had a good track record of success, especially in the last year and they are beginning to get a very good understanding of what they can expect from Daesh and they are going to keep -- keep after it and we believe they will be successful in clearing Mosul, as well.

CAPT. DAVIS: (Inaudible)

Q: I would like to come back on the situation in the Euphrates River Valley. Where -- where are the -- which are the areas of the -- the Euphrates River Valley where ISIL still has strong positions. Can -- can you talk a little about that?

COL. DORRIAN: Sure. Yep, in the Euphrates River Valley, south of the Euphrates, it is very, you know, secure in a lot of areas along were Ramadi, Fallujah, Haditha, some of those areas.

Once you get further out, out toward the Syrian border to Haditha and beyond. This is really where Daesh has a significant presence and where the Iraqi Security Forces will look to kind of keep them away from some of the key population areas along the Euphrates River Valley. Of course, going down into Baghdad.

So really from Haditha, along to the border with Syria, it's less secure. You know, the Iraqis have liberated Rutbah, but we still see significant Daesh presence out in the periphery. These are less populated areas and certainly less desirable areas for Daesh, but it is also a place where they continue to try to reconstitute, make trouble in order to try to deflect attention away from higher priorities like Mosul.

And that is one of the reasons why we continue to hammer him with airstrikes and, you know, Assad -- Al Asad Airbase where we can keep pressure on them, you know, from the air.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next to Jeff (inaudible) with Voice of America.

Q: Thank you very much for briefing. I want to follow-up on something you said much earlier when you were talking about the Daesh fighter force status in Mosul.

You -- I think you said that they're still trying to flow people in. Are you seeing any attempts to reinforce the city? And if so, any indication of how many, how they're getting them in, where they're coming from?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, we do see Daesh attempt to retrograde North from the cities that have been liberated along the Tigris River Valley. Their ability to do that well is pretty limited because they can't move in large columns and formations and convoys and stuff like that like a couple of years when they came into Iraq and Syria.

They can't do it that way because of the relentless coalition air campaign. If we see something like that, certainly that's a rich target and we're going to take advantage of it and it's going to be a bad day.

So you know, kind of trickling in, yes they still can do that. They have some freedom of movement in order to do that. What you see is small formations. You know, single digit fighters and -- you know, people with backpacks and that sort of thing. You're not going to see big resupply convoys and loads of trucks and all that sort of thing like you saw in the past.

Q: The overall -- I think the last estimate we had was 5,000. Now its 3,450 so on the whole they seem to be losing people, though.

COL. DORRIAN: Yes. Yes, they do keep losing people because we keep hammering them with airstrikes and we're going to keep doing that. So that's a good situation for us and a bad situation for them.

One of the things about an air campaign, and -- you know, being an Airman I'll go ahead and toot our horn for a second. That reduces freedom of movement and it fixes the enemy largely in place. So you're not going to see, you know, mass ability to escape.

And, you know, you saw an example of what air power can do to them if they try to do that in wake of the fight -- for the liberation of Fallujah. You know, hundreds of trucks were destroyed and hundreds of Daesh fighters lost their lives in that. So that's the kind of thing that, you know, really sort of takes the fight to the enemy. They're fixed in place. That's a good situation for us.

So what we'll do is we'll continue to shape the battlefield around Mosul. That sets conditions where the Iraqis can move in at a time of their choosing. And Daesh really are sort of waiting for that to happen and it's not really going to go very well for them.

CAPT. DAVIS: No. First the gentleman in the back and then Paul after that.

Q: (Inaudible) of the Daily Caller News Foundation. Just piggybacking off the last question, do you see or have you seen -- or do you predict to see any of the Daesh fighters engaging in different tactics than we've seen previously when they've been run out of cities? I know we've had the booby traps and the suicide bombers, but have you guys seen anything or do you predict anything that might be different this time around, given the importance and size of Mosul?

COL. DORRIAN: That's a bit of a crystal ball question. But I will tell you that our forces, the Iraqi forces, everyone is setting up for a very tough fight. So Daesh had a lot of time to prepare for this, they know what's coming. They know that they don't have what it takes in order to stop that offensive.

COL. DORRIAN: So I think what we've seen them do in other places, there will be some very motivated fighters who will fight and die in place. There will be some that try to blend into the civilian population that tries to leave the city. You may see, you know, some of them try to go out with the IDPs and then you see sleeper cells.

These are the types of things that we've seen in other places. The use of tunnels, all that and our forces have been working with the Iraqis so that the Iraqis will be ready to deal with that. In addition, there's been a tremendous amount of planning at the political level.

This is a really important aspect of the fight. It's sort of on the periphery of our area but it's very, very important and what this means is that the various groups that are going to be involved in this, so the Peshmerga, you know, the various other elements.

When they're -- when they're involved in this, you know, that -- that just brings to bear a tremendous amount of capability, all of it intended to keep pressure on that city and not let Daesh escape. So, you saw President Barzani come down into Baghdad.

It's the first time he's done that and met with Prime Minister Abadi. It's a really important thing because it signals that there is good cooperation between the government of Iraq and the Kurds.

That's an important political step, again, detail-wise those are discussions at the political level between those two but it's an important step toward the preparations for Mosul because these groups are going to be involved in some fashion.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next to Paul McLeary with F.P.

Q: Colonel, can you give us an update on where the FSA and the Turks are in northern Syria? Are they still pushing south? Are they moving west and also are the Kurds still along the Euphrates or have they started to move as well?

COL. DORRIAN: You broke up just a little bit there, I apologize. Would you please repeat the question?

Q: The Free Syrian Army and the Turks, are they still pushing south in northern Syria?

COL. DORRIAN: What you see the Turks doing is continue to do clearing along the Mara line. What they're doing is they're building a buffer along their border. Certainly, they've come, you know, some distance south but there's -- there's probably a limit to how far they want to go. That's a determination that they'll make.

We continue to support their operations. They've made good progress in clearing a lot of areas. I think the last count that I saw was about 12 villages cleared in northern Syria by the Turks and their partners in Syria, partnered with coalition forces.

So, a lot of progress being made there. The SDF, they're really in a position where they're doing a lot of planning and they're reconstituting doing sort of refit after their successful campaign in Manbij.

Really, one of the things that's kind of an important thing, it's underreported and we really want to talk about, we're bringing in some additional intelligence capabilities with this troop uplift and we think that this is really important.

What happened in Manbij is probably an example of this. So, there were 20 terabytes of intelligence information that came out of Manbij alone whenever that was liberated.

COL. DORRIAN: Well, a lot of areas are being liberated in Iraq now and we plan to go into Mosul so we expect for our intelligence professionals cooperating with the Iraqis to get a treasure trove of intelligence information there and this additional capability is going to give us a lot of insight into Daesh networks not just in Iraq and Syria but it also gives insight into how they export terror around the world, some of the people they work with, how they finance themselves.

This is all really important stuff. And you know we're setting up for that. So, it's really important.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next to Tony Capaccio.

Q: Yeah, I want to follow up on this a little bit. Are you saying that the U.S. -- this intelligence capability -- are these computers, machines that better fuse all this information?

Or are you setting up these intelligence fusion cells that were used to go after al-Zarqawi in the -- the 2000s timeframe where you bring in Treasury Department and other analysts into an area to monitor the information and collect it, and analyze it quickly?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, Tony, as far as exactly what the capability is, I -- I don't think I can provide a deep dive into that. I will tell you that whenever you have the amount of information that we would expect to get in a -- in an area the size of Mosul, you know certainly we're going to try to get after it and get after it quickly.

And those capabilities are going to be something that gives us a lot of insight into Daesh networks. It may be a little bit different than what we've done before, but I think it's going to be something that bears a lot of fruit.

Q: (inaudible) or is it more expertise to fuse and analyze the -- the information more quickly so it's what they call actionable intelligence?

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah, I would -I would -- I would characterize it, Tony, as all kinds of capability, both actionable and longer term.

So, whenever you liberate a city the size of Mosul, you can expect to get a tremendous amount of information. Certainly, if we have a window of opportunity that presents itself rather quickly, we do have adequate forces in theater to go ahead and act upon that.

But you know even if you don't get something you can act on it once, or process it once, it's still tremendously valuable for insight into the network. Because what we've seen, as you have, is that Syria in particular, but also Iraq, had been used as a launching pad for terrorism around the world.

So, not only do we have to get Daesh out of controlling areas in both Syria and Iraq, we also have to take advantage of the intelligence capability and the -- the information that we get while we do that to degrade them elsewhere.

CAPT. DAVIS: Ryan, did you have a follow-up question?

Q: I just had one follow up, colonel. On the campaign against the leadership, including Abu Jabhat, you mentioned how it's kind of gear a lot -- a lot of these strikes were against leaders in Mosul.

Was this kind of the decision to ramp up this in the anticipation so quickly before we think the final push on Mosul by the ISF? Or were -- are just kind of they found out where these leaders were and struck kind of dynamically?

Or is -- is it -- is this kind of directly related to the upcoming push? Or -- or are we just taking out leaders as we find them?

COL. DORRIAN: No, it's both. You know we -- one of the things that is probably important to understand, we talk about HVIs, high-value individuals.

Sometimes these people are mid-value individuals. But they're very, very important to a local network.

COL. DORRIAN: So, in some cases, some of these people, that's what we're talking about. By taking these individuals off the battlefield, it creates some really disruptive effects to enemy command and control. And that sets conditions where when the Iraqi security forces take action, the reaction will be slower and less efficient. That's a good set of conditions for us and a bad set of conditions for them.

CAPT. DAVIS: Dan De Luce from F.P.

Q: Just to follow up on the intelligence aspect, would you say that a significant number of these additional troops that are going to be deploying are actually intelligence specialists who will be preparing to extract and exploit the information that's gained in Mosul?

COL. DORRIAN: That would be an accurate characterization. As far as the size, I can't really break down the number for you. It would be inappropriate to do so but that is a more robust capability that puts us in a position to take that information off the battlefield and get it to analysts and people that can act upon it.

CAPT. DAVIS: All right, (inaudible).

Q: I was curious to know if there was any specific example that you could give to us on how -- extent of operations outside Iraq and Syria of ISIL have been disrupted following intelligence collected for instance in Manbij.

COL. DORRIAN: No, it would be inappropriate for me to give you that level of detail. I can tell you that the information that was gotten that was taken from Manbij has been distributed to security services throughout Europe and, you know, it continues to be acted upon in Syria and Iraq.

So, very important information but we really can't give you any insight into, you know, what's being done with that elsewhere, be too much detail.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next, back to Lucas Tomlinson with Fox News.

COL. DORRIAN: Colonel, is there any concern that after ISIS is defeated in Mosul that this could be like a run on Berlin situation at the end of World War II where you -- in this case, for Iraq, you'd have potentially Turkish forces in the city, Irani-backed forces in the city, maybe Kurds, and that the political situation actually gets worse?

COL. DORRIAN: One of the important things to know about the planning effort here to go into Mosul is that the government of Iraq is making the calls about the disposition and the participation of all the forces that are involved.

So, they're in charge of how this is done and they do understand that there's a political dimension to this entire thing and that the outcome, the manner in which this campaign is conducted, will have significant ramifications on the political atmosphere after Mosul.

So, Prime Minister Abadi's been made -- you know, is very clear about that. That's one of the reasons he's working very closely with the Kurds and that is something that has to be considered but it is something that, you know, there's a significant amount of planning going on and the coalition is involved in those plans although the Iraqis have to make the determination who's going to go into Mosul and the manner in which they do.

COL. DORRIAN: One of the things that we've conveyed, though, to, you know, the Iraqis is that, you know, whoever is doing the screening of IDPs, this is a very important aspect of the campaign because we expect anywhere from 500,000 to 800,000 to come out of Mosul.`.

It's very important that those people are directly under the command and control of the Iraqi security forces. So it is very important that be done right.

Q: Thank you.

CAPT. DAVIS: Tony Capaccio.

Q: Two quick questions. The intelligence increases you're -- you're putting in there, would it be accurate to say that's an intelligence surge, or would that be an overstatement? You know, in terms of shorthand way to look at this.

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah, I think that would be an appropriate shorthand. What you see here is the Iraqis are having to take on the largest task that they have taken on to date and so what that means is we have to provide our most robust capabilities now to keep up with the capabilities they are going to need.

So you know, there is a large opportunity to gather a lot of information. There is a large demand signal for intelligence information just to set up a campaign of this size and scope. Coming out of it there is an opportunity to make substantial gains and more deeply understand what Daesh has been up to.

Q: And a follow-up. An airplane question. What role does the A-10 play over there in terms of shaping the battlefield in Mosul and given its precise ground attack capability, you know it's been the subject of a major debate in Congress about whether to retire it.

What role is the A-10 playing and will it be the aircraft of choice when Mosul is assaulted?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, the A-10 provides a -- an incredible capability, particularly against vehicles and hard targets. The enemy was able to get things like tanks and heavy vehicles. The A-10 is extremely effective against that type of a target.

We do have other capabilities that are quite capable of destroying those targets as well, but the A-10s have been hard at work. They've made a great impact on the battlefield here. It has been -- been very good to see.

CAPT. DAVIS: Jeff (inaudible)

Q: Colonel, getting back to the IDPs, how close are you or the Iraqis to knowing who is going to be in charge of screening them, and are you satisfied that the groups that are under consideration have the necessary skills to do the screening in an inappropriate way, given -- especially some of the concerns -- with Fallujah, what happened to -- to IDPs who were not members of ISIL who were fleeing the city?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, we're still in the planning cycle, but I would say that these are conversations that our leadership have with the Iraqis every day. And the key element here, the most important foundational part, is that anyone who is involved in the screening of IDPs must be under the command and control of the government of Iraq.

Prime Minister Abadi has been very clear that people that are involved in anything that's -- like human rights violations and things of that nature, that they have to be held to account for that.

He does understand that with -- in operation, the size and scope of Mosul, that this is something that requires -- requires his attention. And he has -- he's made clear that this is a priority thing for him.

Q: If I could ask a follow-up.

CAPT. DAVIS: Yeah, sure.

Q: Given the critical nature of -- of this part of -- of the mission, can the campaign against Mosul move forward if those forces who are going to be doing this are not in place?

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah. Those forces will be in place. I'm not sure I understand the question.

Q: Just if you're still talking about who's going to be screening the IDPs and who's going to be doing with the -- the refugees streaming out of the city, trying to ferret out who's a real refugee whose a member of Daesh.

If you're still having those conversations, how much does that hold back the ability to -- for the Iraqis to move on Mosul and actually retake the city if these critical follow-on efforts are still up in the air?

COL. DORRIAN: All the forces that are gonna be involved in Mosul to the liberation battle are trained, and all of them are being -- you know as time goes on here -- moved into position. So, I don't think that that's really a -- especially a concern.

Planning efforts for something of this size and scope, it's not unusual for planning to keep going right up until the day that you execute. So, you know, I'm not really concerned with that.

I think where we are here is the Iraqi's are developing a good plan. We're assisting in the development of the plan.

The forces that need to be in place are being put in place. They are trained and ready to go.

Some of them have been involved in campaigns in other parts of the country. So, there's a lot of momentum here for the Iraqi security forces. And they do understand the importance of doing this correctly.

CAPT. DAVIS: OK, we're about out of time. Any last minute ones? We'll call it a day then. Colonel Dorrian, we thank you for your time as always, and look forward to seeing you again soon.

COL. DORRIAN: Thanks very much, Jeff. Have a great weekend.

http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/959760/

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Commander, US 6th Fleet Visits USS Carney

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS160929-06

Release Date: 9/29/2016 9:57:00 AM

By Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Weston Jones, Navy Public Affairs Support Element East Det. Europe

MEDITERRANEAN SEA (NNS) -- Vice Adm. James Foggo III, commander, U.S. 6th Fleet, visited Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG 64) while underway in the Mediterranean Sea, Sept. 28.

Foggo first met with Cmdr. Ken Pickard, Carney's commanding officer, and then addressed the crew on their performance in support of the Wasp Amphibious Ready Group and Operation Odyssey Lightning.

Quotes:

"It's great to be out at sea with a professional team like the men, women, officers and chief petty officers of USS Carney." - Vice Adm. James Foggo III, Commander, U.S. 6th Fleet

"We're honored to welcome Vice Adm. Foggo onboard today. My crew has performed phenomenally. It's good for them to hear from the admiral the impact they are making and the importance of the role that they have in support of Operation Odyssey Lightning.

-Cmdr. Ken Pickard, Commanding Officer, USS Carney (DDG 64)

Quick Facts:

Carney is currently supporting the USS Wasp ARG as it conducts strikes in support of the Libyan Government of National Accord-aligned forces against Daesh targets in Sirte, Libya as part of Operation Odyssey Lightning.

Carney, forward-deployed to Rota, Spain, is conducting a routine patrol in the U.S. 6th fleet area of operations in support of U.S. national security interests in Europe.

U.S. 6th Fleet Headquartered in Naples, Italy, conducts the full spectrum of joint and naval operations, often in concert with allied, joint, and interagency partners in order to advance U.S. national interests, security and stability in Europe and Africa.

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Commander, US 6th Fleet Visits USS Wasp

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS160929-10

Release Date: 9/29/2016 11:11:00 AM

By Lt. j.g. Michael Torres, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet Public Affairs

MEDITERRANEAN SEA (NNS) -- Commander, U.S. 6th Fleet Vice Adm. James Foggo III visited amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1), Sept. 28.

The visit provided Foggo the opportunity to share his strategic vision of 6th Fleet's current operations, including Operation Odyssey Lightning (OOL), with the Sailors and Marines aboard Wasp and to thank them for their efforts.

Quotes:

"I came out today to thank all of you -- the Sailors and Marines, the stingers -- for the spectacular job you've been doing since you left the United States of America as an amphibious ready group and started operating as an ARG/MEU of one in the Mediterranean. Fifty-nine days of operations and 96 days underway is absolutely incredible, and it's a sacrifice for which America and myself owe you a lot of praise and thanks for. It is a real pleasure for me to be out here with you, a fine group of young men and women and true patriots indeed." - Commander, U.S. 6th Fleet Vice Adm. James Foggo III

"Vice Admiral Foggo wasn't deterred by forecasted bad weather and flew out here to Wasp because it was that important to him to personally show his sincere gratitude to our Sailors and Marines. His visit underscored the tremendous efforts made by the entire ARG/MEU team over the past two months." - Commander, Amphibious Squadron 6 Capt. F. Byron Ogden

"We appreciate that Vice Admiral Foggo came out to talk to the crew about the great job our Sailors and Marines are doing out here. He had the chance to sit down with several of them on the mess decks, check out our plant, and spoke with some of the pilots and Marines that have been vital to our continued efforts in 6th Fleet." - USS Wasp (LHD 1) Commanding Officer Capt. Andrew Smith

"It was a real humbling experience to have Vice Admiral Foggo come aboard and take the time to have some one-on-one conversations with a few of us. We were able to talk to him, not just as a senior leader, but as a human being. Having this sort of recognition makes me feel proud that [we're] out here completing the mission and protecting the folks back home." - Aviation Boatswain's Mate 3rd Class Tusharm Chavis from Harlem, New York

Quick Facts:

While aboard Wasp, Foggo met with Wasp ARG leadership, had lunch with Sailors and Marines on the mess decks, toured several spaces, and addressed the crew over the ship's 1MC.

Amphibious Squadron 6, which commands the Wasp ARG, and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) have been conducting precision strikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets in Sirte, Libya, from Wasp since Aug. 1 as part of OOL.

The 22nd MEU, embarked on Wasp, is conducting air strikes in support of the Libyan Government of National Accord-aligned forces against ISIL targets in Sirte, Libya as part of OOL.

Wasp is deployed with the Wasp ARG to support maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations.

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USS Coronado Departs Hawaii, Resumes Rotational Deployment to Singapore

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS160929-13

Release Date: 9/29/2016 2:50:00 PM

From Commander, U.S. 3rd Fleet Public Affairs

HONOLULU (NNS) -- Littoral combat ship USS Coronado (LCS 4) departed the waters surrounding Hawaii to continue its 16-month rotational deployment to 7th Fleet in support of the Indo-Asia-Pacific rebalance, Sept. 29.

The ship's departure followed a brief maintenance period, pre-underway checks, and sea trials to validate repairs to two high-speed flexible couplings in the ship's propulsion plant.

The high-speed flexible couplings failed while Coronado was en route to Singapore, Aug. 29. Following the casualty, Coronado returned to Hawaii under its own power and commenced repairs to the couplings.

A group of maintenance specialists who evaluated the damage to Coronado determined this casualty was not a result of human error, but rather a material deficiency. Though not as severe as the casualty Coronado experienced, USS Independence (LCS 2) experienced a similar casualty to its high-speed flexible couplings earlier this year. The Navy is working with shipbuilding company Austal to identify related design deficiencies.

Coronado and its combined crew of about 100 Sailors assigned to LCS Squadron 1 and Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 23 began their deployment June 22 after departing their homeport of Naval Base San Diego. They participated in the Rim of the Pacific 2016 exercise, in which the ship successfully completed a Harpoon Block 1C missile LCS-based launch.

The firing of the Harpoon missile from Coronado represented the first time over-the-horizon (OTH) missile technology has been introduced to the LCS class.

Coronado's deployment is part of an initiative to deploy up to four littoral combat ships to the region on a rotational basis. Coronado will operate out of Singapore as a maintenance and logistics hub from which the ship will conduct patrols and train with regional navies during exercises like Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT).

Coronado deployed with a surface warfare mission package that includes two 30mm guns, two 11-meter rigid-hull inflatable boats and two six-member maritime security boarding teams. HSC 23 is embarked aboard Coronado with one MH-60 helicopter and two MQ-8 Fire Scouts unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with maritime surveillance radar (Telephonics AN/ZPY-4).

The ship is assigned to U.S. 3rd Fleet. U.S. 3rd Fleet and U.S. 7th Fleet complement one another across the spectrum of military operations in the Pacific.

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Egypt court suspends annulment of island deal with Saudi Arabia

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 7:20PM

An Egyptian court has suspended a ruling freezing a controversial deal to hand over the control of two strategic Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

According to judicial sources, the Court of Urgent Matters on Thursday issued an injunction against the freeze filed at the behest of Ashraf Farahat, a lawyer.

Reacting to the ruling, Khaled Ali, the lawyer who had demanded that the transfer be blocked, said the court had no jurisdiction in this case.

"Only the highest administrative court can suspend the implementation of an administrative court's verdict," he said.

Ali, who filed the June lawsuit to annul the maritime deal, also said he would announce legal steps to block the new decision on Saturday.

Legal experts have also dismissed the ruling, saying the court was not qualified to pronounce on matters related to public administration.

The Court of Urgent Matters' original brief was to tackle cases that needed quick resolution. But since the 2011 uprising that ended the 30-year rule of former dictator Hosni Mubarak, the court has ruled on cases involving bans or restrictions of political parties and other such sensitive matters.

In June, an Egyptian court voided the maritime border deal signed during a visit to Cairo by Saudi Arabia's King Salman in April. The Cairo government said at the time that it would appeal the administrative court's decision.

The agreement concedes Egypt's control of the strategic Tiran and Sanafir islands to Saudi Arabia. It has sparked angry protests in Cairo and other cities.

Egyptians, who have considered the islands to be their land for decades, say the government is selling the country's territory to a wealthy ally. Critics also say the agreement violates the Egyptian constitution.

Egyptian courts have given jail terms to hundreds of people for taking part in the protests against the handover of the islands to the Persian Gulf kingdom.

Tiran Island is located at the entrance of the Straits of Tiran, which separates the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aqaba.

Its strategic significance lies in the fact that it is an important sea passage to the major ports of Aqaba in Jordan and Eilat in Israel.

Sanafir Island is in the east of Tiran Island, and measures 33 square kilometers (13 square miles) in area.

Israel briefly took over the islands in late 1956, and once more between 1967 and 1982 following the Six Day War. The ownership of the two islands was transferred to Egypt in 1982, when Tel Aviv and Cairo signed the Camp David peace accords.

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UN says donations needed to avert death of 75,000 starving Nigerian kids

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 2:39PM

The United Nations warns that tens of thousands of children will die in northeastern Nigeria over the next year if international donors don't rush to help them.

The UN warned on Thursday that malnutrition and famine-like conditions would imminently cause the deaths of as many as 75,000 children in the West African country.

Most severely malnourished children die of secondary illnesses such as respiratory infections, "but with famine, you actually die of hunger'' and that is what is happening, said Arjan de Wagt, the nutrition chief for the UN International Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Nigeria.

The severity of malnutrition levels among a huge number of Nigerian children is so high that it has put them at the risk of death, the UN official said.

He added that the rate of malnutrition among children in some regions of northeastern Nigeria was approximately 20, 30 and even 50 percent.

De Wagt said the current humanitarian crisis in the area was perhaps the worst in the world, warning that "lives are literally hanging by a thread.''

UNICEF announced on Thursday that $115 million was needed to save the Nigerian children, noting that only $24 million had been raised so far.

UNICEF spokeswoman Doune Porter said the lack of money means some 750,000 people living in accessible areas could not be helped this year.

Northeastern Nigeria has been the scene of incessant violence since 2009 when Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group launched its militancy, with the aim of toppling the central government in the African country.

The violence sparked by the group's militancy has so far killed more than 20,000 people and forced over 2.7 million others from their homes.

Most of the estimated 2.7 million people who fled Boko Haram's militancy are subsistence farmers who have been unable to plant for two years or more.

Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to the Daesh Takfiri terrorists operating mainly in Syria and Iraq.

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China warns Japan against patrols with US in disputed sea

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 11:10AM

China has warned Japan against plans to carry out joint training cruises with the United States in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, describing the patrols as an instance of "playing with fire."

"If Japan wants to conduct any joint patrol or joint exercises in waters administered by China, it is just like playing with fire, and the Chinese military will not sit and watch," said Yang Yujun, the Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman, on Thursday.

The Japanese Defense Ministry had announced earlier this month that Tokyo would increase its engagement in the South China Sea through joint training cruises with the US Navy, capacity-building assistance to coastal countries and exercises with regional navies.

On Monday, China sent more than 40 fighter jets to train over a strait near Japan for the first time.

Japan, a key US ally, is boosting defense ties with the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries that have their own territorial disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea.

China asserts sovereignty over almost all of the strategically vital waters amid rival claims from its Southeast Asian neighbors. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have overlapping claims in the resource-rich sea.

China also claims the uninhabited East China Sea islets known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, and occasionally sends coastguard vessels close to them, a move that angers Tokyo.

The South China Sea waters are believed to sit atop vast reserves of oil and gas. The dispute usually draws in trans-regional countries, particularly the US.

China accuses the US of interfering in the regional issues and deliberately stirring up tensions in the South China Sea. Washington, in turn, accuses Beijing of carrying out what it calls a land reclamation program in the South China Sea by building artificial islands in the disputed areas.

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Bahrainis stage demo in solidarity with Sheikh Qassim

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 7:41AM

Dozens of people have staged separate demonstrations in Bahrain to support distinguished Shia Muslim cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim and condemn the ongoing crackdown on pro-democracy activists.

Protesters took to the streets late Wednesday close to the residence of the 79-year-old cleric, whose citizenship was revoked by the ruling Al Khalifah regime more than three months ago.

The protest rally was held in the northwestern village of Diraz to mark the 100th day since Sheikh Qassim was stripped of his nationality.

The protesters carried national flags and portraits of the cleric, pledging to continue with anti-regime protest rallies.

A similar demonstration was also held in the northern village of Abu Saiba, where participants condemned the regime's crackdown on opposition figures.

The rallies came two days after Bahrain's Supreme Criminal Court adjourned the trial of Sheikh Qassim and two of his assistants until October 24, citing his refusal to attend the hearing as the reason.

Bahraini authorities stripped Sheikh Qassim of his citizenship on June 20. They later dissolved al-Wefaq as well as the Islamic Enlightenment Institution, founded by Sheikh Qassim, besides the opposition al-Risala Islamic Association.

Thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis ever since a popular uprising began in the kingdom on February 14, 2011.

They are demanding that the Al Khalifah dynasty relinquish power and a just system representing all Bahrainis be established.

On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were deployed to Bahrain to assist the Manama government in its crackdown on peaceful protesters.

Scores of people have lost their lives and hundreds of others sustained injuries or got arrested in the ongoing crackdown.

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Amnesty accuses Sudan of using chemical weapons in Darfur

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 6:39AM

Amnesty International has accused the Sudanese government of having conducted chemical attacks against civilians in the conflict-ridden Darfur region, likely killing up to 250 people.

In a report published on Thursday, the international human rights group said Sudanese government forces carried out at least 30 gas attacks in the mountainous area of Jebel Marra in Darfur between January and September this year.

"An Amnesty International investigation has gathered horrific evidence of the repeated use of what are believed to be chemical weapons against civilians, including very young children, by Sudanese government forces in one of the most remote regions of Darfur over the past eight months," the report said.

"Between 200 and 250 people may have died as a result of exposure to the chemical weapons agents, with many or most being children," Amnesty said.

In the nearly 100-page report, the rights group also claimed that the forces had carried out "indiscriminate bombing of civilians... unlawful killing of men, women and children and the abduction and rape of women" in Darfur's Jebel Marra.

Amnesty said it had given the evidence it had collected  including gruesome photographs of children suffering from chemical burns, satellite imagery, and interviews with more than 200 survivors  to two independent chemical weapons experts, who concluded that chemical agents had been used.

"Both concluded that the evidence strongly suggested exposure to vesicants, or blister agents, such as the chemical warfare agents sulfur mustard, lewisite or nitrogen mustard," the report read.

Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International's director of crisis research, expressed deep concern about the issue, saying "The scale and brutality of these attacks is hard to put into words."

"The evidence we have gathered is credible and portrays a regime that is intent on directing attacks against the civilian population in Darfur without any fear of international retribution," she noted.

'We don't have chemical weapons'

Sudanese Ambassador to the UN Omer Dahab Fadl has, meanwhile, rejected the claims made in the Amnesty report, saying the accusations were "utterly unfounded" and that Sudan was not in possession of chemical weapons.

"The allegations of the use of chemical weapons by Sudanese Armed Forces are baseless and fabricated. The ultimate objective of such wild accusation, is to steer confusion in the ongoing processes aimed at deepening peace and stability and enhancing economic development and social cohesion in Sudan," he said.

Violence broke out in Darfur in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels rose against long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir, accusing his Arab-dominated government of marginalizing the region.

There has also been tribal fighting in the region.

Some 2.5 million people have been displaced in Darfur, according to the latest UN figures, which also show that over 300,000 people have died there since violence began.

The United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) was launched in 2007 in a bid to protect civilians and restore stability to the restive region.

Darfur was a united region since its incorporation into Sudan in 1916 until 1994, when Bashir divided it into three states, adding two more in 2012.

The US has imposed trade sanctions against Sudan since 1997, citing the situation in Darfur.

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'Misdirected' US airstrike kills 22 Somali troops

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 1:59AM

US forces have been accused of killing 22 Somali troops in what is said to be a misdirected airstrike in the country's northern regions.

On Wednesday, Galmudug states' Security Minister Osman Issa announced that his soldiers were killed in the airstrike, adding that the attack was launched on a request of from the rival neighboring region of Puntland on the pretext that the targets were al-Shabab militants.

"Puntland misinformed the United States and thus our forces were bombed," he said.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis claimed that US forces had engaged in a "self-defense airstrike" after Somali troops were attacked by militants during operations to halt a bomb manufacturing network.

He added that nine al-Shabaab militants were killed in the attack, while noting that the Pentagon was considering the false information claims.

"We will look at the reports to see if they are credible and if they are credible we'll investigate them," he said.

A Puntland police source told reporters that over a dozen militants were killed in the attack.

Meanwhile, al-Shabaab denied the casualties on its side, saying that it had no members in the region at the time of the attack.

Somalia has been the scene of fighting between al-Shabab and government forces since 2006. In 2011, al-Shabab, striving to topple the government, was driven out of the capital Mogadishu and other major cities by government troops and AMISOM forces, which are largely made up of troops from Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti and Kenya.

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Saudi's claim Iran arming Ansarullah 'fabrications'

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 12:48AM

Iran has rejected claims made by Saudi Arabia that Tehran is arming Yemen's Ansarullah movement fighting back the Riyadh regime's 17-month-long military aggression against the impoverished country.

The rejection was made in a letter by Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations Gholam-Ali Khoshrou to the UN Security Council on Wednesday in response to a Saudi letter sent to the council on September 16.

"The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran firmly rejects the pure fabrications and unsubstantiated allegations, contained in the aforementioned letter concerning the alleged transfer of weapons to Yemeni Ansarullah fighters and the violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions," read Khoshrou's letter.

He added that the Saudi allegations were "quite astounding" as Riyadh itself has invaded Yemen and used "a full variety of lethal weapons against Yemen's civilians and civilian infrastructure."

Khoshrou went on to remind the UN of Saudi Arabia's various atrocities against Yemeni civilians, especially children and women, and the large-scale damage the Arab kingdom's aggression has inflicted upon the country's infrastructure.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has always reiterated that there could be no military solution to this war and has urged for an end to hostilities and a peaceful resolution of this conflict through negotiations and the utilization of peaceful mechanisms," he added.

Saudi Arabia has been attacking Yemen on an almost daily basis since late March 2015, with the UN putting the death toll at 10,000. The offensive is aimed at crushing the Ansarullah movement and its allies and restore power to the resigned Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Ansarullah fighters took state matters into their own hands after the resignation and escape of Hadi, which threw the country into a state of uncertainty and threatened a total security breakdown.

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Fresh Saudi airstrikes kill 8 across Yemen

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 5:5PM

A series of fresh Saudi airstrikes targeting residential areas across Yemen have claimed the lives of at least eight civilians.

Yemen's Saba News Agency said seven people were killed on Thursday when Saudi warplanes attacked houses and places of gathering in Razih and Shida districts of Sa'ada Province.

Several others were injured in the attack while locals reported multiple property damage.

Other reports said that one person died and two others sustained injuries when Saudi jets pounded areas in the southwestern province of Ta'izz.

Saudi attacks were reported in other areas across Yemen with no immediate reports available on the potential casualties.

Riyadh has intensified its attacks against Yemen since a UN-backed peace initiative failed to come to fruition last month. Some 10,000 people have so far been killed in the Saudi military campaign.

The attacks, which are part of an 18-month air and ground campaign against the Yemenis, are meant to undermine the Ansarullah movement and its allies and restore power to former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Yemeni forces have reacted to the escalated air campaign by targeting military positions in southern Saudi Arabia.

Reports on Thursday said two Saudi soldiers were killed by Yemeni army snipers in Jizan, in the south of the kingdom. The Yemeni army also fired a barrage of Katyusha missiles on a military base in Dhahran al-Janub in Asir Province, located to the north and east of Jizan.

A military source told Saba late on Wednesday that Yemenis also fired a locally-made ballistic missile on a gathering of Saudi-backed militants in the district of Nihm in the northern Yemeni province of Sana'a.

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Afghan President, Warlord Sign Peace Accord

September 29, 2016

Notorious Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has called for peace as he appeared by video to sign an accord with President Ashraf Ghani.

Ghani signed the peace deal at Kabul's presidential palace during a ceremony broadcast live on television on September 29.

Hekmatyar, the exiled leader of the Hezb-e Islami militant group, was not present and addressed the gathering in Kabul in a recorded video message, appearing by himself to sign the document in a small room.

He offered his congratulations to "all those Afghans who want peace and stability in the region," adding, "I pray that our country be independent and sovereign, and our innocent and war-weary nation end the fighting and ongoing insecurity, and that unity prevails."

"Now is the time for the Taliban to think about whether they want to continue the war or come for peace," Ghani said.

Under the agreement, Hekmatyar will be granted amnesty for past offenses and certain Hezb-e Islami prisoners will be released by the government. The Afghan government also agreed to press for the lifting of international sanctions on Hekmatyar. The deal also includes provisions for his security at government expense.

Negotiations with the group have been going on for months, with some in the government suspicious of bringing one of the most radical militants in Afghanistan into the fold.

Rights activists have expressed concerns about human rights abuses committed by Hekmatyar, who was responsible for some of the worst atrocities committed during the civil war in the 1990s.

Hezb-e Islami has also carried out deadly attacks against U.S. and Afghan forces since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

Kabul hopes a deal with Hezb-e Islami can convince the Taliban to end its insurgency and join the political process.

Based on reporting by AFP and AP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan- hekmatyr-ghani-sign-peace- accord/28020415.html

Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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OPEC Agreement Overcomes Saudi-Iran Rift, Spurs Rally On Global Markets

RFE/RL September 29, 2016

OPEC's agreement to mend an internal rift between Saudi Arabia and Iran and curb production surprised global markets and sparked powerful rallies from Wall Street to Hong Kong.

After a two-day meeting in Algeria, the cartel on September 28 announced a deal to trim production to 32.5 million barrels a day from current output of 33.24 million, a reduction of about 740,000 barrels a day.

The deal not only sent oil prices surging by nearly 6 percent in London and New York but provoked powerful rallies in the stocks of Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, and other major oil companies. The jump in energy stocks lifted broader stock markets around the globe.

Downtrodden currencies like the Russian ruble, Norwegian krone, and Canadian dollar all surged as the deal signaled the possible end of a two-year collapse in oil prices that has fed deep recessions in oil-driven economies.

Oil prices soared, with North Sea Brent crude rising $2.72 to $48.69 a barrel at the end of trading in London on September 28. Those gains were later extended in Asian trading, where Brent fetched $48.70 early on September 29.

Oil analysts said the deal was a major breakthrough as it included a major concession by Saudi Arabia to let Iran keep increasing its production to levels that prevailed before international sanctions.

To allow Iran and possibly other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries like Libya and Nigeria to keep increasing production from depressed levels caused by sanctions and insurgencies, Saudi Arabia -- OPEC"s biggest producer -- would have to actually cut production, something it has been unwilling to do since 2014.

Evidence of the breakthrough in the feud between the Saudis and Iran came as Iranian oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh was the one who announced the new production limits after the meeting.

"This deal ushers in a new period of cooperation between OPEC nations and specifically between Saudi Arabia and Iran," Kathy Lien, a managing director at BK Asset Management, wrote in a note to clients.

"While we wouldn't be surprised by some back-pedalling between now and November, this is a historic moment and one that should have a lasting impact."

Analysts credited the mediation of Russia, Algeria, and Qatar for settling the dispute between the two Persian Gulf rivals. Russian oil minister Aleksandr Novak for months pushed the Saudis to be more lenient with Iran, which only this year escaped sanctions that were imposed in 2012.

Angus Nicholson, analysts with the Australian firm IG Markets, said the OPEC agreement paves the way for a more comprehensive deal that includes Russia and other major producers outside the cartel at OPEC's next meeting on November 30.

A deal that includes Russia -- which is the largest producer outside the cartel and already is publicly committed to joining a production freeze with OPEC -- would likely result in premium oil prices rising to the $55 range, Nicholson said in a note to clients.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, AP, and Bloomberg

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/opec-agreement -overcomes-saudi-iran-rift-spurs- global-rally/28019983.html

Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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UN Mission in Afghanistan Confirms Death of 15 Civilians in Airstrike by Drone

Sputnik News

21:00 29.09.2016

US drone strike in Afghanistan, targeting the Daesh extremists, killed at least 15 civilians, according to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) confirmed on Thursday the death of 15 civilians in an airstrike, targeting the Daesh extremists, conducted by an unmanned aerial vehicle of the US Air Force-Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, local media reported that a US drone strike in the Achin district could have killed at least 13 civilians. According to the Pajhwok news agency, 18 Daesh militants including their commander, Hamza, were also killed in the strike.

"UNAMA condemns the killing of at least 15 civilian men and the injuring of at least 13 others, including at least one boy, in the strike," the mission said in a statement.

UNAMA called for urgent investigation into the deadly incident, according to the statement.

In July, the White House said around 116 civilians were killed in drone strikes in the period between 2009 and 2015, while watchdogs estimate the death toll stands at 3,000.

 Sputnik

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Swedish Army Hopes to Tackle Dwindling Staff Numbers With Mandatory Service

Sputnik News

15:59 29.09.2016

Unlike its Scandinavian neighbors, Sweden lacks conscription, and is now facing a dramatic shortage of over 7,000 soldiers due to its inability to offer adequate incentives for military service. However, it will soon see a return to a conscription-based army amid the government's incessant paranoia about Russian "threats."

Sweden abolished the compulsory military service in 2010 by a thin three-vote majority, becoming the first Nordic country to do so in 109 years.

The country decided to create a professional military instead, in accordance with the Armed Forces' own proposal. At the time, the emphasis was put on various international operations. Today, however, the security situation in Sweden has seemingly changed, as Sweden along with its Nordic cousins insists that Russia poses a threat.

According to government investigator Annika Nordgren Christensen, the Swedish Defense is currently about 7,400 soldiers short. As for the officers, Nordgren Christensen called the situation downright "alarming," as the current reserves will inevitably prove insufficient in times of crisis or war, Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter reported.

Wilhelm Agrell, a professor of intelligence analysis at the University of Lund, believes that a professional army has not worked from the very beginning.

"The bubble has been burst by the deteriorating security situation," Agrell said, as quoted by Finnish newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet.

The government study estimated that the armed forces will require at least 4,000 newly trained soldiers in 2018 and the same number in 2019. In 2021, the number needed will increase to 6,000, until finally stabilizing at 8,000 in the period between 2022 and 2025.

The new model was described as a mixture of goodwill and duty, where the number of people obliged to serve would depend on the volume of standard recruits available. Accordingly, motivation is seen as a key factor. Therefore, better economic conditions are proposed for the draftees during the service period of 9-12 months. Today, there is widespread dissatisfaction among Swedish soldiers with the starting salary of 18,000 SEK ($2,000) per month, which is 2,000 SEK ($200) lower than that of a supermarket cashier.

According to the government plan, young men and women will fill out questionnaires for future recruitment to the Armed Forces from July 1, 2017. Young adults born between 1999 and 2000 would be the first age group affected.

Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist said that he hopes for an effective solution to the dwindling staff numbers.

"I hope we will be able to find a way to have a more stable, robust and functioning staffing system" the Social Democrat minister noted.

The new proposals will now be put through a four-month consultation period where courts, state agencies, local governments and NGOs will have a chance to respond. Meanwhile, the new conscription terms for both women and men are supported by a majority of Swedes. More than six out of ten of those surveyed (62 percent) think it is a good suggestion, according to a new survey by pollster Ipsos, performed for Dagens Nyheter. Conversely, Only 12 percent oppose the idea.

Swedes' participation in the military has fallen gradually since the Cold War era, when 85 percent of Swedish males were drafted. In the 1980s, the Swedish Army numbered around 180,000 soldiers. Today, the Swedish Army has only 20,000 active soldiers. Fully mobilized, the Swedish war units number 59,000 officers, soldiers, sailors and support staff. Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Austria, Greece and Cyprus are the only countries in the EU to feature a national service.

 Sputnik

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White House OKs Fighter Jet Sale to Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait

Sputnik News

22:54 29.09.2016(updated 22:58 29.09.2016)

The deal paves the way for the three Middle Eastern countries to receive F-15E Strike Eagles, F/A-18 Super Hornets, and F-16 fighters.

Kuwait and Qatar requested the sale of the fighters two years ago, and while the US Congress approved of the deal, the White House has been dragging its feet.

On Wednesday, Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, confirmed that the White House has, at last, signed off on the package.

"I'm glad where we've gotten to the point where the notification is coming to Congress. We've been pushing for it for some time," he said, according to Defense News.

As part of the deal, Qatar will reportedly receive 72 of Boeing's F-15E fighters, worth approximately $4 billion. Kuwait will purchase 28 Boeing Super Hornets, with an option for 12 more, in a deal worth $3 billion.

Bahrain will receive Lockheed Martin's F-16s. Had the deal not gone through, the F-15 production line would have been halted.

"In my opinion our national interest is being served by pursuing these sales; That always comes first, but a by-product of that is we are keeping production lines functioning in case we need to utilize those in the future," Corker said.

"These countries are buying equipment that is interoperable with our equipment which gives us the opportunity to deal with crises as they occur."

Part of the reason for the delay focused on Israeli objections. The United States is legally bound to ensure that Israel maintains a military edge in the region. Washington recently agreed on an historic military aid deal that provides Israel with $38 billion over the next ten years.

Israel also objected to the Qatari sale, arguing that the country supports Sunni Islamic extremists.

Earlier on Thursday, the Sikorksy Aircraft Corporation also received a contract to sell helicopters to Taiwan.

"Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation [of] Stratford, Connecticut, was awarded a $148.7 million foreign military sales contract (Taiwan) for six UH-60M uniquely configured aircraft for Taiwan National Airborne Service Corporation," the announcement said.

 Sputnik

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UK powers up Albania defence partnership

29 September 2016

UK is building a stronger relationship with Albania by working side-by-side on NATO exercises and beyond, the Defence Secretary has said.

During a two-day visit to the capital Tirana and the mountain training area of Biza, Michael Fallon met Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and Defence Minister Mimi Kodheli and witnessed British forces participating in Exercise Joint Effort, a ten-day exercise aimed at improving mutual effectiveness on operations.

In talks with Mrs Kodheli, Mr Fallon said the UK was a firm partner of Albania with deep links through NATO. He said that the UK would be appointing its first ever resident Defence Attache and would work with Albania to meet security challenges in the Balkans.

Today, he met soldiers from the Army's Grenadier Guards and Royal Marines from Kilo Company 42 Commando as they joined Albanian troops and personnel from the US, Kosovo and Montenegro in Biza. Around 150 UK personnel are taking part in the combined field training exercise.

It is the first major exercise to be held in Albania after the announcement that Albania will contribute a Light Infantry Company to the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) when the UK leads the force in 2017.

Albania is an important training destination for the UK. Next month approximately 1,500 Royal Navy personnel will take part for the fifth consecutive year in the amphibious exercise Albanian Lion. Joining 250 members of the Albanian Armed Forces, UK participation will include Royal Navy capital ships HMS Ocean and HMS Bulwark, RFA Mounts Bay and MV Eddystone. The exercise will also include lead elements of a Royal Marine Commando group, Royal Navy divers and Commando engineers.

Albanian troops have also recently participated in Exercise Venerable Gauntlet in Germany, bringing together 3000 troops from 14 NATO nations in another major exercise before the UK takes its leading role in the task force.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said:

"Albania is a key partner in Southern Europe, an ally which is meeting its security challenges through its NATO commitments and more. Troops from both of our countries enjoy the first class training facilities here, and I look forward to our countries working together further when the UK takes over the Very High Readiness task force next year."



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Controversial Warlord Under Fire Over Afghan Peace Deal

By Ayaz Gul September 29, 2016

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has formally signed and put into force a much-touted peace pact with an ethnic Pashtun warlord who has been designated a "global terrorist" by the United States.

Thursday's landmark move coincided with the two-year anniversary of the coalition government which has been subject to widespread criticism of its handling of the critical economic, political and security challenges facing Afghanistan.

The fugitive warlord, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, addressed the signing ceremony held at the presidential place in Kabul through a specially arranged video link. He signed the peace treaty on behalf of his Hezb-i-Islami-Gulbuddin (HIG) faction.

President Ghani put his initials on the document as millions of Afghans watched the historic event live on television.

Ghani's election-rival-turned governing partner, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, former president Hamid Karzai, lawmakers, prominent jihadi commanders and foreign diplomats were among hundreds of attendees at the event.

In his speech. Hekmatyar urged the government to open peace talks with the Taliban and called on the Islamist insurgency to end fighting and join the peace process.

"War is not the way out. We can reach our political goals through peace and reconciliation," said the warlord with a history of war crimes and human rights abuses allegedly committed during the civil war of the 1990s.

Ghani and Abdullah, in separate addresses to the gathering, said the agreement has ensured protection of all constitutional rights of Afghans.

"The peace deal is line with and centered around the constitution of Afghanistan. There is no article in the document we have signed that is in conflict with the Afghan constitution,"said the Afghan president, asserting the document was finalized with the backing of a national consensus.

"It is now time for the Taliban to think about whether they want to continue the war, or come to the table for peace talks," Ghani added.

The peace deal means the immediate cessation of hostilities by Hekmatyar's fighters. In exchange, the government will be obliged to grant full political rights to his group and work for the removal of U.S. and U.N. sanctions against the warlord and his companions to enable them to stage a political comeback after years in hiding.

The agreement is the first significant step towards seeking a peaceful settlement of the Afghan war, now in its 15th year.

Taliban fight goes on

However, critics see the peace deal as a largely symbolic victory for President Ghani because Hekmatyar's group enjoys influence in very few of the 34 Afghan provinces as compared to the Taliban. Some of his comrades are known to have directly or indirectly joined the national politic process over the years after parting ways with the group.

Skeptics warn against attaching too much hope to peace with the insurgent warlord, who has lived in hiding in neighboring Pakistan and Iran, though his aides say Hekmatyar spoke to Thursday's ceremony from a hideout inside Afghanistan.

"It is difficult to imagine that Hekmatyar, who until a few months ago was one day courting the Taliban, and another day al-Qaida, would undergo a sudden personality makeover, unless he felt that he has reached the end of the militant path he started on 40 years ago," noted Omar Samad, a former Afghan diplomat.

"Apologizing to the nation for past crimes - in his case going back to a few months ago  is the most sensible minimal response for all those involved in obvious past atrocities going back to 1978."

The reconciliation with the HIG faction comes as the Taliban has intensified battlefield attacks across Afghanistan and made significant territorial gains, inflicting heavy casualties on Afghan security forces.

The Islamist insurgent group has condemned Hekmatyar for entering into the deal with Kabul and has not indicated whether it is willing to quit violence and engage in peace talks with the government.

The bottom line though is that the Taliban has utterly no incentive to join peace talks," said Michael Kugelman at Washington's Woodrow Wilson Center.

"It's scoring many battlefield achievements, so stepping off the battlefield simply doesn't make sense. The Taliban essentially has a why-quit-when-you're-ahead argument here, and it's a potent one."

Human rights concerns

Human rights groups and liberal Afghans have deplored the return of Hekmatyar. They continue to blame him for mass casualties his fighters inflicted on civilians during the civil war. But some also point to the presence in the current government of warlords with similar past records who serve with impunity.

The United States designated Hekmatyar a global terrorist in 2003, accusing him of facilitating al-Qaida-plotted attacks against Americans and asked the U.N. to include him on its list of known terrorists.

The United Nations and Washington have welcomed the deal with Hekmatyar. Afghan officials insist they have been assured by their international partners they will help to remove his name from the blacklist.

Critics have called for Ghani and Abdullah to ease internal political confrontations they are currently locked to better address deteriorating security conditions in the country and encourage other armed groups, including the Taliban, to join Afghan peace efforts.

Afghan leaders, however, allege sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan are helping sustain the Taliban insurgency, and accuse Islamabad of not helping to address the problem.

Kabul infighting

Weeks before the second anniversary of their national unity government (NUG), Abdullah and Ghani went public with their simmering disputes, accusing each other of blocking reforms, fueling political uncertainty.

"Political infighting has stalled progress on the NUG's reform agenda, and increasingly we're seeing the ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) fail to take adequate measures to protect civilians," observed Patricia Gossman, senior Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch.

"No progress on the action plan on torture, continuing impunity, and little progress on women's rights. It's not what President Ghani promised," she said.

Both the leaders, however, maintain they are working together to address mutual concerns and dismiss suggestions of a political crisis griping Afghanistan.

"Short of a dramatic upheaval, there is no quasi-legitimate alternative to the unity government. No other prescription can, at this juncture, deal with Afghanistan's multi-prong challenges," Samad asserted.

Analyst Kugelman said that daunting security, economic and security challenges demand a close working relationship between Ghani and Abdullah.

"My sense is that both leaders have made genuine efforts to tackle Afghanistan's most critical challenges. Corruption is one area where Ghani has really made some progress. The problem is that both leaders haven't been working together on these challenges, due to either disagreements on how to address them or to their simply not being in a position to work together," he said.

A U.S.-mediated power-sharing political deal between Ghani and Abdullah to stave off political violence after the controversial 2014 presidential vote, paved the way for the election rivals to form NUG with Ghani as the president and Abdullah as the head of the newly created office of the Chief Executive.

The political deal required the unity government to organize by its second anniversary a mandatory convention of national and provincial lawmakers to decide whether to amend the constitution to elevate Abdullah to be the executive prime minister of Afghanistan.

In the absence of promised electoral reforms, elections to national and provincial legislatures could not be held in time to convene the promised constitutional Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) at the culmination of the second anniversary of the government.

The lack of progress has raised questions about the legitimacy of the NUG, particularly of the chief executive's office and decisions taken by Abdullah.

Both the Afghan leaders and Washington in the run up to the second anniversary dismissed those concerns, saying the government will complete its five-year mandatory constitutional term regardless of whether the Loya Jirga is held or not.

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Somalia Demands Explanation for US Airstrike

By Abdulaziz Osman September 29, 2016

Somalia's government is demanding an explanation from the United States for Wednesday's deadly airstrike in central Somalia.

The Pentagon said in news release Thursday that its forces launched a "self-defense" strike against al-Shabab near the town of Galkayo, killing at least nine militants.

However, Galmudug state vice-president Mohamed Hashi Abdi told VOA's Somali service that the U.S. airstrike killed 13 members of Galmudug forces.

After the weekly cabinet meeting in Mogadishu, ministers in the government said they want "a clear explanation on the airstrike carried out by U.S. against forces belonging to the Galmudug, a Somali federal member state."

The cabinet said it will appoint a ministerial committee to investigate the airstrike.

Abdi said the Americans were "misguided" in a request that came from officials in the semi-autonomous Puntland region.

"We fight against al-Shabab, and there is no al-Shabab presence in Galmudug area," he added.

Abdi said the Galmudug president and the U.S. deputy ambassador to Somalia met Thursday in Mogadishu to discuss the issue, and the U.S. diplomat pledged to provide clear answers.

Meanwhile, residents in Galkayo who were protesting the strike burned the U.S. flag Thursday.

The U.S. has carried out numerous airstrikes in Somalia targeting al-Shabab members, including a missile strike that killed the group's former emir, Ahmed Abdi Godane, in 2014.

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Sudan Accused of Using Chemical Weapons in Darfur

By Jill Craig September 29, 2016

Amnesty International says Sudanese government forces have used chemical weapons against civilians in the Darfur region. The human rights group said in a report Thursday that the attacks may have killed as many as 250 civilians and injured hundreds more.

Sudan's Minister of Justice has rejected the report, saying in a letter that Sudan was "astonished to hear this accusation," and calling Amnesty's evidence unreliable.

Since January, people in the Jebel Marra area of Darfur have reported blisters and rashes on their skin, cases of their skin falling off, eye problems, including total vision loss, bloody vomit, diarrhea and severe respiratory problems.

All of these are symptoms of chemical exposure that Amnesty International says came from weapons used by the government of Sudan.

As many as 250 people, including many children, may have died as a result of chemical attacks, and hundreds more have been injured, says the rights group.

"This is the first time, as far as we are aware of as survivors and monitors on the ground, this is the first time that we've documented the use of chemical weapons, so it is sort of a radical departure," said Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International's regional director for East Africa, the Horn, and the Great Lakes.

Civilians deliberately targeted

The report released by Amnesty on Thursday states that Sudanese security forces have deliberately targeted civilians and their property, including the probable use of 'blister agents,' a banned class of chemical weapons, in roughly 32 villages in the Jebel Marra area.

Calls by VOA to two Sudanese government officials for response went unanswered, but the Reuters news agency reports that Sudan's U.N. ambassador said the Amnesty report was "utterly unfounded" and that Sudan does not possess any type of chemical weapons.

Magnus Taylor is the International Crisis Group's Horn of Africa analyst for Sudan and Uganda.

"We already knew, prior to the release of the Amnesty report, that the Sudanese government's counter-insurgency in Jebel Marra was bad," said Taylor. "But if these allegations of chemical weapon use are true, then we may be just starting to learn how bad. It's difficult to fully understand what Khartoum's motives for committing such atrocities would be, in a war they were already winning, at a time when the government is making overtures to the international community."

Hundreds of phone interviews

Amnesty International says it conducted 235 phone interviews for the report, since the Sudanese government did not allow them field access. The group says local intermediaries helped to identify and contact survivors.

Amnesty International has asked the U.N. Security Council and state parties to the convention on chemical weapons to conduct follow-up investigations in Darfur. It is calling on Sudan's government to stop the attacks, and to also give international aid agencies access to Jebel Marra.

"I think it's really important that this get back on the map," said Wanyeki. "I think that we have dropped attention as Africa, as the rest of the world, on Sudan, on Darfur, and the other conflict areas in the Sudan. And I think given... this type of re-engagement can't happen until this sort of thing stops."

Over 300,000 deaths

The U.N. estimates more than 300,000 people have died in Darfur since 2003, when rebels there launched a rebellion, citing discrimination and marginalization. The government responded by unleashing militias known as Janjaweed to cause chaos in the region. Fighting has never entirely stopped in the 13 years since.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur, but has denied the allegations and avoided arrest.

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US Picking Off Key IS Officials, 'Softening' Grip on Mosul

By Jeff Seldin September 29, 2016

One by one, key Islamic State terror group leaders are getting caught in the crosshairs of U.S. and coalition aircraft, and they are being removed from the battlefield as Iraqi forces prepare for a final assault on the IS-held city of Mosul.

Operation Inherent Resolve said Thursday that its airstrikes had killed 18 IS officials in the past 30 days, 13 of them in and around Mosul, "softening their grip" on Iraq's second-largest city.

The targeted killings have been, in part, the result of good intelligence that has allowed the U.S. to steadily target and eliminate "high-value" individuals, like IS spokesman and external operations planner Abu Muhammad al-Adnani and chief information officer Wa'il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayyad.

Many of the more recent strikes have taken out lower-level but tactically important IS officials in Mosul, including three Chechen foreign fighter commanders, the deputy military emir, a military commander and a police commander, military officials said.

And the pace of such operations is likely to pick up as coalition-backed forces advance on the city.

"We're going to try to get after it and get after it quickly," Colonel John Dorrian, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, told Pentagon reporters via a video link.

Intelligence surge

Dorrian also emphasized that a significant number of the 615 U.S. personnel being sent to Iraq for the battle for Mosul are intelligence experts, saying the deployment announced Wednesday could be seen as an intelligence surge.

"This additional capability is going to give us a lot of insight into Daesh networks, not just in Iraq and Syria, but also give insight into how they export terror around the world," he said, using the Arabic acronym for the terror group.

"We expect for our intelligence professionals, cooperating with the Iraqis, to get a treasure trove of intelligence information," Dorrian added.

U.S. military officials expect the amount of intelligence to rival or surpass the amount of information contained in the more than 20 terabytes of data recovered from computers and other devices after operations to expel IS from their hub in Manbij, Syria.

Some of that intelligence is thought to have allowed the U.S. to penetrate IS communications, enabling coalition forces to track several "high-value" officials before finally pulling the trigger on the strikes that killed Adnani and Fayad.

Additional intelligence recovered from Manbij has also been distributed to security services across Europe, though coalition officials refused to share additional details.

The U.S. is also hoping its intelligence efforts will benefit from improvements planned as part of the latest troop deployment to Iraq. Both Qayyarah Airfield West, south of Mosul, and Al Asad Airbase in Anbar province are expected to get upgrades to allow for more reconnaissance flights and also nighttime flight capabilities.

"Across the board, these forces are providing a lot of logistical capability, supply capability," Dorrian said. "Just supersized."

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Colombia ex-rebels apologize for 2002 massacre

Iran Press TV

Fri Sep 30, 2016 10:17AM

A commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have officially asked for forgiveness days after signing a peace treaty that has brought a new spirit of reconciliation to the nation.

"We ask for you to forgive us and that you give us the hope of a spiritual path, allowing us to move forward together with you," FARC commander Ivan Marquez said Thursday in the town of Bojaya, the site of a deadly 2002 attack by the rebels.

FARC had already offered an apology for the Bojaya attack in 2014 in the Cuban capital, Havana, where peace talks had been underway for almost four years, but this time the commanders did so at the site of the attack itself.

"Once again, we offer an infinite apology, Bojaya," Marquez said on Thursday.

On May 2, 2002, FARC guerrillas seized Bojaya in an attempt to take control of the Atrato River region from the paramilitary forces stationed there. The operation failed, and approximately 119 civilians were killed, 48 of them children, in the apparently indiscriminate firing of improvised mortars by the FARC rebels.

During a visit to a church that was destroyed in the Bojaya attack, Marquez asked the local community for reconciliation.

"Reconciled, we will move toward an era of fairness, for which humble people from every corner of Colombia have yearned for so much," he said.

FARC's highest commander Rodrigo Londono Echeverri, aka Timoleon Jimenez or Timochenko, asked the nation for forgiveness at the peace signing ceremony on Monday.

Timochenko and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos signed the peace deal in the Caribbean city of Cartagena, formally ending 52 years of a conflict.

However, the deal remains to be implemented after it is approved in a referendum, which is to be held on Sunday.

Analysts believe that the majority of Colombians will easily vote in favor of the peace deal, which will see the rebel group laying down arms and the government facilitating their incorporation into the political scene.

The Marxist group, which took up weapons in 1964 to fight social inequalities, exerts notable influence across some poverty-stricken areas of the country.

The decades-long conflict with the central government has left as many as 260,000 people dead, more than six million others displaced, and 45,000 other still missing.

The FARC peace deal has prompted Colombia's second-largest rebel group, the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN), to also express readiness to engage in their own peace talks with the central government, but Bogota has yet to begin formal peace talks with the group.

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UNICEF completes mobile health campaign aimed at children and women in Yemen

30 September 2016  The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has reported that, along with its partners, the agency has completed a drive reaching more than 600,000 children under five years old and some 180,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women in conflict-torn Yemen with critical health and nutrition services.

"We have increased our geographical reach to all parts of the country as well as increased the number of times we do the integrated outreach. This has resulted in delivering medical assistance to the most hard-to-reach communities especially those most affected by the conflict", said Julien Harneis, UNICEF Yemen Representative, in a news release yesterday.

The 24-29 September nationwide campaign consisted of a package of health and nutrition services including vaccination, vitamin supplementation, deworming, screening for malnutrition and treatment for childhood infections, as well as antenatal and postnatal care for women.

More than 34,000 health workers supported by 880 supervisors and monitors spread across Yemen's 333 districts used about 10,000 vehicles and other means of transportation such as motorcycles, donkeys or simply walking long distances on difficult terrains to reach children and women in far-flung corners of the country, the agency said.

UNICEF also noted that the health drive comes at a "critical time," as Yemen's conflict has put the lives of millions of children and women at risk.

"With the health system hanging in the balance, such outreach programmes are helpful but are not sustainable in the long run. Outreach campaigns alone cannot address the medical needs of the population; the health system needs to be back on its feet urgently," Mr. Harneis said.

Yemen has been engulfed in violence since a confrontation between the country's Houthis (Ansar Allah) and the Yemeni Government in early 2014 led to a Houthi advance on the country's capital, Sana'a, and an ensuing conflict which has involved support from outside parties. The UN has been heavily involved in efforts to resolve the crisis, and Kuwait had been hosting peace talks  facilitated by the UN envoy  with the Yemeni sides. A break in the peace talks went into effect in early August.

Recently, Yemen's Ministry of Health announced that it has run out of basic operational costs for the primary health-care system, UNICEF said. This means it won't be possible to transport medical supplies including medicines from stores to far-flung health units, there will be no fuel or electricity for powering refrigerators for storage of temperature-sensitive vaccines, and medicines and health centres will have no light.

The agency emphasized that throughout Yemen, 2.5 million children are at risk of diarrhoea, 1.3 million are at risk of acute respiratory tract infections, and 1.5 million children are malnourished, 370,000 of them suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

UNICEF is scaling up its response but the humanitarian needs are "enormous," the representative said.

Since January, UNICEF has supported the vaccination of more than 4.6 million children against polio, and the treatment of more than 133,000 children against severe acute malnutrition. In addition, some 168,000 pregnant and breastfeeding mothers received support during and after pregnancy, including knowledge on how to care for their babies and of themselves.

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Troubled DRC Talks Resume, but Boycotts Raise Credibility Questions

By William Clowes September 30, 2016

At 1 a.m. Friday, weary members of several Congolese opposition parties emerged from a meeting that lasted almost 12 hours. Political talks in the Democratic Republic of Congo have resumed after being suspended early last week, following two days of deadly protests on the streets of Kinshasa.

But it is unclear whether the talks can be productive. A larger coalition of opposition parties  known as the Rassemblement, or the Assembly  still refuses to participate. The highly influential Catholic Church  known as CENCO  has also withdrawn, saying it will only return if the Rassemblement joins the talks.

"Without CENCO and the addition of new opposition parties, the dialogue will lack credibility," said Stephanie Wolters of the Institute for Security Studies Africa. "There are two very difficult issues that have to be worked out: notably, the date of the elections and the explicit language in the accord  which isn't in there now  about [President Joseph] Kabila not standing for another term. If we see an accord signed by the parties participating which doesn't include language about Kabila not standing or puts the date of elections in 2018, we'll be right back at zero. No one is going to accept that."

The Rassemblement argues that the talks are simply a means for Kabila to delay elections, which were slated for November, and stay in power beyond the constitutionally defined two-term limit.

The government says the talks are aimed at reaching an agreement on how the DRC should proceed to credible elections.

An opposition faction led by Vital Kamerhe is taking part. The faction says Kabila can remain in power, leading an interim government, until the next presidential election but insists that he must not stand as a candidate in it.

Protesters targeted

Meanwhile, Congolese authorities appear to be continuing their crackdown on those who participated in the protests Sept. 19 and 20, during which the U.N. says more than 50 people were killed.

Georges Kapiamba, the president of the Congolese Association for Access to Justice, says more than 1,800 people were arrested throughout the DRC during and after the protests, and 110 have been given sentences ranging from 45 days to 25 years. In addition, he says, the accused were convicted in trials lasting only 40 minutes, and their lawyers were not given time to become acquainted with the cases against them.

At least 34 children have been detained and are being kept in cells with hardened criminals, including murderers, according to Kapiamba.

The United States this week imposed sanctions on two Kabila aides it accuses of repressing human rights and blocking the organization of elections.

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US Congress has 'buyer's remorse' on 9/11 bill: White House

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 9:50PM

The White House has censured the US Congress for having "buyer's remorse" over overriding President Barack Obama's veto of legislation allowing relatives of the victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks to sue Saudi Arabia.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest made the remarks on Thursday during a press conference after two high-ranking Republican lawmakers suggested the bill needed changes.

On Wednesday, Senators voted 97-1 in favor of the "Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA)," which was vetoed by Obama last week. Only Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, voted to sustain the president's veto.

Hours later, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted against the presidential decree, 348 to 77. Only 18 Republicans and 59 Democrats voted not to override the veto.

"Well, it's hard to know where to start," Earnest said. "I think what we've seen in the United States Congress is a case of rapid-onset buyer's remorse."

On Thursday, less than 24 hours after Congress voted to override President Obama's veto, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan both said JASTA could have dire consequences for American service members and diplomats abroad. They said it could put them at risk of legal action.

Earnest said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker and others claimed some lawmakers did not know what was in the legislation before they approved it.

"What's true in elementary school is true in the United States Congress: Ignorance is not an excuse," Earnest said.

He went on to call it "an abject embarrassment" that lawmakers are now considering possible changes to the measure shortly after its passage.

Earnest said Obama's term would end in three months and it's "awfully late for changes."

On Wednesday, Obama said the measure sets a "dangerous precedent" in international law that could have repercussions for the United States.

"If we eliminate this notion of sovereign immunity, then our men and women in uniform around the world could potentially start seeing ourselves subject to reciprocal loss," he said.

Saudi Arabia has strongly opposed the bill, threatening to sell off $750 billion in American assets if it becomes law.

Of the 19 hijackers that allegedly carried out the attacks, 15 had Saudi Arabian nationality and available evidence suggests that some of them were linked to high-ranking Saudi officials.

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FBI, Eyeing Russia, Finds More 'Attempted Intrusions' In U.S. Voter Databases

RFE/RL September 29, 2016

FBI Director James Comey told Congress there have been more "attempted intrusions" in U.S. voter registration databases, and the agency is looking "very, very hard" at Russian hackers who may be trying to disrupt the U.S. election.

The FBI in August warned the 50 U.S. states to boost their election security in light of evidence that hackers targeted online data systems in at least two states, Illinois and Arizona.

"There have been a variety of scanning activities, which is a preamble for potential intrusion activities, as well as some attempted intrusions at voter registration databases beyond those we knew about in July and August," Comey told the House Judiciary Committee on September 28. "There's no doubt that some bad actors have been poking around."

Comey did not say where the latest intrusions were found or provide further details. Unidentified U.S. law enforcement officials told CNN that they have discovered attempted hacks of voter registration sites in more than a dozen states and they believe Russia was behind them.

Comey was more explicit than ever in fingering Russia for trying to interfere in the U.S. electoral system. He said the FBI is "investigating to try to understand exactly what mischief the Russians might be up to in connection with our political institutions and the election system more broadly."

The FBI in a recent bulletin disclosed that in late June, an "unknown actor scanned a state's Board of Election website for vulnerabilities" and, after identifying a security gap, exploited the vulnerability to conduct a "data exfiltration," or unauthorized data transfer.

Then in August, the FBI said hackers used the same vulnerability in an "attempted intrusion activities into another state's Board of Election system."

The FBI has stressed that no information in the system was changed by the hackers and none of the intrusions put state voting systems were at risk.

"We are urging the states just to make sure that their deadbolts are thrown and their locks are on and to get the best information they can from [the Department of Homeland Security], just to make sure their systems are secure," Comey said.

So far, some 18 states have sought help from the department to fend off potential cyberintrusions, officials said.

At a separate hearing on September 28, a Homeland Security official sought to assuage concerns among lawmakers about Russian interference in the election.

Homeland assistant secretary Andy Ozment said the U.S. government has confidence in the overall integrity of the nation's electoral system, which he said cannot easily be breached by cyberspies.

"Our voting infrastructure is diverse, subject to local control, and has many checks and balances built in," Ozment said.

He noted that states use a wide variety of voting machines and registration systems. They are not all connected to one another, and most aren't connected to the internet, he said.

Because of this, Ozment said he doubted a cyberattack could change the outcome of the national election on November 8.

Comey also stressed that because the U.S. voting system is highly decentralized and controlled by the states, a broad hacking of the U.S. election would be nearly impossible to carry out.

"The vote system in the United States is very, very hard for someone to hack into because it's so clunky and dispersed," he said.

With reporting by AP, CNN.com, and ABCNews.com

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/fbi-eyes- russia-finds-more-attempted-intrusions-in-us- voter-databases/28019835.html

Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Obama Says Congress Made 'Mistake' With Veto Of 9/11 Lawsuits Bill

RFE/RL September 29, 2016

U.S. President Obama has said Congress made a "mistake" by overriding his veto and pushing through a bill that allows legal action against Saudi Arabia over the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Obama told CNN on September 28 that the bill sets a "dangerous precedent" that will encourage other countries to sue the United States and its military over what they see as abuses and damages from U.S. war actions.

The vote of support from more than two-thirds of members in Congress's two chambers means the bill becomes law, despite Obama's veto.

The Justice against Sponsors of Terrorism legislation opens the door for relatives of victims to sue any member of the Saudi government suspected of playing a role in the 9/11 attacks.

Officials in Saudi Arabia have reportedly threatened to sell the kingdom's assets in the United States if such legislation becomes law.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals, but the kingdom, a U.S. ally, has denied any role in the attacks, which left nearly 3,000 people dead.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, the BBC, and CNN

Source: http://www.rferl.org/ a/obama-congress-911-sue- saudis/28020095.html

Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Indian military enters Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, attacks "terror launch pads"

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 21:06, September 29, 2016

NEW DELHI, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Indian military Thursday claimed it had entered Pakistanon the other side of Line of Control (LoC) and carried out deadly "surgical strikes."

The attacks, according to India's Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, were carried out Wednesday night, based on specific intelligence that some infiltrators had positioned themselves at launch pads along the LoC, aiming to infiltrate inside Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Singh briefed media about the attacks in New Delhi.

The Indian army DGMO was accompanied by India's foreign ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup during the media briefing.

Indian officials claim their side has not suffered any casualty or damage in the attacks. However, it has not given the details about casualties of infiltrators or Pakistan army in the attacks.

"We do not have plans for further continuation of the operations," Singh said. "However, the Indian armed forces are fully prepared for any contingency that may arise."

Singh said he has conveyed his concerns to his Pakistani counterpart and informed him about the "surgical strikes" that were carried out in their territory.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Thursday rejected Indian claims about "surgical strikes" inside Pakistan.

"There has been no surgical strike by India, instead there had been cross border fire initiated and conducted by India which is existential phenomenon. As per rules of engagement same was strongly and befittingly responded by Pakistani troops," a statement issued by Pakistani military's Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said.

However, ISPR said two Pakistani troopers were killed due to unprovoked firing early Thursday from Indian troops across LoC in Bhimber, hotspring, Kel, and Lipa sectors.

Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated because of the ongoing civilian protests in Indian-controlled Kashmir and a deadly attack last week on an Indian army base in frontier Uri town, about 109 km northwest of Srinagar.

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Tensions rising as India 'hits targets in Pakistan'

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 10:5AM

India says it has conducted "surgical strikes" across the de facto borderline dividing the disputed region of Kashmir against militants preparing to infiltrate, with Islamabad denying any such attack and saying instead that cross-border fire from India had killed two of its soldiers.

India said on Thursday that it had been conducting a series of "surgical strikes" against what it said were militant positions along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir since Wednesday night, saying the offensive was based on "very specific and credible" intelligence information.

Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, India's director-general of military operations, who was addressing a press conference in New Delhi, said the strikes, aimed at barring the militants from alleged further infiltration, had inflicted "significant casualties" on militants and their supporters.

'No such thing'

The Pakistani military said, however, that no "surgical" strikes had occurred.

"There has been no surgical strike by India; instead there had been cross border fire initiated and conducted by India," it said.

Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif also said in a statement that, "India is doing this only to please their media and public."

"If India tries to do this again," he said, "we will respond forcefully."

Pakistan also said on Thursday that two of its troop had been killed in an exchange of fire with Indian troops across the de facto border.

It was not clear if the two Pakistani soldiers had been killed in the attacks that India said had been conducted "surgically."

According to a statement released by the Pakistani army, the soldiers were killed when they "befittingly responded to Indian unprovoked firing" along the Line of Control (LoC) on Thursday.

The statement added that the skirmishes had erupted in the vicinity of the town of Bhimber, and the villages of Hot Spring, Kel and Lipa in the Pakistan-administered Kashmir overnight and had lasted for nearly six hours.

No casualties have so far been reported from the Indian side of the fortified LoC.

On the path to war?

Meanwhile, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, in a statement, lambasted the "naked aggression of Indian forces," shortly after the deadly incident was announced. He said the Pakistani army is capable of thwarting "any evil design to undermine the sovereignty" of his country.

Kashmir lies at the heart of almost 70 years of hostility between India and Pakistan. Both neighbors claim the region in full, but each controls parts of it only.

The two countries have fought four wars, three of which were over Kashmir. Recent tensions risk sparking another military conflict.

The blame game typical of the two neighbors recently escalated after New Delhi accused Pakistan-based militants of carrying out a deadly aggression against an Indian army base near the Indian town of Uri, near LoC, in Kashmir on September 18, in which 18 Indian lost their lives.

India further accused Islamabad of failure in establishing security over the region and curbing the militants.

In a clear diplomatic snub, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Tuesday that he would not attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit to be held in Islamabad in November.

Indian and Pakistani forces have been engaged in similar clashes in the disputed region over the past months. Each side accuses the other of provocation.

In 2003, the two countries agreed to a ceasefire along the LoC in Kashmir and launched peace talks a year later. The process was, however, suspended after terrorist attacks killed over 160 people in the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008. New Delhi blamed the attacks on Pakistan-based militants.

The restive Muslim-majority region has also witnessed an increase in mass protests and violent attacks since early July, when a pro-independence figure was killed in a shootout with Indian troops.

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India Sets Sights on Obtaining 185,000 Assault Rifles to Replace Old Weapons

Sputnik News

15:53 29.09.2016

India is looking to the global market to procure basic rifles for the Indian Army, having failed to find a suitable domestic replacement for its 20-year old INSAS rifles.

New Delhi (Sputnik)  India is once again eyeing top global small arms suppliers to help provide basic assault rifles for the Indian army's 1.3 million soldiers. The Indian defense ministry is initiating the process of acquiring a 7.62 mm x 51mm assault rifle to replace its existing Indian small arms system (INSAS) rifle.

India intends to acquire a total of 185,000 such rifles; it requires 65,000 rifles immediately. India cancelled a global tender for assault rifles in 2015 that had been floated in 2011. The Indian Army had pinned its hopes on finding a domestic manufacturer but failed to do so.

"The rifle should be capable of achieving accuracy better than three Minutes of Angle up to a range of minimum 500 meters. The rifle should have an integrated open sight and a multi-option telescopic sight. The rifle has to be compatible with all modern sights and accessories and provisions for mounting the same," reads the Request for Information floated by India's Ministry of Defense.

The Indian Army has used INSAS rifles since 1996. The government had initiated a process to replace these obsolete rifles in 2011, and requested 66,000 rifles ready to use while approximately 100,000 rifles had to be manufactured in India under a transfer of technology arrangement. Companies from Israel, Czech Republic, Italy and Switzerland had taken interest in the tender, but due to the ambitiously high requirements of the Indian Army, nothing materialized.

 Sputnik

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Indias' Punjab State Evacuates Border Districts Following Kashmir Strikes

Sputnik News

14:54 29.09.2016

The authorities of the Indian state of Punjab ordered to evacuate all villages located within a 10-kilometer (6-mile) distance from the 553-km-long border with Pakistan following the strikes, according to local media.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The authorities of the Indian state of Punjab ordered the evacuation of villages bordering Pakistan after India carried out anti-terror "surgical strikes" across the line of control in Kashmir, local media reported Thursday.

Earlier in the day, Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, India's army director-general of military operations, said that India carried out strikes against suspected positions of terrorists in the disputed areas of Kashmir region under the Pakistani control.

The authorities ordered to evacuate all villages located within a 10-kilometer (6-mile) distance from the 553-km-long border with Pakistan following the strikes, the Greater Kashmir newspaper said.

According to the newspaper, the authorities used loudspeakers to inform the citizens about the evacuation. Schools and other institutions in the border belt were ordered to close.

The newspaper also said, citing informed sources, that the Border Security Force (BSF) started enhancing the border security and mobilizing the troops.

Kashmir has been disputed between India and Pakistan since partition of India in 1947. The two countries have gone through three wars over the region, but the conflict has not been resolved. The recent escalation is connected with the killing of Burhan Wani, the leader of a Kashmiri separatist group, outlawed in India, by Indian security forces in July 2016.

 Sputnik

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India Launches Strikes Against Suspected Militants in Pakistan

By Anjana Pasricha, Ayaz Gul September 29, 2016

India's army said Thursday that it launched "surgical strikes" against suspected militants along the border with Pakistan, but Islamabad rejected the claim, calling it an incident of cross-border firing.

The strikes come in the wake of a militant attack on an Indian army base earlier this month in Kashmir that killed 18 soldiers and which Prime Minister Narendra Modi said would not go unpunished.

India's Director General of Military Operations, Ranbir Singh, told a news conference Thursday that the strikes were carried out to thwart terrorist teams positioned on launch pads along the disputed Kashmir border.

He said that significant casualties were caused to "these terrorists and those who try to support them".

"The operations were basically focused to ensure that these terrorists do not succeed in their design of infiltration and carrying out destruction and endangering the lives of our country," according to Singh.

The Indian army official said he had informed his Pakistani counterpart about the operation, which has ended.

War of words

Soon after New Delhi's announcement, Pakistan's military said in a statement "The notion of surgical strike linked to alleged terrorists' bases is an illusion being deliberately generated by India to create false effects." The army said two of its soldiers had been killed and nine wounded in the exchange of fire.

A security official requesting anonymity told VOA that if India had conducted "surgical strikes" on Pakistani soil "it would have been an act of war and triggered another full-scale war" between the two countries. The official also dismissed as false assertions by India's Director General of Military Operations that he informed his Pakistani counterpart after the strikes.

He said the Pakistani military commander was merely told that in the event of possible infiltrations from the other side of the ceasefire line, Indian troops will not hesitate to open fire.

In a video statement, Defense Minister Khawaja Asif warned of a "tough response" if India violates the line of control in Kashmir.

"The Pakistan forces gave a strong and befitting response, and the response was in the same caliber in which the fire had come from that side If they ever violate the Line of Control again, if there is another violation of the cease fire or the Ceasefire Line, God willing Pakistani forces will give them a tough response."

Referring to India's announcement of alleged "surgical strikes", Pakistan's foreign ministry warned that such "irresponsible statements can only escalate the already fragile security situation in the region." In a statement, it accused India of escalating tensions at the border to divert attention from the situation in Indian Kashmir, which has witnessed widespread civil unrest.

Rising tensions

Representing a significant departure from India's traditional policy of what is known as "strategic restraint", analysts in New Delhi say the army strikes could ratchet up tensions along the Kashmir border. Although there have been calls in the past to take out terror camps of Islamic militant groups that India says are situated on the Pakistani side, the possibility of a military escalation between the nuclear-armed had held Indian leaders back in the past.

The attack on the Indian army base had led to widespread calls for retaliation both from the public and officials in Prime Minister Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.

Speaking after the army announced the strike against terrorists, Information and Broadcasting minister Venkaiah Naidu said that after the attack on the army base, "people of India were outraged and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had reassured the nation that such condemnable attacks will not be tolerated anymore and befitting measures will be taken to ensure the safety and security of the country".

Diplomatic isolation

India has also launched efforts to diplomatically isolate Pakistan for its alleged support of Islamic terror groups. A South Asian summit due to be held in Islamabad in November could be the first casualty. Along with New Delhi, three other countries  Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Bhutan have pulled out of the meet citing cross-border terror as a concern.

While New Delhi blamed the September 18 attack on the Indian army base on Pakistan-based militants, Islamabad denied any role and called it an attempt to deflect attention from alleged human rights abuses by Indian security forces in Kashmir.

Claimed by both nations, Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, and has been the trigger for two of their three wars.

Ayaz Gul contributed to this report from Islamabad

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Abadi, Barzani agree to cooperate on Mosul battle, heal mutual rifts

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 5:23PM

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and leader of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region Masoud Barzani have reached a consensus to settle disagreements and join forces for the upcoming operation to liberate the city of Mosul.

The development came after a meeting between Abadi and Barzani in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, on Thursday.

Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), has traveled to Baghdad at the head of a delegation, comprising members of four political parties, to hold talks with officials and political leaders. It is Barzani's first trip to Baghdad over the last five years.

During a joint press conference after the meeting, the Iraqi premier said that the army had made final preparations for retaking Mosul, the last remaining bastion for the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group in the north of the country.

Abadi also described the Mosul offensive as extremely important and noted that the army forces, supported by the Popular Mobilization Units as well as tribal and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, will score a victory there as was the case with other Iraqi cities and towns.

Time is ripe for beginning the Mosul battle, but its exact date would be announced after all troops are fully ready, he added, stressing that it would be the largest operation to save the lives of innocent residents of the city.

The Iraqi prime minister further stressed that all troops participating in the Mosul offensive are from Iraq and no foreigners would be among them.

The US-led coalition would only support the operation, he went on to say.

Barzani, for his part, expressed his "full" support for Abadi and highlighted the need for resolving differences between Baghdad and Erbil.

He said eradication of terrorism and purging Iraq of criminals is a common priority.

The Kurdish leader also expressed his satisfaction with the level of Baghdad-Erbil cooperation to clear Mosul of terrorists and said that Iraqi army commanders and Peshmerga forces have coordinated a plan for the full liberation of the city.

He further said that an agreement was reached with Abadi to resolve all problems between Baghdad and Erbil in the fields of economy and oil.

The northern and western parts of Iraq have witnessed gruesome violence ever since Daesh terrorists mounted an offensive in June 2014. The Iraqi army and their allies have been engaged in joint operations to retake militant-held areas.

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Russia's Supreme Court Upholds Ban On Crimean Tatars' Mejlis

RFE/RL's Russian Service September 29, 2016

Russia's Supreme Court has upheld a decision by a Moscow-backed Crimean court to ban the Mejlis, the self-governing body of Crimean Tatars in the occupied Ukrainian territory.

Mejlis' lawyer Kirill Koroteyev said the September 29 ruling by the Russian court will be appealed at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

On April 26, more than two years after Russia seized and illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, Crimea's pro-Russian Supreme Court branded the Mejlis as an extremist organization and officially banned it.

The Mejlis had been legalized by the Ukrainian government in 1999.

Crimea's indigenous Tatars make up about 12 percent of Crimea's population of 2.5 million people.

Many Crimean Tatars fled the territory after it was seized by Russian military forces in February 2014 and illegally annexed by Moscow in March 2014.

Crimean Tatars who have remained in the occupied territory complain of harassment and enforced disappearances under the Moscow-backed authorities there.

Russia has been severely criticized by international rights groups and Western governments for its treatment of the Turkic-speaking Muslim minority since the annexation.

With reporting by Interfax and TASS

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-court-upholds- ban-crimean-tatar-mejlis/28022600.html

Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Eyes on Target: Russian Troops Get New High-Tech Image-Stabilizing Binoculars

Sputnik News

19:17 29.09.2016

Russian naval personnel and airborne assault troops have received new state-of-the-art image-stabilizing binoculars that vastly outclass all foreign analogues.

The new BSh 10x50 and BKS 20x50 series military binoculars, developed and manufactured by the Shvabe Holding, a Rostec subsidiary, utilize a unique stabilization mechanism which uses relies on magnetic fields instead of gyroscopes and digital matrixes.

A source in the Russian Defense Ministry told Izvestia newspaper that the new binoculars are already being supplied to the nation's airborne assault and marine forces and to the navy.

"The new mechanical image-stabilizing binoculars were extensively tested during this year. They were used in all of the latest drills: in the Arctic, in the mountains. Even in the most extreme conditions, the binoculars provided a clear image," the source said.

The new BSh 10x50 and BKS 20x50 series wide-angle binoculars offer 20-fold magnification with angular field of view of 6.8 degrees. The binoculars are resistant to dust and humidity and can operate in extreme temperatures, from minus 40 to plus 40 degrees Celsius.

The binoculars' internal optical systems are not rigidly fixed in place, but instead 'float' in a magnetic field generated by powerful magnets installed on the casing. When the binoculars are jolted, this mechanism smoothly compensates for the unwanted movement and helps maintain a stable image.

Shvabe Holding Deputy CEO Dmitry Zhidkov explained that the company effectively managed to develop a mechanical image stabilization technology that does not require a power source and is highly resistant to both extreme environmental conditions and to electronic warfare attacks.

Formed in 2008, the Shvabe Holding is a union of over 60 manufacturing companies and R&D organizations that develop and produce optical and optoelectronic systems.

 Sputnik

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Analysis: 'Barbarous' Syria Bombings, MH17 Blame: What Consequences Could Russia Face?

Steve Gutterman September 30, 2016

In terms of its reputation, Russia has had one of its worst weeks ever. Incensed that Moscow is pushing ahead with the "barbarous" bombing of Aleppo and angry over an attack on an aid convoy that is widely blamed on Russian and Syrian forces, the United States is threatening to stop all cooperation with the Kremlin on Syria. And an international investigation concluded that it was a Russian missile system, smuggled into separatist-held territory in Ukraine and then spirited back across the border, that brought down a Malaysia Airlines jet in 2014 and killed all 298 people aboard.

What are the potential consequences for Russia, short-term and long?

No Grand Alliance?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has long sought to forge a common front with the United States on terrorism, casting his country as an indispensable partner whose methods, abroad and at home, should not be questioned by Washington. In place since Putin's 1999-2000 war in Chechnya -- and stepped up in a speech at the UN a year ago, two days before he launched Russia's air campaign in Syria -- this dream seemed close to reality when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, reached a deal this month to renew a cease-fire, work together against terrorist groups, and lay the foundations for peace talks. But for now, such a partnership seems much more unlikely: Kerry said on September 29 that the United States is "on the verge of suspending" its discussion with Russia on Syria "because it is irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place." In a phone call the same day, President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel "strongly condemned the barbarous Russian and Syrian regime air strikes against eastern Aleppo," the White House said.

No Grand Bargain

For Russia, a side benefit of a common front on Syria or terrorism would be the hope that the West would put less pressure on Moscow to fulfill its obligations under the Minsk accord -- the February 2015 deal to end the war between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The United States and EU say they steer clear of quid-pro-quo arrangements, and the Joint Investigation Team's (JIT) finding about the downing of MH17 makes any such understanding even less likely.

In The Dock?

Evidence of Russian involvement in the MH17 tragedy prompted calls for Moscow to face a formal war-crimes investigation. The path to such a prosecution would be long and filled with hurdles: Russia has used its clout as a permanent UN Security Council member to block the creation of an international tribunal to try any suspects who come to light, and has passed a law saying its own legislation can take precedence over rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, where a civil case claiming that Putin ultimately bears responsibility has been filed. But Human Rights Watch says that Russia could potentially face charges before the International Criminal Court or the courts of individual countries.

As for Syria, Kerry told a conference on September 29 that the ongoing air strikes on Aleppo amounted to war crimes, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the same of the bombing of two big hospitals there earlier that day. Faced with criticism over civilian deaths in Syria, Russia seems to have stepped up claims that the United States is no less culpable. Amid calls for a probe into the attack on an aid convoy in Syria, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova demanded "an unbiased investigation" of recent U.S. air strikes that she said killed civilians in Afghanistan.

U.S. Ties

Some analysts were surprised when Russia lashed out vociferously over a U.S. air strike that killed Syrian government troops, saying that the angry reaction undermined the cooperation agreement with Washington -- a deal that took plenty of painstaking diplomacy and seemed to suit the Kremlin's interests in Syria. One reason Russia may be reluctant to seek peace in Syria and smooth relations with the United States now could be concern that the U.S. approach might change after a new president is inaugurated in January. But the ongoing bombing of Aleppo, and the findings of the MH17 investigation, seem likely to decrease the chances that the next president -- whether it is Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump -- will seek a swift rapprochement with Russia. Trump has been far more conciliatory than Clinton toward the Kremlin, but the winning candidate is likely to face pressure from Congress and other quarters to be wary of Russia's intentions.

Test Of Time

Russia appears to be hoping the United States will not follow through on its threat to suspend talks on a Syria cease-fire and peace process. On September 30 -- two days after Kerry's initial warning, and one day after he said Washington was "on the verge" of halting the discussion -- Lavrov was planning to speak to Kerry again. Western officials have warned that the longer the war in Syria rages on, the greater the risk of a quagmire for Russian forces there and the danger of militant attacks on Russia itself. But if the current efforts fall apart entirely, Putin may believe that he has little to lose in the long run. Continuation of the conflict could enable President Bashar al-Assad's government to take more territory from rebels, potentially strengthening Russia's role in any future peace negotiations and improving its ability to shape a postwar Syria -- however distant that prospect now seems. Putin, who many expect to seek a new six-year term in an election due in 2018, may also believe that the United States and other Western countries will eventually seek to mend relations, as Obama did when he launched a "reset" of Russia ties early in his first term -- about a year after Russian forces invaded ex-Soviet Georgia in 2008.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-barbarous-syria- bombings-mh17-analysis/28024644.html

Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Syria slams US-led coalition for destroying two bridges

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 7:23PM

Syria has slammed the US-led coalition purportedly fighting Daesh for destroying two bridges over Euphrates River in the eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr, where the same alliance recently killed 83 Syrian soldiers.

The attacks "confirm the so-called international coalition's intent to bomb and destroy Syrian infrastructure and economic and social establishments through repeated aggressive acts," state TV quoted the Syrian Foreign Ministry as saying Thursday.

The official SANA news agency reported that the bridges of al-Asharah and al-Mayadin in the eastern countryside of the provincial capital city of Dayr al-Zawr were hit by the coalition's warplanes on Wednesday.

Syria's ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja'afari said the bridges had been used by hundreds of thousands of civilians in the area.

Meanwhile, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based rights group advocating militants in Syria, said the two bridges are now unusable, a situation which would impede aid deliveries and hamper movement of civilians.

Since 2014, the United States, along with a number of its allies, has been leading a so-called anti-terror campaign in Syria and neighboring Iraq.

Instead of helping to rein in the Takfiri terrorists, the air raids have killed many civilians, and caused extensive damage to the country's infrastructure.

On September 17, a Syrian army airbase in Dayr al-Zawr came under attack by US-led warplanes in violation of a nationwide ceasefire deal, which had been mediated by Russia and the US.

More than 80 Syrian soldiers lost their lives and some 100 others were wounded in the US-led airstrikes, which helped Daesh terrorists make some gains in the area.

Syria 'not killing its own people'

Speaking to reporters after a Thursday UN Security Council meeting on Syria, Ja'afari further dismissed accusations that the Damascus army targets civilians, saying it is the terrorists who have been killing Syrians and hampering relief operations.

"The Syrian government is not bombing civilians. These people are our own people. We don't bomb civilians, we don't kill civilians,"

The senior diplomat added, "We don't bomb humanitarian convoys. We don't do that. Those who did it are the terrorists."

The comments came after UN Secretary General blamed the government in Damascus for most civilian deaths in Syria since the outbreak of the foreign-sponsored crisis there in early 2011.

More than 400,000 people have died and half the 22 million population have been uprooted in the crisis, according to the latest estimates by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.

Over the past weeks, there has been a rise in fighting between Syrian forces and Takfiri militant groups across the Arab state, particularly in the city of Aleppo, after the collapse of a week-long ceasefire there.

The truce, which had been mediated by the US and Russia, expired on September 19, with Damascus refusing to extend the deal after its base in Dayr al-Zawr was hit by US-led air raids.

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Russia vows to keep up support for Syria in defiance of US threat

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 2:22PM

Russia has pledged to continue its air campaign in Syria, defying a recent threat by the United States to halt its diplomacy with Moscow on the violence-hit country in the wake of heavy fighting in Aleppo.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday that the Russian air force would go on with its war on terror and continue to support the Syrian government forces.

Peskov's remarks came one day after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry held a phone conversation on Syria.

During the talks, Kerry blamed Moscow for the escalation of fighting in Aleppo, according to a statement by US State Department spokesman John Kirby.

Kerry further underlined Washington's readiness to "suspend US-Russia bilateral engagement on Syria," including talks on a possible counter-extremist partnership, "unless Russia takes immediate steps" to halt its anti-terror campaign and restore a ceasefire in the war-torn state, the statement read.

Peskov, however, denounced the US statement as clumsy and unhelpful, stressing that Washington's inability to meet its obligations in Syria, camouflaged with its anti-Russia rhetoric, does not help the settlement of the conflict.

Since March 2011, Syria has been hit by militancy it blames on some Western states and their regional allies.

Moscow and Washington support opposing sides in the conflict.

Russia has been conducting airstrikes against Daesh and other terrorist groups in Syria at the Damascus government's request since last September.

The US and its allies have also been carrying out their own airstrikes against what they call Daesh positions in Syria and neighboring Iraq since 2014.

Additionally on Wednesday, Kirby warned that terrorists in Syria could launch attacks "against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities."

In response, Peskov assured that Russian intelligence services were on constant alert for possible terrorist attacks.

"All necessary measures are taken not in the event of some developments, but on a permanent basis," he said.

Elsewhere in his comments, the Russian official urged Washington to honor its commitment to separate terrorists operating in Syria from the so-called moderate opposition.

"Unfortunately, the US has not yet fulfilled its key task of these agreements,  which is the separation of the so-called moderate opposition" terrorist organizations, among them the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terrorist group, al-Qaeda's Syrian branch formerly known as al-Nusra Front, Peskov added.

The latest ceasefire in Syria, which had been mediated by Moscow and Washington, came to an end on September 19.

Damascus refused to extend the deal after US-led air raids on its military base near the eastern city of Dayr al-Zawr killed 83 Syrian soldiers in violation of the agreement.

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Syria regains control of refugee camp north of Aleppo

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 1:41PM

Syrian soldiers, backed by pro-government fighters, have re-established control over a camp north of the embattled city of Aleppo after briefly losing it to foreign-backed militants following its liberation last week.

Militants and a monitoring group confirmed that the Syrian army and its allies captured the Handarat refugee camp following three days of heavy fighting with terrorists, adding that clashes were still underway in the area.

Syrian armed forces had gained control over the camp on Saturday, but it later fell to the so-called Fastaqim militant group.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group which advocates the militants, also confirmed that government forces are now in control of the camp.

Handarat's liberation is of high significance to the Syrian army as it facilitates the return of thousands of displaced Palestinian refugees to their homes there after over four years of violence in Aleppo.

The first recapture of Handarat came days after the Syrian army launched a major offensive to retake the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo, which have been controlled by Takfiri terrorists since 2012.

The operation began after a week-long ceasefire mediated by the United States and Russia expired on September 19.

Damascus, however, refused to extend it after US-led air raids killed 83 of its army forces and wounded some 100 others at a military base in the eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr in violation of the truce. The US-led strikes helped Daesh terrorists make a series of gains against army soldiers in the area.

On Thursday, Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, rejected US calls for a seven-day truce, saying such a pause in military operations would give militants enough time to regroup. Instead, he proposed a two-day ceasefire to facilitate the flow of relief aid into Aleppo.

Militants have suffered major setbacks over the past few months as the Syrian army, backed by Russian air cover, has managed to wrest control over several important areas across the country.

On September 25, Syria's envoy to the United Nations Bashar al-Ja'afari told the UN Security Council that the country would not relinquish a single inch of its territory as per the Syrian constitution and the rules of international law.

"I would like to reassure them that the Syrian government will reclaim Aleppo in its entirety, and if the member states in this international organization have a single capital each, my country has two capitals: Damascus and Aleppo," he said.

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Turkey says ready for work with Iran, Russia on Syria

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 11:59AM

Turkey says it is "more than ready" to work with Russia and Iran on a Syrian ceasefire and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the war-torn country.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday he discussed the issues of ceasefire and humanitarian aid with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif.

"We are discussing the same issues with our ally Russia," he said.

"We have to try harder for a ceasefire and political resolution. If Russia is prepared to cooperate with us on the ceasefire and humanitarian aid, we are more than ready," he said.

Zarif had stopped in Ankara on Wednesday on his way back to Tehran from New York, where he attended the 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

He held closed-door talks with Cavusoglu and Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim during the visit.

An unnamed Turkish diplomatic source said the conflict in Syria was among topics on the agenda of Zarif's discussions.

This is the third round of talks between the Iranian and Turkish foreign ministers over the past two months.

Iran and Turkey differ over the crisis in Syria. Turkey supports militants, while Iran and Russia assist the Syrian government in its fight against foreign-backed terrorist groups, including Daesh.

Russia has been conducting airstrikes against Daesh and other terrorist groups in Syria at the Syrian government's request since September 2015. Iran has also been providing advisory assistance to the Syrian government.

On Thursday, Russia said there is a trend for cooperation with Turkey on Syria to be "constructive" now that Moscow and Ankara are mending their ties.

"If need be, joint actions are possible," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, without elaborating.

Earlier this month, Turkish troops entered the Syrian territory in a sudden incursion which resulted in the occupation of Jarablus after Daesh left the city without resistance.

On Sunday, Cavusoglu said Turkey was planning to send troops deeper into Syrian territory to establish what it calls a safe zone.

Kurdish witnesses said on Wednesday Turkey had killed six children and three women in an airstrike in the Syrian border town of Kahila.

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Russia says US inviting terrorists to attack its cities

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 10:33AM

Russia has denounced US projection of possible attacks on Russian cities by terrorists fighting in Syria, saying the statement amounts to an invitation to terrorism.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was outraged on Thursday after US State Department spokesman John Kirby said terrorists in Syria could launch attacks "against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities."

"We cannot interpret this as anything else apart from the current US administration's de facto support for terrorism," Ryabkov was quoted as saying.

"These thinly disguised invitations to use terrorism as a weapon against Russia show the political depths the current US administration has stooped to in its approach to the Middle East and specifically to Syria."

Russia has been supporting the Syrian government in its push to take back Aleppo from Takfiri terrorists. The US also carries out airstrikes as well as operations on the ground through its special forces against what it calls Daesh targets.

However, with Syrian advances on Aleppo gaining momentum, US officials said on Wednesday that Washington had begun considering tougher responses to the assault on Aleppo, including military options.

Syrian army advances were interrupted first when the US brokered a ceasefire agreement with the Russians. The truce collapsed after US aircraft bombed Syrian army positions in Dayr al-Zawr, killing 82 soldiers.

The airstrike, which helped Daesh briefly overrun government positions in the area, was characterized by Washington as unintentional but Syria rejected the allegation.

"How could they (Daesh) know that the Americans are going to attack that position in order to gather their militants to attack right away and to capture it one hour after the strike?" Assad asked during an interview with the Associated Press last week.

Supply of new weapons

On Wednesday, a militant commander said foreign states have given extremists surface-to-surface Grad rockets of a type not previously supplied to them in response to the Aleppo offensive.

The Grad rockets with a range of 22 km and 40 km have been supplied in "excellent quantities" and will be used on battlefronts in Aleppo, Hama and the coastal region, militant commander Colonel Fares al-Bayoush told Reuters.

While Grad missiles have previously been supplied to militants, Bayoush said it was the first time this particular type had been delivered. Militants had previous stocks of the rocket captured from army stores, he added.

The Reuters news agency this week reported anonymous US officials as saying that the Obama administration was considering allowing Qatar and Saudi Arabia to arm militants with man-portable missiles.

The Middle East Eye news portal cited a source close to militants as saying that the US was resolved to prevent the fall of Aleppo and was preparing to allow its Persian Gulf allies to flood the city with shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft missiles.

"The US confirmed the green light to begin sending them to rebels through supply routes still open through Jordan and Turkey," the source said.

"The US won't let Aleppo fall. We can expect to see Syrian helicopters falling from the sky within weeks."

On Wednesday, the US State Department warned it was considering the suspension of "bilateral engagement" in Syria "unless Russia takes immediate steps to end the assault on Aleppo and restore the cessation of hostilities."

Ryabkov said Moscow saw no alternative to the original US-Russia plan to try to get a ceasefire in Syria and that Washington should focus on implementing it.

He said a seven-day ceasefire plan proposed by the United States was unacceptable however and that Moscow was proposing a 48-hour "humanitarian pause" in Aleppo instead.

Support for Fateh al-Sham Front

Meanwhile, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday US failure to separate "moderate" militants from terrorists is blocking the entire package of agreements.

Under the agreement, the US had undertaken to segregate the militants under its support from Takfiri groups such as the al-Qaeda-linked Fatah al-Sham Front but it has dragged its foot on the plan.

On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told US Secretary of State John Kerry during a phone conversation that Fateh al-Sham Front had been receiving foreign support and American weapons.

In an interview with German-language daily Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger earlier this week, a Fateh al-Sham commander identified only as Abu al-Ezz confirmed that the US is supporting the terror group, saying, "The Americans are on our side."

In his conversation with Kerry, "Lavrov drew attention to the fact that a number of anti-government units which Washington calls moderate... were instead merging with Jabhat Fateh al-Sham," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Earlier this year, the US blocked a Russian move in the United Nations to blacklist Ahrar al-Sham militants as a terrorist group.

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Syria says many terrorists killed in new operations

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 5:52AM

The Syrian military says it has inflicted heavy losses on foreign-backed terrorists in a series of operations across the country.

Backed by helicopter gunships, government troops attacked militant positions in the hilltop village of Tal Sawwan in the western province of Homs on Wednesday in a bid to retake the strategic al-Sha'er Mountains.

According to government sources, a large number of terrorists were killed while many others fled their positions.

Syrian troops also destroyed a training camp for the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham militant group, the al-Qaeda branch in Syria formerly known as al-Nusra Front, northwest of Kisin village in Dara'a province.

Earlier, terrorist positions in the towns of Talbiseh, al-Rastan, Um Sharshouh and al-Ghantoo in Dara'a came under government attacks, in which an unknown number of terrorists were killed and their weapons destroyed.

Elsewhere in the al-Sad and al-Bajabjeh districts of Dara'a al-Balad region, Syrian forces killed several terrorists affiliated with the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham group.

Syrian troops also launched an offensive in the Da'el town, located approximately 14 kilometers north of Dara'a, killing a number of terrorists and destroying their vehicles.

Moreover, militant positions in the villages of Khan Tuman, Maarata, Kafr Hamrah, Haritan and Babis in the northwestern province of Aleppo were targeted by Syrian jets, leaving scores of terrorists dead.

Army units also thwarted separate attacks by Jaish al-Fatah, Jund al-Aqsa and Ahrar al-Sham terrorists on Karah and al-Zaghba villages in the Hama province, killing more than 70 extremists.

The foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria, which flared in March 2011, has claimed the lives of more than 400,000 people, according to an estimate by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.

Takfiri militants active in the conflict-ridden Arab country have suffered major setbacks over the past few months as the Syrian army has managed to wrest control over several important areas.

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Kerry Says U.S. On Verge Of Suspending Cooperation With Moscow In Syria

RFE/RL September 29, 2016

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington was on the verge of suspending talks with Russia on a cease-fire agreement in Syria, as a devastating bombardment of the city of Aleppo by Russian and Syrian warplanes continued.

Kerry's comments on September 29 came hours after the Kremlin dismissed U.S. threats to suspend cooperation with Moscow in Syria and said Russian forces would continue to support a government offensive on rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo.

The U.S. State Department, meanwhile, confirmed that Kerry spoke by telephone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on September 29 about the "fragility" of the situation in Syria.

A U.S. spokesman also reiterated after those phone consultations that Washington was "very serious" about the potential of suspending its arrangement with Russia on Syria unless "significant steps" are taken by Moscow.

Washington and Russia have been negotiating for months over the potential terms of a lasting cease-fire in Syria. The latest truce collapsed on September 19 after several days of calm.

Aleppo, once Syria's largest city, has suffered from intensive air strikes since September 19.

Kerry told a conference in Washington on September 29 that the ongoing bombing campaign amounted to war crimes.

"We are on the verge of suspending the discussion because it is irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place to be sitting there trying to take things seriously," Kerry said.

"It is one of those moments where we are going to have to pursue other alternatives," he said.

Earlier, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov dismissed a warning from Washington about the attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians in Aleppo as an "emotional outburst" and said it was tantamount to supporting terrorism.

Ryabkov rejected Washington's calls for a seven-day pause in the Aleppo offensive as "unacceptable," saying it would give militants time to regroup.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also described the State Department remarks as awkward and said the "war on terror" in Syria would continue.

In his September 29 speech, Kerry did not specify any new approach for bringing peace to Syria.

Kerry also said it was unlikely that the United States would go to war in Syria.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after phone consultations with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on September 29 that Russia has a "special responsibility to calm violence and give a political process a chance" in Syria.

Merkel's office said she and Erdogan agreed that "repeated flagrant violations against humanitarian international law" in Aleppo are "unacceptable" and that "a cease-fire is more urgent than ever."

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, TASS, and Interfax

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/russia -u-s-syria-statement-emotional- outburst/28020328.html

Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Amid political jockeying and grandstanding, 'Syria is bleeding,' UN aid chief tells Security Council

29 September 2016  In an impassioned appeal to the Security Council, the top United Nations relief official today called on the global body's primary organ for maintenance of peace and security to act immediately to end the bloodshed in Syria so that humanitarian assistance is able to reach those who desperately need it.

"Syria is bleeding. Its citizens are dying. We all hear their cry for help. As humanitarians we are doing all we can," UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien told the 15-member Council today.

He added that last week, even as world leaders discussed Syria at high-level meetings and during the General Assembly's annual high-level debate, violence intensified in the war-torn middle-eastern country and more civilians and aid workers were killed.

"It is time to place blame. It is time this Council stops tolerating the utter disregard for the most basic provisions of international humanitarian law," Mr. O'Brien underscored.

Recounting the intensification of fighting across the country and in particular in eastern Aleppo, the UN official stressed that the conflict he said: "This is not an unforeseen result of forces beyond our control. This is due to the action of parties to the conflict and it is the direct result of inaction  be it through unwillingness or inability  by the international community, including most notably those present in this chamber."

The situation is s a critical test of the "capacity and willingness" of the members of the Security Council to make a decision and take action and to uphold the words of the UN Charter: "to save the Syrian people from the scourge of war."

The iconic city of Aleppo is the worst affected location in the country, where according to estimates, since the 22 September announcement by the Syrian Ministry of Defence that it would launch an offensive there, some 320 civilians were killed and 765 injured in the first days. It is particularly concerning that over 100 children have been killed.

"These are not simply numbers to be added to a tally, these are individuals, family lives that we have collectively failed to save," lamented Mr. O'Brien, who is also the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

He also drew attention to the alleged use of "bunker busting" bombs, which has reportedly caused mass destruction in an area that has already been decimated.

"This means there are bodies of babies, children, women and men stuck unrecovered in the rubble of basements up to 20 metres down where they had taken refuge  and where they had been safe until the use of these recently introduced weapons," he said.

He also reported that water supplies have stopped to most of eastern Aleppo after a pumping station was rendered inoperable due to the fighting and just yesterday, two of the eight remaining hospitals, including two of four surgical units, were attacked and are now out of service.

Furthermore, multiple airstrikes have hit the Jisr Al-haj area in eastern Aleppo city, reportedly damaging warehouses belonging to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and killing one of the few remaining doctors in east Aleppo, as well as the doctor's wife  a senior midwife.

There have also been reports of patients being turned away or treated on the floors of the few remaining health facilities and the very few intensive care units still operating have been completely overwhelmed. Severe shortages of surgical items, blood bags, anaesthetics and other critical medical items have also reported.

Mr. O'Brien further reported that indiscriminate attacks are also being launched by non-State armed groups into western Aleppo.

Relief aid at the ready, but pause in fighting needed

Highlighting the humanitarian needs, Mr. O'Brien said that the priority for assistance is medical items and food. He also noted that there are more than 100,000 children trapped in east Aleppo and that they are among the most vulnerable.

"We have been ready, and we remain ready to deliver assistance to eastern Aleppo through cross-border and cross-line support," he said, and added that a minimum 48 hours weekly humanitarian pause must be urgently implemented to allow humanitarian aid to enter and for medical evacuations to be carried out.

"Now is not the time for political grandstanding or protection of one's political or, indeed, military position. Now is the time to recognize the horror unfolding before our eyes, agree upon our common humanity and restore the cessation of hostilities to protect civilians and save lives," he stated.

Attack on humanitarian convoy

Speaking on last week's attack on a joint UN-Syrian Arab Red Crescent convoy to Urum al-Kubra, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator said that while full details on the incident are not yet available, if the attackers knew of the aid convoy and intentionally directed an attack against it, they committed a war crime.

"As I have said before, those on the front lines delivering aid are brave, but they are not suicidal," and he underlined the necessity of sufficient security guarantees for the delivery of aid must be in place.

"That means engaging with all parties impartially, even to the distaste of some [] for us access is everything, without it, as we go far and wide across Syria we can't make the difference that the world's citizens call on us to make," he added.

Mr. O'Brien went on to tell the Council about situations in other parts of the war-ravaged country, and of efforts to deliver humanitarian support in those regions.

Concluding his briefing, he urged the Council: "It is up to you to turn the tide, to create the conditions for aid to reach all in need. To end the sieges. To restore political dialogue. And to bring an end to the war."

UN Deputy Special Envoy for Syria briefing in Geneva

Earlier today, UN Deputy Special Envoy for Syria Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy spoke to the media in Geneva and reiterated Mr. O'Brien's concerns about the desperate situation in Aleppo.

He noted that according to estimates, as many as 600 wounded people cannot be provided with medical treatment and underlined that there are now less than 35 doctors covering a population of at least 275,000.

"It is clear that humanitarian aid, especially medical items and medical evacuations are urgently needed [and] we hope that it will be possible to create conditions for such deliveries to be made," he said, adding: "The UN continues to be ready to deliver humanitarian assistance as soon as possible."

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Kerry: US 'On the Verge' of Suspending Talks with Russia Over Syria

By VOA News September 29, 2016

Secretary of State John Kerry says the U.S. is "on the verge" of suspending talks with Russia over Syria because of Moscow's continued aerial bombardment of the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Hours after Russia vowed to continue its air strikes in Aleppo, Kerry said Thursday that bilaterial engagement with Russia over Syria is "irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place."

"It is one of those moments where we are going to have to pursue other alternatives," he said.

Russia is backing the intensive campaign launched by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to capture Aleppo's rebel-held eastern sector.

The United Nations described the plight of Aleppo as desperate, with one official saying, "Medical evacuations are urgently needed." He said "probably hundreds" of people needed to be moved out of the war-wracked city, Syria's largest, where about 250,000 people live in the area under attack.

The U.N. deputy envoy for Syria, Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, said food stocks in the city are "running low," with many bakeries closed and only 14,000 food rations remaining.

The U.N. humanitarian chief, Stephen O'Brien, said the situation in east Aleppo met the criteria for "besiegement."

"Let me be clear, east Aleppo this minute is not at the edge of the precipice; it is well into its terrible descent into the pitiless and merciless abyss of a humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed in Syria, with no access by the U.N. since 7 July," he said.

The United States and the European Union are accusing Moscow of quashing diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting, a claim Russia rejected.

"Assad and Russia are unleashing a savagery against people they call terrorists. Children are not terrorists; breadlines and the individuals within breadlines are not terrorists; rescue workers are not terrorists; hospital workers are not terrorists," the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Russia has a "special responsibility to calm violence and give a political process a chance" in Syria.

Moscow pursuing deal

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted Moscow still wants to reach a deal to renew the September 9 deal on a cessation in fighting; but, he said, "We have unfortunately taken note of the rather unconstructive character of the rhetoric from Washington over the past few days."

Russia said it supports a 48-hour cease-fire in Aleppo, but not a longer truce proposed by the U.S.

Britain's U.N. envoy, Matthew Rycroft, said the Russian proposal is "designed to sound good, but allow them to carry on their deadly bombing campaign."

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said a week-long cease-fire would give militants time to regroup and replenish supplies.

His comments came a day after Kerry told his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, that the U.S. is making preparations to suspend bilateral engagement with Russia on Syria, unless Moscow takes immediate steps to end the assault on Aleppo and restore the cessation of hostilities agreed to nearly three weeks ago.

"The secretary made clear the United States and its partners hold Russia responsible for this situation, including the use of incendiary and bunker buster bombs in an urban environment, a drastic escalation that puts civilians at great risk," Kerry spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

Push for peace

The two countries have tried at various times during Syria's five-and-a-half-year conflict to use their influence on the opposing sides in order to push for peace talks and cease-fire agreements; but, as with the latest deal on Aleppo, those truces have broken down as the fighting continued.

Kirby also suggested Wednesday that Russia's alliance with Assad's military raised the threat of a terror attack back home.

The halt in fighting was also meant to allow for food and medical aid to reach people in Aleppo, where on Wednesday airstrikes hit the two largest hospitals in the rebel-held eastern part of the city.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned those attacks as "war crimes."

Damage from the strikes temporarily knocked the hospitals out of service, further limiting medical care in a part of the city.

United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer, State Department correspondent Nike Ching and reporter Lisa Schlein in Geneva contributed to this report

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Russia Backs 2-day Aleppo Cease-fire

By Margaret Besheer September 29, 2016

Russia said Thursday it supports a 48-hour cease-fire in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, but not a longer truce proposed by the United States.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said a week-long cease-fire would give militants time to regroup and replenish supplies.

His comments came a day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that Washington is making preparations to suspend bilateral engagement with Russia on Syria, unless Moscow takes immediate steps to end the assault on Aleppo and restore the cessation of hostilities agreed to by the two powers on September 9.

"The secretary made clear the United States and its partners hold Russia responsible for this situation, including the use of incendiary and bunker buster bombs in an urban environment, a drastic escalation that puts civilians at great risk," Kerry's spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

The two countries have tried at various times during Syria's five-year conflict to use their influence on the opposing sides in order to push for peace talks and cease-fire agreements. But as with the latest deal on Aleppo, those truces have broken down as the fighting continued.

Assad alliance

Kirby also suggested Wednesday that Russia's alliance with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's military raised the threat of a terror attack back home.

"The consequences are that the civil war will continue in Syria, that extremists and extremists groups will continue to exploit the vacuums that are there in Syria to expand their operations, which will include, no question, attacks against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities, and Russia will continue to send troops home in body bag," he said.

Russia's Ryabkov criticized Kirby's remark, saying it could only be interpreted as U.S. support for terrorism.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was also quoted by Russian media saying the U.S. has not lived up to its commitment in the cease-fire deal to separate moderate Syrian rebel groups from militants involved in the multi-party war.

Humanitarian aid

The halt in fighting was also meant to allow for food and medical aid to reach people in Aleppo, where on Wednesday airstrikes hit the two largest hospitals in the rebel-held eastern part of the city.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned those attacks as "war crimes."

"Let us be clear: Those using ever more destructive weapons know exactly what they are doing," Secretary-General Ban told a U.N. Security Council session on healthcare in conflict on Wednesday. "They know they are committing war crimes."

The U.N. chief expressed his utter frustration with the situation.

"Imagine a slaughterhouse.This is worse.Even a slaughterhouse is more humane," he said.

Damage from the strikes temporarily knocked the facilities out of service, further limiting medical care in a part of the city where more than 250,000 people are besieged by the government as it mounts a fierce military offensive to retake the rebel-controlled sector.

Shortage of doctors

According to UNICEF, the health system in eastern Aleppo is crumbling with just some 30 doctors remaining, hardly any equipment or emergency medicine to treat the injured, and an ever-increasing number of trauma cases.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attacks on the hospitals, but militaries from Syria and its ally Russia, are operating in the area.

"It is very, very clear that there are only two air forces operating over Aleppo  that is the Syrian regime and the Russians," Britain's deputy U.N. Ambassador Peter Wilson told reporters. "There is a clear responsibility on the part of the Syrian regime and the Russians to stop this campaign of violence."

Russia's deputy envoy, Evgeny Zagaynov, said information about attacks is often based on "unverified data" and that as a result, "falsified information is being spread." He urged a "rejection of provocative rhetoric" and for all efforts to be focused on ending the conflict, for which he said there is a "very good basis for this based in Russian-American cooperation."

France's envoy Francois Delattre said his delegation is working on a cease-fire resolution for Aleppo. "It seems to us that it is the only way to move ahead, to move forward and to try to get a positive vote. That's what we want at the Security Council and to leave everybody facing his/her responsibilities," he told reporters.

It was not immediately clear how a council resolution would make any impact after the collapse of the U.S.-Russian agreement.

US troops

On the issue of the wider war in Syria, President Barack Obama said Wednesday the U.S. cannot stop the fighting without sending a large number of troops, and that he has to carefully consider how to deploy the nation's military when it is already involved in places like Afghanistan.

"There are going to be challenges around the world that happen that don't directly touch on our security, where we need to help, we need to help lead, but just sending in more troops is not going to be the answer," he told a military town hall event broadcast on CNN.

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Obama Condemns 'Barbarous Russian and Syrian Regime Airstrikes' in Aleppo

By Mary Alice Salinas September 30, 2016

U.S. President Barack Obama has strongly condemned the "barbarous Russian and Syrian regime airstrikes" on civilians in eastern Aleppo.

The White House says Obama spoke by telephone Thursday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Both agreed that Russia and the Assad regime bear a "special responsibility" for stopping the fighting and letting humanitarian aid get in.

Secretary of State John Kerry said earlier the U.S. is "on the verge" of suspending diplomatic talks with Russia because of Moscow's continued bombing of rebels in eastern Aleppo.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians are stuck there. Half of them are children.

Kerry called it "irrational" to keep talking and "take things seriously" after the Russians vowed to continue the airstrikes.

"It's one of those moments where we're going to have to pursue other alternatives for a period of time," said Kerry. He added he is "extremely concerned" about the future of the Syrian people.

Kerry's spokesman told reporters the State Department is in "active" contact with the Kremlin, but are still prepared to step away "barring some significant steps by Russia."

"We are still prepared to enact that kind of a suspension and we're in consultations right now inside our own government, and of course, with Foreign Minister Lavrov," John Kirby said Thursday.

Washington has pressed Moscow to use its influence to pressure Bashar al-Assad to honor a cessation of hostilities agreement and allow the flow of humanitarian aid to Aleppo and around Syria.

Instead, U.S. officials say the Syrian and Russian governments have intensified their air attacks on Aleppo, targeting hospitals, refugee camps, water supplies and other critical sites.

"There has been a shameful strategy implemented by the Assad regime, and aided and abetted by the Russians, to try to bomb civilians into submission," said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

Accusations against Russia

U.S. strategy in Syria has focused on degrading and destroying Islamic State. The Obama administration said that while progress has been made in pushing back the terrorist group, more must be done to secure a sustained cease-fire and political transition to end the five-year civil war.

The United States and European Union are accusing Moscow of quashing diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting, a claim Russia has rejected.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Russia has a "special responsibility to calm violence and give a political process a chance" in Syria.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted Moscow still wants to reach a deal to renew the Sept. 9 deal on a cessation of fighting. But, he said, "We have unfortunately taken note of the rather unconstructive character of the rhetoric from Washington over the past few days."

U.N. humanitarian aid chief Stephen O'Brien told the Security Council Thursday that what is happening in Aleppo fills him with "raw grief, dismay, intense sadness, frustration and an unquenchable anger."

"Besiegement is not a weapon of war. It is a flagrant, unjustifiable breach of the law. One day there will be no hiding place for the individuals and institutions callously, cynically perpetrating these war crimes."

O'Brien also had harsh words for U.N. diplomats for their perceived inaction in Syria.

"The only remaining deterrent it seems is that there will be real accountability in the court of world opinion and disgust. Goodness knows, nothing else seems to be working to stop this deliberate and gratuitous carnage."

Russia said it supports a 48-hour cease-fire in Aleppo, but not a longer truce proposed by the U.S.

The United Nations has described the plight of Aleppo as desperate.

Officials say medical evacuations are needed and food stocks are running low. In a city of about 250,000 people, there are only 14,000 food rations remaining, according to U.N. officials.

Reporter Ken Schwartz, United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer, State Department correspondent Nike Ching, and reporter Lisa Schlein in Geneva contributed to this report.

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Turkey's Erdogan signals post-coup emergency state extension

Iran Press TV

Thu Sep 29, 2016 2:59PM

Turkey's president has suggested the possibility of prolonging for over a year the three-month state of emergency declared following the abortive July 15 military coup, stressing that such a move would be beneficial for the country.

"It would be in Turkey's benefit to extend the state of emergency for three months," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech to a group of provincial administrators at the presidential palace in the capital, Ankara, on Thursday.

The remarks came as rights groups and Turkey's main opposition party have criticized an extension of the state of emergency, saying it would lead to greater crackdown and the suffering of innocent people.

"They (critics) say one year isn't right for Turkey. Let's wait and see, maybe 12 months won't be enough," Erdogan said, adding that no one should determine a "calendar or roadmap" for Turkey.

The comments by the Turkish president came one day after the National Security Council recommended the extension of the state of emergency, which was instituted on July 20.

The council, comprising political and military leaders and chaired by Erdogan, argued that the extension is required "to take measures to protect the rights and freedoms of citizens."

Elsewhere in his Thursday's remarks, Erdogan estimated that Turkish citizens would support the extension as the measure has so far sped up what he called Ankara's fight against terrorism.

"This state needs time to be purged of these terrorist organizations' extensions. Right now we're racing against time," Erdogan further pointed out.

The coup began when a faction of the Turkish military declared it was in control of the country and the government was no more in charge.

Tanks, helicopters, and soldiers then clashed with police and people on the streets of the capital, Ankara, and Istanbul. Between 200 and 300 people were killed on all sides in the attempted coup d'etat.

Ankara said Fethullah Gulen was behind the putsch but the US-based opposition cleric rejected the accusation.

The Turkish government launched a sweeping crackdown on those believed to have played a role in the failed coup. More than 100,000 people have been sacked or suspended, while around 40,000 people have been detained since July 15.

Erdogan behind the failed coup: Gulen

In another development on Thursday, Gulen told the German weekly Die Zeit that he was sure Erdogan was behind the putsch, emphasizing that it must have been planned in advance.

"Until now I only thought that was a possibility. Now I think it's certain," Gulen said.

A Turkish officer had recently said that the chief of general staff and the intelligence chief met in the army headquarters during the night of the military coup, adding, "They already knew everything that would happen later."

The cleric also noted that the putsch gave Erdogan the opportunity to dismiss his opponents in ministries, military, police and judiciary as well as to arrest lawyers, businessmen and journalists.

Turkey wants the US to extradite Gulen. However, the opposition figure said that he did not think Washington would hand him over and if the US decided to do so he would buy himself a ticket and fly to Turkey.

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Ankara Shuts Down 12 TV Channels Including in Kurdish

Sputnik News

13:23 29.09.2016(updated 14:48 29.09.2016)

The Turkish government has shut down 12 TV channels, including seven in Kurdish language, under the state of emergency imposed after the coup attempt in July, local media reported Thursday.

ANKARA (Sputnik)  According to the IMC broadcaster, Kurdish channels that ceased broadcasting via the Turksat satellite include Hayatn Sesi, Azadi TV, Jiyan TV, Van TV, TV10, Denge TV and Zarok TV.

According to the outlet, the state of emergency provides the legal basis for such move, however the reason behind it is unclear.

None of the Turkish government officials have commented on the channels' closure so far.

On July 15, an attempted coup took place in Turkey, but was supressed the following day. Over 40,000 people have been detained since the attempted overthrow of the Turkish government that led to over 260 deaths.

Earlier in the day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the state of emergency in the country, imposed in July, could be extended for another three months.

 Sputnik

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Turkish security forces kill six Kurdish PKK militants

Iran Press TV

Fri Sep 30, 2016 2:12PM

At least six Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants have been killed during fierce clashes with Turkish security forces in the country's northern province of Ordu.

Provincial Governor Irfan Balkanlioglu said the terrorists were spotted and shot dead during a Friday counter-terrorism operation in the Mesudiye district of the province, situated approximately 435 kilometers east of the capital Ankara.

Balkanlioglu added that an M16 and five AK-47 assault rifles besides several hand grenades and documents were seized from the slain Kurdish militants.

Also on Friday, a paramilitary policeman was killed and two others sustained injuries when PKK militants detonated a remote-controlled bomb they had planted earlier on the side of a road linking the southeastern Turkish town of Sirnak to Cizre.

Ambulances rushed to the scene following the explosion, and transferred the wounded soldiers to Sirnak State Hospital.

The developments came a day after three paramilitary policemen were killed and two others injured in a PKK militant attack in the Yuksekova district of the southeastern province of Hakkari.

A shaky ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015, and attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.

Over the past few months, Turkish ground and air forces have been carrying out operations against PKK positions in the country's troubled southeastern border region as well as Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region and northern Syria.

The campaign was launched after more than 30 civilians lost their lives in a July 2015 bomb attack in the southern Turkish town of Suruc. Turkish authorities held the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group accountable for the act of terror.

PKK militants, who accuse the Ankara government of sponsoring Daesh, mounted a series of supposed reprisal attacks against Turkish security forces after the bombing, prompting the Turkish military operations.

The PKK, which has been calling for an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984, has since carried out several attacks on police and military posts in the largely Kurdish region.

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Russian Officials Dig In On MH17, As Critics Decry 'Politics Of Denial'

Tom Balmforth September 29, 2016

MOSCOW -- A series of denials by Russian officials and state-media allegations of bias and foul play present a view that is starkly discrepant with international criminal investigators' findings, announced this week, over the downing of a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine in 2014.

The Joint Investigation Team's (JIT) interim conclusions were that the passenger jet was shot down by a Russian-made missile system smuggled into separatist territory then spirited back over the border into Russia.

The Russian counternarrative after the release of the JIT report also introduces at least one new conspiracy theory and was decried by liberal opposition voices and the independent newspaper Vedomosti, which criticized the Kremlin's perceived "politics of denial," saying they would increase Russia's international isolation.

Russia has consistently rejected considerable evidence -- including recovered pieces of shrapnel, phone chatter among Moscow-backed separatists, and the geolocation of telltale photographs, among other things -- that points to the involvement of anti-Kyiv forces in eastern Ukraine in the shoot-down, which killed all 298 people aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July 2014.

Pro-Kremlin media focused on a chorus of countercharges made by officials, Russian missile maker Almaz Antey, and politicians, who claimed primarily that Russian evidence had been deliberately ignored by the JIT in order to reach a "political" verdict.

Missile maker Almaz-Antey called a news conference immediately after the announcement of the JIT findings, challenging the probe in comments widely carried by online and traditional media. The defense manufacturer's chief engineer, Mikhail Malyshevsky, said for instance that the JIT had ignored "technical" aspects of the investigation and analyzed the wrong type of missile, adding that Almaz-Antey's tests showed the rocket was fired from territory controlled by Ukrainian government forces.

"Journalists and experts pointed out one strange detail," said the newscaster on state TV channel Vesti, which led its September 28 evening news with a report on the MH17 report. "There are considerably more facts that the international investigators ignored than that they took into account. That is to say, the conclusions were drawn first and then backed up with fragmentary evidence."

State news agency RIA Novosti, meanwhile, published an opinion piece late on September 28 titled Investigation On Track Without Veering Off Course, in which it casts doubt on the findings because they appear similar to those initially expressed by the Ukrainian and Western governments soon after the downing of the plane.

"It hasn't changed despite the fact that two years have passed since the moment of the catastrophe and that since that time one side" -- a reference to Russia -- "has presented lots of new facts and materials, while from the other side fairly important information remains hidden from international investigators."

In comments carried by Russian news agencies, Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov also criticized the findings, claiming they were based on two sources: the Internet and Ukrainian security services. He also denied that any missile system crossed the border between Ukraine and Russia, as investigators concluded.

'Dutch Fog'

Pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia on September 29 published what appeared to be an elaborate conspiracy theory in a piece titled Dutch Fog, in which the author also said the results were "predetermined."

Calling the Dutch "loyal vassals" of the United States, author Oleg Matveychev, who was cited as a political expert, alleged that Washington rigged the results of the investigation to help Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton beat Republican Donald Trump in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

"During the election campaign of Hillary Clinton, who is banking on confrontation with Russia, the conclusions [of the JIT] could scarcely have turned out differently," Matveychev argued.

Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told the BBC's HARDtalk program that Russia would neither confirm nor deny the findings because they are "preliminary."

Asked by HARDtalk's host whether or not Russia "accepts the truth" of the JIT findings, Peskov said that "there was nothing to accept or deny" because this report is not the "final truth." Peskov continued: "We know the devil is inside those details, and unfortunately we are still missing lots of the details."

Aleksei Navalny, an anticorruption activist and leading opposition figure, compared Peskov's response to the Soviet Union's initial denials after it shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 over the Sea of Japan in 1983. Navalny wrote that the Kremlin is "driving itself into the [same] situation" and said Moscow was trying to deflect the accusations with the same propaganda playbook.

'Politics Of Denial'

An editorial in the independent Vedomosti business daily on September 29 chided Russia for what it described as its "politics of denial." "By changing its explanations and denying in advance the conclusions of the investigative group," the paper wrote, "Russia itself is working toward the gradual strengthening of its own isolation."

It said the denials are painting Russia into a corner: "Each new explanation has worked against Russia even more, forcing [the explanations] to be seen as deliberate attempts to confuse the investigation."

An informal street survey by RFE/RL's Russian Service suggested that Muscovites hold a range of views on who was responsible for MH17's downing.

"There is a war between Russia and Ukraine. The Russian Army unfortunately shot down this Dutch Boeing -- unfortunately," said one.

"The fact that [the missile] was Russian manufactured proves nothing and says nothing," said another, adding, "Our government agencies...published their report in which they, citing objective information, entirely denied this information."

"We'll most likely never know whose fault it was and who was to blame," concluded another.

But the JIT and other investigators are less ambiguous, according to Wilbert Pualissen, the head of the Dutch police investigation: "On [the] basis of the criminal investigation, we can conclude that Flight MH17 was downed on July 17, 2014, by a rocket of the 9-M-83-38 series, fired from a Buk trailer, and that this Buk trailer came from the territory of the Russian Federation and returned to the territory of the Russian Federation after the launch."

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/ russia-reaction-mh17- report-jit-politics-of- denial/28022883.html

Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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DPR Head Denies Donbass Militias' Involvement in MH17 Flight Crash

Sputnik News

14:33 29.09.2016(updated 14:35 29.09.2016)

Head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) Alexander Zakharchenko said that Ukraine is responsible for shot down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014.

DONETSK (Sputnik)  Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was not shot down by militias in southeastern Ukraine, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) Alexander Zakharchenko said Thursday, adding that Kiev is to blame for the accident.

On Wednesday, international prosecutors from Joint Investigation Team (JIT) revealed a preliminary report on the investigation of the Boeing 777 crash in 2014, which claimed that plane was downed by a missile fired from Buk launcher, which had been brought from Russia and located on territory held by the militias.

"We did not shoot the Boeing. Ukraine is responsible for what had happened and for allowing the plane [to fly over the southeastern territory mired in civil war]," he said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed disappointment over the report's findings it considers biased. The defense ministry said no Russian missile systems, including Buk, had ever crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border.

Flight MH17 crashed with 298 people on board on July 17, 2014, in eastern Ukraine, while en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, leaving no survivors. Kiev and independence supporters in Ukraine's southeast have blamed each other for the downing of the MH17 plane.

 Sputnik

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UN refugee agency urges better measures for people crossing contact line in eastern Ukraine

30 September 2016  The United Nations refugee agency today called on authorities in Ukraine to help ease the plight of some 26,000 people who cross the dividing line between Government-controlled and non-Government-controlled areas of the crisis-gripped country daily.

"Despite the ceasefire agreed in 2015, the security situation in eastern Ukraine remains tense and volatile. Flare-ups of hostilities continue, and people waiting to cross the contact line risk being harmed by shelling or the presence of landmines and explosive remnants of war," said William Spindler, the spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), at the bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva.

"They face exhausting and often abusive procedures, including having to wait long hours in line to cross to see their relatives, purchase goods and medicines or resolve documentation issues in order to get their pensions and benefits," he added.

Mr. Spindler emphasized that such extraordinary restrictions on movement in eastern Ukraine, now in their second year, have created "increasingly alarming hardships" and limited the access of thousands of people, including the elderly, to health care and social payments.

The long lines remain the biggest concern of people crossing the line of contact, who must go through lengthy document and security checks by a limited number of personnel. More than half of those travelling by car say it is almost impossible to complete the formalities in one day and that they have had to stay overnight at least once at a crossing point, according to the spokesperson.

A UNHCR survey found that one in four people trying to cross are in the category of "extremely vulnerable individuals"  those with disabilities, the elderly, persons with a severe medical condition, and women, often travelling alone and accompanied by children. The agency also observed an elderly couple who spent 7 hours on their feet waiting for the bus to transport them to their relatives.

"People line up to cross with no adequate waiting facilities, such as shelter from rain or sun and there is no emergency medical support. Several deaths were reported at the height of the summer and the situation is certain to be more alarming, come winter. There is a lack of sufficient water and sanitation facilities for the people in lines," Mr. Spindler said.

Based on the monitoring results, UNHCR this summer installed weather shelters to protect people from rain and sun at all open crossing points in eastern Ukraine.

"Our teams are working to provide transport solutions for the remote communities on both sides affected by the ongoing conflict," the spokesperson said.

Many communities have been left isolated as regular transport connections were halted because of shelling. Mr. Spindler stressed that there is an urgent need for bus lines to ensure travel across the line of contact for vulnerable persons, who make up more than 40 per cent of those crossing.

During the UNHCR survey people also raised concerns regarding alleged checkpoint corruption and checkpoints closures on multiple occasions due to shelling. Many are not informed about regulations related to crossing the line of contact and documentation required, the spokesperson said.

Moreover, non-recognition of documents issued by de-facto authorities in non-Government controlled areas prevents crossing of children to Government-controlled areas. Several cases were reported when children were denied crossing to the non-Government-controlled areas when they were accompanied by only one parent, according to the spokesperson.

"UNHCR calls on authorities to facilitate and simplify the procedures at the crossing points. Authorities need to ensure more registration booths, having cameras installed to prevent abusive practices, having female staff on duty at all check points," Mr. Spindler said.

He added that UNHCR is working on a package of measures to improve the situation and fasten the procedure, and is planning to have a bus line for vulnerable people to cross the contact line with fewer obstacles on both sides.

More than 9,300 people have been killed in Ukraine since the beginning of the separatist conflict in eastern regions of the country in mid-April 2014.

While the rate of casualties has slowed substantially since a ceasefire in September 2015 and the signing of the Minsk Peace Accords  an agreement signed under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to halt fighting in the Donbass region of Ukraine  some 10 people are still killed each month, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

In late February 2014, the situation in Ukraine transcended what was initially seen as an internal Ukrainian political crisis into violent clashes in parts of the country, later reaching full-scale conflict in the east. Nevertheless, despite the ceasefire agreed in Minsk, the situation has since deteriorated, with serious consequences for the country's unity, territorial integrity and stability.

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Yara International ASA third quarter 2016 results will be released on Friday 21 October 2016. The results will be available at www.yara.com from 08:00 CEST.



The results will be presented at 09:30 CEST by President and CEO Svein Tore Holsether and CFO Torgeir Kvidal at Yara headquarters in Drammensveien 131, Oslo. The presentation will be held in English, and will be webcast at www.yara.com.



If you would like to attend the presentation in Oslo, please confirm with an e-mail to ir@yara.com by 20 October 2016.



There will also be a conference call at 14:00 CEST the same day with an opportunity to ask questions to Yara's management.



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About Yara

Yara's knowledge, products and solutions grow farmers', distributors' and industrial customers' businesses profitably and responsibly, while protecting the earth's resources, food and environment.



Our fertilizers, crop nutrition programs and technologies increase yields, improve product quality and reduce the environmental impact of agricultural practices. Our industrial and environmental solutions improve air quality by reducing emissions from industry and transportation, and serve as key ingredients in the production of a wide range of goods. We foster a culture that promotes the safety of our employees, contractors and societies.



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By Glenn Dromgoole

If you really like tacos, here's a book for you  "The Tacos of Texas" by Mando Rayo and Jarod Neece (University of Texas Press, $19.95 paperback).

The authors rounded up about 20 taco aficionados they call the Texas Taco Council to help them produce a guidebook to the best taco eateries and tasty recipes in 10 Texas cities or areas.

The 10 areas are Abilene, Austin, Brownsville-McAllen, Corpus Christi, Dallas-Fort Worth, El Paso, Houston, Laredo, Midland-Odessa, and San Antonio.

"Covering the traditional to the modern," the authors write, "this story is about Texans' love for tacos. We've been behind the scenes with the trailers, stands, trucks, taqueros, home cooks, families, and even some ranchos."

In the 440-page book, they "tell the stories, share the traditions, and identify the iconic tacos from all over the state."

In Abilene, they were assisted by "Taco Ambassador" Blake Kammerdiener.

Together, they came up with these top five Abilene taco spots: Armando's, Farolito's, La Popular, Taqueria La Ranchera, and Lola's in Buffalo Gap.

Of course, Taco Bueno gets a mention since the restaurant chain was founded in Abilene.

Alligators: I had no idea that alligators can be found in 120 of Texas's 254 counties until I picked up "Alligators of Texas" by Louise Hayes, who has been studying the subject for more than 30 years (Texas A&M University Press, $29.95 flexbound).

The authoritative 228-page book also features the color photography of Philippe Henry, who spent several weeks a year for five years with the same family of alligators in Fort Bend County.

"Sometimes I could get very close and was able to film intimate moments," Henry writes. "Every alligator has a different personality. Some will let you get close without displaying any aggressive behavior. Others will not."

In her text, Hayes devotes chapters to such topics as: "What Is an Alligator?" "Where Do Alligators Live?" "Life History of Alligators," "Alligator Tales," and "Alligator-Human Interactions."

"The American alligator," she notes, "is found only in the United States and ranges through 10 states."

Crocodiles, on the other hand, are restricted to extreme South Florida but also range through Central and South America.

Hayes points out that because the alligator is a protected species, "it is illegal to catch a baby alligator to keep as a pet, harass an alligator in any way, or kill an alligator unless an individual is signed up for a specific alligator hunt."

Back when I was in elementary school, my friend Dan McGinnis kept a pet alligator in a fish pond in his backyard.

Word would spread alarming the neighbors when Dan's pet got to where he could climb over the side of the shallow concrete pond.

Finally, Dan and his dad released the alligator in a bayou a few miles out of town, and we all slept better.

Readers are invited to share their own alligator stories at AlligatorsInTexas.com.

Glenn Dromgooles

latest book is West Texas Stories. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.
This image released by Netflix shows Amanda Knox in a scene from her self-titled documentary, premiering Friday, Sept. 30 on Netflix. (Netflix via AP)

SHARE This image released by Netflix shows Amanda Knox in a scene from her self-titled documentary, premiering Friday, Sept. 30 on Netflix. (Netflix via AP)

By JAKE COYLE, AP Film Writer

NEW YORK (AP)  Amanda Knox stares into the camera, coolly contemplating how she became a figure of global fascination.

"I think people love monsters. And so when they get the chance, they want to see them. It's people projecting their fears," Knox says. "They want the reassurance that they know who the bad people are, and it's not them. So maybe that's what it is: We're all afraid, and fear makes people crazy."

Such is the provocative opening of "Amanda Knox," a documentary premiering Friday on Netflix that gives the participants of one of the most sensational trials of the century a chance to tell their story, straightforwardly, directly to the camera. For a case that often seemed like a horror movie played out in the nightly news, "Amanda Knox" allows the drama's main characters to step out from their media-crafted roles.

"We thought that a new way of adding a fresh perspective to the story was to look at it from the inside out and to get to the people at the center of the story and have them tell us what it was like to be embroiled in this whole story," says Rod Blackhurst, who directed the film with Brian McGinn.

The British student Meredith Kercher was murdered Nov. 1, 2007, in Peruga, Italy. Knox, Kercher's roommate and an American student studying abroad, and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were arrested and convicted of the murder. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison, Sollecito to 25.

Three years after Rudy Guede was convicted for the murder and sexual assault of Kercher, the convictions of Knox and Sollecito were overturned in 2011, allowing Knox to return home to Seattle after spending four years in jail. But she and Sollecito were tried again in 2014, again found guilty, only to finally be exonerated by the Italian Supreme Court in 2015.

The case captivated the world with its grisly details (prosecutors claimed Kercher was killed in a bloody sex game), its attractive alleged murderer (dubbed "Foxy Noxy" by the tabloids) and its culture clash, which pitted a young American abroad against a quaint old Italian city.

"Amanda Knox," five years in the making, centers on interviews with Knox, Sollecito, the Italian prosecutor Giuliano Mignini and Nick Pisa, a freelance journalist for the Daily Mail.

The film soberly follows the case chronologically, eventually leading to the forensic evidence that helped lead to Knox's and Sollecito's exoneration. But in the years in between, prosecutors and tabloid press (with Pisa playing a significant role) formed radically different images of the pair.

"The power of narrative to embed these incredibly strong opinions no matter what side you're on is something we're seeing in every aspect of our daily lives now," says McGinn, pointing to the U.S. presidential election. "It's important to remember that all of these stories are much more tangled and complicated than we like to think of them."

The filmmakers, both in their 30s, first approached Knox in 2011 through a mutual friend shortly after her return to Seattle. It wasn't until two years later that Knox agreed to participate. Their appeal was based on giving Knox, Sollecito and Mignini a more unfiltered avenue in which to tell their stories, without sensational or headline-motivated interest. The film was viewed for each before it premiered earlier this month at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The filmmakers have watched as their documentary has ironically returned Knox to the media's spotlight. The Daily Mail, for example, published photographs  the kind usually reserved for jet-setting movie stars  of Knox and her current boyfriend, writer Christopher Robinson, with whom she lives in Seattle, arriving in Toronto. (Knox attended the premiere but didn't speak at it.)

"They all would like to move on from this," says Blackhurst. "Not only has it defined their lives for the better part of a decade, but it seems like they'll forever be trapped in this narrative that might have latched on to them for the rest of their lives."

Knox, in the film, considers the implications of her being turned into "a monster," and the implications it has for others.

"If I'm guilty, it means I am the ultimate figure to fear. On the other hand, if I'm innocent, it means everyone's vulnerable. And it's everyone's nightmare," Knox says. "Either I'm a psychopath in sheep's clothing or I am you,"

___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
Western films typically star actors who look like Chris Pratt, right. But the current remake of "The Magnificent Seven" stars Denzel Washington, who leaves it up to the audience to decide what meaning, if any, to invest in the fact that an African American is playing an Old West cowboy. Sam Emerson/ Sony Pictures

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Magnificent Seven a hit with a diverse cast

By Josh Rottenberg, Los Angeles Times

When director Antoine Fuqua first began contemplating how to go about remaking the much-loved 1960 western "The Magnificent Seven," one image quickly popped into his head.

"I said, 'I've got to see Denzel Washington on a horse,'" Fuqua recalled on a recent morning by phone from Italy, where the film was screening at the Venice Film Festival. "I've always thought about what Denzel would be like as a cowboy. Very few people have that kind of presence and power."

Having grown up loving westerns, which he'd often watch with his grandmother, Fuqua knew as well as anyone that the heroes of the Old West in Hollywood movies of yesteryear were, with rare exceptions, usually white.

Director John Sturges' original "Magnificent Seven," the story of a band of gunfighters who join forces to protect a Mexican village from marauding bandits, was no exception.

Fuqua wasn't looking to make any kind of statement by casting Washington as the bounty hunter who leads the gunslingers.

The role, played by Russian-born actor Yul Brynner in the original film, wasn't written explicitly as one race or another. But Fuqua did feel it was important to try to blow the dust off a genre that has fallen somewhat out of fashion, to make a western that, though set in the world of 1874, felt  and in some ways looked  like the world of 2016.

"The western constantly changes depending on where we are as a society," Fuqua explained. "What I wanted to do was bring it up to date and show people it's an exciting genre. It represents who we are, what the promise of the United States is supposed to be."

The 1960 "Magnificent Seven"  itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 epic "Seven Samurai"  had featured white actors in even some of the non-Caucasian roles, with Eli Wallach playing the bandit leader Caldera and Horst Buchholz as a young Mexican gunslinger named Chico.

In Fuqua's remake, by contrast, four of the title heroes are nonwhite: Washington's Sam Chisolm; Comanche warrior Red Harvest, played by Native American actor Martin Sensmeier; South Korean actor Byung-hun Lee's knife-throwing assassin, Billy Rocks; and Mexican actor Manuel Garcia-Rulfo's outlaw, Vasquez.

When Fuqua first met with Washington to discuss casting him in "The Magnificent Seven," the idea instantly intrigued the actor  and not only because his previous collaboration with Fuqua, 2001's "Training Day," had been a box-office and critical success, earning him a best actor Oscar.

"You know, you don't get that many chances to do westerns," said Washington, who to this day says he has never actually seen the original "Magnificent Seven." "Hearing Antoine's enthusiasm about it, I was like, 'Oh, wait a minute.'"

In the wake of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, the issue of diversity has risen to the fore in Hollywood.

A recent study by the USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism found that the film industry has made scant progress in addressing what it calls "pervasive and systematic" inequality both in front of the camera and behind it.

Against that backdrop, the diversity of "The Magnificent Seven" cast has drawn extra attention; at the film's news conference at the Toronto International Film Festival this month, the director and cast were asked about its significance in the context of the industry as a whole.

But Washington said, from his perspective, the diverse cast of "The Magnificent Seven" didn't come out of any agenda. As he sees it, it only really became an issue when the media started making it one.

"I just think people are always looking for an angle, and that's an easy angle," Washington said. "I didn't really think about that at all. I am who I am. I'm the actor Antoine called to play this part. Then they put a great cast together. We didn't talk about diversity. That's something for the town to talk about. We're in the business of making movies, not talking about what people think about them."

For Garcia-Rulfo, though, films like "The Magnificent Seven" show that Hollywood is catching up with the times.

"I think it's really important that it's opening up in this way," he said. "You can see it in this film or, in the case of Mexicans, we have Diego Luna being one of the leads in the next 'Star Wars.' I think that's really cool because that's what life is."

While the subject may not have been discussed much on the set, the notion of creating a more diverse "Magnificent Seven" first came up early in the process when screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto, creator of HBO's "True Detective," pitched the idea to the studio execs who were looking to develop the remake. (The film was cofinanced by MGM and Columbia Pictures with MGM overseeing production.)

"Nic was the one who instigated the idea: Instead of having a group of Caucasians saving a village of Mexicans, why don't we have a diverse group of seven?" said Jonathan Glickman, president of MGM's motion picture group. "Westerns are very tough to make if you can't find a contemporary spin. At MGM, our goal was always, 'How does this movie feel modern and current?' And the cast was always first and foremost on our list."

From a creative perspective, Fuqua didn't want to force any kind of heavy-handed messages about race on the film. In developing the character of Chisolm, Fuqua and Washington left it up to the audience to decide what meaning, if any, to invest in the fact that he's African American.

This was no "Blazing Saddles"-type scenario, in which the character's race was a central plot point.

"There's no Count Basie out there playing," Washington said with a laugh. "When he walks into the saloon, do people look at him because they don't know who he is? Because of his color? Because he's good with a gun? Because they're afraid of him? Pick one."

For Sensmeier, who grew up in a small village in Alaska and is making his first appearance in a major movie, playing a Native American as a quietly noble hero in a genre that has so often depicted them as cartoonish savages  and so often used white actors to play them  has its own special significance.

"I've been getting support from a lot of different tribes, a lot of different people all over the country," he said. "People haven't seen the movie yet, but just the fact that I'm in the trailer  they love it. They think it's really cool that I'm up there with these big-name stars. I'm very blessed and proud to represent."
In this Sept. 26, 2016 photo, actress Danielle Brooks, from "Orange is the New Black" and the Broadway musical, "The Color Purple," poses for a portrait in New York. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Invision/AP)

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By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY, AP Entertainment Writer

NEW YORK (AP)  If you check Danielle Brooks' Instagram account, you'll see plenty of poses that ooze self-confidence, from shots of the "Orange is the New Black" star in glamorous outfits to a selfie of her with her midriff exposed.

But full-figured Brooks says it has taken some mind manipulation to get her to feel as happy with herself as the vibe she projects.

"I kind of like tricked myself into this love, and positive affirmations that I have for myself, which has been really good," said Brooks. "I don't wanna walk around this world feeling like I don't feel worthy, or I don't feel like I'm beautiful because society has shown me that I am not enough, because they don't put me on the cover on the magazines or I don't see myself reflected in media enough."

Brooks is doing her part to make that change happen. The actress, who was nominated for a Tony for her role in the revival of "The Color Purple" on Broadway, has teamed with Refinery29 for its campaign to make full-figured women more visible in media.

"I think that we have a long way to go, but I think we are gonna now start to see a big shift in the change in media, in magazines, on the fashion runways, on our screens, in television," she said.

The "67 Percent " project aims to showcase more women who are over a size 14; the website says the majority of women in the United States, or 67 percent, are in that size range. Brooks has been the face of the campaign, which launched this week.

Brooks, who is also a spokeswoman for the clothing line Lane Bryant, said that when she first gained fame for her role on the award-winning Netflix series, she couldn't find any designer willing to dress her for major award shows.

"It was very difficult to find a dress that I felt represented who I am that wasn't black or blue or a plain Jane dress," she said. "Like, I wanna wear cutouts, I wanna wear the bells and whistles, and just all the different kind of textures that other girls get to wear."

Christian Siriano came to her rescue and has become her go-to designer. But she added: "I'm looking to wear a plethora of different designers. I want to walk on a carpet and get to wear Prada or Gucci or whatever that might be, and so, I feel like they need to step up. It's time, we're here."

Brooks said that when she flaunts her confident self in public, it reverberates with her fans, who then send her messages that they feel more confident with their bodies as well.

"When a woman doesn't see themselves represented enough ... you feel unimportant, you feel like there has to be something wrong with me," she said. "But then you come across a program or a project like the 67 Percent project with Refinery29 and you are now seeing yourself and you realize, 'Oh, more than half the world looks like me! I'm not the problem here.'"
This Aug. 4, 2016 photo shows Vidalia onion cornbread baked in a cast iron skillet, styled by Sarah Abrams, at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York. This dish is from a recipe by Elizabeth Karmel. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

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By ELIZABETH KARMEL, Associated Press

Over the summer, I traveled to Wooster, Ohio, for a barbecue summit at the headquarters of Certified Angus Beef.

It was a trip filled with learning, camaraderie  and lots of smoked beef.

My fellow barbecue pit masters and I visited a black angus ranch, talked barbecue non-stop, cut a side of beef together  or rather watched as the "meat doctor" Phil Bass cut and explained.

I was introduced to several new cuts including beef belly  also known as beef bacon  which I immediately made when I got back home. But, the standout of the trip wasn't barbecue at all. Instead, it was a Vidalia onion cornbread made by Ashley Pado, chef of the education and culinary center at Certified Angus Beef headquarters.

Pado headed up a team of chefs preparing that day's feast that included a table of smoked beef, numerous side dishes, home-baked breads, pickled vegetables and that memorable cornbread that sparkled with a pave of caramelized Vidalia onion rings set in the bottom of the cornbread. When Pado served the cornbread, she inverted it in the cast-iron pan so you could see the concentric circles of onion baked into the bottom. Even before we took a bite, the group marveled at the presentation and wondered why more people don't embellish cornbread.

The cornbread itself is light and cakey with a little tang and a little sweetness but the salty savory almost-fried onions take it over the top. Pado sauteed the onions in beef bacon since she had it in her pantry. When I made the recipe, I adapted it using pork bacon but you could use butter or any kind of bacon that you can get your hands on.

___

ASHLEY'S VIDALIA ONION CAST-IRON CORNBREAD

Start to finish: One hour

Servings: 8

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2/3 cup granulated white sugar

1/2 cup yellow corn meal

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup buttermilk

3 whole eggs, beaten

1/3 cup vegetable oil

3 tablespoons melted butter

1 large Vidalia onion, sliced thin and kept together as one piece in rounds

4 slices bacon, diced

Equipment: 9 or 10-inch cast-iron skillet

Heat oven to 375 F

Saute bacon over low heat in skillet until crisp. Meanwhile slice thin rounds of onions, making sure you keep them intact and in one piece.

Remove bacon from pan but leave the bacon grease for the onions to cook in. Carefully place the onion rounds in the bottom of the pan to cover the surface. Let onions cook until the edges begin to brown. Be careful to keep onions in place  the bottom of the skillet will have a "polka-dot" pattern. Season onions with a dusting of fresh ground black pepper. Turn off the heat and set aside until ready to bake the cornbread. If the pan cools down, warm the pan on low heat before pouring the cornbread batter in pan.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, corn meal, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, mix together the cream, buttermilk, oil, eggs and melted butter until combined  the mixture will emulsify. Set aside.

Add wet to dry ingredients and mix until combined. Don't over mix. Batter should look slightly lumpy.

Just before baking, add the cooked bacon back to the pan and place in the areas around the onions, not on top of the onions or it will interfere with the onion pattern. Pour cornbread batter directly into hot pan. Place in the center rack of the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for 20 minutes, run a blunt knife around the edges of the cast-iron skillet to make sure that it isn't sticking on the sides. Carefully turn the skillet upside down and flip cornbread out of pan to expose onion rounds  you can invert the cornbread and place it upside down back into the skillet for serving.

Serve at room temperature or warm.

Nutrition information per serving: 419 calories; 211 calories from fat; 24 g fat (9 g saturated; 1 g trans fats); 117 mg cholesterol; 407 mg sodium; 46 g carbohydrate; 2 g fiber; 20 g sugar; 7 g protein.

___

Elizabeth Karmel is a barbecue and Southern foods expert. She is the chef and pit master at online retailer CarolinaCueToGo.com and the author of three books, including "Taming the Flame."
SHARE Officers and city officials reached a pay agreement in meet and confer negotiations.

By Rashda Khan

After two days of secret ballots, San Angelo police ratified a contract amendment deferring this years promised raise from the city until April 1.

Representatives of the San Angelo Coalition of Police and the San Angelo Police Officers Association met with city officials in a meet and confer Thursday. Both parties signed the amendment in a meeting that lasted only five minutes.

It was inevitable, said Sgt. Rick Tinsley, official media spokesperson for the police. We werent going to get the raise, but we all know ... its in the best interest of both parties to keep the contract going.

Because the City Council authorized the city manager to sign off on the agreement, it is official without needing to be presented to the council.

If the two sides had not come to an agreement by Sept. 30 and the city didnt give the contracted raise as scheduled on Oct. 1, the contract would have become null and void. The amendment allows their existing meet-and-confer contract to continue.

Of course, we are going to continue to monitor the sales tax figures and stay in contact with the city to make sure that raise is looked at as it should be on April 1, Tinsely said. If at that point the money is not available, then we would discuss what to do at that point. If the money is available, then wed hope they would give us the raise.

As part of reaching the accord, the city agreed to let a mandatory fitness program in the contract with SAPD become voluntary for officers.

Lisa Marley, the citys director of human resources, risk management and civil service, said the contract originally required there to be testing in which the officers had to meet a certain standard. If they didnt, they would have to work on issue.

The requirement to stay fit is always there, but the requirement to do this testing part is whats delayed until they get their pay increase, Marley said. So if that (raise) occurs April 1, then the requirement to start testing would also start April 1.

But I have every confidence that theyre going to continue to maintain their fitness.

As part of the amended agreement, city staff will recommend the council direct $322,946 in unallocated funds toward health insurance premiums for city employees and retirees at the Oct. 4 council meeting.

At present 1,290 people  a combination of employees, including police officers, and retirees  are enrolled in the city health insurance rolls, Marley said.

She said the recommendation means no raises for any other city employees would come out of the unallocated funds. The city has 734 full-time employees and 153 full-time police officers on the payroll.

When you cant give pay increases, its really important that ... (you dont) then increase their insurance premiums. Its just a double whammy, Marley said. Its a great thing that the police department has supported that, because I think it touches a lot of folks.

Tinsley agreed. Absolutely, it not only the officers that use the city health care, but it benefits every city employee, he said. We recognize that we are not the only city employees, and if we can help the other city employees its a good thing for us as well.

He added that he was disappointed and surprised by the low voter turnout at the police department. Of 96 ballots cast, 70 were in favor and 26 opposed. The amendment was ratified by 72.9 percent of the voters.

Its almost like a third of the officers eligible to vote didnt vote, Tinsley said. It takes very little effort to go vote, and you should go vote here and in the regular elections as well. This is their opportunity to express their voice.
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By Staff Report

The Texas Hunger Initiative will host the annual Empty Bowls fundraiser 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Nov. 17 at the Cactus Hotel, 36 E. Twohig Ave.

Volunteer servers are needed to help with the event, which benefits the Wesley Trinity Daily Bread Soup Lunch kitchen.

Tickets are $25, and attendees will enjoy a soup and bread lunch and take home a handcrafted pottery bowl to serve as a reminder that there are still many empty bowls in our community and across the world.

Call 325-655-5694 for more information.
Saudi Arabia told a UN committee last week that it does not sentence children to death, despite submitting written evidence in which it admitted people can be executed for crimes committed aged 15, anti-death penalty charity Reprieve has found.





The Saudi delegation told the UNs child rights committee last Wednesday that, The crime must have been committed by a perpetrator who is an adult at the time in order for them to be sentenced to capital punishment. The delegation claimed that the age of liability is always 18.





However, this was directly contradicted by Saudi Arabias written evidence to the same UN committee, which contained a buried admission that children as young as 15 can face the death penalty, although the execution is not carried out until they turn 18.





Earlier this month, Reprieve wrote to Theresa May and urged the British prime minister to raise the cases of Ali Al-Nimr Abdullah Al-Zaher and Dawood Al-Marhoon , three juveniles who were sentenced to death in the Kingdom for allegedly taking part in protests. In January this year, Saudi Arabia executed Ali al-Ribh , who was arrested at school aged 17.





Saudi Arabia confirmed in its written report to the UN that juveniles can be sentenced to death. It said that Children who have reached the age of 15 and commit a qisas or hudud offence face qisas or hudud penalties depending upon their offence although the penalty is not enforced until they reach the age of 18. Under Saudi law, a qisas offence can allow the family of a murder victim to seek lethal retribution, and a hudud penalty can entail execution.





Harriet McCulloch, deputy director of Reprieves death penalty team, said:





It is outrageous for Saudi Arabia to lie to the UN and pretend that children are not sentenced to death in the Kingdom. Ali al-Nimr, Abdullah al-Zaher and Dawood al-Marhoon were all under 18 when they were handed death sentences for allegedly attending protests. The international community should not fall for the Saudi governments propaganda. The UK Foreign Office says it doesnt expect Ali, Dawood and Abdullah to be executed  but vague assurances are not enough. Saudi Arabia has already executed juveniles like Ali al-Ribh earlier this year. The UK Foreign Secretary must urgently call for all death sentences imposed on juveniles to be overturned. 





Saudi Arabia made the oral claims at 1h56m of this webcast: I can say there is no application of the death penalty on children. We provide for capital punishment in very precise circumstances and it is applied to mature adults, and only after sufficient proof the court receives an assurance that that the perpetrator of the crime was an adult at the time the crime was committed. So if that is not the case, then no capital punishment ruling is delivered, even if the person is facing trial once the age of majority has been reached. The crime must have been committed by a perpetrator who is an adult at the time in order for them to be sentenced to capital punishment. I insist there can never a sentence of capital punishment handed down on a child and it is only a sentence that is handed down to adults. And then at 2h01m03s, the age of liability is always 18.

Saudi Arabia made the written statement on page 7 of its reply to the List of issues in relation to the combined third and fourth periodic reports of Saudi Arabia for the Seventy-third session of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 13-30 September 2016.

Reprieves letter to Theresa May is available on request.





Source: Reprieve, September 30, 2016. Reprieve is an international human rights organization. Reprieves London office can be contacted on: communications@reprieve.org.uk.

Saudi Arabia contradicts itself on child executions at UN

Saudi delegation told UN child rights committee that it does not execute children, but gave written evidence to the contrary





Saudi Arabia has admitted to the UN in writing that it sentences children to death, despite denying the accusation in oral evidence to the body's child rights committee last week.





The Saudi delegation to the UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child said last week, in a live webcast, that "the crime must have been committed by a perpetrator who is an adult at the time in order for them to be sentenced to capital punishment".





According to the delegation's oral evidence, "the age of liability is always 18" in Saudi Arabia.





Sentenced to death: Ali al-Nimr, Abdullah al-Zaher, Dawood al-Marhoon

However, in written evidence to the same committee, the Saudi delegation confirmed that children as young as 15 can be sentenced to death in the kingdom.





Executing people who were juveniles at the time of the offence is illegal under international law.





A written reply to a list of issues put forward by the Committee on the Rights of the Child admitted that children who commit serious crimes can be sentenced to death, but cannot be executed until they reach the age of 18.





"Children who have reached the age of 15 and commit a qisas or hudud offence face qisas or hudud penalties depending on their offence, although the penalty is not enforced until they reach the age of 18," the delegation wrote.





In the Saudi legal system, which is based on a hardline interpretation of Islamic scripture, qisas offences are those for which the victim, or relatives of the victim, can carry out a punishment of "retaliation in kind" against the accused.





Murder and manslaughter are listed as qisas crimes, which can be punished with execution, in Saudi Arabia's penal code.





Hudud crimes relate to a category of crimes that are specifically mentioned in Islamic scripture - they include blasphemy, theft, adultery, slander and banditry.





A number of people sentenced to death as juveniles are currently still on death row in Saudi Arabia.





Ali al-Nimr, the nephew of a prominent Shia cleric whose execution earlier this year sparked mass protests, is facing the death sentence for anti-government protests when he was under 18.





2 others were convicted alongside him in similar cases. Earlier this year, authorities executed Ali al-Ribh, who had been arrested from a school class aged 17 due to activism calling for reform.





The Saudi government's apparent contradiction over its stance on child executions was reported on Friday by Reprieve, a UK-based anti-death penalty charity.





Harriet McCulloch, deputy director of Reprieve's death penalty team, decried what she called the Saudi government's "propaganda" aimed at the international community.





"It is outrageous for Saudi Arabia to lie to the UN and pretend that children are not sentenced to death in the kingdom.





"The international community should not fall for the Saudi government's propaganda.





"Saudi Arabia has already executed juveniles ... this year. The UK Foreign Secretary must urgently call for all death sentences imposed on juveniles to be overturned."

 | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; send a submission; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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Source: Middle East Eye, September 29, 2016
Dyess personnel amass to honor four airmen killed in a plane crash last year. (Photo by Brian Bethel)

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By Brian Bethel of the Abilene Reporter News

Dyess Air Force personnel, family and community members gathered Friday to honor Capt. Jordan Pierson, Capt. Jonathan "J.J." Golden, Staff Sgt. Ryan Hammond, and Senior Airman Quinn Johnson-Harris, four airmen killed in a C-130J Super Hercules crash in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Oct. 2, 2015.

A plaque honoring the airmen was unveiled at the ceremony, at which Air Force leadership and family members spoke in honor of the four airmen. Those gathered observed 62 seconds of deep silence. Shortly thereafter, C-130s shook the sky in memory of the crew and their sacrifice.

Col. Stephen Hodge, commander of the 317th Airlift Group at Dyess, said after the ceremony that "strength through unity" was a central message of the day's observance  and had been all throughout the aftermath of the crash.

"As we mourned we were very careful to mourn together, to reach out to one another and feel the support and love," he said. "At any given moment, we received words of strength and words of encouragement from the globe, not just this patch here."

That sense of ties from "all over" was what Hodge wanted people to walk away from with from Friday's ceremony.

"When we fly a crew and it has a call sign of TORQUE 62, that's only indicative of the bigger group  we stand next to each other in our times of trouble and our times of elation," he said.

Community support has helped to steel the resolve of those left to remember and mourn, he said.

"It helps us to know our sacrifice is with due cause," he said.

Pierson was a pilot assigned to the 39th Airlift Squadron. He graduated from the United States Air Force Academy with a bachelor's degree in general studies and received his commission May 26, 2010.

Golden was also a pilot assigned to the 39th Airlift Squadron. Prior to commissioning through Officer Training School in 2011, he was an Airborne Operations Technician at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia.

Hammond was a loadmaster assigned to the 39th Airlift Squadron. He graduated from John Marshall High School in 2007 and arrived at Dyess Mar. 30, 2014.

Johnson-Harris was also a loadmaster assigned to the 39th Airlift Squadron. He graduated from Homestead High School in 2012 and arrived at Dyess May 2, 2014.

In addition to the Dyess crew  five civilian contractors on board the plane, two members of the 66th Security Forces Squadron from Hanscom AFB in Massachusetts, and three Afghan troops in a guard tower were killed in the crash.
JOHN MORITZ/CALLER-TIMES State Rep. John Otto (left), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, confers Public Education Committee Chairman Jimmie Don Aycock.

SHARE JOHN MORITZ/CALLER-TIMES State Rep. John Otto (left), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, confers Public Education Committee Chairman Jimmie Don Aycock.

Reform can have massive ripple effects

By John C. Moritz, USA TODAY Austin Bureau

AUSTIN  Changing the way Texas funds its public schools would have huge ripple effects through the state's economy because the tax structure can affect where people live and how business is conducted, experts told a panel of lawmakers.

The discussion before a joint hearing Wednesday of the House Public Education and Appropriations committees opened what could be a major push by state leaders to tackle complicated finance system. But, because the Texas Supreme Court this summer ruled the current system passes constitutional muster, they also could choose to leave the system as it is.

"Now that the court case is over, we have free range to do what we think is best," said state Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, a Killeen Republican who chairs the education panel.

His remark drew some chuckles in the hearing room because both he and Appropriations Chairman John Otto, R-Dayton, are retiring after the November elections, meaning they won't be around for any political battle on the subject.

But the impetus to address school finance is fueled by the fact that the high court also cited the need for "transformational, top-to-bottom reforms" to ensure Texas school children have access to an equitable K-12 education. The two committees are expected to make some sort of school finance recommendation to the full Legislature when the 2017 session starts in January.

But the process carries political risks because of the amount of tax money needed to pay for schools.

Dale Craymer, president of an Austin think-tank called the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, said the local property tax that pays for roughly half the state's education-related expenses, generates about $30 billion a year from homeowners and businesses.

"The property tax is the most harmful tax to economic development and homeownership," Craymer told the lawmakers.

But significant changes could be just as bad, he added.

If the local school property tax was abolished, it would probably require a doubling of the sales rate, Craymer said. But that would likely transform the shopping habits of ordinary Texas, he added. And no elected leader has seriously floated the idea of a state income tax in a generation because of the expected voter backlash.

The current system has no shortage of critics, both in the Legislature and in local communities. Because property wealth varies from school district to school district, the state skims revenues from rich regions and transfers it to those less well off.

Then there's the complicating factor that a district might be property rich because heavy industry or oil and gas resources, but most of its school children come from families of modest means, Otto pointed out.

"When you start looking at changes, there's winners and losers," he said. "And the losers aren't going to voter for it."

Twitter: JohnnieMo

The history of Texas school finance For a short course in Texas ongoing effort to craft a system to finance public schools in a manner mandated by the state  C  constitution, theres a report published Tuesday by the Texas House Research Organization. Find it  on its home page,  at www.hro.state.tx.us.

The history of Texas school finance

For a short course in Texas ongoing effort to craft a system to finance public schools in a manner mandated by the state constitution, theres a report published Tuesday by the Texas House Research Organization. Find it at www.hro.state.tx.us.
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The following editorial appeared in the Sept. 20 New York Times:

How does a lie come to be widely taken as the truth?

The answer is disturbingly simple: Repeat it over and over again. When faced with facts that contradict the lie, repeat it louder.

This, in a nutshell, is the story of claims of voting fraud in America  and particularly of voter impersonation fraud, the only kind that voter ID laws can possibly prevent.

Last week, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that nearly half of registered American voters believe that voter fraud occurs "somewhat" or "very" often. That astonishing number includes two-thirds of people who say they're voting for Donald Trump and a little more than one-quarter of Hillary Clinton supporters. Another 26 percent of American voters said that fraud "rarely" occurs, but even that characterization is off the mark. Just 1 percent of respondents gave the answer that comes closest to reflecting reality: "Never."

As study after study has shown, there is virtually no voter fraud anywhere in the country. The most comprehensive investigation to date found that out of 1 billion votes cast in all American elections between 2000 and 2014, there were 31 possible cases of impersonation fraud. Other violations  like absentee ballot fraud, multiple voting and registration fraud  are also exceedingly rare. So why do so many people continue to believe this falsehood?

Credit for this mass deception goes to Republican lawmakers, who have for years pushed a fake story about voter fraud, and thus the necessity of voter ID laws, in an effort to reduce voting among specific groups of Democratic-leaning voters. Those groups  mainly minorities, the poor and students  are less likely to have the required forms of identification.

Behind closed doors, some Republicans freely admit that stoking false fears of electoral fraud is part of their political strategy. In a recently disclosed email from 2011, a Republican lobbyist in Wisconsin wrote to colleagues about a very close election for a seat on the State Supreme Court. "Do we need to start messaging 'widespread reports of election fraud' so we are positively set up for the recount regardless of the final number?" he wrote. "I obviously think we should."

Sometimes they acknowledge it publicly. In 2012, a former Florida Republican Party chairman, Jim Greer, told The Palm Beach Post that voter ID laws and cutbacks in early voting are "done for one reason and one reason only"  to suppress Democratic turnout. Consultants, Greer said, "never came in to see me and tell me we had a fraud issue. It's all a marketing ploy."

The ploy works. During the 2012 election, voter ID laws in Kansas and Tennessee reduced turnout by about 2 percent, or about 122,000 votes, according to a 2014 analysis by the Government Accountability Office. Turnout fell the most among young people, African-Americans and newly registered voters. Another study analyzing elections from 2006 through 2014 found that voting by eligible minority citizens decreased significantly in states with voter ID laws and "that the racial turnout gap doubles or triples in states" with those laws.

There are plenty of shortcomings in the American voting system, but most are a result of outdated machines, insufficient resources or human error  not intentional fraud. All of these are made only worse by shutting down polling places or eliminating early voting hours, measures frequently supported by Republican legislators.

Those efforts are especially galling in a nation where, on a good day, only 60 percent of eligible voters show up to the polls. The truth is that those who created the specter of voter fraud don't care about the integrity of the voting system; they want to undermine the rights of legitimate voters because that helps them win elections. The scary thing is how many Americans have bought into this charade. ...
Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Thursday the U.S. will "sharpen our military edge" in Asia and the Pacific in order to remain a dominant power in a region feeling the effects of China's rising military might.

Carter made the pledge in a speech aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in port in San Diego.

The Pentagon chief described what he called the next phase of a U.S. pivot to Asia  a rebalancing of American security commitments after years of heavy focus on the Middle East

His speech, aimed at reassuring allies unsettled by China's behavior in the South China Sea, came three days after he made remarks at a nuclear missile base in North Dakota about rebuilding the nuclear force. Those comments prompted a strong reaction from the Russian foreign ministry, which issued a statement saying it had interpreted Carter's statement as a declared intention to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons.

Carter said the Pentagon will make its attack submarines more lethal and spend more to build undersea drones that can operate in shallower waters where submarines cannot.

"The United States will continue to sharpen our military edge so we remain the most powerful military in the region and the security partner of choice," he said.

He added, "We're going to have a few surprises as well," describing them only as "leap-ahead investments."

With a broad complaint that China is "sometimes behaving aggressively," Carter alluded to Beijing's building of artificial islands in disputed areas of the South China Sea.

"Beijing sometimes appears to want to pick and choose which principles it wants to benefit from and which it prefers to try to undercut," he said. "For example, the universal right to freedom of navigation that allows China's ships and aircraft to transit safely and peacefully is the same right that Beijing criticizes other countries for exercising in the region. But principles are not like that. They apply to everyone, and every nation, equally."

Carter's speech was meant to set the scene for a meeting Friday in Hawaii with his counterparts from the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN. The association focuses mainly on trade issues, but in recent years, with U.S. encouragement, has sought to engage in a range of defense and military issues. The U.S. is not a member of the organization but has sought to use it as a forum for further developing security partnerships amid regional concern about China's military buildup.

On Carter's flight from San Diego to Hawaii later Thursday, a senior defense official aboard the plane told reporters that Carter expects to hear concerns from some Southeast Asian ministers, including those from Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, about the threat they perceive from an expected return of extremists who have been fighting for the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon, said "hundreds" of IS fighters already have returned to Southeast Asia from Syria and Iraq and said up to 1,000 more may return as the Islamic State group faces increased military pressure.

Carter has described Pentagon efforts to execute a "pivot" to Asia by shifting, or rebalancing, U.S. forces and attention toward the Asia-Pacific region after a decade and a half of Mideast-focused strategies and operations.

In April, he said he was putting "the best people and platforms forward to the Asia-Pacific" by increasing the number of U.S. military personnel in the region and by sending and stationing advanced weapons system there. He said that includes F-22 and F-35 stealth fighter jets, P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft, continuous deployments of B-2 and B-52 strategic bombers and the newest surface warfare ships like the amphibious assault ship USS America.

Among the Asia problems that have arisen for the Pentagon since Carter last met with the region's defense ministers is a sudden and steep deterioration in relations with the Philippines.

When Carter visited the Philippines in April, he praised the strength of the partnership. He said his visit had inaugurated "a major new era in a longstanding alliance." He was referring to the U.S.-Philippines Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. "I'm proud to say this alliance is as close as it's been in years."

That seeming closeness took a sharp downturn when Rodrigo Duterte was elected president in June. In early September, President Barack Obama cancelled a meeting with Duterte after the Philippine leader publicly called him a "son of a bitch." Later, Duterte said he regretted the comment. And just this week, Duterte said joint military exercises of Filipino and American troops scheduled for next week will be the last such drills, although his foreign secretary quickly said the decision was not final. Duterte said the Philippines will maintain its military alliance with the United States because they share a 65-year-old mutual defense treaty.

"I would serve notice to you now that this will be the last military exercise," Duterte said Wednesday. "Jointly, Philippines-U.S., the last one."

Even so, Carter said in his speech Thursday that the relationship with the Philippines is "ironclad."

As host of Friday's meeting in Hawaii of defense ministers of the Associated of Southeast Asian Nations, Carter is expected to have at least informal interaction with Philippine Defense Minister Delfin Lorenzana.



This story has been corrected to show that the defense minister for the Philippines is Delfin Lorenzana, not Voltaire Gazmin.
Blog Hinangai

While there is much discussion in Guam about the economic benefits of increasing the islands military presence, the damages/dangers that they represent are rarely mentioned. This blog, a supplement to the Peace and Justice for Guam Petition, is meant to counter that by providing information about the US military in Guam, with the hopes of steering policy away from a dangerous unilateralist course to more sustainable notions of regional development and a strengthening international solidarity.
The Nevada Supreme Court on Thursday struck down the states education savings account law, ruling that while the premise of using taxpayer money for private education was constitutional, the method used to fund the ESA program was not.The high court ordered a permanent injunction against the law  viewed as the most sweeping school choice legislation in the country  that was passed last year on a party-line vote by the Republican-controlled Legislature.GOP legislators who had championed the law pledged to establish a separate funding account and called for Gov. Brian Sandoval to include the ESA program on the agenda for an anticipated special session next month. That session, which Sandoval is expected to convene between Oct. 7 and Oct. 13, already was set to consider financing for a stadium in Clark County and an expansion of the Las Vegas Convention Center.But late Thursday the Republican governor signaled the issue of funding ESAs should be addressed by the 2017 Legislature when it convenes in February.
Backers of ColoradoCare  the state ballot initiative that would establish universal health care in Colorado  think they have the perfect job for former presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders.With the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia behind him, Sanders comes to Colorado and campaigns for single-payer  and we win, said T.R. Reid, one of the architects of ColoradoCare. The initiative aims to provide every resident of Colorado with affordable health insurance. Sanders made universal coverage one of the cornerstones of his presidential bid.The proposal comes with a $38 billion annual price tag  to be paid by a tax on workers and businesses. The program would eliminate the need for insurance premiums and deductibles, and proponents claim it would save the state and individuals a lot of money.Reid said the backers of ColoradoCare have pitched Sanders team, hoping he will campaign on behalf of the measure that will come before voters in November.Sanders has already championed the issue in the state  he pushed for a single-payer system during his Democratic primary campaign in Colorado. It was one of his key health care positions, and it got thousands of his supporters cheering at an event in Denver in February.I believe that healthcare is a right, not privilege, Sanders told cheering crowds.He also beat that drum during a TV appearance with MSNBCs Rachel Maddow in May. Sanders pointed out that Canada started what would eventually become its nationwide system of universal health care by persuading lawmakers in each province  one at a time.So if youre asking me, do I think if a major state  whether its Colorado or California or whatever  goes forward and it works well, [will] other states say Hey, you know, I got a brother over there in Colorado and hes getting health care, great health care and its less expensive than the current system,  Sanders said. Yeah, I think that is one possibility.The whole concept of ColoradoCare  or Amendment 69, as it will appear on the ballot  appeals to Andrew Kleiman, a 35-year-old Sanders supporter from Grand Junction.I think were just at such a tipping point, Kleiman said. The momentum of Bernies campaign carried over into something like this would be a perfect fit and pretty necessary.Kleiman said if Sanders actively backed the proposal in Colorado it would help motivate millennials like him to vote.Reid agrees. The last poll showed 60 percent of millennials support ColoradoCare, he said. Those are Bernie people and if he can turn them out to vote, we win.But a coalition of opponents, including conservatives, insurance firms and business groups have come out against the initiative, which is expected to draw big money from both sides.I dont think the economics of it work out, said Nina Anderson, a small business owner in Grand Junction. She said the proposed program would be too expensive for small businesses and employees.Colorado has been on the cutting edge of some other big policy changes, like legalizing recreational pot. Anderson said shes not ready for the state to take the lead on a huge government-run health care system, and does not think Sanders should jump in.That is the scary part, I think, about being in Colorado and being on the forefront of anything that is attempting to move to socialized care, Anderson said. You do get everybody with outside interests coming in and playing in your sandbox.Cody Belzley, who served as senior health policy analyst to former Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, opposes the proposal and said shes not sure what difference Sanders would make  if he did visit.Its such a strange political year, Belzley said. I think its really hard to know whats going to impact Colorado voters or the outcome of Amendment 69. I think this is a decision to be made by Colorado voters, based on whats going to be best for them and their families.Colorado voters havent passed a general tax increase in years. The health law cut the states uninsured rate in half, but many residents still struggle with high premiums and deductibles.Belzley, who works for group opposing the amendment, Coloradans for Coloradans, urges voters to look at the details. I think when folks look at that, she said, they come to understand this is just too risky a proposal.Sanders presence in Colorado could motivate voters on both sides, said Seth Masket, a political science professor at the University of Denver.Thats kind of the mixed message of initiatives, Masket said. They can really draw out both sides, depending on how passionate people are on the subject. The key for supporters of this initiative would be to translate passion for Sanders into passion for this initiative. Sanders is probably the best equipped to actually make that case.A representative from the Sanders campaign, Michael Briggs, said the topic is something that, interests Bernie very much. We dont have a trip scheduled yet, but he has been keeping a close eye on this.
When he was attorney general of Texas, Greg Abbott sued the Obama administration more than 30 times. Now that hes governor, Abbott is seeking to challenge Washington in a more fundamental way.Abbott is leading a push for a national constitutional convention in hopes of enacting numerous amendments to restrict federal power. I realized its going to take more than lawsuits to fix whats wrong in Washington, D.C., Abbott says. We have all three branches of government that are trampling the Constitution.Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, a constitutional convention can be called by a vote of two-thirds of the state legislatures. Its not unusual for legislatures to approve such resolutions. Typically, however, they call for amendments to address individual topics -- a balanced budget requirement, for example, or campaign finance restrictions that would overturn the Supreme Court ruling known as Citizens United.Abbotts plan is wider in scope. He seeks not only to require a balanced federal budget, but to block federal agencies from preempting state laws. He wants a vote by two-thirds of the 50 states to have the power to override federal laws or Supreme Court decisions. Abbott has a total of nine amendments that would restrict federal authority in one fashion or another.Already, a half-dozen states have answered Abbotts call. But questions surrounding a proposed convention of the states arise immediately. For one thing, its not clear whether the votes already taken will still count next year, or if a two-thirds majority of states must approve resolutions all within the same year. Its uncertain whether the anti-Citizens United resolutions that have been approved would count along with Abbotts proposal toward reaching the two-thirds threshold, or whether states have to be uniform in terms of a proposed agenda. The states keep piling on calls for a convention, and no one is sure how they should be counted up, says Jonathan Marshfield, a law professor at the University of Arkansas.If and when Abbott or some other organizer gets two-thirds of the states to agree, presumably one of the disagreeing states would sue to block the convention from taking place. The Supreme Court would then have to decide whether a convention can happen.Even if justices gave the green light, theres no certainty about what the rules governing a convention might be, such as whether delegates from a state would vote as a bloc or as individuals. For all these reasons, some legal scholars have argued that the first order of business should be proposing an amendment that would clarify the entire process. Article V is the black hole of constitutional law, Marshfield says. Theres just so much we dont know.The uncertainty is one reason why an Article V convention has never taken place. Its not even clear whether a convention would or could be limited in terms of its agenda. The entire Constitution might be fair game. That makes lots of people nervous.But not Abbott. He fully recognizes that liberal states are likely to propose changes that he and other conservatives would balk at. His response is, in essence: Bring it on. Because Republicans control a majority of states, he asserts, now is the time to fix the Constitution.I was fascinated by the Abbott proposal because it seeks to turn into a virtue what had been seen as a drawback -- the inability to put a lid on topics, says Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institutes Center for Constitutional Studies. Abbott turns it around and says, Lets go ahead and open the agenda, fully understanding there are ideas that I dont like.
Separation of Church and State

Death Penalty

Redistricting

Race

A dispute over a New York law (which is similar to laws in nine other states) that prevents retailers from adding a surcharge for customers who pay with credit cards. New York officials say its law does allow sellers to offer discounts to customers who pay in cash, though. The plaintiffs in Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman say the law violates the First Amendment because it regulates how the retailers characterize their prices. But an appeals court upheld the law, concluding that it simply required retailers to charge credit card users the advertised price on their goods

A lawsuit by an Illinois man who was jailed for 47 days on drug charges, even after lab tests came back negative. Manuel v. City of Joliet could clarify the rules for malicious prosecution lawsuits.

A case, called Fry v. Napoleon Community Schools, brought by the family of a girl with cerebral palsy whose school prevented her from bringing a service dog to class. The question centers on whether the family needed to exhaust its administrative options before filing a lawsuit.

An action brought by deaf and hard-of-hearing students against the Texas Education Association over the availability of drivers education courses for deaf and hard-of-hearing students under 25. The plaintiffs in Ivy v. Morath claim the state agency controls nearly all aspects of drivers education and, thus, should ensure that students with disabilities are accommodated in those courses.

A dispute involving four Wisconsin brothers who argue that the state took land away from their family when it rezoned two neighboring properties as one property. By doing so, the state prevented the brothers from developing and selling the parcels separately. The brothers argue that the state regulation made half of the parcels economically useless and they should be compensated for the loss. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals ruled that there was no taking because the family had retained significant value even after the properties merged.

An evenly divided U.S. Supreme Court returns from its summer recess on Monday to confront a long list of thorny issues, including the death penalty, separation of church and state and several cases involving race. But just how far the justices are willing to go in those and other cases will likely hinge on the outcome of the presidential race.The death last year of Justice Antonin Scalia left the court split 4-4 between liberals and conservatives. President Obama nominated a replacement for Scalia -- federal appeals court Judge Merrick Garland -- but the Republicans who control the U.S. Senate have declined to consider him until at least after the presidential election.Since Scalias death, the court has been deadlocked on contentious cases involving issues like public-sector unions and Obamas executive action on immigration . In other cases, the justices have issued narrow rulings to close cases without issuing broad new policies.Until Scalias vacancy is filled, legal experts expect the court to continue to shy away from major controversies.Lisa Soronen, executive director of the State and Local Legal Center, said the high court has taken a slightly lower but not hugely lower number of cases this year. The real difference may be in the types of cases the court has accepted. In any given term, about 20 percent of opinions might be split 5-4. With only eight justices, I think they've been filling it with cases where they think they can resolve issues," she said.But theres still plenty at stake.Even in a more dull or non-exciting Supreme Court term, state and local governments have a lot of cases that affect them," said Soronen.These are the most important for states and localities:A Missouri case could determine whether states can exclude religious institutions from public funding for an otherwise neutral and secular aid program.The dispute could have national implications because about three-quarters of states, including Missouri, have a provision in their constitutions that prohibits direct government aid to educational institutions with a religious affiliation.In the case, a Missouri agency denied a grant application for materials to resurface a school playground owned by Trinity Lutheran Church. The church argues that by denying it the money, the state violated the First Amendments protections for the free exercise of religion and the 14th Amendments guarantees of equal treatment under the law.Missouri, on the other hand, says no constitutional violation occurred.As the text of the First Amendment shows, the government must ensure that the exercise of religion remains unrestrained, but that does not mean the government must pay the churchs bills, its lawyers wrote.A case out of Texas examines whether a state appellate court should have followed current medical standards in deciding whether someone facing a death sentence had an intellectual disability.The Supreme Court already ruled in 1992 that, under the Eighth Amendment, states cannot execute someone with an intellectual disability. But it did not clarify what measures states can use to make that decision.Texas used a definition from the early 1990s, but attorneys for Bobby Moore -- who was convicted of killing a 75-year-old supermarket employee with a shotgun -- claim that he would be ineligible for capital punishment if Texas instead used current clinical definitions from the American Psychiatric Association and American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.The justices will also grapple with two redistricting cases -- one from North Carolina and the other from Virginia -- that deal with the appropriate standards for accounting for voters race when drawing new congressional or legislative districts.It's a topic that has long vexed the high court as well as the lower courts and state legislators who must follow the Supreme Courts rulings.On the one hand, the federal Voting Rights Act requires maps to ensure that large blocs of minority voters who tend to vote together must have the power to elect their own representatives. On the other hand, the high court has also ruled that states cannot gerrymander districts strictly on the basis of race, especially if that means that they are packed into a district to reduce their overall influence.The redistricting cases before the high court so far this term involve North Carolinas congressional map, which was struck down by a federal appeals court, and Virginias state legislative districts, which were upheld by a lower court. They both deal with situations in which minority groups claim Republican lawmakers impermissibly packed black voters into a few districts in order to reduce their overall strength in the state.GOP officials in both cases say they used nonracial criteria (such as party affiliation) to craft the disputed districts. The cases are McCrory v. Harris and Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Board of Elections.Cases with such partisan implications could easily lead to a deadlock. But Justice Anthony Kennedy, a moderate conservative, sided with the courts liberal bloc in an Alabama redistricting case decided last year, leaving open the possibility that the left-leaning justices could find another majority in the current redistricting cases as well.Beyond politics, race plays a role in several cases this term.A lawsuit brought by the city of Miami against Wells Fargo and Bank of America deals with the practice of reverse redlining.Miami claims the banks targeted black and Hispanic customers for higher-risk loans, which came with higher fees and led to higher foreclosure rates. As a result, Miami argues that the practice cost the city tax revenue and lead to higher costs for public safety and human services.At issue is whether Miami has standing to sue for those damages under the Fair Housing Act. The trial judge ruled that it did not, but an appeals court disagreed.In another case in Colorado, a Hispanic man convicted of sexual assault is asking for a new trial after two jurors said that one of their fellow jurors made several disparaging remarks about Mexican men during the jury deliberations.The defendant claims that those comments deprived him of his right to a fair trial, as guaranteed by the Sixth and 14th Amendments. But a majority of the Colorado Supreme Court rejected the argument because of a law that bars testimony from jurors about their secret deliberations.Such no impeachment rules are common among states.Other cases on the courts docket include:
She called police because her brother was "not acting like himself."He was walking in and out of traffic in the scorching afternoon sun. Three times, she said, she called 911, telling dispatchers he was sick and needed help.El Cajon police were dispatched on a 5150 call, a request for an involuntary psychiatric hold. Officers spotted Alfred Okwera Olango behind a downtown restaurant in a parking lot backed by low-slung apartment buildings. Moments later, police opened fire on the 38-year-old African American man, mortally wounding him.The shooting sparked protests in the San Diego suburb and became a new flashpoint in the long-running debate about deadly encounters between police and people with mental illnesses.Law enforcement agencies have been focusing training in recent years on de-escalating confrontations between officers and the mentally ill as a way of reducing violence.But the shooting Tuesday in El Cajon underscores both the challenges officers face when making split-second decisions and what critics say are inadequate policies and training on how to end these types of interactions without resorting to violence.El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis said Olango ignored multiple orders from an officer and "concealed his hand in his pants pockets." He paced back and forth as two officers talked to him, then "rapidly drew an object from his front pants pockets, placed both hands together on it and extended it rapidly toward [one] officer, taking what appeared to be a shooting stance," the chief said.That officer opened fire, while the other officer deployed his Taser gun. Davis declined to say the number of shots that were fired. No firearm was found at the scene, but police said they recovered a vape smoking device that officials believe he was holding in his hand.The department did not release video of the incident, but did post a photo showing Olango pointing at an officer's face as if he had a gun.Police said the officers did not have body or dash cameras but recovered one cellphone video of the shooting from an eyewitness.Bystanders posted video of Olango's sister reacting to the shooting, at one point crying: "You killed my brother!""Don't you guys have a crisis communication team to talk to somebody mentally sick?" she asked an officer.Some critics of the way police deal with the mentally ill joined calls from local community activists for the police to release the full video, saying it would help determine whether the officers acted properly."Police departments are not doing enough with the mentally ill. They talk about training and training for officers. But what about accountability?" said activist Ron Thomas, a former Orange County sheriff's deputy whose mentally ill son Kelly was killed by Fullerton police in 2011. "Departments aren't holding officers accountable when they harm the mentally ill."A Facebook page for Alfred Olango identifies him as a head cook at a Hooters restaurant who is originally from Uganda. It says he went to San Diego High School and studied at San Diego Mesa College.Within hours of the killing, protests erupted in the city, and they resumed on Wednesday.At a news conference Wednesday morning, Agnes Hassan, a relative, said she and Olango had been in a refugee camp together before coming to the U.S. to make a better life for themselves and their children."We suffered too much with the war in Africa.... We come here, to suffer again," she said.Hassan said she was heartbroken."What happened yesterday, it wasn't right," she said.Some community activists said they were concerned that Olango's race -- as well as his mental condition -- played a role in the officers' actions.Bishop Cornelius Bowser, a gang interventionist at Pastor of Charity Apostolic Church, said residents don't trust the department, that relations between the black community and police have "been ruined already.""We don't want to see a still picture," he said. "We want to see the whole story."El Cajon police said they have not released the whole video because San Diego law enforcement protocol states that officer-involved shooting video -- whether from witnesses or police body-worn cameras -- should not be released until the district attorney has reviewed it. It's unclear when that will occur.The city's mayor, Bill Wells, said Wednesday that the FBI had joined the investigation of the shooting, and he urged calm and understanding in the community."I saw a man who was distraught, a man who was acting out like he was in great pain. I saw him get gunned down and killed. If it was my son, I would be devastated," he said. "The most important thing to take away ... today is a tragedy occurred in El Cajon yesterday. We lost a life. Nobody wants to see the loss of a life."The El Cajon shooting comes amid ongoing national anguish over police shootings of blacks. Last week, Charlotte, N.C., was rocked by days of protests after police fatally shot 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott. Police say Scott was armed, but the video released of the killing does not clearly show his hands, doing little to quell the unrest.Experts on police procedure said they needed more information to say whether the shooting was justified.Ed Obayashi, a Plumas County, Calif., sheriff's deputy and legal advisor, said that even training officers to de-escalate interactions with the mentally ill may not have helped in this case."When those hands come up in a shooting stance, the officer wouldn't have time to assess whether what is in the hands is a gun," Obayashi said. "Almost immediately, the officer sees the hands flash up into a shooting stance, he must react. A second will be too late if it's a firearm."He said the situation appeared to unfold quickly, "so there was no time to call for a mental health crisis team."Former LAPD Capt. Greg Meyer, who oversaw mental health training and testifies in use-of-force trials, agreed, saying the officers didn't have time to see if the Taser alone would have subdued him."These things happen in split seconds," he said.The Los Angeles Police Department, among many other agencies, has been beefing up training for how officers deal with mentally ill people, after a series of controversial shootings.Sam Cochran, a retired major with the Memphis police who pioneered mental health policing in the U.S., said the key to dealing with the mentally ill is to calm the situation. The officers want to begin a conversation to reduce tensions, to de-escalate the situation. But he said a man with his hands in his pockets, refusing to cooperate, can be tough. "Every situation is different."A 2015 Police Executive Research Forum survey of 281 police agencies found the average young officer received 58 hours of firearms training and 49 hours of defensive tactical training but only eight hours of de-escalation training.About 100 protesters gathered at the El Cajon police headquarters on Wednesday morning, calling for an end to killings of unarmed black men across the country, invoking the names of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Freddie Gray."Now, it's finally hitting home," said JJ Balancier, 27.Abu Djinko stood under the shade of a tree, just listening. "This is nothing new to me," Djinko said. The 20-year-old student said his cousin was killed by police after fighting with another man last year."There's a clear fear of my people, for some reason," Djinko said. "This man was unarmed and mentally ill. What compels you to kill when you're supposed to serve and protect?"
On Thursday, in the morning, at Albert Street Uniting Church, Brisbane, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC and Mrs Kaye de Jersey attended the National Police Remembrance Day Church Service and laid the first wreath.

Following, at the Executive Building, Brisbane, the Governor presided at a meeting of the Executive Council.

In the afternoon, at Government House, the Governor received His Excellency Dr Hugo Gobbi, Ambassador of Argentina to Australia.

Following, His Excellency assumed duty as Administrator of the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Honourable Chief Justice Catherine Holmes assumed duty as Acting Governor of Queensland.

In the evening, at Government House, His Excellency, with Mrs de Jersey, hosted a reception for Youth Members and supporters of the 2016 YMCA Queensland Youth Parliament, and addressed guests.
Description

GIS - 30 September, 2016: The Freeport is called upon to play a potentially larger and prominent role in the future with the transitioning from the Freeport to Free zone model. In this endeavour, Budget 2016-2017 sets the scene for transforming the port into a maritime hub in the region from being a destination port. The Freeport is called upon to play a potentially larger and prominent role in the future with the transitioning from the Freeport to Free zone model. In this endeavour, Budget 2016-2017 sets the scene for transforming the port into a maritime hub in the region from being a destination port.

The Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Jugnauth, made this statement yesterday at the opening of a Freeport workshop on Transitioning from the Freeport to Free zone model, organised by the Board of Investment (BOI) at the CyberTower 1, Cybercity in Ebene. He emphasised the crucial role of the Freeport which according to him should be modernised to meet the current new era of development with focus on human development, inclusiveness, and the well-being of the population.

According to the Minister, t he current model has outlived its purpose. Its development is being hindered by too many regulatory and administrative constraints and is not aligned with the new economic cycle that the Government wants to foster, hence the call for a modern Free Zone concept which will address all the current impediments and provide a more attractive business environment for operators. This, he said, will help move from stringent regulations to smart regulations with greater coordination among all institutions concerned.

Minister Pravind Jugnauth further underlined that the Freeport should gear its activities to boost up economic growth and create more wealth with emphasis on people-on bettering the lives of workers, enhancing their productivity so that they can raise their earnings, on connecting families from all walks of life to the digital society, on creating more and better jobs for our youths, and providing greater support to the vulnerables.

It will be recalled that the workshop is a follow up on Governments policy to transform the existing Freeport regime into an integrated Free Zone Model. Budget 2016-2017 announced the development of a new legislative framework to ease the transition from the existing Freeport regime to an integrated Free Zone model which is viewed as one of the key strategies to boost economic growth through exports, thereby improving the countrys competitiveness as a reliable and attractive investment destination.

The Statistics

The setting up of the Freeport in 1992 has helped boost regional trade and promote Mauritius as a logistics, distribution and marketing platform for the region. The Freeports trade value which was Rs 715 million in 1994 has increased to Rs 61 billion in 2015. The sector has been growing at a sustained pace, in excess of 5% over the last five years.
Description

GIS  30 September 2016: Government recognises that technology and innovation have to be part of the development strategy of any country which aspires to have a successful economy. This is why, for the first time since independence, the initiative to have a Ministry with a portfolio on Technology and Innovation has been taken. The drive is also to encourage Mauritians focus more on innovation and on what can be delivered, said the Minister of Technology, Communication and Innovation, Mr Etienne Sinatambou, yesterday at Ebene Heights, in Ebene Cyber-city.

The Minister was speaking at the opening of the 9th edition of Inventors Open Day placed under the theme Driving transformative Entrepreneurial and Social Innovation. The aim was to promote awareness on innovation and Intellectual Property (IP) in Mauritius.

In his address, the Minister stated that the country will achieve enhanced progress when researchers, students, teachers, scientists, academics and all citizens will think and act smart. He thus appealed to citizens to, if not invent, at least innovate and if they have not innovated to think smarter and act smarter for the benefit of the country.

For Minister Sinatambou, innovation and technology and ICT are part of an inextricable nexus, whereby today ICT is an enabler for technology and innovation. He announced that a box for innovation, robotics, and nanotechnology will be proposed at the next Infotech, which is the major annual ICT event in Mauritius organised by the National Computer Board and, scheduled later this year. The Minister also spoke of the raison detre of inventions which, he said, are made not just for the sake of inventing but for making the lives of people easier.

The Open Day brought together more than 30 participants from Research and Development institutions, SMEs, enforcement agencies, as well as innovators, IP practitioners, entrepreneurs, creators and users of IP assets, stakeholders from different sectors and members of the public.

The 9th Inventors Open Day

The event was organised by the Mauritius Research Councils (MRC) Technology Transfer Office with presentations made by two groups, namely: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA); and, Global Rainbow Foundation (GRF). Discussions focused on the following: SME Development Schemes, and, GRF Assistive Devices for Persons with Disabilities.

Moreover, the Ministry of Technology, Communication and Innovation scheduled several activities in the context of Inventors Day on 29 September 2016, namely:

A Workshop on leveraging Open Source Software at the Municipality of Port Louis. Open source software is software that can be freely used, changed, and shared (in modified or unmodified form) by anyone. Open source software is made by many people, and distributed under licenses that comply with the Open Source Definition.

The aim of the workshop was to sensitise young people about free and open source software (FOSS) in education and how FOSS can be leveraged to bring innovation.

Launching of an e-ideas, a new online service to enable communication with Government on technology, communication and innovation.

It is recalled that Inventors' Day is a day of the year set aside by a country to recognise the contributions of inventors. Inventors Day is celebrated by the MRC during the months of May and September each year.
The Challenges Around Data Collection

Privacy and Security Are Expectations

Crafting Policy to Meet Modern Demands

Georgia lawmakers walk a tightrope when it comes to finding the balance between data protection and the health and prosperity of the states diverse business interests. Over-regulate and you risk holding back valuable innovations. Under-regulate and you put potentially millions of constituents' information in harms way.Managing data and the privacy issues associated with it was part of an extensive discussion at the Georgia Digital Government Summit* in Atlanta Sept. 29. During the panel discussion, which included Sen. Bruce Thompson, R-Dist. 14, and Rep. Mike Dudgeon, R- Dist. 25, experts from various stations throughout the government enterprise hashed out the necessary considerations that must be made around the increasingly valuable and abundant digital asset.Since computers first arrived on the scene, the role, and certainly the value, of data has changed. As panel moderator Howard Woodard, with Georgia College and State University, explained, the transition from strictly computational to hyper-valuable has taken several decades.Though this evolution may have happened gradually, Woodard asserted that policies and best practices have not necessarily kept pace with the various channels of data gathering and uses of the last decade. Dudgeon, a member of the House Science and Technology Committee, agreed.The technology for wiring and accessing data has gone at such an amazing pace the last 10 years in the big data world, where the tools just for everybody to gather enormous amounts of data and access it anywhere has just grown way faster than anybody thought about how to secure it, Dudgeon said.Thompson, who serves as chair of the Senate Science and Technology Committee, said the growing number of uses for personal data has added another component to the issue  the challenge of balancing business, convenience and modern expectations with the inherent vulnerabilities.As many of the businesses out there continue to use credit and personal data to be able to drive rates, you look at the insurance industry, you look at the various things that are out there, they look at the model of the individual and their data to be able to do that, Thompson said. Well, then you have to have access to be able to do that. The more points of access you have, the more vulnerable it becomes.The conversation around data is further complicated by the expectations of stakeholders. While many millennials are comfortable sharing their personal data, experts argue that the older generations are more hesitant.There may be a willingness by younger age groups to provide data, but it still comes with an expectation of security, said Robert Orr, CIO for Georgia College and State University. I think from the higher ed perspective, we are no different from each of you in the room. If you are collecting data on somebody, they expect you to keep it secure, he said. Following best practices, following NIST standards, following whatever standards that you have in place.In addition to policies and standards, Orr said audits ensure compliance within his organization.The challenge for us is that we have to rely on our policies, we have to rely on our processes and we have to rely on a very good data governance structure," Orr said. "I think the ability to move forward with protecting personal data and using it rely on those three things."Fulton County CIO Sally Wright said much of the privacy conversation developed out of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of the mid '90s around medical information sharing. Since then the wealth of data on the market and the applications for it have exploded.While the myriad uses present opportunities, some of which Wright called scary, she said the opportunities need to be measured against the larger costs to privacy. The open data movement is one where she said extra thought is needed before simply making everything open.It sounds good, but if you dont take a step back and start to think, What does that mean? you could get in a lot of trouble. She advocates for a clear data classification policy to help define the various forms of information collected and maintained by an organization. This policy should be reviewed and revised regularly.If you define that upfront, when organizations want to do open data, you already know what is open and what is not, Wright said. There are things you have to start with, but its always evolving, so having a general policy in place doesnt mean it is good to go forever. It needs to be on some kind of a cycle to be reviewed, especially IT policy.Government Technology
(TNS)  Two female rockers did a duet Thursday afternoon of two hits from 1976, The Who's "Squeeze Box" and AC/DC's "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)," at the Chattanooga Public Library's downtown branch to show the capability of Chattanooga's high-speed internet networks to a handful of Australian visitors.Chattanooga accordionist Amanda Cagle was on the library's fourth floor while guitarist Linda Bassick was some 1,100 miles away at the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington, Vt. But with only a 30-millisecond delay, it felt like they were jamming in the same room."It's like standing 20 feet away from somebody on stage," library spokeswoman Mary Barnett said.The musicians made music together, because they both were connected to the Global Environment for Network Innovation, or "GENI Rack." It's a nationwide network that's 10 to 100 times faster than Chattanooga's gigabit internet network. The GENI Rack connects some 60 research universities, including the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The Chattanooga Public Library connects through the UTC's GENI Rack link."We're not using the regular Internet," said library employee Rob Wichtman, who ran the soundboard, the high-speed Internet connection and LOLA, the LOw LAtency audio visual streaming software system that let the musicians see and hear each other in real time for their duet.Seeing how Chattanooga is using America's fastest internet is what brought the leaders of Australia's first gig city to Tennessee Thursday as part of their week-long tour of U.S. cities with the fastest broadband speeds."Chattanooga is certainly held up around the world as a shining example of how you can successfully make that transition from a traditional economy with traditional manufacturing to a more innovative economy using high-speed broadband, which is proving to be so critical in all areas of life," said Kyam Maher, the South Australian minister for science and information technology.Adelaide, Australia, this month became the first city to install gigabit internet connections in Australia and the first international city to join US Ignite's network of Smart Gigabit cities. Chattanooga, the first American community to gain citywide gigabit-per-second internet speed via EPB's fiber optic network, is one of 15 Smart Gigabit communities included in a $6 million National Science Foundation program to foster high-speed internet applications."Adelaide is a city very similar to Chattanooga that previously relied heavily upon heavy manufacturing and is transitioning to a new type of economy," Maher said during a visit to the Company Lab at the hub of Chattanooga's Innovation District. "This (gig service) is exceptionally important because of a lot of ways we live, work, learn and get health care in the future will depend upon the way in which we are connected."South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill has cited Chattanooga's economic turnaround and its high-speed Gig service to promote his government's plan to bring gigabit broadband to key areas around Adelaide through the South Australian Broadband and Education Network (SABRENet).Nationwide, the Australian government is spending $40 billion to upgrade its internet links to provide high-speed broadband across most of the continent by 2019.Australia boasts some of the top research facilities in the Southern hemisphere, but its distance from much of the world has kept the continent somewhat isolated."Historically for those living in Australia there was this tyranny of distance," said Tom Hajdu, CEO of Disruptor Dotcom in Australia. "But ultra-high speed internet essentially smashes that tyranny of distance and is a powerful generator, not just of innovation, but of strategic relations as well."The Australian delegation visiting Chattanooga also heard about the ongoing work at the Smart Communications and Analysis Lab (SCAL) at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.Dr. Mina-Sartipi, an associate professor of computer science and engineering at UTC, described how UTC is researching new ways to use the smart electric grid, to promote long-distance and smart health programs using high-speed broadband and figuring out more intelligent transportation networks and urban plans through both wireless communication and broadband pipes to address urban problems of pollution, congestion and transportation.During their week-long American tour, the Australian delegation will also visit three other U.S. "Smart cities"  Austin, Texas, Washington, D.C., and New York City.
Noelle Knell has been the editor of Government Technology magazine for e.Republic since 2015. She has more than two decades of writing and editing experience, covering public projects, transportation, business and technology. A California native, she has worked in both state and local government, and is a graduate of the University of California, Davis, with majors in political science and American history. She can be reached via email and on Twitter.
Hackers have targeted the voter registration systems of 20 U.S. states, successfully infiltrating four of them, according to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official speaking to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.The DHS official said it was unclear whether the attackers were foreign or domestic, though other reports have tied the Russian government to the attacks.In August the FBI warned state officials of the need to improve voter registration security after hackers targeted voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona . Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, FBI Director James Comey acknowledged there have been additional attempted intrusions at voter registration databases since then.The intrusions have prompted concerns over election security as the U.S. presidential election nears. But officials and cybersecurity experts agree it would be nearly impossible for hackers to alter an election's outcome because voting systems themselves are rarely connected to the Internet.The DHS assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications, Andy Ozment, told lawmakers Wednesday that hackers that compromised the Illinois and Arizona voter databases appeared to be seeking personal data that could be sold for a profit rather than looking to compromise an election.Earlier this month, Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., introduced the Election Infrastructure and Security Promotion Act of 2016 , which would require the DHS to designate voting systems as critical infrastructure, and the Election Integrity Act of 2016, which would limit the purchase of new voting systems that do not provide durable voter-verified paper ballots. But its unlikely either bill will be passed before the election, and unclear if the advantages provided by either bill would improve security or outweigh potential downsides.Using voter-verified paper audit trails is an easy and cost-effective way to preserve the integrity and accuracy of our vote, but mandating their use may prevent their replacement once a better system is available, leaving that system outdated and vulnerable, said Cris Thomas, a strategist for Tenable Network Security.Thomas said the real danger is connecting an election management system (EMS) to the Internet, because that system is typically run on standard PCs and used to configure the ballots for the voting computers, tabulate votes and perform other administrative tasks.Compromising an EMS could allow an attacker to change the configuration files used to program voting computers to access sensitive information and potentially alter the election outcome, said Thomas.He suggested the federal government consider conducting a bug bounty type of program and invite white-hat hackers to investigate the security of voting machines to identify possible vulnerabilities.Meanwhile, DHS has offered to help states look into the security of their voter registration systems, and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has encouraged state election officials to secure their systems and ensure electronic voting machines are not connected to the Internet.
Renault's two drivers are still in the dark over whether they will drive for the French works team in 2017.

"As far as I know there are still two seats for next year and I hear the names in the rumour mill, but it is the team's decision what they want to do in the future," British rookie Jolyon Palmer is quoted by the Times.

The Danish media, meanwhile, has been closely monitoring the situation, with BT newspaper reporting that Renault's 2017 option on Kevin Magnussen will expire at midnight on Friday.

"It's frustrating not knowing what I'm doing next year," the 23-year-old admitted.

He did admit, however, that as from Saturday, he is contractually free to negotiate with other teams.

"I don't actually have a manager," said Magnussen. But BT reports that his sponsor, the billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, has been attending recent races.

"I'm talking with a lot of people in the paddock," Magnussen added, "but the only thing I can really do is give my best on the track."

(GMM)
Romain Grosjean says he feels so good about his future in F1 that he bought a house last week.

It is expected the Frenchman will stay at Haas, but the news is yet to be confirmed.

"If I saw 100 per cent (sure), it will mean I have something to announce," he smiled. "So let's say somewhere between 91 and 99pc!"

And team boss Gunther Steiner also smiled: "I think he will continue to be able to pay for his house."

It is believed the Grosjean holdup is because of uncertainty with the other seat, which is currently occupied by Esteban Gutierrez.

Steiner ruled out the Ferrari-backed rookie Charles Leclerc.

"We need a driver who can score points immediately," he said.

Interestingly, Grosjean has scored all 28 of Haas' points in 2016, while Mexican Gutierrez is yet to open his account.

"Let's see," Steiner said when asked about Gutierrez.

"A few races ago, we said we were prepared to wait for some time. In Singapore, he did a good job and the problems at the start were not his fault. So we'll see how he will go in Malaysia."

Steiner admitted that Haas is also waiting to see how the driver 'silly season' pans out.

Gutierrez has been in the headlines recently as the subject of widespread criticism of his backmarker driving, including by Toto Wolff.

"It is clear that he (Wolff) has never driven an F1 car," Gutierrez is quoted by France's Auto Hebdo. "But I don't see it as a danger to my reputation.

"I think it is the contrary, because it gives me publicity, so I should thank him," he added.

(GMM)
F1's two Brazilian drivers are worried amid speculation Interlagos could fall off the race calendar.

Recently, Brazilian grand prix promoter Tamas Rohonyi criticised Felipe Massa for suggesting the future of the race in Sao Paulo was in doubt.

But then the FIA this week published its 2017 calendar showing Brazil with mere provisional status.

"I had just answered a question," Massa told Brazil's Globo, when asked about Rohonyi's criticism.

"I have no idea about the terms of the contract, how it works, I just said that because of the difficult times in Brazil there is a chance of this happening."

Race organisers hit back at the FIA's provisional status by insisting Interlagos has a valid contract.

Massa said: "I said the risk is independent of whether you have a contract or not. Germany has a contract and we were not there last year.

"For Bernie to start talking, putting pressure, we know that something is going on, and now the calendar comes out with a question mark," he added.

Also worried about the future is Sauber driver Felipe Nasr.

"I had heard rumours about the race," he is quoted by UOL. "It would be very sad to lose a race with so much history in formula one, not just for us drivers but also for the audience.

"For me, it would be a huge loss," said Nasr.

(GMM)
Valtteri Bottas is still not ready to confirm that he is staying at Williams in 2017.

It is now widely believed that Williams will line up next year with Canadian rookie Lance Stroll alongside team regular and Finn Bottas.

"I do not have anything new to inform," Bottas told Turun Sanomat newspaper at Sepang.

"The only thing I emphasise is that all is well -- everything is positive."

And he did not want to comment on the rumours about Stroll, whose father is the fashion billionaire Lawrence Stroll.

(GMM)
I found this a very well articulated and written article. It speaks to race in this Presidential campaign in a way that is not often discussed in more than sound bytes. We have a terrible, terrible racial divide in this nation - and having this kind of extroverted racism coming from one of the contenders for the highest position in the nation is alarming in the casual acceptance with which it has been greeted.



I hope the Trump apologists don't piss all over this thread so that any serious discussion of race in the campaign can be had by those interested.

Donald Trump supporters may be passionate, but theyre a bit irony-challenged.In the days since I wrote that Hillary Clinton wasnt necessarily wrong to say that half of Trumps supporters are racists and other deplorables, the response has been, well, deplorable. A sampling of the thousands of emails and social media replies:Please do not tell me you think we whites are just as violent, nasty, and/or Godless as the other races.You call it racism, I call it concern that in time foreign folks will have the voting power to make the USA another Muslim state.Another writer informed me that blacks are the most violent population in America, that blacks work the least of any race in America and that black women have the lowest moral standards of all women in America, concluding: The biggest problem for blacks is blacks.Many others suggested I perform an impossible sex act on myself and another sex act on male genitals, called me a scumbag and far worse, and suggested I eat feces. Some took the opportunity to inform me that my fellow Jews and I are the most racist people on the Earth, that I worship Satan, and that my children and I will be boiled in oil.Then this simple note was sent to me: I hope you outlive your children.I reprint this small sample of the nastygrams not to ruin your next meal but because the half of Trump supporters who arent motivated by prejudice, and the few voters who remain genuinely undecided, should be aware of the bigotry that Trump has brought into the open  and that those who vote for Trump are condoning.This week, police shootings of African Americans in Tulsa and Charlotte provoked more racial strife  and Trump apparently couldnt help but stir the pot. He said he was troubled by the shooting of the unarmed motorist in Tulsa, and he delivered a speech that was, in the prepared text, balanced: We all have to walk a mile in someone elses shoes.But even as he tried to pull back from the flagrant and well-documented bigotry that has characterized his campaign  coziness with white supremacists, scapegoating of Latinos and Muslims, anti-Semitic imagery  Trump couldnt resist going off script and announcing, without proof, that if youre not aware, drugs are a very, very big factor in the Charlotte protests. He told a questioner in Cleveland that he would reduce violence in black communities with the stop-and-frisk policy that has produced discriminatory treatment of African Americans; he later said he would do that only in Chicago.And Trump stood grinning as Don King, a prominent African American supporter, introduced Trump at a Cleveland church with reference to the dancing and sliding and gliding n-----. I mean *****.As this was happening, Trumps campaign chair in Mahoning County in eastern Ohio resigned after she told the Guardian in a video interview that there wasnt any racism until Obama got elected.If youre black and you havent been successful in the last 50 years, its your own fault, the official, Kathy Miller, said. When do they take responsibility for how they live? I think its due time, and I think its good that Mr. Trump is pointing that out.And in Charlotte, Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-N.C.), an enthusiastic Trump backer who claimed he had Trumps support in his primary, told the BBC that the Charlotte protesters hate white people because white people are successful and theyre not. He apologized.Are Pittenger and Miller and those who send vile emails representative of Trump supporters? Or are they more like the way Donald Trump Jr. describes refugees: a few bad ones in a bowl of Skittles?Thats what I tried to answer in my column analyzing Clintons claim that half of Trump supporters are racist, anti-Muslim and the like. I cited data from the American National Election Studies, the gold standard of public opinion research for seven decades. It showed a big recent jump in prejudicial sentiment, to the point where 62 percent of white people believe black people are either lazier or less intelligent than white people, or both. The study further finds that such people disproportionately favor Republicans. Extrapolating, you can calculate that a solid majority of Mitt Romneys voters in 2012 were white people who thought black people lazier and/or less intelligent than white people. The proportion will likely grow for Trump.This doesnt mean most Trump supporters are running around wearing sheets and burning crosses. But it does indicate racist sentiment is more widespread than commonly thought. Whats truly deplorable is that Trump  unlike Romney and others who carried the Republican banner before  is encouraging the sentiment.
FOCUS ON DEFENSE CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND OCEANIA
Five people were arrested Thursday morning after the Lebanon Police Department, with the assistance of multiple agencies, served a narcotics search warrant at a Lebanon residence, according to a news release.

Christoper Pitts, 47, was home when the warrant was executed. Also present were Jamie Lynn Baron, 31; Benjamin Saul Williams, 34; and Karen Brewer Buckner and Stephen Everett Lanham, both 42.

Two children were also in the residence. The Oregon Department of Human Services responded to the scene, and the children were released to family members.

During the search, detectives located user amounts of methamphetamine, one digital scale, a number of small empty bindles used for packaging (some clean and others containing residual amounts of methamphetamine), several syringes and other drug paraphernalia.

Pitts and Baron were arrested and taken to the Lebanon Justice Center Jail, where they were later issued citations for unlawful possession of methamphetamine, endangering the welfare of a minor in the second degree, and frequenting a location where drugs are used or sold.

Lanham was arrested and taken to the Lebanon Justice Center Jail, where he was later issued a citation for unlawful possession of methamphetamine. Williams was arrested and taken to the Linn County Jail, and was lodged on a parole and probation violation charge. Buckner was released at the residence.

Providing assistance were the Linn County Sheriff's Office; the Sweet Home, Albany and Corvallis police departments; the Benton County Sheriff's Office and Linn County Parole and Probation.

People with information related to this search warrant can contact Lebanon Police Department Detective Justin Bach at (541) 451-1751, ext. 4328.
Dec. 18, 1934  Sept. 28, 2016

E. Ray Clontz Jr. was born on Dec. 18, 1934, in Kellogg, Idaho, to Esten Sr. and Laura (Bradley) Clontz.

Ray was the oldest of three children. He is survived by sisters Janice Weinzinger of Portland and Barbara Briggs of Ontario. His parents preceded him in death, as well as stepfather Charles Ruth.

His family later moved to Fruitland, Idaho, where they took up farming.

His maternal grandparents, Loren and Minnie Bradley, and great-aunt Cora were a very important part of his life growing up, and remained very loved and important to Ray until their deaths and beyond.

In 1954 Ray joined the armed forces and served in the 11th and 82nd Airborne as a paratrooper.

Upon discharge in 1957, he met and married Glenda Hope Loudermilk. She preceded him in death on Aug. 27, 2016.

He worked as a police officer in Payette, Idaho, before moving to Oregon in 1960 to work as a correction's officer on death row at the Oregon State Penitentiary. Ray was held hostage by prisoners in a riot in 1968, a very scary time for the family. Soon after, he began working at the Corvallis Post Office as a clerk until his retirement in 1991. Ray and Glenda called Corvallis home from 1968 to the time of their death.

Ray and Glenda are survived by their three children, Larie Trivett (Tim, son David and Daughter Mary Ignacio) of North Albany, Lysa Philipson (Howard, sons Christopher and Matthew) of North Albany, and Son Terrell Clontz, as well as numerous grandchildren and great Grandchildren. Ray is also survived by his longtime friend and prior fellow postal worker, Ted Krowpman of Corvallis.

Ray will always be remembered for his love of animals, and also his passion for motorcycles, which he rode most of his life. His children, especially daughter Lysa, were able to share this passion with him.

During the last several years of his life he had macular degeneration, which left him nearly blind, as well as other health problems. He was able to live independently until recently because of the dedicated, loving care from his daughter, Larie, who arranged doctor's appointments, managed his medicines and medical care, did his shopping, and helped him to live independently. The family owes Larie a tremendous amount of thanks and recognition for the selfless loving care she devoted to both Ray and Glenda for so many years, while also working full time as a nurse at the Mennonite Home, where dad received superb care for the last few months. His son, Terrell, also checked on him daily, and daughter Lysa maintained his beloved cats, Kitty Jo and Ladybug.

Ray will be remembered by many for his simple philosophy of life according to Ray, that if anything can go wrong, it will  twice on a Tuesday.

It is never goodbye, but until we meet again, so keep the Harley running smoothly, dad. There must be motorcycles in heaven.

Services will be held at a later date in Idaho.

Please leave your memories and condolences for the family at www.mchenryfuneralhome.com.
GREENWICH  By 2020, there will be 1.4 million jobs available in computing-related fields. While U.S. graduates are predicted to fill 29 percent of those jobs, women are on track to fill just 3 percent.

It is the mission of the nonprofit Girls Who Code to change that statistic.

Reshma Saujani, CEO and Founder of Girls Who Code, will address students and community members at Second Congregational Church on Sept. 30 at 3 p.m.

Saujani will speak on the subject of empowering girls for success by focusing on the need to be brave, rather than perfect.

The event is intended for students age 12 to 18 as well as parents and teachers. It is free and open to public.

The whole point is to have an intimate dialogue,  said Alex Bergstein, co-founder of the Greenwich-based nonprofit Parity Partnership, which is organizing the event. Parity Partnership was founded this year to educate the public about gender parity and policies that promote equal respect for both genders. This event is only the groups second ever.

Part of our mission is to create community conversation at all levels and address our mission which is gender equality for all angles, said Bergstein.

As part of the event, local high schools were invited to send two representatives to be part of a student press corps.

We wanted to have a real dialogue between students and Reshma, explained Bergstein. The students will meet Saujani privately after the lecture and have the opportunity to ask questions and share their thoughts.

Then, the responsibility is to take this dialogue back to their school and report on it in some fashion, so we take this dialogue back into the community, said Bergstein.

The event is co-sponsored by the ICC Greenwich, the Urban League of Southern Connecticut, Greenwich Academy, Stanwich School, Whitby School, the Second Congregational Church of Greenwich and the YWCA Greenwich.

YWCA Greenwich is proud to be part of this conversation as it is critical to our mission of empowering women and girls and strengthening our community, said Director of Communications for YWCA Greenwich Joan Mockler.

Bergstein of Parity Partnership said the nonprofit will continue to raise awareness about gender parity in other ways.

Were planning to have more events and each one will have a unique theme, she said. The overall theme is bringing the dialogue about gender equality to the community level.

emunson@hearstmediact.com; @emiliemunson
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HARTFORD  There are measures that state lawmakers, the Judicial Branch and the governor can quickly take to improve Connecticut education even before the state Supreme Court hears an upcoming appeal on school quality, lawmakers were told Friday.

Alex Knopp, the former two-term Norwalk mayor and now a visiting lecturer at the Yale Law School clinic that filed the 2005 lawsuit against the state, naming then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell as lead defendant, told the legislative Black and Puerto Rican Caucus on Friday that tremendous opportunities exist to address the issues of funding equality.

One reform ordered by state Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher last month would be to give more money to under-performing urban school districts under the states public-education formula.

The alignment of the formula is out of whack with reality, Knopp said. Even if the formula sends more money to poor towns than wealthy towns, does it send the right amount? And do we know what the right amount is?

Knopp said Moukawshers landmark ruling changes the educational landscape of the state.

That this concept of there being two Connecticuts, in reality  one urban and poor, one suburban and rich  (that) was an unconstitutional model for operating governance in this state, he said, adding that the states housing and local taxation disparities are a major part of the underlying problem.

Knopp, speaking for himself as a private citizen, said the time is ripe to make statewide educational changes.

I think we are now entering a period of special opportunity to have fundamental reform to have school funding in Connecticut that hasnt presented itself in 30 years, he said.

Its impossible to imagine that any judge or any court is going to order a remedy that is going to come into effect by itself or become immediately effective, Knopp, also a former member of the state House of Representatives, told the minority caucus during an afternoon forum.

Maryland, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania all recently undertook major reforms prior to judicial orders, so there are enough examples of these things happening even without a court order to produce meaningful reform, he said.

Rep. Bruce V. Morris, D-Norwalk, chairman of the minority caucus, said the group wants to get a head start on the major issues that are likely to emerge during the next legislative session, which starts in January.

We, as a caucus, want to make certain were being well informed beyond the quick sound bites that are out there, Morris said. These are issues that we have been advocating and fighting for for a long time.

Meanwhile, on Friday the stat Supreme Court announced a schedule for filing briefs on the appeals, announcing an April 12, 2017, deadline. Court observers say that schedule means that the case wont be heard by the court until as late as May of next year, pushing a decision possibly into the fall of 2017.

kdixon@ctpost.com
Billy Eugene Bryant, 85, of Foster died Wednesday. A viewing will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5, at Sweet Home Funeral Chapel. A funeral service will be at 1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7, at Stollers Mortuary in Raymond, Washington. Burial with military honors will be at Fern Hill Cemetery in Menlo, Washington. Sweet Home Funeral Chapel is handling arrangements.
GREENWICH  It wasnt the official annual State of the Town address on Friday that kept First Selectman Peter Tesei tied up for longer than expected.

Instead, it was the questions his listeners, many of whom are business people, lobbed at him after his description of the programs and progress of Greenwich.

Greenwich continues to be a town of evolution, Tesei said to a crowd of more than 150 at the event sponsored by the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce at the Hyatt Regency. We face a bevy of challenges, but thanks to the support of its residents and folks like you who continue to conduct business here, this is a town that will continue to improve and raise the bar for the quality of life, not only for its residents but for all constituents including the local business community.

The majority of Teseis speech was given over to what he called a verbal tour of Greenwich. He touched on the major projects going on throughout town from Byram to Old Greenwich.

But after the speech, audience members grilled him on a range of topics, including contaminated soil at Western Middle School, a discovery that caused the closure of the fields there last month.

The states Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has called for more tests but both the environmental consulting firm Langan Inc. and the states Department of Public Health have said the school is safe and the contamination can be eliminated.

Theres a great deal of science around the subject and I think we should let the science drive the decision making, Tesei said. Theres a natural emotional response to this, but we have to be leaders and listen to the scientific response and do what we have to do to be leaders and not just throw money around to make us feel better.

Tesei was also asked about cutting the number of town employees.

He said people had to realize that a reduced headcount would come with a consequence of reduced services.

I very rarely have someone come up to me and say, Mr. Tesei I want you to reduce the services you provide to me. Tesei said. If anything they want to increase themFrankly no one has said to me that their taxes are exorbitant (in town). Taxes in the state of Connecticut? Yes. But not taxes in Greenwich. It comes back to the value of our residency. We want to insure value in our residency. So we will see how it goes.

Tesei was asked if he thought the planned New Lebanon School building in Byram was too big. A recent motion came before the Representative Town Meeting calling for a smaller building, but it was defeated.

Tesei said he was confident there would be enough students to fill the new building.

If more housing is built in Byram where are those kids going to go school? Tesei said. People are looking ahead based on the demographics and anticipation and land use. I see Byram as the gateway to this town for families who want to live in Connecticut and the town of Greenwich.

Attendees also asked about the outdoor water use ban the Board of Selectmen put into effect last week keeping residents from watering plants outdoors or power washing houses, sidewalks and cars until next year.

Tesei cited town Conservation Director Denise Savageau in saying that voluntary restrictions did not work and that they had to be mandatory in order for there to be any impact.

Im confident we will be in good shape with these efforts, Tesei said.

kborsuk@scni.com
Mobilegeddon was a game-changer. Google tweaked its algorithm in April 2015 to favor mobile-ready websites in searches performed on mobile devices. A little more than a year later, over half of all worldwide searches happen on mobile devices. Its a big deal in marketing.

If your site isn't mobile-friendly, youre waving goodbye to more than half of your potential. Google wants to help with useful links and tools as well as guides designed specifically for content management systems (CMS). Its good for you, and its good for Google.

A mobile world.

Its hard to remember the world before smartphones. Theyve changed everything. According to Morgan Stanley, 91 percent of Americans keep their phones within reach 24/7.

We use them all the time for whats been dubbed micro-moments, those countless instances when we turn to our phones for information, directions, to do something, to buy something, to compare, to evaluate, to learn and more.

Consider this: Search queries using near me, close or nearby have increased 34 times since 2011. Among smartphone users, 82 percent use a search engine when looking for local businesses. It must be a magic number: 82 percent of smartphone owners also consult their devices while shopping in a store. With apologies to Stanley Kramer, its a mobile, mobile, mobile, mobile world.

Related: 15 Tips for Designing a Mobile-Friendly E-Commerce Site

Talking about mobile SEO" vs.regular SEO" is a bit of a misnomer. Its just SEO. Theyre all cogs in the same machine.

That said, if the thought of launching a mobile SEO" campaign gives you nightmares, it's worth walking through the basics. Take these steps to avoid being penalized by search engines (you need their love) and begin targeting mobile users.

Mobile-friendly is a must.

Mobile-friendly simply means a site looks good and behaves properly on a mobile device. A mobile-friendly site can be designed in a number ways:

Responsive. The site morphs depending on the size of the screen.

The site morphs depending on the size of the screen. Parallel-mobile. A second, independent site created for mobile users.

A second, independent site created for mobile users. Dynamic-serving. The server detects and loads an appropriate page depending on the user agent.

Each type of site has its pros and cons, but a responsive site is the easiest and most cost-effective to implement. It doesnt hurt that its also Googles official recommendation. You can accomplish this using a responsive theme, for which youll find free options and paid options, or a responsive plug-in.

Your first step is to determine whether your website is, in fact, mobile-friendly.

The mobile-friendly test from Google is straightforward. Enter your URL. Google's tool will tell if you're you're mobile-friendly and what you can do to improve your results if you don't pass muster.

Related: How the Future of Mobile Search Is Unfolding This Year and Beyond

Page speed matters.

We know mobile friendliness is a ranking signal. So is site speed. Mobile users expect service on demand: 40 percent of surfers will abandon a site that takes longer than three seconds to load.

Check your sites speed using PageSpeed Insights. The guide presents both mobile and desktop results, letting you know which features are issue-free and helpfully suggesting which elements need serious attention. GTmetrix is another handy resource.

Next, turn to the Google Search Console for tons of useful tools and advice. To tackle speed concerns, youll need to look into your Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) data. AMP is a stripped-down, faster HTML designed for mobile users. You can use Google AMP tools to see all pages that implement AMP, identify which of them contain errors and learn what you can do to fix those mistakes.

Pages built using AMP load anywhere from 15 to 85 percent faster, but thats only the start of the story. You can learn more at AMP Project (including tutorials for getting started). Just be aware its not for everyone or every site. Its best for news-type sites such as blogs, and thats in part because AMP doesnt support opt-in forms. Adding AMP to Wordpress is reasonably uncomplicated, and sites using it will rank higher in mobile search-engine results pages (SERPs).

Finally, explore Mobile Usability on the Google Search Console. It reports any existing errors, which might include flash usage, a font thats too small or a viewport that isnt configured. Any errors will affect your mobile SEO, so eliminate them wherever you can.

Use Google My Business.

One stop. Done. Want to be found when people search online? Google My Business gets your address, contact details and hours on both Google Search and Google Maps. You can edit it all from one convenient platform. Add photos, respond to reviews and shape how your business appears online.

Its easy. And crucial. Do it.

Claim your business.

Claim your business and check the details on local directories such as Yelp, Bing Places, Yellow Pages, CityGrid and Foursquare.

These services are increasingly popular, and people use them to find local products and services. Bonus: Theyre ranked favorably by the search engines. Follow the guidelines, and make sure everything is up-to-date.

Google Maps may lead the way in mobile location-finding, but Apple Maps still is at the party. Dont ignore it. Publish accurate information so people can find and contact you when theyre on the go.

Track mobile stats on Google Analytics.

Log in to Google Analytics and conduct some research on your mobile site visitors. Filter those results by day, time and device to discover exactly when your mobile customers are most active. Publish mobile-friendly content (more on that below) at those times to maximize your effect and reach.

Create mobile-friendly content.

Not all content is mobile-friendly, even when its on a mobile-friendly site. Focus on these tactics:

Bullet points, which are easy to scan

Short and concise text

Easily shared articles and links

Compressed images and videos that do not auto-play, so you benefit from faster load times and less data consumption

Meta-title and meta descriptions that are short and to the point -- perfect for mobile displays

Time of day is a factor here, too. Publish shorter content during morning and afternoon commutes and longer pieces during typical lunch breaks for your target market. Save your longest content for when people are likely to be at home. And remember, mobile users often look for informational content.

Related: 5 Content Strategies That Will Always Work

Use local keywords.

When conducting keyword research, be sure include local vocabulary that might be unique to your area. Think about terms and slang that dont appear anywhere else: nicknames for neighborhoods or the city itself, colorful and relevant expressions, regional specialties or whatever.

When people search for you online, what language and words might they actually use? Target them.

Optimize for voice search.

People are talking to Siri or Google Now more than ever on their smartphones. In fact, 20 percent of Google searches on Android are now done via voice search. That amounts to hundreds of millions of inquiries, with 55 percent of teens and 41 percent of adults using voice search at least once per day.

Voice search is the better option when walking (or driving -- which you shouldnt do). But it does have its own set of criteria. Voice-search queries tend to be more conversational. We pose a question or ask our phones to perform a task in the same way we would talk to another human being.

Craft your content to match those specific, real-life questions and optimize for the three biggest voice platforms.

Related: Voice Search Is Exploding and Digital Strategy Will Never Be the Same

Remember the takeaway.

Theres a lot more you could do, but this is a great jumping-off point. It is the beginners guide, after all.

If you take away only two things, these are it: Make sure youre mobile friendly, and remember that page speed matters.

Mobile optimization will get only more important. Dont be left behind.

Related:

The Beginner's Guide to Launching a Mobile SEO Campaign

5 Mobile Musts for Real-Estate Marketing

Entertainment + Engagement: The Key To Getting An Audience On Mobile



Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Brothel that serves food is definitely a label Chipotle wants to avoid. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Chipotle is stuck trying to manage the fallout from yet another worker complaint, only this one makes wage theft sound not half-bad: A Houston jury has awarded $7.7 million, plus another million in legal fees, to a woman who was groomed for sex by two of her store managers when she was a 16-year-old employee. An attorney for the worker, whos now 19 and lives in another state, presented evidence showing she was forced to have more than 50 [incidents of] unprotected sexual intercourse with her supervisor in 2013 over a four-month period, several of them apparently while at their Houston-area store. (The second manager was an accessory who helped make it happen.) The womans attorney says that, all told, it averaged out to a sexual encounter every three and a half days. He described the store as almost like a brothel that just served food.

In a statement the company certainly wished it didnt have to write, Chipotle said it cares deeply about employees, but argued that even our rigorous policies specifically designed to protect our employees cannot prevent private relationships that happen away from the workplace during non-work hours. The statement adds they continue to offer our support for this former employee, and hope for her wellbeing.

Neither manager works for Chipotle anymore, and the abuser has allegedly fled to Mexico, though the womans attorney claims this man is now taunting her family remotely via social media. According to the local news, the jury didnt need long at all to make its decision about the womans case: Only three and a half hours, her attorney told Click2Houston, and I think half of that was eating a pizza or getting a lunch. The good news for Chipotle is, from here on out, any lawsuits it faces really cant get any worse.
The Moto InstaShare projector isnt exactly the cheapest Moto Mod accessory. In the US it runs for $299, while in Canada it retails for 399 CAD. Regardless of where you get it, its still expensive considering it only works with the one smartphone.

If you already find yourself in the market for a Moto Z from Rogers, youll be happy to know that if you pre-order a Moto Z from Rogers, you will be eligible to receive a free Moto InstaShare Projector.

The projector Moto Mod snaps onto the back and adds 11mm to the total thickness of your Moto Z, Z Force (US Only) or Z Play, and it can display anything the phone displays by throwing up to a 70 screen onto any wall or ceiling. Its got automatic keystone and brightness adjustment, and it focuses with a little wheel next to the LED bulb. It has an 1,100 mAh battery which offers up to one hour of projection time until the Moto Zs internal battery kicks in.

While there is some word that the Moto Z Play will also be coming to Rogers, It doesnt look like you can get the InstaShare Projector for free with it. The terms of the offer say Available with online reservation and purchase of a Moto Z smartphone with activation of a 2-yr Share Everything plan. Theres a small chance that Moto Z smartphone also includes the Moto Z Play, but don't take our word for it.

Source | Via
Indian governmental regulatory body Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has lifted the restrictions on the Samsung Galaxy Note7 in airlines.

The restrictions came into effect on September 9, when the DGCA issued a notice informing passengers not to turn on or charge the Note7 onboard the aircraft, and not to stow the phone in any checked-in baggage. As of today, that notice is not longer valid.

It has to be noted that the change is only for phones that are purchased after September 15 and sport the new green battery bar, indicating that the device has been replaced or of a new batch.

Another thing to note is that Samsung never actually sold the Note7 in India until this point, as the phone was merely on pre-order when the incident happened and Samsung had to delay the launch further. The first Note7 devices that will be sold in India will be using the new battery.

Samsung should shortly begin the sales of the Note7 in India. As for those who had pre-booked, they will get the new Gear VR for free, along with a $50 Oculus content voucher.

Samsung did not make any official announcements at the time of publishing this article.

Source
LeEco has been preparing its entry into the US market for quite a while now, and even acquired Vizio in the process. Back in June we heard that the Chinese company would officially make its debut in the US this fall, and now we have an actual date to speak of.

LeEco is holding a special event in San Francisco on October 19, and it's started sending out press invites for it (which you can see pictured below).

As for what to expect from that event, apparently LeEco will reveal a smartphone (or more) as well as a video streaming service that will compete with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and the likes. Both of these would make sense - LeEco started out as LeTV and quickly established a huge footprint for itself in the streaming market in China.

And more recently, its smartphones such as the new Le Pro 3 flagship have been selling like hot cakes in its home market - to the tune of 500,000 units being gone in 15 seconds, in fact.

Do note that LeEco hasn't officially announced what it's going to talk about at that event, so there's still a chance we might see something else. But mark the date in your calendar nevertheless.

Source
Hello Moto was Motorolas slogan for a long time, since around or before the time of the RAZR flip phone. This iconic slogan was also a default ringtone for many who owned Motorola Handsets. Although some might not know it, Motorolas batwing is one of the most iconic logos when it comes to cellphones and communications.

Since Lenovos acquisition of Motorola from Google, some consider Motorola to be gone, but Lenovo wants everyone to know the Moto brand will carry the legacy and iconography that the brand carried for many years. Hearing the Hello Moto slogan in the new boot animation below strikes a nostalgia cord for me, and surely many others.

new. fresh. and full of all the things you love. say hello to the all-new moto. #hellomoto #differentisbetter pic.twitter.com/ccg0rErzaz  Moto US (@Moto_USA) September 29, 2016

Motos USA Twitter account posted a video of the new bootup animation with the final note ending on a Lenovo banner. The boot animation (to me) feels like a mishmash between retro design language and popular symbols and icons. Not to mention a new voice that says Hello Moto. From the looks of the way Lenovo is presenting and advertising the Moto brand, it appears to have every intention of maintaining the iconic presence that Motorola had over the years.

This new startup animation will be updated on current Moto smartphones. When they first launched, the Moto Z and Z Force were missing the batwing in the animation, (granted the logo was on the back of the phone) but it looks like the logo was too iconic to leave out, they had to bring it back.

Thanks for the tip, Felipe!

Via
Shortly after reputed Chinese analyst Pan Jiutang said that the Xiaomi Mi Note 2 will be made official towards the end of next month, a new rumor has cropped up, suggesting a November unveiling for the device.

The rumor - which came in the form of a Weibo post - also revealed some of the handset's key specifications, including 5.7-inch display of 2K resolution (should be QHD though) and dual-curved screen.

In case you missed, previous rumors have suggested that the phone will be available in 6GB/64GB and 8GB/256GB memory configurations. Other rumored specs include Snapdragon 821 SoC, 13MP dual-rear camera, and 8MP front shooter.

Via
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Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist

James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.

Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.

Albert Einstein
Published on 2016/09/30 | Source

Added poster and release date for the upcoming Korean movie "Twenty Again - Movie" (2015)

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Directed by Park Heung-shik

With Kim Seung-woo, Lee Tae-ran, Hwang Young-hee,...

"Twenty Again - Movie" is a co-production between Korea and Italy

Formerly known as "Second Twenty"

Synopsis

Director Min-gu goes to Turin, Italy as a jury member for a film festival. He runs into his ex-girlfriend Min-ha by chance on the plane and greets her cheerily. She, however, treats him like a total stranger. She pretends she has never known her boyfriend of 13 years, but after spending time with her stepdaughter in Italy, she goes back to Turin to meet him. Confirming their love for each other-now a 48-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman-they look at Caravaggio paintings and travel to Tuscany together. When talking about the past, they realize why their love couldn't work and confirm that they each have their own lives and families, so they promise not to contact each other again when back in Seoul. "Twenty Again - Movie" is a delightful love story of people in their forties, with cheerful performances by leads Kim Seung-woo and Lee Tae-ran in a new film from Park Heung-shik, whose previous "The Railroad" won the Best Actor Award at the Torino Film Festival in 2007. (NAM Dong-chul)

Festival

20th Busan International Film Festival (2015)

Panorama Section

Release date in Korea : 2016/11/03
Published on 2016/09/29 | Source

Added episode 12 captures for the Korean drama "Moonlight Drawn by Clouds" (2016)

Advertisement

Directed by Baek Sang-hoon, Kim Seong-yoon

Written by Kim Min-jeong-II, Lim Ye-jin

Network : KBS

With Park Bo-gum, Kim Yoo-jung, Chae Soo-bin, Jin Young, Kwak Dong-yeon, Kim Seung-soo,...

18 episodes - Mon, Tue 22:00

Synopsis

'Moonlight Drawn by Clouds' is a palace romance inspired by the genius Crown Prince Hyomyeong in the later era of Joseon, who loved etiquette and music. The drama will tell the coming-of-age story of youthful romance in Joseon era which was unwritten in the history.

Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2016/08/22

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Harlow is a former New Town in Essex with a population of 86,000. Located in the upper Stort Valley, it was built in the decades after the Second World War to ease overcrowding and London and provide homes for people bombed out during the Blitz. It includes Britain's first pedestrian precinct and first modern residential tower block, The Lawn. Old Harlow, the historic part of the town, was mentioned in the Domesday Book. David and Victoria Beckham's former home, Rowneybury House, nicknamed 'Beckingham Palace', is nearby.

09:44, 30 OCT 2022
SENATORS SCHUMER & LEAHY URGE ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION TO TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION TO ENSURE THAT ALL STATES ARE IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION ACT SO NO ELIGIBLE VOTERS ARE DENIED THEIR RIGHT TO VOTE ON NOVEMBER 8

In New Letter, Senators Schumer and Leahy Noted that Nine States  Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Washington  Should Revise Their Voter Registration Deadlines to Comply With the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA)

NVRA Requires States To Accept Registration Forms If They Were Postmarked 30 Days Before Election Day, Yet These Nine States Posted Deadlines Would Prematurely Cut off Voter Access

Schumer, Leahy to Election Assistance Commission: Act Now to Ensure Americans Are Not Denied Right to Vote on Election Day

News Release from Sen Chuck Schumer and Sen Patrick Leahy September 30, 2016

U.S. Senators Charles Schumer and Patrick Leahy today released a new letter to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) urging them to take immediate action to ensure a number of states revise their voter registration deadlines to comply with the National Voter Registration Act so that no eligible American is denied the right to participate in the upcoming election. Specifically, Senators Schumer and Leahy note that while the NVRA prohibits states from a having voter registration deadline more than 30 days before Election Day, nine states  Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Mississippi, Rhode island, South Carolina and Washington  have set voter registration deadlines that would deny registration to those who mailed in their form on the 30th day. Without swift action by the states in violation of the NVRA, the Senators note that thousands of Americans could be disenfranchised this November.

The full text of the Senators letter can be found below:

Commissioner Thomas Hicks, Chairman

Commissioner Matthew Masterson, Vice-Chair

Commissioner Christy A. McCormick

U.S. Election Assistance Commission

1335 East West Highway, Suite 4300

Silver Spring, MD 20910

Dear Commissioners:

We are seeking your assistance to help protect the right to vote for hundreds of thousands of Americans that may be prevented from voting this November. It has come to our attention that a number of states have posted registration deadlines that fail to comply with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

As you know, this year the federal general election will be held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The NVRA provides that a State shall ensure that a voter is registered if the valid voter registration form of the applicant is postmarked not later than the lesser of 30 days, or the period provided by State law, before the date of the election.(52 USC 20507(a)(1)(B)). Thirty (30) days before Election Day is Sunday, October 9th, which is a day without postal service. Additionally, this year Columbus Day is observed on Monday, October 10th and so postal service is also unavailable on that day. As a result, the first available day to have a voter registration application postmarked that is not later than 30 days before the election is Tuesday, October 11, 2016.

Unfortunately, a number of states have posted their voter registration (or mail voter registration) deadline before October 11th. Those states include: Alaska (10/9); Arizona (10/10); Arkansas (10/10); Hawaii (10/10); Mississippi (10/8); Rhode Island (10/9); South Carolina (10/8); Utah (10/10); and Washington (10/10).

We know that every day of voter registration in the month before the election is an opportunity for hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country to get registered to vote or update their voter registration information. Each of those registrations or updates helps prevent problems or delays at the polls on Election Day.

We ask that you work with the chief election official in each of these states to correct this error and ensure compliance with the National Voter Registration Act. Doing so quickly will help prevent thousands of Americans from being disenfranchised this November. The right to vote is too precious to have something so simple to fix potentially prevent so many Americans from participating in the upcoming Election.

Thank you in advance for you attention to this matter and please contact us if there is anything we can do to be of assistance in resolving this issue.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Schumer

United States Senator

Patrick J. Leahy

United States Senator
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(Bloomberg) Add Chinas quant shops to the list of hedge funds branching out across Asian markets. Quantitative money managers from the worlds second-largest economy are opening offshore funds at a never-before-seen pace, according to Marlon Sanchez, the Asia-Pacific head of prime finance at Deutsche Bank AG. XY Investments, founded by an alumnus of Cliff Asnesss AQR Capital Management, and Co-Fund Co., led by former BNY Mellon Western Fund Management Chief Executive Officer Hu Bin, are among firms that started or plan to start trading in markets from Hong Kong to Singapore and beyond this year.

This is the biggest wave of Chinese quant firms expanding offshore that Ive seen, said Sanchez, whos lived in Hong Kong since 2002, before hedge funds emerged from the regulatory grey area of Chinas financial system.

To read this article:
[Finns] should focus on the findings and their political consequences instead of speculating who should have been informed, he says in an interview with Uusi Suomi.

Mika Aaltola, a programme director at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, has voiced his bafflement with the recent secrecy accusations provoked by the role of Finland in an international investigation into the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over Eastern Ukraine.

All 298 people on board died - Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Eastern Ukraine on 17 July, 2014, killing all 298 people on board. - The aircraft, a Boeing 777, was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. - A Dutch-led joint investigation team concludes in its interim report that the aircraft was shot down with a Buk missile brought across the border from Russia and later transported back to Russia. - The team also said the missile was fired from a village controlled by pro-Russian insurgents.

A Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT) announced earlier this week that the passenger aircraft, which was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down with a Buk missile brought across the border from Russia.

Some of the tests carried out as part of the investigation took place in Finland, according to De Telegraaf. A spokesperson for the Dutch Public Prosecution Service has specified in an interview with Helsingin Sanomat that one of the arena tests with the anti-aircraft missile was carried out in Finland.

Pertti Salolainen (NCP), the vice chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee, stated in an interview with YLE on Wednesday that he is puzzled by the decision not to inform the Foreign Affairs Committee of the tests requested by the Netherlands.

I'm under the impression that this is a relatively sensitive issue from a foreign policy perspective because we've noticed how immediately the accusations have been rejected by Russia, he explained.

The decision was logical, insists Aaltola.

The fact is that this is a criminal investigation that has absolutely nothing to do with the Foreign Affairs Committee, he reminds, pointing out that Finland is also obliged under a UN resolution to provide assistance to civil and criminal investigations related to the incident.

It principally shouldn't be a political issue and making sure that it's a non-political issue is also in the best interests of Finland. Finland provided official assistance to an international criminal investigation, says Aaltola.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Dutch Public Prosecution Service (Openbaar Ministerie) / Youtube

Source: Uusi Suomi
The roof of the building crashed down on top of the train

A train crashed through a barrier at a busy New Jersey station, leaving one woman dead and over 100 injured in the rush-hour horror.

The commuter train entered Hoboken station at speed and lurched across the waiting area, leaving a tangle of broken concrete, twisted metal and dangling cables.

People pulled concrete off bleeding victims and passengers kicked out windows and crawled to safety amid crying and screaming after the train ran off the end of its track.

Roof

It apparently knocked out pillars as it ground to a halt in the covered waiting area, collapsing a section of the roof onto the first car.

"All of a sudden, there was an abrupt stop and a big jolt that threw people out of their seats. The lights went out, and we heard a loud crashing noise - like an explosion - that turned out to be the roof of the terminal," said Ross Bauer, who was sitting in the third or fourth car when the train was pulling into the 109-year-old station.

"I heard panicked screams, and everyone was stunned."

Gov. Chris Christie said a woman standing on the platform was killed by debris. A total of 108 others were injured, mostly on the train.

"The train came in much too fast, and the question is: 'Why is that?'" Christie said. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said investigators will determine whether the explanation was an equipment failure, an incapacitated engineer, or something else.

Christie said the engineer was in critical condition but cooperating with investigators.

None of NJ Transit's trains are fully equipped with positive train control, a safety system designed to prevent accidents by automatically slowing or stopping trains that are going too fast.

Deadline

The industry is under government orders to install PTC, but the deadline has been repeatedly extended by regulators at the request of the railroads.

The deadline is now the end of 2018.

The Hoboken Terminal, which handles more than 50,000 train and bus riders daily, is just across the Hudson River from New York City.

The train had left Spring Valley, New York, at 7.23am and crashed at 8.45am.

NJ Transit spokeswoman Jennifer Nelson said she didn't know how fast the train was going when it crashed through the concrete-and-steel bumper at the end of the line.

Jamie Weatherhead-Saul, who was standing at a door between the first and second cars, said the train didn't slow down as it entered the station.

She said the impact hurled passengers against her. One woman got her leg caught between the doors before fellow riders managed to pull her up.

Passenger Bhagyesh Shah said the train was crowded, particularly the first two cars, because they make for an easy exit into the Hoboken station. Passengers in the second car broke the emergency windows to get out.

"I saw a woman pinned under concrete," Shah said. "A lot of people were bleeding; one guy was crying."

Brian Klein, whose train arrived at the station after the crash, told The Wall Street Journal that transit police ushered everyone aboard his train into a waiting room, "then quickly started yelling, 'Just get out! We don't know if the building is going to hold'."

More than 100,000 people use NJ Transit trains to commute from New Jersey into New York City daily.

A crash at the same station on a PATH commuter train injured more than 30 people in 2011.

The train crashed into bumpers at the end of the tracks on a Sunday morning.

The Hoboken Terminal was built in 1907 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Neale Richmond, who wants Interrail passes for all

A Dublin senator has called for Interrail passes to be given to all EU teens on their 18th birthday.

Inter-railing around Europe has long been a right of passage for many college students and Neale Richmond has backed calls for it to be made available for everyone.

His comments come after German MEP Manfred Weber started a campaign for the unusual birthday present to be funded by the European Commission.

"A lot of people, especially the younger generation, don't realise what Europe has done for them and they might enjoy their five weeks in Europe and decide to stay on and work in a cafe in France and realise that they are entitled to do that because of the EU," he told the Herald.

Having easy access to EU cities across the continent could also stave off any anti-EU sentiment in the wake of Britain's decision to leave the EU, according to Mr Richmond.

"In the wake of Brexit and with the rise of Eurosceptic parties across the continent, it has become quite clear that the EU faces a perilous future, with many citizens feeling a clear disconnect from it," he said.

"It is vital now that the EU goes to extra lengths to demonstrate the benefits of the EU, particularly to those of a generation who do not remember the dark days of the Second World War or who have grown up taking for granted common travel, the free movement of people, Erasmus and a common currency.

"It is a great way to connect young Europeans," he added.

The Fine Gael politician from Ballinteer said he had the chance to travel around Europe during his time in UCD.

Belief

"As a student, I was very fortunate to travel across Europe on an Interrail ticket and it was that experience that plays such a large part in my belief in the greatness of the European project," he said.

Richmond flew into Paris and inter-railed for five weeks, taking in Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Milan, Rome and Nice.

During his second trip he took in Eastern Europe.

"I got a great understanding of what is to be European," he said.

"People need to go and experience these things, not just read about them in textbooks," he added.

Meanwhile, tourism bosses in Ireland are celebrating our best-ever August for tourism with some 1.25 million visits recorded.

It was also the best-ever period from January to August for overseas visitors to Ireland, with the numbers jumping 12.3pc to around 6.55 million people who visited from overseas.

Visitors from North America, Britain and Europe were all up.

With such a strong start to the year, Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said the attention is now turning to attracting late-season visitors to the country.

"This was a strong performance and reflects the sentiment we are hearing from our travel partners overseas, including tour operators and carriers, as well as tourism businesses here at home.

"We are determined to ensure that tourism growth continues," he said.
Staff at the Mater Hospital have been put on alert after rapist Trevor Byrne was spotted prowling nearby

A Dublin hospital has been put on high alert after one of Ireland's most dangerous predators was spotted prowling near its grounds.

Management at the Mater Hospital on the capital's northside have given security advice to staff after Trevor Byrne (34) was spotted on a number of occasions near the facility.

The convicted rapist once asked a judge to return him to prison because he couldn't abide by the terms of his release, and has been living in a tent in the north-inner city.

Attacker

Efforts to rehouse the sex attacker among the general public have failed after he was assaulted by vigilante mobs on a number of occasions.

Sources have revealed that staff at the Mater, as well as members of the public, became unsettled in recent weeks after Byrne was spotted on a number of occasions near the hospital. It's understood management have also warned security guards about the rapist.

In a statement to the Herald, the hospital said: "As per the Mater Misericordia University Hospital personal safety protocol, a security advisory has been issued to all staff and the issue has been raised with the security team."

Notices displaying Byrne's picture and previous newspaper articles about his crimes have also been placed in staff areas around the hospital.

"His picture is on boards around the hospital with article clippings. It unnerved staff to say the least, seeing an alert about a convicted rapist in the area," a source said.

"There have been assurances to staff that security are on top of it, but it's still frightening for female staff and patients that alerts are issued over him," they added.

Gardai in the north-inner city previously issued an alert about the rapist, warning other officers of his presence in the capital.

Byrne was released from prison in March, after having a suspended service reactivated.

While on bail, he telephoned the Central Mental Hospital and told a nurse that he felt like he was out of control and that he "might hack somebody up".

Ordeal

He became notorious when he got a 15-year sentence for raping a woman in November of 1993. During the ordeal the 18-year-old was told by Byrne he had to kill her and he hit her with a brick.

He was released in 2005, but within 36 hours he attacked a woman from the Philippines, threatening to cut her throat. Byrne got a five-year sentence for the attack and was released in 2009.

He then attacked a 24-year-old French woman after following her and forcing his way into her home in Phibsboro in September that year.

In that incident, Byrne followed the woman to her home in Leo Street early one morning and forced his way into her house. He brought her upstairs, but fled when she managed to wake one of her flatmates.

She returned to Dublin from France to give evidence. She told the court that she suffered nightmares and that the situation could have been much worse if there had been nobody else in the house.
Atis Saaed (28) from Pakistan but with an address at of Churchwell Road, Belmayne, in, north Dublin had been arrested during a Garda National Economic Crime Bureau investigation. Stock picture: Getty

A pizza deliveryman has been refused bail after he was charged in connection with an invoice redirect fraud worth almost 3m.

Atis Saaed (28) from Pakistan but with an address at of Churchwell Road, Belmayne, in, north Dublin had been arrested during a Garda National Economic Crime Bureau investigation into a case of money laundering to the value of 2.8m.

He had been detained at Ballymun Garda Station under the provision of Section Four of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 following his arrest at a house in north Dublin on Wednesday morning.

He was brought to appear before Judge Grainne O'Neill at Dublin District Court on Thursday evening.

Det Sergeant Sean McClafferty told the court that Mr Saaed made no reply when charged with laundering 5,000 contrary to Section 17 of the Criminal Justice Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act.

He said that a more serious charge could be brought against the defendant who moved to Ireland last year.

Bail

He objected to bail citing the seriousness of the charges which he said related to an alleged invoice redirect fraud.

The court heard that a data storage facility was being built for a D14 based company.

The company allegedly received an email that was thought to be from the construction firm looking for payment of 2.8m and stating they had changed their bank account.

The money was sent to this account by the company who became aware the emails sent to them were fraudulent. The court heard it was alleged the account had been set up by the accused and others who had been at his address.

There were four transfers of 39,000 to four bank accounts in his name and it was also alleged he transferred money to a person in the UK.

Det Sergeant McClafferty said a file is to prepared for the DPP and it will be complicated given the nature of the offence. The court heard the funds have now been secured and there was "strong documentary evidence" as well as CCTV.
Gardai at the scene of the shooting at Greenhills Road

Gardai have arrested a suspected getaway driver as part of an investigation into a reckless attempted murder in which a 41-year-old man was shot.

Innocent victim John O' Connor is making a good recovery after he was injured in the gang attack at the Cullen Car Spares premises at 11.35am on August 4 on Greenhills Road, Walkinstown.

Detectives from Crumlin Garda Station who have obtained "excellent quality" CCTV have arrested a Tallaght man aged in his late 20s as part of the detailed investigation.

The suspect was released without charge last week but officers are continuing to hunt for the suspected gunman who has not yet been located despite a number of searches of properties linked to him in Tallaght.

Senior sources have revealed that the intended target of the shooting had just been released from jail weeks before the botched shooting took place.

Gardai are working on the theory that this man became a target because of a long running "bitter dispute" over proceeds from burglaries and other crimes.

Officers have previously investigated "threats to kill" in relation to the dispute.

It has emerged that the Tallaght criminals had carried out surveillance on the business premises before the shooting and a car used in the attempted murder had been bought in rural Ireland rather than stolen.

Sources say that gardai are "very hopeful" that the DPP will recommend charges in the case but a manhunt for the gunman continues and the shotgun used in the incident has not been recovered.

The victim, Mr O'Connor, was injured in the attack with the gunman then fleeing on foot into a waiting getaway car.

Pellets

Not the intended target, Mr O'Connor was approached from behind by the gunman but turned slightly, meaning he was hit with shotgun pellets in the chest.

A man armed with a shotgun made his way on foot into the scrapyard and discharged a number of shots.

He then escaped into the waiting car, later located a short distance from the scene on Corrig Close.

Mr O' Connor is involved in the car dismantling and scrap trades and is not suspected of any involvement in crime.
Transcription

1 SPRING 1985 VOL. 53, NO.2 History The GpROCEEDINGS of the VERMONT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

2 In the case of plank framing, builders summoned forth an old technique to serve a new need, producing an unusual combination of old material to make possible a more modern, refined structure. The Plank Framed House in Northeastern Vermont By JAN LEO LEWANDOSKI Plank framing as a method of house construction in North America has received little study or understanding despite the fact that throughout New EngLand and in parts of central New York, Ohio, and adjacent parts of Ontario and Quebec builders practiced it in various forms from at least I In northeastern Vermont as many as one-third of the first period residential frames were plank. Plank framing refers to a method ofbuilding where pieces ofsawn timber of uniform thickness (1 Y2 to 4 inches from frame to frame) and variable, but usually substantial width (9-26 inches), stand vertically side to side between sill and plate around an entire building. These planks replace studs and other major elements of a house frame and also serve as exterior sheathing, interior base for plaster lath or paneling, framing for doors and windows, and, intentionally or not, as a form of insulation. In the fully developed form, common in parts of northern New England, the planks replace posts, studs, and diagonals, sometimes in a fashion startling to the builder or architect. The majority of plank frames are found within one or one and one-halfstory cape or classic cottage type dwellings ofrectangular tending to square plan. A number of full two story plank framed houses also exist. 2 These planked frame houses do not include those early buildings composed solidly ofhorizontally stacked dimension lumber, usually two by fours, often called plank by their owners and investigators. 3 This clever style shares with plank framing a tendency to use a multiplicity ofuniformly reproducable parts, but it relates more closely to log or even brick building than to the tradition of timber framing in which the plank houses participate. Also, unlike houses ofhorizontally stacked lumber, the substantial width of plank forms a critical element in the success of the plank frame. (See Figure 1.) 104

3 ewp::>rt ( I,. / to -t-,i + + Johnson + + emiddlebury Locations of plank frames identified or examined for this stu4y. 105

4 A major reason for the poverty of information concerning the plank frame is the extreme difficulty of examination, even in the attic or basement of a house, since the sill, plate, rafters and joists are conventional. Only the demolition of a wall surface, or an unfinished area, will expose the planks. 3a Originally, builders never used the planks as a finished surface as either board siding or panelling. However, the ultimate burst ofpopularity this method enjoyed from related to the growing popularity of a style of interior finish free of all exposed framing members which this method accommodated well. The distant origins of plank framing come from neolithic, ancient and medieval stave, post or pallisade construction, the predecessors of timber framing. 4 These forms appeared briefly after settlement at Plymouth in 1620 during the very first decades of settlement, but timber framing, or dwellings where sawn plank, as opposed to posts or poles, was applied to the exterior of a free standing braced frame soon superseded them. 5 The fully developed, and most numerically significant style, where planks replace all vertical and diagonal framing members, occurred most commonly in the period They were constructed by builders well acquainted with elaborate timber framing and extremely remote in experience from any vertical log or timber construction. Plank framing was not an archaic survival withering away, but instead a persistent option within vernacular building, available when needed. Even in Quebec, where the use of solid vertical timbering between sill and plate persisted well into the nineteenth century, a distinction exists in the old records between the more ancient lineage of"poteaux sur sole," "pieux sur sole," and "bois de colombage," and "madriers debouts."6 The first three terms refer to vertical squared timbers 8"xB" or larger standing side by side on a sill with sometimes even larger posts at the comers. 7 "Madriers debouts" refers to planks considerably wider in one dimension than the other and producing a thinner wall. Such a wall places more emphasis on joinery, cannot depend upon massiveness for strength and rigidity, and is more akin to timber framing than to a pallisade. Once again, the great width of most planks plays a critical role in bracing the frame without vertical timber construction. 8 Students who have surveyed plank framing in New England provide seventeenth and eighteenth century examples from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. In these buildings, all dwelling houses, planks generally two inches thick are pinned to the exterior ofa frame, spiked into rabbets in sill and plate, or let into a groove in the plate while pinned to the sill. These examples all have frames which can stand independently of, and be erected prior to (with the occasional exception of the plate) the application ofplanks. The frames usually contain diagonal bracing at the posts. 106

5 ~ fa 01 ~ 0 lo oj ~ Figure 1. Two Planks 107

6 The planks sheath the house and supplant studding including window and door framing. 9 In the last quarter of the eighteenth century the plank frame moved with the fmntier into Northern New England, and early in the next century it entered New York, Ohio and, probably, Quebec. W.R. Nelson cajls these houses plank on frame, similar to the pre-revolutionary versions, but with thicker plank and with diagonal bracing eliminated from the walls. In Vermont the Brewster house (1789) in Woodstock, the Peletiah Corliss Tavern (ca. 1800) in Bradford, and the Blair House (ca. 1805) in Stannard all used the planks and their joints with the frame and each other as a form of bracing. At some date, difficult to specify, but probably in the last decades of the eighteenth century, the plank frame without posts or studs or diagonal bracing appeared, accompanied in many cases by a move to three and even four inch planking. JO The thicker planking allows lateral connections between the planks. The style flourished and gradually elaborated, refilled, and finally simplified itself until it dissolved into mixed balloon and timber framing in the mid-nineteenth century. The three counties that compose the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont were virtually unsettled before By 1810 two of these, Caledonia and Essex, had grown to within a few thousand souls oftheir 1980 populations. Orleans County reached a comparable level about a decade later. I J The settlers erected a great number ofhouses during this /irst period ofdevelopment between 1780 and 1830, and perhaps as many as thirty percent of them were plank framed in one fashion or another. This estimate, while not statistically derived from a comprehensive data base, has its origins in a survey of a sample district, an examination of frames by trades persons, realtors, and property owners, and some case studies. An survey ofolder homes along thirty miles of the Bayley-Hazen Road, along which settlement moved, explored parts of the towns of Peacham, Cabot, Walden, and Greensboro. J 2 At each house standard questions attempted to elicit the age ofthe building, whether plank framed, and further structural details. Whenever permitted, the survey included an inspection. The sample included eighty houses which informants' evidence, or a knowledge of style, proportion, material, and technique classified as constructed before Forty per cent of these houses were plank framed. The sample required the confirmation ofadditional sources for more distribution data and more technical detail. On site observation of a plank framed house presents special problems. The plank frame house in northeastern Vermont represents an unknown, though large (probably at least 700), corpus in a larger group (perhaps 2500) of unsurveyed early dwellings. The difficulties are exaggerated by the cir 108

7 Blair House Now Owned by Lewandoski cumstance that the frame was probably in part designed to render itself unobtrusive. However, many local tradespeople and many homeowners have demolished wall surfaces and been confronted with planks and the need to alter or remove them. These individuals have provided a wealth of technical detail and some corroberation for numerical estimates based upon theil' repeated experiences throughout the area. 13 Further, the on site inspection of thirty-seven plank houses in twentyone towns scattered across northeastern Vermont provides important information. H The examination framing details, and also, where intact, accompanying finish work, floor plans, and other documentation allows the designation of the varieties of plank framing and their positions in the architectural history of a region. This collection of data since 1975 has uncovered three major types of plank framing. In rough order of appearance (with considerable overlap) they are: Type 1. Plank and post between sill and plate. Type 2. Plank without posts between sill and plate. Type 3. Plank without posts applied to the exterior of sill and plate. Within each of these categories builders employed a number of different fastening systems, plank thicknesses, means of carrying joists, and solu 109

8 tions to the various conventions and necessities ofdwelling house construction. But from the point ofview ofa framer, each ofthe above types represents a significantly different way of thinking about vertical load transfer and structural rigidity in a frame, as well as a different procedure of erection. In three of the five examples of Type 1 examined, a timber frame was erected with the plate left off. Planks were then inserted into mortises or a groove in the siu between the posts. The plate was then dropped upon the tenons of both posts and planks. (See Figure 2.) This construction employs a similar frame to the seventeenth and early eighteenth century examples from southern New England, with the notable exception that Type 1 in Vennont eliminated diagonal bracing, and the planks carry out that function themselves. The planks take the place of all studs, including window and door framing. (Plank walls generally do not affect roof framing.) In 1983 fire destroyed the Peletiah Corliss Tavern (ca. 1800) in Bradford, afuu two story plank building. Along the front wall the builder spiked 2 ~ inch planks, 14 feet long, and from 9 to 17 inches in width to a rabbet in the sill running between 8x8" corner and intermediate posts. These planks were alternately spiked and pinned to the face of a 6"x8" girt that carried the second floor joists, and they ultimately entered a groove in the 9"x16" plate. The rear and gable walls were composed of periodic posts (12 feet on center) with 2 Y4 inch planks in between. The planks were aligned with each other but not pinned laterally. Diagonal bracing was absent, but the double pinning of the wider planks as they cross the girt (with 1 ~ inch ash pins) provided resistance to racking. The story and one-half, central chimney cape Blair house (1808) in Stannard provides a version of the plank and post style with numerous archaic features. Two and Y4 inch planks, 11 to 22 inches wide, carry double tenons top and bottom which engage mortises in the sill and plate where they are neither pinned or spiked. The second floor joists are lapped into a 6"x8" girt that sits along the inner face of the planks though not attached to them. The only diagonals are on an interior purjin system. The planks are aligned with extreme tightness and joined laterally by an octagonal ash pin at about four feet above the sill. For the building to rack out of shape, a great number of these inch thick pins would have to shear simultaneously within these snug joints. (See Figure 3.) This particular house has exposed interior posts with large chamfers and chamfer stops. The Type 2 plank frame, plank without posts, is the most numerically significant in northeastern Vermont, and as many as several hundred may exist. It also represents the most significant departure from either the timber or the balloon framing which followed it, in that loads from roof and floors are transferred to the ground with complete uniformity all around the 110

9 ./ Figure

10 Haupt House building, rather than being carried by a few posts or a number of studs. While similar to masonry building in this respect, the assembly and erection ofa Type 2 plank house remains the work of framers in that all members must be prepared in advance and put in place as a system since none of the members above the sill can stand for even a moment alone. The Type 2 plank frame house has no posts, studs, or diagonal braces, only planks between sill and plate. Planks no different from any other meet to form corners or frame windows and doors. Builders used a variety of techniques to affix and make the planks rigid. In the Hempt house (1791) in Walden and the Johnston-Unser house (1825) in Hardwick the planks are double tenoned top and bottom and pinned to each other but not to a sill or plate. In the McCoy-Colby house (ca. 1795) in Lunenburg and the Salz house (ca. 1820) in Barnet the planks are double tenoned and pinned both top and bottom, but not to each other. This pinning of wide and rigid planks at four points turns them into a brace not unlike the sheet ofplywood placed at the corners of modern houses to serve as structural sheathing. (See Figure 4.) In the Weed-Reynolds house (ca. 1810) in Stannard and another house nearby in Walden the two inch planks are spiked into a rabbet in sill and plate. (See Figure 5.) In the Akin house (ca. 1810) in Greensboro the planks are double tenoned and pinned to the plate, but tenoned without pins into the sill. 112

11 Figure 3. Shear pin bracing between planks \ / \ I \ / \ I \ I f ~i yjow \ I " / \ I \ I \ / \ \.... Figure 4. A wide planjr viewed as two diagonal braces. 113

12 In the one story plank house second floor joists are carried by the plate, but those of story and one half and two story use other means. In the Akin house through mortises (S"x6") are cut in the three inch planks to carry the joists. In the Anderson house (ca. 1850) in Duxbury a girt supporting the second floor joists is carried by wooden pins which penetrate the three inch planks. 15 Students have described a Type 2 house in Deerfield, Massachusetts, dated 1785 and another one in Sutton, Ontario, built In Vermont builders certainly used this technique from and adapted themselves to changing notions of proportion and style. \Nhile most were sided with clapboard or shingle, the Hempt house in Walden was covered in brick either originally or at a very early date. The Akin and Blair houses share with several others nearby the late medieval features of an off cenler front door, asymmetric window placement, and minimal eaves projection. The Hempt andjohnston-unser houses have fully developed federal detailing including semi-elliptical fanlights over the entry. The Type 2 houses at Dows Crossing in Walden and across the river from Bradford, in Piermont, New Hampshire, were built as gable entry Greek Revival structures. The Weed-Reynolds house and another four miles away in Walden provide unusual examples built with batter, walls slanting inward from sill to plate (three inches from the vertical in Weed-Reynolds). Batter is common in stone construction and is known in vertical timbering in Quebec. 16 It prevents top heaviness in massive walls and resists the outward thrusts of roofloads or ofwind loading on walls. While it cannot be ruled out, French Canadian influence at the early date ofthe Weed-Reynolds house is unlikely. The erection of plank frames does not seem to be covered in any of the builders' guides and companions which proliferated in the Federal period. The principles were probably well known, but even Shaw's Civil Architecture, which reiterated the common techniques of timber framing, fails to mention it. Dwyer's Economic Cotlage Builder (1855) devotes several pages to plank construction, although it was not published until the technique ofjoinery was on the decline, at least in northeastern Vermont. From examples of timber frame erection and an examination of the sequence of assembly mandated by the joints in the plates in case studies, erection probably occurred in two ways. A builder could erect two entire walls of plank and plate without fully engaging the bottom tenons. The perpendicular walls could then be raised with their plate mortises engaging the tenons of the first plates. Then all the walls could be dropped into their sill mortises (to have done so initially would have dep!'ived the frame of the flexibility needed to join the plate corners). Alternatively, the planks could be temporarily braced upright all around the building and the plates then lifted by persons on scaffolding and dropped on the planks. The first method involves lifting an extraordinarily heavy wall. The second involves 114

13 Figure 5. Weed-Reynolds house. 115

14 Johnston- Usher House supporting a heavy, solid surface against the possibility ofconsiderable wind pressure. 17 Fewer Type 3 plank framed houses have emerged in northeastern Vermont. One is identified in a case study, and another has been described. These appear to be buildings held up by sheathing, but in reality they are another sort of plank frames. The sill and plate levels are framed conventionally using 7"x7" and 8"x8" timbers. Planks are found spiked to the outer faces of sill and plate. There are no planks, posts, or studs within the perimeter of the plate, and it appears to hang, with the full weight of roof and second floor, on the spikes. The Grant-Parker house (ca. 1850) in St. Johnsbury has planks inches wide and 1% inches thick spiked to the face of sill and plate. Strapping of 1"x5" is nailed to the inside of the planks, but it does not contact sill or plate (this strapping carried plaster lath). On close examination fou r wide planks at the corners carry much ofthe load due to a particular method of framing the plate. Plate members. 7"xT, across each gable are tenoned into T'xT's fonning the plate of the long axis. These latter plate members run by the gable plates for a distance of 1% inches at either end, the thickness of a plank. A plank at each corner has a TxT' cutout at the top which receives the protruding plate. Thus this plank acts as a post, its thickness and 24 inch width producing a mass similar to that of a 6"x6" timber. The fact remains though that this plank in tum bears directly on nothing more than 116

15 .. Figure 6. Parker house, East St. Johnsbury. 117

16 three spikes driven into the face of the sill. (See Figure 6.) Bracing in this structure is provided by the spiking of the wide planks to the frame. This Type 3 plank frame probably represents the ultimate in simplification of either plank or timber framing, and it is contemporaneous with the rise of stick and balloon framing. Very few joints are cut; it has no rabbets, probably no more than twelve mortises and tenons, and some laps for the joists. The thin planks, resembling a thick half sheet of plywood, required no joinery. The light frame does not protrude into the rooms, and it requires little labor to assemble once the long plates are placed on the four corner planks. The fully developed plank trame, where planks have replaced all verticals and braces, initially appears a primitive and almost barbaric technique, related to garrison or blockhouse construction because of the massing ofhuge pieces ofwood in the walls. What appears as a post-revolutionary throw-back, unengineered and overbuilt, is in fact a refinement of an old technique well adapted to newly settled areas still rich in large dimension timber and a need to build quickly. The technique uses more sawn and less hewn timber and requires less skilled labor. The plank frame also provides the basis for a more elegant finish for the interior of Federal period homes with no evidence presented in the rooms of the massive framing in the walls. The surge of plank framing on the northern frontier in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries occurred at the same time in buildings of similar value and style as elaborate timber framing. Plank framing did not represent a first, primitive house or an isolated pocket of folk practice, but rather one technique among several available. Plank framing demanded large dimension timber to provide both speed in planking and, as importantly, resistance to racking. The widest plank in the dwellings surveyed in northeastern Vermont is twenty-six inches in the Grant-Parker house. Reports about a demolished house in Peacham include a forty-wo inch plank. All of the planks su rveyed are spruce, /ir or hemlock. Simplification ofjoinery, which Rempel referred to as "Modified American Framing," results from a number of historical forces, but notably a surge of building with a shortage of skilled labor. The advantages of plank frame construction includes replication o.f identical parts, easy layout, the absence of posts with their myriad girt, nailer and brace mortises, and the lack of troublesome fitting of the diagonal braces. The typical frame construction ca in northeastern Vermont employed sawn or hewn posts, sills, plates, joists and rafters accompanied by sawn studs and braces and covered with one or two layers of sawn board. It took no longer to saw a wo or three inch plank than it did to saw a one inch sheathing board, and the plank served as post or stud and brace as well

17 Weed-Reynolds Hause The advent of circular sawing in Vermont just prior to the middle of the nineteenth century and the difficulty in obtaining large logs helped end plank framing in two ways. It made avaijable the large quantities of the small dimension stock which made balloon framing economical. Further, circular saws could not saw true across the large logs preferred for wide plank stock. Because the up and down saw was slow, relatively stiff, and fastened at either end, it did not wander in the wood like a circular blade on a central arbor. The old planks were remarkably uniform across their great width, and since they served as the base for so many surfaces in the building, this was important. The common view of the process of vernacular building conceives of a builder desiring a particular space or number of rooms and erecting a frame to create it. The builder then applied decorative features to the frame according to some traditional or current fashion. This view depicts the early settler as practical, individualistic, and aspiring to simple living. 18 On the other hand, abundant evidence suggests that the first settlers of northern Vermont, after abandoning the temporary shelters of the first years, aspired to participate in national and international movements of interior and exterior design. They adopted neo-classical facade features from numerous pattern books, worked wood to mimic stone surfaces, grained or marbleized interior woodwork, and employed plaster, panelling or moulded boarding to cover frame elements wherever possible, all in an effort to pro I19

18 duce an appearance ofelegant finish. When this sense ofstyle became popular in a community, even the frames of new dwellings were designed to accommodate it. The earliest permanent homes in Vermont usually had comer and intermediate posts exposed in the rooms, though normally cased in planed pine or basswood. In between these posts were studs or planks which carried plaster or panelling. 19 The expressed frame had become archaic in New England even before the Revolution, and, even in northeastern Vermom, the desire for a more refined, Federal style interior had become rampant by the late eighteenth century. The concealed frame became so desirable that builders devised several means to achieve it, including 1) removing the inside comer of the corner post; 2) timber framing with the wide dimension of rectangular post (4"x8", 4"x10", 4"x12") in the wall; 3) timber framing with 6"x6" timbers and building the entire wall out to cover them; and 4) planking without posts. The first of the solutions was widespread from 1790 to at least the Civil War. An "U shaped timber was produced by removing a 4"x4" from an 8 n x8 n, allowing the interior finish (carried by four inch studs) to meet in the corner. This was rather tedious with the tools available in In some cases the angle of chisel marks indicates that it was done sometime after the erection of the building, as in the kitchen ofthe Peletiah Corliss Tavern. The second approach, sometimes called mixed timber and stick framing, rare before 1840, became the dominant mode for northeastern Vermont dwellings. The Gardner-Wheeler house (1798) in St. Johnsbury (dismantled and moved out ofstate in 1984) was framed [Q a uniform four inch wall by builders reluctant to leave the massive joinery or diagonal bracing of timber framing behind. They used 4"x12" timbers which met at the corners and they used numerous 4"xl0" intermediate posts, and mortised 3"x5" diagonal braces into the four inch sides of the posts and went both up and down. This house contained elaborate Federal style woodwork. With no interest in filling a deep cavity with insulation, the post Revolutionary builder rarely used the 6"x6" timber framing. It was found occasionally in high style federal residences where the depth of wall also allowed elaborate treatment of window surrounds. Planking became the most common method in northeastern Vermont for builders to achieve the desired styles. In the case ofplank framing builders summoned forth all old techniques and altered them to serve a new need, producing an unusual combination of old material used to make possible a more modern, refined structure. 120

19 NOTES IThe rull geographical range Oflhis technique's application is a matler for researc.h. The distribut)on mentioned here is assembled from Richard Candee, "Early Wooden Building in Maine and New Hampshire," Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, J976; Anthony Garvan. Architecture and Town Planning in CaimUd Cann_uliJ:ul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951); j.f. Kelly, Early D.""'IiJ: Arthiuclure in Con""diJ:ul (New York: Dover, 1966); W.R. N dson, Puzzle of the Plank Houses," New Hampshire Praftl" (March 1966);j. Rempel, Buildi~ with Wood (Toronto: University oftoronto Press, 1976); and the authors field note~. ;I Nelson, "Puzne of (he Plank Houses,'l identifies severa! two 3tOry examples in central New Hampshire. Rempel, Buifdj~wilh Wood, examines one in sothern Olllario. The now demolished Peietiah Corliss Tavern in Bradford, Vermont was another. Other examples exist in Lyndon and Hardwick, Vennom. 'Hope Nash, Royal""', VmnanJ (Royalton: Royalton Historical Socie,y, 1976), and Rempel, Building with Wood, use this terminology. " Professor Michad TomIan of Cornell University has been using radio!{raphic technology to inspect plank frames in the Ithaca, New York, area. F. Kniffen and Henry Classie, ''Building in Wood in the Eastern Uni'ed Stales," Gtographi<al Review, Vol. 56, 1966; and W.R. Nelson, "Some Examples of Plank House Construction and their Origin," Pionar 1I"""icn, Vol. J, No.2 (1969)., Richard Candee describes Ihis process in &,Iy Woodm Building and in "A Documentary History of Plymouth Coloni,,1 Architecture", Old Ti"", Nw En.{itJruJ, LXX, No.3 (1969). See also Abbo" Lowell Cummings. TilL F,aTn d Houses aj Ma.ssfJ hus /lj Bay, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, (979), p. 21. Bob Meeson discussed a possible English antecedent in Plank-Walled Bu~ding Techniques and the Church of Sl. Lawrence, Rushton Spencer," Vernacula, Archiu<lure, Vol. 14 (1983). 'M. Lessard and G. Villandre, La Maison TrodiliolUlILAu QWl'b<l(Monlreal: Les Editions De L'Iiomme, 1974), pp 'Ibid., pp. 3' e Any notion thal French Canadlan building practices might have inlluenced the nonhero frontier of New E.ngland is dispelled by the circumstana: of the northern side of the border being settled later tlurn rhe sou,hern, and then not by the ancient French popula'ion but by SCOlS, Irish and New Englanders. A. Connally, "The Cape Cod House," Journnl oj liil Sant!y oj Ar"hiuctural Hislon'an;, vol. 19 (1960), 53, discusses several houses with two inch planks spiked to the exterior of the frame; where diagonal bracing seems. to have been eliminated. lone1son, "Some Examples of Plank House ConSlruction," examines a. four-inch lhick plank rrame in Bristol, Vermont. Another example is the long abandoned Morse house }n Grown) Vermont. JI Population fig1jres are from Frederick Schmidt, V"monl Cammuni!>, Dolo &nlc, 1980, quoted in H.N. Muller, III, and Samuel E. Hand, In a Slolt oj Nalu,,: Readings in Vnmon' HiJlmy, (Montpelier: Vermont Historical Society, 1982). Caledonia County had 18,730 persons in 1810 and 25,814 in 1980; Essex conlained 3087 and 6,300 respcctively. l~ The Vt'T1'tlOnl Hisluric Sitts and Slnu:turu Survey, Division of Historic Preservation, State of Vermont, Montpelier, provides help in estimating the age ofstructures, but consln1crion details are senerajly outside the scope of this Survey. \jthe following list, mostly of local tradespeople, have eithe:r shown an actual frame to the author or given concrete informacion about one: John Akin, Townshend Anderson, Dave Hi)) of The Barn People, Bruee Brooks, Michael B"auregard, Ed Cooney-Moore, Roger Fox, Frederick Hempt, john Hunt, Paul Ide, Ted Ingraham, judith Kane, Penelope Lewis, Kathryn Unser, john Mackin, Mark Milnes, NE.TO (nsularors, Scudder Parker, May Perry, Tom Porter, Peter Post, john Reynolds, Wade Treadway who has been especially helpful, Ted Tremblay, Allen Yale, and Wayne Young. i~'albany, Barnet, Bradford, Brownington, Cabot, Craftsbury, Danville, Derby, Duxbury, Greensboro, Groton, Hardwick,Johnson, Lunenburg, Lyndon, Newark, Peacham, Stannard, Sutlon, Walden, Waterville, Woodstock, and Worc~ster. l~ Nelson, "Some Examples of Plank House Construction," cites examples of two-story Typ~ 2 dwellings 'hat are platfonn framed. '6M. Lessard, fa Maison Traditiontllt Au Q""bt<, pp Rcrnpd, But"ldi~ With Wood, pp , suggests other methods of erection wh~c admitting it remai Os a puzzle. " Richard Candee's Early Wooden Building in Mai"" aruj N<UJ Hampshire provides a discussion paralleling these points for older ( 17th and early 18th century) plank on frame structure. in Maine and New Hampshire. "Herhert Wheaton Congdon olters this view in Old Vmnont Haum (Dublin: Bauhan, 1973). "Examples are given by Hope Nash, Royal"'n, pp ; and W. White and D.D.johnson, Early Houses oj NOTWiJ:h, VI. (Hanover: Das<mou\h College, 1938). 121
The days are shorter, but not the list of things you can do.

things-to-do




by Bill White

For decades, Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi worked to bring honest financial governance to black Africa. Because black Africans can barely manage their own affairs, Gadafi built an African imitation of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, that allowed African nations to conduct cross-border transactions and to fund development, when no international institution would touch African currencies. For that, the Jews murdered the Libyan colonel. But they waited until they had robbed him first.





Gaddafi built a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons prior to 2006 as a deterrent against Western invasion. In 2006, the Judo-occultists of the George W. Bush administration fooled Gaddafi into destroying that arsenal in exchange for Western investment. That year, U.S. sanctions were lifted and a swarm of Jews descended on Gaddafi like a brain-eating fungus from outer space.





They are very unsophisticated, and anyone could rape them , one Jewish executive at the now failed investment firm Goldman Sachs wrote.





You just delivered a pitch on structured leveraged loans to someone who lives in the middle of the desert with his camels, wrote another.





As the Jews chuckled, Gaddafi handed $1.2 billion over to Goldman Sachs alone, using it to buy equity derivatives that, by the time of Gadafis murder in 2011, were worthless. The Jews made $222 million of profit -over principle- on that deal alone.





The so-called government of Libya, one of three rival governments in the country, controlling about ten square blocks of downtown Tripoli, has sued Goldman Sachs Group Inc in High Court in London to recover the money, hoping to use the funds to equip an army to fight the rival Islamic State government in Surt, the eastern Libyan government in Benghazi, and a host of minor militias which control the now-failed state. As that lawsuit has progressed, details of how the Jews stole the money have come out.





Ultimately, it may come down to two hookers, bought as a pair for $600 from a fellow Jew in Abu Dhabi. According to court documents, Goldman Sachs Jew Youssef Kabbaj was planted by Goldman within Libyas sovereign wealth fund. Kabbaj arranged bribes to investment fund officials, including prostitutes. Kabbaj has said that senior Jews at Goldman signed off on the expenses. Bribing foreign officials is against U.S. law.





Once Gaddafi was driven bankrupt, his country was overrun by U.S. and EU backed militias, and Gaddafi himself was murdered. U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who was involved in the decision to murder Gaddafi, is close to Goldman Sachs and its Jews.





So in addition to stopping Africa from developing an independent banking network, Gaddafi may have been killed in an effort to stop him from collecting the $1.2 billion the Goldman Sachs Jews owed him.





Ironically, Jewish bankers in the West have benefited little from Gaddafis fall, Gaddafi was not stealing African business from the them so much as making new African business. Thus the markets he created are largely gone. Much of North Africa, including Libya, Mali, Nigeria, and Egypt are faced with Islamic State insurgencies, and the continents two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa, are shrinking or collapsing. Meanwhile, a general war wages across the Arab world, into Persia and Afghanistan.




TTC Group is reportedly closing a deal with a partner to create the largest sugar company in the country.

TTC Group, a conglomerate whose businesses range from sugar to real estate, is looking to merge with another sugar company soon, and at the same time, planning a Singapore listing for one of its units.

According to Bloomberg, the merger is expected to be completed early next year and will create the biggest sugar producer in Vietnam worth $200 million. The name of the partner has not been disclosed.

The group also plans to raise approximately $600 million by listing one of its sugar units in Singapore.

"We aim to become a global player, thus we wanted to list in Singapore," CEO Thai Van Chuyen was quoted by Bloomberg as saying. He added that the company has expanded its sugar business to Cambodia and Laos will be the next destination.

The group expects its sugar business to generate $35 million of its pre-tax income of $62 million this year. It is also seeking to boost the foreign ownership in TTC Sugar, one of its best perfoming sugar units, to 35 percent from 11 percent during the first quarter of next year.

Singapore has yet to have a listing from a Vietnamese company, Bloomberg reported.

Will a sugar producer become the first Vietnamese company listed in Singapore? Photo from lasuco.co.vn

Related news

> Sugar factory fined $21,500 for pollution, mass fish deaths in Thanh Hoa river

> Sugar firm told to compensate fish farmers after wastewater massacres stocks

> Paradox in Vietnam's sugar industry: rising prices amid high inventories
"When I ask [Vietnam] about using renewables they say we would but its too expensive," the World Bank president recalls.

President of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim has expressed his concern over Vietnams plan of building a network of coal plant in a speech at the Climate Week New York which concluded Thursday.

When I ask them about using renewables they say we would but its too expensive, Kim said in his speech. We are bringing to the table all the tools we need to bring the costs down significantly and quickly.

Vietnam has imported more than 9.7 million tons of coal valued at $600 million over the past eight months, almost double the quantity in the same period last year, latest data from Vietnam Customs shows.

By 2030, half of the countrys power will come from coal, with 83 plants across the country, according to the revised government Power Development Master Plan VII.

Its a very complicated and sensitive issue," Remy Genevey, the director of the French Development Agency in Vietnam, told VnExpress International at the European Climate Diplomacy Week, which wrapped up last week in Hanoi. Vietnam's current electricity demand of 35 gigawatts is forecasted to rise to over 100 gigawatts in 2030, meaning electricity demand is set to grow twice as fast as GDP, he added.

The country is considering plans for up to 40 gigawatts of new coal power, believing it will be more affordable than solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy. When it comes to power prices, coal power takes nine cents per kilowatt hour, while for solar the price is around 13 cents.

In May, World Bank's Kim warned that plans to build more coal-fired power plants in Asia would be a disaster for the planet. If Vietnam goes forward with 40 gigawatts of coal, if the entire region implements the coal-based plans right now, I think we are finished, he said.

Coal emits most carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour. Source: U.N.'s estimation

The World Bank, together with the European Union Ambassadors in Vietnam, offered to give Vietnam a hand in developing and implementing climate change policies and renewable source of energy.

Last December, 195 nations gathered in Paris to negotiate a new global climate agreement on a plan to limit global warming to well below 2C. That agreement is expected to enter into force later this year.

The U.S. and China have formally joined, with India and the E.U. promising to do so in October. Vietnam is moving forward to the ratification of the agreement.

Related news:

> Vietnam province scraps coal plant over environmental concerns

> Vietnam's revised energy plan might not be as green as it seems

> Climate change could drown Vietnam's beaches: experts
On average, every woman of a reproductive age undergoes 2.5 abortions.

About 40 percent of all pregnancies in Vietnam end in abortion, twice as many as the governments official records, doctors from Hanoi's Central Obstetrics Hospital said in a report.

Every woman of a reproductive age undergoes 2.5 abortions on average, according to the report.

Vietnam has one of the highest [abortion] rates in the world. It is just sad, Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, a seasoned obstetrician, said at a recent workshop on contraception and reproductive health services.

Notably, young people account for 20 percent of total abortions annually, Phuong said, citing the World Health Organization.

The figure is indicative of a growing number of young people having sex before marriage. Official statistics show that about 36 percent of Vietnamese adolescents aged between 14 and 17 have had sex, and around 8.4 percent of females from 15 to 24 have had at least one abortion.

In Vietnam, premarital sex remains a taboo. A young woman who gets pregnant out of wedlock is likely to face harsh backlash from society and family. As a consequence, unmarried women have to turn to private clinics to have an abortion.

About 70 percent of secret abortions are performed on teenagers aged between 13 and 19, said Nguyen Thi Hoai Duc, the director of the Institute for Reproductive and Family Health.

Many girls visit clinics three or four times to have abortions even though they have greater access to contraception and they are already aware of the risks of abortion, Duc said.

In Vietnam, abortions in the first 22 weeks of pregnancy are legal and available upon request at both public hospitals and private clinics across the country.

However, doctors say it is dangerous to carry out an abortion when the fetus is more than 12 weeks old.

It is estimated that about 25 percent of abortions are unsafe in Vietnam, heath authorities said, adding that deaths due to complications remain close to 13 percent all maternal deaths.

The Ho Chi Minh City-based Tu Du Hospital, the largest obstetrics hospital in southern Vietnam, said abortion numbers are continuing to rise. At one point it was so alarming that the reported abortion ratio to live birth at the hospital was 1:1.

The hospital carried out approximately 29,000 abortions in 2015, and in the first six months of this year over 14,000 pregnancies were terminated.

Doctors blame a lack of sex education and birth control measures for causing the high abortion rate. Many women who have abortions never meant to get pregnant, Dr. Phuong said.

The majority of women are not fully informed about reliable and lasting contraceptive options, leading to unintended pregnancies, she said.

Related news:

> Teenagers account for 70 percent of secret abortions in Vietnam

> Retirement could be a long way off for aging Vietnamese workers

> Vietnam's aging workforce on the road to retirement
LOS ANGELES (JTA)-For Rosh Hashanah, many of us eat an apple dipped in honey as an auspicious sign for a sweet new year. The symbolism is clear, and the ritual as easy to pull off as squeezing a bear-shaped plastic bottle of honey.

But what kind of a year could you expect from eating leeks, spinach and a fish head? A year of being a contestant on "Chopped"?

Many Sephardic Jews practice a custom at Rosh Hashanah dinner called "yehi ratzones"-"may it be God's will"-which calls for a kind of mini-seder in which a special blessing is said before eating certain ceremonial foods. Though it's a custom practiced mainly by Sephardim whose forebears lived in the Ottoman Empire, the idea of eating these special foods at this time of year can be found in the Babylonian Talmud, which mentions that certain fruits and vegetables should be seen on our Rosh Hashanah tables.

My wife, Brenda, is half Sephardic-her father's family came to the United States from the Greek island of Rhodes-and since she invites her entire extended family over for dinner the first night of Rosh Hashanah, I thought that we could include the custom this year.

After all, much like apples and honey, the symbolic foods eaten for yehi ratzones-including, yes, the aforementioned fish heads, as well as the likes of black-eyed peas and dates-taken as a group also represent the hope for a good coming year. Who wouldn't want to say amen to that?

But I should have known, like any other change in family custom-Talmudically sanctioned or not-negotiation would be involved.

When I brought up the idea to Brenda, she told me she had never heard of the custom. Not only that, but some of the yehi ratzones foods-notably spinach, traditionally served in her family in the form of a cheese-free "quajado" (a kind of spinach kugel) and fried leek patties, were found "on the family's seder table, not at Rosh Hashanah," she told her completely Ashkenazi husband. (Meanwhile, I suddenly realized that after decades of marriage, I had been living in a multicultural home.)

Looking for cover, I called Brenda's Uncle Lou, who didn't remember practicing the custom, either. But he did recall growing up with dates and pomegranates-two of the foods used in yehi ratzones-always on his mother's Rosh Hashanah table here.

"You see? Your family practiced part of the tradition," I said, hoping that would settle it.

"But how do you do it?" Lou asked, warming slightly to the idea.

I didn't know, but looking for an answer, I called Ty Alhadeff, the coordinator of the Sephardic studies program at the University of Washington. A third-generation Rhodesli-as descendants of the Sephardim from Rhodes are called-and a member of Seattle's Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, which practices the customs of the Rhodes traditions, I thought he could explain the ins and outs of yehi ratzones.

Within the first minute of our conversation Alhadeff said, "From generations back, I'm related to the Hassons"-my wife's family. I knew immediately I had found the right guy.

Alhadeff helped me understand that the pairing of blessings and foods during yehi ratzones is, at its heart, Hebrew and Aramaic wordplay. Puns, really, that rely on certain words for foods sounding similar to certain Hebrew verb forms.

"It's like saying 'May our enemies be mashed like these mashed potatoes,'" Alhadeff explained.

For instance, the Aramaic word "squash" is "karah," he explained. The Hebrew word connecting it to the blessing is "karah," a form of the verb meaning "to tear." Therefore, when we eat squash during the seder, the accompanying blessing is "May it be Thy will... You should tear up our evil decree, and let there be read before You, our merits."

A bit more of a stretch is the Aramaic word for leek, "karati," and the Hebrew word "Yikaretu," cut off, as found in the blessing: "May it be Thy will... to cut off our enemies."

As for the fish head-Alhadeff said he uses fish cheek instead-it's because the word for head, "rosh" (as in Rosh Hashanah, literally "head of the year") figures into the yehi ratzones blessing "May it be Thy will... that we may be on the forefront as the head and not in the background as the tail."

Alhadeff told me there have been some attempts at reinterpretations of the yehi ratzones blessings, which shift the meaning while staying true to the specific foods.

"It's not about the evil decrees being cut," he said.

For example, Alhadeff said he found a blessing for squash that says "May the coming year grow as a gourd in the fullness of blessing."

I was inspired. But getting back to the more mundane issues of how exactly we'd get this stuff ready for a group of 30, I asked him how the Alhadeff family gets it done.

"There is a division of labor," Alhadeff said, noting that he makes the leek patties and his wife the pumpkin (squash) bourekas. The two share the shopping.

As my wife and I discussed the coming dinner, we decided that for our first yehi ratzones, we would take our cue from the Alhadeffs: sharing the work would be the added blessing to our observance. Also, knowing that some variation was OK, we decided to pick just a few foods that would be familiar to the family.

Brenda agreed to cook the spinach quajado. I called her sister, Holly, and though she also reminded me her family only ate these foods on Passover-they are sisters, after all- she said she would make the the leek patties using her grandmother's recipe.

Not wanting to fill everyone up on pumpkin-filled anything, I settled on buying shelled pumpkin seeds, pepitas, to pass around. I figured everyone could benefit from the "fullness of blessing" concept before sitting down to our tried-and-true dinner of turkey, okra, Persian rice and salad.

Of course, having our evil decrees cut wouldn't hurt, either.

Edmon J. Rodman is a JTA columnist who writes on Jewish life from Los Angeles. Contact him at edmojace@gmail.com.
Can a children's book about the Jewish High Holidays help advance world peace?

A new edition of an award-winning children's book author thinks so-and National Geographic agrees.

"Celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur"-first published in 2007 and reissued this year with a new cover-is one of the volumes included in National Geographic's series, "Holidays Around the World," which introduces children to the ways in which religious and cultural holidays are celebrated in various countries. Other holidays spotlighted in the series include Thanksgiving, Diwali, Easter, and Ramadan, as well as the Jewish holidays Hanukkah and Passover.

Deborah Heiligman, the author of "Celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur," has written 30 books for children and teens. She sees the "Holidays Around the World" series as a step toward fostering greater interfaith understanding.

"You may have a non-Jewish kid, a Christian kid, or a Muslim kid looking at the pictures in this book, and some of the people in the pictures look like they do," Heiligman tells JNS.org. "And they're going to be playing a game that they play or eating a food that they eat, or even if they're not, they look similar, they look like kids." That is the moment, she says, "when they go 'aha,' even though we have differences we're all from the same planet.' I think the way you can make change in the world is to start with children."

"Celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur" introduces young readers to the blowing of the shofar, holiday greeting cards, prayers, and special foods. The book also examines how the Jewish High Holidays are celebrated worldwide. Through striking photographs, readers see how Jews from California to Zimbabwe, and from Mexico to Jerusalem, participate in the holiday rituals.

"We sit down with our families for a delicious holiday dinner. We eat a special bread called challah," Heiligman writes. "On Rosh Hashanah our challah is round to show that life is a circle from birth to death to birth again." Pomegranates are another important holiday food. "Some of us eat pomegranates because it is said that a pomegranate has 613 seeds," Heiligman notes. "There are 613 commandments, or things we must do, in the Torah, our holy book."

The shofar, a central symbol of the High Holidays, "is made from the horn of a ram," Heiligman explains. "The shofar is difficult to blow, and the people who blow it at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services are very much appreciated and honored." Three different notes are blown, she points out: "an unbroken sound, called 'teki'ah;' a wailing sound broken into three parts called 'shva'rim;' and a kind of tooting sound broken into nine parts, called 'tru'ah.'" The sound of the shofar "is like an alarm clock, or a wake-up call. It says, 'Really wake up now, think about your life, think about the past year, pray well, pay attention!'"

A two-page photo spread in "Celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur" shows thousands of Jews gathered at a lake in Uman, Ukraine, for the Tashlikh service. "On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, in the afternoon, we have a special service to cast away our sins," Heiligman writes. "It is called Tashlikh, which means to send away. We try to go to a river, or another body of water. We turn our pockets inside out, as if emptying out all our sins. Or we throw pieces of bread into the water-the pieces of bread represent our sins."

Heiligman. who was raised in a Jewish family in Allentown, Pa., agreed to write 10 volumes in the National Geographic series because she thought the books could be a way for children to become leaders who understand that diversity is part of our culture, and that every culture deserves respect.

"The High Holidays are a time for reflection, a time for new beginnings, a time to look inward and ask yourself how can I be a better person, how can I be the best person that I can be," Heiligman tells JNS.org. "I think children can relate to this. Jews pray in hopes of becoming better people and I hope adults can relate to that, too. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur give us a time to do that, to really sit and think."

Each of the volumes in the series is written with input from a consultant. Rabbi Shira Stern, director of the Center for Pastoral Care and Counseling in Marlboro, N.J., was an adviser for "Celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur."

Stern's introduction places the High Holidays into wider historical and cultural context for parents and teachers. Referring to Elul, the Hebrew month of preparation preceding Rosh Hashana, Stern notes, "'Elul' is an acrostic for the Hebrew phrase, 'Ani L'dodi, V'dodi Li,' which means 'I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine.' This is a metaphor for our relationship with God. But it's not a romantic relationship; it's a bond between parent and child." Especially for young children, Stern writes, "God 'the parent' is a natural concept. We want to feel so close to God that God will forgive us for the wrongs we have done. To inspire ourselves, we mark each day by blowing the shofar and include special prayers that begin the repenting process."

"We have come full circle in the Jewish year," Stern concludes. "And we are spiritually ready to begin again."
Ellie Bodker, the international president (N'siah) of BBYO, the world's leading pluralistic Jewish teen movement, visited the greater Orlando Jewish community over Sept. 15-18. Bodker, of Overland Park, Kan., was elected by 700 of BBYO's top teen leaders to serve at the helm of the organization, representing the B'nai B'rith Girls (BBG), BBYO's renowned leadership program and high school sorority, travel around the world and motivate Jewish teens to grow their local BBYO programs, strengthen their Jewish communities and make a difference in the world. Bodker takes the reins at a monumental time for the organization-BBYO has grown immensely with 19,000 active members across North America, reaching more than 80,000 Jewish teens in more than 35 countries around the world.

"I am very excited to visit the Orlando Jewish community," said Bodker. "There is significant potential to increase Jewish teen involvement in North Florida Region and it has such a rich BBYO history; I look forward to the opportunity to collaborate with local BBYO teens and professionals to develop a plan for growth and greater program excellence."

While Bodker was in Orlando, she attended a Waldflowers BBG (B'nai B'rith Girls) meeting at The Roth Family Jewish Community Center. She was hosted by the Michel family and met with her regional counterpart, Rebecca Michel. Rebecca is currently serving as North Florida region's regional N'siah and oversees chapters throughout Orlando, Jacksonville, Melbourne, Tampa, Sarasota and Naples. Bodker also attended Regional Kickoff, which was a party yacht cruise throughout Clearwater Beach with over 70 teens throughout Florida.

Over the course of her year-long term, Bodker, who deferred her first year of college to serve as BBYO's top ambassador, will travel to more than 50 U.S. cities and over six countries across Europe and South America. Key to Bodker's agenda is the promotion of unique, meaningful programming that engages both new and returning teens in a sorority-model experience they can't find anywhere else, ultimately increasing AZA and BBG membership. Central to this is an elevated focus on cultivating connection throughout the worldwide Jewish community and empowering individual change-makers to take their local initiatives to the global stage. Bodker is excited to move the movement this year while embodying BBYO's core values of sisterhood, philanthropy and teen leadership.

Ellie Bodker (seated on right) attended a Waldflowers BBG meeting at The Roth Family Jewish Community Center.

Bodker's responsibilities also include serving as a resource for chapter and regional BBYO leaders to strengthen local programming and serving as a voting member of BBYO's Board of Directors.

"Ellie is a dynamic leader with a real passion for the Jewish community, which makes her an excellent role model for Jewish teens here in Orlando, as well as Jewish teens around the world," said BBYO's Senior Regional Director Lory Conte. "We are thrilled that she will be spending several days in our community working to help BBYO North Florida Region reach its full potential."

In the capacity of president, Bodker is joined by male counterpart, Aaron Cooper of Winston-Salem, N.C., who oversees BBYO's young men's division, Aleph Zadik Aleph (AZA); together, Bodker and Cooper work with eight other elected BBYO leaders from all over North America to help move the organization forward.
By Sean Savage

JNS.org

The United States and Israel made history on Thursday signing the largest ever military assistance package between the two allies. The agreement was hailed by many as a means to ensure the Jewish state will securely meet the challenges of a dangerous and unstable Middle East over the next decade.

However, after years of seemingly strained relations between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama, does the deal sweep aside this history as Obama's term in office comes to an end?

"I think it is a message of deterrence to Israel's enemies in the Middle East," David Makovsky, a former U.S. senior advisor on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations told JNS.org. "Whatever U.S.-Israel policies differences there have been over the past several years, there now is a rock solid long term commitment to Israel's security. There's no adversary in the Middle East that has a commitment in advance of $38 billion dollars in support."

The new ten-year security deal, known as the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which

covers fiscal year 2019 to 2028, stands at $38 billion or $3.8 billion per year. The deal surpasses the current $30 billion MOU signed in 2007 under former President George W. Bush that expires in September 2018.

According to the White House, the agreement "will permit Israel to update the lion's share of its fighter aircraft fleet - including through the acquisition of additional F-35s-increase its missile defense, and acquire other defense capabilities needed to meet its threat environment."

Calling the agreement "historic," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it allows Israel to continue to maintain its military edge.

"This unprecedented agreement will ensure Israel maintains a strategic military edge over the next decade, which is the largest military aid package ever given to any other nation," he said.

Netanyahu added the "agreement will help Israel continue to build its armed forces and continue to improve our anti-missile defense systems...which of course are a very important achievement for Israel."

Hailed as a victory

The agreement was also widely praised by leading American Jewish organizations.

Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations Executive Vice Chairman and CEO Malcolm Hoenlein said the agreement "sends an important message to the entire region of the Middle East of the enduring strength of the U.S.- Israel special relationship."

"It underscores to those who have tried to portray a fraying in the fabric of the relationship that the two countries have the strongest security and intelligence cooperation and an enduring commitment to mutual support," he said.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) also called the agreement a "milestone" in U.S.-Israel relations.

"Strategic cooperation between the U.S. and Israel has long been a critical component of the U.S.-Israel relationship built solidly on shared interests and values," AJC CEO David Harris said. "The vital assistance provided by the MOU will reinforce that bilateral cooperation, and assure Israel's qualitative military edge against very clear threats to both Israel and the U.S. in the most volatile region of the world."

While the deal was widely praised by Israeli and American leaders, it also includes a number of notable changes from the existing military aid agreement that may fuel questions over the deal.

Previously, Israel obtained additional funding for its missile defense program on an ad hoc basis from Congress. Under the new agreement, this funding, roughly $5 billion, will be included in the agreement and committed towards missile defense assistance, therefore eliminating Israeli lobbying with Congress.

"The supplement on missile defense says that Israel can only seek more funding during 'significant conflict.' How that is defined could be a sticking point in the future," Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told JNS.org.

This includes an end to Israel's ability to use the military aid within its own defense industry, which currently stands at nearly 26 percent, as well as Israel's ability to lobby Congress for additional funding for its missile defense program.

"This part likely means the relationship between Israel and Congress is going to change. Not necessarily for the worse, but it will be less about transaction and more about policy and targeting Israelis enemies than talking about what Israel needs," Schanzer said.

Maintaining the edge

Additionally the agreement also maintains Israel qualitative military edge (QME) over its adversaries in the Middle East. However, as a result of the Iran nuclear deal last year, the United States has been providing increased military assistance to other Middle East allies, such as Saudi Arabia, which the Pentagon recently announced a $1.15 billion deal to provide the Sunni Arab country with more than 130 tanks, 20 armored recovery vehicles and other equipment.

Schanzer believes this may cause a future conflict for the U.S. and Israel concerning the QME.

"When you look at how Israel's adversaries are buying weapons hand over fist from the U.S., this becomes a potential challenge for Israel moving forward."

The agreement between the U.S. and Israel comes after nearly 10 months of laborious negotiations that underscored the tense relationship between Obama and Netanyahu over the past several years. Both leaders had a range of disputes, most famously on the Iran nuclear deal as well as over peace negotiations with the Palestinians and Israeli construction in the disputed territories.

Tense relations

This strained relationship was compounded by reports over the last several months that indicated Netanyahu could wait for the outcome of the upcoming U.S. presidential election before signing the deal, and deny Obama the opportunity to preside over an agreement of this magnitude. Ultimately, however, Netanyahu signed the deal.

Makovsky believes it was important for Netanyahu to enter the agreement with Obama to bolster the bipartisan consensus on Israel.

"For Netanyahu, this was important to have this is done under Obama's signature," said Makovsky, who serves as distinguished fellow and director of the Project on Middle East Peace Process at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "People question bipartisanship when it comes to the U.S.-Israel relationship and here you have a liberal democrat president who's signing off on ten more years of military support for Israel."

For Obama, Makvosky contends, signing the deal was an opportunity to thwart criticism of his stance towards Israel before leaving office early next year.

"For him it was very important as well," Makovsky said. "In his eyes, there is a wall between policy disagreements and support for hardware for Israel. He views this agreement as that he followed through on that distinction."

"They [the Obama administration] take a lot of pride on their levels of security assistance and from their perspective, they see this as a validation of that distinction that [Obama] has drawn."

However, Schanzer doesn't believe this is the final chapter in Obama's legacy on Israel and there are possible punitive measures that Obama may yet embrace, especially in regards to Israeli settlements, before his term ends early next year.

"The common view at the State Department is that all options are on the table," Schanzer said. "This may mean a U.N. Security Council resolution or even sanctions against entities in the U.S. that support settlements. There are a range of actions that can be taken for the president to show a balance. This is not the president's legacy full stop."
Five Jewish mothers from Orlando participated in the Jewish Women's Renaissance Project (JWRP) Leadership Conference in College Park, Md.

The JWRP Leadership Conference, held in collaboration with Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, gathered Jewish women from across the world to hone their leadership skills and create a global Jewish women's movement. The annual conference was launched in 2013 with 65 participants from the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and has grown to include some 300 people from nine countries, including Australia, Cuba, Greece, Israel, Panama, Russia, Spain, South Africa and the U.S., this year.

The Orlando women included Betsy Cohen, Laura Waldbaum, Leah Silver, Cheryl Finkelstein, and Sarah Gittelson.

During the event, JWRP honored Lihi Lapid, an acclaimed Israeli feminist author, and Rachel Fraenkel, the mother of a slain Israeli teenager who became a national symbol of hope, with the Pamela Claman Leadership Award. This JWRP award is given to international role models who have significantly shaped the Jewish world with exceptional and inspired leadership and serve as role models for Jewish women around the world.

"Rachelle and Lihi both speak on our Momentum trips, and are true examples of Jewish women from diverse worlds who know what it means to love one another based on the values they share," said Lori Palatnik, founding director of the JWRP.

Among the featured speakers were Mindy Scheier, founder of Runway of Dreams, which designs adaptive clothing and who joined the first JWRP Fashion trip this summer; Ariel Halevi, founder and co-owner of Vayomar, an Israel-based communications consulting firm; Charlie Harary, an entrepreneur, philanthropist and leader of the JWRP Momentum men's trips; Gidi Grinstein, founder and president of the Reut Institute, a non-profit strategy group focusing on Israel and Jewish issues; Janine Kurnoff, founder and principle of the Presentation Company, a communications consulting firm; Dr. Zeev Ben Shachar, director of Israel education at Hebrew University; and others.

The JWRP brings Jewish mothers on life-changing Momentum trips to Israel, with support from Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, to inspire them to change the world. Since 2009, more than 8,000 Jewish mothers from 150 partner organizations in 26 countries spanning several continents including Australia, Africa, Europe, North America, and South America have experienced the Momentum trips. Participants commit to getting involved in activities when they return home, including community events, Israel engagement programs, Jewish education, global learning, leadership development and Momentum Israel missions for husbands.
NEW YORK (JTA)-American Jews are likely to vote for Hillary Clinton in November, but American Jewry's fastest-growing community is likely to go the other way.

A solid majority of haredi Orthodox Jews will vote for Donald Trump, say experts and Republican operatives in the haredi enclave of Borough Park, Brooklyn. While poll data isn't available on the fervently Orthodox vote, observers say the haredim are attracted by Trump's hawkish foreign policy, pugnacious personality and image as a successful businessman.

It doesn't hurt that he's a man.

"When you're fighting a war, you want someone who's tough, who's going to be on your side," said Heshy Friedman, a business consultant in Borough Park who founded the group Jewish Democrats for Trump. "I don't think he means things literally. You need somebody who borderlines on going crazy."

The haredi community in New York City and in the state has supported Democrats in the past. Both Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo have courted the haredi vote by ensuring social services for the poor and promising not to intrude in communal affairs. Borough Park's state assemblyman, Dov Hikind, is a conservative Democrat.

But unlike American Jews in general, who have overwhelmingly voted Democrat in national elections for a century, the haredi community has shifted Republican in the past couple of decades as its numbers have grown, according to Samuel Heilman, who has studied the community for decades as a sociologist at Queens College of the City University of New York. The haredi move rightward parallels a similar move among all American Orthodox Jews, who include the less insular modern Orthodox community.

A recent poll of Florida Jews found that Orthodox voters there back Trump by a 3-to-1 margin.

"The haredi community clearly leans toward the Republican Party," said Hikind, who is undecided in the presidential election. "Mostly it's been Republican because of the sense that Republicans are much closer to Israel, much friendlier to Israel."

Haredim vote Republican, Heilman said, both to distinguish themselves from less observant Jews and because they identify with the party's social conservatism. He said this election could push haredim to Trump in especially large numbers because Clinton is a woman. Voting a woman into the most powerful position in the world, Heilman said, would be hard for a community whose gender roles are so clearly defined that its newspapers don't even print photographs of women, including public figures like Clinton.

"They don't want to be like the rest of the Jews," Heilman said. "The idea that a woman can have the ultimate position doesn't sit right with them. When the president of the United States makes news, they can't put a picture of her in Yated Neeman," a leading haredi paper.

Yated Neeman's editor, Pinchos Lipschutz, has written several columns praising Trump for being authentic while bashing Clinton's perceived dishonesty. In a February column, he wrote that the voters are supporting Trump almost like the Children of Israel supported Moses.

"He gives voice to the attitude that empowers the people," Lipschutz wrote in that column. "He talks about the real fear in American homes, the desire to triumph, the hope of being winners again. He continues to fill large arenas, peddling that message, and by doing so, he makes the professional politicians look silly."

Friedman, who also campaigned for Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, has been making the policy case for Trump in Borough Park. A flier he posted in synagogues around the neighborhood lists four reasons to support Trump: opposition to Iran obtaining a nuclear bomb; support for Israeli West Bank settlement; his pledge to nominate a conservative Supreme Court justice; and his opposition to Syrian refugees entering the country.

Friedman changed his license plate to "TRUMP 17" in honor of the candidate's would-be inauguration year, and believes there is a "silent majority" of haredi Jews who are too bashful to voice their support for Trump. He says support for Trump is especially strong among young haredim, who use the internet and have access to right-wing websites.

"You have a whole new generation of yeshiva kids who are right wing," he said. "[Democrats] are trying to destroy the religious community. These people have an agenda, and when they start the fight, there's always a reaction."

Trump's controversial statements and brusque demeanor have left some Borough Park Jews ambivalent. Like Orthodox Jews in Florida, several told JTA that they were dissatisfied with both candidates and are still weighing their options.

Hikind, a Democrat who has supported Republicans in the past, made a video two weeks ago coming out against Clinton due to her support for the agreement last year curbing Iran's nuclear program that critics deem weak. He stressed that he cannot yet endorse Trump because of the candidate's divisive statements, though Hikind expected most of his haredi constituents to back the developer and TV reality star.

"There's nothing to cheer about with regard to Trump because of so many things he's said, so many things he's done," Hikind said. "Donald Trump is the kind of guy, I don't know what he's going to say tomorrow, I don't know what he's going to say next week, I don't know what he's going to say two weeks from now that may disqualify him."

The largest haredi communities in the United States are in New York and New Jersey, traditionally Democratic states that will almost certainly go for Clinton even if the haredim turn out massively for Trump. But Friedman says highlighting the haredi vote is important both because more liberal Jews look to haredim to validate their Jewish choices, and because a high haredi birth rate means that it is the future of the Jewish community.

"If you go to a restaurant and you see somebody with a black hat, long beard sitting there eating with his family, you know it's definitely kosher," he said. "The secular Jewish people, there's many who look up to the Orthodox community and say if they're voting so strongly for this particular candidate, then obviously he must be somebody who's good for the Jewish community."
The air in Ho Chi Minh City is filled with exceeding amount of poisonous gases and fine dirt. Photo by VnExpress/Huu Nguyen

It's getting harder to breathe in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Here's the proof.

Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the beloved tourist destination Ha Long are being plagued by severe air pollution, according to a new study released Thursday.

The environment ministrys study between 2011 and 2015 found the air quality has become worse in many urban areas, especially the two largest cities and Ha Long.

Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentration in Hanoi was measured at up to 1.3 times above the permitted levels and in Ha Long 1.2 times. In Ho Chi Minh Citys District 1 it has been found at twice the permitted level.

High levels of nitrogen dioxide increase the chance of respiratory problems. It inflames the lining of the lungs, and can reduce immunity to lung infections, causing problems such as wheezing, coughing, cold, flu and bronchitis. Children, people with asthma and old people with heart problems are most at risk.

Hoang Duong Tung, the deputy director of the Vietnam Environment Administration, said traffic and industrial activities are major sources of air pollution in Hanoi and HCMC. The problem in Ha Long comes from coal mining and thermal power plants.

Around 140 new cars and 750 new motorbikes are registered every day in HCMC, which is the most crowded city in Vietnam with 12 million people including migrants.

The Real-time Air Quality Index on aqicn.org on Friday morning ranked the pollution level in HCMC as unhealthy, which means outdoor exertion should be limited for children and people with respiratory problems. The index measures air pollution in 60 countries worldwide. The team is mainly based in Beijing, China, using measurements provided by the U.S. diplomatic mission in China and environment protection agencies worldwide.

Hanois air has also been repeatedly ranked as unhealthy and at times hazardous, which means everyone should avoid outdoor exertion. The capital now has 5.5 million individual vehicles including more than 4.9 million motorbikes, or more than 70 cars and nearly 700 motorbikes for every one kilometer of road.

The new study from the environment ministry also measured high levels of fine dirt which can cause lung cancer.

The amount of particulate matters equal or less than 10 micrometers (PM10) measured in Hanoi was up to 1.4 times above the safe limit. PM10 are among the most harmful of all pollutants as they are just about a seventh the thickness of a human hair and when inhaled can evade the respiratory systems natural defenses and lodge deep in the lungs.

A station in Ha Long has measured the particles at 1.2 times more than standard.

Related news:

>Pollution threatens to kill Vietnam's marine life

>Air pollution in Hanoi reaches alarming levels
The number of retired U.S. military generals and admirals endorsing Donald Trump in an open letter has grown from 90 to 162, says the only Holocaust survivor signing it, retired Green Beret Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow, a key proponent behind the effort.

Shachnow and retired Rear Admiral Charles Williams organized the letter and signature collection earlier this month, citing Trump's commitment to rebuilding the military, securing the borders, defeating Islamic supremacy and restoring law and order.

Fourteen Medal of Honor recipients are among the 72 new signatories, Shachnow told JNS.org from his North Carolina home.

Shachnow, a 40-year Army veteran, who spent 32 of those years with U.S. Army Special Forces-the Green Berets, said he took the "unprecedented" step to get the Trump support letter written and circulated publicly because he felt obligated to speak up. "Historically, I've felt that we're soldiers and we should keep our nose out of politics," he said. "Today, however, we have two candidates who can affect our country for a generation or more, with the balance on the Supreme Court and rebuilding our military being major issues to our national security."

His deep concern for the future of America is reflected in Shachnow's compelling life story.

Holocaust Survivor

During WWII, he was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp in his native city of Kovno, Lithuania from age 7 to 10. Only five percent of the people in the Kovno concentration camp survived the war. He and his family endured a 2,000-mile, six-month trek across war-torn Europe to eventually land in Salem, Mass.

As a Green Beret, he was assigned to the ultra-top-secret Detachment "A" (classified designation: 39th Special Forces Detachment) beginning in 1956 through 1984, when it was called the Physical Security Support Element, Berlin (classified designation: 410th Special Forces Detachment).

Shachnow, now 82, participated in clandestine missions behind enemy lines and later commanded secret missions conducted by Green Berets from Det. "A" and the 410th.

One of his favorite stories while serving in Det. "A" as a young major, stems from an unauthorized mission that he and a few non-commissioned officers took into the subterranean network of underground tunnels and sewers to get the upper hand on East German police.

"We were told the subterranean system was off limits, but I decided in my infinite wisdom that we'd go down there anyway...it was like a desert in that there were no points of reference," he said. "We ended up using the Hansel and Gretel method of keeping track of where we had been."

The unauthorized mission brought them into East Germany, and also brought Shachnow before the top commanding general for West Germany, where he was reprimanded for the mission. The reprimand, however, didn't slow down his service nor his promotions.

Shachnow was the classic Special Forces officer, said retired Chief Warrant Officer James Stejskal, who served two tours of duty with Det. "A" and is the author of the soon-to-be-published book, "Special Forces Berlin: Clandestine Cold War Operations of the U.S. Army's Elite, 1956-1990."

Stejskal said the Det. "A" missions were "classic OSS (WWII's Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA) Jedburgh missions, run deep behind enemy lines.

Cold War Command

"Keep in mind," he said, "during the Cold War, there were only a hand full of us stationed in West Berlin surrounded by more than a million Russian and communist East German military and police in the Warsaw Pact, on a wartime footing."

Stejskal continued, "General Shachnow came up through the system, survived unreal dangers, both from the Nazis and the Soviets, he took that knowledge and turned it into a successful career where he never forgot his men, his mission and he respected his men, listened to them and let them do their jobs."

Shachnow was the commanding general of the Berlin Brigade when the Berlin Wall, which the Communists began building in 1961, began to be torn down on Nov. 9, 1989, and it's where he had a clarion moment in his life.

He was sitting with his Russian counterpart from the Soviet Army and senior KGB officers. "There was a moment when they were laughing and I asked what was so funny," Shachnow said. "The general pointed out the personal irony for me then. I was a Holocaust survivor living in the villa that Hitler's Finance Minister, General Fritz Reinhardt, owned and which was Hermann Goering's headquarters, and I was having dinner with my Russian counterpart and senior KGB officers. The general said, 'Here you are, a Jew. You were liberated by us, by the Russians (from the Kovno concentration camp). Now you are defending the Germans who had incarcerated you and committed atrocities against your people while you are getting ready to fight us, your new enemy.' I'll never forget that."

Shachnow remains humble to this day. In his book "Hope and Honor," he wrote about having worked with Communists to transition from a military-seize footing in East Germany to an open society. When he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his exceptionally meritorious leadership during that period, from December 1989 to August 1991, from Army Gen. John M.D. Shalikashvilli, Shachnow wrote: "I stood proudly as General Shalakashvilli awarded me the Distinguished Service Medal. But, I was even more grateful for the next award" when he presented the Army's Outstanding Civilian Service Medal to his wife, Arlene, for her devotion and care of military members serving in Germany during those tumultuous years.

John Stryker Meyer is a combat veteran, who served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War with Special Forces serving in the secret war in Laos, Cambodia and N. Vietnam under the Military Assistance Command Vietnam - Studies and Observations Group (SOG). He's the author of Across the Fence: The Secret War in Vietman and co-author of On the ground: The Secret War in Vietman.
First American Fried Chicken, which is owned by the family of alleged bomber Ahmad Khan Rahami, was closed and cordoned off a day after he was arrested for a series of bombings in New York and New Jersey, Sept. 20, 2016.

ELIZABETH, N.J. (JTA)-Ahmad Khan Rahami, the man who police say planted four bombs in Manhattan and New Jersey-including one in the train station here-used to come to the One Stop Kosher Market to buy snacks.

The market is a couple minutes' walk down Elmora Avenue from First American Fried Chicken, the fast food restaurant run by Rahami's family. Rahami stopped by a couple times, employees told Yaakov Weiss, who manages the market and works at the adjacent kosher restaurant, Avenue Grill and Sushi. Another employee recognized him from the picture in the news.

Weiss thought nothing of a Muslim man frequenting the market and restaurant. A 20-mile drive from New York City, this New Jersey bedroom community of some 125,000 residents is home to large communities of Muslims and Jews. Muslim men, Weiss said, come often for a taste of Middle Eastern cuisine.

"We are a shawarma, Middle Eastern place, so we have some different people coming in," he said of the restaurant. "Most of the time they're here to shop, get their Middle Eastern food-shawarma, lafa, falafel."

On Monday Rahami, an Afghani American, was shot and arrested by police in the adjacent town of Linden. He is accused of planting two bombs in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, as well as the one at the train station and another in the New Jersey shore town of Seaside Park. The Seaside Park and one of the Chelsea bombs detonated Saturday; 29 people were injured in the Manhattan explosion, but none had lengthy hospital stays.

Members of the Orthodox Jewish community in Elizabeth, which has four Orthodox synagogues, were shaken but not surprised by the attacks. And while some said the bombings make the case for limiting the number of Muslim refugees entering the United States, they did not blame the local Muslim community for the attacks or suggest that their attitude toward their Muslim neighbors would change.

"Because it happened so close to home, I feel more vulnerable, just with a yeshiva and synagogue and another yeshiva and another school down the block," said June Fooksman, whose 10-year-old daughter attends the Jewish Educational Center, a network of Orthodox day schools also located on Elmora Avenue. "I'm just going to believe that we're going to be watched over. God's gonna watch, and what is meant to be is going to be."

Elmora is a quiet but busy commercial street featuring Jewish storefronts mixed in among shops with Spanish signs in the windows. On Tuesday, a day following Rahami's arrest, First American Fried Chicken was closed, its entrance cordoned off with police tape. A bevy of news photographers sat chatting on a brick berm across the street.

Some Jewish residents suggested that the size of the Muslim community here, as well as in nearby North Jersey towns, means that another attack is not far off. Some compared the situation to the recurring waves of terror attacks in Israel.

"There's plenty of them around here," said Benayau Berez, 29, an Israeli employee at Avenue Grill and Sushi, referring to local Muslims. "It's something you know is coming. You know how it is in Israel. It's something that's beginning. I don't feel anything, but I see the panic that was here yesterday. I think it's just the tip of the iceberg."

But Weiss and others stressed that they don't intend to change their relationships with Muslim friends and neighbors because of the attacks. Becky Sternglass, a receptionist at the Jewish Educational Center, sympathized with Rahami's family but said if there are any further attacks, "everybody's not going to like all the Muslims."

"The restaurant, I hear, was really good, but how many people are not going to go there anymore?" she asked. "I feel bad for his family. They're going to lose out. They're going to lose their business probably."

Several people called for an increased police presence in Elizabeth. Berez and Weiss, who have children at the Jewish Educational Center, were upset that the school had not bolstered security. (Like many Jewish institutions in New Jersey, the school has received federal grants over the years to improve its security.) Weiss complained that New Jersey law did not allow him to carry a handgun.

The Jewish Educational Center told JTA that it did bolster security on Monday, including doubling its security, identifying all visitors and keeping children indoors. Like many Jewish institutions in New Jersey, the school has received federal grants over the years to improve its security.

Gabe, 22, the manager of Jerusalem Restaurant, a pizza place across from Avenue Grill and Sushi, said being a Jewish establishment on Elmora Avenue "puts a big red target on the window."

Weiss said it just shows that there are dangerous people out there.

"They're running around, throwing pipe bombs," he said. "God forbid, if someone comes in here, what do we have for our protection besides God? What are we going to do, throw plastic forks at them?"

But Ezra Cowan, a psychology graduate student at nearby Kean University, urged against additional security measures.

"What can you do?" he said. "You can get a policeman to stand by the shul. You could get everyone trained with arms for self-defense. You could do all those measures, which are probably a little outlandish."

Instead, he said, "it's just time for us to realize God protects us."
Jacob Nagel (l), Israel's acting national security adviser, signing a Memorandum of Understanding for $38 billion of U.S. defense assistance over 10 years with Undersecretary of State Tom Shannon, Sept. 14, 2016

WASHINGTON (JTA)-President Barack Obama's near parting gift to Israel, a guarantee of $38 billion in defense assistance over a decade, distills into a single document what he's been saying throughout eight fraught years: I have your back, but on my terms.

The agreement signed Wednesday in the State Department's Treaty Room here increases assistance for Israel over the prior Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2007 under the George W. Bush administration and guaranteeing Israel $31 billion over 10 years.

But it also substantially shrinks the role Congress plays in a critical forum shaping U.S.-Israel relations, defense assistance, and in so doing diminishes the influence of the mainstream pro-Israel community, a sector that at times has been an irritant to Obama.

Wrapped into the $38 billion memorandum is $5 billion in missile defense funding, with clauses placing tough restrictions on Israel's ability to ask for supplements from Congress.

Under Obama and Bush, that's been an arena where the pro-Israel lobby has flexed its muscle over the last decade or so, consistently asking Congress for multiples of the missile defense appropriations requested by each president-and getting it.

"The MOU as it's constructed seems to obviate the need for Congress' traditional role in recent years," said Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "What this means is that the relationship between Congress and Israel will have to evolve. Members of Congress feel they are being pushed out of a role that they relish."

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., the chairwoman of the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee for the Middle East, led passage of a congressional resolution urging an extension of the defense assistance-coincidentally, just hours after the sides announced a deal was in the offing on Monday. Ros-Lehtinen said she intended to subject the agreement to congressional scrutiny.

"It is important for Congress to conduct its oversight authority and examine the MOU closely in order to ensure that this agreement is mutually beneficial and meets the needs of both the U.S. and Israel," she said in a statement.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee's subcommittee dispensing foreign aid, was infuriated by the arrangement.

"We can't have the executive branch dictating what the legislative branch will do for a decade based on an agreement we are not a party to," he told The Washington Post this week, and pledged to push more funds for Israel through Congress.

Jacob Nagel, the acting Israeli national security adviser who led talks ahead of the agreement, told reporters on Wednesday, before the formal signing, that the Israelis had asked Graham to back off.

"Senator Graham is one of the greatest supporters of Israel in Congress," he said. "But everyone who spoke with him" on Israel's team in the talks "said it was not a good idea-Israel is a country that honors its agreements."

Indeed, written into the agreement is Israel's pledge to return to the U.S. government any extra monies that Congress approves on top of the memorandum before it kicks in, October 2018. There is an exception for requests for emergency assistance in the event of "major conflicts," and Nagel noted that the Obama administration has provided such additional assistance quickly.

There are other rollbacks in the deal demanded by Obama and his team, headed by Susan Rice, the national security adviser. Israel is currently the only country allowed to spend some of its defense assistance-up to 26 percent-on its own defense industries. That will be phased to zero by the end of the agreement, and all funding will be spent on U.S. suppliers and contractors.

Obama resented having to deal with intercessors in Congress and in parts of the pro-Israel community over his two terms when he clashed with Israel on critical issues like Israeli-Palestinian peace and the Iran nuclear deal.

Pitching the Iran deal in an August 2015 speech at American University, he referred derisively to critics who called the deal a "historic mistake," assailing their "credibility." Republicans in Congress and officials at the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC understood that they were the targets.

Those wounds were not entirely healed, as evidenced by Rice's comments at the signing. The memorandum, the Iran deal and the 2013-14 Obama administration push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal were all part of the same commitment "to Israel's security over the long term," Rice said. Left unsaid was how unhappy Israel was with both initiatives.

Just months before Obama leaves office, the memorandum narrows the spectrum of the U.S.-Israel relationship to the two countries' executive branches, a posture that could benefit Hillary Clinton, whom Obama hopes will succeed him as president. Clinton's presidential campaign praised the deal.

"The agreement will help solidify and chart a course for the U.S.-Israeli defense relationship in the 21st century as we face a range of common challenges, from Iran's destabilizing activities to the threats from ISIS and radical jihadism, and efforts to delegitimize Israel on the world stage," the campaign's statement said.

Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to Washington who helped shape the agreement, said Obama's imprimatur made it clear that the relationship had the backing of the U.S. political spectrum following two years of tensions between the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration.

"It shows that the strength of the relationship is in being able to weather disagreements," Dermer said.

Alan Solow, a longtime Obama backer and a past chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said the deal should make it clear that Obama, contra his critics, always valued the relationship and the strategic assets Israel brought to it.

"This shows why making Iran a litmus test was wrong," Solow said in an interview. "Here you have a prime minister and a president who disagreed quite strongly on the correctness and impact of the Iran deal, and yet they are able to reach a highly significant historical agreement on U.S.aid and Israel's security."

The group that was at the forefront of the Iran battle, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, lauded the agreement.

"We commend President Obama and his administration for forging this landmark agreement," AIPAC said. "It demonstrates America's strong and unwavering commitment to Israel."

Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation League CEO who attended the signing, said the stability of the agreement in a volatile Middle East outweighed whatever political price pro-Israel groups might pay.

"We have surging Islamic radicalism, we have an expansionist and hostile Iran," he said. "We have a degree of dislocation and suffering we haven't seen since the Second World War. Rather than try to game this, who's up who's down, who's in, who's out, what's important is that this locks down a commitment that will persist not just with this administration, but the next one and the administration after that."
TEL AVIV (JTA)-Shimon Peres, the former defense hawk turned Nobel Peace Prize winner and the last of Israel's founders, has died.

Peres died before dawn Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016, at 93, Israel Radio reported. The former president suffered a massive stroke earlier this month and was reported initially to be in stable but critical condition. His condition was reported to have deteriorated dramatically on Tuesday afternoon. Israel Radio quoted his family, who were at his side, as saying he was "fighting until the end."

The phoenix of Israeli politics, Peres continually reinvented himself as the country changed. He began his career in the Defense Ministry and was the architect of Israel's nuclear program, but in his later years Peres was more closely identified with the quest for peace with the Palestinians. He was instrumental in negotiating the Oslo Accords, the landmark Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, and was present on the White House lawn for its signing in 1993.

Though he served as prime minister three times without ever winning an election outright, and shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for a peace that has yet to materialize, Peres emerged late in life as Israel's beloved elder statesmen and a rare figure capable of uniting a fractious society.

Following the signing of the Oslo Accords, Peres emerged as Israel's global ambassador for peace, predicting the emergence of a "new Middle East" in which conflict was supplanted by shared prosperity. Elected to the largely ceremonial role of president in 2007, talk of peace pervaded nearly every speech he gave. Well into his 90s, Peres still insisted he would live to see the day when peace would come.

Peace, however, doomed his political career. After middling political success in the 1980s, the Oslo Accords debilitated Peres' Labor Party, which fell from power in 2001 with the outbreak of the second intifada and has yet to win another election. When Peres won the presidency in 2007, he was a member of Kadima, a short-lived centrist party.

As president, Peres rose again, this time as Israel's wise old man. Free to rise above the political fray, Peres trumpeted Israel's technological achievements and articulated its hopes for a brighter future. More than anything, he became a symbol of the country's resilience-able to survive, thrive and remain optimistic-no matter the challenges.

Born Szymon Perski in Wiszniewo, Poland, in 1923, Peres moved with his family to Tel Aviv in 1934. At 20, he became the head of a Labor Zionist youth group, through which he met David Ben-Gurion, who would become Israel's first prime minister. In 1945, Peres married Sonya Gelman, who had just returned from World War II service in the British Army.

The couple was married for 67 years, though they separated after Peres became a presidential candidate. Sonia Peres had long refused to play the part of political wife, and after Peres moved to the president's residence in Jerusalem, she changed the name on her Tel Aviv mailbox to Sonia Gal, a Hebraicized version of her maiden name. Sonia Peres died in 2011.

In 1947, Peres joined the Haganah, managing arms purchases and personnel. After Israel gained independence the following year, he continued working in the Defense Ministry, becoming its youngest-ever director-general in 1952 at 29. In that capacity he expanded Israeli arms purchases from France and later helped manage the 1956 Sinai Campaign. He also founded Israel's arms production industry and led efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.

Peres was first elected to the Knesset in 1959 with Ben-Gurion's ruling Mapai party, becoming deputy defense minister. He would serve in the Knesset for an as-yet unmatched total of 48 years. Peres remained a close Ben-Gurion ally, splitting from Mapai with him in 1965 to form a rival party and then rejoining Mapai when it became the Alignment in 1968.

After serving in several minor ministerial positions, Peres became defense minister in 1974 under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Peres was a territorial hawk, opposing early proposals for West Bank withdrawal and supporting settlement expansion. When Rabin resigned amid scandal in 1977, Peres briefly became acting prime minister, then lost the post when the Alignment was defeated in the 1977 election by Menachem Begin's Likud party.

Peres headed the Alignment-the precursor to today's Labor Party-for the next 15 years, contesting three more close elections with Likud. The two parties formed a unity government following the 1984 elections-Peres was prime minister from 1984 to 1986, then foreign minister under Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir from 1986 to 1988.

As foreign minister in 1987, Peres conducted secret negotiations with King Hussein of Jordan for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank as part of an Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty. But Shamir rejected the proposed agreement, and the following year Jordan unilaterally relinquished its claim to the West Bank.

After the Alignment lost the 1988 elections, Peres again joined a Likud-led government as finance minister, but tried to overthrow the government two years later. In what became known as the Dirty Trick, Peres assembled an Alignment-led coalition with leftist and haredi Orthodox parties, only to see it fall apart after he received a mandate to form a governing coalition. He lost his party's chairmanship to Rabin in 1992, and again became foreign minister when the party, now renamed Labor, won elections that year.

Under Rabin, Peres was the architect of the Oslo Accords, which gave the Palestinians autonomy in parts of the West Bank and Gaza. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"Israel's role in the Middle East should be to contribute to a great, sustained regional revival," Peres said upon accepting the prize. "A Middle East without wars, without enemies, without ballistic missiles, without nuclear warheads."

After Rabin was assassinated in 1995, Peres became acting prime minister, but lost the post again in a close race with Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu. Following his defeat in '96, he founded the Peres Center for Peace, which runs programs aimed at regional reconciliation.

Peres remained in the Labor Party through 2005, twice regaining the chairmanship and serving another stint as foreign minister under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. In 2006, following the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, Peres joined Sharon's new centrist Kadima party.

The next year he won a race for Israel's largely ceremonial presidency. As president, Peres stayed largely above the political fray, though he conducted secret negotiations with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in 2011, culminating in a peace deal that Netanyahu's government rejected. After leaving the presidency, Peres remained largely silent on politics.

Peres frequently traveled internationally as president, focusing his speeches and activism on encouraging Middle East peace and touting Israel's technological achievements. His annual Presidential Conference brought together leaders in politics, science and culture. He finished his presidential term in 2014.

He is survived by three children, Tsvia Walden, Yoni Peres and Chemi Peres, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Dear Editor:

I recently relocated to Central Florida from Israel, and I want to take this opportunity to tell members of the Jewish Community about a wonderful program that helped me in my adjustment to life in America in Orlando. JFS Orlandos Jewish Family Stability program is a jewel that many people may not know is there for them as well for their families.

Every one I have met has been anxious and willing to help me.

I owe my thanks to so many people, but especially to Clelie [Duroseau, B.S.W., Family Stabilization Program case manager], and Jeanette [Brownstein, MSW, director of Programs].

They have helped me in so many ways and I hope that the Jewish community will help them keep these wonderful programs for me and for others.

Thank you!

Dalia Tordjman

Orlando
By Jason Dov Greenblatt

NEW YORK (JTA)As my family and I prepare for Rosh Hashanah, we look back with grateful hearts for the brachot, blessings, in our lives. We take time to reflect on the joys and the challenges, the ups and downs, that we experienced during the previous year. To me, a meaningful observance of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur requires taking stock of lifes hard-earned victories and heartfelt woes, its underappreciated blessings and unfulfilled potential.

As Jews, we have the opportunityindeed, the obligationto renew ourselves in mind and soul at this time of year. Sometimes the hardships we have faced over the past year or the significant unrest in todays world can make the promise of hope implicit in Rosh Hashanah seem elusive. Yet just as it has throughout Jewish history, the cry of the shofar summons us to spiritual clarity, renewing our faith in a brighter tomorrow and calling on us to craft it together.

Ever since I was a child, Unesaneh Tokef, the piyut that has been a part of the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services since the 13th century, frequently runs through my mind during the month of Elul. The words of the piyut are awe-inspiring, yet frightening; intimidating, yet beautiful. The story behind the piyut, as described in the machzor that I use, is jarring and powerful. It takes my breath away, fills me with emotion and motivates me each year when I read it.

As I reflect on my own year gone by and prepare for 5777, three verses from the Unesaneh Tokef continuously echo through my mind, more so than in any other year:

Who will rest and who will wander?

Who will be safe and who will be torn?

Who will be calm and who will be tormented?

Since the last blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, so many people around the world have not been at rest because of the hatred that terrorist organizations seek to spread. Too many lives have been tormented by violence abroad and on our very own shores.

Though it is painful for us to recall these events, we must not forget the horrors that we have seen, lest we become immune to atrocities. Terrorists have stabbed and fired at innocent civilians, shot missiles at and bombed cities and towns, and mowed down people in vehicular attacks in many places around the world, resulting in so many innocent lives lost and forever impacting the lives of their loved ones.

But in spite of all this unrest and torment, I have also seen so much that gives me hope over the past year. Ever since Donald Trump asked me to serve as co-chairman of his Israel Advisory Committee, I have been a witness to the deep passion and unity among Jews of all kinds, who together with so many non-Jews care deeply about the safety and security of Israel. I have seen and heard of people who are able to ignore the hatred and violence that surround them and focus on our shared humanity.

Additionally, I have met many remarkable Americans who possess a deep passion for our country. The stories I have heard over the course of Mr. Trumps campaign have reinforced my gratitude for the abundant blessings of American liberty. We should never forget how fortunate we are to live in the United Statesa country of great freedom, tolerance and respect for all its people. How blessed we are to be able to live and raise our children in a country where we are free to live as Jews, practice our religion to its fullest and contribute to the betterment of the broader society at large.

Yet in our own country, too, we can dream bigger. We can, during this time of introspection, hope, pray and work toward a brighter tomorrow. We can build a future where all Americans are offered the tools and opportunities to succeed in life. We can resolve in ourselves to elect a president who refuses to accept the status quo, a president who dreams big and has the talent and skills to make those dreams a reality. A president who agrees that the security of our nation and the security of Israel are matters of the utmost importance.

As the High Holidays draw near, stirring hearts and minds toward positive change, so, too, does a presidential election offering Jews and non-Jews alike the chance to shape the future of our nation in a manner consistent with our highest values and aspirations. Democracy, not unlike Judaism, places the responsibility for improving the world squarely on the individual. We do so through the concrete actions we take, lending substance to those ideals.

Jason Greenblatt is an executive vice president and chief legal officer of The Trump Organization, co-chairman of Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trumps Israel Advisory Committee, and co-founder of the popular parenting and family website http://www.inspireconversation.com. Follow him @JasonDovEsq.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (JTA)I support Hillary Clinton for president because I have seen her work up closeas first lady, senator from New York and secretary of state. She has the temperament, experience and judgment to be commander-in-chief and our countrys representative to the world. And I know she has a deep commitment to the State of Israel and a special sensitivity to help Holocaust survivors.

During his first term, President Bill Clinton appointed me his special representative for Holocaust issues to provide belated justice for Holocaust victims and their families. With his and Hillarys strong support, I helped recover $8 billion for slave and forced labor, unpaid insurance policies, Nazi-looted art, and property restitution and compensation.

As senator from New York and then as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton continued her intense efforts for Holocaust victims and survivors. In my service as special adviser to the secretary of state on Holocaust issues, she supported me when we advanced a number of new initiatives to help survivors.

Having worked across four U.S. administrations, Ive seen firsthand that every president needs a temperament that can endure great pressure.

Hillary Clinton has it.

Hillary Clinton believes that at a time of great challenge at home and abroad, our diversity is a great source of our countrys strength. Thats why she says were stronger together.

Hillary Clinton has always been among Israels strongest supporters. In the wake of the continued knife attacks on innocent Israelis, she publicly demanded that the Palestinian leadership stop inciting their people to violence, publicly condemn terrorism and end the pernicious practice of paying rewards to the families of terrorists.

She has strong relationships with leaders like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom she played a major role in negotiating the 2012 Gaza cease-fire, and supported vital U.S. assistance to Israels Iron Dome anti-missile system. Clinton has set out a concrete plan to take the U.S.-Israel relationship to the next level. And she called for the expeditious completion of a new 10-year defense memorandum of understanding to ensure that Israel maintains its qualitative defensive advantage; the memorandum was signed last week.

Her plan includes a pledge to work shoulder to shoulder with Israel to combat the rising terrorist threat in the region. Clinton has called for tougher sanctions on Iran for its support of terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, to curb its ballistic missile development, and to cut the flow of Iranian funds and arms to Israels enemies. She has pledged to take swift action, including militarily if necessary, if Iran attempts to obtain a nuclear weapon. And Hillary will do everything in her power to combat the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions effort to marginalize Israel.

Israel will have no better friend in the Oval Office than Hillary Clinton, and I enthusiastically support her.

During the Clinton administration, Stuart E. Eizenstat was the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, undersecretary of commerce and of state, deputy secretary of the Treasury, and special representative of the president on Holocaust issues. During the Carter administration, he was the presidents White House chief domestic policy adviser.
I wrote some thoughts down, posted them on my Facebook page and wrote a truncated version to the Orlando Sentinel, which was printed as a letter to the editor. So, here are some further ramblings.

9/11 was a tragedy. We have had a few in our history. The greatest war toll of American dead happened within our own borders between 1861-1865. Dec. 7th, 1941 was a tragedy. We went to war against two sovereign nations: Japan and Germany. We won. They both are functioning democracies today.

You cannot go to war against a Movement. A Movement has no borders, no nationality. A Movement starts from within. A Religious Movement is the most dangerous and the most difficult to control.

The world is expending blood and treasure to try to stifle Al Queda, ISIS and their offshoots. They do not need territory to operate. All they need is six or eight talented geeks in a room somewhere and the Internet. They just have to radicalize a dozen disenchanted, angry individuals in any given country and youve got a Paris, a Brussels, a New Jersey, a Manhattan.

We watched the two Libertarian candidates on TV the other night. You know, they made some sense. Among other things they want to do in shrinking government is to eliminate the Department of Homeland Security. Look, they said. Weve got the FBIsome of the finest trained police forces in history. Why do we need these guys?

Well, think about it. Did Homeland get the New York, New Jersey bomber? Noit was good police work. With all the billions we have spent to destroy this Movement, with all the blood and treasure we have expended in a 1200-year-old war that does not threaten our homelandhow many victims of terror have been killed in the U.S. since 9/11? Ninety four. That includes San Bernardino and Orlando. That is 6.2 per year. Chicago or even Orlando should have it so good.

The sound of a paper bag popping in a U.S. Mall can send shoppers screaming to the exits. This means the Movement is somewhat successful. Israel seems to know how to handle the problem. The Movement in Israel is perpetrated by Arab schools in their textbooks, in their mosques and in their social media. It is championed by their so-called government in Ramallah. Yet, when the Arabs of Israel, including the West Bank, are polled as to where they would rather live in a Two State scenarioover 80 percent say Israel. Looks like the ISIS philosophy is not working so well there.

Eventually we will have to put some sense in our policies and strategies. We are still building nuclear submarines with 200 nuclear missiles onboard. If each of these ships were a nation they would be a nuclear power. A tank plant in Lima, Ohio, continues to build tanks the army does not want, but it provides jobs for the congressmans constituents. Are we planning a war against Russia? Then say so. ISIS and all of Islamic Terror is a different problem.

In its earliest centuries, the Jews had slaves and stoned people to death. We grew out of that. The Christians burned people at the stake, slaughtered entire Jewish towns on their way to kill Arabs in Jerusalem. They too grew up. Islam is 1200 years younger than Christianity. They too will grow up. I dont believe we have time to wait.

You dont stop the Movement by banning people from immigrating to the United States. The New Jersey bomber was eight years old when he came here. The Orlando Killer was born in Queens, New York (same as Donald J. Trump).

The best shot, however slim, is the reformation of Islam. In 1979 a bunch of radical Islamists took over the Kabba, the holiest place in Mecca. It took French Commandoes to get them out. The Saudis then made a deal with the attackers. We will finance your Madrasses to preach your deadly philosophy anywhere in the world. Just leave us alone.

And they did. The result has been the radicalization of most of the Islamist world and their exported offshoots around the rest of the world.

If we are looking to stop this Movement; if we have any chance at all, it is in stopping the Saudisas the New York Times calls them, Both the firemen and the arsonists of this philosophy. Thats because now, it has come back to bite them with a war in Yemen where fellow Sunnis are attacking The Kingdom.

So, there is a chance. But time is short. We have to have better intelligence and more sophisticated cyber capabilities. And we cannot do the job without the support of moderate Islam. Silence on their part is not an option. As it turns out, its everybodys war.
It has become standard practice among those who hate Israel to accuse the Jewish states supporters of suppressing speech. These so-called progressives piously charge Israel advocates of crying anti-Semitism whenever Israel is criticized, and accuse them of legal maneuvers and bullying tactics to avoid a debate about the real issues.

Yet, often the anti-Israel protesters derail the democratic process. Their latest outrageous effort to stop the free expression of ideas occurred at the New York City Council.

Councilman Andy Cohen (D-Bronx) recently introduced a resolution condemning all efforts to delegitimize the state of Israel, and the global movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction the people of Israel.

In our democracy, of course, one is entitled to agree or disagree with the resolution. A hearing was called to hear testimony from both sides.

But rather than engage in debate, anti-Israel protesters disrupted the hearing, held on Sept. 8, more than 20 times, often with vulgarities. Many speakers, eager to participate in the democratic process, were shouted down by the mob, prevented from offering their testimony.

After the aborted hearing, Pam Sporn, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, a BDS movement ally, said she opposes the resolution because she is against attempts to chill the free speech of all New Yorkers to advocate for change in Israeli policies.

The Council nonetheless adopted the resolution six days later on Sept. 14 by a vote of 40 to 4, with six abstaining.

Still, what initially happened in New York was hardly an isolated incident. The Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) reports a strategic shift by the anti-Israel camp from proactive speecha form of expression that is certainly protectedto active disruption, to deny others their right to free speech. The disruption of Israeli and pro-Israel speakers on U.S. campuses surged by 33 percent in the last academic year despite an overall decline in anti-Israel events.

A lecture by Israeli professor Moshe Habertal was delayed by protesters at the University of Minnesota. The screening of a film about gay rights by Israeli LGBTQ activist Assi Azar was disrupted at Baltimores Goucher College. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Birkat was forced to end his speech at San Francisco State University after anti-Israel activists burst into the lecture hall, shouting Intifada, Intifada, long live Intifada.

Two dozen disrupters repeatedly shouted down Israeli Arab diplomat George Deeks lecture on dialogue and reconciliation at the University of California, Davis. At Harvard Law School, prominent Israeli politician Tzipi Livni was asked why she was smelly. Even non-political cultural events are game. At Tufts University in Massachusetts, a Taste of Israel event featuring falafel and pita was interrupted by protesters carrying signs reading, Taste of Israeli Occupation.

There is a threefold strategy at play. First, the interruptions are intended to intimidate pro-Israel voices and silence them. Second, the vocal interruptions garner more media attention than stand-alone, anti-Israel events. Finallyand most

hypocriticallythe Israel haters play the victim card and claim their own speech was suppressed.

Indeed, the disruptions are often recorded with special emphasis on the invariable security escort from the event and the usually angry reaction from those in the audience. The recordings of disruption are then circulated on social media and the narrative of victimhood perpetuated.

But the real victims are the audiences that are not permitted to hear the messages. Livni is a fierce advocate of the two-state solution. Habertal, an expert on the ethics of war, has been critical of the Israeli military. Deek has had noteworthy experiences as an Arab diplomat in Israels Foreign Ministry.

To their credit, some university officials have spoken out against these disruptions. In a remarkably frank letter, San Francisco States President Leslie Wong noted the university failed its students during the protest aimed at Jerusalems mayor. The school has established a new protocol for these types of events ensuring that disrupters are promptly removed.

Whatever ones views on the Middle East, progressive voices should rally against the disruption of speech. If not, they should have the honesty to admit that they believe in one standard of speech for Israels supporters and another for everyone else.

Daniel Elbaum is assistant executive director of the American Jewish Committee (AJC).
It was heartening to see on the front page of The Heritage the powerful image of a table representing UCFs Knights for Israel literally under the same tent as a table belonging to the Muslim Student Association (MSA). This is a testament to the tolerance and even cooperation between the two organizations. Frankly, it is an example that we wish other campuses could emulate. Kudos certainly should go to Hillel director Aaron Weil, current students and (of course) the MSA. However, the roots of cooperation in this relationship started to take hold several years ago.

Imam Muhammed Musri of The Islamic Society of Central Florida (ISCF) has consistently shown tolerance and understanding of the Jewish community. This has long been conveyed to his constituency, and most of their related organizations have in turn worked well with The Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando. The same holds true from local synagogue and JFGO leaders. I can think of at least three examples going back greater than a decade:

1. Shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, former ISCF director of communications, Areej Zufari, contacted JFGOs community relations council (CRC) because of the perception that members of the Muslim faith were being criminally profiled. While we all agreed that security was of paramount concern, the Jewish community committed to supporting a climate of monitoring based on actions over ethnic background.

2. In 2004, a college student named Noah, who was serving as UCF liaison to our CRC, asked for JFGO to bring Bus 19 to Central Florida. He felt that greater understanding by our local community of the horrors of Palestinian suicide bombing would result from this powerful visual and tactile experience. The remaining shell and names/profiles of Israeli victims served as an educational source in various locations locally (Fellowship Church in Casselberry, Temple Israel in its former Longwood location and the JCC campus itselfbefore heading to Cocoa). However, the mutual agreement was to NOT bring this display to UCF, as it could have made Muslim students feel uncomfortable. To this day, I believe that decision helped to reduce the likelihood of a contentious campus environment.

3. Students from the Hebrew Day School planted trees in Winter Park for the first time in March of 2004 with their counterparts from The Muslim Academy of Greater Orlando, followed in 2005 by a three-way project which added students from Orangewood Christian Academy. Most of these students are now in college, and soon will become our next generation of leaders.

While a successful and sustainable partnership requires that both parties benefit, a genuine concern for the others long term interest is also essential. Our clergy and educators should be thanked this High Holiday season as they continue to demonstrate how the seeds of cooperation across the greater Orlando community can come to fruition.

Dr. Klafter, who is a member of Congregation Ohev Shalom, previously served on The Hebrew Day Schools board, and is a former JFGO Community Relations Council (CRC) co-chair.
Vietnam cop suspended after clash with female street vendor goes viral online

A screenshot from an online video shows a cop grabbing the hair of a woman in Ho Chi Minh City September 29.

The woman suffers a cut to the head after being dragged by the policeman.

Ho Chi Minh City Police have suspended an officer after a video of him dragging a female street vendor by the hair went viral online.

Lieutenant Bui Xuan Hai has been identified as the officer in the video, which triggered public anger just hours after going online. It received around 5,000 views on YouTube in just 10 hours.

Hai is seen grabbing the woman's hair and dragging her around for at least half a minute until people intervened.

He tried to leave by car but was stopped by members of the public.

Vietnam cop suspended after clash with female street vendor goes viral online Vietnam cop suspended after clash with female street vendor goes viral online

A police spokesman said Hai was in charge of maintaining traffic order around Turtle Lake in District 3 on Thursday evening when he clashed with the 41-year-old vendor, named Thao.

People in the area said that when his car pulled up near the lake at around 8 p.m., many vendors grabbed their merchandise and ran, but Hai managed to grab hold of Thao.

The woman had to receive several stitches after her head was cut in the struggle.

Hai claimed she slipped and hit her head while trying to run away, but admitted he lost his temper after Thao verbally abused him.

Le Dong Phong, the director of the city's police department, has criticized Hai and said he will be punished.

He was wrong, Phong said of Hais actions. He gave us a very bad image.

Related news:

>Vietnam cop jailed for fatal attack on traffic violator

>Vietnamese cop probed for fatal hit-and-run crash
NEWTON  With Election Day five weeks away, the Catawba County Board of Elections and local political parties prepare for what they believe to be one of the highest turn-out elections in Catawba County for some time.

Several changes to elections procedure this year came with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling overturning North Carolinas 2013 voter ID law.

In addition to no longer requiring ID for voting, there also will be 17 days of one-stop early voting rather than 10 and same-day registration for early voting will be re-instated.

Catawba County Director of Elections Director Amanda Duncan is requesting that county commissioners appropriate an additional $27,450 to cover the additional early voting days.

Officials are expecting a high turnout for early voting this year.

I think the turnout is going to, its going to go down in history. Its going to be a heavy turnout, one that we have never seen before, Duncan said.

This year's elections are expected to bring out about 45,000 early voters, compared with 40,000 early voters during the 2012 election.

Early voting will run from Oct. 20 to Nov. 5. The hours for early voting are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday.

Same-day registration is in effect for all voting days, allowing voters to register in-person and vote during that time.

The five early voting sites include: the Highland Recreation Center and Southwest Library in Hickory, Conover Station, the Newton Main Library and Sherrills Ford-Terrell Library.

To handle the large turnout, election officials are urging people to vote at the voting site closest to them.

In particular, election officials are promoting the Conover Station site, which is only a few miles from the Newton Library, but sees much less traffic.

Voters may vote at any of the five early voting sites.

Were wanting as many people to vote early as possible, because that will eliminate our lines Election Day, Duncan said.

Absentee voting by mail began Sept. 9, and the deadline to request an absentee ballot is Nov. 1.

The registration deadline for voting on Election Day is Oct. 14. More information on how to register, as well as apply for an absentee ballot, is available at http://www.catawbacountync.gov/elections.

Political parties prepare

Both the county Democratic and Republican parties are at work mobilizing their own voters and reaching out to undecided voters.

Local Republican leaders are doing phone banks and sending people out canvassing.

The Catawba County Republican Party is implementing the state partys Boots on the Ground campaign, which uses apps to help pinpoint locations of undecided voters who could potentially be swung to the Republican cause, county Republican chair Franklin Lawson said.

Catawba County has an important role in shoring up the Republican vote in the state, Lawson.

What happens is, a lot of counties that were Democratic leaning, they look for counties like ours that are strong, conservative Republican to try to help make up the votes they are going to need, statewide, Lawson said.

They continue to reiterate how great Catawba County as bringing in votes, and we do, we do a good job with it, Lawson said.

Volunteers for the Catawba County Democratic Party are hoping to see one of the largest turnouts for their side that they have seen in some time.

Stephen Heavner, a volunteer with the county Democratic Party, has been making phone calls to unaffiliated voters in the county.

Heavner believes this is one of the most important elections in his lifetimes, both at the national and state level.

In talking to voters and presenting the positions of both parties, Heavner sees indication of growth for the Democratic Party in Catawba County.

I do see a potential shift, and theres a lot of people that I think are switching to the Democratic side. I think that's going to, its going to shock people, Heavner said.

In the coming weeks, the Democratic Party will be at events such as Oktoberfest.

Were trying to have a presence everywhere that theres an event, Heavner said.

As the two established parties work to compete for votes, the Libertarian Party of Catawba County is working to get its message out at a time when the national party is receiving increased national attention.

Much of the partys strategy has resolved around grassroots work such as appearing at local festivals and events as well as using social media, Cory White, chair of the county Libertarian Party, said.

With its message of fiscal conservatism and social inclusiveness, the party holds positions that appeal to both conservatives and liberals to some degree, White said.

In a largely Republican county, the party is looking to appeal to conservatives by pointing out the popularity of Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson with the military and veterans, White said.

While the party has received a great deal of media attention this year, it has faced a hurdle related to the lack of resources relative to the Democratic and Republican parties, White said.

Still, the local party has been making good use of the tools that are available, and there is a belief that the party could have an important impact in the county, White said.

I think it is going to be significant enough to make a difference, White said.
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'I like a lot of the world leaders. One of my favorites is Angela Merkel.'

Hillary Clinton on Thursday took a swipe at Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, who further crippled his longshot bid for the White House by failing to name a single foreign leader he likes.

Johnson, who has virtually no chance of making it to the White House, could still prove a thorn in the Democratic nominee's side by siphoning off votes in Colorado and other battleground states.

In a cringe-inducing minute-long segment during a MSNBC town hall-style event, Johnson sat speechless after host Chris Matthews asked him, "Who's your favorite foreign leader? Any one of the continents, any country, name one foreign leader that you respect and look up to, anybody."

The embarrassment follows another live television crash-and-burn, when the former New Mexico governor replied "what is Aleppo?" to an interview question about the Syrian city at the center of global attention.

Asked about her favorite world leader by campaign reporters in Chicago on Thursday, Clinton said "oh, let me think," before bursting into laughter.

"No, look," she continued. "I like a lot of the world leaders. One of my favorites is Angela Merkel."

"I think she's been an extraordinary, strong leader during difficult times in Europe, which has obvious implications for the rest of the world."

"Her leadership and steadiness on the euro crisis and her bravery in the face of the refugee crisis is something that I am impressed by."

Clinton (left) and Merkel have known each other for decades. Photo by Reuters/File Photo

The two women have known each other for a long time, "back into the 1990s," Clinton boasted.

"I've spent a lot of time with her and I hope that I'll have the opportunity to work with her in the future," she added. "But we could talk about lots of different leaders if you want to sometime."

Clinton's Republican rival Donald Trump, who has previously castigated Merkel, also decided to choose her as his favorite world leader on Thursday.

"I think Merkel is a really great world leader," he told New England Cable News before adding that he "was very disappointed" in her because of "the whole immigration thing."

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The surgical strike against the terrorist camps along the Line of Control (LoC) announced by the Army has confirmed what had been anticipated over the last few days: namely that the Modi team would respond in an appropriate manner to the enormity of the Uri terror attack.

This strike was a limited counter-terror operation with a clear set of signals embedded in it -- and some of them can be decoded from the press briefing of the director general of military operations, Lt. General Ranbir Singh, on Thursday.

As the phrase surgical-strike suggests, this was a precise incision, with a limited objective: neutralising the terrorist pads that were likely to be used for strikes against targets in India. It is understood that credible intel had been obtained over the last week that alerted the local commanders of what was afoot. This was conveyed up the chain and for the political leadership, a resolute decision had to be taken.

India takes a calculated risk by going for surgical strikes

At the press briefing it was confirmed that the attack was against terror infrastructure along the LoC, and that the objective had been realised.

Thus one can infer that the objective was neutralising terror assets -- and that there was no tangible threat to Pakistans territorial integrity -- much less its sovereignty. Concurrently it was added by the Indian DGMO that he had informed his Pakistani counterpart -- meaning thereby that there was a LoC-specific communication protocol that had been adhered to.

Protesters rally against India in on Sept. 29, 2016. Pakistan on Thursday said two of its soldiers were killed in an "unprovoked" attack when India fired across the border. (AP)

The nuanced signal here -- to my mind -- is that India does not wish to escalate the military operation. As Lt. General Ranbir Singh stated: there were no plans for any further operations. The target was an imminent terror threat and this had been neutralised by India.

Army strikes terrorists across LoC: Years of Indian indecision, inaction end

The inference that follows is that the onus for restraint or escalation is now on Rawalpindi, the General Headquarters of the Pakistan military. If Rawalpindi wishes to be part of the regional and global effort against terror, this may be an opportunity to begin the process of engaging with India and other neighbours who have been targeted by these terror groups.

If on the other hand, Pakistan seeks retribution by conventional military power, or other means including the sleeper cells/ terror modules, India must be prepared for difficult days in the near future.

However, such an action would also further tarnish Rawalpndis profile as a sponsor and supporter of terror and the selective approach it pursues. India apart, Afghanistan and Bangladesh have a similar anxiety. The nuclear sabre-rattling will cause some global disquiet but as was the case in Kargil 1999: this will be seen for the red-herring it is when Pakistans core national interests are not threatened in any manner. Unless of course, Rawalpindi chooses to so describe the groups that engage in terrorism against India. The wriggle room for Rawalpindi and the deep-state is shrinking.

Indias claim of surgical strikes fabrication of truth, says Pakistan army

And the domestic political message is clear. After this surgical strike, for now at least, PM Modi emerges as a leader who is indeed committed to defend Indias security interests -- come what may. This is the firm action that was promised during his election campaign and his core team has delivered.

Without falling into the trap of post-event clairvoyance, it may be conjectured that the PMs Kozhikode speech and that of the external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj at the UN General Assembly had a sub-text that elliptically conveyed this political resolve of the BJP-led NDA government. To me this subtext was that on national security matters, the Modi government will not be the Congess with a cow!

However, what needs to be tracked now is the response from Pakistan and the trajectory that the post-surgical strike days will follow.

(The writer is the director of Society for Policy Studies. The views expressed are personal.)
Amid the self-congratulatory noises emanating from the BJP government and the satisfied snorting of the media commentators in the aftermath of the surgical strikes on jihadi targets 2-3 kms across the Line of Control (LoC), several contentious issues have come to the fore.

Watch | Indian Army conducted surgical strikes on terror launchpad

In the context of a ramped-up Hammurabi Code voiced by the BJP general secretary Ram Madhav who promised jaw for tooth, the strikes by heli-lifted special forces on seven staging areas in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) were fairly tame, retributive, actions of the kind routinely undertaken by frontline units of the Indian Army in response to some Pakistani provocation or the other. The present strike seems like a scaled up version, for instance, of the shallow penetration and ambush on July 28, 2011, in the 15 Corps sector of a transport carrying Pakistani troops proceeding home on Eid leave, culminating in five heads being taken as trophy. This was retaliation in kind to a Pakistani attack in the previous days on an Indian post and the beheadings of two Indian soldiers.

Read | Meet Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, man of the moment after announcement of strikes

Such tactical level actions often involving regimental izzat and inconclusive artillery and small arms duels are par for the course. So there was nothing particularly novel or new about the attack this time around by Indian para-commando. What was innovative, however, was the follow-up move by the Director General, Military Operations, Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh to apprise his Pakistani counterpart of the successful Indian operation and to request Pakistan armys cooperation in eliminating the jihadis. It, in effect, has prevented Pakistan from escalating. But the lapse in time between the Uri attack and the riposte suggests that the commando action was more an after-thought and a face-saver for the government than a thoroughly prepared action.

Watch | Congress, BJP support Indian Armys surgical strikes in PoK

This is because of absence of an in-place system facilitating instant, automatic and, depending on the situation, proportionate or deterrent response to Pakistan army-driven terrorist events. The evolving international norm is for punitive, anti-terrorist actions, to be launched in the immediate wake of an egregious terrorist incident accompanied by official assurance (such as by Ranbir Singh) about such strikes being limited response to specific provocation, while indicating readiness to deal with any military reaction and possible escalation.

Read | What India must do with Pakistan now

This requires that India, embroiled in an asymmetric conflict prosecuted by an adversarial Pakistan, have strike platforms at the ready at all times, primed by continuously updated intelligence and information about prioritised targets and target coordinates, and Pakistans military preparedness, etc, so no time is lost for the punishment to get underway. Lacking such a system, each terrorist incident is treated anew and initiates the same rigmarole of bureaucratised consultations up and down the government and the laborious process of conceiving and fleshing out options, this despite two decades of experience of fighting the jihadi-terrorists, who constitute an irregular arm of the Pakistan army.

The system of automaticity of proportional and punitive retaliation linked to anti-terrorist intent will do two things: Compel Pakistan to carefully think through the kind of terrorist event it may, at any given time, be planning. If it tips over, inadvertently or otherwise, into something big, General Headquarters, Rawalpindi (GHQR), would inadvertently face a situation spiraling out of its control  something it doesnt want.

Second, with major provocations and escalation thus pre-empted, the situation will stabilise at low, mutually tolerable, levels of insurgency-counter-insurgency operations. This is not an ideal situation, but India and Pakistan could live with it until fatigue of the Kashmiris combines with good sense in GHQR to end the turmoil in the Srinagar valley and a compromise is implemented with Pakistan along the lines agreed upon by President Pervez Musharraf in the mid-2000s.

Read | Its time for sober reflection rather than premature celebration

A more worrying aspect pertains to the Indian armed services characteristic unpreparedness for immediate retaliatory action. It forced AB Vajpayee after the December 2001 attack on Parliament to order the more wasteful general mobilisation for war once the Army chief General S Padmanabhan intimated him that the military was not in a position to take immediate action, and left Manmohan Singh in 2008 with the alternative of doing nothing after he was informed by the air force chief, Air Chief Marshal Fali Major that IAF did not, just then, have target coordinates of terrorist camps in PoK.

It is also the militarys complacency and, apparently, habitual laxity about perimeter security that have permitted terrorist intrusions and incidents to happen in the first place. The attack on Mumbai in 2008 occurred because the loose, in theory multi-tiered, maritime security allowed the seaborne attackers to slip through. Pathankot happened in January owing to base security being reduced to a joke. And now the Uri event obtained because the jihadis sauntered to the Army camp by taking the un-policed path between the Army and Border Security Force camps that stretches to the LoC.

Read | Why political discourse in poll-bound states may change after army action

While it is well to criticise the government and the political class for their terminal indecisiveness, it is time the Indian armed services are held accountable for inexcusable lapses in preparedness and security. To continue to treat the armed services as holy cow is to fundamentally undermine national defence.

Bharat Karnad is professor for national security studies, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and author of Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet)

The views expressed are personal
The Indian military action that neutralised seven terrorist launchpads across the Line of Control (LoC) also set the stage for a thaw in the frosty relations between the Narendra Modi regime and the top leadership of the Congress.

The government reached out and the principal Opposition rose to the occasion.

Leading the ruling partys initiative was external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. She turned up late at the all-party meeting on Thursday as she had taken time out for a call on Sonia Gandhi. The two leaders were together for nearly 15 minutes. The Minister inquired about the Congress presidents health before briefing her on the army operation across the LoC.

The meeting happened when Sonia responded promptly to Swarajs request. The minister found it apt to call on the Congress leader as she was recuperating from an ailment and was unable to attend the government-convened all-party conference on the military operation.

HT Exclusive: India held back strike till Sushma Swarajs UN speech

Sources privy to the conversation said Swaraj inquired about Sonias health as they were face-to-face for the first time after she fell ill in August during a road show in Varanasi, the constituency the Prime Minister represents in the Lok Sabha. She underwent a surgery later.

That the meeting had Modis consent became evident when Swaraj asked Sonia if she had any message for the PM. While she engaged directly with the Congress president, the minister deputed foreign secretary Jaishankar to call on former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to update him separately on the cross LoC action. The move was in line with protocol requirements and the time-honoured tradition of taking on board the principal Opposition for a united national response to a challenging situation.

Why political discourse in poll-bound states may change after army action

Sonia reciprocated to Swarajs gesture by receiving her at the doorsteps of her 10 Janpath residence. She walked the minister up to her car after the meeting.

The two leaders have had their share of intense political rivalries. Sonia defeated Swaraj in the 1999 Bellary Lok Sabha election while the BJP leader famously threatened in 2004 that she would shave her head and launch a Quit India-2 movement if the Congress chief became PM in the UPA regime.

But in recent years theyve had convivial relations. Certain observers rate them as good friends whose conversations move beyond politics to family issues. In fact, as Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha in 2010, Swaraj become the first BJP heavyweight to join the Gandhis at a prayer meeting on Rajiv Gandhis death anniversary. She walked to his samadhi, Veer Bhumi, as her vehicle had to be parked some distance away for security reasons.

In April this year, Rahul Gandhi called on Swaraj when she was under treatment at AIIMS. In another display of social courtesy amid a bitterly divided polity, Sonia had gotten on the phone with Arun Jaitleys wife Sangeeta when the finance minister was hospitalised in 2014. Later, she also spoke to Jaitley on phone to inquire about his health.

When Parliament came under attack in 2001, Sonia wasnt in the House. On hearing of it, she promptly called then PM AB Vajpayee to inquire about his well-being. Despite their uneasy relations, Modi had similarly responded on getting to know of Sonias indisposition in Varanasi. In a call to former Delhi CM Shiela Dikshit who was accompanying the Congress chief, he offered to send doctors with a special plane to transport her back to Delhi.
Ten days before India conducted surgical strikes on terror camps across the border, defence minister Manohar Parrikar briefed fellow BJP leaders about the options before the country. They were told that terror camps were relocated from along the LoC to about 20-25km deep inside the PoK two years ago. But launchpads for these infiltrators still existed and India wouldnt hesitate to strike at them, the defence minister told the leaders of the ruling party.

Subsequently, as pressures from cadres and supporters to avenge the Uri terror attack mounted on the party and the government, the two worked in complete tandem. Last Sunday at a BJP national council meeting in Kerala, party chief Amit Shah read out a statement on the September 18 ambushand declared that there was no need for discussion on the matter.

This is the latest instance of how the ruling party has followed the NDA governments script. The coordination between the two that could be attributed to a Modi-Shah synergy is in sharp contrast to the frequent divergence between the Congress and then Manmohan Singh government on policy issues. About a month ago, as kashmir remained on the boil, causing jitters and unease in the BJP, two senior ministers briefed party leaders, sharing the governments plan of action.

Contrast it to the UPA days when those in the Congress would throw monkey wrench into the works of the then government. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi once publicly debunked an ordinance cleared by the union Cabinet. Then PM Manmohan Singh was upset, but had to relent. Early in the UPA days, when the government was looking to accelerate economic reforms process, the Congress stalled its move to allow FDI in the multi-brand retail sector. Ten years of the UPA government were marked by frequent interventions by the ruling party in policy matters.

Unlike Singh, Modi commands full authority. There are no dual power centres. Amit Shah owes his rise as the BJP president to Modi.

When it was in power, Congress organisational set-up was loaded with veterans, having a complete grip over the party and the government.

The BJPs present team is a group of lightweight politicians who have attained the position they occupy nowfor the first time. They dont show any inclination or ambition to assert their stature and have a say. Party veterans such as LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, who have the stature to assert themselves, have become margdarshaks, who themselves might need of some guiding lights to regain their relevance.

Modi has tactfully crated a synergy between the government and the partysomething that was missing in the UPA era.

If the UPA days were about open feud on policy matters, the Modi era is about the ruling party blindly throwing its weight behind the government. From special package to Andhra Pradesh, to handling post-Wani crisis in Kashmir and, now, surgical strikes in Pakistan, the BJP and the government have spoken in once voice.

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Due to the imperial policy of Darius I (522486 BC), a great king of Iran, Persian was once upon a time the most spoken language in the world. Darius ruled over approximately 50 million people, i.e, at least 44 percent of the world population. The land across the Indus, or parts of India, is supposed to have been part of his territory ruled by his satraps. But this claim has been contested by Indian scholars. What is, however, undeniable is that trade and culture united the two civilisations .

An interesting exhibition, Qand-e-Farsi wa Tutiyan-e-Hind (Of Persian Candy and Indian Parrots), with aesthetically curated panels, shows that books, and knowledge, were steady items of exchange between both. These books were not some nondescript titles but the big books of India  the Panchantantra, Ramayana and the Mahabharata  that inspired works of literature everywhere.

Panchatantra was one of the major inspirations behind Rudyard Kiplings Jungle Book, says well-known Urdu aficionado Kamna Prasad, who has curated the exhibition. So was the Kalila wa Dimnag, a re-telling of the Panchatantra by Borzuya, a physician of another great Iranian king, Kosrow I, also called Anusherwan.

Darius the Great receiving homage from all over the world. An emissary (top panel), believed to be from India, carrying a basket of gold to Dariuss court. (Jashn-e-Bahar Trust)

It is believed that Borzuya wrangled an India trip out of Anusherwan by saying that the land had nectar which he would get for his king. Instead, he returned with the Panchatantra -- he translated it from Sanskrit to Persian -- and it became the book kings and emperors would dip into to know how to run an empire.

Kalila wa Dimnag, of course, did not give directions to kings. You couldnt tell a king directly what to do except in a roundabout way, adds Prasad. One of the exhibitions panels shows the manuscript being presented in the court of Anusherwan. The artwork used in the exhibition uses photographs and facsimiles of original manuscripts available in libraries and collections across the world.

Panchatantra was one of the major inspirations behind Rudyard Kiplings Jungle Book, says well-known Urdu aficionado Kamna Prasad, who has curated the exhibition. (Jashn-e-Bahar Trust)

Under Mughal emperor Akbar, the traffic between Persian and Sanskrit was two-way and rich. The emperor started a bureau of translation works in Fatehpur Sikri and ordered several Persian manuscripts to be translated into Sanskrit. He also entrusted linguists to translate Latin, Hindi, Sanskrit and Greek books into Persian. Todar Mal, Akbars revenue minister, maintained land documents in Farsi, points out Prasad. In 1582, Akbar organised the translation of the Mahabharata and sent copies of it as gifts to his noblemen.

From Sufi-musician-scholar Amir Khusrau in the 13th century and Bedil Azimabadi in the 17th; to Mirza Ghalib in the 18th and Muhammad Iqbal in the 20th century, the confluence of culture between India and Iran has been robust. To sum up: this may have been a relationship driven by kings but it was the playground and a mine of cultural riches for our artists.

At: Main Art Gallery, Kamladevi Block, IIC, till October 1

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In 2010, during the buildup to the Commonwealth Games, something strange happened to the Stop traffic signs on roads. Overnight, messages were added to many of them, altering their meaning: Stop Thinking, said one. Stop Pretending, Stop Bribing, said the others.

The signs were quickly painted over, but this was Delhis first brush with its most famous graffiti artist, a shadowy figure called Daku, often called Indias Banksy. In the next few years, you could spot a cheeky Daku, often written in Devnagiri script, staring down at you from a wall. Stories, part-reality, part-apocryphal sprung up about the graphic designer by the day and graffiti ninja by night, who worked in the dark, dodging cops.

Part of Delhi Street Arts women empowerment series, this colourful mural of a woman riding an eagle stops shoppers in their tracks.

Dakus work is now so mainstream that he is rumoured to have designed a room in actor Hrithik Roshans house. Last years India Art Fair featured a work from the artist, a stretch of wall with the same words stenciled ad infinitum: This is commissioned vandalism.

Graffiti, which comes from the Italian word, graffio, (to scratch), is no longer seen as defacement. The Delhi government approved #MyDilliStory has artists stenciling couplets in Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi while Northern Railways has commissioned public art on its properties, including the Narela station.

Street art around Delhis busy bus terminal, ISBT Kashmere Gate, includes murals, chunky graffiti and couplets in Urdu and Hindi stenciled on walls. (Ravi Choudhary/HT Photo)

New directions

As the work of other artists started getting noticed, it has been recognised as street or public art, one that went far beyond the Amit loves Ankita or political graffiti scrawled on walls.

A large part of the street art in Delhi and other metros is permission or invitation driven - which means it becomes more legitimate, has a possibly longer shelf life (as against being whitewashed or erased rapidly) and gets full support of the city and local agencies, says Yogesh Saini, founder of Delhi Street Art, an organisation that promotes public art by young artists.

When the shopkeepers association of Shankar Market approached the NDMC in 2012 to give it a facelift, the municipal authority in turn roped in DSA to transform the space.

Earlier, street artists concealed their identity because of a 1976 West Bengal legislation which barred graffiti on walls and applied to Delhi as well. Now, entire projects are undertaken with the blessings of authorities and in the full glare of public eye.

One of the many murals at Lodhi Colony, which was transformed into Indias first public art district during the 2015 edition of the St+Art festival. (Sanshey Biswas / HT Photo)

Shahpur Jat: Home to hipster boutiques, quirky takes by different artists peek out from the walls of the urban village. (Vipin Kumar/HT Photo)

Government patronage has meant that while Delhis street art makes a statement, it is hardly politically subversive or controversial, sticking to failsafe issues such as womens rights or abstract ideas. Case in point: when an anonymous stencil of Gandhi cropped on a public urinal in Hauz Khas in 2012, it sparked outrage and an immediate cover up job.

</<p></p><p><span><b>Transforming city spaces</b></span></p><p>From the walls of Tihar Jail to murals in the red light district of GB Road to the hipster urban village of Shahpur Jat to the towering Gandhi mural at the police headquarters at ITO, Delhi is dotted with vibrant public art. </p><p>&ldquo;City malls, walls, markets, vehicles, train stations, you name it - all are seeing a slow but sure aesthetic transformation,&rdquo; says Saini. &ldquo;Not just across the city, but NCR and other smaller cities as well.&rdquo; </p><p>The goal behind most street art projects is not to shock, but to bring art to public domain rather than sterile galleries. In 2013, just as Khirki village was recovering from tensions between the Indians and people of African nationalities settled there, a few people got together to organise Extension Khirkee, a community art project. </p><p>Aastha Chauhan, one of the founders, says their challenge was to prove that public art could flourish without big institutions. Chauhan, who had earlier worked with the KHOJ artists&rsquo; collective based in the area, says the people were extremely receptive and generous in offering their space. </p><img data-src="https://www.hindustantimes.com/rf/image_size_640x362/HT/p2/2016/09/30/Pictures/_ce42e4ae-86d3-11e6-92b8-e7f1e026a3c4.jpg" width="100%"><imgCaption>The man in a gas mask, created as part of the Extension Khirkee Street Art Festival, overlooks one of the urban village&rsquo;s most congested corners. (Extension Khirkee Project )</imgCaption><p>&ldquo;Khirki faces a continuous cycle of demolition and unauthorized construction,&rdquo; says Chauhan. So the motive was to inject some colour into its dull, dusty gray landscape and engage with the existing topography. &ldquo;The mural of a man with a gas mask is at a corner which always has a traffic jam. The squid murals face half-demolished buildings on both sides,&rdquo; says Chauhan.</p><p>In 2015, St+ Art India, a non-profit which wants to make art accessible, went a step further with its ambitious plan of getting Delhi its first public art district. More than 28 artists from all over the world participated. </p><p>Their canvas was the drab, somewhat dilapidated Lodhi Colony. Every wall brings you up short now &ndash; a flock of birds bursts out from one doorway, a man with a camera hangs suspended on one wall, playing with perception. The artwork at once blends in and stands out.</p><p><span><a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/art-and-culture/every-delhi-wall-has-a-story-to-say/story-4Pyi81a03TuIQ7cJ7DIdwK.html" shape="rect" target="_self">Read: Every Delhi wall has a story to say</a></span></p><p>Anpu Varkey, who collaborated on the Gandhi mural and contributed to the St+ Art and Khirkee projects, says that often, passersby and policemen would both stop and stare in fascination at the art work, even offering the artists snacks or tea. &ldquo;People view you as magicians who can transform spaces,&rdquo; she says.</p><p>This elevated status of an artist differs from the limited interaction that taggers experience. Varkey is excited about the direction street art is taking in Delhi, giving common people more opportunity to own public spaces and humbling artists to the prospect of not owning their work. </p><p>&ldquo;We have sown the seeds of visual dialogue,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;Now we have to involve people in the conversation around that.&rdquo;</p><p>(Interactive map: Sanshey Biswas and Harry Stevens)</p><p><span>Other trails</span></p><p><b>Tihar Jail: </b>India&rsquo;s longest mural, spread over 968 meters, combines artwork and poetry</p><p><b>Azadpur Mandi:</b> A kitchen table with fruits and vegetables and the word Zindagi on the huge Delhi Cold Storage unit captures the mandi&rsquo;s life</p><p><b>Shankar Market: </b>A 2012 facelift for the market included some vivid illustrations on the top of buildings</p><p><b>Agrasen ki Baoli: </b>Features some striking, quirky art work by artists Harsh Raman and Mr Singh among others</p>

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A Bhopal court stayed the execution of a non-bailable arrest warrant against Union minister Uma Bharti in a 13-year-old defamation case filed by senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, hours after a lower court had issued it on Thursday.

Additional district and sessions judge Ram Kumar Chaube stayed the arrest warrant issued by the chief judicial magistrate (CJM) court, while hearing a revision petition by Bhartis counsel Harish Mehta.

Through the revision petition Mehta sought a stay on the CJM order and submitted that his plea for exempting his client from personal appearance in court had been rejected.

There were Supreme Court guidelines providing for such exemptions and recording of statements of the accused through their counsel, Mehta told HT.

Earlier in the day, CJM Bhu Bhaskar Yadav issued the arrest warrant against Bharti for not appearing before it to record her statement as accused in the 2003 defamation case, despite repeated directives by the court since October 2015.

Observing that since the accused is a Union minister and low-ranked officials would dither from arresting her, the court directed that the warrant be issued for execution through the senior superintendent police (SSP).

Rejecting the plea of Bhartis counsel for review of the order and interim stay on the execution of warrant for seven days, the CJM court held that since the case was 13 years old, the proceedings in it cannot be stayed merely on the wish of either of the parties.

The court ordered the SSP to execute the warrant and ensure her appearance before the court on October 19.

Mehta had moved two applications before the CJM court seeking exemption for Bharti from personal appearance in the court for examination of the accused in the case. The court, however, rejected both applications and observed that sympathy to the minister would amount to failure of the legal system.

During the last hearing in the case on February 5, the court had directed both Bharti and Singh to be present before it for a possible mediation on March 8.

In November 2003, Singh, the then Madhya Pradesh chief minister, had filed the defamation case against the then Bhopal MP Bharti for levelling false allegations of him being involved in a `15,000-crore scam.

In the run-up to the 2003 assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP leader had alleged that Singh had business relationship with Subhash Gupta, to whom valuable land worth crores of rupees had been allotted for pittance at the behest of then CM. Bharti had alleged that Singh had travelled with Gupta aboard many times. She had gone on to dub Singh as the most corrupt chief minister in the country.
A police officer on field duty in Madhya Pradesh cannot give an excuse that he did not know the person he dealt with was a leader of a national organisations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Home minister Bhupendra Singh said.

Singh said he would make sure all officers in-charge of police stations have information on the whos who of all social organisations in their respective areas. The organisations include the RSS.

Also, those police officers who have a bad track record while on field duty will not be involved in public dealings, he said.

The orders are a fallout of an incident in which RSS pracharak Suresh Yadav was assaulted allegedly by police in Balaghat on September 25.

After the RSS leadership gave vent to its anger over the incident, an FIR was lodged against an ASP, a thana in-charge, an assistant sub-inspector and other police personnel on charges of attempting to murder Yadav. The TI and the ASI were immediately placed under suspension.

On Wednesday, the home minister announced during the state BJP executive meet that 10 policemen, including the ASP, have been suspended and FIRs lodged against them.

Singh told Hindustan Times on the sidelines of the BJP meet that the police officers had pleaded before their superiors that they didnt know Yadav was an RSS pracharak.

Singh said this excuse was not justified. Even if they didnt know Yadav, he said the policemen had no right to beat him brutally. Even a common man had the right to be treated with dignity, he said.

To avoid recurrence of any such situation, town inspectors will gather information about office-bearers of all social organisations, including the RSS, in their area.

Singh said after the incident, he came to know that the ASP was involved in such excesses in the past too and that he had a bad track record.

The minister added he would look into it that officers who had a bad record should not get such postings, which involved dealing with the public.

Singh said a special team will track down the accused policemen who were absconding. They will be arrested soon.

At the same time, the home minister said the Balaghat incident cannot be taken as symbolic of the police forces behaviour.

It is the same police which control crimes in the state, and which managed the crowd in an excellent manner during the Simhastha fair which saw a footfall of about 8 crore, he said.

Police have earned accolades for their humanitarian approach in helping the elderly and the infirm, Singh added.

UNEASE OVER CLARIFICATION

Several BJP leaders are questioning the party brass decision to get a clarification from the home minister over the Balaghat incident to the partys state executive members.

On Wednesday, BJP state president Nandkumar Singh Chauhan asked Bhupendra Singh to give a clarification over the action taken by him so far.

The BJP leaders didnt express annoyance at the meet as there was no open session for them to express views. More importantly, the victim happens to be a RSS pracharak. Anything said to question Singhs action will annoy the RSS leadership too, a party leader said.

Another senior leader told HT that Singhs clarification could have been avoided. Anything spoken by Singh regarding the police action - without conducting a proper inquiry - was bound to show the government in a poor light, the leader said. His statement favouring the RSS pracharak and projecting the police personnel as accused may influence outcome of the inquiry and also demoralize the police force.

A party leader said the clarification could have been conveyed by someone not holding a government post. Singh is already on record saying action would be taken against the erring policemen, the leader added.

Sources in BJP said Singh gave the clarification at the insistence of Chauhan. The latter did it at the behest of a senior leader holding an important position in Delhi, they said.

Already, a message is circulating on the social media questioning the action against the policemen.

BJP chief spokesperson Deepak Vijayvargiya sought to downplay the matter. Whatever a member of the committee spoke at the meet was in the capacity of a party and a committee member, he said.
Tens of thousands of youngsters from poor families are also sent to work as servants in middle-class households.

Scars lace across 16-year-old Than Than Ei's face, each line bearing testimony to the abuse she says she suffered at the hands of her adoptive family, the latest case of child abuse piling pressure on Myanmar's government.

She was just nine when her father sent her to be adopted by a family in Yangon. By her tenth birthday she had become their virtual slave, beaten with bicycle chains and kitchen implements almost daily for five years.

"My lips were whipped with an iron chain," she told AFP at her aunt's house in South Dagon, east of Yangon. "They also use it to slash my hands and threw hot water on them."

"As they did not feed me, I ate without their permission. Then they accused me of stealing food and crushed my fingers with pliers."

16-year old abused Myanmar child slave Than Than Ei recovering in a relative's house in Yangon's South Dagon district. Photo by AFP/Ye Aung Thu

Her story is increasingly familiar in Myanmar, where tens of thousands of youngsters from poor families are also sent to work as servants in middle-class, urban households.

Activists say the government has done little to address the issue, while police and authorities regularly turn a blind eye to allegations against wealthy and powerful families.

"The justice system throughout the country is broken and generally not seen as protecting the rights of the least advantaged," said Matthew Smith, chief executive of Fortify Rights.

"Authorities in a position to help have been negligent."

The issue came to light this month with the case of two girls, aged 16 and 17, who described shocking abuse during five years held captive in a tailor's shop in Yangon.

The victims' families say police refused to help them free the girls, whose story of being beaten, burnt and stabbed by the shop owners hit headlines after they were rescued this month.

They were initially paid $4,000 in compensation but, under mounting public pressure, police pressed criminal charges and the president has ordered an enquiry into how authorities handled the case.

Six members of the tailor's family appeared in court on Thursday on human-trafficking charges.

16-year old abused Myanmar child slave Than Than Ei with deep scars on her hands and legs. Photo by AFP/Ye Aung Thu

Justice delayed

Campaigners say more needs to be done to address the issue in Myanmar, rated the seventh-worst country for child labour in the world by risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft.

Tackling the issue is one of the key challenges facing the new democratically elected government as it seeks to heal the country after 50 years of oppressive military rule.

But it is also a complex task given grinding poverty that leaves many families dependent on income from working children.

"We're going to find more and more of these types of cases," said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch Asia, urging lawmakers to get ahead of the issue.

Than Than Ei's family said authorities did nothing when alerted to what was happening.

Twice, neighbours complained but the local ward officer -- a relative of the alleged abusers -- did nothing.

Than Than Ei finally managed to flee the house and her uncle, Myo Oo, filed attempted murder charges against the family in July 2015.

One member of the family was arrested, but nothing was done for a year. Then last week police, galvanised by the tailor shop case, arrested three more people.

"If the authorities had helped us like this since the beginning, our case would not take this long," said Myo Oo. "I also want to ask them why."

Related news:

> UN calls for action to eliminate rising child abuse in Vietnam

> Jailed Vietnamese celeb on U.S. child abuse charge cries talking about mom

> 19 Myanmar trafficking victims rescued in Thailand
The high court on Thursday stayed the courts Indore bench order that summoned the counselling committee authorities concerned to admission of MBBS and BDS courses in the private medical colleges.

A full bench comprising Justices SK Seth, SK Gangele and Sanjay Yadav stayed the Indore benchs order summoning Dr GS Patel, a chairman of counseling committee for MBBS and BDS courses, and Dr Shashi Gandhi, coordinator of counselling committee, for not permitting students from outside to get admissions in Madhya Pradesh.

On Wednesday, the Indore bench issued an order to halt counselling in private medical colleges, after hearing a contempt petition filed by Association of Private Dental and Medical Colleges against Directorate of Medical Education for not complying with a court order related to domicile rules in admissions.

Additional advocate general PK Kaurav argued the HC principal seat in Jabalpur on September 26 struck down the Rule 6 of MP private medical colleges (MBBS and BDS) undergraduate courses admission rules 2016 for not providing a level field to all candidates.

Now there is no controversy over it and the Indore bench order has got less to do with admissions in the private medical colleges as the counselling is to be done according to the HC principal seat Jabalpur order, Kaurav said.

The government requested the court to hear the entire matter related to the medical colleges admission at Jabalpur to have a single order instead of separate hearings on similar issue at Indore and Gwaliorbenches. Subsequently, the contempt petition was transferred from Indore bench to the principal seat at Jabalpur.

Meanwhile, the hearing on a review petition filed by the association was adjourned since the apex court on October 3 will hear a petition challenging the HC order that struck down Rule 6.
Madhya Pradesh government on Thursday said it would direct officers in charge of the police stations in the state to have a list of office-bearers of RSS and other social organisations in their respective areas.

The move comes after RSS pracharak Suresh Yadav was allegedly beaten up by a group of police personnel from Baihar police station in Balaghat on September 25.

The assault was reportedly led by ASP Rajesh Sharma and town inspector Zia ul Haq. Yadav was hospitalised in Jabalpur with severe injuries.

Soon after the incident the government had suspended 10 police personnel, including the additional superintendent of police on charges of attempting to murder the pracharak. An FIR was lodged against them under section 307 and other relevant IPC sections.

A special team had also been constituted to probe the incident and track down the accused cops who were absconding, home minister Bhupendra Singh said.

To avoid recurrence of any such incident, the home minister said, instructions would soon be issued to the police to ensure that town inspectors have information about office-bearers of all the social organisations, including RSS, in their respective areas.

Singh said the police personnel in their defense had told their superiors that they did not know that Yadav was an RSS pracharak.

This was an absurd argument. Even if they didnt know Yadav they had no right to brutally beat him up. Even a common man has the right to be treated with dignity, Singh told the HT.

Bhupendra Singh claimed that after the incident he came to know that the ASP had committed excesses in the past too and that he was suffering from hypertension.

I will see to it that in future any officer with tainted past record is not given posting which involved public dealings, Singh said.

The home minister, however, added that Balaghat incident was an isolated case and was not symptomatic of police forces behaviour. The alleged assault took place after Yadav was named an accused in a complaint lodged by one Javed Khan who alleged Yadav had posted some provocative comments on social media which hurt his religious sentiments.
Actor Taapsee Pannus role in her recent release is being talked about for a fierce fight on women issues and now she is getting invitations from Delhi and Mumbai girls educational institutes to talk about women security and spread the message.

Soon after the films release, I started getting a lot of messages from schools and colleges inviting me to talk to students. Its a welcome change that they are now open to the idea of discussing these topics with their students and its no more a taboo, says Pannu, who shared the screenspace with actor Amitabh Bachchan in the film.

The actor has already attended some institutions and plans to accommodate as many institutes as possible.I will be more than happy to accommodate as many schools and colleges as I can during the day offs I get in between my shooting schedule, she says.

After watching the movie, as many as 20 girls colleges extended an invitation to Taapsee. She will also be talking about how one should have their own voice and stand-up for the wrong and also about the consent of womens security in our country, says a source.

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Bollywood actor Vidyut Jammwal is currently prepping for Commando 2, Yaara and Baadshaho co-starring Ajay Devgn, all slated to release next year. The actor, who usually likes being low-key, created an Instagram account on September 28.

Says a source, Vidyut has always maintained a low profile, and believes in letting his work do the talking. However, his friends have often advised him to join Instagram. After giving it a serious thought, he recently joined the social media platform. The first picture that he posted was a black-and-white photograph of himself. Since then, he has been inundated with compliments from his fans.

The source adds, He has already earned a huge fan following on Instagram. The picture that has been garnering attention was shot in Ladakh some time ago. Apart from praise, Vidyut has also been asked some questions by his fans. They have been asking him about the secret behind his chiselled physique, and about his fitness regime.

#leh #ladakh A photo posted by Vidyut Jammwal OfficialFanclub (@ividyutjammwal) on Sep 28, 2016 at 4:03am PDT

When contacted, Vidyut confirmed the news, and said, I gladly accept the love shared by my fans, and want all of them to know that I will surely answer their questions on my health and fitness secrets. For now, I would tell all fitness enthusiasts  be unafraid and challenge yourself to find your true self.

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Looks like Farah Khan isnt the only one who objectifies Shah Rukh Khan - the actor has shared a video claiming even his male directors objectify him.

Sharing a three-second small video late Thursday, SRK wrote on his Facebook page, Even my male directors r now objectifying me! Paapi peth ke liye kya kya karna padhta hai.

While Farah Khan showed fans the eight-pack abs of SRK, all we see in the new video is Khan flaring his shirt: Of course, he is fully covered!

The 50-year-old actor has recently wrapped up the Amsterdam schedule of Imtiaz Alis The Ring. The romantic drama features Anushka Sharma in the female lead.

The Ring, written, directed and co-produced by Imtiaz Ali, releases on August 11, 2017.

Ahead of The Ring, Shah Rukh will be seen in Raees which releases in January 2017. The films star cast includes Nawazuddin and Pakistani actor Mahira Khan.

Watch Dard E Disco from Om Shanti Om

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Do you know who first translated Tagores Kabuliwala (1892) into English or Premchands Godan (1936) for that matter?

Translators, the unsung heroes of the literary world, make stories and  by extension the cultures they are set in  accessible to readers. But it is a thankless job, done more for love than glory.

On World Translation Day, we spoke to five translators, who translate regional literature into English, on the challenges that are a part of their job:

(From left) Arunava Sinha, Bibek Debroy, Jerry Pinto, Rakhshanda Jalil and Srinath Perur

Arunava Sinha

Classic, modern and contemporary Bengali fiction and nonfiction

The biggest challenge is translating dialects. When you are translating a speech in a regional dialect, which is not in the same language as the rest of the book, into English, it is difficult to maintain the difference as its hard to choose an equivalent dialect in English. There is a book Im currently translating, Khwabnama by a Bangladeshi author Akhtaruzzaman Elias. It is set in a remote, rural area where the spoken language is nothing like the Bengali we speak in cities. Translating it into English is an unhappy compromise.

Bibek Debroy

A 10-volume translation of the unabridged Mahabharata, the Vedas, the Puranas, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita from Sanskrit

Translating from the Sanskrit into English is somewhat different from translating from the Sanskrit into a vernacular language, which has a certain affinity with it. English is a completely different language: the sentence structure and grammar are different. And there are certainly some words which cant be translated satisfactorily into English. The challenge is to retain the authenticity of the translation.

Jerry Pinto

Sachin Kundalkars Cobalt Blue & Daya Pawars Baluta from Marathi

The challenges I face while translating are cultural. The most insignificant words become the biggest stumbling blocks. Say when you have to translate a word like re which has overtones of affectionate disgruntlement in Marathi into English. What is it suppose to become? Or say if the author has used a word that means rapture or ecstasy and a few lines later, he moves into the ironic mode. In English, its difficult to use rapture or ecstasy ironically unless you are ridiculing something.

Rakhshanda Jalil

Selected works of Intizar Husain, Saadat Hasan Manto, the poetry of Shahryar (Urdu), Premchand and Phanishwarnath Renu (Hindi), among others

Usually, the big challenge is translating poetry. Any poetry is difficult to carry through in another language because it relies as much on sounds as meanings. But when the languages are as disparate as English and Urdu, it becomes especially difficult. Unlike English, metrical patterns in Urdu depend on line lengths and lengths of syllables rather than stresses. Frog marching the rhythm of the Urdu ghazal or nazm into English can result in ungainly, dangling sentences.

Then there are the oddities of poetic expression. Jigar in Urdu means liver but is used for the heart or the rough equivalent of a heart. Saying pierced by an arrow through the heart is one thing but to say pierced in the liver is another!

Srinath Perur

Vivek Shanbaugs Ghachar Ghochar from Kannada

One of the reasons I agreed to translate Ghachar Ghochar was so I could get back in touch with my mother tongue Kannada. My main obstacle was the state of my Kannada, which I read falteringly. So there was a good deal of looking up words in the dictionary, parsing sentences this way and that, and, as a measure of last resort, calling up Vivek [Shanbaug] and going, Look here, what does this mean? In retrospect, I wonder if all this grappling with the original text might actually have been a good thing for the translation. In terms of the mechanics of fiction, it took me a few attempts to find the right voice for the books narrator.

From HT Brunch, September 30, 2016

Follow us on twitter.com/HTBrunch

Connect with us on facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch

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Samsungs India arm on Friday said that the aviation regulator has issued an advisory to travellers and airline companies lifting the restrictions on in-flight use of the new Samsung Galaxy Note7, purchased after 15th September, 2016.

Customers can identify the new Galaxy Note7 with the green battery icon. Devices displaying this visual icon are safe to charge and use during the flight, Samsung quoted the DGCA as saying in a statement.

However, Samsung is yet to sale any Note 7 smartphone in India. It is important to note that Samsung has not sold a single unit of Galaxy Note7 in India so far. The green battery icon will apply to all Galaxy Note7 units that will be sold to customers in India when it is launched, a Samsung spokesperson said adding that the company recognizes the inconvenience the advisory has caused to customers, flyers and airline authorities, and remain committed towards customer safety.

Earlier, on September 9, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had issued a public notice prohibiting the use of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 on the flights even on flight mode. It had further advised flyers not to stow away the phablet in checked-in baggages.

In the light of recent incidents involving battery issue with Samsung about its Galaxy Note7 devices globally, travelling public and airlines are advised to ensure not to turn on or charge Galaxy Note7 mobile phone on board the aircraft, Director General for Civil Aviation BS Bhullar had said in a public notice, issues earlier.

The DGCAs decision had come at a time when the US aviation safety regulator had strongly advised the passengers not to turn on or charge their Note 7 smartphones during flights after reports of the devices catching fire.

On September 23, a Samsung Note 2 smartphone caught fire inside a Chennai-bound international flight of IndiGo with 175 passengers on board, leading to a major safety scare.

The scare prompted DGCA to issue an advisory to airlines, to avoid using Samsung Note series phones on board.The aviation safety regulator also ordered a probe and summoned Samsung officials.

The aircraft landed safely after the crew retrieved the smoking phone from an overhead luggage rack and put it in a container filled with water in the lavatory.

The crew quickly identified minor smoke coming from the hat-rack of seat 23C, it said. A fire extinguisher was also used, although IndiGo clarified there was no fire but sparks were observed.
Is there a sting in the tail-end of the Barack Obama presidency when it comes to Washingtons attitude towards India and Pakistan? If whats been placed on the record in recent days is any indication, there may be movement away from the default de-escalation statements directed towards India to one that pays attention to New Delhis concerns.

When US national security adviser Susan Rice spoke to her Indian counterpart Ajit Doval this week, there was the usual diplomatic line about a shared commitment with India to pursuing peace and regional stability. But there was also the pointed expectation that Pakistan take effective action to combat and delegitimize United Nations-designated terrorist individuals and entities, including Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, and their affiliates. That conversation was recapitulated by the White House spokesperson on Thursday, though once again limned with how America values the important partnership with Pakistan. But he did also refer, as Rice did, to the new standard.

Read | India may have no trouble explaining surgical strikes to US

There is a freshness to this stance and while it may be born partly out of frustration with Pakistan, much of the pivot can be attributed to the occupant of the White House.

Daily developments across West Asia, and with regard to Russia, dont really make for pleasant briefings for the American president. However, if there is a relationship that he has taken forward and fostered, its certainly the ties forged with India during the nearly eight years of his administrations tenure.

This isnt just about his personal equation with Prime Minister Nardenra Modi, since the first State Dinner hosted during the Obama presidency was for then PM Manmohan Singh. This hasnt been a consistently comradely journey, as matters like that involving diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York, marked a period when you had to hunt for the good will.

Read | HT Exclusive: India held back strike till Sushmas UN speech

But the rapid recovery from that low to upping the engagement showed where the intent of the administration was. As he enters the last four months of occupying the Oval Office, this is not a legacy that Obama will easily forfeit.

The onus to stay calm, that was once always upon New Delhi, appears to have been shifted by the Obama administration to Islamabad. That the surgical strikes undertaken by Indian special forces along the Line of Control arent the point of contention in the voices being heard from the administration is an indicator of how the balance has tilted, even though that process has been gradual.

Read | India reaches out to global community, says Pak army not the target

But there will remain red lines that will not be crossed in Washington, and as all those comments from the state department, and the White House, show that relates to alienating Pakistan. If the presence of Osama bin Laden in an Abbottabad safe house wasnt cause enough, theres little chance that a Hafeez Saeed or Masood Azhar will precipitate a breach between the US and Pakistan that cannot be bridged. No number of online petitions to have America declare Pakistan a state sponsor of terror will alter that reality.

A White House with Hillary Clinton as its incumbent will ensure continuity, and that may be comforting for New Delhi, but not always pleasant. If Republican Donald Trump gets into the Oval Office, he may carry along the baggage of flame-throwing but much of that was doused at the official position adopted by the Republican National Convention on Pakistan: Our working relationship is a necessary, though sometimes difficult, benefit to both.

Read | Families of Uri attack victims welcome armys surgical strikes across LoC

There may be sporadic support in the US Congress, but if India expects the US to punish Pakistan, that could be as imminent as a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, which has languished at the United Nations for nearly two decades. Instead, India can look to leverage the diplomatic space that it now has to manoeuvre within.

That has come via the American president. Obama has not just removed the hyphen that defined Americas stance towards the Subcontinent, but has instead added an exclamation mark to the India-US bilateral paradigm. Whether this change will continue to punctuate those ties or will stop with his departure, will only begin to unfold in January 2017.

Anirudh Bhattacharyya is a Toronto-based commentator on American affairs

The views expressed are personal

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NEW DELHI: A labourer died and four firefighters suffered severe burns when a factory producing plastic items caught fire on Wednesday evening in outer Delhis Narela industrial area.

Police said five men, including two firemen, are missing and a search is on to rescue them.

The dead man, 27-year-old Sajjan, was pulled out of the rubble around 5.30 pm on Thursday, almost 24 hours after he got trapped.

The situation aggravated after two cooking gas cylinders exploded, bringing down a portion of the building and trapping firefighters and workers.

The factory flouted safety norms as it lacked adequate ventilation, there were no fire exits and the vats containing hazardous chemicals were stored inside. The buildings construction was suspect too as 80% of the structure collapsed in the blaze.

Fire officials said a short circuit probably triggered the blaze, which was tamed around 9am on Thursday.

The factory is surrounded by buildings and this made accessing the site difficult for our team, said GC Mishra, the director of Delhi Fire Services.

An FIR was registered against unknown persons for negligence in handling combustible material and causing death.
NEW DELHI: A 62-year-old person, allegedly involved in selling arms in Delhi-NCR and western Uttar Pradesh, was arrested on Thursday, police said.

Twenty country-made guns and 6 live cartridges were recovered from Prem Pal. His accomplice, Avnesh Babu, 20, has also been arrested.

Bhisham Singh, deputy commissioner of police (crime) said, The arrests came after investigation into the source of illegal firearms being used by criminals in Delhi-NCR.

On September 28, police received a tipoff that Pal, leader of one of the syndicate operating in Uttar Pradesh, would come to deliver a consignment of arms to one of his contacts near Ganda Nala in Najafgarh.

A trap was laid and Pal was arrested with a bag.

Pal had to deliver the arms Babu, who works in an autorepair shop in Najafgarh. Babu was Pals agent and used to supply arms in Delhi-NCR.

Pal was arrested in 2014 by the crime branch with eight pistols bought from Madhya Pradesh. The 20 pistols recovered from him this time were made in Jalesar, Uttar Pradesh, police said.

Police said Pal has no case against him in Uttar Pradesh. He is known for his skill to involve youngsters in the racket.

Pal used to buy a gun for Rs 10,000 and sell it for Rs 15, 000.
NEW DELHI: The fire at Uphaar Cinema in Green Park killed 59 people and injured 109. The then fire chief, SK Dheri, suffered a fall and was hospitalised for three months. Nineteen years hence, Delhi hasnt learnt its lessons on fire safety. On Thursday, two firefighters were trapped fighting the Narela blaze. HT spoke to Dheri to understand what puts citizens and the firefighters in harms way. What has changed since the Uphaar tragedy? We still have not learnt any lessons. There are so many high-rises that are ticking time bombs, but no one cares. Ultimately, it is the firefighter and the occupants of the building who suffer. Whenever such an incident happens, the firefighter is declared as a martyr and compensation is given to his family. That is alright, but what about avoiding disasters?

The licensing authority has to ensure that the buildings have proper exits and sufficient windows and space before clearances are given. But who cares? If a tragedy occurs, then the liability should come on them. Delhi Fire Services keeps sending notices to these buildings to follow norms but they are usually ignored. The community approach towards safety is pathetic. It is the temperament that needs to change. What should the govt do? There are a lot of provisions in the enactment but they are not enforced. The rules to give out licences to buildings should be very stringent.

These disasters can be easily prevented if licences are given out after thorough checks... The government is supposed to make sure that the rules are enforced. What are the risks that firefighters face? From the time they step onto a fire engine, they do not know if they will return home. When a firefighter enters a burning building, it expands and contracts. Most times it just collapses. It is a calculated risk. There is definitely a great risk to life as you do not know what is in store for you. Sometimes, the cylinders kept inside explode. We always say that in the Army a soldier is at risk when there is a war, but here, the life is at risk 24X7. What are the major challenges a firefighter faces? One has to be very calm and focused. When firefighters enter the building that is on fire, most people are rushing outside and there is chaos. The biggest problem is to deal with smoke. Sometimes the firefighter has to climb to a height, which is risky as the building is collapsing. Many times the firefighters have to improvise and take decisions on the spot. They cannot afford to make a mistake as lives are at stake... Abroad, the firefighters are saluted, it is only here that they are ignored. What about the safety of the firefighters? The firefighters are insured by the government. If they die on duty then a compensation is given to their families. In case they sustain injuries, the government takes care of their medical expenses. But other than that there is nothing.
NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR/CHANDIGARH: Police in Indias major cities and towns bordering Pakistan were put on heightened alert on Thursday for possible reprisal attacks in response to the cross-border strike carried out by the army.

In Delhi, the anti-terror unit, emergency response vehicles and SWAT teams were asked to be on guard. In the evening, barricades were also placed at major roads with security personnel checking every suspicious vehicle.

Home ministry sources said national security adviser Ajit Doval spoke to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Delhi police commissioner asking them to be on high alert.

We have been told to be on high alert. Not just the surgical attack but this is also a festival season. For the past few days, we are in the field in morning and evening rush hours, said a senior police officer.

The Union home ministry also asked Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir to move to safer locations people living within 10km of the border or line of control, the de facto border with Pakistan.
NEW DELHI: India said on Thursday it carried out surgical strikes along its de-facto border with Pakistan, taking out several launchpads, or temporary shelters, militants were preparing to use to cross over into the country.

The strikes were Indias first direct military response to the attack on the Uri army base earlier this month that killed 18 Indian soldiers and was blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

The cross-border action came days after New Delhi reviewed its 56-year-old Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan and pulled out of the regional Saarc Summit in Islamabad as part of a wider diplomatic offensive to isolate its nettlesome neighbour.

The move could have wide domestic and security implications for India, where a narrative of a triumphant military campaign could influence a series of impending state polls. They could also trigger a possible escalation in tensions along the Line of Control (LoC), or the de-facto border between India and Pakistan.

The cross-border action is being seen as Prime Minister Narendra Modi following through on his warning that those responsible for the Uri attack would not go unpunished. The Indian army had also said it would avenge the September 18 attack at a time and place of its choosing.

The surgical strikes could force militants across the LoC to shift their sanctuaries further back into Pakistani territory, bolstering the image of Indian forces as a capable striking power. Such an image could also help tamp down violence in Kashmir, where two months of street protests over the killing of militant Burhan Wani have left more than 85 people dead.

Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, chief of Indias military operations, told a press conference that the launchpads were targeted after a week of surveillance.

Significant casualties have been caused to these terrorists and those who are trying to support them, Singh said, without giving details of casualties.

Islamabad promptly denied the claim and said it would respond strongly were India to try a military raid on its soil. When Indian opposition parties asked Singh about this, he remarked, What else can they say? a leader present at the meeting said.

Singh said the decision to launch the strikes had been taken after the military determined the launchpads had been set up with an aim to carry out infiltration and terrorist strikes in Jammu and Kashmir and various other metros in our country.

The operations were basically focused to ensure that these terrorists do not succeed in their design of infiltration and carrying out destruction and endangering the lives of citizens of our country, he said.

Indias official announcement of the strikes came just hours after Modi chaired a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) to review the situation along the LoC.

The government briefed former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and governor, the President and the vice-president about the strikes.

The news of the strikes unnerved the Indian stock market which shed more than 550 points before recovering to close at levels lower than of Wednesday. In the evening, Pakistani news outlet Dawn said in a report that Pakistani forces had captured an Indian soldier, but later said it could not be confirmed.
NEW DELHI: The Union government doubled on Thursday the limit on money from provident fund that can be invested in stock, bond and commodities markets, defying labour unions that say such investments are more prone to risks.

The labour ministry said the doubling of the 5% ceiling on investments in exchange-traded funds (ETF) will ensure higher returns for PF account holders.

The move bypassed the central board of trustees of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation that usually takes decisions on the provident fund corpus which gives financial security to millions of working Indians who contribute to it.

We decided to raise it... keeping the good economic situation, ground conditions and how social security funds invest globally. We are custodians of workers money and our responsibility is to see they get good returns, labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya said at a press conference.

EPFO has already invested Rs 1,500 crore in ETFs in the first half of the current fiscal and will invest about Rs 500 crore in the remaining six months.

On if the labour ministry sought the EPFO trustees approval, Dattatreya said: The issue was discussed twice in the CBT meeting. Some members had reservations against the ETF investments.

Representatives from some trade unions slammed the unilateral decision.

All India Trade Union Congress leader DL Sachdev told PTI: We strongly oppose this unilateral notification by the government to double FPO investments in ETFs despite our reservations. We will would soon discuss the issue with other unions and launch a protest against this move.

Indian Trade Union Congress vice-president Ashok Singh said, This is not the right approach. What was the emergency to do it and if it is done then what is the sanctity of the central board of trustees headed by labour minister which is the apex decision making body for the EPFO..
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday denied that Indian troops had carried out surgical strikes across the Line of Control, saying it had responded to cross-border fire from the Indian side that killed two soldiers and injured nine more.

Foreign secretary Aizaz Chaudhry summoned Indian envoy Gautam Bambawale on Thursday evening and rejected the so-called surgical strikes and condemned what he described as unprovoked firing by Indian forces on the LoC, state-run Radio Pakistan said.

Chaudhry said the Pakistan military will continue to give a befitting response to any act of aggression. He added that India had escalated tensions on the LoC to divert attention from the grave human rights situation in Kashmir.

Pakistans civil and military leadership reacted after Indias director general of military operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said Indian soldiers conducted surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads across the LoC, causing significant casualties.

The first reaction came from the Pakistan militarys media arm, which said in a strongly worded statement: There has been no surgical strike by India, instead there had been cross-border fire initiated and conducted by India which is existential phenomenon.

The military dismissed the surgical strikes as an illusion, while defence minister Khawaja Asif referred to them as a lie. The military also said if there is a surgical strike on Pakistani soil, same will be strongly responded.

Asif said Pakistani troops had responded to small weapons fire in five sectors along the LoC that killed two soldiers and injured nine others.

If India tries to do this again, we will respond forcefully, said Asif, who had on Monday warned that Pakistan would use its nuclear weapons to annihilate India if the countrys survival was threatened.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif discussed the situation along the LoC during a phone call with army chief Gen Raheel Sharif, and convened a meeting of his cabinet on Friday to review the situation in Kashmir.

Before Indias DGMO announced the surgical strikes, the Pakistani military said there was Indian unprovoked firing in Bhimber, Hot Spring, Kel and Lipa sectors of the 742-km LoC between 2.30 am and 8 am.

Prime Minister Sharif said Pakistans intent for a peaceful neighbourhood should not be mistaken as its weakness. He condemned the unprovoked and naked aggression of Indian forces and said Pakistan can thwart any evil design to undermine its sovereignty.

Pakistan also expressed disappointment at Indias decision to pull out from the Saarc Summit and conveyed its concern over threats to its envoy in New Delhi. It asked the Indian government to ensure the safety of the envoy and other officials in line with the Vienna Convention.
NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Friday, two days after the suicide of former corporate affairs director general BK Bansal and his son Yogesh, learned that two men had visited a courier companys office in Shakarpur to deliver nine photocopies of the purported notes left behind by the father-son duo.

A police team visited the courier firms office on Wednesday after they came to know that it a prominent wire service received similar copies of the two notes.

The envelope, sources said, bore the name of BK Bansal as the sender.

Sources said the courier company has given the police the addresses to which these envelopes were sent. The police are trying to track down the two men who carried the notes. They should be able to give clues on where the original notes are, said a police officer.

The two photocopied notes, the authenticity of which is to be verified, mention mental and physical torture inflicted upon Bansal and his three family members by five CBI officials. This, the note says, drove them to suicide.

But despite political pressure, Delhi Police have not filed an abetment to suicide case on Thursday. Only an inquest proceeding under 174 of CrPC has been initiated.

The preliminary autopsy reports on Thursday confirmed that Bansal and his son died due to hanging. Their viscera samples have been sent to a forensic lab for chemical examination.

Meanwhile, the CBI has deputed a joint director rank official to look into the allegations.

Police said two men had visited the courier company office on a motorcycle around 10 am on Tuesday, barely an hour after Bansal and his son were found hanging at their flat by their domestic help Rachna. Four signed photocopies of each note were found in their rooms.

The staff at the courier office told the police that one of the men were constantly talking to somebody over the mobile phone .The person gave me nine envelopes and asked them to be dispatched immediately. They were in a hurry, said a source.

The police team collected footage of CCTV cameras installed at the main entry-exit gate of Neelkanth Apartments where the Bansals lived in their first-floor flat.
Lack of equipment and coordination among government agencies has been delaying rescue and cooling down operations at the plastic factory in Narela that caught fire on Wednesday evening. Officials said that every passing minute is proving fatal for the three people, including two fire fighters, trapped in the debris.

After the fire broke out at the factory at 4.40pm, reportedly due to a short circuit, the Delhi Fire Services sent a request to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and the Public Works Department (PWD) to lend them their rubble-removing machines for the rescue operations.

But it was not until Thursday afternoon, almost 24 hours after the fire was reported, that the fire department managed to get the machine.

Neither the fire department nor the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) owns these machines.

The factory building is also covered with concrete slabs and a high-powered drilling machine is required to cut through it, also not available with the rescuers.

The fire department does not own any of these equipments, which are important to clear the rubble. We were so caught up in fulfilling procedures and begging other departments for machines that no one bothered to think about the men who are trapped inside the building, said a senior fire official, who was present at the spot on Friday.

Fireman Manjeet, fire operator Sunil from Keshav Puram fire station, and a labourer were caught inside the burning building when the main pillar of the factory collapsed in the blaze.

Read: Ill-equipped and underpaid, Delhi firefighters dodge death every day

Twenty seven-year-old Sajjan Kumars body was taken out on Thursday evening and handed over to the family.

The fire official said the ongoing rescue process was proof of how Delhi is not equipped to handle such disasters.

If a major earthquake was to hit the city and buildings were to collapse, our rescue teams would not be able to handle it. People would die of suffocation under the debris waiting to be rescued, the official.

Fire chief, GC Mishra, said that though there is very little possibility of the trapped people to survive, any rescue operation is conducted with an attitude of taking out victims alive.

Life is a miraculous thing. There have been cases where people have survived under three or four storeys of rubble for days. We get inside burning buildings with the attitude of saving people not to fish out their dead bodies, Mishra said.

The lax attitude and lack of coordination among agencies seems to show little regard for human life. The lack of technical expertise has also slowed the rescue.

The building has a transformer at the gate which is blocking the entrance. An engineer from DMRC visited the site to assess how entry can be made, a Delhi Police official said.

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Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal postponed a major revelation he was to make in the Delhi assembly on Friday and congratulated the Army and the political leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for conducting surgical strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LOC).

The Delhi Assembly passed a resolution condemning the Uri attack by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists after congratulating the political leadership following a demand from a BJP legislator.

The original resolution did not refer to any individual. However, Leader of the Opposition and BJP leader of opposition Vijender Gupta demanded that a line be added in the resolution to congratulate the PM.

We congratulate the Prime Minister, the Centre, the Union home minister, the defence minister and the chiefs of the armed forces. Let this line be added, Kejriwal said.

The CM also postponed a major revelation his party had promised to make regarding fake cases against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislators. The move, he said, was taken in the wake of the Uri attacks.

Fake FIRs are being launched against our MLAs. There is a big conspiracy against us which we wanted to present in the assembly but there is tension at the border and it is our duty to stand with by the Central government. The scheduled discussion can be held on a later date, he said.

The resolution, introduced by Kejriwal and passed unanimously, condemned the Uri attacks in which 19 soldiers were killed and warned Pakistan to desist from repeating such misadventures in the future.

We extend wholehearted support to measures to be taken by the Union government for protecting the countrys territorial integrity, Kejriwal said.

Gupta urged the CM to delete his September 27 tweet that read Excellent article. On Uri, rather than Pak, India seems to be getting isolated internationally.

Kejriwal had shared an opinion article on tensions following the Uri attack. The tweet was made hours before the forces were on their way to the mission. It will have a negative impression when the world has focused its attention towards India. The tweet is demoralizing and should be withdrawn, Gupta said.

Kejriwal did not comment on Guptas remark.
Delhi Police on Friday, two days after the suicide of former corporate affairs director general BK Bansal and his son Yogesh, learned that two men had visited a courier companys office in Shakarpur to deliver nine photocopies of the purported suicide notes left behind by the father-son duo.

A police team visited the courier firms office on Wednesday after they came to know that it a prominent wire service received similar signed copies of the two notes.

The envelope, sources said, bore the name of BK Bansal as the sender. Copies of the two notes are circulating in media houses and on the social media.

Sources said the courier company has given the police the addresses to which these envelopes were sent. The police are trying to track down the two men who carried the notes. They should be able to give clues on where the original notes are. Forensic examination of the original notes is crucial, said a police officer.

The two photocopied notes, the authenticity of which is to be verified, mention mental and physical torture inflicted upon Bansal and his three family members by five CBI officials. This, the note says, drove them to suicide.

But despite political pressure, Delhi Police have not filed an abetment to suicide case on Thursday. Only an inquest proceeding under 174 of CrPC has been initiated.

The preliminary autopsy reports accessed by police on Thursday confirmed that Bansal and his son died due to hanging. Their viscera samples have been sent to a forensic lab for chemical examination, a police officer said.

Meanwhile, the CBI has deputed a joint director (IG) rank official to look into the allegations.

Read: Bansal suicide: DCW chief Swati Maliwal gives CBI 48 hours to explain probe

Police said two men had visited the courier company office on a motorcycle around 10am on Tuesday, barely an hour after Bansal and his son were found hanging at their flat by their domestic help Rachna. Four signed photocopies of each note were found in their rooms.

The staff at the courier office told the police that one of the men were constantly talking to somebody over the mobile phone. The person gave me nine envelopes and asked them to be dispatched immediately. They seemed to be in a hurry, said a source.

The police team collected footage of CCTV cameras installed at the main entry-exit gate of Neelkanth Apartments where the Bansals lived in their first-floor flat. The footage will be scanned to ascertain if the two men had visited the flat in the last two-three days.

Police said they did not find footage of two CCTVs installed by the Bansals outside their flat. The digital video recorder (DVR) of the cameras was seized by the CBI during their raids in July.
Activist Iron Lady Irom Sharmila on Friday urged Delhi University students to join her in the fight to win civil rights for the people of Manipur, a month after breaking her 16-year-long fast against a law that gives the army special powers in the militancy-ridden state.

I am here to influence you all to join hands so that together we can make a difference and get our rights, said Sharmila in her first-ever address to DU students.

The Manipuri crusader, who was on a long fast demanding repealing the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), was given a standing ovation at the function organised by the North East Forum for International Solidarity (NEFIS).

Friday was the 120th birth anniversary of Hijam Irabot, a freedom fighter and politician from Manipur.

She said about her fast, I couldnt keep quiet at the wrong that was happening around. I had realised my responsibility and right as a citizen of the nation to fight against laws that exploit us.

She said she did not end her struggle by ending her fast, but merely tried to transform it from an individual fight to a mass movement.

It is you, the youth, who are the symbol of inspiration. Do not remain content with the dirty administrative system, but fight for things which society wants and you like, she said.

Comparing herself to Irabot who fought against state repression, she said she will join politics and fight so that every politician is a reflection of the common man.

People want to see me as a leader irrespective of my nature. However, it is the power holders who cannot accept this. They are the ones trying to instigate the common masses from supporting meYou all should follow me and let us change and make a difference, she said.

Womens activist and professor Nandini Sundar, who also addressed the students, said from the next year the Irom Sharmila Scholarship will be awarded after consulting Sharmila herself.

The DU-instituted cash award of Rs 50, 000 is open to any post-graduate student from a region of internal armed conflict enrolled in any Delhi educational institution.

In 2016, it was jointly awarded to the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union and Rohit Vemula (posthumously) of the Hyderabad Central University. The award is Rs 60,000 if shared.

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Missing moods at the Boston Globe By: Scott Sumner

Polls show that 58% of Americans favor the legalization of marijuana. Even Texans support it. But an initiative to legalize pot in (very liberal) Massachusetts may fail. One reason is anti-legalization editorials like the following, in the highly influential Boston Globe.

When I think about the prospect of legalizing marijuana in Massachusetts, I surprise myself by sounding like my father. Cannabis tourism? THC-infused lip balm? Budz and sudz crawls? What is the world coming to? . . . Like most Massachusetts citizens, I voted for legalization of medical marijuana when it was on the ballot in 2012. But the chaotic rollout of that measure is a cautionary tale. Recall that within weeks of the election, implementation of the new law was on its way to becoming a fiasco of falsified license applications, shoddy background checks, allegations of corruption and influence-peddling, voided licenses, and lawsuits galore. Communities objected, and licensing stalled, as dispensaries were sited in residential neighborhoods instead of clinics or pharmacies, where they might have maintained at least the patina of therapeutic purpose. Meanwhile, thousands of deserving patients suffered until the first dispensary finally opened in Salem last June. If the state cant handle a nonprofit medical marijuana market for a limited number of patients, can we reasonably expect it to establish an all-cash, profit-driven buzz bazaar without a hitch? . . .

The editorial continues on in the same vein, with lots of minor bureaucratic points. Notably missing is any discussion of the 400,000 Americans currently serving in prison for drug violations, or the millions more whose lives have been scarred by their criminal record. One might have expected some acknowledgement of the vast racial inequities, the fact that whites are as likely to use pot as blacks, but far less likely to go to prison. After all, Black Lives Matter has become a hot topic at liberal papers like the Globe. But when it comes to drug legalization, minorities are almost invisible. Instead we get this:

As with legalized gambling, the states are in a competitive frenzy to hatch these golden geese before the market is saturated. Its beggar-thy-neighbor time, and no one wants to miss out. States are salivating at the prospect of easy revenue without the pain of raising taxes. But marijuana revenues, like gambling income and other forms of voluntary taxation, are a cheap, fractured way to fund public services. Instead of people contributing equitably to the common good, a smaller subset foots the bill. Sure, some people will smoke pot whether its for sale at the 7-11 or not. But does the state need to endorse it, or  worse  come to depend on it? Possession of small amounts of marijuana has been decriminalized in Massachusetts for seven years. Before we embark on this billion-dollar bender, maybe we should just take a breath.

The endorsement comment is just silly. Massachusetts has legalized the sale of cigarettesdoes anyone seriously believe the state is endorsing the use of cigarettes? The comment about decriminalization is telling. Its a signal to affluent suburban moms, dont worry, if your teenage son gets caught buying pot, he wont get a criminal record. Instead well send the sellers of pot to prison, and those are mostly minorities.

Back in January, Bryan Caplan did a brilliant post on missing moods. Heres a sample:

2. The immigration restrictionist. Immigration from the Third World to the First World is almost a fool-proof way to work your way out of poverty. The mechanism: Labor is more productive in the First World than the Third, so migrants generally create the extra riches they consume. This doesnt mean that immigration restrictions are never justified. But the reasonable restrictionist mood is anguish that a tremendous opportunity to enrich mankind and end poverty must go to waste  and pity for the billions punished for the crime of choosing the wrong parents. The kind of emotions that flow out of, The economic and humanitarian case for immigration is awesome. Unfortunately, there are even larger offsetting costs. These costs are hard to spot with the naked eye, but careful study confirms they are tragically real. Trapping innocents in poverty because of the long-run costs of immigration seems unfair, but after exhaustive study weve found no other remedy. Once you see this big picture, restriction is the lesser evil. This is true even after adjusting for the inaccuracy of our past predictions about the long-run dangers of immigration. I have met a couple of restrictionists who privately express this mood, and read a few who hold it publicly. But in percentage terms, theyre almost invisible. Instead, the standard restrictionist moods are anger and xenophobia. Mainstream restrictionists hunt for horrific immigrant outliers, then use these outliers to justify harsh treatment of immigrants in general.

I notice the same thing about immigration foes.

Id expect the drug warriors at the liberal Boston Globe to lament, Its unfortunate that the drug war has led to the incarceration of 400,000 Americans, mostly minorities. But alas, we need to pay this heavy price in order to avoid becoming a horrific hellhole like Colorado, Washington or Oregon. But we dont even get that argument. Instead, they seem oblivious to the pain caused by their policies. In previous posts, commenters often tell me that these drug criminals are bad people and would be doing something else like robbing banks if they were not selling drugs. I say bad laws make bad people.

BTW, this is nothing new for the Globe. A few years back a right-to-die referendum had a big lead in the polls, and then lost narrowly after the Boston Globe came out against it. They are the sort of paper that seems liberal on any given issue, except those that would actually give people more freedom.

PS. I should emphasize that this is just one editorial, and may not reflect the official position of the Globe.
With civil defence volunteers for enhanced safety and a new principal, the government school in Nangloi reopened on Thursday -- three days after it was shut down as two students allegedly murdered a teacher.

Mukesh Kumar, a Hindi teacher, was stabbed in a classroom by two Class 12 students on Monday. Outraged teachers protested, demanding action against the accused boys and asking for security on school campus.

Apart from the regular private guard at the school gate, five civil defence volunteers have been deployed to check entry of strangers into the school.

For three years the school did not have a principal. On Thursday, MP Singh joined the office. He has been moved from a school at Baprola in south-west Delhi. The vice-principal, who was officiating as the principal, has been transferred.

Teachers say it was the teachers murder that shook the administration into action.

Curious students were seen peeping into the principal office. Some of them complained that they were not introduced to Singh.

On Tuesday, I got my transfer order and immediately reported to the school. I am now trying to get teachers together and motivate them, said Singh.

The murder was the most discussed topic -- both among the teachers and the students. Since Mukesh Kumar was killed when most others had already left for the day, different version of events were being discussed. Some students were also spotted outside room number 108, situated on the first floor, where the teacher was killed.

Read: Delhi: School closed after stabbing incident as teachers go on strike

Fardeen Ahmad, a Class 8 student, said, That was the room where we wrote our exam on Monday. I also heard that the two students (the accused) jumped from the first floor instead of using the stairs.

Another student, Harsh Mehra, added, They jumped the wall and escaped into the nearby slum.

Teachers, some of whom witnessed the crime, were worried about their security.

Having civil defence volunteers is a good idea. We just have one security guard who is old. If the school had more guards, we could have caught them (the accused), said J K Sharma, who teaches history.

Teachers say nobody saw the murder coming.

We had counselled the two students a couple of times. One of them got someone to impersonate as his father. We didnt say anything because such things happen. But who knew they would kill?  said Sharma.

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Four days after bureaucrat BK Bansal and his son Yogesh committed suicide and left behind a handwritten note, accusing CBI officers of harassment; the Delhi police are yet to register an FIR.

Hindustan Times lists seven suicide cases, including three reported this year, where police not only registered an FIR but also arrested those named in the notes. These cases were widely reported by newspapers and news channels.

July 31, 2016

The Delhi police arrested AAP MLA Sharad Chauhan and party worker Ramesh Bhardwaj for the suicide of a woman AAP volunteer. Days before consuming poison, the woman had filed a complaint against them and also named Bhardwaj in a video, she recorded, before ending her life.

April 30, 2016

An inspector was arrested for the suicide of a 25-year-old woman who consumed poison outside the Tis Hazari court. Inspector Dinesh Kumar, station house officer of Vijay Vihar police station, was arrested after police found a five-page suicide notice accusing the inspector of torture and harassment.

March 25, 2016

Priyanka Sharma, 27, a former event management professional, was found hanging from a ceiling fan in her apartment. The woman had named her husband Nitin Chawla, 40, in a suicide note accusing him of cruelty and dowry harassment. Chawla was arrested the same day.

April 23, 2015

The Delhi police registered a case of abetment of suicide without naming anyone in the death of farmer Gajendra Singh. Police had recovered a suicide note Singh wrote and threw from atop a tree before taking his life. Though police are yet to arrest anyone in this case, senior AAP leaders have been questioned for abetment of Singhs suicide.

Read: Bansal suicide: Cops hunt for men who sent photocopies of death note

April 18, 2015

Priya Vedi, a 30-year-old AIIMS resident doctor committed suicide by slitting her wrist in a Paharganj hotel room. Her husband, Kamal Vedi, was arrested on basis of suicide note, the woman posted on Facebook, accusing Vedi of lying about his sexual orientation and torturing her for dowry.

September 30, 2013

A 40 year old former Ambedkar College lab assistant set herself on fire outside the Delhi secretariat. Police registered a case of abetment to suicide against the then college principal, whom she had named in a suicide note. Police, however, did not file a chargesheet against the principal saying there was no sufficient evidence.

August 5, 2012

The Delhi police registered a case of abetment of suicide against former Haryana home minister Gopal Kanda on basis of a suicide note written by his employee Geetika Sharma. Kanda was arrested along with his companys top executives.

Suicide cases in metros

Delhi - 1,847

Bengaluru  1,906

Chennai  2,214

Mumbai 1,196 (figures for 2014)

Total abetment of suicide cases registered in Delhi under section 306 IPC:

2015  65 FIRs

2014  90 FIRs

2013  86 FIRs
The present state of military relations between India and Pakistan has served to remind us of the importance of the countrys defence preparedness. New Delhis leaders have assumed a relatively benign security environment for the past decade. There have been boundary stand-offs with China, especially in the period 2008 to 2010, but these hardly represented a major military threat to the country. Pakistan has been more problematic but even there the Line of Control is almost pacific compared to the bloody years of the late 1980s and early 1990s when India lost literally hundreds of soldiers each year along the Kashmir faultline. Islamabad has preferred to use the indirect path of terrorist attacks against India. While horrific in their own way, these have not and cannot pose an existential threat to India as a nation.

Read | Pakistan ready to defend itself: Nawaz Sharif after Indias strikes across LoC

This sense of quietude has been evident in Indias defence expenditure over the past decade. On paper and in rupee terms the defence budget has tripled between 2000 and 2015. But given the fact India imports almost all of its frontline arsenal and even mundane objects like boots, the better measure is these same figures in dollar terms. By this measure, Indias defence budget has barely budged between 2008 and 2015 from $48.23 billion to $51.26 billion. For those who will complain that given Indias development needs, the country should not even be spending what little it does on defence  the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute figures show that Indias military spending has been steadily falling as a percentage of GDP. Over the past decade defence expenditure has dropped from 2.8 to 2.5% of GDP, a figure well below the global standard of countries that live in as tough a neighbourhood as India does. Indias spending on internal security has followed a similar path and past waves of terrorist attacks have done nothing to change that.

Read | What are India, BJP trying to achieve with surgical strikes across LoC?

However, if New Delhi is to adopt a policy of publicly announcing its reprisals against Pakistan and, as Chinas enters another bout of overseas assertiveness, wants to strengthen its hold on its northern border, it will need to reverse these years of genteel neglect of the countrys security posture. There is already evidence of this in the way of purchases of fighter aircraft and military airlift capabilities. Unfortunately much more will need to be done. There are other security concerns that New Delhi must factor in. One is the slow but steady withdrawal of US military power from the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, leaving vacuums that India may inevitably have to fill. Then there are the new frontlines of cyber warfare and even geopolitically-driven infrastructure development. Though it goes against the grain of past policy, the governments decision to approve arms exports and moves to encourage Indian private firms to manufacture weapons should, if successful, help defray the financial burden of a harder security posture. However, India must recognise that a defence policy of passivity and intermittent interest is increasingly no longer an option.
Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) is inviting applications for its PhD and MS research programmes for January- May 2017, under regular full and part-time/external programmes.

Candidates with BE/ BTech can pursue direct PhD (MS and PhD) in engineering / sciences after their bachelors degree. Students who are in their final year of BE / BTech / ME / MTech / MA / MSc / MBA / BTech - MTech dual degree/integrated BS -MS with a good academic record can apply and secure their provisional admission for July 2017. Selection will be on the basis of interview and/ or test, conducted by the institute. Foreign nationals are also encouraged to apply for the courses. IIT Madras offers a thriving research environment, where students can get involved in cutting-edge research happening in varied areas of topical interest and have an access to state-of-the-art labs and equipment, says Professor AK Mishra, dean (academic research), IIT Madras.

Opportunities to carry out joint PhD programmes offered by IIT Madras in collaboration with various foreign universities like Deakin University, Australia, Queensland University of Technology, Australia, National University of Singapore, Singapore, and University of Duisburg, Germany, to name some, are also available. The last date for online registration is October 24, 2016. Click here for details.
With almost 50,000 Indian students in the European Union (EU) right now, Europe is the second preferred destination of Indian students wishing to study abroad. Tomasz Kozlowski, European Union ambassador to India, talks about funding programmes for Indians and EUs plan to collaborate with the Indian government and other agencies. Excerpts from an interview.

Why EU as a study destination for Indian students?

Europe has 4,000 higher education institutions, one-fifth of all the worlds universities, from top-level research establishments to small, specialised colleges, hosting about one-fifth of the worlds students (20 million) and 1.5 million teachers and academics. Every year, 1.5 million international students come to Europe, of which around 50,000 are Indians at present. More than 12,500 undergraduate programmes are now taught in English in all the EU countries.

Tell us about the ongoing EU education fair?

Students aspiring to study in Europe will get to interact with representatives from universities from across the region. They can also find out about scholarship and other funding opportunities available in the EU.

How will funding options for Indian students be affected after Brexit?

There will be no immediate impact on scholarships offered through EU programmes to Indian students.

Which scholarships and fellowships are currently on offer for Indian students for EU?

Under funding from EU, more than 4,000 Indian students have benefited from Erasmus grants to study in Europe in recent years. About 1,700 grants have been given to Indian researchers under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Scholarships to teach and research in Europe. Recently, the EU has launched a revised and larger programme called Erasmus+ to provide scholarships to students across the world, including India. The latest batch of Erasmus scholarships from Indian students this summer has sponsored 135 students and scholars, from 17 Indian states, now based in 20 European countries.

Which are the most popular countries among Indian students in EU?

With almost 50,000 Indian students in the EU right now, Europe is the second preferred destination of Indian students wishing to study abroad. While the UK has traditionally been the preferred destination for Indians, now they are exploring many European countries such as Germany, France, Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland, Spain, Poland, Belgium, Denmark.

Does the EU plan to collaborate with the Indian government, other agencies to boost higher education and research?

EU and India have a long history of cooperation in higher education. At the 13th EU-India Summit in March 2016, Prime Minister Modi, European Council president Donald Tusk and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker underlined higher education as an important area of cooperation and agreed to strengthen such cooperation and increase exchanges.

Collaboration between the EU and India in promoting exchanges of students, researchers and teachers has been on a rise. On the European side, the programme Erasmus+ has a budget of 1.68 billion to support the international mobility of 135,000 university students and teachers in non-EU countries, including India. EU member states have many such programmes of their own, as the increasing popularity of education fairs has shown. EU also funds capacity-building projects under Erasmus+. In 2015-16, Indian institutions received such grants for two capacity building projects. So far this year, 36 Indian institutions from 12 states have participated in 10 different projects, partnering with 37 European universities from 18 European states.

The EU has financed 15 projects of EU/India study centres that have benefited 14 Indian universities and 12 European universities and their students. Recently, the EU has also been collaborating with India and sharing its experience of building a more comparable, compatible and coherent system for higher education in Europe.

For research, the EU has the Horizon 2020 programme which provides funding for research activities in all domains and with all countries of the world including India. One part of the programme is designed to fund exchanges of researchers and innovation experts. The EU is also going to partner the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) for its upcoming Higher Education Summit.

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Love to consume energy drinks? Beware, it may put you at risk of drink driving, a study has found. The findings showed that consuming highly caffeinated energy drinks in combination with alcohol may increase the risk of drink driving.

Many young people consume energy drinks with alcohol to decrease alcohols sedative effects and stay awake longer, enabling them to drink more alcohol, said Amelia Arria from the University of Maryland, US.

In the study, the researchers differentiated between the different ways in which energy drinks are consumed: Exclusively with alcohol, exclusively without alcohol, or both with and without alcohol depending on the occasion.

They looked at data from a longitudinal study of 1,000 college students (550 females, 450 males) assessed annually via personal interviews. The participants self-reported their past-year frequency of drink driving, energy drinks consumption patterns, alcohol use, and other caffeine consumption.

Results indicated that energy drinks consumption was present in 57% of students, 9% drank energy drinks exclusively with alcohol, 16% drank energy drinks without alcohol, and 32% drank energy drinks both with and without alcohol depending on the occasion.

More frequent energy drinks consumption was associated with more frequent drink driving through two distinct pathways. First, consuming energy drinks with alcohol was associated with heavier alcohol drinking and, thereby, with more frequent drink driving. The second said that consuming energy drinks without alcohol contributed to additional risk for drink driving, regardless of alcohol drinking patterns.

The second path suggests that mechanisms other than the promotion of heavy drinking by energy drinks are involved in promoting drink driving, the researchers said in the paper published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Parents, clinicians, and college administrators should regard any style of energy drinks consumption, whether with or without alcohol, as a warning sign that students might be at high risk for alcohol-related consequences such as drink driving, the authors suggested.
Nate Parker, director and star of the new slavery drama The Birth of a Nation, said he would not apologise over a 17-year-old rape accusation that has hijacked attention from a film once tipped as an Oscar front-runner.

Parker, 36, noted to Anderson Cooper in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday on CBS News 60 Minutes, that he was acquitted of rape in a 2001 trial, and he asked people to look beyond the incident and focus on his movie.

The rape accusation and revelation in August that Parkers accuser committed suicide in 2012, have dominated conversation around the film before its US release on Oct. 7.

The film tells the story of preacher Nat Turner, played by Parker, who in 1831 led a slave rebellion in Virginia. It includes a rape scene in which Turners wife is the victim.

Sharon Loeffler, the sister of Parkers accuser, wrote in an opinion piece in Hollywood trade paper Variety on Thursday that she could only imagine the pain (her sister) would be experiencing now to see Nate Parker promoting his new movie.

Cooper asked Parker if he felt he had anything to apologise for.

According to advance excerpts made available on Thursday, Parker replied, I was falsely accused. ... I went to court. ... I was vindicated. I feel terrible that this woman isnt here .... Her family had to deal with that, but as I sit here, an apology is - no.

I think that Nat Turner, as a hero, what he did in history, is bigger than me. I think its bigger than all of us, Parker told Cooper, saying he hoped people would go see the film.

The movie wowed audiences at the Sundance Film Festival in January, sparking 2017 Oscar buzz, and it got a standing ovation in early September at the Toronto International Film Festival where Turner and the cast sought to deflect attention from the rape case.

The issue has thwarted efforts to promote the film, which movie studio Fox Searchlight in January bought for a Sundance record of $17.5 million.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
India said on Thursday it carried out surgical strikes along its de-facto border with Pakistan, taking out several launchpads, or temporary shelters, militants were preparing to use to cross over into the country.

Heres all you need to know about the operation:

WHY

The strikes were Indias first direct military response to the attack on the Uri army base earlier this month that killed 18 Indian soldiers and was blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

Thursdays action is being seen as Prime Minister Narendra Modi following through on his warning that those responsible for the Uri attack would not go unpunished. The army had also said it would avenge the attack.

The surgical strikes could force militants across the LoC to shift their sanctuaries further back into Pakistani territory, bolstering the image of Indian forces as a capable striking power. Such an image could also help tamp down violence in Kashmir, where two months of street protests over the killing of militant Burhan Wani have left more than 85 people dead.

HOW

Special Forces teams had been rehearsing their assault plan for over a week. All forces along the LoC and the Indian Air Force were placed on the highest state of alert. The BSF was put on alert four days ago but was told about the operation just 30 minutes before the assault.

On Wednesday night, some of Indias toughest fighting men  soldiers of the elite Parachute Regiment  were heli-dropped at pre-designated sites on the Indian side of the LoC. They crossed the de facto border on foot, and were stealthy enough to maintain surprise.

The Army said the surgical strikes were carried out to pre-empt infiltration by terrorists who were planning to attack major cities. The intelligence was specific and credible. The army picked the targets for the surgical strikes carefully after carrying out 24X7 surveillance of terror launchpads across the LoC.

They (the strikes) were conducted two-three kilometres across the LoC...Seven launchpads were targeted, a source said on condition of anonymity.

THE TARGET

The strikes aimed at neutralising the terrorists had caused multiple casualties, officials said.

An official said troops killed militants numbering in the double digits, and that no Indian soldier was killed.

Most of the casualties were terrorists, said a source, insisting India had not been targeting the Pakistani army.

An army official based in Kashmir said two Indian soldiers were wounded while returning from the raid - one stepped on a landmine and another was shot.

THE KEY NUMBERS

38: Estimated number of terrorists killed in the launchpads in Pak-occupied Kashmir.

12.30-4.30am: The time taken for the mission.

1-3km: Distance beyond the LoC that the soldiers in the surgical strike had to traverse.

THE AFTERMATH

7.30am: The Prime Ministers Office alerted members of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) about the cross-border raids and notifies a meeting at 10am

10am: The CCS, headed by PM Narendra Modi, remained in a huddle till 11.30 am. Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh gives a blow-by-blow account of the action by Special Forces. Anticipating a flare-up, the CCS directed the evacuation of villagers along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and the International Border in Punjab. Junior minister Jitendra Singh, who hails from Jammu region, was assigned to oversee the civilian evacuation.

12:30pm: Barely an hour after the CCS meeting, Director General of Military Operations Lt Gen Ranbir Singh announced that the army has conducted surgical strikes against launchpads along the LoC. He said significant casualties were caused to terrorists.

(With agency inputs)
Fearing tit-for-tat retaliation from Pakistan-based terrorist groups post Indian cross-LoC strike, home minister Rajnath Singh on Friday reviewed country-wide security measures, particularly in Kashmir, with reports of an eight-strong fidayeen (suicide) squad sneaking into Srinagar.

All western states bordering Pakistan have been placed on alert with state chief secretaries instructed not to go on leave.

Authoritative sources said that the government was expecting a retaliation from Pakistan with the target being Indian Army establishments in Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi.

On Thursday, the security agencies issued an alert about a possible suicide attack by Pakistani jihadists in Srinagar, with security forces as target.

Singh discussed all possible measures with senior officials, including National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and intelligence chiefs.

The home ministry assessment is that after the Indian Army inflicted serious and large scale casualties by attacking the terrorist launch pads in Jammu and Kashmir, terror groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed may activate their border action team for retaliation.

Security agencies expect Pakistani border action along the LoC in Machhil, Nowgam, Mendhar and Rajouri sectors  where the Indian Army destroyed seven terrorist forward staging locations.

There was firing by unknown militants on a CRPF-J&K police check post on Shopian-Kulgam road on Friday evening with no casualties.

While the security forces have gone on high alert in Jammu and Kashmir, Singh also reviewed security arrangements in the Indian hinterland, particularly in New Delhi and Mumbai.

Senior officials of the home ministry have issued instructions to Delhi and Mumbai police to ensure that any terrorist action in the form of indiscriminate firing or bombs is either prevented or foiled.

The Indian Army and defence establishments in the Capital have been particularly secured so that they are not targeted by terrorists to avenge the cross-LoC strike.

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Another soldier injured in a militant attack on the Indian Armys base in Uri on September 18 died on Friday, taking the death toll in the assault to 19, an official source said.

Naik Raj Kishor Singh, who was being treated at the armys Research and Referral Hospital in New Delhi, succumbed to injuries sustained during the raid that India blames on Pakistan-based militants.

India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launchpads across the Line of Control early on Thursday, seen as a reprisal for the Uri attack.

Thursdays action is being seen as Prime Minister Narendra Modi following through on his warning that those responsible for the Uri attack would not go unpunished. The army had also said it would avenge the Uri attack at a time and place of its choosing.

The cross-border action came days after New Delhi reviewed its 56-year-old Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan and pulled out of the regional Saarc Summit in Islamabad as part of a wider diplomatic offensive to isolate its nettlesome neighbour after the Uri attack.
The unrest in Kashmir had hit the Valleys apple farmers in multiple ways right from the initial harvesting stage to transportation even as officials say the export has been higher than in the corresponding period last year.

Apple farmers and traders that HT spoke to said the first difficulty arose when farmers in interior areas of the Valley could not attend to their crop due to the unrest.

Because of the curfew and restrictions, farmers could not spray pesticide and take care of the crops in the proper manner. That led to shedding of leaves from the tree which can the fruit, said president, Sopore Fruit Mandi, Mushtaq Ahmad Tantray.

The Sopore fruit mandi is the largest such in the state but the unrest has hampered its functioning considerably.

Secondly, unavailability of trucks during the unrest which jacked up freight costs ,also affected the apple business.

The freight rate per apple box was around Rs 50-60 from Srinagar to Delhi. But today it is around Rs 90-110. Also, the packaging material to prepare the crates is not readily available. Thus, their cost has increased, said Tantray, who is also an apple farmer.

He added: Apples from the farms in the interior areas could not reach the respective fruit mandis on time because of the transportation problems. With night curfew in place, farmers could not transport the crop from their farms as they usually do. And that led to some damage to the harvested crop.

Moreover as Bashir Ahmad, president of the Kashmir Valley Fruit Growers Association pointed out that due to the restrictions placed on the traffic movement on Jawahar Tunnel, the quality of the apples in loaded trucks deteriorated further.

Ahmad said that according to an estimate carried out by the traders themselves, the fruit business incurred a loss of Rs 1,000 crore till August-end since the unrest started on July 8.

But traders are optimistic because in the period July-August only the early varieties of apple are traded but September-October is the peak season and features an extensive trade of the premium variety of apples.

However, what they point out is that the damages that the plants have suffered because of lack of attention in the initial stages cant be corrected. But uninterrupted transport can assure proper delivery and sale of the fruit.

Even as traders complain of difficulties and losses, the government maintains that this years apple cultivation and export has been more than last years.

Mohmmad Hussain Malik, secretary in the governments horticulture department said, The apple crop this year has not been less than last year. And if you compare the data till September, the apple export from the Valley has been double this year in comparison to the corresponding period last year.

He also highlighted that the local trade in Kashmir has suffered because most of the mandis have either remained closed or functioned for only two or three hours during the unrest.

Government records say that although there was a slump in the export in apples in August, September saw a huge rise in the number of trucks leaving the Valley loaded with the fruit.

QA Rashid, deputy director, department of horticulture planning and marketing, said, In July, 1199 apple trucks had gone from Kashmir, while in August 2903 trucks left. But till September 26, 17211 trucks were sent from here.

Rashid explains that the export figures are much higher than last years because of primarily two reasons: local apple business has slumped considerably, and cultivators and traders want that the produce should leave the Valley at the earliest because the possibility of selling in the Valley is low.

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Home minister Rajnath Singh said on Friday attempts were being made to free an Indian soldier in Pakistans captivity after he strayed across the Line of Control on Thursday.

Tensions between India and Pakistan have risen following a surgical strike the army said it carried out against terror launchpads across the de-facto border.

The government has taken note of the media reports that say our soldier is in Pakistan captivity India will take up the matter with Pakistan, television channels reported Singh as saying.

The soldier from 37 Rashtriya Rifles with weapons inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control, an source earlier said. Such inadvertent crossing by soldiers and civilians are not unusual on either side They are returned through existing mechanisms, he added.

Pakistan was informed about the incident by the director general of military operations Lt Gen Ranbir Singh.

Two officials based in Pakistans Chhambs sector told Reuters the Indian soldier with weapons was captured at 1.30pm local time on Thursday.

India earlier said it carried out surgical strikes across the Line of Control, taking out several temporary shelters militants were preparing to use to cross over into the country.

The strikes were Indias first direct military response to the attack on the Uri army base earlier this month that killed 18 Indian soldiers and was blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

The cross-border action came days after New Delhi reviewed its 56-year-old Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan and pulled out of the regional Saarc Summit in Islamabad as part of a wider diplomatic offensive to isolate its neighbour.

Islamabad promptly denied the claim and said it would respond strongly were India to try a military raid on its soil.

Pakistans military claimed it killed eight Indian soldiers while retaliating to Indias firing at the first line of defence at the LoC at Tatta Pani, according to a Dawn report.

Citing security sources, Dawn said the killings occurred when the Indian Army opened fire across the border, killing two Pakistani soldiers.

The army source, however, denied reports of the killing of Indian soldiers at the LoC. the report is completely false and baseless, he said.

Singh on Friday held separate meetings with the chiefs of important central security forces including the National Security Guard (NSG) and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).

According to an official source, these were routine meetings but were significant in the wake of the surgical strikes. Singh is also likely to interact with top officials of other forces like Indo-Tibetan Border Police and Border Security Force.

Singh will also brief Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a review meeting on the situation at the LoC and the international border with Pakistan, a source said.

The Prime Minister will chair a meeting of Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) later in the day.

With agency inputs
Two brothers, who lost their parents, grand mother and an elder sister in a road mishap involving a tanker in Uttar Pradesh 12 years ago, have been awarded a compensation of Rs 2.22 crore by a Motor Accident Claim Tribunal (MACT).

MACT presiding officer Anoop Kumar Mendiratta directed Oriental Insurance Company Ltd, with which the offending tanker was insured, to pay Rs 2,21,63,491 to Sandeep and Sumit Tomar, residents of Janakpuri in west Delhi, for death of their 47-year-old father Satyabir Singh Tomar in December 2004.

The tribunal held the driver of the tanker responsible for the accident. It has been established that the accident was caused due to rash and negligent driving of tanker by its driver, the judge said.

The tribunal noted that one of brothers was forced to settle in India instead of continuing his education abroad due to the accident.

It is implicit that at the tender age of 18 and 21 years the petitioners (sons) hardly had any business experience to continue their fathers business which requires experience, expertise and contacts to carry on the projects, it said.

The accident took place on December 30, 2004 when one of the brothers, Sandeep, was travelling with his father Satyabir, mother, sister and grandmother towards Shamli from Muzaffarnagar in UP along with a driver.

At around 9 PM, the car was hit by a tanker at Panipat Khatima Road, killing five out of the six occupants.

Only Sandeep survived with grievous injuries, his mother, sister, grandmother and driver died on the spot and his father succumbed to injuries later in a hospital.
A Delhi court has issued an open non-bailable warrant against underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his aide Chhota Shakeel for allegedly hiring goons to kill a leader of a right-wing outfit.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sumit Dass passed the order based on a plea of the Special Cell of Delhi Police seeking issuance of an NBW against the duo who had allegedly hatched a conspiracy to kill Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Mahasabha leader Swami Chakrapani.

According to the police, Chakrapani had bought a car owned by Dawood Ibrahim in an auction held by the government in Mumbai last year and later set it on fire in Ghaziabad.

In June this year, four persons -- Junaid, Roger, Yunus and Manish -- were arrested as they were allegedly planning to eliminate the right wing leader.

Police claimed that during interrogation, Junaid had disclosed that Shakeel had given them money, asking them to kill Chakrapani to teach him a lesson for setting Dawoods car on fire.

Two pistols and ten live cartridges were recovered from their possession, police said.
Curfew was on Friday imposed in parts of Srinagar in view of the separatists call for occupying the Lal Chowk city centre in the city amid apprehensions of violence after the Friday congregational prayers.

Curfew has been imposed in five police station areas of downtown (interior areas) Srinagar and Batamaloo and Maisuma areas in the uptown, a police official said.

He said the curbs on the movement of the people in these parts of the summer capital were imposed in view of occupy Lal Chowk call by the separatists, as well as because of the apprehensions of violence after the Friday prayers today.

All routes leading to Lal Chowk city centre here have been sealed with concertina wires and security forces have been deployed in strength to prevent any law and order problems, the official said.

He said while there was no curfew anywhere else in Kashmir, restrictions on the assembly of people under section 144 CrPc were in place throughout the Valley as a precautionary measure to maintain law and order.

Meanwhile, normal life continued to remain affected in Kashmir for the 84th consecutive day today due to the separatists call for shut down.

Shops, petrol pumps and other business establishments remained shut, while public transport remained off the roads.

Schools, colleges and other educational institutions also remained closed across the Valley.

The separatist groups have been announcing weekly protest programmes with periodic relaxation on some days and have extended the strike till October 6.

More than 85 people, including two cops, have been killed and thousands of others injured in the ongoing unrest.
Families of soldiers killed in the Uri terror attack said on Friday that their sacrifice has not gone in vain and that they were satisfied with the retaliatory action, a day after India carried out surgical strikes along its de-facto border with Pakistan.

The September 18 attack on an Indian Army camp claimed the lives of 19 soldiers. While 17 died on the day of the attack, a critically injured soldier succumbed to his injuries the next day. On Friday, almost a fortnight after the attack, another soldier died at the armys Research and Referral Hospital in New Delhi, succumbing to his injuries and raising the toll to 19.

The fallen soldiers were from Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Most of them belonged to the 6th battalion of the Bihar regiment.

Jharkhand lost two men in the attack -- Javra Munda of Khunti district and Naiman Kujur of Gumla district.

Mundas wife, Jhingi Dhanwar, said she was happy that the army killed the terrorists in their camps across the Line of Control (LoC). However, she said she was also sad because if such actions were taken earlier she would not have lost her husband.

The army should continue its drive and kill the terrorists inside the Pakistani occupied territory and in their homes. They should move further inside and strike them, she said.

Read | Its time for sober reflection rather than premature celebration

Four of the 19 army men killed in a militant attack, that India blames on Pakistan-based militants in the north Kashmir town, belonged to Bihar.

They include Sepoy Rakesh Singh from Baddja village of Kaimur district, naik SK Vidyarthi from Boknari village in Gaya, havildar Ashok Kumar Singh from Raktu Tola village in Piro block of Bhojpur district, and Aras naik Raj Kishor Singh.

As they got the news about Indias strike, locals at Rakeshs villages celebrated by dancing in lanes and shouting slogans of Bharat Mata Ki Jai. We thank the central government and army for teaching Pakistan a lesson. It is a real homage to our martyred brother, Jay Prakash, a villager, said.

Kiran Kushwaha, the 25-year-old widow of sepoy Rakesh Singh, was happy that her husbands colleagues had avenged the terror attack.

This is a trailer. Modi ji should attack Pakistan and kill all those spreading terrorism in our country, killing innocent people and army jawans, Kiran said.

Read | India takes a calculated risk by going for surgical strikes

Rakeshs father Harihar Singh, mother Samundra Devi, brothers Bajrangi and Harhangi also expressed similar sentiments.

At Raktu Tola, Sangeeta Devi, wife of havildar Ashok Kumar Singh, said she was satisfied with the retaliatory action.

The sacrifice of my husband has not gone in vain, she said, adding that she would not hesitate to send her son to the army.

There were four soldiers from Uttar Pradesh -- sepoy Ganesh Shankar, sepoy Rajesh Kumar Singh, sepoy Harinder Yadav and lance naik Rajesh Kumar Yadav -- who were killed in the attack.

Family members of sepoy Rajesh Kumar Singh of Bhakura village in Jaunpur district demanded stricter punishment for Pakistan and said more action should follow to teach the neighbouring country a lesson.

Action by the Indian Army was much needed, said Rajeshs father Rajendra Singh. He added that India should destroy all terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

Rajeshs wife Julie Singh said the Centre should immediately sever all ties with Pakistan and added that water from Indus River should also not be given to it.

The Indian Army should take more massive action against Pakistan so that it couldnt dare to commit any nefarious act in future, she said.

Read | After the surgical strike: What India must do with Pakistan now

The soldiers elder brother Upendra praised the move and also suggested that the government should carry out similar strikes to destroy more terror camps in Pakistan.

In Ghazipur, many locals gathered at the house of sepoy Harinder Yadav. His father Kedar Yadav said the army should carry out another strike.

In Dubahar village of Ballia, eight-year-old Preeti extended thanks to her fauji uncles for avenging the death of her father lance naik Rajesh Kumar Yadav. Yadavs mother Somaria Devi and brother Vikesh praised the army for its action.

(With inputs from Prasun K Mishra, Prashant Ranjan, Sanjay Sahay)

For more stories on Indias Pakistan offensive, click here.
United Nations military observers are in contact with India and Pakistan over ceasefire violations across the Line of Control in Kashmir and secretary general Ban Ki-moon has great concern over the rising tension, his spokesperson said on Thursday.

Briefing reporters, the spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said, The United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) is aware of the reports of ceasefire violations, and right now is liaising with the concerned authorities to obtain further information.

Read: Army says carried out surgical strikes across LoC against terror targets

We are obviously following the situation with great concern, concerning the increase of tensions across the Line of Control, he said.

India has said that it carried out surgical strikes against terrorist launchpads across the LOC in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on Thursday.

The action followed the terrorist attack from there on an Indian Army base 11 days ago in Uri in which 18 soldiers were killed.

Pakistan has officially denied there was any incursion by Indian forces into territory held by it, but said that there was shelling across the LOC and two of its soldiers were killed.

Dujarric added, The United Nations calls on the governments of India and Pakistan to exercise restraint and encourages them to continue the effort to resolve their differences peacefully and through dialogue.

UNMOGIP, set up in 1949 to supervise the cease-fire between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, is headed by Major General Per Gustaf Lodin of Sweden and has 41 military observers drawn from ten countries.

New Delhi has said that UNMOGIP has outlived its utility as India and Pakistan acknowledged in the 1972 Simla Agreement that the dispute is a bilateral issue.

Islamabad, however, continues to try to internationalise the issue and seeks external intervention.
The lone Indian soldier, who strayed across the LoC after the surgical strikes on Wednesday, was identified as 22-year-old Chandu Chavan, who hails from Borvihir village in Dhule district of Maharashtra.

Local Marathi television channel IBN Lokmat reported that his grandmother, Lilabai Patil, died after she heard of his capture by the Pakistan army. It is reported that the maternal grandmother had brought up Chavan since he was a child after his parents were killed.

Home minister Rajnath Singh said, The government has taken note of media reports that say our soldier is in Pakistans captivity India will take up the matter with Pakistan, TV channels reported him as saying. Singh also spoke to the Chavans family and assured them of all support.
Minutes after the DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh announced the Indian Army had struck terrorist launch pads along the LoC, Delhi chief minister and AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal tweeted support for the action. His choice of words was, however, careful.

Bharat Mata Ki Jai, the entire country is with the Indian Army, he tweeted in Hindi, just moments before he was scheduled to address a press conference from his official residence: 6 Flagstaff Road in Delhis Civil Lines.

            Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) September 29, 2016

The reason why Kejriwal had chosen not to address the press in the middle of a working day from his office was because he intended to speak not as the Delhi chief minister but the partys national chief, sources in his office said. He would likely target the Narendra Modi-led political establishment.

Kejriwals conference, originally scheduled for 1pm, was quickly postponed to 5pm on Thursday as reactions began pouring in to the governments decision to order strikes, marking a paradigm shift in dealing with cross-border terror. Two hours later, it stood cancelled.

The AAP did not issue a formal statement on the strikes nor was it called for the all-party meeting at North Block. Instead, party leaders took to twitter praising the army action but without praising PM Modi or the union government.

There is no opposition today. India is One. Let Indian army create history and entire Nation stands behind them firmly, Kejriwals cabinet colleague Kapil Mishra tweeted. And Kejriwal retweeted it.

Mishra even took a swipe at Pakistan, but like Kejriwal, he also did not laud the government.

Dear Pakistani terrorists, you don't need to cross LOC for getting killed. Army has started home delivery. Special festive season offer   Kapil Mishra (@KapilMishraAAP) September 29, 2016

The reason, AAP insiders say, is that Kejriwal is expected to carry out an expose on a top leader in the political establishment in Fridays special session of the Delhi assembly. The party has planned its political course of action in the days to come on the basis of its expose.

Despite not having the numbers in Parliament that the main opposition party Congress has, the AAP is trying hard to displace the grand old party as the chief opposition voice in the public sphere.

The party could not be seen as praising Modi at a time when it is working on building a political narrative that rests on being anti-Modi. But it could not have missed out on the nationalist fervour that had also engulfed other opposition parties.
Thousands across India may be celebrating the armys surgical strikes against Pakistan but villagers near the Line of Control are upset with a lack of government support in evacuation and say they fear for the safety of their homes and property.

Local residents in Punjabs Attari sector say they feel abandoned by the local administration with little support in getting transportation or choosing possible destinations, more than 24 hours after the government announced evacuation of villages in border areas.

No government officer has reached the village. Just an announcement was made. I sent my children and wife. I am staying back to ensure my house is safe, said Angrej Singh, a resident of Daoke village that is metres away from the LoC fence. Two-thirds of the villages 3,000 people have left.

Villagers, with their luggage, move to safe zones at Pul Kanjari village near Attari. (PTI)

The evacuation was ordered as relations between New Delhi and Islamabad nosedived following the armys announcement of surgical strikes against terror launchpads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, amid fears of retaliation by the neighbouring country.

But people in the vulnerable regions say they are forced to lug around luggage and call up relatives for asylum as the local administrations promises of tents, shelters and transport hasnt come through.

Many families have sent the women and children away but the men are staying back to ward off thieves, often standing in fields with swords to guard their property.

Anyone can take an advantage of such a situation. People in border villages are under stress and thefts will break them. People are worried of their houses, cattle and crop, said Saab Singh of Daoke.

A man moves out of Paloora village about 55km from Jammu to safety with his family. (PTI)

We did not sleep. We stood in the villages with swords in hand all night, said Kashmir Kaur of Daoke.

In addition, many fear that widespread looting may break out soon if police and officials dont arrive to direct the evacuation efforts.

The government says leave but what about our belongings? How much can we carry? Anyone can break into our home and loot, said Sukhdev Singh of Mode village.

But the administration has rebuffed the allegations, saying it needs some time before informing villagers about the location of shelters and arranging transport.

We are on the job and have already identified places for shelters that will be operational by Friday evening, said deputy commissioner Varun Roojam.

We are very serious and for transportation 20 buses have been taken. Tie up has been done with the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandhak Committee for food.

Villagers living close to the India- Pakistan border being shifted for safer places at Hamirpur village of Akhnoor sector about 60 km from Jammu. (PTI)

Transport has emerged as a major problem and many say people with no relatives in faraway places have nowhere to go.

People are making their own arrangements to leave. What about those with no relatives in cities? How do they go if they dont have own transport? Public transport does not reach here, said Surjit Singh, a resident of Mullakot village, which was captured by Pakistan in the 1971 war.

Dyal Singh, who had gone to evacuate his daughter Baljit Kaur from Daoke, said he had arranged everything by himself.

People migrating from a border village following government's evacuation orders for the villages in Attari. (PTI)

The Border Security Force said it was on high alert and didnt let farmers go near the LoC fence.

We do not know till when this order stays. But till that time, we are asked to stay away from the fence, said villager Harjap singh in Daoke.

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ELKO  The Nevada Association of Realtors named David R. Tina of Las Vegas its Realtor of the Year and announced its newly elected officers for 2017 at last weeks board meeting in Elko.

In addition to longtime Nevada Realtor Greg Martin of Elko being named incoming president, other 2017 officers include:

-- President-elect Heidi Kasama of Las Vegas

-- Vice President Keith Lynam of Las Vegas.

-- Treasurer Leroy Buck Schaeffel of Mesquite.

-- Immediate Past President David R. Tina of Las Vegas.

Board members for 2017 will be installed in December at NVARs annual meeting in Las Vegas.

Each NVAR officer has extensive experience serving in leadership positions in state and local Realtor associations. For example, Kasama, Lynam and Tina are all past presidents of the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, while Martin is a past president of the Elko County Association of Realtors.

Tina was named NVARs Realtor of the Year after leading the statewide association as its president in 2016.

The association has more than 15,000 members. committed to protecting, promoting and preserving communities.
In 2013, farmer Shivpal killed himself. His son, Jagjit, has still not recovered from the loss.

He says, My father had taken a loan from a government bank as well as a private money lender. He had a bigha of land and three sons, including me. He hanged himself from a tree.

Shivpals suicide was not the first in the twin village of Paduee-Madhopur in Banda district of Uttar Pradesh.

For that matter, the worsening agricultural distress caused by repeated crop failures because of back-to-back droughts in the semi-arid Bundelkhand region has been in the spotlight since July 2006. Kishorilal Sahu had committed suicide then.

The suicide triggered outrage, particularly after a senior district official suggested that Kishori had killed himself because one of his daughters was characterless. The insensitive remark made the villagers furious, recalls Ashish Sagar, a drought and right to information campaigner in the region. For some time, the villagers observed chulha bandi, a strike by putting out the kitchen fire, to protest the farm crisis.

My husband had around six bighas and a loan of nearly Rs 1 lakh. Owing to crop failure, debt distress and the fact that he had six daughters, he hanged himself, Shobha Devi, his widow, says.

Bundelkhand straddles southern UP and northern Madhya Pradesh. Seven districts  Banda, Mahoba, Jhansi, Chitrakoot, Jalaun, Lalitpur, and Hamirpur  are in UP. Only about 32% of the regions cultivated area is under irrigation, but even that fails at the time of drought.

When crops wither, many farmers wilt under debt and despair. There have been six confirmed farmer suicides in Paduee-Madhopur since 2006. There have been two more such incidents but they cannot be attributed, at least directly, to drought. Human rights organisations say the figures are way higher  in thousands. Each time there is an election, politicians land up to promise relief. But villagers think little will change.

Politics of packages

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who was the party general secretary then, visited the village in 2008.

Ahead of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the UPA government led by Manmohan Singh announced a Rs 7,266-crore package. Of that, Rs 3,506 crore was sanctioned to the UP part of Bundelkhand.

The package covered 2009 to 2012 initially, but was extended to March 31, 2015 because the state government did not utilise the money within the deadline.

But funds were not utilised the way they should have been. Then deputy chairperson of the now-defunct Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, expressed dismay during his review and inspection of the package in December 2011. He found the work that had been done to be substandard and ordered withholding of the second installment of funds to UP.

In October 2015, Yogendra Yadavs Swaraj Abhiyan survey led by economist Jean Dreze studied the drought-affected regions of the country, including UPs Bundelkhand.

The scenario in UPs Bundelkhand is far more grim than what it has been in Maharashtras Vidarbha. Instead of packages, some concrete, region-specific long-term measures are required to tackle the regions problems. Packages have proved futile, Yadav says.

Continued distress

Acheylal Raidas is an ailing Dalit in the village, whose case explains how distress intersects with electoral politics.

In 2008, Rahul Gandhi came to me while I was ill. I had just lost my 16-year-old son. Gandhi told him that he should consider him his own son. Raidas voted for the Congress in 2009, but Rahul never returned. In 2012, he voted for Akhilesh Yadav, but still, no relief came his way. In 2014, he voted for BJP, but there was still no change.

But there has been a shift just recently. Akhilesh Yadav fulfilled the promises that Rahul Gandhi had made. He gave me a Lohia Awas (brick house) and Rs 2 lakh, he says.

As elections approach, villagers expect politicians and the media to trek back to the region. Gandhi has already pledged to waive loans and reduce power bill.

The ruling Samajwadi Party is giving out drought relief ration boxes to the poor. Several BJP leaders have spoken about statehood for the region. Despite the din, few in Bundelkhand expect the 2017 verdict to address their distress.

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India may examine a proposal from Iran to develop airport at its strategic Chabahar port as part of comprehensive infrastructure development that includes rail-road connectivity to the port.

The Chabahar port in the Sistan-Balochistan province on the energy-rich nations southern coast lies outside the Persian Gulf and is easily accessed from Indias western coast bypassing Pakistan.

There is already an operational airport at Chabahar. The Iranian delegation to India has asked us whether India would be willing to develop and modernise it during the review on the latest development and situation on the bilateral pact... on the Chabahar port, an official told PTI.

Apart from discussions on expanding scope of cooperation to cover development of the entire Chabahar port, it was discussed that air transport could be of much significance, the official disclosed.

The high-level Iranian delegation led by minister of roads and yrban development Dr Abbas Akhoundi and comprising ambassador Gholamreza Ansari and deputy minister and MD for PMO Mohammad Saeid Nejad, among others, held a meeting with Indian authorities led by transport minister Nitin Gadkari in Delhi.

The official said Chabahar has an operational airport and the Iranian minister enquired whether India would be willing to modernise it.

After meeting the Iranian team and a delegation from Afghanistan, Gadkari hoped that Chabahar project will open a new gateway for development of India, Iran and Afghanistan by boosting regional connectivity and trade.

He said further, We will try to complete the project within the time schedule. We are also finding out what are new things for which we will have opportunity for development and investment. The Iranian minister has given lots of innovative suggestions regarding business development.

A milestone pact on the strategic Chabahar port in southern Iran that will provide India access to Afghanistan and Europe bypassing Pakistan was signed by India and Iran in May this year after detailed discussions between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Besides the bilateral agreement to develop the Chabahar port, for which India has committed 500 million dollar, a trilateral agreement on transport and transit corridor was signed by India, Afghanistan and Iran, which Prime Minister Modi has said could alter the course of the history of the region.
Indias surgical strike on terror launchpads in Pakistan across the LoC early Thursday prompted the world media to take notice of how New Delhis tactical shift in military strategy will affect rapidly deteriorating relations between the two countries.

Most of the coverage reported on the public statements by Delhi and Islamabad, but also focused on the subcontinents tense, war-like atmosphere.

A New York Times piece by the newspapers India and Pakistan correspondents, Ellen Barry and Salman Masood, note that the strike was precedent-setting. Though Indias military has almost certainly carried out cross-border raids, the government has never publicly announced them, even during the brief conflict in Kargil in 1999.

The story goes on to quote Myra MacDonald, the author of Defeat is an Orphan: How Pakistan Lost the Great South Asian War, who says the move reflected Indias growing confidence in its diplomatic cover. MacDonald is quoted as saying, If it does turn out to be a one-off, yes, they could have set a new norm in terms of how they respond to attacks. Nobody is really going rally to support Pakistan on this.

An analysis piece for CNN, Kashmir: Why is Indias Modi going on the offensive? , by researcher Shashank Joshi echoes NYTs surmising that India going public with the details of the strike in a dramatic fashion signals a break with the past. Joshi goes on to remind readers that the strike was a relatively modest operation. It was restricted to disputed territory, allowing India to claim it remained within what it considers to be its own soil. It also deliberately focused on militants, rather than Pakistani troops, which would have been more provocative.

A Washington Post wrap on the issue says the strike could have been the most aggressive military action from India toward Pakistan in years and marks a shift in strategy. The countries offered sharply conflicting accounts of the days events, however, underscoring the heightened suspicions and volatility in an area that has been at the heart of India-Pakistan friction for decades, says the piece.

BBCs Soutik Biswas observes that public sentiment in India is predictably supportive of the army. A Narendra Modi fan club account tweeted a clip from a Tom and Jerry cartoon film to show India spanking Pakistan, says the story. A clutch of news channels were waxing delirious on how India had taught Pakistan a lesson and speculated endlessly about the details of the operation, it adds.

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The armys surgical strikes against militants at launchpads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir demonstrated Indias hardened military resolve to the world.

The targeted operations behind enemy lines were carried out by Indias toughest fighting men  commandos from the elite special forces  and the daring move has already won accolades from political leaders and civil society alike.

But dig a little deeper and things arent as rosy for the worlds second largest army. The country may be surrounded by hostile Pakistan and China but its army is crippled by a lack of basic necessities, shortage of critical weapons and ammunition and bureaucratic tangle holding up purchases.

Read: Indias claim of surgical strikes fabrication of truth, says Pakistan army

Forget the big stuff, even the small details are amiss. Sample this: For years, generals have complained that the orange stock and butt of the 5.56mm INSAS (Indian Small Arms System) rifle compromises the camouflage of soldiers. But several attempts to get the rifles colour changed have failed.

The rifles orange colour puts soldiers at risk, says lieutenant general BS Jaswal (retd), a former northern army commander.

He recalls several failed attempts to get the rifle in a combat colour during his stints as director general (infantry) and northern army commander from 2007-10.

Thats not all. In a private conversation, a senior army officer recalls how an infantry unit deployed in the Northeast a few years ago bought sandbags from its own funds to protect soldiers housed in tents.

The men, he says, were vulnerable to night strikes, similar to the one that left 18 soldiers dead in Uri last week: Fourteen of them were burnt alive after incendiary ammunition used by militants set their tents ablaze.

The sandbags and tents reflect critical shortcomings in the army spanning pivotal areas such as assault rifles, ammunition, body armour, night-vision equipment, artillery guns and air defence systems.

From rifles to artillery guns, the shortcomings have dented the armys capabilities. On the modernisation front, I reckon we are running 15 years behind, says Jaswal.

Uncertainty surrounds two ongoing tenders for 44,600 carbines and 4,097 light machine guns as in both cases, only a lone vendor has met the armys requirements. The tenders may be withdrawn, delaying the projects by at least six years.

Arms-buying procedures are the biggest villain. Its shocking that things that should have received highest importance have received least, irrespective of which government has been in power, says lieutenant general Rajender Singh, a former director general of infantry.

The army is also battling shortage of officers and men. As of 2015, it was short of over 9,100 officers and nearly 31,000 men.

In this file photo, an Indian Army soldier closes the gates of a fence near the Line of Control in Barasingha area near Bhimber Gali. (Gurinder Osan/HT File Photo)

Training of soldiers is a bigger concern than equipment shortage, points out former northern army commander lieutenant general HS Panag (retired).

The army has 3,500 snipers but only a handful of them can pass the standard test of taking a head-shot at 600 metres and a body-shot at 1,000 metres in the first shot. The equipment issue is overplayed the armys training is flawed, says Panag.

But the army says its training standards are among the best globally. Thats why armies queue up to hold joint drills with us, a senior army officer insists.

A fruitless 10-year hunt for new assault rifles to replace the flaw-ridden INSAS rifle has returned to the drawing board, with the army on Monday seeking details from prospective vendors. The army plans to buy 65,000 larger calibre 7.62 mm rifles that are more lethal, with another 120,000 to be made in India.

The defence ministrys acquisition council has given the green light to several projects including 145 ultra-light howitzers (M777) for Rs 4,600 crore, 420 air defence guns for Rs 16,900 crore, 814 artillery guns for Rs 15,750 crore and 118 Arjun Mk-II tanks for Rs 6,600 crore.

The clearance is the first step in a long weapons-buying process and some projects could take at least a decade to materialise.

The army has not inducted a single new artillery gun since the Bofors scandal in 1987.

The homemade Arjun Mk-II tank suffered a major setback two years ago, with a critical Israeli anti-tank missile to be fitted on it failing to meet the armys needs. The DRDO is still looking for a missile to be fired from the tanks main gun.

However, the senior officer says the force is totally prepared for any kind of military mission. Most of the modernisation schemes are part of a long-term capability building plan to be implemented by 2027, he adds.

Officers say the army is running low on ammunition too. Its reserves would barely last 20 days of intense fighting against an optimal 40, an audit report revealed last year.

Shortage of ammunition has been addressed to some extent over the last one year, army sources say.

The force requires more than 350,000 new bullet-proof jackets but only 50,000 are on order. The army sought the jackets almost eight years ago.

A cash crunch has forced the government to cut the size and cost of a new mountain strike corps to counter China in the Northeast.

The UPA government kicked off the raising of 17 Corps in January 2014 without any separate allocation in the defence budget.

The strike corps is absolutely necessary to upgrade Indias strategy against China from dissuasion to genuine deterrence. The government must make no compromise with the planned strength and funds required, says strategic affairs expert Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retired).

The army needs to speed up armour modernisation too. About 1,000 older T-72 tanks and an equal number of infantry combat vehicles have to be upgraded immediately, says former army vicechief lieutenant general Philip Campose (retired), who authored a report on review of security of military installations following the Pathankot strike.

Cam pose says upgrading air defence systems, modernising artillery and improving night-fighting capabilities should also top the armys priorities.
Indias diplomatic encirclement of Pakistan appeared to bear fruit on Friday, with even Islamabads traditional allies refusing to take its side over New Delhis surgical strikes on militant shelters across the Line of Control, their de-facto border.

While the United States, a long presence in Pakistans corner, hastened to underline the importance of its alliance with India, others who could previously have been relied upon to take Islamabads side, at least in rhetorical terms, chose to maintain a studiously neutral line.

In South Asia, Pakistans isolation deepened as Afghanistan openly backed Thursdays surgical strikes as an act of self-defence, and Sri Lanka became the fifth country to pull out of the eight-nation Saarc Summit in Islamabad, citing concerns about terrorism  an unsubtle reference to Pakistan.

But perhaps Chinas markedly restrained reaction comes most fraught for its all-weather ally. Neither did any voice of support ring out of the Organisation of Islamic Countries that has traditionally backed Islamabads stand on Kashmir.

Russia, despite currently conducting military exercises with Islamabad, joined South Korea to speak out against terrorism and call on Pakistan to do more to fight the menace on its soil.

Read | Pakistan ready to defend itself: Nawaz Sharif after Indias strikes across LoC

And in what reflected growing global impatience with Pakistans self-defeating stand on fighting terrorism, Washington chose the moment to focus on the dangers of such policies in South Asia.

Weve repeatedly expressed our concerns regarding the danger that terrorism poses to the region and we all know that terrorism in many ways knows no border, said State Department spokesperson, John Kirby.

The reply came to a question on the surgical strikes that New Delhi said took out seven militant launchpads across the LoC and inflicted heavy casualties on militants.

For that matter, Washington also used the occasion to underscore a new high in ties with India, with Defence Secretary Ashton Carter saying their military relationship was the closest it has been ever.

Read | A bad phone line and India-US cross talk over tensions with Pakistan

Islamabad, which deferred the Saarc Summit on Friday, would have probably wanted Beijing to be more vocal about the strikes. But then again, Pakistan has denied those took place.

Chinas reaction to the strikes came two days after Pakistan dispatched two special envoys on Kashmir to Beijing to drum up support for its position.

As shared neighbour and friend to both India and Pakistan, we are concerned about continuous confrontation and tensions between India and Pakistan, foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing on Friday.

We call on all relevant parties to exercise restraint and refrain from actions that would escalate tension.

Russias foreign ministry also signalled support for Indias stand, saying Moscow stood for decisive struggle against terrorism in all its manifestations.

We expect that the Government of Pakistan should take effective steps in order to stop the activities of terrorist groups in the territory of the country, it said in a statement.

In Seoul, President Park Geun Hye told Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan that South Korea stood against terrorism in all forms.

Read| After the surgical strike: What India must do with Pakistan now

To compound matters for Pakistan, prominent internal groups pointedly took Indias side.

Baloch nationalist leaders and activists across the world have welcomed the cross-border surgical strikes and called for such operations to continue.

Meanwhile, government sources said Indian forces along the LoC had stepped up vigil to thwart any retaliatory attack.

India moved extra troops along the LoC ahead of the surgical strikes, and on Friday deployed the air-borne defence system, AWACS. Sources said leave was being restricted for military personnel.

They are unlikely to sit quiet, a government source with knowledge of Indias military preparedness told Hindustan Times, referring to a possible retaliation from across the LoC.
Life in Kashmir remained crippled for the 84th day on Friday owing to restrictions as police tried to stop people from assembling in Srinagar on the call of separatists while a patrolling team of forces came under fire from suspected militants in Kulgam district.

Militants opened fire on a joint team of police and CRPF in Beebagh Yaripora area of Kulgam and fled, a police officer said, adding that there was no casualty or damage in the attack.

In Srinagar, where separatist leadership had asked people to occupy Lal Chowk, authorities imposed curfew and restrictions while security forces erected barricades and blocked roads, besides forcing people to remain indoors in many parts of Old City, Batamaloo and Maisuma areas.

Friday prayers could not be held in Jamia Masjid for the twelfth consecutive week due to restrictions imposed since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in an encounter on July 8, which had triggered violent unrest in the Valley killing 87 and injuring hundreds.

In uptown areas of Srinagar, people offered prayers and tried to march towards Lal Chowk, but were stopped by police and CRPF. Some reportedly offered funeral prayers for Pakistani soldiers allegedly killed in Indian shelling on Thursday.

Many were injured after forces lobbed tear gas shells and fired pellets on a congregation in Nadihal village of Baramulla district in north Kashmir.

Residents said the force was allegedly used on people who had gathered in a school ground to offer prayers.

Locals of south Kashmirs Anantnag district said that an elderly woman, Sara Begum died of cardiac arrest after security forces allegedly banged the gate of her house in Chee village on Thursday night.

However, police refuted the allegations, saying that Begum was known to be a heart patient.

Meanwhile in the areas where curfew was not imposed, residents observed a shutdown on the call of separatists. Shops, businesses and schools remained closed while traffic was off the roads.

The latest call for shutdown has been extended to October 6 with relaxation on three days from 5pm to 6 am.
Pakistan army opened small-arms fire on Indian posts in Chapriyal and Samwan along the Line of Control in Akhnoor sector of Jammu early on Friday morning.

Jammu deputy commissioner Simrandeep Singh said: Firing had started at about 0030hrs with small arms in Chapriyal and Samwan areas in Pallanwala area, which stopped at about 0130 hrs. No loss of life and property was reported. Situation so far is normal.

The firing comes amid tensions between India and Pakistan over militant activity along the border.

On Thursday, the Indian army announced that it carried out a surgical strike on seven terrorist launchpads across the Line of Control.

The strikes were Indias first direct military response to the attack on the Uri army base earlier this month that killed 18 Indian soldiers and was blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

India had so far taken diplomatic measures to pressure Pakistan into action against those militants taking shelter in its country. These included its strong statement at the 71st United Nation General Assembly in New York earlier this month, and India dropping out of the Saarc summit that was to be held in Islamabad in November.

For more stories on the armys surgical strike across the LoC, click here.

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Pakistan on Friday said it has postponed the 19th Saarc meet after India and four other member countries expressed unwillingness to attend the summit.

In a press release,the Pakistan foreign office said, A new set of dates for holding of the 19th Saarc Summit at Islamabad will be announced soon, through the Chair of Saarc (Nepal).

Pakistan deplores Indias decision to impede the Saarc process by not attending the 19th Saarc Summit at Islamabad on 9-10 November 2016. The spirit of the Saarc Charter is violated when a member state casts the shadow of its bilateral problems on the multilateral forum for regional cooperation, the statement further said.

.@Parikshitl We note Pakistan's decision 2 postpone SAARC Summit.They've been compelled 2 recognise the regional sentiment against terrorism  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) September 30, 2016

The statement said Indias decision to pull out of the summit on the basis of unfounded assumptions on the Uri incident is a futile effort to divert attention of the world from the atrocities perpetrated by India in the Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was looking forward to welcome the Saarc leaders for their participation in the summit. All preparations had been made for successful holding of the summit, the statement said.

It alleged that decision by India to derail the summit effectively contradicts Prime Minister Narendra Modis own call to fight against poverty in the region.

In a synchronised effort, India and three other countries - Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan - had informed the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperations (Saarc) secretariat on Tuesday their leaders would be unable to attend the summit.

Sri Lanka also expressed its unwillingness to attend the summit on Friday.

The move by the five countries meant the summit cannot go ahead as the Saarc Charter states all decisions must be made by unanimity. The absence of even one member state leads to the automatic postponement or cancellation of a summit.

The 19th meet was scheduled to take place in Islamabad on 9-10 November. Saarc member states include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Total prohibition in Bihar ceased to exist from Friday with the Patna high court striking down a ban on Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL) in the state, dealing a body blow to chief minister Nitish Kumars pet initiative.

Quashing the April 5 notification of the state government which banned the manufacture, consumption and sale of IMFL, a division bench comprising chief justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari and justice Navaniti Prasad Singh held the prohibition to be ultra vires to the Constitution, hence not enforceable.

Fridays court ruling also puts into doubt the Bihar governments plan to introduce more stringent measures to enforce prohibition from October 2. The state cabinet had announced that a new raft of strict measures under the modified Bihar Prohibition and Excise Bill, 2016, would be implemented from Sunday following a gazette notification. The new act had received the governors assent.

With the new act not notified yet and the old act quashed, Bihar is without prohibition on IMFL at the moment. However, the ban on country-made liquor continues.

The April notification of the government had been challenged in court by the Liquor Trade Association and a bunch of other individuals. YV Giri, one of the lawyers for the petitioners, said the Bihar government could file a special leave petition against the order in the Supreme Court within 30 days.

Implementing prohibition was the chief ministers major poll promise and he had been pursuing it since taking office with single-minded devotion.

Kumar also toured many places in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab championing the cause of prohibition.

Read | Bihar liquor ban: Experts say draconian new excise bill may face legal test

Allowing the writ applications, the court said in its 142-page judgment: Section 19(4) of the Bihar Excise Act, 1915, as amended with effect from April 1, 2016 is ultra vires to the Constitution and unenforceable. The impugned notification, dated April 5, 2016, issued by the state under section 19(4) of the said amended Act is also ultra vires to the Constitution and consequently, unenforceable. The penal provisions of enhanced sentence and provisions, with regard to confiscation of property, as introducedwith effect from April 1, 2016 are also held to be ultra vires to the Constitution.

The petitioners challenging prohibition had argued that it creates unreasonable restrictions on choice of livelihood of a person which is protected under Article 21 of the Constitution.

It light of the court ruling, experts said the Bihar government may find it difficult to notify the new act with more stringent measures. They said government cannot go ahead with the same provisions in the new Act, which have already been quashed.

If the government goes ahead with the notification of the new act for implementation from October 2, it would be immediately be challenged in the court.

We will study the court order and take action in that light, said Amir Subhani, home department principal secretary.

Also read | Nitish govt may face tough time over revisions to Bihars liquor law
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said on Friday he supported Prime Minister Narendra Modi for acting like a PM over the Indian Armys surgical strikes on terror launchpads across the de-facto border with Pakistan.

The Congress and entire India stand by him over this (surgical strikes), Gandhi said at a rally.

Gandhi is on a 2500km Kisan Yatra across Uttar Pradesh, seeking to revive the Congress in a state it dominated before regional parties built along caste lines displaced it from power 27 years ago.

Gandhi, however, also took a dig at Modi: I want to thank him for taking an action like a PM for the first time in two-and-a-half years. I support him entirely.

All political parties on Thursday firmly backed the Modi government on the strikes on seven terror targets, Indias first military response to an attack in Uri that killed 18 soldiers, and lauded the army for ensuring the countrys security.

This is a strong message that conveys our countrys resolve to prevent further infiltration and attacks on our security forces and our people, a statement by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi read.

Her party supported the government in its actions to protect the countrys security and deal with the menace of terrorism from across the border, she said. The same sentiments were expressed during the meeting by all sides.

All political parties unanimously supported the army action across the LoC, information and broadcasting minister M Venkaiah Naidu said.

The move by the government could have wide domestic and security implications for India, where a narrative of a triumphant military campaign could influence a series of impending state polls. It could also trigger a possible escalation in tensions along the Line of Control (LoC).

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Its ironic that Flint lies 70 miles from one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world. For over two years most households and businesses in the Michigan city are still unable to use their lead-tainted tap water for drinking or cooking.

You may recall this started when the state decided to save money by switching Flints water supply from Lake Huron (which they were paying the city of Detroit for), to the Flint River, a notorious tributary that runs through town known to locals for its filth and pollution. To make matters worse, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality decided not to treat the Flint River water with an anti-corrosive agent (in violation of federal law) allowing the water to erode the iron water mains, effectively turning water brown.

This was bad enough but what residents couldnt see was far worse. About half of the service lines to homes in Flint are made of lead and because the water wasnt properly treated, lead began leaching into the water supply as well. Adding that anti-corrosion agent would have cost the city about $100 a day. But not to worry, the city said in announcement after announcement, the water was safe.

To prove the point scientifically, Former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling made a demonstration to the public on a local TV broadcast that even he drank the water from the tap. This obfuscation by city officials led to the corrosion of water-supply pipes that now must be replaced at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars

Just this week House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wisconsin) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) struck a deal allowing a last minute vote in Congress to include $170 million in relief to Flint.

This costly mistake has many municipal water systems around the country now re-checking the quality of their water supply. In an effort to provide an effective filtration mechanism that can remove lead and other heavy metals scientists in Italy have developed a method of filtering water using ordinary used coffee grounds.

In a paper published last week in the American Chemical Societys: Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, scientist Asmita Chavan, Despina Fragouli and others detail an innovative way to reuse spent coffee grounds by incorporating them in a foam filter that can remove harmful lead and mercury from flowing water.

The paper reports the design of a special bioelastomeric foam constructed from a silicone component infused with 60 percent coffee waste. They say the incorporation of the spent coffee powder in a solid, porous support facilitates the handling, accumulation and the safe disposal of the pollutants.

In still water, the foam removed up to 99 percent of lead and mercury ions from water over 30 hours. In a more practical test in which lead-contaminated water flowed through the foam, as if in a pipeline, it scrubbed the water of up to 67 percent of the lead ions.

Because the coffee is immobilized, it is easy to handle and discard after use without any additional steps, the researchers say. Because estimates show that the world uses about six million tons of coffee per year and that almost all of this winds up in landfills dotted around the planet, putting some of this chaff to good use could decrease the burden of waste management of this material.

Their paper explains that the foam material is fabricated with granulated sugar and some hexane solvent in addition to an elastomer (Acetoxy) and small amounts of a surfactant. Using sugar in the material allows pores to be created in the foam that remain when the sugar is dissolved away (and presumably re-used). The surfactant lowers the surface tension of the foam allowing water to be easily pulled into the material. By adjusting the pH of the flowing water the surface charge of the functional groups from the coffee powder can attract more metal ions.

It was reported that the maximum filtration efficiency occurred when the pH was set at 5  a slightly acidic condition. The maximum amount of heavy metal capability was suggested to be 13.5 milligrams per gram of filter. At this point all of the possible active surface sites have become occupied with the collected ions.

The adsorption mechanisms of the Pb2+ ions in the bioelastomeric foam were found to occur with the interaction of the metal ions with the carboxylate groups of the coffee filler. There is some indication that both cobalt and aluminum ions can be removed as well, but to a lesser degree.

If this process becomes adapted, perhaps coffee grounds will be collected from restaurants as well as the bio-Diesel oils.
Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singhs son Vikramaditya was questioned on Friday by the enforcement directorate (ED) officials in the Capital for eight hours in a money laundering case, after which he alleged that the central investigating agencies have been saffronised.

Vikramaditya, who is also the Himachal Pradesh Youth Congress chief, alleged that investigating agencies like ED and CBI were booking Congress leaders in false cases to please their political masters.

The manner in which Congress leaders were being targeted by various investigative agencies shows how they have been saffronised. By doing so, they are not setting a healthy practice... They should not set wrong precedents for the times to come, he told PTI.

Vikramaditya was questioned by the ED in a case of money laundering registered against him and his father. He said he cooperated with the agency and answered to all the queries posed to him by the investigating officials.

He said that he had full faith in the judiciary and would emerge victorious. Besides fighting the cases in various courts, he said, he will also fight them in the peoples court.

We have full faith in the judiciary and will fight the cases in various courts and will emerge victorious. We will also take the issue of political vendetta carried out against us to the people of the state and will fight the BJP in peoples court in the next election, he said.

Singh said the cases being registered against him and his father were political motivated.

The Delhi high court had on Thursday directed the ED not to arrest Vikramaditya who had been called for interrogation in the money laundering case against his father and others.

Taking note of the ED counsels assurance, the bench said, In view of what has transpired in court today, no orders are being passed.

Vikramaditya was asked to appear on September 30 by ED for questioning in connection with the case following his non-appearance for interrogation earlier.

ED had also filed the first charge sheet in the case at a court here against the arrested accused, LIC agent Anand Chauhan.

The agency is probing allegations against Virbhadra and his family members of having amassed wealth of Rs 6.1 crore, which is alleged to be disproportionate to his known sources of income between 2009 and 2011 when he was the Union minister of steel.
Russia said on Friday it expected Islamabad to take effective steps to stop the activities of terrorist groups in its territory as it voiced concern over aggravation of the situation along the Line of Control (LoC).

It also asked the two neighbours not to allow any escalation of tension and settle their disputes through negotiations.

In a statement, the Russian foreign ministry said it stands for decisive struggle against terrorism in all its manifestations.

We are concerned with the aggravation lately of the situation along the line of control between India and Pakistan.

We are calling on the parties not to allow any escalation of tension and to settle the existing problems by political and diplomatic means through negotiations. We stand for decisive struggle against terrorism in all its manifestations.

The statement came amid heightened tension between India and Pakistan after the Indian Army carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, seen as a reprisal for the Uri attack.
The Supreme Court pulled up the Karnataka government on Friday for its defiant stand on the Cauvery water sharing issue, directing it to release 6,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu from October 1 to 6.

Karnataka shall not be bent upon to take an obstinate stand of defiance as one does not know when wrath of the law will fall upon them, a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and U U Lalit said.

Karnataka is flouting order and creating situation in which majesty of law is dented, the SC said, and directed the Centre to constitute the Cauvery Water Management Board (CWMB) by October 4.

Senior officials in the water resources ministry said that they have already started the process to constitute the Board.

The process is on. Once the board is constituted, it will decide on the quantum of water to be released. The order of the board will be binding on the two states, an official said.

The court ordered all the stakeholders  Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pudduchery  to name, by Saturday 4 pm, their representatives to the board which would be chaired by the Union Water Minister Uma Bharti.

The bench reminded Karnataka that it is bound by Article 144 of the Constitution and aid in compliance of the order of the Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, the court had asked Karnataka to release Cauvery water in the next three days despite the unanimous assembly resolution to use the water only for drinking. Karnataka decided on Wednesday to defer the release of 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu till Thursday.

In its Tuesday order, the Supreme Court had directed the Centre to constitute within four weeks the CWMB as directed by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT).

On Friday, it asked the Centre to set up the board by October 4.

The court had earlier asked the Union water ministry to facilitate a meeting between representatives of the two states after Karnataka refused to release the water following the apex courts direction.

However, after chairing a three-hour meeting, water minister Uma Bharti said she was disappointed as a solution outside court could not be achieved.

Tamil Nadu did not agree to Karnatakas proposal that a central team of experts visits the Cauvery river basin to assess ground realities, including the quantum of water stored in reservoirs, drinking water available and crop situation, before a decision is taken to release water, Bharti had said.
Criminal-turned-politician Mohammad Shahabuddin who represented Siwan in the Lok Sabha for four successive terms between 1996 and 2008  has spent more than 10 years in jail in multiple cases.

He was arrested on November 5, 2005 from his official MPs residence in New Delhi by a joint team of Bihar and Delhi police. The Patna high court on September 7 granted him bail in connection with the murder of a man who witnessed the killing of two brothers in Siwan. He was released from jail on September 10.

The Bihar government has said that a total of 75 criminal cases are registered against Shahabuddin. Of these, he has been convicted in 10 cases and acquitted in 20, while the remaining 45 are pending trial in various stages. In most of the pending cases, trial has been stayed by the Patna high court.

Read | Supreme Court cancels bail granted to former RJD MP Shahabuddin

Here are some of the criminal cases where his name has figured or where he was convicted:

December 12, 2015: A Siwan court sentenced him and three others to life imprisonment in a 2004 double murder case. He was convicted of abducting and killing Satish Raj (25) and Girish Raj (20), sons of a businessman, on August 16, 2004. The victims were drenched in acid before being killed.

June 16, 2014: Rajiv Roshan (36) an eyewitness in the murder of his two brothers -- Satish Raj and Girish Raj -- was shot dead, three days before he was to appear as witness.

August 31, 2007: A special court in Siwan convicted him for attacking the then Siwan Superintendent of Police S K Singhal on May 3, 1996.

May 5, 2007: A special court in Bihar convicted him for abduction and killing of CPI (ML) worker Chhote Lal Gupta in February 1999. He was sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment.

March 16, 2001: A shootout between Shahabuddins men and the Bihar and UP police in his native village in Siwan, led to the death of 10 persons, including two policemen.

March 31, 1997: Student leader and Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) office-bearer Chandrasekhar Prasad was gunned down in broad daylight in his hometown of Siwan by sharpshooters allegedly employed by Shahabuddin.
In another setback to Pakistan, Sri Lanka on Friday pulled out of 19th Saarc Summit scheduled in Islamabad on November 9, 10. becoming the fifth country to do so after India expressed its inability to participate in the summit.

Sri Lanka regrets that the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the 19th Saarc Summit in Islamabad, the foreign ministry said in a statement in the Sri Lankan capital.

The general provisions of the Saarc charter require that decisions at all levels shall be taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of heads of state or government of Saarc member states as well, it said in the brief statement.

The statement made no reference to the current tension between India and Pakistan, but it condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

It stressed on the need to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region in a decisive manner.

Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia.

As a founding member of Saarc, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our regions peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation, the statement added.

Besides India, three other Saarc members - Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan - have pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding of the meet.

That development came after tensions ran high between India and Pakistan after militants stormed an Indian Army base in Uri on September 18, killing 18 soldiers. The militants belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist group.

Founded in 1985, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) currently has Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka as its members.
The Supreme Court cancelled the bail granted to former Rashtriya Janata Dal parliamentarian Mohammad Shahabuddin on Friday, setting aside a Patna high court order.

A bench comprising Justice P CGhose and Justice Amitava Roy asked Shahabuddin to surrender and directed the Bihar government to take steps to take him into custody.

Shahabuddin, who had been in jail for more than a decade over multiple cases, was granted bail earlier this month in connection with the murder of Rajiv Roshan, who witnessed the killing of his two brothers in Siwan.

Read | Shahabuddin back in jail after SC cancels bail: A look at his crime file

He is facing more than 40 cases, including those of abduction and murder. In the past decade, the former MP was transferred thrice to different prisons  once to Bhagalpur jail and other times to Gaya jail.

The court also directed the state government and the lower court to ensure that the trial in the Roshan murder case is concluded expeditiously as contemplated under the law.

The court issued notice to Shahabuddin and Bihar government on another plea seeking cancellation of bail granted to him in a murder case of two brothers of Roshan.

Read | SC rebukes Bihar government for sleeping on Shahabuddins bail

The top court was hearing pleas filed by the Bihar government and the couple whose three sons were allegedly murdered by the Siwan strongman.

They said the high court had ignored the fact that the victim killed was a witness to the murder of his brothers. He was killed a few days before he was to record his evidence.

Read | RJDs Shahabuddin walks out on bail after a decade behind bars

The Patna HC had ordered Shahabuddins release on the ground that the trial in the murder case will take a long time. The RJD leader had already been granted bail in the other cases pending against him, though he had been convicted in some of these.

The apex court had earlier pulled up the Bihar coalition government -- of which the RJD is a constituent -- for its shoddy approach to the case.

Shahabuddin had told the court that he was willing to move out of Bihar and stay in Delhi as a pre-condition for being on bail.

(With agency inputs)

Also read | BJP leaders blame Bihars grand alliance for Shahabuddins release

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The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea seeking complete ban on alcohol in the country, saying the courts cannot venture into the policy domain of states.

A bench of justices A K Sikri and N V Ramana said framing of national liquor policy is part of the directive principles of state policy under the Constitution and this was the area where the executive have all the rights.

Ashwini Upadhyay, a lawyer and Delhi BJP spokesperson who had filed the plea, withdrew his petition saying he would submit a representation to the Union health ministry for framing of the national liquor policy as per the spirit of the Constitution.
RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin was back in jail on Friday after the Supreme Court cancelled his bail in a murder case that saw him hit out at chief minister Nitish Kumar, saying his supporters would teach him a lesson.

Hours after the apex court order, Shahabuddin, who walked out of jail on September 7, came pillion riding a motorcycle with face hidden under a helmet and surrendered in a Siwan court in Bihar. He was sent to custody for 14 days.

My supporters will teach him (Kumar) a lesson in the next election, Shahabuddin said, as his supporters clapped in court premises.

The release of the gangster-turned-politician, who was in jail for more than 10 years in multiple cases, had raised questions over the Kumar-led governments commitment to law and order in the state.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal is part of the ruling coalition in Bihar and Shahabuddin, who represented Siwan in the Lok Sabha for four successive terms between 1996 and 2008, is close to party chief Lalu Prasad.

Earlier in the day, the SC set aside a Patna high court order granting Shahabuddin bail and ordered him to surrender. It appears to us that the high court has erred in granting bail to the respondent-accused without taking into consideration the overall facts we are thus unable to sustain the impugned order of the HC granting bail to him, it said.

Read | Shahabuddin back in jail after SC cancels bail: A look at his crime file

The Bihar government and an old couple, whose three sons were allegedly murdered by Shahabuddin, had challenged the bail. The HC had ignored the fact that Rajiv Roshan, who was shot dead in 2014, was a witness to the twin murder of his brothers, they said. The brothers were killed in 2004 and Roshan was murdered few days before he was to record his evidence. Shahabuddin was given bail on the ground that the trial would take a long time.

The apex court was critical of the state governments handling of the murder case. if charge sheet, has not been submitted in one-and-half years. Is it not duty of prosecution to furnish a copy to accused? it asked the Bihar government. Shahabuddins lawyer accused the state government of delaying the trial, saying his client was not given the charge sheet.

The Bihar government told the SC that 75 criminal cases were registered against Shahabuddin. Of these, he was convicted in 10, acquitted in 20 and trial was pending in 45. In most of the pending cases, the trial was stayed by HC.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who appeared on behalf of Chandrakeshwar Prasad, the father of the three murdered men, told the court that of the 45 cases, nine were of murder.

(With agency inputs)

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After years of strategic restraint, Indias Pakistan policy got a defensive-offence posture on Wednesday.

The essence of this transition is a political message to the domestic audience that the Modi government is not afraid of exercising military option against the nuclear-armed neighbour.

The use of military option, in a restrained form, comes after the governments overdrive to diplomatically isolate Pakistan. India was successful in scuttling the Saarc summit Pakistan was to host on November 9-10 in Islamabad.

The government reviewed the 1960 Indus water sharing pact and decided to step up efforts to make use of water rightfully belonging to it under the treaty.

The government showed it can exercise political, diplomatic as well as military options. Military option was not something India wasnt keen on using under its strategic restrain policy, said former foreign secretary Lalit Mansingh.

Read | How world powers reacted to Indian Armys strikes across LoC

But New Delhi has pitched exercising military option as a counter-terrorism measure for the international audience. This fits in the narrative of India being a victim of continuous cross-border terrorism and any government which faces such consistent onslaught would run out of patience.

From the attack on the Pathankot airbase, strike on its diplomatic missions in Afghanistan to killing of 18 soldiers in Uri, India has been under attack from Pakistan-based militant outfits.

Even when foreign secretary S Jaishankar summoned Pakistan envoy on the Uri attack, two operations were under way to fend off infiltrators. The message is that there is a limit to government being mute witness to mindless cross-border violence, Mansingh said.

And domestically, the narrative gives muscle for the BJP. As the optics of the Centre using military option against Pakistan gets played up, it will help the party politically and add to the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi being a decisive leader.

On the other hand, Modi has enough to show to the world that he did everything possible to be friendly with Pakistan. And it just didnt work out. He tried his best to mend ways with Pakistan, but failed, said Mansingh. But the world powers will be worried about any conflict between the two nuclear-armed rivals. There will be pressure to thwart any escalation in hostilities between the neighbours because of various factors, including the tenuous political and security situation in Afghanistan.

For full coverage on the surgical strike, click here

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With many food options available, a steep rise in the disposable income of the mobile generation, a sudden increase in Internet users, and customer confidence in buying online, the food tech space has also witnessed fast growth.

In the past, most Indian consumers ate out only on special occasions. However, today, eating out is an occasion in itself, says Riyaaz Amlani, restaurateur and president of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI).

Until recently, the food delivery options in India were inefficient with lacklustre service. But with start-ups leveraging technology, the scenario has changed. Today, customers can use their smartphones to order food from any restaurant of their choice. No waste of time, no traffic hassles and no quality compromise  customers are able to save time and enjoy restaurant food at the same time, says Amlani.

The Indian diner is also becoming experimental. On September 19, NRAI had its annual general meeting, where trends, and the growth and challenges faced by the food industry were discussed. Here are the highlights of the report.

Read more: Riyaaz Amlanis ideal weekend? Partying in babys nursery

Restaurateur and president of NRAI says in the past, most Indian consumers ate out only on special occasions. But today eating out is an occasion in itself. (Aalok Soni / HT Photo)

Trending now

Home chefs: Demand to consume home-made food without compromising on quality and hygiene gave birth to a new category  home chef aggregators. Players, who fall under the category, act as aggregators to chefs in the city, who provide home-cooked meals.

Food trucks: In the past year, several food trucks have cropped up in the city. However, this trend is facing its own set of challenges. In the absence of clear laws for parking, permission from resident associations is needed even after obtaining the Food Safety and Standards Association of India (FSSAI) licenses.

Modern Indian cuisine: Modern Indian food is being prepared by using elements of molecular gastronomy. Farzi Cafe, at Lower Parel, creates an illusion with food. It serves global cuisine with an Indian influence. Also, SodaBottleOpenerwala, in Bandra (E), connects consumers to authentic Parsi cuisine.

(HT Photo)

Regional cooking and revival of recipes: Chefs and food enthusiasts are reviving forgotten recipes and connecting consumers with the history of cooking.

Craft Beer: Microbreweries are experimenting with new flavours. Beers, now, include cardamom, cloves, mango and apple, ragi and honey, etc.

The road ahead

Apart from the challenges faced by restaurateurs, a major issue affecting the industrys growth and consumers are the several taxes levied on restaurants such as Value Added Tax (VAT) and service tax, apart from the state taxes. This adds up to the bill by 18 to 25%. This tax is much higher in comparison to the taxes levied on other sectors such as apparel and footwear, where it ranges from five to 15%.

NRAI had been advocating for the reduction or simplification of the same. We welcome the centres move for the much awaited reform  Goods and Services Tax (GST), says Amlani.

However, Amlani points out that alcohol should be included in GST. Exempting it defeats the purpose of bringing in a uniform single tax structure. This allows states to have their own taxes without a cap. This is neither beneficial for the business nor for the customers, says Amlani.

Read more: Meet Riyaaz Amlani, the man on a mission to save Mumbais nightlife

Challenges of the food industry

Shortage of skilled staff: 5.8 million people in India are employed in the food industry. This figure is expected to reach 8.7 million by 2021. This means that about six lakh people will be required in the industry every year.

High real estate and manpower costs: High labour and real estate costs, and service tax on property are exerting pressure on profitability, and deterring the growth of food outlets.

Inadequate supply chain infrastructure: The lack of appropriate infrastructure, inadequate investment in technology and non-integration of the food value chain are the key factors leading to 30% to 40% wastage across the supply chain.

Financing issues: Food service operators find it hard to get working capital loans without any collateral. High cost of domestic funding further adds to the problem.

Overlicensing: You need 12 to 15 government licenses to open an outlet in India. In the US and Singapore, its seven and four, respectively.

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RENO  Nevada Department of Wildlife reminds hunters that the youth upland game hunting seasons started last Saturday and will run to Oct. 2.

The hunt is for youth hunters who are 17 years of age or younger and provides participants with the opportunity to hunt chukar and Hungarian partridge, California and Gambels quail, and three species of rabbits.

The list of rabbits includes cottontail, pygmy and white-tailed jackrabbits.

Any youth participating in this hunt must be accompanied by an adult who is at least 18 years of age. Those hunters who are 12 to 15 years of age are required to possess a Nevada junior hunting license while those who are 16 and 17 will need a pre-adult hunting license. Hunters in each age group also will need an upland game bird stamp.

Hunter education classes are available prior to the youth hunt and are required for the purchase of a hunting license by anyone born after Jan. 1, 1960.

The hunter education class offers training in safe and ethical hunting practices, and is a valuable resource even if the purchase of a license is not required, said Doug Nielsen, Conservation Education supervisor for NDOW.
If you want to soak up the flavours of this fest, you can experiment with some beer-licious, delicious concoctions, paired with tasty grub. Everything from flavoured versions of bubbling mugs and pizzas spiced with the fizzy drink, promises to take you on a beery journey.

Bottoms up with flavoured beer

Celebrate the versatility of beer as it comes with a dash of pop and fruity tastes of blueberries and strawberries. Couple this with loaded portions of traditional German dishes like kartoffelpuffer, wurst and schnitzel, and you have to yourself a kings feast. Oktober fest belongs to India as much as it belongs to Germany. Its time to celebrate the spirit of the German Festival with the special drinks and food, says Manish Sharma of Molecule, that has stocked up on flavoured beers for the fest.

Now, you can indulge in beers in a variety of flavours such as strawberry and blueberry.

Ice ice baby

What do you do when coffee is your poison, but beer is bae? You mix the two and hope for the best magic in the world to happen! Tirek Shrestha, bar artist at The Chatter House has mixed Irish dark beer, strong brew coffee, heavy cream, wheat beer and simple syrup to make a Dublin style Irish coffee.

Dublin Iced Coffee brings together coffee and beer in a concoction that will leave you asking for more.

Pizza+Beer= Beerizza!

How do you better something that is already perfect? By adding beer to it! Imagine a pizza where the dough is made with beer and has your favourite toppings. Chef Swatantra from Dockyard The Brewing Company makes wheat beer pizzas and includes staples such as Margherita and classic pepperoni.

The dough for the pizza base is made with beer, and loaded with delicious toppings.

Cheers to quirky cocktails

Ever been envious of your friends posting pictures of fancy cocktails on social media, and wondered where to get them? This Oktoberfest, satiate your cravings with beer based cocktails that also make for great pictures.Beer is everyones drink. Beer cocktails are for those who love the brew as they are a perfect balance of happiness and cheer, says Sharad Madan, owner of Informal, which serves such beertails. You too can easily make one such cocktail by using 10ml tequila shot, 1 tbsp of lime juice, 10 ml triple sec and topped with beer, a recipe shared by mixologist Thot.

Innovative cocktails served in fancy glasses and tubs make for great drinks and photos.

Germany on a platter

What is Oktoberfest without a taste of authentic German delicacies? Show your love by indulging in sausage platters, schnitzels and meatball spatzles. If you dont like the typcal beer connect, you can turn the eating game a notch higher. Nobody would mind a little gluttony! German flavours are popular with foodies, especially those who understand international cuisine, says Pranay Kumar of Roost The Urban Bistro that has curated a special Oktoberfest menu.

Foodies are experimenting with new flavours and recipes, and restaurants in the city are giving them a chance to taste regional delicacies from Germany.

Other places where the festival is big

Kitchener and Waterloo in Canada witness the largest gathering outside Germany

The one in Nashville, Tennessee, USA is the citys oldest running festival

Philippines celebrates Oktoberfest from September to December

Argentina has its own version of the fest, called Fiesta Nacional de la Cerveza

Fun Facts about Munich Oktoberfest

The festival is over two centuries old and wasnt originally about beer

Albert Einstein once worked at Oktoberfest as an electrician, and helped set up a tent

Paris Hilton is banned from the festival

The waiting period to open a stall at Oktoberfest is 20 years

Only a specially brewed, extra strong variety of the beer is allowed at the fest

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Raasta sits four floors above street level. Part of a Delhi-based, Rastafarian-themed chain and spread over two floors, its been designed to be a restaurant, bar and gig space.

On the fourth floor, the elevator opens directly into a large room with an expansive, prominent bar at one end and seating occupying the rest of the space. In the centre, just off the bar, are high tables and bar stools for the bar experience and low tables and sofas for the lounge feel.

At the edge of the room, along two glass walls are regular tables for those who want to just dine. Edison lights run along the edge of the room while a series of lights fixed to the bottom of dabbas illuminates the centre. The lighting is subdued, the music is not.

Read: Meet the trio behind some of the hippest bars and cafes in Mumbai

We skipped the signature bongtails: cocktails served in a giant bong for a group, or a smaller (but still intimidatingly large) single-portion bong. They seemed to demand a night-long commitment, which we werent ready to make, though that might have been the better option. Our whisky sour was indifferent and the mocktail Raasta special was a sugary-sweet concoction of fruit juices.

The food menu held more promise. Its a jumble of popular World Cuisine favourites, with a liberal dose of Indian, and a generous selection of Jamaican-inspired food. We ignored the Thai curries, hummus, pastas and pizzas, and dived into their Caribbean offerings.

The Jamaican country ribs were two large, unwieldy racks of pork ribs that were tough and chewy, and hadnt quite absorbed the flavours of the spice. (Satyabrata Tripathy/ HT Photo)

We started with the rum spiked lamb bongs: plump, heavily spiced, minced balls that retained the flavour of the meat with a pleasing undercurrent of bitterness. The Jamaican country ribs that followed were not as satisfying. The two large, unwieldy racks of pork ribs were tough and chewy, and hadnt quite absorbed the flavours of the spice. The best thing on the plate was the mashed potato.

Read:How the worlds great restaurants go about their business

The Ital stew, made with starchy vegetables like taro, potatoes as well as squash and root vegetables cooked in coconut milk, was a delightfully hearty mix of crunchy, sweet and mushy. The Caribbean chicken curry, with minced chicken in a moderately spicy, red curry that betrayed its Indian origins, was comfortingly familiar, but boring.

The bland, soft pudding was a perfect foil for the sweet, gooey toffee sauce that had been poured over it, in the case of the sticky toffee pudding. (Satyabrata Tripathy/ HT Photo)

Raasta does well with its desserts. Our lemon tart had a firm, but crumbly crust, with the lemon curd that was perfectly tart, but too sweet. The sticky toffee pudding however managed to get all the flavours right; the bland, soft pudding was a perfect foil for the sweet, gooey toffee sauce that had been poured over it.

Raasta might find some success as a gig space, but the uneven quality of the food and drinks is unlikely to make it a dining destination.

What: Raasta

Rating: 3 / 5

Where: Rohan Plaza, 5th Road, Khar Colony, Khar (West), Mumbai

When: 12 pm to 1 am

Cost: Rs 2,000 for two including one drink each

Call: 865500811/22/33

(HT pays for all meals and events, and reviews anonymously)
About 45 percent of the proposed investments that the BJP-led Maharashtra government had bagged during the ambitious Make in India conclave in February have started to materialise and translate into actual work, said the state industries department.

The state had touted to have signed 2,606 MoUs worth Rs 8.04 lakh crore during the grand conference held in Bandra Kurla Complex. Of all these MoUs, 262 companies have actively come forward, identified lands with many even having paid the required amount to show that they are serious about their investment in Maharashtra.These companies together have committed an investment of Rs 3.65 lakh crore, said state industries minister Subhash Desai.

These include names such as General Motors at Talegaon, Vedanta Groups Twin Star Technologies either in Vidarbha or Marathwada, Coca Cola Co and Raymond at Nagpur, Monsanto in Buldhana district, Mahindra & Mahindra in Chakan and so on. Besides, Taiwans Foxconn, Japans Sharp Corp, and Soft Bank are looking at land in the state to set up a Rs 30,000 crore solar energy project.

Similarly, 474 MoUs signed with small and medium-sized industries have also translated into actual investments, bringing in Rs 6,247.38 crore investment and creating 21,404 jobs, Desai said.

While bringing in investment, the state government has also decided to improve infrastructure across the states industrial areas by pulling in Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC). To avoid blame games between multiple agencies, we have asked the MIDC to take responsibility of augmenting the required infrastructure related to power, sewerage and so on, the Shiv Sena minister said. The government also plans to constitute a special purpose vehicle comprising representatives from industries, the pollution control board and the state government to establish common effluent treatment plants in industrial areas.

Besides, the state government has decided to adopt a new policy while allotting land to industries for more transparency and maximising the governments revenue. As per the policy, all MIDC land allotments will be completed within 1.5 months of advertising for the plots. Desai said, We realised that there were cases in the past where there has been misappropriation in land allotments. With this policy, all allotments will be transparent, time-bound and no one person will be able to influence the decision.

Under the new policy, the MIDC has divided its 280 industrial estates across the state into two categories - first where there is high demand and second where less than 80% plots have been allotted so far. Competitive bidding for the second category will not work since the demand itself is low there. The plots will be advertised, inviting applications online, after which the MIDCs Land Allocation Committee scrutinises the applications and jointly decide the allottee, Desai said, adding plots across 30 industrial estates have already been advertised for allotment.

To ensure the process is speedily completed, companies will be given 15 days for online application and the allotments will be finalised within a month after that, he added.

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Keen on showing its solidarity with the Marathas, after riling the community with a controversial cartoon it published in its mouthpiece, the Shiv Sena on Thursday sought to meet chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to push for a special session of the state legislature to discuss the Maratha protesters demands.

Senior Shiv Sena minister Subhash Desai was to lead a delegation of all 12 Sena ministers and ministers of state in the government to meet the chief minister on Thursday evening. The meeting was, however, pushed to Friday, with the chief minister having to leave for Delhi.

Desai said, If we have a special session and all legislators put forward their views, especially on reservations, the state will be able to pass a resolution and present it to the Centre. The Atrocities Act too needs to be reviewed. It is being rampantly misused.

Party chief Uddhav Thackeray, soon after the protest began, had demanded the session to discuss the demands by the community, with special focus on reservation.

The Marathas, comprising 32% of Maharashtras population, have been holding silent protests across the state, pressing for reservations in government jobs and education, and review and amendment to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, alleging its misuse in the current form.

Until recently, the Shiv Sena had stayed away from directly commenting on the Maratha protests or their demands. The party had to, however, jump into firefighting mode after a controversial cartoon lampooning the Maratha protests left the Shiv Sena politically isolated with leaders across parties, including from within the Sena, as well as a disgruntled Maratha community criticising it.

A day after publishing an apology by the caricaturist in the party mouthpiece Saamana, the publication quoted Sena leaders speaking out in support of Marathas. Saamana quoted Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray saying, The Shiv Sena has wiped the tears of drought-affected farmers of Marathwada, going door-to-door showing its support. The Sena helped them. The party can never be against Marathas.

The publication also quoted Sena minister Eknath Shinde, saying, The Sena has many ministers, MPs and MLAs from the Maratha community, including me. It has the backing of the Maratha community and one should not pay attention to those trying to break the communitys unity.

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A 48-year-old policeman attached to the Govandi police station died of a dengue-like fever on Tuesday night.

Doctors treating the policeman said it could not be confirmed as dengue as only one of two tests that confirm the disease came back positive.

This is the second death from similar symptoms in a week, after the death of a JJ Hospital doctor with similar symptoms, that is baffling specialists.

Read: BMC finds dengue breeding spots in 5 bureaucrats homes

BMC finds mosquito breeding sites at Sushmita Sens house, serves notice

Doctors treating the policeman, Prakash Patil, said he tested negative for the ELISA test, but his NS1 tests  which helps detect dengue rapidly  came back positive.

After the NS1 results came back positive at Sanjivani Hospital, he was moved to MGM Hospital in Vashi on September 26. Doctors at the hospital said his platelet count dropped steadily from 98,000 to 32,000 and he was put on ventilator support immediately.

The patient was suffering from high fever, drowsiness and meningitis (inflammation of brain and spinal cord membranes). We arent sure if he was suffering from dengue, because while the symptoms indicated so and the NS1 Antigen test was positive, his ELISA test was negative, said Dr Bharat Jagyasi, a doctor at MGM Hospital from Vashi.

Jagyasi said Patil was put on ventilator support but succumbed to multiple disorders. The cause of death given by the treating doctors was severe sepsis with metabolic acidosis (increase in plasma acidity) with viral thrombocythemia (rare chronic blood disorder) with acute lung injury.

The father of two, a 21-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son, Patil was apparently transferred from Pant Nagar police station to Govandi Police station a month ago. He had high fever for three four days and kept taking medicine from a general physician. Eventually, his condition worsened and he got admitted to hospital, said Shrikant Mohite, senior inspector of Pant Nagar police station.

Another police official, attached with the Govandi police station confirmed they are facing issues with too many mosquitoes owing to the lack of sanitation facilities and several the presence of possible breeding grounds. We have a lot of junkyards around, the policeman said, on the condition of anonymity.

Dr Om Srivastava, head of the Infectious Diseases Cell at Jaslok Hospital who was called to treat the JJ hospital doctor said while the two cases sounded similar, he will have to look into the details to comment on it.

It looks like a very similar disorder. We have sent samples of multiple such viruses, documented to produce a fierce viral attack to National Institute of Virology and we are awaiting results, said Srivastava.

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Former world billiards champion Michael Ferreira has surrendered before a court in connection with the QNET cheating case on Friday. Another accused Malcom Desai also surrendered with him.

The court took them into judicial custody and asked the economic offences wing of the Mumbai police to argue if they want their police custody.

Last week, the Supreme Court had refused to give any relief to Ferreira and the other accused after they field an anticipatory bail plea. The apex court had directed the five accused  Ferreira, Desai, owners of Vihaan, Srinivas Rao Vanka and Magaral Veervalli Balaji, directors of Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Pvt Ltd, Suresh Thimiri, director of Transview Enterprises India Pvt Ltd  to surrender within a week. The accused also moved the Bombay high court for quashing the complaint. However, the court asked them to surrender before the special court.

Ferreira and his other associates were directors of Vihaan Direct Selling India (Pvt) Ltd, which was running and operating the illegal money circulation scheme under the name and style of QNET  previously known as Questnet in India. Nearly 5 lakh investors from across the country were allegedly cheated in this scam. QNET has been accused of using the banned binary pyramid business model for their multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes to lure investors.

The prosecution alleged they got people to become members of their company by purchasing their products online. Later, they were asked to make more members for which they would pay these them a substantial commission.

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Former world billiards champion Michael Ferreira on Thursday sought a days time to surrender in connection with the QNET cheating case.

Last week, the Supreme Court had refused to give any relief to Ferreira and the other accused after they field an anticipatory bail plea. The apex court had directed the five accused  Ferreira, Malcolm Desai, owners of Vihaan, Srinivas Rao Vanka and Magaral Veervalli Balaji, directors of Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Pvt Ltd, Suresh Thimiri, director of Transview Enterprises India Pvt Ltd  to surrender within a week. The accused also moved the Bombay high court for quashing the complaint. However, the court asked them to surrender before the special court.

Accordingly on Wednesday, Ferreiras lawyer Sandeep Karnik moved a bail application in the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (MPID) Act court pleading that he would surrender on Thursday morning. A of the same copy was given to the special public prosecutor Pradeep Gharath as well. On Thursday evening, Ferreira appeared before the court with his counsel Abad Ponda and pleaded that he has time to surrender till night as the apex court, while rejecting his anticipatory bail plea, gave a weeks time to surrender. Though Gharath objected to the same, the court allowed the request and told Ferreira that he can surrender either a the police station or in the court.

Ferreira and his other associates were directors of Vihaan Direct Selling India (Pvt) Ltd, which was running and operating the illegal money circulation scheme under the name and style of QNET  previously known as Questnet in India. Nearly 5 lakhs investors from across the country were duped in this scam. QNET has been accused of using the banned binary pyramid business model for their multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes to lure investors.

The prosecution alleged that they educed people to become members of their company by purchasing their products online. Later they were asked to make more members for which they would pay these members huge commission.
The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a request by state Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) to extend the admission date to October 7 for all government-run and private medical and dental institutes in Maharashtra.

With no extension , the DMER has asked all 36 institutes to stay open till 11pm on Friday so that vacant seats can be filled.

Earlier this week, the SC had allowed deemed medical and dental institutes to conduct admissions till October 7. However all government and private institutes will have to finish the procedure before midnight of September 30, as per the apex courts April order.

Admissions to private institutes were affected due to a petition filed in the Bombay high court. Similarly allotment of vacant seats in the 15% all India quota of government institutes were hit due to another ongoing case in SC. We had sought time to ensure no vacant seats are left, but are now helpless, said Dr Pravin Shingare, director of DMER.

According to the schedule by DMER, all institutes had to finish admissions by September 29. However, two institutesMaharashtra Institute of Medical Education and Research, Talegaon and Maharashtra Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Laturgot approval from the Medical Council of India (MCI) recently and their merit lists were released earlier this week. Parents had complained the first list of these institutes had names of students who have sought admissions in other institutes. This means many seats will remain vacant even post September 30. We have not yet been informed about the procedure to fill up vacant seats, said a parent.

DMER officials told HT that the aim of extending the admission deadline to 11pm is to ensure no seats go vacant in any institute. All institutes have been asked to submit a detailed list of seat allotment in their respective institutes and courses by Saturday morning. This will give us an idea of how many seats will still remain vacant. Hopefully therell be none vacant, Shingare added.

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BJP asked Shiv Sena on Friday to refrain from publicly criticising it and rather put forward its grievances in internal meets even as it said that wants to contest the upcoming civic body elections in alliance with the Uddhav Thackeray-led party.

I have been instrumental in carving out an alliance with Sena several times for municipal polls while I was the state BJP president and the Sena has been our oldest ally at the state and national level as well.

It was only during the (2014) assembly polls that we did not get into an alliance. Does a failure to ally once make us enemies, senior BJP leader Sudhir Mungantiwar told PTI.

Referring to attacks on BJP by its ally in run up to the assembly polls and on an almost daily basis in Sena mouthpiece Saamana even after being a part of the government, he said public speeches and statements do not decide the fate of an alliance between parties.

At the same time, there is a (state) cabinet (of which Sena is a part) and there are NDA internal meetings as well. If there are certain decisions that need to be criticised, they can be done so then. There is no reason to bring it in the public forum, he said.

Mungantiwar also said the state government is taking the peaceful Maratha rallies in a positive way.

I want to congratulate the Marathas for holding out rallies in a peaceful way. 15 years wasted by the previous government has resulted in this mass agitation.

We find the demands of Marathas very viable. For instance, they want issues like employment to be addressed by the government, which is completely fine, he said.

We are looking at their morchas very positively. The chief minister is also of the view that Marathas should get everything that is due to them from nearly two decades, Mungantiwar said.
The government has dug deep into ancient Hindu texts such as the Manusmriti, which sets the caste code in society, to bolster the publicity campaign for its signature Swachh Bharat cleanliness drive.

These form an illustrated book, designed by the makers of the iconic Amar Chitra Katha cartoon series, and meant for a young audience to drive home the message of making India free of open defecation by 2019.

The Union urban development ministry has come out with a comic book, The Clean Revolution, in the run-up to October 2, the second anniversary of the Swachh Bharat Mission launched by Modi. Urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu will release the book on Friday.

The book narrates how from the Indus Valley civilization some 2,500 years ago to ancient Hindu scriptures such as the Vedas, all talked about the importance of sanitation and hygiene.

One story mentions how the Manusmriti tells people to maintain personal hygiene. The illustration also shows how people were divided into castes and one particular caste was tasked with cleaning toilets and sewage drains.

Thats an inference to manual scavenging  a euphemism for disposing of human excreta by hand. This is an age-old occupation traditionally foisted on members of low-caste or Dalit groups, though India banned caste-based discrimination in 1955 and passed several laws to end the practice.

The book will be distributed to Kendriya Vidyalayas, CBSE-affiliated schools and those run by state governments to create awareness among children as a massive publicity drive hasnt shaken up peoples attitude towards sanitation.

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WASHINGTON, D.C.  U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., and U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., this week announced passage of the bipartisan Nevada Native Nations Land Act.

Specifically, this bill will transfer more than 70,000 acres of Nevada public lands back into tribal control  empowering those tribal governments to control their land use destinies, said Amodei. By carefully balancing the unique needs of our Nevada tribal nations with those of local ranchers, land owners, and businesses, this legislation will allow Nevadans to chart brighter futures for their communities, while preserving their cultural heritage and traditions.

The act transfers land into a trust for six Nevada tribes: the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe of the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation, the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation, the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe, the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe.

Approximately 82 acres of U.S. Forest Service land in Elko County will be held in trust for the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation for housing and infrastructure to address the reservation housing shortage and to recruit doctors, nurses, law enforcement, conservation officers, and first responders.

The Nevada Native Nations Land Act is an important step toward righting the wrongs of our past and helping tribes restore their homelands, said Reid. I commend the tribes who worked tirelessly to make this legislation possible and remain committed to continuing a strong working partnerships between our governments.
A day after the Congress launched an onslaught on mayor Arun Sood over his proposal for a car parking on the Sector-38 green belt, the latter decided against going ahead with the move after facing a stiff resistance from residents at a meeting on Thursday. The proposed parking lot is adjacent to Vivek High School and the Congress had alleged that the move was aimed at obliging the school management.

Sood met nearly 40 members of resident welfare organisation, Sector 38 (A and B) at the community centre and majority was against the proposal.

During the meeting, several residents exchanged heated words with the mayor, forcing him to take the U-turn.

One of the residents, Rajinder Bassi, said, I am convinced that the representation carrying 183 signatures of residents in favour of the parking lot that mayor flaunted on Wednesday is fudged.

Sood said since the residents gave in writing that they didnt want the parking lot on the green belt, the civic body will go as per their wish. The controversy over the issue was creation of the media, he said.

Congress spokesperson Rajesh Sharma said, Holding meeting with the residents was a face-saving exercise for mayor as most of the residents were against the proposal. The proposal was aimed at obliging the school as the mayors children study there.

No entry for media

Mediapersons were not allowed to cover the meeting of residents with mayor Arun Sood. It was a personal meeting and it is not important that media should be given access to everything, said Sood.

Representation to MC commissioner

Earlier in the day, a delegation of Sector-38 residents, led by Major DP Singh (retd) gave a representation that had 500 signatures to MC commissioner B Purusharta against the decision of the mayor.
Notwithstanding rising tensions between India and Pakistan, trade through the Attari-Wagah land route near Amritsar remained unaffected with more than 180 goods trucks moving across for the second day on Friday after India Armys surgical strikes across the Line of Control in Kashmir.

Amritsar customs commissioner Capt Sanjay Gahlot told PTI on Friday they have not witnessed any reduction in number of trucks. The trade (through Attari-Wagah route) continues to remain normal. There is no indication (of any adverse impact on trade), he said.

Customs officials said 63 trucks with tomatoes crossed over to Pakistan through the land route while 123 with dry dates, gypsum, cement, aluminum ore, salt and other material moved into the Indian territory. The number of trucks crossing over to India from Pakistan is likely to go up in the evening, another customs official said.

On Thursday, 170 trucks from Pakistan brought goods to India while more than 50 went to the neighbouring country.

Must read | A report from ground zero

Pakistan imports vegetables including tomatoes, ginger, garlic and spices, cotton yarn, while India imports cement, gypsum and dry fruits via the Attari-Wagah land route.

Meanwhile, Punjab traders dealing with imports and exports with Pakistan through the land route in Amritsar welcomed the strikes across the Line of Control. The action taken by the Indian army was necessary to give befitting reply to Pakistan for the Uri terror attack, said president of Federation of Dry Fruit and Karyana Commercial Association, Anil Mehra. It is Pakistan which will be hit the most if trade ties between two nations are snapped. For us country comes first and then comes trade, said Mehra.

Pakistan allows import of 137 items from India through Attari-Wagah.
Border states were told to evacuate villagers living close to the Pakistan frontier as India on Thursday prepared for any fallout of its surgical strikes across the LoC.

The ministry of home affairs asked Punjab and J&K to move to safer locations people living within 10km of the border or the LoC, the de factor border, with Pakistan.

The directive came within hours of the armys announcement that it had crossed the LoC early Thursday and inflicted heavy damage on seven launchpads militants were preparing to use to cross over into the country.

Harvest due, hard to leave: War fear in Punjab, a ground reality

Punjab, which has six districts bordering Pakistan, was on maximum alert. The SAD-BJP government swung into action and started the evacuation process soon after the MHA informed Punjab leadership that it expects some escalation in clashes on border.

The Centre has informed that there is a possibility of escalation of hostilities on the International Border on account of surgical strikes by the Indian Army which requires measures to safeguard the civilian population along the border in Punjab, chief minister Badal said after an emergency Cabinet meeting.

People in about 1,000 villages  staying within 10 km from the 553-km International Border (IB) from Fazilka to Pathankot  will be shifted to safer locations in the coming days. The schools in the border areas were shut till further orders and leaves of police and medical personnel cancelled, sources said.

Local authorities used public address systems in gurdwaras, asking residents to move to safer zones.

The major worry of the agrarian state is that paddy crop is ready for harvesting and the crop will start reaching the market from October 1. The crop and cattle is the concern of farmers. Utmost care of the evacuated villagers will be taken and the government will provide them every necessary facility in the camps, a top government functionary said.

Also read | As evacuation begins along Punjab border, villagers tense but not scared

Earlier Badal, convened a meeting of top brass of bureaucracy and police and put his government and political machinery in an emergency mode. Chief secretary Sarvesh Kaushal and police chief Suresh Arora directed the DCs and SSPs to start and oversee the evacuation process in the border districts of Ferozepur, Fazilka, Amritsar, Taran Tarn, Gurdaspur and Pathankot. The border district DCs were sanctioned Rs 1 crore each for making arrangements for evacuation and setting up camps for the displaced border residents.

The uprooted villagers will be housed in schools, community centres, marriage palaces or in tents in the locations which dont fall within the first strike range. Arrangements were being made in the camps to have facilities like health services, drinking water, toilets, food (langar), fodder for cattle and generators. The civil defence apparatus has been galvanised. It may take at least two days to vacate all the border villages, an officer said.

The movement of trucks on the trade routes on the LoC in Uri and Poonch sectors was also brought to a halt. We have asked border villagers living along IB and LoC to shift to safer area as a precautionary measure, Jammu deputy commissioner Simrandeep Singh said.

Dont miss | CM Badal lauds cross-LoC strikes: Punjab ready to face the situation

On the edge

987 Punjab villages in 6 border districts to be evacuated

553 -km International Border from Fazilka to Pathankot on maximum alert

Private and govt schools in 10 kms of border shut down

Leave of government employees cancelled

Emergency medical supplies to be stocked up in govt hospitals medical stores and private hospitals to be functional round the clock

Food & civil supplies department to provide food packets for evacuees

(with inputs from HTC Jammu)

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The tension between India and Pakistan after Uri attack last week followed by Thursdays surgical strikes by the Indian Army across the Line of Control (LoC) has failed to dampen spirit of people travelling by the Sada-e-Sarhad Delhi-Lahore bus.

People of both the countries have been travelling fearlessly by the bus with no decline in number of passengers. On Friday, 15 people, all Pakistani nationals, travelled to Lahore from Delhi and had lunch at the Punjab Tourism-run restaurant at Kartarpur in Jalandhar district. Similarly, 20 people travelled from Lahore to Delhi.

Also read | Attari-Wagah trade normal: Tomatoes go to Pak, India gets dry dates

Speaking to HT, a Pakistani passenger said: Dono mulkon ke media se dar lagta hai. Dono taraf media ki koshish hai ki jung ho kar hi rahe. Log jung nahin chahte (We are afraid of the media in both the countries as they want a war, but people on both sides want peace), he said.

Raj Thakur, an employee at the restaurant, said, I am serving food to passengers of this bus for the past seven years and Friday was no different. Though there is tension between the two countries, it has not affected the passengers from both the countries.
Punjab cabinet minister Bikram Singh Majithia announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the kin of the children killed in the accident at Muhawa village on September 20, when a rashly driven school van fell into a drain. He also announced that the government would be taking up the responsibility for the study of the siblings of the deceased and they would be provided education free of cost.

Majithia, who was accompanied by another minister Gulzar Singh Ranike, was in the village to attend the bhog ceremony of the deceased children on Thursday. He also met the families of the students, who were injured in the accident.

Must read | Amritsar accident: Knew bridge was unsafe, never imagined losing kids, say kin

Majithia said that the state government would get the injured children treated in hospitals and announced Rs 50,000 each for the families of the injured children.

Majithia announced a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh and free education for Class-11 student Karanbir Singh who, despite being injured, rescued many students after the accident.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), which had taken the onus of bearing expenditure on the bhog ceremony, also announced a compensation of Rs 50,000 each to the kin of the deceased. The DAV school management has offered all possible assistance to the families of the killed as well as the injured students.

Also read | Sukhbir Badal announces memorial to 7 Muhawa mishap victims
Nine pilgrims, including seven of a family, were killed and 12 injured after a pick-up vehicle they were travelling in collided with a truck at Sainivas village near Siwani in Bhiwani district around 1am on Friday.

The deceased, including a woman and six children, have been identified as Preet Kaur, Gaggu, Sagar, Dara Singh, Raja, Ravinder, Roshan, Shalu and Nandi, all residents of Machhiwarain Ludhianas Samrala. They were returning from Gogamedi, a village of religious importance in Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan.

Police said the pick-up overturned after colliding head-on with a speeding truck, before being hit by another truck from the rear. The pilgrims had divided the pick-up vehicles carriage into two parts using a wooden board. Those sleeping on the upper side of the carriage died as they fell on the road after the vehicle overturned, DSP Siwani Vijay Singh said.

The drivers of all three vehicles fled after the accident, police said. Five people died on the spot while four were declared brought dead at a hospital. The injured have been admitted to hospitals in Bhiwani and Hisar.

Police have registered a case against truck drivers. Heartrending scenes were witnessed at back home at Hambowal Bet village in Machhiwara as a family lost seven members in the accident. Ram Pyari, 75, who lost her son, daughter-in-law and five grandsons, was inconsolable. On September 12, seven pilgrims from Punjab were killed and 53 injured in an accident in Sirsa.
The 19 young Pakistani women, who are in Chandigarh to attend a peace conference, are not worried and are staying in India until October 3 as scheduled, organisers said on Friday, a day after the Indian Armys surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC).

The girls spent the day in Shimla as originally scheduled, along with other delegates. They would be a part of the meet on Indo-Pak peace on Saturday here.

Also read | Pak students at peace meet: War narrative limited to media

The girls from Pakistan are fine and are enjoying themselves in the company of delegates from 33 other nations, Pramod Sharma, coordinator of Yuvsatta, that is hosting the Global Peace Fest, said.

As the news about the armys strike spread, organisers started receiving calls from their families in Pakistan, asking them to return. Sharma, however, insisted that there is no panic either among the girls or their parents.

The parents of the girls were calling up yesterday (Thursday) but they are also fine with this arrangement, Sharma said. Organisers said they took the decision after checking with the women whether they wanted to stay back. The women, who came here on Wednesday for the five-day event, are students from different colleges and universities in Pakistan.

As originally scheduled, the women headed to Shimla on Friday morning on a day-long trip. They are not allowed to stay in any other place except Chandigarh as per their visa restrictions.

IB comes to girls rescue

With the girls finding it difficult to get SIM cards and accessing internet, officers from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) came to their rescue by providing them phones so that they could call up their kin in Pakistan.

Must read | Border belt on high alert, Punjab, J&K villagers shifted to safety

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Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu is back in the game of hitting sixes. As if political fronts coming up in Punjab are not enough to tie voters in knots, the former BJP MP is giving a new spin to state politics every week.

The latest from Sidhus not even one-month-old forum, Awaaz-e-Punjab, is a tie-up bait thrown to both the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress. The Awaaz forum has set a condition for the Congress  any alliance is only possible minus its state chief Captain Amarinder Singh, who, the forum says, has been in cahoots with the ruling Badals.

Is Sidhu not able to make up his mind or is he a shrewd bargainer, who wants to extract the best deal? Many in the AAP and Congress have a third theory  he (Sidhu) is playing one against the other as his much-hyped forum has failed to gather political mass. No leader or workers from any party have joined his forum, which remains what it was when announced  a confused quartet.

Though neither the AAP nor Congress have so far given an offer Sidhu cannot refuse, they are trying to catch him, not as much owing to his political equity, but his damage value if he joins the rival camp. Congress poll strategist Prashant Kishor is learnt to have told the party that Sidhu may dent the Congress prospects in Punjab if he goes the AAP way. And many in the AAP feel Sidhu can boost the Congress campaign to the detriment of the party.

On Amarinder, Sidhus close aides say the bad blood between the two runs deep as the former Punjab CM had played a negative role in his conviction in a road rage death case by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in December 2006. Contrary to Amarinders claims, his relations with Sidhus father, Bhagwant Singh, who was an advocate general in his government, were not cordial, they say.

But there could be more palace intrigues. A lobby within the Congress, which is opposing Amarinder being named as the CM face, is also backing Sidhu. At a time when Captain loyalists are raising the pitch to announce him as the CM candidate and the entire campaign is centred around him, Sidhu can queer the pitch for the state Congress chief.

Though Amarinder had reacted sharply to the forums statement saying: This game of playing one against the other will not work. Do they think Congress president will throw me out of the party so that they can ally with Awaaz-e-Punjab? They cannot disassociate me with the Congress.

Sidhus bouncers have also thrown the AAP in a tizzy. Its leaders HS Phoolka and Punjab convener Gurpreet Singh Ghuggi are batting for Sidhu but others like Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann have said the party cannot have poll alliances.

Owing to his inconsistent utterances, Sidhus bargaining chip has lost much of its value. His shifting stance and ambivalence from a man who calls himself a protector of Punjabs interests but remains incommunicado when he shoots his comedy shows in Mumbai, likes to engage the media in one-way communication through issuing statements and holding press conferences when back in New Delhi, and his meeting Congress and AAP leaders alternatively does not seem to be helping Punjab, Punjabi or Punjabiat, that Awaaz-e-Punjab proudly espouses.

Also read | HT Analysis: The importance of being Navjot Singh Sidhu

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With two more deaths and 14 new confirmed cases of dengue reported on Thursday, the administration in SAS Nagar came under severe scrutiny for its failure to prepare for or control the viral outbreak. The total number of patients from the district undergoing treatment now is 884, which is already a 63% rise from last years 544.

We have received information of suspected dengue death of a patient, Kamalpreet (61) of Kharar, from Fortis Hospital but we are still to get the reports, said Ranjit Guru, the civil surgeon. Another 18-month-old patient, identified as Naina from SAS Nagar, died of dengue at Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, Chandigarh, late on Wednesday night. Now, as per the health authorities, seven deaths have been confirmed to having been caused by dengue, while confirmation of two was awaited. As for chikungunya, there are three confirmed cases so far.

Must read | Chikungunya in Chandigarh: From lone case in 26 years, to 44 this year, so far

Delay in purchasing medicine for fogging

The anti-mosquito fogging started in May, but for a month before that the fogging did not have the required medicine that is spread along with the smoke. The anti-dengue fogging took place only after mid-August. The delay on the part of the municipal corporation was because of objection by some councillors over allegedly high price.

It was in April that the MC had purchased a small quantity of the medicine from a local supplier, at which councillors took the issue to the finance and contract committee (F&CC) meeting the same month. It was then decided to purchase the medicine in accordance with a notification by the Punjab government, which had identified a supplier for the entire state.

The medicine was being purchased at higher rates thus we had objected, which resulted in delay in purchase, said Kuljit Singh Bedi, Congress councillor.

Coordination missing

Fogging was intensified from Wednesday after intervention of deputy commissioner DS Mangat, who directed the MC to provide a roster for carrying out fogging, besides a weekly report. The civil Surgeon had earlier in August written to the MC for the same.

Deputy mayor Manjit Singh Sethi said, There has been lack of co-ordination. The civil surgeon had suggested a weekly cycle for fogging, while the MC employees were following a 10-12-day cycle and that, too, fogging once a day. Moreover, no information in this regard was being provided to the civil surgeon. But now we are carrying out fogging three times a day.

Negligent residents

Some experts also blame residents. The vector (mosquito) breeds in clean water and, despite awareness drives, residents have failed to cooperate. District authorities had declared Friday a dry day but it was not implemented.

If the residents wear full sleeves and keep their air-coolers dry, the spread of these diseases can be checked. Despite awareness announcements at religious places, in many localities the residents are not co-operating, said Avtar Singh, a city-based epidemiologist.
The deadlock between the school van and auto operators, whose strike entered its fourth day here on Thursday, is likely to continue with the administration declaring that it was a question of the safety of children and the situation arising out of the strike would be handled with an iron hand.

Deputy commissioner Varun Roojam, while speaking to HT, asserted, Our stand is very clear this time, the bus and auto owners have to abide by the directions given by the Punjab and Haryana high court and orders of the state government which state that the safe school vahan scheme has to be implemented for the safety of children. If they do not stop taking law and order in their hands, strict action would be taken against them.

The DC told them clearly that the vehicles, which are more than 15 years old, have to be off the road. The DC said the administration was also seeking information about the background of the drivers by school managements and contractors and verifying their character as well. The DC has also asked the school managements to take the onus of the safety of students and declaring that if they were found violating the norms, their affiliations would be cancelled. It was almost three years ago that the state government, on the directions of the Punjab and Haryana high court, had issued an order to ensure the safe transportation of schoolchildren and road safety for school buses, but so far these orders have not been implemented seriously at the district level.

No meetings of district committee

A source in the administration, on the condition of anonymity, said, In an order issued by the state department of transport, it was clearly mentioned that a district-level inter-departmental committee comprising sub-divisional magistrate as chairman and district transport officer (DTO), district education officer (DEO), superintendent of police (traffic), executive officer of municipal corporation, assistant mechanical engineer (Punjab roadways) as members, has to be constituted and this committee has to meet once a month to discuss and decide on all the issues pertaining to the safety of children and draw up an action plan to conduct inspections of school buses and also impound the ones violating the rules but, unfortunately, such meetings are held when Muhawa-like accidents take place.

School-level panels non-functional

There is also a provision for school-level committees to be headed by the respective principal with a police officer (not below the rank of assistant sub-inspector), motor vehicle inspector, deputy DEO and a representative of the parents and teachers association as members. The committee is supposed to meet once a month to verify the documents relating to the school bus and records of drivers. But even these committees have not been constituted and no meetings are held by school managements.

School managements are equally responsible for the safety of children, the source said.

Drive to continue: DTO

District transport officer (DTO) Lovejeet Kalsi, who is being targeted by the operators, made it clear that she has orders from the DC to check and impound unsafe vehicles and has been asked to continue with the drive and not care about the agitators.

School vans and auto operators have condemned the DTO and accused her of harassing them. She said, I wonder, how am I harassing them, they are the ones who, instead of converting their unsafe vehicles into safe ones, are busy creating chaos in the city and are harassing the parents and commuters. I am just doing my job and would continue impounding unsafe vehicles. Police commissioner Amar Singh Chahal has also warned the operators against hindering the movement of traffic in the city.

Meanwhile,hundreds of agitators blocked traffic on the Customs chowk and then they moved to the DC office and blocked the road outside his office for about two hours rasing slogans against the district administration.

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ELKO  G & T Construction incorporated in 1966. It has evolved from a house-at-a-time single family, speculation home builder to a diversified company specializing in development of multi-family properties in rural locations.

Although the company began as a speculative builder, they also built more than 300 custom homes under contract to locals. The company has also developed several subdivisions, the largest being the 186 unit Northridge subdivision in 1980.

During the first gas crisis in 1974, Elko suffered its first recession and the firm took its main business to Ely where the company built many homes and built its first Section 515 property, low income, rental housing. Returning its attention back to Elko, G & T built 60 homes for the Freeport Mining Company and 66 homes for the local Indian tribe.

During the succeeding years, G & T built Section 515 properties in nearly every rural Nevada town as well as two projects in Utah. It evolved from a builder into a general contractor with the largest contract being 212 condominium units in Laughlin, priced in excess of $10 million.

Since 1992, G & T has only built or rehabilitated properties for the owners portfolio. The company is currently rehabilitating properties that it built originally and its associated company, Gregory Development Group LLC, is re-syndicating these properties.

Congratulations to James Gregory, president and general manager; Holly Gregory, vice president; Jeff Butler, vice president and project manager; and Kelly Steninger, secretary, treasurer and controller.
Local administration might have claimed recently that by October 31, all households in the district, including those in the rural pockets will have toilets, and work in this direction has already begun, but residents have raised questions over the nuisance of urinating in open.

This is a common practice outside the citys bus stand and railway station. Residents said despite the latter being major arrival points to the city, authorities concerned hardly seem to bother about curbing this embarrassing practice.

As people step out of the bus stand and railway station, they generally spot men urinating on the walls around. This not only makes the surroundings unhygienic, but this whimsical habit also causes an awkward situation for women passing by.

A blow to Swacch Bharat Abhiyan

Locals and visitors at the bus stand and railway station said this practice is a live example of making a mockery of the Prime Ministers Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which is due to complete its two years on October 2.

If authorities concerned genuinely want to address this issue, they can surely curb it. Imposing heavy fines right on the spot is one of the most practical solutions to discourage those who urinate in the open. After all, there are usually washrooms at bus stands and railway station,said Preet Amol Singh, a regular traveller to the city who travels either by bus or train.

Some also said the authorities should know that unsanitary condition stinks from a considerable distance and situation turns worse during rainy days.

It cant be ignored that this weird practice also makes bad impression of Ludhiana among visitors, a city tagged as Smart City and Manchester of India. So, curbing it is the need of the hour for which authorities must wake up,said Jagtar Singh Dhiman, a city-based university professor.

Embarrassment for women

This practice may be awkward for all, but is certainly more embarrassing for women passerbys. Dont these men have any shame? Why cant they use toilets inside the bus stand or railway station?,said Baljeet Kaur, a local. While another passenger at bus stand Paramjit Kaur said, I often come to the city to buy my monthly medicines and every time getting out of the bus stand becomes a trouble, as men can be seen urinating in the open.

As HT spoke to Surbhi Malik, additional commissioner of municipal corporation (MC), she said local authorities have always made sincere efforts to discourage this practice and all other issues that go against the spirit of Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan. But, to make these efforts a success, public support is equally important.

We keep organising campaigns in the city to make people aware about the importance of cleanliness through street plays, graffiti paintings, radio messages. But we also want that those who urinate in open despite the provision of toilets should question their own conscience, whether it is right or wrong to do so. In other words, mindset change is also the need of the hour, which can be helpful in making Ludhiana clean from every aspect,said Malik.

She said in case someone feels there is a paucity of toilets at different public places, the city will soon have additional public toilets, for which tenders have recently been floated by the MC.

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The inclusion of Tier 2 cities and satellite towns of metro cities such as Varanasi, Agra and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh and Jalandar in Punjab in the list of 27 smart cities announced last week will improve the overall quality of life with the introduction of state-of-art infrastructure and technology and also help bring in foreign funds to the cities. Realty market sentiments will also improve, say experts associated with the international property consultancy Colliers International.

The planning of smart cities in India will bring benefits to the country, providing an opportunity for suppliers to offer better products. Inclusion of Tier 2 cities and satellite towns of metro cities in the list of smart cities will siphon funds into these smaller cities improving their overall quality of life. If the Smart Cities Mission is executed with focus and regulation, it will also usher in foreign capital in these cities as investors will have more confidence investing in successful business models. says George McKay, South Asia Director, office and integrated services at Colliers International India.

Currently, real estate investment potential is limited to Tier I cities, but smart cities would mean advancement of real estate in Tier 2 cities as well. Commercial and residential space is getting scarce in Tier I cities like Mumbai and Delhi leading to congestion and higher densities. Upgrading of technology in commercial space offering services such as high-speed internet, smart workstations and automated systems along with competitive rates may push some enterprises to expand to Tier 2 cities. Smart city transport projects will also improve connectivity from Tier I to Tier 2 cities making them viable for businesses. Residential markets will also thrive if new businesses come in Tier 2 cities, says the international consultancy.

Read more:What happens to unsold housing stock?

Recently, 27 cities were selected under the Smart Cities Mission, bringing the total to 60 cities. Maharashtra topped the list with five cities, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka were second with four cities each followed by Uttar Pradesh with three cities. These cities will receive Rs 200 crore from the Central government in the first year and Rs 100 crore over the next few years.

Read more: Just a small percentage of population to benefit from Smart Cities Mission

Five cities in election-bound Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, including Prime Minister Narendra Modis constituency of Varanasi, have made it to the Centres third list of smart cities that will get funding for initiating urban reforms.

The new cities are from 12 states and have proposed an investment amounting to Rs 66,883 crore under their respective smart city plans. The amount includes Rs 42,524 crore in area-based development (79% of the total) and Rs 11,379 crore (21%) in technology-based pan city solutions.

Read more: Modis constituency Varanasi among 27 cities in 3rd smart cities list
A conservative Arizona newspaper is facing death threats and losing subscriptions after it broke with tradition by endorsing Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump for US president, a senior editor told AFP Thursday.

The Phoenix-based Arizona Republic, the states largest newspaper, announced in an editorial on Tuesday that it is backing a Democrat for the first time since it was founded in 1890 on the grounds that Trump is neither conservative nor qualified to be president.

The papers editorial board said that while Clinton did not lack flaws, she was also the superior choice by far.

The backlash began shortly after it published the endorsement, with outraged readers sending a deluge of angry emails and canceling subscriptions, said Phil Boas, who runs the papers editorial page.

We got a lot of angry callers and weve had quite a few cancellations, he said, adding that the editors had expected blowback and did not regret its decision.

The paper also received some threatening phone calls and a death threat, he said without elaborating.

USA Today set another precedent on Thursday, when its editorial board took a side in a presidential race for the first time in its 34-year history, although without issuing a straight endorsement.

Publishing scathing criticism of Trump, the national paper urged readers to oppose a candidate it said is dangerous and unfit for the presidency. It went on to call him erratic, ill-equipped, reckless, someone with a checkered business past, and a serial liar.

Authoritarian and dangerous

Despite the threats against the Arizona Republic, its editorial board feels very good about endorsing Clinton, Boas said.

We know that its the responsible decision and choice to endorse Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, he said, adding that he did not believe regular readers were surprised, given the numerous scathing editorials about Trump previously published.

About a year ago, we began writing very strong editorials about Trump because of his behavior on the stump, which to us seemed authoritarian, Boas said. We started raising the alarm about him... cautioning that what this man is saying is dangerous.

The Arizona Republic joins a growing list of conservative-leaning US newspapers to back the Democratic candidate during this years divisive presidential campaign. A handful of others have opted to back Libertarian Gary Johnson.

The Cincinnati Enquirer, an Ohio paper that has supported Republicans for almost a century, said last week that it was backing Clinton because Trump is a clear and present danger to our country.

The Dallas Morning News -- based in the Republican-dominated state of Texas -- also broke a 75-year streak earlier this month by backing Clinton, describing her as the only serious candidate.

Both papers have also faced backlashes over their decision, with readers canceling subscriptions.

Boas, who describes himself as a lifelong Republican, said his papers decision to back a Democrat for the presidency was an easy decision given Trumps policy proposals and behavior.

We would be shocked and horrified if our own kids, our own teenagers, behaved like him, he said, adding that he understood Republicans mind-set but felt a lot of them are in denial.

I think a lot of them know that this guy violates their values, Boas said. They are making compromises as they so dislike Hillary Clinton... and its time for Republicans and conservatives to wake up.
Before external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj wrapped up her UN general assembly visit, Indian and US officials tried to set up a phone call for her and Secretary of State John Kerry. But the phone line was bad and they werent able to speak.

The two were finally able to connect on Tuesday. And Kerry condemned the September 18 Uri terrorist attack that claimed the lives of 19 Indian soldiers and set up an angry showdown for leaders of the two countries at the UN general assembly.

That in short was how the two foreign ministers landed up having, as aptly described by US state department spokesman John Kirby on Thursday, one conversation in two calls. Kerry did try to prevent an escalation, the spokesman added.

But if that looked like a frenetic last-minute attempt by the US to dissuade India from carrying out a retaliatory strike, as it may have been made out to be in a certain section of the media, here are the facts, as they unfolded over the day on Thursday.

If the US really had an idea, it would not have allowed its ambassador, Richard Verma, to continue his US visit, till hours after the strikes were announced by India. He would have been ordered back to his post much before, said sources.

But Verma was here in DC and on schedule for a discussion on India-US relations, and challenges in the relationship; he was to headline at Wilson Centre, a DC think-tank, on Thursday, which was announced cancelled just a few hours before.

If the US knew, or had been forewarned Verma would have not have been allowed to be away from his post till after the strikes, said a former India hand at Pentagon who did not want to be identified fearing fallout for his new career in the private sector.

Here is an exchange from the daily briefing at the state department on Thursday where department spokesman John Kirby was present:

Q: Was there any prior consultation between the United States and India before the surgical strikes? Im asking this because some media reports point out that Secretary Kerry has spoken to his counterpart and Susan Rice also spoke to her counterpart. So can you give us some 

KIRBY: I can confirm for you that the Secretary spoke with the  on the 27th, so earlier this week, with Indian external affairs minister Swaraj and reiterated his strong condemnation of the September 18th Uri attack. He condemned terrorism in all its forms and he cautioned against any escalation in tensions. Okay?

Did that statement imply what it seemed to have  cautioned against any escalation in tensions? Kerry, as head of a department traditionally unsympathetic to India, doesnt have that kind of mandate from the White House.

Else, said sources, National Security Advisor Susan Rice would not have been on phone with her Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, few hours after, in a call initiated by her, to affirm US support for India.

Pakistan (should) take effective action to combat and delegitimize United Nations-designated terrorist individuals and entities, including Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, and their affiliates, said a White House readout of the call.

Did that look like an attempt to stop India?
Without more donor support the emergency caused by Boko Haram will become the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, a top UN official said on Friday, as a massive appeal remained just a quarter funded.

United Nations assistant secretary general Toby Lanzer said the suffering in northeast Nigeria and surrounding areas was the worst he had ever witnessed.

I have worked in Darfur, Lanzer told reporters, referring to the war-torn Sudanese region. The scale and the depth of suffering that I have seen (in Nigeria) is unparalleled in my experience.

Nigeria-born Islamist group Boko Haram has waged a brutal insurgency in the countrys northeast, with violence spreading more recently to western Cameroon as well as the south of Chad and Niger.

The UN has appealed for a $739 million to cover needs across the entire affected region - known as the Lake Chad Basin - but has received commitments for just $197 million (176 million euros).

If we dont engage in a much more comprehensive manner, including scaling up our emergency relief programmes, what awaits us down the line is the biggest crisis facing any of us, anywhere, Lanzer said.

More than nine million people are in desperate need of aid, Lanzer said.

The United Nations had not declared a famine in the Lake Chad Basin, but Lanzer warned that 65,000 people were living in famine-like conditions.

The UN has also said that up to 80,000 children in the region could die if they do not get food aid within the next year.

When Boko Haram violence was at its peak through 2013 and 2014, the UN and other aid groups were unaware of the gravity of needs because access to conflict-ridden areas was largely impossible.

Nigerias military has since made gains against the extremists and emergency workers have moved in, unveiling a catastrophe unrivalled anywhere except that of Syria, Lanzer said, warning the Lake Chad could overtake Syria in terms of the scale of the needs.

The Boko Haram conflict, which began in northeast Nigeria in 2009, has displaced an estimated 2.6 million people.

At least 20,000 have died in violence blamed on the Islamists, but the numbers killed by causes linked to the conflict are likely much higher.
China on Friday expressed concern about the tension between India and Pakistan and urged both sides to exercise restraint against the backdrop of the unexpected Indian strikes on terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir.

India and Pakistan should pull back from any action that could escalate tension in the region, China said.

As shared neighbour and friend to both India and Pakistan, we are concerned about continuous confrontation and tensions between India and Pakistan. We call on all relevant parties to exercise restraint and refrain from actions that would escalate tension, foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing.

We hope that both parties would properly address their differences though dialogue and consultation and de-escalate tensions as soon as possible, Geng said when he was asked to comment on the surgical strikes that Indian carried out on Thursday, inflicting significant casualties on terror groups.

China has been in contact with India and Pakistan since tensions escalated in region, Geng said, indicating that channels of communication had been open since the round of violence began in July.

Since there have been tensions between India and Pakistan, China has been in communication with both the countries to exercise restraint, enhance communication and properly resolve differences, he said. We will continue to work on the two sides for peace talks based on the development of the situation.

Chinas restrained reaction to the surgical strikes might not be unexpected but could make its all-weather ally Pakistan just a bit uneasy.

Islamabad would have probably wanted Beijing to be more vocal about Indias assertion that its troops crossed the de-facto border and carried out operations. But then again, Pakistan has denied the strikes took place.

Chinas reaction to the strikes came two days after Pakistan dispatched two special envoys on Kashmir to Beijing to drum up support for its position.

On Thursday, before the news of the surgical strikes broke, Geng had said: As for the tension between Pakistan and India, recently Chinese side has been in communication with both sides through different channels.

An article published on Friday in the nationalistic Global Times tabloid, titled Asia arms imports on the rise as India buys new jets, was an indication that government and strategic circles in China - even if they were surprised at the Indian operations - are keeping a close watch on developments in the region, especially the escalating tension.

Chinas only border, if it can be called that, with Pakistan is along Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, which is claimed by India.

China has repeatedly said it has concerns about the security of the $46-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that passes through PoK but has always added it is confident Pakistan will ensure the safety of the project and its personnel.
Its serendipity: from America to Viagra, history is full of great discoveries helped along by chance, as more than a century of Nobel prizes can attest.

Among the chance discoveries that have been honoured with the prestigious prize are X-rays (physics, 1901), penicillin (medicine, 1945), the carbon form of fullerenes that paved the way for nanotechnology (chemistry, 1996), conductive polymers (chemistry, 2000), and the bacteria responsible for ulcers (medicine, 2005).

But, as the father of pasteurisation Louis Pasteur noted in 1854, In the fields of observation, chance only favours the prepared mind -- a remark made in reference to the discovery of the link between electricity and magnetism by Danish scientist Hans Christian Orsted.

Orsted happened to notice that a compass needle deflected from magnetic north when an electric current from a battery was switched on and off -- a pioneering discovery in electromagnetism.

Like Pasteur, Dutch scientist Pek Van Andel also believes in the unexpected.

But, he insists, its not just a matter of luck.

The unexpected often comes after a relentless search -- and only to those with keen intuition.

Generally I dont believe in accidental findings but in accidental observations, he told AFP.

An expert on discoveries made in unusual circumstances, he has tallied more than 1,000 such cases, some dating back to pre-historic times.

Over the years, philosophers and artists alike have shown an interest in the phenomenon, with some even seeing a higher power at work.

Greek mythology tells the classic tale of serendipity: asked to find goddess Demeter hiding in a cave, Pan, an avid hunter, prefers to roam the forests of Arkadia in search of game -- where he unwittingly falls upon Demeter.

In 1754, English philosopher Horace Walpole coined the word serendipity, forming it from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip (a former name for Sri Lanka) whose heroes were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.

The absent-minded professor

Among the fortuitous discoveries that changed the world, perhaps the best known example is that of Christopher Columbus, who thought he had found the western route to East Asia when he discovered, for Europeans, the Americas.

Other examples fill science books.

In 1895, Germanys Wilhelm Roentgen was studying the phenomena accompanying the passage of an electric current through a gas at extremely low pressure.

By accident, he says, he found that the rays penetrated black paper. Not knowing exactly what it was, he called it an X-ray. He was rewarded with the first Nobel physics prize awarded in 1901.

In 1928 in London, Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming had returned from vacation and was cleaning bowls in his lab where bacteria cultures had been growing.

He noticed fungus mould had begun to grow in a bowl of staphylococcus culture -- and the mould had created a bacteria-free circle around itself.

Fleming named the active substance in the mould penicillin, after the Penicillium mould. But, frustrated at the laborious effort to purify the mould and doubtful it would work in humans, his work ended there.

It took another bit of serendipity to turn penicillin into the worlds first antibiotic. In 1938, exiled German-born Jewish biochemist Ernst Chain stumbled upon Flemings published study while flicking through a medical journal. He painstakingly isolated penicillin and successfully tested it on lab mice and then on human volunteers.

Fleming and Chain shared the 1945 Nobel Prize for Medicine with Howard Florey, who helped scale up penicillin production, creating a lifesaver.

Similar chance findings led to the discoveries of the microwave oven, DNA structure, Viagra (discovered when researching angina), the Post-it, and much more.

Pek Van Andel has established three categories of serendipity:

-- pseudo-serendipity (Fleming finds what he is looking for, albeit by chance);

-- positive serendipity (Roentgen finds something hes not looking for, and confirms it through further study); and

-- negative serendipity (Columbus finds something hes not looking for... and the discovery is not studied further by the discoverer.)

For Mark de Rond, a University of Cambridge ethnographer who has written on the subject, serendipity is routinely but mistakenly used as synonymous with chance events, luck or providence.

Rather, serendipity results from identifying matching pairs of events that are put to practical or strategic use.

It follows that human agency, and not probability, is properly the focus of attention.

The common factor in serendipitous scientific discoveries is that they were all made by individuals able to see bridges where others saw holes.
A 22-year-old woman is under investigation for manslaughter after German police found a suitcase in her apartment with a newborn baby girl inside along with the skeleton of a second infant, Hannover prosecutors said Friday.

A 19-year-old man living with the woman in the northern city discovered the case on Thursday and reported it to police. Authorities rushed the newborn to the hospital, and she is now in stable condition.

Hannover prosecutors spokesperson Kathrin Soefker told The Associated Press investigators are now trying to determine who the father of the babies is, and an autopsy is being done to determine the cause of death of the second infant.

The woman, whose name wasnt released in line with German privacy laws, has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter.

Soefker would not say whether she had made any statements to investigators.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the possibility of Pakistans nuclear weapons falling into the hands of jihadis, which she said was a threatening scenario, according to a media report.

Pakistan is running full speed to develop tactical nukes in their continuing hostility with India, Clinton told a close door fundraiser in Virginia in February, The New York Times reported, citing a 50-minute audio hacked from the Democratic Partys computers.

But we live in fear that theyre going to have a coup, that jihadists are going to take over the government, theyre going to get access to nuclear weapons, and youll have suicide nuclear bombers. So, this could not be a more threatening scenario, the daily quoted Clinton as saying in the audio that appeared on The Washington Free Beacon website.

Responding to a question on modernisation of nuclear weapons during the fund raiser, Clinton went beyond the question to warn of an emerging nuclear arms race, naming Russia and China as well as Pakistan and India, the daily said.

This is one of the most dangerous developments imaginable, Clinton said.

Such remarks from the former secretary of state gains significance in view of an interview of Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif to the local TV channel in which he threatened to unleash nukes against India.

If our safety is threatened, we will annihilate them (India), Asif had said.

The United States appears to have taken a strong note of Asifs recent statements on use of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear capable states have the responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities, a state department official told PTI when asked about the statements being made by the Pakistani leader.

Earlier, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had said while India has generally shown responsible behaviour with nuclear technology, China conducts itself professionally, nuclear weapons in Pakistan are entangled in history of tensions.

Meanwhile, in an opinion piece titled Consequences of Pakistani Terrorism: Raids signal that India wont tolerate more attacks in Kashmir, The Wall Street Journal warned that Pakistan increasingly risks becoming a pariah state.

It said if Pakistan wants to prevent an escalation of violence it needs to shut down the terror groups it continues to support and start with Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two major jihadist groups that operate openly in the country.

Both groups are supported by its military despite being on United Nations lists of terrorist organizations, the daily said in the hard-hitting opinion piece, a day after India carried out surgical strikes on terror launchpads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The WSJ noted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently offered closer economic and diplomatic ties to Pakistan as long as it stops supporting terrorism.

Pakistan, it argued, needs a new vision centered on improving the lives of its people.
You feel it every month. Youre paying more  but getting less. And nowhere is this more evident than with health insurance coverage.

It seems like hardly a day goes by without another devastating headline showing the truth about the so-called Affordable Care Act.

Most recently, Nevadans have learned (again) that their costs are on the rise. Premiums and deductibles are sharply increasing, pushing affordable health care even further out of reach. Simultaneously, our choices are becoming limited.

This year, those purchasing individual policies on Nevada Health Link, the state exchange, paid 8.7 percent more for premiums, on average. Even policies off the exchange were affected, with premiums rising by an average of nearly 10 percent.

Next years premium increases promise to be the worst yet. Roughly 240,000 Nevadans with individual or small-group policies purchased on the exchange will pay higher monthly premiums. Those with individual policies can expect on average to pay 15 percent more.

If it were just premiums going up, that would be bad enough, yet deductibles have also risen sharply every year since Obamacare came into effect. Between 2015 and 2016, the average deductible for exchange plans rose over 13 percent, with the increases even higher for the lowest cost Bronze plans.

On top of that, plans purchased on the exchange increasingly have narrow networks, meaning that many doctors wont accept them. Comprehensive Cancer Centers, one of Nevadas biggest oncology clinics, stopped accepting exchange insurance plans altogether in 2014. According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, nearly half of Nevada exchange plans in 2014 were classified as having narrow networks.

Speaking of limited choices, Nevadans are finding they have fewer insurers from which to choose.

You may have options if you live in an area such as Clark County, but the majority of Nevada counties only have one insurer on their exchange. If you live in these counties and dont like the prices you see, youre out of luck. It doesnt help that even the government-backed insurance provider, Nevada Health Co-Op, ceased operations altogether, even though it was supposed to prove that Obamacare could work. This left many of its customers with unpaid medical bills and looking for new plans from an increasingly small list.

The bottom line is that Obamacare has been one harm after another, leaving tens of thousands of Nevadans facing higher costs and fewer choices.

So how can Nevadans protect themselves from Obamacare?

Simple: Dont vote for politicians who support it. That means opposing Catherine Cortez Masto.

Cortez Masto is running to replace Harry Reid in the U.S. Senate. But Reid was Senate Majority Leader when he worked with Speaker Pelosi and President Obama to advance Obamacare, despite the clear opposition of the American people. If elected, she would continue to stand by the law.

Dont take my word for it  take hers. She called it good law and last year said she would have voted for it. When she was attorney general she refused to join a lawsuit challenging Obamacare with her counterparts in over a dozen states.

Supporters of Obamacare and those who held out hope for the law to function said we simply needed time for it to work. But its been six years  and the verdict is in.

Nevadans have suffered too much under Obamacare to elect someone who, amid the laws real devastation, blindly supports it. Catherine Cortez Masto will protect the failing law, rather than protect Nevadans from its ever-increasing damage.
After a couple of fallow years, India and Canada have set the stage to reinvigorate negotiations on two long-pending bilateral agreements aimed at boosting trade and investment.

Indias minister of state for commerce and industry Nirmala Sitharaman held a lengthy meeting with Canadian minister of international trade Chrystia Freeland in Toronto and those discussions focused on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement or CEPA and the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement or FIPA.

Sitharaman is the first minister from the Modi government to visit Canada since the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau assumed charge in Ottawa last November. But there will be added momentum to the process as finance minister Arun Jaitley is scheduled to hold a series of meetings in Toronto during a visit in early October.

As Freeland said during a joint interaction with the media: We are really working now in an intense level and at the level of specifics, and a measure of the seriousness of our engagement is the fact we are having two such senior Indian economic ministers paying back-to-back visits to Canada.

Sitharaman expressed the wish that the agreements may be concluded at the earliest, as she said, We have given a clear mandate to our chief negotiators to get into detailed working and wipe out or iron out any differences that may exist or persist.

Freeland pointed out she had been given a clear mandate by Trudeau to regard India as a priority country for Canada. As part of that effort, she had asked Canadian trade negotiators to travel to India this spring to reactivate the negotiations, which they did, she said.

While bilateral merchandise trade between the two countries increased by nearly 30% over the figure for 2014, to clock in at CA $8.3 billion in 2016, two-way investment flows totalled more than $4 billion at the end of 2015.

CEPA was expected to be signed by the end of 2013 and the two governments had hoped it would help boost bilateral trade to $15 billion by 2015. That never came to pass, partly as governments in both India and Canada changed in 2014 and 2015.

While the two ministers had met on the sidelines of international groupings such as OECD and WTO, this was a structured dialogue, which, Freeland said, was not a protocol meeting but a practical working meeting.

Sitharaman said it allowed both ministers to see where the little gaps are that should be filled up. Sooner rather than later, we should be able to conclude both the agreements.

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India will deploy the recently bought Rafale combat jets capable of carrying tactical nuclear warheads near disputed regions with Pakistan and China as New Delhi continues to be the largest arms buyer in the world, the Chinese state media predicted on Friday.

The jets are capable of carrying tactical nuclear warheads, which means Indias nuclear deterrence capability will be enhanced, an article published in nationalistic Global Times tabloid said.

India recently signed a deal to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from France for close to 7.8 billion euros ($8.7 billion). The delivery of the jets, which experts say will allow the air force to strike targets in Pakistan and China from within Indian territory, will begin after three years.

The deal is crucial for the Indian Air Force that is grappling with a dwindling fighter fleet.The IAF has 33 fighter squadrons, each consisting of 18 planes. It requires 45 combat units to counter a combined threat from China and Pakistan.

The Global Times article added Chinas neighbours, including India, are hyping the so-called China threat and have gone on an arms purchasing spree - a move that has increased the import of Western-made weapons into Asia.

The report came against the backdrop of Indias strikes on terror launchpads across the Line of Control, Indias de-facto border with Pakistan. India has said the strikes on Thursday inflicted significant casualties on terrorists preparing to launch attacks in India.

Pakistan, Beijings all-weather ally, has denied that Indian troops had carried out surgical strikes across the Line of Control, saying it had responded to cross-border fire from the Indian side that killed two soldiers and injured nine more.

The Global Times article, titled Asia arms imports on the rise as India buys new jets, is an indication that both the government and strategic circles in China - even if they were surprised at the Indian operations - are keeping a close watch on developments in the region, especially the escalating tension between India and Pakistan.

Chinas only border, if it can be called that, with Pakistan is along the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, which is claimed by New Delhi as an integral part of India.

Last week, India signed an inter-governmental agreement with France in New Delhi for the purchase of 36 Rafale jet fighters in flyaway condition for $8.82 billion from French company Dassault. The jets can carry tactical nuclear warheads, and this means Indias nuclear deterrence capability will be greatly improved, it said.

Quoting a Shenzhen television report, the newspaper then wrote: India will deploy its new French-made fighters in the disputed areas bordering Pakistan and China.

The article emphasised Indias focus on building its military power, possibly indicating that both Beijing and Islamabad should be wary.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), India is the largest arms importer in the world. India is rapidly expanding its military capabilities, spending an estimated $100 billion on new defense systems since Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014, the article said.

Zhao Gancheng, director of South Asia Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told the newspaper: India also wants to purchase the Rafale technology from Dassault but France refused, meaning France has no intention to help India promote its military industrial system.

Song Zhongping, a Beijing-based military expert, told the Global Times: The majority of Asian states dont have a comprehensive and developed military industry, but they have good economic bases, so they are willing to purchase security from the West rather than spending more time and money to develop their own systems.

Many of Chinas neighbours are also on the list of top 10 importers, such as Vietnam, South Korea and India.

Due to the South China Sea dispute and the increasing power of the Chinese navy, countries like Vietnam and the Philippines are very concerned, but the US is not helping China solve the problem peacefully, Song said.
A man has been jailed for nine months after calling Myanmars President crazy in a Facebook post, his wife said Friday, in the latest use of a junta-era defamation law under the new civilian government.

Aung Win Hlaing was convicted under Myanmars telecommunications law for calling President Htin Kyaw an idiot and crazy in online posts, his wife Hnin Hnin Win told AFP.

He was sentenced to nine months on 23 September, Hnin Hnin Win said, adding the case was brought by a local member of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), the party led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

One of the NLDs people complained about him to the court... Now he is in Taung Kalay prison in Karen state, she said.

Her husband wrote the comments after a presidential order shut down a committee on which he worked, she added.

An NLD MP from the Karen regional parliament, Thant Zin Aung, confirmed a local member from the party had brought the case, but emphasised it was in a private capacity.

AFP was unable to reach local police or court officials for comment.

While many freedoms have flourished since Myanmars army started rolling back its power in 2011, activists say authoritarian legislation is still being used to silence criticism of the government.

The telecommunications law was passed in 2013 as part of a push by the former army-backed transitional government to open the sector to foreign investment.

But the broadly worded law, which bans defaming people through any telecommunications network, was also used frequently by the former regime to punish critics.

Despite sky-high hopes Suu Kyis government will usher in a new era of free expression, several people have been prosecuted for defamation since her party took over in late March after winning the first democratic elections in a generation.

In July a local official in central Magway region was charged with defamation for referring to Suu Kyi with a slur on Facebook.

Last month a Myanmar actor was sentenced to nearly three years for scribbling curse-laden insults about the army across his car.
Nepal has asked Pakistan to take the initiative to hold the Saarc Summit as scheduled after four members of the grouping, including India, announced they would skip the meet in Islamabad.

In its second statement on the issue after India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan pulled out of the summit, Nepals foreign ministry put the ball in Pakistans court. Nepal is the current chair of the eight-member regional grouping.

The indefinite postponement of the summit would not be in the interest of any country and as a chair, Nepal expected that the host nation would take necessary initiative to host the summit on time, the statement said. It added Nepal is ready to play its role.

According to the charter of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, all decisions must be made with unanimity. The decision by four members to skip the summit has set the stage for its postponement or cancellation.

It is clear that the summit cannot take place even if one member notifies of its inability to attend the event, the statement said.

Nepal is reportedly under pressure to toe the Indian line but it has adopted a wait-and-watch attitude as it maintains a delicate balance.

Another member, Sri Lanka, too has concluded the environment is not conducive to holding the summit but officials said Nepal had not received any official communication from Colombo in this respect.

India announced its decision to pull out of the summit following a sharp escalation in tensions with Pakistan. The three other countries said they would not attend the summit because of concerns over terrorism and interference in their internal affairs by one country - a reference to Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Rishi Raj Adhikari, foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, has said Nepal opposes all forms of terrorism.

Speaking in a function in Kathmandu on Friday, he said, In general and in principle, we are against all kinds of international terrorism.

It is clear that one countrys inability to participate in the (Saarc) summit means it is postponed. So it cannot be imagined...without India.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will attend the funeral of Israeli ex-president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, Palestinian officials said on Thursday, in what will be a rare visit to Jerusalem.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, several Palestinian officials confirmed his participation at Fridays funeral. An Israeli defence ministry unit also said Abbas had asked to coordinate his participation.

He will join leaders from across the world at the funeral, including US President Barack Obama.

Though many Palestinians denounced Peres as a war criminal following his death, Abbas hailed him as a brave partner for peace and sent his family condolences.

Abbass Fatah party dominates the Palestinian Authority, which is in power in the West Bank.

Officials for Fatahs rival Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip, have welcomed Peress death and called him one of the last Israeli founders of occupation.

Abbass attendance at the funeral comes with peace efforts at a complete standstill since April 2014.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for direct negotiations with Abbas, but the Palestinians have pursued an international strategy, saying years of talks with the Israelis have not ended the occupation of the West Bank.

Peres won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for his role in negotiating the Oslo accords, which envisioned an independent Palestinian state.

He died on Wednesday at age 93 after a major stroke.

World leaders to attend funeral

World leaders from US President Barack Obama to Prince Charles are expected in Israel on Friday for the funeral.

Security forces are on high alert at Jerusalems Mount Herzl national cemetery, with roads closed and thousands of officers deployed.

Some 70 countries will be represented, with the range of leaders illustrating the respect Peres gained over the years in his transformation from hawk to committed peace advocate.

His death on Wednesday at the age of 93 led to an outpouring of tributes worldwide for Israels last remaining founding father.

An estimated 30,000 people filed past his coffin as he lay in state outside parliament in Jerusalem on Thursday.

Former US president Bill Clinton was among those who paid last respects there, appearing moved as he stood in silence before the coffin.

Clinton had helped usher in the Oslo peace accords of the 1990s, which resulted in the Nobel Peace Prize for Peres.

After Peress death, he called him a genius with a big heart.

Obama is expected to arrive on Friday morning and depart after the ceremony.

Around 8,000 police were being deployed for the commemorations.

We are dealing with an operation on an unprecedented scale, said police chief Roni Alsheikh.

The last time such an event was held in Israel was the 1995 funeral for Rabin, Peress rival in the Labour party but partner in negotiating the Oslo accords.

Peres will be buried next to Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish extremist opposed to the accords.
Israeli and Palestinian leaders shook hands during a brief chat and US President Barack Obama gently reminded them of the unfinished business of peace at the funeral Friday of Shimon Peres, the last of a generation of Israels founding fathers.

But there was no indication that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbass rare visit to Jerusalem and the amiable words he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged would lead to any movement in long-stalled peacemaking.

Peres, a former president and prime minister who died on Wednesday at the age of 93, shared a Nobel Prize for the interim land-for-peace accords he helped reach with the Palestinians as Israels foreign minister in the 1990s.

Long-hailed abroad and by supporters in Israel as a visionary, Peres was seen by his critics as an overly optimistic dreamer in the harsh realities of the Middle East.

I know from my conversations with him, his pursuit of peace was never naive, Obama said in his eulogy of Peres, who did much in the early part of his 70 years in public life to build up Israels powerful military and nuclear weapons capabilities.

With divisions deep over Jewish settlement in Israeli-occupied territory that Palestinians seek for a state, as well as other issues, U.S.-sponsored negotiations on a final agreement between the two sides have been frozen since 2014.

Netanyahu and Abbas have not held face-to-face talks since 2010. Abbas opted to attend Peress funeral, making the short drive from nearby Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, through Israeli military checkpoints.

Long time, long time, Abbas told Netanyahu and the prime ministers wife Sara, after shaking his hand before the start of the ceremony held in the Great Leaders of the Nation section of Mount Herzl cemetery, overlooking a forested valley.

Welcoming Abbas, as participants recorded the encounter on their mobile phones, Netanyahu said of the Palestinian leaders attendance: Its something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people and on behalf of us.

In Israel for just a few hours to pay tribute to Peres, Obama said in the eulogy that Abbass presence here is a gesture and a reminder of the unfinished business of peace. He was the only speaker to acknowledge Abbass presence.

In Gaza, ruled by the Islamist group Hamas, hundreds of Palestinians rallied after Friday prayers condemning the participation of Palestinian and Arab leaders in the funeral.

Front row

Abbas was given a front-row seat between European Council President Donald Tusk and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Obama briefly greeted the Palestinian leader with a kiss on each cheek before walking down the line to stand next to Netanyahu.

Even in the face of terrorist attacks, even after repeated disappointments at the negotiation table, (Peres) insisted that as human beings, Palestinians must be seen as equal in dignity to Jews and must therefore be equal in self-determination, Obama said in his address.

US officials have held open the possibility of Obama making another formal effort to get peace negotiations back on the agenda before he leaves office in January, possibly via a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Netanyahu recalled in his eulogy that he had once argued with Peres, a former leader of the centre-left Labour Party, about what was more important for Israel - peace or security.

Shimon, you said, Bibi: the best security is peace. And I said, without security there can be no peace.

And you know what our surprise conclusion was? We are both right... The goal is not power. Power is the vehicle. The goal is existence and co-existence, Netanyahu said.

Peres, who suffered a stroke two weeks ago, was buried in a Jewish religious ceremony in a plot between two other former prime ministers, Yitzhak Rabin and Yitzhak Shamir. Rabin was assassinated by an ultranationalist Israeli in 1995 over the interim peace deals struck with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Gone too soon, one of Peress two sons, Yoni, quoted his father as telling him when asked what he wanted as his epitaph.

Amos Oz, the celebrated Israeli author and peace campaigner who was a long-time friend of Peres, said in his eulogy it was time to create a Palestinian state alongside Israel. We must split this house into two apartments, Oz said. Where are the brave and wise leaders who will continue his legacy?

The rulers of Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel, in 1979 and 1994, were not in attendance. But the Egyptian foreign minister came and King Abdullah of Jordan sent a telegram of condolences.

Britains Prince Charles, French President Francois Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former British leaders David Cameron and Tony Blair also were at the funeral.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte raised the rhetoric over his bloody anti-crime war to a new level Friday, comparing it to Hitler and the Holocaust and saying he would be happy to slaughter 3 million addicts.

Duterte issued his latest threat against drug dealers and users early Friday on returning to his hometown in southern Davao city after visiting Vietnam, where he discussed his anti-drug campaign with Vietnamese leaders and ways for their governments to fight transnational crimes, including illegal drugs.

Duterte has said his public death threats against drug suspects are designed to scare them into stop selling drugs and to discourage would-be users. But his latest remarks took that crime-busting approach to a different level.

Hitler massacred 3 million Jews ... theres 3 million drug addicts. There are. Id be happy to slaughter them, Duterte said, referring to a Philippine government estimate of the number of drug addicts in the country. Historians say that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis under Hitler before and during World War II.

During the presidential election campaign earlier this year and during the three months he had held office, the tough-talking Duterte has threatened to drown drug suspects to fatten the fish in Manila Bay. He also threatened to execute drug traffickers by hanging  because he didnt want to waste electricity on them  until their heads were severed from their bodies.

While Hitler victims were innocent people, Duterte said his targets are all criminals and that getting rid of them would finish the (drug) problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition.

The comparisons with Hitler were criticized by Phil Robertson, the Asia deputy director for Human Rights Watch, who said it was baffling why anyone would want to compare themselves to one of the largest mass murderers in human history.

Robertson said that in todays context, Hitler would be accused of crimes against humanity, charges that often end up at the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

Is that what Duterte wants? Does he want to be sent to the international criminal court, because hes working his way there, Robertson said.

Dutertes campaign promise to end corruption and crimes, especially illegal drugs, within six months of taking office on June 30 carried him to an overwhelming victory in the presidential election.

And since he won the election in May, more than 3,000 suspected drug dealers and users have been killed and nearly 700,000 others have surrendered in his crackdown, but he has asked for a six-month extension to finish the job.

His supporters and many Filipinos exasperated with widespread crime have welcomed his tough approach, but a growing number of critics, including UN officials, the European Union and the United States, have voiced concerns over the widespread killings and human rights violations.

He reacted Friday by calling critics from the European Union a group of idiots in the purest form.

Duterte lashed out at the US, his countrys longtime treaty ally, and the E.U. for finding fault with his methods, saying European countries were hypocrites for not doing enough to help the large numbers of refugees fleeing from the violence in the Middle East.

There are migrants escaping from the Middle East. You allow them to rot and then youre worried about the deaths of about 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 (people in the Philippines).
A team of explorers say they have discovered the worlds deepest underwater cave, 404 metres (1,325 feet) down, near the eastern Czech town of Hranice.

Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski told The Associated Press Friday he felt like a Columbus of the 21th century to have made the discovery.

Starnawski, 48, found the cave Tuesday in the flooded limestone Hranice Abyss, which he has explored since 1998. He scuba dived to a narrow slot at 200 metres depth and let through a remotely-operated underwater robot, or ROV, that went to the depth of 404 metres.

In 2015, Starnawski himself passed through the slot and went to 265 metres depth, realising that was still far from the bottom and that the cavity was widening.

Speaking on the phone from his home in Krakow, southern Poland, he said that the discovery makes Hranice Abyss the worlds deepest known underwater cave, beating the previous record-holder, Italys Pozzo del Merro flooded sinkhole, by 12 metres (39 feet)

Diving in the cave is a challenge because of muddy areas and cold water of some 7 degrees Celsius (44.6 F), as well as a mineral composition that damages the equipment and hurts any exposed skin, he said.

But that is the only price to be paid for this discovery and it was worth paying, he said.

On Saturday he will dive to 200 meters to bring back the robot though the narrow passage. The device was specially made for the expedition by a Polish firm, GRALmarine.

He said the National Geographic, which first reported the discovery , covered some 20,000 euros ($22,440) of the cost for the project.
A Syrian opposition monitoring group that tracks Syrias civil war says a year of Russian airstrikes have killed more than 9,000 people in the war-torn country.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Friday said the dead include civilians and fighters, among them rebel groups as well as militants from the Islamic State group and an al-Qaida-linked faction.

Read | US close to suspending Syria talks with Russia as Aleppo battle rages on

On September 30 last year, Russia began an air campaign backing forces of the Syrian President Bashar Assad and turning the balance of power in his favour.

Opposition activists have blamed Russia for the recent air campaign against rebel-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo city that has killed more than 200 civilians in the past two weeks and demolished buildings.

The Observatory says that the airstrikes have killed 9,364 people over the past year.

Also read | Syria ceasefire: Who are the forces involved?
A year of Russian airstrikes on areas outside government control in Syria have killed more than 9,000 people, displaced tens of thousands and caused wide destruction, an opposition monitoring group said Friday.

On Sept. 30 last year, Russia began an air campaign backing the ground forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, turning the balance of power in his favor in many areas  including the northern province of Aleppo and the suburbs of the capital Damascus.

Opposition activists have blamed Russia as being responsible for most of the recent airstrikes against rebel-held neighborhoods of east Aleppo city that killed more than 320 civilians in the past two weeks and demolished many buildings.

A Syrian opposition monitoring group that tracks Syrias civil war said a year of Russian airstrikes have killed 9,364 people in the war-torn country.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead include 3,804 civilians, including 906 children. The dead also include 2,746 members of the Islamic State group and 2,814 from other rebel and militant groups, including al-Qaidas affiliate in Syria.

Russia on Friday is marking one year since it launched its air campaign in Syria in support of Assad. In light of that, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a warning to Russians abroad about possible provocations, urging them to exercise caution.

Also Friday, Syrias military and the Observatory said government forces captured a hospital in the northern city of Aleppo a day after regaining control of a Palestinian refugee camp in the city.

The Syrian military said government forces are strengthening their positions in the Handarat refugee camp and took control on Friday of the Kindi hospital, an unused structure that was damaged in years of war.

The Observatory said the hospital is on the northern edge of the city just 2 kilometers (1.3 miles) from a major intersection north of Aleppo known as the Gondol roundabout.

State TV also reported intense fighting in the central Suleiman al-Halaby area where it said troops captured several buildings. The area is home to a main water stations that supplies Aleppo, Syrias largest city and once commercial center, with drinking water.

The Local Coordination Committees, another monitoring group said eight soldiers were killed in clashes with rebels near the water station.

Syrian government forces have been on the offensive in Aleppo for days under the cover of intense airstrikes. State news agency SANA said rebels shelled the government-held part of Aleppo killing four and wounding 10.

The U.N. health agency decried an unfathomable situation for medical care in rebel-held parts of Aleppo, pleading for a halt to the violence that has prevented aid and support from entering.

Dr. Rick Brennan, emergency risk director for the World Health Organization, said the security situation is too dangerous for outside medical personnel to enter rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

Speaking Friday to reporters in Geneva, Brennan appealed for permission to evacuate the sick and injured. He said 846 people have been wounded, including 261 children, in the last couple of weeks.

He said fewer than 30 doctors doing work thats beyond heroic are now in eastern Aleppo, where at least 250,000 people live under siege.
Donald Trump is warning voters that a Hillary Clinton victory would bring her husbands sex scandal back to the White House.

Injecting Clintons marital troubles into the 2016 campaign was Trumps latest effort to bounce back from Monday nights debate performance, which has been widely panned as lackluster. In contrast, Clinton has delivered a mostly positive message in the days since her debate performance re-energized her candidacy.

Clinton is stressing that her plans will solve the kind of kitchen-sink problems facing American families  the high cost of childcare, mounting student debt and unpaid family leave. Trump, though promising lower taxes and jobs, jobs, jobs, has intensified the dire warnings and personal attacks that have defined his outsider presidential bid.

He took it a step further on Thursday.

The American people have had it with years and decades of Clinton corruption and scandal. Corruption and scandal, Trump charged. An impeachment for lying. An impeachment for lying. Remember that? Impeach.

That was a reference to former President Bill Clinton. After an investigation by an independent counsel, the House approved formal impeachment charges in late 1998 in connection with Clintons testimony about his affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, and other matters. He was acquitted of the charges by the Senate.

And on Friday morning, the billionaire real estate mogul renewed his harsh criticism of 1996 Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado, going on Twitter to say that she was My worst Miss U. In a verified tweet, he maintained that crooked Hillary was duped. He went on to say that Clinton floated her as an angel without checking her past, which is terrible. In another tweet, he questioned whether Clinton had helped Machado to become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?

Using Alicia M. in the debate as a paragon of virtue just shows that Crooked Hillary suffers from BAD JUDGEMENT! Hillary was set up by a con, he tweeted.

Trumps team said he had been prepared to bring up the Lewinsky scandal during Monday nights debate but decided otherwise because the Clintons daughter, Chelsea, was in the room. Trump did not bring up Lewinsky by name on Thursday.

Shortly before Trumps remarks, Clinton offered a more optimistic message to supporters in Iowas capital city.

I want this election to be about something, not just against somebody, she said in Des Moines.

Asked about the possibility that Trump would raise her husbands infidelities, Clinton said: He can run his campaign however he chooses. Thats up to him. Im going to keep talking about the stakes in this election.

Her aides argue that a summer barrage of attack ads against Trump, along with the candidates own controversial statements, has driven his negative ratings to historic levels, leaving them little ability to do more. That leaves her the choice of trying to win over undecided voters and Republicans concerned about Trump by emphasizing a positive vision for America.

Indeed, at her Des Moines rally, Clinton offered a hopeful message to contrast with the doom-and-gloom themes that have been staples of Trumps campaign. As she often does, she recounted her own background of working on childrens issues and her fathers struggles as a small businessman.

I know so much of this campaign has been about, you know, whatever my opponent said and who he attacked and who he denigrates  and the list is long, Clinton said. But its not about that, its about you. Its about your families and your future, and each of us should be telling you what we intend to do in the job.

With Election Day less than six weeks away, early voting already is underway in Iowa and some other states. Trump and Clinton remain locked in a tight contest.

Trump has included hopeful lines in his own remarks. But the New York businessman has not deviated far from his aggressive approach defined by insults that helped him win a crowded Republican primary election.

In recent days, Trump and his supporters have raised anew a number of deeply personal attacks against Clinton, questioning her role in her husbands infidelities and casting her as a corrupt tool of political donors and special interests. Trump has also assailed a 1996 Miss Universe pageant winner for her weight gain  an incident Clinton used in this weeks debate to portray Trump as sexist.

The Clintons are the sordid past. We will be the bright and very clean future, Trump declared in New Hampshire.

Trump and Clinton meet again on the debate stage in 10 days, this time in St. Louis.

In a nod to the concerns expressed by some Trump allies that he was insufficiently prepared for the first faceoff, Trumps campaign and the Republican National Committee released a survey intended to engage supporters online. It asks whether he should use the second debate to criticize Clinton for her policies on terrorism, economics and trade. Absent is any inquiry about whether Trump should bring up her husbands infidelities.

In another reminder of how far this years campaign has veered into baffling territory, third-party candidate Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, was being ridiculed after he was unable, in a television appearance, to name a single world leader he admired. The awkward moment drew immediate comparisons  including by Johnson himself  to his Aleppo moment earlier this month when he didnt recognize the besieged city in Syria.

Perhaps no state knows Clinton better than Iowa, where she campaigned on Thursday, but she has consistently struggled to connect.

Her campaign is banking on the states in-person early voting, which started on Thursday, reflecting the premium that Democrats are placing this year on trying to get their voters to turn out long before Nov. 8. Democrats are concerned that a lack of enthusiasm will keep their voters from showing up in the same numbers that led to Barack Obamas victories in the past two elections.
Italian police have recovered two paintings by the Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh that were stolen in Amsterdam 14 years ago, as part of an operation against the Camorra mafia group that operates around Naples.

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam said the paintings had been removed from their frames but appear to have suffered only slight damage. It was not immediately clear when they would be returned to the museum, which is the largest repository of Van Goghs work.

The paintings, Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen (1884/5) and View of the Sea at Scheveningen (1882), are both from relatively early in Van Goghs short, tempestuous career.

A Picture released by the Van Gogh Museum on September 30, 2016 shows the painting "The Beach At Scheveningen During A Storm" by Vincent Van Gogh. (AFP)

Italian financial police seized assets worth tens of millions of euros from a Camorra group involved in international cocaine trafficking, according to a statement. They said the assets included the paintings, which were priceless.

Theyre safe, said Van Gogh Museum director Axel Rueger said in a statement. I no longer dared to hope that I could ever say that, after so many years.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi informed his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte about the police operation before the funeral in Jerusalem of former Israeli leader Shimon Peres, a source in Renzis office said.

A Picture released by the Van Gogh Museum on September 30, 2016 shows the painting "Congregation Leaving The Reformed Church of Neunen" by Vincent Van Gogh. (AFP)

In the 2002 heist, thieves used a ladder to climb onto the museums roof and break into the building, escaping by sliding down a rope.

Two men were later caught and convicted of the theft thanks in part to DNA evidence linking them to the scene. They were sentenced to 4 years and 4 years six months, respectively, but the paintings were not recovered.

The Scheveningen painting is one of only two sea scenes Van Gogh painted in the Netherlands, and an important example of Van Goghs earliest painting style, in which he already appeared rather unique, the museum said.

The museum said a patch of paint in the lower left corner had been chipped off.

The painting of the Nuenen congregation where Van Goghs father worked as minister was made for his mother and finished after his fathers death in 1885. It appears undamaged but further investigation is needed to determine both paintings exact condition and restoration needs, the museum said.
The United States is close to suspending talks with Russia on a ceasefire in Syria, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday, as the Kremlin vowed to press on with an assault on the city of Aleppo.

Moscow and Damascus launched a campaign to recapture the rebel-held sector of Syrias biggest city this month, abandoning a ceasefire a week after it took effect to embark on what could be the biggest battle of a nearly six-year war.

Syrian government forces made a significant advance, capturing the Handarat refugee camp a few kilometres (miles) north of the city. They had briefly seized it on Saturday, before losing it again in a rebel counter attack.

Rebel fighters have launched an advance of their own near the central city of Hama, where they said they made gains on Thursday.

The United States and European Union accuse Russia of torpedoing diplomacy to pursue military victory in Aleppo, and say Moscow and Damascus are targeting civilians, hospitals and aid workers to break the will of 250,000 people living under siege in the city.

The United States called the assault on Aleppo by Syria and Russia a gift to Islamic State on Thursday, saying it was sowing doom and would generate more recruits for the militant group.

Syrias UN Ambassador Bashar Jaafari rejected accusations that his government was killing civilians.

But US officials are searching for a tougher response to Russias decision to ignore the peace process and seek military victory on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad.

We are on the verge of suspending the discussion because it is irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place to be sitting there trying to take things seriously, Kerry told a public policy conference in Washington.

It is one of those moments where we are going to have to pursue other alternatives, he added.

Kerry spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday, the US State Department said but it did not announce a suspension of the diplomacy, suggesting Washington may give Moscow a little more time.

Recapturing Aleppo would be the biggest victory of the war for government forces, and a potential turning point in a conflict that until now most outside countries had said would never be won by force.

The multi-sided civil war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, made half the Syrian population homeless, and allowed much of the east of the country to fall into the hands of Islamic State jihadists who are enemies of all other sides.

EU condemns Aleppo massacre

EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini called the air strikes in Aleppo a massacre and said European governments were considering their response. Russia and the Syrian government say they are targeting only militants.

Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken told US lawmakers President Barack Obama had asked staff to look at how Washington might respond.

The president has asked all of the agencies to put forward options, some familiar, some new, that we are very actively reviewing, Blinken said, adding that officials would work through these in the days ahead.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, meanwhile, said Russia would continue the operation of its air force in support of the anti-terrorist activity of Syrias armed forces.

Peskov said Washington was to blame for the fighting, by failing to meet an obligation to separate moderate rebel fighters from those he called terrorists.

In general, we express regret at the rather non-constructive nature of the rhetoric voiced by Washington in the past days.

US officials say they are considering tougher responses to the Russian-backed Syrian government assault, including military options, although they have described the range of possible responses as limited and say risky measures like air strikes on Syrian targets or sending US jets to escort aid are unlikely.

Battle for Aleppo

Aleppo has been divided into government and opposition sectors for four years, and its rebel zone is now the only major urban area still in the hands of anti-Assad fighters supported by the West and Arab states. The government laid siege to it in July, cutting off those trapped inside from food and medicine.

The last week of bombing has killed hundreds of people and wounded many hundreds more, with no way to bring in medical supplies. There are only around 30 doctors inside the besieged zone, and eastern Aleppos two biggest hospitals were knocked out of service by air strikes or shelling on Wednesday.

Bouthaina Shaaban, an adviser to Assad, denied Syrian planes had bombed the hospitals, saying the question was insulting.

What is the interest of the Syrian government to bomb its own hospitals? she said on Australias ABC TV. This is not the first time that such an allegation is uttered and then proven to be absolutely false.

Russia says the only way to defeat Islamic State is to support Assad. Washington says the Syrian president has too much blood on his hands and must leave power.

Washington is bombing Islamic State in the east but has avoided direct participation in the civil war in the rest of the country, leaving the field open to Russia, which joined the war a year ago tipping the conflict in favour of its ally Assad.

Ferocity of assault

The ferocity of the assault on Aleppo is driving many of the Western-backed anti-Assad groups to cooperate more closely with jihadist fighters, the opposite of the strategy Washington had hoped to pursue, rebel officials told Reuters.

In Aleppo, rebels in the Free Syrian Army are sharing operational planning with Jaish al-Fatah, an alliance of Islamist groups that includes the former Syrian wing of al Qaeda.

Meanwhile, in nearby Hama province, FSA groups armed with US-made anti-tank missiles are taking part in a major offensive with the al Qaeda-inspired Jund al-Aqsa group.

The FSA rebels have deep ideological differences with the jihadists, and have even fought them at times, but say survival is the main consideration.

At a time when we are dying, it is not logical to first check if a group is classified as terrorist or not before cooperating with it, said a senior official in one of the Aleppo-based rebel factions. The only option you have is to go in this direction.
US lawmakers expressed doubts on Thursday about September 11 legislation they forced on President Barack Obama, saying the new law allowing lawsuits against Saudi Arabia could be narrowed to ease concerns about its effect on Americans abroad.

A day after a rare overwhelming rejection of a presidential veto, the first during Obamas eight years in the White House, the Republican leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives opened the door to fixing the law as they blamed the Democratic president for not consulting them adequately.

I do think it is worth further discussing, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, acknowledging that there could be potential consequences of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, known as JASTA.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Congress might have to fix the legislation to protect U.S. troops in particular.

Ryan did not give a time frame, but Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he thought JASTA could be addressed in Congress lame-duck session after the Nov. 8 election.

The law grants an exception to the legal principle of sovereign immunity in cases of terrorism on U.S. soil, clearing the way for lawsuits seeking damages from the Saudi government. Riyadh denies longstanding suspicions that it backed the hijackers who attacked the United States in 2001.

Sept. 11 families lobbied intensely for the bill, getting it passed by the House days before the 15th anniversary of the 2001 attacks earlier this month after years of effort.

We have to understand the political environment were in right now and the tremendous support the 9/11 victims have in the United States, said Robert Jordan, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh is one of Washingtons longest-standing and most important allies in the Middle East and part of a U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

SAUDI CONDEMNATION

The Saudis lobbied furiously against JASTA, and the Saudi foreign ministry condemned its passage in a statement on Thursday. The erosion of sovereign immunity will have a negative impact on all nations, including the United States, said the statement, which was carried on state news agency SPA.

Still, the new law is not expected to have a lasting effect on the two countries strategic relationship.

Saudi-U.S. ties have endured multiple times of deep outrage over 70 years, said Thomas Lippman of the Middle East Institute. The two countries need each other as much today as they did before the day before yesterday, he said.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest mocked lawmakers for shifting within minutes from overwhelmingly voting to override Obamas veto to wanting to change the law.

I think what weve seen in the United States Congress is a pretty classic case of rapid onset buyers remorse, Earnest told a White House briefing.

Corker said he had tried to work out a compromise with the White House, but Obama administration officials declined a meeting.

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, who championed JASTA in the Senate, said he was open to revisiting the legislation. Im willing to look at any proposal they make but not any that hurt the families, he said at a news conference.

He said he would oppose a suggestion that the measure be narrowed to only apply to the 2001 attacks on Washington and New York. You know what that does? It tells the Saudis to go ahead and do it again, and we wont punish you, Schumer said.

Corker said another suggestion was establishing an international tribunal so experts could determine whether there was culpability. He said the Saudis were been willing to work on a compromise, and denied they had threatened retaliation.

Trent Lott, a former Republican Senate Majority Leader now at a Washington law firm lobbying for the Saudis, said attorneys would look carefully at JASTAs language.

I do feel passionately this is a mistake for a variety of reasons, in terms of threats to troops, diplomats, sovereignty, theres serious problems here. Hopefully we can find a way to change the tenor of this, Lott said.
The United States warned on Thursday that it is on the brink of ending talks with Russia over the assault on Aleppo, where the United Nations says a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding unlike any witnessed so far in Syrias brutal five-year war.

Air strikes pounded Aleppo province while at least 11 civilians, including seven children, died during attacks on the city of Idlib, nearby Jarjanaz and central Hama province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

With no let-up in the military campaign, US Secretary of State John Kerry admitted that months of diplomacy to end the war had hit a dead-end.

I think we are on the verge of suspending the discussion because, you know, its irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place, to be sitting there, trying to take things seriously, he told a conference in the US capital.

US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned what they called barbarous Russian and Syrian regime air strikes on Aleppo during a phone call later on Thursday, the White House said.

The Syrian government and its ally Russia bear special responsibility for ending the fighting in Syria, the two leaders agreed, strongly condemning the strikes in eastern Aleppo, an area they said is populated with hundreds of thousands of civilians, half of whom are children.

But Russia said it would press ahead with the air war in support of the regime, warning that Washingtons refusal to work with Moscow on a settlement would be a gift to terrorists.

If Washingtons threats to halt cooperation become concrete decisions, then there is no longer any doubt that the rebels are under the White Houses protection and in the streets, terrorists will celebrate, Russian foreign ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said.

Russia and the United States have traded blame for last weeks collapse of a ceasefire deal that would have marked the first step in a new effort to end the war that has killed 300,000 people since 2011.

Aleppos descent into abyss

International alarm is growing over the crisis in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, where the Syrian army launched an offensive a week ago to retake the city.

UN aid chief Stephen OBrien told the Security Council in New York that Aleppo is descending into a merciless abyss of a humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed so far in Syria.

More than 100,000 children remain trapped in east Aleppo, which has come under intense bombing since the Syrian army offensive began, he said.

The siege by Syrian government forces has made food scarce and fresh water in short supply, he added, and there are mounting reports of deaths from malnutrition, disease and poisoning by those scavenging for food.

US Ambassador Samantha Power described the escalation as the most savage week weve seen in an incredibly savage five-plus-year war, with more than 1,000 people killed by 1,700 air strikes on rebel-held east Aleppo alone.

France said it would push for a UN resolution to impose a ceasefire in Aleppo, but it remains unlikely that Russia would support such a measure.

Moscow maintains that a US-led coalition strike on a Syrian army base, on top of Washingtons failure to rein in opposition rebel fighters, led to the collapse of the truce.

Bombs are falling

Kerry said the United States would pursue other alternatives, barring some clear indication by the warring parties that they are prepared to consider how to approach this more effectively.

The UN envoy for Syria, meanwhile, said there was little prospect of an imminent restart of any negotiations to try to end the raging conflict as the violence continues.

At the moment, when bombs are falling all over, it is very difficult to justify resuming talks, Staffan de Mistura told AFP after meeting Pope Francis at the Vatican.

In a sign of the desperate plight facing residents of eastern Aleppo, the United Nations warned that hundreds of people probably need medical evacuation.

Two of the largest hospitals in the citys east were bombed on Wednesday in what UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described as a war crime.
KABUL:Notorious Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar called for peace as he appeared by video to sign a deal with President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday, marking a symbolic victory in Kabuls struggle to revive talks with the Taliban.

The deal paves the way for Hekmatyar, who heads the now largely dormant Hezb-i-Islami militant group but has been in hiding for years, to make a potential political comeback despite a history of war crimes.

But analysts have said it represents a practical success in Afghanistans 15-year bid to negotiate peace with militant groups, and comes as a boost for President Ashraf Ghani ahead of a development aid conference in Brussels next week. Now is the time for the Taliban to think about whether they want to continue the war or come for peace, Ghani said as he signed the deal at the presidential palace in Kabul.

Security was tight in the capital, with the road to the palace blocked. Chief executive Abdullah Abdullah, former president Hamid Karzai, delegates from Hezb-i-Islami and other politicians also attended the ceremony. Hekmatyar, derided widely as the butcher of Kabul, offered his congratulations to the government and all those Afghans who want peace.
WASHINGTON: The US Congress voted overwhelmingly to override a presidential veto, the first time for President Barack Obama, to allow families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia over its alleged support to the terrorists who carried out the attacks.

The senate passed it by a 97-1 vote on Wednesday, with the House of Representatives following up with a 348-77 decision later in the day, sending the bill back to Obama, who now has no choice but to sign it into law.

Overriding a presidential veto is something we dont take lightly, but it was important in this case that the families of the victims of 9/11 be allowed to pursue justice, even if that pursuit causes some diplomatic discomforts, Charles Schumer, the Democratic Senator from New York who co-authored the bill with Republican Senator John Cornyn from Texas, said in a statement.

Obama angrily denounced the outcome, saying lawmakers had been swayed to cast a political vote for legislation that set a dangerous precedent with implications they did not understand and never debated.

I think it was a mistake, and I understand why it happened, Obama said at a CNN town hallstyle meeting with military personnel in Fort Lee, Virginia. Its an example of why sometimes, you have to do whats hard, and frankly, I wish Congress here had done whats hard. I didnt expect it, because if youre perceived as voting against 9/11 families right before an election, not surprisingly, thats a hard vote for people to take. But it would have been the right thing to do.

The Obama administration had opposed the legislation arguing it would open up the US to similar legal action in other countries, and also that Saudi Arabia had long been an important ally in the region and a cornerstone of American policy there.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest called the override vote the single most embarrassing thing the United States Senate has done possibly since 1983, when Congress overrode President Ronald Reagans veto on a land transfer bill.

There was some disquiet even among lawmakers who had supported and voted for the legislation, and reports in US media stated that efforts were already under way to whittle down certain more troubling provisions of the law.

One proposal being considered was to narrow the scope of this law to only 9/11.

Saudi Arabias alleged role in the 9/11 attacks has long been a subject of speculation because 15 of the 19 terrorists were Saudi citizens. The recent release of 28 pages of the 9/11 commission report also confirmed, in a way, the suspicions. There was stony silence from Riyadh on Thursday on the congress move, but some Saudis bristled, saying the kingdom could curb business and security ties in response to an allys perceived affront.

The Saudi government financed an extensive lobbying campaign against the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act in the run-up to the vote, and warned it would undermine the principle of sovereign immunity. But Saudi officials stopped short of threatening any retaliation if the law was passed.
JERUSALEM: Israeli leaders, former US president Bill Clinton and crowds of mourners gathered outside parliament Thursday to pay last respects to Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, whose body was lying in state.

A major security operation was being put in place ahead of Fridays funeral, which is to be attended by leaders from across the world, including US President Barack Obama and Britains Prince Charles.

In a rare visit to Jerusalem, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas was also planning to attend, Palestinian officials told AFP. Peress death on Wednesday at age 93 after suffering a major stroke triggered an outpouring of grief and tributes that hailed the Israeli ex-presidents transformation from hawk to fervent peace advocate.

On Thursday morning, a solemn ceremony saw President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, parliament speaker Yuli Edelstein and opposition leader Isaac Herzog lay wreaths beside Peress flagdraped coffin at a plaza outside parliament. The ceremony was held in silence, with none of the leaders speaking. Later in the day, Clinton arrived in Israel and travelled directly to view Peress coffin, appearing moved as he stood silently before it.

Clinton had helped usher in the Oslo peace accords of the 1990s, which resulted in the Nobel prize for Peres. The plaza was opened to the public following the visit by the Israeli leaders, and thousands of mourners made their way into the grounds after passing through stringent security checks.
WASHINGTON: US First Lady Michelle Obama took a dig at Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, saying America needs an adult in the White House and not a person who is erratic and threatening.

When making life-or-death, war-or-peace decisions, a president just cannot pop off or lash out irrationally. No, we need an adult in the White House, I guarantee you, she said at a rally in support of Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia as she made a strong pitch for the 68-year-old Democratic presidential candidate.

Michelle, without mentioning Trump, 70, said the US needs someone who is compassionate.

Someone who will be a role model for our kids. Someone who is not just in this for themselves but for the good of this entire country - all of us. At the end of the day, the presidency does not change who you are, it reveals who you are and the same is true of a presidential campaign, she said.

US presidential campaigns, Michelle said, are very long nearly two and a half years, or half of one presidential term.

So if a candidate is erratic and threatening; if a candidate traffics in prejudice, fears and lies on the campaign trail; if a candidate thinks that not paying taxes makes you smart, or that it is good business when people lose their homes; if a candidate regularly and flippantly makes cruel and insulting comments about women, about how we look, how we act - well, sadly, that is who that candidate really is. That is the kind of president they will be, she said.

HILLARY AND SANDERS CAMPAIGN TOGETHER

Clinton shared a stage with former rival Senator Bernie Sanders on Wednesday to appeal for youth votes in the election.

Clinton told an audience at the University of New Hampshire that she would make college affordable if she wins the White House, the kind of promise that won Sanders many young supporters during the Democratic nominating contest. We should and we will make public colleges tuition-free for families earning less than $125,000 a year, Clinton said.
While digging through hard earth and excavating an old castle, the people on site did not expect to find anything other than rubble. And that's why when they found 10 ancient Roman coins, their first reaction was that it was a hoax and that someone planted it there. Not only was it the first Roman coins discovered in Japan, but also a baffling mystery because as far as history goes, there was no trade relations between Asia and the Roman Empire.

The team of archeologists from Uruma City's Board of Education were on site, excavating Katsuren castle, a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) world heritage site.

"I'd come to analyze artifacts like Japanese samurai armor that had been found there when I spotted the coins," researcher Toshio Tsukamoto told CNN. "I'd been on excavation sites in Egypt and Italy and had seen a lot of Roman coins before, so I recognized them immediately."

They brought the coins back to archeologist Hiroyuki Miyagi.

"At first I thought they were one-cent coins dropped by US soldiers," said Miyagi, as reported by ABC News. Miyagi originally thought that it was hoax because nowhere in history did it indicate the Japan had anything to do with the Roman Empire. But upon further examination using X-ray technology, it became increasingly clear that the bronze and copper coins were as real as can be and it originated in 300 to 400 A.D.

Katsuren castle rests on southern Okinawa. Other things that were discovered there included Japanese ceramics and Chinese coins, all of which can easily be explained by existing history.

"We don't think that there is a direct link between the Roman empire and Katsuren castle, but the discovery confirms how this region had trade relations with the rest of Asia," said spokesperson from Uruma City's Board of Education Masaki Yokou.

Ad baffling as the discovery was, archeologists are now scrambling to find anything that can shed light on how the coins ended in a faraway castle centuries ago, hoping to understand the story behind Katsuren castle.

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Actor Gong Yoo first mentioned about "Train to Busan 2" in his tweet. From then on, speculation about the cast arose including the enclosure of Song Jong-Ki.

After Gong tweeted in English about the sequel of "Train to Busan," calls for the second installment of the movie became viral. Many speculations arose about who will become the main cast for "Train to Busan 2."

The top hallyu star Song from "Descendants of the Sun" is mentioned as one potential candidate.

However, Song is recently busy filming the new film with veteran actor Hwang Jung-Min and So Ji-Sub, as TV Daily Korea reported.

The movie is a story of about 400 Joseon people who want escape from Hashima Island after they were captured by Japanese imperial force during invasion to Joseon. They were taken to the island as forced laborers in a coal mine where they would work until they died.

Hashima was called Battleship Island because its shape resembles a battleship. Song is cast as an independence group member Park Moo Young, who infiltrates the island to rescue a leader of the group. Hwang portrays the role of bandmaster who was deceived to be one of the laborers to protect his daughter.

So's character, the best fighter in the ancient Seoul, is Choi Chil Sung. "Battleship Island" is directed by Ryoo Seung-Wan. This is his second to work with Hwang after the movie "Veteran."

Meanwhile "Train to Busan" has already gained huge success in international market.

South China Morning Post reported that the movie has become the most watched Asian cinema of all time in Hong Kong. Within the first 34 days, it has grossed HK$66.3 million (US$ 8.5 million).

More than that, the movie has become the highest grossing zombie film in Hong Kong history, surpassing "World War Z. Therefore, it is reasonable that people expect the movie to have its sequel.

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Scientists discovered a hot and thick mass of complex molecules called a "stellar cocoon" in a close dwarf galaxy, the first spotted outside our galaxy.

The team of Japanese scientists used Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the world's largest radio telescope, to observe the star ST11 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). LMC is a midget satellite galaxy gravitationally bound to our own galaxy. ST11's emission lines showed a dense, concentrated region of molecular gas surrounding the star.

The "stellar cocoon" has a very different molecular structure than other objects in the Milky Way, owing to different star populations in the LMC.

Some common molecules, such as nitric oxide, formaldehyde, and sulfur dioxide were found in the chemical signatures along with organic compounds including methanol.

Takashi Shimonishi, an astronomer at Japan's Tohoku University and the lead author of the paper, said in a press release that the findings "suggest that the molecular compositions of the materials that form stars and planets are much more diverse than we expected."

The discovery will help scientists address prebiotic molecules formed in space. It will also bring up another interesting question - how a chemical variety of galaxies play into extragalactic life?

We are eager to find out about the answer to this question and to the many issues related to undiscovered secrets of the cosmos.

This research was presented in a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal on August 9, 2016, entitled "The Detection of a Hot Molecular Core in the Large Magellanic Cloud with ALMA."

The team is composed of Takashi Shimonishi (Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences & Astronomical Institute, Tohoku University, Japan), Takashi Onaka (Department of Astronomy, The University of Tokyo, Japan), Akiko Kawamura (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Japan) and Yuri Aikawa (Center for Computational Sciences, The University of Tsukuba, Japan)

ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning, and operation of ALMA.

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Republican nominee Donald Trump bashed Google and labelled the tech marvel to be biased in terms of illustrating the current political status quo and has laid blame on it for "suppressing" bad news of his rival, Hilary Clinton.

While shedding light on the poll numbers at a rally made in Wisconsin, Donald Trump casually alleged Google, the largest search engine, of orchestrating and maneuvering the search results in favor of his Democratic opponent, Hilary Clinton.

During the Sep. 28 rally at the Waukesha County Expo Centre, Trump said Google had a major role in shaping his political campaign.

"The Google poll had us leading Hillary by two points nationwide," said Trump.

"And that's despite the fact Google's search engine was suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton, how about that? How about that?"

As the presidential race is finally on the brink, the pressure is getting out of hands. He has openly accused Google of both strengthening and undermining his potential as the presidential candidate.

Trump maintained, after mentioning Google Polls that he was taking the lead at the Monday night's first Presidential address, "despite the fact that Google's search engine was suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton," claims Petra.

Executive chairman Eric Schmidt clearly maintained that the company's goal is to stay neutral and unbiased through all the political processes.

"Claims to the contrary simply misunderstand how Autocomplete works. Our Autocomplete algorithm will not show a predicted query that is offensive or disparaging when displayed in conjunction with a person's name. More generally, our autocomplete predictions are produced based on a number of factors including the popularity of search terms," said the statement.

This is not the first time Trump has been seen involved in accusing Google. He previously did so in June 2016. Google, however debunked it thoroughly, adding "Google Autocomplete does not favor any candidate or cause. Claims to the contrary simply misunderstand how Autocomplete works."

Google does not own a poll. However, Trump is referring to the Google Consumer Survey, conducted by the IJR (Independent Journal Review), which is not a scientific poll and does not in any way, reflects the candidates standing in the political domain.





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Sony Xperia has released the names of their devices that can adopt to Google's newest operating system Android 7.0 Nougat. This after Google pushed smartphone makers to make their devices available for the new Android update.

Many companies are working to bring up Android 7.0 Nougat on their devices. Japanese smartphone maker Sony has already come up with a list of devices that are ready for Nougat update.

"We've been working hard to bring this major update to as many of our devices as possible, as quickly as we can. We're really excited about the new Sony features & functionality and the improvements we've made to the user experience - and we'll be sharing more soon," said Sony in a statement.

The devices from Sony which are all set to receive Android 7.0 Nougat update are Xperia Z3+, Xperia Z4 Tablet, Xperia Z5, Xperia Z5 Compact, Xperia Z5 Premium, Xperia X, Xperia XA, Xperia XA Ultra, and Xperia X Performance smartphones.

As per PC Tablet, it is reported that Sony Xperia X performance will be the first handset to receive the Android 7.0 Nougat in October.

This will be followed by Xperia Z5, Xperia Z3+ and Xperia Z4 tablet in December, while Xperia XA and Xperia XA Ultra will receive the update in January 2017.

Though, Sony has prepared itself to bring-in Android 7.0 Nougat in its devices, other companies in the tech market are speeding up for the same.

Samsung Galaxy Note 5, Note 7, S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge Plus, S7, S7 Edge, HTC 10, and HTC One M9 will receive the Android 7.0 Nougat update in Q4. Google's upcoming devices Pixel and Pixel XL will have Android 7.0 Nougat mobile OS from the box.

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German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz unveiled its all new electric SUV called 'EQ' at the 2016 Paris Motor Show on Thursday.

The name EQ stands for "Electric Intelligence".

The electric SUV comes with two electric motors on the front and rear axles for a total power output of up to 300 kW. The company claims it will be able to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h (0 to 62 mph) in under five seconds.

Mercedes says the vehicle will be able to take charge rates of 50 kW up to sometimes 150 kW and it eventually sees a charging capacity of even up to 300 kW.

The Generation EQ car joins the current trend among concept vehicles of replacing side mirrors with cameras and disguising door handles and windshield wipers in order to emphasize a clean aerodynamic shape.

It seems the 2016 Paris Motor Show has gone green as it is turning into the spot for electric concept car launch platform, Volkswagen is also planning to unveils its electric concept car with a range of 300 miles at the show. Like Mercedes, Volkswagen has said the concept car provides some insight as to what the production vehicle will look like.

The launch will help Mercedes compete with U.S. based electric carmaker, Tesla Motors and other rivals that are rushing to produce luxury electric cars of their own. The company is eyeing to add four new electric cars to its model range by 2020.

Competition is gearing up in the electric car market, leading electric carmaker Tesla recently announced a battery upgrade that will increase the range of the Model S with Ludicrous mode to 315 miles, and the Model X with Ludicrous mode to 289 miles.

The automaker claims the Generation EQ is close to production.

The pricing is expected to be around $55,000.

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Subsequent to a warning to slap $400 million tax bill, Indonesian authorities raided internet giant Google office in Jakarta over allegations of tax evasion.

The tax office is also planning to summon representatives from Google Indonesia's office who handles top posts at Google Asia Pacific.

Officials had reportedly visited Google's office in central Jakarta in the past two weeks to collect data and repeatedly sought meetings with senior company officials. However Google failed to cooperate with the authorities which led to the raid at Jakarta office.

Google reportedly paid less than 0.1 percent of the total income and value-added taxes it owed to the government in the last year. If found guilty, the company would have to pay four times of the original tax amount amounting to a total of up to 5.5 trillion rupiah ($418 million) for 2015 alone.

Alongside, the Indonesian authorities are also planning to seek five years of back taxes in order to penalise the global tech giant.

However, Google has cited third party report, a joint study by Google and Singapore state investor Temasek released earlier this year, which estimated the size of Indonesia's digital advertising market at $300 million only.

Google has issued a counter statement saying that the amount produced by the Indonesian tax department is not based on reality.

Indonesia is under pressure to collect more tax revenue. Last year the nation suffered its worst tax-revenue shortfall in over a decade. Thus, the government is stepping up efforts to collect more taxes from the internet companies to meet the annual target.

Meanwhile, the country is also planning to block websites of tech companies who are avoiding tax.

The country is asking internet companies to set up permanent local entities for tax purposes since April 2015.

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There are two worrying records that have been broken due to the shooting carbon levels this year.

In May, 2013, the carbon dioxide monitoring station at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, recorded that the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration had overtaken the symbolic "red line" of 400 parts per million. This was for the first time since the starting of record-keeping.

The second record that was broken this year was that for the first time in 4 million years, carbon dioxide levels at the South Pole shot through the threshold of 400 ppm.

And even this month, when the carbon dioxide atmospheric concentrations should be at their nadir in the northern hemisphere, scientists at the Mauna Loa Observatory have revealed that the levels of the greenhouse gas continued to be stuck above the 400 ppm.

This sure guarantees one unbeatable fact: that the monthly carbon dioxide levels is never going to fall below 400 ppm soon.

This is not just due to the El Nino effect, for human emissions shot up by 25% since the last El Nino in 1997 and 1998. "So, it's the natural effect on top of the increasing human effect," Professor Richard Betts of the UK's Met Office said.

"Is it possible that October 2016 will yield a lower monthly value than September and dip below 400 ppm? Almost impossible. Over the past two decades, there were four years (2002, 2008, 2009, and 2012) in which the monthly value for October was lower than September. But in those years, the decrease from September to October was at most 0.45 ppm - which would not seem to be enough to push October values below 400 ppm this year," Ralph Keeling, the current program director of the Scripps Institute for Oceanography's carbon dioxide monitoring program, wrote in a blog post. "The monthly value for October will therefore almost certainly also stay above 400 ppm and probably will be higher than 401 ppm."

"At best, one might expect a balance in the near term and so CO2 levels probably wouldn't change much - but would start to fall off in a decade or so," Gavin Schmidt, NASA's chief climate scientist said via an email. "In my opinion, we won't ever see a month below 400 ppm."

Another study shows that the record can be extended to two million years in the past. It also predicts that the average temperatures might go up by about 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) in the following millennia.

"This is not an exact prediction or a forecast," lead author Carolyn Snyder told Nature. "The experiment we as humans are doing is very different than what we saw in the past."

Hence, soon the pre-industrial levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, about 280 parts per million, will soon get doubled. The rise in global temperatures cannot be kept below 2 degrees Celsius, even though the Paris climate treaty committed to it.

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The 200-milllion-year-old fossils of a reptile recently discovered by scientists raised question of how four-legged animals evolved and thrived.

Although some fossils were almost crushed, making it hard to study, scientists were able to come up with 3D reconstructions of the reptile using the micro-CT (computerized tomography) scans.

The journal Current Biology published a study about the discovery.

Drepanosaurus lived in trees and survived by digging insects from the bark through its big hooked claws, similar to the anteaters of the South American jungles. The fossils suggested that the creature is as big as a cat, with a head resembling a bird and a body similar to a chameleon.

According to lead researcher Dr. Adam Pritchard of Yale University, Drepanosaurus has big arms. "The index finger is much much larger than any of the other fingers and supports this gigantic claw, which is easily the most massive bone of the entire arm," Pritchard said.

Researchers are amazed by the creature as it defies the rules consistent in tetrapods. The forelimbs of four-footed creatures always follow consistent rules throughout the million years of evolution. Drepanosaurus is expected to have parallel bones like the rest of the tetrapods.

"In your forearm, in the forearm of Tyrannosaurus rex, in the forearm of an elephant, you have two bones - the radius and the ulna, which manifest as these elongate, slender, parallel shafts," Pritchard explained.

Palaeontologist from the National Museums Scotland, Dr. Nicholas Fraser, said the Triassic period, the era when Drepanosaurus existed, was a "melting pot of experimentation." During this period, the unconventional dominates.

Researchers continue to excavate the quarries in New Mexico, hoping to unearth more interesting things.

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Saudi Arabia has warned of dire consequences as United States passes a controversial law, Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) which allows relatives of 9/11 terror attack victims to sue the Saudi kingdom.

The US congress on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly in favour of the JASTA despite President Barack Obama's disagreement. The law is likely to jeopardise the bilateral ties between the two countries and might also put America's troops and interests at risk.

Underlining the consequences of the bill, Obama said it would undermine the principle of sovereign immunity, opening up the US to private lawsuits over its military missions abroad. Also, House Speaker Paul Ryan said the Senate might have to "fix" the legislation to protect US troops in particular.

JASTA allows relatives of terrorism victims to pursue cases against foreign governments in US federal court and to demand compensation if such governments are proven to bear some responsibility for attacks on US soil.

The Saudi Government condemned its passage calling the enactment of such act, "a matter of great concern" which may provoke unintended repercussions. "The erosion of sovereign immunity will have a negative impact on all nations, including the United States," the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement, which was carried on state news agency SPA on Thursday.

A Saudi foreign ministry source called on the US Senate "to take the necessary measures to counter the disastrous and dangerous consequences" of the law.

Saudi Arabia is one of America's longest-standing and most important allies in the Middle East and part of a U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

Families of 9/11 victims have campaigned for the law - convinced that the Saudi Government had a hand in the attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.

However, Riyadh denies having any role in the 9/11 terror attacks in which fifteen Saudi nationals were allegedly involved.

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T he UK has been one of the number one buyer of champagne since the end of the Second World War - proving we're a nation of impeccable taste.

British demand dating back to the 1800s has even influenced how champagne is made, according to Joel Claustre, Master of Culinary Arts at Searcys.

He says: "Brut has become the iconic style across the Champagne region, all thanks to the British request to make more Champagne in this style."

"British royalty, politicians, celebrities all chose champagne as their favourite tipple particularly for significant moments of celebration. Winston Churchill famously enjoyed a 'pint' of Pol Roger champagne every day!"

Saturday 1 October sees the start of National Champagne Week, with events 'popping' up across the capital.

You can take part in the festive spirit with champagne connoisseurs Nicolas Feuillatte, who are hosting the world's longest dinner party. For 49, guests can feast on brunch, lunch or dinner on October 8 or October 9. Each meal features nine courses, all paired with Nicolas Feuillatte champagne.

Also celebrating this week are Oh, You Pretty Things, a collection of nationwide champagne bars. Head to Soho for a series of free 30-minute tastings with their experts before trying their signature cocktails at the pop-up bar - but tickets need to be purchased in advance.

Or if you prefer, toast Britain's bubbly heritage in your own way, and join in the celebrations wherever you are with @ChampangeWeek or with the hashtag #ChampagneWeek.
News, events, history, and other mid-week tidbits.

Tuesday, October 25, 4:30  7 p.m.

Orr Area EMS Open House

Brats and burgers will be served. Event includes a new ambulance tour and blood pressure screenings. For more info: 218-780-3798.

Orr Fire Hall

4540 Lake St., Orr

Tuesday, October 25, 12  6 p.m.

Essentia Health Job Fair

Talent recruiters and department managers will be on-site at Essentia Health-Virginia. Candidates from all backgrounds are encouraged to attendnurses, nursing and clinical assistants, surgery technicians, radiology technicians, respiratory therapists, human resource professionals, and those interested in environmental services or nutrition services. Essentia staff will greet candidates, conduct an initial screening and filter them to appropriate hiring managers for interviews. Select candidates will be verbally offered a position before leaving. Candidates are asked to bring a resume, but its not required. Attire is business casual. For more info: www.essentiacareers.org.

901 9th St. N., Virginia
Gabriel Garcia Marquez in May 1996 in Madrid. Santi Burgos

Dario Arizmendi, director of Caracol Radios morning show 6AM, got hold of Luzangela Arteaga, who was scarcely 30 years old at the time, hauled her out of the production studio and told her: I am a great friend of Gabo, hes working on something special, I dont know what, but he asked me if I could find him someone whos good on detail, who is reserved, someone special. I thought of you. Youre going to Cartagena tomorrow.

Just like that, out of the blue, the master storyteller came into my life, says Arteaga.

Those two years with Garcia Marquez were a lesson in journalism that Arteaga will never forget

Now 51, Arteaga recalls how she arrived in the Colombian coastal city, dialed the number Arizmendi had given her and went to Gabriel Garcia Marquezs totally white house. The person she encountered there was very serious, analytical and entirely different from who he was subsequently.

The writer asked Arteaga to follow him and they immediately sat down at a desk. Look, this is what Im working on, he said before reading her a rough sketch of the first chapter of his next book, News of a Kidnapping, which was published 20 years ago.

For the next two years, Arteaga would shadow Marquez as he put together the powerful piece of non-fiction that would take him back to his journalistic roots.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez with journalism students at EL PAIS in 1996. Gorka Lejarcegui

Maruja Pachon and her husband Alberto Villamizar had suggested that Garcia write a book about the formers own kidnapping and six months of captivity two years earlier. The writer was working on the first draft when he realized that it made no sense if he didnt link this experience to the other nine kidnappings that had taken place around the same time in Colombia, a country then plagued by drug cartels and by the drug lord Pablo Escobar.

This was where Arteaga came in. That day at his house he told me about all the details he wanted to check, she recalls. As far as he was concerned, it was amazing that all the protagonists of something so frightening should open up and tell him about it.

But that wasnt enough. He needed to give authenticity to what he was writing by confirming the minutest detail; he needed to know how cold it was, what traffic lights there were, how many bullets were fired  he wanted to know absolutely everything. That was my job for the next two years, she says.

After endless interviews during which Garcia Marquez made sure he squeezed all the details out of the interviewees, the authors cousin and private secretary Margarita transcribed the hours of recordings. Afterwards, he met up with Arteaga: A meeting with the maestro meant a task that would last another two months, she says.

They sat down together to go over the notes on the transcriptions and to talk about the settings; about the details, always the details. It was in the detail that Arteaga recognized that Gabos greatness lay. There was no room for doubt, she recalls. And if there was, we would pursue the matter until there wasnt. If it wasnt confirmed, it wouldnt be included.

Arteaga shadowed Garcia Marquez as he put together the powerful piece of non-fiction

Gabos attention to detail was immeasurable. He wanted to go to the cottage where they kept Maruja and Beatriz, he wanted to go into the bathroom or get into the car that took them to the place where they joined Marina. As it says in the book, they had told him they could breathe and see out a little. He wanted to know how far they could see. I looked for that car for two years but it was impossible to find, says Arteaga.

Although she laughs about it now, it was an exhausting job. I worried constantly about imprecision and I took care that everything I showed him was backed up by a document, she says, showing examples of the papers she has kept  newspaper and magazine cuttings, documents, rights of petition. Not all were needed. Some were collected merely out of curiosity, such as the summaries she had to do of the novels that the ex-vice president of Colombia, Pacho Santos, read during his period of captivity.

The working day was long and though it had a strict starting point, there was no end. As the book began to take shape and their relationship grew, Arteaga found herself increasingly on call, such as the Sunday she spent on the telephone from the time she was giving her daughters their lunch until night fell.

He called from Mexico. He had been speaking to Beatriz and she had told him this detail about the perfume one of the kidnappers had given her and how he had called her my love. He was totally outraged. He felt what they told them intensely; it went so deep, he felt the same rage and frustration as them.

During those two years, the young Arteaga couldnt leak a word of what she was doing to his journalist colleagues, pretending instead that her insistent queries were simply the product of an inquiring mind.

A feast of stories A feast of stories for curious minds is the slogan for the fourth edition of the Garcia Marquez awards organized by the author's foundation and inspired by the Journalism Academy UAM/ El Pais. With the approach of the FARC peace deal referendum that will mark a turning point in Colombia's tumultuous history, journalism will dominate the news in the country's second-biggest city, Medellin. Distinguished guest Martin Baron, editor of The Washington Post, will be talking about peace, music, literature and Latin American journalism. Celebrating its 40th anniversary, EL PAIS will have its own stand where it will show the documentary it made on 23-F  Spain's failed coup d'etat  and also offer journalism workshops in the city's schools.

Two decades have passed since then and Arteaga has been dusting off the documents she accumulated at that time, ready for a talk she will give on it in Medellin during the New Iberoamerican Journalism award ceremony organized by the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Foundation. It will be a way of celebrating the 20thanniversary of the book that the author first read in front of a group of students at the EL PAIS journalism academy in Madrid.

Those two years were a lesson in journalism that Arteaga will never forget. Just as she will never forget one of her last encounters with Gabo. Shortly after News of a Kidnapping was published, Dario Arizmendi knew that the author was about to catch a flight. Go to the airport and get an interview, he told Arteaga.

Arteaga arrived at the airport and greeted Gabo warmly.

- Im not going to answer any more of your questions, laughed Marquez.

- At least you cant blame me for trying, maestro.

-No, he said. I would have blamed you if you hadnt.

English version by Heather Galloway.
Although video advertising for hotels has mixed opinions in the industry, social media, and new technologies are challenging those points of view. Go beyond photos and let's see how to use this powerful tool to get more bookings and enrich your hotel's brand online presence.

In a recent post, we dissected the guest experience and understood that consumers always have their phone on their hands to answer any questions, solve any problem, and plan any activity, including traveling. A good example is how 50% of total Youtube viewers are using mobiles to access the platform. As consumers use any screen to consume content, the video should gain a space in your marketing mix in order to have an effective strategy.

Why?

Did you know that in 20120 approximately 80% of internet traffic will be driven by video? If you think this is not related to the travel industry, you're wrong. According to a recent study, two of three U.S consumers watch video travel when they're thinking about a trip.

Influence guest journeys

Inspiration can come from anywhere. From a conversation to a movie, and once there's the intention to travel somewhere, travelers will find as much information as they can. For example, around 85% of YouTube travel searches concentrate on destinations, activities, points of interest and general travel ideas. Seasonality is also relevant for videos, as travel search peaks in March, July, and October in YouTube, and Google.com travel searchers are mainly related to brands and purchases.

What's catching their attention?

As videos are easier to the consumer when compared to written words, it's a fantastic way to convey key messages in a clear and appealing manner. Connecting to the emotional needs of travelers is essential. Although travelers can be interested in guest-generated content, most watched videos come from brands or professionals. Brands like Disney Parks & Resorts, Expedia, and Turkish Airlines are creating compelling stories with success. A great example is Marriot Hotel's French Kiss, an inspirational story about a traveler's experiences in Paris.

Where to share?

The first step to include video in your marketing efforts is to choose the platform you want to use to share the content, as each platform has different characteristics and audiences. YouTube leads the top of mind and viewers, with over a billion users watching content on the platform. Hoteliers can upload content for free and it's up to the video producers to decide length, quality, and other details. Additionally, videos in YouTube can be easily shared in social media and blogs.

Joining the video trend, Facebook recently released Facebook Live, a live stream option for any user, including brand pages. Although it is definitely not as popular as YouTube, approximately 100 hours of content are viewed every day. Hoteliers can share their videos from other platforms, or upload videos directly to Facebook, or create their own live streams. In Facebook, native content tends to perform better and reach higher numbers of people. Other social media platforms include Snapchat and Instagram, where predominant content relates to lifestyle, personal experiences and aspirational content.

As digital video expands and becomes an important source for guest journeys and travelers spend more time than ever watching videos, hoteliers should consider expanding their own marketing strategy to tell stories, enrich their brand, to ultimately inspire and engage with today's travelers.
Barcelona  Eurostars Hotel Company, the hotel division of Grupo Hotusa, has recently incorporated the Exe City Park 3*, a modern hotel located in a classical building that has joined the Exe Hotels chain. This is the company's third hotel in the Czech capital, joining Eurostars Thalia 5* and Eurostars David 4*.

President of Grupo Hotusa, Amancio Lopez Seijas, says "Exe City Park is a great complement to the two hotels we already have in Prague, a destination to which we are firmly committed. We haven't discarded the possibility of new operations to allow us to continue growing our presence here." Eurostars Hotel Company also hopes to continue growing in central Europe, where in addition to the Czech Republic, it currently has a notable presence in Germany, Austria and Hungary.

Exe City Park 3*, which was previously known as Hotel Vienna House Easy Chopin, is located in a classical building typical of Prague, contrasting with its modern, fresh, elegant, chic interior design. It is located just off the famous Wenceslas Square, opposite the main Prague train station. This location allows guests to reach the city's top tourist sites quickly on foot.

Beyond its 80 fully equipped rooms, the hotel also features a snack bar and meeting room with space for 25 people, for small professional events. With this latest incorporation, Exe Hotels now has 42 establishments in 11 countries in Europe and the Americas, and continues to expand abroad, where it currently has 15 hotels.

Grupo Hotusa

Set up in 1977 and with headquarters in Barcelona (Spain), Grupo Hotusa is a dynamic organisation composed of different companies related to the most diverse areas of the tourism sector. Aside from Eurostars Hotel Company, the organisation includes the world's biggest hotel consortium, Hotusa Hotels, with over 2,700 associated hotels worldwide; the hotel representative Keytel and the Restel reservation centre.

Daniel Guillen

Communications at HOTUSA Hotels

93 268 10 10 (Ext. 463)

Hotusa Hotels S.A.
Unprotected churches in rural Spain are easy targets for thieves. Alvaro Garcia

Father Fernando Ruiz is in charge of nine Roman Catholic churches within the diocese of Zamora, in northwestern Spain. All nine have been targeted by a gang of thieves that has attacked at least 58 places of worship across the province this year.

The isolation and lack of security measures at churches in rural Spain make them easy prey. Many of the dioceses worst hit by the string of robberies are located in Spanish regions with the greatest amount of small, out-of-the-way municipalities: Castilla y Leon, Galicia, Aragon and Castilla-La Mancha

Anything that gets auctioned off is checked against our historical database

Javier Moreno, Civil Guard art heritage expert

Rural churches are weak points: in a village with very few residents, nobody ever hears a thing, says Sergio Llata, the vicar general of the Santander diocese.

Thieves typically target the churchs collection box and any jewels on view. Occasionally they also make off with the tabernacle containing the consecrated Eucharist, possibly to be used in black magic rites.

It is a lot more uncommon for robbers to target the religious art, because of the difficulty of placing it on the market. Still, this year the Civil Guard seized 300 artworks taken from five churches in Burgos province.

Many church doors have old-fashioned locks that are easy to pick. Alvaro Garcia

Small-time crooks

Father Ruiz shows the effects of the attacks on the churches under his responsibility.

This is the only door they had to unhinge, he says in resigned tones, standing in front of the church of Videmala. This door is modern, but some of the other churches are protected by old-fashioned locks with long, antique-looking keys  the kind that are easily picked open.

In Videmala, on the night of May 2, the owner of the bar located next door to the church went home at 4am, while the baker went to work at 5am. Neither one saw or heard a thing.

Some of Ruizs churches have been broken into two weeks in a row. In Villalcampo, a police report says that on May 2 robbers took away 120 from the collection boxes in two votive candle stands, and a gold-plated crucifix taken from the hand of a Baby Jesus figure.

That same night, two more churches were fleeced of their parishioners donations, for a collective booty of 40. In Zamora, criminals took away the shiny objects and left behind much more valuable objects.

These are small-time crooks, notes Father Ruiz.

A large parish church in Madrid may have around 300 or 400 in cash, but some others contain less than 20, says Pablo Delclaux, the heritage coordinator at the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE).

No clear stats

Robbers often target the money boxes in the votive candle stands. Alvaro Garcia

The Civil Guard told EL PAIS that it has no specific figures on church theft, but that there is a general trend.

There are no statistics. We get the information, but often it is unclear and we dont grant it full credibility, says Javier Morales, who is in charge of the law enforcement agencys Historical Heritage unit.

The general evolution shows a drop in cases since 1998. However, beginning in 2007, there has been a slight change in this trend, with a moderate rise in cases.

Security at small, countryside churches is hard to improve. Alarms? asks Father Ruiz. Its already hard enough for us to keep this temple up and running.

In the larger churches, however, security does exist and may include surveillance cameras and night guards.

Placing stolen art

Stealing and selling religious artwork is more complicated: there isnt much of a demand, and the police keep tabs on the market.

Its hard to imagine the younger generations decorating their homes with a Baby Jesus, notes Morales. Even the Spanish Roman Catholic Church agrees: Who is going to purchase a 1.50-meter tall Saint Pancras and put in inside their house? wonders Delclaux, of the CEE.

And the difficulties do not end there.

Role games and black Masses Occasionally, desecration is the real goal of the intruders. The vandalism ranges from graffiti to decapitated statues or theft of consecrated Eucharists. These actions may be motivated by role games, initiation rites among members of criminal gangs, and even black Masses. Vicente Jara, a expert on sects, notes that these cases are rarely reported. If there was sacrilege, the prevailing attitude is usually to pretend that nothing happened.

It is hard to place on the market. Not long ago someone made off with a brass tabernacle from the 1970s, which they took apart to sell the parts, and they left behind an old chalice, says Llata, the Santander vicar.

Even so, between December 2015 and September 2016 the Civil Guard recovered around 350 stolen items in two of the largest raids of the last few years.

The suspects are two young men ages 23 and 24 who sacked five churches in the Burgos diocese, taking everything they could find: altarpieces, tabernacles, sculptures, chalices. Their actions were guided by an art dealer who was also arrested in the operation.

Investigators are still trying to determine how this individual sold the stolen goods. In one case, they walked into an traveling art fair in Cantabria and found an antiques dealer from Alicante who was offering a Virgin Mary sculpture suspiciously similar to one that had been stolen in Burgos. However, its appearance had been altered.

A dagger it used to hold had been removed, it was now wearing a crown, and one of the colors was different, recalls Civil Guard Captain Jose Manuel Garrido. But other details in the color scheme coincided.

Ultimately, investigators found the booty in Alagon, Zaragoza.

We needed several vans to load the items, it was a regular warehouse, says Garrido.

The stolen artworks will probably not be returned to their respective churches, but be placed instead inside the Burgos Altarpiece Museum.

Churches have inventories of their art and images of any stolen item are quickly distributed among antique dealers and auction houses. Authorities also scour the internet for ads. Anything that gets auctioned off is checked against our historical database, says Morales.

English version by Susana Urra.
BAXTER, Minn. -- AmericInn, the largest mid-scale hotel brand in the upper Midwest, today announced that it is expanding yet again in 2016, this time into Baxter, Minn. with the signing of a new AmericInn at 7836 Fairview Road, Baxter Minnesota. The property will be converted to AmericInn in the spring of 2017. This is the first AmericInn for Jatin and Sujata Patel.

AmericInn Hotel Baxter will undergo extensive renovation including exterior, guest rooms, guest bathrooms, and public areas. Once completed the property will feature signature AmericInn hospitality concepts.

"We are very pleased to announce still another addition to the growing AmericInn system which now includes over 225 locations either currently open or in development across 24 states," said Paul Kirwin, president and CEO of AmericInn. "We look forward to serving our customers at this prime Midwest location with the distinctive AmericInn hospitality experience that is comfortable, friendly and relaxing," he added.

The property is conveniently located by Minnesota State Highways 210 and 371. The Brainerd/Baxter area is a prime vacation destination with more than 500 lakes, rivers, and recreational opportunities.

The hotel will offer its signature AmericInn Perk breakfast featuring a variety of hot, home-style breakfast selections along with a 24-hour coffee bar. Additional AmericInn offerings include comfortable Serta Perfect Sleeper beds and the Easy Rewards guest loyalty program.

About AmericInn

AmericInn is the largest midscale hotel brand in the central United States with

over 200 locations currently open or under development in 24 states. The brand is dedicated to providing an exceptional lodging value for its guests by offering spacious, comfortable guestrooms, great rates and amenities such as free, hot, home-style AmericInn Perk breakfast, free hotel-wide wireless high-speed Internet, inviting swimming pools and a guest loyalty program. AmericInn is part of Northcott Hospitality, owner and developer of successful franchised hospitality brands for more than 50 years. For more information visit www.americinn.com
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IDeaS advanced revenue management systems combine TravelClicks Demand 360 market intelligence product to further optimize hotels pricing and revenue strategies

TravelClick, a global provider of data-driven solutions that enable hotels to maximize their revenue, and IDeaS Revenue Solutions, the leading provider of revenue management software solutions and advisory services, today announced that TravelClicks Demand360 customers are now able to integrate their subscription data into IDeaS systems to allow forward-looking data that power revenue management strategies. This marks the most advanced hotel analytics and demand intelligence integration currently available in the market.

Initially announced as a joint research and development project in 2015, the initiative represents the latest innovation for long-time partners, TravelClick and IDeaS. The integration combines the competitive market intelligence of TravelClicks Demand360 with the worlds most advanced automated revenue management solutions to provide hoteliers with a deeper understanding of a propertys market position and business potential. The research and development project demonstrated that the insertion of demand intelligence data notably improved the demand forecast and uplift for hotels.

"Market intelligence is the logical next step in the evolution of advanced revenue management. Incorporating future demand and market penetration data is essential to building a superior revenue strategy, said Lisa Rauchenberger, director of revenue management systems and tools, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts. It is a very exciting and innovative time for revenue management professionals, knowing these advanced analytics will be provided to hotels via an automated revenue management solution. The more informed the demand model is, the better the optimization of pricing and inventory for hotels.

Demand360 is the only competitive market intelligence product available to the hospitality industry that provides forward-looking reservation metrics and competitive share by segment and channel. Integrated with IDeaS industry-leading automated revenue management capabilities, customers who subscribe to both IDeaS advanced revenue management systems and Demand360 will be empowered by an even more robust demand forecast. By leveraging future booking data, hoteliers will be equipped to better anticipate  and take strategic action via their IDeaS solution  to changes in their competitive environments and markets.

Demand360s future occupancy and revenue metrics drive RevPAR strategies for brands, groups and independents around the globe, said Greg Sheppard, senior vice president, business intelligence products at TravelClick. With a community of more than 22,000 properties that contribute future and historical data, Demand360 gives customers a comprehensive view of the competitiveness in their market. Now, by integrating the power of Demand360 data directly into IDeaS solutions, our mutual customers will be able to further leverage this data with enhanced forecasting algorithms to optimize their competitive position like never before.

As the leader in revenue management in a constantly evolving industry, we are continually seeking innovative ways to provide customers with tools that enhance their revenue strategy, and demand intelligence like TravelClick Demand360 does just that, said Sanjay Nagalia, chief operating officer for IDeaS. We are proud that our longstanding partnership with TravelClick has led to the development of this integration, which not only identifies the revenue opportunities, but automatically implements and capitalizes on them - regardless of property size or market position.

Both TravelClick and IDeaS place great value on the confidentiality and security of their customers data. The new integrated solution will ensure strict data use requirements are met at all times. Subscribers will continue to only have access to data for the subscriber hotel and an aggregate view of their competitive set.

Joint TravelClick Demand360 and IDeaS clients will be able to leverage this first-of-its-kind integration in Q4 2016.

About TravelClick

TravelClick (TravelClick.com) provides innovative cloud-based solutions for hotels around the globe to grow revenue, reduce costs and improve performance. TravelClick offers hotels world-class reservation solutions, business intelligence products, and comprehensive media and marketing solutions to help hotels grow their business. With local experts around the globe, we help more than 38,000 hotel clients in over 160 countries drive profitable room reservations through better revenue management decisions, proven reservation technology and innovative marketing. Since 1999, TravelClick has helped hotels leverage the web to effectively navigate the complex global distribution landscape. TravelClick has offices in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Barcelona, Bucharest, Dubai, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Myrtle Beach, Orlando, Ottawa, Paris, Shanghai and Singapore.

Follow us on twitter.com/TravelClick and facebook.com/TravelClick.





About IDeaS

With more than one million rooms priced daily on its advanced systems, IDeaS Revenue Solutions leads the industry with the latest revenue management software solutions and advisory services. Powered by SAS and more than 25 years of experience, IDeaS proudly supports more than 7,000 clients in 94 countries and is relentless about providing hoteliers more insightful ways to manage the data behind hotel pricing.

IDeaS empowers its clients to build and maintain revenue management culturesfrom single entities to world-renowned estatesby focusing on a simple promise: Driving Better Revenue.

IDeaS has the knowledge, expertise and maturity to build upon proven revenue management principles with next-generation analytics for more user-friendly, insightful and profitable revenue opportunitiesnot just for rooms, but across the entire hotel enterprise.

For more information, visit www.ideas.com.
These are the responsibility of the editor and convey the newspaper's view on current affairs-both domestic and international

The media congregates outside the Socialist Party HQ in Madrid. Claudio Alvarez

The refusal of Socialist Party (PSOE) chief Pedro Sanchez to accept the fact that the resignation of 17 members of his executive committee constitutes the dissolution of said body, has sparked a serious crisis within the group and raised tensions way beyond an acceptable level.

The refusal, combined with the pretension of the members of the committee that remain to continue as if nothing has happened, is in stark contrast to the evidence that the PSOE needs a to convene a proper congress if it is to solve its organizational problems and clarify its ideas.

What is currently happening in the second-biggest group in Spain affects the entire country and its future

In the meantime, the priority should be to put the problems of Spain ahead of those of the party.

The Socialists need to reestablish their unity with the lowest cost possible to the country and to itself. Obviously, this is not helped in the slightest by the division of its grassroots members into different factions, as, unfortunately, Pedro Sanchez has managed to do this week. As Andalusias Socialist premier, Susana Diaz, said yesterday, the priority should be to restore internal unity, and rebuild their political projects in the face of opposition from the right-wing and the challenge posed by new groups such as Podemos.

The crisis that has broken out in the PSOE this week is not just that of any old party. What is currently happening in the second-biggest group in Spain affects the entire country and its future. More false steps and not only will they have lost the favor of many voters (they are already down six million compared to 2008), but also none of the sides will be able to reconfigure the group for the future.

If the celebration of a third general election within a year could worsen the crisis of confidence among Spanish citizens and the system of political representation, there is no doubt that the result of that undesirable call to the polls would be hugely dramatic for a shattered PSOE.

As such, it is not just the question of who will be the next prime minister under discussion. The PSOE is obliged to do everything it can to avoid third elections, which will be disastrous for the country and the party.

The PSOE is obliged to do everything it can to avoid third elections, which will be disastrous for the country and the party

Sanchezs strategy, and his reductionist approach of with Rajoy or against Rajoy, is inexorably leading us toward those third elections.

For the governability of Spain, there is no alternative but to allow the most-voted party  i.e. the PP  to form a government, and to try to rebuild from the opposition a Socialist Party that can win back the trust of wide sectors of the electorate.

As if the spectacle of a party in crisis was not serious enough, getting lawyers, sworn security guards and (perhaps) judges involved would be the final straw. To continue fighting over the legal ins and outs of what the partys statutes say will take it to the edge of the abyss. The grassroots party members and the Socialist voters, as well as this country, need a united PSOE that is able to offer an alternative to the PP as soon as possible.

English version by Simon Hunter.
Leveraging Sustainability for Employee Engagement

Employee motivation or engagement is a holy grail of people management  and often nearly as elusive. Engaged employees are happier and more productive, of course, but how can companies make it happen? In this opinion piece, CB Bhattacharya (@CBsuite), the Pietro Ferrero chair in sustainability and director of the Center for Sustainable Business at the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin, explains how leading companies are successfully boosting engagement through involvement in sustainability issues. That appears to give employees a sense of larger purpose. He also spells out what all companies could do to reap some of the available benefits.

Employee engagement, the psychological engine that drives corporate performance, is at an all-time low. A recent worldwide Gallup poll shows that employee engagement  broadly defined as a state where employees are inclined to feel and speak positively about their workplace is an abysmal 13%. In fact, roughly double that number are actively disengaged at work and have little problem badmouthing their employers. Contrast this with the case of a company such as Unilever with a workforce of 170,000+ that has an employee engagement score around 80%.

How do they do it?

Well, for one, Unilever and few other companies have successfully implemented a sustainable business model that puts environmental and societal considerations front and center along with growth and profits  and such a model taps into the higher sense of purpose that we humans have, and that currently many employees yearn for, as noted author Daniel Pink writes in his book Drive.

Over the last two years, I have visited several large global companies (e.g., Allianz, BASF, Enel, IBM, Marks and Spencer, Nestle, Unilever, others) to better understand how sustainability moves from being a buzzword, fed by anecdotes coming out of do-gooding companies, to being embedded in the way business is done. In other words, when does sustainability become sustainable? I have spoken with CEOs, middle management, shop floor employees and gone from glitzy headquarters to retail stores to factories in the middle of nowhere to seek insight.

In a recent article on this subject, Unilever CEO Paul Polman and I examine the varying strategies of international companies as they work to make sustainability a part of the DNA of their respective business. Along the way, we discovered many individual and company success stories that illustrate best practices but not a one-size-fits-all or cookie-cutter solution for every organization. Ultimately, it boils down to bringing the personal goals and values of individual employees together with the values and goals of the organization to create a sustainable business. Its as easy or as hard as that. The following eight steps show how to engage all employees in the companys sustainability mission and thereby boost their engagement.

Define the companys long-term purpose. Why does the company do what it does? Leaders should ask this question and share the answers with employees. For Unilever, the purpose is to simply make sustainable living commonplace. The company has implemented this purpose via the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan that incorporates aggressive environmental and societal goals, all while growing the business. Purpose also comes into play via Unilevers brands, many of which already have a social purpose built into them  e.g., for the antibacterial soap Lifebuoy it is to help a child reach the age of five. Thinking about the social purpose that a company serves enables employees to latch onto that higher purpose and use the company as a means to express their values, which in turn, creates meaning in and at work.

Spell out the economic case for sustainability. Research has shown that truly sustainable business is profitable business and it helps the cause to share this knowledge with employees. Take the case of IBMs pursuit of energy efficiency. Through its decades-long energy conservation program, IBM has demonstrated that smart energy management is good for the environment and good for business, because each kilowatt of electricity not consumed avoids greenhouse gas emissions and improves IBMs bottom line. In 2014 alone, IBM implemented energy conservation projects at 341 locations globally, cutting usage to the tune of $37.4 million in savings  6.7% of IBMs total energy use. Leaders should make their respective cases to their employees.

Create sustainable knowledge and competence. To bolster the can do belief among employees, it is important to invest in educating employees about sustainability as well as to create systems and processes that make it easier for them to integrate sustainability into their business decisions. Many sustainability initiatives require specialized knowledge and expertise  such as talking to suppliers about sustainable sourcing or using an eco-efficiency tool to evaluate a new product. No wonder, then, companies as diverse as BASF, IBM, Marks & Spencer, and Nestle have invested heavily in training and development, as well as systems and processes that enable sustainability decisions to be made at a large scale.

Make every employee a sustainability champion. Leadership is key to embedding the sustainable business model and the process typically starts with the CEO getting his/her leadership team on board the ship. However, it is not enough to have sustainability champions at the top  they must be cultivated at all levels and geographies of the organization. Marks and Spencer has sustainability champions in every store and Unilever has sustainability ambassadors throughout the organization. As a result, 76% of Unilevers 170,000 employees feel their role at work enables them to contribute to delivering to the sustainability agenda, and about half of all new employees entering the company from university cite Unilevers ethical and sustainability policies as the primary reason for wanting to join the company.

Co-create sustainable practices with employees. Another important way of embedding sustainability in a company is to engage employees in the co-creation of sustainable practices. And a great way to do this is to act on employee initiatives. Companies get more and better ideas when they bubble up from the bottom. A good example of this is Marks & Spencer, which now has clothes-recycling boxes in its stores that provide income for the international nonprofit Oxfam. The boxes were an employees idea that received support from the board and achieved great success. Once company employees begin to see the positive impact and economic returns on social and environmental investments that they helped create, they start believing that they do have a role to play, and the ideas start to flow.

Encourage healthy competition among employees. An effective way for an organization to embrace a new set of goals and foster an I should do it spirit throughout the company is to create a culture of healthy competition among employees. Connected to Care, an initiative launched by BASF in 2015, is an example of healthy competition. The chemicals company provides every employee with an opportunity to join a team, develop a corporate volunteering project in one of three core BASF areas  food, smart energy, and urban living  and submit the project to Connected to Care. In 2015, more than 500 project ideas were received from about 35,000 employees across all BASF regions worldwide. All employees worldwide are able to vote for their favorite projects and the top 150 were funded.

Make sustainability visible inside and outside the company. Measuring and communicating progress on key sustainability indicators always attracts peoples focus as we typically want to succeed in the dimensions we are measured on. No wonder, then, leading companies develop indicators to track the progress of their sustainability agenda, which they share via scorecards, dashboards and webcasts with employees. To keep visibility high and reinforce the idea that achievements in sustainability are meaningful for the company, it is also important to celebrate success when goals are reached or awards won (such as category leadership in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index).

Showcase the higher purpose by creating transformational change. No company can go it alone and beat the tragedy of the commons. We need to learn to collaborate with traditional competitors to solve thorny environmental and social issues. Doing this fosters a sense of unity among employees because they see that achieving sustainability is not just about themselves, or even their own company, but rather a societal issue with global implications, all of which inspires them to join in. To help tackle deforestation, for example, Unilever and Tesco led the global Consumer Goods Forum  an industry network of about 400 retailers, manufacturers and service providers with a combined turnover of 2.5 trillion euros  to announce a moratorium on deforestation.

Every person wants his or her working life to have a higher purpose that goes beyond doing a job and earning an income. Yet too many people spend most of their waking hours in workplaces that fall short of providing this. Companies that can resolve the tension people feel between their personal values and the best interests of the business will benefit by having a highly engaged and productive workforce  proud to play a part in bringing positive change to communities around the world.

This article is reprinted with permission from Knowledge@Wharton.


Prevailing Wage Law is Californias 'other' minimum wage. It requires workers to be paid union wages on publicly funded construction projects. But in recent years, the law in California has EXPANDED well beyond its initial purpose. It has become a tool for workers to demand union wages on virtually any construction project in California. These claims can increase the cost of a major construction project by millions of dollarsand can be brought years after construction is complete.

$8 million Prevailing Wage verdict in 2011

for work on the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel by Jon Welner, Hotel Lawyer

Rent credit from Port District triggered prevailing wage; $8 Million in back wages paid by Hensel Phelps Construction Company

In California Prevailing Wage Law, public funds come in many forms. In the case of the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel, the Hotel learned the hard way that a rent credit can transform a $350 million, privately funded project into a public work.

In 2005 the Hotel signed a ground lease with the Port of San Diego. The lease required the construction of a hotel and convention center by the end of 2008. Rent would be a minimum of $2.25 million per year during construction and $4.5 million per year thereafter. To help support the project, the Port agreed to a rent credit of up to $46.5 million during the first eleven years of the lease.

Does a rent credit = the payment of public funds?

The Hotel claimed that project was privately funded and not a public work. It argued that the rent credit was not the paymentof public funds because the overall leaseincluding the creditwas at fair market value (FMV).

The unions disagreed. They argued that a rent credit falls squarely within the statutory definition of public funds, which includes rentsthat are paid, reduced, charged at less than fair market value, waived, or forgiven by the government.

In 2006 the unions asked the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) to issue a public works determination. In April 2008, DIR sided with the unions and held that the hotel project was a public work subject to prevailing wage requirements. DIRs reasoning was that the statute did not require that rent be reduced and be for less than its fair market value. The rent reduction, by itself, was sufficient to trigger prevailing wage, regardless of whether the lease was below FMV. In June 2008, DIR affirmed its decision on administrative appeal.

The case then wound its way through the court system. At first, the San Diego Superior Court reversed DIRs decision and held that the project was not a public work. Then in June 2011, the Court of Appeal reversed the Superior Court and heldonce and for allthat the hotel project was a public work subject to prevailing wage. The Court said, The rent credit provided in the Lease constitutes a reduction and waiver of rent within the plain meaning of the statute. In reaching its decision, the Court was very focused on the fact that the lease itself described the rent payments as being subject to a rent credit.

In 2013 the Hotels general contractor paid $8 million in back wages to DIR, plus administrative and investigative costs.

What is the lesson? Language matters!

The (expensive) lesson in this case is: whether a project is subject to prevailing wage often depends on how the underlying agreement is written.

If the lease had not used the term rent credit, but had characterized the exact same rent structure as an escalating set of rent payments, the outcome of this case could very well have been different. Developers need to carefully draft their agreements to ensure there are no prevailing wage surprises in store for them down the road.

Note: A copy of this post on LinkedIn includes citations and links to supporting material.

Jon Welner is a leading practitioner of prevailing wage law in California. He is a Partner at Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP (JMBM), Chair of JMBMs Prevailing Wage Group, a a senior member of the Global Hospitality Group. JMBMs Prevailing Wage Group advises and defends developers, contractors, and manufacturers on the most challenging and complex prevailing wage matters in California. Contact Jon at JWelner@jmbm.com.



This is Jim Butler, author of www.HotelLawBlog.com and hotel lawyer, signing off. We've done more than $60 billion of hotel transactions and have developed innovative solutions to help investors be successful in bidding for hotel acquisitions, and helping investors and lenders to unlock value from troubled hotel transactions. Who's your hotel lawyer?




InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) and NOVUM Hotel Group, (NOVUM Group have today announced the signing of a Multiple Development Agreement (MDA) spanning 20 hotels across Europe in markets such as Germany, Austria and Netherlands. The MDA is the first venture together between both companies.

IHG currently has over 650 hotels in Europe, including 64 hotels in Germany, and is going from strength to strength in a market that is seeing continued expansion.

Hamburg based NOVUM Hotel Group currently has 99 hotels across Germany including their own brand hotels, and those developed in partnership with IHG will be franchised.

Rob Shepherd, Chief Development Officer, IHG, Europe, said: "Europe is growing at pace and we are well positioned to take advantage of the appetite for branded growth. We cannot wait to kick off the beginning of this long-term partnership with NOVUM Group."

David Etmenan, Chief Executive Officer & Owner, NOVUM Group, adds: "Franchise partnerships are of particular importance to our international expansion and we see IHG and its winning portfolio of brands as the optimal way to gain ground and advance our European expansion strategy."

Both IHG and NOVUM Hotel Group will be at Expo Real, Munich from 4-6th October. The NOVUM Hotel Group will be located in hall C2 at stand 130 and IHG in hall C2 at stand 222.
Not long ago it was reported that both of Drakes OVO Air Jordan 12s would be releasing at the top of 2017. However, word has gotten out that Octobers Very Own Air Jordans will actually be releasing inOctober.

Official images of the all-white Air Jordan 12s surfaced earlier this week and for good reason- as the shoes will be hitting retailers (in limited quantities) on October 1st. Thats Saturday, aka tomorrow, for those of you scoring at home.

Stingray and gold accents adorn the premium tumbled leather upper of Drakes all-white Air Jordan 12s, while OVO branding can be found on the sole and insole.

If you want to get your hands a pair, youll need to download Nikes SNKRS app and enter the raffle drawing TODAY. Nike Stores in select cities will be tweeting out when the kicks are going up for grabs [likely 6pm EST] so make sure you follow your local Nike twitter account so you dont miss out.

As of now, only one Footaction location has been confirmed to have the sneakers in stock, 32 South State St. in Chicago. Obviously, both OVO flagship stores in Toronto and LA, as well as the OVO site, will also reportedly be releasing Drakes 12s.

Bottom line: Download the SNKRS app if you havent already, and say 23 Hail Marys tonight.

PS: If you strike out on the 12s, there are plenty of Jordan x OVO consolation prizes including a pair of OVO Jordan Hyrdo Slides, sweatshirts, back packs and more.

OVO Jordans
Good news for Gangsta Gibbs finally arrives this morning. The rapper has been held up overseas, due to a sexual assault charge brought against him in Austria. He was locked up in the foreign country before making bail ($56,560) and giving up his passport. That was the last update we received on the Chicago natives case, until this morning, with a statement from his lawyer confirming hes been acquitted.

Read the statement in full below.

Today, September 30, 2016 Freddie Gibbs was found not guilty. We have always maintained unconditionally and without any doubt that Freddie would be and now has been fully exonerated and completely vindicated. We are pleased and thankful that the Court recognized the same trust and confidence we and all of his fans have had in Freddie that justified and resulted in his absolute acquittal. Immediately after his acquittal I spoke with Freddie who expressed his deeply sincere, heartfelt gratitude and thanks to his fiance Erica Dickerson for her unwavering support, for the steadfast and incomparable loyalty of his long time friend and manager Ben Lambo Lambert, for the extraordinary work and effort of his lawyers and for the overwhelming outpouring of love he has received from his fans. He says, Thank you! While we are appreciative of the verdict of not guilty, nothing has changed. The actual facts have always demonstrated that Freddie was and is 100% innocent. It is now self-evident he was wrongly accused. The trial has confirmed our belief that after a searching and complete investigation and trial the true and actual facts would be revealed  that there always was an absence of any scientific, physical, or credible evidence that would warrant in any way such an accusation. Freddie and his family look forward to returning to the States so he can resume his life and career.

Freddie Gibbs
There's also quality fare from White Lies, New Valley Wolves & Auxiliary Phoenix.

Having had the temerity to go on holiday again  our fortnight in Sicily was great, thanks for asking  a bronzed, Adonis-like Free Music Friday is back with a bumper crop of downloads, streams, vids and trailers. Hell, its like weve never been away!

Pixies  there is no the!  are streaming their Head Carrier album, which drops today. Its very much business as usual with big fuzzed to infinity riffs and killer pop hooks. What has changed is Black Francis voice, which is less guttural growl and more seasoned bluesman these days. A notable exception is Baals Back on which he sounds like hes fronting AC/DC. Now, theres an idea Cop an earful now before the stream disappears!

Completing this weeks NPR First Listen line-up are deliciously scuzzy American husband and wife duo Shovels & Rope; Conor Oberst whos in acoustic troubadour mode; country hotshot Brent Cobb, and the successors to the Grateful Deads cult throne, Phish.

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Generous boys and girls that they are, NPR also treat us to Tiny Desk Concerts from the Blue Man Group, Corinne Bailey Rae and King of the Neo Soulsters, Saul Williams.

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The planet has woken up to another new tune from the Kings Of Leons much-anticipated WALLS album, which drops on October 14. Around The World is a classic slice of Kings southern boogie with a hook that will be filling many an indie rock dancefloor over the coming months. Well have more  lots more!  on the quartet in a forthcoming issue of Hot Press.
The double-whammy taster has us all psyched up for new album, Friends!

White Lies are offering fans upfront listens to two of the songs from their Friends album, which is out on October 7 and sounds like its going to be a tunesome little fella.

Morning In LA is redolent of Talk Talk, the 80s new wave synth merchants who the chaps have namechecked and covered in the past.

Morning In LA was the first eureka moment during the writing of this record, and luckily came about quite soon after starting which gave us a huge boost of confidence to continue with, reflects the bands Charles Cave. Much like our song 'Big TV' from the last record, this is a song about modern life, and I think there's a subtlety to the lyrics that people will find endearing and hopefully somewhat moving. 'Morning In LA' is about disenchantment with the place you live, having to see it change around you  sometimes in a way that feels less than positive, and it's about also watching your friends make life choices that may shift how your relationship works, in this case that frustration comes from dealing with time zones  wanting to be able to call your friend like you used to but realising they live in America now and are still asleep. So it's a love song really, a love song for friends, and a hate song for time zones."

The trio kick off an extensive European tour on October 13 in Amsterdam  what could possibly go wrong?  but which is, as of yet, bereft of Irish dates (boo!)
With German banks on the rocks, there is now a dollar shortage and you can see capital flowing into Sterling with rates on 1yr bonds crashing to 0.084% and 2yr bonds down to 0.068%. They are clearly about to plunge into negative territory noting that a lot of money will flow in the property funds that recently shook off weaker hands with the Brexit vote. And so after Brexit, the panic about Britain has morphed into Britain being a safe haven. It will become very clear, very soon, that it is the EU that is broken, since when Germany is screwed up, nobody can assist the periphery and we are one disaster away from the fall of the European velvet curtain.

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Houston's civic and business leaders see much to gain in trade relations with Cuba following Mayor Sylvester Turner's trade mission this past weekend, particularly commissioners of the Port of Houston.

"Regular service to Cuba would be one more jewel in the port's crown," Port Commissioner Dean Corgey said.

He noted that the island has a deep-water port of 50 feet that could easily accommodate large ships, and the Port of Houston could serve as the go-between for Cuba when it comes to ships traveling from Asia through the Panama Canal. The communist-ruled island is also developing smaller feeder vessels through which trade with the Port of Houston can become more accessible.

Members of the mayor's delegation to Cuba overall said they succeeded in establishing, and in some cases strengthening, business ties to the island despite the obstacle of the U.S. trade embargo.

"We know there are a lot of things happening between the White House and Cuban leadership, and that will take care of itself," Turner said in a statement. "This trip was all about beginning the dialogue that will lead to bigger things down the road."

Port commissioners noted that as a result of the trade mission, a delegation from Cuba formalized plans to visit the port within the next 45 days.

Seeing a need for importing consumer goods on a regular basis, Corgey anticipates major exports to Cuba including agricultural products, rice and milk in particular, as well as building materials such as steel, cement and industrial products - given the state of decay in several of the island's buildings.

Port Commissioner Theldon Branch sees ports in Cuba, particularly Port Mariel, as a piece in the Port of Houston's long-term growth plan as well as Cuba's employment outlook.

Tourism industry

Jonathan Newton, managing partner at the Houston office of Baker & McKenzie, noted that presently the tourism industry in Cuba stands to benefit the most from improving business relations since the trade embargo greatly limits U.S. investments, and Cubans will have a hard time traveling to the U.S. for tourism since they make an average of only $20 a month.

Human rights

He added that while Cuban government officials voiced concerns and complaints over the U.S. embargo, they failed to address other concerns specific to Cuba such as human rights violations and the lack of a fully functioning legal framework that could support U.S. investments.

Regardless, Newton said he sees opportunities for long-term partnerships down the line. He added that big-name brands are likely to have an advantage over small businesses as Cuban officials are more likely to recognize them.

Newton added that as far as the energy sector is concerned, Cuba is still in its exploration phase for oil and gas, making it too early for any concrete negotiations. However, Felix Chevalier, a Houston attorney representing clients with Cuban interests, noted that Cuba is particularly interested in U.S. investments in the energy sector.

Health sector

Another one of the immediate results of the Houston trade mission was an invitation from Dr. Robert Robbins, president and CEO of the Texas Medical Center, for directors of Cuba's Center for Cardiovascular Care to attend the Society of Thoracic Surgeons meeting in Houston in January.

The public health sector is where Cuba is demonstrating signs of more advanced development, Robbins said, with every province having its own hospital and medical school, and physicians living and working in neighborhoods.

"From a public health standpoint, you've got to be inspired by what they do," Robbins said.

There are talks of possible exchange programs for the center's trainees similar to what the Texas Medical Center offers for other countries, Robbins said.

Ending the embargo?

Members of the delegation are optimistic that the embargo will be lifted. Laura Murillo, CEO of the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said that once her team completes a debriefing of the trip, they will be reaching out to members of Congress in support of ending the embargo.

For Chevalier, whose participation in the trade mission is just one of the various trips he has made to the island, lifting the embargo would offer a business and personal benefit. He has relatives still living on the island.

"I know that business trade and tourism with Cuba will help the Cuban people, which is why I'm so committed to this endeavor," Chevalier said in a statement.
Noble Energy has warned employees that it's planning additional job cuts as part of the Houston oil company's efforts to "streamline" exploration operations and focus on its highest-performing oil fields.

The company declined to disclose how many employees would lose jobs in what would be Noble's fourth round of layoffs in 18 months.

"We are working through the process and expect workforce reductions to be limited," spokeswoman Reba Reid said. The company is trimming exploration expenses, she said, and refocusing efforts on production.

In a statement to the Chronicle, Noble said it would increase "our onshore U.S. value" and pick its best offshore land. Layoffs, it said, will happen before year-end.

Noble is among the many exploration and production companies that have slashed jobs during the extended energy downturn. In April last year, Noble chopped 230 jobs - 10 percent of its staff then - as it struggled to rein in spending amid falling oil prices. Half the jobs were in Houston; the company also laid off workers in Colorado and Pennsylvania.

That summer, it bought for $2.1 billion the small Houston oil production company Rosetta Resources, which had 50,000 acres in South Texas' Eagle Ford basin and 56,000 acres in West Texas' Permian basin, and then laid off 65 Rosetta employees, mostly at the corporate level.

In November, Noble announced it was cutting 180 more jobs, including 60 in Texas. Noble had by then pulled all rigs out of the Marcellus Shale in the Northeast and dropped to three rigs in northern Colorado's DJ Basin. It planned to operate one rig each on acreage in the Eagle Ford and Permian Basin.

Few companies in the industry have avoided cutting jobs. Anadarko Petroleum Corp. said in March that it would trim 1,000 jobs, or 17 percent of its workforce. Southwestern Energy Co. said in January it planned to lay off 40 percent of its workers, about 1,100 in total. ConocoPhillips, Chevron Corp., BP and Shell Oil Co. have all cut thousands of jobs.

Oil field services companies have fared worse. Weatherford International has laid off 35,000 workers, or half its employees over the two-year downturn. Halliburton has eliminated more than 35,000 jobs in two years, roughly 40 percent of its team. And Schlumberger has cut 50,000 workers, a third of its staff.
Hundreds of people gather for The Peace Concert on Monday in Bogota. Leonardo Munoz (EFE)

More information La generacion de la paz que se mueve en Colombia

Colombians will go to the polls on Sunday to participate in a vote that has no candidates; a contest in which the contenders are not even political parties; yet it may be the most important decision they make as a country. The referendum that the government hopes will support the peace deal it has negotiated with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has become the hot topic of debate at universities. Young people stand at the forefront of this historic moment in their country. They are talking about peace and taking action to promote their views.

Ever since the government announced the signed peace accord, hundreds of university students have been gathering in downtown Bogota every Friday to discuss the peace process that took place in Havana. It is a duty we have to assume. The challenge for young people is to transform this hateful country that we inherited into the country that we always dreamed of, says Alejandro Franco, a 24-year-old political science student at Universidad de los Andes.

Our challenge is to transform this hateful country into one we always dreamed of

Alejandro Franco, political sciences student

Franco is a member of Jovenes por el si (or, Young People For Yes), a group that has drawn 1,500 people who, like him, feel certain that peace is the best opportunity for Colombia. They hold discussions via social media but they have also learned from the past: their messages cannot languish on Facebook profiles or Twitter. Instead, they have joined forces with other groups in order to make a bigger statement: the young people of Colombia care about the peace process. The memory of the war that impacted me the most was when [FARC leader] Raul Reyes died, Franco says. I was surprised that there were people who were happy about it. I was sad to see that the enemy had stopped being a human being and that his death was cause for celebration.

Groups like Francos have chosen to go beyond political discourse to engage others in discussions about the peace agreement. They organize concerts, hold marches, but, above all, they try to provide room for debate at the universities. The governments chief negotiators during the talks with the FARC, Humberto de la Calle and Sergio Jaramillo, have talked and debated the process with students as equals. The best debates between those who advocate for a yes in the referendum and those who reject the peace deal have taken place on university campuses.

Alejandra Rojas, a 25-year-old student at Universidad Nacional, talks about the challenge posed by lack of financing for the campaign. She details how the group collected donations and crafted souvenirs to raise funds. Rojas says supporting the peace deal is not the same as a political alliance. We cannot confuse support for peace with backing President Juan Manuel Santos. We simply have a longing for a country.

The best debates between those who advocate for a yes and those who reject the deal have taken place on university campuses

Of the more than seven million people affected by the armed conflict, at least two million, 28% of the victims, are young people. We can guarantee that this will not happen again, Rojas says. With her vote, she will also celebrate the provisions for agricultural reform, the first element in the five-point peace accord. According to the Farming and Fish Census, 72.6% of people between ages 17 and 24 who live in rural areas do not have access to education and 11.5% of those aged 15 and above do not know how to read or write.

Students who reject the peace deal say they, too, are concerned with access to education in rural areas but they also demand more justice. Pablo Londono, a 22-year-old political science major and member of Jovenes decimos no (or, Young People Say No), says it has been more difficult for them to promote their side of the story. Saying no is boring, Londono explains. In this case, its synonymous with wanting war, but our invitation is not for a flat-out no but for renegotiation, especially on the issue of justice. Pablo compares the level of student participation in the debate around the peace process to the efforts made by public and private university students to push Congress to rewrite its 105-year-old Constitution, which many Colombians considered obsolete. They managed to connect with the nation and thus served as catalysts for the 1991 Constitution. Now we must contribute to a peaceful but also a just Colombia, Londono says.

Michelle Harb, a 24-year-old law student, says she is wearing a t-shirt to support the yes vote because she dreams of living in a country where everyone fits, where there is no justification for picking up a weapon in order to say what you think. We want to be part of that change. University students who have promoted voting in favor of the peace deal say it is their duty to make sure that the country does not live through the kind of violence it experienced for years. Their first goal is to encourage a massive turnout for Sundays referendum.

English version by Dyane Jean Francois.
Hail and flooding have caused potentially record insurance losses for homes and automobiles this year in Texas, according to the Insurance Council of Texas.

In a news release Thursday, the insurance trade association said insured losses for residential properties during the first half of this year are nearing the $5 billion mark set in 2008, the year Hurricane Ike struck.

"Hailstorms have already totaled $4 billion for residential property losses alone in Texas this year," spokesman Mark Hanna said. "Hail and flooding has caused more than $1 billion in auto losses. This year's losses for both home and auto have doubled the annual losses we have seen in the past several years."

The losses don't factor in residential flood losses or any insured losses to commercial property.

Houston a global 'knowledge capital' in study

"Redefining Global Cities," a study by the Brookings Institution, lists Houston as one of 19 world "knowledge capitals."

The study grouped 123 of the world's largest metro areas into seven types based on their economies and competitiveness. Brookings researchers wanted to look at ways global cities have changed in the face of an overall economy that is recovering slowly, and ways those cities compete with their global peers.

"Knowledge cities" have talented workers and "elite research universities."

In Brookings' analysis, Houston's metro area of 6.7 million people ranked third out of 19 in annual average real GDP growth from 2000 to 2015. Its GDP grew an average of 3.4 percent per year during that period, which was only slower than Austin and Portland, Ore.

Other world-knowledge cities in the group of 19 included Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Stockholm, Washington and Zurich.

Debt collection over Corinthian angers senator

WASHINGTON - Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., accused the Education Department on Thursday of moving forward with debt collection against nearly 80,000 former students of Corinthian Colleges, despite federal findings that the now-defunct for-profit chain defrauded students.

"It is unconscionable that instead of helping these borrowers, vast numbers of Corinthian victims are currently being hounded by the department's debt collectors," she said.

An Education Department official said it would conduct further outreach later this fall to inform Corinthian borrowers about their options.

Official says more seafood oil spill claims to be paid

NEW ORLEANS - The administrator of economic loss claims resulting from the 2010 BP oil spill said Thursday that he expects about $520 million in seafood industry claims to be paid in the Gulf of Mexico states as early as next month.

Patrick Juneau said the disbursements will essentially close out the $2.3 billion seafood compensation program.

Juneau administers payments from a settlement BP reached with people and businesses that claimed economic harm after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion.

Former alternative fuels CEO settles with SEC for $100,000

A Houston-area alternative fuels company and its former CEO accused of inaccurately reporting product yields to investors have agreed to a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company, KiOR - now known as Mard - and its former CEO, Fred Cannon, did not admit guilt or deny the SEC's charges in the $100,000 settlement. A court must approve the settlement before it is declared final.

In other news

Mortgage giant Freddie Mac says the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 3.42 percent from 3.48 percent. The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage slipped to 2.72 percent from 2.76 percent.

Volvo is recalling 127,000 autos worldwide because the air conditioning can leak and cause air bags to malfunction. The recall covers 2016 and 2017 XC90 SUVs, S90 sedans and V90 wagons.

From staff and wire reports
In the effort to slow climate change, the capital of the fossil fuel economy seems the last place where advocates would seek support. But the Citizens' Climate Lobby is making Houston and its deeply red suburbs a key target in its drive to cut the carbon emissions.

Founded in 2007, the national advocacy group has come here because Republican support will be essential to passing legislation aimed at addressing global warming, and its preferred solution is crafted to appeal to conservatives. Rather than top-down regulatory schemes to limit emissions, they would simply impose new fees on fossil fuels based on the amount of carbon dioxide they emit, providing incentives for businesses and consumers to choose energy that produces the fewest emissions.

This so-called carbon tax already has been embraced by some of the world's largest oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, as a way to slow global warming with as little business disruption as possible. And that's why the group's biggest hopes for slowing the pace of climate change lie here, in the heart of oil country.

"Many people in the energy industry know that climate change is real," says Bill Bray, who recently retired after 33 years as an offshore engineer at Exxon Mobil, and now leads The Woodlands chapter of the Citizen's Climate Lobby. "We don't want to wreck the economy. We don't want a huge amount of regulation. We want a market solution."

Hard sells

Despite the free-market cast of the group's proposed solution, persuading Republican politicians to go along with new taxes of any kind is an uphill battle. In a recent interview, for example, Rep. Kevin Brady, The Woodlands Republican who chairs the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, categorically ruled out carbon pricing as part of the GOP plan to overhaul the tax code.

Undaunted, Citizens Climate Lobby is still targeting Brady, and doing it by recruiting people who work or have worked for oil and gas companies. The group now has eight chapters in the Houston area, and all but one is led by people from the energy industry.

Running Citizens' Climate Lobby's national conservative outreach campaign is Peter Bryn, a slight 32-year-old, who put in eight years as an engineer at Exxon Mobil before quitting to devote himself to building support for a carbon tax, working full time from Houston. Even though his former employer has publicly favored a carbon tax since 2007, workers weren't exactly encouraged to campaign for it.

"It was just something that nobody talked about, because nobody had the authority to talk about it," Bryn said.

Now, however, he talks a lot about why Exxon Mobil prefers a carbon price: It's simple and predictable, and the company has been shifting towards natural gas, a cleaner-burning fuel that would fare much better under the scheme. In fact, Exxon Mobil has been operating with a "shadow price" on carbon for years now, factoring the cost of a potential future carbon tax into their new projects.

Carbon taxes have been under discussion for years, but as concerns about climate change gain urgency, they are getting a closer look. The proposals vary. Some would use the proceeds from the tax to finance the development of wind, solar and other kinds of renewable power. Others would fund improvements to transportation systems.

The Citizens Climate Lobby plan would impose taxes on energy production companies for each pound of carbon emitted by the oil or gas they extract, the cost of which would be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. The proceeds of the tax would go into a trust fund, which would be paid out in monthly dividends to American citizens to offset higher fuel costs.

Bryn emphasizes that carbon taxes are not about raising more money for government. Any proposal that does not return the proceeds of the tax to citizens through rebates won't receive the Citizens Climate Lobby's support.

Another talking point for conservatives: The alternative is worse. The Supreme Court has already upheld the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gases, so the Clean Power Plan that limits emissions from power plants isn't going away, and more rules might be in the works.

"Something is coming, whether we like it or not," Bryn said he tells conservative activists. "Do you want it to be Obamacare for Climate?"

More climate groups

The Citizens' Climate Lobby isn't alone in its message to the right. Four years ago, former Republican South Carolina congressman Bob Inglis started a new organization, called RepublicEn, aimed at winning conservatives over on climate change. Inglis toured Texas a few weeks ago, visiting Citizens' Climate Lobby chapters and speaking to local GOP organizations. Then there are libertarian think tanks like the R Street Group and the Niskanen Center, which split off from the Cato Institute a few years ago in large part over Cato's opposition to any government intervention around climate.

Jerry Taylor, the Niskanen Center's director, sees the Republican wall of opposition crumbling for several reasons. Popular and corporate opinion has moved on from denial of global warming, the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan is nearly settled law, and the ideological groups that oppose climate action have lost some influence.

"Republicans were put on this earth to make arguments about harnessing market forces," Taylor said. "Tectonic plates are shifting beneath the party, and that is going to open up avenues for action."

Still, Taylor notes that it's very difficult for Republicans who have long shaped their identities around dismissing climate change as a liberal hoax to suddenly change their minds. And companies like Exxon aren't willing to jeopardize other priorities, such as trade policy, for which they need Republican support, by beating them up over a carbon tax.

The Woodlands and Conroe chapter leaders learned just how deeply red a group they were dealing with upon their first attempt to get a meeting with Rep. Kevin Brady. During a town hall meeting at Lone Star College where Brady was laying out the GOP's new tax proposal, most of the crowd was angry about hyper-conservative hot buttons like federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

Conroe's Carolyn Newman, a former consulting engineer for BP, finally stood up to ask Brady if he would meet with them about a carbon tax. He said he would, but that he wasn't in favor of it. In response to follow-up questions, Brady spokeswoman Tracee Edwards said the congressman "doesn't support a new tax on energy that would be detrimental to the economy," despite evidence that redistributing the revenue back to taxpayers actually serves as a modest economic stimulus.

Senators oppose tax

That's also true of Texas Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, who were among 25 Republican senators to sign a "sense of the Senate" resolution in opposition to a carbon tax. Houston-area GOP representatives John Culberson and Pete Olson have also reiterated their opposition.

"While funds might be returned to the public, it is unclear whether this could be done in a way that fully covers the added costs for those unable to shift energy use," said a spokeswoman for Olson, of Sugar Land. "For example, lower income families might not be able to shorten their commute or buy a more fuel efficient vehicle in the same way an elderly couple can't necessarily reduce their electricity usage or spend the money to make a home more energy efficient."

Here's the problem: Even if companies can shift their energy mix in response to a carbon tax, it's harder for employees who work in those industries - the voters on whom members of Congress actually depend - to get new jobs in renewable energy. In Texas, where hundreds of thousands of peoples' livelihoods depend on fossil fuels, any policy aimed at phasing them out could be a hard sell. For many traditional Republican leaders, climate change just isn't a priority.

"I don't think it's like they're talking about, where the oceans are going to wash us away and that kind of stuff," says Wally Wilkerson, who's been the chairman of the Montgomery County GOP since 1964. "I don't think that movement is going to get very far in Montgomery County."

That's why CCL's best hope may be in a new generation of Republicans, like Chris Busby, the president of the Houston Young Republicans and the founder of the Harris County Log Cabin Republicans. He heard Inglis and Bryn's carbon tax pitch at a recent conservative gathering and was persuaded.

"It seems like a better solution than giving the EPA discretionary power to regulate it on its own," Busby says. "I think especially my generation, the overwhelming response is they do believe it's a problem. There is a real desire to address this."
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The Mexican government is three years into the privatization of the nation's energy complex, and guess what? The reforms are on schedule and on target.

Our southern neighbors have passed constitutional amendments, rewritten energy laws and created a suite of new government agencies. And while oil and natural gas prices collapsed, the government still auctioned off almost all of the blocks offered for new exploration and production.

"It's a success in that it has attracted a broad range of international oil and gas companies," said Andy Derman, the international energy practice group leader at Thompson & Knight, which hosted a conference on Mexico's energy reforms at the law firm's Houston office.

The Mexican government proved that it has learned from Brazil and other countries that recently opened drilling to foreign companies, and it has avoided their mistakes. It adopted international norms, stuck to an aggressive schedule and enforced strict pre-qualification requirements.

"Meeting the Mexico time frame was difficult for Americans. It was moving a little too fast for us down here, so many couldn't get their act together," Derman said.

Fieldwood Energy, a Houston-based company, won one shallow-water block. Tommy Lamme, the company's assistant general counsel, said signing a complicated production-sharing agreement was worth the opportunity to drill in some of the Gulf of Mexico's last available properties.

Lamme said the National Hydrocarbons Commission's main objective "is to make this work, so they are very committed to helping the bidders and the contractors in these early rounds. The actual, literal investment to acquire the blocks is low. All you're doing is letting the government know this is the amount of profit we will give you."

In the U.S., an oil company pays the government to lease a block and then can decide whether to go forward. The Mexican government wants companies to hire workers, begin drilling and share profits later.

"There is a minimum work requirement, so we are going to drill two wells and spend $170 million over the next two years, or else the CNH charges us for it," Lamme explained.

A production sharing agreement, though, comes with extra paperwork.

"You have a heavy burden of documentation, of auditing," Lamme said. "You are required to be very diligent."

Derman said that's to be expected.

"They audit you because they want to make sure you are spending the money properly, which is reasonable," Derman said.

Unfortunately, Mexico's national oil company, Pemex, is not keeping up, Jorge Castilla, Deloitte Consulting Mexico's managing partner, said in a separate interview.

"Pemex is going way too slow. They found out they have far bigger problems than they thought," Castilla said. "Instead of focusing on how to transform the company to see how they can compete in a totally different market, and thinking about how they can move outside of Mexico ... they are worried about having enough oil and gas to operate and invest in Mexico."

That's disappointing for the government, which granted Pemex 83 percent of the country's probable and possible oil reserves. The company is too financially and organizationally weak to capitalize on the advantage, or even to farm out the work.

"Pemex cannot be a very good partner to some of these companies. It cannot take on that kind of risk, and its debt is pretty high," Castilla added.

The next round of blocks up for auction will be onshore, which presents a different set of challenges, especially in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, across the border from Brownsville.

"Of course there are security concerns, but from my perspective, and from many others, there are riskier places where oil and gas investment goes," Castilla added. "The state is very focused on ensuring they are a place for a safe landing ... they are becoming more flexible."

Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca, a native-born U.S. citizen who attended Houston Baptist University, is the first member of the National Action Party elected as governor of Tamaulipas, and he promised to reform the state government and stop drug cartel violence.

"I need to work on security issues and on attracting the investments," he said. "I really want to help my people. I need to create jobs. The people who create jobs are the entrepreneurs from both sides of the border, and I'm going to protect all of those investments."

Longtime Mexico observers doubted the government's ability to implement the reforms, which are intended to attract $50.5 billion in private and foreign investment by 2018. But the bureaucrats in Mexico City are keeping their promises.

So far, so good, but the real test comes when companies begin drilling in the fields and try to hire workers.

"Check back in two, three or four years from now, and then we'll see," Lamme said.
The Obama administration, in its latest effort to update workplace policies it says have lagged far behind the realities of Americans' lives, will require federal government contractors to provide paid sick leave to their workers.

The rule, which was issued Thursday and which the Labor Department estimates will directly affect more than 1.1 million people once fully in effect, enables workers to accrue up to seven days of paid sick leave a year.

"This is really part of a broader conversation across America about what a 21st-century social compact should look like," Thomas Perez, the labor secretary, said in an interview. "Back in the day, when Beaver Cleaver got sick and June Cleaver was home, who takes off to stay with the Beav was a nonissue. In today's world of dual-career couples in the workforce, our public policy has not caught up."

Legislation that would mandate paid sick leave nationwide, notably the so-called Healthy Families Act, has stalled in Congress for years, prompting the administration to seek alternative ways of achieving the policy's goals. Perez acknowledged that the Healthy Families Act was the model for the new Labor Department rule, which does not need additional approval.

The rule requires that workers in assignments related to many federal contracts receive one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours they work, for up to 56 hours of leave a year. Workers will be able to use the days to receive medical attention, care for a relative or deal with complications arising from domestic violence or sexual assault. Unused leave time can carry over to the next year if the worker remains with the same employer on a contract-related assignment. The rule affects only contracts solicited by the government beginning on Jan. 1, 2017.

Recent estimates suggest that about 40 percent of private-sector workers do not have access to paid sick leave.

Foes of the rule argue that paid sick leave is often a desirable policy in principle, but that the cost of the mandate will be a hardship for many employers. Among those who will be affected by the rule are franchisees and concessionaires selling food on federal property.
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Texas keeps slipping when it comes to tax competitiveness, according to the right-leaning Tax Foundation.

The Lone Star state ranks 49th when it comes to corporate taxation due to its insanely complicated and practically useless Margin Tax, also known as the franchise tax. Unlike an income tax, the Margin Tax is based on a complex calculation of revenues and expenses, which means money-losing companies often still have to pay the tax because it's not based on income.

Local property taxes also put a dent in Texas' reputation as a pro-business state, coming in at 37th in the nation. Though levied by local authorities, the taxes are extremely high compared to other states because Texas has no income tax to pay for schools or local services.

Even when it comes to income taxes, though, we still manage to rank sixth. That's because unlike most states and the federal government, Texas doesn't allow the incomes or losses from limited liability companies and S corporations to be treated as income to individual shareholders. Instead, the state levies the Margin Tax on them.

Overall, Texas' ranking has dropped from 12th to 14th over the last two years.

Lawmakers know the Margin Tax is a problem, and they've made efforts to phase it out by increasing exemptions. But it persists, and next year Texas' 3.5 million businesses must file returns, even though only 124,000 businesses will actually have to pay anything, creating a huge accounting burden on Texas companies.

"Texas has made a concerted effort at limiting its Margin Tax in recent years, and should be commended for that," said Scott Drenkard, the Tax Foundation's director of state projects. "We are hopeful the state will continue to examine ways to limit the Margin Tax, as that is the most economically harmful tax in the state's revenue toolkit."

That will be a big challenge when the Texas Legislature meets again next year and tries to cope with a dramatic drop in severance and sales taxes related to the oil and gas industry. Tea Party politicians are also committed to cutting property taxes on homes, and the business community could get left out of tax relief efforts again.

Businesses already pay 64 percent of the taxes collected in Texas, compared with the 45 percent national average. Texas' effective tax rate on business is 5 percent, higher than the national average of 4.7 percent.

For some reason, Texans believe the absence of an income tax somehow makes us a low tax state. That couldn't be farther from the truth, we just pay in different, and far more economically inefficient ways, such as the property tax.

What we need is a tax overhaul that would use all three legs of the government revenue stool - property, sales and income taxes - to maximum economic efficiency.

If done properly, we could end up paying less in taxes by boosting economic activity through smarter taxation. But our lawmakers don't have that kind of creativity.
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It looks like a parachute, attached to the love child of a weedwacker and a window fan, attached to a man with a handlebar mustache, who is no longer attached to God's green earth.

If you're acrophobic, you'd take one look at the setup and declare it an instrument of torture.

If you're a swashbuckler, you'd describe it as a dream come true.

Trey German, 29, is about to call it home for roughly 1,000 miles. He's preparing to fly his powered paraglider from Montana to Nevada, competing for the Icarus Trophy. It's billed as "the world's toughest air race." He takes off Sunday.

"My family thinks I'm crazy for doing this," said German, a Houston-based computer engineer who recently gave up his day job at Texas Instruments to tinker with paragliding electronics full time. "They're certainly not happy about it. But as long as you don't die, you're good."

Before a 140-mile race experience in the early summer, he says, even some of his friends seemed dubious. "Going into that, a lot of my friends down here who fly with me, they were like, 'You're crazy for doing this. What are you doing?' "

Now, he said , they have more confidence in him.

On a Tuesday evening in Katy, as he soared hundreds of feet into the sky, he wasn't listening to whispers behind his back and below his shoes.

Lucas Hebert, a fellow paragliding pilot, watched German unfurl his parachute, preparing to test the 12-miles-an-hour wind. Hebert and another pilot, Jim Earley, had made the trip out to the grass field, hoping for an early-evening flight before they lost the sun for the day.

But the wind was too much. Earley said he'd prefer it about 8 miles per hour slower.

"We'll stay close to the ground this time," said Hebert.

"We're proud to know Trey," Earley said as German prepared for takeoff a few yards away. "But we're not gonna do that."

German strapped the motor - that fan-blade-weedwacker amalgamation - to his back and began running. Tension increased in the brake lines until the parachute popped up overhead.

He didn't jump. He just continued running until his feet no longer hit the ground. As he began gliding just a few feet over the earth, turbulence shook the wing.

"Yeah, hell no," said Hebert. "We're not gonna do this."

But then the teeters shook themselves out, and German was soaring.

There's nothing like that feeling, he said. He's been flying all his life; his grandparents had a Cessna. But that wasn't exactly in his price range as a young professional. Sure, you can get a small, used plane for about the price of a new Honda these days. But then there's the maintenance and storage costs, which add up.

"The ongoing cost is a lot," he said, "and that's when I started looked for another way to fly, and I found paragliding." For the past couple of years, he's spent much of the time since either in the air or explaining to people just what this niche hobby is.

"Most people have never seen this before," he said. "They've seen it maybe in a James Bond movie, but not in a real way. So when people think of it, it's kind of like, 'This is the kind of thing James Bond would do.' Not something people imagine as a normal hobby."

Maybe German's definition of normal is a bit skewed.

Earlier this year, he took his normal hobby to Arkansas, for his first race - a 170-miler.

"I was interested in this bigger race, so I did one of the smaller ones. And I really enjoyed it," he said. "It went well, except for the crash part."

Oh, yeah. That.

About 140 miles into the race, on the fourth day, German found himself entangled in a tree, ending his attempt to finish the course.

No matter, he said. He knows what went wrong and how to fix it. For this upcoming race, he has a bigger gas tank and a host of gadgets he's designed to help monitor everything from his altitude - which could go up to 10,000 feet as he attempts to clear ski mountains in Utah - to the tilt of his wing. He knows he's not infallible, so he's also created a gizmo that will serve as a black box, recording all his flight data, through impact, should he fall from the sky again.

He's keeping his hopes high. While he averaged about 35 miles a day on the short race earlier this year, he's hoping to complete the 1,000-mile mega-quest in five days - meaning he's hoping to move along at a pace six times faster than the one he maintained then.

How fast he goes depends less on him and his machinery than it does on the air.

"The aircraft moves through the air at anywhere from about 25 to 45 miles per hour, or at least mine does," he said. "So if I'm going 25 miles per hour and I have a 20 mile per hour headwind, I'm only going 5 miles per hour."

If it's a tailwind, he can move at about 45 miles per hour. This kind of variation means he's not quite sure how far he'll be able to make it on any given day. Below him, friends will drive a Jeep, following a rough sketch of the route, so he'll have access to the car and camping gear. Most nights, anyway; it's very likely he could have to camp out on top of a mountain or in a forest the Jeep can't reach along the way. So he'll carry a sleeping bag in his 90-pound pack and wear three layers of clothes.

Each day, he'll touch down a few times to fuel. As with speed, his fuel efficiency changes with wind. His last race was a worst-case scenario: His 3-gallon tank lasted only about 15 miles. In the best case, it can go about 160. His new tank is bigger, just under the 5-gallon cap the FAA dictates.

It's a lot of moving parts and what ifs. But it's the kind of puzzle that stimulates his engineer brain.

"I'm excited for the learning and the unknown adventure," said German, who is also raising money for the National Alliance on Mental Illness in honor of his younger brother, as part of the race's charity initiative.

"There's going to be some unexpected things that will happen," he said. "There will be some really funny things that are going to happen, and there are going to be some stupid things that are going to happen. But that's what really makes it fun."

On that Tuesday evening in Katy, he flew loops over Grand Circle Boulevard. Drivers-by pulled over to catch a peek.

A few people walked over to the other gliders, asking questions like, "What's he doing?" Others pressed their hands to their foreheads, shielded their eyes from the sun as they watched German circle the grassy field time and time again.

German teased those spectators, buzzing their SUVs. And he showed off, dipping just a couple feet from the ground, then soaring above the power lines again.

After a while, the SUVs rolled away. The drivers had seen enough: For them, the mystery of the parachute, attached to the love child of weedwacker and a window fan, had been solved. They headed to the next thing.

But German stayed, hanging there in the sky, greedily stretching the precious pre-sunset minutes as far as he could. Crazy or not, normal or not, there was nothing in the world he'd rather be doing.
When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, it triggered the worst oil spill in U.S. history, and perhaps the most exposed.

The "BP oil spill," as it came to be known, made headlines for most of 2010 and became a regular topic on 24-hour news cycles as an uncapped wellhead spewed oil and methane gas into the ocean. But while the environmental disaster got plenty of attention, the crew on board the rig that night often became an afterthought.

Eleven men died in that explosion; 17 more workers were injured. And "Deepwater Horizon," which opens Friday, brings them back into the spotlight.

The Peter Berg-directed film, based on a New York Times story, walks through the crew's last hours on that doomed rig - the decisions they made, the chaos that descended and how they fought through fire and gushing oil to save themselves and each other.

"I feel like the spill got plenty of attention," says Mark Vahradian, one of the film's producers. But "even to this day, I don't think people have ever even thought about the guys who were on that rig."

This movie attempts to re-create that night without getting into the ugly politics of blame and responsibility, he said: "In our minds, this was an opportunity to give a voice to those men who never had their day, who got forgotten in the midst of the oil spilling."

"Deepwater Horizon" absolutely does that; it's a disaster flick full of fire and peril and oily water. But it turns out you can't tell this story without assigning some responsibility. The crew of the Deepwater Horizon are the heroes here, but corporate greed emerges as the clear villain.

Mark Wahlberg stars as chief electronics technician Mike Williams. He and the crew chief, played by Kurt Russell, come across here as workaday heroes - guys who work 21-day rotations on a rig more than 50 miles offshore, who want to do an honest job and play by the rules and get home alive.

The trouble appears in the form of two BP executives - with clean fingernails, khaki pants and button-down BP-logo shirts. They're visiting the rig to find out why the project is over budget and behind schedule. They're played to smarmy corporate perfection by Brad Leland and John Malkovich, who pulls out an excellent Cajun accent.

The execs agree to a safety test to determine the integrity of the well's seal - but even though the pressure readings are red-zone high, they declare them good enough to keep moving forward; after all, the project is 43 days behind.

That decision, we all know now, is fatal.

With faulty equipment and a rig held together with "Band-aids and bubble gum," Mike Williams knows they're in risky territory. "Hope ain't a tactic," he says. But it becomes one when money is on the line, and within hours, the whole thing blows. Pretty soon the rig is a fireball full of flying shrapnel, and crew members are crawling through broken glass, scrambling for lifeboats and trying to dodge a burning crane.

"Deepwater Horizon" is a full-fledged disaster movie, no doubt. But a good portion of the first half is devoted to technical details about the oil rig and how it works. You might have bought your ticket to see something explode, but first you're going to get a lesson in deep sea oil drilling safety procedures.

That was the plan, says David Womark, another producer. "A general audience, nobody understands the specifics and the challenges of deep sea oil drilling," he said. "It's a complicated and challenging way to get oil. It's not as simple as drilling on land."

So we learn a lot about blowout preventers, cement seals and pumping mud - and gain a good understanding of just what the Deepwater Horizon's crew was doing out there in the Gulf.

The movie bends over backward to lionize the crew. The filmmakers reached out to the families of the 11 workers who were killed, and many of them visited the set last year. "A lot of them had never seen an oil rig," Vahradian says, and being on the New Orleans set, seeing a scaled-down replica of the place where their loved ones once worked, brought emotions to the surface.

Mike Williams, the technician who survived the blast, became a consultant for the movie. Wahlberg spent time with him on the set, and their long talks gave the actor a sense of how to put himself in Williams' shoes.

"Here's a man who's just trying to survive, an ordinary guy forced to do some pretty extraordinary things," Wahlberg said. "He just wants to get home to his wife and daughter."

Gina Rodriguez (star of the CW's "Jane the Virgin") plays dynamic position officer Andrea Fleytas, who was one of the last crew members to leave the burning rig. In the investigation that came after, Fleytas was criticized for not activating disaster protocols in time - which brought up questions about whether she was given enough training and enough authority to act.

But Rodriguez leaves no room for questions; she plays Fleytas as a strong, savvy worker holding her own among the men on board.

"I don't think anybody is trained for a catastrophe of this magnitude," Rodriguez says. "I think she was very courageous, very brave - and very young."

The goal of "Deepwater Horizon" is to put us all on that rig, making split-second decisions in the chaos and confusion of fire and flying debris. But it's impossible for the film to pretend that this disaster was simply an act of God, that human actions played no part in it. In the end, viewers are left with no doubt that the well blew and the rig exploded because big companies cut corners with safety and valued profits over human life.

And for that, we're all a little responsible, Vahradian points out. The world demands around 93 million barrels of oil a day, and that oil "comes from somewhere."

"Somebody has to pull it out of the ground," he says. "Somebody has to take a risk to do that. If there is a political side to this story, it's that."
A Pedro Sanchez sympathizer unfurled a banner outside PSOE headquarters on Friday. Kike Para (EL PAIS)

The chain of events triggered by the sudden resignation of over half the Socialist Party (PSOE)s executive board on Wednesday represents a new twist in Spains unraveling political scenario.

The main opposition party has effectively split into supporters of Secretary General Pedro Sanchez, who refuses to support a minority government led by the Popular Party (PP), and detractors who feel that he should step aside.

One Socialist official has already apologized for this deplorable spectacle

Instead, Sanchez has called an extraordinary meeting of the Federal Committee, a 290-member body, for Saturday at party headquarters in Madrid. His goal is to secure approval for an express party conference and primaries to either confirm him as the party leader or choose someone else.

The move met with strong opposition from high-placed officials, leading to the unprecedented decision by 17 executive board members to resign in a bid to force Sanchez out and prevent the party conference and primaries from taking place.

But Sanchez is digging his heels in, claiming that internal regulations are unclear about the present situation and that he remains the partys top leader.

On Friday, Sanchez and his remaining allies on the board declared themselves to be an interim Federal Executive Commission and said they would go ahead with plans for the Saturday meeting of the larger Federal Committee.

Bracing for trouble

Pedro Sanchez leaving party headquarters on Thursday. Ballesteros (EFE)

Following scenes of confusion on Thursday, the PSOEs interim executive has released a statement from party headquarters, which remain under Sanchezs control, asking supporters not to rally outside their doors on Saturday during the Federal Committee gathering.

The interim Federal Executive Commission wants to convey a message of calm to Socialist members and sympathizers during these difficult and exceptional times for the party. Now more than ever, it is necessary for us Socialists to be a role model of maturity and prudence, reads the statement.

But the government is already planning to beef up police presence outside PSOE headquarters on Ferraz street in preparation for potential trouble, the EFE news agency reported. On Friday, Sanchez sympathizers stood outside the building, and one individual had hung a large bedsheet outside the door with the following entreaty scrawled in black letters: Pedro!! Say no to the barons!

And one Socialist official, Federal Committee member Maria Gonzalez Veracruz, has already apologized in the PSOEs name for this deplorable spectacle, adding that things should never have come to this.

Acting PM, acting opposition

Essentially, after two general elections and nine months of deadlock, Spain now has an interim prime minister and an interim leader of the Socialist Party. And with the PSOE in crisis mode, the chances of a governing deal being struck in time to avoid a third general election in Spain are increasingly dim.

For now at least, acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is still considering Sanchez the Socialist leader in Congress.

We are not the ones who should decide whether there are changes or not in their representatives, considering the ongoing proceedings, said Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria on Friday. We have no place in that process; we respect it and hope that the PSOE will resolve it.

Meanwhile, the secretary general of the anti-austerity Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, on Friday tweeted: My position is clear: a coalition government with the PSOE. Weve been saying it for the last 11 months.

English version by Susana Urra.
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A bow hunter from Tarkington captured a massive 13-foot, 8.5-inch alligator Monday afternoon south of Dayton.

It was Lee Sanford's first time to hunt for alligators but it won't be his last.

The alligator had been tracked on Day Lake south of Dayton for three days by Sanford's friend, David Nezat of All Is On Faith Guide Service. Nezat, fatigued from 72 hours of tracking the gator with no sleep, abandoned the hunt Sunday night. On Monday morning, Nezat told Sanford about the alligator and drew a map to its location using crayons on a Post-It note.

RELATED: Woman catches record-setting alligator in Mississippi

"It took him only 30 minutes to find the alligators using my map," Nezat said.

Sanford said he followed the alligator around the lake before firing at it with arrows attached to floats. The first shot bounced off the alligator's thick armor.

"It didn't even penetrate him," Sanford said. "The second time I got him."

Knowing he could not haul in the monster beast alone, Sanford headed back to shore to pick up his friend, Scotty Stiles.

It took the two men two hours to haul the alligator alongside Sanford's 14-foot john boat.

"He had a lot of fight in him. He started pulling us around the lake. He was winning at first but we just had to be patient and let him do his thing," Sanford said. "We were finally able to pull him up so I could finish him. I shot him with a pistol and that ended it."

Back at the shore, the pair met up with Nezat who helped them pull the alligator out of the water using a truck.

"We knew it was big but we didn't know how big it was until it came out of the water. After we got it out of the water, we all just stood there looking at it for about 30 minutes," Nezat said with a chuckle.

For Nezat and Sanford, this was the second time that Nezat's tracking had led to Sanford's success in hunting.

"We have a love-hate relationship," Sanford said laughing.

"We've been friends for 20 years and I still don't know if I like him. He always seems to be in the right place at the right time," Nezat added.

About seven years ago, Nezat tracked a big deer for two weeks, a deer Sanford later shot from Nezat's borrowed deer stand.

"The one day I didn't go out for the deer, Lee went out to my deer stand and shot my deer," Nezat said, ribbing his friend.

"Somebody had to do it," Sanford replied.

GETTING READY: Texas hunters gear up for alligator season

Sanford's alligator is expected to fetch about $10,000 at a meat processing plant in Anahuac, a fact that is not lost on the two friends.

"He bought me two tacos and gave me a couple of sunflower seeds and a $10,000 handshake in return," Nezat joked.

The massive alligator might be one of the largest ever taken in Liberty County but it is not a record-setter based on its size for the state of Texas. In 2013, 18-year-old Braxton Bielski captured a 14-foot, 3-inch, 800-pound alligator using a hook and line in the Daughtrey Wildlife Management Area, near a reservoir 90 miles south of San Antonio.

What makes Sanford's hunt slightly different is that it was taken with a bow  more specifically a $299 PSE Tidal Wave bow.

"This was a for sure once-in-a-lifetime gator and to take it with a bow makes it that more special," Texas Game Warden Randy Button said.
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Monarch butterflies will flutter through Texas in October like a bunch of orange-colored autumn leaves wafting in the breeze.

The half-dollar-size butterflies weigh about the same as an autumn leaf but are hardly at the whim of the wind. Their black-lined gossamer wings flap up to 720-times a minute in a determined flight from breeding grounds in southern Canada and the Midwest to the mountainous oyamel fir forests in Michoacan, Mexico.

Migrating monarchs represent the final progeny following several generations that lived, propagated and died on breeding grounds this past summer. They will follow an ancestral route to their winter home, even though none of them will have learned the path from parents because no adult monarch sticks around to see its offspring.

Autumn's monarchs will be in breeding diapause until March, when they'll head back north toward breeding grounds in a kind of leapfrog manner with several adult generations, laying eggs along the route only to die shortly thereafter. Their offspring will complete the journey.

How migratory maps are passed into the Lilliputian brains of monarch butterflies baffles human understanding.

More Information More about Monarchs The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service is investing $4 million to agriculture in Midwest and Southern Great Plains to restore native milkweed and nectar-producing plants for monarchs. Mexico supports wintering monarchs at the 138,000-acre Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Preserve in Michoacan. The Texas Legislature designated the monarch butterfly as the state insect in 1995. Help monarchs by installing nectar plants and planting a species of native milkweed like butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) instead of tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica). Track monarch migration at learner.org/jnorth/maps/monarch.html See More Collapse

Most migrate along one of two routes, with the population breeding in eastern North America traveling through Appalachia and along the Texas Coast. But the large concentration of monarchs breeding from the Midwest to central Canada follow a route corresponding to a wide swath bisected by Interstate 35 from Duluth, Minn., to Laredo.

The swath in Texas extends from the north-central region through the Hill Country and across the border between Laredo and Del Rio.

A recent agreement between the Federal Highway Administration and transportation officials in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Minnesota created a corridor along I-35, informally called the "Monarch Highway." State officials in cooperation with federal agencies will maintain milkweed and other flowering plants vital to monarch survival along the corridor.

Texas plays a major role along its 600-mile portion of the corridor because roughly 90 percent of migrating monarchs pass through the state, both in autumn and spring. And Texans understand the vegetation needs of monarchs.

Vegetation is critical because monarch populations plummeted from a billion in 1996 to 35 million in 2013, due to diminished milkweed and nectar plants on breeding grounds in the Midwest. Illegal logging in Mexico's oyamel forests also contributed to the population decline.

The good news is that monarch populations are on the rebound, at about 150 million, thanks to concerted efforts to conserve habitat and, now, thanks to habitat restoration along the Monarch Highway.
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The moment when deputies led state Rep. Ron Reynolds from a courtroom to the Montgomery County jail on Nov. 23, 2015, might reasonably have been seen as the end of his political career. Incarceration does not inspire confidence in voters or donors.

Yet now, almost a year after the lawyer's conviction on five misdemeanor charges of illegally soliciting clients, Reynolds appears poised to win a fourth term representing District 27 in eastern Fort Bend County. Because of Reynolds' high name recognition and the district's penchant for straight-ticket Democratic voting, among other factors, analysts see little chance of an upset by his Republican challenger, Ken Bryant, a former Fort Bend Independent School District trustee.

A victory by Reynolds would be a remarkable turnaround after a cascade of legal setbacks and revelations involving his law practice. Among the more recent highlights:

His law license was suspended in May. This month, he filed for bankruptcy in the face of $1.3 million in debt. At least two former clients have won civil judgments against him this year, including $504,000 awarded last April to a woman who says Reynolds cheated her out of half of her share of a settlement after her daughter was killed in a traffic accident. He denies the allegation.

There's more. In the criminal case, Montgomery County prosecutors filed a notice of "extraneous offenses and other bad acts" involving Reynolds. This document lists 47 items, including two previous suspensions of Reynolds' law license for violating professional conduct rules; 10 instances of failing to file campaign finance reports or personal financial disclosures on time; three court orders to collect fines levied by the Texas Ethics Commission; 18 instances of using toll roads without paying the toll; a court order to repossess his 1995 BMW; 10 lawsuits, at least five of which ended in settlements or judgments against Reynolds; and 17 instances of improperly soliciting clients.

The real test of the effect of these embarrassments on Reynolds' political prospects came in the Democratic primary last spring.

Reynolds placed first among four candidates on March 1, then defeated first-time candidate Angelique Bartholomew in the May runoff by about 200 votes out of some 4,000 cast. Reynolds touted endorsements from a number of prominent elected officials, including Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner.

Touts job performance

Speaking by phone on Thursday, Reynolds took pains to distinguish between the shambles of his personal and legal affairs and his performance in office.

"With very few exceptions, my constituents have expressed a strong satisfaction with me as a representative," said Reynolds, who is the county's first African-American state representative since Reconstruction. "They have been able to set aside what would arguably be personal matters and judge me by the work that I do as their state representative in the district."

Conventional wisdom, of course, holds that voters care deeply about a candidate's character. Reynolds' experience raises questions about what shapes voters' perceptions of a candidate.

His criminal conviction, bankruptcy and law license suspension were widely publicized, but he says voters are giving him the benefit of the doubt - a benefit he has earned.

"When people are local," the Missouri City Democrat said, "they know me, they see me at the churches, they see me at the schools and civic club meetings. We do strong constituent services, making sure that we are a voice for them in Austin."

Perhaps a handshake at a PTA meeting or a quick response to a neighborhood issue will hold more sway with voters than a news article about how an elected official runs his private legal practice. But I wonder if Reynolds' backers had considered what might happen if he lost his appeal. Jurors sentenced him to up to a year in jail, and he won't be a very effective advocate if he is behind bars.

I asked the chairwoman of Fort Bend County's Democratic party, Cynthia Ginyard, if she was concerned that Reynolds' legal morass might affect his ability to represent the district effectively.

"No comment," she said.

When I asked Turner's spokeswoman, Janice Evans, if the Houston mayor still supports Reynolds, she relayed this response: "This is a very sad situation. I have known Representative Reynolds for a long time. I'm praying for him and everyone else involved."

One vote Reynolds won't be getting is that of Nancy Ann Calloway, the former client whose daughter was killed at age 23.

Calloway had planned to use part of her settlement to buy a headstone for her daughter, April Cherisse. Calloway told me she won't make that purchase until the dispute with Reynolds is resolved, which won't happen until his bankruptcy case is sorted out.

"When my daughter rests in peace," she said, "I will get the headstone."
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On the shelves of most Houston gun stores is enough armament to outfit at least a small police force.

All that stands between the cache of weapons and criminals are the alarms, security cameras, employees who tend to wear sidearms and a flimsy .005-millimeter-thick government document: ATF 4473.

The form is a request for a computerized government background check to make sure there is nothing in your past, like certain criminal convictions, that would prohibit you from buying or owning a gun.

The check sometimes can come back in as few as 30 seconds, but lying could get you up to 10 years in federal prison.

As the number of people requesting background checks to buy firearms is at an all-time high, the number of people charged with lying on the form about themselves to buy guns has dropped significantly over the past dozen years, concludes a review of the Department of Justice.

Federal prosecutors nationwide, between 2004 and 2015, charged an average of 32 people per year with knowing they were forbidden from owning a gun but still trying to sneak past a background check, contends the Office of Inspector General report released this week.

More Information By the numbers 23 million: Record number of background check requests made for gun buyers last year. 1.5 million: Number of background requests in Texas last year. 1 percent: Amount of requests denied each year 32: Average number of people prosecuted between 2004 and 2015 for allegedly lying on a background check form. See More Collapse

That compares with 166 people charged in 2003 when the drop began.

The issue hits home in Texas, which is among the top states for requests, and the Houston area, where authorities have said there are more people with more access to guns than anywhere else in the United States.

Alice Tripp, of the Texas Rifle Association, said that such a low number of prosecutions speaks to a system in which authorities aren't going after the people who they know are breaking the law and weakens the argument to expand the system.

"They are not prosecuted, and that drives me crazy," she said. "Criminals rejected by (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) are not being penalized, not getting the equivalent of a traffic ticket pinned on them," she said. "Why would we have any confidence in a system stopping crime that is not punishing the criminals it catches now?"

Reaction to Sandy Hook

Inspector General Michael Horowitz notes that in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012, in which 20 students and six adults were killed, President Barack Obama called on the Department of Justice to maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.

Obama also called for other initiatives, including strengthening background checks and requiring them for all gun sales as part of his Now Is The Time plan to reduce gun violence.

The inspector general found "no significant" change in the number of prosecutions for lying on the background checks since Sandy Hook.

A record 23 million background requests were made last year in the U.S., including 1.5 million in Texas, which ranked second, just behind California.

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System is administered by the FBI, which forwards the information to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to determine if more investigation is needed and possibly criminal charges warranted.

About 1 percent of the requests are denied each year. The most common reasons for denial include having been convicted of a felony that warrants punishment of more than a year behind bars, being a fugitive from justice or having a misdemeanor conviction for domestic violence.

Horowitz noted in a videotaped message on the agency's website that the number of prosecutions for lying to get a gun has decreased, but the number of prosecutions for other gun crimes has increased in recent years.

Massive workload

The report does notinclude those numbers, and they weren't readily available from the Department of Justice and local U.S. attorney's office, both of which declined comment.

Between 2008 and 2015, the ATF referred 558 persons to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution, and prosecutors accepted 254 of them, according to the report.

"We are a small organization with a big mission, but we will continue to do our best with the resources we have," said Mary Markos, a spokeswoman for the ATF. "Our agents will continue to do their job to investigate the denials sent to them.

"We will work closely with (federal prosecutors) as they determine if they will prosecute each case."

The Office of Inspector General gave both agencies high marks for how the background check system worked, but said the agencies have room for improvement.

States need to be more efficient about quickly sharing information for the database, such as a person's criminal record or whether a court has found them to have mental illnesses that would prohibit gun ownership.

Houston lawyer and former federal prosecutor Philip Hilder said that it is no secret prosecutors have faced an increased workload and have to make tough choices.

"This is obviously hitting close to home here," he said. "We just had a mass shooting in the Houston area, and there seems to be an endless parade of these mass shootings. It is a red-hot political issue right now whether to enforce some of the laws that are on the books."

'Resource drain'

Hilder noted that some of the shooters had passed the background checks, but others, like the man charged with shooting several church parishioners in South Carolina, would have been denied permission to buy a gun if state authorities had sooner submitted information about his background to the database.

"It seems like the only thing keeping it from being enforced is a resource drain," he said. "Cases have to be prioritized, and the U.S. attorney has very limited resources given the amount of cases that come their way."

Charles Rose, a Stetson University School of Law professor and former federal prosecutor, said the issue of firearms is "phenomenally important to everyone right now" but that he can't recall the last time he had heard of anyone being prosecuted for lying about themselves on the ATF form.

"I have more crime than I can prosecute; that is always the case," he said. "I'm looking at this multimillion dollar (racketeering to engage in organized crime) action or do I prosecute some guy who lied on this form to get a weapon. If I'm actually doing the work of the people of the United States, I'd better prosecute that (racketeering) action."

Gun dealers seemed hesitant to even weigh in on why more people aren't prosecuted for lying on the form, which they have to get for each and every customer and keep on file for 20 years.

"You don't even want to get into that hornet's nest," said one woman as she stood behind the counter of a Houston store.
Harris County Sheriff's Office executives have been in talks with officials 170 miles north of Houston about possibly transferring 17-year-old inmates to a vacant Limestone County lockup to separate them from adults as required by the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.

There is nothing official, though, and the Limestone County Detention Center is but one of many options under consideration for dozens of youthful defendants in custody, according to Ryan Sullivan, a spokesman for the sheriff's office.

Sullivan said he believes Limestone County officials eager to tout the potential return of some jobs to a community where the prison was closed in 2013 "put the cart before the horse" in publicly discussing possible economic development.

Juvenile justice advocates and experts say any plan to ship teens that far from Harris County punishes youngsters and their families even more.

The 1,000-bed Limestone County Detention Center in Groesbeck has several structures and is privately operated by the Louisiana-based LaSalle Corrections. The prison facility is separate from the county jail.

"It's never as convenient to keep inmates outside your county, but sometimes it's necessary," Limestone County Judge Daniel Burkeen said by phone. "If they want to separate them, they're going to have to send them somewhere and we have a good facility. We have multiple buildings so it's easy for us to provide that service."

The detention center lost its previous occupants after population counts dropped with federal agencies. Fewer inmates led to the end of a contract with the federal Bureau of Prisons and dwindling detainees from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement finally closed the facility three years ago, Burkeen said.

Hundreds of local folks lost their jobs.

Harris County, meanwhile, has been cited for violations of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, known as PREA.

During a multi-day inspection that began in late November 2015, the Department of Justice-certified prison rape auditor found that Harris County continued to house its 17-year-olds with adult offenders at the 701 San Jacinto lockup. And in May, a federal inspector reported that Harris County had no immediate plan to comply with the act.

As a corrective action, the teens were moved to the 1200 Baker facility "where they are still housed with adult offenders in a non-compliant fashion," the report said, adding the sheriff's office officials had not developed a solution.

Sullivan said current options are limited in Harris County.

"The physical layout of our building really makes it impossible to comply because we don't have a separate maximum security space that would keep 17-year-olds out of sight and sound of adults," Sullivan said Thursday.

Hardships on families

Discussions with Limestone County officials have included Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman, his chief deputy and at least one representative of the Harris County Attorney's Office, Sullivan said.

The transfer of 100 to 200 pretrial teens with unresolved criminal cases to Limestone County could upend their access to court dates and family visits.

Michele Deitch, a juvenile justice expert and senior public policy lecturer at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, said she doesn't think Houston-area teens should be traded for economic development in a county a three-hour drive away. Most states do not consider 17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system.

"It points to the need for the Legislature to raise the age for criminal responsibility from 17 to 18 so that anyone under the age of 18 can be handled through the juvenile system," she said. "While they're sitting in jail, they are not getting access to educational programs or services that they need."

Elizabeth Henneke, a policy attorney with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, said distant pretrial housing creates a challenge for adequate defense and family connection as well as access for questioning by prosecutors and other members of law enforcement.

"I appreciate that Harris County is working diligently to comply with PREA because PREA is meant to protect kids and make sure that they are not assaulted," she said, adding that almost every 17-year-old defendant is in custody on a nonviolent offense. "Imagine the hurdles, the transportation costs.  It's going to increase the costs of attorneys' time and it's going to cause huge hardships on the families."

Sandra Guerra Thompson, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, said a different Harris County bail structure that offers pretrial release on personal recognizance for adults and juveniles would mean more empty beds in Houston.

"They would save so much money and have plenty of room to isolate the juveniles within the Harris County jail," she said.

Law a "challenge"

A Texas Commission on Jail Standards official performed a preliminary inspection of the Limestone County Detention Center in July and officials expect to return soon for a final look that will allow the facility to start accepting residents, said Brandon Wood, the agency's executive director.

He added that he is not aware of any other Texas county that has as many 17-year-old inmates as Harris, though the federal law "is a challenge for quite a few" jurisdictions.

Burkeen, the Limestone County judge, said LaSalle has trained about four dozen employees to get the facility ready for the jail commission inspection and certification required for occupancy. He expects to receive about 180 teens from Harris County at a daily cost per inmate to fall within the "market rate" of $38 to $44.

"We pay the expenses of the facility, including the contractor," the county judge said.

Tim Kurpiewski, the chief financial officer for LaSalle's Texas operations, said his company intends to respond if and when Harris County requests proposals.

"We have room and are willing to take those 17-year-olds," he said.
A Houston-area accountant pleaded guilty to federal tax fraud and sexually exploiting children after an IRS investigation into tax offenses uncovered child pornography on his computer.

Benjamin Douglas Guidry, 34, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks Jr. in Houston to two counts of sexual exploitation of children and to filing a false tax return.

Guidry ran Rite Accounting Services in Kemah from 2011 to 2014 and Financial Precision Group in League City in 2014 and 2015.

"Ben Guidry has accepted responsibility for his actions," said his attorney, Sean Buckley, on Friday. "We hope that this is seen as a meaningful first step in the long process of making amends for what he has done."

'Much worse'

D. Richard Goss, special agent in charge of the IRS-criminal investigation, said sharp-eyed investigators followed their leads to additional crimes.

"The diligent investigative efforts of IRS-CI special agents not only uncovered evidence of tax crimes but also discovered something much, much worse, beginning with the discovery of disturbing images on this defendant's computer," Goss said in a written statement released by U.S. Attorney Ken Magidson's office in Houston.

Guidry's attorney, Sean Buckley, could not be reached Friday for comment.

Sentencing is set for Jan. 5. Under terms of the plea agreement, Guidry faces 15-30 years in prison for each of the exploitation charges plus up to five years for the tax fraud, or a maximum of 65 years.

According to court records, IRS agents were investigating Guidry in mid-2015 on charges he bilked the government by claiming inflated income tax refunds for unknowing clients, then keeping the extra refund money for himself.

'Cuddling topless'

After Guidry's computers were seized in May 2015, an IRS computer specialist found a folder filled with videos, some encrypted and some with suspicious titles such as "15yo and 9yo girl neighbor," according to court documents. The FBI got involved in the case.

The accountant's cellphone revealed conversations with a female minor in which Guidry offered Taylor Swift tickets in return for "cuddling topless" and letting him "love on" her. A sexual video of that female minor included objects that were found in Guidry's home, which he shared with his common-law wife.

Another video dating from 2014 showed an adult male believed to be the accountant sexually assaulting the same girl, who appeared to be drugged and said, "Stop," and "I'm being raped." Agents found pain drugs in Guidry's car.

There was also a 2011 incident in which Guidry set up a cellphone to record a visiting seventh grader in the bathroom, according to court documents.

In total, investigators found at least 164 images and 31 videos of child pornography on Guidry's phone and hard drives.
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WEST COLUMBIA - The Columbia Bottomlands is an ecological gem.

It is the place in Southeast Texas where the salty coast gives way to a hardwood forest. Monarch butterflies pass through here in the spring and fall and millions of migratory songbirds use it as resting place, after their long journey across the Gulf of Mexico. It is also disappearing as growth from the Houston area pushes outward.

But on Thursday The Nature Conservancy announced it had purchased 1,900 acres in the Columbia Bottomlands in Brazoria County as a result of a $14 million donation from Australia-based BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining company. Of that amount, $8 million will go to establish two nature preserves in Brazoria County, and $6 million will be used to buy land in Arkansas. It is the largest private donation the group ever has received to buy land in Texas.

The Nature Conservancy seized the chance to buy the property, which sits in the heart of the Columbia Bottomlands, right between the Brazos and San Bernard Rivers.

"If you need more evidence that this is a ecologically valuable piece of property, there it is," said Jeff Weigel of The Nature Conservancy of Texas, nodding to a Monarch butterfly perched on a milkweed growing at the group's new Brazos Woods Preserve. "It truly has it all."

Indeed, the whole area is considered a nature lover's paradise. Visitors flock there each year to witness exhausted migrating birds resting in the forest canopy.

The area is of such importance to wildlife that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking to protect 70,000 acres there and has recently joined forces with The Nature Conservancy to accomplish that goal.

It won't be easy. Of the original 700,000 acres of forest, only 147,000 acres remains today. The forest began to vanish when farming took hold in the region decades ago, a trend that has only continued to worsen as Houston's population exploded and began pushing out to the exurbs.

Protecting the land from development will improve water quality for the whole region, save habitat for fish and wildlife and increase opportunities to educate urban children about the value of nature, said Laura Huffman, Texas state director of the Nature Conservancy.

"When the Nature Conservancy sees the opportunity to help protect a fragmented landscape, we swing into action," she said. "But we realize that we can't get the job done by ourselves and need both private and public partners. This is an area that deserves all of our attention."

Connecting the islands

Almost 50 years ago, Congress recognized the importance of the Columbia Bottomlands by establishing the San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge.

The refuge is a birding paradise - migratory songbirds such as warblers and orioles spend their winters there as do ducks and other waterfowl. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials say they realized long ago that protecting the refuge means protecting the land that surrounds it. So the agency began acquiring property in the area with the goal to conserve 70,000 acres in the Columbia Bottomlands, roughly 10 percent of its historical expanse.

"As we start thinking about development in the urban areas, it makes every piece of property even more critical," said Benjamin Tuggle, head of the fish and wildlife agency's regional office that oversees Texas. "That's why we can't think of these as islands that function independently because the impact would be overwhelming. There needs to be connections."

Enter the Nature Conservancy of Texas, an Austin-based nonprofit that focuses on conserving land and water. The group had been approached about four years ago by BHP Billiton about the prospect of making a donation for land conservation.

In some ways, it was an easy choice.

The Brazoria County properties had it all: river access, intact forest or forest that could be restored, and proximity to the company's Houston office, which was a preference of BHP officials. And the land also was relatively close to the Nature Conservancy's Nash Prairie Preserve, one of the last intact pieces of coastal prairie in the Houston area.

"We're trying to get 70,000 acres in this archipelago of land," said Weigel who heads strategic initiatives for the conservancy in Texas. "And we try, because the science tells us to, to lock up the biggest pieces of land for the greatest ecological benefit."

An unlikely ally

At first blush, an Australian mining and oil company might seem like an odd choice to step up to save a swampy plot of forest land in Southeast Texas.

BHP Billiton officials, however, said they wanted to make a donation that would benefit land conservation in a state where they worked. BHP is drilling in two Texas fields - the Permian Basin and the Eagle Ford Shale.

"We went to the Nature Conservancy and asked 'What are the best areas we can conserve?' '' said Ed Mongan, BHP's senior manager for the environment. "They said this is a really special area that has a lot of things that are worth preserving."

Since 2001, the company has donated more than $2 billion to community projects worldwide.

But the company's global philanthropy recently has been overshadowed by a dam collapse that occurred in Brazil in 2015 that killed 19 people, destroyed several villages and polluted a river with waste from its Samarco mine. The event is widely considered one of Brazil's worst environmental disasters.

The catastrophe happened more than two years after the company initially approached the conservancy about the donation to the Texas and Arkansas land preservation projects, a fact company officials pointed to when asked if the gift was an example of corporate "greenwashing."

Nature Conservancy officials don't see it that way, either.

Huffman said given the demand for land in Texas, there's almost no way the group can procure property without the help of corporate partners like BHP.

The money will help pay some forest restoration and for both new preserves. Native trees will be replanted where needed and invasive plant species like Chinese tallow and water hyacinth removed if possible.

At the Brazos Woods Preserve, there are plans to build an outdoor pavilion, which will function as a gathering place and an outdoor classroom of sorts. The conservancy also recently erected a webcam near a nest visited by eagles every year.

"As people become less and less connected to nature, it becomes more important to have opportunities to take classrooms outdoors and show them what it looks like," Huffman said. "Houston was built on a prairie and there are still some places like this you can get a feel for what it used to be like."
A colorful chalkboard advertising the muffin of the day still stood in the window of Sunny Side of the Street the day after Adrianus Michael Kusuma was killed.

"He spent a lot of time on the muffin of the day  it was almost an obsession with him to come up with the most unique combination," his uncle, Tony Kusuma, 51, recalled.

On Sept. 18, it was blueberry and ginger green tea, but that whimsical combination will be the last at Sunny Side, as the breakfast and lunch hot spot in Spring is closing its doors for good in the aftermath of the popular chef's death.

Just before 9 p.m. that Sunday evening, two men burst into Kusuma's Canvasback Glen Court residence, demanding money. The bandana-wearing robbers fatally shot Michael Kusuma and assaulted his younger brother, who worked at the restaurant with him.

The suspects fled in a white car, carrying an undisclosed amount of cash.

One is described as 6-feet, 2 inches and 220 pounds and the other is around 5 feet, 10 inches and 150 pounds, authorities said last week.

A family friend speculated at the time that the Kusumas were targeted because of their successful eatery, but nearly two weeks later, police have not announced any arrests in the case.

Even before the 33-year-old chef's funeral Friday, Sunny Side owner and co-founder Tony Kusuma realized he'd have to close the place.

"As soon as I heard the news, I knew," he said. "Mike was the business. He was the primary chef, he managed the place. I just don't think I can find anybody capable of running the business the way he did."

Tony and Michael Kusuma opened the upscale cafe in an FM 2920 strip mall in 2013, after running a bed and breakfast together in Maine.

Born in Indonesia, they'd lived out the immigrant dream by coming to America and building a successful family business.

Tony Kusuma moved stateside for college in 1984, and his nephew followed suit more than 15 years later.

Michael Kusuma had both business and culinary degrees, so he oversaw the cooking. Tony Kusuma had business experience with an IT background, so he owned the place.

Business thrived

Once the restaurant got on its feet, Tony Kusuma moved to California, leaving Michael to run the business with the help of his younger brother.

The business thrived. And as things got busier, there were occasional whispers of the possibility of adding dinner to the offerings.

Michael Kusuma became a part of the northern Harris County community, attending mass at a local Catholic church and becoming a staple on the local martial arts scene, where he earned a purple belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu.

After the slaying last week, the restaurant became the site of an impromptu memorial, with flowers lining the sidewalk and Bible verses from well-wishers covering the windows.

Now, friends and customers are mourning the loss to the community.

"Sunny Side of the Street was my son's favorite pancake place; he couldn't believe that Sunny Side will not be open again," said restaurant reviewer and Sunny Side regular Nick Rama. "It angers me that I had to explain this kind of violence to a six-year-old boy."

Lynn Henderson, Rama's mother-in-law, looked forward to visiting Sunny Side every few Saturdays.

"It was one of my very favorite places to hang out," she said. "It was so low-key that you didn't expect the incredible quality of the food."

The Spring resident tried a wide sampling of the restaurant's offerings, but said, "They made the greatest corned beef hash. Holy god, it was amazing."

Michael Kusuma was a friendly personality for customers, but he also grew close to competing restaurant owners, like Taco Crave's David Posadas, 47.

"We lost a big person in the community, but it kind of opened our eyes, also," Posadas said. "For me, as a restaurant owner, now I'm worried about the same things that happened to him. Now every car that parks in front of the restaurant at night, we're worried."

'I'm feeling anger'

Tony Kusuma returned to Spring last week to bury his nephew and close up the business.

The eatery's employees are now all out of a job and Michael Kusuma's younger brother plans to leave Texas altogether. His parents, who'd planned to move from Jakarta to be near their boys, are rethinking their plans.

"I'm feeling anger right now at the fact that a split-second action, the ripple effect it has on everything and everybody," Tony Kusuma said Wednesday.

"His family, they were planning to move here and their whole lives changed in a split second."
Texas will withdraw from the federal refugee resettlement program, the state Health and Human Services Commission announced Friday, after federal authorities declined to fund the state's demands for tweaks to screening protocol.

"After today, the current plan will no longer be in effect, and we will begin exiting the program, with benefits and services ending Jan. 31, 2017," said HHS spokesman Bryan Black.

RELATED ARTICLE: Texas threatens to 'exit' federal program over security concerns

Texas has taken more refugees than any other state in the nation in recent years.

The state's withdrawal does not actually affect the number of refugees settled in Texas or the services provided to them, including medical assistance, social services, preventative health and the unaccompanied refugee minors program.

Rather, Texas will no longer play steward of the federal funds it previously distributed to various charities and private agencies that ran the programs for refugees. Federal agencies will now lead those efforts directly in Texas.

Meanwhile, the Office of Refugee Resettlement will begin the search for a private non-profit agency to take over the state's role in administering the federally-funded refugee services.

"ORR is working to prevent disruption in the delivery of services and benefits to refugees and entrants in Texas," the agency said in a statement. "Refugees will continue to be resettled in Texas only after extensive screenings are conducted by the State Department and Department of Homeland Security."

In a Sept. 21 letter to the the ORR, Texas had pledged to exit the program on Sept. 30 unless Washington "unconditionally" approved the state's new plan.

That plan placed heightened requirements for security screening of refugees admitted to Texas. Federal officials contended that the country already had a robust vetting system in place.

"Since we have not received federal approval of our plan, we are moving forward with our transition out of the Refugee Resettlement Program.," Black said.

Tensions over the country's decades-old refugee resettlement program have hit a fever pitch this year, which has seen the number of refugees globally surpass the record levels of the era of the Second World War, according to the United Nations.

The massive outflow has been fueled in large part by the six-year Syrian civil war, which has killed a half million people and turned 13.5 million to refugees. Other major outflows stem from violence in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have weathered more than a decade of war.

The U.S. admitted almost 70,000 refugees in 2015, according to the U.S. Department of State. Federal plans would put about 11,000 in Texas in fiscal year 2017.

RELATED: Texas resisting taking more refugees

Lawmakers in Washington D.C. and Texas have cited concern that members of terrorist organizations, currently operating in the Middle East and Afghanistan, could exploit refugee resettlement programs to enter and launch attacks in the U.S.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has repeatedly called for vigilance in admitting refugees, and has called for heightened screening protocol for admitting refugees.
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Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders

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There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan

Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair

Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

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I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

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There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

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Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump came under intense scrutiny Thursday for allegations that he knowingly violated the U.S. embargo on Cuba in the 1990s, a report that could hurt him among Cuban-Americans in the crucial state of Florida.

A story published in Newsweek said Trump's company spent as much as $68,000 on a "foray" exploring business possibilities in Cuba in 1998, which would be a clear violation of the strict embargo in place at the time.

Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway suggested in a television interview Wednesday that Trump had indeed spent money exploring business ventures in Cuba. But Conway later told The Washington Post that she "did not say he broke the law or violated the embargo."

The report could become a significant political liability for Trump among Cuban-Americans in Florida, a key battleground state in his fight against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. The two candidates are in a virtual dead heat in the state, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average.

'Troubling allegations'

Susan MacManus, a nonpartisan Florida political analyst, said the issue could cause great concern among older Cuban-Americans in the state, who are firmly pro-embargo. Those voters have expressed disdain for the Obama administration's decision to open relations with Cuba.

"The hard-liners in the Cuban community are very high-turnout voters. And they're shrinking in number," she said. "Trump just went down there and had a special meeting with these people to try to shore up support with them. And, so, just when Trump was making inroads and assuring that community that he was on their side, then this story comes out."

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a former primary challenger of Trump's who is running for re-election in November, urged the Trump campaign to address questions about the case but said he would not comment further until more information is known.

"The article makes some very serious and troubling allegations. I will reserve judgment until we know all the facts and Donald has been given the opportunity to respond," Rubio said.

According to Newsweek, the fees associated with a business trip to the island by Trump representatives were paid by Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts through a consulting firm called Seven Arrows Investment and Development.

The consulting firm later said the trip had been taken on behalf of a charity.

Trump blasted President Barack Obama for a "one-sided deal for Cuba" this month during a campaign event in Florida. He said the move to normalize relations would benefit the Castro regime. He has vowed to reverse Obama's efforts to open U.S.-Cuba relations if he is elected president, "unless the Castro regime meets our demands - not my demands, our demands."

Investment denied

Conway, during a tense appearance on ABC's "The View," appeared to say that Trump had spent money in Cuba but emphasized that "he decided not to invest there."

"I think they paid money, as I understand from the story, in 1998 ," Conway said.

"So the question is: Did he spend money? He's very critical of Cuba, he's very critical of Castro, he's been critical of Cuba," she said.

"He gave a speech the very next year to the Cuban American National Foundation critical of those wanting to do business with Castro."

In that 1999 speech, Trump denounced the Castro regime.

"I've had a lot of offers, and, sadly, it's all been very recently to go into Cuba on deals, business deals, real estate and other deals. And I've rejected them on the basis that I will go when Cuba is free," Trump said at the time, according to a video of his remarks. "Putting money and investing money in Cuba right now doesn't go to the people of Cuba. It goes into the pockets of Fidel Castro. He's a murderer; he's a killer; he's a bad guy in every respect."
WASHINGTON - A team of top scientists is telling world leaders to stop congratulating themselves on the Paris agreement to fight climate change because if more isn't done, global temperatures will likely hit dangerous warming levels in about 35 years.

Six scientists who were leaders in past international climate conferences joined with the Universal Ecological Fund in Argentina to release a brief report Thursday, saying that if even more cuts in heat-trapping gases aren't agreed upon soon, the world will warm by another 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit by around 2050.

That 1.8 degree mark is key because in 2009 world leaders agreed that they wanted to avoid warming of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels. Temperatures have already risen about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, so that 2 degree goal is really about preventing a rise of another degree going forward.

Examining the carbon pollution cuts and curbs promised by 190 nations in an agreement made in Paris last December, the scientists said it's simply not enough.

"The pledges are not going to get even close," said report lead author Sir Robert Watson, a University of East Anglia professor and former World Bank chief scientist who used to be chairman of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "If you governments of the world are really serious, you're going to have to do way, way more."

If carbon pollution continues with just the emission cuts pledged in Paris, Earth will likely hit the danger mark by 2050, Watson and colleagues calculated, echoing what other researchers have found.

In Paris, the countries also added a secondary tougher goal of limiting warming to just another 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit as an aspiration.

There "is no hope of us stabilizing" at that temperature because the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere already commits the world to hitting that mark, Watson said.

Watson said a few weeks ago he was in Washington at an event that celebrated the accord as a victory.

"It struck me that this was naive," Watson said. "This is a real major challenge to stay even close to 2 degrees Celsius."

That 2-degree danger mark is on a continuum with harmful effects already being felt now at lower warming levels, Watson said.

But he added: "As you go more and more above 2, the negative effects become more and more pronounced, more and more severe."

On Tuesday, scientists at Climate Interactive In Asheville, N.C., who weren't part of the report ran a computer simulation using pledges from the Paris agreement and found that dangerous mark arrives around 2051, said group co-director Drew Jones.
Sudanese government forces may have used chemical weapons against civilians in the western region of Darfur in the past eight months, killing as many as 250 people, Amnesty International said.

The London-based advocacy group said Thursday it has gathered "credible evidence" of at least 30 likely chemical attacks in Darfur's Jebel Marra region between January and September. Many of the people that may have died due to exposure to the weapons were children, it said in a statement, citing testimonies from caregivers and survivors. Sudanese Information Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman didn't answer three phone calls seeking comment.
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Texas is a state with a long tradition of guns. The current campus carry law and a lawsuit brought by the state's Attorney General against a county over a gun ban at the courthouse stand as proof.

But, if it looks like the state is the Wild, Wild West where everyone is armed to the teeth, that's not necessarily the case. A survey done by Public Policy Polling last month includes surprising findings about the attitude among Texans toward gun control.

PPP, a Raleigh, N.C.-based operation, polled on a variety of issues in August. But, the gun-related questions provided the most interesting results in traditionally conservative Texas, where it appears a number of progressive policy proposals have reached mainstream popularity.

READ MORE: Group urges Texas gun owners to call on Congress to blunt control efforts

But, the results won't mean great changes for Texas politicians, who overwhelmingly oppose any sort of restrictions on gun control or imposing stricter background checks.

An extremely conservative Republican Party primary electorate - which accounts for about 7-8 percent of the state's voters - choose the candidates most likely to win in the fall, said SMU political scientist Cal Jilson.

"That means nothing for Texas electoral politics," Jilson told Chron.com. "Texas electoral politics is defined by the Republican primaries."

READ MORE: Cornyn's post-Orlando gun plan comes to naught

Among the findings:

-89 percent of voters in the state support background checks on all gun purchases, to only 7 percent who oppose them. They're supported by 94 percent of Democrats, 91 percent of Republicans, and 80 percent of independents.

-83 percent of voters in the state support barring those on the Terror Watch List from buying guns, to only 10 percent who are opposed. That's supported by 85 percent of Republicans, and 82 percent of both Democrats and independents.

-Voters in the state support an assault weapons ban, 48/43. That's because Democrats are far more unified in their support for one (70/21) than Republicans are in their opposition to it (34/55).

READ MORE: False Dallas shooting suspect asks Paul Ryan about gun control

These results came from a state with a campus carry law, where college students can carry guns on campus and where Attorney General Ken Paxton recently sued Waller County, about 55 miles west of Houston, over a ban on openly carrying weapons at the courthouse.

But, this is also a state where the National Rifle Association, long an opponent of any restrictions on anyone's ability to carry any sort of gun, has spent $275,000 on campaign contributions to congressmen and senators from Texas since 2010.

It is also a state with a 25-11 Republican to Democratic split among the Congressional delegation and where both U.S. Senators are members of the GOP, the party long favored by the NRA.

For gun advocates, the poll numbers are a bit stunning.

READ MORE: AG sues Waller County over gun rights at county courthouse

"I find that very hard to believe," said C.J. Grisham,, the president of Open Carry Texas. "Regardless, we oppose this effort and would fight any attempts to expand background checks, irrespective of public opinion."

For Jilson, that sentiment sums up the voters making the decisions and the money behind the campaigns.

"You can get similar polls on partisanship in Texas shows a dead heat between Democratic and Republican," Jilson said. "For now, it is the conservative Republican primary voters that make the choices."
Imagine running for election to a position that calls for debating issues like creationism, reading reams of complicated reports, sitting through long public meetings and the pressure that comes with knowing that 5.2 million students count on you.

By the way, the job does not pay.

Welcome to the Texas State Board of Education, where conservative political ideologies and major decisions about educating the state's children frequently make national headlines and liberal policy makers have few inroads to claim a seat at the table.

One former conservative member on the board considered public education a "tool of perversion." Another once said "this critical thinking stuff is gobbledygook." One woman, who almost clinched a board seat in this year's primary election, claimed President Barack Obama was a gay prostitute.

Elected positions on the board are coveted, and four such seats representing Central and East Texas - including part of Houston - are before voters this November. However, the state's deep-rooted politics and district lines likely spell little change for the balance of power on the 15-member board in the general election, political observers say.

More Information Races District 5 Candidate: Ken Mercer (incumbent) Age: 61 Party: Republican Occupation: IT project manager Candidate: Rebecca Bell-Metereau Age: 66 Party: Democrat Occupation: Texas State University professor District 6 Candidate: Donna Bahorich (incumbent) Age: 61 Party: Republican Occupation: Community volunteer Candidate: R. Dakota Carter Age: 28 Party: Democrat Occupation: Psychiatrist District 9 Candidate: Keven Ellis Age: 45 Party: Republican Occupation: Chiropractor and business owner Candidate: Amanda Rudolph Age: 43 Party: Democrat Occupation: Professor at Stephen F. Austin State University District 10 Candidate: Judy Jennings Age: 62 Party: Democrat Occupation: Director of assessment evaluation at Resources for Learning LLC Candidate: Tom Maynard (incumbent) Age: 52 Party: Republican Occupation: Executive director of Texas FFA Association See More Collapse

"The seats are heavily gerrymandered, so it often does not change," said Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network, a left-leaning Board of Education watchdog. "Very often those changes occur in the primaries themselves. The balance on the board is less partisan than it is ideological, so that's why the primaries have become so important."

The makeup of the board breaks down into three even camps: five Democrats, five moderate Republicans and five hard-right conservative Republicans.

Eight seats are up for election this year, but half were decided in the March primary or the candidates ran unopposed.

One of the four seats left up to voters represents much of northwest Harris County, where a young doctor who specializes in mental health is looking to unseat the board's politically connected chairwoman who home-schooled her children.

Teachers' union sitting out

Dakota Carter, a Democrat and underdog in District 6, said he got "fired up" to run for the board because he is tired of members manipulating the state's curriculum to put it "more in line with politics rather than quality education for our kids." To upend the direction of the board, he wants to unseat Chairwoman Donna Bahorich, a conservative Republican who he contends lacks understanding of what it is like to teach or send children to public schools.

"I think who needs to be on the board are actual educators or parents with kids in public schools," said Carter, who once was a substitute teacher and is pursuing a doctorate in education. "It's strange to me why we would put so much power in somebody who honestly doesn't have any experience of what happens in a public classroom, what teachers go through, what families go through in the public system."

The Houston Federation of Teachers union typically would jump at the chance to try to unseat someone like Bahorich, who was a former staffer to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, but has decided to sit this contest out, said Zeph Capo, president of Local 2415. Bahorich reaches across the aisle and regularly asks for the union's opinion, he said.

"It's very difficult to take a position against somebody who actually is working with you at the table and has done so long before anybody even considered running against them," Capo said. "She's willing to listen, she's actually come to the table and she actually hasn't been afraid to be seen with us."

Last year, she appointed a Democrat to a key committee to study student testing and accountability, a move that signaled an easing grip on board partisanship.

"In this polarized society, that's one of our problems, that we stay in our corners and we don't talk to each other enough to work on things together," said Bahorich, whose goals include focusing on college and career-ready courses and supporting successful charter schools. "There are some things we're just going to have opposite. It's better to have dialogue and conversation and try to work on things that you can agree on and move forward on."

Not only does she face the race with the cachet of board chair, but the district largely is Republican, leaving an uphill battle for Carter, who would be both the youngest and first openly gay member to serve on the board if elected.

In Central Texas between Austin and San Antonio, conservative Republican Ken Mercer of San Antonio faces a challenge for the District 5 seat from Democrat Rebecca Bell-Metereau, an English professor at Texas State University.

The district is largely Republican and has sent Mercer to serve on the board in every election for the last decade. He is one of its most conservative members, is a defender of creationism, doubtful of climate change and a steadfast believer that the division between church and state is not a constitutional principle.

This will be Bell-Metereau's third run at Mercer, who she describes as one of the board's "most extreme members." Name recognition has helped her shrink the voter gap between them, but she has remained far from clinching a win. Debate on a controversial Mexican-American history textbook critics described as offensive and racist could have a bearing on the race should Latino voters, largely in San Antonio, mobilize against him.

Incumbent stepping down

West of Houston, Florence Republican Tom Maynard will try to defend his District 10 seat against Judy Jennings, an Austin Democrat he beat by double digits in 2012. Jennings, who interprets student assessment data at Austin-based Resources for Learning LLC, argues the board micromanages the state curriculum and Republican members of the board are too afraid of right-wing groups to stand up to bad decisions. Maynard, considered a swing Republican on the board, is a former agriculture teacher and now executive director of the Texas FFA Association, also known as Future Farmers of America. He lists his top priority as demanding accountability and supporting local control.

The final race is guaranteed to bring a new face to the board. Vice chairman Thomas Ratliff, a moderate Republican from Mount Pleasant and voice of moderation, is stepping down. He hopes to hand the District 9 seat to Keven Ellis, a Lufkin chiropractor and president of the local school board, who is facing Democrat Amanda Rudolph, a former high school and junior high drama teacher who now teaches future educators at Stephen F. Austin State University.

Ellis is coming off a bizarre race against Mary Lou Bruner, an East Texas tea party activist and former teacher who said Obama funded a drug habit by working as a gay prostitute. While Bruner came within less than 2 percentage points of winning the Republican nomination in the March primary election, Ellis defeated her handily in the May runoff 59-40.

A win by Bruner would have shifted the board to the right after years of gravitational shift toward the center.

"Candidly, I kind of like the board like it is right now," said Ratliff, a government relations consultant and lobbyist who first was elected to the board in 2010. The board is working very well together, partisanship has been greatly diminished as of late, and there's more focus on education than March primary voters, he said.

"I just think we have a good group of people who are there for the right reasons, my definition of the word right," he said. "They're there for public education and kids, not there to climb the ladder to run for something else."
Southwest of Houston, where the Brazos River makes its final twists and turns before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico, there sits a natural wonderland known as the Columbia Bottomlands. Alligators hide in the cola-colored bayous, while thousands of migratory songbirds rest and feed beneath a thick canopy of ancient oaks and other hardwoods.

While this place seems far removed from the many smokestacks and tailpipes of Houston, it could be the new front in the city's decades-long campaign to scrub smog from the sky.

A study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests the large-scale planting of trees along the edges of a city can help to reduce air pollution that forms ozone, or smog.

The study, conducted by the Nature Conservancy, University of Florida and Dow Chemical Co., found that reforestation could be a viable smog-fighting strategy that compliments conventional controls for chemical makers, power producers, oil refiners and other pollution sources.

Houston, in particular, could see a significant drop in ozone-forming pollution by returning American elm, green ash and other native trees to roughly 1,000 acres of grasslands north of Brazos Bend State Park in Fort Bend County, the analysis found.

EPA getting tougher

The study comes as the Environmental Protection Agency considers more stringent limits for the widespread, lung-burning pollutant - a decision that could force many states, cities and industries to adopt new measures for cutting emissions at a cost of billions of dollars.

Timm Kroeger, the study's lead author, said the potentially high cost for deeper smog cuts makes reforestation an attractive alternative. Planting trees can be done at roughly the same cost as additional technological controls while providing numerous benefits, such as wildlife habitat and improved water quality.

While scientists have known for years that trees work as natural filters, no city or state has replanted forests to reduce smog.

"Reforestation would be cost-competitive because we have already done so much to reduce pollution, especially in Houston, that each additional control will be more expensive," said Kroeger, an economist for the Nature Conservancy. "It's human nature to do the cheapest ones first."

The study focused on the eight-county Houston region, one of the nation's smoggiest places. But Kroeger said the findings can apply to other smog-bound cities and counties near grasslands that were once forest, such as Dallas, Sacramento and the hazy corridor between New York City and Washington, D.C.

Mark Estes, a senior scientist for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, described the analysis as rigourous and important, saying the researchers took many factors into account to show that cities and companies can reduce ozone-forming pollution by planting trees at an "industrial" scale.

"Planting 200 or 300 trees in the city isn't going to cut it," Estes said, "but with 600,000 trees, now you're talking."

'No guarantee'

Some scientists are skeptical that planting trees will be as effective as on-site pollution controls. That's in part because some species emit volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, an ingredient for ozone.

Barry Lefer, an assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Houston, said that while planting trees is a good idea, there is "no guarantee that the trees are cleaning up emissions where we need the reductions. ... The timing and location of the pollution really matters."

Ozone is created when sunlight cooks a mixture of chemicals from vehicle tailpipes, power plants and factories, among other sources. The pollutant can cause asthma attacks, lung damage, heart attacks and premature deaths.

While other U.S. cities may produce more ozone, Houston is a unique smog-making machine because of its climate, busy port, heavy industry and car-dependent lifestyle.

Some experts say the region has two distinct problems - one along the Houston Ship Channel where VOCs from industrial sources drive smog formation, and the other on the city's west and southwest sides, where nitrogen oxides from vehicles are the main culprit.

Previous studies have shown that planting trees within parts of the city may increase ozone because they release VOCs.

"Given all that, where would you plant the trees, and how would it help?" said Alex Cuclis, an air quality expert at the Houston Advanced Research Center.

Kroeger, the study's lead author, said reforestation would remove the most ozone south and southwest of downtown, where the additional VOCs produced by the trees are unlikely to increase smog. The study modeled how planting trees would affect ozone levels at a Brazoria County monitoring station that is a notorious trouble spot for ozone.

It would help, but ...

The analysis showed that planting 1,000 acres of native trees, primarily American and cedar elm, green ash and sugarberry, could remove as much as 209 tons of nitrogen oxides from the sky over 30 years. That's the equivalent of taking more than 800 cars off the road annually.

Even then, Kroeger said it's unlikely that adding forests would be enough to bring the Houston region into compliance with smog limits. The primary hurdle is the vast amount of land needed to achieve deep cuts in pollution.

The study identified nearly 470,000 acres that could be returned to forest, most of which is now used for agriculture.

But the price for these lands would make reforestation more expensive than typical on-site pollution controls.

So to keep costs down, Kroeger said the planting could be done on public lands or through deals in which landowners agree to reforest their acres for free or for a charge.

"It's unreasonable to think major reductions will be achieved through reforestation," Kroeger said. "But it will play an important role."

The study bolsters the related interests of the Nature Conservancy and Dow Chemical in this part of Texas.

The advocacy group is working to protect the abundant wildlife of the Columbia Bottomlands, a forested floodplain that has been carved up for hay pastures, cropland and housing developments. The chemical maker, meanwhile, is planning to expand its manufacturing complex near the mouth of the Brazos and must show regulators that the project will not lead to dirtier air in the Houston region.

While the EPA has said cities and counties could use tree planting in their smog-fighting plans, there are regulatory hurdles that must be cleared first, said Kim Herndon, assistant director of the air quality division at TCEQ, which is responsible for developing the plans.

To be included in the plans, a strategy must show ozone cuts that are quantifiable, enforceable and permanent, she said. What's more, the plans typically show compliance with federal smog limits within 15 to 20 years, which is less time than it takes a forest to reach maturity.

"This," Herndon said, "is more of a long-range, 30-year strategy."
Families can sue

Regarding "Congress bucks Obama on 9/11 suit ban" (Page A1, Thursday), President Obama chastises members of the U.S. Senate for overriding his veto of the bill that will allow the families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi Arabian government, but what they did is understandable.

In today's political environment, a vote to uphold that veto, like the president's veto itself, will be, come election time, framed as a "soft on terrorism" vote and evidence that the incumbent must be ousted.

Vetoing this bill was actually the right thing to do, as would have been a Senate vote not to override, but the only politicians willing to cast such a vote - even among pro-Obama Democrats - are those that don't plan to run again.

If this were Obama's first term, I doubt he would have had the political courage to issue the veto. Likewise if U.S. Sen. Harry Reid had not already announced his intention to retire, I sincerely doubt that he'd have voted against the override (the only senator to do so). For this reason I don't give either Obama or Reid much credit for being principled on this.

In the meantime, get ready for a bunch of global lawsuits against the U.S. government, which we now will not be able to casually dismiss because our government has, by this action, given such suits credibility.

David Bradley, Spring

Expect blowback

Regarding "Congress bucks Obama on 9/11 suit ban" (Page A1, Friday) one man's justifiable military incursion is another man's terrorist attack. Members of Congress should have kept that thought in mind when they overrode President Obama's courageous veto of Pandora box legislation allowing families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia.

In doing so, Congress gave the green light to millions of citizens in Japan, Germany, Italy, Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Cuba and Yemen to sue the U.S.

You can bet your bottom dollar that included in the documents their lawyers will demand in pre-trial will be names of American soldiers who participated in the attacks. A do-nothing Congress has morphed into a do-the-worst-possible-thing-imaginable Congress.

Larry E. Vecera, Houston
Live discussion: Violations of rights of civilians detained during July crisis (video)

At 12.00, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, in cooperation with the Public Journalism Club and the Media Center, is hosting a discussion titled Violations of the Rights of Civilians Detained During the July Crisis. Armenian and international human rights experts and representatives of the responsible state bodies will debate the actions of the law enforcement agencies and the courts against civilians arrested during the July events, some of whom are till in detention. Large-scale protests broke out in Yerevan after an armed group coordinated by several Karabakh war veterans captured a police station in the citys Erebuni district on July 17 demanding the release of their leader Zhirayr Sefilian and the resignation of Armenias president Serzh Sargsyan. This led to a two-week standoff. People who gathered in support of the gunmen called on the police to refrain from drastic actions. Ultimately, the police dispersed the protesters on July 29, arresting hundreds of them in the process. Dozens of civilians, including journalists, were injured during the heavy-handed police action. Two months later, some of these civilians are still in prison because of criminal charges against them for inciting unrest. In some cases, the court has ruled to extend their pre-trial detention for another two months for further investigation. IWPR covered the July crisis extensively (See Hostage Crisis Continues in Armenia, https://goo.gl/ekdDMW; Yerevan Crisis in Pictures, https://goo.gl/aGiJ2z; Making Sense of Armenias Crisis, https://goo.gl/uwpJzK). The discussion aims to raise public awareness about the legal actions initiated against the detainees by presenting the views of local and international human rights defenders. The speakers of the discussion are: - Giorgi Gogia, South Caucasus Director at Human Rights Watch (Tbilisi, Georgia) - Araik Papikyan, Lawyer, Helsinki Association for Human Rights in Armenia - Haykuhi Harutyunyan, President of Protection of Rights Without Borders NGO - Daniel Ionesyan, program's coordinator of Association of Informed Citizens Union The event will take place at 12:00 on Friday, September 30, at the Media Center, 30 Saryan Street (2nd floor), in Yerevan. For additional information, please contact IWPRs Armenia office at + 374 10 58 48 99 or the Public Journalism Club at +37460 505898. This event is part of IWPRs Strengthening Capacities, Bridging Divides  Reducing Tensions Across the South Caucasus project, supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ABOUT IWPR IWPR strengthens local media at the frontlines of conflict and change, working in two dozen countries and territories around the world. This includes establishing independent local media; training local reporters, editors and producers; supporting extensive in-depth reporting on human rights, good governance and related issues; disseminating professional reporting in developing countries and internationally; and strengthening communications capacity of local human rights, international justice and womens organisations.
A Houston woman who was seriously injured Thursday in a crash southeast of her hometown faces several charges, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.

Shelly J. Laurent, 55, was the driver of a northbound truck that ran off the right side of Highway DD, overcorrected and overturned, ejecting the driver, said Cpl. Curtis Haden.

Laurent was flown to Cox South after the 4 p.m. crash about a mile off Highway 17.

She is charged with felony possession of drug paraphernalia  methamphetamine, DWI, failure to drive on the right half of the roadway and wearing no seatbelt, Haden said.

The truck had extensive damage.



EARLIER: Emergency personnel were called at about 4:15 p.m. to a wreck on Highway DD southeast of Houston.

The wreck was a short distance from Highway 17.

A vehicle was reported on its top; and a medical helicopter called to the scene, authorities said.

Fire departments from Houston and Tyrone were called.
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OTTAWA  Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus office wont say whether it trusts the Chinese judicial system, even as it opens up discussions on a possible extradition treaty with the country.

Youre asking me to criticize the Chinese system, Trudeaus spokesman Cameron Ahmad told The Huffington Post Canada this week. Im not going to go down that road.

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Canada and China have different systems of law and order, Ahmad said, declining to outline their differences. We are not going to start criticizing other countries systems, he said.

We have our own standards. We have high standards with respect to the rule of law and our own system  and we maintain those in discussion with any country.

Whats important, Ahmad added, is we now have a dialogue where we can discuss these things. Thats what is important.

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Earlier this month, Trudeaus office acknowledged it is pursuing talks with China over a possible extradition treaty.

"Im personally very distressed by this attitude."

But the PMOs unwillingness to reflect any concerns about the Chinese legal system  where the conviction rate is above 99 per cent and there is overwhelming evidence of torture, mistreatment and false confessions  raises concerns among some observers who fear Ottawa is putting a priority on better business ties with Canadas second-largest trading partner over the human rights of potential Chinese dissidents.

Im personally very distressed by this attitude, said Charles Burton, an associate professor at Brock University and a well-known expert on Canada-China relations and human rights.

I just cant imagine why they wouldnt be prepared to reflect a well-accepted norm that has been reported by reliable NGOs, such as Amnesty International, and through a mass of other evidence, that the Chinese judiciary does not maintain a standard that allows due process of law and the assumption of innocence, he said. And then, there is the other issue, which is the mistreatment in interrogation, the use of torture for forced confessions, pervasive problems of false confessions  that would really be a big concern to us in sending anyone back.

PMO 'not facing the reality': expert

The Prime Ministers Office is not facing the reality, Burton said.

There is no independence of the judiciary, the courts are under the supervision of the politics and law committees of the Communist party  and so its clear that in political cases  even if, based on due process of law, the person would in fact be found not guilty  if the party has decided the result of the case, then its the way its going to rule.

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If China wants one of its citizens back, Burton added, its unlikely that person will have an opportunity to present evidence that he or she hasnt committed the alleged crimes.

Death penalty used for many crimes in China

China executes more people than the rest of the world combined, said Alex Neve, the secretary general of Amnesty International Canada.

Amnesty International stopped providing estimates of how many people are executed each year because it felt the figures provided by the Chinese government are nowhere close to the truth, Neve said.

The death penalty is used, Neve said, for a dizzying array of crimes  for not only murders and heinous crimes but a wide sweep of offences, including economic crimes.

Those are exactly the kinds of things that we know the Chinese government will very determinedly be raising in extradition cases.

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How Canada could possibly obtain reliable assurances that the death penalty wont be used, when everything about the death penalty is shrouded in secrecy, is a complete mystery, he said.

Neve said he is concerned Canada is going to great lengths not to antagonize the Chinese. Canada does criticize other countries judicial systems, he noted.

"How Canada could possibly obtain reliable assurances that the death penalty wont be used, when everything about the death penalty is shrouded in secrecy, is a complete mystery."

Every fall, for several years now, Canada introduces a motion at the United Nations condemning Irans human rights abuses.

Last years motion expressed, among other things, serious concern at the alarming high frequency of and increase in carrying out of the death penalty. It asked the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to ensure no one is subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and urged the government to uphold procedural guarantees to ensure fair trials, and to address the poor conditions of its prisons.

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Jia Wang, the acting director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, told HuffPost she believes Canada can sign a treaty with China and not compromise its human rights standards.

Canada has a number of extradition treaties with countries that dont necessarily reflect our judicial standards, she said, listing Mexico and Zimbabwe as well as the United States, Japan and the Maldives  countries that also practice capital punishment.

Zimbabwe is not a country that we hold in high regard in terms of upholding human rights, she said.

Last week, Trudeau stood side by side with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang when both were asked what assurances China could give Canada that it will not torture prisoners or apply arbitrary justice if Canada signs an extradition treaty.

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I cannot promise 100 per cent that every link, that every region, that every person and every time they [will] receive fully fair humanitarian treatment, an interpreter quoted Li as saying.

Once a problem is found, Li said, China would deal with it very seriously.

"I cannot promise 100 per cent that every link, that every region, that every person and every time they [will] receive fully fair humanitarian treatment."

The Chinese premier said Chinas use of the death penalty is consistent with his countrys national condition and is necessary to deal with crimes, especially violent crimes.

If we abolish the death penalty, more innocent people will probably lose their lives, he told reporters.

The Chinese law clearly provides that there must be strict compliance with judicial procedures and there shall be no torture of the people concerned, including suspects and sentenced people, Li said. Humanitarian treatment must be applied to those people. And the judicial and law enforcement authorities of China follow this rule very strictly.

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Trudeau told reporters that both he and Li recognize that Canada and China have different systems of law and order and different approaches, and it'll be very important that any future agreement be based on reflecting the realities, the principles, the values that our citizens hold dear in each of our countries.

Trudeau also stated that Canada would not extradite anyone into a situation where they could receive the death sentence.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled, as recently as 2001, that Canada is constitutionally bound to ask for and obtain an assurance that the death penalty will not be imposed as a condition of extradition.

The prime minister said Canada would continue to have frank, honest discussions with China about the things that matter most to their citizens. At the top of the list, he said, are efforts that would help each other's middle class succeed and prosper.

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Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion was less enthusiastic about an extradition treaty with China. He told reporters that what Canada means by the rule of law is due process, the independence of the judicial system, the rights for detainees, and asking clemency in every circumstance.

The talks with China are only a discussion, he said. No more.

Also on HuffPost
Gordon Ramsay is known for his angry episodes and constant swearing, but neither of these is why he got kicked out of his daughters parent-teacher interview. Instead, the British chef was banned over a selfie.

Admitting this as one of his biggest failures, Ramsay told Vegas magazine: I failed at turning up for parents evening at my kids school. And then when I went to the next one with my youngest, Tilly, I asked the headmaster for a selfie, after which I got kicked out, and so I really fucked that one up!

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Congrats Tilly on an amazing School Sports Day and picking up Your award Most Valuable Athlete A photo posted by Gordon Ramsay (@gordongram) on Jun 24, 2016 at 12:19pm PDT





The 49-year-old then received a message asking him not to return to the schools parent-teacher meetings. I received an email saying, Can you please refrain from the next parents evening  we do not need the presence of Mr. Ramsay, he said.

The Hells Kitchen star and his wife, Tana, have four children together: Megan, 18, twins Jack and Holly, 16, and Matilda, 14.

Happy 18th Meg !!!! A photo posted by Gordon Ramsay (@gordongram) on Jun 2, 2016 at 1:15pm PDT

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Ramsay announced in May that he and his wife were expecting their fifth child, but unfortunately, Tana miscarried their son at five months pregnant.

In June, the famous chef shared the heartbreaking news with his fans on Facebook: We're together healing as a family, but we want to thank everyone again for all your amazing support and well wishes.

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OTTAWA  Interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose charged taxpayers nearly $10,000 in secondary housing costs  while she was living in an official residence also paid for by the public, records from the House of Commons show.

Ambrose, an Alberta MP and former cabinet minister, was selected by her peers to replace prime minister Stephen Harper after he abruptly resigned as leader following last falls election. She moved into the Official Opposition leaders residence, Stornoway, in November.

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Interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose is shown at Stornoway in Ottawa on Sept. 6, 2016. (Photo: Adrian Wyld/CP)

Her office said the bulk of the charges, $8,000, were for four months of rent at her Ottawa condo. Ambroses $2,000-a-month rent charges for October and November were filed in the wrong quarter, and she had to give two-months notice to break her lease, her spokesman Mike Storeshaw said.

A hotel charge of $869.81 for a three-night stay was also claimed when her partner and his children came to visit in November, he said.

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Ambrose never claimed stays in Ottawa while living at Stornoway, Storeshaw insisted.

The Commons' rule book on expenses prohibits the leader of the Official Opposition, the Speaker, and the prime minister from claiming any secondary housing expenses. MPs are also not allowed to claim for "lease termination costs."

Storeshaw told HuffPost Ambrose was granted an exception. Her office provided an email from the House of Commons confirming it would refund the cost of terminating her lease, and cover her December and January rents.

Ambrose's expenditure report showed she was reimbursed $2,491.50 for per diems from January to March, and a yearly total of $23,683.29 for a secondary residence. This includes time that she lived at Stornoway  a 34-room home in Ottawas poshest neighbourhood that comes with a private chef.

Story continues after slideshow:

Stornoway: The Opposition Leader's resident See Gallery

Storeshaw said the per diems covered "the cost of food at Stornoway for the time she was there, as well as... when she's on the road travelling as leader outside of Ottawa or outside her constituency."

Ambrose had no previous per diem claims, he said, because they were paid out of the health department when she was its minister.

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In the previous quarter of October to December 2015, Ambrose reported $13,990.99 for a secondary residence and charged no per diems. And before that, from April to September 2015, she claimed $6,900.12 for secondary housing expenses and no per diems.

More recently, from April to June 2016, Ambrose claimed only $399.36 in per diem charges and listed no secondary housing claims.

Ambrose and her partner are currently in Israel, accompanying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the funeral of former Israeli president Shimon Peres.
Andrew Kelly / Reuters Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau participates in a press briefing during the 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly in Manhattan, New York, U.S., September 20, 2016. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

As a progressive voter, it was disappointing to watch the sunset press conference -- hastily organized on the banks of the Fraser River earlier this week -- announcing the federal approval of Petronas' Pacific Northwest LNG project. Hosted by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change (cue the irony), the event welcomed an industrial project that would trample the rights and title of First Nations and make it virtually impossible for B.C. to meet its legislated greenhouse gas emission targets.

As the news sunk in, I couldn't help but feel my own faith in the Trudeau government fading like the sun that was setting behind his ministers.

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Just under a year ago, I wrote a blog post in this space identifying where progressive British Columbians in the Lower Mainland should strategically vote Liberal to defeat Stephen Harper. The Liberals ended up winning in all but two of the 11 ridings I recommended (the other two going to Conservatives Alice Wong and Dianne Watts in Richmond Centre and South Surrey-White Rock, respectively).

In making my case, I listed 10 reasons why a progressive voter in the Lower Mainland could feel positive about voting Liberal based on their election platform and party policy, including a new relationship with First Nations, evidence-based scientific decision-making and action on climate change.

Unfortunately, the Trudeau cabinet approval of Pacific Northwest LNG sharply calls into question the government's commitment to these policies, and progressive voters in B.C. must now seek and deserve answers to two simple questions:

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1. How is this approval consistent with establishing a new relationship with First Nations based on respect and meaningful consultation?

2. How is this approval consistent with evidence-based scientific decision-making and action on climate change?

With regard to the first question, Lelu Island, the site of the proposed LNG plant, is subject to complicated and unresolved First Nations titleholder claims. This makes approval inconsistent with the government's legal responsibilities to First Nations, let alone its moral obligations.

In question period, the prime minister glossed over opposition questions about the government's respect for First Nations, and he spoke of "folding in" consultation with Indigenous leaders. Was this a slip of the tongue or a true glimpse into Trudeau's actual views on meaningful consultation?

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On the issue of climate change and scientific decision-making, this approval gives Petronas, wholly owned by the Malaysian government, nearly a third to as high as 75 to 87 per cent (depending on whose numbers you use) of the total allowable emissions for B.C. in 2050, assuming we are going to meet our legislated climate target of 13 megatonnes that year.

The hope of thousands of progressive voters in B.C. who helped elect this government may go the same way as Trudeau's ministers' press conference: off into the sunset.

This leaves little to no room for the emissions of other sectors of the economy, or for British Columbians personally, making it virtually impossible to achieve our targets. How will Canada meet its international climate commitments if our provinces don't meet theirs?

In response to the public outrage this approval has generated, Trudeau and his ministers have repeated a non-sequitur about growing the economy and protecting the environment (not possible when we're talking about expanding fossil fuel infrastructure in the context of climate change), and platitudes about conducting resource development in the "most sustainable manner possible" (it's either sustainable or it isn't).

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This approval violates some very closely held progressive values, and in the absence of answers and real action on these troubling questions, the hope of thousands of progressive voters in B.C. who helped elect this government may go the same way as Trudeau's ministers' press conference: off into the sunset.

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moodboard via Getty Images Police officer in bulletproof vest outdoors, back view

The Toronto Police Service (TPS) recently released its highly anticipated body camera report. The report highlighted several key findings from the 10-month pilot study which has resulted in Chief Mark Saunders asking the Police Services Board to allow for the approval of equipping all front-line officers with the technology.

Despite the potential of this study, the TPS pilot was poorly designed, methodologically flawed, and a big waste of $500,000 of government funded money. As a result, a significant opportunity to study and test the effectiveness and efficacy of this technology fell by the wayside.

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There were several limitations of this study; however, the most significant limitation is the fact that the data are based on opinions and perceptions of body camera effectiveness. Two main findings include: 1) most of the community members who responded to the surveys supported body cameras and believed they will make the police more accountable; and 2) many of the officers support the use of body cameras.

There is nothing wrong with these two findings. They are important and do provide some insight into what the public and the police think of the technology. However, opinions and perceptions do not ensure nor guarantee accountability.

It appears as if the TPS are making excuses or deflecting the attention away from the significant methodological limitations of the study. For example, the report states that, "[i]n terms of achieving the pilot goals, the quantitative results were not compelling, though they did perhaps indicate trends that would have become clearer in a longer study... Although 'the plural of anecdote is not data,' anecdote can be compelling and can influence belief and expectations."

If the study was properly designed and executed, the data would have been more compelling and conclusive than what the report indicates. Because the TPS failed in this respect, we know more about what the public and the police think the cameras may do rather than what the cameras have actually done. The $500,000 funding provided by the provincial government does not appear to have generated a strong return on its investment given the meagre results.

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The study should have employed a much stronger methodological design. This is not the first body camera study. The TPS should have consulted with researchers in other settings that tested body cameras and seriously considered replicating the methodology employed in those.

For example, the Rialto, California study employed a strong research design that aimed at testing whether body cameras reduced the use of force and/or citizen complaints against the police. Although this study was not perfect, its design was far more advanced than Toronto's. If the TPS replicated Rialto's research design, they would have had real, generalizable data that could better determine the effectiveness and efficacy of body-worn cameras.

Another major takeaway from the study concerns the high costs associated with the technology. The TPS are estimating that a five-year body camera program will cost approximately $51 million (and this is a conservative estimate). There are several misconceptions regarding the costs of implementing body cameras for police services. Particularly, there has not been an economic or cost-benefit study around body camera implementation so we really do not know about definitive or long-term costs related to the technology.

The report fails to take into account alternative cost-saving strategies such as cloud-based storage which is relatively cheaper than storing data on internal hard drives. Because the TPS did not use cloud storage for the pilot, this may be a reason why they did not include it in their estimates. However, this raises concerns with the study in that it was not comprehensive and not entirely accurate since it did not take into account other cost-saving options for future body camera implementation.

It should be noted that although the TPS do overstate the costs of a body camera program, there are several unknown costs that are associated with the technology and some may not be known until years into a program. However, the estimate suggested in the report should not be taken at face value.

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What needs to be addressed is the fact that the TPS are calling for widespread deployment of body cameras for all front-line officers despite knowing the true value of this technology. This is a critical concern moving forward especially when the agency is in the midst of cutting costs to its $1-billion-plus budget.

The results from the TPS body camera study are informative, particularly for other police services across the country. Even though the study was poorly designed, it may be a blessing in disguise because the "positive results" claimed by the TPS will set off a domino effect for other police agencies in choosing whether to test body cameras. For example, shortly after the TPS report was released, the Ottawa Police Service announced that they will begin a pilot program beginning in 2017. It is only a matter of time before other agencies follow suit.

These other services that decide to study body cameras must develop methodologically sound research designs with the help of academic and independent research teams. After more than a year, we still do not know if, and how effective police body cameras are. The TPS failed to shed any further light on this. More research is urgently needed, and stronger methodological designs are necessary in doing so.

It may take some time before we can expect any conclusive results on the effectiveness of body camera technology. If the Toronto Police Services Board approves the request for full body camera deployment, policy makers must develop consistent and uniform guidelines around the deployment and use of body cameras for and by all police services in the country. This is imperative to ensuring that all police services and officers are accountable on the same level and in the same manner.

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Vancouver City Hall continued its march into the bedrooms of the city yesterday when it announced an onerous regulation and tax regime to snuff out Airbnb and other short-term room/house rental companies.

This is, at least, the fourth time in the past year that Vancouver, led by Mayor Gregor Robertson, has passed laws or taxes that significantly erode the freedom of its residents to use their personal property the way they see fit.

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Last fall, Robertson and his council voted to keep Uber and other ride-sharing companies out of the city. This was done mainly to protect the taxi industry which, coincidentally, donated $53,000 to Robertson's Vision Vancouver party in the last election campaign.

Having damaged his residents' ability to move around the city, Robertson's council then passed an energy plan that will ban natural gas use within city limits by 2050. This dooms future residents to higher utility costs -- as much as $1,400 per year -- as they are forced to switch to far more expensive energy sources.

And earlier this month, Robertson unveiled a vacant home tax, threatening property owners with tens of thousands of dollars of new taxes if they don't rent out empty homes and condos. To help enforce it, he's hiring a whole new city department and encouraging neighbours to call a city snitch line.

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Now, it's an attack on Airbnb and a knockout blow to the sharing economy in Vancouver.

The sharing economy isn't some marketing buzzword, focus-tested by cynical political operatives to try and win votes. It's a legitimate cultural shift, led in large part by the millennial generation, to more organic, people-driven innovation centered around mutual benefit. You have an extra room and need a few dollars to cover your mortgage? I need a place to stay and am willing to pay you. Why shouldn't we be connected through a smartphone app so we can help one another out?

With this policy, he is prioritizing renters over owners.

Robertson argues that Airbnb is making life more difficult for renters in Vancouver. But his solution takes much-needed income out of the pockets of homeowners struggling to get by in a city noted for its high cost of living and worrisome levels of personal debt. With this policy, he is prioritizing renters over owners. When public policy intervenes in private business, there are always winners and losers.

It will also make it more difficult for those young renters to eventually buy homes in Vancouver. After all, every extra dollar helps, and for many first-time buyers, a couple nights a month of Airbnb income goes a long way to covering some of their bills.

Roughly three per cent of home owners in Vancouver rented out space through the app last year. Only 0.1 per cent of all homes in Vancouver were rented out long enough through Airbnb to generate more money than a full-time, traditional renter would pay.

Government should keep its sticky hands off of the sharing economy.

This continues the erosion of personal property rights in the city. While property rights are not listed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada has a long tradition of allowing people to do what they want with their personal property.

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Robertson's vacancy and Airbnb taxes are a significant stumble down a slippery slope. What's next for this mayor? If these new taxes don't raise the vacancy rate high enough, will he go after unoccupied suites in homes and tax people if they don't rent them out? Or empty bedrooms? If private housing is now a social good, with its use essentially controlled by the government through tax and regulation, what's to stop these next steps?

The sharing economy grew up outside the tentacles of government, a testament to the millennial generation's different view of the world. It has spread to other generations, embraced as a way to help people cover housing costs and help others see the world affordably.

Government should keep its sticky hands off of the sharing economy -- and away from the private homes and bedrooms of its taxpayers.

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Opinion: It is difficult to say which of the human rights was not violated during July events in Yerevan (video)

The extent of human rights violations during the July events was unprecedented. Citizens right to organize and participate in peaceful assemblies was grossly violated. There was a series of arbitrary actions by the law enforcement agencies which resulted in illegal detention of citizens, Haykuhi Harutyunyan, President of Protection of Rights Without Borders NGO, said on Friday. Ill-treatment of citizens later continued in police stations. People did not have access to water, food or toilets and were denied legal assistance," she added. Lawyer Arayik Papikyan says it is difficult to say which of the human rights was not violated during the July events. There were so many reports about violations that it is much easier to say which right was not violated, he said. After the seizure of a police station in Yerevans Erebuni district by the Sasna Dzrer armed group, lawyers also encountered obstacles created by the law enforcement officials. I was denied access to a definite investigation department several times. In another case, I had to wait outside an investigation department in the pouring rain for 20 minutes, Mr. Papikyan said in his speech. While I was waiting there [in the rain], law enforcement agencies, especially the police made efforts to show us that in fact no reform had been carried out over the years. It was only an illusion. "
KeithBishop

There has been much reported lately on why our existing first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system needs to be replaced by an electoral system that produces results that are more proportional to how voters have voted. By way of example, this piece in Policy Note by Maxwell A. Cameron does an excellent job of describing the pitfalls of our existing system and how a more proportional electoral system would improve the functioning of our democracy.

Similarly, this three-part analysis that I prepared in June examines why Canadians need to participate in the national debate that is currently underway and provides tips for how Canadians might participate.

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At the end of the day, reforming our electoral system is an opportunity for Canadians to ensure that the voices of a majority of citizens are represented in Parliament. If Canadians feel better represented in the House of Commons, it stands to reason that larger numbers will also be motivated to engage more fully in our democracy.

Both of these elements are cited as goals in the principles that the current Government published to clarify their intent through the study that is underway now and in which Canadians have been invited to participate.

In my brief to the #ERRE Committee, I recommended adoption of a Party List Proportional Representation (PR) system. My reason for doing so is that, while the semi-proportional systems being discussed most today (eg., Mixed Member Proportional, Single Transferable Vote) would be better than what we currently have in place, they are not fully proportional. This means that, following an election, the voices of some voters would still not be represented in the House of Commons by someone whose values they share.

I believe that Canada needs a citizen-centred voting system and that, as part of that, all Canadians should be represented in the House of Commons by someone whose values they share. My brief is available on the #ERRE Committee's website (here's a link to it) so I won't duplicate it in full, here.

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Rather, I will highlight other changes that I have recommended for consideration of the Committee and full Parliament in order to move our country closer to a citizen-centred democracy.

We need to ensure voters who decide not to vote understand that they are, in effect, accepting to supplant their voice with the voices of other Canadians.

The funding of political parties should re-visited in order to level the playing field for all Canadian voters. The recent abolishment of per vote subsidies means wealthier Canadians (who have more disposable income to donate to their party of choice/pay party membership fees) effectively have a greater voice than Canadians of more modest means.

Similarly, tax rebates to Canadians who make a political donation assume that all Canadians have the means to contribute financially to support their party of choice. Political donation tax rebates should be abolished, and the savings used to fund all parties proportionally by re-instating the per vote subsidy. One's representation in our representative democracy should not hinge upon one's ability to fund their chosen party's capacity to increase outreach and engagement with all Canadians.

Elections Canada's mandate for outreach and education should be reinstated and sufficiently funded. We need to ensure voters who decide not to vote understand that they are, in effect, accepting to supplant their voice with the voices of other Canadians.

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Levelling the playing field with respect to political party funding and ensuring Canadians understand that their vote translates into a per vote subsidy for their party of choice would also be a powerful motivator to encourage engagement of citizens in the democratic process and voter turnout by citizens.

Finally, an outreach and education program which describes the benefits to voters of a PR system which enhances the value of all votes would also serve to increase voter turnout. I do not favour mandatory voting; while voting is a right, it is also a privilege that should only be extended to citizens who make an informed choice to exercise their franchise because they are interested in shaping the future of the country.

The time is ripe for Canada to mature as a nation toward a democratic system that truly gives voice to all Canadians in a manner that is equal and fair.

In order to enhance inclusiveness in the democratic process, party membership fees could be abolished as the Liberal Party has already done. If all political parties were to adopt something similar, any Canadian who is concerned about "party elites" potentially wielding too much power during political party candidate selection processes could become a voting member of their party of choice.

Where local representation really counts is through decisions made by MPs in the House of Commons after an election. Increasingly, party discipline drives decision-making by MPs which is not always what local constituents want. This rant by Rick Mercer sums it up beautifully. Should all parties adopt the Green Party's free vote policy, this -- coupled with the inclusive approaches described above for party membership and candidate selection -- would effectively lead to a better quality of local representation than we have today.

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Canada is a representative democracy. Representative democracy is a governmental structure based upon citizens electing representatives to serve on their behalf.

Representative democracy contrasts with direct democracy, in which citizens directly manage the affairs of the government. The time is ripe for Canada to mature as a nation toward a democratic system that truly gives voice to all Canadians in a manner that is equal and fair. A more proportional electoral system would go a long way toward improving how our democracy functions.

Hopefully the #ERRE Committee -- as well as all parliamentarians and political parties -- will pause to consider other ideas that might be implemented to complement adoption of a PR electoral system as we transform Canada into a more citizen-centred democracy.

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Martin Barraud via Getty Images Portrait of waving business people

We Canadians like to think of ourselves as inclusive. We expect our institutions to embrace inclusivity. But we have a lot of work ahead if we are to be truly inclusive.

The Trudeau government is rightly consulting Canadians as it aims to build inclusion into the heart of a new policy environment -- urging that Indigenous Canadians, women, newcomers and refugees, people with disabilities, and the under-represented groups -- all have equal opportunity to succeed in our society. Yet beyond inclusion in social policy issues, inclusion could also be a solution for our more persistent economic challenges -- low economic growth, stagnating wages, and stubborn rates of youth unemployment.

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We are stuck with a hierarchical understanding of education.

Until we open up our minds about what "talent" and "best and brightest" should really mean in the context of the labour market, we are leaving many skilled people out of the innovation agenda. Right now we have an exclusive mindset when it comes to talent, linking it too much to spending a long time in higher education. This mindset is holding us back and we don't even realize it. We do a disservice to the very youth we wish to engage by not updating our policies and expanding our notion of innovation talent.

Even at a time of seven per cent unemployment and record levels of Canadians with a post-secondary education, Canada continues to experience "jobs without people, people without jobs."

The reason for this is simple: we are not educating and training Canadians for the jobs that are or will be available, but instead encouraging too many of them to pursue a general education over a long period of time, often at a high financial cost.

We are stuck with a hierarchical understanding of education. We believe certain types of education have prestige and earning power, while thinking other types should be left to the weaker students even though they fill an obvious need. Well, if we really want to be inclusive, it's time to value the people who went to trade school or college just as much as the people who went to grad school. In fact, the labour market is telling us this, but for some reason we fail to listen.

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Surveys show technologists and technicians comprise more of the workforce performing research and development in Canadian companies than master's and PhDs graduates. Yet many people have a fundamental antipathy to, and undervalue, this kind of highly technical education.

To compete globally and break past the low growth scenarios economists are warning us about, Canada needs to be more innovative. The federal government has recognized this and is consulting Canadians on its Innovation Agenda.

Our leaders, managers and HR offices across the country all need to know that innovation occurs just as much on the shop floor as it does on the lab bench.

What I hope the government will realize from these consultations is that much of our innovation gap is actually an education gap. Innovation is generated by people and we are failing to develop enough of the wider range of talents that are needed for innovation to occur. Existing federal programs created to support talent for innovation focus primarily on the need for more doctoral graduates and post-docs, and have actually created a false hierarchy that values people with knowledge over people with know-how. That is not inclusive.

The result is not just that we are failing to make all workers feel valued, it is that we are failing to get the value we should from all workers. Innovation is a collaborative process. The most innovative companies and countries use and incent interdisciplinary, collaborative teams of engineers, PhDs, technicians, technologists, and tradespeople working together to solve customer, consumer and society's needs.

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Our leaders, managers and HR offices across the country all need to know that innovation occurs just as much on the shop floor as it does on the lab bench. It is just as important to get our construction workers figuring out how to finish projects quicker, more efficiently and more sustainably, as it is for the next university incubator to develop a great new app. And if we really want to spur more innovation, it's time to support work-integrated learning in a much more determined way -- linking the actual knowledge, skills and know-how students are acquiring with meaningful placements in companies and government.

This past spring, three BCIT Business Operations students worked with Craftsman Collision. They spent four months at the company's flagship body shop looking for inefficiencies. With their fresh set of eyes and training they made recommendations which are now projected to increase revenue for the detailing company by more than $600,000 a year -- and that's just for one location. Craftsman Collision has 38 stores.

In Alberta, students and researchers in SAIT's Environmental Technologies group partnered with Canadian Floating Fence to help the firm build a containment boom that can be rapidly deployed into water to contain oil spills and protect the environment. The firm has now won an UN contract for clean-up of the Niger Delta, obtained standing order status with Mexico's national petroleum firm for remediation, and is helping with clean-up operations with the James Smith Cree First Nation in North Battleford, Saskatchewan.

This is the type of innovation Canada needs. To achieve this, we urgently need an inclusive talent strategy for innovation; a strategy that updates federally-funded research talent programs to be more inclusive of what employers need, and encourages support for undergraduates, technology students and skilled trades students. A strategy that uses data to help Canadians and companies know the forecasts for different jobs and the job market of the future. Most importantly, a strategy that recognizes that all Canadians are part of our "best and brightest."

If we do this, then we will not only show that we value inclusiveness, but we will actually become innovative.

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lilly3 via Getty Images Flags flying in the Wind - Flags of the Canadian Provinces on Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Federalism has seemingly fallen out of favour these days. National strategies, patchwork consensus, and top-down policymaking have seemingly become the norm.

Premier meetings regularly conclude with a single communique that forces conformity and discourages dissent. Ottawa micromanages health-care decisions as we've recently witnessed in Quebec. And now the federal government is threatening to impose a national carbon tax if the provinces fail to comply with its climate change agenda and preference for carbon pricing. A centralizing drift has come to mark our politics.

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Federalism was a controversial idea in the years leading to up Confederation.

Now would be a good time to remind ourselves of federalism's role in the Confederation project. That provincial premiers would represent diverging views and have different agendas wasn't an inadvertent bug but a deliberate feature of our system of governance. Federalism was foundational to the founders' vision and a source of strength for our burgeoning country, and can continue to be in the future.

The irony is that Canadian governance is drifting towards centralization when so much of modern life is decentralizing due to technological advances and market developments. We can for instance listen to any music or watch any movie we want at any moment on any device. Yet our government and politics is moving in the direction of more centralization, fewer options, and less choice.

It's time to rediscover federalism and what it offers in the modern age of multiplicity, diversity, and subsidiarity.

Federalism was a controversial idea in the years leading to up Confederation. It seemed to signal disunity and discordance rather than unity and national purpose. Yet Sir Alexander Galt, the "ideas man" of the Confederation experience, saw it differently. He came to advance a vision of federalism that flipped the counterarguments on their head and positioned it not just as the "real cure" to the ills that bedeviled British North America but as the source of national strength.

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The logic of Galt's federalist solution was to push the most divisive issues down to the level of the provinces and thus open up a clear field for a new national politics focused on national issues such as common defence and security, the functioning of the national economy, and specific fiscal and monetary responsibilities.

Confederation would thus promote the best interests of the "several and united interests" of the provinces, but still preserve to each the "uncontrolled management of its peculiar institutions and of those internal affairs respecting which differences of opinion might arise with other members of the confederacy." It was a clever formulation that recognized the unsustainability of the united provinces and the need for an alternative that respected our regional and local eccentricities.

Government policy should seek to leverage the federalist tradition.

But Galt's vision wasn't just about reconciling differences with regards to religion, language, and culture. He also saw it as a means of drawing on new ideas and promoting pluralism. Canadians might "find in the diversities of race and religion an incentive to honourable rivalry in favour of our common country, rather than to leave them, as now, the subjects by which any party leader may build up an evanescent and baneful popularity by arraying one class against another."

Much of modern politics has pushed against this vision. Premiers are discouraged from asserting provincial interests that differ from the collective consensus. Just ask Premier Wall on climate change or Premier Couillard on health-care user fees. The pressure to conform is strong. Ottawa's threat of a federal carbon price for those provinces which refuse to accept its climate change agenda and enact their own is the latest example of this centralizing tendency that's not the monopoly of any political party.

It's happening against a backdrop of decentralization in the other aspects of our lives and therefore may soon encounter political resistance, including from millennials who've come of age in an era of technologically-enabled individualism. One-size-fits-all isn't part of their lived experience.

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Herein lies the potential to rediscover Galt's vision.

Government policy should seek to leverage the federalist tradition. This means more local experimentation, less central planning, and empowering provincial and local governments to advance provincial and local interests in their respective constitutional spheres without federal meddling or pressure to conform. Saskatchewan should have a different climate change policy if that's what its citizens want. Quebec should be able to impose user fees for hospital and physician services if that's what's right for the province. And the country will be better off for it.

It doesn't mean that the provinces won't sometimes choose to have similar policies or that Ottawa shouldn't have a healthy understanding of its role in the proper functioning of the national economy (as we recently wrote about with regards to housing affordability). But it does mean that the default instinct to top-down federal mandates and politically-imposed provincial conformity should be replaced by a reappreciation of subsidiarity.

It's a good reminder that we have much to learn from our past. Galt was right. Canada is stronger because of federalism.

Sean Speer is a Munk senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

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After the gloomy news over recent weeks about the state of the NHS finances - and with the questions on Brexit implications vastly outnumbering the answers - the mood was somewhat sombre at the start of a recent Westminster Health Forum event to discuss the future of drugs pricing and access.

At the forum - a platform to discuss future challenges and identify opportunities - it was clear that both commissioners and pharmaceutical companies are well aware that price negotiations aren't going to be easy. With so many competing pressures, the potential for lengthy delays and failed decisions which leave patients high and dry remains huge.

A major concern is that future negotiations between pharmaceutical companies and the rationing bodies, such as NICE, lead to a stalemate scenario and the number of new treatments approved dramatically reduces, allowing NHS standard practice to fall behind other countries. If we allow financial pressures to stifle innovation in this way, it could mean that the NHS may no longer be able to maintain its status as a world-leading base for clinical research, because new treatments can no longer be trialled against the best comparators. You don't need to be an expert to see that these kinds of scenarios would be a disaster for patients, for sustainability of the NHS, for the businesses involved and with a knock on impact to the economy as a whole. Not the best prescription for relieving the financial pressures which have led us to where we are now.

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As the UK's leading men's health charity, it's up to us to make sure that the voice of the man living with prostate cancer is not lost in the midst of everything. At the forum, I had the opportunity to present Prostate Cancer UK's vision of a future in which prostate cancer is tamed and fewer men have to go through the advanced stage of the disease, which is when the most expensive drugs are needed. As I outlined ideas around how we might go about achieving this collectively, I wondered if anyone could see the vision through all the gloom and daunting challenges. Could they see that, if we focus energy now on improving outcomes in all areas of the prostate cancer journey, then, in time, better cancer outcomes won't have to mean more and more expensive drugs, and that there could eventually be a win-win?

There are a number of innovations coming through which provide some chinks of light in the gloom. Only a couple of weeks ago the ProtecT trial research findings offered the first hard evidence to support active surveillance as a valid treatment option for men with low grade localised prostate cancer, meaning men who chose this option can often delay, or even avoid completely, the more radical treatments, as well as the implications of side effects.

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Research into precision medicine is also offering the prospect of matching drugs to specific types of prostate tumours, with the resulting improved effectiveness giving men more precious time with their families as well as avoiding using up the NHS' precious cash on drugs which aren't effective for a particular tumour.

Further research by Prostate Cancer UK, with funding from the Movember Foundation, is looking into a supported self management model for prostate cancer patients post treatment which includes a remote monitoring platform, enabling them to draw down on NHS services when they need them rather than being required to report to hospital for follow up appointments on a rigid schedule. It is expected that, as well as improving outcomes for men, there will be a reduced need for hospital visits, freeing up secondary care resources.

And of course the big prize of early diagnosis would make prostate and other cancers much more tameable, catching them before they develop to a stage where they need chemotherapy and other expensive drugs for advanced disease.

These longer term and system wide benefits need to be front and centre to drive the innovation and transformation needed to bring about better outcomes for men with prostate cancer in the future, at the same time as balancing the books.

Back in the room at the Westminster Health Forum, the will to make the transformation happen was evident. The language was collaborative and constructive rather than dogmatic and combative. The stakes are high and all the parties want to reach agreement.

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The stated intentions behind the Cancer Drugs Fund reforms and the much anticipated Accelerated Access Review are absolutely the right ones to try to improve the process of appraisal for new treatments in the short term. They talk to flexibility and patient focus which is music to our ears. What is less clear is the ability to implement these in practice in a cash strapped NHS where resource for driving through changes is stretched.
An Irish craft and gift website is offering an exciting-looking product for sale at the moment. It's called a Christmas Eve Box and it costs 35 Euros. There was even a draw to win one: the usual sort of Facebook thing: 'like and share this post to be in with a chance...'

I didn't like, I didn't share, but I was curious. Looking more closely at a post that someone else had shared, I discovered it: the product is actually an empty box. Half amused and half scandalised, I revelled for a while in the ridiculous marketing stunt. 35 Euros for an empty box! Admittedly, it was decorated with Christmas designs and bore the name and address of your child on the top, so that families could elaborate on the 'this is straight from Santa at the North Pole' pretence, filling the box with their own gifts chosen to suit that special someone. Even so, though. An empty box.....!

All sorts of metaphors occur to me. Empty boxes: empty promises. The empty promises of marketing... the celebrity telling you to buy that shampoo or that mascara, 'because you're worth it'. The product in question costing somewhere between 4 and 10... announcing that you're really not worth that much. The small print announcing that the celebrity was 'styled with hair extensions' or 'with false lashes', to protect against lawsuits from those of us who are clumpingly ordinary and don't resemble supermodels or popstars, even when we style ourselves for all we're worth. The empty promises of social media: the friends or followers who aren't really our friends and, thankfully, don't really follow what we do. The empty promise of Christmas, even: the waiting for that special day which, of course, is every bit as imperfect and limited as the 364 others on the calendar.

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Marketing really makes me laugh. The sheer cynicism of the 'inadequacy - product- problem solved' storyboard for the typical ad campaign is just so obvious that it amazes me that more of us don't see right through it. You've got germs in your kitchen! You might get sick - really sick! But wait: we can save you! Buy this anti-bacterial spray! Hurrah - problem solved! Or: you've got dandruff! Nobody likes you, with your snowy shoulders! But wait: we can save you! Buy this shampoo! Now you're gorgeous! The flakes have gone! Your head doesn't itch! I could go on. But wait: I can save myself. I won't.

Advertising is deeply invasive, no matter how far we think we can rise above it. The jingles and tunes get into our heads. I use 'should've gone to...' a well-known optician brand as an example when I'm teaching classes about modal auxiliary verbs. Sometimes we forget that adverts are selling tools, not documentaries, and sometimes research is sponsored by the companies who sell solutions to the problems being investigated. A recent BBC medical documentary revealed that the development of the questionnaire for first diagnosis of depression was initially subsidised by a company which, among other things, makes and sells anti-depressants.

And it's not just about money. Marketing makes us feel inadequate. The array of cleaning products in the typical supermarket sometimes makes me nervous. Surely if there are this many products on sale, our houses - my house - must be absolutely filthy? Riddled with germs, diseases, dangers? Surely if it takes the contents of the average Boots to fragrance and enhance the imperfect bodies of everybody, we must all be pretty hideous to start with? Does my face value literally get enhanced as I pile more and more products into my basket and into my routine? When I get those targeted special offers because my loyalty card whispers secrets about what I usually buy or how very old I'm getting just as I reach my birthday?

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If we take advertising too seriously, we could start to feel incredibly insecure. Some days, it can feel almost impossible to resist. We're hideous. Surrounded by germs. Boring and unimaginative if we don't try this food, that gadget, another different holiday. We've got to improve ourselves, and the empty boxes of the products advertised all around us seem more like advice whispered insidiously and helpfully in our ears rather than just sales tactics. Look! It's personalised just for you: it's got your name on it. It simply couldn't suit you any better: it sums up how you feel, that sparkling clean kitchen could be just like yours if you just stocked up on cleaning products, and that gorgeous swishy hair could be yours too. The terror power of suggestible adults isn't much different from the pester power of children...

It's the autumn. The evenings and the mornings are growing dark and cold. The ephemeral charms of sunshine and suntans are fading, fast. We're pulling those cosy jumpers and blankets back out of our cupboards and we're looking for whatever comforts we can find. Like everybody, I've been fooled before. But as I listen to the first autumnal gales battering my windows, I'm determined that it won't happen to me again.
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The UK just confiscated a passport. Why? Because Syrian regime claimed it was stolen.

The ability of foreign powers to intimidate their critics in other states is well documented. Some even have carried out assassinations against opponents overseas, including of course Russia under Vladimir Putin in the Litvinenko affair.

But it also appears that foreign powers, including those with the most appalling human rights records, can demand that passports of their citizens can be confiscated by foreign powers. The question is why is the British government going along with this?

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Amazingly enough despite all the heated condemnatory language, the British government has done just that on behalf of the Assad regime.

The wonderful Syrian journalist and critic of the Syrian regime, Zaina Erhaim has been a frequent visitor to Britain where she has spoken with passion and dignity about life in Aleppo and the impact of the war. Her courageous work earned her Index on Cesnorship's Freedom of Expression Journalism Award only last April. In all the talk about how extreme the Syrian opposition may or may not be, one thing is for sure, Zaina is very much at the heart of the pluralist, democratic opposition that led the peace protests in 2011; in other words precisely the sort of opposition the British government should be working with, not against.

However, her Syrian passport was confiscated at Heathrow airport on 22 September as she was coming to speak at the Kew literary festival. This story was covered in the Guardian but since then nothing has happened and the government has yet to change its stance. Perhaps her passport is already back in the hands of the Syrian regime in Damascus. It was seized solely on the basis that the Syrian government had declared it was stolen.

To top it all, Zaina was advised by a British official to raise the issue with her government.

The precedent set by this turn of events and the message it sends to oppressive governments around the world is alarming. In theory, any vicious regime could demand the return of a passport from any government merely by fraudulently claiming that the passport is stolen. It is important to note here that the British authorities have allowed Zaina into the country so have accepted that she is who she says she is and so by extension know that the claims about the passport being stolen are false.

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But imagine if China did this or Russia or Iran.

Here is a situation of a Syrian, who has studied in Britain, works for a British NGO, has received a distinguished award from another, who visited on the same passport only a few months ago and who has indeed worked on FCO funded projects - having her passport taken from her has massive ramifications for her ability to continue this important work.

Almost certainly Zaina is not the only person. I understand that at least one other Syrian has had his passport taken in Turkey by British authorities on a similar basis.

To my mind, one of the few viable options that this situation has created might be for Zeina to claim asylum. By allowing this to happen, British authorities have created a situation where asylum is almost the only path whereby she can reclaim an identity. I doubt that is a scenario the Home Office wants to see, even if those who know Zaina would welcome her warmly to these shores.

And imagine if this went to judicial review. The British government would have to line up alongside a Syrian regime that is barrel bombing and starving its people into submission against one of its most eloquent and principled critics. Embarrassing doesn't even begin to describe it.

Zaina has a blog: http://zaina-erhaim.com/
Working as a CEO in the tech sector has taught me a valuable lesson about people.

The simple truth is that people shine not when they compete, but when they collaborate.

The enemy of success is not failure. Failure teaches us some of our most valuable lessons in life.

No, that enemy is self-doubt and comparison.

If, like me, you are a woman in business, this will probably sound familiar.

Shine Theory says not. It is gently but effectively changing the way woman in the workplace relate to each other and move up the career ladder.

It recently emerged for instance that female staffers in the White House have been using Shine Theory, and, specifically "amplification" to make their voices heard, their contributions recognised and to support one another in the competitive, and often male-dominated, world of politics.

If it can work in that environment, I believe it can work in business just as effectively. It certainly seems to work.

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In the White House example, amplification meant simply the reiterating points made by female colleagues, giving them credit for it, and collaborating together to amplify their individual voices.

Competition doesn't amplify, it too often diminishes by overlooking the contributions of others. In politics, and indeed in a business environment, what leaders need to hear are ALL the voices, or at least as many of them as possible - not just the ones who shout loudest.

So Shine Theory isn't just a feminist tool. Any business that fails to recognise and encourage a significant percentage of its workforce is surely doomed to fail.

Its no surprise then the White House example worked. Women became more visible, and during Barack Obama's second term, they gained parity with men in the president's inner circle.

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Gender parity in the workplace not only makes organisations more productive, but it also makes them more profitable. The Women And Work Commission reported that fully engaging women's full potential could be worth 23 billion per year to the UK economy. McKinsey has similarly reported that companies with the most women on their boards of directors significantly outperform those with no women - by 41% in terms of return on equity and by 56% in terms of operating results.

But in order to reach these goals, businesses, and indeed individuals, have to do a lot more.

99 per cent of all businesses in the UK are classified as SMEs. For many of these small organisations their main focus is on staying in the black, rather than gender equality. But the two don't need to be mutually exclusive.

Businesses need better systems in place in order to capitalise on the skills of all their employees. Far too often we see women not returning to work after having children, but these women have acquired unique experiences that companies can benefit from.

According to a report published this week by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, women returning from maternity leave are more likely to face discrimination in the workplace than they were a decade ago. The report also found that even when mothers were given the chance to work flexibly, over half said it cut their work opportunities and they felt their opinion was less valued.

The Commission rightly highlights this as a backward step for equality in UK, but business leaders should also be concerned.

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Employee turnover is expensive. From the cost of recruitment to severance pay to losing valuable expertise and niche skills, all of it can have a serious impact on a small company. Any good CEO will bring each decision back to the bottom line, and the evidence is clear: support new mothers or pay a high price.

It's also much easier to achieve these goals given the recent advances in technology, allowing employees to work from home and organise their personal lives around work demands. If women were able to continue to work, but within more flexible parameters, businesses would not only retain the skills and talent, but productivity would improve.

Business leaders who are pragmatic and recognise the contemporary realities their companies are operating in are reaping the rewards. For instance when Google increased paid maternity leave to 18 weeks, the rate at which new mothers left fell by 50%.
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Being Prime Minister is an unusual job. Not just because it comes with the most famous front door in Britain, or because the person applying to replace you gets to stand on national television and shout at you for half an hour every Wednesday afternoon. The job of Prime Minister is unusual because it doesn't come with much of a job description - it is what you make of it. That means every occupant of Downing Street brings their own personal management style to the job, and Theresa May is proving no exception.

From the moment she became Conservative leader, it was clear May's approach would differ from that of her predecessor. David Cameron was often described as a "chairman of the board" figure, letting his Ministers plough their own furrows after he set an overall direction for the Government. Helped along by the constraints of Coalition Government, this approach led to remarkably stable Government. Unlike Tony Blair, who reshuffled his Government faster than a deck of cards in a casino, Ministers across Government had time to learn their briefs and develop policy. This hands-off approach wasn't without its problems though. Cameron, Osborne and their policy chief, Oliver Letwin, famously didn't understand the NHS reforms being proposed to them by Andrew Lansley. Once the details were revealed, it proved to be hugely controversial and had to be massively scaled back after a bruising political battle.

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All the early signs are that May's governing style will be different. She is already approaching the job in the same way she approached being Home Secretary. May is projecting a straight-forward, no-nonsense style while making it clear she's got her eye on the details and won't be making rash - or rushed - decisions. The message they are trying to convey is clear: After the EU referendum, this is a time of great national turmoil, and we have a Prime Minister who will consider all the evidence and make the right decision for the UK in the long-term.

But it's not just the image that May is bringing over from the Home Office with her. Her tenure as Home Secretary was characterised by a tight grasp on every aspect of her Department's work - an approach some would describe as micro-management. As her spats with Michael Gove or her Liberal Democrat colleagues showed, this wasn't always limited to her own Department. At the same time, her relationship with the media was also very deliberate. She limited her personal exposure to the press, both publicly and privately, and chose to stick to a carefully planned calendar of media appearances. It might have been picking a fight in a big speech to the Police Federation, followed six months later by a major intervention on immigration at Conference. You weren't likely to see her popping up on the World at One in-between, much less on the This Morning sofa.

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If this feels familiar, that's because it is. The approach Mrs May most risks resembling is that of Gordon Brown. Like May and the Home Office, Brown firmly held the reigns at the Treasury and had complete mastery of his brief. The same eye for detail served him well when it came to dealing with the global financial crisis as Prime Minister. But during the rest of his time in the driving seat, it was an approach that was doomed to fail. As May will also find, micro-management from Downing Street just isn't possible. There is too much country to govern, and too little time to govern it. Meddling in the detail of individual policy areas or departments might make May feel like she is in control, but it's also the fastest way to alienate her Cabinet colleagues and create a dysfunctional Government.

It's not all bad news. Brexit is the most complex policy challenge any Government has faced for decades and a deliberative, methodical approach should be welcome. But May will be under immense pressure to react quickly to events and show she is delivering, week in week out, rather than just appearing at key moments. She will certainly have to be more open to the media. How she handles the much more intense media spotlight put upon the Prime Minister will be crucial to her success in office.
Graphics created in Pablo using Public Domain image

I strongly believe in a holistic approach to health. It's not only about healthy eating, exercise and nutrition. It's also about natural living, avoiding everyday toxins, choosing organic where possible, avoiding pollution where possible. It's about stress management and healthy mind as well.

Have you heard of placebo effect? This powerful phenomenon happens when patients think and truly believe that the tablet is a cure (although it's not) and this results in them feeling better. The power of the mind can be amazing indeed.

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The connection between mind and body is not new. Our health is heavily affected by our emotions and thoughts. In this post I am not going to present you with all the evidence and stories supporting this connection (there are many by the way!). Instead, I will look at the well-known people who are well aware of the mind-body connection and its role in our health. I will share with you what they say about health and body-mind relationship to inspire you to take action, action towards better health through your mind.

Bryant McGill

Bryant McGill is a human potential thought leader, international bestselling author, activist, and social entrepreneur. He is one of the world's top social media influencers reaching a billion people a year.

Toxic relationships are dangerous to your health; they will literally kill you. Stress shortens your lifespan. Even a broken heart can kill you. There is an undeniable mind-body connection. Your arguments and hateful talk can land you in the emergency room or in the morgue. You were not meant to live in a fever of anxiety; screaming yourself hoarse in a frenzy of dreadful, panicked fight-or-flight that leaves you exhausted and numb with grief. You were not meant to live like animals tearing one another to shreds. Don't turn your hair gray. Don't carve a roadmap of pain into the sweet wrinkles on your face. Don't lay in the quiet with your heart pounding like a trapped, frightened creature. For your own precious and beautiful life, and for those around you -- seek help or get out before it is too late. This is your wake-up call!

Holly Mosier

Healthy lifestyle expert, Holly Mosier, is the acclaimed author of Stress Less, Weigh Less, an award-winning manual combining well-researched nutrition and exercise approaches with time-tested stress management tools.

Working through the mind-body connection, Mosier shows us that by "opting out" of unnecessary and unfulfilling activities that rob our time and leave us depleted, we can peacefully create the bodies and lives we love.

We have a right to decide how we want our bodies to look and feel, but unfortunately we do not exercise these rights. Instead, we tend to drift along, victims of our own ignorance of the fact that we can have what we want, if we are willing to take that first step toward developing the self-discipline to govern our thoughts.

Dr. John Hagelin

John Hagelin, Ph.D., is a renowned quantum physicist, science and public policy expert, educator, author, and leading proponent of peace.

Happier thoughts lead to essentially a happier biochemistry. A happier, healthier body. Negative thoughts and stress have been shown to seriously degrade the body and the functioning of the brain, because it's our thoughts and emotions that are continuously reassembling, reorganizing, re-creating our body.

Bernie Siegel

Bernie Siegel, M.D. is an internationally recognized expert in the field of cancer treatment and complementary, holistic medicine. He writes on the relationship between the patient and the healing process. He is known for his best-selling book Love, Medicine and Miracles.

The mind and body are not separate units, but one integrated system. How we act and what we think, eat, and feel are all related to our health. Physicians should be capable of teaching this behavior to patients.

Tony Robbins

Tony is world's #1 Life & Business Strategist, Author, Entrepreneur & Philanthropist.

Beliefs even have the capacity to override the impact of drugs on the body. While most people believe that drugs heal, studies in the new science of psychoneuroimmunology (the mind-body relationship) have begun to bear out what many others have suspected for centuries: our beliefs about the illness and its treatment play as significant a role, maybe an even more significant role, than the treatment itself. Dr. Henry Beecher from Harvard University has done extensive research that clearly demonstrates that we often give credit to a drug, when in reality it's the patient's belief that makes the difference.

What next?

Now that you've learned about the power of mind and its role it plays in your health, do you feel inspired? Do you want to learn more? Training your mind in order to improve your health is not an easy task. It's difficult to do it by yourself. To start with I suggest you take a look at the books on mind-body connection on Amazon.

If you prefer talking to people and get inspired by them there is an option to attend workshops, courses and even events/seminars focusing on this subject. In fact, there is a 2-day event coming up to London in October where you will be able to see Tony Robbins live and get an inspiration to help you achieve your own health goals and more. At this event you will also be able to see Jason Vale, the best-selling author of twelve books (soon to be 13!) on health, addiction and juicing. If you want to learn from the masters, there are still tickets available.

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Sources:

This post has been originally published on Be Healthy Now blog.
As a Black woman who is serious about my hair maintenance routine, I have spent untold thousands, likely in the six figures over the course of my life to maintain my hair slayage. From catching subways, buses and trains while living in South Korea, just to find a Nigerian lady six hours away who could braid my hair, to catching 14 hour flights from Dubai to my native home of Los Angeles, to simply get my hair extensions installed to the standards I am accustomed to. Please believe, I, like many other Black women play NO games when it comes to our hair.

Having lived on four continents and traveling to nearly forty countries, one resounding observation that has remained consistent, is that every Black neighbourhood, and African enclave that I've traveled to, has this one thing in common: A beauty supply store on nearly every corner, wherein Black women spend a disproportionate amount of their earnings purchasing hair products, styling tools weaves and wigs. Most often, these establishments are not Black owned, much less owned by Black women.

Last year HM Revenue and Customs reported upwards of 38 million worth of hair entered the United Kingdom, which makes the UK the third biggest importer of human hair in the world. UK hair extension companies estimate a worth between 45m to 60m. Data released by the Anglo-Dutch group Unilever, who have made recent investments in the Black hair industry in Africa, sites that between three nations in Africa, including: South Africa, Cameroon and Nigeria, African women spent 6 billion dollars on hair extensions alone. Other reports by research firm Mintel, projects that the Black haircare industry in the U.S. is expected to rake in 761 million dollars by 2017. The Mintel study goes on to expound, "What's missing from these figures are general market brands, weaves, extensions, wigs, independent beauty supply stores, distributors, e-commerce, styling tools and appliances. If all of those things were to be taken into consideration...expenditures could reach a whopping half trillion dollars."

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With $500 billion dollars at stake in the black hair industry, why is there such a notable absence of Black women in the supply chain? Madam Indigo a U.S. based hair retailer is making inroads to resolve this quandary. The company is out to impact the financial destinies of women in Africa and the Diaspora. Black women are spending nearly 7 billion dollars, exclusively on hair extensions worldwide, so there is no reason we should not have a large stake in this industry.

That is why on October 21st, as part of the capitals Black History Month celebrations, Madam Indigo is inviting ambitious London based women to attend their launch and panel discussion entitled "The Business of Beauty: A Financial Empowerment Event For Women of Colour." The panelists include founder of the National Black Women's Network Sonia Brown MBE, owner of London's first black owned hair shop Sandra Brown-Pinnock, Precious Award Founder Foluke Akinlose and Youtube Vlogger/Beauty Guru Breeny Lee. Attendees are invited to work in partnership with the company, by joining their salesforce of world wide 'Hair Extension Specialist.' Offering affordable memberships for independent distributors and 50% commission on sales, far more generous than standard commissions, Madam Indigo is a commercial business with a social heart.

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Gallup International decided to cancel survey in Gyumri after murder of candidate's son (video)

The Armenian Office of the Gallup International Association (GIA) conducted a survey in Vanadzor city to know peoples attitude towards the political parties running in the October 2 by-elections. Talksing to journalists on Friday, Sept. 30, Director of GIA Armenian Office Aram Navasardyan presented the results of the survey conducted among 600 people between 23 and 28 September. The study shows that many residents in Vanadzor support the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). Asked which party they were going to vote for, 2,3 percent of the locals said they would not vote for any political party while 20,9 percent had difficulty in answering. 33 percent of respondents said they would vote for the HHK, 6,9%  for the Bright Armenia, 3,9%  for the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), 2,3%  for the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), 2,7%  for the Armenian Revival, 0,8 % for the Hamakhmbum (Consolidation), 0,4 % for the Civil Contract and 0.2%  for the Armenian National Congress (HAK), Mr. Navasardyan said. Over 44,7 percent of those surveyed said they were discontent with the acting mayor, and only 7,8 percent expressed satisfaction with his work. The main problems of the city pointed out by respondents were the poor road condition (62,3%) lack of job opportunities (38,5%), garbage issue (34,5%) and high level of poverty (11,3%). The GIA Armenian Office intended to conduct a similar survey in Gyumri city, but changed their minds after the murder of one of the candidates son. "Emotional background would interfere with the survey, Mr. Navasardyan said.
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More and more influential people are agreeing with me that it's nurseries, not grammar schools, which hold the key to future social mobility in this country.

I blogged about this issue three weeks ago, highlighting a really insightful piece in the Guardian by Melissa Benn.

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She argued that to narrow the rich/poor educational gap, the Government should be ploughing money into the early years rather than new, selective, grammar schools.

It's common sense. By the time children reach secondary school that gap can be huge and very difficult to tackle effectively.

Why wait? Why let the gap open up at all? Melissa Benn and I aren't the only ones who see this obvious truth.

Last Sunday, four very prominent people - Ryan Shorthouse, Director of Bright Blue think tank; David Laws, Education Minister 2012-5; Philippa Stroud, Director, Centre for Social Justice; and Lucy Heller, Chief Executive, Ark academies - wrote jointly to the Sunday Times to say the very same thing.

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While welcoming Prime Minister Theresa May's commitment to social mobility, they urged her to put early years at the heart of plans to create a society that works for everybody.

They quoted figures of 130,000 preschool children not meeting expected standards in speech and language and the poorest ones beginning their school education on average a full 15 months behind their classmates.

Sadly, this gap tends to stay there, and widen.

"Boosting the quality of England's nurseries would help to ensure that every child arrives in the classroom ready to learn," say the four.

"There is clear evidence that high-quality nurseries led by graduate teachers are one of the most decisive ways to prevent children - particularly poor boys - from falling behind."

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation too realises this and recently went so far as to say the 30 funded hours should be scrapped in favour of extra free childcare for low-income parents.

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This move was one of a series of recommendations from its report, We can solve poverty in the UK, which calls for a radical overhaul of the childcare system, as a means of solving poverty in a generation by 2030.

It's important to point out that 30 funded hours isn't intended to be an anti-poverty initiative, rather as way to help with childcare costs, support more parents back to work and therefore boost the economy.

For the record, NDNA supports 30 hours on the condition that enough funds are provided to make it work sustainably for nurseries - though this of course is a whole other issue.

But the potential to harness the power of nurseries to change disadvantaged children's fortunes is huge.

It's what the sector already does, to great effect, for England's poorer two-year-olds - 40% of the population - who currently quality for 15 free hours per week, term time.

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There is so much scope to build on this, to get more early years teachers into more nurseries and more funding where it is needed most.

NDNA's new Quality Vision states that all children should have a safe, secure and joyful experience in their early years provision where they are helped by skilled and committees practitioners to gain the knowledge, skills and emotional wellbeing they need for their future life.

This is achievable but only with the right Government support.

NDNA is calling for a framework that supports our Quality Vision to be put in place to cover the whole of the sector.

And, of course, this must be backed up with funding to cover the cost of truly free entitlement delivered by properly-rewarded, well-qualified early years teacher-led nurseries.

As part of this, we have been campaigning for Early Years Pupil Premium funding to match that received by schools since its inception in spring 2015.

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Funding levels need to be future-proofed in the face of the rising costs of National Living Wage for employers over the next four years and forthcoming steep rises in Business Rates - we shouldn't even have to debate this issue.

Also required is a workforce strategy - which this Government has already committed to in principle - to help recruit, retain and develop the great people our sector needs to make our vision happen.
Eighty years ago, on October 4th 1936, the local community involved in the Battle of Cable Street had little understanding of the impact and lessons the day would have in shaping the fight against racism and fascism for the future.

On that day, Jews alongside other left-wing demonstrators and those from other minority communities took to the streets of London's East End to stop Oswald Mosely and the British Union of Fascists (BUF) from marching through the heavily Jewish and immigrant area.

It is estimated that nearly 100,000 anti-fascist demonstrators turned out to protest and block the route along which the BUF were planning to march. These demonstrators used anything they could lay their hands on to build barricades at every possible turn. There are many stories of people who recall preparing the use of pots and pans to throw water over police officers from a height, children using marbles to destabilise horses, and people using broken furniture and mattresses to block street entrances and alleyways.

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Demonstrators refused to back down from the threat of the march and the threat it posed to their communities. They were met by a strong police presence that tried to clear the way for the BUF members to pass through the area, but were eventually forced to order the BUF to suspend their march instead due to the risk to public safety.

This battle attracted and continues to attract all of the modern commemoration. It was, and still remains, a firm example of communities coming together to confront racism. And 80 years on, it is more important than ever to remember the Battle and the legacy it has left amongst the Jewish and wider community.

Cable Street is part of the heritage of London Jewry, and more important than ever this year is about remembering those people who witnessed the Battle first hand. As many of these veterans are now in their nineties, there may not be many more significant anniversaries where they, along with their relatives and the community can share memories and stories, and commemorate the day together.

The 80th anniversary will go some way in ensuring that the legacy of Cable Street is passed on to future generations. Cable Street is not just a reminder of our responsibility to protect our community. For many British Jews, the Battle of Cable Street symbolises part of a proud and longstanding history of society coming together to fight racism and fascism. Those who fought back against the fascists were those who shared a common world view against racism.

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As distant as the Battle of Cable Street may seem, especially to younger generations, we must remember that there are threats in society today that are just as credible. There remains a need for a strong, united coalition to stand up against racism. To do this effectively, we must reach across communal divides and stand together with other communities in the face of adversity. It is not about race or background, it is about values.

This is the kind of message we need to embrace in order to move forward, and work towards a society that stands up to those rejecting diversity; that the commonalities and bridges that we build with other communities will withstand any attempts to fracture us and cause disunity.

Standing up to fascism is not an event or a one-time generational experience. It is something that we have to carry with us every day in our words and actions, because, unfortunately our society is still plagued by these experiences.

This is the lesson of Cable Street, and when we are marking the 80th anniversary this year we all hope that future generations will carry on the same resolve to fight racism and fascism.

We also want younger generations to remember their grandparents, great grandparents and other relatives who paved the way and allowed us the legacy we have today.

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Organisations such as the Jewish Leadership Council and London Jewish Forum put on events to commemorate the Battle, but the real legacy lies in the memories, the pictures, the lessons the day taught us and how this is relevant to life today.
Last week I joined the rest of the aid world in New York at the first global summit on refugees and migrants to take place alongside the UN General Assembly. Much discussion centred on the horrors continuing to unfold in Syria, as well as Yemen, South Sudan, Iraq and of course the refugee crisis. Rightly so. Globally, there are more than 65 million forcibly displaced people - with more than 21 million formally recognised as refugees. The war in Syria is the worst humanitarian catastrophe for a generation, a tragedy on an unimaginable scale. But although the scale of this turmoil compels our attention, it is all too easy to fall into despair.

The extent of the chaos unfolding in some parts of our increasingly interconnected world is often linked with poverty, inequality and rising disparities between rich and poor; and these are major problems. However, framing such complex issues purely in terms of poverty and inequality invariably leads to political pigeonholing which polarises opinion, shuts down debate and prevents us from focusing on the underlying causes. Instead, we should reframe these issues around opportunity. Specifically, the inequity of opportunity.

In the face of current headlines, it is easy to forget that much of our world is better than it has ever been before. Extreme poverty has been cut in half in just two decades, child and maternal death rates have fallen drastically and Africa's growth rate is strong. Within catch-all terms like 'developing countries', 'the Global South' or 'fragile states' we have seen the development of Nairobi's silicon valley, the signing of a peace deal in Colombia, a booming middle class in India and China, unprecedented primary school enrolment worldwide, and Polio all but eradicated. Despite its current travails, Europe is experiencing the most peaceful period in its history. The global trend is upward.

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But still, there are many who are left behind: fragile states like Somalia, despite the economic growth being experienced in much of East Africa; pockets of fragility in West Africa's economic powerhouse, Nigeria. And with today's world ever more connected, the people trapped in those places are increasingly aware of progress elsewhere and the opportunities they are being denied.

And in large swathes of the Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan and parts of Africa, it is anger at this exclusion from the opportunities so many of us enjoy that has created a narrative for extremist groups to exploit. Mercy Corps research has shown that anger at injustice, particularly from weak or corrupt government, is a leading reason that young people take up violence. In Nigeria, our research has shown that Boko Haram has taken advantage of youth ambition to become upwardly mobile and respected within their communities.

It is not just poverty that angers these people - it is the injustice that other people have opportunities that they do not. In some cases this pushes them into violent conflict, the leading factor behind refugees and migrants.

So we are faced with a paradox. Today's technologies, access to education, literacy and financial capability should mean that equitable opportunity is more accessible than ever before. They have certainly enabled some great successes. Yet, it is in part those very factors that are fuelling turmoil, by creating a window onto a world of opportunity that many people still cannot reach.

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What needs to be done? There are a number of solutions, but we need courage and honesty to pursue them.

Firstly, we need to accelerate the pace and distribution of progress through more inclusive governance. The pace of change is not meeting expectations and its distribution is too uneven. Discrimination, corruption and injustice are a result of weak governance, and this prevents those on the margins having access to the opportunities others enjoy. We must invest in governance models that make people feel included, especially youth, to enable the benefits of globalisation to be more widely shared.

Secondly, we must increase economic investment into fragile environments because without this, the vast quality-of-life gains we have experienced across many geographies will be undermined. Operating in states of fragility and volatility is certainly more risky, but businesses can seek out new growth markets while working to stem instability which can affect established markets. Local and regional businesses can contribute to and benefit from domestic growth and stability, and expand their reach and their social impact by partnering with development NGOs and working with governments where appropriate.

In truth, these solutions have been identified for some time, but here is where courage and honesty are required. Working on governance and investment in fragile states is complex, uncertain and risky. It is likely that many efforts will not immediately succeed. It is possible that in pursuit of lasting solutions, taxpayer-funded aid money will not have the fully desired effect.

When that happens, politicians and the tax-paying public must have the courage to accept that with risk sometimes comes failure - but that failure, combined with a commitment for learning and transparency, is acceptable and can result in longer term success. We accept this in the private sector; we should accept it in the aid sector too.

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In turn, aid professionals like me must have the honesty to talk about how difficult and complex these problems are. We should not oversimplify what we do in search of funding, nor overclaim our successes. Sometimes a simple message about alleviating poverty is appropriate, but sometimes it obscures the deeper reality - that it is inequity of opportunity that is driving much of the turmoil we see daily on our television screens.
I was listening to the commentators discussing Jeremy Corbyn's win of the leadership of the Labour party on the radio this morning. Does this mean a shift in the country's politics? Is there a new centre ground? These are the questions being asked.

What is not being said is that actually people vote for people they perceive as authentic.

It's not just what you say but how you say it. The truth is that if Ed Miliband had been perceived as authentic he may even have won the last election. But he was seen as trying to create an image of himself that masked who he really was. Remember the two kitchens and the bacon sandwich, and how those stories were presented. It wasn't his policies that lost him the last election.

On the whole we don't like or trust people who come across to us as phony and false and not surprisingly we are disinclined to vote for them. So it is that we put politicians under the microscope of authenticity.

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Since his rise to the leadership of the Labour party Jeremy Corbyn has been seen by his supporters as offering an authentic voice that challenges an inward looking and self-serving establishment.

Ironically, politicians who do understand the power of authenticity often seem to think that faking it is the best way forward.

But no matter how much you try to fake authenticity on the outside by how you smile, shake hands, tell stories of meeting other 'real' people, if you are not authentic on the inside other people will eventually see through the facade.

What we then see are people who are self-deceptive and unrealistic in their perceptions of reality, judgemental of other people, unable to express their emotions freely and clearly, not open to learning from their mistakes, and who do not understand their own motivations.

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To be authentic you really have to know yourself.

Knowing yourself means that you are genuinely open to learning and developing as a person. You become aware of your own emotions, more comfortable letting them act as your compass point, and genuinely empathic to others. You have realistic perceptions of reality, are accepting of other people, thoughtful, able to express your emotions freely and clearly, open to learning from mistakes, and able to understand your motivations.
Floresco Productions via Getty Images

My recent article on Fast Fashion - Can it be Sustainable? explored fast fashion, sustainability, and the growing stand-off between two fashion industry camps - fast fashion retailers outwardly promoting sustainability initiatives versus a growing sustainable fashion movement questioning whether fast fashion and sustainability can co-exist - including thousands of independent brands, fashion professionals and consumers.

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With many of the industry's most creative minds being applied independently to each side of the argument, I believe we are missing an opportunity to step back and view the full picture. The fast fashion model is increasingly dominating the industry as a whole, in relation to volumes, visibility, and sales. This model is now the way most fashion business (by volume) is done - how can we as an industry constructively move this debate forward? Is it possible for us to shift the direction of the fast fashion juggernaut?

I see three places we can start. Some of these (no 3...) will require some blue sky thinking. I believe that all of them could open the door to more solutions-focused debate... (and that's got to be more fun than reminding ourselves of the problems... again ;-))

1. Uniting the Industry's Best Thinkers

I've had the privilege to work with some incredible, pioneering thinkers and actors at the cutting edge of the sustainable fashion movement over my 10 years of growing the Ethical Fashion Forum. People who have turned major challenges into business opportunities that transform livelihoods and reverse environmental damage. These entrepreneurs are going well beyond "doing no harm" - they are using business as a tool to drive change in the industry as a whole - as well as in their own supply chains.

At the same time, I have seen equal amounts of passion amongst individuals inside large corporations to do business better. When these actors are empowered, (which is not often enough - ref my earlier post about the 'brain drain') they can and are developing wide-reaching solutions.

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I believe that providing opportunities for constructive and open debate, uniting leaders across small and large business, and furthering collaboration, will catalyse change. Some of the most impactful initiatives I have witnessed have been the result of the innovative, pioneering thinking of small business, working alongside the resources and reach of major High Street brands. Major brands and retailers have the potential to take the fair trade fashion model to scale - make it visible and accessible to all their customers. (Now that's integrity.) But to do this they need to work with the great minds who have already taken fair trade fashion from concept to reality (I'm talking to you, Safia Minney, founder of People Tree!)

2. Developing the Business Model

If promoting sustainable consumption is directly in conflict with the increasingly predominant business model across the fashion industry - (regular fashion "fixes" of low cost product) then it follows that the industry (and all its players) need to develop this business model. This is no easy solution. But, it is a creative and inspiring one. (And it needs our best thinkers to put their heads together - ref point 1 above.)

Here are two ideas being incubated or already out there:

Aspirational fashion: Leading fashion retailers have already brought out "exclusive" sustainable collections, at (often marginally) higher price points. This could be done on a broader scale, with an emphasis on the benefits for the people behind the product - the role of craftsmanship, and the idea that style is more than a fashion fix. Fast fashion retailers have changed perceptions about how much fashion should cost, helped to create a "bargain boast" culture, and consumers have lost track of what it really means to create fashion. Fast fashion retailers with their massive advertising reach can help to move the dial again. (Vivienne Westwood - we might need your help here!!) Leasing: M&S, H&M, and now Zara, all have take back schemes. But none of these drive commercial value (yet! Closed Loop is on the horizon..) and this will make it difficult for them to gain traction. Rent the Runway has proven that there is mileage - and serious profits - in the concept of leasing. It encourages us to value exclusive pieces, and craftsmanship. It creates a model in which we can all get a regular fashion fix - and at the same time, potentially support incredible brands that are not only producing beautiful pieces, but doing it with respect for the environment, and creating fulfilling work. What is more - it could help us all to be more critical in our fashion selection - less bargain basement - and more style!

3. Develop a Strategic Vision

If we were to step back, and strategically plan this industry to maximise benefits for people on both sides of the supply chain - would we design the system to operate as it does today? (See Fast Fashion - Can It Be Sustainable? for more on this.) Our industry, and the challenges with it, are the product of unplanned and organic growth. As it stands, we do not have the structure or the mechanism to come up with a collective strategic vision for this global industry and implement it. The closest we have is the World Trade Organisation (and integrating sustainability goals within the work of the WTO is some years off...)

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However, there are many bodies that unite the players of our industry towards better practices - from the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, to the Ethical Trading Initiative, the Copenhagen Fashion Summit and the UN Global Compact, to name a few. Together, these organisations wield considerable influence. If we can come together to develop a common vision - a set of targets that we all buy into and promote - a "manifesto" for the fashion industry, this will multiply all of our impact. I believe that if we can do this well, it can and will transform our industry for the better.

Interested in the fast fashion debate? Join the conversation on Twitter.

Or... join us in person (we're working hard to bring together actors from both sides of the fast fashion debate...) at one of our monthly Sustainable Fashion Meetups in London. We hope to be able to reach a more global audience with these in the future - express interest in this here.

This September The Huffington Post UK Style is focusing on all things sustainable, for the second year running. Our thirst for fast fashion is dramatically impacting the environment and the lives of thousands of workers in a negative way. Our aim is to raise awareness of this zeitgeist issue and champion brands and people working to make the fashion industry a more ethical place.
The shocking photos of the four-armed policemen forcing apparently a Muslim woman to take off her clothes has revealed huge debate, cartoons and will last for the next few days. To start with, the woman may be is a Christian, Atheist or agonist who suffer from skin disease that prevent her from showing her body to the sun. To wear Burkini, as a female professor said, "Burkini seems nice", and she would try it next time. It is not necessary that women who wear Burkini are Muslims or Muslims who are trying to show their Islamism in public places. Burkini was developed for women to symbolizes leisure and happiness and fun and fitness and health .

In reality, many secular and intellectuals are very tired from arguing against the huge loads of nonsense, politically and racially motivated arguments. The question that need to be asked at the beginning is : what if the woman white? Would the police have forced her to strip her clothes? (It was not actually a Burkini) or they would have left her to leave or stay and not come again with the same clothes? Another hypothetical question is there a difference between forcing women to wear the Hijab when they go out in Saudi and forcing them to wear a swimsuit when they go to the beach?

Indeed, woman in Muslim majority countries are oppressed and their bodies are a political symbol used by fundamentalists in their societies. This is not because they follow Islam, but traditions of their societies. Tunisian, Turkish or Lebanese culture and societies are totally different than Afghani, Pakistani, Iranian or Saudi cultures and societies. Women clothes are embedded within these traditions and cultures. The ban of Burkinii and striping woman clothes are not only not solving the problem, standing against fundamentalism, but also strengthening fundamentalism against the seculars and liberal Muslims. It was reported by a freind that after Maghreb prayers, the imam of the mosque delivered a speech where he preached against secular people saying, " look at those secular people of France, they want our women naked and their flesh for everyone" How does that help me, personally, and other secular Muslims who are fighting against injustice, defending equality and fighting for liberation of Man from fundamentalism and the inherited Islam (Not the real Islam)? It simply empowers fundamentalists and extremist, by living examples from France, the land of secularism.

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In Europe, there are secularism and liberal values that we all share (me too, as a European citizen) and I strongly believe in. Leave Islam and Muslim societies aside. We must not debate the issues of Burkini as pat of the Muslim societies, rather as a European question. European women can wear Bikini in most of Muslim majority countries and nobody forced them to wear Burkini. In UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Turkey, Indonesia, Morocco, Jordan and a long list. The only woman who is oppressed is the local woman, and that is why we see many Muslim women seek freedom in Europe or live double lives in their home countries. As a value, freedom of individual to choose the way they dress, eat, live can not be impartial and can not be arbitrary managed by the local authorities, to feed the agony against Muslims, in the name of fighting illiberal values.

Once again, the French authorities prove that women are objectified. Once again, the clash of civilization passes through the female body. The ongoing arguments, and the ban itself state that as if the woman is not a free human being able to discern what's better. This mentality is wrong and cannot be accepted in 2016. Western colonialist power (France) uses woman body to impose a model of society. I do agree that political institutions must adapt to the circumstances; yet, these adaptations and changes (extremism and fundamentalism) can not go through women bodies, which France have shows in the previous years. The more dramatic and unconvincing claim by the authorities is they are banning Burkini is to maintain the touristic and culture of the city (French values). Against, values, culture and touristic places are linked to women and their bodies. This is distrustful to women and their freedom to choose what to wear. In many cases, other woman accompanies who wear Burkini from the same family (and perhaps her daughter) that wear Bikini, but she tries to live her own way, where she is forced to wear Burkini. In fact, the woman who invented Burkini is a Lebanese Australian, and it had no political or religious messages.

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To end this article by something unreal and hopefully that will not happen. Actually it may have had happened during the Algerian revolution against the French when they raped Algerian women as a tool to shut down the struggle against colonialism and it happened in 2016, when French troops forced girls into bestiality' in Central African Republic . Islam ban and prohibit pre-sex marriage, asking people for chastity. So, if a Muslim woman wants not to have sex, and just want to stay virgin, as her fundamentalist society(Muslim society) want her to stay virgin. By the logic of many, the French law should free this woman and jut force her to have sex with four people/ policemen. Is this kind of logic? Freedom?



No one, including the French police or the majors who legalized Burkini baning have asked the woman what they desire, and what she is doing for herself to obtain freedom (that the French authorities forcing it). It is all about encapsulating woman in religious frame, trying to imprison her through institutionalized tools, such as in Saudi Arabia (Banning woman to show their bodies in public space) and France (Banning woman to not show their bodies in public spaces). No one asks the serious question how can we liberate Muslim woman in France through special programs for Muslim communities that encourage critical thinking of the inherited Islam. No one cares if woman can take care of themselves, and not to follow laws that signed and institutionalized by men. We have to recognize that freedom is not directly related to the centimeters of fabric a woman wears; that the oppression or the freedom of women is not directly related to Niqab, Hijab, miniskirt or bikini.
Members of the Civil Defence rescue children after what activists said was an air strike by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in al-Shaar neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria June 2, 2014. REUTERS/Sultan Kitaz/File Photo TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

30/09/2016 H.E. Barack Obama, President of the United States of AmericaH.E. Francois Hollande, President of FranceH.E. Theresa May, Prime Minister of the United KingdomH.E. Angela Merkel, Chancellor of GermanyH.E. Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European CommissionH.E. Donald Tusk, President of the European CouncilH.E. John Kerry, Secretary of State of the United States of AmericaH.E. Jean-Marc Ayrault, Minister of Foreign Affairs of FranceH.E. Boris Johnson, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom H.E. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Minister for Foreign Affairs of GermanyH.E. Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

We Syrian actors work for US, UK and European organizations or implement US, UK and European-funded programs both remotely and in Syria. Months ago, many of us signed a statement warning that our work was endangered due to escalated Assad regime and Russian attacks. Since that statement, the situation in Syria has spiraled out of control with little more than spineless admonishments from the so-called Friends of Syria. Aleppo City, home to over 300,000 Syrians, has been besieged by the regime twice over with food and fuel running dangerously low. Starting last week, Russia and the regime launched a barbaric air campaign dropping unprecedented amounts of air munitions, including most recently Bunker Bombs that make even underground shelters unsafe. On average, over 100 civilians are being killed a day in besieged Aleppo City alone and the two largest hospitals in the city were put out of service following airstrikes in the last two days.

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Similarly, the regime and Russia are setting Idlib, Deir Ezzor, Daraa and Damascus countryside on fire using internationally-banned phosphorus and napalm weapons. The regime continues to use chemical weapons throughout Syria and has accelerated its campaign of demographic change, forcibly displacing Syrians and emptying entire cities of their residents including most recently Daraya and now Waer, Homs. We cannot continue to operate in denial of the realities in Syria and the complete policy failures of the "Friends of Syria". While we seek to direct our own futures, Syria has become a proxy war where we are merely spectators as our fate is being decided by the international community under the guise that "might is right."

Our programs promise to have little to no significance if they are not coupled with policy and military actions that protect civilians and ensure that Syrian civil society and local governance will have a place in the future Syria. Indeed, Syrian civil society organizations recently suspended their activities in Aleppo City due to the regime and Russian onslaught that is destroying their centers and killing their personnel. In meetings with high level US, UK and European officials, we are told that no new policy changes will take place until a new US administration comes into power. By then, we wonder what will be left of Syria and Syrians to protect and programmatically support.

Words and public shaming of the regime and Russia are not enough. They never have been. Without the use of force, we are guaranteed annihilation. In the past five years, the regime and Russia have only temporarily halted their brutality following a threat of force whether it was the threat to strike regime targets following the massive 2013 chemical weapons attack or the threat to drop aid into Daraya resulting in the first aid convoys into Daraya after four years of severe siege.

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To continue to operate, we need protection from air munitions either through a No Fly Zone, No Bomb Zone or anti-aircraft missiles. We do not want and never have asked for boots on the ground; we merely need to be protected from the death and destruction that come from above. The skies must be cleared.

We also need the siege on Aleppo City to be immediately broken lest we witness a modern-day Srebrenica with the massacre of hundreds of thousands rather than 8,000.

There cannot be a future Syria with the Assad regime. These five years have shown time and again that an Assad Syria is one devoid of Syrian civil society and local governance. An Assad Syria will be nothing more than rubble and a country emptied of its people. Indeed, the regime is manipulating international laws and treaties to permit more aggressors into Syria, like Russia and Iran, with the sole purpose of killing Syrian civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure. It has categorized all perceived opposition, including medical and aid workers and even the heroic White Helmets, as terrorists to justify obliterating them. Ultimately the regime is fulfilling its promise that it will be Assad or it will burn the country.

Nor can a future Syria be mediated by Russia, the second largest murderer after the Assad regime of Syrian civilians since its offensive started one year ago.

For us, our work is neither a nine to five job nor an exercise in futility to buy time as we develop a Plan B that requires us to immigrate to Europe. Rather it is our lives, aspirations, future and country. If the US, UK and Europe are not willing to act to end the nightmare that plagues our daily lives, we ask that they pull out of Syria and end the farce of political and ceasefire negotiations. Leave Syrians without the false hope that our work will one day achieve the inclusive pluralistic country we have tirelessly strived for or that our so-called Friends will act upon our pleas for help.

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Sincerely,
This past Saturday, at the star-studded Global Citizen Festival, Google's Made with Code initiative unveiled a new project. After Metallica's spirited performance, 'Quantico'-star Priyanka Chopra, a host of the evening, was joined on stage by a legion of teen girls. "The girls you see on stage and screen are coding to fight inequality, to increase peace, and to end poverty," Priyanka explained. She then motioned to the jumbotrons behind her which lit up with colorful shapes, iconography, and cartoon animals. Each image featured text that proclaimed a political, social, and/or environmental message like: "Love Our Animals," "Protect Our Nature," " Support All Women."

Priyanka Chopra and the girls of Made with Code on stage at The Global Citizen Festival. Courtesy of Made with Code.

"Behind me," Priyanka continued, "you will see the hopes and aspirations written and designed with code of girls and young women using their voices to make a difference," She then went on to introduce Ellie Goulding who performed her biggest hits with the girls' work displayed behind her.

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What happened on stage is only half the story though. Backstage were some of the individuals working to make such a powerful presentation possible. For each featured image, there were a million more created by teen girls across the world using Made with Code's "Change" App.

The "Change" app was designed around a larger goal: to encourage today's youth to become the computer scientists of tomorrow. It uses drag-and-drop functionality to create a fun jigsaw-esque programming platform that offers coding challenges for beginner and junior coders.

Young participants in Made with Code's programs also owe much to their mentors, women who are recruited for their knowledge, caring, and ability to connect a technical skill set with opportunities in the real world. One of the mentors, Fereshteh Forough, is an Afghan refugee who founded her company, Code To Inspire, to educate Afghani women in technology and entrepreneurship. Fereshteh hopes that her students will go on to thrive in society "without being worried of physical or geographical distances. They come online, they work online, and they get paid online."

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Displayed on the Jumbotron is one of the millions of images coded by girls around the world. Photo taken by Alex Schattner.

Another mentor, Rose Broome, is the founder of HandUp, a digital platform that helps users donate money to the homeless people featured on its profiles. Instead of the money going directly into a featured person's pocket, it is given to the shelter he or she belongs to, and used for the legitimate purposes of their choosing (ie. clothes, food, rent). So far, HandUp has partnered with shelters in 25 cities to provide local facilities with global awareness and assistance.

"My favorite part is impacting someone else's life," Rose says, "We have all this technology and innovation, and yet we have people sleeping on the street at night... I wanted to help somebody, and I thought there had to be an easier way to do that. So, I told myself I was going to do something for homeless people. I started working on HandUp as a side project and then it just took off. Now I have two co-founders, and its a five-person team. I was telling the girls at the lunch [earlier] that when you use code, a small team can make something that can scale, and be deployed in many cities."
Six years ago, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank into the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and spewing more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf. With the theatrical release today of the film "Deepwater Horizon," offshore oil drilling is back in the news. This new film, based on the events of April 20, 2010, is a reminder that the damage caused by the largest environmental disaster in American history persists. Six years later, the Gulf is still recovering and new studies have illustrated the extreme effects the oil spill has had on that ecosystem. This new film also reminds us that, unfortunately, the threat of a similar catastrophe elsewhere in U.S. waters remains.

Earlier this year, Oceana released a report - "Time for Action: Six Years after Deepwater Horizon" - that compiled recent scientific studies about the continuing impact of the spill - on both Gulf residents and wildlife. It has been estimated, for example, that the loss of productivity from Gulf of Mexico fisheries will cost the economy $8.7 billion by 2020. We also found that more than 22,000 jobs were lost as a result of the spill.

Animals in the Gulf have faced severe consequences as well: mortality rates for common bottlenose dolphins living in Louisiana's Barataria Bay were eight percent higher than other dolphin populations, and their reproductive success was 63 percent lower. Other studies detailed increased heart failure in juvenile bluefin and yellowfin tunas, reduced swimming ability in juvenile mahi-mahi and damaged gill tissue in killifish. The pollution also killed endangered sea turtles - 75 percent of the sea turtles found dead after the spill were Kemp's ridley turtles, the smallest and most endangered sea turtle species in the world. And the oil plume from the disaster caused bleaching and tissue loss in deep-water coral reefs over an area three times the size of Manhattan.

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Advertising for the new movie is ubiquitous; every time I see another commercial full of explosions, destruction and death, I fear the possibility of another disaster. Fortunately, the Obama administration made the commendable decision to suspend plans to open up drilling in the Atlantic. It has, however, continued to allow seismic airgun blasting to search for oil and gas - even when there are no plans to drill. Before President Obama leaves office, the administration should deny all seismic airgun blasting permits.

But I am especially concerned about the possibility of disaster in one of our most fragile habitats - the U.S. Arctic. In recent weeks, the oil industry has engaged in an aggressive publicity campaign to persuade the Obama administration to sell new oil and gas lease sales in the U.S. Arctic Ocean. In each five-year plan since 1980, the government has scheduled lease sales in the Arctic Ocean. Each time, the government has predicted that substantial benefits would result from the sale of leases and the production of oil and gas. Each time, the government has been wrong. Rather than benefits for the American people, leasing and exploration have resulted in risk, controversy and near disaster.
The idea that ate the common good.

There could be many causes of the tragic NJ Transit train crash yesterday. But assuming it wasn't willful intent, we know that a contributing factor was a lack of investment in new technology.

In 2008, Congress passed a law requiring railroads to install "positive train control" technology, which could have slowed the train automatically. But many regions, and New Jersey in particular, are woefully behind on implementing it.

A big reason: no money. A bigger reason: a failed doctrine that's obsessed with shrinking all government and despises all spending on the common good.

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Even with one of the lowest gas taxes in the nation, New Jersey legislators can't pass an tax increase to cover public transportation investments.Governor Christie has fought the tax rise and many other infrastructure investments. Remember, one of his early acts in 2010 was to halt the construction of a much-needed commuter train tunnel to NYC. This awful decision had repercussions. Remember last summer when electrical problems caused massive commuter delays into New York?

The underfunding of NJ Transit is not new. And it's not unique to New Jersey issue. US governments at all levels have been underinvesting in infrastructure for years. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) keeps telling us that our infrastructure needs trillions of dollars of investment. They gave the system a D+ in their last quadrennial report card (rail got a C+).

But one Presidential candidate wants to come to the rescue. "We need new roads, new tunnels, new bridges, new airports, new schools, new hospitals," said the candidate at the first Presidential debate. The surprise? The big spending politician here was actually Trump.

He also said "our airports are like from a third world country." Although any Trump "policy" is at best negotiable, he has talked about spending half a trillion dollars on infrastructure. But in Monday's debate, Trump also said, "I'm going to cut taxes big league." The biggest tax cut "since Ronald Reagan," he bragged.

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How can you reconcile these two statements: spend big on infrastructure but cut taxes by trillions? It should be obvious that you can't. Only a couple of intellectual underpinnings could possibly square the circle here. You must believe either...

1) There's so much fraud and waste we can cut out in government, we can have our cake and eat it too. This is a much longer discussion but let's just say that while there's fraud and waste in every system, it's light years from being worth trillions.

2) Lowering taxes, especially on the wealthy, will actually increase tax revenues. This is the classic trickle-down view. Look, I'm open to evidence about what economic theories work, and fairly qualified to judge them (I have an economics degree from Princeton and an MBA). But we've had 30-plus years of evidence that trickle-down doesn't work, at multiple levels of government. Just look at Kansas' recent failed experiment in slashing taxes, which even state Republicans are rebelling against. But it's a philosophy that won't die. Candidate Trump says his giant tax cut "will create a tremendous number of new jobs."

This perspective is, to put it mildly, highly debatable. Recent evidence suggests strongly that moderate tax increases on the rich to close budget holes leads to thriving economies. Over the last 5 years, it's been true in California and the country as a whole. Not renewing the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest helped cut the deficit by more than half.

But the trickle-down idea is part of the larger, neoliberal argument that all government is bad. The smaller the better, period. Infrastructure, for decades, was safe from this philosophy -- it was bipartisan to the extreme. President Eisenhower famously signed a $200 billion (in today's dollars) national highways bill that Congress passed nearly unanimously. But no more. In a "drown the government in the bathtub" world, everything is on the chopping block.

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Part of the problem here is imagination and optics. It's easy to see what something will cost, and much harder to see all the benefits. This is true in corporations and in governments. The "I" part of ROI -- the classic measurement tool, return on investment -- is staring us in the face. It will cost x millions to retrofit a factory to save energy. Or x billions to revamp a rail system to include new safety technology (or build a new tunnel to New York City).

The "R" side, if measured in pure cash only, can be hard to envision, especially for government projects which often don't have direct payback. What's the value of people being able to get to work or the value of a functioning economy? Or, more poignantly, the value of lives lost in senseless accidents?

These are hard questions, but we can answer some of them. The ASCE, again, tries to sound the alarm regularly on the cost to the economy of ignoring these investment. One report, just on the cost of power outages from an aging electric grid, estimated a reduction in GDP of $819 billion by 2025.

I could go on, but the bottom line is this. There are things -- many things -- that we all want and need as a society. Things in our collective self-interest that make us safer, healthier, and more prosperous. And those things cost money, which we need to collect and share the burden on.

Many of these decisions to invest -- or not -- are literally life and death. But for now nothing is safe from the philosophy that ate the common good.
Photo credit: Population Media Center The success of this program represents Segal Family Foundation's philosophy on the need for collaboration in order to achieve outsized impact. UNICEF, another Agashi funder, recently conducted research evaluating the listenership using their U-report platform. Jean Bosco Ndayishimiye, Burundi Country Representative for PMC, states that the report affirmed that Agashi was the first radio show of its kind to be on four major radio stations almost every day of the week, listened to by 83% of the population. The same survey showed that people who listen to Agashi are predominantly male, between 18-30 years of age. Speaking of collaboration, the program wouldn't have had the success it did if it wasn't for considerable promotion by PSI , another Segal partner in Burundi, through their road shows, concerts and quizzes. PSI takes demand creation seriously, and knows how to be innovative, such as collecting listener feedback through interactive Agashi quizzes.

Agashi's content is used in a variety of forms. Jeanne d'Arc Butoyi is Burundian. She's in her mid-30s and she lives in Muremera. Jeanne works as a community organizer addressing many sexual and reproductive health issues, including condom usage, family planning, and visiting health clinics. "I invite women to listen to Agashi with me, and we all listen to the show very closely," says Jeanne. "I have seven children. I invite women who don't yet have seven children: 'Come, listen to these messages on Agashi. Listen to the misfortune Tengenge has to go through - giving birth to so many children and not being able to feed them.' When I used her case as an example, people really began to understand the problem."



She also uses the drama to reach out to adolescents, explaining the importance of condoms, the prevalence of HIV/ AIDS, and the risks of teenage pregnancy. "I am one of those girls that had their first pregnancy too young," says Jeanne. Now she works to help girls stay in school and avoid pregnancy or disease. "Later on, some of them came by to ask me for condoms because I have them. Most of them have become friends of mine, and I give them advice. Often they come back to thank me."



After 208 episodes of the drama in the national language of Kirundi, the PMC team is now figuring out the best answer to Star FM, a radio station swamped with calls from listeners asking when Agashi will air again. The last episode of Agashi was in early 2016. In Burundi, as in much of the developing world, the reasons for non-use of family planning methods is highly influenced by misinformation about their safety and effectiveness, along with various forms of opposition from religious groups and outdated cultural beliefs.



Agashi is known as "the show" that attracted huge audience, raised questions and conversations. With 81.3% of the Burundian population living under the international poverty line of $1.25 a day and with this population projected to double in 23 years, what better way to engage one of the most highly dense populations in East Africa? That's why Agashi is being retooled, with a change of characters and revised content, to suit the needs and interests of the listeners. Stay tuned!
One of the capacity-building opportunities that Segal Family Foundation offers to its partners is a small grant to support "Learning Visits" to see other SFF partners in action. It's a low-cost way to share ideas, gain inspiration, and make our community of creative collaborators even stronger. Here is the story of one such visit...in a guest post by Wendo Dorcas, chief executive officer of Dandelion Africa.

Photo credit: Dandelion Africa

When your organization is ready to expand and grow, what do you do? The NGO I founded, Dandelion Africa, serves the people of three rural Kenyan counties and was in need of renewed energy and ideas to move us forward. Thanks to the suggestion of our partner Segal Family Foundation, we decided to visit another one of their grantees in an effort to learn from them.

Five hours after leaving hot, dry and dusty Mogotio, we arrived in Rarieda village, a beautiful area with lush, green plantations and well-maintained roads. We knew immediately that this visit would be beneficial for us because we noticed that the staff of Rafiki not only spoke about sustainability, they fully incorporated it as the basis of all their work. Rafiki Wa Maendeleo improves the well-being of the community by focusing on the health, education, and social development of children. The beauty of their work is that they fully support children throughout different stages into adulthood. Our team clearly saw similarities in our models and the improvements we could make.

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Photo credit: Dandelion Africa

For instance, Dandelion Africa focuses on adolescent sexuality and mentorship through our Girls for Leaders Club program. Last year, we worked with 442 pupils in the Girls for Leaders Club. Our approach is to provide sanitary pads for girls and to create a forum for boys to understand their role in the community. The girls build their self-confidence, and the boys learn to champion the rights of the girl-child. While our approach has reportedly reduced child marriage and female genital mutilation in the villages where we work, we decided to review our method and resources for our Girls for Leaders Club after visiting Rafiki. We realized the importance of shifting our perspective from viewing the youth as beneficiaries to seeing them as active partners in our work. The learning visit reinforced that there is room for even children's participation in the club through more group discussions, as well as involving them in data collection in their communities and teaching them hands-on skills that they can use later to earn a living.

Photo credit: Dandelion Africa

Dandelion Africa is also currently constructing the Dandelion Resource Centre in Sarambei village, which will serve 80,000 people. Our visit to Rafiki inspired us to envision a sustainable Dandelion Resource Centre. We had not fully comprehended the potential it has! Our resource centre will allow us to offer two new services: a sexual reproductive health clinic and the first village library and ICT centre in Rongai. Since most rural children have never been inside a library or seen a computer, our goal is to create a culture of reading and connect the rural children to the world. We realized that all our programs can work together to create a holistic approach in community development and improve the economic livelihoods of the communities in which we work.

Photo credit: Dandelion Africa
My latest piece for the newspapers in my conservative area of Virginia (in this case, just the Shenandoah Valley).

*********************

When we Americans choose a president we need to consider more than their political inclinations. We must consider also the moral spirit in which they will use the great power they've been given.

In particular, will he or she be restrained -- by respect for others and for the political system and culture in which they are working -- from abusing that power.

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"Respect" is a key concept here--defined as "a feeling of admiration or deference." Such respect can be directed toward a person, or group, or ideal, etc.

In that context, we should ask: What does Donald Trump respect?

1) Does Trump show respect for other people?

He certainly did not show respect to his opponents--like "Little Marco," and "Lyin' Ted," and Jeb with his "low energy."

As Megyn Kelly's famous question at the Fox News Republican debate showed, Trump has not been respectful of women.

And Trump has consistently shown disrespect for anyone who has said anything critical about him, whether it be Paul Ryan or the Gold Star father.

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Toward his major allies, Trump has been benign but not respectful, as when he's treated Chris Christie and VP candidate Mike Pence with casual - almost humiliating - disregard.

While it's true that Trump has spoken respectfully of Russian President Putin, that has been a way of putting down his own political adversaries: e.g. saying Putin is strong as a way of saying Obama is weak.

A poll conducted by the AP finds that 60% of registered voters in the U.S. believe that Trump "does not respect ordinary Americans."

2) Has Trump shown respect for the norms and laws by which Americans encourage and require right behavior?

When Trump derided "Little Marco" and "Lyin' Ted," it was shocking because we had not - until then - seen anyone on so prominent a political stage violate a norm that says insulting people is unacceptable. Trump has made disrespect for that norm a cornerstone of his political strategy.

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For more than forty years, there has been a norm that presidential candidates will release their tax returns to the public. Never before Trump has it been so important to get a clear picture of a candidate's financial dealings, but Trump is the first candidate to refuse to respect that norm.

Hundreds of workers and small contractors have complained that Trump has stiffed them on work he contracted with them to perform. Not only is honoring one's contractual obligations a norm, but it is a legal requirement. It is one, however, that evidently Trump does not respect.

There are laws concerning how charitable monies may and may not be used, and we now know that Trump has not respected these laws - using charitable funds donated by others to settle his own legal battles, and to buy portraits of himself.

Perhaps most remarkable has been Trump's consistent disrespect of truthfulness. The L.A. Times has said, "Never in modern presidential politics has a major candidate made false statements as routinely as Trump has." And the Pulitzer-prize-winning fact-checking organization, Politifact, has found eight times as many "pants-on-fire" level falsehoods among Trump's statements as among those of his Democratic opponent.

(For just one example, on Trump's signature issue of immigration: 1) Far from there being the ongoing wave of illegal immigration that Trump asserts, the number of such unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. has decreased in the past eight years; and, 2) as the conservative Cato Institute reports, contrary to Trump's alarmist assertions about immigrants as dangerous criminals, immigrants are less crime-prone than our native-born population.)

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Perhaps most important for Americans to ponder before casting their votes is how much respect has Trump shown for the Constitution. Here the pattern of disrespect is no different: he has foretold actions he would take as president that would usurp the powers of Congress, curtail the ability of the press to criticize him, and impose unconstitutional forms of discrimination based on religion. The conservative National Review recently criticized Trump's autocratic view of the presidency as "A Constitution of One."

This pattern poses a problem bigger than liberal vs. conservative policies.

The attitude of respect -- for people and for America's norms and laws -- seems alien to Mr. Trump's character. What basis, then, is there for believing that -- in wielding the mighty powers of the presidency -- he will be governed by anything but his own will and his own self-regard?
Meet Jessica La Rel, she's a 23-year-old, Stanford University graduate from Chicago who just released the most powerful video of the year. Commemorating the anniversary of Eric Garner's murder and the other wrongful deaths of Black people across the country over recent years, La Rel uses her song and video to provide an anthem for the contemporary movement for Black rights. She is a rising superstar with incredible potential, an artist who inspires, and someone that we should all be looking out for.

Her song "We Can't Breath," which came as a result of Samuel L. Jackson's #ICan'tBreath challenge, rings a message of pain, sorrow, truth, and most of all the hope and love that persists among the hatred. Her lyrics provide testament to the various emotions that have taken over the Black community not only in recent years but throughout history of resilience while also acknowledging our moments of weakness and our need to lean on one another. The chorus will stay with its audience far beyond their first listen as the words "We ain't gonna stop 'till people are free" speak to the heart and soul, giving them the fuel they need to keep on going.

If her song were not already powerful enough, the video is one that I am sure will make you smile and cry tears of both pain and joy. This masterpiece, directed by another up-and-coming star Tayo Amos, begins with an Assata Shakur quote that reads: "It is our duty to fight for freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains." It continues by showcasing a stunning dancer, Madeline Hawes, who performs a dance of beautiful resistance. Amos then fills the video with the faces and bodies of Black women, Black men, Black couples and Black children while La Rel's voice guides the incredible narrative that results in the funeral we can assume is taking place for the victims of hate crimes, police brutality, and discrimination at large. Both artists use their creation to contribute to the movement and aim to bring more people together to fight for justice.

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Etienne* lives in Nakivale refugee camp in southwestern Uganda. The 21-year old fled there with his younger siblings after his father was murdered. He is one of more than sixty million refugees and internally displaced persons around the world today.



The unfolding migratory crisis has become one of the most acute challenges facing the international community. Millions of lives are at stake. All of us have a responsibility to act. Collectively, we need to find solutions.



Circumstances have changed dramatically since the international policy architecture for refugees was set up in the wake of the Second World War. By some estimates, the average stay in a refugee camp is now as high as 17 years. Dadaab, a camp in Kenya for refugees from neighbouring Somalia's long civil war, was set up in 1991, and is home to 330,000 people. Babies are being born to adults who themselves were born in the camp.



In such protracted situations, the traditional refugee policy mix - food, shelter, and some vocational training, but little focus on jobs linked to market demand - is simply not enough. Skills development as a means to income generation is the key to integrate vulnerable migrants into the mainstream of society, and to equip them for an eventual return home.



Income opportunities linked to trade can be particularly useful here, since tapping into external demand sidesteps fears of wage suppression linked to intensified competition on the local labour market. Connecting small and medium-sized businesses to international markets can create work for host country nationals alongside refugees, building economic growth and resilience in host communities. The International Trade Centre's early experience indicates that this approach works.



ITC has partnered with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, to find income opportunities not only for refugees but also for host country nationals in neighbouring countries, who often bear the brunt of the costs of the global migratory crisis.



In Burkina Faso, for example, the two agencies have helped Tuareg refugees from Mali build on traditional skills in leather and metal-working to produce home decor items for upmarket shops in Denmark and Switzerland.



Work possibilities for refugees go far beyond traditional artisanship. The internet has made possible new opportunities in business process outsourcing (BPO). Together with the Norwegian Refugee Council, ITC has demonstrated proof of concept for simple BPO work performed out of the Dadaab camp.



Elsewhere, ITC has enabled social enterprises in Uganda to hire both nationals and refugees to undertake internet-based research for a university in Switzerland, as well as to transcribe interviews for United Nations Radio. ITC has identified high international demand for translation services, and preliminary costing exercises indicate potential for refugees and social enterprises to be competitive in this $20 billion global market.



For new ideas on how to harness modern technology for refugees, ITC turned to digital learning pioneer Hyper Island's social entrepreneurship and design students. One product of thiswas a mobile application to link talented refugees to overseas clients for translation, data entry, and other digital services.Together with the design and innovation consultancy Common Good, students are developing an app to facilitate cross-border connections, quality assurance, and international payments. Once fully operational, it will boost refugee incomes and reduce transaction costs. For international clients, the app will delivercost competitive services along with a chance to engage in meaningful 'impact-sourcing'.



Etienne is proof that trade-driven opportunities can make a material difference to refugees' livelihoods. Having taken a UNHCR-run visual arts course, he now produces and edits footage for paying clients. He also does translations on an ad hoc basis for international clients. Etienne has decided to stay in Nakivale for the time being. If he and the surviving members of his family manage to return home one day, they will take their skills and experiences with them, helping them earn incomes and rebuild the economic fabric of their communities.



The lack of livelihood opportunities in refugee camps pushes many people to embark on dangerous journeys in the quest for a better life. It doesn't have to be that way. As the case of Etienne shows, building marketable skills and connecting them to potential customers can allow disenfranchised people to regain a sense of purpose and dignity, and support voluntary returns to countries of origin. ITC will continue to push for income opportunities through trade for refugees.


Graphic by Courtenay Lewis

With the Paris Climate Agreement on the brink of entering into force and 2016 well on its way to being the hottest year ever recorded, you would think governments would be eager to support each other's efforts to fight climate disruption. Instead, the U.S. and India are exploiting outdated trade rules to attack each other's renewable energy programs.

Earlier this month, in a case brought by the U.S., the World Trade Organization ruled against India's ambitious solar program for a second time, taking issue with buy-local policies that encourage local solar manufacturing. Just one week prior, India announced plans to retaliate with a WTO case against eight U.S. states' use of similar buy-local programs to create local clean energy jobs.

The U.S. started this feud when it launched a 2014 WTO case against buy-local policies in India's National Solar Mission, a core component of India's contribution to the Paris Agreement. If the program's ambitious goal of creating 100,000 megawatts of solar power by 2022 -- of which only 10 percent is slated to be covered by buy-local provisions -- becomes a reality, India would be one of the world's largest solar energy producers.

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In February 2016, a WTO panel ruled against the buy-local provisions in India's solar program, arguing that they discriminated against imported solar components, while acknowledging that "imported cells and modules currently have a dominant share of the market...in India." India appealed, and earlier this month the WTO once again ruled against India. The Appellate Body rejected India's defense of the buy-local solar policies as fulfilling its commitment to "ensure ecologically sustainable growth" and "comply with its obligations relating to climate change." India has no further option for appeal, and now must decide whether to alter its solar program to avoid WTO-authorized trade sanctions from the U.S.

In the meantime, India has launched a tit-for-tat WTO complaint against 11 buy-local clean energy programs in eight U.S. states. Here are some of the programs on the target list:

California: a successful statewide rebate program that includes incentives for wind energy technologies manufactured in California. The wind energy produced under the program has cut annual greenhouse gas pollution by more than 20,000 metric tons. India is also targeting Los Angeles' Solar Incentive Program, which pays consumers for solar installations, including bonus payments for solar cells manufactured in Los Angeles. The goal of the buy-local incentive is "to promote local economic development through manufacturing and job creation within the City of Los Angeles and to reduce [solar] costs through increased volume and competition."

These dueling WTO cases show how decades-old trade rules threaten to undermine today's generational challenge to tackle the climate crisis. We cannot get to 100 percent clean energy by using trade rules to undercut buy-local policies that create local clean energy jobs, help strengthen support for strong climate policies, and help lower the cost of clean energy over time by stimulating competition.

We need a new approach to trade that boosts, not hinders, climate action. To start with, both India and the U.S. should abandon these challenges to each other's buy-local renewable energy programs. More broadly, WTO members should negotiate a "peace clause" that prevents future cases against such climate initiatives.

Unfortunately, the Trans-Pacific Partnership would take another step in the opposite direction, if Congress were to pass it, as the deal replicates the same anti-buy-local rules being used against renewable energy programs at the WTO.
Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway appeared on ABC's The View this morning. One of the issues she was asked about was her boss's fat-shaming of former Miss Universe, Alicia Machado.

Conway responded, "I don't discuss people's weights and their looks. I'm sure that on your Twitter feed right now you have viewers discussing my looks and my intelligence." She continued, "I never knew how ugly and stupid I was until, you know, we had Twitter."

I suppose the countless women Trump has demeaned on Twitter feel the same way.

Ms. Conway is not ugly or stupid. But she does miss the point. The difference is that those internet trolls who may disparage her appearance and intellect are NOT running for President of the United States.

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And, of course, her candidate set the gold standard of misogyny, xenophobia, and vacant vindictiveness. Leadership starts at the top, and Trump has emboldened bullies of all sorts to feel at liberty to emulate his despicable comments about women, minorities, protestors, Mexicans, Muslims, political opponents, and any other persons who refused to kiss his ring and other regions of Donald.

One can only imagine what unjustifiable hideous tweets Trump would make about Conway's looks if she were in the Hillary camp instead of on team Trump. Of course, her looks and intelligence are not the issue. What is important here is that she attempts to defend the indefensible, usually by changing the subject to Hillary.

Kellyanne was asked a simple question by Whoopi Goldberg, "Where are the tax returns?" Kellyanne utilized the usual Trump alibi that he can't release them because he is "under audit." Whoopi called her out, saying "That's bull!"

Whoopi was right. The audit argument is as bogus as the candidate. IRS has confirmed that there is nothing about a routine audit that prevents a person from releasing tax returns. In 1973 even Nixon released his returns that were under audit in the midst of the Watergate scandal.

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And why hasn't Trump released those that aren't under scrutiny? Or how about releasing a list of the charities to which the Trump camp alleges that he has donated millions and millions of dollars? Could we at least see the cancelled checks?

When Conway was confronted with questions why Trump spent money from his so-called charitable foundation for giant portraits of himself, Conway responded "That was at an auction." What?? Apparently Conway believes buying them in an auction rather than any other retail venue excuses his narcissistic purchase with foundation charitable funds.



Throughout the entire interview, Kellyanne attempted to redirect questions about Trump to the subject of Clinton, something she is prone to do in every interview. Then she has the chutzpah to conclude, "Her [Hillary's] entire campaign is about Donald Trump."
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds a rally with supporters in Aston, Pennsylvania, U.S. September 22, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Can we really elect a man who has repeatedly and proudly insulted the looks of women from Miss Universe to Heidi Klum? If the president is setting the example as a body-shamer, then it will be open season on every girl in school and every woman at work. You need to vote!

Words matter. Hillary Clinton pointed that out in the first presidential debate on Sept. 26, and she is so right. Words couldn't matter more when they are uttered by the president of the United States. He or she sets the tone and the example for the entire nation.

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If our next president is Donald Trump, then every woman in America needs to be prepared to be a target of body-shaming. That's because Donald Trump has a long and unabashed history of body-shaming women for their looks, as well as insulting them in a variety of other ways.

Hillary rightly brought this up in the debate. After all, females make up 51% of the US population, which means they account for more than half of the vote. Hillary pointed out that Trump has called women "pigs," "slobs," "dogs," "disgusting," and "losers." He was not embarrassed by her words.. In fact, he admitted that he had insulted comedienne Rosie O'Donnell for one, but he gleefully insisted that "everybody would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels bad for her." Really? Tons of horrified debate viewers took to twitter immediately to disagree.

Neither was he embarrassed when Clinton reminded him about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, who he called "Miss Piggy" because she gained weight after winning the title. Clinton added that he also referred to her as "Miss Housekeeping," because she was a Latina, from Venezuela.

In fact, Trump happily called in to Fox & Friends the next morning after the debate to double down on fat shaming her again. "She was a Miss Universe person, and she was the worst we ever had - the worst, the absolute worst. She gained a massive amount of weight and it was a real problem," he complained.

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That's right - the potential next president took time out of his busy schedule to viciously continue his body-shaming attack on Alicia Machado. Machado, by the way, says she was so traumatized by Trump's obsession with her weight when she was Miss Universe, that she ended up in a battle with anorexia and bulimia.

"You know, with 18-year-olds, when you're growing up, that was horrible to me," she recounted on the Today show, on Sept. 28. "My self-esteem (was) on the floor."

Presidents have tremendous power to set an example and if we elect one who revels in insulting women for their looks, it will normalize this same behavior by other men in workplaces, schools and online. In other words, women can expect a tidal wave of body and looks shaming to come their way under a president Donald Trump.

Beware if you're not a "10."

Even if you are, you can't escape Trump's mockery. Trump called out Heidi in August , saying, ' sadly, she's no longer at 10'. Wait, what?

If even Heidi can't measure up to Trump's misogynist standards, what hope is there for regular women? And forget about it for women who he considers rivals.

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Trump slammed GOP candidate Carly Fiorina for not being a beauty. "Look at that face, would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president," he said in a Rolling Stone interview.

Of course, he's slammed Hillary Clinton, herself, for not looking "presidential." "Well, I just don't think she has a presidential look," he told ABC's David Muir in early Sept. "You need a presidential look." We can presume that Donald was doing the ultimate body shaming here - implying that Hillary couldn't "look" presidential because she doesn't have a penis.

Women have fought hard in the past decades to make "lookism" unacceptable in the workplace. No CEO in his right mind today would comment negatively on his female employees' looks or bodies. In fact, they could face a lawsuit and potential job loss if they did. Yet, Donald Trump thinks he can hold the highest office in the land with his long history of lookism and his current insults. You need to think about this before you hit the voting booth on Nov 8.

Voters shouldn't be willing to tolerate this behavior in a president when they won't in their bosses! And the victims of Trump's body and looks shaming include some of the most beautiful women in the country, aside from Heidi. He shamed Kim Kardashian in a 2013 interview with Howard Stern. "Does she have a good body? No. Does she have a fat ass? Absolutely. And if it weren't Kim, they'd say 'Wow, I don't want to go out with her.'" Then he attacked her again when she was pregnant with North West. " I think she's gotten a bit large", he complained to Showbiz Tonight.

Uh, yes- that's what happens to women when they get pregnant, Donald!

He called former Desperate Housewives actress, Nicolette Sheridan, a "solid four," on a scale of one to ten. "I liked the way she used to look. A person who is very flat chested is very hard to be a 10." He even took aim at Angelina Jolie. "I don't think she's got a great face. I think her lips are too big, to be honest with you. They look like too big," he told Howard Stern.

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When Hillary Clinton talks about Donald Trump not having the temperament to be president, she is usually referring to his quick-to-anger temper and his impulsive decisions. But, I'd say, his loud and proud body and looks shaming of women equally demonstrate that he has not a trace of the temperament that's needed to be president.

And talk about "trickle down." If Donald Trump is elected as the female shamer-in-chief, his sexist attitude will continue to trickle down to tens of millions of men.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is quietly starting to test certain foods for residues of a weed killing chemical linked to cancer, has found the residues in a variety of oat products, including plain and flavored oat cereals for babies.

Data compiled by an FDA chemist and presented to other chemists at a meeting in Florida showed residues of the pesticide known as glyphosate in several types of infant oat cereal, including banana strawberry- and banana-flavored varieties. Glyphosate was also detected in "cinnamon spice" instant oatmeal; "maple brown sugar" instant oatmeal and "peach and cream" instant oatmeal products, as well as others. In the sample results shared, the levels ranged from nothing detected in several different organic oat products to 1.67 parts per million, according to the presentation.

Glyphosate, which is the key ingredient in Monsanto Co.'s Roundup herbicide, is the most widely used weed killer in the world, and concerns about glyphosate residues in food spiked after the World Health Organization in 2015 said a team of international cancer experts determined glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen. Other scientists have raised concerns about how heavy use of glyphosate is impacting human health and the environment.

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The EPA maintains that the chemical is "not likely" to cause cancer, and has established tolerance levels for glyphosate residues in oats and many other foods. The levels found by the FDA in oats fall within those allowed tolerances, which for oats is set by the EPA at 30 ppm. The United States typically allows far more glyphosate residue in food than other countries allow. In the European Union, the tolerance for glyphosate in oats is 20 ppm.

Monsanto, which derives close to a third of its $15 billion in annual revenues from glyphosate-based products, has helped guide the EPA in setting tolerance levels for glyphosate in food, and in 2013 requested and received higher tolerances for many foods. The company has developed genetically engineered crops designed to be sprayed directly with glyphosate. Corn, soybeans, canola and sugar beets are all genetically engineered to withstand being sprayed with glyphosate.

Oats are not genetically engineered. But Monsanto has encouraged farmers to spray oats and other non-genetically modified crops with its glyphosate-based Roundup herbicides shortly before harvest. The practice can help dry down and even out the maturity of the crop. "A preharvest weed control application is an excellent management strategy to not only control perennial weeds, but to facilitate harvest management and get a head start on next year's crop," according to a Monsanto "pre-harvest staging guide."



In Canada, which is among the world's largest oat producers and is a major supplier of oats to the United States, the Monsanto marketing materials tout the benefits of glyphosate on oat fields: "Pre-harvest application of Roundup WeatherMAX and Roundup Transorb HC are registered for application on all oat varieties - including milling oats destined for human consumption." Glyphosate is also used by U.S. oat farmers. The EPA estimates that about 100,000 pounds of glyphosate are used annually in production of U.S. oats.

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Glyphosate is also used on wheat shortly before harvest in this way, as well as on other crops. A division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture known as the Grain Inspection, Packers & Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) has been testing wheat for glyphosate residues for years for export purposes and have detected the residues in more than 40 percent of hundreds of wheat samples examined in fiscal 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Even though the FDA annually examines foods for residues of many other types of pesticides, it has skipped testing for glyphosate residues for decades. It was only in February of this year that the agency said it would start some glyphosate residue analysis. That came after many independent researchers started conducting their own testing and found glyphosate in an array of food products, including flour, cereal, and oatmeal.

Monsanto and U.S. regulators have said glyphosate levels in food are too low to translate to any health problems in humans. But critics say such assurances are meaningless unless the government actually routinely measures those levels as it does with other pesticides.

And some do not believe any level of glyphosate is safe in food. Earlier this year, Taiwan recalled more than 130,000 pounds of oat supplies after detecting glyphosate residues. And San Francisco resident Danielle Cooper filed a lawsuit in May 2016 seeking class action status against the Quaker Oats Co. after glyphosate residues were found in that company's oat products, which are used by millions of consumers as cereal and for baking cookies and other treats. Cooper said she expected the oat products, which have been labeled as "100% Natural," to be pesticide free.

"Glyphosate is a dangerous substance, the presence and dangers of which should be disclosed," the lawsuit states.

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Quaker Oats has said any trace amounts of glyphosate found in its products are safe, and it stands by the quality of its products.

HERBICIDE IN HONEY

In addition to oats, the FDA also earlier this year tested samples of U.S. honey for glyphosate residues and found all of the samples contained glyphosate residues, including some with residue levels double the limit allowed in the European Union, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The EPA has not set a tolerance level for glyphosate in honey, so any amount is problematic legally.

Despite internal discussions about a need to pursue action after the honey findings in January, the FDA did not notify the honey companies involved that their products were found to be contaminated with glyphosate residues, nor did it notify the public.

The FDA has also tested corn, soy, eggs and milk in recent months, and has not found any levels that exceed legal tolerance, though analysis is ongoing.

"These preliminary results showed no pesticide residue violations for glyphosate in all four commodities tested. However, the special assignment is ongoing and all results must go through the FDA's quality control process to be verified," said FDA spokeswoman Megan McSeveney. The tests on honey were not considered part of the official special assignment, said McSeveney.

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"Dr. Narong Chamkasem, an FDA research chemist based in Atlanta, tested 19 samples of honey as part of a research project that he individually conducted," she said.

The glyphosate residue testing by FDA may be headed for a slow-down. Sources say there it talk of closing the FDA's Atlanta laboratory that has done glyphosate residue tests. The work would then reportedly be shifted to other facilities around the country.

The revelations about glyphosate residues in certain foods come as both European and U.S. regulators are evaluating glyphosate impacts for risks to humans and the environment. The EPA is holding four days of meetings in mid-October with an advisory panel to discuss cancer research pertaining to glyphosate, and debate is ongoing over whether or not the team of international scientists who last year declared it a probable human carcinogen were right nor not.

Aaron Blair, the chairman of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) working group that classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans, said that the science on glyphosate is still evolving. He said that it is common for it to take years, sometimes decades, for industry and regulators to accept certain research findings and for scientists to reach consensus. He likened glyphosate to formaldehyde, which many years ago was also classified by IARC as "probably carcinogenic" to humans before it later was accepted to be carcinogenic.
When conducting a successful PR strategy, you will be receiving lots of media coverage. There will be a number of stories written about your business, you will have radio interviews, and even TV appearances, so it is critical to have a system to monitor all this media.

It's important to find all of the media coverage and keep a record of it in order to know what is being written and said about your business. You can also use this coverage to determine how successful your PR strategy is or use it to promote your business, for example to post on your social media profiles.

Media monitoring is also an important way to discover the stories about your business, industry, and competitors that you weren't aware of.

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Here are some tips to help you monitor your media mentions.

Google Alerts

It's a great idea to set up Google Alerts for your business' name, your spokesperson's name, key messages or the industry your business is in.

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results based on your queries.

Whenever Google finds a new article, website or news item with your business's name in it, an email will be sent to you with the website link.

Google Alerts are quick and easy to set up by going to the Google Alerts website.

This is an effective way to find online mentions of your business or a specific topic. However, Google Alerts may not pick up everything so don't rely on this as your only form of media monitoring.

Media monitoring services

There are a number of media monitoring services which can monitor print, TV, online, radio and social media for mentions of your business. However, you will have to pay for most of these services.

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These services are great if you don't have time to monitor the media or if you are mentioned in the media many times without your knowledge.

Google it

Have you Googled your business lately?

It's a good idea to type your business' name, spokesperson's name, articles you've written or key topics your business discusses into the search engine. This will enable you to see if anything has been published about your business that you weren't aware of.

It can also help you discover whether a story about your business has been syndicated to a number of different websites.

Ask the journalist

One of the best ways to monitor your media mentions is to keep track of potential media coverage yourself.

If you have just completed an interview with a journalist, or they have agreed to publish your article, ask when it might be published. If you don't ask you may end up missing the coverage.

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Media monitoring is important so you can see how you are being portrayed to your target audience and so you can measure if your PR efforts are working.

Start looking for your media coverage or ask a media monitoring service today.

How do you monitor your media mentions?

About the author

Catriona Pollard is the author of From Unknown To Expert, a step by step framework designed to help entrepreneurs develop effective PR and social media strategies to become recognised as influencers in their field. www.unknowntoexpert.com
Karen Karapetyan: We are set to improve the business environment

Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan received today a delegation led by Credit Agricoles International Retail and Commercial Banking Director Marc Oppenheim. Hailing Credit Agricoles activities in Armenias banking sector and the presence of French management culture, the Prime Minister stressed the importance increased influx of French capital and the need to push ahead with the implementation of investment programs. We are set to improve the business environment, and to this end, we have already changed the focus of the Ministry of Economy, with a primary objective to support the business community and attract investment. Our team will always be open: we will back you in addressing any eventual challenges, Karen Karapetyan said. The Premier added that during a recent meeting with the representatives of the banking sector he urged them to develop appropriate SME lending mechanisms using the assets available with the banks in order to activate the economy. Highlighting the Banks involvement in the agricultural sector, the Prime Minister stressed the importance of close cooperation between the French company and the Ministry of Agriculture of Armenia, adding that the Ministry of Agriculture in the near future will develop a package of investment programs. Karen Karapetyan expressed confidence that Credit Agricole will help bring in French capital and emphasized the need for a turnaround in this matter. Thankful for the reception, Marc Oppenheim noted that the 20th anniversary of his banks activity in Armenia was being marked today. According to him, this is the evidence of close bilateral relations and their willingness to improve the business environment and economic development in Armenia. Marc Oppenheim expressed confidence that the shift in the focus of the Ministry of Economy will contribute to the implementation of the governments objectives and investment projects. He thanked the Prime Minister for his willingness to assist investors, noting that it is very important for successful business activities. Good relations between the government and investors are the keys to success. Any State, which is ready to assist the business community, will be able to achieve development and ensure progress. We will back you on this way as we are keen to become the ambassador of French capital in Armenia, Marc Oppenheim pointed out. During the meeting, the parties discussed other issues of mutual interest.
The Replenishment launch for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) was a success -- in funding and more. By the end of the pledge meeting in Montreal estimated commitments came close to the $13 billion goal, and additional pledges may be announced in the future. Some countries, such as Norway, Japan and Canada, offered dramatic increases. Nine African countries stepped up to contribute, and Qatar made its first pledge to the Global Fund.

During the pledging conference, numerous government representatives spoke of the increasing efficiency and impressive outcomes the Global Fund has demonstrated. The feeling in the room, spirited on by Bill Gates, Bono and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, was that the Global Fund is a club that countries and major private donors want to be part of.

The success of Replenishment is particularly welcome given the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) report this summer showing a decrease in donor financing of the global AIDS response. Dips in donor support for global health have turned around in the past and hopefully Replenishment signals they will again.

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But the Global Fund isn't about a program, it's about saving lives and ending the three biggest infectious disease killers in the world, diseases that together claim more than 2.5 million lives every year, over half a million of them children. The tragedy of those deaths, devastated families and destabilized communities simply isn't necessary and isn't tolerable. With scientific advances and increasingly strategic delivery of services, ending these epidemics could be the first great accomplishment of the 21st century.

That is why the Montreal meeting needs to be a launching pad for global health financing sufficient to make these epidemics history. At Replenishment, the United States continued its impressive leadership on Global Fund support with a pledge of up to $4.3 billion through 2019, matching one dollar for every two dollars pledged by others. In delivering the U.S. pledge, Deputy Secretary of State Heather Higginbottom said, "We're not only committed to fighting these epidemics, we are committed to ending them by 2030."

That must be the ultimate goal, but today that global effort is underfinanced. The $13 billion for the Global Fund, combined with hoped-for major increases in spending by implementing governments and sustained funding from donors, represents only 80 percent of what is required to end the AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria epidemics. We are in striking distance, but not yet on track.

In his State of the Union address this year, President Obama said that ending the scourge of AIDS is "...within our grasp. And we have the chance to accomplish the same thing with malaria." We should be proud that the U.S. is the leader on Global Fund financing as well as other areas of global health. It's also true that in recent years the U.S. government budget for addressing AIDS, malaria and TB has been relatively flat.

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The new Administration and Congress, working with our partners globally, can make sure increased funding and strategic approaches are in place to realize the potential we have to end the epidemics. Implementing governments and other donor countries must do more. And part of that collective effort will be increased US investments in the Global Fund as well as our bilateral programs, including the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) and USAID's TB program.

Increasing global health funding will require that we do a better job of communicating with the American people about the enormous pay off of U.S. investments in this area: in lives saved, economic growth, political stability and diplomatic benefits for our country.

A KFF poll from earlier this year found that fewer Americans than in years past report hearing about global health issues. Given that more people support increased funding for global health when they learn what a small percentage of the budget it represents, there is a real opportunity to communicate more widely and effectively with Americans about the benefits of these investments.

Speaking at the Replenishment Conference, Global Fund Executive Director Mark Dybul noted that we are on the right side of the tipping point in tackling AIDS, TB and malaria. "But the thing about tipping points," Dybul said, "is that they can go either way." And he noted that infectious diseases, when neglected, can come back stronger, particularly given the potential for developing drug resistance.

The end of the AIDS, TB and malaria epidemics is on the launching pad. Now the global community needs to seize the opportunity and commit the resources necessary to end these epidemics for good.

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Close up of man's and woman's hands holding banknotes, studio shot

If you have a loved one or friend who is incarcerated, you may be wondering how to best send them monetary resources. This can be important, as prisoners often need money for essentials including for phone time and computer use, including to receive, read, and send emails on a secure system (this does not grant Internet access), as well as buy supplies such as supplementary food, medical supplies, and even pads or tampons.

The commissary may also sell items such as books and magazines, or writing supplies such as paper and writing utensils. A percentage of the money in their account may also be used to pay fees or restitution. Any funds received will go a great way to supplementing the money that may be earned when an inmate is assigned to a work detail. While they may earn an hourly wage, this can be quite low - sometimes just a few cents an hour.

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While thinking of how best to send money, it's also important to keep in mind how much the inmate may really need - not enough money, and they could do without some essential hygiene products, too much, and they could be targets for others, although the amount they are able to access weekly may be limited. Also, be wary of requests from other inmates, or to send resources to other inmates.

There are a number of different ways to send your loved ones money for their commissary or telecom accounts. This may also depend on the correctional institution that your loved one is in. Federal, state and local institutions may have different regulations or restrictions, and private contract facilities may have their own regulations too. There may also be certain regulations that have to be followed on the side of the receiver - such as ensuring the account is set up properly, and approved to receive payments from outside the facility.

Restrictions may exist over who is allowed to make deposits, so ensure that you qualify. There may also be maximum limits on deposits. In general these guidelines and suggestions may prove helpful, but please ensure that you contact or look up the guidelines for the relevant institutions to ensure you are following the correct procedures.

There are three ways to send funds to inmates, to be deposited into their personal commissary accounts, or phone accounts, at a Federal Bureau of Prisons institution. To send money electronically, you can choose to send via MoneyGram or Western Union. Using either of these forms will ensure prompt payment to the commissary account, generally within four hours. It is important to ensure all of the correct information is included.

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You may also be able to access these services in other ways, such as by phone, or in person from an agent. You can also send funds via post through the United States Postal Service. This must be done through a money order only, not a personal cheque, cash, or including any additional items. The money order must include the inmates' full name, as well as their complete eight digit register number. The money order should then be sent to the central processing center in Iowa.

While the BOP may not accept personal cheques, other institutions may. In California, for example, you should be able to send money with a personal or cashier cheque via lock box, as well as using an electronic funds transfer, or by post. In Illinois, inmates may receive money via Global Tel*Link, JPAY, Western Union or money order. In Orange County, Fla., you cannot use a personal cheque, but you can deposit money in person at the Video Visitation Center. Clark County, Nev., accepts debit and credit transactions via Touchpay.

Besides MoneyGram and Western Union, there are other electronic services you may be able to use, including JPay, and Access Corrections. Depending on where you and the inmate are, there may be more or less options. It is worth exploring these options to see which have the best delivery times, ease of use, fees for use, and what other services, such as email, may be offered.

There are also other ways to connect with loved ones who are incarcerated. You may be able to send emails or letters, conduct video visitations, visit in person, or send books and supplies to the institution they are located at. Again, it is important to check the specific rules and guidelines of each institution, as they can vary widely across level of facility, and state by state.
"An author values a compliment even when it comes from a source of doubtful competency." --Mark Twain

If an author values a compliment regardless of the source, imagine the value when the source is The Mark Twain House & Museum, the compliment is the inaugural Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, and the prize is $25,000.



T.C. Boyle

T.C. Boyle accepted the compliment --and the honors-- during a ceremony at Lincoln Center on Monday, September 26 for The Harder They Come (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2015). David Baldacci, Twain House trustee, established and funded the award that he felt was long overdue to honor Twain's literary legacy. Twain house trustee Roger Michel funded and hosted the gala in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse against a backdrop of the New York City skyline with some 75 guests in attendance.

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Although the Mark Twain House is located in Hartford, Connecticut, celebrating in New York seemed appropriate. Twain lived in the city on and off during his career, visiting for the first time at the age of seventeen. The award honors Twain's uniquely American voice, and the ceremony echoed that with a nod to Tom Sawyer and an acoustic Bluegrass performance.

After accepting the award, Boyle mesmerized the audience with an animated reading from The Harder They Come.

The gala included the performance of a scene from SAWYER, a play by Noah Altshuler, playwright in residence at the Twain House and a musical performance by Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, the most award-winning band in Bluegrass. Vincent was joined onstage by Altshuler and special guest Ashley Campbell, daughter of Country Music legend Glen Campbell.



Ashley Campbell and Rhonda Vincent



Noah Altshuler and Rhonda Vincent

Guests received an autographed copy of Boyle's award-winning book, and the chatter among attendees included speculation as to which 2016 publication would win the award next year. The Mark Twain House is accepting submissions for the next award cycle though December 1st.

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Folks, big news: the White House is hosting a South by South Lawn (SXSL) event on Monday, October 3rd. This is about civic engagement and accessibility, which is more important than ever. The deal is, the Craig Newmark Foundation is a partner in the SXSL event on the White House lawn.

Earlier this year, President Obama traveled to South by Southwest for a conversation on civic engagement. In Austin, TX, he called on creative folks and entrepreneurs nationwide to help tackle the toughest challenges facing our country today. The SXSL event next week's to celebrate that spirit of innovation with a festival of ideas, art, and action.

This is a call for Americans to roll up our sleeves and discover our own ways to make a positive difference in our country. And this is an opportunity to celebrate the inspiring work so many folks have already accomplished.

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The White House's mission with South by South Lawn is to highlight the work of people who have really got their boots on the ground harnessing new technologies to solve real problems -- and to get participants to think critically about how they can do the same in their own lives. Essentially this is part of the baton pass from the President back to non-government folks to carry on change. We're long overdue for greater civic engagement from all sectors, but the focus here is really the tech community.

I'd like to challenge you to make a commitment to civic engagement and hold the White House accountable to engage with regular people on a regular basis (maybe one day a week) on issues of civic engagement. The democratization and wide distribution of new technologies is providing new opportunities to more and more people, every day, to engage directly with their governments and make change. Or to start change from the ground up. It's the open and ongoing input of citizens that's really helped drive the conversation in today's political and cultural climate.

As President Obama said in Selma, "It is you, the young and fearless at heart, the most diverse and educated generation in our history, who the nation is waiting to follow." But the thing is, this isn't true for just one generation, tech is a sector that spans generations, gender, race, ethnicity, among other demographics. We've gotta make a commitment to standing up for what's right.
Muslims from around the world have long chosen Malaysia as a holiday destination, being widely viewed as a moderate Muslim country, where people of diverse ethnicity and religion live in harmony. Muslims account for approximately 60 percent of the population (most of them being ethnic Malay), with Chinese and Indian minorities accounting for most of the rest, practicing Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism as they please. That is part of what makes Malaysia unique. Its tranquility is now under threat, however, a combination of simmering ethnic tension and government action that is taking the country down a dangerous path.

For decades, Malaysia's main opposition party - the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) - has promoted the adoption of Islamic law, and for decades the government has objected to such law, until now. Prime Minister Najib Razak has for many months been embroiled in a corruption scandal, in which he has admitted accepting nearly $700 million as a "donation" to him. Moreover, his government is in trouble, as urban voters are increasingly rejecting the ruling United Malay National Organization (UMNO) and it policies. Many Malaysians have had enough of Mr. Najib, UMNO, and the current government.

Mr. Najib and UMNO have therefore decided to court rural Malays, who tend to be more conservative and who support PAS in greater numbers than their urban counterparts. In May of this year, UMNO fast-tracked the reading of a bill drafted by PAS which sought to increase the punishment courts may impose on those Muslims convicted of religious offenses through existing Islamic courts. Opening that Pandora's Box has naturally created an uproar among moderate Muslims in the country.

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Islamic law is already enforced in some capacity in the more conservative parts of the country, where, for example, religious authorities already check patrons' religion in hotels and bars. The authorities may already jail those who do not practice official interpretations of the law. Some PAS members want Muslims convicted of drinking alcohol to receive up to 80 lashes of the rattan cane, and for adulterers to receive up to 100 lashes of the cane, in ominous echoes of the punishment already dispensed in countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. Is the next step amputations for stealing and hangings for being gay? Moderate Muslims know that such a pivot toward the imposition of Islamic law usually only leads in one direction: more of the same.

UMNO had previously maintained that it opposed such measures, but it, and Mr. Najib, appear already to have concluded that floggings are a small price to pay to elicit the political support of PAS. The very idea that Mr. Najib and UMNO would embrace Islamic law for political gain is despicable, but also extremely short-sighted, given that doing so would likely prove to be difficult to reverse in the future, as well as having unintended consequences.

The imposition of Islamic law could embolden the country's most reactionary Muslims, who already favor the establishment of an Islamic state in Malaysia. More than 10 percent of Malaysians said just that in a recent survey. In July, Malaysian police arrested 14 suspected members of the Islamic State (IS), who were planning attacks on nightclubs and a Hindu temple. Recent estimates suggest that Malaysia is home to up to 150 members of the IS.

Promoting Islamic law also undermines the social compact the government has had with the Malaysian people since the 1970s, though that has been flawed. Following the severe race riots between Malays and Chinese in 1969, the government put in place its New Economic Policy, designed to ease conflict between different ethnicities and achieve national unity through what was supposed to be equality in economic opportunity.

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However, concurrent with the NEP, the government implemented its "Bumiputra" system of preferential treatment for citizens of Malay descent (which for example resulted in the civil service being 85% populated by Malays and quota systems being put in place to favor Malay students in universities). Bumiputra was supposed to be temporary, but ended up becoming a pillar of modern Malaysian politics. It has since served as a source of resentment for citizens not of Malay descent. Racial tension has been simmering beneath the surface ever since. Anti-Chinese sentiment never disappeared and has recently flared up, as Malay nationalism rises in conjunction with Mr. Najib's and UMNO's actions.

A Muslim country that once defined moderation and modernity is now in danger of traveling down a judicial slippery slope leading to the Dark Ages. Should that occur, Malaysia would undoubtedly prove to be a breeding ground for the IS and other Islamic extremist groups, with implications for countries throughout the region, most notably neighboring Thailand and Singapore. The Malaysian government's fierce opposition to Islamic extremism over the past 15 years, and its successes in opposing it, stand to be overridden by what is becoming its own self-destructive behavior. Should Mr. Najib and UMNO continue down that path, racial divisiveness is sure to become further inflamed. With the Malaysian stock market near its low since Mr. Najib's re-election, and with the Malaysian ringgit brushing up against its all-time low with the U.S. dollar, the markets have little faith in the country's near term future - and with good reason.
A few key documents - The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights - lay the foundation of the United States. On the surface each has a different purpose; the Declaration asserts independence, the Constitution sets up the federal government, the Bill of Rights (amendments added to the Constitution just three years after it was ratified) fills in key specifics of what the federal government can and can't do. But at their heart these founding documents are all about the same thing, something deeper than political independence and the structure of government. They all speak to the profound need humans have, literally in the instinctive pursuit of safety and survival, to feel like we are in control of our own lives.

Research on the psychology of risk perception has found that a sense of empowerment and control is fundamental to how safe or threatened we feel. And all sorts of evidence suggests that millions of Americans feel vulnerable, threatened, because they are losing control over their lives and futures. Glenn Beck (of all people) said it in Empathy for Black Lives Matter

...these movements (constitutional conservatives, Black Lives Matter) and others -- the Tea Party, the Bernie Sanders campaign, Occupy Wall Street -- share similar grievances: In their own ways, they say: "I am not being heard," "I don't feel like I belong anymore," "I have no control over my future."

Roger Cohen talked about it in The Age of Distrust

Many people in our liberal democracies feel they are being tossed hither and thither by forces beyond their control.



Beck and Cohen observe what Frans Timmermans, Dutch first vice president of the European Commission, said about England's Brexit declaration of independence from the European Union, that it reflects "...a broad sentiment in Western societies that we have lost control of our destinies.

All of this explains why the idea of a 28th amendment to the constitution, to limit the influence of money in politics and return at least a little more control of the federal government to the people, is as popular in the U.S. as our national government is unpopular. It would be hard to find anyone these days who believes that the government established by the Constitution 'to promote the general Welfare' is 'of, by, and for the people', (Lincoln's phrase from the Gettysburg Address) anymore. Across party lines and demographics, most people feel that our supposed democracy is now an oligarchy largely run by wealthy and powerful people and corporations controlling government to serve their own interests, not ours. Surveys find that trust in government is at historic lows.

This lack of trust undermines our confidence in the institution - government - that exists to do things in the name of our safety and wellbeing that we are powerless to do as individuals; to keep our country and streets and food and water and drugs safe, to set commonly accepted rules to keep society running fairly for all and balance everyone's rights and interests, to share our pooled resources with those in need, since a world that works that way protects us should we ever be in need ourselves. We create and subscribe to government to give us a sense of control over these larger forces. And a democratic form of government gives us a say in how government runs. Democracy itself gives us a sense of control.

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But only if we feel that our democratic government is answerable to us. Few people feel that way these days. The vast majority of Americans believe that our government really isn't ours anymore, that it belongs to those who provide the vast amounts of money necessary for politicians to run the kinds of campaigns our modern media age requires to get and keep power. Which is why the prospect of a 28th Amendment to take money out of politics and return at least a little more control of the federal government to us, is so strong.

Such an amendment would target the 2010

which held that freedom of speech extends to political spending by non-profit corporations, which the court has subsequently extended to include corporations, labor unions and other associations. But 7

. There are three ways that can happen.

The public can try to force Congress to pass campaign finance reform, but that has a long history of near total failure. Any of the 5 judges who voted for Citizen's United would have to be replaced by a justice opposed to that ruling, and then some sort of test case would have to make its way up the appellate court ladder. That is also not likely, at least in the near term, since all 5 judges in the Citizens United majority look to be on the bench for some time. Article V of the Constitution, which gives the public direct control over what the Constitution does or doesn't say. As overwhelmingly fed up as most people are at the influence of money in politics, this may be the most feasible option.

Here are the rules for an amendment, as per Article V;

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress;

More than 700 communities and 17 states have already voted to support an amendment to control the influence of money in politics. Two more states will vote on the idea this fall. If 33 states request it, Article V says Congress has to at least convene a special meeting to consider the idea. With a vast majority of Americans so eager to undo what the Citizens United ruling did, it's hard to imagine that Congress would blatantly ignore the will of the people and fail to send such an amendment to the states for ratification. Voters in at least 37 states would then have to say yes.

It would be naive, however, to suggest that such an amendment is a fait accompli. It will depend on the wording, and various groups working for such amendment have competing ideas about what it should say. And of course corporations, unions, and the wealthy will pay vast amounts to fight an amendment that will weaken their influence over government. Campaign contributions will flow. Multi-million dollar ad campaigns will flood our airwaves and websites. The spending to fight an amendment will be vast (and mostly anonymous), because of the Citizen's United ruling itself.

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Indeed that opposition has already begun, with threats from conservatives and conservative think tanks (which are principally funded by wealthy interests and corporations) that a 28th Amendment will 'overturn the First Amendment'. That's more than a little hypocritical from people and groups that claim to be Constitutional purists, since the Constitution explicitly establishes the public's right to change what the Constitution says. The Founding Fathers that conservatives so love to invoke were crystal clear that the power, the control, the final say about what the federal government can and can't do, belongs to We the People.

Hillary Clinton promises that, if elected, she'll propose a 28th Amendment within 30 days of taking office, music to the ears of supporters angry that corporations are considered people, allowing their immense wealth to take control of the government away from real actual people. Donald Trump has not spoken on an amendment directly, but has repeatedly decried the influence of money on politics. That resonates with Trump's supporters, who are viscerally upset that selfish special interests are running the government and controlling their lives. So support for a constitutional amendment to limit the influence of money on politics runs deep across the political spectrum.

And such an amendment would likely be popular among the growing number of people so fed up with a political system they think they can't control that they've stopped participating. The number of people identifying with either main party has dropped 8 percent in 8 years...roughly 93 million Americans eligible to vote, 4 out of ten, don't. A vote to limit the influence of money in politics and take back control of the federal government might get a lot of those voters to the polls.
BECAUSE YOUR FIRST TELEVISION COMMERCIAL MIGHT BE YOUR LAST.

Look

If you had

One shot

Or one opportunity

To seize everything you ever wanted

In one moment

Would you capture it

Or just let it slip?

-Eminem

We have decided to make a television commercial to reach our target audience and establish some breadth to our marketing campaign. Currently, we do SEO, SEM, and some social media on a monthly basis sprinkled in with some earned media (people who will write articles about us or put us on their radio shows... for free). The pace of growth is way too slow for two hyperkinetic self-starters expecting bigger results faster.

We came up with an idea for a commercial we all liked around the office. We had brainstormed and put together a thirty second spot that was rather straightforward, but perfectly described what we do.

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BECAUSE... YOU ONLY HAVE ONE SHOT.

In order to make your commercial you need to hire a production company. A production company is the place that makes the commercial. Some production companies pitch you directors from their stable, while others are one man/woman shops who direct and produce everything themselves. You pay them a fee and they will do all the creative work or create from the vision you have given them. They are also responsible for post-production (editing, coloring, and sound) and delivering the commercial in the proper medium to the venue who will eventually air it. Each production company would receive our original concept and then be asked to give us their own take on a commercial for us.

We are based in Sacramento and quickly exhausted the few options we have in our hometown. We reached out to production companies in San Jose, San Francisco, Ohio, and Los Angeles; most upon recommendations from friends in the business. While all were interesting, we settled on a company from LA, who pitched us three of its directors. Each gave us a "treatment" (a rough outline of how they envisioned their commercial with content, tone, and style choices). We were supposed to choose the one we best liked.

The problem was, we liked ours best. It was simple, direct, and captured EXACTLY what we were trying to say.

Now the dilemma.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

It's your company, you have lived with this longer than anyone, you know your target audience and exactly what you are trying to convey.

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But you are not creative... are you?

Are you willing to bet the company's fortune on your idea? What if it doesn't strike the chord you are looking for? Are you willing to take the fall?

It would be much easier to say we hired these hacks from LA and they had no idea what they were doing and THEY jacked up our commercial.

But ya know what?

I ain't going out like that.

If I am gonna go down in a blaze of glory, I am gonna go down in a blaze of glory with no one else to blame but myself.

Just like Eminem said, I am gonna capture it and not let it slip away.

This post originally appeared on The Whole Magilla and was written by Chris Meyer, co-founder of MagillaLoans.com.


The following speech was given by Ali N'Simbo, board of directors, Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF-USA), at the launch of a public interactive exhibit on the global refugee crisis. The exhibit will be in New York City until September 27, before moving on to Washington D.C., Boston, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. For more information and to register for a tour, visit: www.forcedfromhome.com

Twenty years ago, I was forced from my home for the first time. I was a boy in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and war came to my city. I was at home, listening to a popular song on the radio, when the radio suddenly cut off. We saw missiles coming in our direction. My family decided what to bring with us, and what to hide: a few photos, water, food, blankets, and cash. And then we ran, under fire. Our photos fell to the ground. I jumped over the dead bodies of those who had run before me. Others traversed one thousand miles of inhospitable jungles and crocodile-infested rivers. If they were not in the center of the African continent, they might have tried to cross the sea as well.

When I returned home, I was stopped by foreign soldiers and forced to help dig a mass grave beside a busy city road. Bodies of the displaced, killed as they ran. They have never been counted. Their graves are unmarked. Their voices have disappeared. There are no photos to capture their stories. I thank Doctors Without Borders for being a bridge between these voices and you here today.



Later, as a physician with Doctors Without Borders, I took care of many others who were running from war, in my country and in South Sudan. I cared for traumatized patients who had witnessed the massacres of hundreds of people within minutes. This continues today.

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While providing medical care to displaced people in a mineral-rich, but war-torn area without access to healthcare, I met a very brave girl. As her family ran from home, her father was killed. She was seven-years-old. Then her mother died. She was the only caregiver for her two-year-old sister, who was my patient for the three months I worked there.

The following year, after a new wave of displacement and malaria, my team was called back to the same area. I did not find my patient. She had died. I did, however, find her sister. The sole survivor of her family. She was now eight-years-old. She lived in the hospital, each day at the mercy of whomever would give her something to eat. To say she is displaced is a euphemism. She lost everything. There is no record of what happened to her. All she has are memories. I often wonder if she is still alive today.



Do you think she only needs Doctors Without Borders? Her needs are beyond medical. She needs you. She needs perhaps all of us here, because she needs peace, so she can return home. And there are many people like her in this world.



Today we are seeing more people running from their homes, trying to cross the seas, in this exodus from war. The numbers are overwhelming. But there are so many more than what we are counting. I was not counted, and I was not the only one. There are seas of refugees who are lost in the desert and forest who we are not seeing, and who we do not hear. They are behind the cameras, excluded from the view, in the shadows. They do not even enjoy the status of being a statistic. They are often denied the status of refugee. And this is not new.



Those who have survived are asking themselves, "Does the world understand what is happening to us?"

Today I speak not only to your minds as you try to find your own answer to this question, but to your hearts. I hope that as you view this exhibit, you will see not only numbers and statistics, but your fellow human beings behind them. While we may not be able to bring all of the world's refugees to safety in our countries, we can at least recognize what they have lived through and what they are running from.

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Speaking by Skype recently to participants in the East-West Center's 2016 International Media Conference in New Delhi, Dr. Jeffrey Herbst, President and CEO of the Newseum in Washington, D.C., addressed the growing trend of social media companies like Facebook using computer algorithms to give consumers news that the programs think they'll be interested in. Calling the trend even more significant than the original emergence of news websites, Herbst said the problem is that social media companies, "which do not consider themselves news organizations, are more interested in keeping users' attention within their platform than they are with delivering important news."

(Watch video of Herbst's remarks.)

Until recently, Herbst said, only a few gatekeepers determined the national news agenda across the U.S., including editors at a handful of newspapers like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and the three major TV networks. When iconic anchorman Walter Cronkite ended his broadcasts by saying "and that's the way it was," it indeed determined what many people would be talking about the next day.

But in the Internet age, anyone with web access can blog or put up a YouTube video, he said. So instead of "a few people determining what an entire nation would hear, now we have the democratization of information." Or as it has been said, "the people formerly known as the audience are now speaking."

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In the beginning , it was thought that users were going to have to sort through all this information ourselves, he said. But because it was impossible to take in all the millions of daily posts, social media platforms became important funnels to understand the news. Facebook especially, but also Google News and others, now serve as pipes for the vast amount of information that people and companies produce, and provide them to followers or subscribers. "This is a critical development," he said, "and one that has not been understood enough." Recent studies show, for example, that Facebook is becoming the major platform through which young Americans get their news.

"I'm not only referring to posts from family and friends, but how individuals consume actual news by following newspapers, TV and magazines, who then provide that information to Facebook and other platforms as posts," Herbst said. Now instead of news editors determining which news is the most significant on any given day, "it's the algorithms that determine what people actually see or read. In many ways, the algorithm has become an editor."

Calling such algorithms "partially art and partially science," Herbst said that "Facebook's goal, as a company that seeks to make money for shareholders, is to make sure that people stay on its platform as long as possible and read as many posts as possible, so that they can sell as many ads as possible at a higher price." And this is no secret: Facebook and others have all been transparent about the goals of their algorithms, although not necessarily about the specifics of how they make content decisions.

Apple News, and to some extent Facebook, have human curators who review what their algorithms produce, said Herbst, "so it's not just a case of the machine. But an algorithm has its own bias, and the social media companies have not necessarily wrestled with their bias and what their role is in the transmission of information."

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Though tech corporations like Facebook, Apple and Google maintain that they are not fundamentally news-media organizations but only the infrastructure through which people receive news, Herbst said he doesn't believe that the current position of these companies is viable over the long term and that they are going to be forced by demands from consumers as well as government to think hard about what should be transmitted through their platforms. "We've already seen this most dramatically with regard to posts around terrorism," he said, "but also controversies around bias and harassment, as well as material that some people just find offensive."

Pointing to a recent controversy over charges that conservative articles are not given enough visibility on Facebook feeds, he said that "this is just the tip of the iceberg, as people across the world understand the power of these platforms and how important they are in determining what people know. So I think it is incumbent upon these companies to begin to think of themselves as news companies. If they don't take this position now, they will be forced to do so in the future."

Herbst said another concern is people getting only news that conforms to their pre-existing biases, in a so-called "filter bubble." Because the algorithm is most interested in keeping you on the platform as long as possible, he said, "they have no interest in providing you a balanced display of the news, but rather they want to feed you more of the same based on what you've read or clicked on before."

Herbst doesn't claim that TV and newspapers of the past were without bias, but because the reader chose what to read from the editors' selection of presented stories, there could be "at least the hope that a wide display of information was available." Today, he said, "the focus of responsibility for a healthy balance of the news has shifted from the newspaper to the consumer."

You can get a perfectly balanced flow of news via Facebook, he said, but you have to signal to the algorithm that this is what you want. If you only read or search out one type of news, you will get more of the same. "Again, this is not the algorithm's fault," Herbst said. "But I think people who want a more diverse presentation of the news will have to take more responsibility than before."

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Of course, journalists also have an important role to play in all of this, he said. They should be explaining to citizens across the world what is happening to the news ecosystem and why consumers receive some stories and not others. "Journalists also must work to promote a news system that has a broad diversity of viewpoints, encourages everyone to participate and demeans no one," he said. "These are critical issues and essential to the health of democracies worldwide."
Re-Percussions: Our African Odyssey, award-winning Trinidadian film-maker Kim Johnson's contribution to this year's Caribbean Tales International Film Festival in Toronto, is a documentary masterpiece focused on Nigerian Chief Bowie Sonnie Bowei's journey to introduce and popularize steel drum, the musical instrument known as Pan, throughout his native Nigeria and across the African continent.

That journey includes Chief Bowei's pained acknowledgement that African chiefs participated in the slave trade that forced millions of Africans into the sugar fields of the New World, the nucleus of the great Diaspora that has produced the music he has dedicated his life to. In one extraordinary scene, Bowei visits an historic barracoon, once a slave barracks, where his guide underscores the fact that slaves' lives were so grotesquely undervalued that one umbrella was worth forty slaves, one bottle of gin ten slaves.

"Sometimes I am overwhelmed by anger and shame," Bowei confesses. He also wonders aloud: Do any African chiefs feel at least some slight guilt about what their ancestors did?

In Trinidad, where slaves improvised drums to play remembered music and alleviate their misery, their white overlords condemned drumming as noisy, monotonous and perhaps even demonic. And, because they also feared it as a potential tool to inspire rebellion, they outlawed it. But the slaves refused to relinquish the rhythms that gave them ``the physical and psychic strength to endure,`` and made music however and wherever they could.

In 1877, an official commission banned the use of street drums in processions. Ever inventive, the revellers scrounged to find whatever they could use to beat - scrap metal and dust bins were popular - and before long, steel drumming was born. That, Bowei learns, is true Creole art - improvisation. And that improvisation eventually led from dustbins to 55-gallon steel drums used in Trinidad's - and Nigeria's - oil industry.

But steel can be used for more than drumming and Pan, as it is known, is a musical instrument capable of artistry as complex as any other modern music. As well, in Trinidad it is also a life form or movement that embraces politics as well as culture. These features, and its origins as the African Diaspora's special instrument, has inspired Chief Bowei's mission to bring Trinidad's unique contribution back to the ancestral homeland.

"I feel destined to carry out the Pan movement in Africa, not just Nigeria," he declares.

Bowei's introduction to Pan had more a prosaic origin: as a young soldier in the Nigerian Army's steel band, which played old-style tunes on unimproved old pans. "Soldiers follow orders, and that's how we played in the Nigerian Army Steel Band," he explains. From 1977 to 2001, the Nigerian Army Steel Band was also Nigeria's only one, with stale musical offerings that inspired no one.

For Bowei, however, the story does not end there. By following Pan to Trinidad, he sees at firsthand the enormous possibilities, beginning with bands of 120 pannists who produced music of a grandeur and intensity entirely lacking in Nigeria's nine-man outfit. Bowei is also impressed by what Trinidadian professor Rawle Gibbons's describes as "the rooted links between Africa and Trinidad as far as Pan goes."

But at first, Pan is a hard sell. Young people, whom Bowei targets as the likeliest group as both performers and audience, expect guitars, pianos, drums, and recoil at the sight of the huge steel drums they are accustomed to use for water storage. How on earth could these bulky steel drums be musical instruments?

Some of Re-Percussions' most amusing segments document the learning process of these reluctant students, girls and boys together, as they practice beating Pan and, encouraged by Bowei, realize that with skill and patience, they can reproduce their own kind of music, hip hop as well as folk songs. Costumed in traditional garb, exuberant and confident, they travel into the huge, unfamiliar city of Lagos where they perform so brilliantly that they win several categories in a music festival.

But Bowei is keenly aware that the African steel drums he provides lack the rich and nuanced tones of Trinidadian Pans, specifically partial notes, and so he returns to Port-of-Spain to seek help from the world's best Pan tuners. One of these, Gabriel "Doyle" Robley, complains that Bowei is too hasty and does not take the time to truly understand how to tune a Pan.

Bowei, for his part, is deeply satisfied with his education, and lavishes praise on his tutor for his generosity in sharing even treasured nuggets of information about tuning Pans to perfection.

Back in Nigeria, he is determined to succeed in his mission to popularize Pan as a musical instrument, and to attract large numbers of young men and women into joining bands that offer music, camaraderie and a link back to the centuries-old Diaspora.

"The Middle Passage [the part of the slave trade where Africans were shipped across the Atlantic to the West Indies] tore off a piece of our living flesh," he says. Now the young Nigerian steel bands are bonded with the Diaspora and are full-fledged members of the international steel band community. "This is my steel band, my music, my song," Bowei murmurs in a moving finale.

Re-Percussions is a visual and auditory feast, illustrated with historical and vintage images and a a scintillating background of music ranging from calypso to African "talking drums" to full-scale steel bands in full regalia.

Bowei, Nigeria's foremost Pan entrepreneur and aficionado, is the perfect match for Trinidadian scholar/film-maker Kim Johnson, Pan's foremost historian, author of Tinpan to TASPO: Origins of the Steelband Movement 1939-1951 and The Illustrated Story of Pan, and the award-winning 2013 film, Pan: Our Music Odyssey.


If you get sick in California, and you are covered by the state's Medi-Cal health insurance, you will be pleased to know that your health care just got better. California is the first state to recognize that spiritual care is a standalone discipline in health care and a trained and certified palliative care chaplain must be available for any patient who wants one. Spirituality, defined in the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care is a "fundamental aspect of compassionate, patient-and family-centered care that honors the dignity of all persons."

The California Department of Health Care Services policy now calls for a palliative care team to meet the physical, medical, psychosocial, emotional and spiritual needs of you and your family; and recommends that the team include, but is not limited to a doctor of medicine or osteopathy, a registered nurse and/or nurse practitioner, a social worker, as well as a chaplain.

But before you jump to the conclusion, as people often do, that the word chaplain means religion, understand that trained and certified health care chaplains care for people of any and all religious persuasions as well as those who are not religious. Their work is about providing spiritual and emotional comfort. A chaplain can help you talk about your concerns, help you communicate with doctors, and bring a sense of calm to situation that worries or frightens you. A health care chaplain can provide a calm reassurance and source of strength.

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Palliative care is specialized medical care that focuses on providing relief from the symptoms as well as the stress of a serious illness. It helps you gain the strength to carry on with daily life and improve your quality of life. A specially trained team works together with your doctors to provide an extra layer of support. By spending time with you, the team will give you and your family control over your care by truly exploring your goals and helping you to understand treatment options.

According to Dr. Sean Morrison, professor of palliative medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, and co-author of a 2015 article "Palliative Care for the Seriously Ill" in the New England Journal of Medicine, patients getting palliative care are more involved in decisions, may avoid expensive procedures, and may have fewer emergency room visits. Dr. Morrison also states that palliative care programs have grown by more than 150 percent over the past decade.

While palliative care teams do operate in many hospitals around the country, California is the only state where it is now required by law that a chaplain to be part of the team. The Joint Commission, the major accreditor of American hospitals, urges all hospitals to deliver palliative care to Americans suffering from chronic and serious illnesses.

Wherever you live, when you are facing hospitalization, you and your family need to ask if palliative care is available. Explain to your doctor what quality of life means to you. This may include being able to spend time with family members, having pain and symptoms treated, being able to make your own decisions for care and where you want to be treated, at home or in the hospital. Ask your doctor if those needs can be met.

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This is crucial at a time when the palliative care field is expanding to include not only those facing end-of-life situations but all individuals receiving treatments that relieve difficult symptoms of illnesses that are not easily cured, or for which there is no current cure. In such cases, treatments focus on providing comfort and improving quality of life for the patent and family. This type of palliative care is likely to grow exponentially in the coming decades; the Center to Advance Palliative Care estimates that by 2020 there will be 157 million people living with at least one chronic illness. Support and counseling by spiritual care professionals assist not only people with chronic or fatal conditions, but their family caregivers as well, who often face enormous challenges in caring for loved ones while maintaining their own lives and livelihoods.



A 2014 consensus report by the nationally-acclaimed Institute of Medicine, noted that "ideally, health care should harmonize with social, psychological and spiritual support to achieve the highest possible quality of life for people of all ages with serious illnesses or injuries." The report also stated that frequent assessment of a patient's spiritual wellbeing, and attention to a patient's spiritual and religious needs, should be among the core components of quality end-of-life care across all settings and providers.

The California Department of Health Care Services leads the way in recognizing the valuable contribution of chaplains and the provisions of spiritual care in palliative care. Hopefully this serves as a model that all states will soon follow for the good of patients and their families.
What struck me about the presidential debates was the complete absence of decorum. The candidates are obligated to show that they can respect each other despite their differences. They may not respect each other privately, but as candidates for president, they claim to be leaders. If you are going to lead you have to set an example of how to treat those who disagree with you. I thought decorum was called for in this place and time. I am not arguing that our presidents should have led decorous private lives. I want leaders who have lived, who have made errors, fought fights, done business, fallen in and out of love. I want them to have been drunk and stupid, and have taken absurd chances. I want them to have cut corners, sometimes getting away with it and sometimes paying the price. I want the president to have lived a life like I have. In a democracy, the leader ought to be drawn from the people, and in whole or in part, or practicing other vices, this is how the American people live. When I was in college I knew someone who intended to go into politics. He was 19 and systematically avoided anything that might prove "a problem" to his future career. What he avoided was everything that a normal 19-year-old might do. I couldn't articulate then what I can now: I do not want to be led by someone who has led a life free of trial, error, remorse and forgiveness. I do not want to be led by anyone who hasn't moved to the edge of the abyss because I want my leader to know what the abyss looks like and how to back away slowly. I do not want what we think of as a flawless leader, because being flawless is itself a vice. I want to be led by someone who has grappled long and hard with life. I will not list the venal sins humans are prone to, but I want the person who walks into a room with Vladimir Putin to know the demons that can drive a person. It is a dangerous world and I want a president who knows how to be dangerous if he has to be - and knows when not to be. As a voter, I simply want to know that this is someone who has lived. I do not want to know the details. I have lived a life I have enjoyed immensely. I have tried many things, failed at some, succeeded in others. I have many regrets and many things I wish I could live again. I do not intend to lay out all the things I have done in public. This is my private trove, and not meant to be shared. I would not respect a presidential candidate who has none of these things, nor would I respect a presidential candidate who sent out a press release detailing them. I value privacy and I value a presidential candidate who demands it too. I believe that character is far more important than policy proposals. A president's policies are rarely enacted. The president is not an emperor. He is one of three branches of government. The most important challenges in a presidency are those the president never thought he would face. George W. Bush had no policy for 9/11. At that moment, all the policy papers he read and had written were rendered meaningless. The only thing that mattered was what he could conjure up on the edge of the abyss. His response was a reflection of his soul, not of the writers of policy papers. And in putting character above policy I want to sense his soul, to anticipate how he might deal with the unexpected. I want to know that the president has faced adversity and knew how to make decisions when he was afraid. And I don't want a president who hasn't experienced fear. Two of the greatest leaders of the last century were Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Roosevelt had a serious illness but did not flaunt his disability. Nor did he publicize the fact that he was terribly ill with heart failure in 1944. Churchill was an alcoholic. I do not know whether he could stop drinking if he chose, because there is no evidence that he ever chose to. Neither could be elected today because these things would disqualify them. And that would have been a catastrophe for Western civilization. Abraham Lincoln was clearly manic depressive. John F. Kennedy was a prodigious womanizer. Thomas Jefferson was in constant financial difficulty. Dwight Eisenhower had a frightening temper. There was more to all these men and having them lose elections because of their vices would have been disastrous. What would we have done without them? Yet, none could be elected today. There is the sense that leaders ought to be held to higher standards. I fully agree. We must demand from the president courage, generosity, vision and above all the ability to lead. We cannot and must not demand that he not have lived, and it is in that living that we encounter good and evil. It is our task as voters to determine what he has learned. And one sign for me that the candidate has the ability to lead is that he has self-control, both at the debate and during the campaign. Other signs are honesty, the willingness to listen as well as speak, the tenor of the voice when angry and the ability to impose self-control at all times, the ability to think without a staff present. I do not want a president who has led a decorous life. I want a president who can be gracious in public, not because he wants to be seen as gracious, but because he has learned to be. And I want a president who has lived through the dark night of the soul, and can do it again, because the president will have to.


Caption: Hillary Clinton spreading her arms (image credit)

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The vast majority of pundits declared Hillary Clinton the decisive winner of this week's debate. This includes both conservative and liberal pundits. For instance, Douglas Schoen of Fox News wrote:

"She was ready for all of his quips with a litany of detail that may have bored the viewer at points, but showed why she is winning on qualifications, experience and temperament in every poll."

However, most post-debate online polls are breaking for Donald Trump as the winner. These polls are not rigorous, in that anyone can vote in them multiple times, regardless of whether they would vote in the actual election. Still, some of these polls have hundreds of thousands of votes. They provide significant evidence of enthusiasm for Trump's debate performance and suggest that the pundits are wrong about Clinton dominating the debate.

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So what explains this difference between the polls and the pundits?

As an expert on the role of emotional intelligence in public life, including in debates, I have long observed that mainstream media commentators don't give sufficient credit to the role of emotions in shaping public perceptions. Understanding the impact of emotions in politics is key for making an accurate prediction of how debates will impact voting.

Pundits vs. the public

Pundits tend to focus on the substance of the debate by analyzing the content of each candidate's statements. Schoen's quote above is typical of what pundits value: policy details that express appropriate qualifications and experience.

This focus on content fails to fully reflect what actually influences the viewing public - body language and tone of voice.

The first-ever presidential debate, between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, was apparently seen as a tie by those who listened on the radio. Yet, those who watched on television and got to compare the energetic and healthy-looking Kennedy with the pale, shifty-eyed Nixon saw the former as the winner.

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In the presidential debates most Americans focus more on nonverbal cues of body language, and remember them after the debate is over, compared to the content of what is said, according to David Givens, director of the Center for Nonverbal Studies, a private nonprofit research center. These nonverbals are of fundamental importance to communication, and they often mean more than what is actually being said.

This is something that traditional pundits fail to give due credit. This failure can be seen in previous debates in which Trump participated for the Republican presidential nomination. In most cases, pundits declared that Trump was defeated by his competitors, but he won in post-debate online polling and ended up with the nomination.

Research on emotional intelligence provides key clues for why Trump ended up on top. Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive and influence the emotions of others. While we perceive ourselves to be rational beings, in reality studies show that our emotions dominate most of our mental processes.



Donald Trump during the first presidential debate. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Emotional intelligence is especially important for leaders due to the phenomenon of emotional contagion - the ability to "infect" large numbers of people with your emotions. Research shows that emotionally intelligent leaders are especially skilled at emotional contagion. This is a fundamental component of what scholars call charisma, the whole complement of factors that enables a leader to influence others through the leader's personality.

In my work on the role of emotional intelligence in public life, I have long highlighted Trump's strength in playing to the emotions of his audience. He has succeeded in being perceived by the public as more honest and authentic, despite fact checkers saying otherwise.

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Emotional intelligence and the first debate

Charisma has long been a weak area for Clinton. She has struggled to overcome the persistent impression that she's inauthentic, cold and distant, which she says emerged from her learning as a young woman to control her emotions. In this debate, Clinton needed to demonstrate a better sense of emotional connection to the audience to win over important demographics, such as Bernie Sanders supporters.

Despite her command of policy and substance, Clinton did not in my view succeed in conveying strong emotions during the debate. For instance, in the part of the debate about the economy, the most important issue for U.S. voters, she conveyed a clear plan, with strong evidence backing it up. In her debate preparation she likely worked on injecting emotions into her presentation through telling stories, a classical way of conveying emotions. She shared some powerful stories of people suffering from the poor economy and how her policies would help them out.

But her nonverbal cues - body language and tone of voice - showed lack of emotional expression. For instance, in this moment in the debate, Clinton talks about helping people who are struggling to balance family and work, and experience various stresses.

Yet her tone and body language do not change to reflect these emotional topics. She did not gesture or change her voice to express empathy with those who struggle and have stress. She looks the same as she does a little later or earlier when talking about policy details.

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Nonverbal cues of body language and tone are especially important in cases where the content of the verbal statement is at odds with the nonverbal cues. Emotional stories told with flat affect are unlikely to work for convincing the undecided and Bernie supporters that Clinton truly cares and is actually fighting for them.

Training in conveying emotions through body language and tone of voice could help Clinton in the next debate and public speaking in general.

By contrast, Trump looked like he truly cared about the economy. Right out of the gate, he spoke to the emotions of voters by expressing concerns about jobs leaving the U.S. Despite the lack of detail and his difficulty responding to questions about how he would solve this problem, his body language was angry and authoritative.

He appeared to be a strong protector to those voters, especially working-class ones who are suffering economically. He may have even appealed to those who are doing fine, but believe that the economy is headed in the wrong direction.

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Trump also harshly criticized Clinton on trade deals such as NAFTA, calling it the "worst deal ever" in a strong and aggressive manner. Clinton's calm response that Trump is "inaccurate," without good nonverbals indicating her authentic belief that he was lying, is an example of how Trump got the best of Clinton on the nonverbals.

Overall, I would argue that while Clinton won the debate on content and substance, Trump won on style and charisma. In fact, I believe the 2 to 4 percent gain for Clinton predicted by FiveThirtyEight and other pundits in the next week will fail to materialize. Until they start taking emotional engagement into consideration, pundits will continue to be wrong about debate outcomes, and we should question their initial predictions.

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Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speak simultaneously during their first presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, U.S., September 26, 2016. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

In Monday's debate, less than two minutes were spent discussing the biggest existential threat we face as a nation and globe: climate change. Perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise, given that the Republican nominee doesn't even believe it exists, even going so far as to call it a "hoax" created by the Chinese. If Donald Trump and the Republican Party won't acknowledge climate change, then we must bring it to the forefront of the debate ourselves.

During my campaign for president, I had the opportunity to visit college campuses all across the country. Without fail, the students I spoke with identified climate change as one of the most--if not, the most--pressing issues facing our nation. On this issue, they're showing Democrats the way.

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Climate change isn't just an existential threat, it's also the biggest business opportunity in the last 100 years. Already 81 leading international companies like Apple, Ikea, H&M, and Bank of America have each committed to moving 100% of their energy consumption to renewable power. This is serious sums of money - with some corporations investing billions of dollars to achieve this feat and creating millions of jobs in the process.

We've seen some important steps forward recently. Under the leadership of President Barack Obama, our country has led the world in joining with the largest global economies like China and India to sign the Paris Agreement, the most ambitious, forward-thinking greenhouse gas reduction plan to be enacted.

Now Secretary Hillary Clinton is proposing to go further. She has laid out a bold and comprehensive plan that will generate enough renewable energy to power every single home in America and reduce fossil fuel consumption by one-third.

Republicans like Donald Trump can continue to pretend like climate change is a hoax, but this denial of science (and reality) won't do our country any good. As a Party and nation, we will benefit greatly if we embrace this challenge and view it as an opportunity.

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A successful former businessman develops a sudden fear of driving. A longtime homemaker is convinced she never has enough groceries in the house. It's a pattern familiar to many of us with aging parents: the overwhelming worry or constant nervousness over day-to-day tasks, from taking medications to parking the car. Left untreated, this anxiety-related agitation in the elderly can disrupt sleep and eating, exacerbate chronic medical conditions, and ultimately contribute to a downward spiral of fear and isolation.

Anxiety occurs in older Americans with surprising frequency. In fact, some reports estimate anxiety affects between 10 and 20 percent of the older population -- although exact numbers are hard to pin down since the condition often goes undiagnosed. The prevalence is even greater among older adults with chronic illness or physical disability, with some 40 percent of that population reporting anxiety symptoms.

"Anxiety in the elderly is far more common than we thought -- maybe more common than depression and dementia," says Kathleen Wolfe, LCSW, who is director of social work and behavioral health at my organization, VNSNY CHOICE Health Plans. "Anxiety is characterized by feeling incapable or not having the coping skills to handle whatever challenges you're faced with. If you consider that being elderly often means being frail and vulnerable to begin with, you can see how it really sets the stage for anxiety."

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Late-life anxiety can come in many forms. The most common type of clinical anxiety is generalized anxiety disorder, marked by excessive worry and feelings of fear and dread, often for no concrete reason. Physical symptoms can include sleeplessness, an inability to concentrate, irritability and lack of focus. Other seniors may suffer symptoms of anxiety that fall short of a diagnosable condition but still affect their daily lives. You might find your elderly mother spending all day by the window, for instance, nervously watching comings and goings outside, or staying up all night, worried that she won't be able to keep her medications straight. Or your 80-year-old father may be unwilling to leave the house because he's afraid he'll suffer a fall.

While anxiety is common among older people, it's important to realize that this condition is not an inevitable part of aging. Late-life anxiety, like late-life depression, is diagnosable and treatable through approaches such as medication and talk therapy. And even when your loved one's anxiety symptoms aren't severe enough to constitute a diagnosable disorder, they should be addressed by medical professionals who can help identify underlying causes and provide supports and coping mechanisms.

The Importance of Social Support

For any older person experiencing anxiety symptoms, a social support system is critical. Anxiety can feed off itself when there's no one around to provide support or an alternate point of view, causing irrational fears to grow -- which in turn can lead to increasing isolation and a downward spiral of health. Where I work, we try to make sure all of our members have a support system in place. Kathleen, for example, encourages our members to write a list of all people in their support system, along with phone numbers and email addresses (if appropriate). She also encourages them to take advantage of senior centers and reach out to religious organizations, which offer a community and a place to visit regularly.

As noted, late-life anxiety in older individuals is commonly linked to chronic medical conditions. Once that link is understood and addressed -- again, with the help of a support system -- the anxiety can often be alleviated. For example, one of our members with congestive heart failure, who had been relatively stable, suddenly began going into the hospital more frequently. Following up on that red flag, his care manager discovered that his doctor had added another drug to his already considerable daily regimen, causing the member to stop taking his medications entirely.

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"He became so overwhelmed with the complexity of the care that he just gave up," notes Lisa George, our organization's Medical Director. "Living with chronic conditions and managing multiple medications -- especially if you don't fully understand your situation and don't have a good support system -- can often trigger anxiety in elderly people."



Reducing Stress by Breaking Things Down

The solution begins with communication, support and education. In this case, the care manager worked with the member and his primary care physician to reevaluate the medications, reducing them wherever possible and making sure the member understood what he was taking and why, what the desired effect was, and what side effects he could expect. "We really break things down to the level of the patient," says Lisa. "What happened with this member is so common. People forget what the doctor told them, they're unsure of their medication, and life intervenes."

To help prevent or ease anxiety symptoms related to medical issues, a caregiver or family member should accompany an older person to each doctor's visit. Bring a notebook, come with written questions, and take notes or have another family member take notes. You can also ask the doctor's office to write up the care plan and prescribed medications at the end of each appointment.

Ideally, the older person's health plan or physician's practice has a care coordinator who can help clarify these details as well. Our care managers are a vital resource in ensuring that there is two-way communication between the member and their doctors, and that everyone is on the same page in terms of care plan and medications. "That way, patients don't get overwhelmed and caught in the middle," explains Lisa. If they like our members can even arrange for their care manager to call in and "join" a patient by phone at a pre-scheduled doctor's appointment.

Diagnosing -- and Treating -- Root Causes

If symptoms like nervousness, dread or hypervigilance (being overly aware of potential threats) are seriously impairing an older person's day-to-day functioning, then it's time to talk with their primary care provider about a possible clinical anxiety disorder. Lisa George cautions that if doctors do diagnose an anxiety disorder, that's just the beginning of the conversation. "After you make the diagnosis, it's important to address the root causes rather than just labeling the symptoms. Often that means helping the person navigate care, working with the primary care doctor to streamline medications, and connecting them to resources in the community."

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If clinical anxiety is diagnosed, older people -- like people of any age -- can often benefit from psychological counseling, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a specific type of psychotherapy that focuses on reframing thoughts and behaviors and challenging assumptions underlying irrational fears. Stress management techniques may also be helpful.

There are a number of medications that can be effective in reducing anxiety symptoms, as well. It might seem counterintuitive to add more medications to the daily routine if a multi-drug regimen is already adding to an individual's stress. But by working with a physician who looks at the patient's whole picture, reducing or streamlining medications where possible, the safe and efficient addition of an appropriate anti-anxiety medication can make a major difference in the life and outlook of an older person suffering from a clinical anxiety disorder.

Working With Providers to Keep Anxiety at Bay

At VNSNY CHOICE Health Plans, we're working to infuse behavioral health and comprehensive health strategies across the spectrum of care, so we can intervene early to address late-life mood disorders like anxiety and depression among our members in a systemic and lasting way. In one new initiative, we've begun exchanging information with our members' physicians around behavioral health issues, such as how a member's anxiety or depression might be impacting their health outcomes, medication adherence and quality of life.
By James M. Dorsey

A gathering of prominent Sunni Muslim leaders in the Chechen capital of Grozny that appeared to have effectively excommunicated Saudi-backed ultra-conservatism potentially opens not only a theological but also a geopolitical rift in the Muslim world. The conference, sponsored and attended by some of Saudi Arabia's closest allies, suggests that Saudi funding of ultra-conservative worldviews may be meeting its match in more liberal interpretations of Islam backed by the United Arab Emirates and Russia.

The conference was hosted by Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, an Islamist with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, recently convened some of Islam's most prominent leaders to determine the theologically and politically explosive question of who is a Sunni Muslim. Professing to be a Sufi, a more mystical interpretation of Islam, Kadyrov lacks the religious credentials beyond his native Chechnya where he was recently re-elected with 98 percent of the vote.

Kadyrov's ability to bring together an illustrious group of Muslim scholars highlights successful behind-the-scenes manoeuvring by the United Arab Emirates to counter Salafism despite the UAE's close collaboration with Saudi Arabia as a member of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and in the war in Yemen. It also shines a light on Russian efforts to cultivate Muslim religious leaders.

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Participating in the Grozny conference were, among others, the imam of the Al-Azhar Grand Mosque in Cairo, Ahmed El- Tayeb; Egyptian Grand Mufti Shawki Allam; former Egyptian Grand Mufti and Sufi authority Ali Gomaa, a strident supporter of Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi; Al Sisi's religious affairs advisor, Usama al-Azhari; the mufti of Damascus Abdul Fattah al-Bizm, a close confidante of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad; and influential Yemeni cleric Habib Ali Jifri, head of the Abu Dhabi-based Islamic Tabah Foundation who has close ties to UAE Crown Prince Mohammed ibn Zayed al-Nahyan.

In a frontal assault on Saudi-backed ultra-conservative movements such as Wahhabism, Salafism and Deobandism, the conference charged that the label Sunni had been hijacked by heretics whose deviant practices distorted Islam. In defining Sunni Islam, the conference explicitly excluded Wahhabism, the Saudi state's adopted version of Islam, as well as Salafism and Deobandism from its definition. The assault is all the more significant given that Saudi Arabia has over the last four decades invested tens of billions of dollars into promoting globally ultra-conservative interpretations of Islam.

The conference suggests that the UAE, together with Russia, is succeeding in countering the Saudi effort that has enabled ultra-conservatism to make significant inroads into Muslim communities across the globe. The heavy Egyptian presence suggests further that the UAE, which together with Saudi Arabia is Egypt's foremost financier, has effectively driven a wedge between the kingdom and the Arab world's most populous state.

It also serves as evidence that Russian efforts to woo mainstream Muslim as well as Islamist leaders have begun to pay off despite Moscow's support of the Assad regime in Syria. In a political fete, Russia managed to gather four years ago leaders of a host of Islamist stripes, including Saudi-backed Salafists, Muslim Brothers and Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah at one table. Russian officials have stressed that conservative Russian Orthodox values are similar if not identical to puritan Islamic ones.

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The Grozny conference was co-organised by the Tabah Foundation, the sponsor of the Senior Scholars Council, a group that aims to recapture Islamic discourse that many non-Salafis assert has been hijacked by Saudi largesse. The Council was also created to counter the Doha-based International Union of Muslim Scholars, headed by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, widely viewed as a spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.

UAE backing for anti-Salafi initiatives and opposition to the Brotherhood, even though it does not adhere to Salafi ideology, is rooted in Prince Mohammed's deep-seated aversion to political Islam. The crown prince is credited with having persuaded the late Saudi King Abdullah to ban the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation. Prince Mohammed has been troubled by suggestions that King Salman since acceding to the throne may be less strident in his opposition to the Brotherhood. Mohammed also differs with King Salman's son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on the conduct of the war in Yemen and tacit cooperation on the ground in Yemen with groups associated with Al Qaeda.

The participation in Grozny of Egypt's Sheikh El-Tayeb suggests that substantial Saudi funding of large numbers of Al Azhar's scholars as well as the kingdom's multi-billion dollar backing of Al Sisi since his toppling in a military coup in 2013 of Mohammed Morsi, a Muslim Brother and Egypt's first and only democratically elected leader, has not bought the kingdom the kind of religious and political loyalty it expected.

A prominent Islamic legal scholar, who rejected a nomination for Saudi Arabia's prestigious King Faisal International Prize, recalls El-Tayeb effusively thanking the kingdom during panels in recent years for its numerous donations to Al Azhar. Al Azhar scholars were said to have competed "frantically" for sabbaticals in the kingdom that could last anywhere from one to 20 years, paid substantially better, and raised a scholar's status. "Many of my friends and family praise Abdul Wahab in their writing," the scholar said referring to Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahhab, the 18th century religious leader whose puritan interpretation of Islam became the basis for the power sharing agreement between the ruling Al Saud family and the country's religious establishment. "They shrug their shoulders when I ask them privately if they are serious... When I asked El-Tayeb why Al Azhar was not seeing changes and avoidance of dogma, he said: 'my hands are tied.'
"You stand this day, all of you, before the Eternal One your God...to pass into the covenant..." (Deuteronomy 29:9-11)

It may be possible to receive the Torah every day - but I mean that metaphysically.

Tangibly, physically to receive the Torah, as a new scroll, in the way the Lobel family of New York City made possible for Harvard Hillel this past week - and actually participating, as a few of us were privileged to do, in completing the writing of the text, with our own hands - is a rare experience.

There is a tradition that says: God and Torah and Israel are One - not just that each of these realities, God, and Torah, and Israel, are unique, but that together these actualities constitute a Unity.

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And if that is so, then this Oneness is not whole without all of its components.

Without the Torah, it is not quite possible to proclaim, in our particular way, "God is One" (Deuteronomy 6:4); much less to say, "How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel" (Numbers 24:5); or to ask rhetorically, as our scriptures do, "Has God ever ventured to come and take one nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Eternal One your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?" (Deuteronomy 4:34)

The whole point of the Torah is that we and the Divine constitute a story together. Take either party away - or, of course, the telling itself - and the story ceases to exist.

And that truth - our being bound up in a story together with God - as a unity, a fabric, a tissue of law and lore, and love - is not merely something that once was, a tale of bygone days. We go on writing fresh chapters of the story every new day.

I say 'there is a tradition' that God and Torah and Israel are one - and there is, we even sing it ( Yisrael, Ve'Oraita, VeKudesha B'rich Hu, Chad Hu ) - but, fascinatingly, it is quite unclear where that formulation originates.

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You can check me on this. One can find the statement easily in the works of latter-day commentators, often followed by the Hebrew word "kayadua" - "as is known." It is especially frequent in Hasidic literature, particularly in the writing of Rav Tzadok Ha-Kohen of Lublin (1823-1900), and the Me'Or Enayim (Rabbi Menachem Nachum Twersky of Chernobyl, 1730-1787). Sometimes an annotation will point toward the Zohar, and thus at least as far back as the Jewish mystical tradition of 13th century Castile. But the page of the Zohar cited (vol. III p. 73a) does not quite say the words that we are looking for. What it does say: "There are three gradations, linked one to the other - the Blessed Holy One, the Torah, and Israel - and each one of these, gradation upon gradation, is both concealed and revealed." Only by breaking the sentence prematurely can one construct "God, Torah, Israel - and all are one." But then, the point of mysticism is that all is One - so the play is hardly out of bounds.

We like to know where things come from - in rabbinic tradition, it is almost an obsession. But in this instance, I think it is poignant, and maybe even perfect, that we know that we know, and yet do not know quite how we know: that we and God and Torah together are One.

Whatever the way in which you think of Torah coming to us, consider for a moment the act of putting ink on parchment to form the words of a scroll that will be lifted up in the midst of a congregation to choruses of "This is the Torah that Moses placed before Israel, according to God's word." One might as well be writing in black fire upon white fire, as ancient interpretation imagines the original. Creating sacred text is perhaps the height of human spiritual audacity.

And yet the scribal tradition is perhaps the epitome of modesty in Judaism. (This was personified so beautifully and gently this past week by Rabbi Shimon Miara, our scribe here in Cambridge.) As a scribe, transmitting Torah from one generation to the next, one does not assert oneself, one does not sign one's work, or add personal flourishes, much less words, and one does not (heaven forefend) subtract. One copies diligently, and fades into the background, into the letters and into the ages.

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But, insofar as there is some volition and expression of one's soul involved, as participant in the unity - which letter did I choose, to help finish the scroll?

The final yod of "le'eyney" in the last verse of the Torah - "....before the eyes of all Israel," the letter that makes those eyes plural. I truly believe that without them all, the Torah is not complete.

Here's to a year of many different and wonderful eyes looking into Torah - here at Harvard, and far and wide - for inspiration, to see what they will discover, and to contemplate how they will continue the story!
I became aware of Dr. Constantine Santas' writings through his book "Aristotelis Valaoritis," a biography of the great Greek epic poet from the island of Lefkada. Throughout the years, however, Dr. Constantine Santas, professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of Literature at Flagler College in Florida, has authored many titles such as "Responding to Film," "The Epic in Film: From Mythos to Blockbuster," and "The Epic Films of David Lean," as well as co-authoring "The Encyclopedia of Epic Films."

Dr. Santas has long been a keen observer and reviewer of world cinematography which remains the main object of his research. Recently, he returned to the written world with a notable effort dedicated to the famed American actor, Humphrey Bogart. Entitled "The Essential Humphrey Bogart," it is published by Rowman and Littlefield.

In his new book, Dr. Santas covers the evolution of the legendary American actor and his hypocritical art, presenting reviews and details of the major movies of his career as well as his smaller films from the 30s, 40s and 50s. As noted in the preface, Humphrey Bogart participated in 81 films, at first in supporting parts and later in leading roles that marked the golden era of Hollywood.

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Santas brightens his discussion of any film he considers to be exemplary of the acting abilities of the American star with parallel information about his private life. As a university researcher, he claims that the life of Humphrey Bogart was inseparable from his work because the surroundings of his cinematic life included many loves and scandals and marked him as a personality alongside his role as actor.

According to the short but accurate biography in the preface of the book, Humphrey Bogart was born in New York on December 25, 1899 to wealthy parents. His father was a doctor and his mother an artist and they belonged to the high society of the city. However, his father became addicted to morphine, the family lost its glory and the actor was forced to financially support his two sisters, one of which eventually died from alcoholism while the other was institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital.

The superstar of American cinema started out in the jazz era by working odd stage jobs in order to cope with his obligations towards his family. His good looks and his inspirational use of language (he was reading quality literature) would bring him to Broadway where he began playing supporting roles. Eventually, he would enter the cinematic scene, taking years to become established between New York and Hollywood (1930-1935).

His big break would come with "The Petrified Forest," after which he would sign a modest contract with Warner, followed by the very successful "High Sierra" which earned him his first leading role and enabled his career to take off.

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Humphrey Bogart had three failed marriages (Helen Mencken, Mary Philips and Mayo Mathot) but the great love of his life was Lauren Bacall with whom he had two children, Stephen and Leslie. In the book, Santas portrays Bogart as a loner, a person cut off from the outside world by anything other than plateau relationships. He was a heavy drinker and smoker, a combination that would lead to his premature death in 1957.

Santas covers the totality of the great star's movies with minute details about their screenplays, his co-stars and the overall works in general. What makes the book such a great read is the fact that the author places each film within the political and social environment of the time, replete with details and facts that make for interesting myth and reality. There are numerous symbolic scenes from key movies and legendary phrases which Humphrey Bogart voiced with the paradox being that Santas describes these words as if they emanate from Bogart's personality rather than from the actual role he was interpreting.
This undated handout photo provided by the Waller County Sheriffas Office shows Sandra Bland. The Texas Rangers are investigating the circumstances surrounding Bland's death Monday, July 13, 2015 in a Waller County jail cell in Hempstead, Texas. The Harris County medical examiner has classified her death as suicide by hanging. She had been arrested Friday in Waller County on a charge of assaulting a public servant. (Waller County Sheriffas Office, via AP)

The Bland family settled their wrongful death civil suit for $1.9 million and a litany of procedural changes to be implemented in the Waller County Jail, where Sandra Bland, 27, was found hanged last summer following a violent arrest for supposedly failing to signal a lane change.

Putting aside that arresting ex-trooper Brian Encinia faces only a perjury charge for his role in Bland's death, the procedural changes--which include mandated electronic automated sensors for timely cell checks, additional medical services staff, and education for improved intake screening--will be implemented only in Waller County despite the epidemic custodial death rates for black women across the entire state.

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Data from the Texas Justice Initiative shows between 2005 and 2015, black women were 33 percent of the female Texas prison population and accounted for roughly 40 percent of female deaths in custody. Many of these losses were completely preventable, as the leading causes of non-natural death for African American women and Latinas stem from drug and alcohol intoxication - 37 percent for black women and 32 percent for Latinas. These rates are double those of other races and ethnicities, male and female.

Keep in mind Texas has the fifth-highest incarceration rate in the country, trailing only Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi. But because of its size, as of 2014 Texas had the largest incarcerated population of any state in the union.

As Amanda Woog, founder of the Texas Justice Initiative explains, "Texas incarcerates more people in its jails and prisons than any other state, which means that state-level reforms will impact hundreds of thousands of lives."

Some might argue that prisoners deserve to be at the mercy of hard-hearted jailers, but this kind of thinking goes against the very founding principles of the nation. The Eighth Amendment makes it plain: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Being arrested and incarcerated does not negate one's humanity or one's civil rights. The current conditions in facilities in Texas are essentially tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment. Changing those conditions would make a huge impact.

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Beginning state-level reforms in Texas is important because of its massive carceral size and because it tends to set custodial trends for the rest of country; changes there could more swiftly be taken up in institutions nationwide. Even so, we need to be clear: while operational changes such as preventing the falsification of staff rounds is a key starting point, implementation of such changes does not guarantee that endangered prisoners will get necessary help or treatment. This is where accountability factors in.

The officers involved--beginning with Brian Encinia and ending with the jailers who falsified records in the case--must face the appropriate criminal charges for their actions.

This is not about vengeance, but about justice and real reform - neither of which will ever take hold so long as law enforcement is given a pass every time its representatives unlawfully kill a black person. And as we have seen from the available data regarding custodial deaths, these circumstances are especially dire for black women, both because of their vulnerabilities on the inside but also because black women's lives seem to matter so little on the outside.

Even as a massive social movement calling for substantive change in criminal justice has gripped the country--a movement that has spotlighted how judicial racism has resulted in scores of African American deaths--the loss of life for black women and girls has not figured prominently.

Some argue that because women account for a small segment of the prison population it is right to focus on black men's plight to the exclusion of all others. But whether it's 5 black women killed in custody or 500, their lives, too, matter.

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Mastering social media and controlling your social media content takes dedication and time. But by taking the time to do it, you'll be rewarded by having your message heard and gaining growth in your business.

Don't know where to start?

Here are 6 steps to create your own content management plan...

1) Take the Time to Make the Time

You may tend to push off social media marketing as a quick task that can be accomplished at another time. As a result, you may end up not getting around to it at all. In order to avoid making this mistake, try scheduling social media marketing time into your day and treat it like any other appointment. If you're not sure how much time to dedicate, a good starting place is 15 minutes, three times a day and work up from there.

2) Decide What Networks You Will Use

Regardless of what social media "experts" say, there isn't one social media network that is perfect for every business. Trying to cover all types of social media is extremely time consuming and can be overwhelming so focus on two or three that will bring you the best results. Ask yourself, "Where do my customers spend their time?" and "What networks do I actually enjoy using?" to find out what will work best for your business.

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3) Determine How Frequently You Will Use Social Media

Think about your end goals...

How many people do you want to connect with?

How many conversations do you want to participate in?

How often do you want to promote your own content?

Who do you want to connect with?

Try not to think of social media as an item on your to-do list. Rather, think of the relationships you are building. Concentrate on the end goals instead of how many times you will post each day. And don't be afraid to change your media routine to fit with changes in your business. The digital version of my book, Pilot to Profit: Navigating Modern Entrepreneurship to Build Your Business Using Online Marketing, Social Media, Content Marketing and Sales, recently launched which meant I was much more active on social media during that time.

4) Start Sourcing or Community Building

Sourcing, or building your social media community, is vital to your social media marketing success. As you connect with people on social media, keep in mind that it's important to build quality relationships, not just quantity.

5) Take Time to Engage with People

Social media should not be about talking AT people. Don't focus on just selling or finding new business leads. You should capitalize on the opportunities that can be gained by conversing with people and listening to what they have to say. Engage with your followers and reap the benefits.

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6) Make a Schedule

Use a schedule as a guide. You don't need to have each post planned ahead of time, but have an idea of what you would like to see your page look like and follow that plan. You can use a calendar, spreadsheet or checklist to keep you on track and help you reach your social media goals.
STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARTSAKH

SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS

Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders

PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces

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There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan

Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair

Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS

There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

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Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully

The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces

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STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN

This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan

Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments

Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Arrives in Yerevan

Armenian Revytech, global technology leader SAP and financial services software specialist SAP Fioneer sign a cooperation agreement

With 120 million drams donated by Mikael Vardanyan, the defenders of the homeland will be treated in a new building

OSCE Chairman-in-Office and OSCE Secretary General call for immediate cessation of hostilities along Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh

USA Embassy Message for U.S. Citizens
Member States of the United Nations recognized the power of goal setting for achieving objectives through their decision in June 2012, to negotiate a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They confirmed this recognition in September 2015, when they adopted 17 SDGs and 169 targets at the UN Sustainable Development Summit. These decisions embody the expectation that setting goals matters in governance settings, and that data to measure implementation provide critical tools to enable progress towards the goals.

The global community designed the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its SDGs to be measurable. They sought to ensure that actors at all levels could assess their progress and citizens could hold their governments accountable to the promises they embraced. However, two critical components for this accountability framework were left unfinished when governments agreed to the SDGs in September 2015: indicators to measure advances towards each SDG target, and a follow-up and review mechanism to ensure that progress is built upon each year until 2030.

During the first year of the SDG endeavor, the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on the SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs), a body of national statisticians from several countries that reports to the UN Statistical Commission, proposed a set of 231 global indicators for the SDGs. These indicators are already being used to assess achievement of the SDGs by various countries and organizations, based largely on existing data. However, the IAEG-SDGs' work continues, as it has been asked to develop a plan to technically refine the indicators over the course of the SDGs' 15-year period. Capacity building to collect and assess the data will be critical to ensure that the data-driven Agenda is steered by a comprehensive, quantitative assessment of global achievements, and that areas in need of further attention receive it.

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In July, the follow-up and review component of the 2030 Agenda got underway, as twenty-two countries provided voluntary national reviews (VNRs) during the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. According to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, messages emanating from this meeting emphasized the need to implement the SDGs in their entirety, to reach the most vulnerable, to develop ways to better collect data, to mobilize resources at the national and international levels, and to enhance coordination, coherence and integration in the delivery of the SDGs.

The indicators and subsequent follow-up and review sessions will establish a basis for the narrative on how well the 17 SDGs and 169 targets are being implemented. Goal areas and regions in which successes are identified will be celebrated, while new efforts and resources will be focused or refocused based on the changes in the percentages of the components that are measured. This process is the basis of the goal-based framework and as it should be, but it will be the stories behind the numbers, in addition to the data, that will contribute to progress on implementing this agenda.

The success of the SDGs will require individuals across the globe to implement this new approach to development in their daily lives. The indicators will tell us how well we are doing as we strive to achieve this goal, but communications experts tell us that achieving the changes will require more than data and numbers. Compelling stories about successful projects can provide greater motivation to change than facts and figures. Learning about the steps that one country has taken to identify its national priorities and to develop an organizational structure and roadmap for implementing the SDGs may motivate more follow-on action than an accounting of the number of countries that have adopted one approach over another.

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The stories of early movers and initial recommendations for action can be collected immediately, before the indicator framework is complete and countries are trained for the new data collection requirements. Many such stories were related at the opening of the 71st UN General Assembly, which marked the first year since it had adopted the SDGs. In an effort to achieve the biodiversity-related SDGs, for example, Belize reported that it has protected 36% of its territory. Singapore informed the assembled global community that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has adopted a roadmap to achieve a haze-free zone by 2020. In regard to SDG 13 (climate action), Suriname highlighted its status as a carbon-negative country, noting that it has over 90% forest cover and a deforestation rate of 0.02%. With regard to SDG 5 (gender equality), Somalia announced that it has adopted a 30% quota for women in Parliament. On food security (Goal 2), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines informed UN Member States that it has developed a 'Zero Hunger Trust Fund,' which comprises a series of tools to ensure no citizen will go to bed hungry by the year 2020.

Stories like these bring examples of what we are collectively striving to achieve to life. They help to show to whom the goals matter, and why we are striving to measure progress towards them. SDG implementation will be measured during the next fourteen years by the indicator framework, but it will be driven by the stories that are told at every level about what a sustainable world looks like.
Syria - The War Continues

"We as a nation . . . are delivering a message that the Syrian state is determined to recover all regions from the terrorists and restore security." (Bashar al-Assad)

Introduction

"Are we disappointed? Of course we are" (Staffan de Mistura)

At sunset on Monday, September 12, the Syrian ceasefire agreement that the foreign ministers of the United States and Russia (John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov) had negotiated was supposed to enter into force. That same evening was also the start of the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Adah, an event that looked befitting; the celebration, which is sometimes also called the Feast of Sacrifice, is celebrated to commemorate the legend of Abraham's attempt to sacrifice his son, but who was stopped at the last moment by God.

It was not the first ceasefire agreement negotiated in the Syrian conflict, now in its sixth year. But what separated this agreement from earlier ones was mainly the fact that the U.S. and Russia were its guarantors; in theory, something that should have given the agreement a better chance to hold.

Much was at stake, and at the press conference that introduced the agreement, Kerry said that this was the last chance to save a united Syria, a statement which illustrated some of the desperation with which the agreement seems to have been entered into by the U.S. government. Immediately after it had entered into force, violations of the agreement were reported from both sides. This pattern is familiar from previous attempts to stop the killing in Syria; there is an acceptance that the ceasefire does not actually mean what it promises, i.e. that all the shooting stops, only that it (at best) decreases.

But of perhaps greater importance is that no solutions to the fundamental problems of the war in Syria were presented in the agreement; only that the ceasefire agreement would lead to new talks. And this only after air operations against IS and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (previously the al-Nusra Front) are escalated.



"A pact with the Devil"

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"No one is building this (treaty) based on trust. It is based on a way of providing oversight and compliance through mutual interest" (John Kerry)

When Russia stepped up its military involvement in Syria almost exactly a year ago, the aim was to support President Assad's regime and prevent the rebels from taking advantage of their successes. The policy must be concluded as having been very successful; Assad is safer in the saddle than he has ever been before during the Syrian civil war and there's no indication that he's even considering resigning. The Russian support (along with troops and equipment from the Lebanese terror group Hizb'allah and its political and religious mentor, Iran) during the past year has meant that Assad has been able to push back rebel groups in many locations.

The fact that Russia and the U.S. are on different sides in the Syrian civil war has complicated the situation and contributed to the deadlock in the efforts to resolve the conflict in a political manner. But it's Russia that's pulled the longest straw in the conflict. While the U.S. government has been quite stingy with military assistance to the rebels it claims to support, Russia under Putin has shown no hesitation supporting the regime in Damascus. Although there are U.S. troops (mainly in the form of various special forces) in Syria, US military support has mainly been channeled through the Kurdish YPG, a group which the U.S. NATO ally, Turkey, labels a terrorist organization, which has further complicated and hampered the U.S. involvement in Syria. U.S. support for the YPG can be traced to the fact that this group undoubtedly fields the best military force among the Assad regime's opponents. But that support has also pinned two U.S. allies against each other, which led to direct confrontation when Turkey invaded northern Syria in late August/early September. The (limited) invasion was more about Turkey wanting to prevent the Kurdish forces' expansion westward (to tie together various Kurdish enclaves) than to prevent IS from further military advances.

Since the Russians bolstered their support for Assad's regime, much of the negotiations between the U.S. and Russia have focused on preventing conflicts between the militaries of the two countries (primarily aircraft). And during this entire time, Russian aircraft has bombed rebels and civilian targets belonging groups that the U.S., at least rhetorically, claims to support. Russia has fully embraced the Syrian regime's vocabulary in which practically all rebel groups are classified as terrorists, and consequently can be attacked.

In addition, the U.S. and Russian militaries have, especially since the Russian annexation of Crimea, increasingly ended up in confrontational situations. Here, the Russian military has been the most aggressive, for example with close flight maneuvers against U.S. vessels in the Baltic Sea. Therefore, there is a great distrust of Russia within the U.S. administration (not just at the Pentagon) and the distrust has also led to conflict between the Pentagon and Kerry's State Department. This conflict has also impacted the new ceasefire agreement, to which Secretary of Defense Ash Carter was very skeptical, and - with the support of senior military leaders - unwilling to carry out joint military operations with Russia against IS and Jabhat Fatha al-Sham, as the agreement stipulates.

Secretary of State Kerry's goal to bring about a ceasefire that would lead to further negotiations about a long-term solution of the Syrian conflict thus increasingly appears as a last-ditch effort to bring about some sort of solution before Obama's last term is over.

The agreement locks the front lines where the regime has all the benefits and also provides Damascus with a right to veto the aid convoys that should have started the first week; aid convoys that were meant to supply the beleaguered opposition groups and rebel-controlled civilian areas with basic goods and medicine is thus dependent on the Syrian government - which is fundamentally responsible for the situation - consenting to the convoys in writing.

Finally, as reported the New York Times, Kerry himself expressed that he didn't believe the agreement would hold. And it's perhaps symptomatic of that skepticism when several days after the agreement was announced, the U.S. State Department still hadn't released either the text of the agreement or even a summary.

Several wars in one

*"bellum omnium contra omnes" (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan)

The above quote from Syrian President Assad makes it rather clear that he doesn't in any way believe that the war in Syria is about to be over. The statement came the same day the agreement would enter into force, and shows quite clearly that Assad himself hardly sees this agreement as a first step towards a peaceful settlement of the war he himself has started. And immediately after the agreement came into force, Syrian aircraft bombed rebels in Aleppo while forces loyal to the regime shelled the road that's supposed to be used to bring aid shipments with basic supplies and medicine to besieged civilians. Furthermore, Assad expressed joy that the West was "sad and vanquished" and that a solution to the conflict lies in defeating the terrorists. Thus, nothing about any ceasefire or truce.

The war in Syria is often described as a war against the Islamic State (IS). And it is true that IS has many enemies and very few allies among other organized groups. But equally true is that the enemies of IS also see each other as enemies. This effort against IS has also led to the smoothing over of other conflicts, or altogether ignoring them. For example, the fact that it is the Syrian regime which causes and has caused the absolute majority of all civilian deaths in Syria - not IS. And here's a fact that the unilateral focus on IS has entailed; an inability (or perhaps unwillingness) of Western political leaders and military officials to realize that for many Syrians, President Assad's regime - and his allies Russia, Iran and various Shiite militias - are an even greater evil than IS.

So regardless of whether changed circumstances after this agreement can lead to new talks or not, the other conflicts that define the civil war in Syria and the war being waged against IS in both Syria and Iraq remain. And those are conflicts which in many cases already have led to new small wars flaring up around the region.

The first of these small wars is partly that between the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds and the Syrian Arab groups supported by Turkey, and partly the conflict between Turkey and the Kurds in general. Whether it's in Syria, Iraq or Turkey, it's a priority for Turkey to crush the Kurds and when it comes to Syria, prevent the Kurdish forces to expand westward along the Turkish-Syrian border. Both of these conflicts have led to outright combat, and despite calls from the United States to refrain from further acts of war (after all, these are U.S.-allied combatants), tensions remain.

The second war is that between the Syrian regime and the Syrian Kurds. This battle has already started to some extent, but a shaky truce is in effect as long as both parties view other factions as more immediate threats, and the Kurds' proclaimed desire for more autonomy is in direct conflict with President Assad's ambitions for a united Syria.

The Turkish invasion of Syria to stop the Kurds from expanding westward could also lead to combat between Turkey and Syria, even if the limited operation seems to have stalled at the moment.

In Iraq, there's also an old conflict between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil. That conflict can easily flare up and if the threat from IS eventually goes away or decreases, we have every reason to be wary of future clashes. Likewise, the tensions between the Shiite militias that have expanded their area of operation in the battles against IS have already led to minor skirmishes between Kurdish and Shiite militias.

The same goes for armed conflict between Sunni militias and their Shiite and Kurdish counterparts. As the war against IS approaches Mosul and areas where Sunnis and Kurds dominate, there's a risk that conflicts between these two groups and the Shiites will escalate. These Shia militias see themselves as directly involved in the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad's project to extend its control over all of Iraq, and that means potential conflicts with other ethnic groups in the country.

All of these combined are conflicts that must be resolved - regardless of the outcome of the war against IS and whether any ceasefire agreement will survive longer than a week into the future.

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Carrot or stick?

"An iron fist in a velvet glove?"

When the ceasefire agreement was presented, it became clear that there were some weaknesses in the mechanisms that would make the agreement hold, and that would lead to more permanent peace talks. Or rather; it totally lacked such mechanisms. For example, there was nothing in the agreement regarding sanctions for potential breaches of the agreement (which then occurred immediately). Nor was it stated in which way the U.S. and Russia expected that the two groups, which both countries agreed to classify as terrorists (IS and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham), would pay attention to any ceasefire. Especially since those two groups, when the agreement had been in effect for a week, would be subject to joint military attacks by the U.S. and Russia. Apart from the fact that this scenario must be considered completely unrealistic, it's strange that this aspect of the agreement doesn't seem to have attracted much attention in the negotiations.

Another failure was, as stated above, to give Assad the right to veto aid shipments. Why Assad, who's always maintained his right to military strikes against "terrorists" (i.e. all who oppose him and the regime) was given the opportunity to exercise control over one of the key aspects of the agreement is beyond incomprehensible.

The agreement was based on the U.S. and Russia influencing and persuading their respective allies to agree to these conditions. But Russia has always worked to ensure that Assad will remain in power, contrary to the demands of the U.S. (and the opposition). But even if they had wanted to, it seems quite obvious that Putin and his foreign minister, Lavrov, lack such control over Assad.

And in the case of the U.S., it's even more apparent that it cannot control its allies. The American aid to the groups that they've supported (albeit in a limited way) hasn't led to any greater influence over how these groups operate.

For Russia, it's quite obvious that the time-limited extended military support to the Assad regime has paid off well; Assad is safer in the saddle now than before the Russians boosted their support a year ago, and the opposition is weaker. With support from Iran and Lebanese Hizb'allah, the conditions are set for a negotiation that may very well result in Assad remaining in charge. With little support from the U.S. and the West, the only somewhat effective opposition groups are the most militant Islamists, which the rest of the world has agreed not to support, and the Kurdish YPG forces. But the latter are sworn enemies of the NATO country Turkey, and therefore it's problematic for the United States to support them more than they already do.

There's a lesson for the United States and the West here; when President Obama vetoed against more robust U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war (with opposition from Secretary Clinton, the Pentagon and a vast number of security policy experts, all of whom argued for such a U.S. effort ), he did it with the motivation that there was no good way for the U.S. to - with a limited but expanded military operation - give the opposition a means to negotiate from a stronger position and thus benefit the United States and its allies in the region. Such a scenario would lead to a new drawn-out war, as in Iraq or Afghanistan. In addition, he said that a major U.S. commitment would only deepen the conflict, leading to more suffering for the civilian population as well as play in favor of the extremists' agendas. All these concerns were realized anyway, without an expanded American involvement, and with the result that Putin did exactly what Obama said was impossible; namely, a time-limited effort to give its allies (Assad in Putin's case) the help that was needed to achieve the upper hand that may ultimately lead to victory. It's far from what one of Obama's predecessors (Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt) ruled a good principle: "Speak softly and carry a big stick: you will go far."

Finally

"But what is happening is unreasonable...There is no clear plan for anything." (Brita Haji Hasan, president of the opposition council in Aleppo).

There were two key aspects of the U.S.-Russian agreement; partly that a ceasefire would enter into effect (which didn't happen, although the weapons went silent for a brief moment), and partly that aid shipments would immediately begin to roll out to the besieged areas where civilians, in some cases for several years, have been suffering from starvation and bombs from Syrian (and from the fall of 2015) Russian aircraft. The latter is of great importance for a more long-term solution to be reached. The agreement stipulated that both of these aspects of the agreement must be implemented within seven days from the start of the ceasefire. But that didn't happen, which hardly could've surprised anyone; the Syrian regime, with kind assistance from Russia, has never respected any agreement on aid deliveries to areas that are either besieged by Syrian forces or controlled by rebel groups. Hence, President Assad declared that the ceasefire was over one week after it was announced. The statement was immediately followed by air strikes on an aid convoy east of Aleppo, which was about to deliver food and medicine to the besieged civilians in the city. The aircraft - which a first preliminary investigation concludes were Russian - bombed vehicles marked with the Red Crescent and the International Red Cross symbols, killing at least 12 aid workers. The attack marked a sort of conclusion to the political charade that the U.S. and Russia have engaged in during the final months leading up to the presentation of the agreement. And from there it went downhill; later in the week, Syrian and Russian forces launched a new offensive against the rebels in Aleppo with severe air-bombardments killing scores of civilians in and around Aleppo .

The agreement that the U.S. and Russia announced after long negotiations thus experienced a similar fate as previous attempts to bring about peace in Syria. As I've hopefully demonstrated above, this was a result of too divergent ideas about what might come out of the agreement and of the fact that Russia and the U.S. never agreed on the starting points or even regarding which players should be included in the agreement. In essence, far too little consideration of the reality that controls the events on the ground and when it comes to the Americans, an underestimation of the Russian political leadership's will to extend President Assad's regime their full support.

Hence, there's a great risk that the type of peace expected by the U.S.-Russian agreement best can be summarized by the American author and journalist Ambrose Bierce's definition: "In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting"
There might be an industry more appalling than the payday lenders who trap low-income Americans into high-interest loans they know can never be repaid.



It turns out, private probation companies do much the same thing - except they can also have you arrested, and placed in jail on the public dime.

It works like this:

You're hit with a minor infraction, like a driving violation. But like millions of Americans, you don't have the couple hundred bucks demanded by our underfunded court systems. So your case is handed over to a debt collection company that allows you to pay in installments with tidy monthly fees, of course, which have an unsurprising tendency to multiply. Fail to pay, and this "private probation" company threatens to have you arrested - a private company, with little or no judicial oversight, acting with the force of law.

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Take Thomas Barrett. He was fined $200 for stealing a $2 beer, but didn't have the cash (if he did, he probably would have purchased the beer in the first place!). According to Human Rights Watch, his case was turned over to a private probation company. Fees ballooned the amount Thomas owed to over $1,000, and despite selling his blood plasma to keep up he was eventually jailed.

Or, consider the case of a middle-aged woman in Mississippi who was fined $377 for driving without a valid license. Her case was turned over to a private company who threatened to have her jailed over $500 in unpaid "supervision" fees. She worked nights at a local gas station in order to pay her bills. Desperate and in tears, she called the court - only to discover that she had already paid off her original fine - and the court had in no way authorized the company to threaten her with arrest.

Or Kevin Thompson, a teenager in DeKalb County, Georgia, who spent five days in jail because he could not afford to pay his court fines and probation company fees.

After being pulled over for a minor traffic offense, Kevin appeared before a judge who fined him more than $800. Kevin could not afford to pay the fine that day, so he was placed on "probation" and the collection of his fees was turned over to a private company, where additional collection fees were added. Though he paid as much as he could, Kevin couldn't pay off his balance in time and was forced to appear before the judge again. He was then sentenced to 9 days in jail.

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According to the ACLU:

The jail was cold and dirty, and Kevin didn't have enough to eat. He felt ashamed and scared. He wanted to pay what the court ordered, but he just couldn't afford it.



Kevin's story became the basis for a federal lawsuit challenging debt collection practices in Dekalb County, Georgia. The case was settled less than two months after it was filed and resulted in a few improvement to the county's court system to protect the rights of people who cannot afford to make fine and fee payments.

How did we arrive at a point where unsupervised, unaccountable private companies are using our courts and police to pad their pockets?

Austerity budgeting across the country has left courts horribly underfunded, leading to over-reliance on fines and fees to make ends meet. Overwhelmed with people facing minor misdemeanor charges and owing money, courts have increasingly turned to private probation companies that make their money by extracting fees from down-on-their-luck Americans.

These companies promise to provide the same services as public probation, but at zero cost to taxpayers.

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It couldn't be further from the truth.



First, private companies have every incentive to keep people under probation for as long as possible. The company can assign various fees along with the terms of probation, such as drug testing and monitoring. On average, extra fees add 40 percent to the original price of a ticket. If you cannot pay, the company can keep you under "probation" long after the legal probation time has passed.

Second, this system creates an extrajudicial, alternate legal system with profits as the only guide of right and wrong. Some judges assign companies to prepare arrest warrants, and sign these warrants without reading - much less scrutinizing - them. Eager to extract the maximum amount of money, probation companies can also threaten people with jail for petty crimes that would not merit jail time in the first place. The result is a breeding ground for corruption: In Tennessee, a judge was found guilty of taking huge bribes from a private probation company to look the other way.

Finally, and most crucially: Nothing about this system comes at "zero cost." All we've done is shift the burden of funding our legal system from the broad public to those who can least afford it - while allowing money-making middlemen to take a massive cut with abusive collection techniques, from threatening incarceration without a judge's approval to extorting family members to pony up cash. Worst of all, even if someone has paid their debt to court, private probation companies can have people placed in public jails, at taxpayer expense, to recoup their own fees.

There is hope.

In a number of states, local governments are figuring out that the costs outweigh the misleading promises. More than 70 municipalities in Alabama have severed ties with Judicial Correction Services, a private probation company, after the Southern Poverty Law Center noted that their tactics essentially amounted to extortion.

Last year in Georgia, Governor Nathan Deal signed legislation, as part of his long-term overhaul of the state's criminal justice system, that finally began to regulate and add transparency to the state's private probation industry. In Georgia, traffic crimes are treated as criminal offenses and more people are indebted to private probation companies than any other state. More than 30 private probation companies oversee as many as 300,000 cases.

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House Bill 310, which passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, placed a cap on the length of "pay only" probation and abolished the practice of jailing people too poor to pay their fines. New transparency measures were also added, forcing companies to lift the veil on how many people they are supervising and their total collection of fees and fines. Judges were also given the ability to substitute community service in lieu of fees or fines and a new department was created to regulate the probation industry.

Georgia's bill is a model for other states to follow but is a far cry from the many states where private probation companies operate without limits. While people are still facing jail time without court orders, in order to pad the pockets of a private company, there is more we must do.

For starters, we need better transparency and oversight.

Governments need to force private probation companies to record and disclose the fees they assign, and give probationers channels to communicate abuses. Courts must exercise strong oversight. Arrest warrants should be thoroughly vetted, and complaints of extortion must be taken seriously.

Our legislators need to step up, as well.

No state should permit private probation companies without clear rules guiding their behavior. Legislatures could prohibit some of the worst, most senseless fees altogether. They could also rewrite the incentives, recognizing that allowing companies to jail Americans costs everyone too much and rewarding those companies that rehabilitate and release people, instead.

But all this is just a start. Why not go to the root of the problem?

The fact is, the entire private probation model is fundamentally flawed. The entire concept is rooted in false promises and idealistic assumptions that have been exposed as a Wild West of abuse and corruption. Courts should recognize that everyone is better off with a system where defendants can pay in installments directly to clerks.

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Private probation companies use our jails and our courts to trap Americans and pad their own pockets.

It's a penny-wise and pound-foolish solution, and it's long past time for our leaders to wise up and do something about it.

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The International Panel on Social Progress (IPSP), in which I am involved, has just released the first draft of its report on "Rethinking Society for the 21st Century" for public review and put up an online platform collecting comments , as well as opinion surveys. Everyone is invited to participate.

This report suggests a new approach to inequalities and social progress. This comes from reading many chapters and since these texts are long, and the synthesis will not be written soon, let me explain why I have the impression of an interesting "big picture" story emerging from these hundreds of pages. (Note: it is actually easy to browse chapters on the platform, so please check for yourself if you agree with my reading!)

The report has, in fact, adopted a conventional structure with a first part devoted to socio-economic transformations (isn't the economy in the driving seat of society?), a second part about the political issues (democracy is struggling, but it remains the Holy Grail), and a third part about cultural and societal issues (even if this is not the intention of the panel members, observers sometimes perceive this as meaning that the social bond is just the frost on the cake).

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This division of society into three spheres (economic, political, social) is very standard and remains pervasive in recent sociological work (such as the excellent Envisioning Real Utopias by Erik Wright).

Many studies of social issues nowadays tend to focus on inequalities, primarily in the distribution of economic resources (wealth, income), as in Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century or Atkinson's Inequality, and link these inequalities to other dimensions such as health (life expectancy gaps across social groups, in particular), as in Deaton's Great Escape, and worrisome evolutions in the political system (business interests and wealthy people become ever more influential in politics, disenfranchised electorates are seduced by demagogues), as in Stiglitz's Price of Inequality. They point to vicious circles in which economic and political inequalities tend to reinforce each other. They also sometimes mention social rifts between ethnic groups and cultures, in particular when studying how politicians use these to raise their electoral success, as in Roemer, Lee and Van der Straeten's Racism, Xenophobia, and Distribution. But these analyses keep the conventional three-sphere vision of society, with resources, power and status being the business of each sphere separately. They look for political fixes, i.e., governmental actions, to problems occurring in the economic (e.g., taxation) and the social sphere (e.g., education and linguistic policy).

Yet, the draft texts in each of the three parts of the IPSP report challenge this conventional view of the nuts and bolts of society. In every part one meets the important role played by four dimensions: power, resources, information and status. Perhaps a new paradigm is emerging here.

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Take the economic sphere. Yes, it deals with resources primarily, but it is also full of power relations, as well as information and status issues, because economic activities of production and consumption generally take place in institutions that involve authority and governance relations between agents. The main institutions instantiating this observation are the corporation and the household, both the object of chapters in the IPSP report. In the corporation, decisions of investment, labor organization, and distribution of revenues, are shaped by power structures and a complex pattern of information sharing. Moreover, as emphasized in the IPSP chapter on the future of work, work remains the central part of life that defines social status for many citizens, thereby giving a key importance to their status in the corporation itself. Reforming the governance structure of the corporation would have tremendous economic and social consequences, reshaping the distribution of wages and profits, the status of citizens, and their degree of control over their lives as well as their power over others.

Similarly, the family is a key institution in which the production of human capital takes place, via education and consumption, and an important part of inequalities in lifetime success originate in the family when individuals are young or even when they are still in the womb, as the work on epigenetics shows. Gender roles are crystalized in the family and in the corporation, and prejudices about genders, sexual orientation, races and national origins play out in these institutions at least as much as in the marketplace.

In addition to resources, power and status, information also plays a strategic role. The education of children (another chapter in the report) is a matter of giving them the information that enables them to adapt to a variety of situations later in life. Similarly, the circulation of information in the corporation and the family is a key aspect of the distribution of power, but is worth distinguishing, since fights for obtaining information are often critical in making a form of soft power ride on the efficacy of transparency. For instance, leaks about offshore accounts play an important role in exposing the corruption of elites and undermining their rosy discourse about the good management of resources in the globalized economy. Within firms, leaks about layoff plans sometimes disrupt the outsourcing strategic choices. Secrecy is important to illegal activities, but also to morally illegitimate but legal activities that the elites engage in in order to enhance and preserve their undue privileges. Whistleblowers take very serious risks since their action is on the borderline of legality while often doing a great service to society.

Reducing all economic activities to a matter of production, allocation and distribution of resources is like taking a picture of the Eiffel tower (Paris) in which only the first floor appears.

What about the political sphere? Since it is not the only locus of power, as we have just seen, one should wonder about its boundaries. There are political processes in corporations whose primary function is economic, and such organizations have systems of sanctions against recalcitrant subjects that, except for jail, resemble the legal force of government. Symmetrically, resources play an important role in the political sphere, especially through the funding of political parties and electoral campaigns. In the United States, the personhood status of corporations gives them, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, a right to free speech understood as a right to pour money into the political battle. As a consequence business organizations and corporations become key political players, as described in the IPSP chapters on the political process. Economic organizations are so dependent on government policy that they devote a lot of resources to influencing policy.

The interdependence between corporations and governments is making the distinction between partnership, lobbying and corruption difficult to delineate (see the chapter on corporations for reform proposals on this topic). There is a direct telephone line between CEOs and key politicians and, as noted in the IPSP report, there is an interesting contrast between the diversity of national policies, which proves that policy-makers have considerable leeway in their policy choices, and the overly modest policy initiatives that seem to excessively internalize the threat of capital flight and of financial market sanctions in case policies diverge from serving business interests.

An illustration of this paradox can be found in the figure below, which describes corporate tax rates in OECD countries in 2000 and 2016. Two facts are striking. First, corporate taxes have been reduced in most countries, reflecting the race to the bottom that policy-makers are engaged in. But at the same time, the great diversity of rates proves that capital is not simply flying fluidly to the place with lowest tax rate; indeed, as recalled in the IPSP chapter on social trends, studies show that there are many other determinants of a good investment context, including a well trained workforce and good public infrastructure served by solid government institutions. (Source: OECD)

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It is as if the fact that policy-makers spend more time talking to business representatives than to other civil society actors distorted their view of what is good for society and what policies are reasonable and feasible. The political sphere has become a subsidiary of the economic sphere, with an obsession for the health of the economy in actual policy-making and a flurry of diversions about other issues in the public discourse (e.g., race, gay marriage, terrorism) masking the impossibility to have real debates about the economy.

This paralysis of policy has dramatic consequences on the political sphere, since voters do not understand why changing politicians in charge does not entail any significant change in social and economic policy. As a consequence, they frantically swerve to the extremes of the political spectrum and demagogues that promise to give power "back to the people" find a receptive ear in the public (the chapter on inequality and democracy analyzes populism).

Beyond power and resources, what about information and status in politics? The importance of status is quite obvious. The participation of minorities is a crucial issue in several countries, either in relation of actual participation by disadvantaged groups, or in relation to enfranchising immigrants to vote in local elections, or in access to elected offices. Gender and sexual orientation issues also remain a real battle when it comes to access to elected positions.

The role of information is less obvious but no less important. Secrecy and manipulation are important ingredients of the political game, and whistleblowers are no less important in politics than in economic affairs. If the lie about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been exposed early enough, the second gulf war would not have taken place. If more information was available about what is actually going on in the big powers' interventions abroad, they would probably be less lethal.

Less spectacular but no less important, the level of information of the ordinary voter is an essential parameter determining the quality of the electoral process. The fact that many voters are misinformed about important scientific (e.g., the climate), economic (e.g., public debt) and political issues (e.g., the action of the European institutions) undermines the value of popular vote. As many chapters of the IPSP report stress, political theorists have recently come to emphasize deliberation as a central aspect of the political process, alongside the distribution of power and the selection of a good voting and decision procedure. Democracy has an epistemic dimension in addition to its practical dimension. In this context, the role of the media, both traditional and new, is ever more important. And, guess what? The chapter on the media in the IPSP report highlights the importance of not just resources but also governance of the media, and pushes the idea that it is crucial for minorities to have access not just to information but also to the production of information.

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Let us finally turn to the so-called social sphere. What happens in families, religious groups, civil society organizations such as NGOs is obviously a mix of power, resources, information and status. The quality of life in the activities that these various circles and institutions organize depends very much on these four ingredients. The IPSP report makes very interesting remarks about religion (the topic of a chapter and of a section in the chapter on inequality and democracy), suggesting that socio-economic issues can be the occasion of fruitful partnerships between the state and religious institutions and communities, while problematic traditions that entrench inequalities of power and status (e.g., between genders or castes or ethnic groups) in religious organizations may warrant some intervention.

Does this make a new and interesting paradigm? Consider this. Instead of seeking social progress in deepening democracy in the political sphere and reducing inequalities in the economic sphere, while protecting minorities in the social sphere, what about seeking social progress through a thorough critical examination of the unequal distribution of power, resources, information and status in all human institutions and activities?

Perhaps the key problems of resources in the economy and status in society, as well as power in politics, can actually be addressed in part by reforming governance structures in the corporation; the key problems of democracy can additionally be dealt with by reforming the funding of political activities and the business model as well as the governance of the media; the key problems of status can also be addressed by redefining the mission of education toward a greater focus on civic capacities; perhaps institutions such as the family and religions, which play a central role in shaping status for genders, should be submitted to public debates and public policies meant to encourage them to rethink their traditions.

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The traditional three-sphere vision of society is a recipe for entrenching power, information and status inequalities in the economic sphere, entrenching economic and informational inequalities in the political sphere, and entrenching all sorts of unfair treatments in the social sphere, that spill over economic and political hardship. The quest for economic fairness, democratic governance, transparency and knowledge, and equal dignity, should pervade all institutions and all organizations. Virtuous circles in this quest, due to the interaction between institutions and between the four dimensions of power, resources, information and status, suggest that any effort in one place on one dimension is bound to help in other places or dimensions.

But no dimension or institution should escape scrutiny. The recent decades have seen a retreat of welfare policies and worker organizations and a flourishing of minority, gender and sexual orientation movement initiatives. While the latter must be welcome, they should not appear as a substitute for more traditional social issues. There is even a sobering view of progress according to which the political problem has been solved in the 18th century, the economic problem in the 19th century, and the social problem in the 20th century, leaving only cultural issues for the 21st century.
Succumbing to the Israel lobby, California's Governor Jerry Brown, a once Pacifica radio host, Saturday signed AB 2844, Assemblyman Richard Bloom's (D-Santa Monica) 10-times amended bill to chill criticism of Israel. After activists mobilized around the state to protest Bloom's attack on the 1st Amendment, lawmakers diluted the bill's language, which had initially included an Israel enemies list reminiscent of the McCarthy era.

The current bill eliminates the more blatantly unconstitutional language, drops the mandated state enemies list of Israel boycotters, and lifts the burden on local governments to police criticism of Israel by those bidding on contracts worth $10,000 or more.

AB 2844 now requires anyone bidding on a state contract worth $100,000 or more to sign "under penalty of perjury" (a felony conviction) that their policies toward Israel or any other "sovereign nation or peoples" are not in violation of CA's existing civil rights laws. The operative word here is "existing" for we already have employment, housing, and public accommodations laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, sexual orientation, disability, and national origin. Hence, the purpose of the bill is to chill speech by targeting the ever-popular movement to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel for its human rights abuses: Palestinian home demolitions; expanded settlements in the West Bank; water cut-offs and apartheid roads.

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Although the bill, one of 22 similar Israel lobby bills introduced nationwide, targets criticism of Israel, it could also have the unintended effect of chilling speech that objects to any country violating human rights. If a company CEO refuses to operate in Saudi Arabia because of discrimination against women, beheading of dissidents, or bombing of innocent civilians in Yemen, the CEO might also come under fire by lobbyists demanding investigations and prosecutions.

Brown signed AB 2844 into law over the objections of the state's Department of Finance, as well as the ACLU, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the National Lawyers Guild, Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestine Legal, and Americans for Peace Now, which published a Jewish Journal commentary arguing AB 2844 gives too much "exposure" and "legitimizes" the BDS campaign because the bill suggests it's all right to boycott Israel as long as one doesn't discriminate in the process.

Still, co-authors of the bill - among them Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), Senator Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), Senator Marty Block (D-San Diego), Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-Marin), and Adrin Nazarian (D-Van Nuys) - all members of California's legislative Jewish Caucus - wanted the Governor to sign the bill as reinforcement of his 2014 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Israel. The MOU commits California to working with Israel to, in Brown's words, "confront critical problems we both face, such as water scarcity, cyber security, and climate change."



Although Israel touts itself as an innovator in drought-busting technology, Palestinians living under Israel's direct control in the West Bank face chronic water shortages. B'Tselem--the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories - reports "hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank suffer a severe shortage of water for personal consumption, bathing, cleaning, livestock and irrigation. The severe shortage violates basic human rights, including the right to health, decent housing, equality, and the benefit of natural resources."

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Activists with the statewide Coalition to STOP AB 2844 testified to all of the above during months of legislative hearings on the bill - and were, at various times, close to killing the legislation. AB 2844 barely made it out of Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia's (D-El Monte) Committee on Accountability last April and by time it wound its way to Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez's (D-San Diego) Assembly Appropriations Committee in June, AB 2844 was so weakened, the latest incarnation leaving the Attorney General to decide its constitutionality, that Bloom voted against his own bill.

When the anemic AB 2844 hit the assembly floor its arrival coincided with a vote on another high profile bill - AB 1066, Gonzalez's bill for farmworker overtime after eight hours of backbreaking toil in the fields.

Interestingly, three members of the legislative Jewish Caucus - Bloom, Nazarian, and Levine - failed to support Gonzalez's bill for farmworker overtime, sending her bill down to defeat amid speculation that it was payback for Gonzalez's gutting of AB 2844. Flash forward to August to see the disappointment on the faces of hundreds of farmworkers who packed buses to the state capitol to rally for a newly-revived farmworker overtime bill only to learn that the vote had been mysteriously postponed.

More speculation.

What was the assembly waiting for? More votes first to be secured for Bloom's bill? Had the fates of the farmworker overtime bill and the anti-BDS bill become inextricably intertwined?

Mere speculation.

In the end, Bloom and Nazarian voted for the farmworker overtime bill and Governor Brown signed both AB 1066 and AB 2844 into law.

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Yes, the man who once marched with Cesar Chavez to support the United Farmworkers Union boycott of non-union grapes made history once again, this time as Governor of California joining 11 other Governors or state legislatures to approve legislation or unilateral edicts stigmatizing boycotts for human rights.


Photo by Mary Calvert

This week, demonstrations occurred in 25 global cities world-wide to focus attention on a neglected, devastating disease -- Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), an illness that also goes by the misleading name Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). At this event, the most powerful demonstrators were those who could not attend -- the bedridden and housebound patients.

The protest, named Millions Missing, has been organized by #MEAction, a patient/caregiver group. What millions are missing? Millions of people across the globe are missing the ability to lead normal lives, millions of dollars have been missing from what should be a government-funded research effort, and few of the more than 10 million doctors in the world have been properly educated as to the seriousness of the disease and how to diagnosis it.

Visual evidence of the impact of the disease were displays of thousands of shoes sent from patients too ill to attend. The symbolism reminds me of my school-age visit to a house-museum from Colonial Times in America, in which there was a heart-wrenching exhibit of children's shoes in a bedroom. Because of the childhood diseases untreatable in the 1700s, the parents had lost a dozen children. The largest pair of shoes each wore at the time he or she died was shown next to an empty bed.

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As an ME/CFS researcher aware of the impact of this disease, I hope that anyone who passed by these demonstrations will be similarly affected to see the empty shoes of individuals who have lost their independent lives and must spend all their time in a darkened house or bedroom. Some of the shoes will be the last ones that severely ill patients were able to wear before becoming bedridden. Many patients are mostly housebound, too ill to go out except for occasional medical appointments. But such appointments do little good, as today's doctors cannot prescribe to most patients any remedies better than those available to a physician in Colonial Times. One drug, known as Ampligen, is able to help a sub-group of those struck down by ME/CFS, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has failed to approve it.

Lacking any effective drugs, therapies that are useless or outright harmful, such as vigorous aerobic exercise, are sometimes recommended to ME/CFS victims by doctors who have been misled by a now-discredited, flawed study that erroneously claimed "recovery" through exercise therapy. Some treatments that have been recommended are as dangerous and ineffective as the blood-letting that may have killed George Washington,

In sharp contrast to the highly successful advocacy of the AIDS movement, the ME/CFS patient community has been strikingly ineffectual. AIDS exploded in frequency in the mid-1980s, as well documented in Randy Shilts' And The Band Played On. Before therapeutic drugs were available, HIV-positive individuals knew their time was limited, but still sometimes had years left, during which they could campaign for diagnostic tests, drug development, and preventative education. Indeed, they were so successful that during the last five years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) spent $3 billion annually on HIV/AIDS research. As a result of effective advocacy, HIV infection has gone from a death sentence to a chronic disease treatable by a number of FDA-approved drugs.

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Given the seriousness of the disease, why has the ME/CFS community been so unsuccessful relative to AIDS activists? Unlike those infected by HIV, ME/CFS victims often become disabled immediately after a flu-like illness, unable to mount protests, nor effectively support each other, nor lobby the government for research spending. Others spend years disabled before the diagnosis is even made. Because few of its victims have visible marks of the disease, even the parents and siblings of some sufferers don't understand the physical misery their family member is experiencing. Instead, some believe the unfortunately persistent myth that the disease is psychological.

All these factors have conspired to prevent effective advocacy. Many other diseases are receiving NIH funding at levels that are appropriate relative to seriousness and prevalence. But NIH has been providing only about $3 annually per disease victim for research on ME/CFS, which is estimated to affect several million Americans. Other diseases with comparable life-limiting effects receive hundreds or thousands of NIH research dollars per afflicted patient. Now so many people have fallen ill that renewed efforts by groups such as #MEaction Network, InvestinMe, Action for ME, ME Association and the Solve ME/CFS Initiative may finally be able persuade governments and the public that ME/CFS is a serious, biological disease that merits significant study and drug development. Dramatic demonstrations may be needed, such as the one by the young woman, carrying a sign saying "Now you can't ignore M.E.," who disrobed this past Tuesday in front of Whitehall in London amidst the display of patients' shoes.
The build up I stumbled through my first year of University fortunate enough to know where I wanted to end up in 30 years. But when I got to university, I was ripped back. I realized that the ecosystem here was not conducive to having dreams of pursuing venture capital, startups, and entrepreneurship. I recall having to sneak into MBA student-only events, since undergraduates were not allowed in the Entrepreneurs Associations events at the school. It was not the environment I thought it would be at UCLA. My classes rarely transferred and applied over to the work I was doing for a variety of VC firms, startups, as well as my own company. I recall being denied admittance into startup initiatives and programs since my startup (Pyur Solutions) was geared towards agriculture and did not having a tech element. However, things slowly progressed over the years and the environment is blossoming now with a variety of undergraduate/graduate entrepreneurial groups and even more external organizations that fuse in as well. Even with having all of these things happening around me, I realized there was still a central element missing. Our classes did not apply to the real world. For example we do not have an international business major nor an entrepreneurship major here at UCLA. I became fascinated with curating content and programs on how to immediately transfer our class studies into " the wild." This understanding of the "real world" occurred because of a set of key experiences in my upbringing:

I grew up in a dual national household. My dad was born and raised in India and immigrated to the US in his bachelor years. My mother on the other hand lived all over the world including Africa, UK, and India. This led to an infusion of different viewpoints, ideas, and most importantly an infusion in the day-to-day lives of people in different countries. It was truly eye opening. During summers, instead of going to different cities and taking the average guided tour, we would travel and spend entire summers in different countries throughout Europe and Asia and live with family members or host families. This allowed me to see the world through the eyes of other people with different stories. It allowed me to garner international experience, when I shadowed various CEO's of publicly traded firms in India. Even more so it showed me how different the rest of the world is from what I experienced in America, d. Down to how people decide what to purchase at the grocery store. It was all different.

I had some of the greatest High school teachers. They were simply prophets! Rather than just teaching theory and making us take mindless memorization tests, they would use tactics of real world case studies in our classes. They would either bring in newspapers or bring-to-light key trends that were happening in various regions around the world. We played academic Jeopardy on Fridays in Mr. Plinski's AP World History class, had questions on religions, business, sports, literature, etc. on everything that pertained to the class and more. Mr. Smith would use SNL skits to introduce historical concepts that were referenced in our AP European History class. If we had to memorize something we were allowed to act it out as well. For example in Mrs. Snow and Mr. Rossi's AP English courses we had to memorize portions of Shakespeare's works and act or recite the soliloquies. Which even helped me a lot with public speaking. In Mrs. Bryers AP English Course and Mr. Walsh's AP computer science & AP art history courses we were activley encouraged to think outside the box and not settle for the base standard. To be frank, it was fun! Instead of using textbooks in our day to day the way standard classes did, our textbook theory would be used to expose wisdoms, learning's, and most importantly lead discussions amid the students.

Now I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, I just didn't know my major. I came into UCLA as neuroscience major but I knew that was not going to be what I left with. I knew it would be something in business, but what wasn't clear was what that equated to. Especially since our business major is not business but rather economic theory classes with a few accounting courses. I simply hadn't seen or learned enough yet. I was hungry to find the answers though. Interning and working at VC firms such as Science Inc, Space Angels Network, and Anthos Capital, throughout the school year and every summer from freshman year, I gravitated toward Venture Capital and Startups.

At the same time, I began to cold call and request to meet and chat with various entrepreneurs, business professionals, and venture capitalists, pretty much anyone who was successful in their own pursuits, to be able to learn and garner some advice and mentorship through their experiences. Somehow, I always found those talks to be the most applicable to my life and the most captivating. It was through these lunches and calls in combination with my experiences in my upbringing, which would allow me to get a more complete view of what the world had to offer...from people "in the wild." During those talks, I was asking tons of questions about their journey.

How did you curate your university experience to match your professional dreams?

How were you able to determine a pursuit of (x) industry over another?

What would be the most effective way for me to solve some of the issues I'm facing through my experience trying to navigate this world?

I'm now finishing my years at UCLA, and I'll be leaving it soon. I can start to see where these entrepreneurs and young professionals were coming from. I'm turning into one of them now. And so it's only natural to want to give that gift of perspective to a student similar to whom I once was.

Kiel, Michael, and I wanted to create a series of lectures that would use real world trends and current events to lead discussions on global business and entrepreneurship. That insight culminated in the lecture series, Global Recon.
By Lindsay Konsko

There's no doubt about it: College life means buying a lot of stuff. You might not have considered this before, but the type of plastic you use to pay for all of it really matters. Not sure which is right for you? Take a look at the details below.

The benefits of paying with plastic

If you're one of the few young adults left out there who prefers to pay with cash, college is a great time to make the switch to plastic. Here's why:

Security - If your card is lost or stolen, you'll have a way to recover your funds. With cash, what's gone is gone.

Convenience - Constantly making stops at the ATM to withdraw cash is a hassle; with a card, this isn't a concern. Plus, getting in and out of stores is faster. You can swipe, sign and be on your way.

Tracking - Tracking spending is easy when you're using plastic, because you can rely on online banking. Keeping tabs on a bunch of cash transactions is much more labor-intensive.

Which types of cards are available to college students?

Now that it's clear why paying with plastic is a good choice, here's an overview of the options you have as a college student:

Student credit cards - A student credit card (like all credit cards) works by providing you with a short-term loan to make your purchases for the month. At the end of your billing cycle, you repay this loan to your credit card issuer. Assuming you pay in full, no interest charges will be assessed.

Although there is the risk you could get into debt, the major benefit to student credit cards is that they'll help you start building a credit profile. This will come in handy in a few years when it comes time to purchase a home. Plus, some cards come with pretty cool rewards.

As a result of the CARD Act of 2009, you'll probably need a cosigner get a student credit card if you're under the age of 21 and don't make a full-time income. If you don't have an adult in your life willing to cosign, you might have to choose a different type of plastic.

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Secured credit cards - With this type of credit card, you'll have to put down an up-front cash deposit. You're not drawing on the deposit when you use the card; the cash simply "secures" your line of credit in the event that you default.

But, otherwise, secured credit cards function just like their unsecured counterparts. When you use one, you're tapping a line of credit, and you have to pay in full at the end of the month to avoid interest charges. Consequently, using a secured credit card responsibly will help you build a solid credit score.

Although you'll still need a cosigner to obtain a secured credit card if you're under 21, this type of plastic is much easier to qualify for. And if you make your payments on time and in full, you should be able to easily transition to an unsecured card when you're of age.

Debit cards - Unlike a credit card (secured or unsecured), swiping a debit card doesn't involve using a line of credit. This type of plastic is tied to your checking account; when you make a purchase, the amount is automatically deducted from your available balance. It's almost as if you'd paid in cash.

One benefit to opting for debit is that you don't have to jump through hoops to qualify for the card, even if you're under 21. Plus, since there's no borrowed money involved, there's no concern about getting into debt.

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But a major drawback is that you're not doing anything to build your credit score. This could make getting a loan or an apartment more difficult in the future.

Prepaid debit cards - With prepaid debit, you load a specific sum of money onto the card and then draw on that sum every time you swipe the card. Unlike with a secured credit card, you're not accessing a line of credit - as a result, you're not doing anything to build your credit by using the card.

The only real benefit to prepaid debit is that you don't have to worry about overdrawing your checking account. Once you've used up the funds you initially loaded, your card no longer works. But prepaid cards can be chock full of fees. There are some good options on the market, but generally this is a high-cost choice.



Which plastic should you pick?

In general, the Nerds recommend getting started with credit while you're still an undergraduate. This will give you time to build up a decent credit score in advance of when you'll need it. If you're responsible with money, make an effort to get a student credit card - in lieu of that, your next best option is a secured credit card.

But there's nothing wrong with getting a debit card, too. This will help you easily and cheaply access cash and can serve as a back-up form of payment if your credit card malfunctions.

Still, every college student's needs are different. Evaluate your lifestyle to decide which type of card is right for your daily spending, and be sure to check back often with the Nerds for more plastic tips and tricks!

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By Kevin Voigt



With the proliferation of online stock brokers, people have never had more options to steer their own investing future. Yet in recent interviews NerdWallet conducted, here's what we heard again and again: The hardest thing about investing for retirement is getting started.

"You just don't know where to begin," said a 39-year-old California man who has never used an online stock broker.

The same lament was heard on the other side of the divide. "Really, the hard part was getting started, figuring it all out," said a 32-year-old Wisconsin woman who had been managing her investments online for the past seven years. Except for occasional rebalancing of her portfolio, "it's mainly autopilot."

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Even with easier-to-use options, getting serious about online investing takes some homework, especially with the range of choices available. Here are some questions to keep in mind when choosing among online stock brokers.

Is a minimum deposit required?

Online stock brokers -- such as Merrill Edge, E-Trade, OptionsHouse and TD Ameritrade, which are among NerdWallet's top-rated brokers -- allow you to open an account with a $0 initial deposit. (Important note: At E-Trade this applies only to opening an individual retirement account; a $500 minimum is required for a regular taxable account.)

Are there resources to learn about investing?

Scottrade, Fidelity, OptionsHouse and TD Ameritrade have a strong lineup of classes and tutorials to walk you through an array of tools. Merrill Edge and Fidelity have a deep pool of free resources.

How much does it cost to trade?

Investing app Robinhood allows commission-free trading of over 5,000 equities and exchange-traded funds. However, you don't get access to research reports, analysis software and automatic reinvestment of dividends, and Robinhood doesn't support IRAs. OptionsHouse offers more investment choices, including IRAs.



What are the investment options?

If you want to build a diversified portfolio, the range of investment choices is important. Vanguard and Charles Schwab offer an extensive lineup of low-cost ETFs and no-transaction-fee mutual funds for beginning investors who want to build a diversified portfolio. At Vanguard, investors have access to more than 50 commission-free ETFs; Schwab offers over 200. E-Trade and OptionsXpress have a deep pool of asset types to choose from, including futures and foreign exchange.

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A recent NerdWallet review found that TD Ameritrade and Charles Schwab have features for beginners -- low commissions, strong customer service and wide-ranging offerings of inexpensive investment options. Both brokers have a good selection of commission-free ETFs and no-transaction-fee mutual funds.

For more information, see NerdWallet's Best Online Stock Brokers for Beginners 2016.
This is a Black Lives Matter Banner in Charlotte, NC, November 2015. Camera - Canon 7D Mark II, Lens - Canon EF 200mm f/2L IS USM

After the tragic police shootings of Terence Crutcher and Keith Lamont Scott, some white people fell into a typical offensive behavior pattern. Despite damning video evidence, they want to know more about the story. They insist that if black people only behaved a certain way, and taught their children to do the same, they wouldn't have to worry about being killed by police.

There are countless studies and facts and figures to substantiate the pattern of racist violence by police. But aside from that, people of color have been telling us for months, years, decades, generations about their experience of racism in this country. Technology and social media have allowed that experience to be captured in heart wrenching videos and broadcast around the world. When white people twist themselves in knots trying to find some explanation other than race for these tragedies, they are saying that every one of these people of color are lying. They're delusional. There's some vast conspiracy to try to pull the wool over our eyes and attribute actions to non-existent racism rather than personal and communal failings. It's a painful erasure of a legacy of racism that you have to be willfully ignorant to disbelieve.

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So why do so many white people scramble for some other explanation in the face of so much evidence, and so much pain? Some are probably hard core racists whose views aren't likely to change. But some are contorting themselves to avoid coming to terms with their place in a racist system. Acknowledging an unfair and racist culture threatens the American dream that most white people are taught to revere. If you work hard, you can achieve anything. If you follow the law and respect law enforcement, you won't have any problems. If you are successful, it is because of your own ingenuity and effort, not because you have had advantages handed to you from birth. If someone fails to reach that level of achievement, it's their fault and they're not as deserving as you are. Confronting our country's legacy and ongoing state of racism involves realizing that the viewpoint you've had throughout your life is false, and that you have been aided by countless advantages that you were never forced to recognize or wrestle with.

Facing the prevalent racism in our society also means looking at not just how we benefit from the system, but how we perpetuate it. Maybe we haven't only benefited from a white privilege; we've also absorbed the racism we were taught growing up in a culture steeped in white supremacy. We want to believe that's not us. In a recent speech when Hillary Clinton referred to half of Trump's supporters as belonging in a "basket of deplorables," you can hear laughter and cheers in the audience as they mock those "other" people. But as a recent episode of On the Media pointed out, polls that confirm the deplorable views of Trump supporters also show that 30% of Clinton supporters think black people are lazier and more violent than white people. We've grown up hearing politicians and public figures condemn the black community for criminal tendencies and deviant lifestyles. Often the only black people we've seen on TV and in movies fit right in with those stereotypes. That knee jerk reaction a white person has to demand more information or search for an excuse for a cop killing a black person is rooted in these stereotypes that have nestled in our brains through years of indoctrination. Some white people find it easier to keep their worldview in tact and cast around for another explanation, even when evidence shows that black people can be killed by police or racist vigilantes no matter what they do.

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Some Members of Congress claimed to have "buyer's remorse" the day after they voted overwhelmingly to override the President's veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, otherwise known as the "Saudi 9/11 bill." The vote was 97-1 in the Senate, and 348-77 in the House, a 4-1 margin (a 2-1 margin was necessary to override.)

The preposterous claim now from the Saudi appeasers is that they didn't realize before voting that some people claimed that the law might have a negative impact on some Americans. Some people had claimed that if we weaken the sacred principle of sovereign immunity, other countries might do the same, and some Americans could face broad new liabilities in foreign courts. Some people had claimed that the veto override would lead to horrible retaliation by Saudi Arabia - by selling assets in the U.S., or by refusing to purchase U.S. weapons, for example.

Here are five reasons that these "buyer's remorse" claims are nonsense.

First, all the claims about possible harm from the bill were fully aired by the Administration and the Saudi lobby before the vote to override the veto. These people now claiming that they had no idea that there were claims that passage of the bill could eventually expose some Americans to increased legal liability overseas or that Saudi Arabia might retaliate should swear it under oath. Or maybe they should just resign their seats immediately, if they're too stupid to do their jobs or too lazy to come up with a more plausible lie.

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Second, as was pointed out repeatedly during the Congressional debate on the veto override that these Saudi-appeasing Members of Congress apparently missed, there are already exceptions to sovereign immunity in U.S. law. One of these exceptions is for terrorism. The Saudi 9/11 bill did not create a new exception to sovereign immunity in U.S. law. It simply expanded the existing terrorism exception. The status quo was that you could only sue countries that were on the State Department's "state sponsors of terrorism" list. Now that the Saudi 9/11 bill is law, you can sue Saudi Arabia over terrorism even though Saudi Arabia isn't on the State Department's list. The Establishment is having a coronary because the 9/11 families broke the State Department's monopoly on who can be called a "state sponsor of terrorism," which monopoly was useful to the Establishment for other purposes. Cry me a river.

Third, anyone who honestly thinks that the dispute over the Saudi 9/11 bill has anything to do with the prospect of U.S. soldiers being hauled in front of Iraqi courts must have slept through the (ongoing) debate over the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, which hinges on the question of immunity for U.S. troops in Iraqi courts. Here is a recent example. For our purposes here, it doesn't matter who is right in the 2011 Iraq withdrawal dispute. What matters here is that both sides of 2011 Iraq withdrawal dispute - that is, both wings of the Establishment - are so unconcerned about the prospect that U.S. soldiers will be hauled in front of Iraqi courts that they are content to keep thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq right now on the basis of a diplomatic note, with no action to immunize those troops from liability by the Iraqi parliament. Any Member of Congress who has any doubt about this should be calling for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq unless their immunity from Iraqi courts is clarified. The fact that no-one is doing this shows how fraudulent the claim is that the dispute over the Saudi 9/11 bill has something to do with U.S. troops in Iraq today. When U.S. troops are stationed in another country with that country's permission, the question of legal immunity for the troops is governed by the agreement to station the troops there.

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Fourth, there is the question of threatened Saudi retaliation. The Saudis' very expensive lobbying operation in Washington huffed and puffed and threatened that there was going to be big retaliation if Congress overrode the veto. Congress overrode the veto anyway. Where's the big retaliation?

One of the threats was that the Saudis would sell their assets in the U.S. Here's some cold water for that threat.

Another threat was that the Saudis would stop buying U.S. weapons. Here's some cold water for that threat.

Finally, there is the question: how does the "buyer's remorse" crowd propose to modify the bill? During a lame duck session of Congress after the election - when, they hope, Members of Congress won't be so afraid of public opinion - they propose to limit the bill to 9/11.

A key problem with that plan is that it has already been considered and rejected by the 9/11 families. And the reason is simple: it's not about the past, it's about the future. They're trying to ensure that the State Department can't hand out "get out of jail free" cards to purported U.S. "allies" like Saudi Arabia in the future. They hope that in the future, nobody else will have to experience what they've experienced, and that's why they don't want to limit the law to 9/11.

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In a village in the rural Mubende district of Uganda, Annette had a feeling that something was not right with her pregnancy. Like most women in rural Uganda, Annette is a farmer, and works alongside the other wives and mothers in her community to provide food for her family. She made frequent visits for antenatal checkups, feeling more reassured that everything was normal. As with her previous pregnancies, Annette purchased a Maama Kit for 20,000 shillings, about $5 dollars, containing the basic necessities for a clean birth: two plastic sheets, a bar of soap, two sets of gloves, a clamp or cord to tie infant's umbilical cord, a sterilized razor to cut the cord and a piece of clean cotton wool for the mother's care. But, when she went into labor in the field behind her mud hut home, she was bleeding heavily.

Mothers in Uganda are taught to fear excessive bleeding, knowing it often leads to death if not treated promptly. Post-partum hemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal mortality in Uganda, and ironically the most preventable. Annette's Maama Kit, did not contain the necessary medication to stop the bleed, and she knew she had to get to a clinic that would hopefully have a supply.

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Her husband, a prison guard, alerted his boss, who agreed to drive Annette to the nearest clinic several kilometers away. Her other options would have been to walk or to ride behind a driver on a motorcycle, called a boda boda, on uneven and muddy roads. At the clinic, Annette's labor progressed rapidly, but her bleeding increased as well. She told me that she began to pray, asking that if it was her time to die, she accepted it, but that if it wasn't, to please give her the strength to make it through and birth this child. Shortly afterwards, Josephine was born. But Annette continued to hemorrhage until her midwife gave her oral misoprostol tablets, a medication that helped her uterus to contract and stop her bleeding. If Annette had not been transferred to the clinic and receive the misoprostol to stop her bleeding, she would not be alive today. The loss of a mother echoes through the community, leading to a ripple effect of loss in income for her family and a mother for her children, and a higher rate of infant mortality.

When I arrived at her village, Annette greeted me with a smile, a soft tone and four-month old Josephine in her arms. Her 3 year-old son played nearby, and as we sat under the shade of a tree to chat, she proudly showed off the alterations made to her dress in order to facilitate breastfeeding. We spoke about the important role women play in their communities, and she shared how many other families depend on her crops of iron-rich beans and sweet potatoes. She held my hand and expressed the importance of having access to misoprostol so that "no more sisters would be lost giving life."

Currently, Maama Kits do not contain misoprostol, and women must seek out the life-saving medication at clinics, which don't always have it. Including this drug in every Maama Kit would ensure pregnant women could take it orally and both prevent and treat potential bleeding either at a clinic or at home. For women across Uganda, who don't have access to vehicle transfers to clinics, the preventative and active treatment of post-partum hemorrhage with misoprostol could significantly lower the maternal mortality rate.

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Co-authored by Ruth Gomberg-Munoz and Sarah Horton (bios below)

Today marks the 20th anniversary of an immigration bill that has irrevocably damaged the prospects of millions of undocumented immigrants to ever change their legal status. Passed on September 30, 1996, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) put bars in place that make it impossible for many undocumented people to become legal, even when they have lived in the United States for many years and have close family members who are US citizens.

IIRAIRA's bars often divide families across borders and lead to extended separations--discouraging many undocumented immigrants from attempting to adjust their legal status even when they are eligible. This is not only destructive to the principle of family unity upon which our immigration system is supposed to rest, but it also undermines our values of equality. This is because IIRAIRA's bars disproportionately penalize undocumented Latinos.

IIRAIRA created a division within the undocumented population based on their mode of entry to the United States. Nearly half of the estimated 11 million undocumented people in the U.S. entered lawfully with a visa, then overstayed its expiration date or otherwise violated its terms. The other half entered without permission, usually by surreptitiously crossing a land border. The IIRAIRA established a legal distinction between these two groups of undocumented immigrants. It determined that visa overstayers had been lawfully admitted to the U.S., while border crossers had not.

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This has two important consequences for border crossers. First, in order to legalize their status, border crossers must leave the country and apply to be admitted--as though they were never here. In contrast, because visa overstayers have been lawfully admitted, they do not have to leave and apply for admission--they can often adjust their status from within the United States.

Second, applicants for lawful admission must prove that they do not meet any "grounds of inadmissibility." Yet one ground of inadmissibility is a history of unlawful presence in the United States. Anyone who has lived in the U.S. unlawfully between 180 days and one year is barred from re-entry for three years. Anyone who has lived in the U.S. unlawfully for more than one year is barred from re-entry for 10 years.

In the U.S., immigration law has historically allowed immigration judges to consider factors such as length of residence, family ties, work history, or good moral character when rendering immigration decisions. Yet under IIRAIRA, these bars are automatic and non-discretionary. Moreover, because they are triggered when a person leaves and applies to come back, they almost exclusively apply to border crossers and not to visa overstayers. And working-class Latinos are much more likely to be border crossers than are other undocumented people.

In treating visa overstayers and unlawful entrants differently, IIRAIRA reinforces distinctions among the world's migrant population in terms of race and class. This inequity also persists in the temporary visa system. Most of the world's wealthiest nations--including most European countries, such as England, France, Germany, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands, Finland, Greece, and Spain, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea--are part of the U.S. Visa Waiver Program. Citizens of these nations do not need a visa to enter the US. Instead, they can enter lawfully and stay up to 90 days without a visa; this makes them very unlikely to ever be unlawful border crossers.

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For the rest of the world, however, obtaining a temporary visa to visit the US is often based on a person's assets in the home country. Ample assets are considered evidence that visitors will return home promptly after a visit, making middle-class and wealthy people more likely to be granted these visas than poor and working-class people.

The confluence of several factors--a long history of migration, geographic proximity, restrictive immigration policies, and the likelihood that prospective Latino immigrants will be working-poor--makes undocumented Latinos more likely to be unlawful entrants than undocumented people from elsewhere in the world. IIRAIRA makes undocumented Latinos more likely to face extended bars to their legal re-entry than undocumented people from elsewhere in the world. In short, IIRAIRA deepens the injustices of how we award temporary visas, reinforcing invidious distinctions among undocumented immigrants in terms of race and class.

Many Americans remain unaware that visas are awarded differently to rich and poor nations and are unaware of the penalties that IIRAIRA imposes on border crossers. This, in turn, fosters the perception that Latinos who are unable to change their legal status are somehow "undeserving" due to their supposed disproportionate breaking of the rules.

Is it fair to continue to follow a law that reinforces these inequities? We side with the Immigrant Justice Network, Human Rights Watch, the ACLU, more than 80 immigrant advocacy organizations, and many members of Congress in arguing that we must repeal this draconian law that divides families and imposes formidable hurdles to Latinos' legalization.

This April, Representatives Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Keith Ellison (D-MN), and Judy Chu (D-CA) proposed a Congressional resolution that would repeal the extended bars on legal re-entry and restore discretion to immigration judges to waive grounds of inadmissibility and deportability. This should be a cornerstone of the movement to reform our immigration system and provide undocumented immigrants with a pathway to legalization--a proposal that continues to enjoy great public support. To restore fairness and humanity to our immigration system, join the Fix '96 campaign today.

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Ruth Gomberg-Munoz is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Loyola University and author of Becoming Legal: Immigration Law and Mixed Status Families.
As puzzling as it may seem to those who haven't been in combat, one of the things one hears from veterans of all wars is that they miss the camaraderie that rises from sharing close quarters and near-death experiences, from World War II right up to Iraq and Afghanistan. Taken at face value, that sounds crazy to most civilians. But there's a reason we say comrades-in-arms, why you hear veterans refer to other vets as brothers and sisters. If you think about it, military life bonds strangers into a tightly knit community with a shared purpose. They rely on each other both in life-threatening situations and in their daily interactions.

Combat veterans are especially impacted when they transition from being a member of a cohesive group of people who confront the same dangers, face the same problems and share the same goals to individuals in a chaotic mass of other individuals. Those first months away from that kind of closeness, often fueled by adrenalin, can feel like free fall. Both men and women vets express nostalgia for what most of us would call extremely stressful times. Nostalgia is complicated, compounded as it is from memory, sorrow, grief, sadness, longing and loneliness. Often there's an undercurrent of anger. When I first came back from Vietnam and was working with vets in the streets, I remember how many of them had these conflicted feelings. I know I did. Many Vietnam vets still do. Vets returning from our two most recent wars are no different.

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Returning veterans leave a structured society where people have to work together and enter an unstructured one. From no man left behind to every man for himself. Quite a change. The first months are crucial, and they're often the ones that young vets feel they can slide through. The danger is that the absence of that connectedness leaves a vacuum that can fill with depression, many times treated by self-medication. Men and women vets can become alienated not just from family and friends, but from civilian society as a whole. Skills gained in military service may not translate well into civilian society. The After Deployment website lays it out: "The teamwork you were used to may not exist, your coworkers may not be as committed."

Philip Caputo, reviewing Sebastian Junger's book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, quotes from the book, "Humans don't mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it. What they mind is not feeling necessary." That's why meaningful employment for vets is so important for a healthy transition. Jobs provide purpose, a community, a sense of self-value. That foothold on civilian life can make all the difference.

I think it all starts with a one-on-one connection. That's humanity at its most basic. Years ago on our hotline, I took a call one night from a vet on the east coast. Standing in an isolated phone booth in a large metropolitan city, he'd used his last coins to call our hotline. Homeless and suffering PTSD, he knew no one else to call. I'd been on my way out of our West Coast office, about to switch off the lights when the phone rang. I went back in to answer it. The first thing I did was get the number he was calling from so I could call him back if the call dropped. It was snowing in New York. You can imagine how cold that phone booth had to be. After we'd talked a few minutes I put him on hold and called a couple of vet organizations I knew. In the end, someone was dispatched to pick him up from that phone booth and take him to a shelter where he could get a hot meal and a night's rest. But I know in my bones that the real thing that changed the outcome was that he was able to talk to and to connect with another person, another vet.

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Recently a vet called my personal cell in the middle of the night. His pistol was within reach but his service dog wouldn't let him at it. We talked several times that night. He'd seem to settle and I'd tell him to get some rest, I'd call in a couple of hours. But the night terrors rose again and he'd call first. His connection with his dog, and the sound of another human voice made the difference. There's not one of us who hasn't experienced the power of connection to another person, whether by touch, voice or eye contact. It can be the equivalent of throwing a life line.

From my 44 years of counseling Veterans, I believe the take away from all this is that combat veterans connecting with other combat vets after coming home is essential to successfully readjusting to civilian life after war. War experiences just don't go away after you take off the uniform, and being able to connect with someone who can validate those experiences and how alien they can make a veteran feel among civilians is critical to integrating those memories and the emotions they carry into the next phase of a combat veteran's life.

Social media has made it easier for veterans to stay in touch with the men and women they served with, who shared those unique life and death experiences, and who are the group who best understands what their brother or sister veteran is going through. But nothing can replace face to face connection, and for veterans who are physically isolated from their former battle buddies, veteran membership groups like the VFW and American Legion can provide a connection with other combat veterans. Even a veteran of another war, while they may not have been in the same firefights as the readjusting veteran, has experienced similar enough events to provide the understanding and validation that can help a veteran feel like he or she isn't crazy for feeling with the lingering effects of war.

The VA's Vet Centers, with more than 300 locations all across the country are also a good resource for readjusting combat veterans. They provide a vet-to-vet connection and someone to talk to.
Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog

Stephen Moore -- economic adviser for Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign -- recently told Politico's Morning Energy that he is "pushing" to have a climate change denier and fossil fuel promoter, Kathleen Hartnett White, named as head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) if Trump is elected president in November.

Buried in Politico's daily newsletter on September 28, the news comes as the Trump campaign has also announced that another climate change denier -- Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) -- is leading Trump's EPA transition team.

White currently serves as a fellow-in-residence at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which, like CEI, is funded by ExxonMobil and Koch Industries, and she also serves on the Trump campaign's economic advisory team.

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White co-heads the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Fueling Freedom Project, which has among its stated goals to "explain the forgotten moral case for fossil fuels" and "end the regulation of CO2 as a pollutant."

In addition, she formerly served as a special assistant to First Lady Nancy Reagan in the Ronald Reagan White House, as former Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry's appointee to the Texas Center on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and as an appointee to the Texas Water Development Board under then-Governor George W. Bush.

News of White's possible EPA appointment comes as scientists say the planet has now permanently passed the threshold of 400 parts per million of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). At a global temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius, the scientific consensus says we could see calamitous impacts, while many say the already locked-in warming of 1.5 degrees is the safe limit.

Trump's Fracking Corps

White is only one of many Trump campaign consultants with direct ties to the hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") industry.

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Politico's Morning Energy also reported that Larry Nichols, the co-founder and retired CEO of fracking giant Devon Energy, serves on the Trump campaign as an energy adviser. Devon Energy also funds the Texas Public Policy Foundation and CEI.

Moore told Morning Energy that Hamm, Nichols, and White are "among a small group of people who have Donald Trump's ear on energy policy." Moore himself founded the Koch Industries-funded Club for Growth, a right-wing political fundraising group, and he and White co-authored a book published in May titled, "Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy."

"I've been told by some of the staff it's been useful to them," White told SNL Energy Finance Daily in a recent interview of the book, which includes chapters promoting fracking, calling green energy a false hope, and referring to the looming creation of a "Saudi America."

Like White, Moore formerly worked in the Reagan White House, serving as research director for President Reagan's Privatization Commission.

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Climate Denier, Fracking, Coal Promoter

On numerous instances, White has disavowed climate change and denied that it is caused by human activity. Mirroring her, Trump has dismissed climate change as a Chinese hoax. However, Trump denied saying that during the first presidential debate when brought up by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

"No matter how many times, the President, EPA and the media rant about 'dirty carbon pollution,' there is no pollution about carbon itself! As a dictionary will tell you, carbon is the chemical basis of all life," White wrote in September 2015.

"Our flesh, blood and bones are built of carbon. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the gas of life on this planet, an essential nutrient for plant growth on which human life depends. How craftily our government has masked these fundamental realities and the environmental benefits of fossil fuels!"

She also derided climate science as having been "institutionalized" by elites and elite institutions, writing that dealing with the problem of climate change would be akin to allowing societal collapse.

"The weak science and counterproductive policies have been institutionalized in law, academia, media, and culture," she wrote in the National Review magazine in March 2016. "The elites effectively promote the specter of a planetary meltdown forecast by supposedly unequivocal science, while they dismiss the civilizational threat of trying to decarbonize human society."

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In August 2016, White wrote an article deriding President Barack Obama's "deluded and illegitimate battle against climate change."

Beyond denying climate change, White also serves as a major promoter of fracking for shale oil and gas and of exporting U.S.-produced oil. She has also written a report and given a speech making a "moral case" for fossil fuel production and consumption.

"A rapid increase of domestic supplies of oil and gas at a time of painful gas prices; high-paying new jobs; expansion of thousands of businesses; increased federal, state, and local tax revenues: What's not to like?," wrote White.

"The U.S. has far more energy resources than any other country, yet no other country so limits and blocks access to its own energy supply. The opposition to fracking displays this unfortunate mentality."

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In a recent article White concluded that the 2016 Republican Party platform "is right" and that "coal is clean," while in another article in October 2013 she came out against the regulation of coal-fired power plants by the Obama administration and its Clean Power Plan.

"The imperial EPA has once again raised its scepter, this time proposing the first hard caps on carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants," she wrote. "The proposed coal rule merits a deeper assessment than it has yet received. The impacts of this and other EPA rules targeting coal go far beyond the coal industry. The EPA is undermining the very foundations of economic productivity."

Internal documents published by the group Common Cause show that in 2010, White attended the American Legislative Exchange Council's Energy, Environmental, and Agriculture Task Force meeting. The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a member of the ALEC-created State Policy Network, a collective of industry-funded think-tanks (called "stink tanks" by critics) which produce reports and other public relations materials in service to the right-wing corporate agenda.

"Get White Out"

Perhaps portending what an EPA would look under her watch, in 2007 White came under fire for her inaction on climate change and environmental concerns while chairing TCEQ, with the watchdog group Public Citizen creating a billboard image near the TCEQ's headquarters demanding to "Get White Out" and also crafting a website by the same name.

Public Citizen said White had not done enough to halt climate change or slow mercury and air pollution and also said she tried to erode democracy by eliminating the right to comment publicly on a proposed project unless one lived within two miles of its proposed site.

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"Chairman White has failed to lead our environmental agency in the right direction. Instead of acting to curb the serious threat from global warming, the TCEQ buried its head in the sand, and determined that global warming impacts would not have to be considered in the contested case hearings for any of the coal plant permits," Get White Out's website said of her tenure.
This piece is co-written with Steven Koltai who was Senior Advisor for Entrepreneurship at the US Department of State from 2009-2011. He is a long time business executive and entrepreneur who ran a "software as a service" Internet company. He is a Guest Scholar in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, a Fellow and Senior Advisor for the Bretton Woods II Program at New America, and author of Peace through Entrepreneurship: Investing in a Startup culture for Security and Development (Brookings Institution Press, Summer 2016).

As the new Jewish year comes upon us, we always pray for peace.

The moment of reckoning is, again, upon us. Can 2017 be the year that Israelis and Palestinians find common ground and create an ecosystem in which peace is the prevailing currency, or will, in the shadow of a new American president, the United States be simply a bystander--a passive observer-- to another period of division and hostility in a part of the world that affects our security and where prosperity could prevail. Will Syria and the wider Middle East descend this year into further chaos with terrorism and violence increasing, and immigrants in record numbers fleeing destruction? Are we destined to watch another administration in Washington grapple with a world of angry, jobless young people whose actions impact our own peace and prosperity? Or could this be a new era?

The questions are not new. But the answers might be new, if we step back and look at the tools that exist today to address a Middle East region that is teeming with young people with economic potential on the cusp of something big. Can we turn a region exploding with bombs and bullets into one full of blogs and business plans? The answer is yes. But we have to go back to basics and groom young leaders.

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In the Middle East, everyone starts from a place that didn't exist before, whether it was the pre Israeli state of British Palestine, or the colonial dominated countries throughout the region or Palestinians still in search of a homeland. What we fail to focus on, however, is that the common denominator for restless souls is the deep determination to work--to have meaningful employment, to innovate, to change. We cannot abandon the need to find people, even though who have left the chaos of Syria--jobs and the possibility to innovate. Among the millions of refugees fleeing war and conflict are entrepreneurs--people with ideas and aspirations. They are everywhere in the Middle East. But they need a catalyst for change.

If we apply an economic and employment lens to the wider Middle East, there might be a way out. We have to invest again in the region with programs and projects that positively engage people. Even the Arab Spring had its start in the deep desire of people to have fair work. Remember that small fruit stand in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, where a single act of frustration and despair by a seller of produce ignited a firestorm. Recall Mr. Mohamed Bouazizi who set himself on fire in the streets of Tunisia to protest unfair employment practices. He came to personify the power of economic obstacles and how a lifetime of shakedowns and confiscation of goods by authorities can stifle hope of meaningful work or entrepreneurship and how governments can reverse that cycle. How one act ignites a chain reaction.

But when change happens, it has to be sustained or it withers. We need to keep the spirit of entrepreneurship alive even amidst the ruin. Early in his term, President Obama signaled the need to move beyond oil, terrorism, and traditional unrest in the Middle East with a brand new idea-- to focus on how to deepen ties between business leaders, foundations, and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world. It was not exactly the Marshall Plan for the Middle East but it was a start. What Obama seemed to understand was a key concept; namely that entrepreneurship is more than a means of building wealth. It is a powerful force for good around the world. It is a straight line from entrepreneurship to job creation, from economic growth to political stability and to a civil society. And young people are at the forefront of economic change.

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But like most ideas with the potential to succeed, we need not only a vision and presidential leadership but sustainability and a cultural shift both within our own government and in the region toward entrepreneurship. We need more than one speech or even one set of summit-- to go beyond sporadic successes--delegations of business leaders going to the Middle East, an A-list of angel investors and rock star entrepreneurs paying their own way to the region, mentoring young leaders, and investing in startups. We have to create jobs--the foundation of a stable, civil society.

The lesson for this new year is that we need sustainability in our peace efforts. Absent U.S. coherence and continued focus, the governments in the region fall back to the pattern of low expectations and entrenched bureaucracy.

2017 is the year to return to our efforts at peacemaking by pushing innovation in a region that has young innovators. Today we face another critical fork in the road. A U.S. presidential election ushers in a new administration. Governments in the region are wrestling with terrorism and economic difficulties. People are on the move and more connected through technology and transportation that ever before. This could be another moment to infuse ourselves and the region with a new investment of time, energy and dollars.

We can't control nor predict what other countries do. But we can influence their choices. The United States, for all its faults, has a great tradition of pursuing freedom and prosperity for all its citizens while also standing for freedom and prosperity for others around the planet. Our foreign policy has always enlisted our military to defend what we believe is right, and our diplomats to negotiate for the welfare of Americans. It is time that we enlist entrepreneurship in the service of foreign policy and put America's best foot-forward. For the sake of the Middle East, and ourselves.

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Yom Kippur came early for me this year. It was one of the last weekends of the summer at Camp Ramah in the Poconos, where my wife serves as educational director. An extraordinarily skilled Bible teacher, Aron Freidenreich, was giving a class for the rabbis, staff and spouses who were up for the weekend. He was presenting a story from the Book of Kings, in which the Prophet Elijah gets carried away with his zealousness for the Lord, kills a bunch of idolators, and gets fired from his job by God.

I've taught and studied a lot of Jewish texts over the course of my almost twenty year career as a professor and Hillel Director, but that text, and the way that it was presented, shook me to the core.

Elijah is a beloved figure in Judaism, whom we imagine is present at moments of great celebration. We sing about him when we bid farewell to the Sabbath and usher in the work week. We leave a brimming cup of wine for him toward the end of our Passover seder and open the door with great ceremony to allow him to enter. And we reserve a chair for him at every brit milah (circumcision ceremony). Furthermore, there are dozens of stories of Elijah as a miracle worker, assisting rabbis to solve difficult legal conundrums, rescuing Jews in distress, and presaging the coming of the messiah. But, as Mr. Freidenreich emphasized, Elijah had violent tendencies, and his early career was a rocky one.

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As it is written in the First Book of Kings (1 Kings 19), Elijah massacres 450 Israelite prophets who are worshipping Baal and then is forced to flee for his life from Queen Jezebel. He ends up on Mount Horeb where God questions him about what he is doing there. Elijah insists that he has killed in God's name and seems to think that he deserves to be rewarded rather than turned into an outcast.

God puts on a show for Elijah, displaying a series of three cataclysmic events--a hurricane, earthquake and fire. But He makes it clear that He is "not in" these natural disasters. Elijah fails to get the point, though, that God does not condone senseless destruction. Thereupon, God tells Elijah to appoint Elisha in his place--a man who, in stark contrast to Elijah's narcissism, agrees to become a prophet only after kissing his parents goodbye and feeding his people.

That night, my wife and I were having an argument that was no different from dozens of arguments that we have had before. But I suddenly saw myself reflected in her eyes not as myself but as Elijah. I realized that I needed, on a much more consistent basis, to think more about her feelings and less about my own. I needed to be less like Elijah and more like Elisha. Even when I was most convinced that I was in the right, I might actually be totally (and perhaps even quite disastrously) wrong.

What would it be like to truly see our own psychological conflicts mirrored in the texts of the Torah? Many Jews pay close attention to the words of the Torah only on the High Holy Days. But the readings chosen for the Days of Awe, especially for Rosh Hashanah, are nothing if not bizarre. On both days of the New Year, "Our Father" Abraham commits a horrendous act of child abuse for which, in our own society, he would likely be arrested and put in jail.

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On the first day, he sends his eldest son, Ishmael, to die in the wilderness. On the second day, he takes his youngest son, Isaac, up a mountain, ties him up, and prepares to murder him. And God, rather than refusing to accept such behavior, has inspired it in the first place! On the High Holy Days, we are instructed to put our lives in the hands of a deity who brought out our ancestors' worst and most destructive impulses. But perhaps this is exactly the point; as in the Elijah story, we are meant to wrestle with parts of ourselves that normally struggle to keep at bay. If we see God as many secular Jews do, as essentially a literary character, it makes sense that God is also a projection of our own best and worst selves.

My favorite religious ritual of the High Holy Days isn't listening to the shofar calling me to account for my misdeeds, casting breadcrumbs on a body of water to simulate the jettisoning of my sins, or chanting the haunting Kol Nidrei to absolve myself of the vows that I know that I will make and fail to honor. These all seem like ways of pretending to do the work of becoming a better person while only approaching this task in a metaphorical way. No, my favorite custom is that of going around to ask people whom I have wronged for forgiveness before Yom Kippur. Because my friends and family live all over the country, I tend to do this by phone (sometimes, I blush to say, by text, email or Facebook message).
PORTSMOUTH, NH - APRIL 27: Donald Trump speaks to the media at Pease International Trade Port on April 27, 2011 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Trump is testing the waters for a possible run for the Republican Presidential nomination, and addressed US President Barack Obama's release of his original birth certificate earlier that morning. (Photo by Matthew Cavanaugh/Getty Images)

WorldNetDaily, if it's known for anything outside far-right circles, is perhaps best known for being the leading champion of the birther movement, pushing the issue for eight years and censoring all evidence of how it's been discredited. It helped Donald Trump behind the scenes in his pushing the birther issue in 2011 (and likely beyond).

But now, WND doesn't want to own its birther legacy -- perhaps because editor Joseph Farah and crew know that it's no longer defensible. And it certainly doesn't want to talk about its indisputable birther ties with Trump.

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WND's coverage of the first debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton -- in which Trump's birtherism came up -- is an example of WND fleeing from the legacy it owns. WND's main story on the debate waited until the 57th paragraph to bring up the birther discussion, and even then it's an unusually straight rendering that weirdly doesn't contest Clinton's assertion that birtherism -- again, the main focus of WND for much of the past eight years -- is racist. Then again, nor does WND disclose that it was advising Trump behind the scenes on how to be a birther.

Meanwhile, Joseph Farah -- who was among the WND staffers who personally advised Trump on birther conspiracies -- followed up with a column painfully admitting that Clinton won the debate ... but no mention whatsoever of the debate's birther discussion.

Then, Jerome Corsi -- another WND staffer who personally advised Trump on being a birther -- spent a post-debate article spinning hard for Trump, uncritically touting anonymous "staff members and insiders who spoke to WND" insisting that Trump "successfully executed a plan to hold back on aggressive attacks on opponent Hillary Clinton, focusing, instead, on projecting a presidential bearing." Corsi's only mention of the debate's birther discussion came almost as an aside: "Moreover, Trump noted, Clinton's presidential campaign in 2008 started the birther controversy by releasing to media an anonymous letter alleging Obama was not born in Hawaii, as well as the first photos of Obama in Kenya wearing traditional Muslim garb."

Corsi got the first part wrong; the UK Telegraph article to which he links to back up his claim that Clinton "started the birther controversy" in 2008 specifically states -- in the very first paragraph -- that "perennial local candidate and litigant" Andy Martin was pushing proto-birther claims in 2004. Nor does the Telegraph article assert that the Clinton campaign released the "anonymous letter alleging Obama was not born in Hawaii" -- it states the letter was "circulated by supporters of Mrs Clinton," not the campaign.

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It's also strange that Corsi is also complaining about the Clinton campaign releasing the photo of "Obama in Kenya wearing traditional Muslim garb" (again, the article to which Corsi links notes that the Clinton campaign denied distributing the photo), given that WND has used that photo over the years to illustrate its anti-Obama "journalism." In fact, Corsi himself was particularly grateful for the photo's release, declaring in 2008 that the photo "raised questions about Obama's links to Kenya, which has Muslim neighbors on several fronts, and was home to Obama's father."

Like Farah, Corsi doesn't disclose the critical role he played in helping Trump push birtherism.
I'm writing this post with my good friend Mike Hersh, who has long been an activist for social justice and women's equality.



Terry: Mike Hersh, you and I have been friends for a long time. You have served as a co-president of Maryland NOW, and we have worked alongside each other in feminist and progressive circles in Montgomery County, MD, where we both live. You were a supporter of Bernie Sanders during the primaries, but now now you're urging your fellow progressives to vote for Hillary Clinton, and to work for her election. Why?

Mike: Terry, while I understand that some of Bernie's supporters aren't with us yet, I think the answer is obvious. True, when Bernie conceded the nomination to Secretary Clinton and assigned all of his delegates to her in Philly, it was a very disappointing moment for those of us who worked so hard for Bernie. I was in the convention hall, and I had tears in my eyes as Bernie spoke. I was so inspired by his dignity and thoughtfulness, as I've been as long as I can remember.

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I don't see Bernie's concession as the end of Bernie's Revolution. Far from it. I agree with Bernie that a Trump presidency could be the end, however, and would at the very least set progress back several decades. As the general election approached, I felt I had to speak out about the shameful, hateful threat Donald Trump represents, and also the need to help elect Hillary Clinton to stop Trump.

Terry: Let's talk about Trump first. What's your take on him?

Mike: On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump descended on an escalator to launch his campaign, and he kept on descending when he began speaking. He immediately reached an all-time low for presidential politics with a racist rant calling Mexican immigrants "rapists" and "murderers." It's shocking that a candidate would choose to make an abusive, bigoted tirade the keynote of his campaign. This set a hateful, divisive, and dishonest tone the Trump campaign has followed ever since.

To me, Trump embodies the exact opposite of all the values that Bernie Sanders exemplifies. Trump personally attacked his primary opponents, mocking them for everything from their appearance to their sexual prowess. He is temperamentally unfit for office. His policies would exacerbate rather than solve our economic, national security, and social problems.

Trump denies climate change. He pushes Islamaphobia and calls for a bigoted, unconstitutional religious test for people seeking access to this nation. He exposes his callousness and misogyny when he says women who are sexually harassed should go find another job.

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We as progressives know our nation must move forward, but Trump vows he will take us back to the bad old days of Jim Crow, nativism, and sexism. He calls that making America Great Again, but he would really just make America hate again.

Terry: No disagreement from me there! Now let me give you my take on Hillary Clinton. I love the line she used again in Monday's debate: "A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons."

Why do you suppose the mainstream media keeps harping on Hillary's supposed flaws while not focusing on Trump's serious shortcomings? I think the biggest reason is that she is a woman who is unapologetically seeking the U.S. presidency. As Sady Doyle has pointed out,

when women seek power--for example, by running for the nation's highest office--a Yale study reports that "participants experienced feelings of moral outrage (i.e. contempt, anger, and/or disgust) towards them" and that "women were just as likely as men to have negative reactions.

Mike: I agree that Hillary is facing a breathtaking double standard. Trump is synonymous with sexism. He's habitually attacked women in terms a drunken frat boy would consider in bad taste. Seriously, the prospect of a President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence is appalling. Trump appointing Cabinet Secretaries and other top level officials who would direct hundreds of thousands of public servants to carry out his bizarre policies is unacceptable.

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As an attorney, I consider the prospect of Donald Trump nominating one, two, or even three Supreme Court Justices to lifetime tenure, thereby shaping our jurisprudence for generations, terrifying. The thought of Trump commanding our military into even one catastrophe is horrifying. As progressives, we can prevent all of this. As Americans, it is our duty to do so.

Terry: And I would add to that, Mike, by reflecting for a moment on how progressive Hillary Clinton's proposals are, more progressive than any Democratic nominee in recent history. Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, said her agenda is

more complete, more focused on generating wage growth and jobs than I've seen from other candidates [since the 1980s]--and therefore I think it's more progressive.

Just think about the profound difference Hillary's proposals will make to millions of Americans including issues I know matter deeply to you as a feminist progressive who cares about economic justice and equality.

Hillary will continue to fight for paid family leave and paid sick days, ending gender and race wage discrimination, affordable childcare, universal pre-k, fair wages for childcare providers, free tuition at 4-year colleges for families earning less than $125,000 and free tuition at community colleges with onsite childcare facilities, and student debt relief for graduates.

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Also, she will push for full insurance coverage for all reproductive health care services, including abortion care and birth control, a public option under Obamacare, and letting anyone over 55 to buy into Medicare.

Hillary will work to make it easier for workers to form unions and bargain collectively, raise the minimum wage to $12 per hour, and include tipped workers in the minimum wage. She will advocate for a $500 billion public works jobs plan, half funded by the federal government and half by private investors through an infrastructure bank.

She will tighten rules on banks, and regulate the "shadow banking" system that played a large role in the crash of 2007, as well as require the wealthiest to pay their fair share of income tax, payroll tax, and estate taxes. She will work to end the systemic racism that create huge wealth and health disparities for African American and Latino families. She will seek to enact comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship, and shutdown of all private detention centers.

Hillary is committed to ending voter suppression, restoring voting rights of Americans who have paid their debt to society, and make it easier--not harder--to register and vote. She will dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, hold police accountable for excessive force, and promote the use of body cameras for all officers. She will end mass incarceration by eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for some crimes and cutting all other mandatory minimums in half.

Mike: That's a very good start to the Progressive America we need in the 21st century, and Hillary's Agenda is a stark contrast to Donald Trump's. Trump is for nearly everything that Bernie Sanders--and his supporters like me--reject.

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I'm calling upon all my fellow Bernie Sanders supporters to take a good, hard look at what the candidates believe and what kind of country they want us to live in. Bernie thinks millions of people should determine our nation's policies. Trump thinks only millionaires should determine our nation's policies.

Somehow Trump--long known for juvenile attacks on women, dishonestly claiming President Obama is a foreigner, and vilifying minorities--successfully blustered and bullied his way through the Republican primaries. He preached distrust and division with reckless rhetoric.

Astoundingly, despite his harsh, frivolous message Trump prevailed over several more competent and qualified candidates. This is the last clear chance to stop the Trump travesty from taking over American foreign and domestic policy. We must unite to stop Trump and Pence from seizing power.

Terry: I know, right? I never thought I'd feel sorry for Jeb Bush!

Mike: Same here, Terry! Or Marco Rubio. A deal breaker is a condition that can neither be accommodated nor accepted. Donald Trump presents so many deal breakers to me, to Bernie Sanders, and I think to all Bernie Sanders supporters and all other reasonable people. To me, it's a very stark and simple choice. Trump's candidacy should be relegated to punchlines in late night comedy monologues.

But Trump is no longer funny. We must take this very seriously. As the polls show, a notorious bigot, a simpleton who lacks even the most basic understanding of policy, a rude charlatan is currently in a statistical tie with the serious, experienced Hillary Clinton.

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This is so important. It's time to get real and realize just who this man is as he is threatening to win the White House. People have to recognize the danger. It can and will happen unless we stop it. We must act now, because a Trump-Pence administration can't happen if we refuse to let it happen.

Some of my friends are talking about voting for a third party candidate, and while I respect their integrity, we must all understand a basic fact. On November 8th, one of two people will be elected as the 45th president of the United States: either Hillary Rodham Clinton or else Donald Trump.

As an unapologetic Bernie Sanders supporter, I'm calling upon my progressive sisters and brothers to join me in doing all we can to prevent the impending disaster of a Donald Trump presidency.

For all the reasons we've discussed and so many more, our next president cannot be Donald Trump, the man who opposes everything Bernie Sanders stands for, and who's done more to degrade our politics than anyone else in recent memory. For so many reasons, we must elect Hillary Clinton.

Terry: As a proud feminist progressive, I couldn't agree more, Mike. Thank you for a great conversation.

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Americans travel the most to Mexico, Canada, the U.K., the Dominican Republic and France, according to government data. When Europe is on the itinerary, the most visited cities are Paris, Rome and London.

Incredible Places to Visit Before Word Gets Out See Gallery

The more popular a place is, the more crowded and commercialized it becomes. This is often a deal-breaker for international tourists who want an adventurous and authentic experience. As a result, they flock to an off the beaten path destination, which will inevitably grow in popularity as the word gets out that "this place offers everything the big city does, minus the crowds, and it's cheaper."

Plan a vacation to an under-the-radar destination and still see the majestic Northern Lights, hike a volcano, scuba dive, and indulge in world-class chocolate and tasty local delicacies.

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Go to the country where the happiest people in the world live, according to studies, but visit its ancient Viking fortress before it becomes a World Heritage site and thousands of people suddenly become interested.

Many spots closer to home - such as the Isle Royale National Park in Michigan and the Serpent Mound in Ohio - are overlooked. They have proven worthy of another look and locals are slowly beginning to realize why.
Pressure mounts on the world's resources as population and wealth grows. Ensuring a sufficient supply of energy and water is crucial to enable further economic growth and welfare around the world - including the United States. Avoiding pollution affecting local air and water as well as the global climate is paramount to ensure the well-being of humans, and ultimately of our planet.

Fortunately, modern technologies exist to ensure higher, cleaner, energy production, higher efficiency in use of energy and water, and environmentally friendly reuse, treatment and disposal of waste resources.

Denmark is a first mover in resource efficiency. Recurrent energy crises in the 1970's spurred development of efficient energy, water and resource management systems and technological solutions. They have enabled Denmark to become a world leader in energy efficiency and green energy production. And despite its plentiful local water resources, Denmark is among the OECD countries with the lowest water consumption per capita.

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Today, America is a strong mover in green and sustainable technologies. The partnership between Denmark and America in development and deployment of modern, green solutions is vibrant. The increasing number of wind turbines that enable a still greener power production in most parts of the United States have been developed in Denmark. Modern city planning with energy efficient buildings and energy systems, liveable urban spaces, and sustainable management of water and waste resources benefit from Danish knowledge and technology as well.

The outlook for further collaboration is extremely positive. The strong trade development in green products is a proof of that, and today America is the second largest export destination of Danish energy technology. The increasing number of formalized partnerships at state, city and company level further adds to the momentum - as does the high frequency of educational and promotional visits between energy and environment stakeholders in both countries.

Denmark plans to stay ahead of the curve. Our goal is a society independent from fossil fuels by 2050. Our innovative activities continue relentlessly.

The Danish-American partnership for growth and sustainability is a reality. Bringing together a first mover and a strong mover it is a perfect match with a great promise for the future of doing MORE with LESS.
Remember Bernie Sanders?

With Hillary Clinton pivoting to the general election, it's easy to forget why the last few months have galvanized so many of my generation. The Sanders movement tapped into a growing frustration that has been brewing in college campuses across the country: young voters are unconvinced that the slow and deliberative democratic process will make an impact.

As the rift between the left and right increases, as both parties desperately try to appeal to their bases, the American electorate has become more polarized, more divided, more unwilling to find the middle ground.

So it's no surprise that much of the debate in higher education over the past year has been about "opening your mind" to diverse perspectives: from a blistering feature on the Atlantic Monthly lamenting the "coddling of the American mind", protests at Yale over Halloween costumes, to President Obama's commencement speech urging Howard University graduates to embrace the full meaning of free speech. And now, a letter from the University of Chicago telling new students they will not condone safe spaces.

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College campuses are, after all, a microcosm of the society.

It's convenient to simply put the blame on college students. In fact, I've heard similar arguments when "millennials" are painted with broad and stereotypical adjectives. But the root of the problem lies in a culture perpetuated by identity politics, a strategy used by Democrats and Republicans. It sounds something like this: Republicans are homophobes and racists who believe in every single word of the bible. Democrats are poor avid environmentalists with no family values.

Political theatrics has taught us that it's alright to slam labels and play the blame game. If you need proof, look no further to how Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump a racist, and how Trump returned the favor by calling Clinton a bigot. While it's easy to quickly characterize Trump supporters as (insert adjective with negative connotation), it's much harder to step into their shoes and truly listen to the causes they are advocating for.

Call it a publicity stunt or a curiously well-timed letter, but it's clear that University of Chicago wanted to be the adult in the room, the voice of reason and moderation in an election cycle that has been engulfed by exactly the opposite. And yes, it's saddening to see that we students need to be lectured on the importance of an open and inclusive democracy.

But University of Chicago's crusade on moderation has illuminated a fatal error commonly practiced by moderates: to dismiss everyone else as extremists. Many initially saw Bernie Sanders's campaign as impractical and too far to the left, rejecting any policy proposal he brought to the table. It took some time for the Clinton campaign to realize that Bernie supporters were raising legitimate questions on the rising costs of health-care and college affordability.

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The lesson? Even if you disagree with the approach, don't cover your ears and sing loudly.

Rejecting all safe spaces and trigger warnings as dangerous is, dare I say, cowardly as well. There is no denial that some have used the safe space culture to shield against opposing, usually conservative, voices, but should the same rebuke be extended to rape victims who fear a particular text might conjure horrific memories? By demanding inclusivity, we are denying to be inclusive ourselves.

University of Chicago has taught us that young pragmatic liberals can make a difference. The challenge is to convince others that slow and deliberative democracy works. Whether it's big money in politics or the prevalence of gerrymandering, young pragmatic liberals are in a unique position to address these issues with a message of openness and inclusivity.
By Matt Keller, Senior Director, Global Learning XPRIZE; Michael Dunford, Country Director (Tanzania), World Food Programme (WFP); Zulmira Rodrigues, Country Director (Tanzania) UNESCO

Children are the most precious resource of any nation's future, and literacy is one of the single most important skills for human beings to develop if they are to thrive as individuals and global citizens. Literacy opens the mind of a child to a lifetime of critical and creative thinking. The development of such forms of thought in a society fuels discovery, productivity, and innovation, which in turn, drive economic and social development.

The United Nations has dedicated Sustainable Development Goal Four to the guarantee of equitable education and lifelong learning for all precisely because millions of children never learn to read, never learn basic math, and never develop the creative and critical thinking skills necessary to achieve their full potential. Through its Sustainable Development Goals, The UN sees literacy and education as foundational for any real and lasting change to occur in any community or in any country regardless of geography.

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According to UNESCO, 263 million children, adolescents, and youth around the world are currently not in school. This total covers 61 million children of primary school age, 60 million of lower secondary school age, and includes the first- ever estimate of those of upper secondary school age at 142 million. And this figure is far lower than the reality on the ground where children who go to school one or two days per month are counted as "enrolled."

Equally troubling is that the poor quality of many available schools means roughly 150 million children who are currently attending these institutions are not even learning basic reading, writing, or counting. Others drop out before reaching fourth grade. All told, a staggering 250 million primary-school-aged children are failing to learn basic skills, even though half of them have spent at least four years in school. The UN estimates that the annual cost of this failure is a stunning USD $129 billion.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and UNESCO have seen this failure repeatedly over the years. While WFP has done the hard work of feeding tens of millions of children around the world through its school-feeding program, and has seen firsthand the benefits of learning and its effect on economic and personal development, it has also seen far too many children come to school for a meal, but who are unable to maximize the learning opportunity. And while WFP has been engaged in working with small farmers to produce increased crop yields, access to markets, and larger, more regular incomes, the job is made much harder because many of the people served by these programs can't read or write a word.

For its part, UNESCO has long studied the deleterious effects of illiteracy on economic and personal development around the world and has been a champion of pushing new, open-sourced ideas designed to bring literacy to more people across the globe.

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We collectively believe that technology holds the promise to transform the learning environment for children in even the poorest, most remote parts of the world. While there has been a rush to introduce technology in classrooms in wealthy communities, scant effort has been made to focus technology on where it is needed most--rural villages of Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere where there is a crying need for new approaches to learning.

XPRIZE, UNESCO and WFP believe that there is enormous untapped potential for computer-based learning to transform the educational opportunities of these children. This is why we are working together on XPRIZE's most ambitious prize to date: The $15 million Global Learning XPRIZE. The Global Learning XPRIZE is an incentive-based competition challenging 140 teams from 35 countries around the world to create open-source software-based solutions designed to bring children from illiteracy to literacy in reading, writing, and math on their own and with each other in less than18 months.

And we won't be satisfied with just incremental gains. We believe that technology offers the promise of an exponential leap forward in both how quickly and to what extent we can reach the world's most vulnerable learners, which will translate into how quickly and to what extent we can achieve Sustainable Development Goal Number Four: Equitable Quality Education for All. While it is important to keep building schools and training teachers, we must be bold in seeking out new, technology-based approaches that will unleash the unlimited human potential that resides in the heart and soul of every child on Earth.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post to mark the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, or, officially, "Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development"). The SDGs represent an historic agreement -- a wide-ranging roadmap to sustainability covering 17 goals and 169 targets -- but stakeholders must also be held accountable for their commitments. To see all the posts in the series, visit here.
In the fall of 2015 my friend and colleague, Hamze, and I had the chance to go to Rwanda to learn about forgiveness and reconciliation. During our trip we listened to many stories about the genocide that claimed the lives of close to 1 million people in 1994. 1 million victims in just 100 days - those numbers are hard to grasp. 1 million people...100 days...10,000 victims per day. Men, women or children - no difference was made. If they were Tutsi, or if they were helping their Tutsi friends or neighbors, they were systematically massacred.

Among all the stories we had the honor to be told, one still haunts me.

His name is Didas. We met him in his village. A very small village in the country side, a couple of hours away from Kigali, the capital city, or a lot more if you don't have a jeep and a driver who knows his way around. His house, the house he built with his own hands, is situated on the top of a small hill and is surrounded by trees. Like all the other houses of the village, it is made of mud and wood. There is no electricity in the village and, as we arrived much later than expected, it was already dark when we entered Didas' home and started our discussion.

Didas, who spoke French, started by telling us about his village. It is a peace and reconciliation village, which means that it was built by people from both sides of the conflict who today all live side-by-side. He also told us about his wife and children. His wife was a Tutsi refugee who came back to Rwanda after the genocide. After showing us photos of his wife and sons, a Bible that he always keeps open and the paper work showing that his reconciliation NGO is now officially open, he walked us outside and told us more about his story. After the genocide, he went to prison for many years. There, he was offered the chance to be part of a reconciliation process that took place on a national level starting in 2005. This process is called Gacaca. The perpetrators (the killers) had to go back to their community and explain everything they did, to whom, and when, and more importantly, they had to answer all the questions of the survivors. Didas went through this process and this is why he was able to get out of jail and settle in this village.

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While he was telling us this, we were standing outside, surrounded by trees, half way between the jeep and Didas' house, which we couldn't see anymore in the darkness. Our faces were lit only by the light of the video camera. From afar we probably looked like 3 floating heads in the middle of the forest. Didas told me: "It was a Monday morning and the sun was high is the sky. I can even tell you what I ate. I remember everything about this day. It has been in my head every single day since." After this and every sentence, I had to turn to Hamze, who was standing on my right, and translate what I just heard from French to English. Didas went on: "Young men from my neighborhood entered my house and gave me a machete. They told me I had to kill my next door neighbor because he was Tutsi. I had to prove I was a good Hutu. I was afraid. They put the machete in my hand. I entered the house next door. I killed him. I knew him." His tone was calm - empty of any emotions - but his eyes were telling a different story. I tried not to stare at him and turned to Hamze. I didn't know how to translate those words. I didn't know how tell those sentences. A part of me wanted to run away. To run as far as possible from this dangerous man. I was terrified. I looked into Hamze's eyes and slowly repeated the words. I could see that Hamze was going through the same thing I just went through. We were both scared and shocked...but how could we judge him and show him fear when his own country, his own community, forgave him? Who were we to show him disrespect and run from him when his wife, a survivor of the genocide, forgave and loved him? We were torn by all those conflicted ideas and feelings.

I turned back to Didas. Emotions were back in his voice. I think he felt relieved. The rest was easier to say. He told me: "I would never live anywhere else. Because here people know what I did and they still accept me. Here I can have a life without hiding. Here I know my children are safe. But I think about what I did every day." Hamze and I thanked him and slowly walked back to the jeep. We stayed quiet for the entire ride. The words of Didas were heavy in our minds.

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Now, how many people do you know own more than 3,000 comic books? I was beyond thrilled to hear this when I interviewed Samara Lynn, Tech Editor for Black Enterprise Magazine. Samara's adventure into collecting comic books started at the age of 13, while living in the suburbs of Long Island, New York. The neighborhood kids, at that time, were into comic books and Samara took a liking right along with them growing up. While she stopped collecting comic books around the age of 30, she is very clear that her favs were, at that time, The (Avengers), X-Men and Spider-Man.

This year BE's TechConneXt Summit takes place October 10 - 11, 2016 at the Marriott Hotel, Burlingame, CA (SF airport location). Samara has had ample time to prepare for this year's summit, which is very different from last year as it was her third day on the job when she was given the assignment to travel to the West Coast to BE's first TechConneXt. Diving right into the splash, while it was a surprise, was certainly not unfamiliar territory for Samara. She was able to hit the ground running and was pleased the conference went very well. This year, Samara says, "There are a few things that will be different, one of them being that Black Enterprise wants to make the conference much more 'tech engagement' focused by way of expanding the exhibition space to more interactive technology opportunities. Also, when it comes to the student engagement and their hackathon period, it will be around the clock, 24 hrs., which is far different from last year where there were stops and starts throughout the day with workshops, etc. for the students." Samara also says that there will be a stronger relationship with partners where the students will have a connection year-round in addition to what they experience onsite during their tours. The Toyota Research Institute is one major partner that will be further developed this year as will again have an opportunity to tour the facility during TechConneXt and Black Enterprise will build stronger bridges with Toyota to continue the student engagement for months beyond the conference.

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I attended TechConneXt last year and was very impressed with the information shared by the panelists and the student presentations were very high level and engaging. This conference is certainly the missing link that is hugely visible in the tech space in Silicon Valley, as it elevates the skills, talents and resources that people of color, particularly African Americans, have to contribute to the technology industry. Also, and more importantly, this summit shows aspiring youth, first hand, who are interested in a STEM education and future, how they can make those dreams a reality.

Samara is excited about what the conference will bring this year and she is confident the outcomes will be favorable. I would tend to agree that this year will be quiet the tech conference, especially when there is a line-up of confirmed speakers that include Ryan Leslie, CEO, MZRT; Tristan Walker, CEO Founder, Walker & Company; Ime Archibong, Director of Global Partnerships, Facebook and many others.
By: Noah Nelson, Youth Radio Staff Writer

Welcome back to another week in the election that never ends. Have you started to wonder what life was like before every waking moment was consumed by the presidential race?

Oh, good. We're not alone then. I remember liking movies, and talking about music with people, but that's about all I got. Don't worry, this will all be over soon. Before that happens, let's look at how the candidates are doing with the youth vote and what shenanigans they played to get their attention.

What The Polls Tell Us

The first presidential debate was this week, and while Republican candidate Donald Trump likes to point out that he won a bunch of online polls--more about that later--the scientific polls (i.e. the real polls) told a different story.

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Most significant for our purposes were two polls by Public Policy Polling. The first was a flash-poll that covered the debate itself:

Perhaps most important for Clinton is that among young voters, who she has underperformed with, 63% think she won the debate to only 24% for Trump. 47% of voters in that age group said the debate tonight made them more likely to vote for her, to only 10% who say it made them less likely to vote for her. For Trump with that group on the other hand, only 23% said the debate made them more likely to vote for him to 39% who said it made them less likely to.

This was backed up by other polls, like one from the Harvard Institute of Politics that was quoted by Vox, and given a little more ammunition by another PPP poll later in the week which dug into the battleground states. For those not up on the lingo: those are the states that the campaigns are really fighting over for in this election. In each of those states the PPP poll had Hillary Clinton with at least a 19 point lead over Trump.

So we know that the conventional wisdom is that Clinton has a "millennial problem", but with numbers like these you have to wonder why we aren't talking about Trump having a problem with the youth vote. While politics is mostly a game of expectations, this just doesn't look good for him in these critical states.

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There's one bit of good news for The Donald. The Washington Post, his arch-nemesis (okay, one of his arch-nemeses), says that millennials trust him more than Clinton to regulate Wall Street.



Donald Trump visits Melbourne/Orlando International Airport (MLB). This is a panorama of the hangar and the over 10,000 people (Trump stated that it exceeded 12,000) in attendance. Image: Michael Seeley (September 27, 2016)

Where The Campaigns Appeared

So what did the Big Two do to court the youth vote in person?

Let's look at where the candidates and their chief surrogates showed up this week:

Trump/Pence (Republican)

Sep. 27th Donald Trump: Town Hall at Miami Dade College's Koubek Memorial Center, Miami, FL

Sep. 28th Governor Mike Pence: Leetonia High School, Leetonia, OH

Clinton/Kaine (Democratic)

SEP 28th Secretary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders: New College Compact Event, Durham, NH

SEP 28th Michelle Obama: LaSalle University, Philadelphia, PA

SEP 28th Chelsea Clinton: College Affordability Forum, Mendenhall Student Center, Greenville, NC

Policy Statements & Outreach

This week NPR looked at Donald Trump's education plans, which no less than the American Enterprise Institute--a right-wing think tank--dismissed as "performance art." Later in the week, Trump outlined his idea to make college more affordable. In a nutshell: put pressure on schools with big endowments.

For her part, Hillary Clinton hit the campaign trail with millennials' favorite candidate: Bernie Sanders. The pair promoted tuition-free college in a New Hampshire campaign stop on Wednesday.

How The Internet Is Impacting The Campaigns



Online, no one knows if you're a dog, a millennial, or a septuagenarian dog pretending to be a millennial hactivist pretending to be a troll pretending to be an anime character. So this next section isn't so much about the youth vote as it is the environment that the youth vote is marinating in.

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Let's start with the fun: the Trump campaign bought a Snapchat geofilter for Monday night's presidential debate, which let you show that you were there when he took on "Crooked Hillary." Hey: if you got a drum, beat it. As the polls show, the debate didn't do him that many favors, even if the online activists of Reddit and 4Chan did all they could to tip the online polls in favor of Trump.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the debate, some Hillary fans took a liking to the little shimmy she did on stage, making gifs and even a whole music video centered on it.

Elsewhere in Trollville, all may not be well, if The Daily Beast is to be believed. On the night of the debate some of the posters on the web's wooliest forums were riding a wave of disappointment. There's probably a lesson here about perception, reality, and manufacturing mental filters. But hey: this is just a wrap-up about what's going on, not a media philosophy class.

Diving a little deeper into substance: we picked our way through the center of the alt-right media machine -- Breitbart -- this week to see how much coverage there is there of the youth vote. What stood out to us: that most of the talk about the youth vote is limited to posts about what the Clinton campaign and its surrogates are doing in order to turn out the under-30 set.

That, as much as any other piece of hard data or anecdotal observation says about all there is to know about this week in the battle to capture young voters attention.

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This year's 'Best of' goes to local
O.P.I.P. Yeah You Know  Free? [A2IM CEO Richard James Burgess]

Recording artists, songwriters and the music industry are under siege, says Richard James Burgess, CEO of indie music trade group A2IM. Music is catnip for consumers, says Burgess, and creators and rightsholders are not properly protected or compensated.

_____________________________________

(Title inspired by A2IM Libera Awards Independent Icon winners, Naughty by Nature)

By Richard James Burgess, CEO of A2IM

Recording artists, songwriters, musicians, publishers, and labels are under siege. Music is catnip for consumers and the use of O.P.I.P. (to paraphrase Naughty by Nature: Other Peoples Intellectual Property), transforms creators into dystopic battery farms feeding the The Matrix Machine.

They call it Content. They use it as bait to get information. From our perspective, recorded music is the result of hopes, dreams, personal sacrifice, and significant investments of time and money. However, in flagrant disregard of that, we have scalable distribution systems worth exponentially more than the annual gross of all the (non-scalable) creative works they deliver. Clever as they are, these systems are worthless without creative works.

Its a cynical business model:

Co-opt the investment of creative people, publishers, and labels

Divert the value generated into their coffers.

Invest ensuing profits into:

Lawsuits, and legislative lobbying against creators and owners

Infiltrating and influencing government and the courts through the corporate revolving door and lobbying power.

PR campaigns claiming that creators are stifling innovation and depriving consumers of their rights (when they can no longer freely give up their valuable personal information in exchange for O.P.I.P.)

O.P.I.P. Yeah You Know  Free: A great business model if you are the user rather than the used.

American recorded music inspired goodwill toward Americans and American culture and was a powerful engine for the creation of global revenues. While there were internal industry conflicts, those pale in comparison with the present plunder and destruction that starves our creative community.

The Constitutional Provision Respecting Copyright (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8) states: The Congress shall have Power Topromote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

The framers understood that creative pursuits bring value to America and Americans. To uphold the framers intentions the vast majority (and in some cases all) of the proceeds generated cannot continue to be diverted away from creators. The creative work is the value proposition for consumers and delivery systems alike. That is as true online as it was in a Juke Joint. It is as true for terrestrial radio as for YouTube. Huge corporations earning vast profits from creative works without adequately compensating creators are not meeting the framers intentions. All stakeholders, especially the creators, should get their fair share of all revenues generated.

"An assiduous erosion of the objectives of The Constitutional Provision Respecting Copyright"

There is an assiduous erosion of the objectives of The Constitutional Provision Respecting Copyright. We have a legion of copyright abuses and court decisions negating the rights of copyright creators and owners. Small and medium sized American businesses bear the brunt.

The siege tightens: we have the blatant misuse of safe harbor law under both the DMCA and Europes parallel provisions. The Lenz case (dancing baby) upended fair use. Fair use was intended as an affirmative defense but is now treated as a right. Copyright creators and owners, those people the Constitution vowed to protect, now have to tiptoe around egregious breaches of their rights in order to avoid getting sued. There was the recent free gift to services in the form of the DOJs 100% licensing decision. Overseen by a judge who previously represented Google, this ruling, if it stands, would alter songwriters creative processes should they want to retain a modicum of control over their works and revenues. Again and again we see the Copyright Royalty Boards misinterpreting what is going on in the marketplace and establishing below-market rates. And there is more

Our politicians talk about jobs and revenue, made in America, and small businesses as drivers of growth. Here you have it: American music cant be outsourced, is constantly reinventing itself, is a poster child for free market competition, creates social mobility, and presents a friendly face for the U.S. in an increasingly tense world. Could we please break the siege, end usurpation of O.P.I.P., and defend our creative communities?

Richard James Burgess

CEO A2IM

New York September 30, 2016

You can hear more from Richard on these issues in his interview with Kill Rock Stars president Portia Sabin on her podcast and radio show, The Future of What.

The Future of What is a weekly podcast and radio program about music and the recording industry hosted by Kill Rock Stars president Portia Sabin. Each week, the show explores a topic of interest to musicians, music industry professionals, and regular people alike by discussing important questions with great people who work every day to help artists succeed (largely behind the scenes).

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What Whore Houses, Meth Labs And YouTube Have In Common [Op-ed by Maria Schneider]

In this op-ed from Maria Schneider, the five-time Grammy-winning composer/bandleader explores the alarming similarities between the operations of YouTube and more conventional criminal organizations.

____________________________

Op-Ed by Maria Schneider on Music Technology Policy

[Editor Charlie sez: Were pleased to publish this guest post on YouTube written by Maria Schneider, a five-time GRAMMY-winning composer and bandleader, a board member of the Council of Music Creators, and an active supporter of MusicAnswers.org.]

By Maria Schneider

OK, I know: that title really hits below the belt. I apologize. After all, its not fair to legal whorehouses that pay their share of taxes to lump them with meth labs and YouTube.

When a nail salon or spa has a back room for illegal prostitution, we shut down the business. When a dry cleaning plant is a front for a crystal meth lab, the government comes in with guns ablazing. Businesses that cover for illegal activity get boarded up and their owners thrown in the slammer. Just because a business carries on facade of legal activityeven offering us a good value from the facadedoesnt mean we turn a blind eye to the criminality going on.

Before buying YouTube in 2006, Google execs, themselves, acknowledged the video sites throbbing criminality by describing it as a rogue enabler of content theft, whose business model is completely sustained by pirated content. Ten years later, it is still commonly understood that a good percentage of YouTubes music and films are, indeed, stolen content. And just like the tactics of the seedy businesses described above, YouTube has undertaken elaborate measures (much of it through its Content ID technology) to cover for endless unlawful acts that take place in its own illicit digital backroom.

Before I move onfor those of you who think the three illegal activities I describe dont carry the same weightplant these facts in your brain: prostitution, in some forms, is legal in many places in the world, including Holland, but copyright infringement and piracy is illegal and criminal virtually everywhere. Thats right, everywhere; even in North Korea.

Money Laundering: A Meth Lab often uses completely separate businesses to cover income and launder the revenue generated. Beyond the violations of drug laws involved in meth, state governments crack down on these labs because money laundering denies them tax revenue. YouTube, while not technically laundering money, has its own neat and clean, built-in way to hide and convert the income it siphons from copyrighted content, so its a wonder that every one of our 50 states, and cities and arent hopping mad.

Google and YouTube facilitate the theft of billions of dollars in stolen intellectual property. Its impossible to calculate the losses to photography, journalism, music, movies, cartoonsthe list goes on and on. These creative works were bringing billions in sales tax into our city and state tax systems as well as contributing billions in income tax to state, local, and federal governments. As weve all seen our incomes plummet amidst the theft of our creative works, so have the amount of taxes we pay plummeted. When all the value is siphoned off our work, making someone else rich, that someone else must be paying the tax, right? Wrong. No one is paying that sales tax, and the vast majority of state, local, and federal income tax has vanished into thin air, too.

Remember, the biggest economic value in this free pirating culture comes to the big data lords in the form of data, and the value that data creates. Its the mountains of information about all of us thats then turned into artificial intelligence from analytics. Their market capitalization in the hundreds-of-billions is based largely on the trade secret IP of their big data that was harvested on our backs. That market value was created with no state, local, or federal income consequences. And even if there ever is an IPO or other stock event where investors in companies like Spotify (another big data company) might be making money off this scheme, they are paying the lowest (capital gains) tax rate there is. And we all know that corporations have a whole host of tax loopholes (loopholes we regular folks dont have) to hide the real dollars that they do make on things like ad revenue.

Governments should be furious. We, the people, should be furious. Can our economy survive when, more and more, we pay by watching endless ads? All that tax revenue vanishes, poof. It doesnt go back into our schools, our roads, our healthcare, our police force, into the arts, protection of our water, air, and the many things that make our society functionthis untaxed fortune mushrooms in size within the secret vault of a worldwide giant that uses it to further devour us for its own gain. Through this redistribution of assets, they drain our cities, states and national culture of vitality. Now tell me, how is that different than an illegal whorehouse or meth lab? Their crime is actually more insidious, because its so well hidden amidst all the entertaining content and Google/YouTube cutesy-ness. And just like the other businesses,addiction benefits them, too.

YouTube Hides the Source of its Music to Encourage and Protect Piracy

When we view/listen to a musical work on YouTube, YouTube provides no information about if (or how) the music is licensed. It seems clear thatlike any criminal enterprisethey simply dont want us to know. YouTubes pirated videos look exactly like legitimate videos. Even if we want to avoid pirated music on YouTube, we cant, since YouTube hides the identity of users who upload content to their site.

YouTube could easily determine a large amount of whats illegally uploaded, as its painfully obvious just from reading what the uploader writes in their comments. But YouTube acts as if they dont know and cant know. While they make the takedown process incredibly demanding, they dont ask even the tiniest bit of scrutiny from uploaders.

We deserve better. As a culture, we place great value on the sourcing of our food, medicine, clothing, water, and even our coffee, demanding that they come from a trusted or sustainable source, without exploitation or criminality. But when it comes to music, we have collectively allowed these big data companies to pull the wool over our eyes and serve us up a steaming cow pie of exploitation and piracy.

Enormous sums are spent by big data to convince the public that piracy is not a legitimate crisis. Like a broken record, they push propaganda messages through their surrogate affiliates, like the EFF (Electronic Freedom Frontier) and FFTF (Fight for the Future), promoting false justifications to drown out the cries of musicians, and to divert the publics attention from their own backroom business. Their propaganda goes something like this:

Musicians want to take away your fair use rights! Copyright enforcement will create a chilling effect on the internet! Musicians are doing fine and can just earn plenty of money from concerts and t-shirt sales. We pay out billions to artists! Copyright lasts too long anyway, so its OK to pirate things. Get over it you whining, self-entitled musicians. This is the digital age and you just have to learn to adapt. Music should be free.

Each of these seven justifications is preposterous.

Myth 1 : Musicians want to take away your fair use rights!

Of the many DMCA takedowns Ive been forced to file, not once did any user ever assert their fair use rights were violated, nor are they likely to, as Ive never violated someones fair use right to my music in a takedown. Ive actually never encountered a fair use of my music uploaded on YouTube. Ive yet to meet any other musician who has ever been challenged on fair use grounds either. The massive volume of piracy violations on YouTube completely dwarfs fair use complaints. For YouTube to assert that wrongful takedowns of fair use content justify not cracking down on piracy, is beyond perverse.

Fair use is an important legal concept that absolutely must be protected, but its completely irrelevant when it comes to full-track uploads of music. There is no fair use of a whole track or whole CD, especially when the YouTube video image is a still photo of the CD cover art.

Despite that, YouTube refuses to accurately educate its users with the facts about full-track or full-CD use. Why? Because losing mountains of pirated work from their site would cost YouTube hundreds of millions. The lack of education on this point among users is obvious when you start doing searches of user upload comments. Type in, I dont own this, and youll find endless users admitting they dont have the rights to put something up, or type in, fair use, and youll find endless users incorrectly justifying their upload is covered by fair use, as if saying its so, makes it so. YouTube knows this, ignores it, and continues encouraging this behavior with inane and misleading copyright education videos.

Are we to believe the most powerful analytics company in the world, one that created language translations, maps of the world, virtual reality, and is developing self-driving cars, cant locate such blatant admissions on their own website? They can and should warn their users to take the content down or face removal of their YouTube channel.

For any user who feels their fair use rights were violated through a wrongful takedown, the DMCA gives every uploader a very straight-forward way to file a counter notice. And when they do, YouTube is required to put the video right back up. It will then stay up, unless the copyright owner somehow (never happens) files a federal lawsuit at a cost of thousands. So even when there might be a bad takedown, the uploader has an immediate, free, and relatively painless way to make sure the video in question goes right back up, and stays up.

Myth 2 : Copyright enforcement will create a chilling effect on the internet!

YouTube and its surrogate mouthpieces like EFF love to say that the enforcement of our constitutional copyright rights will somehow slow the growth of the internet. Thats hogwash for three reasons: 1- the internet is full of very successful legitimate services, businesses and applications that dont depend upon stealing copyrighted work; 2- where else do we justify the criminality of a business because it somehow allows for economic growth? Just think of the historic implication of following that twisted reasoning, and imagine the world we might be living in if that logic ruled the land; 3- YouTubes value and growth has skyrocketed at an unparalleled pace and its parent company is now the most powerful and richest company in the world. Chilling effect on Alphabet and Google? Are you kidding me?

Myth 3 : Musicians are doing fine and can earn plenty of money from concerts and t-shirt sales.

This piece of propaganda is the most offensive and demeaning of them all. Even if it was true (which it definitely isnt), theft should never be justified because the victim has other avenues to earn income. Lets start with the fact that not all songwriters and composers perform. Add that no musician can perform continually. Remember that the touring life of a band or a musician may not be that long. But how about the principle of the matterwe dont justify stealing apples from an orchard because the farmer can plant some other fruit in between the trees. People dont work a lifetime to have their work ransacked by companies that arent inventive enough to make money except by stealing it. The irony is that many musicians perform at a great financial loss in order to promote their records. Now were told to tour just so everyone can steal our music?

Myth #4 : We pay out billions to artists!

All the big streaming businesses that are gutting music creators, love to spout this misleading mantra. The figures may sound impressive in the aggregate, but theyre an illusion. A billion dollars when spread across all the music in the world, in the context of the many billions of users and trillions of plays, is peanuts. The simple truth is that income for independent musicians,worldwide, is plummeting across the boards, largely at the hands of one American corporation. Remember, YouTube isnt just exploiting music from the U.S.; this American company is exploiting the entire worlds music. And the amount of YouTube ad revenue that ends up in most musicians pockets is mere pocket lint. Its not even worth talking about. Its even less than Spotify pays, and the money Spotify pays out is so horrifically low that artists again and again publicly share in disgust the amounts theyve received. The whole streaming model based primarily on ad revenue is fatally flawed. It cant ultimately work if its not sustainable for the people that create the music. And if it does continue, it can only happen at the peril of creative culture as a whole. Read this passionate letter to the European Commission from 20,000 of Europes creators. And T-Bone Burnetts recent keynote at Americana Fest Nashville, illuminates truths about the power of art that we all need to hold at our core. Thank God artists are waking up out of our collective technology coma and are speaking out.

Myth #5 : Copyright lasts too long anyway, so its OK to pirate things.

Nice try. First off, a philosophical disagreement should never be used as a justification for theft. Furthermore, the length of time that a copyright lasts in the U.S. is the same as in almost every major country. Its consistent with major international treaties. But just as important, there is a long history, involving centuries of thought and major figures in literature and the arts, that justifies the length of the copyright term. The debate involves strong copyright advocates, withcompelling statements from people like Mark Twain and Victor Hugo. Copyright encourages the creation of music, literature, and art that define the very core of who we are as a culture and as a nation. This is exactly why it was written into our Constitution. There is zero justification to shorten the term of copyright in the U.S. to somehow be different from what it is in the rest of the world. Do we really respect art and culture less than North Korea?

Myth #6 : Get over it you whining, self-entitled musicians. This is the digital age and you just have to learn to to adapt.

Its amazing that we celebrate the wealth of those who made their fortune off of the digital world, like Steve Jobs and his 260foot yacht, yet a musician who makes significant income is demonized and told that they have enough. Why is it OK for a musicians main asset in life, their music, representing a whole lifes work, to be distributed for free involuntarily? The internet puts almost zero copyright protection into place to the financial benefit of a host of corporate monsters, and to the benefit of a population at large that, before all of this insanity, had been perfectly happy paying for recorded music for a hundred years.

These are Constitutional rights were talking about. For many musicians that invest in their own recordings, their music and recordings become their main asset. A good share of recordings cost the same as many folks spend on a house, with budgets going from $15,000 to $200,000 and more. Additionally, the creation of the music often requires years of work. Its not only equivalent to investing in a home, its like building it, too. We wouldnt expect we could take over someones home and say, Oh, you can figure out another place to live and put your things. And almost all recordings certainly cannot be produced for less than the cost of a new car. We dont steal cars justifying, Oh, you can find some other way to drive to work. If my music files are just digital files, not worthy of protection, then logic follows that I should be able to similarly raid my neighbors Fidelity 401(k) account; after all, its just a digital file, too.

We all know, if someone robs a house, steals a car, or illegally accesses someones bank account, they will (and should) go to jail. We certainly dont say to the victim, Oh, quit your moaning and learn to adapt! Theres no adapting when assets are stolen, again and again, leaving one in debt every time one invests in ones own work.

Myth #7 : Music should just be free.

Even for someone who believes this myth, the reality is music isnt and can never be free. It costs those who create it everything they havetheir time, training, talent, technology, and moreto bring it to the audience. Whats more, everyone who uses YouTube, thinking how wonderful it is that all this music is available for a couple of clicks, is forgetting a crucial aspect of the transaction: theyre paying their internet or cellphone service providerand theyre paying them a lot to gain access to all that free. Furthermore, users are in the end, paying for the ads when the advertising cost is factored into the price of the products they buy, and finally, users are paying by allowing these data lords to hijack their own privacy rights, as the ads they see are based on their private activity. And the more powerful artificial intelligence gets, the more focused the ads will get, which will push the cost of the ad more directly on to each user. Its a fleecing for our entire society in the end. Theres an old saying, If its too good to be true, it probably is, and thats certainly the case with free music.

In Closing

I believe the average YouTube user would wish to respect the rights of all who make music if they fully understood the reality. If they could truly see the destruction this whole system has brought to musicians lives, and if they became cognizant of what its ultimately sucking out of their own lives, I believe theyd be horrified. Theyd not only be concerned about the musicians its directly hurting, but theyd also be worried for music, the arts, and culture itself. The worst offense of the data lords is the manufacturing of a new culture to feed their own greed, a culture they systematically trained, an unwitting audience thats now fully indoctrinated to expect music for free. The calculated effort was described by none other than Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify, when he said, Music needs to be like water. It needs to be ubiquitous. I guess Mr. Ek thinks that water, like music, will just be there forever, no matter how much we exploit and abuse the source.

The current era of institutional music theft will not last long. In 30 years, society will look back on this era with embarrassment and disbelief. We all know its wrong. Our justifications for allowing piracy to fuel the most powerful company in the world are as poor as they were for allowing big companies to illegally pollute or to abuse workers rights. Its time we demand more from these big data corporations. Its time, we as a culture, force them to step out of the shadows, own up to their abuses, and convert to being legitimate businesses that employ every available measure to uphold the constitutional rights of creators, and assure users that the music hosted on their sites is there lawfully.

______________________________________

Are you a performer, songwriter, composer, producer, or fan, who wants to to help protect the future of music? Sign on at musicanswers.org.

Read Maria Schneiders YouTube Installment #1, YouTube, Pushers of Piracy

Read Maria Schneiders YouTube Installment #, Content ID is Still Just Piracy in Disguise: An Open Letter to Rightsholders and a Music Industry Ready to Renegotiate with a Monster

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The official who described detecting the hacker activity was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. It was unclear, the official said, whether the hackers were foreign or domestic, or what their motives might be. ABC News earlier reported that more than 20 states were targeted.

The FBI last month warned state officials of the need to improve their election security after hackers targeted systems in Illinois and Arizona. FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers this week that the agency is looking ``very, very hard'' at Russian hackers who may try to disrupt the U.S. election.

Last month, Donald Trump, the GOP nominee for president, suggested that he feared the general election ``is going to be rigged.''

The Homeland Security Department has stepped up its outreach to states and localities, but it is up to them to ask for help. So far, 19 states have expressed interest in a general ``cyber hygiene'' scan of key websites _ akin to ensuring that windows in a home are properly closed, according to another Homeland Security official directly involved in securing local elections who also was not authorized to speak publicly about ongoing efforts.

The FBI has detected a variety of ``scanning activities'' that are early indications of hacking, Comey told the House Judiciary Committee this week.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson spoke to state election officials by phone last month, encouraging them to implement existing technical recommendations to secure their election systems and ensure that electronic voting machines are not connected to the internet.

DHS is offering more comprehensive, on-site risk and vulnerability checks. Only four states have expressed interest in the assessment, and because the election is only weeks away, the department will likely only be able to conduct an assessment of one state before Election Day on Nov. 8, the official said.

Rep. Henry Johnson, D-Ga., introduced two bills earlier this month that would require voting systems be designated as critical infrastructure and limit purchases of new voting systems that don't provide paper ballots, among other measures. It's unlikely the bills will be passed before the election.

The Homeland Security Department is already considering designating voting systems as critical infrastructure in the future, though it is unlikely to happen before the election, the second official said.

A presidential directive released in 2013 details 16 sectors that are considered critical infrastructure, including energy, financial services, healthcare, transportation, food and agriculture, and communications. The designation places responsibilities on the Homeland Security secretary to identify and prioritize those sectors, considering physical and cyber threats. The secretary is also required to conduct security checks and provide information about emerging and imminent threats.



Canadian Press
Last Friday evening, 20-year-old Arcan Cetin grabbed his rifle, drove from his hometown of Oak Harbor, Washington to the nearby town of Burlington, entered the Macys store in the Cascade Mall and opened fire. By Saturday morning, five people were dead.This latest mass shooting is part of a disturbing trend in mass violence inflicted in the United States. From 2000 to 2013, the FBI measured 160 active-shooter incidents, defined as an individual or individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area. During the first seven years of the data set, 45 such events were recorded; that ballooned to 115 events during the last seven years.Around the outbreak of violence, an emerging insurance market has sprung up. With new active shooter products from mainstays in Europe to homegrown programs in the US, insurance agents already have a variety of options in an area some underwriters believe will become just as vital to the average commercial account as cyber or employer professional liability coverage.These policies are so new  most introduced just this year  that there is no industry standard coverage. However, most provide cover for active shooter incident services both before and after the loss. This can include liability, business interruption and coverage for counseling and crisis management services, among other features.Interest in the products is widespread, with inquiries pouring in from across the country and among all classes of business, says Paul Marshall, program manager for McGowan Program Administrators new Active Shooter Division. It especially surges after incidents of mass violence hit the headlines, such as Fridays Cascade Mall shooting.The Monday afterward we got a spike of agent submissions from that area and from malls in general. After an event like that, its just a guarantee, Marshall told Insurance Business America. The response has been overwhelming; were writing everything from $500 in premium on daycares to very large school systems. This isnt just one class or one area.Marshall believes the market response will only increase as mainline carriers begin specifically excluding active shooter and mass violence-related events from general liability policies. Some carriers have already begun to do so on specific policies, he says, instead offering nominal amounts of coverage through specialty brokers.Its very like cyber or EPLI in that way, he said. Unfortunately, theres no way we can stop this increase in attacks and I think well see this coverage evolve to become necessary for every one of an agents commercial accounts.It could even evolve to absorb standalone terrorism coverage, as policies in both areas cover many of the same risks.The market still needs about six months to reach full maturity, however, Marshall said. A bevy of exclusions, pricing concerns and a moving target in terms of risk now plague many in the space.Some marketplace exclusions include a threshhold or limit on the number of victims. Others exclude employees from coverage, while still more pay out only for defense expenses, not monetary damage.Even more are narrow in scope. McGowans program was originally written to cover firearm-based crimes only  a definition Marshall says is now six months old.The extreme variability should send a strong buyer beware signal to retail agencies, who would do well to double-check exclusions, clearly explain coverage to their clients and get their agreement in writing.It would also behoove agencies to appoint an active shooter specialist in the office, as several have done with cyber insurance, Marshall advised.
The advisory issued Thursday targets travel to Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Zika has been in some areas of Southeast Asia for years, and some residents may be immune. But a number of U.S. travellers have become infected there in the last year, so there is a danger to visitors.

Most infected people suffer a mild and temporary illness, at worst. But infection during pregnancy can causes severe brain-related birth defects. The virus is spread primarily by bites from infected mosquitoes.

The overseas travel warning comes as news of a locally-acquired Dengue fever infection has been reported in Miami. This is the second reported case in the state this year  the virus is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito  the same culprit that spreads Zika.

In extreme cases Dengue fever can kill although most cases result in a high fever, aches and rashes.

Miami-Dade authorities are now carrying out aggressive mosquito control operations to try to limit the spread of both diseases.



The Canadian Press
A panel comprised of Andrea Harrington, Tricia Farley-Bouvier, John Krol, Melissa Mazzeo, Linda Tyer, Christopher Connell, Donna Todd Rivers and Adam Hinds speaks on young voters.

Pittsfield Pols Discuss Importance of Millennial Voters At BCC Forum

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  In just a few short years, college students will be graduated, looking for work, buying a home, having children, and pay off loads of student debt.



But right now they aren't thinking of that, at least not in the political sense.



The 18- to 29-year-old age bracket votes at a much lower rate than older generations. And because of that, it is easier for politicians to craft their views around the population that put them in office  ignoring the issues of the young.



"The 18-to-29 age group only has at best a 45 percent turnout. The highest voting group of people are over 60 and 72 percent turn out to vote, at least 72 percent. You want want government benefits and want governance here, you have to vote," said James Arpante, a professor of history and government at Berkshire Community College.



"Just look at the benefits the older people have. Why do politicians pay attention to a certain group of voters over and over? Because they want to get re-elected or elected."

State Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier says it is impossible for someone running for public office to knock on every single door in the city and talk to the residents about the issues. So, those running for office narrow down their scope to those actively engaged  and the statistics show it isn't the younger generation.



"When you talk to elected officials and they need to run for re-election, if you don't vote you don't count. If you don't vote you don't count," the Pittsfield Democrat said. "That seems pretty severe but when it comes down to election and I am going door to door, I go to the doors of people who vote. To knock on every single door is an impossibility."



The conversation about youth in politics was one put before a panel of those who have run in local elections. It included Farley-Bouvier and her challenger for the state House of Representatives Christopher Connell, and Mayor Linda Tyer, City Councilors John Krol, Melissa Mazzeo and Donna Todd Rivers. Democratic candidate for state Senate Adam Hinds and his primary challenger Andrea Harrington rounded out the group at the college on Thursday afternoon.



The message from all of them was simple: we need youth to be involved for the betterment of the city, state, and country.



"It may not matter today, at this moment. But it does matter. It is going to matter," River said. "I'm holding this seat for you. The seat on the City Council belongs to one of you. I'm holding it for you and I need you to do your work first in getting educated about the issues."



While there may seem to be a disconnect between the young people and politics now, everything that happens now will matter even more in a few years. Rivers told the students at BCC to start making it a habit to get to the polls, work on campaigns, and advocate for issues they care about.



She said she'll be passing that council seat onto others, as she followed councilors before them, and those taking the seat will serve the city much better with a longer history of knowledge and understanding of the issues.



Seats on the City Council or on the School Committee matter more than the president, said Tyer. Yet voter turnout for the presidential election vastly outpaces local elections.



"In your local races such as races for mayor, City Council, School Committee, those are the races that have the biggest impact on your day-to-day life. But, for example, we might only have 25 percent voter turnout. For each person that voted, three people did not vote. That means your destiny is being controlled by one person per every three. That is not the best way for our democracy to be effective," Tyer said.



"When it comes to presidential election, we might see 60, 62 percent turnout. That's better but we want to see 62 percent voter turnout in our local elections."



When politicians are knocking on doors, hiring staff, talking to community members, their plans and visions are crafted. The full picture isn't clear when a large segment of the population isn't being heard.



"When we are thinking about issues that matter to the people we represent, we represent a broad range of people. We represent young and old. We represent a diverse group of people and we need to hear from all groups and about issues that confront them and they need help with," Tyer said.



The politicians all said not only to vote, but to become active in campaigns and politics. Connell started working for a state representative when he was 16 and since being able to vote hasn't missed an election. Ideas that come from young people helps craft a better future.



"It is really an untapped resource for campaigns because there has not been much participation from that sector. I think it is critical for the success of any campaign not only for the ideas and perspectives of these workers but also for their friends," Connell said.



Hinds remembers working for the Kerry presidential campaign when technology was really taking off. The campaign staffers understood it and technological advancements showed those in politics that things can be different  including government.



"We need to be discussing a range of issues that impacts the whole community," Hinds said.



He agrees that political consultants will tell a politician to craft a message to voters in order to get elected. If there is a great number of younger people involved, then the message will include more focus on the issues that population is concerned about.

"When you are involved in a political campaign, there is a lot of leadership opportunities and advancement in a really quick way. You can go from working a couple of shifts on a Saturday to becoming a field director in a short about of time," Farley-Bouvier said.



Harrington hired a 19-year-old campaign manager. Multiple campaign staffers of Hinds are college students. The younger people have a path to active roles in campaigns  if they aren't the candidates themselves.



More voices also dilutes the power of the money in politics as well, according to Harrington.



"The reason why money is so important and the people with the money in politics has so much power is because there are so few people voting. If more people would just pay attention and come out and vote, then the money interest wouldn't have that hold on some of these issues," Harrington said.

What are those issues millennials care about? It is college debt, as many on the panel discussed. It is job opportunities. It is civil rights. It is the environment. It is creating more things to do in the city of Pittsfield. But, the politicians can't know for sure.



"We think, we think, we think we know. But we need you to tell us," Tyer said.



But that isn't to say there is no interest among the young people. Voting numbers may be low, as they have been historically, but that isn't an indication that the younger population doesn't care. There is just a disconnect between the youngest voters and actually getting to the polls.



"Young people don't connect with politicians. They don't see people that look like them or feel like they connect with them. I think it is important for young people to realize you have so much power just in voting," Harrington said.



Krol says politics is a "two-way" street between the candidates and the voters. Those lines of communication need to be open and active to advocate for issues.



"When you have the right issues and the right candidate,the young people will come out. It is kind of a two-way street. You have to be able to advocate and constantly be communicating about issues that are important to you," Krol said.



"For instance, Bernie Sanders was the guy who was able to galvanized the youth vote because he talked about making colleges and universities tuition free. That got people excited because on the big scale that seems like a reasonable thing to do. We spent $6 trillion in wars over the last 15 years but aren't investing in the same way for colleges and universities."



Krol said Sanders had massive support in the presidential primary from those under the age of 40  because he talked about issues that spoke to them. Krol, however, said it isn't just the presidential campaign that matters. There are mid-term elections. There are local elections.



"I would love to see more young people involved in city government, whether it be boards or commissions or running for City Council. We could use more progressive voices on the City Council," Krol said.

Mazzeo said civic engagement starts at home. When she was growing up her family always discussed politics and she remains involved, passing that passion along. She told the students to start in their own homes by having those conversations about what's going on.



Connell said, "Things have changed. Today, we are in the 21st century, I think we have some sort of disconnect. I think some ways to improve that is one, through social media. I think we can get the word out about the importance of voting. And also, I know we can register to vote online but my hope for the future, if we can work out the bugs, is to have online voting. I think that will help not only our young voters but people who are confined and can't get to the polls."



Farley-Bouvier said the state has been making it easier to vote, including online voter registration and now early voting, to try to get more to the polls.



But when it comes to voting overall, Arpante phrased it best on Thursday.



"Voting is an alternative to violence. If the government isn't listening to you, you can vote or revolt."



The panel discussion was put on by Edward Laird, chapter chair of Massachusetts Public Information Resource Group at Berkshire Community College and moderated by Arpante.
Special Ed Preschool Issue Continues to Vex Williamstown School Committee



Superintendent Douglas Dias, left, and Chairman Dan Caplinger at Wednesday's meeting. Caplinger several times had to stop comments on school personnel. WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  School Committee Chairman Dan Caplinger said he left the school's Side-by-Side program off the agenda for Wednesday's meeting because he felt the issue was settled, at least for the 2016-17 academic year.

Now, he said, he has to rethink that decision going forward.

The special education prekindergarten was the only thing on the minds of the three residents who participated in the public comment portion of Wednesdays meeting. And, not for the first time, those comments strayed into areas where Caplinger had to admonish residents against levying accusations against individual school personnel or speaking about an individual child's experience in open session.

Appearing before the committee for the first time, Gabe Pesce told the panel that he had lost respect for the district in the wake of its decision to cut the full-day Side-by-Side classroom.

"I have three children attending WES this year," Pesce said. "We moved to Williamstown because of its reputation as one of the best schools in the county. Up until now, we were proud of our school district.

"This was before we were exposed to the special education administration, specifically "

At that point, Caplinger broke in and explained to Pesce that attacks against individual personnel in open session are inappropriate because district personnel have rights protected by the commonwealth.

"This public forum is governed by rules that protect the public's interest and individual rights," Caplinger said. "The individual's rights have value as well.

"While I understand your desire to make a comment in this public forum, I'm nevertheless going to rule it out of order."

After a discussion among committee members about whether any discussion of Side-by-Side was appropriate because it was not listed as an agenda item, Caplinger decided to let Pesce continue, with the proviso that he avoid identifying individuals.

Pesce then told the committee that the school did not adjust his son's individualized education plan in accordance with the wishes of the child's physician. Again, Caplinger had to break in.

"There's an individual person who is responsible for that [in the district], and this sounds like a complaint against an individual person," Caplinger said.

Pesce asked whether he could discuss his child's situation at all and told the committee, "I feel he's not being provided the services he needs, and if anyone feels the same, I want you to know you're not alone."

Caplinger asked Superintendent Doug Dias and Principal Joelle Brookner to address what remedies were available to Pesce outside the open meeting process.

"If there is a concern about anything, contact me, Dias said. "If it's part of the building itself, Joelle is in charge of the building. The IEP process is delineated [by state law].  There are always ways of following up. This is the first I've heard of it.

After Pesce took his seat, Maury McCarthy Lawson, a frequent critic of the administration over the Side-by-Side issue who has spoken to the School Committee several times, took the microphone.

Lawson began her remarks by telling the committee about her experience with an administrator that required the district to employ the services of the school's counsel.

Caplinger immediately jumped in.

"I don't see how I can be any more clear about this, and you have done this several times, and you should know better," an exasperated Caplinger said.

Lawson cut her remarks short but told the committee that it should look at the district's expenditures for legal work.

The third public participant was another frequent critic of the Side-by-Side decision. Steven Miller again reminded the committee of the support a full-day preschool enjoys in the community  as evidenced by the successful protest vote at May's annual town meeting.

(Williamstown does have three full-day preschools  Williamstown Community, Williams College and Pine Cobble  with varying rates.)

And he again alluded to the idea that Side-by-Side, which charges a fee to families with children not on IEPs, could be more profitable.



Gabe Pesce brought complaints about his son's IEP to the committee and was asked to direct them to the administration. "We would all appreciate a path back to full day as soon as the coming school year of 2017-18," Miller said. "Full restoration is wanted, needed, and fiscally smart. We are fortunate to be in a community with so many talented, generous people; this is an ideal time and opportunity to engage us to make meaningful progress for our school."

The committee members did not directly address the full-day restoration question head on. It did discuss whether it wants to develop a list of goals for itself for the year ahead. Caplinger gave his colleagues a set of examples of other school committees' "goals" documents from around the commonwealth and asked them to consider whether they want to go through a similar exercise.

Dias told the group that he had seen committees go in a couple of directions with their goals: either an internal list of aspirations that applies to how the committee operates or a list of goals to accomplish in the district. If the latter course is followed, he said, the goals should align with the existing School Improvement Plan.

"I see [the goals] as one more vehicle for us to interact in a way that makes us more effective as a unit, Caplinger said.

Committee member Joe Johnson questioned the usefulness of the goal-setting exercise.

"The examples of the goals here tend to be either hyperspecific or so general they don't mean anything," Johnson said. "One talks about making a plan to make a plan.

"I feel like if we put the same time and energy that we'd put into creating a set of goals into more regular review of the Strategic Plan, that might be time well spent.

The Strategic Plan, a separate document from the School Improvement Plan, is in the works, Dias told the committee. The district this fall will survey community members to gain input about their priorities for the elementary school going forward. That feedback will be added to data from staff and pupils to inform the plan he will bring to the committee for approval later this year.

To help the committee work through its own questions about goal-setting and the roles and responsibilities of a school committee, Caplinger asked Dias to distribute to the panel a list of workshops offered by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees with the hope of scheduling one this fall.

In other business on Wednesday, the School Committee approved the use of nearly $17,000 from the school's building renewal fund. The majority of the expenditure ($10,183) addresses emergency lighting issues in the 14-year-old school building.

"The building is starting to show its age in sporadic areas," Dias said. "Some of the emergency lights in the hallways and stairwells needed to be replaced. In addition to this, there were some roof repairs. We added some sound system upgrades, including outside."

The school upgraded its PA system so it can reach staff and pupils on the playground if needed.

Joseph Bergeron of the School Committee's recently created Finance Subcommittee told his colleagues that the school has closed the books for fiscal 2015 and ended up a little more in the black than it anticipated.

"You'll remember in June the School Committee approved using up to $40,000 from School Choice to close the fiscal year, Bergeron said. "The administration ended up needing $32,618 of that money, and what that means for us is we closed with $48,229 in our School Choice account. That's our starting balance for FY17."

Although that sounds good, the School Choice account  the only place the district can carry a surplus  remains a point of concern.

"We had $178,369 rolled over last year in School Choice," Business Manager Nancy Rauscher told the committee.

Dias informed the committee that the ceremonial ground-breaking for the Mount Greylock Regional School building project will be Friday, Oct. 7, at 2 p.m.
Berkshire Museum Board of Trustees Elects New President

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The gavel was passed to a new president at the annual meeting of the Berkshire Museums Board of Trustees held Monday, Sept. 26.



Elizabeth "Buzz" Hayes McGraw is taking the reins as president; she has been a trustee since 2008 and has served as vice-president since 2013. William Bill Hines Jr. will resume his role as a trustee after serving as president for five years; he joined the board in 2007.



"There are great things happening at the Berkshire Museum, and I am honored to step up and lead the board as we continue with our strategic master planning process," said McGraw. "The master plan is an unprecedented opportunity to reshape the way the museum fulfills its mission and serves the wider Berkshire Community, and it is a privilege to participate in this very important transformation. Bill Hines has done a magnificent job initiating the planning process. Those of us on the Board are so grateful for all he has done for the museum."



During his tenure as president of the board, in addition to overseeing the launch of the master planning process, Hines was instrumental in working with the board and staff to achieve significant improvements to the museum, including new architectural access for museum visitors made possible by the installation of a passenger-operated elevator, and upgrades to its energy and fire safety systems. During the same time period, the museum was named a Smithsonian Affiliate and was able to widely expand its educational programs, serving record numbers of students each successive year.



The annual meeting proceedings also included the unanimous election of Betsey Selkowitz as a Crane Honorary Life Trustee, an honor bestowed on an individual who is "deemed by the Board to have served the Museum in an exemplary manner over an extended period." Selkowitz first became a Trustee in 1986, was president of the Board twice, and even did a short stint as Acting Director in 1989. She joins Michael Christopher and C. Jeffrey Cook, the current Crane Honorary Life Trustees.
Local Physicians to be Honored at LitNet Gala

STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.  The Literacy Network of South Berkshire (LitNet), headquartered in Lee, will host its 25th anniversary gala on Saturday, Oct. 1, at Berkshire Country Day School in Stockbridge.



The organization, which serves a significant number of immigrant students, is celebrating the diversity of our Berkshire immigrant community and the many ways in which our cities and towns are enriched by residents from around the globe.



At this years event, LitNet will honor two distinguished members of the hospitalist program at Berkshire Medical Center, Dr. Tony Makdisi and Dr. Sukhpal Mann. Each physician will receive LitNets Founders of America Award, which recognizes individuals whose strength of character and commitment to service have improved lives in the Berkshires and beyond.



Both doctors immigrated to the United States as adults - Dr. Makdisi from Syria and Dr. Mann from India. They work behind the scenes, day and night, to care for patients hospitalized at BMC. Their commitments to education, public service, and the people of the Berkshires make Dr. Makdisi and Dr. Mann inspiring role models for the LitNet community and distinguish them as true "founders of America."



Makdisi graduated from medical school at the University of Damascus in 1992. Following several years of military service and an orthopedic residency program in which he studied under numerous skilled American physicians, he was inspired to come to the United States. He immigrated to America in 2000, at which time he received training at New York Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, and later completed his residency at Conemaugh Valley Memorial Hospital in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 2005.



In 2006, Dr. Makdisi was hired as one of the earliest members of the hospitalist program at BMC, and in 2013, he helped to establish BMCs first Inpatient Palliative Care Consultation Service. Dr. Makdisi now serves as associate program director of the hospitalist program and as chief of the division of palliative care. Tony and his wife, Fadia, live in Pittsfield and have three children, Helen, Joyce, and Grace.
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Stakeholder Dialogue for the North American Leaders Summit

Washington, DC - Today, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Wilson Center) will host the first-ever Stakeholder Dialogue on North American Competitiveness.

Representatives from the private sector, NGOs, academia, and unions will give their feedback on the results of the most recent North American Leaders Summit (NALS) and offer their perspectives on how the governments of the United States, Canada, and Mexico can work collaboratively to increase North American competitiveness. Representatives from the Department of State, Department of Commerce, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy, and National Security Council as well as representatives from the governments of Mexico and Canadawill be in attendance. The Dialogue is a direct fulfillment of a commitment made at NALS by the United States.

Thursdays Dialogue will be divided into two sessions, both held at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. The first session will focus on economic competitiveness; the second session will focus on energy, environment, and climate. Although the event is not open to the press, after the event, the Wilson Center will publish a summary of the key themes discussed and launch a feedback page on the Centers website, allowing interested parties to contribute further to the discussion.
Anniversary of Guinea Stadium Massacre

Washington, DC - Seven years ago this week, Guinea suffered a terrible tragedy when more than 150 civilians participating in peaceful demonstrations were brutally massacred and more than 100 were raped by state security forces. Since then, the Guinean people have worked to establish a more peaceful and democratic society, and to seek justice for crimes committed during the massacre.

The United States commends those who have bravely spoken out about such crimes and Guineas efforts to hold those responsible to account. We applaud the efforts of the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict for her support to the Government of Guinea in investigating these atrocities.

We encourage the Government of Guinea to continue to make progress in the investigation of the stadium massacre, and the United States remains committed to providing support for efforts to establish justice and accountability in Guinea. Today, as tangible evidence of our commitment, the United States announced $1.4 million in additional funding to partner with the Guinean Ministry of Justice on an Atrocity Accountability and Reconciliation Project. Ensuring accountability for those who are responsible for the massacre will help prevent future outbreaks of political violence in Guinea, provide victims with a measure of justice, strengthen peace and prosperity for the Guinean people, and provide a positive example for others across the globe to emulate.
Nigeria National Day Message

Washington, DC - Secretary of State John Kerry: "On behalf of President Obama and the American people, I congratulate the citizens of Nigeria as you celebrate your Independence Day on October 1.

"I recently returned from my third trip to Nigeria as Secretary, and I came away with a strong sense of the nations resolve to build a better future. During my trip, I was reminded that many Nigerians are engaged in bringing people together across the divides of culture, religious practices, and ethnicity. There is still much work to be done to provide economic opportunities for all, end corruption, win the fight against Boko Haram, ensure broad respect for human rights and provide humanitarian relief for millions of displaced people. But we know that Nigerians are hard at work to address these challenges.

"The United States looks forward to deepening our partnership and friendship with Nigerians from all walks of life, so that we may work together for the betterment of Nigeria and all of Africa."
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In 2007, British student Meredith Kercher was found murdered in her apartment in Perugia, Italy and what followed was a media frenzy surrounding Amanda Knox, one of the case's lead suspects.

Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito - whom she'd known for only a week prior to the murder - were charged and later acquitted having been deemed the victims of a miscarriage of injustice by the Italian police force.

This new Netflix documentary places the microscope upon the story and includes testaments from both Knox and Sollecito as well as lead prosecutor Guiliano Mignini and British journalist on the scene, Nick Pisa.

 Amanda Knox Netflix Trailer

These are the most eye-opening quotes featured in Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn's documentary.

Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 Show all 14 1 /14 Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 House of Cards - Season Four - 4 March Last time we were in Frank Underwoods White House things werent looking to great for the President, his first Lady having just walked out on him. What will happen next in the critically acclaimed show is anyones guess. Netflix Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 Daredevil - Season Two - 18 March Back in Hells Kitchen things were seemingly getting better. Kingpin is in prison and the crime syndicates should have dispersed - for the meantime at least. Unfortunately for Matt Murdoch, theres a new anti-hero in town: The Punisher. Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 Flaked - 11 March According to Netflix, Flaked is set in the insular world of Venice, California. It follows the serio-comic story of a self-appointed 'guru' who falls for the object of his best friends fascination. Soon the tangled web of half-truths and semi-b******* that underpins his all-important image and sobriety begins to unravel. Arnett plays Chip, a man doing his honest best to stay one step ahead of his own lies. Netflix Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Season Two - 15 April Following the story of 29-year-old Kimmy Schmidt on her journey through New York, season two is set to start right where the last left us. The Tina Fey created sitcom has already been renewed for a third season, so you know this one has to be good. Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 The Ranch - 1 April A comedy starring Ashton Kutcher. Based on a failed semi-pro footballer who returns home to a Colorado ranch. It also has some of the producers from Two and a Half Men behind it, which just happens to be one of the most successful shows of all time. Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 Marseille - 5 May Netflixs first French language original is a tale of power, corruption and redemption. Sounding like it could very well be the next Narcos. Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 Grace and Frankie - Season Two - 6 May The tale of a retired cosmetics mogul and a hippie art teacher living together was a hit across the world, especially in the US. Starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, the show has already been renewed for a third season. Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 Orange is the New Black - Season Four - 17 June Another Netflix powerhouse, Orange is the New Black will see us returning to Litchfield Penitentiary. Prepare for more Piper, Alex and Red come June. Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 Stranger Things - 15 July Eight-episode series starring Winona Ryder that follows a small community as they look for a young boy who has seemingly vanished. It all sounds quite scary. Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 The Get Down - August 12th "Told through the lives and music of a ragtag crew of South Bronx teens, The Get Down is a mythic saga of the transformation of 1970s New York City. Directed by Baz Luhrmann, this is sure to be as stylish as anything hes done before. Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 The Crown - Spring Starring Doctor Who actor Matt Smith, the period drama reveals the political rivalries and romance behind Queen Elizabeth II's reign and the events that shaped the 2nd half of the 20th century." Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 Luke Cage - Fall 2016 First appearing alongside Jessica Jones in her Netflix series, Luke Cage will pic up the pieces, seeing Cage come to terms with his super-strength and impenetrable skin. It is unknown whether Kathryn. Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 Narcos - Season 2 - Fall 2016 Its back. The Netflix series hyped to match Breaking Bad was an astounding success around the world, apparently watched more than Game of Thrones. Well find out what happens to Pablo Escabar now he doesnt have the protection of all his men. Netflix Inc. Netflix originals to look forward to in 2016 A Series of Unfortunate Events - Fall 2016 Netflix is set to revisit the much-loved childrens novel, putting Neil Patrick Harris as Count Olaf in a show that looks so much creepier than the 2004 film. Not much else is known - i.e. casting - but Lemony Snicket is on board as executive producer, so get excited.

Knox

"There are those who believe my innocence and there are those who believe in my guilt. There's no inbetween - either I'm a psychopath in sheep's clothing or I am you."

Knox on her time in Italy before the murder

"I was living with these Italian women and a British girl my age who was super sophisticated [Kercher] and we had this beautiful house that overlooked this valley. I was owning it.

Mignini after arriving at the crime scene

Outside, I saw two young people [Knox and Sollecito]. They were comforting each other with an affection inappropriate for the moment."

Pisa on breaking the autopsy results story

"To see your name on the front page with a great story that everyones talking about - its just a fantastic buzz. I'd like to say its like having sex or something like that."

Sollecito recounting the time he arrived at the apartment before the discovery of Kercher's body

I saw all this mess. It was very weird and I was a little bit surprised that [Knox] took a shower inside her house without having the anxiety of it."

Raffaele Sollecito

Mignini addressing Knox's changing alibi

"Amanda had a very unusual way of reasoning. She kept going between dream and reality."

Knox on the discovery of the murder weapon with her DNA on it.

The knife I could not explain. There are no reasons for my DNA to be on the handle and Merediths DNA to have been on the blade. It was impossible.

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Sollecito on his relationship with Knox

"I was very shy. And I didnt date girls. So when I was with Amanda, I was so happy to enjoy life and to enjoy my new relationship. Why should I go and murder a girl?"

Mignini on Knox

"Amanda was a girl that was very uninhibited. Hearing Merediths friends convinced me if you could imagine a girl different from Amanda in every imaginable way, it would have been Meredith."

Knox after being found guilty and imprisoned to 26 years in prison

Suddenly, I found myself tossed into this dark place. I thought about suicide. I thought about all the ways that I could do it. Me not coming home again until I'm in my 50s, until members of my family have died - I was poisoned."

Sollecito speaking about his feelings for Knox following their imprisonment

I was thinking about Amanda and I wanted to send her flowers on her birthday to say. "Im here." But she clearly told me that her feelings were completely changed. Even though Id known her only for five days, those five days were everything,

Independent forensic expert Dr. Stefano Conti on the unstable state of the crime scene

"You could see a lot of coming and going of people without protective suits. In other words, total chaos.

Amanda Knox with her fiance and mother by her sides (AP)

Knox on the botched DNA report

"You're trying to find the answer in my eyes when the answer is right over there. You're looking at me. Why? These are my eyes - they're not objective evidence

Knox on life in Seattle following her release

"I get into a line at the grocery store and the person behind me's like 'Woah, it's you. I know you.' And I really want to turn to them and go 'Who the f*ck are you? And you don't know me'."

Mignini on Knox and Sollecito's acquittal

"If they're guilty and earthly justice didn't get to them, I hope they own their guilt because I know that life ends with a final trial."

Amanda Knox is available to watch on Netflix now
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The Paris climate change deal  hailed as a landmark step in the fight against global warming  is to be ratified by the European Union in a move that will bring the international treaty into force.

EU ministers approved the ratification at an extraordinary meeting of the Environment Council.

The agreement, already ratified by the US and China, the worlds biggest polluters, becomes binding after at least 55 countries who are responsible for 55 per cent of total emissions formally sign up.

Ratification by the EU, which is responsible for 12 per cent of global emissions, would take it over the threshold, allowing the treaty to come into force before the end of this year, some four years earlier than planned.

Concern has been growing over the pace of climate change, with a group of leading climatologists warning this week that the planet could hit 2C of warming  the level at which it is thought the effects will become dangerous  by 2050 or even sooner.

They warned that the measures promised at Paris would not be enough and called for the doubling or tripling of efforts.

The EU ministers decision is expected to be backed by the European Parliament next week, after which the EU will formally submit its ratification to the United Nations  before individual countries such as the UK have done so.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said: I am happy to see that today the member states decided to make history together and bring closer the entry into force of the first-ever universally binding climate change agreement.

We must and we can hand over to future generations a world that is more stable, a healthier planet, fairer societies and more prosperous economies.

This is not a dream. This is a reality and it is within our reach. Today we are closer to it.

Miguel Arias Canete, EU Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, admitted that some had doubted the 28-nation bloc would be able to agree to act so quickly.

Todays decision shows what Europe is all about: unity and solidarity as member states take a European approach, just as we did in Paris, he said.

We are reaching a critical period for decisive climate action. And when the going gets tough, Europe gets going.

 'Dangerous' climate change could arrive as early as 2050

The UK's climate change and industry minister, Nick Hurd, gave the green light to adopting the Paris agreement at the meeting.

The Paris climate agreement is an ambitious and landmark deal. I welcome todays agreement, pushing forward EU ratification of the Paris climate change agreement, he said.

Following the Prime Minister's announcement last week at UN General Assembly, the UK will complete its domestic approval process by the end of the year.

Climate change protests around the world Show all 25 1 /25 Climate change protests around the world Climate change protests around the world People rally to promote climate protection in Rome, Italy Climate change protests around the world Hundreds of demonstrators gather in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA Climate change protests around the world People hold hands to form a human chain during a gathering called by ecologist organisations in Marseille, southern France, to protest against global warming a day ahead of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21) held in Paris Climate change protests around the world Demonstrators clash with French riot police during protests on Place de la Republique, ahead of the COP21 World Climate Change Conference 2015 in Paris, France Climate change protests around the world Demonstrators clash with French riot police during a protest on Place de la Republique ahead of the COP21 World Climate Change Conference 2015 in Paris, France Climate change protests around the world A group of people perform during a rally to promote climate protection in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Climate change protests around the world A protester sits next to his sign that reads 'Monsanto the Devil Incorporated ' as he joined hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA Climate change protests around the world Environmentalists dance during a protest near the Place de la Republique after the cancellation of a planned climate march following shootings in the French capital, ahead of the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21), in Paris, France Reuters Climate change protests around the world People protest next to characters dressed as wild animals during a march against climate change near the Monument to the Revolution, in Mexico City AP Climate change protests around the world Protesters carries a banner while they take part in a protest about climate change at New York City Hall steps in lower Manhattan, New York Reuters Climate change protests around the world People take part in a protest about climate change around New York City Hall at lower Manhattan, New York Reuters Climate change protests around the world People rally to promote climate protection in Piazza Castello, Turin, Italy Climate change protests around the world A woman holds a globe during a protest for the global climate day in Lugano, Switzerland Climate change protests around the world Yemenis hold banners as they participate in the Global March for Climate in the old city of Sanaia, Yemen Climate change protests around the world Protesters dressed as Santa Claus take part in a protest about climate change at New York City Hall steps in lower Manhattan, New York Reuters Climate change protests around the world People gather at the Legislative Palace in Montevideo, during the Global Climate March to demand action on climate change telling world leaders on the eve of a crunch UN summit that there is "no planet B". From Sydney to London, humid Rio to chilly New York, at least 683,000 hit the streets in 2,300 events across 175 countries at the weekend, co-organiser and campaign group Avaaz said, calling it the largest number of people to protest over climate change all at once Getty Images Climate change protests around the world Climate change protests around the world Demonstrators participate in the Global March for Climate in Athens, Greece Climate change protests around the world A man wearing a Bernie Sanders mask leads hundreds of demonstrators who marched near City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA Climate change protests around the world Patricia Hauser joined hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, California Climate change protests around the world A woman holds a poster of a sick Earth as she joined hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA Climate change protests around the world Hundreds of demonstrators march around City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA Climate change protests around the world A demonstrator holds cut-out of US Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as she joined hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA Climate change protests around the world George Patten holds a sign that reads 'No Fracking Ever!' as he joined hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA Climate change protests around the world Gabrielle Sosa wears 'Rising Sea Levels' sign as she joined hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, California EPA

Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said the speed at which the deal was being approved was "truly remarkable".

Its striking not only in the context of global climate talks, which for so many years moved at glacial pace  its very unusual for Governments to bring any major treaty into force in less than a year, he said.

Its tempting to say that this breakneck speed is the result of signals from the natural world, such as having 16 straight months of record-breaking temperatures and the final refutation of the global warming pause narrative.

But another equally important factor is in many nations, led by China, a clean energy revolution is taking off driven by economics as well as climate concerns  which makes cutting emissions much easier.

He agreed the pledges made at Paris were not enough to keep global warming well below 2C  the target agreed at the summit.

But the Paris deal contains measures to ratchet up national commitments, and its astoundingly quick entry into force raises the prospects of tighter emission cuts down the line that could yet steer the world away from dangerous climate change, as the majority of citizens globally want, Mr Black added.

Molly Scott Cato MEP, the Green Partys spokesperson on EU relations, said the EU had been crucial for the fight against dangerous climate change, setting targets that prevented our Government from totally crushing the renewable energy sector.

But as we prepare to leave the EU it is a worrying fact that many of those who campaigned to leave and are now steering our course and are deeply sceptical about climate change and not remotely interested in pushing for a renewable energy transition," she said.

"So it is critical at this time that climate campaigners, those from the renewable energy sector, progressive politicians; indeed, anyone who cares about a safe and secure future, work together. We need to pile pressure on the government to sign the Paris Agreement without further delay.
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Whether youre intending to take a sober sabbatical or just trying a spot of moderation management, these grown up, non-alcoholic options are a world away from the sugar-laden softies we grew up with.

Solving the dilemma of what to drink when youre not drinking, the innovative new brands on the market offer something for every occasion, be it an aperitif to share with friends or a mocktail for one, weve got it covered.

More of us are shunning alcohol than ever before in the quest for better health, sounder sleep, clearer skin or to raise much-needed funds for charity. Macmillan Cancer Supports Go Sober For October campaign is growing by the day, with so far more than 56,000 people signed up to the challenge. So if youve been sitting on the fence, waiting to jump on the wagon, wed say now is the time.

The team behind food and drink review site Crummbs have quaffed their way through a long list of grown-up soft drinks to bring you their favourite bottles and cans.

1. Seedlip Spice 94 70cl: 23.95, The Whisky Exchange

Shying away from the standard fruity and sweet offerings, Seedlip is the world's first distilled non-alcoholic spirit. It combines six individually-distilled barks, spices and citrus peels to create a complex blend best sipped long with tonic or short with brine as a non-alcoholic martini. Blended and bottled in England, the unique distilling process (similar to that of gin), boasts zero calories, is sugar, sweetener and artificial flavour-free, making it the go-to option for those looking for a credible alternative to alcohol. Whats more, the beautifully designed bottle (featuring a cool taxidermy and topiary mash-up design on the label) will take pride of place on your drinks trolley.

Buy now

2. Nix & Kix Mango & Ginger with Cayenne Chilli 275ml: 17.95 for a Case of 12, Yumbles

Weve all heard the celebrity-endorsed health benefits of Cayenne pepper  speeding up metabolism, fat burning and mood boosting among others - but London-based Nix & Kix is a new, award-winning brand using the spice to create great-tasting drinks  without the need to use refined sugar. There are three flavours to choose from. Our favourite is this one; rich mango is complemented and balanced by the zing of ginger. The result? A grown-up soft drink thats less sweet than most, but with plenty of flavour to keep your taste buds happy.

Buy now

3. Jarr Kombucha Passion Fruit 473ml: 6.50, Planet Organic

If raw fermented Japanese tea sounds a bit scary, its because it is (for Crummbs anyway). While we couldnt quite get on board with the sweet and sour original Kombucha, the addition of pure Ecuadorian passion fruit by East-London Kombucha pioneers Jarr, gave a refreshing burst of tropical flavour that was far more palatable to Kombucha newbies. Add to that the numerous health benefits - naturally occurring probiotics, antioxidants, vitamins and enzymes - that can do good things for your gut when you dont feel like boozing, this one is a winner. Expect to get three-four glasses from each bottle and it doesn't need mixing with anything.

Buy now

4. LemonAid Organic and Fairtrade Blood Orange Drink 330ml: 6.36 for a pack of 4, Ethical Superstore

In this you get dark and sweet blood orange from Sicily, more orange from Brazil, topped up with grapefruit, lemon, a hint of cherry, and a little cane sugar. Made from organic, Fairtrade ingredients that are sourced from small-holders, this is a decidedly more ethical take on supermarket lemonade. As one of the sweetest softies we tried, its probably best saved for a treat now and then.

Buy now

5. Double Dutch Pomegranate & Basil 20cl: 1.45, 31 Dover

Dutch twins Raissa & Joyce de Hass award-winning recipes are inspired by molecular gastronomy and hitting the sweet spot with their balance of flavours. Made with 100 per cent natural ingredients and containing just 66 calories a bottle, the harmonious combo of refreshing basil, underlying anise tones and sweet but tart pomegranate is perfect served over ice. We completely forgot there was no gin in our glass.

Buy now

6. Daylesford Sparkling Apple & Bilberry Juice 75cl: 3.99, Ocado

In a chic champagne-style bottle youd be proud to display at dinner, this lightly sparkling juice would make the ideal aperitif when celebrating with friends. Grown in organic orchards near Nantes in north-west France, the fruits are ripened on the trees and bushes for the fullest flavour and harvested using traditional methods. The little ones in your life will no doubt try to get their hands on this too.

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7. Elderbrook: from 9.99 for 3 bottles, Elderbrook

Wow, a product that makes us actually look forward to the next glass of water! The basics are easy  pour enough cordial to just cover the bottom of your glass, add still or sparkling water, drink. The not squash cordials are a blend of super-good-for-you natural ingredients (Lime, Mint & Baobab or Yuzu, Lemon & Lucuma anyone?) and use coconut nectar to sweeten. Whats really exciting is the beautiful bottles are delivered to your door monthly so sit back and let the magical power of superfoods come to you.

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8. Belvoir Organic Elderflower Cordial 500ml: 2.92, Ocado

With a huge selection of innovative flavours, youre bound to find a Belvoir you love. Elderflower is perhaps the brands most well-known cordial (it has 90 acres of its own organic elderflower plantations). This one is ideal for pouring into pitchers and sharing with friends, add plenty of ice and a sprig of mint. It can even be used in baking  as seen in Bake Offs recent Botanical Week.

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9. Ugly Water Lemon & Lime 330ml: 1.15 per can, Planet Organic

This is a clever one because its just water  no sugar, no sweetener, nothing artificial. Yet it tastes like a full flavoured can of pop, without any of the nasty sickly sweet flavour youd normally have to put up with. If you order soda and lime in the pub, this ones for you. We particularly enjoyed reading all the zeros under nutritional info (calories, fat, sugar, etc)  theres nothing Ugly about that.

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Verdict

The worlds first distilled non-alcoholic spirit, award-winning Seedlip has solved the ever-growing need for a sophisticated alternative to alcohol for those not drinking. Although at the pricier end of the spectrum, a little goes a long way and there are a huge number of ways you can serve it.

For more food and drink reviews, chef interviews and recipes, see crummbs.co.uk
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The cheers of the Brexiteers in response to some moderately encouraging post-referendum economic figures are suddenly starting to sound hollow.

Nissan, which operates in Sunderland one of Europes biggest and best car plants, has issued a rather stark warning.

Chief executive Carlos Ghosn says the car maker will defer decisions on whether to build new generations of its existing models until it knows whether or not it will face tariffs for exporting to the EU.

Recommended Read more Nissan demands Brexit compensation deal before making UK investment

New generations of existing models, remember. Sunderland can probably kiss any brand new models goodbye. Theyll almost certainly be made in countries that havent chosen to shoot themselves in their economic feet.

You cant blame Mr Ghosn for standing pat. It is true that the Sunderland plant is one of the most efficient and profitable in Europe owned by either Nissan or Renault, with which the Japanese firm holds a manufacturing alliance.

However, many of the 500,000 models the plant churns out every year are destined for EU markets. If accessing those markets suddenly gets more expensive, as will happen if tariffs are applied to Britain's exports to the EU, that plant will look a lot less efficient and profitable.

Weve heard similar messages from other companies that make cars in Britain, such as Jaguar Land Rover and Ford, which has scaled back investment in its engine works at Brigend in Wales.

Cynics will at this point raise the issue of what else Mr Ghosn has had to say, namely that he might be prepared to rethink his plans if the Government is prepared to compensate Nissan for any tariffs it might face.

It does seem like a shakedown is afoot. But Brexiteers like the odious Liam Fox, Secretary of State for International Trade, have created the conditions for Mr Ghosn to be able to do that so they have only themselves to blame.

Mr Fox still appears to think that he can have his cake and eat it with the EU. Trade barriers hurt everyone, he said in a widely reported speech that is being seen as the harbinger of a hard Brexit in which Britain would leave the European single market as well as the EU.

Well yes, Liam, they do. But theyll hurt the UK a lot more than they will hurt the EU once the UK is out. See above. And there are no compelling reasons for the EU to grant UK a sweetheart deal. Au contraire. If it does, others may be banging on its doors asking for the same, with Switzerland and Norway at the head of the queue.

EU leaders will also fear the prospect of others following the UK down its mad road, perhaps the Eastern European members of the Visegrad Group who arent overly fond of Brussels themselves.

Of course, we dont currently face any trade barriers with Europe, and we have deals in place with large parts of the world thanks to our membership of the EU, deals which will all be lost as a result of the lunatic decision to quit.

If Nissan and its peers follow through with their warnings  and there is no reason to think that they are bluffing  jobs will be lost. Well-paid manufacturing jobs in economically deprived areas where jobs are hard to find.

Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled  leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year.

You wonder whether Mr Fox has given any thought to what he might replace them with? More calls centres? You wonder whether the people of Sunderland and the other places that voted in favour of Brexit will be so pleased with their decisions after the redundancy notices have been posted.

It wont just be car workers getting them. Those who work in industries servicing their employers will also be affected as will those employed at businesses that rely on their incomes. Then there are all the jobs that won't be created as business investment in this country falls off a cliff.

Will Mr Fox, a wealthy man who will be all but immune from the economic fallout of Brexit, be welcomed if he visits the affected areas after this has happened? Probably not a question worth asking. I doubt hell have the guts.

Download a free Brexit action plan and investment ideas from Independent partner, Hargreaves Lansdown.
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Japanese car giant Nissan has threatened to scrap a potential new investment in the UKs biggest car plant, in Sunderland, unless the British Government pledges to reimburse firms for the hit it could take from the UKs vote to leave the EU.

Carlos Ghosn, the chief executive of Nissan, said UK car makers should get compensation for any tariffs that may be imposed after Brexit.

The plant in Sunderland, which produces about a third of the UKs car output, is heavily dependent on exports to the single market.

Ghosn said: If I need to make an investment in the next few months and I cant wait until the end of Brexit, then I have to make a deal with the UK Government.

If there are tax barriers being established on cars, you have to have a commitment for carmakers who export to Europe that there is some kind of compensation.

The site in Sunderland is Nissans biggest factory in Europe. It employs almost 7,000 people and supports a further 20,000 in the local supply chain.

What experts have said about Brexit Show all 11 1 /11 What experts have said about Brexit What experts have said about Brexit Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond The Chancellor claims London can still be a world financial hub despite Brexit One of Britains great strengths is the ability to offer and aggregate all of the services the global financial services industry needs This has not changed as a result of the EU referendum and I will do everything I can to ensure the City of London retains its position as the worlds leading international financial centre. Reuters What experts have said about Brexit Yanis Varoufakis Greece's former finance minister compared the UK relations with the EU bloc with a well-known song by the Eagles: You can check out any time you like, as the Hotel California song says, but you can't really leave. The proof is Theresa May has not even dared to trigger Article 50. It's like Harrison Ford going into Indiana Jones' castle and the path behind him fragmenting. You can get in, but getting out is not at all clear Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Michael OLeary Ryanair boss says UK will be screwed by EU in Brexit trade deals: I have no faith in the politicians in London going on about how the world will want to trade with us. The world will want to screw you  that's what happens in trade talks, he said. They have no interest in giving the UK a deal on trade Getty What experts have said about Brexit Tim Martin JD Wetherspoon's chairman has said claims that the UK would see serious economic consequences from a Brexit vote were "lurid" and wrong: We were told it would be Armageddon from the OECD, from the IMF, David Cameron, the chancellor and President Obama who were predicting locusts in the fields and tidal waves in the North Sea" PA What experts have said about Brexit Mark Carney Governor of Bank of England is 'serene' about Bank of England's Brexit stance: I am absolutely serene about the  judgments made both by the MPC and the FPC Reuters What experts have said about Brexit Christine Lagarde IMF chief urges quick Brexit to reduce economic uncertainty: We want to see clarity sooner rather than later because we think that a lack of clarity feeds uncertainty, which itself undermines investment appetites and decision making Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Inga Beale Lloyds chief executive says Brexit is a major issue: "Clearly the UK's referendum on its EU membership is a major issue for us to deal with and we are now focusing our attention on having in place the plans that will ensure Lloyd's continues trading across Europe EPA What experts have said about Brexit Colm Kelleher President of US bank Morgan Stanley says City of London will suffer as result of the EU referendum: I do believe, and I said prior to the referendum, that the City of London will suffer as result of Brexit. The issue is how much What experts have said about Brexit Richard Branson Virgin founder believes we've lost a THIRD of our value because of Brexit and cancelled a deal worth 3,000 jobs: We're not any worse than anybody else, but I suspect we've lost a third of our value which is dreadful for people in the workplace.' He continued: "We were about to do a very big deal, we cancelled that deal, that would have involved 3,000 jobs, and thats happening all over the country" Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Barack Obama US President believes Britain was wrong to vote to leave the EU: "It is absolutely true that I believed pre-Brexit vote and continue to believe post-Brexit vote that the world benefited enormously from the United Kingdom's participation in the EU. We are fully supportive of a process that is as little disruptive as possible so that people around the world can continue to benefit from economic growth" Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Kristin Forbes American economist and an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England argues that the economy had been less stormy than many expected following the shock referendum result: For nowthe economy is experiencing some chop, but no tsunami. The adverse winds could quickly pick up  and merit a stronger policy response. But recently they have shifted to a more favourable direction Getty

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders SMMT) backed his warning, saying that Theresa Mays Government should step in to maintain the competitiveness of the sector.

Mike Hawes, SMMTs chief executive, said: The Government must do all it can to maintain the competitiveness of the UK automotive sector, which has been hugely successful in boosting exports, creating jobs and generating economic growth in recent years.



UK car exports

SMMT

Ghosns comments came only two days after Hanno Kirner, executive director at Jaguar Land Rover, said that post-Brexit trade barriers imposed on the UK car industry would frankly be disastrous if the right deal is not reached.

If Britain failed to conclude a free trade deal with the rest of the EU and was forced to fall back on basic World Trade Organisation rules, British car exporters could face tariffs of up to 10 per cent.

Some 57 per cent of the 1.6 million cars made in Britain are purchased by buyers in the rest of the EU. The next largest market is the US (12 per cent), followed by China (7 per cent).
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Concerns about Deutsche Banks health have rattled Europes financial stocks on Friday morning as the bank's shares hit new lows.

Deutsche Banks shares extended losses overnight in New York trading, taking the banks share price below 10 (8.60) for the first time ever on Friday morning.

Deutsche's woes hit bank shares across Europe with Lloyds Banking group, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland all falling by more than 4 per cent per cent at the start of trading in London.

Commerzbank, Germany's second-biggest lender, was down by nearly 6 per cent.

Swiss, French and Italian banks were down by about the same amount.

Understandably the European markets are rattled. The FTSE has now lost all of the 2016-high grazing growth it managed yesterday, falling back below 6850 in part thanks to the near 5 per cent declines seen by Barclays and RBS, Conner Campbell of SpreadEx said.

The DAX, meanwhile, dropped by nearly 200 points, with the CAC the worst performing major index at a 2.1pc slide thanks to the heavy losses incurred by BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole and Societe Generale, he added.

John Cryan, the chief executive of Deutsche Bank, has written a memo to the 100,000 staff insisting that the company has a strong foundation, in an attempt to reassure them that the bank's finances are strong.

There are forces now under way in the markets that want to weaken confidence in us, Cryan said.

Our job now is to ensure that this distorted perception does not more strongly influence our day-to-day business, he added.

On Wednesday, the German government has denied it is considering injecting billions of euros into Deutsche Bank, following reports from a German newspaper it was preparing an emergency rescue package.

Deutsche has been under pressure since it emerged that the US Department of Justice (DoJ) has proposed a $14 billion (10.6 bn) fine to settle civil claims regarding its handling of mortgage-backed securities that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis.

Biggest business scandals in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Biggest business scandals in pictures Biggest business scandals in pictures Volkswagen emissions scandal VW admitted to rigging its US emission tests so that diesel-powered cars would looks like they were emitting less nitrous oxide, which can damage the ozone layer and contribute to respiratory diseases. Around 11 million cars worldwide were affected. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Martin Shkreli and Turing Pharmaceuticals Martin Shkreli became known as the most hated man in the world after his drug company, Turing, increased the price of a 62-year-old drug that treated HIV patients by 5,000% to $750 a pill. He was charged with illegally taking stock from Retrophin, a biotechnology firm he started in 2011, and using it pay off debts from unrelated business dealings. Shkreli, who maintains he is innocent, and says there is little evidence of fraud because his investors didn't lose money. Biggest business scandals in pictures Panama Papers: Millions of leaked documents expose how worlds rich and powerful hid money - April 2016 Millions of confidential documents have been leaked from one of the worlds most secretive law firms, exposing how the rich and powerful have hidden their money. Dictators and other heads of state have been accused of laundering money, avoiding sanctions and evading tax, according to the unprecedented cache of papers that show the inner workings of the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which is based in Panama. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Google's tax avoidance Google reached a deal with the HM Revenue and Customs to pay back 130 million in so-called back-taxes that have been due since 2005. George Osborne championed the deal as a major success. But European MEPs have since called for the Chancellor to appear in front of the committee on tax rulings to explain the tax deal. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Rogue trader A French court cut the damages owed by rogue trader Jerome Kerviel from 4.9bn (4.2bn) to just 1m (860,000). The court ruled on that Kerviel was partly responsible for massive losses suffered in 2008 by his former employer Societe Generale through his reckless trades. Kerviel has consistently maintained that bosses at the French bank knew what he was doing all along. AP Biggest business scandals in pictures Barclays CEO under investigation for trying to identify whistleblower - Monday Paril 10 Authorities have launched an investigation into Barclays chief executive officer Jes Staley for trying to identify a whistleblower, the bank said on Monday. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) are both investigating Mr Staley after the bank notified them that Mr Staley had tried to identify the author of two anonymous letters, which were sent to the board and a senior executive in June 2016. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures UK to crack down on bank money laundering after reports of 65bn Russian scam, City minister says - March 2017 The Economic Secretary to the Treasury has vowed that the Government will crack down on money laundering practices, after several of the UK's biggest banks were accused of processing money from a Russian scam, believed to involve up to $80bn (65bn). Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Former HBOS bankers convicted of bribery and fraud over 245m loan scam - February 2017 Two former HBOS bankers were among six people found guilty of bribery and fraud that cost customers and shareholders hundreds of millions of pounds, the BBC reports. Lynden Scourfield, 54, a manager at HBOS, forced struggling clients to use the services of his friends David Mills, 60, and Michael Bancroft, 73. In return, the two businessmen arranged sex parties, cash and lavish gifts. On Monday, the three were convicted at Southwark Crown Court on accounts including bribery, fraud and money laundering. Mark Dobson, another manager at HBOS, Alison Mills, and John Cartwright were also convicted. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Lloyds chief apologises for damage caused by affair allegations - August 2016 Antonio Horta-Osorio, the chief executive of Lloyds Bank, has broken his silence over allegations about his private life admitting he regrets any "damage done to the group's reputation". In a message sent to the bank's 75,000 employees, the banker said that anyone can make mistakes while insisting that staff had to maintain the highest professional standards. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Christine Lagarde faces court over 340m Bernard Tapie payment - July 2016 The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde, must stand trial in France over a payment of 403 million (now 340m, then 290m) to tycoon Bernard Tapie, a France's highest appeals court has ruled. The court rejected Ms Lagarde's appeal against a judge's order in December for her to stand trial over allegations of negligence in her handling of the affair. Ms Lagarde could risk a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a fine of 15,000 euros if convicted. Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures HSBC senior manager arrested in FX rigging investigation at JFK airport in New York - July 2016 A senior executive at HSBC has been arrested at New York's JFK airport for his alleged involvement in a conspiracy to rig currency benchmarks, according to reports. Mark Johnson, global head of foreign exchange cash trading in London, was reportedly arrested on Tuesday. He will appear before a federal court in Brooklyn on Wednesday charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, Bloomberg said. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Former PwC employees found guilty in 'Luxleaks' tax scandal - June 2016 Two ex- PricewaterhouseCoopers staffers were found guilty in Luxembourg of stealing confidential tax files that helped unleash a global scandal over generous fiscal deals for hundreds of international companies. Antoine Deltour and Raphael Halet face suspended sentences of 12 months and 9 months and were ordered to pay fines of 1,500 (1,230) and 1,000 (822) for their role in the so-called LuxLeaks scandal. Despite the minimal sentences, the ruling was described by Deltours lawyer as shocking and a terrible anomaly. The ruling puts on guard future whistle-blowers, Deltour told reporters.The LuxLeaks revelations sped beyond Luxembourg, causing European Union regulators to expand a tax-subsidy probe and propose new laws to fight corporate tax dodging, while EU lawmakers created a special committee to probe fiscal deals across the 28-nation bloc. Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Goldman Sachs dealmakers lavished Libyan officials with prostitutes to win contract - June 2016 A former Goldman Sachs dealmaker trying to persuade Gadaffi-era Libya to invest $1 billion with the investment bank procured prostitutes and invited Libyan officials to lavish parties in the hope of winning the business, the High Court heard on Monday June 13.The Libyan Investment Authority sovereign wealth fund is suing Goldman Sachs for inappropriately coercing its naive staff into giving its sovereign wealth fund cash to the bank to invest in products they did not understand. The products were designed to generate big profits for Goldman, the LIA claims.Goldman denies wrongdoing and says the LIA was treated as an arms-length customer Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Former boss of BHS said his life was threatened - June 2016 Darren Topp, the former boss of BHS, has said former owner Dominic Chappell threatened to kill him when he challenged him over a 1.5 million transfer out of the business. MPs on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee asked Mr Topp about a 1.5 million transfer Mr Chappell made from BHS to a company called BHS Sweden. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley admits paying workers below the minimum wage - June 2016 Mike Ashley admitted paying Sports Direct employees below the minimum wage at a hearing in front of MPs. The company founder said that workers were paid less than the statutory minimum because of bottlenecks at security in an admission that could result in sanctions from HMRC. Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Mitsubishi admits improper fuel tests - April 2016 Mitsubishi has admitted to using false fuel methods dating back to 1991. The scale of the scandal is only just coming to light after it was revealed in April that data was falsified in the testing of four types of cars, including two Nissan cars. AP Biggest business scandals in pictures Quindell, the scandal-ridden insurance firm Quindell was once a darling of AIM but its share price fell in April 2014 when its accounting practices were attacked in a stinging research note by US short seller Gotham City. In August the group was forced to disclose that the 107 million pre-tax profit it had reported for 2013 was incorrect, and it had in fact suffered a 64million loss. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Toshiba Accounting Scandal The boss of Toshiba, the Japanese technology giant, resigned in disgrace in the wake of one of the countrys biggest ever accounting scandals. His exit came two months after the company revealed that it was investigating accounting irregularities. An independent investigatory panel said that Toshibas management had inflated its reported profits by up to 152 billion yen (780m) between 2008 and 2014. Biggest business scandals in pictures FIFA Corruption Scandal Fifa, football's world governing body, has been engulfed by claims of widespread corruption since the summer of 2015, when the US Department of Justice indicted several top executives. It has now claimed the careers of two of the most powerful men in football, Fifa President Sepp Blatter and Uefa President Michel Platini, after they were banned for eight years from all football-related activities by Fifa's ethics committee. A Swiss criminal investigation into the pair is ongoing. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Libor fraudster City trader Tom Hayes, 35, has become the first person to be convicted of rigging Libor rates following a trial at London's Southwark Crown Court. Hayes worked as a trader in yen derivatives at UBS before joining the American bank Citigroup in Tokyo. He was fired from Citigroup following an investigation into his trading methods. He returned to the UK in December 2012 and was arrested following a two-and-a-half year criminal investigation by the SFO. Getty

The German-based bank is among many financial institutions investigated over dealings in discreditable mortgages in the run-up to the financial crisis. The government has accused the banks of misleading investors about the quality of their loans.

Deutsche Bank has lost about 43 per cent of its market value this year. Net income decreased to 18 million (15m) from 796 million a year earlier.

John Cryan, has been cutting risky assets, freezing dividend payments and eliminating about 9,000 staff to boost capital levels.

In June, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that of the banks big enough to bring the financial system crashing down, Deutsche Bank was the riskiest.
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Charlo Greene, the news reporter who quit her job on live television by outing herself as the owner of the Alaskan Cannabis Club and saying f*ck it, is facing more serious criminal charges than the eight counts previously announced.

Ms Greene, whose club was hit by an undercover police sting, has been handed a total of 14 charges with the possibility of up to 54 years in prison  more than double the original indictment of a possible 24 years.

While working as a reporter for KTVA, a station in Alaska, Ms Greene revealed she was the owner of the club, which was the subject of her news report, and was in favour of the legalisation of cannabis in the US state.

Now everything you heard is why I, the actual owner of the Alaska Cannabis Club, will be dedicating all of my energy toward fighting for freedom and fairness which begins with legalising marijuana here in Alaska, she said.

And as for this job, well, not that I have a choice but, f**k it, I quit, she said, before abruptly walking off-air on 22 September 2014. Within hours, the 26-year-old had become a viral star.

Since then, Ms Greene has made a name for herself as a cannabis advocate and has spent her time campaigning for people to access marijuana after Alaska became the third state in the US to legalise recreational marijuana in November 2014.

However, this has not ended well.

Documents supplied by the state attorney general's office to The Independent reveal detectives immediately targeted the operation with six undercover purchases and two raids in the space of five months.

Ms Greene has been charged with ten offences for either the supply or possession of cannabis over one ounce on a number of different dates when detectives visited the club. These charges carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison each.

She has also been charged with four more minor offences for the supply or possession of smaller amounts, wihich carry the threat of one year in prison each.

An earlier document also supplied by the office showed the eight original charges made towards Ms Greene and set out details showing she was not directly involved in any of the undercover transactions made, yet state prosecutors exclusively charged her, noting the club was registered in her name.

Where cannabis is and isn't legal Show all 10 1 /10 Where cannabis is and isn't legal Where cannabis is and isn't legal UK Having been reclassified in 2009 from a Class C to a Class B drug, cannabis is now the most used illegal drug within the United Kingdom. The UK is also, however, the only country where Sativex  a prescribed drug that helps to combat muscle spasms in multiple sclerosis and contains some ingredients that are also found in cannabis - is licensed as a treatment Getty Where cannabis is and isn't legal North Korea Although many people believe the consumption of cannabis in North Korea to be legal, the official law regarding the drug has never been made entirely clear whilst under Kim Jong Uns regime. However, it is said that the North Korean leader himself has openly said that he does not consider cannabis to be a drug and his regime doesnt take any issue with the consumption or sale of the drug MARCEL VAN HOORN/AFP/Getty Images Where cannabis is and isn't legal Netherlands In the Netherlands smoking cannabis is legal, given that it is smoked within the designated smoking areas and you dont possess more than 5 grams for personal use. It is also legal to sell the substance, but only in specified coffee shops Getty Where cannabis is and isn't legal USA Although in some states of America cannabis has now been legalised, prior to the legalisation, police in the U.S. could make a marijuana-related arrest every 42 seconds, according to US News and World Report. The country also used to spend around $3.6 billion a year enforcing marijuana law, the American Civil Liberties Union notes AP Photo/Ted S. Warren Where cannabis is and isn't legal Spain Despite cannabis being officially illegal in Spain, the European hotspot has recently started to be branded, the new Amsterdam. This is because across Spain there are over 700 Cannabis Clubs  these are considered legal venues to consume cannabis in because the consumption of the drug is in private, and not in public. These figures have risen dramatically in the last three years  in 2010 there were just 40 Cannabis Clubs in the whole of Spain. Recent figures also show that in Catalonia alone there are 165,000 registered members of cannabis clubs  this amounts to over 5 million euros (4 million) in revenue each month Getty Where cannabis is and isn't legal Uruguay In December 2013, the House of Representatives and Senate passed a bill legalizing and regulating the production and sale of the drug. But the president has since postponed the legalization of cannabis until to 2015 and when it is made legal, it will be the authorities who will grow the cannabis that can be sold legally. Buyers must be 18 or older, residents of Uruguay, and must register with the authorities Getty Where cannabis is and isn't legal Pakistan Despite the fact that laws prohibiting the sale and misuse of cannabis exist and is considered a habit only entertained by lower-income groups, it is very rarely enforced. The occasional use of cannabis in community gatherings is broadly tolerated as a centuries old custom. The open use of cannabis by Sufis and Hindus as a means to induce euphoria has never been challenged by the state. Further, large tracts of cannabis grow unchecked in the wild Getty Where cannabis is and isn't legal Portugal In 2001, Portugal became the first country in the world to decriminalize the use of all drugs, and started treating drug users as sick people, instead of criminals. However, you can still be arrested or assigned mandatory rehab if you are caught several times in possession of drugs Getty Where cannabis is and isn't legal Puerto Rico Although the use of cannabis is currently illegal, it is said that Puerto Rico are in the process of decriminalising it RAUL ARBOLEDA/AFP/Getty Images Where cannabis is and isn't legal China Cannabis is grown in the wild and has been used to treat conditions such as gout and malaria. But, officially the substance is illegal to consume, possess and sell Getty

Ms Greene, whose legal name is Charlene Egbe, has pleaded not guilty, with a trial expected to be held in the following months.

Its almost dizzying when you try to make sense of it, Greene told The Guardian. It could literally cost me the rest of my adult life.

Although Alaska legalised the manufacture, sale and possession of marijuana in 2014, it only came into effect in February 2015. Even though the state had not settled its regulations for retail operations in the interim provisional period, the Alaska Cannabis Club reportedly allowed people to purchase memberships and supplied marijuana when members made donations.
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A former beauty queen has hit back at an online attack by Donald Trump - accusing him of cheap lies and slander.

In the early hours of Friday, the Republican candidate unleashed a volley of tweets, some of them addressing what he termed the inaccuracy of media reports and some relating to his rival Hillary Clinton. He also accused Ms Clinton of helping 1996 Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado obtain US citizenship, though he offered no evidence to support the claim.

Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a US citizen so she could use her in the debate? read one tweet from from Mr Trump, 70, that was published at 5.30am.

Ms Machado hit the headlines following her 1996 victory when he claimed she had put on weight and forced the Venezuelan-born woman to fly to New York where he invited the media to watch her exercise at a gym. This is somebody who likes to eat, Mr Trump told the reporters.

Ms Clintons referred to the incident during the first presidential debate on Monday when she talked about the way he repeatedly insulted women.

On Friday, Ms Machado, 39, hit back at Mr Trump, accusing him of generating attacks and insults, and trying to revive slurs and false accusations about my life.

The attacks that have emerged are cheap lies and slanders generated with bad intentions, she added. I will keep standing, sharing my story, [and offer] my absolute support to Ms Clinton on behalf of women, my sisters, aunts, grandmothers, cousins, friends and the female community.

Ms Clinton also responded to Mr Trumps comments. What kind of man stays up all night to smear a woman with lies and conspiracy theories, she said.

She added: Alicia deserves praise for courageously standing up to Trump's attacks.

At a rally on Friday in Coral Springs, Florida, Ms Clinton said the episode underscores that Mr Trump is temperamentally unfit to be commander-in-chief.

With barely a month to go before the election, Mr Trump is battling to find traction among women voters.
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Greys Anatomy star Jesse Williams questioned a police officer on the alarming number of black students who are arrested compared to white students in Florida.

The interview, as part of upcoming series America Divided, took place with Pinellas County officer Mike Hawkins.

Williams asked Hawkins to respond to numbers from the Southern Poverty Law Centre, which show that Pinellas is third in the state for the disproportionate number of arrests of black students. Pinellas County also arrests three times as many black students as in Miami, a city which has three times the number of students.

Mr Hawkins was one of two black officers in the force.

Thats alarming, listening to that numbers, Mr Hawkins responded, but did not take responsibility for the figures.

He described the system of trying to calm down students, including using a taser gun.

He said it was rare that an elementary school student would face charges.

Asked whether Mr Hawkins felt like a representative of his force, he said he was only a representative of himself and any other questions should be directed to his supervisor.

Williams, best known for his role as Dr Jackson Avery on the medical drama series, has become an outspoken advocate of racial equality. His Humanitarian Award acceptance speech at the BET awards was both widely praised and condemned.

I'm here for all the incredible protestors, activists, attorneys, organisers that are sacrificing [an] incredibly great deal to be heard and get access to equal rights and justice in this country, he said.

[The BET Awards] recognising me is really recognising them in my view, and I think that means that we're getting traction.

A petition following his speech to fire the actor gathered more than 19,000 signatures.
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First things first: Debra Messing, who for eight years played one-half of the odd couple Will & Grace, is absolutely positively with her.

Ive been a passionate Hillary Clinton supporter and advocate, said the actress. We know.

Shes fresh off a trip to Ohio stumping for the Democratic presidential nominee. She spoke at the Democratic National Convention in July. And then theres that Twitter dust-up Messing had with actress Susan Sarandon, who supported Bernie Sanders.

Messings personal message is clear  Hillary or bust  but she wants fans to know that the election-themed Will & Grace reunion that hit YouTube on Monday, the night of the first presidential debates, isnt about Clinton.

Although Graces support of Clinton just so happened to align completely with the actresss own views, the nine-and-a-half minute sketch in which Grace, Will (both Clinton supporters) and Karen (in the bag for Donald Trump) try to persuade an undecided Jack to vote, she said, was not a Clinton ad. The point was to get folks to the polls on Nov. 8.

Votes are the great equalizer, Messing said. It doesnt matter if youre wealthy, it doesnt matter what color your skin is, or what religion you are, every vote is weighted equally and it is our greatest privilege as Americans.

Another reason Messing said yes to the top secret one-day shoot in Los Angeles? She needed the break.

Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States Show all 11 1 /11 Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: A passerby kisses a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: A passerby looks at a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: A passerby takes a picture of a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: People gather around a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: People gather around a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: A passerby hugs a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle.(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: A passerby has a picture taken with a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: A passerby has a picture taken with a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 18: Park authorities haul away a statue of a naked GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump that appeared in Union Square Park this morning on August 18, 2016 in New York City. The illegally placed statue drew hundreds of curious onlookers, who took selfie picture with the statue, which was signed "Ginger." A published report attributed the work to the anarchist collective INDECLINE, which titled the project "The Emperor Has No B--s." (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 18: A molded foot is all that remains of a statue of naked GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump that appeared in Union Square Park this morning on August 18, 2016 in New York City. The illegally placed statue drew hundreds of curious onlookers, who took selfie picture with the statue, which was signed "Ginger." A published report attributed the work to the anarchist collective INDECLINE, which titled the project "The Emperor Has No B--s." (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 18: Park authorities haul away a statue of a naked GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump that appeared in Union Square Park this morning on August 18, 2016 in New York City. The illegally placed statue drew hundreds of curious onlookers, who took selfie picture with the statue, which was signed "Ginger." A published report attributed the work to the anarchist collective INDECLINE, which titled the project "The Emperor Has No B--s." (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Getty Images

I knew it would be a great reprieve to just go and laugh and have fun, said Messing, wholl be working full-time for the Clinton campaign until Election Day.

If Will & Grace, a show that Vice President Biden credited with changing the countrys views on the LGBT community, were still on the air, the series would be tackling the 2016 race, she said.

There is no question the writers would have a field day with the wild happenings of this election cycle, said Messing.

So has Clinton watched the first episode of Will & Grace in 10 years thats about her but not about her? Messing hasnt heard directly from the former secretary of state, but praise has trickled down the ranks.

I heard through [a contact] that the entire campaign was overjoyed and delighted by the video, Messing said.

Washington Post.
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Scientists may have discovered why birds never seem to crash into one another  they appear to always veer to the right.

Just like cars drive on the right of the road in France or the US to avoid collisions, budgerigars were found to turn the same way when they find they are on a collision course.

Discovering the basic rules of safe flying that have evolved in birds over millions of years could help program drones to avoid collisions as the skies become more crowded.

Professor Mandyam Srinivasan, of Queensland University in Australia, who led the research, said: Birds must have been under strong evolutionary pressure to establish basic rules and strategies to minimise the risk of collision in advance.

But no previous studies have ever examined what happens when two birds fly towards each other.

Our modelling has shown that birds always veer right  and sometimes they change their altitude as well, according to some pre-set preference.

As air traffic becomes increasing busy, there is a pressing need for robust automatic systems for manned and unmanned aircraft, so there are real lessons to be learned from nature.

In pictures: Starling murmurations in Britain Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Starling murmurations in Britain In pictures: Starling murmurations in Britain UK Tens of thousands of starlings start their murmuration, with Criffel mountain in the background, as dusk falls near Gretna Green on the England and Scotland border In pictures: Starling murmurations in Britain UK Tens of thousands of starlings start their murmuration, with Criffel mountain in the background, as dusk falls near Gretna Green on the England and Scotland border In pictures: Starling murmurations in Britain UK Tens of thousands of starlings start their murmuration, with Criffel mountain in the background, as dusk falls near Gretna Green on the England and Scotland border In pictures: Starling murmurations in Britain UK Tens of thousands of starlings start their murmuration, with Criffel mountain in the background, as dusk falls near Gretna Green on the England and Scotland border In pictures: Starling murmurations in Britain UK Tens of thousands of starlings get ready to start their murmuration, with Criffel mountain in the background, as dusk falls near Gretna Green on the England and Scotland border In pictures: Starling murmurations in Britain UK Tens of thousands of starlings start their murmuration, with Criffel mountain in the background, as dusk falls near Gretna Green on the England and Scotland boarder In pictures: Starling murmurations in Britain UK Tens of thousands of starlings start their murmuration, with Criffel mountain in the background, as dusk falls near Gretna Green on the England and Scotland border In pictures: Starling murmurations in Britain UK Tens of thousands of starlings start their murmuration, with Criffel mountain in the background, as dusk falls near Gretna Green on the England and Scotland boarder In pictures: Starling murmurations in Britain UK Tens of thousands of starlings start their murmuration, with Criffel mountain in the background, as dusk falls near Gretna Green on the England and Scotland border In pictures: Starling murmurations in Britain UK Tens of thousands of starlings start their murmuration, with Criffel mountain in the background, as dusk falls near Gretna Green on the England and Scotland border

Two budgies were released at opposite ends of a tunnel and their flight path was filmed by a high-speed camera.

In more than 100 flights by 10 different birds, there was not a single crash.

Another finding was that birds would rarely fly at the same height, and this raises the question of whether individual birds have a specific preference for flying higher or lower, Professor Srinivasan said.

It might be that their position in the group hierarchy determines their flight height. This is a question for further research.

While we cant say how birds solve the problem of switching to different altitudes, we can propose some simple strategies for autopilot systems and unmanned aerials vehicles to prevent head-on collisions.

The research, described in a paper in the PLOS One journal, was partly funded by Boeing Defence Australia.
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A drunk driver crashed into a shop while going 75mph in a 30mph zone.

Andrew Devine was allegedly showing off to his girlfriend, who suffered serious injuries, when he crashed into a Poundland Store in Liverpool.

The 24-year-old broke his nose while his girlfriend, Robyn Hinxman, 22, broke her collarbone and wrist.

Devine apparently drove on the wrong side of the road to avoid cameras and sped through red lights, according to the Liverpool Echo. He also smashed the window of a Coral betting shop when he crashed into the Poundland next door.

When police arrived at the scene Devine reportedly said, I know what Ive done, Im sorry, but then refused to give a blood sample.

Judge Thomas Teague, QC, said that, despite Ms Hinxman not wanting her partner to go to prison, he could not suspend the inevitable sentence.

You are in all other respects a hard working member of society. You admit you had been showing off to your girlfriend.

The views of the victim cannot be decisive, he said, the Liverpool Echo reported.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters 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

Devine has three prior convictions for eight offences which include careless driving and drink driving. He was given two years in prison and banned from driving for four years.
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The top lawyer in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has quit, only a day after being suspended from his role.

Ben Emmerson QC decided to step down from his post of senior counsel after two years in the job.

In his resignation letter to inquiry chairwoman Professor Alexis Jay, Mr Emmerson said he would be "sad" to leave but was clear that he remained "totally committed to securing a fair and just result for those who matter most, the victims and survivors of childhood abuse."

He added: "Shortly after you took over, you announced a review of the inquiry's ways of working to identify any changes that may be necessary in the public interest.

"When you decided to re-appoint me as counsel to the inquiry in early September, I had my personal doubts about whether I was genuinely the right person to steer that review process.

"Since then, it has become clear to me that I am not the person to take this review forward on your behalf. It is now time for someone else to take the helm with a different leadership of the Counsel team.

"There is no truth in suggestions that I have resigned due to a difference of opinion with you about the next steps for the inquiry."

Professor Jay confirmed she accepted Mr Emmersons decision and also said there was no truth in suggestions of a difference of opinion between them.

Mr Emmerson was suspended on Wednesday amid reports he was about to resign.

His departure was announced only hours after Elizabeth Prochaska, the second most senior lawyer in the inquiry, also resigned from her position.

In a statement following Ms Prochaska's resignation, the inquiry refuted the claim it was in crisis. "This is simply not the case, and the chair and panel are united in their determination to see this important work through to a conclusion," it said.

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

Labour MP Chuka Umunna, who is looking to become the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, initially said he was concerned about Mr Emmerson being suspended.

As an MP to the principal survivors' group I'm extremely concerned about Mr Emmerson's suspension, yet another blow to the search for justice, Mr Umunna said on Twitter.

Prime Minister Theresa May had earlier said the really important inquiry would go ahead, adding that it still retained both her and Home Secretary Amber Rudd's full confidence.
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The discovery of ancient tombs may stop police digging in search of the missing toddler Ben Needham on the Greek island of Kos.

South Yorkshire police flew out to search a 2.5 acre site after new information emerged that the 21-month-old toddler, who went missing while holidaying on Kos in 1991, may have been accidentally crushed by a digger whose driver then covered up his body.

The 19-strong British team has already found an area of decomposition in a cesspit near where the toddler was last seen, and have begun digging at the base of a fig tree thought to have been planted soon after Ben, from Sheffield, vanished.

But the Greek landowner Stefano Troumouhis, 33, and his lawyer have reportedly arrived on site claiming there are "issues" over police continuing to dig because officers have also discovered what appear to be ancient tombs.

The Daily Mirror has reported that Mr Troumouhis is worried that if his land is deemed to be of archaeological interest, he will not be able to cultivate it and it will be ruined as farmland.

 Ben Needham's mother speaks after new evidence arises

But the British police officers said the digging will continue unless and until they are ordered to stop by a local magistrate.

Detective Inspector Jon Cousins, of South Yorkshire Police, also said that if a magistrate did order his team to stop digging, he would immediately take legal action to appeal.

Mr Cousins said: If magistrates' permission is withdrawn, it will be my intention to seek immediate judicial authority to search this area of land."

He added: Mr Troumouchis raised with me concerns about the discovery of what appear to be ancient tombs, [but] so far I have not had any contact from the magistrate to say that we must stop conducting the important work we are doing.

"My priority is to ensure that disruption to the operation that my team are running remains at an absolute minimum.

Masses of soil has already been excavated from where police believe Ben may have been buried, and experts are sifting through it by hand.

The search, which started earlier this month, is believed to have prompted by detectives receiving new intelligence following a TV appeal in May.

A friend of Konstantinos Barkas, also known as Dino, is reported to have told investigators that Mr Barkas was clearing land with an excavator close to where Ben was playing on the day he vanished and may be responsible for his death.

Mr Barkas was interviewed by police at the time of the toddlers disappearance.

He reportedly died of stomach cancer last year aged 62. His family has denied any connection with Bens death.

Bens mother Kerry Needham has already been warned to "prepare for the worst".
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Cameras worn by the police dramatically cut the number of complaints against officers, research shows.

A research team from Cambridge University worked with almost 2,000 police officers across four UK police forces and two US police departments and monitored levels of complaints before and after the introduction of body worn cameras.

The study showed complaints from the public fell by 93 per cent over 12 months, compared with the year before.

Lead author, Dr Barak Ariel, from Cambridge Universitys Institute of Criminology said no other intervention in the history of policing had seen such a profound effect.

Body-worn cameras have been introduced to police forces across the world in a bid to increase transparency amid widespread concerns over police legitimacy and the disproportionate targeting of ethnic minorities.

But previous studies into the cameras effectiveness have been limited in depth.

The Cambridge study recorded officers working over 1.4 million beat hours on more than 4,000 shifts.

The findings, published in the journal Criminal Justice and Behaviour, showed that before the introduction of the cameras, the police forces received a combined number of complaints totalling 1,539 over a 12-month period  amounting to 1.2 complaints per officer.

After the police were given cameras, the complaints against them fell to a total of 113 over the 12-month trial period. This amounted to just 0.08 complaints per officer  a fall of 93 per cent.

Dr Ariel said the cameras increase accountability for both police officers and the public and said the findings suggest a profound sea change in modern policing.

Announcing the results, he said: There can be no doubt that body-worn cameras increase the transparency of frontline policing. Anything that has been recorded can be subsequently reviewed, scrutinised and submitted as evidence.

Individual officers become more accountable, and modify their behaviour accordingly, while the more disingenuous complaints from the public fall by the wayside once footage is likely to reveal them as frivolous.

The cameras create an equilibrium between the account of the officer and the account of the suspect about the same event  increasing accountability on both sides.

The study involved police forces in the West Midlands, Cambridgeshire, West Yorkshire, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, along with Rialto and Ventura police departments in California.

Even among control groups of police officers, who were not given cameras on specific weeks during the trial, the level of complaints still plummeted.

The research team describes this phenomenon as contagious accountability resulting in large scale behavioural change in police officers, and to some extent the public.

But the study warned that cameras must be switched on throughout interactions to have a net positive effect.

The research team found that officers who switched their cameras on mid-way through an interaction, were more likely to use force against suspects, and were more likely to be assaulted, as it could be viewed as escalating the situation.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters 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

The jolt of issuing a verbal reminder of filming at the start of an encounter nudges everyone to think about their actions more consciously. This might mean that officers begin encounters with more awareness of rules of conduct, and members of the public are less inclined to respond aggressively, said Dr Ariel.
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Britains most senior operational police officers have expressed concern over Brexit and said it will take years of onerous work if the UK is to retain the same level of cooperation with Europe that it needs to combat international organised crime, human trafficking and terrorism.

Lynne Owens, director general of the National Crime Agency (NCA), Britains equivalent of the FBI, said that her European crime-fighting colleagues had been shocked by Junes Brexit vote, but were keen to continue cooperating.

In its bluntest form, she said, We must be able to continue to exchange information. We must be able to understand the movement of criminals and criminal behaviour.

Her deputy director general David Armond is now chairing a group of senior UK crime and anti-terrorism enforcement officials to tell the Conservative politicians negotiating Brexit what kind of Europe-wide operational cooperation needs to be retained.

Mr Armond said: Obviously, we are concerned. To protect the public in our country we need the ability to share intelligence fast-time, to exchange information and to cooperate operationally.

Its going to be a lot of work over the next few years to make sure we are in the right place. Its going to be sleeves rolled up, hard yards to get to that position.

He added that under the current, pre-Article 50 provisions for European cooperation in crime fighting, there are certain mechanisms that exist within Europe at the moment that make some of that fairly straightforward.

One particular concern about Brexit, Mr Armond said, was the European Arrest Warrant which since 2004 has made it easier to extradite criminals fleeing UK justice in the EU, helping to ensure fewer British gangsters seek sanctuary in places such as the Costa del Sol, once nicknamed the Costa del Crime.

Mr Armond said: Things like the European Arrest Warrant are going to be tricky. We cant stay within that. We have got to negotiate a series of new treaties with overseas territories about extradition. The issue of Europol membership was, he added, was interesting.

What experts have said about Brexit Show all 11 1 /11 What experts have said about Brexit What experts have said about Brexit Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond The Chancellor claims London can still be a world financial hub despite Brexit One of Britains great strengths is the ability to offer and aggregate all of the services the global financial services industry needs This has not changed as a result of the EU referendum and I will do everything I can to ensure the City of London retains its position as the worlds leading international financial centre. Reuters What experts have said about Brexit Yanis Varoufakis Greece's former finance minister compared the UK relations with the EU bloc with a well-known song by the Eagles: You can check out any time you like, as the Hotel California song says, but you can't really leave. The proof is Theresa May has not even dared to trigger Article 50. It's like Harrison Ford going into Indiana Jones' castle and the path behind him fragmenting. You can get in, but getting out is not at all clear Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Michael OLeary Ryanair boss says UK will be screwed by EU in Brexit trade deals: I have no faith in the politicians in London going on about how the world will want to trade with us. The world will want to screw you  that's what happens in trade talks, he said. They have no interest in giving the UK a deal on trade Getty What experts have said about Brexit Tim Martin JD Wetherspoon's chairman has said claims that the UK would see serious economic consequences from a Brexit vote were "lurid" and wrong: We were told it would be Armageddon from the OECD, from the IMF, David Cameron, the chancellor and President Obama who were predicting locusts in the fields and tidal waves in the North Sea" PA What experts have said about Brexit Mark Carney Governor of Bank of England is 'serene' about Bank of England's Brexit stance: I am absolutely serene about the  judgments made both by the MPC and the FPC Reuters What experts have said about Brexit Christine Lagarde IMF chief urges quick Brexit to reduce economic uncertainty: We want to see clarity sooner rather than later because we think that a lack of clarity feeds uncertainty, which itself undermines investment appetites and decision making Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Inga Beale Lloyds chief executive says Brexit is a major issue: "Clearly the UK's referendum on its EU membership is a major issue for us to deal with and we are now focusing our attention on having in place the plans that will ensure Lloyd's continues trading across Europe EPA What experts have said about Brexit Colm Kelleher President of US bank Morgan Stanley says City of London will suffer as result of the EU referendum: I do believe, and I said prior to the referendum, that the City of London will suffer as result of Brexit. The issue is how much What experts have said about Brexit Richard Branson Virgin founder believes we've lost a THIRD of our value because of Brexit and cancelled a deal worth 3,000 jobs: We're not any worse than anybody else, but I suspect we've lost a third of our value which is dreadful for people in the workplace.' He continued: "We were about to do a very big deal, we cancelled that deal, that would have involved 3,000 jobs, and thats happening all over the country" Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Barack Obama US President believes Britain was wrong to vote to leave the EU: "It is absolutely true that I believed pre-Brexit vote and continue to believe post-Brexit vote that the world benefited enormously from the United Kingdom's participation in the EU. We are fully supportive of a process that is as little disruptive as possible so that people around the world can continue to benefit from economic growth" Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Kristin Forbes American economist and an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England argues that the economy had been less stormy than many expected following the shock referendum result: For nowthe economy is experiencing some chop, but no tsunami. The adverse winds could quickly pick up  and merit a stronger policy response. But recently they have shifted to a more favourable direction Getty

And, Mr Armond admitted, the NCA was also in the midst of working with the UK Home Office to lobby for a common set of EU standards over firearms deactivation  a measure whose necessity was proved by the way terrorists involved in the Charlie Hebdo and November 2015 attacks in Paris used deactivated weapons that were made live again with relative ease.

Achieving common standards and getting other EU nations to move toward the UKs stricter firearms deactivation requirements, he admitted, will of course be more difficult outside the EU than in.

He insisted, however, that the French attacks had shown the importance of the issue and thus ensured that policy makers are much closer to reaching a conclusion.

While acknowledging the difficulties, Mr Armond was careful to qualify his comments by refusing to accept that Britain would lose crime-fighting capacity post-Brexit. He insisted that arrangements could still be made to ensure the UK law enforcement agencies remained involved in Europe-wide cooperation.

He said: It is not our job to wave bleeding stumps and say the world is going to end. Brexit is not a disaster. It is a complex set of arrangements, but I am confident we will get there. It will be onerous, but so is the whole issue of extracting the UK from the EU  that applies to the whole business of government.

Until Brexit happens, he said, the UK remains a full member of Europol and working full tilt. The UK, he said, currently has one of the largest liaison bureaux in The Hague working with the EU employees who form Europols inner core. This allows the UK to run fast-time operations with any group of member states.

Post-Brexit, he said, the UK might be able to become an operational cooperation only nation, like countries within the European Economic Area. This would ensure Britian could still join international operations, although intelligence sharing with Europol would then have to be done indirectly, via liaison officials. The UK would also remain a member of Interpol.

In comments that may raise eyebrows in other EU countries, Mr Armond also suggested it might be possible for the UKs Brexit negotiators to suggest staying inside the European Arrest Warrant system but outside the EU.

There is no example of a nation that is not part of the EU being involved in the European Arrest Warrant set-up, Mr Armond said, We could theoretically, if the Government decided it was a sensible approach, start with saying We are so interlinked in relation to our security, we would like to continue to be members of that particular aspect of the EU. Then out of that negotiation will come a sensible set of arrangements.

Pointing to the success of Briton Rob Wainwright, who took over as Europol director in 2009, he said: The Europeans need us as much as we need them  probably more so. Europol under UK management has become much stronger. I cant envisage a situation where we cant continue to do business with Europe.

And of course we already work with international partners all round the world. We are very experienced in doing this, sometimes with very difficult countries.
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Ministers have been accused of paving the way for more selective schools through the back door, skirting around what would be a risky vote in Parliament.

Campaigners against grammars have seized on a clause in Government proposals to allow multi-academy trusts (MATs) to create a single centre of excellence within their chain of schools.

They fear the trusts will move their brightest pupils into that centre  which will, effectively, become a grammar  while less academic children will be shunted to other sites

Becky Allen, director of the think-tank Education Datalab, said: I think [the Government] could circumvent the need for legislation to go down this route of selection within MATs.

The back door route to selection has been uncovered by the online magazine Schools Week, which has highlighted how the Department for Education (DfE) has shifted its ground.

 Grammar schools dominate PMQs

In March, Schools Week was told that schools could not select by ability and that any trust found to be moving its pupils around on this basis would be investigated for a breach of the school admissions code.

But it says the DfE appears now to have abandoned that stance, arguing instead that pupils of both low and high ability could be moved between schools in a multi-academy trust.

The green paper introduced by Education Secretary Justine Greening stated moving the brightest pupils into a centre of excellence is permissible.

10 best primaries and secondary schools Show all 20 1 /20 10 best primaries and secondary schools 10 best primaries and secondary schools Bousfield Primary, London SW5 (Primary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools Fox Primary, London W8 (Primary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools West London Free School Primary, London W6 (Primary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools William Tyndale Primary School, London (Primary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools St Peters Catholic Primary School, Hampshire (Primary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools St Stephen's Church of England Primary School, Bath (Primary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools Trinity Church of England, Gloucestershire (Primary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools Meadowside Primary School, North Yorkshire (Primary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools Bourne Abbey Church of England Primary School, Lincolnshire (Primary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools South Morningside Primary School, Edinburgh (Primary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools The Grey Coat Hospital, London SW1 (Secondary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools Highbury Grove, London N5 (Secondary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools Holland Park School, London (Secondary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools Dame Alice Owens, Hertfordshire (Secondary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools Cherwell School, Oxford 10 best primaries and secondary schools Cranbrook School, Kent 10 best primaries and secondary schools Kings School, Hampshire (Secondary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools Bishop Wordsworth's School, Wiltshire (Secondary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools Sexeys School, Somerset (Secondary school) 10 best primaries and secondary schools James Gillespies High School, Edinburgh (Secondary school)

Schools Week has been told that, providing pupils remain on the roll of the school they were admitted to  and receive some of their education there  schools could teach pupils at another school or site.

It quoted the DfE saying a school move should not be done without parental consent, but failing to state what action would be taken if parental consent was not granted.

But the DfE said it was wrong to say that it had changed its stance since March, because it had always been the case that MATs - and all schools - are able to stream by ability.

A spokeswoman said: Streaming pupils by ability is, and has always been, allowed at all schools, and helps teachers give every child an appropriately stretching education.

"Multi-academy trusts (MATs) have always been able to pool their resources to deliver these benefits on a larger scale and across different sites within the trust, and we want to see more do this.

The law is clear that trusts must not select pupils by ability at the point of admission, and streamed pupils must continue to receive some of their education at the school they are registered to.

However, Schools Week believes parents of pupils selected to enter a centre of excellence would consent to their child moving, arguing this would effectively turn the trusts remaining schools into secondary moderns.

Multi-academy trusts are believed to be uneasy about selection but, last week, Sir Dan Moynihan, chief executive of the Harris Federation, said he might be convinced to open a selective school.

A DfE spokeswoman said scrapping the ban on new grammar schools would provide stretching education for the most academically able, regardless of their background and help to eliminate the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers.

She added that there will be strict conditions that grammar schools must make sure they improve the education of pupils in every other part of the system. Theresa May is faced with possible defeat on her first flagship policy, after more than a dozen Tory backbenchers criticised grammars, some warning of the stigma for pupils denied places.
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Momentum vice-chair Jackie Walker is likely to be removed from her post on Monday, following comments she made about Holocaust Memorial Day and antisemitism.

The Independent understands that Ms Walker does not have the support of Momentums ruling steering committee and is likely to be removed from her post when it meets first thing next week.

The activist has resisted calls to quit after she questioned the definition of antisemitism and criticised Holocaust Memorial Day at an event in Liverpool this week.

However, Ms Walker is understood to have been suspended from the Labour party over the comments, according to reports on Friday night. While Labour said it did not comment on individual party memberships, the Press Association said it is understood Ms Walker has now been suspended.

In terms of Holocaust Day, wouldnt it be wonderful if Holocaust Day was open to all people who experienced Holocaust? she said at a training workshop on dealing with antisemitism at Momentums conference.

A number of people in the room immediately spoke out against Ms Walkers comments and told her that Holocaust Memorial Day already included commemoration of other genocides. She responded: In practice, its not actually circulated and advertised as such.

She added: I still havent heard a definition of antisemitism that I can work with.

Barbara Ntumy, a Momentum activist, said the comments were completely inappropriate and out of order.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking at a Momentum event at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in central London. (PA)

I think the Labour party and Momentum will deal with her properly, I do think her comments are vile, she told the BBCs Daily Politics programme on Friday.

I think that those comments are not acceptable in that room, theyre not acceptable anywhere, and I dont agree with her at all.

She added that Momentum and Labour should continue to denounce people when they make comments like this  which I think is completely appropriate and out of order.

Momentum supporters gather at Liverpools Black-E building for their fringe festival of politics (Getty)

Those comments come after the TSSA union threatened to withdraw funding and support to Momentum if Ms Walker is not removed from her position.

I am deeply saddened that a fellow member of our Labour and trade union family holds such anti-Semitic views, said Manuel Cortes, the general secretary of the TSSA.

Jeremy rightly spoke yesterday of the urgent need for our party to unite so we can take on the Tories. Frankly, we cant do this when people who hold such abhorrent racist views are allowed to remain active within our Party.

I am asking Jackie that in the interests of unity she resigns at once from our Party and also as vice-chair of Momentum.

If she doesnt, both the Labour Party and Momentum need to act to get rid of her at once. Furthermore, TSSA will reconsider our unions support for Momentum if she is still in post by this time next week.

In a statement Ms Walker said: In the session, a number of Jewish people, including me, asked for definitions of antisemitism. This is a subject of much debate in the Jewish community. I support David Schneiders definition and utterly condemn antisemitism.

I would never play down the significance of the Shoah. Working with many Jewish comrades, I continue to seek to bring greater awareness of other genocides, which are too often forgotten or minimised.

If offence has been caused, it is the last thing I would want to do and I apologise.

Ms Walker was previously suspended from Labour after she said Jewish people had financed the African slave trade.
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Sadiq Khan has ordered an inquiry into the scale and impact of foreign investment in the London housing market amid fears over a potential surge in money flowing in from overseas.

The Mayor of London said there was an urgent need for more transparency around the flow of offshore investment in property to ensure the capital is not being flooded with dirty money.

Spiralling prices in parts of central London have left many unable to get a foot on the property ladder, leading to concerns over gentrification and the creation of ghost towns where swathes of foreign-owned real estate lies empty.

The inquiry will map how the problem is affecting the capital, from the building of affordable homes to luxury developments, and attempt to examine who is investing and where the money comes from.

Outrageous property deals in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Outrageous property deals in pictures Outrageous property deals in pictures The Park Lane townhouse set to become one of the UK's most expensive student flats at 4,000 a week A town house situated in Park Lane, one of the most affluent places in London, is about to become the capitals most expensive student residence. Most of London students usually live in halls of residence before moving on to house-share. For this reason it is fair to say few will able to afford the 3,540 square foot three-bedroom flat, which is available for 4,000 a week, 16,000 per month or 192,000 per year. Wetherell Outrageous property deals in pictures London's most expensive flat goes on sale at Buckingham Palace near Buckingham Palace priced at 150m A luxury flat in Londons historic Admiralty Arch, which overlooks Buckingham Palace, could sell for up to 150 million. If sold for that price, the 15,000 sq ft apartment will become London's most expensive flat, topping One Hyde Park, a flat which sold for 140 million in 2014.The Grade I listed property boasts 12 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms Outrageous property deals in pictures Little White House inside the US embassy complex in London goes on sale for 2.5m A luxury home inside the US embassy complex has gone on sale for 2.5m. The property is said to be the most protected home in Britain and any visitor is asked to carry an identity card at all times. The complex has patrolling US marines, a 24-hour British police presence, checkpoints, anti-tanks blocks and CCTV.But potential buyers looking for a fortress should not get their hopes up as all the security will disappear once the US embassy moves to a new site in Nine Elms in 2017. The home, located at 4 Blackburnes Mews near Grosvenor Square, dates back to 1732 and owes its nickname to its white facade, grand entrance and sweeping staircase as well as its proximity to the US embassy. It provides nearly 3,000 sq ft of living space and benefits from access to communal gardens. Wetherell Outrageous property deals in pictures First London luxury flats to contain their own private art gallery with prices going from 3.8m up to 7.7m The first private luxury apartment building in London with its own private art gallery has been unveiled in March. The Chilterns at 24 Paddington Street contains 44 luxury residences, the majority of which were sold in 2013. It contains a signature restaurant, a 24 hour-hotel style concierge service, a gymnasium and sauna and a private cinema. The new art gallery, with original pictures of the area by David Bailey, is part of the lobby of the building and is one of the most exciting and unique features of the Chilterns, according to Stephen Conway, CEO of Galliard Homes. With prices going from 3.8 million up to 7.7 million for a three bedroom flat, the residence is located between the local shops of Marylebone High Street and Baker Street. Outrageous property deals in pictures Margaret Thatcher's Belgravia home is up for sale for 30m Margaret Thatchers six-floor townhouse in Belgravia is on the market for a cool 30 million. The Grade II listed building on No. 73 Chester Square, one of Londons most prestigious addresses, now boasts a lift, a newly constructed mews house with a roof terrace and a private garage after a three-year refurbishment by Leconfield, a development and construction company. Some features from Thatchers time at the property remain. The layout and design of the formal dining room and interlinking study on the ground floor has been reinstated exactly as the Iron Lady had it during her 22 years at the property, from 1991 until her death in 2013. Outrageous property deals in pictures Tiny London house that is just 10ft wide goes on market for 800,000 A tiny terraced house that measures no more than 10ft wide has gone on the market in south London for a staggering 800,000. The house, generally labelled "unique" by estate agent Foxtons, looks all the more unusual because it is sandwiched between two regular-sized homes. It doesn't even have a proper back door - images of the interior suggested renovators had sought to maximise the property's space by including a folding aperture to the similarly narrow back garden. Outrageous property deals in pictures The Mayfair penthouse that sold for 30 million A Mayfair penthouse on Albemarle Street, one of Mayfair's oldest roads, sold to a mystery buyer for 30 million in December. The 5,845 sq ft, three-bedroom family home is thought to be one of the most expensive properties sold in the capital this year, and comes with an annual service charge of 61,000. supplied by Estate agent Peter Wetherell Outrageous property deals in pictures The dilapidated pre-fab 'shed' sold for nearly 1 million A pre-fabricated bungalow in south-east London has sold at auction for just under 1 million. The 1950s property in Peckham comes with 0.6 acres of land, is in need of renovation and has no fitted bathroom, but still sold for 950,000. A guide price of 590,000 was initially set, but increased rapidly during the bidding. Google Maps Outrageous property deals in pictures The starter home flats that went for a combined 60 million Some 215 affordable starter homes, specifically designed for first time buyers, sold out in just three hours in November, after dozens of aspiring homeowners camped overnight and queued in bad weather to get their hands on the flats. The starter home flats at Trinity Square by Galliard Homes went for a combined 60 million, or an average of 700 per sq ft. Londoners looking for affordable housing did not hesitate to camp out for up to two days to snag a flat, despite the fact that the project will not be complete for another two years. Galliard Outrageous property deals in pictures The longest lateral flat where H.G wells hosted a book club: yours for 3.65m The 2,200 square foot apartment in Chiltern Court in Marylebone was also home to author Arnold Bennett and political cartoonist David Low. Now on the market for 3.65 million through Rokstone agency, the four-bedroom flat has been refurbished into a luxury apartment, providing an exceptional 40 meter window frontage and depth. It claims to be the longest and most outstanding lateral flat - ones that stretch the full width of a building, or sometimes across two buildings - currently for sale in Londons West End. Rokstone Outrageous property deals in pictures Gatti House: the flats with celebrity links and private "pizza" lift that sold for a collective 16.5 million Celebrity links, a famous history and a private pizza lift has helped set a new record for price per square foot for a block of flats in central London. The four flats have sold for a collective 16.5 million at Gatti House on Londons Strand. Gatti House, a magnificent grade II building built in 1867, was sold as four separate apartments priced from 2.95 million to 5.95 million by CBRE Residential and Beauchamp, which has completed the last remaining sale. CBRE Residential and Beauchamp Outrageous property deals in pictures Londons most expensive office A newly refurbished office in the heart of Mayfair measuring 6,000 sq ft was unveiled by Enstar Capital in October. At 500 per sq ft, it is set to be the most expensive commercial fit out ever undertaken in the West End, according to the developer. The workspace on 54 Brooks Mews features gold-plated executive washrooms inspired by Armani-hotel in Italy, timber flooring imported from a 16th century monastery in Tuscany and an Art Deco entrance restored with a new 54 entrance logo replicating Steve Rubells famous studio 54 nightclub logo from the seventies. While the directors floor include a rooftop terrace dressed with loungers and an outside meeting and dining table. Enstar Capital Outrageous property deals in pictures Former garage in Mayfair become worlds most expensive mews house at 24m in Mayfair In September, the worlds most expensive mews house, in Reevews Mews, sold to a Qatari buyer for an eye-watering 24 million. Outrageous property deals in pictures A penthouse where you canoe from your front door, yours for 16.95 million London luxury dockside complex located on Chelsea creek is due for completion by the end of 2016. But its luxury flats are already on sale including this penthouse yours for 16.95 million. Its future residents will be able to slip down the river for a work out on the water at anytime of the day. Outrageous property deals in pictures The only property in London too expensive for the citys super-rich property buyers A 45 bed-room mansion near Hyde Park, previously owned by a Saudi Prince, received a private bid for 280 million. If accepted this would have made the property he most expensive single home ever to be sold in Britain. It was originally listed with an asking price of 300 million more than double the price of the UKs second most expensive home.

Mr Khan told the Guardian that foreign investment in building new homes was welcome.

At the same time, as more and more Londoners struggle to get on the property ladder, there are real concerns about the prospect of a surge in the number of homes being bought by overseas investors, he said.

We urgently need more transparency around overseas money invested in London property.

Londoners need reassuring that dirty money isn't flooding into our property market, and ministers must now make all property ownership in London transparent so we can see exactly who owns what.

Mr Khan made his comments as property website Zoopla revealed that over 666,000 homes across the UK are now estimated to be worth at least 1 million, with nearly two thirds of those in London.

The rapid rise of property prices in the capital fuels interest from overseas investors, with the Chinese said to be the biggest buyers.

According to the Guardian, a booming middle class in China is expected to quadruple the amount of money it pours into the UK annually to 150 billion over the next 10 years.

It's clear we need to better understand the different roles that overseas money plays in London's housing market, the scale of what's going on, and what action we can take to support development and help Londoners find a home, Mr Khan said.

That's why we are commissioning the most thorough research on this matter ever undertaken in Britain - the biggest look of its kind at this issue - so we can figure out exactly what can be done.

Press Association
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Annie and Robin Korkki were experienced travelers, their brother, Chris, told the Associated Press.

"They were frequent travelers both domestically and internationally," Chris Korkki told the wire service. "They were kind and generous and compassionate, and were wonderful people that had a positive impact on a huge number of people."

The Korkki sisters  37-year-old Annie and 42-year-old Robin  died last week on an island in the Indian Ocean. The pair were vacationing in Seychelles; their bodies were reportedly discovered 22 September, but in the immediate aftermath of their deaths, few details were known.

The Seychelles News Agency reported last week that Annie and Robin Korkki were "unresponsive" when they were found at the Maia Luxury Resort and Spa, according to police.

They were taken to a medical center, where the sisters were "certified dead" by a doctor, police spokesman Jean Toussaint said in a statement released to the news agency. Authorities conducted a preliminary investigation of the bodies, the statement noted, but didn't find any "signs of violence."

"There were no marks on them whatsoever," Seychelles Tourism Minister Alain St. Ange told NBC News, "They had a good time in the day and then they went to their room."

Toussaint, the police spokesman, told Seychelles Nation that the sisters were drinking the night before and were helped to their villa by hotel personnel. A butler noticed that the villa's door was still locked the next morning. He alerted hotel personnel after the day continued without any movement in the room.

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. 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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. 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"From the observation done by our police officers, there was no disturbance in the room and the two sisters were found unresponsive on the same bed," Toussaint told Seychelles Nation.

Seychelles is off the east coast of Africa. According to the Seychelles News Agency, the sisters were scheduled to leave Saturday, and had arrived 15 September.

Chris Korkki told the AP that "his mother and brother have traveled to Seychelles for answers and to make arrangements to bring his sisters' bodies back to the US."

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"At this point, the only details we know are the articles flying around online," Chris Korkki told the Star Tribune. "My mom has been talking with people from the US Embassy. I dont think theyve provided her with any information."

The Star Tribune's report continued:

"The brother described his sisters as healthy and adventurous women who 'definitely wanted to experience life to the fullest'.

"He added, 'Two things keep going through my mind: This isn't happening, and we just want answers'."

In an email Thursday to The Washington Post, a State Department official referred questions about the investigation to local authorities.

"We are aware of the deaths of two U.S. citizens in the Seychelles last week," the email said. "We extend our deepest condolences to family and friends, and stand ready to provide all appropriate consular assistance."

The AP tried to check in with local authorities in Seychelles, as well as with the foreign ministry, but were unsuccessful in their attempts. NBC News also tried to get speak with those involved in the investigation, but their calls were not returned.

"It's all very surreal," Chris Korkki told KARE, an NBC affiliate in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. "We don't know very much in shock. We're devastated."

 Washington Post
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California has ended its 10-year statute of limitations for rape cases in the wake of the allegations of multiple historical sexual assaults by the comedian Bill Cosby.

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Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill on Wednesday, allowing prosecutors to file certain rape and child molestation charges without the previous 10-year time limit on when the incidents took place. The new measure will come into effect from January 2017, but will not work retroactively, meaning it does not apply to the existing allegations against Mr Cosby.

The statute of limitations on rape cases varies from state to state in the US, though California is the third to alter its laws since dozens of women came forward to accuse Mr Cosby, now 79, of a string of sexual assaults stretching from the 1960s to the 1990s. Colorado recently expanded the window for reporting sexual assaults from 10 years to 20. In 2015, Nevada extended the statute of limitations on rape charges from four to 20 years.

Mr Cosby, who continues to deny the charges against him, is due to go on trial in June 2017 accused of a sexual assault on a woman in Philadelphia in 2004. In Pennsylvania the statute of limitations on rape and sexual assault claims is currently 12 years.
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Donald Trump has been accused of believing in the racehorse theory of genetics, which claims some people are genetically superior to others.

In an interview for US TV channel PBS, the Republican presidential nominees biographer Michael DAntonio claimed the candidate's father, Fred Trump, had taught him that the familys success was genetic.

He said: The family subscribes to a racehorse theory of human development.

They believe that there are superior people and that if you put together the genes of a superior woman and a superior man, you get a superior offspring.

The theory, known as eugenics, first emerged during the 19th century and was used as a pretext for the sterilisation of disabled people until the practice was discredited after the Second World War.

Adolf Hitlers justification for the Holocaust - in which 11 million people were killed, 6 million of them Jewish - was based on a similar theory of racial hierarchy.

The PBS documentary featured clips of Mr Trump on the campaign trial claiming that he believes in the gene thing and saying he had a very high aptitude.

It also ran footage of previous interviews from the real estate magnate's time as a reality TV star in which he shared his thoughts on the subject, including a 2010 interview with CNN.

He said: Well I think I was born with the drive for success because I have a certain gene.

I'm a gene believer... Hey, when you connect two race horses, you usually end up with a fast horse.

I had a good gene pool from the standpoint of that, so I was pretty much driven.

Mr Trump has become notorious for his bravado on the campaign trail and claimed he could solve problems that have plagued policymakers for decades with ease because he is a smart guy.

Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States Show all 11 1 /11 Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: A passerby kisses a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: A passerby looks at a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: A passerby takes a picture of a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: People gather around a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: People gather around a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: A passerby hugs a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle.(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: A passerby has a picture taken with a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 18: A passerby has a picture taken with a statue depicting republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the nude on August 18, 2016 in San Francisco, United States. Anarchist collective INDECLINE has created five statues depicting Donald Trump in the nude and placed them in five U.S. cities on Thursday morning. The statues are in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 18: Park authorities haul away a statue of a naked GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump that appeared in Union Square Park this morning on August 18, 2016 in New York City. The illegally placed statue drew hundreds of curious onlookers, who took selfie picture with the statue, which was signed "Ginger." A published report attributed the work to the anarchist collective INDECLINE, which titled the project "The Emperor Has No B--s." (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 18: A molded foot is all that remains of a statue of naked GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump that appeared in Union Square Park this morning on August 18, 2016 in New York City. The illegally placed statue drew hundreds of curious onlookers, who took selfie picture with the statue, which was signed "Ginger." A published report attributed the work to the anarchist collective INDECLINE, which titled the project "The Emperor Has No B--s." (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Getty Images Naked Donald Trump Statue Appears Across The States NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 18: Park authorities haul away a statue of a naked GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump that appeared in Union Square Park this morning on August 18, 2016 in New York City. The illegally placed statue drew hundreds of curious onlookers, who took selfie picture with the statue, which was signed "Ginger." A published report attributed the work to the anarchist collective INDECLINE, which titled the project "The Emperor Has No B--s." (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Getty Images

In a December 2015 speech, he railed against the incompetence of the countrys leaders.

He said: People are fed up  they are fed up with incompetence, they are fed up with stupid leaders, they are fed up with stupid people.

At a rally in Washington, D.C. in September 2015, Mr Trump claimed that, if he became president, well win so much, youll get bored with winning.
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Eric Clapton, the British guitarist and song-writer, is once again showing off his acumen as an art collector, turning to Christies to sell a Gerhard Richter abstract purchased fifteen years ago.

The auction house says the work, Abstraktes Bild (809-2), will be featured in its Post-War and Contemporary Art sale in New York on 15 November.

With its bold strokes and vivid colouring, the oil-on-canvas work has been doing the exhibition rounds of Christies salesrooms, including in Paris and London, before arriving in New York in November to go under the gavel. It can be seen in London during the first week of October.

The painting, which is 7 feet in height, was one of a series of four painted by the German artist in 1994. One is in the joint collection of the Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland.

Mr Clapton, who has emerged as a canny mover of the world art market, purchased three of the works at auction in 2001. He paid only 2million ($3.2 million) for the three of them. One sold for $34.2 million in 2012 and a second for nearly $20.9 million in 2013.

The Bowie Collection. Frank Auerbach's Head of Gerda Boehm, 1965 (Sotheby's) (Sotheby's)

The art world is also agog at the coming sale by Sothebys of the collection of the late David Bowie, who, before his death this year, was another icon of the British music industry who also spent much of his energies surrounding himself with artworks.

Bowie Collector, which includes pieces by Damien Hirst, Henry Moore, Harold Gilman and Graham Sutherland, was on display at Sothebys in New York this week and is now en route to Hong Kong before it goes up for sale at Sothebys London also in November.

That sale will include among its most anticipated lots Jean-Michel Basquiats, Air Power, 1984, with an estimate 2,500,0003,500,000. Also in the sale will be Frank Auerbach's Head of Gerda Boehm, 1965, with an estimate of 300,000500,000.

Jean-Michel Basquiats, Air Power, 1984 (Sotheby's) (Sotheby's)

If the third Richter brings in the estimated $20 million next month, Mr Clapton will have reaped about $70 million altogether from the trio he bought in 2001. Thats about 20 times what he paid then. Its an amazing return in 15 years, Francis Outred, Christies chairman and head of postwar and contemporary art for Europe, Middle East, Russia and India told Bloomberg News.

When Mr Clapton sold the first of his Richters at Christies New York in 2012 for $34 million it went down in history as the highest price ever paid at auction for a living artist. It had only been expected to sell for between $14.5 million and $19.3 million.

Prices for works for Mr Richter, who is now 84 years old, have, however, suffered something of a slump in recent years. Two of his works at both Christies and Sothebys were withdrawn this year and, according to Artprice, his auction sales are down 92 per cent since their peak in 2012.

The Clapton sale in November will be a test of whether his appeal in the international market might once again pick up.
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When Fabiola Bittar de Kroon dropped her young daughter off at daycare on Thursday morning, she was in a rush.

She stopped for a quick chat with the daycare director, then headed to Hoboken train station in New Jersey.

As the corporate lawyer waited on the platform around 9am, the approaching Spring Valley train did not slow down.

The train hit a concrete block, became airborne and damaged the ceiling of the station, injuring more than 100 people. Falling debris struck and killed the 34-year-old.

Recommended Read more One dead in Hoboken train crash and 108 injured

"I am speechless and feel like the world stopped for some moments," said Cecilia Marques, a former co-worker, as she learnt that De Kroon had been the one fatality.

"I had the privilege to get to know and work with Fabiola for some years, and I can say she was a great, talented, big and genuine heart."

De Kroon, who had a 2011 masters degree from Florida International Universitys College of Business, was a Brazil native and worked in the legal department of software company SAP in Brazil until earlier this year.

SAP spokesman Andy Kendzie said the company expressed its deepest condolences to the victim and her family affected by the "tragic event".

(Fabiola Bittar de Kroon / Facebook (Fabiola Bittar de Kroon / Facebook)

The family then moved to the US after her husband got a new job with an international drinks company.

Friends described the couple as "adventurous" and in pursuit of a better life.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie and New York governor Andrew Cuomo have announced a joint investigation into why the train did not slow down, just five years after another busy commuter train crashed at the same station.

Witnesses described the chaos and horror at the scene and emergency service workers scrambled to rescue those trapped in the four train carriages. People were bleeding, and one woman was pinned under concrete, a witness called Baghyesh Shah said.

(Getty (Getty)

Dramatic pictures and videos showed the collapsed ceiling of the historic train station, which had undergone extensive repairs before being severely damaged by hurricane Sandy.

They also showed a train carriage that had ploughed into the terminal, and a pile of twisted metal and bricks and other debris. Cries of confusion and fear could be heard in the background as passengers were evacuated out of the building, which engineers and transit police were worried would collapse.

 Video shows aftermath of Hoboken crash

At least 50 people were taken to a trauma hospital, while 20 or so others were taken to the Hoboken Medical Centre, and were treated for bumps, bruises and lacerations. Many of the injured have been released from hospital, while one passenger underwent surgery within hours of the crash.

The train engineer survived and is co-operating fully with investigators as to what went wrong, said Mr Christie at a press conference.

When the National Transportation Safety Board announces the results of its investigation, it will be too late for De Kroon and her family.

Daycare director Maria Sharp told the Associated Press that De Kroon always had been pleased to see her daughter.

"You just saw a smile on her face every time she came to pick up her daughter, Ms Sharp said, "and that's what I keep seeing."

Agencies contributed to this report.
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A student has requested that his university call him "His Majesty" to protest against a new policy that respects students pronouns of choice, including they and ze.

The University of Michigans new campus policy is to allow students to choose their own personal pronoun which must be respected by other campus members, including professors.

"The University of Michigan is committed to fostering an environment of inclusiveness. Consistent with this value, the University has created a process for students to designate pronouns with the University and have those pronouns reflected on class rosters this fall," administrators wrote in an email, as reported by The College Fix.

Students have been encouraged to log in to the university online roster and update their own titles, and can change them later if they make a mistake the first time round.

But student Grant Strobl, the conservative chairman of the Young Americans for Freedom Board of Governors, told the newspaper that he has asked to be called "His Majesty" to protest the universitys institutionalisation of arbitrary pronouns, and a policy which may discipline those who do not use it.

"I have no problem with students asking to be identified a certain way, almost like someone named Richard who would like to be called Dick," he added.

"It is respectful to make a reasonable effort to refer to students in the way that they prefer."

One student replied to Mr Strobls tweet, saying his pronoun was "The Greatest Of All Time".

Other social media users criticised Mr Strobl.

"Why does this option irk you so much you have to be rude? It harms no one and helps many LGBT folks," wrote a user called "Liz?".

The policy was enacted at the university thanks to a pronoun committee, made up of officials, administrators, sociology and linguistics professors at the University of Michigan.

Mr Strobl has featured numerous times on Fox News, Breitbart news and other outlets.

His previous issues have included fighting for the university to go ahead with its screening of the film American Sniper, despite criticisms of racism from the student Muslim body.

He also accused a former professor of bias against Republicans, and has frequently spoken for the right of freedom of speech.
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It might be worth a cursory giggle if the person being booked for a crime of violence shares the name with a celebrity. But it becomes laugh-out-loud when that goes for the victim as well.

This was the case for the criminal courts in New York this week dealing with a non-fatal case of a son strangling his mother. The perpetrator, who took a plea deal on Wednesday, entered his name as Denzel Washington and the mother he assaulted was none other than Aretha Franklin.

Recommended Read more How to stop Denzel Washington stealing your scene

Well, she was no more the real Queen of Soul than her son was the real Oscar-winning actor and star of films like Training Day, The Magnificent Seven and Flight. That would have been a story fit to eclipse even the parting of ways between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

If being a real celebrity can bring special strains on domestic harmony then perhaps merely having the names of two of the most famous African American artists in the country can have something of the same effect too.

But if detectives first handling the case reacted with disbelief when they entered the name first of the accused perpetrator and then of the alleged victim into their note pads, they shouldnt have done. Those really are their names.

I am informed by Aretha Franklin, the criminal complaint in the case says, that she observed the defendant place his hands around her neck and apply pressure, thereby causing redness, bruising and substantial pain to her neck.

Mr Washington took a plea of harassment as violation and was sentenced to conditional discharge and enrollment in a supervised anger management programme.

Diligent research established that Ms Franklin the victim, who is 52 years old, is not a relation, however far removed, from the other Ms Franklin. Nor can the New York Mr Washington lay any claim to family ties with the other, somewhat more successful, Mr Washington.

The altercation between son and mother happened in a doorman building on West 93rd Street on the well-to-do Upper West Side of Manhattan. There is another case that is still open in the New York courts involving alleged trespassing by Mr Washington in his mothers home.

Mr Washington is, by coincidence, a close friend of Ms Franklin. (Not mother and son, the other ones.) Indeed, he was on hand to help the Motown icon celebrate her 72nd birthday at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Manhattan three years ago.

New York fans of the older Ms Franklin were recently disappointed when she cancelled a concert that had been scheduled for 26 September at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan due to an ongoing illness. The Queen of Soul has backed out of a number of concerts in North America for the same reason, rescheduling some for spring of next year.
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For Americans looking back on Sarah Palins unlikely 2008 vice-presidential bid, it must be hard to separate the real Palin from the Saturday Night Live parody. Ms Palins best-remembered line from that campaign is probably the claim, I can see Russia from my house  a quote not from Palin herself, but from Tina Fey, whose portrayal of the then-Alaska Governor on the long-running NBC comedy series was both devastating and strangely endearing.

SNL returns to US screens this weekend for its 42nd series, and it has cast a new performer to play Donald Trump: Emmy award-winning actor Alec Baldwin. Last year, the show was criticised for inviting Mr Trump to guest-host an episode, and for lampooning him as ridiculous rather than dangerous. Now that the preposterous property mogul is the GOP nominee  and not far behind Hillary Clinton in the polls  will the comedy be less kind?

Former SNL staffer Dean Obeidallah says TV comedians now have a moral obligation to tackle the more chilling aspects of Mr Trumps candidacy. Donald Trump is not a normal candidate. This is not Mitt Romney, not John McCain. This is a man who has trafficked in racism, sexism and bigotry, Obeidallah told Politico.

People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Show all 8 1 /8 People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Miley Cyrus 'God he thinks he is the f***ing chosen one or some shit!  Honestly f*** this sh*t I am moving if this is my president! I dont say things I dont mean!' Jemal Countess/Getty Images People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Whoopi Goldberg 'I dont think thats America. I dont want it to be America. Maybe its time for me to move you know' People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Samuel L. Jackson 'If that mother**er becomes president, Im moving my black ass to South Africa' People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Raven Symone 'My confession for this election is, if any Republican gets nominated, Im gonna move to Canada with my entire family. Is that bad? I already have my ticket. I literally bought my ticket, I swear' People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Cher 'If he were to be elected, I'm moving to Jupiter' People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Neve Campbell 'Im terrified. Its really scary. My biggest fear is that Trump will triumph. I cannot believe that he is still in the game ... [I'll] move back to Canada' People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Jon Stewart 'I would consider getting in a rocket and going to another planet, because clearly this planets gone bonkers' People who will flee America if Donald Trump wins Randy Blythe 'He could just be a clown. If he is the president, though, I am leaving America 'till he's gone'

Earlier this month, Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon was widely attacked for his chummy interview with Mr Trump. The most incisive moment of that encounter was when the comedian mussed the candidates hair.

This week, Stephen Colbert, host of the Late Show, expressed regret for having let Mr Trump off the hook in a September 2015 interview. I tried being gracious and pointed at the same time, and got almost nothing out of him, Mr Colbert told the New York Times. It was actually boring, because he wouldnt even look me in the eye. Being nice to a guy who isnt nice to other people, it doesnt serve you that much.

On her show Full Frontal, Samantha Bee recently attacked her comedy peers and their network executive bosses for enabling the Trump campaign by inviting him to appear on their shows, because ratings matter more than brown people.

Ms Bee, HBOs John Oliver and Seth Meyers of NBCs Late Night have all been explicitly antagonistic to Mr Trump. But their shows  broadcast on cable or, in Mr Meyers case, very late at night  are preaching largely to the liberal choir. SNL, Mr Colbert and Mr Fallon reach the parts of America that they cannot.

The news media has been accused of facilitating the Trump phenomenon, first by mining the multi-millionaires notoriety for ratings, and lately for its role in normalising a candidate who is completely outside the historical presidential mainstream.

Similarly, comedians have struggled to effectively satirise a man whose real-life persona is so outlandish, and whose electoral success is so shocking. Accepting her sixth Emmy for starring as President Selina Myers in Veep, actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus said this month, Our show started out as a political satire, but it now feels more like a sobering documentary.

Making Mr Trump the butt of gentle jokes  a hair-muss, a dad dance  may also have contributed to his normalisation. In 2003, long before she ever portrayed Sarah Palin, Ms Fey told an interviewer that she was concerned Will Ferrells celebrated George W Bush impersonation had in fact helped Mr Bush to win the White House. As much as we were making fun of Bushs stupidity, Will also managed to make him seem almost charming and sweet, she said.

Ms Clinton clearly appreciates the power of comedy to humanise a candidate. The famously defensive Democrat has made winning appearances on SNL and the spoof talk-show Between Two Ferns, with the latter apparently helping her to arrest a recent dip in the polls.

But then, might comedy be to blame for all this in the first place? Some have speculated that Mr Trump was motivated to run for the presidency after being mercilessly mocked by Barack Obama at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner.

Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker, who was seated near to Mr Trump on the night in question, wrote later: One cant help but suspect that, on that night, Trumps own sense of public humiliation became so overwhelming that he decided, perhaps at first unconsciously, that he would, somehow, get his own back  perhaps even pursue the Presidency after all, no matter how nihilistically or absurdly, and redeem himself.
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Google searches for voter registration have surged across the US this week, particularly in areas with large Hispanic populations, according to a report from The Upshot, the New York Timess data journalism website.

Recommended Read more How Donald Trump is helping Latino activists turn Arizona purple

On Wednesday and Thursday, the leading markets for the search terms register to vote were in disproportionately Latino areas of Texas, California, Nevada, Florida and Arizona  regions which historically have some of the lowest registration rates in the US.

The surge coincides with the controversy over Alicia Machado, the Venezuelan-born former Miss Universe whose story was wielded by Hillary Clinton at Mondays presidential debate as an example of Donald Trumps attitude towards women and Hispanic people.

Ms Machado, who recently became a US citizen and has campaigned for Ms Clinton, says Mr Trump called her Miss Piggy and Miss Housekeeping after she gained weight following her Miss Universe win in 1996. Mr Trump has responded by attacking Ms Machados character and doubling down on his criticism of her weight-gain.

Whether or not the voter registration searches can be attributed to an Alicia Machado effect, they represent a major change from last month, when, The Upshot reports, registration searches were highest in the predominantly white, Northern states that typically have the highest registration and turnout.

Latinos already account for a larger proportion of newly registered voters than in previous presidential election years. Data from the Democratic voter targeting firm Catalist suggests an estimated 12 per cent of newly registered voters in 2016 are Hispanic, compared to 10 per cent at the same point in the campaign in 2012.
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A pro-guns group in North Carolina has announced a raffle for a special prize this Election Day that will include an AR-15 assault rifle, a generous supply of ammunition and a portrait of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president, to take to the shooting range.

The raffle is a fund-raiser for Grass Roots North Carolina, GRNC, an organisation based in Raleigh that is dedicated to help elect politicians in the state who oppose new gun control legislation and helping defeat those they consider to be anti-gun.

Some will see in it chilling proof that remarks previously made by Donald Trump seemingly almost goading gun-rights activists into physical violence against his Democrat foe have had consequences, even if it is a poster of her being talked about, not the candidate herself.

Now, the unhinged Republican nominee's jaw-dropping comments appear to be gaining some terrifying traction, an article in the New York Daily News observed.

In a posting on its website, the group reveals that the raffle prize will be a Palmetto State Armory M4-configured AR-15, a thousand rounds of high quality ammunition and, in gleeful capital letters, a FREE PORTRAIT OF HILLARY CLINTON!

Exactly what the winner might do with the picture of the former first lady is not spelled out. But the group jests: Of course, we wont tell you what to do with the photo, but when we ran a picture of Hillary on the front of our newsletter, we heard it was very popular at the range.

Encouraging North Carolinians to part with their money to buy tickets, the announcement added: We all know that if Hillary Clinton is elected President on November 8, panic buying will ensure that by November 9, there wont be a gun (or ammunition) available for love nor money.

The drawing is to be held on Election Day as voting across the country will determine whether Ms Clinton, who has announced her support for new gun controls including reviving an assault weapons ban that expired under President George W. Bush, or Donald Trump.

The Republican nominee stirred outrage on the left nearly three weeks ago when he assailed Ms Clinton for allegedly wanting to take guns away from people and then called on her security detail to drop its weapons so he could see what might happen to her next.

An AR-15 assault rifle (Wikipedia)

Critics said it was not the first instance of Mr Trump inciting violence against his Democratic rival for the White House, whom he has erroneously accused of planning to overturn the second amendment to the constitution that guarantees the right to bear arms.

At an earlier rally in August, Mr Trump warned supporters that they would be powerless to stop Ms Clinton curbing their gun-owning rights if she is elected president.

If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks, he said, before adding: Although the Second Amendment people - maybe there is, I dont know. His campaign was later interviewed by the Secret Service about the statement.

The Raleigh group said the money it raised from the gun-and-Hillary raffle would be used to try to stop various candidates for office in North Carolina that did not support their pro-guns stance. The raffle tickets are being sold for $10 each. Or 15 can be yours for a mere $100.

The AR-15 in questions can be bought online in kit version for about $550.

The North Carolina group had in fact backed Ted Cruz from the Republican nomination during the primary elections, saying that Mr Trump had in his past been supportive of gun control. One of Senator Cruzs television spots showed him wrapping bacon around the barrel of an assault weapon and allegedly firing it enough times in the shooting range that it sizzled.
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Hillary Clinton has been lampooning Libertarian Gary Johnson and his stumbles in interviews but her jokes mask a deeper anxiety that votes for him could deny her the keys to the White House.

However egregious Mr Johnsons lapses may appear to some Democrats  this week he was unable in an MSNBC interview to name a single foreign leader he admired  he is still drawing roughly 8 per cent support nationally. In some key swing states, he is doing better than that.

Recommended Read more Gary Johnson fails to name his favourite world leader

On her way to a Chicago fundraiser, Ms Clinton was asked by reporters if she had a favourite world leader and she evinced a moment of confusion, by way of poking fun at Mr Johnson. Oh, let me think, she replied sarcastically, before going on to name Angela Merkel of Germany.

She chose to skirt the more serious question about whether the continuing presence of Mr Johnson, a former Republican Governor of New Mexico, in the presidential contest worried her. She did, however, send a message to Democrats flirting with giving him their vote.

Either Donald Trump or I will be the president of the United States, and so people have to look carefully in making their decision about who to vote for, because it will either be him or me and I am going to do everything I can to make sure its me, she said.

Mr Johnson has twice humiliated himself on national television of late. Earlier this month when he was asked what he would do as president about the tragedy in Aleppo, Syria, he replied, What is Aleppo? He later apologised for the astonishing display of ignorance, but since has become a punchbag on the late-night talk shows.

The history of third-party candidates trying to break the mould of Americas two-party system is not a happy one. The last to make any serious inroads was Ross Perot who achieved 19 per cent of the vote nationally in 1992 when Bill Clinton beat incumbent George H W Bush.

Yet Mr Johnson, whose running mate is William Weld, a former Republican Governor of Massachusetts, continues to have traction, in part because both of the mainstream candidates this year suffer from historically poor popularity ratings, something he highlighted in an opinion column in the New York Times this week.

Hyper-partisanship may be entertaining, but its a terrible way to try to run a country, he wrote. Were the alternative  and we're the only ticket that offers Americans a chance to find common ground.

While Mr Johnson would surely take votes away from both Ms Clinton and Mr Trump, there is concern among Democrats that it is their candidate who might suffer the most. He is drawing strong support from millennials, for instance, some of whom supported Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination and are still not willing to shift their support to her.

A Bloomberg News/Selzer & Co poll this week found Ms Clintons 10-point advantage among younger voters cut to a statistically insignificant four points when Johnson as well as Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate who is drawing about 1 per cent nationally, are included in the race.

History also has its warnings. In 2000, it was Ralph Naders Green candidacy that ended up syphoning enough votes away from Al Gore to help tip Florida by the slimmest of margins to George W Bush, a hotly contested result that eventually delivered the White House to him.

Gary Johnson at a Reason magazine photoshoot in 2012 (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

If Gore had been president, we probably wouldnt had a war in Iraq, Tim Kaine, Ms Clintons running mate told Yahoo News last week. Casting a vote, a protest vote, for a third-party candidate thats going to lose may well affect the outcome. It may well lead to a consequence that is deeply, deeply troubling. Thats not a speculation; weve seen it in our countrys history.

President Barack Obama has also been sending out warning signals about the apparent lure of Mr Johnson to some voters who would otherwise back Ms Clinton. Theres one message I want to deliver to everybody: if you don't vote, thats a vote for Trump. If you vote for a third-party candidate whos got no chance to win, thats a vote for Trump, he said in a radio interview.

Not helping are the few major newspapers which, while they have ended decades-long traditions of backing Republicans because of their distaste for Mr Trump, have plumped for Mr Johnson, not Ms Clinton. That was the stance most recently of the Detroit News, the biggest paper in the biggest city in Michigan, a crucial state for the Democrat.

We recognise the Libertarian candidate is the longest of long shots with an electorate that has been conditioned to believe only Republicans and Democrats can win major offices, the newspapers editorial board wrote on Thursday. But this is an endorsement of conscience, reflecting our confidence that Johnson would be a competent and capable president and an honorable one. New Hampshires Union Leader also endorsed Mr Johnson.

Mr Weld moved to defend Mr Johnson after his latest gaffe. Hes a deep person in terms of his thinking and he thinks through things in a way that many other people don't, he told CNN. Pop quizzes on television are obviously not his forte but depth of analysis and surprising lines of analysis are his forte. I think he just needs time to expound what hes thinking.
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A number of African countries have banned China from buying their donkeys, saying demand for the four-legged creatures has become unsustainable.

Niger announced a ban on the export of donkeys this month after trade of the animals increased by three times in the last year, mainly to Asian countries.

And Burkina Faso has also put a stop to the export of donkey skins, which are boiled to produce gelatin, a key ingredient in the traditional Chinese remedy ejiao  believed to improve blood circulation and cure conditions including dizziness, irregular menstruation and insomnia.

Increased demand for imported donkey skins follows a dramatic drop in Chinas donkey population as the country has industrialised.

The number of donkeys in China has fallen from 11 million to six million since the 1990s, according to CNN.

Atte Issa, a Niger government official, told the BBC that around 80,000 donkeys had been exported from the landlocked African country this year compared to 27,000 last year.

If the export continues the animals will be decimated, he said.

The average price of a donkey has also increased by around three-fold, according to the broadcaster, and some livestock sellers are switching to donkey breeding as their trade has become so profitable.

[Ejiao] is quite a popular ingredient in China that people may self-prescribe, Chinese medicine expert Mazin Al-Khafaji told The Independent. But there is a shortage, and there are fakes around as its very expensive.

Its what we call a blood tonic, so it stops bleeding and strengthens the blood. Its used for anemia or low blood cell count, he said.

Workers measuring out various dried items at a Chinese medicine store in Hong Kong (Getty Images)

Its a hard gel, made from donkey hide, which is then dissolved in hot water or alcohol. Its also used topically in a cream, for leg ulcers for instance.

In Burkina Faso, the countrys reserve of 1.4 million donkeys was being overexploited by a boom in trade of their hides, mostly with China, the countrys public health director Adama Maiga told AFP.

Recommended Read more Smiling donkey rescued from Storm Desmond floods in Ireland

Mr Maiga said exports in hides had soared from 1,000 in the first quarter of 2015 to more than 18,000 in the last quarter.

Now all slaughter would have to be done in officially recognised abattoirs.

Two Chinese nationals have set up a donkey slaughterhouse in west Kenya, according to the Daily Nation.

The government approved the new abattoir, where around 100 donkeys could be killed a day and exported to China, in April, reported the Kenyan national newspaper.

In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade Show all 13 1 /13 In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade China A cat climbs up the cage at the slaughterhouse, trying to escape. This cat was later rescued by Peter Li In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade China A slaughterhouse butcher transfers a cat to a cage, to be handed off to Peter Li. Shortly after, Li rescued the cat from the slaughterhouse AP/Humane Society International In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade China Two kitchen knives are shown stuck in an iron cage, which are used to butcher dozens of dogs and cats every day. These knives have to be sharpened daily due to the number of animals they're used to slaughter In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade China Caged dogs sit on the side of Renminzhong Road, waiting to be transferred to a slaughterhouse in a narrow alley AP/Humane Society International In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade China Workers are shown getting the day's dog and cat meat prepared for sale in the morning In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade China Dog meat is displayed in the marketplace In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade China Residents pick their dog meat from a stand on Riverside Road In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade China A woman on her moped transports more than 10 dogs, which had just been slaughtered, to her market shop for sale AP/Humane Society International In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade China Hundreds of pet dogs await their own death in a slaughterhouse, while they watch as their companions are slaughtered in front of them AP/Humane Society International In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade China A group of cats from Sichuan Province arrive at Renmin Middle Road on a truck, and wait to be transported on carts to a slaughterhouse in a narrow alley In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade China A truck arrives in Yulin with nearly 1,000 dogs of various breeds crammed into narrow wire cages with no space to extend their limbs. According to the driver, the truck came from Sichuan, 800 miles west of Yulin. The traumatized dogs waited in silence for the next stop on their journey In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade China Dogs are hung up for sale for meat in Dong Kou market, as a dog looks on In pictures: Inside the Yulin cat and dog meat trade China Peter Li holds a puppy's collar found at a slaughterhouse AP/Humane Society International

Earlier this year, Chinese ejaio expert Qin Yunfeng offered an alternative solution to Chinas donkey shortage, according to The New York Times.

Mr Qin told a state news agency: The government should support donkey breeders by offering subsidies to encourage more breeding.
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Iran reportedly fired mortar shells into Pakistan's Balochistan province on Wednesday, causing panic among the local population.

Mortar shells fired by Iranian border guards landed in the district of Panjgoor, a provincial government official said, according to The Indian Express.

Two of the shells landed near a Frontier Corps checkpoint while the third landed at a place called Killi Karim Dad.

No loss of life or damage was reported following the shelling.

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. 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Pakistani security forces have reportedly tightened security at the border following the shelling.

Authorities in Islamabad have raised the issue with Iranian officials.

Pakistan shares a 559 mile border with Iran, which has accused Islamabad of allowing terror groups to use its territory to launch strikes across the border.

Last year, Iranian border guards also fired three mortar shells into Balochistan, according to The Express Tribune. No deaths were reported.

In 2014, the two nations reached an agreement to share intelligence to combat terrorists on the border.

 India blames Pakistan for supporting Kashmir base attack

The shelling came hours before India claims it sent troops into Pakistan to carry out "surgical strikes" against suspected militants.

However, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif rejected India's claim, saying India fired from its side of the heavily militarised frontier in the disputed region of Kashmir.

"The Cabinet joined the Prime Minister in completely rejecting the Indian claims of carrying out 'surgical strikes'," Mr Sharif's office said in a statement.

Domestic pressure had been building on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to retaliate after 19 soldiers were killed in an attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir on 18 September India blamed on infiltrators who crossed from Pakistani territory.

Mr Modi's government has been struggling to contain protests on the streets of Kashmir where more than 80 civilians have been killed and thousands wounded in the last 10 weeks after a young separatist militant was killed by Indian forces.

India evacuated more than 10,000 villagers living near the border and ordered security forces to upgrade surveillance along the frontier in Jammu and Kashmir state.

Additional reporting by Reuters
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The Philippine President has likened his national crackdown on drug crime to the Holocaust, saying he would be "happy" to kill as many addicts as Hitler slaughtered Jews.

Rodrigo Duterte said he had been compared to a "cousin of Hitler" by critics during a press conference in southern Davao city on Friday. "Hitler massacred three million Jews... there's three million drug addicts. I'd be happy to slaughter them," he said.

At least six million Jews and other minority groups are known to have been killed by the Nazis before and during the second world war.

Since taking up office in June, Mr Duterte has overseen a vicious anti-drug campaign in which more than 3,000 suspected drug dealers and users are understood to have been killed by police operations or vigilantes. The bodies of those killed are often left in the streets with signs listing their crimes.

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

During his presidential campaign and short time in office Mr Duterte has threatened to drown drug suspects to fatten the fish in Manila Bay. He has also threatened to execute drug traffickers by hanging until their heads were severed from their bodies.

You know my victims. I would like [them] to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition, he said on Friday.

His comments have been described as "disgusting" and "baffling" by Jewish leaders, according to Reuters.

"Duterte owes the [Holocaust] victims an apology for his disgusting rhetoric," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.

The US-based Jewish group the Anti-Defamation League said the comments were "inappropriate and deeply offensive", adding: "It is baffling why any leader would want to model himself after such a monster."

Despite his shocking rhetoric, Mr Duterte remains popular in the Philippines, with high approval ratings and strong legislative support.

 Rodrigo Duterte calls Barack Obama 'son of a bitch'

However, he has garnered a growing number of critics, including UN officials, the European Union and the United States, who have all voiced concern over the widespread killings and human rights violations.

He reacted on Friday, calling his EU critics a "group of idiots in the purest form", adding that European countries were hypocrites for not doing enough to help large numbers of refugees flee violence in the Middle East.

"There are migrants escaping from the Middle East. You allow them to rot and then you're worried about the deaths of about 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 [people in the Philippines]."

Earlier this month, Mr Duterte launched a scathing attack on US President Barack Obama, referring to him using a slang which translates, roughly, as son of whore.

When the European Parliament issued a statement condemning deaths in the country, Mr Duterte said, F*** you  and gave them the finger for good measure.

Additional reporting by Reuters
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A German mayor who wanted to accommodate refugees has reportedly been assaulted in a suspected xenophobic attack.

Joachim Kebschull, 61, mayor of Oersdorf, was struck on the back of the head with a club or wooden beam on his way to a town hall meeting.

Mr Kebschull lost consciousness and was taken to hospital, German newspaper Bild reports.

Refugees settle in Germany Show all 12 1 /12 Refugees settle in Germany Refugees settle in Germany Germany Mohamed Zayat, a refugee from Syria, plays with his daughter Ranim, who is nearly 3, in the one room they and Mohamed's wife Laloosh call home at an asylum-seekers' shelter in Vossberg village on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. The Zayats arrived approximately two months ago after trekking through Turkey, Greece and the Balkans and are now waiting for local authorities to process their asylum application, after which they will be allowed to live independently and settle elsewhere in Germany. Approximately 60 asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Chechnya and Somalia, live at the Vossberg shelter, which is run by the Arbeiter-Samariter Bund (ASB) charity 2015 Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany A refugee child Amnat Musayeva points to a star with her photo and name that decorates the door to her classroom as teacher Martina Fischer looks on at the local kindergarten Amnat and her siblings attend on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. The children live with their family at an asylum-seekers' shelter in nearby Vossberg village and are waiting for local authorities to process their asylum applications. Approximately 60 asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Chechnya and Somalia, live at the Vossberg shelter, which is run by the Arbeiter-Samariter Bund (ASB) charity Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Kurdish Syrian asylum-applicant Mohamed Ali Hussein (R), 19, and fellow applicant Autur, from Latvia, load benches onto a truckbed while performing community service, for which they receive a small allowance, in Wilhelmsaue village on October 9, 2015 near Letschin, Germany. Mohamed and Autur live at an asylum-applicants' shelter in nearby Vossberg village. Approximately 60 asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Chechnya and Somalia, live at the Vossberg shelter, which is run by the Arbeiter-Samariter Bund (ASB) charity Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Mohamed Ali Hussein ((L), 19, and his cousin Sinjar Hussein, 34, sweep leaves at a cemetery in Gieshof village, for which they receive a small allowance, near Letschin Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Mohamed Zayat, a refugee from Syria, looks among donated clothing in the basement of the asylum-seekers' shelter that is home to Mohamed, his wife Laloosh and their daughter Ranim as residents' laundry dries behind in Vossberg village on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. The Zayats arrived approximately two months ago after trekking through Turkey, Greece and the Balkans and are now waiting for local authorities to process their asylum application, after which they will be allowed to live independently and settle elsewhere in Germany Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Asya Sugaipova (L), Mohza Mukayeva and Khadra Zhukova prepare food in the communal kitchen at the asylum-seekers' shelter that is their home in Vossberg village in Letschin Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Efrah Abdullahi Ahmed looks down from the communal kitchen window at her daughter Sumaya, 10, who had just returned from school, at the asylum-seekers' shelter that is their home in Vossberg Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Asylum-applicants, including Syrians Mohamed Ali Hussein (C-R, in black jacket) and Fadi Almasalmeh (C), return from grocery shopping with other refugees to the asylum-applicants' shelter that is their home in Vossberg village in Letschin Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Mohamed Zayat (2nd from L), a refugee from Syria, smokes a cigarette after shopping for groceries with his daughter Ranim, who is nearly 3, and fellow-Syrian refugees Mohamed Ali Hussein (C) and Fadi Almasalmeh (L) at a local supermarket on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. All of them live at an asylum-seekers' shelter in nearby Vossberg village and are waiting for local authorities to process their asylum applications, after which they will be allowed to live independently and settle elsewhere in Germany 2015 Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Kurdish Syrian refugees Leila, 9, carries her sister Avin, 1, in the backyard at the asylum-seekers' shelter that is home to them and their family in Vossberg village in Letschin Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany Somali refugees and husband and wife Said Ahmed Gure (R) and Ayaan Gure pose with their infant son Muzammili, who was born in Germany, in the room they share at an asylum-seekers' shelter in Vossberg village on October 9, 2015 in Letschin, Germany. Approximately 60 asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Chechnya and Somalia, live at the Vossberg shelter, which is run by the Arbeiter-Samariter Bund (ASB) charity, and are waiting for authorities to process their application for asylum 2015 Getty Images Refugees settle in Germany Germany German Chancellor Angela Merkel pauses for a selfie with a refugee after she visited the AWO Refugium Askanierring shelter for refugees in Berlin Getty Images

The perpetrator fled after the attack and is yet to be identified. Police have determined that the crime was politically motivated.

Earlier in the day, the Oersdorf mayor received a threatening letter reading: "He who will not hear must feel."

The mayor has received several death threats and town hall has had to cancel two meetings on whether to allow refugees to move into local housing because of bomb threats.

 Carey Mulligan speaks at War Child event ahead of UN refugee summit

German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently admitted she lost control of the refugee crisis in Germany.

Ms Merkel said if she cold she would "turn back time by many, many years" to prepare the nation for the influx of refugees.

"For some time, we didn't have enough control," the chancellor said. "No one wants a repeat of last year's situation, including me."
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Plans to give all teenagers living in the EU a free Interrail pass on their 18th birthday are to be debated at the European Parliament.

The proposal aims to give young Europeans a sense of belonging to the continent and comes after the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker called for greater cooperation within the EU during his State of the Union speech in Strasbourg.

Under the initiative all EU citizens or legally residing individuals would receive a pass as soon as they turned 18, which they can use to travel the vast railway network connecting most major cities throughout the continent.

 Young Brits head for the Aussie lifestyle post-Brexit

Citizens of member states not part of the Interrail connection, such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus and Malta, will be allowed to use other modes of transport free of charge under the scheme, such as a bus or ferry.

A month-long Global Interrail pass currently costs 479 (412) and allows customers unlimited train travel through 30 countries within that period. It is particularly popular with recent school leavers and those taking gap years before university.

MEPs will vote on the proposal next week, which has been drawn up by German MEP Manfred Weber, Chairman of the EPP Group in the European Parliament.

Such a programme would give the opportunity to all young people regardless of their social and educational background to discover Europe diversity, and promote Interrail travel as a pragmatic way to reduce carbon foot print, the plans state.

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

Speaking at the European Parliament earlier this year, Mr Weber said the Interrail initiative would enable young people to discover the beauty and diversity of Europe over three weeks within a two-year period.

According to calculations by German news service Tagesschau, the cost of the proposal could reach 1.5bn (1.3bn) per year, assuming between 50 and 70 per cent of the estimated 5.4 million 18-year-old living in the EU at present took up the offer.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has reportedly backed the initiative calling it a very good idea, according to The Washington Post.

Mr Renzi has created a similar scheme in Italy, giving all 18-year-olds 500 (430) to spend on social or cultural events.

The German government, whose backing is considered imperative for the proposal to get the green light, is understood to be favor of the plan.

The European Parliaments Conference of Presidents have also publicly announced their support for the initiative.

Critics of the proposal, however, argue spending billions on the scheme is unjustifiable while youth employment poses a concern in many EU countries.

Further arguments state the proposal favours teenagers in richer EU nations and negelects those in countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal, where large swathes of young people are unemployed and may not be able to afford to travel around Europe even if the ticket itself was free.

Chief of the Social Democrats in the European Parliament, Gianni Pittella told Junge Freiheit: I am not fully convinced that this is the EU's top priority", stating that jobs for young people were more important.

Earlier this month, Mr Juncker called on EU citizens to construct a better Europe through increased co-operation, while setting out the Commissions plans for the first time since the UK voted to exit the EU.
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Staff at Leipzig zoo shot dead one of two escaped lions after a tranquiliser dart failed to sedate it, the zoo has admitted.

The young male lions, named Majo and Motshegetsi, escaped their enclosure by leaping over a moat and entered the main grounds of the zoo on Thursday morning before the park opened to the public.

After the zookeepers implemented an emergency lockdown, Majo was successfully corralled back into the enclosure, but Motshegetsi remained agitated and had to be shot, the zoo said.

This is a very, very sad ending, which I really would not have wished for, the zoo's director Joerg Junhold told reporters. But we had no choice.

In this case personal safety had to take priority.

Majo and Motshegetsi were both 15-months-old and had only been at the zoo for a month after being transferred from a zoo in the Swiss city of Basel.

After their escape, the lions were discovered in a terrified state in undergrowth a short distance from their enclosure.

About 40 zookeepers then surrounded them with vehicles in an attempt to drive them back.

According to local media, Majo was returned to the enclosure after three hours, with staff reportedly using a fence to coral the animal, but Motshegetsi broke through the barrier and the keepers were forced to take action.

After Majo was caught and Motshegetsi was hit with a tranquiliser dart, we were hopeful that the breakout could end without any loss of life, Mr Junhold said.

But staff then decided they had lost control of the situation and shot the lion.

Human safety always comes first, Mr Junhold said.

The enclosure had been in use at the zoo for 15 years and there had never previously been problems, Mr Junhold added.

Leipzig zoo has successfully bred over 2,000 lions in the past, and 250 rare Siberian tigers.

In March one tiger at the zoo killed another after a partition separating them was removed.

Where not to visit if you love animals Show all 9 1 /9 Where not to visit if you love animals Where not to visit if you love animals Monkey shows Chimpanzees are forced to perform demeaning tricks on leashes and are often subject to cruel training techniques. Animals who are confined to small, barren enclosures and forced to perform unsurprisingly show symptoms of stress and depression. Chimpanzees have been documented rocking back and forth, sucking their lips, salivating and swaying against enclosure perimeters in distress. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Marine parks Some parks confine orcas to concrete tanks and force them to perform meaningless tricks for food - many die in captivity. Orcas are highly intelligent and social mammals who may suffer immensely, both physically and mentally, when they're held in captivity. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Tiger shows Tigers are forced to live in an unnatural and barren environment and have to endure interactions with a constant stream of tourists. Since tigers never lose their wild instincts, across the world they are reportedly drugged, mutilated and restrained in order to make them safe for the public. However, every year, incidents of tiger maulings are reported at this type of tourist attraction. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Donkey rides Sunning on the beach is great for humans  we can take a quick dip or catch a bite to eat when we get too hot or hungry. But it's pure hell for donkeys who are confined to the beach and forced to cart children around on the hot sand. Some donkey-ride operators at beach resorts in the UK even keep the animals chained together at all times. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Swimming with dolphins Some marine parks use bottlenose dolphins in performances and offer visitors the opportunity to swim with dolphins. Unfortunately, people are often unaware that these animals are captured in the wild and torn from their families or traded between different parks around the world. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Canned hunting Lions are confined to fenced areas so that they can easily be cornered, with no chance of escape. Most of them will have been bred in captivity and then taken from their mothers to be hand-reared by the cub-petting industry. When they get too big, they may be drugged before they are released into a "hunting" enclosure. Because these animals are usually kept in fenced enclosures (ranging in size from just a few square yards to thousands of acres), they never stand a chance of surviving. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Running of the Bulls Every year, tourists travel to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls. The bulls who are forced to slip and slide down the town's narrow cobblestone streets are chased straight into the bullring. They are then taunted, stabbed repeatedly and finally killed by the matador in front of a jeering crowd. The majority of Spaniards reject bullfighting, but tourists are keeping the cruel industry on its last legs. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Horse-drawn carriages City streets are no place for horses. The animals toil in all weather extremes, suffering from respiratory distress from breathing in exhaust fumes as well as numerous hoof, leg and back problems from walking on pavement all day long. As easily spooked prey animals, horses subjected to the loud noises and unexpected sounds of city streets are likely to be involved in accidents, even deadly ones. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Zoos The zoo community regards the animals it keeps as commodities, and animals are regularly bought, sold, borrowed and traded without any regard for established relationships. Zoos breed animals because the presence of babies draws visitors and boosts revenue, yet often, there's nowhere to put the offspring as they grow, and they are killed, as we saw with Marius the giraffe in Denmark. Some zoos have introduced evening events with loud music and alcohol which disrupt the incarcerated animals even further. EPA

The zoo is now planning a security review.

The last time the Leipzig saw a big cat breakout was in October 1913, when six lions reportedly escaped a private menagerie in the east German city during a festival. The escapees sparked a city-wide hunt, ending with the killing of all six of the lions, which were then exhibited at Leipzig zoo, the Leipziger Volkszeitung reported.

The shooting follows international outcry after male silverback gorilla Harambe was shot dead by keepers at Cincinnati Zoo in May when a three year old boy fell into his enclosure and was roughly handled by the animal.
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Women in Poland are to stage an all-out strike to protest the countrys plan to effectively ban abortions.

Female workers across the predominantly Catholic country will take part in the action on Monday, in an effort to disruptively draw attention to attempts to restrict Polands severely limited abortion laws even further.

Those taking part hope the strike will bring Polish society and the economy to a standstill.

Recommended Read more Northern Ireland urged to stop prosecuting women under abortion ban

Currently, abortion is only permitted in cases of rape or if the woman or foetus life is in danger. However, legislators have proposed restricting the laws further still to eliminate even these exceptions. Women who break the law could face up to five years in prison. A government committee is currently considering the changes.

Women have been urged to join the strike to protest the move, by refusing to attend work, The Krakow Post reports.

Known locally as the black protest, official strikes will be taking place in over 60 different Polish cities. In an act of solidarity, a number of businesses and corporations have reportedly pledged to shut their doors as part of the strike. Protesters are also encouraged to wear black and post photos on social media of them participating in the action.

The countries with anti-women laws Show all 5 1 /5 The countries with anti-women laws The countries with anti-women laws The countries with anti-women laws The countries with anti-women laws The countries with anti-women laws The countries with anti-women laws

A leaflet circulated online states: Black protest in defence of the right to life and health of women in Poland. We demand access to reliable sex education, contraception and effective in vitro procedures. We oppose the further tightening [of] abortion laws.

What can you do? Rather than go to work, go [to] a demonstration. If you have to be at work or at home: Dress in black, take a picture and post [on] social media with the hashtag #BlackProtest #CzarnyProtest to show solidarity. Talk to your mother, sister, cousin, friend, colleague. Tell them about the strike and the situation in Poland.

The strike has received support from high profile Polish figures including super model Anja Rubik, who shared her support on social media.

The pressure group Stop Abortion has driven calls for a total ban on abortions in Poland. It is supported by the Catholic Church and Prime Minister Beata Szydlo as well as Deputy Justice Minister Patryk Jaki have indicated support for the group. A total of 87 per cent of Polish people identify as Catholic and the church continues to hold considerable influence over society.

According to official figures, around 1,000 legal abortions are performed in Poland every year. However, it is estimated that a considerably higher number also take place illegally, with up to 150,000 women each year performing abortions on themselves often with pills bought online.

In June of last year, activists used drones to fly abortion pills into Poland in a show of solidarity with local women.

Globally, 66 countries permit abortion only if a womans life is in danger. A further 59 permit it solely to prevent serious harm to a womans health.

 Protests in Poland over proposed abortion ban

In the UK, it is a criminal offence to have an abortion in Northern Ireland, where women face up to life in prison for having an abortion, including in instances of rape, incest or if the foetus is so severely disabled that it will not survive birth.

In April of this year, a 21-year-old woman was trialled in a Belfast court and found guilty of committing an abortion aged 19, when she performed an abortion at home and her flatmates reported her to the police after finding foetal remains in their household bin and she was subsequently arrested. Westminster MPs have been urged to overturn the ban by passing legislation in the House of Commons.
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A Russian charity has accidently advocated the mass killing of beavers after a typo on one of its mass-produced pamphlets mistakenly told people to exterminate the creatures.

The Mercy Capital Charitable Foundation reportedly commissioned a million Christmas flyers asking people for donations to help needy children.

But instead of asking people to "Do Good", as initially intended, the flyers read "Exterminate Beavers" after intricacies in the Russian language were confused by the printer, according to the Moscow Times.

According to the Lenta.ru website, the caption read: "Exterminate beavers! Text the word 'vremya' and the amount of your donation to SMS number 7715."

The charity reportedly paid 375,000 rubles (4,582) for the pamphlets and is planning to file a lawsuit against the printing company. who it claims are responsible for the error.

Moscow Printers, however, have purportedly refused to take responsibility for the mistake.

Ivan Makarov, a representative for the foundation, said the company had cited Russian regulations dating back to the Soviet era specifying that minor typos do not qualify as contract violations.

The printing house allegedly told the charity "no one will notice" the error and encouraged them to continue distributing the leaflets.

Mr Makarov said: As an animal rights activist. I fear that people might really start exterminating beavers if the foundation starts handing out leaflets like these, the way they are now.
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Italian police have recovered two paintings worth 77 million by Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh that were stolen in Amsterdam 14 years ago.

The two artworks  1882's Seascape at Scheveningen and a later work, Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen  were found in a seaside town near Naples during an operation against the Camorra mafia group.

Van Gogh Museum director Alex Rueger thanked the police, saying: After all these years, you no longer dare count on a possible return.

Experts from the museum said the paintings, found without their frames, are in relatively good condition, though they did show some damage.

Financial police seized assets worth tens of millions of euros from a Camorra group involved in international cocaine trafficking, according to a statement.

They said the assets included the paintings, which were priceless  but Italian nvestigative authorities said the paintings were worth 77m.

Seascape at Scheveningen by Van Gogh, one of the paintings recovered in an anti-mafia raid (Associated Press)

In the 2002 heist, included in a list of top ten art crimes compiled by the FBI, thieves used a ladder to climb onto the museum's roof and break into the building, escaping by sliding down a rope.

Two men were later caught and convicted of the theft thanks in part to DNA evidence linking them to the scene. They were sentenced to four years and four years and six months in prison, respectively, but the paintings were not recovered.

The Scheveningen painting is one of only two sea scenes Van Gogh painted in the Netherlands, and an important example of Van Gogh's earliest painting style, in which he already appeared rather unique, the museum said.

The Fourth Plinth artworks Show all 6 1 /6 The Fourth Plinth artworks The Fourth Plinth artworks A sculpture by German artist Artist Katharina Fritsch entitled Hahn/Cock stands on the "Fourth Plinth" after its unveiling at Tafalgar Square in London. The 4.7m high sculpture occupied Trafalgar Square's empty "Fourth Plinth" for 18 months AFP/Getty Images The Fourth Plinth artworks A sculpture by artist Yinka Shonibare, 'Nelson's Ship in a Bottle' is installed on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in London. The piece consisted of a scale replica of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson's ship HMS Victory in a giant glass bottle and commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar Getty Images The Fourth Plinth artworks An artwork by German artist Thomas Schutte entitled 'Model for a Hotel' s displayed in Trafalgar Square. The glass artwork was an architectural sculpture of a twenty-one storey building, weighing over 8 tonnes AFP/Getty Images The Fourth Plinth artworks A marble sculpture by British artist Marc Quinn entitled "Alison Lapper Pregnant" on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth in London. The statue was a portrait of disabled artist Alison Lapper, who was portrayed naked and eight months pregnant Getty Images The Fourth Plinth artworks A bronze sculpture of a boy on a rocking horse entitled 'Powerless Structures, Fig.101' designed by Danish artist Michael Elmgreen and Norwegian artist Ingar Dragset displayed on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in London Getty Images The Fourth Plinth artworks Gift Horse, placed on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth, was unveiled by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. The sculpture, by 78-year old German artist Hans Haacke, was the skeleton of a riderless horse with a London Stock Exchange ticker attached to its leg, intended to represent the effects of the City, power and money Getty Images

The painting of the Nuenen congregation where Van Gogh's father worked as minister was made for his mother and finished after his father's death in 1885.

It appears undamaged but further investigation is needed to determine both paintings' exact condition and restoration needs, the museum said.

It is unclear when the paintings will return to Amsterdam, as the paintings may be used as evidence in court.

Additional reporting by agencies
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It was only a brief moment, but the handshake between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will become one of the defining moments of the Shimon Peres funeral on Friday.

Mr Peres, who shared a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, died Wednesday at the age of 93.

Direct encounters between the two leaders are so rare that their last meeting in 2015 was widely described as a one-in-five-years handshake.

Long time, long time, Mr Abbas was quoted as saying to Mr Netanyahu on Friday at the ceremony in Jerusalem. The Israeli prime minister responded: It's something that I appreciate very much on behalf of our people and on behalf of us.

Soon afterward, Mr Abbas was criticised by some Palestinians and others for his welcoming gesture. Social media commentators critical of Israel called him a sellout, a wolf in sheep's clothing, and one argued that the Arab world won't be happy.

To some, the fact that the simple handshake was newsworthy symbolised the failures of peace efforts. Mr Peres shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 with former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the Oslo Accords, a framework that launched a peace process that is now in tatters. Mr Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish extremist who opposed the efforts.

shimon-peres.jpg, by Iwona Backup (REUTERS)

Despite their friendly encounter in Jerusalem on Friday, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Abbas have not directly negotiated since 2014, when the last official exchanges took place. The two leaders have also not held direct talks on controversial Jewish settlements in the West Bank since 2010.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper argued that the gesture would have little impact. It is still unclear if the event will turn into an opportunity for an official meeting between the two leaders, the paper wrote Thursday.

In 2010, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Abbas met in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for a peace summit, also attended by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in what would turn out to be their last encounter for years.

During the following five years, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Abbas were not seen during joint public meetings despite subsequent peace efforts that eventually collapsed.

U.S. President Obama and Israel's PM Netanyahu at the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres (Reuters TV)

After the two finally greeted each other at the World Climate Change Conference last year, both emphasized later that their encounter should not be overestimated.

It was purely protocol, not a working meeting, Mr Netanyahu said. So we shook hands, thats crystal clear. But we didnt talk.

Their smiles quickly turned into a fierce political fight, with Mr Abbas harshly criticising Israel only hours later. Our resources are being usurped, our trees are being uprooted, our agriculture is being destroyed, Mr Abbas said.

In several instances, Israeli leaders and Mr Abbas were at the same events but did not meet. In June, for instance, Mr Abbas declined to meet Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in Brussels. Both Mr Abbas and Mr Rivlin were in the city at the same time by coincidence.

Earlier this month, Dutch lawmaker Tunahan Kuzu also refused a handshake with Netanyahu when the prime minister visited the Netherlands. Kuzu had reportedly pinned a Palestinian flag to her lapel.

Copyright The Washington Post
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World leaders and dignitaries joined Israelis in Jerusalem on Friday for the funeral of the country's former President Shimon Peres.

US President Barack Obama, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, French President Francois Hollande, German President Joachim Gauck and scores of other world leaders are attending the funeral.

Mr Peres died aged 93 in the early hours of Wednesday, two weeks after he suffered a stroke.

Mr Obama, who awarded Mr Peres the presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, is one of the speakers at the ceremony. He landed in Israel on Friday morning.

After the Israeli statesman died, Mr Obama described him as a friend and the essence of Israel itself, saying: A light has gone out, but the hope he gave us will burn forever.

Prime Minister Theresa May joined Mr Obama in calling Mr Peres a courageous and visionary statesman who worked relentlessly for peace and never lost hope that this would one day be achievable.

 'Farewell to Our Beloved Father' - Shimon Peres' Son

Police shut roads in central Jerusalem ahead of the funeral. It is expected to be Israel's largest since that of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was killed by a Jewish nationalist in 1995.

During his 66-year-long political career, Mr Peres jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for brokering the historic Oslo interim peace accords with the Palestinian leadership.

Former US president, Bill Clinton pays his respect in front of the coffin of former Israeli president Shimon Peres (AFP/Getty Images)

Since then, the peace process has collapsed, but Mr Peres continued to work on programmes promoting Israeli-Arab co-existence after he retired from politics in 2014.

Mr Abbas said that despite the breakdown in peace efforts, he decided to attend to honor Peres' longtime commitment to peace. He said Mr Peres was a partner in making the peace of the brave.

Mr Peres was hospitalised following a stroke two weeks ago which led to bleeding in his brain. He was sedated and on life support before he condition suddenly worsened on Wednesday.

Tributes to Shimon Peres in Jerusalem (REUTERS)

The Peres family physician said the statesman passed away without suffering.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Mr Peres despite their deep ideological differences, expressing deep personal grief at the passing of the beloved of the nation.

And the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, described him as a true giant amongst men.

Notable deaths in 2016 Show all 42 1 /42 Notable deaths in 2016 Notable deaths in 2016 Debbie Reynolds was an American actress, singer, businesswoman, film historian, and humanitarian. She died on December 28 in Los Angeles Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Actress Carrie Fisher died on December 27 aged 60 Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Comedian and Actor Ricky Harris died on December 26 aged 54 Rex Notable deaths in 2016 British singer George Michael died on 25 December aged 53 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Rick Parfitt OBE was an English musician, best known for being a singer, songwriter and rhythm guitarist in the rock band Status Quo. He died on December 24 in Marbella, Spain Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Lord Jenkin of Roding died at the age of 90 on the 21 December PA wire Notable deaths in 2016 Rabbi Lionel Blue died on the 19 December Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Zsa Zsa Gabor died on December 18 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Leonard Cohen died on 7 November Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Grand secretary of the Orange Order Drew Nelson died on 10 October aged 60 after a short illness PA Notable deaths in 2016 Aaron Pryor, the relentless junior welterweight died Sunday, Oct. 9, at the age of 60 at his home in Cincinnati after a long battle with heart disease AP Notable deaths in 2016 Polish Director Andrzej Wajda died on October 9, aged 90 Reuters Notable deaths in 2016 Stylianos Pattakos has died following a stroke on 8th October. He was 103 years old. AP Notable deaths in 2016 Dickie Jeeps, was an English rugby union player who played for Northampton. He represented and captained both the England national rugby union team and the British Lions in the 1950s and 1960s. He died on 8th October. He was 84 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Duke of Westminster Billionaire landowner the Duke of Westminster, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor has died on 9 August, aged 64 Rex Features Notable deaths in 2016 Christina Knudsen Sir Roger Moores stepdaughter Christina Knudsen has died from cancer on 25 July at teh age of 47 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Caroline Aherne The actress Caroline Aherne has died from cancer on 2 July at the age of 52 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Christina Grimmie Christina Grimmie, 22, who was an American singer and songwriter, known for her participation in the NBC singing competition The Voice, was signing autographs at a concert venue in Orlando on 10 June when an assailant shot her. Grimmie was transported to a local hospital where she died from her wounds on 11 June Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Kimbo Slice Former UFC and Bellator MMA fighter Kimbo Slice died after being admitted to hospital in Florida on 6 June, aged 42 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Muhammad Ali The three-time former heavyweight world champion died after being admitted to hospital with a respiratory illness on 3 June, aged 74 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Sally Brampton Brampton who was the launch editor of the UK edition of Elle magazine has died on 10 May, aged 60 Grant Triplow/REX/Shutterstock Notable deaths in 2016 Billy Paul The soul singer Billy Paul, who was best known for his single Me and Mrs Jones, has died on 24 April, aged 81 Noel Vasquez/Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Prince Prince, the legendary musician, has been found dead at his Paisley Park recording studio on 21 April. He was 57 Notable deaths in 2016 Chyna WWE icon Joan Laurer dies aged 45 after being found at California home on 20 April Notable deaths in 2016 Victoria Wood The five-time Bafta-winning actress and comedian Victoria Wood has died on 20 April at her London home after a short illness with cancer. She was 62 Notable deaths in 2016 David Gest The entertainer and former husband of Liza Minnelli, David Gest has been found dead on 12 April in the Four Seasons hotel in Canary Warf, London. He was 62-years-old PA Notable deaths in 2016 Denise Robertson Denise Robertson, an agony aunt on This Morning for over 30 years, has died on 1 April, aged 83 Notable deaths in 2016 Zaha Hadid Dame Zaha Hadid, the prominent architect best known for designs such as the London Olympic Aquatic Centre and the Guangzhou Opera House, has died of a heart attack on 31 March, aged 65 2010 AFP Notable deaths in 2016 Ronnie Corbett British entertainer Ronnie Corbett has passed away on 31 March at the age of 85 2014 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Imre Kertesz Hungarian writer and Holocaust survivor Imre Kertesz, who won the 2002 Nobel Literature Prize, has died on 31 March, at the age of 86 REUTERS Notable deaths in 2016 Rob Ford Rob Ford, the former controversial mayor of Toronto, has died following a battle with a rare form of cancer. The 46-year-old passed away at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto on 22 March Notable deaths in 2016 Joey Feek Joey (left) passed away in March after a two-year cancer illness. She was part of country music duo, Joey + Rory, with her husband Rory (right) Jason Merritt/Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Umberto Eco Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco died 19 February 2016 aged 84 EPA Notable deaths in 2016 Harper Lee Harper Lee, the American novelist known for writing 'To Kill a Mockingbird', died February 19, 2016 aged 89 2005 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Vanity Vanity, pictured performing in 1983, died aged 57 REX Features Notable deaths in 2016 Dave Mirra The BMX legend's body found inside truck with gunshot wound after apparent suicide aged 41 Notable deaths in 2016 Harry Harpham The former miner became Sheffield Labour MP in May after many years as a local councillor. He died after succumbing to cancer, at the age of 61. Notable deaths in 2016 Dale Griffin The Mott the Hoople drummer died on January 17, aged 67 REX Notable deaths in 2016 Rene Angelil Celine Dion's husband and manager Rene Angelil has lost his battle with cancer on 14 January, aged 73 2011 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Alan Rickman Legendary actor Alan Rickman has died on 14 January at the age of 69 after battle with pancreatic cancer. He is largely regarded as one of the most beloved British actors of our generation with roles in Love Actually, Die Hard, Michael Collins, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and an illustrious stage career 2015 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Maurice White The Earth, Wind & Fire founder died aged 74. The nine-piece band sold more than 90 million albums worldwide and won six Grammy awards Notable deaths in 2016 Lawrence Phillips Former NFL star found dead in prison cell on 13 January in suspected suicide, aged 40 AFP/Getty Images

There will be countless tributes to Shimon Peres over the coming days, but I fear that few, if any, will adequately capture the palpable sense of collective grief felt across the world, nor do justice to the memory of a true giant amongst men, Mr Mirvis said.

Additional reporting from Associated Press
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Syrian children swimming and playing in water-filled craters in east Aleppo have been filmed in footage released by activists in the besieged city.

In the video three little boys jump into the murky water in their clothes, whooping as they do so.

When asked how the pool got there, one says, There was an attack on our neighbourhood. Some houses were set on fire, three of them.

It was created by a bomb, another adds. It fell at 3.30am. An entire family was wiped out over there.

Nearby, bodies in East Aleppo are still trapped under rubble.

For the last eight days the besieged rebel-held neighbourhood, which is home to 250,000 people, has been subject to an intense renewed bombing campaign by the Syrian regime and Russian air forces. Civil service defence workers on the ground told The Independent they believe 500 people have died and 2,000 are in need of urgent medical care in what has become one of the bloodiest weeks in Syrias almost six-year-long civil war.

A Syrian boy awaits treatment at a make-shift hospital following air strikes on rebel-held eastern areas of Aleppo on 24 September, 2016 (KARAM AL-MASRI/AFP/Getty Images)

Residents say theyve never experienced anything like the new bunker-buster ground-penetrating bombs, designed to destroy shelters and basements under the ground. Some of the strikes have left craters up to five metres deep and damaged the citys already antiquated water system.

Hospitals, emergency response centres and bakeries serving thousands of people have been destroyed in what rebels say are attacks which deliberately target civilian infrastructure. The US, NATO and several international bodies have condemned the attacks as war crimes.

Last week, east Aleppos main Suliman Al-Halabi water pumping station was hit in a direct strike. The rebels turned off the water supply to government-controlled areas in retaliation, leaving two million people without water for days.

The station was fixed by Thursday, and the rebel-run Aleppo Media Centre released pictures showing some of the streets being cleaned of debris and rubble.

Aleppo's citadel is seen through destruction in this picture taken on 28 September, 2016 in the Farafira district, northwest of the city's historic citadel (Georges Ourfalian/AFP/Getty)

However, unconfirmed reports surfaced on Friday that a new strike has knocked out Bab Al-Nyrab water station, which would mean that all the citys residents are once again without clean water.

Fighting in Aleppo has intensified following the breakdown of a US and Russian brokered ceasefire 10 days ago.

The Syrian military announced a new offensive against opposition-held Aleppo last Thursday, which has been followed up with ground troops - the first such attempt to totally retake the city since 2012.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed in his Eid-al-Adha address to retake the entire country from terrorists. Regaining control of Aleppo would be a decisive victory for the regime, effectively relegating all US-backed rebels to sparsely populated pockets in the far north and south of the country.
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The UN Human Rights Council has appointed its first independent investigator to help protect homosexual and transgender people worldwide from violence and discrimination.

The United Nations expert Vitit Muntarbhorn will have a three-year mandate to investigate abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people.

Mr Muntarbhorn is an international law professor at the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, and has served on several UN bodies, including inquiries on Syria and as a special rapporteur on North Korea.

The UN agreed on the new role in June, after the 47-member council overcame strong objections by Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries to adopt a Western-backed resolution by a vote of 23 states in favour and 18 against with six abstentions.

Human Rights Watch welcomed Friday's appointment, saying the UN council made history.

This critical mandate will bring much-needed attention to human rights violations against LGBT people in all regions of the world, John Fisher, the group's director in Geneva, said in a statement.

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) said the newly created role was critical to give justice to LGBTI people who have been attacked, abused or discriminated against.

Never has there been a more urgent need to safeguard the human rights of LGBTI persons around the world, executive director of ILGA, Renato Sabbadini, said in a statement to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Hundreds of LGBTI people have been killed and thousands injured in recent years, in violence that included knife attacks and genital mutilation, as well as stoning and dismemberment, the UN said in a report last year.

More than 2,000 transgender and gender diverse people were murdered in 65 countries between 2008 and 2015, according to The Trans Murder Monitoring project, which is coordinated by LGBT rights group Transgender Europe.

In 2011, the UN rights body declared there should be no discrimination or violence against people based on their sexual orientation.

Thomson Reuters Foundation
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Muslims across the world will welcome the Islamic New Year next week, which will mark the beginning of Muharram  the first month of the Islamic lunar calendar.

Like other Islamic celebrations, the dates differ from year to year in relation to the Gregorian calendar, as they are based on the lunar cycle.

But what is Muharram and when exactly is it?

What is Islamic New Year?

The Islamic New Year begins with the sighting of the new moon at sunset. Its arrival signals the beginning of the month of Muharram  one of the four holy months of the Islamic calendar.

Muharram is the second most holy month of the Islamic year, after Ramadan, its name meaning forbidden, many followers of the faith choosing to fast on its ninth and tenth days.

The first month of the year also marks the anniversary of the historic Battle of Karbala on 10 October 680 AD where the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, Imam Hussein ibn Ali, was killed during the siege of the Iraqi city 100km south of Baghdad, an event widely commemorated by Shia Muslims.

The New Year also honours the emigration of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, which was known as the Hijrah and gives the first day of the year its name.

When is it?

Hijri New Year will fall on 11 September for most Muslims this year.

In some Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia - astronomical calculations are used to determine the dates of the Islamic calendar instead - and, for this reason, there are sometimes differences of up to two days as to precisely when the date falls depending on where you are.

What year is it?

Islamic years are usually followed by the letter H, for Hijrah, or AH, for the Latin term Anno Hegirae, meaning in the year of the Hijrah.

At the moment, the Islamic year is 1439 AH. From next week, it will be 1440 AH.

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

How is the New Year celebrated?

For many Muslims, the New Year represents a period for self-reflection and historical awareness. Prayers and fasting build up towards the tenth day of Muharram, known as Ashura, when the massacre at Karbala is remembered.

Iraqi Shiite Muslims bleed after hitting their foreheads with swords and beating themselves during the religious festival of Ashura in Baghdad (Reuters)

Mourning congregations gather to express grief, with Shia Muslim sects commonly practising chest beating, known as the Latyma, and sometimes self-flagellation and the cutting of their foreheads.

Sunni Muslims regard Ashura as a day of respect and gratitude for the Prophet Moses but do not participate in the ritual.
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The first edition of the inflight magazine, High Life, contained a price list for inflight purchases. In 1973, the price of Vermouths Sweet and Dry on British European Airways flights was 10p.

In a story I wrote to mark the 40th anniversary of BAs magazine, I speculated, Perhaps we will return to the days when you must pay for Minerals and Cola, and added I bet they will cost more than 5p.

It didnt take too long. As The Independent predicted in May, and British Airways revealed this week, from 11 January next year the cheap seats will be more expensive for anyone who likes a drink (or a nibble) on board.

When I fly out to Brussels on 10 January, a gin and tonic is free (though since the flight is at 6.45am, I may decline). Flying back the next day, I will need to pay for my G&T.

Rather than the 5p that minerals cost in 1973, that tonic will cost 1.50, with the evil alcohol costing a further 4.50  the same as a quarter bottle of wine. People can take their own alcohol on board, but are not allowed to drink any booze that is not served to them by the cabin crew.

Water, which is a much more sensible thing to drink, will cost a painful 1.80. But happily that is easily solved: I routinely take an empty bottle through security and ask staff at an airside bar to fill it, which they invariably do with a smile.

While the drinks trolley will look the same as ever, only more expensive, the food offer is very different. British Airways has recruited Marks & Spencer to provide a range of snacks. Having done a comparison this week I must say the quality is far better. BA kindly supplied me with the existing cheese-and-ham croissant, a sad and soggy item that is manufactured in Ireland of all places and needs to be transported over the Irish Sea before it even gets near a galley. And M&S offered a cheese ploughmans sandwich, which was fresh and tasty, as youd expect. The price of 3 represents a one-third uplift on the high street price, not at all bad for a sandwich thats been uplifted to 30,000 feet. BA's budget rivals typically charge 4.50 for a sandwich.

Karen White tweeted that she is all in favour of replacing BA's current offering: That wrap they hand out is like eating carpet underlay. But heres Jacqueline Crockford, saying she is OK with this but wish the options were Pret rather than M&S.

Pret a Manger, as you may have noticed, has a large presence airside at major UK airports. (M&S has a large presence, too, but it is landside, aimed more at returning travellers who need anything from a pint of milk to a miniature bottle of wine to steady their nerves on the Gatwick Express.)

Vendors of food at airports served by British Airways should see a surge in business: passengers either eating before they depart, or taking goodies on board. Almost all the UKs airport terminals are prepared for this, because of the trend towards buy on board (or, in my miserly case, dont buy on board). When Heathrow Terminal 2 was (re-)opened, attention was paid to this shift in behaviour. The London's Pride pub does a good trade in sandwiches for people to take on their journeys.

But what happens across at Terminal 5? It is Fortress BA, with British Airways operating almost all the flights from "T5". Our writer, Christopher Beanland, raised the question of whether its retail offer is fit for purpose. He says: Currently there arent many food outlets, because most people wouldnt bother buying snacks if they get them free on BA. But once theyre no longer free, will T5 need to add more places to buy food?

I suspect the retail specialists at Heathrow are already on the case  and perhaps hoping that the no free food concept extends to flights longer than BAs planned limit of five hours. Already Icelandair, which has a time-zone-busting flight from Reykjavik to Portland in Oregon (seven zones, eight hours), has dropped complimentary catering from long-haul services. Except, oddly, for passengers under 12, who still get a free meal  which, from what I have observed, is usually swiftly and surreptitiously devoured by their famished parents.
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When we ran our piece on the worlds least friendly cities - where The Independent travel team asked some of our top travel writers to recount the places they had been made to feel least welcome - we expected some backlash from those named and shamed. But the city of Vladikavkaz is one place that refuses to take our views lying down.

Instead, the mayor of the southern Russian city has invited the journalist who called it the least friendly place he had ever encountered to revisit and be proved wrong.

Local news website Slovo made a stern promise in its headline: Municipality of Vladikavkaz is going to change the view of Jamie Lafferty.

Russian news site Slovo ran a story about the municipality inviting the journalist to change his mind

In response to The Independents article and Laffertys assertion that Vladikavkaz contained corrupt police, hideous humid weather [and] dreadful food, leaders of the citys administration said: We will not allow anyone to say our city is bad, so we wait for him to visit at any time, and we will show our city in all colours.

Of Vladikavkazs colourfulness, Lafferty had said: The sky was grey, the people were grey, the Ladas were grey.

The administration added: We have decided to invite Jamie Lafferty to show how hospitable the capital of North Ossetia can be.

The municipality even posted a picture of Lafferty on its Instagram account with the words WELCOME.

It is believed these statements were not intended to be threatening.

Lafferty, who is currently a finalist for the Travel Writer of the Year title at the Association of Independent Tour Operators travel press awards, said he would definitely think about accepting the mayors invitation.

Vladikavkaz isnt the worst place Ive ever been but it was one of the unfriendliest, he added. Its in a pretty troubled part of the world but over 300,000 people call it home - I guess there must be something to like about it.

On whether he thought the city could change his mind, Lafferty responded: All of my experiences were negative last time so theres a pretty low bar to clear.

"If Im hosted by the mayor I doubt itll be a very organic trip, but itd at least be helpful to have someone point me in the direction of the attractions - assuming there are some.
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Liam Fox  one of the Three Brexiteers charged by the Prime Minister with finding out the costs of leaving the EU if she or Parliament, if it is allowed to exercise its much vaunted sovereignty, is ever to realistically take the recommendation of the EU referendum  has hailed the Brexit vote as both historic and brave.

Itll certainly be historic if we actually go through with it, but brave?

To be brave one must first face fear  and I didnt notice any Leave voters expressing one iota of that in these pages or elsewhere.

Indeed, it is striking that Leavers had no fears for the future whatsoever that way.

The costs must be evaluated before the decision is finally taken one way or another  and remaining, if there's nothing to be gained and much lost, will thus have to sensibly stay on the table.

Theres no other way.

No sane British government could do anything else surely.

John Haran

Address supplied

Has Mary Dejevsky (Voices, 30 September) missed the core economic argument of the Brexiteers? Free trade as espoused by 19th century economists was highly effective for British overseas investment and the City of London, but was highly destructive to domestic agriculture and industry  just as its 21st century revival promises to be.

Mark Grey

Covent Garden, London

It was great to see Liam Fox yesterday championing free trade, zero tariffs and the South Korea-EU deal. If only there was an organisation we could join that would give us access to all this.

Laurence Taylor

Newcastle upon Tyne

Dangerous decision by British Airways

Will BA also be charging for water aboard its short-haul flights after announcing that it will no longer be serving free food? Passengers tend to get dehydrated on flights and are encouraged to drink plenty of liquids for health reasons.

If water is to be charged for and some passengers go without, there could be health consequences and BA could be held responsible.

I personally fly with BA to Cyprus at least twice a year. In future I shall fly with Aegean, whose inflight service I am reliably informed is excellent.

Souren Sarafyan

Cyprus

Like it or lump it, Labour only wins one way

In reply to Michael Heaton (29 September), one wonders which fair electoral system would deliver a famous victory to Corbyn and McConnells faded, red flag-waving Politburo?

The task ahead for Labour is to turn a sea of blue in England red, plus decapitate the SNP thistle in Scotland and persuade four out of five swing voters to opt for 21st century socialism.

Tony Blair only converted Tory Worcester Women and managed three New Labour majorities by raiding Thatchers wardrobe and stealing the clothes of the Conservatives on social and economic policy.

Whenever Labour has stood on a traditional socialist platform, since Harold Wilsons resignation, it has failed to win power on every occasion: Callaghan in 1979, Foot in 1983, Kinnock in 1987 and 1992, Brown in 2010 and Miliband in 2015. The voters roundly rejected a dated socialist vision then and they will again in 2020.

Even with an alternative system, Labours only hope of forming even a minority government is to become a British reply to the US Democrats, a modern social democratic centrist movement.

After all, in 1992, Bill Clinton only made the Democrats electable again by adopting a right-wing welfare policy and bombing Iraq. Blair pulled off the same trick in 1997. Labour has never recovered its winning streak since.

Unless the population outside the English metropolitan cities is given a collective head transplant by a far-left alien before 2020, they will roundly reject Corbyn, Abbott and McConnells Morning Star vision, whether by PR, AV, a show of hands or a caucus.

Never mind first past the post, Corbyns Labour has already fallen at the first post by ignoring the deficit again at Liverpool, with a open cheque for adding to it with more tax and spend.

Anthony Rodriguez

Staines upon Thames, Middlesex

Sturgeon must remember all of Scotland

Nicola Sturgeon complains about Scotland being dragged out of the EU against its will because of the way that other parts of the UK voted in June, and she demands that Scotland be exempted from the UKs exit. I am sure she would wish to be consistent. She should therefore accept that the Borders, Orkney and Shetland, Aberdeen and Edinburgh should not be dragged out of the UK against their will simply because Greater Glasgow and Dundee may want to separate from the UK.

As she contemplates another separation referendum, Ms Sturgeon should think seriously about observing the will of the majority in areas not sympathetic to her ambitions. Let her have her Peoples Republic of Glasgow and Dundee and leave the rest of us in peace.

Jill Stephenson

Edinburgh

Nicola Sturgeon is living in the past.

She admits independence is her teenage dream. Of course, Sturgeon was a teenager 30 years ago when, sadly unlike now, North Sea energy was economically viable. Yet the nationalist leader clings on to those long- gone days, peddling a pointless dream, seemingly indifferent to the impact on our standard of living.

As most voters in Scotland move on from Brexit, Sturgeon persists in a bizarre fantasy that we can remain in the single market, as though 23 June didnt happen. Or that an independent Scotland will waltz its way into the EU, like a professional from Strictly. And, so the Sturgeon narrative goes, not involving many years waiting and costs too massive for Scotland to sustain.

Perhaps an independent Scotland might have been financially viable in the 1970s. It may well have been better if the UK hadnt left the EU. But the reality is that the oil is gone and Scotlands trade with the rest of the UK is four times that with Europe.

Sturgeons Pavlovian response to every problem is independence. But sadly for the nationalist leader's childhood dreams, its an outdated solution appropriate for another era.

Martin Redfern

Edinburgh

Expertise from experts, please

What makes the GP Youssef El-Gingihy (Voices, 30 September) an authority in international trade? And should I consult an economist if I have a sore foot?

Tom Van den Burgh

Address supplied

Disingenuous train tips

I commuted on the Central Line many moons ago and Anna Rhodes article (30 September) brought to memory the recording of Gerard Hoffnung at the Oxford Union on 4 December 1958. One of his anecdotes was about information to foreign tourists at the Festival of Britain 1951: When entering a railway carriage, make sure you shake hands with all the passengers.

John Godfrey

Dumbleton, Gloucestershire
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Why does the British Government devote so much time and effort to cultivating the rulers of Bahrain, a tiny state notorious for imprisoning and torturing its critics? It is doing so when a Bahraini court is about to sentence the countrys leading human rights advocate, Nabeel Rajab, who has been held in isolation in a filthy cell full of ants and cockroaches, to as much as 15 years in prison for sending tweets criticising torture in Bahrain and the Saudi bombardment of Yemen.

Yet it has just been announced that Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, are to make an official visit to Bahrain in November with the purpose of improving relations with Britain. It is not as though Bahrain has been short of senior British visitors of late, with the International Trade Minister Liam Fox going there earlier in September to meet the Crown Prince, Prime Minister and commerce minister. And, if this was not enough, in the last few days the Foreign Office Minister of State for Europe, Sir Alan Duncan, found it necessary to pay a visit to Bahrain where he met King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and the interior minister, Sheikh Rashid al-Khalifa, whose ministry is accused of being responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses on the island since the Arab Spring protests there were crushed in 2011 with the assistance of Saudi troops.

 Barack Obama brands Congress decision on Saudi 911 lawsuits bill 'a mistake'

Quite why Sir Alan, who might be thought to have enough on his plate in dealing with his area of responsibility in Europe in the era of Brexit, should find it necessary to visit Bahrain remains something of mystery. Sayed Ahmed Alwadei, director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, asks: Why is Alan Duncan in Bahrain? He has no reasonable business being there as Minister of State for Europe But Sir Alan does have a long record of befriending the Gulf monarchies, informing a journalist in July that Saudi Arabia is not a dictatorship.

The flurry of high level visits to Bahrain comes as Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, awaits sentencing on next week on three charges stemming from his use of social media. These relates to Rajab tweeting and retweeting about torture in Bahrains Jau prison and the humanitarian crisis caused by Saudi-led bombing in Yemen. After he published an essay entitled Letter From a Bahrain Jail in the The New York Times a month ago, he was charged with publishing false news and statements and malicious rumours that undermines the prestige of the kingdom.

This prestige has taken a battering since 2011 when pro-democracy protesters, largely belonging to the Shia majority on the island, were savagely repressed by the security forces. Ever since, the Sunni monarchy has done everything to secure and reinforce its power, not hesitating to inflame Sunni-Shia tensions by stripping the countrys most popular Shia cleric, Sheikh Isa Qassim, of his citizenship on the grounds that he was serving the interests of a foreign power.

Repression has escalated since May with the suspension of the main Shia opposition party, al-Wifaq, and an extension to the prison sentence of its leader, Sheikh Ali Salman. The al-Khalifa dynasty presumably calculates that US and British objections to this clampdown are purely for the record and can safely be disregarded. The former Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond claimed unblushingly earlier this year that Bahrain was travelling in the right direction when it came to human rights and political reform. Evidently, this masquerade of concern for the rights of the majority in Bahrain is now being discarded, as indicated by the plethora of visits.

There are reasons which have nothing to do with human rights motivating the British Government, such as the recent agreement to expand a British naval base on the island with the expansion being paid for by Bahrain. In its evidence to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Government said that UK naval facilities on the island give the Royal Navy the ability to operate not only in the Gulf but well beyond in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and North West Indian Ocean. Another expert witness claimed that for Britain the kingdom is a substitute for an aircraft carrier permanently stationed in the Gulf.

10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Show all 10 1 /10 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In October 2014, three lawyers, Dr Abdulrahman al-Subaihi, Bander al-Nogaithan and Abdulrahman al-Rumaih , were sentenced to up to eight years in prison for using Twitter to criticize the Ministry of Justice. AFP/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2015, Yemens Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was forced into exile after a Shia-led insurgency. A Saudi Arabia-led coalition has responded with air strikes in order to reinstate Mr Hadi. It has since been accused of committing war crimes in the country. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Women who supported the Women2Drive campaign, launched in 2011 to challenge the ban on women driving vehicles, faced harassment and intimidation by the authorities. The government warned that women drivers would face arrest. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Members of the Kingdoms Shia minority, most of whom live in the oil-rich Eastern Province, continue to face discrimination that limits their access to government services and employment. Activists have received death sentences or long prison terms for their alleged participation in protests in 2011 and 2012. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses All public gatherings are prohibited under an order issued by the Interior Ministry in 2011. Those defy the ban face arrest, prosecution and imprisonment on charges such as inciting people against the authorities. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2014, the Interior Ministry stated that authorities had deported over 370,000 foreign migrants and that 18,000 others were in detention. Thousands of workers were returned to Somalia and other states where they were at risk of human rights abuses, with large numbers also returned to Yemen, in order to open more jobs to Saudi Arabians. Many migrants reported that prior to their deportation they had been packed into overcrowded makeshift detention facilities where they received little food and water and were abused by guards. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses The Saudi Arabian authorities continue to deny access to independent human rights organisations like Amnesty International, and they have been known to take punitive action, including through the courts, against activists and family members of victims who contact Amnesty. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison for using his liberal blog to criticise Saudi Arabias clerics. He has already received 50 lashes, which have reportedly left him in poor health. Carsten Koall/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Dawood al-Marhoon was arrested aged 17 for participating in an anti-government protest. After refusing to spy on his fellow protestors, he was tortured and forced to sign a blank document that would later contain his confession. At Dawoods trial, the prosecution requested death by crucifixion while refusing him a lawyer. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 aged either 16 or 17 for participating in protests during the Arab spring. His sentence includes beheading and crucifixion. The international community has spoken out against the punishment and has called on Saudi Arabia to stop. He is the nephew of a prominent government dissident. Getty

These dreams of restored naval might are probably unrealistic, though British politicians may be particularly susceptible to them at the moment, imagining that Britain can rebalance itself politically and economically post-Brexit by closer relations with old semi-dependent allies such as the Gulf monarchies. These rulers ultimately depend on US and British support to stay in power, however many arms they buy. Bahrain matters more than it looks because it is under strong Saudi influence and what pleases its al-Khalifa rulers pleases the House of Saud.

But in kowtowing so abjectly to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf kingdoms, Britain may be betting on a flagging horse at the wrong moment. Britain, France and  with increasing misgivings  the US have gone along since 2011 with the Gulf state policy of regime change in Libya and Syria. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in combination with Turkey, have provided crucial support for the armed opposition to Bashar al-Assad. Foreign envoys seeking to end the Syrian war since 2011 were struck by British and French adherence to the Saudi position, even though it meant a continuance of the war which has destabilised the region and to a mass exodus of refugees heading for Western Europe.

Whatever the Saudis and Gulf monarchies thought they were doing in Syria, it has not worked. They have been sawing off the branch on which they are sitting by spreading chaos and directly or indirectly supporting the rise of al-Qaeda-type organisations like Isis and al-Nusra. Likewise in their rivalry with Iran and the Shia powers, the Sunni monarchies are on the back foot, having escalated a ferocious war in Yemen which they are failing to win.

In the past week Saudi Arabia has suffered two setbacks that are as serious as any of these others: on Wednesday the US Congress voted overwhelmingly to override a presidential veto enabling the families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia. In terms of US public opinion, the Saudi rulers are at last paying a price for their role in spreading Sunni extremism and for the bombing of Yemen. The Saudi brand is becoming toxic in the US as politicians respond to a pervasive belief among voters that there is Saudi complicity in the spread of terrorism and war.

The second Saudi setback is different, but also leaves it weaker. At the Opec conference in Algiers, Saudi Arabia dropped its long-term policy of pumping as much oil as it could, and agreed to production cuts in order to raise the price of crude. A likely motivation was simple shortage of money. The prospects for the new agreement are cloudy but it appears that Iran has got most of what it wanted in returning to its pre-sanctions production level. It is too early to see Saudi Arabia and its Gulf counterparts as on an inevitable road to decline, but their strength is ebbing.
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Happy Birthday, Theresa May  60 years of age.

Age is only a number of course, but it is interesting to see how the cult of youth that has dominated British politics for so long has, quietly, passed away  and not before time. As it was, the wrong side of 50 had become an acceptable form of ageism, and an inexplicable one too.

The most energetic example of the cult was, of course, Tony Blair  he was once the future, after all  and one of the more inane soundbites of the Blair era was Young Britain. Over and over, New Labours young Turks, and the older ones, repeated it in their successful 1997 election campaign. Even then, the British population was far from young; ageing gracefully, in reality, with ever more pensioners being supported by a smaller pool of young Britons.

In contrast to May, Blair was a remarkably young 43 years old when he won his first general election, the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812. He had already been the youngest Labour leader in its history. But Blairs achievement was quickly surpassed by David Cameron, a slightly younger smooth-browed 43 when he strolled through the door of Number 10 with Nick Clegg (also 43).

Theresa May in quotes Show all 10 1 /10 Theresa May in quotes Theresa May in quotes On being described by the former chancellor Ken Clarke as a bloody difficult woman: Politics could do with some Bloody Difficult Women actually Rex Features Theresa May in quotes On keeping secrets even from her husband: There are some things I am told that I am not able to confide in anybody Rex Features Theresa May in quotes On the relentless focus on her appearance during a speech at the Women in the World summit: "I like clothes and I like shoes. One of the challenges for women in the workplace is to be ourselves and I say you can be clever and like clothes. You can have a career and like clothes Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On comparisons to Margaret Thatcher: I think there can only ever be one Margaret Thatcher. Im not someone who naturally looks to role models. Ive always, whatever job it is Im doing at the time, given it my best shot. I put my all into it, and try to do the best job I can AFP/Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On her rebelliousness, or lack of, as a teenager: I probably was Goody Two Shoes at school Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On being replaced as chairman by Lord Saatchi and Liam Fox in 2003: Yes, it takes two men to step into the shoes of one woman AFP/Getty Images Theresa May in quotes What Theresa May said when she was asked about her political ambitions during an interview with Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, a lawyer married to Nick Clegg, in December: MD: "My very last question is: that little girl who is somewhere there, is she dreaming of becoming the next British Prime Minister?" TM: "Shes dreaming of carrying on doing a good job in the Home Office" Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On not being able to have children: I like to keep my personal life personal. We couldnt have children, we dealt with it and moved on. I hope nobody would think that mattered; I can still empathise, understand people and care about fairness and opportunity Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On whether she can deliver the mandate of the EU referendum: I think for party members and indeed for others, I would say look at my record. I think they can see that Im somebody who gets on with the job, but Im also somebody who says it as I see it and actually delivers on what I say Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On the equally relentless obsession with her shoes: As a woman I know you can be very serious about something and very soberly dressed add a little bit of interest with footwear. I always tell women you have to be yourself, dont assume you have to fit into a stereotype and if your personality is shown through your clothes or shoes, so be it Getty Images

Gordon Brown broke the run a little, at 56, while John Major was something of a dynamic newcomer when he emerged from relative obscurity to take over from Margaret Thatcher (65) in 1990, at 47. Major was then a little younger than Harold Wilson in 1964, who made it to the top when he was 48. The 1960s also favoured the cult of youth, with JFK the trendsetter.

No longer. When May faces the Leader of the Opposition across the despatch box, she sees a well-preserved 67-year-old in Jeremy Corbyn. Indeed, there is a remarkable convergence of age among the current crop of world leaders. We have Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia, both 63; Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel both at 62. They will, before long, be joined by either Hillary Clinton (67) or Donald Trump (70), succeeding a much younger veteran of American politics, Barack Obama already a two-term president and now leaving office at just 55.

When May and co drop by to visit other global dignitaries they can at least feel young by comparison. The Queen, at 90, Pope Francis, who turns 80 in December; the 85-year-old Dalai Lama; and Emperor Akihito of Japan, now 82, can offer the benefit of their age and experience to those not old enough to have lived through the Second World War.

Does it mean much? Maybe something. This is a generation of leaders who have political memories stretching back to the progressive permissive 1960s, when they were no doubt precociously interested in politics. They were students in the crisis-ridden 1970s, lived through the coldest episodes of the Cold War, and by the 1990s well established in their political careers (Trump aside), with the ructions since 2007 propelling them, directly or indirectly, into power.

Having lived through good times and bad, they are perhaps more inclined to follow Rudyard Kiplings famous dictum to meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same.

 Bradley Wiggins says Theresa May has done a good job

As a group, there are similarities in the Merkel-May-Hollande-Putin-Clinton cohort; they tend to proceed carefully, to mull their decisions, and stick to their guns (literally in Vladimirs case).

They are capable of bold initiatives  Merkel on refugees, Putins aggressions, obviously, Mays grammar-school plan and Brexit enthusiasm  but they dont come on impulse. They also reflect the changing demographics of the countries they lead. In Britain, for example, we now have about half a million people aged 90 and over, roughly three times the number of 30 years ago, and about 15,000 centenarians.

No bad thing really, then, that the oldies are back in power. They havent discovered the elixir of youth, but they are impressive proof that ageism is plain wrong.
Part of Mountjoy Prison is being considered as a new home for some of the country's most vulnerable and ill older prisoners

Part of Mountjoy Prison is being considered as a new home for some of the country's most vulnerable and ill older prisoners

Part of Mountjoy Prison is being considered as a new home for some of the country's most vulnerable and ill older prisoners, it has been revealed.

Prison chiefs proposed refitting the Training Unit in the Dublin jail complex as the population of inmates ages.

The idea was mooted amid warnings from t he Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) that Ireland risks breaching prisoners' basic human rights and subjecting them to degrading treatment if there is inadequate care for dementia sufferers behind bars.

A report by the agency found prisoners with Alzheimer's or similar degrading conditions posed a significant issue for the Irish Prison Service and inmates.

While some aspects of prison life were found to be positive, interviews with inmates revealed some older people are confined to their cell or are bed-bound - and in some instances intimate personal care such as the changing of incontinence pads is being provided by other prisoners.

Researchers also revealed one man in his 70s had been diagnosed with dementia, but did not appear to be aware of his condition or how long he had been in prison or what his sentence was.

IPRT researchers called on prison chiefs to ensure any unit for older people would incorporate age-friendly design, taking account of the specific needs of older people.

Fergal Black, Irish Prison Service d irector of care and rehabilitation, confirmed ideas were being assessed for development of the Training Unit.

"We want to improve our physical infrastructure for older prisoners," he said.

"We would adapt maybe 10 plus of the units there, make them mobility-friendly, have hoists, appropriate toilet facilities and double doors,"

The proposal for redevelopment for a unit for older offenders was suggested as figures showed 359 prisoners, including 11 women, over 50, were serving sentences in Irish jails last year.

That is about 10% of the overall population and a 63% increase since 2001.

A spokesman for the Irish Prison Service said: "We are considering and we have committed in our strategy for 2016-2018 to developing a unit for older prisoners."

The agency declined to be drawn on what other prisons were being looked as a dedicated detention centre for older inmates.
The Central Bank has not yet seen details of a scheme to help first-time home buyers that is due to be unveiled in the Budget - even though the Government says the plan will be approved by the Regulator.

Yesterday, the deputy governor of the Central Bank, Sharon Donnery, said regulators have not been asked to review any proposals to date.

The comments appear to be at odds with a statement last week by finance minister Michael Noonan, who told the Dail's Finance Committee that a planned help-to-buy scheme for first-time buyers will have the approval of the Central Bank.

"Anything we're doing, we're doing with the full knowledge of the Central Bank," he said.

"The Central Bank knows exactly what I have in mind and they approve of it," the minister told TDs.

Central Bank deputy governor Sharon Donnery said she had "not seen something yet" but would look at anything proposed.

"If there is some sort of scheme," regulators will provide feedback on it, she told reporters on the fringe of an event in Dublin organised by the US-based Global Interdependence Centre (GIC).

With less than two weeks to the Budget, however, there appears to be little time for the Department of Finance and the regulators to agree on a proposal.

Sharon Donnery noted that last year the Central Bank did review a plan by the minister to introduce a mortgage insurance scheme that would have encouraged banks to lend more without taking on additional risk.

In 2015 the then governor of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan, effectively shot down that proposal from Mr Noonan.

In fact, the insurance idea had been floated around the same time as the Central Bank was finalising its scheme to curb mortgage credit, by fixing strict limits on the amount of credit available to homebuyers based on loan to value and loan to income curbs.

A review of those rules by the Central Bank is due to finish up in November.

More than 50 submissions have been under a public consultation that was part of that review.

The Central Bank would "absolutely" change the mortgage rules, if the evidence showed that was required, Ms Donnery said.

However, she has previously stated that the evidence threshold for any such change is high. And, yesterday in her address to an audience of central bankers and economists from around the world at the GIC event, Ms Donnery appeared to pour cold water on some of the negative reaction to the lending limits.

The costs of new regulations can appear high in the immediate term, after rules like the mortgage limits are introduced, while the longer-term benefits can be harder to see, she said.

The Central Bank's commitment to capping mortgage credit appears to be at odds with the Government's so far unpublished "help to buy" plans.

At the Dail Finance Committee last week, Mr Noonan said he believes the plan being worked on will be "a pretty good scheme."

"It's an open secret that we're working on proposals to help couples buy homes," he said.

But he told TDs that he wasn't prepared to release details of the plan - which is to be backdated to July - as this would be "pre-empting the Budget debate".
Fianna Fail TDs have been assured the party will vehemently oppose any attempt to increase the excise duty on diesel.

And the Fianna Fail parliamentary was told yesterday there is a clear expectation that 5 will be added to the old-age pension.

The issue has been a major bone of contention since Limerick TD Willie O'Dea insisted the increase was a red-line issue for the party.

However, deputies present at the meeting expressed their major discomfort at reports that an increase in the cost of diesel is on the cards.

Tipperary TD Jackie Cahill was particularly vocal, warning that such a move could cause an election.

The party's finance spokesperson Michael McGrath told the meeting that it would be made clear to Mr Noonan that no increase could happen.

There was also a brief discussion about water charges, with Roscommon TD Eugene Murphy saying he has been contacted by constituents expressing unease about the party's stance that charges should now be abolished entirely.

Fianna Fail's spokesman on the issue, Barry Cowen, responded, insisting that the party's stance must now be respected by all TDs.

At a separate meeting in Leinster House, members of the Independent Alliance passed on a document of their Budget demands to Fine Gael.

Meanwhile, a new report compiled for the Department of Finance says there is no clear method for monitoring whether Ireland's economy is overheating.

The cross-party Budget Oversight Committee, which was set up as part of 'new politics', also warns that a series of "bottlenecks" are developing in the country's infrastructure.

It says the Government urgently needs to address the shortage of housing and fast-track transport projects in order to avoid gridlock that has the potential to harm economic output.

However, the committee failed to reach any solid conclusions on a series of issues, including whether the Universal Social Charge should be abolished.

The committee was set up in July to give TDs from all parties, including Fine Gael, more input into the budgetary process and its remit includes suggesting changes to revenue raising and expenditure measures ahead of the Budget.

However, several sources on the committee told the Irish Independent that they had struggled to reach consensus on key issues.

The group was chaired by Fine Gael TD for Carlow/Kilkenny John Paul Phelan. The report also notes that, due to timing and limited resources, their analysis is not as detailed as they would have liked.

They agreed that the country needs "a broad and stable tax base" and that housing, education and transport are the key areas for investment.

Among the recommendations is that the Government push for changes to EU rules which link capital and current expenditure.

One risk identified was the marginal tax rate which "could disincentive young emigrants from returning to Ireland to take up jobs created as a result of our economic growth".

Taoiseach Enda Kenny ruled out a special tax deal for returning emigrants, despite it forming a key plank of Budget proposals by Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell O'Connor.
The former Burlington Hotel  now trading as the DoubleTree by Hilton  is expected to continue as a four-star hotel after its sale

Irelands largest hotel operator, the Dalata Hotel Group announced today that it has conditionally agreed to acquire the operating interest of the former Burlington Hotel in Dublin 4.

Given Dalatas dominance in the Dublin hotel market, the companys acquisition will be subject to the approval of the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC).

It is also dependent on the completion by the German-owned DekaBank of its estimated 180m purchase of the freehold in the hotel which now trades as the Doubletree Hilton from its current owners, the US private equity fund, Blackstone.

Following the anticipated completion of the deal, Dalata, which is headed up by Pat McCann, said it intends to commence operations in the hotel through a 25-year operating lease agreed with Deka as the new owners of the property. The lease will be subject to certain conditions, including periodic rent reviews. The acquisition is expected to complete in November.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is to open it first Irish office later this year.

The plans were confirmed by EIB vice president Andrew McDowell, who was Enda Kenny's economic advisor until he was appointed to the 270,000 a year post earlier this year.

He confirmed the new Irish office during his first working visit to Dublin since taking up his new office earlier this month.

Mr McDowell said total EIB exposure to Ireland remains below the European average, indicating scope to ramp up investment here by the European Union owned bank.

The EIB intends to do more in Ireland, he said.

"The new Dublin office will ensure that formal and informal links between Irish authorities and private sector partners build on this track record to ensure that opportunities to broaden EIB engagement are not lost, he said.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) has admitted his staff have no market experience of loan sales, but insisted they were qualified to probe Project Eagle.

Seamus McCarthy also conceded at the PAC that his office's assessment of the potential loss to the taxpayer - 190m (223) - is "a probable loss" and "not set in stone".

Nama has rejected the C&AG report on the sale of its Northern Ireland loan book. The agency's chief executive Brendan McDonagh said the C&AG's staff didn't have experience in the loan sales. He said it was "very much a specialist area and is not one on which the C&AG's staff could reasonably be expected to have detailed expertise".

"There would have been nothing wrong in acknowledging that fact," he told TDs at the Public Accounts Committee.

But Mr McCarthy defended his staff's ability to conduct the examination of Project Eagle.

Fine Gael's Peter Burke asked what private sector experience they had. Mr McCarthy said they were "career civil servants" and confirmed they had no market experience.

However, he pointed out that they audit the HSE without having medical experience.

He said they had experience of auditing Nama and other major State financial institutions such as the Central Bank.

Mr McCarthy said he was satisfied they had "the requisite skills, knowledge, experience and expertise to do the required work".

Mr Burke also asked whether Mr McCarthy was "hanging his hat" on the 190m figure and if it was "set in stone".

The C&AG replied: "No, it's not set in stone", adding that "It's a probable loss" and there could be a "margin" around it.

Fianna Fail's Shane Cassells referred to what he described as the "unprecedented stand-off" between the C&AG and Nama over the report. He asked whether Mr McCarthy was "standing firm" on its contents amid the "onslaught" against his office. Mr McCarthy said: I'm happy with the report I've presented."
At the High Court, Mr Justice Michael Twomey appointed insolvency practitioner Tom Kavanagh of Deloitte Ireland as interim examiner of the company (Stock photo)

A company that has been a market leader in the supply of linen to hotels and hospitals and which employs 380 people has gone into examinership.

Celtic Linen Ltd, which is based in Drinagh, Co Wexford, sought the protection of the court through examinership because it had become loss-making in recent years.

Barrister Kelley Smith said the business had been in operation since 1926 and had been supplying bed linen, towelling and table linen to the hospitality sector, and scrub suits, patient wear and ward linen to the healthcare sectors.

At the High Court, Mr Justice Michael Twomey appointed insolvency practitioner Tom Kavanagh of Deloitte Ireland as interim examiner of the company after hearing the company had a reasonable prospect of survival as a going concern if certain steps were taken.

Ms Smith, counsel for the company, told the court that an independent expert's report had stated the company could survive if it can secure new investment, as well as reducing its costs.

Another step identified by the independent expert was that the examiner put together a scheme of arrangement with the company's creditors, counsel said.

Ms Smith said the company would also need to upgrade its equipment as its machinery was old and prone to breaking down. Its difficulties were due to its cost base being too high. It had also lost customers to new entrants into the market.

She told the court that last year the company put in place a project designed to restructure its business but certain aspects of the plan were unsuccessful.

Counsel said the company had liabilities of 14m and its biggest creditor, AIB, was supporting the application for the appointment of an examiner.

Ms Smith told Judge Twomey the company had a 19pc market share in the healthcare linen sector and 15pc in the hospitality linen market, and annually supplies 41 million pieces of linen from its facility at Drinagh.The Judge adjourned the matter to a date in October.

A statement released by the company yesterday said: "The examinership process will be used to restructure the finances of the business with the aim of securing fresh investment to ensure its future viability.

"To this end, the company is currently in discussions with potential equity investors.

"All jobs within the company are secure during the examinership period and all employees will be paid in full, which if granted is expected to last for a period of up to 100 days."
Motorists who are still insured with the now collapsed Enterprise Insurance have been warned to get replacement cover by the end of October.

It comes after the International Monetary Fund said this week that motor insurance in Ireland costs four times the European average.

Gibraltar-based Enterprise collapsed in July affecting 14,000 drivers in this country.

Now its provisional liquidator Frederick White, of Grant Thornton in Gibraltar, has written to brokers warning them that he plans to terminate all Enterprise policies by October 26 next.

However, it is understood most Irish motorists that were insured by Enterprise got replacement cover as soon as news broke of the problems with the company.

Wexford-based Wrightway Insurance, the underwriting agency that wrote business in Ireland through brokers on behalf of Enterprise, refunded outstanding premiums after the company went bust.

Enterprise Insurance also wrote business in the UK, France, Italy, Greece and Norway.

A statement published by the Central Bank here states: The provisional liquidator for Enterprise Insurance Company plc (Enterprise) has today notified all brokers that he will present his report to the Supreme Court in Gibraltar on 26 October 2016, when he will recommend that a liquidator be appointed to Enterprise.

The provisional liquidator has also indicated that all motor insurance policies will no longer be valid as and from 26 October, the Central Bank said.

While policies will remain in effect until that date, the Central Bank strongly recommends that Enterprise policyholders immediately contact their insurance broker or an insurer directly to seek alternative insurance cover.

As Gibraltar does not have an insurance compensation fund, it is expected that the Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland will have to pick up the tab.
US software company Salesforce called on EU regulators on Thursday to investigate antitrust issues related to Microsoft's $26bn bid for social network LinkedIn.

Microsoft is expected to seek EU antitrust approval in the coming weeks for its largest ever deal.

Salesforce, which lost out on the bidding for LinkedIn, urged competition authorities to go beyond a simple review, saying the deal threatens innovation and competition.

"By gaining ownership of LinkedIn's unique dataset of over 450 million professionals in more than 200 countries, Microsoft will be able to deny competitors access to that data, and in doing so obtain an unfair competitive advantage," Burke Norton, Salesforce's chief legal officer, said in a statement.

"Salesforce believes this raises significant antitrust and data privacy issues that need to be fully scrutinized by competition and data privacy authorities in the United States and in the European Union," he said.

Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, said in a statement: "Salesforce may not be aware, but the deal has already been cleared to close in the United States, Canada, and Brazil. We're committed to continuing to work to bring price competition to a CRM market in which Salesforce is the dominant participant charging customers higher prices today."

The European Commission's preliminary review of merger deals lasts 25 working days, which can be extended by about four months if it has serious concerns.
Samsung is facing legal and regulatory action for a fault in its washing machines that has allegedly caused some models to "explode", making them the company's second product in a month to be condemned by safety watchdogs.

The company is in discussion with a US regulator about safety problems affecting "top-load" washing machines, which open at the top rather than the front, produced in the last five years.

After a lawsuit was filed claiming that Samsung washing machines had exploded, the Consumer Product Safety Commission warned that the problem could be widespread.

In response, Samsung said: "In rare cases, affected units may experience abnormal vibrations that could pose a risk of personal injury or property damage when washing bedding, bulky or water-resistant items."

The lawsuit, filed in New Jersey, alleges that customers' machines had "blown apart" and "exploded in owners' homes".

"It was the loudest sound. It sounded like a bomb went off in my ear," said Melissa Thaxton, one of the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit. "There were wires, nuts, the cover actually was laying on the floor. I just remember covering my head and leaning towards my son and just screaming this scream that I didnt even know I could scream."

Leiff Cabraser, who is representing the plaintiffs, said: "Beyond damage to the washing machines themselves, reports include descriptions of glass and other machine parts being shot across garages and laundry rooms at distances of over 15 feet, with consequent damage to other appliances, water heaters, and homes."

Samsung has urged customers to use a lower speed setting for bulk washes and bedding to avoid the risk of their washing machines becoming unstable.

"Samsung is recommending that consumers with affected models use the lower speed delicate cycle when washing bedding, bulky or water-resistant materials," said the company. "There have been no reported incidents when using this cycle."

The news that certain washing machines manufactured between March 2011 and April 2016 could be hazardous follows a "humiliating" global recall of Samsung's "exploding" Galaxy Note 7 smartphone.

Since Samsung started replacing the recalled Note 7s there have been further reports of the "safe" models bursting into flames.

Analysts estimate the controversy could cost the smartphone and appliance maker up to $1 billion, and it has already wiped millions of dollars off its share price.

It is not clear if the Korean electronics giant will recall the faulty washing machines in the US, a comprehensive list of which has not been released.

Separately, the company recalled 70,000 washing machines in Australia last year after claims they had caused nearly 100 fires in the country.

For customers that think they might have an affected product, Samsung has released a tool that will let them search using the serial number.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission said it "is actively and cooperatively working with Samsung to address safety issues related to certain top-load washing machines made between March 2011 and April 2016".

"CPSC is advising consumers to only use the delicate cycle when washing bedding, water-resistant and bulky items," it added. "The lower spin speed in the delicate cycle lessens the risk of impact injuries or property damage due to the washing machine becoming dislodged."

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Music discovery app Shazam has finally reached profitability after 17 years and a billion-dollar valuation.

One of the UK's few tech "unicorns" - startups worth $1bn (770m), Shazam announced the financial milestone as it heralded a billion downloads to date, 500 million of which happened in the last two years.

Expanding its remit beyond recorded music into image-recognition, marketing campaigns and augmented reality has helped Shazam achieve "double-digit revenue growth". On Thursday, it said was profitable when it came to EBITDA, a measure of profitability that excludes taxes and depreciation in assets.

"We have actually been profitable in the past," said Andrew Fisher, executive chairman of Shazam. But the company went "back into loss-making" to expand its remit and "develop a new paradigm for the advertising industry".

Capitalising on the vast number of users that were "Shazam-ing" - looking up on the app - songs in adverts, the company partnered with advertisers such as Nike and Coca Cola to offer more search results than just song titles.

"We still provide the name of the song in the advert, but then we go on to provide a richer experience," said Mr Fisher. "We've been able to provide immediate responses at the point of inspiration."

For example, if a user searches for a song used in a car insurance advert they will see the name of the track, as well as being prompted by Shazam to call said insurer and get a quote.

The company has also introduced image-recognition technology that means users can scan visual cues, such as a film poster on the side of a bus, and be taken straight to a ticket booking system.

"As we've matured these areas of the business it has helped us get back to profitability," said Mr Fisher.

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If the company's download numbers are anything to go by, it doesn't appear to have isolated its 20m daily users by moving away from its music look-up roots.

"It took us almost 10 years to reach 500m downloads," said Mr Fisher. "It took just two years to reach 1bn, so in the last 24 months we've doubled our downloads."

Shazam is now setting its sights on emerging markets, including Asia, Africa and the Middle East and will next week launch a smaller version of its mobile app that works with slower connection speeds.

Separately, music streaming service Spotify was reported to be in takeover talks with its $700m rival Soundcloud.

Soundcloud, which is known as a free audio upload service, launched a subscription based streaming service to rival the likes of Spotify and Apple Music earlier this year.

Spotify boasts 40m paying subscribers and revenues of 1.95bn (1.5bn), but is yet to make a profit.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
The photo shows clockwise: David Beckham (40), Gordon Ramsay (49), Victoria Bekcham (41), Gordon's wife Tana (41), the Beckham's youngest child Harper (4), Brooklyn (16), Gordon's daughter Matilda who appears to be taking the snap (13), Cruz (10), the Beckham's middle son Romeo (13), Jack Ramsay (16), the Ramsay's oldest daughter Meghan (18) and Holly Ramsay (16). Instagram

Gordon Ramsay revealed that he was banned from his daughter's parents' evening because he took a selfie with the headmaster.

The Kitchen Nightmares chef said that the school asked him to leave and to "refrain" from returning.

The father-of-six was already in the school's bad books for failing to turn up at previous meetings. However, his latest appearance led to a ban as the school deemed his behaviour inappropriate.

"I failed at turning up for parents evening at my kids' school," he told Vegas magazine.

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"And then when I went to the next one with my youngest, Tilly, I asked the headmaster for a selfie, after which I got kicked out, and so I really f***ed that one up!

"The following day I received an email saying: 'Can you please refrain from the next parents evening - we do not need the presence of Mr Ramsay'."

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He didn't mention the name of the school but as the family reside in Los Angeles, it's likely to be a school in California.
Hollywood actor Alexander Skarsgard with music producer David Mattsson at The Guinness Storehouse, when they touched down in Dublin ahead of the Irish premiere of their new film War on Everyone at the Lighthouse Cinema Dublin. Pictures Brian McEvoy

Hollywood actors Michael Pena and Alexander Skarsgard when they touched down in Dublin ahead of the Irish premiere of their new film War on Everyone at the Lighthouse Cinema Dublin. Pictures Brian McEvoy

Hollywood actors Alexander Skarsgard and Michael Pena with Director/Writer John Michael McDonagh when they touched down in Dublin ahead of the Irish premiere of their new film War on Everyone at the Lighthouse Cinema Dublin. Pictures Brian McEvoy

Hollywood actors Alexander Skarsgard and Micheal Pena are in Dublin tonight for the premiere of their new movie War on Everyone.

The "jet black comedy" is directed by John Michael McDonagh (The Guard) and premiered in the Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield on Friday evening.

Skarsgard (True Blood, The Legend of Tarzan, Battleship) and Pena (The Martian, Crash, Fury) walked the red carpet with McDonagh and co-star David Wilmot and happily posed for photos with fans.

The actors had to hotfoot it from the film's Dublin premiere to join Ryan Tubridy live in studio for The Late Late Show, alongside guests that include Michael Healy-Rae and former Irish international Jason McAteer.

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War on Everyone is a dark, 'buddy-cop' movie which tells the story of Terry Monroe (Skarsgard) and Bob Bolano (Pena), two corrupt New Mexico police officers who appear to have picked the wrong person to blackmail.

The film is scheduled for general release on October 6.
Stephen Avery and his nephew were both convicted of the murder of Halbach in 2005

Making A Murder's Steven Avery will hit TV screens this month but this time he won't be featuring in a documentary.

The convicted killer at the centre of the Netflix docu-series will appear on Dr Phil next month, it was announced on Thursday.

He will telephone the daytime talk show from behind bars for an episode that will air in the US on October 3 and 4. Dr Phil will also have Avery's fiancee, Lynn Hartman, in the studio to discuss their relationship, as well as Avery's life in prison and his hope for a release.

"The truth is coming out, and sooner or later all the truth will come out," Avery said in the interview.

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Avery (53) is currently serving a life sentence for the 2007 murder of photographer Teresa Halbach, and he's engaged to legal secretary Hartman after eight months together.

The couple only met for the first time two weeks ago at the Waupun Correctional Institute in Wisconsin.

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His attorney Kathleen Zellner confirmed the news to People: "Steven deserves every bit of happiness that comes his way. He is very much in love and happy with Lynn so we are happy for them."

Meanwhile Netflix has ordered more episodes of Making A Murder. Executive producers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos will return for the second series which will delve further into Avery's case, as well as the life of his nephew and co-defendant Brendan Dassey.

Dassey was also convicted in connection with Halbach's murder but had his conviction overturned.
'All the world's a stage." William Shakespeare's famous line from 'As You Like It' would also be a perfect slogan for the 2016 Dublin Theatre Festival, which has a strong international flavour.

As artistic director Willie White writes in the DTF programme, "The festival took shape against a background of brutal and unsettling events that brought global conflicts much closer to home than usual". The cultural climate prompted him to include several overseas shows with a political edge, as well as local productions that reflect Ireland in this year of commemorations.

Here are 10 highlights from the festival, which opened last night and continues until October 16.

Donegal by Frank McGuinness

Abbey Theatre, Oct 12-15 (previews from Oct 6)

Fittingly enough, the national theatre's main offering is a new "musical play" from one of our greatest living playwrights. Set in Frank McGuinness's home county, Donegal takes audiences inside the close-knit world of Irish country music and contains original songs by composer Kevin Doherty.

Rather than an exercise in cosy nostalgia, however, it is a hard-hitting family drama depicting the trauma of a fading star (Siobhan McCarthy) whose commercial throne is threatened by her pushy son (Killian Donnelly).

Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (new translation by Roddy Doyle)

Gaiety Theatre, Oct 1 & 2

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Roddy Doyle's CV includes novels, plays, film scripts and musicals, so it was only a matter of time before he turned his hand to a full-scale opera. This modern version of 'Don Giovanni' relocates the story in Dublin and aims to present Mozart's notorious libertine "through a uniquely Irish lens".

It features the RTE Concert Orchestra, backing Welsh baritone David Kempster in the title role as well as local stars such as mezzo soprano Tara Erraught. We are a long way from Barrytown here - but Doyle should have the erudition and chutzpah required to carry it off.

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The Father by Florian Zeller (translated by Christopher Hampton)

Gate Theatre, until Oct 15

"I feel as if I'm losing all my leaves," cries Andre, the central figure of Florian Zeller's harrowing drama about an elderly man sliding into dementia. 'The Father' won a 2014 Moliere award for France's best play and has been described as a Gallic version of 'King Lear'. Appropriately enough, then, this production sees Owen Roe give a towering performance that echoes his recent portrayal of Shakespeare's tragic monarch at The Abbey.

First Love by Samuel Beckett

O'Reilly Theatre, Belvedere, Oct 12-16

Barry McGovern has been internationally acclaimed for his one-man shows, which show him to be arguably the world's greatest interpreter of Samuel Beckett's work. Here he tackles one of the master's lesser-known works, a semi-autobiographical short story written in 1946. 'First Love' is narrated by a man who has been evicted from the family home following the death of his father and forms a sordid relationship with a prostitute. Michael Colgan directs a performance that promises to be captivatingly bleak, but also shot through with Beckett's trademark pitch-black humour.

Ireland Shed A Tear? by Michael Collins

The New Theatre, Sept 30-Oct 9

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The question mark is all-important. Ireland may have been shocked by the fire that killed 10 Travellers at a halting site in Carrickmines last year, but can such a tragedy make any long-term difference to social attitudes? Written by the well-known campaigner and actor Michael Collins, this new drama uses songs and poetry to depict Traveller culture in a non-confrontational way.

Collins also stars alongside his 10-year-old son Johnny as a man who lives under the threat of eviction and finds that any post-Carrickmines solidarity with the settled community is disappointingly short-lived.

The Seagull by Anton Chekhov (by Michael West and Annie Ryan)

Gaiety Theatre, Oct 6-16 (preview Oct 5)

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When 'The Seagull' was first performed in St Petersburg 120 years ago, the audience hated it so much that Anton Chekhov decided to give up writing plays altogether. Happily, this country estate drama about unrequited love is now recognised as a timeless masterpiece. Dublin's innovative Corn Exchange Company prides itself on giving old texts a contemporary sheen, so it is no surprise to find their version bending genders and tinkering with settings - but the emotional core of Chekhov's claustrophobic classic remains fully intact.

These Rooms, directed by David Bolger and Louise Lowe

85/86 Upper Dorset St, Sept 30-Oct 16

The North King Street massacre, in which 15 Dubliners were shot or bayoneted to death by trigger-happy British soldiers, is one of Easter 1916's lesser-known atrocities. Now the award-winning dance company CoisCeim and ANU Productions have had the novel idea of recreating it as a site-specific piece of theatre. Based on eye-witness testimonies from 38 women, as well as newly-released military inquiry records, this will be an intensely immersive experience. Space is limited - and audience members are welcome to get involved.

Guerrilla, conceived by El Conde de Torrefiel

Project Arts Centre, Sept 30 and Oct 1

How do European millennials feel about their future? El Conde de Torrefiel is a young Spanish company whose tightly choreographed performance art pieces try to answer this thorny question. Set in three different cities, Guerilla features a noisy electro-pop show, a Tai Chi class and an international conference - all designed to bring out the participants' suppressed fears and deepest fantasies. Not for the faint-hearted, but its avant-garde concept could deliver some intriguing results.

The Remains of Maisie Duggan by Carmel Winters

Abbey Theatre, Peacock Stage, runs until Oct 15

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As its title suggests, 'The Remains of Maisie Duggan' is a play about death. In this case, however, the supposedly dead woman has just had a routine car accident and is deceased only in her own mind. Now she feels liberated to tell her dysfunctional family a few home truths about their abusive behaviour. The Cork playwright Carmel Winters made a real impact with her previous work, 'B for Baby', and fans will hope that this study of generational conflict packs a similar emotional punch.

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

Bord Gais Energy Theatre, Sept 30 & Oct 1

Four hundred years since he died after a drinking bout in Stratford, William Shakespeare's immortal creations are still being twisted into all sorts of colourful new shapes. This anarchic adaptation of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' is irreverent even by 21st-century standards, adding lycra-clad superheroes, Barry White songs and a food fight to the Bard's much-loved Athenian fairy story.

While purists may carp, the show designed by Britain's Filter Theatre received rave reviews in London and should certainly be anything but dull.
A Co Dublin couple have launched High Court proceedings against their neighbour whose actions they allege may scupper plans to sell their current home.

The action has been been brought by Allan and Rosemary Archer who the High Court heard have entered into contracts to sell their property Deebert, Brookstone Road in Baldoyle Dublin and purchase a new house in Sutton.

However the Archer's barrister Breffni Gordan BL said their plans to move home have had to be halted after their neighbour Anne Madden of Brookstone Lodge Brookstone Road Baldolye claimed the boundary between their properties is in the wrong place and that part of her property is within the Archer's site.

Because of this claim, formally sent to the Archers through Ms Madden's solicitors on September 21st last, counsel said the contract of sale cannot be completed.

Counsel said the Archers reject Ms Madden's claim about the boundary, which Mr Gordan said is "unstateable". What she has done is a slander against the Archer's title, counsel said.

Counsel said the case "was not a classic boundary dispute." Counsel said in 2008 a boundary fence was constructed between the properties at Ms Madden's request.

The boundary counsel said was "marked out" by an engineer hired Ms Madden. In addition she had paid for the construction of the boundary itself.

Counsel said Ms Madden was now claiming the boundary was in the wrong place and should be moved a further 2m into the Archer's property. This counsel said would "put the boundary in the Archer's kitchen".

Counsel added that Ms Madden is also in dispute over the boundary with a hardware store located on the other side of her property.

If the boundary on that property is where Ms Madden claims it is counsel the boundary should be located where the hardware stores has its cash register.

Counsel said the Archers are obliged to inform the buyer of their property about the letter concerning the boundary are very upset over the claim which came "out of the blue."

The Archers and their two children after placing the house on the market last April and agreeing the sale last July have packed up their belongings and are currently "living out of boxes," in advance of their planned move to Sutton.

Counsel said through their solicitors the Archers asked that the letter sent to them be formally withdrawn, but Ms Madden has refused to do so.

As a result the Archers have initiated High Court proceedings against Ms Madden seeking various orders and declarations including that the boundary fence is correctly positioned.

They also seek injunctions that the letter of the 21st September be withdrawn and that Ms Madden be restrained from any future interference with the Archer's contractual relations.

They further seek damages for slander of their title.

The matter came before Mr Justice Michael Twomey, who on an ex parte basis, granted the Archer's lawyers permission to serve short notice of the proceedings on Ms Madden.

The Judge said he was not prepared to make any orders without first hearing from Ms Madden or her representatives.

The case will return before the courts next week.
A COMPANY director has been fined 250 for claiming more than 12,000 in benefits after failing to disclose his wife had a job.

Nathaniel Hutchinson (33) of Oranmore Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin pleaded guilty to charges under the Social Welfare Consolidation Act.

Dublin District Court was told there were six summonses for wrongly claiming Jobseeker's Allowance from August 2009 until July 2011. The court heard he did not inform the Department of Social Protection that his wife worked and he had not been entitled to the dole payment.

The total fraud was 12,260 but 6,350 has been repaid by Mr Hutchinson who expects to be able pay the department back in full. The court heard he is involved in a road haulage business and he also has debts owed to him.

The prosecution was brought by the Department of Social Protection. The offences, at district court level, can result in a fine of up to 2,500 as well as a possible six-month jail sentence.

The social welfare office can continue to recoup money owed after a court prosecution has been finalised.

Finalising the case , Judge O'Neill said that the businessman had made a huge dent in the amount outstanding and intends to clear it as quickly as possible.

He imposed a 250 fine which has to be paid within three months.
A FORMER National Assets Management Agency (Nama) official has been served with a book of evidence and sent forward for trial accused of leaking confidential information to an investment firm.

Paul Pugh (56), who has an address at Clontarf Road, in Dublin, had been charged earlier under section 7 of the 2009 Nama Act.

His charge states that on or about June 6 in 2012, at a location within the State he intentionally disclosed by email confidential information relating to McCabe Builders (UK) limited to a named individual at investment firm Connaught and Whitehall Capital UK Ltd.

He had been arrested by appointment and charged in June and there was no objection to bail. The DPP had directed trial on indictment.

He appeared before Judge Grainne Malone on Friday (Sept 30) at Dublin District Court where a book of evidence was served on him by Detective Garrett Lynch of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation.

A State solicitor told the court the DPP consented to Mr Pugh being sent forward for trial.

Judge Malone granted the DPP's application to have him returned for trial to the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court where he will face his next hearing on Oct. 28.

She warned him that if he intended to use an alibi in his defence he must inform the prosecution within 14 days.

Mr Pugh, who did not address the court, has not yet entered a plea to the charge which is contrary to section 7(1) and 6 and section 202(2) of the NAMA Act.

Bail has been set in his own bond of 1000. He has also been ordered to sign on once a week at Clontarf garda station and to inform gardai 48 hours in advance if he intends to leave the jurisdiction.

Det Gda Lynch confirmed to Judge Malone on Friday that the defendant has abided by the bail terms.
An ex-principal of a former Catholic primary school has appeared in court charged with sexual assault.

Richard Duffin turned up for the hearing at Ballymena Magistrates' Court using a walking aid.

The 77-year-old, from the Gortnageeragh Road area of Cargan, 10 miles from Ballymena, is accused of indecently assaulting three males on dates unknown between June 30, 1975, and July 1, 1980.

Duffin was the first headmaster of the now closed St Joseph's Primary School on Ballymena's Doury Road. He retired in 1992.

The defendant faces a total of 12 charges, including two of wilfully assaulting one of the males, who was under 16 at the time, in a manner likely to cause him unnecessary suffering or injury to health between October 31, 1980, and June 1, 1981.

He faces a further two charges of assaulting the same male during the same period.

No details of where the alleged offences occurred were outlined.

During the preliminary inquiry, District Judge Des Perry said the charges could be described as "historical sexual offences".

A prosecutor submitted that on the evidence there was a case to answer, and there were no contrary submissions from defence barrister Neil Moore.

Duffin was released on his own bail of 500 to appear at Antrim Crown Court for arraignment on October 27.
The planned eviction of a Kildare couple and their two children was postponed today following last-minute court intervention.

John and Dolores Quinn, of Woodside House, Dunnstown, Brannockstown were told at the High Court last week that they would be put out of their five-bedroom home after failing to pay a 3million bank debt.

However, in a statement to Independent.ie, a spokesman for the family said the eviction was postponed just one hour before it was due to happen.

The statement confirmed that Mr and Ms Quinn, directors of Jon Dol limited, and their two sons, were due to be evicted by the Naas County Sheriff Ms Eithne Coughlan at noon on Friday.

"But last minute legal intervention by way of a special sitting in front of (Ms.) Judge Sinead Ni Chulachain at 10.00am on Friday 30th September which concluded only an hour before the Sheriff indicated she was going to evict the Family and take possession of the Quinn family home.

"The family achieved getting a stay on the order until the matter comes before the Courts again for legal arguments in due course."

The statement said Mr Quinn was in Court with the assistance of "well known Dublin personality" Mr Vincent ODonoghue, and assisted by "another well known Irish businessman".

The spokesman declined to name this businessman.

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The statement continued: "This case came before the High Court during the past week and is due back in Court in a number of weeks to argue substantive issues in relation to the Matter."

The spokesman criticised media coverage of the case.

He wrote: "It has become abundantly clear that the appetite for reporting on the negative and devastating consequences associated with the eviction of families from their family homes is still great, evident and wholesome in this country."

He claimed the Quinn home was photographed "extensively during the week by both press and bank officials trespassing on their property and invading their privacy".

At the High court last week Mr Justice Robert Haughton told the couple that he was unable to help them.

Their five-bedroom bungalow sits on about three-quarters of an acre outside Kilcullen. The property failed to sell at auction in February last.

Barrister Rudi Neuman, counsel for Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank told the court that the couple owed the bank just over 3million and that the Co Kildare Sheriff would be executing a possession order on Friday.

The court heard that the couple borrowed 2,839,000 from the bank in November 2006 and the debt had been secured by mortgage over their principal private residence in Dunnstown.

Judge Haughton, in sworn affidavits from the bank, was told that the couple had defaulted on repayments and now owed the bank 3,165,479 which included arrears of 1.307,000. The last payment on the mortgage had been 2,200 in June 2010.

The bank issued Circuit Court proceedings at Naas for possession in August 2014 and, following adjournments, the County Registrar made an order for possession in July 2015 with a six months stay until February 2016.

After the Quinns had failed to discharge the debt the bank obtained an Execution Order and the Sheriff had recently warned them he would be taking possession of the property and evicting the Quinns on Friday.

Mr Quinn told the High Court last week that for a number of reasons he had neglected appealing the County Registrars order and as a result was not out of time. He asked Judge Haughton to extend time to allow an appeal to the High Court.

Judge Haughton said the proper line of appeal from the County Registrar was to the Circuit Court and he did not have the jurisdiction to deal with the matter.

He refused Mr Quinns application and stated he would not make an order for costs against him and his wife.

Family's full statement:

Further to recent press coverage of the Quinn Family case in Kildare, it has become abundantly clear that the appetite for reporting on the negative and devastating consequences associated with the eviction of families from their Family homes is still great, evident and wholesome in this country.

A significant group of Reporters and photographers, gathered at the Quinn home in the early hours of Friday morning to witness yet another eviction of a Family by a Bank. The Quinn home was photographed extensively during the week by both press and bank officials trespassing on their property and invading their privacy.

Former directors of Jon Dol limited, John & Dolores Quinn and their 2 sons, were due to be evicted by the Naas County Sheriff Ms. Eithne Coughlan at Noon Friday 30th September, but last minute legal intervention by way of a special sitting in front of (Ms.) Judge Sinead Ni Chulachain at 10.00am on Friday 30th September which concluded only an hour before the Sheriff indicated she was going to evict the Family and take posession of the Quinn family home.

The family achieved getting a stay on the order until the matter comes before the Courts again for legal arguments in due course.

Mr. Quinn was in Court with the assistance of Mr. Vincent O Donoghue, a well known Dublin personality and assisted by another well known Irish businessman.

This case came before the High Court during the past week and is due back in Court in a number of weeks to argue substantive issues in relation to the Matter.

It has been stated to us that a separate legal action in this matter may be taken by one of the parties, due to inaccuracies and mal intent in the recent News articles.

No comment can be made on the legal case itself as it is a live ongoing matter before the courts.
Garda overtime is costing the state 7.2 million in just 10 divisions across the country, new figures from the Department of Justice show.

Independent TD Mattie McGrath rose the question in the Dail, seeking the totals for his native Tipperary, along with counties Clare, Cork, Galway, Kilkenny, Laois, Limerick, Offaly, and Waterford.

In response to Mr McGrath, Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said it was not possible to get a county-by-county breakdown as it "would involve a disproportionate amount of Garda time and resources".

The figures show overtime costs from January to August with the garda division of Laois/Offaly incurring the highest costs.

Laois/Offaly: 1,222,271

Cork: 1,095,785

Tipperary: 969,942

Limerick: 966,164

Galway: 902,590

Kilkenny/Carlow: 821,588

Waterford: 638,861

Clare: 548,097

In response to the figures, Ms Fitzgerald said that the costs include overtime incurred by members on major policing operations such the visit of US vice-president Joe Biden, the 1916 centenary celebrations and specific anti-crime operations such as Operation Thor.
Nearly one in five patients nationally has waited on a trolley for more than nine hours for a bed this year (Stock picture)

Four of six theatres in the country's main orthopaedic hospital were forced to lie idle because doctors had run out of implant parts for hips and knees, Health Minister Simon Harris revealed today.

He said surgeons at Cappagh National Orthopaedic Hospital in Dublin had to reduce the operations they carried out because of a lack of "parts".

The latest scandal comes as figures show 11,492 public patients were on a waiting list for an orthopaedic operation last month, including 2,618 in Cappagh, which is the national referral centre for both adults and children's orthopaedics.

He told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health that he has since given another 3m to the hospital to carry out a further 570 orthopaedic procedures at the hospital, which has 27 surgeons.

"Of the six theatres, four were closed - not because they did not have enough consultants. They had run out of parts for hips and knees," he told the committee.

Fianna Fail spokesman on health Deputy Billy Kelleher said it was completely unacceptable that surgeons cannot be allowed to do operations.

"There needs to be a pipeline of hip implants available and avoid having expensive theatres closed," he added.

The minister said he intended to "beef up" public hospitals with the additional funding to tackle waiting lists as well as outsource work to private hospitals, with those patients waiting longest treated first.

Crisis

Asked about the winter trolley crisis, he said that as of yesterday there were 629 patients occupying beds who were fit for discharge but waiting for a service such as a home care package or nursing home.

Describing the figure as "unacceptable", he said that in some cases funding for a home care package is available but the private service needed to deliver it was not available. In other cases, older people may be waiting to be allocated a place in a nursing home of their choice which does not have a vacancy.

Nearly one in five patients nationally has waited on a trolley for more than nine hours for a bed this year.

He said the additional funding provided to him since he became minister allowed "us to deal with financial risks emerging from the beginning of the year".

At the end of August, actual expenditure for the year to date is 9,145.1m, against a profile of 9,149.5m - which indicates an underspend of 4.4m, he added.

Meanwhile, Mr Harris said the treatment of women who were victims of negligence in maternity hospitals was "quite shameful" and "completely unacceptable".

He said he and his colleague Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald were trying to work on a legal system that would be less adversarial for those who are going to court.
Inspectors from the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) discovered the incident at the home run by the Daughters of Charity services in Roscrea in Tipperary Photo: PA

A resident in a disability residential centre was given twice their prescribed dose of a blood-thinning medication, a new report has revealed.

The inspectors from the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) discovered the incident at the home run by the Daughters of Charity services in Roscrea in Tipperary.

Staff said the resident was given the medication in tablet form because their normal liquid preparation was not available.

It turned out the tablet was a combination preparation which contained two blood-thinning medicines.

The inspectors visited the facility, which is home to 29 residents in June, after being notified of a unspecified and adverse clinical event.

Significant risk was found in three of seven Daughters of Charity centres.

One was not suitable to meet the needs of residents and had been issued a notice of proposal to refuse and cancel registration of the centre.

Another centre operated by this provider had an inappropriate number of residents living together whose social care needs were incompatible and were not being met.

Major non-compliance in the area of health and safety and risk management was found on an unannounced inspection in the third centre operated by this provider.

It found that fire safety risks, which had been identified in 2014, remained unaddressed at this centre.

A centre run by Little Angels Association Letterkenny was found to have four major non-compliances at this inspection.

While there were good systems in place to support residents' social care needs, the governance, management and financial viability of this centre were of serious concern.

Significant fire safety concerns were found at a centre operated by North West Parents and Friends Association of Mentally Handicapped Children. Fire doors were ineffective.
There are about 400 individuals convicted of sexual violence in the Irish prison system at any one time, with 300 in the Midlands Prison (pictured) and 100 in Arbour Hill. Photo: Collins

Nearly half of all older inmates in Irish jails are serving time for sex offences while 16pc are killers.

On Friday the Irish Penal Reform Trust launched a report which claimed that the number of 'older people' in Ireland's 14 prisons has increased in recent years.

Describing the background to the report on their website the IPRT said older people in prison are a particularly vulnerable group, and they face a wide range of issues which are different from those faced by the general prison population.

These include bullying, victimisation, health needs, social care and mobility.

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New statistics, obtained from the Irish Prison Service by Independent.ie, reveals that of the 269 over-55s in Irish jails - 131 are serving time for sexual offences.

There are about 400 individuals convicted of sexual violence in the Irish prison system at any one time, with 300 in the Midlands Prison and 100 in Arbour Hill.

Among those serving sentences for sex offences is Patrick OBrien (75) who was sentenced to 12 years in prison with the final three suspended for raping his daughter Fiona Doyle.

Other sex offenders currently behind bars include 'singing priest' Tony Walsh (62) and former secondary school teacher Michael Byrne (80).

Age profile of 55 year + as at 31/08/16 Total 55 - >60 105 60 - >65 70 65 - > 70 40 70 - > 75 29 75 - > 80 20 80 - > 85 3 85 - > 90 1 90 - > 95 1

Figures show that 43 people in this age category were jailed for homicide offences. These include wife killer Brian Kearney (60) and 'Black Widow' Catherine Nevin (62) and Ireland's longest serving prisoner John Shaw. A further 14 are serving time for Attempts/Threat to Murder, Assaults, Harassments and Related Offences.

A total of 46 'older people' are serving life sentences.

The Irish Prison Service (IPS) defines an older person as someone over 55 while the IPRT study is based on prisoners over 50.

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A sizeable amount of 'older prisoners' (105) are between the ages of 55 and 60. There are 54 inmates over the age of 70 and one person who is over 90.

Offence Group Description Total Homicide Offences 43 Sexual Offences 131 Attempts/Threat to Murder, Assaults, Harassments and Related Offences 14 Dangerous or Negligent Acts 2 Kidnapping and Related Offences 1 Robbery, Extortion and Hijacking Offences 2 Burglary and Related Offences 5 Theft and Related Offences 11 Fraud, Deception and Related Offences 5 Controlled Drug Offences 37 Weapons and Explosives Offences 3 Damage to Property and the Environment 3 Public Order and Social Code Offences 5 Road and Traffic Offences 2 Offences against Government, Justice Procedures and Organisation of Crime 4 Offences Not Elsewhere Classified 1 Grand Total 269

A spokesperson for the IPS said a strategy launched last June "has a specific goal aimed at addressing the needs of older prisoners".

"The Irish Prison Service will ensure that older prisoners are identified as a specific group of individual who have particular needs within the prison population.

"The Prison Service will finalise and implement an Older Prisoner Strategy, having full cognisance of the recommendations contained in the report by the IPRT.

"The HSE in conjunction with the prison service will seek to provide specialist general and mental health services for older adults in prison. It is the intention of the prison service to develop strong strategic links with statutory and community services critical to effective care provision for older persons in custody.

"The Prison Service will also look at the possibility of developing a specific setting for older prisoners which would provide a more coordinated response to the ageing prison population and attend their medical needs."

Meanwhile, the IPRT are also raising calling for a national debate on the "appropriateness of prison for older people with serious health needs", on the eve of the UN National Day of Older Persons.

Speaking today, Executive Director Deirdre Malone said:

Whether it is the difficulty in getting around, fear of elder abuse or simply the loneliness of a long day spent in solitude with little to do and no one to talk to, the needs of older people are remarkably similar either side of the prison wall.

"On the eve of International Day of the Older Person it is particularly timely to examine how we can better protect the dignity and the humanity of our older prisoners," she added.
Debbie Regan, mother of the late Ben Regan pictured at Cork Coroners court.

A PLEA was issued for extreme vigilance on Irish farms after an inquest returned a verdict of accidental death for a 23 month old boy who died after a heavy horse box divider fell onto him.

Cork Coroner Philip Comyn described as a terrible tragedy the death of Ben Regan on a west Cork farm last year just six days before his second birthday.

The toddler suffered multiple fractures to his skull and a traumatic brain injury after a heavy metal horse box divider, which had been resting against the wall of a farm hen house, toppled over and fell onto him.

The little boy was with his grandmother, Emily Nolan, on May 23 2015 and the duo were going to feed and then collect eggs from hens.

Ben lived with his mother and father, Roy and Debbie Regan, and his younger brother, Eddie, on a property in Derryleary which operated as Schull Equestrian Centre.

Adjacent to the centre was a 26 acre farm owned by Bens grandparents where cattle, horses and hens were kept.

On May 23, Ben went with his mother and little brother to visit his grandmother, Emily.

As it was a fine day, Debbie decided to stroll back to her home with her younger son in a buggy.

Ben went with his grandmother, Emily, to check her hens.

His grandmother sobbed as she said the hen house door was stiff so she gave it a tug to open it.

Ben was standing beside her.

However, a heavy steel horse box divider was lying against the wall and it somehow toppled over.

Ben was struck and suffered catastrophic head injuries.

(It) came crashing down on top of Ben. I caught him in my arms and ran to the house, she wept.

I saw Roy  I called to Roy. I said a heavy door had fallen on Ben and to call 999.

He wasnt on the ground for any time.

Members of the family gathered to help and two local doctors raced to the scene.

The toddler was already unconscious.

A decision was made to air-lift him to Cork University Hospital (CUH) with the Shannon-based Irish Coast Guard helicopter which landed in a field opposite the family homes.

Sadly, Ben was pronounced dead shortly after admission.

Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster said the toddler would have been immediately rendered unconscious such were the nature of his injuries.

He had suffered multiple fractures to his skull and a traumatic brain injury.

She said the injuries were consistent with a heavy weight falling on the childs head.

A full Health & Safety Authority (HSA) inspection was carried out on the farm and a file was submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

HSA inspector David Barry said there was no evidence that anyone was in any way negligent.

The DPP directed that no further action be taken.

Bens father, Roy, was not allowed pursue a number of health and safety questions he raised as Mr Comyn said it was not the appropriate forum.

The jury returned a unanimous verdict of accident death.

However, Bens father asked the coroner to remove the phrase horse box divider from his verdict.

He asked that the phrase scrap metal be used instead.

Mr Comyn said this was not possible.

Mr Regan indicated that, if the phrase remained, I will be taking this up with a higher court.

Mr Regan then left the inquest without comment.

Mr Comyn extended his sympathies to the family and their extended relatives for what he described as terrible tragedy.

It is very difficult in circumstances like these. It is a tragedy to see someone so young to die in these circumstances.

It reinforces the need for extreme vigilance on farms at all times, he said.
An Irish grandmother said she is lucky to be able to walk after an MRI scan she was forced to pay for privately revealed a dangerous tumour crushing her spine.

Medical card holder Christine OShea from Cork was placed on a waiting list up to 24 months long to undergo an MRI scan for the severe pain she was experiencing in her back and neck.

However, realising the urgency of Christines situation, the grandmothers family decided to pay for the scan privately which revealed a dangerous tumour pressing against the her spinal cord, which would have left her paralysed within weeks.

Speaking on RTE Radio Ones Today with Sean ORourke, Christine addressed the unfair treatment medical card holders and public patients by the HSE.

A tumour showed up in the MRI. It was crushing the top of the spine. The doctor was very sad for me. She said Christine, Im sorry to tell you its a tumour and I said Youre joking. I was in total shock.

I never thought it would be anything like that. We were then showed the tumour on the screen from the MRI. It was deeper than he thought.

I would have been completely paralysed. For the sake of 200 I wouldnt have known. I might not have been here, she said.

Christine last week underwent an operation to remove the tumour.

Christines daughter Tina criticised the health service, and spoke out about the unfair treatment her mum received.

Why was she left waiting? If we didnt get the money together and get the MRI done we would have been here in a few weeks time and our mum would have been paralysed or maybe worse.

I cant understand why. The amount of people who cant get the money together. Its a lot of money for people on a pension, 200. We were told we had no appointment and then when we said we were paying private we had one within the week. Really and truely, Im very angry. Imagine going through that, she said.

Speaking on the programme, Gerard OCallaghan Chief Operations Officer with the HSE South and South West Hospital Group said that direct referrals from GPs would open the floodgates for patients who might not necessarily need MRIs.

The department in CUH were talking about wouldnt accept referrals from the GP at the heart of policy, which is not different to all the hospitals really across the region. The logic behind that, is that, to ensure we deal with the capacity, we have to have some element of control over how we address this issue.

We dont accept direct referrals for MRI but we do accept referrals obviously to Outpatient Department. Its within the scope of the GP to discuss the issue with the consultant and to raise the level or urgency.

What I would say that the referral letter from the GP to the consultant, if something becomes more urgent we can move these people up very quickly.

We need to have some control over MRIs otherwise were back in the situation that we were previously in. You could say that GPs should have direct referrals but if you open the floodgates to people who may not necessarily need MRIs, thats what were trying to balance, he said.

Speaking of the ordeal, Christine said the problems within the current system are very serious, and could have cost her a future. The grandmother is currently waiting for results to conclude the tumour was benign.

It was a frightening experience because I have five kids and grandchildren. I want to be around for a long time for them.

Im angry with the HSE that the likes of me would have to pay. Medical card holders should be treated the same as private patients, she said.
A single mum-of-five whose youngest child is just seven years old has described the horror of being diagnosed with a form of dementia that normally only affects elderly people.

Anne Scott from Belfast can't help but worry about her children as she struggles to accept that her brain function is deteriorating and that her condition is terminal.

The 48-year-old, who worked as a counsellor for ChildLine before her diagnosis two years ago, is now finding a way to cope thanks to the campaigning and support charity Dementia Northern Ireland.

And while it has been tough emotionally and still is for this devoted mum, she hopes today to help highlight the symptoms and importance of early diagnosis as well as raise awareness that dementia does occur in younger people.

Read More

The shock of her diagnosis was compounded by the fact that no one could tell her exactly what it meant, something she believes is due to a lack of information and understanding generally. Like most people she turned to the internet, and was terrified by what she discovered.

Anne, who is mum to Jason (29), Mark (25), Chris (21), Tiana (17) and Evie (7), says when her symptoms started four years ago in her early 40s dementia was something that never entered her mind.

She says: "I started to have dizzy spells which made me sick and then I started collapsing as my legs went weak and tingly.

"I felt like I had this hazy thing in my head and had a feeling of being disorientated.

"My co-ordination was very poor and I started to have severe pains in my head."

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Anne's GP referred her to hospital where a specialist suspected she might have a brain tumour and told her he would arrange for a scan.

When no appointment came within the next year Anne returned to her GP who referred her as an emergency case and she got a brain scan a few days later. The results were terrifying.

She says: "They discovered I had lesions on my brain, big ones, and they told me I had vascular dementia. People don't realise that vascular dementia is different from other forms.

"It can affect every part of your brain. I've been told I will go blind in one eye and end up in a wheelchair.

"I discovered it is very rare for this type of dementia to affect someone of my age and usually all you have is five years to live, but because I am younger and my body isn't as weak, no one knows with me."

Read More

Anne went home to try and face up to the horror of the news. She had little information and nowhere to turn to for support. For the first two years she found herself isolated and depressed as she struggled to accept that her brain was dying. Anne's story bears a striking resemblance to the 2014 film Still Alice starring Julianne Moore, which deals with the dilemmas faced by university professor Alice Howland, who is diagnosed with Alzheimer's at the age of 50.

She says: "I felt lost and very frightened. I had no one to turn to and I sat all alone for two years thinking how can this be? How can I have dementia at my age?

Read More

"What is the point in me living now my brain is dying, it's basically rotting away and no one can stop it, and the more it rots the more organs will eventually shut down and stop working.

"I cried so much in those early days. Every time I looked at one of my children I thought: 'I'm not going to be here for you, see your special moments, guide you through life'. It is so hard to hide emotions like that from your children.

"I tried my best but Evie would see my eyes red even when no tears fell and she would ask: 'Are you in pain again mummy'. And I would say I was because I didn't want her to know the truth that I wasn't going to be here for her and it was breaking my heart. She would cuddle me until the pain left and say: 'I wish you were not ill mummy I love you'.

"I felt like I was a waste, that I had nothing to offer anymore, and that basically I was useless and with time I would become more of a hindrance.

"No one can imagine how shocking it is to be diagnosed with dementia; any terminal illness is soul-destroying, but to be told not only are you dying, but also that you would be blind in one eye, in a wheelchair and lose your memory is devastating.

"People can say 'sure, we are all dying', and yes that is true, but to know your life will be cut short and how you will die is a very heavy burden to carry with you every minute of every day and at times it is unbearable. The thoughts of having to say goodbye to my children breaks my heart, and it's the one thing I still cry over - the rest of the time I try to smile through everything."

It is just three months ago that Anne became involved in the local support group Dementia NI and she says it has given her a purpose again.

The group has proved a real lifeline for Anne. She says: "In the short time I have been with them I have found the support and friendship I so badly needed.

"As a result my life has dramatically changed and once again I have found reasons to smile and be happy that I am still alive.

"It has been an amazing two months. I have gone from being basically housebound and feeling worthless to having encounters and opportunities that I would ever have experienced."

While she has found a way to cope Anne has still had to face the difficult decisions of organising her end of life care, planning ahead for her children's care and preparing them for what will be.

She says: "My time now consists of making memories for my children so they will always remember their mother and the good times we shared.

"I don't want them just to remember me being ill or when the time comes to see me not being able to feed myself, dress myself or know who they are. I'm fighting the battle now but in the end it will be my children who will have to take over it, and it's a day I never want to come.

"I can still have fun and I can still make a difference which is very important to me as I want my children to be proud of their mum, I just hope anyone in my situation reaches out like I eventually did and gets the help and support they need and deserve."

For more information on dementia on support visit Dementia NI's Website or check out www.dementia.ie
The barometer is more famous as a metaphor than an object. The word rolls off the tongue nicely and makes the most obvious statement sound portentous.

"The audience is the barometer of the truth," said Barbara Streisand. "Jazz is a good barometer of freedom," said Duke Ellington. "Winning is not always the barometer of getting better," said Tiger Woods (presumably after a bad day).

Until the mid 20th century, the barometer was almost as ubiquitous as the clock. Many people remember them hanging in the hallway of their grandparents' house with a dial that indicated "Rain", "Fair," or "Stormy", irrespective of the actual weather. It was common practice to tap the glass in a knowing kind of way before leaving the house.

Serious collectors have always loved barometers. Now they're becoming popular with people who want an interesting antique that doesn't take up a lot of space. The question remains: what does a barometer actually do?

The US author and satirist Ambrose Bierce nailed it with his cynical definition: "Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having." That's from The Devil's Dictionary (1904). Contrary to popular belief, a barometer is not a weather clock. It is simply an instrument that measures atmospheric pressure. Any prediction based on that measurement is as accurate (or otherwise) as the person that uses it.

That said, the people who collect barometers generally enjoy using them. "We have one at home and I always look at it before leaving the house," says Carol Chellar of Timepiece Antiques. "If it's after whacking down, then I know we're in trouble."

The barometer was invented in the 17th century and quickly became a coveted domestic object. In the early part of the 18th century, the most popular form was the stick barometer: long, thin and wall-hung. By the latter part of the century, the round-faced wheel barometer had become widespread. These were generally mounted in a tall banjo-shaped case.

"Until the mid 19th century, all barometers had long tubes of mercury as part of their working mechanism," says Kevin Chellar. "The case had to be at least 30in in height to accommodate the fall of mercury. It's a matter of form follows function." Aneroid barometers, which didn't use mercury, became popular from around 1860. They no longer needed to be tall, but frequently followed the banjo form, mainly out of habit.

Like clocks, early barometers were made with a combination of skilled craftsmanship and technical expertise. They were, and still are, expensive. The most sought-after early barometers are those made by famous makers like Daniel Quare of London (1649-1724), whose 'portable' barometers typically stand on tripod feet. In 2013, one of these sold for 40,000 (46,480) at Christie's of London.

The word 'portable' is not to be taken literally. Mercury-based barometers must not be laid flat and should be transported with great care. "Mercury is very heavy and it's not something you want splashing about," Kevin explains.

Restored mercury barometers typically cost between 1,000 and 2,000. They can be bought more cheaply at auction, but may need further restoration. Aneroid barometers are much less valuable. You can find bog standard examples at auction from around 50, but a nicely restored interesting aneroid barometer will cost around 250.

Exquisite craftsmanship, historic interest, or the name of a well-known English or Irish maker can add significantly to the value. In October 2014, a Regency wheel barometer made by John Russell of Falkirk, royal barometer and clockmaker, sold at Adam's for 21,000.

Such prices are relatively rare. Last month, also at Adam's, a Victorian carved Admiral Fitzroy's barometer (left) in an oak-carved case sold for 800. Fitzroy was the first superintendent of the British Museum and designed a highly sophisticated barometer, which was named after him. It has two recording pointers for "Yesterday" and "Today" and is inscribed with detailed instructions. Good luck with trying to read it.

"We have one collector of clocks who claims to have a pendulum instead of a heart," says Kieran Boyle of Adam's. "Barometers attract a similar level of commitment."

The work of early makers was often copied and even the copies can be valuable. A mid 20th century copy of a "gilt metal mounted walnut cyphon tube barometer" after the original by Thomas Tompion (1639-1713) is coming up for auction at Mealy's on October 4. The copy, which is a beautiful thing in itself, is estimated to sell between 3,000 and 4,000. The original is part of the Royal Collection at Hampton Court Palace in England.

"Some craftsman in the 20th century took it on," George Mealy explains. "It's perfect to every detail. Barometers are like clocks - the more intricate they are, the more valuable they are."

Mealy's auction takes place on October 4, with viewing this weekend at Kilfane House, Co Kilkenny. It's said the devil once played cards here, was caught out when someone spotted his cloven hoof, and exited through the roof. The hole that he left, rumour has it, has never been properly mended and dire things befall those who try to fix it.

The sale of the contents of the house includes objects from other collections, the barometer being one of them. It will be interesting to see if the instrument picks up a fall in atmospheric pressure around the diabolical leak.

See timepieceantiqueclocks.com, mealys.ie, adams.ie.

In the salerooms

CITY AUCTION ROOMS

RJ Keighry Antiques will hold an auction of antique furniture and paintings, vintage Waterford crystal and rugs in City Auction Rooms, Waterford, on Monday, October 3 at 10.30am.

Items range from a Persian Mahal rug (700 to 1,000) and a Rolex Oyster gentleman's watch (600 to 1,000) to a full length saga honey mink coat (700 to 1,000) and an 18ct white gold and diamond line bracelet (3,500 to 4,500).

The auction will also include fishing equipment as well as pub and railway station memorabilia: a 3.6 metre antique mahogany dish-top counter (1,000 to 1,500) and an antique cast-iron railway electric token staff instrument (2,000 to 4,000). For full details, see cityauctionrooms.com.

DE VERE'S

A Design Auction conducted by De Vere's will take place at the Physicians Hall, 6 Kildare Street, on Tuesday, October 4 at 6pm, with a selection of vintage and contemporary furniture, including many pieces by known designers.

These include a pair of rosewood Diplomat chairs designed by Finn Juhl for France & Son in the 1960s (1,000 to 2,000) and a large champagne ice bucket in the shape of a pineapple, designed by Mauro Manetti (300 to 500).

The latter combines the 18th century symbolism of the pineapple as an icon of hospitality with the 1960s penchant for glitzy metallics. Other talking points include the MT3 rocking chair (400 to 600) in moulded polyethylene, designed by Ron Arad for Driade. The name of the chair, pronounced as 'empty', refers to its hollowness produced by rotational moulding. For full details, see deveres.ie.

WATER COLOUR SOCIETY OF IRELAND

The 162nd annual exhibition of the Water Colour Society of Ireland continues at the Concourse Gallery at the Dun Laoghaire County Hall, Co Dublin, until Sunday.

The exhibition includes more than 300 paintings in watercolour, gouache and pastels, drawings and limited edition signed prints, with prices ranging from 350 to 850. There is a designated art activity day tomorrow with free public admission and watercolour demonstrations by visiting artists.

There will also be an opportunity to bring in watercolour paintings for a free valuation and assessment by the fine art auctioneers of Whyte's in the afternoon between 1pm and 4pm. See watercoloursocietyofireland.ie.

MEALY'S

The Kilfane House sale, conducted by Mealy's, will take place at the Longman of Kilfane, Thomastown, Co Kilkenny on Tuesday, October 4 at 11am.

The sale includes a selection of items from Kilfane House, where the viewing takes place, as well as many pieces from the collection of Sir Anthony O'Reilly of Castlemartin House, Co Kildare.

An Irish William IV mahogany serving or hall table, complete with lion mask and lion paw feet, may once have graced the corridors of Kilkenny Castle and is estimated to sell between 5,000 and 7,000. Equally impressive are a 19th century Irish carved giltwood mirror (4,000 to 6,000), probably by Butler of Dublin, and a Chinese black lacquered five-leaf screen inset with cloisonne panels (5,000 to 6,000).

For full details, see mealys.ie.
Ryanair is offering up to 20pc off two million seats across its European network for the Christmas season.

Its latest flash sale applies to bookings made this weekend only, however - from September 30 to midnight on Sunday, October 2nd.

The sale fares are available for travel between October 11 and January 31st of 2017, and must be booked online at ryanair.com.

Going to press, 9.99 fares were available from Dublin to the UK over the busy Christmas period (December 17-31).

12.99 fares were available to Brussels Charleroi, while customers who move fast could fly to Amsterdam from 19.99 during the holidays.

Ryanair has been building up to Christmas for some time - last June, it announced the addition of over 4,500 extra flights over the festive season.

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A huge development of 550 homes is being planned in north Dublin as demand for residential property increases.

The scheme at Baldoyle is being planned by receivers to a company called Helsingor, which is owned by Sean Mulryan and Seamus Ross.

The receivers, Simon Coyle and Tom O'Brien of Mazars, were appointed to Helsingor in 2014.

Plans for the development - which will be built in four phases - have just been filed with Fingal County Council. The receivers are seeking 10-year permission for the project.

It will adjoin an existing housing development constructed over the past decade and which is beside Clongriffin Station - which could ultimately be used as the junction for a railway spur to Dublin Airport.

A 500-page environmental impact assessment has been prepared for the scheme, which will include 379 apartments and 171 houses.

A new village centre will also be constructed. There will be 13 blocks, ranging in height from two to six-storeys.

"The site currently remains partially developed, with some enabling works undertaken within the last 10 years," planners for Helsingor have told the council.

"Development of the site ceased in 2007 due to the economic recession from which Dublin is attempting to move through and re-emerge."

They added: "The vision for the development of the subject lands is to provide a high quality residential community that promotes sustainability, a connected and legible movement network as well as high quality and usable public spaces."

Helsingor is currently controlled by the National Asset Management Agency.

Earlier this year, Nama also provided funding to the company for a project being developed for the firm by Co Kildare building firm MDY Construction.

The latest receivers' abstract for Helsingor, which covers the period from July last year to January this year, show that its 53 acres of land at the site in Baldoyle have an estimated value of 13.5m.

The company also owns 92 residential units and four commercial units at Coast development beside the site, which are valued at 14.2m.
Droichead Arts Centre is to celebrate the life and work of Bea Orpen (1913 - 1980) and her contribution to the artistic and cultural life of Drogheda on Saturday October 1.

At 4pm Barlow House and will host a seminar, exploring the social, political and artistic context in which her acclaimed Drogheda Grammar School prints were made and the cultural legacy of this important artist.

This will be followed by the launch of limited edition Bea Orpen prints, showing four views within the old Drogheda Grammar School. They were done in 1945 and capture the school at that time. Only 100 will be available.

Speakers at the seminar include Fiona Loughnane (Associate Lecturer in Visual Culture at the National College of Art and Design) - Bea Orpen, Women Artists and Irish Modernism, Mamo McDonald (former president of the ICA and friend of Bea Orpen) - Bea Orpen, ICA and Brian Trench (Researcher, Editor and Trainer in Science Communication) - Bea Orpen, Drogheda, 1945.

The Launch and sale of the limited edition series of prints from the old Drogheda Grammar School by Anthony Collins, the Print Studio, Droichead Arts Centre is at 6pm.

A gifted artist, Bea was 19 when she joined the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and in 1935 went to the Slade School in London where she excelled in decorative design.

Her landscapes were immensely strong and could paint wherever she was, including images of Clogherhead.

She came to live in Drogheda in 1942 with husband, Terry Trench and went on to teach her art at the Drogheda Technical School, the grammar and St Peter's NS.

With her husband, she was instrumental in establishing the Drogheda Municipal Art Gallery in 1948 and moved to live in Slane in 1961.

She was a lecturer in An Grianan and became president of the ICA in 1974.

She painted all over the world, from Switzerland and Tahiti to Holland and New York.

She passed away in the Cottage Hospital on July 12, 1980.

Admission is free to Saturday's event.
Denzel Washington in The Magnificent Seven

Towards the bullet-riddled conclusion of director Antoine Fuqua's stylish western remake, a voiceover dreamily recalls the self-sacrifice and heroism of seven righteous men, who laid down their lives for a town in jeopardy.

'It was magnificent,' gushes the film's narrator.

That's going a little far.

In its bombastic latest incarnation, The Magnificent Seven lassos a stellar cast and a rollicking soundtrack composed by the late, great James Horner and completed by his good friend, Simon Franglen.

Action sequences are orchestrated at a canter and Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolatto's script introduces some moments of bone dry humour in between the frenetic shoot-outs.

It's an entertaining ride, but Fuqua struggles to distinguish his battle royale between morally conflicted men from the countless westerns that have trotted down this same narrative trail.

Oscar-winner Denzel Washington, who won his golden statuette in Fuqua's 2001 film Training Day, is a swaggering, physically imposing hero, driven to his suicidal actions in the name of retribution.

He is matched, verbal blow for blow, by Peters Sarsgaard as the glowering villain of the piece, who demonstrates his wanton disregard for human life in a brutal, unflinching opening act.

The year is 1879 and the scars of the American Civil War are yet to heal.

The God-fearing folk of Rose Creek seek solace in church, but the spiritual peace is shattered by the arrival of greedy industrialist Bartholomew Bogue (Sarsgaard) and his goons, who intend to drive families out of their homes.

'Twenty dollars for each parcel of land,' Bogue tells the enraged congregation, shooting dead several dissenters, including faithful husband Matthew Cullen (Matt Bomer).

Grieving widow Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) and her friend Teddy (Luke Grimes) canter to neighbouring Amador City to enlist the services of bounty hunter Sam Chisolm (Washington) to kill Bogue.

'You don't need a bounty hunter, you need an army,' scoffs Chisolm, who has crossed paths with the industrialist before.

Moved by Emma's tearful plight, the gunslinger corrals six men of dubious character to wage war in Rose Creek: compulsive gambler Josh Farraday (Chris Pratt), sharp shooter Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), assassin Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), tracker Jack Horne (Vincent D'Onofrio), Mexican outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and Comanche warrior Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier).

The scene is set for a rootin' tootin' showdown between the rival factions.

The Magnificent Seven rests comfortably on the shoulders of Washington and his co-stars.

Pratt continues to pigeonhole himself as Hollywood's favourite wisecracking action man and Hawke and Lee catalyse a fascinating and flawed double-act.

Sarsgaard chews scenery as if it were tobacco.

The script is peppered with well-heeled one-liners - 'Fame is a sarcophagus' - and the final assault on a besieged Rose Creek packs in sufficient excitement to warrant staying in the saddle for 133 minutes.
Artwork created by soldiers in the trenches from bullets and shell casings; a propeller from a German fighter plane; army uniforms, and a wall featuring the names of local war casualties are just some of the artifacts on show at County Museum Dundalk as part of its World War 1 exhibition, 'Their Story'. The multi-media showcase was officially opened by Cathaoirleach of the Municipal District of Dundalk, Councillor Mark Dearey.

As well as displaying items from the war, the exhibition also delves into the social aspects of the conflict, exploring the reasons why soldiers signed up to fight in the Great War, as well as what happened to them when they returned home.

It also features the documentary, 'The Battle of the Somme'. Developed by the Imperial War Museum in London, the film shows the build-up to, the nature and the aftermath of the battle. County Museum Dundalk is one of a select number of venues to showcase the film.

Speaking about the collection, museum curator, Brian Walsh said: "One of the most unusual aspects of the exhibition is the collection of trench art, which was fashioned by soldiers in trenches across Europe from ordnance such as bullets or shell casings. This trench art also offers insight into the emotional state of the soldiers who created it. We would like to thank all of those who either donated or lent items for this exhibtion, and indeed all of those who continually support the museum.

"World War 1 spanned from 1914 to 1918 - a time when Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom - and many, many Irish people fought and died in the war. In fact, we know of at least 820 people either from or associated with Louth who lost their lives in World War 1 and they are remembered in one of the most sobering elements of the collection, a 15ft by 6ft wall listing the names of those who fell. We are very grateful to local historian, Dr Donal Hall for providing us with that data."

Councillor Mark Dearey added: "I am delighted that County Museum Dundalk is hosting this exhibition, as World War 1 was also a significant period for Ireland. Thousands of Irish soldiers died in the Great War and it is very fitting that the 820 people who called Louth home, or who had strong ties to Louth, are remembered locally. I would encourage anyone with an interest in this era, or history students, to pay a visit."

Their Story' runs until Christmas and entry is free.
It was late December 1939 and Captain Thomas Joseph Sweeney was slightly bemused.

As he looked out from the bridge of his ship, he remarked 'looks like a big fire in Pinta del Este'.

He was entering Montevideo, the capital of Uruguary, and for once Captain Sweeney was wrong.

The 'blaze' was closer to Lobos Island and it was actually a smokescreen - for Thomas Sweeney from Drogheda was witnessing one of the most remarkable events of World War II - right in front of him.

The smoke was being released by the Admiral Graf Spee as she fled from the Battle of the River Plate. Hot on her tail were the British cruisers, Ajax and Achilles and she was making for Uruguayan waters and the port at Montevideo.

The pocket battleship was deployed to the South Atlantic in the weeks before the outbreak of World War II, to be positioned in merchant sea lanes once war was declared. Between September and December 1939, the ship sank nine ships before meeting the British cruisers on 13 December.

Badly damaged, her skipper Hans Langsdorff, ordered the vessel to be scuttled close to the port.

For some, witnessing such events might be a once in a lifetime experience, but Thomas Sweeney saw much in his life.

For over 40 years he lived on the sea and after that initial brush with the war, he would see much more action.

He was part of the North African convoys with Lamport and Holt shipping and would later receive medals for action in the Atlantic, North Africa, India and Burma.

But his proudest moment came in 1945.

At the end of hostilities in the Europe, various warships of the Allied nations, including Brazil's, were assigned to patrol in the Atlantic as rescue ships.

One of them was the Bahia. Crewmen were firing the ship's 20 mm guns at a kite that was being towed behind the ship for target practice, but also accidentally hit the depth charges on the stern. The ship blew up and sank in minutes.

The survivors of the blast endured four or five days of no food, high temperatures and exposure to the sun on makeshift rafts, many jumping into the shark infested waters.

On 8 July 1945, Captain Sweeney was looking out from his position on the freighter, Balfe, when he spotted three men on a raft. They were 250 miles off the island of Fernando de Noronha in the south Atlantic.

By noon, the Balfe had rescued another 30 men. They were so exhausted that the skipper ordered his ship alongside the rafts and hauled the men on board.

For his actions, Sweeney was called to Brazil and awarded the Brazilian War Service medal by the government.

Later, he would return to where the adventure began in Montevideo, bringing in the Belfast reconditioned 7,000 ton motor vessel called 'Devis' in 1948.

What became of Captain Sweeney I don't know, but a Captain Thomas Joseph Sweeney died in 1974 and is buried in Termonfeckin.

Today, I wonder where the medals of a courageous sailor also lie....
The death occurred peacefully of John (Johnny) Byrne, Deens Duleek on 29th June surrounded by his family following a short stay St. James Hospital, Dublin.

Aged 72, he was born to Richard and Mary Byrne of Riverstown, Rathfeigh in April 1944 and was brother to Marie, Rita, Paddy, Brendan and Teresa (Tess). He met his wife Freda in 1964, they went on to have six children and had celebrated 50 years of marriage in January this year.

During his life he worked in Irish Cement and then turned his hand to painting and decorating which he continued to do until recently. He had many customers, but they were not only customers, they were all good friends too, and he enjoyed many a cup of tea with them.

John had a keen interest in Pitch & Putt and was an active member of Bellewstown P&P, a former Captain he took to the role with great enthusiasm. He supported the club every way he could, from helping out at competitions to selling the weekly Blotto tickets by the hundreds.

He also enjoyed attending outings organised by the Duleek Senior Citizens Committee and loved a dance and a sing song, his version of the Tennessee Wig Walk was always a hit.

Tributes poured in for John and he was constantly described as a gentleman, who got on well with young and old alike and was fondly regarded for his friendly nature. His sons, grandsons and sons in law each wore a tie belonging to John on the day in his memory and Bellewstown P&P provided a Guard of Honour to lead him on the way to St. Cianan's church where hundreds attended. He was laid to rest in Holy Cross Cemetery.

John's passing is deeply regretted by his wife Freda, sons Paul, Richard, Derek and John, daughters Teresa and Yvonne, sons in law Mark and Barry, daughters in law Cathy, Denise and Heather, Grandchildren Ryan, Lorna, Keane, Saul, Kyle, Emma, Callum and Aaron, Great Grandchildren Adam, Jay and Jack, his brothers, sisters, brothers in law, sisters in law, nephews, nieces, neighbours and a large circle of friends.

A special thank you to the staff of the Keith Shaw Ward and the ICU in St. James Hospital who cared for John so well, to Fr. John Conlon, PP and Seamus O'Neill, Funeral Director, to our family, friends, neighbours and to everyone who called, sent messages, flowers, cards and visited and supported the family during this time.
The annual Harvest Thanksgiving Service at Drogheda Presbyterian Church takes place this Sunday, 2nd October, at 10:30 am

The preacher will be Minister in Charge during the vacancy, the Rev. Richard Houston (Lucan Presbyterian).

There will be an offering of non perishable food for Drogheda Homeless Aid. All welcome, refreshments served after.

They are also hosting a missionary from London City Mission on Tuesday evening the 4th October at 7:30 pm, speaking about his work with the mission..
A reunion marking the 20th anniversary of the class of '96 leaving St. Oliver's Community College is being organised for Saturday, 15th October 2016 in the Westcourt Hotel in Drogheda. Maria Nestor (nee Brodigan), is spearheading the reunion and is calling for as many past pupils as possible to try and attend the reunion for a catch-up and a bit of craic with old friends!!

The evening will start off with a visit to St. Oliver's Community College to reminisce and meet former classmates followed by a bus transfer to the Westcourt Hotel, where there will be a hot buffet followed by a DJ who is guaranteed to help you relive the 90's era with plenty of classic tunes!!

While there is a Facebook Page dedicated to this event - St. Olivers Community School 1991-1996, Maria is conscious that there are non-Facebook users among the class out there and as a result would like to raise as much publicity about the event as possible. So spread the word!! 'And to those of you familiar with the page, if you could continue to share it among friends and former classmates, it would be much appreciated' says Maria.

Maria also goes on to say that a number of teachers who have since moved from the school, have also liked the Facebook page! While the reunion is to catch with old school friends, it would be great for any of the teachers both past and present, if they wish, to pop up to the school on the night to catch up.

Maria has also stated that those who left the class after Junior Cert year to enjoy the experience of Transition Year are also very welcome to attend the 20th anniversary.

Tickets are now available for purchase from the reception in the Westcourt Hotel or by contacting Maria directly on 087 970 7364 for further information.
Screeming Reels winners, from left, Josie Mahon (Inland Fisheries Ireland), Neville Murphy, Martyn Rayner from the 'Screaming Reels' Boat, with John Belger (UK Organiser of the Rosslare Small Boats Festival) and Seirt Shultz , also from 'Screaming Reels'

There were some very tight lines at the Rosslare Small Boats Festival, which saw more than 30 species of fish caught during what is the finest small boat fishing competition in Europe.

The Cork boat 'Screaming Reels' from Rosie's Sea Angling Club won the Festival for a record eighth year, and for the sixth year in a row.

They beat 43 other boats from Britain and Ireland catching 30 different species of fish weighing 28 kg. This prestigious competition generates in the region of 300,000 for the local economy, bringing jobs and employment to Wexford.

Sponsored by Inland Fisheries Ireland, Garmin, DAIWA, Wexford County Council, Failte Ireland, Sea Angler magazine and IPB Insurance, the 31st festival attracted more than 138 anglers from Wales, Scotland, Isle of Wight, Manchester, Liverpool and Portsmouth as well as domestic anglers from Ireland.

The high standard of competition, combined with a quality angling product, continues to attract the best boat anglers in the UK in what is now regarded as the finest small boat fishing competition in Europe. This was evident again this year with 12 new boats attending the Festival, with many coming from Wales.

Weather conditions on the day were challenging with gale force winds delaying the start of the competition. The winds eased during the week allowing boats to be launched from Kilmore Quay every day enabling them to target all species.

The competition was fierce and the boats recorded up to 21 species on the first day (a new record) with the boat 'Even Less' in the lead for the first two days. This continued throughout the week with many boats neck and neck over a number of days.

A third of the boats caught 22 different types of fish species with 36 different fish species recorded in total throughout the festival.

It was 'Screaming Reels' however, who got to the finish line first with 30 species of fish after four days fishing. The heaviest fish was a bull huss of 6.25 kg caught by Ralph Barkley on the boat 'Seeker'.

The winning boat 'Screaming Reels' consisted of crew Martyn Rayner (skipper) Seirt Shults and Neville Murphy who have continued to raise the bar of the Rosslare Small Boats Fishing Competition. Second place went to the boat 'Even Less' (Wesley Lewis, Steve Mills and Steve Arnold) from Gosport Angling Club in Portsmouth with 28 species for 16.10 kgs. In third place was 'Joe 90' (John Meaning, Dave Weatherby and Graham Cuff) from the Isle of Wight with 26 species for 21.16 kg.

Inland Fisheries Ireland was present at the event with a marine fish tank for the purpose of displaying fish species that were caught during the competition and educated the public about the fish species on offer from Kilmore Quay.

The educational benefits of the marine tank and practising catch and release for marine species are hugely beneficial in terms of conservation and creating public awareness of Ireland's marine resource.

The public were able to view marine fish such as ballan wrasse, smoothound, gurnard and dabs which were kept in the fish tank and released back into their marine habitat alive. An overwhelming effort was made by anglers to release marine species back alive to the ocean, which was hugely supported by Kilmore Quay harbour master and staff at Wexford County Council.

The prize giving ceremony took place at 'Redmond's The Bay, where there were fantastic prizes worth in the region of 20,000 on offer including fishing equipment, cash prizes and engraved trophies. A presentation was made to the RNLI in Kilmore Quay who were represented by Johnny Moore who thanked the anglers for their generosity.

'I would like to congratulate all competitors on their success at the 31st Rosslare Small Boats festival. I would also like to thank our sponsors Garmin, DAIWA, Inland Fisheries Ireland, Wexford County Council, Failte Ireland, Sea Angler magazine and IPB Insurance for their generosity and look forward to seeing you all next year,' said John Belger, UK organiser of the competition.
Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux step out for dinner in Manhattan on September 24, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Robert Kamau/GC Images)

It was reported that Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux married August 5, 2015 at their home in Bel Air, California. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Actor Justin Theroux (L) and actress/executive producer Jennifer Aniston attend the "Cake" cocktail reception presented by PANDORA Jewelry at West Bar on September 8, 2014 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for LTLA)

Actor Justin Theroux has heaped praise on his wife Jennifer Aniston for the way she responded to relentless baby rumours after she was spotted with a fuller figure over the summer.

The star admits he was annoyed by all the attention on his wife's belly, insisting gossips and tabloid reporters desperate to land the big story "bullied" a statement out of the former Friends star.

In a lengthy rant about the standard of tabloid journalism, Jennifer wrote: "For the record, I am not pregnant. What I am is fed up. I'm fed up with the sport-like scrutiny and body shaming that occurs daily under the guise of 'journalism', the 'First Amendment' and 'celebrity news.'"

She added, "Every day my husband and I are harassed by dozens of aggressive photographers staked outside our home, who will go to shocking lengths to obtain any kind of photo, even if it means endangering us or the unlucky pedestrians who happen to be nearby."

Expand Close Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux step out for dinner in Manhattan on September 24, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Robert Kamau/GC Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux step out for dinner in Manhattan on September 24, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Robert Kamau/GC Images)

Proud Theroux applauds his wife's carefully-constructed response, telling Men's Health magazine, "I was very proud of what she wrote. It was a rare insight into how disgusting all that is. At some point it becomes bullying."

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"It sucks when people aim cameras at your stomach on some bizarre womb watch," he adds. "But more to the point, it's equally damaging to the national conversation."

Meanwhile, a publicist for the couple, who wed last year (15), recently had to dismiss reports suggesting Jennifer and Justin had split up in the wake of her ex-husband Brad Pitt's divorce drama.

The spokesperson hit out at a story in America's In Touch Weekly magazine, which suggested the break-up came after Theroux made contact with his ex-girlfriend of 14 years, Heidi Bevins.

Expand Close Justin Theroux, left, and Jennifer Aniston arrive at the 2015 Vanity Fair Oscar Party / Facebook

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Whatsapp Justin Theroux, left, and Jennifer Aniston arrive at the 2015 Vanity Fair Oscar Party

Aniston's representative told The Mirror the story was "a complete fabrication", and the 47-year-old is still happily married to her husband.
Emergency personnel respond to the Hoboken railway station after a crashed that killed one person and injured more than 100 (The Record/AP)

US federal investigators have recovered one of the black box recorders from the wrecked commuter train at New Jersey's Hoboken station as inquiries continue into what caused it to crash, killing one person and injuring more than 100 others.

The two event recorders could contain information on the train's speed, braking and other conditions which can help investigators determine whether the tragedy resulted from an equipment malfunction or a distracted or incapacitated engineer.

The second box has been located but has not yet been recovered, though efforts are continuing.

Investigators from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will be looking to determine how fast the train was going when it crashed at the busy station on Thursday morning. They also hope to speak to the train's injured engineer later.

The investigation will seek to find out whether a system designed to prevent accidents by overriding the engineer and automatically slowing or stopping trains which are going too fast could have helped if it had been installed on the line.

Authorities are struggling to extract a second recorder from the forward-facing camera on the train without damaging it, the NTSB said. That recorder should show what was ahead of the train before it crashed.

More than 100,000 people use New Jersey Transit to commute from New Jersey to New York City each day. The NJ Transit portion of the Hoboken station remained closed on Friday, slowing the morning commute for those making connections there.

As investigators began their probe, the family of Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, the crash's sole fatality, was in mourning.

Ms de Kroon had recently moved to New Jersey from Brazil after her husband got a job with an international liquor company.

She had just dropped her toddler daughter off at day care before rushing to catch a train, according to day care director Karlos Magner.

"We had a good talk for like a minute," he said. "She said she was in a rush."

Shortly after, the NJ Transit train ran off the end of the track as it was pulling in at around 8.45am, smashing through a concrete-and-steel bumper.

As it ground to a halt in the waiting area, it knocked out pillars, collapsing a section of the roof.

Ms de Kroon was killed by debris, and 108 others were injured, mostly on the train, New Jersey state governor Chris Christie said. Scores of people were taken to hospital, some with serious injuries including broken bones.

The engineer, Thomas Gallagher, was pulled from the mangled first car and was treated at a hospital and released. Mr Gallagher has worked for NJ Transit for 29 years, and a union roster shows he started as an engineer about 18 years ago.

The NTSB has been pressing for new safety technology for at least 40 years, and the industry is under government orders to install it, but regulators have repeatedly extended the deadline at rail firms' request. The target date is now the end of 2018.

Over the past 20 years, the NTSB has listed the lack of positive train control as a contributing factor in 25 crashes. Those include the Amtrak incident last year in Philadelphia in which a speeding train ran off the rails along a curve. Eight people were killed.

Tom Spina, a maintenance supervisor for a private company who was in the terminal at the time, described the scene: "It was chaotic. There was yelling and screaming, a lot of people in shock.

"Things like this we see in movies," he said. "You don't think you're going to see it in real life."

AP
Human rights groups have hit out at the move

The Bulgarian parliament has approved a law banning women from wearing veils that cover their faces in public.

The law was pushed by the nationalist Patriotic Front coalition, whose co-leader Krasimir Karakachanov cited security reasons, saying "the burqa is more a uniform than a religious symbol".

The law was opposed by the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, the third-largest party in parliament, which has a substantial Muslim electorate. In protest, the group walked out of the chamber.

Women who violate the ban face fines of up to 770 euros (665), as well as a suspension of social benefits.

Bulgaria, a Balkan country of 7.2 million people, has a Muslim minority of about 10%.

Similar bans have been approved in other EU countries such as France, Netherlands and Belgium.

AP
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Bedford, New Hampshire (AP)

US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has described a Donald Trump tweet attacking a former Miss Universe as "unhinged", and said her Republican opponent's temperament would be "dangerous for a president".

The Democratic candidate said Mr Trump's early-morning tweets accusing Alicia Machado of having a criminal record and a sex tape were "lies and conspiracy theories".

She tweeted: "When something gets under Donald's thin skin, he lashes out and can't let go. This is dangerous for a president."

Mr Trump shamed the 1996 Miss Universe Ms Machado winner for her sexual history and encouraged Americans to check out what he called her "sex tape".

A day after the Republican candidate made reference to former president Bill Clinton's infidelities, Mr Trump also accused Hillary Clinton's campaign of helping Ms Machado gain US citizenship.

Mr Trump offered no proof of the claim, but said Ms Machado had a "terrible" past that a "duped" Mrs Clinton had overlooked before holding her up "as an 'angel'" in the first presidential debate.

The Republican wrote on his verified Twitter account: "Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?"

Mr Trump's taunt appeared to refer to footage from a Spanish reality show in 2005 in which Ms Machado was a contestant and appeared on camera in bed with a male contestant.

The show took place almost a decade after Mr Trump invited reporters to watch Ms Machado exercise and mocked her publicly for gaining weight after she won Miss Universe, which Mr Trump owned at the time.

In Monday's debate, Democratic candidate Mrs Clinton brought up her rival's taunting of Ms Machado.

With the US election less than 40 days away, Mr Trump's allies have implored him to stick to attacks on Mrs Clinton over her family foundation, her emails controversy or her long history as a political insider.

Rather than backing away from the comments about Ms Machado, Mr Trump has repeatedly pushed the issue back to the centre of the conversation, even as early voting in critical states gets under way.

He said this week that Ms Machado had gained "a massive amount of weight," adding that it was "a real problem".

Mr Trump said Mrs Clinton had been "set up by a con" in holding up Ms Machado "as an 'angel' without checking her past, which is terrible!"

He also suggested Mrs Clinton had helped the Venezuela-born actress gain US citizenship.

Mrs Clinton's campaign, which has released videos featuring Ms Machado and arranged for reporters to interview her, has highlighted her new status as an American and her plans to cast her first vote for Hillary Clinton.

Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon took to Twitter to ask of Trump: "What kind of human being is this?"

Her campaign chairman, John Podesta, tweeted that as a man of a certain age he shares Mr Trump's urge to get up in the middle of the night, but added a safety tip: "Don't reach for your phone."

A day earlier, Mr Trump had warned voters that a Hillary Clinton victory would bring her husband's sex scandal back to the White House.

"The American people have had it with years and decades of Clinton corruption and scandal. Corruption and scandal," Mr Trump said.

"An impeachment for lying. An impeachment for lying. Remember that? Impeach."

The reference to the Monica Lewinsky scandal of the 1990s came despite Mr Trump's insistence that he has been showing impressive restraint by not bringing it up. He said he declined to mention it during Monday's debate out of respect for the Clintons' daughter, Chelsea, who was in the room.

When she was asked about the possibility that Mr Trump would raise her husband's infidelities, Mrs Clinton said the Republican could run his campaign "however he chooses".

"That's up to him. I'm going to keep talking about the stakes in this election," the Democrat said.

Mrs Clinton has delivered a mostly positive message in the days since her debate performance re-energised her candidacy.

She is campaigning in Florida, a key battleground, where she us planning a speech focused on national service in Fort Pierce and another event in Coral Springs.

AP
A Dutch citizen who allegedly unplugged an amplifier blasting a late-night Buddhist sermon near his hotel in Burma is due to appear in court charged with insulting religion.

Klaas Haytema, 30, was arrested last week in the city of Mandalay and has been detained while awaiting trial, with a hearing scheduled to take place later.

Police officer Kyi Soe said: "We are trying hard to make sure the trial doesn't take too long."

Haytema was staying at a hotel near a community religious hall. A crowd gathered to protest after the loudspeakers were turned off mid-sermon.

The man who was reciting the sermon pressed charges against Haytema for insulting the Buddhist religion, and immigration officials have charged him with violating the terms of his visa.

Dutch diplomats declined to comment on the case.

Local media reported that Haytema had apologised to the authorities. He faces up to two years in prison and a fine if convicted of the charge of insulting religion in the predominantly Buddhist country.

Mandalay, a major tourist attraction in central Burma, is the country's cultural capital and the former seat of Burmese kings. It is culturally and religiously conservative.

In early 2015, a Burmese court sentenced a New Zealand bar manager, Phil Blackwood, to two years in prison after he posted an image of Buddha wearing headphones on the bar's official Facebook page in late 2014.

Blackwood was released in an amnesty earlier this year.

It is common for Buddhist groups to broadcast sermons by loudspeaker at very high volumes. Most people just endure the noise.

But one local government has proposed rules to control noise levels. Supporters quoted by local media said the proposal was meant to alleviate stress caused to the elderly and the ill.

AP
Raffaele Sollecito, Amanda Knox's former boyfriend, said that he needed to rebuild his image before he could rebuild his life.

"People never understood the truth about this case. They never knew about us," he told BBC Newsnight.

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"The victim is Meredith Kercher, but there are other two victims who are alive."

The Italian man was convicted and imprisoned with Amanda Knox for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old student from Surrey, but after appeals and retrials they were acquitted last year by Italy's highest court.

Mr Sollecito spoke to the BBC programme as his former girlfriend promoted a new Netflix documentary, entitled Amanda Knox, which explores the Kercher murder case and features interviews with with himself and Italian prosecutor Giuliano Mignini.

The former student, who spent four years in prison for the murder, said it was "ridiculous" to suggest he was protecting Miss Knox out of a sense of loyalty, given the couple had only been together for a few days when Miss Kercher was killed.

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"After five days, I didn't know her, so why should I be loyal to her," he said.

He said he and Miss Knox now have "a good relationship", adding: "We don't talk too much because we are very distant, and we are caring about our lives."

Mr Sollecito announced in January that he is seeking compensation for 516,000, the maximum that he could have demanded under Italian law.

He said: "I don't think about my future, my life, anymore.

"I just think about what I have to do next month. For me, whatever happens after next month, even the world can be destroyed, but I don't think about next year or anything."

Ms Knox is the subject of a documentary, entitled Amanda Knox, which comes out on Netflix today. Appearing on US television show Good Morning America, Miss Knox, 29, said she wanted to be involved in the film to show the "nightmare" she had been through.

"I think I'm trying to explain what it feels like to be wrongfully convicted - to either be this terrible monster or to be this regular person who is vulnerable," she said.

"What I'm trying to convey is that a regular person like me - just a kid who was studying abroad, who loves languages - could be caught up in this nightmare where they're portrayed as something that they're not.

"There remains the fact that I'm in a unique position as an exoneree. Once an exoneree always an exoneree. I can't go back to my life that I had before, and neither can the other exonerees that are out there."

Miss Knox, who says she was not paid to be involved in the documentary, said the prosecutor's focus on her meant Kercher had been "lost" in the case.

She said: "For (Kercher's family) that's never going to end and that's the really sad part about this tragedy.

"As soon as the prosecutor made this about 'it has to be Amanda, it has to be Amanda', they took away the fact this case is about her.

"She's been lost in all of that. But that doesn't change the fact that we have also an obligation to everyone who could potentially be innocent to find out the truth for the sake of the victim, and for the sake of them as well."

The documentary Amanda Knox will be available on Netflix from Friday September 30.
Thousands of protesters march in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, Sept. 24, 2016, in the latest protest against the policies of the conservative government that critics say are dividing the nation. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Pro abortion protesters, dressed in black to signify grief in terms of the abortion ban, shout slogans during a demonstration in front of the Polish parliament, in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)

Women in Poland have organised a mass strike for Monday to protest a proposed ban on abortion, according to the Krakow Post.

Protests have been planned in 60 Polish cities and 10 European capitals. Women have been encouraged to wear black and post pictures of themselves on social media with the phrase #blackprotest.

Polands current law allows for abortion in cases of rape and where there is danger to the foetus or the woman. The proposed law, which is supported by the ruling Law and Justice party, will remove these exceptions.

The law will also see women who have abortions faced with a prison sentence of three months to five years.

A large number of companies have also expressed support for the strike, so businesses may close for the day.

Campaigners are hoping to stop the economy in its tracks for one day as a warning to the parliament not to pass the law.

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Around 1-2,000 legal abortions happen in Poland every year, but many more  possibly as many as 150,000  are illegally obtained by women whose circumstances do not fit the restrictions.
In this photo provided by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, taken Sept. 23, 2016, a destroyed ambulance is seen outside the Syrian Civil Defense main center after airstrikes in Ansari neighborhood in the rebel-held part of eastern Aleppo, Syria. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP)

Russia is sending more warplanes to Syria to ramp up its campaign of air strikes, a Russian newspaper reported on Friday, as Moscow defied global censure over an escalation that Western countries say has torpedoed diplomacy.

U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the Russian and Syrian bombing of the city of Aleppo as "barbarous", the White House said after the two leaders spoke by telephone.

Fighting intensified a week into a new Russian-backed government offensive to capture all of Syria's largest city and crush the last remaining urban stronghold of the rebellion.

Moscow and its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, spurned a ceasefire agreed this month to launch the offensive, potentially the biggest and most decisive battle in the Syrian civil war which is now in its sixth year.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that Moscow was ready to consider more ways to normalise the situation in Aleppo.

But in a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Lavrov criticised Washington's failure to separate moderate rebel groups from those the Russians call terrorists, which had allowed forces led by the group formerly known as the Nusra front to violate the truce brokered by Moscow and Washington.

The call came a day after Kerry said there was no point pursuing further negotiations with Russia over Syria "in the context of the kind of bombing taking place".

Western countries accuse Russia of war crimes, saying it has deliberately targeted civilians, hospitals and aid deliveries in recent days to crush the will of 250,000 people trapped inside Aleppo's besieged rebel-held sector.

Moscow and Damascus say they have targeted only militants.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the bombing and many hundreds more wounded, with little access to treatment in hospitals that lack basic supplies.

Residents say the air strikes are unprecedented in their ferocity, deploying heavier bombs that flatten buildings on top of the people huddled inside.

Russia joined the war exactly a year ago, tipping the balance of power in favour of Assad, who is also supported by Iranian ground forces and Shi'ite militia from Lebanon and Iraq.

The Kremlin said on Friday there was no time frame for Russia's military operation in Syria. The main result of Russian air strikes over the past year is "neither Islamic State, nor al Qaeda nor the Nusra Front are now sitting in Damascus", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Britain's Special Representative to Syria, Gareth Bayley, said: "From Russia's first air strikes in Syria, it has hit civilian areas and increasingly used indiscriminate weapons, including cluster and incendiary munitions."

"Today, the reality in Syria is a nightmare. Aleppo is besieged again, with vital necessities such as water, fuel, and medicine running out for hundreds of thousands. Civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, are being attacked."

The Izvestia newspaper reported that a group of Su-24 and Su-34 warplanes had arrived at Syria's Hmeymim base.

"If need be, the air force group will be (further) built up within two to three days," it quoted a military official as saying. "Su-25 ground attack fighters designated to be sent to Hmeymim have already been selected in their units and their crews are on stand-by, awaiting orders from their commanders."

The Su-25 is an armoured twin-engine jet which was battle-tested in the 1980s during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. It can be used to strafe targets on the ground, or as a bomber. Russia's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment.

After months of intensive diplomacy with Russia, conducted despite the scepticism of other senior Obama administration officials, Kerry reached agreement three weeks ago on a ceasefire. But it collapsed within a week, and Moscow and Damascus swiftly launched the latest escalation.

Western officials believe Moscow's decision to spurn the truce signals the Kremlin believes Assad's government can now win a decisive victory on the battlefield, after years of mostly stalemated war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and made half of Syrians homeless.

Syrian government forces and rebels fought battles on Friday in the city centre and north of Aleppo, where government troops had re-captured a camp for Palestinian refugees on Thursday that had already changed hands once since the start of the attack.

The sides gave conflicting accounts of the outcome of Friday's fighting. North of the city, the military said it had captured territory around the Kindi hospital near the refugee camp. Rebel sources denied the army had advanced there.

In the city centre, the military said it had advanced in the Suleiman al-Halabi district. Rebel officials said troops had moved forward but had subsequently been forced to withdraw.

A Syrian military source said government forces captured several buildings in the area and were "continuing to chase the remnants of the terrorists fleeing them". One of the rebel officials said government forces had "advanced and then retreated", losing "a number of dead".

The multi-sided Syrian civil war pits Assad, a member of the Alawite sect supported by Iran and Shi'ite militia, against rebels mainly drawn from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, backed by Saudi Arabia and other regional Sunni states.

The rebellion includes several groups inspired by or linked to al Qaeda, and helped give rise to Islamic State, a hardline Sunni group that broke away from al Qaeda and declared a caliphate in swathes of Syria and Iraq.

Russia, which has been allied to Assad and his father since the Cold War, says the only way to defeat Islamic State is to support Assad. Washington and its European allies say the Syrian leader has too much blood on his hands and must leave power so the rest of the country can unite against the militants.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he would establish an internal U.N. board of inquiry to investigate a deadly attack on a humanitarian aid convoy in Syria last week and urged all parties to fully cooperate.
Nathan Carmen's mother Linda, from Middletown in the east US state of Connecticut (WTNH News8 / Youtube screengrab)

Nathan Carman was rescued after spending a week at sea in a life raft AP

A man who was rescued after spending a week stranded at sea off the east US coast said he did everything he could to save his mother before she drowned.

Nathan Carman, 22, set off on a fishing trip with his 54-year-old mother on 17 September from a harbour in Rhode Island.

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He was found a week later on an inflatable life raft 100 miles off the coast of neighbouring state Massachusetts  but his mother had died in a terrible tragedy, he told Associated Press.

Mr Carman said their boat, a 31ft aluminium fishing vessel called Chicken Pox, sank in a matter of minutes on the second day of the trip after he heard a funny noise in the engine compartment and saw water pouring in.

He said he saw his mother in the cockpit, and grabbed three bags containing food, flares and life jackets. But when he looked back, his mother was no longer there.

Mr Carman, who has Aspergers syndrome, said he swam to the boat's life raft  about 15 to 20 feet away  then blew a whistle and called out frantically for her for hours.

I was yelling, 'Mom! Mom!' Mr Carman said. He added: I loved my mother and my mother loved me.

Coast Guard officials interviewed Mr Carman, and police searched his home in Vermont on Monday as part of an investigation into the ill-fated trip.

He has not been charged with anything and authorities would not discuss the investigation into the boating trip  but Mr Carman said suspicions about his account of the sinking of his boat were compounding his grief after the incident.

What happened on the boat was a terrible tragedy that I am still trying to process and that I am still trying to come to terms with, he said.

I don't know what to make of people being suspicious, he added. I have enough to deal with.

The search warrant indicated investigators think Mr Carman was handling some boat motor repairs himself and that the vessel might not have been seaworthy.

The investigation has also revealed that Nathan had intended to go fishing further off-shore in a different location than what were his mother's intentions and understanding, the warrant said.

Experts say people with Asperger's, a high-functioning form of autism, are no more likely than others to commit violent crim
Annie and Robin Korkki were vacationing together on the remote, tropical island when they died.

Two American sisters have been found dead in unexplained circumstances after a night of partying at a five-star resort off the coast of Africa.

Annie Korkki, 37, and Robin Korkki, 42, were discovered by a staff member at their 1,610 ($1,800) per night villa at the Maia Luxury Resort and Spa on the East African island of Seychelles.

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A staff member found them in their rooms on the morning of September 22. The two women were unresponsive and declared dead.

The two women were due to fly home on September 24, after extending their holiday by two days.

Their bodies showed no signs of violence, and an autopsy is pending, according to a local report from the Seychelles News Agency.

Two things keep going through my mind: This isnt happening, and we just want answers, their brother, Chris Korkki told the Minnesota Star Tribune.

The day before they were found dead the women were seen drinking. Local reports say that they needed assistance to get back to their hotel.

At this point, the only details we know are the articles flying around online, Chris Korkki said.

Both sisters are originally from the Minneapolis area but Annie Korkki now lives in Denver and Robin Korkki lives in Chicago. They both "definitely wanted to experience life to the fullest," Chris Korkki said.

Annie Korkki works for JP Morgan Chase and participates in a synchronized skating team, according to a Denver CBS affiliate

Family will be bringing the sisters bodies back to the U.S. for funeral services, according to a crowdfunding page.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds a rally with supporters in Bedford, New Hampshire, U.S. September 29, 2016

Donald Trump has denied a report that he explored business opportunities in Cuba in the late 1990s, apparently in violation of the US embargo.

The Republican presidential candidate told New Hampshire's NH1 News he "never did business in Cuba".

The tycoon said: "No, I never did anything in Cuba. I never did a deal in Cuba."

Newsweek reported on Thursday that the work was done by a consulting firm called Seven Arrows on behalf of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts.

The magazine said Mr Trump reimbursed the consulting firm for 68,000 US dollars (52,000) of business expenses for its Cuba work - even though neither he nor the company had sought a government waiver that would have allowed them to pursue such activities.

Mr Trump criticised Newsweek's reporter, saying he has a "bad reputation".

Hillary Clinton said the report alleging that Mr Trump may have violated the US embargo on communist Cuba was just more evidence that he puts his own interests ahead of the nation's.

The Democratic nominee told reporters aboard her campaign plane that "we have laws in our country," and Mr Trump knew what they were.

She added that "he deliberately flouted" the law and "puts his personal and business interests ahead of the laws and the values and the policies of the United States of America".

Mrs Clinton dismissed Mr Trump's reference to her husband's impeachment - and any other attacks her Republican rival might launch over the couple's personal life.

She said: "He can say whatever he wants to say." And she added that she is going to keep "talking about what I think the American people are interested in".

Earlier in Bedford, New Hampshire, Mr Trump had invoked former President Bill Clinton's impeachment as evidence that the Clintons are "the sordid past," while his presidency would "be the bright and very clean future".

Mr Trump sought to connect Mrs Clinton to her husband's scandal-marked presidency.

He urged supporters to remember that the House in 1998 impeached Mr Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Mr Clinton was acquitted by the Senate.
Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton smiles during the first presidential debate with Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, U.S., September 26, 2016 Picture: Reuters

A majority of Americans say Democrat Hillary Clinton won Monday night's presidential debate, but her performance doesn't appear to have immediately boosted her support among likely voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos national tracking poll released on Wednesday.

The online poll, which gathered responses from more than 2,000 people on Tuesday, found 56 percent of American adults felt that Clinton did a better job than Trump in the first of their three televised debates, compared with 26 percent who felt that Trump did better.

Of those who thought Clinton emerged the victor, 85 percent were Democrats and 22 percent were Republicans.

Mrs Clinton has also seen her support rise three points in polls conducted after the debate.

U.S. presidential debates have historically been seen as a crucial test of candidates' poise and policies. Monday's was watched by a record 84 million viewers and was billed as a rare prime-time opportunity for two unpopular candidates to convince millions of undecided voters to back them.

Afterward, both candidates claimed victory.

""Every single online poll had me winning," Trump said at a campaign stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa on Wednesday. "You sit back and you hear how well she did in the debate. I don't think she did well at all."

Clinton campaign spokesman Jesse Ferguson said the Democrat clearly won the debate as Trump "was unprepared, became unhinged and was incoherent throughout."

Among those who are expected to take part in the Nov. 8 general election, 34 percent said they felt that the debate changed their view of Clinton in a positive way, compared with 19 percent who said the same of Trump.

DELAYED REACTION

Some 31 percent of likely voters said the debate improved Clinton's chances of winning the White House, while 16 percent said the debate benefited Trump.

Even so, Clinton's performance seemed to have little impact on her support among America's likely voters. The poll showed 42 percent supported Clinton while 38 percent supported Trump. Over the past few weeks Clinton has maintained a lead of between 4 and 6 points over Trump.

Narrowing the focus to likely voters who watched the debate, Clinton led Trump 44 percent to 39 percent.

One possible reason for the lack of movement in her support is that it usually takes several days to measure the full impact of a single event, like a debate, said Donald Green, a political scientist at Columbia University.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll is conducted every day in English in all 50 states. Monday's sample of 2,036 American adults included 1,336 people who were considered to be likely voters from their voting record, registration status and stated intention to vote in the election. Among those likely voters, 1,026 said they watched some portion of the debate on live TV, online or in media clips that were circulated after the debate.

The poll has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points for the entire sample and the sample of likely voters. It has a credibility interval of 4 percentage points for the likely voters who watched the debate.

National opinion polls have differed this year in how they measure support for Clinton and Trump. Some polls, like Reuters/Ipsos, try to include only likely voters, while others include all registered voters. The Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll gathers responses every day and reports results twice a week, so it often detects trends in sentiment before most other polls.

Polling aggregators, which calculate averages of major polls, have shown that Clinton's lead over Trump has been shrinking this month to about 2 percentage points.
The Rosetta spacecraft ended its historic mission on Friday, crashing on the surface of the dusty, icy comet it has spent 12 years chasing in a hunt that has provided insight into the early days of the solar system and captured the public's imagination.

The spacecraft has stalked comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko across more than 6 billion km (3.7 billion miles) of space, collecting a treasure trove of information on comets that will keep scientists busy for the next decade.

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Scientists in the European Space Agency control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, clapped and hugged as confirmation of the end of the mission came at 1119 GMT.

Rosetta completed its free-fall descent at the speed of a sedate walk, joining the probe Philae, which landed on the comet in November 2014 in what was considered a remarkable feat of precision space travel.

"Thank you Rosetta," ESA director general Jan Woerner said on Twitter.

He was among some 300 people who had also gathered before dawn at a conference room at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, to watch a live webcast as Rosetta's signal disappeared from monitors, simultaneously with the team in Germany.

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"It was a good ending," Klaus Schiling, who worked on mission planning for Rosetta 27 years ago with prime contractor Airbus , told Reuters at the Mexico space conference. "There were so many ups and downs with this mission."

PLANET FORMATION

The mission managed several historic firsts, such as getting a spacecraft into orbit around a comet and the unprecedented landing of a probe on the surface. A handful of previous spacecraft had snapped pictures and collected data as they flew past their targets.

But, dashing hopes for more discoveries, Philae, the 100 kg (220 lb) probe, bounced several times on landing before getting stuck against a cliff wall, leaving it unable to perform any more experiments beyond its first three days on the comet after its solar-powered batteries ran out.

Rosetta's cameras located Philae's resting place just a few weeks ago.

The ESA is ending the mission because 67P is racing toward the outer solar system, out of range for the solar-powered spacecraft.

Rosetta also has been subjected to the harsh radiation and extreme temperatures of space since launching in March 2004 and so was unlikely to last too much longer.

Before reaching the surface and shutting down, Rosetta's instruments and camera relayed back data and images, giving scientists insight into the structure of the comet.

That data will reveal information on the side walls of the comet, crucial to understanding how they are formed, plus on large 100-metre (300 foot) wide pits, which scientists believe are key to how the comet releases gas and dust as it is warmed by the sun.

Daniel Brown, an astronomy expert at Nottingham Trent University, said the images sent back from the Rosetta mission were "as powerful as Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon".

Data collected by Rosetta and Philae is already helping scientists better understand how the Earth and other planets formed.

For example, scientists now believe that asteroids, not comets were primarily responsible for delivering water to Earth and other planets in the inner solar system, possibly setting the stage for life.

"We've just scratched the surface of the science. We're ending the mission, but the science will continue for many years," project scientist Matt Taylor said ahead of the end of mission.
The paintings were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Anti-Mafia police in Naples have recovered two Van Gogh paintings stolen from Amsterdam in 2002.

The Van Gogh Museum said the paintings, found without their frames, are in relatively good condition, though they did show "some damage".

The two artworks are 1882's "Seascape at Scheveningen" and a later work, "Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen".

Police in Naples said the paintings, which they described as "priceless", were discovered during a raid as part of a crackdown against a Naples-based Camorra crime clan suspected of cocaine trafficking.

Naples prosecutors said more details will be given later at a news conference in the southern Italian city.

The paintings were seized along with other property, worth "tens of millions of euros". The Financial Guard, a branch of the Italian police, often sequesters the financial assets of suspected criminals.

Van Gogh Museum director Alex Rueger thanked the Italian police, saying: "After all these years, you no longer dare count on a possible return."

It is unclear when the paintings will return to Amsterdam.

AP
Wahida Mohamed Al-Jumaily, 39, published a photo on Facebook appearing to show her carrying a severed head, and another showing two severed heads in a cooking pot Facebook/Wahida Mohamed

An Iraqi grandmother claims to be one of the people most feared by Isis and has received personal death threats from the group's leader.

Wahida Mohamed Al-Jumaily, 39, said she has beheaded and cooked the heads of Isis fighters to avenge the deaths of her family.

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Isis killed her second husband earlier this year and has previously killed her father and three brothers.

Better known as Um Hanadi, she leads a 70-strong militia in the fight against Isis in the recently liberated town of Shirqat, which sits 50 miles south of the Isis' Iraq stronghold of Mosul.

"I fought them, I beheaded them, I cooked their heads, I burned their bodies," she told CNN.

The militia leader, who describes herself as a "housewife," has published a photo on Facebook appearing to show her carrying a severed head, and another showing two severed heads in a cooking pot.

A third photo appears to show her standing among headless bodies which have been burned.

She said she had received personal death threats "from the top leadership of Isis," she said, "including from [Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi himself".

"I'm at the top of their most wanted list, even more than the Prime Minister," she added.

"Six times they tried to assassinate me. I have shrapnel in my head and legs, my ribs were broken, but all that didn't stop me from fighting," she said in the interview, lifting her headscarf to reveal several scars.

Um Hanadi began fighting jihadists in 2004, she said, working with Iraqi forces and the coalition in the battle against al-Qaeda and later Isis.

She recently led her militia in the battle to help government forces drive Isis from Shirqat.

General Jamaa Anad, commander of Iraqi ground forces in Salahuddin province, told CNN they had provided her group with vehicles and weapons.

"She lost her brothers and husbands as martyrs," he said. "So out of revenge she formed her own force."

Isis fighters are afraid of being killed by women, according to female Kurdish soldiers, because they believe it means they won't go to heaven.
Handsome hunk John Abraham lives as an admiration to many of his fans with his dashing personality and charm. After delivering his power packed performance in Dishoom, the actor is all set to grab our eyeballs in director Abhinay Deo's Force 2.

The actor shared about the difficulties that he had to face while shooting for Force 2. And yet again he has proved himself to be a of a persevere nature.

Talking about some tough times during the film's shoot he said, "I damaged my knee while doing a rooftop shot. After that in Hungary, I had to do two knee surgeries. Whenever I had to sit in a car, someone had to hold and put my leg in the car. I couldn't even move it. When I came to Mumbai, I did one more surgery,"

"But at the end of the day, the outcome was good. Doing action is really difficult, but it is fun for me,"

Despite of miltiple physical disablities the actor went ahead with his work commitments and even enjoyed it.

We must say, John's sportsman spirit is quite commendable!
Actor-producer John Abraham says he loves action as a genre, but doesn't want to do a destructive role.

"I am trying to do something different after 'Force 2'. However, I love doing action movies. It is like second nature to me, but I don't want to do a destructive role. I like comedy as well, especially slapstick comedy," John said at the trailer launch of his forthcoming film 'Force 2' on Thursday.

A sequel to the 2011 film directed by Nishikant Kamat, 'Force 2' is a spy genre where a new antagonist (Tahir Raj Bhasin) kills RAW agents.

John reprises his role as ACP Yashvardhan with actress Sonakshi Sinha as an assistant in the mission to nab the person behind the killings.

The 'Rocky Handsome' actor, who is seen doing daring stunts in the trailer, spoke about the difficulties he faced while filming the action sequences. "I damaged my knee while doing a rooftop shot. After that in Hungary, I had to do two knee surgeries. Whenever I had to sit in a car, someone had to hold and put my leg in the car. I couldn't even move it. When I came to Mumbai, I did one more surgery," the 43-year-old said.

"But at the end of the day, the outcome was good. Doing action is really difficult, but it is fun for me," he added.

He also talked about a scene where he lifts up a car.

"'Force' is about power. It was Abhinay Deo (director of 'Force 2') and Vipul Shah's (producer) decision to do the scene. They did the entire setup and the only thing I had to do was how my posture would look while lifting the car. So, I would give the credit to them," he said.

"Along with the power element, the film also has a strong story. The film is dedicated to the heroes who lost their lives to serve the country and also based on some true events. So, by the end of the film, you will be shocked," added John.

The film is set to release on November 18.
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Lunchtime in City Market can be overwhelming, especially for someone who is indecisive, as there are several options available to fulfill any midday craving you may have. During a recent visit with my friend Kate, I decided to give The Tamale Place a try, because Id heard so many good things. I wanted to try the chicken in green sauce, but it was already sold out. My second option, chipotle chicken, was sold out as well. I settled on a vegetarian tamale that was filled with black beans, a side of rice and a chicken taco. The combo came with a side of chips and salsa and a bottled drink. Despite the crowd, the staff was pleasant, and I got my food quickly. In all, the meal ran me close to $14. That is a little out of my price range for lunch, but the amount of food I got was enough for leftovers later in the day.

The tamale was well seasoned, and the portion size was great. The one down side was the amount of masa (corn dough) used. It was entirely too much, in my opinion. Its hard to describe it, but imagine eating a Twinkie. The yellow cake part, in this instance, was the masa, and the cream filling was the black beans. Get the picture?

Other than the masa issue, the rest of my meal was pretty great. Their salsa is freshly made and very flavorful. I opted for the hot version, and it did not disappoint. The rice was a nice complement to everything, and the taco was fantastic. Then again  I havent met a taco I didnt like.

This wasnt the be-all and end-all for me, but it was cool. The best tamales Ive ever had were served up on a paper plate in my stepmom Tracees backyard. Tracees mom, Ms. Lanetta, perfected her recipe while living in Arizona. For family gatherings, she works painstakingly to create her homemade masa and filling, details she reminds you of often, as the term store bought is not a part of her vocabulary. Her tamales are so good that no matter how many she makes, they run out; the smart (or greedy, depending on who you ask) people snatch up their fair share early in the evening and store them in secret hiding spots.

Ive had plenty of restaurant-style tamales since then, and although The Tamale Place isnt as good as Ms. Lanetta, they still rank pretty solid in my book.

Tamale Place Locations:

Rockville Road

5226 Rockville Road

Indianapolis, IN 46224

(317) 248-9771

City Market

222 E. Market St.

Indianapolis, IN 46204

(317) 423-2203

Greenwood

1155 E. Stop 11 Road

Indianapolis, IN 46227

(317) 300-8748
I remember the unseasonably mild February morning when more than 600 of the most prominent, powerful business and political luminaries  including President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama  gathered in Washington, D.C., to participate in history: The groundbreaking of the Smithsonian Institutions National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).

Now, nearly a half-decade later, the day has arrived when the doors of the largest African-American museum in the U.S. will open to the world. Moreover, it represents one of the greatest philanthropic efforts driven by African-Americans. Its five-star advisory council included former Citigroup Chairman Richard Parsons, American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault, media mogul Oprah Winfrey, billionaire dealmaker Robert Johnson and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

At the time of the groundbreaking, founding director Lonnie Bunch III said the importance of the vision was recognizing and honoring African-American history and culture and demonstrate the need to make better all who visit the National Museum, by using African-American culture as a lens to more clearly understand what it means to be an American.

What I also found impressive about Bunch was the fact that, as he uncovered artifacts representing the wide arc of history, including slavery, Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Migration, the Civil Rights Movement and other eras, the noted scholar and historian became an amazingly adept fundraiser of $250 million in donations from corporations, organizations and individuals.

As I wrote at the time  and still believe  the campaign serves as a powerful model for strategic philanthropic fundraising, whether your organization is mammoth or miniscule. Here are three takeaways from Bunchs impressive efforts:

Assemble a credible board of advisors

After civil rights legend Rep. John Lewis fought more than 12 years to secure authorization, President George W. Bush signed legislation in 2003 to establish the 19th museum within the Smithsonian complex. Congress committed $250 million over 10 years, so Bunch must make regular trips to Capitol Hill to sway legislators to provide funding for the institutions annual budget. The NMAAHC team has had to raise the other $250 million through private donations.

Bunch told me he was not guided by a lot of management theory, but by all our ancestors and that led to his clarity of intent and working with a board designed for fundraising success.

In June 2005, Bunch had to contend with an intimidating meeting at NMAAHC, a month before he officially took the helm. I walk into my first board meeting. Im looking for my name, and I am between Oprah Winfrey and Dick Parsons, he reflects.

Bunch knew that members of this advisory council had vast strategic acumen, enviable global contacts and, most important, a burning desire to erect a monument to Black achievement. Sixteen of the 24-member advisory council members were African-American, many among the NMAAHCs largest donors. For example, the Oprah Winfrey Foundation has contributed $10 million or more, and Bob Johnson has given $5 million or more. Chenaults American Express has given $5 million, and Allan Golston, president of U.S. Programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, helped guide the organizations investments of $10 million.

Assembling such a group of respected corporate and civic leaders offers a vital lesson for those on the local level. Bunch said his council gave the museum instant credibility. You had to show that the major players cared about this, and because there would have to be so much private fundraising, which is more than weve traditionally done at the Smithsonian, the decision was to make sure the board had a strong corporate leadership, Bunch said at the time, citing that the group weighed in on every strategic decision involving the museums development and management.

Communicate your vision with clarity and passion

Bunch found that the NMAAHCs leash was shorter than that of most nonprofits, because the museum operates under government oversight as part of the Smithsonian complex. The team had a playbook, a set of principles and policies that had been developed by the founding presidential commission. It was up to Bunch to call the plays, though. I learned youve got to have confidence in your vision, but be smart enough to let other people help shape it, he said.

One of Bunchs strengths is his ability to sell the mission, whether conferring with congressmen on the Hill, talking to CEOs in the executive suite or chatting up a group of senior citizens at a community center. Observers said he has a talent for connecting with people on the emotional level, and thats what makes people write checks. He was also successful in building partnerships with local museums and historical societies.

Strategically target prospective donors

NMAAHC approached fundraising from a standpoint of abundance, not scarcity, said one staffer, and did not waste time on those who may suffer from sticker shock. The group also targeted five key metros: New York, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles  philanthropic cities that are among the nations largest, headquarters for large corporations and comprised of diverse populations that embrace multicultural causes.

The team wanted as many African-Americans as possible to play a role in the museums development, so the campaign for dollars was not just focused on members of the 1 percent. NMAAHC has developed a grassroots effort as well, pitching charter memberships for as little as $25. In fact, the group has received gifts of $5 from senior citizens and about $600 in coins from the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School, and added social media outreach to the mix. The lesson: Gaining small contributions is just as important as large corporate donations in reaching your fundraising goal.
On Sept. 22, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) held a news conference outside of the United States Justice Department in Washington, D.C., calling for Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate, indict and even prosecute law enforcement officers who intentionally kill innocent and unarmed Blacks.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) recited the names of Blacks who have been killed by police in recent years including Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and Terence Crutcher. Waters also read from a letter that she and Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) delivered to Lynchs office minutes later.

It is time for the Department of Justice to take aggressive action and put an end to what appears to be the targeting of and profiling of African-Americans that result in their death, Waters read. Officers enjoy the presumption of credibility, whereas victims endure the presumption of guilt. For too long, this dynamic has helped to protect law enforcement officers from being brought to justice.

Several members of the CBC stood at the podium and passionately spoke about how recent killings continue to hurt the Black community.

After days of protests in Charlotte, North Carolina, following the shooting death of Keith Lamont Scott, 43, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) advised all those protesting nationwide to conduct themselves in a peaceful manner.

Exercise your right within the First Amendment, he said. I understand why youre angry. Im angry. Just stay peaceful

Scott was the third Black male shot and killed by police in the span of a week.

Tyre King, 13, was shot and killed by a white police officer Sept. 15 in Columbus, Ohio. Police said King, who later died at a hospital, allegedly pulled a BB gun from his waistband before he was shot. During a press conference, Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs said, Our officers carry a gun that looks practically identical to this weapon.

A white police officer shot and killed Terence Crutcher, 40, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The shooting was caught on video from a police helicopter.

Tulsa County District Attorney Stephen Kunzweiler announced his office would charge Officer Betty Shelby with first-degree manslaughter in the Crutcher shooting.

The charging of the officer in Tulsa was a swift step in the pursuit of justice, the Rev. Al Sharpton tweeted. We need to examine all involved.

William J. Ford is a staff writer for The Washington Informer. You can follow him on Twitter @jabariwill.
On Oct. 5, the men and women vying for seats on the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) Board of Commissioners will have an opportunity to address the public at a forum held by WFYI, Chalkbeat Indiana and the Indianapolis Recorder.

Each of the 10 candidates will offer their views on the current state of the district and answer a host of questions from reporters representing each news outlet.

The forum will be broken into two sessions: from 56:15 p.m., attendees will hear from candidates representing Districts 1 and 2; District 4 and At-Large candidates will speak from 6:30-7:45 p.m.

District 3 (Kelly Kennedy Bentley), District 5 (Lanier Echols) and the other At-Large seat, held by Board President Mary Ann Sullivan, are not up for election until November 2018.

The IPS race has been a contentious one thus far. Earlier this month, Our IPS and the Concerned Clergy released a report card that graded each of the candidates based on information gathered from their attendance at community education forums and surveys distributed to them by Our IPS. In the release, David Greene, president of the organization and senior pastor of Purpose of Life Ministries, said the purpose of the card is to help voters make informed decisions.

Many of the people our organizations interact with have serious concerns about the lack of accountability the current school board demands of Superintendent Lewis Ferebee, said Greene.

The group gave incumbents Michael OConnor (District 1), Diane Arnold (District 4) and Sam Odle (At-Large) an F in nearly every grading category: student achievement, school discipline/safety, support of traditional public school model, accountability, recruitment of high-quality employees and transparency/communication with stakeholders.

The group has publicly endorsed Larry Vaughn (running in District 4), who has been very vocal in his opposition to the board; Christine Prince, a registered nurse running in District 1; Jim Grimm, who is running for Odles At-Large seat; and Ramon Batts, an IPS alum and former employee who is seeking the District 2 spot.

The current District 2 Commissioner Gayle Cosby, who is not seeking reelection, shared with the Recorder that her time on the board was an immense learning experience. Cosby is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in urban education at IUPUI.

Ive learned a tremendous amount during my time about the politics of this city and how power plays are made. Ive learned a lot about myself and what it takes to fight the good fight. It can be overwhelming and exhausting, but oh so worthwhile when you gain a little bit of traction.

Prior to being elected to the board in 2012, Cosbys awareness came directly from the vantage point of the classroom; the board engagement, in her opinion, opened her eyes to what happens at the highest levels of leadership in the district. Its taught me how to collaborate and compromise and how to fight. Im going to continue to fight, just within a different role.

Cosbys well-documented polarity has, for some, been a welcome alternative voice in matters of public education, as she has frequently been referred to as the only opinion of opposition on the board.

Its incredibly important for the future of IPS for there to be a diversity of thought on the board, whether thats one person or four to five. Democracy is not possible without the voice of dissent, she said. Ive been alone in my dissent, especially on the topics of innovation network schools and the privatization of public schools.

For others, like current Commissioner Kelly Bentley who told Chalkbeat in January that Cosbys departure is not that much of a loss, her absence may not leave much of a void.

When asked if she felt there was anyone currently running who could provide the sort of thought shes come to be known for, Cosby was careful not to offer any specific endorsements, but she said she is aware of a grassroots coalition that may fill that void.

What you have in my estimation is a war between the well-to-do folks in Indy who stand to profit from the privatization of our public schools versus the people who want to see public schools remain public and not profitable to anyone, she said.

What I discovered during my four years on the board is that whats happening nationally is happening in Indianapolis. You have groups like the Gates Foundation, the Koch brothers and the Walton family  these uber-wealthy 1 percent  who are driving the agenda in education reform with philanthropic dollars, she said.

Though Cosby received more than $10,000 in direct and in-kind contributions from Stand for Children (a 501c3 that received funding from the Gates Foundation) in 2012, she has since been highly critical of the organization.

Its important that people pay attention, she said. Being an engaged and informed voter in this election is more critical this time around than it has ever been before.

IPS School Board candidates

District 1

Michael OConnor*

Christine M. Prince

District 2

Ramon L. Batts

Nanci E. Lacy

Venita J. Moore

District 4

Diane Arnold*

Larry Vaughn

At-Large

Elizabeth M. Gore

Jim Grim

*Samuel L. Odle

*Incumbent
Evangelicals are divided on what to do about Donald Trump this November. As Ive written before, most evangelicals fall into four categories. Some will vote Trump as a protest against Clinton. A few will do the reverse. A large number of evangelicals oppose both candidates. Still others enthusiastically support Trump for president.

On Sept. 16, the National Religious Broadcasters hosted an evangelical debate on Trump at the National Press Club in Washington. Two of the speakers at the debate opposed Trump; two of the speakers supported him. Heres how their arguments played out:

Erick Erickson: God has never asked his people to choose the evil.

The conservative writer and talk radio host made a distinction between those who will privately vote for Trump as the lesser of two evils and those who use their platforms to support his candidacy. He argued that evangelicals harm their witness by publicly supporting Trump.

Trumps lack of character disqualifies him from evangelical support, Erickson said.

We have a man running for president of the United States who has bragged about his affairs, who has bragged about stiffing others with the bill, who has cheated women and widows, who has said hes never had to ask God for forgiveness, who does not identify Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior but says he is a Christian.

While some evangelicals see Trump as a leader like the ancient kings of the Hebrew Scriptures  Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus (men who were not Jews, but who, in the Book of Daniel, were good to Gods people)  Erickson rejected this way of thinking. He admitted that God might use someone even as flawed as Trump, but that possibility does not persuade someone to vote in a particular way.

Between the lesser of the two evils, God has never asked his people to choose the evil. Hes done it for them, Erickson said.

Janet Parshall: What will you do with the Court?

For the national radio host, the critical issue is the Supreme Court.

Dismissing the charges against Trumps character, she set the current candidates flaws in perspective, as following a line of many presidents throughout American history with glaring character flaws: from Thomas Jefferson to Warren G. Harding, Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton.

We are not electing a Messiah, she said. So I dont fear for having anything less than a sinner in the White House. Last time I checked, we have sinners in the Supreme Court, sinners in the Oval Office, sinners in the Congress. In fact, I myself join you today as a sinner, saved by grace.

Parshall also praised the American election system. Seventeen candidates strutted upon the GOP stage, she said. Those who cared voted. The system worked and the final candidate stepped forward. Thats the way the system worked.

She urged evangelicals to consider how Gods hand has been involved in this election season. For those who have been praying and fasting through, during, and for this process, have we now believed the sovereignty of God didnt apply?  God has a track record of using flawed and broken people, even when it doesnt look right to us, she added.

Harry Jackson: Multiple reasons minority evangelicals should support Trump

Jackson, an African-American pastor in Maryland and chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, said Trump may be the only one who is able to bring some substantive healing to the racial divide. He mentioned Trumps economic plan for urban improvement, the opportunity for nonviolent offenders to return home from prison and family tax incentives that are significant for African-American and Hispanic communities.

And he offered three more general reasons for supporting Trump: religious freedom, Supreme Court justices and support of Israel.

Bill Wichterman: A threat to our democratic republic

Even though he cares deeply about the Supreme Court, the former congressional staffer and assistant to George W. Bush does not believe Trumps potential court nominees justify a vote for a man he thinks may be a threat to our democratic republic.

Trump, Wichterman said, has too often demonstrated contempt for the rule of law. Hes sounded more like a strong man impatient with constitutional constraints.

Wichterman chastised evangelical leaders who say we need a bad man to stand up to bullies on the left.

Its almost as if were hiring a hit man to play dirty for the sake of good government.  It reflects a lack of faith in the power of virtue to do what needs to be done. We dont need to do bad to do good. In fact, thats impossible, if Scripture is to be believed. Ends and means both count in Gods moral accounting.

Wichterman said he opposes both Trump and Clinton.

I hate the thought of Hillary Clinton being elected president, and she will never get my vote. But I wont compromise core principle for the sake of party allegiance.  I will not allow Trump to be the face of the nation for the world. I will not stand idly by while our national character is polluted. As Christians, were called to do Gods bidding in Gods way, which means doing what we should and entrusting the results to him.
Have you ever seen a profit and loss statement for your casinos on the Pine Ridge Reservation?

By Native Sun News Today Editorial Board

How well or how bad are the two casinos owned by the Oglala Sioux Tribe doing? Jeffrey Whalen, Native Sun News Correspondent asked that question last week and he asked it because he, along with this newspaper, is asked that question by members of the Tribe.

Here is a question for the leaders of every District on Pine Ridge: When is the last time you saw a financial report on the profits or losses of the casinos? These are called P&L statements and every business would be remiss if they did not prepare these P&L statements in order to analyze the success or failure of their business.

Many tribal casinos across America see no problem with supplying this information to their members because in their minds the people of the tribe are the rightful owners of the casino and not the tribal councils or president of the tribe. Whats more, the profits of their casinos are shared with their tribal members through per capita monthly payments. Have the OST casinos ever made enough money to even consider per cap payments to its members? Apparently not.

The Oglala Lakota of the Pine Ridge Reservation are the rightful owners of both tribal casinos. As owners they deserve full transparency and disclosure by the tribal government. We have written about this in the past with little results.

The first mistake made by the OST was to build the first casino at Oelrichs, too far off the beaten path. The original Lakota Times wrote an editorial in 1988 before this decision was made; to build the casino at Interior, just a few miles off of the busiest highway  I-90  in South Dakota. There is little doubt that the revenues from a casino at Interior would have increased the profits tenfold over its construction at Oelrichs.

It was a bad business decision. The second bad decision was to build a second casino at Martin. That should have been the time to build it at Interior because the traffic on I-90 has increased considerably since 1988. Interior is the entrance to the Badlands. A million tourists visit the Bad Lands every year and thousands of truckers drive by Interior on I-90 every day and every night. This should have been a no-brainer for anyone with an ounce of business acumen.

The three things that make a business successful are still: Location, location, location. We hope there are some sound business minds on the new tribal council and it is up to tribal members to make sure they are elected this time around.

Lack of transparency cannot be blamed on the management of the OST casinos because that responsibility lies clearly in the hands of the OST Council and its president.

For more news and opinion visit the Native Sun News Today website: Have you ever seen a profit and loss statement for your casinos on the Pine Ridge Reservation?

(Contact the Editorial Board of NSNT at editor@nsweekly.com)

Copyright permission Native Sun News

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The Angostura Reservoir in South Dakota. Photo from South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks



Uranium Contamination: Angostura Reservoir

By Brandon EcoffeyLakota Country Times Editor

PINE RIDGE -- A study just released by two South Dakota School of Mines and Technology scientists and a scientist from California State University-Fresno has shown that uranium levels at Angostura Reservoir are elevated and caused by runoff from mining.

The study that looked at stream sediments along the Cheyenne River watershed and found that the human activity that contributed to the elevated uranium levels could be traced to abandoned uranium mines across the area and mill near Edgemont.

The water in the Cheyenne River helps to irrigate field and provide water for livestock across Lakota Country.

"This impacts people throughout western South Dakota, said Gena Parkhurst, President of the Black Hills Chapter of Dakota Rural Action. The Cheyenne River runs along or through two reservations and five counties. It impacts agriculture and tourism. We need to clean it up.

The revelation of the toxicity in the reservoir adds to the evidence showing that human influence poses a threat to groundwater. National attention has been focused on the resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota where tribal-citizens and allies have been camped out for over a month. Previous attempts to have Ana domed mines cleaned across the Black Hills have fallen on deaf ears.

Dr. Lilias Jarding of Clean Water Alliance also calls for clean-up: These radioactive mines have been sitting open for as much as 65 years, Jarding said. These test results make it clear there is a problem that threatens public health and demands immediate action. These old mines should be cleaned up before any new uranium mining is allowed in the area. We call on the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Bureau of Reclamation to clean up these radioactive mines, starting today.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there are 169 old uranium mines and prospects in the southern Black Hills, which was mined from 1951 to 1972. Only a handful of the old mines have been cleaned up.

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According to a releases a dam break in Edgemont that released 200 tons of radioactive uranium mill wastes into the Cheyenne River in 1962. According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, some of these wastes reached Angostura Reservoir.

With these new, verifiable tests, it is time the Environmental Protection Agency immediately reopens the application for a Superfund clean-up at the old mines in the Dewey-Burdock area of Fall River and Custer Counties. The EPA looked into doing clean-up at the old uranium mines, but dropped the idea after being blocked from measuring the level of pollution on lands controlled by a uranium company in 2015.

(Contact Brandon Ecoffey at editor@lakotacountrytimes.com)

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Priya, Indias first female superhero, made her debut at Comic Con Mumbai in 2014. Priya originated after the horrible Delhi gang rape of 2012. The graphic novel by Ram Devineni, Lina Srivastava, and Dan Goldman is one of the most powerful comics, and talks about womens rights and equality.

Image Credit: Priya

The latest issue, called Priyas Mirror, talks about acid attack victims. The story revolves around Anjali, an acid attack survivor, and her escape from the demon called Ahankar. The reason the story is called 'Priyas Mirror' is because Priya uses a mirror called mirror of love to show survivors that they are more than their face.

Image Credit: Priya

The comic concludes with acid attack survivors from New York City, Bogota and Delhi. The 36-page comic will be unveiled at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center later this week (from 30 September to 6 October). It will be available in five languages - English, Hindi, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian - and can also be downloaded free from its website. Read it here.
All efforts are on to secure the return of Chandu Babulal Chauhan, a soldier who was captured by Pakistan Army after he inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control," Home Minister Rajnath Singh has said.

The government has taken note of the media reports that say our soldier is in Pakistan captivity. India will take up the matter with Pakistan, Singh said. Chauhan who is serving with the 37 Rashtriya Rifles, was captured by Pakistani Army on Thursday at Jhandroot, west of Mankote. Read more

1. India Steps Up Security, Readies For Impact, If Pakistan Retaliates After Surgical Strikes

As the security establishment watches out for Islamabad's response to the surgical strikes, border vigil has been tightened and surveillance stepped up to track terrorists who have already crossed over into Jammu and Kashmir with plans to escalate violence in the coming days.

The surgical strikes clearly caught Pakistani agencies unawares.

"They never apprehended that India would revise its strategy against infiltration and cross the LoC to hit terror bases and launch pads in PoK," claimed an intelligence officer. Read more

2. Anticipating Pak Retaliation, Nearly 1,000 Villages In Border Districts Being Evacuated

People are being evacuated from nearly 1,000 villages in the six border districts of Punjab, after the Indian armed forces carried out surgical strikes across the Line of Control.

The affected villages are within 10 km of the India-Pakistan border in the districts of Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur, Pathankot, Fazilka and Ferozepur. The authorities are making alternative arrangements for about 15 lakh people likely to be displaced in the six districts. Read more

3. Another Soldier Hurt In Uri Attack Succumbs, Toll Reaches 19

Naik Rajkisore Singh, who was injured during the terror attack on the army headquarters in Uri earlier this month, has succumbed to injuries.

35-year-old Singh, who had suffered gunshot injuries, was undergoing treatment at Army's Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi. He was a resident of Arrah in Bihar. He is survived by his wife and two children. Read more

4. Fearing Separation, Hindu-Muslim Teen Lovers Commit Suicide in Agra

Afraid of being "caught and separated," a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy from Sangli, both in their teens, committed suicide by jumping before a train in Agra, where they had eloped.

The boy, Zakir Dilawar (17), and the girl, Ayodhya Patil (16) were both from Haroli village in Sangli and knew each other for five years. They were students of Class XII. Ayodhya's father Dinkar Patil is believed to be a Shiv Sena leader of Kavathe-Mahankal taluka, Sangli. Read more

5. Saudi 'Concerned' After US Passes Law Allowing 9/11 Victims Families To Sue The Kingdom

A day after the US Senate and the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to approve legislation that will allow the families of those killed in the 2001 attacks on the United States to seek damages from the Saudi government, Riyadh has condemned the move, calling it a matter of "great concern".

The foreign ministry expressed hope that the US Congress would correct the legislation, "To avoid the serious unintended consequences that may ensue," without elaborating on what the consequences might be. Read more

6. Pakistan's Nukes Could End Up In The Hands Of Suicide Bombers, Says Hillary

US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has expressed concerns over the possibility of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of jihadists, which she said was "A threatening scenario".

"Pakistan is running full speed to develop tactical nukes in their continuing hostility with India," the former secretary of state told a closed door fundraiser in Virginia in February, The New York Times reported, citing 50-minute audio audio being hacked from the Democratic Party's computers. Read more
Naik Rajkisore Singh, who was injured during the terror attack on the army headquarters in Uri earlier this month, has succumbed to injuries.

Twitter

Also Read: India Just Confirmed We Carried Out Surgical Attacks Across LoC Last Night, Destroyed Terror Targets

35-year-old Singh, who had suffered gunshot injuries, was undergoing treatment at Army's Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi. He was a resident of Arrah in Bihar. He is survived by his wife and two children.

Reuters

Serving the Army was a part of Singh's family. His father is a retired soldier, while two of his elder brothers are still serving in the army.

Also Read: Uri Attackers Came From PoK, India Tells Pak

PTI

His death takes the death toll in one of the biggest terror strikes on Indian troops to 19.

17 soldiers were killed on the spot while one had died of his injuries a few days later.

Also Read: 2 Hours After Uri Attacks, The Worlds Biggest Names Are Supporting India Against Pakistan

BCCL
In a relief to embattled consumer electronic giant Samsung ahead of the festive season, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has lifted the restrictions on carrying the 'new' Note 7 phone in the aircraft.

Reuters

The aviation regulator has said that its September 9 order banning flyers from carrying Samsung Galaxy Note 7 in check-in bags and from switching them on or charging in flight does "not apply to Samsung Galaxy Note 7 purchased after September 15, 2016."

The modified DGCA order issued Wednesday draws a distinction between Note 7s before and after the mid-September date.

Those purchased before September 15 "Have been recalled by Samsung and have white battery charge indication on their screen."

And the ones purchased after that date have "green battery charge indication on their screen.

Reuters

A Samsung India spokesman said: "The DGCA has issued an advisory to the travelling public and airline companies today (Friday), lifting the restrictions on in-flight use of the new Samsung Galaxy Note7, purchased after September 15, 2016.

Customers can identify the new Galaxy Note7 with the 'green battery icon'. Devices displaying this visual icon are safe to charge and use during the flight. Samsung has not sold a single unit of Galaxy Note7 in India so far. The 'green battery icon' will apply to all Galaxy Note7 units that will be sold to customers in India when it is launched."

"We recognize the inconvenience this has caused to customers, flyers and airline authorities, and remain committed towards customer safety," he added.

updato.com

The DGCA had on September 9, hours after the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), banned flyers from carrying Samsung Galaxy Note 7 in check-in bags. They were to taken only in hand bags and kept switched off during the entire duration of flights apart from not being charged on board.

Several aviation safety regulators globally and international airlines had imposed restrictions on carriage of Note 7 after some instances of this smartphone's battery exploding and the phone catching fire.

The DGCA, last Friday, had issued similar restrictions on carriage of Samsung Note 2 after one of these phones caught fire on a Singapore-Chennai flight of IndiGo.
"When I heard that 17 jawans died (that number later increased to 19) in the terrorist attack on Uri, I felt like getting up from my bed and running. Today, I am very happy that India started replying to Pakistan in the manner it deserves. I hear India carried out surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads across the LoC (Line of Control). I am very happy, but I am also sad that I am not there," said 36-year-old Kanagala Sriramulu, a jawan who was injured in the Pathankot attack in January of this year.

TOI

His brother Sangam Naidu said Ramulu was shaking with rage as he watched footage of the Uri attack on TV news channels, from his hospital bed in Delhi. "Pakistan is a badmash country," Ramulu exclaimed.

Kanagala, who was a part of the 150-member army team that eliminated the terrorists responsible for the attack in Pathankot, is now recovering from shrapnel injuries sustained in a grenade explosion.

A bomb-disposal expert, Ramulu has about 50 pieces of shrapnel embedded in his head and brain, the injuries paralysed the right part of his body.

He cannot eat or walk on his own. His right eye is completely damaged, and he is suffering from short-term memory loss.

Reuters

Still under treatment at the RR (Research and Referral) Hospital in Delhi, Ramulu took a week's break to see his aged parents Rami Naidu and Ramanamma. The family did not allow his frail parents to see him while he was undergoing treatment in Delhi. Ramulu arrived at his village Vone Agraharam in Vangara block,

Reuters

After gunning down the terrorists in Pathankot, Ramulu, along with fellow jawans, was trying to defuse a grenade lying near a dead terrorist. The grenade went off, killing Lieutenant Colonel Niranjan and injuring four others, including Ramulu.

The shrapnel pierced Ramulu's head and he was in a coma for 10 days. He spent nine months undergoing treatment in hospital.

The doctors, according to Sangam Naidu, declared that removing the 50 pieces of shrapnel from his head and brain would endanger his life. "Doctors told us to keep him happy as long as he is alive. Home minister Rajnath Singh also told us the same thing, while assuring the family of all support," Sangam Naidu told Mirror.
As the security establishment watches out for Islamabad's response to the surgical strikes, border vigil has been tightened and surveillance stepped up to track terrorists who have already crossed over into Jammu and Kashmir with plans to escalate violence in the coming days.

BCCL

Sources in the intelligence agencies told TOI that Pakistan appears to be still weighing all scenarios, keeping the local constituency as well as international repercussions in mind, before it comes up with a formal response to the surgical strikes. While a verbal response or statement is expected by Friday, retaliatory action on the ground may not happen right away. "Just like Indian forces took time to prepare for the strikes, Pakistan army will need time to plan and execute a retaliatory response," said an officer.

The surgical strikes clearly caught Pakistani agencies unawares. "They never apprehended that India would revise its strategy against infiltration and cross the LoC to hit terror bases and launch pads in PoK," claimed an intelligence officer.

Also Read: Surgical Strikes: What We Know So Far

BCCL

Given the spike in infiltration over the past few months that has seen nearly 100 terrorists cross over from Pakistan, agencies fear that any armed retaliation by the neighbour to the surgical strikes will only add to the threat of suicide attacks against security forces in J&K.

Intelligence sources said an alert has been sounded across the Valley, which has witnessed a long spell of unrest following the death of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani on July 8. "Police stations across the Valley have been alerted and movements of terrorists are being tracked in real time," said an officer.

BCCL

Fearing an escalation in hostilities along the international border, the BSF has already stepped up alert in the border states of J&K, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Residents of villages close to the border in Jammu & Punjab are being evacuated as a precautionary measure against escalated firing and shelling by Pakistani forces.

BCCL

Sources said there was no reaction so far in the Valley to the Army's surgical operation. "People are still waiting to see how Pakistan reacts," an intelligence officer said.

Though intelligence agencies foresee an escalation in violence in J&K, both along the border and in the hinterland, a top official said there was no discernible threat of a terror attack in the rest of the country coinciding with the ensuing festive season.
Over four years after the infamous Park Street gang rape case, Kolkata Police have arrested the prime accused, Kader Khan, from Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad district.

Kader along with his accomplice, Ali Khan, was arrested by a special team of Kolkata Police in a joint operation with Delhi Police from their hideout in an apartment last night, said a police officer.

aolcdn.com

Sources in Kolkata Police said the duo would be brought to the city on transmit remand and likely be produced at a local court on Saturday.

The victim, a mother of two, was gang raped on February 6, 2012 by five men, who had offered to drop her home from a night club at city's Park Street area.

Acting on a tip-off that Kader, absconding since the incident, sleuths of Kolkata Police started tracking his mobile calls, he said. Soon after he was located somewhere near New Delhi, sleuths started zeroing on him. On Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar's instruction, a special team was formed to nab Kader.

thehansindia.com

"We had information that Khan has returned to the country and was having regular interaction with his family members in Kolkata over phone. We started tracking their numbers and found that calls from a particular number from Ghaziabad were made... We started tracking it and found that it was Kader's," the officer said, adding that Kader had rented the apartment in Ghaziabad under a psuedo name.

Cops were informed that Kader was hiding in Bangladesh and after running out of cash he returned to Delhi through Nepal. After keeping him under surveillance for almost a week, a joint team of Delhi Police and Kolkata Police team raided his hideout last night and arrested him, the IPS officer said.

newsx.com

Some days later, when the victim filed her complaint, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had termed the incident as "sajano ghatana" (fabricated case), triggering a controversy. Damayanti Sen, the then Kolkata Police Joint Commissioner (crime) had pursued the case and identified the five accused. She was later shunted out from her post.

Three of the five accused were arrested and two including prime accused Kader Khan remained absconding.

Nine months after the victim died of meningitis in March 2015, the city sessions court had convicted the accused persons Ruman Khan, Naser Khan and Sumit Bajaj and sentenced them to 10 years rigorous imprisonment.
Today evening, as I parked my car in front of gate No. 9 and walked into the South Block (Indian Army Headquarters), I looked up at the grey-golden New Delhi sky. I tried hard to see if Pakistani nuclear warheads were slamming into the ground and if Chinese paratroopers were really landing atop Rashtrapati Bhawan. I saw neither. I shrugged my shoulders, smiled, and walked inside AHQ for that obligatory cup of black coffee (always without sugar), and the much-needed camaraderie. I found both. The Indian Army never disappoints.

AFP

Now that we have crossed the Rubicon, that much vaunted Line of Control, caused havoc, and come back without any casualties, it is time to put things in perspective. This is a time to celebrate, but it is also a time to be on top alert. Pakistan will hit back, as sure as night follows day. And we are ready.

To those who doubted our ability and resolve, you may want to reconsider your opinion about the Indian Army. I hope we have given you enough faith to go by. We are not Seal Team 6. We are Indian Army Special Forces. This is our backyard. We are better.

Reuters

To those armchair strategists, who cried hoarse and created absolute panic about Pakistani tactical nuclear warheads, Chinas response, CPEC, Russia and everything between Mongolia and Disneyland, please take a deep breath and relax.

There are no Pakistani induced mushroom clouds over Delhi. And there are no Chinese paratroopers. In fact, there is almost no reaction from China.

ALSO READ: Surgical Strikes: What We Know So Far

And finally, to those who believed in the Indian Army, my heartfelt gratitude. Thank you for believing in us. We have never let you down. Your faith means enough for us to die for. This is your army.

We went into Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and created merry hell. This was a purely anti-terror operation. We tried to keep our focus and avoid collateral damage. The only Pakistan Army soldiers who were killed were those that came in the way. How many terrorists were killed? Your guess is as good as mine. The media may give you figures of 35-40 terrorists and 9 Pakistan Army regulars, but these are guesstimates. Our boys were busy killing, not counting.

Reuters

For over a week, the targets were under surveillance of our intelligence agencies. Based on intelligence inputs, the SF teams and some elements of infantry (commando platoons, mostly Ghatak) rehearsed for this operation and then, at a moment of their choosing, infiltrated (parachuted) into Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. They completed their mission and ex-filtrated back into our own area.

All praise to the Special Forces and other specialized elements that carried out this operation. It was textbook perfect. Such an operation requires, apart from meticulous planning and a very high level of training, nerves of steel and sinews of iron.

BCCL

I am a soldier and totally apolitical, as all soldiers are. But credit must be given where it is due. Prime Minister Modi displayed remarkable courage. He first cornered Pakistan diplomatically and economically, and when the time was right, he ordered the Indian Army to smash them militarily. All bases covered. As the old saying goes ek chaal, sheh aur maat. Checkmate.

Pakistan Army denies that such an incident took place. Smart move. If you admit that it did, you will have a tough time explaining to a war-induced, hysterical populace, how this happened. And the next question will be  how do you plan to retaliate? For an institution that has gobbled up much of Pakistans scarce wealth in the last 70 years, such a situation has embarrassed them. Modi has not made Pakistan Army bleed as much as he has, in full public view, taken off their khaki trousers.

The Pakistani Army is not dealing with hurt. It is dealing with shame.

AFP

Khwaja Asif, Pakistans motormouth defence minister, who till yesterday, was threatening nuclear war, is suddenly at a loss for words. Brought up to believe that Indians dont have it in them, he seems a defeated man, shoulders drooping.

And ISPR, that media house of all media houses, and the official mouthpiece of the Pakistan Army is oddly silent. No more aggressive tweets from Maj. Gen. Asim Bajwa.

There will be a grand meeting tomorrow at GHQ, Rawalpindi and all will be held to account in the court of Emperor Raheel Sharif. More F16s will land on highways and some more Pakistani politicians will threaten nuclear war. The passes will close in a few months, and before that, Jihadis must be pushed into India. This will be a long winter.

There are troubling times ahead. Pakistan will not lie down and die. It will retaliate. We are vigilant on the border. We will not let an Uri happen again.

To the families of the brave heart martyrs of Uri I say, Sleep well tonight. We have avenged our brothers.

Congratulations, India.

Major Gaurav Arya (Veteran)

#adgpi #IndiaStrikesBack
In whats being described as one of the greatest comebacks by the Indian Army that jolted two nations, Pakistani Media is reporting the victory otherwise. While we all know that our soldiers executed the project brilliantly with no casualties whatsoever, the media on the other side has an entirely different story to tell.

According to Pakistan, eight soldiers were killed in the raids in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and one was captured alive.

And since top officials from the Indian Army guarantee that nothing of that sort happened, we arent really sure about how and why they are feeding bogus information.

Pak TV showing morphed Pics of Indian Army & spreading lies I wonder how the ppl of #Pakistan r kept in dark by their media  Debarati (@db1990mini) September 30, 2016

According to a spokesperson, only one soldier has some minor injuries, and this because he stepped on a mine once back on the Indian side of the Line of Control.

Pakistani TV channels, however, are stating that the Indian media is showing morphed images of soldiers and they are absolutely fake.

"We never disrespect our soldiers by not accepting their martyrdom," a top army officer told NDTV, requesting that he not be named. "If casualties had happened, we would readily say so." During the Kargil War of 1999, it was India who buried Pakistani soldiers who were killed. The Pakistani Army did not accept their bodies.

Only one Indian soldier is currently in Pakistani custody. Chandu Babulal Chohan, a 22-year-old soldier from Maharashtra, strayed into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir "inadvertently". He was taken into custody much after the attacks were completed. As per sources, he is now at an undisclosed location and the Indian Army is in talks to get him back.

Pakistan has denied the surgical strikes took place, acknowledging only that there was cross-border firing on Wednesday night in at least four areas along the Line of Control in which two of its soldiers were killed and nine injured.

dailyworld

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been quoted in the Pakistani media as saying that India should offer evidence of its surgical strikes.
Air links between India and Pakistan  which include direct flights between the two countries and allowing airlines of one country to fly over the other  have now come under the scanner of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

AFP

The Modi government is examining whether these should be allowed to continue post the Uri attack, as part of its multi-pronged strategy that involves reviewing the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan and also reconsidering the most favoured nation status (MFN) given to the country by India in 1996.

While no Indian carrier flies to Pakistan, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has five flights a week to India  one on Delhi-Karachi route and two each on Delhi-Lahore and Mumbai-Karachi sectors. Overflying is clearly the more critical part for airlines of both countries.

At the moment, almost all flight operated by Indian carriers between Gulf, Europe and North America on the one hand and central, north and east India on the other fly over Pakistan. Similarly, PIA flies over India to Southeast Asia and Bangladesh.

ALSO READ: India Just Confirmed We Carried Out Surgical Attacks Across LoC Last Night, Destroyed Terror Targets

TOI

"The PMO has sought all details of aviation sector between India and Pakistan. They even asked if the ban on low overflying over Karachi had affected Indian flights. We have given all details as sought by them and a final decision will be taken by the PMO," said a source.

After the Parliament attack in 2001 aviation ties between the two countries wee snapped and Air India and erstwhile Indian Airlines  the only Indian carriers operating international flights  did not overfly the 'enemy' airspace.

As a result, Indian flights to the west had to take a longer detour either going to Ahmedabad and then the Arabian Sea towards the Gulf and beyond. This increased the flying time to west by up to 1.5 hours. The longer flights also meant that on certain routes, AI and ISA had to carry two sets of pilots as flights of obver 10-hour duration need to be operated by two sets in rotation.

BCCL

"The impact of airspace closure, if that were to happen, will be much more this time as four Indian carriers  AI, Jet, IndiGo and SpiceJet fly to the west over Pakistan on many of their flights. The diversion will mean taking longer detours, more fuel burn, increased flying time which will lead to cost escalation for airlines. This will be passed on to consumers in form of higher fares. However, whatever needs to be done in national interest will be done and no one will grudge that. It is country first for every Indian," said a senior airline official.

Some airlines have even kept alternate routes ready, just in case they are asked not to fly over Pakistan.
All efforts are on to secure the return of Chandu Babulal Chauhan, a soldier who was captured by Pakistan Army after he inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control," Home Minister Rajnath Singh has said.

PTI

The government has taken note of the media reports that say our soldier is in Pakistan captivity. India will take up the matter with Pakistan, Singh said.

Chauhan who is serving with the 37 Rashtriya Rifles, was captured by Pakistani Army on Thursday at Jhandroot, west of Mankote

According to reports he is now detained at the military headquarters in Nikayal.

Following his capture Pakistani media had also claimed that at least eight Indian soldiers were killed by Pakistan army in a cross-border firing.

Indian army while acknowledging his capture said that Chauhan was not part of the team which carried out the surgical strike and that there were no fatalities in the Indian side.

AFP/ Representative Image

The army added that civilians and army personnel accidentally crossing the LoC in both sides is not an unusual thing and that there is a mechanism in place to ensure their return.
US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has expressed concerns over the possibility of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of jihadists, which she said was "A threatening scenario".

AP

"Pakistan is running full speed to develop tactical nukes in their continuing hostility with India," the former secretary of state told a closed door fundraiser in Virginia in February, The New York Times reported, citing 50-minute audio audio being hacked from the Democratic Party's computers.

"But we live in fear that they're going to have a coup, that jihadists are going to take over the government, they're going to get access to nuclear weapons, and you'll have suicide nuclear bombers. So, this could not be a more threatening scenario," the daily quoted Clinton as saying in the audio that appeared on The Washington Free Beacon website.

During the fundraiser, responding to a question on modernisation of nuclear weapons, the daily said, Clinton went beyond the question to warn of an emerging nuclear arms race, naming Russia and China as well as Pakistan and India.

ALSO READ: Amid Tensions With India, Pakistan Is Reportedly Building A New Nuclear Site

PTI

"This is one of the most dangerous developments imaginable," Hillary said.

Such remarks from the former secretary of state gains significance in view of an interview of Pakistani defence minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif to the local TV channel in which he threatened to unleash nukes against India.

ALSO READ: Here Are Six People Who Shouldn't Have Their Hands On Nukes
Were excited to announce that indmin.com is now part of fastmarkets.com.

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The Greek government is reportedly working on a medium term economic program for the 2017-2020 period that features a compromise in terms of a primary budget surplus target after 2018, ostensibly between a 2-percent target that satisfies Athens , and a 3.5-percent goal mandated by the third memorandum in 2018.
Japan's coal market is growing.

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Nine herdsmen have been arrested in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) by the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) over illegal grazing.

AEPB stated that the herdsmen were penalised by the mobile court which imposed fines ranging from N3,000 to N7,000 on them. 25 cows and 51 sheep were also confiscated.

The acting Director of the board, Mrs. Omolola Olanipekun, who disclosed this at a press briefing on Friday in Abuja, added that 589 street hawkers were also arrested and fined by the mobile court.

Dino Melaye, that cattle found grazing in Abuja should be slaughtered When questioned about the directive from the Chairman, Senate Committee on FCT, Senator, thatby the FCT Administration, Olanipekun responded by saying compliance with the directive may lead to violence.

She said, We dont want a repeat of what is happening in other states, we dont want loss of lives because of cattle.

We have met with the cattle rearers and they promised that they would try and get their people off the streets, but unfortunately, they did not fully comply. We have been arresting them and we discovered that there is another group that we have not met.

We are preparing to meet with them and let them know that we dont want cows in the city. If we start killing them (cattle), like the senator wants us to do, they would react and we dont want bloodshed here. Very soon, I promise, the cattle would be where they are supposed to be.

SEE ALSO: No Going Back On Grazing Reserves  FG
Authorities in middle-eastern country Yemen have announced that they have begun the deportation of 220 illegal African immigrants, mostly Ethiopians residing in Aden.

Yemen is currently in war between Houthi rebels and government forces, and it was reported that dozens of African mercenaries have been brought in by the Houthis.

However, It not yet clear if the deportees are related to the mercenaries.

According to Gulf News, Security Belt Forces (SBF) said in a statement that they have begun the deportation operation within the liberated provinces in southern Yemen.

The statement said local authorities have been working to prevent the migrants from joining the Houthi ranks or Al-Qaeda.

SEE ALSO: African Man Faces Deportation For Criminal Infection Of HIV In Australia
An FCT High Court sitting in Maitama, Abuja has fixed November 2 for definite hearing in the trial of AVM Alkali Mamu, a former Air Officer Training Command of the Nigerian Air Force.

Mamu, who was also a member of the Committee for Procurement in the Ministry of Defence, was first arraigned on a three-count charge of bribery by the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) on June 21.

The ICPC had alleged that Mamu collected a cash gift N5.9 million for the purchase of a Range Rover Evoque and also $300, 000 about N147 million.

Mamu was also alleged to have collected two vehicles  Ford Expedition SUV and Jaguar XF Saloon  valued at N15 million and N12 million respectively, from Societe D Equipments Internationaux Nigeria Limited, a contractor with the NAF.

These allegations contravened Sections 17 (a) of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000.

On July 1, he was admitted on bail in the sum of N50 million, with a surety in the like sum, who must have property within Abuja.

At the resumed hearing on Friday, the prosecuting counsel, Mr. Slyvanius Tahir, informed the court that the prosecution could not commence the trial because Mr. Cosmos Ugwu, the counsel handling the matter, was transferred to the Ibadan office.

Tahir informed the court that he just got the case file, and applied for an adjournment to enable him study the case file for the commencement of the trial.

Counsel for the Defendant, Joesph Daudu, did not oppose the application, adding that Tahir had approached him professionally and he understood his predicaments.

The defence counsel, however, informed the court that they were ready for the trial.

Justice Salisu Garba, who adjourned the case for definite hearing, advised the prosecution to be ready for the commencement of the trial at the next adjourned date.
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday said it was sheer madness for anybody occupying public offices to be looking for money.

He said President Muhammadu Buhari told him repeatedly that at his age, his only hearts desire was to see a great Nigeria.

He said Buhari had no other objective in office than that.

According to a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, the Vice-President spoke while receiving a delegation of Christian Ministers Welfare Initiative also known as the Pastors Forum, Taraba State, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

This morning, I had a meeting with the President and he repeated to me twice, he said at my age, there is only one thing I am looking for, I want to see a great Nigeria. He has no other objective and I feel very inspired by that, Osinbajo reportedly told his guests.

He said anybody who had the opportunity of being the President of the country should only be thinking of how to improve the lot of the people.

Osinbajo said, It is madness for anybody in our position to be looking for money.

According to him, God put people in a position of authority for them to be able to do something for their people.

I think if any Nigerian gets the chance to be President of the country, there is nothing he/she is looking for anymore, except that, while there, you improve the lot of the people.

Osinbajo reiterated his position that no economy could tolerate the level of corruption seen in Nigeria without the consequence.

He regretted that while Nigerians were being killed by the Boko Haram fighters, people could not account for $15bn meant for the purchase of security equipment to fight the insurgents.

The Vice-President also explained how vandalism of oil installations had contributed to the recession being witnessed in the country.

He said Nigeria had lost several millions of barrels of crude oil due to the activities of militants in the Niger Delta.

On power, the Vice-President said the country was producing 5,000MW of power for the first time by early 2016, but by February 2016 the Forcados terminal was destroyed by militants.

As a result of the vandalism, he said 40 per cent of the gas used to fire the power plants was lost and the country was down to 2,500MW of power.

He observed that at the time the militants started blowing up oil and gas installations, the amnesty stipends were still being paid, insisting that they went violent because of ongoing investigation of corrupt persons.

Nothing changed, the only reason is that we are investigating people who have stolen money, Osinbajo said.

He added that the country was losing one million barrels of oil a day, nothing that, that was 60 per cent of the countrys revenues, and there was nowhere such an amount of revenue would be lost that people would not experience economic challenge and recession.

While expressing optimism that the country would come out of the recession, Osinbajo stated that there is no question at all, God has a reason for bringing us in at this time and God helping us, we will see a change in this country.

He urged the Church and all religious leaders to stand up against corruption, stressing that if this government had been doing the right thing by fighting corruption, the Church should support it.

He also assured his guests that the Federal Government was working hard to end the problem of the ravaging herdsmen.

Osinbajo said the President had instructed the police and the military to act and deal with the herdsmens menace.

He said those behind the herdsmens violence were criminals.

While calling on honest men in the country to work together, Osinbajo said God had structured Nigeria in such a way that no one could dominate another.

Source: Punch
The Governor of Bauchi State, Mohammed Abubakar on Friday pardoned twenty-two prisoners serving various jail terms in the state.

The governor made this announcement in a state-wide broadcast as part of activities marking 56th independence anniversary of the country as he added that the inmates were released from different prisons in the state.

Abubakar said that the country had assumed a status of super power in spite of the skepticism that the country would derail after independence.

He said that country had witnessed 17 years of uninterrupted civil rule despite economic and political challenges that faced it.

The governor said that his administration was dedicated to providing infrastructure to better the lives of the people in spite of the scarce resources at its disposal.

He said that the state was one of the safest in the North East and played host to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from neighbouring states affected by insurgency.

He assured the people of the state that government would accord more attention to security to protect their lives and properties.

The governor said he was not unmindful of the sufferings of the people due to global economic recession, promising that the recession would soon be over as government at all levels were striving to check the situation.

He urged the people to support policies and programmes of his administration to enable it provide them with needed amenities.
Most Nigerians who have seen popular comic actor, John Okafor, aka Mr. Ibu, in action will agree that he is a talented comedian and one of a few Nollywood practitioners that are naturally cut out for the roles that they play in the movies.

Okafor has, so far, been able to prove to his fans that he does not only live by making other people to laugh away their sorrows; he is also humour personified.

But the actor, in an interview with our correspondent, also reveals that despite his commitment to making people to laugh, he has had cause to be unhappy, even bitter, on some occasions.

On one of such, Okafor had an axe to grind with the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba. He was so bitter that he almost instituted a court action against the management of the hospital.

Recounting what happened, he says, The matter was actually between the Paediatric Department of the hospital and me. It was in 2011. My wife and our two-year-old son had been kidnapped. After I paid the ransom demanded and they were released by the kidnappers, I returned to Lagos from Enugu.

Then on January 18, 2011, my son fell ill. He was diagnosed with inflammation of the liver. The hospital suggested that he should be scanned. At the same time, I was informed that I could take my son out of the hospital to get the scan done elsewhere. But the same people later declined, saying that everything had to be done in the hospital because he was too weak to be taken outside.

After a while, I was told that there was no electricity in the hospital. When I asked if there was no standby generator, they said there was no fuel in it. I offered to pay for fuel only to be told that the man that operated the generator was not around. When I left the place and got back later, the man still had not returned. Then I was advised to write an application and to submit to the admin department.

After writing the application, Okafor found that there was nobody to receive and treat it. While he was waiting, he was told that his sons condition required blood transfusion. The actor did everything possible to ensure that the ailing boy was given treatment at the hospital, but his efforts were in vain. Finally, the little boy gave up the ghost.

That was how my son died. Later, one of the doctors came to me and, without even sympathising with me, asked if I could release my boys corpse to him so that they could cut it open and use it to teach other medical students. In that moment, I felt like committing murder for the first time in my life.

When I told my lawyer what happened at the hospital, he was shocked. He said it was actionable. I told him that I was ready to take the hospital management to court and sue it for $100 million in damages because my sons death was caused by the carelessness of the professionals whose duty was to save his life. But my lawyer advised me to let go.

Reflecting on his career, Okafor says he has been publicly embarrassed by fans at different times and in several places. I quickly forgive them because I was the one that looked for trouble in the first place. On one occasion, somebody came to me and said, Ibu, because of what your jokes have done to me and my family, I promised God that anywhere I meet you, I would slap your face. I told him them to go ahead. Then he slapped me so hard that I couldnt see clearly for two hours, he says.

Mr. Ibu obviously relishes his status as a popular and relatively comfortable Nollywood actor. It is doubtful that, given a choice, he would have given up acting for any other career. Going down memory lane, the actor reveals that he used to be a boxer and a Karate practitioner. Admitting that only a few people are aware of this aspect of his personal history, he says, I practised Shotokan Karate for 16 years and I was a member of the Karate Federation of Nigeria. I happen to be the first instructor that was teaching Karate in federal government colleges in Nigeria.

The actor, no doubt, cuts the picture of a man enjoying a blissful marriage. But, asked if he ever had a girlfriend before he got married, he replied, I had problems with my relationships with women. Each time I had a new girlfriend, other men would always take her from me. Whenever I fell in love with a girl, somebody would snatch her from me. But I dont fear any sense of loss because I married the best woman on earth. My wife is a former beauty queen. She was the winner of the 2004 Face of Imo beauty pageant.

But Okafor says that even now that he is happily married, women have not stopped coming to him for a date. I dont woo them, though. They are the ones chasing me. That is part of the price I have to pay for being popular.

Source: Punch
Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State on Thursday congratulated Godwin Obaseki, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in Edo State, for his victory at the just concluded gubernatorial election, saying that the people of the State have made the right choice.

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared Obaseki winner of the election with 319,483 votes.

In a congratulatory message signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Habib Aruna, the Lagos governor said the development was not just a victory for democracy but the people, who he said would experience continuity in terms of dividends of democracy.

Mr. Ambode, who was the Chairman, APC National Campaign Committee for the election, said the people of Edo have voted for continuity of people-friendly policies and programmes.

He, however, called on all the relevant stakeholders in the affairs of the state to accept the verdict of the people and work with Obaseki to move the State forward.

Like I said during the grand rally of our great party  APC, at Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin some weeks back, Edo State, being the heartbeat of the South-South region, has all it takes to become another Lagos, and the decision of the people to speak with their votes in support of Obaseki is a signpost of their readiness for greatness and a testament to the monumental successes recorded in the last seven and half years by the incumbent Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.

We are enjoying the dividends of democracy in Lagos today because of the decision of the people to vote for continuity of good governance and I am glad that the people of Edo have also toed that path and the result will definitely translate to improved social services and welfare of the people, Ambode said.

He said judging by the antecedents of Obaseki, he was certain that Edo State is set for transformation and consolidation of the achievements of the outgoing administration in the State.

According to him, Governor Oshiomhole has laid the right foundation for progressive governance. He has been responsive, progressive and totally committed to the needs of the people. With the decision to vote Mr. Obaseki, who is equally people-friendly, reliable, trustworthy, and has the fear of God, the people have made the right choice and I can only urge them to continue to support him to deliver on the campaign promises.

Gov. Ambode also congratulated the people of Edo State for comporting themselves peacefully throughout the period of the election, while urging those aggrieved with the result to channel their grievances to the appropriate quarters rather than resort to self-help.
Officials of the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) were attacked in Onitsha, Anambra State on Thursday by suspected cable pirates.

The officials were moving round impounding illegal cable broadcast decoders in some areas when the incident happened.

The raid took place variously at Fegge, Odoakpu, and MCC roads, among other places in Onitsha.

According to reports, the NCC team lead, Mr. Augustine Amodu, was held hostage in his hotel at GRA for hours. The suspects had demanded for the release of the items seized.

Timely intervention of the Police saved the official and his team from a mob action.

In his statement, Amodu said no one was arrested because the culprits fled when the Police arrived the scene.

He said the commission impounded no fewer than 115 illegal cable broadcast decoders worth over N20m.
The Imo State House of Assembly has passed a motion calling for removal of the state Commissioner for Community Government Council, Innocent Eke.

The Assembly hinged its call for the sack of the commissioner on alleged sabotage.

In a motion moved by Arthur Egwim (APC, Ideato North) in Owerri on Friday, Mr. Eke was accused of sabotaging efforts of the House to resolve crises emanating from autonomous communities.

Mr. Egwim, who is the chairman, Committee on Community Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, said the commissioners activities had brought disrepute to the smooth running of government.

He said the committee had made necessary efforts to end crises in some communities over chieftaincy disputes, but met brick walls due to the excesses of the commissioner.

The chairman said the assembly would not allow anybody to ridicule its effort.

The motion urged the Gov. Rochas Okorocha to immediately sack the commissioner and appoint another person to replace him.

Passing the motion, the Speaker of the Assembly, Acho Ihim, said the House would communicate to the governor officially about the recommendation.

Mr. Ihim said that considering the reaction of the lawmaker, the activities of the commissioner might cause more harm than good if he was allowed to continue. (NAN)
Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola has granted pardon to six prisoners serving various jail terms in several prisons including Ilesha Prison, Kirikiri Maximum Prison, Lagos and the Abeokuta Federal Prison.

Information about the pardon is contained in a statement issued by Mr Adedapo Adeniji, the states Director of Public Prosecutions and Secretary to the State Advisory Council on Prerogative of Mercy on Thursday in Osogbo.

Adeniji stated that the governor granted the amnesty in commemoration of the 56th Independence Anniversary of the nation.

He noted that pursuant to the advice and recommendations of the State Advisory Council on prerogative of mercy, Gov. Rauf Aregbesola, in exercising his powers under Section 212(1)(a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) has graciously granted amnesty to the following inmates.

He listed the names to include Ayodeji Olatunbosun (Ilesha Prison), Alfa Mukaila Salawu, Dayo Ilesanmi and Ojo Adeye (Kirikiri maximum Prison, Lagos). Others are Tunde Adegoke and Sgt. Adam Baruwa (Ibara prison, Abeokuta).
Suspended member of the House of Representatives, Abdulmumin Jibrin, has given his colleagues three days to refund to government coffers, all questionable allowances they paid themselves.

The embattled lawmaker in a statement Thursday, warned that any of his colleague that fails to heed his call should be prepared for the backlash that would follow when he publishes details of how such official perpetrated the alleged fraud.

Mr. Jibrins statement came a day after he was placed on suspension by the House for 180 legislative days after being found guilty of violating House ethics and lawmakers privileges.

To return their loot, Mr. Jibrin advised members of the House of Representatives to individually approach the appropriate authority and make arrangement on how to pay everything back into the federal purse.

I have written to the Clerk of the National Assembly to stand by in anticipation, Mr. Jibrin said. In the face of the revenue challenges and biting hardship the country is currently facing, there is no better time the country needs such money than now.

The lawmaker said he resolved to take this course of action after receiving numerous enquiries from different corners on the need for him to back his allegations against the House leadership and other lawmakers with evidence.

I have come under intense public scrutiny and pressure to prove that there exists systemic corruption in the House. Mr. Jibrin said.

The suspended lawmaker said he was specifically demanding the return of a N10 million illegal allowances his colleagues allocated to themselves while majority of Nigerians living in penury, were struggling to make ends meet.

The House of Representatives is yet to respond to this latest threat by Mr. Jibrin.
There was a bloodbath on Thursday in the Ipakodo, Ikorodu area of Lagos State, after some gunmen invaded a residence and shot dead a man and his two sons.

PUNCH Metro learnt that the attackers, who were suspected to be sent, after killing the man, Celestine Nwokoye, and his sons, also shot his wife and his two daughters, leaving them for dead.

Our correspondent gathered that the incident occurred on Thursday on Agbose Street in the Ebute, Ipakodo area around 5am.

It was learnt that policemen from the Ipakodo division removed the victims corpses.

The wife and the injured daughters were said to have been rushed to the Ikorodu General Hospital, where they are currently receiving treatment.

PUNCH Metro learnt that the two deceased sons were three years old and two months old.

A resident of Ebute, who visited the scene, but did not want his name in print, said the attackers were suspected to be sent.

He said, The mans house is located on Agbose Street, off Oluodo Junction. He worked at a taxi park in the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja. The killers came on Thursday morning. They shot him and all the members of his family. He and two male children died instantly, while they left his wife and the two daughters with bullet injuries.

The attackers were not robbers; they went to only the mans apartment. I was told that they did not take away any property. That is why everyone suspects that the killers were sent. They shot all members of his family presumably, so that no one would be able to report to the police.

But policemen from the Ipakodo division later came to our area to take photographs and remove the bodies. The policemen were all over our area.

A landlord, identified only as Abimbola, told PUNCH Metro that the attackers could also be suspected rapists, known popularly in the area as Badoo, who had been terrorising and attacking residents.

A week ago, a man and his child were attacked and stabbed to death in the Oke-Awori community in the Ibeshe area. Armed rapists, known as Badoo, attacked the man and his child. They stabbed them to death. So, I suspect the attackers of Nwokoye could be Badoo. The police have a lot of work to do in our area, he added.

A police source said Nwokoye and his family members were attacked on the premises of a church in the area.

The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Dolapo Badmos, confirmed the deaths.

She added that the command had got some leads on the incident, and investigation was ongoing.

She said, There was a report that the man and all members of his family were found in a pool of blood. He and his two male children were confirmed dead.

His wife and two daughters were also seriously injured and they have been taken to a hospital for treatment.

The command is working assiduously to unravel the occurrence. We have some leads which we are working on, and we are optimistic of breaking through.

Source: Punch
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has foiled a plot by a suspected drug trafficker to use innocent passengers to smuggle cannabis carefully packaged in noodles to China via the Akanu Ibiam International Airport (AIIA) Enugu.

The anti-narcotics agency during the screening of passengers, also apprehended a clearing and forwarding agent, who ingested seventy-four (74) wraps of cocaine while attempting to board an Ethiopian airline flight to China.

Both suspects have attributed their involvement in drug trafficking to high exchange rate and economic recession.

The Chairman/Chief Executive of the Agency, Muhammad Mustapha Abdallah, called on members of the public particularly passengers, not to collect consignments from people.

Abadallah, a retired Colonel, said This is a plot by suspected drug traffickers to use innocent passengers in smuggling drugs. Some persons may have fallen into this wicked plot if not for the timely intervention of the Agency.

It is instructive that people be aware of this trick because what they consider as an assistance may just send them to prison or early graves. This is because drug trafficking is punishable by death in China.

Abdallah added that passengers must exercise caution in accepting bags from people.

To an average passenger, the suspected bag contained noodles but during search operations, the packs of noodles turned out to be cannabis. In the past, we have recovered drugs hidden inside books, parcels and even letters. It is important therefore that members of the public must act with utmost caution and avoid acts that could turn them into drug traffickers.

The NDLEA commander at the Enugu airport, Adeofe Adeyemi, gave the names of the suspects as Adibe Wisdom Baloba, 47, and Esonwunne Onyechi Benson, 31.

Adibe was caught during outward screening of passengers on an Ethiopian airline flight to China. He was found to have ingested 74 wraps of substance that tested positive for cocaine with a weight of 1.417kgs.

The second suspect Esonwunne was caught attempting to send a luggage containing cannabis to China through an unsuspecting passenger. The cannabis was carefully prepared inside packs of noodles to avoid detection. Investigating officers are working very hard on the cases and the suspects will soon be charged to court, Adeofe stated.

Meanwhile, preliminary investigation by the NDLEA revealed that Esonwunne was twice deported from China in 2008 and May 2016 on immigration related offences.

Benson during interrogation, blamed his involvement on economic recession.

I am a trader but due to the economic downturn I decided to smuggle cannabis to China. I concealed the drug neatly in packs of noodles because cannabis is expensive there. I was waiting for a passenger that will assist me in sending the bag of cannabis to China when NDLEA officers arrested me, he stated.

On his own part, Baloba, who is a father of five children, said that he accepted five thousand dollars to smuggle cocaine to China.

I am a clearing and forwarding agent but financial hardship and bad economy forced me into drug trafficking. The exchange rate is very high and I hardly get money to take care of my family. My sponsor promised to pay me the sum of five thousand dollars to take the drug to China. In the process of boarding the aircraft, I was arrested by NDLEA officers, he stated.
The Federal Government has reiterated its commitment to establish ranches and grazing reserves across the country to bring an end to incessant deadly clashes between herders and farmers.

Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Babachir Lawal, made this known yesterday when he received a delegation from Tabital Pulako Njode Jam Foundation, led by its Chairman, Abdul Bali.

Mr. Lawal said most of the crimes on farmlands were perpetrated by nomads, who migrated into the country.

Bolaji Adebiyi, the Director of Press in the Office of the SGF, disclosed in a statement on Thursday in Abuja.

According to Adebiyi, the SGF pledged the Federal Governments commitment to enlightening the herdsmen on ways to make cattle rearing more profitable.

Speaking earlier, Mr. Bali said the foundation was set up to look into the clashes between herdsmen and farmers.

He said that its submissions had shown that nomads from other countries were responsible for clashes with farmers.

In a related development, the SGF assured the people of North-East of fairness in the provision of relief materials to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) across the various states in the region.

He gave the assurance when he received a delegation from the Lardin Gabas Elders Forum led by the Chairman of its Board of Trustees, Paul Tahir.

He said that a Presidential Committee on North-East Initiative (PCNI) will soon be inaugurated to streamline rehabilitation activities in the region and accelerate the return of normal life to the North-Eastern states.

The Chairman of the forum pledged its readiness to work with the Federal Government to ensure that succour was brought to the victims of insurgency.

Mr. Tahir said the forum also advocated the return of Christian Religious Studies to school curriculum to teach youths about good moral upbringing and fear of God.

(NAN)
An aspirant in the governorship primary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Ondo State, Dr. Tunji Abayomi, has tackled a chieftain of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, for calling for the resignation of the partys National Chairman, Chief John Oyegun, over the outcome of the primary election.

Mr. Tinubu had in a recent letter to Oyegun, demanded his resignation for purportedly allowing himself to be used to manipulate the governorship primary, which was won by Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN).

In response, the APC chair said he would not join issues with Tinubu, who he described as a highly respected leader of the governing party.

He, however, denied the former Lagos governors accusations, saying if the need arises, he would respond to them at the right time.

Joining the fray, Abayomi, who stirred the hornets nest prior to the September 3 governorship primary of the party in Ondo State with his open letter, in which he accused the APC leader of planning to impose another aspirant  Segun Abraham  as the flag bearer, faulted Tinubus call on Oyegun to resign.

According to him, Tinubu was wrong to have asked the national chairman to resign because the National Working Committee, NWC, of the party upheld the result of the primary of the party held on September 3, 2016 in Akure.

For calling for the resignation of the chairman, I think Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is very wrong because he is not a member of the NWC and he cannot speak for the NWC. He did not participate in the entire process and whatever information he has must have been given to him by his agents. We heard it that there was no vote casting among the NWC members before they took the decision over the matter contrary to his allegation in his letter to the chairman, and also the position of the party was that there was no vote casting, I expect Asiwaju as a leader of the party to give credit to the vital opinions on the primary.

I am personally disappointed that Asiwaju would be determined in his action, that a primary that he promised would be free from undue influence, should be voided by all means, I think he was wrong, he added.

The aspirant also declared that with or without Tinubus support, the party would still win the forthcoming governorship election in the state it is the people of the state that would decide the election.

What is important is the support of the people of Ondo State, though we want his (Tinubu) support for Akeredolu for the election but we cannot force him, if he refuses to support us that cannot stop us from moving on. We still have the respect for him but we cannot force him to do right, we can only appeal to him to do right but the choice to do or not to do is entirely his prerogative, Abayomi stated.
Three persons were on Friday arrested by the Kaduna State Police Command in connection with the murder of a staff of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC).

The Police Spokesperson in the state, ASP Aliyu Usman, said in a statement issued in Kaduna, that the command had also arrested three suspected kidnappers.

According to him, the three suspected killers had on September 8, allegedly attacked and killed the NSCDC officer, Timothy Ayuba, on his way from Bakin Kasuwa to Sabon Gayan in Chukun Local Government Area of the state.

The armed men made away with the victim s motorcycle which was later recovered.

Two Bajaj motorcycles were also recovered from the suspects, one belonging to one Idi Bello and the other to an unidentified victim.

Investigation is in progress to arrest other members of the syndicate.

Usman also said the command had also arrested the suspected kidnappers of Mrs Fatima Inusa, the wife of Dr Inusa Umar of the Faculty of Education, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

Mrs Inusa was kidnapped by gunmen at her residence in Zaria, on September 19.

He said the suspects were arrested behind ABU main campus in Zaria, after a massive manhunt by operatives of the State Intelligence Bureau.

All the suspects confessed to have committed the crime, but investigation is on to arrest the rest of the accomplices, Usman said.

He appealed for the support of the public to rid the state of criminals.
The Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has hailed the conduct of the police and other security agencies over the just concluded governorship election in Edo State.

A statement issued on Friday by the Force Public Relations Officer, DCP Don Awunah, expressed the satisfaction of the Inspector General and the Police management team with the performance of security officers, after an appraisal of security operations during the election.

The statement said that the election was conducted transparently and in accordance to principles of democratic policing, and that it has become an index for future elections in Nigeria.

It said from the preliminary reports from local and international observers, there was no loss of lives and property during the election.

This exceptional performance of the Nigeria Police Force in the election, exemplified the determination of the Inspector General of Police in ensuring that Election Security in the Country is implemented based on international standards and policing with integrity, the statement said.

The Edo governorship election has proved from the policing perspective that the Nigeria Police Force has the capacity, knowledge, ability and personnel to process and safeguard our nascent democracy, it added.

Mr. Idris also commended the people of the state for cooperating with the security agencies, and assured Nigerians that the police was ready to sustain this tempo in future elections.
Senator Magnus Abe has urged people of Rivers South-East senatorial district to vote in the forthcoming rerun election with their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), not with guns.

Abe, who is the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for the forthcoming rerun, made the call during an APC rally at Ngo, Andoni Local Government Area of Rivers on Thursday.

He alleged that opponents of APC in the state were desperate to win the election.

Let them tell their members to vote with PVCs; we will tell our people to vote with PVCs too.

Let them not do guns against PVCs. Let us do PVC against PVC, and see who will emerge.

According to Abe, opponents of his party only accept election results that are in their favour and will never take in good fate, outcomes against them.

Tai Local Government result for the March 19 re-run election is a clear example. They have even refused to swear-in APC Assembly members-elect from other constituencies.

They want the result of elections declared in their favour against the rules to stand but do not want result of Tai to stand, he said.

Abe commended security agencies for the peaceful conduct of the Edo governorship election and urged them to replicate it in Rivers.

With the just concluded governorship election in Edo, the Nigerian security have shown that they have the capacity to create an atmosphere for free and fair elections in the country.

The next challenge, step and obstacle to the reputation of the security agencies of Nigeria is Rivers.

Two times, they have been in Rivers to do election, but it did not work because people hired boys with guns to scare away the people, and turn election into war, he said.

Senator Abe, therefore, urged APC members to mobilise the electorate to vote for the party because it had the best candidates.
The Lagos State Police Command has arrested three men for allegedly raping and impregnating a 14-year-old girl in the Agric, Ikorodu area of Lagos State.

Our correspondent learnt that the suspects  Kingsley Oke, Henry Osadere and Francis Ekwe  were arrested in the Majidun, Ikorodu area of Lagos State, before they were transferred to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Ikeja.

It was gathered that the suspects, who lived in the same area with the parents of the teenager, identified only as Ijeoma, allegedly raped the girl in August 2016, after the mother went for a vigil.

Our correspondent gathered that Ijeoma, a primary 6 pupil, was later discovered by the mother to be pregnant, and she reported to the police at the Owutu division.

The police said the three men were arrested on September 9, 2016.

Speaking with PUNCH Metro, Ijeoma said one of the suspects threatened to kill her if she disclosed the rape to anyone.

She said, It was Uncle Kingsley (Oke) who first raped me. On that evening, he called me and said he would send me on an errand. When I went to his room, he immediately locked the door.

I started begging him, but he forcefully carried me to his bed and raped me. On the second occasion, it was one man called Baba Ijebu that molested me. I had been sent to his house to collect an item.

While in his house, he raped me. I cried, but he said I would die if I told anyone. The third man was Henry (Osadere). I dont want to talk about it again.

Forty-three-year-old Osadere, however, denied raping Ijeoma, saying she was a wayward girl.

He said, She came to my place and said she had many boyfriends. I asked how a teenager like her had several boyfriends. Anytime she came to my apartment, she would steal some items. That was why I sent her away.

I was surprised that she said I was one of those who raped her. She said she had a three-month-old pregnancy. I dont know the other suspects.The girl lied against me. She knows the people who messed around with her. It was because I stopped her from coming to my house that she lied against me.

Oke, 30, a welder, said, I have known the girl since 2014. She usually came to my house to play. She is a wayward girl. Everyone knows about her promiscuity. I never raped her.

Ekwe, 52, said Ijeoma and her mother had begged him in August to borrow them some money, which he did, adding that he did not rape the girl.

The state Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, said the suspects would be charged to court at the end of investigations.

Source: Punch
Troops from the 13 Brigade, Nigerian Army, Calabar, on Friday killed seven armed militants at Efut Esighi in Bakassi local government area of Cross River State.

The Army Public Relations Officer, Capt. Kayode Owolabi, who disclosed this to journalists in Calabar, said the militants attacked the army post in Efut Esighi.

Owolabi linked the militants to one Benjamin Ene, who had been on the wanted list of security agents in the state, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

The very determined troops from the 13 Brigade and Operation Delta Safe repelled an attack from armed militants at Efut Esighi in Bakassi local government area this morning, NAN quoted the army spokesman as saying to journalists on Friday.

The militants tried to attack the army post in Efut Esighi. Some of them were wearing Nigerian military camouflage.

We recovered 250 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, rocket propelled gun launcher, GPMG belt links and various charms on their bodies. Other militants escaped with very serious gun shots injuries.

There was no casualty on the side of the military. Our men were in full combatant during the attack.

We have also destroyed their camps and shrines in the creeks.
The United States of America has congratulated Nigeria on its 56th Independence Anniversary, which comes up on Saturday.

In a statement Friday, the U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, gave his countrys best wishes to Nigeria on behalf of President Barack Obama.

I recently returned from my third trip to Nigeria as Secretary, and I came away with a strong sense of the nations resolve to build a better future, Mr. Kerry said.

During my trip, I was reminded that many Nigerians are engaged in bringing people together across the divides of culture, religious practices, and ethnicity.

According to Mr. Kerry, there is still much work to be done to provide economic opportunities for all, end corruption, win the fight against Boko Haram and ensure broad respect for human rights.

He said Nigeria should provide humanitarian relief for millions of displaced people.

But we know that Nigerians are hard at work to address these challenges. The United States looks forward to deepening our partnership and friendship with Nigerians from all walks of life, so that we may work together for the betterment of Nigeria and all of Africa.

Best wishes to all of you on this 56th anniversary of your independence, U.S. Secretary of State said.
Cross-site scripting attacks  the ability to inject unauthorized scripts into web applications  is pervasive, and even though developers have plenty of tools and technologies that can detect and fix XSS flaws, the attacks still keep coming.

Google's latest developer tools, CSP Evaluator and CSP Mitigator, tackle the XSS problem from a different angle, by shoring up web application defenses to make it harder to execute those malicious scripts.

[ Also on InfoWorld: 19 open source GitHub projects for security pros. | Discover how to secure your systems with InfoWorld's Security newsletter. ]

XSS is among the most common security threats plaguing web applications, and aren't always the result of sloppy or lazy coding. Developers can avoid mistakes which lead to XSS with modern web technologies such as strict contextual auto-escaping or use automated scanners to catch vulnerabilities during testing.

"However, in complex applications, bugs inevitably slip by, allowing attacks ranging from harmless pranks to malicious targeted exploits," Google security engineers Artur Janc, Michele Spagnuolo., Lukas Weichselbaum, and David Ross wrote in a blog post announcing CSP Evaluator and CSP Mitigator.

The new tools help developers craft and deploy strict Content Security Policy rules, which defines what content should and can be loaded by a browser, to restrict scripts allowed to execute on the page. In XSS attacks, the attackers bypass same origin policies to serve up malicious scripts to unsuspecting users. A strict CSP is designed to prevent attackers from loading malicious scripts and other resources even if they manage to inject HTML into a vulnerable page.

CSP Evaluator lets developers visualize how content policies affect application security and expose potential misconfigurations. The tool can be paired with a nonce-based CSP policy, which skips whitelisting in favor of unpredictable single-use tokens, to significantly reduce the likelihood of XSS attacks bypassing CSP. With the nonce-based CSP policy, developers don't have to whitelist all allowed script locations.

"Building a safe script whitelist for a complex application is often all but impossible due to the number of popular domains with resources that allow CSP to be bypassed," the engineers wrote. "It's often simpler to modify the application to prove that a script is trusted by the developer by giving it a nonce -- an unpredictable, single-use token which has to match a value set in the policy."

Chrome and Opera already supports "strict-dynamic" from the upcoming CSP3 specification, so developers can just set a single short policy to use the nonce and make sure all acceptable script elements contain that matching attribute.

"In many cases this is all that's needed to enjoy added protection against XSS since 'strict-dynamic' will take care of loading any trusted scripts added at runtime," the engineers said. Even as the application evolves, the policy doesn't have to change, making it backwards-compatible with other CSP-aware browsers and applications already using a traditional CSP policy.

The fact that developers can verify the policies are enabled and configured correctly with CSP Evaluator is significant, considering how it easy it is to make a mistake when crafting the policy. In a recent analysis of 1 billion domains, Google found that 95 percent of deployed CSP policies were ineffective as a protection against XSS. Out of the 15 domains most commonly whitelisted by developers for loading external scripts, as many as 14 expose patterns which allow attackers to bypass CSP protections, the company found.

Even more damning, the analysis found that "99.34 percent of hosts with CSP use policies that offer no benefit against XSS."

"The flexibility of CSP also leads to its biggest problem: it makes it easy to set policies which appear to work, but offer no real security benefit," the engineers wrote.

Google's security engineers currently use CSP Evaluator for its Cloud Console, Photos, History, Careers Search, Maps Timeline, and Cultural Institute, and plans to expand the list to include other applications. With the tool now public, developers can make it really hard for attackers to find gaps in CSP and bypassing the protections to launch XSS attacks.

The second developer tool CSP Mitigator is a Chrome extension which checks the application's compatibility with nonce-based security policies. The extension identifies scripts which do not have the correct nonce attribute. It also detects inline event handlers, javascript: URLs, and other subtle patterns.

"The extension can be enabled for any URL prefix and will collect data about any programming patterns that need to be refactored to support CSP," Google said.

While Evaluator helps developers craft policies, Mitigator addresses the other end of the security spectrum by helping administrators apply custom policies. CSP Mitigator highlights parts that may break, giving administrators an idea of how enabling CSP would impact the application.

As applications get even more complex, XSS continues to be a serious web threat. While developers should continue to look for, and fix, XSS flaws in their code on a regular basis, both developers and administrators should make sure they take advantage of the protections offered by CSP and use them correctly.

"We believe it's important to improve this, and help the web ecosystem make full use of the potential of CSP," the Google engineers wrote.
The prospects for a more competitive broadband market have grown grimmer of late, if it's even possible.

Americans already have little, if any, choice when it comes to broadband providers. The latest statistics from the FCC show that in areas where broadband internet access -- defined as at least 25Mbps -- is available, 78 percent have only one broadband provider to "choose" from. Meanwhile, 30 percent of the country have no providers offering broadband access.

Local solutions

Some communities have begun taking matters into their own hands, setting up municipal networks to directly provide better broadband access for businesses and schools. But many are thwarted by state legislatures working on behalf of telecom lobbies to pass laws that ban municipalities from competing against private ISPs.

As far back as 2014, the FCC indicated a willingness to intervene and preempt these kinds of ISP-driven protectionist state laws. Last year, it began its campaign to open up the broadband landscape, voting to block laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that prevented municipal broadband providers from expanding outside their territories.

After the FCC struck down North Carolina's protectionist law (one of 20 states with such statutes), the community-owned Greenlight ISP in Wilson, N.C., expanded its network to nearby homes that had previously only had access to the internet via sluggish DSL service. Greenlight's fiber network provided speeds of 40Mbps to 1Gbps at prices ranging from $40 to $100 a month -- better than service from incumbent providers that had lobbied for the protectionist law.

Good while it lasted

Unfortunately for municipal broadband, an appeals court last month struck down the FCC's actions, saying the agency had overstepped its authority. The FCC has indicated it does not have the resources to pursue the fight further. According to its statement, "municipalities that want to keep expanding their municipal broadband networks will have to fight to overturn state laws on their own."

Good luck with that -- telecom giants have a choke hold on legislatures in those states.

The appeals court decision means Greenlight will be shutting off its new fiber-to-the-home internet on Oct. 28, to comply with state law.

Competitive advantages

Municipal broadband is not a red or blue issue. In fact, most municipal broadband networks have been built in conservative areas and have broad, bipartisan support. This is an issue of jobs and education, not ideology.

Chattanooga, Tenn., has been a pioneer in municipal broadband. The city's mayor points to the city's fiber network as a significant factor in an economic renewal that's seen Chattanooga reap roughly $1 billion in the form of new jobs and other benefits. "We know that the wage rise is linked to internet jobs and particularly the technology sector," Andy Berke said.

But with telecom giants shoveling piles of cash to lawmakers, new protectionist laws are being passed each year. Tennessee state lawmakers in the spring voted down a proposal to expand municipal broadband. One state representative accused his fellow lawmakers of caving to pressure from lobbyists rather than listening to the electorate. Another blamed AT&T for leading efforts to kill the bill.

For its part, AT&T argued that "taxpayer money should not be used to overbuild or compete with the private sector." Never mind that municipal networks like those in Wilson and Chattanooga are being paid for with bonds, not taxpayer money.

Pole dance

AT&T is also front in center in another fight aimed at forestalling competition: denying would-be competitors access to utility poles. Many cities do not have authority over their own poles, which are often controlled by utilities or the telecom companies.

If a new service provider wants to move into an area and string fiber, it faces two bureaucratic nightmares: getting an agreement in place with the pole owners, and then getting the physical access to the poles to string a new wire. Susan Crawford calls these two sources of delays and spiraling costs Swamp One and Swamp Two.

"A handful of companies -- the usual villains in the internet access story -- is very interested in keeping the status quo in place by quietly making sure that access to these vertical conflict zones is fraught with difficulties," Crawford says.

Chattanooga was lucky: A city-owned electric utility controls its poles, enabling the city to carry out its fiber plans.

Cities like Louisville, Ky., and Nashville are not so lucky. When Google Fiber came to town, hoping to set up a Gigabit fiber network, it was met with stalling tactics -- as long as nine months waiting for incumbent ISPs to prepare the poles for attachment of new wires. To cut down on these lengthy delays, the city councils passed reform laws.

AT&T sued both cities, disputing their authority to regulate utility poles; claiming infringement of its constitutional rights; arguing the laws violated its pole access contracts and its union agreements with workers; complaining that the ordinances were unworkable and that Google Fiber crews didn't always follow safety codes -- in other words, trotting out its greatest hits of obfuscating arguments.

"This is not really about poles at all," says Crawford. "Pole shenanigans represent an exercise of raw, entrenched power. The incumbents ... would rather keep things as they are. Tennessee, for example, remains a state in which more than three-quarters of households (and two-thirds of businesses) get download speeds that don't meet the FCC's requirement of 25 megabits per second."

So Google Fiber remains bogged down by delays -- and many of us are stuck as well. We're stuck with too little choice and expensive, sluggish broadband.
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Lean Hogs Weekly Forecast Kolhanov.com - Sun Oct 30, 5:03PM CDT The downtrend may be expected to continue, while market is trading below resistance level 89.075, which will be followed by reaching support level 80.675 and if it keeps on moving down below that level,...

Feeder Cattle Weekly Forecast Kolhanov.com - Sun Oct 30, 5:02PM CDT The uptrend may be expected to continue, while market is trading above support level 178.550, which will be followed by reaching resistance level 188.250.

Live Cattle Weekly Forecast Kolhanov.com - Sun Oct 30, 5:01PM CDT The uptrend may be expected to continue, while market is trading above support level 151.775, which will be followed by reaching resistance level 156.475.

Soybean Oil Weekly Forecast Kolhanov.com - Sun Oct 30, 5:00PM CDT The downtrend may be expected to continue, while market is trading below resistance level 73.75, which will be followed by reaching support level 68.16 and if it keeps on moving down below that level,...

Soybean Meal Weekly Forecast Kolhanov.com - Sun Oct 30, 4:59PM CDT The uptrend may be expected to continue, while market is trading above support level 419.1, which will be followed by reaching resistance level 439.

Soybean Weekly Forecast Kolhanov.com - Sun Oct 30, 4:58PM CDT The uptrend may be expected to continue, while market is trading above support level 1380.4, which will be followed by reaching resistance level 1423.2 and if it keeps on moving up above that level, we...

Corn Weekly Forecast Kolhanov.com - Sun Oct 30, 4:57PM CDT The downtrend may be expected to continue, while market is trading below resistance level 689.6, which will be followed by reaching support level 661.4.

Wheat Weekly Forecast Kolhanov.com - Sun Oct 30, 4:55PM CDT An uptrend will start as soon, as the market rises above resistance level 872.4, which will be followed by moving up to resistance level 906.2 and 947.
We pulled it off in the '80s when CFCs were damaging the ozone layer. Can we now scrub hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) from cooling systems to combat climate change? Funders are backing the effort, along with efficiency improvements.

If a coalition of nations can fast track a global upgrade of cooling and refrigeration, the phasing out of HFCs, combined with improved energy efficiency, could prevent up to 1 degree Celsius of global warming by the end of the century.

As one U.K. professor says in a recent Guardian article, Demand for cold is already huge, its growing fast, and were meeting it in basically the same way weve been doing for a century. Cold is the Cinderella of the energy debate.

But as with all global efforts to curb climate change, the sticking point is how wealthier nations will help those that need assistance pay for improvements, while helping them maintain and improve quality of life.

Philanthropy cant cover the tab, but funders have been pitching in and trying to play a catalytic role in supporting emissions reductions in developing nations. A whole gang of them have identified the HFC cooling issue as a prime opening, and 19 private funders are putting up tens of millions of dollars toward the effort. Funds will help poorer nations switch to appliances that dont use HFCs and improve energy efficiency, delivering a dual benefit that a coalition of countries is banking on as they call for an ambitious phase-out plan in upcoming negotiation in Rwanda.

HFCs and cooling have been something of a background issue in the climate debate, with the burning of fossil fuels to get around and light up cities playing the lead villain. But its having a moment right now as an opportunity for reform presents itself, and proponents are sounding the alarm.

Related:Indias Clean Energy Goals Are Massive, and Hewlett is Boosting Support

The problem with HFCs actually stems from a major environmental victory that dates back to the 1980s, when scientists identified the hole in the ozone layer and chlorofluorocarbon emissions from spray cans and cooling appliances as a cause. In 1987, nations gathered to approve the Montreal Protocol to phase out CFCsreplacing in large part them with HFCs.

Ditching CFCs worked, but HFCs are now a problem, one of a handful of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) that dont last long in the atmosphere, but have a large warming effect. Some HFCs are 4,000 times more potent than CO2 as greenhouse gases, and their use is on the rise. Theres also the chicken-and-egg problem referred to earlieras climate change dials up temperatures, especially in the developing world, were going to need more cooling power.

So it could be a crisis or an opportunity, and countries will meet in Rwanda in October to try and make it the latter by amending the Montreal Protocol to phase out HFCs and switch to comparable alternatives. Some of those countries, and the 19 philanthropies, are taking the opportunity to layer on efficiency improvements to the phase out effort. Funders involved include big U.S. players like Bill Gates, ClimateWorks, Hewlett, and Packard, as well as emerging foundations like Pisces and Heising-Simons. But the list is a whos who of climate funders that you can see in its entirety here. The total amount of the new fund is $80 million, available as early as 2017.

As weve been witnessing a lot lately, funders love backing energy efficiency, because if done right, it can make impacts that reverberate well beyond initial giving amounts. Efficiency costs money up front, but once in place, has ongoing positive environmental and economic impacts. Theres a similar spirit at play in a recent $30 million commitment in clean energy giving for India by MacArthur, Packard, Hewlett and Grantham. If they can nudge countries to transition in this historic moment, there could be an outsized payoff.

Related:
Update 9/30/16  The controversial Storage One self-storage facility at 11955 Springcreek Drive near Pickerington held an open house on Sept. 22, including a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The first phase of the project comprising five storage buildings is complete, with two more buildings expected to be ready next spring, according to Gates. The property will eventually house 10 buildings, the source reported.

Despite vocal opposition to the project from local residents, the self-storage facility has fit in well with the community. "The neighbors have been absolutely fantastic," Gates told the source. "There has been a lot of positive feedback," she said.

Scott Lanter, a 10-year resident in the Spring Creek subdivision, indicated the impact of the facility hasnt been as bad as some protesters feared. "The fence they put in is nice," Lanter said. "The construction was kind of a pain, but the traffic has not been bad. You do notice the lights from time to time.

Storage One is committed to developing a positive relationship with the community, according to Gates. "Now our neighbors realize we're a good neighbor," she said. "We kept things clean during construction. We follow the township and city regulations. We want to keep all parties happy, and we think it's gone well so far."

10/17/14  The Pickerington, Ohio, City Council unanimously approved the Spring Creek Drive access point for the Storage One Self-Storage development site that shares a border with Violet Township. The Pickerington approval was necessary because the city owns and maintains the street, which is considered the projects most viable access point.

However, Pickerington officials approved the access permit on the condition that Storage One revise its site plan to meet the citys setback rules for landscape buffers between commercial and residential properties, according to the source. Storage One officials agreed to alter landscaping plans along the south side of the property and were open to planting arborvitae at the citys suggestion, said Joe Henderson, Pickeringtons development services director.

The change to the site plan means Storage One must go back to the Violet Township Board of Zoning Appeals for approval. A public hearing to address the modifications was scheduled for Thursday.

5/23/14  A conditional-use permit and five variance requests for a proposed Storage One Self-Storage development on the border of Pickerington, Ohio, and Violet Township have been approved by the towns Board of Zoning Appeals. The permit will allow Storage One to operate a 10-building storage facility on 7.6 acres of a 10.4-acre plot owned by Sybil Heim.

The board approved the companys request for a lot-size variance, permission to deviate from required setbacks, allowance of onsite auctions and to increase the permissible building height. It also allowed relief from loading-space requirements.

The decision came despite continued vocal opposition from the residents of the Spring Creek subdivision. Storage One still must receive township approval for additional zoning and building permits, according to Benjamin King, Violet Townships director of operations.

There may also be a hurdle regarding access to the facility, which would be off of Spring Creek Drive, which is owned and maintained by Pickerington. Violet Township officials have said the developers should have right of access on the street stemming from a 1996 agreement and approved as part of a 2004 annexation. Pickerington officials disagree, arguing access would require the citys permission based on the Ohio Revised Code.

No one has requested access to Spring Creek Drive, and no one has produced any agreement that allows this property in the township to access Spring Creek Drive, said Bill Vance, Pickerington city manager.

5/1/14  Variance requests for a proposed Storage One Self-Storage development on the border of Pickerington, Ohio, and Violet Township are scheduled to be discussed tonight by the Violet Township Board of Zoning Appeals as part of a hearing continuance from April 24. The board opted to continue the hearing last week after only one of five variances were discussed before a 10 p.m. deadline.

During the April 24 meeting, Storage One presented its case for a conditional-use permit that would enable the company to develop a 10-building, 97,000-square-foot facility on the southeast corner of Milnor and Refugee Roads. The company was represented by attorney Jeffrey Vanderoot and manager Jayme Gates.

The self-storage facility would be built on 7.6 acres of a 10.4-acre lot. Storage One plans to include future retail space on the remaining portion of the property, according to the source. The Violet Township Board of Trustees last month approved a zoning change on the 7.6 acres to limited commercial. Self-storage use on the property requires a conditional-use permit.

Storage One is also requesting a lot-size variance, permission to deviate from required setbacks, allowance of onsite auctions and to increase the permissible building height. It has also asked the township to waive the requirement for loading spaces.

Approximately 45 people attended the April 24 hearing, which had been moved to a larger venue due to public interest in the development. Residents from the Spring Creek subdivision continued to express their concerns about increased traffic, noise, light pollution, potential for crime and possible impact on property values.

Tonights meeting will be held in the zoning boards administrative office. Peter Griggs, legal counsel for the township, said the board could go behind closed doors to discuss the variance requests before rendering a decision.

4/25/14  A proposed Storage One Self-Storage development on the border of Pickerington, Ohio, and Violet Township cleared a major hurdle last week when township trustees voted unanimously to approve the rezoning of 7.6 acres of a 10-acre parcel to limited commercial. The storage operator intends to build a 10-building, 97,000-square-foot facility on the southeast corner of Milnor and Refugee Roads.

The zoning was approved despite organized protests from neighboring residents, particularly those living in the Spring Cook subdivision. The community is part of a section of land annexed by Pickerington in 2004.

Storage One must still receive approval for a lot-size variance and other building requests. There may also be a hurdle regarding access to the facility, which would be off of Spring Creek Drive, which is owned and maintained by Pickerington.

Violet Township Trustee Terry Dunlap Sr. said the developers should have right of access on the street stemming from a 1996 agreement and approved as part of the 2004 annexation. Pickerington officials disagree, arguing access would require the citys permission based on the Ohio Revised Code.

"If Violet Township has the 1996 agreement or any other agreement which provides the township access to this city street, then why don't they just produce it?" asked Bill Vance, Pickerington city manager.

"Applicable case law indicates that there is a primary right of ownership for an abutting property to access to and from a public street from said parcel and that access cannot be denied without compensation," said Greg Butcher, Violet Township engineer.

4/10/14  Residential opposition to a proposed Storage One Self-Storage development in Pickerington, Ohio, continued during a two-hour Violet Township rezoning hearing on April 2. The hearing was focused on the companys request to have 7.6 acres of its property rezoned as limited commercial, which is considered a separate matter from the lot-size variance and other building requests filed by the company.

Residents from the Spring Creek subdivision reiterated their concerns about increased traffic, noise and light pollution, and argued the facility would add little value to the community, according to the source.

A small contingent of citizens also spoke in favor of the project. "This is the least intrusive thing they could put on this corner, said resident Rocco Sabatino. This will not impact anyone's property values negatively."

Storage One attorney Jeffrey Vandervoort argued that changing the parcels commercial classification was not a significant impact, and self-storage was consistent with Violet Townships land-use plan.

"Storage One plans to build a first-class storage facility, with minimal or no impact on the surrounding properties," he said, adding that it would bring more than $56,000 in annual tax dollars to the township.

The Board of Trustees did not make a decision during the hearing but must do so within 20 days, according to the source.

3/26/14  Residential opposition to a proposed Storage One Self-Storage development in Pickerington, Ohio, was so strong during a public hearing on March 20, city officials are trying to secure a larger venue for a follow-up meeting. No decisions were made during the first hearing, which could not accommodate an overflow crowd, according to the source.

Resident Mark Vanderhoff circulated a petition opposing the project and got 58 signatures from neighboring residents. Most of the voiced opposition during the hearing was related to lighting, noise, safety and traffic concerns. Vanderhoff said the development would bring a "transient" feel to the neighborhood, while neighbor Chuck Lockard feared the storage facility could hurt property values, the source reported.

Storage One Manager Jayme Gates argued the facility would have a low traffic impact, generating about 14 vehicles per day in and out of the property. She also said the majority of customers would come from the surrounding neighborhoods. "Over 80 percent of our visitors live within a three-mile radius, so we serve a direct need," she said. "They absolutely live in the area. 'Transient' would be a very poor description; these are not outsiders to our community."

Storage One owns four additional Ohio facilities of comparable size which have not generated complaints due to lighting, traffic or noise, Gates said. "We pride ourselves on being active and supportive of the community," she commented. "We want to be a good neighbor."

Although the Board of Zoning Appeals has not yet scheduled a second public hearing on Storage Ones variance application, the Violet Township Board of Trustees will hold its meeting as scheduled on April 2 to discuss the companys request to have 7.6 acres of the property rezoned as limited commercial. The rezoning request is considered a separate matter from the lot-size variance and other building requests filed by Storage One.

3/12/14  A proposed self-storage development in Pickerington, Ohio, may face opposition from residents on March 20 during a Violet Township Board of Zoning Appeals meeting. Community members are vowing to fight the variance application filed by Storage One Self-Storage to develop a facility at the corner of Milnor and Refugee roads, an unincorporated area of Violet Township, according to the source.

The proposed development is more than twice the size currently allowed under the townships zoning laws, which limits self-storage to 3 acres. Storage One is seeking a variance to expand to 7.6 acres on a 10-acre plot owned by Sybil Heim. The lot is adjacent to the Spring Creek Colony condominiums and Spring Creek housing subdivision.

The variance application only applies to the 7.6-acre parcel, which is in the townships Planned Residential Development District. The remaining acreage is part of the Spring Creek Preliminary Plan and is not being considered for rezoning because the township has it earmarked for the development of a multi-tenant commercial building, Kelly Sarko, the townships chief zoning inspector, told the source.

The parcel slated for self-storage development will also need to be rezoned from Planned Development to C-2 Limited Commercial. The Violet Township Board of Trustees will consider the rezoning on April 2.

In addition to the lot-size variance, Storage One is requesting permission to deviate from required setbacks, allow onsite auctions and increase the building height. It is also asking the township to waive the requirement for loading spaces. The proposed development includes 10 buildings in varying lengths.

Letters were mailed to more than 200 residents who live within 500 feet of Heims property, according to Sarko. Resident Mark Vanderhoff told the source the proposed self-storage development isnt a good fit for the area. Opponents are reportedly also concerned about traffic, noise and light pollution from the facility.

The Fairfield County Regional Planning Commission recommended the rezoning on Feb. 6, determining it fit with the commercial-type use outlined in the Violet Township Land Use Plan.

Family owned and operated, Storage One has four locations in Canal Winchester, Pickerington and Whitehall, Ohio.
Install the latest security software and keep operating system updated.

Educate the staff on basic electronic security measures.

Consider using security tokens for e-banking and set device protocols to the highest possible level for all staff members.

Do not store payee lists within online bank accounts as these entries can be easily manipulated. Payee details should be entered manually each time when creating an electronic transfer of funds.

Be wary of unsolicited emails purporting to be from the bank.

Know that banks will never ask for personal details via email.

Always type the banks address into the address bar when accessing it online.

A fast-acting staff member has thwarted cyber thieves from stealing $500,000 from a Perth real estate agents trust account, it has been reported.The cyber thieves were believed to have gained access to the agencys bank accounts using a malware downloaded into the agencys system, probably from an email attachment. Said malware allows cybercriminals to record keystrokes and discover bank log in details, including passwords.Upon discovery of the unauthorised withdrawal the next morning, a staff member quickly contacted the bank. The staff members quick response led the bank to have the transfer terminated and the funds returned even before the scammers collected the money.David Hillyard, acting commissioner for Consumer Protection, commended the staff member for his quick action which prevented his company from suffering a huge loss.A delay in reporting this loss and requesting stops be placed on the transfer could have resulted in the funds being in the hands of scammers and the agency facing a financial disaster, Hillyard said.We commend the quick action that was taken which robbed the scammers of a huge windfall from their criminal activities and maintained the agencys financial integrity. The agencys best practice standard of reconciling their trust accounts daily was integral to their picking up on the theft quickly.Hillyard said the incident has prompted the agency to implement stricter measures to prevent cyberattacks.Even though the theft was prevented, the agency has implemented new and more secure connections to its bank through the use of a real-time device commonly called a Security Token which changes the internet banking authorisation passcode on a continual basis.Two people are now required to independently enter their system-generated and unique passcode to jointly authorise all transfers of funds out of the trust account. These measures ensure that an unauthorised transfer request is rejected and the agency is advised.Hillyard advised businesses to be careful about opening attachments or clicking on links in seemingly harmless emails to avoid cyberattacks.Giving cyber criminals access to your computer by unknowingly downloading malware means the thieves can compromise your accounting and banking system or they can even spoof emails of executives, tricking staff in to making payments. Staff should be trained to recognise the risks and query these emails to prevent incursions, said Hillyard.Every business should have procedures and protocols which will prevent unauthorised access to their computer system and to detect malware. Having up-to-date anti-virus and anti-malware software is essential.Regular checking of bank account balances and daily reconciling of accounts may uncover unauthorised withdrawals in time for them to be stopped. We advise staff working in the finance area have strict processes around money transfers and changing supplier bank account or contact details.Businesses should discuss their online banking security measures with their bank who may recommend extra measures to provide some peace of mind.In this latest instance, the agency had put in place all reasonable securities and processes however the scammers were still able to trick the system into commencing the transaction to fraudulently move $500,000 out of their trust account.Only through the quick actions of a very diligent staff member had the crime been foiled on this occasion but everyone needs to be vigilant so they dont fall victim to these cyber criminals.Consumer Protection provided the following tips for preventing fraud losses:
Police are looking for an employee of a Massachusetts Wal-Mart they say set three fires inside the store, forcing the disposal of all the food on the sales floor.

Police say they identified the suspect through security video. She was seen leaving the parking lot in her car after the fires.

Firefighters who responded to the Sturbridge store on Tuesday for a report of a fire in the jewelry section determined that three fires had been set. They were all extinguished by employees and customers. No one was hurt.

Sturbridges health agent tells The Telegram & Gazette that because the food that was exposed to smoke and chemicals from fire extinguishers, it must be disposed of.

Police say the woman faces several charges, including burning a buildings contents.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Massachusetts
The reenacted Maryland Insurance Article set to take effect on Saturday, Oct. 1, is expected to lift the administrative burden and lack of clarity caused by mandatory notification of minor premium increases, according to a press release issued by the Insurance Agents & Brokers of Maryland (IA&B), the statewide agents association that championed the legislation.

Signed by Governor Larry Hogan in April, House Bill 1408 amends the notice requirement for commercial policies to those with increases of at least 15 percent.

Were proud of this bills ability to strike a balance between simplifying the notice requirement for insurance producers and retaining the necessary protections for policyholders, said Rick Russell, president of IA&B.

HB 1408 restores a single notification threshold for commercial renewal premium increases of 15 percent, removes the current formula and clarifies that insurers may comply with the law by sending a complete renewal policy 45 days in advance.

The introduction of HB 1408 came after insurance producers expressed concerns that the 2012 legislation did not go far enough to alleviate the administrative burden and consumer confusion caused by notices sent for de minimis increases.

This legislation follows a string of changes.

In 2009, the Maryland General Assembly eliminated the 20 percent threshold for notices, therefore prompting policyholder notification in the case of any commercial premium increase.

In 2012, IA&B successfully pushed for legislation that exempted certain premium increases from the notification requirement.

Source: Insurance Agents & Brokers of Maryland

Topics Trends Legislation Agencies Pricing Trends Maryland
Brightway, The Lambert Family Agency in Muskegon, Michigan announced it has added Camber Gilleland as its newest agent.

Gilleland joins the agency from the healthcare industry, where she worked in administration and finance for 15 years.

Brightway Insurance is a national property/casualty insurance retailer selling through a network of franchised independent agencies throughout the country.

Topics Michigan
AF Group, based in Lansing, Michigan, has announced Keri Kittmann as director, Strategy, Performance & Administration. In her new role, Kittmann will guide the strategic planning and implementation efforts for the organization and will support the president of AF Group.

Since 2000, Kittmann has held numerous roles within the organization, including finance systems manager, general accounting manager, director of accounting and controller. Her consistent, exceptional performance led to her selection as the organizations Leader of the Year in 2009.

Prior to joining AF Group, Kittmann held finance and accounting roles for Citizens/Hanover Insurance and Blue Care Network.

Founded in 1912, AF Group is a holding company conducting business through its brands: Accident Fund, United Heartland, CompWestand Third Coast Underwriters.
At least five Wells Fargo employees have sued the bank or filed complaints with regulators alleging that they were fired after reporting the opening of customer accounts without their permission, according to a Reuters review of lawsuits and complaints to the U.S. Labor Department.

The suits and complaints, filed between 2010 and 2014, raise questions about how early Wells Fargo knew about such allegations and how it handled them.

Wells Fargo was ordered to pay $190 million in fines and restitution this month after regulators said its high-pressure sales environment led to the opening of as many as 2 million customer accounts that customers may not have authorized.

Wells Fargo spokeswoman Richele Messick declined to comment on the employees allegations but said the bank takes measures to protect team members from retaliation.

One of the fired employees was Birinder Kaur Shankar, a former Colorado-based customer sales representative who in July 2014 filed a complaint with the Labor Departments Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

She claimed that the bank retaliated against her after she reported in 2013 that local managers were pressuring employees to engage in gaming the banks sales quotas by opening unauthorized accounts.

In the complaint reviewed by Reuters, Shankar alleged that service managers, branch managers and district managers were well versed in the art of creative selling and that customer sales staffers had direct orders to mislead customers.

Little did I know that my complaints to the ethics hotline of Wells Fargo Bank on these practices would be openly and directly conveyed to the very managers who would then start collecting write-up data on me, she wrote.

Shankar settled with the bank in 2015 for an undisclosed sum, according to Labor Department records. Shankar declined to comment, citing a confidentiality agreement that was a condition of her settlement.

Another former Wells personal banker, Claudia Ponce de Leon, filed an OSHA complaint in December 2011, alleging that the bank made it virtually impossible for branch employees to meet ambitious quotas without cheating.

Ponce de Leon was promoted to become a branch general manager in Pomona, California in June 2011 and discovered employees were engaged in excessive gaming, according to the complaint.

Shortly after she raised concerns about the practice, she was terminated without cause, according to her complaint.

Nearly five years later, her attorney Yosef Peretz said she has only received sporadic communications from OSHA and has not been interviewed by investigators. Only recently did OSHA show more interest, he said.

I heard from them very recently  after this whole mess with Wells Fargo, he said.

Labor Department spokeswoman Amanda McClure did not provide comments in response to questions from Reuters about how OSHA handled the Wells Fargo complaints.

Labor Secretary Thomas Perez told Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren in a Sept. 26 letter that his office now plans a top-to-bottom review of all allegations that the department has received concerning Wells Fargo.

Two other clients of Peretz  former personal bankers Yesenia Guitron and Judi Klosek  also filed OSHA complaints, as well as a joint federal lawsuit in 2010 claiming Wells Fargo retaliated against them for blowing the whistle on similar conduct.

Guitron alleged that managers responded by falsifying a paper trail that purported to document her poor performance, forbidding her from taking family medical leave and firing her improperly. Klosek said the bank improperly gave away her position while she was on disability to receive treatment for breast cancer. The bank did not rehire her when she sought other positions, according to her complaint.

A federal judge ultimately dismissed all of Guitrons claims against the bank, saying Wells Fargo was justified for firing her because she failed to meet sales quotas and refused to meet with management.

Guitron said she feels vindicated by the sanctions against Wells Fargo but remains upset that some of the people who she alleges retaliated against her still work at the bank.

If Wells Fargo wanted to make it right, I would say those people need to go, she said.

The judge dismissed Kloseks retalition claims but upheld her contention that she was discriminated against based on her disability. She settled with the bank on terms that were not disclosed. Reuters was not able to locate Klosek for comment.

Julie Tishkoff, a former employee who worked as an administrative assistant to a regional bank president, made similar claims in a state lawsuit in 2011. She alleged that she reported fraudulent banking practices as far back as November 2005, involving bank employees forging customer signatures and fraudulently opening accounts.

Tishkoff said the bank instituted a four-year campaign of retaliation that included attacking her job performance and public criticism, according to the lawsuit.

Messick, the Wells Fargo spokeswoman, said the bank had settled the case in 2012. Attorneys for Tiskoff did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Brian Thevenot)

Topics Workers' Compensation
Less than an hour into the third day of testimony in the fraud trial of former American International Group Inc. Chairman Maurice Hank Greenberg, the judge took the reins.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos interrupted Assistant Attorney General David Nachman and asked Greenberg directly about an issue he said led him to a sleepless night  what was the point of AIGs deal with CAPCO Reinsurance Co., a deal at the heart of the case.

The government claims it was one of two sham transactions designed to hide the companys financial state from shareholders. The CAPCO transaction was allegedly designed to offload more than $200 million worth of underwriting losses from a failed auto-warranty program, but Ramos wanted Greenberg to address the issue directly.

I look at this auto-warranty business, Ramos said. It did not go well at all. But thats history. Thats what you see in this rear-view mirror. The future is in the windshield. It wasnt going to bring back the losses. It wasnt going to correct the mistakes that were made in the auto-warranty business. Why would AIG go through the CAPCO transaction in the first place? What was the motivation?

Greenberg said the deal was done to alleviate managers concerns that theyd be held accountable for a bad program. He told the judge that he got involved and made a lot of changes to quell those concerns.

That was the only reason, said Greenberg, who testified earlier that the deal was immaterial to the companys financial results. They wanted this off their back.

What hes saying is its a competitive situation within the company, the judge summarized. I dont want my division to look bad because my competitor, who wants the next job up the ladder, doesnt have that black mark.

Greenberg is scheduled to resume testifying in the case on Oct. 4, when Nachman is expected to ask him about the details of the other transaction  a deal with Berkshire Hathaway Inc.s General Reinsurance Corp. used to reverse a decline in loss reserves at AIG.

The case is State of New York v. Greenberg, 401720-2005, New York state Supreme Court (Manhattan).

Topics Auto New York Reinsurance
The man under fire for his management of the new jail in New Orleans has filed a lawsuit against the general contractors who built the facility.

Sheriff Marlin Gusmans suit seeks approximately $3 million for missed deadlines that delayed the jails opening for months, according to the New Orleans Advocate. The facility opened just over a year ago.

The suit also says the contractors havent reimbursed Gusmans office for nearly $7 million in water used during the project. And it says the contractors failed to complete 200 unspecified tasks associated with the project.

Defendants are The McDonnel Group and Archer Western Contractors.

Allan McDonnel, of The McDonnel Group, said the state court lawsuit was not adversarial and was filed as the result of negotiations with the sheriffs office.

The $145 million jail opened in September 2015, replacing a group of aging, run-down facilities that had been damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

The new jail was funded largely with hurricane recovery dollars. It was designed to allow deputies to directly supervise inmates in their cells. The opening of the new jail had been slated for the end of 2014, but the building did not open until September 2015 following a series of setbacks.

The Sheriffs Office, in the suit filed earlier this month, is seeking $2.8 million in liquidated damages related to that delay.

Gusman had hailed last Septembers opening as a major step in reforms. But court-appointed experts say a dangerous level of violence persisted at the understaffed lockup. There has been one suicide and a recently filed federal suit claims a transgender woman was raped in a cell shortly after the opening.

Inmate advocates and the city of New Orleans, which funds the jail, had pushed for a federal judge to take control of the jail away from Gusman. Gusman, in a compromise agreed to cede authority to a court-approved jail compliance director. Former Maryland corrections official Gary Maynard was appointed to the job and takes over next month.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Contractors
Federal regulators say theyve found there was a substantial potential for an accident that could have injured workers at the Westinghouse nuclear fuel plant near Columbia.

Media outlets report the preliminary results of an investigation into a uranium built up at the plant were discussed Tuesday night.

Westinghouse does not dispute the information and says its working to resolve problems at the 47-year-old plant.

We have had significant performance lapses at the Columbia site, said Michele DeWitt, Westinghouses interim senior vice president for nuclear fuel and components manufacturing.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says Westinghouse was unable to keep uranium from accumulating in plant equipment.

Potential safety consequences to workers were high, according to a power point presentation from the initial investigation.

The NRC says there was no accident at the plant and people in Richland County were in no danger. But the agency says there was the potential for problems. They say uranium built up in air pollution control devices known as scrubbers.

The most recent uranium accumulation was found this past summer in a rooftop scrubber. The scrubber contained amounts of uranium three times higher than the federal safety standard. Other equipment has also been discovered with uranium accumulation during the summer.

NRC regional administrator Catherine Haney on Tuesday night called the problems serious.

We rely on certain measures to be put in place that would prevent (an accident) from occurring. Those measures were not available, Haney said.

The plant is one of three in the United States that makes uranium fuel for use commercial power plants.

Westinghouse promises to upgrade equipment, conduct more frequent inspections and add personnel.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Energy Oil Gas South Carolina
President Barack Obama has officially declared a major disaster for areas in Florida affected by Hurricane Hermine.

A news release says Obama signed the disaster declaration Wednesday. The presidents action makes federal funding available to residents and businesses in Citrus, Dixie, Hernando, Hillsborough, Leon, Levy, Pasco and Pinellas counties. Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster.

Hurricane Hermine made landfall Sept. 2 in Floridas Big Bend with 80-mph winds. Coastal communities were forced to evacuate, and some areas went without power for a week.

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials say damage surveys are continuing, and additional counties may be designated for assistance.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Florida Hurricane
A 2014 chemical spill into the water supply of 300,000 West Virginians could have been avoided if a company inspected its storage tanks and saw two tiny holes forming at the bottom, federal investigators said Wednesday.

Almost three years after the spill, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board released a draft report on the January 2014 leak from Freedom Industries. The spill prevented the capital city and surrounding areas from using their tap water for several days. Businesses were temporarily shut down for days and hundreds of people headed to emergency rooms for issues from nausea to rashes.

The disaster quickly inspired a new state law requiring more inspections and registrations of aboveground storage tanks. It spurred Freedoms bankruptcy and resulted in 30-day prison sentences for two company officials on federal pollution charges, and fines and probation for four others.

Legal action over the spill is picking up again soon. On Oct. 25, a class-action lawsuit will head to a jury trial over whether West Virginia American Water and Eastman Chemical, the producer of the main spilled chemical, crude MCHM, did enough to safeguard against the widespread contamination.

My message here today is what happened in Charleston was preventable, Chemical Safety Board Chairwoman Vanessa Allen Sutherland said Wednesday at a press conference in Charleston. This incident could have been avoided if regular inspections had been conducted on these storage tanks, and the effects could have been mitigated with enhanced communication and preplanning.

The board will present and possibly vote on the 125-page report Wednesday evening in Charleston.

In January 2014, two tiny holes from tanks at Freedom Industries leaked coal-cleaning chemicals underground and through a dilapidated containment wall into the Elk River. Johnnie Banks, Chemical Safety Board supervisory investigator, said its possible that the leak started before the day it was noticed.

Freedoms MCHM tanks hadnt been inspected internally for at least 10 years, and the company had no leak prevention or leak detection systems, Banks said. State law required a better containment wall, but state environmental regulators didnt inspect the site due to resource constraints, the report says.

A mile and a half downstream, West Virginia American Water received incorrect information from Freedom about the characteristics and volume of chemicals heading its way, and kept the plant open, the report says. There was no alternative backup water source available for the plant.

However, the water company knew Freedom was upstream and hadnt requested public information before the spill to understand what it stored, the report says.

I think they were operating with the best information they had at the time they were making their decisions, Banks said of the water company.

Federal health officials scrambled to make a benchmark based on limited scientific studies about when it would be safe to drink the water again. The health announcements that followed were confusing, and new, conflicting information kept residents wary of their water long after it was declared safe to use.

The report offers just a handful of recommendations, and none of them to government agencies. It suggests that a water provider trade group circulate the findings to companies. It recommends that all of the water plants within American Water Works Company identify which chemicals nearby pose threats to water supplies, and recommends drawing up treatment and contingency plans in case of spills. The report also gave credit for upgrades made at the West Virginia American Water plant.

The report then suggests that Eastman Chemical should update its safety data sheets with new federal crude MCHM experiments conducted after the spill. Banks said the board has no specifics on whether MCHM helped corrode the tank, a claim at the center of the class-action lawsuit against Eastman.

Despite the additional studies, Banks said little is yet known about chronic health impacts of crude MCHM.

But he said there havent been reports of long-term health problems from people who went to emergency rooms, and no reports of low birthweights associated with the spill.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Pollution Virginia Chemicals
Storms that dumped as much as 8 inches of rain prompted rescues from rising waters and the closing schools in two North Carolina counties.

Storms inundated areas around Raleigh and to the south overnight Wednesday, knocking out power to some electric customers.

Schools in Cumberland and Hoke counties were closed Thursday while classes were delayed in two other counties.

Media outlets report that in Fayetteville, six people were evacuated from a group home threatened by rising water Wednesday night while firefighters in boats had to help several others get to safety from flooded homes.

There were numerous reports of cars stranded in rising waters and a tree also fell along Interstate 95 late Wednesday, snarling traffic for a time.

Flash flood warnings were in effect until late morning Thursday in Cumberland, Harnett, Hoke and Moore counties. A number of roads were also closed. The National Weather Service says up to 8 inches of rain has fallen in the area and as much as 2 more inches could fall Thursday.

Schools in Harnett and Moore counties were delayed.

Duke Energy reported more than 1,500 customers were without service late Thursday morning.

Police in Burlington also reported problems overnight, with nearly three dozen calls for flooded roads.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Flood North Carolina
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
Panoramica privacy

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The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) is a health insurance program that allows eligible employees and their dependents the continued benefits of health insurance coverage when an employee loses their job or experiences a reduction of work hours. Below, we'll explore the basic details of COBRA, how it works, its eligibility criteria, pros and cons, and other features.

Key Takeaways COBRA is an acronym for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which provides eligible employees and their dependents the option of continued health insurance coverage when an employee loses their job or experiences a reduction of work hours.

Employers with 20 or more full-time-equivalent employees are usually mandated to offer COBRA coverage.

Health insurance coverage from COBRA extends for a limited period of 18 or 36 months, depending upon applicable scenarios.

The cost of COBRA coverage is usually high because the newly unemployed individual pays the entire cost of the insurance (employers usually pay a significant portion of healthcare premiums for employees).

If you have lost your health insurance due to job loss during the 2020 economic crisis, you qualify for a "special enrollment" period on the federal exchange, which gives you 60 days to enroll. This may be a way to find a cheaper health insurance option than COBRA.

The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021 provides 100% COBRA premium coverage for qualified individuals from April 1, 2021, through September 30, 2021.

What Is COBRA Health Insurance?

Large employers in the U.S., those with 50 or more full-time workers, are required to provide health insurance to their qualifying employees by paying a part of insurance premiums. If an employee becomes ineligible to receive an employer's health insurance benefitswhich can happen for a variety of reasons (such as getting laid off or falling below a minimum threshold number of hours worked per week)the employer may stop paying its share of the employee's insurance premiums. In that case, COBRA allows an employee and their dependents to retain the same insurance coverage for a limited period of time, provided they are willing to pay for it on their own.

Under COBRA, former employees, spouses, former spouses, and dependent children must be offered the option of continued health insurance coverage at group rates, which otherwise would be terminated. While these individuals are likely to pay more for health insurance coverage through COBRA than they did as employees (because the employer will no longer pay a portion of the premium costs), COBRA coverage might be less expensive than an individual insurance plan would be.

It's important to note that COBRA is a health insurance coverage program and plans may cover costs toward prescription drugs, dental treatments, and vision care. It does not include life insurance and disability insurance.

As part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the federal government paid COBRA insurance premiums for individuals (and their covered relatives) that lost their job as a result of the 2020 economic crisis from April 1 through Sept. 30, 2021.

Qualifying for COBRA Health Insurance

There are different sets of criteria for different employees and other individuals who may be eligible for COBRA coverage. In addition to meeting these criteria, eligible employees can typically only receive COBRA coverage following particular qualifying events, as discussed below.

Employers with 20 or more full-time-equivalent employees are usually mandated to offer COBRA coverage. The working hours of part-time employees can be clubbed together to create a full-time-equivalent employee, which decides the overall COBRA applicability for the employer. COBRA applies to plans offered by private-sector employers and those sponsored by the majority of local and state governments. Federal employees are covered by a law similar to COBRA.

Additionally, many states have local laws similar to COBRA. These typically apply to health insurers of employers having fewer than 20 employees and can be called mini-COBRA plans.

A COBRA-eligible employee must be enrolled in a company-sponsored group health insurance plan on the day before the qualifying event occurs. The insurance plan must be effective on more than 50% of the employer's typical business days in the previous calendar year.

The employer must continue to offer its existing employees a health plan for the departing employee to qualify for COBRA. In case of the employer going out of business or the employer no longer offering insurance to existing employees (for instance, if the number of employees drops below 20), the departing employee may no longer be eligible for COBRA coverage.

The qualifying event must result in a loss of the employee's health insurance. The type of qualifying event determines the list of qualified beneficiaries, and conditions vary for each type of beneficiary.

Employees

Employees qualify for COBRA coverage in the event of the following:

Voluntary or involuntary job loss , such as the 2020 economic crisis (except in cases of gross misconduct)

A decrease in the number of hours of employment resulting in loss of employer insurance coverage

Spouses

In addition to the two qualifying events for employees (above), their spouses can qualify for COBRA coverage on their own if the following conditions are met:

The covered employee becomes entitled to Medicare

Divorce or legal separation from the covered employee

Death of the covered employee

The employee or beneficiaries must notify the plan in the event of divorce, legal separation, or a child's loss of dependent status.

Dependent Children

Qualifying events for dependent children are generally the same as for the spouse with one addition:

Loss of dependent child status, as per the plan rules

The employer must notify the plan within 30 days of the qualifying event that is applicable to the employee. The employee or beneficiaries must notify the plan if the qualifying event is divorce, legal separation, or a child's loss of dependent status.

COBRA Benefits and Available Coverage

For qualifying candidates, COBRA rules provide for the offering of coverage that is identical to that which the employer offers to its current employees. Any change in the plan benefits for active employees will also apply to qualified beneficiaries. All qualifying COBRA beneficiaries must be allowed to make the same choices as non-COBRA beneficiaries. Essentially, the insurance coverage for current employees/beneficiaries remains exactly the same for ex-employees/beneficiaries under COBRA. You must be given at least 60 days in which to choose whether or not to elect continuation coverage. Even if you waive coverage, you can change your mind if it is within the 60-day election period.

From the date of the qualifying event, COBRA coverage extends for a limited period of 18 or 36 months, depending upon the applicable scenarios. One can qualify to extend the 18-month maximum period of continuation coverage if any one of the qualified beneficiaries in the family is disabled and meets certain requirements, or if a second qualifying event occurspotentially including the death of a covered employee, the legal separation of a covered employee and spouse, a covered employee becoming entitled to Medicare or a loss of dependent child status under the plan.

Cost of COBRA Health Insurance

The term "group rate" may be incorrectly perceived as a discount offer, but in reality, it may turn out to be comparatively expensive. During the employment term, the employer often pays a significant portion of the actual health insurance premium (for example, an employer may pay 80% of premium costs), while the employee pays the remainder. After employment, the individual is required to pay the entire premium, and at times it may be topped up with an extra 2% toward administrative charges. Costs may not exceed 102% of the cost for the plan for employees who haven't experienced a qualifying event.

Therefore, despite the group rates being available for the COBRA continued plan in the post-employment period, the cost to the ex-employee may increase significantly when compared to prior insurance costs. In essence, the cost remains the same but has to be borne completely by the individual with no contribution from the employer.

COBRA may still be less expensive than other individual health coverage plans. It is important to compare it to coverage the former employee might be eligible for under the Affordable Care Act, especially if they qualify for a subsidy. The employer's human resources department can provide precise details of the cost.

Those who lost health insurance due to a job loss during the 2020 economic crisis, qualified for a "special enrollment" period on the federal exchanges, which gave them 60 days to sign up. That may have been a way to find a cheaper insurance option than COBRA.

Early Termination of COBRA Health Insurance

COBRA coverage can end prematurely in the following cases:

Failure to pay premiums on time

Employer ceasing to maintain any group health plan

A qualified beneficiary gaining coverage under another group health plan (for instance, with a new employer), becoming eligible for Medicare benefits, or engaging in misconduct (such as fraud)

Pros and Cons of COBRA Health Insurance

An individual who opts for COBRA coverage is able to continue with the same physician, health plan, and medical network providers. COBRA beneficiaries also retain existing coverage for preexisting conditions and any regular prescription drugs. The plan cost may be lower than other standard plans, and it is better than remaining uninsured as it offers protection against high medical bills to be paid for in case of any sickness.

Nonetheless, it's important to keep in mind the downsides of COBRA. Some of the most prominent of these include the high cost of insurance when it is borne entirely by the individual, the limited period of coverage under COBRA, and the continued dependency on the employer. If the employer opts to discontinue the coverage, an ex-employee or related beneficiary will no longer have access to COBRA.

If the employer changes the health insurance plan, a COBRA beneficiary will have to accept the changes even if the changed plan doesn't offer the best fit for the individuals needs. A new plan may change the coverage period and number of available services, for example, and it may increase or lower deductibles and co-payments.

For these reasons, individuals eligible for COBRA coverage should weigh the pros and cons of COBRA against other available individual plans to select the best possible fit.

A potential COBRA beneficiary also can explore, for example, whether they may qualify for a public assistance program such as Medicaid or other state or local programs. However, such plans may be limited to low-income groups and may not offer the best care and services compared to other plans.

Healthy individuals can explore the option of a low-cost healthcare discount plan. But these plans don't count as insurance coverage, which can make it difficult to get health insurance in the future since signing up for one of these plans means that insurance coverage is considered to have been interrupted.

Managing a High COBRA Premium

If you're considering COBRA coverage but you're concerned about the differences between the cost of insurance coverage through this program and the cost of insurance with the support of an employer, there are a number of important considerations to keep in mind.

When you lose your job, you generally lose your flexible spending account (FSA). If a job loss is threatened, you are allowed to spend your entire year's contribution to the FSA before you become unemployed. If you were going to contribute $1,200 for the year but it's only January, for example, and you've only had $100 withheld from your paycheck for your FSA, you can still spend all of the $1,200 that you were planning to contributesay, by seeing all of your doctors and filling all of your prescriptions immediately.

Upon choosing COBRA, you can change your plan during the employer's annual open enrollment period and opt for a less expensive plan like a preferred provider organization (PPO), or health maintenance organization (HMO).

If available, a refundable tax credit called the Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC) can be utilized by qualifying individuals to pay up to 72.5% of qualified health insurance premiums, including COBRA continuation coverage. The HCTC program was due to expire on Dec. 31, 2020, but the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has extended the program through Dec. 31, 2021.

Tax deductions might also help reduce the burden of higher premiums. While filing the annual tax returns, you are allowed to deduct COBRA premiums and other medical expenses exceeding 7.5% of your adjusted gross income (AGI) on your federal tax return (but you must itemize your deductions on Schedule A).

You can achieve additional savings by reducing other healthcare expenses, such as switching to generic drugs or buying larger supplies at a discount, and visiting a low-cost community or retail clinic for basic healthcare services.

Finally, you can utilize the funds of your health savings account (HSA) to pay COBRA premiums as well as medical expenses, which could significantly reduce the sting of losing your health insurance benefits.

It's important to note that making timely payments on COBRA premiums is essential to maintaining coverage for the duration of your eligibility. The initial premium payment is due within 45 days of the date of your COBRA election, and failure to make that payment could lead to the loss of your COBRA rights. Payment is typically designed to cover a period that is retroactive, going back to the date of the loss of coverage and the qualifying event that established eligibility.

If you do not make your COBRA payments on time but you do within the grace period for that period of coverage, there is the possibility that your coverage will be canceled until payment is received, at which point coverage will be reinstated.

You can use your health savings account (HSA) to pay COBRA premiums as well as medical expenses, which could significantly reduce the sting of losing benefits.

Government Jurisdiction Over COBRA

Several agencies of the federal government are responsible for administering COBRA coverage. Currently, the Departments of Labor and Treasury maintain jurisdiction over private-sector group health plans, while the Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for public-sector health plans. However, these agencies are not necessarily heavily involved in the process of applying for COBRA coverage or related aspects of the continued coverage program.

The Labor Department's regulatory responsibility includes the disclosure and notification of COBRA requirements as stipulated by law. And the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services provides information about COBRA provisions for public-sector employees.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 signed into law by President Biden on March 11, 2021, contained a provision that provided a 100% subsidy of COBRA premiums beginning April 1, 2021, and ending Sept. 30, 2021. Employers recoup the premiums through Medicare tax credits.

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, signed into law by President Biden on March 11, 2021, contains a provision that provides a 100% subsidy of COBRA premiums beginning April 1, 2021, and ending September 30, 2021. Employers recoup the premiums through Medicare tax credits.

You are eligible for the COBRA premium subsidy if you lost coverage due to a reduction in hours or involuntary termination of employment. Your employer must treat assistance-eligible individuals who have COBRA coverage during the six-month subsidy period as having paid their premiums in full. If, however, you are eligible for other group health plan coverage or Medicare, you will lose eligibility for the COBRA subsidy. You are required to self-report your eligibility for other coverage to the COBRA plan and will face a tax penalty if you do not.

Applying for COBRA Health Insurance

In order to begin COBRA coverage, an individual must confirm that they are eligible for assistance according to the requirements listed above. Typically, an eligible individual will receive a letter from either an employer or a health insurer outlining COBRA benefits. Some individuals find this notification difficult to understand because it includes a large amount of required legal information and language. If you have any difficulty determining whether you are eligible for COBRA or how to begin coverage through this program, contact either the insurer or your former employer's HR department.

For individuals either not eligible for COBRA or those searching for alternatives, there are other options, such as a spouse's health insurance plan.

For individuals either not eligible for COBRA or those searching for alternatives, there are other options. In some cases, a spouse's health insurance plan may be a possibility. Or you might explore your options on the federal health insurance marketplace or a state insurance marketplace. Loss of a job will open up a special enrollment period.

As indicated above, Medicaid programs and other short-term policies designed for those experiencing a gap in health coverage may also be available to you. Health insurance professionals typically discourage individuals from electing to go uninsured entirely, as the possibility of severe downsides is highespecially during an uncertain time. Fortunately, individuals eligible for COBRA coverage have at least 60 days to elect to participate in the program.

The Bottom Line

COBRA is a convenient option for retaining health insurance if you lose your employer-sponsored benefits, and sometimes it is also the best option. However, the cost is often high and the plan is not always the best one to fit an individual's or a family's needs.
Index Funds vs. Target-Date Funds: An Overview

Choosing between index funds and target-date funds in a 401(k) is a common dilemma. The main factors in making this choice are how much investors know about financial markets and how much time they want to spend. Target-date funds provide easy-to-understand options that work reasonably well for most investors. With target-date funds, all investors need to know is when they want to retire. Index funds let people directly invest in different asset classes, which usually saves on fees and gives them more control over risk and returns.

Index funds mirror the performance of a stock or bond index, often at a low cost. Expense ratios are usually at or below 0.1% for U.S. stock and bond index funds, and they can be less than 0.2% for international assets. However, investors are left on their own. They must put these assets together in ways that minimize risks for a given level of expected returns. That's great, as long as you're interested in modern portfolio theory (MPT).

Target-date funds can use both managed and index funds to create portfolios that professional managers believe are appropriate for investors. As the target date approaches, managers reduce the allocation to risky assets, such as international stocks, and increase the portion of funds dedicated to less volatile assets like bonds. Most of the best target-date funds have expense ratios of less than 1%, and some even go below 0.1%. As a rule, target-date funds that invest in index funds tend to charge less.

Key Takeaways Index funds offer more choices and lower costs, while a target-date fund is an easy way to invest for retirement without worrying about asset allocations.

Index funds include passively-managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds that track specific indexes.

Investors can combine index funds themselves to get performance similar to target-date funds and reduce fees in the process.

Target-date funds are actively managed and periodically restructured to gradually reduce risk as the target retirement date approaches.

Target-date funds can be riskier than most people expect, but they usually become less volatile than individual stock market index funds as the target date approaches.

Index Funds

Index funds are popular with both individual investors and financial professionals. They include exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds that are created to track a specific index like the S&P 500, the Russell 2000, or the EAFE. Index funds offer broad exposure to the market and have low operating expenses.

Index funds span the gamut of stock and bond investment styles, both domestically and internationally. Others may track obscure indexes or exotic asset classes such as Brazilian small-cap stocks. However, those types of index funds rarely appear in 401(k) plans.

An S&P 500 index fund, an international stock index fund, and a bond index fund provide enough variety to serve as the core of a traditionally-diversified portfolio. Those looking for riskier or less common investment options can choose index funds specializing in small-cap stocks, mid-cap stocks, emerging market stocks, or real estate investment trusts (REITs).

Upside to Index Funds

Index funds are intended to help investors achieve slight portfolio diversification. While an investor is still at-risk if their entire portfolio encompasses the S&P 500, an index fund is a way for an investor to easily gain access to dozens of companies without having to individually invest in each security.

Using this strategy, an index fund investor likely only pays a single portfolio management fee. Alternatively, the investor would have to individually buy each security, incurring dozens of transaction fees. In addition, the investor would have to monitor and rebalance their portfolio to reflect the appropriate composition of the underlying market.

Downside to Index Funds

Like any other investment, there are risks involved in index funds. Any setback that affects the benchmark will be seen in the index fund. If you're looking for flexibility, you won't find it with an index fund, especially when it comes to reacting to price drops in the index's securities. You'll have to change the asset allocation yourself by investing in different index funds.

While most index funds are inexpensive, some come at a high price. For example, the Rydex S&P 500 Fund (RYSOX) has an expense ratio of 1.65%. In addition, index fund offerings may be limited within 401(k) plans. Though broad markets offer thousands of options, your company's retirement plan is likely heavily restricted with much fewer choices.

Target-Date Funds

Target-date funds are worth considering if your company offers them. You can either invest all of a 401(k) account in the appropriate target-date fund or invest in a selection of the investments from the plan's full lineup.

The reason they're called target-date funds is that the assets are restructured at a future date to serve the investor's needs. Mutual fund companies frequently name the funds after the target years. The idea is that the investors will need the money that year, often for retirement purposes. Rather than having to choose a series of investments, an investor can choose one target-date fund to reach their retirement goals.

Target-date funds are in many 401(k) plans. However, company plans usually only offer access to target-date retirement funds from a single provider. Fidelity, Vanguard, and T. Rowe Price are popular choices. All three use their own funds as the underlying investments. Other firms may offer different strategies, such as funds of exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Today, target-date funds are only offered as mutual funds. There are no equivalent ETFs listed at the moment. Index products come in both mutual fund and ETF options.

Upside to Target-Date Funds

If you're interested in a "set it and forget it" style of investing, target-date funds are more appropriate for you. The fund will automatically rebalance and shed risk as you appropriate retirement.

Target-date funds also have the advantage of typically being more diversified than broad index funds. Target-date funds are comprised of equity and fixed-income investments; as an investor gets closer to retirement, the fund will sell equities and buy bonds. As opposed to an index fund that might only invest in one industry or type of security, a target-date fund is often spread across multiple securities.



Downside to Target-Date Funds

Target-date funds are not as ideal for investors who want more control over their portfolios. If you have a specific asset allocation in mind, a target-date fund will not work for you as the asset allocation automatically changes over time.

Target-date funds are often more expensive than index funds. Target-date funds are more often managed and require more action on the behalf of the broker offering the investment vehicle. In addition, target-date funds may give off the impression of security but are often as risky - if not more so - than index funds. For example, target-date funds suffered significant losses again in 2020 after a similar episode in 2008. The T. Rowe Price Target 2025 Fund (TRRVX) lost over 20% at one point during the 2020 market crash.

Some investors are under the false impression that target-date funds always have lower risk than S&P 500 index funds. That is not necessarily true. These funds sometimes start by investing heavily in risky assets like emerging markets and small-cap stocks in an attempt to boost long-term returns. Fund managers reallocate holdings at regular intervals and reduce risk as the fund gets closer to its target date.

hat loss might seem excessive to some investors who are only five years away from retirement. Transferring a portion of assets to a government bond ETF is an easy way to reduce overall risk (and expected returns).

Index vs. Target-Date Funds: Which Is Better? Index Funds Often less expensive

Less diversification per single fund

Does not rebalance asset allocation over time

Often more choices within a 401(k) plan

More diverse offerings (different types of assets or sectors) Target-Date Funds Often more expensive

More diversification per single fund

Rebalances asset allocation over time

Often many but not as many choices within a 401(k) plan

Less diverse offerings (not many different types of assets or sectors)

How Do I Pick an Index Fund? Each index fund will come with a ton of information about the security holdings of the index, the weight of each security, management fees, historical performance, and strategy of the fund. Begin by contemplating your investment strategy. Then, use a broker's website to search and filter index options that meet your investment criteria.

Which Target-Date Fund Should I Choose? A target-date fund is often set up based on an individual's retirement date or age. If you wish to follow industry-wide guidance on your asset allocation, pick the target-date fund whose year corresponds to when you are planning to retire.

Should I Invest In an Index Fund or Target-Date Fund? Both funds are great options - the difference comes down to how much control you want over your investments. With both choices, you're already sacrificing some control as you do not have a say in the underlying securities and weights. With that said, index funds are often better for investors wanting more control over their portfolio. Target-date funds will automatically rebalance and change your asset allocation.

What Are the Downsides of Target-Date Funds? Target date funds tend to be somewhat more expensive than traditional mutual funds or ETFs, largely because they are structured as funds-of-funds and are more actively-managed than passive index funds. But, fees on target-date funds have been trending lower. Another downside is that target-date funds are typically offered in 5-year intervals (e.g., 2030, 2035, 2040, and so on), which means if you plan to retire, in say 2042, you may not have exactly the optimal allocations, although such differences may be small. Another word of caution is that if you use a target-date fund, it should be almost your entire allocation, and you should not mix and match different target-date funds. These defeat the purpose of the target-date fund's inclusive set-it-and-forget-it approach.

The Bottom Line

Actively managed mutual funds such as target-date funds have gotten a bad rap. In many cases, it is well deserved. However, not all actively managed funds are poor investment choices. For example, Vanguard's Wellington Fund combines reasonable fees with almost a century of strong performance.

Regardless of the investment option you choose, it is best to have an asset allocation in mind. If you prefer to actively manage this allocation, index funds are likely the better choice. If not, sit back and let your target-date funds carry you into retirement.
We all invest with the hope that one day we won't have to work, but will have enough money to live off our investments. The question remains, can a regular investor really beat the market? Do we have what it takes to win over the middlemen and institutions that have millions, or even billions, invested in the market? According to Terrance Odean, a finance professor at the University of California, Berkley's Haas School of Business, "Many of the mistakes investors make come from a lack of any understanding of the innate disadvantages they face." In this article, we bring you some of the takes about beating the markets from experts in the field.

Key Takeaways Figuring out whether you can beat the market is not easy one, but the answers generally vary depending on who you ask.

The average investor may not have a very good chance of beating the market.

Regular investors may be able to achieve better risk-adjusted returns by focusing on losing less.

Consider using low-cost platforms, creating a portfolio with a purpose, and beware of headline risk.

David and Goliath

Can you beat the market? The answer to this question is not an easy one, and the answers generally vary depending on who you ask. By beating the market we're talking about everyday working Americans who invest to try to get greater capital gains and more returns than the S&P 500. According to one expert, investors may have to give up something in return for higher returns.

"We all have some larceny in us. We buy securities because we think we know someone or something others don't. I don't think anyone can consistently outperform the S&P 500 without assuming greater than market risk," according to David E. Y. Sarna, author of "History Of Greed."

Don't Model Yourself After the Professionals

While some of us have the toolsand connectionsrequired to make knowledgeable decisions that will lead us to a portfolio with higher returns, others like stockbrokers, bankers, and big corporations most likely have an advantage, right?

Sure, these people in the financial industry have insider information which they cannot legally trade on. But they also possess the necessary financial statement analysis skills to develop a greater insight about a given company.

Don't model yourself after financial professionals who have a history of analytical skills.

Beating the Market: Probabilities

"The reality is there will always be a lure to try and beat the market, especially since those who have beat it consistently are revered so highly (Bill Miller, Peter Lynch) and/or are compensated well (hedge fund managers). I think the market can be beaten, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. Best way to describe it: It's possible but not probable," says Robert Laura, author of "Naked Retirement: A Stimulating Guide To A More Meaningful Retirement" and president of SYNERGOS Financial Group.

According to Laura, the average individual investor has little chance of beating the market. He says the common investor uses mutual funds, is stuck in 401(k) plans which essentially track the broader index, and pays higher fees as compared to stock, index funds, or ETFs. Also, many mutual fund-type investments don't use stop loss order to protect gains and thus do not always provide the type of protection individualized portfolios can perform. As he puts it, "investors are set-up to fail from the get-go."

Investing in 401(k)s is no better. "Most 401(k)s aren't benchmarked and most companies don't have a good investment policy for selecting funds within the program. You can't even get some asset classes in many and most advisors are sales people, not fiduciaries and just taught how to sell funds," adds Laura.

The good thing is many more investors are taking responsibility and interest in their investments. They are taking the initiative to learn how their investments work and are less intimidated. Laura says investors are learning that individual stocks aren't as scary as everyone suggests and there is valuable information available to everyone if they know where to find it and how to apply it.

"The advent of ETFs and index investing allow people to mimic the market, instead of trying to beat it, which is a better, less expensive perspective to have," Laura adds.

A Lost Cause?

"All the evidence supports the disappointing fact that regular investors as a whole underperform the market. As long as they try to 'beat the market' they actually underperform," said Todd R. Tresidder, founder of FinancialMentor.com, in 2010

According to Tresidder, the best way for regular investors to achieve better risk-adjusted returns is by focusing not on out performance, but by losing less. In other words, regular investors have one competitive advantage - liquidity.

"Big investors are the market but the little guy is nimble and can buy or sell without affecting the market - something the big guy can't do. Systematic risk management can work to provide regular investors with similar or slightly improved investment performance relative to the market at substantially less risk," he says.

Helping the Odds

What can an investor do to increase their chances of beating the market? Laura says there are several things you can do.

Save Money

Use low-cost funds and/or a low-cost platform for trades. There really is no sense of trying to increase your chance of getting higher returns if you're going to spend a lot of money investing your money. Look for opportunities to try to cut down on your costs if you're managing your own portfolio. Remember: The best way to make money is to save money.

You Need Discipline

Regardless of what your goals and intentions are, you need to have a plan. And once you have a plan, you need to stick to it, no matter what the circumstances. Establish and follow a discipline which translates into just doing what you said you are going to do.

Portfolio With a Purpose

Give every investment in your portfolio a buy price, hold price, and sell price along with one or two reasons to buy, hold, or sell at that value. This gives you specific criteria to act and provides your portfolio with purpose and specific direction.

Headline Risk

Watch for headline risk. This term refers to the shock of news that may affect a company's stock, industry, or sector. Set up email alerts for your investments so as new information comes out about them, you become aware of it in the early stages to consider changes. Mark your calendar for things to watch like earnings dates, intellectual property timelines, and industry reports like Federal Reserve meetings, unemployment numbers, new housing starts, and other information that will affect the specific sector or security.

Sarna suggests investing in what you know and understand such as solid, profitable small-caps, and even microcaps in niches you can monitor and understand. These can appreciate much more rapidly than equivalently-priced large caps.

The only way to get above market returns is to develop a competitive advantage. "It is either developed through knowledge and information flow, or it is developed through extensive research resulting in an investment strategy that exploits irregular market behavior," says Tresidder.

According to Tresidder, the only way to outperform the markets is to develop a competitive advantage that exceeds transaction costs and passive market return.

The Bottom Line

The debate of whether an individual investor can beat the market is as old as the stock market itself. Those who have found fortune investing will often preach that they possess superior analytical skills which allowed them to predict the market. Those investors who suffer losses will tell a much different tale.
In the study of technical analysis, triangles fall under the category of continuation patterns. There are three different types of triangles, and each should be closely studied. These formations are, in no particular order, the ascending triangle, the descending triangle, and the symmetrical triangle.

Key Takeaways In technical analysis, a triangle is a continuation pattern on a chart that forms a triangle-like shape.

Triangles are similar to wedges and pennants and can be either a continuation pattern, if validated, or a powerful reversal pattern, in the event of failure.

There are three potential triangle variations that can develop as price action carves out a holding pattern, namely ascending, descending, and symmetrical triangles.

Triangles

Triangles can be best described as horizontal trading patterns. At the start of its formation, the triangle is at its widest point. As the market continues to trade in a sideways pattern, the range of trading narrows and the point of the triangle is formed. In its simplest form, the triangle shows losing interest in an issue, both from the buy-side as well as the sell-side: the supply line diminishes to meet the demand.

Think of the lower line of the triangle, or lower trendline, as the demand line, which represents support on the chart. At this point, the buyers of the issue outpace the sellers, and the stock's price begins to rise. The supply line is the top line of the triangle and represents the overbought side of the market when investors are going out taking profits with them.

Ascending Triangle Pattern

Image by Julie Bang  Investopedia 2019

Often a bullish chart pattern, the ascending triangle pattern in an uptrend is not only easy to recognize but is also a slam-dunk as an entry or exit signal. It should be noted that a recognized trend should be in place for the triangle to be considered a continuation pattern. In the above image, you can see that an uptrend is in place, and the demand line, or lower trendline, is drawn to touch the base of the rising lows. The two highs have formed at the top line. These highs do not have to reach the same price point but should be close to each other.

The buyers may not be able to break through the supply line at first, and they may take a few runs at it before establishing new ground and new highs. The chartist will look for an increase in the trading volume as the key indication that new highs will form. An ascending triangle pattern will take about four weeks or so to form and will not likely last more than 90 days.

How do the longs (the buyers) know when to jump into the issue? Most analysts will take a position once the price action breaks through the top line of the triangle with increased volume, which is when the stock price should increase an amount equivalent to the widest section of the triangle.

Descending Triangle Pattern

Image by Julie Bang  Investopedia 2019

The descending triangle is recognized primarily in downtrends and is often thought of as a bearish signal. As you can see in the above image, the descending triangle pattern is the upside-down image of the ascending triangle pattern. The two lows on the above chart form the lower flat line of the triangle and, again, have to be only close in price action rather than exactly the same.

The development of the descending triangle takes the same amount of time as the ascending triangle, and volume again plays an important role in the breakout to the downside. (Some analysts believe that increased volume is not all that important. We, however, believe it to be paramount. We always consider the strength or weakness of volume as being the "straw that stirs the drink.")

Symmetrical Patterns

Image by Julie Bang  Investopedia 2019

So far, we have seen two triangle patterns: one from an uptrend and bullish market move and one from a downtrend with a decidedly bearish look. Symmetrical triangles, on the other hand, are thought of as continuation patterns developed in markets that are, for the most part, aimless in direction. The market seems listless in its direction. The supply and demand, therefore, seem to be one and the same.

During this period of indecision, the highs and the lows seem to come together at the point of the triangle with virtually no significant volume. Investors just don't know what position to take.

However, when the investors do figure out which way to take the issue, it heads north or south with big volume in comparison to that of the indecisive days and/or weeks leading up to the breakout. The breakout generally occurs in the direction of the existing trend. But, if you are looking for an entry point following a symmetrical triangle, jump into the fray at the breakout point.

The Bottom Line

These patterns, the symmetrical triangles as well as those on the bullish and bearish side, are known to experience early breakouts that give investors a "head fake." Hold off for a day or two after the breakout and determine whether or not the breakout is for real. Experts tend to look for a one-day closing price above the trendline in a bullish pattern and below the trendline in a bearish chart pattern. Remember, look for volume at the breakout and confirm your entry signal with a closing price outside the trendline.
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Ambassador Nguyen Manh Hung (R) and Major-General Nguyen Van Huyen congratulate

three awarded officials. (Photo: nhandan.com.vn)

During the ceremony, Major-General Nguyen Van Huyen, Head of the representative office of the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam in Laos, read the Decisions for the presenting of the order and medal while Nguyen Manh Hung, Vietnamese Ambassador to Laos, presented a Friendship Order to Colonel Kiengkham Inphengthavonge, Deputy Head of the Office of the Lao Security Ministry, former Head of the representative office of the Lao Security Ministry in Vietnam; a Friendship Medal to Lieutenant-General Khamveun Xayachac, former Deputy Head of the representative office of the Lao Security Ministry in Vietnam; and a Friendship Medal to Lieutenant-Colonel Seng Phila, former official of the representative office of the Lao Security Ministry in Vietnam.

Ambassador Nguyen Manh Hung said he was honoured to, on behalf of the Vietnamese Party, State and people, present the noble titles to the Lao security officials, confirming that the titles carry a recognition of the Lao cadres in building and reinforcing the traditional friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between Vietnam and Laos, and saying that he hoped the Lao security cadres would continue to make greater contributions to the Vietnam - Laos relations.

On behalf of the awarded officials, Colonel Kiengkham Inphengthavonge confirmed that he would make greater efforts to maintain the special solidarity and deepen the cooperation between the Lao Security Ministry and the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security./.


Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (Source: VNA)



He said the active realization of the Strategic Partnership contents and the early building and then deployment of an action plan for 2017-2020 to tap cooperation potential by both countries will create a new impulse for the growth in the respective countries and the region at large.

President Duterte assured that Philippine people will forever be good brothers and sisters, and friends of Vietnamese people.

He spoke highly of Vietnams role and position in ASEAN and expressed his hope for the two countries to continue working together in actualizing the new ASEAN Community as well as at multilateral forums in the region and globe.

Turning to the East Sea issue, President Duterte showed his concerns about recent happenings in the sea.

He called for parties concerned to exercise self-restraint, without resorting to the threat or use of force, and solve disputes by peaceful measures in accordance with the universally recognised principles of international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Party General Secretary Trong warmly welcomed President Duterte on his official visit to Vietnam and highly valued the results of his talks and meetings with Vietnamese leaders.

He suggested both countries actively realize reached agreements and fully utilize the existing cooperative mechanisms, with the focus on the exchange of high-level visits across the Party, State, National Assembly channels, and people-to-people exchanges.

He also referred to the tapping of cooperation potential in fields of maritime cooperation, rice trading, oil and gas industry, fisheries, mining and services and the promotion of collaboration in multilateral forums, especially in ASIAN and related mechanisms.

The Party leader affirmed that Vietnam stands ready to support and coordinate with the Philippines in accomplishing its ASEAN Chair in 2017, contributing to building a strong, united and developed ASEAN Community.

He reiterated Vietnams position of tackling disputes in the East Sea through peaceful means, including the full respect of legal and diplomatic processes in the absence of threats or use of forces and in compliance with international law, including the 1982 UNCLOS, comprehensively and efficiently implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea and early adopting a Code of Conduct in the East Sea.

He wished the President and Philippine people will success in the nation-building process and actively contribute to peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region./.
Top of the pile has to be the suggestion that a special 30% personal tax rate should apply for a temporary period, as in five years, for Irish (and presumably non-Irish) abroad with certain skills who move into the Irish labour market.

The rationale is obvious, namely to incentivise people with certain scarce and valuable skills to come into the Irish workforce. Not surprisingly and very justifiably, the suggestion has attracted a high level of criticism.

It should come as no surprise that there is a level of annoyance amongst those who stayed in Ireland and worked through the awful conditions that prevailed after 2008 and who would now be placed at a significant tax disadvantage to those who are allegedly being targeted.

It makes perfect sense to encourage those with valuable skills to come into the Irish workplace, but it does not make a lot of sense to discriminate against those who are already here and who possess the skills that are being targeted by the alleged tax incentive.

One hopes that this proposal will never see the light of day.

There is always a lot of hype around the annual budget but the reality is that little can be achieved in a single budget, particularly Budget 2017 which will have around 1bn to dispense.

However, one would hope that any budget  but particularly the upcoming offering  would form part of a longer-term strategy to make Ireland as attractive as possible for labour and job creation.

The personal tax burden that workers face has to be a crucial consideration. Those on the left are, predictably, arguing that no tax cuts should be delivered in the upcoming budget and that the total focus should be on increasing expenditure.

This view of the world fails to appreciate the onerous tax burden that many taxpaying workers face in this country. The recent report from the Irish Taxation Institute showed the burden of taxation that many workers face and the extremely progressive nature of the Irish income tax system.

How often do we hear anti-water charge protesters argue that a progressive tax system should be used to pay for water? This might incline one to think we dont have a progressive tax system. The fact is that we have a very progressive tax system.

Another way to look at the nature of the income tax burden is to consider the fact that in 2006 Ireland had just over two million people working in the economy and they paid 12.4bn in income tax and this accounted for just over 27% of the total tax burden.

In 2016, Ireland will again have just over two million people at work in the economy, but this year those amongst them who pay income tax will hand over 19bn, which will account for over 40% of the total tax take.

This demonstrates the extent to which those who work and pay income tax bore such a significant part of the savage fiscal adjustment that occurred after 2008.

It is essential that the personal income tax burden be used to make Ireland as attractive a place as possible in which to work, but the notion that the existing workforce be discriminated against does not stand up to scrutiny.

In Budget 2017, the process of easing the income tax burden on middle-income workers, in particular, has to begin.

However, it is also important that the minister for finance does not continue with the trend he established over the past couple of years of removing workers from the tax net altogether.

This was the strategy adopted by successive Fianna Fail finance ministers, which had the result of decimating the tax base. The proper tax strategy would have as many people as possible in the tax net, but paying low marginal rates.

The view on the left is that the bulk of the burden should be placed on the shoulders of a small segment of the population that they clearly despise.

The incentive effects of taxation should not be forgotten and those who consistently argue that the solution to every problem is to increase the tax burden on those who pay tax, should be ignored and resisted.

Apart from the tax situation, obviously the quality of public services such as health, law and order, and education should also be focused on, but taxpayers should not be used as scapegoats.
A decline in UK commercial property values will accelerate in 2017, with parts of the London centre seeing a much sharper drop than the average of 10% to 15%, the German banks asset management unit said in a report yesterday.

Simon Wallace, head of alternative asset research at the unit, said the fall could reach 30%.
Celtic Linen, which employs 380 people in Drinagh, Co Wexford, sought the protection of the court through examinership because it had become loss-making in recent years.

Barrister Kelley Smith said the business had been in operation since 1926 and had been supplying bed linen, towelling and table linen to the hospitality sector and scrub suits, patient wear and ward linen to the healthcare sectors.
The disclosure came from Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald.

It should be noted that the overwhelming majority of persons who arrive at the frontiers of the State without permission to enter or reside here are refused leave to land, without ever reaching the stage where they would be considered under the deportation process, she said.

Indeed, this figure has risen substantially to almost 3,500 last year (2015) and is expected to exceed 4,000 this year.

Others voluntarily remove themselves before a deportation order is made.

Her comments came in response to parliamentary question from Independent TD Mattie McGrath in relation to forced deportations.

There were approximately 3,000 people removed or deported from Ireland in 2011, 2,600 in 2012, 2,200 in 2013, 2,700 in 2014, and 3,790 in 2015.

The people who were refused entry or deported had travelled in from five main countries, according to the Department of Justice.

The top countries of origin in percentage terms of deportation or removal are Albania (9.2%), Brazil (9.6%), Nigeria (7.5%), South Africa (7.4%), and Pakistan (6%).

However, a spokesperson for the Irish Refugee Council confirmed to the Irish Examiner that some individuals from Syria were denied entry to Ireland last year.

People from refugee-producing countries such as Syria, Eritrea, and Afghanistan were refused leave to land in Ireland last year, the spokesperson said.

Given the countries of origin involved, and the potential for a protection need arising, there is a serious need for transparency and independent oversight at our borders, to ensure that people who do express fears of persecution or serious harm in their country of origin are properly facilitated in exercising their right to seek protection.

Last year, new legislation in the form of the International Protection Act 2015 gave additional powers to An Garda Siochana to enforce orders where persons subject to deportation orders have failed to comply with their legal obligation to remove themselves from the State.

Since the legislation was amended, 33 persons have been forcibly removed from the State by An Garda Siochana out of a total of 193 deportation orders affected since 10 March, 2016, said Ms Fitzgerald.

The cases refer to any person seeking entry to Ireland, as opposed to those seeking asylum as a result of the migrant crisis in the Middle East.

Various EU member states have agreed to relocate 160,000 asylum seekers, with Ireland promising to relocate 4,000 people, currently residing in migrant hotspots such as Greece and Italy.

As of July 2016, a total of 38 Syrians have been relocated to Ireland.

Furthermore, according to the EUs fifth relocation and resettlement report published in July, Ireland relocated just one unaccompanied minor in that month.
President Tran Dai Quang and Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (Source: VNA)



President Tran Dai Quang and President Rodrigo Roa Duterte made the commitment at their talks in Hanoi on September 29th during the Philippine Presidents official visit from September 28th-29th.

The two countries will also improve the efficiency of bilateral cooperation mechanisms, including the Committee on Bilateral Cooperation at the foreign ministerial level, the Inter-Committee on Sea and Ocean, the Joint Sub-Committee on Trade, the dialogue on defence policy, and the Joint Working Group on Fisheries.

Both sides agreed to work closely together to prepare for the 40 th anniversary of diplomatic ties this year.

President Quang welcomed Filippino investors to Vietnams agriculture, food processing and tourism and asked the Philippines to facilitate Vietnamese businesses investment in infrastructure, oil and gas survey and exploration, mining and services.

He affirmed that Vietnam will offer stable and long-term rice supply to the Philippines.

The two Presidents agreed that national defence-security is an important pillar in the bilateral strategic partnership, and vowed to effectively use existing cooperation mechanisms, including the policy dialogue at the deputy defence ministerial level, while bolstering ties in research and training and the sharing of experience in the UN peacekeeping mission.

The two leaders promised to direct their security agencies to exchange information and cooperate in the fight against crimes, terrorism, drug and human trafficking, and quickly launch negotiations to sign agreements on extradition and the transfer of sentenced persons.

Regarding collaboration in sea and ocean, farming, transport, culture, tourism, people-to-people exchange and education, President Quang spoke highly of the Filipino governments humanitarian policy and cooperation in fishing boat- and fishermen-related issues over the past years. He took the occasion to ask the Philippines to consider releasing all Vietnamese fishermen currently detained in the country.

On regional and global issues of shared concern, the two sides pledged mutual support of the Philippines in hosting the ASEAN Summit and Vietnam in hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit next year.

They agreed to continue coordinating with other ASEAN member states to successfully realise the ASEAN Community and uphold the ASEANs solidarity and central role in the regional architecture.

They committed to maintain and promote peace, security, stability, safety and freedom of maritime and aviation along with unhindered trade in the region, particularly in the East Sea.

They called on parties concerned to exercise self-restraint, refrain from the use of force or threat to use force, show full respect for diplomatic and legal process, settle disputes by peaceful means on the basis of basic principles of international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The two sides reiterated their support of the full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and cooperation for the early formulation of a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).

The same day, President Duterte paid a courtesy call to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, met Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and received Vietnamese business representatives./.
However, the Sinn Fein president refused to say if he will sue over claims levelled in a Spotlight current affairs programme in the North over who sanctioned the killing of Denis Donaldson.

Mr Adams branded the documentary nonsense and last week said he specifically and categorically denied the allegation that he had any involvement in ordering the murder.

Mr Donaldson, 55, a Sinn Fein official and close colleague of Mr Adams, was shot dead in April 2006 at an isolated cottage near Glenties in Co Donegal following his exposure as a British spy.

In a statement, Mr Adams said: I have been consulting with my lawyers and we will now be taking action against the BBC in relation to the totally false allegation contained within the BBC Spotlight broadcast.

This matter is now in the hands of my lawyers and I will not be making any further comment.

It is understood Mr Adams and his lawyers want to pursue the matter as far as possible . He said last week he would not be reluctant to sue if he was advised to.

The BBC defended Spotlight and said its programme dealt with matters of great public interest and that it stood over its journalism.

A spokeswoman said it had not heard from Mr Adams lawyers since the programme was broadcast.

The explosive claim over who sanctioned the spys murder was made by an anonymous man, who claimed he was also a paid state agent in the IRA.

Dissident republican group the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the killing in 2009 but the circumstances surrounding Mr Donaldsons outing as a British agent and subsequent death have long been shrouded in mystery.
Convicted Real IRA chief Michael McKevitt and Co Louth man Liam Campbell were two of four republicans ordered to pay 1.6m in damages to bereaved relatives who took the historic case.

The Real IRA outrage in the Co Tyrone market town in August 1998 killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, and injured 200 others.

The pair took their case to Europe, arguing that the civil trial in Belfast High Court had been unfair.

They said the judge should have applied a criminal rather a civil standard of proof, due to the severity of the allegations, and further claimed that the evidence of an FBI agent heard during the trial should not have been admitted.

The seven ECHR judges unanimously rejected the case and made clear their decision was final. The applicants had not demonstrated that their trial was unfair, and the court dismissed their applications, said an ECHR statement.

McKevitt was jailed for 20 years in August 2003 after being convicted of directing a terrorist organisation and being a member of the Real IRA.

The ECHR case was the latest in a series of separate legal attempts by the four defendants to overturn the 2009 civil judgment.

The relatives who took the action are still pursuing the damages.

No one has ever been criminally convicted of the bomb, which inflicted the most bloodshed of a single atrocity during the Northern Ireland Troubles.

One of the key witnesses in the families case was FBI agent David Rupert, who had infiltrated the Real IRA.

He did not attend the trial in person due to concerns about his security and medical condition.

McKevitt and Campbell argued that their lawyers inability to cross-examine Mr Rupert had been unfair.

The ECHR dismissed this argument, insisting the trial judge had taken the appropriate safeguards and considerations in dealing with the evidence of an absent witness.

The applicants also claimed the judge should have applied a criminal standard of proof  beyond reasonable doubt  rather than a civil one  balance of probabilities  due to the severity of the allegations facing them.

The European judges said that was not necessary because the proceedings had been for a civil claim for damages and there had been no criminal charge involved.

Rejecting both grounds for the application, the ECHR said: The Court found that the national courts findings could not be said to have been arbitrary or unreasonable.

Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was killed in the bomb, described the ruling as vindication for the families.

We feel like we have been under siege since the first judgment, with appeal after appeal, he said.

He said the authorities had to help the families recover the money owed to them.

It would be a very hollow judgment if it was only words, he said.
Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) Seamus McCarthy said yesterday he did not consider the 1.3bn sale of loans linked to property in the North was not a well-designed sales process. He was answering questions from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is examining his critical report into Namas Project Eagle sale.

The C&AG report raised concern about potential conflicts of interest over fixer fees, how the sales process was restricted, and how the deal potentially resulted in losses of 190m for taxpayers.

In a statement to PAC, Mr McCarthy stood over the methods used to audit Project Eagle: I am satisfied that the team tasked to carry out the Project Eagle examination had the requisite skills, knowledge, experience, and expertise to do the required work.

He said attempts to recruit outside consultants for the report had failed, though two officials from Britains national audit offices evaluated the C&AG work.

Mr McCarthy told the PAC that Nama were unhappy from day one with the report. He reiterated that Nama had taken a narrow view when it emerged that advisor and businessman Frank Cushnahan was set to receive a 5m fixer fee working for underbidders Pimco on the deal.

The C&AG report questions why more details were not sought from Mr Cushnahan about any conflict of interest and why the compliance unit of the NTMA, the parent group of Nama, was not consulted. Mr McCarthy agreed that, from his investigation, a sudden change in direction of the sale of the Northern Ireland loans had occurred. The initial focus was that there would not be a firesale and that the loans pertained to mainly Northern properties, but this later changed.

PAC member Shane Cassells questioned what Mr McCarthy thought of Namas bully boy tactics and its criticism of his report and methods used.

He accused Nama of approaching the report in a way that strikes me as a Del Boy attitude.

Mr McCarthy also admitted to PACs Alan Kelly that, in fact, the loss figure of 190m could have been more or even less. There is a margin around that figure, said Mr McCarthy.

The C&AG noted how Nama had not conducted any additional valuations before the sale and also took issue with the discount applied to it.

Mr McCarthy refused to answer queries from PAC members on whether anyone made any personal gain from Project Eagle.
The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) published 19 reports yesterday on residential services for people with disabilities.

Good levels of compliance and a focus on promoting quality of life were found at centres operated by Peacehaven, Three Steps, Walkinstown Association for People with an Intellectual Disability, and Western Care Association.

Inspections into seven Daughters of Charity centres found that while improvements were required, four centres were providing safe services which focused on meeting the needs of residents. In these centres residents were supported to be independent and taught life skills to participate in community-based activities.

At one Daughters of Charity centre in Co Tipperary, infection control was poor with facilities visibly unclean, fire drill records were not sufficient, and residents did not have proper access to psychological services. It also found inconsistent care plans and that staff had substituted medication without first seeking clarification from the prescriber. The nurse on duty has since been sent on medication management training.

A second Daughter of Charity service in Co Tipperary, with 11 residents, was inspected in response to notices proposing to refuse and cancel registration of the centre issued by Hiqa. This latest inspection found increasing compliance with the regulations over the previous two inspections.

The centre was previously found to be unsuitable for the assessed needs of residents with for example, residents in a more restrictive environment than they required and that in another house, the environment had been identified by a psychologist as not being conducive to supporting residents to progress and to reduce levels of behaviours that may challenge.

Another centre operated by this same provider had an inappropriate number of residents living together whose social care needs were incompatible and were not being met.

At Little Angels Association in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, it was found that the governance, management and financial viability of this centre were a serious concern. Following the inspection, the service provider sought a review by a qualified person who confirmed that high risk works had been completed.

Further fire safety concerns were found at a centre operated by North West Parents and Friends Association of Mentally Handicapped Children. Staff had not completed fire safety training, fire doors were ineffective, and fire drills had not taken into account night-time staffing arrangements.

However, there was evidence of good management in the centre including systems to support residents healthcare needs.

Major non-compliances around the safeguarding of residents, infection control and risk management were identified at Nua Healthcare in Kildare after a complaint.

Reports on three centres run by St Catherines Association for children with disabilities found while there had been improvement, there continued to be significant failings in areas such as healthcare oversight, admissions and contracts for the provision of services.
The potential breakthrough in the dispute, which emerged after 30 hours of talks between management and unions, has seen the remaining 11 planned days of industrial action suspended at least until the staff are balloted on the terms.

The pay element of the deal falls almost exactly between the increases that had been sought by the two sides  the company had wanted to implement the 8.25% rise over three years recommended by the Labour Court. The unions, Siptu and the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU), had been looking for 15% over the same time period.

The increases are broken down into 3.75% backdated to January 1 of this year; a further 3.75% with effect from January 1, 2017; and a further 3.75% from January 1, 2018.

What will be particularly welcome to the drivers will be a job evaluation scheme comparing their roles and those of Luas drivers. Bus unions have argued that the terms and conditions of their members have fallen behind those of their counterparts in the light rail system.

The evaluation process is to be carried out by a mutually agreed independent expert, will have a definitive conclusion date and, according to the recommendation document, will have its outcome considered by all relevant stakeholders.

The document also says the company has identified potential productivity measures that have the capacity to achieve savings and accordingly to achieve improvements in pay terms and conditions of employment.

The company will engage with the trade unions on productivity bargaining on a grade by grade basis, says the document.

Non-pay elements include a new drug and alcohol policy which will see all employees tested post accident, for cause and randomly. 5% of employees will be tested in any given year.

Lean management processes will also be rolled out to improve operations.

The deal requires the unions to agree to new schedule changes which will be implemented on week six of the process without negotiation.

Any refusal to fully engage in this process will be deemed to be a breach of this agreement and a rejection of the proposed schedule, the document says.

NBRU general secretary Dermot OLeary said unions believed the proposals are at the optimum that can be achieved at this time.
Crunch budget meetings are to continue between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael next week after discussions between the parties were held yesterday.

It is understood Fianna Fail are unhappy with USC proposals put forward by Michael Noonan, which would include a lowering threshold at which people enter the lowest USC rate and reductions in the rates paid.

Fianna Fail wants Mr Noonan to focus on potentially widening some bands and to look at placing more emphasis on lower and middle-income earners.

Mr Noonan met with Fianna Fail finance spokesman Michael McGrath for a second time yesterday after initial budget discussions last week.

Afterwards, Mr McGrath said: We had a good meeting. From our point of view we are emphasising the issues that are provided for in the confidence and supply agreement. We want a budget which is an overall test of fairness. We want to ensure that the tax package is fair and is pro-enterprise.

Fianna Fail finance spokesman Michael McGrath

Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe also met with his Fianna Fail counterpart Dara Calleary yesterday. The hour-long meeting, which was at a political level with no officials present, was described by both parties as positive.

However, both politicians are expected to have several more meetings before the budget as consensus will have to be reached on major issues around education, health and pensions.

Fianna Fail have been campaigning for a 5 increase in the state pension in the budget, and at a parliamentary party meeting last night, members were told there is a clear expectation this will be delivered upon by the Government. TDs also raised concerns around a possible hike in excise duty on diesel, but Mr McGrath told the meeting he had made it clear to Mr Noonan this could not happen.

Enda Kenny yesterday said Budget 2017 would be prudent, reflecting our need to underpin Irelands economic recovery and to ready us for the future.

Mr Kenny told the Seanad prudence is now especially necessary given that the international environment remains uncertain and cited Brexit and low economic growth rates across the EU. He said the Government would continue to take a responsible approach to the management of the public finances, adding the measures in the budget would be forward-looking and sustainable, and must be focused on those areas where need is greatest.

Mr Kenny said: We have made clear where we have headroom two-thirds will be directed towards investment in public spending and one-third towards tax measures. The budget for 2017 will prioritise new measures to help make peoples lives better and to deliver better services to them, specifically for hard pressed working families.

The Government will also maintain its strong focus on the issues we have identified as being of greatest urgency, not least ensuring a functioning housing market and investment in infrastructure.
Kerry TD and Fine Gael member Brendan Griffin made the call last night after unsuccessful efforts to try and have the issue raised in the Dail.

In a statement, he said that while he welcomes the decision by Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan to raise Irelands concerns directly with Russian ambassador Maxim Peshkov, he fears the formal talks will not go far enough.

Insisting this country must make some attempt to highlight its concerns over the deepening four-year-long humanitarian crisis in the Syrian city, Mr Griffin said the Government must consider expelling Mr Peshkov .

I now believe that the Dail should prioritise time to discuss the unfolding horror in Aleppo and give full consideration to the possible expulsion of the Russian ambassador from Ireland in protest at his countrys deplorable actions against the ordinary men, women, and children of Syria, he said.

The savagery being unleashed in Aleppo at present rivals anything in the history of human conflict. The world cannot ignore this situation and even small countries like Ireland must make our protestations heard. Numerous reports from reputable agencies have indicated that Russia is complicit in the carrying out of war crimes in Syria.

As a nation, we cannot allow such actions to occur without repercussion and I hope that the Dail will give this matter full attention at the earliest possible time.

Tens of thousands of people are believed to have died in Aleppo since it became embroiled in the Syrian civil war. Humanitarian groups say the city is at the centre of a proxy war between Russia and the US.
The amount was disclosed in response to a parliamentary question submitted by Independent TD Mattie McGrath, who sought the totals for his native Tipperary, along with counties Clare, Cork, Galway, Kilkenny, Laois, Limerick, Offaly, and Waterford.

In her reply to Mr McGrath, Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said it was not possible to give a county-by-county breakdown as Garda overtime was recorded and analysed on a divisional basis.
Organisations representing businesses and vulnerable groups have joined with the Policing Authority and politicians in calling for urgent talks to avert the action.

Seamus Boland, chief executive of Irish Rural Link, said that rural communities had suffered enough with the loss of Garda stations and local patrols.

Clearly a strike would increase the anxiety which is pretty high anyway among rural dwellers, especially people living alone, said Mr Boland.

They already have very poor confidence in the system but if a strike goes ahead, frankly that takes away any veil of security that they have. 

That view was echoed by Age Action, which said personal security was one of the most common issues the charity was contacted about, by both older people in rural areas and also those in urban areas in fear from antisocial behaviour, late-night drinking, and joyriding.

Spokesman Justin Moran said: I am certain that among those people the fact that there is the possibility of a Garda strike is going to be a cause of some worry. We would urge all sides to come together to resolve this.

Retail Ireland, which represents thousands of chain stores and independent shops, said assurance was needed over what contingency would be put in place.

There is always a concern about security and street security,said director Thomas Burke. The Garda Representative Association have said they will provide cover where appropriate but well have to keep an eye on things to see what exactly that means and what gaps there might be.

Josephine Feehily, the chairwoman of the Policing Authority, said she would also be pressing the Garda commissioner for details of contingency plans.

I am certainly concerned about the damage to the community confidence in the gardai, she said. We will want to understand, if the industrial action is proceeding, what contingency plans might be put in place. The GRA has talked about emergency services being maintained. We will be anxious to understand what does that mean.

Justice Minster Frances Fitzgerald and Garda Commissioner Noirin OSullivan both urged the GRA to return to talks. The strikes are planned for November 4, 11, 18, and 25, and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors will meanwhile ballot members on possible action in mid-October.
Finance Minister Michael Noonan and Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe met Transport Minister Shane Ross and other alliance ministers yesterday over the groups three-page demands for the budget.

Alliance sources have dismissed reports that Mr Ross and junior minister for flooding Sean Canney engaged in a heated row on Wednesday night over how the group is represented at Cabinet.

Mr Noonan has agreed to come back for further talks next week.

Part of the demands by the alliance is for a review of the programme for government agreed between Fine Gael and the alliance and how it has been implemented.

An alliance source said: There is stuff we want to see implemented or started.

The list of demands includes a commitment to help first-time buyers. It has been suggested that buyers could get a Vat refund. The push to help first-time buyers was one of the alliances demands in government negotiations.

Housing Minister Simon Coveney has already said he is planning some type of first-time buyers grant which he hopes will be included in the budget.

Elsewhere, the alliance wants prescription costs reduced or eliminated for certain groups, including pensioners or people in nursing homes.

We need to start the process of getting them removed, added the source.

The Independent Alliance is also pushing for the lower paid to be the main beneficiaries from any reduction in the Universal Social Charge in the budget.

Mr Noonan told Fine Gael senators and TDs this week that USC cuts for the lowest two rates are the most likely. A 0.5% reduction for the lowest rate would result in some workers receiving an extra 2 a week.

The alliance also want measures to help the elderly and people on hospital waiting lists addressed. Fine Gael ministers have already signalled that the weekly pension is likely to be increased and that the national treatment purchase fund will be reinstated.

A review of a special farmers assistance payment, similar to welfare, is also being sought by alliance members. Alliance members say the threshold for claimants needs to be eased.

Alliance sources have dismissed reports that a row erupted between Mr Ross and Mr Canney this week over how the group is represented at Cabinet. The ministers had lunch together yesterday but sources say that when they met on Wednesday strong words were exchanged about what should be in the budget demand document that was being given to Mr Noonan.

Asked about the document and talks with his Fine Gael counterparts yesterday, Mr Canney told the Irish Examiner: They are very constructive. There is good understanding and attention on both sides. It displays the partnership that is there.

There has been the odd hiccup and there probably will be more. But we are determined to get the budget passed.
At the press conference

According to Ambassador Christian Berger, in 2016, the trade exchange between Germany and Vietnam has reached a new height, with a turnover of nearly EUR9 billion, in which Vietnam has exported goods worth up to EUR8 billion to Germany, making Germany Vietnams largest partner in the European Union (EU).

Vietnams continuous strong growth has attracted German businesses. At present, the German businesses circle is promoting the establishment of a comprehensive bilateral trade office in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, the free trade agreement between EU and Vietnam, signed in February, is considered a convenient foundation for the two countries cooperation in the future.

Regarding political issues, Ambassador Christian Berger stressed that Vietnam continued to be a very important partner of Germany, which was reflected through high-ranking visits by the two countries leaders.

In terms of development cooperation, in 2015, Germany committed to earmark EUR220 million for development cooperation with Vietnam over 2 years, focusing on vocational training, energy and environment.

According to the German Ambassador, in the upcoming time, Germany will continue to side with Vietnam during its reform./.
Barrister Ross Gorman said the action has been taken to protect the integrity of Skills and Enterprise Development Academy Ltd, the school itself, and students who have already paid for courses in the college.

The application has been brought by Tiago Mascarenhas, a director and shareholder, Saiful Islam, a shareholder, and Ian Fleming, a director, in respect of the company which operates the English Language College at 68-72 Capel St, Dublin.

The action is against Mohammed Rezaul Karim, otherwise Rezaul Karim, and his wife, Mahbuba Sultana, who are based in the UK. It is also against John White, James Coyle, and Mohammad Bhuiyan who have purportedly been appointed to the board of the company.

Mr Gorman, counsel for the plaintiffs, said they wanted to ensure staff and host families for the students get paid and the college keeps its official government-sanctioned accreditation.

Counsel said his clients have had ongoing difficulties with Mr Karim and his wife who, it is alleged, have acted in breach of company law. There was a dispute and difficulties over the ownership of shares in the company.

It was claimed Mr Karim, who is involved in a number of English Language Schools in Ireland and the UK, had put the shares of the company in his wifes name and had sought to extract money from the company which he regarded as a personal asset.

The matter came before Mr Justice Michael Twomey at yesterdays sitting of the High Court. The judge, on an ex parte basis, granted the applicants permission to serve short notice of the proceedings on the defendants.

The judge adjourned the matter to a date next week.
The revelation was made at Limerick Circuit Court, when Darren OShea, aged 36, of Casement Avenue, Tralee, sought bail, claiming that, as father of twins miscarried by his partner, he should get bail to attend their funeral ceremony, set for October 7.

The State objected to bail, claiming there were no twins and that OShea was a flight risk.

Brian McInerney, counsel for OShea, said the prison authorities were prepared to allow OShea make a private visit to the funeral home in Tralee, but would not go down the road with his request to attend a Mass of the Angels ceremony.

State solicitor Aidan Judge said the core of the bail application was based on OSheas claim that his partner was pregnant with twins when she miscarried and the application was based on this false premise .

He said the State did not accept that OSheas partner was carrying twins when she miscarried at seven weeks.

Judge Tom ODonnell agreed to a submission by Mr McInerney not to allow Mr Judge introduce medical records relating to OSheas partner into evidence.

Det Sgt Declan Liddane, head of the Kerry Divisional Drugs Squad, alleged that OShea has a serious heroin addiction and alleged he would be a risk to himself and to the general population of Tralee if given bail.

Det Sgt Liddane said: I would not have it on my conscience to agree to bail.

It was alleged that OShea has a history of not turning up for court appearances.

Det Sgt Liddane said that on the instructions of the State Solicitor, Mr Judge, he went to Gleasures funeral home in Tralee on Wednesday. He met with the funeral director, Graham Gleasure, and had been instructed to request to view the contents of the two coffins.

One had a breastplate with the inscription Aaron OShea RIP 2/8/2016. This coffin contained a childs T-shirt, family photos, a lock of adult human hair, and a little 4 white box with a sticker with the name of OSheas partner and a five-digit number on it. This contained something wrapped in tissue. It was not specified in court what was in this box.

The second white coffin had the name Darren OShea on the breastplate. It contained a childs T-shirt, family photos, a lock of adult human hair, and a little toy elephant. Det Sgt Liddan said this coffin contained no biological material.

Judge ODonnell said it is an enormous tragedy to lose twins in a pregnancy. He said he had to look at the application in a cold, dispassionate way and noted that OSheas record of failing to appear in court was of serious concern and he refused bail. He urged OShea to consider the offer of a private visit to the funeral home.
Officials with the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) attended the high-profile Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and faced a grilling over the damning criticism of Project Eagle.

The portfolio of Northern Ireland property-linked debts was originally valued at 4.5bn (5.3bn) but they were bought by Nama for 2bn (to help Irish banks lend again) and eventually sold for 1.3bn (1.6bn).

The big question is just who gained from the property debts offloaded at knock-down prices to US vulture fund Cerberus? It seems it wasnt the taxpayer.

In fact, the taxpayer may have suffered losses of 190m (220m) or more, according to the States spending watchdog, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), who also appeared before PAC yesterday.

Seamus McCarthy, the C&AG, has directly challenged Nama over how it handled the sale of Project Eagle. Not one for muddling his words, Mr McCarthys report suggests the sales process was rushed, it lacked detail for potential bidders and, with all loans sold in one bunch, resulted in the 190m loss.

I feel I do not have sufficient assurance that a different marketing strategy, or different timing of the sale, could not have resulted in Nama achieving a higher price from the sale of the loans, said Mr McCarthy.

But the greater concern is that little was done when it emerged that businessman Frank Cushnahan in the North, advising Nama about its deal, was set to pocket 5m in a success fee, along with lawyers Brown Rudnick and Belfast solicitors Tughans. The latter two firms went on to advise the winning bidder Cerberus about the deal, once underbidder Pimco had moved aside.

The crux of the issue raised by Mr McCarthy is why nobody shouted stop, why alarm bells did not ring out in Nama when success or fixer fees were formally linked to the Pimco bid in March 2014.

The same question will be put to Finance Minister Michael Noonan next week when he is quizzed about failing to halt the Project Eagle deal when the potential conflict of interest arose then.

Mr McCarthy says Nama took a narrow view of the issue and basically should have done more. They should have asked Mr Cushnahan about the matter, they could have sought professional advice, he maintains.

Nama admitted to PAC that, if the agency had known what it knows now, it would have removed Mr Cushnahan and terminated his role as adviser from its Northern Ireland committee.

Too many questions now hang around Project Eagle. And its not just the damning C&AG report which suggests that.

Mr Daly yesterday said the agency was satisfied it managed Mr Cushnahans conflicts of interest appropriately. Mr Cushnahan was a not a Nama insider and he was peripheral as far as Nama was concerned.

Throughout proceedings, the two State agencies stood their ground as TDs attempted to get answers.

Mr McCarthy maintains his office had the expertise for its inquiry into Project Eagle while Nama claims the report fell short of the standard required and used in the private sector. Nama chairman Frank Daly also insists Project Eagle achieved value for money.

The irony of course is that, currently, the Government officially accepts both sides and stands by both State bodies.

PAC chairman Sean Fleming will lead further investigations into the Project Eagle deal, producing a report by Christmas. By then, it is likely that a fresh full inquiry agreed by the Dail will have been launched into the complex circumstances around Project Eagle.
At yesterdays meeting of the Joint Committee on Health, the minister said there are 629 patients whose medical care had been completed this week. The patients cannot leave the hospital because other necessary care, support or accommodation has not been provided.

Mr Harris said the number of delayed discharges is still far too high: It has been higher; it has been lower. It needs to be much lower.

Latest HSE figures show that there were 608 delayed discharges in July, compared to 630 the previous month.

I am convinced that the key to making progress in our emergency departments lies with delayed discharges, the minister said.

Older people, or their families, should be free to choose a nursing home but he believes they could be somewhere better, other than an acute hospital bed.

Additional funding of 40m has been provided under the Winter Initiative to reduce ED overcrowding this winter. Key measures include an extra 950 home care packages and an additional 58 transitional care bed approvals every week.

However, the minister said they should not ignore the elephant in the room  the silo mentality on releasing available funding within the health service.

He had resisted saying too much because he knew the Oireachtas Committee on the Future of Health Care is looking at funding structures and hopes there will be cross-party agreement on a 10-year plan.

I personally believe there is significant merit in looking at how our hospital groups and our community health organisations operate, he said.

If people are protecting budgets  the hospital protecting their budget and the community protecting their budget and the person in the hospital who needs to get you out to home today does not actually control the budget for the home care, I personally think that is a problem.

Senator Colette Kelleher said she is shocked that 662 women in Cork were waiting for gynaecological surgery and a further 490 with gynaecological problems were waiting to be seen as an out-patient  the highest number in the country.

Mr Harris promised to look at the gynaecological waiting lists and said he would get back to her.

The minister also told Fine Gael TD Kate OConnell the way patients were treated when they experienced a tragedy, or adverse event was quite shameful.

Ms OConnell said it is absolutely barbaric that a woman who suffered a tragedy or adverse event in a maternity hospital has to be examined by two separate sets of medical experts appointed on behalf of her legal team and that of the State. It is degrading and demeaning, she said.

Mr Harris said the system that is too adversarial would be reformed so women feel supported at a very vulnerable time.
The study now, pay later model is one of three options put forward in the report published in July by the expert group chaired by Peter Cassells. But the USI, Irish Federation of University Teachers, Impact, Siptu and Teachers Union of Ireland say the Government should instead back another option  significantly increase public funding in the sector.

The Cassells report said there would be a 600m annual shortfall between current income and the amount needed to maintain standards in third level within five years.
Disability expert and lawyer Claudia Gordon has a cochlear implant and is a senior figure in the US Department of Labor, while Leah Katz-Hernandez works as President Barack Obamas head receptionist. She has even taught Mr Obama some sign language.

The conference was set up by Andrew Geary, from Ballyhooley, Co Cork, whose son Calum, aged 7, is deaf.

Andrew spent nearly a year fighting to get a sign language interpreter for Calum in his classroom at St Columbas school, Douglas. Calum is a twin and Andrew became increasingly worried on realising Calum was falling behind his brother, despite being equally as clever.

I fought to get the interpreter so Calum has a deaf SNA as well as the interpreter. It means the interpreter can explain to Calum and his SNA what the teacher is saying. Its made a huge difference and I just want other children to have similar opportunities, hence the conference, he said.

A deaf student is seven times less likely to attend third level than their hearing peers, according to recent figures. The system must understand every deaf and hard-of-hearing child needs access to language and literacy to access education, and access to education to get equality, he said.

As part of Andrews efforts to fight for his son, he discovered Mark Marscharks work on deaf children in education and realised the yawning gap between education for deaf children in Ireland and what is happening internationally.

Marschark will attend this weekends conference at the Heritage Hotel in Portlaoise.

More than 2,300 deaf and hard-of-hearing children attend mainstream and special schools.
The 17-year-old boy appeared at the Dublin Childrens Court charged with 26 counts of theft from a named man on August 13.

The incidents are alleged to have taken place in Dublin city centre, Donnybrook, and Dolphins Barn.
The Commission said Ireland needs to ensure that urban waste water is adequately treated in 38 agglomerations, including Cavan, Clonakilty, Cork City, Dundalk, Killarney, Killybegs, Longford, Navan, Portarlington, Thurles and Waterford City.

The commission said an additional letter of formal notice was sent to the Irish authorities in September last year and following the latest warning, it said if Ireland fails to act within two months, the case may be referred to the Court of Justice of the EU.

Under EU law, towns and cities are required to collect and treat their urban waste water, as untreated waste water can put human health at risk and pollute lakes, rivers, soil and coastal and groundwater.

According to the commission, the last deadline passed at the end of 2005 and required the setting up of collecting systems and treatment for discharges from medium-sized and small agglomerations discharging into freshwater and estuaries agglomerations.

Responding to the commissions strongly-worded statement, a spokesman for the Department of the Environment said: The issues raised by the Commission are different for different areas. In some instances it relates to perceived inadequacies with collection systems/sewers, in other the capacity of treatment plants, and in others the level of performance of the treatment in place. Where agglomerations are not compliant with the requirements of the Directive, Irish Water has plans and programmes in place to address these deficiencies. In some instances engagement with the Commission will continue with regard to whether or not the agglomeration is currently already compliant.

The spokesman said the two-month deadline is only for the Irish authorities to respond to the specific concerns raised by the Commission with regard to the 38 agglomerations, and that the breaches reflected a historic shortfall in investment levels in this area.

Whilst the directive has many specific deadlines, in general 2005 was the latest date for compliance for each agglomeration. Progress has been made over recent years  for example in 2009, 57% of agglomerations requiring secondary treatment has such treatment in place, whereas by 2014 this stood at 80%.

The spokesman said operational issues or adverse weather conditions could also be a factor in some areas being in breach, and added: Compliance is a priority for Irish Water.
AMANDA KNOX, the controversial new documentary from Netflix, is an intensely disorientating watch  especially if you are one of the many who has already reached a firm opinion regarding the guilt or innocence of the American student accused of the grotesque, sexually motivated murder of her flatmate in Italy in 2007.

We are all interested in these true crime stories and trying to solve these whodunnits. We forget there is a tragedy behind them, says Brian McGinn, producer of the doc, which arrives on the streaming service today.

Everybody is interested in this idea of a sex crime  this idea of girl on girl crime. The media really ran with that because it is so appealing.

Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were finally acquitted of the killing of University of Leeds student Meredith Kercher by the Italian High Court last year, with crucial police DNA evidence connecting them to the crime deemed deeply suspect.

And yet the Seattle native is still widely perceived as having escaped justice on a technicality and to have indeed been responsible for the death of her house-mate at their apartment in Perugia. The Netflix documentary invites us to at least consider the possibility that Knox was stitched up by an excitable media, led by the British tabloid press, and by an Italian justice system which, owing to Knoxs colourful sex life, rushed to caricature the accused as a she-devil and temptress.

CELEBRITY STATUS

Thus, McGinn and director Rod Blackhurst suggest, she ended up on trial, not for what she had or hadnt done, but because of who she was: an attractive outsider confident in her sexuality.

The immediate point of entry is that people know a little bit about the story and they think they know a lot, says Blackhurst. Every single one of the people in the case  it feels as if their version of what happened has not been fully heard out. When something complex gets reduced to headlines it automatically encourages the public to leap to conclusions.

Knox cuts a strange figure throughout the film  at once naive and steely, and clearly ill at ease under the spotlight. When she speaks about the case it is in hippyish aphorisms.

People love monsters, she says, when they get the chance, they want to see them.

As Blackhurst and McGinn remind us, somebody was convicted of the killing of Kercher. Perugia neer do well Rudy Guede, who received a 16 year sentence for murder and sexual assault (later reduced to nine years). The point the movie makes is that Guede was a far less enticing villain than Knox. He was a local miscreant of African extraction, she a glamorous American christened Foxy Knoxy by the tabloids.

A group sex crime a sex game Meredith killed for refusing sex. What a great story, a fantastic buzz, says Nick Pisa, the former Daily Mail reporter in the documentary. It was Pisa who published Knoxs leaked prison diaries in which she detailed the seven men she had slept with in Italy  a list compiled after she was falsely told by the Italian police she was HIV positive.

It was a particularly gruesome murder, throat slit, semi-naked, blood everywhere, says Pisa.

Having finally put the case behind her last year, why would Knox wish to talk about it again?

You have to remember, for a large portion of this, she was in prison, says McGinn. You had people photographing all these headlines. It didnt feel as if she was being treated as a person. She was being looked at as a concept. As she says in the documentary, even today she will be in a grocery store and people will go, Woah  its you. She became an accidental celebrity.

Nobody had really heard from her at any length. there was a lot of noise, adds Blackhurst. Having her and the [Italian] prosecutor ... you get a lot of point and counter point.

At its heart Amanda Knox is more interested in holding a mirror up to the audience than uncovering new bombshells regarding Knoxs guilt. The press whipped itself into a frenzy over the idea of a 20-year-old temptress killing Kercher in a sex attack gone wrong. It was a narrative the world was happy to take at face value. McGinn and Blackhurst invite us to consider our own culpability in all of this.

Murder victim Meredith Kercher

PERFECT COMBINATION

Here was the perfect combination, says McGinn. You had this beautiful old town, an ancient way of life. Then all of these young people from all of these countries. There was something about it  the headlines wrote themselves Amanda was portrayed as unnatural, bestial, sexual. Her prison diary, leaked to the press, talked about her sexual partners.

Nine years on, the appetite for juicy true-crime stories is arguably stronger than ever, as testified by HBOs The Jinx and Netflixs own Making A Murderer.

But though the latter, in particular, has been a major hit, but the producers have also been accused of manipulating the facts to tell a better story.

So it is natural for viewers to wonder if the same is not happening here. Kerchers family are not interviewed (they appear in archive footage) and, though prosecutor Giuliano Mignini is granted screen-time in which to present his case, its Knoxs perspective that is nonetheless front and centre.

There is a tenuous connection between the true crime story and justice, says McGinn. We are perhaps at a point where we can have that conversation. You start going from, Wow this story is unbelievable to ask yourself, Well, why am I so interested in this?

One idea she brought up is that people have been looking into her eyes, looking at how she behaves. She points out that this isnt objective evidence at all. That is a powerful moment in the film.

Do the filmmakers think she is guilty?

It is a natural question to ask, says McGinn. But there has been a final word on that. The issue we wanted to tackle is why is everybody asking the question? Why are they coming to conclusions on one side or the other?
Think adolescence and you think angst and negativity  its not a phase that many of us remember with much pleasure. However, according to positive psychologist Michaela Avlund and schoolteacher Margaret McCormack, while happiness may not be an emotion familiar to many teenagers, they can be taught it. They know, because theyve tried it  and very successfully  with nearly 60 teenagers.

Last autumn, the two teamed up to provide courses in happiness to Transition Year students in Colaiste Chraobh Abhann in Co Wicklow. It all started with a chance meeting between Michaela , who has a masters degree in positive psychology, and second-level teacher Margaret, then a transition year co-ordinator, in a local cafe. Michaela happened to mention that she was preparing to publish a book about happiness skills  Happiness Skills; Based on Positive Psychology.

Margaret was instantly intrigued: I feel that teenagers today seem to struggle more than they would have 10 or 15 years ago. They appear to have more challenges, partly as a result of the pressures exerted by social media. Life today can be more cruel, she says, adding that Colaiste Craobh Abhann promoted the need for positive mental health.

We were interested in bringing the skills into the school.

Michaela, who is Danish by birth but has been living in Ireland for more than 20 years, was then invited to teach the skills of happiness to 58 students in two groups through weekly workshops during September, October, and November 2015.

Michaela, who is scheduled to present a number of workshops and talks at the Mind Body Spirit Festival at Dublins RDS later this month, recalls: I was writing my book at the time. It was about the happiness skills and how important they are and how we need these skills to give us the resilience required to withstand the tough parts of life.

Margaret thought that what I was talking about was very relevant to teenagers. Research has shown that you can change the environment of your brain. When we get into a very down frame of mind and begin to ruminate about negative things, there are skills which can help us out of that space and create a happy life that makes us well.

Michaela Avlund, the author of Happiness Skills, sought to teach students that they themselves had the power to create positive relationships with other people.

She set out to teach the teens how to stimulate the feel-good part of their brains using these skills: Research, says Michaela, has shown that a particular part of the brain, the right pre-frontal cortex, is a kind of defence system which promotes the production of stress hormones such as adrenalin and cortisol. If this area is overly-stimulated, too much of these hormones is produced. They build up in the body, causing stress, illness, and negative thinking.

However, she says, stimulating the left pre-frontal cortex produces of feelgood hormones such as serotonin and dopamine. The teenagers were intrigued by the idea that they could literally control their emotions by stimulating the production of more positive hormones through managing their perceptions and behaviour.

They studied different strategies and formulas which showed them how to view situations or experiences in a more positive light. Part of it is learning how to turn around an unpleasant occurrence by taking the time to consider how it may have happened, she says. Michaela gives the example of an apparently inexplicable argument between friends.

This is about finding alternative interpretations of what happened, says Michaela, who explains that one friend might already have been upset about something else before the row occurred. Students also learned about the need to consciously attempt to have positive interactions with other people.

I wanted to teach the students that in them lies the power to create positive relationships with other people by encouraging, listening to each others dreams, being supportive and being able to forgive when we get hurt, says Michaela, who is creating a series of Youtube clips to accompany each chapter of her book.

Students discussed the concepts of assertiveness, problem-solving, character strengths, and forgiveness, and received a specific formula for letting go of emotions such as hurt or anger. It was fascinating, according to Happiness Skills participant Sinead Conway, 17 , now a 5th year student at Colaiste Chraobh Abhann.

Wed never had anything like this before. Most of it was about how to take the positive out of the negative, she says, adding that she found the course encouraged character development.

I learned a lot of skills  we learned how to write out a problem and look at the different possible solutions, and how to focus on your strengths rather than weaknesses, says Sinead, adding that learning how to see a situation from someones elses point of view helps in relationships and family life.

I learned from the classes  it made me feel that its your own responsibility to make your thinking better.

Sinead suffers from stress, and believes that the skills will help her tackle the challenges of the Leaving Certificate course.

I think Ill take a lot of what we did in class forward into the Leaving Certificate course.

Michaela adds: You can do so much if you use these tools, but you need to keep doing them on a day-to-day basis. It can create positive habits that will stand to teenagers.

Manus de Paor, 16, in fifth year at Chraobh Abhann, also attended the course. It opened his eyes in a number of ways, he recalls  and taught him the benefits of just chilling.

Theres a big stigma for lads about talking about the challenges you have in life but, the way this class was set up, it was very easy to discuss challenges so you were going to open up about stuff the way that lads would not normally do.

We learned how it can help you to act kindly towards others and do things that are beneficial to others and take the time to act nicely. I think everyone in the class changed a bit, and in a positive way  we were friendlier, nicer, less cliquey!

Learning the importance to your happiness of taking time out for yourself rather than obsessing with online games was fascinating, says Manus.

I tried that during the summer, just taking time out to just chill and not to do an activity like playing a game on your phone but to reflect. I find it helps. It gives you more perspective on things that are going on. I think it makes you feel more chilled and happy and I found that the classes give you more confidence to talk to people.

It encourages you to be more confident and to start from a point where you accept that maybe everyone has some good in them. I felt it was all very relevant.

Margaret says that, after those first workshops finished  the school plans to run them again in early 2017  she felt it had improved the students sense of well-being.

They learned about how making the right decisions makes your day and your life. As a class this group decided that if they saw someone doing something nice they would say well done.

Another thing that got across to them was the strength and power of a smile and a greeting  that really struck a chord.

Positive psychologist Michaela Avlund will be speaking at the Mind, Body, Spirit, and Wellness Festival in Dublins RDS from Saturday, October 29 to Monday 31. Her talk will explore how You have the power to change your brain. she will also present an assertiveness workshop on Knowing what you need and pursuing it with kindness.

For more information see www.mindbodyspirit.ie. For more information, visit Michaela Avlunds website, www.happinessskills.ie/

TURN  a negative into a positive
National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and Speaker of Myanmar Lower House U Win Myint (Source: VNA)



During their meeting in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar, on September 29th, the Vietnamese top legislator cherished the close political ties and cooperation achievements scored by the two countries over the years.

The two sides have maintained the regular exchange of high-level visits and meetings where their leaders exchanged experience and built political trust, she said.

The NA Chairwoman congratulated Myanmar on its attainments in national reconciliation, security and political stability, economic development and foreign affairs.

Myanmars hosting of the 37th ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA 37) demonstrates that regional countries have trust in the country and appreciate its increasingly important role and position in the world arena, she noted.

The guest said her visit to Myanmar, also her first overseas trip since taking office, aims to convey the Vietnamese legislatures resolve to consolidate and boost the traditional friendship and multi-sided cooperation with the country while fostering the bilateral legislative ties.

For his part, U Win Myint said Myanmar wishes to partner with the Vietnamese NA in making law.

Applauding Vietnams socio-economic achievements, particularly in aquaculture and seafood processing, the host noted his hope that Vietnam will share its experience in this field with Myanmar.

He highlighted the similarities shared by the two countries parliaments, such as the percentage of female deputies exceeding 20 percent, saying he hopes that the two bodies will step up their affiliation to elevate their role and contribute to beefing up the Vietnam-Myanmar relationship.

The Vietnamese and Myanmar legislatures have closely coordinated with each other at regional and international inter-parliamentary forums such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the AIPA, he said, calling for Vietnams contributions to the AIPA 37 to be hosted by Myanmar from September 29th to October 3th./.
DESPITE their unequivocal Europeanism, the Irish have been serially mistreated by the European Union.

When Irish voters rejected the Treaty of Lisbon in 2008, the EU forced them to vote again until they delivered the right outcome.

A year later, when private Irish banks imploded, threatening their (mainly) German private creditors with severe losses, Jean-Claude Trichet, then the European Central Banks president, immediately informed the Irish government that the ECB would shut down ATMs across the Emerald Isle unless Irelands unsuspecting taxpayers made the German banks whole.

Ireland acquiesced, its public debt ballooned, emigration returned, and the country remains bruised and despondent. With the EU still refusing meaningful reduction of a debt burden unfairly borne by the younger generation, the Irish remain convinced, correctly, that the EU violated their sovereignty on behalf of foreign bankers.

Irelands greatest weapon against the ensuing debt deflation was its ability to attract US-based tech giants, by offering them a combination of EU law, a well-trained English-speaking workforce, and a 12.5% corporate tax rate.

Though the shell-like subsidiaries of global tech conglomerates have little positive impact on most households income, Irelands establishment is proud of its links with the likes of Apple.

Now, the European Commission is jeopardising the Governments special relationship with Apple by demanding that it claw back 13 billion in taxes from the company.

Is the Commissions latest intervention another example of EU bullying, in violation of Irelands sovereignty? Comparing Trichets 2009 intervention and the current standoff over Apple holds important lessons beyond Ireland and, indeed, Europe.

In the eurozones early years, German financial institutions channelled a torrent of capital into Irelands commercial banks, which then lent it to real-estate developers.

The ensuing property bubble resulted in white elephants in Dublins financial district, row upon row of new blocks of flats in the middle of nowhere, and a mountain of mortgage debt. When the bubble burst after 2008, land prices collapsed, debts went bad, and Irelands private banks failed.

The ECB, in an affront comparable to British behaviour during the 1845-52 Famine, instructed the Government to invoke financial stability to force Irelands weakest citizens to repay every euro the defunct private banks owed to German creditors. Financial stability was obviously a smokescreen: taxpayers were forced to repay even the debts of a bank that had already been closed (thus systemically irrelevant).

The roots of the Apple deal are older than the ECB. In 1980, a young Steve Jobs visited an Ireland eager to escape underdevelopment. Apple eventually created 6,000 jobs in the country, in exchange for a sweetheart tax deal allowing it to shield its European revenues from taxation by recording them there.

To this day, the proceeds of every iPhone sold in Paris or in Stockholm (net of its Chinese assemblers production costs) go to Apples Irish subsidiary Apple Sales International. As a result of the original Apple-Ireland deal, ASI pays a miniscule tax on these earnings, effectively exempt from the ultra-low 12.5% corporate-tax rate.

This arrangement also required the usually vigilant US Internal Revenue Service to play along. ASIs profits stem from Apples intellectual property (IP) rights, which are based on research and development conducted exclusively in the US (most of it underpinned by federal government funding). These profits should, therefore, be taxed in the US.

Curiously, the IRS is choosing not to enforce Apples obligation to pay tax on its profits from US-sourced IP returns. Instead, Apple charges ASI a symbolic fee for allowing it to profit from Apples IP rights, for which it pays a tiny tax to the IRS. Meanwhile, ASI is allowed to keep, in Ireland, profits representing close to two-thirds of the revenue from the sale of every Apple product sold outside the US. As a result, Apple has amassed untaxed cash reserves of up to $230 billion.

Unlike in 2009, the Irish Government is protesting the EU authorities recent Apple ruling, pointing out that tax policy is in the purview of national governments, not the union.

And, in a recent joint letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the EUs other 27 national governments, 185 American CEOs alleged the EU had over-reached yet again, resulting in a self-inflicted wound for Irelands and Europes economy. But they are wrong: Irelands sovereignty is not an issue here. Apple would not have based itself in Ireland were it not for the EUs single market, a commons that requires common rules. One of these rules is that governments cannot offer aid to some companies that is not available to others.

Suppose, for example, that the Greek government, seeking to attract 6,000 jobs to its ravaged economy, offered Apple a subsidy of 110,000 per job per year, or 660m. Over two decades, the total subsidy would come to slightly more than 13bn. Were the EU to permit Greece to offer Apple such a deal, the other EU states, including Ireland, would revolt.

Suppose further that the Greek government proposed waiving corporate tax for 20 years on all revenue Apple earned in the rest of the EU but booked in Athens  say, 13bn. The European Commission would then have a duty of care to the European commons to demand that Greece immediately recoup that 13bn  exactly as it is telling Ireland to do today.

Every time the EU acts as a colonial usurper, as it did in 2009, it undermines the legitimacy of its good and proper actions and strengthens the xenophobic, anti-European Nationalist International. Europes only beneficiaries, much to the delight of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, are isolationist Brexiteers, the far-right Alternative for Germany, Frances National Front, and illiberal governments in Poland, Hungary, Croatia, and elsewhere.

The lesson to be learned from comparing Trichets 2009 intervention with the European Commissions current stance on Apple is simple: Europeans real enemy is free riding by the few on the backs of the many. Without common institutions, Europeans cannot be defended from the exploitation and antisocial practices that big business and its political agents portray as economic common sense.

Trichet compromised Irelands sovereignty to facilitate German bankers free ride on the shoulders of Irelands taxpayers. As restitution, the ECB should take on its books part of Irelands public debt.

But the EU must not allow Ireland to abuse the European commons by offering Apple a deal that no other member state could. The right response to past injustices is to recover sovereignty in a Europe where the powerful  whether German bankers or American smartphone makers  are prevented from preying on the weak.

Yanis Varoufakis, a former finance minister of Greece, is professor of economics at the University of Athens. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2016.
1. What are gardai seeking?

Frontline gardai want the Government to restore pay and increments lost during austerity.

The Garda Representative Association (GRA) has signalled it will unilaterally withdraw services and not report for duty on November 4, 11, 18 and 25 unless there is substantial and significant progress towards real and tangible increases in pay.

This occurred after a ballot of GRA members showed 95% were willing to take industrial action after rejecting a Department of Justice proposal on pay

2. So how much is a garda paid?

New gardai are paid 23,171. After one year, they are due to receive an extra 2,301 to bring their salary to 25,472. After 19 years service, a rank and file Garda can expect a salary of 45,793.

However, the rejection of the Lansdowne Road Agreement has led to the imposition of FEMPI which will see gardai lose their pay increments. The Government has also taken away the rent allowance of 4,017.55. This means are earning over 6,000 less than they expected.

3. Why is their case different than other civil servants?

Primarily, unlike other civil servants, gardai do not have access to state mediation bodies and are legally not permitted to take strike action. The GRA also argue they have been hit more than other civil servants by austerity pointing out pay for new recruits is among the worst in the civil service.

It has also been pointed out gardai are the only public servants to work a 40-hour week and should be entitled to different sick leave rules, due to dangers associated with the job.

4. Where do the other garda unions stand?

The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI), which represents around 2,500 supervisors, said it is also considering industrial action.

Its president Antoinette Cunningham said the union was considering action after significant new information emerged from the proposed Public Service Commission on Pay and matters relating to the Lansdowne Agreement.

5. Whats the Governments position?

Tanaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald has said her department is open to meeting the GRA to discuss its members concerns. However, she stressed gardai have been subject to the same cuts in pay as other public servants and have also benefited in terms of restoration of pay under the Lansdowne Road Agreement. The Government is determined not to budge from the Lansdown Road Agreement as it fears any deal with gardai could lead to unrest in other sections of the public sector,

6. But isnt it illegal for the gardai to go on strike?

Yes. It is a criminal offence  punishable by fines and possible imprisonment  to encourage or induce members to withdraw their service or not to perform their duties.

7. What happens if they break the law?

A person guilty of such an offence could face a fine of up to 3,000 and/or up to a year in prison if convicted in the district court, and a fine of up to 50,000 and/or up to five years in prison if convicted in the Circuit Court.

8. What was the blue flu?

This was the name given to the last time the gardai took industrial action in 1998. It was the first work stoppage in the history of the force.

9. What happened then?

The blue flu involved some 5,000 members of the force calling in sick to work on the same day. The industrial action was called over mounting anger among gardai over pay levels. It left some parts of the country without any gardai on duty while the Dublin force was reduced by 68%. As part of a contingency plan, the army was put on standby, some stations were closed and some court sittings cancelled. Then Garda Commissioner Patrick Byrne described the move as a black day for his force.

10. How was that resolved?

At the time, the GRA vowed that more mass sick days would be taken unless its demand for a 7% pay increase was met. However, within weeks, a better pay deal was accepted.

11. What are the gardai planning to do now?

They will take industrial action up to and including a unilateral withdrawal of services on four days.

However, GRA general secretary Pat Ennis has said the action would not involve a blue flu type situation where gardai would call in sick but rather a withdrawal of services.

12. Does that mean there will be no gardai or a reduced number on the street?

Potentially, yes.

13. Can the Government not just call in the army?

During the blue flu in 1998, the army was put on standby as part of a contingency plan. Should industrial action go ahead, it is likely the Government will move to have a similar contingency plan in place.
WE have crossed some invisible line when it comes to repealing the 8th amendment to the Constitution and there will be no going back now.

What we dont know is what lies at the end of that line. What happens after a referendum is held to remove this highly contentious element from our Constitution? There are no guarantees that an abortion referendum will be held, but given the crossing of that aforementioned line, a fact copperfastened by the momentum around the Repeal the 8th marches last Saturday, it is almost impossible to see how a vote can not take place.

It is what happens between this and then which is of concern. If the memories we have of last years same-sex marriage referendum are all of the warm, fuzzy, loved-up kind, the way things are squaring up, the Repeal the 8th one is going to be the direct opposite.

I came out a long time ago to make clear my position that I believe there should be abortion in Ireland. I do not just want it for women who are given a diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality, but for women who, for all sorts of reasons, do not wish to continue a pregnancy and have the right to have that termination carried out in their home country.

This is a heated subject globally, but it can be legitimately argued that Irish society is utterly overloaded with emotional baggage on abortion. We have a fairly special case here in Ireland, given the dominance of the Catholic Church, our treatment in the recent past of women who got pregnant while unmarried, the mother and baby homes, and the Magdalene laundries. There is also the shameful fact that 12 women leave our shores every single day to go to another country in order to have an abortion. For those reasons, and more, we are bound to get hot under the collar when it comes to discussing pregnancy terminations. There is the added factor that those on the Repeal side can now sense victory within their grasp, having been forced to endure the madness of the current restrictive regime for so long.

But what has been disturbing to observe is the increasing illiberalism of a growing number of those on the same side as me who simply will not tolerate any dissenters; the sense that question or doubt of any type is traitorous.

For instance, to agree with the criticism of Fine Gael TD Ciaran Cannon over the decision by the AAA/PBP TDs to wear Repeal jumpers in the Dail chamber on Tuesday felt vaguely treasonous. The Galway TD made the reasonable point that when he brought a group of schoolchildren into Leinster House recently they were told to remove T-shirts with the word CoderDojo  a community coding club for young people  before entering parliament.

Social media has been fantastic for galvanising the Repeal the 8th movement, but it is also now an increasingly hostile place for people with questions. Needless to say, Mr Cannon got abuse for making his point.

Those of us who have long wished to see a liberalising of our abortion laws have also watched in frustration and anger over the years as the anti-abortion side proudly took their fight to the streets, with their little tiny gold feet pinned to the lapels and their shout-you-down Ive God on my side manner of arguing. We heard of the massive funding they received, mainly from the US pro-life movement. In recent years, TDs and senators have spoken more publicly of the huge pressure they were put under with letters, emails, and some other unsavoury material they received in the post over the years from the pro-life brigade, not to mention the protests outside constituency clinics or, indeed, their homes.

Watching last Saturdays marches and the enormous surge of support that now exists, it is easy to forget that, even a few short years ago, it was a far harder station to openly support and campaign for abortion rights in Ireland. As an aside, it is so frustrating now when it comes to protest marches that it is virtually impossible to get any sort of accurate estimate of how many people took to the streets of the capital on a given Saturday. There was a time when you could rely on the gardai to give an estimate, but now, whether it is an abortion march or a water protest rally, it seems too political for them to proffer an estimate. Ive seen e stimates of last Saturdays march that range from 10,000 to 30,000 to tens of thousands. Anyway, even if it was 500,000 it would not be the lead item on the RTE news at 6 oclock on a Saturday because the station bosses got so much stick from the last government on the coverage of Irish Water, so they simply go for the easier option of reporting it further down the bulletin. They dont dare offer an estimate of numbers. I sympathise, but find it unsatisfactory.

But back to abortion. I wrote a column almost exactly two years ago in this newspaper, stating that no Irish woman had ever told me directly that shed had an abortion . I wrote that if you considered that roughly one in 10 women in Ireland had had an abortion  thats an estimated 160,000 women since 1980  I must have come across at least some of these women. But the subject was so verboten, there was such fear of judgement, such ingrained shame, women did not feel able to trust.

As one woman in her early 30s told me: I guess its a bit like people being in the Stasi. You just dont ask or tell. You dont know where people stand on the issue.

One of the healthiest things to happen to Irish society in the short space of time since then is to have immensely brave women such as Roisin Ingle and Tara Flynn put on the public record the fact of their own abortions. That lifted the lid in a way that nothing else could have done.

But as this pro-choice pressure cooker builds up a seemingly unstoppable head of steam, a certain ugliness is entering the Repeal equation. Ironically, it is reminiscent of the stance adopted by the anti-choice side for decades. Women who ask legitimate questions stand accused of failing the feminist cause, and God help any man who raises a query. It feels as if to even ask about where we stand on term limits for abortion, or to suggest limits at all, would be to betray the cause.

How are we going to have that much-needed mature conversation around a post referendum scenario  about where we want to end up  with this growing sense of intolerance? Right now what has to be worked on is exactly what will fill the vacuum left by the repeal of the 8th amendment. This absolutely must be agreed ahead of a referendum. However, lets not achieve that success while bludgeoning any and all perceived dissent. If we do that, it makes us little better than those who fought so dirty for so long on this issue.
Though we must retain control of our borders and the power to decide who does or does not stay in our country, many of these people will be homeless refugees. Despite the worlds escalating refugee crisis, or probably because of it, this no-entry figure has risen dramatically over the last three years. New legislation plays a significant role.

Immigration is the biggest issue facing Europe and our nightly glimpse at what hell might be like  Aleppo  suggests that it will escalate. Europe faces a huge humanitarian crisis and our contribution to resolving it, to sharing the burden, can hardly be described as admirable.
Burma Daw Aung San Suu Kyi: Lawmakers Cant be Lawbreakers

Burma's State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi gives an address at the opening of the 37th Asean Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) in Naypyidaw on Friday. / Htet Naing Zaw / The Irrawaddy

RANGOON  Burmas State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi urged members of the regions legislatures to abide by laws during her opening address to the 37th Asean Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) held in Naypyidaw on Friday.

Lawmakers cant be lawbreakers, she said.

They must know the rules and procedures of the parliaments that they serve and also the laws of the land that they may truly be the representatives of the legislative branch of democratic government.

She also said cooperation in the Asean region must be across all the pillars of government: executive, judicial and legislative.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said Friday marked exactly six months since the new government was formed and that it is determined to persevere and bring about positive change in Arakan State, standing firm against prejudice, intolerance and extremism to bring an end to decades-long conflict and secure lasting peace.

She asked for constructive support from regional neighbors in bringing harmony and understanding between the different communities in Arakan State. She described the situation in the state as complex and the subject of close attention and concern outside the countrys borders in the Asean region and beyond.

In a message to the assembly, Burmas President U Htin Kyaw highlighted the importance of strong cooperation between Asean countries and AIPA as instrumental in facilitating cooperation in the region. Our region is faced with many challenges including non-traditional security issues and bridging development gaps among some Asean member states, he said.

Burma is hosting the 37th General Assembly of AIPA from Sept 30 to Oct 3 in the capital Naypyidaw, succeeding Malaysia as a host.

Burma joined AIPA in 2011 after establishing a Parliament. The Speaker of Burmas Union Parliament, U Mahn Win Khaing Than, is chairing the assembly. He said Burma is facing many urgent and pressing challenges and that it seeks collaboration from Asean nations.
Burma Defense To Present Witnesses in Ranong Murder Case

Three out of four of the migrant workers from Burma accused by Thai police of killing a Thai high school student are pictured after their arrest in 2015. / Htoo Chit / Facebook

Wednesday, Sept. 28, marked the sixth Thai court hearing in the case of four Burmese migrant workers accused of murdering a Thai female high school student in Ranong Province on the same day in 2015.

According to a report by a foundation supporting migrant worker rights in southern Thailand, it was also the final hearing for the prosecution in the case of the brutal stabbing of Orawee Sampaotong, 17. The next hearing is scheduled for Oct. 5, in which the defense will begin presenting its own witnesses.

After police allegedly found no viable leads in the case, Moe Zin Aung, Zaw Lay, Mang Sane, and Kyaw Soe Winworking nearly 60 miles away in the Kuraburi seaport at the time of the murderwere arrested for the crime nearly one month after it had occurred. They say they were tortured by police for daysthrough suffocation, beatings, and threatsinto confessing.

Although the suspects ages are listed on documents as ranging between 18 and 25, their parents insist that at least two of them are minors at 15 and 16 years old, but had lied about their ages in order to obtain permission to work in Thailand.

Htoo Chit is the executive director and founder of the Foundation for Education Development (FED), which has prepared documents, evidence and witnesses for the defense in the ongoing investigation.

We can say that the court hearing looks fair enough, so far, and our defense lawyers are well prepared, he told The Irrawaddy on Friday, highlighting the strength of the defense teams witness list, which includes the suspects relatives and Thai employers, migrant community leaders, special Thai police, and members of Thailands National Human Rights Commission.

Htoo Chit also emphasized what he feels is some of the strongest evidencethat DNA taken from the crime scene and believed to belong to Orawee Sampaotongs killer, did not match that of any of the four suspects.

Kittin Mewutsom, the head of the Ranong hospital where Orawee Sampaotongs death was investigated, testified on Aug. 31 that he did not believe the Burmese workers were involved in the murder.

Court hearings are scheduled to continue through November of this year, with a verdict to be expected early in 2017. In the meantime, Htoo Chit and FED are looking to the Burmese government for further support in ensuring that the four Burmese nationals get a fair trial in Thailand, where, he points out, migrant workers are often scapegoated for crimes.

We need the Myanmar governments involvement. Related government agencies must collaborate with NGOs, CBOs, and migrant communities which are working on the case, he said, adding that the Burmese government has an obligation to protect and provide legal assistance to Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand.

The case in Ranong has been compared to the high-profile murder of two British backpackers on the Thai island of Koh Tao in September of 2014, in which two Burmese migrant workers were arrested and charged with the crime three months after it had occurred. They were sentenced to death, despite rights groups objections to police conduct, concerns about the handling of evidence, and abuse of the suspects during the investigation. They remain in prison, and have filed an appeal.
Burma HRW: US Military Aid Fails Child Soldiers

RANGOON  New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that a decision by the United States to give military assistance to countries that recruit and use child soldiers, including Burma, fails child soldiers but is not unexpected.

US President Barack Obama announced on Wednesday that he will waive the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008 and allow some governments accused of using child soldiers to receive US military assistance.

There will be no restrictions at all on military aid to three countriesBurma, Iraq, and Nigeria.

The move came after Burmas State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi visited the United States earlier this month and may have asked the US to remove sanctions inhibiting economic growth in Burma.

However, sources close to US diplomats said that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi did not want Burma to be judged by a lower standard than other countries or be let off the hook for bad behavior, for example waiving the Child Solider Act restrictions on Burma.

Critics of President Obamas move pointed out that his actions will remove a vital barrier to military assistance for the Burma Army that still uses underage soldiers as fighters.

Jo Becker, HRWs advocacy director of the childrens rights division, said the decision wasnt unexpected. Its what [President Obama] has done during his entire two terms in office, wrote Jo Becker.

The Child Soldiers Prevention Act prohibits certain forms of US military aid for governments implicated in child soldier use and it took effect soon after Obama became president in 2009.

Under his presidential authority, Obama can forgo the sanctions every year on most of the affected countries under the laws national interest waiver provision.

This year, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen are the only countries that were completely restricted. Military training and peacekeeping support, but not financing and sales, are allowed for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, and Rwanda.

The US has not given military aid to Burma for years, but is now saying that the use of child soldiers by Burma Army wont be an impediment to possible future aid, wrote Jo Becker.
Burma Teacher Charged with Raping Students in Irrawaddy Division

Kyaiklat Police Force arrested the teacher on Thursday. / Salai Thant Zin

RANGOON  Police arrested a high school teacher in Irrawaddy Divisions Kyaiklat Township on Thursday for allegedly raping two of his students, according to the Kyaiklat Police Force.

Ko Yan Naing, a 29-year-old history teacher at a basic education school in Shwenyaungbin Village, confessed to raping a 15-year-old student five times in the teachers staff room and a 14-year-old student three times in a classroom, Police Captain Htin Aung of Kyaiklat Police Force told The Irrawaddy.

The teacher told his students to attend an extra class on a holiday, said the police captain. He asked [the 15-year-old student] to help him check homework in the teachers staff room. After failing to seduce her, he used force to rape her.

It happened the same way the next four times, said U Htin Aung. Ko Yan Naing attacked the girl a total of five times in July this year.

In August, he raped the 14-year-old student three times. [Ko Yan Naing] and the girl live in Kanyingaing Village, so he told her they could go home together after school. Then, he raped the girl in the classroom, the police captain told The Irrawaddy.

The history teacher has been working at the school in Shwenyaungbin Village since Oct. 2014. He previously worked at two schools in Maubin Township.

According to a local from Kanyingaing Village, one of the victims classmates told her parents about the incidents. The classmates parents contacted the victims parents who coaxed answers out of the two girls and reported the case to the police.

The teacher has been charged under Section 376 of Burmas Penal Code.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko
News Thailand Cracks Down on Migrant Workers

Migrant workers are pictured laboring in the Talaat Kung shrimp market and on construction sites in Mahachai, Samut Sakhon, Thailand. / JPaing / The Irrawaddy

BANGKOK, Thailand  Thailand is cracking down on migrant workers from neighboring countries, saying they are stealing jobs from Thais, amid fears that anti-immigrant sentiment is rising as Southeast Asias second-largest economy stagnates.

In an operation led by the Thai labor department, police and troops on Wednesday raided a fresh produce market in Bangkok and arrested 14 people, most of them from neighboring Burma.

We have received many complaints about illegal immigrants working in markets including Vietnamese and even South Asians who were stealing jobs from Thais, Thai immigration police chief Nathorn Phrosunthorn told Reuters.

They should be doing the jobs that Thais dont want to do, like work as house cleaners, he said.

Under the terms of a 2015 memorandum of understanding Vietnamese citizens are restricted in their employment in Thailand and can work only as manual laborers in Thailands fishing or construction sectors.

Cambodians also have been nabbed in the raids, along with people from Burma and Vietnam.

ANTI-IMMIGRATION FEELINGS

More than 3 million migrants work in Thailand, the vast majority from neighboring Burma, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Thailand became wealthy compared to its neighbors when its economy boasted annual growth rates of over 7 percent in the 1980s and 1990s, drawing migrant workers from across the Greater Mekong Delta region and other parts of Asia. They mostly did jobs Thais tend to spurn, including backbreaking work in the fishing and construction sectors.

But, more than two years after the military government seized power and with Thailands economy on shaky ground, rights groups also see rising resentment against immigrants in Thailand, mirroring such sentiment elsewhere in the world.

There seems to be a surge of national sentiment in Thai immigration policy claiming migrants from Vietnam, for example, are taking jobs that are reserved for Thai nationals, Sunai Phasuk from Human Rights Watch told Reuters.

We havent seen this kind of rise in anti-immigrant sentiment for decades. This has a lot to do with economic concerns.

Sanit Choklamlert, a shop keeper in Bangkoks Silom business district, said migrants are seen as competitors for some Thais.

There are too many Burmese people here now and theyre fighting for the same jobs as us, he said. We need to send some back.

HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Thailands economy is on course to grow 3.0 percent in 2016 after expanding 2.8 percent in 2015 and only 0.7 percent in 2014.

Nathorn said the crackdown was not driven by an anti-immigrant policy. We still need migrant labor. We just want to keep some order, he said.

The raids have targeted fresh markets, restaurants, supermarkets and shopping malls. Around 153 immigrants were rounded up between Sept. 1 and Sept. 26, according to labor department figures. Those caught face up to five years in prison, a fine of up to 3,000 baht ($100) or deportation.

Migrants are often at risk of falling into the hands of human trafficking rings, who sell them into virtual slavery on plantations, timber mills and fishing boats, human rights groups say.

Thailand was removed from the bottom rung of the U.S. State Departments annual list of worst human trafficking offenders this year despite what the department described as widespread forced labor in the countrys vital seafood industry.
National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and Myanmar Speaker Mahn Win Khaing Than at the meeting (Photo: VNA)



She made the remark at a meeting on September 29th with Speaker of Myanmars parliament and Upper House, Mahn Win Khaing Than, following the welcome ceremony at the Myanmar parliaments headquarters in Nay Pyi Taw.

She congratulated Myanmar on the successful general election last November and on completing the final step in the seven-step roadmap for national building. She voiced the belief that with the new leadership, it will become a prosperous country with higher stature in the international arena.

Vietnam and Myanmar boast a time-honoured amity, the Chairwoman said, noting that Myanmar is one of the first Southeast Asian nations to set up diplomatic ties with Vietnam. It strongly supported her country during the struggle for national liberation, and Vietnam always keeps in mind that valuable assistance.

She lauded the countries effective cooperation in defence-security, economics, trade, investment, culture and tourism. There are now 11 Vietnamese-invested projects with a total registered capital of almost USD700 million in Myanmar.

To enhance collaboration, she asked the two parliaments to urge their Government agencies to implement important cooperation mechanisms, including organising the ninth meeting of the joint committee for bilateral cooperation in 2016.

Ngan rejoiced at the sound development of the two parliaments relations, asking them to continue coordination in supervision to ensure that the countries cooperation agreements are implemented effectively.

They should increase sharing experience, particularly in institution building, lawmaking, and supervision over law enforcement. She also asked the Myanmar parliament to continuously consider and support necessary revisions to mechanisms, policies and laws so as to boost trade and investment partnership.

Echoing the view, the Myanmar Speaker said their parliaments need to promote delegation exchanges to learn from each others experience and improve the capacity of parliamentarians.

He spoke highly of Vietnams socio-economic achievements, adding that the two nations share many similarities and his country wants to learn more about Vietnams reform experience.

The Myanmar parliament is adapting some legal documents to the current socio-economic situation and building new laws. It is also considering revising investment-related laws so as to attract foreign investment, including that from Vietnam, he added.

At the meeting, Chairwoman Ngan said Vietnam is ready to help Myanmar fulfill the duties of the ASEAN Chairmanship in 2017. She also delivered the invitation to visit Vietnam to the Myanmar Speaker, who accepted with pleasure./.
Friday, September 30th, 2016 (9:06 am) - Score 16,659

A lot of UK people are buying Amazon Echo, the Internet shopping giants new hands-free speaker and voice-assistant, but apparently not everybody can get it to connect with their home WiFi network and this seems to be especially true of BTs Broadband customers.

Ordinarily connecting the Echo should be as simple as plugging the device in and then installing the Alexa App (or setup via http://alexa.amazon.co.uk/), which manages the hardware and enables you to connect it to the Internet. The whole Internet connectivity thing is kind of important and without that your Echo is just a large useless black or white cylinder with a dim light on top.

The problem is that some people, especially those with one of BTs HomeHub routers, are having a great deal of difficulty in getting the new hardware to connect to their broadband service via WiFi. Funnily enough some of those who imported the Echo from the USA earlier this year also reported the same woes and its sad to see that the issue wasnt fixed in time for its UK release.

Luckily the solution is to avoid Amazons automated setup for the device and enter the details you need manually.

Amazon Echo Fix for BTs HomeHub Routers 1. Start the Amazon Echo setup process (the web browser method is best). 2. Choose your WiFi network (you need to know / input your networks name and password). 3. Click advanced settings in the Alexa web app. 4. Enter the following details into the fields on the advanced settings page. IP Address: 192.168.1.2

Router: 192.168.1.254

Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

DNS 1: 62.6.40.178

DNS 2: 62.6.40.162 5. Click Connect.

Take note that if youve previously tried and failed to connect the Echo then you may need to click forget this network before trying again, otherwise youll just run into the same problems. In some cases its possible that you might have a different Router (gateway) address from the one mentioned above, but pretty much all of BTs active kit does use this.

Likewise if the IP address 192.168.1.2 doesnt work, such as if its already being used by another device on your network, then just try something like 192.168.1.26 instead and the router should be able to adapt.

Every ISP will have a different set of details, thus the above settings wont work for users of Sky Broadband, TalkTalk etc. Novice users should simply ask their ISP for the correct details, while Advanced users will already know to check their network connection details to discern what Gateway, DNS and IP Address to use.

Alternatively some people have suggested that separating the 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi bands via the HomeHubs admin interface (theyre normally combined) can work, but generally you should not need to do this. In any case most BT broadband users will not run into this issue, it only seems to occur on some setups.
Delegates at the event (Photo: quehuongonline.vn)



This is an annual activity of the association to support children with disabilities and in difficult circumstances in Vietnam.

Mr. Pham Thanh Pha, Head of the Association, and Mr. Bui The Hien, Deputy Head of the Association, thanked the people and children in the Vietnamese community in Oslo for their accompanying with the association in exchange activities, especially charitable activities over the past dozen years.

Mr. Hien emphasized that the organization of the charity night aimed to create conditions for people to express their mutual support for children with disabilities or in difficult circumstances, especially children affected by Agent Orange in Vietnam.

At the event, Vietnamese Ambassador to Norway Le Thi Tuyet Mai said that NA Deputy Chairman Phung Quoc Hien and the NA's high-level delegation during the working visit to Norway had appreciated charitable activities as well as other activities towards the homeland of the association and the overseas Vietnamese people in general.

She also transferred the contribution of the NA Deputy Chairman and the members of the delegation to the organizing board of the event.

On this occasion, the Ambassador thanked the overseas Vietnamese community in Norway for looking towards the homeland and promoting their role as a bridge in strengthening the friendship and cooperative relations between Vietnam and Norway.

She said that the charitable activities of the association are very significant, contributing to improving living and studying conditions for children with disabilities and in difficult circumstances in Vietnam.

At the event, the participants also enjoyed an art exchange program and traditional dishes prepared by overseas Vietnamese women.

The event collected about NOK50,000, which will be transferred to suitable addresses to support children with disabilities and in difficult circumstances in Vietnam./.
Major: Communication

Hometown: Brazil, IN

Student Media Involvement: Syc Creations

Favorite Food: Burgers with everything but mustard

Fun Fact: He really loves superhero movies, and wants to make his own someday
Are You One Password Away from a Data Breach?

If you were one of the 500 million who were affected by the Yahoo breach (and Im right there with you), you have something in common with the top 1,000 companies in the Forbes Global 2000 list. According to research conducted by Digital Shadows, 97 percent of organizations have breached credentials publicly available online, with a median average of 706 credentials per organization. This information is regularly sold, traded, or shared by the hackers, even years after the initial breach occurs. As the report stated:

As a result, the number of compromised credentials that are available online is staggering, providing a goldmine for attackers. With this in mind, it is unsurprising that one report claimed that breached credentials were responsible for 63 percent of data breaches.

These credentials, like passwords and other authentication data, open the door for more damage, the report stated, saying that threat actors will use that information to take over accounts, extort specific individuals within the company, and turn computers into botnets.

Its easy to get caught up in the financial losses caused by a data breach, but as an eSecurity Planet article pointed out, your customers and employees are more concerned about identity theft. Citing a survey conducted by TransUnion, the article stated that:

83 percent of consumers are concerned that they will become a victim of identity theft within the next two years by having their personal data stolen from a business or government agency, and 53 percent said they or a member of their household has already been a victim.

Having your user credentials published online or sold on the dark web makes it a lot easier for cybercriminals to glean even more information about your customers and employees. So it begs the question, are you doing enough to keep everybody who trusts your company and your network from being the victim of a data dump? Vishal Gupta, CEO of Seclore, would probably say no, you arent doing enough. In an email comment to me, Gupta talked about the Yahoo breach in specific, but also about how too many companies will choose convenience over security:

The details being uncovered around Yahoos relaxed security policies are extremely worrisome, but unfortunately, organizations deprioritizing security isnt as uncommon as it should be. While referring to your security team as the Paranoids may be unique to Yahoo, the company isnt alone in its decision to choose convenience over security. This needs to change.

Gupta suggested that companies adopt a data-centric security solution that is designed to better address the increasingly sophisticated attacks. We also need to better address the weakest links  ourselves  and improve security training so everyone can understand how security needs are evolving. The reason why is clear, as Digital Shadows CEO Alastair Paterson stated in the San Francisco Business Times:

The world used to be about your perimeters and your network. But theres been a bunch of shifts because of social media, cloud and mobile. That means quite often, when information is getting online, its not from the company; its from a third party like a contractor somewhere in the companys supply chain.

Sue Marquette Poremba has been writing about network security since 2008. In addition to her coverage of security issues for IT Business Edge, her security articles have been published at various sites such as Forbes, Midsize Insider and Toms Guide. You can reach Sue via Twitter: @sueporemba
In an unbelievably smart innovation, a new case was designed by a hardware developer to bring back the headphone jack to iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus handsets. This canny new case is for those who would want to stick around the traditional iPhone ear pods.

A Texas-based hardware conglomerate in response has designed the Fuze case for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus to revive the headphone jack. In a video ad campaign for the product released on Indiegogo, Fuze developer Diego Prince stressed that it "is a very personal choice" with "what people put into their own ear holes."

iPhone 7 Airpods Not Widely Accepted

It can be remembered that immediately after Apple revealed iPhone 7 and iPhone Plus handsets alongside the AirPods, the wireless headphones had not been widely accepted by fans.

The said video campaign shows the Fuze case taking the Lightning dongle of iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus and entrenching it into the case; thus bringing back the 3.5-millimeter headphone jack.

iPhone 7 New Case Costs $49

Aside from adding a headphone jack, Fuze also comes with an extended battery pack. According to Prince, the extended battery pack will give additional eight hours of use for these devices.

Fuze cases will be sold for $49 to the "early backers" of the campaign.

Overall, the company behind this innovative case underscored that shielding the phone potential damage is also its prime concern.

iPhone 7 New Case Out In December

As to the release date of the Fuze case, co-founder Troy Osinoff mentioned that his company is looking at December to kick off shipping after they reach the $60,000 goal. As of this writing, Fuze has already raised $9,264 from backers. This is only 15 percent, but Osinoff and Prince are optimistic. Prince told Business Insider he is confident his company can deliver the Fuze cases on time.

Beginning next month, Prince is planning to spend raising the company's goal on prototyping, testing and shipping. In an unfortunate case that the developers would not be able to reach its goal, the company will still be releasing the Fuze case but not on the scheduled date.

iPhone 7 New Case Receives Positive Feedback

The upcoming Fuze cases have already charmed tech hunters on Product Hunt.

One user named Niv Dror commented: "Amazing. (And actually very much in neeeeed). I'm holding off on getting the iPhone 7 until the AirPods come out (sic)."

In the same site, Prince expressed the reason why he came up with the idea of Fuze. He said: "I built Fuze because I don't want to give up my audio jack up yet. There are so many uses for the 3.5mm jack beyond music."
Volkswagen is known for its simplicity in design. During the 2016 Paris Motor Show, the German car brand unveiled their most recent concept for a futuristic car called I.D., which is pegged for release in 2020. Though it is still a concept, people are still interested with the newest car.

What Is New With Volkswagen's I.D.?

Per Engadget, Volkswagen's I.D. will be the "ambassador" for the electric cars that the company wants to manufacture in the future.

Volkswagen I.D. will have an auto-pilot mode, better known as I.D. pilot mode. Although it is not coming until 2025, this feature will set the tone for other futuristic cars as well.

Under the hood, the I.D's should have a 125kW motor that can run for 400-600 km/s with a single charge of battery. Should Volkswagen live up to their promises, their first purely-electric car will pack quite remarkable features.

The Public Relations department of the German brand dubbed I.D. as "the interactive center of a mobile lounge, or a supremely versatile Open Space," referring to the car's interior.

Volkswagen Teases Their New Modular Electric Drive Kit

Another part of the concept is Volkswagen's new Modular Electric Drive Kit (MED) architecture.

MED is for electric powered cars only unlike the older models of the brand. The new platform is designed to create a safe, comfortable and spacious ambiance while maximizing the driving capacity of the car. Addition to the design is the floor-iterated flat battery pack and a long wheelbase.

After the diesel issue Volkswagen faced, executives are hoping that the latest concept, I.D., it unveiled to the automotive world will help boost its sales and regain their glory. Truly, I.D.'s concept is exceptional not only due to its design, but also because of being environment-friendly.
Celebrity prankster Vitalii Sediuk tried to kiss Kim Kardashian's butt on Wednesday while the reality star was in Paris. Sediuk said he did it for his protest against fake butts but Kim said she has had enough and is finally suing the prankster after several incidents already.

Kim said she's already fed up with the prankster Sediuk who made a name in pulling pranks on various prominent Hollywood celebrities including Gigi Hadid and Kim's husband Kanye West. However, the reality star seems to be the prankster's favorite, attacking her for the third time. Thus, Kim reportedly reached her breaking point and argued that the law should finally take action against Sediuk as she already felt threatened, according to TMZ. In addition, Kanye wants a restraining order against Sediuk in light of his repeated attacks.

Meanwhile, Sediuk explained the ambush he did while Kim was on her way to the Paris Fashion Show. The serial prankster, who has also targeted Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Bradley Cooper in the past, grabbed her leg to plant a kiss on her famous butt. The prankster, however, was quickly stopped by one of Kim's bodyguards.

Writing on Instagram after the incident, Vitalii said he did it in protest against her rumored butt implant. "I was protesting Kim for using fake butt implants. I encourage her and the rest of Kardashian clan to popularize natural beauty among teenage girls who follow and defend them blindly," he posted.

"P.s. I was sitting there outside the posh restaurant to use free wifi and eating my ice-cream. When all of a sudden, the pack of paparazzi came out and the car with Kim Kardashian. I swear I didn't know she was going to be there. So I had to come out with an idea very fast. Does it mean if I don't go to celebrities, they come to me? Lol," the prankster added.

People close to the Kardashian clan have revealed that Kim is already planning to file a police report with regard to the incident and take out a restraining order against Vitalii. Kim also said in a statement that she wants every girl to see through the video that they have the right to fight back anytime they are placed in a similar situation. She even encouraged everyone to practice self-defense which can be used during an unsafe situation.

Vitalii's butt-kissing prank came a week after he tried to grab model Gigi Hadid and ended up being elbowed in the face.


Samsung is facing a lot of issues with their recently launched Galaxy Note 7. Reports have been popping up about exploding batteries of the phablet, some cases of which have led to lawsuits. However, the South Korean tech company still said that about 90 percent of device owners will not trade it for an iPhone or any other flagship device.

A huge percentage of the Note 7 owners are participating in Samsung's replacement program, according to a post in their newsroom.

"We are humbled by our customers' loyalty to the Galaxy Note7 device," said DJ Koh, Samsung Mobile Communications Business president. "This is why we want them to take advantage of their local replacement program so that they can continue to feel confident and excited every time they reach for their Galaxy Note7 device."

Over 60 percent of the Note 7 in the U.S. and Korea markets have been exchanged, while 80 percent of the customers in Singapore have already signed up for the program.

How did this affect iPhone 7 sales?

According to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (via Mashable), the whole fiasco may have resulted to a higher demand for the iPhone 7 Plus. While Samsung may have kept the majority of the consumers who have already bought the phablet, they may have lost a huge chunk of customers who have gone to consider other options.

As of the moment, the issues about the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 are not dying down. Just recently, a Chinese man has claimed that his phablet exploded while it was charging, resulting to some injuries. An unrelated product, but still from the tech company nonetheless, is also not safe. About 21 people have already complained that their washing machines blew up.

Even so, it seems that Samsung is about to make a huge comeback as they prepare to relaunch the Note 7 in South Korea and formally release the phablet in Europe.
The confirmation of the series reboot of "Prison Break" has led to countless plot speculations among fans. The latest theory to come out points to the possible death of Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) which will be the result of his trying to save his brother Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller).

The production of the much awaited comeback series of "Prison Break" was confirmed earlier this year, and fans of the brother tandem are constantly making buzz with "Prison Break" season 5 theories. Rumors have been swirling that this season will conclude the story of the brothers, following the fact that Lincoln's upcoming plan to break Scofield out of prison will be too dangerous that one of them may end up dying.

Michael's Sacrifice

The last seasons of "Prison Break" centered on how Scofield tried hard to get Lincoln out of the prison. In the story, the latter was wrongfully charged with the murder of the US vice president's brother, Terence Steadman. To get his brother Lincoln out, Michael deliberately got himself sent to the same prison with the intention to break both of them out. Season 4 ended with Michael sending Mahone with an explosive device to kill Christina and rescue Lincoln. The plan had been successful as Lincoln was able to escape the death row but Michael was left to die. Right then and there, fans believed that the series was over.

Lincoln's Time Has Come

"Prison Break" creators released an official preview for season 5. The video came as a bombshell, confirming that Michael Scofield is very much alive. Michael is discovered to be locked up again, serving his sentence in the Ogygia Prison in Yemen for his involvement with ISIL.

Taking into consideration the brothers' course of actions in the past seasons, "Prison Break" season 5 will be the chance for Lincoln to take Michael out of his cell. However, things won't be really simple as political schemes and double-crossing inmates will make the task doubly difficult for the brothers.

Is "Prison Break" Season 5 Going To Be The Last?

Season 4 ended seven years ago, leaving everyone with the thought that Michael was already dead. As previously reported, "Prison Break" season 5 will mirror the show's first season plot, which is to break a brother out of prison.

However, the twist in the plot of this new season turns the tables around, appointing Lincoln to come up with the breakout plan. Though this time, it will prove to be a challenge as they will need to get out of Yemen. Some reports claim that season 5 will be the last season as the series is supposedly ending with another death, but this time it will be Lincoln's.

Will Lincoln Sacrifice His Life For Michael?

As the last season ended with Michael sacrificing, it seems to have been a trend in the show that freedom requires sacrifices. Going by this theory, fans are assuming that Lincoln has to battle against the odds in "Prison Break" season 5 to set his brother free. Based on the official sneak peek, Lincoln sets off to gather the members of the Fox River Eight escape to get the job done. However, getting Michael out in Yemen will be a real challenge. Lincoln may have to make some difficult decisions which might include sacrificing his life.

Meanwhile, fans of the "Prison Break" couple, Michael and Sara, are wondering if the two will find their way back in each other's arms. Season 5 starts with Sara (Sarah Wayne Callies) already married to someone else and is raising her child with Michael.
It was of great surprise to see the character of Thomas Gibson still alive in the Criminal Minds Season 12. He was reported to be removed in the series due to a quarrel with a producer.

According to International Business Times, the last appearance of Gibson in the series would be on its second episode. Creators of the show would introduce FBI Fugitive Task Force Agent Luke Alvez, portrayed by Shemar Moore to put an end to Gibsons characted. Luke Alvez would fill in the position left as the BAU would solve the prison break case that happened during the past season.

The sources stated the summary of the Episode 2 entitled Sick Day:

"When JJ arrives home shaken after a rough case, she breaks down and tells her husband about the abduction of two children.



With no concrete evidence of how the character would be removed, certain speculations spread that the character of Gibson will die during a search for a numerous number of killers.

With Luke entering the team, he needs to cooperate with Reid, Penelope, Jennifer and David played by Matther Gray Gubler, Kirsten Vangsness, AJ Cook and Joe Mantegna respectively, in finding the 13 prisoners, freed on the streets.



The removal of the character of Thomas Gibson created noise on the social media world:

Boycott Criminal Minds in particular episode 2 season 12 V W wrote it #ThomasGibson  angela searby (@AngelaSearby) August 20, 2016



To make sure you will not miss it, the second episode of Criminal Minds Season 12 would air on October 5, at 9 PM on CBS

To watch the preview of the second episode, please see clip below:


Dating app Tinder is helping its users find a date as fast as possible with its newest paid feature. Tinder Boost, which is first rolling out in Australia, will provide user profiles with 10 times more visibility in the area for 30 minutes. According to an announcement, Tinder aims to help users save time and make the most out of the app.

In its blog, the company explained how Tinder Boost works and how it's useful to users.

"You've got people to meet and places to be. In fact, Tinder was designed with this in mind, providing you a simple, fun introduction to new people nearby so you can get out and meet them in the real world. Still, sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day and what you need is a boost in the right direction. Tinder Boost gives you exactly that: a way to be one of the top profiles in your area for 30 minutes. Increase your chances for a match-you can get up to 10x more profile views while boosting," the statement read.

Tinder Plus users will get one boost every week, while free Tinder users can purchase boosts at any time. The Boost feature is activated when in swipe mode. Upon activating the boost, a timer is displayed to count down the minutes left for boosting.

Tinder Boost is not the only app who has introduced this feature. Other apps like Bumble and OKCupid offers similar features to increase profile visibility and make matches faster.

Pricing for the feature is yet to be revealed, but the feature will first be offered to Australian Tinder users.

In an email message, Tinder CEO Sean Rad wrote:

"With Tinder Boost, users can maximize their time and match potential by being one of the top profiles seen in their area with the tap of a button. With 1.4 billion swipes a day on our platform, sometimes our users want to be sure that they are swiped to the front. We think our users in Australia will love this feature and hope to release it globally soon."
Mobile keyboard app Swiftkey has released a major update, including four new languages and the ability to type in up to five languages all at once. Swiftkey Beta is aimed to be a hit with multilingual users, as these added features will make typing easier and faster than before.

Along with the multi-language toggling comes four new languages: Sindhi Pakistan, Pashto, Scottish Gaelic, and Uyghur. Its Neural Network Prediction feature, which takes prediction with context cues rather than the last two words typed, is now available in French, German, and Spanish. The nifty prediction was originally only available in English.

The company also teased that more languages are coming soon. In a blog post, the company said: "As a language-based company, bringing SwiftKey's mind-reading technology to as many languages and people as possible is central to our mission. We hope to bring SwiftKey Neural to even more languages - stay tuned!"

Here are the complete update details of Swiftkey Beta:

You can now type in 5 languages all at once!

We've added 4 new languages: Sindhi Pakistan, Pashto, Scottish Gaelic, and Uyghur

New Neural Net languages: French, German, & Spanish

You can now turn on/off key press popups

New setting in a tablet layout to turn on/off dedicated emoji key that appears to the left of the space bar

No more red underlines when typing in multiple languages

Bottom row now visible on stroke + emoji + arrow + landscape layout

Swiftkey's dedication to improving its features has been tremendous and continues to be a trailblazer for other keyboard app developers. The company was acquired by Microsoft in February this year, but it appears that it wasn't because of its keyboard app, but because of its expertise in Artificial Intelligence.

Swiftkey Beta is a separate app from the stable version, and you can download it from the Google Play Store.
Several tech stocks, including General Electric, AT&T and AMD, would make interesting investments, according to stock market experts.

AMD Stock

According to Stockz News, on Wednesday, Sept. 28, shares of the high-tech company Advanced Micro Devices closed at $6.59 after adding 0.76 percent in the last trading session. The AMD stock oscillated in the last trading range between $6.29 and $6.65.

While the recorded AMD stock traded 27.87M shares at the end of last trading session, it trades now at an average volume of 36.35M shares. At $6.59 the share price of AMD stock is down -17.62 percent versus its peak and at a distance of 299.39 percent from its 52-week low. AMD has currently 895.01M outstanding shares and a market cap of $5.9B.

One of the reasons for being confident in acquiring AMD stock is the fact that the company announced recently that International Game Technology has selected its AMD Embedded Radeon E9260 GPU for its new "CrystalCurve ULTRA" gaming cabinet to be launched in the casino gaming industry. AMD's Embedded Radeon E9260 GPU is based on the new AMD Polaris architecture.

General Electric Stock

Stock of the company General Electric closed at $29.90 after jumping 0.07 percent in the last trading session. The last General Electric Company stock trading range was between $29.60 and $29.94.

The total outstanding shares of GE are 8.96 billion and the market capitalization of the company is, according to market experts, $271.02 billion. Recently, GE Ventures and Allied Minds announced their planned alliance to commercialize next-generation technologies. This is one of the reasons why GE stock presents good investment opportunities at this moment.

AT&T Stock

According to The Independent Republic, AT&T recorded recently -1.47 percent change. The stock is down -6.09 percent versus its peak, 35.05 percent away from its 52-week low and stands currently at $40.85.

AT&T stock trades at an average volume of 20.32M shares and has a performance of 0.69 percent over the past five days. The market cap is $251.31B and there were about 6.15B AT&T outstanding shares.

The company is committed to help building smart cities. AT&T will provide wireless connectivity to Applied Information for implementing in its new flashing school zone traffic system.
Following the release of the Mi5S and Mi5S Plus, Xiaomi is gearing up to unveil its new set of flagship devices: the Mi Note 2 and its larger sister, the Mi Note 2 Plus. The units are set to be unveiled in the next few weeks and will be available in multiple options, depending on the preference of the buyer.

Possible Xiaomi Mi Note 2 Release Dates

According to GSM Arena, analyst Pan Jiutang estimates that the two handhelds from Xiaomi will be released before the end of October. As the company just released a set of notable devices, Xiaomi truly is bringing everything it has before the year ends.

Mi Note 2 And Mi Note 2 Plus: Specs

The Mi Note 2, which will be Xiaomi's lower-end option, will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor. It will run smoothly on 4 GB or RAM and will have a minimum internal memory storage of 32 GB.

Meanwhile, the larger Mi Note 2 Plus is expected to come with the most powerful processor in the current market, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor. Furthermore, it will sell wit two RAM options, one that is 4 GB and another that is 6 GB. Minimum internal storage is expected to be 128 GB. It will also sport a reliable 3600 mAh battery. As Phone Arena adds, renders of the devices also show two cameras at the back portion of the unit.

Design And Price

Both units are expected to arrive on the market with curved displays. Furthermore, it will have a sloped rear cover. It sounds a lot like the Samsung Note 7, as the Mi Note 2 and the Mi Note 2 Plus will also have an all metal design.

As for the price, the Xiaomi Mi Note 2 is expected to price at US$399. Meanwhile, the Mi Note 2 Plus is estimated to arrive at US$525.


Qualcomm is currently in talks to buy NXP Semiconductors in a deal that would cost around $30 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported. If the deal is to be closed, the source stated that it will more or less consolidate the semiconductor industry. However, the agreement is yet to be settled, so it is still possible that the companies won't pursue the acquisition.

Qualcomm And NXP Semiconductors Merger

According to the same source, the companies could finally settle to an agreement in no more than three months. However, a withdrawal is still a possibility as there are some people saying that Qualcomm is still continuously looking at other deal options.

If the deal is indeed coming to a favorable end, it would allow Qualcomm's business to be more diversified. It would also make the company a bigger supplier in the automotive industry, Reuters reported. Nevertheless, the Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors and the San Diego-based Qualcomm have not made a comment regarding the said business discussion.

Qualcomm's Business In Mobile Phone Division

As per a Bloomberg report, the deal with NXP can help Qualcomm lower its reliance in the smartphone market. Apparently, shipments in the said market are slowing down as rivalry increases. The competition in the mobile market has become stiff primarily because of competition from Chinese and Taiwanese firms.

Qualcomm gets the large part of its profit from its processor sales and from the wireless patents that it licenses to the mobile division. According to an analyst, if the deal with NXP is pursued, Qualcomm will be able to create a roadmap for the coming decade while steering away from the mobile phone market and also while moving towards the growing potential in the automotive industry. According to one source, NXP Semiconductors has a high market value and could overall be a good deal for Qualcomm. The potential earnings are high, making the transaction become a worthy deal for the acquiring company.
For the last few weeks, the media has followed Samsung's every move. From the company's actions to its statements, the world has kept an ear out for how the Korean tech giant will move past the issue of its exploding products. With this prevailing problem surrounding Samsung's products, there is plenty of pressure for the company to make amends with its upcoming Galaxy Note 8. Fortunately, it seems like it is up for the challenge.

Samsung's Best Feature

According to Forbes, the Samsung Galaxy S8 will arrive to the market with one of the most powerful graphics chip in the market. That is, ARM's Mali-G71. This along is quite noteworthy, but pairing it up with other high-end specs going to just put it over the top.

The upcoming flagship is estimated to come with a 4K resolution screen, likely to be 3840 x 2160 pixels. Together with the Mali-G71, this could mean that the Galaxy S8 will be virtual reality ready straight out of the box.

Samsung Galaxy S8: Specs

As Slash Gear notes, there are other specifications that are arriving with the upcoming handheld. For instance, the device will come with a dual-lens camera, much like the one found in the iPhone 7 Plus of Apple. It is also expected to arrive with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 830 processor.

The 4K screen is also expected to arrive at 5.5 inches. Furthermore, Samsung is expected to drop the flat option from its Galaxy S series, much like the Note 7 units.

Samsung Galaxy S8: The Company's Saving Grace?

With all of the above in place, it seems like the South Korean company is poised to earn back the trust of customers all over the world. However, only time will tell as nothing can be said until the Galaxy S8 is actually tested and used. After all, the public was in awe of the Note 7 before reports of exploding batteries made the rounds.
The Obama administration is decided to give up control of certain Internet functions on October 1 to a non-profit organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

US Surrenders Internet Control

According to USA Today, the non-profit running the database will become autonomous and accountable to international stakeholders after the U.S. contract with the organization in charge of all Internet domain names expires. The U.S. Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration has held the 18-year-old contract for ICANN but on Sept. 30 when it comes to an end is not scheduled to be renewed.

According to Net Right Daily, this issue of Internet giveaway has united various Republican politicians such as presidential candidate Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz. But it is unclear if the Republicans will be able to unite sufficiently in order to stop the transfer of control.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stripped out the language issue from the continuing resolution. According to a report published on the website heritage.org, a vote to stop the debate on the current language issue failed on Sept. 27. However, this does not fix the ICANN issue.

This problem is that Obama administration's decision threatens the integrity of the Internet. According to the website iana.org, in case that President Obama will give up the pversight of the Internet to a multinational body, this measure would effectively end unilateral American control over these functions.

This could be the last chance to save the open and free Internet in the form it exists today. According to Accuracy in Media, a letter was sent to Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford Jr. and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter by a group of prominent national security professionals, in opposition to the transfer. The letter states that the prospect that the U.S. might transfer control of the internet to future adversaries is of immediate concern. This could facilitate cyberwarfare against the U.S., particularly in time of conflict.

This transition of control over the Internet address book could mainly affect the status of Internet domain names, including .gov and .mil. Both are of these domain names are considered vital national assets.
Iceland is famous for the Aurora Borealis or the Northern Lights. On Wednesday, streetlights were turned off for residents to fully enjoy the breathtaking sight of the northern lights.

The Reykjavik City Council switched off street lamps and encouraged residents to turn off their lights. Everything went dark last Sept. 28 in Reykjavik. Around 10 p.m., the residents were encouraged to keep the lights off for an hour. The council's aim is to minimize the light pollution that can hinder campers from sky watching.

According to Time, this phenomenon happens when charged particles from the sun strikes the atmosphere at the magnetic North and South poles. Consequently, the interaction in the atmosphere creates illuminating folds of light.

The Northern Lights Came a Bit Late

The council's prediction of time was not entirely accurate. The hour was about to end when the northern lights appeared, which prompted the city council to extend the black out period until midnight, according to BBC.

Meanwhile, the residents appreciated this gesture by the city council. As a result of the black out, many residents were able to enjoy the sights.

A German resident for two months in Iceland, Florian Schade said, "The lights were really strong in the last two nights. It was unbelievable" (via New York Times)

Astronomy educator Saever Helgi Bragason said, "Switching off the street lights was a great gesture by the city council. I hope this will be done more often as it was very successful, especially for those who were patient enough to wait for the lights to appear. It also encouraged more people to go out and look up to the night sky, which is great!"

The sky was very clear that night that even in United Kingdom and United States, the northern lights were visible.
A COUPLE from South Oxhey who swindled Three Rivers District Council out of more than 10,000 were both given six-month jail sentences this week.

John Brown and his wife, Elizabeth, of Prestwick Road, pleaded guilty to ten offences of fraudulently obtaining housing and Council Tax benefit from the council at Watford Magistrates Court on Tuesday.

The couple originally denied the charges but changed their plea last month.

The court was told that between May 22, 1995 and October 26, 1998 the couple had received 10,790.48 in benefit, while failing to declare almost 46,000 Mr Brown, 53, had received in compensation for a work injury.

The couple also failed to declare more than 11,000 they received from the sale of a caravan and from the allocation of shares with the Halifax.

Earnings from periods of employment also went undisclosed.

The court heard the leasehold to a chalet purchased by Mrs Brown, 52, for 5,670 was not declared as an asset.

Prosecution counsel Mrs Dawn Pearson said: 'These offences have been committed because application forms did not give a true reflection of their situation.

'All that capital should have been declared, and it would have affected their benefit.'

Before sentencing, defence counsel Mr Denis Barry appealed for clemency from magistrates, saying the couple had already paid back 4,000 to the council and had made arrangements to pay the rest in due course.

He added the couple were of previous good character and were 'unlikely' to repeat the offence.

Mr Barry said: 'Mr Brown suffered an industrial injury, so when the first claim was made it was a legitimate one. It become dishonest as soon as he received a large sum of money for the injury.

'They really have learned their lesson. It's very unlikely they will commit this type of offence again.'

However, sentencing the couple, magistrate Mrs Gillian Hollander said the seriousness of the crime prompted a stiff response.

She said: 'We've given credit for your guilty plea that came before the trial, but the court has decided that the offences are so serious custody is the only way to deal with you.'

After the hearing, a council spokesman said: 'The council has a zero tolerance policy against benefit cheats.

'Our fraud team has again proved that nobody can escape detection forever.'
A STUDENT was raped after being followed from a bus stop in Tottenham last Tuesday.

The 19-year-old was in Scotswood Walk when she was approached by two men at 2.45am.
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Five of the biggest and influential technology companies have come together to back up the creation of a project that would further explain the importance of artificial intelligence (AI).

Amazon, DeepMind/Google, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft have announced the creation of 'Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society (Partnership on AI),' which seeks to address opportunities and challenges with AI technologies for the benefit of the people and society. The organization promised to come up with series of research in the field of artificial intelligence to recommend best practices in areas, such as ethics, fairness and inclusivity. Partnership in AI will also collaborate on transparency, privacy, and interoperability of AI and its trustworthiness, reliability, and robustness.

"We believe that artificial intelligence technologies hold great promise for raising the quality of people's lives and can be leveraged to help humanity address important global challenges such as climate change, food, inequality, health and education," Partnership on AI's website said.

It could be remembered that early September, The New York Times had already leaked that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, IBM and Amazon were discussing an AI-related project, such as the impact of A.I. on jobs, transportation and even warfare.

The said report also said that though the group has not come up yet with the specifics matters to be included in the partnership, they are clear in one thing and that is to ensure that the Partnership on AI will focus on the benefits it could give to many people and that would not hurt them.

"AI technologies hold tremendous potential to improve many aspects of life, ranging from healthcare, education, and manufacturing to home automation and transportation," the official press release said.

The five giants are expected to invite academics, non-profits, and specialists in policy and ethics to join the Board of the organization. As founding members of the organization, Amazon, DeepMind/Google, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft promised to contribute to the partnership financial and research resources. In addition, they are also expected to share leadership with independent third-parties such as academics, user group advocates, and industry domain experts.
Patience and hard work paid off for a 16-year-old South African student from St. Martin's in Johannesburg who made an extraordinary project for the 2016 Google Science Fair.

Kiara Nirghin has been named the overall winner of the said event, where she received the grand prize of $50,000 (R687,470) for her project titled "Combatting drought with a Low-Cost, biodegradable Superabsorbent Polymer made out of orange peels."

In the official website for the 2016 Google ScienceFair, Nirghin explained the reason behind her project. She said that in 45 years, South Africa is experiencing one of the worst droughts with the lowest ever rainfall since 1904.

According to Nirghin's research, South Africa received only an average of 403 mm rain in 2015, which is merely 66 percent of the annual average rainfall. Nirghin said that since rainfall affects food resources, which at this point in time is under strain and with household food security as a major concern, these matters must be urgently addressed.

She believed that solution to solve the present problem is through Superabsorbent Polymers (SAPs) from bio-waste. She said that when SAP is cross-linked with polymerization, the product is water retaining hydrogels that act as a reservoir of collected water in soil.

"During more research in the topic, I found that natural occurring polymers exist in most citrus fruits," Nirghan said. She added that she found out through her experimentations that 'orange peel mixture' can actually absorb 76.1 percent of water, "which is significantly greater than the acrylic SAP, starch SAP and pectin SAP."

After her experiments, Nirghan said that the results supported her hypothesis that the 'Orange peel mixture' when applied to soil maintained the greatest average soil. "I was successful in creating a low-cost superabsorbent polymer, the 'Orange peel mixture' is made out of waste products found in the juice manufacturing industry."

Google announced the 2016 Science Fair last year where they encouraged students around the world ages 13-18 to join and submit projects online across all scientific fields.
The Search Engine Giant, Google, has been rumored to introduce its new flagship hardware, including the Google Home, the company's Pixel smartphones, Chromecast Ultra, and its own-brand of Wifi router called Google Wifi, in its upcoming Oct. 4 event. Now with the event getting near, details on the said products are surfacing on the internet together with their pricing.

According to Android Police, the Google Home device is branded as Google's answer to Amazon Echo. The console will feature a microphone and a Bluetooth speaker, and work as a smart-home device that can perform basic functions like playing music, setting the Nest thermostat or even telling the weather forecast.

Google Home was announced at Google I/O in May and will have an official price tag of $129, which is much cheaper than the OnHub routers. In addition, Google Home matches that of the Google Wifi, a router that will be able to create a single, large wireless network using multiple access points.

According to the same publication, the point of Google WiFi is to be very much like Eero or Luma, two WiFi router products that expand signal in a house, so that the household members could easily access internet with a strong signal. Google is pushing this as a "mesh technology" or "modular," where there could be additional parts to it. It is discovered that the Google Wifi work similarly, where anyone can start with a router connected to his modem and then continue to add on new routers or modules to expand the network.

As for the Google Chromecast Ultra, prolific electronic device leaker Evan Blass' leaked photo posted on VentureBeat shows a round, jet-black device with a short HDMI cable that looks very similar to the Chromecasts currently on sale, PCMag reported.

In order to operate the current models, users must connect to a Google Cast-enabled smartphone, tablet, or PC via Wi-Fi. However, it is unclear if Google will be offering more with the Ultra on top of 4K and HDR capabilities. Meanwhile, the Chromecast Ultra is now rumored to cost $69.

As of today, all of these device details remain rumors and speculations until Google reveal the specific details themselves on the date of the announcement, which will happen on Oct. 4.
Samsung, makers of the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy Note 7, is embroiled in a federal class action suit after receiving consumer complaints that some of its top-loading washing machines allegedly exploded.

Reports say that the machines in question vibrate under heavy loads, wherein the violent vibration during the machines' cycle causes the washer tub to become unstable. With this, it leads the tub to be unfastened, causing a centrifugal explosion that damages the machine and anything nearby.

In court filings in McAllen, Texas, a woman narrated that her washer "exploded with such ferocity that it penetrated the interior wall of her garage," CNN reported. In the same report, a woman from Dallas, Georgia said, "it felt and sounded as if a bomb went off."

With this alarming turn of events, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a warning citing some Samsung Washing Machines might have safety issues in light of the reported explosions. The statement dated Sept. 28, 2016 states "...CPSC is actively and cooperatively working with Samsung to address safety issues related to certain top-load washing machines made between March 2011 and April 2016." The statement also said, "Consumers can contact Samsung for more information. Consumers should report any incidents to CPSC via our website www.SaferProducts.gov."

For its part, Samsung has not released a list of the specific models that are affected, but washer owners can check this link to see if their top-load machines are included on the list by keying in the models' serial number. Samsung advised its top-load washer owners to use the delicate cycle of their machines and issued an official statement:

"In rare cases, affected units may experience abnormal vibrations that could pose a risk of personal injury or property damage when washing bedding, bulky or water-resistant items."

You can read Samsung's official statement here.

Watch the video below:


GREENSBORO  Two civil rights leaders have asked the City Council to form a special commission to investigate what they call the Greensboro Police Departments culture that conceals and minimizes police wrongdoing.

A recent incident in which a white police officer arrested a black man with what council members called a disturbing use of force was concealed through a police department culture that encourages the abuse of police power, according to a letter to the council from the Rev. Nelson N. Johnson and Lewis Pitts, a retired attorney.

Johnson and Pitts have asked the City Council to preserve all evidence and communications in the case so that an independent commission can do a wider probe of what they say is a lack of police truthfulness, police transparency, police competency, and the resultant decline of trust by a significant part of our community.

They made their request Thursday, just days after the councils release Monday of body camera video showing Officer Travis Cole punching Dejuan Yourse in the face and pinning him to the ground while Yourse yelled I am not resisting over and over.

Pitts said that the police departments bureaucracy is set up to conceal actions like Coles, which occurred on June 17, but did not result in action against the officer until Aug. 10, when he was placed on administrative leave.

The thrust of our point is you cannot continue to expect an impartial and objective investigation out of the police department to police themselves, Pitts said Thursday.

Cole has since resigned from the department, but that is not the end of the departments problems and how they affect the way a growing part of the city is quickly losing trust in the police departments internal investigations, Pitts said. Coles partner, Officer C.N. Jackson, who was present during the incident, resigned Wednesday.

The critical point is not that officer Cole is a bad guy, Pitts said, but a pattern of multiple layers up in the department concealing that.

Police Chief Wayne Scott said in response to the letter: We strive to be as transparent as we can. The personnel laws in the state of North Carolina restrict some of the things we can make public. But as a police department we do everything within our power to allow our community to know about our process and what the outcomes are.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan could not be reached to comment on the letter.

Councilman Mike Barber wrote a letter Thursday to Scott and City Manager Jim Westmoreland saying he and many council members support the police department and the work it is doing despite criticism from council members and the public.

Im aware of what the last few weeks has done for morale, he wrote. I ask that you share this message of COMPLETE and ongoing support with your colleagues, and please continue to do everything you can to keep a positive work environment in these difficult times.

In their letter, Pitts and Johnson have asked the city council and the mayor to:

Make a thorough effort to grasp the level of community distrust and anger over local police misconduct in the context of a national epidemic of police beatings and killings of People of Color.

Take possession of emails, notes, letters and communications involving the Cole-Yourse incident and put those documents in safe-keeping away from anyone else, whether in the GPD, City Managers Office, or the City Attorneys Office, for your review and safe-keeping.

Make those documents available to the public.

And convene an Independent Citizens Investigative Commission, containing representation from a cross-section of Greensboro residents, to join with you in an objective and thorough investigation into all aspects of the Cole-Yourse incident.

Yourse was charged with resisting arrest and assault on government officials, charges the District Attorneys office later dropped.

Cole has faced controversy before for his handling of the high-profile case of Devin and Rufus Scales in 2014. The brothers, who are black, were arrested on charges of public intoxication and resisting arrest, among others.

Devin Scales recorded his brother being handcuffed without incident, raising questions about why he was charged with resisting arrest. After months of public pressure, the police dropped the charges.

City Manager Jim Westmoreland issued a written apology to the brothers and the city reached a $50,000 joint settlement with them.

Pitts said Westmoreland and the Greensboro city attorney cannot be trusted to investigate the Yourse case, and that Chief Assistant District Attorney Howard Neumann should not be involved either.

Neumann did not file any charges against Cole, but the City Council asked him to reconsider after they showed the video. Neumann said Wednesday that he sees no reason to charge Cole with anything.

This should be transparently clear, Pitts said, that up that chain of bureacracy is a culture that conceals and minimizes police wrongdoing.
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By Sarah Aziza | ( Waging Nonviolence ) |  

In Saudi Arabia, a country many view as synonymous with gender discrimination, women are seeing signs of change. While a few top-down reforms have come in recent years  the right to vote in municipal elections, for example, was introduced by King Abdullah in 2011  many working at the grassroots level are agitating for more fundamental change. Over the summer, activists launched an online campaign calling for the dismantling of Saudi Arabias controversial guardianship system, which puts women under the authority of male relatives  something many see as a fundamental obstacle to womens basic rights in the kingdom.

For the past several months, Saudi women and their supporters around the world have tweeted under the hashtag #___ [translation: Saudi Women Demand the End (literal: downfall) of Guardianship]. The campaign has also used the English hashtags #IAmMyOwnGuardian and #StopEnslavingSaudiWomen to draw in international supporters, as well as local advocates. The goal, says long-time activist Aziza al-Yousef, is to gain Saudi women the right to be full citizens  responsible for her own acts. Alongside their tweets, activists circulated a petition calling for the end of the guardianship system, which garnered over 14,000 signatures by last weekend. On Monday, activists, including al-Yousef, brought the petition in person to the royal court, where they were unable to deliver the document, but were directed to send it via mail.

Earlier this month, Saudi Arabias Grand Mufti Abdulaziz al-Sheikh came out strongly against the campaign, calling the tweets a crime against Islam. Many others, however, have argued that the guardianship system, as it is practiced in Saudi Arabia, is an inaccurate interpretation of the Quran. According to organizers, many religious leaders have voiced their support for the campaign. They all declared that [the guardianship system] is not religion, said al-Yousef. [They said] this is all government rules and it should be changed.

According to Human Rights Watch, Saudi women  as the law now stands  are in many ways perpetual minors. Currently, they lack full legal standing in Saudi Arabia and are required to gain the permission of their male guardians for essential tasks such as travel and marriage, and, often, medical services and employment. Typically, guardians are a close male kin such as father, brother, husband or son. Women wishing to contradict the decisions of their guardians have few avenues for recourse. In addition, fiercely-enforced segregation, a functional ban on female drivers, and informal discrimination create a sense of disenfranchisement that transcends legal codes. As one 44-year-old Saudi woman testified to Human Rights Watch, It can mess with your head and the way you look at yourself. How do you respect yourself or how [can] your family respect you, if he is your legal guardian?

The Saudi government has twice promised to end the system  once in 2009 and once in 2013  when it came under scrutiny by the United Nations Human Rights Council. This months campaign was launched with the support of Human Rights Watch, which has published a scathing critique of the guardianship system, most recently in its report Boxed In, calling it the most significant impediment to womens rights in the country despite limited reforms over the last decade. While the kingdoms Vision 2030 has proposed an expansion of womens roles in Saudi society, critics insist that the guardianship system remains in contradiction with this goal.

Nevertheless, a tide is turning in Saudi Arabia. Greater numbers of Saudi Arabias highly-educated female population have gained access to employment in recent years, along with some limited participation in local politics. On the national level, women leaders like Princess Reema bint Bandar have advocated openly for womens empowerment and appear to be making headway. Meanwhile, this months viral campaign has grown out of previous activism, indicating a steadily growing grassroots movement that is in it for the long haul. We always hope, al-Yousef told BBC this week. Without hope, you cannot work.

Sarah Aziza is an Arab-American writer, graduate student and activist based in NYC. She has previously worked among refugee populations in North Africa, Jordan and the West Bank. Her areas of focus include immigration, human rights, international politics, feminism and mental health. She is a lover of the story-less-told. Find her on Twitter @SarahAziza1 or www.sarahaziza.com

This article was originally published on Waging Nonviolence )

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

TRT World: The Newsmakers: Saudi womens rights
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

Cable news and social media in the United States dont go into OhmyGod theres only One Story mode about mass shootings unless they somehow involve Muslims. The downside of this procedure is that Americans think Muslims in the US are way more violent than they actually are, and have started to associate Islam with violence.

That shooting by hand gun in at a kindergarten playground South Carolina? I dont think they obsessed about it on cable news. By the way, the firefighter who tackled the shooter and ended it was unarmed.

Then the Houston shooter who killed one and injured 9 but wanted to kill dozens and who was armed to the teeth (2600 rounds of ammo) and dressed in Nazi insignia did that guy even get the breaking news logo and ominous music on basic cable? I mean, Erin Burnett said the other night that Trump addressing a rally in Florida was breaking news. Thats breaking news the way it is breaking news that he took a dump. And then they just turned over their airwaves to him (he went on to tell numerous lies with no fact checking). But did they spend any similar amount of time on the Nazi shooter in Houston? And, it is related, because we all know that the Neo-Nazis are a significant constituency for Trumpism.

That is, if were going to be hysterical about shooters and terrorism, maybe we should save some of our hysteria for having a guy in the White House who is so admired by and exciting to the racist far right.

Or there were the six killed in a mass shooting in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago.

Or a mass shooting in Baltimore with 6 victims, apparently an act of reprisal.

None of these mass shootings was politicized (though you would think Nazism is, like, political). None attracted much media attention. But if the shooters in any of these attacks had been Muslim, we would have never heard the end of it, especially from Trump.

Then of course the big gun manufacturers have bamboozled Americans into thinking there is nothing we can do about this cascade of mass shootings, when Australia fixed their similar problem with a single law. They are so powerful that Congress wont even consider limiting firearms to suspected terrorists!

There is no social science reason to think Muslims are more violent than anyone else, over time. Catholic Colombia has signed a peace agreement with FARK, a welcome development, but for most of the past 30 years it has been one of the more violent societies on earth. (This had nothing to do with being Catholic or Colombian; it was a social struggle that coud have broken out lots of places). Mexicos death from drug wars toll has been similar to the death toll in Iraq from political violence (the US bears some blame in both). Back in the 70s and 80s, Cambodian Marxists of Buddhist heritage polished off 1 in 6 Cambodians. And, I estimate that white people of Christian European ancestry rubbed out on the order of 100 million people in the twentieth century, if we count all the wars, revolutions and colonial massacres.

But Trumpism, which has taken over our national discourse, is all about ignoring nuance and facts, and going off half-cocked based on stereotypes and gut feelings.



Related video:

TomoNews: Houston mass shooting: Disgruntled lawyer in Nazi military garb goes on shooting spree  TomoNews
JURIST Guest Columnist Dayna Jones, a law student at Lewis and Clark Law School, discusses the intersection of law and environmental justice concerning the the Standing Rock Sioux Nation and the Dakota Access Pipeline

The largest multi-tribal gathering of indigenous peoples in North America in over a century is happening now at the Sacred Stone Camp in North Dakota. Leading the cause is the Standing Rock Sioux Nation. The Standing Rock Sioux and their allies are standing against construction of the black snake Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) slated to run under the Missouri River and through their historically-sacred tribal sites. The tribe states it has not been properly consulted prior to construction of the DAPL, a requirement legally mandated by Executive Order 13175 [PDF]. Executive Order 13175 stipulates that: [e]ach agency shall have an accountable process to ensure meaningful and timely input by tribal officials in the development of regulatory policies that have tribal implications.

The Standing Rock Sioux Nations assertion that the Army Corps of Engineers, an executive agency charged with overseeing and granting pipeline permits, has failed to meet the clearly-enunciated requirement of meaningful consultation, makes this case one of the strongest Native American environmental justice legal claims in history. Environmental justice, a paradigm born of a merger between civil rights and environmental movements, is unique in Native American communities. This unique status stems from the legal classification of tribes as domestic dependent nations, sovereign as political (rather than racial) entities, yet still under the plenary authority of Congress, as per Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. The plenary authority of Congress over the tribes derived from the Constitution is a stretch at best, as Native Americans predate the Constitution. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court has established a solid judicial body of law giving Congress, and only Congress, the ability to act in good faith as wards over the affairs of Indian Country, such as the 1886 case of US v. Kagama .

The murky law governing Native American jurisdiction and right to self-determination has not been consistent, and is reflective of the political leanings of decision-makers in any given era. For example, in 1823 Chief Justice Marshall referred to tribes as savages in the landmark case of Johnson v. MIntosh , affirming the doctrine of discovery. Despite the overtly-racist language Justice Marshall flaunted in this opinion, it has never been overturned and is still cited today. Conversely, Congress has acquiesced to the need for greater legal protections in Indian country from time to time. One of the greatest examples of this acquiescence is found in the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The NAGPRA requires that excavation or removal of Native American cultural items be done under procedures set out by the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) [PDF], and in tandem with careful consultations with the Tribe. One of the intended goals of NAGPRA was to encourage the in situ preservation of tribal archaeological sites, particularly those that contain burials or other cultural items.

The Standing Rock Sioux have made it clear that the proposed route for the Dakota Access Pipeline runs directly through sacred burial sites and artifacts. Together with their allies, they have been demanding their legal rights to consultation be observed. Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman David Archambault II stated: I am not asking that you stop this pipeline, Im asking that you do a full EIS [Environmental Impact Statement]. Yet, just one day after Standing Rock Sioux nation filed a request for an injunction due to newly found culturally significant artifacts and sites, Dakota Access bulldozed through the land, and hired a private security force armed with attack dogs and mace to deter the Tribe from trying to halt construction. The owners of the Cannonball Ranch, where some of the contested area is located, buckled under the pressure of conflicting interests surrounding the DAPL, and sold the land to Dakota Access in September 2016. This land sale was made both without consultation to the Tribe, and without regard to the full knowledge of the vulnerable sacred sites and artifacts buried beneath the surface there. This purposeful failure to meet the requirements of tribal consultation is a direct breech of law on the part of Dakota Access, and gets to the heart of environmental justice.

Environmental justice looks different in each marginalized community, and there are no one-size-fits-all problems or solutions. As discussed in their 2001 law review article Racializing Environmental Justice, Jen-L Lyman and Eric Yamamoto wrote that for Native Americans, environmental justice often revolves around the effects of land dispossession, culture destruction and loss of sovereignty rather than equality and integration. The effects of these colonial measures have directly caused many Native American communities to suffer under conditions of poverty, economic vulnerability, and limited political capacity. As a ward over the tribes, Congress has the ability and responsibility to enact legislation to their benefit. What good is this guardianship if the meager protections provided are ignored without penalty or recourse (as is in the case of Dakota Access)?

In addition to the violations of the ARPA and NAGPRA, the Standing Rock Sioux have suffered a legal and environmental justice violation by the failure of the government to adhere to the National Environmental Policy Act. NEPA requires federal agencies to evaluate effects of proposed federal agency actions on tribal interests. The Standing Rock Sioux Nations sole water source, the Missouri River, will be crossed under several times if the Dakota Access Pipeline is completed. As a people with an average annual income of $4,421 who primarily make their living off of cattle ranching and farming, the Tribes interest in the Missouri cannot be overstated. Still, there has not been a rigorous consultation process among the members of the Federal government and the Tribe regarding the potential environmental hazards of a pipeline affecting their water supply. In 2013 alone, the US suffered 7,662 spills, blowouts, and leaks across 15 states with pipelines. Such a spill in the area at issue could obliterate the only clean water supply to which the Tribe has access, and consequently endanger the lives of those working and living in the vicinity. Yet still, the requirement of meaningful involvement of the peoples has not been recognized.

Dakota Access has made clear its deliberate intention to violate the rights of the Standing Rock Sioux through action; however, the Tribe continues to battle fiercely in opposition to such intentions. Unfortunately, the Morton County Sheriffs Department is providing enforcement power to this intention: just this past week, over 21 water protectors were arrested while holding a prayer ceremony to protect the land and water. Now, the world is watching to see if the federal government will step up to honor its federal-trustee relationship with the Standing Rock Sioux Nation and demand their meaningful involvement in the decision-making process around DAPL or if this will instead turn into another chapter to be written into American history books narrating one more tragic case of indigenous erasure.

Dayna Jones is a second-year law student studying environmental and Native Law at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. She is participating in the International Environmental Law Project and is also currently interning at OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon.

Suggested citation: Dayna Jones, The Dakota Access Pipeline: A Legal Environmental Justice Perspective, JURIST  Student Commentary, September 29, 2016, http://jurist.org/dateline/2016/09/Dayna-Jones-dakota-pipeline.php
The Sudanese government used chemical weapons on civilians in a region of Darfur between January and September 9, an Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] investigative report claimed [press release] Thursday. During this time, the Sudanese army engaged in a military offensive targeting the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdul Wahid. AI believes that during this time 30 attacks occurred and more than 200 civilians died, including young children. The evidence [materials] includes hundreds of interviews with survivors and satellite imagery. AI Director of Crisis Research, Tirana Hassan, said the militarys use of chemical weapons is a war crime. She further stated: Chemical weapons have been banned for decades in recognition of the fact that the level of suffering they cause can never be justified. The fact that Sudans government is now repeatedly using them against their own people simply cannot be ignored and demands action. AI is urging the UN Security Council [official website] to investigate these attacks, prosecute anyone responsible and ensure the implementation of the current arms embargo. They also hope the UN Security Council can pressure Sudan to allow humanitarian access to the region.

The human rights situation throughout Sudan has drawn global condemnation. In March Human Rights Watch reported that female rights activists [JURIST report] in Sudan are facing harassment, violence and other rights abuses. Earlier that month South Africas Supreme Court of Appeal upheld a lower courts ruling that the state broke the law by not detaining [JURIST report] Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir despite an International Criminal Court order to do so. In February a UN human rights expert called for an end [JURIST report] to conflict in Darfur between the Sudanese government and the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdul Wahid, which may have led to human rights abuses and violations of international law.
The Supreme Court of Nevada [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Thursday that the funding provision of the states Education Saving Account (ESA) [official website] program is unconstitutional under the Nevada Constitution [text]. In its opinion the court did not address the merit of the program as a whole, but effectively halted implementation until the financial issue can be resolved. The system would enable parents to access up to $5,000 in funds that would have otherwise been distributed to their childs public education, and put it toward private education and other academic expenses. The court took issue with the fact that the current plan for ESA funding was to draw money from resources allocated for public education and that the ESA did not have its own source separate from the amount budgeted for public education, nor was it included in that budget.

Education funding has led to numerous legal challenges across the US. Earlier this month the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that Governor Matt Bevin did not have the authority to unilaterally cut the budget [JURIST report] for state universities. In 2015 the Supreme Court of Washington ordered [JURIST report] the state to pay a fine of $100,000 per day for each day that it fails to comply with a previous court ruling mandating adequate funding of public schools. Also in August of that year the US Senate passed a bill [JURIST report] to revamp the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia [official website] has condemned [press release] the passage of the 9/11 bill [JURIST report], called the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) [bill, text], that would allow the families of 9/11 victims to fie civil suits for damages against the country. Pointing out that US own top leaders, including President Barack Obama [official website], the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the director of the CIA, opposed JASTA in its current form, the Ministry stated that the enactment of JASTA is of great concern to the community of nations that object to the erosion of the principle of sovereign immunity, which has governed international relations for hundreds of years. The Ministry also pointed out that JASTA has been publicly opposed by many nations around the world and American national security experts who have recognized the dangers that the bill represents. The Ministry expressed hope that Congress will take the necessary steps to reconsider the bill and correct it to avoid the serious unintended consequences that may ensue.

There has been great controversy concerning the passage of the 9/11 bill even within the US and Obama himself strongly criticized the congressional overriding of his veto of the bill [JURIST report]. In vetoing the bill last week, Obama expressed concern that JASTA may set a dangerous precedent for allowing the US to be held liable by foreign private courts. The White House Press Secretary Paul Earnest announced earlier this month that Obama intended to veto the bill, shortly after the bill was approved [JURIST reports] by the US House of Representatives. The Act was approved [JURIST report] by the Senate in May. In 2012 a US District judge dismissed a motion [JURIST report] to reinstate Saudi Arabia as a defendant in a civil compensation lawsuit by victims against the perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The claim against Saudi Arabia was dismissed in 2008 by a US Appeals Court due to insufficient evidence that the Kingdoms princes has actual knowledge that their money was going to be used in the attacks. In 2005 Judge Richard Casey dismissed [JURIST report] Saudi Arabia, its defense minister and its ambassador to the UK as defendants in litigation stemming from the terrorist attacks, ruling that all had sovereign immunity [Cornell LII backgrounder].
A teen blogger in Singapore was sentenced to six weeks in jail on Thursday for wounding religious feelings after he pleaded guilty to posting comments on the Internet criticizing Christianity and Islam. The 17-year-old defendant, Amos Yee, told reporters he thought the sentence was very fair [Reuters report]. However, others have criticized the sentence as deterring freedom of expression. Last year Yee was also jailed [JURIST report] after posting images and video insulting the countrys first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew [BBC backgrounder]. A UN rights expert warned [JURIST report] that Yees trial was a sign of increased criminalization of expression in Singapore.

Singapore has a history of prosecuting those critical of the government. In March 2015 the Supreme Court of Singapore fined blogger Alex Au [JURIST report] for comments he made about an on-going challenge to the countrys anti-homosexuality laws. Another court ordered blogger Roy Ngerng [JURIST report] to pay Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for legal fees incurred pursuing a defamation case against Ngerng. In 2008 a Singapore court sentenced US blogger and attorney Gopalan Nair [JURIST report] to three months in jail for insulting a judge.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on Thursday condemned [press release] an airstrike launched by unmanned aerial vehicle that struck a civilian home killing 15 and injuring 13, including one child. The airstrike, apparently targeting Islamic State (IS) militants, was conducted during the early morning hours of Thursday in the eastern district of Achin where civilians had gathered in a village to celebrate the return of a tribal leader from the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. US Force-Afghanistan has thus far admitted conducting the airstrike and stated that they are in the process of investigating the incident internally before elaborating further. Expressing condolences to the families of those killed, UNAMA reiterated the need for all parties involved in the conflict to comply with international humanitarian law. UNAMA called on the government and international military forces to launch a prompt, independent, impartial, transparent, and effective investigation into this incident.

The use of drones [JURIST backgrounder] is controversial in both the international arena and in domestic circles. In January the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that the presidents National Security Council (NSC) [official website] is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [official website]. In November the Second Circuit ruled that the US government may keep secret memoranda [JURIST report] related to the legal justification for the use of drones for targeted killings of those in other countries believed to be involved in terrorism. The case was the result of FOIA requests by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] and the New York Times [media website] for documents prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel of the US Department of Justice [official website] regarding the drone strikes. In June 2015 the families of two Yemeni men killed by US drone strikes filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] against the government, claiming they were wrongfully killed. In December 2010 a judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a lawsuit [JURIST report] challenging the Obama administrations ability to conduct targeted killings [JURIST backgrounder], a challenge spurred because one subject of a targeted killing, al-Awlaki-Khan, was a dual US-Yemeni citizen.
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Netherlands-based meat processor Vion Food Group is in talks aimed at raising additional investment for an expansion of exports to China and exploiting opportunities in the wider international meat market.

Vion told just-food today (30 September) it already exports pork meat to China but sees opportunities to expand there and in other existing markets, as well as pushing into new markets.

Financing talks are under way with the groups sole shareholder, Dutch investment company NCB Ontwikkeling, a Vion spokesperson confirmed.

China is an important market for us already, but we see a growth in demand not just from China but also in other export markets where we would like to grow, the spokesperson said.

One of the reasons we want to attract new finance is to make sure we maintain the growth that we need. We have spent a lot of money in recent years investing in our older facilities. But now we want to grow more in product market concepts like biological and organic that will have more demand in the future than is currently the case.

We are just at the beginning of the process of discussing investment so it is too early to say more at present, the spokesperson said. We dont give out trading or export figures but our exports to China are substantial and have grown a lot in recent years.

Vion wants to optimise its facilities in the Netherlands and in Germany to support exports. In May, Vion said it was investing in a new abattoir for the slaughter and processing of organic beef in the north of the Netherlands, to be operated with its long-term partner the Waddenvlees Group.

Vion has a total of 25 production sites in the Netherlands and Germany and sales offices in 16 countries. Vions total sales in 2015 amounted to EUR4.6bn (US$5.1bn).
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This Sunday (2 October), Hungary will hold a referendum on whether to accept the European Unions mandatory quota system for the resettlement of refugees. The result will put the EUs values to the test.

Hungarys Prime Minister Viktor Orban is leading a zero refugee campaign against the quota and the illicit movement of migrants across its borders. He argues that the EUs plan would strip Hungary of its national sovereignty and cultural identity.

Orban, who has been in power for the last six years, has clashed with the EU on numerous occasions, on issues ranging from his views on the independence of the judiciary and the central bank to his stance on the migrant crisis.

As recently as September 2016, the EU made an agreement for the re-settlement of an additional 120,000 migrants across the continent. Hungary was asked to house 1,294 refugees. From the start, Orban said he would not support this plan and has made it clear that he would mount a legal challenge against the resettlement of migrants in EU member states, including his own.

Already well-established as the migrant routes main port of entry into the EUs border-free Schengen zone, Hungary last year found itself at the centre of Europes refugee crisis, as one and a half million irregular migrants arrived at Europes gates. Orbans government last year built a razor wire fence along Hungarys southern border, in an effort to seal it against the influx of migrants. A popular move at home, but one that was broadly condemned by human rights groups.

An unacceptable burden

German Chancellor Angela Merkels attitude towards the matter could not have been more different from that of the Hungarian premier. At first, she welcomed large numbers of refugees to the EU, arguing that they would not be a burden but a blessing for the bloc, revitalising its stagnant economy and ageing population. But after coming under extreme pressure, both at home and abroad, even Merkel has changed her tune. She now concedes that a large influx of migrants in a short space of time may be too much of a strain for some countries to bear.

For Hungary, integrating the migrants allocated under the EUs resettlement plan could be a challenge. As Hungary is by no means a rich country, critics say it would put an unacceptable burden on taxpayers and extra pressure on public services. But the EU has already threatened Hungary with fines of 250,000 euros for every migrant it refuses to accept.

In spite of this, between 73 and 75% of voters across Hungary still agree with Orbans zero tolerance approach to migration, in large part due to the perceived threat they pose to national security and the fear of terrorism.

On the other hand, between 23 and 25% of Hungarian citizens support the EU quota system, according to the most recent polling results. Orbans opponents argue that the refusal to accept the EU quota flies in the face of Europes core values of democracy and liberalism.

But Hungarys referendum is representative of the sentiments across Central Europe toward the quotas the refugee crisis in general.
KEARNEY  A convicted felon has been sent back to prison, this time for his role in robbing a Kearney man of his marijuana and money.

Joshua Lewis, 24, of Grand Island was sentenced Wednesday in Buffalo County District Court to 15 to 25 years in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm and felony robbery of a Kearney man in his home on Feb. 3. Lewis showed little emotion after Judge John Icenogle issued his sentence.

The sentences will be served at the same time.

With good time, Lewis could be eligible for parole in seven years and could possibly be discharged in 12 years. Icenogle gave him 173 days credit for time already served in jail.

In 2010, Lewis was convicted of felony assault on a police officer in Hall County and served eight months.

Lewis co-defendant, Jason Warrington, 20, of Kearney has been convicted of being an accessory to a felony for providing Lewis with the firearm that was used in the incident. Warrington remains at the Buffalo County Jail on a $100,000 bond.

He will be sentenced in August.

At about 11:10 a.m. Feb. 3, a Kearney man reported being awakened at his home in the 2100 block of Third Avenue by a knock at his bedroom door. When he opened the door, he saw two men wearing black ski masks. One man held a handgun, and the other man held a rifle.

The suspects tied the victims hands behind his back with zip ties and then shot him in the lower right leg with the handgun.

The victim told police the suspects then took marijuana from his safe in the closet and cash from his wallet. The victim recognized Warringtons voice.

The suspects left, and the victim took himself to the hospital. Court records dont say how the man got untied.

Warrington and Lewis were later arrested. During his interview with police, Warrington admitted knowing the victim and made statements about going to the victims house to score some weed.

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LINCOLN  A deputy director of the states troubled prison system acknowledged Friday that assaults on staff members are rising at an alarming rate.

Diane Sabatka-Rine, deputy director of Institutions for the Department of Correctional Services, spent nearly three hours detailing recent disturbances at the states prisons before a special legislative oversight committee.

From January through August, 141 staff members have been assaulted, Sabatka-Rine said. Ten resulted in serious injuries. That compares to 78 staff assaults  about half that number  in 2013, none of which resulted in serious injury, she said.

"To be clear, our departments goal is zero" staff assaults, she said.

Corrections Director Scott Frakes and Rosalyn Cotton, chair of the Nebraska Board of Parole, also are expected to testify. The hearing is set to be focused on overcrowding and efforts officials are taking to better prepare inmates for release.

Nebraskas prisons are at 157 percent of design capacity as of this month, down from 158 percent in April and January of this year.

Chronic overcrowding is just one issue the agency has dealt with in recent years. Other problems have included the mistaken early release of hundreds of inmates.

The department also has a hard time recruiting staff, Sabatka-Rine said. About 200 protective services posts are vacant, which means other officers must work mandatory overtime. A recent staffing analysis said the department needed an additional 138 corrections officers.

Former State Sen. Steve Lathrop, who led the questioning, called the large number of vacancies an "underlying problem to public safety."

The disturbances detailed Friday included a 2015 riot at the Tecumseh State Prison that left two inmates dead, the escape of two inmates from the Lincoln Correctional Center in June and the August assault of nine corrections officers at the Correctional Center.

More recently, inmates started two fires in cells, one of which was started using a battery and a candy wrapper; staff fired a warning shot at the Nebraska State Penitentiary after inmates refused to leave the yard and converged on staff; and Nikko Jenkins, a mentally troubled inmate, was able to get sharp objects to cut himself three times.

Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha questioned whether good time was taken away from inmates involved in those incidents, and said he believes the department doesnt use good time effectively. He called keeping corrections officers safe the departments "No. 1 problem."

"Weve got to have safe institutions," he said.

Sabatka-Rine said she believes the department is making progress to address staffing. A former warden who has worked for the corrections department for more than 30 years, Sabatka-Rine said she hasnt always had support from outside her agency to add staff. She called Frakes "proactive."

Frakes earlier this month proposed an ambitious plan to add 164.5 new full-time positions and build a $75 million prison addition for elderly and seriously mentally ill inmates.
Prince William and his wife Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, watch native youth dancers during a welcoming ceremony in Carcross, Yukon, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016. Bojana Sentaler is quickly learning just what it means to feel the full force of the "Kate effect."Barely 24 hours after the Duchess of Cambridge appeared in a coat by the Toronto-based fashion designer, the grey alpaca garment and many others from the Sentaler brand sold out online, with orders coming in from around the world.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
Dale Dirkse, M.A, Doctoral Student in Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Regina is shown in this undated handout image. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO- University of Regina Photography-Trevor Hopkins MANDATORY CREDIT
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FILE - In this Sept. 3, 2016 file photo, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson speaks during a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa. Johnson had another self-described AuAleppo momentAu on Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016, after he couldnAot come up with a name when asked by MSNBC host Chris Matthews who his favorite foreign leader is. (AP Photo/Scott Morgan, File)
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It is the beauty of evidence-based medicine (EBM) that a scientist can at once be a Pope and a Galileo. His transmutation is as effortless as it is discretionary. If you think youve met Galileo  a rebel, a free thinker, a rocker of the establishment  the following week he is a Pope, castigating detractors, censoring critics, and celebrating uniformity. He changes by a roll of the dice. His change is decided by a quirk in hypothesis-testing known as statistical significance. If the p-value is 0.051 he is Galileo, if the p-value is 0.049 he becomes the cardinal. He is one day a raging skeptic and another day a true believer.

The latest fight between orthodoxy and free inquiry is about the benefits and harms of statins for primary prevention. A review, and an editorial, in the Lancet said the benefits of statins are real, the harms are exaggerated, and skepticism of benefits of statins should be censored because doubt can harm the public who may not take their statins and thus die prematurely. Stated differently, skepticism kills. The lead author of the review once asked the BMJ to retract a study which he felt overplayed the harms and denied the benefits of statins. The editor compared the fear about statins to fear about vaccination. Statin skeptics, like vaccine deniers, are now medicines truthers.

It is unclear what will send the skeptics to the Gulag. Is it a denial that statins have any benefits or a quibble about the precise benefits? Will you be sent to the gulags if you incorrectly say the number needed to treat (NNT) is 150, when it is in fact 100; if you get the confidence interval wrong; or if you underestimate the significance level? The Spanish Inquisitors made it simple  deny Jesus is the son of God, and youre in the torture chamber. The new truths are probabilistic  God is statistically significant with p-value perched precariously at 0.05.

The BMJ, at the crossfire of this inquisition, responded to Lancets accusation in kind. The fight between Britains two major medical journals is like the recent spat between the leave and remain camps in Brexit  that there was a winner shouldnt detract from the pettiness, or the close margin, of the dispute. I shall spare you the granular details of the statin war (excellent summary at CardioBrief and a raucous take by Michel Accad are worth reading). Granularity in EBM is not the same as looking at the night sky through a telescope. You wont be awed by magnifying the details. However, if you suffer insomnia, the 30-page review of statins in Lancet might be what the doctor ordered.

What are the harms of statins? Aside from remembering to take the pill, which should no longer be burdensome, but a fact of life like wearing a seatbelt or filing taxes, the harms include muscle pain. Muscle pain? Are you thinking what Im thinking? Muscle pain! BFD! Is modern man, who by now was supposed to have colonized Mars and traveled to Proxima Centauri in search of a new planet, arguing about muscle pain? What an anti-climax!

The dispute doesnt have the same metaphysical significance as Earth versus the sun at the center of the universe. Galileos captors saw in Galileos musings the contradictions of their religion. But the contradiction of statins is more divisive than heliocentricity. But let us not falsely elevate the fatigued quadriceps muscle to martyrdom. The statin war is not about skeletal muscle. It is about ossified ideologies. The statin war asks medicines most primal question  what is the role of medicine in society?

It is a war between two movements in medicine, which itself has become a religion with the physician as its high priest. Medicine is divided into two sects. One is the less-is-more movement. The other movement, the antithesis of less-is-more, doesnt have a name, but I will call it the unlimited medicine movement. One emphasizes medicines limitations, the other medicines possibilities. One is short-sighted, the other can stare only at the horizon. One is too willing to press the brake, the other ever eager to press the accelerator. One seeks redemption in data; the other seeks salvation in venture capitalists. One wants to be guarded by budgets and opportunity costs, the other wants to break chronological budgets. One sees man as mortal, the other dreams of transient, incremental, immortality.

The two movements are profoundly similar. The men who fought for Richard the 1st and Saladin in Jerusalem in the Crusades, though fought against each other, all thought they had God on their side. Both the less-is-more and unlimited medicine movements believe they have history on their side. Both movements are sincere, overly sincere, yet disingenuous; both can be dogmatic, both are sentimental, both are self-righteous. Both are right, neither is wrong, yet both are wrong.

The less-is-more movement is at least forthright in its objectives. It believes medicine is doing too much. It believes medicine is overtesting, overtreating, overdiagnosing, overstepping, and over intruding in the lives of private citizens. It believes medicine has lost its moral compass. Just like a nosey mother-in-law extracts too much for the occasional babysitting, medicine extracts too much for extending longevity by too little.

On the face, the less-is-more movement is the more ideological and self-righteous of the two. This movement has made two strategic errors. It has erred by ascribing to malice what can be ascribed to chance. It believes, implicitly, that doctors do too much because of greed supported by the incentive structure. This naive reductionism, which can easily be countered, has alienated many doctors. This is a double blow for the movement which has lost not only its key message but supporters of that message. The movement should, instead, have emphasized that medicine is an art, an imperfect art; that the art is minimalism, and minimalism needs judgment and skill; that the art is not uniform and can vary between its practitioners, but thats ok; that the art can be ruined by diagnostic and therapeutic incontinence. It has not done so because it does not believe medicine is an art but a precise scientific enterprise. It is this belief which is the root of its second, more fatal error.

The movement believes its core principles can be justified by science, that minimalism is scientific. EBM is the oddest of oddest sciences. It is not a science of precision but a science which specifies trade-offs. You win some, and you lose some, and EBM, when done right, tells you how much you win and how much you lose. EBM quantifies trade-offs. EBM doesnt abolish trade-offs. The less-is-more movement doesnt acknowledge trade-offs. It fails to acknowledge that therapeutic incontinence saves a few, very few to be precise, but few nonetheless. It denies that overuse of CT for pulmonary embolism, for example, saves a few lives from fatal pulmonary embolism who would have escaped the net if medicine were practiced as a fine art. It cannot get itself to say we overtest and overtreat and yes we help a few, but its not worth it.

In dealing with the small, but real, benefits which EBM keeps churning, such as statins for primary prevention, the less-is-more movement stays away from costs but overplays harms, obfuscates benefits with statistical purity, demands data sharing, confounds by reminding people of financial conflicts of interests. I have never succeeded in getting a less-is-more proponent to answer a simple question: what is the acceptable miss rate of fatal acute coronary syndrome in a patient presenting to the emergency department with atypical chest pain? 1/100? 1/1000? 1/10,000?

If the less-is-more movement refuses to explicitly state what is medicines floor, the unlimited medicine movement denies that there is a ceiling. This movement, too, denies trade-offs, but the denial is subtly guarded in the doctor-patient relationship. How far will you go to save one life, I have asked its followers. What should be the number needed to treat to save one person from a fatal myocardial infarction? 1/100? 1/1000? 1/10,000? Is there a limit? How much should be spent extending life by a month? The unlimited medicine movement cant get itself to say yes I know this cancer drug means less funding for public education for kids from poor background, but its worth the extra 6 weeks. This is partly because opportunity costs in the US are not explicit. Rather, theyre insidious like closing of safety net hospitals or libraries for children in poor areas, and the increasing national debt.

The unlimited medicine movement is the more sentimental of the two. Question them, say theyre doing too much, and they become defensive, and bring out their violin playing the most annoying self-pitying tune. How dare I question the sacrosanct doctor-patient relationship. Only they and their patient can answer whether its worth treating pulmonary embolism in someone riddled with metastases  a sentiment I wouldnt disagree with if the marginal costs of such pursuits werent diffused to society.

The dispute between the two movements, which I will call Statin Wars, even though its beyond statins, is fundamentally statistical. The less-is-more movement wants fewer Type 1 errors  fewer therapies that dont work to be adopted falsely. The unlimited medicine movement wants fewer Type 2 errors  fewer therapies that actually work to be falsely canned. Statistics have been recruited to fight ideology. There is an ideological divide between the movements. Is the role of medicine to heal the sick or to stop people from being sick? If it is to heal the sick, how far should the healing go? Neither question is easy to answer.

I believe that the role of medicine is to heal the sick, not hound the well. Im aware that adhering to my tenet literally like a Wahhabi and ignoring it completely like an infidel has problems. My tenet can easily be challenged. If medicine should be confined to healing the sick, am I opposed to screening neonates for phenylketonuria (PKU)? Im not, which tells you that I cant stand up for my tenet even transiently. Yet, I cant countenance that the role of medicine is to screen for lung cancer in octogenarians. Is there no difference in kind, or degree, between screening for PKU in neonates and lung cancer in the elderly?

The unlimited medicine movement wants autobahns. The less-is-more movement wants idyllic country roads with curves, speed barriers, and stop signs. You cant have both at the same place. You cant vote for both ideologies. You must choose between medicines limitations and medicines possibilities.

Both Britain and the U.S. are in the midst of Statin Wars. In Britain, unlimited medicine will break the NHS. The NHS was not designed to support the hypervigilance required of physicians if they want to eke every last drop of benefit in treating hypertensives. The NHS was barely designed to treat the sick. It does not have the infrastructure to treat in anticipation of future sickness. In the U.S., the less-is-more ideology will gut health care as we know it. Health care is a rising sector of the economy. Jobs, not just life, depend on health care. Give health care a haircut and towns will face the same consequences that they once faced when manufacturing departed. The U.S. needs unlimited medicine as much as Britain needs less-is-more.

Saurabh Jha is a radiologist and can be reached on Twitter @RogueRad. This article originally appeared in the Health Care Blog.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Kilkenny is to host a major conference in November, drawing journalists from across Europe.

The Association of European Journalists, a representative body for journalists working in over 22 countries in Europe, is to hold its annual Congress in the Marble City.

The Congress is expected to attract over 70 delegates representing journalists from various sectors, including news, business, diplomacy, financial, conflict and foreign reporting. The journalists are drawn from countries as far afield as Armenia, Italy, Belgium, the UK, Turkey, Spain, France, Bulgaria, Moldova, Greece, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and many other States. High on the topics of discussion will be Brexit.

The Congress commences on Thursday, November 3 and concludes on Sunday, November 6 at the Rivercourt Hotel but the delegates are expected to visit local attractions such as Kilkenny Castle and take part in a walking tour of the medieval city.

AEJ Ireland Chairman, Richard Moore, said: We were delighted to win the bid to host AEJ Congress this year, particularly because of the centenary of 1916. Ireland last hosted Congress in 2007, which was held in Dublin. But we decided this year if successful to move out of Dublin and Kilkenny was our venue of choice.

Kilkenny has so much to offer in relation to its facilities, its history, beautiful buildings and access to airports and transport hubs. Last year, Congress was held in Sibiu in Romania, a former European Capital of Culture. We believe that Kilkenny showcases everything that is positive about Ireland and reflects its culture and rich history.

We are also delighted with the support and warm welcome we have received from Kilkenny, its civic authorities, national and local industry and businesses. We are a voluntary organisation and hosting Congress is an enormously challenging and expensive task.

We are very grateful for the support both financial and otherwise we have received from Glanbia, AIB, the Irish Aviation Authority, Twitter, GAAGO, Kilkenny Co Council, Failte Ireland, Diageo, the Department of Arts, Heritage Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs and the European Parliament office in Dublin.

The main conference day involves debates on Brexit and its implications for Europe and 1916-2016: Changing face of Europe and its media, on Friday, 4th November.
(Kitco News) - Sept 30  Fears of a banking crisis and memories of the 2008 financial crisis are being whispered about on Wall Street today. Hedge funds are reportedly pulling billions out of the German bank Deutsche Bank amid concerns about the lender's stability this week.

Can Bank Runs Still Happen?

While a true bank run in the United States hasn't occurred since the 1930's, some point to troubled Wachovia Bank in 2008 that faced what bank executives called "a silent run" on deposits. On a Friday in 2008 large depositors began fleeing from Wachovia.

On September 26, 2008, Wachovia, which was then the

fourth-largest bank in the United States, saw a swift decline

in its assets reportedly $5 billion in deposits.

Many of its large depositors -- businesses and institutions

pulled funds out of Wachovia, drawing their

accounts down to the $100,000 limit that was insured by the FDIC.

Government regulators were concerned the bank wouldn't have enough short-term funding liquidity to open for business on Monday. They put into a play a weekend squeeze to find a buyer for the ailing bank. Frantic weekend negotiations ensued. Government regulators quickly assembled a deal in which Citigroup purchased the flailing bank, with the assistance from the FDIC. Crisis averted.

Fast forward to today.

U.S. Paper Money versus M2 Money Supply

Here is an interesting comparison, that doesn't quite match up.

U.S. currency in circulation $1.46 trillion



Total M2 money supply Over $13 trillion

Some market watchers have wondered what would happen if even 15% of depositors tried to withdraw their money from the system. There doesn't appear to be enough paper money to back it up. Would this cause banks to shut down?



Source: www.federalreserve.gov

Total M2 money supply  this includes cash, checking and savings deposits



Source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/

Paper money supply just keeps growing: "In the current fiat system, the central bank can create money without it being backed by any physical commodities. Since the early 1970s the U.S. dollar has no longer been tied to gold and has become a fiat currency. Between January 1972 and March 2016, the U.S. money supply increased from $718 billion to $12.6 trillion by the M2 money measure," wrote Jia Liu in an American Institute for Economic Research report earlier this year.

Since then, total M2 has pushed to above $13 trillion.

It's no wonder gold is up 25% year-to-date in this environment. Events like the Deutsche Bank debacle only hammer home the fact that gold is a hard currency, an asset that you can keep in your own home. No need to go to a bank.

By Kira Brecht, Kitco.com

Follow @KitcoNewsNOW
HANOI, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official market and indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi at 0057 GMT.

Sept 30 Sept 29 USD/VND mid-point 21,949 21,940

USD/VND interbank 22,302/22,304 22,302/22,304 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 35.91/36.15 35.97/36.21

NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016 the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank quotes are indicative bid/ask prices.

One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co, the gold manufacturer.

Interbank offered rates are indicative, quoted from market sources.

For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom)
HANOI, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official and unofficial markets, indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi and interbank offered rates at 0417 GMT.

Sept 30 Sept 29 USD/VND mid-point 21,949 21,940 USD/VND interbank 22,304/22,310 22,302/22,304 USD/VND unofficial 22,290/22,305 22,295/22,310 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 35.92/36.19 35.97/36.21

Interbank offered rates Overnight 0.5-1.1 0.4-0.8

1 week 0.6-1.2 0.3-0.8

1 month 1.6-2.2 1.6-2.2

3 months 3.2-4.2 3.3-4.2

NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016 the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank offered rates are the latest indicative bid/ask prices, quoted from market sources.

One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co.

For more interbank rate fixings released at 0400 GMT, click on .

For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom)
* Aug retail sales fall 10.5 pct y/y in value, down for 18 months

* Overall sales volume down 12.7 percent

* Tours set to fall during China's long National Day holiday

* Aug tourist arrivals fall 9.4 pct vs 2.6 pct rise in July

HONG KONG, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Hong Kong's retail sales fell for the 18th straight month in August, hit by a drop in big-spending mainland Chinese visitors and weak consumer spending at home amid an uncertain economic outlook.

Retail sales slid 10.5 percent from a year earlier to HK$33.9 billion ($4.4 billion) in value terms, after a 7.7 percent decline in July.

In volume terms, August sales dropped 12.7 percent on-year, government data showed on Friday.

China's economic slowdown and a strong Hong Kong dollar has crimped business activity and tourism in Hong Kong.

Once a favourite shopping destination for mainland Chinese, those tourists are now heading to other cities, including Japan and South Korea, which offer cheaper travel options.

"The near-term outlook for retail sales will still hinge on the performance of inbound tourism," the Hong Kong government said in a statement.

Hong Kong tourist arrivals in August fell 9.4 percent from a year earlier to 5.09 million. They had risen 2.6 percent in July, the first gain after 13 months of decline.

Mainland visitors, who account for 79.4 percent of the total, fell 11.3 percent to 4.04 million in August after a 2.2 percent rise in July. ( )

The surprise drop in visitor numbers has dampened hopes of a turnaround in the tourism and retail sectors during China's week-long National Day Golden Week holiday beginning on Saturday.

Paul Leung, chairman of the Hong Kong Inbound Travel Association, said the city received about 300 tours a day during the Golden Week holiday in the same period last year.

"In view of the current situation, a drop of 30 percent (from a year back) is not surprising," Leung said, adding that Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia were top destinations for Chinese tourists.

Hong Kong is facing mounting economic challenges at a time when its currency is strong. Hong Kong's peg to the U.S. dollar means it is prone to strengthen when other Asian currencies weaken.

In addition, uncertainty due to Britain's vote to leave the European Union is expected to weaken European currencies, making Hong Kong an even more expensive destination.

Sales of jewellery, watches, clocks and valuable gifts in August fell 26.6 percent in value terms, the 24th consecutive month of decline. Department store sales slid 10.7 percent on the year. ($1 = 7.7535 Hong Kong dollars)

(Reporting by Donny Kwok; Editing by Kim Coghill)
(Kitco News) - Market jitters about Deutsche Bank have Wall Street and Main Street respondents in the weekly Kitco survey looking for gold to trade steady to higher next week, with bears about as rare as a grizzly strolling down a sidewalk on Manhattan Island.

Wall Street Bullish Bearish Neutral VS Main Street Bullish Bearish Neutral

Wall Street analysts looking for gold-price appreciation tended to cite safe-haven buying on worries about the strength of the German bank. Among those who see sideways prices, Wall Street participants also cite the German bank as an offsetting factor to others that might otherwise hurt gold.

Twenty analysts and traders took part in a weekly Wall Street survey. Ten participants, or 50%, see sideways prices next week, while nine, or 45%, look for higher. Only one voter, or 5%, sees gold falling.

Meanwhile, 542 Main Street participants submitted votes in an online survey, the lowest participation since January. A total of 310 respondents, or 57%, said they were bullish for the week ahead, while 166, or 31%, were bearish. The neutral votes totaled 66, or 12%.

For the current trading week now winding down, 60% of Wall Street and 74% of Main Street participants looked for gold to rise. As of 11:38 a.m. EDT, Comex December gold was down by 1.3% for the week to date to $1,324.20 an ounce.

Deutsche Bank has been a key focus for equities and gold alike on Friday.



Deutsche Bank continues to be under pressure as hedge-fund clients begin to cut their counterparty risk to the lender who also happens to be one of the largest derivative traders in the world, said Henry To, analyst at CB Capital Partners. This has and will continue to erode confidence in the European financial system, which should boost safe haven-flows into gold next week.

Bob Haberkorn, senior commodities broker with RJO Futures, echoed a similar sentiment.

There wasnt a lot of destruction from a technical-chart perspective (this week), he said. Going into next week, there is a lot of worry about the European banking sector. That should support gold and silver.

Adrian Day, chairman and chief executive officer of Adrian Day Asset Management, also looks for stronger gold, citing too much uncertainly in the U.S. election and more broadly geopolitically. Any number of mishaps could see gold back up. VR Gold Letter editor Mark Leibovit also said higher, citing potential for long overdue U.S. dollar devaluation.

Kevin Grady, president of Phoenix Futures and Options LLC, looks for gold to be sideways amid offsetting factors.

There are a lot of longs (bulls) in the market right now and there is no real catalyst, with the (possible) interest-rate hike in December. At least, a lot of people are assuming thats going to happen, he said. However, I dont think gold is going to wash out (to the downside) because of whats going on with the European banks.

He cited the troubles for not only Deutsche Bank but Commerzbank.



Sean Lusk, director of commercial hedging with Walsh Trading, also looks for sideways. The already-large net-long position in gold futures means potential for liquidation and profit-taking, while the Deutsche Bank worries mean safe-haven buying.

We get this battle back and forth, Lusk said.

Ralph Preston, principal with Heritage West Financial, looks for weakness.

Viewed through the prism of the quarterly model, gold needs to close above $1,347 in order to hint that this market can continue to sustain this years momentum, he said. Market tends to test support if they cant move past resistance and as we can see, gold is having a real problem moving past the $1,350-$1,380 resistance zone.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

Follow @KitcoNewsNOW
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By Barbara McMichael

The Killer Whale Who Changed the World  Mark Leiren-Young

Greystone Books  208 pp.  $24.95

The Blackfish Prophecy  Rachel Clark

Booktrope  284 pp.  $16.95

In the long and storied interactions between humans and whales, our species has by almost every measure assumed the role of the villain. From the whaling industry to marine amusement parks, men have killed and brutalized whales. Environmental degradation of the oceans  all of it linked to human activity  has impacted whale habitat, food sources and reproductive success.

We humans have smaller brains, of course, but that can only go so far in justifying our actions, which have ranged from apathy to cruelty to greed.

Two new books tackle this problematic treatment of cetaceans by Homo sapiens, especially as it has played out in the Salish Sea.

"The Killer Whale Who Changed the World" is the story of Moby Doll, a young orca that was captured in 1964 off Saturna Island in British Columbia.

Originally the intent was to kill a whale so it could be used as the model for a sculpture that would be displayed in the Vancouver Aquarium. But the young whale the hunters tried to kill didn't die, even after he was both harpooned and shot. To the hunters' astonishment, two other whales came to the wounded whale's aid, holding him up out of the water so he could breathe. Eventually the hunters chased the bigger whales off and led the whale up the Strait of Georgia to Vancouver.

Victoria journalist/filmmaker Mark Leiren-Young asserts that this whale's capture first helped people understand that so-called killer whales weren't the monsters they had been reputed to be. For the three months that Moby Doll survived in captivity, he was docile and sometimes playful. People began to see orcas in a different light.

Leiren-Young addresses subsequent efforts at whale capture  the "blackfish gold rush" throughout the Salish Sea, the infamous Penn Cove roundup, and then the bipartisan interventions of Washington Governor Dan Evans, U.S. Senator Warren Magnuson and others, ensuring that "the rodeo was over for the orca cowboys  at least in North America."

The author also devotes a chapter to the generation of whale researchers and activists who came along after Moby Doll's demise  OrcaLab's Paul Spong and Greenpeace's Bob Hunter among them  and mentions recent efforts to advance whale rights and next steps.

It is heart-wrenching to read through all of the misconceptions people had about whales only 50 years ago, and tougher still to realize that orcas and other whales still face significant challenges to their long-term survival.

Also tackling some of these issues is "The Blackfish Prophecy," a recent work of eco-speculative fiction aimed at Young Adult readers. In this richly imagined story, teens on opposite coasts work together to connect an orca in captivity at a marine amusement park in Florida with his pod back in the Pacific Northwest.

Moscow, Idaho, author Rachel Clark too often resorts to annoying micromanagement of story details, but her focus on young people who plumb their empathy is a refreshing change of pace.
The Kitsap Rifle and Revolver Club



By Andrew Binion of the Kitsap Sun

PORT ORCHARD  The Kitsap Rifle and Revolver Club won't have to immediately stop shooting at its Central Kitsap range because it has been operating without a permit, a judge ruled Thursday, as the club refiled its application for an operations permit that morning.

Attorneys for the county had asked retired Kitsap Superior Court Judge Jay Roof, who is hearing the gun club case, to order the club to cease operations after the club's pending operating permit application expired in August.

County officials had begun reviewing the application but stopped the process for 90 days to give the club time to address questions and deficiencies. The club also could have requested an extension.

The club did neither, county attorneys contend, and let the application expire so they asked Roof to shut down shooting and not let it resume until the club reapplies and has its application approved.

However, at the beginning of the hearing Thursday, club attorney Bruce Danielson said the club had refiled its application that day and included 30 pages of additional documentation.

Postponing the hearing, which in effect keeps the gun range open, Roof emphasized that the club should make a "good faith" effort to complete its operating permit application and set another court hearing for Feb. 2.

Danielson told Roof the club relies on volunteers to work on the application.

"These are untreaded waters for them, there has been some confusion and misunderstandings, we acknowledge that," Danielson said.

The latest turn in the legal saga between the range and the county centers on a county requirement, approved in 2014, that shooting ranges have an operating permit.

The club submitted an application for the permit "under protest" in March but in May the county sent a letter back to the club requesting it address questions about the application.

"There has been no communication that I am aware of" since then, Deputy Prosecutor Christy Palmer told Roof.

The operating permit is separate from a land-use permit, which the club and county have been litigating as well.
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We're believers in free enterprise and the right to start a business, make a product and generate a profit by selling it for more than it costs to produce.

But I wonder if some important elements of American life simply aren't suitable for producing a profit. Consider these four:

Education: I started thinking about this question last week after reading an Associated Press report on a decline in enrollment at for-profit colleges, a segment of higher education that had previously been the source of considerable growth.

Consider the prominent example of the University of Phoenix, where enrollment fell by 22 percent this year and by 70 percent since 2010.

And recently one of the largest for-profit companies, ITT Technical Institute, was forced to close 130 of its campuses, leaving its 35,000 students stranded and 8,000 people out of work. The industry as a whole has suffered from similar setbacks.

Various factors have contributed to the decline, but much of it is attributable to federal efforts to abolish unethical practices that are directly related to the profit motive.

New federal regulations prohibit for-profit colleges from paying bonuses to recruiters based on the number of students they enroll, a practice that resulted in over-promising, excessive borrowing and weak graduation rates.

When for-profit colleges can no longer employ the dubious practices that got Wells Fargo in trouble last week, their bottom lines suffer. Maybe education and profit-making were never a very good match to begin with.

Incarceration: In August the Obama administration announced that it will begin phasing out the use of for-profit prisons to house federal inmates. The announcement referenced a report from the Justice Department's independent Inspector General, who documented safety and security problems at for-profit prisons. A deputy attorney general announced that such prisons provide fewer rehabilitation services, such as education and job training, which are, she said, "essential to reducing recidivism and improving public safety."

But why would for-profit prisons bother to produce frills like these? The bottom line has no interest in looking beyond a prisoner's release date or in concerning itself about society's overall well-being. Unfortunately, putting people in prison is one of our society's inevitable unseemly tasks, but it just doesn't mesh with profit-making.

Healthcare: It's not important whether the "right" to healthcare is implied in the Constitution or not; nothing in the Constitution prevents us from awarding that right to every citizen, if we wish. And if we did, society, as a whole, would benefit enormously.

But how does profit-making fit into the worthy effort to ensure that all Americans are able to pursue happiness because they're in reasonable health? It doesn't. When it comes to healthcare, buying and selling are unlike any other element of American commerce. The product is mysterious, and the consumer has much less opportunity and capacity to make rational, cost-effective decisions about his purchases.

And often these decisions are matters of life and death. Why should this be a place where big companies make big profits?

Finally, the United States Postal Service: The USPS doesn't fit readily with the three elements considered above, but it may be the first and best example of a national decision to produce an essential service with no thought for making a profit.

Let's give Benjamin Franklin, the first Postmaster General, credit for envisioning a system that allows every citizen, rich and poor, to scribble an address on a piece of paper or package and have it delivered in a few days for a nominal fee  the same fee for everyone  to any other address in the United States.

With no interest in profit-making, this great democratizing system brought us together as a nation and is still at work today. And it serves as a fine reminder that our society has some things that it has to do and some things that it wants to do and that many of these things, by their natures, are not suitable places to make a dollar.

John M. Crisp, an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service, teaches in the English Department at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. Readers may send him email at jcrisp@delmar.edu.
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My heart went out to Donald Trump Monday night when it appeared that he was under the weather.

What could be worse than to be sick, sniffling through his first presidential debate just days after he was challenging Hillary Clinton's health and, during the debate, taunting her lack of stamina. Trump's own stamina was not, shall we say, in abundance Monday. Weary-eyed and gulping water, he looked as though he might fall asleep were it not for the lectern's support.

Could his malady perhaps explain his utter incoherence? Might whatever was drying out his mouth, but not his nose, explain his childish, running commentary as Clinton was answering a question?

As karma would have it, Clinton seemed perky by comparison. Pitch-perfect throughout the debate, she was never at a loss for a coherent answer or a rebound. She even managed to conquer her habitual impulse to nod her head affirmatively when someone else is talking.

Otherwise, she smiled through her contempt for Trump's inane responses or nonresponses. In the course of the evening, she seemed to get him to admit to not paying any federal taxes, which Trump appeared to confirm by saying, "That makes me smart." Moderator Lester Holt's question about Trump's birther crusade elicited not only a defense of his efforts but a declaration of pride that he, Trump, had forced Obama to present his birth certificate.

"I think I did a good job," he said.

This is false, as any serious news consumer knows. But these two examples illustrate two key components of Trump's character  braggadocio and preening pride. Translation: insecurity and weakness. He was proud of two things  paying no taxes and racist pandering  for which most people of conscience would feel shame.

Sure, if you're someone whose career is built on gaming the system, you might gloat about being the best gamer. But is this whom you want for president?

As for racist pandering, that's what birtherism was. It was never really about Obama's birthplace, no matter who thought of it first. Democrats aren't any more virtuous than Republicans when it comes to foul play; Republicans are just better at it.

In Sniffles' hands, the birther issue was an instrument to mine the subliminal racist attitudes that Trump knew were out there. His strategy was to constantly remind voters of Obama's Kenyan heritage, thus building a rapport with a certain segment of the population that ultimately would catapult him onto the debate stage. He subsequently reinforced his monument to infamy by marginalizing other darker-skinned groups, including Mexicans and Muslims of Middle Eastern extraction.

Thusly was Trump's presidential campaign launched. His made-for-TV descent on the escalator of New York's Trump Tower was merely a dramatization of the direction he would lead his acolytes and, if elected, the nation.

During his part of the "debate," Trump did manage to make a couple of points, notably that Clinton is a career politician while he's a builder and job creator. Noted. Otherwise, he was often if not mostly a Donnybrook of babbling nonsense. At one juncture, criticizing Clinton for posting her anti-Islamic State plan on her website (as opposed to not actually having a plan), he said with rough conviction: "No wonder you've been fighting ISIS your entire adult life."

Asked by Holt what he would do to prevent cyberattacks, Trump replied: "As far as the cyber ... we should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we're not. I don't think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC (Democratic National Committee). She's saying Russia, Russia, Russia. ... Maybe it was. ... But it could also be China, it could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds."

What came next was, well, this: "You don't know who broke in to DNC, but what did we learn with DNC? We learned that Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of by your people. By (former DNC Chair) Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Look what happened to her."

As a matter of fairness, I would include similarly confused responses by Clinton, but there were none. When the worst criticism is that you're "overprepared," as some have accused Clinton, you're in pretty good shape, debate-wise. Meanwhile, the global marketplace may tell the larger story. As the evening concluded, thanks to Clinton's obvious dominance, as well as her assertion that a Clinton presidency would honor U.S. commitments abroad, the Asian market recovered, the peso rallied, and Dow futures added 100 points. That's nothing to sneeze at  or sniffle about.

Kathleen Parker's email address is kathleenparker@washpost.com. She writes for The Washington Post Writers Group.
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Mike Nicosia, Port Orchard

Never time for someone like Trump

Columnist Cal Thomas argues that a vote for Mr. Trump will fix all the problems in Washington. ("It's the time for Donald Trump," Sept. 27)

I would suggest Mr. Thomas listen to the advice of a 93-year-old WWII veteran I met recently. He was at Normandy on D-day in 1944. He said to me that any veteran supporting Mr. Trump ought to be ashamed. Men died that day  and many other days  to put an end to people like Mr. Trump.

Donald Trump represents the worst of humanity and the worst of America. He is, for the most part, a mobster  the only difference being that he has not murdered anyone. He is a liar, a cheat, a thief, a philanderer, a scoundrel, a racist, a bigot, and a sexist. His overall character is reprehensible.

And Mr. Thomas is equally reprehensible in supporting him.
NEWPORT, R.I. (AP)  Five of seven of the Navy's speedy new warships have had engine problems in the past year and four of them are now considered "test" ships that will rarely, if ever, be deployed.

The Navy insists the costly littoral combat ship program is going to be fine after a bumpy start.

Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, said recently in Newport, Rhode Island, that most major shipbuilding programs have "startup types of issues."

"They're very complex programs and so I think, overall, this program is on track and we are seeing that we're learning lessons as it starts up," he said.

But two senior senators, Arizona Republican John McCain and Rhode Island Democrat Jack Reed, say it's time for the Navy to question all of its assumptions about the littoral combat ship program, which has been criticized for its growing costs, questions about the warships' warfighting ability and now, the ships' mechanical reliability.

They said acquisition mistakes and the ship's complexity have led to problems now.

Earlier this month, the newest littoral combat ship, the USS Montgomery, suffered two major engineering problems just three days after its commissioning that will require potentially costly changes to other ships, and most of the replaceable mission modules for the ships are years delayed, said McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The program has "new problems," McCain said in a statement, "but it is not a new program." He said that's why he and Reed are calling on the Navy to reconcile their aspirations with reality.

Two versions of the littoral combat ship were sped into production because the Navy wanted an affordable, fast ship to operate in shallow coastal, or littoral, waters.

Lockheed Martin is building the Freedom-variant in Marinette, Wisconsin. Austal USA is building the Independence-variant in Mobile, Alabama.

The Navy originally spoke of building the ships for about $220 million each in constant fiscal 2005 dollars but the costs for the first few subsequently more than doubled, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The cost for subsequent ships then came down under the current block buy contracts to roughly $380 million in fiscal 2005 dollars, or about $450 million each in current dollars, the research service said.

McCain and Reed, ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, want the Navy to consider deploying the ships less often, establishing a site on land for engineering and technical support and reviewing the number of sailors assigned to each ship.

The Navy is overhauling how it operates the ships, to change how crews will be assigned and how the ships will deploy. The first four ships will be used for testing developing technologies and systems being installed on the littoral combat ships.

Richardson said the Navy is learning engineering, technological and training lessons that will be rolled forward to improve future ships and the preparedness of crews to operate them.

"These ships are going to last for decades, in the ideal, so we're going to be pushing forward into the future and there's always going to be a little bit of a technical risk," Richardson said.

The ships were built to be equipped with swappable mission modules, in contrast to larger, multi-mission ships. Three crews would share two ships so one of the ships could be deployed at any given time.

The Navy said this month that deploying ships will now have two crews that rotate with the same ship, to simplify things and instill a sense of ownership. Ships will typically focus on a single mission instead of swapping modules.

Some ships will have single crews to focus solely on training or testing. These changes are expected to be implemented over the next five years.

The 28 ships will be based in Mayport, Florida and San Diego.
The Arizona Republic editorial:

Since The Arizona Republic began publication in 1890, we have never endorsed a Democrat over a Republican for president. Never. This reflects a deep philosophical appreciation for conservative ideals and Republican principles. This year is different. The 2016 Republican candidate is not conservative and he is not qualified. Thats why, for the first time in our history, The Arizona Republic will support a Democrat for president.

The Arizona Republic is not alone in this. So far nine newspapers who endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012 have announced their views. Five have endorsed Clinton, three Gary Johnson and one made no endorsement.

The challenges the United States faces domestically and internationally demand a steady hand, a cool head and the ability to think carefully before acting. Hillary Clinton understands this. Donald Trump does not. Clinton has the temperament and experience to be president. Donald Trump does not.

For this role, temperament is more important than policy.

Many Republicans understand this. But they shudder at the thought of Hillary Clinton naming Supreme Court justices. So they stick with Trump. We get that. But we ask them to see Trump for what he is  and what he is not. Trumps conversion to conservatism is recent and unconvincing. There is no guarantee he will name solid conservatives to the Supreme Court.

Trump as President would be highly unpredictable. He has changed his views on almost every major issue there is.

Trumps inability to control himself or be controlled by others represents a real threat to our national security. His recent efforts to stay on script are not reassuring. They are phony. The president commands our nuclear arsenal. Trump cant command his own rhetoric. Were he to become president, his casual remarks  such as saying he wouldnt defend NATO partners from invasion  could have devastating consequences.

I want Eastern Europeans to decide their own destiny, not have Putin decide it for them.

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Alex Smith from WWF writes:

Many of you will know that the Kermadec/Rangitahua Ocean Sanctuary, which is supported by 89 per cent of New Zealanders and 86 per cent of Maori, is on hold while crisis talks are held between the National Party and the Maori Party. This is as a result of Te Ohu Kaimoana (TOKM) pushing for the Maori Party to leave the Government over the bill to protect this ecologically important area.  One of the first steps taken was to work with Ngati Kuri to get their blessing and support for this important mahi, because we know that conservation doesnt work without iwi being involved, and that Te Tiriti o Waitangi gives us Pakeha our foot in this land.

Important to note the two Iwi with actual historical links to the area were involved and consulted.

Just over a year ago, the National Government announced it would create the sanctuary, and we, and it seemed the entire country too, were over the moon. Protection for this vital ecosystem was going to happen and New Zealand was going to set up the largest ocean sanctuary in the world. There were some rumblings from TOKM and other fishing industry lobbyists, but that came as no surprise. Time and again they have opposed (too often successfully) progressive legislation for our oceans: from the Marine Reserves Bill in 2002, to protection for Maui dolphins, to legislation to protect workers on foreign charter vessels, and pretty much any no-take marine protected area ever suggested. You name it they fight it, tooth and nail.

TOKM are among those who were using foreign flagged vessels which used slave labour. They fought the Government changes to require such vessels to be flagged in NZ.

Then the rumblings got louder. TOKM (which represents Maori commercial fishing interests) claimed the failure to consult with iwi and Maori was inconsistent with the Treaty, and reading the cabinet paper youd have to say they are right. Government consultation  whether with mana whenua, the iwi leaders group, Maori or fishing interests  didnt start until after the announcement had been made.

It is fair to say the Government made a mistake by prioritising making the announcement a surprise for a global meeting, over domestic consultation.

But this is where my views diverge from some others who also hold the role of Te Tiriti in Aotearoa close to their hearts. I believe TOKM has used the legitimate anger around the process for developing the bill to get support for its position that it and the wider fishing industry should essentially have a right to veto marine protection in the Kermadecs, and wherever there is fishing quota, which is pretty much the entire ocean. I dont think this is right under the Treaty or under the law. Quota, both that held by Maori and Pakeha, has always been subject to regulation to look after the health of our oceans. The fisheries settlement was explicit that the government would still need to (and has the right to) regulate quota in terms of how much, where and what kind of fishing can take place.

And restricting where quota can be fished does not impact the property right associated with that quota. They are still allowed to catch the same amount of fish  just not in some areas.

It has to be that way because if the fishing industry has a right to veto marine protection, we will have no more effective marine protection.

There have been 20 marine reserves created, and none have had demands for compensation because again your rights to quota can easily be met in the areas outside the reserves. If you need to compensate for every marine reserve created, then there wont be any more.

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CAITIE MCMEKIN/NEWS SENTINEL Paula Carver participates in a yoga class at the Cancer Support Community on Sutherland Avenue on Sept. 28, 2016.

SHARE Kristen Burke waits to go for radiation therapy for breast cancer at UT Cancer Institute. September 30, 2016. (SAUL YOUNG/NEWS SENTINEL) Kristen Burke wears a pendent that reads "Fearless" as she undergoes a session of radiation therapy for breast cancer at UT Cancer Institute on on Friday, September 30, 2016. (SAUL YOUNG/NEWS SENTINEL)

By Kristi L. Nelson of the Knoxville News Sentinel

Financially, Paula Carver did everything right. She had a full-time job in her field  accounting  with health insurance. She lived within her means, avoiding credit-card and other debt, and put back money into savings.

Still, when Carver, then 54, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009, it took all her resources and energy to keep from going under  and she had help from friends.

Carver felt a "grape-size" lump in her breast just a few days after her insurance policy at a new job kicked in. Biopsy showed the cancer was moderately aggressive, and suddenly she was on a cycle of weekly medical appointments, scans and debilitating chemotherapy.

"And I didn't stop working," Carver said  she couldn't. Then a single woman, she needed both the income and the insurance.

The American Cancer Society estimates 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer sometime. While many occur in older women, 43 percent of the 231,840 new cases of invasive breast cancer in 2015 were diagnosed in women younger than 60.

"Anytime anyone is diagnosed with breast cancer, it's going to pose a financial burden," said Megan Brown, senior director of corporate communications for the American Cancer Society's Mid-South region. "Even when you have great health insurance, and you have the means to pay your co-pays, that's money that's not going to other things you and your family might need."

Brown said the American Cancer Society offers some resources  to help with transportation, or wigs, for example  while other agencies try to help in other ways. "It's a big puzzle  everybody has a role to play," she said.

But she acknowledged women in the throes of cancer treatment  especially those still working  might not have the time or the physical energy to ferret those out.

Hospitals often provide nurse navigators or social workers to help patients find resources. But Carver said only help from friends made it possible for her to keep working. One drove her to chemo, usually bringing one of the few dinners she could routinely keep down. One began a fund for the wig Carver had no idea would cost so much. Another came nights to sit with her, and helped coordinate other friends to do tasks Carver would otherwise have to pay to have done  yardwork, for example.

"That support kept me going," Carver said, "because every minute I wasn't sick, I was working."

Debra Sullivan, program director for the Cancer Support Community, said breast cancer patients accrue a lot of expenses insurance doesn't cover: gas to appointments, items to combat lymphedema, over-the-counter medications to treat side effects. It might be months after finishing treatment than they begin to feel better. The cancer could reocurr. And disability payments, if they qualify, can take months to kick in.

"If they're a two-income family, there's a loss of income  when one person can't work, or can't work as much," Sullivan said. "A copay could be $40, and that doesn't sound like much  unless you've going to the doctor once a week. It can really add up."

When Kristen Burke, 45, of Morristown was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer in 2014, she and husband Lewis were on furlough after 10 years living in Cambodia, where they founded and ran an orphanage, Heritage House, through their nonprofit, Lighthouse Ministries.

The Burkes' insurance policy had covered them only overseas, but Burkee was able to get a policy through the Affordable Care Act marketplace to carry her through a "whole season of breast cancer" that included a double mastectomy.

"I got great doctors and was able to get the care I needed," Burke said, but the burden of meal planning and preparation and housekeeping fell to Lewis, now the sole provider, who was still traveling to Cambodia frequently, and their two sons.

Even with lots of help from family and friends, "it upsets so many things," Burke said.

The Burkes had counted on her income once back in the United States, and after completing treatment, Burke, a social worker, began a job. Then in April, she learned her cancer had returned, and she gave up her job, not wanting her co-workers to have to "pick up the slack" while she was completing months of intensive treatment.

Now more than a month away from the end of treatment, Burke is looking at "how to permanently replace the missing income." She said with support she's been able to maintain a positive attitude throughout chemo, surgery and radiation: "The only thing that does get me down is the financial aspect of it."

This year, Tennessee Breast Cancer Coalition will give $115,000 in small grants to women who need help "to keep their lights on and their water running and a roof over their heads," said Jami Ellis, director of the Nashville-based nonprofit, who said many of the women don't have paid sick leave.

And it's just a drop in the bucket, she said: "We have some years where we will run out of funding" and have to make December applicants for the small emergency grants reapply in January.

The fund was founded in 1995 by two women who had breast cancer. Initially, it gave grants to organizations, but in 2002 it began solely helping patients directly, Ellis said. It relies on donations, though "people forget about us until they're referring a patient to us." In 2015, it gave $109,000 to 123 women  more than $21,000 in East Tennessee alone  to help with insurance premiums, utilities, mortgage payments and medical bills.

Staff is just Ellis and one other employee.

"We know where every penny goes, who it's going to, and why," she said.

A committee considers applications and decides on the amount. Applicants are prescreened by phone and then mailed an application, Ellis said; more than half don't have computer access anyway.

"A lot of times, there's tears on both sides of the phone," she said. "They call, and they're just not sure what they're going to do, and to hear that someone can help is a relief.  There's only a handful of people who do what we're doing, where you can call and say, 'I can't pay my rent, would you help me?' And it's so needed."

Two years after her first diagnosis, Carver, using payment plans, paid off the last of her medical bills. She was regularly hiking again  her passion  and met a fellow hiker she began dating in 2011; they were married in 2014.

"I didn't think I was ever going to be married, especially after being bald and sick," Carver said. "You just kind of think, 'I've had a good life.' I was just glad to be alive."

Then, in January, her cancer returned  Stage 4. This time, Carver went on disability. Her husband, who had retired, went back to work, and she began a expensive regimen intended to keep the cancer from growing. This time, Carver said, she's less focused on making sure all the medical bills are paid, more on making the most of the days she feels good.

"I was so proud of myself for finally getting done with" my payment plans for the earlier bout of breast cancer, she said. "Then, here we go again."
Joe Rosson Columnist SHARE This clock was manufactured by the William L. Gilbert Clock Co. between 1900 and 1910.

We recently purchased this old clock, and I never saw one with Indians on it. We would like to know more about it. We know it was made about 100 years ago and strikes the hour. I would like to know the history of it and how much do you think it might be worth.

Thank goodness the photographs were clear enough so I could get some details about the origins of this piece from the printed label. It primarily gave me the maker's name and his style designation. Otherwise, this letter would have been unanswerable.

This charming shelf clock was manufactured by the William L. Gilbert Co. of Winsted (Winchester), Conn. This company can trace its origins back to 1828 and a clock shop that served the Bristol/Farmington area of Connecticut.

I have no intention of boring everyone by recapping all the partnerships and permutations that occurred before the firm became The W.L. Gilbert Co. in 1851 except to say that the firm had begun making brass clocks in 1841. The name changed to The Gilbert Manufacturing Co. in 1866 and continued under that name until the factory burned down in 1871.

Gilbert quickly rebuilt, and the enterprise was renamed the William L. Gilbert Clock Co., which is the name of the firm that built the clock in today's question. The company continued to be successful until Gilbert's death in 1890, when the operation was taken over by the general manager, George Owen.

The 20th century was not kind to the William L. Gilbert Clock Co. It was on the brink of bankruptcy several times, and it gradually went out of business. The end came in 1964 after it had become General-Gilbert in 1957.

Some people call the clock in today's question a "shelf' clock, others a "mantel" clock, still others a "kitchen" clock and occasionally a "pressed wood" clock  which describes the method of manufacturing the case. It's hard to tell what wood the case is in the photographs, whether walnut or mahogany, but the percentages say it's oak and circa 1900 to 1910.

The manufacturer's style designation for this example is "Mecca," and the design seen printed on the glass door is what designers thought citizens of Mecca might look like  they were not intended to be Native Americans or "Indians." Mecca (or Mekkah) is a city in Western Saudi Arabia and is the holiest site in Islam  nonbelievers are forbidden to enter the city.

It is said to be the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad as well as the birthplace of Islam, and it is an ancient place that is believed to have been founded by Abraham's son Ismael. It is also the location of the yearly Hajj or Islamic pilgrimage.

The kitchen shelf clock in today's question is nice looking. If it's working, its retail value should be in the $120 to $150 range.
"There's not one exercise that we do that doesn't work on balance," said Vickey Beard, vice president of healthy living at the YMCA, pictured here with Jared Daugherty, program director at the Cansler YMCA. Ali James/Special to the Knoxville News Sentinel

SHARE The Livestrong program provides yellow T-shirts with "supporter" rather than survivor or staff written on the back, according to Vickey Beard who is overseeing the program in the Knoxville YMCAs. Beard pictured here with Jared Daugherty, program director at the Cansler YMCA working on the selectorized weight machines. Ali James/Special to the Knoxville News Sentinel

By Ali James of the Knoxville News Sentinel

Many people are familiar with the common and more noticeable side effects of cancer, chemotherapy and radiation treatments: hair loss, nausea and fatigue. But for many cancer survivors there are other side effects that continue to affect them years after they complete treatment and beat cancer.

Cancer is a life-changing disease that takes a physical and emotional toll. Survivors may still suffer from poor balance, shortness of breath, joint pain, short-term memory loss, decreased muscle strength and neuropathy  weakness, numbness and pain from nerve damage, usually in the hands and feet  to name just a few.

The Knoxville YMCA is offering Livestrong, a free 12-week recovery program for adult cancer patients and survivors.

"From the minute they are diagnosed we deem them as cancer survivors," said Vickey Beard, the vice president of healthy living at the Knoxville YMCA. "This program was developed because they undergo treatment and whatever the insurance company covers in terms of rehab, but the Y is filling that gap to help them get back to some normalcy."

The YMCA is kicking off classes beginning Oct. 3 on Mondays and Thursdays. The program is being piloted at the Davis Family YMCA in Farragut at 1:30 p.m.; at the Cansler Family YMCA at 6:30 p.m. and the downtown YMCA at 9 a.m. The 12-week program consists of two 90-minute sessions per week.

Held in YMCA 'wellness centers," it offers a small-group supportive environment for anyone 18 or older who is living with or beyond cancer treatment.

"It helps them build their stamina and get their strength back and improve their fitness," said Beard.

The goals for the program are to not only improve participants' strength and physical fitness, but also to diminish the severity of their side effects, develop supportive relationships and improve their quality of life. "Our research shows us not only that people get stronger, but being physically active can play a strong part in remission and reoccurrence. There's no chronic disease that exercise can't improve," said Beard.

"Perhaps they haven't progressed as far as they should have and they're looking for a way to improve their situation," said Beard. "The girl who wrote our grant is a cancer survivor. Even though it's been many, many years since, she is still suffering from the effects. Even five to 10 years later they are still feeling the side effects from the cancer and/or the treatment."

"What you do for one person is going to be completely different from what you do for another," said Beard. "We have gone through a lot of training. Whenever you treat the body with chemo or radiation you are going to have some loss. Exercise helps improve their cardiovascular capacity and lessen fatigue."

Some of those registered to start the program have already returned to their careers after treatment and still experience a hard time climbing stairs or breathing when they get to their office. "I did an intake yesterday where he had cancer in 2000, the tumor was removed then, he was fine for years, but now he has those longer-term effects," said Jared Daugherty, program director at the Cansler YMCA. "This guy's goal is to go to work without breathing heavy."

Someone who has had a mastectomy might be struggling to get her arm above her head.

"We will be doing assessments to determine what they can or can't do and see where they're at," said Daugherty of the individualized fitness plans.

"We plan to start with 30 minutes of cardio  having them on a treadmill or a recumbent bike, assuming they can do 30 minutes," said Daugherty. "Then we move on to 30 minutes of strength training using selectorized weight machines, not free weights."

Daugherty said other YMCAs that have completed the program suggested finishing up a session by working on balance, posture and core.

Trainers at the YMCA have had a lot of experience with balance issues in their Parkinson's classes, according to Beard. "Some people will have trouble getting onto a treadmill, manipulating weight machines or lifting free weights if their balance is off. Water is a great teacher of balance and coordination. There's not one exercise that we do that doesn't work on balance."

"I'm hoping to introduce some water classes, such as water aerobics, dance classes and even get them on spin bikes," added Daugherty.

"At the end we will have a celebration; three hours a week for 12 weeks is quite an accomplishment," said Beard. "But as we move through we are going to celebrate everything: if they usually can only do five repetitions and they do six or seven, for instance. Our goal is to teach them how to do this and they will remember and feel comfortable doing it after the program."

"It's not all about the strength and the numbers. Getting them moving is a big thing," added Daugherty.

As part of their free three-month membership, participants in the Livestrong program can attend the YMCA as much as they like.

Another key thing is minimizing their exposure in the Y's facilities, according to Beard. "Everything will be clean, and we will encourage them not to use the main locker rooms. There will be private locker rooms."

Beard said the support network of family and friends is crucial. "They can bring a family member or caregiver to the YMCA," she said. "They usually don't go somewhere without their support system, so we are giving that person a free 12-week membership to use at the same time."

So far, they have seen an older crowd register for the program, according to Daugherty. Though at the Davis YMCA, Beard said a 19-year-old cancer survivor has signed up. "It's scary how young people can be. They can be in their late 30s or their 70s; it's across the board," said Beard.

In addition to the exercise offered during the 90-minute sessions, there is a 30-minute unstructured social component. "We facilitate 30 minutes of social and community time," said Beard. "It will be organic. I have a script that I use, but nine out of 10 times I won't even get to the script. We just start with an open-ended conversation to get them talking. We'll ask them how everybody is doing. We have been told by other branches that they will have a hard time stopping, once they get started."

After conducting focus group research Beard discovered that most people who had survived cancer didn't want a big fuss made. So Beard said that rather than hanging posters everywhere, they opted for the Livestrong bracelets and flyers to prompt YMCA members to ask about the program and spread the word.

"The majority have signed up just through word of mouth," said Beard. "I think this is a program that has been a long time coming," said Beard. "Unlike some of our other chronic disease programs, we have had people from the minute we got the information out there that have been calling us."

"We don't want to call attention to them," said Beard. "We had some folks in our interest group who want to go to every race and wear every (cancer research) shirt and you have some people who don't want to. We want to strike a balance between both of those."

That is why the program has yellow T-shirts with "supporter" rather than "survivor" or "staff" written on the back, according to Beard. "We are all supporting them together," she said. "We told our trainers "no sad eyes, no pitying. We will be supportive and kind.

"One of our participants pointed out that he had a cancer that doesn't have a color, a walk or a symbol," said Beard. "There are a lot of cancers out there that we don't know anything about. "

The free program is primarily being funded by the YMCA's annual fundraising program. Sales from the Livestrong T-shirts and money raised at an upcoming Halloween event at the Downtown YMCA will also be designated to support the Livestrong program.

"This is our pilot program," said Beard. "It doesn't matter how many people sign up, but it will be more fun if there are more. The ratio will be six people per trainer with at least two or three trainers at all sessions to give a good experience."

The YMCA is still offering spots in the Livestrong program that starts this month at the Davis Family, Cansler Family and Downtown YMCA. The Livestrong program will be rolled out to the other Knoxville YMCA branches in the first quarter of 2017.

"They are already asking for it," she said.

LIVESTRONG at the YMCA

What: 12-week evidence-based program that helps adult cancer survivors reclaim their health and well-being following a cancer diagnosis.

When: Beginning the week of Oct. 1. on Mondays and Thursdays

Where: Davis Family YMCA: 12133 S. Northshore Dr.; Cansler Family YMCA: 616 Jessamine St; Downtown YMCA: 605 Clinch Ave.

Hours: 1:30-3 p.m. Davis Family YMCA; 6:30-8 p.m. Cansler Family YMCA; 9-10:30 a.m. Downtown YMCA

Cost: Free

Info and registration: Vickey Beard at vbeard@ymcaknoxville.org, 865-406-7328; Chris Canges at ccanges@ymcaknoxville.org, 865-637-9622
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By Mary Constantine of the Knoxville News Sentinel

The restaurant sign is installed and training is taking place inside the soon-to-open Mad Greek International Cafe. The eatery will operate at 750 Brakebill Road in the former Ruby Tuesday restaurant building located off Intestate 40 East at the Strawberry Plains exit.

This is the third Mad Greek location in Tennessee. The Bristol location has been in operation for more than 30 years and the Johnson City location opened in 2014. The Knoxville location will open in early October

A tour of the Johnson City and Bristol menus show traditional Greek fare such as kebabs, grape leaves, moussaka, pastitsio and Greek chicken as well as Italian favorites like fettuccine Alfredo, pizza, calzone's stuffed pita sandwiches as well as soups, salads, burgers, and submarine sandwiches.
Kate Winslet stars in "The Dressmaker," opening Friday at Downtown West.

SHARE Jocelyn Moorhouse

By Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press

The comeback tale of "The Dressmaker" director Jocelyn Moorhouse is a Hollywood story in its own right.

Twenty-one years ago, Moorhouse was handed the keys to the kingdom  or at least that's how it felt at the time. The young Australian director had one well-received film under her belt, "Proof," and was producing "Muriel's Wedding" for her husband, director P.J. Hogan, when she got a call from Steven Spielberg. He asked if she wanted to direct the generational drama "How to Make an American Quilt." The answer, of course, was yes.

"It was like the great hand of cinema had reached down and gone 'we'll take you now,"' Moorhouse said.

Suddenly she was rubbing elbows with Anne Bancroft, Maya Angelou and the scores of other fierce female talents of all ages in that lovely ensemble film.

She was still editing "Quilt," and seven months pregnant with her second child, by the time she was meeting with Michelle Pfeiffer and Jessica Lange about her next project, the "King Lear"-inspired drama "A Thousand Acres." That went into production soon after.

It was a meteoric rise that few in Hollywood ever get. Then she left it all behind for nearly two decades. Her 2-year-old daughter, Lily, had been diagnosed with autism.

"That changed my life and nothing else mattered," Moorhouse said. "The film industry seemed extremely trivial compared to trying to work out the mysteries of my daughter's brain."

Then, in 2005, just as she was thinking about coming back, her son, Jack, got the same diagnosis and she wasn't sure she'd ever go back to directing. All of her energy, creative and otherwise, and money were focused on the kids.

As the years went by and the kids made strides, she started wondering if she could start up her directing career again. She had continued producing for Hogan and would direct little films for her children too. She also had a fourth child who was not autistic.

And then producer Sue Maslin called. A big fan of "Proof," Maslin wanted to see if Moorhouse would be willing to direct an adaptation of Rosalie Ham's "The Dressmaker ," now playing in limited release, about a woman returning to the small town that wronged her years ago.

"Jocelyn has the rare gift to be able to successfully walk the tightrope between comedy and tragedy on screen and no matter how fantastical, make it truthful at all times," Maslin said.

For Moorhouse, it was like another hand coming down saying "we want you back now." And she was ready.

She likes to describe the story as "'Unforgiven' with a sewing machine."

Moorhouse recruited Kate Winslet for the leading role and Judy Davis to play her estranged mother.

"(Davis and Winslet) both loved that it was very funny and very sad," she said. "I would say 'that's kind of how I see my life. It's a tragicomedy!' Live long enough and most people's lives are."

She also got her "Proof" star Hugo Weaving to play a cop with a secret and cast Liam Hemsworth as a strapping local who becomes smitten with Winslet's Tilly  a relationship with an age difference that she knows makes some men wince.

"Liam didn't. He's like 'Uh, she's gorgeous. Of course, my character would go after her. She's the best thing to happen to this town. Why would I not want that woman?' And I said, 'You're absolutely right, young man."'

"The Dressmaker" breaks all the rules of what one might expect, not least because it's a story told from a female point of view.

"It a very female film and some men might find that alien. As women, we are so used to watching films from a male point of view it's almost like we speak two languages. We're bilingual and we don't even know it. They're not. And that has to change," she said. "Eventually a man will be able to see a woman's film and not call it a woman's film."

Moorhouse lights up speaking about being "back."

"I was born to do this and not able to do it for a while. As soon as I got back into it, every day was a joy on set. I just kept smiling. Even if it was a terrible day, I thought 'My god! Thank god I'm a director again!'

Moorhouse has a handful of independent projects in the works, including a script she just finished about the marriage of composers Clara Schumann and Robert Schumann  and how a 20-year-old Johannes Brahms fell in love with the 37-year-old Clara.
Agnieszka Zulewska as Zaneta in a scene from the movie "Demon."

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By Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

"Just a normal wedding," the mother of the bride sniffs more than halfway through Marcin Wrona's "Demon." She's exaggerating a little. By that point in this Polish-set matrimonial horror film, the weather has taken a foul turn, a few guests have come to physical blows, and the groom has been confined to the cellar after a series of violent convulsions, which his new in-laws have unsuccessfully tried to dismiss as both an epileptic fit and a bad case of food poisoning.

All in all, you've probably been to worse parties. And compared with some of the more memorably disastrous movie weddings of European art-house vintage  Thomas Vinterberg's "The Celebration" and Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" come to mind  "Demon" seems fairly tame genre stuff, its steadily rising tension leavened by occasional jump scares and abundant reserves of dry humor. Even when the groom starts evincing all the signs of being possessed by a dybbuk, that malevolent visitor of Jewish folklore, the hosts think only of keeping their guests drunk and unaware that something is seriously wrong.

The audience, of course, has been steadily clued in from the opening scenes of the remote and rugged Polish countryside, eerily filmed to resemble a bombed-out dystopian landscape (the fine, muted photography is by Pawel Flis).

A man named Piotr (Israeli actor Itay Tiran) has traveled from London to marry a local woman named Zaneta (Agnieszka Zulewska), and the fact that they haven't known each other long  they were introduced by Zaneta's brother, Jasny (Tomasz Schuchardt)  seems no impediment to the affection that courses naturally between them.

The action takes place almost entirely on the grounds of Zaneta's family house, which will become hers and Piotr's upon their marriage  a wedding gift from the bride's father (Andrzej Grabowski). It's a rotten gift. Shortly before the wedding, the groom makes a bizarre discovery on the property, which would be gruesome enough even if it weren't an unwelcome reminder of the specters of Poland's past  specters that have now come back to haunt this family in decidedly literal, Yiddish-spouting form.

Skillfully adapted (by Wrona and Pawel Maslona) from Piotr Rowicki's stage play "Adherence," "Demon" dramatizes the return of the repressed in sly yet straightforward fashion. Despite the occasional narrative ambiguities, it will take a particularly inattentive audience member to miss the film's chilling message about the persistence of past sins, particularly the awful legacy of the Nazi crimes perpetrated not terribly long ago on Polish soil.

The fatalism feeds the humor and vice versa; amusing as it is to see the bride's parents go into damage control mode by pouring on the vodka, it's astounding to see the sheer cruelty of their indifference  to history, to compassion, to the health and happiness of their new son-in-law.

To that end, Tiran undergoes a tremendous metamorphosis in the role of Piotr, enacting one hell of a physical breakdown and later channeling the dybbuk's tormented spirit with uncanny tenderness and feeling.

A few journalists have suggested parallels between Piotr's on-screen anguish and the private suffering of the director, Wrona, who died last year while "Demon" was first making the international festival rounds. (The cause of death was ruled a suicide.)

I'm loath to jump to any facile conclusions about life imitating art or to speculate about how an artist's inclination toward darkness might be a gateway to suicidal despair.

Perhaps it's best to appreciate "Demon" not for what it implies but for what it simply and unmistakably is: A bravura testament to a talent silenced far too soon.
SHARE A jail mug shot shows a laceration on the throat of Michael Anthony Benanti, one of two men accused in robbery and kidnapping schemes at three banks in East Tennessee and in three other states. (KNOX COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE)

By Jamie Satterfield of the Knoxville News Sentinel

The man accused of masterminding the kidnappings of East Tennessee bank officials and their families in a series of extortion plots insists he's certain his fellow suspect's jail calls to a girlfriend could sway jurors in his favor.

But a federal magistrate on Friday pointed out Michael Benanti and his defense team have two big problems  they have no idea what his fellow suspect said in those calls, and they won't reveal in open court why the calls might be helpful.

"How do I know it's relevant?" U.S. Magistrate Judge Clifford Shirley pressed defense attorney Richard Gaines at a hearing Friday in U.S. District Court.

Gaines assured Shirley the recorded jail calls between Brian Witham and his girlfriend since Witham's November arrest would provide "evidence that would support our defense theory."

But Gaines wouldn't elaborate so long as federal prosecutors David Lewen and Steve Cook were within earshot.

"We should not be required to expose a possible defense strategy," he said.

Benanti, 43, of Lake Harmony, Pa., and Witham, 45, of Waterville, Maine  both felons who met in federal prison  are accused in a violent crime spree spanning four states. At the heart of the federal case in Knoxville is a trio of bank extortion plots in 2015 in which three East Tennessee bank employees and their families, including a baby and a toddler, were terrorized at gunpoint, bound and threatened with death in attempts to force the employees to rob their employers.

Witham has admitted to the kidnappings and is expected to testify against Benanti at his upcoming Nov. 7 trial. Witham calls Benanti the mastermind. The FBI says agents have evidence to prove that.

Benanti faces a 23-count indictment. If convicted, he will die behind bars.

Lewen and Cook already have listened to the calls at issue. They say nothing in those calls exonerates Benanti, so they don't have to share them before Witham testifies.

Gaines and defense attorney Robert Kurtz aren't willing to take prosecutors at their word, arguing Lewen and Cook do not know exactly what the defense hopes to hear. But the defense won't tell them, either.

That puts the judge in a legal quandary  whether to allow a private meeting with the defense so they can tell him, a move generally frowned upon in the criminal justice system, or to listen to the calls himself, also largely unprecedented. One last option: force the defense to publicly reveal their motives.

"I think at this point the better course is to have you produce in writing whatever arguments you have," the judge said.

The defense can seek to file anything that would reveal a trial strategy under seal.

Prosecutors have balked at any secrecy in the case. Lewen wouldn't even agree to allow the judge outside of open court to settle a complaint Benanti lodged at Friday's hearing over a "rubbery" pencil supplied him at the Knox County jail.

Inmates are not allowed to have traditional pencils  presumably because they could be used as weapons. Instead, inmates are supplied flexible writing instrument Kurtz described as "rubbery." Benanti, he said, finds its print too light.

"He is a prolific writer," Kurtz said. "This is something affecting his ability to assist us."

Shirley told Kurtz to ask Deputy U.S Marshal John Sanchez to look into the matter. The judge won't rule on the jail call debate for at least another two weeks. Also still pending  with the trial clock ticking  is a defense bid to have the bulk of the government's evidence tossed out, arguing the FBI's search warrant application was flawed.
By Jamie Satterfield of the Knoxville News Sentinel

Unable to sway FBI agents to grant him immunity, this suspect in a series of elaborate kidnappings of bank executives and their families tried to cut his own throat, new court records show.

Those same records reveal Assistant U.S. Attorney David Lewen wants to use Michael Benanti's suicide attempt against him at his upcoming federal trial.

The 43-year-old Pennsylvania man is charged in U.S. District Court in Knoxville in a 23-count indictment with a series of violent crimes in at least four states.

All arise from an alleged plot in 2015 to kidnap bank executives and their families and force those executives to essentially rob their own financial institutions so Benanti could funnel money back into a business from which prosecutors say he was stealing. One of those kidnappings occurred in Knoxville, one in Oak Ridge and one in Elizabethton, Tenn.

Benanti's fellow defendant, Brian Witham, 45, of Waterville, Maine, has already pleaded guilty. Benanti and Witham were captured after a car chase in North Carolina in November.

While behind bars in the Buncombe County jail in North Carolina, Benanti used a razor blade to slice his neck and wrists, according to a trial brief filed by Lewen.

FBI agents had just left the jail after trying to convince Benanti to confess to the bank extortion plot. Benanti demanded immunity, declaring himself a famous businessman who not only had stolen money from other criminals but knew all their secrets, prior court records show. The agents refused.

According to Lewen's brief, Benanti told Witham he was going to commit suicide. He feigned a desire to shave, so jailers gave him a razor, Lewen wrote. He used the blade "to slash his throat and wrists," the prosecutor wrote.

"When jail personnel saw defendant's injuries, he was promptly rushed to a hospital for surgery," the brief stated.

A mug shot of Benanti taken soon after his arrest shows the injury to his neck, but authorities had kept silent about how it occurred.

Now Lewen wants to tell jurors about the suicide attempt  as proof Benanti is guilty.

"Evidence of defendant's attempted suicide after he had been informed that he would be charged with the East Tennessee robberies is probative of defendant's consciousness of guilt," Lewen wrote.

Benanti's defense attorneys, Richard Gaines and Robert Kurtz, have not yet responded.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Clifford Shirley still has not ruled on an issue that threatens the entirety of the government's case  whether the FBI fouled up the process of obtaining search warrants that led to the bulk of the incriminating evidence to be presented at Benanti's Nov. 7 trial.

Benanti and Witham met in federal prison in the 1990s, both serving time for robberies. When Benanti was freed in 2008, he launched Prisoner Assistant, a firm he said would help future ex-cons by investing money for them while they were behind bars and teaching them financial skills. Witham joined the firm upon his release.

The Wall Street Journal profiled the firm in 2014  unaware the company was, according to the FBI, a sham from which Benanti was stealing. Witham has told authorities Benanti was desperate to keep up the sham and concocted the bank extortion plot as a way to keep Prisoner Assistant afloat. The FBI has alleged Benanti's girlfriend, Natasha Bogoev, discovered his thievery and, perhaps, the hostage-takings, so he killed her inside a hotel in a small town in Pennsylvania, staged it as a suicide and had her body cremated. He has not been charged in the death, because authorities have no body.

The FBI closed in on Benanti and Witham as suspects after a movie-style car chase in North Carolina in September led to the recovery of a GPS device that, in turn, led agents to a cabin in Maggie Valley, N.C., that prosecutors say the pair were using as a base of operation. A second chase in November followed. That time, authorities captured driver and passenger, later identified as Benanti and Witham.
Bill Johnson, TVA's president and chief executive officer, is defending the utility's new policy on floating homes like these sitting on Norris Lake reasonable since existing floating homes do not have to be removed for 30 years. SPECIAL TO THE NEWS SENTINEL

First they came for the farmers. Now they come for the homeowners. The floating-home owners, that is.

The Tennessee Valley Authority continues its history of displacement with its plan to force owners of floating homes on TVA reservoirs to vacate their premises. Granted, the folks have until 2046 to get gone, but this pattern is as maddening as TVA's constant, laughable spin about its "low" electricity rates.

In 1942, for instance, TVA displaced hundreds of farmers and their families from rich bottom land along the French Broad River. My mother's side of the family lost their homes. According to a 1949 TVA report, "The Douglas Project; A Comprehensive Report on the Planning, Design, Construction, and Initial Operations of the Douglas Project," the feds came fast and hard.

"It was necessary to complete land acquisition for an entire reservoir within a period of 6 months," TVA wrote. Imagine the knock at the door. Imagine losing your livelihood. Imagine losing land your family had homesteaded. And being forced to leave your life behind in half a year.

"No price trading was permitted to enter into the negotiations, and the property could not be purchased for more or less than the figure set by the (TVA) appraisal staff," TVA wrote. Fair or not, homeowners could like the price or take their lumps. The fear of the feds forced the farmers out.

Now TVA tells folks who have built mostly modest floating homes on TVA reservoirs they must leave their investment behind rather than leaving it to their kids. Congress is involved. The House and Senate voted to prohibit the latest TVA expropriation as long as the floating homes comply with safety and environmental codes.

TVA President and CEO Bill Johnson embarrassed himself at the House hearing when he could not  would not?  say how many complaints TVA has received about the 1,800 floating homes on 13 reservoirs. One would think one of Johnson's newly elevated, incredibly compensated executive vice presidents could have whispered some number in his ear.

Joe Grimes, executive vice president of Generation and chief nuclear officer, and Mike Skaggs, executive vice president of Operations, got their promotions after TVA's chief operating officer announced his retirement. Grimes and Skaggs, who joined the utility in 2013 when Johnson came on board, both make more than $2 million. Per year.

Which makes the propaganda promulgated by TVA spokesman Scott Brooks in a recent interview all the more electrifyingly annoying. Brooks bragged about TVA rates being in the "lower third of the top 100" utility rates in the nation because TVA is "not a profit-based company." Which begs the question: If TVA does not have to make a profit for shareholders, why are its rates not the absolute lowest?

Maybe TVA's Democrat-dominated board is more focused on FDR's ideological legacy than ratepayers. Perhaps TVA's CEO and veeps are fixated on org charts rather than operational efficiencies. Or maybe the whole crowd is too busy plotting how to displace a new generation of East Tennesseans.
Forty new U.S. citizens took the Oath of Allegiance earlier this month in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Jay Miller/Special to the News Sentinel)

There aren't many venues better to welcome new American citizens than in the nation's most visited national park.

In addition to welcoming the new Americans in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the citizenship ceremony was a historic occasion for another reason: The swearing in of 40 new citizens took place on Sept. 15, two days before the 229th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, the document to which they pledged loyalty. Sept. 17 also is Citizenship Day, an event that recognizes people who have become American citizens in the past.

The ceremony was held at the Sugarlands Visitor Center. Clayton Jordan, deputy superintendent of the Smokies park, said the setting was appropriate because the national parks represent what it means to be an American. "They tell our story and our collection of national ideals and values that identify who we are as a people," Jordan said. "Values such as patriotism, heroism, exploration, equal justice, civil rights, freedom and sacrifice."

Judge Thomas A. Varlan, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, presided during the ceremony. He said the 40 new citizens represent 21 different countries.

Varlan said the court last year conducted 24 ceremonies and welcomed 1,102 naturalized citizens. Thus far this year, he said, there have been 28 ceremonies with the swearing in of 1,053 naturalized citizens. There are 13 more ceremonies planned for this year.

The ceremony in the Smokies was only one of many across the country. In all, during Constitution Week, Sept. 16-23, the U.S. government held 240 naturalization ceremonies, and more than 38,000 people became American citizens, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

In addition to the Smokies, ceremonies were held at other popular sites such as the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials in Washington, D.C.; Ellis Island in New York harbor; and Yosemite National Park.

The most thrilling parts of the entire day are the individual stories the new citizens have to tell. Muwafa Albaraqi, for example, attended the ceremonies at the Sugarlands to see his wife, Alyaa Albaraqi, become a citizen. Muwafa, already a naturalized citizen, told of being a refugee during the first Persian Gulf War in 1991, and finally granted asylum in 1994. He said last week's ceremony was important for his family because his wife "can now vote and will have a better future because she can work."

Maius Zakaria Ayl, originally from Sudan, is another example of someone fleeing a war-torn country. He said he was lucky to escape the civil war 15 years ago. Now that he is a citizen, he wants to return to Africa and tell his family about his new country so they can become citizens.

In promoting Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, Congress and federal agencies have encouraged Americans to understand what it means to be a citizen. All well and good, but there are solid lessons the new citizens can teach us. The first one is this: No matter how divided and desperate we might feel about our politics and society in this election year, this nation remains a beacon of hope for so many from all over the world as it has for so long. May it ever be thus.
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I read at knoxnews.com that the entire section of standards regarding Islam has been removed from the seventh-grade curriculum.

Let me state in the strongest terms possible how irresponsible and egregious this action is. An educated citizenry is essential to democracy, but apparently the committee's position is, "If we close our eyes, it will go away."

The United States has spent the last 15 years, trillions of dollars and thousands of lives in conflict in the Middle East, and the state of Tennessee does not want its citizenry to know the difference between Sunni and Shia?

How can we expect Tennesseans to understand the events in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia  events that very much affect global stability and American interests  if we deprive our students of exposure to the basic facts of the history of the region?

This action reeks of the "sharia is taking over America" fearmongers and represents a complete capitulation by those who should know better.

Ignorance, while perhaps blissful, is never wise.

Jeremy Jennins, Knoxville
Lee Jung-hoon



By Ko Dong-hwan

Korean firms are under fire for allegedly not taking care of skillful computer hackers and losing them to foreign companies.

The finger-pointing came after Korea's top "white hat" hacker, Lee Jung-hoon, was rumored to be leaving Samsung SDS in November for Google. Samsung SDS hired Lee, 23, in October 2015 after he dropped out of university.

"Lee left the company because Korean companies or, in a larger context, Korean society, do not acknowledge white hat hackers as legitimate professionals," media reports said, referring to computer specialists who protect companies from holes in cybersecurity that attract hackers.

"I think Google is a better choice than Samsung to realize my dream of becoming a cybersecurity expert," Lee was quoted as saying in Business Report.

Samsung SDS denied the rumor in online media outlet Insight on Sept. 28. It said Lee's contract with Samsung expires in November and he has not mentioned going to Google.

Lee made global headlines in 2013 when he won the third place in a hacking competition at "DEF CON," one of the world's largest annual hacker conventions held in Las Vegas. In March 2015, he hacked into browsers MS Explorer 11, Apple Safari and Google Chrome at the global security conference "Pwn2Own 2015" in Canada, winning record prize money of $225,000.





Lee hacked into three internet browsers at "Pwn2Own 2015" in Canada, winning record prize money of $225,000.

/ Screen capture from YouTube



Samsung was desperate to hire Lee and had designated him "a definite key player for our cybersecurity sector" before signing him, according to the report.

Lee's job description at Samsung was to search for vulnerabilities in all electronics made by the company and fix them.

"There are many cases overseas where those with competitive hacking skills can be hired by companies or researchers," said Hong Min-pyo, CEO of mobile security company SEWorks, according to the report.

"Korea, however, is a tough ground for hackers to sustain themselves because companies there do not buy their exceptional skills if they do not have proper credentials like school degrees or licenses.

"Even in companies, hackers receive puny treatment as a minor wheel. When accidents occur, they often fuss about cybersecurity's importance. But later, they forget what they said and never invested in hackers."
By Yoon Ja-young



The National Pension Service (NPS) said Friday it has joined a collective lawsuit against Volkswagen, calling for compensation for its stock investment losses stemming from the German carmaker's emissions scandal.



The operator of the world's third-largest pension fund by assets said it will not sit idle over businesses that damage its assets.



According to the pension fund, it informed an overseas law firm leading the collective suit that it would join.



"As it is a collective suit participated in by many investors, it will take a long time," a spokeswoman for the NPS said. "We expect at least two or three years until the final ruling."



The NPS had invested 26.7 billion won in preferred shares of Volkswagen, as of the end of the last year, equivalent to a 0.04 percent stake.



The emissions-rigging scandal resulted in steep declines in the carmaker's share price, causing losses to investors. Its share price was nearly halved in the first few weeks following the eruption of the scandal, though it partially recovered its losses later.



The NPS is among many institutional investors seeking to recoup investment losses caused by the rigging scandal.



The regional court in Braunschweig, near Volkswagen's headquarters, has been receiving applications for lawsuits against the automaker. Among them are the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, which is the carmaker's fourth-largest shareholder, and the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the world's fifth-largest public pension fund.



The NPS spokeswoman said the pension fund is working with other institutional investors on the lawsuit, but it hasn't been revealed how much compensation it seeks.



The institutional investors exposed to Volkswagen are accusing the carmaker of providing incorrect information and causing them losses.



Though Volkswagen doesn't represent much of the NPS's overseas stocks, ranking at 602 among the 2,898 stocks it holds abroad, the spokeswoman said the emissions rigging shouldn't be overlooked.



"As seen in our suit against Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, the management of the NPS thinks that we should actively take action as an investor. We make decisions based on information provided by the businesses. The distortion of such information fundamentally damages investors," she said.



The NPS had filed a 48.9 billion won suit against the shipbuilder and accounting firm for manipulating the books.



The pension fund has been increasing the amount of overseas stocks in its portfolio. It amounted to 13.7 percent of its financial assets last year, but plans to raise the ratio to 25 percent by 2021.




By Yoon Ja-young



The government announced plans to enhance the competitiveness of the steel and petrochemical industries, which includes slashing production of excessively supplied items and encouraging the transition to high-value adding products.



"The government plans to induce companies to downsize facilities dedicated to items facing falling demand such as thick steel plates. R&D investment to develop light materials such as titanium, magnesium and aluminum as well as environment-friendly manufacturing methods shall be expanded," Strategy and Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho said at the ministerial meeting to enhance the industrial competitive edge, Friday.



At the meeting, the government discussed measures to improve the steel and petrochemical industries which have been caught by oversupply and falling demand.



Regarding the petrochemical industry, Yoo said that the government will strengthen cooperation between businesses to overcome a relatively poor competitive edge in terms of price.



It also plans to pull up the ratio of R&D investment in the chemical industry to five percent from the current two percent.



He said that the Korean businesses' advanced facility operation technology could be a new export item.



The restructuring plan is based on reports by consulting firms, commissioned by the country's steelmaking and petrochemical associations. Not only the big steelmakers and petrochemical firms such as POSCO and Lotte Chemical but also hundreds of small firms will be subject to business restructuring.



Boston Consulting Group, which prepared a report on the steel industry, noted that 32 percent of the 2.4 billion ton steel items are in a glut of supply while 12 percent of 33 petrochemical items are surplus.



"The oversupply of steel will become more serious. There should be business restructuring by 2020 to overcome this," said Toh Kyung-hwan, deputy trade minister.



Industry analysts say that the restructuring plan is necessary. "Chinese products are cheaper, and they have improved in quality. With oversupply going on due to the global economic recession, it is necessary to prepare restructuring plans in advance," an analyst said. However, he doubted whether the restructuring plans could go smoothly by the firms voluntarily. Objection by the labor union is also an obstacle.



Shipbuilding companies and shipping companies are also awaiting reports by consulting firms. The government plans to announce plans for industrial restructuring and strengthening of competitiveness for the two sectors in October.



Regarding concern over the regions hit by ailing shipyards, the finance minister said that the government will prepare comprehensive measures to minimize the negative impact on the regional economy.




Renault Samsung Motors Co., the local unit of French automaker Renault S.A., has recalled more cars than it has sold here over the past five years, a lawmaker said Thursday.

Since 2011, Renault Samsung sold 436,111 cars in South Korea while recalling 765,435 vehicles, meaning the carmaker recalled about 1.8 cars for every car sold here, according to Rep. Yoon Hu-duk of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea.

Such a high rate of recall could indicate many problems with the car, but Renault Samsung officials argued it was because the company was most faithfully working to improve the quality and safety of its vehicles.

"Most advanced countries encourage voluntary recalls instead of free repair services that do not require disclosure of problems with the product to the general public," a company official said, while speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Renault Samsung has the highest recall execution rate of 88.93 percent among all automakers here, meaning the company is most actively working to improve the quality of its products," he added.

By sheer numbers, local industry leader Hyundai Motor Co. recalled the largest number of some 1.22 million cars over the cited period, the lawmaker noted, citing related data from the transportation ministry.

However, when considering the number of cars sold here, Hyundai recalled 0.3 car for every car sold here over the past five years.

Out of all import brands, BMW Korea recalled the largest number of 140,867 cars between 2011 and the first half of 2016, according to Yoon.

Honda Korea, the local importer of the Japanese car, had the highest recall rate of 1.9 cars per each of 43,152 cars sold here over the cited period. (Yonhap)
Mercedes-Benz Korea President and CEO Dimitris Psillakis, second from right, carries out car maintenance with the company's mechanics at its service center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. The company also operates the "Mercedes-Benz Training Academy" to produce future auto experts at the center as a part of its corporate social responsibilities.

/ Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz Korea



By Jhoo Dong-chan





Mercedes-Benz Korea's service center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, is shown above.

Mercedes-Benz is receiving favorable responses from customers here for its differentiated after-sales service program, My Service.

According to the local unit of the German luxury carmaker, Monday, it has invested a total of 190 billion won ($171.3 million) to open two more showrooms, three service centers and 40 repair work bays. By the end of this year, it is expected to have a total of 42 showrooms, 49 service centers and 13 certified used car showrooms as well as 775 repair work bays.

The My Service program is currently operated only at 12 service centers in Korea, but will be expanded to 70 percent of all the service centers by 2018, an official said.

The company's investments in expanding its service network for My Service are a part of Mercedes-Benz Korea President and CEO Dimitris Psillakis' vision announced earlier this year.

"The growth rate was the highest among three German premium brands  Benz, BMW and Volkswagen  and was also higher than the imported auto market's average of 24.2 percent. Korea became the world's eighth-largest sedan market for Mercedes-Benz," he said during a press conference earlier this year.

"Mercedes-Benz's success in Korea is attributed to our customers' continuous support of our brand. In a bid to keep our sales strong here, we will now look for balanced growth with our customers by providing top-quality after-sales services in accordance with their needs."





Mercedes-Benz Korea mechanics repair vehicles at the Quick Service Bay in the Yongin Service center, Gyeonggi Province. It also offers one-on-one counseling about the customer's vehicle during maintenance or repair.



The My Service program is a customized after-sales car repair service in accordance with customers' preference, started March 2015.

Under the program, Mercedes-Benz Korea provides four different options for customers who visit the service centers for regular maintenance or repair services. The Economic option is for most customers who look for rational service expenses while the Lounge option provides one-on-one counsel over the customer's vehicle in a comfortable waiting room during maintenance or repair. It also offers the Speed option, a quick service for busy customers.

For those customers who are not able to visit the service center, Mercedes-Benz Korea provides pick-up and delivery options as well.

According to market researcher Consumer Insight, Mercedes-Benz has topped the consumer approval rating among the three German premium brands six years in a row.

"I was very impressed by the My Service program at its service center," said a Mercedes-Benz C220 sedan owner surnamed Yoon.

"A Mercedes-Benz official offered counsel while my car was under maintenance, asking various questions about the vehicle's condition. I am very satisfied with Mercedes-Benz Korea's after-sales service."





The interior of Mercedes-Benz Korea's Yongin service center is shown above. The customer waiting area features private TV and PC rooms with massage chairs. It also operates a canteen serving free coffee and snacks.



Apart from the My Service program, Mercedes-Benz Korea also invested a total of 25 billion won to open the Mercedes-Benz Training Academy at its service center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, earlier this year.

"The training academy was the largest car education program in size among imported car brands. It's the first Mercedes-Benz training academy in Asia and the third in the world. It is one of Mercedes-Benz Korea's social commitments in the country," a Mercedes-Benz Korea official said.

Along with the trainee academy, Mercedes-Benz Korea has been carrying out many types of corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs since the company started its sales operations in 2002, Psillakis added.

"The company now plans to focus more on educating children and supporting senior citizens living alone and other underprivileged people," he said.

"We will bolster coordination with our dealerships when implementing social programs to maximize effect. We will further educate young students about traffic safety. For older students, we will also give them opportunities to learn more about how cars are built and operated so that they can develop an interest in cars."

Despite a sluggish import car market in Korea, Mercedes-Benz Korea has outperformed the nation's domestic car market in sales by selling 24,488 cars, up 6.8 percent from the same period last year, while the overall import car market fell 2.6 percent to 116,749.

It aims to sell a total of 50,000 cars this year on the back of its highly expected new E-class and SUV G-Class lineup.

The latest E-class sedan, which was unveiled during the Busan International Motor Show, wowed media and motorists with its autopilot along with its self-parking system called "Parking Pilot."

It also added various safety features like "Evasive Steering Assist," which adds steering torque when a driver performs an evasive maneuver. Another safety technology applied in the model is the "PRE-SAFE impulse side" that uses the front seat side bolsters to move the driver or front seat passenger three inches closer to the center of the car to lessen the impact of a crash.




By Jhoo Dong-chan



Union workers at Hyundai Motor have expressed strong opposition to the government's decision to review its plan to intervene in their labor strike.



Hyundai Motor Union leader Park Yoo-ki said during the workers' meeting, Thursday, that he and his fellow union members will "push their demands for a wage hike with the management at all costs."



In late August, the company's union and management tentatively reached a collective bargaining agreement, under which the company will increase the base monthly salary by 58,000 won, raise annual bonuses by 350 percent and offer a 3.3 million won one-time bonus, among other things.



But 78.05 percent of the union workers voted down the agreement, sending wage negotiations back to square one. Union leaders then asked the company for more concessions, which management refused.



The union workers then began an all-out strike for the first time in 12 years, paralyzing the nation's largest automaker's domestic production plants in Ulsan, Asan and Jeonju.



The government decided to review the plan to take an emergency arbitration measure as both sides showed no signs of finding middle ground through dialogue.



"Considering the impact this would have on the nation's economy, the government has decided to review all possible options to end the Hyundai Motor strike," Labor Minister Lee Ki-kwon said Wednesday.



"A series of the workers' walkouts have reportedly cost the automaker more than 2.7 trillion won ($2.46 billion), or 121,167 cars of reduced car production. Apart from Hyundai Motor's loss, a total of Hyundai Motor's 380 subcontractors, mostly small and medium-sized businesses, suffered an approximate 1.3 trillion won loss in sales. But Hyundai Motor workers only turned down the tentative agreement between management and their representatives because they want higher wages. It is just nonsense. They should come to the table, and settle the issue with dialogue. Or, we will take the necessary measures within the law and the system."



The mediation measure has been imposed four times so far to end walkouts staged by unions at Korea Shipbuilding Corp. in 1969, Hyundai Motor in 1993, and Asiana Airlines and Korean Air Lines pilots, respectively, in 2005.



The measure can be imposed by the labor minister to put an end to a strike if it is considered to have a direct impact on the daily lives of people or jeopardize the nation's economy. If the measure passes, union workers are ordered to suspend their strike for 30 days while the National Labor Relations Commission conducts arbitration.



In response, union workers at Hyundai Motor are expected to have a committee and general meeting this week to make a countermeasure to the government's move.



Park said that the workers' struggles will continue even if the government intervenes.



"We won't stop our struggles to carry through our demands until the end," Park said.




The "2016 Discover Seoul (Eco Walking Tour)" invites foreigners to Yeouido Saetgang Ecological Park in Hangang River Park on Sunday from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. / Courtesy of korean.visitseoul.net



By Hong Dam-young

Autumn in Korea brings pleasant weather to enjoy the outdoors.

If you are searching for a place to walk and enjoy the natural environment, Seoul's "Eco Walking Tour" could be for you.

The "2016 Discover Seoul (Eco Walking Tour)" invites foreigners to Yeouido Saetgang Ecological Park in Hangang River Park on Sunday from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Co-hosted by Seoul City and the Seoul Tourism Marketing Office, the festival welcomes participants to enjoy the natural environment of Saetgang Ecological Park. Starting from Hanwha 63 City building, participants will walk about five kilometers through the park to Seoul Marina Club and Yacht.

The highlight of the event is the "Saetgang AR activity," where participants "collect" animals and plants in the park with an augmented-reality smartphone app like "Pokemon Go". A giant chalkboard offers participants a chance to "create their own Saetgang" in a chalk art activity. There also will be many other colorful activities.

China's largest online travel service, C-trip, which has participated in organizing the programs, estimated that about 1,000 Chinese tourists booked flights to attend the event, an official from the Seoul Tourism Marketing Office said. Some 3,000 Seoul citizens are also expected to participate.

"In the midst of a surge in tourists in Korea, we have developed an event where they can participate with Koreans and enjoy the nature of Seoul," the official told The Korea Times.

KBS World Channel will air the festival in about 80 countries, including China, Japan and the U.S., on Oct. 9.
The New Investors bring Denmark's sunshine and beaches to Zandari Festa, playing Freebird Saturday 6 p.m.

/ Photo by Camilla Hylleberg



By Jon Dunbar

This three-day weekend, over 100 of Korea's greatest least-known musical acts will take part in the fifth annual Zandari Festa, the country's greatest showcase of its indie music scene.

First held in 2012, the music festival is named after a street running through the Hongdae area which means small bridge in Korean. "I hope people will experience the broader world through this small bridge," said festival founder Kong Yoon-young, better known as Dalse.

Over 160 bands playing rock, folk, surf, psychedelic and many more genres will perform 163 individual concerts at 12 venues throughout the Hongik University area in western Seoul, known as Hongdae, ground zero for Korean indie music culture. More than 100 Korean bands will joined by musicians from 18 countries, coming from as far away as the U.S., South Africa and Denmark, plus music industry delegates from around the world.





At Zandari Festa 2015, Japanese punk band Jungles!!! are joined by Korean punk band Crying Nut's keyboardist Kim Insoo at an unscheduled late-night performance at Strange Fruit. Crying

Nut perform Monday 9 p.m. at Yes24 Muv Hall. / Photo by Jon Dunbar



One of the many local festival highlights is 57, a rock duo founded in Jeonju. They play Saturday 7 p.m. at Club Steel Face.

"Zandari is different because when a band has finished their showcase, their festival experience isn't over yet as there're lots of other showcases to watch, people to meet and parties to attend," said 57's drummer Sur. "During Zandari, the vibe in Hongdae is different. It feels almost like a city of music."

Last year, a delegate invited 57 to play Liverpool Sound City Music Festival 2016, along with DTSQ, Patients, Laybricks and Dead Buttons, the latter which also signed with U.K. indie record label Bella Union for an album deal with worldwide distribution.



At Zandari Festa 2015, Japanese punk band TsuShiMaMiRe haul their gear out after performing at Salon Badabie. / Photo by JonDunbar

Since the beginning, invited delegates of the U.K. festival as well as Russia's V-ROX, the U.S.'s SXSW and numerous other tour bookers and record labels have been inviting bands to their own festivals, on tours and into recording studios.

"We're very thankful for that experience," said Sur. "We're hoping we can have more experiences and do business in other parts of the world."

The local bands also get to connect with their international musical peers. Of the 56 international bands, Japan is sending the most at 13, followed by the U.K. and Poland at nine each and France with seven. This year will introduce two special branded showcases, a British night Saturday 10:30 p.m. at Freebird and French night Sunday 10 p.m. at Yes24 Muv Hall.





Peruvian-French musician Djang San brings his electrified zhongruan to Zandari Festa.

/ Photo courtesy of Djang San



"The bands coming in from abroad are all very focused on the business side of things. Right from the get-go they want to know who is going to be there, what the options are for meeting them, etc.," said Patrick Connor, the overseas coordinator for Zandari and curator of the DoIndie showcase at Steel Face 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Monday.












Modern bulgogi



By Yun Suh-young

The top 10 dishes to represent Korea at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics were announced Monday by the Korean Food Foundation (KFF) and the PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games (POCOG).

The selected foods include grilled dried pollack with rice, potato bibimbap in buckwheat wraps, mushroom and corn porridge, simple glass noodles with sauteed vegetables, modern bulgogi, beef garlic kimchi rolls, rolled chicken in soup, tteokgalbi (short rib patties) with soup, three types of white kimchi and marbled rice cakes.

The dishes were unveiled during a presentation held in the Korean Cuisine Cultural Center at the K-Style Hub in Jung-gu, central Seoul.





Grilled dried pollack with rice



The "Top 10" menu project was a collaborative effort between the two organizations to promote Korean food to foreigners visiting Korea for the Olympics and encourage them to experience Korean cuisine during their stay.

To promote Korean food to people from around the world, the two organizations selected the top 10 dishes that they felt best represent the country and would be easily palatable for novices. The dishes were refined to incorporate modern trends with the existing traditions and identity of Korean cuisine.

The top 10 dishes were selected based on seven factors: identity, shape and form, taste, presentation and plating, table setting, eating methods and storytelling. The dishes were evaluated three times by a group of 10 local and foreign food experts over the past two months.





Rolled chicken in soup



"The dishes introduced today were refined from traditional Korean foods in a way that is easier for foreigners to eat," said Yoon Sook-ja, head of the Korean Food Foundation, during a presentation to the press, Monday.

"All of the dishes are bite-sized to facilitate consumption. We hope PyeongChang will be an opportunity to promote Korean food to a wider global audience and contribute to invigorating the food tourism industry in Korea."

Recipes for the top 10 foods will be published in a booklet and distributed to Korean embassies overseas, Agricultural Technology (aT) Center's overseas branches, Korean Cultural Centers overseas, Korean restaurants overseas and Korean food culinary institutes.

The Korean Food Foundation was established in 2010 for the globalization of Korean cuisine. It has distributed information on Korean food through Korean and English publications since 2013. Starting this year, the publications will be translated into Chinese for distribution in China and Taiwan.
A weeping woman shows a picture of her late son at a press conference in front of the Ministry of National Defense building in Yongsan, Seoul, Aug. 6. She and other bereaved families called on the ministry to help restore the honor of soldiers who died from hazing while serving their mandatory military service. / Yonhap



Activists urge military to uphold human rights



By Park Ji-won, Chung Hyun-chae, Nam Hyun-woo



Koreans are outraged over the death of an Army private first class, surnamed Yoon, who suffered brutal abuse and violence at the hands of his superiors.



Yoon, who belonged to the Army's 28th Division, was brutally beaten by five senior soldiers, then put on an IV drip to recover  only to be beaten again and endure more torture before his death in April.



Ranking military officials and politicians have vowed to uphold soldiers' rights and prevent future tragedies by establishing a human rights council within the armed forces.



For some men who have already completed their mandatory military service, however, Yoon's story came as no surprise. They have experienced, witnessed, or at least heard of similar cases.



An office worker in Seoul, surnamed Lee, 32, finished his military service in 2007. His superiors subjected him to abuse too, he recalls.



"I still don't understand why I was beaten," he said.



Lee, then a private, was responsible for managing an ammunition depot. He worked with a sergeant, who was younger than him and constantly picked fights to remind Lee of his inferior rank.



"I'm younger than you," the sergeant repeatedly pointed out to Lee. "Is that a problem for you?"



The sergeant often kicked Lee in the stomach and punched him in the neck when

they were alone in the depot.



"I never said anything about his age, but he picked fights with me and repeatedly attacked me," Lee said.



Lee required medical treatment for his injuries, but the sergeant bullied him into remaining silent about how he got his bruises and why he was bleeding. The assaults continued until the sergeant was discharged.



"If I ever met him again, I would definitely have him killed," Lee said.





A soldier holds a rifle while attending a special lecture on human rights at an Army camp in Goyang, northwest of Seoul, Aug. 8. All soldiers are required to attend such lectures amid mounting criticism over hazing in the barracks following the death of an army private first class, surnamed Yoon, who suffered from brutal abuse from his colleagues. / Yonhap



"I still suffer trauma, but there is no one I can complain to about this and get redress," he added. "The government should also come up with measures to help victims like me."



Kim, 28, who was discharged from the Army two years ago, said he had witnessed hazing.



"Many say there is no violence in the military anymore, but I don't believe that," Kim said.



"Some people are slow to understand or do something. And one of my colleagues was like that. Superiors always used foul language when talking to him, and often they even cursed his parents and attacked him."



The victim was bullied for absurd reasons, Kim recalls.



"Verbal abuse and assaults happened because the victim did not follow stupid customs, which obviously had nothing to do with improving combat readiness," he said.



For example, Kim said his colleague was forced to lick shoe polish because his boots were not shiny enough. Another colleague reported the violence to a ranking officer, and the victim was transferred to another barracks. The attackers were sent to the guardhouse.



"It was a rare case, given that other units' officers tend to cover things up to evade close investigation, because officers don't want a mess," he said. "I heard from one of my friends that his colleague committed suicide because of hazing, but the death was recorded as an accident."



Kim declined to elaborate.



An office worker, surnamed Gil, 28, said one of his colleagues served time in the guardhouse for beating an underling.



"While on night duty, he ordered a private first class not to move off a small tile on the floor.



A single move outside of the tile's borders would be followed by assaults," Gil recalled.



Noh, 24, a college senior who completed his service last year, witnessed sexual violence. The victim was a private first class and the perpetrator was a corporal.



"The private first class reported the corporal's deed to the authorities, and the offender was given a military prison term and transferred to a different unit," he said.



These stories are a source of anxiety for young men who still face conscription, and for their parents.



College student Oh, 21, finished his four weeks of basic military training on Aug. 1. Now he works at a food company as part of an alternative civilian service program.



Though he braved the training without any problem, his parents were not as brave.



"Even though the training lasted only a month, I couldn't help worrying about my son," said his mother, surnamed Yoo. "Who knows if something bad will happen within that short time?



"In the photo my son sent, some of his colleagues had tattoos on their arms. After I saw that, I started to worry. What if they bully my son?" she said.



"Other parents [whose sons don't qualify for alternative programs] must have bigger worries, but I also worry about my son's safety."



According to data from the Ministry of National Defense, between 2003 and last year, 874 servicemen died either as a result of suicide or accidents. An average of 80 men died every year.



Human rights activists have long urged the government to take action on violence and bullying in the military. But the response remains tepid, consisting only of vague orders.



In 2012, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) suggested guidelines to safeguard servicemen's human rights. Those were the strongest measures the agency believed it was capable of taking, but apparently they were insufficient.



The NHRC's role is limited  it can only make suggestions, not binding regulations. However, critics say the watchdog should have been more active in carrying out its duties  at the very least, it could have disclosed problems to the public.



It was the Center for Military Human Rights that revealed the details of Yoon's case

to the media.



"We have repeatedly urged the military to open itself to the public, allowing civilian human rights experts to visit the barracks and meet with soldiers," said Lim Tae-hoon, a representative of the center. "However, the military kept saying no to civilian experts  that it would handle intra-military matters by itself."
A woman pushes a stroller away from a cafe after being asked to leave. More restaurants and cafes are refusing patrons with children for etiquette and safety reasons. / Korea Times file



Restaurants' ban on children stirs pro-and-con debate



By Baek Byung-yeul, Kwon Ji-youn

A local court recently ruled that two restaurants should pay 10 million won and 47 million won to two children, respectively, who were scalded while dining. One child ran into a restaurant employee carrying hot water and another was burned by charcoal fire.

Once the verdict was announced, some restaurant owners started to refuse customers with children as they didn't want to be held responsible for any accidents their child could cause. This issue has emerged as a hotbed for online debate ever since.

Korea isn't the first to join the movement. In two U.S. states, Texas and Pennsylvania, restaurants have banned kids, while cafes in Berlin have created child-free zones for their patrons. Some have even barred strollers, which are considered safety hazards in densely populated areas such as malls or restaurants.

Even some airlines are following suit. Malaysia Air banned children under two from flying first class, while AsiaAir created a "quiet zone" for fliers above the age of 12.

Restaurant owners blame children for reckless behaviors in a potentially dangerous environment involving fire and other cooking equipment, as well as disturbing other patrons' dining experience.

The question is this: Do parents have the right to bring their children to cafes and restaurants, where they are at risk of getting burned, where they may be bothersome to fellow patrons? Or do restaurants have the right to refuse patrons with children for safety and etiquette reasons?

Many parents with children protested, saying that this is a violation of equal rights.

Choi Jung-soon, who raised two children, aged six and eight, said this is a clear example of an equal rights violation.

"My kids have the right to enter any cafe or restaurant," the 33-year-old Seoulite said.





A sign posted on the door of a restaurant located in Seongnam City, Gyeonggi Province, bars children who are elementary-school age or younger.

/ Korea Times



"People who say parents bringing their toddlers to restaurants do not discipline children inside and let their kids run loose, but this is completely wrong.

"I definitely do try to pay attention to my kids, making sure they don't go on a rampage inside a restaurant, but they should understand that kids aren't able to completely control themselves," she said.

Heo Eun-mi, a 32-year-old mom, hadn't heard about the movement to ban kids until recently.

"When I heard that a group of restaurants were banning kids, I thought to myself, no way,' because my kid loves to eat out" she said. "Before such a policy takes effect across the city, restaurants should designate child-friendly zones, where families with children can dine free from the glares of childless patrons and the narrow confines of a restaurant."

She stressed that this should be the first step restaurant owners take before implementing a no kids' policy.

"Then, at least they've made an effort to satisfy all customers. We're customers, too," she said. "If that still didn't work, then sure, ban kids. Also, where else will kids learn proper restaurant etiquette?"

She emphasized that with a little caution, restaurant owners and parents will definitely be able to find a way to coexist.

"I think the responsibility falls with both parties. Parents should be a little more attentive, and restaurant employees should be a little more careful," she said. "That's as simple as it gets."

Another mother, with a seven-year-old daughter, said she had to order take-out at a coffee shop because her daughter wasn't allowed in, but she didn't mind.

"When I saw the news, the first thought that came to my mind was, aren't the parents responsible for the safety of their children?'" she said on condition of anonymity. "How are restaurant owners supposed to control children while working?"

Jeong Soon-ok, a college student, does admit that her experience at a restaurant in Sinsa-dong, southern Seoul, wasn't all that enjoyable because of a child who walked from table to table stealing peoples' salt and pepper shakers.

"At first it was cute, but when the meals were served, we needed the salt shaker. So we took it from him and he just fell on his bottom and started screaming," she said. "The mother then came and started telling us off for forcibly taking the child's toy' away. I didn't know what to say in response."

Jeong recalled another incident in where a child slipped while running in a dining room.

"I remember the mother started yelling at the employees for wiping the floor down with a wet mop," she said. "I thought to myself, should they have used a dry mop?'"

Ryu Seung-min, who runs a Korean-style barbeque restaurant in Seoul, agrees with ban, adding that "parents sometimes just cannot control their children."

"I don't implement that kind of policy in my restaurant as my customers are mostly office workers, but I definitely agree with the food establishments that do ban kids," said the restaurant owner.

"I think parents who bring their children to restaurants and don't pay attention to them seem to not understand how dangerous this place actually is. They should know that we are dealing with hot food that could burn someone if dropped.

"In addition, parents who don't even try to control their careless kids are unaware they are disturbing those around them. They may have gotten used to their loud kids but this doesn't apply to the customers around them," he said.

Ryu also pointed out the necessity of campaigns urging parents to better observe public etiquette while in restaurants.

"I guess we need to find common ground between owners and parents. I think educating parents the virtue of paying more attention to their kids while dining is a good, first step," he said.

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRC) states that it is illegal for a business to ban children from entering restaurants, adding that it is against the rights of equality.

However, this presents a catch-22. If restaurants ban children, then these establishments are breaking the existing laws. But if a restaurant has put forth clear grounds as to why it restricts access to kids, then there is no way to impose sanctions on the offending restaurant.

To illustrate this point, NHRC dismissed a case in 2010 filed by an anonymous informant that a restaurant implements a "no kids" policy in their judgment that the restaurant had clear reason to do so.

"As long as we, restaurant owners, are responsible for any accidents involving children, it is crystal-clear that more and more restaurants and cafes will adopt the no kids' policy," Ryu added.


By Park Ji-won and Chung Hyun-chae



Housekeeper Lee Won-hee, 57, reminisced that when she was in her 20s she spent little money on her dates.



"During my time, teahouses, movie theaters and parks were pretty much the only places we could go for dates," she said. "Needing a lot of money for dating wasn't as much of an issue back then as it is now.



"It was natural among young people to have no money, hang out at a park with a lunch box, and eventually get married down the road. Women had fewer roles in society a few decades ago. In my time, a woman's duty was doing house chores and rearing the children, while a man's obligation is earning money and providing food and housing. Life was a lot more simple back then."



It was OK for young couples to spend time without much money a few decades ago. These days, people in their 20s and 30s in Korea feel this is some kind of myth. But why is this so hard to believe? Today's generation think they need a certain amount of money or a decent job to even go on a date.



Of course, money is necessary for survival. But why is today's youth so obsessed about having money just to go on a simple date?



Some people say today's young people are the generation with three no's _ no dating, no marriage and no job.



This is a sad portrayal of Korea today where many believe that love, let alone going on a date, is not possible without money.



Some statistics supports the three no's phenomenon.



According to a Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA) report released on July 27, people in romantic relationships have distinct features _ they are aged 25-29, they have graduated from college, and they earn 25 million to 35 million won a year.



The institute surveyed about 1,500 single men and women aged 18-49, last November and December



The results show that people are considered to be in a relationship when society believes they are "stable" _ having a good job with money _ and their parents are proudly willing to introduce their son or daughter to others.



About 45.5 percent of men and 43.1 percent of women in their 20s, and 38.7 percent of men and 38 percent of women in their 30s and who are dating, feel their partner is marriage material.



The problem is that their income is likely to be the most important factor in even accepting a first date. As long as they earn money, they are more likely to be in a relationship.



About 43.2 percent of men and 52.8 percent of women whose annual salary ranges from 25 million won to 35 million had romantic relationships. But only 27.3 percent of men and 28.1 percent of women who earn less than 15 million won per year had a past relationship.



Nearly 70 percent of single men who have a regular income said they wanted a girlfriend.



Meanwhile, about half of the men without an income said they are unwilling to have a romantic relationship.



A male college student surnamed Kim, 24, intentionally had not had a girlfriend during the past year.



"I promised myself to improve and not date until I get a job even if I like someone," Kim said.



"At some point, I would regret investing in a girl who I don't truly love. Now I feel that loving someone is some sort of investment or the accumulation of mileage points in a supermarket so that it could be exchanged as cash at a future date," Kim explained.



He added that he felt sad that he thought it was necessary to avoid dating until earning money.



This way of thinking is not so different for women.



A college student surnamed Gu, 24, who lived in Seoul while at school, failed to get into one of the nation's big conglomerates last year.



Depressed, she decided to return to her hometown, Busan, to concentrate fully on her studies in the hope of landing a job. To do this, she disconnected with all her friends in Seoul.



She also broke up with her boyfriend.



"I have little time to enjoy dating before getting a career," Gu said.



For her, love is not as important as starting a career and earning money.



Other women agree with Gu.



"When I wanted to be alone with my boyfriend, I had to pay to find a private place," said Park Ji-min, 25, a job seeker.



"Because I was on a tight budget and was unemployed, I often became nervous whenever I had to spend money.



"Soon I became exhausted as I always worried about money and calculated the exact amount I spent rather than feeling happy when I saw my boyfriend.



"Because lack of money was stressing me out on each date, I finally told him I wanted to break up."



Experts point out that worrying about not having enough money and choosing to be single is probably contributing to the nation's falling birthrate.



"Given that romantic relationships depend on one's income and position today, it is crucial to create an environment where young people can eventually land a career and plan for the future," said KIHASA researcher Cho Sung-ho.



"Adopting this attitude of getting a job first will also contribute to increasing the birthrate, which is one of the world's lowest."
A researcher conducts a test on a pig to establish the safety of an intravascular micro-robot created by the Robot Research Initiative at Chonnam National University in Gwangju.

/ Courtesy of Chonnam National University





Chonnam National University prods students to start businesses







Chonnam National University

President Jee Byung-moon

By Chung Hyun-chae



GWANGJU  Chonnam National University is stepping up efforts to maintain its lead in R&D of micro-robots for medical use and hydrogen fuel cell technology for automobiles.



These efforts are part of the university's strategy of boosting academic-industrial cooperation and encouraging students and faculties to create their own businesses.



"I believe our university's robotics research, especially for micro-robots, has become world-class," Jee Byung-moon, president of the Gwangju-based national university, told The Korea Times. "We've developed technologies in this area and we have a competitive edge in commercializing them."



He said that the university's R&D center, Robot Research Initiative, created the world's first colonoscopy robot in 2001 and the world's first intravascular micro-robot for the treatment of blood vessel-related diseases in 2010.



In March 2015, the center developed an active capsule endoscope and has signed a 1 billion won contract to transfer the technology to Woo Young Medical, a medical device manufacturer. Under the contact, the center will receive 2 percent of endoscope sales as a licensing fee.



Woo Young has established a subsidiary, ARESMED, to commercialize the endoscope. Doctors can control and move the endoscope, if commercialized, inside a patient's body by using a joystick.



"We will work together with ARESMED to commercialize the technology and plan to receive a medical certificate by 2017," Jee said.



If the university implements its plans successfully, he added, robot-related sales are expected to reach 5 trillion won by 2027.



Chonnam National University founded its own tech company in 2011 to commercialize technologies developed by its students, faculty and its research centers. The company now has 13 subsidiaries and plans to open five more this year.



The university took the initiative to establish the Gwangju Technology Holding Company this year in cooperation with other universities in Gwangju, the city government and local companies.



The university is also taking the lead in hydrogen fuel cell technology, which is regarded as a new growth engine because the new energy source produces no air pollution.



In 2009, the university opened the Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Institute to conduct research on converting hydrogen to electricity.



It also hosted the World Hydrogen Energy Conference 2014 at the Kimdaejung Convention Center in Gwangju, gathering more than 500 scientists and scholars.

Last year, the Gwangju municipality built the Center for Creative Economy and Innovation, a government project to provide support for startups in collaboration with major conglomerates.



Hyundai Motor, the main sponsor for the project, wants to work closely with the center to develop a hydrogen fuel cell car.



"As Hyundai is interested in making hydrogen-powered cars, I hope our university's research center will cooperate with the automaker in developing fuel cell technology," Jee said.



Promoting entrepreneurship



"We are trying to promote entrepreneurship among students by encouraging them to put their ideas into practice and launch their own startups without fear of failure,"

Jee said.



Launched in 1999, the Chonnam National University Business Incubator has helped undergraduates, graduate students and professors launch their own businesses.



The business incubator offers opportunities for undergraduate students to experience starting a business, while providing space for those with their own business plans or technology.



"In order to reduce risks and to raise the success rate, we set up a university brand shop last year to promote and sell products devised by students and professors," Jee said.



Thanks to the school's strong support, many students have made remarkable accomplishments.



For example, Lee Su-chang, a computer science major who graduated from the university in 2002, launched Amazingsoft, a web analysis company that generated 3.5 billion won in sales in 2015. Naver, the nation's largest web portal, acquired the company in 2013 for 10 billion won.



Humanities students have also seen success. Park Ji-min, a philosophy major who graduated in 2014, opened HERZ fab cafe, a multiplex cultural space located in Gwangju, which generated 300 million won in sales in 2015.



The university won the 2015 AABI Awards from the Asian Association of Business Incubation (AABI) in recognition of its efforts to assist school members' startups.

It was the second time that a local university received such an award, after the Korea Advanced Institute of Science Technology (KAIST) did so in 2007.



Focusing on research



In addition to giving wholehearted support for technology development, Chonnam National University has also tried to enhance research capabilities in both quality and quantity.



"Most professors think that only excruciating efforts for self-reform will enable the university to revive its past glory of being one of the nation's top three regional universities," Jee said.



Theses written by the university's professors and cited by international science journals totaled 1,757 in 2014, up from 1,553 in 2012 and 1,646 in 2013.



The president said that the university ranked second in the number of thesis citations among 41 national universities across the nation.



"To strengthen our university's research capacity this year, I will allow professors to devote themselves to conducting research exclusively by freeing them from the burden of teaching students," Jee added.
The Chinese fishing boat that caught fire while resisting a boarding party earlier this week was operating illegally in South Korea's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the Coast Guard said Friday.

The fire, which broke out after Coast Guard officers boarded the boat Thursday, left three Chinese fishermen dead, with 14 others, including the captain, being rescued.

The Mokpo Coast Guard, in charge of the case, said the boat had no permit to fish in South Korea's EEZ. It said the crew members are being questioned on why they did not follow orders to stop.

The 102-ton Chinese vessel was sailing some 70 kilometers southwest of Hong Island, west of Mokpo, when the Coast Guard ordered it to stop for identification, but the boat tried to flee the area.

The Coast Guard said that when its officers did manage to board the boat, some members of the crew locked themselves into the steering house and engine room. These crewmen then continued to sail the boat with officers on board despite repeated orders to stop. When the orders were ignored, the officers threw non-lethal stun grenades into locked compartments to force the people out.

Authorities said they will try to determine what caused the fire. Local forensic experts will check the boat thoroughly to determine why it suddenly caught fire when it arrives in Mokpo.

Investigators also said they will seek autopsies of the deceased crew members to determine the exact cause of death.

The Coast Guard, meanwhile, confirmed the boat had illegally caught 2,200 kilograms of fish in South Korean waters. (Yonhap)
UNESCO Gender Equality Director Saniye Gulser Corat



By Kim Bo-eun

There is a hot debate on taking legislative measures to promote gender equality, but a UNESCO official says it is necessary in certain cases.

"In areas with strong structural inequality, you need to put in temporal measures," said Saniye Gulser Corat, gender equality director at UNESCO headquarters, in an interview with The Korea Times, Thursday.

Corat was in Seoul for a forum on development and gender hosted by the Korean Women's Development Institute.

In Korea, women constitute 17 percent of lawmakers in the 20th National Assembly, which is the highest figure yet but falls short of the OECD average which was 27.9 percent in 2015.

For example, Sweden, which had a parliament composed of over 40 percent women last year, has quotas for female lawmakers not mandated by law but voluntarily set and followed by parties since the 1970s.

Korea does not have a quota in politics, and female participation is just encouraged.

"For things to change, you need 30 to 35 percent representation by a certain group, according to studies," said Corat. "This is the level needed for gender transformative change in politics."

But numbers won't change things in and of themselves; society needs numbers that will lead to qualitative change, she said.

"Decisions made by representatives of one dominant gender will project only the views of that group," Corat added. "This also applies to the private sector."



Female executives accounted for a mere 2.3 percent of total executives in Korea's top 100 companies last year.



Studies by global consulting firm McKinsey & Company show diverse gender representation brings a significant increase in profits and return-on-investment.

Along the same lines, Corat said measures are also needed in the domestic sphere, such as for childcare.

"I am shocked to see in many countries in the world, including very advanced ones, how traditional gender roles in the family are," she said.

Korea is one of them; men only constitute 5 to 6 percent of people taking childcare leave. Men are able to take up to one year off to raise their children, but this is not mandated by law.

"Even in Scandinavian countries, it didn't come easy  governments needed to legislate that men need to take part in childcare leave in order for women to take it," Corat said.

"In the beginning, people of my generation there told me they did not like it, but it was that or nothing, so they had no choice and now it has become the norm."

Corat also said law and its enforcement is critical in curbing domestic violence and sex crimes.

"You need to hold people accountable, enforce laws and penalties. It is about what the police do, what happens when you take the case to the court  you need effective and definite action," she said, based on what she witnessed over 22 years in Canada when she was there.

"It was a key issue there and the government adopted a zero tolerance policy, and there was considerable change from the time I arrived and left," Corat recalled, noting Canada has one of the most advanced systems of gender equality monitoring.

Lastly, the UNESCO official also mentioned the importance of reporting on the part of the victims.

"Many victims don't want to go through it, some think it's their fault, some think it's allowed. But domestic violence is not a family issue when one member is terrorizing and violating another," she said. "It is an issue of human rights."
Last month's photo shows animal parts floating in the Hangang River. The bodies were allegedly dumped by a man surnamed Lee near Misa Bridge in Hanam, Gyeonggi Province. / Yonhap



By Hong Dam-young

A man in his 50s has been arrested for allegedly dumping up to 13 tons of dead animals into Hangang River as a sacrifice to God.

Prosecutors said the suspect, surnamed Lee, 51, had dumped animal corpses into the river near Misa Bridge in Hanam, Gyeonggi Province, from October 2015 to August this year.

A total of 98 bodies were dumped -- 78 pigs and 20 cows -- worth 200 million won ($181,967). The pigs were cut into four pieces and the cows into six.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said on Friday that police caught Lee on Aug. 17. After an investigation, he was arrested for infringing water quality.

Prosecutors said Lee bought the animals to offer them as a sacrifice to God. The former cleric of a religion that remains unknown has been running a yoga center where he prayed with his followers and practiced asceticism.

The suspect said he dumped the animals into the river in the belief it could strengthen the power of his prayer. He chose to do it at night around the little-frequented Misa Bridge, which he believed had a positive energy flow.

There were several reports last month of animal parts in the river near the bridge and Jamsil district in eastern Seoul.

"After the reports, we have collected about one third of the pieces of discarded corpses, and they were awfully decayed," an official from the prosecutors' office said.

"Dumping massive amounts of dead bodies can pollute the water and pose a threat to people's health."

Prosecutors said they will investigate the suspect's two alleged accomplices and put the case to trial early next month.
Korea Times is launching its 12th English Economic Essay Contest for Korean and foreign university students to help students better understand the Korean economy and improve their English skills.

The contest is sponsored by Woori Bank. Applicants are required to submit their views in English in less than 800 words.

For applicants residing in Korea, the subject is "Banks and IT firms are integrating operations to provide Internet-only banking and other innovative services. The borderline between banking, securities and insurance is also being blurred rapidly. Facing unprecedented challenges ahead, what should banks do to cope with this changing financial environment?"

For applicants who reside outside Korea, the subject is "Korea has no internationally competitive investment bank like Goldman Sachs. What should be done to nurture a competent investment bank?"

Deadline for submission: Oct. 7

Where: e-mail to lim@ktimes.com

Announcement of winners: in October

Awarding ceremony: Winners will be notified about the awarding ceremony individually.

Prizes:

Grand Awards: One Korean and one international contestant

 The Korean winner will be given a round-trip ticket (economy class) from Seoul to Los Angeles.

 The overseas winner will receive a round-trip ticket from their hometown to Seoul.

Runner-up: Notebook

Three Commendation Awards: Round-trip ticket from Seoul to Jeju Island

The winning essays will be published in The Korea Times in November.
official at the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission answers a phone inquiry about a possible breach of the anti-graft law, at the commission's Seoul branch, Wednesday, when the law took effect. / Korea Times photo by Hong In-kee



By Lee Kyung-min

The public is in confusion following the implementation of the anti-graft law, known as the Kim Young-ran Act.

While the toughest-ever anti-corruption law bans public servants, teachers and journalists from being served meals and gifts with prices surpassing specific amounts, many ambiguous terms and factors are confusing people, forcing them to consider whether their actions are within the permitted levels every time they have meals or meet people.

In the first two days since the law took effect Wednesday, police received a total of 31 reports of suspected breaches of the law, including two written ones and 29 phone calls.

One of the written ones was filed against Gangnam-gu head Shin Yeon-hee over an allegation that she violated the law by offering free meals and tours to 160 heads of senior centers in the district.

Her office denied the allegations, saying it was part of its senior benefit programs set up a decade ago and it fully reviewed the law in advance to see whether the program violated the new law. Police said they would determine later on whether to investigate the matter.

Another report was filed by an investigator at a police station in Gangwon Province, after he received a box of rice cakes from a person whose case he had been investigating. The officer immediately returned it to the sender and reported it to the station's internal inspection team.












By Jung Min-ho



Major hospitals across Korea are busy educating their employees about a new anti-graft law, which is bringing profound changes not only to some of their practices but also to the whole culture of the nation's medical sector.



The Kim Young-ran Act, which came into force Wednesday, bans two things  receiving gifts worth more than a certain amount of money, and complying with unfair requests. For the latter charge, violators could face a sentence of up to two years or a fine of up to 20 million won ($18,000).



Along with officials at the government, its agencies and media outlets, employees at public and private schools, and medical staff at university hospitals, are subject to the law.



"All hospital employees attended a special lecture about the law last week," a public relations official at Severance Hospital, affiliated with Yonsei University, told The Korea Times. "More detailed guidelines will be drawn up and distributed soon."



It is no secret that asking to be moved to the front of the line for a medical procedure was a common practice in Korea's hospitals for a long time, he said. To get such favors, which were not subject to any regulation before the law, many people used their personal relationships. But they can no longer do that.



"Employees have been warned that if they are caught violating the law these days, they may set precedents for future cases," the official said. "No one wants that, and everyone is very cautious."



A high-ranking official at the Korean Nurses Association said he was asked for such favors from time to time.



"Now I have a legal reason to turn down such requests, which is a good thing," said the official, who refused to be named. "Because I know many people in the hospitals, some people asked me to help them secure rooms at certain hospitals or help move them up the waiting list for care."



Korean society was already heading in the direction of becoming more transparent and striving to be fair, and the law is expected to accelerate the change, he noted.



"Some hospitals have already set up systems, according to which patients can see where they are on the waiting lists," he said. "The law will make sure that no one gets their place in line and they are moved back unfairly."



Not all medical workers are subject to the law. Those who do not have any affiliation with schools are free from it. However, given that most leading doctors work for universities as teachers or researchers, the law is expected to have a major impact on the nation's hospital culture.



Without exception, all employees of hospitals founded by universities such as Seoul National University and Yonsei Severance hospitals are subject to the law regardless of their positions.



The law is also expected to change "rebate culture," which harms fair competition in Korea's pharmaceutical industry. For a long time, the culture was pervasive. Just last month, six former and current executives of Novartis Korea were indicted on charges of offering kickbacks to doctors for years in return for prescribing its products.



With the law banning such practices, many industry people are already sensing a change.



"I believe it is a good change," an executive at a major pharmaceutical firm, said. "It could be a bad change for companies that rely heavily on sales without competitive products.



"I hope that the law will correct many of the bad practices in the drug industry. The biggest winners, then, will be consumers."




By Yi Whan-woo



The government's move to allow the Chinese police to enter Korea's southernmost Jeju Island and exercise their authority to prevent crimes committed by Chinese tourists there is raising eyebrows.



Some even denounce the plan as giving up its sovereignty to China.



On Thursday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it will consult with the Chinese government about the possible dispatch of Chinese police offers if the related Korean authorities, including the Korean police and Jeju provincial government, want do so.



Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se also said Monday that he will "actively talk with" both the Chinese and Jeju provincial governments about whether to begin a joint patrol with police offers of the two countries on the resort island.



His remark during the parliamentary audit came after growing safety concerns on the island in the wake of a series of homicides committed by Chinese tourists there recently.



The foreign ministry underscored that the Chinese police will not "intervene on public-security affairs" in Korea, and if allowed, will only carry out the patrol in the areas heavily traveled by Chinese tourists.



"Such cooperation can be possible to share information on criminals," it said.



It also claimed that it has been "customary" around the world for countries to dispatch their security-related officials to the countries where their citizens frequently visit.



"Our country also has been sending police officers to our diplomatic missions abroad as consuls," it added.



The online community, however, has been against the government's move, calling it "irresponsible."



"I just can't imagine that my government came up with an idea to let Chinese policemen roam around the streets of Jeju Island for our own safety," wrote Daum ID: Hana 1004. "The foreign ministry must be out of its mind and I wonder if it is also considering offering the whole of Jeju Island as a province of China in the future."



A Daum ID: greenfish accused the government of granting visa-free entry into Jeju Island for the Chinese for 30 days while they are required to have a visa to visit other parts of Korea.



"The government irresponsibly allowed the Chinese to enter our island and now they want the Chinese police to handle public security," the user wrote. "I ask the government to revise its visa policy and limit the number of Chinese tourists to the extent it can keep under control."



A Korean woman in her 60s was stabbed to death by a Chinese man, 51, identified by his last name Chen, while praying at a Catholic church in Jeju on Sept. 17.



On Sept. 9, eight Chinese customers at a restaurant in Jeju were apprehended for beating a restaurant owner and four Korean customers in a group.



The number of Chinese committing crimes in the island increased from 58 in 2011 to 260 in 2015, according to the government. Between January and July, the Chinese accounted for some 70 percent of the crimes committed there, including murder, rape and other homicides.




North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has instructed the country's top university to regularly hold international academic symposiums and attract as many foreign students as possible to demonstrate its fame to the world, state-run media reported Friday.

Kim made the instruction in his Tuesday letter sent to the faculty and students of Kim Il Sung University on the occasion of its 70th anniversary, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The university, set up in Pyongyang in 1946, was named after the North's founder and grandfather of the current leader Kim Jong-un.

"The university should receive a lot of foreign students so that they may study not only the Korean language but also get education in regular and doctoral courses in departments of various majors," Kim said.

He emphasized that the university regularly organizes international seminars and expands joint studies with authoritative colleges and research institutes in foreign nations.

He also stressed that the university write quality academic papers that can be presented at international symposiums and in international papers, and develop its Kim Ilsung University Gazette into a world-famous academic magazine.

"The field of natural science should make a positive contribution to solving urgent scientific and technological problems arising in developing the national economy and bolstering the defense capabilities," he added. (Yonhap)


By Oh Young-jin

The idea of a preemptive strike, spoken or unspoken, abounds as North Korea appears to be cresting with its nuclear development. Is it just cheap talk or is any party  the North, South Korea or the United States  in this cauldron worth taking seriously?

The North has uttered the most concrete "first-use" threat of nuclear weapons.

Ahead of the Korea-U.S. Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise in August, Pyongyang said that it "will turn the stronghold of provocation into a heap of ashes through a Korean style preemptive nuclear strike." The drill involved nuclear-capable U.S. strategic assets such as B-1B Lancers and submarines.

The North's response was a rhetorical exercise. By then, the North had detonated its fourth nuclear blast and was, in hindsight, planning a fifth that took place on Sept. 9 but still it is unlikely that it has reached the point in miniaturization where it can have reliable nuclear payloads for its missiles.

Then what did the North mean by the term Korean style? Has it developed a backpack nuclear bomb? It's possible but by no means did it intend to conduct an underground nuclear blast in the middle of Seoul as it did in its hinterland.

Experts forecast that the North is closer to making a long-range missile to deliver a nuclear warhead to the United States. Such a scenario may come true although a great deal of technology is needed to ensure re-entry and delivery to the target. The North also has had some success in a cold launch  hurling a missile from a submarine. Does it pose a clear and present danger? This is not yet certain.

It's possible that the North wants to make a leap in its military capability, knowing it has been slipping behind South Korea, allied with the United States, and thinks that going nuclear is the key to making the asymmetric situation in its favor again.

Still, the question stands: what would comprise a North Korean preemptive strike, if it mounts one?

For now, it would be conventional, using its thousands of artillery pieces targeting Seoul together with a barrage of missiles with non-nuclear warheads. With a bit of a twist, it would be similar to the one it mounted with the help of Red China and the defunct Soviet Union at the start of the 1950-1953 Korean War. The South was pushed back by Soviet T-34 tanks; but now the North's current aging ranks of war machines, whether on the ground, at sea or in the air, won't survive for long. In a total war on the basis of conventional weaponry, another war will likely bring devastation to both Koreas but the North would be decimated in the process.

So a preemptive attack by the North could only be possible if Kim Jong-un feels suicidal.












Mourners queue at the Seoul National University Hospital's memorial hall, Monday, to pay their respects to Baek Nam-ki, a farmer who died following 10 months in a coma after being knocked over by a police water cannon during a rally last year. Nearly 7,000 people have come to offer their condolences since his death, Sunday. / Yonhap



By Kim Bo-eun, Choi Ha-young

Four international organizations advocating human rights and trade unions jointly issued a statement, Wednesday, condemning Korea's prosecution and police for pushing for an autopsy of a deceased farmer, who died after being knocked down by a police water cannon during a rally last November.

The statement comes after police re-applied for a warrant to conduct the autopsy on Baek Nam-ki, Monday night, after the Seoul Central District Court refused its first request early that day. The first request was filed on Sunday night after Baek, 69, died earlier in the afternoon following 10 months in a coma after being hit by the water cannon.

Baek's physician declared he died from acute renal failure following a subdural hemorrhage, but police are claiming there may have been underlying conditions that caused these. They say an autopsy will clarify the cause of the farmer's death.

"Despite a national outcry and international condemnation of the police's use of undue force against demonstrators during the rally, law enforcement agencies refuse to apologize or to launch an official investigation into the injuries that resulted from police intervention, including those that left Baek in a coma for the last months of his life," said the statement issued by the International Federation for Human Rights, European Trade Union Confederation, International Trade Union Confederation and Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD.

"Our organizations strongly condemn the ongoing attempts by the authorities to evade accountability and justice for their brutal crackdown on peaceful demonstrators," it said. "We call for a transparent and independent investigation into the events of the rally and for a thorough review of police protocol regarding crowd control and freedom of assembly, notably regulations of the use of water cannon trucks."

Baek's family members and civic groups supporting them submitted a petition to the court, opposing the autopsy. In a press conference at Seoul National University Hospital, they claimed Baek's 10 months of medical records sufficiently show that his injuries from the water cannon caused the conditions which led to his death.

"We maintain that an autopsy is unnecessary both in the legal and medical sense," Son Yeong-joon, head of a committee representing Baek's family, told The Korea Times. "Taking away Baek's body for an autopsy will be another tragedy replayed from the day of the incident. We will employ all means to stop the police proceeding with the autopsy."

Citizens continued to visit Baek's funeral altar, queuing to pay their respects. Hundreds of them took part in a candlelit rally in front of the hospital.

Inside the memorial hall, civic group members collected signatures for a petition calling for an investigation to find those accountable and punishment of them, and also to set up regulations to prevent such a case from recurring.

"I came from Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province. Although I cannot offer actual help, I just wanted to come and pay my respects," Cho Seung-jae, a 17-year-old, told The Korea Times.

"I think the police's use of the water cannon was an act of violence exercised by the state. If it was just a death unrelated to the authorities, all of these people wouldn't have come," said a woman from Seoul, surnamed Jung.
By Kang Seung-woo

South Korea, the United States and the United Kingdom will hold their first joint aerial combat exercise here in November, the Air Force said, Thursday.

It said South Korean, British and U.S. air forces are scheduled to carry out the "Invincible Shield" exercise from Nov. 4 to 10 from Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.

The South Korean Air Force has often held joint drills with its U.S. counterpart  such as "Max Thunder" and "Red Flag"  but it is the first time British fighter jets will join a drill here.

Britain plans to send four Eurofighter Typhoon combat jets, a Voyager tanker aircraft and a C-17 Globemaster military transport plane to the trilateral exercise, while the South Korean Air Force's F-15K and KF-16 fighter jets and the U.S. Air Force's F-16 fighters will participate.

The operation comes as the North Korean regime continues to increase tension on the Korean Peninsula, following its fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9 and recent ballistic missile tests.

"The three-way exercise is aimed at improving the allies' capabilities of attacking an enemy's major military and leadership facilities, if provoked, but also at intercepting incoming aerial foes," an Air Force official said.

"Through the exercise, the three countries will be able to bolster the interoperability of their military arsenals and joint operational capabilities in the event of conflict breaking out on the Korean Peninsula."

Before the joint operation, the British Air Force plans to hold an exercise with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at Misawa Air Base in Aomori Prefecture, in mid-October.

The South Korean Air Force said Britain's participation in "Invincible Shield" will send a message of its commitment to defending South Korea from Pyongyang's hostile acts as a member country of the United Nations Command during the Korean War.

"The three nation's air forces will continue to expand joint operations and strengthen their partnership," the Air Force said.
South Korea and Uzbekistan discussed ways to expand bilateral economic cooperation in the investment, infrastructure and energy development sectors Wednesday, the trade ministry in Sejong said.

Led by South Korea's Trade Minister Joo Hyung-hwan and Uzbek Finance Minister Rustam Azimov, the two countries held the eighth round of economic and trade talks in Seoul to bolster trade and help more South Korean firms participate in infrastructure projects in the Central Asian country, according to the ministry.

Uzbekistan is working on a number of energy developing projects, including a US$4 billion project to build olefin facilities in the country and a $1 billion one to construct 100 megawatt solar power plants.

The two sides also agreed to set up a trade consulting desk to help their exporters do business in each other's country in an easier way.

Uzbekistan is South Korea's biggest trade partner in the Central Asian region, with trade reaching $1.3 billion last year, down from $2.1 billion a year earlier.(Yonhap)
By Rajiv Kumar

Pakistan's ambassador to South Korea Zahid Nasrullah Khan has brought India-Pak tension to East Asia by criticizing India's connection with Balochistan in South Korea's leading English-language newspaper The Korea Times. In his editorial entitled "India incites Baloch Subversion," Zahid Nasrullah Khan wrote that "Balochistan has been the victim of subversive activities by India." Through his article, he has tried to convince South Korean policymakers and media representatives that no dispute over Balochistan exists and that the whole unrest in that region has been caused by India. These aggressive comments in a Korean newspaper by Pakistan's ambassador are dangerous as they may cause a diplomatic conflict between India and Pakistan in East Asia  a region which is already going through a tense situation.

It is important to mention that in recent years, regional politics have been sharply divided between the emergence of two alliance networks. While one alliance network is created by China, another one is led by the United States. This alliance system simply reminds us of a situation which emerged just before the two world wars that in turn had divided the world's major political powers into two different camps. Unfortunately, the same alliance system is emerging in the Asia-Pacific region where Russia and Pakistan are tightly attaching themselves with a China-led security network whereas Japan, Vietnam and Australia are deepening their security relations with the United States.

India-Pakistan relations have also been heavily influenced by this alliance system, considering that Pakistan has opted to become part of a China-led security alliance network in Asia. Not surprisingly, the major factor behind Islamabad's unconditional support for Beijing lies in Pakistan's intentions of using a China-led security alliance to put India under pressure.

On the other hand, India has so far demonstrated its unwillingness to be part of any alliance network which may divide the whole region. Although India has shown a certain degree of inclination towards the United States, it has also sought to maintain good relations with China. New Delhi feels that its "balanced" relations with Beijing and Washington are vital for securing India's own strategic interests as well as fostering regional peace and stability. Hence, unlike Pakistan, India remains uncommitted to any alliance and thus, it has also avoided linking India-Pakistan issues with a security alliance system in the region. However, India should not remain aloof as Pakistan has started proliferating India-Pakistan tensions from South Asia to East Asia by means of propaganda.

Against this backdrop, it is imperative for India's diplomatic mission in South Korea to come out with an official position on regional issues, including Balochistan. There should be an official counter reply to the allegations made by Pakistan's ambassador that India is supposedly responsible for the unrest in Balochistan. Pakistan cannot be allowed to malign the good name of India in East Asia. Equally significant, it should also be highlighted that India does not endorse any security alliance in the Asia-Pacific and thus, Pakistan should also refrain from giving unconditional support to an "anti-India security nexus" in the region. Otherwise, the result would be counterproductive.

Rajiv Kumar, Ph.D., is a Seoul-based scholar. His current research project focuses on the changing balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region and its implications for regional order. Write to mailrajivsingh@gmail.com.
Government should rethink coercive response to dissent



The recent death of farmer Baek Nam-gi, 68, has attracted attention from some foreign media outlets that have described it as another case of backtracking on democracy and human rights under the Park Geun-hye administration. Baek died after being in a coma for about 10 months at Seoul National University Hospital after being knocked down with a police water cannon during one of the largest anti-government rallies in Seoul on Nov. 14, 2015.



The New York Times reported that government critics here see Baek's death as the result of "police brutality and the erosion of freedom of assembly under Ms. Park," while providing details about the 68-year-old's background that was rarely covered by the local media. According to the New York Times article, Baek was expelled from university twice in the 1970s while protesting the rule of President Park Chung Hee, the father of the incumbent. Human Rights Watch called Baek "a prominent symbol of victimization, excessive use of force by police and the government's growing crackdown on freedom of assembly under President Park Geun-hye's rule."



There are three things the government should do in the aftermath of Baek's death. First, Baek's death should be an occasion for the government to reflect on its anachronistic reaction to dissent and its unilateral policy decisions that have given Korea a bad name in the foreign press. The Park administration has already disgraced the nation by drawing criticism from abroad for its crackdown on labor and its push to bring back the publication of state-authored history textbooks that had been used during the authoritarian rule of the 1970s. Last year, the Nation weekly magazine published an article entitled "In South Korea, a Dictator's Daughter Cracks Down on Labor" while a New York Times editorial criticized Park's move for the unilateral history education policy. Cheong Wa Dae should be mindful that the foreign media is closely following the activities of her administration and their assessment affects Korea's global reputation.



Second, the government should review its tactics in managing assemblies. Baek's death has instigated public indignation about police brutality, such as excessive use of police force during demonstrations. Although the protest that Baek was participating in was labeled as illegal by the government, the police should have exercised restraint in using violence to ensure the safety of protesters and citizens. The freedom of assembly to promote a justifiable cause should not be undermined in a mature society as long it is done in a peaceful, orderly manner.



Last but not least, a full investigation should be conducted to uncover whether there was excessive use of police force during the protest and whether that was the exact cause of Baek's death. Doctors reported that Baek had sustained a cerebral hemorrhage suspected of having been caused by the water cannon.



Undeniably, police reaction to Baek's death has been inadequate. International human rights organizations and trade unions have issued a joint statement condemning Korea's prosecution and the police for their coercive manner. It should at least have offered words of condolence to the bereaved family since Baek was injured during a clash between the police and the demonstrators. Video footage has shown that Baek continued to be blasted by the water cannon even after being knocked down to the ground. But former police chief Kang Sin-myeong refused to apologize for Baek's death during a National Assembly hearing last month, saying that the police cannot apologize every time someone dies or gets hurt during a rally. Such an irresponsible response has lost the people's trust in law enforcement.



If the police are found to have caused Baek's death, then the perpetrators should be subject to due punishment and the family should receive appropriate compensation.




China should do more to rein in North Korea out of concern that South Korea or Japan could seek their own nuclear weapons to cope with Pyongyang's threats, a senior State Department official said Wednesday.



"The Chinese are very mindful of the risk that either South Korea or Japan might distance itself from the U.S. nuclear umbrella and pursue their own capabilities, and that, I believe, ought to motivate China to redouble its efforts to push back on the North Koreans," Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel said during a Senate hearing.



"That's only one of many examples of why we believe it is so in the best interest of China to tighten up on the North, to expand their cooperation with us, and to really abandon an old pattern of tolerating a significant amount of provocative and dangerous behavior of the DPRK," he said.



The North's fifth nuclear test earlier this month has given rise to greater calls in South Korea for the country's own nuclear armament, with not only lawmakers of the conservative ruling Saenuri Party, but also members of liberal opposition parties making the pro-nuclear weapons case.



The government of President Park Geun-hye has rejected such an idea as running against the principle of a Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons. Officials also say it would have negative effects on efforts to end the North's nuclear programs.



"The pressure in the mainstream political society in either the Republic of Korea or in Japan to contemplate the acquisition of nuclear weapons is directly commensurate with their faith in America's commitment as an ally to their defense and to the extended deterrence or the nuclear umbrella provided by their alliance with the United States," Russel said.



He said, however, that the U.S. commitment to South Korea's defense is strong enough for Seoul not to consider nuclear armament.



"We are giving enough confidence... that our deterrence, our nuclear umbrella, our willingness to utilize the full range of U.S. national security programs," Russel said.



Russel, however, did not specifically say whether the U.S. is willing to use nuclear weapons against the North, saying, "I'll leave it to the president to decide if and when the United States is going to use a nuclear weapon."



"The certainty on the part of the DPRK that the United States would either prevent their use of nuclear weapons or retaliate in a devastating manner is an effective deterrent," he said. (Yonhap)




By Jason Lim

When you think of the Korean Independence Movement of early 20th Century, you usually think of the March 1st Movement in which tens of thousands of everyday Koreans rose up simultaneously across the country waving the newly created Korean flag in defiance of their Japanese masters. Or you think of the independence fighters in Manchuria winning key battles against units of the Imperial Japanese army against incredible odds. Of course, you can't leave out An Jung-geun shooting dead Ito Hirobumi, the first Japanese Resident-General of Korea in Harbin. An is still celebrated as a quintessential Korean hero even to this day, while the Japanese, understandably, mostly view him as a terrorist.

What you don't think of is a religious movement. No, I am not speaking of the religious leaders who originally signed the declaration of independence as a prelude to the March 1st Movement. I am speaking of Daejonggyo, the indigenous religion that was "rediscovered" by Nacheol. Originally called the "Dangun Religion" after the mythical god-king of the proto-Korean kingdom of Ancient Joseon, Daejonggyo sought to recall the Korean people to a "Golden Past" characterized by "Hongik Ingan" and "Jaesae Ewha," which can be generally translated as "One who benefits all" and "What happens in heaven shall occur on earth." These two phrases are still touted as core values of the Korean people and taught in all history and civics classes. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, anyone?

What's interesting about Daejonggyo was that it was created to support a militant, independence movement. If we take the aphorism that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter at face value, Daejonggyo was the faith-based platform upon which Korean religious fundamentalists based their terrorist activities (from the ruling Japanese perspective). This is not entirely dissimilar to the Middle Eastern fundamentalist Muslim terrorist groups that we are familiar with today.

What's different in Korea's case, however, was that the religion didn't exist before the militant resistance movement. It was created afterwards as a tool to shape a cohesive social identity that would be strong enough to tie together and motivate the Korean independence fighters against Japanese rule. And it was wildly successful, with a vast majority of the independence fighters in Manchuria identifying themselves as followers of Daejonggyo.

True, the spiritual myth of Dangun and the golden age of his wise rule based on ethical precepts were generally known at the time. However, Nacheol built a religious construct around a creation myth that he used to shape an ethnocentric social identity that would give birth to a national social consciousness that undergirds the Korean nation to this day.

You will see this on October 3rd when the whole country celebrates the Nation Founding Day, also known as the Heaven's Opening Day. It's known as such because it's supposed to commemorate the day that Dangun's father, Hwanwoong, came down to earth from heaven and began his sacred rule. Hwanwoong is the one who bade the tiger and bear to stay in a cave for 40 days subsisting only on mugwort and garlic. The tiger failed but the bear succeeded and turned into a woman that Hwanwoong married and Dangun was born, the founder of the first Korean nation.

But building a national social identity on what amounts to a religious fundamentalist movement  albeit a purposefully constructed one  has lingering consequences in shaping the Korean people's tendencies in how they view the world. More accurately, how they view themselves in the world.

Korean's view themselves as homogenous and pure people constantly besieged by outsiders seeking to corrupt their purity. This is a typical fundamentalist characteristic and leads to the belief that they are constantly under threat. Life becomes a struggle between good and evil, a simple binary that has been reinforced by South Korea's existential struggle against the North. When every struggle is viewed as Manichaean, then a society will have problems coming to terms on even small issues because it's not about the substance of the issue; it's about ensuring that good conquers evil. It literally becomes a religious struggle. Modern Korean politics, anyone?

Further, a fundamentalist outlook necessarily demands an authoritative interpreter of God's words to act as a leader. This prophet is almost always charismatic and authoritarian, demanding obedience. Despite being democratic, Korea's political history is dominated by strong personalities that bend the political system to their will, rather than being constrained by it. This is also the case in Korea's corporate history where the founders and chairmen are treated more like spiritual leaders with special powers rather than businessmen.

Religious fundamentalism also goes hand in hand with nationalism since living according to God's will can only be done in a nation with like-minded people. This naturally leads to a tendency to be ethnocentric nationalists with a strong isolationist streak who view foreigners with strong suspicion. Although America's strong influence over South Korea for the last 70 years has toned down these tendencies, you can see them in full bloom just north of the border.

Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006. Reach him at jasonlim@msn.com, facebook. com/jasonlimkoreatimes or @jasonlim2012.
By Kim Bo-eun



Kim Eun-ho, 31, spent his childhood years in China after escaping from North Korea with his family when he was very young.



Kim recalls fearing being caught by Chinese authorities, but little did he know that those years would later become an invaluable asset which would help him pursue his dream.



Kim and his family were able to enter South Korea years later. He finished high school and went to university here.



Unlike many North Koreans who struggle to adjust to life in the South, Kim majored in Chinese and business management at Sogang University in Seoul. He also had the opportunity to study at Tsinghua University in Beijing.



After graduation, he worked for two of Korea's major conglomerates. When Kim was with Hyundai Heavy Industries, he was in charge of negotiating with the company's subcontractors about prices for the products and services they offered.



"My role was to lower the prices, but when I talked about it to the subcontractors, they would tell me this would leave them with no choice but to fire some of their workers," Kim said in an interview in Seoul.



It then occurred to Kim that prices greatly affect the subcontractors because they relied mostly on a single major customer.



"I thought they could work with many more companies in China, where the market is much bigger than in Korea," Kim said. "I figured that with my fluency with Chinese and experience there, I could help small firms here find partners in China."



Kim left Hyundai and set up his own business, which offers consulting services to small companies here that wish to expand in China.



Kim realized that he had a long way to go. "I knew my fluency in Chinese was my only strength, so I worked harder."



He woke at 5 a.m. every day and studied English for two hours.



Last month, Kim won an English speech competition for North Korean defectors, hosted by Teach North Korean Refugees, an NGO offering free English lessons for defectors, Shin & Kim, a law firm, and sponsored by The Korea Times and Korea Development Bank.



Kim's company has provided services for more than 20 companies in the two years since he established it, and is helping the companies conduct market research in China, Kim said. His company received a prize from a conglomerate for its services.



In the flurry of setting up this business and working, Kim also met his fiancee.



"I met her on a blind date," Kim said, shyly. "She accepted me and my background, despite my uncertain circumstances."



Kim acknowledges that his plans may not work out the way he envisions. "Many people call me a North Korean refugee, but I call myself a risk-taker," he said, quoting from the speech he made in the contest. "But I worked hard and am confident, based on my decade-long experience with China."




Graphic by Cho Sang-won



By Kim Ji-soo



No other Korean export may be enjoying a rally these days more so than Korean cosmetics, amid a general pessimistic forecast for other sectors. Consumers around the world, in Asia and elsewhere, have proclaimed themselves Korean cosmetics fans. Even American consumers have begun to discover the wonder of Korean cosmetics, as can be seen on the beauty website Refinery29 and In the Gloss and chat forums such as Reddit.

The slightly chilly relations between South Korea and China following Seoul's decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in July to counter threats from North Korea have not dented exports of Korean cosmetics, according to official statistics. Figures for August, announced by the government in early September, show that exports of Korean cosmetics reached $364 million, an 80 percent increase over the same period the previous year and a departure from the decrease in cosmetic firms' share prices following the announcement of THAAD.





Strategy and Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho, who doubles as the top economic policymaker, surveys cosmetics products at Doota Mall in Jung-gu, Seoul, Thursday, the day Korea began its Korea Sale Festa to attract visiting foreigners and domestic buyers. / Yonhap



Even on the streets of Korea, one can see the enthusiasm of tourists, mainly Chinese, for Korean cosmetics. They can be seen purchasing the products in stores along Garosugil and Myeongdong and at online shopping sites. Shops have already hired Chinese-speaking employees in anticipation of the influx of Chinese customers during the Chinese National Day holiday over Oct. 1-7.

Korean firms are aggressively expanding their turf abroad. Claire's Korea announced that it will enter original design manufacturer (ODM) and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) businesses for its own brand and foreign ones using a factory operated by its affiliate Cos Nine. Claire's Korea is known for its horse oil product, for which sales last year totaled 180 billion won ($163.49 million).

TonyMoly is building an ODM factory in Zhejiang Province, China, to make up to 500 million products a year through its affiliate Megacos. It is also building an ODM factory, due for completion next year, in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province.

Shinsegae Intercos Korea, a joint venture between Shinsegae International and Italian firm Intercos, is building a cosmetics manufacturing factory in Osan, Gyeonggi Province, due for completion at the end of this year.

These cosmetics firms are trying to follow in the footsteps of Korean companies Korea Kolmar and Cosmax, the world's top two cosmetics ODMs, which are now diversifying into other markets. In September, Korea Kolmar announced that it acquired a 51 percent stake in U.S. firm Process Technologies & Packaging LLC (PTP), which has supplied cosmetics to top global brands L'Oreal, Coty and Shiseido. The deal is a partnership with Wormser Corporation, a New Jersey-based contract manufacturer of personal care cosmetics and fragrances, which acquired a 49 percent stake in PTP. Cosmax, which acquired a factory in the United States in 2013 in Solon, Ohio, has lately focused on markets such as Indonesia.

"There are no specific statistics, but we estimate Korea's ODM/OEM market to be around 1.3 trillion won up to 1.5 trillion won, and it seems to be growing," an industry official said.

In addition to the industry overall, top Korean brands such as AmorePacific and LG Household &Health Care are steadily growing, providing another compelling reason for firms to enter the industry.

"But (any) ODM/OEM company must be able to put forth a new product if it wants to be viable," the industry official said.

Na Eun-chae, a senior analyst with Korea Investment and Securities, saw the expansion of smaller but growing cosmetics firms that are making a foray into ODM as sensible business moves. Despite the negative effects from Seoul's deployment of the THAAD system, Korean cosmetics in general have been doing well and are expected to reach a total export volume worth around 5 trillion won this year, she said.

"Also, the ODM market in China is only likely to expand to the tune of 20 percent per year in the next years," Na said.

Compared with the fallout on K-pop or K-drama, the THAAD deployment's negative effects on Korean cosmetics is smaller, Na said. To date, many K-pop and K-drama events have been either postponed or cancelled, including, most recently, the pushback to January next year of the Chinese airing of "Saimdang, Memoir of Colors," starring top "hallyu" actors Lee Young-ae and Song Seung-heon.

"Cosmetics products, and the industry in general, have customer loyalty, so there is that too, and consumers are now familiar with the products that they put on their skin, even more so than with other hallyu or Korean pop culture products," she said.

Meanwhile, Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare estimated that the Chinese cosmetics market will grow into the world's largest in 2019. To further promote Korean firms in that market, the ministry sent representatives from 25 small and medium cosmetics firms to Chengdu, China, in late September to facilitate market research and provide sales opportunities.
Kim Kyung-min Park U-shin Hwang Sung-cheol

By Jun Ji-hye

The Navy will hold funeral services at a military hospital in Gyeonggi Province, Sunday, for the three sailors who were killed in a helicopter crash last week.

The three aviators killed were Lieutenant Commanders Kim Kyung-min, 33, and Park U-shin, 33, and Senior Chief Petty Officer Hwang Sung-cheol, 29. They were promoted by one rank posthumously.

They were aboard a Lynx anti-submarine helicopter that crashed into the sea off the nation's east coast during a joint naval exercise with the United States, Monday.

The Navy recovered their bodies from 1,030 meters below the sea on Tuesday and Wednesday, during search operations conducted with a remotely operated underwater vehicle.

Kim, a native of Jinan, North Jeolla Province, the pilot of the ill-fated chopper, was commissioned as an ensign in December 2010, and served as a Navy combat helicopter pilot. He received a citation from the chief of naval operations in 2015 in recognition for his outstanding shooting skills.

Park, a native of Uiseong, North Gyeongsang Province, co-pilot, was commissioned as an ensign in December 2011, and served with operations units. He participated in search and rescue operations for the Sewol ferry sinking, in which more than 300 people perished in April 2014.

Hwang, a native of Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, joined the Navy in 2008 as a noncommissioned officer. Hwang, who specialized in the maintenance of aircraft, was serving as the flight operator in charge of operating dipping sonar and arms equipment of the helicopter. He previously served with the nation's anti-piracy troops, the Cheonghae Unit, stationed in the Gulf of Aden in the Arabian Sea off Somalia in 2011.

The Navy said the three aviators had a strong sense of responsibility and were well-trusted by their colleagues.

It added that Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Um Hyun-seong will preside over the funeral service for the men.
Sim Yong-sik, left, a master in traditional wood craft, poses with his daughter Sim Jana in his Chung Won Academy in Bukchon, Jongno, Seoul. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul



By Kim Ji-soo



Sim Yong-sik, 64, has spent 47 years working in Korea's traditional carpentry industry. He started out working in the neighborhood carpenter's shop in Yesan, South Chungcheong Province in 1969 as a teen. He worked a full day and sometimes more  until 2 a.m.  and took only the Lunar New Year and Korean Thanksgiving Chuseok holidays off.

"My house was nearby, but I didn't go home. I wanted to and had to learn," said Yong-sik, Seoul (City Government's) Intangible Heritage No. 26, wood craftwork (somok) specializing in traditional Korean doors and windows. He liked the smell of the woods. There are largely two broad specialties in Korean traditional wood working  "daemokjang," the master artisan of carpentry in charge of the whole process of constructing a building; and somokjang, the wooden crafting required to make doors, windows and wooden furniture. Sim belongs to the somokjang where he focuses on making doors and windows according to traditional Korean style, but with more of his color. Sim is actually one of only several such cultural assets focusing on "changho" or doors and windows in carpentry nationwide.





The "sesalmun" is a basic and frequently-used design in traditional Korean houses. / Courtesy of Chung Won



He got hit every time he asked a question at by his teacher; however, now that he himself is a teacher, he doesn't use corporal punishment on his students.

Sim Jana, 34, is his daughter and apprentice, but he doesn't want the same hours he had as a student for her or for any other students he teaches. Although the process of traditional carpentry has remained largely the same, a manual process using the saw, plane and chisel, some parts can now be done more easily by the new generation, such as using computer programs to draft the design for a door or window. Thus, he believes there are new, simpler ways for the younger generation to become a master traditional Korean carpenter.

The elder Sim is part of a small but slowly growing number of traditional artisans who are passing on their craft to the next generation in the family. As carpentry is a grueling process, traditional artisans nor their children have not wholeheartedly embraced the passing on of the craft to their children.

"I always worked with my hands, and I knew I liked making something with my hands. But I strongly felt a need to identify with something mine, something our own (Korean)," his daughter said.





The "nungopjaegi" door / Courtesy of Chung Won



After studying oil painting as an undergraduate in Seoul, Jana went to the United States first to study painting and then as a book artist. Her time in the United States, oddly enough, invoked childhood memories of her father working with wood, and consequently, the need to retrace her roots. Thus, in 2012, she returned to her father's workshop in Bukchon, Jongno-gu, Seoul. Her studies were intermittently interrupted as she cared for her two children. But, she sees herself taking the test to become a legitimate apprentice under her father three years from now.

"It's scary and burdensome to think that I have to not only learn but surpass my father in this craftsmanship," she said.

At the Chung Won Korean Traditional Carpentry Academy, the father and daughter worked together seamlessly, showing the visiting reporters the basic tools, the wood and the different window and door designs they've created under the glaring light required for carpentry. The smell of wood was strong and calming; the elder Sim said most of the wood used for making windows and doors comes from Anmyeon Island in the West Coast.

"I love working with wood, especially cutting it open and letting the wood tell you its history, such as whether there has been a drought or a lot of rain. You can see life through wood," Yong-sik said.

When he was young and just starting out, he performed every phase of the work  drying the wood for two to three years, cutting it, and sawing, planing and chiseling it. Now that he has come far in his field, he can have dried wood delivered to his workshop by a large firm outside of Seoul. He has a lifetime's supply of wood for his work, he said. Ask how much that wood that would be, he answered, "I believe we could build dozens of traditional Korean hanok with it."

To Yong-sik, designing and handcrafting a window or door means recreating the heart of its inhabitant through the composition of the wood.

His most fundamental job is crafting the pieces of wood that would be used for a window or door into a frame or rib, and "weaving" them into a design that reflects the inhabitant's heart. Traditional Korean carpentry does not use metal nails, only wooden nails, if absolutely necessary.

The basic design that we can see on the windows or doors of the "hanok," or traditional house, is the "sesalmun" or the "woven" wooden ribs. There are various other designs, such as the turtle-shell shaped designs that are used for rooms of elderly people to wish them a long life and the bee-hive design for young couples to wish them a busy (and therefore prosperous) life.

"It is very mathematical work, yet it is very delicate in that each client wants a different width of the wooden ribs or of the (window or door) frames," the Sims almost simultaneously said.

Designated in 2006 by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the elder Sim is a veteran carpenter who has participated in the restoration of various palaces and temples, such as parts of Changdeok Palace, Changgyeong Palace and some 500 temples including Bulguk and Songgwang Temples. In addition to running the workshop in Seoul, he also teaches at Korea National University of Cultural Heritage in Buyeo in South Chuncheong Province, because he saw that his teachers, who were wary of sharing their mastery and taking in apprentices, ended up lonely in their old age.

"I want to share what I know widely," Yong-sik, said. At the same time, he hopes that students and future apprentices such as his daughter may be in a better position to innovate and sustainably carry on the traditional art in this day and era.

The elder Sim has spent the past 10 years traveling through India, Nepal and other places to study various door patterns. He said he has repeatedly visited a region in Kashmir just to study its door patterns.

"This exposure prompted me to think more about traditional Korean carpentry," has adding that they enabled him to dig deeper and wider. Yong-sik said that it was only several years ago that he fully understood what his craftmanship is about .

"Admittedly, that is our biggest concern, how to give it innovation and to make this artisanship sustainable in the years to come," Jana said.

Yong-sik said he is grateful, however, for the renewed interest in traditional arts and the attempts to imbue traditional craftsmanship into other products in modern Korean life.
Teresa Ost, a Mexican coordinator for the North Korea Freedom Coalition (NKFC), delivers a petition to the Chinese Embassy in Mexico City, Friday, calling on China to stop forcibly repatriating North Korean defectors to Pyongyang. / Yonhap



By Jun Ji-hye

Teresa Ost, 42, is a Mexican activist who has worked with South Korean and U.S. activists to improve North Korean human rights.

She serves as coordinator for the Washington-based North Korea Freedom Coalition (NKFC).

She is currently working on stopping China from forcibly repatriating North Korean defectors captured in Chinese territory to Pyongyang.

She told reporters in Mexico City, Saturday, that North Korean defectors' lives are at risk and once they are repatriated by China, they are detained in political prisoner camps or executed. She said Beijing should grant the defectors safe passage in cooperation with the United Nations and South Korea.

"There is no need for China to forcibly repatriate North Korean defectors to North Korea, as a number of countries including South Korea are ready to help them," she said. "China should be aware that many defectors are fleeing North Korea because it denies them basic human rights."

She also called on the North to respect the fundamental human rights of its people and allow freedoms sought by all human beings.

Ost began advocating for North Korean human rights in 2000 and coordinator for the NKFC in 2010.

On Friday, the NKFC held the annual Save North Korean Refugees Day in 24 cities of 13 countries around the world, including the United States, Canada, Finland, Germany and Mexico.

Ost held a placard that read "we are against compulsory repatriation of North Korean defectors" in Spanish in front of the Chinese Embassy in Mexico City.

She also delivered an appeal signed by NKFC Chair Suzanne Scholte as well as a petition signed by about 7,000 Mexican people to the embassy.

In the appeal, the NKFC said China signed the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol on Sept. 24, 1982.

"By signing this agreement, the People's Republic of China agreed to share international concerns and protocols for refugees," it said. "As you know the Korean family remains divided and those living under the Kim Jong-un regime in the North suffer unspeakable atrocities and crimes against humanity leading many to flee the country and become refugees."

Ost said she and the organization will do everything they can to improve the human rights situation in North Korea.

"It is important to put international pressure on China and North Korea," she said.
KT's marketing division Executive Vice President Kang Kook-hyun introduces the company's plan to boost its gigabit-class internet service business during a press conference at its office near Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, Thursday.

/ Courtesy of KT



By Yoon Sung-won



KT pledged Thursday it will speed up penetration of faster GiGA internet services, aiming at establishing a foundation for fifth-generation (5G) networks.



The nation's largest fixed-line operator said it was looking to boost the gigabit-class internet services coverage up to 95 percent for old apartments and houses next year, tapping into its exclusive GiGA Wire 2.0 technology, which enables high-speed internet access through existing copper telephone wire. Once this plan is completed, about 9 million households will be able to use the high-speed wired internet service, KT said.



"Even in the mobile era, wired network infrastructure works as a backbone for all information and communication technologies, helping networks handle the explosive increase in mobile data traffic," KT's mass general business division President Lim Heon-moon said during a press conference in Seoul, Thursday. "Based on GiGA internet, we have provided faster home Wi-Fi and long-term evolution (LTE) networks as well as ultra high-definition (UHD) television services. In the end, a telecom business that provides the best gigabit internet will lead the 5G competition."



The telecom company said it has drawn more than 2 million subscribers for its faster GiGA internet service as of Sept. 20, less than two years after it offered the service on Oct. 20, 2014.



When KT announced a 4.5 trillion won investment plan for the GiGA internet business in May 2014, it said that it would provide a fast internet service to 9.5 million households at about 27,000 apartment complexes nationwide.



The company said the introduction of the service has refreshed its stagnant fixed-line operations as a new growth business. It said sales, which had continued to shrink until the second half of 2014, started to grow once after the number of subscribers exceeded 500,000.



"When we were first planning to start the service, market research results showed that only 5 percent of our customers were expected to accept the new technology," KT's marketing division executive vice president Kang Kook-hyun said. "But we pushed for the business because we believed that this will be the foundation for other new technology services such as big data, cloud, artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, virtual reality and the internet of things."



Compared to the previous version, GiGA Wire 2.0 doubles the maximum transmission speed to 1Gbps, compared to the existing 500Mbps.



KT said the GiGA Wire technology has been favorably recognized overseas. It had established a deal to provide this technology to Turkey earlier this year in February and is currently testing it in Spain.



"In overseas markets, especially in Europe, many countries still have telecom infrastructure that falls behind that of Korea," Kang said. "But telecom companies have difficulties in establishing optic-fiber cable networks due to historical remains. They are showing great interest in our GiGA Wire technology."
By Yoon Sung-won



LG Innotek has won a patent lawsuit against a Japanese motor manufacturer in China, the company said Thursday.



The material and component production affiliate of LG said it has won in the first trial of its patent infringement suit regarding the structure of precision motors for optical disk drives (ODD) it filed against Nidec at the intellectual property rights court in Beijing.



"With the favorable decision, our high-precision motor technology and patent competitiveness have been recognized," LG Innotek's patent division head Kim Jin-hyun said in a statement. "We will actively protect our intellectual property rights and patented technology that we have secured through creative minds and ceaseless challenges from being infringed upon."



LG Innotek said the patent infringed upon by Nidec is about a technology that protects a precision motor from being penetrated by external substances.



The decision of the first trial will be the final judgement unless Nidec makes an appeal within 30 days. If it becomes final, Nidec should compensate LG Innotek for losses it has suffered due to the patent infringement. In addition, the Japanese company will no longer be able to produce and sell related products.



Nidec is the world's leading motor producer that provides products for computers, electronic devices, automobiles and manufacturing equipment. The Japanese company posted 1.18 trillion yen ($11.6 billion) in sales last year.



The two companies have competed in the precision spindle motor market for ODDs. Spindle motors have been used to rotate disks inside optical drives. Earlier in 2013, Nidec filed a patent infringement suit against LG Innotek regarding spindle motor technology. The case is still in a court in Beijing.



Though the race between the two companies ended when LG Innotek withdrew from the ODD motor business last year, they still are engaged in a patent war because technologies used for precision motors can also be used for new growth fields such as automobiles, LG Innotek said.



The company is aggressively pushing for its automotive component business to tap into the technological expertise it has accumulated from the IT component business. It has mass-produced brake and steering motors since 2007 and expanded to transmissions in 2014.




By Lee Min-hyung

Samsung Electronics has teamed with German software giant SAP to run a research center for in-memory database technology, the Korean technology firm said Thursday.

Under the partnership, the companies agreed to work on next-generation in-memory platform development. The in-memory database refers to a database management system relying heavily on main memory for data storage, which allows faster data processing.

The collaboration comes about a year after Samsung's device solution (DS) division teamed with the German enterprise software provider in 2015 over co-developing core technologies for SAP HANA, the firm's in-memory database management system.

"Due to our achievement to mass-produce 10-nanometer-level dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, we have been able to offer optimum systems for SAP's next in-memory systems," said Jeon Young-hyun, president at Samsung Electronics' DS unit. "We are going to lead the upcoming extra-large memory era by strengthening our technology capability."

The new research center will start operation on Saturday. Both firms also will focus on developing energy-efficient management solutions, Samsung Electronics said.

The companies celebrated the opening of the research center on Thursday at Samsung's Hwaseong campus in Gyeonggi Province.

Adaire Fox-Martin, president of SAP Asia Pacific Japan (APJ), said, "The partnership has allowed SAP to boost our comprehensive alliance with Samsung." She said this came as part of SAP's efforts to offer more innovative solutions for its clients in the digital era.
Candidates for Missouri governor faced off for the first time on Friday afternoon at Chateau on the Lake. Democrat Chris Koster and Republican Eric Greitens.shared the stage with Libertarian Cisse Spragins, independent candidate Lester Turilli Jr., and Green Party candidate Don Fitz.

Greitens was on the offensive early and often with attacks against Koster, the Democrat who leads in polls. Greitens accused Koster of being a career politician, a big-spending liberal and a rubber stamp for the president's health care initiative, the Affordable Care Act.

"The fact that you don't understand what it takes to run a business or an enterprise is one of the reasons why the people of Missouri cannot elect another crooked career politician," Greitens said in blasting Koster.

Koster painted Greitens as someone so unprepared to lead the state that he needs a team of helpers. He argued that experience matters.

"I have spent the entirety of my career trying to build a majority in the middle. Missourians who have watched my career know that. As governor, I will work respectfully to work across party lines to bring progress to our state," said Koster, the two-term attorney general.

"The people of Missouri have a choice. You can basically keep doing what you're doing or you can actually vote Libertarian and if, after four years, you don't like peace and prosperity, then you can vote tyranny back in office again," said Spragins.

"Missouri is unfortunately dedicated to mass incarceration to arrest huge numbers of people for the crime of driving while black or doing something like smoking a little bit of marijuana," said Fitz.

"One area that I would like to probably increase a little funding to would be the Department of Mental Health. We are suffering in that area," said Turilli.

The debates were held as part of the 150th annual convention of the Missouri Press Association. Each candidate made an opening statement and then each was given a chance to answer questions from a panel of three journalists.

Koster opposes "right-to-work" legislation that would let workers opt out of being represented by a union after a majority of a company's workforce votes for union representation. Greitens supports it.

Koster supports Medicaid expansion and more funding for schools and infrastructure. Greitens opposes Medicaid expansion, and says he wants to shrink government by making it do less and spend less.

"The Republican nominee introduced himself to the state five months ago with a machine gun, saying that he knows how to blow up government. I have no doubt that he knows how to blow up government, I have a lot of doubts as to whether he knows anything about putting it back together," said Koster.

"Chris has has been in politics for over 20 years. If he was going to make a difference he would've done so already, but he hasn't and he won't," said Greitens.

Recent polling of potential voters shows Koster ahead by 11 to 16 percentage points over Greitens. Greitens is a former Navy SEAL officer and a first-time politician. Koster served as a Cass County prosecuting attorney and as a state senator before being elected attorney general.

Among lesser known candidates, some people in the audience said they were impressed with independent candidate Turilli, whose family owns Meramec Caverns southwest of St. Louis.
SaharaReporters has learned that a group of heavily armed kidnappers yesterday abducted Margaret Emefiele, the wife of Nigerias Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele.

A source close to Mr. Emefiele told them that Mrs. Emefiele was kidnapped along the Benin-Agbor Road. Their source disclosed that the kidnappers have made contact with their victims husband, adding that they were demanding a huge sum in ransom.

Mrs. Emefieles kidnap represents one of the most high-profile kidnap cases in 2016. Their efforts to reach the CBN governor was however unsuccessful.

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Photo by Gary Leonard.



Sue Laris started the Downtown News long before there was any kind of revival happening in the central core of Los Angeles  in 1972. On Friday, she will announce that the weekly paper where she is editor and publisher is being put up for sale.

"I co-founded this paper when I was 29, and now Im 73. Sounds like forever, doesnt it, although it feels like 15 minutes," Laris writes in a column posted on the Downtown News website. "It has been an extraordinary and fulfilling run, but I am no longer the right person to lead this business. I got old here. The town did not."

The Downtown News has chronicled every phase of the downtown renaissance, including the four or five false starts that didn't take for whatever reasons. During the boom of the past decade, the Downtown News has essentially been the bible of all that's happening, from the adaptive reuse of neglected buildings from LA's past to new developments, restaurants and neighborhoods.

No asking price was mentioned in the paper's story on itself. The

Downtown News is reportedly profitable, with this year looking better than last year. No staffing changes are expected during the search for a buyer.

It has not always been easy trying to exist as a free giveaway weekly in downtown. In 2012 Laris asked readers to make voluntary $5 monthly payments to help make up for lost ad dollars. That same year, the paper's 40th, she recalled what it was like starting a paper downtown with her then-husband, Jim Laris.

He was a bored budget analyst with the Army Corps of Engineers and I was a high school teacher of English and French, teaching part-time and staying home part-time to care for our 2-year-old. There was not enough money coming in, and we decided to create a newspaper for Downtown L.A., where there didn't seem to be one.

I had the most flexible schedule, so it fell mostly to me to figure out how to do it. I researched equipment, printers, format, distribution options, news sources, how to finance it -- anything that had to be done. He worked hard on it during the weekends. [skip] There was no marketing budget. We had started the paper on $1,400 of borrowed money on a new credit card. The weekend before the launch my former husband and I rented a van and placed 40 news racks we had constructed ourselves out of plywood and angle iron. We painted the boxes bright yellow and put our first logo on the front. We just plopped the racks down wherever we thought there would be foot traffic. On that Monday night he and I distributed the papers into those racks. We had no idea if anyone would pick them up.



In the column that will appear in the next print issue, Laris says that back in 1972, "Downtown was mostly dead, except for the Civic Center. Slowly at first and now with powerful swiftness it has come alive in a big way. The momentum is clear."
European Commission decides to expand access to EU market for some Ukrainian goods

The European Commission has decided to expand access to the European Union (EU) market for some Ukrainian goods, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom has said.

The press service of Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers gave this information, referring to a statement of the EU commissioner at a meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman.

"EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom informed about the decision of the European Commission to expand access to the European market for some Ukrainian goods in addition to the EU-Ukraine Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) for three years," the press service said.

The decision is to be approved by the European Parliament and EU members.

The sides agreed to hold a joint meeting with businessmen in the period when the meeting of the Ukraine-EU Association Council in Brussels (Belgium) on December 19.

Groysman welcomed the decision of the European Commission about the additional trade preferences and backed the possibility of expanding the quotas for some Ukrainian goods.

Malmstrom said on Twitter that she is happy to be in Kyiv again.

"Glad to announce additional market access preferences for Ukraine," she said.
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PRESS RELEASE

Duterte: No More Military Exercises with the U.S.

Sept. 29, 2016 (EIRNS)Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is in Vietnam, discussing with Vietnamese leaders his new policy toward the South China Sea, based on cooperation rather than confrontation with China. To drive home the point, he told thei press in Vietnam that the joint U.S.-Philippines exercise scheduled for next week will be the last between the two countries.

"So, I am serving notice now to the Americans and those who are allies," he said. "This will be the last military exercise. Jointly, Philippines-U.S., the last one."

The warhawks in the United States, including President Barack Obama and his Defense Secretary "Nuclear Ash" Carter, had previously counted on the Philippines, and to a lesser extent Vietnam, as the two allies in Southeast Asia in military operation against China. Vietnam has already made clear that it intends to maintain strong ties with China, including military ties, and Dutertes visit will facilitate cooperation in forging the new, peaceful relations in the region, without US interference.

Duterte said he was not ending the military alliance with the United States, which goes back to 1951, but that he will not continue military operations which are a potential threat to China, since he is insistent that improving ties with China is necessary to lift the Philippines out of economic decay and to prevent any kind of military adventure in the region. Both Chinese experts and Duterte himself have pointed out that the only investments from the United States in the Philippines have been in services (thousands of potentially productive young Filipino men and women forced to work in call centers all night long, servicing the population of their former colonial masters) and in mining, but without any contribution to infrastructure or industry. Chinas Maritime Silk Road is aimed at correcting that destructive policy.

Duterte has not yet indicated an intention to cancel the EDCA (Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement) between the United States and the Philippines, rammed through as an executive order by his predecesor Noynoy Aquino. Thus far the United States continues to build up the five bases across the Philippines which that agreement permits. However, at the end of the upcoming exercises, the issue of canceling that agreement via executive order will be on the table.
PRESS RELEASE

JASTA Campaign Remains on the Offensive

Sept. 29, 2016 (EIRNS)After the humiliating defeat delivered to President Obama yesterday, many of the principal activists in the campaign to make the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) into the law of the land remained on the offensive, escalating the organizing for Saudi Arabias full role in 9/11 terrorism to be unmasked, and punished.

Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) told The Hill yesterday right after the vote, that he was "so excited" about the outcome because he, along with Reps. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and others, had worked for four years to declassify the 28 pages. And those pages clearly indicate that Saudi Prince Bandar and his wife funneled money to some of the hijackers, Jones stated. Now, with the JASTA bill law, the families, who have been in pain for so long, will be able to sue in U.S. courts to discover the full truth"and they should sue," Jones said.

At the point yesterday when the two-thirds majority needed to override Obamas veto was achieved in the House voting, Rep. Jones, who was on the floor of the House, turned to where many members of the families of 9/11 victims were seated in the gallery, and applauded them. A number of other Congressmen then joined Jones in a moving tribute to everything the families had done to achieve victory.

Sen. Bob Graham was interviewed by National Public Radio today, and he also said that what we know so far about the Saudi role in 9/11 is just the tip of the iceberg. There are troves of information about Saudi activity in New Jersey, Virginia and Florida which has been suppressed by the Obama and Bush Administrations, Graham charged, which now must be brought to light. He characterized Obamas argument invoking "sovereign immunity" against JASTA, as "disingenuous," and said that what Obama had actually done was to give the Saudis "impunity."

Terry Strada, national leader of the families of the victims of 9/11, was also interviewed briefly on the Diane Rehm show, where she blasted Obamas arguments for vetoing the JASTA bill.

The international media generally admit that Obama suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of the American people, and their representatives in Washington. "Obama suffered a unique political blow," wrote the Guardian. "Obama humiliated," said Zero Hedge. "Congress Thwarts Obama," wrote the Washington Post.
PRESS RELEASE

State Departments Kirby Issues Threats and Ultimata Against Russia

Sept. 29, 2016 (EIRNS)U.S. State Department spokesman Adm. John Kirby (ret.) was in a froth yesterday over the failure of the Russians to do what the United States tells them to do in Syriaso much so, that he was actually issuing what can only be interpreted as threats and ultimata.

After explicating Secretary of State John Kerrys warning to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, earlier yesterday morning, that the United States was considering suspending U.S.-Russia dialogue on Syria, Kirby was asked what the consequences for Russia would be if they did not do as they were told.

"The consequences are that the civil war will continue in Syria, that extremists and extremist groups will continue to exploit the vacuums that are there in Syria to expand their operations, which will include, no question, attacks against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities, and Russia will continue to send troops home in body bags, and they will continue to lose resourceseven, perhaps, more aircraft. The stability that they claim they seek in Syria will be ever more elusive."

In Russia, Kirbys statement is being seen very clearly as a threat against the Russian military and against Russia itself.

"Once again we declare that we are fully prepared to continue the dialogue with the American side and carry on with the joint actions to combat terrorists in Syria,"

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said today.

"However, even the slightest hints of a threat to our soldiers and Russian citizens must be excluded from this dialogue. The matter of safety of Russian citizens, wherever they may be, is not up for bargaining. It is our main and unconditional priority."

Konashenkov also issued a threat of his own. Regarding Kirbys "threat of potential losses" to Russia in Syria, Konashenkov pointed out that Moscow is well aware of the whereabouts of American "experts involved in operational planning and supervision of the militants actions."

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also hit back very hard at Kirbys threat.

"Dont you think that such ventriloquism about body bags, terrorist attacks in Russian cities and loss of aircraft, sounds more like a get them command, rather than a diplomatic comment?"

she asked on her Facebook page.

Earlier in the day, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was uncompromising in his response to Kirby. There will be no more seven-day trucesbecause they allow the jihadis to regroup and rearmand the failure of the diplomatic track "is going on due to Washingtons inability to fulfill its obligations and promises," and is therefore on the conscience of decisions made by the United States.

"We are outraged at the ultimatum-like tone of the signals that we are getting. Sometimes we even hear cynical threats against us and those who are really fighting terrorists in Syria. We cant consider it anything else but de-facto support of terrorists by the U.S.,"

he said. Ryabkov called Washingtons threats "an emotional breakdown amid the inability of the Obama administration to implement its part of the agreements" on Syria. "The U.S. is in fact bringing grist to the terrorists mill providing them with undisguised support," he stressed.
PRESS RELEASE

Lake Chad Leaders Bring Transaqua to UN General Assembly

Sept. 29, 2016 (EIRNS)For the first time since the 1992 UN Rio conference, the Transaqua idea of replenishing Lake Chad and building a Central African system of waterways and dams was brought to a UN General Assembly. On Sept. 20, Nigerian President Buhari spoke at the UNGA and reiterated the need of solving the Lake Chad crisis through a water transfer project.

While world media are focused on hot spots such as Syria, the humanitarian crisis provoked by terrorist Boko Haram in the Lake Chad region has been worsening, as the UN reports it can raise only one-fourth of the money needed for emergency assistance. The Nigerian government is calling not only for military assistance against the terrorists, but also for help in addressing the roots of the poverty and the cause for the recruiting grounds for terrorists, namely the drying out of Lake Chad.

"The means of livelihood of an estimated 30 million inhabitants of the Lake Chad Basin, spread across Cameroun, Chad, Niger and Nigeria, are being severely threatened," said President Buhari. "The cost of replenishing the lake has been put at 14 billion U.S. Dollars under a five year plan which should be accorded global attention. Nigeria also supports the African Union initiative on the Great Green Wall to halt desertification,"

President Buhari said.

On Sept. 22, the executive secretary of the Lake Chad Basin Committee, Abdullahi Sanusi, spoke at the side event "Taking Climate Action for Sustainable Development," and described the Transaqua project as a proposed solution, the first time ever in a UNO framework since the 1992 Rio environment conference. Sanusio went into detail on the history of the drying up of Lake Chad and the dimensions of the crisis for the population in the region, and presented three proposed solutions.

"The TRANSAQUA idea was first developed by an Italian engineering firm Bonifica after the 1973 drought. Transaqua proposes to capture 5%100 billion cubic meters of the Congo Rivers 1.9 trillion cubic meters of waterthat flows into the Atlantic Ocean each year, and instead redirect it north through a 2,400 km navigable canal east of the Congo River, northwest across the Democratic Republic of Congo (D.R.C.) to the Central African Republic (C.A.R.) by gravity to meet the Chari River, which would release this additional volume of water into Lake Chad. Initially, it was viewed as diplomatically complex and expensive because it seeks to create a new platform of development in agricultural, industrial, transportation and electrical production affecting up to 12 African nations."

The other two proposals mentioned by Sanusi are: 1. Pumping water from the Ubangi River, a tributary of the Congo River; and 2. A variation of 1 using solar energy to power the pumps.

Experts interviewed by EIR consider both proposals as economically and environmentally unfeasible. The suspicion is that Western interests are pushing alternative, "cheaper" plans to sabotage Transaqua. Those plans are not going to work. For instance, the engineering firm itself, which has produced a feasibility study for the smaller Ubangi project, came to the conclusion that the water pumped from the Ubangi River is not sufficient to replenish Lake Chad, and suggested to integrate it with the last stage of the Transaqua canal, with an upstream dam at Bria!
A big auto dealer group in Los Angeles has been doing the yo-yo on car customers for years, according to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

The yo-yo is an illegal dealer tactic that preys on people with bad credit. After being lured in by advertisements pitching low prices and low financing costs, customers are allowed to take the vehicle home before financing is complete. Then theyre pulled back to the dealership and told their credit is bad, so theyll have to pay more to keep their new ride.



For the record: After publication, on March 21, 2017, Leonard Sage was dismissed without prejudice from the FTC complaint in his personal and corporate capacities.

A lawsuit filed by the FTC in U.S. District Court on Thursday also accuses the Sage Auto Group of several other deceptive and unfair sales and finance practices. The group includes Universal City Nissan, Kia of Downtown Los Angeles, Mercedes-Benz of Valencia, Sage Hyundai and Sage Covina Chevrolet. The suit also includes West Covina Toyota.

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In response, Michael Sage, co-owner of the dealer group, told The Times that his business is very aware of our requirements and responsibilities with the FTC, the state and the auto manufacturers.

We look forward to vigorously defending ourselves. We will fight this, he said. When youre on top of the pyramid, youre going to get attacked by everybody. Were No. 1. We keep kicking it.

Beyond the yo-yo, the FTC said, dealerships use phony online reviews posted by employees posing as customers, charge some customers for dealer add-ons such as extended warranties without their consent and fail to disclose required credit and lease information in their advertising, according to the complaint.

One of multiple examples detailed in the filing: A customer is drawn in by an ad for a Nissan Versa available for $38 down. The fine print shows the amount required at signing is $2,695.

The tactics, according to the complaint, are aimed particularly at financially distressed and non-English-speaking customers.

In response, Michael Sage said: Weve met all of our regulatory responsibilities with all of our advertising. Its all legal and clearly written down.

The complaint seeks an injunction to prevent future violations and restitution, refunds and disgorgement of ill-gotten monies in unspecified amounts.

Named in the lawsuit are the dealerships as well as Sage Holding Company, Sage Management Company, Michael Sage, Leonard Sage, and Joseph Schrage, a/k/a Joseph Sage.

One Sage dealership was not named: Sage Lotus in West Covina.

The FTC gained new enforcement power over car dealers in the federal Dodd-Frank legislation of 2010 and the agency has been flexing it.

In 2014, it reached settlements with nine car dealerships after charging them with deceptive advertising under what it called Operation Steer Clear. The dealerships  including Norm Reeves Honda Superstore in Cerritos and Honda of Hollywood in Los Angeles  agreed to avoid deceptive advertising for 20 years or face fines up to $16,000 a day.

In 2015, the FTC expanded beyond advertising into loan application fraud and deceptive add-on practices, such as charging for undercoating without the buyers consent.

The Sage case marks the first time that the FTC has addressed yo-yo finance tactics.

The tactics are unscrupulous but have been standard practice at some dealers for a long time, said Michael Semanie, who represents auto dealers as a partner at the Killgore Pearlman law firm in Orlando, Fla.

In a typical yo-yo, Semanie said, a dealer will de-horse a customer: take a trade-in, let the customer drive the new car home, and later tell them, in effect, youll have to pay more or be without a car.

Far more common, he said, is whats called conditional sales, where the customer wants a car right away and is clearly told that if the loan is not approved, theyll have to return the car. That, he said, is perfectly legal and, in his opinion, a respectable arrangement.

However, its had to tell the difference between that, and knowing they wont be approved and letting them take the car anyway, and then telling them to pay more money, Semanie said. It will be interesting to see how the FTC approaches the case, he said.

The FTC, like the Securities and Exchange Commission, often reaches out-of-court settlements with defendants. Some dealers have complained that fighting a suit isnt worth the expense.

The Sage Group was founded in 1969 by family patriarch Morrie Sage, whose father immigrated to Cuba from Poland during the Hitler era. After Fidel Castros revolution in Cuba, Morrie immigrated to the United States.

The companys website said his sons  Michael, Joseph and Leonard  have run the company since Morries death in 2011.

The website noted that Morrie Sage became well known for his maverick and revolutionary approach to automobile advertising.

russ.mitchell@latimes.com

Twitter: @russ1mitchell

UPDATES:

12:40 p.m: This story was updated to include comments from auto dealer and defendant Michael Sage.

3:20 p.m.: This story was updated with background on FTC enforcement and comments from a lawyer who represents auto dealers.

This story was originally published at 8:50 a.m.


Apple Inc. is reportedly planning to open its first research and development center in China, allowing the tech giant to extend its reach in a vital market and maintain goodwill with the Chinese government.

The Cupertino tech giant will eventually invest 300 million yuan, or $45 million, in the facility, which will have 500 employees, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper.

Zhongguancun Science Park, a Beijing tech hub that the Wall Street Journal and CNBC described as Apples future landlord, posted the China Daily story on its website Friday.

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Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China is a hugely important market for Apple.

But its iTunes movies and iBooks platforms have been suspended in China since April. A month after the suspension, Apple invested $1 billion in Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing.

When youre in someone elses country, you want to be a good guest, said Brian White, global head of technology, hardware and software at investment banking firm Drexel Hamilton. You want to be a good member of the community.

Last year, Apple reported strong growth in its greater China market, which includes China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, with an increase of 84% in year-over-year net sales. As a whole, greater China represented 25% of Apples net sales in 2015.

But while Chinese consumers have embraced Apples products, especially iPhones, local companies have started to cut into sales with similar products at lower prices. In March, Apple tried to battle back by introducing the iPhone SE, a smaller version of the smartphone with a lower price tag.

A research and development center in China could help the company understand differences between Chinese and American users, said Laura Martin, Internet analyst with Needham & Co.

If youre a consumer company, having a presence in China is good, she said.

samantha.masunaga@latimes.com

For more business news, follow me @smasunaga

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California Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday signed a bill thats designed to give widows and widowers a better shot at saving their homes when they fall behind on mortgage payments.

Senate Bill 1150 boosts protections against foreclosure for surviving spouses who own their home but are not on its mortgage note.

Consumer groups say survivors  including those who inherit property after a death  face considerable resistance from loan servicers when trying to obtain modifications.

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Servicers will generally accept a surviving spouses loan payments, but red tape involved in proving ownership can stall a modification while foreclosures proceed, according to advocates.

Facing foreclosure after the loss of a loved one can be devastating. The governors approval of SB 1150 will help keep more families in their homes and reaffirms California as a nationwide leader in protecting vulnerable homeowners, said Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), who authored the bill with Sen. Cathleen Galgiani (D-Stockton).

Widows and widowers will now have many of the rights borrowers already have under the California Homeowner Bill of Rights. Among those is a ban on dual tracking  the practice of negotiating with clients to modify a mortgage while simultaneously pursuing foreclosure.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently imposed similar federal rules on servicers nationwide, leading the banking industry to call the California bill unnecessary.

Consumer groups, however, noted that the federal rules wont take effect for more than a year and they argued that the national regulations are more difficult to enforce. Advocates say the state bill includes a more expansive right to sue to stop a foreclosure or for economic damages if one proceeds.

Industry groups, including the California Bankers Assn., expressed concerns that those rights will expose their members to frivolous lawsuits.

andrew.khouri@latimes.com

Follow me @khouriandrew on Twitter.
Ukrainian authorities should be more active and transparent in providing information for attracting investment in light of the favorable situation on capital markets, the participants of the Ukrainian Financial Forum organized by ICU in Odesa on September 29 and September 30.

"The foreign situation is the following: several trillions of U.S. dollars of the sovereign debt are traded with negative yield on the debt market. What does it mean? It means there is a lot of capital on the market and investors are ready to invest in Ukraine, thanks to attractive rates. The question is if Ukraine is able to attract this capital," Vladimir Osakovskiy, Russia, CIS Economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said.

He said that the answer on this question depends on the country's readiness to continue reforms.

"If structural reforms continue, the situation with the attraction of the capital would take shape itself," he said.

The expert said that the country should more actively inform (potential investors) about the achieved success.

"A lot has been done and the market reacted by increasing quotations of Ukrainian securities. Many investors do not know what is going on here and what has been done. A more active dialog with investors is required," Osakovsky said.

He said that it is important to seen more active cooperation between the Ukrainian central depository and main global depositories to expand access of global capital to domestic sovereign debt bonds.

"The yield on the domestic market is attractive," the expert said.

Serhiy Yahnych, Head of Corporate Finance, Ukrsibbank, BNP Paribas, said it is necessary to conduct an active information policy.

"Ukraine needs to be more transparent from the point of information. Investment would come to Ukraine anyway, and the question is only if it happens now when low rates for capital are seen in the world, or in another period," he said.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Resident Representative Jerome Vacher said that along with reforms and active dialog with investors, the effective trigger of investment to Ukraine could be transparent privatization. This would attract attention of not only investors who wanted to take part in the privatization, but all other investors to Ukraine, he said.

Andrey Pavlichenkov, CEO, Nordwand Capital, again focused on the necessity of continuing reforms.

"The debt securities market still has large risks in the marcroeconomic situation. Ukraine restructured the major part of its debt, it still has large debt-GDP ratio. This is a risk for the market, and Ukraine must more quickly restore GDP to reduce it," he said.

The expert said that reforms to strengthen the banking system should continue, including the revision of the bankruptcy procedure. This would help to cut non-performing loans in the banks' portfolios, he said. Structural reforms with the judicial reform as the key one must be introduced.
Che Voigt believes his company has solved problems that have plagued the working world since the advent of typing.

Its a solution to hunched backs, stiff necks and tight shoulders. Its a workstation that, with a push of a button, transitions from a standing desk to a seated table to a fully reclined platform like a dentists chair. Its seat expands and retracts, supporting the whole body from head to heels. Its desk moves up, down and rotates. Theres a screen and mouse and keyboard that follows the users eyes and hands.

Its the way of the future, he says; the most comfortable you can possible be working at a computer. And it starts at $5,900.

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Before anyone scoffs, Voigt has a defense: 1) Dont knock it until youve tried it, and 2) If people dont invest in ergonomics now, theyll pay for it later.

And if Silicon Valleys track record is anything to go by, Voigt might be onto something. Tech firms have long embraced wacky inventions that promise heightened productivity and creativity  and the industry has a history of making them mainstream.

Height-adjustable desks and $1,000 Herman Miller chairs that once seemed extravagant are no longer common just at software start-ups; schools, government agencies and even the White House have gotten on board. Whether its open floor plans, ergonomic keyboards or yoga ball chairs, workplaces far removed from the tech world often co-opt the quirky and often costly office cultures of firms like Apple, Google and Facebook in hope that some of their success rubs off.

Comfort is material to creativity, said Voigt, 45, chief executive of Altwork, a company that builds each workstation by hand in a barn on a 65-acre family property shared with Zinfandel wine grapes in Sonoma County. If youre stressed or distressed, the mind cant fall into creativity. We want to get into an area where you can be productive and do really good work.

Twenty years ago, ergonomics was about finding a decent office chair and doing the occasional stretch throughout the day, said Joy Boese, an ergonomics specialist at E3 Consulting who has worked with companies such as Toyota and Netflix. It was considered an office perk, something filed in the nice to have category. Today, particularly in tech land, its expected.

Now its about tracking your health, tracking your steps, seeing how you spend your day, integrating fitness desks, treadmill desks, Zen rooms for people to take a moment to rest their mind, Boese said. These companies want people to feel like its more than just coming to work  they want a happy, healthy, engaged workforce.

Silicon Valley is at the forefront of this, Boese said, which is no surprise, given that it is traditionally two to three years ahead of the curve.

But its also characteristic of the Valleys ruthless optimization and productivity ethos.

It was software engineers who popularized Soylent, the liquid meal replacement for techies. It was tech CEOs such as Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs who streamlined their wardrobes into a uniform, a move that Zuckerberg has justified saying it helped clear my life so that I have to make as few decisions as possible on things that are silly or frivolous. And it was the tech world that normalized lockdowns  intense work periods when employees dont leave the office until a project is done.

These cultural quirks reflect the immense pressure that many tech workers face to deliver big projects on tight deadlines, justifying not only their own salaries but also their companies lofty valuations. The Altwork Station is designed for these people, said Voigt, who describes them as high-intensity computer users.

Being comfortable at your desk is really important, said Helen Wu, director of growth partnerships at San Francisco tech firm AppLovin, where every employee can choose between a sitting or standing desk and request ergonomic gadgets.

Wu herself doesnt have an Altwork Station, but she uses a laptop stand on her desk, an ergonomic keyboard and a Handshoe mouse  a wireless gadget that looks like a fedora made for aliens  from the Netherlands.

Having a setup where you dont have to worry about your physiology lets you focus on your work, she said.

The tech industry isnt unique when it comes to valuing productivity. Wall Street, which has a reputation for brutal efficiency and long hours, has also invested in ergonomics. What sets Silicon Valley apart, according to ergonomics specialists who have worked with both industries, is its lack of self-consciousness and its willingness to go all-in.

Thats why five-toe shoes (with separate nooks for each toe, like a glove for the foot) and telepresence robots  tablet computers on rolling pedestals that offer off-site employees an in-person presence  are not uncommon on tech campuses, but remain rare in New Yorks Financial District.

We worked with a brokerage firm to redesign their office into an open plan space, and it was hard to get people out of private offices, said Melissa Steach, an ergonomics specialist at Herman Miller, the furniture firm whose midcentury designs are now ubiquitous in the tech industry. There was a lot of ego attached to it, the whole Im a baller, Ive earned this office and you dont have one. 

Silicon Valley, meanwhile, isnt wary of workplace weirdness. It has embraced it  reclining chairs, bike-pedal footstools, treadmill desks and all.

Theres a copycat element to it too, said Michael Lukasik, a brand development manager for West Elm Workspace, an arm of the housewares business that furnishes offices. Start-ups often express Google-shaped aspirations even if their businesses couldnt be further from Googles.

These smaller companies are coming to us and saying, We saw images of Googles offices  can you help us accomplish this? Lukasik said. Everyone wants to attract the same talent that Google or Apple attracts and retains.

It doesnt always work, of course. The Googles and Facebooks of the world were at least bringing in revenue before they started lavishing their employees with ergonomic perks. Some start-ups find themselves in the reverse situation, spending big before theyve hit the jackpot.

Its not unusual to hear that some company just got a round of financing and bought 20 [Herman Miller] Aeron chairs, or that another just bought 40 at a discount from another start-up that went bust, said Mike Vorhaus, Silicon Valley and technology analyst. I absolutely think this is a follow-the-leader thing.

Still, many tech firms swear by it, reporting that ergonomic furniture has led to happier, healthier and more productive employees.

In Culver City, underwear subscription start-up MeUndies has an office decked out in Herman Miller furniture, with $660 chairs, $1,000 sit-to-stand desks and an open floor plan designed by ergonomists.

See the most-read stories in Business this hour 

The most telling stat is employee retention, said Terry Lee, MeUndies chief operating officer. In the two years Ive been here weve only had two employees voluntarily leave. In less than a year weve doubled our headcount. I think it translates to employee happiness, and workplace ergonomics tie into that.

For most companies, the draw of ergonomics is the effect that it is believed to have on the bottom line.

The companies buying these know if they can get their project done a little sooner, it pays huge dividends, Voigt said. If a company could squeeze even 10 more minutes of worker efficiency each day, then the cost of an Altwork Station is completely insignificant, he said.

Voigt is a mechanical engineer by trade and spent most of his career working on aerospace systems. He started on the Altwork Station five years ago when a family friend, who couldnt sit for for long periods of time because of an injury, came to him with the idea of a chair that would let him work in repose.

Voigt didnt think the project would take long. After all, how hard could it be to design a chair?

Well, its not just a chair, he said. You have to have a desk, and you have to learn about the human body, you have to figure out what to do with devices, and there are all these wonderful problems to solve to get it right.

The Altwork Station is pricier than comparable offerings from Herman Miller and Steelcase, but its more adjustable and, according to Voigt, the transitions are more seamless. Users can set their ideal position and the station will remember it.

Some of the Valleys biggest tech companies have already expressed interest in the Altwork Station, although Voigt wouldnt say which ones. The company, backed by self-funding and $3 million from angel investors, started shipping pre-orders this week.

Although he understands that productivity is probably the desks strongest selling point, Voigt insists that the Altwork Station is a solution to neck, shoulder and back contortions we perform every day just to use a computer.

Humans have created all these fantastic things while hunched over a computer, he said. The fact that weve advanced all this tech but havent supported our body in any different way is insane to me.

tracey.lien@latimes.com

Twitter: @traceylien

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It started with a backseat. The sensation of being driven places as a child in a backseat, the furtive amorous histories begun in a backseat  and the memory of Abraham Cruzvillegas first schoolboy crush for a woman who sold tortillas in his Mexico City neighborhood  these were the inspirations behind a song the artist wrote roughly six years ago.

It was about a Ford Galaxy wagon from 1969, he says. Adding, with a mischievous smile: It wasnt a coincidence that it was a 69.

The backseat serves as an important point of departure in Autoconcancion, Cruzvillegass second solo exhibition at Regen Projects in Hollywood. The show features 10 new sculptures, each built around a backseat, from the same make and model of cars he and his family have owned over the course of his life. Theres a backseat from a Fiat 500, a Volkswagen Beetle and, of course, a Ford Galaxy.

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A visitor walks past two pieces by Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas: Autoconcancion V, left, and Autoconcancion I. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times )

These serve as props upon which Cruzvillegas has built ramshackle structures of metal and wood, each bearing a California plant that can be eaten or used for medicinal purposes. Attached to many of the works  in some cases, with womens underwear  are transistor radios tuned to local stations broadcasting in English, Spanish and Korean, among other languages.

Stand in the gallery amid these pieces and you might get the sensation that mounds of detritus have sprung to life and are uprooting bits of nature in the process.

A transistor radio, tuned to a Los Angeles-area station, is suspended from one of Cruzvillegass sculptures by a pair of womens underwear. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times )

Its a synthesis of my identity and California identity, explains Cruzvillegas, decked out in a suit and a newsboy cap as he wanders the gallery in the moments before his exhibition opened to the public. Its about how we look at things.

For more than a dozen years, the Mexico City-based artist  who last year created a commission for the Turbine Hall at Londons Tate Modern  has produced sculpture that unites a global array of histories and themes, both personal and universal.

There is his preoccupation with informal architecture  or autoconstruccion, at it is known in Spanish  the D.I.Y. building that takes place in locations the world over, places where resources are scarce and construction is done bit-by-bit with whatever happens to be at hand.

Its a building method that harkens back to his childhood home, on the southern outskirts of Mexico City, which was built by his father and displays the architectural quirks of a space that has been crafted slowly, over time. (In 2014, he took the producers of the television program Art21 on a tour.)

Its pragmatic, its efficient  but not in a capitalistic way, says Cruzvillegas, of autoconstruccion. Its also unstable, chaotic, contradictory, stupid, deliriant and inefficient.

These are qualities embodied in his own work, autoconstrucciones of sorts that frequently seem to hover on the edge of destruction.

In Autoconcancion VI, one of the new sculptures on view at Regen, a pile of metal rods appear to erupt out of a car seat as a wooden frame balances gingerly on the edge of a triangle made of metal. In the frame sits a jojoba plant in a pot. The whole thing appears to be on the verge of collapsing.

Autoconcancion VI, by Abraham Cruzvillegas, at Regen Projects. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times )

As in the artists other installations, the use of pre-existing materials is paramount. Cruzvillegas is interested in the notion of working with the discarded, of objects that are forsaken as trash, but which might still have use.

All of these things are about consumption, he says. At one time, having a car, for example, meant having property. If it breaks, you take it to the garage. You fix it. You keep that car for a very long time. Nowadays you throw it away. Modernity is about consumption; modernity means throwing away.

Throughout his career, Cruzvillegas pieces have employed found bits of stone, bottle caps, beer bottles, junk metal, feathers and wood. His installation at the Tate Modern consisted of 240 planters filled with dirt from empty lots around London. During the exhibition, these sprouted weeds and other hardy plants that had been carried in with the soil  evidence that the seemingly dead can be full of life.

For his show at Regen, the artist worked with piles of scrap metal and old car seats secured by his assistants. I improvise with everything they give me, he says. I dont select. I dont choose. I dont discard.

But as slapdash as his work may appear, Cruzvillegas pieces make serious nods to art history  to the bronzes of Catalan sculptor Julio Gonzalez, who combined forms both organic and abstract, to the entropic cage forms of British artist Anthony Caro, and to the arrangements of wires, covered in hair, by U.S. artist David Hammons.

These guys are super important to me as artists, says Cruzvillegas. I use that language.

In his show at Regen Projects, the artist ties all of these concepts to the landscape of Southern California: Namely, car culture.

Here, his autoconstrucciones have become autoconcanciones  a play on words that literally means cars with songs  inspired by automotive backseats and all that they might signify. The attached transistor radios, dangling from scanty panties, fill the gallery with a low-volume murmur. The plants  which include a palm and a prickly pear cactus  evoke natures power of transformation and regeneration.

In a way, the pieces strip the invincible auto of its most macho qualities.

Its about love, says Cruzvillegas as he surveys the gallery. This is where love happens.

-------------

Abraham Cruzvillegas: Autoconcancion

Where: Regen Projects, 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood

When: Through Oct. 22

Info: regenprojects.com

Sign up for our weekly Essential Arts & Culture newsletter 

Find me on Twitter @cmonstah.

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Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have come to a temporary, three-week agreement on custody of their six children, a person familiar with the negotiations said Friday.

The deal was voluntary and doesnt reflect any ruling from the court regarding permanent custody, legal or physical, the source said.

Both Pitt and Jolie agreed to receive individual counseling, the source said, and Pitt offered to submit to drug and alcohol testing, which was not required.

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The couple agreed that Pitts first visit with the children would include a therapist, but there was no requirement for a monitor during subsequent visits, the source said. However, a second person close to the situation said the presence of a therapist was required at all visits for the duration of the agreement, which runs though Oct. 20.

At that point, the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services will reevaluate the situation, the second person said, adding that until then, Jolie has custody and Pitt has visitation.

Decision-making for Maddox, 15; Pax, 12; Zahara, 11; Shiloh, 10; and 8-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne will follow a structured plan agreed to by both parents.

The Maleficent actress filed for divorce from the World War Z actor on Sept. 19, giving their date of separation as Sept. 15. Child and Family Services has been investigating an incident alleged to have happened Sept. 14 between Pitt and Maddox on a private plane bound from France to L.A. The FBI was also informed of the alleged incident, which sources said was physical but didnt involve punching or hitting.

Jolie attorney Robert Offer told the Associated Press last week that her decision to divorce had been made for the health of the family.

Im currently focused on my family situation and dont want to distract attention away from this extraordinary film, Pitt said Tuesday in a statement announcing that he would be skipping the Wednesday premiere of Terrence Malicks Voyage of Time, which he narrates.

Follow Christie DZurilla on Twitter @theCDZ.

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UPDATES:

3:05 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details regarding the terms of the agreement.

This article was originally published at 1:50 p.m.
In just a short while, the press screening for the opening-night film of the 2016 New York Film Festival will begin. Members of the media will see 13th, the Ava DuVernay documentary about mass incarceration that was shot stealthily over the last year or so for Netflix.

The movie brings a different feel to the annual gathering, which usually opens with a high-profile awards contender like Captain Phillips or Life of Pi. 13th traces the post-slavery history of African Americans in the United States, up to and including the corporatization of the prison industry that, the film argues, has had as many devastating effects on the black community and the countrys moral fabric as slavery itself. (The title, a reference to the amendment that abolished slavery, is a pointed one.)

It also marks a switch for DuVernay, who in films such as Middle of Nowhere and Selma, has been exploring minority discrimination from the other side of the feature-doc divide.

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Its always something on my mind, DuVernay said Thursday in an interview from the set of her new movie A Wrinkle in Time, noting earlier films and characters, such as Ralph Bordelon and Too Sweet in her OWN series Queen Sugar, that address the human side of imprisonment. The why now is that its a story Ive been telling and talking about for a while.

13th charts a world in which the prison population has soared over 2 million after decades of staying relatively constant under 500,000 even well into the 1970s. The growth is a function of mandatory minimum sentencing, three-strikes policy and the holding of poor defendants who may well be innocent  all disproportionally affecting African American males (and far less interested, the film argues, in rehabilitation than it should be).

Audiences who see 13th at the festival  it will be at the center of a gala opening Friday night  and on Netflix beginning next month will experience a movie that radically asks to reinterpret how we view criminal justice and law-and-order politician claims going back to President Nixon. Far from keeping us safe, the doc submits, such assertions are meant to prey on white fears and suppress black achievement.

You cannot put a price tag on wasted genius, the activist and CNN commentator Van Jones, one of the many personalities appearing in the film, told The Times. We do not know how many inventions, cures and great works of art are unavailable to humanity because the people that could have created them are locked up for dumb stuff that most people did in college.

In the daily news cycle youre just skipping the stone across the surface of the water. This was a chance to let that stone sink and go deeper.  Van Jones

Jones is one of dozens of experts woven through 13th offering both a history of the prison system and a critique of it. He became involved because he and DuVernay, both active on Twitter, began communicating via social media during the anniversary of the Selma marches in early 2015. He, like others, eventually decided to be a part of the documentary. Much of the cultural conversation of the moment centers on the Black Lives Matter movement, rarely going to more fundamental institutional and economic reasons for the inequities  and certainly not doing so with more than a passing glance.

In the daily news cycle youre just skipping the stone across the surface of the water, Jones said. This was a chance to let that stone sink and go deeper.

One way it does that is by its investigation of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a private conservative group that has written many of the current criminal justice laws. The exposure of this little-publicized group will be a jolt to many viewers; DuVernay said she was startled by some of the discoveries and struggled most with how to handle them in the film. (Maybe even more startling is the appearance of Newt Gingrich, who comes off as one of the politicians most sensitive to the films issues.)

13th seeks to achieve its ends with a kind of subversiveness, taking the form of a seemingly conventional talking-head film that, far from dispassionate recollection, winds up making a profound moral and philosophical case.

This could have been the dutiful, Learning Channel version of a film about the subject, said Kent Jones, the New York Film Festival director who spearheaded the decision to open with the movie. Instead Ava DuVernay has made the bold version.

The movie paints a picture of people of color, particularly men, locked up for years for low-level offenses theyre not guilty of. The prison system, 13th posits, is a beast  employing thousands of guards, enriching scores of entrepreneurs and requiring millions of inmates for cheap industrial labor  and poor black men are the nutrients that feed it.

Whether the documentary will change what, bias aside, is by some estimates a $75-billion industry remains to be seen. Viewers may be left feeling pessimistic about the hurdles, if slightly buoyed by a feeling that a new order may be coming. In 2012 mass incarceration wasnt even part of the Democratic platform. The Black Lives Matter movement has shined a light that now makes reform a regular part of the electoral discourse.

DuVernay said the very act of the discussion is meaningful. The first step toward consciousness is awareness, she said. A lot of what we believe has been manufactured by larger interests. This film I hope opens people eyes.

Or as Van Jones said in the interview. We are closer than ever to solving the problem of mass incarceration. And were still very far away.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

On Twitter: @ZeitchikLAT
Some Hollywood directors would be sent into an emotional tailspin if their movie was yanked from the schedule and put on the shelf just weeks away from its release. Agents would be screamed at. Therapists would be called. But Jared Hess is not built that way.

Late last summer, Hess caper comedy Masterminds was suddenly taken off the release calendar when the studio behind it, Relativity Media, went into bankruptcy. The film had a roster of comedy heavy hitters behind it, including stars Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson, producer Lorne Michaels and Hess himself, who directed the 2004 cult phenomenon Napoleon Dynamite. But for reasons having nothing to do with its quality and everything to do with its studios financial turmoil, its fate was suddenly in limbo.

As Relativitys financial implosion made headlines and set tongues wagging across Hollywood, some speculated that Masterminds  along with a handful of other unreleased Relativity films, including the Halle Berry thriller Kidnap  might be sold to another studio, go directly to streaming video or perhaps never be released at all. Still, Hess didnt really freak out.

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I dont think anybody knew what would happen, Hess, 37, said over lunch in Los Angeles on a recent afternoon, projecting a kind of good-natured, Zen calm from behind a thick, lumberjack-style beard. The picture was locked. It was in the can. They had scheduled a press junket. And then it was like, Ohhhh!  He shrugged. There was nothing you could do, really, so I just moved on to other things. You just wait and see what happens.

 Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Jason Sudeikis, Zach Galifianakis, Leslie Jones and Owen Wilson star in Masterminds.

In the end, it worked out. Relativity, which emerged from bankruptcy in March, is finally releasing Masterminds on Friday, more than a year after the films original release date.

Hess isnt complaining about the delay. Hes just happy that the movie is seeing the light of day. It was a very interesting turn of events, the way it played out, he said matter-of-factly. Now I just hope that people enjoy it.

As a writer and director, Hess has always been drawn to stories of misfits with outsized dreams; his other best-known film, 2006s Nacho Libre, starred Jack Black as a Mexican monastery cook who moonlights as a masked luchador. Masterminds fits that bill.

Based on the real-life 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery  known to aficionados of bungled crimes as the Hillbilly Heist  Masterminds stars Galifianakis as David Ghantt, an armored-truck driver who stole $17 million in a plot with a former co-worker (Wiig) and her friend (Wilson), only to have the ill-conceived scheme unravel in spectacular fashion.

In the hands of, say, Quentin Tarantino or the Coen brothers, its easy to imagine such an ill-fated crime story going off in a dark, R-rated direction, but Hess keeps the proceedings on the cartoonishly silly, PG-13 end of the spectrum.

Jareds movies are so goofy  in a great way, said Galifianakis. The R-rated movies are easy to do, but language has become such a crutch that it doesnt interest me. This is a more innocent movie, and thats really what attracted me to it. Its nice to have a movie that you can maybe take your aunt to and the drive home is not completely quiet.

While Masterminds is the first feature that Hess hasnt written with his wife, Jerusha, the film still bears his uniquely quirky comic fingerprint, said Chris Bowman, who co-wrote the script with Hubbel Palmer and Emily Spivey.

Everything Jared does is going to filter through his sensibilities, said Bowman, who, along with Palmer, has been friends with Hess since college. If he goes and does a slasher film, the killer will have an obnoxious mustache and, like, a chinchilla hat.

In a weird way, if it had never been released -- if it was kind of this lost thing -- it would have been intriguing.  Zach Galifianakis

Its been 12 years since Hess broke out with Napoleon Dynamite, the deadpan story of a high-school geek with delusions of grandeur who helps his friend Pedro run for class president. Made for less than half a million dollars, the film stirred up major buzz at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to become a sleeper word-of-mouth hit, grossing $46 million and unleashing countless Vote for Pedro T-shirts and Internet memes into the world.

Hess, the oldest of six boys raised in a Mormon family, was stunned to see the movies success snowball so dramatically. Napoleon was like a transcript of the way my brothers and I spoke in middle school and high school, he said. I hoped that it would get into a film festival somewhere and then, if we were lucky, maybe wed sell it and it would play at midnight on some cable station somewhere. It was all kind of a fairy tale.

Hess follow-up, Nacho Libre proved an even bigger mainstream hit, earning nearly $100 million worldwide despite sharply divided reviews. But in a pop culture landscape that has grown ever more fragmented, replicating the lightning-in-a-bottle success of a film like Napoleon Dynamite has grown increasingly difficult, and Hess last two comedies, 2009s Gentlemen Broncos and 2015s Don Verdean, have failed to connect with wide audiences.

With a sensibility thats simultaneously off-kilter and broad, Hess has never fit easily into studio executives standard boxes. The conversation that I end up having a lot is, like, Are we going to get the small, indie Jared Hess thats kind of weird on this movie or the commercial Jared Hess?  he said. Its fine. I think a lot of directors I know have the same thing where they kind of live in both worlds.

Straddling different worlds is nothing new to Hess. A father of four, he still lives in Salt Lake City, traveling regularly to Los Angeles for work.

The fact that Hess isnt fully enmeshed in the industry gives him a unique point of view, said Bowman. Jared is not a Hollywood guy  hes kind of a stranger in a strange land when he comes out here. The feeling everyone had when Napoleon came out was Who is this guy who came out of nowhere?  and that continues to pay dividends. People want to work with someone who has a different perspective, and he really does.

In many ways, Hess remains the same guy he was when he made Napoleon Dynamite. There are people who, when they encounter great success, it really changes them, Palmer said. There have definitely been times when there have been a lot of people trying to get a piece of Jared, and yet hes still gracious with everybody.

After the prolonged delay to get it to theaters, it remains to be seen to what extent audiences will embrace Masterminds. The film is tracking for an opening weekend of between $8 million and $10 million and reviews have been mixed.

The fact is, Masterminds is hardly the first movie to be released after a period of sitting on the shelf; the horror film The Cabin in the Woods and the Red Dawn remake, for example, were both pushed back for two years after MGM underwent its own bankruptcy in 2010.

I didnt give it too much thought; as an actor, once youre done with it, its out of your hands, Galifianakis said of the delay. He laughed. In a weird way, if it had never been released  if it was kind of this lost thing  it would have been intriguing. But Im obviously glad its coming out.

For his part, Hess is already busy with other projects. He and his wife have written a NickToons feature for Paramount Pictures featuring characters from 90s Nickelodeon cartoons, and the two just finished the script for a stop-motion-animated kids western comedy that Hess will direct.

Beyond that, Hess recently became attached to direct a third installment in the Shanghai Noon western buddy-comedy franchise and has branched into TV as well, helming episodes of an upcoming Fox time-travel comedy.

On this September afternoon, though, Hess had his other life on his mind, the life that unfolds both not very far and a million miles away from Hollywood and all its attendant pressures.

Im flying home tonight, Hess said. Going to go to the Utah State Fair. Get a deep-fried Ding Dong, some deep-fried Oreos. He grinned. Its so naughty but Im going to get down-and-dirty.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

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josh.rottenberg@latimes.com

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Apparently, director Tim Burton would be fine if you retitled his movie Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children but Only if Theyre White.

In an interview with the website Bustle, Burton was asked why, given the pervasive, ongoing discussion of diversity in Hollywood, the overwhelming majority of the characters (and, hence, actors) in his latest fantasy film are white.

Nowadays, people are talking about it more, Burton said. But things either call for things, or they dont.

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 The trailer for Tim Burtons Miss Peregrines Home For Peculiar Children, starring Eva Green.

He went on to talk about how, as a kid, he wouldve been dismayed to see an Asian kid or a black kid on The Brady Bunch, or more white actors in blaxploitation movies. (Never mind that there were white actors in blaxploitation films, but more on that later.)

Burtons statements are just the latest from a celebrated, veteran filmmaker unable to wrap his mind around why diversity matters.

Ridley Scott, when discussing the casting of white actors to play characters of Middle Eastern and North African descent in his Exodus: Gods and Kings, told Variety: I cant mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such. Im just not going to get it financed. So the question doesnt even come up.

And, of course, there was a logic to Scotts statement, just as there is some to Burtons. You need a movie star to make a $150-million biblical epic feasible, so you get Christian Bale. No one faults him there. But there is no reason why Seti, a pharaoh of Egypt, needs to be played by John Turturro doing a bad Britishy accent. None.

The majority of the action in Burtons Miss Peregrines takes place on an island off the coast of Wales during World War II. In Burtons view, apparently, this fantastical school for fantastical children neednt be burdened with having to mirror the population of the United Kingdom at that time  which boasted millions of people born abroad, from places like India, Jamaica, Pakistan and various African countries. Not a huge percentage of the population, mind you  according to a 1951 census, 4.2% of the total U.K. population  but enough.

And thats not considering the native-born people of color whose ancestors had emigrated to Britain, either by choice or by force, since the 16th century and became part of the fabric of British society.

In Burtons case, the reasoning clearly wasnt financial: The Harry Potter filmmakers cast their magical British refuge with actors with every skin tone one might encounter in Trafalgar Square. And no one blinked on their way to Gringotts with the $7.7 billion those films grossed. Nor did Potter creator J.K. Rowling blink at the idea of a black Hermione for the stage production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child:

Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione  https://t.co/5fKX4InjTH  J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 21, 2015

Of course, period adaptations can require a certain fidelity to the source material  except for when they dont. The BBC produced a version of Oliver Twist that cast actors of color in major roles and was well-received (and Dickens didnt curse anyone from beyond the grave).

And, you know, Hamilton.

But fantasy allows for anything under the sun. There are no rules apart from the rules that makers of fantasy set for themselves.

Things either call for things, or they dont.

The only character of color in Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children is Samuel L. Jackson, who plays the films villain, Barron, who kills kids with these special powers. In fact, as Rachel Simon, who wrote that Bustle piece, points out, Jackson is the first black actor to land a leading role in any of Burtons 36 feature films.

As Id mentioned before, in the blaxploitation films that Burton claims to have watched growing up, there were white actors  they just always played the bad guy, the heel, The Man. The inverse appears to be true for Burton films: If you are to encounter a black actor, hes either going to be in the periphery (Billy Dee Williams in Batman), slathered in makeup (Michael Clarke Duncan in Planet of the Apes) or hes going to be the bad guy.

Burtons heroes are always versions of himself: thin, pale, white outcasts. From Edward Scissorhands to Ed Wood, Alice in Wonderland to Willy Wonka.

A filmmaker is allowed his or her perspective on the world. Thats what makes them unique. Just as we, the audience, are allowed to wonder why, in his mind, the only color an outcast hero can be is white.

Burtons hallmark as a director is, and always has been, his imagination, his vision. It is sad to discover that, in this regard, he has neither.

@marcbernardin

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When Ed Harris hits the screen in Westworld, premiering Sunday on HBO, it wont be the veteran actors first time working in the world of Michael Crichton. The New Jersey natives first film role was in the sci-fi writer-directors 1978 film, Coma. He played Pathology Resident #2. I was holding up a cow lung and talking about something, recalls Harris with a laugh.

It may have been the last time that the Tony nominee and four-time Oscar nominee played second fiddle to anyone. Harris, 65, has gone on to a distinguished, and prolific, career in film (Pollock, The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, Sweet Dreams, The Truman Show, Snowpiercer) television (Empire Falls, Game Change), as a director (Appaloosa), and onstage, including a recent New York run of Buried Child with wife, and frequent co-star, Amy Madigan.

We recently chatted with the man who has played everything from astronauts to farmers to senators to artists and beyond about Westworld  in which he plays the mysterious Man in Black  and his full dance card, with more than seven projects in the pipeline.

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Unlike some in his profession, Harris doesnt spend much time looking back wishing he had gotten a chance at one more take in any particular role. I think about my work and what Ive done that day, but am pretty good at accepting it and trusting it. I have a lot of confidence in what I do. And I dont think that its false, I think that its earned and I think that its justified.

Your Westworld character is just called The Man in Black, but did you give him a name?

He does have a name but I dont want to reveal it.

Is this the first time youre having to deal with secretive spoiler culture?

Pretty much.

Is that comfortable for you?

It makes it easier, doesnt it. (Laughs.) What can I say?

You have this great line in the series: In a sense, I was born here. It gets at the idea that people come to Westworld and find out who they really are. Is there something analogous to acting about that?

Yeah, its true. Its a whole process of discovering.

I think the people that use the park [Westworld] in a positive way are open to learning something about themselves. And I think thats what happened to my guy. Because when he initially came to the park he certainly wasnt The Man in Black. In all his trips hes identified this aspect of himself that was pretty violent and ruthless and was a part of his character that he didnt really recognize until he came to the park. Part of it was, rightfully so, sublimated.

We talked a bit about some of your many upcoming roles, one of which you described as not very nice in Kodachrome, and a cranky old salt in In Dubious Battle. So is there a part of Ed Harris that is sublimated that comes out in his parts?

No, but theres a part of Ed Harris thats getting older and this is the kind of parts he gets. (Laughs.) Theyre fun.

With a career as long as yours, you can usually look at the filmography and see Thats the one he did for the money, which some actors do to finance their own projects or just, you know, eat. But the lions share of your roles have been interesting characters at least.

Yeah, the lions share. (Laughs heartily) Theres a few clunkers in there and theres a few that were definitely done for financial reasons but we dont need to articulate which ones. And there might be one or two that are clunkers and I did for the money. (Laughs.)

But it says something that you have sought out interesting work or that it has come to you.

Yeah, I feel really fortunate. I am still doing this and Ive been doing it 35 years I guess or more. I still get a chance to do some interesting things.

Im really excited about this film I want to direct next year. I bought the rights to this book The Ploughmen by a Montana writer named Kim Zupan and Ive written the screenplay and I really feel pretty strong about it. Its really hauntingly beautiful. Its got some suspense and great drama but its a real character thing. I want my wife to be in it and my daughter and Stacy Keach is one of the main guys and Im looking for a young 29- to 30-year-old actor who is great to play the focus of the story. I havent directed a film since Appaloosa and Ive been looking for something because I love the directing thing.

What do you love about directing?

Youre collaborating but ultimately you get to shape your vision of something. Youre not just a hired hand coming in to do one role. Its your film, youre responsible for every actor, every shot, every detail, the look of it, the words, the music, in terms of making decisions. Youre occupied and focused. Its really thrilling.

And youre not sitting in your trailer waiting for the next set-up.

No [expletive]. Because that [expletive] gets old, man. I love being in front of the camera and I love acting. I love being on stage. But that aspect of filmmaking, of waiting for hours to work for two minutes or whatever, its starting to drive me [expletive] bananas.

Its great that you and Amy arent sick of working with each other.

No, I love it. We were together 24/7 when we were in New York working on the play. We really enjoy being with each other especially when were working together. I mean we were much more intimate during that time than we are at home in a way because at home youre doing your thing, and in New York we were really just in each others pocket in a really cool way.

So you strike me as a man who enjoys being busy.

I do, but I also like being home. Ive got some property and theres always something to do. Right now Im digging up a brick driveway and Ive got this giant pine tree and the roots just buckled the hell out of it so Im working on that. The roots are dense and knotty and thick and deep. Its taking me forever but I just dig it. (Laughs)

Its sweaty and youre outside and youre not thinking about anything.

Yeah, youre just working, it just clears my head.

But I will point out that that still makes you busy.

Yeah, it does. But then Ill stop and sit. Im not too bad at doing nothing. Im not the greatest. It kind of seems like that, and I guess I have been working a lot. Because when I got done with the play I went right back to Westworld the next day. (Laughs).

Is there anybody left on the bucket list that youd love to work with, a director or actor? Or a role youd like to play?

Yeah, I remember after I saw Where the Wild Things Are, I wrote (director) Spike Jonze a letter and said if you ever need me in anything, I dont care, let me know, Id love to work with you. I havent heard back.

Yet.

Yet.

Are there things we havent seen you do onscreen youd like to take a shot at? Have we seen Ed Harris dance?

You know what? I actually have a decent singing voice and Ive never been able to sing onscreen. Id love to do a musical.

Really? A specific one? A revival? Would you do one on Broadway?

I would if they asked me and if I thought I could do it. A good one. One of the things that made me know I should do this was playing King Arthur in Camelot in Oklahoma City in 1973 I think it was. And having an experience one night where I did not remember doing the play at all. The audience was just on their feet and roaring and I suddenly realized What the [expletive] happened? And it was this pure, truly ecstatic thing and it lasted for about 10 minutes and it was like Wow! And basically you spend the rest of your life trying to get that back.

Youve done so many films, whats the part people recognize you most for?

My favorite was, I was a huge Mickey Mantle fan growing up and he was retired but I was at a hotel in New York and Mickey was over at the bar with some people and I had to go say hi to him. And I went over and said Excuse me Mr. Mantle I just wanted to say hi. Im a huge, huge fan of yours, youre just the greatest. My names Ed Harris. And he looked at me, and he goes, I dont like you. You werent nice to Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams. (Laughs.) And I said, Mickey I was playing a character. I couldnt tell if he was serious or not but I think he was just joking.

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Earlier this week a woman sat at a leather tabletop desk inside Ralph Laurens Beverly Hills flagship, pressing against the desks surface. She looked up with each motion to review her selections on a screen that bore an image of the handbag she was in the midst of designing.

The stores interactive handbag salon lets shoppers personalize the companys bags  everything from the Ricky to the Tiffin  making choices on monogramming, color and hardware before its produced in Italy. Bags in the store are tagged with RFID chips so that once they are set on the leather table, product specifications are automatically read and carried over to the screen where customers begin their customization journey.

The high-tech feature, the first employed in any Ralph Lauren store, is just one of a number of embellishments to the redesigned Rodeo Drive flagship, which officially opens to the public Friday.

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Its not surprising that Los Angeles has always been a special place for me, Ralph Lauren said in a statement. Not only was it home to my very first store, but also the home of so many of my dreams inspired by the art of filmmaking and the glamorous world of Hollywood legends.

A company executive was unavailable to discuss the store further.

The 22,000-square-foot spaces design drew inspiration from the California coastal lifestyle and broader West Coast, with French limestone and vintage oak floors, oak beams, wooden shelving units and a wrought-iron staircase, all of which houses the companys womens, mens and home collections.

The first floor is divided between mens and womens. Each side mirrors the other with watch and shoe salons. An area for fragrances on the womens side is the second of its kind after the store at 888 Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Upstairs is the companys home collection, which includes accessories, linens and vintage pieces.

The stores redesign led to some chatter as to whether the company would finally bring The Polo Bar restaurant concept to the West Coast. It has in a measured way with the stores reopening. A concierge service will provide guests with select snack and drink options from Polo Bar such as Ralphs Caramel Corn, crudite with ranch dressing and Ralphs Coffee and Espresso.
Russ, I have something to talk to you about, Lisa said, looking me in the eyes.

In the nearly two years weve been dating, Ive learned this was the opening statement of serious talk time. Usually, serious talk time is a result of me screwing something up or causing Lisa grief. My stomach started to swirl.

Lisa and I met online. I was freshly out of a divorce and she was entering the dating scene after a long marriage that ended with the death of her husband, Tim, after a five-year battle with cancer.

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Her life and spirit were crushed. Lisa went into a major depression and often spent days curled up in a ball on the floor of her closet. If it hadnt been for the love and support of family and friends, Lisa would never have left the security of her home. Gradually, she eased back into the world and back into daily life. Life was OK, just different.

One day a friend suggested Lisa try online dating to meet new people. She was unsure if she was ready but eventually relented and set up an online profile. It was on the site I first saw the stunning photo of a woman with a mesmerizing smile.

I sent Lisa a hello note, and she responded. We went back and forth, exchanging minor information, and were getting along well and getting to know each other.

After a week of corresponding, I sent her my usual daily note. A day passed without a reply. No reply the next day? Or the next?

I was confused by the lack of response, as I thought we were getting along great. But I also know this is the way of online dating, and I assumed Lisa had gotten a better offer.

Too bad, I thought. She seemed nice.

Are you a veteran of L.A.'s current dating scene? We want to publish your story

A week later I was checking the dating site and clicked the button who looked at my profile. Lo and behold, I saw Lisa had checked my profile. I sent her a quick note and asked her why she hadnt written back? She instantly replied that she had taken her daughters on a trip to Ireland. She said she was disappointed when she couldnt seem to find a message from me.

Not wanting to miss this opportunity again, I immediately suggested we meet in person. Lisa agreed and we met two days later after work. The plan was to meet for a quick drink and see how things went.

When I entered the restaurant, I saw the magnificent smile I had first seen in her profile looking right at me. We sat and talked for hours. The time went by quickly and I walked away skipping.

We texted each day and met again for dinner a week later. It went as well as the first date. We talked about Tim and her love for him, even as she coordinated his treatment plans with their two daughters away at college.

I heard horror stories of his treatment and ultimate death, I could tell Lisa was trying to live a normal life, but at times struggled.

More L.A. Affairs columns

Our relationship has progressed to a very intimate, close level. Our favorite places are Knotts Berry Farm, Long Beach Aquarium and the Hollywood Bowl. We have traveled and done things I could never have imagined.

We always take time for each other and to say I love you coming and going. We are planning on living together soon and are making long-term plans.

Lisa told me she didnt believe in ghosts or the dead having the ability to contact the living. She said she knew if Tim could, he would have contacted her to let her know he was alright.

Thats when she sat me down for a serious chat.

I need to talk with you, Lisa said.

She told me she had done her daily walk, and her mind drifted to Tim. Why dont you ever contact me? daydreamed Lisa as she thought of her late husband. Other people see signs, why not me?

At that moment, her cellphone rang. When she looked at the number on the display, it was Tims old office number. How did that dial? thought Lisa, trying to come up with an explanation.

Since Tims death, Lisa had never called his office number and had forgotten it was still on her phone. Had I butt-dialed him? speculated Lisa. Or had he butt-dialed me? Lisa used this call as a sign that Tim was well and watching over her and his daughters.

Heres my take on this complicated turn: I am the luckiest guy in the world to have her love. That love is different from the love she had for Tim, but I never doubt the depth of her love. Id like Tim to know Lisa is loved and in good hands. Just different hands.

Moore works in San Diego law enforcement. He teaches criminal justice classes at several local colleges and is looking forward to retirement soon with Lisa.

L.A. Affairs chronicles the current dating scene in and around Los Angeles. If you have comments or a true story to tell, email us at LAAffairs@latimes.com.
Real estate agents used to be privy to a lot of information that home buyers couldnt obtain on their own.

But now property listings, photo galleries, historic sales prices, school ratings and neighborhood crime rates are freely accessible to anyone with just a few clicks. For some assertive buyers, thats an invitation to bypass an agent and, in the process, cut out the pesky 5% to 6% commission that is traditionally split between the buyers agent and the sellers agent.

To help buyers go it alone, or close to it, several real estate start-ups have emerged that promise an easier solution to a notoriously stressful and expensive purchase. By eliminating or limiting an agents role, customers save money and streamline the process.

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Its also leading to tensions with the hundreds of thousands of real estate agents around the country, who say the companies are shortsighted and overlook the skills that a professional agent can offer.

Going online and looking at listings can give you a decent idea of what youre looking for and whats available, but when it comes down to it, most people still use an agent, said Adam DeSanctis, a manager for the National Assn. of Realtors. They seek that experience and expertise a Realtor in that area will have.

When Wes and Laurel Duquette set out to purchase a home for the first time, the couple chose not to work with a real estate agent.

We didnt find an agent to be much of an advantage, yet theyre so heavily compensated for what they do, Wes said.

Instead, they turned to Open Listings, a Y Combinator-backed start-up that replaces most of what agents do with an online platform. The Los Angeles company helps customers find a home on their own by creating a personalized feed of available properties that meet their requirements, and sending them emails of open houses.

Its free for customers to use the service. Once a home has been purchased, Open Listings refunds customers half of the commission it receives from a successful transaction.

In April, the Duquettes purchased a three-bedroom, one-bathroom Manhattan Beach home for $1.34 million. Their refund from Open Listings was $16,000, which the couple put toward closing costs and bringing down their mortgage rate.

Real estate start-up founders say the industry is ripe for change.

According to the National Assn. of Realtors, 92% of buyers use the Internet during their home search and 68% of first-time home buyers are millennials, used to the conveniences of Airbnb and Uber to simplify routine transactions. The same demographic is similarly moving away from actively managed investments to lower-cost, automated financial advisors that provide a list of suggested portfolios and investment options.

Millennials expect things to be easy and transparent. Theyre also used to making high-purchase transactions online, said Shelley Janes, founder of SideDoor, an app that hopes to become the Ebay of real estate, where sellers can list their homes and connect directly with buyers.

The recent wave of new real estate start-ups isnt the first time the agent-assisted model has been challenged.

But shaking up the industry has been difficult. For one, the National Assn. of Realtors is an influential obstacle when it comes to change in the industry.

Its a powerful trade association, and its cohorts are brokerages, multiple listing services, real estate associations and individual agents. They all work diligently to keep a buyer and seller apart, said Joshua Hunt, chief executive of Trelora, a full-service, commission-free real estate agency. He said those who are part of the outdated system fight to keep things as they are to preserve current commission rates.

Commissions in the U.S. are especially high. In Britain, Singapore and the Netherlands, they usually fall between 1% and 2%, according to a report by the International Real Estate Review.

Open Listings still uses real estate agents in the process, but in a limited way. No more driving prospective buyers around town, or keeping a lookout for the perfect house for clients. Those tasks all fall on the home buyers shoulders.

But hand-holding might be what buyers want most from their agents. According to the National Assn. of Realtors 2015 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers report, the top three benefits buyers receive from using agents is helping buyers understand the home buying process, pointing out unnoticed faults of the property and negotiating better contract terms.

More resources and online tools are good for consumers  they provide a good picture of current market conditions, but employing a Realtor to help find just the right home to purchase and to negotiate on your behalf is key to a successful buying experience, DeSanctis said.

Open Listings understands this, which is why co-founder Judd Schoenholtz says the company hasnt totally removed agents from the picture.

The start-up employs nine agents that work exclusively for the company. If its agents do not work in that neighborhood, the company also refers customers to a network of independent California agents, who are able to use the companys software.

The company is building tools to minimize the mind-numbing amount of labor that comes with home buying: viewings, forms and contracts, inspections. By saving agents time in the paperwork weeds, Open Listings allows its agents to concentrate on the piece where they can make a difference: getting an offer accepted.

Were able to refund that much of our commission because our agents only focus on the small but critical piece of the purchase cycle, Schoenholtz said.

He said the network answers a real need for some agents.

Were offering [agents] the perfect arrangement  buyers that will really buy and less of the paperwork, he said.

Open Listings, which launched last year and became profitable last month, says it has saved California home buyers more than $1 million since its launch. Its revenue has also doubled every quarter, according to Schoenholtz.

Its independent agents work for $25 an hour, plus bonuses and a commission split between Open Listings. There are currently 12 independent agents in the start-ups network.

The company is concentrating on assisting users with home buying, but in the future, it might add home selling to its offerings.

Sellers, too, are turning to real estate start-ups to help them save money.

Dallas-based Door launched last year. Instead of carving out a roughly 6% chunk of the sale price for commissions, it charges sellers a flat fee of $5,000 plus 2% to 3% of the purchase price for the buyers agent. Denver-based Trelora has a similar model, although it charges sellers $2,500.

SideDoor, meanwhile, earns its money from tangential real estate businesses like lenders, real estate lawyers and title companies that use SideDoor to find clients.

Sellers can come to the site and list for free. Buyers can use the site to schedule home showings. If they need a lender, title company or lawyer, we can put them in touch with one at the point they need it, SideDoor founder Shelley Janes said.

The companies appear to be doing well.

A real estate agent typically closes six transactions a year, but in just one month Open Listings agents close 12 transactions; Trelora agents wrap up about six transactions; and Door agents average three to five.

But there have been hurdles. According to Hunt, agents and brokerages will go out of their way not to show a Trelora home, or have lied about the condition or availability of Trelora homes.

Christian Redfearn, a real estate professor at USCs Sol Price School of Public Policy, said another issue is the high stakes involved in home buying.

I have access to all kinds of data, but Ive still got to talk to a human. I dont want to overpay for property. Given how large the investment is, if Im off by 5%, thats a huge amount of money, he said. A good broker would know the market well, and its hard to put that kind of quality on a website.

That kind of personalized hand-holding is one that Daisha Versaw, 38, missed when she used Trelora to sell her five-bedroom, two-bathroom home in Arvada, a suburb of Denver. The company saved her family more than $16,000, but it was hard on her nerves in some key moments.

Though Trelora agents were responsive when she had reached out, it was still up to her to ask for updates and to stay on top of things. When the resolution deadline drew near for inspections, for example, it was Versaw who informed her Trelora agent of its expiration. I hated that I was the one reminding him of the deadline.

Her advice to would-be buyers wanting to skip an agent: Be prepared to take more initiative and advocate for yourself.

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Battle against ASF to be raised at next NSDC meeting

The National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine will discuss fight against African Swine Fever (ASF) at its next meeting, Ukraine's Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry said on Thursday.

"I raised the issue. I think that at the nearest NSDC meeting the issue would be raised," Minister Taras Kutoviy said.

He said that steps to relax access of veterinaries to households and determine the compensation scheme for killed pigs to households could settle the situation with virus spreading.

"Priority measures include a ban on moving live pigs from one region to another, civilized slaughter techniques in slaughter houses and reducing pig slaughtering at households," the minister said.

As reported, ASF virus is spreading in Ukraine.

The ASF virus is the causative agent of ASF. The virus causes a hemorrhagic fever with high mortality rates in pigs, but persistently infects its natural hosts, warthogs, bush pigs and soft ticks of the Ornithodoros genus, without any visible symptoms. There is currently no vaccine against ASF.
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Robert Gadimian, a former executive at Los Angeles Puma Biotechnology, with making nearly $1.2 million by illegally trading on confidential information about an experimental breast cancer drug.

The agency said Thursday that Gadimian, who was Pumas senior director of regulatory affairs, pocketed the illicit profits by buying and selling the companys stock based on details he learned about two clinical trials of an experimental drug called neratinib.

According to the agencys complaint, Puma executives confronted Gadimian after learning about his stock trades and he admitted to doing them because of greed.

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We allege that Gadimian used valuable confidential information about his employers drug trials to trade illegally and enrich himself, said Antonia Chion, associate director in the SECs Division of Enforcement.

Also on Thursday, the U.S. attorneys office in Massachusetts announced criminal charges had been filed against Gadimian.

Gadimian purchased the stock before the results of a drug trial were announced in December 2013, and then again ahead of the announcement of a second trials results in July 2014.

Gadimium had agreed to cooperate in Pumas internal investigation into the trades. Yet he altered his trading records before giving them to the company, deleting certain trades and renumbering the pages to hide his changes, the complaint said. He was fired in October 2014.

Gadimian could not be immediately reached for comment.

melody.petersen@latimes.com

Twitter: @melodypetersen
Think of it as a game of chance or maybe the ultimate form of one-upsmanship. The prize? Hard-to-get reservations at the hottest restaurants in town.

To help play the latest version of this game, a growing series of apps and websites now allow diners to eschew the old rules of dining, in which you call the restaurant for a reservation, or just walk in unannounced and hope for the best.

If youre lucky, you can make a reservation with the push of a button, thanks to well-established companies such as San Francisco-based OpenTable, which was founded in 1998 and now seats about 20 million diners at 38,000 restaurants worldwide every month. But highly desirable tables and the demand for all things digital continue to inspire new services, some of which focus primarily on consumers and others that sell reservation and managements systems to restaurants.

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For corporate diners and business travelers the answer may be Table8, a San Francisco-based app and website that was founded in 2013. Members, who pay $95 a year, have access to last-minute, set-aside tables at peak times and access (or discounts) to Table8s list of culinary events. (Nonmembers can make reservations at generally available times for free.)

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For some diners, theres a certain cachet associated with that sort of access. When they take their clients into Bestia [a downtown L.A. favorite where reservations are always hard to come by] or another great restaurant ... they seem to be connected, says Table8 co-founder and former Twitter executive Santosh Jayaram.

Table8, he says, is currently in 13 cities, including Los Angeles, and plans to be in 16 by the end of the year. We currently have over 1,500 restaurants that we recommend across the U.S., a spokesperson explains, and we partner with over 200 of these restaurants to provide last-minute reservations, tickets to dining events and other Dining Club perks. (In Los Angeles recently , you could make Table8 reservations at, among others, the popular restaurants Alimento, Cassia and Republique.)

Diners can make reservations using the Resy app, which is based in New York and was launched in 2014. Ben Leventhal, a co-founder of both Resy and the food-news site Eater, says Resy provides the technology for restaurants to sell tickets and charge cancellation fees when they so desire and charges restaurants a monthly fee. More than 500 restaurants around the country have replaced OpenTable, or another system, with Resy, Leventhal adds, noting that in Los Angeles that includes Animal, n/naka and Gjelina, three restaurants with notoriously long waiting times for reservations.

Reserve, launched in 2014 and headquartered in New York, lets you make free reservations at more than 700 restaurants nationwide on the Reserve app or at Reserve.com  or the websites of partnering restaurants. (The list of L.A. restaurants includes Rustic Canyon, Lucques, Wolf and smoke.oil.salt.) The company recently launched Reserve for Restaurants, a table management system, which competes directly with OpenTable, according to a company spokesman. Both companies charge restaurants a monthly fee for access; OpenTable also charges a fee per diner, a source of unhappiness among many restaurateurs.

Velocity, which was founded in London in 2014, has positioned its app for a high-roller market. Users can make reservations for free; restaurants, in turn, pay a small transaction fee per booking. At some restaurants, you can use the V-Pay feature, which will automatically charge a credit card on file, allowing you to forgo the wait-for-the-check portion of the meal.

Velocity partners with more than 1,100 restaurants in five cities, including Los Angeles and London, and the company hopes to expand to about 30 more in the next three years.

See the most-read in Life & Style this hour >>

San Francisco-based Yelp got into the reservations business when it acquired SeatMe in 2013, and today you can make reservations at about 4,000 restaurants nationwide. The reservations are free, but participating restaurants pay a fee.

Lee Maen, one of the founding partners of the Innovative Dining Group  which includes the L.A.-area restaurants Roku, Sushi Roku, Katana, Robata Bar and Boa Steakhouse  says his organization uses Table8 and Velocity, among other services. We use OpenTable, he says. We have no choice. The masses love [it]. But, he adds: There are a lot of start-up [apps] and a lot of people hitting us up. We pick the ones we think have a good idea and will act as a testing platform for them.

Of course, just because you have a reservation doesnt mean youll show. Some restaurants now require a credit-card number and will charge a fee if you cancel. Others, including chef Curtis Stones Maude and Trois Mec, the lauded restaurant from chefs Ludo Lefebvre, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, have embraced the concept of ticketed reservations, which helps restaurants ease the pain of no-shows.

Last year, Stones tiny Beverly Hills restaurant switched to an online ticketing system called Tock, which requires that diners be on standby at 10 a.m. on the first of every month when tickets for the following month go on sale. At Trois Mec, which also uses Tock, tickets go on sale every other Friday at 10 a.m.

On the other hand, if this rush of apps and sites leaves you with a feeling of dizziness or unease, you can always pick up the phone, assuming someone will answer, or just show up. You might get lucky.

Here are nine of L.A.'s hardest reservations. We cant make any promises, but we can suggest a few strategies for anyone in search of their dream dinner.

Animal

Veal tongue, pickle, apple, salmon roe and black mustard from Animal. (Mariah Tauger / For the Times )

Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolos restaurant has been a tough reservation almost since it opened in 2008, for which, depending on your tastes, you can thank the Food Network or the New Yorker. If you try to reserve via the restaurants website, youll be booking through Resy, which lets you book about 10 days in advance. But you can also walk in and try for a seat at the bar. 435 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles. (323) 782-9225, www.animalrestaurant.com

Bestia

Bestia, chef-owner Ori Menashes downtown restaurant, has been a rough get from the start. If you reserve via the restaurant website, youll be connected to OpenTable, which is frequently a frustrating experience because the prime-time reservations always seem to be unavailable  even several weeks in advance. Table8 includes Bestia, but those tables are sometimes unavailable as well. Best strategies? Try for a table at 5:30 p.m. and call to check on cancellations  or walk in and hope for the best. 2121 E. 7th Place, Los Angeles. (213) 514-5724, bestiala.com.

Gjelina

Have you ever driven past Gjelina without spotting a line of customers outside waiting for a table? Travis Letts Venice restaurant is a hot spot with hot customers and a hot wait staff, so that line has been standard for most of the six years its been open. On the Gjelina website reservations are handled by Resy; Table8 also lists the restaurant. But those lines outside are an indication that dedicated walk-ins do get in, so maybe just get in line. 1429 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Los Angeles. (310) 450-1429. www.gjelina.com

Gwen

Curtis Stone and his brother Luke Stone opened Gwen  a restaurant and a butcher shop  in Hollywood this year, and its place on the hot list was assured from the outset. Like Maude, which Curtis opened in 2014, ticketed reservations go on sale on the first of the month for the following month, although, with 78 seats, you might have a better chance of reserving a table. Feeling lucky? Gwen absolutely accepts walk-ins, according to its website. 6600 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles. (323) 946-7500, www.gwenla.com.

Maude

Venison, Flaxseed, Mushroom, served at Maude restaurant. (Ricardo DeAratanha/Los Angeles Times )

Tickets for Stones 25-seat restaurant in Beverly Hills go on sale at 10 a.m. the first of every month for the following month  and most of them are purchased in a matter of minutes. If you dont get a prime-time slot, you might want to rethink your timing: It might be possible (but not necessarily probable) to snag two seats at the bar at, say, 5:30 p.m. 212 S. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills. (310) 859-3418, www.mauderestaurant.com

Norah

Norah is relatively new, hard to find and wildly popular. The website uses OpenTable and Table 8, and you can book up to two weeks in advance; plan ahead and you might get a prime-time table. You can also walk in, and eat your dinner at the bar. 8279 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. (323) 450-4211, www.norahrestaurant.com

n/naka

Many Angelenos who drive by this unobtrusive restaurant on Overland Avenue near Palms Boulevard have no idea it is one of the most highly sought-after reservations in Southern California. Each dish in chef Niki Nakayamas multicourse kaiseki meals is exquisite, which may be why there are no apparent openings between now and the end of the year. Reservations are made through Resy, which will allow you to use a notify feature, just in case someone changes their mind and cancels. Hopefuls are asked to type in their preferred start times. Then you pray. 3455 W. Overland Ave., Los Angeles. (310) 836-6252, n-naka.com

Republique

Republique, chef Walter Manzkes super bistro on La Brea Avenue, opens at 8 a.m. but takes reservations only for dinner. On the restaurants website, the reservations tab will take you to OpenTable, where you can book up to months in advance; the restaurant is also listed on Table8. If youre willing to dine at an early hour  the bar opens at 5:30 p.m.  you might succeed as a walk-in. 624 La Brea, Los Angeles. (310) 362-6115., republiquela.com

Trois Mec

Ticketed reservations for Trois Mec, the midcity French restaurant from Ludo Lefebvre, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, go on sale every other Friday at 10 a.m. If that doesnt work, check out the restaurants Facebook page or Twitter account: sometimes seats become available and are announced on social media. 716 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles. (323) 468-8915, www.troismec.com.
Last month, San Diego law enforcement agencies came together to write what they described as the nations first countywide policy on the release of video recordings showing police shootings.

Several high-profile shootings caught on video over the last few years have prompted the news media and community activists to demand the images be made public. Designed to deal with those pressures, San Diego Countys policy was an attempt to balance public transparency with the needs of investigators to collect interviews and evidence. It said video generally would be made public, but only after the District Attorneys office had completed its investigation.

But the pioneering guidelines are facing new scrutiny this week as San Diego County deals with a real-life test: The controversial killing of a black man by El Cajon police.

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The shooting was recorded by a bystander, who gave the video to investigators. But citing the policy, authorities have refused to release the tape, despite calls by both protesters and civil rights groups.

 El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis urged the public to let the investigation unfold before making any judgments about the shooting.

Instead, police provided a single still image from the video, showing the 38-year-old man, Alfred Olango, with his hands clasped together and raised toward an officer in what police described as a shooting stance. It was later disclosed that he was holding an electronic cigarette.

Authorities said it would be wrong to release the whole recording while detectives are still interviewing witnesses and gathering evidence. The video, they said, could influence what witnesses say and make it more difficult to get to the truth.

But others say the public anger over the shooting and the questions about whether the officers were justified in their actions make releasing the video now essential.

The public has the right to view the full video, not just the El Cajon Police Departments spin, Norma Chavez-Peterson of the American Civil Liberties Union said.

The country is begging for a video, added Rev. Shane Harris, leader of the San Diego chapter of the National Action Network,a civil rights organization.

The standoff underscores the struggles police departments across the country are facing with how to deal with videos of police officer conduct. Bystander videos of shootings and other police actions are becoming common, and many departments are in the process of equipping officers with body cameras to record their interactions with the public.

There is no standard policy for when  or if  those videos are released. Many police departments have said they dont intend to make public the body camera videos.

The public has the right to view the full video, not just the El Cajon Police Departments spin.  Norma Chavez-Peterson of the American Civil Liberties Union

But several high-profile police shootings this year have put new pressure on law enforcement to make videos public more quickly.

In Fresno this summer, the police shooting of an unarmed man sparked days of protests and many varied stories about what exactly happened. Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer took the unusual step of releasing the police dash-cam video to offer a clearer narrative of the shooting. The video in some ways backed up the police account of the shooting, and the protests faded.

Last week, Charlotte, N.C., authorities, after initially saying police video of the controversial fatal shooting of an African American man would not be released, reversed course. But the video didnt clearly show the shooting and was viewed by protesters as inconclusive.

Other jurisdictions are now following San Diego Countys lead and trying to develop their own shooting video release procedures, including the Los Angeles County district attorneys office.

San Diego Countys policy was developed after the 2015 shooting by San Diego police of Fridoon Nehad, an unarmed, mentally ill man whose death in a Midway District alley was captured on a security camera.

Police seized the video and refused to make it public, arguing that it would taint an internal affairs investigation as well as a civil suit filed by Nehads family. After a federal judge ruled that the video must be disclosed, the district attorneys office released it late December.

Earlier this year, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis released more than a dozen other videos related to various police shootings. In all cases, the D.A.s office determined the shootings were justified.The policy states that in general, police shooting videos will be released after the district attorneys investigation is complete. The rules, however, do provide some exceptions and also allow the images to be edited or blurred to deal with privacy concerns.

On Tuesday, El Cajon police were notified that Olango was acting erratically, walking in and out of traffic in the suburban citys downtown area. His sister told dispatchers the father of two was not acting like himself.

Officers spotted him in a parking lot behind a restaurant. Moments later, one officer fired shots and another deployed his Taser gun. Police have said the officers believed Olango was holding a weapon, which turned out to be the metal electronic cigarette.

When investigators got to the scene, they said a bystander handed them a phone with a recording of the shooting.

Tanya Sierra, a spokeswoman for the district attorneys office, said the video of Olango would be released as soon as we can. She added that officials decided to release the still image to stop some of the inaccurate narrative forming about the incident, such as that the subject of the shooting had his shirt off and his hands up when he was shot.

Dan Gilleon, an attorney for the Olango family, said the photo still omits the truth, which is that the officer who fired never felt threatened by Olango.

There is no way, he said. He wouldnt have been standing seven feet in front of him if he did.

Gilleon said neither he nor the family have seen the video and accused authorities of litigating the case in the media by choosing to cherry pick an image.

Ron Thomas, a former Orange County sheriffs deputy whose mentally ill son Kelly was killed by Fullerton police in 2011, said its possible the shooting was entirely justified. But the freeze-frame of the shooting doesnt prove that.

The photo the department released shows the young man in a shooting stance. Did he suddenly pull his hands out of his pockets and jump into a shooting stance or did he slowly pull out his hands and stand in that shooting stance for a while?

The difference, Thomas said, will determine whether officers acted appropriately.

MORE ON EL CAJON SHOOTING

Officer involved in fatal El Cajon police shooting was embroiled in sexual harassment lawsuit

These things happen in split seconds: El Cajon shooting reignites debate over how police deal with the mentally ill

El Cajon police say black man was holding vape smoking device in hand when officers fatally shot him
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge refused to grant a temporary restraining order Thursday prohibiting U.S. Rep. Janice Hahn from spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in improper campaign contributions in her bid for a seat on the county Board of Supervisors.

In an unusual move weeks before the general election, rival candidate Steve Napolitano sued Hahn last week, demanding that she pay back the funds. Napolitano also sought a restraining order blocking Hahn from spending any of the money due to be refunded, alleging that the county Registrar-Recorder had improperly extended Hahns deadline for repayment.

Hahns attorney, Stephen Kaufman, said in court that Hahn has already repaid $141,000 to political action committees that, according to the Registrar-Recorder, had contributed almost $290,000 above the cap set by the countys campaign finance rules. Court documents filed by Hahns campaign included an exhibit with 14 checks written mostly to labor unions with the words contribution refund printed at the bottom.

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The Registrar-Recorder has given Hahn until Oct. 19 to refund the contributions, as Hahn and Napolitano spar in a runoff for the 4th District supervisorial seat.

In denying the restraining order, Judge James C. Chalfant said there was no irreparable harm in the situation, and deferred to the Registrar-Recorders office for enforcement of the rules.

Chalfant also issued an order requiring Hahn to share all of her campaigns future correspondence with the Registrar-Recorders office with Napolitano, so that he could know whether Hahn has met the Registrar-Recorders refund deadline.

Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan said in an email to The Times that his office had affirmed on Sept. 19 that Hahn must repay the excess funds to avoid a penalty, beginning a 30-day countdown to the deadline.

Napolitano said in a phone interview that he viewed the outcome as a victory for his campaign.

We finally got her to acknowledge publicly that they violated campaign finance law, Napolitano said. Were fine with the court deferring to the county for enforcement.

In a statement, Hahn campaign consultant John Shallman called the judges decision a humiliating defeat for Napolitano, saying the candidate had wasted the courts time and taxpayer dollars.

Hahn might still have to pay back more than the $290,000 identified by the Registrar-Recorders office. The first notice of a violation was sent to the Hahn campaign on Aug. 10 and included only contributions disclosed through June 30.

Adam.Elmahrek@latimes.com

Twitter: @adamelmahrek
An initiative seeking a two-year ban on zoning changes that would allow for high-density construction around Los Angeles is heading to a popular vote after the City Council on Friday approved placing it on the March 7 ballot.

The unanimous decision on the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative came after months of heated debate, and as L.A. is experiencing a building boom.

Proponents of the measure say the planning process at City Hall is rigged by deep-pocketed developers, who use contributions and gifts to obtain building variances for so-called mega-developments that otherwise wouldnt be approved. They also argue that what they call spot-zoning  where changes to the citys general plan are made on a case-by-case basis  of multistory structures increases traffic congestion, reduces the quality of basic city services and allows building heights too tall for a neighborhoods character.

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Refusing this measure sends a clear signal: Who really runs this city, resident Susan Hunter said during a council committee hearing before the vote.

Members of the Coalition to Preserve L.A., which is backing the measure, also say they want a comprehensive update to the general plan.

Opponents, however, argue that the measure would drive up housing prices, making it harder for residents to find affordable shelter and worsening the citys homelessness problem. According to representatives of labor and business groups, the measure is being advocated by people with not-in-my-backyard attitudes.

Adam Murray, executive director of the Inner Law Center, called the initiative anti-growth and said it would exacerbate our affordable housing crisis in the city.

City Council President Herb Wesson acknowledged the emotional atmosphere of the debate during a committee hearing before the full council vote. Then he pointed out that supporters had gathered the signatures needed to put the measure on the ballot, and recommended that it be done.

Earlier this year, the council approved two residential towers  expected to rise as tall as 30 stories  adjacent to the Hollywood Palladium. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which is located in a nearby office tower and is backing the Coalition to Preserve L.A., has criticized the project as being too dense.

Adam.Elmahrek@latimes.com

@adamelmahrek
A Palmdale actor who portrayed one of the Power Rangers in the childrens television program denied killing his roommate with a sword at his arraignment on Friday.

Ricardo Medina, 37, pleaded not guilty to one count of murder in the slaying of his roommate, Josh Sutter, on Jan. 31, 2015. Hes due back in court Oct. 20 and faces up to 26 years to life in prison if convicted.

Medina allegedly stabbed Sutter multiple times with a sword at their Green Valley home.

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Minutes before the stabbing, Medina and Sutter argued over how Medinas girlfriend had parked her car, Lt. Victor Lewandowski of the Sheriffs Homicide Bureau told The Times after Medinas arrest.

Medina felt that Sutter had disrespected his girlfriend, Lewandowski said. Medina then his bedroom with his girlfriend when, prosecutors say, Sutter followed them and forced the door open.

Medina grabbed a sword that he kept near the door and stabbed Sutter multiple times in the abdomen, prosecutors said.

Medina called 911 and remained at the scene. He was arrested soon after, but the district attorneys office did not file charges until nearly a year later.

The agency asked the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department to continue investigating the killing, according to Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the district attorneys office.

Medina had claimed he stabbed Sutter in self-defense when he was first interviewed, Lewandowski said.

Aside from one-off appearances on CSI: Miami and ER, Medina was mostly known for portraying the Red Lion Wild Force Ranger in Power Rangers Wild Force from 2002 to 2003. He also played the villainous character Deker in Power Rangers Samurai in 2011 and 2012.

Joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.
Pasadena police and Los Angeles County sheriffs homicide investigators released late Friday night grainy security video and a 911 call from the family of a man who died after officers shocked him with a stun gun and restrained him at an apartment complex in northwest Pasadena.

Authorities have yet to identify the dead man, but relatives and neighbors said he was Reginald Thomas, a father of eight who was known to many as Junior.

Pasadena police received a call from a cellphone around 2 a.m. seeking help but could not locate the specific address, said Capt. Steve Katz. At 2:35 a.m., police received a second call from the cellphone with a report of a family disturbance.

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During the call, a brief struggle could be heard over the phone.

A male caller identified Thomas as his brother and said he had a knife and was holding it under his armpit, but had not threatened those in the apartment with it.

When the operator asked if Thomas had any mental conditions, the caller didnt know, but said that Thomas was on drugs.

Hes high, though. I can tell that, he said.

Later, the male caller added that Thomas was known to be violent.

When officers arrived at Orange Grove Gardens in the 200 block of East Orange Grove Boulevard, they found the man, along with a woman and two teenagers, inside the apartment. The officers saw him with a knife. He was at the door, Katz said.

When the man refused to cooperate with police, officers fired their Tasers at him twice, authorities said.

The man resisted, and they used physical force and restrained him, Katz said. As officers placed handcuffs on the man, they noticed he was in distress and immediately began life-saving measures, Katz said.

Grainy security footage showed the officers walking to the door, but the actual confrontation could not be clearly seen.

The Pasadena Fire Department received a call at 3 a.m. from police about a man not breathing, spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said.

When firefighters arrived, they determined it was a fatality, she said.

 Reginald Thomas, 36, was a father of eight children with another on the way.

The death of an African American man who relatives say suffered from mental illness quickly sparked discord in this predominantly minority, working-class community.

The mans body remained in the apartment complex until just after 3 p.m. Friday afternoon as detectives conducted their investigation, and as demonstrators gathered and shouted at police.

Obviously there are a lot of tensions here, Katz said.

As Katz spoke with reporters outside the gate of the low-income apartment complex, scores of protesters shouted, Killers! and swore at officers.

What is the name of the officer who killed Reginald? shouted Black Lives Matter demonstrator Jasmine Richards.

Six Pasadena Police Department officers were involved in the incident, Katz said. Pasadena officials said two officers were injured during the struggle. No details were provided on their condition.

A woman breaks down as a L.A. County Coronor van leaves a residence in Pasadena. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times )

Friday afternoon, Pasadena Police Chief Phillip Sanchez issued a statement to the community:

The loss of any life is always tragic and should be fully investigated. In that regard you have my commitment that all aspects of this incident will be reviewed, Sanchez said.

His department, he said, is cooperating fully with sheriffs investigators and the Los Angeles County district attorneys office, who will conduct independent investigations.

The Pasadena Police Department will also conduct an independent administrative Investigation to examine policies, tactics, training, equipment, and the officers state of mind, Sanchez added.

He cautioned that the investigations will take some time and asked for calm in our community and as difficult as it can be wait until the facts are examined.

Some 100 protesters continued to stand outside the Pasadena apartment complex for much of the day. Several of them blocked the eastbound lane of Orange Grove Boulevard, and one held a sign that read, Jr. Thomas life mattered.

Forrest Elder, Thomas brother-in-law, said the dead man had four children with my sister and has one on the way.

Elder said Thomas had four other children as well. They called him Daddy Daycare, he said.

Elder said there was no reason his brother-in-law should not be alive.

He called the police for help, and they treated him like a suspect, Elder said. They hogtied him.  I feel for the kids.  We need dads in our home.

Elder said that his brother-in-law was struggling with mental illness and that he had been in and out of homes with medication.

He said officers would have known of Thomas history, and violence wasnt needed. In his view, race was a prime factor.

A black man with a match gets shot, Elder said.

Shainie Lindsay, Thomas wife, told KTLA-TV that he was bipolar and that he called police that morning because he needed help.

They know he is on Social Security, she told the TV station. They know he is 5150. This is not the first run-in with him.

Fifty-one-fifty is a reference to the code for a psychiatric commitment.

In 2012, Pasadena officers fatally shot unarmed black college student Kendrec McDade after a false report of an armed robbery, sparking community protests and calls for greater oversight of police.

African Americans make up about 11% of the citys 140,000 residents.

A city-commissioned study early this year found that minorities, particularly in northwest Pasadena, reported feeling under siege from the Pasadena police. In contrast, those in more upscale areas reported no issues with policing.

Protesters took to the streets of Old Town Pasadena late Friday to express their concerns about the shooting.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

For breaking news in California, follow VeronicaRochaLA on Twitter.

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UPDATES:

8:06 a.m.: This story was updated with protest in Pasadena.

Oct. 1, 12:35 a.m.: This article was updated with video and 911 audio released by authorities.

4:50 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from the Pasadena police chief, information about a city study and details of a 2012 police shooting.

2:45 p.m.: This article was updated with additional information from investigators and actions by demonstrators.

12:35 p.m.: This article was updated throughout with comments from the investigators, demonstrators and relatives of the dead man.

10:30 a.m.: This article was updated with comments from the Pasadena Fire Department.

This article was originally published at 10:10 a.m., Sept. 30.
There were high hopes going into water year 2016.

To hear some forecasters and scientists tell it, El Nino was coming to save California. With a little luck and a lot of rain, the drought might finally recede in its fifth year  or at least loosen its grip on the state.

The weather phenomenon did show up, fueling some storms in Northern California. But it fell far short of the lofty expectations.

On Friday, water year 2016 ended with a whimper.

If you had to put a one-word descriptor on this water year, it would be dry, said Doug Carlson, a spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources.

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The [precipitation] indexes have been flat-lining since June, he said. If this was a body, it would be in cardiac arrest.

And if weather-watchers learned anything from the latest cycle, its not to guess about what might come next.

Anybody who tells you whats going to happen next year is a liar or delusional, said Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board. The best they can say is what the trends might be and what the odds might say.

Though the rain and snow that California got did help refill reservoirs and replenish groundwater basins, the precipitation also may have muddied the states drought messaging in ways that did harm to conservation efforts.

Experts track the states hydrology based on a calendar that begins on Oct. 1  when the rainy season begins  and ends on Sept. 30. Officials say water year 2015 was among the driest on record, so to some, 2016 may have left the impression of being a drought-buster.

Indeed, one highly cited index of eight weather stations in the northern Sierra Nevada shows the area got about 116% of normal precipitation during the last water year.

But officials are quick to point out that other indexes show about average rainfall in the San Joaquin Valley area and below average in the Tulare Basin.

Meanwhile, the states reservoirs  fed by the summer snow-melt  currently are at about 80% of their average storage.

According to water officials, warm temperatures melted a below-average snow pack earlier than usual. And since the water contained in Californias snow pack measured only about 85% of average this spring, the state actually had suffered a snow drought.

As of Friday, Lake Shasta had slightly more water in it than the historical average, but the San Luis Reservoir continued to hover near its lowest level in years. About 62% of the state remains in severe, extreme or exceptional drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Its more of a patchwork picture, Marcus said. Its still a drought  its just not that unprecedented, historic level.

Because the situation has eased somewhat, the water board relaxed mandatory conservation requirements across much of urban California during the 2016 water year.

For 12 months beginning in June 2015, each of the states more than 400 urban water suppliers was required to reduce usage by a certain percentage. But as more and more rain arrived, regulators lowered many of the savings targets. Eventually, the majority of suppliers were released from mandatory conservation altogether.

Californians have continued to save water under the eased restrictions, but at a lower rate than in the summer of 2015.

Regulators have warned that they could impose high water conservation levels again if California experiences another dry winter. And the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Climate Prediction Center has suggested that weak La Nina conditions  which correlate with those dry winters  could develop.

But officials need not look back far to be reminded that forecasts can be wrong.

Last year, Marcus said, people predicted wed get the Godzilla of El Ninos, and we got Mr. Stay Puft.

matt.stevens@latimes.com

Twitter: @ByMattStevens
A YouTube star who said he was brutally assaulted by three men in West Hollywood faces charges that he vandalized a car before filing a false police report about being attacked, authorities said Thursday.

Los Angeles County prosecutors allege that Calum McSwiggan, known by thousands of fans for his YouTube channel about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, damaged a car mirror and bumper June 27 in West Hollywood.

Prosecutors also allege that McSwiggan, 26, then contended he had been beaten by the vehicles driver and two other men and lied about the purported attack to sheriffs deputies.

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McSwiggan, a resident of London who was visiting Southern California, pleaded not guilty Monday to the felony vandalism charge as well as the misdemeanor false police report charge.

If convicted of both counts, he faces up to three years and six months in county jail.

The charges add to a saga that initially played out in dramatic fashion on McSwiggans social media accounts.

McSwiggan wrote in an Instagram post that after visiting a gay club this summer in West Hollywood, three men attacked him, injuring his forehead and breaking three of his teeth. He faulted authorities for not protecting him and for treating him like a second-class citizen.

Ive never felt so terrified to be a gay man in the public eye, he wrote in a post, which showed him in a hospital.

But McSwiggans allegations prompted a swift response by the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, which took the rare steps of issuing a public statement and his booking photo to counter his allegations.

The Sheriffs Department confirmed that deputies responded to a reported assault but that investigators were unable to substantiate the assault, according to a statement. McSwiggan was then arrested on suspicion of vandalism of a car along Santa Monica Boulevard near Robertson Boulevard, in the heart of the citys LGBT nightlife district, authorities said.

Before being placed in his jail cell, deputies had McSwiggan stand for a booking photo, which appears to show no obvious injuries.

Sheriffs officials said McSwiggan was seen injuring himself with a payphone inside his jail cell. He was later taken to a hospital for treatment.

After being released from custody, he recounted in a Facebook post being punched and kicked but also acknowledged damaging a car.

In a moment of devastation, anger and blind rage, I kicked the wing mirror of the attackers car until it broke and then ripped it off with my hands, McSwiggan wrote.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Nov. 7.

matt.hamilton@latimes.com

Twitter: @MattHjourno.

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The projected volume of grain exports in 2016/17 agricultural year (July-June) could total over 40 million tonnes, Ukrainian Agricultural Policy and Food Minister Taras Kutoviy said after signing a supplement to the memorandum of understanding with grain traders in Kyiv on Friday.

"According to forecasts, exports would exceed 40 million tonnes. This is the highest figure in the history of independent Ukraine," the minister said.

Kutoviy said that the ratio between bread wheat and non-bread wheat exported will be 60% and 40% respectively. The wheat exports forecast is 16.5 million tonnes, including 10.1 million tonnes of bread wheat and 6.4 million tonnes of non-bread wheat.

"As for barley exports, it could be 5.6 million tonnes. For rye we formally set 1,000 tonnes not to fully ban it," the minister added.

Kutoviy said that as of September 30, around 10 million tonnes of new harvest grain had been exported. This is 500,000 tonnes more than a year ago. In August over 4 million tonnes was exported. This is a record-hitting figure compared to the previous years.
Former California Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas, who steered the states top court in a conservative direction after voters ousted the liberal Rose Bird, has died. He was 89.

Lucas died Wednesday at his Beverly Hills home after being diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, according to a spokesman for the California Supreme Court.

The jurist served on the state high court for 12 years, the last nine as chief justice. He replaced Bird as chief after she and two other justices appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown lost a 1978 statewide retention election.

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Their opposition, including then-Gov. George Deukmejian, portrayed the three as hostile to the death penalty.

Lucas vowed to heal the wounds when Deukmejian elevated him to the top spot after Birds defeat. Legal analysts later credited Lucas with restoring order and cordiality to the court, which had been racked by internal feuding and division.

Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas was a man of great dignity and grace, said current Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye. He came to the court during a time of upheaval in the judicial branch, and he brought stability, peace, and leadership to the court.

Under Lucas leadership, the court shifted strongly to the right. Whereas the Bird Court generally ruled in favor of consumers, labor and criminal defendants, the Lucas era was marked by victories for corporations, insurance companies and prosecutors.

The biggest turnaround was on the death penalty. A new conservative majority under Lucas upheld death sentences at a higher rate than any state high court in the country.

Tall and reserved, with a shock of silver hair and a deep voice, Lucas looked as though he had been picked for the job by Central Casting. He was a prodigious writer of rulings, many of them relatively short and most of them straightforward and to the point.

Lucas tried to ease tensions on the court when he became chief by being approachable to the other judges. He wandered the hallways and stopped in the offices of his colleagues to chat.

Bird, by contrast, had been viewed as a remote and distant administrator who kept her chamber doors shut and required other justices to make an appointment to speak to her.

But Lucas tenure was marred by allegations of unethical conduct after he accepted trips paid for by groups that had business before the court. The Commission on Judicial Performance cleared him of any wrongdoing, but the Legislature later passed a law limiting the kinds of gifts and travel a judge could accept.

Lucas also angered the Legislature by authoring a decision that upheld a voter initiative limiting the terms of legislators and state officials and cutting the Legislatures budget by 38%.

A key legislative committee later retaliated by chopping the courts budget by the same amount, though the final budget reflected a much smaller cutback.

Lucas and Deukmejian were law partners when Deukmejian was a state legislator.

Gov. Ronald Reagan appointed Lucas to the Los Angeles Superior Court in 1967, and President Nixon selected him three years later for a life term on the federal district bench.

Lucas served there until Deukmejian, by then governor, appointed him in 1984 to the California Supreme Court. After retiring from the court in 1996, Lucas worked as a private judge.

Lucas brought a steady hand to the stewardship of the California Supreme Court and our states vast judicial system, said former Chief Justice Ronald M. George, who succeeded Lucas. His wise counsel and collegial approach to the resolution of legal and administrative issues set an excellent example for me and for other judges.

Lucas was credited with pushing through administrative reforms in the high courts internal operations that streamlined decision-making.

As head of the state judiciary, Lucas oversaw the creation of committees on gender, race and ethnic fairness in the courts, and in 1992 helped develop the first strategic plan for the judicial branch. He also helped create the California Supreme Court Historical Society.

Lucas, born April 19, 1927, graduated from USC in 1950 and USCs law school in 1953.

He is survived by his wife, Fiorenza Courtright Lucas, two children and six stepchildren. Information on funeral services was not available.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

Twitter: @mauradolan
If there was any question whether the immigration debate is still raging in the heartland, it was probably settled the moment that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach demanded the birth certificate of a 90-year-old World War II pilot.

On a stiflingly humid September day in central Kansas, Kobach pushed through the courtroom door, head bowed, a storm cloud on his face. His ever-present red tie, front-swept hair and 2-inch sideburns framed an even jawline. He is a secretary of state here, a man who has authored some of the most stringent immigration legislation in the country  often traveling the nation to argue his own cases  and has cleared a viable path to the governors mansion.

Behind a lectern facing the judge, an ACLU attorney finished her initial fusillade of oral arguments with a comment directed at Kobach.

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He has to use such convoluted reasoning, said Sophia Lin Larkin, representing a class of voters who the ACLU argued was being treated as second-class citizens in Kobachs voting system. This is simply another variation of his mistaken understanding in this case.

Kobachs understanding of the voting-rights case is an extension of his philosophy on rights accorded to any American: They are conditional offers that only apply to those who can prove their citizenship.

Kobach then turned his attention to Melvin L. Brown, a plaintiff in the ACLU case, which accused Kobach of discriminating against voters who registered without showing proof of citizenship, part of a 2013 law he wrote.

A nonagenarian whose family first began to work the land in Kansas in 1850, Brown fought in World War II nearly a century later. When he registered to vote, he did not provide proof of his citizenship, making him one of 17,000 voters in Kansas who had been added to a suspense list, preventing them from voting in state and local elections until they could prove they are citizens.

Kobach said he was waiting to see anything from Brown and his wife, JoAnn, to establish that they even had standing to sue the state.

We dont actually have any evidence before the court. Do they have the birth certificates in their possession? Kobach asked. Just because he fought in a war doesnt make him a citizen.

In court, Kobach speaks in a rapid staccato, racing through the minutiae so quickly that a court reporter must ask him, twice, to stop and start over. When addressing the points he wants to emphasize, he has a professors manner of enunciating quotes and slow-rolling through the material that will probably be on the test.

He is also brash. At one point, Larkin objected to one of his questions. Such an objection usually stops a proceeding cold while the judge decides whether the objection has merit. Instead, Kobach turned to the witness and said, You can answer.

Sunset at the U.S.-Mexico border in Naco, Ariz., where a Border Patrol agents in his car keeps on activity. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times )

You generally stop when theres an objection so I can rule on it, Hendricks said in an admonishment from the bench.

Kobach soared to national attention for his forceful presence in the courtroom, arguing with other attorneys under the sallow light of fluorescent bulbs, far from the colorful roar of political rallies where his legislation is embraced.

Kobach, 50, joined the U.S. Department of Justice under former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft in 2001. Two years later, he returned to his position as a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City when he began to write bills for other states.

An Arizona state senator came to him looking for wording on immigration legislation. Legislators in Alabama did the same. Mitt Romney adopted his policy of asking migrants in the country illegally to self-deport from Kobach, and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump brings him to anti-immigration rallies in Texas and the Midwest.

On his desk is an onyx rectangle inscribed with gold lettering: May the bridges I burn light the way. When arguments in the outside world get tetchy, his wife, Heather, must sometimes remind him, Youre not in court.

Yet even as he battles full-steam in the courthouse, much of the legislation he wrote or inspired has been systematically declawed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the court, and polls show the nation has grown more accommodating of immigration and tolerant of those here illegally.

Kobachs most controversial piece of legislation, Arizonas SB 1070, suffered a resounding setback recently when Arizonas attorney general settled with groups suing the state for $1.4 million in attorneys fees and a pledge to forbid all police officers from prolonging traffic stops to check for immigration status.

Immigration checks during traffic stops was the signature piece of legislation left over from the halcyon days of the strong-borders movement, when a host of states, both far and near the Mexican border, began proposing, and sometimes passing, stringent immigration laws, many of them written by Kobach.

And despite his swagger in the courtroom, Kobach has now announced a settlement in the ACLU case, a deal that will allow voters on the suspense list  including the World War II vet  to vote in the November election.

Still, some of Kobachs handiwork remains intact, such as an ordinance in tiny Fremont, Neb., that bans renting to those in the country illegally. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, and the ordinance was upheld.

Looking back at his intentions in 2010 and 2011, his first year in office, he said he is content with what has been accomplished, and believes he and others have forestalled a further loosening of immigration laws.

Kobach is not deterred by a changing nation, and in fact feels that a shift in direction is coming.

People are coming to understand the rule of law, Kobach said.

He is also convinced that simply fighting the pro-immigrant stance of the Obama administration to a draw is itself a victory, particularly initiatives to defer the deportation of early childhood arrivals to the U.S. and their parents. Kobach represented 10 Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents who sued the Obama administration over the deferments.

A popular refrain shared by immigration opponents and advocates is that the immigration system itself is in collapse and must be overhauled to match the needs of a global economy. Kobach, though, is tired of hearing the same line.

They say, The system is broken, the system is broken,  Kobach said. The system is fine. The laws as written will work. But we have to enforce them.

Kobach urges his critics not to confuse his zealotry for the rule of law with racism. The U.S. that he envisions is still a country that opens its arms to the world, he said.

Give us your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We simply ask that they come through a port of entry and follow our laws.

Follow Nigel Duara on Twitter: @nigelduara
Trump urges mostly white crowd in suburban Detroit to stand guard for election fraud

Donald Trump has been trying to counter accusations that he is racist by casting himself as a defender of minorities.

But at a rally in the Detroit suburbs Friday, he urged the mostly white crowd to travel to monitor other polling places on election day -- a plea that civil rights groups say is code for preventing blacks from voting.

Make sure its on the up and up, the Republican presidential nominee told thousands of supporters gathered at an expo center.

In court cases around the country, civil rights groups are arguing that Republicans are using bogus allegations of vote fraud to suppress the black vote on Nov. 8. Trump is least popular in urban centers such as Detroit, which is predominantly black.

Make sure its on the up and up, because, you know what? Thats a big, big problem in this country, and nobody wants to talk about it; nobody has the guts to talk about it, he said at the rally.

If Trumps supporters follow through on his request, legitimate voters could be blocked from the polls, voting rights groups have warned. Intimidation tactics at the polls were a hallmark of the Jim Crow era.

Its not the first time Trump has raised the specter of poll monitoring.

Last month, he told a largely white crowd in rural Altoona, Pa., that he was hiring a lot of law enforcement people as poll sentinels in Pennsylvania. He said they would go down to certain areas and watch and study and make sure other people dont come in and vote five times.

Whats changed since then is that Trump has started selling himself as a champion of minorities.

At the Michigan rally, he said his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, had been a disaster for African Americans. Theyre too smart, and they know they are being used, he said.

He also made this plea: To the African American community, let me ask this question: Are you better off than you were eight years ago? If not, why not give Donald Trump a chance?
When the first colonists arrived in the New World, cats disembarked with them. Felines already had followed humans along the Silk Road out of the Middle East to Asia and Europe. Thanks to us, their two-legged transporters (and their natural fecundity), outdoor domestic cats are now one of the most widespread invasive species on the planet.

Which is why its peoples responsibility to minimize cats impact on the landscape  by keeping them indoors or on a leash, by putting cats that cant be adopted in sanctuaries and as a last resort by euthanizing them.

Today Americans own about 90 million pet cats. Some never leave the safe confines of their home. But many cat owners hardly think twice about opening a door to let their cat outside, despite the dangers: cars, coyotes and diseases carried by some of the 60 million to 100 million unowned and unvaccinated cats.

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Cats roaming outside are devastating to wildlife, particularly birds. A study one of us (Marra) published in 2013 in the journal Nature Communications reported that cats annually kill a minimum of 1.3 billion birds just in the United States, with 69% of those by unowned cats. Equally alarming: More than 6.3 billion mammals, 95 million amphibians and 258 million reptiles are killed every year by outdoor cats. Worldwide, cats have contributed to 33 extinctions and have caused the decline of 142 other species of reptiles, birds and mammals.

Through much of the 20th century, people in North America and Europe routinely let their dogs roam freely about their neighborhoods and adjoining woods.

This is nothing short of a crisis. Whats maddening, however, is that unlike other environmental threats that seem insurmountable  including climate change and habitat loss  free-ranging cats are a problem we can reverse.

And theres a precedent for taking action: dogs.

Through much of the 20th century, people in North America and Europe routinely let their dogs roam freely about their neighborhoods and adjoining woods. Unowned stray dogs were equally common. But in cities along the Eastern Seaboard, packs of dogs became a problem. Roaming dogs bit people, some carried rabies. Dogs themselves were being hit by cars. So lawmakers began to mandate dog licenses and vaccinations and made it illegal for dogs to roam free.

More crucially, this led to a change in attitude about how people cared for and took responsibility for their dogs. Dogs were walked on a leash or kept within fenced yards. Animal control officers began removing unowned animals from the streets. Dogs that were unhealthy or that could not be placed in a caring home were euthanized  an unfortunate outcome but one that many animal ethicists would insist is more humane than allowing a dog to starve, die of disease or be hit by a car.

We need to similarly shift our thinking about cats. To fail to do so is unfair to a species that is dependent on humans, unfair to wildlife and even unfair to fellow citizens. Cats are the primary carrier of the parasite that causes toxoplasmosis, which can be transmitted to livestock and humans. Up to 20% of Americans are believed to be infected.

To begin, we need to end pet abandonment. Taking a cat to an animal shelter should not carry more shame than leaving it on the streets. It would certainly help to better fund animal control facilities, which too often are viewed as grim, unhappy places.

Cat owners should be required to spay/neuter and microchip their pets and keep them indoors, leashed, or in an enclosure (a so-called catio.) Owners should be fined if their cats are picked up roaming more than once. If unowned cats are unadoptable, they need to be kept in an enclosed facility. Euthanasia must also be carefully considered. Removing cats from the landscape is especially crucial in areas where threatened or endangered species reside: in Hawaii, coastal areas where migratory birds nest or rest, and national wildlife refuges and other public lands.

We also need to discontinue the practice of trap, neuter and release for unowned cats. (Let the Internet comment barrage begin.) Credible scientific studies demonstrate that it is ineffective at reducing unowned outdoor cat populations. Further, its inhumane. When a cat is put back into the wild, it is abandoned by people once again, vulnerable to the hazards of its environment. Estimates suggest that 50% to 75% of kittens born outdoors do not survive to adulthood. Those that do have a significantly shorter life expectancy than indoor cats.

Removing free-roaming cats from the landscape wont happen overnight  there are just too many. Where colonies of unowned cats remain, they need to be managed and monitored to make sure theres no impact on wildlife or disease spreading and that the colony is indeed shrinking.

People seem to perceive cats as part wild, and thus able to get along on their own, but cats need human care. At the same time, the native animals they ineluctably prey upon also need our help. We need to take responsibility for cats the same way we have dogs.

Peter P. Marra is a conservation scientist and Chris Santella is the author the Fifty Places travel and outdoor series. They are coauthors of Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer.

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Seventy years ago this weekend, an international military tribunal here rendered judgment against 22 senior Nazi defendants for the most systematic global assault on national sovereignty and civilians in the history of humankind.

Courtroom 600 in the Palace of Justice seized the worlds attention with the tribunals bold scrutiny of military, political, media and business leaders who never imagined  until far too late  that they would stand trial for the crimes of the Nazi era.

The four victorious powers  the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and France  held the upper hand and refused to empower the military tribunal to scrutinize their own conduct during World War II, such as the fire-bombing of Dresden and Hamburg and the Soviets role in the Katyn Forest massacre. But the defendants were granted a credible level of due process before reasoned guilty verdicts were delivered against 19 of them.

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The convention against genocide stemmed from Nuremberg, where the Holocaust of the European Jews was prosecuted as a crime against humanity.

Defeated Germans criticized the Nuremberg trial as a biased demolition of Nazi leaders for ex post facto violations of laws that defense counsel claimed had never governed warfare. There was something to their argument: Prosecutors more or less gambled on the legality of some of their charges. Of course most people today think that was a good thing and credit the trials with creating a framework for international justice still in use today. Even the convention against genocide stemmed from Nuremberg, where the Holocaust of the European Jews was prosecuted as a crime against humanity.

During the Cold War, the Nuremberg precedent occupied dusty law library shelves as superpowers fought proxy wars and showed no interest in holding war criminals accountable  they were too useful. The Korean War, Cultural Revolution, Vietnam War, Indonesian massacres, Cambodian atrocities and Latin American tortures and disappearances largely escaped judicial scrutiny until, in some cases, many years later.

Yet, over the last two decades the international community established six major war crimes tribunals to defeat the presumption of impunity that was center stage at Nuremberg. The Yugoslav conflict of the early 1990s altered the equation and reintroduced the Nuremberg principles in the middle of a war that seemed without end. The U.N. Security Council found the will to begin holding the warring parties accountable before the fighting ended with the Dayton Accords in late 1995.

After the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, there followed the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (genocide of 1994), the Special Court for Sierra Leone (civil war of the 1990s), the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (Pol Pot regime of the late 1970s), the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005), and the permanent International Criminal Court (supported by 124 member states and litigating 10 atrocity situations).

Each of these modern tribunals owed an enormous debt to Nuremberg; indeed, the drafters of the modern tribunal statutes looked first to Nuremberg for guidance in their work at crafting judicial accountability for atrocity crimes.

The six tribunals have convicted about 160 defendants since 1994. They include top Pol Pot aides Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic and colleagues Momcilo Krajisnik and Gen. Radislav Krstic in Bosnia, former Prime Minister Jean Kambanda and Gen. Theoneste Bagosora in Rwanda, former Liberian President Charles Taylor and Congolese leader Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo. Special tribunals also emerged in East Timor, Kosovo and recently Senegal, where former Chad President Hissene Habre was convicted of crimes against humanity.

Thanks to Nuremberg and its successor trials, policymakers can no longer safely assume that they will escape international justice by claiming a legal or political right to impunity. The jurisdictional reach of the tribunals grows each year. Many leaders will physically evade the courtroom but they still risk indictment, accelerating their political downfall. Slobodan Milosevic, Moammar Kadafi and Charles Taylor learned that lesson.

This knowledge, unfortunately, doesnt seem to act as a fully reliable deterrent. The massive assaults on civilians and persistent illegal warfare devastating Syria, Iraq, Darfur, Yemen, South Sudan, Ukraine and other societies remind us that the Nuremberg legacy is cold comfort when faced with the reality of leaders who disdain international law.

While judicial intervention is essential to punish war criminals, the tougher assignment is to prevent atrocity crimes from occurring in the first place. Smart diplomacy succeeds only sometimes.

Nuremberg established seven decades ago that aggression and atrocities against civilians were not just immoral, they were illegal; but not even Nuremberg extinguished the need to act decisively, in real time, and with military force, when countless innocent lives are in peril.

David Scheffer, a law professor at Northwestern University, was the first U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues (1997-2001). He is the author of All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals.

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The classic example of chutzpah is the boy who kills his parents and then pleads for mercy at his trial because hes an orphan. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has come close with his suggestion that President Obama is to blame for problems with an ill-considered bill that the president vehemently opposed only to see his veto overridden by Congress.

This week, after both houses had overridden Obamas veto of legislation that would allow 9/11 victims to sue the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in U.S. courts  assuming responsibility could ever be established  McConnell acknowledged that the law might have unintended ramifications. (McConnell voted for the override.)

But then McConnell shifted the blame, saying that he had told Obama that this was an example of an issue that we should have talked about much earlier.

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Speaker of the House Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) agreed that the legislation, which was approved in a bipartisan stampede, might have to be amended to protect U.S. service members from tit-for-tat lawsuits in other countries.

The problem is that the administration did warn Congress that the bill, which extended beyond the scenario of a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, might lead to reprisals by other nations against Americans.

This is from the statement Obama issued on Sept. 23 when he vetoed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA:

JASTA would upset longstanding international principles regarding sovereign immunity, putting in place rules that, if applied globally, could have serious implications for U.S. national interests. The United States has a larger international presence, by far, than any other country, and sovereign immunity principles protect our nation and its Armed Forces, officials, and assistance professionals, from foreign court proceedings. These principles also protect U.S. Government assets from attempted seizure by private litigants abroad. Removing sovereign immunity in U.S. courts from foreign governments that are not designated as state sponsors of terrorism, based solely on allegations that such foreign governments actions abroad had a connection to terrorism-related injuries on U.S. soil, threatens to undermine these longstanding principles that protect the United States, our forces, and our personnel.

And its not as if these arguments were new. The objections to the legislation were familiar as long ago as April, when the Los Angeles Times editorialized against the legislation.

By pretending not to have been fully informed about problems with the legislation they have just enacted over a presidential veto, members of Congress may think they can have their cake and eat it too. They get to cast not one but two popular votes  who wants to disappoint the families of 9/11 victims?  and then quietly amend the legislation to make it less likely to provoke retaliation by foreign countries, perhaps by making it easier for the attorney general to obtain a stay of proceedings in federal court against a foreign country.

And if anyone asks why a redo was necessary, why, just blame Obama!

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Voters in Santa Clarita and Palmdale will soon be greeted at their doors by an army of political canvassers funded by a six-figure check from a so-called dark-money group tied to the Republican party.

The expenditure marks a new phase in what is proving to be one of Californias most contested congressional fights, pitting GOP Congressman Steve Knight against Democratic lawyer Bryan Caforio.

The American Action Network, a nonprofit group that does not disclose its donors, made a $326,250 independent expenditure to a Wyoming corporation to pay for canvassers opposing Caforio, who national Democrats hope can help them win a majority in the House in November. The only other outside spending in the race has been a relatively meager $89,000 by Democratic groups in support of Caforio.

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Knight came in first place during the June primary with 48.5% of the vote while Caforio took 29% of the vote and Democrat Lou Vince was eliminated with a third-place showing of 15.4%.

Political handicappers and Democratic party strategists believe the once solidly Republican district that covers Antelope Valley, Santa Clarita and Simi Valley  home to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library  is within striking distance now that the two parties are virtually tied among the number of registered voters in the district.

About a fifth of voters in the district have no party preference, according to the California secretary of state. Noting the shift and the potential damage that Donald Trumps candidacy could have on down-ballot Republicans, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report called Knight the most vulnerable incumbent in California.

The outside money is a sign the Republican party is putting a serious effort into keeping the seat in party hands. The American Action Network calls itself a sister organization to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC with a self-described mission of strengthening the Republican Majority in Congress.

Former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, once floated as a potential head of the Republican National Committee, is the chairman of both groups, which are making good on a promise in August to spend $10 million in House races to protect endangered Republicans and try to win seats.

Our historically strong fundraising has put us in a position to not only protect Republicans in tough races, but also to take the fight to Democrats on their turf, said Mike Shields, who serves as the president of both groups.

The nonprofit also spent $326,250 on canvassing against Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, who represents the Sacramento suburb of Elk Grove and is locked in a contentious election battle with Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones.

So far not much is known about when or where the canvassers will appear or what they will be doing.

Matt Rexroad, Knights political consultant, said the campaign, which by law cannot coordinate with outside groups, has not gotten reports from its volunteers about any canvassers hitting the streets.

We have seen nothing tangible yet, he said Wednesday.

Records indicate the nonprofit is calling upon a group with experience helping protect Republicans in House, Senate and presidential races.

The expenditures in the Los Angeles and Sacramento-area races both went toward hiring the September Group, a firm with a mailing address in Cheyenne, Wyo., to run the canvassing programs.

The group most recently received $225,000 from a super PAC backing then-Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz to pay for telephone and door-to-door efforts in Utah, Arizona and New York during their primaries, according to records with the Federal Election Commission.

Republican operative Neal Blair, whose name is on the companys annual report filed with the Wyoming secretary of state, is also listed as an executive of a firm called September Inc. that public records show was paid by former Republican Sen. Robert F. Bennett of Utah when he lost a 2010 primary battle to a tea party-backed challenger.

The group also ran a robocall campaign for Utah Congresswoman Mia Loves 2014 campaign when she flipped a blue seat red, according to federal records.

An ad placed on Craigslist this month asking for political canvassers to work on behalf of Republican congressional candidates in the Santa Clarita and Palmdale areas promises $16 per hour for up to 40 hours per week. Once a worker hits 40 hours each week, the ad promises, there is a $1 bonus for each hour worked and all hours over 40 hours per week are paid at a rate of $18 per hour, according to the post.

We also reimburse $30 per month for data usage on your phone, the ad reads.

Alex Nickle, who is listed as operations director on the September Groups website, said he could not comment on the current campaign. Knights campaign said it did not post the ad.

In a comedic twist, the ad uses a photo of Rachel Eve Stein, a supporter of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders from Brooklyn who wrote a blog post titled: Walk the Vote: 7 Reasons You Should Try Canvassing if You Like Politics, Fitness or Cool First Dates.

Updates on California politics 

Caforio campaign manager Orrin Evans criticized the outside spending.

We are seeing the unfortunate consequences of a rigged system in Washington which allows unlimited corporate spending to corrupt our democracy, he said in a statement. While Bryan Caforio advocates for greater financial disclosure and limits to campaign spending, Steve Knight is dependent on unregulated special interests to try and save his floundering campaign.

Outside Democratic groups are also getting involved in the race, but on a much smaller scale  so far.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the House Majority PAC, a Democratic Super PAC that counts liberal mega-donors and unions as primary funders, has spent just $18,569 on mailers to support Caforio and $70,945 on mail opposing Knight.

Caforio has spent much of the campaign on the offensive. He has focused much of his campaign on painting Knight as too extreme for the district, attempting to tie the congressman to Trump and criticizing him for his slow response to the Aliso Canyon gas leak last winter that affected a small corner of the sprawling district.

One of Caforios television ads attacks Knight for his staunch opposition to abortion. The campaign has also kept comments Knight made in a May debate calling Social Security a bad idea in circulation via mailers.

It is unclear if that will be enough for Caforio to win the seat. The attorney has been criticized for moving into the district just shortly before announcing his candidacy last December.

On Thursday, Vince, the Democrat Caforio defeated in the primary, said he was voting for Knight in part because Caforio isnt a member of this community and certainly doesnt reflect the values of our district.

Times researcher Scott Wilson and staff writer Ben Welsh contributed to this report.

javier.panzar@latimes.com

Twitter: jpanzar

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Israeli policemen to help maintain order at Rosh Hashanah festivities in Ukraine's Uman

Fifteen Israeli police officers will help Ukrainian law enforcement agencies maintain public security during celebrations of the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah, in the city of Uman in Ukraine's Cherkasy region, the Ukrainian National Police department for the Cherkasy region said.

The Israeli policemen arrived in Uman on Thursday, it said.

Alongside Ukrainian law enforcement personnel, the Israeli policemen will serve in places where Hasidic pilgrims are staying in small communities. The policemen are already en route to their places of service.

Israeli police spokesman Michael Zingerman, who also arrived in Ukraine within the group, said that the main task of every police officer was to protect the interests of foreigners and local residents, as well as timely detect and prevent offences.

It was reported that around 30,000 pilgrims from a large number of countries are expected to arrive in Uman to attend celebrations of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish Year 5777) from September 27 to October 6.

Policemen from the Vinnytsia and Chernivtsi regions and Dnipro have already come to the city to help local law enforcement agencies.

A total of 450 policemen will maintain public order during the festivities, the Cherkasy regional police said.
In a presidential election season dominated by talk of birth certificates, tax returns and email servers, science has rarely made headlines. But that doesnt mean its irrelevant. On the contrary, policy decisions made by the next president will influence the future of the planet and all its inhabitants for years to come.

Thats why ScienceDebate.org  an effort supported by dozens of organizations, including the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Sciences and the Union of Concerned Scientists  asked the candidates to share their views on some overlooked issues. In their responses, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump explained their goals for space exploration, their plans to address climate change, and how they would prioritize investments in scientific research, among many other topics.

Excerpts are printed below. The candidates complete replies, along with those of Libertarian Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green Party, are online at sciencedebate.org/20answers.

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What are your science and engineering research priorities and how will you balance short-term versus long-term funding?

A researcher feeds stem cells in a laboratory at the University of Connecticut. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images )

Clinton: The United States is under-investing in research. Federal funding of basic research amounts to less than 1% of annual federal spending, yet it is an investment that pays big dividends. I believe it is essential that we strengthen our research capacity by funding talented young investigators, looking for ways to prioritize high-risk, high-reward projects that have the potential to transform entire fields, and enhancing partnerships between government, universities and the private sector.

Trump: The premise of this question is exactly correct  scientific advances do require long-term investment. This is why we must have programs such as a viable space program that serve as incubators to innovation and the advancement of science and engineering in a number of fields. We should also bring together stakeholders and examine what the priorities ought to be for the nation.

What should Americas national goals be for space exploration and earth observation from space, and what steps would your administration take to achieve them?

A NASA astronaut installs international docking adapters on the International Space Station. (NASA / AFP/Getty Images )

Clinton: President Kennedys challenge in 1962 to go to the moon within a decade electrified the nation, prompted a long period of American leadership in science and technology, and spurred a generation of innovators.

We must maintain our nations leadership in space with a program that balances science, technology and exploration; protect our security and the future of the planet through international collaboration and Earth systems monitoring; expand our robotic presence in the solar system; and maximize the impact of our R&D and other space program investments by promoting stronger coordination across federal agencies and cooperation with industry.

As a young girl, I was so inspired by Americas leadership and accomplishments in space that I wrote to NASA about becoming an astronaut. As president, I will help inspire the next generation of young Americans and do what I can to ensure that we have the worlds most exciting and advanced space program.

Trump: Space exploration has given so much to America, including tremendous pride in our scientific and engineering prowess. A strong space program will encourage our children to seek STEM educational outcomes and will bring millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in investment to this country. Observation from space and exploring beyond our own space neighborhood should be priorities. We should also seek global partners, because space is not the sole property of America. All humankind benefits from reaching into the stars.

What are your views on climate change, and how would your administration act on those views?

Helheim Glacier is one of several major glaciers in Greenland that has accelerated recently, contributing to the melt of the ice sheet and a rise in the sea level. (Karl Ritter / Associated Press )

Clinton: The science is crystal clear. Climate change is an urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time, and its impacts are already being felt at home and around the world. I will set three goals that we will achieve within 10 years of taking office and which will make America the clean energy superpower of the 21st century:

 Generate half of our electricity from clean sources, with half a billion solar panels installed by the end of my first term.

 Cut energy waste in American homes, schools, hospitals and offices by a third and make American manufacturing the cleanest and most efficient in the world.

 Reduce American oil consumption by a third through cleaner fuels and more efficient cars, boilers, ships, and trucks.

Trump: There is still much that needs to be investigated in the field of climate change. Perhaps the best use of our limited financial resources should be in dealing with making sure that every person in the world has clean water. Perhaps we should focus on eliminating lingering diseases around the world like malaria. Perhaps we should focus on efforts to increase food production to keep pace with an ever-growing world population. Perhaps we should be focused on developing energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels.

Scientists are finding that the variety and variability of life is diminishing at an alarming rate as a result of human activity. What steps will you take to protect biological diversity?

A male Indri lemur looks from a tree as he feeds on leaves in Madagascar. (Roberto Schmidt / AFP/Getty Images )

Clinton: Conserving biodiversity is essential to maintaining our quality of life. Healthy soils provide the foundation for agricultural productivity and help absorb carbon; wetlands soak up floodwaters and pollutants and protect our communities; forests filter our water and keep it clean; bees and other pollinators are essential to our food supply; and coral reefs and coastal marshes are nurseries for our fisheries.

My administration will work collaboratively with other nations to advance biodiversity science, further our understanding of the causes of biodiversity loss, and take action to diminish them. And we will work collaboratively to end trafficking in wildlife and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing that threatens our oceans.

Trump: In a Trump administration, there will be shared governance of our public lands and we will empower state and local governments to protect our wildlife and fisheries. Laws that tilt the scales toward special interests must be modified to balance the needs of society with the preservation of our valuable living resources.

How would you protect Americans from emerging diseases and other public health threats, such as antibiotic resistant superbugs?

Colonies of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus on a blood agar plate. (R Parulan Jr. / Getty Images )

Clinton: We are not investing in public health preparedness and emergency response the way we should to keep our families and communities safe. As president, I will create a Public Health Rapid Response Fund, with consistent, year-to-year budgets, to better enable the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, state and local public health departments, hospital systems and other federal agencies to quickly and aggressively respond to major public health crises and pandemics.

In addition, we need to do more to boost our preparedness for biological threats and bioweapons; to support research for new diagnostic tests, therapeutic treatments and vaccines for emerging diseases; to build capacity in public health departments; to train the next cadre of public health professionals and ensure that public health and environmental health practices are standard to the educations of medical students; and to provide resources for states and local governments to plan for complex, multi-faceted public health threats.

Trump: The implication of the question is that one must provide more resources to research and public health enterprises to make sure we stay ahead of potential health risks. We cannot simply throw money at these institutions and assume that the nation will be well served. Our efforts to support research and public health initiatives will have to be balanced with other demands for scarce resources. Working with Congress  the peoples representatives  my administration will work to establish national priorities and then we will work to make sure that adequate resources are assigned to achieve our goals.

What steps will you take to protect vulnerable infrastructure and institutions from cyber attack, and to provide for national security while protecting personal privacy on electronic devices and the Internet?

Hackers attend a conference in Germany. (Malte Christians/ Associated Press )

Clinton: Internet freedom and security were at the forefront of my work as secretary of State, and we must ensure this effort continues into the next administration. I will build on the Obama administrations Cybersecurity National Action Plan, modernizing our government-wide cybersecurity and federal IT and empowering a federal chief information security officer. I also support public-private collaboration on cybersecurity innovation, along with implementing the National Institute of Standards and Technologys Cybersecurity Framework.

As president, I will make it clear that the United States will treat cyberattacks just like any other attack. We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses, and we will invest in protecting our governmental networks and national infrastructure. I believe the United States should lead the world in setting the rules of cyberspace. If America doesnt, others will.

Trump: The United States government should not spy on its own citizens. That will not happen in a Trump administration. As for protecting the Internet, any attack on the Internet should be considered a provocative act that requires the utmost in protection and, at a minimum, a proportional response that identifies and then eliminates threats to our Internet infrastructure.

What will you do to reduce the human and economic costs of mental illness?

A patient makes his way down the hall of a ward for the mentally ill at Camarillo State Hospital. (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times )

Clinton: Well promote early diagnosis and intervention, including launching a national initiative for suicide prevention. Well integrate our nations mental and physical healthcare systems so that healthcare delivery focuses on the whole person, and significantly enhance community-based treatment opportunities. Well improve criminal justice outcomes by training law enforcement officers in crisis intervention, and prioritizing treatment over jail for low-level, nonviolent offenders. Well enforce mental health parity to the full extent of the law. And well invest in brain and behavioral research and developing safe and effective treatments.

My goal is that within my time in office as president, Americans will no longer separate mental health from physical health when it comes to access to care or quality of treatment. The next generation must grow up knowing that mental health is a key component of overall health and that there is no shame, stigma or barriers to seeking out care.

Trump: Any mental health reforms must be included in our efforts to reform healthcare in general in the country. We must ensure that the national government provides the support to state and local governments to bring mental health care to the people at the local level. This entire field of interest must be examined and a comprehensive solution set must be developed so that we can keep people safe and productive.

How do you see the energy landscape evolving over the next 4 to 8 years, and, as president, what will your energy strategy be?

Wind turbines dot the landscape near Steele City, Neb. (Nati Harnik / Associated Press )

Clinton: I reject the notion that we as a country are forced to choose between our economy, our environment and our security. The truth is that with a smart energy policy we can advance all three simultaneously. My plan will deliver on the pledge President Obama made at the Paris climate conference  without relying on climate deniers in Congress to pass new legislation. This includes:

 Defending, implementing and extending smart pollution and efficiency standards, including the Clean Power Plan and standards for cars, trucks, and appliances that are already helping clean our air, save families money and fight climate change.

 Investing in clean energy infrastructure, innovation, manufacturing and workforce development to make the U.S. economy more competitive and create good-paying jobs and careers.

 Ensuring the fossil fuel production taking place today is safe and responsible and that areas too sensitive for energy production are taken off the table.

 Reforming leasing and expanding clean energy production on public lands and waters tenfold within a decade.

 Cutting methane emissions across the economy and put in place strong standards for reducing leaks from both new and existing sources.

Trump: It should be the goal of the American people and their government to achieve energy independence as soon as possible. Energy independence means exploring and developing every possible energy source including wind, solar, nuclear and biofuels. A thriving market system will allow consumers to determine the best sources of energy for future consumption.

What is your plan for the use, expansion or phasing out of nuclear power?

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times )

Clinton: Meeting the climate challenge is too important to limit the tools available in this fight. Nuclear power  which accounts for more than 60% of our zero carbon power generation today  is one of those tools. I will work to increase investment in the research, development and deployment of advanced nuclear power.

Trump: Nuclear power is a valuable source of energy and should be part of an all-the-above program for providing power for America long into the future. We can make nuclear power safer, and its outputs are extraordinary given the investment we should make. Nuclear power must be an integral part of energy independence for America.

How would your administration work to ensure all students are prepared to address 21st century challenges?

Students at Francis Polytechnic High School in Los Angeles take a computer programming class. (Patrick T. Fallon/ For The Times )

Clinton: Every student should have the opportunity to learn computer science by the time they graduate high school. I will take steps to increase investment and scale instruction and lesson programs that help improve student achievement or increase college enrollment and completion in computer science fields.

Strong STEM programming in every public school is critical to our nations success, and to reducing economic and social inequality.

Trump: There are a host of STEM programs already in existence. What the federal government should do is to make sure that educational opportunities are available for everyone. This means we must allow market influences to bring better, higher-quality educational circumstances to more children.

If you are elected, what steps will you take to ensure access to clean water for all Americans?

A sewage spill from a private sewer system that caused several beaches near Alamitos Bay to close. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times )

Clinton: Chronic under-investment in our nations drinking and wastewater systems has sickened and endangered Americans from Flint, Mich., to Ohio and West Virginia. Outdated and inadequate wastewater systems discharge more than 900 billion gallons of untreated sewage a year, posing health risks to humans and wildlife, disrupting ecosystems and disproportionately impacting communities of color.

We will work to bring cutting-edge efficiency, treatment and reuse solutions to our nations water challenges by establishing a new Water Innovation Lab. The lab will bring urban water managers, farmers and tribes together with engineers, entrepreneurs, conservationists and other stakeholders to develop practical and usable technologies and strategies that can be deployed by local water utilities, agricultural and industrial water users and environmental restoration projects across the country.

Trump: This may be the most important issue we face as a nation for the next generation. Therefore, we must make the investment in our fresh-water infrastructure to ensure access to affordable fresh-water solutions for everyone. We must explore all options to include making desalinization more affordable and working to build the distribution infrastructure to bring this scarce resource to where it is needed for our citizens and those who produce the food of the world

How would your administration balance national interests with global cooperation when tackling threats made clear by science, such as pandemic diseases and climate change, that cross national borders?

Dr. Megumi Itoh, center, an epidemic intelligence officer with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, helps investigate a Zika outbreak in Brazil. (Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times )

Clinton: As the worlds biggest and most powerful economy  and as the second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and the biggest historical emitter  the United States has a responsibility to lead the global response to the climate challenge. By making strong progress to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at home, President Obama was able to persuade and pressure other major emitters, including China and India, to step up. This dual process, where domestic policy changes helped spur international action, led to the historic 195-nation Paris climate agreement.

To keep global warming below the 2 degrees Celsius threshold and avoid the worst consequences of climate change, we need to cut emissions by at least 80% below 2005 levels by mid-century. Thats why we must work to support more clean energy investment in emerging economies, help developing nations build resilience to the climate impacts that cant be avoided, and continue to drive clean energy innovation here at home.

We will also create a comprehensive global health strategy that moves beyond the disease-by-disease emergency model and seeks to build a robust, resilient global health system capable of quickly responding to and ending pandemics.

Trump: Our best input to helping with global issues is to make sure that the United States is on the proper trajectory economically. A prosperous America is a much better partner in tackling global problems that affect this nation achieving its national objectives.

How would science inform your administrations decisions to add, modify or remove federal regulations?

The South Lawn of the White House in Washington (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press )

Clinton: It is essential that environmental, health and energy regulations, among other areas, use the best available science to guide decision-making, and I am committed to making sure that continues. We will continue to invest in research to further our understanding of disease, including ramping up our investment in Alzheimers and related dementias to $2 billion per year, continuing Vice President Bidens cancer moonshot and scaling up our broader investment in the National Institutes of Healths budget to combat all of the diseases of our day.

My opponent in this race has consistently discounted scientific findings, from his comments about vaccines to his claim that climate change is a hoax. These dangerous positions not only put Americans at risk, but can have long term impacts on our countrys growth and productivity.

Trump: Science will inform our decisions on what regulations to keep, rescind or add. A vibrant, robust free-market system will regulate the private sector.

How will your administration support vaccine science?

A nurse holds a dose of an experimenta Ebola vaccine. (Jean-Christophe Bott / Associated Press )

Clinton: Over the last two decades, we have made extraordinary global gains in reducing childhood illness and deaths through expanded use of vaccines and immunization. At the same time, the recent measles outbreaks in Californias Marin and Orange counties remind us that we cannot be complacent with our own nations vaccine policies. As president, I will work closely with the talented physicians, nurses and scientists in our U.S. Public Health Service to speak out and educate parents about vaccines, focusing on their extraordinary track record in saving lives and pointing out the dangers of not vaccinating our children.

Additionally, the recent outbreaks of Ebola, Zika, and MERS are a wake-up call that we must continue to innovate and develop disease countermeasures.

Trump: We should educate the public on the values of a comprehensive vaccination program. We have been successful with other public service programs, and this seems to be of enough importance that we should put resources against this task.

What policies will best ensure that America remains at the forefront of innovation?

A computer chip that researchers hope will lead to a computer with the computational power of a human brain. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times )

Clinton: Advances in science and engineering start with education. We need to provide every public school student with access to education in computer science.

Both basic and applied research are major drivers of innovation. The innovation payoff comes from the commercialization of research results. The first step is what universities call technology transfer and the medical community calls translation  demonstrating the use of research results in practice and sharing the knowledge with the business community. The government has a critical role to play at this stage by opening access to and sharing government-funded research results.

Trump: The federal government should encourage innovation in the areas of space exploration and investment in research and development across the broad landscape of academia. Though there are increasing demands to curtail spending and to balance the federal budget, we must make the commitment to invest in science, engineering, healthcare and other areas that will make the lives of Americans better, safer and more prosperous.

karen.kaplan@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @LATkarenkaplan and like Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook.

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Laguna Beach voters will see two ballot measures this election.

One measure, a citizens initiative, seeks to repeal the citys current ban on medical marijuana dispensaries. The other measure, proposed by the city, would raise the tax hotels charge guests by 2% to help pay for services such as public safety and utility undergrounding,

Representatives for the initiative authors say providing a local source of medical cannabis would benefit residents so they would not have to drive outside city limits to obtain the drug. For months, the City Council debated placing a competing measure on the ballot, but declined.

City council members say revenues from the hotel tax, officially called a transient occupancy tax, would help offset costs to keep beaches and streets clean.

Measure KK

Title: An Initiative Measure Rescinding the city of Laguna Beachs Ban on Medical Marijuana Dispensaries and Authorizing the Operation and Regulation of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

The measure would repeal the citys ban on medical marijuana dispensaries, allowing for potentially two dispensaries within Laguna Beach. The citys director of finance would have the authority to grant or deny permit requests.

For the first year after applications are made available, priority would be given to permit seekers who meet four requirements, including those who are California nonprofit mutual benefit corporations incorporated before May15, 2014, and in possession of a city business license to provide home care or therapeutic services issued before May15, 2015.

Dispensaries must be located in either commercial or industrial zones and would not be allowed in property abutting or across the street from a residential-zoned lot, within 1,000 feet of a public or private K-12 school, or another medical marijuana dispensary.

Sponsors: Corey Aufhammer, Emily Toomey

Ballot argument for: No argument was filed in favor of the measure. However, an attorney representing the initiatives authors said they want a local source of medical marijuana so people will not have to drive outside city limits to purchase it. According to the initiative text, authors want a uniform and enforceable set of rules for the operation of medical marijuana businesses thats in compliance with state law and to future statewide regulation. They say they also want to prevent the proliferation of unlawful medical marijuana businesses, and want to protect the public health, safety and welfare of residents and businesses.

Ballot argument against: According to opponents, Measure KK threatens the safety of neighborhoods, children, the village and the quality of life Laguna Beach residents expect. If the measure passes, it will permit medical marijuana dispensaries to locate next to preschools, they say, as well as daycare centers and parks. Opponents argue that it would also allow the city to grant multiple medical marijuana dispensaries a license to operate without city review of security issues and business plans; fail to provide any additional public safety funding to help offset impacts to the community; and make Laguna the only city in the southern half of Orange County with a dispensary, which would make it a magnet for out-of-town people seeking marijuana.

[Argument written by city Councilmen Kelly Boyd, Bob Whalen and Robert Zur Schmiede, Mayor Pro Tem Toni Iseman and retired pediatrician Gary Jenkins.]

---

Measure LL

Title: Vital Services Measure

If approved, the transient occupancy tax  which is charged to guests staying at hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts and short-term lodging units  would increase from 10% to 12%. The tax is paid by guests who stay for periods of 30 days or fewer. Revenues derived from the tax increase would be deposited in Lagunas general fund and would pay for government operations and services such as emergency response, police, fire, utility undergrounding and protecting beaches from pollution. The city estimates the 2% increase would generate an additional $2million per year. The measure requires a simple majority vote for adoption.

Ballot argument for: Tourists increase demand on public safety services and the cost to provide clean beaches, streets and sidewalks and maintain open space, supporters of Measure LL say. The tax increase will provide additional and necessary funding to help offset these impacts. Measure LL will protect our beaches and the ocean from runoff and pollution, supporters say, and provide funds to underground utility poles in key areas, which will reduce the risk of catastrophic fires, enable faster emergency evacuation and delivery of regional firefighting assistance.

[Argument written by Larry Nokes, Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce president; Laura Farinella, Laguna Beach police chief; Councilman Bob Whalen; Jeff LaTendresse, Laguna Beach fire chief; and Mark Christy, managing partner of the Ranch at Laguna Beach.]

Ballot argument against: No argument was filed opposing the measure. At a City Council meeting earlier this year, however, some speakers questioned the need for a tax increase because the city operates with a balanced budget. Some residents said the ballot language was not specific enough as to how tax revenue would be used, indicating the possibility that the city could spend it in other ways.

bryce.alderton@latimes.com

Twitter: @AldertonBryce
Newport Beach voters will consider one city ballot measure when they head to the polls Nov.8.

The Taxpayer Protection Act, if passed, would require a supermajority City Council vote to approve proposed tax increases before the question could go to voters. Currently, four council votes are required.

Mayor Pro Tem Kevin Muldoon had asked his colleagues in July to consider adding a restriction on capital improvement bonds to Measure MM. He proposed that the measure also ask voters whether they want to require public approval before the city can use a certificate of participation or a lease revenue bond greater than $10million.

However, the City Council opted to hold off on that aspect of the measure to give the city Finance Committee time to review it.

Measure MM

Title: City of Newport Beach, Require 5 of 7 Votes of the City Council to Propose Taxes (Taxpayer Protection Act)

The measure would require an affirmative vote of at least five of the seven council members to place a council-sponsored general or special tax proposal on the ballot for voter consideration.

Ballot argument in favor: Proponents of the Taxpayer Protection Act say the measure would close the loophole in the city charter that makes it easier for the City Council to propose raising taxes.

The Taxpayer Protection Act would require a two-thirds council vote to put any tax on the ballot, an amount already required by a large majority of cities in California in an effort to keep taxes low. Passage of the Taxpayer Protection Act is the first step toward complete taxpayer protection, with the debt side of Proposition13 to come before Newport Beach voters in 2018.

[Argument written by Carolyn Cavecche, CEO of the Orange County Taxpayers Assn.; Newport Beach Mayor Diane Dixon; Mayor Pro Tem Kevin Muldoon; Councilman Scott Peotter; and Finance Committee member Will ONeill.]

Ballot argument against: Residents for Reform, an association of Newport Beach citizens that seeks to protect taxpayers, is against the Taxpayer Protection Act because it does not include a provision to prohibit politicians from incurring additional city debt without voter approval.

Mayor Pro Tem Kevin Muldoon proposed an amendment to Measure MM to include a citywide vote for the city to use certificates of participation (COPs) or lease revenue bonds. COPs and lease revenue bonds are used by politicians to circumvent Proposition13 by incurring debt without a vote.

Measure MM should have included a popular vote of the people for COPs and lease revenue bonds, just like Proposition13.

[Argument written by Bob McCaffrey, a Balboa Island resident and volunteer chairman of Residents for Reform.]

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN
I never knew anyone who loved his lifes work more than Tom Garrison.

He was an Orange Coast College marine science professor for 42 years. He retired in 2011. I was one of a multitude who called him my friend.

The Newport Beach resident died of lymphoma Feb. 24 at age 72. He was diagnosed in 2008.

I met Tom in 1971, his third year on campus. Word on the street was that he was smart, charismatic and perhaps the most gifted young marine science professor in the land.

Dr. Tom is in love with his students, his campus, his academic discipline and his professional colleagues, I wrote in a 2007 article. Put (him) in a large lecture hall crammed with eager students, flick on the switch to his microphone and watch him soar. Hes Jonathan Livingston Seagull, wheeling and sweeping over a golden sea.

A former Naval officer who served on destroyers, a nuclear submarine and within the Navys Service Schools Command, Garrison taught nuclear physics at the San Diego Naval Station. He earned his Ph.D. at USC and served as a teaching assistant at San Diego State University before joining OCCs faculty in 1969.

What a catch he was for the college!

Dr. Tom specialized in teaching large lecture hall classes, and in 42 years as a member of the faculty he taught nearly 50,000 students.

In 1997, Garrison was named faculty member of the year. The surprise announcement was made during his morning marine science class. Three hundred students rose and applauded.

But they werent surprised.

He served for many years as chairman of OCCs Marine Science Department, the largest community college marine science program in the nation. For more than a decade he was co-chairman of the colleges honors program.

The National Marine Technology Society named him an outstanding marine educator. In 2009, he was selected as OCCs first distinguished professor.

Garrison worked as a writer and science advisor for the Emmy Award-winning PBS television series, Oceanus, produced in the late 1970s. He was a writer and editor when that series was updated in 2004, and re-titled Endless Voyage.

He authored the bestselling textbook, Oceanography, used by colleges and universities nationwide.

Over the years, Garrison attracted a substantial number of surfers to his classes.

"(Surfers) seem to have a special affinity for marine science, he told me in a 1993 interview. I enjoy having them.

Garrison wasnt reluctant about giving his student-surfers inside tips. For years, OCCs Marine Science Department maintained an ocean satellite monitoring system. In August 1993, Hurricane Greg passed below the tip of Baja and headed west in the general direction of the Hawaiian Islands. Garrison tracked its progress.

By looking at a number of photos over a short period of time, you can calculate a storms size, direction and speed, he later told me. Then you calculate its distance from Orange County, and you can predict with great accuracy when large waves will begin arriving.

When Hurricane Greg was a couple of hundred miles west of Cabo San Lucas  in a direct line with Newport  Garrison began his calculations. He told his 300-student class on a Friday morning to expect big waves by Sunday morning. The big waves arrived, and Tom had lots of happy surfers in class the following week.

Garrison was more than just an expert on the ocean. Early in his OCC career he wrote classical music reviews for a national magazine. He was a fan of Mozart and Bach and played the cello, though quite poorly, he would hasten to add.

Tom and his wife, Marsha, were fans of Orange Coast Colleges crew for nearly 50 years. Their daughter, Jeanne, rowed for Coast in the 1990s. The Garrisons have two granddaughters, Grace and Sarah.

Over the years, aside from interaction with his students, Toms greatest professional joy was his relationship with his colleagues.

We have a long-standing Friday lunch appointment at which the weeks triumphs and tragedies are dissected over a glass of IPA, he told me in 2007. Our teaching assistants have found out about these meetings, and we have the pleasure of bringing along the next generation of professors who will replace us when the time comes.

Not just a celebrated scientist, Garrison was also a gifted wordsmith. Its long been my contention that good speakers generally make good writers. Tom wrote with clarity, effervescence and humor (just as he spoke!).

I have never in my life met such an amazing man, marine science student Kevin Durand told me in 1997.

Durand later transferred to UC Berkeley.

No one person has ever motivated me as much as Dr. Garrison, he said at the time. I am now an honors student with a 4.0 grade-point average, and that would never have happened without his assistance.

Garrison had a reputation for hospitality. He frequently served tea and cookies (he called them crumpets) in his office for students and visitors.

I learned long ago that the best way to attract students to your office is to offer free food, he once told me. We faculty members dont sit cloistered in dreary research labs, far away from the rest of the world. We love having our students and others drop by. Food is always an inducement.

Garrison loved the teaching profession.

Professors have the worlds best job, Garrison told a faculty audience when he was named OCCs Faculty Member of the Year. We tell students what we love to think about; we have the freedom to grow; we are protected from the vicissitudes of fortune by tenure; and we give students our lives. We work 24 hours a day enthusiastically, willingly and joyously passing knowledge to another generation.

A professors most important mission, Garrison told me, is to bathe students in encouragement.

I frequently find myself looking at a student - and Ive become rather good at this over the years - and evaluating his or her future prospects. Often I say to myself, This person is going to be great. Most frequently, you, as the teacher, know that fact before the student does. Its imperative that we inspire students and make them aware of their potential.

Dr. Tom was ever a font of inspiration.

Hell never be replaced.

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.
As teachers will tell you and the Glendale Unified School Board knows, education doesnt happen in a vacuum. Academic success  or the lack of it  happens in the midst of personal and cultural influences over which districts and classroom teachers have very little control.

Glendale Unifieds Local Control Accountability Plan lists seven goals to address some of the outside factors affecting students  such as the social, emotional, and physical needs of students (Goal No. 3) and the importance of parental engagement (Goal No. 6).

Im confident the district provides many excellent services in these areas. But school resources are, for the most part, directed to student needs. Schools arent funded or staffed to offer much help to parents.

According to district reports, nearly 49% of Glendale Unifieds approximately 26,000 students qualify for free or reduced lunch, indicating that many families struggle financially.

Parents worrying about the next paycheck may not have time to search for resources that could help them. Those wondering when their rent will increase and where theyll move when it does might have a hard time setting aside an appropriate study area for their child. Moms anxious about how soon the family car will break down might not risk driving to Back-to-School Night, much less to their student athletes game in another city.

Its hard for parents to engage with their childs school experience in such circumstances, and family stress has been observed to have negative effects on student achievement.

I can only speculate about the relationship between financial insecurity and mental health, recently identified by the Glendale Healthier Community Coalition as the top health priority for Glendale in the past three years (Glendale News-Press, Sept. 21).

Luckily for Glendale, the community has abundant resources in the form of nonprofit volunteer organizations, including PTAs and service groups, public and private agencies, faith communities, charitable foundations and community-minded businesses, all trying in their various ways to work with schools to make residents lives a little better.

Still, too few of our families know what help is available, and too few of the organizations know and support what the others offer.

So Im optimistic about some of the collaborative efforts underway locally to help students and families increase their incomes and financial stability.

Two efforts stand out in my experience: the Adult Education Block Grant (AEBG, also known as the GCC District Regional Consortium), administered by Glendale Community Colleges Garfield campus in partnership with Glendale Unified and the Verdugo Workforce Development Board; and the work of the two-year-old non-profit, Glendale Communitas Initiative, known at Communitas.

According to a recently published brochure, AEBGs goal is "To empower our adult learners through accessible and convenient programs making them college and employment-ready.

Some of the programs in development include job-skills classes for adults with disabilities, more adult literacy classes in additional venues and vocational English-as-a-second-language courses designed to meet the needs of local employers.

But as the consortium representatives have concluded in their meetings over the past two years, accessibility and convenience of classes dont count for much if potential students dont know the classes exist.

With prodding and funding from the California Community College Chancellors office and the California Department of Education, AEBG members and partners such as the Glendale Public Library, Armenian Relief Society, International Rescue Committee and the Department of Rehabilitation  previously working independently in silos  have started sharing program information with each other for the benefit of community members.

New office space on the Garfield campus has been arranged to accommodate various service providers on a rotating schedule, with the hope that providers will readily refer potential students to whichever consortium opportunities best fit the students needs. Its called putting students first, and Im hopeful the practice will blossom.

Im even more hopeful about the possibilities presented by Communitas, which "Provides communitywide poverty prevention and recovery programs personalized for individuals and families.

Collaborating with civic nonprofit, faith-based and business organizations, Communitas, like AEBG, is working to supplement services provided by existing agencies, not to duplicate services. Its working with individuals referred by local agencies and churches, helping them overcome barriers to take their own next steps toward financial security.

As Jason Schlatter, executive director of Communitas, recently told a group gathered at the home of board member Ramella Markarian, We do with, we dont do for individuals.

In the first full year of operation, Schlatter reported, Communitas helped 20 individuals and families increase their household income by an average of 123%. Meanwhile, 70 people attended its Your Money Matters series of free workshops hosted at the Library Connection@Adams Square.

Continued statistics like that could go a long way to improve student success in Glendale.

For more information about Communitas, visit glendalecommunitasinitiative.org, or for AEBG, visit glendale.edu/Garfield

--

JOYLENE WAGNER is a former member of the Glendale Unified School Board. Contact her at jkate4400@aol.com.
On Sept. 21, our neighborhood celebrated the 100th birthday of Violet Harrington, who is de facto grandmother to all of her neighbors and friends due to her unconditional love for all of us.

She was touched to receive commendation and congratulations from the mayor of the city of Glendale, Paula Devine.

I would like to express my gratitude to Mrs. Devine for her kind words and closeness to our community.

Yervand Grigoryan

Glendale

..

Forum to host local candidates

While the national election is contentious, exciting, frustrating and boring (at least to me), we need to pay closer attention to our local candidates. All politics is local is a common political phrase that is mainly associated with the late politician Tip ONeill. Now, for the first time in years, residents of the 43rd state Assembly district and of the 5th Supervisorial district will be choosing new officials since the incumbents are termed out.

A candidates forum, sponsored by Northwest Glendale Homeowners Assn., will have Councilwoman Laura Friedman and City Clerk Ardy Kassakhian, who are in the runoff for Assembly, plus Darrell Park, running for county supervisor, answering questions and giving their respective views on why they are the best qualified. Parks opponent, Kathryn Barger, was invited but has declined to attend. Randy Carter is moderator. I expect this to be a lively evening.

It will take place at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 5, at New Life Christian Church, 1020 W. Kenneth Road, and is open to everyone who lives within the districts. I urge you all to attend since we are picking people who could represent us for many years.

Carol Brusha

Board of Directors, NWGHA

Glendale

..

Rent prices are set by owners

Re: Housing Authority to address affordable housing, Aug. 20. Los Angeles has been ranked consistently one of the most expensive cities in the country in which to live, as shown by the rent prices in both L.A. proper and surrounding cities, and Glendale is not immune to this. With a median monthly rent of $1,309, the cost of living in Glendale is quite high; even with minimum wage raised to $10.30, many people are still unable to afford housing within the city.

Aside from rent control, development-impact fees and inclusionary zoning ordinances are options to help lower rent, but neither are perfect options. Development-impact fees fund housing projects, which would take years to come to fruition; inclusionary zoning is delicate to navigate because of the Hawkins Rental Housing Act in Los Angeles that allows landlords to set their own housing rates.

Landlords say that rent control hurts them, but looking at the already high rents in Glendale, how much would lowering rent rates actually hurt them? Over half of the people who rent housing in Glendale spend more than a third of their income on rent, the landlords, who are the ones gaining money, dont seem to have much to lose. Clearly, something needs to be done about housing affordability in Glendale. But perhaps the opinions of the people who set the prices in the first place are not the most useful when thinking of options to comprehensively increase housing affordability within the city.

Katherine Hall

La Crescenta

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Spanish program means to inspire

I am the co-author and associate publisher of "Que chevere!, the program mentioned in your article, Responding to parental concerns, school board rethinks Spanish-language textbooks.

I want to thank the Spanish teachers of Glendale United School District for supporting our program. Aligned with the highest academic standards, "Que chevere! is designed to be a resource to teachers who work tirelessly to inspire a love of the Spanish language and culture in their classrooms. The topics are culturally appropriate and relevant to students, and the context we provide is necessary to fully understand what they express.

We take pride in our 60-year track record of developing educational materials for language learning in classrooms across the country and give extremely careful consideration to all the content we create. We are committed to building on that experience well into the future and will continue to work with the Glendale community to address the feedback.

Alejandro Vargas

EMC School

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Rude incident at gas station

The incident began simple enough.

Today I drove into a local gas station and pulled to the forward pumps to get fuel. On the other side of the pump island was a woman whose car faced in the opposite direction, and who had just started her car to leave.

At that moment, a white SUV pulled into aisle opposite, forcing the womans car to come to a stop. A big burly dark-haired man emerged from his SUV and walked toward the pumps.

Dumbfounded, I glanced at the woman driver. She shook in disgust.

As the man reached for a fuel hose, I shouted out, Hey, buddy, she was leaving. Show a little consideration and let her out first.

The guy looked at me, pointed to the womans car and replied, She too far forward. I have to pull hose all way to back of my car.

Surprised by his response, I repeated my entreaty. The man muttered something obscene under his breath and removed the gas cap from his vehicle.

All I could do was look at the woman, and say, Im sorry. I tried.

The woman then had to back her car out onto a busy street; and run the risk of potential danger from oncoming traffic. When I left the station, all I could think of was that mans arrogant and inconsiderate action did nothing but leave bad tastes in the mouths of two people. It is not a way to improve community relations.

Howard H. Gething

Glendale

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Confusion over Trump support

In Monday nights debate Donald Trump said not paying federal income taxes makes him smart. Does that mean that those of us who pay them are stupid? Or that he thinks we are?

When Hillary Clinton accused him of rooting for the housing crisis because it would help his bottom line, he said, Thats called business. Take that, you poor suckers who lost your houses to foreclosure when the housing market collapsed!

I can understand why those who have been left behind by the information economy are looking to the next president to help them get ahead. I can understand why those who are still struggling to get back where they were before the Great Recession are looking to the next president to help them regain financial security. What I will never understand is why any of them are looking to Donald Trump.

Mary-Lynne Fisher

La Crescenta
Two sisters who were found dead at a luxury resort on a tropical African island died of excess fluid in their lungs and brains, the Seychelles News Agency is reporting.

The bodies of Robin Korkki, 42, of Chicago, and her sister, Annie Korkki, 37, of Denver, were found in their resort villa last week in the Seychelles, an archipelago nation in the Indian Ocean about 1,000 miles off Africas east coast.

Their bodies were found Sept. 22 at the Maia Luxury Resort. The news began to spread among friends and family last weekend.

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Autopsies performed on the sisters found that Robin Korkki died of acute pulmonary edema, or excess fluid in the lungs, while Annie Korkki died of acute pulmonary and cerebral edema, according to the news agency.

A forensic pathologist from a neighboring island performed the autopsies, and specimen samples from both women will be analyzed for toxicology, the agency reported.

Island officials gave no indications about what could have triggered the deaths of the women, described by friends as physically fit and active.

The mystery surrounding the sisters deaths will last a bit longer, said one noted forensic pathologist who told the Chicago Tribune that the vagueness of the cause of the death will make the toxicology results and the investigation by local police all the more important.

When we see pulmonary edema, its a nonspecific finding you see in lots of different things, said Dr. Judy Melinek, an author and former forensic pathologist in San Francisco. So if you have an elderly person, it could be from heart failure, she explained.

Poisons and drug use could also trigger a pulmonary edema, she said.

Their brother, Chris Korkki, of Lakeville, Minn., said Thursday the family had learned nothing through official channels about the deaths.

Robin Korkkis Facebook page displayed photos of the sisters trip, including one seaside shot of the bikini-clad women three days before they were discovered.

Korkki had worked as a commodities trader in Chicago since the mid-2000s and lived in the Wicker Park neighborhood. A longtime neighbor said Thursday that she was still too devastated by the news to comment.

A friend, personal trainer James Everhart, said he was heartbroken after hearing of the deaths last weekend while out of town to attend a wedding. I just broke down right there, he recalled Thursday in an interview with the Tribune.

Everhart said his professional relationship with Robin Korkki at a Lincoln Park gym quickly blossomed into a friendship, which eventually also led to a friendship with Annie. He said the elder sisters face would light up when she talked about Annie.

The Korkki sisters  part of a large, tightknit Minnesota family  were inseparable, Everhart said, whether they were traveling to exotic locales or just out for a day of shopping.

Robin Korkki, he added, was her happiest when she was traveling the globe.

She was just so excited about all the trips she would take because shes somebody who just wanted to see the world. That was her thing, Everhart said. She just really cared about life, itself. She put her life and soul into her work and family  and everything that she did and wanted to do.

Everhart recalled how his friendship with Robin Korkki, which included long phone conversations and at least one trip to a Bulls playoff game, reached a deeper level when his mother became ill and eventually died in 2012.

Korkki, he said, brought the same intensity to her friendship with him that she brought to her workouts, her career and her family, insisting on being by his side and constantly helping.

She was probably the most loving, caring person that Ive ever come across, he said.

Chris Korkki told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that his mother and brother have traveled to Seychelles to press officials for answers. He said his mother also has been talking with the U.S. Embassy.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Lee writes for the Chicago Tribune.

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Before he was convicted of first-degree murder, Lamar Skeete recorded a four-part rap song inside Torontos notorious Don Jail. It spoke of the squalid conditions, the drug use, and the violence inside the aging jailhouse.

But it was a line in the second segment of the song that was of particular interest to his prosecutors

People like him, he rapped, dont crack to the coppers.

Skeete stood accused of fatally shooting a man named Kenneth Mark in 2009 outside a pizza and wing shop in Torontos west end. The two had had a tangled history and prosecutors had concluded that this was a crime of revenge because Mark had identified Skeete and his brother in an earlier attack.

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This is the code of silence. And this is how its enforced, said assistant Crown Attorney Karen Simone, recalling the prosecutions argument.

To bolster that point, prosecutors turned to Skeetes rap lyrics: you dont talk to the police.

Though Skeetes attorney argued that the rap lyrics were just as likely about the code of silence inside the jailhouse where he was housed, jurors convicted him of first-degree murder. Hes now serving a life sentence.

Skeetes case is one of a growing number in Canada in which rap lyrics are used to win cases. David Tanovich, a University of Windsor law professor, turned up 16 cases of rap music used as evidence of guilt and five where it was used as a defense. Tanovich, who reported his findings in an academic paper, said he found only one case involving music lyrics from a genre other than rap.

Courts in the U.S. have been cautious about allowing rap lyrics as evidence. In one New Jersey case, an appellate division of the state court overturned the attempted murder conviction of Vonte Skinner after concluding that the admission of his violent rap lyrics had unfairly tipped the scales against him. The states Supreme Court affirmed that decision.

In Canada, though, the admissibility of rap lyrics continues to be a point of contention.

Courts must  recognize the very real likelihood that rap lyrics will trigger racialized stereotypes when assessing the prejudicial effect of the evidence, Tanovich writes.

Putting a rappers tales of violence and drug-dealing before a jury also assumes the art form is strictly autobiographical, critics of the practice say.

When we select juries, were entitled to ask a question that screens the jury for racial bias, defense lawyer Hilary Dudding said. The reason that that is permitted  is because of a recognition of the widespread belief that black people are bound up in criminality.

One of Duddings clients, Orville Campbell, was nearly confronted with his own rap lyrics when he went to trial in a 2012 Toronto murder case. Prosecutors had sought through a pretrial motion to admit a video in which Campbell raps, One shot, leave your brains on your Nikes, and, One shot, make you flip like gymnastics.

But Justice Ian Nordheimer, the same judge who allowed Skeetes lyrics to be used as evidence, this time drew a line, noting the risk in taking a rappers words literally. Campbells lyrics about a victim twisting or turning as hes shot, or someone wearing Nikes, were far from unique. Even as a collection, the statements were useless, he ruled.

Simply put, zero plus zero plus zero still equals zero, Nordheimer wrote.

Campbell was convicted just the same.

Charis Kubrin, a criminology professor at UC Irvine, is the coauthor of a recent paper that found subjects who read lyrics they believed to be from rap music saw the words more negatively than subjects who believed the same lyrics were from a country song.

Whether the guy is guilty or not, Im not interested in, said Kubrin. You have to use traditional forms of evidence to prove that  in my opinion. Artistic expression should not be a part of that, because artistic expression, by definition, is fictional.

Simone said the line between art and truth was clear in the Skeete case. Authorities had evidence about Marks communication with police, and physical evidence tied Skeete to the crime. The lyrics simply underscored Skeetes belief in a code of silence  he even wrote out his lyrics to help the jury understand some indecipherable sections, according to Simone.

But in the murder case against James McCullough, Justice Renee Pomerance challenged an argument that has become popular among those who oppose the use of rap lyrics at trial: No one would argue that Edgar Allan Poe buried someone under his floorboards just because he described such events in The Tell-Tale Heart. No one would believe that Bob Marley actually shot a sheriff.

But if Mr. Poe was charged with burying someone under his floorboards, and had earlier expressed an intention to do so, his creative writing might be very probative of issues at his trial, Pomerance wrote, clearing the way for McCulloughs rap lyrics to be introduced as evidence.

Defense lawyers expect rap lyrics to continue arising in court. Marcus Bornfreund, a Toronto defense attorney, said rap videos are often used to prosecute suspects accused of being in a criminal organization. He recalled recently asking a client, who faced charges of involvement in a gang, to take down an online video for fear it would be used as evidence against him.

Still, Bornfreund believes rap lyrics are fair game for prosecutors.

If youre going to purport to be a gang member or a trafficker, what do you thinks going to happen?

Davis is a special correspondent.
Former Israeli President Shimon Peres was laid to rest on Friday beneath the silent pine trees of Israels Mount Herzl national cemetery, eulogized by Israeli leaders, family, and two American presidents as a founding father who first built up Israels military industrial complex and then sought peace with the Palestinians.

President Obama led the processional at an Israeli state funeral attended by world leaders and dignitaries from dozens of countries  as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who honored Peres by crossing the chasm of national divide to mourn in a pantheon of the Zionist history.

On a cool Jerusalem morning, as a Star of David flag lowered to half-staff flapped in a gentle breeze, Peres casket was born by a parliamentary honor guard before a crowd of politicians, former military chiefs, diplomats and cabinet members.

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Peres, who died Wednesday from complications of a stroke earlier this month, was hailed by speakers as the last leader from Israels founding generation, a visionary who built up Israels military power and eventually became its best-known statesman  a leader who, despite numerous political setbacks, never stopped seeking to advance Israeli-Arab reconciliation.

They paid tribute to the boy from a Jewish town in Poland who immigrated to Palestine before his extended family was killed in the Nazi Holocaust and eventually served at the side of Israels first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion  launching a decades-long career in Israels slash-and-burn political system in which Peres was reviled by many Israelis as being too willing to compromise.

It was no secret that Shimon and I were political enemies, but over the years we became close friends, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who handed Peres one of his painful defeats by narrowly defeating him in a parliamentary election in 1996.

Standing alongside his casket, Netanyahu recalled debating with Peres into the night after he had left partisan politics to become the countrys president, a mostly ceremonial post.

Shimon claimed fervently, Bibi, shalom is the true security. I argued, Shimon, in the Middle East security is a necessary condition for peace, he said. I came to the conclusion that we were both right. In the stormy Middle East, peace will only be assured with constant demonstration of our power  but power is only a means.

Obama, who was in the country for only a few hours, sat beside Netanyahu and Peres son Nechemia during the ceremony. Wearing a black memorial ribbon and a yarmulke in deference to Jewish custom, the president recalled discussing books and history with Peres in the White House and striking up a chemistry despite their different backgrounds and ages.

Our friendship was rooted in that I could see myself in his history and maybe he could see himself in mine, Obama said.

Our friendship was rooted in that I could see myself in his history and maybe he could see himself in mine.  President Barack Obama

In his eulogy, Obama, who was stymied for eight years in advancing a peace process in the Middle East  in part by skepticism in Israel about the peace talks with the Palestinians and also friction with Netanyahu  gently urged Israelis to continue Peres legacy of seeking reconciliation.

I dont believe he was naive, Obama said.  The Jewish people werent born to rule over another people, [Peres] would say. He came to believe that the Zionist idea would be best protected when the Palestinians have a state of their own.

The presence of Abbas, who sat in a cemetery reserved for Israeli prime ministers and presidents, and opposite the black marble tomb of Theodore Herzl, celebrated by Israelis as the first visionary of a Jewish state, was criticized in the Arab world. Expressing condolences to Peres family and Israel is a crime, said Hamas official Bassem Naim.

The world dignitaries  including Britains Prince Charles and French President Francois Hollande  were flanked in the front rows by Peres three children and his grandchildren.

The families somber faces dissolved into sobbing at a piercing rendition of one of Peres beloved liturgies, Our Father, Our King, the Jewish prayer for atonement.

His daughter Tzvika Walden pulled back the curtain on home life with the man who was called Buzhik, a nickname for doll, by his wife, Sonia, and who used his powers of persuasion in the mundane tasks of parenting.

To me, he was a young man who used his creative skills to get us to eat. Who cut sandwiches into triangles and diamonds, she said.  Try this.

Despite being a polarizing political leader, Peres won widespread popularity among Israelis as president and in retirement. The day before his funeral, tens of thousands of Israelis from all sides of the political spectrum filed by his casket on the plaza of the Knesset, Israels parliament building, to pay tribute.

Peres was a special man, said one mother who was tugging along a toddler as they passed by the former prime ministers casket. Other Israelis paused to snap selfies.

Standing nearby with his wife and three children was Aviv Agoor-Halevy, who recalled the outpouring on the same plaza when former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 after appearing at a peace rally with then-Foreign Minister Peres, leaving Israelis shocked and peace negotiations with the Palestinians teetering.

The man died, but his path died long ago, Agoor-Halevy lamented, referring to Peres and the defunct peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Sighing, his wife, Hagit, said she brought their children to the memorial to witness a part of history -- the closing of a chapter of Israels founding generation.

I said we have to come because something like this will never happen again.

Mitnick is a special correspondent.

UPDATES:

8:30 a.m.: This article was updated with more details from the funeral service.

This article was originally published at 7:15 a.m.
All material is subject to strictly enforced copyright terms & conditions and cannot be repurposed or reproduced.  19882022 Latin American Financial Publications Inc.
The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission said it had not received security guarantees for the Ukrainian checkpoint in a pilot security zone, the town of Zolote in Luhansk region.

"No security guarantees for the SMM at the government-controlled checkpoint near Zolote  the road is mined. The OSCE SMM is ready and able to monitor, but prevented," the OSCE SMM said on Twitter on Friday.

The SMM reiterated its readiness and ability to monitor the ceasefire in the security zone but said its work was being "hindered."

Members of the Trilateral Contact Group signed the Framework Decision on Disengagement of Forces and Hardware in three Donbas areas, near Zolote, Stanytsia Luhanska and Petrovske, on September 21. The disengagement zones are due to be at least two kilometers deep and two kilometers wide. The OSCE SMM is due to place stationary observation posts in the three designated locations.
Three Ukrainian army servicemen suffered injuries in Donbas over the past day, yet there were no fatalities, Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Andriy Lysenko has said.

"Fortunately, none of our servicemen were killed in the hostilities within the past 24 hours, yet three were wounded. That happened during an attack of the hostiles in Verkhniotoretske," he said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Friday.
Leader of Crimean Tatar Mejlis who lives in Ukraine confirms plans to go to ECHR

The Russian Supreme Court's decision banning the work of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis will be contested in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Refat Chubarov, the chairman of the Mejlis and the Ukrainian parliamentarian from the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko faction, has said.

"Because we have responded to the calls made by our European partners and filed an appeal with the Russian Supreme Court, although we understood how it will end, because we have passed this stage, the next stage will be a claim filed with the European Court of Human Rights," Chubarov said at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday.

Chubarov also said the Mejlis will continue working despite the ban.

"No one can ban the Crimean Tatars' fight for their rights by banning the work of the Mejlis," he said.

On September 29, the Russian Supreme Court upheld the ban on the work of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis in the territory of Russia as an extremist organization. The appeal filed by representatives of the Mejlis was thus declined.

The Mejlis is an organization not registered in Russia that seeks the status of a Crimean Tatar representative body. Chubarov, the incumbent leader of the Mejlis, and Mustafa Jemilev, the former leader of the Mejlis, now live in Kyiv. Crimean prosecutors consider them involved in the power blockade of the peninsula. Several cases have been opened against them.

Crimea has a population of some 1.9 million people. Some 12% of them are Crimean Tatars.

Soon after the Russian Supreme Court handed down its verdict, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry issued a statement demanding immediate reversal of the decision and "full termination of the harassment on the Crimean Tatar community in Crimea."
European Commissioner in charge of EU trade policy Cecilia Malmstrom says she hopes for the settlement of the issue of the implementation by the Netherlands of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine.

The Dutch government should react to a referendum on the Association Agreement held in the Netherlands one way or the other.

"I think they have not found yet a right answer to the situation that has occurred. But I hope they will. All other EU member states have implemented the agreement," she said at a joint press conference with Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze in Kyiv on Friday.

In her words, the Netherlands is an important investor for Ukraine.

As was reported, a nonbinding referendum took place in the Netherlands on April 6 where 61% of the Dutch who came to the polling stations voted against the Association Agreement with Ukraine. The turnout rate was 32% with the minimum required 30%. The legal outcome of the referendum is not binding to the Dutch government.
The issue of breaches of agreement on disengagement of forces and hardware in three sectors of Donbas ceasefire by illegal armed groups will be raised at the next meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk on Wednesday and reported to the leadership of Germany and France, Ukraine's representative in the Trilateral Contact Group, second president Leonid Kuchma.

"Looking at the events of the past few days we see that the opposite side does not comply with the agreements. It looks like this has a sole purpose of disrupting the whole of negotiation process. I do not think that small commanders are behind this. This is a serious political decision that will lead to very serious consequences," Kuchma told reporters on Friday while on a working visit to Zhytomyr region.

According to Kuchma, in such circumstances, "there is nothing left for the Ukrainian side to do but to put this question point-blank in Minsk on Wednesday."

In addition, this situation should be brought to the attention of international community, first of all, of the leaders of Germany and France, which are part of the Normandy format, Kuchma said.

When asked about the so-called "primaries" at the "elections" in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Kuchma said: "If they do it, they will show that there can be no dealing with them indeed. This is the conclusion to be drawn from such statements."

As reported, the Trilateral Contact Group meeting in the videoconference format planned for September 30 did not happen due to refusal of the Donetsk representative to participate in it.

It was reported that on September 21 members of the Trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine signed a framework document on disengagement of the Donbas conflict sides' forces and hardware in three sectors.

The document proposes the creation of three security areas on the Donbas contact line near the populated localities of Zolote, Petrovske and Stanytsia Luhanska, each on an area of at least four square kilometers. OSCE SMM observers should monitor the implementation of the agreements.

The disengagement process is set to begin on October 1. The OSCE SMM and the Joint Center for Control and Coordination will monitor it.
An Allentown woman who killed her son after failing to treat his diabetes is headed to state prison.

Ashleigh Buskirk, 28, of the 1700 block of West Union Street, was sentenced Friday to 16 months to 10 years in state prison for involuntary manslaughter.

"There's nothing good about any of this," Judge James Anthony said of Cyrus Buskirk's death. "The punishment is already there."

One woman stormed out of the courtroom after the sentencing, saying "Piece of (expletive). She should die in prison."

Prosecutors said Ashleigh Buskirk was high as her son fell ill, and her inaction is what led the 8-year-old to die from ketoacidosis.

"Cyrus could have been saved," Lehigh County Chief of Prosecutions Matt Falk said Friday. "She loved herself more. She loved the pills more."

The family lived three blocks away from a hospital, and all it would have taken was a call to 911 to save the boy, Falk said.

Instead, "she watched her son die slowly," Falk said.

Cyrus Buskirk was diagnosed in 2012 with juvenile diabetes at St. Christopher's Hospital in Philadelphia. After the diagnosis, hospital staff trained his mother on how to care for the child, prosecutors said.

The boy became sick and started vomiting the night of Jan. 11, 2015, and Ashleigh Buskirk did not obtain any medical treatment for her son, prosecutors said.

On Jan. 12, Buskirk contacted her son's endocrinologist. Prosecutors said she was given specific instructions about how to care for her son and was asked to call back with an update after two hours.

Buskirk failed to follow any of the care instructions and did not contact the endocrinologist's office, authorities said. The afternoon of Jan. 12, Buskirk took her son to the bathroom to check for ketones, substances that are made when the body breaks down fat for energy.

The boy fell down in the hallway, and Buskirk put her son on a couch and returned to bed, prosecutors said.

The boy's condition continued to deteriorate, and that evening Buskirk called 911, police said. The boy died of diabetic ketoacidosis later that day at St. Luke's Hospital in Allentown, and police were called to investigate.

On Sept. 10, 2015, detectives met with the treating physician for the boy's diabetic condition.

The doctor told police corrective action in the child's case could have prevented his death, and that failure to act and treat the condition caused the diabetic ketoacidosis that caused the child's death, police said.

"The rest of my life I have to live with my conscience," Ashleigh Buskirk said. "That little boy meant everything to me."

Ashleigh Buskirk's brother testified she appeared under the influence of drugs the day before her son was taken to the hospital, and that she was high at the hospital after he was taken off life support.

Witnesses described the mother posting on Facebook soon after the boy was pronounced dead, and was "relaxed" and "nonchalant" as she scrolled on her cellphone.

Ashleigh Buskirk claimed she tried to commit suicide after her son's death, and drank a whole bottle of Seroquel, which would explain her demeanor in the hospital.

"Nothing was done. That's can't go unpunished...She's responsible for the death of my nephew, her son," said William Ferrell, Ashleigh Buskirk's brother. "(Cyrus) should be here. This shouldn't happen. This shouldn't be happening...he should be 10 years old."

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Just Born Inc.'s employees' union says workers will return to their shifts Friday morning following a strike that began Sept. 7.

The Bethlehem-based candy manufacturer and Bakery Confectionary Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union of America Local 6 exchanged letters Thursday setting up the suspension of the strike.

Attention All Just Born Local 6 Members: We have told Just Born management that all employees will be returning to work... Posted by BCTGM Local 6 Just Born Employees on Thursday, September 29, 2016

Contract talks are set to resume Oct. 13 after the union's previous deal expired June 18 and was extended, verbally, through Sept. 18.

Hank McKay, president and business manager of Local 6, said in a letter his members agree to resume production "for a reasonable period of time under the pre-existing terms and conditions of employment so as to avert stoppage pending the final settlement of contract negotiations," according to a copy posted on the union's Facebook page.

"All associates who have not been permanently replaced are welcome to return to work," wrote Randall C. Copeland, Just Born's senior vice president of supply chain, in response.

Copeland references a meeting with union leaders Wednesday, with progress made toward a new contract. The letter notes, "Any associate permanently replaced is subject to recall pursuant to federal labor law."

The agreement to return to work leaves open the possibility the strike may resume should contract talks sour.

"Please note that, as your letter conveys, your office is contingent on resumption of negotiations, to work for a reasonable period of time, and under pre-existing terms and conditions," Copeland wrote. "Therefore, the company does not consider this offer to be an unconditional return to work."

Just Born this week sued the union in federal court, saying workers violated a no-strike clause in their contract and seeking damages, in addition to employees resuming their duties.

The suit states the strike was timed to coincide with one of Just Born's busiest times of year, when production ramps up in fall to meet the Easter demand for its marshmallow Peeps. The company's other brands include Mike and Ike, Hot Tamales and, made in Philadelphia, Goldenberg's Peanut Chews.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A man who shot an alleged pimp in a Bethlehem Township hotel will spend at least seven years in state prison.

Berks County resident Michael Hendrix was sentenced to seven to 14 years for shooting Manuel Rodriguez-Valcarcel at the Bethlehem Township Comfort Inn in 2012.

Police said a woman working as a prostitute at the hotel got into a dispute with Valcarcel over his share of her income.

She called Ian Payne for help, police said. Payne sent Hendrix and Angel Ruiz to the hotel to confront Valcarcel.

They arrived in masks and demanded money from Valcarcel. When he refused to hand it over, Hendrix shot him in the leg and abdomen.

The shooting came within months of the overdose death of an exotic dancer and the recovery of more than 1,400 bags of heroin at the same hotel. Police have said the hotel at that time was a site for heroin use with prostitution, pimping and gang activity.

Ruiz, 33, of Indiana, Pa., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery and was sentenced in August to five to 10 years in state prison.

Hendrix, 29, of Wernersville, pleaded guilty Friday to aggravated assault. Both Hendrix and Ruiz were sentenced by Northampton County Judge Paula Roscioli.

Charges are still pending against Payne, of Philadelphia.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
Residents of at least three condemned homes in Bethlehem face an uncertain future, as city officials warn of traffic and cloudy water following a sinkhole.

The homes at 713, 715 and 717 N. New St. are condemned due to damage discovered after the city fire and police departments responded at 6:51 a.m. Thursday to water and natural gas leaks on the block, fire Chief Robert Novatnack said.

No one was injured, and city responders were able to rescue pets from the condemned homes with the exception of one cat still locked inside one of them, Novatnack said.

"Nobody is allowed in them even to get personal belongings out because of the condition of the homes," he said.

These homes at 713, 715 and 717 N. New St. were condemned by Bethlehem officials on Thursday Sept. 29, 2016, after a sinkhole was discovered under the street. (Sarah Cassi | For lehighvalleylive.com)

The American Red Cross of Eastern Pennsylvania on Thursday evening closed the reception center it had opened for affected residents earlier in the day at Monocacy Towers, 645 Main St., spokeswoman Loa Esquilin-Garcia said. As of 7 p.m., six families comprising 12 people were receiving Red Cross assistance with food, lodging and clothing.

"We are working with local officials to figure out who else needs assistance," she said. "We are going to do follow-ups to make sure people have what they need."

The damaged homes are on the western side of North New Street, and have cracks in their foundations and bricks due to the ground sinking, said Novatnack, who is also Bethlehem's emergency management coordinator.

Crews from the city water and sewer resources bureau were continuing to work Thursday night on repairing the water main break, Novatnack said. After that is done residents of the 700 block of North New Street whose homes are not condemned may return home.

City building inspectors were continuing to keep an eye on homes adjacent to the condemned homes, Novatnack said.

"They'll be monitored throughout the night as they're doing the water repair," he said.

It remained unclear whether the water main break caused the sinkhole or vice versa.

Natural gas service also remained cut off to the block Thursday night, as UGI Utilities Inc. crews continued to repair their line. The hope is to restore gas service Friday, Novatnack said.

North New Street was expected to remain closed for most of the night from Broad Street to Union Boulevard, Novatnack said.

"People are going to have some cloudy water over there, they're going to have some traffic issues," he said.

Friday morning, city inspectors plan to check any subsurface voids in the area related to the sinkhole before continuing to assess damage to the affected homes, Novatnack said. The surface has to be strong enough to support heavy equipment and workers.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Residents remain out of their homes on Friday morning in the 700 block of North New Street in Bethlehem as work continues to restore water, electric and gas service, fire Chief Robert Novatnack said.

City crews are working with UGI and PPL Electric Utilities employees "trying to get life back to normal" on the block, Novatnack said.

While excavation continues in search of damaged water pipes on the street, it's still uncertain if a sinkhole or a washout from a pipe bursting undermined three homes on the west side of the street, Novatnack said.

The houses at 713, 715 and 717 N. New St. were condemned and engineers will get a look at them to determine if they can be repaired or if they must be torn down, Novatnack said. They didn't appear to grow less stable overnight, he added.

Since the block has no utilities, city code won't allow residents to move back in, he said. Many were able to retrieve necessities and most of the pets on the block have been reunited with their owners, the fire chief, who is also emergency management coordinator, said.

The American Red Cross of the Greater Lehigh Valley is assisting those chased from their homes. A spokeswoman said seven families and 15 total people have been aided. Some people were not home and the Red Cross is reaching out to them to see if they need service, which at the moment consists of water, food, clothing and housing, Loa Esquilin Garcia said.

Some people helped by the Red Cross have returned home on surrounding blocks, but others, especially those in the damaged homes, will get continued assistance, she said.

The block of North New that terminates at Union Boulevard is being used as a staging ground for the heavy equipment that is tearing into the street a block to the south, Novatnack said.

To his memory, the chief said the incident on North New "is one of the more major we've had" because of the impact on traffic and housing.

Residents will likely be allowed back on the east side of the street once utilities are restored, Novatnack said.

Once utility repairs are complete under the road and the hole is back-filled, the street will still need to be resurfaced before it can reopen to traffic, Novatnack said. So that stretch of the busy street could be off limits to drivers for some time, he added.

The morning's very heavy rain -- nearly an inch in two hours near dawn -- isn't helping efforts, but didn't appear to be making the hole worse, he said.

"The damage is already done," he said, adding that "safety is out No. 1 thing" so workers are taking conditions into account as the labor in the street.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
The conflict parties in eastern Ukraine are not providing to monitors full access and the possibility of monitoring observance of the agreements in line with the decision of the Trilateral Contact Group on the separation of forces and equipment on three sections of the disengagement line, OSCE Special Monitoring Mission Principal Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug said.

The monitors have not been provided with full and unimpeded access to these three specific sections and the parties have blocked monitors' access to these sections and were incapable of ensuring their safe access, he told a briefing in Kyiv on Friday. The parties have more than once disrupted attempts made by the OSCE SMM to monitor and verify the three specific sections of the separation of forces and equipment, he said.

OSCE SMM patrols were denied access 16 times last week, Hug said. In all but three of those situations, access was restricted directly on or near those three proposed sections of the separation of forces and equipment, he said. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg because obstruction of the work of the SMM takes place in many forms and obligations to remove all such obstacles were assumed but not fulfilled by the parties, he said.

According to earlier reports, participants in the Trilateral Contact Group signed a framework document on the separation of forces and equipment of the conflict parties in Donbas on three sections on September 21.
Facebook clown threat

This threat originates in Ohio, an Easton Area School District security official said Friday. (Facebook photo)

A social media threat involving clowns kidnapping students and killing teachers was determined to not be "viable," the head of Easton Area School District security said Friday morning.

"We will be at all high schools this Friday to either kidnapp students or kill teachers going to they cars" someone with the screen name Aint Clownin Around said on Facebook.

The post with the hashtag #WeNotClowninAround was trending Friday.

Easton Director of Safe Schools John Remaley said the threat has been linked to Grove City, Ohio, but has been felt in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Alabama, among other places.

Phillipsburg schools went into shelter in place on Friday morning after the district developed information about "suspicious activity" and turned it over to police.

Mayor Stephen Ellis said a construction worker at the middle school had heard of a post spreading around social media that a clown with a gun would come to the school. The construction worker told a teacher, who went to security, Ellis said. It was not clear if the online posting specifically mentioned the school.

Easton did not take any specific action Friday, other than to alert staff to the threat, Remaley said. There have been a few clown spottings reported by students in recent days, but police following up have found nothing, he said.

Easton security personnel will take precautions during afternoon dismissal, but Remaley wouldn't go into detail because it involves security planning.

"We looked at it," Remaley said, but there was nothing to indicate "it was a viable threat."

Bethlehem police have also taken notice of the social media posting, police Chief Mark DiLuzio said. School resource officers stationed at the Bethlehem Area middle and high schools in the city are aware of it, but no additional police presence is planned for Friday, he said.

Errors in the post in spelling -- "kidnapp" -- and grammar -- "they cars" -- make DiLuzio wonder about the age group responsible for the posting, he said.

"There is the threat of violence," DiLuzio said. "There's a ton of threats of violence on the Internet every day. The Internet, to me, it started as a great idea but it turned into a garbage dump, a digital garbage dump."

Bethlehem has not been immune to the clown phenomenon that popped up as of late. Wednesday morning, children at a school bus stop near the Lynfield public housing development on South Side reported seeing a man in brown pants with a clown face and red nose walking through nearby woods.

"The kids and their parents got scared about it," the police chief said.

Officers checked the area but found nothing suspicious.

DiLuzio wondered whether the uptick in clown sightings has to do with something in pop culture, such as the remake of Steven King's killer-clown tale, "It." The producer told Hollywood Reporter last week the activity reported around the United States is not a marketing tie-in.

In any case, DiLuzio cautions against donning a clown outfit and trying to scare children in a playground or outside a school, for example.

"What could occur is that a parent may interrupt the meeting and become physical with the clown if a clown scares a bunch of kids in a playground," he said. "As a parent myself, I would be very upset and I would go over.

"Someone's going to end up punching one of these clowns in their big red nose. ... Who could blame them?"

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A Lehigh County doctor is accused of illegally writing opioid prescriptions for his ex-wife.

Dr. Steven Puccio, 52, of of the 3900 block of Hunsicker Drive in Walnutport, surrendered Friday morning and was charged with prescribing controlled substances outside of acceptable medical treatment principles; failing to maintain required records; and prescribing a controlled substance to a known drug-dependent person.

Puccio was freed on $50,000 unsecured bail.

Puccio, an osteopathic surgeon according to state license records, voluntarily surrendered his medical license on July 25. The license was set to expire at the end of October.

Puccio's attorney, Janet Jackson, said her client has cooperated with investigators.

"This is simply a case of letting his compassion and concern for his former spouse and mother of his child to cloud his professional judgement," Jackson said.

Puccio was a surgeon with St. Luke's University Health Network until this past April, according to his LinkedIn page.

Persecutors said in July, agents with the Pennsylvania Attorney General's bureau of narcotics were approached by Puccio's ex-wife.

Rachel Puccio was married to Steven Puccio from 2003 to 2007. Agents said Steven Puccio began writing prescriptions for Rachel Puccio while they were married, first prescribing benzodiazepines.

Rachel Puccio became addicted, authorities said, and Steven Puccio kept writing her prescriptions. Agents said the doctor wrote his ex-wife 28 prescriptions for Oxycodone and methadone between 2007 and 2014.

Agents said they collected records of Rachel Puccio's prescriptions at Rite Aid, Bechtel's Pharmacy in Slatington and St. Luke's University Health Network.

Rachel Puccio is not facing any charges in connection with the investigation into her ex-husband, said Megan Wieand, spokeswoman for the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office.

St. Luke's spokeswoman Mariella Miller said the charges are not related to or associated with any health network patients.

"Dr. Puccio has not been a member of St. Luke's University Health Network Medical Staff or an employee of St. Luke's Physician Group since April 2016," Miller said in an email.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Almost three years after a Lehigh County woman disappeared from her Lower Macungie home, Pennsylvania State Police may have a new lead in the case.

Pennsylvania State Police are looking for missing Lower Macungie Township resident Holly Grim. (Courtesy photo)

Troopers were called Nov. 22, 2013, after Holly Grim didn't report to work at Allen Organ Co. and her family wasn't able to get in touch with her.

WFMZ reports that this week state police have been at the Monroe County home of a man who worked with Grim at Allen Organ.

Investigators were digging in the backyard, and the Pocono Record reports a human bone was found on the Ross Township property.

Troopers have not named any suspects and no charges have been filed in connection with Grim's disappearance.

The 42-year-old Grim disappeared under "suspicious and unexplained circumstances," state police have said.

She was last seen taking her son to a bus stop near her home in the Red Maples Mobile Home Park in the 1100 block of Grange Road.

State police have asked anyone with information about Grim's disappearance to contact the Fogelsville station at 610-395-1438. Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers is offering a cash reward.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A lack of accountability by Laois and other county councils to Dail as to how public money is spent will have to be addressed, according to Laois TD Sean Fleming.

The Fianna Fail TD was speaking in his capacity as Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts following the publication of the 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) which highlights some serious deficiencies in how taxpayers' money is spent and collected.

In welcoming todays report, Deputy Fleming, said his committee would also be examining the direct provsion system for housing asylum seekers such as a facility in Laois.

On council spending, he said thre is a lack of accountability in how councils spent public money.

We will be examining central government funding of local authorities which amounted to 2 billion in 2015. Up to now there is a lack of accountability to the Oireachtas as to how this money is spent because the spending is carried out by the local authorities. This issue will have to be addressed, he said.

The Report outlines a range of areas where the State is not meeting its objectives or providing services to the standard and with the efficiency required.

Deputy Fleming said a specific area that will be examined is the accomodation of refugees and assylum seekers. A former hotel in Emo near Portlaoise, which is in Dep Flemings own constituency, is used as a direct provision centre.

The PAC will be particularly keen to discuss how the State is managing its Direct Provision Centres at a cost of 57 million a year. We will be questioning why the State is contracting commercial suppliers to supply direct provision accommodation services on an informal or non-competitive basis. What's more is we do not have assurance that the State can stand over the quality of such accommodation or the services provided by these suppliers for the monies spent, he said.
An independent Laois car dealer, who was hit hard by a gang of thieves, has managed to reclaim one of the valuable cars stolen from his garage near Portlaoise.

After a huge public campaign and a tip off from Dublin, Joh Kelly, owner of JK Auto, alerted gardai to the whereabouts of a BMW that was taken from his premises at The Heath, Portlaoise in the early hours of last Wednesday morning, September 21.

The white BMW 3 series had was due to be delivered on the day after the theft. It was on sale for 13,900 and was due to have been picked up the day after the raid by a highly organised gang.

However, after he received the tip of Mr Kelly contacted gardai who subsequently located the car in the Nangor Road, area of Clondalkin.

The suspicion is that the thieves left it to 'cool off' in case it contained a tracking device. Gardai watched the car for some time but none of the culprits appeared.

There is hope that a second car may yet be located. The second car is a 2013 Audi A5 2.0 TDI S LINE 177BHP two door diesel coupe. Charcol grey in colour it has 60,00km on the clock. Its registration is 131 D 5079. It was on sale for 32,900.

Gardai in the west of Ireland have been in touch with Mr Kelly.

Even if the second car is found, Mr Kelly told the Leinster Express that the raid had cost him in the region of 70,000 as a lot of valuable equipment had also been stolen. This is unlikely to be recovered.

However, he thanked the countless number of people from near and far in the car trade, other business and just members of the public who have offered support and practical help since the raid.

He told the Leinster Express that while he is getting on with it, his family and staff have been shaken.
The James Fintan Lalor Autumn School opens on Friday night, September 30 with a performance of some of the highlights from the 2016 commemorative programme.

Titled '1916-2016: The Journey' and produced by Frances Harney, the production will showcase a selection of the music, drama, poetry, prose and dance which has featured throughout the year of commemoration.

Also featured will be a performance of a specially commissioned work by the Music Generation Laois Harp Ensemble, 'Harps Rising' written by Catriona McKay.

The exhibition, 'Unfettered Man of Letters, curated by Brendon Deacy, will be on display throughout the School.

The School will be officially opened at 8pm on Friday and followed by the performance of The Journey.

Brendon Deacy will kick off events at 10am on Saturday, October 1 with a Soap Box titled, '164 Years Later: James Fintan and Peter Lalor Reunited in 2016.'

It will be followed by the first panel debate, chaired by UCD Historian, Diarmuid Ferriter on the subject of '1916: What are we remembering and why?'

The panellists are Fergal McGarry, Professor of Irish History at Queen's University Belfast, Conor Brady, Sunday Times columnist, Catriona Crowe, Head of Special Projects, National Archives, and Eve Morrisson, Historian and Author.

The after lunch session will commence with a Soap Box by Lorraine Comer, Head of Education, National Museum on '1916 Commemoration: A National Museum Viewpoint.'

The panel debate will be chaired by Tommy Graham, Editor, History Ireland on the topic of, 'Were the ideals of the 1916 Rising subsequently betrayed?'

The panellists are Robert Ballagh, artist; Conor Mcnamara, NUI Galway and 1916 Scholar in Residence; Mary McAuliffe, Author and Assistant Professor at UCD School of Women's Studies and Susan McKay, Director of the Glens Centre in North Leitrim.

The School will conclude with a reflection by Teddy Fennelly of the Laois Heritage Society at 4pm.
A new book in which a local woman describes her innermost feelings and experiences while helping her mother cope with the dementia, Alzheimers, will be launched at a function at The Bridge House Hotel, Tullamore, Co. Offaly on Monday 26th September at 7.00 p.m.

Anne Joyce, a first time author, wrote the 230 page book titled A Reason to Love More  The Alzheimers Enigma over a period of three years following the shock news that doctors diagnosed her mother Nelly with the disabling disease.

She wrote the book as a therapy suggested by her personal adviser.

Anne Joyce in this sad, funny, uplifting and true account of the journey from the day her sisters thought that something was not quite right with their mams behaviour gives an insight that only those who have experienced Alzheimers can understand. She offers another way to handle one of the cruellest diseases of all. Her compelling story offers hope, meaning and reward. That is the enigma. Books editor Helen Ashdown in a foreword to the book.

Anne Joyce lives at Ashmount View, Cloneygown, Tullamore, Co. Offaly.

She has three children Daron, Sarah and Lailah. A professional dressmaker in Dublin in the 1980s, she returned to her native county where she opened a dressmaking, design and alterations business in Portarlington.

A Reason to Love More- The Alzheimers Enigma is published by Three Sisters Press, Ltd. and is available in good bookshops.
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has said the modern world isnt immune from repeating the tragic pages of the past, including crimes against humanity.

"The tragedy of Babi Yar (Babyn Yar) is a warning to all humanity. Any regime that does not honor human rights and freedoms is a threat to the very humanity and our moral duty is to prevent the recurrence of crimes against humanity and humanism," Poroshenko said at the event dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the tragedy of the victims of Babi Yar in Kyiv on Thursday.

Ukrainian President said that the modern world isnt immune from repeating the tragic pages of the past.

"Such a prospect looks unreal at first glance. But if the leaders of some countries consider fighting for the so-called historical justice as the cornerstone, as Hitler, for instance, used to justify his crimes this way; if the international law is humiliated by the aggressor once again; if the current UN Assembly sometimes reminds of the League of Nations of that time; if Crimean annexation is called by the Russian propaganda as Anschluss in reverse translation from German... If its true, then where is the guarantee that we are immune from repeating other tragic pages of the recent past," Poroshenko said.

According to Poroshenko, the scale of the Holocaust could have been reduced if other countries were not trying to close their eyes and did not restrain Jewish immigration.

"There were many who could be rescued if the world had demonstrated the proper solidarity and if governments then had not closed the door for Jews," the president of Ukraine said.

"The lesson of the Babi Yar is a reminder of the terrible price of political and moral myopia. This is the reminder that the indulgence to the aggressor just provokes him. Tragedies of this kind are not possible in the conditions of democracy: they are unique to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes only," Poroshenko said.
This year's James Fintan Lalor Autumn School features an array of panellists drawn up from the academic, media, artistic and historical worlds.

Brendon Deacy

Saturday's programme will commence with Artist Brendon Deacy's Soap Box on '164 Years Later: James Fintan and Peter Lalor Reunited in 2016.'

The Emo based artist is also hosting his new exhibition 'Unfettered Man of Letters' of memorabilia linking Fintan Lalor and 1916, which will be on display in the foyer of the Dunamaise Arts Centre.

Brendon has recently returned from Ballarat in Austrailia where his exibition Siorai:Visualising the Words of James Fintan Lalor today, showed at the Museum of of Australian Democracy in Eureka.

Diarmuid Ferriter

The morning panel debate is on the theme of 1916: What are we remembering and why? and will be chaired by Diarmuid Ferriter, Professor of Modern Irish History at University College Dublin.

A graduate of UCD, BA (1991), PhD (1996), he was appointed Professor of Modern Irish History in UCD in 2008 after a time spend as senior lecturer in Irish History at St Patrick's College, DCU, 1999-2008.

He was the visiting Burns Library Scholar at Boston College 2008-2009.

His main research interests include the social, political and cultural history of 20th century Ireland.

Fergal McGarry

Fergal McGarry is Professor of Irish History at Queen's University Belfast.

He studied history at University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin. He lectured for several years at Trinity, before moving to NUI Maynooth as a Governement of Ireland research fellow. He joined Queen's University in 2002. He was joint editor of Irish Historical Studies and is a member of the editorial board of Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Section C.

Dr McGarry specialises in modern Irish history. More recently, his resarch has focused on the revolutionary period, with books on the Easter Rising and a collective biography of seven rebels associated with the Abbey Theatre.

Conor Brady

Conor Brady is former editor of the Irish Times and is currently a columnist with the Sunday Times.

Catriona Crowe

Catriona Crowe is Head of Special Projects at the National Archives of Ireland.

Eve Morrison

Eve Morrison is a Historian and Author. She studied history at Trinity College Dublin and recently completed a PhD entitled The Bureau of Military History: Separatist Veterans Narratives of the Irish Revolution, 19131923.

Lorraine Comer

The Afternoon Session will commence with a Soap Box by Lorrain Comer, Head of Education at the National Museum of Ireland. She will speak on the 1916 commemoration froma National Museum Viewpoint.

Lorraine Comer joined the National Museum of Ireland as Head of Education in 2008. She is responsible for leading and managing the Education Department for all four sites of the National Museum of Ireland.

Lorraine holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and English; a Higher Diploma in Education and a Masters degree with honours in Modern Drama Studies from University College Dublin.

Tommy Graham

The History Ireland Hedge School will commence at 2.15pm on the subject of Were the ideals of the 1916 Rising subsequently betrayed?

The panel debate will be chaired by Tommy Graham, Editor of History Ireland.

A history graduate of Trinity College, Tommy Graham ounded Historical Walking Tours of Dublin in 1986.

He is a founder and editor of History Ireland, the countrys only illustrated history magazine.

He lectures in Irish history and politics at Griffith College and formerly at Tisch NYU.

A presenter of Newstalks Talking History, hes also a regular contributor to the stations Moncrieff show.

At the 2010 Electric Picnic he kicked off his latest project, History Ireland Hedge Schools, an ongoing series of round table discussions of historical and contemporary interest.

Robert Ballagh

Robert Ballagh is one of the best known contemporary Irish artist, painters and designers. His painting style was strongly influenced by pop art.

He is particularly well known for his hyperealistic renderings of well known Irish literary, historical or establishment figures.

Conor McNamara

Conor McNamara is the 1916 Scholar in Residence at NUI Galway. Conor's research focuses on political violence and social upheaval in 19th and 20th century Ireland.

He has written extensively on food shortage in the West in the first half of the 19th century, social upheaval during the revolutionary period, and the intersection between political violence and banditry.

Mary McAuliffe

Mary McAuliffe is an author and Assistant Professor at UCD School of Women's Studies.

She specialises in Irish women's / gender history.

She currently teaches on the UCD Women's and Gender Studies postgraduate, undergraduate and Outreach Programmes.

Susan McKay

Susan McKay is Director of the Glens Centre in North Leitrim. An award winning journalist and writer she oversees the The Glens Centre which was established in late 1980s as part of a cross-community project to revitalise north Leitrim. It has pioneered the concept of the performance laboratory, in which artists can come to the centre and share the space with the local community as part of developing new work.
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In the wake of the latest boundary commission proposals, Lord (Paul) Tyler has been writing in the Western Morning News emphasising the need for electoral reform, rather than boundary tinkering:

For decades, arch defenders of first-past-the-post voting system have claimed that, despite its obvious defects, at least it prevents extremism. Not so while MPs look to their increasingly extreme constituency memberships for career security. Any election after October 2018, when these new boundaries come into play, would be full of candidates who have had to appeal to the most unrepresentative group of voters, their own party members. However, an early election would be contested, of course, within existing boundaries.

The only way to secure new legitimacy for our politics is to institute real equal votes of equal value. That means cancelling this boundary-tinkering exercise and reforming the electoral system. It would be a rescue package for the open, tolerant, united Britain so many of us felt was left behind on June 23, hauling our politics away from territory on which I fear divisive nationalism and xenophobia could prosper.
I did wonder if Id slipped down a rabbit hole when I heard this news.

But, given his acclaimed appearance of The Last Leg and his LBC experience, it is perhaps understandable that Have I got news for you have invited Nick Clegg to present the first show of the new series on October 7th. Now that he has been separated from his Deputy Prime Ministerial limo for a while, he is perhaps sufficiently non-establishment enough to provide a bit of grist to the HIGNFY mill.

It should be worth watching, if only for the comments of the pannellists aimed at the back of the former DPM.

Scottish comedian Kevin Bridges is lined up for the panel, suggesting the programme should be strong on humour and perhaps light on scathing barbs aimed at the Cleggster.

* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
Hilary Clintons running mate, Senator Tim Kaine, has written about the importance of civil rights in Americas presidential election.

In an essay for Black Entertainment Television he writes:

Ive learned how being white means you can go your entire life without ever understanding the challenges African-Americans face every day. Its on all of us to come to grips with these issues. In many ways, thats the deeper question were facing in this election: who we are, how we treat each other and what kind of nation we want to leave our children. Its a civil rights election.

He emphasises the economic nature of segregation in 2016 and the sharply different ways law enforcement treats people depending on their colour:

Today, African-American families only have eight cents of wealth for every dollar a white family has. African-Americans are more likely to be convicted and sentenced to longer prison sentences than white Americans for the same crimes. Far too many Black families are losing loved ones to gun violence and through deadly encounters with the police at an alarming rate.

He has this to say about Trump:

This is a man who simply doesnt see the heroes and heroines of a vibrant civil rights movement, the success of Black leaders in every field, the strength of the Black church or the pride that so many Black parents feel watching their children thrive. He even perpetrated the painful and bigoted lie that President Obama is not an American citizen. So its pretty rich for Trump to ask people he has disregarded for decades, What do you have to lose? Id say quite a bit.

Most importantly he sets out a very solid plan of action for the Clinton administration:

Well target resources where theyre needed most by investing in jobs and infrastructure in communities that have been left out and left behind. Well make sure that environmental injustices like what occurred in Flint, Michigan, never happen again by eliminating lead and investing in water infrastructure, especially in areas where decades of neglect have created dangerous living conditions. Well put forward national use-of-force guidelines for the nations police forces and rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Well end the era of mass incarceration and replace the school-to-prison pipeline with a cradle-to-college pipeline. And while were making college debt-free for everyone, well invest $25 billion in Historically Black Colleges and Universities to make sure theyll keep producing some of our countries greatest leaders for generations to come. And finally, well reinstate the Voting Rights Act. Dont let anyone tell you your vote isnt important. If it wasnt, the other side wouldnt be trying so hard to stop you.

There are plenty of equivalent steps in the UK that Liberal Democrats have and are calling for, not least to target resources where theyre needed most by investing in jobs and infrastructure in communities that have been left out and left behind. And that applies to communities of all colours.

Tim Kaine has previously described himself as the most boring man in politics but if this essay is anything to go by he is a good choice for Vice-President of the USA.

* Antony Hook was #2 on the South East European list in 2014, is the English Party's representative on the Federal Executive and produces this sites EU Referendum Roundup.
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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in Israel have discussed the matter of the ratification of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement.

"The two officials have coordinated efforts to speed up the ratification of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU," the Ukrainian president's press service reported on Friday.

They also discussed the preliminary results of the inquiry by the Joint Investigation Team JIT into the MH17 tragedy.

"Poroshenko and Rutte have emphasized the importance of completing the investigation and bringing the perpetrators to justice. In this context, the Dutch prime minister said that the Russian ambassador had been called to the Foreign Ministry of the Netherlands," the report said.

For his part, Poroshenko spoke about the need to preserve unity among the EU countries for the continuation of sanction pressure on Russia until the full restoration of Ukraine's territorial integrity.

In turn, Rutte noted the importance of prompt provision of the visa-free regime to Ukrainians.
INDEPENDENT Limerick city councillor John Gilligan has called for the removal of the Nicholas Street Fireplace site, describing it as an eyesore for 25 years.

Ahead of a metropolitan meeting, Cllr Gilligan also called for the preservation of the ancient walls along the Island Road, which he said are overgrown and crumbling.

Cllr Gilligan said that the current Fireplace site has been left in ruin, after a family shoe repair shop was temporarily moved to make way for development at that site. However, he said, after the site was demolished, development ceased and has been left in its current condition for quarter of a century.

He added that the council has squandered hundreds of thousands of euros on the sites maintenance.

I am now calling on the CEO Conn Murray to take this on and do something about it, he said.

Senior project manager, Seamus Hanrahan said that current works include ivy overgrowth treatment; archaeological analysis on stonework; stabilisation works; repointing the walls stonework; archaeological excavation of the site; and preparing a design brief for possible developments.

Ahead of Monday mornings metropolitan district meeting, Sinn Fein councillor John Cosetlloe also requested information from officials on the councils plans for Nicholas Streets future development.
CROWDS of people gathered in Guineys store on William Street today for the last event in the five-day 95-stop-tour run by Limerick's Live95fm, where they were joined by popular Irish rock band The Riptide Movement.

Staff from the radio station and Guineys dressed up in costume as various childrens characters such as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and Dora the Explorer spent the night in the shop window, while others had their legs waxed for charity.

The annual fundraising event, which began on Monday, is in aid of Cari, the Childrens Ark and the neonatal unit at University Hospital Limerick on the Ennis Road.

Donations will be used to purchase vital medical equipment which will help the treatment and protection of Limericks newest arrivals for years to come. Were living on the window for 24 hours from 11.30am yesterday to 11.30am today to raise money for Limerick kids. Weve been waxing, weve had a knicker challenge and a fashion show. Weve been up all night, weve been dancing all night, and weve had a ball, said store manager Alison Stubbins.

The fundraising initiative, now in its third year, has raised hundreds of thousands of euros for Limerick children and this year it is hoping to break the 500,000 mark.

The tour began on Monday with a live broadcast from the Adare Heritage Centre.

On Tuesday, Limerick Today was broadcasted live from Garveys Centra in NewCastle West.

On Wednesday, the show was broadcasted live from the Irish World Academy in UL from the Croom Civic Centre on Thursday.

To donate, visit www.95stoptour.com.
A LIMERICK criminal has been found not guilty of threatening to kill a grandad during an incident on the southside of the city last year.

Throughout a three-day retrial Thomas ONeill, aged 28, who has an address at Lenihan Avenue, Prospect denied threatening to kill or cause serious harm to Liam Casey senior at Byrne Avenue, Prospect, on November 17, 2015.

Mr Casey (52) told the jury he was parked near his daughters home when the defendant crossed in front of his Mercedes car.

He told me you are going to get fixed, youre going to get it tonight, Im going to shoot you f****** dead.

Being cross-examined by Brian McInerney BL, Mr Casey agreed he gave evidence under oath during the original trial that he was not worried about the alleged threats.

There seems to be two versions of the truth, said Mr McInerney who accused him of making up a fairytale.

For whatever reason you got it into your head that you wanted to cut down my client, he said.

In his closing speech on Friday, Mr McInerney, who was instructed by solicitor Sarah Ryan accused Mr Casey of telling lies and he said Mr OSullivan and the prosecution were living in a world of fantasy.

People can harbour a grudge, people can lie, people can make false complaints, he said urging the jury to take his client off the rack of torture and restore him to the bosom of his family.

Following less than 26 minutes of deliberations, the seven men and five women returned to court with a unanimous not guilty verdict.

Mr ONeill smiled with relief when the verdict was read out while his girlfriend April Collins clapped gently as she sat in the public gallery.

Judge Tom ODonnell discharged the jury and thanked them for their service during the trial.

It was the second time Mr ONeill, who has been in custody since his arrest, was tried in relation to the incident. In June, another jury failed to agree a verdict.

He is currently serving a short sentence in relation to a separate offence and is due to released next week.

Thomas O'Neill arriving at Limerick Circuit Court earlier this week
KYIV. Sept 30 (Interfax-Ukraine)  Ukrainian experts believe that the draft 2017 national budget is honest and poor, and that the State Fiscal Service will be the key driver.

"The draft 2017 national budget is designed with difficulties, with outlays slanted towards law enforcement agencies, towards security. There are many questions about planned social expenditures. The prime minister said this himself  I would say this is a poor budget, but an honest one. We are accustomed to bad budgets, but this one is honest and was submitted according to schedule," Director of the Institute of Global Strategies Vadym Karasiov said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Friday.

He said that the focus of the government on the submission of the draft national budget according to schedule could be an attempt to divert public attention away from its contents.

"What will be the driver of the economic growth? Foreign investments? We do not have them. Consumption? We do not have it. We have only debts. We borrow. We have a debt-based economy and a debt-based budget. When there are no foreign investments and there is no solvent consumption as a driver of the economy, the [State] Fiscal Service will be in charge of meeting budget targets. It will be the driver of the budget," Karasiov said.

Gardarica Strategic Consulting Corporation expert Kostiantyn Matviyenko said that the largest outlay article of the 2017 national budget is around UAH 211 billion for payments on the state debt. The draft budget is built on the new tax base that is to be passed six months before the budget takes effect, before July, according to Ukrainian law.

He said the annulment of the special taxation regime for farmers from 2017 will result in the loss of near UAH 30 billion by them in a year.
Sep 30, 2016, 9 AM

Many important editorial changes enhance the 2017 Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers. More than 5,000 value changes have been made.

By Donna Houseman

Almost 5,400 value changes have been made in the 2017 edition of the Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers.

Before we review some of the important value changes, lets turn our attention to the many significant editorial enhancements that have been made in the catalog this year.

As always, hats off to Scott editor emeritus James E. Kloetzel for working tirelessly on the hundreds of revised and expanded listings in the 2016 catalog. He and other Scott editors stayed busy adding and expanding listings and making significant improvements throughout the catalog. Special thanks to Charles Snee for leading this colossal project from the home office in Sidney, Ohio.

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As with the 2016 edition of the Scott U.S. Specialized catalog, the biggest push this year was to get a great many desired editorial enhancements into the catalog. These enhancements include a number of new earliest documented use dates (EDUs) in the Postage section and other sections.

Many new listings for errors appear for the first time in the 2017 U.S. Specialized catalog, perhaps the most significant and interesting of which is an imperforate error of the normally perforated No. 370, the 1909 2 Alaska-Yukon issue. This error can only be differentiated from the issued imperforate, No. 371, when it is a margin single or multiple and has a plate number 5209 attached in the selvage. That plate number was used only to print the perforated version of the stamp. This situation is similar to the No. 610b 2 Harding imperforate. The number of other new errors in the U.S. Specialized catalog is large this year.

RELATED: Editorial enhancements made, new major numbers added in the Computer Vended Postage section

In the Registry Exchange Labels section, new discoveries continue to be made, resulting in a change of census numbers for nine cities. For example, the number of documented covers with the printed San Juan, Puerto Rico, exchange label moves from seven to eight.

Plate blocks of four listings in the Postage Due section are now valued in never-hinged condition. A number of new plate-block listings have been added to the Official Stamp section. In addition, seven new block-of-four listings appear for Official specimen stamps, where one stamp in the block shows the SEPCIMEN error.

Want to purchase the 2017 Scott U.S. Specialized catalog? Pre-order now on AmosAdvantage.com!

In the First Day Covers section, the 2 Thomas Jefferson on Silkote paper (Scott 1033a) is listed for the first time. This FDC is not often seen in the marketplace, and is thus valued at $10,000 in italics.

In the Vending and Affixing Machine Perforations section of the catalog, a new type V has been listed for the Mailometer group. Similar to type II perforations, the holes on the new type V are slightly smaller in diameter, and they are spaced slightly farther apart. A new illustration accompanies the new listings.

Major enhancements and the addition of new major numbers have been made in Computer Vended Postage section. Be sure to review these listings carefully because some Scott numbers have changed. A total of 16 new computer-vended test stamps also have been added. Some of these are valued, while others are dashed because not enough market data is available at present.

In Stamped Envelopes, paper differences (wove versus laid) are incorporated into the listings for the Mercantile dies, Nos. U400-U419. The double impression listing for No. UC6, previously unlettered, is now properly listed as Scott UC6b. The unlettered listing reflected an older approach, when back-of-the-book stamps were not treated with the same respect and specialization as stamps from the front of the book.

In Revenues, many new varieties such as plate scratches, double transfers, foreign entries, and bisects used on document have been added. Based on input from several revenue specialists, two narcotic tax stamps, Scott RJA1 and RJA16, have been deleted. It has been determined that both of these stamps are fakes.

In Essays, enhancements include new header notes that make it clear which early essays comprise the group submitted by various printers for the 1851 issue contract. This information, while in the catalog previously, was not clearly marked for what it represented, and one of the stamps was attributed to the wrong printer. Also, the essays for the Official Seals have been reworked completely, resulting in listings and illustrations that are now clear and accurate.

A new postal counterfeit of the 2015 Rose and Heart forever stamp has been added as No. 4959(CF1). Why a faker in this day and age would pick an engraved stamp to counterfeit is hard to understand. Except for the die cutting, most people might be fooled by this stamp, but there are many differences between the counterfeit and the genuine stamp that are explained in the footnote. The editors would welcome evidence of on-cover use of this new counterfeit.

The number of enhancements made in the Test Stamp section is truly mind-boggling. They cover both stamps and booklets and include new major numbers in both sections. The ATM and Convertible Booklet Test Panes section has been completely reformatted to include single stamps as well as panes. Some of these items are not currently known as full panes. Specialists will want to review both of these sections carefully.

In U.S. Possessions, Canal Zone has had listings added for the use of wrong type fonts for Nos. 85-95 and J18-J20. More specialized listings for stamps on cover have been added.

In the 2016 U.S. Specialized section for Philippines, blocks of four were replaced by plate blocks listings for Nos. 241-353a. Now, for 2017, all other Philippines listings from No 354 to the end of postage, all air posts, special deliveries, postage dues, Officials, and Japanese occupation issues have had hinged and never-hinged plate-block or inscription-block listings added. This is a major enhancement for collectors and dealers of Philippines stamps.

This review provides only a glimpse of the myriad editorial additions and improvements in this years U.S. Specialized catalog. Be sure to pay attention to the many footnotes throughout the catalog that have been added or revised for clarity.

Values continue to increase for high-grade scarce covers and rare stamps

Once again, as for the last couple of years, action in the marketplace is in very high-grade stamps and rarities. Some rarities were sold during the past year, and some new values have resulted, such as in Officials and Newspaper stamps. As one might expect, the bulk of the value changes, more than 2,000, are concentrated in the Postage section.

Values for very fine stamps, in general, are steady or, in a few cases, somewhat softer. Hundreds of value changes are found in the 2017 Scott Stamp Values U.S. Specialized by Grade. This special section of the catalog is sometimes referred to as the yellow pages because the pages have a yellow border to make them easy to locate.

By far the most significant addition in this section is the No. C3a Jenny Invert in the grade of XF-Superb 95 (position No. 58 from the original pane of 100 discovered in 1918). The new value is $1,350,000, based on the sale of this stamp at a World Stamp Show-New York 2016 show auction.

As always, we encourage you to pay special attention to the Number Additions, Deletions & Changes found in each volume of the Scott catalogs.

To purchase the 2017 Scott catalogs, contact your favorite dealer, or call Amos Media at 1-800-488-5349. Also visit AmosAdvantage.com. For Scott eCatalogues, visit ScottOnline.com.

The recently published 2017 Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers includes many editorial enhancements and thousands of value changes.
Sep 29, 2016, 11 PM

Sculptor Arnold Machin is pictured on the first-class stamp at left, issued by Great Britain's Royal Mail in 2007.

By Michael Baadke

British artist and sculptor Arnold Machin was born Sept. 30, 1911, in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England.

His name has been permanently linked with the Machin series of definitive stamps issued continuously by Great Britains Royal Mail since June 1967. The familiar stamps show a sculpted left-facing profile portrait of Queen Elizabeth II that was completed as a bas-relief in plaster by Machin.

Most of the Machin definitives have been issued in a single color, with a very broad range of colors employed over the course of almost 50 years. The stamps have also been printed using a variety of processes, though most are printed by either gravure or offset lithography.

As a young teenager, Machin was an apprentice with a pottery firm before attending art school at Stoke-on-Trent. He became a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1947 after serving in prison during World War II as a conscientious objector. He later taught at the Royal College of Art. Machin died in 1999.

The Machin design has appeared on numerous other postage adhesives, including a series of post & go vended stamps issued in 2011 to mark Machins birth centenary.

In 2007, Royal Mail commemorated the 40th anniversary of Machin stamps by issuing a miniature sheet of four stamps, including two 1 Machin definitives in violet and ruby, respectively, a first-class commemorative depicting the 4-penny brown black Machin stamp issued June 5, 1967, and another first-class commemorative with a photographic portrait of Arnold Machin (Scott 2471).
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First phones, now washing machines! Samsung is being sued over exploding household appliances as firm holds emergency talks with safety watchdog

Samsung customers have filed legal papers against the firm after their washing machines exploded.

The legal warning adds pressure to company bosses already reeling from a global recall of its Note 7 smartphone.

Talks are being conducted between the South Korean technology giant and a US safety watchdog over the problem.

Certain top-load washing machines made between March 2011 and April 2016 were affected by the defect which cause explosions.

Mother Melissa Thaxton, from Paulding County, Georgia, said the sound her washing machine made was 'like a bomb going off'. Her four-year-old son was near the washing machine when the explosion was heard.

'She said: 'I just remember covering my head and leaning over towards my son...and just screaming this scream that I didn't even know I could scream.

Her lawyer said Thaxton would be sue Samsung after a support rod became unfastened during the spin cycle.

Customers in Texas and Indiana have all said their washing machines have exploded.

On Samsung's website, the company said: 'In rare cases, affected units may experience abnormal vibrations that could pose a risk of personal injury or property damage when washing bedding, bulky or water-resistant items.'

The company said consumers with affected models should use the lower speed delicate cycle when washing those materials.

Samsung did not name the models but asked customers to go to their website for more information.

A company spokesman said models sold outside North America are not affected by the issue.

Samsung is also facing a lawsuit from other US customers who said their machines 'explode during normal use'.

Earlier this month the world's top smartphone maker, announced a global recall of at least 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7 smartphones in 10 markets due to faulty batteries causing some phones to catch fire.

The recall comes at a crucial moment in Samsung's mobile business when Apple has launched its new iPhone.

Samsung said there had been 35 incidents of Note 7s catching fire or exploding. There have been no reports of injuries related to the problem.

US aviation safety officials have warned airline passengers not to turn on or charge a Note 7 phone during flights following numerous reports of the devices catching fire.
Security checkpoints at train stations across southwest China's Sichuan province have led to public suspicion due to their equivocal naming of a body scanner.

Starting this year, train passengers in Sichuan are no longer subject to physical inspection at the hands of security officers. Instead, they now must step into a body scanner that scans their image. But the device's name, "Ultra-Weak Photon Emission apparatus," is raising public health concerns.

Reports on Chinese social media speculate that the scanner is no different from a regular X-Ray inspection device, and that the name is deliberately misleading. If this is the case, many feel there should be clear guidelines about the risks, or lack thereof, from possible radiation. Pregnant women have reported seeing no safety notices and receiving no information about possible health hazards when moving through the checkpoints. One man said, "They just instruct us to step up and don't move. The whole process doesn't even take 10 seconds.

Professor Wang Zuoyuan from the Research Center for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety at China's Center for Disease Control told reporters that radiation can be separated into two categories: non-nuclear and nuclear. X-rays belong to the latter; exposure should be avoided as any dose of nuclear radiation can be carcinogenic.

In response to the public's anxiety, the manufacture told reporters that they adopted the odd name in an attempt to prevent panic. Mr. Yao, Head of Public Relations at Anwei Qiluda Photoelectricity Science and Technology Company Limited, the manufacturer, assured media that their inspection scanner fits all national standards. He explained that it emits such a small about of radiation that unless a passenger is exposed "5,000" times, they won't suffer any adverse effects. Mr. Yao further elaborated, saying that the industry standard for accepted dosage of radiation is 4sv, yet their device emits less than 1sv.

However, Professor Wang believes exposure to nuclear radiation should be avoided, even in tiny doses. "Contracting an illness that requires an X-Ray is fine, that's a small dosage. But exposing unknowing travelers is inappropriate. Any dosage is linked to increasing the chances of getting cancer, so if there's no need then it shouldn't be used."

Years ago, in 2012, the Transportation Security Administration in the United States removed X-ray body scanners from major airports, replacing them with machines that radiation experts believe are safer.
BEIJING, Sept. 29 -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang made a golden fall trip to America from Sept. 18 to Sept. 28, visiting the UN headquarters in New York of the United States, Canada and Cuba.

During the visit, the premier expounded China's positions on peace and development at the UN, and conveyed China's confidence in its own economic growth as well as commitment to sustainable development.

Li reaffirmed China's readiness to inject new dynamics into the China-Canada relations for a new "golden 10 years" prostect, and to upgrade the traditonal friendship with Cuba to a new stage.

Throughout the trip, the Chinese premier showcased China's charm as a responsible, wise and generous world power.

RESPONSIBILITIES AS WORLD POWER

Sustainable development was the theme of the current UN General Assembly. This year also marked the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes 17 sustainable development goals and 169 targets goals aimed at elimination of hunger, realization of food security, promotion of sustainable agriculture, among others.

On behalf of the Chinese government, Li released the country's national plan for implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. When chairing a roundtable on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) at the UN headquarters, he said China will have greater resolution and make greater efforts to ensure the achievement of the SDGs at the earliest time possible.

As a leader and implementer of sustainable development, China has fixed a plan for two centuries of development as a long-term strategy and the "13th Five-Year Plan" for a short-term one.

While realizing the "China Dream" for national rejuvenation, China is also making substantial contributions to world sustainable development at the same time.

As the world's most populous nation and a responsible world power, China is actively participating in relevant international cooperation plans and invites other countries to join its own development projects and share their benefits. The aim of China is to contribute to building a world of abundance, full development and dignity.

WISDOM OF WORLD POWER

The Chinese premier's visit included numerous dialogues and interactions which drew widespread attention and interest from the UN and host countries.

At the UN headquarters, Li chaired a roundtable meeting on SDGs participated by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Chairman of the 71st UN General Assembly Peter Thomson and leaders of other major international organizations. During the meeting, Li fully expounds China's views and plans to implemnent the Sustainable Development Agenda and reach SDGs.

Li also held a number of successful interactions with American business, media and think tank personalities in New York on the China-U.S. relations, China's eocnomic development perspectives, and furthering bilateral ties between China and the United States.

In Canada, the premier was warmly welcomed by the whold spectrum of Canadian political system and government leaders, while closely interacting with local business leaders, which made his Canada trip a complete success.

In Cuba, the premier had five separate meetings with Cuban leader Raul Castro who expressed his wish to see more Chinese participation in his country's economic and social development.

Li pointed out when joining the UN general assembly debate that development is the key to solving numerous problems and addressing the roots of global challeges. It is also vital to guaranteeing the fundamental rights of the people and keeping human civilization moving forward, he added.

China's own wisdom is working to disgnose global problems, to promote a strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth worldwide, and to create confidence.

GENEROSITY OF WORLD POWER

On world refugee and migrant crisis, the Chinese premier said the issue is a humanitarian crisis testing human conscience. He said China decided to donate 100 million U.S. dollars to the UN for dealing with the refugee and migrants crisis as "an act of justice."

On sustainable development, Li announced a 100 million U.S. dollar donation to UN agencies, calling global development partnership and sustainable deveoopment "a common cause for the whole world" and "moral responsibility" of all.

The China-initiated assitance fund for South-South Cooperation and the China-UN Peace and Development Fund, China's commitment to UN climate change goals by signing the Paris Pact, all showed the country's sense of responsibility to meet the global challenges.

With a spirit of openness and inclusiveness, China has proposed the contruction of a human community of common destity, while stressing the priority of seeking mutual understanding, common interests over differences and misunderstanding in developing relations with countries with differenct political systems.

Peace and development remains the theme of the world today. China will continue to make efforts to safeguard international peace and promote human common development.

Premier Li's visit to America again demonstrated that China will stick to its promises, take its own responsibilities, seek common ground while putting aside differences with others, look for a win-win situation in collaborations, deepen friendship, and strengthen confidence.

As a result, China's diplomacy as a world power presents its charm to the rest of the world.
Unfair to imply China has not fully complied over NK

The US is investigating a number of Chinese companies for suspected breaches of sanctions on North Korea, as China steps up efforts to crack down on violators.

Daniel Russel, senior US diplomat for East Asia, was quoted by Reuters as saying that although China had agreed to a tough round of UN sanctions, there was much more it could be doing to ensure the proper implementation of existing sanctions and by agreeing to new steps.

"We recognize that changing Chinese behavior is a prerequisite for changing North Korea's behavior," Russel said.

It's the US' latest move to tighten the noose around violators of UN sanctions, after the US Treasury Department said Monday that it was slapping sanctions on Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development Company for using proxy companies to violate sanctions on North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

Lu Chao, a research fellow at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that China has faithfully implemented UN Resolution 2270, especially on intensifying checks on any exports of military-related products, suspending financial services and cutting off aircraft fuel supplies to North Korea since March.

UN Resolution 2270 is the toughest sanction on North Korea so far.

"However some companies located on the border have relations with North Korea. They may evade the sanctions for financial gain. And the Chinese government is cracking down on these violators, Lu said.

Lioaning's public security department announced on its official Sina Weibo on September 15 that they have placed Dandong Hongxiang and its executives under investigation for "serious economic crimes involving trade activities."

It is unfair to imply that China has not fully implemented UN sanctions since March, and the US should not blame China because the sanctions have little effect on stopping further North Korean nuclear tests, Lu said.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said on Tuesday that any person or company found breaching UN regulations will be punished, and, if necessary, China will cooperate with other countries on this on the basis of mutual respect and equality.

Geng also noted that China opposes any country which uses domestic laws to carry out "long-arm jurisdiction" against Chinese entities or individuals.

Jin Qiangyi, director of the Asia Studies Center at Yanbian University, told the Global Times on Thursday that local governments of border areas are in a dilemma since border trade has become one of their main businesses, and that the central government should provide support to enforce the sanctions.

No halt

The US has also urged the UN Security Council to address a provision that allows China to import coal and iron ore from North Korea. Washington suspects this has influenced the sanctions' economic leverage against the North, AP reported on Wednesday.

The Nikkei Asian Review reported that coal accounts for nearly 40 percent of Pyongyang's trade with China.

Imports of gold, iron ore and coal from North Korea have recently dropped but not halted in deference to the North Koreans' livelihood, Jin said

Jin noted that major ports in Shandong and Liaoning that used to import coal from North Korea report limited coal imports from that country in recent months.

The Korea Herald reported that China's exports to North Korea show a drop of 27.6 percent to $193 million in July from the same period in 2015. And China's imports from North Korea dropped by 5 percent from a year ago at $227 million.

"China will also fulfill its international obligations if the UN tightens sanctions on the North after its largest explosion this month. But any sanctions should be under the UN framework since any unilateral activity or threat of the use of force especially from the US may deteriorate the situation on the Korean Peninsula," said Lu.

Four days after North Korea's fifth nuclear weapons test on September 9, the US Air Force responded with a show of force to the North, flying two powerful, supersonic B-1 bombers over South Korea, according to CNN.

US patience toward North Korea has dwindled, and the international community should not count on economic sanctions without a subsequent response, Jin said, adding that all concerned parties should work together to come up with more practical measures.
They might have never thought the house owner, a Chinese woman who was wearing a nightgown, would furiously open fire on them when they invaded her house with guns, and one of them - Antonio Leeks - might also have never thought he would lose his life.

This is not a scene from a US film. This is what really happened in Gwinnett county, Georgia, last week, according to a surveillance video released by police.

The video from inside the home shows the Chinese woman, Chen Fengzhu, originally from Fujian Province, South China, rush from her bedroom and then unload all her bullets on the three men.

As they exchange fire, with drywall debris clouding the dark home, the video shows one man run through a glass door. Another man died of his injuries in the driveway.

This video has gone viral on different Web platforms, such as YouTube and WeChat, and generated millions of views and hot discussion.

One topic is whether the owner should have fought against the invaders in that dangerous situation. Other is an old debate - whether the US government should put stricter measures on gun ownership.

Most of the comments praise her bravery. Gavin Smith, a You Tube user, said, "Well done! Brave lady! People, stand up and use your constitutional rights to fight and protect yourself."

Joey Chen, a real estate manager in Los Angeles, told the Global Times that "Chen [the house owner] has done what she should do to protect her property, and I would do the same thing if I was in the same situation."

Joey , who had experienced two burglaries in September, said, "You cannot image how slow the American police are, especially when it is a burglary report, so having a gun can at least overawe the thieves."

However, considering the danger of the situation, some people had opposite views.

"I admire her action, but I might not have done that if I was her," Joyce Zhang, who runs an educational institution in Chicago, told the Global Times.

Zhang said to avoid getting shot or killed herself, she would have called the police.

"Whether I would do the same thing or not, I believe it would be safer if there were less guns in society," Joyce added.

Taking the opposite view, YouTube user "ASP1RE Official" said, "Do you think she could have won against three men if she didn't have her weapon?"

Gun culture

Owning guns has been an America tradition, which made the US the first and the only country to constitutionally allow the public to own guns. Forty-four out of 50 states have clear provisions to protect people's gun rights in their state constitutions.

Joey, an American citizen, said having a gun is very important for protection, "Not only from gangsters, but also from wild animals such as bears and wild dogs."

However, frequent gun violence, such as the Orlando bar shooting in July, has made the old debate fresh again.

According reports, most Americans like guns, especially men, but the need for more measures on gun control is also demanded by some people.

According to Zhao Jianqi, a gun-loving Chinese international student studying in the University of Illinois in Chicago, the control of guns in some states is not very adequate.

From Zhao's experience in a gun range in the state of Wisconsin, to get a gun in a shooting range is very easy, even for foreigners such as international students and tourists.

"It was kind of surprising to me when I first get into a gun range in Wisconsin. They just checked my student ID without asking for a shooting license and any background or passport check," Zhao said.

"Furthermore, when I walked into the shooting zone, I found that people can freely take the guns out of the range, which could be very dangerous if someone was out of his mind," adding that he felt very at risk, despite having fun.

Appeals for gun control

If his cousin hasn't died, Morris Victor, an actor based in Chicago, "might be a gun lover," but since his cousin's suicide using a firearm, Victor wants to keep away from guns.

"Every time when I see a gun, my cousin's image comes to mind. He suffered depression. If he did not own a gun, he might be well, at least alive," Victor told the Global Times through a video interview.

Smith commented under the Chen video on YouTube, "If anything, greater gun control would have made it harder or prevented the three intruders from obtaining guns rather than prohibiting the defender from obtaining one."

Despite the different views of whether the owner should fight with the invaders or society needs more guns, all of the people interviewed for this article agreed that more gun control is needed.

"Despite my supportive opinion on having guns, adequate measures on gun control are necessary. It is like medicine that could save you or kill you," Joey Chen noted.

"I absolutely support gun control, I understand the benefit of having a gun for safety, but if everybody has a gun, it is already not safe," Zhang concluded.
Photo shows the "Snow Dragon" ship navigating into the North Pole gate. [Photo: zjol.com.cn]

The seventh Arctic Scientific Expedition in China has finished its 78-day task, with the team members arriving back in Shanghai on the "Snow Dragon" polar expedition ship.

The mission was joined by many marine scientists from the Second Ocean Research Institute of the State Oceanic Administration, based in Hangzhou.

Liu Chenggang is one of the scientists who took part. His expedition reached the North and South Poles, searching the ocean to a depth of 5,000 meters using the "Dragon" submarine.

Over the Summer, on his first expedition to the North Pole, he took hundreds of photos which give us a glimpse of how spectacular the North Pole is, and tells some of the stories of the team members.

The expedition got underway on July 11, 2016 and covered 13,000 nautical miles (24,076 kilometers). The expedition reached 82 degrees 52 minutes 59 seconds north.
People dressed in traditional Chinese costume perform at a ceremony to mark the 2567th birthday of Confucius, in Cangzhou, north China's Hebei Province, Sept. 28, 2016. Confucius, a great Chinese thinker and philosopher, has his birthday celebrated around the country here on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Yuan Liwei)

Analysts said the unprecedented celebrations to mark the 2,567th birth anniversary of Confucius across the country shows the Chinese people long for a cultural revival.

In a ceremony held in Confucius' hometown, Qufu, in East China's Shandong Province on Wednesday, more than 2,000 people recited excerpts from The Analects, a collection of Confucius' famous sayings, in front of the Confucius Temple. The participants included government officials, UNESCO officials, scholars, students and descendants of Confucius, from over 20 countries and regions.

Similar ceremonies were also held in cities across China on Wednesday. In Changchun, North China's Jilin Province, about 20 of Confucius' descendants participated in a ritual in the city's Confucius Temple. A Confucius-themed museum was also opened to the public in Quzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province on the same day, displaying ancient books and materials on Confucianism.

In Jinan, Shandong Province, contestants (college students from Shandong) were seated by the T-stage and recited the eulogy for the great educator and philosopher, the China Youth Daily reported.

Over 900 Uyghur students from a primary school in Wushi county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, also recited passages from The Analects in front of Confucius' portrait.

"The ceremonies show Chinese people are trying to restore their culture after experiencing a crisis of values in the 20th century due to the impact of Western culture," Yao Zhongqiu, a professor at Beihang University and a Confucian scholar, told the Global Times.

"After years of cultural introspection, the Chinese people finally realized the value of Confucian philosophy and have become more confident than ever about it," said Yang Chaoming, head of the Confucius Research Institute.

Confucianism belongs not only to the ethnic Han but to all ethnic Chinese. It plays a significant role in building social harmony and a common civilization, Yang added.

Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke at an international seminar in 2014 to mark the 2,565th anniversary of the birth of Confucius, saying that culture is the soul of a nation, and called for mutual understanding between civilizations.
Do you think your political views have changed, or will change, over time?

The presidential race is really heating up, and some voters are already casting their ballots for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump. Given the United States' starkly divided political climate, one might think it obvious that fundamental, built-in differences exist between Democrats and Republicans.

Science has suggested that there are key features in the brains of liberals and conservatives  bywords, respectively, for Democrats and Republicans these days  that might help explain why people think and vote the way they do.

"There are converging lines of evidence for brain regions that make sense as biological correlates for political attitudes," said Darren Schreiber, a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego.

Related:

Yet ideology stems from more than a slightly oversized or under-functioning brain region, researchers say. One's upbringing and experiences matter a great deal in forming political identities, which after all can change over a lifetime, or even a single election season. [People Become More Liberal With Age]

But some individuals do become quite fixed in their political opinions. Such partisanship might speak to an underlying biological bent to worldviews that events and experience cannot undo.

"Generally people who tend to be moderate can go from one side to another, but I don't know of any extreme left-winger that became a right-winger," said Marco Iacoboni, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral science at the University of California Los Angeles.

Ideology, by the numbers

In terms of the percentage of the United States' population that identifies itself as liberal, moderate or conservative, the numbers have held relatively steady over the last 20 years, according to Gallup.

The percentage of Democrats, Moderates and Republicans has remained relatively steady over the past two decades. (Image credit: Karl Tate, LiveScience Infographic Artist)

Liberals have remained in the vicinity of 20 percent, moderates, around 37 percent and conservatives a shade higher around 40 percent, since the early 1990s.

At the extremes, those who identify themselves nowadays as hard-left Democrats stands at 9 percent compared with 21 percent who are hard-right Republicans.

A blue or red brain?

Researchers have long wondered if some people can't help but be an extreme left-winger or right-winger, based on innate biology. To an extent, studies of the brains of self-identified liberals and conservatives have yielded some consistent trends, Schreiber said.

Two of these trends are that liberals tend to have more activity in parts of the brain known as the insula and anterior cingulate cortex. Among other functions, the two regions overlap to an extent by dealing with cognitive conflict, in the insula's case, while the anterior cingulate cortex helps in processing conflicting information. [10 Things You Didn't Know About the Brain]

Conservatives, on the other hand, have demonstrated more activity in the amygdala, known as the brain's "fear center." "If you see a snake or a picture of a snake, the amygdala will light up  it's a threat detector," said Iacoboni.

A study of British subjects published in 2011 supported these past imaging studies with measurements of brain structure. The study showed that on average the amygdala is bigger in conservatives, likely indicating greater use of it in neurological processing. In contrast, liberals often possessed larger anterior cingulate cortexes.

Altogether, these findings suggest liberals can more easily tolerate uncertainty, which might be reflected in their shades-of-gray policy positions. In the U.S., those typically include being pro-choice and lenient on illegal immigration.

Conservatives, meanwhile, have a more binary view of threats versus non-threats. Again, such a predisposition could be extended to policy positions, such as being pro-life and stricter on the immigration issue.

Schreiber cautioned, however, that reinforcement of political views might induce the observed phenomena in the brain, rather than the other way around.

Regardless, it is too simple, he said, to chalk up our political ideologies to brain form and function. "The idea that we're somehow hardwired," Schreiber said, in regards to our political ideologies, "is totally inadequate."

Political dynasties

Indeed, genetic and environment studies have suggested that political attitudes are forged more through experience than some innate tendency.

Research in different countries has dovetailed in showing that at most around 40 percent of political ideology is heritable, meaning mom and dad handed it down through their genes, said Schreiber.

While 40 percent is quite significant, it still means that more than half of one's ideological influences come from life as it is lived, and not in the manner of "programmed" traits, such as height or eye color.

Political identify, Schreiber said, is "really clearly not a story of genes or environment but their interaction."

Politicos, since in utero

All these findings suggest that, to a great extent, humans are very much political creatures. Comparative studies with primates, our closest animal relatives, have shown that a driving evolutionary force behind our large brains has been socialization.

Most primates live in big social groups, wherein alliances form and break, often based on sophisticated forms of behavior, including altruism and deceit.

"Evidence really suggests the reason why we have the brain we do as human beings is to solve this problem of politics," Schreiber told LiveScience. "As we have increasingly complex social organization, we need more and more brain mass to deal with its shifting coalitions."

These coalitions include the big political parties themselves. Voters' loyalty to the Dems or the GOP  or neither  is fickle and can change very fast.

In 2015, 29 percent of the U.S. population called themselves Democrats, 26 percent indicated they were Republicans and 42 percent said they were Independents, according to a Gallup survey.

The ebbs and flows make sense, especially over long periods as political parties' positions and the popularity of their prominent members wax and wane. "Politics is constantly changing," said Schreiber.

In other words, the art (and science) of politicking is far from mastered.

Editor's Note: This article was first published in 2011.

Original article on Live Science.
Swiss researchers may have solved the mystery over the identity of a 17th-century man who was buried face-down with a knife and purse filled with coins.

X-ray computer tomography of the coins has revealed the man was likely a merchant, but the reason for his prone burial continues to puzzle the archaeologists.

Unearthed in 2013 in the Bernese Lakeland region of Switzerland during the construction on a new underground garage, the skeleton was found along 342 bodies laid to rest between the 8th and 17th centuries. The individual was among the last 15 bodies to be buried at the ancient cemetery.

The face-down skeleton stood out from all the other graves.

"It is certainly a deviant burial, in the sense that the burial practices here seem to be very unusual for the time," Christian Weiss, a numismatic expert with the Archaeological Services of Canton Bern, told Discovery News. "The individual was facing to the ground; moreover, a knife and a purse were found within the burial where we normally don't find any grave goods in this time," Weiss said.

RELATED: Anti-Demonic Burial Found in Poland

Under the individual's chest, the archaeologists found what remained of a leather purse. Over time, the leather had decomposed and the coins it contained had corroded together to form a solid block of metal.

Unable to separate the coins, the researchers turned to a powerful X-ray computer tomograph, a new instrument called DETECT. Used in conjunction with a high resolution detector, the DETECT revealed the presence of 24 coins.

"The astonishing fact about these coins is that they belong to three different coin circulation areas, the Fribourg-Bern-Solothurn, Basel-Freiburg in Breisgau and Luzern-Schwyz regions," Weiss said.

The finding suggests the individual was moving in these three areas, which had their own coins in local circulation at that time.

"It is possible he was a traveling merchant," Weiss said.

With one exception, a heavily worn silver coin from France, all the coins in the purse are of rather low value.

"They are really just small change," Weiss said. "The most interesting to me isn't really one particular coin, but the ensemble all together. We rarely get such a big ensemble of small value coins from this time."

RELATED: Medieval 'Witch Girl' Suffered From Scurvy

The latest among the coins in the purse dates from 1629, indicating the man must have been buried after then. The reason behind the face-down burial remains a mystery.

Like other deviant burials, in which the dead were buried with a brick in the mouth, nailed or staked to the ground, the prone burial aimed to humiliate the dead and prevent the individual from rising from the grave, since it was believed that the soul left the body through the mouth.

Usually these rare burials were meant as an act of punishment and in extreme cases the victim was interred alive.

In the case of the Swiss merchant, there is no conclusive answer.

"It is likely they buried the man intentionally facing downwards. Whether the burial was meant to prevent him from returning to the living, or to face him to hell is just speculation. There could be other, rather unspectacular reasons behind this," Weiss said.

Originally published on Discovery News.
When researchers recently unveiled the first pop song composed by an artificial intelligence (AI) system, some creative types may have been nervous about the idea of robots taking over their jobs. But how exactly was AI used to write a song?

A team from the Sony CSL Research Lab used a system called Flow Machines to compose the new record, titled "Daddy's Car."

The song sounds like a lost Beatles track from the late 1960s, or perhaps a composition by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. Francois Pachet, the project's lead researcher, told Live Science that the song wasn't created by an AI entirely from scratch, so composers can breathe easy  at least for now. [Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures]

The song's lyrics, surreal as they sound, were written by a human, French composer Benoit Carre. The team also put together a second track, called "Mr. Shadow," designed to incorporate the styles of Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and Cole Porter.

The parts that were written by the computer are known as the "lead sheet," which defines the song's melody, part of the orchestration and part of the mix (which ordinarily audio engineers would then complete). The user, in this case Carre, first chose a style of orchestration. A piece of software called Flow Composer used a database of 13,000 lead sheets to map the style to the lead sheet  that is, take the melody and make it fit the style of music.

"The user has to select the orchestration style from a palette of styles  actually styles here, are human recordings of existing single songs. For instance, a Brazilian guitarist has recorded 'Girl from Ipanema,' [and] we can select this recording, and it is mapped onto the lead sheet," Pachet told Live Science in an email.

The software can then fit the style of the base song  for example, an old Beatles track  to the melody. "If there are chords in the lead sheets that were not played in the audio, the system can still use chord substitutions and audio transformations so that it still 'fits,'" Pachet said. What this means is the artificial intelligence can substitute in music if the specific chords weren't in the song used as a base  the Beatles in this example

Final choices are still left up to the user  for example if the user doesn't like the accompaniments that the AI came up with  but Pachet said in the future, these decisions could be automated as the researchers build a bigger database of which accompaniments "work" better with certain types of melodies. The machines could be taught this, via a kind of reinforcement learning; greater weights would be assigned to the "right" kinds of answers, and eventually an AI could learn what choices sound better to human ears.

Still, there are things that the system does not do well, Pachet said. "The hard part is now high-level 'structure,' or what I call "sense of direction"  i.e., the capacity to establish long-term correlations between elements of the piece (sequence). That is the thing we (and others) are working on currently," he said.

Teaching an AI the "global timbre" of a song is also difficult, Pachet said. A human can say "this song sounds like X," but computers are not good at that kind of holistic thinking, he said.

Lyrics, as it happens, could be written by machine, he added, but the technology isn't yet integrated into Flow Machine.

That said, the individual pieces that will give AI the ability to compose might come together in the future, he added. "Basically, all the basic ingredients are out there, and the trick is to put the pieces together," Pachet said.

Original article on Live Science.
A panda cub slips off the stage at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding on Sept. 29, 2016 in Chengdu, during a public debut of the year's 23 cubs born at the center.

Roly-poly can be a plus for a giant panda tumbling around in the wild. But on stage with 22 of your cute-and-cuddly kin, the pudge can lead to a spill. And that's what happened during the public debut of 23 panda cubs that were born this year at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China.

As soon as the little furball took a nosedive off the low platform, a staff member scooped him or her up and placed the cub back on the stage. The pile of cuteness on display Thursday (Sept. 29) ranged in age from about 4 months to just 1 month old.

The youngest cubs include: male and female twin cubs born to giant panda Chenggong on Aug. 9; a male cub born to giant panda Dajiao on Aug. 15; and another male cub, this one born to Chengji on Aug. 19. Following Chinese tradition, giant panda cubs are not named until they reach 100 days old. [Baby Panda Pics: See A Cub Growing Up]

The breeding center is one of several captive-breeding programs for giant pandas around the world, including the United States. A 2014 survey found that 1,864 giant pandas (excluding cubs) live in the wild in China, which is an increase from 2004, when 1,596 pandas were tallied, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN.)

Panda cubs on display at a breeding center in Chengdu, China, on Sept. 23. 2016. (Image credit: VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

In fact, on Sept. 4, conservationists announced that the panda population has increased enough to downgrade their "endangered" status to "vulnerable" on the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species.

Even though gains have been made to bolster panda numbers and health, the IUCN warned the pudgy animals still face threats from climate change and reduced bamboo availability linked to their habitat loss.

The Panda Base opened in March 1987 and has since led the way in breeding, research and conservation of pandas, in cooperation with the Chengdu Zoo.

Original article on Live Science.
Robin Williams and Susan Schneider Williams at the premiere of the movie "Old Dogs" on November 9, 2009 in Hollywood, California.

It was only after actor Robin Williams' death in August 2014 that doctors found the true cause of the symptoms that had plagued him for years, according to Williams' widow, Susan Schneider Williams.

Writing in an editorial published Sept. 27 in the journal Neurology, Schneider Williams detailed the intense difficulty of determining the cause of her husband's symptoms.

After his death, doctors finally determined that Williams had a condition called Lewy body disease, which Schneider Williams described as a "terrorist within his brain." [Top 10 Stigmatized Health Disorders]

Lewy body disease is one of the most common forms of dementia, according to the National Institutes of Health. It occurs when Lewy bodies, or clumps of protein called alpha-synuclein, build up in the brain.

The doctors who examined Williams' brain after his death said that his case was "one of the worst pathologies" they had ever seen, Schneider Williams wrote. "He had about 40 percent loss of dopamine neurons, and almost no neurons were free of Lewy bodies throughout the entire brain and brainstem," she wrote.

But Robin Williams was not diagnosed with Lewy body disease while he was alive. Rather, he received a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease on May 28, 2014, Schneider Williams wrote. Both Lewy body disease and Parkinson's disease involve the presence of Lewy bodies in the brain, according to the editorial.

Robin Williams' clinical symptoms were those of Parkinson's, and his brain pathology showed he had Lewy body dementia, Schneider Williams wrote. Whether a person is diagnosed with Lewy body disease or Parkinson's disease can depend on which symptoms occur first, she wrote.

Indeed, symptoms of Lewy body disease can resemble those of Parkinson's disease, according to the Lewy Body Dementia Association.

Disease progression

Before Williams was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, he had experienced a wide array of symptoms that seemed unrelated, according to the editorial. [3 Myths About Parkinson's Disease]

By October 2013, Schneider Williams said the actor had been experiencing constipation, urinary difficulty, heartburn, sleeplessness, insomnia, a poor sense of smell and stress. In addition, he had "a slight tremor in his left hand that would come and go," but at the time, that was attributed to a previous shoulder injury, she wrote.

At the end of that October, Williams developed gut pain, and his reaction was "markedly out of character," Schneider Williams wrote. "His fear and anxiety skyrocketed to a point that was alarming," she wrote.

Over the next few months, Williams' symptoms got worse. He had increasing problems with paranoia, delusions, insomnia and memory, as well as high cortisol levels, Schneider Williams wrote. He tried psychotherapy and various medications, she wrote. Later, she learned that a high concentration of Lewy bodies in the part of his brain called the amygdala likely caused the "acute paranoia and out-of-character emotional responses he was having," she wrote.

His neurological symptoms worsened through the spring, and his "loss of memory and inability to control his anxiety was devastating to him," Schneider Williams wrote.

He later developed more physical symptoms typical of Parkinson's disease, including a continuous tremor in his hand and a slow, shuffling gait, according to the editorial. He had terrible insomnia and began having trouble judging distance and depth, Schneider Williams wrote.

In addition, his symptoms could come and go quickly, she wrote. Williams would be "lucid with clear reasoning one minute and then, five minutes later, blank, lost in confusion," she wrote. This fluctuation in symptoms is common in people with Lewy body disease, she added.

Overall, Williams "experienced nearly all of the 40-plus symptoms of [Lewy body disease]," Schneider Williams wrote. Though he never said he had hallucinations, a doctor later told Schneider Williams that he likely did have them but didn't tell anyone.

Originally published on Live Science.
Starting from October 1, the Chinese yuan willbe included in the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) alongwith the US dollar, the Euro, the Japanese yen and the British pound.

This will be the first time for a currency of a developing country to be included in the basket. The representativeness and appeal of the SDR basket will be increased as a result and the international financial market will be further stabilized as well.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde hailed the inclusion of the yuan into the SDR basket previously, saying that it is an important milestone for the reform of the international monetary system.

Charles Collyns,chief economist of the Institute of International Finance, also praised the increasingly heavier influence carried by the Chinese yuan in the international landscape.

With growing attention to the effect brought by the inclusion of the Chinese yuan to the international financial system, the world now expects China to play a bigger role in global rule-making, the economist added.

As a supplementary international reserve asset and a unit of account, SDR was first created to increase liquidity of the global market and reform the international monetary system. But its effect wasnt satisfactory in the last fifty years.

In order to better reform the current global monetary system and the world financial architecture given such a background, it is important to turn SDR into a strong stabilizer in the international monetary system.

As an effort to build a more stable and resilient global financial architecture, China, as the rotating presidency of the G20 this year, restored the International Financial Architecture Working Group.

One of the groupswork priorities is to seek a broader use of SDR through listing SDR as reporting currency, issuing SDR-denominated bonds and other approaches.

Many such plans and initiatives contributed by China have been agreed upon by G20 leaders in their Hangzhou communique. For instance, they, in the communique, not only welcomed the inclusion of Chinese yuan into the SDR basket, but also expressed their support toward the ongoing examination of the broader use of the SDR, as well as the detailed measures to this end.

By advocating the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the BRICS Development Bank, incorporating Chinese yuan into SDR currency basket, and making efforts to improve international financial architecture during the G20 summit, China has shown its strong sense of responsibility as a major country in global economic governance.

All of these efforts made by China aim to build a more rational, balanced and fair global governance system, improve the international monetary system, safeguard the stability of global financial markets and finally inject confidence into world economy.
On Sept. 29, China released its first heritage list for architecture built in the 20th century, including 98 unique regional structures nationwide. Many experts hope that the list will protect Chinas traditional architecture, as well as cultivate a cultural aesthetic among the public.

Jointly released by the Architectural Society of China and the China Cultural Relic Academy, the list includes architectural achievements such as the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. A draft regulation has also been released to protect traditional architecture, calling for a comprehensive national survey of 20th century architecture, as well as a reevaluation of laws intended to protect it, Chinanews.cn reported.

China has made great effort to protect its traditional architecture in recent years, yet many traditional buildings have been demolished or destroyed due to insufficient public awareness and a lack of legal protection. For instance, Juer Hutong Courtyard Housing Project, which was initiated by Chinese architect Wu Liangyong and won the 1992 United Nations World Habitat Award, is now languishing in disrepair as it undergoes a disorderly reconstruction.

To architects, the buildings [we] designed are like daughters to us. We married off our beloved daughters, but then discovered the heartbroken fact that they are not being taken care of, said Ma Guoyong, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, in an interview with Chinanews.cn.

The heritage list will promote more thorough research of 20th century architecture in China. It will not only enrich the theoretical system of Chinas scientific culture, but also preserve traditional buildings, said Gu Yu, vice director of Chinas State Administration of Cultural Heritage.


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Teachers at four Longford secondary schools under the patronage of Longford/Westmeath Education and Training Board (ETB) are threatening to intensify their campaign in a simmering row with education chiefs over alleged failures to implement nationally agreed grievance procedures.

More than 280 Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) members from schools in both counties held lunchtime stoppages yesterday (Tuesday) over the dispute.

Union representatives claim the row centres on the ETBs decision to appoint an external candidate to cover a Principals maternity leave at an unnamed school.

Speaking to the Leader, Longford TUI representative, Declan Flanagan, a teacher at Ardscoil Phadraig in Granard, said the matter has become a major cause for concern in recent days.

He said the current Chief Executive (CE) of Longford/Westmeath ETB, Christy Duffy refused to acknowledge the grievances lodged by teachers when the decision was made.

Mr Flanagan pointed out that in such cases, the Deputy Principal would be next in line for the appointment and if the candidate was not suitable thereafter, other staff members would be considered for the role. See this weeks Longford Leader for more details.
Pets & Animal, Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: September 30 2016

More than 200 pet owners/lovers attended, most with their four-legged best friends, and some came out just to walk, enjoy and show their support.

The event was a huge success raising over $29,000 for the Kent Animal Shelter's programs to help homeless animals.

Calverton, NY - September 28, 2016 - Kent Animal Shelters annual Wines & Canines was held Sunday, September 25 at the Baiting Hollow Farm Vineyard in Calverton. More than 200 pet owners/lovers attended, most with their four-legged best friends, and some came out just to walk, enjoy and show their support. Contests, prizes and raffles added to the fun.

The event was a huge success raising over $29,000 for the Kent Animal Shelter's programs to help homeless animals.



"Thanks to our wonderful friends and supporters, Wines & Canines has become an instrumental event that helps to fund our rescue program that removes animals from crisis situations and gives them a second chance for a new life, said Pam Green, Kent Animal Shelter's Director.



Pictured: Kent volunteer with Thailand meat trade rescue "Dixie" enjoying the day.

Kent Animal Shelter is a 501C3 organization establishd in 1968 in Calverton, NY that provides a no-kill haven for homeless animals, adoption services, a spay/neuter clinic, and humane education. More information is available at www.KentAnimalShelter.com.
Local News, National & World News, Health & Wellness, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: September 30 2016

DEA has issued a public warning to the public and law enforcement nationwide about the health and safety risks of carfentanil.

Washington, DC - September 22, 2016 - DEA has issued a public warning to the public and law enforcement nationwide about the health and safety risks of carfentanil. Carfentanil is a synthetic opioid that is 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times more potent than fentanyl, which itself is 50 times more potent than heroin. DEA, local law enforcement and first responders have recently seen the presence of carfentanil, which has been linked to a significant number of overdose deaths in various parts of the country. Improper handling of carfentanil, as well as fentanyl and other fentanyl-related compounds, has deadly consequences.

Carfentanil is surfacing in more and more communities. said DEA Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg. We see it on the streets, often disguised as heroin. It is crazy dangerous. Synthetics such as fentanyl and carfentanil can kill you. I hope our first responders  and the public  will read and heed our health and safety warning. These men and women have remarkably difficult jobs and we need them to be well and healthy.

Carfentanil is a Schedule II substance under the Controlled Substances Act and is used as a tranquilizing agent for elephants and other large mammals. The lethal dose range for carfentanil in humans is unknown. However, as noted, carfentanil is approximately 100 times more potent than fentanyl, which can be lethal at the 2-milligram range, depending on route of administration and other factors.

Carfentanil and other fentanyl-related compounds are a serious danger to public safety, first responder, medical, treatment, and laboratory personnel. These substances can come in several forms, including powder, blotter paper, tablets, and spray  they can be absorbed through the skin or accidental inhalation of airborne powder. If encountered, responding personnel should do the following based on the specific situation:

Exercise extreme caution. Only properly trained and outfitted law enforcement professionals should handle any substance suspected to contain fentanyl or a fentanyl-related compound. If encountered, contact the appropriate officials within your agency.

Be aware of any sign of exposure . Symptoms include: respiratory depression or arrest, drowsiness, disorientation, sedation, pinpoint pupils, and clammy skin. The onset of these symptoms usually occurs within minutes of exposure.

Seek IMMEDIATE medical attention . Carfentanil and other fentanyl-related substances can work very quickly, so in cases of suspected exposure, it is important to call EMS immediately. If inhaled, move the victim to fresh air. If ingested and the victim is conscious, wash out the victims eyes and mouth with cool water.

Be ready to administer naloxone in the event of exposure . Naloxone is an antidote for opioid overdose. Immediately administering naloxone can reverse an overdose of carfentanil, fentanyl, or other opioids, although multiple doses of naloxone may be required. Continue to administer a dose of naloxone every 2-3 minutes until the individual is breathing on his/her own for at least 15 minutes or until EMS arrives.

Remember that carfentanil can resemble powdered cocaine or heroin. If you suspect the presence of carfentanil or any synthetic opioid, do not take samples or otherwise disturb the substance, as this could lead to accidental exposure. Rather, secure the substance and follow approved transportation procedures.

Carfentanil is a fentanyl-related substance not approved for use in humans. In June, DEA released a Roll Call video to all law enforcement nationwide about the dangers of improperly handling fentanyl and its deadly consequences. Acting Deputy Administrator Jack Riley and two local police detectives from New Jersey appear on the video to urge any law enforcement personnel who come in contact with fentanyl or fentanyl compounds to take the drugs directly to a lab.

Fentanyl can kill you, Riley said. Fentanyl is being sold as heroin in virtually every corner of our country. Its produced clandestinely in Mexico, and (also) comes directly from China. It is 40 to 50 times stronger than street-level heroin. A very small amount ingested, or absorbed through your skin, can kill you.

Two Atlantic County, NJ detectives were recently exposed to a very small amount of fentanyl, and appeared on the video. Said one detective: I thought that was it. I thought I was dying. It felt like my body was shutting down. Riley also admonished police to skip testing on the scene, and encouraged them to also remember potential harm to police canines during the course of duties. Dont field test it in your car, or on the street, or take if back to the office. Transport it directly to a laboratory, where it can be safely handled and tested. The video can be accessed here.

On March 18, 2015, DEA issued a nationwide alert on fentanyl as a threat to health and public safety.

Fentanyl is a dangerous, powerful Schedule II narcotic responsible for an epidemic of overdose deaths within the United States. During the last two years, the distribution of clandestinely manufactured fentanyl has been linked to an unprecedented outbreak of thousands of overdoses and deaths. The overdoses are occurring at an alarming rate and are the basis for this officer safety alert. Fentanyl, up to 50 times more potent than heroin, is extremely dangerous to law enforcement and anyone else who may come into contact with it. As a result, it represents an unusual hazard for law enforcement.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opiate painkiller, is being mixed with heroin to increase its potency, but dealers and buyers may not know exactly what they are selling or ingesting. Many users underestimate the potency of fentanyl. The dosage of fentanyl is a microgram, one millionth of a gram  similar to just a few granules of table salt. Fentanyl can be lethal and is deadly at very low doses. Fentanyl and its related compounds come in several forms including powder, blotter paper, tablets, and spray.

More information about fentanyl, carfentanil and other dangerous synthetic opiates can be found at www.dea.gov.
[File photo]

The first Giant Panda Festival will be held in Wenchuan, Sichuan province from Oct. 18 to 20, in an effort to promote protection of the national icon and stimulate the local economy.

Care for pandas homeland, advance toward joint growth is the theme for this years panda festival. The festival aims to promote green development and the protection of giant pandas, as well as to create a panda brand for local tourism, which will advance the economic, social and cultural development of Wenchuan, the local government explained at a press release in Chengdu on Sept. 29.

During the festival, exhibitions will be held to showcase achievements in panda protection made by Wolong National Natural Reserve. Several international conferences will also be arranged to discuss the training of zoo pandas and the protection of pandas' natural habitats. Films of Wenchuans natural landscape, recorded by drones, will be screened, China National Radio reported.

After the major earthquake in Wenchuan in 2008, local government put a great deal of effort into the restoration of the panda protection center and habitat. Currently, there are two natural reserves and a scenic zone in Wenchuan that stretch across 148,000 hectares and house 165 wild giant pandas.

As the population of giant pandas in the wild increases, the animal was downgraded in September from endangered to vulnerable on the Red List maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Pets & Animal, Local News, Crime, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: September 30 2016

Senator Todd Kaminsky announced legislation (S.8199) to help end the plague of organized dog fighting in Nassau County and New York State.

In Nassau County, an individual was recently convicted for the fourth time for his role in illegal dog fighting schemes and is currently serving one to four years in prison, despite his multiple offenses, because the law does not increase penalties for multiple offenders.

Long Beach, NY - September 29, 2016 - Today, Senator Todd Kaminsky announced legislation (S.8199) to help end the plague of organized dog fighting in Nassau County and New York State. Kaminskys legislation increases maximum sentences and fines for animal fighting, creates a new crime for highly-organized animal fighting, and eliminates a loophole that prevents animal fighting defendants from qualifying for repeat offender status.

Dog fighting is a billion dollar, underground industry within the United States, comprised of promoters, breeders, trainers and sellers. Money is not only made by wages on the outcomes of fights, but also through the illicit breeding, marketing, trading and sale of dogs. Professional fighters market the bloodlines of their winners, make money off of forced breeding and sell litters.

Dog fighting is a heinous and brutal crime and repeat offenders must face increasingly forceful penalties, said Kaminsky. In order to effectively target and diminish dog fighting enterprises, our laws must be stronger. Professional dog fighters are willing to serve the time because frankly, the financial benefits outweigh the consequences. Strengthening and redefining these laws will provide enhanced deterrence to animal cruelty and prevent serial offenders from reentering this heinous business.

Kaminskys legislation results from discussions had at Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas legislative conference in April. The bill increases maximum sentences and fines for felony animal fighting, creates a new crime of enterprise animal fighting to target professional fighting ventures and criminal organizations, eliminates a loophole that prevents animal fighting from qualifying for repeat offender status, and expands the animal fighting statutes to clearly encompass bait animals.

Current laws are simply insufficient as they are not strong enough to deter perpetrators from the possible financial benefits of participation," Kaminsky continued. Dog fighting doesn't happen by accident and the sentences for this crime must match the grotesqueness of the act. No one should continuously receive the lowest possible prison sentence for repeated dog fighting convictions.

In Nassau County, an individual was recently convicted for the fourth time for his role in illegal dog fighting schemes and is currently serving one to four years in prison, despite his multiple offenses, because the law does not increase penalties for multiple offenders. In his most recent case, he was re-arrested on new animal fighting charges while on parole for only one month following the release of his prior animal fighting conviction. Senator Kaminskys legislation will specifically address the flaw in current law which does not increase penalties for repeat dog fighting offenders.

My office has prosecuted barbaric and cruel dog fighting rings throughout Nassau County, and we know these bloodsports are frequently linked to gang and drug activity, said DA Singas. Under current law, punishments for animal fighting are woefully inadequate and I applaud Senator Kaminsky for introducing this important legislation to strengthen penalties for those who commit this gruesome crime.

Animal cruelty is a serious issue, with animal fighting the most barbaric, said Gary Rogers, President of Nassau County SPCA. This bill will finally give law enforcement and prosecutors the necessary tools to combat this horrendous crime.
Music, Movies & Entertainment, Local News, Business & Finance, Arts & Culture, Press Releases, Seasonal & Current Events

By Long Island News & PR Published: September 30 2016

J. Greenstein & Co.s Auction House hosted the very special auction featuring the belongings and memorabilia of the beloved Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.

Cedarhurst, NY - September 28, 2016 - Yesterday, J. Greenstein & Co.s Auction House hosted the very special auction in Cedarhurst, NY, featuring the belongings and memorabilia of the beloved Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.



With ten personal items up for sale, the singing rabbis piano was sold for $25,000. Hosted by Jonathan Greenstein, chief expert and president of J. Greenstein & Company, the auction, which was initially announced in February 2016, featured such items as menorahs, challah knives, Kiddush cups, and portraits of the rabbi playing to audiences.



By far, the most sought after item was his piano, an upright, made by Heintzman and Company in the early part of the 20th Century. In addition to the 20 in-store bidders, J. Greenstein & Co.s live online and phone bidding attracted close to 200 customers worldwide.



This auction was special to me, as I grew up with the music and teachings of Rabbi Carlebach, and I was honored to help his family share his memories., said Jonathan Greenstein, President of J. Greenstein & Co.



The fully illustrated round-up of the 179 lots sold is available here

About J. Greenstein & Co.

J. Greenstein & Company, Inc., was founded in 2004 by antique Judaica expert Jonathan Greenstein. For over 30 years, since the age of 14, Jonathan has been the go to guy when it comes to authenticating antique Judaica. The gallery holds a number of Judaica auctions each year and has collectors, museums and other institutions that purchase these ritual objects to build their collections of Jewish art. J. Greenstein & Company, Inc. Auction house is exceptionally well respected as experts in antique Judaica and Jewish Art.



About Jonathan Greenstein

Jonathan Greenstein is the president and expert-in-charge at J. Greenstein & Company, Inc., the country's auction house specializing in antique Jewish Ritual art, known as Judaica. An expert in antique Judaica for over 30 years, Jonathan has been featured on CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, NBC News with Chuck Scarborough, the New York Times, the New Yorker, Crain's New York Business, KTLA Television, the Jewish Journal, WCBSTV, The Atlanta Commercial Appeal, and The Forward. He had a column in Reform Judaism magazine known as the Antique Judaica Evaluation Show and will be starring in the upcoming series on the Jewish Channel (FIOS, Cablevision and Time Warner) called Judaica Hunter. Jonathan lives in Long Island, New York with his wife and five children.



More information can be viewed at: www.JGreenstein.com
Nature & Weather, Local News, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: September 30 2016

Total number of counties in New York State severely impacted by the extreme dry conditions increases to 51.

Albany, NY - September 30, 2016 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that four additional Upstate counties have been designated as a natural disaster area by the federal government as a result of this summer's drought. Jefferson, Lewis, Herkimer, and St. Lawrence counties have been added due to their reported crop losses, bringing the total number of counties in New York State severely impacted by the extreme dry conditions to 51.



"A strong agricultural industry is critical to this state's economy and this year's extended period of hot, dry weather has created significant challenges for New York farmers," Governor Cuomo said. "Stretching from the farthest corners of Western New York to the North Country and south to Long Island, our farms are seeing unprecedented crop damage. By designating counties as disaster areas, our producers will have access to the resources needed to recover and boost business again."





Pictured: Declared drought areas in New York State. Photo by United Sates Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency.
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Columnists Press Releases
The Great Hall of the People in Beijing. [Photo from China Daily]

On Sept. 29, China released its first heritage list for architecture built in the 20th century, including 98 unique regional structures nationwide. Many experts hope that the list will protect Chinas traditional architecture, as well as cultivate a cultural aesthetic among the public.

Jointly released by the Architectural Society of China and the China Cultural Relic Academy, the list includes architectural achievements such as the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. A draft regulation has also been released to protect traditional architecture, calling for a comprehensive national survey of 20th century architecture, as well as a reevaluation of laws intended to protect it, Chinanews.cn reported.

Saint Sophia Cathedral in Harbin, Heilongjiang province. [Photo from China Daily]

China has made great effort to protect its traditional architecture in recent years, yet many traditional buildings have been demolished or destroyed due to insufficient public awareness and a lack of legal protection. For instance, Juer Hutong Courtyard Housing Project, which was initiated by Chinese architect Wu Liangyong and won the 1992 United Nations World Habitat Award, is now languishing in disrepair as it undergoes a disorderly reconstruction.

Jinmao Tower in Shanghai. It is among 98 sites on the 20the-Century Chinese Architechtural Heritage List. [Photo/IC]

To architects, the buildings [we] designed are like daughters to us. We married off our beloved daughters, but then discovered the heartbroken fact that they are not being taken care of, said Ma Guoyong, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, in an interview with Chinanews.cn.

The heritage list will promote more thorough research of 20th century architecture in China. It will not only enrich the theoretical system of Chinas scientific culture, but also preserve traditional buildings, said Gu Yu, vice director of Chinas State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
China Railway Corporation, the operator of the countrys high speed rail, has denied previous media reports about restrictions for smoking ban violators onboard the high speed trains.

According to previous media reports, passengers who are found and punished by police for smoking on trains will be banned for life from buying CRH tickets unless they sign a pledge to never smoke again on the train. A second infraction after signing the pledge is grounds for a lifetime ban.

But an official with the China Railway Corp. told the Legal Daily that although smoking is strictly forbidden on CRH trains, the company has not released such rules.

On Sept. 22, the smoke detector in Carriage 9 of train D353 from Shanghai to Chongqing began to sound, prompting the driver to stop the train. Police officers and mechanics performed an inspection and found a man smoking in the toilet.

The man, surnamed Li, said he could not control his cravings, so he hid in the toilet to light a cigarette, which triggered the detector. In accordance with railway safety rules, Li was given a fine.

The police later reminded passengers that cigarette smoking is banned on CRH trains as an important safety precaution.
The United Nations Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA, issued a strongly-worded statement that condemns a US airstrike on Sept. 28 which targeted Islamic State fighters in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar. United States Forces  Afghanistan is investigating reports that an airstrike in the Taliban controlled district of Achin in Nangarhar killed 15 civilians.

From the UNAMA statement:

An airstrike targeting Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as Daesh, was conducted yesterday in the eastern district of Achin. In the process civilian casualties were incurred. UNAMA condemns the killing of at least 15 civilian men and the injuring of at least 13 others, including at least one boy, in the strike. In the early morning of 28 September, an international military forces unmanned aerial vehicle conducted an airstrike, reportedly targeting members of ISIL/Daesh, that struck a civilian home killing the 15 civilians. The civilians had gathered in a village to celebrate the return of a tribal elder from the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and were reportedly sleeping in a guesthouse of the elder when the airstrike occurred. Civilian victims of the strike included students and a teacher, as well as members of families considered to be pro-Government. Government sources report that ISIL/Daesh personnel also died in the attack.

Additionally, UNAMA reiterates the need for all parties to the conflict to adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law and calls on the Government and international military forces to launch a prompt, independent, impartial, transparent, and effective investigation into this incident.

US Forces  Afghanistan (USFOR-A) issued a statement one day prior on the website of Resolute Support, the NATO mission in Afghanistan, that acknowledged reports of civilian casualties and said it was indeed investigating:

United States Forces  Afghanistan takes all allegations of civilian casualties very seriously. Nangarhar province has been a focus for Daesh activity since 2015. Daesh seek to use the area to train, equip, disseminate propaganda, and expand their control over innocent Afghans. Our Afghan partners, especially their special forces, have been working diligently to disrupt and destroy Daesh in Southern Nangarhar, and we continue to work alongside them to support their efforts. The ANDSF have significantly reduced Daesh presence and inflicted hundreds of casualties on them. In addition and as part of US unilateral counter-terrorism operations, US forces also killed their leader in Afghanistan, Hafiz Sayed Khan, in late July. Daesh is killing innocent Afghan men, women, and children. They continue to put innocent lives at risk by deliberately surrounding themselves with civilians and dressing in female attire. We have repeatedly said that we will target Daesh wherever they are in order to disrupt their operations, degrade their attack networks, and protect innocent lives. We wont discuss the details of the specific counter-terrorism operation conducted in Nangarhar on 28 September because we are still reviewing all materials related to the strike. We take every possible measure to avoid civilian casualties in these operations, and will continue to work with Afghan authorities to determine if there is cause for additional investigation as we partner with the Afghan government in the broader fight against terrorism. We will continue our mission to degrade, disrupt, and destroy Daesh and to help our Afghan partners to do the same.

Given that the strike took place in Achin district in Nangarhar, which remains under Islamic State control despite repeated Afghan military operations designed to eject the jihadist group, it is likely that an accurate accounting of what happened on Sept. 28 will be difficult to obtain.

The Achin strike serves to remind us that even though the US military tries to take every possible measure to avoid civilian casualties in these operations, civilian casualties are an inevitable byproduct of war. Human error and faulty intelligence, often coupled with the over-reliance on local forces to identify targets, have led to situations where civilians have been killed, such as at the Doctors Without Borders hospital in the city of Kunduz in the fall of 2015.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

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The US-led coalition has killed 18 Islamic State leaders in the past 30 days, according to Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Colonel John Dorrian. Thirteen of them were based in or around Mosul, Iraq.

Dorrian briefed the press on the airstrikes yesterday, saying that the deceased jihadists were part of their [the Islamic States] military intelligence communication networks in Mosul.

The airstrikes have targeted military commanders, administration officials, foreign fighter facilitators, amirs, security commanders, communication leaders, and senior shura council leadership, Dorrian said.

Three of the leaders were from Chechnya, highlighting the key role foreign fighters play in the Islamic States chain of command.

In a two-day period in Mosul, we removed Abdul Hamid al Shishani, Abdul Jabir al Shishani, Abdul Rahman al Shishani, all Daesh [Islamic State] Chechen foreign fighters responsible for administration in command of fighters in Mosul, Dorrian said.

Earlier this year, the US killed Abu Omar al Shishani, the Islamic States top Chechen leader in an airstrike south of Mosul. Shishanis demise so close to Mosul demonstrated that the group had dispatched some of its elite fighting forces to the area in anticipation of the long-planned ground offensive to retake the city. Shishanis death was celebrated by some al Qaeda figures on social media, as he was one of the central players in the rivalry between the Islamic State and al Qaeda that broke out in 2014. [See LWJ report, Abu Omar al Shishani killed south of Mosul, Islamic State says.]

The Chechens hold kind of a special place within the Islamic State, according to Dorrian, because they are somewhat seasoned and well-trained jihadis.

Dorrian identified Abu Jannat as another Islamic State leader who was targeted. Jannat was an Iraqi native and responsible for military operations around Mosul, to include the manufacturer of chemical weapons in the defense of the city.

The US has repeatedly targeted the jihadists responsible for managing the Islamic States chemical weapons program, as well as the facilities where the weapons are produced and stored. American airstrikes destroyed at least two such facilities in September. [See Threat Matrix report, US military hits another Islamic State chemical weapons facility in Iraq.]

The US-led coalition has also struck security personnel responsible for maintaining order in Mosul, which is one of the groups two de facto capitals. According to Dorrian, one coalition airstrike is thought to have killed an Iraqi known as Abubakar, who was an effective member of their leadership in [the] law enforcement apparatus. Another bomb killed Abdul Ahmed Imara, who led the Islamic States muta division, which is responsible for security in eastern Mosul.

Thus far, according to Dorrian, there is no indication that the jihadists are planning to retreat from Mosul. They show no signs of really trying to leave Mosul at this point, Dorrian said. Really, what theyve done is theyve continued to dig in, build elaborate defenses and so were  were really ready for a tough fight there.

The US estimates that Abu Bakr al Baghdadis men number somewhere between 3,000 and 4,500 fighters in Mosul. They are a mixture of Iraqi and foreign fighters, Dorrian explained.

For long-time followers of the war in Iraq, some of Dorrians comments may seem like familiar ground. The people who replace these leadership figures have not established their bona fides with [Abu Bakr] al Baghdadi, his inner circle, and they are often not as seasoned as those they replace, Dorrian claimed. This is especially true around Mosul as the coalition continues to be a relentless in degrading and disrupting command and control of their fighters, softening their grip on the city and prepping the battlefield for the liberation.

The US and its Iraqi allies repeatedly decapitated the leadership of the Islamic States predecessor organizations in an attempt to destroy the jihadists state-building project in Iraq. Senior jihadists such as Abu Musab al Zarqawi and Abu Hamza al Muhajir were killed but then replaced, as have been numerous middle managers and lower-level tacticians.

While targeted airstrikes and other counterterrorism operations undoubtedly disrupt the jihadists command and control, and can weaken the organization, high value targeting is only one component of a successful counterinsurgency campaign. Given time and the space to operate, groups such as the Islamic State have effectively replaced their fallen leaders in the past. The fight to clear and hold Mosul, as well as other territories under the Islamic States control, will likely prove to be more important for disrupting the groups ability to regenerate in the future.

Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
(Xinhua) 14:56, September 30, 2016

PARIS, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Francerefused to accept smiles, including a Mona Lisa smile, in passport photos, according to a ruling by a French appeal court on Thursday.

An unnamed French civil servant sued the French authorities after his initial passport application was rejected for a smile in the passport picture. He lost the suit in 2014 as a French court ruled that he grinned obviously in that photo.

Both French courts made their decision based on regulations concerning passport photos, which provide that "the expression (of the applicant) should be neutral with the mouth closed" and "you must certainly not smile."

The plaintiff and his lawyer both insisted that on the controversial photo it's just a "smile with one's mouth shut while keeping a neutral expression," like what Mona Lisa does in that famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci.

The regulations are of no legal value, the lawyer Romain Boulet said before Thursday's ruling.

Furthermore, their argument emphasized that the smile was to give depressed France "a morale boost" and hoped the appeal court's approval would make French people smile.

Unfortunately, their good wish failed to amuse French justice and the authorities. People have to endure the fact that no matter you are cheerful or depressed, the passport photos only show poker faces.
The need to support GPs to diagnose and refer bowel cancer patients quickly, and enhance people's knowledge of cancer symptoms, has been highlighted in two new studies published in the British Journal of Cancer. Both were co-authored by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

The first study, funded by Cancer Research UK, found that around one in five bowel cancer patients diagnosed after an emergency presentation have displayed at least one cancer 'red flag' symptom in the year leading up to their diagnosis.

It showed that 'red flag' symptoms, such as anaemia, rectal bleeding, change in bowel habits, were much more common in patients who were diagnosed via non-emergency routes, and that patients diagnosed as an emergency often did not display these symptoms.

The lack of these 'red flag' symptoms in many patients diagnosed as an emergency makes it much more difficult for GPs to diagnose the cancer early. However, 17.5% of colon cancer patients and 23% of rectal cancer patients diagnosed as an emergency had 'red flag' symptoms, indicating there could have been opportunities to pick up the disease earlier.

The study, conducted in collaboration with University College London, looked at the National Cancer Registry data that was linked to GP data for 1,606 patients across more than 200 GP practices. The research focused on patient data for the five years leading up to the cancer diagnosis.

Co-author Dr Bernard Rachet, from the School's Cancer Survival Group, said: "We found that patients diagnosed with a colorectal cancer after an emergency admission have similar consultation rates in primary care as other patients. This means that patient factors are unlikely to be the main driver for the high proportion of cancers diagnosed in emergency in England."

Cristina Renzi, lead researcher from University College London, said: "We know that patients diagnosed with cancer after emergency presentations don't do as well as patients who are diagnosed by their doctor through non-emergency routes. This study shows that most patients - who are picked up through the emergency route - can be harder to diagnose as they often don't show typical bowel cancer symptoms. However, in most cases they visit their doctor for various reasons multiple times during the months leading up to their diagnosis. This increase in the number of non-specific visits could represent opportunities to diagnose the cancer earlier.

"It's important to find ways to ensure these patients can be diagnosed at an early stage. And this study highlights the need to support GPs and give them the tools to diagnose and refer patients promptly when they feel it's necessary."

The second study, part of The Policy Research Unit in Cancer Awareness, Survival and Early Diagnosis, funded by the Department of Health Policy Research Programme, found that awareness of early symptoms of cancer varies greatly across England, and in areas where cancer symptom awareness is lower, people with cancer do not live as long after diagnosis. This may be because people with limited knowledge of cancer symptoms go to their doctor later and have more advanced disease that those with more knowledge.

Using the Cancer Research UK Cancer Awareness Measure and survival data from the National Cancer Registry, the study is the first in England to look at whether regional variation in cancer survival might be linked to regional variation in cancer symptom awareness and barriers to seeing the GP.

On average, each additional cancer symptom recognised was associated with about a 1.6% increase in 1-year overall cancer survival. The length of survival after diagnosis was associated with perceived barriers to seeing the doctor - such as embarrassment and difficulties getting transport to the doctor's surgery - for breast cancer, but not other cancers.

East London, including areas such as Tower Hamlets and Newham, had the lowest awareness of cancer symptoms and highest average number of barriers to seeking medical help among their residents. The highest cancer awareness was found in areas such as Peterborough, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

The study was led by Dr Maja Niksic from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's Cancer Survival Group, who conducted the research while at King's College London.

Dr Niksic said: "Cancer survival is lower in the UK than in other developed countries, which is why the Government has prioritised early diagnosis. It's important to understand the reasons behind poor cancer survival in some areas and find ways to improve it. This study doesn't answer all those questions, but it does find an interesting association."

"It's vital to encourage people to see their doctor if they notice any unusual changes that could be a sign of cancer. When cancer is caught at an early stage, treatment is more likely to be successful.

"Health campaigns should focus on helping people to recognise these cancer symptoms early and seek medical advice about these as soon as possible- especially in socio-economically deprived areas, where cancer survival is generally lower."

Co-author Dr Bernard Rachet added: "Efforts should be made to reduce the barriers to seeking help in primary care felt by the patients."

Publications
The controversial 'Stop out of Control Drinking' campaign in Ireland which promotes 'responsible drinking' could actually undermine public health, according to a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE.

The campaign, launched in Ireland last year by drinks company Diageo, stated it was designed to 'change the country's culture of drinking for the better', and make out of control drinking 'socially unacceptable'.

However, this study, led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and conducted with experts from the UK and Ireland, concluded that the campaign lacked independence from Diageo, and presented problems with alcohol and policy solutions that were unfavourable to public health.

The analysis of newspaper articles, media interviews and social media activity relating to the campaign, also showed that the campaign used vague or self-defined concepts of 'out of control' and 'moderate' drinking, presenting alcohol harm as a behavioural problem rather than a health issue.

Professor Mark Petticrew, lead author from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: "The Diageo campaign was controversial from the start, not least because it was initiated and funded by an alcohol company. We were particularly concerned that the campaign emphasised the importance of public opinion about what might work, while placing little emphasis on the scientific evidence already available about solutions to alcohol-related problems. For example, the campaign presented education as an effective way to 'change our culture', though the evidence clearly shows that this has little effect."

The researchers also found that the campaign emphasised alcohol-related antisocial behaviour among young people, particularly young women, when it is known that alcohol harms are a wider health issue affecting men, women and children across the whole population, resulting in the deaths of three people in Ireland every day.

Dr Niamh Fitzgerald, a co-author from the University of Stirling, said: "Diageo's campaign generally failed to emphasise the policies known to be most effective such as marketing controls and minimum unit pricing, talking instead about culture change, psychological factors and parenting. The language used in the campaign appears to frame alcohol problems as the responsibility of individual drinkers rather than arising from the marketing of an addictive, carcinogenic product. This tactic has been previously used by the tobacco industry. We need to ensure that going forward the public, policymakers and the third sector can recognise these industry strategies."

The authors acknowledge limitations of the study, including that they had little information about many SOOCD board members' relationships with either Diageo, or with the alcohol industry more generally. This made it difficult to assess any potential conflicts of interest.

Publication
The dramatic increase in home prices in Chinas first- and second-tier cities has prompted a number of authorities to reactivate home purchase restrictions.

On Sept. 28, Kunshan, a city under the administration of Suzhou, issued a directive for the real estate market requiring that home buyers without Suzhou residence permits provide proof of payment of individual income tax and social securities when buying a second home.

Nanjing's restrictions forbid families without Nanjing residence permits to buy new or secondhand homes in the downtown area. Households that do have Nanjing residence permits but already own two homes are also forbidden from buying new homes.

Previously, Suzhou and Xiamen also released home purchase restrictions. So far, three of the four cities that witnessed the sharpest spike in home prices have imposed such restrictions. Industry insiders predict that some second-tier cities are likely to reactivate restrictions in the future, including Hefei, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Tianjin, Fuzhou, Dongguan, Wuxi and Shijiazhuang.

However, industry experts have expressed doubt about the effectiveness of such measures. According to Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of Zhongyuan Real Estate, it is already too late to enact the policies, as home prices in many cities have almost doubled.

"The restrictions fail to address the root cause of soaring home prices," Zhang said, adding that excessive funds and a lack of investment-worthy assets have pushed home prices up. To stabilize the market, Zhang suggested that credit go to the real economy rather than just the real estate sector. Moreover, he stated, there must be sufficient land supply.
Twitter buddy Michael Fessler alerted Mac 911 to a great help for those who frequently type in keyboards for two different character sets, like Latin and Hebrew, Chinese, Arabic, and many others. You can make a quick-switch option from the keyboard without resorting to a menu, by turning a tap of the Caps Lock key into a keyboard swap.

The option appears in the Keyboard system preference pane in the Input Sources tab. It has a lot of explanation: Use the Caps Lock key to switch to and from U.S. Press and hold to enable typing in all uppercase.

This wont appear when you have two keyboards that use the same basic underlying set of characters. That may be confusing, because, for instance, you can add a French keyboard that uses a different layout, like AZERTY, and its not an option. Both the U.S. and French keyboards derive characters from the same Latin set.

Pick a non-Latin keyboard, and the option appears. If you have multiple non-Latin keyboards, the first one you added is the only one that Caps Lock swaps between. If you add more and then delete the first or more, the most recently added or the last one remaining becomes the swappable keyboard.

The Keyboard preference pane now lets you set a simpler way to swap for certain keyboards.

This doesnt work for all non-U.S. layouts, however. If you add Japanese, as my friend Matthew Amster-Burton did, the checkbox doesnt appear. Thats because macOSs default input method for Japanese is Hiragana, which relies on the underlying roman syllables, according to Matthew.

You can seemingly predict this: if the keyboard preview in the preference pane shows Latin (or Western) characters, the keyboard option doesnt appear; if the preview shows non-Latin characters, it does.

Ask Mac 911

Weve compiled a list of the most commonly asked questions we get, and the answers to them: read our super FAQ to see if youre covered. If not, were always looking for new problems to solve! Email yours to mac911@macworld.com including screen captures as appropriate. Mac 911 cannot reply to email with troubleshooting advice nor can we publish answers to every question.
NOTE FOR THE ATTENTION OF THE HONOURABLE MEMBERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

1) We, the members of the Political Bureau of MAPAR (Together with President Andry Rajoalina) would like to thank the Honorable members of the International community for their interest in the evolution of the political situation in Madagascar and for their continued support in a process between all parties as the only means to resolve and overcome the crisis currently happen in the country.

2) We reinterate our commitment to the inalienable universal principles of democracy and human rights, as well as the Constitution of the Republic of Madagascar.

3) However, we wish to alert members of the international community on the quasi-explosive situation that Madagascar now endures today, mainly due to the refusal of the President Rajaonarimampianina's regime to respect the Constitution and the values of a pluralist democracy.

4) This reluctance to respect the Constitution and laws of the Republic by the President of the Republic and his team has already been demonstrated against and denounced several times, as well as several protestations that have gathered a large majority of all components of the nation (political parties, unions, associations, community leaders, clergy, students, members of civil society, ordinary citizens ...), have emerged.

5) These movements have acted firstly to denounce the abuses of the regime. Multiple political parties including MAPAR, have gathered as a 'united voice', MITSANGANA RY MALAGASY (Stand up Malagasy citizens) to act as an immutable force against the attempt by the Head of State to establish a dictatorship in Madagascar.

6) We would like to be precise that the creation of MITSANGANA RY MALAGASY is not intended to overthrow the government by unconstitutional means, contrary to what those in power may think. It was formed to bring into the public arena the discussion of respect for the rule of law and democracy in Madagascar, and to overcome the failures of institutions that no longer exercise their role of counter-power and appear to be totally under the President of the Republic's control, at the expense of the Nation's best interests.

7) MITSANGANA RY MALAGASY uses only the means that are guaranteed by the Constitution and the universally recognised rights and freedoms that recognise every citizen the freedom to gather, to speak, to manifest in accordance with the laws and regulations provisions in force.

8) It is for this reason that the movement MITSANGANA RY MALAGASY asked the Urban Commune of Antananarivo to grant an authorisation to use the Mahamasina stadium for a peaceful political meeting to be held on 24th September. We were greatly surprised when the elements of Emmoreg security force locked down the site early in the morning and prohibited access to the movement's leaders and citizens who came to show support. Elements of the security forces dismantled the equipment set up by the organisers (the platform, seats, sound system, banners ...) and we would like to be precise that this meeting to be held in a confined space, received full authorisation in due form by the Urban Commune of Antananarivo according to the current regulations.





9) Furthermore, citizens who are demonstrating to defend the rights to their lands are severely repressed in Soamahamanina, part of Itasy region (VIDEO HERE). Their main leaders have been arrested and jailed on spurious grounds. In addition, one of the leaders of MAPAR, Mr. Augustin Andriamananoro, a native of this area, expressed the matter during an interview at a TV station in the Capital, and as soon as he exited the newscast studio, he was pursued by the elements of the political police of the President of the Republic, so he had to return to the TV studio to alert the public of this attempted illegal arrest, and that the representatives of the public authority didn't have any warrant for his arrest.

10) These situations have once again proven the abuses from the regime of Rajaonarimampianina and its refusal to respect the Constitution and the democratic plurality of the Republic of Madagascar..

11) It is clear that President Rajaonarimampianina is acting undemocratically. His actions are an abuse of power and is creating a climate of terror against those who dare to oppose his plans, and for those who try to defend their rights they have been thrown in jail or sued. We present to you these significant examples of harassment, arrest and imprisonment of Union leaders such as Air Madagascar, JIRAMA, Clerks, FRAM teachers, Malagasy students; the arrest warrant of Senator Lylison (MAPAR) without the notice of the Senate office; a ban for leaving the territory for the Lanto Rakotomanga MP (MAPAR); arrest and imprisonment of family members of NINA - MP (MAPAR); kidnapping of the former Head of Haute Matsiatra region in Fianarantsoa, vandalising of the radio and television station VIVA owned by SEM, Andry Rajoelina in Fianarantsoa ...

12) All in all, history has always shown that all leaders who have tried to establish a dictatorial regime in Madagascar have always ended up being removed by the anger of the citizens in one way or another.

13) To avoid history repeat itself, we wish to draw the attention of the honorable members of the international community to notice of the fragility of the democratic process in the Republic of Madagascar, because all indicators are now showing an impending crisis and we further urge President Rajaonarimampianina listen to reason so he does not end up like all elected Presidents since the return of independence.

14) Otherwise, Madagascar will inevitably run towards another crisis.
Jiao Dingqiong and the monkey

Jiao Dingqiong was the first person to see the monkey on the morning of Sept. 26 as she harvested eggplants near her home in Sichuan province. Within two days, the monkey had bitten a total of six people in Jiao's village.

That afternoon, Jiaos mother and daughter-in-law found the monkey sitting in a tree where they planned to gather walnuts. Before they knew what was happning, the monkey quickly jumped onto the older woman's back and and bit her. The monkey bit four villagers the same day it arrived. Another two villagers were bitten on Sept. 27.

The local forestry bureau explained that the monkey is an adult rhesus monkey, a second-class national protected species.

Another villager, Yang Hanquan, speculated that the monkey didn't dare to approach households that kept dogs, and that it was also less likely to bite men.

"The monkey bit women who expected it to be unfriendly. Among the six people who were bitten, there was only one male," Yang said.

Hu Jiayun, director of the local wild animal protection center, observed that the monkey wasn't afraid of humans. He believed the monkey was likely domesticated, and that it may have escaped from the circus since a circus vehicle overturned nearby some time ago.

Hu also said that the monkey is currently being observed, and experts are trying to determine whether it will hurt more villagers. The best method to capture the monkey is still being debated, as its speed and agility make it difficult to pursue.
An applicant filed a trade mark application for Halloween in respect of goods in classes 4, 9, 16, 21, 24-26 and 28 (see picture).

The examiner in the patent office rejected the application, then the applicant appealed the decision of the examiner at the appellate board and again lost. The rejection was based on a number of considerations.

Halloween is one of the oldest holidays in the world. It is a mixture of Celtic and Christian traditions to worship their saints. The origin of Halloween dates back thousands of years. There is a Celtic festival named Samhain which marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the darker half of the year. It may also be associated with Pomona, a goddess of fruitful abundance in ancient Roman religion. Ireland is considered to be the home country of Halloween though it is the United States where the traditional Halloween is celebrated on a large scale.

It came to Russia in the 1990s and remains exotic and ambiguous. It imbibed some of the traditions and is a holiday in a jocular and chilling style with specific paraphernalia, such as fancy dresses, masks, toys and souvenirs associated with specific subjects such as monsters, devilry, witchery and death. Though the holiday is not yet very popular, shops in many Russian cities and online stores offer a vast array of goods related to Halloween.

The collegium of the patent office concluded that the word Halloween is not distinctive and cannot represent its main function  individualize the goods in classes 4, 9, 16, 21, 24-26 and 28 (these goods are attributes of holiday fancy dresses, masks, knick knackery, glasses, post cards and other souvenir products). The word needs an unrestricted use and giving exclusive right to that word will deprive other persons from using it.

Besides, even though the claimed designation features a word element  "Halloween" which denotes a holiday  it also includes a symbol of death, a skeleton. According to the collegium of the patent office one cannot deny the fact that the image of skeleton symbolises a mummy, parched up body and eventually death. All this creates a negative connotation of the designation.

In this way, the patent office saved Halloween from being usurped by one person and allowed it for use by anybody who likes devilry.

Vladimir Biriulin

Gorodissky & PartnersRussia 129010, MoscowB. Spasskaya Str25, stroenie 3Tel: +7 495 937 6116 / 6109Fax: +7 495 937 6104 / 6123pat@gorodissky.ruwww.gorodissky.com
There is a special family in Changchun, the capital city of China's Jilin province. In this family, 15 adopted children live with their 36-year-old father, Haonan. Despite the heavy financial burden that comes with raising so many children, the warm-hearted man is unwavering in his committment to his family.

Haonan was an orphan himself, which made him sympathetic toward other young orphans. He once worked for a rich businessman in eastern China's Zhejiang province, who built a shelter for homeless children and the elderly. Inspired by this example, Haonan started his own philanthropy work.

He adopted his first child, Longlong, in 2007 when he saw the boy collecting garbage at a construction site with grandfather. Haonan became Longlong's adoptive father after earning the trust of Longlong's grandfather, who later left the child with Haonan.

All of Haonan's children were either homeless or come from impoverished families that couldn't support them. According to Haonan, what keeps him moving down his unusual path is the happiness he feels when he's with the children.

At present, Haonan and his 15 children, aged from 7 to 17, live in an 80-square-meter apartment. Two volunteers teach the children, both having quit their previous jobs in order to help. Tuition fees for all the children would be overwhelming for Haonan, who takes care of the children during the day and works as a laborer at night. But his income is not enough to cover the family's expenses, so charity and donations are essential for him to get by.

Haonan said the thing he is most proud of is his children's accomplishments at school.
Cameroon has made it clear that it takes the infringement of IP rights very seriously.

A new law that amends Cameroon's Penal Code, Law No 2016/007 of July 12 2016, brings IP infringement firmly into the realm of criminal law. It does this by creating a large number of new criminal offences. Cameroon is a member of the OAPI regional registration system, so the IP rights referred to in the new law are OAPI registrations.

There are now criminal offences relating to trade marks, patents, designs and copyright. Given that counterfeiting tends to affect trade mark rights the most, it is no surprise that trade marks get special attention.

It is now an offence to forge a registered trade mark. It is also an offence to conceal, sell, export, import or use any object that constitutes an infringement of a registered trade mark. The penalties for these offences are severe and include fines and prison terms of up to two years.

With patents, it is an offence to "unknowingly" use a patent, as well as to conceal, sell, export or use any object that constitutes an infringement of a patent. As for designs, it is an offence to "unduly exploit" a registered design. The authorities will only prosecute offences relating to patents and designs if the owner of the registration lodges a complaint.

Offences relating to patents and designs are punishable with fines, although a prison term of up to six months can also be imposed in the case of a repeat offence. If the alleged offender raises an issue regarding the validity or ownership of the patent or design, the court is required to rule on that issue.

It is with copyright where the most offences are created. The new offences cover a whole range of actions including reproduction, sale, importation, infringement of moral rights, failure to pay licensing fees, disabling of technical measures designed to protect works from infringement, and removal of electronic information that helps identify the work or the conditions of use. Penalties are particularly severe  prison terms of up to 10 years.

In respect of all IP offences a court has wide ancillary powers. It can, for example, order confiscation and delivery-up of infringing goods and equipment used in infringement. It can insist that its judgment is published in any media that it deems appropriate, and this publication will be at the expense of the offender. It can even disqualify the offender from membership of a Chamber of Commerce for a period of 10 years.

As the country that houses the OAPI office, Cameroon is a big player in OAPI. It will be interesting to see whether other OAPI member countries, or indeed other African countries, follow suit.

Wayne Meiring

Spoor & Fisher JerseyAfrica House, Castle StreetSt Helier, Jersey JE4 9TWChannel IslandsTel: +44 1534 838000Fax: +44 1534 838001info@spoor.co.ukwww.spoor.com
Counsel at Red Lobster, Atlassian and two other companies say its hard to register descriptive terms, but that it can be worth the slog in some cases
BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinpingand other senior leaders attended a ceremony Friday at Tian'anmen Square in Beijing to honor and remember deceased national heroes on Martyrs' Day.

Veterans, family members of martyrs and representatives of all walks of life gathered at the Monument to the People's Heroes at Tian'anmen Square to mark the country's third Martyrs' Day on the eve of National Day.

The marble monument, the foundation of which was laid on Sept. 30, 1949, stood tall against a blue sky. Eight carvings depicting major episodes in Chinese revolutionary history since the First Opium War (1840-1842) adorn the monument's pedestal.

Premier Li Keqiang, top legislator Zhang Dejiang, top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng, senior leader Liu Yunshan, top discipline inspector Wang Qishanand Vice Premier Zhang Gaolialso attended the event and presented flowers to the people's heroes with other participants.

A military band played trumpets to commemorate martyrs before the ceremony started.

At 10 a.m., a crowd of around 3,000 people sang the national anthem. They then bowed their heads in silent tribute to those who devoted their lives to the liberation of the Chinese people and the development of new China, which was founded in 1949.

Following a patriotic song by school children in white shirts and red scarves, the uniform of China's Young Pioneers organization, 18 honor guards laid nine baskets of flowers in front of the monument.

The baskets were presented in the names of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, China's top legislature, the State Council, the top political advisory body, the Central Military Commission, democratic parties and non-party individuals, mass organizations, veterans, senior cadres and the families of martyrs, as well as China's Young Pioneers organization.

President Xi straightened red ribbons on one of the baskets and led a group of senior officials in a walk around the monument to pay tribute.

School children and other participants followed them and laid bouquets of chrysanthemums at the foot of the monument.

Martyrs, as defined by the government, are "people who sacrificed their lives for national independence and prosperity, as well as the welfare of people in modern times, or after the First Opium War."

It is estimated that China has about 20 million martyrs.

China's legislature approved Sept. 30 as Martyrs' Day in 2014 to commemorate those who lost their lives fighting for national causes.
(File photo)

As China's National Day holiday (Oct. 1-7) draws near, popular tourist destination countries have been preparing for an influx of Chinese tourists and the resultant capital such travel brings. In order to attract as many Chinese tourists as possible, many countries have entered into a fierce competition, complete with diverse promotions.

A report by Korea Central Daily News on Sept. 29 said the China Tourism Academy predicted that about 589 million Chinese people will travel during this year's National Day holiday, and that about 5.9 million will go abroad.

According to the same report, in order to attract Chinese tourists, Japan has been preparing since January of last year, carrying out plans to prolong visa validity for high-income Chinese citizens from three years to five. Because many Chinese tourists love to shop in duty-free stores, Japan's first duty-free shop in an urban district was opened in Tokyo earlier this year. In addition, Japan has broadened the range of commodities eligible for tax refunds and increased the per capita amount of said refunds to 500,000 yen.

Thailand went with a "high-end" strategy for this years holiday. In order to stimulate the country's tourism industry, the Thai government signed an MOU with the Chinese government to reject low-price tourist groups. If the MOU can truly help to improve the degree of satisfaction of Chinese tourists, then the Thai government stands to earn $16.5 billion in tourist revenue in 2017.

France, which boasts the world's largest number of foreign tourists, has experienced a decline in Chinese tourist due to recent terrorist events. However, the country has launched a "safe city" activity to change its image. Meanwhile, in July, New York City and Shanghai signed an agreement to promote tourism exchange between the two cities, and Australia launched a "China 2020" activity right before the National Day holiday.

The Korean government is also preparing for the holiday, with Seoul naming the National Day period "Chinese Tourist Week" and holding a series of related events. Since Sept. 29, the Korean Shopping and Tourism Festival has been in full swing, also attempting to attract Chinese tourists.

An executive of a large department store in South Korea remarked, "It is a pity that the Chinese National Day only happens once a year. It is a precious opportunity for South Korea. We all have high hopes for this upcoming holiday."
COLLINSVILLEA man acquitted by reason of insanity of attempting to murder two Henry County sheriffs deputies was back in court this past week, facing new charges.

On Sept. 22 in Henry County General District Court, Raymond Clinard Eaton Jr. pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm after acquittal by insanity, which is a misdemeanor. Judge Frank Greenwalt sentenced the 54-year-old Axton resident to 12 months in jail. Greenwalt suspended six months of that and ordered Eaton not to possess a firearm, among other conditions.

An arrest warrant and criminal complaint allege the following:

On March 10, Investigator B.T. Whitlock of the Henry County Sheriffs Office and other officers responded to 191 Reynolds Park Drive to serve an emergency custody order that was issued for Eaton. Once officers were at the residence, Eaton would not come out of the home. Eaton eventually exited the residence and officers pursued him back into the residence.

Once in the residence, Capt. E.T. Winn located an SKS-style assault rifle on the couch next to the back door. Investigator M.D. Wagoner spoke with Mitchell Walsh (of Irisburg Road, Axton), who stated he observed Eaton with the same rifle on March 9.

According to court records, on Oct. 2, 2002, Judge David V. Williams of Henry County Circuit Court acquitted Eaton by reason of insanity of attempted capital murder of Henry County sheriffs deputies R.D. Anderson and R.K. Holland  and placed Eaton in the custody of the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services.

A criminal complaint and other court documents alleged that on March 20, 2000, at about 8:30 a.m.., Anderson and Holland were attempting to serve a worthless check warrant on Eaton. Eaton allegedly started shooting in the direction of Anderson and Holland, and allegedly shot Henry County police vehicles.

OTHER CASES

On Sept. 23 in Henry County General District Court, a judge sent three charges of violent sex offender fail to register against Otis Ray Pollard to Circuit Court.

Pollard was convicted of two counts of indecent liberties with a child on Oct. 31, 2006, and two counts of indecent liberties with a child on April 3, 2007, in Botetourt County Circuit Court, a criminal complaint by Trooper D.B. Suthers of the Virginia State Police alleged.

Due to these convictions, Mr. Pollard is a registered violent sex offender in the state of Virginia. Mr. Pollard is required to re-register with the sex offender registry every 90 days, the criminal complaint alleged.

Pollards address has been listed in court records as 61 Whippoorwill Lane, Bassett, and Fincastle, Virginia.

Paul Collins reports for the Martinsville Bulletin and can be reached at paul.collins@martinsvillebulletin.com.
MARTINSVILLE  All of the local school districts improved their graduation rates over the last year, according to data released Thursday by the Virginia Department of Education.

Henry County schools saw a three percent increase, with 91.3 percent of their students graduating on time. Thats up from 88.5 percent last year.

Were very excited to see an increase, but ultimately our goal is 100 percent graduation, said Henry County Public Schools Communications Director Monica Hatchett.

All total, 94.3 percent of female students graduated on time in Henry County, with 88.3 percent of male students doing the same. A total of 28 students from the graduating class of 2015-16 dropped out, leaving the remaining 3.6 percent still working to finish their classwork this year. Hatchett said the district is doing what they can to help students catch back up, if theyve been sick or otherwise absent.

Were doing some online learning, so they can complete coursework and graduate on time, Hatchett said. She added that the district also was working to develop reading and writing skills earlier. Some students were coming into middle and high school classes while still struggling in those areas. By helping students improve earlier, district officials hope to take away some of the frustration that they feel lead students to drop out.

Martinsville meanwhile saw the highest increase out of the local area, even though the overall number was below the state average. Overall in Virginia, an average of 91.3 percent of students graduated on time. In Martinsville, 86 percent of the class of 2015-16 finished on time. Thats up 6 percent from 2015, when 80.9 percent graduated. Only 11 students, 6.4 percent of the class, dropped out.

Of course you want 100 percent, but it does show were moving in the right direction, Martinsville Interim Superintendent Zeb Talley said. This is a good landmark, but were not satisfied.

The majority of female students in Martinsville graduated on time, with 92.3 percent finishing with their class. The news was a bit worse for male students, as only 80.6 percent graduated with their class in May.

Martinsville in fact had the second lowest graduation rate in the area. Danville was the lowest, with just 81 percent of students finishing on time. Franklin County had 88.9 percent, Pittsylvania had 93 percent and Patrick County had 91.4 percent of their students graduate with their class.

Brian Carlton is the editor of the Martinsville Bulletin. He can be reached at brian.carlton@martinsvillebulletin.com
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

Azerbaijan had to accept about one million refugees and IDPs, as a result of the Armenian aggression in the early 1990s, Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the State Committee on Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons Ali Hasanov said addressing the session of the V Baku International Humanitarian Forum.

Ali Hasanov said that 20 percent of the Azerbaijani territories are still under the Armenian occupation.

He said the Azerbaijani government is taking all possible measures to ensure necessary living standards of refugees and IDPs for their integration into the society.

"Refugees and IDPs receive compensations; have benefits and state structures and companies pay special attention to their recruitment, their children are exempt from tuition fees in universities. Residential complexes, schools, kindergartens, hospitals are being built for them," Hasanov said.

He went on to add that the national legislation of Azerbaijan is in accordance with the international one.



Armenia always violates the ceasefire regime, the Geneva Convention, cultivates drugs and resettle refugees from Syria in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, he said.

Hasanov noted that the refugee problem is important not only for Azerbaijan; the number of refugees and IDPs is growing every year in the world as a result of wars and conflicts.

A documentary film on Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan in the early 1990s also was shown during the session. The film tells about the Khojaly tragedy where 613 civilians were killed during the genocide committed by Armenia.

The film reminds that the current Armenian authority participated in the commitment of this genocide against the Azerbaijani people.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
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(1) We will typically hold your name and contact details, including telephone number, location, and e-mail address. However, we may request other information where it is appropriate and relevant, for example:

Your bank details or debit/credit card details (if making a donation).

(2) any communication preferences you give;

(3) information about your computer and about your visits to and use of this website including your IP address, geographical location, browser type, referral source, length of visit and number of page views; and/or

(4) any other information shared with us as per clause 1.

Do we process sensitive personal information?

Applicable law recognises certain categories of personal information as sensitive and therefore requiring more protection, including political opinions and trade union membership. In limited cases, we may collect sensitive personal data about you. We would only collect sensitive personal data if there is a clear reason for doing so; and will only do so with your explicit consent.

How and why will we use your personal data?

Personal data, however provided to us, will be used for the purposes specified in this Policy or in relevant parts of the website.

We may use your personal information to:

(1) Enable you to subscribe to our hard copy publications;

(2) Send you information about our work, campaigns, organisations and any other information, products or services that we provide (this will not be done without your consent);

(3) Provide you with the services, products or information you have requested;

(4) If you request, put you in touch with other supporters in your area (who have also provided such consent);

(5) Handle the administration of any donation or other payment you make via credit/debit card, cheque, standing order or BACS transfer;

(6) Collect payments from you and send statements and/or receipts to you;

(7) Conduct research into the impact of our activity / campaigns;

(8) Deal with enquiries and complaints made by you relating to the website or us in general;

(9) Make petition submissions to third parties, where you have signed a petition and the third party is a target of the campaign to which the petition relates; and/or

(10) Audit and/or administer our accounts.

Supporter Analysis

Google Analytics

We may use some of your personal information to analyse our digital performance, for example to see how our website can be improved to help us achieve the purposes set out in section 9 below, to record how you are using our website or to assess the popularity of different articles / campaigns.

For more information on how we use your personal information in relation to Google Analytics, please view our cookie policy by clicking this link cookies policy



You can opt-out of the collection of information for such purposes here: http://www.aboutads.info/choices

Communications, updates, fundraising

Where you have provided appropriate consent, we will contact you by telephone and e-mail, with targeted communications to let you know about our events and/or activities that we consider may be of particular interest; about the work of In Defence of Marxism; and to ask for donations or other support.

Donations and other payments

All financial transactions carried out on our website are handled through either:

PayPal (Europe) S.a r.l. (PayPal), a third party payment services provider. We recommend that you read PayPals privacy policy (available at https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/ua/privacy-full?locale.x=en_GB ) prior to effecting any transactions with us through PayPal; or

GoCardless Ltd (GoCardless), a third party payment services provider. We recommend that you read GoCardlesss privacy policy (available at https://www.gocardless.com/legal/privacy) prior to effecting any transactions with us through GoCardless.

We will provide your personal data to PayPal / GoCardless only to the extent necessary for the purposes of processing payments for transactions you enter into with us. We do not store your financial details.

Childrens data

We do not knowingly process data of any person under the age of 16. If we come to discover, or have reason to believe, that you are 15 and under and we are holding your personal information, we will delete that information within a reasonable period and withhold our services accordingly.

Security of and access to your personal data

We endeavour to ensure that there are appropriate and proportionate technical and organisational measures to prevent the loss, destruction, misuse, alteration, unauthorised disclosure or of access to your personal information.

Your information is only accessible by appropriately trained staff and volunteers.

We may also use agencies and/or suppliers to process data on our behalf. We may also merge or partner with other organisations and in so doing transfer and/or acquire personal data.

Please note that some countries outside of the EEA have a lower standard of protection for personal data, including lower security requirements and fewer rights for individuals. We may transfer and/or store personal data collected from you to and/or at a destination outside the European Economic Area (EEA). Such personal data may be processed by agencies and/or suppliers operating outside the EEA. If we transfer and/or store your personal data outside the EEA we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the recipient implements appropriate measures to protect your personal data.

Otherwise than as set out in this Privacy Policy, we will only ever share your data with your informed consent.

Your rights

Where we rely on your consent to use your personal information, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. This includes the right to ask us to stop using your personal information for direct marketing purposes or to be unsubscribed from our email list at any time. You also have the following rights:

(1) Right to be informed  you have the right to be told how your personal information will be used. This Policy and any other policies and statements used on our website and in our communications are intended to provide you with a clear and transparent description of how your personal information may be used.

(2) Right of access  you can write to us to ask for confirmation of what information we hold on you and to request a copy of that information. Provided we are satisfied that you are entitled to see the information requested and we have successfully confirmed your identity, we have 30 days to comply.

(3) Right of erasure  as from 25 May 2018, you can ask us for your personal information to be deleted from our records.

(4) Right of rectification  if you believe our records of your personal information are inaccurate, you have the right to ask for those records to be updated.

(5) Right to restrict processing  you have the right to ask for processing of your personal data to be restricted if there is disagreement about its accuracy or legitimate usage.

(6) Right to data portability  to the extent required by the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) where we are processing your personal information (i) under your consent, (ii) because such processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party or to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contact or (iii) by automated means, you may ask us to provide it to you  or another service provider  in a machine-readable format.

To exercise these rights, please send a description of the personal information in question using the contact details in section 15 below. You can also unsubscribe from our email list by sending a blank email to news-unsubscribe@marxist.com

Where we consider that the information with which you have provided us does not enable us to identify the personal information in question, we reserve the right to ask for (i) personal identification and/or (ii) further information.

Lawful processing

We are required to have one or more lawful grounds to process your personal information. Only 4 of these are relevant to us:

Personal information is processed on the basis of a persons consent Personal information is processed on the basis of a contractual relationship Personal information is processed on the basis of legal obligations Personal information is processed on the basis of legitimate interests

(1) Consent

We will ask for your consent to use your information to send you electronic communications such as newsletters and and fundraising emails, and if you ever share sensitive personal information with us.

(2) Contractual relationships

Most of our interactions with supporters are voluntary and not contractual. However, sometimes it will be necessary to process personal information so that we can enter contractual relationships with people. For example, if you subscribe to one of our publications, or purchase merchandise online.

(3) Legal obligations

Sometimes we will be obliged to process your personal information due to legal obligations which are binding on us. We will only ever do so when strictly necessary.

(4) Legitimate interests

Applicable law allows personal information to be collected and used if it is reasonably necessary for our legitimate activities (as long as its use is fair, balanced and does not unduly impact individuals rights).

We will rely on this ground to process your personal data when it is not practical or appropriate to ask for consent.

Achieving our purposes

These include (but are not limited to) promoting socialist policies

Governance

Internal and external audit for financial or regulatory compliance purposes

Statutory reporting

Publicity and income generation

Conventional direct marketing and other forms of marketing, publicity or advertisement

Unsolicited messages, including campaigns, newsletters, and fundraising appeals

Analysis, targeting and segmentation to develop and promote or strategy and improve communication efficiency

Personalisation used to tailor and enhance your experience of our communications

Operational Management

Maintenance of suppression files

Processing for historical, scientific or statistical purpose

Purely administrative purposes

Responding to enquiries

Delivery of requested products or information

Communications designed to administer existing services including subscriptions, administration of petitions and financial transactions

Thank you communications and receipts

Maintaining a supporter database and suppression lists

Financial Management and control

Processing financial transactions and maintaining financial controls

Prevention of fraud, misuse of services, or money laundering

Enforcement of legal claims

Reporting criminal acts and compliance with law enforcement agencies

When we use your personal information, we will consider if it is fair and balanced to do so and if it is within your reasonable expectations. We will balance your rights and our legitimate interests to ensure that we use your personal information in ways that are not unduly intrusive or unfair in other ways.

Data retention

The length of time each category of data will be retained will vary depending on how long we need to process it for, the reason it was collected, and in line with any statutory requirements. After this point the data will either be deleted, or we may retain a secure anonymised record for research and analytical purposes.

In the event that you ask us to stop sending you direct marketing/fundraising/other electronic communications, we will keep your name on our internal suppression list to ensure that you are not contacted again.

Policy amendments

We keep this Privacy Policy under regular review and reserve the right to update from time-to-time by posting an updated version on our website, not least because of changes in applicable law. We recommend that you check this Privacy Policy occasionally to ensure you remain happy with it. We may also notify you of changes to our privacy policy by email.

Third party websites

We link our website directly to other sites. This Privacy Policy does not cover external websites and we are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those sites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of any external websites you visit via links on our website.

Updating information

You can check the personal data we hold about you, and ask us to update it where necessary, by emailing us at webmaster@marxist.com

Contact

We are not required by law to have a Data Protection Officer  however we have a Data Protection Manager.

Please let us know if you have any queries or concerns whatsoever about the way in which your data is being processed by emailing the Data Protection Manager at webmaster@marxist.com
Details added (first version posted at 14:39)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30

By Seba Aghayeva - Trend:

There is no need to invent new formulas or equations to resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Hikmat Hajiyev, spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, told Trend Sept. 30.

The political and legal bases of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement are well known, he said, commenting on US Secretary of State John Kerrys recent statement at the Atlantic and Aspen Institute. Among them are the UN Security Councils important resolutions, rules and principles of international law and the Helsinki Final Act.

In his statement, Kerry said that it is still impossible to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict today.

"It is Azerbaijan, as a country subjected to occupation and aggression by Armenia, is interested in the rapid settlement of the conflict, Hajiyev said. While remaining committed to the spirit of Vienna and St. Petersburg meetings, the Azerbaijani side has repeatedly stated that it is interested in resolving the conflict through substantive negotiations.

The substantive negotiations are underway despite the media does not provide any information about it, he said. These substantive negotiations, as it was stated at the level of the co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group, must change the status quo, which is unacceptable and inconsistent, and result in the liberation of Azerbaijani territories from occupation."

The principle of self-determination of peoples is specified in the Helsinki Final Act not to harm the principle of territorial integrity, he said. It is Armenia which is trying to harm the conflict settlement by various provocations.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 1

Trend:

OSCE Minsk Groups US co-chair James Warlick said that the US remains committed to peace in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The US remains committed to peace in Nagorno-Karabakh and will work actively with the OSCE Co-Chairs to mediate a settlement acceptable to the sides ", he tweeted.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

Azerbaijan inspires with its tolerance and attitude towards multiculturalism, said Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize Winner in Literature, during a round table Different Models of Multiculturalism: from Theory to Humanitarian Practice.

The round table discussion was held as a part of the 5th Baku International Humanitarian Forum, which kicked off Sept. 29 in Azerbaijans capital.

In Africa, where I live, there are big problems with religious tolerance, said Soyinka.

In different countries there are different groups, the purpose of which is to prosecute members of other religions, to keep them in awe, to restrict their freedom, he added.

Being here in Azerbaijan, I am amazed at how people of different nationalities and religions coexist, communicate and respect each other, noted Soyinka. Such tolerance, such an attitude towards multiculturalism in Azerbaijan is inspiring me. I would like many countries to take the example of your country.

The Baku International Humanitarian Forum is an annual platform for famous representatives of political, science and culture elite of the world community, including famous statesmen, Nobel Prize winners in various fields of science and leaders of influential international organizations for holding dialogues, discussions and exchange of views on a wide range of global issues in the interests of all humanity.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
One major group directly affected by the Wells Fargo scandal  the customers who had fraudulent accounts opened in their names  may have their hands tied.

As lawmakers pointed out at congressional hearings Thursday and last week, many Wells Fargo customers are blocked from suing the company because of arbitration clauses, little-known contracts that often ban customers from taking part in class action lawsuits. They are regularly included in the fine print for checking accounts, credit cards and other consumer products.

By Jonnelle Marte

Full Story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2016/09/29/why-wells-fargo-customers-wont-be-able-to-sue-the-bank-over-fake-accounts/
Les membres du Cabinet ont pris note des retombees de la visite du Premier Ministre au Royaume-Uni et a New York, quun nouveau Water Resources Bill sera ecrit et presente au Parlement, que le Skills Development Authority Act 2019 sera promulge et viendra effectif le 1er novembre 2022, que le 9th Political Dialogue avec lUnion Europeenne aura lieu le 14 novembre 2022 entre autres.

1. Cabinet has taken note of the outcome of the participation of the Prime Minister:

(a) at the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II who passed away on 08 September 2022 and the ceremonies associated thereto in the UK; and

(b) as Head of the Mauritius delegation, in the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) from 20 to 23 September 2022, in New York.

The State Funeral of Her Majesty the Queen took place at Westminster Abbey on Monday 19 September at 11 00 hours and was attended by some 2,000 guests including Heads of State and Government. The Prime Minister attended the offer of respects at the Lying-in-State at Westminster House and made a special tribute in honour of the Late Queen at the Lancaster House. He also attended a reception hosted by the new King, Charles III, at Buckingham Palace in the evening of 18 September 2022 and conveyed the condolences of the Government and people of Mauritius.

In New York, the Prime Minister attended the 77th Session of the UNGA and other side events. In the margins of the UNGA, the Prime Minister participated and made a national statement of commitment virtually on 19 September 2022 at the Transforming Education Summit convened by the UN Secretary General. He also addressed the African Union High Level side event Global Summit on Transforming Education virtually.

The Prime Minister participated in the First Gathering of the Global Group of Heads of State and Government for the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) which was co-hosted by the President of the Republic of Ghana, the Prime Minister of Norway, the Director General of WHO and the WHO Global Ambassador for NCDs and Injuries. He also attended the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) Leaders Breakfast Meeting. During his mission to New York, further discussions were held with the UK authorities on the signature of a parameter agreement to implement the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, the UNGA Resolution 73/295 and the Judgment of the Special Chamber of the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea on the Maritime Delimitation between Mauritius and Maldives in the Chagos Archipelago Region. During his address at the UNGA, he called, inter alia, for the vicious cycles of violence, divides and distrust to end and spoke on the issue of climate change, UN Reform, cybercrime, misuse and abuse of ICT and the need for a Multidimensional Vulnerability Index.

The Prime Minister had bilateral meetings with the President of Latvia, Slovenia and Comoros, respectively as well as with the President of the General Assembly, the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Chairperson of the African Union Commission.

2. Cabinet has agreed to drafting instructions being conveyed to the Attorney Generals Office in respect of a new Water Resources Bill. The main object of the proposed Water Resources Bill would be to provide a legal framework for the sustainable management, protection, development and efficient use and conservation of water resources in Mauritius, the establishment of a National Directorate of Water Resources and to make provision for the regulation and licensing of water services. The new Water Resources Bill would, among others, address the following aspects: (a) management of surface and underground water resources and management of dams; (b) governance of water resources; (c) protection of water resources; (d) conservation of water resources; and (e) licensing of water services and tariffs.

3. Cabinet has agreed to the Skills Development Authority Act 2019 being proclaimed and for its coming into operation as from 01 November 2022. The objects of the Skill Development Authority would be to:

(a) regulate the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector;

(b) ensure quality assurance in TVET sector;

(c) confer awarding powers to training institutions;

(d) develop a skills framework; and

(e) maintain the Skills Development Fund.

4. Cabinet has agreed to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Mauritius Institute of Training and Development and the Institute of Vocational Training and Labour Studies Alberto Cassimo of the Republic of Mozambique. The main objective of the Memorandum of Understanding is to promote cooperation between both countries in the following areas:

(a) training of trainers and managers to promote the development of technical competencies, psycho-pedagogical and management capacities for trainers and managers of vocational training centres;

(b) exchange of experiences through, among others, exchange of trainers and trainees, study visits, and seminars;

(c) curriculum based on standards of competences aiming at promoting exchanges in the development of curricula of training based on standards of professional skills; and

(d) internship and recruitment of students and trainees.

5. Cabinet has agreed to the signing of a new Protocol in respect of the Fisheries Partnership Agreement between the Republic of Mauritius and the European Union for the period 20222026 based on a new fee structure.

6. Cabinet has agreed to the hosting of 9th Political Dialogue between the Government of Mauritius and the European Union (EU) on 14 November 2022. The Mauritius-EU Political Dialogue, which has been held since 2011, is in accordance with Article 8 of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement, and the discussions are non-binding in nature.

The aim of the Dialogue is to exchange information, foster mutual understanding and facilitate establishment of agreed priorities and shared agendas between Mauritius and the EU. It also facilitates consultations and strengthens cooperation on a number of issues of mutual interest to both parties.

7. Cabinet has agreed to the signing of the Project Agreement and Letter of Commitment by the Government of Mauritius with regard to the Hydromet Project. The Indian Ocean Commission is the Executing Entity for the Building Regional Resilience through strengthened Meteorological, Hydrological and Climate Services in the Indian Ocean Commission Member Countries (Hydromet) Project.

The Hydromet Project aims at strengthening the resilience and adaptive capacity of regional and national communities to the impacts of climate change in the island states of the South West Indian Ocean. The main benefits of the project are improved hydro-meteorological equipment, knowledge and decision-making and better adaptation planning infrastructure. The project would be implemented over a period of five years until 2027.

8. Cabinet has agreed to the Ministry of Blue Economy, Marine Resources, Fisheries and Shipping authorising the importation of 400 tonnes of Capitaine fish during the end-of-year festive season 2022. With a view to avoiding any shortage of fish on the local market, registered importers of fish and fish products would be allowed to import some 400 tonnes of Capitaine fish from 01 to 20 December 2022.

9. Cabinet has taken note that the Ministry of Health and Wellness would conduct the 6th Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) Survey in Rodrigues in October/November 2022. The overall goal of the Rodrigues NCD Survey 2022 is to determine the prevalence of NCDs and to study the trends in hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, obesity and their associated risk factors in the Rodriguan population. The specific objectives of the survey are to, inter alia:

(a) measure the prevalence of diabetes mellitus and pre-diabetes;

(b) examine complications of diabetes, including retinopathy and nephropathy;

(c) measure the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors;

(d) assess public awareness of diabetes mellitus and the importance of its metabolic control; and

(e) evaluate public awareness of hypertension and its control.

The NCD Survey 2022 would target Rodriguan adults aged 20 to 74 years.

10. Cabinet has taken note that Mauritius has been ranked 45th globally in the Global Innovation Index (GII) Report for year 2022. It is ranked 1st in the Sub-Saharan Region, 1st among the African countries and 6th among the 36 upper middle-income countries. Mauritius was ranked 82nd in 2019, 52nd in both 2020 and 2021.

The GII Report is co-published annually by Cornell University of New York, INSEAD (Institut Europeen dAdministration des Affaires) and the World Intellectual Property Organization, a specialised agency of the United Nations and provides detailed metrics about the innovation performance of 132 countries and economies around the world, including Mauritius.

11. Cabinet has taken note that the Fraser Institute has, in its Economic Freedom of the World 2022 Annual Report released on 08 September 2022, ranked Mauritius at the 9th position out of 165 countries for the year 2020. This places Mauritius among the top 10 countries whose policies and institutions are most favourable to economic freedom. Mauritius was ranked 11th in 2019.

The Fraser Institute is an independent, non-partisan research and educational organisation based in Canada. It provides an in-depth analysis of each countrys degree of economic freedom across five key areas, namely Size of Government, Legal System and Property Rights, Sound Money, Freedom to Trade Internationally and Regulation of Credit, Labour and Business.

12. Cabinet has agreed to Mauritius submitting its candidature to host the 66th meeting of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Commission for Africa during the course of the second semester of 2023. Mauritius is currently the second Vice-Chair of the UNWTO Executive Council.

13. Cabinet has agreed to the Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development signing an Agreement with the Standard Chartered Bank (incorporated in England) to, inter alia, develop an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Framework for Mauritius. The development of an ESG Framework would ease the process for Government to raise financing on the international market as a large and growing proportion of global investors are using ESG factors to direct their investments.

14. Cabinet has taken note that Mauritius would host two events, organised in collaboration with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), namely a three-day Seminar on the Chemical Weapons Convention and Chemical Safety and Security Management for Member States of the OPCW in the Africa Region, and a four-day Executive Programme on Integrated Chemicals Management, from 11 to 14 October 2022.

The aim of the Seminar is to provide a platform for the exchange of experiences on national framework for chemical safety and security management. The Executive Programme would cover a variety of topics relevant to those leading the implementation of integrated chemicals management from both policy and industrial perspectives.

15. Cabinet has taken note that Mauritius would host the 2nd Mauritius Maritime Week, Conference and Exhibition from 13 to 15 December 2022. The objective of holding this event in Mauritius is to continue the promotion of trade and economic development throughout the Indian Ocean through transportation and logistics as well as promoting foreign direct investment and international business tourism in the Republic of Mauritius.

The event would provide an opportunity to showcase Port Louis Harbour as an important maritime logistics and transport hub in this region of the world. World-class international business leaders would analyse latest global transportation and logistics issues and the event would be attended by leading shipping lines, shippers, railways, cargo owners, freight forwarders, logistics companies, road transport companies, investors, economists, consultants, ports, port equipment and IT services suppliers.

16. Cabinet has taken note that the University of Mauritius would organise the 3rd International Conference of NextComp 2020 from 06 to 08 October 2022. The theme of the Conference is Next Generation Computing Applications.

The objectives of the Conference are to address new developments, both in theory and in practice, mainly in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Communication and Computer Networks, Security and Forensics and Data Analytics. The event would also include an industry session covering innovative technologies implementation. Some 75 researchers from various countries would participate to the event.

17. Cabinet has taken note that the Ministry of Health and Wellness, in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), would hold a Regional Project Mid-Term Coordination Meeting from 14 to 18 November 2022 in Mauritius under the African Regional Cooperative Agreement for Research, Development and Training related to Nuclear Science and Technology (AFRA).

The meeting would be held within the framework of the IAEA Technical Cooperation Project RAF 6055 Improving the Quality of Radiotherapy in the treatment of Frequently Occurring Cancers. The objective of the event is to enhance the quality of the delivery of radiotherapy services in AFRA Member States through harmonised clinical training schemes and sensitisation of policy makers. It is expected that some 56 participants from 29 IAEA Member States, among others, would attend the meeting

18. Cabinet has taken note of the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic prevailing in Mauritius. As at 28 September 2022, there were 14 active cases of COVID-19, out of which 10 were admitted at the New ENT Hospital.

Cabinet has also taken note that the quarantine period in Mauritius would be extended up to 30 November 2022. The existing sanitary measures applicable in Mauritius and Rodrigues are also being extended up to 30 November 2022. Henceforth, there would be no mandatory in-centre quarantine prior to travel to St Brandon.

Cabinet has further taken note that the British High Commission in Mauritius has made a donation of Personal Protective Equipment, masks, gowns and medical equipment to the Ministry of Health and Wellness.

19. Cabinet has taken note that the NOTAMs which lay down conditions for passengers and crew members travelling to Mauritius and Rodrigues respectively would be extended up to 30 November 2022.

20. Cabinet has taken note of the outcome of the recent mission of the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Housing and Land Use Planning, Minister of Tourism to France in the context of the International French Travel Market Top Resa, which is a leading annual event for the international travel and tourism industry to discuss tourism and travel-related topics, analyse trends, accelerate business networking and formulate strategies for the next season. The Mauritian Pavilion accommodated all the local tourism stakeholders. During and in the margins of the Top Resa event, various meetings were held with key stakeholders to obtain direct feedback from the travel trade and to explore strategies for sustainable tourism growth in the post-pandemic context.

The Deputy Prime Minister participated in a working session of the Vanilla Islands Organisation and discussions centered on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism sector. He also participated in a networking event organised by the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority which was attended by major French tour operators and travel agents as well as local tourism stakeholders.

21. Cabinet has taken note of the outcome of the recent official visit of the Minister of Social Integration, Social Security and National Solidarity to Rodrigues in the context of the International Day for Older Persons and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, which would be held on 01 and 17 October 2022, respectively. The activities organised included, among others:

(a) handing over of certificates to unemployed beneficiaries of the National Empowerment Foundation (NEF) as well as staff of the NEF and the Commission for Social Security, Health and Others;

(b) launching of training courses in Masonry and Ladies Wear to be dispensed by the MITD to 27 unemployed beneficiaries of the NEF; and

(c) a visit to the Respite Care Centre at Piton where senior citizens can stay for a maximum period of two months per year.

The Minister also had a working session with the Chief Commissioner of the Rodrigues Regional Assembly to discuss issues pertaining to poverty alleviation, capacity building of staff, Medical Boards and domiciliary visits for elderly persons and persons with disabilities.

22. Cabinet has taken note of the activities being organised by the Ministry of Health and Wellness in the context of World Heart Day 2022. The theme chosen for this year is Use Heart for Every Heart. The Ministry of Health and Wellness, in collaboration with various organisations and stakeholders, would organise some 12 sessions of health promotion campaigns at strategic localities throughout the island on Saturdays, every fortnight.

The Ministry would commemorate World Heart Day during the official launching of the Health Promotion Campaign at Phoenix Mall on 01 October 2022. The health promotion campaigns would include, among others:

(a) NCD and HIV Screening Programme and display on healthy food models; and

(b) talks on NCDs including cardiovascular diseases, cancer and their risk factors and the importance of adopting a healthy lifestyle.

23. Cabinet has taken note of the reconstitution of:

(a) the Parole Board with Mrs Nudhar Bundhoo as part-time Chairperson;

(b) the Correctional Youth Centre Board of Visitors with Mr Vijay Ramanjooloo as part-time Chairperson;

(c) the Rehabilitation Youth Centre Board of Visitors with Mrs Leelawtee Ramsaha as part-time Chairperson; and

(d) the Discharged Persons Aid Committee with Dr Michael Pompeia as part-time Chairperson.

24. Cabinet has taken note of the reconstitution of the Professional Quantity Surveyors Council for the period 2022  2024.

25. Cabinet has taken note of the reconstitution of the Executive Council of the Sanskrit Speaking Union with Mr Kessen Budhoo as part-time Chairperson.

Note:

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30

By Elchin Mehdiyev  Trend:

The referendum demonstrated strong support of the Azerbaijani people to the far-sighted policy of the countrys President Ilham Aliyev, said Azerbaijani Parliaments Speaker Ogtay Asadov Sept. 30.

The referendum on amendments to Azerbaijans Constitution was held democratically and transparently, noted Asadov.

The referendum to make amendments to Azerbaijans Constitution was held Sept. 26. The voter turnout throughout the country stood at 69.7 percent, or 3,671,707 people.



Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree July 18 on submitting the draft Referendum Act On making amendments to Azerbaijans constitution to the Constitutional Court.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30

By Elmira Tariverdiyeva  Trend:

The Azerbaijan-Russia relations are in a positive trend, Sergey Markov, Russian presidents confidant, member of the Russian Public Chamber, said.

Markov made the remarks at a press conference in Baku Sept. 30.

"Azerbaijan and Russia effectively cooperate in the field of security," Markov added.

He said the visits of Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian politicians to Baku focused on cooperation between the two countries in various fields, including energy.

Russia and Azerbaijan must do their best for energy supplies to the EU not to compete, but to get revenues, he said. For this purpose, it is necessary to coordinate Bakus and Moscows actions on the hydrocarbon prices and cooperate with Turkey as the main transit country.

The expert said the cooperation in military-technical sector is also important in strengthening relations between the two countries.

"The Russian systems are the first-class ones, moreover, they are cheaper than the US analogues," Markov added.

He said that another important direction of cooperation is the work to determine the status of the Caspian Sea, on which the two countries have similar positions.

The North-South project is also important for the two countries, Markov said. Such a safe transport corridor will bring multi-billion profits to both countries.

The issue of respect to the sovereignty of both countries is also very important, Markov said.

Russia recognizes Azerbaijans sovereign right to independently resolve the issues of power separation, Markov said, adding Azerbaijans recent referendum was devoted to this issue.

He said the 5th Baku International Humanitarian Forum was a good platform for discussing the modern challenges and problems.

The problem of refugees, which is acute for Europe today, was also discussed at the humanitarian forum, Markov said.

Daria Grevtsova, deputy director of the Russian Institute of Political Research, said that new topics, in particular, information sharing problems, journalism, were put up for discussion at the forum, held in Baku Sept. 30.

Multiculturalism was the widest topic at the forum, she said.

It is important that the number of young participants of the forum has increased, Grevtsova added. Azerbaijan can be cited as an example of multiculturalism.

The Baku International Humanitarian Forum is an annual platform for famous representatives of political, science and culture elite of the world community, including famous statesmen, Nobel Prize winners in various fields of science and leaders of influential international organizations for holding dialogues, discussions and exchange of views on a wide range of global issues in the interests of all humanity.
Details added (first version posted on 13:06)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received a delegation led by member of the National Assembly of the French Republic, President of the Association of Friends of Azerbaijan in France Jean-Francois Mancel.

Member of the National Assembly of the French Republic, President of the Association of Friends of Azerbaijan in France Jean-Francois Mancel said relations between France and Azerbaijan have reached a very good level recently.

He noted that recent opening of the Azerbaijani Village in Paris with the participation of Azerbaijan`s first lady Mehriban Aliyeva made very big impression on all participants and increased interest in the country. Saying he is accompanied by a 25-man delegation, Jean-Francois Mancel added that some of delegates are now in Shaki, and then will visit Ganja.

President Ilham Aliyev said he is satisfied that Mancel visits the country accompanied by a large entourage, noting that the trip will create the good opportunity for them to familiarize themselves with Azerbaijan.

Stressing the importance of the opening of the Azerbaijani Village in the center of Paris, the head of state noted that several such projects have been implemented in the French capital, and that residents of France and Paris appreciate them.

President Ilham Aliyev thanked Jean-Francois Mancel for his active participation in large-scale presentations relating to Azerbaijan. The head of state emphasized that such kind of events, as well as visits of famous French figures to Azerbaijan will pave the way for a wider promotion of the country in France and expansion of the bilateral relations.
The Catawba Falls trail in McDowell County will be temporarily closed today to facilitate work as part of the ongoing trail improvement project. The trail will reopen on Saturday.

The Grandfather Ranger District of the Pisgah National Forest has been working to improve access to Catawba Falls this summer and fall. Currently, crews are installing a trail bridge across Chestnut Branch to allow for safe access for a wide range of visitors to this popular waterfall. Work is expected to be completed in Mid-October.

The Catawba Falls Trail is a popular hiking trail in Old Fort. Chestnut Branch is the last creek crossing before visitor reach the lower falls.

A new footbridge was installed over the Catawba River in July in partnership with McDowell County, North Carolina State Parks, and a federal Recreational Trails Program grant.

The Forest Service and its partners are continuing progress towards making this area more accessible and safe for forest visitors though the route to the upper falls remains dangerous and the public is warned against attempting it. Every month, McDowell County Emergency Management responds to at least one critical rescue at the site from the public seeking access to the upper falls.

The best way to enjoy a waterfall is from a safe distance. Stay on established trails and be aware of the extreme danger posed by attempting a closer view of the waterfalls. Never climb on or jump off waterfalls. Don't swim or dive in waterfall pools or wade in streams above waterfalls because of hazardous rocks and currents.

For more information contact the Grandfather Ranger District at 828-652-2144
P.G. Elementary students want your pledges to help support their school for new technology and playground equipment.

On Monday, students assembled in the schools multipurpose room for a pep rally to learn about the PTAs Fun Run. Students will solicit pledges from their parents, neighbors, family members and local businesses to run, walk, jump or dance laps at the schools Fun Run on Oct. 6.

Students could do anywhere from 30 to 35 laps each, with the hopes of getting $1 per lap. J&T Auto Parts and West Court Food Center are gold sponsors for the Fun Run with a minimum donation of $500.

Our goal is to raise $13,000. Through our business sponsors we raised enough money for our kids to get a free T-shirt on the day of the Fun Run which will be totally exciting for them. We raised over $6,000 for that, said PTA President Arley Smith.

But, the goal of this fundraiser is to get new technology in each classroom and new playground equipment.

A Chromebook is $250 and an iPad is $350 so we want every teacher to at least have one of those in their classes. This will be our main fundraiser this year and if we can do enough this will be the only one this year, except for smaller ones for the kids, said Smith.

The pep rally was to make the kids excited about the fundraiser, and that certainly. Kids watched an engaging video from the fundraising company and teachers sprayed the kids with silly string and handed out candy (check out the video at www.mcdowellnews.com). Smith also announced that if they meet their goal one of the teachers will take a pie in the face and Principal Mark Robertson will kiss a cow.

Parents were asked to log on to www.funrun.com to get started. There are also prizes available for kids who raise a certain amount of money. For families without Internet access, the packets that were sent home with students had places where pledges could be written down.

For more information, folks can call P.G. Elementary School at 828-724-4422, or visit www.funrun.com.

BOX: P.G. ELEMENTARY FUN RUN SPONSORS:

GOLD: J&T Auto Parts, West Court Food Center

SILVER: Aarons Rentals, Advance Auto, Dereks Muffler & Auto Repair, Farm Bureau Insurance, Millers Transmission, Pepperonis Pizza, Riverside Convenience Store, Smokey Ques BBQ, State Farm Insurance-Chad Toney, T&D Wrecker, Tom Johnson Camping World, Woodlawn Tire

BRONZE: Animal Hospital of Marion, BoJangles, CarQuest, CentiMark Roofing & Flooring, Cornerstone Credit Union, Fire & Ice Jewelry, Greene Acres Lawn Care, Jalapeno Fresh Grill, Jaspers Engines, Lake James Outdoors, La Salsas Mexican Restaurant, McDaniels Insurance, McDowell Glass & Mirror, Nail Expo, No. 1 China, Samirs Convenience Stores, Specialty Outdoor, Tates Insurance, Whitson Realty
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30

By Elchin Mehdiyev  Trend:

Azerbaijans Parliament has decided to restore relations with the European Parliament.

The decision was made after the issue on restoration of ties with the European Parliament was put up for discussion at the first meeting of Azerbaijani Parliaments autumn session.

The Parliaments decision reads that the biased and unfair resolution regarding the country adopted by the European Parliament September 10, 2015 has seriously damaged the development of its relations with Azerbaijan.

On Sept. 14, 2015, the Azerbaijani Parliament adopted a relevant decision in response to this biased political act that is aimed at undermining Azerbaijans cooperation with the EU and its member states and damaging the countrys international reputation, the document said.

According to that decision, the Azerbaijani Parliament started the procedure of termination of its membership in the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, reads the statement. It was decided that during the procedure, Azerbaijani Parliaments delegation will not join events of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly.

The Azerbaijani Parliaments participation in activities of the EU-Azerbaijan Parliamentary Cooperation Committee in the current format was suspended, said the document.

The decision reads that in April 2016 the leadership of the European Parliament sent a delegation of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly to Azerbaijan to resume the dialogue between the Azerbaijani Parliament and the European Parliament.

According to the document, on Sept. 19-21, 2016, a delegation of 15 people from the European Parliament visited Azerbaijan to discuss the issue of repairing relations.

In the statement adopted following the visit, the delegation of the European Parliament expressed regret at the more-than-a-years absence of dialogue between the European Parliament and Azerbaijans Parliament, and noted that the necessary measures will be taken to prevent a situation that can lead to rupture of relations in the future.

In order to restore bilateral relations with the European Parliament, the Azerbaijani Parliament annulled the articles 10 and 11 of the decision dated Sept. 14, 2015.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30

Trend:

Azernews newspaper has been invited to the One Young World global summit, which kicked off Sept. 29 in Canadas capital.

The three-day summit, which will end Oct. 1, is attended by 1,300 young people from 193 countries. Famous world politicians  former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the first female president of Ireland Mary Robinson, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, as well as movie stars  the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson, Natalia Vodianova and others participated in the solemn opening ceremony of the summit.

Speaking at the ceremony, Canadas Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressing young people said that they have a power to change the world.

Sparknews organization held a special presentation of a number of influential newspapers (which brings together 55 well-known and most influential newspapers in the world).

The event was also addressed by Sparknews head Christian de Boisredon, who presented the Azerbaijani newspaper to the audience.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

The Baku International Humanitarian Forum is impressive for its scope  it is a success of Azerbaijan, Xue Cheng, president of the Buddhist Association of China, told reporters Sept. 30 in Baku.

Xue Cheng made the remarks at the 5th Baku International Humanitarian Forum, which kicked off Sept. 29 in Azerbaijans capital.

Our delegation came to the forum from China at the kind invitation of minister of foreign affairs of Azerbaijan, said Cheng.

We are happy to represent here China, which has a 2,000-year tradition of tolerance and we are here today to share our experience of multiculturalism, noted Cheng. This is very important, useful and effective.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

The Baku International Sea Trade Port CJSC (aka Port of Baku) signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bulgarian Ports Infrastructure Company, the Port of Baku said in a message.

The document was signed within the 4th session of the Azerbaijani-Bulgarian intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation that was held in Baku.

The memorandum was signed by the head of the Port of Baku Taleh Ziyadov and Director General of the Bulgarian Ports Infrastructure Company Angel Zaburtov.

According to the memorandum, the cooperation will be enhanced and the exchange of experience between the Baku International Sea Trade Port and Bulgarian ports of Varna and Burgas will be established, said the message.

Earlier, the Baku International Sea Trade Port signed memorandums of understanding with Antwerp, Panama, Aktau and Poti ports.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Sept. 30

By Demir Azizov  Trend:

The South Korean government will allocate $250 million for Uzbekistan to implement new infrastructure projects in accordance with the memorandum of understanding signed Sept. 29, an official with the Uzbek government told Trend.

The official said the document was signed in Seoul following the talks between Rustam Azimov, Uzbek first deputy prime minister and minister of finance, and Yoo Il Ho, South Korean minister of finance.

The funds will be allocated through the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) and will be spent for construction of a new terminal at the Tashkent International Airport and establishment of the data processing center of e-government system in Uzbekistan.

The Uzbek official also said that as part of his visit to Seoul, Azimov took part in the eighth round of the Uzbekistan-South Korea talks on economy and trade.

The delegations of the two countries discussed the South Korean companies participation in the Uzbek projects in such areas as investment, infrastructure development and energy.

An agreement was reached to set up an advisory board to assist exporters from the two countries.

Uzbekistan is the largest trading partner of South Korea in Central Asia. Trade turnover between the countries was $1.3 billion in 2015 and $2.1 billion in 2014.

EDCF has so far provided Uzbekistan with concessional loans worth about $300 million in the social, telecommunications and education sectors.

South Korea is one of the largest investors putting money in Uzbekistan. The total volume of Korean investments in the Uzbek economy has exceeded $7 billion.
by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, September 30, 2016

Various technological elements are inching the Internet of Things along, closer to the realization of true one-to-one engagements.

In addition to the billions of sensors being deployed in countless locations around the world, behind-the-scenes innovations in various forms of automation are being created.

Speaking at the MediaPost OMMA Bots & Chat at Advertising Week conference in New York this week, Haydn Sweterlitsch, global chief creative officer of HackerAgency, suggested that artificial intelligence, smart machines, agents, bots and assistants all would play a role.

Brands rule in this environment, Sweterlitsch said, in a world of real time, hyper-personalized, hyper-relevant and truly one-to-one. Customers will have a total amount of choice.

Sweterlitsch described bots as being either rules based or involving machine learning.

Another speaker later in the conference painted a similar picture.

Gabe Weiss, Retail Innovation Lead, SapientNitro, said that chatbots currently fall into two camps:

Rules based -- Can only respond to specific commands, only as smart as it is programmed to be

AI/machine learning Understands language, not just commands, continuously gets smarter as it learns from conversations

Weiss labeled the first one as dumb and the second one young, a rather apt description of the state of the current market.

As to the personality of a bot, Sweterlitsch said it is a challenge for user experience design.

Designing conversations needs to be less visual, Sweterlitsch said. The revolution will happen off-screen, citing Amazons Echo as one example of user interface without screens.

Conversation design is the next wave, he said. Its about the execution, not the concept.

The Internet of Things is starting to evolve from the concept stage to execution.

Those who execute well will win.
by Richard Whitman , Columnist, September 29, 2016

BBDO Worldwide has been named Network of the Year at the 2016 Clio Awards during Advertising Week this week. It's the fifth time the agency has been named Network of the Year at the Clio Awards in the past nine years.

Also, BBDO New York's work for Snickers Game was awarded the Clio Hall of Fame honor in Film. The television commercial featured Betty White and the late Abe Vigoda and aired during the 2010 Super Bowl.

In total, 16 BBDO agencies from across every region snagged a total of 50 Clio Awards, giving BBDO the top honor of most-awarded agency group. Included in the award haul were two Grand Clios, 12 Golds, 11 Silvers and 24 Bronzes. Grand Clios were awarded to Almap BBDO in Brazil for its work for Getty Images Endless Possibilities and Colenso BBDO in New Zealand for its work for DB Export Brewtroleum.

Of the agency's wins, Clio Awards President Nicole Purcell said, "BBDO's performance at this year's Clio Awards is a testimony to the depth and breadth of excellence of its network. Our motto is 'Imagination, Innovation, Inspiration' and, indeed, BBDO's work did just that, with campaigns for nearly two dozen clients earning Clios. We are equally pleased to have honored BBDO's Snickers campaign with our Clio Hall of Fame award. Not surprisingly, the agency's work for Snickers also won our very first Super Clio for the best ad in the Super Bowl in 2015. Congratulations to David Lubars and everyone at BBDO on this achievement."

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Accepting the honors, BBDO CCO David Lubars said, "BBDO is humbled to be Network of the Year. In our view, Clio is one of the small handful of shows in the world that are meaningful and the juries have the highest standards; it's very difficult to win."

Congratulations, BBDO!
by Sean Hargrave , Staff Writer, September 30, 2016

Three months after voting to leave the EU, customer confidence is in the UK back up where it was before it took a Brexit dip. The latest UK government figures also show that the services sector grew by 0.4% in the month after June's historic vote, against a prediction of 0.1%. Yet despite the apparent welcome news for marketers, there still remains a looming question mark over the UK's future relationship with Europe. It has nothing to do with tariffs or immigration, although those issues are important. It's all about data and the new GDPR.

Marketers aren't admitting it, but they're kind of at that position where the head teacher who banned chewing gum in the playground is leaving, so they are wondering whether they will be allowed to blow bubbles any time soon. Do the old rules apply? Well, in data at least, it seems certain that they do. As the Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Dehnam, said in a speech yesterday, the Regulation is already the law. It's a picky point, perhaps, but it's worth noting that the General Data Protection Regulation is law across the EU already -- only enforcement and the big fines don't start until May 2018.

The DMA has largely been making the same point today as well, adding that it actually works in favour of marketers to be GDPR-compliant because the fines will kick in before the UK leaves the EU and, almost certainly, any digital marketing that continues after Brexit will need to see a free flow of data across the region. Dropping out of GDPR is not really an option.

The good news for email marketers is that although it's another regulatory hoop to jump through and to budget for, it can only help them in the long run. How so? Well, repermissioning lists is a good habit to get into anyway. It gets rid of sleepers who are ignoring your messages, or even worse, routinely deleting them without unsubscribing. If these people mount up, they have a detrimental impact on your deliverability rates because the ISP you are sending from will begin to look a little "spammy."

The main thrust of the GDPR is that people have to be demonstrably signed up for each service with full knowledge of what that each form of ensuing communication will be. What's more, they need to be offered the chance to opt out of each type of communication without fear or losing a service. In other words, a guy who says it's OK to hear about your laptop offers cannot be assumed to be interested in tumble dryer deals, they have to be made aware of the options and hone them down themselves without impacting the service they do want to receive.

This will effectively give repermissioning additional urgency -- and that, to be honest, can only be a good thing. A long email list could be doing you more harm than good if you're hitting the aforementioned consumer who is no longer interested in your messages. Far better to work with people who are engaged in what you're sending than boring a far larger crowd. This is the hidden email marketing problem that GDPR will help with, whether it was its original intent, or not.
by Karlene Lukovitz @KLmarketdaily, September 30, 2016

As part of its 150th anniversary celebration, Jack Daniels has launched a series of videos, from Arnold Worldwide, that pay tribute to the unique residents of JDs unique hometown, Lynchburg, Tenn.

The anthem spot for the Our Town campaign (below) is set in a verdant field, with fiddle music in the background.

It shows actual citizens of the town (population 6,400), quite a few of whom are employed by the distillery.

The video first highlights folks who were born in Lynchburg, ones who are fifth-generation, ones who have served in the military, and ones who are descendants of Jack Daniels himself. Individuals are also spotlighted, including a woman named Hiawatha Kitty McGee, a man who can lift a 526-pound barrel of whiskey, and a woman who hails from Taiwan.

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The anthem ends with this voiceover messaging: This is our town. For 150 years, the home of Jack Daniels. If you cant get here, just look for one of our postcards. We send them all over. They look like this... An image of a hand holding up a bottle of JD comes on the screen.

The 30-second version of the anthem is running as a TV spot. The anthem videos and two 15-second videos  one focusing on the man who can lift the 526-pound barrel, and the other on the postcard theme  are all viewable on Jack Daniels YouTube channel.

The ads are also being featured on the Brown-Forman brands other social media channels, including Facebook and Twitter.

The stories were designed to reinforce an emotional connection with the Jack Daniels faithful.

"When you look at Jack Daniels advertising history, all the way back to the inception of their Postcards from Lynchburg print campaign in the 1950s, it was always most powerful when the work felt less like an ad and more like an exchange  like the people at the Jack Daniels Distillery were just talking to you, directly and sincerely, explained Wade Devers, Arnold Worldwides managing partner and executive creative director. Our Town is a modern take on that concept, and is the first of many stories to come that will honor the truth behind the brand and the people who proudly craft it."

The brands marketing team launched its anniversary celebration on July 1 with a three-month global hunt for 150 hidden whiskey barrels.
by Sara Guaglione , September 30, 2016

The latest Magazine Media 360 Brand Audience Report reveals the average audience for magazine brands is up 9.3% versus a year ago, the largest increase since early 2015, according to the MPA.

The August 2016 data shows that print  which includes digital editions  is holding steady, with a slight 1.2% increase in audience.

Most new unique users come from the mobile Web, which is also the largest source of monthly magazine media growth (+28.5%), as audiences shift from viewing on desktops and laptops to mobile devices.

While video represents the lowest share platform in the report, every month it continues to log double-digit percentage growth, with a notable jump of 65% in its year-over-year performance, the MPA reports.

The report also shows that of the 133 reported magazine brands, two-thirds of them (90 brands) have higher average audience numbers compared to August 2015.

The brands that had the highest percentage growth compared to August of last year are W (131.5%), Marie Claire (82.1%), New Yorker (69.2%), Esquire (61.6%) and Runners World (50%).

The top five participating brands with the highest total audience  across print, Web, mobile Web and video  for August 2016 are ESPN The Magazine, People, Forbes, WebMD and Allrecipes.
by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, September 30, 2016



Dentsu Aegis Network has set up a research and development center that will focus on innovative uses of data.

The new operation is based in Singapore and has backing from the Singapore Economic Development Board. It will be overseen by Dentsu Aegis veteran Audrey Kuah, previously CEO for Aegis Media Singapore, and most recently chief client officer for Dentsu Aegis Network Southeast Asia

The unit, called the Dentsu Aegis Network Global Data Innovation Centre, will develop and produce innovative applications and serve as a hub for data scientists and technology talent for the entire network. The firm said it hopes that the work done at the center will drive further digital media expenditure, particularly in the mobile, video and programmatic sectors.

Nick Waters, CEO Dentsu Aegis Network Asia Pacific, stated: Data is central to our business strategy and now all businesses require a strategy for the digital economy to remain relevant. Dentsu Aegis Network Global Data Innovation Centre allows us to hone data literate talent that will lead to a competitive advantage for our clients.

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Commenting on the location, Waters added: Singapore is a competitive global business hub and partnering with EDB gives us a huge strategic advantage. We now have access to the worlds best talent, world-class technology and business infrastructure, and will be situated close to the worlds most dynamic markets.

The GDIC will have a staff of 25 senior-level data specialists who will work closely with Dentsu Aegis agency brands from the networks top 20 markets including the U.S., the UK, China and Australia. Solutions developed from the GDIC will be ultimately be deployed to DANs worldwide operations.
The Washington Times, Friday, September 30, 2016 12:31 PM

Traditionally conservative newspapers in many parts of the country have decided to endorse Hillary Clinton over Republican Donald Trump. The Cincinnati Enquirer, which hasnt endorsed a Democrat is almost 100 years, and The Arizona Republic, which has only supported Republican candidates in its 126-year history, both came out for Hillary Clinton. The backlash has been rough, as The Republic reported that it even received a death threat as a result.

Read the whole story at The Washington Times 
by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, September 30, 2016

AT&T will no longer charge some U-Verse subscribers higher fees to avoid targeted advertising, the company confirmed today.

Instead, AT&T says it will charge all subscribers the lowest rates offered for their speed tiers. "To simplify our offering for our customers, we plan to end the optional Internet Preferences advertising program related to our fastest internet speed tiers," a spokesman stated in an email to MediaPost. "As a result, all customers on these tiers will receive the best rate we have available for their speed tier in their area."

AT&T will phase in the new pricing next month. The company's move was first reported this morning by Ars Technica.

AT&T pioneered pay-for-privacy pricing in 2013, when it launched a high-speed U-Verse network in Austin, Texas. At the time, the company said it would offer a cheaper plan to people who were willing to receive ads targeted based on their Web activity.

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The company rolled out a similar plan in Kansas City last year, when it launched a 1 GB fiber network. Subscribers who agreed to accept the company's Internet Preferences ad-targeting program were able to purchase 1 GB service for $70 a month, while subscribers who didn't opt in were charged $99 a month (before taxes and fees) in that market. In some areas, the cost of avoiding ad targeting came to as much as $66 a month, including fees and taxes.

AT&T's change of course comes as the Federal Communications Commission is considering issuing new privacy rules for broadband providers. The proposed rules would prohibit broadband providers to obtain subscribers' opt-in consent before using data about their Web history for ad-targeting purposes. When the FCC sought comment on the proposal, it also asked whether broadband providers should be allowed to charge people higher fees to avoid online tracking.

Several commenters, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other lawmakers, urged the FCC to prohibit pay-for-privacy pricing scheme. "Privacy is not a luxury good reserved only for the wealthy," Warren and other senators wrote to the FCC earlier this year.

Comcast, on the other hand, asked the FCC to allow broadband providers to continue to charge a premium to people who want to avoid online tracking.

"A bargained-for exchange of information for service is a perfectly acceptable and widely used model throughout the U.S. economy, including the Internet ecosystem, and is consistent with decades of legal precedent and policy goals related to consumer protection and privacy," Comcast told regulators last month.

The cable provider added that a prohibition on a pay-for-privacy pricing system "would harm consumers by, among other things, depriving them of lower-priced offerings."
by Sara Guaglione , September 30, 2016

Today, luxury lifestyle publisher Modern Luxury has appointed Stephanie Davis Smith as editorial director, and Time Digital has promoted Sam Jacobs to executive editor.

Davis Smith is replacing Beth Weitzman, who is leaving Modern Luxury to start a digital venture aimed at luxury travelers, a spokesperson told Publishers Daily.

Davis Smith will lead the publishers editorial staff and design direction for 67 magazines across 19 cities. This new role marks Davis Smiths return to Modern Luxury. She was previously editor-in-chief for The Atlantan and executive editor of Mens Book Atlanta and Hawaii Modern Luxury.

Most recently, Davis Smith served as editor-in-chief for Connect Meetings.

In March,Modern Luxury launched Modern Luxury Silicon Valley magazine, a lifestyle brand catering to the California region. Earlier this month, the publisher changed the name of Bridal Magazine to Modern Luxury Weddings to be more inclusive of same-sex marriages.

As executive editor of Time Digital, Jacobs will also oversee the news digital desk, helping drive Times collaboration with digital titles throughout Time Inc.

Jacobs joined Time three years ago and has since led the creation of its 24/7 publishing desk. His title prior to this promotion was assistant managing editor of Time.

Previously, Jacobs was a national political correspondent at Reuters, as well as an associate editor at Newsweek and a reporter at The Daily Beast.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, September 30, 2016

Bots will become the next version of mobile apps, creating the emotional connection between brands and consumers through artificial intelligence (AI) and search, according to Ryan Gavin, GM Search and Cortana Marketing.



During Advertising Week, Gavin told Search Marketing Daily that bots will replace mobile applications. The conversations on bots will occur more often and will become the new app for brands; and natural language will become the use interface, he said.

Microsoft this week announced a new group that will help accelerate the use of AI. About 500 computer scientists and engineers will support the team and will include Microsoft Research along with the companys Information Platform Group, Bing and Cortana  natural language processing  product groups, along with its Ambient Computing and Robotics teams.

AI continues to transform the ability to rationalize the data making the connection between persons, places and things. Search is a core component that helps to create a more emotional connection. Gavin said apps will not disappear -- they will just bridge the gap. "Everyone knows about the long-tail problem on mobile phones," he said. "There's only about 10 we use, so there's a lot of innovation that goes to waste."

App Zombies -- those that exist but do not have enough downloads or searches to rank in the iOS Apple Store -- made up about 90% of the 2 million available apps worldwide since June 1, 2016. That figure is up 26% since January 2016 in the Apple App Store, according to mobile app analytics company Adjust.

Gavin said users spend four to five times more on chat applications than they do with apps. Microsoft's Ai chat-bot Xioiace --based on Bing search technology and Big Data -- has proven that she is sensitive to emotions, can remember prior conversations, and builds emotional connections with human beings.

At the MediaPost OMMA Bots and Chat conference during Advertising Week, Natalie Monbiot, SVP and managing partner at strategic innovation at Universal McCann, called the potential of bots "enormous."

XiaoIce was released in both China and Japan. In Japan, she launched as Rinna, designed and built for a Japanese audience. During the past year, XiaoIce has become a one-on-one companion for about 40 million users according to Microsoft.

XiaoIce also points to the future of search, because where instead of a list of search results in the form of 10-blue links, a bot will simply verbalize the answer.

Gavin said that one in four users of Xoaoice told her "I love you," more than 13% asked her to guess what theyre thinking, and 10% want to know if she is a real human being.

Bing also has released a range of intelligent knowledge bots, including Bing Images, Bing Music and Bing Sportscaster.

"Tools like Skype Translator, XiaoIce chatbot and the Cortana virtual assistant would not have been possible without years of investment in machine learning, speech recognition and natural language processing," Harry Shum, Microsoft EVP of technology and research, wrote in a post earlier this week, adding that Cortana serves about 113 million customers and has answered over 12 billion questions.
The International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) signed a contract with Backbase, the omni-channel digital banking specialist. The contract signed during the annual banking and financial conference and exhibition Sibos 2016 supports the transformation of the digital platform of the Bank. The contract was signed by Ulvi Mansurov, Deputy Chairman of the Board and Chief Financial Officer of the IBA and Jouk Pleiter, CEO of Backbase.

Backbase is an award-winning Omni-Channel Digital Banking platform that helps banks to create, manage ad optimise superior digital customer experiences across any device. Backbase is used by such banks as ABN Amro, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, ING bank, Sberbank, National Bank of Abu Dhabi and other. The IBA has partnered with Backbase to implement its digital banking solutions.

In frames of its new strategy the IBA plans to enhance digital banking services and modify communication channels with clients. Backbase will also deliver its solutions to the IBAs subsidiary IBA-Moscow.
by Erik Sass @eriksass1, September 30, 2016

Some of the nations best-known local LGBTQ magazines are closing in the wake of a lawsuit against publisher Multimedia Platforms Worldwide. The list of local LGBTQ interest magazines that are shutting down includes New York Citys Next, Frontiers in Los Angeles, and the Florida Agenda, previously the South Florida Blade.

The magazines are suspending operations, possibly permanently, following a court order seizing the assets of MMPW. The order was prompted by a lawsuit brought against MMPW by White Winston Select Asset Funds in the Superior Court in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, accusing MMPW of fraudulent trade practices and negligent misrepresentations in connection with a loan made to MMPW.

The lawsuit, seeking $1.75 million in damages, also named two other companies, Columbia Fun Maps and New Frontier Media Holdings, as defendants.

According to the complaint, MMPW needed the funds to avoid defaulting on its other loans. Shortly after agreeing to grant the loan, however, White Winston executives discovered that three of the publishers five board members had resigned -- a fact that was never disclosed to the lender.

White Winston also alleged that a number of financial representations made by MMPW were falsified to obtain the loan.

MMPW defaulted on its first loan repayment, due on September 1, precipitating the lawsuit. This week the Superior Court seized the assets in response to White Winstons lawsuit, thus terminating MMPWs business operations, at least temporarily. The publisher also failed to make payroll repeatedly in recent months, and also owes money to freelancers and printers.

The companys founder, Bobby Blair, who recently returned as CEO, blamed a new management team for the financial misdoings and said he intends to fight the court decision and restore the companys operations.

However, all MMPWs employees are now out of work and its offices are closed, suggesting the publications wont be back any time soon.
Some individuals who fill their lives with fitness and healthy habits die younger than peers who live a much less healthy life. New research into the epigenetics of aging sheds some fresh light on the perplexing phenomenon of premature aging.

Share on Pinterest Premature aging has perplexed medical professionals for years.

Epigenetics, a relatively new sphere of research, is proving to be a fascinating and far-reaching topic.

In short, epigenetics charts changes in chromosomes that take place without modifying the DNA sequence itself.

By altering the ways in which DNA is packaged and replicated, changes can be made to the whole organism without a single base pair of DNA being moved out of place.

Researchers from the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) set out to examine how epigenetics might influence human aging.

The team wanted to investigate whether epigenetics could offer insight into the question of premature aging, specifically. As Dr. Douglas Kiel, professor at Harvard Medical School and senior scientist at the Institute of Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife, says:

In geriatric medicine, we are always struck by the difference between our patients chronological age and how old they appear physiologically.

To open up this question, the UCLA scientists led a team of 65 researchers in seven countries. They used data from 13 separate studies, including the Womens Health Initiative and Framingham Heart Study. In all, 13,000 peoples DNA was analyzed from blood samples.

By recording age-related changes to human DNA and calculating an individuals biological age, the team found that they could accurately estimate someones lifespan.

The paper, published this week in the journal Aging, explains how a higher biological age  regardless of chronological age  predicts an earlier death.
First generation cephalosporins - antibiotics introduced as a treatment against bacterial infections in 1963 - now show promise for tuberculosis (TB) therapy, according to new research published in Scientific Reports.

Tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is the most deadly infectious disease in the world. Standard TB therapy takes at least six months and patients infected with multi-drug resistant (MDR) or extensively drug resistant (XDR) strains undergo treatments that are even longer (up to 24 months). Treatment is often associated with severe side effects. Studies indicate that the cost of developing a new drug has soared to $2.6 billion.

The in vitro study indicates cephalosporins work well on their own against bacteria that cause TB. But they are even more active when used in synergistic combinations with traditional and new TB therapies.

"Cephalosporins can be taken orally and have a good long-term safety record, but were never explored as a TB therapy," says University of British Columbia (UBC) microbiologist Santiago Ramon-Garcia, who led the study.

"While these are in vitro results, their potent anti-mycobacterial properties suggest cephalosporins could be used as part of new combinatorial TB therapies."

"Because cephalosporins are already clinically approved drugs, they could be readily tested in the clinic," says Prof. Charles Thompson from UBC who also led the work.

"New treatments are urgently needed to shorten the duration of the standard treatment and for MDR and XDR-TB therapy."

The study was performed in collaboration with the Diseases of the Developing World GlaxoSmithKline Centre under an agreement with the Tres Cantos Open Lab Foundation. Grand Challenges Canada, Canadian Institute of Health Research, and British Columbia Lung Association provided initial support for the project.
Improved understanding of the way in which hundreds of different types of disease-causing bacteria operate could help pave the way to tackling their effects, according to leading scientists.

Researchers at the University of Leeds led by Professors Sheena Radford and Neil Ranson, have uncovered new information about the operation of a protein complex called BAM, the beta-barrel assembly machinery, which helps insert other bacterial proteins into the bacteria's outermost protective layer.

In order for bacteria to spread diseases, they need to form an outer membrane, or they cannot survive in the harsh environments in which they live.

The BAM complex plays a crucial role in this process, facilitating the insertion of a myriad of proteins into this layer that are required for it to work properly as a barrier, protecting the bug from attack by antibiotics.

With their new results, researchers in the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology say it may be possible to design drugs which could target the BAM complex to stop it operating.

Professor Ranson said: "This is a complex molecular machine involved in keeping bacteria alive, and we know that mutations in it are lethal to the bacteria. Some beautiful work by other labs has shown that BAM exists in two different shapes - an open and closed form - but the open form seemed to require part of the complex to fall apart.

"Our work shows for the first time the intact BAM complex in this open state. Now we have been able to see the intact structure in this way, it gives us new clues about how BAM works and about how to develop ways to stop it functioning."

Professor Radford, Director of the University's Astbury Centre said "If BAM cannot do its job, bacteria won't survive and they would be prevented from spreading diseases. The challenge, now we understand more about how BAM works, is for the scientific community to develop drugs which can target it and replenish our shrinking arsenal of antibiotics to treat bacterial infections."

The new understanding will contribute to ongoing work to find new ways to kill bacteria which have become increasingly resistant to drugs developed in 20th century.

Antibacterial resistance has become a major issue in recent years, with many drugs developed to combat infections from whooping cough to salmonella, and a wide range of hospital-acquired infections, losing their effectiveness.

Previously scientists have used X-ray crystallography, which has been the mainstay of structural discovery for several decades, to show that the barrel-shaped BAM complex could exist in both open and closed forms.

The BAM complex sits within the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria, and inserts other proteins into the membrane where they are needed to form a functional protective layer. How this happens is not properly understood, but the change in shape is thought to be essential to allow its client proteins to enter the membrane.

Using highly advanced electron microscopes, Professors Radford and Ranson now have seen the structure of BAM in an open state by rapidly freezing the complex from solution.

Previous structures of the open state all lacked one of the five proteins that make the full BAM complex, called BamB. The new results show that opening of the BAM barrel can happen with BamB there, and this changes the way scientists think about how BAM might work.

The research was carried out using electron microscopes based at the Diamond Light Source, the UK's national synchrotron science facility, located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire. However, it will soon be possible to carry out the next steps in this research at the University of Leeds, following University investment in its own state of the art electron microscopes. Due to be in full use October 2016, these two microscopes form a key part of the leading edge facilities at the Astbury Centre.
Melanoma tumors switch to an alternative energy system when they develop resistance to chemotherapy, making that alternative system an attractive target for new treatments, according to researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine.

Malignant melanoma is one of the most lethal forms of cancer, responsible for 95 percent of skin cancer-related deaths. When the cancer has not spread, surgery is an effective treatment option. If it has spread, drugs that block the activity of the mutated gene successfully shrink the tumors, but the tumors eventually develop resistance to the drugs, leaving physicians without effective treatment options.

The research, recently published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, focused on the subtype of malignant melanoma that contains a particular genetic mutation found in nearly 50 percent of such tumors.

Like most cells in the body, cancer cells process glucose to provide the energy needed for cellular activities and proliferation. However, previous research with PET scans has shown that glucose levels drop significantly in melanoma tumor cells as they develop resistance to drugs.

In the new study, researchers led by Samisubbu R. Naidu, PhD, research assistant professor of microbiology and immunology, determined that more than half of malignant melanomas, those carrying the mutant gene, shifted from using glucose to acetate as a main source of energy. The researchers also identified the enzyme responsible for conversion of acetate into energy.

These findings highlight the potential of this enzyme as a novel target for a new anti-melanoma therapy, Dr. Naidu said.

"If we can develop a drug that can effectively inhibit this enzyme, we could extend the life of melanoma patients from months to years," he said.

The study focused on melanoma cells containing a mutant BRAF protein, which directs the cells to proliferate and survive in nutrient-limited environments.

In a series of experiments, the researchers grew melanoma cells in various combinations of nutritional media and found that supplementing the media with acetate enabled the cells to survive and proliferate in the absence of glucose.

Subsequently, it was found that in the absence of glucose, mitochondria, the cellular organelles commonly known as the "powerhouse of the cell," were increasingly active in the energy production, using acetate as a fuel. One particular enzyme enabled the use of this alternative source of energy. Importantly, by deleting this gene in melanoma cells, the authors showed that melanoma tumor growth in mice was blunted.

Dr. Naidu noted that mutations in the BRAF gene are found in many other types of cancer. Therefore, he said, "The benefits of this discovery may well go beyond melanoma."

Financial support for this research was provided in part by the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute Independent Scientist Award, Indiana CTSI Core awards, the Ralph W. and Grace M. Showalter Research Trust as well as funds from Hal E. Broxmeyer, PhD, Distinguished Professor and professor of microbiology and immunology.

In addition to Dr. Naidu and Dr. Broxmeyer, investigators contributing to the work were Alexander J. Lakhter, James Hamilton, Raymond L Konger and Nickolay Brustovetsky, all of IU School of Medicine.

Article: Glucose-independent acetate metabolism promotes melanoma cell survival and tumor growth, Alexander J. Lakhter, James Hamilton, Raymond L. Konger, Nickolay Brustovetsky, Hal E. Broxmeyer and Samisubbu R. Naidu, Journal of Biological Chemistry, doi: 10.1074/jbc.M115.712166, published 18 August 2016.
Although rare, sudden cardiac death in young athletes raises serious concerns, especially because most victims report no warning symptoms. Pre-participation screening aims to identify children, adolescents, and young adults at risk, but there is not yet consensus regarding the best way to accomplish this. A report in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology sheds light on this controversial topic by describing a new screening protocol that offers advantages over American Heart Association (AHA) recommendations and shows that the electrocardiogram (ECG) is the best single screening method.

Cardiologists from the University of British Columbia Vancouver Coastal Health, Vancouver, BC, Canada, compared their own innovative screening protocol to that recommended by the AHA. Both protocols use 12-lead ECGs and questionnaires. However, one problem associated with the AHA questionnaire is the high rate of false positives (identifying someone as having a serious condition when he does not). A false-positive result requires extensive further testing and consultation with a cardiologist, leading to worry, secondary testing, and higher costs. The researchers' new evidence-based questionnaire was designed to better differentiate between symptoms indicative of serious cardiac disease and those related to more benign conditions. The AHA method also involves a physical exam conducted by a physician that includes listening to the heart (auscultation).

Investigators screened more than 1400 young competitive athletes ages 12-35 years. Approximately half underwent the AHA recommended screening, and the other half the experimental protocol. Seven participants were found to have serious heart conditions, and six were identified by ECG. Only two of the seven would have been detected as the result of a medical history and physical exam.

"The current study provides further evidence to support the use of the ECG as an important tool in the screening of young competitive athletes," explained lead investigator James McKinney, MD, MSc, of the Division of Cardiology of the University of British Columbia. "The ECG is more sensitive in detecting heart muscle problems (cardiomyopathies) and potentially life-threatening electrical disorders such as Wolff-Parkinson-White and long QT syndrome."

"An Achilles heel of pre-participation screening has long been the unacceptably high false-positive rate and the costs associated with screening large numbers of athletes," noted co-investigator Saul Isserow, MBBCh, of the Division of Cardiology of the University of British Columbia. In the study, the false-positive rate of the new protocol was less than half that of the AHA protocol (3.7% vs. 8.1%).

Investigators found that the physical examination was unhelpful and costly. The physical exam prompted further evaluation in 10 athletes without identifying any of the athletes who actually had heart disease and contributed to higher false-positive rates. "This is not surprising because cardiac auscultation requires years of experience and conditions during mass screening are not ideal for meticulous cardiac auscultation," commented Michael Papadakis, MBBS, MD, and Sanjay Sharma, MBChB, MD, of St. George's University of London in an accompanying editorial.

The research indicates that a screening protocol that includes a more specific questionnaire and ECG, but excludes a physical examination, eliminating the need for an on-site physician, would be desirable to optimize efficiency and produce important cost savings. The researchers calculate that eliminating physician costs would result in huge reductions in per person screening costs ($14.42 for new protocol vs. $97.50 for AHA protocol) and costs per diagnosis ($3,822.70 vs. $41,320.49, respectively).

"A large proportion of sudden cardiac deaths in young athletes are secondary to inherited or congenital cardiac diseases that are detectable during life and for which several therapeutic options are available to minimize the risk of death. Pre-participation screening is widely used to detect athletes at risk of exercise-related sudden cardiac death, but the optimal approach remains elusive," added Dr. Papadakis and Dr. Sharma.

The results of this study indicate the need to harmonize the results of research findings with current practice. Still to be determined is the important question of whether screening saves lives.

Article:Detecting Underlying Cardiovascular Disease in Young Competitive Athletes, James McKinney, MD, MSc; Daniel Lithwick, MHA; Barbara N. Morrison, BKin; Hamed Nazzari, MD, PhD; Michael Luong, MD; Christopher B. Fordyce, MD, MHS MSc, Jack Taunton, MD; Andrew D. Krahn, MD; Brett Heilbron, MBCh.B; Saul Isserow MBBCh, Canadian Journal of Cardiology, doi: 10.1016/j.cjca.2016.06.007, published online 23 June 2016.

Editorial: Preparticipation Cardiac Screening in Young Athletes: In Search of the Golden Chalice, Michael Papakadis, MBBS, MD, MRCP, Sanjay Sharma, BSc (hons), MBChB, MD, FRCP, Canadian Journal of Cardiology, doi: 10.1016/j.cjca.2016.08.001, published online 28 September 2016.
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New research published in the, may spur parents, policy makers and medical professionals to think more about the importance of HPV vaccinations.The research shows the HPV vaccine is efficacious in reducing cervical pre-cancers among young women throughout a population.Cosette Wheeler, PhD, at The University of New Mexico Comprehensive Cancer Center, led the research team and the efforts of the New Mexico Human Papillomavirus Pap Registry, the data source used in the study. The New Mexico HPV Pap Registry is the only statewide surveillance program in the United States that includes complete cervical screening, diagnosis and treatment information since the HPV vaccine was introduced in 2007.The researchers studied the state's data for young women who received Pap and HPV screening tests and diagnostic and treatment biopsies between January 1, 2007, and December 31, 2014.The researchers found that among women who were 15 to 19 years old at the time of a diagnostic cervical biopsy, the incidence rate of cervical abnormalities, including those that were classified as precancerous lesions, decreased between 2007 and 2014.Among women 20 to 24 years old, the incidence rate of moderate-grade pre-cancerous lesions also decreased. The researchers found all of these changes to be statistically significant.In 2007, New Mexico began offering the HPV vaccine to females shortly after the United States Food and Drug Administration approved it. In 2008, 48% of girls 13 to 17 years old in New Mexico had received at least one HPV vaccine dose and 17% received all three doses.By 2014 that percentage increased to 59% of girls receiving at least one HPV vaccine dose and 40% receiving all three doses. Women aged 11 to 14 in 2007 would have been 18 to 21 in 2014.In line with previous reports, the researchers suggest several factors likely contributed to the reduced cervical pre-cancer rates. One factor is, which is the vaccine's ability to protect against additional HPV types that it does not directly target. Another factor is theof HPV vaccine. Finally, the third factor is, in which those not vaccinated face a lower infection risk because a large portion of the population has been vaccinated.HPV vaccines were licensed for males in 2009 and male vaccination can contribute to herd immunity. New Mexico continues statewide efforts to increase HPV vaccination for males and females."These data showing significant reductions in cervical pre-cancers represent the results from the overall population of young females which includes those that are vaccinated and unvaccinated. The data suggests that the age at which we begin cervical screening in the United States might be raised soon to age 25 as is already done in a number of other countries. Raising the age at which we begin cervical screening would be one of the first steps in integrating cervical screening and HPV vaccination, an important step in using healthcare dollars more effectively," says Wheeler. "When cervical cancer screening guidelines are revisited soon, these results from New Mexico may be considered in the review process."Source: Medindia
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Details from the case points to an unusually high concentration of virus in the first patient's blood as being responsible for his death. The phenomenon may also explain how the second patient may have contracted the virus by casual contact with the primary patient, the first such documented case."This rare case is helping us to understand the full spectrum of the disease, and the precautions we may need to take to avoid passing the virus from one person to another in specific situations," says corresponding author Sankar Swaminathan, Chief of Infectious Disease and Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine. He collaborated with coauthors Robert Schlaberg, Marc Couturier and Kimberly Hanson from ARUP Laboratories, and Julia Lewis from the University of Utah School of Medicine.Swaminathan said, "This type of information could help us improve treatments for Zika as the virus continues to spread across the world and within our country."From the letter in, a story unfolds. In May 2015, Patient one, a 73-year-old man, traveled to southwest Mexico, a Zika-infected area. Eight days after returning, he started having abdominal pain and fever, and by the time he was admitted to the University of Utah hospital he also had inflamed, watery eyes, low blood pressure and a rapid heart rate. Despite the medical staff's best efforts to stabilize him, his condition declined rapidly.During this time, Patient two came to visit and reported wiping away Patient one's tears and helping to reposition him in the hospital bed. It wasn't long before Patient one slipped into septic shock, and his kidneys, lungs and other organs started to shut down. He died shortly thereafter.Only nine other Zika-related deaths have been reported worldwide, says Swaminathan. Despite the odds, tests performed after Patient one's death revealed that he had Zika. Patient one was initially identified as being potentially infected during validation of a real-time PCR test for Zika virus that is currently under development at ARUP Laboratories, and was subsequently confirmed as positive by both the Utah Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Further investigation using Taxonomer, a tool developed by scientists at University of Utah and ARUP Laboratories that rapidly analyzes all genetic material from infectious agents in a patient's sample, showed there were no other infections that explained his illness. It also found that the Zika virus that infected the patient was 99.8% identical to that carried by a mosquito collected from southwest Mexico, the same region that Patient one had visited a few weeks prior.Seven days after Patient one's death, Patient two was meeting with Swaminathan to talk about what had happened when the doctor noticed that his visitor had red, watery eyes, a common Zika symptom. Tests confirmed his suspicion, but in contrast to Patient one this patient only had mild symptoms that resolved within the following week.Like Patient one's death, Patient two's diagnosis was unexpected. The species of mosquito that carries Zika had not been found in Utah and Patient two had not traveled to a Zika-infected area. A reconstruction of events ruled out other known means of catching the virus. An unprecedented transmission by casual contact was the most likely explanation."This case expands our appreciation for how Zika virus can potentially spread from an infected patient to a non-infected patient without sexual contact or a mosquito vector," says Couturier. "This and any future cases will force the medical community to critically re-evaluate established triage processes for determining which patients receive Zika testing and which do not."The authors believe that the reason behind the unusual nature of the case lies in yet another anomaly. Patient one's blood had a very high concentration of virus, at 200 million particles per milliliter. "I couldn't believe it," says Swaminathan. "The viral load was 100,000 times higher than what had been reported in other Zika cases, and was an unusually high amount for any infection." The observation opens up the possibility that the extraordinary amount of virus overwhelmed the patient's system, and made him extremely infectious.Still, what led to the unusually severe infection in the first place remains unknown. Was there something about Patient one's biology or health history that made him particularly susceptible? There were small differences in the virus' genetic material compared to other samples of Zika virus, did they cause the virus to be exceptionally aggressive?"We may never see another case like this one," says Swaminathan. "But one thing this case shows us is that we still have a lot to learn about Zika."Source: Newswise
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Sept. 30

By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:

The 12th meeting of the intergovernmental Turkmen-Iranian commission on consular, border and customs issues was held in Tehran, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said in a message Sept. 30.

Hassan Ghashghavi, deputy foreign minister for consular and parliamentary affairs, is the co-chairman of the commission from the Iranian side, the message said.

According to the message, the sides discussed the issues of expanding cooperation in the legal aspects of consular issues, border control. A protocol was signed following the meeting.

The next meeting of the commission is planned to be held in Ashgabat in 2017.

A number of large economic projects were implemented by Turkmenistan and Iran during the years of long-term cooperation.

Iran ranks third in Turkmenistans foreign trade, primarily, due to natural gas purchase. In its turn, Turkmenistan imports raw materials, building materials, steel products and inorganic chemicals, plastic products, rubber, detergents, food and other consumer goods from Iran.
The following are some of this week's reports from the MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM) Project, which translates and analyzes content from sources monitored around the clock, among them the most important jihadi websites and blogs. (To view these reports in full, you must be a paying member of the JTTM; for membership information, send an email to [email protected] with "Membership" in the subject line.)

Note to media and government: For a full copy of these reports, send an email with the title of the report in the subject line to [email protected]. Please include your name, title, and organization in your email.

EXCLUSIVE: AQAP Newspaper Notes NYC Bomber Rahami Influenced By 'Inspire' Magazine

The 24th issue of the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) weekly Al-Masra featured a report about Ahmad Rahami, who was arrested on suspicion of planting bombs in New York and New Jersey, stating that he was influenced by Al-Qaeda. The weekly quoted "news reports," "sources," and "observers" from U.S. media, who claimed Rahami was inspired by Al-Qaeda's leaders and the group's anti-U.S. rhetoric, and that he received operational guidance from AQAP's English-language magazine Inspire.

EXCLUSIVE: Two Californians Express Subtle Support For ISIS On Facebook, One Of Whom Complained That Congregants At His Mosque Disparaged ISIS

The following report profiles two men from California who appear to be ISIS sympathizers. One, a Los Angeles man, and a man from Fresno. Both men have expressed subtle support for ISIS on their Facebook pages.

EXCLUSIVE: Imprisoned ISIS Supporter From New Mexico, Formerly Active On Facebook, Is Missed By His Fellow ISIS Supporters

A convert to Islam from Albuquerque, New Mexico, was a very active member of the pro-ISIS community on Facebook. Since his arrest this summer his friends have periodically dedicated posts to him.

EXCLUSIVE: British ISIS Fighter's Eulogy On Instagram: On His Way To Islamic State, He Was Beaten By Soldiers In Turkey

On September 26, 2016, an ISIS fighter posted a photo of his late friend, a Briton, on his Instagram account. While his face was blurred in the photo, his beard and AK-47 are visible. he recounts notable events in his friend's life, mainly concerning his journey to the Islamic State. He notes that his late friend was part Tunisian, that his father had attempted to hide his passport to prevent his leaving, and that when he finally arrived in Turkey he was severely beaten by Turkish soldiers.

EXCLUSIVE: Article In Jabhat Fath Al-Sham Magazine Calls To Adopt Gazan Tunnel Tactics In Syria

In an article recently published in a magazine associated with Jabhat Fath Al-Sham (formerly Jabhat Al-Nusra - Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate), writer Abu Zubeir Al-Ghazi praised Hamas's tunnels in Gaza and called on jihadi groups in Syria to adopt the tactic.

ISIS Media Operative Posts Photos, Names Of Six Belgians, Calling On Muslims To Kill Them

On September 26, 2016, an ISIS media operative posted on his Telegram account six photos of Belgian nationals, apparently current or former soldiers, along with their names. The photos were taken from their public Facebook profiles. The attached message calls on "Belgian brothers" to kill these individuals. He frequently calls Muslims in France and Belgium to carry out targeted assassinations

French-Speaking ISIS Media Operatives Distribute Guides On Using Poison, Making Bombs

French ISIS media operatives active on Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus are continuing the process of facilitating and encouraging Muslims in France and Europe to carry out spontaneous terror operations. In addition to the constant call to jihad against the West, including by targeting women, children, and priests, the activists distributed lists of target lists and operational guidelines to facilitate terror activity.

ISIS Releases Second App For Teaching Children Arabic Letters, Numerals

On September 26, 2016, the official Islamic State (ISIS) official printing house Al-Himma Library released a second app aimed at teaching children Arabic letters and numerals. The app, released via ISIS's Telegram channels, included both Android and desktop versions.

ISIS Video Features Belgian Fighter Urging 'Brothers' In France, Germany And Belgium To 'Not Be Afraid Of Death'; Shows Drone Footage Of Martyrdom Operations

On September 22, 2016, the media office of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Dijlah, Iraq, released a 26-minute video documenting the last will and testament and martyrdom operation carried out by Lotfi Aoumeur, aka Abu Nour Al-Baljiki, a Belgian citizen, and Jordanian fighter Abu Usama Al-Urduni.

In Wake Of Battle To Liberate Mosul, Pro-ISIS Writer Notes, On Telegram, That 'Hundreds Of Mujahideen Cannot Stop' The Infidels, Condemns Online Jihadis For Staying Home

On September 27, 2016, the Arabian Islamic Maghreb Group, a pro-ISIS Telegram channel, published an article criticizing Muslims for not taking part in the fight against the infidels and urging them to join ISIS or carry out operations where they live. The article, which the channel called "very important" and whose author was not named, also criticized online jihadis and ISIS supporters operating on social media for not making hijra or carrying out attacks, and only disseminating content and encouraging others to join ISIS.

ISIS Video Threatens Bangladesh, Features Martyrdom Will Of Dhaka Bakery Attackers

On September 23, 2016, the Islamic State (ISIS) released a video featuring the martyrdom will of the five perpetrators of the deadly July 2016 attack on the Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh. At least 22 people were killed in the attack, which ISIS claimed responsibility for and praised in a video released shortly thereafter. The 15-minute video is narrated in Bengali with Arabic subtitles.

Pro-ISIS Hacking Group Announces Plans To Publish Instructions For Remote Vehicle Operation Over Wi-Fi

On September 26, 2016, the pro-ISIS hacking group Cyber Kahilafah announced on its Telegram channel that it will soon publish instructions on how to modify a vehicle for remote operation using Wi-Fi. The group states that such remotely-operated vehicles could be used to spread poisons, gather intelligence, or detonated remotely.

ISIS Video Shows Alleged U.S. Recon Drone Downed Near Mosul

On September 29, 2016, the ISIS news agency A'maq released a 48-second video showing a downed recon drone, which ISIS said belonged to the U.S. According to the video, ISIS fighters brought down the drone in the village of Al-Huqoul, northwest of Mosul.

Al-Shabab Releases Video Of Kenyan Prisoner Pleading For His Country To Accept Negotiations

On September 29, 2016, the Somalia-based jihad organization Al-Shabab Al-Mujahideen released an 8-minute video showing a Kenyan prisoner pleading for his life and the lives of his comrades currently held by the organization. The video was released via the group's media wing, the Al-Kataib Foundation, on Twitter and Telegram.

Jabhat Fath Al-Sham Announces Rescue Of German Journalist Janina Findeisen And Her Baby, Who Were Held By Small Rebel Group

On September 28, 2016, the jihadi organization Jabhat Fath Al-Sham (JFS, formerly Jabhat Al-Nusra), which operates in Syria, issued a communique stating that its members have rescued German journalist Janina Findeisen, who was kidnapped by a small rebel group in Syria in October 2015. The communique mentioned that despite being assured that no harm would come to her, Findeisen was still kidnapped and held captive, and therefore, and in accordance with Islamic law, JFS decided to rescue and release her.

In Statement, Afghan Taliban Marks 20th Anniversary Of 'Conquest' Of Kabul

The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.

Following is the full text of a statement issued by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban shadow government) marking the 20th anniversary of the group's 1996 takeover of Kabul. The takeover marked the end of the 1992-1996 Battle of Kabul.

The statement was released in English on the group's website and Telegram channel:

"6th of Mizana 1375 (Hijri Solar) is considered a unique and memorable day in the history of Afghanistan. On this day a dark page in the history of Afghanistan was turned, the abominable period of anarchy of factionalism was ended and the white flag of a peaceful Islamic government was raised in the capital Kabul."
The leading men of B-Town, who hog the spotlight 24/7, are the ones who can effortlessly sweep your ladies off their feet over and over again. The ladies seem to be madly in love with the heroes not just when they play a romantic avatar on-screen, but also when they are off the camera. The way these Bollywood superstars woo their partners off-screen sets real relationship goals and boyfriend goals for ordinary folks like you. No wonder you are occasionally given some major love lessons by your girlfriends. Here are some lovey-dovey Bollywood actors who have literally set a very high bar for you by being the perfect lover boys.

1. Ranveer Singh

 Instagram

This witty guy has won millions of hearts because he seriously knows how to impress his girl, Deepika, in the most surprising and unexpected ways. So when it comes to #boyfriendgoals, women definitely have him on top of the list. Guys, up your game by picking up a few how-to-impress-your-girlfriend tricks from him, like right now.

2. Shahid Kapoor

 Instagram

Recently turned dad to the adorable Misha, Shahid has undoubtedly been social medias most doting newly-wed husband. His Instagram handle, which is flooded with pictures of his wife Mira, perfectly proves this. Yes, and he also proudly acknowledges his love for her in front of the whole world. PDA overload works.

3. Shah Rukh Khan

 Instagram

King Khan is not just the Badshah of Bollywood, he is the Badshah of hearts as well. Married to the love of his life for the past 25 years, he really proves that love and family exist, even in Bollywood.

4. Saif Ali Khan

 Instagram

Chhote Nawab surely knows how to pamper his Begum, lavishly and lovingly. From escaping to exotic vacations to giving her special Nawab-style surprises, he sure is a guy who can share some tips on how to make your lady happy. Check out this video to know what Saif has planned this year as #KareenasAnniversarySurprise. (Here's a tiny hint: It's from Malabar Gold & Diamonds).

5. Akshay Kumar

 Instagram

This real-life Khiladi is a gentleman in the true sense. Being married to Twinkle a.k.a Mrs.Funnybones, who is a practical and strong-headed lady, he surely respects her space and dreams. Which woman wouldnt love a man like this?

6. Abhishek Bachchan

 Instagram

Abhishek might not be a hero, but he surely is when it comes to Aishwarya. Remember the cute fight he had on Twitter with Preity Zinta just to put across his word that his lady is taken?Take a cue guys, he just won over every girl with this single move.

7. Imran Khan

 Instagram

Chocolate boy Imran Khan definitely is a solid example of couple goals. Right from dating Avantika for more than a decade, to going down on his knees to propose her, he is the ultimate romantic! No wonder, girls dig everything about this B-Town chocolate boy.

Guess you really need to set some bollywood-lover-boy goals to impress your ladies. Start from today with a bunch of roses, what say? She is going to love you.
In case you havent been following up, Pakistani artists have been indefinitely banned from Indian projects. There are talks about editing Fawad Khans role from Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan has already been thrown out of a Bollywood film because apparently, an Indian TV channel approached them and they refused to condemn the Uri attacks.

And now that Adnan Sami, the musician with Pakistani origin, has stood up in support of the Indian army, the Pakistanis are throwing some major hate his way.

Big Congratulations to @PMOIndia & our brave Armed forces for a brilliant, successful & mature strategic strike against #terrorism ! #Salute  Adnan Sami (@AdnanSamiLive) September 29, 2016

Apparently, his stance on the India-Pakistan conflict makes him a traitor.

@AdnanSamiLive Hello Adnan "Swami" don,t forget your dad was part of the same establishment which you are referring as terrorists ;)  LoKi - #FreeKashmir (@LokiOddin0x) September 30, 2016

Theres always that one person who throws around words without really knowing what they mean.

Some Pakistanis just wanted him to go to hell.

Major, major hate came his way.

@AdnanSamiLive @PMOIndia you Bloody traitor, tum apni Maa (Pak) kay nahi ho saky or kis k hogy,  Ali Shaaf (@AliRazaShaaf) September 30, 2016

Shit hit the roof.

@AdnanSamiLive @PMOIndia jis plate mai khana kha k baray huay aaj usi mai thook rahay.. ??   (@Anmol_Aleena) September 30, 2016

Some people didnt let their anger overshadow their love for emoticons.

@AdnanSamiLive Shakal dekhi hai apni? Sahi jaga pr jaa ke set hoye ho. @PMOIndia ke jootay chatto aur ? ki mout maro.  ?? (@mahalishious) September 30, 2016

It went on for a while.

@OhTripe @AdnanSamiLive @PMOIndia what a huge traitor! Son of a PAF pilot, shameless to the core.  Palwasha Khan (@PalwashaKhan18) September 30, 2016

Someone actually had the time for this.

Four amazing color changing animals from the animal kingdom:

- The Chameleon

- The Side swimming Flounder

- The Cuttlefish

- @AdnanSamiLive pic.twitter.com/PN1m4k2z1A  Umme Haleema (@aaminah_sid) September 30, 2016

And Adnan Sami shut them all up with just one tweet.
No one can blame Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not trying hard enough to have a peaceful relationship with Pakistan. Right from inviting Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to his oath-taking ceremony, greeting him on Eid to visiting him in Lahore, PM Modi had made earnest efforts to normalize India-Pakistan relations.

Sadly, PM Modi's every offer of friendship to Pakistan was met with a series of betrayals in the form of cross-border terror attacks: From Gurdaspur to Pathankot to Uri. However, In the face of unabated cross-terror attacks, PM Modi has, slowly but surely, changed the tack on Pakistan. Here is how India is turning the heat on Pakistan.

Surgical Strikes

Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned that Uri attack would not go unpunished and that the sacrifice of 18 jawans will not go in vain, India has carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the Army inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Seven terror launch pads across the Line of Control(LoC) were targeted by the Army on the intervening night of September 28 and 29 in a nearly five-hour-long operation during which heliborne and ground forces were deployed, defence sources said today.

 Twitter

They said the launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) were in the range of 2 to 3km from the LoC and were under surveillance for over one week while Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu said the strikes targeted 5-6 places along Kupwara and Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir. Naidu said there was no casualty on the Indian side.

Reports said around 40 terrorists were present in the seven launch pads and they may have been killed. However, there was no official word on it.

Diplomatic Isolation Of Pakistan

In the wake of Uri terror attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had vowed to mount a global campaign to isolate Pakistan. Acting on his promise to launch a campaign to isolate Pakistan globally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 27 decided not to attend the SAARC summit to be held in November in Islamabad. "India has conveyed to current SAARC chair Nepal that increasing cross-border terrorist attacks in the region and growing interference in the internal affairs of member states by one country have created an environment that is not conducive to the successful holding of the 19th SAARC summit in Islamabad in November 2016," the external affairs ministry said in a statement.

India's efforts to isolate Pakistan on the issue of exporting terror have shown results in South Asia with Afghanistan, Bhutan and Bangladesh pulling out of the scheduled SAARC summit in Islamabad, leading to collapse of the meet.

Regional cooperation and terror don't go together. India pulls out of SAARC Summit in Islamabad pic.twitter.com/jabKoaBegJ  Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) September 27, 2016

India has also started a campaign to isolate Pakistan at the United Nations. "In our midst, there are nations that still speak the language of terrorism, that nurture it, peddle it, and export it. To shelter terrorists has become their calling card. We must identify these nations and hold them to account," external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj asserted in her nearly 20-minute speech at the UN, calling for global isolation of Pakistan.

Govt Revisits Indus Waters Treaty

Taking the offensive right into the heart of Pakistan, India has decided to suspend the meeting of the Indus Water Commission and explore ways to use its share of water of rivers flowing into Pakistan, besides hinting that it could revive construction of the Tulbul project in Jammu & Kashmir.

"Blood and water cannot flow simultaneously," Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a meeting where the decisions designed to make Pakistan pay for the terrorist attack on the Uri Army camp were taken, extending the retaliation against the strike beyond efforts to isolate Pakistan diplomatically.

In fact, sources said, India could even consider walking out of the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) if Pakistan does not rein in terrorists, adding that the water-sharing pact is not sacrosanct.

 BCCL

India announced a series of actions on the IWT, seen as "incredibly generous to Pakistan", which would substantially increase its usage of the three rivers - Indus, Jhelum and Chenab - which feed Pakistan. Although India is entitled to use 20% of the three rivers, it has not availed of the provision so far, much to the comfort of Pakistan, which is critically dependent on the western rivers of the Indus system. A move by India to use its share will hurt Pakistan, reeling from worsening water scarcity, but without attracting the charge of violation of the treaty.

Significantly, the construction of the Tulbul project will benefit J&K, which has clamoured for a greater share of Indus waters, with the assembly even passing a resolution for the multi-purpose project.

India Corners Pakistan On Balochistan Issue

In recent months, India has upped the ante against Pakistan on the Balochistan issue. India has raised the issue of Pakistani forces' atrocities in Balochistan at the United Nations Human Rights Councit(UNHRC) and at other international forums.

That India is going to corner Pakistan over the Balochistan issue was made clear by PM Modi himself when he mentioned about in it his Independence Day speech. Modi's tone sounded pacifist but it sent a different message to Pakistan's military intelligence leadership: "I want to express my gratitude to the people of Balochistan, Gilgit and PoK for the way they whole-heartedly thanked me, the way they expressed gratitude to me.... People of a distant land I haven't even seen....When they thank the Indian PM, it's an honour for the 125 crore people of the country..."

 BCCL

This was the first instance of an Indian PM using a platform such as Red Fort to tell Islamabad that New Delhi too can target its integrity and unity the way Pakistan does.

Tightening the screws on Pakistan further, PM Narendra Modi is also working to review the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status granted to it in trade.

The MFN status was accorded in 1996 under WTO's General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Both India and Pakistan are signatories to this which means they have to treat each other and rest of WTO member countries as favoured trading partners.

According to Assocham, out of India's total merchandise trade of $641 billion in 2015-16, Pakistan accounted for a meagre $2.67 billion.

(This article originally appeared in The Times Of India)
Now, the reason why I say what I said in my headline is thisyoull never hear of an Indian politician encouraging his/her sons and daughters to pursue their dreams; let alone join the Indian army. After all, wholl take over the hot seat when the time comes for them to step down, right?

 Wikipedia

On the other hand we have American President Barack Obama setting an example for parents the world over by affirming on Wednesday that we would have no qualms if his daughtersMalia and Sashawere to join the US Army and in fact, would be proud of them. His statement was in response to a question asked by a retired US Army Colonel at the CNN town hall, What he would say to his daughters Malia, 18, and Sasha, 15 if they wanted to serve in the military? In a calm and composed manner, the President replied, Id say, go for it.

Now thats how you set an example for an entire nation, an entire generation and the world.

Heres hoping we had more leaders like Obama!
My head is literally doing a 360 degree spin right now and its not just because I have a clinical headache. Its because India and Pakistan seem to be playing ping-pong at the LoC and with their armies; no kidding!

Remember how Indias supposed surgical strike against Pakistan at the LoC is making the rounds? Apparently, according to Pakistan, that never happened! The government claims that what India calls a definitive targeted strike is really just an illusion and has put the incident down to a cross-border firing at the most.

 Reuters

What Does A Surgical Strike Mean?

A surgical strike is essentially a target-specified attack that is well-calculated so as to prevent the onset of impending war. So, if the Indian army did indeed conduct such a surgical strike in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the idea would be to prevent a war. However, the fact that Pakistan is turning the tables and the entire operation on its head goes to show that either of two things can be true.

One is Pakistan really does want a war after all and will settle for nothing less.

Two is that the surgical strike was really just a cross-border firing and nothing more; but, the Indian authorities are putting it to be more than that.

We dont really know which one is true, or if both of these are true, even. What we do know at the moment is that, surgical strike or not, the situation is pretty grim and we dont know who wants the war more.

Thats as scary as it gets.
Wahida Mohamed Al-Jumaily is a grandmother living in Iraq and she kills ISIS militants like any other ordinary woman her age would chop chicken into pieces. In an interview, Wahida told CNN, "I fought them. I beheaded them. I cooked their heads, I burned their bodies."

 Twitter

Like many Iraqis, she lost many of her family members to militants. Her father, husband, and three brothers have been killed by ISIS terrorists. Atrocities can affect a person in two ways  they can either break them down or make them stronger. Wahida chose to be the latter. On a mission to avenge her dead family members, she calls herself housewife.

 Facebook

The 39-year-old woman heads a 70-member militia group in Iraq. Only last week, she led a coup involving 50 fighters who threw out ISIS militants occupying the town of Shirqat. Her son-in-law had apparently been tortured and executed by terrorists in Shirqat in 2014. Among her family that survived are her 2 daughters, 22 and 20, who have chosen to look after their children, although they too are trained to kill and fight.

 Facebook

She is on the top of ISIS hit list and has already escaped 6 assassination attempts. ISIS supporters had attempted to kill her by planting car bombs outside her house on many occasions. She survived but not without injuries. But all those threats did not deter her from staying loyal to this dangerous mission, and she still continues to hound the hearts of ISIS terrorists with fear.

H/t  CNN
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Sept. 30

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Turkmenistan and Switzerland are interested in intensifying cooperation, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said in a message Sept. 30.

During the talks in Bern, the two sides stressed the importance of establishing an intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation.

The Swiss side was represented by Nicolas Bruhl, assistant secretary of state, head of department for Eastern Europe and Central Asia of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of the Swiss Confederation.

The sides agreed to organize political consultations regularly, the message said.

Speaking about trade and economic cooperation, the sides discussed the opportunities of intensifying joint contacts to bring the relations to a new level," the message said.

Views on regional and international issues, consolidation of efforts in the fight against common threats and challenges were also exchanged in Bern.

More than 30 companies with Swiss share operate in Turkmenistan.

Among the promising areas for cooperation are the fuel and energy sector, transport and communications, investments and tourism.

Turkmenistan is interested in partnership with Switzerland in such areas as mechanical engineering, chemical industry, processing industry, food industry, pharmaceuticals and biochemical production.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has hailed the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) agreement on daily oil output freeze as a "historic" deal that will help stabilize the oil market.

On Wednesday, OPEC oil producing countries reached a preliminary deal on the sidelines of an international energy forum in Algiers, Algeria. The output ceiling was set at 32.5-33 million barrels a day for the whole cartel. The date of oil output freeze is expected to be presented at the cartel's upcoming meeting in November. OPEC also decided to establish a technical committee to identify the production volume of individual member-states, Sputnik reported.

"The Algeria agreement reflects the tireless efforts of Venezuela for nearly two years to search of a consensus to stabilize the oil market and reduce the negative effects of financial speculation and futures markets in hydrocarbon production and revitalizes the role of OPEC in the balance of economic and geopolitical forces involved in the global economy," a Thursday statement, released on Venezuelas official presidential website says.

Global oversupply and stagnating demand have caused oil prices to plunge from $115 per barrel in June 2014 to less than $30 per barrel in January 2016. Prices recovered amid Nigerian, Canadian and Venezuelan output outages and growing demand in May, reaching a peak of over $50 per barrel in early June. Crude prices are currently fluctuating between $40 and $50 per barrel.
A project entitled Connecting to an Alternative Future is launched at Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS). It is implemented with financial support from the Youth Foundation of Azerbaijan under the President of the Azerbaijan Republic in partnership with the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, The State Agency for Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SAARES) and the Information Systems and Technologies Centre Multimedia and with organizational support from BHOS.

Nurali Yusifbeily, Deputy Chairman of the State Agency for Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources of the Azerbaijan Republic, Gulmali Suleymanov, Director of the Centre on Ozone and Climate Changes of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Azerbaijan Republic as well as other project participants and representatives of mass media made speeches at the project opening ceremony.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, BHOS Vice-Rector for Training, Science and International Relations Ramiz Humbatov greeted the projects participants on behalf of the BHOS Rector Elmar Gasimov and wished them every success in the project implementation. He told about important projects implemented in our country for use of alternative and renewable energy sources over the last years. Speaking about activity of the Training and Research Center on Renewable Energy Engineering established at BHOS, the Vice-Rector said in the future the Higher School would train specialists in this field. Ramiz Humbatov pointed out the importance of the Connecting to an Alternative Future project implementation at the Baku Higher Oil School. He also said that workshops on renewable energy sources are conducted at BHOS every month.

In his speech chief of the Centre on Ozone and Climate Changes of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources Gulmali Suleymanov expressed his satisfaction with the fact that the Connecting to an Alternative Future project is being implemented at the Baku Higher Oil School and wished every success to the project participants.

In the first day, Teymur Sadikhov, an Azerbaijani scientist working at NASA, gave a report on Robotics and Knut Erlend, Norwegian trainer and Head of Provitaz and Innovaz Ltd., made a report on renewable energy sources beneficial for people. Other attendants also presented information about alternative energy sources.

During three days of the project implementation, Chief Advisor of the State Agency for Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources of the Azerbaijan Republic Emil Veliyev will present a report about SAARES activity; Chief Advisor of SAARES Jabrail Veliyev will give a report on opportunities for alternative energy in Azerbaijan; and advisor of SAARES Control and Monitoring Department Emin Gashimov will present a report about projects on on energy sources implemented by SAARES.

It shall be noted that the project participants pay on-the-spot visit to solar panels station located in Surakhani.

It shall be also reminded that the main goals of the Connecting to an Alternative Future are to facilitate making decisions on transition of the economics, study experience and future potential for further development of Azerbaijani youth, and raise Azerbaijani civil societys awareness about nanotechnology and alternative energy sources by highlighting these topics in the press and publishing articles on these topics including research articles.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30



By Elchin Mehtiyev - Trend:



The memorandum of understanding on TANAP between governments of Turkey and Azerbaijan was ratified during the first session autumn session of the Milli Majlis (parliament).



Vice Speaker Valeh Aleskerov said that the Turkish side has already completed all the necessary state procedures related to this document.



Aleskerov highlighted that the approval of the memorandum will be very important in terms of support for the TANAP project by Azerbaijani side.



The memorandum was signed on May 26, 2014.



TANAP project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijans Shah Deniz field to the western borders of Turkey. The gas will be delivered to Turkey in 2018, and after completion of the Trans Adriatic Pipelines construction, the gas will be delivered to Europe in early 2020.



The length of TANAP is 1800 kilometers with the initial capacity of 16 billion cubic meters.



The capacity of TANAP will be expanded to 23 billion cubic meters and up to 31 billion cubic meters by 2026. Around six billion cubic meters of this gas will be delivered to Turkey and the remaining volume will be supplied to Europe.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Sept. 30

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Construction of a terminal for receiving, storing and shipping oil products near the Turkmen-Afghan border has entered its final stage, Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper reports.

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov reviewed the facility during his visit to Lebap region of the country.

Berdimuhamedov noted the importance of creating logistics terminals in order to effectively control the movement of goods and vehicles across the customs borders.

Provision of services on the single window principle, including the storage, clearance, warehousing, packaging, labeling and delivery of goods will minimize the time and money spent for the goods to pass customs borders.

The terminal being built by the Turkmennebitgazgurlushyk State Concern since 2013, consists of two blocks. One of them is designed for delivery of oil products by rail and the other one is designed to deliver oil products via the main pipeline.

The facility, with a throughput capacity of 540,000 tons, is being built in order to export five types of oil products.
The Deputy Foreign Minister for International Economic Relations, Dimitris Mardas, had a meeting with the representatives of the Greek pharmaceutical sector, in the wider institutionalised framework of regular meetings with representatives from all productive sectors. Prior to this, there had been meetings with other extroverted sectors, such as construction and RES.

At the meeting, there was a presentation of AGORA and its content, i.e. the portal providing data and info on the exporting activities of Greek enterprises (list of importers per country, statistical facts and figures on bilateral trade etc.), as well as a presentation of the Ministrys new economic diplomacy strategy and business and trade missions, scheduled for 2016-2017. Emphasis was given on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs prioritizing all that is pertinent to exporting pharmaceuticals to target-countries, in line with the aforementioned plan.

Corporate and business representatives pointed out the problems they are facing in the foreign markets and, thus, in the ensuing discussion, an analytical listing and recording of such problems was decided as was the closer collaboration of the Foreign Ministry with Authorities Abroad aimed at increasing exports of medicinal and pharmaceutical products in selected markets.
Deputy Ministers first statement

I should admit that I was surprised by recent reports suggesting to a change in the practice of granting visas to FYROM passport-holders. Let me clarify that these reports fail to reflect reality. And that any other claim suggesting otherwise is simply and solely aimed at creating false impressions on a very sensitive issue as is the stance of Greece vis-a-vis the neighbouring country. These are issues which we have to be very careful with and not rush into conclusions.

Since 2009 the citizens of FYROM are exempt from the obligation to get a Schengen visa to enter Greece. Moreover, upon entering and exiting Greek territory an arrival/departure stamp is placed on a separate sheet of paper. There has been no change to this practice and there is no intention whatsoever of having it change. Whoever purports otherwise is lying, thus serving petty-political expediencies on the field of national issues.

I stress once more that there has been no change in the practice of visas for travel documents issued by FYROM. Greece is still not recognizing Skopje passports.

As to the stamping of the passports of citizens from third countries upon their entry to or exit from Greece, the position of the Greek State is determined by practical reasons bearing in mind the protection of Greek interests in fields such as security and combating terrorism, attracting tourism from third countries and allowing the passage of international carriers through Greek territory.

Moreover, this practice involves the passports of third countries, -not those of FYROM- and obviously this constitutes no recognition of the latter under its constitutional name. The representatives of political parties ought to know that, especially those representing parties which were in power when this practice was initially introduced for citizens of SE European countries.

As to the second question: it was clear from the answer I gave to the first question, that there is no change and therefore no association with the Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs). Moreover, I find it annoying to even entertain the mere thought that the CBMs have possibly led to a change in a standard practice regarding travel documents from FYROM. It is well known that CBMs are not linked to the name issue. CBMs are the outcome of our own initiative, aimed at stronger social and economic relations between Greece and FYROM. They contribute to creating trust. Concerning the name issue, conditions need to first ripen within the neighbour so that it is ready to accept a meaningful compromise. Yet, for the time being, the leadership of FYROM is still following its delaying tactics.

Second statement by Deputy Minister:

In summary and as to the questions you posed:

Greece is continuing its standard practice of non-recognition of Skopje passports. Reports and publications suggesting otherwise are untruthful and possibly meretricious.

As far as third country nationals are concerned, whose passports bear a stamp from FYROM, the arrival/departure stamp is put on a separate sheet of paper. In cases of such passports having been stamped over the past by the Greek authorities, this is by no means suggestive of the recognition of FYROM by its constitutional name. It should merely be associated with the protection of Greek interests, e.g. security, combating terror, appealing to tourists.

There has been no change made to the Greek practice, therefore no one should claim that the alleged change of practice is linked to Confidence-Building Measures. CBMs are not connected, one way or another, to the name issue.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Sept. 30

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Turkmenistans President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov got acquainted with the work carried out in the Turkmen section of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, the construction of which started Dec. 13, 2015, the Turkmen Dovlet Habarlary state news service reported Sept. 30.

Currently, the relevant preparation works are being carried out according to the schedule, said the report.

The annual capacity of the gas pipeline will reach 33 billion cubic meters. It is planned that the total length of the TAPI pipeline will be 1,814 kilometers. Some 214 kilometers will pass through the territory of Turkmenistan, 774 kilometers - Afghanistan, 826 kilometers - Pakistan.

The project is expected to be completed in late 2019.

The report said also that Turkmen gas will help to meet the growing need of blue fuel in India and Pakistan, the demand for which may increase by twofold until 2030. Moreover, it will reduce the permanent deficit of energy resources in transit Afghanistan, according to the report.

TAPI Pipeline Company Limited was created for the construction and commissioning of the pipeline. It consists of gas companies of the participating countries and negotiations with other potential participants continue. Currently, the assessment of the financial package required for the gas pipelines construction from the Afghan border to Indian border, is being conducted.

Representatives of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) and the Japanese government have already expressed their interest to participate in the TAPI pipelines financing.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

BP together with its co-venturers in Azerbaijan signed new long-term contracts with 131 local companies in 2015, worth about $1.09 billion.

According to the BP Sustainability Report 2015, presented in Baku Sept. 30, the company worked with 238 local companies and individuals in Azerbaijan in 2015, of which 78 percent were small and medium sized enterprises.

Our joint operations and projects expenditure in Azerbaijan totaled nearly $2.67 billion in 2015, which is the same as in 2014, reads the BP report. As part of this, our in-country operations-only expenditure with local suppliers in Azerbaijan was about $1.54 billion.

BP is the largest foreign investor in Azerbaijan's oil and gas sector and the operator of the block of Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli offshore oil and gas fields, as well as Shah Deniz gas and condensate field.

BP is also a member of such pipeline projects as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and South Caucasus Gas Pipeline.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30



By Aygun Badalova  Trend



The construction of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) has started in Albania, TAP reported on Sept.30.



The occasion was marked by an inauguration ceremony near the town of Fier, attended by the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, Minister of Energy and Industry, Damian Gjiknuri, and TAP Managing Director, Ian Bradshaw.



Speaking to the audience that included representatives of the local authorities and other key stakeholders, Prime Minister Rama and Energy Minister Gjiknuri emphasised the importance of the project to Albania.



As one of the largest foreign investments in the country, TAP will have a positive impact on the countrys energy sector and will help encourage other foreign investments, they said.



TAP has made huge progress over these last few years and the evidence is what you see here today: steel pipes on the ground, heavy machinery in the background, trenches dug waiting for pipe to be laid. All this, with many hundreds of thousands of safe hours worked, said TAP Managing Director Ian Bradshaw.



TAP project envisages transportation of gas from the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas and condensate field to the EU countries.



The 870-kilometer pipeline will be connected to the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italy's south.



TAPs route through Albania will be approximately 215 kilometres onshore and 37 km offshore in the Albanian section of the Adriatic Sea.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Sept. 30

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Implementation of commitments under the OSCE Vienna Document 2011, a politically-binding document addressing confidence- and security-building measures in the military sphere, was in focus of an OSCE-organized seminar for officials from the Defense Ministry of Turkmenistan that will be concluded Sept. 30 in Ashgabat, said the OSCE in a message.

The five-day event provided a detailed overview of the Vienna Document, OSCE Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security and other agreed confidence- and security-building measures.

The participants examined the functions of the OSCE Communications Network and shared views on the role of the information exchange.



In accordance with the Vienna Document, OSCE participating states should provide each other with information about their military forces, notify ahead of time about major military activities and accept reciprocal inspections, said Natalya Drozd, head of the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat.



This seminar is a follow up to the Centers activities aimed at promoting implementation of confidence- and security-building measures in Turkmenistan, and we firmly believe that it will support the host government in implementing its commitments under the Vienna Document, she said.



The seminar also addressed the annual exchange of military information (AEMI) and global exchange of military information (GEMI) and provided insights into how they are compiled and what information should be included.



Experts from the Defense Ministry of Belarus shared national practices of implementing the Vienna Document and experiences and lessons learnt of compiling its AEMI and GEMI submission.



Participants discussed in groups such issues as defense planning and military budget, the organization of visits to airbases or military facilities, and demonstrations of new types of major weapons and equipment systems. The practical part also included a simulation exercise on evaluation visit.



The seminar was facilitated by representatives from the OSCE Secretariats Conflict Prevention Centre.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Irans gas export reached 3.92 billion cubic meters (bcm) during the first half of the current Iranian fiscal year (started March 20), Mehdi Jamshidi Dana, an official at the National Iranian Gas Company, said.

The figure indicates a rise by 3.4 percent year-on-year, Jamshidi Dana said, the oil ministrys SHANA news agency reported Sept. 27.

He further said the countrys gas import decreased by 25.1 percent in the same period.

According to the OPEC reports, Iran imported 9 bcm of gas from Turkmenistan in 2015.

The country also supplied 7.83 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Turkey over the last year versus 8.93 billion cubic meters in 2014.

Jamshidi Dana also said that over 1 bcm of gas was injected into gas storage facilities, including Shourijeh and Sarajeh facilities in the six-month period, which is 17 percent more year-on-year.

He added that gas delivery to power plants increased by 8.2 percent to 39 billion cubic meters during the period.

The countrys gas output was 102 bcm in the six-month term, or 9.1 percent more year-on-year, Jamshidi Dana said.

Iran delivered 57 bcm of gas to power plants during the last fiscal year (ended March 20, 2016), according to Hamid Reza Araghi, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company.

The figure is expected to reach 67 bcm in the current fiscal year.
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 Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs & Tourism (MICAT)
Over the weekend, more than 700 people picked up almost 15 tons of trash from 35 miles of Southeast Texas beaches during the Texas General Land Office's fall Adopt-A-Beach Cleanup.

The biannual event calls on Texas residents to dedicate their morning to picking up trash off beaches along the Gulf Coast. Texas GLO hosted volunteers in Chambers County, the Bolivar Peninsula, McFaddin Beach and Sea Rim State Park.
By Fereydoun Barkeshli for Trend

Members of Saudi-sponsored International Energy Forum (IEF) met in Algiers 26-28 of September .

It was a known fact that all OPEC members who are members of IEF would seize the opportunity to discuss the issue of oil market that is of interest to all members including Saudi Arabia which has already spent $200 billion of its currency reserves in order to cover the deficit caused by fall in oil prices.

In fact, a week before the IEF meeting a number of high-ranking officials of some OPEC member states gathered in Vienna to discuss options and possibilities of negotiating the oil market situation in Algeria on the sidelines of IEF annual meeting where a number of major non-OPEC producers, notably Russia, would attend.

Among those attending the Vienna meeting were high-ranking oil industry officials from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Mohammed Barkindo, and a newly appointed OPEC Secretary General.

Vienna meeting ended with no official or written communique as it was in fact a closed consultative meeting. Saudi Arabia repeated its call for production freeze by all OPEC members notably Iran and non-OPEC member Russia.

Iran stood dead firm on its pre-sanction production quota of nearly 4 million barrels per day (mb/d) which means 13 percent of overall OPEC production ceiling. In fact one more demand by Iran was a return of OPEC production quota system.

Algeria was much too eager to conclude a major deal in its capital as the country has actually been the home of couple of important Events including the first summit of OPEC heads of states back in 1975.

Now going back to five-hour long September 28 meeting in Algiers, OPEC made a historic deal as was mentioned by Irans Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh.

Saudi Arabia accepted and endorsed Iran's demand to start any production adjustments only after it arrived and sustained its pre-sanction quota of 4 mb/d and this could perhaps be applicable to Nigeria's production level which severely declined after civil unrests in the country. Besides, Saudi Arabia seems to have dropped its demand for the major non-OPEC rival Russia which had constituted a complicated dilemma.

However, back to the main issue of the current OPEC decision and its impact on the market, of course there will be a short term market speculative reaction and price will show a tendency to go up by some percentage.

Current oil market is demand-driven and unless the current low oil prices do not penetrate into the consumption network and boost demand, there is unlikely a possibility of holding for long. Of course OPEC is capable of cutting further as it did in 2013 and many other times before.

There must be a supply and demand balance and non-OPEC members must come forward to support the organization. OPEC share is currently 30 percent of total global supply which is not enough to allow to maintain discipline in the market.

Having said that, international oil market may need to wait through the second half of 2017 to witness a meaningful stability.

Fereydoun Barkeshli, president of Vienna Energy Research Group in Austria and the National Iranian Oil Companys former general manager for OPEC and international affairs
If life with tacos wasn't scrumptiously spectacular enough, a Tex-Mex joint in Corpus Christi challenges customers to eat a nearly 4-pound bundle of homemade tortilla, beans, cheese, carne guisada, egg, potatoes and bacon.

Chachos Tacos, at 3700Ayers St., propositions its bravest foodies to tackle the All-Mighty Chacho's Taco Challenge in 10 minutes. The chomp champ wins a T-shirt, spot on the hall-of-fame, bragging rights and probably some feelings of self-loathing and lethargy. Of course, they also don't have to pay for the $9.99 taco.
UPPER THUMB  The Trump-Pence Michigan Campaign has named State Rep. Edward Canfield, a Republican from Sebewaing, to a veterans coalition.

The coalition will lead outreach efforts with veterans and military families throughout Michigan, according to a press release from the campaign.

Canfield said a veterans group had contacted him about supporting Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, and Canfield agreed.

Its my desire that we have a Republican president, said Canfield, a U.S. Navy veteran.

He said Trumps military plan is much more sound than that of Trumps Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Canfield added that by seeking the support of local veterans, Trump is demonstrating grass root responsiveness in trying to make up for comments he made last year about Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona).

Canfield called the statements a faux pas by Trump, saying that McCain is a hero and should be honored as such.

Others named to the coalition were:

 Bill Belcher  U.S. Air Force, Ret., Farmington Hills

 Lt. General Jack Bergman  U.S. Marine Corps, Ret., Watersmeet

 Col. Frank Brooks  U.S. Air Force, Ret., Augusta

 Hank Fuhs  U.S. Air Force, Ret., Grand Rapids

 State Rep. Joesph Graves  U.S. Army, Ret., Argentine Township

 John Haggard  U.S. Army, Ret., Charlevoix

 Gerry Hildenbrand  U.S. Army, Ret., Plainwell

 State Rep. Rick Outman  U.S. Army, Ret., Six Lakes

 Lt. Colonel Rocky Raczkowski  U.S. Army, Ret., Troy

 State Rep. Hank Vaupel  U.S. Army, Ret., Fowlerville

 John Wolfsberger  U.S. Army National Guard, Ret., Macomb Township
BAD AXE  Scary, creepy clowns are roaming Huron Countys neighborhoods.

Just not in Michigans Huron County.

A resident contacted the Tribune on Wednesday regarding two clowns being arrested in Bad Axe, Huron County. The woman said she was freaking out and saw posts all over Facebook about the incident.

Fortunately for locals, the sighting was not in Huron County, Michigan.

After doing a quick Google search, the Tribune revealed the creepy clowns were spotted in Huron County, Ohio. Norwalk, Ohio to be exact  located approximately 233 miles from Bad Axe.

Huron County Sheriff Kelly J. Hanson confirmed his department didnt arrest, see or have been made aware of anyone dressed in a clown outfit roaming the countys streets.

Im not aware of any (clowns), Hanson told the Tribune.

The potential fear comes from recent reports from other states where others are dressing as clowns and luring children into the woods with candy or money in an attempt to abduct the child.

Thats news to me, Hanson said of the incidents. Ive heard of similar scenarios or situations, but nothing current.

Within the last two months, incidents began surfacing in North and South Carolina, Wisconsin and Georgia where locals saw creepily dressed clowns standing in wooded areas.

If someone is walking around (dressed as a clown), they are certainly going to be out of context, Hanson said. Theyre certainly going to stand out. People will be suspicious of them.

Just because they are walking around as a clown doesnt mean you can call law enforcement and they can shake them down, he added. But its certainly something to be vigilant of ... if somebody is dressed as such and armed, by all means call law enforcement.

Hanson said if residents feel concerned, they can call the Huron County Sheriffs Office at 989-269-9910.

One thing everyone should keep in mind is: dont believe everything you see, hear or read on the Internet.

Websites of fake clown sightings have recently began popping up. Headlines read something along the lines of,: Scary clown sightings in (a city nearby your location). But the link indicates nothing more than a prank.
PIGEON  The Walking Roots Band will perform at 7 p.m. Oct. 22 at Pigeon River Mennonite Church. An acoustic-Americana, folk, bluegrass, and roots music group from Harrisonburg, Virginia, the Walking Roots Band has its roots in communities in western and southeastern Pennsylvania, Holmes County, Ohio, and here in the Thumb of Michigan. Jackson Maust (son of Marvin and Lori Maust), Michael Yoder (son of Merlin and Pat Yoder), and Rachel Yoder (daughter of Dale and Phyllis Yoder) make up half the band, and all three hail from Bay Port. Other members are Seth Crissman, and Greg and Kristina Yoder.

In 2013, members of the band pedaled bicycles from Buffalo, New York, around Lake Ontario, and up M-25 to converge on the Maust homestead. From there, (in cars), they began their very first week-long tour, playing in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania to promote their first CD, a collection of hymns, Shelter: A Hymn Reclamation Project. Since then, the band has been busy, recording four albums in the intervening three years. The Walking Roots Band returns to Michigan to celebrate their latest release, appropriately titled Way Back Home.
This is a current list of the top 250 companies by market capitalization on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). Learn more .

Many investors understand the reasons for having a diversified portfolio. One way to accomplish this is to diversify within an asset class. For equity investors in the United States this can mean investing in both growth and value stocks.

It can also mean investing in international stocks. And when investors want to do this, they need look no further than our neighbor to the north. Canada has a range of stocks for investors to consider. This article will focus on strategies that investors can use when looking to invest in Canadian stocks.

Why Buy Canadian Stocks?

There are a few reasons for investors to consider Canadian stocks as part of their diversification strategy:

A Large Natural Resources Sector  The sheer size of the country and its location lets investors know that it is an area rich in natural resources. This also means that the country has a source of current and future wealth.

An Advanced Skills-Based Economy  In this regard, Canada is similar to other western nations. The difference is that it is not as common to find these skill-based professions in a country with so many natural resources.

Stability  Canada is not exempt from any problems that impact the global economy. However, the country is known for stable financial and business policies that have kept the economy relatively stable. This Goldilocks economy has meant that many Canadian stocks havent enjoyed the outsized growth of some U.S. equities. However, it also comes with a bit of protection against downside risk.

How Have Canadian Stocks Performed?

According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, there was a time when U.S. stocks and Canadian stocks performed nearly identically. Heres a graph that shows the performance of the S&P 500 Index vs. the TSX Index



Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence

You can see that with a couple of exceptions, the two indexes performed remarkably similar. That all changed around 2012 and Canadian stocks became less attractive.

Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence

This disparity is widely due to one sector, technology. However, Canadian technology stocks have been on the rise. And in 2022, the country is benefiting from renewed interest in materials stocks as well as a spike in commodity prices.

What Are the Best Sectors of Canadian Stocks?

For different reasons finance, materials, and energy stocks are among the best performing stocks as of September 2022. Heres a brief overview of each sector and some of the top names for investors to consider.

Financial  Similar to the United States, Canada has a strong banking industry. Many Canadian banks have a track record of solid performance that can provide long-term value to a portfolio. And several of these stocks pay dividends with attractive yields for investors.

This sector makes up the largest percentage of the TSX at roughly 30%. And the Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE:RY)is the top-weighted constituent in the TSX. Beyond the Royal Bank of Canada some of the other top-performing Canadian financial stocks include:

Materials and Mining  Canadian stocks can be an ideal choice for investors looking to diversify into gold and precious metals without owning the physical metal. Canada has a large natural resources sector. So, its not surprising that there are a number of gold mining companies with Canadian origins. This sector also gives investors exposure to other components in the mining and agriculture sectors. This sector makes up approximately 11.5% of the TSX. Some of the top Canadian materials and mining stocks include:

Energy  Canadian stocks offer both traditional fossil fuel-based energy stocks as well as some renewable energy stocks. This sector makes up approximately 18.5% of the TSX. Some of the top Canadian energy stocks include:

Technology  As mentioned earlier, technology stocks have largely been the domain of the United States. As evidence of this, information technology stocks make up only about 5.5% of the TSX. However, there are a few Canadian companies that have become stars in the new economy being created. Some of the more popular names include:

What Are the Risks of Investing in Canadian Stocks?

One concern about investing in Canadian stocks is that they can be heavily weighted towards cyclical industries. For example, as of February 2022 financials (33.5%), energy (14.8%) and industrials (11.7%) made up nearly 60% of the index. That may be too much for some investors particularly because those sectors all tend to correlate roughly the same way as the economic cycle. But as a long-term play, Canadian stocks are worth considering with a small part of your portfolio.

How to Buy Canadian Stocks

Buy Individual Stocks on a Stock Exchange

Hundreds of Canadian stocks have dual listings on either the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or the NASDAQ. This is the most convenient way to get exposure to Canadian stocks because there are no barriers to stock ownership. These shares can be purchased in U.S. dollars directly from the exchange just like purchasing a U.S. stock.

However, for a full list of the best Canadian stocks, investors should look at the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). The TSX is one of the oldest stock exchanges having been founded in 1852. Its also the third largest stock exchange in North America in terms of market capitalization.

The Toronto Stock Exchange includes approximately 1,500 companies. It allows investors to trade stocks, investment trusts, exchange-traded products, bonds, commodities, futures, options, and other derivative products. All transactions on the TSX are executed in Canadian dollars.

Invest in a Mutual Fund or ETF

There are many mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that supply exposure to Canadian stocks. Some funds supply exposure to both U.S. and Canadian stocks. Other funds hold just Canadian stocks. Some examples of those include:

BMO S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index ETF

Horizons S&P/TSX 60 Index ETF

Vanguard FTSE Canada All Cap ETF

As with investing in any asset class, investors need to consider their investment objective, time horizon and risk tolerance before choosing a fund that fits their needs. Investors will also want to pay attention to the funds fee structure to ensure youre making the most efficient use of your capital.

The Final Word on Investing in Canadian Stocks

Investing in Canadian stocks is one way for investors to add diversification to their portfolio. MarketBeat provides a list of the top Canadian stocks that trade on the TSX. This is Canadas version of the NYSE or NASDAQ in the United States and includes many of the same stocks.

Thats one advantage of investing in Canadian stocks is that many have a dual listing which removes many of the obstacles that can come with investing in international stocks.

However, investors should be aware that many of the best Canadian stocks are in highly cyclical industries which can lead to underperformance when those sectors are out of favor. Still, due to their relative stability and in some cases an impressive dividend, Canadian stocks may have a place in an investors portfolio.
Duck Creek Technologies, Inc. provides software-as-a-service core systems to the property and casualty insurance industry in the United States and internationally. The company provides Duck Creek Policy, a solution that enables insurers to develop and launch new insurance products and manage various aspects of policy administration ranging from product definition to quoting, binding, and servicing; Duck Creek Billing that provides payment and invoicing capabilities, such as billing and collections, commission processing, disbursement management, and general ledger capabilities for insurance lines and bill types; and Duck Creek Claims that supports entire claims lifecycle from first notice of loss through investigation, payments, negotiations, reporting, and closure. It also offers Duck Creek Rating that allows carriers to develop new rates and models and deliver quotes in real-time based on the complex rating algorithms; Duck Creek Insights, an insurance analytics solution that allows carriers to gather and analyze data from internal and external sources and facilitate analysis and reporting on a single system; Duck Creek Digital Engagement that offer digital interactions between property and casualty insurers and their agents, brokers, and policyholders; and Duck Creek Distribution Management that automates sales channel activities for agents and brokers, including producer onboarding, compliance, and compensation management. In addition, the company provides Duck Creek Reinsurance Management that automates financial and administrative functions; and Duck Creek Industry Content that provides pre-built content, including base business rules, product designs, rating algorithms, data capture screens, and workflows for insurance lines of business, such as commercial auto, inland marine, and workers compensation. It has a partnership with Shift Technologies, Inc. to implement AI fraud detection. The company was founded in 2016 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Tehran, Iran, Sep.29

By Emil Ilgar - Trend:

Germany's Vice Chancellor and Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Sigmar Gabriel will visit Iran Oct.2, Fars news agency reported.

Before, Gabriels visit to Iran was scheduled for June, but was later postponed due to his health issues.

Germany was one of Iran's biggest trade partners before the Islamic Republic got hit with sanctions. Last month, a delegation of 150 German officials and businessmen attended a joint economic forum with Iranian counterparts in Tehran.

During Gabriels visit to Tehran, he would discuss banking, investment and cooperation issues with Irans private sector representatives.

Omid Baraghi, head of Iran-Germany Chamber of Commerce, said Sept. 28 Iranian banks have not been able to establish transactions with German banks, despite that sanctions onIran have been eliminated 9 months ago.
New Media Investment Group Inc. invests in, owns, and operates local media assets in the United States. The company's principal products include 146 daily newspapers with total paid circulation of approximately 1.5 million; 323 weekly newspapers with total paid circulation of approximately 268,000 and total free circulation of approximately 1.4 million; 132 shoppers with total circulation of approximately 3.1 million; and 581 locally-focused Websites, including Internet and mobile devices with approximately 364 million page views per month. Its principal products also comprise 77 business publications; and UpCurve Cloud and ThriveHive, which provides digital marketing and business services. In addition, the company produces niche publications that address specific local market interests, such as recreation, sports, healthcare, and real estate. Further, it offers print and online products that offer local market news and information on various topics comprising local news and politics, community and regional events, youth sports, opinion and editorial pages, local schools, obituaries, weddings, and police reports, as well as commercial printing services for publishers; and prints commercial materials, including flyers, business cards, and invitations. Additionally, the company produces approximately 350 annual events with a collective attendance approximately 400,000, such as themed expo, signature event, endurance event, and white label event services; and provides digital and print advertising services. It reaches approximately 22 million people per week; and serves approximately 199,000 business customers. New Media Investment Group Inc. was founded in 1997 and is based in New York, New York.
Smart & Final Stores, Inc. operates as a food retailer in the United States. It operates in two segments, Smart & Final and Smart Foodservice. The company's stores offer fresh perishables and everyday grocery items, such as produce, meat and deli, dairy and cheese, grocery, and beverage products, as well as paper and packaging, and restaurant equipment and janitorial supplies. It also provides various private label products under the First Street, Sun Harvest, Simply Value, La Romanella, Montecito, Iris, and Ambiance brands. The company sells its products to household and business customers; restaurants; caterers; and various other foodservice businesses, such as food trucks and coffee houses through vendors and suppliers. As of December 30, 2018, it operated 326 grocery and foodservice stores, including 59 Smart & Final stores, 201 Smart & Final Extra! stores, and 66 Smart Foodservice Warehouse stores located in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, and Utah, as well as 15 stores in Northwestern Mexico operated through a joint venture. Smart & Final Stores, Inc. was founded in 1871 and is headquartered in Commerce, California.
At least 18 people were killed and more than 60 people were injured in a Friday mortar attack carried out by militants in the Syrian northern city of Aleppo, Sputnik International reported.

Earlier in the day, the radical extremists shelled Aleppo's residential areas, including the city's districts of Midan, Azizia and Villat.

"By the moment 18 people are killed. Over 60 civilians are injured," the source said, speaking about the casualties.
Despite Flipping in Surf 4 Times in a Year, Marines Say New ACV Is the Future of Amphibious Warfare

Some Marine veterans familiar with the vehicle and its operations have worried about the reliability of the ACV.
The U.S. Air Force is moving to dismiss the rape case of a colonel found dead in his home, an official said.

While the legal proceeding against Col. Eugene Caughey is technically still in progress, a physical trial won't occur and the case will ultimately be dismissed, an official told Military.com on Thursday.

"The charges and specifications are being sent to the general court-martial convening authority for final disposition," a spokesman at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, said in an email. The overseeing authority, Lt. Gen. David Buck, commander of 14th Air Force, will rule on the matter, the official said.

Notification to the alleged victims is in progress, the spokesman said. "Their views have been and will continue to be heard and respected," he said.

Caughey, 46, the former vice commander of the 50th Space Wing at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, who was awaiting court-martial on allegations of rape and adultery, was found dead Sunday at his home. The Colorado Springs Police Department is investigating the death as an apparent suicide.

Caughey was assigned to Air Force Space Command staff at Peterson. His court-martial was originally set to begin in August but he was granted a continuance. He was to start the proceeding Oct. 17 on charges of rape, assault, adultery and other lewd acts dating to 2013.

The 23-year veteran was formally charged Dec. 10 with rape and assault. He allegedly used "unlawful force" to hold a victim "against the wall and floor" while committing a sexual act sometime "in late 2014 or early 2015," according to his charge sheet.

The colonel also took photos of his genitals while in uniform, and committed six counts of adultery, the documents state.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.
QUANTICO, Virginia --The Navy's newest surface ship could carry contingents of Marines in the not-too-distant future, according to a new operating concept released by the Marine Corps this week.

While the Corps has long promoted the concept of Marines deploying on non-traditional vessels and seabasing platforms, the new Marine Corps Operating Concept further opened the aperture, describing a future in which troops take on a broader role in maritime security, counter-piracy operations, and sea control aboard smaller surface ships, including the littoral combat ship and future frigates.

"Navy and Marine Corps units can be task-organized to provide scalable and distributed options to defeat land-based threats with the forcible entry capability provided by up to two [Marine Expeditionary Brigades], deny enemy use of key maritime areas or terrain, or establish [expeditionary advance bases]," the document states.

Marine planners are tasked with ways to increase the use of Marines on warships including the LCS, future frigate, and Arleigh-Burke Class guided-missile destroyers, as well as on seabasing platforms such as the expeditionary mobile base and T-AKE dry cargo ship. The document also calls for development of a concept of operations that will describe the way the distributed Marine air-ground task force must operate in the future to support naval operations.

Commandant Gen. Robert Neller told Military.com on Wednesday at the Modern Day Marine expo that he believed the service needs to be more open to operating on platforms other than traditional amphibious ships.

"We're part of the naval team, so there may be missions where putting a small Marine detachment on a surface craft like  LCS is advantageous, a vehicle to do maritime interdiction of other ships, to board, search or seize other ships, to do small raids," Neller said. "It's more a mission of opportunity."

Neller said he didn't see the Corps returning to the ship detachments of the past as it considers operating off a wider range of platforms.

But, he said, "if the [Amphibious Ready Group/ Marine Expeditionary Unit] is out there, Marines in the vicinity are training or deploying, and there's a requirement that they needed a landing team or a landing force on a small ship, certainly we should be able to do that."

The Navy's littoral combat ships, which began entering service in 2008, are designed to combat asymmetric and anti-access threats near the coastline. The ships have faced criticism over reports that questioned the vessels' survivability, compared to other warships. A 2015 Government Accountability Office report found "the lethality and survivability of the LCS is still largely unproven," citing concerns about the strength of the hull and unknowns about how the ship would fare in an underwater explosion.

An upcoming survivability upgrade will transform the LCS program into the future frigate, arming the ship with more weapons and likely including retrofits for the ships already in service. The process of building and fielding the future frigate is expected to begin after 2018.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.

Related Video:
The U.S. will spend more and devote more of its newest assets to the Pacific in the next phase of the rebalance of forces to the Asia-Pacific region to reassure allies and keep China at bay, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Thursday.

"The United States will continue to sharpen our military edge so we remain the most powerful military in the region and the security partner of choice," he said.

"We're going to have a few surprises as well," he added, describing them only as "leap-ahead investments."

In an address aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in San Diego harbor, Carter said the U.S. will increase investments in resources in what he called the "third phase" of the so-called Pacific pivot that began five years ago.

Among the investments singled out by Carter were:

Tripling the Tomahawk missile capacity of Virginia-class submarines assigned to the Pacific;

Increasing funding for undersea drones -- in multiple sizes and diverse payloads -- that can operate more effectively in shallow waters where manned subs cannot;

Refitting the SM-6 supersonic missile so it can also strike enemy ships at sea at very long ranges;

Investing in other advanced munitions to improve range and accuracy for land attack and anti-ship missiles, including new torpedoes.

"We're going to have a few more surprises as well," Carter said. "These 'leap-ahead' investments will keep us ahead in the Asia-Pacific and elsewhere. Now, I can't share all the details on these for obvious reasons," but the U.S. will be carrying out "some very creative -- and unexpected -- ways to use missiles across the varied domains of the Asia-Pacific."

In addition to the U.S. rebalance, Carter said that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is developing a "networked, multi-lateral regional security architecture from one end of the region to the other" to ensure freedom of navigation. Carter is scheduled to host a meeting of the ASEAN defense ministers in Honolulu on Friday.

"So we'll play our part, including in some specific ways" on military cooperation in the region, Carter said.

In the future, "American personnel postured throughout the region -- in Australia, on Guam and elsewhere -- will deploy more often to operate with both their American colleagues and their regional counterparts. That will help us solidify military-to-military relationships, strengthen security cooperation, and enhance deterrence," he said.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30

Trend:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shook hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the funeral of Israels former president Shimon Peres at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on Friday, The Jerusalem Post reports.



Abbas was one of dozens of world leaders attending the funeral for Peres, who passed away early Wednesday morning after suffering a stroke.

Abbas asked the Coordinator for Government Affairs in the Territories (COGAT), the branch of the IDF responsible for coordinating civil and security affairs in the West Bank and Gaza, for permission to attend the funeral at Har Herzl.

COGAT passed the request along to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the latter approved it.

On Wednesday, Abbas sent a condolence letter to the Peres family, expressing his sorrow and sadness over Peres death.

Abbas said that Peres made unremitting efforts to reach a permanent peace until the last moments of his life.
QUANTICO, Virginia -- Extra legroom or 360-degree cameras? Central air conditioning, or boosted horsepower?

At the Modern Day Marine expo here this week, Marines had a chance to kick the tires and test the seats of two competing versions of the Corps' future amphibious combat vehicle, the faster and more survivable successor to the aging assault amphibious vehicle.

For the first time, one company, the British defense firm BAE Systems, brought a production model to the show, one of 16 that will be delivered to the Marine Corps next year for testing. The other, Virginia-based SAIC, brought a pre-production model based on the Terrex infantry carrier already in use with the Singapore armed forces.

In an age when programs like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Ford-class supercarrier have blown past budget estimates and production deadlines in development, the ACV 1.1 is a rare thing: an acquisition good-news story.

Marine officials said both companies were expected to deliver the first batches of vehicles to the Marine Corps a month early, earning an incentive bonus in the process.

"It's really a wonderful example of some of the things that people talk about, how you make decisions right, prototyping, tailoring the pros to get the program fast-tracked, and more importantly, get the requirements right," Col. Andrew Bianca, deputy for Program Executive Officer of Land Systems told Military.com.

Related Video:

Modern Day Marine: SAIC ACV 1

The Corps had several costly false starts before arriving at this amphibious vehicle sweet spot.

The first planned successor to the AAV, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, was cancelled by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates in 2011 due to affordability concerns after the Corps had already dumped $3 billion into the program.

Next, the service worked with firms to develop the Marine Personnel Carrier as a complement to a future amphibious vehicle, but that program too was cut short amid budgetary belt tightening. The service also struggled to define requirements for the ACV, challenged by a desire for fast water speed that did not appear attainable.

Ultimately, the Marines in 2014 laid out a phased approach: they would develop and buy a Phase 1 ACV with modest water speed and a faster-swimming Phase 2 vehicle as the technology became available.

Aside from survivability and land speed, both ACV 1.1 models are different from the legacy AAV in one key way: They move on eight wheels, instead of on tracks. For Marines who spent a career on amphibious vehicles (the slogan YAT-YAS, or 'you ain't tracks, you ain't s*** is popular with this community), this is nothing short of revolutionary.

"The world we came from, the way you get mobility is by putting tracks on a vehicle," Bianca said. "Frankly, ten years ago, I would never have believed you, as a tanker, that is goes as many places and over the kind of terrain it does."

Specs

Both SAIC and BAE have partnered with international corporations to produce their vehicles.

BAE is collaborating with Italian company Iveco, a subsidiary of the automobile maker Fiat Industrial, to build its ACV 1.1. SAIC is teaming up with Singapore Technologies Kinetics to build its offering, which it's calling the Terrex 2. Both vehicles can swim at six knots, or just under 7 miles per hour. The BAE model can travel on land up to 70 miles per hour, while the SAIC version can go 55.

John Swift, the program manager for BAE Systems, said the company had opted to upgrade the vehicle's engine from 500 horsepower to 690 horsepower in anticipation of incremental future requirements. The model has Iveco's trademark H-drive structure, eliminating axles and giving the vehicle more maneuverability. It seats 13 Marines plus three crew members with ample legroom, and has a system that allows seawater to cool the engine as it swims, meaning time in the water is limited only by fuel.

"If you give me 100 more gallons, give me a set of radios and ammunition, and we can go ahead and invade Maryland this afternoon," Swift said. "This vehicle has everything on it."

SAIC's ACV 1.1 pre-production model is more snug than its competitor's, with room for just 11 Marines in addition to crew members and a confined space that requires passengers to use the opposite foot rest. But keeping troops' feet off the floor is a safety feature that would allow them to survive a blast from directly below the vehicle relatively unscathed, program executives said.

The vehicle is also more technologically flashy, with an internal screen that projects 360-degree images from cameras on every side of the vehicle. A gunner can remotely operate a mounted .50-caliber machine gun from within the vehicle using a joystick and the cameras. The vehicle also has an integrated overhead air conditioning system to cool the Marines in close quarters.

"We think Marines are going to take to this drive by camera concept very quickly," said Anthony Herlihy, director of Marine Corps business development relations for SAIC. "Over 400 of these systems are in service with the Singapore Armed Forces right now."

Marines Meet ACV

After the two companies deliver 16 vehicles apiece to the Marine Corps in four-vehicle installments, the service will continue developmental testing, bringing in fleet Marines from amphibious vehicle specialties to train on the systems, said Col. Wendell Leimbach Jr., deputy program manager for the Marine Corps advanced amphibious assault program office.

"We'll be pulling in those young Marines and asking their feedback and making sure the requirements that we have set and are represented by these prototypes are going to meet their needs on the battlefield," he said. "We are already pulling in Marines now that are getting trained to be the crewmen for these vehicles, and those Marines will then be the individuals that use the vehicles through the developmental test phase."

The Pentagon's director of operational test & evaluation, he said, will also test the vehicles, putting active-duty Marines through operational scenarios and collecting feedback on how the vehicles perform and whether they met the needs of the troops operating them. Current plans call for this testing phase to last one year, with a downselect to one vehicle maker in 2018.

Just to have the models on display for Marines this week was an important step, Leimbach said.

"It's absolutely critical," he said. "We get to live and see these programs on a day to day basis, but these vehicles are actually being built for the Marine Corps and specifically to carry Marine infantry around the battlefield. They are the ultimate customer of what there vendors will be producing for us, and it's important that the young Marines get an opportunity to come and see and feel and sit in the vehicles so that they know there is next-generation technology coming down the road."

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
Walgreens will soon rejoin Tricare's pharmacy network for users nationwide, officials announced Friday, while CVS pharmacies will leave.

That means Tricare users will now be able to fill their prescriptions off-base at Walgreens pharmacies without paying out-of-network rates, and CVS users will need to find a new pharmacy or pay unsubsidized rates for their medications.

The change takes effect Dec. 1, officials said. It will impact all beneficiaries, including Tricare for Life users and military retirees. The network will add about the 8,000 Walgreens stores and lose more than 9,600 CVS pharmacies.

"Starting Dec. 1, 2016, Walgreens pharmacies will join the Express Scripts, Inc. network serving Tricare beneficiaries across the United States," Tricare officials said in a news release. "Additionally on Dec. 1, CVS pharmacies, including those in Target stores, will leave the network."

Poll: How will the Tricare pharmacy change impact you?

More than 59,000 pharmacies are in the Tricare network, Express Scripts officials said. As of Dec. 1, that number will drop to 58,000, they said. Tricare currently serves about 9.4 million beneficiaries.

Despite the switch and drop of about 1,000 Tricare network pharmacies nationwide, about 98 percent of users will continue to have access to at least one in-network pharmacy within a one to five mile radius of their home, officials said.

The change came after a series of recent contract negotiations with retail pharmacies, officials said.

"As part of our contract with Tricare, Express Scripts helps the Department of Defense maintain an affordable pharmacy benefit by continuing to secure competitive rates with retail pharmacies," Jennifer Luddy, an Express Scripts spokesperson said in a statement. "This change is intended to provide better value to Tricare and maintain convenient access for beneficiaries."

The switch will also impact users who rely on Coram for speciality medications provided by mail-order since that service is a part of CVS.

"When CVS leaves the network, beneficiaries currently using Coram/CVS to fill their prescription will need to switch their prescription to another speciality network pharmacy," Tricare officials told Military.com. Officials said Kroger, which is a current retail pharmacy provider, as well as Walgreens will both become speciality network pharmacies starting Dec. 1, and may carry the medications previously supplied by Coram.

"Beneficiaries filling specialty drugs will receive additional outreach to ensure they are able to move their prescription to a new network pharmacy with no disruption in their prescription therapy," Tricare officials said.

Walgreens had previously been a Tricare in-network pharmacy. But a 2011 contract dispute over reimbursement rates from Tricare's drug contractor Express Scripts resulted in the store leaving the network. At the time, Walgreens brought in an estimated $5.3 billion in annual revenue from the system. And although they later resolved the overall dispute with Express Scripts, the decision to exclude Tricare's business from the retailer did not change.

"Walgreens is very proud to partner with Express Scripts to serve the Department of Defense and Tricare beneficiaries," company officials said in a statement Friday. "We will work closely with Express Scripts in the next two months to ensure a smooth transition to Walgreens."

Officials with CVS did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

-- Editor's note: This story was updated to include additional information on CVS-based services and statements Express Scripts and Walgreens.

-- Amy Bushatz can be reached at amy.bushatz@military.com.
The Indians hope to re-sign first baseman Mike Napoli this winter, according to a report from Jon Heyman of Fan Rag. Its not known whether the club will issue the veteran slugger a qualifying offer, he adds.

There certainly seems to be mutual interest, and Cleveland still could use a first baseman/DH to pair with Carlos Santana  whose option seems all but certain to be exercised. Napoli has performed well, swatting 34 home runs in 631 plate appearances and compiling a .242/.338/.473 slash. And he seems to have taken up an important place in the clubhouse.

Still, there are limits to the veterans value. He certainly isnt young, and his total output adjusts to a 116 wRC+ and 106 OPS+, which isnt exactly world-beating for a player with his defensive limitations. When it comes to the glove, Napoli received negative ratings from both UZR and DRS after previously rating as a quality defender at first.

All said, its easy to see both the cause for the continued interest but also for the questions over how much to spend. At $16.7MM, the qualifying offer seems rather steep  particularly with numerous other slugging types set to reach the open market  and its not impossible to imagine him accepting.

The best case for Napoli, of course, would be to hit free agency without the necessity of draft compensation hanging over him, as that could significantly tamp down market interest. He will be seeking multiple years this winter, Heyman notes, after settling for a one-year, $7MM contract with the Indians  as well as up to $2MM in plate appearance bonuses that he may max out  following a disappointing 2015 campaign.

While theres no indication that team and player have discussed a new contract at this point, its possible to imagine discussions taking place before the qualifying offer deadline (or while Napoli is mulling it, if issued). Ultimately, it may be that some kind of two-year accommodation to keep Napoli in Cleveland could make sense for all involved.
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Lions receiver Marvin Jones celebrates after a touchdown catch last week against Green Bay.

(AP File Photo)

UPDATE: Marvin Jones was listed as "questionable" late Friday for the upcoming Bears game.

ALLEN PARK -- Detroit Lions receiver Marvin Jones was practicing with the team on Friday, just one day after he popped up on the team's injury report with a hamstring problem.

Jones was limited on Thursday by the injury, but on Friday seemed fine while working out with the other receivers during the 15 or so minutes of practice that were open to the media.

The Lions are wrapping up preparations for Sunday's game against the Chicago Bears. They're practicing outdoors, despite a steady rain, to prepare for the elements at Soldier Field.

The fact Jones, the NFL's leading receiver, was participating on a slick field is yet another good sign the Lions aren't overly concerned by the injury.

Detroit was without defensive end Ezekiel Ansah and linebacker DeAndre Levy for the portion open to media. Neither has practiced in at least two weeks, and both are highly unlikely to play against Chicago. Kerry Hyder and Antwione Williams are expected to take their places, respectively.

It's unclear whether Ansah and Levy will even make the trip to Chicago, after not making the trip to Green Bay last week.
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An estimate of the extent of the Gelman dioxane plume. Plume boundaries shown here are based on a map created by Washtenaw County in February 2016.

(MLive)

ANN ARBOR, MI - Danaher Corp. has declined an invitation to meet directly with local officials to discuss options for addressing the Gelman dioxane plume.

However, it says Pall Corp. will continue to work with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, including participating in an upcoming community engagement process that the DEQ is organizing, and that could provide opportunities for engagement with local leaders.

Danaher is the multibillion-dollar corporation that last year acquired Pall Corp., which is the company that acquired Gelman Sciences in 1997.

Gelman Sciences is the company that heavily polluted the area's groundwater with discharges of the chemical 1,4-dioxane from the 1960s into the 1980s.

Pall has spent millions of dollars doing pump-and-treat remediation over the last several years, but many believe it's not enough as there still are high levels of dioxane in the groundwater and the plume is continuing to spread. Some believe Danaher, now that it has acquired Pall, could afford to do more cleanup to stop the plume from spreading toward more drinking water sources.

In a letter dated Sept. 30, a company executive turned down a recent meeting invitation from five local officials concerned about the toxic plume of pollution spreading from the former Gelman property on Wagner Road.

The two-page response was signed by Rainer Blair, president and CEO of Pall Corp. and vice president and group executive for Danaher Corp. He said he was responding on behalf of Danaher President and CEO Thomas Joyce.

"We share your concerns over the health and safety of the citizens of Ann Arbor and surrounding areas," Blair's letter reads, going on to say Danaher has supported Pall's efforts to address the dioxane contamination while working to understand the history and efficacy of measures undertaken to date.

Evan Pratt, Washtenaw County's water resources commissioner, sent a letter dated Sept. 13 to Danaher, inviting the company to meet with local officials to determine if they can work together toward a better solution.

In addition to Pratt, the letter was signed by Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor, County Board Chairwoman Felicia Brabec, Ann Arbor Township Supervisor Mike Moran and Scio Township Supervisor Spaulding Clark.

"We would like to determine the Danaher Corporation's interest in discussing local concerns about the existing issues, and are requesting a response before the end of this month," Pratt wrote in an email on Sept. 12, attaching the letter.

"We elected officials are at a decision point in how to address an issue that we hear about every single week, and we would very much welcome input to help us understand if the Danaher Corporation walks the talk of corporate responsibility," the letter read. "We understand that there is likely a shell corporation for the purpose of remediation and protection of the legal liability of the Danaher Corporation, but this issue is separate from the material fact that a liability was purchased and ultimate corporate responsibility falls to the parent company.

"We just want to offer the opportunity to hear directly from your company whether the Danaher Corporation intends to work directly with the impacted communities or not," the letter continued, going on to say the plume has expanded more than tenfold as a result of ineffective remedial action over the years.

The letter noted hundreds of drinking water wells have been contaminated by the expanding dioxane plume and the city has had to decommission one of its municipal wells previously used for drinking water.

"We are not interested in working to provide public water to more homes," the letter read. "We are interested in working with a responsible entity that agrees that prevention and reduced pollution is the responsible approach."

Blair responded by saying Danaher is contributing significant resources to assist Pall's remediation efforts and its ongoing discussions with the DEQ, the agency with regulatory authority in the matter. His letter noted Pall remains responsible for the remediation efforts in the Ann Arbor area.

To that end, Blair wrote, Pall is working cooperatively with the DEQ, including reviewing a consent judgment to take into account the DEQ's proposed stricter dioxane standards. Following years of pressure from local officials, the DEQ is proposing reducing the allowable level of dioxane in residential drinking water from 85 parts per billion to 7.2 ppb to more closely reflect the latest scientific data about health risks from dioxane exposure.

Dioxane is classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as likely to be carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure. It also can cause kidney and liver damage, and respiratory problems.

Blair noted in his letter that Pall is volunteering to assist the DEQ in shallow groundwater testing at certain low-lying locations within Ann Arbor.

"Gelman entered into a consent judgment in 1992 with the predecessor of the MDEQ that sets forth the measure Gelman, and later Pall, continue to take to address the dioxane contamination from the former Gelman facility," he wrote.

"As further data have been collected over time, the consent judgment has been amended several times under court supervision after consideration of the scientific data with MDEQ. Since acquiring Gelman, Pall has been addressing the dioxane contamination in a manner approved by the courts."

Blair wrote that Pall will continue to engage with the DEQ, which the company believes is a productive path that respects state regulatory authority and the legal process that has afforded court supervision over the cleanup for years.

"We agree that everyone would benefit from future discussions, grounded in sound science," he added. "Part of the current dialogue with MDEQ includes MDEQ's sponsorship of a facilitated community engagement process that Pall has been invited to join. We believe this proposed process could provide an appropriate and productive path for direct engagement with you as well as with other leaders of the communities that you represent.

"Until that community engagement process begins, Farsad Fotouhi will continue to serve as Pall's contact person for any further communication on this matter."

Sue Leeming, acting chief of the DEQ's Remediation and Redevelopment Division, said the DEQ is making progress on organizing a community engagement process that will be led by a professional facilitator.

"We hope to include Gelman Inc. and balanced representation from the community, including citizens and representatives from the local units of government (Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor Township, Scio Township, and Washtenaw County)," she said in an email. "We plan to get this going in November. We are excited about this process and are looking forward to productive, science-based discussions that will lead to sharing of information and positive actions that will help the DEQ protect the public health and groundwater quality."

Ryan Stanton covers the city beat for The Ann Arbor News. Reach him at ryanstanton@mlive.com.
This post has been updated to include new information.

VAN BUREN TOWNSHIP, MI - A man has died after police shot him during a confrontation Friday, Sept. 30 in Van Buren Township, police say.

Michigan State Police Lt. Mike Shaw said troopers shot a man in the side after he got out of his truck with a gun and took a shooting stance near the entrance to Lower Huron MetroPark after a police chase from Taylor.

The man did not have identification on him, Shaw said.

At 12:58 p.m. Friday, a trooper stopped a driver for a seatbelt violation at Van Born and Telegraph roads in Taylor, Shaw said. The man drove away and led police on a chase, starting in a neighborhood and then getting on westbound I-94 to northbound 275 to Ford Road, then Cherry Hill Road and Haggerty Road.

Troopers tried to stop the truck with two precision immobilization technique maneuvers. One officer was injured during one of the PIT maneuvers, Shaw said, and will have to get stitches after seriously dislocating his thumb.

Police boxed the truck in at the entrance of Lower Huron MetroPark after the second PIT maneuver caused him to spin out, and the man got out of his truck with a 9-mm Glock handgun and ran into the treeline. At least one trooper shot at him when the man when into a firing stance, Shaw said.

Huron Valley Ambulance transported him in critical condition to St. Joseph Mercy Hospital where he later died, according to MSP.

"All he had to do was stop, he would have had contact with the trooper. The trooper may or may not have wrote him a citation. If he had a warrant or if he was suspended, they would have dealt with it and he would have been on his way," he said. "Now we've got to go tell a family that, you know, their loved one is dead because of a contact with law enforcement.

"I've got two troopers in my section that will never forget this as long as they live," Shaw continued. "I've got a trooper that's injured and is going to be off work, not providing services to the citizens of Michigan."

Two troopers were involved in the shooting and fired their guns, although right now Shaw said he doesn't know how many shots were fired or whether the suspect fired his gun.

Both were assigned to a special enforcement section motor unit; one trooper has 12 years of experience, and one has eight years of experience.

Shaw said police are working to identify the man and notify his next of kin.

Michigan State Police are continuing the investigation. Haggerty Road and East Huron River Drive were shut down around 1:45 p.m., and state police said the roads had re-opened at 7:30 p.m.

MLive reporter Logan Hansen contributed to this report.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30

By Orkhan Guluzade  Trend:

The Israeli government has paid a compensation of $20 million to Turkey for the Freedom Flotilla incident, Hurriyet newspaper reports.

The money was transferred to the bank account of Turkeys Ministry of Justice, according to the newspaper.

Turkeys government will divide the compensation payment between families of victims of the Freedom Flotilla incident.

Meanwhile, preparations are underway in Foreign Ministry for appointing Turkeys first ambassador to Israel after restoration of relations between the two countries. At the same time, Israel is expected to appoint its ambassador to Turkey.

Relations between Israel and Turkey deteriorated after the Freedom Flotilla incident in 2010, when a convoy of six ships, including one flying Turkey's flag, tried to approach the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid and activists on board.

The flotilla was blocked and stormed by Israeli forces, with eight Turkish citizens being killed as a result.
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Michigan First Lady Sue Snyder, Gov. Rick Snyder and Kelsey Snyder kick off the second "Inform. Empower, Prevent. Let's End Campus Sexual Assault" summit on the University of Michigan Campus on Sept. 30. Photo provided l Michael Corn, Executive Office of Gov. Snyder

ANN ARBOR, MI - While there is more work to be done on college campuses across the country to end sexual assaults and rape culture, Michigan First Lady Sue Snyder said she believes interventions have come a long way.

The second "Inform. Empower. Prevent. Let's End Campus Sexual Assault" summit, which took place on Friday, Sept. 30, on the University of Michigan campus, aimed to build off the mission Snyder and other organizers presented at the first summit in June 2015.

"When we walked into that room last year, everybody was just deadpan and nobody really knew what to expect, because nobody wanted to talk about it," Snyder said. "We got up there and started saying this is a critical issue and we've got to be free to talk about it. We have to talk about it, we've got to get the students involved. I think it opened up a big door. This year it's just free-flowing and it's really come a long way."

Snyder hopes that openness to talk about what can be an uncomfortable topic of conversation will increase as the issue continues to pervade college campuses across the country.

Snyder's summit presented themes including incorporating student-athletes and members of Greek life into the conversation of assault prevention, highlighting how Michigan's colleges and universities are using grant dollars to launch assault prevention programs and changing the culture around sexual assault.

In an ongoing effort to help reduce sexual assaults on campuses across Michigan, the Campus Sexual Assault Program is accepting grant applications for the 2017 fiscal year from Michigan colleges and universities. This is the second round of grants after the First Lady and Michigan State Police Director Col. Kristie Kibbey Etue announced the program last year.

Grant applications began on Sept. 1 and continue through Oct. 13, and eligible applicants can submit up to two applications for projects in program areas including education, awareness, prevention, reporting and bystander innovation.

Snyder helped secure $500,000 in state funding for another round of grants through the Campus Sexual Assault Grant Program. Last year those grants helped 22 colleges institute programs for things like bystander training and educational materials.

The program has come a long way in its second go-round, Snyder said, making the work already taking place on college campuses rewarding.

"There have been so many new and innovative ideas and that's what the grant money was for," she said. "I'm just hoping everyone walks away with something that's going to help them change the culture to inform, empower and prevent with everyone they talk to."

Snyder was joined by her husband, Gov. Rick Snyder, and her daughter, Kelsey, who spoke about the impact of those grant dollars they've already seen.

The governor said an increase in the number of sexual assaults reported on campuses is a good indicator that students feel more comfortable in reporting incidents.

That can be sobering to see initially, he said, but it shows students have more information about who to contact and what resources are available to them if they need help.

"It's actually interesting to see the numbers go up," Rick Snyder said. "It's terrible to see them go up, but most likely it's because of reporting that wasn't reported before. You have to take that into account, but the goal is to reduce it over time. Obviously, you can see it increase as you see more awareness, but hopefully prevention starts kicking in to see that number go down."

Sexual assault survivor Natasha Alexenko, who shared her emotional testimony on Friday, reminded audience members that an estimated 1 in 5 women on college campuses may be the victim of a sexual assault over the course of their college career.

In 1993, Alexenko, then a 20-year-old college student in New York City, was violently raped, robbed and sodomized at gunpoint. Her rape kit sat on a shelf at the New York City Police Department property clerk's office for more than nine years while her perpetrator remained at-large, committing crimes in eight other states across the country.

"There is nothing else I can think of that affects that huge a part of our population that we talk about so little," she said. "It's crazy. Why aren't we talking about this? We're talking about it a little more, but we need to continue talking about it more."

Alexenko now works to empower victims of sexual assault through Natasha's Justice Project, a nonprofit that seeks to end the nation's current rape kit backlog crisis and empower and assist survivors of sexual assault through travel grants to testify at their trials.

"I think that danger we encounter around sexual assault is not talking about it enough," she said. "The reason I talk about my sexual assault is to take some of the stigma out of it. I think perpetrators are counting on their victims remaining silent."

Summit co-chairs including U.S. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, state Senators Tonya Schuitmaker and Rebekah Warren and state Representatives Laura Cox and Marilyn Lane said being involved with the summit has allowed them to engage with their legislative colleagues in talking about how state dollars can be better spent to address sexual assault on college campuses.

"As legislators, it allowed us to talk to our colleagues about this issue and be able to set the stage to come back with this year's budget and talk about what additional work needs to be done," Warren said.

Beyond state funding, Cox said engaging with college students is a major component in being involved with the summit.

Listening to students, she said, not only gives them a better idea of what issues are the most pressing on college campuses, it also lets students know that their legislative representatives care about them during what can be a vulnerable time in their lives.

"We want to let the people who we're trying to educate know that we care," she said. "We want to incorporate them into the process and hear their ideas and experiences. I think it's really important, because it's such a different time in their life and they need to know that we can hear them."
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The Michigan Firehouse Museum in Ypsilanti on Feb. 27, 2014.

(The Ann Arbor News file)

YPSILANTI, MI - Nine Depot Town and downtown restaurants are gathering up their beans, beef, chicken and chiles for a chili cook-off Sunday, Oct. 2, to benefit the Michigan Firehouse Museum.

Bona Sera organized the event, which takes place at 3 p.m. at the Firehouse, and co-owner Annette Weathers says the only rules are for the recipes to include one to three kinds of chiles.

Categories include best chili, people's choice and most creative recipe, and the list of celebrity judges includes Eli Morrissey, Janette Rook, Cre Fuller, Tyler Weston, Amanda Edmonds, D'Real Graham and Bill Milliken.

All proceeds go to the museum, which is located at 110 W. Cross St. Entry is $12 a head, and beer and kombucha donated from Arbor Brewing, the Ypsi Alehouse and Unity Vibration will cost $5.

Among those serving bowls are Bona Sera, Sidetrack, Red Rock Barbecue, Wurst Bar, Ypsi Alehouse, Cafe Ollie, Go Ice Cream, Beezy's and the Ypsilanti Fire Department.

Located in Ypsilanti's historic district, the Michigan Firehouse Museum was originally built in 1898 and actively housed the Ypsilanti City Fire Department until the mid-1970s.

Some of its highlights include one of the largest collections of fire vehicle sirens and lights, a restored bunk area and brass pole as well as a 12,000-square-foot display facility packed with fire rigs, an apparatus, bells, steamers, hand pumpers dating back to 1826 and other educational memorabilia.

Weathers said the idea for the cook-off came about after Bona Sera catered an event at the Firehouse Museum earlier this year. She had never been in the museum prior to that job, and she said she discovered what a cool place it is.

"I just had no idea what was in there. We decided that we would try to help them out with a chili cook-off, which is an obvious choice for a firehouse," Weathers said. "And it has been fun to get smack talking."

There's been no shortage of that on Facebook and on the street. Sidetrack owner Linda French told The Ann Arbor News the cook-off is less of a contest than a "chili smackdown" she intends to deliver on her neighbors and downtown businesses.

She declined to reveal any secrets to her recipe when asked by a reporter, and instead offered a warning to her competitors: "We're comin' for you!"

Weathers said the French ladies are "trash talkers from birth" and scoffed at French's warning.

"We'll see you on Sunday," she replied.

Find more Ypsilanti-area news here.
Aerial photos of Saginaw and Bay City

An aerial view of downtown Bay City on July 14, 2016.

(Jacob Hamilton | MLive.com)

BAY CITY, MI -- Looking to tap an undeveloped rum market, a Caro native is considering a microdistillery, tasting room and restaurant for downtown Bay City after the city council from his hometown shot down the idea earlier this month.

Scott Romain

The entrepreneur behind the idea, Scott D. Romain, a 2004 Caro High School graduate who works in sales in Metro Detroit, says Bay City was initially his top choice for the estimated $1.2 million project that could employ about 30 people. After meeting with Bay City officials earlier this year, though, a building in downtown Caro came up for sale that he felt would be a better situation for his family.

The plan was to open the microdistillery and tasting room, along with a restaurant called "The Destination," in Caro, but the city council there last week voted 5-2 against recommending the state grant liquor licenses to the businesses.

While the state ultimately approves liquor licenses, Romain said he only wants to operate his business in a town that supports the endeavor.

"I haven't ruled (Caro) out, but I want to work in a town that supports the business," Romain said. "Bay City has a vibrant downtown and I think this idea fits well with its other businesses."

Romain is also in talks with city leaders in Vassar, Sebewaing and Croswell about his business plans.

Thumb Rum and Brew

Romaine hopes to capitalize on what he says is an undeveloped craft rum market.

"If you look to places like Traverse City, Grand Rapids and Detroit, you see whiskey and vodka distilleries -- they're everywhere," he said. "There was a similar craze in the '90s with microbreweries. Because rum is such a complicated flavor profile, it really hasn't been done yet.

"We think we are in the perfect location to make it work."

That's because one of the key ingredients in rum is molasses, meaning sugar. The proximity of Michigan Sugar Co., headquartered in Bay City, makes a rum distillery a no-brainer, Romaine said.

"I love the idea of using local molasses, because it brings money back to the community," he said.

He plans to call his product Thumb Rum and Brew and initially distribute the Carribean-style rum across Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.

Romaine thought up the idea of going into the rum business with a family friend, Russell Glasgow. Glasgow died unexpectedly last spring after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. Glasgow's son, Andrew, will serve as the master distiller. Romaine said the microdistillery would hire seven people to start the business.

The initial plan is to get a microdistillery operation up and running. From there, Romaine would look to add a tasting room, followed by a restaurant, "The Destination."

There's still a chance he could locate in Caro -- he's going before the city council there on Monday, Oct. 3, to pitch his idea one more time -- but said that regardless of what happens, he wants to come to Bay City.

"In whatever capacity that may be, we still want to come to Bay City," he said. "Whether it's a restaurant or a tasting room, we want to be in downtown Bay City."
BAY CITY, MI -- In September 2012, decorated military veteran Benjamin O. Green said he was on the cusp of kicking an opiate addiction he'd battled for years. Flash forward four years, nearly to the day, and Green stands guilty of a heroin-related felony after a relapse.

Green on Thursday, Sept. 29, appeared before Bay County Circuit Judge Harry P. Gill and pleaded guilty to one count of possessing less than 25 grams of a narcotic or cocaine. The charge is punishable by up to four years in prison.

In exchange for his plea, the prosecution agreed to dismiss a count of improper transportation of medical marijuana, a 93-day misdemeanor. The prosecution is also recommending Green receive 7411 status at sentencing, which means he'd receive probation and if he's successful on it, the drug conviction won't stay on his record.

Green's trial was to begin Tuesday, Oct. 4.

Green's legal woes are nearly a year old. Back in the wee hours of Oct. 19, Michigan State Police troopers pulled over a 2000 Buick that was heading north on North Madison Avenue near Third Street in Bay City. Troopers initiated the stop due to the Buick having a non-functioning brake light, court records show.

Green was a passenger in the car. Troopers noticed he had a partially smoked joint in his lap and they had him and the male driver step out of the car, court records show. Troopers searched them and found on Green a syringe, a burnt spoon, and cellophane cigarette wrapper containing a folded piece of paper with brown powder inside it, court records show.

Troopers read Green his Miranda rights, which he waived. He told the troopers he had his friend drive him from his home in Clare to Bay County, specifically to Huntington Place Apartments in Hampton Township. There, Green said he acquired a half a gram of heroin from a man. He added that he is a medical marijuana patient, but knew it was illegal to be transporting a joint in such a manner, court records show.

Green told the troopers he relapsed on heroin a few days prior and that he also buys the illicit opiate in Saginaw, court records show.

The driver told troopers he had no idea Green was planning to buy drugs.

Police released both men at the scene. The state police Crime Lab later determined the substances Green had on him consisted of 0.13 grams of marijuana and 0.18 grams of heroin, court records show.

The day before police stopped the car Green was riding in, Green was at Huntington Place Apartments when an associate of his, Tyler L. Schmidt, overdosed on heroin. Emergency responders were able to revive Schmidt. Earlier this month, Schmidt pleaded guilty to one count of using a narcotic and is awaiting sentencing.

Green's past

Green, a Clare native, moved to Bay City in 2009 after serving three tours in the Middle East with two branches of the military.

Benjamin Green's U.S. Marine Boot Camp portrait from March 2001.

He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in January 2001, when he was 17. He was first stationed at Camp Coyote in Kuwait from Feb. 14, 2003, through July 1, 2003.

His second tour lasted from Aug. 23, 2004, through April 1, 2005, in Iraq. He was honorably discharged from the Marines at the rank of sergeant on Jan. 26, 2006.

Green enlisted in the U.S. Army in February 2007 and was deployed to Kirkuk, Iraq, serving there from September 2007 through January 2008. Upon returning home, he was honorably discharged from the Army.

During his years of service, he received the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Rifle Expert Badge, the Pistol Expert Badge and a Certificate of Appreciation, his discharge paperwork shows.

While with the Marines in 2002, he developed a painful dental condition requiring the extraction of one of his front teeth. Five years later, he was plagued by severe root pain in another tooth.

Military doctors prescribed Green painkillers including Tylenol 3, Vicodin and Percocet. Over time, Green developed an addiction to the substances, saying that not only did they reduce the physical pain, but also numbed him to his post-traumatic stress disorder and nightmares.

Three days before Green left the Army, a dentist pulled his second tooth and ended the flow of painkillers. Back in Michigan, he obtained medication and mood stabilizers from a VA hospital, and he eventually turned to buying pills on the street.

Methadone is a synthetic opioid intended to relieve addicts of withdrawal symptoms without getting them high. It is classified as a Schedule II substance by the Drug Enforcement Administration, alongside other drugs like opium, morphine and codeine.

Had Green qualified for Medicaid, he could have received the methadone for free at the Carrollton Township clinic.

For two years, Green's choices were to pay $80 per week out of his own pocket to obtain methadone at a clinic in Saginaw County's Carrollton Township, or to receive the health care his military service entitles him to by traveling 100 miles one way, six times per week, to the nearest Veterans Administration facility that supplies methadone in Detroit.

In August 2012, Green told The Times he felt abandoned by the government for which he fought. A series of MLive articles that month shined a light on Green's predicament, including the story "Decorated Bay City veteran fights the system in his battle to beat drug addiction."

On Sept. 7, 2012, the VA called Green to let him know the agency was reimbursing him for two years worth of funds he'd spent on methadone dosages. The VA assured him it would foot the bill for his ongoing treatment.

Green received the news just after the birth of his fourth daughter.

At the time, Green said he was planning to use the methadone to wean himself off his opiate addiction. Green said VA officials did not directly reference the articles in their discussions with him.

Green in August 2012 was taking 120 milligrams of methadone daily and had been titrating down by 2 milligrams each week since early October of that year.

"By October of next year, I'll be done," he said in September 2012. "I can't wait."

Judge Gill is slated to sentence Green at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 21.
Camel milk, which has a therapeutic value, poses a potential in the milk industry. (Photo : Getty Images)

Six years after her bold venture into a fresh business, a young woman from Hebei is making huge humps of money out of camels.



Zheng Linlin, 28, and a native of Tangshan, Hebei, can earn a million yuan in a year by selling camels and their milk. This is in contrast to what she experienced at the beginning of her business where she lost more than a million yuan in the first three years.



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Just like most success stories, Zheng's story started with a lot of challenges. Having a college degree, she was expected by her family to do a white-collar job in the city and not raise camels in the province.



Moreover, the camels, which she bought in Inner Mongolia, were not adapted to the environment in Tangshan, and this caused them illnesses and for some, death. Not finding any veterinarian around, Zheng had to travel back to Inner Mongolia to get some expert advice.



Despite the money she lost, Zheng did not stop from pursuing her vision of building a camel milk industry.



Her passion started when she learned in college that camel milk has an edge over the more common cow's milk, in that the former has a therapeutic value. Camel milk contains insulin, making it a potential natural solution for diabetes.



Her persistence and hard work paid off when she finally mastered how to feed and take care of her camels. Stabilizing their living conditions also meant the stabilization of the yield.



Today, she has 170 camels in all, 50 of which are milking females. The rest are for sale or for tourism activities.



Aside from her farm in Tangshan, Zhang has already opened a breeding facility in Beijing and plans to open another in Shanghai very soon.



She said that her clients are mostly diabetics and the rich, considering that camel milk is significantly more expensive than cow milk. The average cost of camel milk in the market today is 198 yuan, while cow milk is only 10 yuan.



Zhang's business story is one of setbacks and success. Failures are a part of business, but as long as someone has the eye to see a promising opportunity and the courage to take risks, success is just waiting round the corner.


Businessmen in Shanghai to Take Advantage of E-commerce Boom in China

Tencent's WeChat has more than 800 million users. (Photo : Getty Images)

In a recent meeting with the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, businessmen expressed excitement over the rising profits produced by e-commerce.



Scott Williams, vice president of AmCham Shanghai, said that the future for China's e-commerce market is promising.



He said, "Cross-border e-commerce is estimated to be worth $86 billion. The overall e-commerce sector in China employs 3 million people and provides, on top of that, indirectly over 20 million more jobs."



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The increase in e-commerce is manifested by the uphill trend of WeChat membership and heightened activity online.



Recently, Tencent's WeChat registered 806 million active users this year.



"It's very easy to connect with those communities as you join WeChat groups in all those areas," said Williams.



Based on a study done by research company Boston Consultancy Group, "Growth rates in the e-Commerce market are still very high and China principally has become not only one of the largest, but one of the most fascinated e-Commerce markets. China will have around 380 million online shoppers by 2016."



Yi Qian, global business development director of Alibaba Group, believes that the Chinese consumers' interest in imported products is driving more cross-border transactions.



He said, "The fast growth of e-commerce will bring a lot of opportunities to those import and export companies in China."



"The strong export B2C helped a lot of Chinese companies to build their brands globally. There are a lot of opportunities for growth. Last year, I visited a lot of small companies. They started with one or two people and did right by focusing on cross-border e-commerce. Now they have become publicly listed companies," he said.



B2C in China is now reaching 14.8 percent of the country's retail sector, and exceeding the U.S.'s 8 to 9 percent.


Maternal Deaths Increase in China Since the Start of the Two-child Policy

There has been a rise of maternal deaths in China in line with the implementation of the two-child policy. (Photo : Getty Images)

The National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) of China reported that there was an increase in maternal mortality in the first half of the year. The rising trend is blamed on the two-child policy.



The NHFPC report revealed that maternal mortality in 2015 had dropped to 20.1 per 100,000 live births. Infant mortality was 8.1 per 100,000 live births.



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There was a decline of 62.1 percent and 74.8 percent from 2000.



In 2012, a United Nations report stated, "During the past decades, China has made substantial progress in reducing maternal and child mortality."



According to the data of the World Health Organization, China has had a decrease of maternal deaths from 1990 to 2015. In 2015, 27 mothers died in 100,000 who gave birth.



Between 2005 and 2015, there has only been a 5.8 percent decrease in maternal deaths. The two-child policy has changed the trend based on the statistics of the government.



However, the national ratio of maternal mortality in the first half of this year is 18.3 per 100,000 live births. This is about 31 percent higher than last year.



Ma Xiaowei, deputy head of the NHFPC, said that when the two-child policy was kicked off at the start of the year, many couples who wanted a second child decided to get pregnant. Many of the mothers are already high-risk because of their age.



These women already belonged to the 30 to 35 age bracket, according to Liang Zhongtang, a research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.



Liang added that the rise in maternal deaths related to late-in-life pregnancies will decrease in two to three years.



China's reversal of the one-child policy aimed to address the country's aging population that is affecting the manufacturing sector and the lack of skilled workers.


Dozens of construction firms sent a joint letter to the Yangon Region government challenging an August directive from the Yangon Electricity Supply Corporation to install transformers on new buildings that use more than 30 kilowatts of electricity.





The letter, dated September 28 and signed by 40 local developers, says that not all construction companies can afford to install transformers and the cost will inevitably be passed onto budding homeowners, according to co-signatory and developer U Lar Say.

Installing a private transformer costs a lot of money, so it will eventually impact the customers who want to buy the apartment, he said. They will think it will be too expensive.

On August 12, YESC announced that all developers applying for a Building Completion Certificate from Yangon City Development Committee would need to determine whether or not the building required the installation of a private transformer to provide additional power to the structure. The new rule is intended to cope with increased urbanisation, which is putting cost pressures on electricity supply, authorities said at the time.

But developers argue it is too strict. That 30KW of electricity would mean most new projects, around the eight story mark, would require this installation.

The new rule does not apply retrospectively to buildings that are in use. But for those that are under development, where apartments have been pre-sold, the unplanned additional cost has shaken margins, developers say.

Additionally, an influx of transformers, they argue, would be an eyesore for the city.





In any street there would be many apartments with their private transformers cluttering the street, U Lar Say said. That would mean complex systems of cables and wires, which could be a dangerous fire hazard.

The developers are calling for a return to the previous system, where a private transformer was only required on buildings using more than 180 kilowatts of electricity.

YESC spokesperson U Saw Win Maung said the electricity provider was sticking to its August 12 directive and it would be up to the board of directors to consider any private sector requests.

Daw Nilar Kyaw, Yangon Region minister for electricity, infrastructure and transportation, said that they would hold a meeting with the developers and YESC in the near future.
Yangon authorities put a freeze on high-rise projects in May while it carried out inspections. The suspension threw the industry into a state of panic as workers were let off and budgets were thrown into disarray. Amid a climate of uncertainty, The Myanmar Times sat down with U Khin Shwe, patron of the Myanmar Construction Entrepreneurs Association, this week to discuss market conditions and industry policy.





What is the current state of the condo market? And where do you see it heading in the future?

There are a lot of apartments on the market, but people cant afford to buy them. There is also a lot of unemployment in the country, but most of the job opportunities are in Yangon.

The construction sector can play an important role in the countrys economy. Chinas government, for example, constructed buildings to create job opportunities for its people. As people get jobs, they spend more, which is good for the economy.

More residential buildings with good access to water and electricity and with better security should continue to be developed. The market for these buildings already exists and needs to be fulfilled.

For the time being, executive apartments are not in huge demand. But in the coming years, more foreigners will enter the market as more investors come to the country. If so, the current number of office space and condos wont be enough. So developers will need to determine the future needs of the market by estimating what things will look like in the next three or four years.

Developers and the government are at odds amid a lot of uncertainty. Developers say they need more clarity on the rules and regulations affecting the industry. What is your call on this?

The government cant just directly instruct the construction sector, or even the whole economy, on exactly what to do. If it interferes too much, it is overstepping the mark.





What the government should do is to watch the market and consider measures to rein it in if there are problems. For example, it needs to supervise developers to ensure good-quality buildings. If a high-rise building is in accordance with the policy, it should be allowed to go ahead. But at the moment, a permit is not decided by policy, it is decided by discretion, decided based on the person.

In the near future, international companies will come to Myanmar. So the government needs to set policies that are conducive to them. What we are facing at the moment is a situation where it is difficult to meet with decision makers.

And if we do meet with them there is no guarantee we will be granted a permit. These are million-dollar projects. They need to agree on a policy and work to it. If they dont, investors will lose confidence and investments will go elsewhere.

Read more: Making sense of the high-rise review

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
He has heard the future, and it is vinyl. Hip-hop artist Thar Soes music is being recycled back to Myanmar via Japan, and in the form of gramophone records.





Concrete Music Productions, the Japanese firm that offered to produce his work last November, says the next album is 70 percent complete and could be on sale here in January. Ra Tha Ru will included six of Thar Soes most famous Myanmar songs, plus four more in English and two in Japanese.

The English songs include, The Devil Has the Best Tunes, Activate Now, Stupide and Welcome to Tokyo.

I produced it in Japan after visiting the Tokyo Festival last November and performing with Japanese musicians as a representative of Myanmar. A journalist familiar with my work introduced me to Concrete, said Thar Soe.

His songs will go on sale in Japan in December in vinyl form. He aims to distribute his songs internationally to Japan, France and the United States next year.

For an artist who has become known for sampling old Myanmar songs in his hip-hop records  his first album, Yaw Tha Ma Mwe (Mix and Stir) was a nationwide hit  its somewhat fitting that his new album be produced on vinyl. Theres just one problem of course  most people in Myanmar no longer use gramophones.

But Thar Soe has that covered. The gramophone records to be sold here will include a password enabling buyers to download his songs online. The price of a record in Japan will be US$40, but is likely to go on the market here for about $5 or $6 in January 2017.

My work has been distributed in France and played on French radio since 2009. My song Kyo Gyi Kyaw has been broadcasted by France state-run radio many times. People from the Department of Culture at the French embassy in Myanmar had requested the radio station to broadcast my music. Ive also been interviewed by some French newspapers, he said.





He said the aim of fusion between Myanmar and Western music was to bring his music to a larger international audience and to show that Myanmar could produce great works. Everybody knows about Bagan. But how many people know that Bagan produces great music? he said.

Not that it has been easy. Thar Soes attempts date back to the time he created his own mix song, Yaw Tha Ma Mway. He was studying audio engineering in London, and his attention was caught by a new kind of music produced by a combination of Myanmars nat doe (traditional nat music) and Western music.

This is the kind of material Myanmar can produce. I want the rest of the world to know that. Other Asian countries, Japan, India, they have their own distinctive kind of music that is like nothing else. I assume that Myanmar music is a combination of India and Chinese influences. It uses the Indian tabla and the Chinese harp. Ive created my own style by combining the two instruments. Myanmar music is of a very high standard and is particularly suited to mood music. Im still studying it, and I think all young people should do the same, he said.

Translation by San Layy and Win Thaw Tar
The going was tough when Mark McDowell became Canadas first resident ambassador to Myanmar in 2013.





We started by working out of two converted changing rooms in the British embassy, he said. The British were very nice to give us those changing rooms, but it was pretty grim.

Before McDowells three-year tenure comes to an end today, he spoke with The Myanmar Times about his time since these modest beginnings.

Canadas diplomatic corps has since moved to the ritzy Centrepoint Towers in downtown Yangon. And, as this interview took place on a Friday, the ambassador wore a green chequered longyi.

If I had to make a list of my 10 greatest achievements here, longyi Fridays at the embassy is definitely number one, he said laughing.

More seriously, he added this was part of a personal crusade to encourage local staff to uphold the beautiful aspects of their culture in the face of lightning-fast modernisation.

For example, you never see women wearing thanakha in this building, he said. Its sad.

The ambassador seemed unlike a typical cookie-cut diplomat. There was much more time spent chatting about lessons learned and the sheer excitement of a democratic Myanmar than any preapproved talking points from Ottawa.





But whatever the subject  his views should hold water. McDowell was head of the political and economic section at the embassy of Canada in Bangkok from 2003 to 2007, which included 20 visits to Myanmar before being picked as his countrys inaugural ambassador here.

Regarding the new National League for Democracy-led government, McDowell is optimistic: We need to cut them some slack, he said. Remember that democratisation doesnt always end well. Aung San Suu Kyi understood that the absolute most important thing was  a peaceful transition. And she achieved that.

He also said the new government should be applauded for wading as far as it has into third-rail topics of the peace process and the situation in Rakhine State this early into their term.

On the role of sanctions: Ill go out on a limb. Ive been on the side that is not very pro sanctions, he said. My experience coming here in 2003 to 2007 and certainly in 2009, well  I think that over the course of the sanctions era we saw the decimation of the middle class.

On challenges ahead: Resources. This is going to be one of the really difficult issues in Myanmar federalism  who gets the money from the rocks under the ground.

The resources sector has huge promise here. I just hope that Myanmar can avoid the mistakes of other countries [at this stage of development] and put that capital to use for broader development.

Looking back, McDowell said the fact that the Canadian embassy is not a heavy-hitter here meant it had to be a niche player. This saw it focus on a set of issues including the support of federalism projects, LGBT organisations  saying the Canadians were one of the earliest embassies to get behind these groups  and freedom of expression events like the Human Rights Human Dignity International Film Festival.

He sees freedom of expression as a chance for what Id like to trademark from worst to first in Southeast Asia.

Canada now looks set to double down on the early foundations put in place by McDowell and his team. On a recent visit, Minister of Foreign Affairs Stephane Dion announced a new U$44 million aid package.

But the next steps for McDowell are far less certain. Love of his newfound home seems far greater than any professional aspirations.

I want to stay here in Myanmar. Its like Ive been watching a really exciting TV series year after year and I just want a few more seasons of it. I want to see what happens next.

In what capacity will he stay?

No idea, he laughed. You may see me on Yangon streets with the sign  Will Conduct Diplomacy For Food.

Canadaphiles can continue to follow Ambassador-maybe-turned-vagabond Mark McDowell on his Facebook account: facebok.com/ambassadormm.
It is almost beautiful enough to bring the mannequin to life. The gorgeous garment, all its sequins glittering, awaits its bride.





The two-piece traditional wedding dress, blouse and skirt is worn with a long stole to the left. Myanmar brides wear no veil, but the stole is hand-stitched with rhinestones, crystal beads, pearls and sequins. The gown is usually made of the finest silk, encrusted with pearls, beads and more sequins.

Htay Htay Tin, 39, has created her latest gowns not only with silk but also with lace and satin. The brides she dresses this season in her acheik designs will be particularly sparkly.

Her trademark long stoles and hand-made trains are significant features of the Magwe Region-born designers work.

Htay Htay Tin didnt want to be a farmer like everyone else in her family. Starting work as a tailor at the age of 14 in her native Taung Twin Gyi, she has devoted her life to fashioning fine clothes.

As a little girl, she even made dresses for her dolls.

She learned basic sewing and knitting at the age of 11 from a neighbour, Daw Thein Thein Tin, who still lives there.





But after Htay Htay Tins father died in 2008 she upped sticks and came to Yangon to follow her dream. After further study with Daw Thida Win at Dozo Fashion Design Technical School in 2009, she got down to work in 2010.

But not alone. She persuaded her mother and sister to sell their land in Magwe and give up farming.

I still remember how crazy I was about clothes, said Htay Htay Tin in a recent interview. Even when I was at college I could make 12 dresses a day.

She opened her first fabric shop in Bogyoke Market in 2011, and showed her first designs in a group fashion show, Lady First, attracting the attention of local fashion magazines.

I love our traditions so much I decided to design wedding dresses for a living, she said. Im happy that people seem to appreciate my creations.

She joined Myanmar Fashion Designers Group (MFDG) and opened another branch at Myanmar Culture Valley in 2014. She also sponsored the Myanmar Beauty Pageant that produced Miss Asia Pacific World 2014.

The next fabric shop she opened was at Landamaw in 2015, when she started accepting trainees in the art of making Western and Myanmar wedding dresses, charging K150,000 for Western classes and K80,000 for traditional. Most of the silks and cotton fabrics from her shop are local, but some of the silks and lace are imported from Thailand.

Fashion is important for everybody, she said. As the country develops, the fashion sector is also expanding. Most people understand fashion, and trends are changing very fast.

Traditions, however, tend not to change that fast. The colours thought to bring good luck are still white, rose pink, lavender, gold and baby blue.

I never use bright colours in my wedding dresses, she said. Myanmar wedding dresses dont need too much creativity. Black is bad luck, but its OK to use it in evening gowns.

She displayed her designs with others at the second MFDG Fashion Show last year, and has now shown in dozens of catwalk shows, at home and abroad.

My career happens to be my dream job, she said. I dont mind how busy I am, what with the training and customising dresses, and running the shops.

Htay Htay Tin is now preparing her first solo show, probably at the end of the year. Shes also looking to launch her own ready-to-wear brand at what she says are very affordable prices.

Htay Htay Tins tips for choosing the right wedding dress

Not sure which style will flatter your body shape? Here are Htay Htay Tins top tips for choosing the right cut for you:

1. For the fuller figure, choose a medium-wave acheik design in a light colour. For the best effect, the waistline should be exact, and the neck wide.

2. Slimmer brides, and those who like the modern look, should opt for a simple design with few accessories. Avoid black.

3. Western dresses should be worn in light colours, with the right sequins and accessories.
Once a leper, always a leper. Sufferers of the fearsome disease say its stigma lingers long after they are cured.





Retired soldier U Tin Win, 70, looks healthy enough. But 14 years ago he contracted the disease, and was immediately abandoned by his family. The only sign of the disease is his deformed toes.

Im like a prisoner. I live alone. I try to live normal life in the community, but I cant, he told The Myanmar Times in a recent interview.

Such is the shame engendered by the disease that those who fear they may have it are loath to visit a clinic. You only have one life to lose, said U Tin Win quietly.

Myanmar announced that it had achieved its leprosy elimination target in 2003. But 2500 to 3000 new leprosy patients still present themselves annually, with incidence largely unchanged for the past 12 years.

Of those cases, 90 percent are diagnosed only when sufferers report to clinics showing symptoms, doctors say. Many of these are children. Up to 70pc of leprosy patients in Myanmar are at risk of further infections, and about 14pc of patients suffer from severe, grade 2 disabilities.

Myanmar is one of the top 16 countries identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as being hyper-endemic for leprosy. Multi-drug therapy (MDT) was introduced in 1988 and gradually integrated into the basic health services, achieving 100pc coverage in registered cases by 1995.





After the elimination announcement, most people misunderstood that the country was clear of leprosy and stopped worrying, said one health professional. But many challenges remain. Leprosy victims suffer social stigma and discrimination, disfigurement, nerve damage and severe stress. Staff shortages and the concentration of resources on other diseases mean that active case detection is less than 20pc and community awareness and participation are low.

According to WHO, which released its most recent leprosy update on September 2, the number of new cases reported globally in 2015 was 210,758, a reduction of over 3000 compared with the previous year, when 213,899 cases were reported.

WHO has declared a target for a new global strategy to be met by 2020 of zero disabilities among new paediatric patients, a grade-2 disability rate of less than 1 per 1 million people and zero legislations, rules and policies that allow discrimination against persons affected by leprosy.

Meeting the WHO target will be a challenge for Myanmar, with its poor infrastructure, shortage of trained staff and many remote communities.

Saw Eh Htoo, program secretary of Myanmar Christian Leprosy Mission (MCLM), said, It will be difficult to meet the WHO goal for 2020. It will require great concentration of effort. With an increase of 3000 new patients a year, we will have to go out in search of them in the community.

Dr Than Win, deputy director general of the Department of Public Health, said, We can treat leprosy. It is curable. But prevention procedures are still needed, and that requires cooperation from everyone

Funding requests have been submitted to organisations supporting anti-leprosy activities, and the government has been implementing an awareness campaign, said Dr Oke Soe, deputy director of the departments leprosy project. Were trying to reach the target, though we cant be sure we can meet it. In any case, we will keep trying.

Dr Myat Thida, former head of Yenatha Leprosy Hospital, said, Im worried about our ability to reach the 2020 goal. There will be many difficulties. This is a big challenge, and could require significant reform.

There are two hospitals for leprosy patients: Yenatha Leprosy Hospital in Madaya township, Mandalay Region, and the Christian Hospital in Mawlamyine township, Mon State. Specialised skin clinics can be found in Yangon, and many sufferers attend Mandalay General Hospital and about 32 clinics that have been opened throughout the country.

Prevention activities have been concentrated in the 162 townships where the existing sufferers live. But there is very little assistance with livelihood-related

We can provide medical services to patients throughout the country. But we cant support their economic and social life, said Dr Oke Soe. Health staff need to be able to spot the symptoms of leprosy and treat them quickly. They should also follow up with checks on neurology. Its not easy to provide the best-quality care. About 90pc of the patients come to hospital with full-blown symptoms.

There is also a need for education and consciousness-raising among health staff. The idea that leprosy is incurable is still very widespread, which can hinder efforts to reach sufferers.

My family understands me. They didnt say anything about my disease, but I feel sad and worried as it is not accepted in society, said Daw Sein Win, 58 years old. Some of my toes are shorter than normal, though I was treated with MDT. Now my bloodstream is clear of the virus, but my toes are still deformed, she said, adding that many of her fellow sufferers feel too ashamed to go to hospital.

Leprosy survivor Daw Myint said, When I got it, I didnt know what it was. I thought it must be some other disease. I tried to treat it with embrocations and analgesics for 20 years. I didnt know anything about leprosy hospitals or clinics, or treatment.

By the time she found out, she had lost her fingers and toes.

Another challenge is donor fatigue. Funding levels fell after it was announced that the disease had been eliminated, said MCLMs U Saw Eh Too. Donations went instead to other forms of disability.

MCLM has been providing both medical care and social support for leprosy sufferers since 1984.

It has opened 11 leprosy centres around the country, but has not received donor funding for nine of them for the past three years.

Were still receiving funding for two of the centres. We cant do as much as we used to. In the past, we supported 800 children whose parents were sufferers, putting them through school right through to university level. Now, we can support only 100 children. A lot of the others just drop out.
A nationwide inventory is being conducted to determine the legality of religious buildings, according to the Ministry of Religion and Culture. Those found not to be in compliance with the laws could be denied funding from their local state and regional religious authorities.





The inspection function was devolved from the national government to the states and regions some years ago, said U Aung San Win, director of the Ministry of Religion and Culture.

He told The Myanmar Times yesterday, [The inspection of] new buildings, modifications and repairs of all religious buildings has been a state and regional function since 2012. The government reminded the state and regional governments of this responsibility in May.

Inspectors gather data on such matters as the name, address and type of building concerned, its area, and the names and other details of trustees.

The designation of illegal religious buildings has been a contentious issue triggering public backlash and allegations of religious discrimination following a stupa-planting spree by a renegade monk in Kayin State, and then two separate incidents of angry mobs destroying Muslim edifices earlier this year.

In Lone Khin, Kachin State, a temporary prayer complex erected without permission from local authorities angered the villages Buddhist community who demanded the local administration take action. Finding the government channels too slow, an angry mob then razed the structures on July 1.

More recently, Rakhine State officials have announced plans to scrutinise and then demolish thousands of illegal buildings, including dozens of mosques and madrassas in Muslim-majority townships.

But the religion ministrys index appears to be aimed at controlling funding streams.





Religious buildings have to be registered to ensure they receive grants. Theres not much room for new building in Yangon, said regional religious affairs director U Sein Maw.

Buddhist monasteries must have their status verified by the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee (Ma Ha Na) or risk losing grant funding, he added.

In Shan State, a department of religion official, U Aung Than Maung, said the state government had sent out requests for the information, but not all the details had been provided.

Some townships have filled in all the forms, but not all, he said.

Under the previous government, 137 Yangon monasteries were found to be illegal. The number of unauthorised monasteries in Nay Pyi Taw was found to be 24, and there were 86 unauthorised monasteries in the other regions and states.

At a meeting last week with Yangon Region religious authorities, Union Minister for Religion Thura U Aung Ko said the new government, which is presiding over its first such inventory, had collected all the necessary background data.
Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand who are waging a court battle against a poultry company have applied to the Thai government for a stipend to support them during their litigation, according to a rights group.





U Sein Htay, chair of the Migrant Workers Rights Network, said that the migrant workers are eligible to receive the stipend under Thai law as the owner of Thammakaset Farm 2, the poultry farm where the abuses took place, has not complied with a court order that earlier this year awarded the workers 1.7 million baht (US$49,000) in back-paid wages.

He said that the workers could apply to Thailands Department of Labour Protection and Welfare for the 300 baht a day stipend for a period of up to 60 days.

The [Thai] government must approve the stipend in accordance with their rules and regulations. Once approved, the workers will receive 18,000 baht each, he added.

Unsatisfied with the 1.7 million baht in compensation awarded by the Lopburi Labour Protection and Welfare Office against the poultry farm owner, the exploited workers are seeking 46 million baht from the poultry giant Betagro, which sourced some of its chicken from Thammakaset Farm 2.

The Thai governments contribution will assist the migrant workers in their fight for justice.

We applied for the stipend as we need money to support ourselves throughout the litigation and give us a little breathing room, said Ko Zaw, who led the stipend application.

He added that in addition to the suit against Betagro, the migrant workers are also involved in other litigation with the Lopburi factory owners, who have launched a counter-suit against the workers for damaging the firms reputation and causing hundreds of millions of baht in lost business.





The migrant workers case threatens to turn the spotlight on alleged abuses in Thailands poultry farming trade, an industry that has long avoided the kind of criticism the Thai seafood industry has faced, despite also being rife with maltreatment of workers, many of whom are migrants from Myanmar.

The chicken factory in central Lopburi province was accused in a June 28 complaint of forcing its employees to work punishing hours for pay below minimum wage. Workers said they were forced to work 65 days straight before getting just three days time off, with workdays stretching from 7am to 5pm.

The workers compensation case against the Betagro, which was supplied by the factory, is scheduled to be heard in late October.
When photos of the brutal scars and bent bones of two teenage maids went viral on social media earlier this month, they launched on outpouring of public criticism directed at the rights body responsible for investigating the case. Instead of immediately imprisoning the culprits behind the shocking abuse, the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission brokered a financial settlement and allegedly then washed its hands of the case, considering the complaint resolved.





But the public rage has also stirred up renewed attention on the issue of child abuse, and revealed that the horrific case was only one incident in a much larger, rather common problem, which sees children regularly exploited, trafficked and even killed.

Under scrutiny from lawmakers, activists and the government, the MNHCR has released updates on two other, similar incidents. And the spotlight has helped lawsuits long ago relegated to languish in the courts gain renewed traction.

In one instance investigated by the MNHCR, Ma Than Than Ei, a 16-year-old, escaped after two years of abuse at the hands of her adopted mother.

In April 2013, Daw Aye Aye Win told one of her struggling North Dagon neighbours that she could look after the neighbours daughter, and even sponsor her to be a nun. Instead, the child was put to work in Daw Aye Aye Wins home and frequently tortured.

According to an MNHRC statement released last week, the underage maid was regularly beaten with an iron chain and a wooden paddle. Her fingernails were pulled out by pliers and her foster mother poured scalding water over her. A daughter and son-in-law allegedly helped in the abuse.

Ma Than Than Ei escaped in 2015 and with the help of a ward administrator found her family. Her aunt filed a complaint at the North Dagon Police Station on July 17, 2015, officers confirmed.

But despite the intense violence the underage maid suffered, the police proceeded through the case as if at a loss, filing charges for obscene acts, grievous hurt and assaulting a woman  and then, under the instruction of the township law office, added attempted murder.





It was only on September 22 this year that the Anti-Human Trafficking Police got involved and added two additional charges for the trafficking and enslavement of a child.

The three offenders are in Insein Prison, but more than a year after the initial charges were filed, the court has yet to announce a verdict or sentence in the case.

Prominent human rights lawyer U Robert Sann Aung said it is not unusual for cases to proceed so sluggishly.

There are a lot of cases backpiling in the court and the judges take a long time. Some cases take one or two years to reach a final decision. Sometimes, the court cannot even start hearings because witnesses are absent, he said.

In another case involving an eight-year-old housemaid in the home of a military lawmaker, the MNHRC said 17 hearings have been held as of September 19, with no date set for the verdict.

The young girl was repeatedly stripped naked and beaten at the Bahan township household, according to the rights commission.

The commission members could not be reached for comment on the cases, or for further details on their involvement in investigating the two complaints.

While there are no statistics on underage domestic workers employed in Myanmar, anecdotal evidence suggests the practice is common. And the scourge is hard to fight, as the abuse typically takes place in private homes behind closed doors, preying on one of the most vulnerable populations  impoverished children.

U Robert Sann Aung said that if the government wants to get serious about curtailing the abuse of child domestic workers, it needs to take aim at traffickers. Rural poverty coupled with a growing urban middle class seeking cheap household help drives the trade, which is often facilitated by brokers.

The authorities should handle the issue by targeting local human traffickers because the children who are working as housemaids have mostly been trafficked, he said.

He also blamed the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement and the Ministry of Labour for failing to protect children, and called for new legislation that will stop the abuse. There is currently no law in place to protect working children and ensure their health and safety on the job.

U Soe Aung, a spokesperson from the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, denied the need for such legislation, however.

If rules and regulations were effectively enforced in our country, it would be enough to handle child abuse cases through the Child Law and the labour laws, he said. I see no need to draft new legislation.

He added that another priority should be focusing on educating homeowners on not abusing or torturing child domestic servants.

Lower house lawmaker Daw Phyu Phyu Thin (NLD; Mingalar Taung Nyunt) said the child domestic worker cases are testing the judicial system, an area her party has prioritised for reform. She also said the cases proved the need not only to urgently reform the judicial system but also to form a separate justice ministry.

Aaron Greenberg, chief of child protection at UNICEF Myanmar, said that child protection systems need to be a key part of the new governments reform agenda.

Child protection has gained momentum in Myanmar over recent years, not so much because of the number of cases of violence reported, but out of awareness that it was a glaring gap in addressing child rights in the country, he said, adding that the public outcry around the case of the two girls shows that the public is not willing to tolerate such abuse and sends a strong signal that people are willing to play their part in protecting every child in Myanmar.
Typhoon Megi hits China and caused landslides. (Photo : Getty Images)

Typhoon Megi hit mainland China and affecting residents in China's eastern Zhejiang Province. Nonstop raining caused landslides that swept residents in the area.



There are 27 people missing and buried dozens of houses. A mass of debris started rolling from the mountains as seen in posts on Sina Weibo.



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Critics slammed local governments of frequently hit coastal provinces in China's east because they misallocate funding that is supposed to build defenses against floods and other problems caused by heavy rain.



The Suichang county government issued on its website that said, "This rescue operation is a race against time. The assembly horn has already been sounded. Every single person should spare no effort."



The local government in Fujian has relocated more than 120,000 people who work close to shore. There were 31,700 fishing boats recalled to port to avoid the high winds.



Typhoon Megi killed four people and injured more than 523 in Taiwan, which came from the Pacific and made landfall at 4:40 a.m. local time.



Chinese authorities issued their third-highest severe weather warning in anticipation of the storm.



When the typhoon hit Taiwan, Mega was mustering winds of 132 kilometers per hour. It was classified as a level 4 hurricane.



Four people were killed and about 250 were injured in the island nation.



Drastic temperature changes in the Pacific is causing typhoons to be stronger and develop more often. According to meteorologists, drastic weather changes are brought about by climate change.



Climate change is causing ice to melt in the Arctic and is the major cause for the ocean's change in temperature. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is at the forefront of research on climate change.



Last week, NASA reported, "Arctic sea ice appeared to have reached its annual lowest extent on Sept. 10."


The labour ministry has blacklisted 24 companies and six labour agents for failing to protect migrant workers overseas.





U Thein Swe, Union minister for Labour, Immigration and Population, said the offending firms and agents have been put on a blacklist and will not be able to send workers any longer. He did not provide the names on the blacklist.

He made the announcement on September 28, as three more MPs took the floor in parliament to press the government to do more to protect Myanmar migrant worforce. All speakers in the debate so far  including MPs from the National League for Democracy and the Union Solidarity and Development Party, and a military representative  have taken the same stand.

The current ruling party, like its predecessor, has come under criticism for failing to do more to protect the hundreds of thousands of Myanmar workers who have been driven by poverty and unemployment at home to take jobs abroad that are often dangerous and ill-paid. Many, including those whose status is legal, have complained of exploitation, and others become victims of human trafficking.

Pyithu Hluttaw MP U Kyaw Aung Lwin (NLD; Sidoktaya) said, Our citizens are facing torture, oppression and exploitation.

Military MP Major Tin Aung Win said the military stood ready to assist Myanmar workers who faced problems overseas. The country is facing a loss of its human resources amid political instability and crime, including human trafficking, exploitation and slavery. The security of the next generation must be ensured, he told MPs.

Former Union Minister for Industry and Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs U Maung Myint (USDP, Mingin) said job opportunities should be created with decent wages to stem the exodus of workers.

We must adopt policies to create jobs by attracting foreign direct investment. This is not just about protecting local businesses, he said.





Minister U Thein Swe said more could be done to draw up an exact list of overseas workers.

He added, The government faces difficulties in protecting illegal workers from exploitation because it does not know where they are or what work they are doing.

The government has issued ID documents for 1.7 million illegal workers in Thailand, and granted visa extensions for documented workers. The Thai government has also issued temporary work permits for some Myanmar workers.

Minister U Thein Swe said the government had approved a 12-point policy designed to stimulate the economy, reduce poverty and create jobs.

Translation by San Layy and Khine Thazin Han
A coalition of civil society groups has accused the military of stoking renewed conflict in Kayin State in an attempt to advance construction of the Hatgyi hydropower mega-dam.





Karen Rivers Watch, a network of Karen community-based organisations, made the allegations at the Orchid Hotel in Yangon yesterday, saying, The Burma army is taking advantage of the BGF-DKBA splinter group conflict to take new territory and reinforce its forward positions in Karen [Kayin] State.

The conflict between an allied Tatmadaw-Border Guard Force contingent and an offshoot of the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army broke out earlier this month, with the factors behind its origins murky.

But Saw Thar Boe from Karen Rivers Watch said yesterday that the Tatmadaws motivations were clear, pointing to the close proximity of a recent offensive to an access road to the dam site.

The fighting is directly linked to the Hatgyi dam, he said.

It is estimated that if completed, the Hatgyi dam will generate 1360 megawatts of electricity, 85 percent of which is due to be exported to China and Thailand. It is one of at least six hydropower projects along the Thanlwin River that have long been opposed by social and environmental activists.

Clashes in Hlaingbwe township began early this month, with some reports linking the hostilities to the death of the DKBA splinter groups leader, Major Na Ma Kyar.

Saw Thar Boe said less than a week after the initial fighting broke out, a Tatmadaw-BGF force moved into an area along the road from Myaing Gyi Ngu to Mae Ta Waw, the access route to the Hatgyi dam site.





According to Karen Rivers Watch, On September 12, the BGF demanded that it be allowed to take control of five locations in the Karen National Liberation Army [KNLA] territory on the western side of the Salween [Thanlwin River], near the Hatgyi dam site  Htoh TBa Wai, Klaw Tae Hta, PTae Hta, Yaw Ma Hta and Mae Lah  but the KNLA refused the BGF demands.

The KNLA is the armed wing of the Karen National Union, a nationwide ceasefire agreement signatory, which has demanded an end to this months hostilities.

The fighting has displaced about 4000 people. Others have fled across the border into Thailand, where Naw Dar Dar of the Karen Womens Organisation said they were denied refuge by the Thai government.

Some are still hiding in the jungle. Some of our people are still in trouble, in the middle of the conflict. The BGF and military have taken control of the Mae Tha Waw-Myaing Gyi Ngu road. News has been spreading among the locals that they [Tatmadaw-BGF troops] will kill anyone who passes along the road, Naw Dar Dar said.

Theres no guarantee that that wont happen. We have seen several examples that this could be true.

Ethnic minorities have frequently alleged a link between dam sites and conflict in Kayin State and elsewhere in the country.

Though the conflict in the state has received coverage for most of the month, Saw Thar Boe yesterday sought to link the plight of its victims to another tale of woe that made headlines last week.

Recently in Myanmar, the tortured underage maid story went viral, he said, referring to a widely reported case of abuse at a Yangon tailoring shop.

There was [subsequently] action from the government side, but for our Karen, theres been no action and response for over 4000 of our Karen people who ran for their lives and are facing tragedy.

While demanding pressure and an order to stop the war from the government to the military, Saw Thar Boe acknowledged Myanmars dual polities of power.

The military and the government are not the same group. The government doesnt have power over the military. We went through the government side to address the problems, but no reply and no action, he said.

In the spirit of recent historic peace talks, Karen Rivers Watch demanded that the Tatmadaw halt its Kayin State offensive and work with the KNU/KNLA and other armed groups in the area, through the Joint Monitoring Committee set up following the NCA, to constructively address the conflict and allow unimpeded transport of humanitarian aid and relief supplies to IDPs.

Echoing a campaign among other activists in recent months, the network also called for a moratorium on all large-scale development projects, including the Hatgyi dam, in Kayin State and other ethnic areas until a durable peace is achieved.
Myanmar's air is not only harmful to breathe, its also among the worst in the world, according to new information from the World Health Organization.





The WHOs most detailed data set ever on outdoor air quality found that few if any locations in this country have completely safe air to breathe.

Each nations annual concentration of pollution particles over a certain size was measured  with a concentration of 10 or below considered harmless for humans, while 70 or above was seen as extremely unsafe. Myanmars urban and rural areas combined had a median of 51, and an estimated range of 32 to 80.

These national numbers are very similar to China and India  which are often cited for their dangerous levels of air pollution.

WHO data showed that upwards of 22,000 deaths per year in Myanmar can be attributed to ambient air pollution. It had the third-highest per capita rate in the WHO Southeast Asia region, with India as number one.

The report was unequivocal: Air pollution is the biggest environmental risk to health, it said.

A spokesperson for the WHO Myanmar office said the main sources of outdoor air pollution in Myanmar include inefficient modes of transport, inefficient combustion of household fuels for cooking, lighting and heating, coal-fired power plants, industrial agriculture and waste burning.

She said a very high proportion of households still rely on the use of solid fuel  such as wood, crop waste, charcoal, coal and dung  for cooking purposes: up to 95 percent in rural areas and 81pc in urban areas.





[This] creates high emissions of particulate matter indoors and contributes to high levels of pollutants in ambient air.

Opinion: Counting the true cost of air pollution

The new WHO data set showed that a whopping 92pc of the worlds population lives in places where air quality levels exceed the limit suggested for health reasons.

And the results of breathing in such pollutants have been dire. In 2012, an estimated 6.5 million deaths were associated with indoor and outdoor air pollution  mainly from cardiovascular diseases, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer.

Almost all of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, with nearly two out of three in the Southeast Asia and Western Pacific regions.

Air pollution continues to take a toll on the health of the most vulnerable populations  women, children and the older adults, said WHO assistant director general Dr Flavia Bustreo.

For people to be healthy, they must breathe clean air from their first breath to their last, she said.

The WHO director of the department of public health, environmental and social determinants of health, Dr Maria Neira, said that fast action to tackle air pollution cant come soon enough.

Solutions exist with sustainable transport in cities, solid waste management, access to clean household fuels and cook-stoves, as well as renewable energies and industrial emissions reductions, she said.
Three witnesses gave testimony in Mandalay yesterday at the trial of Dutch tourist Klaas Haytema, who was arrested last week on charges of offending religious sentiments after he unplugged an amplifier used by monks to broadcast a dhamma sermon.





Mr Haytema is accused of disconnecting the amplifier at about 10pm on September 23 outside his hotel near Thusarita Dhammaryone, a religious community hall in Maha Aung Myay township, Mandalay Region.

He has been charged under section 295 of the penal code for intentional insult to religious feelings or beliefs. He is facing additional charges under immigration laws.

In his testimony, complainant U Kyaw San, the head of the group that was reciting the sermon, said he did not personally witness Mr Haytema entering the community hall and then unplugging the amplifier because he was reciting with his eyes closed.

I first noticed that the amplifier was not making any noise. Then I was told that a foreigner had entered and unplugged it, U Kyaw San said.

After I was told this, I went to the tourists hotel and was followed by other people who had heard that a foreigner had entered the community hall wearing his shoes and unplugged the amplifier, he said.

I made a report to police via the ward administrator for the safety of the hotel and the tourist, he added. As word of the incident spread, a crowd gathered outside Mr Haytemas hotel.





The chair of the wards social welfare association, U Chit San, also provided testimony yesterday.

I did not attend the community hall [for the recital] because I was sick. But after I heard what had happened, I went to the hotel at about 10:30pm and asked permission to meet with the hotel manager or hotelier. I told two hotel staff to tell the foreigner to give [monetary] compensation for his actions and to apologise, he said.

I called police because the staff denied [Mr Haytema] was in the hotel and the crowd was getting bigger, U Chit San added.

The third witness, Daw Ohnmar Cho, told the court that she was in the community hall during the incident.

While we were reciting the sermon, a foreigner entered the hall. I thought he had come to watch, she said.

When I looked at him, he said something in English but we did not understand what he said and so kept on reciting. Then, he disconnected the amplifier and left the hall, she added.

Mr Haytema apologised and blamed his conduct on tiredness on September 28. Another hearing in the case will be held this morning.

Translation by Thiri Min Htun
The trial of six family members linked to the years-long abuse and torture of two child housemaids at the Ava Tailoring shop in the commercial capital got underway yesterday at the Yangon Western District Court.





The abuse of Ma San Kay Khine, 16, and Ma Thazin, 17, was first reported to police by a local journalist in June. After months without any action being taken, earlier this month the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission brokered a K5 million (US$4000) financial settlement, paid by the defendants to the victims families.

Myanmar Now chief correspondent Ko Swe Win had brought the commission in after police failed to act, but, dismayed at the payout in lieu of criminal charges, he revealed the case last week. The revelations were widely covered in local media, prompting public outrage and the subsequent arrest of the defendants.

Yesterdays arraignment hearing lasted just 15 minutes, with the judge announcing that the trial will resume on October 6 with the plaintiffs testimony.

The father of the accused family, U Ko Latt, asked the court why they were being charged under human trafficking legislation, but the judge deferred the query until next weeks hearing.

Police have gradually been rounding up the accused family in the days since the first arrest was made on September 20. The last was made on the eve of the initial court hearing, when Ma Thiri Latt, the familys eldest daughter, turned herself into the Kyauktada Township Police on September 28.

Before walking into the station, Ma Thiri Latt proclaimed her innocence on Facebook.





I didnt do anything to Thazin, she wrote.

Thazin knows it too, she added. Although I am ready to get arrested, my two young kids are unwell so I am finding someone to take care of them.

Lawmakers in the lower house voted on September 26 in favour of taking disciplinary action against the MNHRC over the commissions botched handling of the child torture case.

Its victims bear the physical scars of burnings and stabbings, and told police they were kept enslaved against their will for five years at the tailoring shop on 40th Street.

The MNHRC sent a report on its handling of the case to the Presidents Office yesterday, after being instructed to do so without delay.

We didnt set a date to send the report by but the government doesnt want to wait a long time, said Presidents Office deputy director general U Zaw Htay.

Activists wrapped up a petition campaign on September 28, with signatories urging the resignation of the MNHRCs members. Organisers of the campaign sent the petition to the Presidents Office and the MNHRC on the same day.

According to the organisers, more than 3100 people signed the petition over the course of three days.
New analysis of Myanmars census has provided a fascinating and concerning insight into maternity issues across the nation.





Statistics show the countrys 2.5-children-per-woman average is in line with the rest of Southeast Asia.

But analysis has revealed a more nuanced reality: that married women are having on average five children each  a figure that rises to nine in Chin State  while a large number of women are choosing to remain single, at 12 percent. Thats twice as many as remain unmarried in Vietnam or Cambodia and four times as many as in Laos.

Reasons have been posited in the past for why so many women in Myanmar do not take husbands. These include the large number of men in the monkhood, as well as cultural traditions that often exclude married women from public life and curtail career goals  or lead to women who pursue such interests being considered unsuitable for marriage.

However, if being married means having an average of five children, it is little wonder that it often precludes other activities, or probably explains why so many women choose to avoid it altogether.

The need for better access to contraception is evident. Women should not have to choose between remaining single or resigning themselves to numerous pregnancies.

Five babies is more than many women would choose to have were they given the option. As for Chin State, giving birth to and raising nine children is hugely demanding  physically, emotionally and financially  for anyone.





The most disturbing figure to emerge in the latest details released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Myanmars population ministry is that 2800 women die each year in childbirth and pregnancy. One in five deaths among young women is a maternal death.

And the reality is that figure is almost certainly an underestimate. Government-imposed restrictions at the time the census took place in 2014 meant about 1 million people in Rakhine State who self-identify as Rohingya were not counted.

While census analysts were able to use other data to account for this when producing more general figures such as population stats, important details including those relating to fertility and maternal mortality were not collected.

Throughout Myanmar, too many families have to deal with the anguish of losing a mother. Rakhine is one of the states with the highest maternal mortality, Janet E Jackson, UNFPA representative for Myanmar, told this column. For people who self-identify as Rohingya and whose freedom of movement is restricted, the situation is made all the more vulnerable because women cannot quickly access emergency and life-saving obstetric care when this is needed.

UNFPA, as part of the United Nations, regards universal access to healthcare as critical for all people in Myanmar, not least for those most vulnerable and disadvantaged, no matter who they are or where they are, she added.

The Myanmar Times recently published the distressing story of Raysuana, a young Rohingya woman who died in August after doctors failed to treat her as a potential victim of gender-based violence and health authorities prevented her transfer to the state hospital for treatment. No autopsy took place, nor was a cause of death recorded.

Her case highlights the systematic failures Rohingya women face in accessing vital medical care because of both their ethno-religious background and their gender.

There may not be statistics to prove it, but the likelihood is high that women facing the deprivations and rights abuses inflicted on the Rohingya community are at particular risk of maternal complications and avoidable deaths.

It is the most perverse of ironies that the same week the census details on fertility were released, underlining the need for women of all backgrounds to be given better access to family-planning services for health reasons, an MP was demanding that the government enforce fertility intervention on racial grounds.

Lower house Arakan National Party lawmaker Aung Taung Shwe made a call in parliament for the government to invoke the controversial protection of race and religion law that allows for the enforcement of restrictions on birth rates within the Muslim population in Rakhine States Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships.

The Union minister for health and sport, Dr Myint Htwe, dismissed the demand and called the suggestion a violation of medical ethics. But the fact that the law  signed by then-president U Thein Sein last year at the behest of hard-line nationalist group Ma Ba Tha  remains on the statutes is an ongoing concern.

It is clear that access to voluntary contraception, family-planning support and proper care before, during and after pregnancy for all women in this country should be a priority.

The UNFPA findings show that isolation and deprivation are the two principal causes of maternal mortality, in conjunction with lack of education and poor health facilities.

The country this week remained rightly up in arms about the abuse inflicted on two young maids by their employers in Yangon. Social and traditional media were for once fired up on the topic of protecting girls rights.

It is time for people to become equally impassioned about protecting the rights of all girls and women regardless of race, religion or location, and that includes: their right to be safe from unwanted pregnancies; their right to appropriate medical care; and their right to be free from state interference in their fertility choices.
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[September 29, 2016] Fitch Affirms Telefonica del Peru at 'BBB+'; Outlook Stable

Fitch Ratings has affirmed Telefonica (News - Alert) del Peru S.A.A.'s (TDP) Long-Term Foreign and Local-Currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) at 'BBB+' with a Stable Outlook. KEY RATING DRIVERS TDP's ratings reflect the company's dominant market positions in the Peruvian telecom industry and robust cash flow generation from its fully integrated fixed-line and mobile operations, which have supported its strong financial profile. The ratings are tempered by intense competition, especially with new entrants' aggressive marketing efforts, and the growing industry maturity, which have led to the company's profitability deterioration. The ratings also reflect its linkage with the parent, Telefonica SA (News - Alert) (TEF, IDR 'BBB'/Outlook Stable), in terms of strategic ties and shareholder return policy, which could potentially affect TDP's financial profile. Strong Market Position: TDP is the largest telecom operator in Peru and Fitch expects its dominant position in both the fixed and mobile segments to remain intact backed by its well-established network competitiveness and strong brand recognition despite increasing competitive pressures. Competition for market share in the Peruvian mobile industry has materially increased following the entrance of the Chilean telecom operator, Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones S.A. (Entel; rated 'BBB'/Outlook Negative) in 2013, due to its aggressive marketing campaign to quickly achieve a sizable scale. Although a modest market share loss with continued margin erosion could continue for TDP going forward, Fitch believes that the company's financial capacity to support high investment and marketing expenses will enable it to fend off competitive threats to an extent, and help maintain market leadership. TDP retained its largest market shares across all of its service platforms, with a 50% subscriber market share for mobile operations as of March 2016. The company also held 81% and 67% subscriber market shares for broadband and pay-TV, respectively, according to the regulator, Organismo Supervisor de Inversion Privada en Telecomunicaciones (Osiptel). Strong Cash Flow Generation: TDP boasts solid internal cash flow generation, which Fitch expects to continue over the medium term and help support its conservative financial profile. The company continued deleveraging during 2015, as cash flow from operations (CFFO) of PEN2.6 billion comfortably covered its capex of PEN1.8 billion and insignificant dividends of PEN331,000. During 2012-2015, the company's average free cash flow (FCF) margin was a solid 6%, which was mostly used to pay down its debt. Fitch forecasts the company's FCF generation to temporarily turn negative in 2016 due to high capex, mainly associated with its 700Mhz spectrum acquisition for USD315 million, but it should reverse back to positive in 2017 in the absence of any sizable dividends, or materialization of contingent liabilities with regard to its income tax disputes against the Superintendencia Nacional de Administracion Tributariabeing (SUNAT). Fitch expects TDP's CFFO to consistently be PEN2.1billion-PEN2.2 billion annually in 2016 and 2017, which should fully cover its recurring capex of about PEN1.8 billion, estimated by Fitch, excluding one-off spectrum auctions. This level of pre-dividend FCF generation with its low leverage should provide some headroom for its shareholder distributions or contingent liability, if necessary. The company made provisions of PEN1.6 billion in June 2015 for the pending SUNAT-related legal disputes. Solid Financial Profile: Fitch forecasts TDP's net leverage to remain low for the rating category over the medium term. TDP has continued to improve its financial profile backed by its robust positive FCF generation, which has mostly been used to pay off the debt. During the five years from 2011 to 2015, the company reduced its net debt by PEN2.3 billion to PEN837 million at end-2014 from PEN3.1 billion at end-2011. This has led to its net leverage, measured by EBITDAR / adjusted net debt, falling to 0.3x from 1.1x during the same period. Fitch forecasts net leverage to remain well below 1.0x over the medium term given TDP's solid FCF generating ability, following a slight increase in 2016 to 0.6x due to the spectrum acquisition. Margin Erosion due to Competitive Pressures: TDP's ongoing profitability deterioration is unlikely to be curbed in the short- to medium-term. Intense competition in the mobile market remains centered on handset subsidies and aggressive tariffs, which makes it difficult to cut subscriber acquisition costs or mitigate negative pressures on the industry-wide ARPU. The trend will continue as operators try to increase the penetration of smartphones to boost mobile data revenues. During the first half of 2016, the company's EBITDA margin fell to 29%, which compares negatively to 32% in 2015 and in 2014. KEY ASSUMPTIONS Fitch's key assumptions within the rating case for TDP include: --Muted medium-term revenue growth following negative growth in 2016; --Mobile market share gradually declines towards 45% in the long term due to competition; --EBITDA margin to remain under 30% over the medium term; --FCF to turn negative in 2016 due to high capex; but to revert back to positive from 2017; --Net leverage to remain below 1.0x over the medium term in the absence of any sizable shareholder distribution or contingent liability payments. RATING SENSITIVITIES Negative rating action will be considered in case of material deterioration in the company's key operating and financial metrics which are due to competitive/regulatory pressures, higher-than-expected capex and shareholder distributions, or any substantial negative impact from the pending legal dispute with SUNAT over income tax issues - all of which combined result in the company's net leverage increasing to over 2x on a sustained basis.



TDP's ratings are not directly linked to the ratings of its parent, TEF. However, any significant deterioration in the parent's credit profile, to the effect that it results in further rating downgrades or in a material liquidity crunch for the parent, could place pressure on TDP's ratings. TEF is currently rated 'BBB'/Outlook Stable. Conversely, an upgrade of TDP's ratings, resulting in more than one-notch differential from the parent's 'BBB' rating, would be limited given their strong linkages.

LIQUIDITY TDP maintains a sound liquidity profile given its high cash balance of PEN1.5 billion fully covering short-term debt of PEN931 million as of June 30, 2016. The company also has well-spread debt maturities. The company's main source of liquidity, in addition to the cash on hand, is its strong internal cash generation and its undrawn committed credit facilities in the amount of PEN780 million, which further bolsters its financial flexibility. Additional information is available on www.fitchratings.com. 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Fitch receives fees from issuers, insurers, guarantors, other obligors, and underwriters for rating securities. Such fees generally vary from US$1,000 to US$750,000 (or the applicable currency equivalent) per issue. In certain cases, Fitch will rate all or a number of issues issued by a particular issuer, or insured or guaranteed by a particular insurer or guarantor, for a single annual fee. Such fees are expected to vary from US$10,000 to US$1,500,000 (or the applicable currency equivalent). The assignment, publication, or dissemination of a rating by Fitch shall not constitute a consent by Fitch to use its name as an expert in connection with any registration statement filed under the United States securities laws, the Financial Services and Markets Act of 2000 of the United Kingdom, or the securities laws of any particular jurisdiction. Due to the relative efficiency of electronic publishing and distribution, Fitch research may be available to electronic subscribers up to three days earlier than to print subscribers. For Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea only: Fitch Australia Pty Ltd holds an Australian financial services license (AFS license no. 337123) which authorizes it to provide credit ratings to wholesale clients only. Credit ratings information published by Fitch is not intended to be used by persons who are retail clients within the meaning of the Corporations Act 2001. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929006360/en/

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Alibaba Poised to Be the Next Facebook in Stock Market

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s stock performance is displayed on a monitor on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York. (Photo : Getty Images)

Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba is poised to become the "next Facebook" in the stock market, according to financial news site Investor Place.



Shares in the Jack Ma-led company have surged more than 40 percent over the last three months, driven by its impressive revenue growth.



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The company's shift to mobile is said to have boosted its figures. Like Facebook, Alibaba's shares disappointed investors during its transition to mobile, falling more than 50 percent.



The similar pattern was seen in Facebook, when the social media company's share price dropped to $17.73 from $38 while shifting its focus to mobile from desktop.



"For both [companies], this was a deflationary shift in the early days until mobile monetization eventually caught up then surpassed desktop," Rob Sanderson at MKM Partners was quoted as saying by Benzinga.



Similar to the U.S.-based social media company, Alibaba can also bank heavily on mobile advertising to reap more gains in the long term.



In addition to this, the e-commerce group may also be looking at near-term catalyst once the ongoing probe by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) turns out to be a one-off event. An outcome favoring the Chinese group will likely pacify investors wary about the current probe into the company's accounting practices.



In August, Alibaba recorded its best revenue growth despite SEC's investigation but it kept mum on the said case.



"Today, the top six institutional U.S. internet mega-cap investment funds are significantly underweight Alibaba stock. If [Alibaba] gets the "all clear" from the SEC at some point, those funds would need to buy roughly 800 million shares of Alibaba stock just to get equal weight," wrote Investor Place.



"Mobile monetization, institutional buying, accelerating revenue growth, a reasonable valuation and SEC-driven transparency could be just what [Alibaba] needs to repeat [Facebook's] five-year run from $17 to $130," the news website added.


[September 29, 2016] Emerging Technologies for Evolving Missions: Engility Showcases Full Life Cycle of Innovation at AUSA 2016

Engility Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EGL), will be unveiling several innovations to support Army modernization at the 2016 Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C., Oct. 3-5, showcasing advanced capabilities in robotics, mobile training applications and soldier wellness solutions designed to help the Army achieve greater efficiencies in mission operations. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929006421/en/ The robotic platform x-Rex, is being used to analyze how robotic leg design and configuration affects movement. This scientific research could be used on future platforms for traversing hostile terrain and environment. Learn about this robotic platform and more at Engility's AUSA booth (#2249) or at www.engilitycorp.com/ausa2016. (Photo: Business Wire) "From providing soldiers with mobile training apps that allow them to learn anywhere, anytime to conducting research to enhance unmanned robotic systems, Engility is answering the Army's call to develop superior technologies that deliver more effective training and operations solutions for today's ever-changing world," said John Hynes, Engility president and chief operating officer. Engility will have its subject matter experts on site at AUSA booth No. 2249 to discuss and demonstrate the company's latest technology developments in the areas of: Robotics and 3-D Printing - Featuring a proprietary robot, a 3-D-printed robotic arm and a multi-rotor platform, all developed in conjunction with the Army Research Laboratory Autonomous Systems Division.

- Featuring a proprietary robot, a 3-D-printed robotic arm and a multi-rotor platform, all developed in conjunction with the Army Research Laboratory Autonomous Systems Division. Mobile Training Technology - Exhibiting mobileapps created to help the Army transition from traditional learning to virtual training, reflecting today's tech-savvy soldiers.

- Exhibiting mobileapps created to help the Army transition from traditional learning to virtual training, reflecting today's tech-savvy soldiers. Traumatic Brain Injury Prevention - Showcasing work being done to enhance the effectiveness of psychological health and TBI programs that provide care to service members and their families.

- Showcasing work being done to enhance the effectiveness of psychological health and TBI programs that provide care to service members and their families. JRE Data Link Gateway (News - Alert) (Joint Range Extension) - Discussing the most widely deployed combat-proven data link gateway in the world that connects legacy and future systems across the battlespace and around the globe.



Volunteer Family of the Year Award, which recognizes an exceptional Army family whose volunteer service significantly contributes to the well-being of the Army community. John Hynes will participate in the award presentation on Wednesday, Oct. 5. Engility is also sponsoring the exhibition in booth No. 2224 for United Through Reading, a nonprofit organization dedicated to uniting military families who face physical separation by facilitating the experience of reading aloud together.

For more information, please visit engilitycorp.com/AUSA2016. About Engility Engility (NYSE: EGL) is engineered to make a difference. Built on five decades of heritage, Engility is a leading provider of integrated solutions and services for the U.S. government, supporting customers throughout defense, intelligence, space, federal, civilian and international communities. Engility delivers world-class performance, efficiency and best value in a broad range of services from global security to information security, and from international development to research and development. Headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia, and with offices around the world, Engility draws on its intimate understanding of customer needs, deep domain expertise and skilled team to develop and deliver on-target solutions for critical missions. To learn more about Engility, please visit www.engilitycorp.com and connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (News - Alert). Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding Engility's future prospects, projected financial results, estimated integration costs and acquisition-related amortization expenses, and business plans, as well as the TASC transaction and its expected benefits and the timing of such benefits. Words such as "may," "will," "should," "likely," "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "projects," "believes," "estimates" and similar expressions are also used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the current beliefs and expectations of Engility's management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause Engility's actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be found under the heading "Risk Factors" included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31, 2015, and more recent documents that have been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC (News - Alert)) and are available on the investor relations section of Engility's website (http://www.engilitycorp.com) and on the SEC's website (www.sec.gov). Forward-looking statements are made only as of the date hereof, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. In addition, historical information should not be considered as an indicator of future performance. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160929006421/en/

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The Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts Mrs. Elizabeth Ofosu Agyare inspected the Creative Arts Centre project sites in Kumasi on 28th September 2016 to observe the development works which are being carried under the Creative Arts Ministry.

During her visit, the Minister had discussion with the Actors Guild, Film Producers Association of Ghana and other stakeholders and gave instructions to complete the works as soon as possible.

The Ashanti Regional Deputy Minister Hon. Andy Osei Okrah also accompanied her to the site at Danyame.

Addressing the media, Hon. Elizabeth Ofosu Agyare said her visit to the region is to inspect the project site and also interact with the industry players to know the challenges confronting their works in the region.

The Minister said that the move by the ministry shows commitment on the part of President John Dramani Mahama and his government.

Hon. Elizabeth Ofosu indicated that, the president is committed to transform the standard of the creative arts industry.  president has charge me and the regional ministers to see to it that this project comes into reality.

On his part, the Ashanti Regional Deputy Minister Andy Osei Ockrah expressed the regional coordinating council gratitude to the president and the ministry for such a project.

He said, the project will boost up the creative arts industry as well as the economic state of Kumasi.

 As Kumasi is the harbor of the film industry, we at the regional coordinating council are much excited about this project and know for sure that as soon as it is done the economic state of this region will rise up he noted

The Ashanti Regional Actors Guild President Bill Asamoah on behalf of the guild expressed their gratitude to the minister for honoring her promises.
30.09.2016 LISTEN

Nollywood actor Kalu Ikeagwu has invoked curses on some policemen for manhandling him during an alleged arrest and on some media men in Nigeria for misreporting the incident.

A Nigerian news website, Encomium magazine reported the kidnap of the actor by some unknown persons. The story was however updated to an arrest after the site reportedly talked to some neighbours of Mr Ikeagwu.

Unfortunately for the actor, some other media platforms had already picked the story before the update came.

An upset Ikeagwu has released a video telling his side of the story and telling the policemen and the media houses that they will remember his name and that the Lord will answer you all a hundred fold.

Watch video below.

Story by Ghana| Myjoyonline.com | AA
The Hague (AFP) - Congolese former rebel commander Bosco Ntaganda was back in court Friday for the first time after ending a hunger strike that sparked a two-week stand-off with judges at his war crimes trial.

Looking drawn and dressed in a dark suit, Ntaganda took his place in the dock behind his defence lawyers at his trial in the International Criminal Court, with a witness giving testimony.

The once-feared rebel leader from the Democratic Republic of Congo is on trial at the Hague-based ICC, where he has denied 18 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

But saying he was "ready to die", Ntaganda had decided to refuse food "in the ultimate act of protest" lawyer Stephane Bourgon said earlier this month, after judges maintained tight restrictions on his visitors saying they feared he might tamper with witnesses.

Ntaganda however ended his hunger strike last week after winning permission to appeal the judges' decision and after arrangements were made for him to see his wife, Bourgon said.

Once dubbed "The Terminator", Ntaganda, born in 1972, has denied the charges arising out of savage ethnic attacks carried out in DR Congo by his rebel Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (FPLC) in 2002-2003.

His trial opened in September 2015 after he walked into the US embassy in Kigali in 2013.

The eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has been mired for two decades in ethnically-charged wars, as rebels battle for control of its rich mineral resources.

Prosecutors say Ntaganda played a central role in the Ituri conflict in the far northeast which rights groups believe alone has left some 60,000 dead since 1999.
A teddy bear is placed next to wreckage at the site of the downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, near the village of Hrabove (Photo : REUTERS/MARKO DJURICA)

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine in July 17 2014 and the blame is now being pinned by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) on a Russian-made BUK missile. The probe concluded that Russia supplied the weapon that killed nearly 300 civilians, potentially escalating the ongoing feud between the country and NATO.



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The Dutch-led JIT, according to BBC, said on its report that the BUK missile system definitely came from Russia. The JIT report, which was presented this week in Holland, identified the village of Pervomaiskyi where the "murder weapon" was launched, noting that the area was then controlled by Russian-supported Ukrainian separatist rebels.



The following day, the same missile system was brought back to Russia, the report said. JIT said that it is now sifting through the identities of possible suspects - those responsible for wheeling in and out the BUK missile system and the specific persons who ordered the attack on the commercial plane.



Prior to the findings, Russian authorities have maintained innocence. BBC said that Kremlin even pointed to the Ukrainian government as the source of the attack but later backtracked and conceded that MH17 was indeed downed by a BUK anti-aircraft missile.



Still, the Russians insisted of no direct or indirect involvement to the tragedy, which Time said also killed 80 children.



In response to the JIT report, a representative for Russian President Vladimir dismissed the result of the investigation by saying: "There is nothing to accept or to deny." Time said that going by the reaction so far from Kremlin, it's no surprise that Russia will continue on its non-cooperative stance on the matter.



"The investigators would need Russia to cooperate by addressing the evidence that the BUK missile came from Russian territory, and to explain what happened to this weapon once it was returned to Russia ... But there is no sign that Russia is prepared to meet any of those requirements," Time said on its report.



The latest development only underscored Moscow's hardline positon on the subject and further stoked fears that a shooting war will soon erupt, with Russia and NATO right in the middle of the brawl. Already, the two parties, with the United States on the lead, are engaged in proxy engagements - in Syria and in Ukraine, both of which could be the trigger that will start a feared thermonuclear showdown.


Nairobi (AFP) - A British aristocrat's son due to face trial in Kenya on Monday for smuggling 100 kilogrammes (220 pounds) of cocaine knew nothing about the illegal shipment, foreign investigators believe.

Jack Marrian, a 31-year-old sugar trader, faces a possible life sentence if found guilty of smuggling cocaine worth $6 million (5 million euros).

But the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) -- which worked with Spanish police to track and seize the shipment in late July -- believe Marrian and his co-accused, Kenyan clearing agent Roy Mwanthi, knew nothing of the drugs concealed in a sugar consignment from Brazil.

"We got information from our office in Spain. The intelligence was that their Spanish counterparts had information about a container that had suspected drugs in it," said Melvin Patterson, a DEA spokesman.

Spanish police believe the drugs were intended to be unloaded in Valencia and sold on the lucrative European market, but something went wrong and they were shipped onward to Kenya.

"A criminal group based in Valencia, Spain, tried to get cocaine out of a container, but failed," Patterson said.

'Rip-on, rip-off'

When the shipment arrived in Mombasa, Kenyan anti-narcotics police discovered the plastic-wrapped bricks of cocaine hidden among sacks of sugar as well as a duplicate seal.

Experts say this is a sure sign of the "rip-on, rip-off" or "blind hook" smuggling technique whereby cartels secretly stash their illegal products inside a legitimate consignment removing the drugs at a stop en route and replacing the broken seal with the replica.

"The Spanish stressed that this was a 'rip-off' load and the recipient of the container would have no knowledge that it was being used to transport drugs," said Patterson.

Marrian and Mwanthi are due in court in Nairobi on Monday at the start of their trial. Both deny the charges.

His case has caused a sensation in his native Britain, where the aristocratic background of his mother Lady Emma Clare Campbell of Cawdor and his attendance at top private schools, including the alma mater of Prince William's wife Catherine, have caught the eye of the press.

Sources familiar with the case suggest the two men were taken into custody because of public and political pressure to make an arrest after news of the bust broke in local media.

Kenya is a hub for heroin trafficking via the so-called "southern route" -- from the poppy fields of Afghanistan and Pakistan to consumers in Europe via the Indian Ocean and East Africa -- but cocaine trafficking is less common with West Africa the far more popular transshipment point for moving the drug from South America to Europe.

The domestic market for cocaine in East Africa is growing but remains small while drugs trafficking in Kenya, experts say, is tightly controlled by politically connected local cartels.
Koforidua (E/R), Sept. 29, GNA - The Veterinary Service, in collaboration with the Ghana National Association of Cattle Farmers (GNACAF), has launched a vaccination campaign against the Contagious Bovine Pleuro Pneumonia (CBPP) disease.

The infectious disease has become an epidemic in cattle.

The campaign, therefore, was launched to create the awareness of the disease and to educate the cattle owners on its symptoms and to officially open the vaccination in the Eastern Regional, capital of Koforidua.

Addressing participants at the launch, Dr Asiedu Baah, the Eastern Regional Director of Veterinary Service Department, said the disease, which affected the lungs of cattle was caused by the mycoplasma bacteria.

He explained it took a direct contact for an infection to occur and it was spread by the inhalation of infected airborne droplets, expelled by an infected animal through coughing and sneezing.

Dr Baah said some associated symptoms of the disease were high fever, inflammation and the enlargement of the lungs, as well as persistent coughs.

He said the vaccination would also afford the Department the opportunity to undertake a census of the cattle in the Region.

Imam Hanafi Sonde, the President of the Ghana National Association of Cattle Farmers, said the vaccination was going to benefit 6,000 registered members of the Association nationwide, excluding non registered members.

He said each farmer was supposed to pay GHC 3.00 per cattle to be vaccinated.

He said the project was aimed at vaccinating at least 85 per cent of the cattle in Ghana.

GNA
By Laudia Sawer, GNA

Tema, Sept 30, GNA - Parliamentary candidates for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have filed their nomination to contest for the four constituencies in the Tema Metropolis and Kpone-Katamanso.

Mr Joseph Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, NDC candidate for Kpone-Katamanso, was the first to successfully file at about 10:50 hours.

Mr Agbo, who was accompanied by party executives, said meeting the requirements for the filing was smooth since this was his forth time to go through the process.

On the issue of declaration of assets, he said even though he did so when appointed the Greater Accra Regional Minister, the time given by the Electoral Commission was too short.

The incumbent Member of Parliament promised to embark on a clean campaign devoid of insults and allegations.

Mr Carlos Ahinkorah, NPP parliamentary candidate for Tema West, who also filed, thanked the EC for the opportunity to file and contest in the elections.

Mr Ahinkorah also thanked his party members for giving him the opportunity to contest for the seat and called for unity to ensure that they maintain the Tema West seat.

Mr Kempes Ofosuware, NDC Tema East candidate, also filed while Mr Charles Boateng, NPP Tema Central Chairman, filed on behalf of Mr Kofi Brako, candidate for the constituency.

Returning officers for the various constituencies accepted the forms and explained that due to an ongoing court case on the amount to be paid, the bankers draft for the payment cannot be accepted now.

The Tema EC office came to life as members of the NPP and NDC thronged there amidst drumming, singing, dancing and shouting of party slogans in support of their candidates.

GNA
Accra, Sept. 29, GNA - The Presidential nominee of the All People's Congress (APC), Mr. Hassan Ayariga, has appealed to Ghanaians to vote for the party to solve the economic difficulties of the countries.

Mr Ayariga said Ghana's political system had not helped to facilitate the development of the country as key human resource with the requisite knowledge and skills were deprived from assisting the party in power because of partisanship.

He said this at a ceremony to introduce the Party's Vice Presidential Candidate to its supporters at the Party's office in Accra.

' We are bringing everybody together,' Mr Ayariga said. 'They believe in the winner takes it all syndrome, a political gimmick, a military regime in disguise. What is the difference between a military ruler and winner takes it all?

'They are the same except that their names have been changed - too much power for one person. Democracy by the white man is to enable us 'jaw jaw' with one another. Democracy in Ghana separates us from one another. But, no single party would be able to manage this country alone.'

Mr Ayariga said the APC, which was a Liberal Socialist, would provide pragmatic solutions to help address the economic difficulties.

Ghanaians are looking for new people with new ideas. We will provide social intervention programmes, good policies to change the lives of Ghanaians,' he said.

'More than 20 per cent of Ghanaians can't pay their bills, can't provide for themselves three square meals a day. This is what we are going to deal with'.

He, therefore, asked, asked Ghanaians to vote for outstanding individuals who had the capacity to manage the country rather than people who hid behind political parties and failed to deliver, saying that, the economic situation in any country was a representation of the ability of its leadership.

The Vice Presidential nominee of the Party, Mr. Emmanuel Carl Bartels, is an accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountant of Ghana and Nigeria. He has more than 17 years of professional experience.

He is married to Roselyn Bartels.

Mr. Bartels, in his address, commended the national executives of the Party for the confidence reposed in him, and pledged to work diligently to complement the efforts of the Presidential nominee to win the elections to enhance the beauty of Ghana's multiparty democracy. GNA
By Comfort Sena Fetrie/Frederica Kyeremateng, GNA

Tamale, Sept. 29, GNA - Professor Kwame Karikari, an Ambassador for Civil Society Organisations for Sustainable Development Goals, has said there is the need for all Ghanaians to unite for peaceful polls to be held.

He said it is the role of political parties to help prevent violence and other criminal acts in the country.

Professor Karikari said this at a public forum organised by the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) in collaboration with STAR-Ghana in Tamale.

The forum was to engage the political parties on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their party policies and manifestos.

Prof Karikari urged politicians to focus on the SDGs in their campaign messages and avoid using abusive words against their opponents.

He said there is the need to promote rule of law at the national level to ensure equal access to justice for all Ghanaians.

Mr Bernard Anaba, Policy Analyst at ISODEC, said about 22 per cent of Ghanaians live under poverty while about seven per cent live under extreme poverty.

He called on the political parties to collaborate with government to promote development-oriented policies that would support productive activities and entrepreneurship.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals is a set of seventeen 'Global Goals' with 169 targets between them.

GNA
Article 78 (1) of the 1992 Constitution requires the president to appoint majority of his ministers from Parliament but President of the Ghana Bar Association, Benson Nutsukpui said that law weakens the House.

Benson Nutukpui is therefore calling for an amendment of that article to allow Parliament to be free of ministerial appointments and enable it play its oversight role more effectively.

He was speaking at the Presidential Investiture and fundraising dinner organised by Rotary International, Ghana to raise funds to support the construction of a Children's and Maternity wards at the Larteh Hospital.

The GBA President in his keynote address said "Parliament is supposed to serve as a check on the powers of the Executive. If members of Parliament serve in the self same government how effective will the oversight responsibility of Parliament be carried out?"

He noted that it seems that Parliament is rather weakened by Article 78 (1) because "in reality, it does appear that one's chances of becoming a minister of state are brighter by becoming a member of Parliament so individuals strive to go to Parliament not because of the desire to actually carry out functions of a parliamentarian but only to enhance their chances of becoming minsters at the expense of the rather serious business of Parliament."

The legal luminary argued that if Ghana is serious about strengthening Parliament to carry out its vital oversight functions then Article 78(1) ought to be amended.

Benson Nutsukpui also suggests that literacy in Offical languages should be part of the eligibility criteria for running for President, Parliament and for appointment to a ministerial position.

He said the currently constitutional provision of requirement for such high public offices, does nor include literacy and that leaves room for a situation where Ghana could one day have a complete illiterate as president and similar persons as MPs and Ministers.

Partisan Politics at MMDAs

The GBA President also added his voice to earlier calla by several others for the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) elections to be made partisan.

His argument was that the currently regime fuels the "winner takes all" situation, because it vest all top appointment at the local government level in the executive to the total exclusion of other major stakeholders in the political process.

He believes if political parties are allowed to sponsor candidates for positions at the local government level, it will minimize the winner takes all problem and thereby reduce the tension, suspicion and violence the characterize elections in the country, largely because of the fear of exclusion.

"Our local government system needs to be fully democratised by changing the provisions of Chapter 20 of the Constitution to allow political parties to sponsor candidates for election as Assemblymen and as District Chief Executives or Mayors. Thus, where a party loses out on political power at the national level it may still get a piece of the governance action through power at a District Assembly or a number of them instead of total political exclusion as is currently the situation," Nutsukpui said.

The legal luminary also believes elections should be held 60 days after the expiration of the terms of both the President and Parliament instead of the 30 days provided in Articles 63(2)(a) and 112(4).

"This change will certainly provide a reasonable period within which a transition from one government to the other can be smoothly effected," he said.
Washington (AFP) - The United States has ordered families of government personnel stationed in the Democratic Republic of Congo to leave amid fears about escalating violence, the State Department said.

"The potential for civil unrest is high in parts of Kinshasa and other major cities," it said, referring to the country's capital in a statement.

"As a result of the deteriorating security situation, family members of US government personnel have been ordered to leave the country beginning September 29. Most official US government travel to the DRC has been halted."
30.09.2016 LISTEN

The district office of the Electoral Commission in the Offinso North has had its internet cable cut off by unknown persons this morning.

Confirming to Cruz FM's Alhassan Bin Jibril Spelele, the district electoral officer,Mr. Ahmed said he was informed yesterday at around 9pm by his driver after the office's security man had called without reaching him.

According to the security man, he got to work around 6pm and got to know that the internet cable has been cut so he called the driver to inform.

The case has since being reported to the Akumadan police for further investigation. Meanwhile, the security man is in the police custody for questioning.
The Campaign Coordinator for the National Democratic Congresss (NDC) 2016 election campaign, Kofi Adams, says the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justices (CHRAJ) report partly clearing President John Mahama of any wrong doing in the Ford gift saga, vindicates the partys long-held position, and also shames his critics.

Today is a day of shame for them, they [critics] have been exposed that they are only trying to destroy a gem, a pearl that we have, he said on Eyewitness News.

Kofi Adams, who doubles as the National Organizer of the NDC, also hailed the report as proof that President John Mahama is not somebody that anyone can bribe, that President Mahama did not receive a bribe and that the gift of ford was not intended to bribe him or influence him in anyway,

Following a petition by the youth wing of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), demanding a probe into the conduct of the President when he accepted a Ford Expedition gift from a Burkinabe contractor as Vice President in 2012, CHRAJ said it did not find him guilty of bribery and conflict of interest.

Mahama breached gift policy  CHRAJ

CHRAJ however noted that, the President breached the gift policy, when he accepted the gift as Vice President in 2012.

Kofi Adams

Breach of policy does not mean Mahama is guilty

Kofi Adams conceded that although President Mahama may have violated policy as concluded by CHRAJ, he asserted that, the outcome doesn't mean that he [Mahama] is guilty they did not find him guilty as far as the whole gift matter is concerned.

He contended further that, President Mahama had purely noble intentions when he accepted the gift as he had in mind clearly what he was going to use the gift for and that the gift was meant to be used by the state.

As further justification of President Mahamas actions, he said, look into history and look at conventions and practice. Almost all our Heads of State from Dr. Kwame Nkrumah all the way to President Kufuor and the late President Mills, have all at one time or the other received gifts, some of which they have passed onto the State.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Apple is currently working on a fix to address the iOS 10 security breach issue tied up to Apple device backups. (Photo : Getty Images/Justin Sullivan)

Apple has rolled out several iOS 10 updates recently, though they may have overlooked the security levels tied up to the backups. All of this was revealed by Russian company Elcomsoft who singled out weaker encryption on the password-protected backups.



As mentioned in a previous post here on Yibada, Apple rolled out iOS 10.0.2 meant to address audio tied up to making and taking calls on the iPhone 7. It should be noted that the security fixes included were minor, though Elcomsofts discovery may force the Cupertino-based company to come up with another update soon.



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The security flaw lies in the local backups of devices running on iOS, with the Russian firm noticing weaker encryption on the password-protected backups, the Elcomsoft blog reported. This means that hackers will have a relatively easier time accessing them which Apple will have to address.



Oleg Alfonin explained the vulnerability though he did not elaborate on the security checks that could be bypassed. Just the same, it does become a cause for concern seeing how backups contain important data and information as well.



"The attack itself is only available for iOS 10 backups. Interestingly, the 'new' password verification method exists in parallel with the 'old' method, which continues to work with the same slow speeds as before."



The weaker encryption comes as a surprise considering Apple has been known to implement strong encryption on devices. The traditional way to hack in is through password guessing, the frequency of which was notably different.



Afonin notes that Apple may have done away with the two-factor authentication that atoned for their software to guess passwords faster. Their software was able to guess passwords for iOS 9 at 150,000 passwords per second with GPU compared to the iOS 10 which managed to guess six million passwords per second.



Apple acknowledges the iOS 10 backup vulnerability and is working on a fix likely to be included in their next iOS 10 updates, PC Mag reported. For now, the Cupertino company advises Apple owners to enforce stronger passwords to limit access to authorized users. To ramp up security, FileVault disk encryption has been suggested for added protection.



The video below details Apples confirmation of the iOS 10 security flaw.






Ghana is poised to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, MDGs. Goal 6 of the SDGs estimates that, by 2030, there should be an end to open defecation.

Ghana's President, John Dramani Mahama, has said the country is likely to achieve this goal earlier by 2025.

But how can the country attain this goal when persons engaged in open defecation see it as a lifestyle?

In the documentary below titled: Living Open Defecation, Citi FM's Umaru Sanda Amadu visits La in Accra, to find out how serious the practice is; and why it will not end anytime soon.
A legal practitioner and law lecturer has faulted the procedure adopted by the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to investigate allegations of corruption, bribery and conflict of interest against President John Mahama.

Yaw Oppong says the investigation processes was not thorough and suppressed the opportunity of both petitioners and the accused (the President) to cross-examine each other on the evidence presented.

The procedure adopted for me was a bit casual. It is just CHRAJ asking questions of the persons they called and you see that, with the exception of Manasseh, all those they called [witnesses] are public officials, he said.

He spoke on Multi TVs news analysis programme, PM Express Wednesday that discussed the Commissions findings of the allegations the President after he received a Ford Expedition gift from a Burkinabe Contract, Djibril Kanazoe.

The Petitioners, the Progressive People's Party (PPP) and the Youth League of the Convention People's Party (CPP) and a private citizen, Nana Addo Ofori, petitioned CHRAJ to look into the three alleged violations by the President.

The Petitioners grounded their request on an investigative story by Joy News Manasseh Azuri Awuni.

The report revealed how the Burkinabe contractor struck a friendly cord with the Presidency, gave a Ford gift to then Vice president John Mahama, now president and how the contractor was given three separate contracts by the government.

President Mahama admitted receiving the gift but said he handed it over to the state to be added to the pool of vehicles at the presidency.

He, however, rejects the allegations of bribery, corruption or a breach of the Procurement laws in the award of the three contracts to the Burkinabe contractor.

Speaking on PM Express, the law lecturer at the Central University College School of Law said the 78-page report released by CHRAJ on the matter suggests that the chance to put the sensitive matter to bed was missed.

There is nowhere that its stated that the Petitioners were even asked questions by CHRAJ. In an allegation like this, as serious and sensitive as it can be, both parties must be given the opportunity to cross-examine each other. But it doesnt appear that that was done, Yaw Oppong laments.

CHRAJ stated, among other things, in the report that because the president declared the gift, surrendered it to the state's vehicle pool and did not use his public office for private benefit, President Mahama could not have been found to have breached the conflict of interest procedures.

Yaw Oppong finds CHRAJs analysis of conflict of interest allegation untenable, warning it could prove counter-productive when corrupt public officials cite same to protect themselves from a similar allegation.

We shouldnt place too much focus on conflict of interest because there were other issues that were raised, including corruption.

It may also be too dangerous to say that when a gift is given to a public officer, and that public officer does not use it and the public officer gives it to somebody else and then justifies it on the basis that I did not even use it. I put it in the disposal of the state.

If that is the proposition, then it must apply to each and every public officer because this same argument couldnt have been made by the Judges [in the Anas Judicial Corruption scandal] Mr Oppong told show host, Nana Ansah Kwao IV.

Kojoga Adawudu defends: CHRAJs procedure backed by law

However, Mr Oppongs co-panelist on the news analysis programme, Mr Kojoga Adawudu, who is a lawyer for the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) said CHRAJ adopted a procedure stipulated by the Constitutional Instrument (CI).

[CHRAJ said] they used their Constitutional Instrument 67, that is the investigation procedure. That CI states that they can subpoena people, invite them. That procedure may not have said they can put the people together and cross-examine them, as it is done in the Court, Mr Adawudu defended.

Mr Adawudu

He said the Petitioners could have taken the matter to the Supreme Court, invoke Article 248 of the Constitution, and to demand that the Court declare that the Presidents action constituted a conflict of interest.

He said in that instance, the Supreme Court could have allowed for cross-examination.
Nairobi (AFP) - Munching, the giraffe looks up towards the skyscrapers looming in the distance.

But this picture-postcard image of Nairobi, one where wild animals graze in the shadow of the cityscape, is at risk from a railroad.

A unique urban conservation site, the Nairobi National Park is a vast wildlife reserve where lions, hyenas and giraffes roam at will just seven kilometres (four miles) from the heart of town.

But its singular setting could prove its undoing. Nairobi, one of Africa's fastest growing and economically advanced cities, is planning to build a Chinese-funded railway line across east Africa's oldest national park.

Urban projects have steadily nibbled away the edges of the 120-square-kilometre (45 square miles) reserve, with new roads laid, power lines strung across its southeast corner, a pipeline dug underground and clouds of dust blowing in from nearby cement plants.

Urban projects have steadily nibbled away the edges of the 120-square-kilometre Nairobi National Park

Worse still, recent housing estates obstruct a key wildlife migration route on the park's southern flank leading to Kenya's other famed nature reserves, such as the Maasai Mara.

"In the 70s and 80s about 30,000 wildebeest came to the park every year. Nowadays, only about 300 come back regularly," said Sidney Kamanzi, who heads the Friends of Nairobi National Park group.

'Nothing like this before'

The latest threat to the park is part of a gigantic rail project -- currently at the heart of a legal battle -- which critics claim could do untold harm to the cityside sanctuary that is also home to zebras, crocodiles, hippos, rhinos, antelopes, buffaloes and hundreds of bird species.

Under the scheme, an elevated rail line will run across six kilometres of the park perched on pillars between eight and 40 metres (24 to 120 feet) tall.

"Chunks of the park have been taken away little by little, but there has never been anything like what they propose now," Kamanza said.

The foundation of the Standard Gauge Railway can be seen under construction within the Nairobi National Park's boundary

"The consequences will be disastrous," he said, although other conservationists are demanding an environmental impact study before passing final judgement.

Kenya, which sees itself as east Africa's economic heart, decided in 2013 to upgrade its national railway network to link traffic from the region's leading port, Mombasa, to Nairobi, and then on to regional neighbours Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan.

A first 483-kilometre (300-mile) section from Mombasa to a terminal east of the Nairobi National Park is to be completed in late 2017. The line is said to be Kenya's largest infrastructure project since independence.

But it is the second stage section linking Nairobi to Naivasha in the Rift valley, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) northwest of the capital, that is seen as most problematic to the park and its 150,000 yearly visitors.

To avoid the high cost of buying land near the reserve, the authorities decided on one of seven possible options -- to cut through the sanctuary despite loud objections by some environmental groups.

'The right thing for Kenya': Leakey

The new Standard Gauge Railway will run parallel to the old railway (pictured) on the outskirts of Nairobi National Park

Initially opposed to the idea, the state-run Kenya Wildlife Service has finally come out in favour, with KWS chairman, world-renowned anthropologist Richard Leakey, saying the costs of skirting the park would have been way too high.

'My personal choice was that the park and the railway should be separate. However, the cost of going round and the implications to our economy and the taxpayer made no sense and we are trying to do the right thing for Kenya,' Leakey said.

Kenya Railways hopes to begin work on the elevated track in January. It would last 18 months and be organised in three stages to avoid having to completely cut off half of the park during construction.

Pillars will be camouflaged, noise pollution reduced and freedom of movement maintained for the animals, the rail authorities have said.

But angry sceptics have taken the case to the country's environmental court on the grounds there was no impact study. The court has ordered the suspension of the stage two works pending a decision.

"The park is small and therefore fragile," said Paula Kahumbu, who heads Wildlife Direct, a nonprofit group.

"We don't want this affair to turn into an issue pitting economic development against conservation, because the two can co-exist," she added.

But other activists are worried the railway could spell the end of the iconic site.

"If the railway (line) is authorised, it could create a precedent that could mean the death of the park," said Sidney Quntai, who heads the Kenyan Coalition for the Conservation and Management of Fauna.

"Today it's a bridge (elevated track), but what will it be tomorrow?"
The National Blood Service is collaborating with the Rotary Club to embark on a nationwide blood donation campaign from October 6, 2016.

The campaign, according to the Club, is to draw national attention to the need for people to donate blood voluntarily.

At an event to launch the programme, the Service Project Director for the Club, Maame Kwaba Stevens said, the initiative would address the shortage of blood in the country and make blood donation a lifestyle among Ghanaians.

All the time, Korle Bu and 37 military hospitals call on people to donate blood. Donation must be a lifestyle. The country gets about half of the blood it needs and even if the current donors were donating half as much as they do, we won't still meet the target. But usually people just wait till a loved one needs blood before they donate and that's why it must be a lifestyle.

She added that the donation would be done across the country by all the Rotary Clubs in each region to enable them stock the Blood Bank.

We will start next week, that's October 6th to 8th in Bolgatanga, Tamale, Wa. Then we will move to Sunyani, Kumasi, and then Cape Coast, Takoradi, Ho, Koforidua, and finally, the last one in Accra. With Christmas just around the corner, the best gift to give, is the gift of life and what other way than through blood donation.

Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Blood Bank, Dr Justina Ansah said there was a need for constant donation since the bank was almost short of blood.

Blood has a shelf life of 35 days so if you donate blood today within 35 days that blood cannot be used, that's why people must donate constantly. People need to donate every day because the demand is high. On our part we have made available unit fridges to store blood. We recently distributed fridges so we now have the storage facilities but we don't have the quantity of blood needed. So we are very happy about this nationwide campaign.



By: Felicia Osei/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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Energy Bank Ghana will from Monday, October 3, 2016 begin its Customer Service Week celebration to appreciate customers for remaining loyal to the brand.

The weeklong celebrations will take place in all the 11 branches of the Bank in the four regions of the country, and will be marked with various activities.

Dubbed Think Service, Think Energy Bank, the objectives of the weeks celebrations are to appreciate and celebrate our customers for their continuous loyalty to the Bank, to restate and reinforce our commitment to efficient service delivery, and to raise companywide awareness of the importance of customer service. Other objectives are to stimulate morale, motivation and teamwork among staff, as well as reward frontline representatives for the important work they have exhibited throughout the year.

As part of the activities, the best staff in service delivery from each of the branches will be honored and celebrated.

The members of senior management of Energy Bank would take the opportunity to interact with customers whilst playing the roles of Tellers and Customer Service Officers in the various branches. The close interaction with customers will create awareness of customers challenges in carrying out transactions, and afford the opportunity for innovative solutions to address service delivery and customers needs.

The customer service week celebration will climax with cake-cutting at the branches and presentation of Energy Bank branded gifts to customers.

Describing the importance of the customer service week celebration, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Energy Bank Ghana, Christiana Olaoye said Energy Banks priority is to provide customer centric services to our clients as well as expressgratitude,saying thank you to all of them for doing business with us. It is also a period that the bank will use to assess the quality of service provided to our cherished customers.

We believe that there are always opportunities to enhance service delivery, and we will continue to seek improvement through innovation and technology, she added.

Energy Bank Ghanas vision is to build a strong bank based on the timeless principles of loyalty and efficient customer service.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
Lucy Quist, Managing Director  Airtel Ghana

30.09.2016 LISTEN

[29th September, 2016] Lucy Quist, Managing Director of Airtel Ghana and reigning Telecom CEO of the year has called for more collaboration between financial institutions and mobile telecom operators to create prosperity for Ghanaians and everyone within the Mobile Money ecosystem.

Addressing delegates at the 20th National Banking Conference at the Accra International Conference Center on the theme The Emerging Mobile Money Business in Ghana  the role of telecom companies, Mrs. Quist indicated that the Mobile Money business has come to stay and financial institutions must embrace and leverage the platform, through strategic partnerships, to ensure more Ghanaians are financially included.

She said The Mobile Money platform provides a unique opportunity for collaboration between financial institutions and operators in the country to create and perpetuate prosperity for everyone in the ecosystem. For instance, for customers, the platform provides convenience, value added services and innovative lifestyle solutions that meet their needs now and in the future.

For agents operating the service, it is a source of employment and livelihood for themselves and their families and for financial institutions, the platform is a major mobiliser of deposits.

Employment and financial inclusion

She continued The Mobile Money platform provides employment to thousands of Ghanaians. According to the latest report released by the Bank of Ghana, there are currently more than 108,000 registered agents across the country. For many of these agents, this platform is their main source of income and for others, it is a second stream of income. With more collaboration, this platform has the potential to contribute significantly to job creation, livelihood support and empowerment.

She threw more light on the ability of the platform to promote financial inclusion and prosperity for all.

Lucy Quist said Mobile Money serves as a conduit for promoting financial inclusion by bringing millions of Ghanaians who are currently excluded into the formal banking system. Once in the banking system, they have access to financial products and services that support their enterprises and livelihoods  creating prosperity for all within the ecosystem. This is a win-win situation.

The World Bank pegs the percentage of unbanked Ghanaians at some 70% of the total population. Yet Mobile penetration stands at Circa 132% across all telecom operators.

The millions of Ghanaians outside the formal banking system need some form of financial mediation  they need to be financially included and they will naturally find a way to access financial services. With almost every Ghanaian who needs a phone owning one, Mobile Money provides that bridge that connects them to the formal banking system.

Competitors or partners

In August 2016, PwC released the 2016 Banking Survey on the theme: How to win in an era of mobile money, which indicates that banks consider mobile money operators as partners due their ability to mobilise deposit through the use of technology, but at the same time increasingly worried that mobile money operators will metamorphose into banks or develop to the point where they can operate independently of banks.

Touching on the issue, Lucy Quist said Our focus is on providing the network infrastructure and distributive system that serves as a catalysts for innovation, reach and scalability not financial modelling.

When we launched Airtel Money in 2010, it was in collaboration with partner banks. All other operators did same. The mobile money platform, by its architecture and operating model, was not designed to operate outside the financial system. It was built to work effectively with banks and other financial institutions to provide limitless possibilities and drive sustained value for the entire ecosystem.

Mobile Money businesses will not morph into banks. What is likely to happen is more collaboration to offer consummate solutions to customers who stand to benefit the most. A few years ago, you can only send and receive money through the Mobile Money platform, now there are unlimited services  bill payments, transfer of funds between mobile wallets and bank accounts, purchase of T-bills etc. The possibilities will grow in the years ahead.

Volume of Mobile Money transactions have doubled in a year and subscriber numbers have substantially grown

The total volume of mobile money transactions grew from 110 million between January to June last year 2015 to 220 million for the same period this year. Registered customers for the service has seen more than 820% growth from 2010 when there were only a little over 2 million customers to the current figure of Circa 16 million with more than half being active customers

The growth in customer numbers as well as the volume and value of transaction over the period is a clear indication that Mobile Money is here to stay. These figures are expected to double and some will triple over the next couple of years as more people embrace the service and become included. Mrs. Lucy Quist concluded.
Since March 3, 2014 when ground was broken for the construction of the 200 Community Day Senior High Schools [CDSHSs] as promised by the NDC Govt, funding [GOG-100 & WB-23] has since been provided for the construction of 123.

As at the end of September 29, 2016, ten [10] had been fully completed, inaugurated, handed over to the beneficiary communities and they can be located at:-

Ekumfi Otuam Community Day SHS - Ekumfi District [GOG Funded], Barmiankor Community Day SHS - Nzema East District [GOG Funded], Nkwanta Community Day SHS in the Nkwanta South District [GOG Funded], Kwaobaa-Nyanoa Community Day SHS - Upper West Akim District [GOG Funded], Chinderi [Nchumuruman] Community Day SHS - Krachi Ntsumuru District [GOG Funded], Derma Community Day SHS - Tano South District [GOG Funded], Abeaseman Community Day SHS - Pru District [GOG Funded], Adobewora Community Day SHS - Atwima Mponua District [GOG Funded], Adugyama Community Day SHS - Ahafo Ano South District [WB Funded], Agona Abodom Community Day SHS - Agona West District [GOG Funded].

The other Two [2] CDSHSs completed, are awaiting official inauguration by President John Dramani Mahama in the coming days and they can also located at Agric Nzema - Kumasi Metropolis [WB Funded] and Agona Nemonwora - Agona East District.

The Ministry of Education and the GES have indicated that additional thirty [30] of the Community Day SHSs constructed across the country shall be ready by close of October, 2016 to welcome fresh students for the 2016/2017 academic year, bringing to Forty-two [42], the number of Community Day SHSs which would ready to provide access and quality education to over 16, 000 fresh pupils for the 2016/2017 academic year.

Indeed, the enemies of the state who could not even construct one new secondary school in their eight [8] long years in power can go and see things for themselves. Those magnificent Community Day Senior High Schools are visible to all over the country.

Surely, the new Community Day SHSs are not only targeted at expanding secondary education but also built to create equal opportunities for students who are hitherto denied entry into SHS due to limited space. JDM has delivered the Community Day SHS as he promised. One by one, all the 200 would be delivered to their beneficiary communities.

These are laudable educational achievements by the Mahama administration and they deserve our commendation and not condemnation.

Nuhu Ndebilla

[email protected]
Nicosia (AFP) - A Cypriot court ruled on Friday that an Egyptian man accused of hijacking a plane and diverting it to Cyprus can be extradited to Cairo for his alleged crimes.

Nicosia District Court judge Dona Constantinou was satisfied that Seif al-Din Mohamed Mostafa, 58, would get a fair trial in Egypt and would not be persecuted for his political beliefs.

"I have no doubt that the offences described in the extradition request are offences which can constitute an extradition order," the judge's ruling said.

"The offences are part of the common criminal code and under no circumstances can they be considered political," she added.

Mostafa listened to the proceedings pensively and gave no outward sign of emotion.

Defence lawyer Robertos Vrahimi said he has been instructed by his client to appeal the decision and has 10 days to do so.

Mostafa is accused of using a fake suicide belt to seize the EgyptAir plane flying from Alexandria to Cairo in March and redirect it to the Mediterranean island.

The hijacking ended peacefully with his arrest and the release of the 55 passengers after a six-hour standoff.

Constantinou said that when Mostafa was arrested he gave "no political motive whatsoever" for his actions.

Egypt requested Mostafa face trial under a bilateral agreement.

The defence argued that Mostafa should not be extradited because he would not receive a fair trial and there was a possibility he could be tortured.

It was claimed that as an opponent of the regime in Egypt he would not get justice.

Fair trial assurances accepted

But the court said it was satisfied that Mostafa would get a fair trial and would not be targeted because of his previous history of activism.

The judge said that Mostafa had no recent trouble with the authorities and he was even issued with a legal passport to travel.

"He travelled without the authorities banning his exit from the country which would be expected if the authorities were persecuting him as claimed."

The judge's ruling said the court had no reason to doubt the assurances given by the Egyptian authorities to Cyprus that Mostafa's human rights would be respected.

"Based on the evidence placed before me I judge that all the conditions have been met under the 1996 extradition agreement between the Cyprus Republic and the Arab Republic of Egypt," said Constantinou.

In June Mostafa gave his reasons why he hijacked an EgyptAir plane and should not be extradited.

He painted himself as a liberal who wanted democracy for an Egyptian people subjected to "abductions, disappearance, illegal detention and extrajudicial killings".

Mostafa said his motive for hijacking a domestic Egyptian flight on March 29 was to seek asylum in Italy and tell the world about the "repressive" Cairo government.

He urged the court not to extradite him to Egypt as he would become a "dead man walking".

"If I am extradited to Egypt my fate would be torture and death. Perhaps I shall be found hanged in my prison."

He requested asylum in Cyprus but it was refused as the authorities deem him a "perpetrator of serious crimes".

The Cypriot justice ministry says Egypt has given assurances of a fair trial and that the extradition request has nothing to do with politics.

Mostafa has been described by Cyprus authorities as psychologically unstable.
By Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Sept. 29, GNA - Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, Presidential Nominee of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on Thursday filed his nomination papers at the Electoral Commission (EC) to contest for the 2016 general election.

He was accompanied by the Mr Freddy Blay, NPP Acting National Chairman, Mr Peter Mac Manu, the Campaign Manager, Mr John Boadu, the Acting General Secretary, Mrs Otiko Djaba, the Women's Organiser, and Professor Mike Oquaye, the Chairman of the NPP's Legal and Constitutional Committee.

Mrs Charlotte Osei, the Chairperson of the EC returned the bankers draft to the flagbearer, explaining that their action was informed by a court injunction secured by the Progressive People's Party over the filling fees.

Speaking to the press, Mr Blay said by completing the filing process, the Party is ready for the 2016 general election.

GNA
What can the worlds largest single-dish radio telescope in China do?

An artist's rendition of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft hovering over Bennu the asteroid. (Photo : Twitter/NASA Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN))

China has begun operating the world's largest single-dish radio telescope in the mountainous Guizhou region. The project aims to locate and make contact with alien life forms.



While the radio telescope is a half-kilometer wide, it cost $180 million and took five years to compete. It has dethroned Puerto Rico's 300-meter Arecibo Observertory, which previously held the record as the largest single-dish radio telescope.



Advertisement

Science Magazine reported that the five-hundred-metre aperture spherical radio telescope (FAST) can detect gravitation waves, dark matter and fast radio bursts. It can also catalog pulsars and listen for transmissions from extra-terrestrial civilizations.



FAST, which is made up for 4,450 triangular reflector panels, is two times more sensitive that the Arecibo Observatory, while its surveying speed is five to 10 times faster.



The dish is a big leap in China's ambitious space program. By 2020, China aims to have established a permanent orbiting space station and a manned mission to the moon.



During a recent test, it was reported that FAST received signals from a pulsar that was 1,351 light-years away from Earth.



"The ultimate goal of FAST is to discover the laws of the development of the universe," said Qian Lei, an associate researcher with the National Astronomical Observatories at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Phys.org quotes.



"In theory, if there is civilization in outer space, the radio signal it sends will be similar to the signal we can receive when a pulsar (spinning neutron star) is approaching us."



Construction of FAST began in 2011. Officials had to relocate 10,000 people living within three miles from the location of the dish to avoid any other signals interfering with the monitoring. The families that were relocated were given cash and housing grants by the government.



China also hopes to attract tourists to the site of the dish. Construction of tourist facilities such as the observation deck has been completed.



Studies on alien intelligence has piqued scientists' interest and enthusiasm even more these days, especially after a Russian telescope detected a "strong signal" when it was searching for extraterrestrial signals. However, experts said it was still too early to make conclusions about the signal's origin.


By Elsie Appiah-Osei, GNA

Accra, Sept. 29, GNA - The Rotary Club of Accra-Achimota as part of its humanitarian services provided a health screening exercise for pupils of Apenkwa Cluster of Schools in Accra.

The two-day exercise which is a collaboration between the club and Logos of Hope, aimed at fulfilling one of Rotary International's area of focus that is disease prevention and treatment.

Mr Frank Offei-Ansah, the President of Rotary Club of Accra-Achimota, said as a way of the club providing it's humanitarian services to nurture the community by helping it to flourish and grow, members are reaching out to 1,000 students.

He said children are mostly prone to a lot of diseases but could hardly afford health service.

"This is why we are here today to help them through this medical outreach programme.

"This is our second time of doing this for the school especially when majority of the children in school fall within our catchment area and hardly have access to better health services," he said.

Mr Offei-Ansah mentioned eye, dental, IQ screening and counselling services as some of the exercise to be given the children.

He noted that the exercise would be a continuous process with follow-ups expected to be done on parents towards the treatment of the children.

"We are doing this screening to bring to light the sickness these children have, treat them and refer them where necessary.

"We will also give each child tooth brush and paste to concientise them on brushing twice," he said.

Dr Elvis Asante, an Optometrists at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, lauded the Club, saying: "It is a good initiative as majority of the children have no access to regular check-up," he said.

He said through the screening it was revealed that most of the children could not read well with others have other diseases that needed better attention.

Some of the pupils who spoke to the Ghana News Agency expressed happiness about the exercise and called for it to be monthly.

Logos Hope also donated books to the children. GNA
By Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Sept 29, GNA - The University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) has inaugurated its Bachelor of Science (BSc) Actuarial Science programme, to build the nation's human resource capacity in insurance and financial risk management.

The programme has been developed to train needed expertise to forecast future risk and related issues and also bridge the gap between theory and practice of insurance and risk management.

The programme fits well into Ghana's agenda of mitigating risk associated with life, investment and business by establishing institutions related to risk and insurance such as the National Insurance Commission (NIC), Ghana Insurance College, State Insurance Company Limited and promulgating the Insurance Act, Act 724 of 2006.

From the beginning of the 2016/2017 academic year, aside the programme, the UPSA, has also introduced a Law programme at the first degree level.

Professor Joshua Alabi, the Vice Chancellor, UPSA, said the vision of the University is to create a world-class higher educational institution that is nationally entrenched, regionally relevant and globally recognised.

He said at the moment, the UPSA is the only university offering a study programme in Total Quality Control at the postgraduate level on the African continent.

He said the objective of UPSA is to produce professionals for society; stating that in Ghana, the UPSA is the only University offering a programme in auditing.

He said the UPSA is a professional university, and therefore, would not allow itself to be pushed to become a research based university.

He explained that, UPSA's programmes have being tailored in such a way as to meet the professional need of the country.

Prof Alabi said the programme, would produce graduates that would meet the growing need of the insurance, banking and financial industries.

Dr Charles Barnor, the Dean, Faculty of Accounting and Financial, UPSA, in a speech read on his behalf said the programme would train graduates who would be competent to provide policy direction and advice for decision making regarding risk and insurance for individuals, businesses and government.

He said the employment opportunities for the graduates of the programme are very high and bright.

He said the graduates would secure careers in the field of Actuarial Sciences, risk and insurance management, pension administration, health and insurance management.

Mr Simon Nerro K. Davor, the Deputy Commissioner, NIC, said following the inauguration of the programme at the UPSA, Ghana now has six universities offering the programme.

He said the doors of NIC are opened to actuarial science students for industrial visits.

He said Ghana currently has 52 insurance companies with staff strength of 4,820; and there are 75 insurance brokering companies in the country.

He said the Commission requires that all insurance companies operating in the country have at least one actuarial expert; stating that without actuarial scientists, the insurance industry cannot grow.

Prof Stephen A. Yeboah, Chief Actuary, Social Security and National Insurance, who chaired the function hailed the Management of UPSA for introducing the programme.

GNA
By Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Sept 29, GNA - The Foundation for Security and Development (FOSDA), a civil society organisation, has held a two-day training workshop for 'Peace Ambassadors' in the Ashaiman Municipality.

The workshop, which brought together 30 youth within the age gap of 18 to35, aimed at ensuring that the youth have the capacity, the skills and logistics to become active promoters of peaceful, fair and free electoral processes as Peace Ambassadors.

The training programme, which is under FOSDA's "The Ballots not Bullets" sought to promote and contribute to peaceful elections in Ghana.

"The Ballots not Bullets" campaign initiative was started by FOSDA in 2004, and had been highly successful in empowering Ghanaians to participate directly in ensuring peaceful elections over the years.

This, year's edition, dubbed: "Ghana 2016 Youth in Peaceful Elections Campaign," is being supported by the United States Agency for International Development and Reacting to Early Warning and Response Data in West Africa.

Aside Ashaiman in the Greater Accra Region, other participating constituencies include Ahafo Ano North and Bekwai in Ashanti, Akwatia and Atiwa in the Eastern, Tamale Central and Yendi in the Northern, Bawku and Bolgatanga in the Upper East, and Anlo and Nkwanta North in the Volta Regions.

These selected constituencies form part of the more than 5000 flashpoints identified by the police ahead of the 2016 general election.

Speaking at the event, Mr Ibrahim Baidoo, the Ashaiman Municipal Chief Executive urged the youth to coexist peacefully and to help preserve the peace of the nation.

He recounted that since the 2008 general election to date, Ashaiman had not witness any electoral violence.

He urged people of the Municipality to ensure that this year's election comes off peaceful, so that Ashaiman name would be off the police list of flashpoints.

He said Ashaiman had become a brisk business centre and that is why many banks are moving in to open branches.

Ms Afi Yakubu, the Executive Director of FOSDA, said under the programme, the Foundation would focus on building sustainable relationships and collaboration between civil society organisations, the National Peace Council, the National Youth Authority and other relevant stakeholders to effectively manage conflicts before, during and after the 2016 general election and beyond in the 12 constituencies.

She explained that such intense engagement at the constituency level is expected to make the target constituencies more resilient to violence even beyond the electioneering period.

She said the Foundation would be training at least 200 "Peace Ambassadors" from the selected constituencies, in order to build their capacities to promote and implement actions towards peaceful election and post-election reconciliation.

Ms Yakubu said indicators that led to violence in some African countries are rife in Ghana.

She said internationally, Ghana's democracy, which could be described as a matured democracy by all standards, still has indicators that led to violence in some countries.

This, she attributed to the use of intemperate language by politicians.

Mr Bright Asare, the Greater Regional Coordinator, National Youth Authority advised the youth to desist from any form of violence; declaring that peace is a prerequisite for national development.

Mr Umar AdA mu, the Director, Ghana Youth Integrity Campaign, on behalf of his colleague youth, pledged to ensure peace before, during and after the 2016 general election.

FOSDA was established in 2001 by a group of Diaspora concerned about the conflicts in West Africa at the end of the twentieth century.

FOSDA is a non-profit organisation formed to examine the causes of these conflicts and further the capacity of African institutions and civil society organisations in the field of human security and development.

GNA
Accra, Sept. 29, GNA - Energy Bank Ghana would from Monday October 3, begins its Customer Service Week celebration to appreciate customers for remaining loyal to the brand.

The weeklong celebrations would take place in all the 11 branches of the Bank in the four regions of the country, and would be marked with various activities.

Dubbed: 'Think Service, Think Energy Bank,' the objectives of the week's celebrations is to appreciate and celebrate customers for their continuous loyalty to the Bank.

It is also to restate and reinforce the bank's commitment to efficient service delivery, and to raise companywide awareness of the importance of customer service.

Other objectives are to stimulate morale, motivation and teamwork among staff, as well as reward frontline representatives for the important work they have exhibited throughout the year.

As part of the activities, the best staff in service delivery from each of the branches would be honored and celebrated.

The members of senior management of Energy Bank would take the opportunity to interact with customers whilst playing the roles of Tellers and Customer Service Officers in the various branches.

The close interaction with customers will create awareness of customers' challenges in carrying out transactions, and afford the opportunity for innovative solutions to address service delivery and customers' needs.

The customer service week celebration would climax with cake-cutting at the branches and presentation of Energy Bank branded gifts to customers.

Describing the importance of the customer service week celebration, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Energy Bank Ghana, Christiana Olaoye said: 'Energy Bank's priority is to provide customer centric services to our clients as well as express gratitude, saying thank you to all of them for doing business with us.

'It is also a period that the bank will use to assess the quality of service provided to our cherished customers.

'We believe that there are always opportunities to enhance service delivery, and we will continue to seek improvement through innovation and technology,' she added.

Energy Bank Ghana's vision is to build a strong bank based on the timeless principles of loyalty and efficient customer service.

GNA
A 21-year-old Australian tradesman has been bitten by a venomous spider on the penis for a second time.

The man was using a portable toilet on a Sydney building site on Tuesday, when he suffered a repeat of the incident five months ago.

Jordan, who preferred not to reveal his surname, said he was bitten on "pretty much the same spot" by the spider.

"I'm the most unlucky guy in the country at the moment," he told the BBC.

"I was sitting on the toilet doing my business and just felt the sting that I felt the first time.

"I was like 'I can't believe it's happened again.' I looked down and I've seen a few little legs come from around the rim."

He said that being bitten the first time had made him wary of using portable toilets.

"After the first time it happened I didn't really want to use one again," he said.

"Toilets got cleaned that day and I thought it was my opportunity to go use one. Had a look under both seats and then I sat down did my business. Next thing you know, I'm bent over in pain." 'I'll be holding on'

The tradesman said he was not sure what type of spider bit him this time.

One of his colleagues took him from the worksite in north-west Sydney to Blacktown Hospital - although many of his workmates were quick to see the lighter side of the situation.

"They got worried the first time," he said.

"This time they were making jokes before I was getting in the car."

The hospital declined to discuss the matter, citing patient privacy.

Jordan was released from hospital and said he expected to return to work soon but was unlikely to be using the on-site toilet.

"I think I'll be holding on for dear life to be honest," he said.

The redback spider, closely related to the black widow spider, is distinguished by a long red stripe on its abdomen.

Its bite causes severe pain, sweating and nausea.

Although there are recorded cases of deaths from redback bites, none have occurred since the development of antivenom in 1956.
30.09.2016 LISTEN

The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has established that President John Dramani Mahama breached the gift policy of the state when he accepted a Ford Expedition vehicle gift from a Burkinabe contractor.

The CHRAJ, in its 78-page report released late Wednesday said, The Commission is satisfied that the gift in question forms part of gifts prohibited under the Gift Policy under the Code of Conduct. Although the evidence shows that the Respondent subsequently surrendered the gift to the State, the action nonetheless contravened the gift policy.

When Mr Mahama was the vice president during the tenure of former President John Evans Atta Mills, he took delivery of a brand new 2010 Ford Expedition in 2010 from Djibril Kanazoe, whose company had since been awarded juicy government contracts, including the construction of the controversial $650,000 Ghana Embassy fence wall in Burkina Faso  apart from other multi-million dollar contracts, since his encounter with President Mahama.

The Burkinabe contractor sent the gift, believed to be worth $100,000, to his friend, Mr. Mahama, through the Ghana Embassy in Ouagadougou and the transaction had been concealed for about four years until its lid was blown by journalist Manasseh Awuni Azure of Joy FM.

Three petitions had been filed separately by the National Youth League of the Convention People's Party (CPP), a private citizen, Nana Adofo Ofori, as well as Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom's Progressive People's Party (PPP), all citing President Mahama as having received bribe and indulging in conflict of interest.



Issues Set Out



According to CHRAJ, it set out 13 issues for investigation into the matter before concluding that the president did not put himself in any conflict of interest situation.

The commission explained in the report that although President Mahama 'contravened' the Gift Policy of the state, there was no 'conflict of interest' on the part of the president as raised by the petitioners.

At the end of the preliminary investigation, CHRAJ has come to the conclusion, based on the extensive evidence assembled that the allegations that the Respondent has contravened Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution by putting himself in situations of conflict of interest have not been substantiated. Consequently, the Commission holds that full or further investigations into the allegations are not warranted. The allegations, therefore, are hereby dismissed.

Presidential Pool

CHRAJ said there was evidence that when the president took delivery of the said vehicle, he handed it over to the state and the vehicle was included in the presidential pool on November 2, 2012 and therefore the action cured any charge of conflict of interest against him (president).

Having reviewed the evidence on the actions and conduct of the Respondent after the gift was made, the Commission is satisfied that his actions and conduct sufficiently dealt with any conflict of interest that could have been occasioned. In the circumstances, the Commission finds that the Respondent did not put himself in a conflict of interest situation or contravene the conflict of interest rules under Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution.

The document, signed by Acting CHRAJ Commissioner Richard Quayson, indicated that the Commission accordingly finds that the circumstances under which the gift was delivered to the Respondent, and conduct of the Respondent after the gift was made sufficiently rebuts the presumption of acceptance of a bribe by a public officer, CHRAJ posited, adding, In the circumstances, the Commission is satisfied that the Respondent's conduct did not violate Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.

Prohibited Gift

Interestingly, CHRAJ held that the gift in question formed part of gifts prohibited by the Gift Policy under the Code of Conduct and added that although the evidence showed that President Mahama subsequently surrendered the gift to the State, the action nonetheless contravened the gift policy.

The Commission is satisfied with the actions of the Respondent after the gift was made, and accordingly finds that his conduct was not consistent with that of a person who had been corrupted by a gift or improperly influenced by same.

On the basis of the available evidence, the Commission finds clearly stated on the face of the Customs Temporary Vehicle Importation permission duly stamped and signed by Customs officials, the name of Ouedraogo Cheick Mohammed as the owner/driver and therefore finds the allegation of the perpetration of fraud on Ghanaians on the part of the Respondent totally misconceived and unsupported by the evidence.

Contracts Influenced

CHRAJ said there was no evidence that the gift to the president influenced the award of contracts to the person who had offered it and added that all the contracts given to Djibril Kanazoe duly passed through procurement processes.

At the end of the preliminary investigation, the Commission has come to the conclusion, based on the extensive evidence assembled that the allegations that the Respondent has contravened Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution by putting himself in situations of conflict of interest have not been substantiated. Consequently, the Commission holds that full or further investigations into the allegations are not warranted.

The allegations, therefore, are hereby dismissed.

Lawyer Reacts

Reacting to the CHRAJ ruling, Tony Lithur, lawyer for President Mahama, lauded the Commission's decision.

I commend CHRAJ for discharging its constitutional mandate with dispatch, and hope that the clarity and completeness of its determination of all the issues will finally lay this matter to rest once and for all, he said in a statement.

By William Yaw Owusu
30.09.2016 LISTEN

It was an inspired King Solomon who said, If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.(2 Chronicles 7 verse 14). As an oracle of the Almighty, this famous king is here giving us an insight into the workings of Gods mind not only concerning how the Lord sees Himself in relation to His people but also about what should be the responsibilities of His people to their nation.

A few facts immediately emerge as one looks at the above statement. The first is that God readily identifies with His people and shares their hopes concerning their land, that is, their nation. This is for no other reason than that His people are called by His name. Remember, Christians are called by Christs name. Therefore, as Christ would not want His people to be distressed about their nation, He has spelt out what they need to do to ensure the prosperity of their nation.

This only means that if Gods people then refuse to play ball, they have only themselves to blame. Secondly, by Divine arrangement, believe it or not, Gods people are supposed to determine what happens in their nation. This is because, according to the instruction given above, if Gods people would endeavour to obey Him, by following His orders, He would heal their land.

This implies that it is all in the hands of Gods people and no longer in Gods hands. The last fact that clearly emerges is that, considering the way God operates, the situation in the country may never change. This is because the quoted statement starts with the operative word if and not the word when . Had the statement started with the word when , one could say that a definite time will come when Gods people will arise from their slumber and do what they need to do to retrieve their nation from the jaws of mismanagement and anarchy. The Almighty however starts the statement with the word if because He knows that His people may never come to their senses and do what is necessary in order to have their nation back.

According to Solomons statement, God expects His people to do the following three things so that He too could do what would turn the situation around in their country:

Humility : God wants His people to humble themselves. As it is only Gods grace that has made them to be accepted in the Beloved, Christians need to show genuine love to people from all backgrounds and from all religions. This means that they must never harbour any superiority complex and they should seriously intercede for the souls of non-Christians so that they too can be saved. It is only through love and humility that Nigeria can be won for Christ.

Changing From Wicked Ways : The Almighty also wants His people to change from their wicked ways. These days, one could hardly notice any difference between the way church people live and the way non-Christians live. This is despite the fact that we are supposed to be the light of the world. Without true repentance, we cannot move the nation forward. Many of those who looted public funds are Christians and these people have pastors and bishops who know what they are up to. It is also now not unusual to have a Christian who would have one leg in the church and the other leg in the occult. We only fool ourselves if we think that we can deceive God.

Essentially, as Gods people, we not only need to repent of our evil ways, we also need to repent on behalf of the nation. Prophet Daniel, in the bible, did it for his own nation. It is hardly surprising that Nigeria is better known for her money - guzzling, land  grabbing, cigar  chewing, beer  swilling, and occult  embracing pastors than for righteousness, accountability, probity, compassion and discipline. In addition to those mentioned above, our nation has a lot of other things to repent of namely: The neglect of the widows and the fatherless; indolence; a get rich quick mentality; lack of imagination by the leaders on how to tackle national problems; the shedding of the blood of innocent people; greed and avarice; embracing a culture of corruption; refusal to protect and provide for the weak and the poor; injustice; failure to prepare and plan for the future of our young people whose futures now seem to have been mortgaged and; failure to be good examples to non-Christians.

Praying/Seeking Gods Face : Prayer is power, being an invisible emanation of mans worshipping spirit. It is the most powerful form of energy that anyone could generate. The Lord specifically commissions His people to pray. Prayer is needed to storm the satanic strongholds scattered all around our country. If we must dislodge the blood - sucking powers that are holding the nation to ransom, then we must spend quality time on our knees. For example, one of the marauding spirits that must be confronted by prayer is the wasting spirit, the spirit that wastes lives, destinies and resources.

The Almighty promises to do the following three things in response to our obedience to His orders:

Hear From Heaven : So far, it appears that most of the prayers being offered are mere noises. Could this be the real reason things seem to be getting worse in our country despite the presence of thousands of churches and ministries? The bible teaches us that God sees the prayers of the unrighteous as an abomination. On the other hand, God has committed Himself to hearing our prayers once we change from our wicked ways as His people.

Forgive Our Sins : The fortunes of the nation will witness a turnaround once our sins, which are many, are forgiven. King David, in the Psalms, wrote about the blessedness of being forgiven. This would nevertheless be after those sins have been acknowledged and confessed.
30.09.2016 LISTEN

The popularity of their activities in the capital is risking the lives of many unsuspecting Ghanaians. But for those who patronize the services of these roving pedicurists, it's a matter more of accessibility and affordability than style, class or even good health.

That notwithstanding, health experts are wary many Ghanaians may be buying for themselves, all manner of infections for as low as 50 pesewas on the streets of Accra

Millions of people get pedicures each day without giving it a second thought. Manicures and pedicures can be a pleasurable experience for you, but your skin may feel differently because of the chance for micro-injuries, skin breaches or contagious infections, amidst the pleasure.

For 50 pesewas, clients can get a street version of bespoke pedicure and foot spa treatment from their sharp razor blades, knives and scissors nearly any time of the day.

However easily accessible these services are on the street, market centers or even workplaces, health experts believe the propensity of contracting all sorts of blood-based and skin infections through these services is easier and cheaper than ever before.

These guys, many of whom are thought to have fled war-torn African countries have been struggling with many adaptions in Ghana, key among which is the language!

But they find solace and source of income from engaging in cutting, buffing and filing the toe and finger nails of their clients in the nooks and crannies of the Ghanaian capital with brazen passion!

In many of the cities slum-dens, live these roving pedicurists  waking up each day, looking forward to servicing as many clients as possible.

For watchers, the trade gaining popularity in the face of widespread health concerns of stakeholders signals a manifestation of the harsh living conditions the average Ghanaian is confronted with.

Up-close with the Roving Pedicurist

Twenty-two year old Issaka, a native of Mali, has been living in Ghana for the past eight months. He tells me he's been engaging in the pedicure business since he came into the country. Apart from the Hausa language, Issaka speaks no other Ghanaian language.

I had to engage the services of Nabu as an interpreter to interact with the 22-year old. Sporting a lemon green tee over a blue-black pant brushing just below his knee, the skittish, or rather indifferent Issaka would not open up. The shy-looking boy is fixated on giving his nails a clean brush, while he struggles to answer my questions  through my interpreter.

From Monday to Saturday, he wakes up in the morning together with his other colleagues, looking forward to getting as many clients as possible before dusk. Issaka tells me he lives in one of Accras most densely populated slums, with over hundred others, who are all into the pedicure business.

His services are not too expensive, for clients who cannot afford his 70 pesewa charge, he beats it down to 50 pesewas upon the client's plea; on a good day, he could rake in as much as eighty cedis and thirty cedis on very lean days  but for all that its worth, Issaka feels the only way out of poverty and squalor is this!

Kwame is a bus conductor at Tema station, who had just engaged his services. I enquire from him why he chose Issaka as opposed to trimming his nails by himself, oblivious of the health implications.

For Kwame, tiresome work schedules as a bus conductor affords him very little time to be able to clean himself up. I report to work as early as 05:00 a.m every morning and close after 10:00 p.m; I am unable to trim my nails during this time. Its much easier contracting these guys who do this so well in less than five minutes, he tells me.

Kwame is not alone in this  his colleague Joe shares in the same story. For him, the expertise displayed by the roving pedicurist is enough motivation.

Curious to have a first time feel of how it all works, I engaged Issaka for a fingernail trim.

For a first-timer that I was, the pain was evident. The force with which he scraped off the surface of my soft nails with the same razor he used for Kwame only minutes ago confirmed my apprehension.

Momentarily, I thought my finger nails were literally being yanked off! How painful! Deep into the flesh on the sides of my nails, the sharp knife sank  from that point; I knew I had been given a dose of what I called for. Torment!

So through my interpreter, I enquired from Issaka how he would handle a cut if I sustained one through this process  but like I read his mind, he simply tells me there's nothing he'll do, except if I had a personal medical aid kit. This rather startling revelation petrified me the more.

Boakye is a self-employed businessman in his mid-thirties who had just contracted one of these roving pedicurists to give him a quick clean trim at the Madina Market. Minutes after the session, he realized a cut in the flesh on his second left toe, from which blood flowed, but was helpless. He admits opening himself up to such a huge health risk is something he regrets.

I told him I was not going to pay him if I saw any open cut. But he inflicted this on me. Im just noticing it, I wouldnt have paid him had I noticed this earlier, he told me.

For now, I dont know if I am open to any diseases, this is my lesson. Never again!

Many more Ghanaians have had to endure this kind of misfortune, without taking any serious action - the probability of infection transfer from one person to another is the greatest risk scores of Ghanaians are inadvertently opening themselves up to.

How they work

On a regular day, with a pair of scissors, sometimes two, a short pocket knife, a piece of foam/ sometimes rag and a small bottle of soap solution they roam through the crevices of the most clustered areas; markets, bus terminals and slums calling out for prospective clients with the slapping together of two metal pieces......

For a client, they first apply the soap solution onto the nails, as I have come to learn  to soften the nails...then with the pair of scissors, they begin cutting off the cuticles and dead skin around the nails. Intermittently, they rub the solution on the nails to clean up the debris.

Sporadically, a piece of foam is used to wipe off the particles....what happens in case of a cut? As Kwame told me, if the client has a first aid kit on them when the cut occurs, it could be used, however for clients who do not have any, a mere soap water clean is enough....

Then onto the next client!

For all the clients they engage, the same very sharp tools are used, with careless abandon. The health implications may be unpleasant...but for many of these people who patronize their services, it's a cheaper and accessible way to get a quick trim on their toe and finger nails amidst their usually busy schedules to put body and soul together.

Another common mistake made by these pedicurists is cutting nails too aggressively on the sides. This, health experts reckon can lead to painful ingrown toenails that break the skin, sometimes requiring surgical treatment.

But who would care?

Professional Therapy Options

Call it ignorance or maybe indifference, make that unconcern  many Ghanaians give these roving pedicurists the opportunity to expose them to various viral, fungal and bacterial infections. Before the popularity of this form of activity however, there existed the nail spas and salons, with staff who offer manicure and pedicure services to clients at a fee.

About 75 percent of salons and spas in the U.S. reportedly don't follow state protocol for disinfection, according to studies conducted in 2014. While its impossible to be completely sterile, salons and therapy spas are to sterilize their tools using an autoclave  a machine used in medical environments that produces steam and pressure for disinfecting equipment.

Many nail salons however used and continue to use liquid disinfectants to clean tools, but this method is only effective if therapists soak the instruments for around 20 minutes.

When shops get busy, tools are often removed early and used on the next client. The situation in Ghana is all too familiar. With no proper regulation or streamlining of the activities of nail spas in the country, individuals and groups are running their own enterprises; some with safety regimes others solely fixated on the income.

At one of Accra's popular men's grooming hubs, a number of clients are seen undergoing various stages of manicure and pedicure processes. The attendants are seen in protective gear  hand gloves and clean wipes. The contrast between what I find here and what persists with the roving pedicurists is glaring.

Lorraine is a professional therapist who works with X-men grooming parlour in Accra. She shares with me a few tips on best practices in offering manicure and pedicure services to clients.

The processes here are well-defined. From the inspection stage where the client is assessed for a contraindication or pedicure contra-actions (investigations into whether a client has blisters or any cuts around the feet or nails) to the feet-soak in the booth bath, then to the removal of the hanging cuticles, through to the clipping of dead skin cells of the foot area (called callus removal) and the smoothening phase with the use of a Pedi foot file.

According to Lorraine, all the devices used at the facility are sterilized and recommends highly that one trimmer or blade should not be used for more than one client.

For us here, we adhere to professional standards. We carefully take our clients through all these processes just to ensure we are not exposing them to infections, she explained.

She further noted the staff are all in gloves as well, we must also protect ourselves from possible infections as many of our clients may come in with different conditions.

Owing to the various groups of clients and their special needs, it is recommended that tools used for one client are not repeated, especially with the razors, trimmers and cutters.

But, for all those roving pedicurists, these processes may be painstaking  a wild wander into another world.

Diseases closer to our doorsteps than ever before

The city of Accra on a regular day is awash with many of these guys, roaming market centers, bus terminals and slum areas, with every 200 meter-walk providing an opportunity to meet a dark, usually 5 ft. 4 male frame, slapping two blades of his scissors together creating their signature call out sound.

From our neighborhoods, to the workplace, nine time out of ten, one is likely to come across one or more of these guys before close of day. For the most daring ones, a visit to the homes of their clients is more rewarding.

While they carry out their activities and charge their fees, they leave majority of their clients with infections for as cheap as fifty pesewas.

Whats more?

Majority of Ghanaians who patronize their services are unable to communicate with them due to the language barrier  as a result, there arises a gap. An opportunity for a feedback is absent; in the event theres a skin breach or cut, save for the empty rants of the affected clients.

But how deadly can patronizing the services of these roving pedicurists be the unsuspecting public?

What really is the FUSS!?

Health Expert Views

The consensus points to one direction; there clearly is a problem  a cause for concern.

According to Doctor Dennis Bortey, a senior health officer at the Adabraka Polyclinic, the activities of roving pedicurists pose a serious public health threat, adding, those who patronize their services are susceptible to various blood-based infections.

He explained that many members of the public are susceptible to contracting HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B and C as well as other skin infections like scabies and foot-related infections.

Because of the sharp objects they use, once theres a cut, the organisms could be transferred from one person to another, especially considering the fact that some of these disease-causing viruses and bacteria can stay active for days, he highlighted.

Dr. Bortey noted that even in cases where the client receives no visible blood cut after the session, the skin-breach means the body is still prone to microscopic bacteria and fungus.

He further noted the potential of disease transfer from clients to these roving pedicurists themselves is also high in view of the fact that they dont wear protective gloves on their rounds.

Considering the fact that many people are always wearing socks and shoes also, the propensity of providing a fertile breeding ground for microscopic bacteria and other organisms are high, as a result once these unsupervised individuals come into contact with such clients, its an easy route to contract some of these infections, he lamented.

For many health experts, a regulation of a sort from the Health Directorate and other stakeholders is the way to go, to prevent what they describe as an imminent epidemic.

The call on these institutions to regulate the activities of these roving pedicurists may be the way to go, but Dr. Bortey provides an alternative.

How about this?

Doctor Bortey believes members of the public must endeavour to take charge of their own lives  prescribing that another way out of the situation is for people to acquire these manicure and pedicure devices and equipment, and only engage the services of the professionals at a fee for their time and expertise.

He noted public education is required to help address the situation, while throwing the ultimate baton at the doorstep of the Health institutions  Ghana Health Service and other health directorates to formulate some regulations to check the activities of these roving pedicurists in the capital.

Other health experts reckon no matter how careful these guys are, there may still be small, microscopic cuts which may serve as a portal to infections. They have shot down claims by a section of the public to the effect that the roving pedicurists clean the blades and knives with a soap solution they carry around.

According to them, only if the guys washed their tools (scissors, knives, and blades) with carboxylic acid soaps (antiseptic soaps), can our fears be allayed, a provision they conclude is not the case.

Way Forward?

Yes  they are everywhere! Easily accessible and many times affordable too! But the long term consequences of patronizing their services may leave an indelible scar in the event the tables turn.

As much as possible, Health Experts are cautioning against opening ourselves up to the plethora of diseases  some life-threatening, others permanently deforming too. Perhaps, if walking into a pedicure and manicure salon may be a burden in every sense of the word, then try otherwise.

Affordability and accessibility versus infection contraction, which would you choose?

To buy a disease for as cheap as Fifty pesewas or err on the side of caution? I choose the latter!
A former Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) says the Commission's conclusions after an investigation into President John Mahama's acceptance a Ford vehicle gift is problematic.

Justice Emile Short is worried about what CHRAJ's decision might mean to ministers and other public office holders who may be faced a similar situation where contractors and other persons offer them gifts.

Speaking on Joy FM's Super Morning Show, Justice Short said the conclusion is rather problematic. My concern is what sort of signal does it send to the ministers, say the roads and highways Minister who might be dealing with contractors - whether foreign or domestic - and when they are confronted with a situation where they are offered a gift in the course of the performance of their official functions, how they are to deal with such a situation.

If the decision of the Commission is to be accepted at face value, does it really send the right signal to ministers and other public office holders as to how they should deal with the question of gifts? he queried.

Justice Short's comments come on the back of a report by CHRAJ exonerating President John Mahama of accusations of conflict of interest after he accepted a gift from a Burkinabe contractor, Jibril Kanazoe in 2012.

Jibril Kanazoe

CHRAJ after its investigation said that the president did not breach the bribery, corruption or conflict of interest laws of the country.

On the issue of whether the acceptance of the gift placed the president in a conflict of interest situation, the Commission observed that the acceptance of prohibited gift, did not in itself constitute a conflict of interest.

However, it is the failure to declare the gift to the appropriate institutions; and failing to take oneself away from any transaction involving the giver of the gift is what constitutes a conflict of interest.

The Commission said, since the president declared the gift, surrendered it to the state's vehicle pool and did not use his public office for private benefit he could not have been found to have breached the conflict of interest procedures.

But Justice Short said, although the Commission referred to Article 374 which provides guidelines for the disposal of prohibited gifts, it forgot that part of the section also states that gifts which should not be accepted must be politely declined or immediately returned to the sender.

If delivered without prior notice, alternatively the official should pay the market value of the gift. When it is not possible to return the gift, the item should be given to an appropriate charity, he quoted the rules as saying.

He indicated that while all this has been stated in the article, the Commission failed to take the recommended action in the instant case.

However the Commission went on to say that having reviewed the evidence, by the actions or conduct of the respondent after the gift was made, the Commission is satisfied that his actions and conduct sufficiently dealt with any conflict of interest that could have been occasioned, Justice Short related.

He also queried the inability of the Commission to refer to the president's code of conduct which states in Section 144 that they should avoid the creation or appearance of obligation and gift in cash or kind are not to be solicited or accepted from a commercial enterprise or any other organization.

So the president's code of ethics imposes a complete prohibition on his ministers to accept gifts in cash or kind from a commercial enterprise or any other organization.

He further indicated that the Commission should have as part of its investigation, taken into account the relationship between the president and the contractor, especially since the issue would not have come to light if Joy News' Manasseh Azure Awuni had not investigated and reported it.

It is obviously a relevant factor which should have been considered, he stressed.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Naa Sakwaba Akwa | [email protected]
The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) will from Saturday, 1st October begin charging its safety charge on all international and regional flights in Ghana.

Director-General of the GCAA, Simon Allottey, who confirmed this, said the move is as result of the common agreement reached with all stakeholders in the industry.

Mr Allottey disclosed that all stakeholders in the industry with IATA agreed for the implementation date to begin on October 1, 2016 after consultations.

After exhaustive consultations and discussions with all parties, we have agreed that implementation date would be from October 1, this year.

He further explained that this is because we have done all the necessary consultations involving IATA that is the International Air Transport Association plus we have involved all the airlines and the board of the airlines representatives in Ghana.

'Let me state that all other key stakeholders both local and international were consulted to discuss all the modalities for implementation and we are ready to begin the implementation, he stated.

GCAA was forced to halt the implementation of the safety charge in August 2016 by the airlines and other stakeholders within the industry.

The airlines argued at the time that they had not been duly consulted and could not immediately add the safety charge as it was against the IATA rules of ticketing.

The introduction of the safety charge will see airline tickets attract $10 extra and cargo fares $20.

The increase is due to the amended GCAA Law (Act906, 2016), which the President assented to in February, this year.

-Citifmonline
The Russian Government has reiterated its commitment to encouraging its nationals to invest in the various sectors of Ghana's economy.

Evgeny A. Kiselev, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation, who made this known, said Russia is ready to invest in a number of sectors of the economy such as agriculture, mining and education.

Mr Kiselev, who also heads the Federal Agency on Mineral Resources, disclosed this while speaking at the second session of the Ghana-Russian Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation (PJCC) held at the conference room of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration in Accra last week.

The first session of PJCC was held in Moscow, Russia in May 2014.

Dr. Emmanuel H. Bombade, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, lauded the Russian government for its active involvement in the development of Ghana.

Today's session is yet another welcome opportunity for us to assess our bilateral cooperation over again through a multifaceted lens of but not limited to economic, scientific and technical diplomacy, as well as to identify new avenues of cooperation while fortifying the existing ones simultaneously.

He reiterated Ghana's commitment to enhancing the economic cooperation between the two countries by exposing the potentials of the country to investors.

He lauded Mr Kiselev for supporting the first session of PJCC held at the Ghana Embassy in Moscow in collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation in May.

He urged the investors to take advantage of new opportunities in the country, adding that such engagement would be beneficial.

By Solomon Ofori


Karpowership Ghana Limited has offered a one-year bursary to 100 needy but brilliant students from Manhean Presbyterian Primary School and Manhean TMA Primary and JHS in Tema New Town, Accra.

The bursary is aimed at assisting low-income families in the community who cannot foot the bills of their school-going children.

Karpowership also donated learning materials to about 2,000 students in the Manhean Anglican Cluster of Schools in Tema.

The items included back packs, pencil cases, exercise books, pens, pencils and erasers.

According to the company, the scholarship and donations were part of its corporate social responsibility initiative to enhance teaching and learning in public schools at Tema New Town.

Volkan Buyukbicer, Country Manager for Karpowership Ghana, in his remarks, said Karpowership was pleased to contribute its quota to the development of public schools in communities in which it operates.

Guided by our core value of Community Responsibility, Karpowership cares for the less privileged and remains committed to the improvement of communities we operate in.

We believe that if the students are motivated in the classroom, they will grow to achieve great things in future, hence our committment to help with the tools and resources they need to achieve these great things, he said.

Heads of the beneficiary schools expressed appreciation to Karpowership for their continuous support.

Elizabeth Oppong, Headmistress of Anglican Primary A and B, said, We are very grateful for these donations and we promise to put the items to good use to raise academic standards in the school.

A beneficiary from the Manhean TMA School, Racheal Mensah, who spoke on behalf of her colleagues, said that they would make good use of the bursary by studying hard.

Karpowership has been committed to supplying sustainable and affordable electricity to Ghana since it began operations.

Karadeniz Powership Aysegul Sultan, with an installed capacity of 235MW, has been running efficiently to produce on average 220 MW of power.

Cephas Larbi

[email protected]
Dr Joe Abbey, Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA), has disclosed that even though the extended credit facility of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to Ghana was restoring fiscal discipline, poverty will not reduce in the country.

Speaking in an interview with BUSINESS GUIDE yesterday, he explained that there's a cost in terms of people crying out that they don't have enough jobs or that their poverty levels may be worsening. Yes, we are being forced to live within our means. But we have not reached the point where we are seeing this in our pockets in terms of jobs and increased wellbeing.

According to him, Ghanaians would not feel the economic turnaround until they got growth and jobs.

Just support for cedi



This is foreign exchange that is coming to us. It doesn't go to the budget. That is money that rather goes to the Bank of Ghana (BoG). And its main purpose is to increase the buffer we have within, or cedi exchange rate. It is to support the cedi. It is supposed to be called like the balance of payments.

Not a penny of that goes to reduce our budget deficit and our debt and so on. So yes we are receiving that and because of that the international market may not be asking for a lot when they lend to Ghana. The deficit is another measure of the borrowing requirement of the government. This is just a means to check you to borrow less.

Opposition concerns



Reacting to government's joy at the release of the fourth tranche of $116.2 million, Dr Mark Assibey-Yeboah, Member of Parliament (MP) for New Juaben South, said the IMF should have disbursed the fourth tranche in June after the third review but waited for three months.

That's why it has become news now. Now, why did it delay? It delayed because the IMF did not believe in the numbers that government was giving out, i.e. the data on our macro-economy. So the government had to go and present the proper data. It means somebody was lying to the fund initially. Then they were concealing the actual debt owed by the state owned enterprises (SOEs) in the energy sector i.e. VRA, ECG, TOR and the rest. So the IMF asked them to come clean on those so that the fund will know the total debt.

This is no news because the IMF would disburse the remaining tranches since Ghana has not come out of the programme.

No confidence in economy

This tells you that if you don't present proper data to the fund, there is a punishment. This does not show confidence in the economy. We went to the IMF because we wanted policy credibility.

If the Minister of Finance thinks that disbursing the fourth tranche means there is confidence in the economy, then where are we going? And in any case, under any IMF programme, our economy is not going to grow. It just stabilizes the macro-economy so the deficit comes down, so the debt to GDP comes down, but in terms of growth, the country suffers. No country has experienced significant growth under an IMF programme.

The IMF Executive Board met on Wednesday and approved Ghana's economic performance under the third review.

By Samuel Boadi

[email protected]
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE of the Progressive People's Party (PPP), Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, has asked the people of Sunyani in the Brong-Ahafo Region to disregard all promises being made by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate, John Dramani Mahama and Nana Akufo-Ado, leader of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

In the view of the PPP leader, the promises are vain because those making the promises are not known to be doers but 'promisers.'

He asked the people to vote for him to become president so that he could create jobs for them to have money in their pockets in order to live meaningful lives, claiming that he has examples to show that he creates jobs.

According to him, President Mahama cannot discharge his duties as a president noting that what he can do is what the people are seeing now  hardship emanating from corruption in high offices, dumsor and joblessness. The PPP presidential candidate told Ghanaians that the promise by Mahama to create one million jobs when he is re-elected is a lie because he cannot do it. He wondered why the president couldn't do it during his years in office, charging the people to tell Mahama that he could not do the job and so they would give their mandate to him (Papa Nduom) to do it.

He said the recently commissioned Kommenda Sugar Factory has become a white elephant because there is no sugar cane to feed the factory. This is a sign of incompetence, he observed, and asked the people whether sugar is manufactured from pineapple or cashew.

According to him, a $35 million loan from India to revive the factory is a waste and a debt to pay.

Dr Nduom promised to create jobs in the agriculture sector where agribusiness will be the fulcrum that will turn the economy around, assuring that there is money in agriculture and for that matter, in Ghana.

He said when he wins the presidency, all foreigners who are engaged in galamsey and cashew business will be sacked to give way to Ghanaians to engage in meaningful business. He will also set up a gold refinery in the country so that foreigners will not cheat Ghanaians by taking the country's gold away, add value to it and resell it to Ghanaians.

FROM Daniel Y Dayee, Sunyani

[email protected]
Nana Addo, Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, Nana Konadu Rawlings and Akua Donkor

Nine presidential hopefuls yesterday submitted their nomination forms to enable them to contest in the December presidential election.

Even though some of the parties only exist on paper, their presidential candidates managed to file their nomination forms ahead of today's deadline by the Electoral Commission (EC), which pegged nomination fee at GH50,000. No candidate however, paid the fee owing to a court injunction.

The nine parties were among the over 20 parties and individuals who had picked nomination forms to contest in the presidential election in December.

The two front runners, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) whose presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, personally submitted his forms and the National Democratic Congress (NDC's) forms were submitted by Vice President Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur.

Other candidates were Kofi Akpaloo of Independent Peoples Party (IPP); Akua Donkor, Ghana Freedom Party (GFP); Akwasi Addai Odike, United Progressive Party (UPP); Hassan Ayariga, All Peoples Congress (APC); Kwabena Adjei aka Bambata, Reformed Patriotic Democrats (RPD); Nana Agyenim Boateng aka Gyataba, United Front Party (UFP), with Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings' National Democratic Party (NDP) showing up for the day.

The Electoral Commission however, seems to be running away from its shadow when it declined to accept payments (filing fees) from presidential and parliamentary aspirants contesting in the upcoming general election.

This follows a court injunction placed on the elections organizing body by the Progressive People's Party (PPP) over EC's decision to charge GH50,000 and GH10,000 respectively from presidential and parliamentary aspirants respectively.

Various aspirants who trooped to the EC's headquarters in Accra yesterday to file their nomination forms had their cheques returned to them by the electoral officials.

First was the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. He was at the commission's headquarters in the early hours of yesterday to submit his forms in the company of party chieftains, including the Chairman of the party's Council of Elders, C.K Tedam; Acting National Chairman and General Secretary, Freddie Blay and John Boadu respectively; party elders: Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye, Yaw Osafo Maafo, Director of Elections, Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah, National Women's Organiser, Otiko Djaba and a host of others.

Upon reaching there, Nana Addo and his team were given a warm welcome by Chairperson of the Commission, Charlotte Osei, and members of her team, including Amadu Sulley, Georgina Opoku Amankwah, Hajia Sadatu Maida and Pauline Adobea Dadzawa.



Drama

After the exchange of pleasantries, Nana proceeded to present his nomination forms to the EC boss together with the GH50,000; that was when the drama started unfolding.

Even though Charlotte received the forms with a smile, she refused to accept the cheque with the reason that a court injunction had been placed on the EC from collecting the increased filing fees from the aspirants until a final determination of the case.

Nana Addo and his team therefore returned with their cheque, pending the court ruling.

Even though the EC asked all aspirants to declare their assets, Akufo-Addo did not present any such document since he considered it not a prerequisite for a candidate but a preserve for those in public office.



Confidence

But being the first to submit his nomination forms, the NPP presidential candidate said he was sure of victory come December 7 when Ghanaians go to the polls to elect a president and 275 Members of Parliament (MPs).

Since Im the first to file my forms, by God's grace, I will be the first person youll declare winner were his exact words to Madam Charlotte Osei before he left the EC headquarters.

The EC also declined all other cheques from other aspirants to avoid being cited for contempt.



Party's File

Just as he was filing out of the EC's conference room where the event was being held, Akwasi Addai popularly known as Odike of the United Progressive Party (UPP), entered with his running mate, Brogya Mensah, to file their nomination forms.

After them came Odike's bitterest rival and former party Chairman with whom he parted ways under rancorous circumstance, Nana Agyenim Boateng, famously known as Gyataba, who now prides himself as the leader of the United Front Party (UFP). He came with a man many thought was part of the media men present, considering his dressing, one David Essie Bunya.

It later turned out that Bunya was Odike's chosen running mate with whom he is going into the 2016 general election and hopes to be his vice president, should a miracle happen for him to become president.

Soon afterwards, representatives of Hassan Ayariga's All People's Congress (APC), led by his running mate, Emmanuel Carl Bartels and General Secretary, Razak Kwadwo Poku showed up to file their nominations.

Not long thereafter, Kofi Akpaloo of the Independent People's Party (IPP) also arrived to go through the process, but came without a cheque because he is in support of the court action against the outrageous filing fees.

By that time, it was almost noon and so the EC officials had to take a two-hour break to return sometime around 2pm.

Then came Vice President Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur who is the running mate of incumbent President John Dramani Mahama (the presidential candidate of the ruling National Democratic Congress).

He was in the company of party chieftains, including General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, noted for his sarcasm; his Deputy, Koku Anyidoho, also known for throwing tantrums; the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo popularly called Lion; Director of Elections, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo and a host of others.



Assurance

After submitting the forms, the vice president and his team proceeded to address party foot soldiers who had gathered at the EC headquarters, to shore up support, assuring them of their (party gurus') confidence in winning the upcoming elections.



Nana Konadu

Later came former first lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings and leaders of her National Democratic Party (NDP).

Unlike the 2012 elections where she was disqualified from contesting, she was confident of sailing through this time around with the hope of becoming the next president.

Mrs. Rawlings filed her nomination forms on the ticket of the National Democratic Party (NDP), a breakaway political party from the governing NDC.

Her filing makes it nine presidential candidates who have officially declared their intention to contest in the 2016 polls.



Stolen Money

But Konadu, after filing her nomination, told journalists that she had no problem completing the forms but bemoaned the proposed GH50,000.00 filing fee being charged by the EC.

If there is anybody in Ghana who is not surprised about the proposed fee being charged, it is only those who have got a lot of money or stolen a lot of money. The important thing is we want to run a democracy  a democracy doesn't mean monetocracy.

Somebody doesn't have the money and has the ability to lead their people and you are saying they don't have the money so they shouldn't make an attempt? I think it wouldn't be fair.

So, our position is very straight  the fee is way overboard and at the same time it shows that our monetary system in Ghana today has jumped from a thousand to ten thousand. It means that our economy is going down, she exclaimed.

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The suspended National Youth Organizer of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) Ernesto Yeboah has shot down the chances of the partys flagbearer Kobina Ivor Greenstreet, describing him as a man who condones corruption and does not fit to lead the country. According to livid suspended Youth Organizer, it is becoming increasingly impossible to market Kobina Ivor Greenstreet to the electorates and I have no doubt that he is rejected already

The youth commander of the oldest existing political party while reacting to the CHRAJ report on President John Dramani Mahamas Ford gift saga on Onua fm morning show Ye sempa, maintained that he was still not enthused about the response of his party flagbearer when the issue emerged. Saying how can someone who is campaigning to become leader of this country, will not know that this Ford Saga is a clear case of breach of the gift law, can that person be taken seriously, how can that person said he is not corrupt

It will be recalled that the flagbearer of the CPP Kobina Ivor Greenstreet whiles commenting on what has become known as Mahama Ford Gift Saga noted that there should be a proper investigation into the controversy surrounding the car gift saga before one could conclude that it was a bribe. According to him, it will be wrong for any individual to join persons accusing the President of being corrupt if they lack evidence.

Ernesto Yeboah still insisted that some of the current leaders of the CPP including the flag bearer are working in the interest of the NPP and NDC instead of the CPP. I did not join the CPP to do the bidding of NPP or NDC, those who go on Peace fm Kokookro, I mean what do they go and say, do they kokookro for the CPP, no, their self interest

Question: Bright Kwesi Asempa (host of Ye Sempa): Ernesto, is your flagbearer corrupt?

Answer: Ernesto Yeboah: what is his response on the Ford gift sag?

Question: Bright Kwesi Asempa (host of Ye Sempa): Ernesto, is your flagbearer corrupt?

Answer: Ernesto Yeboah: what is his response on the Ford gift sag, our leaders attitude of fighting corruption is not encouraging and there is no way am going to recommend and vote for a corrupt flagbearer to lead us.

We need an honest flagbearer but CPP doesnt have. He is not marketable, we are not looking good, he is not being recognized on the ground, I am resolute that it is only incorruptible flagbearer that can change the present CPP  the suspended youth organizer lamented.
Rabat (AFP) - As campaigning heats up ahead of next week's parliamentary elections in Morocco, Nabila Mounib wants to offer voters an alternative to ruling Islamists and the liberal opposition.

The country's only female party leader, Mounib heads up a leftist coalition that calls for a constitutional monarchy and genuine political reform.

The North African kingdom has long been considered among the most liberal nations in the Arab world.

But its parliament has limited legislative clout, even after King Mohamed VI agreed to a new constitution curbing his near-absolute power in 2011 following region-wide popular revolts.

The Federation of the Democratic Left (FGD) is campaigning for the October 7 poll under the slogan: "With us, another Morocco is possible".

In an interview with AFP, Mounib said her movement offers a "third way" between the ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) and the liberal opposition Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM).

"Those two parties don't respond to the aspirations of Moroccans to establish a real democracy," she said.

"We position ourselves between them, and propose the way of genuine political reform via a separation of powers."

Over the last few months, the 56-year-old academic has carved out a prominent space in Moroccan politics with her outspoken criticism of other political parties and the royal palace itself.

She dismissed what she believes is a false dichotomy between conservatives and modernists.

"The party that calls itself conservative (the PJD) has shown that in economic terms it is a follower of neoliberalism with all its harmful effects," she said.

"Meanwhile the other side, abusively called modernist, has never talked of modernity."

Left in disarray

The FGD is a coalition of three leftist groups including Mounib's Unified Socialist Party (PSU).

It comes from a long tradition of leftist parties which were harshly repressed during the reign of King Hassan II.

King Mohamed VI, who succeeded his father in 1999, took a more lenient stance. But the left has been in disarray for a decade.

"The program of the left is obsolete and has not reinvented itself since the 1980s," said Abdellah Tourabi, a Moroccan columnist and political scientist.

He said leftists in Morocco are intellectually and ideologically stuck in the past, opening the door for more conservative, Islamist parties.

"The left can no longer seduce its historical base, namely the urban middle classes," Tourabi said.

"Another force has taken its place today -- the PJD. It wins the most seats in the major cities, where the left used to triumph."

That is a dynamic Mounib hopes to tackle. She was a prominent supporter of Morocco's Arab Spring-inspired February 20 Movement, calling for a parliamentary monarchy.

Mounib says the 2011 constitution did not go far enough -- but that has not entirely alienated her from the palace.

In late 2015, the King sent her on a delicate diplomatic mission to persuade Sweden not to recognise Western Sahara, controlled by Morocco, as an independent country.

The trip was a success, in part thanks to her leftist connections.

Disillusioned

Mounib's political ambitions received a boost in mid-September when a local newspaper published an open letter signed by a hundred figures from academia, the arts and civil society, calling on her to turn the FGD into a force for change.

The letter criticised those "who say that reform is possible but continue to work with the corrupt" and "those who call themselves progressives but condone authoritarianism under the cover of fighting religious fundamentalism."

Those words could hit home among Moroccans who are disillusioned with politics. Turnout was just 45 percent at the last poll in 2011, which Mounib's party boycotted.

This time round, with 30 parties competing, the FGD is hoping to end the radical left's long exile and win more than 300,000 votes nationally.

"The echoes are favourable and the surge of sympathy is indisputable," said Omar Balafrej, another figure of the FGD, whose candidates have pledged to pass up on their parliamentary salaries if elected.

In April, Mounib made waves by polling third on a list of politicians most likely to head the next government.

"She has a certain freedom of tone," said TelQuel, the magazine that ran the poll.

"It's more her personality than her programme that seems to raise interest."
30.09.2016 LISTEN

The Charter for African Cultural Renaissance 2006 regard culture as the set of distinctive linguistic, spiritual, material, intellectual and encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, cultural beliefs, and traditions. In summary, culture is the way of life of the people!

Nigeria as a nation with over 750 ethnic groups is a very cultural, religious and conservative country. However, for decades and since the grand embrace of civilization, there has been a sharp decline in our cultural values. That many Nigerians are concerned about our culturalheritage. The reasons for this are not far-fetched.

At Jumia Travel , we share these sentiments. In line with this, we identify some pertinent signs that Nigeria needs a cultural renaissance, rebirth, or reawakening with the hope that the government and stakeholders will take action.

Language decline

Some Nigerians are ashamed to communicate in their local dialect while others cannot even speak at all! In fact, some parents order their children not to speak their mother tongue. Rather, they must speak English. Other words, they are admonishing their wards not to be proud of their heritage. It is unsurprising, therefore, that some of these languages are in different stages of extinction! Parents should communicate more in their local languages.

Society has grown individualistic

The mind your business syndrome has eaten deep into our cultural toga that we barely care for one another unlike in the past. Then, society was closely knitted. You knew and visited your neighbours. You could scold a child for anti-social behaviour and even report him to his parents. But, this sparsely happens today when even elders are culprits.

Everything cultural is evil

Because of religion (Christianity and Islam), many Nigerians now brand our cultural practices evil. Culture is dynamic especially in a fast changing society. But that doesnt necessarily make the practice evil. There is the good, the bad and the ugly. Lets promote the good, reform the bad and abdicate the ugly. We cant throw away the baby with the birth water!

Neglect of historical/cultural Assets

Recently, the Lagos State government demolished the Olaiya house (formerly known as Casa do Fernandez) which was 161 years old. It was built as a bar and restaurant in 1855 That is history gone! The status of the National Theatre is unknown whether it has been sold or not, the museums across the country require attention. The truth is Nigeria is not preserving its heritage. We wonder what will be handed over to the coming generations.

Dress culture

Nigeria has no dress culture. We simply dress to please ourselves not minding whether it is decent or not. Dress the way you want to be addressed is a forgotten mantra. Thus, we need a renaissance.

Absence of history in Nigeria school curriculum

Many Nigerians dont know the history of the country. If you are a science student in secondary, it is worse! This is why patriotism is in the dictionary of very few Nigerians. History should be restored in primary and secondary schools curriculum!
Hon. Abdallah Abubakari

30.09.2016 LISTEN

If there is anyone in Mamprugu within the largest opposition party who still doubt that walewale constituency cannot be taken back by the ruling National Democratic Congress;who still wonder if JM and Hon. Abdallah Abubakari can win in walewale constituency; who still have faith in the Bawumia in mamprugu;then 29th September, 2016 the day Hon. Abdallah Abubakari filed his nomination in readiness for the battle at the electoral commission office in walewale has provided the answer.

It is the answer told by the thousands of supporters within walewale township alone who came out in their numbers to welcome the northern regional minister Hon. Abdallah Abubakari into the constituency to file his nomination at the electoral commission ahead of the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections. In fact the people have really chased the elephant into the bush which will never show up anywhere in walewale constituency and mamprugu as a whole.

It is the answer spoken by young and old, members of the National Democratic Congress and non members across mamprugu- who sent a message to NPP fraternity that, JM and Hon. Abdallah Abubakari are the best team for walewale constituency. There is no doubt about the National Democratic Congress winning in walewale constituency and the rest of the four constituencies in mamprugu.

It is left with barely two months and some few days to elections, but what happened on the historic day of Hon. Abdallah Abubakari filling shows that, in this years election,at that defining moment, JM and Hon. Abdallah Abubakari have won in advance.

Hon. Abdallah Abubakari fought long and hard for mamprugu and he has even fought harder and longer for the constituency he loves. He endured sacrifices for mamprugu that most of our opponents in NPP cannot begin to imagine and we are better off for the services rendered by this brave and selfless leader within the period of his six months in office as the northern regional minister.

I personally as a young Democrat congratulate him (Hon. Abdallah Abubakari) and his Excellency Wumpini John Dramani Mahama for all they have achieved in mamprugu in even though it will take the myopic and narrow minded people within the NPP decades to realize the good works of the duo in mamprugu.

His Excellency Wumpini John Dramani Mahama has achieved a lot in mamprugu to deserve our votes in this election. He had given us good drinking water, established college of education in mamprugu, upgraded the Nalerigu health assistance school to the status of college of nursing and midwifery school,connecting communities to the national grid, establishing ICT centers, building of community day schools, expansion of facilities in the existing Senior high schools, construction of roads, building of education offices, and many more.

Mamprugu, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do in mamprugu if his Excellency Wumpini John Dramani Mahama is elected as the president of Ghana to continue with his second term. So in this election, let's ask ourselves whether we want to be mentioned among those who are going to make John Dramani Mahama victorious or not? Because John Dramani Mahama Insha Allah will surely emerge victorious.

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time to recapture all the seats we lost to the New Patriotic Party and open more, the doors of opportunity for ourselves and to change lives and transform mamprugu as a whole.

Now even as we have chosen his Excellency Wumpini John Dramani Mahama and our members of Parliament hopefully in all the five constituencies in mamprugu, there are those who are preparing to divide us-the spin masters, the negative peddlers who embrace the politics of "anything goes". We will say to them that in this election- out of many, we are one;that while we breath, we hope and where we are met with cynicism, doubt and who tell us that we cannot, we will respond with our slogan JM zang-tugi for changing lives and transforming Ghana.

I shall return!!!

Abdul Majeed Ali (founding member and interim executive of students network for JM and PCs in mamprugu)

Tel:+233244671304

e-mail: [email protected]
The Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC), Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, has received the credentials of the newly appointed Ambassador of Finland to the African Union (AU), H.E. Ms. Helena Airaksinen. The newly appointed Ambassador presented her credentials at the AU Headquarters, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Wednesday, 28 September 2016.

Following the presentation of Credentials, they held a brief discussion on areas of cooperation between the AU Commission and Finland, which include: peace and security, women and youth empowerment.

The Ambassador informed the AU Commission Chairperson that Finlands next years 100 years of independence celebration will focus on youth issues, which coincidentally is the focus for 2017 at the AU, entitled African Year for Harnessing Demographic Dividends for accelerated Youth Empowerment'. The AU Commission and Finland hope to collaborate around these themes for greater impact.

The Chairperson acknowledged the strong working relationship with the immediate former and looked forward a similar or greater collaboration the new Ambassador as well. She wished her well during her tour of duty.
Thomas Boateng Appiagyei handing over the educational materials to the school management

The Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana (PSGH) has raised concerns over the misuse of medicines, including antibiotics, in the country.

The association indicated that the trend where antibiotics are sold or used in the absence of pharmacists for any reason was alarming, as it may lead to the incidence of drug resistance infection which is estimated to kill more than 700,000 people each year worldwide.

This has been a great concern of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana (PSGH) and pharmacists in Ghana for the past years, as we have continuously reflected, discussed and cautioned against the dangers in irresponsible use of medicines, including antibiotics in Ghana, Thomas Boateng Appiagyei, President of PSGH, said.

He explained that the global war against antibiotics is fundamentally a call to promote the responsible use of medicines, pointing out that the call by is a proof of the unique intervention pharmacists bring to the health delivery system everywhere, including Ghana.

He, therefore, called on the regulatory bodies to strengthen their monitoring and enforcement activities across the country to ensure that Ghanaians benefit fully from the care of qualified pharmacists.

Mr Appiagyei was speaking at an event to mark the 2016 World Pharmacists Day in Accra, where the society advised Ghanaians to get their personal pharmacist whom they can call on at any time for counselling and health information.

Explaining further, he said it was necessary, as the role of pharmacists had evolved from that of a provider of medicines to that of a provider of care.

Pharmacists have a vital role in the outcome of pharmacological therapies and ultimately strive to improve patients' quality of life, he said

Mr Appiagyei stated that the association chose to celebrate its day with pupils in order to encourage personal hygiene at the grassroot.

He said this year's celebration was centred on infectious diseases such as worm infestations among pupils.

We want the public to know that the pharmacist is a repository of knowledge as far as drugs are concerned, hence the need for them to contact the pharmacist for their entire drug needs, he said.

He said the PSGH was willing to provide any assistance towards a swift resolution of the pending concerns of GHOSPA to ensure an immediate resumption of pharmaceutical services in public health facilities.

The society also donated educational materials to pupils of the Islamic Model School at Kanda, pledging to support the educational institution.

This year's World Pharmacists Day is on the theme: 'Pharmacists: Caring For You'.

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri
Scores of mental patients who visited the Accra Psychiatric Hospital to seek medical attention since Wednesday were refused access because of funding.

The managers of the facility announced suspension to new admission due to lack of funds and logistic to cater for patients.

The patients were found stranded with frustrations written on their faces.

The neglect of the psychiatric hospitals was coming at the time the Mahama administration promises to build two new facilities in the northern sector of the country.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Mental Health Authority, Dr Akwesi Osei, said his outfit was expected to coordinate the operations of the facility, but they are helpless.

He accused the government of failing to prioritise mental healthcare.

We have been in touch with the ministry, we are looking at how the issue can be resolved, the truth, however, is that until they get funding, they are frankly not in a position to operate The authority itself does not have the funding to give them. The funding has to come from the ministry, he said.

No A-4 Sheet

The dire situation at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital has deteriorated to the point where the facility does not even have access to basic items such as A-4 sheets to take down minor but critical information.

A member of the Hospital's Public Relations Unit, Edwina Ankomah, told Citi FM that the hospital is in dire need of basic things like gloves, disinfectants, and stationery like paper.

Just a plain sheet  because someone will walk in and would want a medical report for school or something and we don't have even an A-4 sheet, she added.

OPD Shut Down

Persons who visited the Accra Psychiatric Hospital on Wednesday were turned away , and the hospital's administrators have said they were compelled to take such a decision due to worsening financial constraints.

The little we have, we have to have able to take care of those on the ward, Ms Ankomah said, hence the hospital management's decision.

She narrated that the situation got worse in July when our suppliers decided not to supply us with anything that we needed to run the hospital. That is when it got bad.

The hospital management is currently in talks with the Ministry of Health to try and solve the current situation.

As at now, the money that comes to the hospital, like a recent amount of GH 521,000, is used to settle debts.

But since July, Ms Ankomah revealed that the hospital has been living off donations, but how long can we survive on donations, she asked?

Gov't's pledge to mental healthcare

With elections around the corner, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration has made some pledges to mental healthcare, despite the apparent neglect of existing ones.

The NDC in its 2016 manifesto promised to build two more psychiatric hospitals if voted into office.

President John Mahama said the NDC government would prioritise mental healthcare and ensure the strict implementation of the Mental Health Act, 2012, Act 846.

The Accra Psychiatric Hospital is not the only one under-resourced, as managers of the Pantang Hospital have similar concerns.
Hundreds of graduate students took to the street on Wednesday to protest against government's failure to release the bursary grants for the 2015/16 academic year.

Wielding placards with various inscriptions such as Prez Mahama must respect graduate students, Invest in Research Mr Mahama, Enough is enough, Give us our Bursary Now,' the students demanded the immediate payment of their grants.

National President of Graduate Students' Association of Ghana (GRASAG), Rashid Kwesi Etuaful, said government had demonstrated over the years that it does not value graduate education.

He said the association was concerned about the undue delay of the payment of their thesis and bursary grants.

Government is expected to pay GH450 to post-graduate students, who are pursuing various degrees in Business Administration (MBA) and Arts (MA) but the payment has often delayed.

Although the grants for the 2012/13 and 2014/15 academic years were also released late, Mr Etuaful said the 2015/16 grants had unduly delayed.

According to him, government has on numerous occasions promised to release the funds.

We need timelines about how they are going to pay us the money, he said, adding that the students have failed to meet some of their academic deadlines because of the delay in the payment of the money.

This, he said, defeats the everyday mantra of President John Mahama that he was investing heavily in the education sector.

Government does not value graduate education in the country yet they are quick to compare Ghana to Malaysia and Singapore, he told Joy News' Raymond Acquah.

He urged government to make the payment forthright or face repeated mass action from the graduates.
Stories from Isaac Akwetey-Okunor

([email protected])

The Member of Parliament (MP) for the Lower Manya Krobo Constituency in the Eastern Region, Ebenezer Okletey Terlabi, has cautioned his constituents, particularly the youth, to desist from chasing non-existent white collar jobs.

According to the MP, who is also a former deputy Eastern Regional Minister, even though white collar jobs are good, opportunities there are limited, because only a handful of people with specific qualifications are needed at any point in time.

The Lower Manya Krobo legislator, who is seeking re-election, therefore, urged the youth to acquire technical knowledge and skills training in order to reduce the high level of unemployment in the country.

The former Deputy Minister gave the caution on Thursday at a short, but impressive ceremony, where he presented working tools to 114 tradesmen and apprentices from the constituency, who had undergone various skills training.

The beneficiaries include dressmakers, hairdressers, wielders, masons and carpenters.

Mr. Okletey called on the youth to treat with contempt, speculations that only people from poor homes acquire technical knowledge and training skills.

Over the years, there has been this perception that, even though learning a trade is good, it's being done by people from poor homes, school dropouts, illiterates and persons with disabilities. These ideas are biased, and Ghanaians must treat them with the contempt they deserve, he stressed.

He continued that the youth must be allowed to venture into professions they have the talent to operate effectively in, than to force them into areas of education, which might not be suitable for them, and end up jeopardising their future.

The MP for Lower Manya Krobo presented working tools/equipment to 114 tradesmen and apprentices he has been sponsoring since 2013, and are due for graduation.

On his part, the Lower Manya National Democratic Congress (NDC) Chairman, Mr. David Walter, entreated the beneficiaries to put the items to good use, in order to create a good economic foundation for themselves and the next generation.

I wish these people could replenish these gifts for the next generation of apprentices. All investments need a turnover. Many a time, the MPs Common Fund is used for such purposes, yet it does not produce any turnover, which is very worrying, he lamented.

In order to ensure value for money, he continued, the beneficiaries would be grouped and monitor their progress over time, so that they can also help others.
By Jet Alan

The friendly winds that swept across the principal streets of the various communities within the constituency that Tuesday evening, dragging rags, polythene bags, papers and all forms of waste, including jilted balls of Fante kenkey, and depositing them in squirming heaps under the New Takoradi sea defence were evident of the fact that relief, after decades of absence, had finally visited Kwesimintsim and its sister communities.

Indeed, it was a delight to watch people of all age and class move in turns on different dance floors to perform such dances as Azonto, Amanda, Skelewu, and other contemporary dances with gusto and brio.

Wait! Youre not reading a fictional piece cooked by a Ghallywood script writer, neither are you consuming a repeated narrative of an age-long tale.

This is a true account of how cats, dogs, cows, pigs, sheep and the discerning people of the Kwesimintsim constituency danced in ecstatic fashion when news hit them that Honourable Joe Baidoo Ansah had, at long last, been shown the door to his ex-gratia.

On behalf of the good people of the constituency, I salute the delegates who took this bold decision to relieve the Honourable of his duties. We cant thank them enough.

In the Kwesimintsim township, the news was met with exhilaration by everyone, including the very billy goat whose smelly beard and silly moustache so much irritated the outgoing Honourable that he would not for once, in four solid years, except during elections, pass through the township to say a common hello to the very people whose thumbs are what gives him the mandate to further punish and disappoint them.

To the Pro-Baidoo Ansah campaigner, this may sound quite sarcastic if not fallacious.

But, to the many of us at the other side of the divide, this article comes to add some rhythm to the beat to which we are already twisting our waists in jubilant celebration of the long-awaited and highly welcome news.

Honourable Joe Baidoo Ansah is one of the many Members of Parliament who lack basic respect for the electorate and make voting seem a useless exercise.

We cant be wrong to assume that he is one person whose actions have really cost the NPP in Takoradi and in the Western Region for that matter.

In fact, some of us were expecting the rank and file of the party to have seen this and worked against him long time but how different are those who were supposed to have executed this task?

I have no time to enumerate the crimes of the Honourable, but wherever he is, he should kindly take a paper and list the number of times he visits the constituency after elections. I will be Ok with just a single visit in three years.

I wont talk about achievements. Whoever is interested in this might want to visit Kwesimintsim or any of the sister communities to find out.

I think the NPP in general needs to do a reality check of the performance of their MPs in the Western Region before reality dawns on them.

Out of the twenty-four constituencies within the region, how many belong to them now? Only six, right? I will end here but certainly not after saying; fair thee well, Honourable Ansah.

Source: modernghana


From: Edmond Gyebi, Tamale

THE NATIONAL Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Candidate for Kumbungu, Ras Mubarak, is set to launch his 2016 campaign at Kumbungu on Friday.

The campaign launch will set the tone for the ruling NDC to vigorously pursue its avowed dream of recapturing the Kumbungu seat in the December 7th poll.

The event, which is expected to highlight most of the infrastructural projects and socio-economic interventions of the NDC in the constituency, will also offer the opportunity to Mr. Mubarak to officially outdoor his campaign message.

In a chat with The Chronicle via WhatsApp, Mr. Ras Mubarak said that the Campaign Launch will attract some key government officials, members of parliament, District Chief Executives, some National, Regional and Constituency executives of the NDC.

The Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah, Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak, MP for Asawase and Majority Chief Whip, Felix Ofosu Kwakye, Deputy Minister of Communication and the National Youth Organizer of NDC, Siidi Abubakar Musah are all expected to grace the occasion.

The Kumbungu parliamentary seat is currently occupied by Mr. Amadu Moses Yahaya of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), who is also seeking re-election.

Mr Moses Yahaya was elected in a by-election in 2013 when he defeated Alhaji ImoroYakubu of the NDC.

In the by-election, the CPP Candidate, Amadu Moses Yahaya polled 13,039 as against 11,896 obtained by the NDC candidate, Alhaji ImoruYakubu Kakpagu, a former MP for the area.

The seat became vacant after it had been abdicated by the then incumbent Member of Parliament, Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni, following his appointment as Secretary General of the African Carribean and Pacific States.

But Mr Ras Mubarak insisted that it was time for the NDC to take the Kumbungu parliamentary seat back from the CPP.
30.09.2016 LISTEN

Yesterday, The Chronicle carried a story on its front page, which screamed with the headline, You can StowawayNDC Chatterbox advises Takoradi Youth.

In that sad story, the National Communications Director of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Solomon Nkansah, was reported to have encouraged the youth of Takoradi in the Western Region, interested in embarking on stowaway  an illegal sea trip  to do so.

Mr. Nkansah, the story continued, told the youth at the campaign launch of the NDC parliamentary candidate in the Takoradi constituency, that the party would not arrest or prosecute anybody who attempted to stowaway to other countries in search of greener pastures.

To make matters worse, the Director of Communications informed party supporters that the days where governments barricaded the Takoradi Port to prevent the youth from stowing-away were long gone, especially not at the time the NDC was expanding the port.

The paper believes that the comment, coming from no less a personality than the Chief Linguist of the ruling party, was an irresponsible one.

The Wikipedia defines a Stowaway as a person who secretly boards a vehicle, such as a ship, an aircraft, a train, cargo truck or bus, in order to travel without paying and without being detected. According to the above definition, the act is criminal, and yet, the NDC top man, who is supposed to be a role model, is advising the youth to do so.

It is just sad that Solomon Nkansah is making such a promise at a time there are troubling rates of illegal migration within the West Africa sub-region, as shown by the International Organisation of Migration (IOM), which has since spent thousands of dollars organising seminars to curb the menace.

Again, looking at what migrants go through in the course of these trips, which includes death caused by suffocation, it would be strange to hear any responsible Ghanaian adult advising the young ones to do such a thing.

The Chronicle is, therefore, completely lost as to what could have possibly come over Mr Nkansah to make such a pronouncement, taking into account the upbringing of a typical Ghanaian.

The paper wishes to educate him, if he is unaware, that in the traditional Ghanaian setup, the older generation is expected to pass on the traditions of society to the younger one. And this includes impacting in them, positive values, truth and honesty, to enable them fit properly into society. With this, it is difficult for any individual who listens to and abides by the acceptable standards of society to have any brush with the law.

It is, therefore, the argument of The Chronicle that since the youth of the Ghanaian society accept as the truth any advice given by an elderly person, most of the time, hook, line and sinker, one was not expecting the NDC top man to urge the youth to engage in such an illegality, all because of votes.

With all intents and purposes, it is sad and unfortunate that he could argue that the act had positive social impacts on the lives of individuals who embark on such trips and their families.

It could be the case that the NDC Chief Linguist does not know that stowing away is a crime; as he rightly pointed out that the New Patriotic Party, when in power, did not help the situation. If he knew, he would not have said the NPP arrested and prosecuted stowaways during its tenure, since that sends a clear signal that the elephant family does not condone crime.

Even though the NDC has not condemned his loose talk, The Chronicle report indicated that some responsible individuals who are Members of Parliament in the Takoradi Constituency condemned the comment.

It is against this backdrop that the paper is calling on the ruling NDC to come out and condemn, in no uncertain terms, the pronouncement of its Communications Director.

Alternatively, The Chronicle is advising the leadership of the NDC to take action immediately, because Ghanaians cannot imagine having more of such personalities in the system. Ghana would be heading for doom, if such characters abound!
Government is glad to learn that the IMF Board is satisfied with the developments made by Ghana, and has approved the third review of the ECF programme.

The approval is a further confirmation of the economic turnaround story, Seth Terkper, Minister for Finance, said after the IMF Executive Board met on Wednesday 28th September, 2016, and approved Ghana's economic performance, under the Third Review.

The Minister added: The government would like to express its gratitude to all Ghanaians, and especially, the Parliament of Ghana, for their continued support during this time.

Looking forward, he said, the government will continue its effort at fiscal consolidation, and not be complacent with the present good news. In this vein, the government will continue to contain expenditures, whilst mobilising domestic revenue.

The prospect ahead is even brighter, with the coming on board of the utilisation of the Policy Risk Guarantee, to bring investments into the economy, especially the oil and gas sectors. The use of the integration of the oil and gas to the other sectors of the economy, especially, fertiliser development for the agriculture sector and bitumen production for road infrastructure, he said.

This approval comes after the IMF Mission to Ghana in April/May 2016, the effort to meet the prior actions before the IMF Board date, and the follow up IMF Mission from 29th August to 2nd September, 2016 to update the data used in the review.

To expedite action towards the ultimate completion of the Third Review by satisfying these new prior actions, several of which are structural in nature, the government gave the completion of these activities its top priority.

Prior to this development, the government had secured an oversubscribed Eurobond  one of the only sovereigns in Africa to have done that in 2016.

This attracted global investors, amidst the successful tender offer, with the utilisation of the balances in the Sinking Fund account.
Accra. 28th September, 2016  Engineering & Construction International, a global organization with expertise in construction and engineering, has won the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Engineering Company of the Year at the Ghana CSR Excellence Awards, GHACEA, held on 23rd September, 2016 in Accra.

The Awards scheme was organized by the Centre for CSR, West Africa and supported by the Ministry of Trade & Industry, Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Japan International Cooperation Agency, (JICA) and more than 25 media organizations.

The citation for the Award reads in part: Odebrecht Ghana is committed to its internal and external CSR initiatives. The Engineering and Construction company has implemented many laudable projects such as Work, Safety Education and Wellness campaign, provided free breast cancer and prostate Cancer education and screening to its staff. To support the human resource base of the country and building capacity of students, Odebrecht Ghana has instituted the Odebrecht Engineering Awards for Engineering students in the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana.

Speaking about the Awards, Danilo Trinchao, in charge of People & Finance at Odebrecht Ghana explained: Our company is a very socially responsible organization and the CSR Award we won attests to that fact. We engender productive initiatives that generate job and income opportunities, improve our stakeholders quality of life, promotes dialogue, cooperation and commitment designed to increase the value chains contribution toward sustainable development, strengthening of social inclusion and the promotion of human and cultural diversity. And through strategic technology and knowledge transfer, we contribute to the development of the capacity and expertise of the human resource of this country, especially in engineering and construction.

Odebrecht Ghana, in consortium with another Brazilian company, is constructing the Lots 5 & 6 of the Eastern Corridor Road Project in Northern Ghana and in July 2016, its joint venture team achieved 5,000,000 (5 million) man-hours without a single work accident resulting in grave injury. Together, good safety education and practices with more than 30,000 man-hours in training sessions and the usage of collective protection equipment created a safe work environment for our workers.

Odebrecht Ghana introduced an awards scheme for engineering students, focused on recognizing, encouraging and motivating university students from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (KNUST) to learn and overcome challenges, and to pursue careers in the engineering field. Last year, the company also organized an extensive free education and testing for breast cancer (targeted at female staff members) and prostate cancer (targeted at male staff members).
One of the key messages derived from the gathering of global injury prevention and safety professionals at the Safety 2016 World Conference in Finland is research implementation. It may seemed easy to do, but it is a huge bottleneck to preventing injuries around the world. Recognising the problem, the conference theme, From Research to Implementation seeks to provide evidence based practice to tackle the global burden.

The burden of injuries has become a global public health priority. As a result, some of the worlds leading injury prevention and safety researchers, practitioners, as well as policy makers have identified the critical needs to generate evidence based approach implementation of interventions and ensuring use of existing evidence for policy and practice in road safety.

As the Safety 2016 World Conference-12th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion, took centre stage at a beautiful city of Tampere, Finland, from September 18-21, 2016, many experts shared their views on research implementation in road safety, particularly in Africa, especially Ghana.

Dr Etienne Krug, the Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Department for the Management of Non-communicable Diseases, Disability, Violence and Injury Prevention states that it is crucial to talk about research in Africa because it is not necessarily so that what has worked in Europe will work in Africa.

"In Africa there are cultural issues, issues around different types of vehicles and infrastructure. Largely, it will work but there is the need to look at those specificities and make sure that the research results are used-because they are published in scientific papers but often not the basis for solid policy making and that is what we want to discussed," Dr Krug emphasises.

Data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) indicates that road traffic injuries claim more than 1.2 million lives each year posing a huge impact on health and development. It is the number one cause of death among people aged 15-29 years. The highest rate of injury related fatalities occur in Africa.

According to him, there are many efforts to tackle road traffic crash in Africa and that is good because the sustainable development goals have called for a 50% reduction in the number of deaths.

"There are countries like Ethiopia or Ghana looking at their trauma care system for improvement. Mozambique has looked at their data and legislation and worked on a plan of action. South Africa is making improvements also, because the death toll is high there too.

"So there are many countries where efforts are taking place, unfortunately those efforts are good but not enough to tackle the issues at the level we will like to see it, so we need to scale up," Dr Krug says.

Dr Barry Watson, the Chief Executive Officer of the Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP) believes that as far as road safety is concerned, there are many good approaches to combat road traffic crash, saying, "We have got good evidence around the world about what laws are effective and how to go about enforcing them."

"The challenge is how to make sure that they are implemented well and what countries need to do is to look at the processes that are working well in other countries.

"So particularly from enforcement point of view, is looking at how enforcement uses good data to deploy it and to make sure that the enforcement is done targeting key factors such as drink driving and speeding and making sure that the enforcement starts in a way that people understand that it is about protecting their safety and not catching offenders," says Dr Watson.

He states that African governments need to channel resources into the police service because road policing is as an important activity of protecting communities and therefore the need to devote sufficient resources and equipment for road policing.

Dr Adnan Hyder, Director of the Health Systems Program, and Associate Chair in the Department of International Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, points out that a lot of research is being quoted by policy makers, so every policy maker knows that there are more than a million people dying from road safety around the world.

"They are very conscious of the number of people dying in their own countries. So in a sense these numbers are helping us make the case. What we have to do now is to go beyond making the case to a situation where we also show them the specific interventions that they need to implement in order to reduce those death, disability and injuries.

"And that is where I think different types of evidence is very useful. Evidence on cost, cost effectiveness, and effectiveness, these are the three parameters that you need. The other type of evidence that is very useful to help implementation is examples.

"So for example if Ghana wants to do good road safety enforcement and let pretend neighbouring countries have already done it, then it is very helpful to show the example and say look, here is a great practice examples can be extremely helpful for enforcement," Dr Hyder notes.

According to him, enforcement of legislation would require that legislation on road safety is in order.

"It is important that good legislation has to be in order for good enforcement. The police force have to be encouraged and also their capacity developed to do good enforcement. It is important to do intelligent policing and evident based enforcement which requires training of police and equipment supply," Dr Hyder, who is also the Director of the International Injury Research Unit at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, based in USA.

Kelly Larson, Programme Director, Bloomberg Philanthropies also states that research implementation takes political commitment and resources, adding, "so there is the need to advocate to the government that road traffic crash is a problem, and to solve the problem requires the application of evidence that works."

Dr Sally-Ann Ohene, Disease Prevention and Control Office at the WHO Country Office for Ghana identified poor collaboration between the academia, policy makers and implementers as a challenge to research implementation in Ghana.

"There is the need for research findings to be simplified into key points for policy makers to understand and translate them into policies and enforcement. We really need to find ways we can collaborate to share information that is available so that policy makers can use the information," Dr Ohene says.

Ms Ayikai Poswayo, Programme Director at AMEND, a nongovernmental organization in sub-Saharan Africa which develops, implements, and evaluates evidence-based interventions to reduce the incidence of road traffic injury among the most vulnerable road users, explains that research implementation is not considered as a priority in Ghana.

"If a lot of people recognise road safety as a real priority, then we will give it the attention it needs. Each time road projects develop a setback in Ghana, people always cut off road safety aspect of projects and divert the funds elsewhere, such as to an additional kilometre of road for vehicles forgetting that pedestrians also use that," she notes.
I have many friends called Osei. Many of them read this column regularly. However, this open letter is not to any of them. I know of one Mrs. Osei. And once there is a Mrs. Osei, there must be an Osei somewhere.

Osei is a special Asante name. All Asantes born come with their name depending on the day you are born and that happens to be your fist name. Thus I am Kwame because I was born on Saturday. A female Asante born on Saturday will come with the name Amma. Then there is the family name which is the second name and your father's name which usually happens to be your surname. Thus name you take when you are born comes first. This was before we started taking slave names like Joseph, Abraham, Mary Saddick Shakur which we referred to as Christian or Islamic names. So under normal circumstance, a male Asante could have name like John Kwasi Boakye Ansah but might end up being called Kwasi Ansah for short.

When it comes to Osei, it is a different ball game. The name Osei interchanges place with the birthday name. So a typical Asante male is never called Kofi Osei or Kwame Osei. That would not be an Asante and very alien. A thorough breed Asante can only be called Osei Kwame or Osei Kofi or Osei Kwaku or Osei Kwadwo or Osei Tutu. It is never Kwaku Osei or Kwadwo Osei or

Tutu Osei. I still remember the day my mother of blessed memory exclaimed with anguish when she heard the name Kofi Osei being used to call somebody. She sadly remarked that the people had destroyed the Asante name and they could not be true Asantes.

On a personal not, I was born Kwame Anti Gyasi but was given the added name Musa because I was born into an Ahmadi Muslim family. In my village, we had a Methodist and a Catholic Christian schools. My parents chose to send me and my nephew to the Methodist school. So for the purpose of registration, we had to take Christian names. My elder brother who took us to school for the first time recommended two names to us on the way to the school: John and Moses. My nephew who was older than me took John so and I had to take Moses. Incidentally I did not lose anything since Moses is the Christian equivalent of the Muslim name Musa. Along the line, the youthful exuberance in me made me to unilaterally add Aristophanes to my name. Then I was hit by the Cultural Revolution and I should have dropped all the names and maintained only Kwame Anti Gyasi. Rather, I made the mistake to keep Moses Aristophanes Kwame Gyasi as my official name which appears on all my documents. In the attempt to mitigate the situation, I usually just use Kwame Gyasi but the damage has been done.

Today, this country has become so political on vicious party partisan political lines that a name change from Yorke to Nduom provides political opportunity for family members to connive and condone with the political establishment to hide the truth behind the death of a president of the nation. Thus Mrs. Osei might have done something wrong in adopting the name of her husband, an act which could provide legal ammunition for her impeachment from the august position she currently occupies.

I have never met Osei and I do not know the titles he had gathered through his journey in life. For all I know he might have studied hard and earned a Ph.D. from some recognised university or might have been awarded a worthless honorary Ph.D. by some fake unaccredited university after paying some US$4,000 and attending a two day seminar. Osei might be a university lecturer having acquired the exalted title of (full) Professor, a Presiding Bishop of his own church, a traditional chief with the title Nana Okyereakoto. For all you know, he might have been awarded an Order of Volta or the Pope might have honoured him for his services to the Catholic Church or had returned on a pilgrimage from Mecca with the title Alhaji.

That was why I was careful not to add even Mr. to the name Osei since many Ghanaian are now becoming equally sensitive like our cousins across the border to the acquisition of titles. I cannot believe that the craze has gone on to the extent that even on our Ivory Towers persons have fallen victim to this craze. I am told of two incidents. One happened at the bank where a professor refused to answer to the call by the bank teller to collect his money because he was not properly addressed with his hard won title professor. The other happened at the hospital pharmacy where again an intellectual refused to stand up to collect his drugs when he was called without adding the doctor academic honour he had worked hard to earn to his name.

On my part, I have had the discomfort of being addressed Doctor or Professor several times by many people at several different occasions. I have tired trying to correct people that I am neither of the two without success. So I have stopped speaking up. There is hardly any professional accountant in this country who has not had the opportunity to use one of my books on accountancy. My book: Partnership and Company Accounts (478 pages and currently under complete review) was the first indigenous book to come on the market treating the local company and partnership laws in combination with Accounting Standards and remains the standard on the market.. My first book: An International Guide to Auditing (82 pages published in 1982 in Britain) is now in two different volumes as: Financial Auditing (309 pages) and A Comprehensive Approach to Auditing (445 pages). Then there is Management Accounting (526 pages) and Accounting for the Non-Accountant Manager (269 pages). Again for the past eighteen years or so I have been consistent almost every week coming out with a feature first in the SPECTATOR' and now DAILY GUIDE on issues of national importance. So when I tell people, I am neither of the two titles they bestow on me they do not understand.

When I was taught by K.S Snell, the great mathematician (and co-author of the famous Four Figure Tables, the forerunner of the hand held slide rule and the pocket calculator) from Britain for two years at Mfantsipim using his own book, I vowed that one day I will follow his footsteps by teaching students using books I have written myself. In the advanced countries, academicians have been promoted based on quality teaching, quality textbooks and contribution to the national goal. But in this jungle we call home, to become a professor, you must have written on more and more about less and less until you must have practically written everything about nothing. So we cannot feed ourselves, build long lasting roads, construct environmentally and cost saving offices and dwelling homes which can make full use of the bountiful sunshine and wonderful breeze, cannot manage our economic and financial setup without relying on our colonial masters despite the numerous professors and doctors we have around. In part, the intellectuals have subjugated their learning and conscience to the semi-illiterate politicians. So our electoral system can be manipulated by corrupt politicians whether the system is handled by a university academician or practicing lawyers. That is the basis for this open letter.

BY KWAME GYASI

E-mail: [email protected]
The Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has stated that none of his contenders is an inch close to defeating him in the upcoming polls.

According to him, the only enemies he has identified ahead of the general elections are under development, disease and ignorance adding he does not fear competition from any of his opponents.

Speaking to journalist after filling his nomination on Thursday at Adidome, Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa said, "we will not be fighting anybody apart from underdevelopment and many other issues our people wants to resolve."

"Any issues that affect the quality of life, the living condition of our people, those are the only enemies we will be fighting in this elections," he stressed.

He further indicated that he sees no threat from any of the parliamentary candidates who would be contesting him in the general elections including Christopher Eleblu who left the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to contest as an independent candidate.

"I don't see any threat from any other political party, be it the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Conventions People's Party (CPP), People's National Convention (PNC) name them, we don't see any threat at all. The NDC has done so much for North Tongu so we are confident of winning the elections hands down," Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa said.

"It is unfortunate he [Christopher Eleblu] didn't act like other aspirants who contested in the primary, they have joined my campaign team and are solidly backing me...we continue to expect that he will come back to the NDC.

"We consider him an NDC member, so we don't expect him to go astray but he is no threat at all" he added.

He emphasized that he is confident NDC's track record of development in the constituency coupled with a formidable campaign team and innovative campaign methods would help to increase the NDC's vote margin from 93% in 2012 to over 97% in the December polls.

"We have completed numerous roads,almost completed a Community Day Senior high school at Volo, massive rural electrification extension to over 130 communities, portable water being provided, seen infrastructural development in schools, clinics. So we have so much to show," he said.

"Our argument is that when we had little we gave the president 93%, now that we have so much, we must meet the target of 97% minimum to show appreciation to President Mahama and the NDC government for the good job that has been done, so we are very very committed to this agenda," he added.

He promised an innovative and civil campaign void of tribalism, insults and attacks on his opponents adding he would work to develop North Tongu to the satisfaction of the electorates if his mandate is renewed.

Richard Collins Arku from the NPP, Christopher Eleblu, an independent candidate and the CPP's Morti-Dzivor Albert Mawuena have so far filed to contest Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa for the North Tongu seat in parliament.

Story by Ghana| Myjoyonline.com | Fred Quame Asare | Joy News
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Ellembelle Constituency in the Western Region, Hon Emmanuel Armah - Kofi Buah says the constituency is targeting 16,000 vote increase in this years elections come December 7th.

In our first term, we were able to win the election by beating the NPP by 1,400. The second term, we beat them by almost 8,000, votes. Our targets in this election is to increase our votes to 16,000, and that is our goal.

Kofi Buah made this known after he filed his nomination forms to contest in this years General Election. Hon Buah by this is seeking to represent the people of Ellembelle for the third term on the tickets of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). The filing took place at the District Electoral Commission Office at Nkroful amid musical and dance display from supporters who thronged the place, clad in branded NDC paraphernalia and the MPs T- Shirt to give their unflinching support. It was supervised by Mr Emmanuel Aidoo, the District Director of Electoral Commission.

Hon Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah addressing the teeming supporters in what turned out to be a mini rally at Nkroful, stressed that the major projects that have been brought to the Constituency has easily turned Ellembelle into an oil and gas hub and there is the need to let it reflect in this years general elections. Hon Buah said though a lot of work such as the extension of electricity to remote areas and towns, building of new schools, improvement in educational score in the district, improvement in health by providing CHPS Centres in remote areas among many others have been achieved, there is still more to be done.

He cited the construction of the Esiama  Nkroful road, among others to compliment the works of the NDC government and President John Dramani Mahama.

He continued urging the party faithfuls especially the grassroots to reach out to floating voters and other political parties convincing them that the NDC is the ight alternative for the area. He appealed to all party faithful especially the grass roots.

 if you love the NDC , and you mean it and you want the NDC to win, the only way you can give meaning to that is to spend at least 3 hours a everyday working to make sure we win this election and it means hard working he stressed.

Hon Buah urged them to reach every community, every village and every house hold explaining the agenda of transforming Ghana and Changing Lives to the people.

As the Western Regional NDC Campaign Coordinator, Hon Emmanuel Armah -Kofi Buah said there are clear strategies in place to ensure that the Western Region votes massively for the NDC, adding that all the four zones in the Western Region are being coordinated well. Moreover key challenged areas are being worked on to ensure a win for the NDC and President John Dramani Mahama.

He added that I am very confident we will deliver the Western massively for President John Dramani Mahama.
On the 29th of September at the Kempinski Hotel, Gold Coast City Accra, Hon. Alex Segbefia, Minister of Health and the Ambassador of France to Ghana, HE Francois Pujolas officially launched the first day of a two day forum on Public/ Private Partnerships and Sustainable cities organised by the Embassy of France to Ghana and its partners.

The first day, organized by the Embassy, in partnership with Business France and the French Chamber of Commerce in Ghana, was dedicated to Public/Private Partnerships focusing on 4 key sectors for Ghanas economy. For each sector, a French company presented a project it successfully completed in a country similar to Ghana.

At this occasion, the Ambassador of France to Ghana recalled that today, in most of the countries, public budget alone cannot finance upgrading and building of infrastructures in an efficient and environment friendly way and new solutions have to be found to cope with it. An obvious one is Public Private Partnerships.

He stated that many French companies developed, through PPP, innovative technologies in the field of renewable energy and sustainable development, adding that they are ready to share this expertise in Ghana so the country can create a responsible development in such sectors as energy, water, transport and health management.

PPP and sustainable development: a key issue for bilateral cooperation between France and Ghana

The Ambassador also mentioned the visit of President Mahama in France earlier this week where he met with French President Francois Hollande. Indeed, the French Head of State welcomed the development of economic relations between France and Ghana, namely in the energy, urban planning, agri-business, telecommunications and transport sectors.

Ghana is the second biggest economy of the ECOWAS zone after Nigeria. The country attained the category of Lower Middle Income countries in 2010 and has better development indicators than most of Sub-Saharan economies. However infrastructural needs remain very crucial: transport, roads, water and sanitation, health, administrative organisation, and most especially electricity supply. Since French companies have recorded worldwide success in these sectors, particularly through public/private partnerships, these serve as good examples to meet Ghanas current needs.

The second day, the Embassy, in partnership with Institut Francais and ArchiAfrika, organized a presentation of the Ghanaian and French approaches to sustainable cities in order to have a better understanding of the French approach and an illustration of these PPP examples. In his opening remarks of the second day, the Ambassador reiterated that the forum would enable companies operating in the PPPs show their expertise which is currently not sufficiently known in Ghana while conveying the image of a modern, creative and evolutionary French offer in direct drive with the evolution of the African continent in general and Ghana in particular.

Exchanging best practices between France and Ghana: concrete approach to sustainable urban development

The Ambassador recalled that the problem of the sustainable city in western Africa and particularly in Ghana is indeed becoming a major issue for the social, economic and environmental development of a great majority of the population. Indeed, since 2010, the Ghanaian population in urban areas is 51.5%, and it will double by 2030. He stated that the stakes of planning and urban development are therefore very high. The sustainable city approach will allow decision-makers and urban actors to think and act differently, with new practices and techniques designed for a new urban model with effective solutions for critical issues such as housing problems, urban ecology, transports, human and social development.

The second day of the forum was inaugurated with Honorable Mahama Ayariga, Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation. The session targeted architects, policy makers and other creative involved in urban development addressing the theme realities and perspectives of sustainable cities in Ghana. Round tables were organized and the presentation of a digital demonstrator designed from A to Z by more than 100 French companies; showing the unique and original global approach that puts together private companies as well as public decisions makers, to design an entire city.
Political parties in the country have up to 5:00pm today [Friday, September 30, 2016] to submit nomination forms for their presidential and parliamentary candidates or forget the December 7 polls.

GCPP Flagbearer [Right] In the case of the presidential candidates, the parties are supposed to submit the forms at the Electoral Commission's head office in Accra whereas those of parliamentary candidates are to do same at EC's district offices nationwide.

The EC slated the last two days in September to receive the completed forms from prospective candidates after it opened nominations earlier in the month.

Nii Allotey Brew Hammond, PPP Chairman and team presenting Nduoms forms

12 political parties have so far presented forms of their presidential nominees to the EC in a hope to get them on the ballot paper on December 7.

They include: the New Patriotic Party (NPP), National Democratic Congress (NDC), United Front Party (UFP), United Progressive Party (UPP), All Peoples Congress (APC), Independent People's Party (IPP), National Democratic Party (NDP).

Director of Electoral Services at the EC, Samuel Tettey,

The rest are the Reformed Patriotic Democrats (RPD), Ghana Freedom Party (GFP), Progressive People's Party (PPP), Unity Development System Party (UDSP) and the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP).

Unity Development System Party (UDSP) Warrant Officer 1 Richard Nixon Tetteh and his team submitting their forms

Filing fee brouhaha

The EC declined accepting the filing fees of GHc50, 000 and GHc10, 000 for presidential and parliamentary candidates respectively because of a law suit filed by the Progressive People's Party (PPP).

Some of the parties had complained that the amount was too high.

However, the EC today refused to give back to the PPP its filing fee after the party's Chairman, Nii Allotey Brew Hammond presented the forms of the party's flagbearer, Paa Kwesi Nduom.

23 parties pick forms

About 23 parties picked nomination forms to contest in the race on December 7.

Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur submitted Mahamas forms on Thursday

New Patriotic Party Flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, submitted his forms on Thursday



By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @AlloteyGodwin
The Prime Ministers Trade Envoy to Angola, Rt. Hon Baroness Lindsay Northover, visits Angola next week to underline the UKs continued support for economic diversification in the country. This is the third such visit in seven months to Angola by Baroness Northover- demonstrating the UKs commitment to increased trade flow between the two countries. Baroness Northover said:

Im delighted to be visiting Angola again, for the third time in seven months. My visit demonstrates just how important the UK Government views the relationship between our two countries. Nearly fifteen years after achieving peace, Angolas extraordinary growth rates have been the envy of the region and the world. Yet recent macroeconomic challenges, particularly in the recent fall of the oil price, have increased its need for economic diversification.

The UK is superbly placed to offer assistance and expertise in that task - be it in the agriculture sector, in energy beyond oil, or in financial services, to name just a few areas. During my visit I will be discussing things with Angolan Ministers and senior officials, to explore how we can make a reality of this enormous potential, and take our levels of commercial engagement still higher.

Im particularly looking forward to going beyond Luanda for the first time, and to seeing more of this beautiful country. I will view, at first hand, energy projects such as the Lauca Hydroelectric Dam, attend a Cotton/Textiles event in Quela, and view a number of agriculture and joint UK/Japan demining projects in the province of Malanje.

As part of the five-day visit to Luanda, Baroness Northover plans to meet with various Ministers including the Minister of Finance and the Ministers of Agriculture, the Minister of Energy and Water as well the Governor of the National Bank of Angola and the Governors of Luanda and Malanje- to discuss ways the United Kingdom can support investment opportunities for British companies in their sectors and locations- and to reaffirm the UKs commitment to responsible investment.

HE John Dennis, British Ambassador to Angola, said:

We are privileged to once again welcome our Prime Ministers Trade Envoy to Angola. Her visit signifies the importance we attach to our relations with Angola. On this visit Baroness Northover will travel outside Luanda for the first time (Malanje) to see for herself the agricultural opportunities that exist in the country and to support UK efforts towards demining in Angola. She will also meet a wide range of Angolan ministers and senior officials, and of British and Angolan businesses. This will help us boost trade ties, and >uncover opportunities for investment in the future.
Residents in the Upper East Regional town of Fumbisi in the Builsa South Constituency are gearing up to take their turn in The Joy Ballot Box Friday.

The programme is a JOY NEWS initiative to whet the political appetite of Ghanaians in the upcoming election makes it stop in Fumbisi where residents are telling the team what issues they would consider in voting.

The event will afford the constituents the opportunity to interact with their parliamentary candidates to debate the key issues that would influence the constituents votes.

Joy News Evans Mensah who is the host of the programme says some residents he spoke to say they want a well, a dam and irrigation facilities to improve their livelihood.

They are convinced any candidate who will provide them their demands would win their votes.

Another resident says the economic situation in this country has caused prices of things to be high, school fees are high and if you have not been to school you cannot survive here.

He says governments cancellation of the Teacher and Nurse's trainee allowances has been a problem for them adding the allowance was the only thing they relied on for their survival.

When you go to the secondary school three weeks now people are sitting in the house because they dont have school fees, another resident said.

Member of Parliament (MP) for the Constituency, Alhassan Azong will be in attendance alongside the parliamentary candidate of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) for the Constituency, Dr Clement Apaak.

Others include the New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate for Builsa North Lawyer Thomas Alonsi among other stakeholders who will be present at the Fumbisi Rawlings Park to answer questions.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
The intensive increase of global warming attributed to the systematic pollution of the air atmosphere has raised a vehement concern by worldwide environmental groups seeking means to save our planet earth from total destruction. Among the concern advocates is a Ghanaian born environmentalist, Mr James Papa Cole who hails from Cape Coast in the central region of Ghana.

In his book the First Animal Summit 2011-2015, the author, James Papa Cole, evaluated the debris of our environment and has come out with a brilliant suggestion that, each and individual human being living under the planet earth should be part and parcel of solving our environmental issues but not a problem that leads to its annihilation.

The First Animal Summit 2011-2015 offers a new focus for research, debate, and challenges of global environmental aspects. The Author indicated that most of the Political Actors as well as Opinion -Leaders have failed because they forged close ties with Global Industrial Giants pushing their interest through, with reckless decisions, detrimental to the environment.  I am highly disappointed by the tendency of the expensive Summits organized annually, by World leaders upon uncountable Summits but still things are getting worse and uncontrolled. Those decision makers indulge in concerted rhetoric promises but very little is done to combat the deteriorating climate and environmental disaster Papa Cole critically lectured. The Author commented with humor further that even the late Albert Einstein, the great physician, would not have thought of such a worthless calculation.

According to Papa Cole, he sought a convenient method to reach the inhabitants of planet earth the way and means of protecting our disastrous environment. Hence, he chose the old African story telling method in the form of myth, traditional parables, fairy tales as well as philosophical legendary, to transport his message across. History, according to the Ghanaian adage is a guide to future action. Ananse educative stories imbibe in us moral uprightness with a positive impact that leads us the whole of our lifetime.

SANKOFA an Ghanaian adage which means  MOVING FORWARD WITH THE VIEW OF THE PAST

The Author in his satire and humorous style of narrating claimed to be the only human being on earth accredited to cover the First Animal Summit in revolt against environment abuse by Mankind.

Explaining in details the aim and objective of the Animal summit, Kwaku Ananse (the spider) alleged that, the long term negative impact of the environment is a major challenge to human kind. Therefore as a Spoke -Person for All the Animals, he appealed to Mankind to change their attitudes, lifestyle and their thoughts towards the environmental protection.

Ananse, the protagonist, commented further that both animals and human beings are sitting in the same boat so there should be a common solution to prevent both from sinking. The Ananse allegories, a captivative Ghanaian folklores, are meant to be satirical and witty, however, quite educative. In summary Papa Cole, the news transporter, the only privileged Human being invited to the First Animal Summit came out with the message that We all have one global world to live and it should be each and every one responsibility to protect the environment from total destruction. The Author in his analysis, categorically made it point blank that we shouldnt blame the political and decision makers alone behind this villainous, rather each and every human being living on this planet earth, should examine his or her LIFESTYLE in conscience. With such a critical insight, the unconcerned habit of throwing away refuse, rubbish, toxic waste and plastic displacement in and around the oceans and our surrounding should be stop outright. We have to be aware of three most injured elements, namely, the air meant for our healthy breath, sustainable natural drinking waters as well as the soil purposely meant for nutrition which need to be treated sensitively.

Quite unfortunately mineral and oil rich companies have paid deaf ears to all those warnings and they are still producing gigantic and suffocated engines disseminating deadly carbon dioxide detrimental to human health. The survival truth to safeguard those aforementioned essential elements in life is that we as human beings should put a stop of contaminating our waters, polluting the air and above all destructing our soil through deforestation and many scientifically warned issues so that the future generation may have hope and reason to live.

In his closing remarks the Chairperson of the Ashanti Union, Stuttgart, Mr. Agyemang Boateng also confirms the quality of Ghanaian rich culture, specifically in the field of literal and poetic interpretations. He commended the Author of his outstanding literally work and narrative skills.

 I hope the young African students here in Europe will enumerate such an aspiring intellectual work in their academic years ahead  Mr. Boateng commented.. The program came to end with a presentation from Mr. Hubert Arnoldi, representative from the Inter Religious Alliance, Stuttgart, crowning Mr. Cole as an Ambassador of Peace. Great appreciation goes to the Forum of Cultures, Ethiopia Association, as well as the Ashanti Union all in the capital city of the Schwabians, Stuttgart. Through their collaborations, both financial and logistics, the debut launching of  The First Animal Summit 2011-2015 has become another scored success story in the black community here in Germany.
Geneva (AFP) - Without more donor support the emergency caused by Boko Haram will become the world's worst humanitarian crisis, a top UN official said Friday, as a massive appeal remained just a quarter funded.

United Nations assistant secretary general Toby Lanzer said the suffering in northeast Nigeria and surrounding areas was the worst he had ever witnessed.

"I have worked in Darfur," Lanzer told reporters, referring to the war-torn Sudanese region. "The scale and the depth of suffering that I have seen (in Nigeria) is unparalleled in my experience."

Boko Haram using children as suicide bombers

Nigeria-born Islamist group Boko Haram has waged a brutal insurgency in the country's northeast, with violence spreading more recently to western Cameroon as well as the south of Chad and Niger.

The UN has appealed for a $739 million to cover needs across the entire affected region -- known as the Lake Chad Basin -- but has received commitments for just $197 million (176 million euros).

"If we don't engage in a much more comprehensive manner, including scaling up our emergency relief programmes, what awaits us down the line is the biggest crisis facing any of us, anywhere," Lanzer said.

More than nine million people are in "desperate" need of aid, Lanzer said.

The United Nations had not declared a famine in the Lake Chad Basin, but Lanzer warned that 65,000 people were living in "famine-like conditions".

The UN has also said that up to 80,000 children in the region could die if they do not get food aid within the next year.

When Boko Haram violence was at its peak through 2013 and 2014, the UN and other aid groups were unaware of the gravity of needs because access to conflict-ridden areas was largely impossible.

A mother holds her baby at a public health facility in Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria

Nigeria's military has since made gains against the extremists and emergency workers have moved in, unveiling a catastrophe unrivalled "anywhere except that of Syria," Lanzer said, warning the Lake Chad could overtake Syria in terms of the scale of the needs.

The Boko Haram conflict, which began in northeast Nigeria in 2009, has displaced an estimated 2.6 million people.

At least 20,000 have died in violence blamed on the Islamists, but the numbers killed by causes linked to the conflict are likely much higher.
In Paleoanthropology, the recent Afro origin of modern humans, also called the *"Out of Africa(OOA) theory"*, argues that the human race started from Africa. People migrated to other parts of the world which populated the world by the constant replacement of older human species.

So many things of the world started in Africa. Most theories argue in support of the assertion that the human race itself started from Africa and gradually populated the world through migration. Civilization itself started in Africa precisely Egypt where most renowned philosophers like Plato, Aristotle and etc travelled to to learn from Africa their rich civilization. Imhotep, an Egyptian who was the father of medicine is today been replaced by Hippocrates. It is very obvious that due to our lack of knowledge of our history as a people, We continually perish and belittle ourselves.

Today, the whole world regards Hippocrates as the father of medicine in disguised grammar as the *Modern Father of Medicine* because we as a people have have to recognise our potentials and know our history. A nation with no knowledge of her past is definitely a lost one. Irrigation systems, science, medicine, architecture and even *Christianity* were present in Africa before the coming of the Europeans *(return of our lost brothers who had journeyed away from their home of birth)* yet today, we strip ourselves of all that we have and give credit to *the white man who came with Schnapps in one hand and Bible in the other*.

We revere the white man who condemned our culture of human sacrifice yet threw our life bodies in the cold sea to die_. Is there grading in cruelty and murder? Or do their Bible allow the *carriage of slaves and alcohol in the same ships that carried the Bible?* _While they preached against polygamy, they had illegitimate affairs with the African women bringing forth "mulatto" children._ Until, we go back to our history books where the likes of Egypt, Timbuktu, and other cities were havens of civilization and most especially education, we will continue to be a lost race.

Dr. John Mbuti, an African scholar and Theologian in his book, *THE EARLY CHURCH IN AFRICA*,: stated emphatically that, *"Christianity in Africa is so old that it can be rightly? described as an indigenous, traditional African religion ".* Right from the Bible, one can trace the presence of African Christians. The *Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts chapter 8 got converted long before the apostle Paul took the gospel to Europe and long before colonialism*

_Again, in Acts Chapter 13 where the Believers gathered to fast and pray, some African believers were named among these people which included Some on also called Niger(which means black) and Lucius all from Cyrene( a country known to be in North Africa) Simon of Cyrene is believed to have helped Jesus in carrying his cross in Matthew 27:32)_

Jesus and his family were in Egypt for some years before they returned to Nazareth and is believed to have learnt how to walk and talk while there. It is also a fact many brilliant ancient church fathers such as Augustine, Euthanasia, *Tertullian, the Theologian who first coined the term, *"Trinity"* , Cyprian and others were Africans yet we look down on ourselves as barbaric people until the coming of the *Schnapps Missionaries*. It is an undeniable fact that these European missionaries helped in the wide spread of Christianity but *they were definitely not the ones to introduce Christianity to Africans*. The first Catechetical or theological seminary in the world was in Alexandria in Egypt. *The theological controversies in the 4th Century which brought about the Nicene creed now apostles creed, an important statement of faith which is used by many churches world-wide today has its roots from African theology*

The *Kebra Negast* accounts on the amorous affair between King Solomon of Isreal and Queen Sheba of Ethiopia whose power extended to Egypt which brought forth an offspring called *Menelik* who started the Solomon dynasty in Ethiopia. Queen Sheba converted to *Judaism* as a result of this relationship and this started the spread of Christianity in Ethiopia. The Ark of covenant which contains the two tablets of the Ten commandments is alleged to be in the Ethiopia Church in Axum which together with Egypt Coptic Church existed before the Church of England. The ark of covenant is alleged to be kept under guard in a treasury near the Church of our Lady Mary of Zion.

Unfortunately, Africans of today think otherwise of themselves and succumb to everything western to the extent that *Pastors who speak English are mostly revered and believed to be the true men of God whereas pastors who speak our local languages are seen as fake*. Until we revisit our history as a people, We will forever be lost. *Christianity existed before colonialism and we must purge ourselves off colonialism in the Church*

*Asamani Mercy(Mercedes)*

_I am a Pan-African and I write on socio-economic issues. Do well to visit me on www.yaagh.com or [email protected]_
At the launching of the 2015 State of the Ghanaian Economy Report in Accra, the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), an economic research think tank, caution the government to take a volte-face of the countrys debt management strategy.

It alarmed of risks that may disrupt the attainment of the 2016 budgetary targets as well economic policies objectives as well as medium-term goals.

The Institute indicated that, the debt strategy of increasing borrowing on the private capital market, while the challenge of spending efficiency remains may be counterproductive.

The economic research think tank said the debt strategy of increasing borrowing on the private capital market, while the challenge of spending efficiency remains may be counterproductive.

The Director of ISSER and coordinator of the report, Professor Felix Asante, said an analysis of the debt management strategy indicated that the situation was not improving.

Our indicators have exceeded the threshold levels and our risk exposure has worsened, he said, adding that we must rethink the debt strategy particularly, the sequencing of it so that we can prioritise the improvement in the spending efficiency in order to control our appetite to borrow on the private capital market, he said.

He however, warned that the increasing levels of taxes, as well as the energy challenges that the country experienced, may compromise the growth target for the year.

This, Prof. Asante said, were problematic because some of the taxes adversely impacted on the cost of doing business.

The report, which assesses challenges and progress made in the economy last year, will also provide an outlook of what researchers at the Institute make of the economy in a year the country goes to the polls.

If the private sector investment and growth slow down, it will subsequently affect revenues and compound the fiscal challenges, Prof. Asante said.

The government has outlined some specific policy objectives it wants to achieve in 2016. Those objectives include the realignment of statutory funds to address the increasing rigidities in the budget to improve flexibility in policy while rationalising the internally generated funds.

Other aspects of the government objectives include the implementation of the Income Tax Act, 2015 (Act 896), which is expected to improve compliance and yield additional revenue equivalent to 0.3 per cent of GDP.

Again, Prof. Asante argued that although those policies were consistent in dealing with the fiscal challenges, there were inherent risks that might derail those achievements in the short to medium term.

Though the government has indicated that it would not overspend in the run-up to the elections, ISSER fears that fiscal outcomes are compromised in election years.

It is very important that we remain firm in our commitment not to get carried away by the pressure to spend, he said.

The country is still paying for the fiscal sins of 2012, but was hopeful that the passage of the Public Financial Management Bill 2016 may help protect the managers of the countrys finances against undue political pressure, Prof. Asante said., said an analysis of the debt management strategy indicated that the situation was not improving.

Our indicators have exceeded the threshold levels and our risk exposure has worsened, he said, adding that we must rethink the debt strategy particularly, the sequencing of it so that we can prioritise the improvement in the spending efficiency in order to control our appetite to borrow on the private capital market, he said.
30.09.2016 LISTEN

The books title is The Theory of Philosophical Consciencism: Practice Foundations of Nkrumahism.(ISBN: 978-1-909112-66-7)

IN PRAISE OF DR. KOFI KISSI DOMPERE

The bulk of Professor Domperes research and publications lie within the highly technical field of fuzzy systems research This degree on specialization is part of a complicated process that hopefully leads to further insights and what we proudly admire as scientific progress when all works wellOne must try to assess not only the value of a persons contribution to work going on in a specialized field, but also the likely value of the specialized area to the profession as a whole

The works I have reviewed, as well as the publication and conference participation records, clearly demonstrate that Professor Dompere is a valuable contributor to fuzzy systems theory. His paper, The Theory of Fuzzy Decisions published in Approximate Reasoning in Decision Analysis (M.M. Gupta and E. Sanchez editors, North-Holland, 1982) is a clearly early valuable contribution written at the highest mathematical level.

However, this is a field that requires not only high level math skills but also considerable philosophical sophisticationWhat is more interesting is Professor Domperes work applying the theoretical insights he developed early in his career to a number of areas of economic research. He demonstrates how insights from fuzzy systems theory clarify overlooked complexities in capital theory in However, several new developments indicate that the work of Professor Dompere and others in fuzzy systems theory may be of greater importance than most economists realized only a few years ago.

In conclusion, Professor Dompere has been a valuable contributor to a highly specialized field of economics that has recently proven to be of far greater interest and value than most economics expected (Robin Hahnel, Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics, American University/Portland State University)

Pan-African Analysis: This provocative and idealistic question leads to Prof. Domperes two works on African Union and Polyrhythmicity. I studied African politics and literature at Penn and Morgan State, and have a deep admiration for some of the historic figures and ideas that Dompere that celebrates in these two books. I will not comment on them, other than to make two observations. First, what shines through here is the vision of Kwame Nkrumahand of other legendary figuresthat insisted on Pan-Africanism as a crucial element in Africas effort to break away from colonialism and neo-colonialism, in its effort to develop and to become prosperous.

Second: in this respect, the effort at thinking of African development as a whole, as having a collective logic and as demanding from its people that they think collectively of all Africans collective well-being, is completely consistent with the national social planning approach that Prof. Dompere has been working out in his formal economic-theory work. In effect, one solution among others is a Pan-African approach; and this will be best for Africa. In these works, of course, this prescription comes fully charged by the authors love and devotion for the poetry, beauty, literature, and vitality of Africa.

But then, what do we do if micro-structures dont work like that-dont function as component parts of optimizing social matrices? Domperes answer, as a man of Africa, is that we must fight for Africaor if we are not from there, for AmericaOne is the beautiful cloud of the dream of a Pan-African path to development, arrived at as colonial empires crumbled. The other is the n-dimensional cloud of mathematical symmetry and elegant possibility, arrived at through mental exercises in thinking the world of production and consumption. On these clouds, I feel at home and yet above the earth.

And perhaps that is the role of a theorist and a meta-historianto remind his readers what is possible, what can be and even what could not be, so they have something to hold onto as they make their way along the alleyways and streets down on the hard, cold ground (Gary A. Dymski, Professor of Economics, Executive Director, University of California (Riverside)

BLURB FOR THE THEORY OF PHILOSOPHICAL CONSCIENCISM: PRACTICE FOUNDATIONS OF NKRUMAHISM

In the Theory of Philosophical Consciencism, Professor Dompere establishes how Nkrumah used the theory of categorial conversion housing the necessary conditions of transformation to design strategies for creating sufficient conditions for socio-political transformations.

The theory of Philosophical Consciencism is about the institutionally destruction-creation process for socio-political transformation.

The theory shows the scientific contributions of Nkrumahs thinking to the solution of the transformation problem in science and its application to social systemicity, where Nkrumahs analytical weapons were drawn from African conceptual system.

The theory is developed as logico-mathematical foundations that guide the internal management of the command-control decision-choice systems for creative destruction of socio-political varieties in transformations, through the development of qualitative mathematics making possible the construct of qualitative equations of motion for connecting varieties in qualitative transfers.

The qualitative equations of motion through the Philosophical Consciencism constitute the sufficient conditions for transformations.

The theory links rationality, intentionality, experiential information structure, defective-deceptive information structures in the control-dynamic games of power and dominance by duals and poles, under the principle of opposites with relational continua and unity relative to decision-choice systems that induce negation-negation transformations, where paths are established by the history of success-failure outcomes in the socially control-dynamic zero-sum games between the duals in any duality and between the poles of any actual-potential polarity.

The main premise of the monograph is that there exists a set of sufficient conditions in support of the necessary conditions for internal transformation of socio-natural varieties.

The theory is useful in understanding developmental processes and multi-polar-power zero-sum games for global dominance. The necessary conditions constitute the natural necessity that constrains cognitive freedom.

The sufficient conditions constitute cognitive freedom that must overcome the necessity in socio-natural systems dynamics.

Had this conceptual system been familiar to African leaders, the African transformation from colonialism to complete emancipation, rather than neocolonialism, would have been increasingly successful.

This holds for those seeking triumph over injustices, oppression, imperialism and social change in all systems.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kofi Kissi Dompere is a professor of economics at Howard University.

He has authored a number of scientific and scholarly works on economics, philosophy, and decision theory and related fields. He has also authored a number of monographs including twelve monographs with Springer Science Publishers, three with Greenwood Publishers, and two with Adonis-Abbey Publishers.

His teaching areas include Economic Theory, Mathematical Economics, International Economics and Cost-Benefit Analysis as decision theory.

His current research foci are on Theory of Development Process, Qualitative mathematics of transformations, epistemics and mathematics of fuzzy phenomena and their application in economic decision, mathematics of transformations and General information theory.

He is the producer and host of a radio program African Rhythms and Extensions on WPFW 89.3 FM, in Washington D.C., USA., a member of Pacifica Foundation.

MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION

DR. KOFI KISSI DOMPERE PUBLISHES TWO NEW SCIENTIFIC BOOKS ON NKRUMAHISM

Readers may want to revisit Ghanaweb and all the other major web portals for the following articles Rational Foundations of Nkrumahism (April 10, 2015) and Practice Foundations of Nkrumahism (April 12, 2015), the serial essays Dr. Kofi Dompere On Nkrumahs Scientific Thinking, sixteen in all, for a rough idea as to what Nkrumahism philosophically, mathematically and scientifically means.

Dr. Kofi Kissi Dompere, one of Americas and the worlds most respected economists and academics, a brilliant mathematician and philosopher as well, has finally published two highly scientific, technical and sophisticated volumes on Nkrumah and Nkrumahism.

In other words not only is he a man of theory but that he is also a man of practice. He knows how political economy and comparative advantage truly work, particularly as it should have been in the case of the African world from the standpoint of consciencism, fundamentally Nkrumahism. Categorial conversation is key to these formulations in both theory and practical assertion.

As a matter of fact he wrote his doctoral dissertation on categorial conversion, the focus of Nkrumahs Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for De-Colonization, and brings his extensive knowledge and expertise from that field to bear on his vigorous philosophical, mathematical and scientific analysis of Nkrumahism. His approach to the scientific method is commendable.

An award-winning author, professor of economics, and academic widely recognized around the world for his highly technical texts and publications and cutting-edge research, as well as one of the distinguished faces in America and the world known for bridging the frontiers of mathematics, science and the humanities/liberal arts through his cutting-edge research, the polymath Dr. Dompere is also the author of several economics-cum-mathematics texts used around the world and American universities/colleges and the following highly recommended texts:

Polyrhythmicity: Foundations of African Philosophy

African Union: Pan-African Analytical Foundations

Africentricity and African Nationalism

In other words, he is widely known for the rigor of his mathematical formulations and modeling of complex qualitative problem. For instance, Prof. Domperes contributions to fuzzy logic, fuzzy mathematics, and fuzzy theory as they relate to academic economics and the practice of political economy have widely been acknowledged by academic economists, mathematicians, institutions, and Springer Publishing, one of his major publishers which also happens to be one of the worlds largest carriers of scientific titles and journals; as well as of Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd, and so on.

More than 3000 libraries carry Prof. Domperes academic works around the world (see WorldCat for Prof. Domperes scholarly works; WorldCat houses tens of thousands of libraries in at 160 countries; it is also the world largest and most comprehensive catalogue of library resources from around the world. See OCLC.org for additional information! Amazon.com also has them).

Also, Prof. Domperes high-profile academic standing in the American Academy, notwithstanding all the above, is exemplified by his respected membership in a number of prominent institutions: The American Society for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the worlds largest scientific organization; the New York Academy of Sciences; the Econometric Society, an international society of academic economists; the Golden Key National Honor Society; the American Economic Association (AEA); the Diopian Institute for Scholarly Advancement (DISA); and the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS).

Prof. Dompere is also associated with Scientific American; Fuzzy Sets and Systems; the International Journal of Development Economics; the Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Theory and Decision; and the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems. Further, Prof. Dompere has also served as Chairman of the Appointments, Promotions and Tenure Committee (APT) of Howard Universitys Economics Committee, as well as of the Curriculum Committee and the Macroeconomic Examination Committee.

He has also been a member of the Graduate Schools Task Force on Environment Science at Howard University. He has also worked with a number of international organizations (the World Bank, for instance), American institutions, and a number of governments from around the world (for instance, the Organization of American States (OAS)), etc.

To remind our readers once again, he has been ranked among The Worlds 100 Leading Thinkers.

Last but not least, for those uneducated and skeptical minds that are of the view that there has never been a systematized formal body of knowledge on political economy or a science of political economy called Nkrumahism, this is finally it. These two highly technical texts put those uninformed plaints to eternal rest.

Again, as far as we can tell no scholarship or academic text on the subject matter comes close in terms of the analytic depth and sheer range of mathematical, philosophical and scientific rigor with which Dr. Dompere, a world-class economist, mathematician, philosopher, historian, management scientist, and logician approaches the subject.

In fact, there is nothing like it in the entire field of African political economy and philosophy if we may put it succinctly. The technical sophistication of methodology, the denseness of formal auctorial language, and the multifaceted (or multidisciplinary) approach to this rigorous study of Nkrumahism put the subject matter in a class of its own.

The average or casual reader is, therefore, not going to find these remarkable texts friendly at all as he writes mostly for experts. Beyond this, the two books must also be in our parliament, in the Flagstaff House, and in our major libraries and research institutions and think tanks (as well as those of the world beyond the African world).

Then also their contents should be explored and debated and made a dialectic fixture of national political discourse, of policy strategies and tactics. Our students in the fields of engineering, management science and operations research, policy studies, mathematics, political science, logic, economics, political economy, diplomacy and international relations, political sociology, philosophy and history, literature, science and technology, computer science, leadership studies, law, sociology and development sociology, sustainable development and political psychology need to explore the contents of these books.

Finally, Dr. Dompere recently sent us some vital information about these books, their blurbs and publication information, a big plus for the Nkrumahist movement and African as a whole, both of which we want to share with our readers from around the world. Here are the books names and their respective ISBNs:

The Theory of Philosophical Consciencism: Practice Foundations of Nkrumaism(ISBN: 978-1-909112-66-7) ( http://adonisandabbey.com/book_detail.php?bookid=231 )

The Theory of Categorial Conversion: Rational Foundations of Nkrumaism. (http://adonisandabbey.com/book_detail.php?bookid=232) (ISBN: 978-1-909112-67-4).

A SHORT LIST OF PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS DR. KOFI KISSI DOMPERE HAS PUBLISHED HIS PAPERS, SERVED AS A REFEREE, OR HELD/HOLDS OFFICIAL MEMBERSHIP IN:
The UN Human Rights Council placed the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) under scrutiny today by adopting a resolution that puts the country at the center of its attention. This strong political move was essential to respond to the human rights crisis that is unfolding in the DRC in the electoral context, as all signals are red and violence keeps on mounting.

The United Nations just sent President Kabila a crystal-clear message: respect the rule of law, the Constitution and the electoral process; otherwise you will be held to account before the international community, said Dimitris Christopoulos, FIDH President. By doing so, the Human Rights Council reminded us that respect for democratic elections and human rights are interrelated, in the DRC and elsewhere, he added.

The resolution that was adopted today expresses deep concern over the violence committed in the context of elections, including the use of disproportionate force against demonstrators who demand that President Kabila leave office at the end of his second constitutionally-mandated term, on 19 December 2016. It also raises increasing restrictions on fundamental freedoms, in particular arbitrary detentions, threats against civil society, journalists and members of political parties, and restrictions to freedoms of expression and assembly.

The resolution provides for the holding of public debates on the DRC at each and every regular session of the Council in 2017. It also opens the door to further action  including through a special session, which FIDH called for in July 2016. This increase in the attention given to the DRC is in line with the asks we formulated ahead of the Councils 33rd session, which ends tonight.

The Human Rights Council took a step in the right direction, but the true test will be its ability to respond to developments on the ground, as the latter may threaten regional stability, said Paul Nsapu, President of the Ligue des Electeurs. The Council should be vigilant and stand ready to further contribute to international efforts to prevent a crisis whose consequences could be incalculable, he added.

On 19 September, FIDH, its member and partner organizations in the DRC, and member organizations of the #MonVoteDoitCompter coalition called on the Congolese authorities to put an end to the repression and to guarantee freedoms of expression and assembly, as large-scale demonstrations were ongoing in various cities of the country, including Kinshasa, to call for President Kabilas departure in December 2016.

However, law enforcement forces renewed their brutal crackdown on demonstrations, while the latter had been authorized by the government. According to the information we gathered, between 19 and 20 September several dozen civilians were killed by law enforcement in Kinshasa. Officials used lethal weapons and fired live ammunition at the crowds. Over one thousand demonstrators, including political opposition and independent civil society members, as well as journalists, were arbitrarily arrested and detained, some of them incommunicado. Many of them are still being held. Men, some of them wearing police uniforms, participated in the sacking of various opposition party headquarters  four of these (UDPS, FONUS, ECIDE et MLP) were burned down. The headquarters of two pro-President parties were also targeted. In other cities, including Kisangani and Goma, human rights activists were arrested. Among them are four members of the Filimbi movement in Kisangani, namely Attorney Ms. Cathy Bosongo and Messrs. Simplice Kapipa, Gauthier Kasonya and Abedi Radjabu. They remain in detention. It was reported that some of them were subjected to acts of torture.

Our organizations urge the Congolese authorities to put an end to the repression of those who oppose President Kabilas bid to stay in power and to immediately and unconditionally release all arbitrarily detained persons, including those who are held incommunicado.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has replaced its parliamentary nominee for the Afram Plains South constituency in the Eastern Region, Joseph Appiah Boateng, on the final day of filing ahead of the 2016 elections.

Mr. Appiah Boateng, who is also the incumbent MP for the area, has been replaced with the NDC's Eastern regional secretary Oliver Mark-Kevor following consultations with regional executives and the National Secretariat.

Reports indicate that the MP took the decision after a court granted a motion by one Dickson Adjei Danso, praying it to prevent him from the race because he is embroiled in a criminal case.

But Mr. Appiah Boatengs replacement, Oliver Mark-Kevor told Citi News, the incumbent MP stepped down voluntarily.

The MP has agreed to withdraw. He has agreed to withdraw voluntarily and the MP is being replaced, he said.

Mr. Mark-Kevor added that it was impractical to organize a re-run of the elections looking at the timing so consultations went on. Regional executives came together and took a decision in consultation with the National Secretariat.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Association of Ghana Industries has welcomed directive by President John Mahama to shipping lines to stop the Terminal Handling Charges at the Port.

According to the AGI, the terminal handling charge will result in a revenue loss of $78m through the port, making the nation loss more to foreign counterparts.

In an interview with JOYBUSINESS, president of the AGI James Asare Adjei said the numerous charges at the ports is have been hampering businesses especially at the time when local industries are facing unfair market competition from China and other neighboring countries.

President Mahama issued the directive few minutes after the AGI president made an official appeal to him openly to intervene to reduce the cost of doing business for local industries operating at the port.

Key business associations have been calling for the abolishment of the THC since it has no legal support.

According to them, the continuous charge of such a fee will be a hindrance on their business operations.

Earlier, Minister of Transport Fifi Kwetey has issued a directive to the shipping lines to halt its implementation but the majority of shipping lines declined and continue to charge.

Story by Ghana| Myjoyonline.com | Ebenezer K. Sabutey |Joy Business
By Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Sept. 30, GNA - Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, presidential nominee of the Progressive People's Party (PPP) on Friday filed his nomination papers with the Electoral Commission (EC) to contest the December 7, presidential election.

Dr Nduom's nomination papers were filed on his behalf by the National Chairman of the PPP, Dr Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond.

The Chairperson of the EC, Mrs Charlotte Osei, however, accepted the bankers draft for the filing fee; questioning why the PPP had filed an injunction at the high court, and yet decided to make the payment.

The filing fees for a presidential candidate is GH50,000, while that of a parliamentary candidate is GH10,000.

Dr Nii Brew-Hammond in an interaction with the media explained that, the party was in court to uphold and defend the constitution.

He said it is a constitutional requirement that any increment in the filing fees be made by the EC through a legislative instrument.

Dr Nii Brew-Hammond explained that the PPP was a law abiding party and would like to comply with the requirements of the EC while it waited for the court's ruling.

Warrant Officer Class One Richard Nison Tetteh, presidential nominee of the United Development System and Dr Henry Lartey of the Great Consolidated Popular Party also filed their nomination papers.

This brings to 12 the number of presidential candidates who have filed nominations with the EC to contest the December 7 election.

GNA
By D.I. Laary/Aborchie B. Christielove

Accra, Sept. 30, GNA - University for Development Studies (UDS) has launched the second edition of 'History of Education in Northern Ghana' written by Professor Raymond Bagulo Bening, the founding Vice Chancellor of the university.

With his new book, the former chancellor was also a professor of geography and resource development studies at UDS and has authored several locally and internationally acclaimed books, with his new book seeks to provide a deeper insight into the education gap between north and south.

The book is also about the north-south divide in the country with regard to investment in infrastructure, medical facilities and education.

Reviewing the book, Professor Helen Yitah, Former Head of Department of English at the University of Ghana, said 'we can trace this chasm back to the British occupation of what came to be known as the Northern Territories in 1902.'

'It was possibly in education that this lack of investment in the region came to be most drastically felt.

'The statistics of state resources towards building schools and ensuring that these schools have qualified teachers reveal deep seated structural cracks.

'The endeavour to ensure education for the North started out wrong and went totally awry over the years, so that today the teacher-student ratio and the percentage of children in school are skewed when compared to other regions of the country.'

The history of education in the Northern Territories (NT) was described as selective meritocracy.

The history of colonial Ghana shows that most of the schools in the Gold Coast Colony and in the Colony of Ashanti were built and administrated by missionary societies which are amply highlighted in the book.

Professor Yitah said: 'But this book does more than document the statistics: it also tells the stories of the struggle of the few who took advantage of the education offered.

'Those of us who claim that education was free in the NT will be duly enlightened by these stories: of people who could not pay the annual fees of between thirty and eighty shillings per child, which they were initially told they could settle in instalments, either in cash or in kind.

'Later on, when some parents defaulted in these payments, full payment was made mandatory. The cruel irony of demanding so much from a people with so little to give must have been lost on the colonial government.

'For most NT parents, it would have been the case of 'where a tortoise is found is where it will be picked' - a 'Kasem' saying that is often quoted to express abject poverty and the helplessness that accompanies it.

'This is essentially a story of disastrous decisions by a colonial administration, its misunderstanding of the geographic area they had designated as the NT and its indifference to the consequences of whatever choices were made in the name of the British Governor.

'This is followed by post-independence failures to rectify the imbalance in the resources allocated to the north and allowing the divide to evolve into a chasm that today would be near impossible to bridge without extraordinary financial sources and political will, and Ghana appears to be without both today.

'This book must be required reading for all Ghanaians, for it has the potential, through promoting understanding of 'where the rain began to beat us', to galvanize national efforts to give northern Ghana is due.

Professor Jacob Songsore, a beneficiary of northern education, told his story about how he had his education under the catholic missionary school in Tamale.

Professor Bening said the quest for large number of people working for degrees was what influenced him to write the book.

UDS Vice Chancellor, Professor Gabriel Ayum Teye unveiled the book before large crowds of dignitaries including Mr Joseph Whittal, Deputy Commissioner for Commission on Human Right and Administrative Justice and Mr George Debrie, Deputy Registrar of UDS and several academicians.

GNA
By Stephen Asante, GNA

Kumasi, Sept 30, GNA - Muslim Family Counselling Services, an NGO, has called for increased public education on reproductive health to help the people make informed decisions about their sexual lives.

This, it noted, was vital to the effort to control the nation's rapid population growth.

The call was contained in a statement signed by Mr. Mohammed Bun Bida, the Programmes Director, in Kumasi, to mark this year's world contraception day.

It asked that more was done to empower married couples to choose when to have children and the number of children they would want to have.

That, it indicated, was the way forward for the effective utilization of state resources to improve wellbeing of the people.

The statement warned that the high rate at which Ghana's population was growing could have dire consequences for the economy.

The country's population is predicted to hit 60 million by year 2050.

It raised concern about what it said was the soaring teenage pregnancies and urged urgent action to deal with the situation.

The day has been set aside to create public awareness and educate the population on the use of contraceptives.

Sex education programmes, targeting the youth to prevent unplanned pregnancies, abortion and sexually-transmitted-infections, had been lined up by the NGO to celebrate the event.

The people, particularly married couples, would also be encouraged to accept family planning methods.

The statement suggested the inclusion of reproductive health in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

It added that programmes and plans on family planning and sexual and reproductive health must be developed, implemented and funded in partnership with civil society groups to achieve the desired outcomes.

GNA
Accra, Sept. 30, GNA - TroTro Tractor Limited and Ghalani are the winners the Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) AgriTech Challenge, a formal competition open to young entrepreneurs to use innovation to develop commercial solutions to address the challenges in the agricultural sector.

After nurturing their ideas through research and collaboration, and pitching them to a panel of expert judges, the winners of the competition would receive US$50,000 in seed funding and technical assistance from the KIC.

Additionally, they would be mentored by the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology to help them turn their ideas into viable businesses.

TroTro Tractor Ltd is developing a platform that uses mobile phones and GPS units to connect farmers to tractor operators within their vicinity, enabling them to request, schedule, and pre-pay tractor services.

The platform gives farmers greater access to mechanized farming equipment.

Ghalani is creating a farm management software that helps agricultural aggregators, who often have to manage relationships with thousands of small-holder farmers, to efficiently organise, manage and monitor these farmers to improve productivity and reduce risks.

TroTro Tractor and Ghalani were selected from an original field of more than 100 young entrepreneurs from all over Ghana.

The competition began in April with the inaugural AgriTech Exchange, an interactive and informative brainstorming session, in which experts in agriculture, business, and technology gathered to define the most pressing challenges facing Ghana's agriculture sector.

In a highly competitive selection process that followed the event, the young entrepreneurs pitched preliminary ideas to a panel of judges drawn from the Ministry of Agriculture, academia, and private sector enterprises.

Forty-four entrepreneurs were selected to move forward to the second stage of the competition.

In May, the selected entrepreneurs - known in the programme as 'AgriTechies' - attended a series of lunch-and-learn programmes, aimed at deepening their understanding of the agricultural sector, studying the challenges identified in the AgriTech Exchange, and preparing for a 13-day field research tour.

The KIC-sponsored research tour then took the participants to five regions - Greater Accra, Volta, Eastern, Ashanti, and Brong-Ahafo - to interact directly with farmers and agribusinesses to test their assumptions and collect valuable input.

They formed into 11 teams and continued to refine their ideas and formulate business proposals, which were pitched to the panel of expert judges in late June.

The entrepreneurs who survived this pitch round continued working on their business plans in advance of the final pitch in August that ultimately selected the winners.

Commenting on the success of the programme, Kosmos Energy's Vice President and Country Manager, Joe Mensah, said: 'We are on to something big. This program encourages smart young entrepreneurs to look at agriculture differently. 'With the type of innovation fostered by the KIC, our young people can make it a more dynamic sector and attractive career path with plenty of opportunity.

'I am thrilled with the tremendous response that we have gotten from young people who want to be a part of this effort to transform Ghana. As we move on to the second competition in 2017, I would like to encourage other companies to join us as we invest in these promising young people and the businesses they are creating to improve agriculture in Ghana.'

Katie Sarro, the Managing Director of MEST said, 'We're thrilled to be working with Kosmos Energy on the Kosmos Innovation Center and AgriTech incubator. This mutually beneficial partnership whereby each party brings their respective strengths to the table.

'We especially appreciate Kosmos' dedication in bringing the necessary expertise within the agriculture sector. That, combined with our expertise in building world-class tech companies, is an unstoppable combo that has already demonstrated a lot of promise

'We're proud at what we've accomplished thus far and we look forward to continuing to mentor and nurture these promising AgriTech startups through funding, incubation and technical support.'

GNA
By Morkporkpor Anku, GNA

Accra, Sept 30. GNA - A two-day workshop on Water the management of Sanitation and Hygiene facilities, operations and education programmes for School Health Education Programme (SHEP)coordinators has ended in Accra.

The programme is to train the coordinators to be able to implement the Hygiene Education Plan (HEP) in their schools.

The workshop is part of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area Sanitation and Water Project, funded by the World Bank.

The project is to develop the Plan and facilities' operation and maintenance handbook and also to assist the Metropolis in its implementation in beneficiary schools.

Madam Anita Djandoh, a Gender, Behavioural Change and Communication Specialist, and the WasteCare Associate Project Consultant, told the Ghana News Agency that 78 schools had been selected to participate in the Project.

She said the handbook developed was to guide the coordinators and school management on how to maintain all the sanitation facilities in their various schools.

She said it would also guide them on how to monitor and educate their school children concerning hygiene.

Madam Djandoh said the Project sought to promote the provision of improved sanitation and water supply facilities in selected schools within the Accra Metropolis, including hygiene education campaign for behavioural change.

The Project Consultant said the programme sought to use life skills-based approaches and participatory child- centred methodologies in the implementation.

She urged parents to help the school managements in educating children on sanitation and hygiene issues.

GNA
By Robert Anane / Elizabeth Ofosu, GNA

Accra, Sept. 30, GNA - The Confucius Institute at the University of Ghana - Legon, has marked the 12th global Confucius Institute Day in Accra.

The occasion was marked by Chinese Cultural display and activities such as martial arts and traditional health preservation arts.

Madam Sun Baohong, the Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, who was guest of honour for the occasion, said the Confucius Institute in Ghana had chalked great achievements since it came into being.

'Forty students have taken the HSK, (the Chinese Academic Proficiency test) and a third of them have obtained scholarships to further their studies in China,' she said.

Madam Sun said, at present, the Confucius Institute, with its five branches in Ghana, had more than 2000 students since it began operations some two years ago.

She urged that the exchange programmes by students of China and Ghana be promoted because they helped forged strong bilateral relations.

Madam Sun encouraged the Management of the Confucius Institute and the University of Ghana to continue with their hard work in order to build upon the achievements they had already made.

Prof. Ebenezer Oduro Owusu, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, said the University would absolutely lend its support to the Confucius Institute because of the immense mutual gains it held for both countries.

Touching on some of the ways in which Ghanaians were benefiting from the Confucius Institute, the HSK had made it possible for a lot of Ghanaian students to pursue further studies in China up to the PHD level.

He said: 'More exciting is the on-going construction of the model Confucius Institute Building at the University of Ghana because the completion of the building would afford more Ghanaians the opportunity to study the Chinese Language and culture and also benefit from the employment opportunities that went with it.'

He noted that Chinese investments in the country cut across a wide range of areas such as technology, agriculture and construction.

Similarly, he said, many Ghanaian businesses were benefiting from these Chinese companies, thus, teaching and learning of Chinese language and culture would yield mutual gains.

Dr. Mei Meilian, the Director of the Confucius Institute, University of Ghana, said the excellent performance of the Institute had qualified it to be awarded the title of 'A model Confucius Institute,' which is currently held by only five other Confucius Institutes globally.

She said 17 Ghanaian students of the Institute had obtained scholarships and admissions to pursue their Doctorate Degrees in China, while a host of others were pursuing various programmes in that country.

According to Wikipedia, Confucius was a Chinese philosopher, editor, teacher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history.

His philosophy, it says, emphasises personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity.

GNA
30.09.2016 LISTEN

By George-Ramsey Benamba, GNA

Accra, Sept. 30, GNA - President John Dramani Mahama on Friday directed the Ministry of Finance to implement measures that would stem the numerous illegal handling charges at the country's ports and harbours.

He said there was growing complaints from both domestic and international importers, who use Ghana's entry-points for their businesses, about the charges and there was the need to act quickly to save the industry from embarrassment.

President Mahama said this when he joined staff and management of the Ghana Revenue Authority to mark the first anniversary of the implementation of Ghana's single window and to launch the Import, Export and Transit manual in Accra.

The single window programme was initiated by the Government of Ghana on September 1 2015 and launched on December 1, 2015 to enhance the country's trade and economic development and secure and increased government revenue.

The project was also seen as a partnership between business and government to strengthen Ghana's trade competitiveness and enhance the participation of the business community in the global market and to create trade and employment opportunities.

It is believed that before the implementation of the single window project, there were about 23 check-points at the ports which did not only inhibit the progress of business, but also created avenues for corruption at the ports.

President Mahama said the elimination of the numerous illegal handling charges would make Ghana the preferred destination of business and attract other importers in the sub-region to do business in the country's ports and harbours.

He said in a bid to eliminate illegal activities at the ports and harbours, government has also established the National Risk Management Committee that would facilitate and provide walk-in services to reduce time and cost of doing business.

The President said the launch of the manual would provide a legal framework for the smooth progress of the project and make it conform with international standards and practices.

He gave the assurance that the full implementation of the single window and its inherent supportive projects would help reduce cost of doing business by the next five years and make Ghana the favourable destination for investment in Africa.

President Mahama said government's continuous investment in port and harbour expansion would also provide adequate access to importers and create environment of smart business procedures.

He commended the implementation team for the success of the project adding that it was a testimony that it could become the best alternative to eliminate corruption and increase government revenue.

"Ghana Ports and Harbours, Ghana Maritime and all other partners should therefore get prepared to become busier in coming years on account of the expansion programmes that will also increase volumes of trade at their destinations."

Mr James Asare Adjei, President of the Association of Ghana Industries, said the Association had so far been impressed with the implementation of the single window project on account of the reduction of the time of doing business.

He said the Association would be expecting a competitive and fair trade facilities for the indigenous Ghanaian businesses to enhance their growth and development in coming days.

Mr Adjei, however, expressed dissatisfaction with the numerous handling charges and high taxes on imported materials for Ghanaian industries and appealed to government to take a second look at the trend.

GNA
Accra, Sept. 30, GNA - Ecobank Capital Advisors Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ecobank, and MTN Mobile Money has introduced the Ecobank TBill4All, designed to boost financial inclusion and investment for everyone.

The Ecobank TBill4All is a self-service product that allows Ghanaians to invest in 91-day and 182-day Treasury bills using the MTN mobile money platform.

It is the first of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa and aimed to encourage savings and investments as well as ensure financial inclusion.

MTN mobile money wallet holders could access the service via short code *770# and can invest as little as GHC5 in treasury bills as many times as they wish.

They are also allowed to discount their investment any time ahead of the maturity date.

In a speech read on his behalf, Ecobank Group Executive for Consumer Banking, Patrick Akinwuntan said the service was designed to make investment in TBills easier and bring it closer to the public.

"The product removes the perception that Treasury Bills is an elitist product and positions it as an investment vehicle for all. As a self-service platform, subscribers have absolute control of their transactions," he said.

He said TBill4All would encourage the culture of savings and wealth creation in Ghana and spur socio-economic growth through sustained interest and participation.

Mr Akinwuntan said MTN mobile money was chosen as a partner for the historic collaboration because of its widest coverage and the large number of subscribers as the plan is to reach the majority of Ghanaians.

On his part, the Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Mr Ebenezer Asante lauded the collaboration, saying it would boost savings and investment.

"This will not only boost financial inclusion but also boost the savings and wealth creation culture and also push down lending rates and provide a domestic pool of cash for government to fall on for national development instead of going to borrow from external sources," he said.

He assured MTN mobile money customers that a purchase of TBill4all will be treated as an investment and not a cashout so there will be no service charges.

He commended the industry regulators, Bank of Ghana and the Securities and Exchange Commission, for creating a conducive environment for the private sector to drive financial inclusion through such innovative collaborations.

In a speech read on his behalf, First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Mr Millison Narh also commended Ecobank for staying close to their customers and coming up with such an innovation.

He said TBill4All is an example of how effective and innovative collaboration between mobile money and traditional banks will boost financial inclusion and drive the cashless society agenda under for new Central Bank roadmap.

The Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Dr Adu Anane Antwi commended the two institutions for the initiative to encourage investment and financial inclusion for all.

The service will also be available on Ecobank internet banking, Ecobank Mobile App and eventually on all networks of the group to ensure greater financial inclusion across the continent.

GNA
Amanase (E/R), Sept. 30, GNA - Enthusiastic farmers at Amanase, Asuboi and Kyekyewere have appealed to chiefs to release lands for cocoa production.

The youthful farmers said they have been attracted by the incentive packages put in place by the government, but the absence of land has become a hindrance to their efforts.

Mr Prince Michael Goha, the spokesperson for the youth, made the appeal at a farmers' rally at Amanase in the Asyensuano District in the Eastern Region.

He said the provision of lands for cocoa production would be beneficial for them than utilizing their lands for illegal mining.

Mr Goha, also an assembly member for Amanase North, called on the government to subsidise the cost of spraying machines to enable cocoa farmers to procure them to reduce the over dependence on the government for its mass spraying exercise.

Mr Michael Gyasi, the Suhum District Officer of the Cocoa Health and Extension Division, called on farmers to consider record-keeping as a tool as this would streamline their financial activities.

He said this would enable them to do critical analysis and adhere to best agricultural practices to help improve on their activities to maximize yields.

Mr Gyasi urged farmers to adopt the recent techniques learned from the extension officers in order to minimise the effects of climate change on their farms.

He called on farmers not to patronize inputs that are not certified by the Cocoa Research Institute as this could lead to disaster.

Mr Gyasi, who earlier visited some cocoa farms in the district, expressed satisfaction with what he had seen and commended the farmers for adhering to some of the best agricultural practices.

Mr Brobby Homawoo, the Suhum District Coordinator of Cocoa Health Extension Division, urged farmers to start transplanting the seedlings and apply fertilizers to their farms, now that the rains have set in.

He said applying fertilizers during the dry season would amount to misapplication of the inputs and was waste of energy and resources.

GNA
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To share with friends and brethren The Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (the Everlasting Gospel), and to prepare a people to stand when He returns to redeem His remnant. Also, to share relevant information of current events, and to show how they relate to prophecy; By means of articles, editorials, opinions, scripture readings, and poetry.

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Endrtimes does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article/video posted on this site. The information provided here is done so for personal edification; It's up to the reader to separate truth from error, and to examine everything (like the Bereans) from a Biblical perspective. Let the Holy Scriptures be you guide! - - - FAIR USE NOTICE: These pages/videos may contain copyrighted () material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, economic, DEMOCRACY, scientific, MORAL, ETHICAL, and SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes.
Ann Lukens is a quilter. She pieces assorted fabrics of different shapes, colors and sizes into beautiful works of art. She created a 20th anniversary quilt representing all 18 Air Combat Command Family Support Centers that was placed on permanent display at Langley Air Force Base, Va. in 2001. Its this same attention to detail, commitment and ability to see the bigger picture that Ann used to build the first Family Support Center, now known as the [Airmen and Family Readiness Center, followed by the School Liaison Program] at Moody AFB, piecing together programs benefitting military families. On Aug. 31, Lukens retired after faithfully serving Moodys community and the Air Force. Retired United States Air Force Brig. Gen. Kenneth Todorov, presided at a ceremony honoring her 30 years of service.

General Todorov, a former 23d Wing commander from 2007-2009, praised Lukens for her years of dedicated service.

I cant think of anyone who touched more lives for Moody, its Airmen and their families, than Ann Lukens, Todorov said. Shes been an incredible servant leader to so many here and were excited about honoring her on Sept. 30th.

After serving in the United States Air Force from 1976 to 1979, Lukens received an honorable discharge to accompany her husband, then SSgt John Lukens and their son Matt, to Hellenikon AB, Athens, Greece. It was during this time that Lukens established herself as a volunteer. In 1981, she was appointed the Family Ombudsman by the wing commander where she advised him and other senior leaders on issues affecting the welfare of military families.

Lukens and her family were sent to Moody AFB in April 1986 where she volunteered in the Moody AFB Social Actions Drug & Alcohol Program until July 1987 when she entered civil service. Lukens was reassigned in March 1989 as the Family Support Center Director, becoming the first military spouse to serve in this capacity at the first FSC in the Air force.

Under her leadership, several core programs were implemented, but it was her unique perspective as an Air Force Spouse that led to the development of the prototype for the current Personal/Family Readiness Guide and the establishment of closer working relationships with local educational professionals from three counties. The Moody AFRC was named Best in Air Combat Command in 1999. However, it was Ms. Lukens personal touch in taking care of military families that is remembered most by those of whom have been stationed at Moody.

During the First Gulf War, the tradition of feeding deploying troops began with coffee and donuts purchased by the Lukens in the early years, later evolving to hotdogs, chips and drinks as the local community became involved in supporting our troops during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Lukens and her husband John were vital in the Airman and Deployed Families Holiday Dinner where single Airmen and families of deployed Airmen could gather for a home-cooked meal and comradery at the base chapel.

After 19 years as the director of the AFRC, Lukens made the decision to focus on military children and their needs by transitioning to the position of School Liaison Officer  Moodys first and only SLO to date. Lukens was instrumental in the success of the community collaborative Parent University project serving as an instructor. As an advocate for the educational needs of more than 1400 children of personnel assigned to the 23d Wing, Lukens maintained close working relationships with school officials in Lowndes, Valdosta, Lanier and Berrien County districts. She has been the first contact for many military families as they PCS to Moody providing information, easing concerns and assisting with special needs for military children.

Just as the quilts Ann crafts provide comfort and warmth, she has been able to build programs during her 30 years of service to assist the families at Moody, providing aide and the human touch in critical times of need. The programs Ms. Lukens crafted together will continue to support military families long after she walks out the door of the AFRC.
A local officer recently came back to town with a few more accolades.

Maj . Ryan Lander of the Morganton Department of Public Safety, along with 229 law enforcement officers, graduated Sep. 16 from the FBI National Academy Program at Quantico, Virginia.

Participation is by invitation only, through a nomination process. Less than one-half of one-percent of law enforcement officers in the country are nominated and selected to attend the National Academy Program.

Lander said he was appreciative of the opportunity to further his knowledge and experience in law enforcement.

"It was a once in a lifetime opportunity where I was able to expand my knowledge through the environment the National Academy encourages," Lander said. "I learned in a structured classroom setting, as well as others worldwide. The knowledge and friendships I made will serve me for years to come. I am very thankful for this opportunity and believe I personally and professionally grew from it."

The 265th Session of the National Academy consisted of men and women from 47 states, including members of law enforcement agencies from the District of Columbia, 24 international countries, three military organizations and four federal civilian organizations, according to a press release from MDPS.

Internationally known for its academic excellence, the National Academy Program, held at the FBI Academy, offers ten weeks of advanced communication, leadership, and fitness training for selected officers having proven records as professionals within their agencies. On average these officers have 19 years of law enforcement experience and usually return to their agencies to serve in executive-level positions, the release said.

FBI Director James Comey was the principal speaker at the ceremony.

Training for the program is provided by the FBI Academy instructional staff, Special Agents, and other members holding advanced degrees, many of whom are recognized internationally in their fields of expertise, according to the release.

Since 1972, National Academy students have been able to earn undergraduate and graduate credits from the University of Virginia due to the accreditation by the university of the many courses offered, the release said.

Lander took six courses at the National Academy and earned 17 credit hours through the University of Virginia, according to the release.

He is now back to work at MDPS.
Russia is outraged by the threatening tone of the latest U.S. statement on Syria viewing it as tantamount to supporting terrorism, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday according to Russian news agencies.

Ryabkov was referring to a statement made by U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby who said on Wednesday that Russia had an interest in stopping the violence in Syria because extremists could exploit the vacuum there and launch attacks "against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities."

Ryabkov was quoted as saying the statement was "an emotional outburst."

He also said a seven-day ceasefire plan proposed for Syria by the United States was unacceptable for Russia and that Moscow was proposing a 48-hour "humanitarian pause" in the city of Aleppo instead.

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The Saudi-led coalition killed eight civilians in two separate air strikes on rebel-controlled areas of northern Yemen on Thursday, a government official said.

Warplanes from the coalition, which supports forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, hit "by mistake" a vehicle at Razah in Saada province, killing five civilians, said the official.

Another air strike killed three civilians travelling in a vehicle in Shadeh, a village also located in Saada, said the same source.

Saada province is a stronghold of the Iran-backed Shia Houthi rebels who overran the capital Sanaa in September 2014 before going on to seize other provinces.

Human rights groups accuse the coalition, which has stepped up its strikes against rebel positions especially in northern Yemen, of a string of such attacks that have killed civilians.

On September 22, at least 20 civilians died in coalition air strikes on rebel-held Hodeida, in western Yemen, in what a government official said was a possible "error".

The conflict between Yemen's government and the Houthi rebels escalated in March last year with the intervention of the Arab coalition in support of Hadi's government.

More than 6,600 people are estimated to have been killed since then, most of them civilians, according to the United Nations.

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Consumers are continuing to spend as usual following Britains vote to leave the European Union, services data from the Office for National Statistics revealed today.

While the full picture of Britain post-Brexit has not emerged, a sturdier outlook would impact the Bank of Englands decision whether or not to ease policy further before the end of this year. Alexis Gray, European economist for Vanguard last week told Morningstar that a policy cut seems more likely than not in November.

Regardless of the Banks decision, low-yielding bonds are now the norm in the UK; investors have been left scratching their heads as to where can find income without taking on unnecessary risk.

High yielding investment trusts might be an attractive alternative for income seekers, and some are trading at a discount. Using Morningstar Direct we have identified three of the top rated investment trusts with the highest yields. All of them are trading at a discount to net asset value with a dividend yield above 4%, which might signal a buying opportunity for investors.

3 Bronze Rated Trusts Yielding More than 4%

BlackRock Commodities Income (BRCI) offers the highest yield at 6.6% among all investment trusts highly rated by Morningstar analysts. It is trading at 1.4% discount and is Bronze Rated by Morningstar analysts.

The trust has gained 38.4% year to the end of August this year. However, there are questions regarding the sustainability of the dividends in this sector. It recorded a 5.3% annualised loss over the past three years and an annualised loss of 2.3% over the past five years.

Morningstar analysts said the trust sets a dividend target each year, and so far the fund has delivered a progressive yield since its launch. It has also managed to accrue enough reserves to cover the dividend, at its current level, for around six months.

Analysts hold the fund manager Olivia Markham in high regard. They like the extra layer of robustness that Markham added as she introduced a quarterly income flow forecast that brings greater clarity of future income and helps both her and the board in managing the dividend payments to shareholders.

Another Bronze Rated close-ended fund is Dunedin Income Growth (DIG). The trust is trading at 10.7% discount with a 4.7% dividend yield. It gains 13.6% so far this year and it has an 8.6% five year annualised return.

Growth of income is a key objective here and the trust mainly invested in companies listed or quoted in the UK, David Holder, a fund analyst at Morningstar said.

The income the fund delivers is indeed attractive, and at a time when many funds are shying away from providing a high level of income, it is a differentiator, Holder added.

The board has presided over a rising level of distributions to investors for 32 of the past 36 years, and there are revenue reserves approaching one year's worth of distributions, he said, adding that this trust provides a relatively core option for investors seeking a high and regular level of income.

The Bronze Rated Murray Income trust (MUT) is trading at 8.8% discount offering a 4.4% dividend yield. It gains 11% year to date and it has a five-year annualised return of 8.8% and a 5.7% 10-year annualised return.

The trust has a steady income flow, aiming to provide investors a high and growing dividend and capital growth. The fund has fulfilled their goals for more than two decades, Morningstar analysts said. It has increased the dividend every year since 1973. The trust has kept back income in the revenue reserve account in previous years, such that at the current level of dividend, it can cover payments for nearly 15 months.

Although returns under the fund manager Charles Luke are not exciting, the trust does its job well enough and investors can rely on regular income from their investments, analysts added. The ongoing charges are kept at a competitive level among its category peers as well.
Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency is reporting that a crash in southeastern Iran has killed 14 illegal Afghan migrants and injured 11 others.

The Thursday report says that the deadly accident involving two pickups took place Thursday morning on the Saravan-Khash road.

The report did not say what caused the crash.

The area has been scene of occasional clashes between narcotics smugglers, bandits and al-Qaida-affiliated rebels against police and border guards.

With some 17,000 casualties in road accidents in Iran each year, the country has one of the world's worst traffic safety records. The high accident rate is mostly blamed on drivers disregarding traffic laws, old vehicles and inadequate emergency services.



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The increase rates have been set between 3 percent and 11 percent annually depending on the overall size of the tuition fees

Related Egyptian ministry of education temporarily suspends licensing of international schools

Egypts education ministry has set the annual tuition fee increase rate for private schools for the next five years, according to a statement reported by Al-Ahram Arabic.

The increase rates, which apply from the 2016/2017 academic year, have been set between 3 and 11 percent annually, depending on the size of the tuition fees.

Schools with tuition fees below EGP 2,000 per year will increase fees by 11 percent per year, those with fees between EGP 2,001-3,000 will increase by 8 percent, those with fees between EGP 3,001-4,000 by 6 percent, those between EGP 4,001-7,000 by 4 percent. Schools charging in excess of EGP 7,000 per year will be able to increase them by 3 percent annually.

Private schools are obliged to commit to the increase rates set by the ministry.

In 2014, the education ministry passed new regulations aiming to curb the continuing hikes in private education fees, allowing schools to increase rates every five years instead of two.

Soaring costs at private schools in Egypt is a major source of complaint among the countrys middle classes, given the faulty public education system in a country where the illiteracy rate remains high, at around 26 percent.

Aside from some 51,000 public schools across Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country is estimated to have over 8,000 private schools, over a hundred of which describe themselves as international schools.

Parents who cannot afford private schools often devote income to paying for private lessons  deemed a must to offset the perceived weaknesses of public education.

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Homebuyers can now contribute to the community and affordable housing just by taking out a mortgage  at no extra cost.



DUCA credit union has launched the Community Hero Mortgage, which donates two basis points from each mortgage to Habitat Humanity to help build affordable housing in Toronto.



What we started looking at what that looks like in a more modern context, our members and our board gave us a mandate to be meaningful and involved in the community and we started looking for issues in Toronto and what was pressing to the community here, Keith Taylor, AVP, strategic social impact at DUCA Financial Services Credit Union, told MortgageBrokerNews.ca. Affordable housing and real estate was very closely tied to what the community needs and what we do in this business.



Homebuyers who qualify for any DUCA mortgage can choose the Community Hero Mortgage option at no additional cost. The credit union, which donates 3.5% of its pre-tax profit to community sponsorships, will dedicate a total of $500,000 to the program.



DUCA has plans to offer the program for the foreseeable future, though it is not currently offered through the broker channel.



According to Taylor, the program is a way for the institution to make a difference in the community.



We were formed about 60 years ago by newcomers who didnt have access to bank accounts with the big banks. That was the spirit Duca was formed in. Weve always had this mandate to be involved with the community and facilitate access where we can, he said. The slogan we have is Do More, Be More, Achieve More. Thats kind of the driving mandate.



The Community Hero Mortgage is meant to be a vehicle to show financial institutions could have an impact on that issue in a bit of a different way than they have been.


2015 HMDA Data and Dashboard; CFPB Weighs in on 1003 and HMDA Data; ALTA on CD

Are you sure that you want to keep originating FHA loans? Theres a lot of profit per loan, but it is easy to see why some companies like Chase have really pulled back from originating them. Branch Banking & Trust Company, a unit of BB&T Corp, is the latest in a growing list of companies smacked by fines, and will pay $83 million to settle charges that it originated and underwrote federally insured mortgages that did not meet federal requirements. The U.S. Justice Department said that BB&T, as a "direct endorsement lender" in the FHA's mortgage insurance program, failed to comply with FHA origination, underwriting and quality control requirements.

Yay! "The new HMDA data is out! The new HMDA data is out!" Well, the 2015 HMDA data is out. Have at it!

Yes, the 2015 raw origination data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) was just released yesterday, and Richey May has already organized it into a dynamic, interactive dashboard that is available free of charge on their website for the next year. As Q3 comes to a close and you look towards strategically planning for Q4 and 2017, lenders will find this dashboard valuable for identifying new markets for expansion, seeking out M&A opportunities, measuring the success of sales efforts and more. With a few clicks, you can focus in on the data most relevant to you, including specific markets, lenders and product types. And did I mention it's free? Visit this dashboard and others here.

In a notice published in the Federal Register, the CFPB announced that it has given its "official approval" to the collection of expanded Home Mortgage Disclosure Act information on ethnicity and race in 2017. The amendments to Regulation C (which implements HMDA) finalized in 2015 will require financial institutions covered by HMDA to permit applicants to self-identify using disaggregated ethnic and racial categories beginning January 1, 2018. In the notice, the CFPB stated that before such date, such inquiries would not be allowed under Regulation B Section 1002.5(a)(2) which limits inquiries by creditors about race or other protected characteristics.

Believing there will be significant benefits to permitting creditors to ask consumers to self-identify before January 1, 2018, the CFPB gave approval for a creditor "at any time from January 1, 2017, through December 31, 2017...at its option, [to] permit applicants to self-identify using disaggregated ethnic and racial categories as instructed in appendix B to Regulation C, as amended by the 2015 HMDA final rule." A creditor adopting that practice "shall not be deemed to violate" Section 1002.5(a)(2) and "shall also be deemed to be in compliance with Regulation B  1002.5(a)(2) even though applicants are asked to self-identify using categories other than those explicitly provided in that section."

The notice also includes instructions for creditors to use to submit information concerning ethnicity and race collected under the approval in connection with applications received from January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017. The instructions distinguish between applications on which final action is taken during the 2017 calendar year and those on which final action is taken on or after January 1, 2018.

For applications on which final action is taken during the 2017 calendar year, a financial institution is directed to submit the information on ethnicity and race using only the aggregate categories and codes provided in the filing instructions guide for HMDA data collected in 2017, even if the financial institution has permitted applicants to self-identify using disaggregated categories pursuant to the approval. For applications on which final action is taken on or after January 1, 2018, a financial institution is given the option to submit the information on ethnicity and race using disaggregated categories if the applicant provided such information instead of using the transition rule adopted by the 2015 HMDA final rule or to submit the information using the transition rule.

In the notice published in the Federal Register, the CFPB also announced that it has given its "official approval" to a revised and redesigned Uniform Residential Loan Application (2016 URLA). The 2016 URLA approved by the CFPB was issued by Freddie and Fannie, and is included as an attachment to the CFPB's notice. The notice indicates that the CFPB's staff has determined that the relevant language in the 2016 URLA complies with the provisions in Regulation B (which implements the ECOA) that limit requests by creditors for certain information in applications, such as information about race and other protected characteristics, a spouse, marital status, or income from alimony and certain other sources. The CFPB stated that while a creditor's use of the 2016 URLA is not required under Regulation B, a creditor that uses the 2016 URLA without any modification that would violate these Regulation B provisions would be in compliance with such provisions.

The CFPB noted that a version of the URLA dated January 2004 is included in appendix B to Regulation B as a model form and describes the safe harbor provided in appendix B for creditors that use the model form. The CFPB also noted that the Official Staff Commentary to Regulation B provides that creditors can use a previous version of the URLA dated October 1992 without violating Regulation B. The CFPB stated that its official approval "is being issued separately from, and without amending" the Official Staff Commentary and that it will consider whether to address the treatment of outdated versions of the URLA in the Commentary at a later date.

Franklin American Mortgage Company's (FAMC) TILA policy requires delivery of two copies of the rescission notice (a/k/the right to cancel) to each individual who has an ownership interest in a subject property at the time of closing. In the scenario where an individual with ownership interest in a subject property is being voluntarily removed from the title, FAMC is updating its policy to accept the following documentation in lieu of the right to cancel disclosure: Executed Quit Claim Deed or other instrument removing ownership interest signed and recorded prior to the security instrument. If the document is executed at closing, the lender must ensure that the instrument removing ownership is signed and recorded prior to the security instrument.

Over 40 percent of American homebuyers feel taken advantage of or are confused by the calculation of title insurance fees on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) new mortgage disclosures, according to a new study by the American Land Title Association (ALTA). The survey, which polled 2,000 current and prospective homeowners (planning to buy within the next year), revealed that that over 30 percent of homebuyers find the new Closing Disclosure confusing. More troubling, another 10 percent of homebuyers feel taken advantage of when reviewing the current calculation of an owner's title insurance policy on the Closing Disclosure. According to ALTA's survey, the most important factor homeowners want on their Closing Disclosure is a detailed breakdown of all the costs for a service. Secondly, consumers want the ability to easily compare cost estimates to final fees on the disclosure. Third, homeowners want to compare the disclosures to the actual costs they will pay and confirm that the seller is paying the accurate amount.

Yes, I have reviewed more than a few Procedures and Protocols over the past few years. To be honest, I believe most Secondary Marketing departments get it wrong; I'll explain. While P&P's are usually written by individuals who come at it from a "what do auditors want to see" position, this is really only half the reason this departmental document is an important part of risk and compliance mitigation. P&Ps should be used to eliminate confusion, create structure and to enforce standards established by executives or regulatory bodies. It's the departments chance to put down in writing, the how's and why's, and to address the inherent risks associated with pricing, hedging and selling loans.

Good departmental P&P's have many things in common: they illustrate daily tasks in an easy to follow manner (an excellent resource for new hires), note why a particular task is important to the department, and use a standardized format. Also, I know someone who reviews these manuals for mortgage bankers, and agree a third party review of P&Ps can be a good use of time and money, especially for small originators attempting to write them from scratch. For bigger companies, establishing an inter-department review process (example: Post Close reviews Secondary's, and vice versa) is a great use of time as well.

Interest rates aren't doing much, nor is there any impetus for them to move much. Fixed-income prices spent most of Thursday in negative territory until more bad news for Deutsche Bank caused a flight to quality to U.S. government bonds. The particular bad news today was that 10 hedge funds had reduced their collateral for clearing derivatives trades, thus reducing their exposure to Deutsche Bank, sparking renewed fears of a modern-day bank run and sending the American depository receipts down. Throw that in with continued Wells Fargo news, and, well...

So Thursday the good ol' 10-year improved about .125 to end the day at 1.56%; agency MBS prices finished about unchanged.

Today we have a fair amount of scheduled news. China released its Manufacturing PMI for September - if you care to trust those numbers. We've had Personal Income and Spending/Consumption for August (+.2%, unchanged, respectively). The Core PCE deflator was tame. Coming up are September's Chicago Purchasing Manager's Survey and the University of Michigan Sentiment Index. The 10-year yield is currently 1.55% with agency MBS prices a shade better.



Upcoming events?

CalyxSoftware will host its first national user conference, ASCEND16, next week, October 5 - 8, 2016 at the Hyatt Regency New Orleans. ASCEND16 will feature more than 20 specialized breakout sessions for Point, PointCentral, PathSoftware, and LoanScoreCard customers and prospects. Scheduled speakers include representatives from the CFPB, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), as well as Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran and Yahoo! Tech columnist David Pogue.

On October 13th, AMLG and TMC are hosting a Complimentary Webinar on "Fair Lending: What You Need to Know in 2016." Click here to register.

California MBA is offering a free webinar on Mobil Marketing. This October 19th training has limited availability; register now.

ACI's 22nd National Residential Mortgage Forum San Diego Installment: The industry's leading litigators and in-house counsel are meeting in San Diego on January 11-12, 2017. Attend to benchmark your current strategies, learn the latest government enforcement and regulatory priorities, and get judicial insights from top State judges and Federal judges. Click here to view the Agenda for Jan. 11th-12th.



Jobs and Announcements

In correspondent news, the Northeast's Admirals Bank has hired Sue Anderson as a Correspondent Account Executive covering all states. Admirals has rolled out the only FHA Title I Home Improvement Correspondent program in the nation. Lenders can add a new product, earn revenue, and obtain CRA Credits with this program. Qualified homeowners can borrow up to $25,000 for home improvements. Moreover, no equity, no appraisal is required for the Title I program which allows you the lender to reach more customers who may not quality for a traditional Equity Loan. To learn more about this call or email Sue Anderson to become a lender partner (860.402.8337).

In capital markets job news, Mortgage Capital Trading, Inc. (MCT), a market-leading provider of hedge advisory services and secondary marketing technology, has immediate openings in its new San Francisco Bay Area office for experienced Mortgage Pipeline Analysts and MBS Traders. Additionally, the company is looking to fill positions in its Outsourced Lock Desk, MSR Valuation, and Consulting divisions located in San Diego, Dallas, and Philadelphia. "Headquartered in San Diego, MCT has been experiencing significant growth, appearing on the Inc. 500/5000 list six years in a row, expanding offices, adding new employees, and being named Best Places to Work five years in a row. Come and see why we are recognized by our clients as their most valuable partner!" To learn more, email MCThere.

And for something a little different, "a buy-side industry executive with 20 years of direct experience in capital markets, securitization, portfolio management, lending / operations, and REITs, and seeking to join an institutional investor that's interested in whole loan returns, has put together a presentation about today's opportunities. Here's a link to the presentation: http://tiny.cc/g968ey.

In personnel news Radian Group Inc. announced Peter Danna has rejoined the company as SVP, Structured Products, and will seek to foster new business while leading and managing a cross-functional group supporting the development of structured residential mortgage credit products and related services outside of traditional mortgage insurance. "Danna will also collaborate with the SVP of Product Development, Curtis Over, who will lead the expansion of Radian's Mortgage Risk Navigator technology suite to cover structured residential, mortgage credit products."
Russia's airport safety inspections in Egypt proved to be constructive, with at least one additional review on the agenda, Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said Friday.

"We held constructive talks with the minister, the team of involved agencies responsible for aviation and transportation security, i.e. anti-terrorist safety facilities. Out large delegation inspected all three Egyptian airports and appreciated their readiness and compliance with international requirements as of the end of September," Soklov told reporters.

"Our team of experts will once again fly to Egypt for a final inspection to assess the state of readiness of each of the three airports. There will certainly be least one more visit," he stressed.

The minister noted Egypt's significant advances toward airport safety levels in resort cities since the deadly terrorist attack last fall, but said it was too early to restore air traffic between the countries.

"We expect to be invited in the near future to conduct a final inspection in each of the three Egyptian airports," Sokolov later said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 broadcaster.

Russia grounded flights to and from Egypt after an Airbus A321 plane flying to St. Petersburg crashed soon after taking off from Sharm El-Sheikh on October 31, 2015. All 224 people aboard died as a result of what was classified by Russian investigators as a terrorist attack.

Sokolov said Russia and Egypt could sign an intergovernmental aviation security agreement before the end of the year.

*This story has been edited by Ahram Online

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Spooky sites Fall is the season of holiday spectacle in Moorpark. In December, of course, Pinedale Road transforms into Candy Cane Lane and dazzles visitors with Santa splendor. But for those who...

Local hula group inspires global connections When the pandemic ushered everyone indoors, Moorpark resident and longtime dancer Lisa Rauschenberger decided to get people back outsidesocially distanced, of course. She began to hold weekly hula lessons at...

Teens face high stakes in the Oval Office A press room befitting Americas commander in chief was set up inside the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. Journalists and others gathered inside. Ladies and gentlemen, I need you all...
Rachel Siders, a former notary public from Roseville, was recently sentenced to 14-and-a-half years in prison by US District Judge John A. Mendez. Siders was convicted for her involvement in mortgage fraud schemes that cost financial institutions north of $17 million.



According to the official press release from the Sacramento office of Acting U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert, federal juries returned their verdicts in two trialsthe first in March 2015 and the second in December 2015. Siders was found guilty of multiple counts of bank fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, making a false loan application, and committing aggravated identity theft.



According to evidence from the first trial, Siders and her co-defendant, Theo Adams, applied for a home equity line of credit in 2008. The pair used the name of one of Adams relatives on an underwater Roseville property owned by Adams. They submitted false tax returns in the relatives name with inflated income as well as mortgage application documents that contained forged signatures.



Siders falsely notarized the loan application documents, which were sent to Washington Mutual Bank. The bank approved the application and provided a $250,000 line of credit, with Siders receiving $170,000 of the proceeds. The pair soon defaulted after making minimal payments on the loan.



According to evidence from the second trial, from mid-2006 through early 2008, Siders, Vera Kuzmenko (a licensed real estate agent from Loomis), and other defendants engaged in a mortgage fraud scheme. The group secured more than $30 million in residential mortgage loans on more than 30 homes in Sacramento. The homes were purchased through straw buyers.



Kuzmenko received millions from the fraud scheme, while Siders received hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Siders ran the Rocklin office of the escrow company used in the majority of the transactions, helping funnel millions of dollars to her co-defendants.



[Siders] abused her position as an escrow officer and as a notary public to make this criminal enterprise succeed, said Talbert. The sentence imposed is a significant reminder that those who engage in such conduct will be held accountable.



Anyone [who] profits from fraudulent mortgage transactionswhether by creating the scheme or facilitating itwill not escape justice, said Supervisory Special Agent Dan Bryant at the FBI Sacramento field office. The FBI aggressively pursues those involved in such large-scale, complex financial fraud matters to seek justice for the victims and protect the regional economy.



Siders co-defendants were also convicted in court and given different prison sentences.




The Texas economy has added 190,600 jobs over the past year, and employment has risen in 16 of the past 17 months. Last month, nine of the 11 industry groups tracked by the Texas Workforce Commission added jobs. All of this occurred despite the end (at least for now) of a major oil surge.

For those of us who have been around a while, the differences between what has happened this time when oil prices dropped precipitously and what went on in the 1980s is striking. I am regularly asked why that is and whether we just havent yet seen the really bad economic times but they could be coming. Heres the short answer: This is not the 1980s.

In the 1980s, the Texas economy was not multifaceted as is today. We had oil, and that drove much of the business activity in the state. At the peak of that oil boom, the concentration of oil and gas employment in the state was more than 75 percent higher than it was at the more recent pinnacle.

The one-dimensional nature of the economic base wasnt the only 1980s problem, however. When oil prices cooled somewhat in the early part of the decade, banks and savings and loans started scouting around for other opportunities and many landed on real estate. The tax laws at the time also encouraged savings and loans in particular to invest in real estate assets of various kinds, and some aspects of oversight were rather lax. The underlying economic and population growth did not support the level of construction, and a major bubble developed.

In 1986 when crude oil prices fell dramatically, a wave of failures of banks which were overly extended into energy loans was not far behind. Before much longer, another wave of failures followed as real estate loans also went bad (partially caused by yet another tax reform initiative that reduced returns on real estate). When all was said and done and the 1980s came to a close, 425 Texas commercial banks had failed, including nine of the 10 largest Texas bank holding companies.

Essentially, it was a one-two punch. The economy was dominated by oil and so were loan portfolios. Some leveling off of crude oil prices early in the decade led financial institutions to continue to pour money into real estate, despite the fact that vacancies were growing. (At one point in Houston, about one of every six houses was vacant.) First oil prices dropped dramatically and the economy stalled, then the effects of financial deregulation and some changes in the tax law kicked in and  that was that!

Employment in the state was slow to recover and the real estate market took even longer. However, the experience has not been forgotten. When many other states were struggling with excess real estate in the aftermath of the recent Great Recession, Texas was only minimally affected. We missed the upswing (or bubble, more precisely) in part because Texas bankers had a been-there-done-that mentality about building more than the economy and population growth justified and were extra cautious.

We also learned that a one-dimensional economy was a very bad thing. Targeted economic development efforts have been ongoing for decades now. The state offers competitive incentives to locating firms and weve done a decent job of ensuring the other requirements of businesses such as infrastructure, workforce, and competitive costs are met. (There are some challenges now, but thats a topic for another day.) Many local areas across the state have passed sales tax measures for economic development and have been using those resources very well to encourage desirable corporate locations and expansions.

These efforts and investments have paid off. When the price of oil is less than half the level it was not so long ago and the state economy keeps adding jobs, clearly there are other industry groups which are flourishing. Technology and advanced industries, biosciences and research, and other emerging industries are part of the story. Stability and growth in cornerstone industries like higher education and health care is also a contributing factor.

When oil prices were in the $100 per barrel range, Texas was adding jobs at a 400,000 per year pace. Now, its less than 200,000 per year. The oil surge was definitely part of the reason for the strong economic performance of a few years ago, but the fact remains that the state is doing well even without that boost. There could be additional fallout from strained energy companies if prices stay low for an extended period of time, but I don't think it will be a major problem across the economy.

In addition, there has been some good news on the energy front. Oil prices are staying generally high enough to make certain types of wells economically sound (particularly in the Permian Basin) and weve seen some increase in activity. The mining sector also recently added 100 jobs. One month is not a trend and a mere 100 is nothing to write home about compared to what the industry lost over the past couple of years, but its at least a positive signal.

The boom and bust of the 1980s is far more complex than can be adequately described in the space of a column. (In fact, I wrote an entire book about it.) The essential facts are that the 1980s Texas economy was anything but diversified, and changing laws in the financial sector made a bad situation far worse. This time around, we lost some momentum when crude oil prices tumbled, but expansion in many other industries has contributed to resilience and growth continues. This is not the 1980s!!

Dr. M. Ray Perryman is President and Chief Executive Officer of The Perryman Group (www.perrymangroup.com). He also serves as Institute Distinguished Professor of Economic Theory and Method at the International Institute for Advanced Studies.
Egypts prosecution asked the Interpol on Thursday to lift the names of once-fugitive Egyptian business tycoon Hussein Salem and his family off its Red Notice Wanted list.

The prosecution also notified immigration of the removal of Salem and his familys names from airport watchlists.

The latest move by Egypt comes following a final reconciliation between the Mubarak era businessman and the Egyptian government.

Last August, Egypt's prosecutor-general Nabil Sadek sent a request to judicial authorities in Switzerland, Spain and Hong Kong to unfreeze Salems assets and funds abroad after the business mogul gave up EGP 5.3 billion (approx. $596.5 million) to the government.

Salem, 82, fled to Spain shortly after Egypts 2011 uprising that overthrew long-time president Hosni Mubarak.

He has received two jail terms in absentia over corruption charges including squandering public funds, profiteering and money laundering.

Salem was a major shareholder in East Mediterranean Gas, which exported gas to Israel.



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Safety pays, and safe operations have paid for members of the Texas Oil & Gas Associations safety group.

The groups members have just received a $4,508,288 dividend from Texas Mutual Insurance Co. for their dedication to making safety a priority in their operations.

That $4.5 million dividend is the largest safety group dividend Texas Mutual will pay this year, said Jeremiah Bentley, Texas Mutuals senior manager, marketing and community affairs.

Members of TxOGAs Safety Group put workplace safety first and this $4.5 million dividend from Texas Mutual Insurance Company is a well-deserved testament to their safety record, Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association said in an email.

Workplace safety can and should be part of every employers company culture, he said. Safety is worth the investment. Every time. The Texas oil and natural gas industry, along with partners like Texas Mutual, is setting a high bar when it comes to promoting workplace safety. We are proud to see plain evidence through this dividend that our members are encouraging safety among workers and actively mitigating accidents.

The dividend will be distributed among the individual companies that are members of TxOGAs Safety Group and Texas Mutual policyholders. Bentley said this is part of Texas Mutuals partnership program with TxOGA, in which association members who are also Texas Mutual policyholders share in the dividend.

The two entities cooperate on safety programs, he said.

We work with TxOGA group members individually and with the association as a whole to help them improve their safety programs, Bentley said. In addition to potential dividends, TxOGA group members also receive discounts on their workers compensation premiums and have access to free workplace safety materials pertaining to their industry.

Staples said that the associations safety group offers not only free safety materials but training programs that cover everything from driving safety to controlling struck-by incidents, chemical safety and general rig inspection resources.

Employers craft policies and programs that fit their individual needs, Staples said.

Austin-based Texas Mutual is a policyholder-owned company and the states leading provider of workers compensation insurance, covering 40 percent of the market and representing more than 64,000 companies.

Since 1999, the company has distributed more than $125 million in safety group dividends among qualifying safety groups. Since that time, Texas Mutual has distributed more than $2 billion in both safety group and individual policyholder dividends.
When President Barack Obama came into office, one of his top priorities was laying down ethics rules restricting lobbyists from serving in the White House.

Donald Trump isn't likely to share that concern judging from the team of coal, oil and gas industry lobbyists who are working on his campaign and transition teams tailoring energy and environmental policies for a Trump presidency.

"It raises the question of whether he's already opened the revolving door," said Norman Eisen, who as White House special counsel designed Obama's guidelines. "If you have people with these industry ties, profound ties to the very industries that are going to be regulated, then how can the American people be confident that government will serve their interests and not these huge corporate interests."

Many Hillary Clinton supporters hope she will soften Obama's policy on lobbyists if she wins the election. She too is relying on longtime Washington insiders in her campaign, though they lack the formal registered lobbyist background of Trump's team.

Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center, says Trump's team stands out because Trump has railed against a system he calls rigged and now appears to be taking advice from people at the heart of that same system.

"The fact that Trump has lobbyists intimately involved on key issues on which they lobby raises questions about what he means when he says the system is rigged," said McGehee, who has lobbied for non-profit organizations and says she is not opposed to lobbyists. "He's playing the same game."

The head of Trump's energy transition team is Mike Catanzaro, according to three Republican consultants familiar with the group. Catanzaro, a partner at the lobbying firm CGCN, formerly Clark Geduldig Cranford & Nielson, has a variety of industry clients, according to federal obbying records.

Those clients include oil services giant Halliburton; large independent drillers with domestic shale prospects Devon Energy, Encana Oil & Gas, Hess and Noble Energy; Talen Energy, a electric power generator recently acquired by a private investment firm; the petrochemical and refining association called the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers; and Koch Industries.

Catanzaro was a staffer at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and held senior posts at the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Environmental Protection Agency under President George W. Bush. Later he worked as energy policy adviser to then-Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. When he left government, he handled government relations for PPL, a large utility. Then he worked for FTI Consulting, a strategic communications firm, where he advised electric utilities, integrated oil and gas companies and major trade associations, the lobbying records show.

Also on board for Trump are Jeffrey Wood, a partner at Balch & Bingham, a law and lobbying firm, and Andrew R. Wheeler, a lawyer who was the chief of staff at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee when Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., was chairman

Wood served as counsel to Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who was an early supporter of Trump. As a staff director, Wood also dealt with clean air, nuclear safety, water and wildlife issues. Wood is a registered lobbyist for the utility Alabama Power and its parent company, Southern.

Wheeler has been working on the campaign but is also involved in transition planning, other Republican lobbyists said. Wheeler currently works for FaegreBD Consulting where his leading lobbying client is Murray Energy, lobbying records show. The company's chief executive Robert Murray has been a vociferous critic of Obama; when Obama was reelected, Murray read a prayer to company staff members lamenting the country's direction.

The Post called and emailed Wheeler, Wood and Catanzaro. Wood and Catanzaro did not reply. Wheeler referred questions to the Trump campaign; campaign spokesman Hope Hicks said the campaign would not comment or let the team members speak.

Trump has vowed to slash environmental regulations, open up more federal lands for leasing, and unleash enough drilling to propel the United States to energy independence.

"We can become the energy dominant country in the world," Stephen Moore, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and Trump economic adviser said Wednesday in a debate at George Washington University. "We can be the next Saudi Arabia for the next century."

The fossil fuel industries have other friends in the Trump orbit, Republican lobbyists say. Some are high profile, like Continental Resources founder and billionarie Harold Hamm or Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. Others play more of a nuts-and-bolts role.

Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser on a range of energy and other issues, spent the decade ending 2012 working for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry-based group whose members include big utilities, coal mining companies Peabody Energy and Murray Energy, and major railroads. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity paid Miller nearly $3.4 million in 2011, according to lobbying records. The group's name alone has aroused controversy since coal is not clean.

More recently, Miller has represented the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association.

Rebecca Rosen, another member of the Trump energy team, has been the Washington representative of Devon Energy, a leading independent oil and gas drilling company. The Oklahoma-based firm is very active in shale oil and shale gas prospects. The EPA is drawing up regulations to ensure that shale drilling firms capture methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas.

In addition to the energy lobbyists, Trump's transition team for environmental issues includes Myron Ebell, head of energy and environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Ebell has been a skeptic about climate change and has called many mainstream climate studies false.

Politico reported on Monday that Trump's transition operation has also recruited Mike McKenna, co-chair of the natural resources department at the firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and a former Interior Department official under President George W. Bush. McKenna has lobbied on behalf of Dow Chemical, Koch Industries, Southern Co., GDF Suez, and TECO Energy.
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Midland police are looking for a female suspect in the robbery that occurred at the Wells Fargo location in northwest Midland, according to the Midland Police Department.

MPD spokesperson Sara Bustilloz wrote in an email that a robbery took place at approximately 1:36 p.m. Friday at the Wells Fargo location in the 4300 block of North Midland Drive.
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The jig is up for a panhandling couple who has allegedly scammed money from people in multiple Texas cities using a poster with a photo purported as a deceased "father of 3," but was actually a stock image found on Google by a South Texas resident turned amateur detective.

Corpus Christi Police Department's spokesman Travis Pace told MySA.com authorities have been alerted by citizens via Facebook of the situation involving an unnamed woman on Staples Street and South Padre Island Drive, asking for donations using a fake family photo.

RELATED: 'If you can't get a job, make one': Teen selling candy apples on South Side has the right idea

Lianna Mercado spotted the couple on Tuesday and thought the image of the supposedly deceased dad and his young daughter seemed suspect.

"The picture looked way too nice and professional," Mercado told mySA.com.

Her instincts lead her to investigate, finding that the photo originated from a 2011 blog discussing "What fathers should know about eating disorders."

She outed the people in a Facebook post that spread throughout the state by more than 4,000 shares as of Thursday morning.

RELATED: Texas woman paints on unconvincing black eyes, claims to be 'jumped by 3 African American' men

Pace said the couple has also been reported in Calallen, about a 20 minute west of Corpus Christi, and Mercado said people have reached out to her, claiming they saw the duo in Beaumont.

"When I realized they were lying, panic and anger set in. I had seen so many people giving them money, wanting to help his family -- his three children who did not even exist," Mercado said. "I knew I immediately had to get the word out and make people aware of the scam."

Pace called the story a "victim-less scam" because "people are willingly giving them money."

"People are throwing money at them, because the best way to do it is to tug at their heartstrings," he continued.

RELATED: Pregnant woman rescued from hotel balcony in Corpus, man barricaded inside

He added that there are city ordinances which restrict panhandling in the downtown business district, the North Beach area, 50 feet from restaurants and ATM machines and bus stops.

The woman in the photos violated an ordinance which prohibits panhandlers from stepping into the streets, which would've warranted a citation. Officers were dispatched to the area, but the alleged scammers had already left, Pace said.

"I was angry because in one way or another, almost everyone has been affected by cancer [...] and they preyed upon empathetic people who wanted to do good for the family and children than they believed this man had left behind," Mercado said.

mmendoza@mysa.com

Twitter: @MaddySkye
Editors Note: A story on the governors comments about the states broken school finance system will appear in an upcoming edition.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told those in attendance Thursday at Green Tree County Club that the Boy Scouts will be part of the solution that fixes our communities foundations for the next generation.

Abbott, a former Boy Scout, was in Midland to receive the Buffalo Trail Councils Distinguished Citizens award. The third Texas governor to be honored, Abbott said it was special to receive the award in front of so many Midlanders who hold a special place in their hearts for scouting and the values it passes on.

You see every person in the room is a person who is distinguished, said Abbott, who joins then-Gov. George W. Bush (1993) and then-Lt. Gov. and former Gov. Rick Perry (1999) as distinguished citizens.

From one corner to the other corner of the room, there are people here who make a difference. ... That is why Midland is go great.

Other winners of the award include state Rep. Tom Craddick (1991), former first lady Laura Bush (1995) and former Commerce Secretary Don Evans (2004). Those in attendance at the event included former Mayor Ed Magruder Jr. (2010) 2014 recipient Tim Leach, CEO of Concho Resources, and 2015 recipient Scott Sheffield, who presented the award to Abbott.

After watching the presidential debate on Monday, I suggested for the governor to run (for president) in four years, said Sheffield, the CEO of Pioneer Resources. He continues to be a model of the values of scouting.

Abbott said being a Boy Scout, and in particular an Eagle Scout, is more than learning to tie knots, hikes and earning merit badges. He said scouts learn the value of teamwork, building character, confronting challenges and providing service to others.

Those traits still matter, Abbott said.

Congressman Mike Conaway, the 2006 recipient of the Distinguished Citizen award, said in a video played at the event that Eagle Scouts are a cut above and that no one had ever been criticized for being an Eagle Scout. Midland oilman Clayton Williams, who along with his wife Modesta received the honor in 1992, said in the video that when a person deals with a Scout he or she is dealing with someone with integrity and a person whose word is their bond.

Abbott said scouting often prepares men to lead, like his brother, who was a Boy Scout, participated in ROTC in high school and college and then became an officer in the Navy.

Abbott also said scouting prepared him for the toughest challenge in his life when at the age of 26 he was paralyzed when a tree branch fell and crushed vertebrae in his back, leaving him forever paralyzed. Abbott went on to become a judge, the longest-serving attorney general in the states history and then governor in 2014.

He said todays Scouts, such as local Scout Hunter Chapman, are answering the call when put to the test. Chapman, he said, responded to the challenge helping to supply a school in Mexico with the water it needed.

We define our lives by the challenges we face, he said. I am proud to be a Boy Scout, proud to do by best and proud to do my duty for God and country.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a former Boy Scout, was in Midland to receive the Buffalo Trail Council's Distinguished Citizen's award. The third Texas governor to be honored, Abbott said it was special to receive the award in front of so many Midlanders who hold a special place in their hearts for scouting and the values it passes on.
French jets blasted off from an aircraft carrier Friday to go into operation over Iraq as the international coalition builds up for the looming battle to win back Mosul from Islamic State jihadists.

Eight jets took off from the Charles de Gaulle carrier in the eastern Mediterranean in the first operations since it left port in France on September 20, an AFP reporter on board reported.

French military officials refused to say whether the Rafale jets were to carry out air strikes or were on a reconnaissance mission.

But the return of the Charles de Gaulle to the region on its third mission since February 2015 is another sign of the steady build-up of forces for an offensive on Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city.

The United States is sending about 600 extra troops to Iraq to train local forces for an assault, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said Wednesday. They will join 4,600 military personnel already in Iraq.

IS seized Mosul along with other areas of Iraq in June 2014, but Iraqi forces have since regained significant ground from the jihadists and are readying for an assault to retake Mosul with coalition air and artillery support.

The 24 planes on board the Charles de Gaulle triple France's bombing capacity in the region. Twelve French Rafale jets are already stationed in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

French jets have carried out more than 15,000 air strikes against IS targets in Iraq and Syria since 2014, which represents around five percent of the total undertaken by the US-led coalition.

US planes account for 80 percent of the strikes.

French Defence Minister Yves Le Drian said recently the carrier would help improve the coalition's information-gathering capabilities.

It will "improve the information for the forces which will be given the task to win back Mosul," he said.

The offensive on Mosul could begin in October with the aim of taking full control of the city by the end of the year, Western officials have said.

The Pentagon estimates that between 3,000 and 4,500 IS fighters are based in Mosul.

Around 500 French soldiers are based in Iraq, advising Kurdish peshmerga forces in northern Iraq and helping to train elite Iraqi army units.

The extra US forces announced this week will head to Qayyarah, a strategically key air base 40 miles (65 kilometres) south of Mosul that will help channel supplies and troops towards the city.

They will also help increase the capabilities at the joint Iraqi-US Al Asad air base for night operations and operations in low visibility.

The United Nations has expressed concern that the offensive on Mosul could trigger one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent years, forecasting that at least 700,000 people could require assistance.

"Mosul has the potential to be one of the largest... disasters of many, many years," Bruno Geddo, the UN refugee agency's main representative in Iraq, said Thursday.

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A drone strike has killed two suspected members of Al-Qaeda in central Yemen, a local government official said on Friday.

The two were lying under a tree in Rada, Bayda province, on Thursday when they were hit by an air strike, the official said.

Washington is the only government to operate drones over Yemen, but the United States only sporadically releases statements on its long-running bombing campaign against the country's powerful Al-Qaeda branch.

On Wednesday, it acknowledged conducting drone strikes against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) last week, killing four members of the group -- two of them in Bayda.

The United States considers Al-Qaeda's Yemen-based franchise AQAP to be its most dangerous.

"US Central Command continues to protect the US, its allies and partners from these threats by denying Yemen as a haven for AQAP," Army Major Josh Jacques, US Central Command spokesman, has said.

AQAP and the Islamic State (IS) group have exploited a power vacuum created by the conflict between the government and Iran-backed Houthi rebels to expand their presence in Yemen, especially in the south and southeast.

In main southern city Aden, gunmen killed an intelligence officer as he left Friday prayers, a security official said.

The source said the attackers are believed to be IS militants, adding that the killing comes a day after an airport officer was wounded when a bomb planted in his car exploded in the city, which houses the government's headquarters.

Yemeni government and security officials frequently come under attack from Islamist militants in the south, who have also carried out deadly bombings against troops.

A Saudi-led Arab military coalition that backs the government against the Houthis and their allies has also turned its sights on Islamist militants, targeting them with air strikes.

More than 6,600 people, including civilians, have been killed in the Yemeni conflict since the coalition began its air campaign in March 2015, the UN says.

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The US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS) group is bombing bridges in eastern Syria in a bid to restrict the group's movement in the area bordering Iraq, a monitor said Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said US-led air strikes destroyed a bridge near the IS-held town of Albu Kamal in Deir Ezzor province early on Friday, the third key bridge in the area to be destroyed by coalition strikes in the past week.

"The strikes destroyed a bridge... outside of the town of Albu Kamal, cutting the border town and the surrounding area off from the rest of Deir Ezzor," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Earlier this week, coalition strikes targeted the only two remaining bridges across the Euphrates River in the province, Abdel Rahman said.

Eastern Deir Ezzor province is almost entirely controlled by IS, with the exception of the provincial capital and its military airport, which are held by government forces.

The oil-rich province is a key part of IS's self-proclaimed "caliphate", and borders territory under its control in Iraq.

The Observatory said coalition aircraft earlier this month dropped leaflets in parts of Deir Ezzor warning that it planned to target bridges and urging civilians to avoid them.

The strikes are intended to "paralyse IS inside of Deir Ezzor", Abdel Rahman said, adding that the group "uses these bridges for movement inside the province and from there to Iraq".

"They are also a main route for oil trade," which has been a source of revenue for IS, he said.

Asked about the destruction of bridges in Deir Ezzor, a US defence official confirmed that the coalition was working on "cutting IS lines of communications to further restrict its ability to move around the battlefield".

On Thursday, Syrian state television quoted the foreign ministry as criticising the coalition for targeting infrastructure.

The US defence official acknowledged that destroying the bridges would affect civilians, but described Deir Ezzor as "an important crossroads" for IS.

"More harm will be done to the Syrian population if IS is allowed to continue to use these bridges," he said.

The strikes come as preparations gather steam for an offensive to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul across the border from IS.

Various Western officials have indicated that the battle will begin in October, with Washington saying this week it would send about 600 extra troops to Iraq to train forces for the offensive.

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We won't be seeing the Dance of the Dragons for quite a while. After that epic season one finale, HBO is making sure viewers don't expect a sequel to House of the Dragon in the new year. "Don't expect it in 23, but I think sometime in
A man has been jailed for nine months after calling Myanmar's president "crazy" in a Facebook post, his wife said Friday, in the latest use of a junta-era defamation law under the new civilian government.

Aung Win Hlaing was convicted under Myanmar's telecommunications law for calling President Htin Kyaw an "idiot" and "crazy" in online posts, his wife Hnin Hnin Win told AFP.

"He was sentenced to nine months on 23 September," Hnin Hnin Win said, adding the case was brought by a local member of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), the party led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

"One of the NLD's people complained about him to the court... Now he is in Taung Kalay prison in Karen state," she said.

Her husband wrote the comments after a presidential order shut down a committee on which he worked, she added.

An NLD MP from the Karen regional parliament, Thant Zin Aung, confirmed a local member from the party had brought the case, but emphasised it was in a private capacity.

AFP was unable to reach local police or court officials for comment.

While many freedoms have flourished since Myanmar's army started rolling back its power in 2011, activists say authoritarian legislation is still being used to silence criticism of the government.

The telecommunications law was passed in 2013 as part of a push by the former army-backed transitional government to open the sector to foreign investment.

But the broadly worded law, which bans defaming people through any telecommunications network, was also used frequently by the former regime to punish critics.

Despite sky-high hopes Suu Kyi's government will usher in a new era of free expression, several people have been prosecuted for defamation since her party took over in late March after winning the first democratic elections in a generation.

In July a local official in central Magway region was charged with defamation for referring to Suu Kyi with a slur on Facebook.

Last month a Myanmar actor was sentenced to nearly three years for scribbling curse-laden insults about the army across his car.

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Niger's army said Friday that 14 of its soldiers and scores of Boko Haram fighters had been killed during a multi-month sweep operation in the nation's southeast.

Defence ministry spokesman Colonel Moustapha Ledru told state television that "123 terrorists" had been killed and "a large quantity of arms recovered from the insurgents."

It was not possible to independently verify this number.

Ledru said 14 soldiers were killed and 29 wounded in the joint operations with Chad's military took place between July and September 28.

They targeted the Diffa region, which lies just across the border from the Islamists' stronghold in northeastern Nigeria.

Ledru said the "terrorists" who had been killed had "infiltrated" into Diffa from Nigeria, adding that two fighters had been captured.

Boko Haram's seven-year insurgency has left at least 20,000 people dead in Nigeria and border areas of neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, and made more than 2.6 million homeless.

Attacks in Niger's Diffa region began in February 2015.

In late July this year a multinational force, drawn from Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, was formed to tackle the Islamic insurgents and clear them out of towns and villages.

Ledru said operations had led to four strategic localities being taken back from Boko Haram control.

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The GSMA has called for renewed talks between the Egyptian authorities and the countrys mobile industry after the offering of fourth-generation (4G) licences failed to attract any bids from Egypts three mobile operators, a press release by the association read on Thursday.

The association said that Egypts existing mobile carriers are ready to support and invest in 4G in Egypt if sufficient spectrum is allocated, at a fair price, so that 4G services can be operated efficiently and enable customers to enjoy significantly faster speeds.

We urge the Egyptian government to increase the amount of spectrum offered to mobile operators to facilitate the speedy roll-out of 4G services in Egypt said John Giusti, GSMAs Chief Regulatory Officer.

Last week, Egypts telecom regulator, the National Telecom Regulatory Authority, said it may offer the 4G service licences by international tender after the three local mobile operatorsVodafone Egypt, Orange Egypt, and Etisalatdeclined to apply for it due to terms and conditions of the 4G licence set by NTRA.

According to the GSMA, the total amount of spectrum assigned to each operator for 4G needs to be in the range of 2x30MHz to 2x60MHz, across a range of coverage and capacity bands, with a minimum contiguous bandwidth of 2x10MHz in each band.

Egypt has offered in contrast only 22.5MHz to 2x5MHz to mobile operators in the recent 4G licence offering, driving the three mobile operators to decline to apply.

Egypt's largest mobile operator, Vodafone, said the current terms and conditions of the 4G licence do not serve the interests of the Egyptian citizen and do not take into account the developmental dimension of the telecom sector in Egypt.

Orange, the second biggest mobile operator in the country, has also decided not to apply for the 4G licence under the current terms and conditions, echoing that the company will be willing to participate in the light of new requirements.

We believe that to be able to launch 4G with the acceptable quality of service we need at least less 2x20 MHZ [bandwidth] per operator, Orange Egypt CEO Yves Gauthier told Ahram Online in emailed comments in July.

Gauthier added that "the first propositions from the [Egyptian] regulator are very far from this and it is a major concern for us.

The bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time.

If we do not have enough frequencies, the speed of 4G will be like the 3G and our customers will be very disappointed, he said.

Egypt is selling 4G licences as part of a long-awaited scheme to reform the countrys telecoms sector.

The state-owned telephone company Telecom Egypt (TE), which holds the landline monopoly, already signed a deal in August to be the first operator to buy a 15-year 4G mobile licence.

In July, Communications and Information Technology Minister Yasser El-Qadi said that if any of the three operators do not apply for the new licence, it will be offered to non-Egyptian companies through bidding.

So far Kuwait's leading mobile operator Zain, Saudi Telecom and Lebara KSA have expressed interest in obtaining the new licence.



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Through a variety of sources, a combined $550,000 in grants is coming to the region.

Larry Cope, who oversees the Tuolumne County Economic Development Authority and the Central Sierra Economic Development District, reports that three sizeable grants are coming to the Mother Lode.

A $50,000 US Department of Agriculture grant will help small business development in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties. The funding will go to the Alliance Small Business Development (SBDC) and its partners.

A $250,000 grant will go towards Butte Fire recovery. Notably it will establish a business resource center in San Andreas to help rebuild the Calaveras and regional economy. Partners in the effort include the Calaveras County Chamber of Commerce and the California Association of Local Economic Development. It includes the creation of a mini innovation lab, incubator and meeting and office space. There will also be training and support services.

A $250,000 federal EDA grant is going to the regional Central Valley Ag Plus, which the Central Sierra Economic Development District is one of four founding organizations. The group covers 28 counties. It is a food and beverage manufacturing consortium and the money will help carry out the implementation of an Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership program. It is designed to advance food and beverage manufacturing in the region.
The coalition opposing Florida's medical marijuana ballot amendment is preparing to take to the airwaves.

"No on 2" devoting $1.3 million to campaign

Ad casts Amendment 2 as "trojan horse"

Pro-Amendment 2 groups promise counter-surge

The coalition, "No on 2," will devote $1.3 million to an advertising blitz focused on changing public opinion about the measure, which polls indicate is on track to pass by double digits. The ads are expected to run statewide during the first two weeks in October.



The group's marquee television ad casts Amendment 2 - which supporters call a conservatively-tailored approach to legalizing marijuana use only by patients suffering from chronic conditions - as a "trojan horse" that could open the door to a recreational marijuana scheme.



"With Amendment 2, pot will be legally dispensed by bud tenders, not pharmacists; in pot shops, not pharmacies; no prescription needed," the ad warns. "That's not medicine. It's dope dealers with storefronts."



Outraised by roughly a million dollars by the pro-Amendment 2 "United for Care" coalition, the political committee behind the "No on 2" campaign is receiving a series of late-stage cash infusions. Casino developer Sheldon Adelson donated $1 million to the committee in early September, and Republican benefactor Mel Sembler has pledged to raise as much as $10 million.



The amendment's supporters, however, don't plan to cede the field. In fact, they promise a fundraising surge of their own as the campaign enters the homestretch. After suffering a narrow medical marijuana legalization defeat in 2014, maintaining their polling advantage has become critical - and personal.



Tallahassee lobbyist Jeff Sharkey, who along with Taylor Patrick Biehl runs the Medical Marijuana Business Association of Florida, points to the amendment's list of medical conditions that would qualify for treatment with marijuana as helpful in expanding the number of cash-toting stakeholders.



"This is a major financial investment on their part," Sharkey said. "I think there's a lot at stake for them and that whole supply chain of people involved in the business, and so, I think they will be motivated to support the amendment."
A toddler who went missing while playing with a dog behind her Deltona home Thursday night drowned in a nearby pond, the Volusia County Medical Examiner's Office said Friday.

3-year-old girl drowned in pond, Volusia authorities say

Girl had been playing in backyard with dog, deputies say

Responding deputies found dog soaking wet



The 3-year-old girl, McKenna Macateer, was pronounced dead Florida Hospital Fish Memorial at about 8 p.m.

Volusia County deputies were dispatched to the home on the 3000 block of Dow Court after they received a report of a lost child just before 7 p.m. The toddler had been playing in the backyard with a dog when she went missing, the Sheriff's Office said in a news release.

Deputies who responded noticed the dog was soaking wet and started looking for nearby waterways. They went to the nearby pond, where they found McKenna unresponsive in the water. Deputies and paramedics tried to revive her at the scene, but she didn't respond.

The Sheriffs Office Major Case Unit is investigating.
Scientists from across the state are on the Space Coast this weekend to help combat the algae and muck crisis in the area.

Indian River's clarity is poor; might be sign of algae bloom

New methods being designed to getting rid of muck

RELATED STORIES: Indian River Lagoon cleanup forum draws hundreds Groups consider ideas to restore Indian River Lagoon



Theyre hoping to solve the problems in the Indian River Lagoon.

The Indian River Lagoon Research Institute Technical Conference gets underway Friday at the Florida Institute of Technology.

"I think we're really in that mode now, that crisis mode," said Florida Tech Associate Professor Robert Weaver.

Weaver says the Indian River isnt getting any better.

The water clarity is reduced, and thats a sign that algae are still blooming.

At the conference, Weaver says Florida Tech will show off their new way to dredge harmful muck from the bottom of the lagoon.

Were designing a new method for getting at the muck that is going to leave the sand in place, said Weaver, so its a method for pulling the muck off the sea bed without disturbing the sea grasses, without sucking up a lot of sand.

Weaver says scientists will also present different ways to flush ocean water into the lagoon, and protect the shoreline with oysters and marsh grass.

For more information on the conference, go here.
(Beijing)  The formal contract for a French-Chinese consortium to build Britain's first nuclear plant in more than two decades was signed in London on Thursday after months of delay due to controversy over the foreign funding.

The planned Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in southwestern England involving an 18-billion-pound ($23.4 billion) investment will be built by French energy group Electricite de France SA (EDF) and partly financed by Chinese nuclear power provider China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN).

The project was agreed to by then-British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November during Xi's state visit to Britain. With an investment of 6 billion pounds, CGN will hold a 33.5 percent stake in the project.

The contract to finalize the deal was originally scheduled for July 29, but progress was delayed by Britain's new cabinet, led by Prime Minister Theresa May, who took office in July. She cited security concerns over foreign funds being involved in the key nuclear infrastructure and ordered a review of the deal.

The British government approved the project on Sept. 15 on condition that the government have the right to stop EDF from selling stakes in Hinkley.

Under the final agreement, construction of the project will begin in 2019 and operations will start in 2025. The plant is expected to provide 7 percent of Britain's power demand.

China's state-owned CGN is the nation's biggest nuclear power operator and construction company. It operates 18 nuclear reactors in China with another 10 under construction. The company has proposed to take part in the construction of another two nuclear plants in England, including Bradwell in Essex county, and Sizewell in Suffolk county.

Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com); editor Ken Howe (kennethhowe@caixin.com)
The Rotary Club of Plainview has selected Melody Brown as its Student of the Month for October 2016. Melody is the daughter of Daron and Kristi Brown of Plainview. She is a senior at Plainview Christian Academy. Melody is active in the Garland Street Church of Christ youth group, a member of the Hale County Junior Literacy Council, National Honor Society and PCA choir. She serves as historian in the PCA student council and participates in archery and shotgun with the Hale County 4-H Club. She is most proud of earning the Award of Excellence in her schools TAPPS Creative Writing Contest for the past two years. Melody says this has grown my ability to express myself and my creativity. I have found my voice through what I write and the bravery to be independent and stand up and say what I believe. Melody was selected to attend the Rotary Youth Leadership Award Camp this summer and also served as a counselor for the Texas Farm Bureau Youth Leadership Camp. This year, she and other RYLA students are leading an effort to start an Interact Club, which is a youth auxiliary club of Rotary. Melody works as a pharmacy technician trainee at Hale Center Clinical Pharmacy. After high school, she plans to attend college to become a physical therapist. Melody looks forward to serving as student of the month, because I love helping people in every way, which embodies what people involved in Rotary are doing.
Hundreds of Texas high schools are likely flouting state requirements that they register eligible students to vote, new data suggests.

Fewer than 4 percent of the states 3,709 high schools had asked the Texas Secretary of States Office for voter registration applications as of Sept. 13, according to agency data compiled by the Texas Civil Rights Project.

That's despite a long-standing Texas law that requires principals or other designated registrars to distribute registration forms and notices to eligible high school students at least twice each year.

We have been working closely with the Secretary of State and other organizations to make sure that high schools across Texas meet their legal obligation to register high school students to vote, Mimi Marziani, executive director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said in a statement. But the low rate of requests for voter registration forms shows that deep problems still remain.

The only person Id heard from for help to register students to vote was a young man at Wayland, said Hale County Tax Assessor-Collector Roland Nash, whose office oversees voting registration. Nash hasnt heard from representatives from any high school in Hale County on helping qualified students to register to vote.

Of course they can get the necessary materials elsewhere, but it has been our assumption that they would contact us at some point. Well be happy to help when they do.

Nash says the last day to register and still be eligible to vote in the November General Election is Oct. 11. Students can register if they are at least 17 years and 10 months old, and those who have turned 18 by Election Day can vote.

The Herald reached out to Plainview ISD for comment, but did not hear back from anyone by late Thursday afternoon.

The Secretary of States office acknowledges that high schools can comply with state law if they register students using forms secured elsewhere, but the letter of the law requires them to serve as voter registrars.

High school registrars who don't follow certain requirements (for instance, if they fail to hand the state filled-out forms) can be guilty of a misdemeanor, but no mechanism penalizes those who don't distribute the forms in the first place.

There are no teeth, said Alicia Pierce, a spokeswoman for Texas Secretary of State Carlos Cascos.

That office has sent letters to principals reminding them of their legal requirements, including one Aug. 30 and another this week. Cascos also raised the issue this year while speaking at a conference of the Texas Association of Secondary Principals.

Pearce said its likely that at least a few schools are following the law, even if they arent using forms from her office. A lot of times, principals are pursuing alternative methods, and at the end of the day, we just want to make sure that everyone has that opportunity to get registered," she said.

Nevertheless, voting rights advocates say school administrators have long been unaware of their voter registration duties.

When the Texas Civil Rights Project surveyed principals in 2013, just 37 percent of those who responded said their schools distributed voter registration applications at least twice a year, while 23 percent said they never gave them to students.

Texas has long been near the bottom of the list when it comes to participating in elections.

Just 21 percent of voting-age Texans voted in this years primary elections  a lower rate than all but four states. Texas ranked 48th among states during the 2012 general election.

(This article is based on a report from The Texas Tribune.)
These letters were received in September. Writers can submit again this month.



Reckless spending



Editor:



Three of four Wall Street firms have downgraded the states bond rating from AA to AA-, which is just even more bad news for Connecticuts financial woes. These firms have downgraded the states rating since May citing Connecticuts financial instability and reliance on capital gains tax as the driving force. Representative Zoni and his fellow Democrats inability to limit spending will inevitably lead to the states demise. We need to vote for a candidate who will say no to reckless spending, that candidate is John Fusco.



I. Palumbo, Southington



Tenacious Len



Editor:



I was Len Suzios Legislative Aide when he served as Senator in 2011-2013. I saw his work ethic up close and firsthand. I can unreservedly say that I saw incredible devotion to serving constituents and working toward a better Connecticut. Len was attentive and kind to everyone who approached him and, strikingly, I never saw him in a bad mood. His wife told me during session he sometimes studied legislation until 2 a.m. so that he would have a good understanding of it. Tenacious Len understands the numbers and is our best bet to bring CT back to being prosperous again.



Kathy Horsky, Meriden



Minimum wage



Editor:



It is to the real advantage of every producer, every manufacturer and every merchant to cooperate in the improvement of working conditions, because the best customer of American industry is the well-paid worker. This quote from Franklin Roosevelt 80 years ago still rings true today. When workers in CT make the minimum wage of $9.60 (about $20,000/year), they cannot pump much money back into our businesses. Meanwhile CEOs of large corporations make millions. Dante Bartolomeo understands that all workers need a living wage and supports the Working Families Partys proposal of $15 minimum wage. Re-elect Dante for State Senate.



Niki Donovan, Meriden



Alternative



Editor:



If the special interest groups would go to a fixed bet horse race they would bet on two horses knowing they would have a winner and the prize would be big. This is the situation with both presidential candidates. Not much would change with either candidate. Free trade deals would prevail and the pending deals would probably be enacted. Presidents dont tread on these deals. There is an alternative, Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, who gets scant media coverage. Look her up on the internet. She is a good alternative.



John Lippold, South Meriden



For our kids



Editor:



Who fights to improve the lives of our children? State Senator Dante Bartolomeo, recognized as a Connecticut Childrens Champion. She transformed the system of mental health services for children, after the Newtown school shootings. She expanded supports for foster children and their caring families. She championed funding for Middlesex Community College and saved its Meriden programs. She worked to require criminal background checks for all daycare workers. She helped remove the sales tax on diapers. And the list goes on. Senator Bartolomeo is there for our kids. Support her great work with your vote on Election Day.



Elizabeth Morgan, Middletown



For families



Editor:



Where are Senator Bartolomeos priorities? Earlier this year she voted for 21 percent in raises over the next 4 years for 2,000 non-union staff and political appointees working at UConn. Thats the university that announced its raising in-state tuition by 31 percent! At the time Bartolomeo was quoted as saying, we are all sitting here with the weight of the world on our shoulders. This contract was so bad even Governor Malloy urged its rejection! Bartolomeo is out of touch with the reality of hard-pressed Connecticut families. Replace Dante in November with Len Suzio, a real advocate for our families



Brien J. McMahon, Cheshire



Save Connecticut



Editor:



Theres little doubt Connecticut is in terrible condition, from lack of meaningful employment and companies leaving the state, to increased gang-related violence in our city. Only one political party has had full control of our state and our destiny: Democrats. Governor Malloy and the entire Meriden delegation, namely Dante Bartolomeo and Cathy Abercrombie, have continuously voted to increase our taxes and made this state last in almost everything. To mask failed policies and win over our gratitude, they give our tax money to corporations, then gloat at their own success. Save our Connecticut, vote for Len Suzio and Joseph Vollano.



Manny Santos, Meriden



Special needs



Editor:



In these times of many challenges there is hope, and her name is Dante Bartolomeo. She is a senator of and for the people. As the parent of a special needs child, my family and I face many concerns and challenges daily. Through my involvement in many family support groups we find our way. I consider Dante a friend and ally in my fight for services for the special needs community. It is through Dante that I feel I have a voice regarding my concerns. I have enormous respect for Dante and hope youll vote for her this election day.



Joanne Ouellette, Meriden



For all students



Editor:



I am a Connecticut parent advocating for supports for students with dyslexia within our Connecticut Public Schools. I have had the pleasure of working with Senator Dante Bartolomeo in this capacity. My experiences with the Senator have shown her compassion, dedication and commitment for ALL students in Connecticut. She has taken an advocacy role up at the Capitol supporting legislation to strengthen supports for students with dyslexia. During a difficult election we must look to individuals who not only listen, but also ACT. I support Senator Bartolomeos re-election as she is a strong voice for Connecticut residents!



Allison Quirion, Amston



Trump and Putin



Editor:



Putins Russia is just a continuation of that nations long, sad history of tyrannical domination. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has assassinated dissidents and journalists, clamped down on the freedoms of individuals and organizations, given performance-enhancing drugs to its Olympic athletes, seized half of the independent nation of Ukraine, and participated in the brutal excesses of the Syrian dictatorship. All of these strong-arm tactics have Donald Trumps admiration and approval. Is climbing in bed with Putin the way to continue Americas greatness ? I dont think so.



William J. Glick, Meriden







Pro-jobs vote



Editor:



Anyone who is unsure of whom to vote for in Senatorial District 13 should check out Connecticut Business and Industry Associations strong endorsement of Len Suzio at www.fixconnecticut.com/lensuzio. Their reasons are clear and compelling. Dont keep your head in the sand; research and vote for the best candidate for our district and our state. If you want to live in a pro-jobs, pro-business state, vote for Len Suzio.



E. Barbour, Meriden



Debt control



Editor:



The Record-Journal is correct to say Gov. Dannel P. Malloy needs to stop maxing out the states credit card. [Aug. 23 Editorial, Connecticut poorly poised to handle even a moderate recession]. Current state Senator Dante Bartolomeo hasnt said a word about Connecticuts excessive bonding. Such runaway state spending will continue if she is re-elected. Len Suzio recognizes that out-of-control borrowing will lead to even higher taxes on our children and grandchildren. Connecticut needs Len Suzios business experience, knowledge, and independent voice in Hartford. Vote for debt control on Tuesday, Nov. 8. Vote for Len.



Katelyn Perez, Wallingford



Immigration



Editor:



State Senator Dante Bartolomeo voted to give drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. She also voted for tuition subsides for the children of illegal immigrants. Then she voted for the second biggest tax increase in Connecticut history. Dante gave away our hard-earned tax dollars and then voted for a tax increase  breaking her campaign promise. I am a legal immigrant to America. I oppose illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants make it harder for legal immigrants to compete in the job market. All legislators take an oath to uphold our laws. How can a state senator vote for benefits for law breakers?



Victor Perez, Wallingford



Lousy choices



Editor:



Republicans lost touch with ordinary Americans. They had almost nothing to say about huge structural changes caused by globalization, advances in technology and automation, which had harsh effects on low-skill workers. Blue-collar Americans in particular felt unheard, ignored, abandoned. Out of all this has emerged an opportunistic populist by the name of Trump. Democrats have lost touch with us, too. Hillary is a 1 percent globalist. Do you really think shell represent the masses? What was she saying in all those speeches she doesnt want us to know about? Trump or Hillary? Agghh. I cry for my country.



Ron Warner, Bangor, Maine



School funding



Editor:



In the recent landmark court ruling regarding Connecticuts funding of public schools, the judge criticizes the indiscriminate allocation of state funding. He cited the $300,000 funding decrease for Meriden public schools while at the same time increasing funding for affluent West Hartford schools by $1.5 million in the States 2016 to 2017 budget. This is the budget State Senator Dante Bartolomeo voted for. She voted to cut funds for Meriden and increase funds for wealthy West Hartford. Where are Senator Bartolomeos priorities? Why would Dante vote for more funding for a rich school district at the expense of Meriden schools?



Joanne Giddix, Meriden



Broken promise



Editor:



I am a Hispanic resident of Meriden and a homeowner who pays my share of taxes every year. Lately my taxes have gone way up ,making it harder for decent people to live in Connecticut, in part thanks to Dante Bartolomeo, who voted for one of the biggest tax increases in Connecticut, breaking her campaign promises just to get re-elected. There is no question that she must be voted out. We need someone who really cares about Meriden citizens, and that person is Len Suzio. We cant afford to have Dante as our State Senator again.



Manuel Torres, Meriden



Leadership



Editor:



I am proud to endorse Craig Fishbein for the next State Representative for the 90th District. As a business person and a member of the Town Council, he has demonstrated leadership skills to make him an effective advocate for his constituents and the towns of Wallingford and Cheshire. Craig Fishbein and I will work very closely together in improving our state, helping our constituents and strengthening the towns of Wallingford and Cheshire. Elect Craig Fishbein the next State Representative for the 90th District.



Leonard A. Fasano, North Haven



The writer is state Senator for the 34th District.







Bipartisan



Editor:



Cathy Abercrombie is a true representative of the people. Cathy makes herself available, listens well and advocates for people within her district and across the state. Cathy works bipartisan and maintains an uncompromised integrity, standing up for issues based on principle not politics. Cathy has the respect of her colleagues in both parties and is the type of even-tempered, well-informed leader the community needs to represent them. I will be supporting Representative Cathy Abercrombie and Senator Dante Bartolomeo for re-election in November.



David D. Lowell, Meriden






(Beijing)  The U.S. Federal Reserve has ordered the New York branch of the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) to improve its anti-money-laundering system in line with U.S. laws and regulations after officials found "significant deficiencies" in its operations.

China's third-largest state-owned bank is the latest in a string of Chinese banks to run afoul of foreign anti-money-laundering watchdogs, a trend experts say reflects the banks' general lack of awareness and weak implementation of existing rules against illegal transactions.

"China's regulations on fighting money laundering are in line with international standards,  but the problem lies in whether banks could follow them," an official with the China Banking Regulatory Commission told Caixin earlier.

The Fed said on Sept. 29 it had found major flaws with the risk management of ABC's branch in New York, and that the bank had failed to observe U.S. laws and regulations against money laundering. It did not specify what those violations were.

It gave the bank 60 days to submit written plans to resolve the problem through enhanced oversight, improved compliance and strengthened customer due diligence review.

The announcement did not say whether the bank would be fined.

The move comes after the bank was sued in May by a former compliance officer, Natasha Taft, who said she was forced out of her job at the bank's New York branch after reporting to the Fed in late 2014 that she suspected there were money-laundering issues with some of the trade-financing deals the bank handled.

"Overall, there is a lack of awareness regarding anti-money laundering" in Chinese banks, an executive at a joint-stock bank in China told Caixin earlier. "From regulators to banks and to clients, there is not enough attention on verifying the source of funds."

The Fed issued a similar warning last year to the New York branch of China Construction Bank, the country's second-largest state-owned lender by market capitalization. It required the bank to fix problems with its system of monitoring and fighting money laundering, detailing actions that must be taken, including identifying risky customers, tracking transaction data and investigating suspicious activity.

Foreign branches of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and the Bank of China (BOC) have also faced scrutiny by officials enforcing money-laundering regulations.

The Madrid branch of ICBC has been accused by Spanish prosecutors of helping local Chinese criminal groups funnel a total of $100 million to accounts in China. BOC's branch in Milan, Italy, also has been facing investigation by Italian regulators for its suspected role in laundering billions of dollars from European countries to China.

Contact reporter Wang Yuqian (yuqianwang@caixin.com); editor Ken Howe (kennethhowe@caixin.com)
A former Contra Costa County sheriffs deputy pleaded not guilty Friday to sex crimes in a sprawling misconduct investigation involving a Richmond teenager that has implicated law enforcement officials around the Bay Area.

The arraignment of Ricardo Perez, who resigned this year after The Chronicle published details of the allegations against him, came a day after the 19-year-old woman at the center of the scandal filed claims seeking tens of millions of dollars in compensation from Richmond, San Francisco, Livermore and Alameda County.

The teenager has said she had sex with 29 law enforcement officers in the Bay Area in the past two years. She said some of them paid her, while others tipped her off about prostitution stings or ran the names of people she knew through law enforcement databases.

In the claims, her lawyers described the actions by officers and sheriffs deputies as human trafficking, obstruction of justice and witness tampering. The claims lay the groundwork for civil lawsuits.

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The young woman previously went by  but has since discarded  the online alias Celeste Guap. Her attorneys have asked that she be referred to only by her first name, Jasmine, to protect her privacy because shes the victim of crime.

The allegations against Perez, 28, are among the most severe leveled by Alameda County prosecutors against the five current and former officers so far criminally charged. Deputy District Attorney Sabrina Farrell said she plans to charge two other Oakland police officers  one of whom has resigned  but has yet to do so because of investigations into their conduct.

Perez was the second of the accused officers to appear in court. Last week, Brian Bunton of the Oakland Police Department pleaded not guilty to charges of engaging in prostitution and obstruction of justice.

Jasmine told investigators that she and Perez had sex about 10 times in the summer of 2015 at a dirt turnout near Fish Ranch Road in the Oakland hills when she was 17.

In interviews with investigators, Perez denied the timeline but admitted to having sexual intercourse and oral sex with the teenager at the location she described. He was charged with felony oral copulation with a minor and two counts of engaging in lewd conduct in public.

Jasmine said in a previous interview with The Chronicle that Perez would pick her up while off duty and drive her to the spot near Fish Ranch Road. She said no money was exchanged. Asked if the deputy knew she was younger than 18, Jasmine said, I dont think he asked.

At the Hayward Hall of Justice on Friday, Judge Joseph Carson ordered that Perez be released on his own recognizance, meaning he was not required to post bail or surrender to jail. Farrell had asked for a bail of $60,000. During the arraignment, Carson made an apparent joke about the sexual misconduct, saying he hadnt been to Fish Ranch Road since he was in high school  a comment sharply criticized outside court by Jasmines attorneys.

I think that reflected the sentiment of the court, that this conduct was minimal and should be minimized and would not warrant an appropriate bond for this young man, said Pamela Price, one of the lawyers. This judge obviously had his own filter through which he observed the situation, and he made a judgment call.

Perez and his attorney, Joseph Motta, did not speak with reporters at the courthouse. In arguing that Perez shouldnt have to pay the bail Farrell had requested, Motta said that Perez had certainly lost his job over this and that the ex-deputy is now living with his parents in east Contra Costa County.

Perez was ordered to return to court Nov. 4 for a pretrial hearing.

Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov
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A judge who was presented with chilling evidence and the testimony of a killer-turned-states-witness sent a pair of drifters to trial Friday on murder and robbery charges in the slayings of a backpacker in Golden Gate Park and a hiker in Marin County last year.

Marin County Superior Court Judge Kelly Vieira Simmons ruling in the case against 24-year-old Morrison Haze Lampley and his girlfriend, 19-year-old Lila Scott Alligood, came after a preliminary hearing in which prosecutors offered a stark picture of an allegedly remorseless couple who committed a drug-fueled crime spree while hoping to start a pot farm in northern Oregon.

The couple are accused of robbing and killing 23-year-old Audrey Carey, whose body was found Oct. 3 in Golden Gate Park, as well as Steve Carter, a 67-year-old tantric yoga instructor who was gunned down two days later on a trail near Fairfax.

According to their former co-defendant, Sean Michael Angold, they committed the crimes using a handgun the trio stole from a truck parked in San Francisco. Angold pleaded guilty in May to second-degree murder in connection with Carters killing, while agreeing in a plea bargain to testify against Alligood and Lampley.

Defense attorneys said Friday that Angolds account could not be trusted due to his drug use and because he testified in a deal for a lesser sentence  up to 15 years to life in prison.

But prosecutor Leon Kousharian argued the evidence was strong, including statements from Alligoods former cellmate, who said Alligood had mocked Carey for trusting the trio.

According to testimony, Alligood and Lampley  the alleged ringleader and triggerman  had met up with Angold in San Francisco about a week before the killings. Angold testified that the drifters, after meeting Carey near Ocean Beach, planned to rob her because she was foreign and possibly had money.

In Golden Gate Park, Alligood tackled Carey and tried to tie her hands with rope while Lampley hit her and held her shoulders down, Angold said. He said he was tying rope around Careys legs when Lampley grabbed the gun and shot her.

There was no reason for Ms. Carey to be killed, Kousharian said. They had rope to tie her up.

The trio allegedly took Careys belongings, and after some time apart, continued north. In Fairfax, they decided they needed a car to get to Oregon, Angold said. There was a group consensus to shoot somebody for a car just as Carter drove past in his Volkswagen station wagon, according to Angold.

The trio followed Carter to the entrance of the trail he walked down with his Doberman pinscher, Coco, and waited for him to return, Angold said. He said he had been walking down the trail to hide his bicycle when Lampley shot Carter, and he described looking back and seeing the shooting unfold.

Attorneys for Lampley and Alligood seized on the detail, with a defense investigator testifying that Angold would have been unable to see anything from where the bicycle was found at the crime scene.

While Judge Simmons held Lampley to answer on all charges, she ruled there was insufficient evidence to support a charge of animal cruelty against Alligood.

She and Lampley were charged with animal cruelty because Carters dog lost her right eye in the shooting. Simmons upheld the charge for Lampley.

Lampley, Angold and Alligood were arrested two days after Carters death outside a Portland, Ore., soup kitchen after authorities tracked the station wagons GPS device. Lampley and Alligood, who are scheduled to return to court Oct. 20, face up to life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo
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Casual weekend hangouts around San Antonio were slammed with some wild citations this week, as 35 spots from the South Side to Stone Oak to La Cantera made the dirty list.

To make the Express-News' list of dirtiest restaurants, an establishment must earn a score of 89 or below  or anything less than an "A"  during a random city inspection.

At Ricks Cabaret, located at 5418 Brewster St., a strong odor was seeping from an unused reach-in cooler, and debris buildup was spotted on cooking equipment, according to the report.

On the South Side, the Wingstop at 1322 S.W. Military Drive was cited when an inspector observed rodent urine on bags of food, and near Mahnke Park, the Picante Grill at 3810 Broadway was cited for severe mold build up in the ice machine.

Other strange citations include dried blood in the reach-in cooler, insects inside the rice container and rodents gnawing damage on food.

Notable names include Dewese's Tip Top Cafe at 13835 Nacogdoches, which had an expired permit at the time of inspection, and Stone Oak's Bar Louie at 22610 US 281 N., which was cited for flies and a "vast amount" of dust on vents throughout the establishment.

Get all the highlights from this week's dirtiest restaurant list in the slideshow above.

RELATED: San Antonio restaurant inspections: The worst reports from last week

The San Antonio Express-News examines hundreds of restaurant inspections each week conducted by the San Antonio Food and Environmental Health Services division to bring you the eateries with scores of 89 or below.

Restaurants are graded on a 100-point system, where "100" is a perfect score, and demerits are based upon the number of violations found during a regular food establishment inspection. There are three categories of demerits and each are assigned a demerit score of 3, 2 or 1 points, according to the health division.

Scores and demerits listed are only representative of the state of the restaurant at the time of inspection and are surveyed at random.

rsalinas@mysa.com

Twitter: @RebeccaLSalinas
Worst Bakers in America, the Food Network that transforms sad bakers into pastry whizzes premieres tonight, and this season begins with a San Antonio-area resident among the 12 hopefuls.

Judy Welch of Helotes will go though a baking boot camp with show hosts Duff Goldman and Lorraine Pascale.
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AMSTERDAM  Montgomery County deputies arrested two Amsterdam men who are accused of stealing six long guns from a Montgomery County home with the intent of selling them.

Deputies say they received a complaint on June 15 that the guns had been stolen from a home in the town of Florida. The owner of the guns said he had last seen them on May 24, but found them missing when he went to check on them on May 31.
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Albany

Police Chief Brendan Cox and civil rights leader Alice Green will fly to Europe on Sunday to discuss their collaboration on a program that diverts low-level criminals from jail and into treatment for addiction and mental illness.

Albany is the third city in the nation, following Seattle and Santa Fe, New Mexico, to launch Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, or LEAD, a program aimed at reducing low-level arrests, racial disparities and recidivism.

The trip the Netherlands and Belgium is a chance to learn new policing practices and humane justice techniques, said Green, executive director of the Center for Law and Justice. "We want to look at the intersection of racism, poverty, health and criminal justice," she said.

All of the city's roughly 340 officers completed four hours of training last spring on exercising discretion to divert offenders involved in crimes such as shoplifting and marijuana possession.

A relatively small number of these offenders, who often suffer from mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction, repeatedly tie up limited resources in the criminal justice system and are called "frequent fliers."

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About 15 people have been diverted since April, Cox said. "We know these are long-term clients. They're not going to be, in 24 hours, ready to go," he said.

More than 30 other cities are considering the LEAD program, which Albany launched in April after about three years of planning among dozens of groups.

LEAD project chief Keith Brown will travel with Cox and Green to the two European Union nations.

They will give presentations at the third International Conference on Law Enforcement and Public Health taking place Oct. 2-5 in Amsterdam, then travel to Antwerp to visit the National Belgian Police Force and Belgian prisons Oct. 6 and 7.

Cox said is seeking answers to questions about decriminalization, including "What's going on in other countries that have dealt with drugs in a very, very different way, that have dealt with mental illness in a very, very different way?"

"When we talk about making the public safe without arresting people, it's about solutions to whatever the root cause is," Cox said. "If someone is sick with a mental illness or an addiction or both, we are not going to stop whatever pattern they're engaged by just arresting them. We need to ensure that we are taking the appropriate steps so that they don't commit another crime."

emasters@timesunion.com  518-454-5467  @emilysmasters
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Albany

Gov. Andrew Cuomo did not travel to Israel on Thursday as previously scheduled due to a train crash in New Jersey Thursday morning that killed at least one person and injured scores more.

Cuomo was to travel to the Middle East to attend the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres. Instead, the governor toured the accident site in Hoboken and held a press briefing with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Cuomo said while it was too early to say what the cause of the accident was, it was obvious that the train came into the station at a higher rate of speed than it should have. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

"There's no real point as to speculating what happened," Cuomo said. "Once we have the facts, if there is a lesson to learn, we'll learn it."

Both governors sought to reassure residents of both states that they are working closely in responding the accident, pointing to their work together during Tropical Storm Irene, Hurricane Sandy and terror attacks.

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Christie called their relationship the best he has ever seen between governors of New York and New Jersey. The show of unity came as both governors are contending with scandals: Christie is under fire as two former top aides are on trial for alleged crimes related to the Bridgegate scandal, while Cuomo's former top aide Joe Percoco was charged last week with accepting bribes from companies seeking official favors.

The commuter train accident occurred around 8:45 a.m. The train was traveling on the Pascack Valley line, which begins in Spring Valley, Rockland County, and makes stops in Nanuet and Pearl River before crossing the state line.

 Matthew Hamilton
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DANBURY  The states formula for dispersing education funding emerged as critical campaign topic at a candidates forum Thursday night at Western Connecticut State University.

The League of Women Voters invited candidates from six state House and three Senate districts to the event, though many did not attend. Rather than a traditional debate setting, the candidates met with potential voters at small round tables set up throughout the first floor of Warner Hall to answer questions.

Candidates were asked about a variety of topics, including taxes, affordable housing and local traffic issues, but much of the discussion centered on a recent state Superior Court ruling in which a judge ordered Connecticut to revamp its educational system.

The changes ordered by Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher earlier this month include reforming how the state distributes education aid to cities and towns and changing graduation standards.

Danbury resident Esther Clement said the state under-funds Danbury public schools, which has helped create an achievement gap between students of different economic backgrounds.

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Im appalled at the achievement gap, which really boils down to the way we share our money for all children, Clement said. Some children dont have a chance.

Many candidates agreed, including incumbent Democrat David Arconti, of Danbury, whose 109th District opponent, Veasna Roeun, was not at the forum.

Danbury is underfunded and were growing, Arconti said.

State Rep. Bob Godfrey, D-Danbury, said the state must provide more money to underachieving districts. But Godfrey took issue with part of Moukawshers ruling.

The whole education cost issue is huge, said Godfrey who is seeking his 14th term in the 110th District against challenger Emanuela Palmares, who did not attend. I jumped for joy when I heard about the decision (on funding). But the other parts of that decision stink. ... More standard tests, not less? Over my dead body thats going to happen.

Ken Gucker, a community activist and owner of a auto restoration business, who is running for the 24th state Senate District, said that along with school funding the state must create more jobs in Connecticut.

A lot of it has to do with bringing commercial jobs back and making it favorable for corporations and companies to want to come back to Connecticut as opposed to leaving, said Gucker, a Democrat trying to unseat Michael McLachlan, R-Danbury. We have one of the highest taxation rates, but what we dont plan for is the future.

Responding to a question about how to keep millennials in the state, Raghib Allie-Brennan, a Democrat running for House District 2, said the Legislature must do more to promote affordable housing, while ensure that the character of communities is protected.

At end of the day, there are young professionals who cant afford to stay in the state that want to and were pushing them out, Allie-Brennan said. Its finding that middle ground and finding the right place for affordable housing.

awolff@newstimes.com; 203-731-3333; @awolffster
(Beijing)  The head of Uber China has resigned from her post, two months after the online ride-hailing company's Chinese operation merged with its biggest domestic rival, Didi Chuxing Technology Co.

Liu Zhen, senior vice president of the Chinese arm of San Francisco-based Uber Inc., published a social-media post on WeChat earlier on Friday, hinting at leaving after an eight-month stint in the top job.

Uber China later confirmed that Liu has decided to leave, but didn't say when she will step down.

"I think a lot of the team at Uber China are like a special task force who will only have room for an extraordinary performance if they can find their niche," Liu wrote in her post.

The announcement comes only two months after Uber Inc. gave up its bruising battle for a share of the country's growing online ride-hailing market by selling its China business for a minority stake in rival Didi. For two years, the two companies went head-to-head in efforts to establish a foothold in the world's second-largest economy, spending tens of millions of dollars a month to attract riders and subsidize drivers. Didi emerged as the clear winner, with over 85.3 percent of all online car-hire orders being placed through its app in the first three months of the year, while Uber got only 7.8 percent.

Didi also finished on top in the battle to attract investments, with the Chinese company securing $10 billion in funding from investors that included Apple Inc.

Liu joined Uber's Chinese subsidiary in April 2015 as its strategy chief. Before that, she offered legal counsel to internet startups, including Uber, as a lawyer in Silicon Valley for a decade.

"When I was a lawyer, I encountered situations when the board drove away a company's founder," Liu wrote. "During the whirlwind one-week negotiation for the deal, I told myself many times that I should be in the 'lawyer mode.' But I wasn't qualified to be 'outside counsel' during this process."

Liu is a cousin of Liu Qing, or Jean Liu, the president of Didi.

Contact reporter Chen Na (nachen@caixin.com); editor Poornima Weerasekara (poornima@caixin.com)
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GREENWICH  Ambassador Joseph Verner Reed Jr., a former U.S. Chief of Protocol under President George H.W. Bush and former Ambassador to Morocco, died Thursday in Greenwich. He was 78.

In a long career in diplomacy and public service, Reed promoted international cooperation and provided staunch support for the work of the United Nations.

At the time of his death, Reed was Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

He wore Savile Row suits, called the former president by his childhood nickname, Poppy, and learned international banking from the Rockefellers, but Reed was also happy to share time with youngsters at the Julian Curtiss School every year and chat with members of the Retired Mens Association of Greenwich. He was known for charm, exuberance and close attention to detail, attributes that put him in good stead as he glided through the halls of power and kept state protocols running in top form.

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Former President George H.W. Bush, who like Reed grew up in Greenwich, on Friday called him a lifelong advocate for international cooperation.

Barbara and I were deeply saddened to learn that our elegant and affable friend, Joseph Reed, has passed, the former president said in a statement. He was by my side during some of the most critical moments of my presidency, the quiet mastermind who literally help set the stage for the diplomatic progress we made during a historic period of global change.

We are biased, of course, but Joseph was the ideal Chief of Protocol  perhaps the finest in modern history, Bush said. The entire Bush family sends our love and condolences to his wonderful daughters, Serena and Electra.

No cause of death was available Friday. A family spokesman said Reed was in good health at the time of his death.

David Rockefeller, a friend and banking colleague, said the news saddened him.

I deeply mourn the sudden loss of my valued colleague and trusted friend of 50 years, Rockefeller wrote in a statement, Together we traveled the world, experienced unforgettable adventures and met thousands of people; from kings and presidents to hotel clerks and elevator operators. Joseph cherished and charmed every one of them. He was a man of elegance, grace, wit, flamboyance and razor sharp intellect; a diplomats diplomat.

Reed was born in New York City on Dec. 17, 1937, to Joseph Verner Reed and the former Permelia Pryor. He had ancestors who arrived on these shores on the Mayflower, and he came from very old money. His grandfather, Verner Zevola Reed, was responsible for a significant share of U.S. oil production before being bought out by the Rockefellers in the 1900s, and he then made another fortune in mining. Reeds father served as an assistant to the French ambassador, as well as being a theatrical producer, art collector and publisher. His mother was a preservationist who helped create Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge in Florida.

Reed and his family moved to Greenwich when he was a youngster. His home, Denbigh Farm on Riversville Road, was surrounded by rolling pastureland, which provided fodder for four horses and three milk cows. The old farm was put to use in later years as a summer camp run by Reeds daughters. The ambassador and his wife were designated adjunct counselors, and the diplomat-turned-chauffeur often drove youngsters around in a golf cart and provided cookies inside the main house when it rained.

Reed graduated from Greenwich Country Day School and Deerfield Academy. As a youth, he was friends with the Bush family in Greenwich, and he became a lifelong friend of George H.W. Bush, the future president. He played stickball and tennis with the Bush children at his family farm.

Dorothy Walker Stapleton, a Greenwich resident and first cousin of George H.W. Bush and a friend of Reeds, recalled the strong family connection between the Bushes, the Walkers and the Reeds.

They were very close friends, Stapleton said of the ambassador and the 41st president, who shared much in common and stayed close through the years. And he played a significant role in his administration.

Continuing, she said of the former ambassador, He was the purest example of diplomacy, in how he greeted people and how he carried forth the message of American democracy around the world. He was the quintessential diplomat.

After graduating from Yale College, Reed went into banking. He worked first at the World Bank under the tutelage of its president, Eugene Black. In 1963, he joined The Chase Manhattan Bank, serving as a vice president and assistant to the chairman, David Rockefeller.

A career in diplomacy and public service later beckoned. Reed was named Ambassador to Morocco by President Ronald Reagan and served in that post from 1981 to 1985.

Then, George H.W. Bush, after becoming president, appointed his boyhood friend from Greenwich to be his Chief of Protocol in 1989, with the rank of Ambassador.

As protocol chief, Reed was responsible for making sure that the Queen of England was addressed as Your Majesty or Maam, and that South African President Nelson Mandela was ushered into the Oval Office with ease. When a 21-gun salute greeted the Queen at Arlington National Cemetery at the precise moment when her car reached the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, it was Reeds organizational skills behind it.

It isnt, as many people perceive, frivolity. Its deadly serious. Its the stage for which diplomacy is constructed, he said in an interview with Greenwich Time. Details, he said, were his obsession.

He was fond of quoting Napoleon: Whatever is not profoundly considered in all details is without result.

Aside from his diplomatic and business skills, Reed also burnished a reputation as a man of impeccable taste in clothing. In 1983, he made International Herald Tribunes list of the 10 best-dressed men in the world. He ranked eighth, just after French President Francois Mitterand.

He also had certain personal eccentricities. Reed frequently ended his phone calls with the farewell, Aloha, and he wore colorful socks much like his friend, President Bush.

Occasional missteps were noted during his diplomatic career. As ambassador in Morocco, he earned criticism when he referred to King Hassan as our King.

But Reed was known as an avid supporter of the United Nations and rebuffed attacks on the world body from antagonists in Washington and elsewhere.

Known as the dean of United Nations Under-Secretary-Generals, Reed liked to say that he represented the organization from Bhutan to Bolivia, Cape Town to Cairo, Syria to Suriname, in a U.N. career that spanned 25 years.

The United Nations has a role to play in every country, every village and city in the world, he told Executive Class magazine in 1991. (It is) the only machinery we have for collective cooperation among nations  the only global tool for strengthening our securities  the only universal mechanism for protecting human rights  and the only shared framework for strengthening the international law.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon paid tribute to the ambassador in a statement released Friday: He was a champion of the United Nations to his very last breath.

As head of the Arts Committee at the U.N., Ban recalled, Reed had sent out an email this week on design issues at the U.N. headquarters.

Ambassador Reed was one-of-a-kind  a skilled diplomat, an art lover, a global citizen and a dear friend. I am grateful to have known him and to have called him my friend, Ban said.

In Greenwich, Reed was a well-known presence.

At Julian Curtiss School, he made an annual appearance at the United Nations Parade, in which elementary school students carry flags, wear costumes and learn about foreign cultures. He attended 23 of the 25 parades the school has held, said school Principal Trish McGuire.

He was a regular every year, she said. He always inspired the children. It was amazing to see how important he made us feel. He loved speaking to the children and the community of Julian Curtiss.

Ambassador Reed was really a world-recognized individual, Greenwich First Selectman Peter Tesei said Friday. We were very fortunate in Greenwich to have him as a resident.

Reed and his late wife, the former Marie Maude Byers, were married December 19, 1959. She died in 2015.

The former ambassador is survived by two daughters, Serena Reed Kusserow of Anta Barbara, Calif., and Electra Reed of Greenwich; and four grandchildren.

A private family service will be held in the coming days. A memorial service will be held at a later date.

Staff writer Neil Vigdor contributed to this report.
Albany

Former Ohio congressman and Democratic presidential aspirant Dennis Kucinich has sent complaints to the inspectors general of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency calling on them to investigate New York's permitting process for Competitive Power Ventures, the Maryland-based energy company that's angling to complete a 650-megawatt natural-gas-fired power plant in Orange County.

Last week, CPV executive Peter Galbraith Kelly was among eight individuals charged by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in a complaint that alleged Kelly paid bribes to former top Cuomo aide Joe Percoco in an attempt to secure official favors for the company, with lobbyist and longtime Cuomo associate Todd Howe  who has already pleaded guilty to several felonies  serving as go-between.

According to the complaint, Percoco and Howe allegedly continued to squeeze CPV for money  including salary for Percoco's wife, a schoolteacher who was given what Bharara termed a "low-show job" with a CPV educational initiative  even after it became clear that the company was unlikely to receive a power purchasing agreement it hoped Percoco could assist with. The state did, however, sign a reciprocity agreement with New Jersey that resulted in significant savings for CPV.

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Though the state had already granted the project a number of permits, Cuomo ordered agencies to cut off all contact and regulatory consideration after CPV was mentioned in a federal subpoena dropped on the administration in late April, when the probe into Howe and Percoco's alleged side work came to light.

"Since an abundance of evidence has been produced that the New York State regulatory process has been corrupted in this specific case, it is incumbent upon the EPA's IG to defend the public interest and to direct the US EPA to rescind all air and water permits, to review all permits issued by the state pursuant to federal law, to seek full engagement of the affected public and to otherwise retain full jurisdiction over a major energy project with profound environmental implications," Kucinich wrote in one of his letters. The letter to the Department of Energy inspector general said New York's regulatory process was "thoroughly corrupted by one of the New York Governor's top men."

Kucinich, who left Congress in 2013 after eight terms, is working with Protect Orange County, a regional environmental group opposed to the CPV plant.

The group's Pramilla Malick  running as a Democrat against state Sen. John Bonacic  said in a statement, "A company that would transgress legal and ethical boundaries to achieve approval cannot be trusted to operate a power plant."

CPV did not respond to a request for comment.

cseiler@timesunion.com  518-454-5619  @CaseySeiler
On Saturday, more than new 95 state laws take effect.

Many of these new laws address very serious issues such as protecting victims of domestic dispute, opioid abuse prevention/treatment and changes to the states medical marijuana regulations.

Then, there are the more unusual measures that flew below the media radar and won approval by the state Legislature.

Credit and debit cards holds for gas

Requires gas stations and convenience stores that accept credit or debit card payments for the sale of gasoline to provide notice to the customer if they or a third party will place a hold on a credit or debit card payment that is for an amount larger than the actual retail gasoline purchase.

Under $3 balances on gift cards

Requires someone selling or issuing a gift card to give the buyer an electronic or paper proof of purchase or gift receipt. Someone who accepts a gift card as payment to give the purchaser, on request, cash for the remaining balance on the card after the purchase if the balance is under $3 and purchaser provides the proof of purchase or gift receipt.

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Alcohol and firearms

Lowers from .10 to . 08 percent, the blood alcohol content level that triggers a presumptive violation of the law's prohibition on carrying a loaded firearm while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The .08 percent level is the same threshold as for state and federal driving under the influence laws.

Payroll cards vs. paycheck

Allows employers to pay their employees through payroll cards under certain conditions. An employee must voluntarily and expressly authorize, in writing or electronically, that he or she wishes to be paid with a card. The authorization must be free of any intimidation, coercion, or fear of discharge or reprisal by the employer. No employer can require payment through a card as a condition of employment or for receiving any benefits or other type of remuneration.

Suspending fishing, hunting licenses

Allows the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to suspend fishing, hunting, and trapping licenses for certain violations when a person cited for the violation fails to appear in court or pay or plea to an infraction and an arrest warrant is issued for him or her.

Moving weapons in motor vehicles

Exempts from the ban on carrying certain weapons in a vehicle, a person who has a dirk knife (a double-edged, dagger-like knife) or police baton in a vehicle while lawfully moving his or her household goods or effects from one place or residence to another.

Reporting stab wounds

Requres hospitals, outpatient surgical facilities, and outpatient clinics to report to the police when they treat patients for stab wounds that are serious physical injuries likely caused by a knife or other sharp or pointed instrument (stab wounds). Existing law already requires these health care facilities to report on injuries caused by a firearm discharge (gunshot wounds).

Mini-motorcycle confiscation

Under the act, municipal officers and employees may issue citations without first providing a written warning to individuals who violate a mini-motorcycle ordinance. By law, the same is true for citations concerning a dirt bike or ATV ordinance. The act also authorizes municipalities with 20,000 or more people to enforce ordinances concerning mini-motorcycle, dirt bike, or ATV operation by confiscating a vehicle used to violate them. The act (1) establishes protections for lienholders and innocent owners and (2) requires municipalities to sell confiscated vehicles at public auction.

Tenants and bed bugs

If tenants report that they know or suspect that their units are infested with bed bugs, landlords must retain a third-party inspector or inspect the units themselves. Landlords must hire and pay a pest control agent to treat bed bug infestations if they are unable to successfully treat an infestation themselves. Landlords who treat the infestation themselves must get a third-party inspector to confirm that the treatment was successful. The act makes tenants financially responsible for subsequent treatment costs for their unit and contiguous units if they knowingly and unreasonably fail to comply with treatment measures. It also prohibits landlords from renting units that they know or suspect are infested with bed bugs.

Furniture, automobile littering

Allows municipalities to assess, after a hearing, an administrative penalty of up to $500 on anyone who violates a municipal littering ordinance if the litter includes furniture, automobiles or automobile parts, large appliances, tires, bulky waste, hazardous waste, or similar material.

Water fluoride content

This act reduces the public water supply's mandated fluoride content. Specifically, it requires water companies serving at least 20,000 people to add enough fluoride to the water supply to maintain an average monthly fluoride content that varies no more than 0. 15 milligrams per liter (mg/L) from the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services' most recent recommendation for optimal fluoride levels in drinking water to prevent tooth decay (currently 0. 7 mg/L). Prior law required water companies to maintain the public water supply's fluoride content at between 0. 8 and 1. 2 mg/L.

For neglected cats and dogs

This act allows judges to appoint volunteers, from a list of attorneys and law students provided by the agriculture commissioner, to advocate for the interests of justice in certain proceedings involving animals. (It is unclear, but presumably the act applies only to proceedings involving the welfare or custody of cats or dogs. ) Specifically, the court may appoint a separate advocate in (1) prosecutions for animal cruelty or fighting, (2) court proceedings stemming from an animal control officer's seizure of a cruelly treated or neglected animal, and (3) criminal cases involving the welfare or custody of cats or dogs.

Elderly security deposits

Requires housing authorities, community housing development corporations, and other corporations providing state-assisted public housing to seniors and individuals with disabilities to allow these tenants to pay security deposits in installments, pursuant to a written agreement. The agreement must include a payment schedule and a determination of the tenant's ability to pay according to the schedule. The installments must be (1) reasonable in light of the tenant's income and (2) paid in equal amounts and at approximately equal intervals not exceeding one month, over a period of at least 12 months. The act specifies that it does not prohibit a housing authority or corporation from waiving a security deposit requirement or extending installments beyond 12 months.

To read all the laws taking effect on Oct. 1, 2016: https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/aearchives/20161001ActsEffective.asp
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WASHINGTON  Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf did himself few favors in testifying before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday, as members of both parties accused the company of criminal activity ranging from racketeering to identity theft in opening as many as 2 million phony accounts without customers knowledge.

The committees top-ranking Democrat, Rep. Maxine Waters of Los Angeles, said she would pursue the breakup of the San Francisco-based bank, calling it too big to manage. Wells Fargo is the nations second-largest bank, and its 164-year history is rooted in the American West.

Several Republicans called for Stumpfs resignation, saying he had undermined their efforts to support free markets and ease bank regulation. The scandal has erased billions of dollars from Wells Fargos stock value and sent fears through the banking industry of a political backlash.

The committees chairman, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, accused Wells Fargo of breaking numerous laws and promised that the hearing was just the beginning of his investigation. He said he was asking for thousands of pages of Wells Fargo documents, in part to determine when executives first learned of the fraud.

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Millions of Americans were ripped off by their bank, Hensarling said. Fraud is fraud and theft is theft, and what happened at Wells Fargo over the years cannot be described in any other way.

The committee found that the bank has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines over the past few years and that the pattern of fake account creation may have begun as early as 2007, the year Stumpf became chief executive. Members expressed disbelief that none of the banks top executives had noticed anything awry, even as Wells Fargo fired, by its count, 5,300 mostly branch-level employees and managers.

Why didnt it stop after first 1,000 employees were fired? asked Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J.

No question we should have done more, sooner, said Stumpf, who insisted he didnt learn of the problem until 2013  the year the Los Angeles Times first reported that Wells Fargo employees were creating fake accounts in response to a high-pressure corporate culture.

Following a similar grilling by the Senate Banking Committee last week, Stumpf forfeited $41 million in unvested stock payouts. But Wells Fargos board, which he chairs, has not called for his resignation and has fired no top executives. Stumpf said he is forgoing his salary and bonuses  which provided him with $19.3 million last year  as he attempts to fix the problems.

The banks board also revoked the $19 million in stock awards it gave to former retail banking executive Carrie Tolstedt when she retired, with an estimated $77 million in stock awards, after the scandal broke.

Stumpf said he is eliminating sales goals for bank employees as of this weekend.

He repeatedly apologized through more than four hours of testimony, but generally attributed the blame for the accounts to low-level employees. I didnt set up any of these accounts, Stumpf said at one point. I led the company with courage, he said at another.

Stumpf argued that the fake accounts were not in Wells Fargos financial interest because they cost the bank money, even though executives had boasted to stock analysts of their success in cross-selling new accounts to existing customers.

After congratulating Stumpf on his success in uniting Democrats and Republicans, Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass., asked why someone accused of robbing a Wells Fargo branch shouldnt be let off with an apology. Stumpf replied, Being dishonest and breaking the law is something very different.

The House hearing came one day after California Treasurer John Chiang said the state was suspending Wells Fargo from underwriting bonds and purchasing other investments on behalf of taxpayers for a year.

Chiang said he was motivated by Stumpfs appearance last week before the Senate Banking Committee, where Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and former Harvard Law professor, sought to dismantle his assertions that neither he nor the bank had profited from the fake accounts.

Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-SC., said Thursday that Stumpf had undermined the free-market arguments Republicans had been making to oppose stricter bank regulation.

To have you essentially validate everything the other side says, Mulvaney said, the damage you have done to the market and to the industry far exceeds the damage you have done to your own business.

Wells Fargo has spent lavishly on philanthropic activities throughout California to enhance its public image and its support in Congress. The bank has also made $2.7 million in campaign contributions in just the past two years, according to OpenSecrets, a group that tracks campaign contributions.

Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, has said he would rip up his Wells Fargo credit card and send the pieces, along with the banks $1,000 contribution to his campaign, back to Stumpf.

Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin, said Wednesday that he has donated his $4,000 campaign contribution from the bank to Abode Services, a nonprofit in Fremont that secures permanent housing for homeless people in Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties.

Carolyn Lochhead is the San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carolynlochhead
Des Moines, Iowa

Hillary Clinton didn't want to leave anything to chance when she arrived here for a rally on the first day of early voting in Iowa.

Her campaign stationed volunteers around her downtown rally to direct members of the audience to nearby polling places to submit their ballots.

"When you finish here, you can go vote," she told the crowd of roughly 2,000. "We can be on the path to victory here in Iowa."

President Barack Obama won Iowa in 2008 and 2012, but Clinton is trailing Donald Trump in the state, lagging 5 percentage points behind in a RealClearPolitics average of polls.

She hopes voting early can give her campaign an edge, but mail ballots haven't kept pace with previous elections.

About 54,000 Democrats had requested absentee ballots as of Friday, according to the Iowa secretary of state's office.

That's far more than Republican voters, but about half of what Democratic voters requested at this point four years ago. Democrats rely on early voting more than Republicans in this state.

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Nationwide, early voting could play a larger role in the campaign, said Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida who runs the Elections Project.

The earliest ballots could be cast was in North Carolina, where residents could vote by mail as soon as Sept. 9.

"The volume of early voting is going to be very high in a number of states," he said.

Census data show 30 percent of voters cast ballots before Election Day in 2008, and 32 percent in 2012. McDonald estimates about 34 percent will do the same this year as the method becomes more popular and widely available.

David Chico, 64, has been going door to door and working the phones for the Clinton campaign to get more early voters in Iowa.

"It's more convenient," he said, and ensures the ballot gets cast even if someone runs into a scheduling conflict on Nov. 8.

Joanne Peterson, 59, has already filled out her absentee ballot and mailed it in for Clinton. She likes the "comfort level it gives the party"  she's one fewer person the campaign needs to spend precious resources on to ensure she votes.

"The more people that have voted, the better," she said. "It's a boost of energy. I try to help."
Wind gusts of up to 30 mph are expected to kick up Friday afternoon in the Santa Cruz Mountains, dealing firefighters new worries as they battle a blaze that has already burned thousands of dried-out acres of wildland and destroyed eight houses.

The Loma Fire, which started Monday afternoon, grew by just 166 acres overnight as cool weather helped crews fighting the fire. As of Friday morning, the blaze had scorched a total of 4,313 acres and was 34 percent contained.

But fire officials said the expectant gusty winds would present new challenges and threaten the progress firefighters working around the clock have made to get a handle on the inferno in the area of Loma Prieta Avenue and Loma Chiquita Road west of Morgan Hill.

Though fire officials still expect full containment by Monday, they were worried the tricky winds  which are expected to linger through the weekend  could make their job more difficult, said Battalion Chief Jeremy Rahn of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

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We want to make sure everyones cognizant in the field of the projected weather this afternoon, and were going to have additional personnel looking out for it in case anything does potentially jump across a line, Rahn said. Were not out of the woods yet, by any means.

The gusts of wind, along with sustained gales of 15 to 20 mph, qualify as the strongest winds since the Loma fire broke out near the 3,790-foot Loma Prieta Mountain ridge, said Matt Mehle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Though the high winds arent unusual for the mountainous terrain, Mehle said, the weather could certainly help spread the fire.

As of Friday morning, mandatory evacuations for Santa Clara County residents remained in effect along the Loma Prieta ridgeline near Summit Road. An evacuation order for neighboring Santa Cruz County has been lifted.

Officials initially opened three shelters for those left temporarily homeless by the fire, but just one  located at the Morgan Hill Presbyterian Church on Dewitt Avenue  remained opened Friday.

Nearly 2,000 firefighters were working to bat down the flames Friday morning, Rahn said, with the aid of 179 fire engines, 16 helicopters and six air tankers used to drop hundreds of gallons of bright red flame retardant on the fire from high above.

More than 30 bulldozers were being used to cut wide fire lines lines to try to prevent the blaze from spreading.

In addition to leveling eight homes, the fire has destroyed nine other buildings. It continued to threatened 325 structures Friday.

Theres a chance of drizzle, however slight, by Sunday but it wont do much to help fight the fire, Mehle said. He forecast a few hundredths of an inch of precipitation, which would do essentially nothing to douse flames, some shooting dozens of feet in the air.

Years of lingering drought throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains, filled with crunchy, dried-out leaves and browned, ready-to-burn grass have fueled the spread of the blaze.

The area has not had a chance to recover in the winter months because of a lack of rainfall, so some of the trees and other vegetation has been already stressed, and then you throw in the hot and dry conditions when the fire started, and that would be favorable for fire, Mehle said.

Elsewhere, firefighters completely contained the 1,547-acre Sawmill fire near Cloverdale in Sonoma County Thursday evening, officials said.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @michael_bodley
NORWALK  A man who told police that he had a little bit of marijuana during a traffic stop Thursday night may have been less than forthcoming after police say they found more than 3.5 pounds of the drug hidden throughout the car.

Police were patrolling the area of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Rockland Road at around 7 p.m. when they say they observed a car driven by Walter King make a turn without using a signal and then fail to stop at a stop sign.

A traffic stop was initiated, and police said that King was already prepared with his license and registration, and appeared nervous. Police reported a strong odor of marijuana emanating from the vehicle. When asked by officers if there was any in the car, King allegedly responded, I have a little bit, sir.

Police say there was a clear bag of marijuana on the front seat and King told them that there was nothing else.

A police K9 was brought to the scene, and indicated the presence of drugs in the car. Upon searching the vehicle, police said that in the trunk they located a garbage bag containing 379 grams of marijuana, a freezer bag containing 371 grams, a sneaker box containing 466 grams, two mason jars containing 90 grams each, and assorted bags of individually packaged marijuana. Police said they also located a digital scale.

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The total weight of the marijuana was 1,590 grams or 3.54 pounds. Police declined to speculate on the street value of the marijuana saying that it would vary depending on how it was sold.

King was charged with possession of more than four ounces of marijuana, possession of drugs with intent to sell, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession with intent to sell within 1,500 feet of a school, possession of drug paraphernalia within 1,500 feet of a school, failure to obey stop sign and failure to use turn signal.

His bond was set at $10,000 and he was given a court date of Oct. 11.

llake@hearstmediact.com
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NORWALK  After years of false starts, the states overhaul of the Route 7-Merritt Parkway interchange is moving forward with the approval of $4 million for design work.

The money, released by the State Bond Commission on Friday, will pay for the preliminary design of the overhaul.

We have retained Stantec, an engineering and design firm as the prime designer for this project, said Judd Everhart, spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Transportation. BL Companies will serve as a sub(contractor) to Stantec and do some highway/bridge design and environmental work.

Everhart released a timetable for the project, which he described as very preliminary. The schedule anticipates local stakeholder meetings in 2016-17, development and evaluation of design alternatives in 2017-2018, and construction starting in 2022.

Broken promises

The purpose of the project hasnt changed: create a full-directional interchange between U.S. Route 7 and Route 15, otherwise known as the Merritt Parkway, while maintaining access at Main Avenue to and from the parkway, according to the DOT.

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At present, motorists traveling west on the Merritt Parkway cannot exit to either the north- or southbound Route 7 Connector. Motorists driving either north or south on the connector cannot exit to the eastbound parkway.

State Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, has described the situation as a broken promise to residents and businesses, and a frustration and inconvenience for motorists.

He considers the $4 million for design work and the projects inclusion in the five-year ramp-up to Gov. Dannel P. Malloys 30-year transportation plan as evidence that the interchange reconfiguration will become a reality.

I made certain this was in the 30-year transportation plan, Duff said. And then because of the fact that we have now diverted some of the sales tax to the transportation fund, it allows this project to move up and get going sooner than it would have been done had we not made that decision.

Once the project goes into design, Duff said, the DOT will put it on the federal governments work schedule. The project will be 80 percent funded by the federal government, he added.

False starts

Overhaul of the Route 7/Merritt Parkway/Main Avenue interchange has been more than a decade in planning and got underway a decade ago albeit not to everyones liking.

In May 2005, the Merritt Parkway Conservancy and other preservationist groups filed a lawsuit against the Federal Highway Administration and the DOT in an effort to get the state to downsize its original design, which the groups considered too large, too costly and destructive to the parkway.

The following year, U.S. District Court in New Haven found that the Federal Highway Administration had not met its legal "obligation to ensure that all possible planning was done to minimize harm prior to approving the interchange project."

Design work began anew and community consensus was reached in 2009 on design Alternate 21C, which would create the four missing connections and improve the existing connections while minimizing the impact on wetlands and existing bridges. Further, the design wouldn't employ high-flying ramps, according to the DOT.

Starting the project anew, certainly 21C will be on the table, but we have to do an alternatives analysis under NEPA, so its possible another alternative would rise to the top, Everhart said Wednesday.

Community input

In order to move forward with the new project, the DOT will have to meet the requirements of the Environmental Policy Act and obtain various regulatory approvals. Community outreach also will be part of the process as design work advances.

Jill Smyth, executive director of the Merritt Parkway Conservancy, said the DOT reached out to her organization in July. She described the meeting as a preliminary meet-and-great with Stantec representatives also at the table. The conservancys priorities remain unchanged, she indicated.

We certainly want something thats scaled down and keeping within the character of the parkway, and most importantly, to keep those communication lines open so we can see the development of the design, Smith said. Its communication and keeping in mind it needs to be within the character of the parkway and have the least amount of impact.

State Rep. Gail Lavielle, R-Wilton, said Wilton, Redding and Ridgefield residents remain nervous that the interchange overhaul will become some kind of prelude to the creation of Super 7  the never-realized expressway between Norwalk and Danbury.

There is no stated connection and provided that the interchange is completed as an isolated project, it should be fine, Lavielle said. It is really too early in the whole transportation program to get either worried or excited about any project.

She described the current interchange configuration as an inconvenience for motorists and lent her support to the overhaul provided the forthcoming design incorporates community input and addresses local concerns.

Finding money to see the project to completion will be the biggest hurdle, according to Lavielle. She said money has been allocated for other transportation project only to be removed.

Im very concerned about transportation funding in general, Lavielle said. They cant keep what theyve assigned in the transportation budget.
A former junior high math teacher pleaded guilty to have sex with a student in court Wednesday, Bee County officials said Friday.

Brenda Pawelek, 44, resigned from George West Junior High School last summer after investigators found text messages between the teacher and a male student. She was arrested in July 2015 and was accused of having sex twice with the male student before being let out on bond, according to news archives.
SINTON, Texas (AP)  A South Texas man has been sentenced to life in prison for a 2012 shooting attack at a park that left one woman dead and her girlfriend critically hurt.

David Malcolm Strickland was convicted Wednesday of capital murder. The 30-year-old Strickland, who was on trial in Sinton, received an automatic life prison term because prosecutors did not seek the death penalty in the June 2012 case.
One woman is dead after she was struck by a pickup while standing in the middle of a North Side road Thursday afternoon .

Jacqueline Caravella, 50, died as she was being transported to University Hospital after she was fatally hit at about 4:30 p.m. in the 6900 block of San Pedro Avenue.
Phil Reidinger, the longest-serving military public affairs officer in San Antonio, died Friday morning.

He was 69.

Reidinger was a top public affairs officer for the Army Department Medical Center and School, but had been the chief spokesman for Fort Sam Houston before the 2005 base closure round linked it and two other local installations under Joint Base San Antonio. He was planning to retire next year.

He had been known as Mr. Fort Sam Houston and could be found alongside journalists as they worked stories on the post that ranged from trials, one involving O.J. Simpson attorney Robert Shapiro, to the rituals of command changes and the Army's birthday, a parade ground event in which Reidinger recounted battles through U.S. history as GIs wore period costumes dating to the Revolution.

News of his death left friends and co-workers in shock.

I still feel numb, said Jim Cannizzo, an attorney adviser for the Army at Camp Stanley, Camp Bullis and Fort Sam who worked closely with Reidinger on a host of issues.

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Phil was always synonymous with Fort Sam Houston, said Brent Boller, a local radio personality who became a spokesman for Joint Base San Antonio. He was an extremely enthusiastic and dedicated spokesperson for the Army, Fort Sam Houston and the Army Medical Department Center and School. He loved what he did and it showed.

Reidinger was known for an easygoing nature and support of the news media, but also as a workaholic, arriving early each day at Fort Sam and working weekends. He came to the job in the early 1990s after retiring from the Army as a major.

Cannizzo credited Reidinger with helping spearhead Fort Sams successful efforts to counter suburban encroachment around Camp Bullis, an Army training range that is now surrounded by strip malls and residential development. Some homes come right up to the fenceline of the range, where medics learn to save lives.

Phil was a skillful tactician, had an extensive network of local contacts, and was masterful in dealing with the public, local officials and the press, Cannizzo said. He was a tireless worker who spent numerous long hours after the regular work day and on weekends to ensure the job got done. Without him, Camp Bullis' significant encroachment issues would not have been largely resolved.
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For the second time this month, Bexar County has found evidence that the West Nile virus has resurfaced in the area.

A second mosquito with the virus, found in a county trap, has tested positive to West Nile, officials of Bexar County Public Works said Friday.
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A Donna ISD security guard was arrested earlier this week for allegedly slamming a female student on the ground during a fight, the latest scandal for a school district riddled with controversy.

Michael Soto, 33, was arrested Tuesday and booked into Hidalgo County Jail on a charge of official oppression, and making a false report to a police officer, jail records show. Soto was released the same day after paying $15,000 in bonds.

RELATED: 7 things to know about controversies at Donna Independent School District

An internal investigation by Donna ISD police alleges Soto lied about what happened during a Sept. 16 fight in a school auditorium, The Monitor reported.

Donna ISD did not immediately respond for comment.

RELATED: Fourth employee fired from South Texas school district for improper conduct with student

During the fight, Soto is seen helping to restrain students, according to footage obtained by The Monitor. In the video, Soto is seen restraining a female students arms before the two end up on the ground.

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Soto turned himself into authorities Tuesday after he was suspended from the district without pay, The Monitor reported. He has been with the district for seven years.

RELATED: Police officer for scandal-ridden South Texas school district arrested after softball game fistfight

Orlando Jimenez, Sotos defense attorney, told the newspaper his client did not lie in his report of the fight.

I guess they are saying that he lied, he said. What happened is that he tried to escort one of the young ladies that was fighting out of the auditorium, and as he is walking out he trips over with the leg of another girl on the floor that was still fighting.

The video does not make it explicitly clear if Soto tripped or forcefully pushed the girl to ground.

Last January, Soto was was suspended without pay for a week after officials received complaints that he and other security guards were texting students inappropriately, according to The Texas Observer.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
SAN ANTONIO  A high-speed vehicle pursuit involving multiple law enforcement agencies ended in San Antonio on Thursday night after starting in New Braunfels, according to police.

Officers from Seguin, New Braunfels and San Antonio, along with the Texas Department of Public Safety and Bexar County Sheriffs Office, were involved in the pursuit at about 10:45 p.m. Thursday.
I know her and she'd make a good president.

 Donald Trump on Hillary Clinton, 2008.

Trump was right. If elected, Clinton will make a good president.

Focused. Serious. Even-tempered. Moderate. Tough. Upright. Incremental. Bipartisan.

Remember, when she was the U.S. senator from New York from 2001 to 2009 she often sought common ground with the right and found conservative Republican co-sponsors for more than half her bills.

She wasn't a liberal bomb-thrower or a talk-show gadfly, but a middle-of-the-road, shoulder-to-the-wheel policy wonk who won the respect of her colleagues and the affection of her constituents, who gave her 67 percent of the vote when she ran for re-election.

She was also widely popular when serving as U.S. secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, and has earned the support of dozens of former top GOP foreign policy advisers. Indeed, annual Gallup polls of American adults named her the most admired woman in the world from 2002 to 2015.

I'm persuaded that it is her ability to exude competence, get things done and win friends when in office that inspires the frenzied contempt being heaped upon her by her opponents in the presidential campaign.

They portray her as a harridan - a callous, lying traitor, an inauthentic, paranoid crook and a sickly crone who craves power and money. They howl that she ought to spend what few days she has left to live rotting in federal prison.

Because, deep down, they know.

They know that despite her faults  yes, she's got them, and we'll get to that  she's likely to be effective and, eventually, popular again if she makes it to the Oval Office.

They know that she'll be a fearsome exponent for the sort of center-left Democratic policies that threaten the ability of the GOP to crawl out of the garbage fire set by the nativist jerk they nominated as their standard-bearer.

They know that what her critics on the left say about her  that she's too cautious and too establishment to be the catalyst for truly dramatic social change  is true.

They know that, though she's not as gifted a campaigner as her husband or as the current president, she has more discipline than Bill Clinton and a far better inside political game than Barack Obama.

They know, in short, what Trump knew back then: Hillary Clinton will be a good president.

Her Nixonian paranoia, penchant for secrecy and lack of transparency are disquieting, yes. The self-inflicted, metastatic problems that have grown out of her decision to use a personal email server to try to keep her correspondence private are regrettable but not indictable.

She was too casual in her handling of classified information. But no secrets got out.

A foul, but no harm.

Her role in the spinning of the story of the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, did not do her honor. But repeated and relentless congressional investigations found no fault with her behavior before and during the attack, and the family of slain ambassador Christopher Stevens has absolved her from blame in his death.

The full story got out soon enough, and the pearl-clutching on the right about a political figure trying to put a favorable slant on a story is too opportunistic to be persuasive.

A foul, but no harm.

Her failure to erect a stouter wall between the business of the Clinton Foundation and her role as secretary of state was regrettable. But the foundation is a significant force for good, and so far there have been no credible allegations that she altered any U.S. policy or position based on donations from foreign nations or leaders.

No harm and no foul.

Whether Clinton has learned from these brushes with scandal is hard to say. But 25 years of being called a murderer, a criminal and words unfit for a family newspaper by her feverish foes on the right have left her wary and unappealingly guarded.

If she wins, she will have survived political attacks that persuaded the public that she's less trustworthy than the most persistent, grandiose and unrepentant liar ever to seek public office.

If she wins, her victory itself will discredit the significance of the old attacks and provide insulation against the new ones.

What didn't kill her politically will make her stronger.

Presidents are not kings, of course, and they are often tested by crises beyond their control and buffeted by unharnessable winds. They prefer to act, but are frequently forced to react. If elected, Hillary Clinton could turn out to be a feckless, one-term chief executive undone by events, lapses in judgment and the sclerotic ways of Washington.

But I doubt it. And so, I suspect, secretly, do her opponents.

I suspect they know that, if elected, she'll be effective in trying to repair and expand Obamacare, not repeal it. She'll advance women's rights, push for a compromise resolution to the status of undocumented immigrants now in the United States, boost the federal minimum wage, raise taxes on the highest earners and get center-left justices confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court even if the Democrats don't retain control of the Senate.

And if so, she'll be hard to beat in four years.

It's that, not her wickedness or radicalism, which has them loudly, frantically denying perhaps the truest thing Donald Trump has ever said:

She'd make a good president.

Eric Zorn is a Chicago Tribune columnist.
Taxpayers are facing hefty legal bills if the probate court judges decide to take Bexar County commissioners to court over jurisdiction of civil commitment cases involving mentally ill people.

The brouhaha begin midsummer when Republican Probate Court 1 Judge Kelly Cross fired Democrat Oscar Kazen from his associate judge post and replaced him with her staff attorney, Republican Art Rossi.

Kazen had been doing the job for nine years and was highly regarded by the attorneys who handle mental health cases. Rossi had no background in mental health at the time of his appointment.

Many view Cross actions as an attempt to give Rossi a political edge at election in 2018 if Probate Court 2 Judge Tom Rickhoff chooses not to seek re-election as he has hinted.

Rossis political ambitions are no secret. He made unsuccessful bids for the 37th District Court bench in 2012 and for the County Court-at-Law No. 3 seat in 2014.

The move ruffled feathers on Commissioners Court, and no money was included for it under the probate courts budget for the new fiscal year, which begins today.

If the appointment of another associate judge to handle mental health cases is deemed necessary, commissioners want to take advantage of a section of the Texas Health and Safety Code that would allow County Judge Nelson Wolff to make the appointment.

The probate judges are not having any of that and appear headed to court over it.

In late August, Rickhoff sent District Attorney Nico LaHood a letter challenging the commissioners authority to cease funding the associate probate judge position.

If Commissioners Court does not formally retract their notice to defund this week, we must, pending an Attorney General Opinion, seek a restraining order and begin a lawsuit, Rickhoff said in his letter.

Commissioners did not rescind the order as requested and instead sent Probate Court 1 Judge Kelly Cross, who technically has jurisdiction over the mental health cases, a letter suggesting she refer some of the mental health case workload to Rickhoff.

In a letter to Cross on Sept. 19, Wolff wrote, You may recall that the sole reason the Commissioners Court appointed an associate judge in the first place was Judge Rickhoffs refusal to hear those cases. There is no prohibition on referring cases to Judge Tom Rickhoff. If you refer mental health cases to Judge Rickhoff, he has a judicial obligation to hear them. We hope that you will.

This could become a protracted legal battle.

It could have been avoided if Rickhoff had not announced shortly after his re-election in 2006 that he no longer wanted to handle mental health cases in an effort to reduce angst and conflict in his life.

There would be no need for an associate judge, and it would make the appointment of that judge a moot legal issue if Rickhoff carried his share of the mental health docket.

County elected officials filing suit against one another puts the district attorneys office in an akward position.

LaHoods office generally serves as in-house legal counsel for commissioners and other county elected officials as the need arises, but in this case, the office is conflicted and cant represent one against the other.

Precinct 3 Commissioner Kevin Wolff is steamed over it, and who can blame him?

The total cost depends on how long the case is drawn out and if there are appeals.

Wolff estimates the going rate for outside legal help will run $300 to $500 an hour.

Its a gross waste of taxpayer dollars to have one government entity suing another, he said.

Politics being what they are, this probably wont be the last time taxpayers have to pick up the bill to settle a turf battle among elected officials.

gpadilla@express-news.net
October is almost here. The first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump is behind us. That makes this the perfect time for a Donald Trump test. If you score 100 percent, congratulations. No one could say you didnt have your eyes wide open this election. Keep this quiz as proof of your presidential stamina. Good luck, voters.

1. True or false: Donald J. Trump used $20,000 from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, a charity, to purchase a 6-foot-tall painting of himself.

2. After five years of birtherism, Trump recently acknowledged that President Barack Obama was born in the United States. But Trump once claimed, without proof, that he hired private investigators to look into the matter, saying they cannot believe what theyre finding. What did these private investigators discover?

A. That Obama was born in Hawaii  and they couldnt believe it.

B. Trump never released details of these supposed findings.

C. That the characters in the hit show Lost, which was filmed in Hawaii, were dead the whole time.

D. He ended the birther conspiracy. Period.

3. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is widely viewed as dishonest and untrustworthy. According to PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking organization, how do the truthfulness of Clintons statements compare with those of Trumps this campaign?

A. Clintons had 60 statements, 23 percent, rated true. Only 12 of Trumps statements, 4 percent, were rated true.

B. Six of Clintons statements were Pants on Fire. For Trump, 48 statements were Pants on Fire.

C. Clinton had 73 statements rated mostly true. Trumps had 30 statements rated mostly true.

D. Combined, 27 percent of Clintons rated statements have been either mostly false, false or Pants on Fire. Meanwhile, 70 percent of Trumps rated statements have been mostly false, false or Pants on Fire.

4. Which comment did Trump say?

A. He called Mexican immigrants rapists.

B. He called Pope Francis disgraceful after the pope questioned Trumps immigration views.

C. He said Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.

D. All of the above.

5. Prior to the first presidential debate, Trump said he might give Gennifer Flowers, who had an extramarital affair with former President Bill Clinton, a front-row seat to the event. Has Trump ever had an affair?

A. No. But he has been married three times.

B. Affairs are irrelevant to presidential politics.

C. Yes. He had an affair with Marla Maples, who became his second wife.

D. A team of investigators has uncovered some unbelievable stuff.

6. Who are John Miller and John Barron?

A. They are fake PR people that Trump pretended to be in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

B. Key Trump advisers who left the campaign after their close ties to Russia were revealed.

C. Hackers who work for Russia.

D. Investigators who looked into Obamas birth certificate.

7. How has Trump characterized his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin?

A. In 2013, Trump said, I do have a relationship, and I can tell you he is very interested in what were doing here today.

B. In 2014, Trump said, I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success.

C. In 2015, Trump said, I got to know him very well due to a joint appearance on 60 Minutes.

D. Trump recently said, I never met Putin  I dont know who Putin is and I have no relationship with him.

E. All of the above.

8. True or false: The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget recently estimated Trumps spending plans would increase the federal deficit by $5.3 trillion.

9. What have we learned from Trumps tax returns?

A. His business interests, especially in Russia.

B. His true, not stated, net worth.

C. Nothing. He is the first GOP nominee to refuse to release his returns since former President Gerald Ford.

D. How much he has given to charity.

10. Trump once said, Im speaking with myself, No. 1, because I have a very good brain and Ive said a lot of things. What was he saying he consults with himself about?

A. Business.

B. Foreign policy.

C. Political talking points.

D. Obamas place of birth.

Answers: 1. True; 2. B; 3. A, B, C, D; 4. D; 5. C; 6. A; 7. E; 8. True; 9. C; 10. B.

jbrodesky@express-news.net
My heart went out to Donald Trump Monday night when it appeared that he was under the weather.

What could be worse than to be sick, sniffling through his first presidential debate just days after challenging Hillary Clintons health and, during the debate, taunting her lack of stamina. Trumps own stamina was not, shall we say, in abundance Monday. Weary-eyed and gulping water, he looked as though he might fall asleep were it not for the lecterns support.

Could his malady perhaps explain his utter incoherence? Might whatever was drying out his mouth, but not his nose, explain his childish, running commentary as Clinton was answering a question?

As karma would have it, Clinton seemed perky by comparison. Pitch-perfect throughout the debate, she was never at a loss for a coherent answer or a rebound.

She smiled through her contempt for Trumps inane responses or nonresponses. In the course of the evening, she seemed to get him to admit to not paying any federal taxes, which Trump appeared to confirm by saying, That makes me smart. Moderator Lester Holts question about Trumps birther crusade elicited not only a defense of his efforts but a declaration of pride that he, Trump, had forced Obama to present his birth certificate.

This is false, as any serious news consumer knows. But these two examples illustrate two key components of Trumps character  braggadocio and preening pride. Translation: insecurity and weakness. He was proud of two things  paying no taxes and racist pandering  for which most people of conscience would feel shame.

Sure, if youre someone whose career is built on gaming the system, you might gloat about being the best gamer. But is this whom you want for president?

As for racist pandering, thats what birtherism was. It was never really about Obamas birthplace.

In Sniffles hands, the birther issue was an instrument to mine the subliminal racist attitudes that Trump knew were out there. He subsequently reinforced his monument to infamy by marginalizing other darker-skinned groups, including Mexicans and Muslims of Middle Eastern extraction.

Thusly was Trumps presidential campaign launched.

During his part of the debate, Trump did manage to make a couple of points, notably that Clinton is a career politician while hes a builder and job creator. Noted. Otherwise, he was often if not mostly a Donny-brook of babbling nonsense. At one juncture, criticizing Clinton for posting her anti-Islamic State plan on her website (as opposed to not actually having a plan), he said with rough conviction: No wonder youve been fighting ISIS your entire adult life.

Asked by Holt what he would do to prevent cyberattacks, Trump replied: As far as the cyber  we should be better than anybody else, and perhaps were not. I dont think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC (Democratic National Committee). Shes saying Russia, Russia, Russia.  Maybe it was.  But it could also be China, it could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.

What came next was, well, this: You dont know who broke in to DNC, but what did we learn with DNC? We learned that Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of by your people. By (former DNC Chair) Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Look what happened to her.

As a matter of fairness, I would include similarly confused responses by Clinton, but there were none. When the worst criticism is that youre overprepared, youre in pretty good shape, debate-wise. Meanwhile, the global marketplace may tell the larger story. As the evening concluded, thanks to Clintons obvious dominance, as well as her assertion that a Clinton presidency would honor U.S. commitments abroad, the Asian market recovered, the peso rallied, and Dow futures added 100 points. Thats nothing to sneeze at  or sniffle about.

kathleenparker@washpost.com
Whenever Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. Ted Cruz or presidential nominee Donald Trump warns of the dangers of admitting Syrian refugees into Texas and the United States, a curious thing happens to me. I hear in my head the national anthem.

A swell of patriotism? No, a clang of irony. Ill explain in a bit.

Here are some sound bites that cue the music:

Gov. Abbott: Despite multiple requests by the state of Texas, the federal government lacks the capability or the will to distinguish the dangerous from the harmless, and Texas will not be an accomplice to such dereliction of duty to the American people.

Sen. Cruz: Congress should act to prevent Americans who have traveled abroad for training from returning here, and to stop the flow of refugees from hotbeds of terrorism in the Middle East that President Obama is determined to bring to our country.

And Trump: Altogether, under the Clinton plan, youd be admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them, or to prevent the radicalization of their children.

Abbott last November responded to terrorist attacks in Paris by declaring that Syrian refugees would no longer be allowed to move to Texas for fear they werent being properly screened.

The federal government made clear it would simply bypass state government and give resettlement money directly to the church groups and nonprofits that do great work in helping refugees find their place in American society. Attorney General Ken Paxton sued, but a federal judge squelched it. Paxton has appealed.

Now Abbott has given the feds an ultimatum that Texas will withdraw from the process in January unless the feds jump through Texas-designed hoops.

Meanwhile, the Syrians keep coming, and will continue to do so in January. So should we be scared?

The conservative Heritage Foundation looked at the screening process for Syrians, which is tougher than for any other nation. It begins with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recommending candidates for resettlement in the United States. Of about 23,000 Syrians recommended by the end of last year, about 2,000 have been accepted.

That comes after a process that lasts 18 months to two years. It involves screening by more than a dozen U.S. and international agencies, plus intensive interviews. So far, not a single Syrian has been arrested for terrorist activities here, though two Iraqis in Kentucky were.

It is worth noting, says the Heritage Foundation, that these are the only two individuals who slipped through the screening process. It added that the U.S. has made constant improvements to the program.

Why so few? Well just possibly because any terrorist plants who could fool this system could likely fool our normal visa system in less than 18 months to two years. Whats more, only 2 percent of Syrian refugees admitted to the United States are single men of military age.

No wonder religious groups and nonprofits have stood up to pressure from state agencies to shut down their refugee programs. They know these people to be some of the worlds most vulnerable, mainly families escaping the horrors of the Syrian civil war and life under the likes of Assad or the Islamic State.

Eight Protestant leaders wrote in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram this week: In the face of violence, we will show moral courage and increase our welcome for individuals fleeing persecution.

Nearly every religious group in Texas has urged Abbott to reverse himself. Among them: Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Unitarians, Baptists, Episcopalians and 43 Texas rabbis.

Thats right: Rabbis are not as afraid of Muslim refugees as some of our tough-sounding politicians are, politicians who often proclaim their faith.

Which takes me back to The Star-Spangled Banner. The politicians give an ironic note to the anthems rousing close: And the home of the brave. The rest of us can bring it back on key.

This column originally appeared as Rick Caseys Last Word on KLRNs Texas Week with Rick Casey, which appears Fridays at 8 p.m. and Saturdays at 1 p.m.
Sonja Flemming /Associated Press

A recent report to the president by his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology represents a breakthrough for criminal justice. It says that too much forensic science used in our criminal courts is of dubious value and that plenty of evidence shows expert testimony isnt all that expert or statistically valid.

Lives hang in the balance, which is why the more unreliable forms of such science shouldnt be allowed in Texas courtrooms until more certain science can be attained. Or if allowed, jurors should be informed of how statistically reliable they are. If jurors were informed of the rate of false positives on some of these tests, some convictions might not occur.
There are nearly 10,000 abandoned wells in Texas, and with the oil industry in the tank, that number will surely keep growing.

Regulators are facing a cleanup cost to plug these orphan wells that could reach as high as $165 million, Express-News journalist Jennifer Hiller recently reported.

This is hardly surprising. The number of abandoned wells, those that which havent produced oil or gas in a year and whose owners have walked away, increases in bust times.

With the price of oil pretty much stuck south of $50 in the $40 to $45 a barrel range, this most definitely qualifies as a bust time.

What makes the abandoned well problem so frustrating is that the state of Texas has proven again and again to be utterly disinterested in addressing it. Abandoned wells pose potential environmental problems, possibly contaminating soil and freshwater. They also are a nightmare for property owners.

The culprit here is insufficient bonding for well operators.

The bonds are intended to cover the cost of plugging wells if an operator becomes insolvent. But the bonding requirements have not been updated since 1991. They only cover a fraction of the cost  about 16 percent  to plug a well.

So, for example, in 2015 the Railroad Commission of Texas collected about $4.3 million in bonds from 94 firms that abandoned wells. It spent nearly $12 million plugging 692 wells, making up the difference through fees and fines.

But those 692 wells are just a fraction of the abandoned wells out there.

The Sunset Commission has recommended raising the bonding levels  it is tiered depending on the size of the operator  to better cover the costs of abandoned wells.

In general, we agree with this recommendation. So, too, does Mark Miller, the Libertarian candidate we endorsed for the Railroad Commission, who wrote in a blog post on his campaign website, An obvious solution is for all operators to be required to post bonds in sufficient amounts to abandon their wells in the event of default.

There are some nuances to consider, including how those tiers should be structured.

Also, as Austin-based attorney John B. McFarland noted on his Oil and Gas Lawyer Blog,  the regulatory structure pegs responsibility on plugging a well to the last-known operator.

In theory, this makes sense. In reality, its complicated. Usually the last-known operator of a well is financially marginal. Put another way, the operators with the least ability to pay for plugging wells are often the ones left holding the bag.

A fairer regulatory system would hold previous well operators responsible for some of the plugging costs since they those previous owners presumably benefited from the well.

Its all a moot point, though. as As Hiller reported, the three elected railroad commissioners are not interested in increasing bonding for this. Commissioner Ryan Sitton, for example, expressed concern that an increased bond would potentially push companies out of business, increasing the number of orphan wells.

But should an operator be in business if it cant afford to properly bond?

If plugging a well is part of the cost of doing business, it only makes sense to have bonds that cover that cost.

The Railroad Commission should get over its reluctance to increase bonding. It appears that the commissioners are more concerned with the industry they are supposed to be monitoring. watchdogging.

Perhaps this is yet another indication why the commission should be restructured, with a single elected commissioner, or at least placing a limit s on industry campaign contributions to sitting commissioners.

But, first, increase bonding.
Re: Keep Longoria, Pulliam on the bench, Editorial, Tuesday:

Thank you for publishing your choices for judges for the upcoming election. Most people dont know enough of the background of the judges to be able to decide for whom to vote.

And thank you for publishing these findings now. We are going to be out of town at the time of the election and will be voting by mail. So we need this information way ahead of time to be able to make our choices.

Doris D. Kinsey

Match made in D.C.

Re: Whats going on? Your Turn, Sept. 23:

With regard to this long list of things that Donald Trump has done in the past that really make you cringe, it sounds like he is a perfect fit for the rest of the crooks in Washington  just like lying Hillary!

Michael B. White

Debate styles

Although the hair stylings for both presidential candidates were very well done, I still find a 70-year-old man wearing bangs to be a bit too much.

Al Walsh, Del Rio

Conscience, Ted

Ted Cruzs tea-party power base had already endorsed Donald Trump. My conscience tells me that his leading from behind is too little and way too late for this one-time Cruz supporter.

Pat McMillan

Re: Obama vetoes bill on suits against Saudis, Nation & World, Sept. 18:

I see that President Barack Obama has vetoed the bill to allow survivors of the 9/11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia. Im glad that the veto was overturned.

However, one wonders if the veto was more to ensure lucrative speaking engagements from the Saudis after he leaves office in the model of Bill and Hillary Clinton than the somewhat confused reasons he stated.

Who knows, perhaps, he too can start a foundation after he leaves office to collect the fees.

William F. Malec

Romos legacy

Guided by a passion to improve lives through higher education, Ricardo Romo has transformed UTSA from a local campus to a premier research university. For the past 17 years, his leadership and vision have strengthened UTSA, which in turn has become a significant economic engine for our community.

Today, UTSA attracts nearly 29,000 students  the brightest minds from around Texas and 94 countries. These top students study biomedicine, cyber security, energy and other disciplines that are imperative to the well being of society. Talk to any local employer and theyll tell you that UTSA graduates are well prepared to lead and succeed in the workforce.

Dr. Romo has built a legacy at UTSA. He is a tremendous leader. There is no doubt that all he has accomplished will continue to shape future generations in Bexar County and across the state of Texas.

Mil gracias, President Romo. Although you may be planning on retiring next year, you have created a legacy that will live on for future generations of San Antonians.

Nelson W. Wolff

Scales of justice

When any police officer comes in for a meal at a local eatery, I clandestinely pick up the tab. I am so saddened by the reports of the failings of the few, whose acts are blackening the hard-fought and hard-earned reputations of the many who protect and serve. I pick up their tab not because they are underpaid but because I want them to know one of the silent majority honors their good service.

That being said, I think it might be time to rework how law enforcement interacts with the judiciary. Can we at least agree that every district attorney appears to have a conflict of interest in determining a possible indictment of certified peace officers? In Texas, the DA and all police officers are part of the same system. They both live and die administratively by their collective work.

So why not, in the review for cause before a grand jury, have a retired district judge present the case for possible indictment and prosecution? Police officers would receive the deference they need and deserve, and the public would get the transparency it demands.

Rick Reyes, Boerne

Electronic doom

Re: Annoyed Frost patrons tweet, Business, Sept. 22:

It amazed me to read this article about people who couldnt use their debit cards because of some type of electronic glitch in the Frost Bank system.

Whatever happened to that old four-letter word CASH? Doesnt anyone carry money anymore? One customer said he was embarrassed when he couldnt pay for lunch because his debit card was denied. He should have been embarrassed for going anywhere without real money.

I was recently at a restaurant that said on the door that its system was down and no credit or debit cards could be accepted. I watched the number of people who turned and left. How dumb in todays world of hacks, electronic tomfoolery, etc., to go anywhere without cash.

The young today, and others, who rely on technology for everything will be in a world of hurt if the whole system was to one day stop because of electronic glitches across the board. That cant happen? Really?

We are told constantly about systems that cannot fail, and guess what? They still fail. Relying on only one form of doing business, especially an electronic form in todays world, is burying ones head in the sand and pretending the world is a safe place electronically when all the time we see evidence to the contrary.

Start carrying real money in case of emergencies and you wont ever have to be embarrassed again by an electronic financial system failure.

Eleanor Sprowl
California Gov. Jerry Brown Thursday signed two more bills to protect traumatized foster children from psychiatric care that is overly reliant on risky medications  cementing what is now the most comprehensive set of laws in the nation.

Following three laws passed last year, the additional legislation will subject overprescribing physicians to stepped-up investigations and ensure that counties offer mental health services for foster children that include non-drug treatments.

Brown vetoed a bill that would have enhanced juvenile court oversight of prescribing. But the courts have already launched a sweeping set of new standards requiring doctors to justify their prescriptions before judges approve them, and ensuring that foster children have a say in whether they want to take the untested drugs.

Unfortunately, the excessive prescribing has become the norm and it has impacted thousands of lives of Californias most vulnerable youth  foster kids, said one of the bills authors, state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg. These five pieces of legislation will finally provide foster youth with the protections they need from serial overprescribers and these mind-numbing drugs.

More for you Greg Casar gets major boost from political superstar

Another bill author, state Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, said overmedication has for too long been overlooked as one of the major problems in the foster care system. Now, its become clear that if you just keep medicating them, they cant think clearly, they cant study and they cant be successful.

Beall said the new laws are necessary because the medication was so overprescribed, in so many different ways, and with no controls and no monitoring, adding: So we hope to get that out of the way now, and frame a more successful foster care system in California.

Lobbyists for doctors and the group home industry pushed back against the bills, arguing they overreached and could potentially harm children who needed medications. But an equally powerful lobby of foster youth also consistently showed up at policy committee hearings, testifying about debilitating side effects they suffered from antipsychotics, antidepressants and mood stabilizers, including severe lethargy, rapid-onset weight gain and irreversible tremors.

McGuire said the legislation wouldnt have been a reality without hundreds of foster youth mobilizing to fight.

The two bills signed into law Thursday add more heft to related protections passed last year in California. Those laws enhanced scrutiny of residential group homes where prescribing is the highest; expanded public health nursing to monitor prescriptions, and funded training for professionals who work with and care for foster children. The six-bill package resulting in five new laws followed an expose published in the San Jose Mercury News and extensive advocacy by the nonprofit National Center for Youth Law.

Lobbyists representing physicians and group homes argued against many of the legislative changes, saying they will drive professionals from the field and curtail their professional authority. McGuires bill  which will hold outlying physicians responsible for their prescribing practices through greater enforcement by the states licensing agency  led to the most bitter fights. Physician groups said the new law will unfairly affect psychiatrists treating youth in residential programs and juvenile halls.

Sen. Bealls bill will hold counties more accountable for providing mental health treatment for foster youth. That means more than just a bottle of pills, said Californias ombudsperson for foster care, Rochelle Trochtenberg, who was taken from her parents due to abuse, and spent her teenage years in the Los Angeles County child welfare system.

If you have a child with diabetes, you dont just give them insulin and keep feeding them sugary foods that makes them sicker, she said. If you translate that to kids in foster care, their medical condition is often trauma, and youre not treating that trauma if youre not not treating an array of issues.

Karen de Sa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kdesa@sfchronicle.com
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Unsettled weather will continue through the weekend with low pressure stalled over the Ohio Valley.

Rain become increasingly likely Friday morning with periods of rain expected throughout the day.

It wont be a drought buster, but it will help. The National Weather Service says southwest Connecticut could receive more than 1.5 inches of rain by Sunday morning.

The wet weather will linger through the weekend as low pressure along the northern Mid-Atlantic coast slowly moves to the northeast.

In addition, expect with gusty northeast winds Friday. Just before 6 a.m., winds were blowing along the southwest Connecticut shoreline between 18 and 20 mph with gusts as high as 28 mph.

The forecast

Today: Showers likely, mainly after 9am. Cloudy, with a high near 59. Windy, with a northeast wind 21 to 29 mph, with gusts as high as 41 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.

Tonight: Showers likely. Cloudy, with a low around 55. Windy, with a northeast wind 23 to 28 mph decreasing to 17 to 22 mph after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.

Saturday: Showers likely. Cloudy, with a steady temperature around 59. Northeast wind 15 to 17 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible.

Saturday night: Showers likely before 9pm, then a chance of rain after 9pm. Cloudy, with a low around 56. Northeast wind 8 to 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible.

Sunday: A 50 percent chance of rain. Cloudy, with a high near 66. East wind around 8 mph.

Sunday night: A 40 percent chance of rain. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 58.

Is a tropical story in our future?

Forecasters are keeping an eye on Hurricane Matthew, a Catagory 2 storm that is posing danger to Jamacia, eastern Cuba and the Bahamas next week.

Matthew may track north, or northeast in the next few days.

There remains much uncertainity in its future track and strength.

Stay tuned.
1 Hurricane: Hurricane Matthew grew into a powerful Category 4 storm Friday with 150 mph winds as it crossed the Caribbean Sea on a course that could have it pounding Jamaica within days. The center of the hurricane is projected to pass just to the east of Jamaica early Monday, but the storm is large enough that it could affect the entire island. The eastern tip and higher elevations could get up to 15 inches of rain.

2 Mexico violence: The sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman apparently launched an ambush on a military convoy using grenades and high-powered guns on Friday, killing five soldiers, officials said. The attack in northern Sinaloa state left two military vehicles completely burned and dead soldiers on a highway. It was apparently launched to free a wounded drug suspect being transported in an ambulance guarded by the convoy. The attack on the outskirts of Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, was unusual as the Sinaloa cartel has been known to avoid direct confrontations with the army. Guzman headed the cartel until he was re-arrested in January. It is now run by his sons.
The tobacco firm will expand sales of these products to more countries as well as increase its development of new products.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland  The head of Philip Morris International has his eyes on alternatives to cigarettes as a good investment strategy for his company. CEO Andre Calantzopoulos said that the company will shell out an additional $100 million in 2016 to develop next-generation tobacco products, Bloomberg reports.

We are more confident than ever that these products have the potential to fundamentally transform our business, he said. One product in particular has received more funding: the iQOS heat-not-burn tobacco device. Philip Morris forecasts the product will hit shelves in 20 markets by the end of 2016.

IQOS consists of a rechargeable electronic device that heats tubes of tobacco. These HeatSticks look like half a cigarette. According to the company, iQOS has already gained more than a million smokers in Italian and Japanese test markets. We are still in very, very early days, Calantzopoulos said.

Overall, Philip Morris predicts that worldwide, cigarette smoking declines between 2% and 2.5% annually. Analysts are closely watching the tobacco industry as competitors race to come up with the next big thing in tobacco products. Its not clear which product or which category will ultimately win, said Rupert Wilson, an industry analyst. Someone will eventually bring a product out thats a quantum leap.
By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

TPP/TTIP/TISA

Donald Trump has [WTO] officials in Geneva running scared. Faced with the prospect of a U.S. president who stands against the open-market philosophies they have spent their careers promoting, top trade officials are in various states of denial about the election [Politico]. Their careers. Oh, the humanity!

I trust Hillary on this, Sen. Sherrod Brown said Thursday. She will oppose [TPP] just as strongly on Nov. 9 as she does today. I trust her because, one, she understands the agreement. The Ohio lawmaker said Clinton crystallized her opposition by raising specific problems over what she views as overly permissive rules of origin for automobiles, non-binding currency provisions and the deals investor-state dispute settlement mechanism [Politico].

If we are going to have another discussion about trade, it would have to be led by whoever the next president is, [Mitch McConnell] the Kentucky Republican said, adding that subject is currently politically toxic, and I dont think the Congress is ready to tackle it in any positive way.'

2016

Days until: 38.

Debate Wrapup

Next debate: Sunday, October 9. Most of the major pollsters still havent released post-debate polls. Although early evidence suggests a bounce for Clinton, upcoming polls might reveal that it was a mirage. If that ends up being the case, she will likely hold a small lead but that lead will not be safe. Its also important to note that this a volatile contest. Seemingly random events (e.g. Trumps controversial statements and Clintons ongoing email and ethical issues) have moved public opinion, and a large number of voters are undecided or choosing third party candidates. That means the polls could move more quickly in this race than in recent races. Note that this volatility cuts both ways  it gives Trump a greater opportunity to catch up to Clinton, but it also gives Clinton the chance to turn a small or decent lead into a solid win or even a landslide [RealClearPolitics]. Finally, its important to note one other feature of the historical data: Both candidates ability to move the polls diminishes as October wears on. As to Mondays debate, Hillary Clinton won. The story leading up to it was that she was frail, her health bad. Instead she was vibrant, confident, smiling and present. Sometimes when Mrs. Clinton speaks you sense shes operating at a level of distraction, reviewing her performance in real time or thinking about dinner. Here her mind was on the mission. She did not fall into the hectoring cadence that is a harassment to the ear. She said nothing remotely interesting Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, The Politics of The Shallows']. Mr. Trumps job was to leave you able to imagine him as president. You could have, but it would be a grumpy, grouchy president with thin skin.  Shell probably overplay her hand. Thats what she does.  [T]he next week or so shes on the upalator and hes on the downalator. After that, well see. Trump: Check out sex tape of former Miss Universe [The Hill]. Boy, did Clinton get inside Trumps head. Not a good look.

The Voters

In the past 18 months I talked to three young presidential candidatespeople running for president, real grown-upswho, it was clear to me by the end of our conversations, had, in their understanding of modern American political history, seen the movie and not read the book. Two of them, Ive come to know, can recite whole pages of dialogue from movies. (It is interesting to me that the movies our politicians have most memorized are The Godfather Parts I and II.) I think Nooners has come up with the best factoid of the 2016 election, here.) [Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, The Politics of The Shallows']. USA TODAYs Editorial Board: Trump is unfit for the presidency' [USA Today]. But they dont endorse Clinton. Tomorrow? That Seventh-Grade Bully Is Running for President [Nicholas Kristoff, New York Times]. Of course, the idea that the Beltway, very much including Kristof, is high school, is a well-worn trope. The thing is, I genuinely dont understand this Democrat mindset, this framing of everything as micro-aggression. Try it on any historical figure, and see if it works. Mussolini was a bully. Is that really a useful way to look at Mussolini? The Emperor Hirohito was a bully. Heck, forget utility, is it even sane? Im tempted to regard the bully trope as a sop to the Democrat base of college administrators, who are greatly concerned with indoctrinating their frosh with the micro-aggression concept  not that theres anything wrong with that  but that idea seems overly simplistic; this bizarre ideation is too pervasive. Oh, and it goes without saying that no white bourgeois feminist can ever be a bully. A record 40 per cent of Americans may cast their votes ahead of the 8 November election and in many states they have already started either requesting ballots or returning them completed [Independent]. I think this is madness. What do we have a campaign for? With each election, the numbers taking advantage of either early or absentee voting provisions grow bigger, with significant consequences for the campaigns. The more votes each side can bank in advance, the less hard they have to work to drive turnout on election day. And: The Hillary Clinton campaign is feeling buoyed by indications that Democrats are outpacing Republicans in early voting patterns in a few key swing states such as Florida and North Carolina. A further question is how much staying power the third-party candidatesGary Johnson, of the Libertarian Party, and Jill Stein, of the Green Partywill have. While Stein is but a blip, scoring at most three points in important states, Johnson, with the more well-known Bill Weld as his running mate, is on the ballot in all fifty states and could make the difference in such states as Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and New Hampshire. Johnson is known as a bit of an odd duck.  When confronted on Meet the Press with the fact that he couldnt win but could affect the outcome, he replied with insouciance, Some parties need wrecking [Elizabeth Drew, New York Review of Books]. The reckless egotism that leads some people to put themselves in a position to distort the outcome of a presidential race. I love that distort the outcome. Drews decline  and NYRBs decline  has become sadly evident. She cant even pose as a distinterested observer, and that used to be her schtick. And the NYRB didnt used to publish the openly hackish.

Swing States

New polling indicates that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton received a sizeable bump in key battleground states after the first presidential debate. The majority of likely voters in all five swing states said that Clinton won in her first face-off with Republican nominee Donald Trump [Opposing Views]. On Sept. 29, new Public Policy Polling survey results found that Clinton is leading in Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The surveys were conducted on behalf on the nonpartisan VoteVets Action Fund. PPP is a Democrat shop, however. Four polls released Friday show Clinton ahead in Florida, Michigan, Nevada, and New Hampshire in a race that includes Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein. The Nevada poll lists Independent candidate Darrell Castle and Rocky De La Fuente, who has no party affiliation, but not Stein [Business Insider].

Realignment

Americans will soon make their choice. It will be either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clintonexperienced, forward-looking, indomitably determined and eminently sane. Her election alone is what stands between the American nation and the reign of the most unstable, proudly uninformed, psychologically unfit president ever to enter the White House [Dorothy Rabinowitz, Wall Street Journal, Hillary-Hatred Derangement Syndrome]. Rabinowitzs endorsement should set those millenial hearts aflutter! So much irony here, given how the Wall Street Journals nutball editorial page created hatred of the Clintons as a virtual asset class, and Rabinowitz apparently believes that Trump is less psychologically fit than Alzheimers victim Ronald Reagan.

Stats Watch

Personal Income and Outlays, August 2016: August was a soft month for the consumer, both for income and especially for spending. [Econoday]. And: The headline data this month showed NO consumer expenditure growth. This is a negative for 3Q2016 GDP. Income growth was also anemic [Econintersect]. With consumer spending the only real engine in GDP, look for another downgrade of 3Q2016 GDP forecasts.

Chicago Purchasing Managers Index, September 2016: September has been a good month for the Chicago economy based on the PMI which rose 3.7 points to 54.2. Growth in new orders held steady at a moderate rate though backlog orders fell into contraction. Production, which had been soft, is very strong [Econoday]. [N]early 80 percent of the sample say the run-up to the presidential election is having no significant impact on business. And: The surprise was that the Chicago PMI employment component came in weak after coming in strong last month. Still, employment survey results seem never to match the employment data [Econintersect].

Consumer Sentiment, September 2016: showing strength, above consensus [Econoday]. The expectations component leads the report, up 4 points in the month to 82.7 and specifically reflecting confidence among higher income households. But: Up slightly, no evidence of upward trend [Econintersect].

Rail: It does appear that the downward slide in the one year rolling averages will pause shortly as the rate of increase in the rate of decline is becoming smaller [Econintersect].

The Banks: The countries where cash is on the verge of extinction (Scandinavia and the Netherlands) [BBC]. Swedish banks, he says, profit handsomely from charging transaction fees to retailers for card payments, amounting to millions of kronas annually for the banks, whereas there is no revenue generated on cash. This leaves banks little incentive to accept currency. So going without cash is safer and cleaner only if you believe that rental extraction by the banks is safe and clean.

Supply Chain: Edward Humes has four basic themes within his book, Door to Door [DC Velocity].

Our everyday products have gigantic transportation footprints; As a result, every part of our transportation system is terribly congested; Increasingly sophisticated application of information technology is our only path around this congestion; and Failure to make significant investments in our transportation infrastructure could be perilous.

Shipping: Air cargo demand improved again in August, which while failing to impress, is better than growth in the first part of the year [Air Cargo News].

Shipping: Rolls Royce along with the government of Finland has announced that they would have the technology available to operate autonomous ships by 2025. Although this is still nine years away, a shift like this can fundamentally change shipping as we know it today. With technology, this means that even the largest most complex cargo vessels could operate with much smaller crews (or no crew at all) within a decade [DC Velocity]. t is clear that new regulations must be developed and created and a flag state that swiftly moves can offer greater incentives to owners that embrace this technology.

Shipping: Global shipping lines are under new scrutiny over price-fixing. South Africas Competition Commission is investigating some of the worlds biggest container shipping operators and using information from raids on the carriers local offices. The operators targeted are the South African units of Germanys Hamburg Sud, Denmarks Maersk Line, Geneva-based Mediterranean Shipping Company, Frances CMA CGM Shipping and Safmarine, a Maersk subsidiary [Wall Street Journal].

Shipping: There are now 15 major global carriers, down from 20 five years ago. When this phase of container shipping is over, its likely the number of global carriers will be in single figures [Splash247].

Fodder for the Bulls: The Merrill Lynch team feels a production cut in November could push OPEC market share to non-OPEC producers, especially those in the U.S. shales, and that in turn could be big for oilfield services [247 Wall Street].

Honey for the Bears: Weakening supply-demand dynamics have pushed down [Revenue Per Available Room] growth across all chain scales [Hotel News Notes]. Welcome to the future. The times of continued occupancy declines are here. This is what we have talked about, warned about and fretted about.

Crooks: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently announced that casino-gaming company International Game Technology PLC (NYSE: IGT) has agreed to pay a half-million dollar penalty for firing an employee with several years of positive performance reviews because he reported to senior management and the SEC that the companys financial statements might be distorted [247 Wall Street]. The SECs second whistleblower retaliation case since the Dodd-Frank Act authorized it to bring such charges.

Crooks: Shares of embattled German banking giant Deutsche Bank AG were up as much as 14% this morning, following reports that the company is close to a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice [ETF Daily News].

Crooks: If youd prefer not to repeat 2008, heres a suggestion. Write, email, call and  the next time he or she is in town  confront your representative in Congress and demand that Bill Black be appointed to make cases against corrupt bankers until enough of them go to prison to get the rest to act lawfully [David Cay Johnston, Investopedia]. Nice shout-out!

Todays Fear & Greed Index: 45 Neutral (previous close: 38, Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 55 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Sep 30 at 11:38am.

Black Injustice Tipping Point

Share of mortgages going to blacks has tumbled nearly 40% from the peak [MarketWatch]. African-Americans accounted for 8.7% of all home purchase loans in 2006, according to data out Thursday from the Federal Reserve. In 2015, they made up 5.5%. Thats a 37% decline. Whats more, African-Americans overwhelmingly rely on mortgages that are backed by the government, noted the Center for Responsible Lending in a statement Friday. Some 70.2% of African-American borrowers were government-backed, nearly double the share of such loans to white borrowers.

Class Warfare

The decline of the middle class is causing even more economic damage than we realized (from this IMF study) [Larry Summers, WaPo]. [P]olarization has reduced consumer spending by more than 3 percent or about $400 billion annually. If these findings stand up to scrutiny, they deserve to have a policy impact. This level of reduction in spending is huge. For example, it exceeds by a significant margin the impact in any year of the Obama stimulus program. Principally, it is the macroeconomic importance of supporting middle class incomes. As if middle class were an analytical, as opposed to a political or even a marketing term.

90 Cents of Every Pay-for-Performance Dollar are Paid for Luck [The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation] (original). Employee stock options may very well be a desirable component of executive compensation. This paper shows that the standard form of option compensation, with non-indexed at-the-money options, is very far from optimal, though, as its pay-for-luck component is in the ballpark of 90%, and its motivational power is rather low. Why are such options the standard practice? A possible answer is provided by the skimming view of Bebchuk and Fried (2009). If skimming means what I think it means.

[H]ome health aides have formed worker-owned cooperatives. Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA), based in the Bronx, and Home Care Associates (HCA) of Philadelphia are both affiliates of PHI, which advocates on behalf of the workforce more generally. Both provide training and support, as well as employment at decent wages [Nonprofit Quarterly].

News of the Wired

Microsoft says it has formed a new 5,000-person engineering and research team to focus on its artificial intelligence products  a major reshaping of the companys internal structure reminiscent of its massive pivot to pursue the opportunity of the Internet in the mid-1990s [GeekWire].

* * *

Readers, feel free to contact me with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. And heres todays plant:

From the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Oddly spiky for Maine!

Readers, yellow waders dont come cheap. Please use the dropdown to choose your contribution, and then click the hat! Your tip will be welcome today, and indeed any day. Water Cooler will not exist without your continued help.

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Yves here. Note that Robert Parry also has serious doubts about the latest MH17 report.

By John Helmer, the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears

You dont need to be an expert in ground-to-air warfare, radar, missile ordnance, or forensic criminology to understand the three fundamental requirements for prosecuting people for crimes. The first is proof of intention to do what happened. The second is proof of what could not have happened amounts to proof that it didnt happen. The third is proof beyond reasonable doubt.

These are not, repeat not, the principles of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), a team of police, prosecutors, and spies from The Netherlands, Ukraine, Malaysia, Belgium, and Australia. They have committed themselves to proving that a chain of Russian military command intended to shoot down and was criminally responsible for the destruction of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014, and for the deaths of all 298 people on board. The JIT case for Russian culpability hinges on five elements occurring in sequence  that a BUK missile was launched to the east of the aircraft, and approached it head-on, before exploding on the port (left) side of the cockpit.

Pause, rewind, then reread slowly in order to identify the elements of intention, causation, and culpability: (1) the BUK missile was aimed with a target acquisition radar by operators inside a BUK vehicle at a target flying in the sky and ordered to fire; (2) they fired from their vehicle parked on the ground facing east towards the aircrafts approach; (3) the missile flew west and upwards to a height of 10,060 metres; (4) the warhead detonated; (5) the blast and the shrapnel tore the cockpit from the main fuselage; destroyed one of the aircraft engines; and caused the aircraft to catch fire, fall to the ground in pieces, and kill everyone.

On Wednesday afternoon, in the small Dutch town of Nieuwegein, two Dutchmen, one a prosecutor, one a policeman, claimed they have proof that this is what happened. For details of the proof they provided the worlds press, read this. Later the same day, in Moscow, a presentation by two Russians from the Almaz-Antei missile group, one a missile ordnance expert, the other a radar expert, presented their proof of what could not have happened. Click to watch.

The enemies of Russia accept the Dutch proof and ignore the Russian proof. As Wilbert Paulissen, the Dutch policeman, claimed during the JIT briefing, the absence of evidence does not prove [the BUK missile] was not there.

Paulissen may be right. To prove hes right all he has to do is to fill in the gap between the JIT version of what happened and the Russian version of what could not have happened by answering these questions. To convince a court and jury, Paulissens answers to these questions must be beyond reasonable doubt.



Question 1. In the old models of the BUK missile system, a separate target acquisition radar (TAR) accompanied the firing unit into action. That TAR vehicle could rotate its radar antenna through 360 degrees; it looked like this:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HQLh-HKaz8

The newest models of the Buk system have incorporated the target acquisition radar on board, and the vehicle is called a transporter erector launcher and radar (TELAR). This radar can be seen in the grey box attached to the front of the turret. Unlike the old TAR, though, the antenna in the grey box has a relatively narrow 120-degree focus unless the entire turret is rotated. The JITs evidence and animations (below, left) indicate a TELAR. In the JIT claims of the convoy and route travelled by the BUK to and from the alleged firing point, there is no sign of a TAR vehicle.



The BUK self-propelled missile launcher with onboard target acquisition radar (box in front)  left, JIT animation; right, a real Russian TELAR.

How then can the BUK which the JIT has now pinpointed in a field at the village of Pervomayskiy, near the small town of Snizhne, have aimed east to west, head-on towards the MH17, and fired with the intention of bringing down the approaching aircraft? Why that target, and not the other two targets, also civil aircraft flying above 10,000 metres within a few minutes of each other and within firing range? Why target an aircraft flying so high, at a constant, level altitude? What evidence is there in the JIT presentation that the BUK and about one hundred men the Dutch claim to have been involved knew what they were aiming at and intended the result which occurred? A Russian military source asks: did the BUK operators know where to direct their radar antenna? A 120-degree angle is not very large for target interception.

Question 2. For the BUK missile the JIT claims to have been fired from a position to the east of the aircraft, the missile must have been visible to the pilots in the cockpit as it approached the cockpit window in clear sky. How then can the JIT explain the lack of a record from the cockpits voice recorder (CVR) that the pilots saw anything? Between the last pilot voice contact with Dniepropetrovsk Air Traffic Control, and the destruction of the aircraft, there were four seconds on the CVR tape.

Repeat: IT TAKES FOUR REGULAR SECONDS TO READ THIS ALOUD. Did you see the nine words? Did you have time to say them aloud?

The CVR tape from the MH17 cockpit has not been released publicly. However, the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) reports of last year say the last 4 seconds are soundless; not even the pilots breathing can be heard. The evidence can be followed here. How does the JIT explain the missile trajectory if it was not seen by the pilots?

Also, the JIT revealed on September 28 for the first time that the Ukraine has released its air traffic control tapes and communications for JIT analysis. Do the Ukrainian audio and radar tapes provide evidence that someone on the ground spotted the approaching missile during the 4 seconds the pilots in the MH17 cockpit saw, heard, said nothing? If the Ukrainian tapes are as silent as the cockpit voice recorder, then there is proof  nothing could have approached MH17 head-on from a firing position to the east.

Question 3. When a BUK warhead explodes, it releases about 7,800 metal fragments or shrapnel.

Source: JIT presentation of NATO test-firing of BUK warhead in Finland -- https://www.om.nl/onderwerpen/mh17-vliegramp/presentaties/presentation-joint/

Unique to the BUK warhead, according to the Dutch investigations, as well as to the missile manufacturer Almaz-Antei, is a piece of metal shaped like a bowtie or butterfly. About one-third of the BUK warheads shrapnel  thats about 2,600 pieces of metal  is bowtie or butterfly-shaped. Another third of the shrapnel is cube-shaped. According to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) papers issued in October 2015, 20 pieces of shrapnel were recovered, including 2 bowties and 2 cubes

BUK WARHEAD SHRAPNEL  BOWTIES AND CUBES

DUTCH SAFETY BOARD INVENTORY AND ANALYSIS OF MISSILE SHRAPNEL

Source: http://cdn.onderzoeksraad.nl/documents/report-mh17-crash-en.pdf-- page 92

For more details, read this.

The spread or spray of the shrapnel after detonation is not more than 60 degrees. From mapping this spread from the impacts of metal fragments on aircraft panels it is possible to determine the angle of the missile to the aircraft at detonation. This in turn allows the tracking of the missiles approach trajectory and the firing position on the ground. Testing warhead detonation against aircraft panels will also reveal the number and type of shrapnel impacts which ought to be registered if the missile and warhead types have been correctly identified.

According to the latest JIT report this week, the number of bowties and cubes has dwindled from four identified in last Octobers Dutch Safety Board (DSB) report to two, one of each shape. How and why did the other two pieces of evidence disappear in The Netherlands over the past twelve months? How does the JIT explain there was no shrapnel at all in the bodies of the 295 people, crew and passengers, who were behind the cockpit, in the main cabin of the aircraft?

According to Mikhail Malishevsky, the Almaz-Antei briefer in Moscow yesterday, test-bed detonations of the BUK missile at the port position, 1.5 metres from the cockpit, where the Dutch claim the missile detonated, show many more impact holes and evidence of bowties than the Dutch report they have recovered. Malishevsky records that in the Dutch analysis reported last year the shrapnel impacts had an average concentration of 80 per square metre. He says the Dutch are now reporting an average concentration of 250 per square metre, but with fewer of the BUK warheads characteristic bowties.

The discrepancy in shrapnel count is so large, Malishevsky draws two conclusions  that it was impossible for the missile to have approached from the east and struck head-on; and that the only trajectory consistent with the MH17 shrapnel damage pattern was one in which the missile flew parallel to the aircraft before exploding, and approached from the south, not from the east.



The hypothesis of a missile hitting the plane head-on was not credible. There is no way to explain the lack of fragments [shrapnel] as per the Dutch 3D model Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbIPo8dW9b0 -- minute 20:51.

Question 4. This is the question of who can tell their left hand from their right; north on the compass from south; port engine from starboard engine. The Boeing 777 operated as Flight MH17 was powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engines.

The JIT presentation doesnt address the difference in impact evidence between the two engines as they were found on the ground. The Russian presentation makes this an important source of evidence for proving which side of the aircraft was struck by the warhead. The Russian presentation also distinguishes between simulation models of what happened  a Dutch model, as reported by the DSB reports last October and the JIT report this week; a Russian model, as reported by Almaz-Antei  and the actual evidence of the aircraft parts recovered from eastern Ukraine and reassembled at a military base in The Netherlands.

In distinguishing the detonation impacts on the two engines, Malishevsky refers in his presentation to the right and left engines. This is not intended to mislead, but it is confusing. Malishevsky means the right and left sides as he and his audience face the picture. So the MH17s port engine is the right-side engine in Malishevskys presentation; it is relatively undamaged. By contrast, the MH17s starboard engine is on the left side as Malishevsky refers to it.



H17s port engine MH17s starboard engine

The key claim from the Russian side is that for the engine to be as damaged as it was, the warhead must have detonated on the starboard side. And for that to be the outcome, the missile must have approached MH17, and been fired, from the south.

So the question for Dutch prosecutor Fred Westerbeke (lead image, left) and Dutch policeman Paulissen, along with the 100 members of the JIT staff, is which engine is which in their evidence? Why does it appear that the MH17s port engine  left-side looking forward, compass north for the plane flying east  not impacted by warhead blast or shrapnel? Why are there shrapnel hits on the starboard engine (right-side looking forward , compass south) and why was it deformed so differently? Why has the JIT omitted to analyse the engine positions and report this evidence?

A summary of these questions and the answers so far can be plotted on the map of the crash area.

KEY

Red line - MH 17.

Blue line  firing point at Snizhne (in Russian Snezhnoe), according to the JIT version.

Green line  firing point at Zaroshchenskoe (misspelled in the map), according to Almaz-Antei version.

Source: http://www.novayagazeta.ru/inquests/68376.html

Topographically, between Snizhne (Snezhnoe) in the east and Zaroshchenskoe to the southwest, there is a distance of less than 25 kilometres. Politically, between them as suspected missile-firing sites there is all the difference in the world
Reflective Camouflage: The Mirror Spider is Covered in Controllable Reflective Patches Core77 (resilc). This is cool.

Dogs ignore bad advice that humans follow ScienceBlog (furzy)

Hundreds of new dams could mean trouble for our climate Science (Dr. Kevin)

First it was Samsung phones. Now its exploding Samsung washing machines Washington Post (Dan K)

Brexit

Make no mistake, Britain is not a world-beating economy Martin Wolf, Financial Times

Mays Real Opposition Lies in Tory Ranks as Brexit Splits Emerge Bloomberg

Sadiq Khan confirms London work permit plans to stop post-Brexit exodus Standard. Huh? The issue is that UK-domiciled individuals will face restrictions on selling products into the EU. This is not something the UK can solve unilaterally, and the EU countries have no reason to play ball. Anglo-style finance has not been their friend, and to the extent they have it, they first want to favor domestic champions and second increase employment in their countries. Nothing in this fantasy changes the incentives of EU members to take as much out of London as they can.

Liam Fox looks to WTO in hint at hard Brexit stance Guardian (MCC). More Brexit fantasies. The WTO is not a default; it has to be negotiated and that takes years, well over five and easily ten.

Ken Clarke: Theresa May has no idea what to do about Brexit New Statesman. Deadly.

What does hard or soft Brexit mean? BBC. Vlade:

Looks more and more like UK govt is in a gambling mood. [] initial goal once Britain has left the EU, another option is to apply to grandfather the present trade arrangements with Europe (that is the free movement of goods, services and capital) and then see what the EUs response is.

Would EU member states really start applying tariffs unilaterally, the question in Whitehall is asked, in the knowledge that the UK would respond in kind.

a) its not about tariffs (which they still dont seem to get)

b) its not about EU member states, its about EU rules. The guys at the borders would have no choice but to stop the UK shipments and run them through the normal non-EU goods procedures.

c) basically they are betting that EU would allow en-masse breakage of rules because of the UK  because if the rules-of-origin, rules-and-regulations compliance go out of window for UK trade, then anyone can use this lever.

So the govt its a bit like Nazis taking small steps in Europe, betting that no-one is willing to compromise (trade) peace even if it means throwing all sorts of rules and laws under the bus. What the UK govt still fails to understand is that yes, the UK is an important trade partner for EU, but EU is VITAL trade partner for the UK (as in when 40% of your exports stop overnight, your economy dies).

I cringe at the idiocy of the people in power.

and d) They seem to truly believe that negotiations are best conducted by putting a knife at someones throat.

Im afraid they will find their knife is made of rubber, and that that someone is a 500 pound gorilla with a steel bicycle chain in hand.
In a not-exactly-shocking development of the ongoing Wells Fargo account faking scandal (see our previous coverage here, here and here if youre late to the party and need a quick catch-up) CEO John Stumpf, fighting a rear-guard action, is making outlandish claims about how, having begun the process of contacting customers who it has cause to believe may have either been mis-sold a product  or even not sold one at all and merely had an account opened without their knowledge on the back of faked paperwork and signatures  Wells is starting to conclude that only a relatively small minority of the cases they have reviewed have shown there was anything amiss.

According to Stumpfs statement Wells Fargo has talked to 20,000 customers about their credit card product, but only 25% said they didnt want a credit card or dont recall asking for one. From the New York Times:

Wells Fargo has said it is contacting all of the customers who may have been affected. So far, the bank has contacted 20,000 customers with questionable credit cards. About a quarter of them have said that they did not apply for the card or could not remember if they had, Mr. Stumpf said at the hearing.

Stumpf brought up his outreach results at every possible juncture, to argue that the fake sales numbers from the earlier investigation were overly high estimates and the majority of customers had wanted the products.

So that just goes to prove that all is just fine and dandy then? No, anything but. There are two main problems with Wells tale of hearing no evil from its customers and contending that there is no evil to be seen.

Firstly, while the claim is that only 25% of customers who were contacted might need further follow-up because there is strong evidence of a fake account, this figure is definitely going to be an underreporting of the true proportion.

Theres nothing especially wrong with the premise  the trigger criterion being a customer stating that they did not want a Wells Fargo brand credit card, or had received one but hadnt applied for it  because this is pretty conclusive that there was something seriously wrong with the sales process which generated the account opening. It is though tantamount to admitting to the lack of any waterproofing of what the employees of Wells Fargo had got up to by routinely sampling a percentage of claimed sales. The UKs Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regards monitoring of sales data as a basic foundation of any compliance checking. The present customer call-up is in essence a catching up on that activity, which Wells Fargo had failed to do contemporaneously with the sales being claimed.

But the real problem for regulators and lawmakers is that they will likely lack the level of subject matter expertise to challenge sophisticated and mercenary financial service industry players such as Wells Fargo and put the results being claimed by Wells into their proper context. Those running investigations into the Wells Fargo scandal would probably not think to check just how high the level of churn in this type of product (credit cards) is. According to the FCA, each year around 14% of customers with a credit card take out a new one. The figures for the US market are almost certainly higher, because there is less consumer protection around oversolicitation. Brand loyalty for credit card products is the lowest of any retail financial service. Customers, regardless of credit-worthiness, are constantly plied with new products with features like teaser offers, reward gimmickry and other similar a-la-carte product design such as fee waivers, insurance-add-ons or payment holidays.

This means that, if asked, many customers would be hard pressed to remember, for any particular brand of credit card, whether they had in fact ever applied for one or, if they hadnt applied for a credit card product from that financial services provider, whether theyd received a card and had an account opened without their asking for it. No-one ever likes to admit they are disorganised in their own financial affairs but a combination of time stress and low prioritisation means the average person has a high probability of not being fully aware of precisely what products they hold and with which provider. So asking this sort of customer base to self-report and expecting to receive accurate results is doomed to failure.

Bad though that failing of investigative methodology is, the second glaringly obvious shortcoming is that the wrongdoer, Wells Fargo, is investigating its own wrongdoing by having its own staff call up their customers and, if were to believe Stumpf, asking for those customers to identify any issues they are aware of. Foxes are not traditionally put in charge of guarding henhouses.

Frankly, Wells Fargo has no business being involved in any investigations into the fake account opening. It is incentivised and motivated to apply the same varieties of inducements to the sales review call-handling teams contacting the customers to not find anything suspect with the credit card accounts that it applied to the sales staff who faked the sales in the first place.

Even if, due to the difficulties in any external party being able to get the required data and resource up an operation to undertake the sales reviews which Wells Fargo is performing and there isnt any reasonably practicable option to have the review done by a genuinely neutral third party, there absolutely has to be monitoring of Wells customer contact initiative. This is not difficult to put in place. Call centres are industrialised operations and the ability to monitor their activities or agent behaviour is similarly automated and mature.

In order to have even a shred of credibility, Wells Fargo should publish, alongside the promoted headlines about only 25% of card accounts might be suspect figure, full details of exactly what incentive scheme is in place for the team contacting customers alongside the approach it is using for employee performance management. If the call-handling teams are subject to carrots and sticks being wielded by Wells management, Wells Fargo should fess up to exactly what those carrots and sticks look like.

And Wells should also publish the guidance it gives to the call handlers, supervisors and managers about call quality. What, from Wells Fargos standard procedures for those making the review calls, constitutes a high quality call? If, as is usual, there is a call script, what does the script say? For bonus points (no pun intended), Wells could also state if they collect Management Information  at an individual employee or team level  about the percentage of customers who did and did not report a problem and then look for spikes in particular employees or teams. Thats a good way to tell if anyone or any group within Wells Fargo is trying to play the system and achieve particular outcomes, for whatever reason.

Without this context, any figures bandied about from Wells Fargos already shop-soiled CEO lacks the credibility which the bank needs to even begin to restore its reputation.
Nanosensors could help determine tumors' ability to remodel tissue (Nanowerk News) MIT researchers have designed nanosensors that can profile tumors and may yield insight into how they will respond to certain therapies. The system is based on levels of enzymes called proteases, which cancer cells use to remodel their surroundings.

Once adapted for humans, this type of sensor could be used to determine how aggressive a tumor is and help doctors choose the best treatment, says Sangeeta Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a member of MITs Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

This approach is exciting because people are developing therapies that are protease-activated, Bhatia says. Ideally youd like to be able to stratify patients based on their protease activity and identify which ones would be good candidates for these therapies.

Once injected into the tumor site, the nanosensors are activated by a magnetic field that is harmless to healthy tissue. After interacting with and being modified by the target tumor proteins, the sensors are secreted in the urine, where they can be easily detected in less than an hour.

MIT researchers have designed nanosensors that can profile tumors and may yield insight into how they will respond to certain therapies. (Illustration: Christine Daniloff/MIT)

Bhatia and Polina Anikeeva, the Class of 1942 Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, are the senior authors of the paper, which appears in the journal Nano Letters ("Magnetically Actuated Protease Sensors for in Vivo Tumor Profiling"). The papers lead authors are Koch Institute postdoc Simone Schurle and graduate student Jaideep Dudani.

Heat and release

Tumors, especially aggressive ones, often have elevated protease levels. These enzymes help tumors spread by cleaving proteins that compose the extracellular matrix, which normally surrounds cells and holds them in place.

In 2014, Bhatia and colleagues reported using nanoparticles that interact with a type of protease known as matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) to diagnose cancer. In that study, the researchers delivered nanoparticles carrying peptides, or short protein fragments, designed to be cleaved by the MMPs. If MMPs were present, hundreds of cleaved peptides would be excreted in the urine, where they could be detected with a simple paper test similar to a pregnancy test.

In the new study, the researchers wanted to adapt the sensors so that they could report on the traits of tumors in a known location. To do that, they needed to ensure that the sensors were only producing a signal from the target organ, unaffected by background signals that might be produced in the bloodstream. They first designed sensors that could be activated with light once they reached their target. That required the use of ultraviolet light, however, which doesnt penetrate very far into tissue.

We started thinking about what kinds of energy we might use that could penetrate further into the body, says Bhatia, who is also a member of MITs Institute for Medical Engineering and Science.

To achieve that, Bhatia teamed up with Anikeeva, who specializes in using magnetic fields to remotely activate materials. The researchers decided to encapsulate Bhatias protease-sensing nanoparticles along with magnetic particles that heat up when exposed to an alternating magnetic field. The field is produced by a small magnetic coil that changes polarity some half million times per second.

The heat-sensitive material that encapsulates the particles disintegrates as the magnetic particles heat up, allowing the protease sensors to be released. However, the particles do not produce enough heat to damage nearby tissue.

It has been challenging to examine tumor-specific protease activities from patients biofluids because these proteases are also present in blood and other organs, says Ji Ho (Joe) Park, an associate professor of bio and brain engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

The strength of this work is the magnetothermally responsive protease nanosensors with spatiotemporal controllability, says Park, who was not involved in the research. With these nanosensors, the MIT researchers could assay protease activities involved more in tumor progression by reducing off-target activation significantly.

Choosing treatments

In a study of mice, the researchers showed that they could use these particles to correctly profile different types of colon tumors based on how much protease they produce.

Cancer treatments based on proteases, now in clinical trials, consist of antibodies that target a tumor protein but have veils that prevent them from being activated before reaching the tumor. The veils are cleaved by proteases, so this therapy would be most effective for patients with high protease levels.

The MIT team is also exploring using this type of sensor to image cancerous lesions that spread to the liver from other organs. Surgically removing such lesions works best if there are fewer than four, so measuring them could help doctors choose the best treatment.
Find the newest releases to watch from National Geographic on Disney+, including favourite documentary series and films Free Solo, The Rescue, Shark Beach with Chris Hemsworth and The World According to Jeff Goldblum.
CALIFORNIA

EMERYVILLE

National Mortgage Insurance Corp., a subsidiary of NMI Holdings Inc., said that Claudia Merkle has been named chief operating officer.

With more than 25 years of experience in the mortgage industry, Merkle has been with National MI since the company's inception in 2012 when she joined as senior vice president, underwriting and risk operations.

In 2013, she was promoted to executive vice president, insurance operations, and in 2015 assumed the additional responsibilities of managing National MI's sales and marketing functions.

IRVINE

Auction.com has hired Patrick McClain as senior vice president of auction portfolio operations.

McClain comes to Auction.com with almost 20 years of experience working in the asset management field.

He previously served as senior vice president at Atlas Nationwide, where he oversaw asset management services including marketing, preservation and maintenance, refurbishment, title and eviction/relocation assistance.

McClain also served as a senior vice president at GMAC Mortgage, where he was responsible for management of the company's Enterprise REO group.

MICHIGAN

TROY

Don Klein has joined Flagstar Bank as senior vice president of business development for its subservicing unit.

He brings to Flagstar 25 years of experience in the mortgage industry.

Klein started his career at PMI Mortgage Insurance Co., in Walnut Creek, Calif., where he held a variety of positions over 20 years.

Most recently, he was with Ocwen Financial Corp., in West Palm Beach, Fla., serving as director of business development.

NEBRASKA

OMAHA

Mutual of Omaha Mortgage has named Andy Herold Nebraska branch manager.

In this role, he will manage the origination of mortgage loans within the Nebraska branch and be responsible for staffing and training of Nebraska branch personnel.

Herold is a 16-year veteran of the banking and mortgage industry.

NEW YORK

NEW YORK

Greystone said that Joseph Stepchuk has been named a managing director.

Stepchuk joins the firm from Fannie Mae, where he served as director for the past 10 years overseeing multifamily loan production. At Greystone, he will support its conventional business with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Prior to Fannie Mae, Stepchuk served roles as both senior underwriter and manager of loan servicing at GMAC Commercial Mortgage (now Berkadia).

Are you a mortgage professional who recently changed jobs? Let us know! Send your announcement and photo (if available) to Glenn McCullom at glenn.mccullom@sourcemedia.com.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg joined world leaders and people across Israel in honouring the life of former Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem on Friday (30 September 2016). Offering condolences to Peres family and friends, the Secretary General said that Shimon Peres lived the history of Israel and shaped the Middle East.

NATO Secreatry General Jens stoltenberg meeting the President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin on the margins of the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres
'Barbaric' experiments

Science or fiction?

(NaturalNews) An Italian doctor claims that he can transfer human consciousness to a new body by transplanting a head onto a new body. This could hypothetically prolong the lives of people whose bodies are ravaged by diseases that cannot be cured.The desire to achieve immortality with medicine stretches back centuries, and the idea of a whole-body transplant in particular has been raised as a serious suggestion as far back as the 1960s. But many very real scientific and medical hurdles remain to be addressed before heads are likely to become just another organ to be transplanted.Interest in disconnecting the brain from the body stems back at least to the French Revolution, when observers noticed signs of consciousness in heads that had been severed by guillotine. Speculation that the brain might continue to function after being separated from the body has been fueled by research into out-of-body experiences and similar phenomena.But the scientist who probably did the most to promote the idea of prolonging life through head transplants was Dr. Robert White, who died in 2010. White's most (in)famous experiment consisted of transplanting the head from one monkey onto the body of another. Because the transplant left the cranial nerves untouched and reconnected the old head to the new circulatory system, the monkey's head was still able to perceive its surroundings, eat, follow objects with its eyes, and bite the hands of the scientists that had tortured it. But because the spinal nerves in the body had been severed, the new body was paralyzed.Immune rejection caused the monkey to die within nine days. Critics condemned the experiments as "barbaric."But White remained convinced that his monkey experiments were the first step in performing similar transplants on human beings. He argued that for a quadriplegic with a terminal disease, such a transplant would provide only benefits."I have no doubt this treatment will be available in the public arena within the next 25 to 30 years," he said in a 1998 interview. "There will be a lot of ethical and moral arguments, but I think they are inappropriate."What we are trying to do here is to prolong life . The human spirit or soul is within the physical structure of the brain. I don't think it's in your left arm or anywhere else."White was convinced of this latter point, despite a lack of scientific evidence for such a bold assertion. As early as 1974, he wrote, "Science has reached the threshold where human consciousness can be transferred provided the organ which supervenes this characteristic is maintained."Since White's death, his ideas have been championed primarily by an Italian neurosurgeon named Sergio Canavero, who made headlines last year when he announced his intention to perform a human head transplant by the end of 2017. He laid out a detailed proposal for a 36-hour surgery to fuse the head of a person with a debilitating disease to the body of a brain-dead donor. The head and spinal cord would be lowered to below 20C, allowing just one hour for surgeons to remove both the old heads and reconnect the living head to the new spinal cord and blood vessels.Yet there is no evidence that a head could survive even for an hour disconnected from its body, even at such low temperatures. In fact, in animal studies two separate spines severed at the neck have never been successfully fused in such a way as to allow muscle control.The problems of immune rejection (which is common even with hand transplants) and immune-system-produced scarring of nerve tissue (glial scars) are not addressed in Canavero's proposal. It is also unclear whether it is even possible for a brain to rewire to control an entirely new body.
(NaturalNews) Could LED lights be hazardous to your health? Well, it certainly seems like they might be. The American Medical Association (AMA) has just issued a warning that high-intensity LED streetlights emit blue light  which cannot be seen. Blue light is known for disrupting sleeping patterns, and can possibly increase the risks of a number of serious health conditions, including cancer and cardiovascular disease.These concerns about the potential health risks of LED lights are not unfamiliar; similar questions have been raised over the last few years. But, the AMA's report provides much needed support to these claims. Their findings may even inspire cities and states to reevaluate the intensity of the light-emitting diodes they install, especially following the AMA's discovery that bright LED lights can actually impair nighttime vision for some drivers.A report prepared by the Department of Energy last year revealed that almost 13 percent of streetlights and other roadway lighting relied on LEDs. However, many communities that have not changed over to LED lights plan on doing so, thanks to their superb energy efficiency. Light-emitting diodes are up to 50 percent more energy efficient than the standard high-pressure sodium lights they so often replace. LEDs also boast a substantially longer lifespan, lasting 15 to 20 years on average. Their predecessors, with their iconic yellow-orange glow, typically only last for a maximum of five years. Sodium lights are also not capable of dispersing light as evenly or efficiently as their new competitor.Unsurprisingly, many cities are insistent that the health concerns associated with high-intensity LEDs are not strong enough to overshadow the benefits of these lights . There is money to be saved, so why worry about the consequences, right?Among the cities that have put the first-generation bright LED lights to use in the last three to eight years is New York. While they too agree that the benefits far outweigh any currently perceived health risks, officials have responded to resident complaints by providing a lower-intensity replacement for the high-intensity LED bulbs.In Washington state, Scott Thomsen, a spokesman for Seattle City Lights has dismissed the concerns over the risks of these "high-intensity" bulbs entirely. Thomsen claims that the LEDs emit a smaller amount of the problematic blue light than most televisions and computers. Of course, a key flaw with that argument is that those devices can actually be turned off, whereas people cannot simply turn off a streetlight that is keeping them awake at night.Regardless, the advent of outdoor LEDs has led to a surge in their popularity. The federal government itself urged states to implement them as an energy efficient solution. Critics believe that the federal government provided their endorsement far too quickly and should have waited for more testing to be done. Certainly, if past actions are any indication, it would seem that our nation's government agencies do tend to act too quickly when it comes to harmful products, and not quickly enough on things that may actually be good for us.Michael Siminovitch, director of the California Lighting Technology Center at the University of California at Davis, toldthat the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency put concerted effort into getting states interested in LEDs . He also commented that the light from these high-intensity diodes "really negatively impacts people's physiological well-being. "Mr. Siminovitch went on to say that, "As a species, we weren't designed to see light at night."Because of this, the blue light from high-intensity LEDs may interfere with melatonin production. Melatonin is key to the balance of our sleep-wake cycles. The AMA made note of this in their warning, citing numerous studies that have linked bright light to reduced sleep, poor sleep quality and impaired function during waking hours. The warning also noted several studies which indicated that cancer , diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity risks could be increased by exposure to high-intensity light at night.The AMA is urging cities to use a maximum light temperature (frequency) of 3,000K, instead of the 4,000K and 5,000K LED lights that were initially made available.
The evidence won't go away

Send a message to Washington: 'Acknowledge the problem or we will vote you out'

(NaturalNews) In the upcoming November elections, every one of the 435 members of the House of Representatives  along with 34 members of the Senate  will be up for re-election.The Autism Action Network wishes to remind everyone that this is the perfect opportunity to apply pressure to our so-called leaders in Washington to begin addressing the issues regarding the causes of autism , and what can be done in terms of prevention and treatment.With the notable exception of Florida Congressman Bill Posey, our elected representatives have done little or nothing to investigate the epidemic or take any meaningful action towards resolving it.The Autism Action Network is urging voters to contact congressmen from their states and ask them:"What have you done since the last election in your capacity as a member of Congress to help find the causes of autism, develop effective prevention and treatment, improve educational outcomes, and improve the lives of people with autism. Please be specific."Consumer healthcare researcheris also asking citizens to send the following question to the presidential candidates:"What will you do, if elected into office, to investigate and to stop the fraud and collusion regarding vaccine research, plus the dissemination of fraudulent vaccine science and data by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration?"Frompovich recommends referring anyone asking for proof of the fraud to the following video:Those with questions should also be urged to watch the documentary Vaxxed The evidence continues to mount regarding the CDC and FDA's collusion with the vaccine industry to hide the truth concerning the link between childhood vaccines and the increasing incidence of autism in America.In fact, the CDC has ignored the results of 165 studies showing that the thimerosal (mercury) added to vaccines as a preservative is harmful and does indeed increase the risk of autism.Even one study conducted by the CDC's own epidemiologists showed a "7.6-fold elevated relative risk of autism from exposure to thimerosal during infancy."But the CDC's current stance on thimerosal is based on only six specific studies it coauthored and sponsored  studies which, according to research published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) were "flawed," and in direct contradiction of more than 75 years ofAnd, as Congressman Posey relates in the above video, whistleblower, has revealed that the CDC actually instructed its own researchers to omit evidence of the link between thimerosal and autism in one of the agency's studies.The only feasible explanation for this is that the CDC is attempting to protect the multi-billion dollar vaccine industry.The documentaryexplores this story in detail, which is obviously why so much effort was put into preventing its widespread distribution and its inclusion in the lineup of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.Even though the CDC, FDA and vaccine industry shills continue to claim that thimerosal is safe, the evidence of the truth is becoming harder to suppress; too many experts and whistleblowers have come forward at this point to allow the secret to be hidden any longer.But so far, our elected leaders in Washington have refused to acknowledge the facts.That's why it's so important  on the eve of the next elections  to let them know that we demand areview of the issue, along with the taking of necessary actions, or else we will use our votes to throw them out of office.Too many children have already suffered from the effects of vaccine poisoning; we cannot allow this to continue any longer.
Replace facts and truth with propaganda

Socialism equals economic collapse and authoritarianism

(NaturalNews) With each passing day the world learns something new and horrifying about the slow, steady economic decline and implosion of socialist Venezuela, and yet its leader, Nicolas Maduro, remains committed to the "revolution" that is destroying that once-vibrant South American oil producer.Now, as reported by, pictures released recently by the country's political opposition show something you'd never expect to see in a modern hospital nursery: images of newborn babies sleeping in cardboard boxes, all lined up on a counter.According to the opposition group, a hospital employee took the photos and passed them along.The group claims that the images were taken at a government-run facility, Domingo Guzman Lander Hospital located in the coastal city of Barcelona, about 195 miles east of the capital of Caracas. Whilereported that it has so far been unable to verify the veracity of the photos, and it isn't clear when they were taken, they certainly fit the image of whatknown about Venezuela these days: Economically speaking, it's nearly broke, and its people are suffering from a lack of jobs, a lack of opportunities and a lack of food Mesa de la Unidad Democratica, the coalition of opposition organizations that turned over the photos, noted that putting babies in boxes is another example of how the country's healthcare system is collapsing Officially, authorities are investigating the photos and the claims, according to the government bureaucrat who oversees the Barcelona hospital and other government-run healthcare facilities around the country."We in no way justify the actions taken," Venezuelan Social Security Institute president Carlos Rotondaro said on Twitter in recent days. That said, he also defended the government's healthcare system and, as always, blamed the poor conditions on someone else."Our hospitals take care of hundreds of patients, despite what some media are hiding. We recognize the failures and continue," he wrote.Shortly afterwards, the government hospital system tweeted out images of what officials said were current photos, along with a video which showed plastic, sanitary hospital bassinets in the nursery. Officials said that since January the same hospital has delivered more than 4,000 babies But propaganda is what Venezuela government officials do best . The facts are plain and clear: The country is failing economically, and, because Maduro has doubled down on the failed socialism of his predecessor, Hugo Chavez.As observed by Juan Carlos Hidalgo, a policy analyst on Latin America at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, those same socialist policies are not only tanking the economy of a country that was once a model for South American prosperity, but they are making it much more authoritarian. Venezuela was once South America's richest country, taking in immigrants from all over the world. For many years, it was also a remarkable democracy in a region where most nations were ruled by military dictatorships. Today, socialism has turned Venezuela into an authoritarian basket case that thousands try to escape every year," he wrote.As for healthcare specifically,reported further that doctors in the country recently warned the National Assembly that getting sick in Venezuela is tantamount to a death sentence.The most recent statistics released by the Venezuelan Pharmaceutical Federation in June said that the country was facing shortages of more than 80 percent of the medicines that doctors need to treat their patients. What's more, the sad state of healthcare is leading to a brain drain: More than 13,000 physicians  20 percent of Venezuela's entire number of doctors  have left the country in recent years to look for better opportunities.
Singling her out

Punishment did not fit the 'crime' and will not stand

(NaturalNews) Many people and organizations seem to love a good whistleblower , until it is one ofthat is being exposed for alleged wrongdoing. That may be the case with officials at Hazel Juco's Westland, Mich., high school.When the senior at John Glenn High School snapped a picture of water that looked more like urine, then posted it on Facebook and Twitter, she was suspended the next day,"I just took a picture of it. And then in my newspaper class I talked about it with them," she said, as reported by. She was understandably concerned about the quality of the water and whether it was safe to drink (probably not). She added that she posted the photo because she felt sure that her school would not have the funding to fix such problems, and she thought it might spur someone in the public to help out."I was called to the office and told by one of the assistant principals that an administrator found a photo of the girl's bathroom on social media and that I'd be issued a three-day out-of-school suspension for 'inappropriate use of electronics,'"further reported.While reasonable people can agree that students should not be allowed to use cell phone cameras and other picture-taking or recording devices in a school bathroom or locker room, it isthat the picture she took, while technically "in the bathroom," is not a violation of anyone's privacy or incriminating in any way.Except to the school of course, which may be why administrators there took aapproach. In addition, Juco believes that she is being singled out simply because she highlighted what is most likely just a maintenance issue at the school.She told a local ABC affiliate,, that "every girl" likes to take a selfie in the bathroom and then post it as their profile picture on their social media accounts. "No one has gotten in trouble," she said.But the incident has also taught her something  namely that her friends are loyal and support what she was trying to do, which was to highlight a problem. Dozens of students protested her suspension by tweeting bathroom pictures they took at school without getting into trouble.reporters called Wayne-Westland Community Schools superintendent, Dr. Michele Harmala, for her take on things, and their questions led her to investigate was was happening at John Glenn High School. Harmala said that she discovered that high school administrators do make mistakes  such as not reporting the water issue to the school's maintenance workers. Harmala said that she made sure maintenance was informed, and that "they sent a plumber out right away."The good news is that Harmala agrees with Juco and her fellow student supporters that the punishment certainly did not fit the crime, so to speak  ostensibly because there was no real crime, only an attempt to publicize a problem.While noting that the rule of not allowing cell phones in bathrooms aims to prevent the taking of inappropriate pictures involving people, she agreed that this should not apply to pictures of issues with school infrastructure."The punishment is inappropriate," Harmala told. "I am going to make sure the out of school suspension is expunged from the student's record." She also noted that the incident serves as a learning opportunity, both for staff and for students.She told the local affiliate she wants students to know that when there is a problem with school facilities and buildings that they believe is being ignored, they are encouraged to report it to building maintenance or to school administrators directly. This will afford the school the chance to address the issue sooner than if it gets posted to social media.
Press Release

AAK, a manufacturer of specialty vegetable fats and oils, announced the addition of multiple personnel to its AAK USA bakery innovation team. Christopher Bohm joined AAK as Customer innovation manager-bakery; Tisa Drew joined as senior customer innovation applications specialist; Laura Muller and Kristine Scholander joined as customer innovation technicians.

Terry Thomas, president, AAK USA Inc. said, We are pleased to announce that we have expanded our bakery innovation team. The addition of Chris Bohm, Tisa Drew, Laura Muller and Kristine Scholander will allow us to further expand our co-development process capabilities for our bakery customers. These talented and experienced team members will allow us to deliver value-adding solutions for any of our bakery customers toughest formulation challenges. And as we prepare to open our Innovation Center this fall, the customer innovation teams extensive expertise is sure to be a huge benefit to all AAK customers."

Thomas added, Expect further updates on our bakery innovation team in the coming weeks. We were excited to announce the completion of the CalOils acquisition earlier this month and plan to further expand the bakery innovation team to support AAKs growth on the west coast as well."

Chris Bohm will manage the AAK USA & Canada customer innovation bakery team and report to Dr. James S. Jones, vice president customer innovation. Chris is a fourth generation baker and his extensive commercial bakery experience will greatly benefit the AAK bakery innovation team. Bohm has spent the last 25 years performing and managing Customer Innovation for Corbion/Caravan Ingredients.

Tisa Drew will have responsibility for managing customer-driven projects, and will assist in implementing capabilities at the innovation center and provide comprehensive technical support for customers. Drew brings more than 20 years of experience in product development, nutrition and quality assurance from companies such as BASF, Mondelez and Pepperidge Farm. Drew holds a bachelors of science degree in Chemistry from Syracuse University and a Masters of Science in Human Nutrition from the University of New Haven.

Laura Muller will be supporting application and new product development activities for the bakery segment at the innovation center. Muller graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelors of Science in Food Science and brings extensive experience in bakery product development from concept to commercialization. Muller joins AAK from Pinnacle Foods, where she was responsible for the continued expansion of the Duncan Hines line through innovation and renovation projects, leading trials and production startups of all new products.

Kristine Scholander is based in Louisville, Kentucky and will support customer innovation activities centered on Bakery Applications, Votation and Flaking capabilities. Scholander holds a Bachelors of Science in food science and human nutrition from Colorado State University and additional certifications in food service management and menu development from the Warren Technical Institute. Scholander was most recently at Ardent Mills.

For more information on AAK, visit betterwithaak.com.
Arguably the world's most trafficked animal, the cute and strange pangolin, has officially moved up to Appendix I of CITES, which states that all trades involving the animals under the said appendix are prohibited. This momentous decision is welcomed by different wildlife organizations as they have been supportive of pangolin's cause.

The Secretariat of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has previously recommended that all species of pangolins should be included in Appendix I. All four Asian pangolins are projected to experience a population decline. Meanwhile, the remaining four African species, despite lack of information about their actual numbers, still need as much protection because pangolin trading and over-harvesting will surely make the species experience "marked declines" in population.

Pangolins are previously listed under Appendix II, which only allows limited trade.This loophole are being exploitated by the poachers to keep up with the demand for the nocturnal animals. Aside from a thriving illegal trade, prices of the pangolins have went up to 250 percent in the last five years, according to Natural Resources Defense Council. Pangolins are so in demand in the market, particularly in China, as their scales and meat are used in traditional Asian medicine.

During the 17th CITES conference, delegates have voted to uplift pangolins to Appendix I. The decision has been supported by several wildlife organizations. According to Susan Liebermann, VP of international policy of Wildlife Conservation Society, the ruling gave pangolins a "fighting chance."

Meanwhile, Madhu Rao, senior adviser of the Wildlife Conservation Society, said that while the status change of pangolins might still not totally stop the trade, this first step will empower and educate law enforcers to take action to stop illegal trade, Popular Science reports. Most importantly, poachers cannot exploit any loopholes as there are no loopholes in Appendix I. Rao said that through this decision, there can be no legal trade as "All trade is prohibited."

Pangolins are mammals that are covered with reptile-like scales that resembles a "tiny dragon." When in danger, pangolins roll up their bodies like a ball to escape predators. According to the World Wildlife Fund, between 2011 and 2023, there are around 116,990 to 233,980 pangolins killed due to intense trade.
The eastern massasauga rattlesnake, the only venomous snake in Michigan, has recently been moved under federal protection in accordance with the Endangered Species Act.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit environmental organization, will be working together to protect 757 endangered species. In 1982, the Fish and Wildlife Service has categorized the massasauga rattlesnake as endangered, threatened or a species of special concern."

The destruction of wetlands and surrounding uplands in the Midwest by urban and agricultural sprawl is leaving the eastern massasauga with few places to live. These long-awaited Endangered Species Act protections can save the massasauga from extinction by saving the habitat it needs to survive," sad Elise Bennet, an attorney from the Center for Biological Diversity.

Detroit Free Press notes that the culprit to the massasaugas dwindling numbers is habitat and food loss due to the rampant construction of farms, roads, etc. These development hinders the massasaugas' migration and travel to other areas where they can find shelter and food, resulting to isolated populations.

Bruce Kingsbury, director of the Environmental Resources Center at Indiana University-Purdue University Ft. Wayne, told the massasaugas they usually find on road or trails are most of the time afraid.

"The snakes don't travel as far as other animals do from habitat patch to habitat patch. Anytime you have paved roads, a farmer's field, a residential area, they will be barriers to the snake, and it will turn around and head back from where it came," Kingsbury added.

According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the eastern massasauga rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus catenatus) is a sluggish, slow-moving venomous snake with a thick body and dark brown exterior color. They do not normally attack humans, but if in danger, their short fangs containing a potent venom could easily puncture the skin.

The massasaugas thrive in open shallow wetlands or shrub swamps during spring while during the summer, they move to drier areas upland. They usually feed on small mammals, insects and amphibians.
A team of researchers from North Carolina State University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have successfully created an environmental friendly semi-printed plastic solar cell without toxic halogen solvents by using a food additive.

According to the study published in the journal Chemistry of Materials, instead of using halogens, the scientists replaced it with o-methylanisole (o-MA), which is known to be a flavor additive in food and is nontoxic.

Currently, halogen-containing solvents are used in manufacturing plastic solar cells. These solar cells have a high market demand due to its flexibility, transparency and affordability. The research team, lead by postdoctoral research scholar Long Ye, explored the idea of using a nontoxic solvent that would yield the same efficiency as solar cells printed from halogen solvents.

To know if o-MA is effective as a substitute solvent to halogen in creating solar cells, Ye and his team studied the morphology of the o-MA solar cells using X-ray techniques. Results showed that the o-MA solar cells feature the same morphology and crystalline features as those found in halogen-based solar cells.

To boost, the new o-MA based cell also boasts an 8.4 percent effiency rating. Its production process, which only reuires blade coating at ambient room temperature, is also compatible to the procedure done in commercial manufacturing.

"Two of the key requirements for mass producing these solar cells are that the cells can be produced in the open air environment and that the process doesn't pose health or environmental hazards," Ye said via Science Daily.

Ye also hopes that this newly discovered technology in solar energy could "pave the way for printing solar cells in ambient air."

Read More:

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Future of Energy: Rent-to-Own Solar Power the Answer to Free Electricity?
The scientific world was shocked when rumors about extra-terrestrial signals were detected earlier this year. Some say it must by the alien's way of reaching out to the human race, but astrophysicist Stephen Hawking is repeatedly warning scientists to be careful in responding back to these "messages."

Hawking believes that there could be other intelligent beings off the Earth. However, he warns that reaching out to them may cause a catastrophy because he also thought they could dangerous, thus he is warning people not to respond to alien signals if indeed there's any detected.

His views on communicating with extra-terrestrial beings were shared through a new film called Stephen Hawking's Most Favorite Places. In the film, he emphasized that there could be "perils" in sending out communication signals intended to reach out to other planetary systems because first and foremost, mankind doesn't know who could be out there. And if ever there's another race out in space, their intentions towards Earth might also be questionable, according to a report by The Guardian.

Other experts agree with Hawking in this, mankind shouldn't delve too deep into something they know much about. There is a danger in things they do not fully understand including extraterrestrial beings, in case they really do exist. Hawking fear that if men send out signals, they might fire an intergalactic defense system upon us and obliterate the Earth. The professor believes that they could be more advanced that mankind.

Hawking also expressed that men may mean less than a bacteria to the extra-terrestrial forces making it easy for them to decide on devastating actions towards the Earth. The professor advised researchers focused on sending signals to extra-terrestrials to "lay low" but the scientists also believe that it's now too late. Hawking is only one of the growing numbers of scientists who hopes that aliens don't find the human civilization sooner.

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said in a statement. "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet," Hawking added.

Meanwhile, other people are surprised that one of the most intelligent people alive like Hawking "freaks out" about aliens, especially the group called Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) whose opinion is the opposite of Hawking's.

"We have no clue as to the intentions of putative extraterrestrials " Seth Shostak, director for SETI said in a statement. "Perhaps they live in a utopian Shangri-La similar to the one we've always said we want for ourselves, a place that values peace as well as the neighbors," Shostak added.

Shostak also added that since World War 2, mankind has been sending signals and high-frequency communications to space, these signals can also be construed as a means to communicate to alien beings.

But according to SETI, despite the urging of Hawking, there is a far bigger number of scientists who supports the search for life in the universe and deeper space explorations; one good example is Elon Musk's colonization of Mars.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is conducting an experiment with the goal of keeping spaceships in good health.

On Earth, cleaning up a house and keeping it germ-free could only take a few hours. But in the International Space Station (ISS), it's an entirely different story. Air and water are constantly recycled and wastes are discarded only when a spacecraft leaves en route to Earth every few months or so. These conditions make a manned spacecraft a breeding ground for illness-causing microbes. Humans are incubators for different sorts of bacteria and a space station's closed environment could only worsen the situation.

In the early 1990s, cosmonauts on board the Russian space station Mir found that their spacecraft was filled with fungi hiding behind control panels, on windows, space suits, and communication devices among others. Bacterial pathogens were also discovered to be thriving in the ISS, including Actinobacteria, which is often associated with the human skin, The Conversation reports.

In one particular study, researcher Cheryl Nickerson also discovered that spaceflight culture could increase the disease-causing potential of the foodborne bacteria Salmonella.

This is what ESA wants to take action against. The agency is conducting Matiss experiment on the ISS to investigate antibacterial properties of materials in space and see which of these materials are less hospitable to bacteria and fungi and are easier to clean.

The advanced technology for the Matiss experiment consists of self-assembly monolayers, green polymers, ceramic polymers and water-repellant hybrid silica, each capable of preventing bacteria from sticking to the surface and growing, effectively making them easier to clean, ESA said in a statement.

For the experiment, ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet will set four identical plaques in the European Columbus laboratory and will be left for at least three months. The units will be specifically placed on the European Drawer Rack, on the European Physiology Modules, and at the air vents. After exposure to the ISS air, the plaques will be sealed and taken to Earth for analysis next year.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk presented his grand plan of colonizing Mars during the International Aeronautical Congress held in Guadalajara, Mexico on Tuesday amidst an enthralled audience.

The plan involves building a spacecraft that could ferry 100 people to the Red Planet, a reusable mega-rocket touted to be the world's most powerful, a giant transporter, and an overall architecture that would enable humanity to establish a permanent, self-sustaining colony on Mars within the next 50 to 100 years.

The ambitious plan had drawn mixed reactions from experts and different questions were raised regarding the viability of Musk's vision.

Could humans survive the trip?

While SpaceX's Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) promises the Mars trip to be "fun," with a movie theater and a restaurant to keep passengers from getting bored, the biggest concern is how to keep these people alive throughout the trip. According to NASA, deep space contains high levels of radiation from solar flares and cosmic rays that could harm humans during space flight.

Musk may think of the radiation problem as "not too big of a deal," but not for space experts. "Radiation-he maybe down played it a little more than I would have. It's not a show stopper, but you have to worry about solar flares," Chris McKay, a planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, told The Verge.

Goal is 100 people on each trip, eventually more https://t.co/kCtBLPbSg8 pic.twitter.com/wbXJ6AeWyl  SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 27, 2016

How will spacefarers live and how will they survive on the Martian surface?

The ITS will carry the colonists to the Red Planet and provide the opportunity to create a "self-sustaining civilization" on the planet. But it is not clear where exactly the people will live on Mars, how the Martian habitats will be created and what technologies are needed to survive on the surface of the planet.

According to John Logsdon, an expert on space policy, such technology is still in its infancy and supporting a huge colony of people will require support systems like food and energy supply. These systems would require huge amount of funding, which SpaceX might not be able to manage alone.

How will SpaceX shorten the Martian trips?

Musk said that the colonial spaceship would journey between 80 to 150 days, whereas NASA estimates that the shortest Martian trip could take more than half a year long.

"I couldn't quite follow where that was coming from," Bobby Braun, an associate professor of space technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told The Verge. "I think it'd be very hard to get there in the transfer times that he mentioned. When we send robotic missions to Mars, they tend to take nine months to get there."

Insane but NOT impossible

While Musk's Mars colonization plan may sound crazy for some, there are those who believe the mission is not unachievable.

"There's no technical obstacle to the plan being executable," Logsdon said. "SpaceX has good engineers. They don't have to really invent much."

In his plan, Musk said the spacecraft would take humans to Mars and back to Earth using fuel made from methane propellant plants to be built on the Red Planet. Prior to the Musk's presentation, SpaceX already announced that they are working on a rocket engine that would run on methane/oxygen propellant, which was said to be a more readily available fuel on Mars.

"I don't think they are practical in the form he presented them, but with a little modification, they could be made practical and very powerful," Robert Zubrin, leader of the space advocacy organization Mars Society, told Space.com.

Who's prepared to die?

During the Q&A session in the conference, a clever question was thrown at Musk: "Who should these people be, carrying the light of humanity to Mars for all of us?" Musk was honest enough to say that the journey will be "very dangerous" and that "the risk of fatality will be high." But he did mention one criterion in selecting the first humans to set foot on Mars: "Are you prepared to die? If that's okay, then you're a candidate for going."
Congratulations are in order for Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds!

A source confirms to E! News that the superstar couple have welcomed their second child together. The New York Post's Page Six first reported the baby's birth Friday, adding that Lively's pal Taylor Swift was heading to a Manhattan hospital to pay the happy family a visit.

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds Can't Stop Giving Us PDA

Last month, Lively celebrated their little one's upcoming arrival with an intimate baby shower. A source confirmed at the time that the celebration was held at the Bedford Post Inn in New York. Guests started arriving around 11 a.m. local time and enjoyed the 90-minute gathering in the heart of Westchester County.

As for who scored a special invite, the guest list was kept pretty private, but E! News confirmed Swift was in attendance for the fun event.
A Missouri couple who had saved for months to take their two young daughters to Disney World on a vacation were killed Sunday near Orlando, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

The Orlando Sentinel reports Greg and Sarah Moyers saved for the special trip, taking Hailey, 13 and Sophia, 8. The Leadwood, Missouri, family visited the theme parks and were headed to the beach Sunday before making the long drive home.

Troopers say a vehicle driven by Charles King, 43, of New London, North Carolina, drifted into their lane on Interstate 4, causing the Moyers' vehicle to veer off the road and hit a tree. King wasn't injured.

"Their kids were their world," family friend Loni Burnside Eaton said. "They were very involved and supportive parents and just wanted the best for them. They wanted the girls to experience Disney and the beach. I can't believe this really happened."

Eaton said Sarah Moyers worked as a manager at McDonald's and her husband owned a muffler shop. They had lived in the small, eastern Missouri town for more than 20 years.

Troopers are investigating the crash. No charges have been filed.

A GoFundMe created to help the girls said the mother and father "were two of the most giving people you could've ever meet. They welcomed everyone into their home and within minutes of talking to either of them you knew that they genuinely would do anything to help. Family was everything to them. This is a devastation loss to us and our community."

Anyone wishing to help can visit the GoFundMe account.
Housing advocates from San Francisco showed up at a Brisbane City Council meeting Thursday night to urge approval of a proposed Baylands development that would add more than 4,000 residential units and 7 million square feet of office space.

The proposal would more than double the population of the city just south of San Francisco, and residents fear it would destroy the small-town feel they're accustomed to.

"My brother lives around the corner; my uncle is right there," resident Katherine Lucas said, pointing to a nearby house. "It's five minutes away from San Francisco, but it has trees, great neighbors."

The Brisbane Planning Commission is recommending the council vote down the housing development. And the mayor is listening.

"Our general plan prohibits housng because the site is contaminated," Mayor Clifford Lentz said. "One side is a dump; one side is a railyard."

But housing advocates and groups like the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce are applying pressure, urging Brisbane to be part of the housing crisis solution.

Residents say opposing the plan is about more than maintaining Brisbane's charm. They're concerned about risk.

"For me, this is about three things: safety, safety, safety," one resident said.
Two lawsuits have been filed against Stanford Health Care alleging the hospital promoted a toxic environment that prevented workers from reporting sexual abuse of sedated patients, even when the crimes happened right before their eyes.

A recent assault at the Redwood City outpatient center involved a 16-year-old boy. The man who preyed on the teen was sentenced to a year in jail and already has been behind bars for a few months.

Now, two new lawsuits are shifting the spotlight onto the man's employer. One of the suits has been filed by the teens mother, who did not wish to be identified to protect her son.

She said she has no other option but to sue after she discovered anesthesia technician Robert Lastinger had molested her son when he was sedated for surgery.

"You know, I sent him to Stanford because I knew it was a good hospital," the victim's mother said.

Even worse, she said it could have been prevented.

In May, Lastinger was convicted of sexual battery in a case involving four victims. One of those assaults occurred in March 2015, 11 days before the 16-year-old boy was assaulted.

Attorney Paul Matiasic represents both victims.

"We believe Stanford Health Care was negligent in hiring this sexual predator and negligent in giving him an environment in which he could prey," Matiasic said.

The lawsuit claims that nurses witnessed Lastinger sexually abusing patients under anesthesia but didnt report it. One nurse indicated it was "well known that Lastinger "liked to fiddle with male patients private parts" and that Stanford Health Care "knew or had reason to know that Lastinger had engaged in inappropriate sexual contact with individuals at the premise in the days, weeks, months and years prior to March 31, 2015."

The second lawsuit was filed by a former manager at the hospital, George Baez, who claims he was forced out about a year after he spoke up about the abuse and helped fire Lastinger.

Baez's attorney, Angela Alioto, said the suits will help push for a climate change at Stanford Health Care.

The hospital issued a statement responding to the suits, saying in part "there are extensive inaccuracies ... any claim that Stanford Health Care knew that Robert Lastinger was a predator and did nothing is false."

But the victim's mother isnt satisfied.

"They just want to cover their tracks and not be at fault, make light of a situation that shouldn't be taken lightly," she said.

Here is the full Stanford Health Care statement in response to the allegations:

"Stanford Health Care is aware of the two civil complaints filed, but the lawyers did not give us a copy of the formal complaint. Based on what we have seen of the lawyers allegations, there are extensive inaccuracies, and we are particularly distressed about the personal attacks leveled in the Baez complaint. Any claim that SHC knew that Robert Lastinger was a predator and did nothing is false. SHC will vigorously defend against these allegations.

"The health and safety of our patients, visitors and staff are top priorities at Stanford Health Care. While it is not appropriate to comment about the details of an individual employees termination, we can unequivocally state that Mr. Baezs termination had nothing to do with his minor involvement with any hospital investigation. It is undisputed that as soon as SHC learned of the allegations of inappropriate conduct by one of our anesthesia technicians, SHC removed the employee, launched an internal investigation and contacted local authorities per our protocols."
An autopsy report reveals two sisters who were found dead while vacationing on a tropical African island had died from fluid in their lungs, a condition commonly known as acute pulmonary edema.

Police in the Republic of Seychelles released the findings Friday morning after the bodies of 37-year-old and Annie Korkki 42-year-old Robin Korkki were found last week inside their villa at the Maia Luxury Resort.

Results showed Robin Korkki, who lived in Chicagos Wicker Park neighborhood and worked downtown as a trader, died of acute pulmonary edema caused by excess fluid in the lungs. Her sister, Annie Korkki, of Denver, died of the same condition, according to the autopsy, in addition to cerebral edema listed as a contributing cause. Cerebral edema is a swelling of the brain.

On their own the causes of death do not reveal much about how the sisters died, NBC News reports, but a pending toxicology report may be the key to uncovering it.

Seychelles police spokesman Jean Toussaint told NBC News officials hope to learn more from a toxicology report currently being processed at a lab on the island of Mauritius, about 1,000 miles away from the resort where the sisters were found.

The autopsy determined there were "no visible signs of injuries found on the bodies," Toussaint added.

Earlier this week their brother, Chris Korkki, told NBC 5s affiliate station KARE that their family had been given no information on how his sisters suddenly died on what was supposed to be a dream vacation.

"It's all very surreal," said their brother, Chris Korkki, who lives in the suburbs of Minneapolis where the sisters grew up. "We don't know very much. Our family is still very much in shock. We're devastated."

He told The Associated Press he, his mother and brother have traveled to Seychelles for answers and to make arrangements to bring his sisters' bodies back to the U.S.

The sisters and self-described best friends had been traveling for a month and just two days from when they were scheduled to return home when they died.

"They were frequent travelers both domestically and internationally," he said. "They were kind and generous and compassionate, and were wonderful people that had a positive impact on a huge number of people."
For the first time in 34 years, USA Today's editorial board declared sides in a presidential race, calling Trump unfit for the presidency, NBC News reported.

The board encouraged voters to resist the siren sound of a dangerous demagogue.

The editorial made it clear, however, that it was not endorsing Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton for president.

Other historically-conservative newspapers have denounced Trump, including The Detroit News, Arizona Republic, The Cincinnati Enquirer, Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle. For most, it was the first time they would not endorse the Republican nominee.

Trump blasted the papers in a Friday morning tweet: "The people are really smart in cancelling subscriptions to the Dallas & Arizona papers & now USA Today will lose readers! The people get it!"
After two people were killed and one person injured in two separate shootings on the Eisenhower Expressway Thursday, a vocal area official is calling the shootings "an act of terrorism."

Cook County Commission Richard Boykin, in a statement Thursday afternoon, called on the federal government to step in, urging Congress to amend the federal terrorism statute to classify gang violence as a form of domestic terrorism.

"There can be no mistaking the fact that what took place on the Eisenhower Expressway today was an act of terrorism, and that the commuters who will traverse those roads on their way home this evening will do so at considerable risk," the statement read. "If our local and state leaders will not take immediate steps to mitigate these unacceptable conditions, our federal leaders must. I urge the Congress and the President of the United States to act immediately to amend the federal domestic terrorism laws in order to create access to our vast federal Homeland Security infrastructure and fight this war with the resources we need to win it.

While police have not determined if the two victims were targeted in the shootings Thursday, and an investigation has not yet ruled whether gang violence was involved, Boykin questioned "how much longer can the citizens of Chicago expect to be terrorized."

"The Eisenhower Expressway runs straight through the heart of the District I represent on the Cook County Board of Commissioners," he said. "I am tired of having to field questions from my constituents about why their local and state governments have abandoned them to face these dangers without a significantly increased law enforcement presence."

The first shooting took place just before 6 a.m. Thursday, when ISP officers said shots were fired in the westbound lanes of Interstate 290 near Laramie Avenue.

Two people, a man and a woman, riding in a white SUV were shot, according to police. The victims were found by police at Flournoy Street and Lockwood Avenue in Chicago and both were transported to Stroger Hospital.

The man was pronounced dead and the woman was listed in critical condition.

Less than seven hours later, around 12:15 p.m., police responded to another shooting in the eastbound lanes of the expressway near the Central Avenue exit ramp.

The shootings caused massive delays during the morning rush hour and closed the Central Avenue exit ramp during the afternoon hours as officials investigated.

"The safety of the citizens of Illinois and reducing expressway violence is paramount to the Illinois State Police," ISP said in a statement. "Every day our troopers work to prevent violence, arresting dangerous criminals, and removing illegal drugs and guns from the expressways and our communities. We have conducted numerous enforcement details specifically directed at gun, gang, and drug violence, including a successful detail this past weekend and the recent arrest of two individuals for an expressway shooting which occurred on September 25th. We have recently attended listening tour meetings with Commissioner Boykin, in the communities most impacted by violence. We are working with the Commissioner, the Chicago Police Department, The Cook County Sheriff?s Police and our Federal partners to help to reduce violent crime on the streets throughout Illinois."
Chicago Cubs President Theo Epstein and his family reportedly attended a fundraiser for Democratic presidential nominee Thursday night, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

During the event, Epstein reportedly cut a personal check to Clintons campaign. The former Secretary of State was in Chicago Thursday for a pair of fundraisers Thursday, including the Lawyers for Hillary event that Epstein attended.

Additionally, Laura Ricketts, the daughter of Cubs owners Joseph and Marlene Ricketts, reportedly attended a separate Clinton fundraiser Thursday evening at the downtown home of Rishi Shah, the CEO of ContextMedia, the Sun-Times reports. The prominent LGBTQ activist previously hosted a big-ticket Clinton fundraiser in July.

Earlier this month, it was announced that Joseph and Marlene Ricketts are now backing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and plan to put money into his campaign, NBC News reported.

This comes after the Ricketts spent $5.5 million on negative advertising against Trump during the Republican primaries, the Chicago Tribune reported.

In response, Trump sent a veiled threat to the family in February.

I hear the Rickets [sic] family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $s against me, Trump tweeted. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide.

Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts, the son of Joseph and Marlene Rocketts, responded later that month.

Its a little surreal when Donald Trump threatens your mom, he told reporters at the time. The fact is, whether its my mom or my dad on his Ending Spending stuff or my sister on marriage equality or my brothers and what they do or what we do with the team, were pretty much an open book."
Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee for president, is scheduled to attend a Chicago-area fundraiser for Rep. Bob Dold on Oct. 19, according to Crains Chicago Business.

Tickets for the event, which is slated to take place in Lake Forest, range in price from $500 per couple to $2,700, which includes dinner with Romney.

Dold is facing a tough bid for re-election against Democrat Brad Schneider, who lost Illinois 10th Congressional District House seat to Dold in 2014 after taking the seat from him in 2012.

President Barack Obama, who beat out Romney in the 2012 presidential election, will be in town Oct. 8 to attend a fundraiser for Rep. Tammy Duckworths Senate campaign.
With less than 40 days until the election, Senator Mark Kirk is changing the traditional plans for debates in Chicago.

While Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth agreed to five debates, the incumbent does not agree. Kirk initially turned down the SunTimes editorial board, ABC7 League of Women Voters and Univision debate and WTTW Public television debates. Those venues have been on candidates' schedules for years, according to both campaigns.

Kirk later reversed course, saying he would in fact attend the ABC7 League of Women Voters debate.

That means Kirk will only do four debates. He has also agreed to the Chicago Tribune editorial board on Monday Oct. 3 and a downstate debate in Springfield Oct. 27, and a new Latino forum to be broadcast on WGN. The Duckworth campaign has not yet agreed to the Latino forum.
The City of Chicago is looking for this years official Christmas tree that will adorn Millennium Park for the holiday season.

Nominations from Chicago and the surrounding suburbs will be accepted until Oct. 21 by the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. The winning trees owner will also receive the honor of being able to flip the switch to light the tree at the 103rd Annual Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on Nov. 18 in Millennium Park.

Trees must meet the following criteria to be nominated, according to city officials:

 Be at least 55 feet or taller;

 Be located less than 100 miles from Chicagos Loop; and

 Preferably, be a Spruce or Fir Tree. Pine trees are ineligible, they are not sturdy enough.

Submissions will be accepted by email to DCASE@cityofchicago.org or by mail to the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, ATTN: Christmas Tree Contest, 78 E. Washington Street, Chicago, IL. 60602. Mailed submissions must be received by the office before the deadline date of Oct. 21.

Last years tree was a 63-foot Colorado Blue Spruce that came from a home in northwest suburban Northlake.

The selected tree will be announced in early November, according to city officials.

For more information, visit cityofchicago.org/dcase.
A school bus driver was shot on the West Side of Chicago, authorities said Friday.

Police said the driver, a 31-year-old man, was driving the school bus in the 4300 block of West Jackson in West Garfield Park when a bullet grazed his head. There were children on the bus but none were injured, police said.

The bus was carrying 32 students and a chaperone when the shooting happened about 5:30 p.m. The bus was carrying students back to Christ the King Jesuit College Prep from a work study program downtown.

"It could have been me and I'm glad that it was not me," said student Destini Small, who was riding on a second bus in front of the one struck by gunfire. "I'm still, you know, sad about that, that even took place."

The driver was taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital where his condition had stabilized.

The school's principal credits the driver with stopping the bus safely even after being wounded by gunfire.

"This is the first time we've had an incident like this, we pride ourselves on being a really safe school," said Principal Temple Payne. "We thank God that our students were safe. Our prayers are with the bus driver and his family at this time."

Neighbors in the area were dismayed as the scene was processed by police.

"Anything can happen out here," said neighbor Darius Johnson.

No arrests have been made, police said. Counselors will be on hand at the school on Monday for those involved.
A southern Illinois prosecutor has charged a doctor accused of killing his estranged wife with trying to pay to have the prosecutor kidnapped.

Saline County State's Attorney Mike Henshaw on Wednesday announced the charges against Brian T. Burns, who was charged with murder in March and accused of burning his wife's body and spreading the ashes to try to cover it up.

Henshaw said Burns called an undercover detective Sept. 13 and agreed to pay him $1,000 to kidnap Henshaw.

Burns' additional charges are solicitation, conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping and attempt of aggravated kidnapping. He faces up to 60 years in prison if convicted of these felonies.

Burns is being held in the Saline County Jail on a $2 million cash bond.

It wasn't immediately clear if Burns has an attorney.
In an explosive interview from her Bali jail cell, Heather Mack has revealed never-before heard details about her mothers murder and claimed the family vacation killing that has made national headlines was partially pre-meditated.

Speaking to Crime Watch Daily a little more than one year into her 10-year sentence inside the notorious Kerobokan Prison, Mack revealed that her mothers killing at the hands of her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, was half premeditated, half not.

In my head, I never thought it was going to actually happen, she said.

Sheila von Wiese-Mack, 62, was bludgeoned to death, her body found stuffed inside a suitcase in a taxi at the resort in Bali in August 2014. Von Wiese-Mack was the widow of highly regarded jazz and classical composer James L. Mack, who died in 2006 at the age of 76.

Speaking publicly about details she said werent reported even in court transcripts, Mack said her mothers murder was fueled by the teens pregnancy announcement and Schaefers surprise visit on what was supposed to be a mother-daughter getaway.

She was so angry, I told her I was pregnant and she went around the room looking for a knife and she was just screaming and screaming and telling me that that was when I was going to die, that was when I was going to die, Mack said in the interview. I said, Tommy help me and Tommy walked over to her and she went and she grabbed Tommys neck. it wasnt hard. Tommy could have shoved her off, Tommy could have ran away, Tommys a very strong man, but I was just screaming and screaming and screaming and he just smacked her -- smacked her, smacked her, smacked her over and over and over and over and I ran to the bathroom and I said, Tommy, what are we going to do?

That statement was somewhat mentioned in court when Schaefer testified at his trial that von Wiese-Mack was angry when she learned her daughter was pregnant. The couple's baby girl, Stella, was born in prison.

But text messages painted a very different picture of what happened that day.

In one text message, Mack asked Schaefer to find a hit man to kill her mother, according to authorities. In the hours leading up to the killing, the couple traded texts in which they discussed plans to smother von Wiese-Mack with a pillow and stage her death as if she committed suicide, prosecutors said.

Schaefer admitted to repeatedly striking von Wiese-Mack with a fruit bowl, claiming self-defense, and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Mack is serving 10 years for assisting.

Mack revealed in the interview that it wasnt the first time she informed her mother she was pregnant. The first time she revealed she was pregnant, Mack also said her mother would chased me around the house with a knife.

As for why the couple decided to stuff the body into the suitcase, Mack said she was already dead and I was just hugging her and hugging her and hugging her.

I wouldnt let her go and he just said, Now we have to run and I said, Im not leaving her here, Mack said.

Mack has previously detailed her troubled and sometimes violent relationship with her mother.

She just didnt want me. She didnt want Heather Mack the way Heather Mack was, she said.

But von Wiese-Macks family said that wasnt the case.

She had lots of love, thats a total manipulation, her aunt Debbi Curran told Crime Watch Daily.

In the years prior to her murder, von Wiese-Mack called Chicago-area police multiple times on her violent daughter.

NBC Chicago learned through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Wednesday Journal in Oak Park, that von Wiese-Mack told police 18 months before her murder that she believed her daughter would kill her. The reporting officer at the time sent a memo to his supervisor documenting his concern.

A battle over Mack's $1.56 million trust has been ongoing in Chicago. In a letter to a judge, Mack said she believes her mother was trying years earlier to get control over Mack's inheritance from her late father.

This is her stage right now, this is the biggest stage shell ever have and shes going to act her way through whatever she needs to, Curran said.
A judge declined Friday to overturn the murder conviction for a suburban day care worker imprisoned more than seven years for killing a toddler in her care.

Lake County Judge Daniel Shanes said there was no new evidence presented in Melissa Calusinski's case, but rather said the quest for a new trial was an attempt to retry on existing evidence.

Calusinki's attorneys have filed a motion to appeal the decision.

Shanes presided at Calusinski's 2011 trial and sentenced her to 31 years in prison.

Last week, Shanes delayed his decision on whether he would overturn the conviction. He had earlier decided to allow an evidentiary hearing to proceed in the 29-year-old womans first-degree murder case.

The ruling allowed attorneys on both sides to call witnesses and present medical evidence to support their claims of guilt or innocence in the 2009 murder of 16-month-old Benjamin Kingan, of Deerfield.

Calusinski's lawyers said a set of X-rays of Benjamin Kingan found in the Lake County coroner's office were withheld from them before her trial. They also say the X-rays show the 16-month-old month-old died not from a skull fracture caused by Calusinski but from a prior injury.

Now is the time to show that my little girl, Melissa Calusinski, didnt do this, said her father Paul Calusinski. They took my daughters life for almost eight years. This needs to stop.

Calusinki's attorney, Kathleen Zellner, filed a motion in June 2015 to vacate Calusinskis conviction or grant her a new trial.

Calusinski was convicted in November 2011 and sentenced to 31 years in prison. After a nine-hour interrogation, she confessed to intentionally slamming the boys head to the ground; prior to that confession, however, she had denied having anything to do with Benjamins death at least 79 times, for over six hours. Her attorneys have said Calusinski eventually confessed in part because of her low IQ and her belief that she would be allowed to go home.

Prosecutors have argued that Benjamin died of a skull fracture that happened when Calusinski threw him to the ground in anger at a Lincolnshire day care center.

In August 2013, the pathologist who performed the autopsy on Benjamin, Eupil Choi, said in a sworn affidavit that the boy had suffered an old injury that predated January 14, 2009, the date of the boys death, which he had missed.

According to testimony at trial, Benjamin suffered a head injury on Oct. 27, 2008, before Calusinski worked at the day care. Day care staff testified that Benjamin was a chronic head-banger and would throw his head against the ground during tantrums  which he did at least twice the day he died, according to a witness.

On June 10, 2015, a set of X-rays, which were allegedly never turned over to defense attorneys before or during Calusinskis trial, were discovered at the coroners office. They include a set of skull X-rays that reveal Benjamin never suffered a skull fracture.

Prosecutors allege that those X-rays were only brightened versions of X-rays they had turned over to the defense before the trial.

The jury did not hear the correct medical facts, Zellner said. They were told by Dr. Choi that there was no prior injury.

In July 2015, Lake County Coroner Thomas Rudd, citing the new medical evidence, changed Benjamins cause of death from homicide to undetermined.

Zellner said this is the only U.S. murder case she knows of in which someone was prosecuted, convicted and then not freed after the cause of death in their case was changed from homicide to undetermined. Additionally, there has been only one case in which a forensic pathologist admitted his testimony was erroneous. That case was overturned, she said.

This is unprecedented, Zellner said. This is a very important case.

Calusinskis case has gained national media attention and put pressure on Lake County States Attorney Michael Nerheim. Nerheim has said in published reports that he does not respond to political or media pressure.

We now have an opportunity to finally present evidence to the court, Nerheim said. We look forward to having a full and fair hearing. We believe that the evidence will clearly show that the defendants claims are without merit and will again confirm that she is guilty of the murder of a child.
A clinical aide suspected of stealing prescription pills intended for students at an Ohio middle school has been indicted on a drug theft charge.

The Springfield News-Sun reports investigators say the woman admitted taking several Adderall pills after a parent's complaint about missing medication led to an investigation.

Forty-eight-year-old Amy Baumgardner was arrested on Sept. 15 and fired last week by the Clark-Shawnee Local School District. County court records listed no attorney for her.

Investigators say Baumgardner told them that she had been prescribed Adderall but took additional pills meant for Reid Middle School students "to get her through the day."
Matthew weakened slightly from a Category 5 to a powerful Category 4 hurricane in the Atlantic early Saturday as it drenched coastal Colombia and roared across the Caribbean on a course that still puts Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba in the path of potentially devastating winds and rain. At least 2 people were killed.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Matthew's maximum sustained winds had slipped from a peak of 160 mph (260 kph) to a still-devastating 140mph (220 kph). As of 8 p.m. ET, the NHC was reporting that the storm has barely moved during the past few hours. A "slow northwestward motion" is still expected to begin Saturday night. The center of Matthew will approach Jamaica and southwestern Haiti on Monday.

The forecast track would carry it across Cuba and into the Bahamas, with an outside chance of a brush with Florida, though that would be several days away.

Parts of coastal Miami-Dade and Broward entered the forecast cone Friday, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott said the Florida Division of Emergency Management was actively monitoring the hurricane.

National Hurricane Center

"While the National Hurricane Centers current forecast predicts Matthew traveling east of Florida, we all know that the track of these storms can quickly change which is why it is imperative that all Floridians and visitors continue to monitor Hurricane Matthew and make sure to have a plan in place in the event of severe weather," Scott said in a statement.

As Matthew skimmed past the northern tip of South America there were reports of heavy flooding and at least one death  the second attributed to the storm.

Authorities said at least 18 houses were damaged along the La Guajira peninsula of Colombia, which has been suffering from a multi-year drought. They said a 67-year-old man was swept away to his death by a flash flood in an area where it hadn't rained for four years.

In Jamaica, high surf began pounding the coast and flooding temporarily closed the road linking the capital to its airport. Carl Ferguson, head of the marine police, said people were starting to heed calls to relocate from small islands and areas near rural waterways.

At its peak, Matthew was more powerful than Hurricane Gilbert, which made landfall on the island in September 1988 and was the most destructive storm in the country's modern history.

"Hurricane Matthew could rival or possibly exceed Gilbert if the core of the strongest winds does actually move over Jamaica," said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the hurricane center in Miami. "There is no certainty of that at this point."

Matthew was expected to bring heavy rainfall especially to the eastern tip and higher elevations, which could trigger flooding and landslides, said Evan Thompson, director of Jamaica's National Meteorological Service.

Forecasters said rainfall totals could reach 10 to 15 inches (25 to 38 centimeters) with isolated maximum amounts of 25 inches (63 centimeters) in Jamaica and southwestern Haiti.

A hurricane watch was in effect for Jamaica, as the country activated its National Emergency Operations Center and Prime Minister Andrew Holness called an urgent meeting of Parliament to discuss preparations for the storm.

A tropical storm watch was issued for Haiti's southwest coast form the southern border it shares with the Dominican Republic to the capital of Port-au-Prince.

Rain and winds from the strengthened Hurricane Matthew whipped at Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao early Friday.

Authorities on the Dutch Caribbean islands had urged residents to reinforce their homes and stock up on emergency supplies. Some streets flooded on Aruba and Curacao in the early hours of the storm's pass-by, though there were no reports of evacuations.

Matthew's approach prompted long lines at gas stations and supermarkets on the so-called "ABC islands." Authorities in Aruba ordered government offices closed Friday and Curacao's parliamentary elections were postponed until next week.

The U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is also potentially in the path of the storm. A mandatory evacuation of non-essential personnel, including family members of military personnel was underway and everyone remaining behind was being told to take shelter, said Julie Ann Ripley, a spokeswoman. There are about 5,500 people living on the base, including 61 men held at the detention center.

@chematierra Huracan Matthew ya deja inundaciones en Maicao, La Guajira en Colombia.. pic.twitter.com/KvhnNxPvVd  ClimaSeveroMundial (@Monttgreen) September 30, 2016

Matthew caused at least one death when it entered the Caribbean on Wednesday, with officials in St. Vincent reporting a 16-year-old boy was crushed by a boulder as he tried to clear a blocked drain.
Two Connecticut men as well as a Florida man were arrested in a multi-state theft ring and one of the suspects is a UPS driver.

Police said the men stole the identities of more than 100 West Hartford residents, along with residents of New Jersey and Florida, to buy iPhones and sell them overseas, where theyre worth more money.

Police have arrested David Bagot, a 52-year-old UPS driver from Hartford; Ramone Sooman, 27, of West Hartford; and Andre Duffus, 26, of Plantation, Florida.

West Hartford Police said 216 iPhones were missing and believed stolen and 122 of them were shipped to West Hartford. They are worth nearly $178,000 combined.

Bagot reported that some of the packages were delivered when they were not and other phone were stolen by people following the UPS truck, according to police.

Our local security group worked closely with local law enforcement to investigate the driver in question. He has been terminated for dishonesty," Dan McMackin, UPS spokesperson, said.

The victims all lived in the center of town, on Farmington Avenue, Trout Brook Drive, Asylum Avenue or Prospect Street, according to police.

Authorities believe the ring originated in Florida.

According to authorities, the cell phones were purchased through one major carrier, though police wont identify which one, saying it could compromise the investigation.

West Hartford police said they were initially notified by that carrier and worked with UPS to nab one of the suspects in the case.

We set up a surveillance and we did watch the UPS driver truck pull up and then pull away. Shortly thereafter he made a stop with a civilian vehicle and a transaction was made at the civilian vehicle. We stopped them and determined a crime had occurred," said Lt. Eric Rocheleau, of the West Hartford Police Department.

Fifty-two-year-old UPS driver David Bagot of Hartford was arrested and charged with larceny and conspiracy to commit identity theft. Twenty-seven-year-old Ramone Sooman of West Hartford was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit larceny and conspiracy to commit identity theft. Twenty-six-year-old Andrew Duffus of Plantation, Florida was arrested and charged with larceny and conspiracy to commit identity theft.

Rocheleau said there are still cell phones out there and more arrests are expected, including in Connecticut.

Police suggest that if you live in the central part of West Hartford that you monitor your credit report to make sure a cell phone account wasn't opened up in your name.
A suspect in a 16-year-old Los Angeles homicide was arrested in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on Thursday, after he reported his car stolen and authorities realized he was living under an alias, according to police.

Samuel Calvario was wanted in connection with the 2000 shooting death of 31-year-old Daniel Felix after he intervened in an argument between Calvario and his then-girlfriend in California, investigators said.

Bridgeport police said they assisted the U.S. marshals and the Hartford and Los Angeles police departments in arresting the 46-year-old, the Associated Press reported.

Federal authorities tracked down Calvario's location after he filed a stolen vehicle report with the Bridgeport Police Department.

He was living under an alias in a rooming house, police said.

The charges faced by Calvario include murder, assault with a firearm and kidnapping, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In August, Calvario was arrested in Los Angeles in connection to the homicide after a woman saw the wanted man on the LAPD website and left an anonymous message on a time line about his whereabouts.

At that time, Officer Deen Alcaraz told the Times that Calvario eluded arrest for so long by assuming a new identity. The detective did not give details on where Calvario was living, other than to say he was in Los Angeles County.

Calvario is being held on a charge of being a fugitive from justice in lieu of $1 million bond in Connecticut. He will face an extradition hearing to California, where he is charged with murder. It's unclear whether he has a lawyer.
John Alston, a deputy fire chief in New Jersey, hopes to become the next fire chief for the city of New Haven and was getting ready to head to Connecticut on Thursday to meet with a committee about his appointment when tragedy happened not far from his New Jersey town and he had to jump into action.

Alston, the deputy fire chief for special operations in Jersey City, New Jersey, said he was getting ready to leave for New Haven when the horrific train crash happened at the nearby Hoboken Terminal.

I jumped back in the car, got on the radio, and started ordering assets, Alston said.

Alston arrived at the scene and helped take command as the initial operations chief.

First responders faced many challenges, he said.

That type of rescue, the massive size alone, dealing with heavy equipment, structural damage, electrical hazards, water hazards, and multiple people seeking help, the initial challenges for the first 10 to 15 minutes were great, Alston said.

Alston has served that New Jersey community for 30 years and rose through the ranks, responding to several tragedies, including 9/11.

His experience caught the eye of New Haven Mayor Toni Harp, who picked him to lead the fire department after a nine-month search.

His noticeable service and extensive knowledge cover the broad range of what New Haven absolutely needs in a fire chief, Harp said.

Alston got the OK from a committee he met with on Thursday, but still needs approval from the Board of Alders.
Union Station in New Haven, much like the terminal in Hoboken, has commuter trains that run to and from New York and after the crash on Thursday morning, some Connecticut commuters are a little shaken up.

Yaselin Cabrera, of Bridgeport, said she can only hope to get to and from her destination safely.

"I just ride and pray every day that everything goes fine. And get to work safe and back home safely," she said.

News of the mishap in Hoboken startled commuters in Connecticut who rely on trains to get between home and job safely.

"I've still got to get to work, I still have to provide for my family," said Jesse Brown. "But it's definitely a concern to hear that could happen at any time."

A spokesperson for Metro-North said it is installing a speed control system called Positive Train Control (PTC) on its track between New York and New Haven.

"Broadly speaking, we are making very significant progress and we're on pace to have PTC implemented by 2018," said Aaron Donovan of Metro-North in a statement.

Commuters in Waterbury said now when they look at the end of the rail line there, they wonder what would stop a train that didn't stop itself.

One of the biggest concerns on the minds of Connecticut commuters after the crash in Hoboken: how?

"How? How?", asked Morrell Hargrove, who said he rides trains every day between New York and Waterbury. "It's more of a how thing I suppose than what happened, cuz how did it happen that you did not know you were that close? Were you going too fast? How did the train get off the track? Did the train jump the track? Did the train hit something else? How? Like how does that happen?"
A New London woman is accused of attacking several people in New London, including child, which a spray that caused a burning sensation in their eyes, caused them to cough and made their skin red.

Police said they responded to an undisclosed residence just before 7 p.m. to investigate a domestic violence incident after someone used some type of citrus-type spray on several people.

Officers said they determined that Destinie Seales, 38, of New London, went to the house and caused a disturbance about a family matter and sprayed several bursts of the spray through the screen door.

The spray hit one person in the face and four other people, including a 3-year-old child, sustained residual effects.

The victims complained of a burning sensation to eyes, skin redness and coughing and they were treated.

Seales was charged with five counts of assault in the third degree, risk of injury to a minor and second-degree breach of peace.

She was held and brought to court.
A Danbury woman who drowned her newborn daughter in a toilet in 2006 has been released from prison, eight years early.

Panna Krom, who is now 26 years old, was sentenced to 18 years in prison, but the parole board at the York women's prison granted her request to be released early and her attorney said she was released at 9:07 a.m. on Friday.

"It's no fun being called a baby killer. You want to change your name, disappear and move on with your life," Krom said the day she met with the parole board earlier this month. "I am so sorry for being an irresponsible mother. Accept my sorrow and accept my pledge to work in your memory."

She is elated to be out of prison, attorney Vicki Hutchinson said.

Krom's mother, Chan Prum, was one of more than two dozen family members there for the commutation earlier this month.

"I can't even describe it. I can't even describe it," Prum said. "This is the day that I've waiting for forever. It seems like forever for me just to hear that my daughter's coming home."

Prosecutors said Krom, who was then a 17-year-old senior at Danbury High School, hid her pregnancy, delivered the baby in a bathroom of her parents' home in December 2006, then drowned her in a toilet. Krom's mother found the baby in a closet, officials said.

In 2008, Krom reached a plea deal for an 18-year sentence, pleading guilty to manslaughter to avoid a possible life sentence.

Hutchinson said her client was afraid because her parents, who are from Cambodia, disapprove of premarital sex.

She added that Krom is rehabilitated and she is a model prisoner who earned her high school diploma, mentors younger prisoners and speaks to visiting high school students.

Krom said she plans on helping other young women who are in need of help during their pregnancy.
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among American men.

Patients have several different treatment options, including two types of internal radiation therapy: low-dose rate brachytherapy or highdose rate brachytherapy. Both involve having radioactive seeds implanted near the tumor.

For years, very few patients took advantage of the high-dose option, but that may begin to change.

Greg Hildebrand, 64, didnt want to be sidelined for long after getting this good news/bad news message from his doctor.

'Mr. Hildebrand, unfortunately we found cancer, but not to worry, this is readily treatable, recalled Hildebrand of the conversation he had with his doctor.

To treat his prostate cancer, Hildebrand went with a procedure called high-dose rate brachytherapy. Unlike the low-dose rate radiation treatment, which permanently implants radioactive seeds directly into the prostate, the high-dose rate radiation is removed the same day.

The radiation is delivered right then and there later that day as opposed to having a permanent source inside you that slowly delivers the radiation over six to eight months, Abhishek Solanki, M.D., radiation oncologist at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago explained.

Hildebrand received two treatments over two weeks. His side effects lasted only one month.

Doctors say complications from the low-dose-rate treatment can last six months.

Its cleaner. Its more direct. Its less intrusive, detailed Hildebrand.

HDR was clearly the better option for him, so how come not all doctors have embraced it?

One of the reasons why is, from a resource perspective, for the staff and clinic, its a little bit harder, said Solanki.

But for some patients, it may be the key to good health

Solanki said more doctors are starting to consider high-dose rate radiation brachytherapy as a treatment option now that there are 10-year studies showing it is just as effective as the low-dose rate treatment and the cancer doesnt return in 80 to 90 percent of patients in a certain risk group.

A study by the Cleveland Clinic found that brachytherapy was the cheapest of all treatments for prostate cancer with an average cost of $2,500.

Brachytherapy is used only in patients whose cancer has not spread to other organs.
Teenagers in Texas may be required to learn how to interact with police during traffic stops.

"I think it's a very good idea," said driving instructor Tina Young, at the Austin Driving School in White Settlement. "I think more young teenagers need to know what they need to be doing when a cop stops them."

State Sen. John Whitmore, a Democrat from Houston, is making the proposal, which would direct the Texas State Board of Education to establish rules for the lessons and would also address what to do if detained.

The curriculum would be mandatory for all ninth graders in Texas.

Students at the Austin Driving School already learn what to do if pulled over by police, which includes keeping both hands on the wheel, following the officer's instructions and staying in the car unless instructed to get out.

"If we get pulled over I think it's good that we know what to do, and if we do anything wrong we don't go to jail or anything," said Jaylin Ross, of Fort Worth.

Parents picking up their children after Thursday night's driving class also supported the proposal.

"So many day-to-day activities that kids don't get taught in school can certainly be helpful in a situation that catches them totally by surprise," said Kevin Middleton, of Fort Worth.

State Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, has proposed something similar, requiring instructions be included in the Texas Driver Handbook and training materials for police cadets.
Appalled by the continued bombing of a besieged Syrian city, Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that the United States is on the verge of ending negotiations with Russia over a cease-fire in the nation, NBC News reported.

The announcement comes weeks after the two nations reached a cease-fire agreement that has since been repeatedly breached, and the White House has said it holds Russia responsible as Syria's military launched a new offensive to take the city from rebels.

"The bombing of Aleppo right now is inexcusable," Kerry said at an event in Washington, D.C., adding that roughly 400 civilians in the city have been killed there in the last eight days.

U.S. Ambassador to the the U.N. Samantha Power said Thursday that "what [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad and Russia are doing in Aleppo is soul-shattering."
Gov. Greg Abbott says he's withdrawing Texas from the refugee resettlement program because the federal government refuses to provide assurances refugees don't post a security threat. Experts say, however, that the move will not stop refugees from finding a home in Texas.

Abbott first said he planned to withdraw from the program last week after asking the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Director of National Intelligence to "provide assurances that refugees resettled in Texas will not pose a security threat, and that the number of refugees resettled in Texas would not exceed the States original allocation in fiscal year 2016."

With those requests denied, Abbott said he's pulled out of the program to prioritize the safety of all Texans while urging the government to overhaul the broken system.

Texas is the third state to leave the program, along with New Jersey and Kansas.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins told NBC 5 last week that the governor pulling out of the program won't stop the refugees from coming.

"The state government doesn't have the power to build a wall around the state and refuse to let the children come here," Jenkins said.

According the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR, the director can appoint a designee to administer the assistance to refugees, if a state opts out of the program.

"ORR and its federal partners across the administration are working with states to ensure that all refugees and entrants have access to the critical support needed to help them rebuild their lives in the United States in a manner that protects them as well as the safety and security of the communities where they settle," ORR said in a statement Friday afternoon. "While we of course regret Texas' decision, ORR is working to appoint designees to administer services to refugees in Texas, until a later time when competitive bids will be accepted for a Wilson-Fish alternative program. ORR is working to prevent a disruption in the delivery of services and benefits to refugees and entrants in Texas."

Last week Bill Bernstein, deputy director of Mosaic Family Services, a state-funded program that helps refugees once they arrive in North Texas, said he was confident the federal government would find another way to channel money to the agencies serving the refugee population.

In a statement to NBC 5 Friday afternoon, ORR said refugees will continue to be resettled in Texas only after extensive screenings are conducted by the State Department and Department of Homeland Security.

In the last year, about 2,000 refugees have resettled in the Dallas area, with about one in every 10 of them coming from Syria.

NBC 5's Julie Fine contributed to this report.
Former Israeli president Shimon Peres was remembered as a "great man" as scores of world leaders attended his funeral Friday, NBC News reported.

President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton were among 90 delegations from 70 countries paying their respects to Peres, who died Tuesday while hospitalized for a major stroke. He was 93.

"Even in the face of terrorist attacks, even after repeated disappointments at the negotiation table, he insisted that as human beings, Palestinians must be seen as equal in dignity to Jews and must therefore be equal in self-determination," Obama said.

Clinton said Peres was Israel's "biggest dreamer" and called him a "wise champion of our common humanity."

After the ceremony, the casket was led to the gravesite carried by eight members of an honor guard and led by soldiers carrying wreaths. Netanyahu and Obama chatted along the way, also talking with Peres' family.
All that is left of Kevin and Laurie Walton's west Lancaster home is rubble. A fire reduced the home to near ashes two years ago.

But for the Waltons, it's the day after the fire that still burns.

"The next morning there is a lot of vultures sitting at the gate," Kevin Walton said.

By "vultures" he means people who he says offered help with insurance claims and rebuilding. It's precisely what the California Department of Insurance warns homeowners about every fire season. The agency stresses homeowners contact their insurance agent first to avoid scammers, make sure an adjuster is licensed and photograph belongings as evidence of loss.

The Waltons have photos to show. But it's their adjuster they didn't account for.

"I thought I had somebody here to help me," Kevin Walton said.

Walton says his childhood friend Joe Villa, a licensed independent insurance adjuster, offered his help. The Department of Insurance licenses independent adjusters, who acting as middle men, connect fire victims with companies to pay for and repair damage.

Before long, the Waltons suspected Villa was shady.

"That is the most vulnerable time I have ever felt in my life," Laurie Walton said. "He basically came out to get our checks signed and take them."

Investigators for the Department of Insurance allege Villa took insurance checks, forged signatures from Wells Fargo Bank employees, then had the Waltons sign so he could deposit the check.

"Within two months after the fire, he is embezzling us and we don't even know it," Laurie Walton said.

Investigators allege Villa deposited more than $280,000, spending some money to demolish what was left of the home, and pocketing more than $230,000.

"He essentially stole their money and walked away," said Byron Tucker, California's deputy insurance commissioner.

Tucker says Villa has been arrested. Having allegedly stolen more than $400,000 from homeowners, Villa is charged with multiple felony counts of embezzlement, grand theft, and forgery. He faces up to 10 years behind bars if convicted.

The I-Team has tried repeatedly to contact Villa. He has not returned our calls.

Tucker says the Villa investigation is not over.

"We think there are more victims out there and we urge them to come forward," Tucker said.

The Waltons want their day in court. They have been living in a tiny trailer for two years while rebuilding their home, one paycheck at a time.

"I haven't been able to accept all this yet," Kevin Walton said. "My anger is there and I am just trying to move forward."

To check if an insurance adjuster is licensed, visit insurance.ca.gov or call 800-927-4357.

The California Department of Insurance lists the following information for dealing with insurance adjusters:
Police were looking for a man who held up a Coffee Bean on the Westside of Los Angeles on Thursday night before fleeing in a getaway vehicle and crashing into an SUV.

The incident happened about 9:15 p.m. when a male robber held up a Coffee Bean in the 11000 block of Santa Monica Boulevard, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

The man stole an unknown amount of cash. Police said the weapon used was a black semi-automatic gun. He ran to a gray Hyundai and drove two blocks west on Santa Monica before crashing into an SUV at Santa Monica and Bentley avenues.

Then he ran away.

He's described as Latino, 5 foot 10 and wearing a bandana over his face. There was no immediate word on injuries to the SUV driver.




A large crowd of demonstrators shut down the streets of Pasadena on Friday, as police release the 911 calls and surveillance video in the incident of a man who died after a confrontation with officers.

The protesters, many carrying signs, marched on streets, bringing traffic to a halt at some intersections in Old Town Pasadena.

They came out after the girlfriend of the man who died demanded answers, claiming officers used excessive force when they restrained him.

The man's girlfriend, Shanie Lindsey, identified him as 36-year-old Reginald "J.R." Thomas.

"I'm hurt, disgusted, disappointed and just upset," Lindsey said.

Pasadena police received a call reporting a family disturbance around 2 a.m. Friday, said Capt. Steven Katz of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau.

Then they received a second call around 2:35 a.m., and were told that a man had a knife and a fire extinguisher. Authorities said the caller identified the man, and that they heard a struggle during the call.

Although investigators do not know who made the calls, they believe both were made by the same person. Katz noted detectives were working to identify who that caller was.

Police were able to trace the second call to an apartment, and responded to the 200 block of East Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena, according to authorities.

When Pasadena police officers arrived, they attempted to detain Thomas to take him into custody, and "he struggled with the officers," Katz said. Police used a Taser and non-lethal force, and restrained him with handcuffs and ankle restraints.

Surveillance video from the complex shows officers rushing across the courtyard of the apartment where Thomas was visiting his family.

Officers noticed Thomas was no longer breathing and removed all of his restraints and started performing CPR, according to authorities. Pasadena Fire paramedics "took over life saving efforts," before Thomas eventually died, Katz said.

Lindsey believes officers used excessive force on her boyfriend, who she says was mentally ill.

"They knew he was disabled, they knew he was bipolar, they knew he was on social security, and they still killed him," she said.

Lindsey said Thomas called police claiming someone was in their apartment, and said he was holding a knife in one hand and a fire extinguisher in the other when police arrived.

Officers told him to drop both items and used a Taser twice when he did not, according to Lindsey. Then, Thomas got up and slammed the door on the officers.

"They busted through the door and they wrestled him down to the ground, they started kicking him and beating him with the stick, and then they start tying him up," Lindsey said. "And that was it, and they told us to get out."

Los Angeles County Sheriff investigators are investigating the circumstances of his death, and Katz noted that there were six detectives at the scene Friday around 11 a.m., adding that the investigation was in its "infancy."

Two officers were also injured during the confrontation, Katz said.

Police had not identified the man as of 12:30 p.m. Friday.

Anyone with information about this investigation was encouraged to call the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department's Information Bureau at 213-229-1700.
Police were seeking a man who robbed a Kaiser Permanente pharmacy at gunpoint, prompting authorities to lock down nearby stores in the Porter Ranch shopping mall during rush hour Thursday night.

The robber, described as a man in his 20's wearing a black bandana and a black hoodie, was armed with a semi-automatic handgun when he walked into the pharmacy located on Tampa Avenue and Rinaldi Street before 7 p.m., according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

He pulled out the gun -- but did not fire -- and jumped over the counter and robbed the pharmacy, police said. What he took was unknown.

He fled the area in a gray Mazda with paper plates, police said.

Authorities locked down nearby stores to search the area.

Kaiser Permanente spokeswoman Susan Ng said the pharmacy will be closed Friday because the facility was damaged during the robbery.

"No patients or staff were hurt during the robbery," the statement read. "The safety and security of our members, patients and staff are our utmost priority. We are fully cooperating with the police during their investigation to determine the identity of perpetrators and extent of losses."

Kaiser Permanente members needing pharmacy services should log onto to www.kp.org for pharmacy locations closest to them.
Twelve Los Angeles Fire Department members, as well as three K-9 units, were honored Thursday for their bravery, courage and commitment to the city during an award ceremony.

Hosted by Mayor Eric Garcetti and Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas, every award at the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundations Awards Luncheon came with a heroic tale highlighting each recepient's bravest and most committed moment in the past year.

Engineer Darin Laier was awarded the Medal of Valor, the highest award, for saving a 16-year-old girl from drowning in swirling pool while he was on vacation in Kauai.

Retired Assistant Chief Frank Borden was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award for serving the LAFD for 36 years. Throughout his career, Borden has developed emergency preparedness programs such as CERT, Fire Safety Education and the Research and Development Unit, the fire department said.

The Fire Departments Engine 12, which includes Capt. Shin Black, Engineer Timothy Aguayo, Firefighter Zachariah Robinson and Probationary Firefighter Daniel Goen, was awarded the Medal of Merit for saving a man who was dangling off a bridge over the Arroyo Seco Wash in Mt. Washington. The man had threatened to jump 30 feet to his death, but the crew lifted him to safety.

Also awarded the Medal of Merit were retired Capt. Robert Shrode and Engineer Tyler Varnum for taking control of Engine 102 after the engineer driving the engine passed out, crashing into parked cars and knocking down power poles.

Three K-9 Unit members  Veya, Riggs and Faith  earned special recognition when they helped locate human bodies in heavy debris after a fire that occurred this past June.

Because of his dedication to the LAFD and LAPDs Annual St. Baldricks Event, as well as his commitment to the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles, Capt. Danny Wu was honored with the Crystal Flame Community Service Award.

The Fire Department also recognized The Walt Disney Company with the Corporate Responsibility Award for training their employees to perform CPR after a man suffered cardiac arrest in front of the El Capitan Theater. The theatres assistant manager, Michael Brandy, administered CPR to the man until the LAFD arrived.
In the campaign against human trafficking, the city of Los Angeles will collaborate with the federal Department of Homeland Security under an agreement signed Thursday.

As part of the agreement, a range of city departments, from police and fire to ports, housing and building and safety, will join what DHS calls the "Blue Campaign." City personnel will receive federal training in areas including detection, investigation, and victim protection.

During a trip from Washington to Los Angeles, Alejandro Mayorkas, the DHS deputy secretary joined LA Mayor Eric Garcetti in a city hall signing ceremony.

"We have built a unique, inclusive partnership in Los Angeles that serves as a model for the nation in the critical fight against this crime," said Mayorkas.

"The Blue Campaign will help us better train our first responders to identify the signs of this barbaric practice, and engage everyday Angelenos isn the fight against modern day slavery," said Garcetti.

The campaign against human trafficking has represented a paradigm shift in which certain underground economy workers  in many cases, underage sex workers  are recognized as enslaved victims in need of rescue.

Many of the victims are runaways or teens no longer receiving foster care who fall under the control of a pimp. Others are immigrants who remain dependent on the trafficker who arranged their passage and often retains necessary travel documents such as passports and visas.

In Van Nuys, on a Sepulveda Boulevard corridor known for prostitution, a task force of Los Angeles police and social service workers has focused on bringing the underage sex workers alternatives to juvenile hall, said City Council woman Nury Martinez.

Offering "resources makes all the difference in the world," Martinez said.

Criminal gangs increasingly have taken control of street prostitution, according to Martinez. "We're now going after the pimps and the gangmembers. They're the biggest problem."

Also present at Thursday's signing were members of the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, known as CAST. Besides advocacy and outreach, CAST also provides social services, shelter and legal assistance to victims in their effort to rebuild their lives.

CAST believes public awareness can lead to more victims being identified and assisted.

"Education is the key," said Kay Buck, CAST LA executive director.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has also made a commitment to combat human trafficking, and like LAPD, works on a multiagency basis through the Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Taskforce.

An operation conducted Wednesday night in Compton along Long Beach Blvd. and Elm Street arrested 28 adults, and the rescues of two underrage girls identified as "commercially, sexually exploited children," according to a Sheriff's statement released Thursday evening.

The 27 adult female sex workers, released on citation, were offered "victim-centered services" from CAST and Restoration Diversion Services, the statement added.

One man, allegedly working as a lookout, was also cited.
A panty bandit who police called prolific was caught red-handed Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

Carlos Olivas, 35, was arrested on suspicion of commercial burglary in connection to what investigators believe is "organized retail crime."

The owner of lingerie shop "Excitement" got an alert that someone was breaking into the store and called 911.

Olivas was outside of the store, seen on surveillance footage attempting to get inside.

He was taken into custody by a sergeant, LAPD said. Investigators quickly learned it wasn't the first time that Olivas had allegedly hit the store on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills.

Investigators also determined it wasn't the start of the accused panty bandit's high-volume career.

"We had dubbed this man the Panty Bandit," said Det. Merrill Dunn in a statement released by the LAPD. "His penchant for breaking into lingerie shops told us this was a matter of organized retail crime, which means he's reselling the merchandise to fences or shipping it out of the country."

The first panty thefts began in January when the suspected burglar broke into Les Corest Lingerie in Woodland Hills. The suspect then also broke into Romantic Inc. on Sherman Way and Van Nuys Boulevard, making off with more than $10,000 worth of unmentionables.

Olivas' bail was set at $200,000 based on each crime.

The LAPD also happened to bust another burglar at a Hollister store in the Topanga Mall on the same evening who the store owner said had stuck before.

Marco Naranjo, 21, was arrested on suspicion of commercial burglary and his bail was set at $80,000.

Naranjo was found a mile away from the store with the stolen items, "already shooting heroin into his arm," according to the LAPD.
Donald Trump shamed a former beauty pageant winner Friday for her sexual history and encouraged presidential voters to check out what he called her "sex tape," in an early-morning tweet-storm that dragged him further away from his campaign's efforts to broaden his appeal to women and prompted a new round of attacks from his Democratic rival.

A day after he injected former President Bill Clinton's infidelities into the campaign, Trump accused Hillary Clinton's campaign of helping 1996 Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado get U.S. citizenship, but offered no proof. He said Machado had a "terrible" past that a "duped" Clinton had overlooked before holding her up "as an 'angel'" in the first presidential debate.

"Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?" read a missive from Trump posted on his verified Twitter account at 5:30 a.m.

"This is ... unhinged. Even for Trump," Clinton retorted in a tweet of her own. She elaborated on the comments at a campaign event Friday afternoon in Coral Springs, Florida.

After noting that Trump "choked" during his meeting with Mexico's president, Clinton said her opponent "finds it a lot easier to insult women than talk to the president of Mexico about building a wall."

"I mean really, who gets up at 3 o'clock in the morning to engage in a Twitter attack against a former Miss Universe," Clinton said at a rally in Florida Friday afternoon. "I mean he hurled as many insults as he could. Really, why does he do things like that?"

She said the actions proved "yet again that he is temperamentally unfit to be president and commander in chief."

"I have said it before and I have said it again," Clinton added. "A man who can be provoked by a tweet should not be anywhere near the nuclear codes."

Earlier, Machado took to her Facebook page to say Trump's tweets were part of a pattern of "demoralizing women."

https://www.instagram.com/p/BK

"These attacks are cheap lies with bad intentions," Machado said. (See a translation of her full post here).

But Trump appeared undaunted, even as his broadside against Machado ricocheted across the campaign, and Democrats seized it as to criticize him all the more.

Trump ignored questions from reporters about the tweets as he campaigned in Michigan. But he wrote on Twitter Friday afternoon that his pre-dawn tweeting was a sign that "at least you know I will be there, awake, to answer the call."

For those few people knocking me for tweeting at three o'clock in the morning, at least you know I will be there, awake, to answer the call!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016

His campaign described the hullabaloo as the consequence of collusion between biased news outlets and Clinton's campaign.

"This is the single biggest coordinated media attack in history," said Trump campaign spokeswoman Jessica Ditto.

Machado, the Venezuela-born actress, has been center stage in the campaign since Clinton noted in Monday's debate that Trump had mocked her publicly for gaining weight after she won Miss Universe, a pageant then owned by the businessman. Clilnton brought up that Machado said Trump called the woman "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping." If that was a trap laid by Clinton, the irrepressible Trump dug himself deeper the next day by saying Machado's "massive" weight gain had been "a real problem."

[NATL] Highlights From the 2016 Campaign Trail

His latest taunt appeared to refer to footage from a Spanish reality show in 2005 in which Machado was a contestant and appeared on camera in bed with a male contestant. The images are grainy and do not include nudity, though Machado later acknowledged in the Hispanic media that she was having sex in the video. NBC News has not verified its authenticity.

Clinton's campaign has released videos featuring Machado and has arranged for reporters to interview her in an effort to use Trump's comments against him just as early voting in critical states gets underway. Her spokesman said she called Machado Friday to thank her for her courage.

Clinton, in her response to Trump on Twitter, tied his broadside against Machado to his previous attacks on Rosie O'Donnell and Kim Kardashian about their looks.

"When something gets under Donald's thin skin, he lashes out and can't let go," Clinton said. "This is dangerous for a president."

Shaming Machado over intimate details from her past could be particularly risky as Trump tries to win over more female voters, many of whom are turned away by such personal attacks. It also risks calling further attention to the thrice-married Trump's own history with women.

Anytime you see a story about me or my campaign saying "sources said," DO NOT believe it. There are no sources, they are just made up lies!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016

Clinton's campaign has highlighted Machado's status as a new American and her plans to cast her first vote for Clinton. But Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said Clinton did not help Machado get U.S. citizenship.

The flurry on Twitter began shortly after 3 a.m. on the East Coast when Trump complained about stories about his campaign based on anonymous sources and told his supporters not to believe them.

"There are no sources, they are just made up lies!" he wrote.

Trump has repeatedly gotten himself in trouble with his late-night and early-morning tweets, which appear to be written by the candidate himself. Trump has, at various points during his campaign, toned down the content, but rarely for long.

His Republican allies have implored him to stick to attacks on Clinton over her family foundation, her emails or her long history as a political insider, critiques that fall further out of view whenever he sparks a new controversy.

Even some of Trump's most vocal allies seemed at a loss for words at the candidate's latest actions.

"He's being Trump. I don't have any comment beyond that," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a top supporter. Generally chatty and occasionally critical of Trump, Gingrich said tersely that Trump sometimes does "strange things," but that Clinton lies. "I'll let you decide which is worse for America."

But Trump's inner circle followed his lead by refusing to concede any missteps. Trump didn't mention the tweets Friday evening as he rallied supporters in Michigan.

The vendetta against Machado adds fuel to a burgeoning debate in America about putting down women over the perception of promiscuity. Women's advocates have said the phenomenon, which takes place largely online, holds women to a different standard because men are often praised for having multiple partners.

A day earlier, as Trump tried to bounce back from his widely panned debate performance, he warned voters that a Clinton victory would bring her husband's sex scandal back to the White House. The fresh rehash of the 1990s Monica Lewisnky scandal came despite Trump's insistence that he's been courageously restrained by not bringing it up.
Loved ones said a final farewell Friday to a Miami firefighter killed in a drive-by shooting in northwest Miami-Dade.

The City of Miami firefighters is a tight group and the brotherhood came out Friday to support each other at the funeral for Chadrick Davis.

"A very hard worker, always smiling, always liked to joke around with us, just never forget that laugh he had, made everyone else around him smile and laugh," firefighter Alexander Vergara said.

Davis, 32, and 22-year-old Earnest Williams were shot and killed in the drive-by shooting last weekend after attending a wake. It's the type of danger these first responders are used to but it rarely hits this close to home.

"We see it happening all the time unfortunately, we run on calls like this all the time but when it happens to one of our brothers, one of us, it completely changes everything," union president for City of Miami firefighters Freddy Delgado said.

"This is the first time in our history that a firefighter has been shot, murdered, in any type of way or from. We're a little outraged," firefighter Marcus Talams said.

Davis' death touched the firefighters he went to the academy with even more.

"Six months of being with each other everyday, you grow a special bond with each other," Vergara said. "The whole fire department is a brotherhood but when you have a classmate, it's something special, you guys share something different and it really hits close to home."

Police are still looking for suspects in the shooting. Anyone with information is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS.
Miami Police Department is asking for the public's assistance in locating a missing teen who suffers from depression.

Tiffany Jiron, 15, has been missing since Monday and was last seen at 3025 SW 23 street in Miami.

According to detectives, Tiffany suffers from depression and has displayed signs of suicidal thoughts.

She was last seen wearing a white polo shirt, beige shorts and blue sneakers.

If you have any information, please contact the Miami Police Department at (305) 603-6300 or (305) 603-6310
The woman who was killed when a New Jersey Transit train crashed into a terminal in Hoboken Thursday morning received her MBA from Florida International University.

Fabiola Bittar de Kroon graduated from FIU in 2011, the school confirmed Friday. She was a native of Brazil but lived in South Florida while attending FIU's College of Business.

De Kroon, 34, had recently moved back to the United States with her husband and daughter.

Officials said de Kroon was standing on the platform at the Hoboken Terminal when a train traveling too fast crashed through a barrier and into the station, killing de Kroon amid falling debris and injuring more than 100 other people.

De Kroon's husband Daan was on a business trip in Pennsylvania, NBC New York reported. He rushed home, and when he arrived at the day care to pick up their daughter, he asked the owner for advice: how do you tell an 18-month-old that her mother is gone?
Instead of dropping off their children at a Liberty City daycare Friday morning, parents were permanently removing their kids following the death of a two-year-old boy.

A mother was in tears following the death of her son Angel Matute Chavez, who died after he was found unresponsive inside a van in the daycare's parking lot on Wednesday.

Investigators were at the Vision for Life Academy Friday questioning what went wrong.

A parent says she was asked to come back to the daycare Friday morning to pick up paper work in order to take her five-year-old son to a new preschool, and she's not the only parent.

Parents on Thursday filed paperwork at the daycare in order to remove their children.

"How can you forget a whole child in a car- a whole baby in a car," parent Jessica Lewis said. "It's children you go to pick up so how can you just not remember who you brought with you."

The Department of Children and Family said the daycare was not authorized to transport children to begin with and according to a Miami-Dade County policy, the van should've had safety features in order to prevent a death like this.

"Any person that you lose under your responsibility is a problem," said Emy Etien, friend of daycare owner. "So, I can say she cares for those children as her own so I'm pretty sure she is devastated."

The daycare has an attorney who issued a statement on how the co-owner has dedicated 13 years of her life to the care of children and is in shock. The statement also says they are cooperating with Miami Police.

The daycare is closed to the care of children, however, a few people were seen inside working with parents, including state and city employees.

"Next time it could be one of them and I'll have no sympathy," a parent said.

Charges are pending based on a death investigation with Miami Police and DCF.
Matthew became a major hurricane Friday in the southern Caribbean just north of the Guajira Peninsula of Colombia.

Tropical Storm Warnings are in effect there (a rare occurrence) for effects from the side-swipe of the cyclone. The 115 MPH winds would stay well away from Colombia.

Matthew has been able to strengthen despite the presence of moderate southwesterly upper level wind shear and a bit of dry air to its northwest. There is a chance that it may peak in intensity Friday and weaken over the next day and a half or two but -- as you can tell -- there is little skill in tropical cyclone intensity forecasts.

The hurricane has been moving south of due west for the last 24 hours, pushed (or kept) into the southern Caribbean Sea by a strong area of high pressure located north of the Greater Antilles. This high is expected to weaken and retreat into the Atlantic as a deep trough of low pressure dips into the Gulf of Mexico.

That process would open up a lane for Matthew to start moving in a general northerly direction. The timing of the interaction between the trough, the high, and the cyclone is crucial, as is the speed at which it turns and moves towards Jamaica and Cuba.

Therefore the exact nature of this turn is still unknown, although Friday there is greater consensus among models that the track past Cuba would be into the north or central Bahamas and not into Florida. However, that could easily change.

While the European (historically the most reliable global model) and the UK Met model have a track closer to Haiti and the southern Bahamas (up to Thursday night's runs), the American GFS, the Canadian, the Japanese, and the U.S. Navy models all have a track uncomfortably close to Florida, with the eye of a powerful hurricane possibly striking Andros Island or even Nassau in New Providence Island. That is 200 miles or less away from Miami.

And the GFS has had a general trend towards the west for several days, as it originally had Matthew turning into the Dominican Republic a few days back.

There are other meteorological factors down the road, like the weakening departure of the Gulf trough, the rebuilding of the Atlantic high, and the advance of yet another trough currently in the western United States, that could play a role in the eventual track of Matthew past the Bahamas. That's why some members of the ECMWF European ensemble model (they run the model 50 times with varying initialization to see what small variations could cause in the eventual forecast) show a track into Florida.

The vast majority of the models, however, do keep the storm away from Florida. But it's a close shave right now, too close for comfort. The official NHC forecast "cone" has shifted west, as I've been predicting on the air, and now basically touches Miami.

NHC continues to declare their low level of confidence in their forecasts, reminding everyone of their average 5-day error of 230 miles on their hurricane track forecasts. In addition, NHC at 11 a.m. stated: "It is too soon to rule out possible hurricane impacts from Matthew in Florida."

So please stay tuned on air and online. Adam Berg and I will have First Alert Weather Team coverage on NBC 6 from 4 to 6:30 p.m. and then again I'll be on at 11 p.m. with the latest advisory and updated track.
Steven Avery, the subject of Netflix documentary "Making a Murderer," and his new fiancee Lynn Hartman are opening up to Dr. Phil about their newfound love.

The special, which airs in two parts on Oct. 3 and 4, will feature Hartman sitting down with the show's host as well as a phone interview with Avery, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach. Hartman's relationship with Avery began when she starting writing to him earlier this year.

When Dr. Phil asks Hartman if it was "love at first write," she tells him that they only started saying "I love you" after they heard each other's voices for the first time. "The first time he told me he loved me was the first time we spoke on the phone," she said, according to a preview.

Avery is hoping to have his conviction overturned, like his nephew Brendan Dassey's  a judge found last month Dassey's confession to having a part in the killing was involuntary  so that he and Hartman can tie the knot sooner rather than later.

"The truth is coming out and sooner or later, all the truth will come out," he says. "I want to wait until I'm out [to get married] and I don't think that'll be too long; right around the corner."

As for his former relationships, which were a point of contention in the Netflix documentary about Avery's murder trial, Avery says his love with Hartman is nothing like he's ever felt. "I haven't been in love my whole life. It's not the same as the others. Everything is all different with her," he tells Dr. Phil.
What to Know Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, was standing on the platform at Hoboken Terminal when the train came barreling in and she was struck by debris

Rahman Perkins was rushing to class when the crash happened. He ran to de Kroon's side and stayed with her in her dying moments

"I know that she knew I was going to make sure she wasn't going to be by herself," Perkins says

The woman killed in the New Jersey Transit train crash into Hoboken Terminal was alive in the initial moments after impact, aided by a man who tried desperately to save her.

Rahman Perkins, 29, of Rahway, says he was rushing through the Hoboken Terminal to get to class Thursday morning when the train came barreling in.

"I was walking behind the station by the pier and everyone started running out, and I started running in, like an instant," he said. "I saw the train just hit the wall."

The crash brought down structural debris that hit Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, the 34-year-old mother who had just dropped off her toddler daughter at day care.

"I was just moving people and picking up beams and metal, and I happened to see her feet on the ground," Perkins told NBC 4 New York Friday, describing the heartbreaking encounter.

"It was just chaotic -- I mean, really, it was dangerous everywhere," he said.

A photo from the scene shows Perkins amid the debris, in a light blue jacket and backpack. He said he had been running late for class at the nearby Cortiva Institute, and took a shortcut through the train station moments before the crash.

Perkins found de Kroon under the debris, amazingly still alive.

"I told her, 'Just breathe, focus on your family, focus on your loved ones,'" he said. "I told her, 'I'm here, I'm not going to leave you.'"

"She fought. She really did her best," said Perkins.

As De Kroon struggled to breathe, "I could see she was in so much pain, I didn't want to pick her up and run anywhere because there was so much blood and I didn't know where it was coming from," said Perkins.

In the chaos that followed, Perkins said police finally told him he had to leave, but he continued to inquire about de Kroon while at school.

"I kept calling back downstairs out of my school, 'Did someone check on her, did someone check on her?'" he said. "They were like, they took her to the hospital."

He went to the hospital, where he received the devastating news that the Hoboken resident -- a wife and mother of one who recently moved from Brazil -- had died.

"I know that she knew I was there. I know that she knew I was going to make sure she wasn't going to be by herself so it just puts a little peace in my heart," Perkins said. "I just want her family to know I tried my best."

Perkins said he'd welcome any contact from de Kroon's family if they wanted to speak to him.

"It was a terrible situation. Sometimes, a stranger is called upon to help another stranger," Perkins said.

"I hope she watches over me," he said, visibly emotional.

De Kroon was the sole fatality in the train crash. More than 100 people were injured, and 16 of them remained hospitalized Friday.
UPDATE: Missing College Student Found in NYC Hospital

The search for a missing Boston University student has intensified in New York City as relatives comb city streets looking for the bipolar man.

Zachery Camhi, 25, has not been taking his medication, according to family members, and has been missing since Sept. 18, when he wandered away from the W Hotel in midtown. He was wearing a maroon button-down shirt and dark gray pants at the time, his brother Sam Camhi said.

Weve been going to shelters and hospitals, said Sam, who has been in New York with his wife since Monday. We still need a lot of help, of course, because Manhattan is such a large place that we can only focus on particular things each day.

Sam says his brother, an award-winning musician, may be disoriented and may not remember his name. He may even be speaking a foreign language.

Zac had similar episodes in Boston but has never been missing more than a few hours, his brother said.

This time when he got lost, he didnt have his wallet, he has no money, and he has no phone, Sam Camhi said.

Sam Camhi says he and his wife have checked hospitals and churches. The NYPD has also issued a missing persons alert for Zac.

Its almost two weeks now so its dire, Sam Camhi said.

Sam Camhi said his family hopes to raise some money on GoFundMe to bring more relatives to town to search. None of Zac Camhis relatives live in the area, and travel expenses and hotel bills are adding up.

If anyone thinks they have seen Zac, or have information about this whereabouts, they should call the NYPD or e-mail helpfindzac@gmail.com.
The engineer aboard the NJ Transit train that plowed through walls at the century-old Hoboken Terminal Thursday morning has no infractions, medical episodes or criminal history, sources familiar with situation told NBC 4 New York.

Three sources said that according to a preliminary review, engineer Tommy Gallagher had no "red flags" in his history prior to the crash that killed one woman and injured 108 others.

Preliminary reports suggest the crash was either accidental or caused by operator error, law enforcement officials said. They stressed that it is early in the investigation.

The National Transportation Safety Board has been called in to conduct an inquiry into the crash.

Gallagher was seriously injured in the crash but was released from the hospital. He has been cooperating with authorities, according to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

NTSB Vice Chairwoman T. Bella Dinh-Zarr said investigators will be interviewing him.

Gallagher's father told NBC 4 New York he wasn't sure about the condition of his son until after he saw a breaking news banner on TV telling him that the train's operator had survived.

"We're very upset with this whole matter," the man said.

The engineer's father said that the man had been with NJ Transit since he was 19 years old and had also served as a station master, a part-time track worker, and accident investigator. He said his son is a dedicated worker who doesn't call in sick.

Editors note: This story has been updated to say Tommy Gallagher has been working for NJ Transit since he was 19 years old.

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A legal wrinkle in Prince's estate case shows you might not have to be a blood relative to inherit some of the late rock superstar's sizable fortune.

No will has surfaced since Prince accidentally overdosed on painkillers in April, so his sister, Tyka Nelson, and five half-siblings are likely to be declared rightful heirs within the next few months.

But the judge also has to decide whether a purported niece and grandniece  plus a purported nephew who came forward this week  should count as heirs even though they may not be blood relatives. That's because in Minnesota, there are circumstances in which someone can be considered a parent based on having a familial relationship with a child, such as informally raising a non-biological child as their own.

"The statutes don't give clear guidance  they really don't," said Susan Link, a Minnesota estate law expert who's following the case closely but isn't involved in it.

The judge will have to sort out a complex interplay between probate and parentage laws that appears to be unique to Minnesota, as well as the complicated family history of Prince and his relatives.

Brianna Nelson, her daughter Victoria Nelson and Corey Simmons all claim descent from the late Duane Nelson Sr., who they say was Prince's half-brother. The case filings suggest that Prince's late father, John L. Nelson, might not have been Duane's biological father, but the three allege that John considered Duane to be his son, and that Prince considered Duane to be his half-brother.

Duane's birth certificate lists John Nelson as his father, and John's obituary listed Duane as his son. Duane, who died in 2011, also served as Prince's security chief for several years before they had a falling out.

Should the court count Duane as a half-sibling, Brianna and Victoria Nelson hope to divide what would have been his share (one-seventh) of the estate, which has been estimated at between $100 million and $300 million altogether.

Already, Carver County District Judge Kevin Eide has said Brianna and Victoria have presented a plausible enough case to proceed and don't need to undergo genetic testing.

"One-seventh of the estate after taxes is still a lot of money," Los Angeles probate attorney Robert Straus said.

If Simmons' claim survives, it would be a three-way split. He says Duane Nelson and his mother, Carolyn Simmons, who isn't Brianna Nelson's mother, met at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Duane left Carolyn when she was five months pregnant and returned to Minnesota, Simmons said. He said his parents' last contact was in 1989, and that he met Brianna and two of Prince's half-sisters for the first time at Duane's funeral.

"His relationship with Brianna Nelson is a happy and affectionate one, in which Brianna Nelson acknowledges him as her brother," Simmons' motion claimed. It also said he attended Prince's family funeral and spent "quality time" there with Brianna and two of Prince's half-sisters he considers his aunts, likely heirs Norrine Nelson and Sharon Nelson.

Little else is known about Simmons. His attorney, Eric Dammeyer, declined to give details, citing privacy concerns.

Lawyers for Brianna and Victoria Nelson argue an extensive revision to the state's probate code 2010 left confusing gaps but that a 2003 Minnesota Supreme Court decision  issued before that revision  supports their claims. Lawyers for Bremer Trust, the special administrator overseeing the estate, have countered that it isn't clear whether that's true.

Eide has asked for more written arguments and set dates for two potential hearings in November.
A nudist retreat nestled below the Santa Cruz Mountains is opening its door to all Loma Fire refugees and their animals "until the fires out.

Lupin Lodge CEO Lori Stout told NBC Bay Area on Friday that many shelters arent allowing displaced Santa Clara and Santa Cruz county residents to bring their animals, like horses, to stay with them as Cal Fire crews battle the fire, which as of Friday, had scorched 4,300 acres and destroyed eight homes.

So, Stout decided to invite the evacuees and their pets  including farm animals - to her Los Gatos retreat on Aldercroft Heights Road, which boasts to have been freeing the nipple for 82 years.

And the offer gets better: The stay is open to any of the cabins, yurts, dormitories and 100 campsites, for free. Prices vary, but a typical yurt costs $125 a night.

Hey, we got lots of room, she said.

Dramatic Images: Destruction, Aftermath of the Loma Fire

Stout said she came up with the idea on Thursday, but has not yet received occupants.

But if history is any indication, the guests, clothed and not, will come.

During the 2015 Lake County Valley Fire, Stout invited the staff at the Harbin Hot Springs in Middletown, Calif., to stay at the lodge. During the Corralitos Fire near Watsonville last year, the lodge also opened its doors to evacuees, some of whom decided to try the nudist colony out. And in the 1980s, she said more than 1,000 firefighters stayed on the 112-acre property during the Lexington Fire and 1989 earthquake. Her retreat has been open since 1935.

Stout and her late husband, Glyn Stout, was accused last year of diverting water from a nearby waterfall during the drought; a topic she didn't want to discuss on Friday. She pleaded no contest to trespassing charges, and was sentenced to probation and 100 hours of community service, along with a fine of $9,800 to the Midpenninsula Regional Open Space District, the Mercury News reported.

Stout told NBC Bay Area that she plead no contest because her husband had died unexpectedly, but that she never actually trespassed.

[NATL-BAY] Photos from Fire in Santa Cruz Mountains

As for making sure she doesnt get duped or taken advantage of, Stout said that all guests have to undergo screening, including a database check through the Megans Law sex offenders list. They also have to provide a license plate number and drivers license, which will show where they live. Only local residents will be approved, she said, and determining when its time for a guest to leave will be on a case by case basis.

They can stay until the fires out, she said.

Stout said evacuees looking for help should call the retreat at 408-353-9200 or email relax@lupinlodge.org.
Asian American boy band "The Slants" is headed to the nation's highest court and the fate of the Washington Redskins' name could hang in the balance, too.

The Supreme Court agreed Thursday to hear the case involving The Slants' controversial name choice in the question of whether the group should be allowed to trademark it. The case could have implications for the Washington Redskins trademark status by setting a precedent on the matter of free speech in trademarks, according to The New York Times.

In 2011, band founder Simon Tam filed for a protected trademark for The Slants with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) but the office denied it. The band is still allowed to use the name, but without the trademark they are not able to prevent others from using the same name, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The band saw a major victory last year when a federal appeals court backed the band, calling the PTOs rejection of an offensive trademark a violation of the right to free speech. The Obama administration has asked the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling.

In February the appeals court categorized the bands name as private speech and called the rejection of the trademark a result of the governments own disapproval of the message. The First Amendment can protect even hurtful speech. Lawyers for Tam have said that the PTO has been inconsistent on when it deemed names offensive, citing the 1980s hip-hop group N.W.A. as an example. That group was allowed to trademark their name.

In response to the appeals court, the Justice Department said that a trademark is in fact a government benefit, not private speech, and therefore could be seen as an endorsement. In a dissent on The Slants name, the Justice Department argued that granting a trademark would convey that the United States regards racial slurs as appropriate, Los Angeles Times reported.

The Slants, originally from Portland, Oregon, was formed in 2006. The self-proclaimed Chinatown dance rock group has released four albums under an independent label.

The Supreme Court has so far declined to hear the Washington Redskins case. The team has had a history of controversy over its name. In 2014, the PTO canceled the teams six trademarks, including the teams logo, following the years-long complaints from Native American groups. The team name has been called offensive, as the term redskin is a derogatory term for Native Americans. President Obama has called on numerous occasions for the D.C. team to change its name, citing a need to break stereotypes.

Tam, for his part, has called the Redskins a racial slur against Native Americans. He has said that the difference lies in the fact that The Slants does not intend to offend anyone and is not an inherent racial slur.

The court is not expected to rule on the issue for several months.

The Slants has not returned NBCs request for comment.
A furious congressional committee grilled Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf on Thursday, the latest group to express their ire over the bank's shady practices, NBC News reported.

Stumpf sat before the House Financial Services Committee to answer questions after Wells Fargo was fined a record $185 million this month for opening fee-generating accounts without customers' authorization in order to meet the high sales goals.

Representative Maxine Water said Wells Fargo committed "some of the most egregious fraud we have seen since the foreclosure crisis," comparing it to mass identity theft.

"I want to apologize for not doing more sooner to address the causes of this unacceptable activity," Stumpf said, but Congress was not appeased.
Phasers set to maximum.

Cast-members of "Star Trek" past and present, running the gamut from the many television series to the major motion films, came out en masse on Facebook blasting the idea of a Donald Trump presidency. They said his potential election goes against the very fabric of the "ideals of the Star Trek universe."

"His election would take this country backward, perhaps disastrously," the Facebook post read. "We need to elect a president who will move this country forward into the kind of future we all dream of: where personal differences are understood and accepted, where science overrules superstition, where people work together instead of against each other."

The post is signed by over 100 actors, writers and directors who've been associated with the "Star Trek" franchise for decades, running the gamut from original cast members George Takei and Walter Koenig to current Captain Kirk and Spock Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto. In between are stars from every other Star Trek series including "The Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine," "Voyager" and "Enterprise."

The letter is also signed by Susan and Adam Nimoy, the widow and son of original Spock Leonard Nimoy.

"Either Secretary Clinton or Mr. Trump will occupy the White House," the post continued. "One is an amateur with a contemptuous ignorance of national laws and international realities, while the other has devoted her life to public service, and has deep and valuable experience with the proven ability to work with Congress to pass desperately needed legislation. If, as some say, the government is broken, a protest vote will not fix it."

Some notable omissions: past "Star Trek" "captains" portrayed by William Shatner, Patrick Stewart and Avery Brooks.

The post is the latest Hollywood volley hurled against Trump in recent weeks. Most recently a host of stars, including Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore, Neil Patrick Harris united to post a scathing video slamming the Republican nominee for president.
The City of Philadelphia is reviewing its longstanding relationship with Wells Fargo & Co. after the bank was fined $185 million and fired 5,300 employees due to its sales tactics scandal.

On the heels of the state of California suspending doing business with the San Francisco-based bank for the next 12 months, a spokesman for Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said, The city is currently evaluating that relationship.

City Council unanimously passed a resolution, sponsored by Councilwoman Cindy Bass, on Thursday calling for council to investigate the impact of the scandal on Philadelphia residents and consider whether the city should deposit or invest taxpayer funds in financial institutions such as Wells Fargo, which promote policies that defraud its customers, blame its non-management employees for executive decisions, and has a history of predatory lending practices against minorities."

The predatory lending claim emanates from a $175 million settlement in July 2012 between Wells Fargo and the U.S. Department of Justice regarding claims of discrimination related to the banks subprime mortgages. The Justice Department said at the time that it was the second largest fair lending settlement in its history.

In a statement, Wells Fargo noted that its relationship with the city has existed for 48 years.

To read the full article, click here.

For more business news, visit Philadelphia Business Journal.
A gunman shot and killed a 42-year-old man inches from his home in Philadelphia's Hunting Park section overnight.

Gunfire rang out around 11 p.m. Thursday on W Annsbury Street near Lawrence Street.

The victim, who wasn't immediately identified, was shot at least once in the head while standing outside his home. At least four shots were fired from a semi-automatic weapon, said investigators.

Medics rushed him to Temple University Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead a short time later.

Witnesses, including a friend of the victim, gave 25th District police officers a description of two men involved in the shooting along with their vehicle.

The shooter, a male, wore a gray hoodie and dark pants. He entered a white vehicle that fled the scene, witnesses said.

Police stopped a white vehicle about two blocks away on Wingohocking Street. Inside the car was a gray hoodie that matched witnesses description. The two occupants were taken into custody for questioning.

The white vehicle will be impounded. A search warrant was placed as police try to look for the murder weapon.

Investigators didn't immediately reveal a motive for the deadly shooting.
How much money have you made in past jobs?

Its the question many job seekers dread on applications.

If a Philadelphia city councilman gets his way, though, it would be illegal for employers to ask it.

Patricia Greenwood knows the question all too well. Whether its on an application or during an interview, employers often put her on the spot requiring that she share how much she was paid in past jobs.

I dont like it. Its not good at all. Theyre not judging me on my character, on who I am. What my qualities are, my skills and my experience, she said.

City Councilman William Greenlee doesnt like it either. He says the question keeps women and minorities from getting a comparable salary to their white male counterparts.

Its kind of almost a common sense argument. Like why should somebodys previous pay determine what their pay on their next job is? he said.

On Thursday, Greenlee introduced a bill that would ban employers from asking applicants about their salary history. The legislation seeks to close the wage gap for women and minorities who census figures show continue to make less than their white male counterparts while doing the same jobs.

If you base a persons salary on what they previously made, that continues the inequities, Greenlee said.

In Massachusetts, a similar bill passed with bipartisan support in August. Congressional Democrats have also introduced a bill.

New Jersey and Pennsylvania lawmakers are among a handful across the country following suit trying to capitalize on the momentum.

As for Patricia, the change cant come soon enough.

 Hopefully City Council will not wait too late to pass that, she said. It should be immediate.
Philadelphia police officers fired 109 shots at a Cobbs Creek father who went on a stabbing spree in his neighborhood Wednesday night.

The sheer number of rounds that whizzed down a residential street concerns the department's top brass, Commissioner Richard Ross said Friday.

A number of bullets sprayed two homes at the intersection of Cobbs Creek Parkway and Webster Street. They also took down 32-year-old Christopher Sowell.

NBC10

Police said Sowell snapped Wednesday evening, choked his daughter, stabbed his young son and a friend and then assaulted a woman and slit the throat of a elderly neighbor after barging into her home. All victims remain hospitalized, Ross said. The three stabbing victims remain in critical condition.

Nine officers opened fire on Sowell, whose daughter believed he under the influence of drugs, after he walked out of the neighbor's home and failed to listen to their commands, according to investigators. The medical examiner has not yet said how many times Sowell was hit.

The standard service weapon for Philadelphia officers is a Glock handgun. Depending on the caliber of the bullet, the gun can fire up to 17 rounds before needing a new magazine.

Investigators said police thought Sowell was pulling a gun from his pocket when they opened fire. The initial dispatch information they received reported that the children had been shot, not stabbed, Ross said.

"They had every reason to believe that he was armed with a gun because even the officers who broadcasted that they were headed to the hospital with the victims, they believed the children were shot," Ross said.

A weapon was not found on or around Sowell's body, but a cell phone was.

Danny Sowell, a man alleging to be Christopher Sowell's brother in a Facebook post, admonished police for killing him and the media for describing the man in a negative light.

"My brother is not no killer, he not no menace...he a teddy bear. He'd do anything for you," Danny Sowell wrote in a post. "He just got on some bad s--t, man."

NBC10

No one else on the block was injured by gunfire, but another resident being hurt by friendly fire is central to Ross' worry.

He said officers could have fallen victim to "contagious shooting" -- where they followed each other in discharging their weapons.

"Other officers hear that gun fire and they believe they are under fire. And they return fire. And in this case firing multiple times," Ross said.

Ross said there may be a training issue that needs to be addressed.

The officers who opened fire have not yet spoken to Internal Affairs investigators about what transpired. The department carries out an investigation every time an officer uses their service weapon.

The officers involved were identified as: Anthony Britton, a 17 year veteran; Jeremy Olesik, a 9 year veteran; Michael Kane, Jr., a 9 year veteran; Thomas Thompson, a 1 year veteran; Walton Scott, a 2 year veteran; Ronald Green, a 19 year veteran; Adrian Hustler, a 9 year veteran; Richard Edwards, a 8 year veteran; and Timothy Moebius, a 3 year veteran.

The department is currently undertaking reality-based training where officers are put in a number of real-world scenarios to see how they react. Ross said 1,000 officers have gone through the program and it specifically focuses on "contagious shooting."

"They have to maintain their ability to hold their gunfire while the officer next to them is firing simultaneously," Ross said.

A dual investigation into the stabbing and the police-involved shooting are ongoing.
About 50 members of Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses & Allied Professionals gathered in front of Hahnemann University Hospital Friday for a demonstration to push for improved staffing levels at Philadelphia-area hospitals.

The nurses  some of whom wore buttons proclaiming "3:1," representing their desired patient-to-nurse ratio  unveiled a petition that has been signed by thousands of nurses at local medical centers demanding improved staffing.

PSNAP officials noted studies consistently show that appropriate nurse staffing result in fewer medical errors, better recoveries, reduced complications, and higher patient satisfaction.

This year, PASNAP has added more than 3,000 nurses at five area hospitals  Hahnemann, St. Christophers Hospital for Children and Einstein Medical Center, all in Philadelphia; along with Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill and Pottstown Memorial Hospital in Pottstown  to its union.

Patty Eakin, president of PASNAP, said the nurses at all the hospitals cited a desire to win improved staffing standards in their hospitals as a key reason for wanting to join the union this year. "Nurses at the patient bedsides want to be able to do their jobs safely," she said.

To read the full article, click here.

For more business news, visit Philadelphia Business Journal.
Vice President Joe Biden spoke Saturday afternoon at a public memorial service in Wilmington, Del., for two firefighters killed last weekend in a rowhouse fire.

Biden and his wife, Jill, attended Saturday's memorial at the Chase Center on the Riverfront along Justison Street. The service was open to all fellow firefighters, first responders and the general public.

Wilmington firefighters Lt. Christopher (Chris) Leach and Jerry Fickes Jr. were laid to rest in separate funeral services Friday. [[395456991, C]]

Leachs viewing and funeral were held Friday at St. Elizabeths Catholic Church on Broom Street in Wilmington. The viewing and funeral were only open to family, friends, Wilmington firefighters and local first responders.

A public viewing for Fickes was held Thursday from 5 to 8 p.m. at Grace Lutheran Church on Graves Road in Hockessin. Fickes was to be laid to rest after a private funeral Friday. [[395441821, C]]

Wilmington fire Chief Anthony S. Goode thanked fellow firefighters for covering shifts this weekend so members of the department could grieve.

A resident of the home along Lakeview Road is charged with murder. Beatriz Fana-Ruiz told investigators she lit the fire in the basement of the home in the Canby Park development, said investigators. She remained jailed Friday on $3 million bail.

The floor of the home collapsed as firefighters went inside, and four firefighters were trapped in the basement.

Fellow firefighters Ardythe Hope and Brad Speakman continued to recover Friday at Crozer Chester Medical Center. Lt. John Cawthray, firefighter Peter Cramer and firefighter Terrance Tate were also injured in the blaze, said firefighters.
Two sisters from Minnesota were found dead in their hotel room on a paradise island in the Indian Ocean last week, NBC News reported.

Annie Korkki, 37 and Robin Korkki, 42, were vacationing at a $2,000-a-night luxury resort on the Seychelles island of Mahe.

They were found dead on Sept. 22 after an employee at the Maia Luxury Resort and Spa tried to wake them, according to the hotel and local officials.

"There were no marks on them whatsoever," Seychelles Tourism Minister Alain St Ange told NBC News. "They had a good time in the day and then they went to their room."

The sisters' brother and mother have traveled to the island to look for answers, St Ange said.

Their brother, Chris Korkki, told the Associated Press the family has learned nothing through official channels about his sisters' deaths.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump held a rally in New Hampshire on Thursday afternoon at the New Hampshire Sportsplex in Bedford, where he also spoke one-on-one with necn's Alison King.

A day after Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson couldn't name a single foreign leader at an MSNBC town hall, Trump was asked to name a world leader he admired and would like to emulate. He chose German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"Well, I think Merkel is a really great world leader, but I was very disappointed [in] this move with the whole immigration thing," he said. "I think it's a big problem."

He explained that he respected her but strongly disagreed with her view.

"I was always a Merkel person," he said. "But I think she made a very tragic mistake a year and a half ago."

But Trump's praise for the German chancellor comes only nine months after he tweeted that Merkel was "ruining Germany."

I told you @TIME Magazine would never pick me as person of the year despite being the big favorite They picked person who is ruining Germany  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2015

In his interview with necn, Trump also reiterated his claim that every single web poll called him the winner of Monday's debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

"All of the online polls said that I won the debate," he said.

Trump won a series of unscientific flash polls conducted immediately after the debate, but an NBC News|Surveymonkey poll released yesterday gave Clinton the win by a wide margin.

Trump's visit came one day after Clinton and Bernie Sanders were at the University of New Hampshire in Durham talking about college affordability.

At his rally, Trump referred to the Clinton-Sanders event, telling the crowd that the two Democrats "had very few people at their rally yesterday." He said Sanders "sold out to the devil" by working with Clinton to develop a higher education plan.

[NATL] Highlights From the 2016 Campaign Trail

Sanders "should have just gone away" after losing the party nomination to Clinton, Trump said.

The GOP candidate also continued to connect his plan for U.S.-Mexico border security and the heroin epidemic that's devastating many parts of the country, including New Hampshire.

"We're going to build that wall, and we're going to stop that heroin from coming in," he said. "Stop the poison from coming in and destroying our youth and plenty of other people."

Trump sought to link Clinton to her husband's scandal-marked presidency, telling the crowd to "remember" that the House in 1998 impeached then-President Bill Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Bill Clinton was acquitted by the Senate.

Trump has made several visits to the Granite State since locking up his party's nomination. New Hampshire is seen as a key swing state in this year's presidential election.

His running mate, Mike Pence, was just in New Hampshire on Monday.
U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross is urging federal officials to relocate a Revolutionary War-era home in Bellmawr rather than demolish the 18th century structure.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the Democrat wrote a letter to the administrator of the Federal Highway Administration requesting that federal officials "pursue all options" to preserve the Hugg-Harrison-Glover House.

The fate of the home is in jeopardy as transportation officials intend to raze it as part of the eventual completion of the I-295-Route 42 "Direct Connection" project. Demolition could occur as soon as November.

Camden County Historical Society President Chris Perks says only the Federal Highway Administration can reopen the process to make the home eligible for preservation.

Perks says Norcross' letter is especially valuable in calling for a meeting to discuss collaborative solutions.
UPDATE: By mid-afternoon Friday, the National Weather Service had canceled most of its flood advisories in the region.

Flooding threatened a large part of the Philadelphia region Friday as rain, possibly heavy at times, and wind continued to pound the area Friday.

"The heaviest rain occurred overnight but we still could get heavy downpours during the day today," said NBC10 First Alert Weather meteorologist Bill Henley. "And, with those heavy downpours  because we've already had tremendous rain in the area  there could be some flash flooding. It's not going to be widespread but something to be looking out for."

A Flash Wood Watch remained in effect through Friday afternoon for most of Delaware, parts of South Jersey and Delaware County, Pennsylvania. An earlier Flash Flood Watch for Philadelphia expired. The National Weather Service also issued a Flood Warning for Sussex County, Delaware until 3 p.m. [[395382921, C]]

"Heavy rainfall will continue to affect the area through today," said the NWS. "Widespread 3 to 6 inches has fallen across portions of the Delmarva and southern New Jersey over the last two days, with higher amounts of 10-12 inches across far southern Delaware. Additional periods of moderate to heavy rainfall today will lead to more flooding and exacerbate existing flooding."

The NWS also warned of potential coastal flooding as rain and wind hit the coastlines.

"The heaviest rain occurred overnight but we still could get heavy downpours during the day today," said NBC10 First Alert Weather meteorologist Bill Henley. "And, with those heavy downpours  because we've already had tremendous rain in the area  there could be some flash flooding. It's not going to be widespread but something to be looking out for."

Temps on Friday will only get into the 60s with wind and rain making it feel chilly. The rain will continue into the weekend with more of it expected Saturday.

"We will see some rain this weekend but it's not going to be the heavy rain we've seen (Friday)," said Bill.

After a dreary Saturday, Bill said more rain is possible Sunday but so is sunshine in the afternoon. [[287977901, C]]
The threat of a nuclear meltdown is no longer a concern at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station because its shut down.

A shuttered nuclear plant does present another potential threat to public safety, according to an editorial in the April 2016 edition of Scientific American Magazine. The article warns of a greater danger, and says more threatening than a meltdown, it's the steady accumulation of radioactive waste.

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station was permanently retired by its owners, Southern California Edison, SCE, and SDG&E in 2013. The plants operations left 3.6 million pounds of radioactive waste behind.

If all goes as planned that radioactive waste is headed to bluffs just north of the dead reactors above San Onofre State Beach. It will sit near Interstate 5 in Southern California between two major metropolitan areas, San Diego and Los Angeles, where 17 million people call home.

Fifty canisters of radioactive leftovers, from fuel burned before the plant closed, are already in storage on the plant's property. It accounts for about 30 percent of the radioactive waste on site. In the spring of 2017, the remaining radioactive waste will begin to be moved out of the pools of cooling water where it is currently stored and into 100 stainless steel dry casks which will also be encased in a cement pad.

Daniel Hirsch, the Director of the Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy at UC Santa Cruz, said it is imperative the fuel rods be moved out of the pools and into dry casks as soon as possible.

It is the most dangerous stuff on earth; a witches brew of radioactive material," he said.

A fuel rod is a long zirconium metal tube containing pellets of fissionable material, which provide fuel for nuclear reactors.

"Those pools are so densely packed, that if you lose the coolant you could have a fire in them," Hirsch said.

According to a report from Robert Alvarez, a former policy advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy, a pool fire would release more radioactivity than a reactor meltdown.

Hirsch, a long-time critic of the industry told NBC 7 Investigates the clock is ticking, something the plants owners agree with.

The location of the waste storage is something the plants owners and nuclear waste critics do not agree with.

They're going to be stored on the beach in the worst possible location you can imagine," Charles Langley, who opposes the storage plans at San Onofre, said. Langley tracks all things related to San Onofre and the nuclear waste storage plans for Public Watchdogs, a San Diego based non-profit website.

The proposed storage site is northwest of the plants units one and two; the two reactor domes that can be seen from the freeway.

Currently, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is the largest privately-owned coastal nuclear storage site in the country. When compared to government owned sites, its the second largest in the country, behind the Hanford Site in Washington where the first plutonium reactor was built and the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan was created.

Langley said the location selected is all about money. "It's the cheapest alternative, he said. It's whats best for the stockholders. Its not what's best for the people of Orange and San Diego County."

SCE does not agree. Neither does the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, and the California Coastal Commission, which both approved the Pacific coastline location.

Its not a case of no risk, the utilities argue, but low risk.

In January, due to El Nino weather conditions, there was considerable erosion of the beaches and bluffs around the San Onofre plant, the same area where the canisters will be stored.

Nina Babiarz, a transportation consultant and former journalist, said the location for the nuclear waste storage is a poor one.

"It's on an earthquake fault in a tsunami zone," she said.

NBC 7 Investigates reviewed weather reports and found rising sea levels at and around the nuclear waste storage location could continue.

A Pacific Institute report on sea level rise, with contributions by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, found "flooding and erosion" risks will increase. According to the report, "in areas where the coast erodes easily, sea level rise will likely accelerate shoreline recession" and "may expose previously protected areas to flooding."

The United States Geological Service found the same dynamics: extreme bluff, cliff and beach erosion, accelerating over time.

The City of Del Mar, located 33 miles from San Onofre and with a similar coastline, did its own risk assessment of projected impact from sea level rise, storm surges and coastal flooding. In its assessment it describes the potential for extensive flooding and cliff collapses.

Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric say chances of a radioactive incident at San Onofre are lower now that the plants reactors are turned off, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission agrees. NBC 7 Investigates reporter Mari Payton has more on emergency planning at the plant.

No matter the weather conditions, SCE claims there's little risk any one of the 50-ton canisters, wrapped in concrete, will leak.

SCE describes the storage containers as "robust, a "proven technology...The design exceeds California earthquake requirements, protects against water, fire or tsunamis'...inaccessible to missiles or projectiles.

Nuclear power plants throughout the country have been safely storing used fuel since 1986, SCE has said. The company cites an analysis by the nuclear industry that shows it would take at least 80 years for a severe crack in the canister to occur. By then, the utility says, science will have a solution.

In a March 24 letter to San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts, the NRC said, "there is a decreased risk to the public due to the reactor being defueled."

The letter continues by describing how it came to this conclusion and cites how SCE told the NRC about the minimal risk of a nuclear accident at a closed San Onofre.

This information resulted in changes to how emergency response plans at the plant will be handled. The NRC agreed to a series of exemptions requested by the utility, including no longer requiring SCE to be responsible for emergency response due to a nuclear accident at San Onofre, except for on the grounds of the reactor site.

Prior to this exemption, the utility was held responsible to provide equipment and money in the case of an emergency for a much wider area.

In a statement, a representative with SCE said, Southern California Edison is committed to a safe, timely and transparent decommissioning of the San Onofre nuclear plant that protects the environment, and the health and safety of the public. Keeping the public informed is important to our efforts, which is why detailed information regarding the decommissioning process, how we safely store used nuclear fuel, and our current emergency response plans -- including our ongoing partnerships with local emergency responders -- can be found on SONGScommunity.com.

"Now the only emergency planning response we have is San Diego County Emergency Services," Babiarz said.

NBC 7 Investigates contacted the San Diego County Office of Emergency Services and a spokesperson said the agency is up for the task. It conducts Federal Emergency Management Association-evaluated San Onofre drills and has for the past three decades.

As long as the radioactive fuel rods are stored, 2019 at the latest, SCE has committed $325,000 a year to San Diego County. County emergency services leaders said they have no funding or emergency response problems even with the SCE pullout but they have asked the NRC for additional funds. So far, they said, nothing has happened in regards to that request.

In a separate series of letters obtained by NBC 7 investigates another change related to emergency preparation at San Onofre evolved.

In one letter, the NRC said, "based on the exemptions granted to SCE, the NRC no longer requires the Federal Emergency Management Agency to monitor, review or report on offsite" radiological emergency preparedness.

FEMA is the primary federal agency responsible for preparing and responding in emergencies.

"How could we possible have lost the emergency planning support and response of Federal Emergency Management Agency? Babiarz asked.

According to a memorandum of understanding the NRC has with FEMA, the NRC has the authority to grant the exemption based on documents provided to the agency by the SCE.

The California Office of Emergency Services, in a letter to FEMA, said "rather than abruptly end this program, we urge FEMA to continue working with Cal OES, the NRC and San Diego County..."

The agencys request was denied.

NBC 7 Investigates contacted the NRC asking about Cal OESs request. The agency did not provide any answers and said it was "between the state and FEMA."

Click here to read the letters.

Cal OESs director, Mark Ghilarducci, told NBC 7 Investigates he stands by his request to FEMA and said "the public also needs as much reassurance as possible that necessary safety measures are continuing in a unified effort by all parties."

A FEMA spokesperson told NBC 7 Investigates that if there is a nuclear accident at San Onofre, the agency would be able to respond if there is a presidential declaration asking the agency to do so. Click here to read more of FEMA's response.

NBC 7 Investigates is working for you. If you have more information about this or other story tips, contact us: (619) 578-0393, NBC7Investigates@nbcuni.com. To receive the latest NBC 7 Investigates stories subscribe to our newsletter.
Approximately 35 San Diego pastors of different races and denominations gathered Friday in El Cajon to pray for peace, unity and "truth" in the community following three days of protests in response to the police shooting of an unarmed black man.

The group began their prayer service at 10 a.m. at the El Cajon Police Department (ECPD) headquarters at 100 Civic Way. The pastors who led the prayer service were Pastor David Hoffman of Foothills Christian Church in El Cajon; Pastor Jim Garlow of Skyline Church; David Joseph of Last Harvest Arabic Church; and Pastor Rolland Slade of Meridian Baptist Church.

Slade said the pastors are seeking "truth, transparency and transformation" for the community on the heels of the divisive case that has heightened racial tensions in San Diegos East County.

Transparency must be how we deal with each other; there can be no hidden agendas, said Slade.

He prayed for both the family of the man who was killed and for the El Cajon Police Department, saying the events of this week have forever changed everyone who has lived them.

The events of Tuesday, Sept. 27 were tragic and they must be acknowledged. We, Lord  the region, the community, the neighborhood and the family of Alfred Olango  have been dramatically changed, Slade prayed.

In Hoffman's prayer, he also asked for truth and for those who seek to protest in a violent manner.

"You have called us to pursue peace; pursue peace for all men," Hoffman said.

"We pray that you would thwart those who would bring unrest, damage and chaos to our city and our county."

Hoffman prayed for the family of the man who was killed, for the El Cajon mayor, the El Cajon Police Department and the San Diego County District Attorney.

During Garlow's prayer, he asked for peace for "downtrodden law enforcement" and for "an avalanche of love in our community.

David Joseph said we're in a time of "spiritual warfare." He said his prayer in both English and Arabic.

On Tuesday, Alfred Olango, 38, was shot and killed by two El Cajon police officers in the parking lot of a shopping center, near a taco shop, in the 800 block of Broadway.

The police shooting sparked uproar in the community as Olango became the latest unarmed black man to be shot by officers in a series of similar shootings across the nation.

Protesters have marched the streets of El Cajon since the shooting, carrying signs condemning the officers use of lethal force on Olango, many chanting slogans like Black Lives Matter and no justice, no peace.

As demonstrations press on, El Cajon police, Mayor Bill Wells and Olangos mother, Pamela Benge, have all begged protesters to assemble peacefully and non-violently.

On Thursday night, those protests got heated as a group of 50 to 75 protesters gathered at the intersection of Broadway and Mollison Avenue, near the area when Olango was fatally shot.

Some demonstrators blocked intersections and stopped cars, smashing in windows. At one point, the ECPD said some protesters knocked a man off his motorcycle. Police said 911 calls flooded the department throughout the night, reporting the disturbance stemming from the protest.

Outfitted in riot gear, law enforcement officials with the police department and the San Diego County Sheriff's Department (SDSO) moved in on the protest.

At around 8 p.m., authorities ordered the crowd to disperse due to unlawful assembly. Authorities said protesters began throwing water bottles and beers cans at officers and refused to leave.

At that point, law enforcement officials deployed pepper-spray balls and bean bags into the crowd. Two protesters were arrested for unlawful assembly, the ECPD said.

Several protests are planned for Saturday, including a 10 a.m. demonstration at the Prescott Promenade in downtown El Cajon and a 3 p.m. rally at the San Diego Convention Center in downtown San Diego.
A mother of three and her boyfriend were found shot to death at a Bankers Hill living facility for women in what appears to be a murder-suicide, according to San Diego Police (SDPD).

SDPD Lieutenant Ray Valentin said the mother, a manager at the facility, was found shot to death by her boyfriend, who then shot himself.

The woman has been identified as 35-year-old Arnisha Rene Harris of San Diego. Her boyfriend, believed to have perpetuated the shooting, was identified as 44-year-old Joseph Henry Robinson of San Diego.

The shooting happened at a building on the 100 block of Redwood, north of Downtown San Diego, at approximately 3:15 p.m. Thursday, according to Valentin.

"At this time, there's a gun at the scene. It appears its going to be gunshot wounds," Valentin said.

Authorities said the person who reported the incident said she was talking with the victim through the door of a room when she heard a loud bang. Residents of the facility said they did not hear any arguments or commotion before the shooting, Valentin said.

Police recovered a gun at the scene.

When fire officials first arrived on scene, they found the office door locked from the inside, Valentin said. Authorities had to break into the room through the window and door. The shooting was confined to the one office room.

It is unclear how many people were inside the all-women's facility at the time, though investigators say the building has a large number of tenants.

A friend of the woman found dead said the mother of three was a good worker and loved by everyone at the facility.

"They loved her she was just a compassionate person. the ladies absolutely loved her and she knew her job, she cared about them so they loved her," Traci Banks said, adding that she considered her to be family.

Banks said the woman had been the only staff in the building during the incident.

According to Valentin, authorities do not believe there are outstanding suspects.

Homicide detectives are on scene investigating.

No other information was immediately available.

Anyone with information related to this incident is encouraged to call the San Diego Police Departments Homicide Unit at 619-531-2293 or Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.
Businesses were told to close early on Friday afternoon just before the El Cajon Police Department released video of the shooting of Alfred Olango.

Downtown El Cajon Business Partners issued a statement on its website encouraging all downtown businesses to close at 2 p.m., and remain closed until at least Sunday morning.

It was the latest response to protests that have ignited the small city east of San Diego since the unarmed black man was shot by El Cajon police on Tuesday afternoon.

Its my hope that nothing happens, but we all need to exercise an abundance of caution, Daryl Priest, the president of Downtown El Cajon Business Partners, said in a statement.

As El Cajon police and San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis released surveillance and cellphone video of the shooting of an unarmed black, about a dozen demonstrators congregated at a nearby parking lot.

The protesters huddled around and watched the video on their cellphones. Afterward, several expressed outrage over the shooting.

"To me, I seen someone stalking their prey -- got in on him and killed him," said protester Christopher Jackson. "That's what I seen."

Friday afternoon, the small number of protesters in El Cajon were peaceful.

Traffic Advisory - large group of people are in the road on Broadway heading east toward Second St. Please avoid that area. More to follow  El Cajon Police (@elcajonpolice) October 1, 2016

In the evening, the protestors began marching down the road at Mollison and Broadway. El Cajon Police issued a traffic advisory for drivers to avoid the area.

Protesters chanted "no justice, no peace" as they marched down the road, blocking an intersection in the area. Police were also in the area, monitoring the demonstrations.

The protests were peaceful.

Earlier in the day, Cajon Valley Union School district released students early from class as a safety precaution. A number of community events were also canceled this week.

Protests turned violent on Thursday night, the third day of protests, as some demonstrators broke car windows and, in one case, pushed a man off a motorcycle.

The exchange prompted police and sheriff's deputies in riot gear to move in closer to the protesters. Law enforcement officials ordered the crowd to disperse.

Protesters then began throwing water bottles and beers cans at officers and refused to leave. Officers on scene then deployed pepper-spray balls.
At least two people were arrested after tensions flared in a small San Diego suburb Thursday night as demonstrators gathered for a third night of protests over the shooting death of an unarmed black man.

Police say protesters began throwing glass bottles at officers and refused to disperse after they had declared unlawful assembly. Officers on scene then deployed pepper balls into the crowd.

Police said between 50 to 75 protesters blocked traffic at the intersection of Broadway and Mollison, yards from the parking lot where Alfred Olango was fatally shot by an El Cajon officer.

Frustrated motorists tried to drive through the crowd and some, angry over blocked traffic, got out of their car to confront protesters. The confrontation became heated and some protesters broke car windows and in one case pushing a man off his motorcycle, police said.

El Cajon Motorists outraged by protestors blocking streets #NBC7 pic.twitter.com/L9Mk66OmUo  Dave Summers (@DaveSummersNBC7) September 30, 2016

The exchange prompted police and sheriff's deputies in riot gear to move in closer to the protesters. Law enforcement officials ordered the crowd to disperse at approximately 8 p.m.

According to police, protesters began throwing water bottles and beers cans at officers and refused to leave. Officers on scene then deployed pepper-spray balls.

A 19-year-old man and a 28-year-old man were arrested for taking part in an unlawful assembly. Their names were not released.

Due to pedestrians in the roadway, please avoid the area of Broadway and Mollison in El Cajon. Monitor @elcajonpolice for more information  El Cajon Police (@elcajonpolice) September 30, 2016

The Thursday evening protests were a shift from activity during the day, when a few small groups were congregating near the Broadway Plaza Shopping Center where Olango was shot dead Tuesday afternoon.

A family member called police to help Olango as he was undergoing, what was described as an emotional breakdown, but shot him when he pulled out an electronic cigarette device and took a "shooting stance." He died later that evening.

On Wednesday large crowds marched through El Cajon streets, chanting "no justice, no peace," in mostly peaceful protests. In the evening, demonstrations became heated and several protesters on Wednesday night threw water bottles at a car, and a news photographer had his camera forcibly taken from him, police said.

Thursday afternoon, the site of a shooting had become a memorial filled with handwritten signs paying tribute to Olango and calling for justice.

In a statement, El Cajon police said they continue to support the communitys right to voice their opinions in a peaceful manner.

A group of religious leaders who met on Thursday called on the community to join together to create one peaceful voice.

If we go and loot, if we go and tear neighborhoods, were in the same position they are, said Pastor Russell Bowman of Righteous Living Ministries. So were trying to gather around those emotions and calm the storm before it actually breaks out.

Several protests have been planned for the weekend and a march is scheduled to take place at an area college next month. A demonstration led by local religious leaders will take place at 10 a.m. Saturday in downtown El Cajon at the Prescott Promenade.

A second rally on Saturday is planned for 3 p.m. at the San Diego Convention Center.

Next month, a third event, called a March for Reparations, is scheduled for Oct. 15 at 11 a.m. at San Diego City College.
More than 40 people have received collection notices sent in error after being transported by Rural Metro ambulances in San Diego.

Last month, NBC 7 Responds helped three residents who received collection notices for ambulance rides they needed two years ago. After the story aired, dozens more reached out to the consumer investigative unit sharing similar stories.

Twenty-three-year-old Danielle Johnston is one of those people. She had a mishap with a bed frame in 2014.

It just slipped out of my hands cause it was so heavy and I think I had my foot like this, and then from really high it went straight onto my foot, Danielle said. My foot swelled immediately.

Danielle called 911 and was transported by a Rural/Metro ambulance to a local hospital. Since she was on her parents health insurance plan, Danielle thought the ride was covered until she received a call from a collections agency two years later.

They hadnt processed it through insurance, Danielles mother Susan Rillie said. It was just an unpaid bill that they dumped on collections.

Most insurance companies require a claim to be filed within a year of the incident. In this case, that time had passed for Danielle.

I figured theres not too much we are going to be able to do other than try to protect her credit from having a negative report, Susan said.

Susan settled the amount with the collections agency, Credence Resource Management based in Texas, paying a little over $1,500. The next day, Susan said she saw NBC 7 Responds story on the Rural/Metro collections error.

I called back the agency [Credence Resource Management] and I told them I was going to stop payment because there is apparently a bigger issue here, Susan said.

Click here to watch NBC 7 Responds first report on Rural/Metro collections.

Gaye Dingeman, 91, was in a similar situation after needing a Rural/Metro ambulance ride in 2014.

They thought I was bleeding internally so they put me in the hospital, Gaye said.

Gaye said she never received a bill after the ambulance ride but figured it was covered under her Medicare insurance.

Two years later, Gaye received a collection notice for $3,200.

I was shocked, Gaye said. Thats a lot of money, we dont have it just sitting around waiting to be spent on ambulances.

After contacting NBC 7 Responds, Rural/Metro eliminated both Gaye and Danielles balances. The company also issued a refund to Danielles mother Susan for the amount she had paid.

In the Bay Area, the NBC television station ran the NBC 7 Responds story and immediately heard from more than a dozen people who also received collection notices for ambulance rides in 2014. Those bills totaled over $12,000.

When NBC 7 Responds contacted Rural/Metro about the collection notices, the company resolved the complaints quickly by eliminating the balances and sending a letter to each patient explaining the bill was sent to the collection agency in error.

In an email statement, Rural/Metros Media Relations Manager Tom Milton said, the company has ..instituted new procedures to ensure this does not happen again. This issue affects only bills prior to 2015. It does not affect bills from 2015 and 2016.

Rural/Metro told NBC 7 Responds the issue resulted from a processing change that was made when the company came out of bankruptcy.

Rural/Metro Corporation filed for bankruptcy in 2013.

In 2015, Rural/Metro was purchased by Envision Healthcare Holdings Inc. through the companys medical transport branch American Medical Response (AMR).

Rural/Metro has contracts with cities across the country in twenty states, according to the companys website. NBC 7 Responds asked a company spokesperson how widespread the error from the processing change could be, but the spokesperson did not respond.

In 2015, the San Diego City Council approved a no-bid contract extension with Rural/Metro to provide emergency medical services for the next five years.

When NBC 7 Responds brought the issue surrounding the collection notices to the citys attention, Katie Keach a spokesperson for the city said via email, While we do not have oversight of the company's business activities, we have confirmed that they are quickly resolving billing concerns."

NBC 7 Responds reached out to every member of the San Diego City Council. Those that responded said they felt Rural/Metros current approach to the collection notices was appropriate.

Click here to view statements sent to NBC 7 Responds from City Council members, Rural/Metro and more.

NBC 7 Responds has learned an attorney for Rural/Metro told a San Diego County Prosecutor Rural/Metro felt it was logistically impossible to identify and then proactively contact the affected consumers from 2014.

In an email, a Rural/Metro spokesperson told NBC 7 Responds, If patients received a bill they think might be in error for Rural Metro fire or ambulance services provided prior to 2015, the easiest way to get it resolved is to send an email to credence@rmetro.com. We sincerely apologize for any problems this issue has caused our patients."

NBC 7 Responds is here to help you with your consumer issues and we want to hear from you. Submit your consumer problem through our online form by clicking here or you can call us 619-732-NBC7 (6332). Every call or online submission we receive will be answered because if you need help, NBC 7 Responds. To see if we have helped anyone in your neighborhood, click on the map below.



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The question of when an officer can use force is central to the national dialogue on police shootings, and though policies vary from police department to police department, there are county and statewide protocols that all agencies follow.

In the wake of the deadly shooting of unarmed 38-year-old Alfred Olango, NBC 7 took a look at those policies and how often police use fatal force.

For all of 2014, 2015 and 2016, El Cajon police have been involved in a total of three officer-involved shootings; two of which were fatal.

El Cajon neighbors San Diegos eastern border with a population of 103,688, according to 2015 census numbers.

The last police shooting in El Cajon, was in January 2016 and involved Kelsey Hauser, a 25-year-old white female who was a passenger in a stolen car.

Police said the driver of that car first led police on a high-speed chase then reversed toward an officer after hitting a patrol car.

In August, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis issued a letter to the agency saying the El Cajon officers use of deadly force against Hauser was expected and reasonable under the circumstances, and the officer was not criminally liable.

On Tuesday, El Cajon police shot and killed Olango.

El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis said Olango was behaving erratically, walking into traffic and when officers contacted him, he lifted an object from his pants, pointed it at officers while taking a shooting stance.

The object was later confirmed to be a vape smoking device that had a 3-inch long cylinder attached to a 4-inch by 2-inch vape box.

Davis said the El Cajon Police Department and the District Attorneys office will investigate.

The shooting of an unarmed black man has sparked outrage, grief and violent protests in El Cajon and the San Diego region that mirror scenes across the nation.

Numbers for how often police shoot citizens are hard to come by on a nationwide scale.

Until last month, the federal government did not keep a comprehensive record of police killings.

Spurred by national unrest over a series of controversial deaths, the Department of Justice announced in August it will now actively work to document and confirm fatal cases of police shootings.

According to a data compiled by The Washington Post, 715 people have been shot and killed by police across the nation in 2016.

NBC 7 reviewed the data for 2015 through 2016 and found the top five cities with the most fatal police shootings are Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix, Chicago and Las Vegas.

Los Angeles 24

Houston 21

Phoenix 21

Chicago 16

Las Vegas 15

The City of San Diego was 28th on the list with seven fatal shootings. No data yet exists that includes per capita rates or ranks the number of shootings compared to population.

Law enforcement officers are trained to use deadly force if they reasonably believe there is an imminent threat of deadly force against them, other officers or a member of the public.

National City Police Chief Manuel Rodriguez said integral to the standard is the idea of reasonableness, and an evaluation of the totality of the circumstances, and what the officer knows or believes at the time of the shooting without the benefit of hindsight.

A lot of times what people dont understand is the penal code gives the officers the authority to use the force necessary to overcome resistance or avoid someone from getting seriously injured or killed, said Rodriguez. So, when an officer is faced in a situation where he feels his life is in danger then hes able to respond with deadly force.

Tuesday night, El Cajon police released a single still photo captured from a witness cell phone that shows Olangos encounter with police.

Rodriguez said Thursday he doesnt believe any reasonable person could look at the picture, which shows Olangos hands up in a shooting stance with a gun-shaped object pointed at an officer, and conclude lethal force was unreasonable.

With the public information available, I think you can make a reasonable assessment that most people wouldnt take a shooting stance and point an object at an officer that looks like a gun because there can only be one outcome usually when that happens, Rodriguez said.

But hundreds took to the streets Thursday in El Cajon for a second night to protest the shooting.

This killing, we do not believe was justified, said Rev. Shane Harris, president of the San Diego Chapter of the National Action Network (NAN). [Olango] was attacked, and he was not given the opportunity to live.

Harris said the photo does not tell the full story of what happened during the deadly encounter and called on the El Cajon police to release the full video.

Recently, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis issued new protocols for the disclosure of officer involved shooting video evidence. The new practice says agencies will release video as soon as its appropriate to do so.
A man known as the "rapping robber" has pleaded guilty in Montgomery County for setting up his ex-girlfriend to be robbed.

Prosecutors say 22-year-old Dominic Garrett posted a video of him rapping about the crime he was going to commit on the way to meet his ex-girlfriend. In the video, he waves a gun.

"In this era of phones and social media everywhere,

sometimes criminals decide to brag or boast about their exploits and even do it beforehand," said Ramon Korionoff, spokesman for the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office.

"In this era of phones and social media everywhere, sometimes criminals decide to brag or boast about their exploits and even do it beforehand," said Ramon Korionoff, spokesman for the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office.

According to court documents, Garrett told his ex to meet him at a McDonald's in Gaithersburg, Maryland. She thought she was meeting him to buy weed.

When she met up with Garrett, he got into her car and directed her to drive down a dead end street. He then took the keys out of the ignition so she couldn't go anywhere, documents say.

Garrett's friend then jumps in the care and forces the woman to lie across the seat. He steals her designer handbag, wallet and iPhone before hitting her in the head with a gun, according to the documents.

After Garrett and his accomplice fled, the woman used a neighbor's phone to call the police.

Prosecutors said Garrett is a member of a gang called the "Hit Squad."

Watch the complete story on News4 at 6.
A Prince George's County community will host a lighting ceremony Monday in honor of victims of domestic violence.

As part of the Purple Light Nights campaign, Upper Marlboro will join neighborhoods around the world that, each October, light up the night with purple lights to bring attention to the impact that domestic violence has on families and children.

"We want citizens and residents, and businesses and partners to shine a purple light on their porch or in their window during all the nights of October signaling our county's unity in the fight against domestic violence," Prince George's County Sheriff Melvin High said in a press release.

Monday night at 6:30 p.m., community members can each grab a free purple light bulb at the Prince George's County Family Justice Center (14757 Main St., Upper Marlboro), which opened over the summer. The lighting ceremony is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.

Victoria Throm started the Covington Domestic Violence Task Force in Washington state in 2004; the Purple Lights Nights campaign began three years later, according to the organization's website.

Lighting ceremonies are now held in 32 states, Canada and Guam.

This is the first event of several in October hosted by county partners united against domestic violence.
A 14-year-old South Carolina boy accused of killing his father and wounding three people during a school shooting has been charged as a juvenile with murder and three counts of attempted murder.

The teen, who hasn't been identified because of his age, appeared in juvenile court on Friday wearing a yellow jail jumpsuit without any restraints. A judge ordered him to continue to be held.

The teen is accused of killing his father at their home on Wednesday before driving a pickup truck to a nearby elementary school and opening fire. Two students and a teacher at Townville Elementary were wounded. One of the students, a 6-year-old boy, is in critical condition at a local hospital.

Anderson County Solicitor Chrissy T. Adams said the public wouldn't be allowed in because the suspect is a juvenile and prosecutors won't provide additional details about the shooting, which occurred Wednesday.

"While I realize there are many unanswered questions, the investigation into this tragedy is in a critical stage, and is ongoing," she said in a statement.

On Thursday, firefighters recounted the harrowing scene at the school, in a quiet community near the Georgia line. When two volunteer firefighters rolled up to the school, they said they found only a wrecked black pickup truck at the playground. There was no gunman and no one inside the truck.

Within minutes, though, it was clear something awful had happened. One went inside to help treat the wounded and the other searched for the shooter, and neighbors are now calling them heroes.

"This was more than just another call to us. This incident occurred in the school where our children and the children of the community attend," Townville Fire Chief Billy McAdams said Thursday during a news conference, pausing to keep his emotions in check.

Authorities say the teen shot his father, 47-year-old Jeffrey Osborne, at their home before driving the pickup 3 miles down a country road lined with chicken houses and pine trees to Townville Elementary. He only had to make two turns to arrive at the red brick school, where he crashed the truck, got out and fired at a door as it was being opened for recess, authorities said.

Bullets struck two students and a first-grade teacher, and the building was immediately placed on lock down.

Anderson 4 Superintendent Joanne Avery said staff saved lives by flawlessly implementing active-shooter training drills conducted with students over the past few years  at Townville Elementary, most recently just last week.

Though shot in the shoulder, the teacher "was with-it enough" to close the door, lock it and barricade the students, Avery said.

"If he'd gotten in the school, it would've been a different scenario," she said.

The shooter then fired toward students on the playground but missed. A teacher who heard the first gunshot was able to get those students safely inside, Avery said.

Law enforcement swarmed the school and looked for the shooter, finding him near the back of the school building.

Relatives of one of the wounded, 6-year-old Jacob Hall, said he remained on life support in a hospital. His family issued a statement late Thursday saying the boy sustained a major brain injury due to the amount of blood he lost after being shot in the leg. A GoFundMe page has been set up to raise money for Hall's family. His parents have missed work to be with him in the hospital and need financial assistance, according to the person who established the fundraising drive.

The shot teacher and another student who was hit in the foot were treated and released from a hospital, officials said.

Authorities said they don't yet know a motive for the shooting and they were not sure if the students and teacher were targeted or shot randomly.

Anderson County Sheriff John Skipper said the teen had been homeschooled, but the reason isn't clear.

Classes are scheduled to resume at the school Monday, but second-grader Mattie LeCroy doesn't want to go. Asked whether she was scared to return to school, the blond-haired 7-year-old simply nodded her head "yes" after dropping off flowers for Jacob with her mom at the town's fire station.
A former New Hampshire state representative facing drug and sex charges allegedly sold marijuana to at least three of his legislative colleagues, according to a report released Friday by the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office.

Kyle Tasker, 30, a three-term Republican legislator from Nottingham, was arrested in March on drug and sex related charges. While searching his home, police found a variety of illegal and controlled substances, including marijuana, hallucinogenic mushrooms and MDMA, all separated, labeled and packaged for sale.

The attorney general's office opened its investigation after learning that Tasker may have attempted to sell drugs to some of his colleagues in the state Legislature.

One of those who admitted buying marijuana from Tasker was former Deputy House Speaker Pam Tucker, a high-profile Republican who ran for New Hampshire's 1st Congressional District seat before suspending her bid in May.

She told investigators that she stopped buying from Tasker "because it was hypocritical to use marijuana when her official position as a legislator was to oppose its use."

GOP state representatives Joseph Lachance and Ted Wright also said they purchased marijuana from Tasker. Lachance told investigators that Tasker was like the "Club Med of weed" and he purchased marijuana from him on six to eight occasions for medicinal reasons.

A fourth state lawmaker, Democratic State Rep. Amanda Bouldin, said she used marijuana with Tasker once, but did not buy drugs from him.

"It is clear as a result of this investigation that Kyle Tasker used marijuana in the State House and sold it to a handful of state legislators, occasionally bringing the drug with him to Concord and distributing it there," the attorney general's report reads. "The AGO's investigation did not, however, uncover pervasive illicit drug transactions at the State House or among elected state officials."

The attorney general's office said there is not enough evidence to bring charges against Bouldin, Tucker or Wright. And it said charges won't be brought against Lachance because medical marijuana is now legal in New Hampshire, and it appears that he purchased it for a "medically appropriate use."

Tasker will also not face any additional charges as a result of the attorney general's investigation.

In addition to the three drug offenses, Tasker is charged with one count of using a computer to lure a child. Prosecutors say he used social media to lure an undercover police officer posing as a 14-year-old girl for sex between January and March of 2016.

Tasker resigned his post in March.
The Massachusetts Department of Children and Families is investigating after a 3-year-old was injured, allegedly at the hand of his uncle, Thursday afternoon in Worcester.

Police replied to an apartment at Lincoln Village on Country Club Boulevard after 21-year-old Taj McDonald called police and said he had just killed his 3-year-old nephew.

When officers arrived, they found the boy conscious and alert, but suffering from injuries to his face and neck.

Authorities determined McDonald was watching the child when his father was at work. Officers were told that he assaulted the victim multiple times.

McDonald was charged with attempted murder, reckless endangerment of a child, indecent assault and battery on a child, assault and battery on a family member, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and strangulation. The DCF was called in, as well.

One man, who didn't want to be identified, told necn he was painting nearby when he heard the child crying.

"It sounded like he was screaming but crying sometimes," the man said. "I don't know if he was in pain."

"It made me scared and made me want to keep my kids in the house," said Heather Chesna, a mother who lives in the complex. "Because if you could do this to your own family, then you could do it to pretty much anybody."

The child is in stable condition.
Public records show the sheriff's deputy who fatally shot an unarmed suspect in Winooski, Vermont, earlier this month was previously dismissed from two other law enforcement agencies in the state.

The Burlington Free Press reports 31-year-old Nicholas Palmier was let go from the Winooski Police Department in 2010 and subsequently the St. Albans Police Department two years later.

It's unclear why Palmier was discharged from the Winooski Police Department. He was terminated in St. Albans after failing to include information in a report that later proved to be important to an investigation.

State police say the Franklin County deputy sheriff shot 29-year-old Jesse Beshaw six times and grazed him with a seventh shot on Sept. 16 after the unarmed suspect advanced on him.

Palmier didn't return requests seeking comment.
The family of 7-year-old Kyzr Willis, who drowned this summer in Boston, is looking for answers.

Willis was at a city-run program at Carson Beach in South Boston when he wandered off, ultimately drowning.

Police have called it an accidental drowning. Boston responded by calling for changes in protocol at city-operated youth centers.

Still, there has been no formal ruling from the state medical examiners office.

The victim's family and its attorney held a press conference today looking for answers to why he died.

They are very frustrated by the lack of information regarding the incident.
Local and federal authorities raided a townhouse in Quincy, Massachusetts, but according to the owner, they chose the wrong home.

There are plenty of unanswered questions after the FBI and Quincy Police raided the building on Quarry Street. The man living there says they bashed the door in Tuesday and served a search warrant, rummaging through everything.

"All my drawers were gone, things that were sealed were opened," he said.

He says agents handcuffed him, dragged his roommate downstairs and asked where they kept the drugs.

"And they asked me if I was a drug dealer," he said.

Because no one was charged, necn is not revealing anyone's identity. But this man says what went down was a clear violation of their rights.

"I felt humiliated, powerless," he said.

An FBI spokesperson wouldn't elaborate further, but issued a statement saying the FBI and the Quincy Police Department were conducting court-authorized activity in connection with an ongoing federal investigation.

This man denies any illegal activity goes on inside his house and believes they were framed.

"Somebody really hates me, or him, or both of us," he said. "Somebody is jealous."
Police searched the Middletown, Connecticut, home of a woman who is presumed dead after disappearing during a fishing trip with her son, a source close to the investigation said.

NBC Connecticut was at the home on Thursday night when police were at the scene for about an hour and officers took items in brown paper bags from the house. Officials said on Friday that police were given consent to go into the home.

There is a joint investigation into the facts and circumstances surrounding the disappearance of 54-year-old Linda Carman, according to police in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, and it includes federal law enforcement agencies, as well as state law enforcement in Connecticut, Vermont and Massachusetts.

Linda Carman has not been seen since she and her 22-year-old son, Nathan, went fishing on Sept. 17.

The mother and son failed to return from a fishing trip in their boat, the Chicken Pox, from the waters off Point Judith in Rhode Island.

For the next six days, the Coast Guard searched a span of 62,000 miles, from Block Island to New Jersey, but called off the search when nothing turned up.

Two days later, the crew on the Chinese freighter spotted a life raft 100 miles from Martha's Vineyard and discovered Nathan Carman in it. He had a supply of emergency food and water, but there was no sign of his mother.

Nathan later told the Coast Guard that he heard a "funny noise" coming from the boat's engine compartment when they were at sea. When he went to go look, it was filling up with water. Then he got into the life raft and called for his mother, but could not find her.

"I got to the life raft after I got my bearings and I was whistling and calling and looking around and I didn't see (my mom)," Carman told the Coast Guard.

Nathan Carman now lives in Vermont and officials have searched his home there as part of the investigation. The search warrant affidavit says police "believe that evidence relating to the crime of RIGL 46-22-9.3 {Operating so as to endanger, resulting in the death} will be located inside Nathan's residence located at 3034 Fort Bridgemon Road in Vernon, Vermont."

A friend of the family told investigators that Linda Carman said the pair was going fishing at Striper Rock, which is located approximately 20 miles off of the Block Island shoreline, according to the affidavit.

However, another witness told police that Nathan Carman said they were going fishing at the Canyons, which is approximately 100 miles off the Block Island shore, the affidavit reads.

When Carman was rescued about 100 miles off shore of Martha's Vineyard, he told investigators he and his mother were fishing on the Block Canyon for tuna, the affidavit said.

Sources close to the investigation also said that Nathan Carman is a person of interest into his wealthy grandfather's homicide in 2013.

The 22-year old told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he had nothing to do with his grandfather's unsolved slaying and didn't harm his missing mother.

While the investigation into what happened to Linda Carman is ongoing, Petty Officer 3rd Class Nicole Groll said during a news conference on Monday that the chances of Linda Carman's survival are minimal.
A Worcester father is speaking out after police say his son was nearly beaten to death by his uncle.

Taj McDonald is accused of assaulting his 3-year-old nephew. He appeared in court Friday and was ordered held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing.

Police responded to an apartment at Lincoln Village on Country Club Boulevard after McDonald called police and said he had just killed his 3-year-old nephew.

Police found the boy injured, with trauma to the face and neck area, but conscious and alert, sitting on the couch.

I just rushed from work straight to him as fast i could get there, his father Ari McDonald said.

Ari McDonald said he had his younger brother babysit the child while he was at work Thursday, something he does often.

We grew up together so of course you would trust your siblings, McDonald said.

He came home to find police who told him his brother had assaulted his son multiple times.

Court documents revealed McDonald allegedly tried to drown the child in the bathtub, hit him over the head with a table, and strangle the child with his hands.

McDonald was charged with numerous crimes including two Counts of Attempted Murder, Assault and Battery with a Dangerous Weapon and Strangulation.

The Massachusetts Department of Children and Families is investigating.

The child is in stable condition.

McDonald will be under supervision at Bridgewater State Hospital due to mental health issues.
Maine State Police say a man has been charged in connection with the shooting death of another man in Biddeford Monday.

Timothy Ortiz, 20, of Brooklyn, New York, has been charged in the shooting death of 30-year-old Jonathan Methot.

Methot was killed in an apartment building on West Cutts Street.

Ortiz has been held since Monday for an unrelated probation violation. He is currently on probation for aggravated sex trafficking and a drug charge.

He was charged by detectives Friday morning during his court hearing on his probation violation.

He will appear in court on the murder charge in York Superior Court in Alfred Monday.
The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited Stavis Seafoods Inc. for 20 infractions after an employee died from a March ammonia leak.

Brian Caron died on March 23, 2016, after a pipe burst in the Stavis Seafoods Inc. machine shop and ammonia leaked.

OSHA inspected the facility and found that improper design, operation and maintenance of the ammonia refrigeration system caused the leak.

Violations included but were not limited to holes in the machine room floor, lack of a sufficient ventilation system and lack of a door to separate the machine room from the maintenance/storage room.

The alarm system in the ammonia machine room did not work and employees were not trained in emergency evacuation protocol.

James Mulligan, the acting area director of OSHA for Boston and southeastern Massachusetts, said, The companys failure to follow industry and OSHA standards exposed its employees to the hazards of an ammonia release as well as falls, electric shock, hazardous chemicals and delayed or obstructed exit from the facility during a leak or other emergency."

"It's clear that Stavis Seafoods must take effective action to correct these hazards and prevent their recurrence so that no other employees are harmed on the job," Mulligan said.

According to OSHA, the proposed fines are $173,168. Upon receiving the receipt of citations and penalties, Stavis Seafoods Inc. has 15 business days to comply or contest the findings.
Police are investigating after two young men were wounded by an unknown gunman in a drive-by shooting in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Maj. Tina Goncalves says the victims, a 19-year-old and a 20-year-old, were rushed to Miriam Hospital early Thursday evening before police arrived to the scene.

Officers were dispatched to the intersection of West Avenue and Sterry Street after receiving a report of shots fired around 6:30 p.m.

Witnesses told police a black Nissan Maxima pulled up to a residence where a group of teens were standing on the front porch and opened fire. The group fled, but the vehicle continued pursuit and fired additional shots.

One victim was struck in the leg. The other's injuries aren't known. Both men were listed in stable condition.

It's unclear if police have a suspect.
A Massachusetts Wal-Mart employee accused of setting three fires in the Sturbridge location of the retail chain has denied charges stemming from the crime.

Twenty-year-old Maiya Cruz pleaded not guilty Thursday in Dudley District Court to charges of destruction of property, burning a building's contents, disorderly conduct and breach of peace.

Firefighters were dispatched to the Wal-Mart around 5:25 p.m. Tuesday after someone reported a fire in the store's jewelry section. A total of three fires were discovered at the scene.

No injuries were reported, however the store's food needed to be thrown out because it was exposed to smoke and chemicals from fire extinguishers.

Police say investigators identified the Southbridge woman as a suspect after reviewing surveillance footage from the Charlton Road store.

Cruz was ordered held without bail.
As of 11 a.m. Friday, the National Hurricane Center upgraded Hurricane Matthew from a Category 2 to a Major Hurricane - a Category 3 with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph and gusts up to 140 mph.

The latest update still shows Matthew continuing its track slightly westward through Saturday morning.

Midday Saturday is when Matthew  still as a Category 3 Hurricane  makes a turn northwest towards Jamaica, eastern Cuba, before advancing northward toward the Bahamas.

By early Tuesday, Matthew should already have passed over Jamaica and should be charging towards the Bahamas, but Matthew will lose steam after departing eastern Cuba, and should be downgraded to a Category 2 when it moves over the Bahamas overnight Tuesday into Wednesday.

The majority of the weather models bring Matthew up the eastern seaboard after the Bahamas, but the impacts we will see here in New England will be determined by the way the Jetstream (the river of fast winds in the atmosphere that steers weather systems) sets up as Matthew approaches the Mid-Atlantic.

As always, the necn weather team will keep you and your family updated with the very latest as we continue to keep our eye on Matthew. If anything, late next week is when we could possibly see some of the impacts related to Matthew.

The last time weve seen a major September Hurricane was last year around this time with Hurricane Joaquin on Sept. 28. Joaquin was a Category 4 at its peak.
Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte and her challenger, Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, faced off in the first of their six debates in the hotly contested race in New Hampshire.

The debate Friday morning took place at the North Conway Grand Hotel in Conway.

Polls continue to show the race in a dead heat and roughly $100 million in outside spending is expected to pour into the state by Election Day. Democrat Hillary Clinton is leading in the state over GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. But Ayotte has kept the race close by playing up her moderate positions including her support for the Clean Power Plan.

Hassan has taken aim at Ayotte for voting against Planned Parenthood funding and currying favor with drug companies and the billionaire Koch brothers.
The biggest U.S. carriers planning to deploy controversial LTE-Unlicensed technology expect to use gear thats been tested for coexistence with Wi-Fi, their executives said Wednesday.

Speakers from Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA said they expect all the LTE-U devices they use to be vetted through a test plan created by the Wi-Fi Alliance. They also anticipate that gear based on a related technology, LAA (Licensed Assisted Access), will be certified through tests for that system.

Thats good news for anyone worried about LTE networks using some of the same frequencies that carry Wi-Fi traffic. The WFA test plan, despite being developed with input from those carriers and other LTE-U backers, was harshly criticized before its completion last week. Backers of LTE-U, including Verizon and Qualcomm, have demonstrated their own coexistence tests. When it released the plan, WFA warned that anything but the full test suite would be inadequate to ensure that LTE-U devices would be fair to Wi-Fi.

LTE-U promises to boost LTE performance in some areas, but some Wi-Fi providers and users are worried their experience might suffer. The WFA tests, which will be conducted by an independent lab, are designed to gauge whether an LTE-U device turned on near a Wi-Fi network would cause more interference than adding another Wi-Fi network.

The carriers, along with mobile technology giant Qualcomm and others, have criticized WFAs test development process as too slow and unfair to LTE-U. At a panel discussion on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., conflict was never far from the surface, but executives for the two carriers voiced support for the test plan.

"I think Wi-Fi Alliance did a good job of coming up with a product here," said Steve Sharkey, T-Mobiles vice president for engineering and technology policy.

Verizon is still reviewing the test plan, said Patrick Welsh, assistant vice president for regulatory affairs, but it expects that any gear it deploys will have passed. Verizon still expects to introduce LTE-U this year and LAA next year, he said.

The panel brought together voices from both sides of the debate, including Wi-Fi chip giant Broadcom and Comcast, which competes with carriers and has a vast Wi-Fi network to give its customers mobile access. David Don, Comcasts vice president for regulatory policy, said the carriers were out of bounds when they developed LTE-U because they didnt do it transparently. "Hopefully, weve moved beyond some of these practices," he said.

The Federal Communications Commission held off on approving LTE-U products until the industry could come up with its own solution. That "light touch" may be a model for how regulators will handle a growing number of unlicensed spectrum issues, said Harold Feld, senior vice president of consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge.

"Its a very crowded world, and we are adjusting our expectations for how these things are going to work together," Feld said.
Common criminals, not state-sponsored hackers, carried out the massive 2014 data breach that exposed information about millions of Yahoo user accounts, a security firm said Wednesday.

Yahoo has blamed state actors for the attack, but it was actually elite hackers-for-hire who did it, according to InfoArmor, which claims to have some of the stolen information.

The independent security firm found the alleged data as part of its investigation into "Group E," a team of five professional hackers believed to be from Eastern Europe.

"According to our information, most of the group's clientele are spammers," said Andrew Komarov, InfoArmor's chief intelligence officer.

InfoArmor's claims dispute Yahoo's contention that a "state-sponsored actor" was behind the data breach, in which information from 500 million user accounts was stolen. Some security experts have been skeptical of Yahoo's claim and wonder why the company isn't offering more details.

The database that InfoArmor has contains only "millions" of accounts, but it includes the users' login IDs, hashed passwords, mobile phone numbers and zip codes, Komarov said.

The security firm says it obtained the data from "operative sources" about a week ago and has verified that the account information is real. Komarov wouldn't say more about how InfoArmor got the data.

Group E has sold the stolen Yahoo database in three private deals, Komarov said. At one point, the Yahoo database was sold for at least $300,000, he said. His firm has been monitoring the group's activities for more than three years.

InfoArmor also claimed that Group E was behind high-profile breaches at LinkedIn, Dropbox and Tumblr. To sell that information, the team has used other hackers, such as Tessa88 and peace_of_mind, to offer the stolen goods on the digital black market.

"The group is really unique," Komarov said. "They're responsible for the largest hacks in history, in term of users affected."

However, in the case of the Yahoo database, which was taken before Dec. 2014, Group E hasn't made it generally available on the black market, according to Komarov. Group E wants to preserve the database's value. Other hackers have claimed to offer it for sale, but they were actually selling fake information, he said.

Yahoo didn't respond to a request for comment. The company hasn't offered any evidence supporting its claim that state-sponsored hackers carried out the attack.

Other security experts are split over InfoArmor's findings.

Alex Holden, Chief Information Security Officer at Hold Security, said InfoArmor's claims were mostly consistent with what he had found in his own investigations. However, he added, "Right now we do not know with full confidence who was behind the original breach in 2014, and if there was only one breach."

Vitali Kremez, a cybercrime analyst at Flashpoint, is more skeptical of InfoArmor's findings. "They might have jumped the gun too early on this," he said.

He questioned discrepancies between the database that InfoArmor obtained and what Yahoo said was stolen. For example, Yahoo said passwords hashed with the bcrypt algorithm and security questions may have been lifted as part of the breach. The data InfoArmor uncovered only contains passwords hashed with the MD5 algorithm, and no mention of security questions, he said.

"Yahoo said that the stolen passwords used bcrypt. Why would they lie about that?" Kremez said. "It's possible that InfoArmor has a different data set."

InfoArmor's Komarov said his company is happy to work with law enforcement, Yahoo and other independent parties to examine the data he's recovered. A sample of the data is available in the company's findings.

IDG News Service tried some of the sample login IDs and found that Yahoo recognized some. The login IDs also didn't appear to be recycled from other leaked databases. However, Yahoo didn't recognize some of the other IDs.

Komarov said that although most of Group E's clients are spammers, they had at least one customer who was a state-sponsored actor. The stolen Yahoo database might have been used to target U.S. government officials, InfoArmor said in its report.
Google is making a major change to its cloud platform infrastructure that will help shore up one of the company's biggest weaknesses relative to competitors like Microsoft and Amazon.

On Thursday, Urs Holzle, the company's senior vice president of technical infrastructure, unveiled eight forthcoming regions around the world for the company's cloud services. The regions are all slated to launch in 2017 and will be comprised of multiple data centers for companies looking to run high-availability applications.

Having a broad distribution of cloud infrastructure is important to Google's competitive chances. More and more countries are requiring that some types of data are stored in particular geographic locations. And even with high-speed networks, a large distance between where an application is hosted and where its users are located will lead to a slowdown.

One of Google's biggest weak points in competition with Microsoft and Amazon has been its relative paucity of regions compared to those other platforms. Prior to Thursday, Google had announced six regions, while Amazon has 17 regions announced, and Microsoft has 34. This isn't a perfect comparison, because of the varying ways the companies count regions.

This announcement brings Google's announced region number up to 14, and Holzle said the company plans to launch roughly one new region a month in 2017. If Google keeps to that plan, the company could have up to 18 regions by the end of that year.

Google This graphic shows all of Google's announced cloud platform regions as of September 29, 2016.

The new regions announced Thursday will be available in Mumbai, India; Singapore; Sydney, Australia; northern Virginia; Sao Paulo, Brazil; London, England; Finland; and Frankfurt, Germany. They join Google's existing regions in Oregon, Iowa, South Carolina, Belgium, and Taiwan, along with a Japan region that's scheduled to come online this year.

Google plans to have all of its services available in those regions when they launch, though the company hasn't laid out an exact schedule for when the services will be live.

The announcement is part of Google's ongoing push to get companies to use its cloud platform. The company also announced Thursday that it's rebranding its enterprise-focused division to Google Cloud, dropping the Google for Work moniker it's been using for a couple of years.

None of Google's major competitors are standing still, however. Amazon is hosting its major Re:Invent conference at the end of November, and it's reasonable to expect that the company will have news to share there.
The weak effort from Microsoft surrounding the Windows Mobile line has made it pretty clear that the handset business isn't a priority. Now we have a clear statement from a Microsoft executive that the company is indeed giving up on mobile, at least for a time.

The new president of Microsoft France gave an interview with a French publication where he said the company was indeed giving up on mobile. Vahe Torossian was introduced recently as the new president of the company's French subsidiary. He was previously corporate vice president of the Worldwide Small, Mid-market Solutions & Partners Group.

And in an interview with Le Point, Torossian reiterated the current strategy Microsoft is pursuing:

"Our strategy for Windows Phone is to focus on enterprise customers; we are now out of the mass market. The entrance ticket to the mass market smartphones is now too high; we are betting on a technology leap in a few years with a paradigm shift. During this transition period, we wont stay in the consumer smartphone market."

Of course, this is not exactly new. There have been previous hints that Microsoft would focus on business users, and the paucity of smartphone talk at the Build conference earlier this year showed Windows 10 Mobile was not a priority for the company this year.

While Torossian stated, "There will be no new consumer products immediately," he added, "Microsoft continues supporting and updating of Windows smartphones and the development of new devices."

That's true, Windows 10 Mobile continues to get new builds for Insiders to test, and the most recent smartphonesthe Lumia 950, XL 950 and 650continue to be actively supported by Microsoft.

Still, even if Microsoft plans a return to the mass market, can it seriously expect any momentum after letting Windows 10 Mobile shrivel up and die on the vine? What developer would support it after this, and what user would have any confidence in them?

Microsoft of all companies knows there is room for only so many platforms. It should know there isn't room for three mobile operating systems. Windows Phone is a very good OS in many ways and I liked it, but the marketing was bungled and Apple and Google have too much of an entrenched lead.
Charity launch night set for Wednesday, October 5, at St Marys Church

RESIDENTS in Shaw are launching a community enterprise to forge links with the village of Lawra in a remote part of Ghana.

They are joining forces with local charity Action Through Enterprise (ATE), founded by a former schoolteacher from Ramsbury, Sarah Gardner.

Ms Gardner, aged 32, left her job as a teacher at The Winchcombe School, Newbury, to help improve the education of poverty-stricken children in Lawra, north-west Ghana.

In late 2012, she launched ATE and two months later she had rolled out a programme to provide a daily meal for each child at Karbo Primary School, to get children into education rather than spending days searching for food to feed their families.

The programme has seen school attendance rocket.

ATE is now feeding more than 850 children each day and this year it expanded its school feeding programme to a third school in a remote village called Dowine.

And there has been a significant increase in weight and height in pupils at Karbo Primary School, located on the outskirts of Lawra Town.

Shaw villagers meanwhile have formed Shaw Community Action Through Enterprise (SCATE) to add their efforts to the initiative. The launch night is on Wednesday, October 5, from 6pm to 7.15pm at St Marys Church, Shaw, when a film will be shown about the work of ATE.

Drinks and nibbles will be provided on arrival and all are welcome. For more information email shawchurchoffice@btconnect.com or telephone (01635) 40450.
Man escaped with bruising and lacerations

A MAN was lucky to escape with minor injuries following an accident at a Newbury garage last week.

Police cordoned off Kwik Fit in London Road following the incident in which the employee suffered lacerations and bruising. Police, ambulance and the fire service arrived at the scene just after 3pm with police officers closing off the repair centre and part of Marconi Road.

Customer Steve Clarke was outside the centre when the accident occurred. He said: I was just getting my tyres done when I heard a big bang and saw a car on its roof.

The ambulance was here in just a matter of minutes.

Firefighters told the Newbury Weekly News one car, which was having engine work had jumped into gear, hitting another car in the next bay, knocking it off the hydraulic jacks.

The second car ended up nose down, which in turn knocked another car off the hydraulic jacks. The man became trapped under the ramp.

The injured employee suffered lacerations to the back of his neck, face lacerations and a cut above his eye.

A spokesperson for South Central Ambulance Service said: A member of staff was trapped under a lift. Fortunately, he only sustained minor injuries and was freed with the help of the fire service and was taken to the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

A Kwik Fit spokesman said: We are very glad to report that our staff member is recovering well after the accident in the centre on Friday.

We are very grateful to the emergency services for their prompt response to the incident and we are undertaking a thorough review into the circumstances which caused it.

We also thank the customers who were affected by the accident for their understanding and are working with them to resolve all outstanding issues as quickly as possible.
Five former and present employees of Kia Motors have been indicted for selling car manufacturing technologies to China. Since November last year, the five allegedly delivered 57 corporate secrets, including the technology to assemble the Kia SUV Sorento and plans for new models, to a local consulting firm established by some of Kia's former workers. The National Intelligence Service said among the leaked corporate secrets, files on welding, assembly and quality control were handed over to a Chinese automaker.



Kia says if all of the leaked technology had been handed over to China, the technological gap between Korean and Chinese carmakers, currently five to seven years, would narrow to 1.5 years by 2010. If that happens, Korean companies stand to lose sales of up to 300,000 vehicles in the Chinese market.



The number of corporate secret leaks detected by the National Intelligence Service has risen each year, from six in 2003 to 31 in 2006. The involved areas are also growing more diverse, from the information technology industry such as cellular phones and semiconductor chips to automobiles and shipbuilding. It just shows how Chinese companies are hungry for new technology.



The reason Korean companies are being targeted by industrial spies is because, although they do not possess the core technology, their ability to commercialize such technology is among the best in the world. But Korean companies are extremely lax when it comes to treating corporate secrets. They have yet to get serious about compensating inventions by their workers, how to manage such employees after retirement and other ways to handle its R&D staff, as well as investing in security systems.



Looking at the Kia Motors incident, workers who were sacked for taking bribes were able to freely enter the companys offices with the help of their former colleagues. The company had a very lax system of access to secret corporate information. Corporate discipline failed and the company was unable to manage its employees and their work. Last year, Kia posted a W125.3 billion (US$1=W925) operating loss, but its labor union threatened to strike demanding a bonus. And in a workplace where such threats are effective, employees cannot have a proper sense of corporate ownership. From that perspective, the leak of Kias corporate secrets should be viewed as problems with the companys human resources, labor relations and management practices.

Copyright  Chosunilbo & Chosun.com




Controversy is growing over Hynix Semiconductor's plan to provide 66-nanometer process technology to ProMOS Technologies, its Taiwanese strategic business partner.



Some Korean chip makers on Monday expressed concern about the plan, saying that since Taiwanese chip makers have had a hard time developing the 60-nano level production process, the provision of the technology by Hynix will lead to greatly reducing the technological gap between Korean and Taiwanese companies.



For its part, Hynix argued that its transfer of the 66-nano process is not a technology leak but a technology export. A company executive said that the technology is no more than a production process for chips which it has already succeeded in mass producing.



The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said that Hynix will report the contract with ProMOS to the ministry soon, and it will decide whether to ban the transfer of the technology after reviewing the deal.







Copyright  Chosunilbo & Chosun.com
Secretary of State John Kerry says the U.S. is "on the verge" of suspending diplomatic talks with Russia over Syria because of Moscow's continued aerial bombardment of the city of Aleppo.

The top U.S. diplomat called it "irrational" to continue the talks and "take things seriously," given Moscow's continued bombing.

Kerry spoke during a Washington forum Thursday, hours after Moscow vowed to continue the airstrikes on Aleppo.

"It's one of those moments where we're going to have to pursue other alternatives for a period of time," said Kerry, adding he is "extremely concerned" about unfolding events and the future of the Syrian people.

Washington has pressed Moscow to use its influence to pressure Bashar al-Assad to honor a cessation of hostilities agreement and allow the flow of humanitarian aid to Aleppo and around Syria.

Instead, U.S. officials say the Syrian and Russian governments have intensified their air attacks on Aleppo, targeting hospitals, refugee camps, water supplies and other critical sites.

"There has been a shameful strategy implemented by the Assad regime, and aided and abetted by the Russians, to try to bomb civilians into submission," said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.
Nicolas Sarkozy, hurt by legal and political setbacks, has lost ground against his main conservative rival in the race for France's Republican party presidential nomination, two polls showed Wednesday.

Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, is pitching himself as a man of action who will push for a new European Union treaty, be tough on immigration and defend France against militant Islam.

While his message resonates with voters tempted by the buoyant far-right National Front, he risks alienating mainstream center-right voters.

In one poll by Kantar Sofres-Onepoint, support for Sarkozy in the November 20 primary first round dipped 1 point to 33 percent, while backing for party front-runner Alain Juppe, a former prime minister, climbed 5 points to 39 percent.

A second poll showed Juppe, a moderate who styles himself as an elder statesman, steady at 35 percent in the first round while Sarkozy shed 2 points at 31 percent.

Both polls showed Juppe winning the primary contest's second round, due November 27, by at least a 10-point margin. Whoever wins the center-right party ticket is odds-on favorite to win the presidential election.
A North Korean soldier crossed the military demarcation line to defect to South Korea on Thursday morning.

The soldier was spotted by South Korean guards at the outpost of a frontline Army division in Hwacheon, Gangwon Province at around 10 a.m., according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff here.

He was taken into custody. A military source, the soldier is a 20-year-old sergeant from an army brigade near the border. When he was spotted, he was in uniform and unarmed.

A military spokesman here said he looked "extremely malnourished."

"We've moved him to another location and have since been questioning him to find out what motivated him," a JCS officer said. "There has been no sign of any unusual military movements in the North but we've stepped up vigilance."

The last time a soldier crossed the DMZ to defect was on June 15 last year.

Seo Wook at JCS headquarters said there are propaganda loudspeakers near the place where the soldier defected.


A fleeing Chinese trawler burst into flames on Thursday morning, killing three of the 17 fishermen on board.

The 102-ton drift-net Chinese fishing boat had been fishing illegally in South Korea's exclusive economic zone 70 km southwest off Sinan, South Jeolla Province.

The trawler sped off when a Korean patrol boat tried to stop and inspect it, according to maritime police in Mokpo.
The U.S. government is trying to strangle North Korea's lucrative trade in coal and iron ore with China.

Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel told a Senate hearing on Wednesday that the North earns US$1 billion annually from exports of coal, which accounts for a third of its total exports.

Russel said Washington is "focusing on our efforts on cutting off sources of revenue for the regime's unlawful and ballistic weapons programs, including revenue generated through the coal trade."

In January the UN Security Council adopted a new resolution following North Korea's fourth nuclear test banning imports of North Korean coal and iron ore. But at Beijing's insistence, exceptions were made for trade in goods that are necessary to support the livelihood of ordinary North Koreans.

Coal and iron ore accounted for 45 percent of the North's shipments to China in the first eight months of this year. Trade in those goods declined from April to July following UN Security Council sanctions but picked up again in August.

Russel said Washington is in talks with China on the matter at the highest government level. But China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a regular briefing, "Trade in coal and other minerals between China and [North Korea] conforms to the provisions of relevant UN resolutions and Chinese laws and regulations."

Russel also said Washington has instructed all U.S. diplomatic missions around the world to ask foreign governments to isolate North Korea. He said 75 countries have issued protests against North Korea, and a few canceled meetings or visits to the North by government officials.

The U.S. government is now probing North Korea's Air Koryo after sanctioning China's Hongxiang Industrial Development Co. for aiding the North's weapons programs.

Daniel Fried, the State Department's coordinator for sanctions policy, said U.S. allies are seeking to cut down on Air Koryo flights and some countries have already done so.

A Foreign Ministry official here said the U.S. moves are unprecedented in their severity.


Women accounted for more than two-thirds of candidates who passed this year's exam for the diplomatic academy, and three male candidates only passed because of a gender equality quota.

The Ministry of Personnel Management on Thursday said 29 out of the 41 successful candidates were women. Both the candidate who scored the highest and the youngest one to pass were also women.

The government abolished the diplomatic service exam in 2012 and instead set up the academy to train future diplomats on a one-year, non-degree program.

Three out of the 12 male candidates passed only thanks to the gender equality rule for any test administered to recruit more than five civil servants. The rule says the bar has to be lowered for one gender if fewer than 30 percent of candidates of that gender pass.

Women accounted for more than half of successful candidates in the annual diplomatic service exam for the first time in 2005 with 10 out of 19. Since then the proportion of women has been less than half only in 2006 and 2009.

The trend is also apparent in other government service exams, yet the proportion of women in the upper ranks of the civil service is still a measly 4.7 percent.
Yesterday was the birthday of the famous early Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi, who was born in Milan in 1571, and named for the Saint of the day. Michelangelo is a fairly common name in Italy, and he shares it with more than one artist of the same century, of whom the most famous by far bore the last name Buonarroti. The young Merisi would discover this to be a problem for his career when he came to Rome in 1592 at the age of 21, less than 30 years after the death of the painter of the Sistine Chapel, sculptor of the Pieta, and architect of St Peters; to set himself apart, he used the name of the village where his parents had been born, Caravaggio.Today, he is without question one of the most admired painters of his era; between 2000 and 2010, there were five major shows dedicated to him in the city of Rome, where many of his works can be seen in various churches and museums. In his own lifetime, while certainly successful, and very influential on other painters, he was also a controversial figure, for reasons which are far more interesting than those given by the silly anti-clerical fantasies of certain modern writers. His life can most charitably be described as disordered, but was rarely described charitably by his contemporaries; the introduction of the Wikipedia article on him states with clever restraint that he handled his success poorly.More than one of his paintings was rejected after completion. The best-known of these, the Madonna dei Palafrienieri (of the grooms of the Papal court), was first displayed in St Peters, but soon moved to the parish church of the Vatican, dedicated to St Anne, and thence to the private collection of Cardinal Scipione Borghese. Ss Joachim and Anne were traditionally held to have been childless for many years when they conceived the Virgin Mary by a special grace; therefore, by the time Mary herself was the mother of a toddler, Anne would be very old indeed. Caravaggio, who believed intensely in the use of radical naturalism and realism in his works, paints her as a very old woman, whose face has none of the sweetness one might expect an Italian (of all peoples) to show in the face of Jesus grandma. Much more importantly, the whole orientation of the painting, the lines and the sweep of the light, sends the eye downwards; this, and the intense darkness of the background, are wholly out of keeping with the architectural spirit of the churches in which it was only very briefly displayed, both of them bright spaces with bright domes that lift the eye up to heaven.It is perhaps no more than a coincidence, but a very interesting one, that Caravaggio did three fairly similar paintings of the Saint whose name he would perhaps have received if he had been born only one day later. I suspect Jerome was a figure with whom he must have felt a strong affinity. The great project of this Doctor of the Church, to produce a fresh translation of the Bible from the truth of the Hebrew text (Hebraica veritas), as he often called it, was as controversial in the late 4th century as Caravaggios work would be 12 centuries later. In his prologues to the various books, St Jerome complains frequently of those who ignorantly criticize him for changing the Bible, not realizing how much and how often the older Latin and Greek versions had themselves been changed. In the prologue to Ezra and Nehemiah, he even pleads with the people he was sending it to not to circulate it publicly, lest it stir up further hatred against him. (This is, of course, a purely rhetorical plea from a master polemicist who knows full well that his work will be widely circulated, and in the end vindicated.) In a similar vein, Caravaggio was once called that Milanese fellow who wants to destroy the art of painting.The most famous of the three is the one now displayed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, directly across the room from the Madonna dei Palafrenieri.It is possible that Scipione Borghese commissioned this shortly after becoming a cardinal in 1605. Jerome had served for a time as the secretary of Pope St Damasus I , and is therefore traditionally depicted as a cardinal, which the contemporary Popes secretary would normally be. In addition to a host of other roles, Card. Borghese was made Secretary for Apostolic Briefs, the equivalent of Jeromes position, by his uncle, Pope Paul V.Caravaggio was trained in youth as a still-life painter, and never really learned to paint as anything else. He was completely dependent on models, and this accounts for some of the flaws in his work. The Counter-Reformation period laid heavy emphasis on the fact that St Jerome was not merely a learned man, but a monk, a response to the Protestants misuse of his learning in support of their theological innovations. His robes are therefore opened to show his body emaciated by an ascetic life of the kind rejected by the early Protestants. ( This will become the standard way of representing him for the rest of the 17th century. ) The anatomy of Jeromes chest in this painting is not so much incorrect as absent; the elderly model simply cannot stay in that odd position long enough for Caravaggio to paint him properly. On the other hand, the figure on the left, whose model is long past feeling fatigue, shows no distortion at all.One may also imagine how the featureless black background appeared to those who were used to seeing St Jerome in a rather more cluttered study. This version by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Michelangelos painting teacher, is typical. (From the church of All Saints in Florence, 1480)His other two paintings of St Jerome are less well known than that of the famous Borghese Gallery, but in point of fact both done rather more precisely. One of them, St Jerome in Meditation, is thought to be contemporary to the Borghese one, and commissioned for another Cardinal, Benedetto Giustiniani; it is now at the Museum of the Abbey of Montserrat.The same model is used as in the Borghese painting; for an artist who is wholly dependent on the use of models, it is easier to learn a face and use it repeatedly than to constantly learn new faces, and there are several models who appear in more than one work by Caravaggio. The less strained position has given the artist time to paint a much better figure in regards to anatomy; the background is now completely featureless, bringing Jerome the ascetic to the fore, with no hint of Jerome the scholar.The other dates from two years later, when Caravaggio had gone to Malta to work under the patronage of the Knights of Malta, and is kept in the cathedral of St John in Valletta.Here the various traditions for representing St Jerome are finely balanced. The scholar writes at his table, but the crucifix and skull show us that he is also a monastic and a contemplative. The table itself, which is almost sticking out at the viewer, the section of a wall on the right, and especially the wall on the left where the galero hangs, create a much more realistic sense of space. (The galero also reminds us, against the idea of a Protestant Jerome, of his close association with the Papacy.) Most notably, the radical chiaroscuro of the earlier paintings is considerably tempered by the lighter background; it is a far less showy painting, one which speaks of an artist who is maturing.Caravaggio is today known by many for the shocking realism of some of his works, such as the very bloody  Judith Decapitating Holofernes  in the Barberini Gallery in Rome, or the  Martyrdom of St Ursula , which captures the very moment at which she is shot in the chest with an arrow. It is probably fair to say that that is what makes him so appealing to modern tastes, just as it made him widely detested in the 19th century. (One English guide book of Rome which was well-known in that era did not mention his Madonna of Loreto in its description of the church of St Augustine.) And yet it is in the painting of an elderly man quietly working in his study, or alone in silent contemplation, that we see this maturation taking place.
What if one blood test could screen for more than 50 types of cancer?
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Newport Council Considers New Property Tax Rates

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Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Foggy this evening followed by occasional showers late. Low around 55F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Foggy this evening followed by occasional showers late. Low around 55F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.
A new analysis indicates that radiocontrast, which is commonly used during selected imaging tests may be less hazardous than previously thought. The findings, which appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN), suggest that imaging studies that might help save or improve lives are being unnecessarily withheld from patients owing to exaggerated fears.

While radiocontrastsometimes referred to simply as "contrast" or "dye"is frequently used to enhance imaging with computed tomography scans or angiography, it can contribute to acute kidney injury (AKI). There is little agreement in the medical literature regarding the incidence of contrast-induced AKI, with published rates ranging from <1% to >30% of exposed patients.

To provide a more accurate estimate of the burden of AKI among patients receiving radiocontrast, Emilee Wilhelm-Leen, MD, Maria Montez-Rath, PhD, and Glenn Chertow, MD, MPH (Stanford University School of Medicine) analyzed 2009 information from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, the largest publically available all-payer inpatient care database in the United States. After restricting the sample to hospitalizations for patients older than 18 years with lengths of stay 10 days, the investigators were left with 5,931,523 hospitalizations for analysis.

The researchers stratified patients according to the presence or absence of 12 relatively common diagnoses associated with AKI and evaluated rates of AKI between strata. They also created a model that controlled for patients' health and comorbidities to estimate the risk of AKI associated with radiocontrast administration within each strata.

The team found that, in general, patients who received contrast did not develop AKI at a clinically significant higher rate than other patients. Patients who received radiocontrast developed AKI at a rate of 5.5%, compared with 5.6% of patients who did not receive radiocontrast. After controlling for patients' health and comorbidities, radiocontrast administration was actually linked to a 7% lower likelihood of developing AKI.

"We show data suggesting that the risk of acute kidney injury related to radiocontrast administration has been overestimated, and we would like for physicians, including cardiologists, radiologists, and surgeons who frequently are faced with decisions regarding the use or non-use of radiocontrast-enhanced imagining studies, to take this information into account in their clinical decision-making," said Dr. Chertow.
The first patient was a mystery.

Arriving at Duke six years ago at the age of three, the youngster had mild developmental delays and physical characteristics that included a large body and large head circumference. A genetic analysis showed mutation of a specific gene, known as ASXL2, which had never been singled out as causing disease.

The youngster's doctor, Vandana Shashi, a professor of pediatrics for the Division of Medical Genetics at Duke University School of Medicine, told his parents their son likely had a rare and yet-unidentified disease. And she promised to remain vigilant if any other cases popped up in the medical literature that might provide additional clues.

After none turned up, Shashi set out to see if the mystery case might be solved, instead, using the tools of the Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN) at the National Institutes of Health, which links Duke and six other medical teaching sites around the country. The participating centers pool information and innovations about diseases that are so rare they often stump the broader medical community.

Within just six weeks -- connected to other UDN research labs and an international database of genes and disease characteristics called GeneMatcher -- Shashi had a remarkable trove: Five additional children, all with the same physical features and the ASXL2 gene mutation.

"We can now definitively say this is a newly identified disease," Shashi said. "With just one case, we could not say the gene mutation was the underlying cause. But with six cases, all with the same ASXL2 mutation, it is definitive."

Shashi and colleagues from other UDN institutions published their findings online Sept. 29 in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

The new disease, which still has no name, does have similarities to two other rare genetic disorders arising from related genes. A condition called Bohring-Opitz syndrome is the result of a mutation of the ASXL1 gene, while Bainbridge-Ropers syndrome is caused by a flaw in the ASXL3 gene. Both conditions are also rare, and result in similar, but more severe impairments.

Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today

It's unknown how the ASXL2 genetic mutation arises, but Shashi said identifying the root cause of the children's condition is a first step, and could help drive new therapies and treatment approaches.

The immediate benefit is to the families of the children, who now have an answer to their most basic question.

"It has been wonderful to be connected to other families who share this genetic condition," said Teresa Locklear, whose son, Issac, was the first patient to present with the mutation at Duke. "When we started, we hoped we would find other families with children who were older than Isaac, to provide a sort of roadmap for what to expect. But it turns out, Isaac is the oldest and we are the ones sharing our experiences with parents of younger children, and that's been so rewarding."

Study co-author Loren del Mar Pena, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Duke, said reducing isolation for families with a rare disease has tremendous impact.

"These families feel truly alone when their child clearly has a disorder, and yet there is no name for it, and no community of people they can relate to with shared experiences," Pena said. "This will help them be able to connect with others and compare notes. That's a huge deal - to know you aren't the only one and there a five other children out there."
Boosting a protective protein to stabilize blood vessels weakened by malaria showed improved survival beyond that of antimalarial drugs alone in pre-clinical research.

Toronto General Research Institute (TGRI) and the Sandra Rotman Centre for Global Health, University of Toronto and University Health Network researchers describe in Science Translational Medicine, 28 September 2016 how their approach bolsters the body's own capabilities to protect itself against cerebral malaria, rather than solely targeting the malaria parasites in the blood.

Over 400,000 lives are lost each year to severe and cerebral malaria, mainly among children in sub-Saharan Africa. For children surviving cerebral malaria, up to one-third may develop long-term neurological injury including epilepsy, behavioural disorders and/or motor, sensory or language deficits.

Led by Dr. Sarah Higgins, now a Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Dr. Kevin Kain, Science Director, Tropical Disease Unit, Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network, the researchers demonstrate how giving mice angiopoietin-1 (Ang-1), a key protein which protects the lining in blood vessels in humans and mice, when combined with the best antimalarial drug artesunate, results in 100 per cent of mice surviving severe malaria, compared to about 60% of the mice infected with malaria who received artesunate alone.

Equally important, the research also showed that Ang-1 preserves the blood-brain barrier, a critical network of blood vessels that allows nutrients to cross over into the brain, while keeping out foreign substances that may harm it. An infection such as severe malaria causes changes in blood vessels, resulting in a breakdown of the blood-brain barrier and brain injury.

"To protect against this injury, we recreated what the body produces," explains Dr. Higgins, "Ang-1 enables blood vessels to maintain normal function and serves as a protective barrier for the brain." Dr. Higgins, who did the research while a graduate student in the lab of Dr. Kevin Kain, is the first author in the research paper entitled, "Dysregulation of angiopoietin-1 plays a critical mechanistic role in the pathogenesis of cerebral malaria."

Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today

In a series of elegantly designed experiments, the team first tested 180 children aged one to 10 years old, with severe cerebral malaria in Uganda, along with children who had no or mild malaria. They found that those with severe and cerebral malaria had significantly lower amounts of Ang-1.

The team then went on to test mice with malaria and found that, similar to humans, Ang-1 drops significantly in these mice. They also "knocked out" the gene for Ang-1 in mice, and found that its protective effects disappeared. In the final experiment, when the ill mice were injected with Ang-1, in addition to the antimalarial medication, they survived and had no brain injury.

The development of cerebral malaria is not well understood, but research has shown that how an individual responds to the illness is important in determining its severity and outcome. Strategies which target only the parasite are not enough to prevent complications and deaths in individuals with severe infection.

"Patients often die from their response to the infection, rather than directly from their infections," points out Dr. Kain, who is also the Director, SA Rotman Laboratories at the Sandra Rotman Centre for Global Health and Senior Scientist at TGRI.

"Our approach is about modifying 'us' rather than solely focusing on drugs to kill microbes, and for life-threatening infections like cerebral malaria, this strategy may improve outcome while decreasing drug resistance," he says.

"We want to change the paradigm. Our primary goal should be about improving survival and preventing brain injury, rather than a strict preoccupation with antimicrobial drugs to kill bugs. Our findings have broad implications for other life-threatening infections such as sepsis, toxic shock, for which we currently have no specific treatments."
PinnacleHealth System launched its "Knock Out Sepsis" campaign this morning from the Harrisburg State Capitol Rotunda steps joined by Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Karen Murphy, Insurance Commissioner Teresa Miller, State Representatives Mike Regan and Patty Kim, sepsis survivors Russ DiGilio, Aaron Stoner, and Carol Brame, mother of Sean Brame, and medical professionals on the frontlines of combatting sepsis.

Sepsis is a blood infection and an insidious silent killer, claiming 258,000 lives in the U.S. each year, more than breast cancer, prostate cancer, and AIDS combined. And health care professionals around the world believe that number to be severely underreported.

"The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) declared sepsis a medical emergency. Caring for patients with sepsis is a race against time," states Michael Young, president and CEO, PinnacleHealth System. "I commend our hard-working team for their unwavering resolve in the standardizing early intervention protocols for sepsis to deliver the highest quality care and save lives."

A medical team led by Thomas Stoner, DO, FACOI, sepsis champion and medical director, PinnacleHealth Community General Osteopathic Hospital, and Franklene Williams, nurse practitioner, Intensive Care Unit PinnacleHealth West Shore Hospital, have worked to implement new sepsis protocols at PinnacleHealth. "As a result, our Early Goal Directed Therapy protocols in tandem with system-wide educational programs and aggressive treatments have led to more accurate diagnoses, prevention, successful treatments, and a 40 percent reduction in sepsis mortality at PinnacleHealth in the last year. These measures are saving 10 to 12 lives each month," states Stoner.

In addition, Dr. Stoner highlighted the following:

Sepsis is the number 1 cause of preventable death in the U.S.

Sepsis is an infection that most often strikes children and elderly persons, but can affect any age, gender, or race.

Sepsis has a price tag of $24 billion annually and is the most expensive health care condition in the country.

PinnacleHealth is committed to educating every medical provider, nurse, and staff member on our new diagnostic and life-saving measures.

Carol Brame, mother of sepsis survivor Sean Brame, shared her family's life-changing sepsis journey today reminding the public that education is critical in attacking this epidemic. "Five hours meant the difference between Sean keeping his hands; five minutes meant the difference in life or death," said Brame. "Even though my son beat the odds and survived, it came with a heavy price tag. He lost three limbs, but today is an international swimming competitor at Penn State University, an Eagle Scout, and a true sepsis hero. I urge everyone to know the signs, share the signs, and save a life!"

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf issued a Proclamation designating September as Sepsis Awareness Month. He encouraged all Pennsylvanians to pursue preventive health practices and early detection efforts in order to be vigilant regarding this public health epidemic.

Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Karen Murphy, speaking at the press conference, noted that in 2014 more than 110,000 patients in Pennsylvania hospitals had sepsis or septicemia and nearly 12,000 died. The Pennsylvania Department of Health joined with health care leaders to call for a continued reduction in the number of deaths from sepsis.

"This battle is personal to me. My teenager is a sepsis survivor," says Stoner. "We are asking all Pennsylvanians to embrace our mission and recognize the signs of sepsis."

#KnockOutSepsis Call to Action

1.To our Community and Government: Tell everyone you know the signs of sepsis. Know the signs; share the signs; save a life.

2.To Patients: Sepsis is a medical emergency. Trust your instincts. Tell your doctor exactly how you feel. If you've never felt so sick, ask your doctor to rule out sepsis.

3.To the Media: We need your microphone and your partnership. More than 50 percent of the U.S. population has never heard of sepsis, yet it is one of the leading causes of death in our hospitals; 57 percent of young adults have never heard of sepsis.

"Together, we can knock out sepsis and win this battle," says Stoner.
AstraZeneca today announced that Professor David Goldstein will join the Company in the consultative role of Chief Adviser, Genomics to lead its integrated genomics initiative, which was announced in April. This 10-year initiative will focus on the discovery of new targets and biomarkers linked to molecular mechanisms of disease across AstraZenecas main therapy areas.

Professor Goldstein will continue in his full-time role as Director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine, John E. Borne Professor and Professor of Genetics and Development at Columbia University Medical Center. He is renowned for his research on human genetic diversity, the genetics of disease and pharmacogenetics and will be responsible for driving the scientific progress of AstraZenecas genomics initiative, created to transform drug discovery and development across the entire research and development pipeline. AstraZenecas new Centre for Genomics Research is based in Cambridge, UK, with teams located across the companys strategic R&D sites in the US, UK and Sweden.

Professor Goldstein said:

AstraZeneca has placed genomics at the centre of its strategy for researching and developing medicines that will change the lives of patients around the world. Having served as the Chair of the companys genomics advisory panel since 2015, Im now excited to take on this important role and lead the implementation of the panels recommendations. One of my first tasks is to establish a world-leading team to execute AstraZenecas ambitious genomics approach across its pipeline.

Mene Pangalos, Executive Vice President, Innovative Medicines and Early Development and Global Business Development at AstraZeneca, said:

Were delighted to welcome David to AstraZeneca at a very exciting time for our company and the rapidly evolving field of genomics. Our ambition is to develop life-changing treatments for patients and our genomics strategy is at the heart of this. David is a world-renowned expert in genomics, and his expertise will help to accelerate the integration of genomics across our entire research and development pipeline.

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Professor Goldstein received his PhD in biological sciences from Stanford University in 1994 and has previously held positions at University College London and Duke University, North Carolina. He has published over 250 papers in the field and is a recipient of the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.

Genomics is the study of the genome, which provides the full set of instructions needed to make every cell, tissue and organ in our bodies. In humans, the entire genome (more than three billion DNA base pairs) includes all of the genes that code for proteins and define our characteristics. Although most of the information in the genome is the same between individuals, there are small differences, which scientists believe can combine with environmental influences to cause diseases such as diabetes, asthma or cancer. Studying genome sequences across large populations allows us to develop innovative new treatments and target the right patients to the right medicines.
AROUND one in five bowel cancer patients diagnosed after an emergency presentation have displayed at least one cancer alarm symptom in the year leading up to their diagnosis, according to a Cancer Research UK-funded study published in the British Journal of Cancer today (Wednesday).

The study found that red flag symptoms were much more common in patients who were diagnosed via non-emergency routes, and that patients diagnosed as an emergency often did not display these symptoms strongly associated with bowel cancer.

Its lack of these red flag symptoms in many patients diagnosed as an emergency that makes it much more difficult for GPs to diagnose the cancer early.

But a proportion of patients - 17.5 per cent of colon cancer patients and 23 per cent of rectal cancer patients diagnosed as an emergency  had red flag symptoms, indicating there could have been opportunities to pick up the disease earlier.

Most patients, regardless of how they were diagnosed, visited their doctor in the year before their diagnosis. And patients saw their doctors more often in the months and days leading up to their diagnosis, with the number of visits increasing significantly both for patients diagnosed by emergency and non-emergency routes.

The study, at University College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, looked at National Cancer Registry data that was linked to GP data for 1,606 patients across more than 200 GP practices. The research focused on patient data for the five years leading up to the cancer diagnosis.

Cristina Renzi, lead researcher, Cancer Research UK scientist at University College London, said:

We know that patients diagnosed with cancer after emergency presentations dont do as well as patients who are diagnosed by their doctor through non-emergency routes. This study shows that most patients  who are picked up through the emergency route - can be harder to diagnose as they often dont show typical bowel cancer symptoms. However, in most cases they visit their doctor for various reasons multiple times during the months leading up to their diagnosis, which could represent opportunities to diagnose the cancer earlier. Its important to find ways to ensure these patients can be diagnosed at an early stage. And this study highlights the need to support GPs and give them the tools to diagnose and refer patients promptly when they feel its necessary.

Dr Julie Sharp, Cancer Research UKs head of patient information and health, said:
The Region of the Americas is the first in the world to have eliminated measles, a viral disease that can cause severe health problems, including pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and even death. This achievement culminates a 22-year effort involving mass vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella throughout the Americas.

The declaration of measles elimination was made by the International Expert Committee for Documenting and Verifying Measles, Rubella, and Congenital Rubella Syndrome Elimination in the Americas. The announcement came during the 55th Directing Council of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), which is currently underway and is being attended by ministers of Health from throughout the Americas.

Measles is the fifth vaccine-preventable disease to be eliminated from the Americas, after the regional eradication of smallpox in 1971, poliomyelitis in 1994, and rubella and congenital rubella syndrome in 2015.

This is a historic day for our region and indeed the world, said PAHO/WHO Director Carissa F. Etienne. It is proof of the remarkable success that can be achieved when countries work together in solidarity towards a common goal. It is the result of a commitment made more than two decades ago, in 1994, when the countries of the Americas pledged to end measles circulation by the turn of the 21st century.

Before mass vaccination was initiated in 1980, measles caused nearly 2.6 million annual deaths worldwide. In the Americas, 101,800 deaths were attributable to measles between 1971 and 1979. A cost-effectiveness study on measles elimination in Latin America and the Caribbean has estimated that with vaccination, 3.2 million measles cases will have been prevented in the Region and 16,000 deaths between 2000 and 2020.

This historic milestone would never have been possible without the strong political commitment of our Member States in ensuring that all children have access to life-saving vaccines, Etienne continued. It would not have been possible without the generosity and commitment of health workers and volunteers who have worked so hard to take the benefits of vaccines to all people, including those in vulnerable and hard-to-reach communities. Indeed it would not have been possible without the strong leadership and coordination provided by PAHO, Regional Office for the Americas of WHO.

Measles transmission had been considered interrupted in the Region since 2002, when the last endemic case was reported in the Americas. However, as the disease had continued to circulate in other parts the world, some countries in the Americas experienced imported cases. The International Expert Committee reviewed evidence on measles elimination presented by all the countries of the Region between 2015 and August 2016 and decided that it met the established criteria for elimination. The process included six years of work with countries to document evidence of the elimination.

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases and affects primarily children. It is transmitted by airborne droplets or via direct contact with secretions from the nose, mouth, and throat of infected individuals. Symptoms include high fever, generalized rash all over the body, stuffy nose, and reddened eyes. It can cause serious complications including blindness, encephalitis, severe diarrhea, ear infections and pneumonia, particularly in children with nutritional problems and in immunocompromised patients.

As a result of global measles elimination efforts, only 244,704 measles cases were reported worldwide in 2015, representing a significant decline from earlier years. However, more than a half of these reported cases were notified in Africa and Asia.

To maintain measles elimination, PAHO/WHO and the International Expert Committee have recommended that all countries of the Americas strengthen active surveillance and maintain their populations immunity through vaccination.

I would like to emphasize that our work on this front is not yet done, warned Etienne. We can not become complacent with this achievement but must rather protect it carefully. Measles still circulates widely in other parts of the world, and so we must be prepared to respond to imported cases. It is critical that we continue to maintain high vaccination coverage rates, and it is crucial that any suspected measles cases be immediately reported to the authorities for rapid follow-up.

Process to eliminate measles

In the 1990s, a decline in cases was recorded, but the most notable decrease was observed after the Region had launched its initiative to eliminate measles in 1994. That year, the countries of the Americas established the goal to eliminate indigenous transmission of measles by the year 2000, through the implementation of surveillance and vaccination strategies recommended by PAHO/WHO.

PAHO/WHOs elimination strategy had recommended three lines of action for countries: 1) conduct a one-time national campaign to bring children between 1 and 14 years of age up to date with measles vaccination; 2) strengthen routine vaccination to reach a minimum of 95% of children every year; and 3) undertake massive follow-up campaigns every four years, to reach a minimum of 95% of children aged 1 to 4 with a second dose of vaccine.

Following this strategy, the last indigenous measles outbreak was registered in Venezuela in 2002. However, some countries in the Region still notified imported cases. Between 2003 and 2014, 5,077 imported measles cases were registered in the Americas.

After declaring the elimination of rubella and congenital rubella syndrome in 2015, the International Expert Committee waited for evidence of the interruption of a measles outbreak in Brazil, which had begun in 2013 and lasted for more than a year. After a year of targeted actions and enhanced surveillance, the last case of measles in Brazil was registered in July 2015.

With this achievement and considering that the Region has sustained elimination for more than 12 years, the International Expert Committee accepted the evidence presented by the countries and declared the elimination of measles in the Americas.

Key partners involved in in the effort to eliminate measles and rubella include the ministries of health of PAHO/WHOs Member States, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Health Canada, the Canadian International Development Agency, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, the Sabin Vaccine Institute, the Serum Institute of India, March of Dimes, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Measles-Rubella Initiative, a coalition of global partners that includes the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the UN Foundation, UNICEF, and WHO.
A new scientific study conducted by a team of leading geneticists has characterized how cells know when to stop translating DNA into proteins, a critical step in maintaining healthy protein levels and cell function. In the study published in Cell, researchers studied short pieces of genetic material called messenger RNA, or mRNA, that serve as a go-between a person's DNA and the proteins it encodes. Researchers were searching for insight into a cellular mechanism that has been a mystery - how do cells sense it is time to stop making mRNA and coordinate cellular machinery to shut down the process?

Jeff Coller, PhD, director of the Center for RNA Molecular Biology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine helped lead the study that discovered an enzyme called "DEAD-box protein Dhh1p" assesses mRNA molecules and determines if they are needed, or need to be removed. Cells produce mRNAs representing small subsets of genes when they need a specific protein, but once the cell no longer needs the protein the corresponding mRNAs are destroyed. The process of destroying an unneeded mRNA is complicated. Several cellular enzymes collaborate to recognize portions of mRNA and chop it up so that it can no longer be used to make protein. Coller's study found Dhh1p is responsible for assessing mRNAs and targeting those that are being translated too slowly for destruction.

"We knew there had to be some way to communicate how fast the genetic code was read to the machinery that ensures the message is removed from the cell," said Coller. "There had to be a way to put on the brakes."

Together with colleagues from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Coller discovered Dhh1p assesses specific molecular sequences in mRNA. Enzymes called ribosomes rapidly translate common mRNA sequences into proteins, and translate less common sequences more slowly. Coller found Dhh1p attaches itself to mRNA molecules with sub-optimal sequences and physically interacts with slow-moving ribosomes. According to the paper, "Dhh1p is a sensor of slow ribosomes and communicates this information to the mRNA decay machinery." The study showed genetic sequences are a key determinant in mRNA stability, and even 10% changes in sequences can affect the fate of an mRNA molecule.

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Coller's study describes how Dhh1p assesses mRNA sequences to inform gene expression and ensure cells make the right amount of protein at the right time. The study provides important insight into how protein production is regulated within cells and may inform the development of therapeutics designed to augment the process.

"Our study provides a new way to look at the genetic code," said Coller. "We're so used to looking at how DNA mutations cause a change in protein function. We must also consider how enzymes like Dhh1p sense the speed at which ribosomes interpret the genetic code. Now I can look at the genetic code in terms of speed and rate, and with reasonable accuracy predict how much protein is going to come from a gene. There's huge application for that in human biologics, proteins that are easily taken by injection."

Said Coller, "There are rare genetic diseases attributed to RNA being read too slow or too fast. We can now manipulate this process to dial up or down protein expression. The speed at which the ribosome reads the genetic code and is sensed by Dhh1p could open up a new set of mutation types that could indicate disease states we are unaware of today."
The World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are reiterating their call for a world free from human rabies transmitted by dogs by 2030. This years theme  Educate, Vaccinate, Eliminate  outlines the key steps required to attain this goal in line with the global vision endorsed at the WHO/OIE Global Rabies Conference organized in collaboration with FAO and the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC) held in December 2015.

Children in underserved, rural populations are particularly vulnerable, and face a daily threat of rabies. Of all the neglected tropical diseases, rabies ranks as one of the highest, with as many as an estimated 59 000 estimated deaths worldwide.

Rabies is 100% vaccine-preventable in animals and humans. Most cases can be prevented by vaccinating dogs, avoiding dog bites and raising awareness among communities. There is no cure for rabies once symptoms develop, and bite victims invariably die a slow, painful death unless post-bite treatment is promptly administered.

EDUCATE. A cornerstone of rabies elimination is raising public awareness of rabies as an entirely preventable disease.

Rabies awareness campaigns adapted to the local situation are essential to motivate responsible dog ownership, including vaccination of dogs against rabies, prevent dog bites and administer first aid for bite victims including wound washing and rabies post-exposure injections. Awareness raising encourages communities to fight rabies and fosters political commitment at local, national, regional and international levels for allocating the needed resources.

VACCINATE. Vaccination of dogs prevents rabies at its animal source and stops the rabies virus from circulating. Human vaccines reduce fatalities induced by bites of possible rabies-infected dogs.

Wider access to safe, efficacious and accessible dog and human vaccines and immunoglobulins is needed in all communities at risk of rabies. Mass vaccination of dogs in at-risk areas has proven the most costeffective, long-term intervention for interrupting transmission of human rabies transmitted by dogs.

Since 2012, the OIE dog Rabies Vaccine Bank has provided a secure supply of quality-assured vaccines manufactured in accordance with OIE international standards. To match the OIE-led dog Rabies Vaccine Bank, WHO plans to create a human rabies vaccine stockpile to be operational by the end of 2017. These initiatives are intended to accelerate rabies elimination programmes in countries.

ELIMINATE. Achieving zero human deaths from dog-transmitted rabies by 2030 is feasible but relies on political commitment and support. The 2015 Global Rabies Framework promotes a stepwise approach to assist countries to successfully eliminate rabies, by prioritizing actions and allocating resources.

WHO, OIE and FAO together with countries and partners target the elimination of rabies through education and vaccination, contributing to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, by ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all, at all ages, everywhere.
WideCells Group PLC, the healthcare services company focused on collecting and storing stem cells and providing ground breaking insurance for stem cell treatment, is pleased to announce that its R&D and training development division, WideAcademy, has finalised its syllabus of short courses focused on educating healthcare professionals on the benefits of stem cell storage and treatment. This will provide the Company with a new revenue stream, on commencement of the courses.

The ten short courses are currently being developed alongside the University of Westminster and are anticipated to drive uptake of the Groups stem cell storage and healthcare services. Jointly overseen by WideCells Groups Chief Scientific Officer and Dean of WideAcademy, Dr. Peter Hollands, Dr. Emanuela Volpi, Reader in Biomedical Science and Dr. John Murphy, Head of Biomedical Science, both from the University of Westminster, the courses will be delivered by a team of healthcare professionals with a high level of expertise in the field. The collaboration between these parties will ensure the quality of WideAcademys educational materials as well academic peer review of course content. The Company anticipates that the first course will commence in early 2017 with the launch of the rest to be staggered over the next 24 months.

In conjunction with this, and in line with its strategy to provide excellence in stem cell education and training, WideAcademy is in the process of developing a conference programme for healthcare and medical professionals. WideAcademy will update the market with further details on the conference, anticipated to be held in Brazil in 2017, once a programme has been finalised. South America's cord blood banking services market has experienced exciting growth in recent years, prompting the Companys decision to deliver an event in this market.

WideCells Group CEO, Joao Andrade, said:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week highlighted the risk of Zika infection in eleven Southeastern Asian countries and recommended that pregnant women avoid them wherever possible.

Following the epidemic in Brazil, Asia was identified as being at high risk of Zika virus transmission based on an analysis of climatic conditions and the propensity for travel.

Increased Zika activity has recently been observed in Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste (East Timor), and Vietnam.

The level of the risk for acquiring Zika virus infection in these countries has yet to be quantified but is expected to be lower than in those countries where Zika has been newly introduced.

Southeast Asian countries have experienced occasional cases or small outbreaks of Zika virus for many years. Consequently, many of the native population are likely to have built up natural immunity. However, people visiting these countries from elsewhere in the world may be at greater risk.

Zika virus causes severe brain abnormalities, such as microcephaly, in babies born to women infected with Zika during pregnancy. Even a low risk of Zika infection should therefore be avoided by women who are pregnant or who are planning to start a family.

These women should therefore seriously consider whether planned travel to Southeast Asia is essential. If visiting an infected area cannot be avoided, effective protection against mosquito bites should be used both day and night.

In addition care should be taken by travellers returning from affected areas of Southeast Asia. Individuals may be infected with the Zika virus yet show no symptoms.

To help stop the spread of Zika virus, travellers should use insect repellent for three weeks after travel to an infected area, in order to prevent local mosquitoes acquiring infected blood, and avoid unprotected sexual activity.

CDC recommends that pregnant women and women trying to become pregnant consider postponing nonessential travel Zika risk areas, including the eleven countries in Southeast Asia recently added to the list.

If travel to an area infected with the Zika virus is unavoidable, steps to prevent mosquito bites should be taken and condoms used throughout all sexual intercourse.

Further information provided by CDC can be found at http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel.
New Delhi: All attempts are being made to secure the release of the Indian soldier, who inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Friday.



Singh said the government has taken note of the reports which stated that an Indian soldier is in Pakistan's captivity.



"All attempts are being made to secure his release," he told reporters here.



The Home Minister also said that New Delhi will take up the matter with Islamabad for his early release.



Indian Army sources had said yesterday that "one soldier from 37 RR carrying a weapon has inadvertently crossed over to the other side of the Line of Control. Pakistan has been informed by the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) on the hotline."



The sources had said that his crossing over was not related to the surgical strikes.



"Such inadvertent crossing by Army and civilians are not unusual on either side. They are made to go back through existing mechanisms," they had said.



The Indian Army had yesterday rejected as "false and baseless" reports in a section of Pakistani media that eight Indian soldiers were killed and one captured by Pakistani military in retaliatory fire.



Indian Army sources said, "As regard (to the) report of killing of eight Indian Army personnel reported in sections of Pakistan media, the report is completely false and baseless."



Army's reaction had come after Pakistan's Dawn News reported that Pakistani military has claimed that it has killed eight Indian soldiers and captured one while retaliating to India's firing at the first line of defence at the Line of Control (LoC) at Tatta Pani.



India had carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the Army inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir (PoK).




Allahabad: The Allahabad High Court on Friday deferred till October 19 the hearing on a petition challenging the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency in eastern Uttar Pradesh.



The petition filed by MLA Ajay Rai, who was fielded by Congress from Varanasi in the 2014 general elections, was being heard by Justice V K Shukla.



Arguing on behalf of Modi, senior advocate and BJP leader Satya Pal Jain said the petition was "not maintainable" and "deserves to be dismissed with cost".



"The petitioner has failed to place on record any material facts and has simply levelled allegations on the basis of hearsay. Moreover, allegations made by him like distribution of caps bearing photographs of Modi pertain to the period before he filed his nomination papers on April 24, 2014.



"There are a number of Supreme Court judgements wherein it has been held that a person can be treated as a candidate only from the date he files his nomination and that he cannot be held responsible for any act of his supporters prior to that date," he said.



In the light of these facts, the petition deserves to be dismissed with costs, said Jain, who is also the Additional Solicitor General of India in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.



Jain, who is a member of the BJP's national executive and a former Lok Sabha member from Chandigarh, also prayed for rejecting the election petition "invoking provisions of Order 7 Rule 11 of the Civil Procedure Code" but added that he would "need two more days of hearing to complete my arguments".



The court, thereafter, fixed October 19 as the next date of hearing in the matter.



Rai, who represents Pindra in the state assembly, had filed the election petition in June, 2014, shortly after results for the Lok Sabha polls were declared.



A former BJP member himself, Rai had joined the Congress in 2012 after a brief association with the Samajwadi Party.



Although a local, Rai performed badly in Varanasi where the electoral battle turned out to be a one-sided affair with Modi bagging more than 50 per cent of the nearly 10.3 lakh votes that were polled.



Among Modi's challengers, only Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party could manage to save his deposit even though he was defeated by the winning candidate by a huge margin of 3.71 lakh votes.



Rai finished third in Varanasi seat, which Modi went on to retain after becoming the Prime Minister, resigning from Vadodara constituency in Gujarat where he had won with a record marging of 5.7 lakh votes.
Lucknow: The unrest in the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh has taken a new turn with senior leader and partys Muslim face Azam Khan accusing the state bureaucracy of "deliberately humiliating" him before the Supreme Court.



The apex court had frowned upon the UP Urban Development Minister earlier this week after his lawyer did not turn up to explain Khan's alleged statement terming the brutal Bulandshahr rape a "political conspiracy".



In a hard-hitting missive to the chief secretary, Azam Khan said the inaction in this case by the law department shows he is not considered part of the state government.



Seeking to know if the passive attitude of the state bureaucracy should be seen as a "political conspiracy" against him, the senior minister also clarified his position on the Bulandshahr rape case.



I want to reiterate here that all that I said on the Bulandshahr rape case was never intended to hurt the feelings of the victims family. As a senior minister of the government, I wanted to send a message to the bureaucracy that all aspects of the case be thoroughly investigated so that such sad and dastardly acts do not recur, Khan wrote to the new chief secretary, Rahul Bhatnagar.



He also asked the government not to field its legal officers to defend him in the case. He would now be represented by senior SC counsel and Congress MP Kapil Sibal instead.



Bhatnagar was handpicked to the top job earlier this month after Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav sacked Deepak Singhal, who was seen to be close to senior minister Shivpal Yadav and party MP Amar Singh.



Singhals sacking had triggered an open war within the Yadav clan, with Shivpal resigning from the ministry and as state party president.



As the power struggle within SPs first family played out in full media glare, Azam Khan, a close aide of Mulayam Singh and a founding member of the party, maintained a low profile despite having clear reservations about Amar Singhs re-entry into the party and subsequent nomination to the Rajya Sabha.




New Delhi: Bihars notorious don-turned politician Mohammed Shahabuddin will now return to jail after his bail was cancelled by Supreme Court on Friday.



Shahabuddin, facing criminal charges in around 50 cases, including the political murders of former JNUSU chairperson Chandrashekhar Prasad and CPI(ML) activist Chhote Lal Gupta, had been lodged in Bhagalpur prison for over a decade until the Patna High Court granted him bail on September 7.



The Supreme Court decision to cancel the bail comes on the petition, among others, of senior advocate Prashant Bhushan who had argued before the apex court that Shahabuddin did not follow any rules and walked out of jail at will. Bhushan sought cancellation Shahabuddin's bail on the ground that if he is released on bail, then the life of the last witness, who is to testify in a case, would be in danger.



Before his arrest in 2005, Shahabuddin was a Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP representing Siwan consecutively for four times from 1996 to 2009. For many, he symbolized the collapse of law and order during the RJD era in Patna, and his release had brought back fears of the state plunging into what Oppsition called Jungle Raj.



Immediately upon his release, Shahabuddin had sparked a political row when he said not the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar  who had sent him to jail in 2005  but RJD leader Laloo was his leader.









In an interview to CNN-News18, he had blamed the Nitish government for his troubles. Flatly denying charges against him, he said, "I am a victim of the government system. I am not a don."

May be he (Nitish) is the CM of Bihar but my leader will always be Lalu Prasad Yadav. Nitish ji became Bihar's CM because of the political situation. It is only because of circumstances/situation he is now the state chief minister," Shahabuddin had told CNN-News18.



Shahabuddin was released on bail from Bhagalpur jail on September 10 and was spotted with a dreaded sharp shooter who is wanted for the murder of journalist Rajdeo Ranjan. In the photo, shooter named Mohammad Kaif alias Bunty is shown accompanying Shahabuddin during his journey from Bhagalpur to Siwan after his release from the jail.


New Delhi: So finally on Thursday with a short statement from the Director-General of Military Operations, India announced to the world something which it had always carried out but plausibly denied because it was in the realm of the covert  surgical strikes.



By making a public announcement, the Narendra Modi government has made a paradigm shift in its Pakistan policy as well as its counter-terror policy. This is the moment when the man with the 56-inch chest drew a line in the sand.



The Indian Armys Special Forces have always carried out surgical strikes deep inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).



The big difference in Thursday mornings operation was: a) full and open backing of the political leadership and b) shedding the inhibition of publically announcing such strikes. The reason this is a paradigm shift is because the Indian military doctrine has now gone from strategic restraint to defensive offence.



Earlier, whenever there was a terror attack, Pakistan could almost predict what Indias response would be.



There will be a few cursory diplomatic noises made, India will attempt to tell the global community about the duplicitous ways of the Pakistani Army and the ISI, for some time things will be hot, but eventually when global attention moves onto the next big issue, Pakistan would be let off the hook. With Thursdays operation, the Modi government has introduced an element of unpredictability into Indias response. As the famous Chinese General Sun Tzu put it, all warfare is based on deception. Respond in a way the enemy least expects you to.



The obvious question being asked now is: what next? Obviously the Pakistanis will retaliate. More than a surgical strike on terrorist infrastructure, this was a surgical strike on the pride of the Pakistan Army, and specifically that of its chief, Raheel Sharif. General Raheel has become in the last couple of years, post the APS school attack, the most deified figure in Pakistan. As big, if not bigger, than Musharraf in his heydays.



Observers say unlike Musharraf, Raheel is not political. But then again, in Pakistan, politics is the Army and the Army is politics. With his retirement in the next few weeks, General Sharif will not want this strike by India to be a blot on his record, a taint on his legacy. He will also use this as an opportunity to stamp his authority on the civilian government and possibly get an extension of service.



The most predictable response would be to make the Line of Control (LoC) hot again.



But that is something our armed forces are well prepared for. With the DGMO saying clearly that this was a limited operation and India has no intent to carry on, it gives the Pakistan Army an opening, if it chooses to take it. Also the Pakistan Army has been consistently denying that these strikes ever took place. That also gives them an opportunity not to climb the escalation ladder and play to the domestic constituency.



The one response India should be worried most about is if the ISI uses terrorist groups to carry out dramatic strikes in big cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, much like 26/11. If this indeed is a policy shift, then this is just the beginning of a long, hard road. The most important thing is to stay the course. Rushing to peace talks now is the last thing required.


Washington: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the possibility of emergence of nuclear suicide bombers from Pakistan if jihadists get access to the country's atomic weapons, a media report has said.



"We live in fear that they're going to have a coup, that jihadists are going to take over the government, theyre going to get access to nuclear weapons, and you'll have suicide nuclear bombers. So, this could not be a more threatening scenario," the New York Times said, quoting Clinton as saying in an audio being hacked from Democratic Party's computers.



"Pakistan is running full speed to develop tactical nukes in their continuing hostility with India," the former secretary of state told a close door fundraiser in Virginia in

February, the paper reported, citing 50-minute audio that appeared on the website of The Washington Free Beacon.



During the fund raiser, responding to a question on modernisation of nuclear weapons, the daily said, Clinton went beyond the question to warn of an emerging nuclear arms race, naming Russia and China as well as Pakistan and India.



"This is one of the most dangerous developments imaginable," Clinton said.



Such remarks from the former secretary of state gains significance in view of an interview of Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif to the local TV channel in which

he threatened to unleash nukes against India.







"If our safety is threatened, we will annihilate them (India)," Asif had said.



The United States appears to have taken a strong note of Asif's recent statements on use of nuclear weapons.



"Nuclear capable states have the responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities," a state department official told PTI when asked about the statements being made by the Pakistani leader.



Earlier, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had said while India has generally shown responsible behaviour with nuclear technology, China conducts itself professionally, nuclear weapons in Pakistan are entangled in history of tensions.



Meanwhile, in an opinion 'Consequences of Pakistani Terrorism: Raids signal that India wont tolerate more attacks in Kashmir', The Wall Street Journal warned that Pakistan increasingly risks becoming a "pariah state" if it continues with policies.



It said if Pakistan wants to prevent an escalation of violence it needs to shut down the terror groups it continues to support. "That should start with Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two major jihadist groups that operate openly in Pakistan and are prime suspects in these attacks," it said.



"Both groups are supported by its military despite being on United Nations lists of terrorist organizations," the daily said in the hard-hitting opinion piece, a day after India carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir against terrorists planning to sneak into the country.



The Journal noted that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently offered closer economic and diplomatic ties to Pakistan as long as it stops supporting terrorism.



Pakistan, it argued, needs a new vision centered on improving the lives of its people.
Terming "Indian aggression" as a threat to the entire region, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday warned that Pakistan is also capable of executing surgical strikes and will not allow anyone to "cast an evil eye" on it.Chairing a special Cabinet meeting to review the security situation in the country, Sharif said Pakistan will take all necessary steps to protect its people and territorial integrity in case of any aggression or violation along the Line of Control (LoC).According to The Express Tribune, Sharif said that Indian aggression constituted a threat to the entire region and Pakistan would take all measures to protect its territorial integrity."No one will be allowed to cast an evil eye on Pakistan," Sharif said, adding that Pakistan was fully capable of executing surgical strikes."The nation is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the valiant armed forces to defend the motherland." His comments came a day after India conducted surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the Army inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.Pakistan has dismissed as "fabrication of truth" India's claim and termed it a "quest" by India to create media hype by rebranding cross-border fire as surgical strike.Sharif said all steps would be taken to prevent LoC violations or aggression and added that Pakistans resolve to establish peace remained strong.He said the leadership and people of Pakistan are united in their resolve to counter any aggressive Indian designs, adding that Pakistan's commitment for peace must not be construed as weakness.Sharif also raised Kashmir issue said it was the "unfinished agenda of the partition".He said atrocities in Kashmir could not crush Kashmiris' right to self-determination. "Indian atrocities" there are "unacceptable", he said.Calling for a probe into the September 18 Uri attack, Sharif said blaming Pakistan for orchestrating the attack was beyond comprehension.The Cabinet also joined the Prime Minister in completely rejecting the Indian claims of carrying out "surgical strikes", Radio Pakistan reported.It condemned "Indian accusations in the wake of the Uri attack and pledged to expose India before the international community".Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said Pakistan does not want escalation of tension but is ready to meet any eventuality.Minister for Commerce Khurram Dastgir said India is creating artificial tension in its attempt to divert attention of the world from its atrocities against Kashmiris.He said Pakistan's defence is in strong hands and the country would continue to raise voice for rights of Kashmiris.Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Syed Riaz Hussain Pirzada regretted that, instead of giving right of self-determination to Kashmiris, India is resorting to terrorism against Pakistan. He said the world community should take notice of India's belligerence.
New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday reviewed the security situation in the country, particular along the border with Pakistan in the wake of the surgical strikes by the Army on terror launch pads in PoK.



During the hour-long meeting, the top security brass of the country briefed the Home Minister about the situation along the border and steps being taken to foil any Pakistani design to attack BSF posts besides safety of civilian population living in forward areas.



The Home Minister instructed the officials to ensure that the forces posted along the border remain on alert as situation along the Indo-Pak border continues to be volatile after yesterday's surgical strike by Army, official sources said.



Those who attended the meeting include National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and top officials of security and intelligence agencies.



BSF, which comes under the Home Ministry, has already put all its units along the Indo-Pak border on "high alert".



Orders have been issued to all its units along IB in Jammu, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat to step up vigil and bolster their numbers at the posts by bringing in all personnel who are in the reserve.



BSF has also restricted all civilian movement along borders with Pakistan.The border guarding force has also been asked by the Home Ministry to provide manpower to local administration for helping in evacuating people from border villages to safer locations.







India carried out 'surgical strikes' on terror launch pads across LoC yesterday, inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists and those who are trying to support them.



The announcement of the sudden action by the Army was made yesterday by DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, 11 days after the terror strike by Pakistan-based JeM on an Indian Army camp in Uri in Kashmir which left 18 Indian soldiers dead.










Seoul: South Korea on Friday supported India's stance against terrorism emanating from Pakistan as Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan apprised its President Park Geun Hye about the surgical strike carried out by the Indian army at the terror camps across the LoC.



The issue came up when Mahajan, who is leading a Parliamentary delegation, called on the President.



During the discussions, the Speaker informed the Korean President about the "strong action" taken by India against terrorism, said a statement issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat, referring to the cross-LoC surgical strike.



Apprising Park about the continuous terrorist activities being carried out from the territory of Pakistan, Mahajan told her that "India believes in non-violence and peace, but it will not hesitate to use its retaliatory power to safeguard its interests," the statement said.



"While supporting India's strong views on terrorism, Park condemned terrorism of every type," it added.



The President said India and South Korea stand together against terrorism.



The two leaders also discussed about the progress made on the issues relating to strategic partnership built during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May last year.



During the discussions on economic relations and other subjects, it emerged that South Korea is a natural partner of India for economic development, the statement said.



Both the leaders also discussed security issues of North-East Asia.



Park expressed her concerns on the continuous development of atomic missile technology by North Korea and appreciated the response of India on the fifth Nuclear test conducted by North Korea recently.
Colombo: In another setback to Pakistan, Sri Lanka on Thursday pulled out of 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad, becoming the fifth country to do so after India expressed its inability to participate in the summit.



"Sri Lanka regrets that the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement here.



The General Provisions of the SAARC Charter require that decisions at all levels shall be taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States as well, it said in the brief statement.



The statement made no reference to the current tension between India and Pakistan, but it "condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations".



It stressed on the need to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region in a decisive manner. "Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia.



"As a founding member of SAARC, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our regions peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation," the statement added.



Besides India, three other SAARC members - Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan - have pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which

is not right for the successful holding of the meet.



That development came after tensions ran high between India and Pakistan after militants stormed an Indian Army base in Uri on September 18, killing 18 soldiers. The militants belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist group.



Founded in 1985, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) currently has Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka as its members.
New Delhi: The two-tier iron bridge shuddered to a sudden spasm as the train overhead crossed over. Down below, the splendid Son, swollen by a generous monsoon was a muddied expanse, dotted with fishing boats. Sandwiched between the two, our car chugs along the narrow passage to enter Bhojpur district, west of capital Patna- once a hotbed of internecine caste wars between Ranvir Sena and the now defunct Maoist Communist Centre or MCC.



Dusk closes in quite rapidly on an overcast sky when we finally manage to locate Subedar Ashok Singhs house in Raktu Tola, fifteen kilometres from the sub-divisional headquarter Piro. Singh was killed in the militant strike at Uri earlier this month, and he is survived by two sons and wife Sangita Devi. As we enter the drawing room, one can hear External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj winding up her address at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Television channels were carrying it live.



After the speech ends, I ask Sangita Devi about governments response to the Uri killings.



I am not satisfied yet. Something should be done so that such incidents do not recur, she said.



The concern of a woman who has just lost her husband and whose elder son is now training at Danapur cantonment in Patna to join the army anytime next year is quite understandable. Though not explicit but inherent in that statement was also a certain sense of accountability being sought from a government which claims to have zero-tolerance on terror.



It is no surprise then that Prime Minister Modi and his Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) decided to strike and strike hard within a fortnight of the Uri attacks. For the BJP, as the ruling party in power, it was as much a political consideration as it was a strategic one.



Narendra Modis entire campaign in the run up to 2014 general elections had many open signifiers of political communication. For example hope that was encapsulated in the acche din refrain. But at the same time he tactically projected himself as a strong leader in a sharp contrast to Dr Manmohan Singh.



Modi was seen as someone who would bring about a turnaround in internal security environment and economy. With his track-record as Gujarat CM, his administrative skills as against open signifiers were something tangible that BJP used to reach out to the electorate.



What happened in Uri and the larger social media narrative had the potential to rob the incumbent dispensation of its assiduously built USP.



So it was just a matter of time that the government would strike back. There have been instances in the past when Indian soldiers have undertaken cross border operations. But this time around it was also imperative for the government to come out of the operations room and take responsibility for having given a go-ahead for surgical strikes.



That message has gone out- loud and clear- to constituencies both within and without.



Internal Politics



Amidst heightened tension in Kashmir valley, BSP leader Mayawati addressed a party rally at Azamgarh in eastern UP in August last week. She alleged that "ahead of Uttar Pradesh polls a desperate BJP may, in order to divert attention from its government's failures, trigger a war with Pakistan."



Not that Mayawati had any foreboding of things to come. The assertion if at all signified only one thing- that any escalation at the border or LoC has the potential to alter the entire political discourse in the country. And poll-bound UP would be no exception to the phenomenon.



For the BJP, as it approaches critical electoral test in three key states: UP, Uttarakhand and Punjab, third is precisely a broad narrative it would like to develop in the days ahead. Its a narrative which not only mobilises its core constituency; it helps to wade through the caste quagmire of electoral politics in the Hindi-heartland.



A lot now would depend on how things unfold from here onwards. If the party feels that a campaign weaved around the developments at the LoC is finding resonance, BJP would be less inclined to declare CM candidates in both UP and Uttarakhand.


Washington: Sending a strong message to Pakistan that it needs to act against UN-designated terrorist groups, the White House today called for de-escalation of tension between India and Pakistan.



"What I can tell you is that we have seen some reports from the region. Those reports include that Indian and Pakistani militaries have been in communication with one another and we encourage continued discussions between India and Pakistan to avoid escalation," White House Press Secretary



Josh Earnest told reporters at his daily news conference.



Earnest said the US National Security Advisor Susan Rice spoke to her Indian counterpart Ajit Doval yesterday and asked to "combat and delegitimise" UN-designated terrorist entities, including LeT and JeM.



"Ambassador Rice made it clear that the United States continues to be concerned by the danger that cross-border terrorism poses to the region. The United States fully expects that Pakistan will take effective action to combat and delegitimise UN-designated terrorist individuals and entities," he said.



The US, he said, is firmly committed to its partnership with India, and to their joint efforts to combat terrorism. We are prepared to deepen collaboration on UN terrorist designations," Earnest said.



At the same time, US continues to be in close contact with Pakistan and value the important partnership that they have formed with them on a range of issues, including security, the press secretary said.



Meanwhile a State Department official called for de-escalation of tension.



"We urge calm and restraint on both sides," the official said.



"We understand that the Indian and Pakistani militaries have been in communication, and we believe continued communication is important to reduce tensions," the official added.



The US has repeatedly expressed its concerns regarding the danger that cross border terrorism poses to the region, including the recent attack in Uri.



"We continue to urge actions to combat and delegitimize terrorist groups like Lakshar-e-Taiba, Haqqani Network, and Jaish-e-Mohammed," the official said.



India has blamed Pakistan-based terror outfit JeM for the attack in Uri. In the backdrop of the heightened tension with Pakistan over Uri terror attack, India on Tuesday announced its decision to not participate in the SAARC Summit, citing increased "cross-border" attacks.



Other Pakistan-based terror group LeT has been accused by India of attacking military and civilian targets in the country, including the 2001 Parliament attack and the 2008 Mumbai attack.



India wants UN to impose sanctions on JeM chief Masood Azhar. Hafiz Saeed, a co-founder of LeT and the chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawah, carries a bounty of USD 10 million on his head for his role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack in which 166 people, including six Americans, were killed.








The nuclear threshold hasnt been crossed, if it had been crossed we would have radioactive clouds on both sides of the border.

The media, which is influenced heavily by the [Pakistan] Army, is full of threatening voices and of voices that seek to belittle the other side and drum up jingoistic sentiments and it is a very ugly scene that is reminiscent of earlier tensions with India, tensions that in the past have led to war.



However, I would have preferred that Pakistan also issue no first-use declaratory statement saying that it reserves the right to respond to a superior Indian force that attacks it upon its own territory.

: Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, a nuclear physicist formerly with the Qaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, is considered the pre-eminent scholar on Pakistans nuclear project. A political activist in his own right, Dr Hoodbhoy is currently the Professor of Mathematics & Physics at the Forman Christian College in Lahore. He spoke to News18s Tushar Dhara over the telephone from Lahore on Pakistans options, including nuclear and tactical, in the wake of Indias surgical strikes avenging the Uri attack.In Islamabad these are being viewed as normal exchanges of artillery across the Line of Control (LoC). The notion that surgical strikes have occurred is being rejected here. People are saying that this is something the Indians are fabricating in order to please their own public and actually on the ground there is only cross-border shelling, which has been happening for a very long time.Unless things escalate there will be no use of nuclear weapons. The use of nuclear weapons would essentially be the end of both countries and that is not a decision that will be taken very lightly, hopefully never be taken. But at the moment both countries are going to push each other and try to do the maximum damage without crossing the nuclear threshold.We have certainly not crossed it, but the efforts of hawks on both sides of the border is to push us closer and closer to that red line.A. Unless good sense prevails, we shall keep getting closer, and one hopes there will be international diplomatic pressure as well as domestic pressure from those concerned with their own survival, both in India and Pakistan, that will prevent the hawks from getting the upper hand, because the hawks have no idea what to do. Once they get right to the threshold then there could be a point of no-return, and if that is reached there would be neither hawks nor doves anywhere.It is General Raheel Sharif who will have an influence on the forces, after all these are the forces that are directly under his command, and he will make the decision as to what level of tension is to be reached. I suspect that he will be talking to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to tell him this is what we are going to do.Pakistans nuclear weapons are under the control of the National Command Authority (NCA). Members of the NCA include the Chief of the Army Staff, who is of course going to be the most important member of this committee. But also there will be the other service chiefs of the Navy and Air Force, as well as the Prime Minister, the minister of defence and the head of the Strategic Plans Division.If India moves to sever Pakistani communication links between the north and the south of the country, or if it attempts to impose a blockade upon Karachiin that case the situation will have reached a very high level of seriousness, and the situation could go out of control at that point. However, the two countries have accommodated a certain level of shelling across the border and I suspect that the intensity of that is going to rise in the days ahead.I think first use or no first-use are entirely declaratory, there is no means of ensuring that India will not use its nuclear weapons first, even though it says it will not.Pakistan says its nuclear weapons are for defensive purposes only.Tactical nuclear weapons and strategic nuclear weapons are not very different from each other, although tactical weapons are smaller in size. It is the nature of the target that makes the two different from each other. Tactical weapons strike at military formations and troop concentrations whereas strategic ones aim for population centres, industrial centres, dams etc. They seek to inflict the maximum amount of civilian casualties.A. The United States has very little influence on Pakistans nuclear policy and affairs. Its knowledge of the whereabouts of Pakistans nuclear weapons is also very limited. That space has been vacated, not because the United States wanted to but because of the bad relations that Pakistan developed with the US over Afghanistan. So today the only external country that has a major influence on Pakistan is China. However, China is unlikely to exercise much diplomatic pressure, and therefore India and Pakistan are at a more dangerous place than ever before because at earlier times the United States and Britain could be pressed into action in order to resolve tensions between India and Pakistan.
Washington: India-US military relationship is the "closest it has been ever" and the two countries are exercising together by air, land and sea for the first time, America's Defence Secretary Ashton Carter has said.



He underlined that the two great democracies have done a strategic and technological "handshake".



"America's regional partnerships are growing in number and strength. The US-India military relationship is the closest it's ever been. Great nation, large democracy," Carter in his remarks aboard the USS Carl Vinson in San Diego yesterday.



"Through our strategic handshake with America's reaching west in our re-balance and India reaching east in what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi calls his Act East Policy, our two nations are exercising together by air, land, and sea," he said.



"There is also a technological handshake between the United States and India. The US-India Defence Technology and Trade Initiative grasps hands with Prime Minister Modi's Make in India campaign, helping our countries move toward more diverse defence co-development and co-production of weapons systems," Carter said.



Noting that Asia-Pacific is the most consequential region for America's future, he said the US is managing "historic change" in the area.






Image Courtesy: Reuters Pictures

Image Courtesy: Reuters Pictures

Image Courtesy: Reuters Pictures

Image Courtesy: Reuters Pictures

Image Courtesy: Reuters Pictures

Image Courtesy: Reuters Pictures

Image Courtesy: Reuters Pictures

Image Courtesy: Reuters Pictures

Theres no dearth of pleasant surprises as one enters the festive season. Its that time of the year when devotees whole heartedly offer prayers to the Hindu goddess Durga, fast happily and soak themselves in the vibrant colours of Garba. Its time for Navratri!Navratri, one of the most important festivals in Hindu tradition, is celebrated with utmost vigour and excitement. With the first day of this nine-day celebration being just a day away, we bring you a list of Durga temples across India that you can visit this year.This is perhaps one of the most visited temples during Navratri. Located in Katra within Jammu and Kashmir, the cave shrine sees pilgrims from across the country paying obeisance during the first seven days.The temple of Jwala Devi is dedicated to Goddess Jwalamukhi. Located at a distance of 34 km from Kangra Valley, the temple boasts of a unique architectural feature. A copper pipe runs through the temple from which natural gas comes out and the priest lights this. The flames that burn continuously without any fuel are worshipped as a manifestation of the goddess.Dedicated to Goddess Danteshwari, this architectural beauty was built in the 14th century. According to the legends, the temple is the spot where the tooth (daanth) of Sati fell while the shrines were being created. The tradition of lighting Jyoti Kalash (lamps placed in earthern pots) by the devotees during Navratri is a common sight here. Thousands of tribals gather at the temple on Dussehra and pay homage to the goddess.Situated in the western part of Guwahati city in Assam, this makes one of the oldest of the 51 Shakti Pithas (shrines of Shakti). It is the main temple in a complex of the individual temples dedicated to goddess Durga. The temple is built in a hybrid indigenous style which is sometimes known as the Nilachal type; the kind with a hemispherical dome on a cruciform base.One of the oldest temples dedicated to Kalka or Kali is situated in Delhi. Referred to as Manokamna Siddha Peetha (desire, fulfilment, shrine), it is believed to be the holy shrine where one seeks the blessings of Kalka Devi for the fulfilment of ones desires. Devotees gather and sing hymns and songs to appease the divine being.Named after Chamundeshwari or Durga (fierce form of Shakti), it is believed to have been built in the 12th century. With several images of Nandi, the bull mount of Shiva, the temple is aesthetically built in Dravidian style. The style of construction includes a main doorway, entrance and sanctum sanctorum. A seven-tier pyramidal tower can be seen at the entrance of the quadrangular structured temple.Known for the possession of a unique form of Durga idol, Kalighat is another temple which tops the chart. Early accounts of Shakti Peethas cite Kalighat as the dwelling place of Dakshina Kalika, a fierce manifestation of the goddess. The main temple is a four-sided building with a truncated dome. This is a classic example of the Bengali-styled architecture; a structural emulation of the mud and thatch-roofed huts of the villages.This center of pilgrimage is known as Kurma Peeth because the shape of temple premise resembles that of a tortoise. Two identical idols of the same deity; Tripura Sundari and Chhotima are present at this holy place. Situated in Udaipur, the idol is created out of a reddish black stone known as Kasti in Bengali. While a lot of devotees prefer to visit this temple during Navratri, its Diwali Mela also sees thousands of pilgrims coming from various places across India.
Mumbai: Popularly known as Bollywood's heartthrob, actor Ranbir Kapoor says love is a magical addiction and beyond one's control.



The 34-year-old has melted many hearts with his effortless portrayal of a romantic boy in films like Saawariya, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Barfi!, and will next be seen in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil.



"Love is a magical addiction and a feeling beyond your control!" Ranbir said in a statement.



Ranbir will be seen talking about his idea of 'love' in an exclusive promo shot for the second season of Addicted to Love on Romedy Now.



Talking about the promo, Ranbir said: "The classics, all time romantic Hollywood movies lined up for the 'Addicted to Love S2' on Romedy Now will help you relive the indefinable feeling through these love stories!"



The Ajab Prem Ki Gajab Kahani star is hoping that the audience will like his next Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, which also features Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Anushka Sharma and Fawad Khan.



"My latest release, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, is one such love saga that I hope the viewers will enjoy! Being a romantic myself, I could not have got a better platform than this to talk about my upcoming release," he added.


Beijing: Urging India and Pakistan once again to exercise restraint, China on Friday maintained that New Delhi and Islamabad can "properly settle disputes through dialogue and consultation to cool down the situation", an official said.



"We call on the two sides to exercise restraint and avoid further escalating tensions," a foreign office statement said, adding that it hopes that the two sides can properly settle disputes through dialogue.



Voicing its concern, the Chinese foreign ministry said that as a neighbour and friend to both India and Pakistan, "we are concerned about the tension and rivalry between them. Beijing has been in touch with both sides, and we will continue our efforts to promote peace talks".



Tensions between India and Pakistan have become strained after New Delhi on Thursday announced that it had launched surgical strikes at terror launch pads across the Line of Control.



Islamabad, however, denied that any Indian strike had taken place on its soil.



The Indian strikes followed the September 18 terrorist attack at an army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir in which 19 soldiers were killed.




Boulder, Colorado: John Morales was interning for Bernie Sanders' campaign when the longshot Democratic candidate's hopes started to fade in the spring. That's when Libertarian Gary Johnson caught his interest.



In many ways Johnson and Sanders are ideological opposites. The Vermont senator is an opponent of foreign trade deals and won over many younger voters in the primaries by calling for enormous government spending to guarantee universal health care and free college tuition. Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, supports smaller government and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.



But he shares Sanders' outsider, tell-it-like-it-is style, social liberalism and skepticism about military intervention overseas  attributes that have won over enough Sanders supporters to worry Democrats he could jeopardize Hillary Clinton's chances in November.



Morales, a 22-year-old community college student and Army Reservist, is one of those converts  he's now interning for Johnson.



"He agrees with about 70 percent of what Bernie was saying," Morales said, adding that many of his friends who liked Sanders now are also drawn to Johnson. "I do believe that he's got better ideas than Hillary and Trump," Morales says.



With roughly a month until Election Day, Clinton is still struggling to win over young voters who twice helped elect Barack Obama.



"They're not brand loyal to either party  they're loyal to ideology and disruption of the status quo," said Jill Hanauer, a Denver-based Democratic strategist whose firm has polled the age group known as millennials. She said many don't remember how protest votes for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader helped elect George W. Bush in 2000.



Clinton's challenge with younger voters is part of what's keeping the race close. A recent AP-GfK poll found Johnson pulling 14 percent of voters under 30, Green Party nominee Jill Stein with 3 percent and "other" with 6 percent. Clinton had the backing of 48 percent of young voters, compared with the 60 percent Obama notched in 2012. Trump had 27 percent in the poll.



"Most of the supporters and volunteers who come in here are former Bernie people," said Woodrow Johnston, the Las Vegas-based deputy director of youth outreach for the candidate.



"I think that for the most part people buy more into themes -- or character -- than issues."



Clinton's campaign plans to have popular surrogates, including Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and Sanders make her case. Their arguments to young people won't directly target Johnson but instead will focus on the potential consequences of voting for a third-party candidate.



"If you don't vote, that's a vote for Trump," Obama declared this week on the Steve Harvey radio show. "If you vote for a third-party candidate who's got no chance to win, that's a vote for Trump."



Johnson's support among younger voters has roiled the campaign, especially in Colorado, though he's hurt himself with recent gaffes. This week he's being mocked for being unable, in a television appearance, to name a single world leader he admired. That awkward moment drew a comparison by Johnson himself to his "Aleppo moment" this month, when he didn't recognize the besieged city in Syria.



Still, Clinton has struggled to win over supporters of Sanders, who handily won the Democratic primary here.



A CNN poll this week suggested third-party candidates could make a difference in Colorado: The poll found a nominal one-point lead for Trump when Johnson and Stein were included in the survey, while Clintonhad a two-point lead when they were not.



Clinton's challenges are obvious in the liberal college town of Boulder. Some young voters at the University of Colorado are still pining for Sanders and unwilling to embrace her.



Payton Smith, a 21-year-old business major, had backed Sanders even though he disagreed with some of the Vermont senator's proposals. "It was something different," he said. Now he's shifted to Johnson. "I'd rather put my name behind someone who's not a liar or a thug."



At the Innisfree poetry bookshop and coffee house, a Sanders sign and an etching of the senator still hang in the window. On the patio, Dani Ballard, 21, and Cal Hoffman, 22, pondered their options. They'll probably vote for Stein and can't bring themselves to support Clinton. "I just feel like she's untrustworthy," Ballard said.



"I find the choices of both major parties so depressing," said Hoffman.



Some Sanders supporters have no problem with Clinton. "Bernie is the leader I'd like in an ideal world, but Hillary is the leader I want for America today," said Shruti Kaul, 18.



And plenty of ex-Sanders voters are willing to temper their feelings.



Brooke Long, a 23-year-old geography major, tells pollsters she supports Johnson in hopes the Libertarian candidate reaches the 15 percent polling threshold to let him into presidential debates.



"If my options were Gary Johnson, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, in a reasonable situation where Donald Trump couldn't win, I'd go with Gary Johnson," Long said.



But she knows she doesn't live in that world and is voting for Clinton. "I'm in a swing state," she. "I have a responsibility. I don't want to have a Nader problem again."


Grand Rapids (Michigan): Donald Trump shamed a former beauty pageant winner Friday for her sexual history and encouraged presidential voters to check out what he called her "sex tape," in an early-morning tweet-storm that dragged him further away from his campaign's efforts to broaden his appeal to women.



A day after he injected former President Bill Clinton's infidelities into the campaign, Trump accused Hillary Clinton's campaign of helping 1996 Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado get U.S. citizenship, but offered no proof. He said Machado had a "terrible" past that a "duped" Clinton had overlooked before holding her up "as an 'angel" in the first presidential debate.



"Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?" read a missive from Trump posted on his verified Twitter account at 5:30 a.m.



"This is ... unhinged. Even for Trump," Clinton retorted in a tweet of her own.



Machado, the Venezuela-born actress, has been center stage in the campaign since Clinton noted in Monday's debate that Trump had mocked her publicly for gaining weight after she won Miss Universe, a pageant then owned by the businessman. If that was a trap laid by Clinton, the irrepressible Trump dug himself deeper the next day by saying Machado's "massive" weight gain had been "a real problem."



His latest taunt appeared to refer to footage from a Spanish reality show in 2005 in which Machado was a contestant and appeared on camera in bed with a male contestant. The images are grainy and do not include nudity, though Machado later acknowledged in the Hispanic media that she was having sex in the video.



Clinton responded to Trump with tweets of her own, accusing him of contempt for women and asking what kind of a man "stays up all night to smear a woman with lies and conspiracy theories?" She tied his broadside against Machado to his previous attacks on Rosie O'Donnell and Kim Kardashian about their looks.



"When something gets under Donald's thin skin, he lashes out and can't let go," Clinton said. "This is dangerous for a president."



Clinton's campaign has released videos featuring Machado and has arranged for reporters to interview her in an effort to use Trump's comments against him just as early voting in critical states gets underway. Clinton didn't mention the dust-up midday Friday as she spoke in Fort Pierce, Florida, about national service, but she was expected to address it later in the day in Coral Springs.



Trump ignored questions from reporters about whether he regretted the tweets as he toured the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.



Trump's Republican allies have implored him to stick to attacks on Clinton over her family foundation, her emails or her long history as a political insider, critiques that fall further out of view whenever he sparks a new controversy.



Shaming Machado over intimate details from her past could be particularly risky as Trump tries to win over more female voters, many of whom are turned away by such personal attacks. It also risks calling further attention to the thrice-married Trump's own history with women.



On Friday, Trump said Clinton had been "set up by a con" in holding up Machado "as an 'angel' without checking her past, which is terrible!" He suggested Clinton had helped her gain citizenship.



Clinton's campaign has highlighted Machado's status as a new American and her plans to cast her first vote for Clinton. But Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said Clinton did not help Machado get U.S. citizenship.



The flurry on Twitter began shortly after 3 a.m. on the East Coast when Trump complained about stories about his campaign based on anonymous sources and told his supporters not to believe them.



"There are no sources, they are just made up lies!" he wrote.



Trump has repeatedly gotten himself in trouble with his late-night and early-morning tweets, which appear to be written by the candidate himself. Trump has, at various points during his campaign, toned down the content, but rarely for long.



His latest broadside against Machado adds fuel to a burgeoning debate in America about putting down women over the perception of promiscuity. Women's advocates have said the phenomenon, which takes place largely online, holds women to a different standard because men are often praised for having multiple partners.



A day earlier, Trump warned voters that a Hillary Clinton victory would bring her husband's sex scandal back to the White House. It was Trump's latest effort to bounce back from Monday's debate performance, which was widely panned as ineffective.



"The American people have had it with years and decades of Clinton corruption and scandal. Corruption and scandal," Trump said Thursday. "An impeachment for lying. An impeachment for lying. Remember that? Impeach."



The fresh rehash of the 1990s Monica Lewisnky scandal came despite Trump's insistence that he's been showing impressive restraint by not bringing it up. Trump has said he declined to mention it during the debate because Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, was in the room.
Washington: The Indian surgical strike inside Pak Occupied Kashmir (PoK) against terrorist planning to sneak into India for terrorist activities was "carefully measured", a top American think-tank said today, adding the onus for escalation lies purely on Pakistan.



"This Indian response was indeed coming. Both as a signal to Pakistan and as reassurance for Indian domestic audiences. Indian PM Narendra Modi could not let the outrage at Uri go unanswered," Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a top American think-tank said.



"The Indian action was carefully measured: striking at terrorist launch pads was meant to signal that India has not lost its freedom to retaliate, but puts the onus of further escalation on Pakistan," Tellis told PTI.



Responding to a question, Tellis said the US will, counsel restraint, but unless the administration is willing to turn the screws on Pakistan--which is unlikely--India will be guided by its own interests, not American pleas for forbearance.



"I think Pakistan has its hands full right now, it is unlikely to respond to the Indian action militarily, but the larger sub-conventional war against India will continue," Tellis said.



Rick Rossow from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recalled that the hint of such strikes as a possible tool last year, when the Indian Army initiated an attack against militants in Myanmar.



"India has also shown other new tools in its confrontation with Pakistan, such as withdrawing from the upcoming SAARC summit, building stronger ties with other South Asian nations, and using closer security ties with the US as a hook to press for reduced military cooperation with Pakistan," he said.



"This will likely keep Islamabad on its toes, though when employing new tools in such a struggle, clear messaging is key so both sides know the others' intentions. This will guard against unanticipated escalation," Rossow said.



According to him, following a number of recent provocations that India has linked to Pakistan-based militant groups, the government of prime minister Narendra Modi has employed a different set of tools to respond to these incitements.



"These tools may not be altogether new, but the fact that they have been the focus of India's response to Pakistan's incitements marks a different approach," he said.



Rossow said while the Indian Ministry of Defence has stated it does not plan additional strikes, it is not clear whether the current tensions between India and Pakistan will escalate further.



"There is certainly little expectation that Pakistani militants, under varying degrees of control by Pakistan's military, will be deterred from initiating further attacks. But the costs to Islamabad of supporting terrorism are increasing, and taking different forms than before," Rossow said.



State Department Spokesman, John Kirby, said, "We continue to urge actions to combat and de-legitimise terrorist groups like LeT, and Haqqani Network, Jaish-E-Mohammed. So, this is something that we're obviously keenly focused on.



Counter-terrorism co-operation, he said, is something that the United States is always working at with its partners in the region.



"We're always trying to get better at combating terrorism in the region. There are many ways you can do that, you know, through information sharing regimens and increasing communication between all parties involved," he said.



But he refused to entertain question on if there was any co-operation between India and the United States on the latest Indian operation.



"I don't have a specific laundry list here to read out to you because, frankly, it's something that we've been constantly working at with our partners in the region," he said.



Kirby said America's message to both sides has been the same in terms of encouraging them to increase communication to deal with this threat and to avoid steps that escalate the tensions.



"I think I'm not going to get into characterising each and every step along the way there. But obviously, what we want to see is increased cooperation against what is a very shared common threat for both countries, and to see steps being taken to deal with it by all sides," Kirby said.



Meanwhile the US Ambassador to India, Richard Verma, who was in Washington DC has rushed back to New Delhi.



"As far as I know, he's returning to New Delhi. My understanding is that he believed that it was, appropriate for him to go back. He has got a big job. There a lot of responsibilities that come with it. And, obviously it's a very dynamic situation and he felt it was prudent to go back. We support that," Kirby said.
San Diego,: AFP) US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said on Friday that America's alliance with the Philippines was "ironclad," despite that country's president vowing a day earlier to end joint military exercises.



"As it has been for decades, our alliance with the Philippines is ironclad," Carter said, addressing troops aboard the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, docked in San Diego.



Yesterday, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said he would soon end joint military exercises with the United States.



Speaking in Hanoi during a two-day visit to Vietnam, Duterte said next month's military drills with America would be the last.



"I will serve notice to you now, that this will be the last military exercise, jointly Philippines-US, the last one," he said in a rambling speech to several hundred Vietnam-based Filipinos.



Carter was in San Diego on his way to Hawaii, where on Friday he will host a meeting for defense ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).



He did not discuss the Philippines further, except to note that the United States will continue to support the modernization of the Philippines's armed forces, through the so-called Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.



Carter's trip to Hawaii comes with less than four months of the Obama administration remaining.



A key question at the meeting will be future plans for America's "rebalance" to Asia, during which Obama has tried to shift the US focus away from Middle East quagmires and toward rapidly growing Asia.



He has mended relations with Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos, while bolstering regional blocs and providing a counterbalance to China's regional ambitions.



Regional nations are deeply concerned by China's rapid push to build up and militarize islets in the South China Sea and its far-ranging claims over much of the strategically and economically vital waterway.



Carter stressed, as he has repeatedly in recent months, that the US Navy would continue to ignore China's territorial claims and sail through waters surrounding the islands.



"The US-China relationship will have elements of cooperation but also competition," he said.



"We hope that China chooses to join the rest of the region in strengthening and upholding the shared principles that have helped so many nations around the region, including China, to rise and prosper."



Carter stressed the Asia focus would continue into the future.



Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, in a tightened race against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton ahead of the November 8 election, has called mutual defense treaties with South Korea and Japan into question.



In this Aug. 29, 2016, file photo, Defense Secretary Ash Carter appears at a news conference at the Pentagon. (Photo: AP)


Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday said it has briefed the envoys of the P5 -- the US, China, Russia, the UK and France -- over "unprovoked firing" by India on the LoC and asked the countries to play their role in ensuring the maintenance of peace and security in the region.



Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry accompanied by the Director General Military Operations (DGMO) briefed the Ambassadors of Permanent Members of UN Security Council about the "frivolous Indian claim of carrying out surgical strikes on the LoC", the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.



DGMO Major Gen Sahir Shamshad Mirza gave a detailed briefing of the situation on the LoC and completely rejected the Indian "claim of surgical strikes", the statement said.



It claimed that in reality, on the night of September 28 and 29, the Indian forces resorted to "unprovoked firing" at the LoC at multiple points, which led to the death of two Pakistani soldiers.



"The Armed Forces of Pakistan gave a befitting response to the ceasefire violations by India. He also highlighted the troops positions on the LoC and explained the anti- infiltration mechanisms already in place," the statement said.



The DGMO also informed the envoys about layers of fencing, barbed wires, lighting, border posts, bunkers etc, on the LoC, which ensure that no infiltration takes place.



The Foreign Secretary also rejected the "false and baseless Indian claims", the statement said.



"He conveyed serious concerns over the increased Indian aggression and belligerence, especially during the last few days which could also be seen in multiple public statements made by the Indian Prime Minister," it said.



The Foreign Secretary informed the Ambassadors that Pakistan remains the "major victim of terrorism, including state terrorism".



He called upon the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council to play their role to ensure maintenance of peace and security in the region.



Earlier, reports said Pakistan's DGMO met Foreign Secretary Chaudhry and gave a detailed briefing to him on the situation at the LoC.



India carried out surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the LoC with the Army inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.



The terror launch pads were targeted by the Army on the intervening night of September 28 and 29 in a nearly five- hour-long operation.


Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday postponed the SAARC Summit to be held in November after India along with four other member states of the regional grouping decided against attending the meet.



"Pakistan deplores India's decision to impede the SAARC process by not attending the 19th SAARC Summit at Islamabad on 9-10 November 2016," the Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement.



It claimed that the spirit of the SAARC Charter is "violated" when a member state casts the shadow of its bilateral problems on the multilateral forum for regional cooperation.



Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was looking forward to welcome the SAARC leaders for their participation in the summit. All preparations had been made for "successful" holding of the summit, the statement said.



It alleged that the decision by India to "derail the summit" effectively "contradicts" Prime Minister Narendra Modi's own call to fight against poverty in the region.



"India's decision to abstain from the Summit on the basis of unfounded assumptions on the Uri incident is a futile effort to divert attention of the world from the atrocities" by India in Kashmir, the Foreign Office said.



"Pakistan attaches great importance to regional cooperation under the umbrella of SAARC... Therefore, Pakistan remains committed to hosting the 19th SAARC Summit at Islamabad at the earliest so that the objectives of regional cooperation under the SAARC umbrella can be pursued more vigorously," it said.



The Foreign Office said a new set of dates for holding of the summit in Islamabad will be announced soon, through Nepal, which is currently the SAARC Chair.



"Accordingly, we have conveyed the same to the Prime Minister of Nepal," it said.



Besides India, three other SAARC members  Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan  pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding of the meet.



Sri Lanka also pulled out of the SAARC Summit on Friday, becoming the fifth country to do so.



Citing continuous cross border terrorism by Pakistan, India had announced earlier this week that "in the prevailing circumstances, the Government of India is unable to participate in the proposed Summit in Islamabad."



SAARC member states include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Washington: Republican nominee Donald Trump on Friday claimed the first presidential debate with Hillary Clinton was "rigged" after political analysts said his Democratic rival won the debate.



Addressing his supporters at an election rally in New Hampshire, 70-year-old Trump said the first debate was a "rigged deal".



Trump, 70, said he had to fight with moderator Lester Holt on "everything I said".



Political analysts said Clinton, 68, won the debate with her emphatic performance and put the reality television star on defensive on crucial issues.



"Then I had to put up with the anchor and fight the anchor on everything I said. What a rigged deal, I tell you, we are in such a rigged system. It is terrible. What's going on in this country is so sad. But it will change. Remember November 8," Trump said.



Trump said he would work hard over the next 40 days to win the White House.



"We are going to take on the special interests, the lobbyists, and the corrupt corporate media that have rigged the system against everyday Americans. We are going to create millions of new jobs for our people, trillions in new wealth for our communities, and rising wages for every working American. We are going to create a new government that serves you, your family, and your country," he said.



According to the real estate mogul from New York, his campaign is going to end Clinton's corruption and restore dignity and honesty to government service.



"Hillary Clinton is an insider fighting only for herself and for her donors. I am an outsider fighting for you," he said.



The large corporations who support terrible trade deals that offshore jobs are donating to Clinton, he said, adding that the Wall Street investors who have rigged the regulations against the middle class are donating to Clinton.



Trump also alleged that the special interests who want open borders are donating to Clinton.



"In her campaign for President, Hillary Clinton has received USD 100 million dollars in contributions from Wall Street and the hedge funds. She and Bill Clinton were paid USD 150 million for speeches since Bill left the Oval Office. The same groups paying Bill and Hillary for their speeches were lobbying the federal government," he said.



Alleging that Clinton put the office of Secretary of State up for sale, Trump said if she ever got the chance, she would put the Oval Office up for sale too.



"She deleted and bleached 33,000 emails after a Congressional subpoena. Thirteen phones missing, several destroyed with a hammer. Her staffers taking the fifth amendment, and her ringleaders getting immunity deals. We're going to call them the FBI Immunity 5. Foreign enemies with easy access to hack her server. Lies to Congress, under oath, about turning over her work-related emails," he said.




Independent journalist Andre Whitehead will present exclusive interviews on the radio and television broadcasts of Conversations with Andre Whitehead. The radio broadcast will include interviews of longtime residents of the Birchwood Apartments, the site of a recent homicide last week, and Blue Ridge Regional Jail Authority Administrator Tim Trent, who will address jail safety concerns from those in the nearby College Hill apartments and revised guidelines to prevent inmate escapes. Whitehead also will launch a new series with Rep. Bob Goodlatte and challenger Kai Degner, who are vying for the 6th District Congressional seat.
Hawk Claus spreads Christmas cheer in DC's Grifter Got Run Over By a Reindeer first look

Take a look at two stories from the DC holiday special including the titular chapter and a Hawkwoman and Hawkman tale
NOT TRUE CARMONA

Rowley further declared there was no leak of confidential documents from the Office of the Prime Minister to the Office of the President, pertaining to this meeting.

In providing a detailed response to claims made 24 hours earlier by President Anthony Carmona during an address to reporters at the Office of the President in St Anns, Rowley made it clear during a post-Cabinet news conference yesterday at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Clair, that at no time did he exercise powers outside of his Constitutional remit, in this matter. He was also adamant that he will maintain the working relationship which he and Carmona must have under the Constitution.

Saying Government planned to discuss other matters at yesterday post-Cabinet press briefing, Rowley said that changed in light of Carmonas statements on Wednesday. He assured that as Prime Minister, I conduct the affairs of this Office fully cognisant of the requirements of our Constitution. Indicating one such requirement involves regular meetings with the President on governance issues and the President can request additional meetings with him, Rowley said the last regular meeting he had with Carmona, was on August 24.

Rowley said he was in Tobago on September 5 when he received a phone call from Dillon at 9.30 am that day. Rowley said Dillon indicated that he was requested by the President to attend a meeting later that same day.

Rowley said this was the first time he knew Carmona wanted to meet with Dillon. He said Dillon did not know why the President wanted to see him. I then thought it might be something personal or something to do with his (Carmona) family or his immediate security, Rowley said.

WELL THEN, FIND OUT Against this background, Rowley said he told Dillon, well then, find out. Rowley said he had no further conversation with Dillon on thee issue and Dillon left the country the following day for a trip that had been arranged prior to their discussions, the day before. Rowley said Dillon returned home on September 12.

At the first opportunity, the Minister gave me a written statement as to what took place at Presidents House, Rowley said.

The Prime Minister said Dillon did not act out of line in how he reported the meeting (with Carmona) to him.

Rowley said he became alarmed and concerned on September 11, when he read in the newspapers about, a major national security meeting involving the Chief of Defence Staff, the Acting Police Commissioner and Minister Dillon, which was chaired by the President.

While awaiting direct communication from Dillon, Rowley said he discovered a, 30 point document, covering virtually every area of national security, at the OPM, that was, addressed to me and signed by His Excellency. The Prime Minister said he was concerned about a phrase in Carmonas letter, in which the President said, he had the consent of the attendees to tell me, what happened at this meeting. Rowley said he sought advice from Senior Counsel (SC), with respect to the line of reporting and communication between the Minister, Prime Minister and President on this specific matter. He said the legal advice received showed his concerns, were well founded. The Prime Minister said through the Head of the Public Service, he wrote the President on this development.

Rowley said he told Cabinet about this advice (from Senior Counsel) and Cabinet reaffirmed the Constitutional requirements relating to government ministers reporting to the Prime Minister and/or President.

The Prime Minister said his instruction to Dillon to find out what the President wanted, in no way crosses a bridge to me granting approval on three occasions for a national security meeting to take place between those who took that decision and those who were at the meeting. Rowley added, For the record, I was unaware of any such development. On the allegation that confidential, classified correspondence from the President to him was leaked, irresponsibly or recklessly, Rowley declared, I have done no such thing! MEETING LASTED 3 HOURS Displaying a copy of the Presidents letter on the meeting, Rowley told reporters, You would be very incompetent, if you had not noticed that in the document, it speaks of the very important consideration of consent, required by the President for the provisions of the secret meeting, to be made available to me. Rowley said neither this letter nor the 30 point document sent to him by Carmona, was in the public domain. He added that if the media had the document, it would have been clear there was, no reference of any prior approval by him for the meeting in question.

Stating this was the extent of involvement by his Government, his Office and himself in this matter, Rowley said, I do not wish to drag this matter on. I do not wish to engage in any banter with the President. The Prime Minister reiterated his only intention was to, to put on the record, my knowledge of this this matter and what the documentation contains. Rowley did not know when next he would meet with Carmona but stressed, I intend to discharge my responsibility under the Constitution. In supporting the Prime Ministers position, Minister Dillon said his secretary was first contacted by the Presidents secretary on August 26, to request he meet with Carmona on August 30. Dillon said his secretary advised the Presidents secretary that he could not attend that meeting, because I had National Security Council around the same time. Indicating he was advised on September 2 of the Presidents request to meet with him on September 5, Dillon said he enquired what the meeting was about and was told, it was security related. Dillon said he was further advised to bring an advisor to the meeting. Indicating he advised the CDS and Police Commissioner to be prepared to attend the meeting, Dillon said the meeting lasted three hours and, we dealt with several issues. Asked whether he gave his consent for the President to provide Rowley with the details of the meeting, Dillon said Carmona indicated that he would send a copy of what transpired at the meeting, to the Prime Minister.
Boy force-fed poison

Police said that Mootilal Rattansingh, 51, who was going through a divorce from his wife, waited in his Hyundai Tucson SUV outside a primary school in North Trinidad.

At about 8 am, when the boy alighted from the school bus at the school gates, Rattansingh grabbed and placed him in the SUV before driving off. Rattansingh drove to Kernahan Village where in the vicinity of Cascadoo Trace, he parked his vehicle at the side of a road. He then swallowed a quantity of powdered Larnate (a herbicide) and forced the boy to eat some. A passer-by who noticed father and son slumped inside the SUV, alerted the police.

Officers led by ASP Nisha and including Insp Ken Lutchman, Cpl Singh and Cpl Maharaj arrived to find Rattansingh already dead and the body unconscious with a weak pulse.

The child was rushed to the Sangre Grande District Hospital where he received emergency treatment and up to press time, remained warded in a critical condition. Rattansinghs body was ordered removed to the Forensic Science Centre where an autopsy is expected to be done today.

Police sources said that Rattansingh who was going through divorce proceedings, had two weeks ago, threatened to take his own life.

Relatives told police that Rattansingh had grown depressed over the separation but none knew of his intention to murder his own son.

Relatives added that attempts to have Rattansingh seek counselling failed. Mayaro police are investigating
Imbert to present 2016/2017 Budget today

This following the surprise announcement on Wednesday that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) had agreed to a reduction in oil production.

The agreement on production cuts, the first in eight years, was reached at an OPEC meeting in Algiers on Wednesday. Oil prices rose more than five percent in immediate reaction to the news.

Following the announcement, senior economist at the University of the West Indies, Dr. Roger Hosein said yesterday that the government should not go on any wild spending spree in todays budget but should continue on the path of austerity and any savings from higher than budgeted prices should be channelled into the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund (HSF).

He said there is a phenomena in economics called the cobweb cycle and in this cycle a price rise in one period would lead to an increased supply in the next period.

Personally, I think this is exactly what will happen because as the price level increases, those Shale oil wells in the United States that are at the margin and that will benefit from an increase in price would now bring more Shale oil onto the market and we will end up basically at the original position we were in several years ago. In this regard, I think what the State should do is to be wise and to siphon out all surplus revenues above the budgeted amount into the HSF and this way we would have a larger pool of resources from which to gestate an interest income over time and this interest income can be used for budgetary purposes. The reports coming out of the OPEC meeting stated that under the agreement, oil production would be reduced to between 32.5 to 33 million barrels of oil per day from 33.4 million. Saudi Arabia, the largest oil producer, was to reduce its output by 350,000 barrels a day. Three countries are exempted: Iran, Nigeria and Libya.

Economic sanctions were lifted on Iran earlier this year, and Libya and Nigeria have had some of their oil facilities damaged by terrorist attacks in recent months. Oil prices were as high as U.S. $100 a barrel in mid-2014, but the global oversupply caused prices to fall to as low as U.S. $26 a barrel in February.

Hosein said there was no reason for over-excitement at the OPEC statement because they have only spoken about reducing production with a decision to be taken in November.

Suppose in November the decision is reversed or something, then we could end up in a worse situation. Mr Imbert has to be wise to allow things to remain as they were up to this point in time. He was also not impressed by projections that following the OPEC announcement the price of oil could rise to between US$50 to US$70 per barrel. He said that with the presence of Shale oil in the market it would not be realistic to expect prices over US $70.

Indeed, I think a price level in the context of production cuts close to US $60 to US $65 a barrel would be more realistic than US $70-$75 per barrel. A similar view from fellow UWI economist Dr. Anthony Birchwood who predicted that any immediate rise in oil prices would be minimal although he allowed that another wave of cuts could see a further round of price increases. However, he said there could not be any certainty that OPEC would cut production deeply enough to see prices rise to U.S. $70 or $80 or $100 a barrel.

He said all the top OPEC producers are fighting for market share and that it would take a lot of cutting for prices to reach the US$80-$100 levels of the past, adding that the Shale oil producers coming back in the market would keep a lid on oil prices.

Birchwood said the Minister of Finance would probably base the budget on an oil price of US $45 a barrel, adding that he preferred a level of US $30 while admitting that such a price of US$30 would mean serious cutting in several areas.

Advising cautious excitement, Birchwood pointed out that in OPEC, members of the cartel can cheat and renege on agreements.

He also mentioned the presence of Shale oil as a factor to remember.
Pemberton sworn in as Appeal Court judge

Speaking at the swearing in ceremony at the Presidents House, in St Anns yesterday, Carmona added that he was satisfied that Pemberton, a former classmate of his at the Hugh Wooding Law School, was now selected to become an Appeal Court Judge. It is truly an exhilirating moment to be here at the swearing in of one of my former classmates. I can say that Justice Pemberton brings with her a wealth of knowledge and experience to the bench. At Law school she was a veritable bee-hive, a repository of learning, topping the class in both year one and year two, she is also very skilled in judicial writing, and posseses, intellect, independence and a massive social heart towards others.

I am comfortable with her selection to the bench. President Carmona quipped that Justice Pembertons role as an Appeal Court Judge, will now leave her with fewer friends, adding that judicial independence and impartiality must not only be practiced, but it must also be perceived to have been practiced.

Your appointment to the Appellate bench means keeping a healthy distance from friends in the criminal and civil walls. Of course I have no doubt that you will practice independence and impartiality in your time on the bench, but it must also be perceived that independence is being practised.

Unfortunately, some persons rather than looking at perception in the sense of something good, persons are always looking in the sense of something bad. Chief Justice Ivor Archie, was also present at the ceremony and congratulated Pemberton on her appointment and lauded her for continued contributions to the growth and development of the Judiciary over the years. For me as a Chief Justice I am pleased to welcome a judge who has contributed tremendously to the institutional growth of the Judiciary.
Route II maxi taxi drivers to receive new PBR passes

This comes as a result of an order by a High Court judge.

Last year, prospective maxi taxi owners were granted an amnesty by the previous Peoples Partnership Administration to transfer ownership of the PBR pass to their name.

The matter came to a head earlier this month when Works and Transport Minister Fitzgerald Hinds warned drivers against misusing PBR passes by selling them, transferring, reassigning, entering into work-to-own arrangements .

Hinds comments did not sit well with the maxi-taxi drivers and many drivers complained that they were waiting for close to a year for the minister to sign off on their PBR pass transfer.

The failure of the minister to sign off on the transfers led 28-year-old accountant and new maxi taxi owner Sasha Moonsammy to file a constitutional motion against the State. Moonsammy claimed that she purchased a maxi taxi in March 2015, however prior to doing so she sought guidance from the ministry as to whether a new PBR pass could be issued for her maxi taxi.

She was assured that this would not be a problem so she went ahead and bought the maxi taxi.

Moonsammy submitted her application for the new PBR pass to be issued to her, however, from March 2015 to present, she was given a constant run around from the ministry.She said this affected her ability to ply her maxi taxi on the PBR and she has lost valuable income.

The matter came up for hearing before Justice Ricky Rahim in the San Fernando Supreme Court yesterday, when attorneys representing the State indicated that Moonsammys PBR pass application had been approved and that they needed a further month to process same.

However, the judge gave the ministry and the AG seven days in which to finalise and issue the pass.

This will also benefit other maxi taxi drivers who have waited a year to receive their passes.
San Juan South Sec placed on shift system

In a telephone interview yesterday, Barrock told Newsday that the students do not have the full use of the facilities and this is a major inconvenience to the students.

He explained that the Ministry of Education promised to build four prefabricated classrooms because it would have taken too long to construct the new classrooms for the new school term.

With the shift system, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we have Form Three and Four students attending classes, while on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have Form One and Two students. Form Five students attend classes every day.

The Ministry needs to address the situation because there are 160 displaced students, and this cannot be allowed to continue, he lamented.

Barrock said, on June 6 a letter was sent to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry from the Occupational Safety and Health officer stating that the labs have been deemed unfit. The labs are termite- ridden and there are gas leaks, among other things. On June 15, EFCL visited the school and informed the administrative staff that the school is on the Vacation Repair Programme (VRP) list and assured us that the school will be ready for the opening of the school term, Barrock said. He noted that there were no repair works at the school during the July/August vacation. Before the new term, the school supervisor contacted the principal to find out if the school was ready, but was told that the school would not be ready to accommodate the students because there were no repairs to the labs. He continued, On September 19 we held a protest in front of the school and all we are asking for is the prefabricated rooms to get the school out of a rotation.

We want five days of school. That is all we are asking for at San Juan South Secondary.
Fallen tree causes power outage in the east

But by 2 pm, lights had returned. When Newsday spoke with Ramsook at about 2.30 p.m., he said crews were still working on restoring power to Sangre Grande and Valencia.

And in a bulletin issued at 2 p.m. yesterday, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) warned citizens to be vigilant in light of the heavy rainfall experienced across the nation. It stated that the heavy showers experienced yesterday resulted from an Inter- Tropical Convergence Zone and could cause localised street or flash flooding. The ODPM noted it did not receive any reports of flooding yesterday.
Little Nathaniel needs your help

Little Nathaniel celebrated his first birthday on Saturday last but, according to his mother, many do not believe her when she tells them his age.

He looks so small, said Risa Cipriani-Bain, Nathaniels mother.

He cant crawl and he keeps falling over because of the pain on his right side. Earlier this year, Nathaniel was diagnosed with biliary atresia - a life-threatening disease in infants caused by abnormalities in the bile ducts. These abnormalities lead to the build-up of bile - responsible for the transportation of toxins out of the body as well as fat digestion - which damages the liver, leading to scarring and, if left untreated, could cause liver failure. Nathaniels liver has deteriorated to a point which requires an urgent liver transplant.

Cipriani-Bain sought the help of the CLF when Nathaniel was seven months old. According to her, his application was successful and the CLF has been searching for a suitable hospital to perform the liver transplant ever since.

However, she is wondering how long again it will take, because her sons condition is worsening.

Two months ago, his liver was nine centimetres, now it is 11 centimetres, Cipriani-Bain said.

Nathaniels stomach is swollen on his right side, and he grimaces when making certain movements that engage his abdominal muscles.

The keep-back in Nathaniel getting treatment is due to the CLFs protocol. The Life Fund is telling me that they are still waiting on approvals from the other hospitals and when they get the approval, then they will move forward. Cipriani-Bain expressed gratitude to the CLF which has committed to granting $1 million to assist with the cost of the transplant, the four months accommodation needed in whatever country is chosen, medication and subsistence but, as her son is getting worse, she wants help to come faster. Nathaniel, who still manages to smile brightly through his pain, is being kept alive by a milk named Similac which, according to Cipriani- Bain, helps him to put on the necessary weight that prevents him from succumbing to his disease. The milk however, costs $1,318 for a case of six tins - each of which lasts one week only because Cipriani-Bain stretches it herself.

Cipriani-Bain was previously employed, but lost her job. They tell me is not that they dont like children, but that they couldnt handle the constant days off I was taking to see about him. Her husband works in a nearby grocery. While they await the goahead from the CLF, the family is open to donations from the public to ensure they could continue buying Similac for Nathaniel.

Donations could be made to Republic Bank Account #660034509431 in the name of Risa Cipriani.
Civil Society wants transparent governance

The IRM conducts a biannual review of the activities of each OGP participating country, Drayton said in a release.

Trinidad and Tobago Government became a member of OGP in 2012 and the former Peoples Partnership government approved a national action plan in October 2014. Drayton said the progress of implementation of the plan over the period 2014 and 2015 was limited with a need to strengthen the engagement between government and civil society.

He said that TT first plan contained good first steps on Open Data and Natural Resource Governance, although most commitments saw limited progress in the first year. The next action plan by the current administration, he said, should focus on institutionalising civil society participation in the process and address additional priority topics like government procurement, corruption and open budgets. As part of OGP, countries are required to make commitments in a two-year action plan. TTs first plan contained 13 commitments under the themes, public service delivery, access to information, governance, and natural resource governance.

Countries participating in OGP follow a process for consultation during development of their OGP action plan and during implementation.

The PP government, Drayton said, conducted limited consultations to develop TT plan over a two-week period, with most activity concentrated in four days. The plans commitments reflect limited external involvement of non-governmental participants.

He said that although lack of engagement continued during the first year of implementation, civil society expressed a growing interest in participating in the implementation of the commitments.

His recommendations include the current administration establishing an effective stakeholder consultation mechanism to develop the next plan and to oversee commitment implementation with a wide spectrum of participation, following the OGP guidelines.
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(Newser)  Deep in the Philippine jungle, a lone soldier continued to fight World War II for three decades, becoming a "figure of legend" while surviving on "bananas, coconut milk, and stolen cattle." Mashable has the incredible true story of Japan's Hiroo Onoda. After the end of WWII on Aug. 15, 1945, planes dropped leaflets announcing the end of fighting on Lubang Island in the Philippines. A 22-year-old Onoda had been deployed to the island in 1944 with orders to never surrender or kill himself. He and three other Japanese soldiers who had survived Allied attacks believed the leaflets were a trap and continued to fight on as guerrillas, killing 30 people over the coming decades. By 1972, all three of Onoda's compatriots had either been killed or surrendered. But Onoda fought on.

Norio Suzuki, a Japanese adventurer, made it his mission to find "Lieutenant Onoda, a panda, and the Abominable Snowman, in that order." He wasn't being flippant. Suzuki would die in a Himalayan avalanche while searching for the latter. But before that, he found and befriended Onoda in the Lubang jungle. On March 9, 1974, Suzuki brought Onoda's commanding officer, by then an old man working in a bookstore, to Lubang. Onoda had required his order to stop fighting. He was pardoned by the Philippine president and returned to Japan a hero29 years after the end of WWII. Onoda went on to teach children how to survive in the wilderness, something he was uniquely qualified for. Read the full, fascinating story here. (Read more Longform stories.)
(Newser)  The capital of an entire country went dark Wednesday night to give residents a better view of one of nature's most stunning light shows. The BBC reports Reykjavik switched off street lights in the center of the city and in various neighborhoods for better viewing of the aurora borealis, aka the northern lights. Residents were also asked to turn off their lights at home to cut down on light pollution. It appeared to work, as "stunning images" of the light show quickly filled social media, according to the New York Times. "Switching off the street lights was a great gesture by the city council," an astronomy teacher tells the BBC. "I hope this will be done more often as it was very successful."

The capital of Iceland had only planned on keeping the lights off from 10pm to 11pm, but the northern lights were late to the party, so things stayed dark until midnight. Residents were warned not to stop in the middle of darkened streets to watch the show. And NPR reports authorities asked people to drive with caution while the lights were off. The northern lights are nothing new to Reykjavik, which is located close to the Arctic circle, but they have been particularly vivid this week, as the Earth is currently getting walloped by solar wind. The aurora borealis is caused when the charged particles of the solar wind hit the Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field. (Read more uplifting news stories.)
(Newser)  Sometimes a cake just makes everything worse. The Pensacola News Journal reports a Florida woman is suing a sheriff's deputy she says shot her with a stun gun then attempted to make it right with a questionably frosted cake. The lawsuit claims that in June 2015, deputy Michael Wohlers left his shift and visited Stephanie Byron at the apartment complex where she worked. The lawsuit states Wohlers was upset about Byron's personal life and tried to "intimidate, harass, and threaten her." He took away her sweet tea then shot her with a stun gun in the chest and neck when she tried to get it back, the lawsuit claims. According to the AP, Wohler told his superior that he fired the stun gun into a pillow at his house. He also filed a false police report about it.

The lawsuit claims Wohlers later tried to apologize to Byron by sending her a picture of a cake. (The News Journal originally reported he sent her the actual cake.) Frosting on the cake reads "Sorry I Tased You" and shows two stick figures, one apparently shooting something with wires at the other. It could be Wohlers' undoing. As the lawsuit notes: "The cake Wohlers baked...clearly shows...Wohlers firing the Taser at Ms. Byron." Wohlers has since changed his story, saying he fired the stun gun at Byron during a moment of "horseplay." Wohlers resigned from the sheriff's department last year while being investigated for misconduct. On Monday, he was banned from serving with any Florida law enforcement agency for one year. Byron is seeking monetary compensation for a violation of her civil rights, battery, and more. (While Wohlers allegedly claimed to have baked the cake, Gizmodo explains that it was actually given cop-to-cop after an accidental stun gun incident years ago.)
(Newser)  Welsh father of two Tom Walker considers himself "extremely lucky" that he happened to stumble upon two stories of Facebook friends with symptoms strikingly similar to his own. His doctor had chalked up his spotty vision and dizziness to vertigo, but it turns out he had a more than 2-inch long tumor growing on a fluid cavity toward the back of his brain, which was successfully removed and followed with a six-week course of radiation, reports the Western Mail in Wales. "If you or any of your loved ones are putting off going to the doctors for any reason, don't!" says the 36-year-old. "The sooner these things are found the better the chances are of beating it."

It all started when Walker began to notice being light-headed, especially when he'd turn his head from side to side. One night, playing with his kids, he collapsed after simply shaking his head, and knew he had to see his doctor. But after medication for an infection to help manage vertigo did nothing to alleviate his symptoms, Walker remembered reading on Facebook about the symptoms a colleague and a friend's 4-year-old daughter both had before being diagnosed with brain tumors. He then asked for a brain scan, and the tumor was found. Walker writes on Facebook that he "fortunately" had an "amazing surgeon" and that his tumor was "low grade," but he hopes his story will convince others to visit a doc if something seems off. (This woman's "pregnancy" fatally masked her own symptoms of cancer.)
(Newser)  USA Today has never taken sides in a presidential election beforebut Donald Trump has never run for president before. In a blistering editorial, which can be seen in full here, the paper's editorial board says it has decided to break with 34 years of tradition because Trump is simply "unfit for the presidency." "He has demonstrated repeatedly that he lacks the temperament, knowledge, steadiness, and honesty that America needs from its presidents," the board writes, urging readers to "resist the siren song of a dangerous demagogue" and vote for anybody but Trump.

The editorial board says that while it was united against Trump, it was not united in favor of Clinton because while some believe she would serve ably as president, others had reservations about issues including her "lack of candor" and her "extreme carelessness in handling classified information." "Our bottom-line advice for voters is this: Stay true to your convictions," which could mean a vote for Clinton, a third-party candidate, or a "focus on down-ballot candidates who will serve the nation honestly," they write. (The Arizona Republic faced a backlash after endorsing a Democrat for the first time in 126 years.)
(Newser)  Justin Trudeau has posed for countless selfies in the 11 months since he became Canada's prime ministerincluding one with a man security experts say shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near him. A man who appears in a selfie with Trudeau taken in Montreal last December is being investigated by the Mounties amid accusations he was part of a group that kidnapped an American journalist in Syria in 2013, report La Presse and the Toronto Star. The man, who allegedly joined with the al-Qaeda-affilated Nusra Front, is believed to be on a US no-fly list and his home was raided a few months before the Trudeau photo, reports the CBC.

The man has not been charged with any crime and sources say he publicly renounced radical Islam after returning to Canada in late 2013. Still, analysts say the selfie raises serious questions about both Trudeau's security and the monitoring of terror suspects. "We have a prime minister who is very open. But a guy like this should not have been able to get so close," former terrorism investigator Paul Laurier tells La Presse. "I dont want to blame the work that was done, but it shows that there is no surveillance on this individual, that the people around the prime minister were not warned." (Read more Justin Trudeau stories.)
(Newser)  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte raised the rhetoric over his bloody anti-crime war to a new level Friday, comparing it to Hitler and the Holocaust and saying he would be "happy to slaughter" 3 million addicts. Duterte issued his latest threat against drug dealers and users early Friday on his return from a visit to Vietnam, where he discussed his anti-drug campaign with Vietnamese leaders and compared notes on battling the problem, the AP reports. "Hitler massacred 3 million Jews ... there's 3 million drug addicts. There are. I'd be happy to slaughter them," Duterte said.

The Philippine government estimates there are 3 million drug addicts in the country. Historians say that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis under Hitler during World War II. "If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have..." Duterte said before pointing to himself, reports Reuters. "You know my victims. I would like (them) to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition." More than 3,000 suspected drug users and dealers have been killed since Duterte took power June 30, including the daughter of a British lord. (Read more Rodrigo Duterte stories.)
(Newser)  It was a day that Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum may have never thought would come. "The paintings have been found!" Axel Rueger, the museum's director, said at a Naples, Italy, press conference Friday, per a release. Those paintings, according to NBC News, are two of the master's works that were lifted from the museum in 2002, said to be of "priceless value" and recovered by Italian police during a mob sting, officials say. Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen and View of the Sea at Scheveningen, painted by the artist in the 1880s, were recovered by anti-Mafia cops poking around in a probe into the Camorra crime syndicate. "Despite a 14-year journey, the two paintings appear to be in fairly good condition," a museum press release says, noting the pieces are sans frames and look to have suffered "some damage."

Adriaan Donszelmann, the museum's managing director, tells the New York Times that the museum got a call Tuesday from police asking the museum to send an art specialist to check out the two paintings they had retrieved in a house raid. The artworks were deemed authentic, CNN notes. "It was absolutely exciting," Donszelmann says. An art crimes investigator notes it's fortuitous the paintings were even discovered, explaining that valuable paintings such as these are often victims of "art-napping" by members of organized crime that are then used as barter within Mafia families. Art thief Octave Durham, also known as "the Monkey," was sentenced to prison in 2004 for the theft, per the Times, but the paintings were never founduntil now. (The Guardian explores the link between the Mafia underworld and valuable art.)
(Newser)  Betty Shelby's defense team tried (and failed) to get her a special early arraignment Thursday for the shooting death of unarmed black man Terence Crutcher, hoping to avoid the "utter chaos" of the media covering the high-profile case, the Tulsa World reports. Now Shelby is set to head back to court Friday, as per the original schedule, notes USA Today, where the Tulsa, Okla., cop will find out a date for the preliminary hearing that will determine whether there's enough evidence to go to trial. And Shelby's attorney, Scott Wood, who says she'll plead not guilty to first-degree manslaughter, laid out an interesting new defense Thursday for his client: "auditory exclusion," in which people experiencing it don't hear the sounds going on around them during high-stress situations, per the AP and Huffington Post.

"She didn't hear the gunshot, didn't hear the sirens coming up behind her just prior to the shot," Wood says, per the AP, calling it "the No. 1 perceptual distortion by people I have represented who have been involved in shootings." David Klinger, a U of Missouri-St. Louis law professorand ex-LAPD cop who fatally shot someone himself as a rookienotes he interviewed 80 law enforcement officers who had shot citizens in 113 discrete cases, and that in 82% of those cases, "diminished sound" was the most common perceptual distortion they experienced. Other distortions can include time warping (where everything seems to move in slow motion) and tunnel vision. But Twitter is balking, with one poster noting, "Even if she was temporarily deaf, #BettyShelby still should have SEEN that #TerrenceCrutcher wasn't a threat." Ex-NFL player Shannon Sharpe simply says, "Is this for real?" (Read more Terence Crutcher stories.)
(Newser)  Several "massive" cyberattacks were launched last week, with an "army" of security cameras and DVRs being hijacked by hackers, the Wall Street Journal reports. Even famed security researcher Brian Krebs was affected, and saw his website temporarily disabled. The hackers hijacked up to a million cameras, DVRs, and other devices and used them to generate webpage requests and unwanted data that forced targets offline in a "denial-of-service attack." It's not clear whether the hackers had access to any video feeds from the devices, but the attack has renewed concerns over the so-called "Internet of Things," "smart" devices that connect to the internet and are present in millions of homesand that are likely "plugged in and forgotten," the Journal notes.

Such devices are likely "never going to be updated" by users, says a security expert, and they include not just cameras and video recorders but lightbulbs, routers, cable set-top boxes, refrigerators, and even cars. Krebs notes, "We need to address this as a clear and present threat not just to censorship but to critical infrastructure." And another security expert says this attack could have been just "the tip of the iceberg." The Chinese manufacturer of hijacked security cameras used in the attack, Dahua Technology, recommends users always update their devices' firmware and use strong passwords. As for why Krebs was targeted, Engadget says it was revenge for him having recently exposed two major sellers of tools used in cyberattacks. (In another case, a hacker used her skills to escape a cult.)
(Newser)  Two American sisters found dead at a $2,000-a-night luxury African resort last week died of acute pulmonary edema, otherwise known as fluid on the lungs, NBC News reports. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, staff found 37-year-ole Annie Korkki and 42-year-old Robin Korkki dead in their villa at the Maia resort in Seychelles on Sept. 22. They had no visible injuries. While both sisters had excess fluid in their lungs, Annie also had fluid in her brain. Officials haven't given any suggestion as to the cause of the fluid, the Chicago Tribune reports. Autopsies were performed Wednesday.

There are many possible causes for fluid in the lungs, including a virus, a drug overdose, poison, and heart failure. Both sisters were described by friends as "physically fit and active." One expert tells the Star Tribune it's "odd" for two people to suffer fatal acute pulmonary edema at the same time, which makes it seem like there was an "environmental cause" or "potential infection." Family hopes a pending toxicology report and ongoing police investigation will shed light on what happened to the sisters. "There are more questions than answers," brother Chris Korkki tells NBC. (Read more pulmonary edema stories.)
(Newser)  Hillary Clinton made the idea of a president receiving a 3am phone call famous in her 2008 race against Barack Obama, and now columnist Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post thinks she should resurrect a slightly different version for Donald Trump. Except "the question now may be: Do you want Donald Trump up at 3 a.m. tweeting crazy stuff?" Rubin is referring to Trump's flurry of tweets beginning at 3:20am Friday, the first advising, Anytime you see a story about me or my campaign saying sources said, DO NOT believe it. There are no sources, they are just made up lies! He then went on to ramp up his attacks on former Miss Universe Alicia Machado.

"His invitation for Americans to go look at a 'sex tape' is beyond bizarre and may be the straw that breaks the camels back of his campaign," writes Rubin. "This is plainly a man unhinged, unable to accept his defeat in the debate andtweeting in the middle of the nightlacking any impulse control." At the Atlantic, David A. Graham suggests it's a waste of time to overthink Trump's motives here. "To ask what the strategy behind Trumps tweets is, or to question the wisdom of the strategy, is to miss the point. Theres no strategy in play, just knee-jerk reflexes." Read Rubin's column here, or Graham's here. (Read more Donald Trump 2016 stories.)
New Delhi:

In a major escalation of a deepening crisis, Indian Army launched surgical strike in Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir (PoK) on Wednesday night causing significant casualties and heavy damages. At least two army men of Pakistan were killed in the firing.

The Indian army troops conducted multiple nighttime raids across the line of control (LOC). Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, condemned the attack and called it unprovoked and naked aggression of Indian forces.

Later Pakistan captured one of Indian soldiers on its side of the border, as confirmed by military officials from both India and Pakistan. The soldier had inadvertently crossed over to the Pakistan side of the Line of Control.

Also Read: (Twitterati across India celebrate Indian Army's surgical strike across LoC)

However, Pakistan's Ambassador to the United Nations Dr Maleeha Lodhi denied of any surgical strike inside the territory of Pakistan, as claimed by the Indian forces.

Not only this, the entire Pakistani media is living in denial when it comes to the surgical strikes launched by India.

Also Read: (How was Indian Army's surgical strike carried out in PoK? Here is what happened in those 4-1/2 hours)

Also Read: (Surgical Strike: What does this combat doctrine mean?)

Here is how Pakistani media covered news of Indian Army's surgical strike in PoK

Geo News journalist Hamid Mir's claims

Firstly, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) denied unequivocally denied of any surgical strikes in this way:

At least 5 Indian soldiers killed and many injured in retaliatory response from Pakistan Army around 7:30 this morning  Hamid Mir (@HamidMirGEO) September 29, 2016

If there were indeed 'mass casualties' in the so-called surgical strike, evidence (bodies, funerals) will surface soon. Or it's a lie.  Abbas Nasir (@abbasnasir59) September 29, 2016

Hyper #Indian Media has become a more threat to regional stability and sanity #NoSurgicalStrike #LoC  Gharidah Farooqi (@GFarooqi) September 29, 2016

Indian Govt is lying to her citizens about Surgical Strike to cool them. After #Uri self created drama India failed 2 get world attention.

 Riaz Khan (@ri4zkhan) September 29, 2016





Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) The ISPR unequiovally denied any reports of surgical strikes by elite troops at LoC and reiterated that there was just cross border firing. Express Tribune With bold headers, Pakistani media rubbishes reports of surgical strikes along LoC The News Denial of Indian claims of surgical strikes Dawn Reports confirm Pakistani army soldiers killed in what they called as cross border firing, not surgical strikes.

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New Delhi:

The issue whether controversial RJD leader Shahabuddin would remain free or go back to jail will be decided on Friday as the Supreme Court reserved its verdict on two appeals challenging the grant of bail to him by the Patna High Court in a murder case.

The apex court also rebuked Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government, which has RJD as its coalition partner, for its lax approach in opposing bail granted to the RJD strongman in various cases at different judicial forums including the High Court.

Bihar government, which drew flak from the court since the beginning of the hearing on appeals, was today again questioned for not providing a copy of the charge sheet to him for 17 months in the murder case of Rajiv Roshan.

Roshan, the eye witness to the gruesome killings of two of his younger siblings, was also killed few days before his proposed testimony in the murder case of his brothers.

A bench comprising Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy, which heard the parties for nearly three days, referred to the trial court records and said it cannot simply go by inferences drawn from various happenings in lower courts, as the order sheets revealed that police records were not provided to the accused.

We have to act as per records. We have an onerous duty to perform. What kind of prosecution is this that for one-and-half years the trial court kept on saying: provide the police records. You (Government) cant say the prosecution has no role in the proceedings. It cant be a one-sided affair, the bench said.

Dissatisfied with the response of the state government, the bench said, It is not that the trial court proceedings are alien to us.

Lawyer Prashant Bhushan, appearing for Siwan-based Chandrakeshwar Prasad who lost his three sons in two separate crimes, vehemently opposed the contention of Shahabuddin that he was not provided the case records including chargesheet for 17 months after it was filed in the trial court.

It is a cock-and-bull story which has been told in the Supreme Court for first time, that too orally without any affidavit, Bhushan said adding that Shahabuddin had challenged the trial court order taking cognizance of the offence in the sessions court.

There was not even a whisper that Shahabuddin was not supplied with the copy of chargesheet, he said.

Bhushan also mentioned that the revision plea of the RJD leader had details of the chargesheet and hence, the plea of non-supply of records was unsustainable and cannot be taken note of.

He cited the High Court order by which his bail plea was dismissed in February this year and said that too recorded the submission of Shahabuddin having details of the chargehsheet.

This makes crystal clear that Shahabuddin had the chargesheet and the case diary or else how can he cites the paragraphs of the chargesheet, Bhushan said.

Senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, appearing for the controversial leader, said there was concerted efforts to delay the trial and for that reason, the chargesheet was not provided to him. Moreover, the prosecution did not have evidence to prove Shahabuddins involvement in the conspiracy to murder, he said.

This is perversity writ large. The charge is that I was involved in the killing of Rajiv Roshan but how can I do that when evidence suggests that I was in judicial custody, Naphade said.

He said it is for the Bihar government to specify its stand on the allegation that an undertrial prisoner went out of jail and took part in the killing.

The senior advocate further alleged that shifting Shahabuddin to Bhagalpur jail from Siwan was another effort to delay the trial and said the administrative order to transfer him was illegal, void and contrary to law.

I have the fundamental right to have speedy trial but by shifting me to another jail, they had made concerted efforts to delay it, he said. We in Bihar know how to follow law and also know how not to follow the law, Naphade said while taking a pot shot at Bihar government.

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New Delhi:

India conducted hugely successful surgical strikes in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), killing 38 terrorists and 2 Pakistani soldiers on Wednesday night.

The strikes were carried out on terrorist launchpads in POK, located nearly 2-3 Km across Line of Control (LOC). India has been suffering from terrorist violence since decades and was severely rattled after the Uri attacks which witnessed martyrdom of 18 Indian soldiers. The attacks had aroused huge anger in the country and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had claimed that the Uri attackers will not go unpunished at any cost.

Also Read: (Live updates on India's surgical strike in PoK: NSA Ajit Doval arrives at MHA for review security meet chaired by Rajnath)

These surgical strikes are India's answer to Pakistan's interference in Jammu and Kashmir and its support of terror groups which aspire to destabilize our country. Presently, Indian army is preparing itself against retaliation from Pakistan army and terror groups based on Pak soil.The Pakistani media, however has denied that surgical strikes took place inside POK and has instead termed the strikes as regular border skirmish and firing by Indian armed forces.

Also Read: (How Pakistani media covered news of Indian Army's surgical strike in PoK)

On the other hand, the Indian media has supported its army to the utmost extent. Lets have a look at how our newspapers have reported the news:

The Times of India The Times of India has praised Indian army to the hilt and has said that as Pakistan crossed the limits of our patience, India crossed the LOC as a befitting reply. Further, it has aslo said that our intelligence agencies are bracing for retaliation from Pakistan's end. The Hindu One of the leading newspapers in the country, The Hindu has reported that Indian army is fully prepared to take on terror groups located on the other side of the border while lauding the surgical strikes. It has also reported that India made succesful strikes on terror launchpads in the POK, thus rattling the Pakistan establishment. Navbharat Times Navbharat Times reported that Indian army took revenge for the Uri attacks through surgical strikes. Further, it gave complete credit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership skills while praising the armed forces to the utmost extent. Hindustan Times Hindustan Times has also heaped praises on Indian army while reporting the succesful strikes against the terror hubs in POK. It went a step ahead while stating that Indian army exacted revenge for the brutal Uri attacks. Further, it also claimed that Delhi and other border towns were on high alert against retaliation by Pak army and terrorist groups. The Economic Times The Economic Times also supported the army action and reported that India has drawn a firm line and will not tolerate the dastardly acts of terror groups any more. The paper also claimed that India reserves the right to strike against infiltration and attacks planned on its soil. Noida Times Noida Times has praised the excellent strategy of the government and army while claiming that after the surgical strikes there was high alert in India.



Overall, all the Indian newspapers displayed a true patriotic zeal and firmly stood behind the Indian armed forces and the country's establishment.

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London:

The memory of a heart attack can be stored in genes through chemical modifications of DNA, scientists have found, suggesting that both environmental and heredity factors influence risk of cardiovascular disease. Researches at Uppsala University in Sweden suggest that both heredity and environmental factors influence our risk of cardiovascular disease.

"We inherit our genes from our parents at birth. During our lifetime, chemical modifications of DNA that turn off or on our genes, so-called epigenetic changes, occur. These changes can lead to the development of various diseases," researchers said. They examined epigenetic changes in people who have had a previous heart attack.

"During a heart attack the body signals by activating certain genes," said lead author Asa Johansson, from Uppsala University. "This mechanism protects the tissue during the acute phase of the disease, and restores the body after the heart attack. It is therefore likely that it also occurs epigenetic changes associated a heart attack," said Johansson.

The results of the study showed that there are many epigenetic changes in individuals who had experienced a heart attack. Several of these changes are in genes that are linked to cardiovascular disease. However it was not possible to determine whether these differences had contributed to the development of the disease, or if they live on as a memory of gene activation associated with the heart attack.

"We hope that our new results should contribute to increasing the knowledge of the importance of epigenetic in the clinical picture of a heart attack, which in the long run could lead to better drugs and treatments," added Johansson. The results have been published in the journal Human Molecular Genetics.
Mumbai:

Gandhi Jayanti is a national festival celebrated in India to mark the occasion a 'Gandhi Peace Exam' will be organised in jails across Maharashtra on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, a city-based organisation which propagates the values of the Father of the Nation said on Thursday.

"Around 450 jail inmates, including surrendered Naxalites and about 1.7 lakh students will appear for the Gandhi Peace Exam to mark the 147th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi which is also observed as an International Non-violence Day," a statement issued by Mumbai Sarvodaya Mandal said. "Gandhiji believed in change of heart.

While inculcating Gandhi's ideology among the youth, it is essential to help bring about a change of heart amongst the jail inmates and make them responsible citizens," the mandal's managing trustee Tulsidas Somaiya told PTI. He said, objective type questions have been prepared and students as well as examinees are given the literature on Gandhiji well in advance to study for the examination.

The mandal has got permission from the state's Inspector General of Prisons, to conduct the examination in all the jails of Maharashtra, so as to give the prisoners an opportunity to evoke a sense of remorse through inculcation of moral values in their minds and make them realise the power of truth and non-violence, he said. During the Gandhi Jayanti Week, nearly 450 inmates from Chandrapur, Akola, Yervada, Bhandara, Nagpur and Byculla jails will appear for the examination.

The examinees include 90 surrendered Naxalites of Chhattisgarh. The trust has already announced to sell the books written by Mahatma Gandhi or those penned on him at 50 per cent discount beginning from October 2. Set up in 1952 during the Bhudan Andolan (land gift movement) of Acharya Vinoba Bhave, the trust has been engaged in programmes to spread the message of Gandhi by holding seminars, workshops, meetings, youth camps etc.

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Washington:

The Indian surgical strike inside Pak Occupied Kashmir (PoK) against terrorist planning to sneak into India for terrorist activities was "carefully measured", a top American think-tank said on Friday, adding the onus for escalation lies purely on Pakistan.

"This Indian response was indeed coming. Both as a signal to Pakistan and as reassurance for Indian domestic audiences. Modi could not let the outrage at Uri go unanswered," Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a top American think-tank said.

"The Indian action was carefully measured: striking at terrorist launch pads was meant to signal that India has not lost its freedom to retaliate, but puts the onus of further escalation on Pakistan," Tellis told PTI.

Also Read: (Live Updates on India's surgical strikes in PoK: NSA Ajit Doval arrives at Home Ministry for review security meet chaired by Rajnath)

Responding to a question, Tellis said the US will, counsel restraint, but unless the administration is willing to turn the screws on Pakistan--which is unlikely--India will be guided by its own interests, not American pleas for forbearance.

"I think Pakistan has its hands full right now, it is unlikely to respond to the Indian action militarily, but the larger sub-conventional war against India will continue," Tellis said.

Rick Rossow from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recalled that the hint of such strikes as a possible tool last year, when the Indian Army initiated an attack against militants in Myanmar.

Also Read: (Pak captures Indian soldier along LoC amid rising tensions following India's surgical strike)

"India has also shown other new tools in its confrontation with Pakistan, such as withdrawing from the upcoming SAARC summit, building stronger ties with other South Asian nations, and using closer security ties with the US as a hook to press for reduced military cooperation with Pakistan," he said.

"This will likely keep Islamabad on its toes, though when employing new tools in such a struggle, clear messaging is key so both sides know the others' intentions. This will guard against unanticipated escalation," Rossow said.

According to him, following a number of recent provocations that India has linked to Pakistan-based militant groups, the government of prime minister Narendra Modi has employed a different set of tools to respond to these incitements.

Also Read: (How was Indian Army's surgical strike carried out in PoK? Here is what happened in those 4-1/2 hours)

"These tools may not be altogether new, but the fact that they have been the focus of India's response to Pakistan's incitements marks a different approach," he said.

Rossow said while the Indian Ministry of Defence has stated it does not plan additional strikes, it is not clear whether the current tensions between India and Pakistan will escalate further.

"There is certainly little expectation that Pakistani militants, under varying degrees of control by Pakistan's military, will be deterred from initiating further attacks. But the costs to Islamabad of supporting terrorism are increasing, and taking different forms than before," Rossow said.

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Washington:

Six scientists who were leaders in past international climate conferences joined with the Universal Ecological Fund in Argentina to release a brief report Thursday, saying that if even more cuts in heat-trapping gases aren't agreed upon soon, the world will warm by another 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) by around 2050.

A team of top scientists who were present informed the world not to celebrate the paris agreement to fight climate change because if more isn't done, global temperatures will likely hit dangerous warming levels in about 35 years.

That 1.8 degree mark is key because in 2009 world leaders agreed that they wanted to avoid warming of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Temperatures have already risen about 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), so that 2 degree goal is really about preventing a rise of another degree going forward.

Examining the carbon pollution cuts and curbs promised by 190 nations in an agreement made in Paris last December, the scientists said it's simply not enough. "The pledges are not going to get even close," said report lead author Sir Robert Watson, a University of East Anglia professor and former World Bank chief scientist who used to be chairman of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"If you governments of the world are really serious, you're going to have to do way, way more." If carbon pollution continues with just the emission cuts pledged in Paris, Earth will likely hit the danger mark by 2050, Watson and colleagues calculated, echoing what other researchers have found.

They said with just a few more cuts, the danger level might be delayed by 20 years. In Paris, the countries also added a secondary tougher goal of limiting warming to just another 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (half a degree Celsius) as an aspiration. There "is no hope of us stabilizing" at that temperature because the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere already commits the world to hitting that mark, Watson said.

Watson said a few weeks ago he was in Washington at an event with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and former Vice President Al Gore celebrating the accord as a victory.

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New Delhi:

Controversial RJD leader Shahabuddin was back in prison 20 days after his release, as the Supreme Court on Friday set aside the Patna High Court order granting him bail in a murder case saying the discretion to release must be applied in judicious manner and not as a matter of course.



The order passed by the High Court granting bail to the respondent-accused (Shahabuddin) is set aside and the state is directed to take all consequential steps, inter alia, for taking him to custody forthwith, a bench comprising Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy said.



The bench, which clarified that it was not expressing any opinion on the merits of the case pending against the RJD leader, asked Bihar government and the concerned court to take all steps as contemplated in law to dispose of the case, as early as possible.

What Shahabuddin said after his bail cancellation

# I stand by what I said earlier (On Nitish Kumar), my supporters will show them in the upcoming elections.



# I don't care about what people say, I respect the judiciary system.

#WATCH: Mohd Shahabuddin says his supporters will reply to Nitish Kumar in the next elections. pic.twitter.com/F9PGYYs83s  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

I don't care about what people say, I respect the judiciary system: Mohd Shahabuddin pic.twitter.com/SjZ5ItJrtK  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

Mohd Shahabuddin surrenders before Siwan District Court in Bihar pic.twitter.com/Mndf3F91VA  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

Referring to various judgements on bail, it said, Judged on entire conspectus of the attendant facts and circumstances, and considering the stage of the present case before the trial court where charge-sheet has already been submitted, together with pending proceedings against the respondent-accused as on date, and his recorded antecedents in the various decisions of this court, we are thus unable to sustain the impugned order of the High Court granting bail to him.



In its 10-page order, the apex court dealt with various aspects of the submissions and said, Although it has to be accepted that the respondent-accused has already been granted bail by the concerned courts in other cases, a duty is cast upon the court in addressing such a prayer in a case on its own merit, and while applying its discretion, it must be applied in a judicious manner and not as a matter of course.

The SC had directed Shahabuddin to surrender and asked Bihar Govt to take steps to take him into custody forthwith. The top court also asked trial court to expeditiously conclude Rajiv Roshan murder case allegedly involving Shahabuddin.

A bench comprising Justice P C Ghose and Amitava Roy directed the state government and the lower court to ensure that the trial in the Rajiv Roshan murder case is concluded "expeditiously as contemplated under the law".

Meanwhile, the court issued notice to Shahabuddin and Bihar government on another plea seeking cancellation of bail granted to him in a murder case of two brothers of Roshan.



Shahabuddin has been awarded life imprisonment in the twin murder case and the Patna High Court had granted him bail in this matter as well.

Read More | SC lashes out at Bihar govt, asks were you sleeping till Shahabuddin got bail?



Shahabuddin, who was granted bail by the Patna High Court on , was released from Bhagalpur jail on . He was in jail for 11 years in connection with dozens of cases against him.



On , the apex court had sought a response from Shahabuddin on a separate plea filed by Siwan resident Chandrakeshwar Prasad, challenging the bail granted to him by Patna High Court, in the murder case of his third son.



Kalawati Devi, wife of Chandrakeshwar Prasad and the mother of three youths who were brutally killed by henchmen of the controversial politician, had also moved the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of bail granted to him in the case in which he has already been sentenced to life.

Read More | I am not worried about anything at all: Shahabuddin on Bihar Govt's appeal for bail cancellation in SC



On , the top court had also rebuked Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government, which has RJD as its coalition partner, for its lax approach in opposing bail granted to the RJD strongman in various cases at different judicial forums including the High Court.



Bihar government, which drew flak from the court since the beginning of the hearing on appeals, was questioned during 's hearing for not providing a copy of the charge sheet to him for 17 months in the murder case of Rajiv Roshan.



Roshan, the eye witness to the gruesome killings of two of his younger siblings, was also killed few days before his proposed testimony in the murder case of his brothers.



A bench comprising Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy, which heard the parties for nearly three days, referred to the trial court records and said it cannot simply go by "inferences" drawn from various happenings in lower courts, as the order sheets revealed that police records were not provided to the accused.



Lawyer Prashant Bhushan, appearing for Siwan-based Chandrakeshwar Prasad who lost his three sons in two separate crimes, had vehemently opposed the contention of Shahabuddin that he was not provided the case records including chargesheet for 17 months after it was filed in the trial court.



The apex court is also hearing a separate plea filed by the widow of journalist Rajdev Ranjan, who was murdered in Siwan allegedly at the instance of Shahabuddin, seeking transfer of the case to Delhi. (Read the story in Hindi Here)

Read More | Supreme Court notice to Lalu's son Tej Pratap, Shahabuddin in journalist Ranjans murder case



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Hoboken:

A speeding commuter train that plowed into a New Jersey station during morning rush hour, killing one person and injuring 114, has caused major destruction at the transport hub and gateway to Manhattan. The train entered the Hoboken station "at a high rate of speed" and "crashed through the barriers, bringing it into the interior wall" of the terminal, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said.

A 34-year-old resident of Hoboken, who state medical examiners identified as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, was standing on the platform when she was hit and killed by debris from the crash, Christie told CNN. She was the sole confirmed fatality. The train's engineer was treated at a local hospital before being released and was cooperating with an investigation into the crash, he said. "We have no indication that this is anything but a tragic accident," Christie said. "Was it a system failure? Was it human error? Was it a medical emergency involving the engineer? We don't know."

Video and photos on social media showed serious damage to the transit choke point just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, with the train tangled in wires and debris from what appeared to be caved-in portions of the roof.

The Hoboken terminal is a major transfer point for New Jersey trains and buses as well as ferries and the PATH commuter train that take passengers to New York. Kenneth Garay, chief medical officer at Jersey City medical center, said surgeons were "all hands on deck" treating patients with broken bones, internal injuries and lacerations.

"None at this point are life-threatening," he said on CNN. "They're critical and stable and being carefully monitored." A total of 114 people were injured, Christie told the station. Of those, 55 were treated by emergency responders, while another 22 were transported to hospitals and 37 were walk-ins. He said he had been contacted by the White House and was working with federal, state and local authorities to "make sure this investigation is seamless and coordinated."

Structural damage and the possible presence of asbestos had prevented investigators from accessing the train cars, Bella Dinh-Zarr, vice chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters. Investigators would spend seven to 10 days on site, she added, saying they hoped to find the train's event recorder -- which would contain information about speed and braking -- later in the day. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she "was terribly upset this morning."

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New Delhi:

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi praises PM Narendra Modi for the long pending strong response to Pakistan by conducting surgical strikes across LoC.

Indian Army on Friday conducted surgical strikes destroying 7 launchpads at PoK. Most of the nations also criticized Pakistan for its inability to neutralize terror camps in its soil.

Rahul said, aI thank PM for taking this action. My party & I stand with him in thisa.

In the aftermath of the strikes. A high alert has also been declared in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Kashmir border areas. India is all prepared to counter any possible retaliatory attack on it by Pakistan.

#WATCH Rahul Gandhi: "I thank PM for taking this action. My party & I stand with him in this" on #SurgicalStrike conducted by Indian army pic.twitter.com/L7kSlg0lEk a ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) September 30, 2016

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Islamabad:

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif fired a fresh salvo on Kashmir on Thursday, while claiming that it was "unfinished agenda of partition". He also stated that Pakistan would continue to provide support to Kashmiris in their struggle for self-determination.

"Jammu and Kashmir dispute is an unfinished agenda of the partition of the sub-continent," Sharif said. "No power can deter us from supporting our Kashmiri brethren in their just and legitimate struggle for the exercise of their right to self-determination guaranteed to them by the UNSC relevant resolutions," he said.

Sharif condemned what he described as Indian violation of LoC and said Pakistan was capable of defending itself. "No external force has the capability or capacity to challenge the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan. We have the best armed forces in the world and we are proud of that," he said. According to several statements by PMO, Sharif spent hectic day, consulting his aides on the security situation. Sharif was briefed regularly by the security institutions on the situation on the LOC. National Security Adviser Nasir Janjua submitted a comprehensive report on the LOC situation to the PM office.

Sharif showed satisfaction on the level of preparedness of Pakistani armed forces. Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan met Sharif and discussed the security situation. Sharif has convened a cabinet meeting tomorrow. He also called a meeting of National Security Committee on Tuesday with special invitation to all the Chief Ministers to deliberate at length the emerging scenario across the Line of Control and "brutal state oppression" in Kashmir.

Another statement said that he convened the joint session of the Parliament on Wednesday to reaffirm the national resolve for safeguarding the sovereignty and preserving the territorial integrity of the motherland against any kind of external or internal threat as well as reiterating the moral, political and diplomatic support to the people of Kashmir. Sharif will take nation and Parliament into confidence, it added.

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Kabul:

The United Nations has denounced the death of 15 civilians, including a child, in a US air strike against Islamic State militants in eastern Afghanistan, calling for an independent investigation into the killings.

The drone attack occurred Wednesday in Achin district, a hotbed of IS insurgents in Nangarhar province near the border with Pakistan, as villagers gathered to welcome a tribal elder who had returned from the hajj pilgrimage.

"UNAMA condemns the killing of at least 15 civilian men and the injuring of at least 13 others, including at least one boy, in the strike," the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said on Thursday. "Civilian victims of the strike included students and a teacher, as well as members of families considered to be pro-gvernment."

Afghan authorities had previously put the civilian death toll at between three and 13. The American military acknowledged it had conducted the "counter-terrorism airstrike" on Wednesday, adding it was still probing the incident. "United States Forces - Afghanistan takes all allegations of civilian casualties very seriously," the US military said in a statement, highlighting the challenge of targeting IS insurgents making steady inroads in Nangarhar.

"Daesh is killing innocent Afghan men, women, and children. They continue to put innocent lives at risk by deliberately surrounding themselves with civilians and dressing in female attire," it said, using the Arabic acronymn for IS. Islamic State first emerged in Afghanistan in late 2014 and has since violently challenged the much larger Afghan Taliban movement in parts of the country's east. But the fighters have steadily lost territory in recent months because of stepped-up US airstrikes and a ground campaign by Afghan forces in Nangarhar.

Civilian and military casualties caused by NATO forces have been one of the most contentious issues in the 15-year campaign against the insurgents, prompting harsh public and government criticism. A US air strike killed eight Afghan policemen earlier this month in the southern province of Uruzgan in the first apparent "friendly fire" incident since American forces were given greater powers to strike at insurgents in June. The new authority gave the US-led NATO troops greater latitude to order air strikes in support of Afghan troops.

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Seoul:

Three Chinese fishermen likely died from inhaling toxic fumes when a fire erupted after South Korean coast guard officers threw "flashbang" grenades into the fishing boat, officials said on Friday.

The latest in a series of violent clashes between South Korea's coast guard and Chinese fishing boats venturing farther from their increasingly barren home waters happened yesterday when a South Korean coast guard vessel tried to stop the Chinese boat from suspected illegal fishing about 70 kilometers from an island off South Korea's southwestern coast.

The vessel, which carried 17 fishermen, initially resisted and fled before South Korean coast guard officers managed to board the ship and threw flashbang grenades into its locked steering room, the coast guard said in a statement. Flashbang grenades are non-lethal devices that produce a blinding flash of light and loud sound.

A fire erupted on the boat and three fishermen found lying in the boat's engine room later died, the coast guard statement said. Coast guard officers said the three likely died after inhaling toxic smoke but that autopsies were planned to find the exact causes of their deaths. Authorities will also investigate if the flashbang grenades caused the fire.

The 14 surviving fishermen were taken to a South Korean port for questioning, according to the coast guard. Seoul's Foreign Ministry yesterday expressed regret over the deaths, but noted the Chinese boat was fishing illegally and had tried to flee to avoid an inspection. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment.

Chinese fishing boats have been going farther afield to feed growing domestic demand for seafood as catches have decreased in waters close to China's shores. Chinese boats have regularly had violent clashes with South Korea's coast guard, and in 2014, a South Korea coast guardsman fatally shot the captain of a Chinese fishing vessel who was violently resisting an inspection. In 2012, a Chinese fisherman died after being hit by a rubber bullet fired by a South Korean guardsman. A year earlier, a South Korean coast guard officer was killed in a clash with Chinese fishermen.

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New Delhi:

Bollywood star Salman Khan on said that Pakistan artists were not terrorists. Salman was speaking on the ban of Pak artists in India.



"They are artists not terrorists. Its the Govt who gives them permits and visas," said Salman Khan on call on ban on Pak artists.



"Terrorists the na? Proper action tha," Khan said on surgical strike conducted by Indian Army in PoK on night



Earlier on Thursday, the Indian Motion Pictures Association (IMPA) banned all Pakistani actors, artists and technicians from working in Indian movies.

The move was announced hours after the Indian Army launched surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) on the intervening night of September 28 and September 29.

Also Read: Pakistani actors banned from working in Indian movies till 'normalcy returns

Indian Motion Picture Producers Association(IMPPA) passes resolution banning Pakistani Actors & technicians in India till normalcy returns.

Writing an open letter to Bollywood producers and production houses it asked them not to rope in actors from the neighbouring country when enough talent is available in India.

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New Delhi:

Supreme Court on Friday pulled the Karnataka government for its defiant stand on the Cauvery water row. The apex court directing the state to release 6,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu from October 1 to October 6.

The wrath of the law will fall upon Karnataka in case of any defiance of the Cauvery order, SC said. . Karnataka is flouting order and creating situation in which majesty of law is dented, it added.

Karnataka decided on Wednesday to defer the release of 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu till Thursday as per the Supreme Court direction.

The Supreme Court asked the Centre on Friday to set up the board by October 4. It also asked Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry to give names of members for the Cauvery Water Management Board by Saturday. It also warned, this is the last chance for Karnataka to comply with SC Orders.

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Colombo:

In yet another setback to Pakistan, Sri Lanka on Friday pulled out of 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad joining India and three other nations who had expressed their inability to participate in the summit.

Sri Lanka condemned terrorism in the South Asian region on Friday while claiming that the environment was not conducive for conducting a SAARC summit in Islamabad. In an apparent reference to the attacks on Indian army at Uri, Sri Lanka came out strongly against terrorism. Sri Lanka's pulling out of the SAARC summit in Islamabad is being viewed as a diplomatic win for India in its quest of isolating Pakistan in South Asia.

Sri Lanka regrets that the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement here.

ALSO READ | SAARC summit in Pakistan called off as India, Bhutan, Bangaldesh and Afghanistan opt out

The General Provisions of the SAARC Charter require that decisions at all levels shall be taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States as well, it said in the brief statement.



The statement made no reference to the current tension between India and Pakistan, but it condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.



It stressed on the need to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region in a decisive manner.



Peace and security are essential elements for the success of meaningful regional cooperation for the benefit of the people of South Asia. As a founding member of SAARC, committed to regional cooperation, Sri Lanka hopes that the steps required to ensuring our regions peace and security will be taken to create an environment that is conducive for the pursuit of regional cooperation, the statement added.

ALSO READ | J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti justifies PM Narendra Modi's decision not to attend SAARC summit in Pakistan



Besides India, three other SAARC members - Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan - have pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding of the meet.



That development came after tensions ran high between India and Pakistan after militants stormed an Indian Army base in Uri on September 18, killing 18 soldiers. The militants belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist group.

ALSO READ | PM Narendra Modi to skip SAARC summit in Islamabad, Pakistan calls it 'unfortunate'



Founded in 1985, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) currently has Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka as its Members.

(With PTI inputs)

Condemn terrorism in all forms and stress in this regard need to deal with issue of terrorism in region in decisive manner: Sri lanka MOFA  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

..and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States as well: Sri lanka MOFA 2/2  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

General Provisions of SAARC Charter require decisions at all levels shall be taken on the basis of unanimity: Sri lanka MOFA 1/2  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

Regret that prevailing environment in region is not conducive for holding 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad on 9th &10th Nov'16 :Sri Lanka MOFA

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Chennai:

DMK President M Karunanidhi on Friday urged the Tamil Nadu government to put an end to rumours on the health of AIADMK supremo and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa by providing proper information. He also wished his arch rival a speedy recovery.



As I had already mentioned, though I differ with her ideologically, it is my desire that she recovers soon and take up official duties as usual, he said and wished her a speedy recovery.



Karunanidhi said although Apollo hospital, where the Chief Minister is recuperating from fever and dehydration, was issuing bulletins about her health, some unwanted rumours were deliberately being floated by some persons.



Some persons are spreading unwanted rumours about her health on the social media and to put an end to these, proper information about the Chief Ministers health must be made available to the people, he said in a statement.



Karunanidhi suggested that photographs of the Chief Minister be released through the media to quell any kind of rumours being circulated about her health.



Jayalalithaa (68) was admitted to the hospital on September 22 after she complained of fever and dehydration. She has been advised to stay for a few days at the hospital.

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New Delhi:

Celebrities have reacted over the issue of banning Pakistani artists in India after the Indian Army launched surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) on the intervening night of September 28 and September 29.

The Indian Motion Pictures Association (IMPPA) had on Thursday banned all Pakistani actors, artists and technicians from working in Indian movies on till the normalcy returns. Here is who said what on IMPPA's ban on Pakistani artists:

Bollywood star Salman Khan on Friday said that Pakistan artists were not terrorists. Salman was speaking on the ban of Pak artists in India.

Salman Khan: "They are artists not terrorists. Its the Govt who gives them permits and visas," said Salman Khan on call on ban on Pak artists.

Shyam Bengal: "Artists came cause they were called for some project, whats their fault? Pak Govt has nothing to do with the individuals.We are not against the people of Pakistan, nor are Pak people against people of India. It is about the Govts".

Mika Singh: "There shouldn't be any boundary musically, but will support the government's decision".

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New Delhi:

Hours after Sri Lanka joined India and 3 other countries in boycotting the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad, Pakistan finally announced that the summit has been postponed. A statement from Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that a new set of dates for holding of the 19th SAARC Summit at Islamabad will be announced soon.



Decision by India to derail Summit effectively contradicts Prime Minister Modis own call to fight against poverty in the region, Pakistan MOFA said.

Earlier on Friday, in yet another setback to Pakistan, Sri Lanka pulled out of 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad joining India and three other nations who had expressed their inability to participate in the summit.

ALSO READ | Pakistan stands isolated as Sri Lanka joins India, 3 other nations to boycott SAARC summit in Islamabad

Sri Lanka regrets that the prevailing environment in the region is not conducive for holding the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement here.

The General Provisions of the SAARC Charter require that decisions at all levels shall be taken on the basis of unanimity, and this applies to the convening of meetings of Heads of State or Government of SAARC Member States as well, it said in the brief statement.

ALSO READ | SAARC summit in Pakistan called off as India, Bhutan, Bangaldesh and Afghanistan opt out

Besides India, three other SAARC members - Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan - have pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding of the meet.

ALSO READ | J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti justifies PM Narendra Modi's decision not to attend SAARC summit in Pakistan

That development came after tensions ran high between India and Pakistan after militants stormed an Indian Army base in Uri on September 18, killing 18 soldiers. The militants belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist group.



Founded in 1985, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) currently has Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka as its Members.

ALSO READ | PM Narendra Modi to skip SAARC summit in Islamabad, Pakistan calls it 'unfortunate'

(With inputs from agencies)

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New Delhi:

Jama't ud Da'wah chief and Mumbai 26/11 attack master-mind Hafiz Saeed took to twitter to respond to India's surgical strike in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. He warned that Pakistan would reply to Indian aggression and would take revenge.

Read More: Indian Army's surgical strike detailed hour by hour

However he dismissed India's claims of surgical attack in PoK, calling it a drama enacted by India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.

Read More: Surgical Strike: What does this combat doctrine mean?

The Terror master mind also called upon Nawaz Sharif to fulfill the promises he made in United Nations General Assembly. Saeed requested politicians and religious groups to stand united.

Read More: Army on high alert along LoC in Poonch

Once again the terror chief raised the issue of liberation of Kashmir and Pak army to be given free hand.

Read More: India's triumphant surgical strikes across LOC: How World powers reacted

No #SurgicalStrikes took place in AJK, this is a psyop drama directed by Ajit Doval. @HafizSaeedNow #SurgicalStrikes  Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (@HafizSaeedNow) September 30, 2016

Indian Media, will also see how Pakistani Jawans conduct surgical strikes now. US will not be able to help@HafizSaeedNow #SurgicalStrikes

 Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (@HafizSaeedNow) September 30, 2016

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Washington:

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the possibility of emergence of nuclear suicide bombers from Pakistan if jihadists get access to the countrys atomic weapons, said a media report.

We live in fear that theyre going to have a coup, that jihadists are going to take over the government, they are going to get access to nuclear weapons, and you will have suicide nuclear bombers. So, this could not be a more threatening scenario, the New York Times said, quoting Clinton as saying in an audio being hacked from Democratic Partys computers.

Pakistan is running full speed to develop tactical nukes in their continuing hostility with India, the former secretary of state told a close door fundraiser in Virginia in February, the paper reported, citing 50-minute audio that appeared on the website of The Washington Free Beacon.

During the fund raiser, responding to a question on modernisation of nuclear weapons, the daily said, Clinton went beyond the question to warn of an emerging nuclear arms race, naming Russia and China as well as Pakistan and India.

This is one of the most dangerous developments imaginable, Clinton said.

Such remarks from the former secretary of state gains significance in view of an interview of Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif to the local TV channel in which he threatened to unleash nukes against India.

If our safety is threatened, we will annihilate them (India), Asif had said.

The United States appears to have taken a strong note of Asifs recent statements on use of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear capable states have the responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities, a state department official told PTI when asked about the statements being made by the Pakistani leader.

Earlier, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had said while India has generally shown responsible behaviour with nuclear technology, China conducts itself professionally, nuclear weapons in Pakistan are entangled in history of tensions.

Meanwhile, in an opinion Consequences of Pakistani Terrorism: Raids signal that India wont tolerate more attacks in Kashmir, The Wall Street Journal warned that Pakistan increasingly risks becoming a pariah state if it continues with policies.

It said if Pakistan wants to prevent an escalation of violence it needs to shut down the terror groups it continues to support. That should start with Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two major jihadist groups that operate openly in Pakistan and are prime suspects in these attacks, it said.

Both groups are supported by its military despite being on United Nations lists of terrorist organizations, the daily said in the hard-hitting opinion piece, a day after India carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir against terrorists planning to sneak into the country.

The Journal noted that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently offered closer economic and diplomatic ties to Pakistan as long as it stops supporting terrorism.

Pakistan, it argued, needs a new vision centered on improving the lives of its people.

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Male:

The Maldives on Friday asked SAARC member states to create an environment "conducive" for holding the grouping's summit which has been postponed following a pull-out by five countries, including India.

"The Government of Maldives has urged the member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to create an environment conducive for holding the 19th SAARC Summit," a Maldives Foreign Ministry statement said.

It said the appeal by the Maldivian government follows the decisions by some of the SAARC member states who have expressed their inability to attend the summit in Islamabad scheduled for November due to terrorism, and threats to regional and international peace.

"The Maldives condemns international terrorism, especially those originating from outside," the statement said. SAARC Summit can be convened only with the participation of Heads of State or Governments of all of its member states.

"The Maldives encouraged states to provide a valuable opportunity for the leaders to discuss critical issues facing the region and expressed hope that the required measures will be taken by relevant member states to convene the summit at an early date," the statement said.

The 19th SAARC Summit was scheduled to be held from November 9 to 10 in Islamabad. Besides India, three other SAARC members -- Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan pulled out of the summit, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating an environment which is not right for the successful holding of the meet.

Sri Lanka also pulled out of the SAARC Summit today, becoming the fifth country to do so. Citing continuous cross border terrorism by Pakistan, India had announced earlier this week that "in the prevailing circumstances, the Government of India is unable to participate in the proposed Summit in Islamabad." SAARC member states include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

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New Delhi:

As the tensions between India and Pakistan escalated following Indian Armys surgical strike across the LoC on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for urgent de-escalation of tensions between the two countries. He has also called for an end to violence in the region.





In a meeting with the Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN, Dr Maleeha Lodhi, Ban Ki-moon said he was saddened by the death of two Pakistani soldiers. He also extended condolences to the Government of Pakistan and the family of the deceased.

Conveying his dismay at the cancellation of the SAARC summit, he this could have a good opportunity for dialogue.





UN Secretary General calls for de-escalation of tensions between Pakistan and India; Offers Good Offices & conveys condolences on the deaths of two Pakistani soldiers

In a meeting with the Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN, Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, the Secretary General said he was saddened by the loss of life of two Pakistani soldiers and he extended condolences to the Government of Pakistan and the family of the deceased.





Briefing him about the escalating situation, Ambassador Lodhi said that India has, by its declarations and actions, created conditions that pose an imminent threat to regional and International peace and security. She also told the Secretary General, that while Indias claim of carrying out a surgical strike across the Line of Control was false, India had by its own admission, committed aggression against Pakistan.





She said, India has provoked this crisis to divert international attention away from the indigenous Kashmiri uprising against Indian occupation. It is therefore essential to address the root cause of this crisis  Indias continuing denial of the right of self determination to the Kashmiri people. In this regard, she asked the Secretary general to play a role in bringing an end to the grave human rights violations committed by Indian security forces in Indian occupied Kashmir.





Responding to the detailed briefing, the Secretary General repeated his offer of extending his good offices to both countries, which Pakistan has always welcomed but India has consistently declined.





He regretted the fact that UNMOGIP (United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan) was unable to fully function due to Indias non-cooperation. The UNs military Mission is only able to operate on the Pakistani controlled side of the LoC as India refuses to accept its functioning on the other side and opposes its expansion.





Nevertheless, Ambassador Lodhi asked the Secretary General to ensure that UNMOGIP is able to report independently about the facts of the situation on the ground to the Security Council.

Ambassador Lodhi told the Secretary General that Pakistan has exercised maximum restraint but would respond forcefully to any acts of aggression and provocation. She added that the responsibility for the escalating crisis rests entirely on India.





The Secretary General also conveyed his dismay at the cancellation of the SAARC summit saying this could have a good opportunity for dialogue.





Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told the UNSG that the international community, and especially the United Nations, should not ignore this grave threat to international peace and security with possibly catastrophic consequences for the entire region. She urged the Secretary General to intervene boldly and unequivocally by calling on India to halt its aggressive actions and provocations, lest these lead to an even more dangerous situation. She said that the SG is duty bound to do so under the UN Charter.





She added that if India did not heed this call, the UNs relevant mechanisms, including the Security Council, must be advised of this imminent threat to international peace and security, as required under the UN Charter.





In a meeting with Pakistans PR to UN Amb Maleeha Lodhi today, UN SG called 4 urgent de-escalation of tensions btwn India and Pakistan  SpokespersonMOFA (@ForeignOfficePk) September 30, 2016
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Jamie Gelder knows the importance of Sikorsky Aircraft to the region because without it many small businesses like his own would face significant financial strain.

Gelder, a former Sikorsky employee, started United Aero Group when he left his job at the Stratford-based helicopter maker. His business is now both a customer and supplier of parts to the Lockheed Martin company.

We have a unique relationship with Sikorsky, said Gelder, owner and chief executive officer of the small business, which is also based in Stratford.

If Sikorsky had chosen to leave the state, as it looked into doing, Gelder said his family-owned company, which he runs with his brothers and employs many former Sikorsky workers, would have felt a blow. We would have suffered in the short term, Gelder said.

Earlier this week, Gelder shared his concerns with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy when the states chief executive paid a visit to several Sikorsky suppliers to discuss the impact of a potential $220 million incentive deal the Legislature would vote on the following day.

The deal, which would bring production of the CH-53K King Stallion helicopters to Stratford, was quickly approved by both the Senate and House on Wednesday.

This is huge for everybody, Gelder said, of the deal. The legacy of Sikorsky needs to stay in Connecticut.

Sikorsky is waiting for its union to approve the contract it proposed as a way to make its stay in Connecticut more economically viable. A vote is expected Oct. 9.

Sikorsky suppliers are located throughout the state, including in Ansonia, Bridgeport, Fairfield, Milford, Monroe, Norwalk, Oxford, Seymour, Shelton, Stratford and Trumbull.

Charlotte OBanion, president of GBG The Corporate Gift Source, said her own small business depends heavily on Sikorskys orders of promotional merchandise.

The Trumbull-based company, which has just five employees, would likely not survive without the helicopter makers business, OBanion said. We would have gone under, she said.

GBG has been a Sikorsky supplier for 15 years. It felt the impact of losing Sikorskys business last year when the Stratford-based manufacturer stopped ordering products while its sale to Lockheed Martin went through and analyzed its existing accounts, OBanion said.

From last September to January, Sikorsky stopped ordering products, she said. In that time, OBanion estimates she lost nearly $500,000 in revenue.

Even when the company began ordering from GBG again, there was always the concern that it would someday pick up and leave the state.

There was just so much fear of the unknown, OBanion said.

The deal approved this week allowed OBanion to breathe a sigh of relief. Its huge, she said. Now that they have Lockheed Martin hopefully itll make them bigger and stronger and that will help us get bigger and stronger too as a small business.

ktorres@hearstmediact.com; 203-330-6227
GREENWICH  State officials from the Emergency Response and Spill Prevention Division said they were just in time to help prevent a rush of spilled diesel fuel into Binney Pond.

The team responded Thursday afternoon to a caller complaining that fuel appeared to be seeping into the stream that feeds into pond, and placed booms before the ponds entrance just hours before what has been predicted as a four-day rain storm hit the area.

If that citizen hadnt called it in, tomorrow you would have had a pond full of fuel. Kenneth LeClerc, Emergency Response Coordinator with the ERSP, said Thursday.

LeClerc, was first made aware of the problem Thursday.

That day he, along with six officials and two fire engines from the Greenwich Fire Department, followed the stream north from Binney Pond and traced the source of pollution to a drain though a bridge over I-95.

The minute we got to the highway and saw it clean above and dirty below, we just knew, LeClerc said.

Sean Goldrick, a former member of the Greenwich Board of Estimate and Taxation who lives near the pond, called the state after noticing the leak.

He said he had been smelling gasoline and spotted an oily sheen around the pond for about a week. He said he had been noticing similar sheens regularly all summer long.

LeClerc identified the oily sheen in the stream as red-dyed diesel fuel, intended for off-road use in farm equipment or as heating oil. Red-dyed fuel has not been taxed to the extent normal diesel fuel.

The red dye serves as indicator to help enforcement authorities know when someone is illegally running untaxed fuel in on-road vehicles, LeClerc said. Vehicle operators caught are subject to a $1,000 fine from the Internal Revenue Service.

LeClerc said he suspected someone driving a tractor trailer with an exposed saddle tank hit some debris in the road, which punctured the tank and drained the fuel along the side of the road.

He and other team members found a pool of the red fuel near a drain over the stream that feeds in to Binney Pond. Rain last week probably flushed out the drain and pushed the fuel into the stream and then into the pond, he said.

This weekends rain could flush the rest of the fuel into the pond if the booms hadnt been placed, LeClerc said.

The booms were placed Thursday evening and are designed to act as filters to soak up the oil. LeClerc said the state visits the pond and installs booms at least twice a year whenever someone reports an oil slick. Similar slicks are spotted regularly on coastal ponds throughout Connecticut, although this year seemed to have more spills than usual, he said.

He said residents who smell gas or see an oily sheen on bodies of water in town should call the state at either 860-424-3338 or 1-866-337-7745.

The oil sheen is only one problem that has been spotted at the pond this summer. At least twice, large numbers of small fish have been found dead in the water.

Those fish kills are not related to the problem with oil in the pond, experts have said. The fish, which are saltwater species, died when they were washed into the shallow, fresh-water ponds.

Usually the fish dont die from the sheen, because it floats on the top, LeClerc said.

pfrissell@hearstmediact.com; @PeregrineFriss
/ United Way of Western Connecticut

DANBURY - The United Way of Western Connecticut and funding partners announced they are underwriting $90,000 worth food programs for city families in need.

The money, provided by United Way, the Meera & Ashok Vasudevan Foundation, and Wal-Mart Stores, will support mobile food trucks, weekend food for children and local food guides, according to a release.
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NIANTIC, Conn.  A Danbury mother convicted of killing her newborn daughter 10 years ago has officially been set free.

WFSB reports Panna Krom, 26, was released from York Correctional Institution in Niantic Friday morning. Krom was granted clemency by a parole board earlier this month, despite not being eligible for parole until 2019.

Krom's lawyer argued that she had been rehabilitated and that others who received similar sentences ended up serving less prison time.

Her lawyer also said she was a model prisoner during her time behind bars, earning a high school degree, mentoring younger prisoners, speaking with visiting high school students, and taking courses from Wesleyan University.

Krom was convicted in 2008 of drowning her newborn daughter in a toilet at her parent's home. She pleaded guilty to a reduced sentence of first-degree manslaughter as part of plea deal and served nine years in prison.

Krom, who was 17-years-old at the time of the murder, said she committed the crime because her parents, who are from Cambodia, did not approve of premarital sex.
TORONTO, Sept. 29, 2016 /CNW/ - Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE: AEM) (TSX: AEM) ("Agnico Eagle" or the "Company") today announced that it will release its third quarter 2016 results on Wednesday, October 26, 2016, after normal trading hours.

Third Quarter 2016 Results Conference Call and Webcast

Agnico Eagle's senior management will host a conference call on Thursday, October 27, 2016 at 11:00 AM (E.D.T.) to discuss the Company's financial and operating results.

Via Webcast:

A live audio webcast of the conference call will be available on the Company's website at www.agnicoeagle.com.

Via Telephone:

For those preferring to listen by telephone, please dial 1-647-427-7450 or toll-free 1-888-231-8191. To ensure your participation, please call approximately ten minutes prior to the scheduled start of the call.

Replay archive:

Please dial 1-416-849-0833 or toll-free 1-855-859-2056, access code 38842633. The conference call replay will expire on November 24, 2016 11:59 AM (E.S.T).

The webcast, along with presentation slides will be archived for 180 days on the Company's website.

Investor Relations

Agnico Eagle Mines Limited

145 King Street East, Suite 400

Toronto, Ontario, M5C 2Y7

Telephone: 416-947-1212

Fax: 416-367-4681

About Agnico Eagle

Agnico Eagle is a senior Canadian gold mining company that has produced precious metals since 1957. Its eight mines are located in Canada, Finland and Mexico, with exploration and development activities in each of these countries as well as in the United States and Sweden. Agnico Eagle and its shareholders have full exposure to gold prices due to its long-standing policy of no forward gold sales. Agnico Eagle has declared a cash dividend every year since 1983.

SOURCE Agnico Eagle Mines Limited

For further information: Investor Relations (416) 947-1212
CALGARY, Sept. 30, 2016 /CNW/ - Alberta's restaurateurs don't know how they will survive another major labour cost increase in the midst of a recession where sales continue to decline. This is the message Restaurants Canada has been hearing from its members since the government announced in June that it would significantly raise the minimum wage and remove the liquor server wage on Oct.1.

"Since the October 2015 minimum wage increase, many small restaurant businesses have closed their doors," said Mark von Schellwitz, Restaurants Canada's Vice President Western Canada. "Members fear the worst business closures and job losses are yet to come as they have no more room to raise prices in a declining sales environment."

Tomorrow, Alberta's minimum wage goes up by one dollar to $12.20 an hour, and $1.50 for liquor servers, with the elimination of the liquor server wage. When you factor in tips, liquor servers typically earn more than $30 an hour (according to University of Guelph research) -- which means a much greater loss in income when hours are cut.

Restaurants Canada hosted a member forum on Sept. 22 to look at ways operators could cope with these unprecedented minimum wage increases. Members are considering reducing labour, and balancing compensation between higher-paid front-of-house service staff and back-of-house kitchen staff who don't earn gratuities through new service charge or self-service options.

"Our members are worried that that the government keeps piling on extra costs, forcing many of them to work seven days a week, on the floor and in the kitchen, to reduce staff hours to keep their businesses viable," said von Schellwitz. "Premier Notley's plan to raise the minimum wage faster than any other North American jurisdiction is only hurting the very people she is trying to help. For the Albertans who lost their jobs in the past year, their minimum wage is zero. Thousands more industry employees are also taking home less money, because their hours have been cut as operators try to control escalating labour costs."

Alberta's restaurant industry directly employs more than 150,000 Albertans, representing nearly 7% of the province's work force. Restaurants Canada is a growing community of 30,000 foodservice businesses, including restaurants, bars, caterers, institutions and suppliers. We connect our members from coast to coast, through services, research and advocacy for a strong and vibrant restaurant industry.

SOURCE Restaurants Canada

For further information: Media Contact: Mark von Schellwitz, Vice President, Western Canada, Restaurants Canada, Phone: Toll free 1-866-300-7675, Cell: 604-809-5719, Email: [email protected]
VANCOUVER, Sept. 29, 2016 /CNW/ - Canfor Pulp Products Inc. (TSX:CFX) and Canfor Corporation (TSX:CFP) will hold a joint conference call on Thursday, October 27, 2016 at 6:00 AM PDT to discuss their respective third quarter 2016 financial and operating results. To participate in the call, please dial one of the following numbers:

Toll-Free Access: 888-390-0546

Access: 416-764-8688

Let the operator know you wish to participate in the Canfor conference call.

Following management's discussion of the quarterly results, the analyst and investment community will be invited to ask questions.

For Instant Replay Access, please dial one of the following numbers and enter

Toll-Free Access: 888-390-0541

Access: 416-764-8677

Participant Pass Code: 712812#

Recording available until: November 10, 2016

The conference call will be available live at www.canfor.com.

Canfor Pulp Products Inc. is a leading global supplier of pulp and paper products with operations in the central interior of British Columbia employing approximately 1,300 people throughout the organization. Canfor Pulp owns and operates three mills in Prince George, BC with a total capacity of 1.1 million tonnes of Premium Reinforcing Northern Bleached Softwood Kraft Pulp and 140,000 tonnes of kraft paper, as well as one mill in Taylor, BC with an annual production capacity of 220,000 tonnes of Bleached Chemi-Thermo Mechanical Pulp ("BCTMP"). Canfor Pulp is the largest North American and one of the largest global producers of market NBSK Pulp. CPPI shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol CFX.

SOURCE Canfor Pulp Products Inc.

Image with caption: "Canfor Pulp Products Inc. (CNW Group/Canfor Pulp Products Inc.)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20160929_C8354_PHOTO_EN_785090.jpg

For further information: Media Contact: Corinne Stavness, Senior Director, Corporate Affairs, (604) 661-5225, [email protected]; Investor Contact: Pat Elliott, Vice President and Treasurer, (604) 661-5441, [email protected]
VANCOUVER, Sept. 29, 2016 /CNW/ - Grandfield Pacific Inc. (the "Company") today released its financial results for the first quarter ended July 31, 2016.

For the Quarter Ended July 31, 2016

Net loss for the three-month period ended July 31, 2016, was $44,711, as compared to a net loss from the same quarter ending in 2015 of $8,996.

Administrative expenses increased $33,687 to a total of $45,750 for the quarter ended July 31, 2016, compared to the same period ended July 31, 2015 of a total of $12,063. The increase in administrative expenses is related to an increase in wages of $7,000 and legal fees of $17,000 both in relation to the redemption of the preference shares and services related to the purchase of shares in the Company by an outside investor. In addition, director fees of $10,000 were paid to the directors for their services (2015  nil).

Summary of First Quarter Results July 31, 2016

($) July 31, 2015

($) Total Revenue(1) 1,039 3,067 Net Income (loss) (44,711) (8,996) Income (loss) per Share, Basic and Diluted (0.01)/(0.01) (0.00)/(0.00)

(1) Total revenue includes interest and other income.

This financial information has been taken from financial reports prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards. These reports are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com under the Company's profile.

As in previous periods, the Company did not have an active business and its source of revenue was limited to the interest earned on the investment of excess cash. The Company is currently evaluating potential business opportunities in the life sciences sector.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Brett Walker

President and Chief Executive Officer

This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, relating to, among other things, the Company's future business plans. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends" and similar expressions or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: the possibility that the Company will not be able to find a suitable business opportunity and will therefore need to windup its operation and the ability of the Company to secure the financing required to conduct its operations, as well as those risks identified in the Company's filings with the Canadian securities regulators, which may be viewed at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or events and, accordingly are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements due to the inherent uncertainty of such statements. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made as of the date hereof and the Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable securities legislation.

SOURCE Grandfield Pacific Inc.

For further information: please contact: Brett Walker, President and Chief Executive Officer, (604) 366-7460
OTTAWA, Sept. 30, 2016 /CNW/ - Today, the Honourable Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, made the following statement:

"Today, I am pleased to note a significant step in Canada's journey of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. Our government welcomes the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador's ruling in favour of the proposed settlement agreement negotiated between Canada and survivors of five boarding schools located in the province. This resolution means that all parties can now move forward with the implementation of the agreement, including the extremely important work of healing and commemoration.

We understand litigation of this kind is difficult for all involved and we are committed to moving past this sad and terrible chapter in our history. We are looking forward to working with all our partners to implement the settlement agreement and help bring closure to the survivors of these schools.

As the Prime Minister has said, no relationship is more important to him and to Canada than the one with Indigenous peoples. That's why negotiation, rather than litigation, remains our government's preferred route to settle differences and right historical wrongs. We are truly committed to advancing reconciliation and renewing, on a nation-to-nation basis the relationship with Indigenous peoples, based on recognition of rights, respect, co-operation and partnership."

This statement is also available on the Internet at www.aandc.gc.ca .

You can subscribe to receive our news releases and speeches via RSS feeds or e-mail. For more information or to subscribe, visit www.aandc.gc.ca/subscriptions.

SOURCE Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada

For further information: Sabrina Williams, Press Secretary, Office of the Honourable Carolyn Bennett, 819-997-0002; Media Relations, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, 819-953-1160
By GMM 30 September 2016 - 10:50





F1s two Brazilian drivers are worried amid speculation Interlagos could fall off the race calendar.

Recently, Brazilian grand prix promoter Tamas Rohonyi criticised Felipe Massa for suggesting the future of the race in Sao Paulo was in doubt.

But then the FIA this week published its 2017 calendar showing Brazil with mere provisional status.

"I had just answered a question," Massa told Brazils Globo, when asked about Rohonyis criticism.

"I have no idea about the terms of the contract, how it works, I just said that because of the difficult times in Brazil there is a chance of this happening."

Race organisers hit back at the FIAs provisional status by insisting Interlagos has a valid contract.

Massa said: "I said the risk is independent of whether you have a contract or not. Germany has a contract and we were not there last year.

"For Bernie to start talking, putting pressure, we know that something is going on, and now the calendar comes out with a question mark," he added.

Also worried about the future is Sauber driver Felipe Nasr.

"I had heard rumours about the race," he is quoted by UOL. "It would be very sad to lose a race with so much history in formula one, not just for us drivers but also for the audience.

"For me, it would be a huge loss," said Nasr.
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday said it was sheer madness for anybody occupying public offices to be looking for money.

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday said it was sheer madness for anybody occupying public offices to be looking for money.He said President Muhammadu Buhari told him repeatedly that at his age, his only hearts desire was to see a great Nigeria.He said Buhari had no other objective in office than that.According to a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, the Vice-President spoke while receiving a delegation of Christian Ministers Welfare Initiative also known as the Pastors Forum, Taraba State, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.This morning, I had a meeting with the President and he repeated to me twice, he said at my age, there is only one thing I am looking for, I want to see a great Nigeria. He has no other objective and I feel very inspired by that, Osinbajo reportedly told his guests.He said anybody who had the opportunity of being the President of the country should only be thinking of how to improve the lot of the people.Osinbajo said, It is madness for anybody in our position to be looking for money.According to him, God put people in a position of authority for them to be able to do something for their people.I think if any Nigerian gets the chance to be President of the country, there is nothing he/she is looking for anymore, except that, while there, you improve the lot of the people.Osinbajo reiterated his position that no economy could tolerate the level of corruption seen in Nigeria without the consequence.He regretted that while Nigerians were being killed by the Boko Haram fighters, people could not account for $15bn meant for the purchase of security equipment to fight the insurgents.The Vice-President also explained how vandalism of oil installations had contributed to the recession being witnessed in the country.He said Nigeria had lost several millions of barrels of crude oil due to the activities of militants in the Niger Delta.On power, the Vice-President said the country was producing 5,000MW of power for the first time by early 2016, but by February 2016 the Forcados terminal was destroyed by militants.As a result of the vandalism, he said 40 per cent of the gas used to fire the power plants was lost and the country was down to 2,500MW of power.He observed that at the time the militants started blowing up oil and gas installations, the amnesty stipends were still being paid, insisting that they went violent because of ongoing investigation of corrupt persons.Nothing changed, the only reason is that we are investigating people who have stolen money, Osinbajo said.He added that the country was losing one million barrels of oil a day, nothing that, that was 60 per cent of the countrys revenues, and there was nowhere such an amount of revenue would be lost that people would not experience economic challenge and recession.While expressing optimism that the country would come out of the recession, Osinbajo stated that there is no question at all, God has a reason for bringing us in at this time and God helping us, we will see a change in this country.He urged the Church and all religious leaders to stand up against corruption, stressing that if this government had been doing the right thing by fighting corruption, the Church should support it.He also assured his guests that the Federal Government was working hard to end the problem of the ravaging herdsmen.Osinbajo said the President had instructed the police and the military to act and deal with the herdsmens menace.He said those behind the herdsmens violence were criminals.While calling on honest men in the country to work together, Osinbajo said God had structured Nigeria in such a way that no one could dominate another.
The Presidential Villa, Abuja is currently wearing a new look ahead of Nigerias 56th Independence anniversary holding on Saturday, Octo...

The Presidential Villa, Abuja is currently wearing a new look ahead of Nigerias 56th Independence anniversary holding on Saturday, October 1.Programmes earmarked for the anniversary which the government described as low-key started with an interdenominational service at the National Ecumenical Centre, Abuja on Sunday.A jumat service and anniversary lecture are slated for the National Mosque, Abuja on Friday (today).The final programme is Presidential Change of Guard scheduled to hold at the forecourt of the Presidential Villa on Saturday.Ahead of that programme that will attract members of the diplomatic corps, top government officials and other friends of the nation, workers were on Thursday busy giving the Presidential Villa a facelift.All the white walls in the seat of power were repainted while the white-and-black road setbacks were also retouched.Flowers and trees were also trimmed.Workers of the construction giant, Julius Berger, saddled with the maintenance of the seat of power, carried out most of the exercise.Government officials were also seen changing the numerous national and commander-in-chiefs flags at strategic places within the premises.Canopies were also being erected in the forecourt where the event would hold while chairs were also being moved to the venue.During the programme scheduled to start by 3pm on Saturday, there will be a ceremonial change of guards by soldiers attached to the Brigade of Guards who are in charge of the security of the President and the Federal Capital Territory.Buhari will inspect the guard of honour at the ceremony, cut the anniversary cake, sign the anniversary register and release pigeons to symbolise peace.He will be assisted by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo; President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; and the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Muhammed.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that President Muhammadu Buhari is ready to put everything on the line to make Nigeria great.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that President Muhammadu Buhari is ready to put everything on the line to make Nigeria great. He said this when he received a delegation of Christian Ministers Welfare Initiative, also known as the Pastors Forum, Taraba State, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Thursday.According to him, President Buhari has no other objective other than seeing this dream come true. This morning, I had a meeting with the President and he repeated to me twice, he said at my age there is only one thing I am looking for; I want to see a great Nigeria.He has no other objective and I feel very inspired by that, Prof Osinbajo said. Osinbajo restated the commitment of the President and himself to a great Nigeria where peace and justice would reign, saying it is madness for anybody in our position to be looking for money.According to him, God puts people in a position of authority for them to be able to do something for their people. I think if any Nigerian gets the chance to be president of the country, there is nothing he/she is looking for anymore except that while there you improve the lot of the people, he added. Linking the economic situation to corruption and official graft, Osinbajo said no economy can tolerate the level of corruption seen in Nigeria without the consequence.Nigerian lives were being lost and yet people cannot account for $15 billion meant for purchase of security equipment to fight the insurgents. Besides, the Vice President Vice also explained how the factor of vandalism of oil installations had contributed to the recession being experienced.He said Nigeria had lost several millions of barrels of crude oil due to the activities of the militants in the Niger Delta. He recalled that by early 2016 the country was producing 5,000MW of power for the first time, but by February 2016 the Focados terminal was destroyed by militants. He said, however, that 40 per cent of the gas used to fire the power plants were lost and the country was down to 2,500MW of power.According to him, at the time the militants started blowing up oil and gas installations, the amnesty stipends were still being paid. Nothing changed, the only reason is that we are investigating people who have stolen money. He added that the country was losing one million barrels of oil a day, equivalent to 60 per cent of the countrys revenues.Accordingly, he noted that there is nowhere such amount of revenue is lost without going into some economic challenge like a recession. He expressed optimism that the country would come out of the recession as there is no question at all; God has a reason for bringing us in at this time. And God helping us we will see a change in this country. Osinbajo urged the Church and all religious leaders to stand up against corruption, stressing that if the government was doing the right thing by fighting corruption the Church should support it.He assured that the Federal Government was working very seriously to end the problem of ravaging herdsmen. He said the oresident had instructed the police and the military to act and deal with anybody who unlawfully carried arms.The Vice President urged that anybody with early information or intelligence on such violent activities should give it to government and the security agents for effective response. While calling on honest and forthright men in the country to work together, Osinbajo said God had structured Nigeria in such a way that no one could dominate another, not Muslims against Christians or Christians against Muslims.It is not possible for one tribe to dominate another based on the way God has structured the country. The reason we have Christian president and Muslim vice president or Muslim president and Christian vice president is to have balance, he said. Earlier, the Chairman of the delegation, Rev, Godwin Nyiekule, said the delegation was in the State House to pledge their support to the Buhari Administration for its forthrightness and fight against corruption. We are happy with the government for the war against corruption crusade, Nyiekule said. Nyiekule also said that the Christian Ministers Welfare Initiative is a non-partisan group but supports good persons who want to participate in government. He also called on the Federal Government to come to the assistance of those churches whose premises were being used as IDP camps.
The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs Aisha Alhassan, said N200 million would be disbursed to eight pilot states each ...

The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs Aisha Alhassan, said N200 million would be disbursed to eight pilot states each through the National Women Empowerment Fund (NAWEF) to empower women at the grassroots.Alhassan said this during a media briefing on the take-off of the National Women Empowerment Fund (NAWEF) and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) in Abuja. She said the eight pilot states are Adamawa, Borno, Yobe, Nasarawa, Jigawa, Akwa Ibom, Osun, and Abia, adding that other states would benefit later.She added that the NAWEF targets 10,000 women beneficiaries in each of the pilot states; the condition of the loans both under the GEEP and NAWEF are the same.The GEEP programme is one of the five Federal Government Social Investment Programme targeted at providing loans to young men and women from all states on liberal condition. Under both programmes, each beneficiary will receive between N10,000 and N100,000, depending on the type of business or trade with no interest, no collateral and repayable in six months.Alhassan said beneficiaries would have to form functional cooperative groups or local trade associations or other community based groups of at least 10 persons per group. She added that the administering bank for disbursements and recovery which is Bank of Industry (BoI) had concluded all necessary arrangements for the disbursement of the funds to successful beneficiaries.By next week, which is October, beneficiaries will be free to access the fund through their individual accounts. The repayment schedules are much easier and less stringent than those of conventional banking loans.We are sure the country will witness increased economic activities nationwide with the desired multiplier effects and subsequent boost in the economy.The minister said measures for monitoring and evaluation of disbursement, usage and recovery had also been put in place. She added that it was necessary that beneficiaries repay the loans in order for fresh applicants to benefit from the revolving scheme.Alhassan had met with state commissioners of women affairs in August on the implementation of the fund.The fund was specially targeted at grassroots women operating informal businesses, through start ups and scale up credit facilities to reduce high poverty and facilitate growth and entrepreneurial development.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic turned down a staggering offer worth 100 million from an unnamed Chinese club in the summer, according to his agent Mino Raiola.The Swedish striker moved to Manchester United on a free transfer in the summer after his contract at Paris Saint-Germain expired.Ibrahimovic is reported to earn in excess of 200,000-per-week at Old Trafford, but Raiola claims he could have lined his pockets even further had he decided to move to the Far East.Speaking to Il Giornale, he said: Ibrahimovic is the best. He turned down 100m net from the Chinese! He doesnt want more money, he wants to win.Ive been lucky, Ive always had champions. Zlatan, [Pavel] Nedved, Maxwell and now [Blaise] Matuidi and [Gigio] Donnarumma.He [Donnarumma] will become even better than [Gigi] Buffon, because whoever comes in the future is always better than the past.Raiola also claims that another of his clients, Mario Balotelli, must follow the example set by Ibrahimovic if he is ever to reach his full potential.Mario is a phenomenon, but hes Balotelli, Raiola joked.He was lucky enough to be adopted by two great people, but in a tough town [Bagnolo Mella], lets face it: a racist one.He suffered a lot when he was a child, and hes always been that way in the head. If he had the mentality of Zlatan, with his talent hed have won five Ballon dOrs."




Rob Kardashian has snapped over his baby shower again.He hasn't lost his temper and exposed his little sister to cyber-stalkers; rather he's just expressing his excitement on Snapchat.The 29-year-old appeared to throw some digs at his family by posting dozens of Armenian flags - even though his sisters are the ones that aren't invited this timeThis one is being hosted by Chyna's friend Sylvia Karapetian in Woodland Hills with around 60 guests in attendance... and only one of them named Kardashian.A source tells Us that there will be approximately 60 guests at the Woodland Hills, California, celebration, including friends of both Chyna, 28, and Kardashian, 29, and that Chynas friends and family will be flying in to celebrate. the insider says. Rob however showed his excitement when by sharing the news on his snapchathe exclaimed in an emoji-filled snap, filled mainly with Mexican flags.He then followed it up with two more posts featuring no less than 53 Armenian flags, despite the fact the world's most famous Armenian family will not be there.
HACKENSACK -- The man arrested in North Jersey following an explosion in The Bronx that killed an FDNY battalion chief has waived extradition to New York, according to NorthJersey.com.

Julio Salcedo Contrer (BCSO)

Julio Salcedo Contrer, 34, was arrested on a fugitive warrant Tuesday at a home in Cliffside Park. He was wanted for questioning in the blast that killed NYC Battalion Fire Chief Michael Fahy.

Authorities have said the The Bronx house was being used to grow marijuana when it apparently blew up, killing Fahy and injuring other firefighters. The fire department had been called there on a report of a gas odor.

According to NorthJersey.com, Contrer nodded slightly as his public defender attorney spoke with him before the hearing.

When the judge asked Contrer whether he wanted an extradition hearing or to return voluntarily to face charges in New York, the suspect uttered: "Voluntarily."

The extradition process could take up to 10 days, the report said.

Another man, Garivaldi Castillo of Manhattan, has been arrested on criminal possession of marijuana charges in connection with the case.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
TRENTON -- The Christie administration on Friday advanced four charter school applications to the final round of state review but denied a proposal in Montclair that had stirred strong resistance in the community.

The following four schools were cleared to open as long as they pass a final review next year:

College Achieve Greater Asbury Park Charter School (Asbury Park, Neptune Township

College Achieve Paterson Charter School (Paterson)

Ocean Academy Charter School (Lakewood)

Ailanthus Charter School (Franklin Township, New Brunswick)

All of the schools, except Ailanthus Charter School, plan to open in the fall of 2017. Ailanthus plans to open in 2018.

The approvals on Friday give the groups permission to move forward with their schools, though they must still pass a final review of their financial and academic plans.

Meanwhile, the state Department of Education rejected three other proposals, including a proposed French immersion charter school in Montclair. School district officials and parents in Montclair had campaigned against the charter school, saying it isn't needed in a district with a reputation for good schools.

The state said the denied applications had deficiencies but did not elaborate on those problems in the rejection letters sent to applicants.

Along with the school in Montclair, the proposed Elite Academy Charter School in Jersey City and Innovation STEM Charter School in Newark were also rejected.

If the four schools that advanced Friday win final approval, they will bring the total number of charters schools in New Jersey to 92.

Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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Mark Wahlberg plays an unexpected hero in 'Deepwater Horizon'

(LIONSGATE)

It's hard to forget the Deepwater Horizon.

The biggest oil spill in American history. Nearly five million barrels, lost over 87 days. Billions of dollars in fines, even more in lawsuits, and untold damage done to the environment, wildlife and small businesses.

Yet here's something that is often forgotten: The men and women who were aboard that floating rig on April 20, 2010 -- 11 of whom lost their lives in the initial, cataclysmic explosion and fire.

Well, "Deepwater Horizon" is all about them. And like the better Peter Berg movies - "Lone Survivor," "Friday Night Lights" -- it's about something else, too - impossible odds, heroic determination, small-town heroes.

The movie stars Mark Wahlberg as Mike Williams, an engineer aboard the massive Louisiana rig; Kurt Russell is the big boss, known to all, with low-key Southern deference, as "Mister Jimmy." Gina Rodriguez is Andrea Fleytas, a safety-systems worker; Kate Hudson is Williams' wife, waiting worriedly at home.

And John Malkovich - rocking a most decidedly thick N'awlins accent - is the cold-hearted BP boss who just happens to be aboard that night.

The script, although based on newspaper articles, sticks pretty closely to the black-and-white rules of Hollywood, in which the blue-collar fellows are all good, and the guys from corporate all bad. As usual, Berg pushes that with a heavy hand, his vignettes of good-ol-boy heroics punctuated by portentous shots of a fluttering American flag.

But even his fondness for overstatement can't take away from the fact that there were individual acts of heroism and self-sacrifice on the rig that night. Or that, in the aftermath, it was sadly easier for many of us to focus on camera-ready shots of oil-smeared pelicans and filthy seashores than on the 11 roughnecks who were burned and blown to bits.

And that part of the movie - once the disaster really begins - is astonishing. Explosions create blizzards of glass shards. Geysers of flaming oil shoot into the sky. A tiny, self-contained city of machines and bunks and a cafeteria suddenly becomes a floating hell.

Luckily, through the impressive effects stride some powerful actors. Wahlberg - re-teaming with Berg after "Lone Survivor" - is, once again, the loyal stoic (although the script does him no favors by giving him a speech near the end; he's best when he's speechless). And Russell, who gently mocked John Wayne in "Big Trouble in Little China," seriously channels him here, as a larger-than-life figure who's absolutely earned every bit of his authority.

Russell keeps his hero grounded, too, which is crucial. There's always been something a little wannabe about Berg: the East Coast preppie praising smalltown values, the rah-rah guy whose military experience was watching The History Channel. He's got a real boycrush on macho men and most of the muddled beginning of "Deepwater Horizon" is full of too many grimy guys slapping backs and shouting jargon.

You can sense Berg's genuine joy in this world, but it's occasionally overwhelming, conveying not a busy workday but only headache-inducing confusion. How does an oil rig actually work? Who's in charge? What are the risks? A simpler, earlier scene at Williams' home - featuring a classroom experiment with a soda can, a piece of pipe and a jar of honey - tells us more about that than all this later bromance put together.

That's a shame, because what's about to come would have even more import if we had more information.

But then, once we get past that first half-hour of cornpone camaraderie, the rig blows. The characters swing into action. We're plunged into the mess and smoke and dirt and terror of a disaster and, yes, life itself. And Berg stops doing what he wants to do, which is salute machismo, and begins to concentrate on what the movie needs -- which is showing us real, and honorable, human beings simply doing their best.

Because, damn it, that's what you do.

Ratings note: The film contains strong language, violence, sensuality.

Stephen Whitty may be reached at stephenjwhitty@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @stephenwhitty. Find him on Facebook.


With a remake of "The Magnificent Seven" in theaters the same week as the first presidential debate, it makes me want to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen: "I saw the 1960 'Magnificent Seven.' And, 2016 remake, you're no 1960 'Magnificent Seven.'"

OK, so I haven't caught the new Denzel Washington version yet, and may not ever. (It isn't the mixed reviews that have kept me away; I have a hard time buying a ticket to any film with Chris Pratt.)

But I'll take the opportunity to revisit a 56-year-old classic that launched the careers of three movie stars, and paved the way -- for better or worse -- for multi-bro films like "The Dirty Dozen" and "The Expendables."

And, not for nothin', was a damn good Western.

John Sturges' "The Magnificent Seven" is itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Japanese existential opus "Seven Samurai" (1954). The story of seven gunfighters hired to defend a Mexican community against a murderous bandit is straightforward, but explores noble themes. One is the idea of taking up someone else's cause merely because it's the right thing to do. Another is the notion that sometimes, peaceable people must use force to defend themselves.

Setup: Ruthless Calvera (Eli Wallach) and his banditos regularly raid a farming village to steal whatever food and supplies they can lay their hands on. (The town has taken to hiding its women.) Calvera leaves a little behind so that the villagers can survive long enough for the next raid.

The farmers know nothing about weapons, but the village elder (Vladimir Sokoloff) sends three of them (Jorge Martinez de Hoyos, Rico Alaniz and Pepe Hern) to Texas to buy guns with what meager funds are left.

While in America, the farmers happen to witness an altercation in a dusty town that looks like it might escalate into a bloodbath. But the situation is expedited with cool precision by two gunslinging outsiders, Chris (Yul Brynner) and Vin (Steve McQueen). The farmers later ask Chris to sell them guns. "Men are cheaper than guns," he tells them. We don't know why Chris decides to help these strangers, who can pay only a pittance.

Chris and Vin assemble a crackerjack team to take down Calvera. Signing up are Bernardo (Charles Bronson), a plainspoken Irish-Mexican; Lee (Robert Vaughn), a dour dandy; Britt (James Coburn), a man with uncanny knife-throwing skills; and Harry (Brad Dexter), a charismatic operator who always has a scam going. Harry is convinced this mission has a big financial payoff down the road, but Chris is being coy about it.

A seventh, younger man is permitted to join, though he is green and unpredictable, and not altogether confident with a gun: Chico (Horst Buchholz), a Mexican loner.

Brynner -- dressed in black with a steely gaze and chiseled features -- is instantly recognizable as a new archetype of the Western film. McQueen, Bronson and Coburn were not yet movie stars; "The Magnificent Seven" was the making of all three actors. McQueen, as Brynner's wingman, isn't given much dialogue, but he is constantly grabbing focus with little scene-stealing tricks.

Yul Brynner in "The Magnificent Seven" (1960)

Bronson gets a sweet moment -- he gives a whistle to a little Mexican ninita -- and a touching subplot -- three village boys "adopt" him, promising to regularly put fresh flowers on his grave, should he die while defending their community. Vaughn is given a meaty arc; his character loses his nerve in battle, and self-medicates with booze.

Newcomer Buchholz is a German playing a Mexican in a Hollywood film -- an unlikely hybrid, but it works. There are echoes of Calvera in Wallach's Tuco from Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966).

Another star of the film -- the eighth member of "The Magnificent Seven," if you will -- is Elmer Bernstein's Oscar-nominated score. Bernstein had come a long way from "Robot Monster" in seven years. His score is one of the most iconic in cinema, and arguably the most iconic in Westerns. If you went to see the new "Magnificent Seven," you just heard it again.
PHILADELPHIA -- Bruce Springsteen inked his name on more than copies of his new memoir during a book tour stop in Philadelphia this week. The New Jersey rocker also signed an excuse note for a fifth-grade student who skipped school to see him.

"Dear Principal Brown," the typed note said, "Please excuse Michael Fenerty for being late or absent from school today. He came to the Free Library of Philadelphia to meet me and to get a copy of my book."

The Masterman School student handed Springsteen the note during a meet-and-greet session at the library on Thursday. Springsteen told the boy that, "I have to read it first, that's how I got in trouble with my first contract," Fenerty's father told Philly.com.

Springsteen also told the fifth-grade student that he hoped he didn't get in trouble, according to the father's account.

But the father and son couldn't part with the signed note when they arrived at the school late on Thursday. The principal only got a photocopy, Philly.com reports.

The Fenertys aren't the first to use "The Boss" as an excuse for missing school.

A New York dad wrote a note to his 12-year-old daughter's school in February blaming her tardiness on a Springsteen show that lasted more than three hours the night before.

"This may not seem like a good excuse, but have you ever wondered how many kids would be late-or miss school outright if God were to suddenly appear?" the father wrote. "It's something like that."

Springsteen's new autobiography, "Born to Run," was released on Tuesday.

Erin O'Neill may be reached at eoneill@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @LedgerErin. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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The tweet that may have started all of the chaos in schools across the country has been taken down after being shared hundreds of times. (Photo provided)

A threat on social media of clowns planning to kill teachers and kidnap students has spread like wildfire on the Internet, leading school districts and local law enforcement in New Jersey -- and nationwide -- to tell parents and students to calm down.

Rumors of schools throughout South Jersey being on lockdown because of clown sightings were unfounded, according to officials.

Still, there was a bit of a panic in numerous districts Friday morning -- including Deptford, Glassboro, Clearview, Kingsway, West Deptford, Vineland and Toms River -- when a social media post began circulating, prompting calls to the districts and rumors to spread on Facebook.

The chaos is being traced back to a Facebook message posted by an account called Aint Clownin Around that read "we will be at all High schools this friday to either kidnapp students or kill teachers going to they cars." The post, which has since been taken down, didn't specify a school and was shared throughout the country, causing alarm.

What started out weeks ago as creepy clown sightings in South Carolina and people in costumes in the woods watching children, has spread to states including North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

In Gloucester County, a "true, routine, faulty fire alarm" at the Kingsway Regional School District Friday morning only added to the concern from parents who thought the evacuation had to do with the clown threats, according to Superintendent James Lavender.

"We followed normal evacuation procedures and before we knew it parents started sending around this clown nonsense," said Lavender. "They had no ill intention, I'm sure, but their decision to start spreading unfounded threats that originated outside of the district and potentially outside of the state, complicated our procedures."

"It was a faulty alarm," he said. "The alarm was wet from the rain which caused it to go off."

Since the alarm sounded just after 7 a.m. when buses began arriving, students were asked to remain on their buses as opposed to standing in the rain.

"We're trying to handle their kids, take care of their kids, and they're causing this hysteria through Facebook posts," he added. "If you were really, truly under the impression that killer clowns were behind the alleged threat at the school, why wouldn't you call 911 instead of posting it on Facebook?"

A 'killer clowns' Instagram account posted a photo of Deptford High School, the group's alleged next target. The photo was shared on social media by parents in a community group to raise awareness of the potential threat. (Photo provided)

Concern at Deptford High School was heightened when an Instagram account called "bewarekillerclowns" posted a photo of the school. According to a post in a Deptford community group, residents reached out to police and before long the photos were removed from the account.

West Deptford Police also took to Facebook on Friday afternoon to acknowledge the unfounded rumors, but said they would be providing an added presence at schools during afternoon dismissal.

"We have been working closely with the West Deptford School Administration and we have determined that there have been no threats made toward any of our schools, students, or staff," West Deptford police said.

Other districts in New Jersey -- including Vineland in Cumberland County and Toms River in Ocean County -- dealt with the same social media claims on Friday.

Vineland Superintendent Mary Gruccio told the Daily Journal reporters that the district sent out an automated message to the community, "not intended to raise alarm, but rather to make you aware."

"The district's Security Department and law enforcement are aware of the message and prepared, as always, to respond to any situation," the message said in part.

In Toms River, police stepped up patrols at all of the schools, even though authorities acknowledged that the social media threats originated outside of New Jersey and weren't credible in this area.

"At this juncture any rumors regarding early dismissals or lockdowns are not accurate," the Tom River police said in a statement. "Please do not call the police department or schools to discuss this matter."

While the threats to the South Jersey area remain unfounded, there have been multiple reports of actual clown sightings in Phillipsburg.

Police reported that on Sunday three clowns allegedly came out of the woods and chased a child in Walter's Park and three more were reported Monday in Warren County. Someone was seen dressed as a clown on Hudson Street and a jester holding some kind of sword reportedly ran after a child on Shafer Avenue. The final report was of a dark-colored truck seen driving down Mercer Street with clowns hanging out the window.

Officers in that area reportedly discouraged the idea of "hunting" clowns and said in an earlier report that the suspicious person may be a juvenile prankster and that violence will lead to more trouble.

Caitlyn Stulpin may be reached at cstulpin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitstulpin. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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Marilyn Williams' watercolor of a Maine lighthouse will be part of the display at the library in Flemington. (Courtesy of Laurie Braman)

If the coming signs of Fall are making you long for the beach, join us to see guest artist Marilyn Williams bring her vision of a lighthouse in Maine to life in watercolor.

Her demonstration will illustrate the steps needed to develop a traditional landscape painting, beginning with the all important value study.

Marilyn says, "As a painter I enjoy expressing the quality of light through the use of strong values." What better subject than a lighthouse to express light?

Please join Hunterdon Watercolor Society (HWS) on Monday, October 3rd at 7 pm in the Library Administration Building (Building #1) at the Route 12 Library complex in Flemington, NJ. No preregistration required. Free to members and $5 for guests.

Leading our painting demonstration is guest artist, Marilyn Williams. Marilyn has been painting in Watercolor for 16 years as teaching watercolor for the Doylestown Art League and the Allegheny Art store in Newtown.

The Hunterdon Watercolor Society (HWS) features guest artist demonstrations 7-9 pm the first Monday of each month, September through May. More information about HWS membership and upcoming demonstrations can be found on the clubs website (Google: Hunterdon Watercolor Society) or their Facebook page.

Funding for this program has been made possible in part by the Hunterdon County Board of Chosen Freeholders and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, through funds administered by the Hunterdon County Cultural & Heritage Commission.

This item was submitted by Laurie Braman.
Try a taste of every flavour around the world at Kochi's ABOE Restocafe
Notices for last $520M in BP spill seafood claims out next week
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP)  Survivors of Hurricane Ian face a long emotional road to recover from one of the most damaging storms to hit the U.S. mainland. For those who lost everything to disaster, the anguish can be crushing to return home to find so much gone. Grief can run the gamut from frequent tears to utter despair. The Lee County medical examiner says two men in their 70s even took their own lives a day apart after viewing their losses. Experts say suicides climb after disasters and more funding for mental health should be provided as climate change makes storms and fires more frequent and devastating.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The House Jan. 6 committee plans to unveil "surprising" details at its next public hearing about the 2021 attack at the U.S. Capitol. The session Thursday afternoon is likely to be the last public hearing before midterm elections next month. The panel is expected to include new evidence from the U.S. Secret Service about its actions with Donald Trump that day. Ahead of a report later this year, the panel is summing up its findings. The committee says Trump, after he lost the 2020 presidential election, launched an unprecedented attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's victory. They say the result was the deadly mob siege of the Capitol.
Program will include songs from Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Cabaret

Bravissimo Broadway, a musical performance by O Sole Trio, will open the North Platte Concert Associations 2016-2017 series at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 10 at the Neville Center for the Performing Arts, Fifth and Bailey.

Corporate sponsors are Complete Eyecare Associates, Drs. Baxter, OConnor and French, and Eagle Radio.

The program will include songs from West Side Story, Phantom of the Opera, The Sound of Music, Les Miserables, Babes in Arms, Man of La Mancha, Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof and South Pacific. A special feature will be Gershwins American in Paris, played simultaneously on the violin and piano by David Shenton.

Other members of O Sole Trio are Erin Shields, soprano, and Giuseppe Spoletini, baritone. As individuals, all three musicians have impressive resumes. Shields, a graduate of the Indiana University School of Music, has studied in Vienna, Austria, and has performed several times at the Lincoln Center in New York City with the New York Philharmonic and The American Orchestra.

Spoletini, a member of the music faculties of the Pierrepont School in Westport, Connecticut, and the Manhattan School Pre-College, has performed widely throughout the United States, Canada and Europe as a soloist and with opera companies in Brooklyn, Saskatoon, Cincinnati and New York City.

Shenton, who has written five musicals, has worked as a professional musician since he was 14 and has collaborated with many noted personalities, including Vanessa Williams, Tony Bennett, Paul McCartney, Katie Couric and Alan Menken.

As an ensemble, O Sole Trio made their Carnegie Hall debut in 2014. They have performed in major venues, including the Lincoln Center and at The Redlands Bowl in California, where more than 6,000 people attended their concert.

Admission to the concert is with season membership in the North Platte Concert Association. Memberships are still available from Pat Hoban, secretary of the concert association, at 308-534-4699. The cost of memberships is $50 for adults, $15 for students and $100 for families of parents with minor children living at home. Memberships will be sold before the Bravissimo Broadway concert on Oct. 10.

North Platte has reciprocity with Cozad, McCook, Kearney and Grand Island. The organizations website is npconcertassociation.org.
The expected team changes heading into the 2016 NRL Telstra Premiership Grand Final between the Melbourne Storm and Cronulla Sharks.

Draw Widget - Grand Final - Storm vs Sharks

Storm: Melbourne are likely to run out 1-17 despite naming a massive nine-man extended bench on Tuesday, although Ben Hampton didn't take the field at all in the Storm's preliminary final and could be the man to make way.

Sharks: Sam Tagataese is set to play for the first time since Round 22, having recovered from a fractured scapula. He is set to join the bench, likely at the expense of Kurt Capewell, while Joseph Paulo has been ruled out with a knee injury.

NRL Grand Final Day info

Game on. Data off.

Stream every NRL game, including finals, live and data free with a 2016 Footy Pass, exclusive to Telstra mobile.

Watch all the NRL action live on your compatible tablet or mobile device with data-free streaming on your Telstra mobile plan.

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"Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground." - 1 Samuel 17:49

Not sure if you have noticed of late but brand new Sharks fans are coming out of the woodwork.

Like some kind of lifelong sympathy case, people are texting me saying 'Hey buddy, I'm on the Sharks!' like we should be grateful as long-termers.

Because it has been a sentence for us. A long and difficult stretch to serve, and the only way for us to truly feel the breeze of freedom is for Sir Gallen to hold that bloody trophy up come Sunday night. New bandwagon believers are not what we need because we have come this far without them.

There is no reason to list the tyranny of obstacles that have faced the Shire boys in their 50-year run. Everyone knows the near-misses, the drug sagas and the scandals that nearly broke us. I actually wonder if the new fans are truly passionate about Cronulla, or is it more a case of 'I go for my team and anyone playing the Storm'. In that case, I hear you buddy. You are welcome. Take a seat in the cage!

I have recently finished a long run of theatre on the London stage and am now wandering around Florence with my mother in what you may refer to as a Mildly Mad and mostly Merlot-driven Monday. My social media feed is flooded with 'Are you coming back for the big one?' 'Will you record a video for my blah blah!', and 'Make sure you try the wild boar pizza!'

But I'm not coming back.

Because ever since I left Australia the Sharks have been winning, and not that I am superstitious (hell, I hate it when a DJ plays that song  it is a clear sign they lack imagination) but we have come this far with me on the other side of the planet... why tip the balance now?

I've had too many sad September nights trying to get back on the train in Concord with a head full of sorrow and a $9 beer. It's better this way. I'll watch this game in a pond of piranhas, as long as we win!

Draw Widget - Grand Final - Storm vs Sharks

Last night my mother and I visited the statue of David at the Galleria dell'Accademia, in the north part of Florence city. A masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture, the 17-foot specimen stands slender yet imposing with sling in one hand and rock in the other, graceful yet determined.

Aficionados still struggle to agree on whether the work depicts the young man pre or post battle, as his disposition is of a naive, innocent man, calmly prepared for what may come next. And this is when it struck me, staring up at this dynamic work of complex genius: the Sharks are going to win. We are going to win.

Those big, mean Storm players with their horrid, beastly tactics  that purple army tank  they are Goliath, and they will fall come Sunday.

The Sharks are not the dolphins of old, afraid of winning, embarrassed and confused by what went wrong mid-season. We have wisdom now. We have poise now. We are armed and naked and ready to strike at any moment.

Have you not noticed the rise in shark attacks throughout the year? Sharks pouncing on innocent kids, professional surfers and fishermen throughout the nation? Yeah, that's us. We have been warming up and no one is safe, not even in the Yarra, I am afraid!

Look, I know we lack invention, stealing Canberra's cheer, but winning is new to us. Winning is a new feeling we are only now coming to enjoy. But we will enjoy it, the taste of blood. We will drink it and we will let it spill down our chin because we are wise now, and we are free. I'm sorry Cameron but you cannot wrestle or wriggle or whine your way out of this one.

The Sharks are coming home and not even the porch light is safe. We might just eat that too!

Up up Cronulla! It's our time.

Storm v Sharks: Schick Grand Final Preview

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Grand Final Fever: Storm v Sharks Preview



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Kris Parker spent almost half a year in a mountainside village in the Dominican Republic working with natives and The Nature Conservancy, studied in Mexico and Nicaragua, and volunteered in Austria and Germany.

Now for Parker, the frontier where she seeks to make a difference is the sprawling melting pot of Northwest Indiana, where she and her family settled in 2005. While the scenery has changed, Parker takes the knowledge she has learned in her past travels and applies it to serve the Region.

I think a lot of community issues and challenges are growing increasingly complex with globalization, and as our economy becomes more complex, Parker said.

Our communication is also changing rapidly in ways that can be positive, and we are trying to bridge all of those cultures together.

Parker is an extension educator in Community Development at the Purdue Cooperative Extension Service in Valparaiso. Parker received her masters degree in intercultural service, leadership and management from the School for International Training in Vermont and a bachelors in human development and social relations from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana.

In her day-to-day work life, Parker organizes and leads workshops on a variety of issues like leadership, grant writing, diversity, independent business and nonprofit organization development. She works with area nonprofits, leadership groups, government officials and more, but she does more than train.

For 10 years she served as board chairwoman at the Food Bank of Northwest Indiana, and was a board member for six years at United Way of Porter County.

Working with the Food Bank, Parker said she sees people of all backgrounds come for assistance.

I think food is a need that everyone can recognize and understand; its cross-culture, Parker said.

It bridges rural and urban, races, different socioeconomic classes. Its a problem that we can solve and tell the right story about. Whats really going on has been shaped by myths.

Parker also interned at the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding in Massachusetts, and the CONTACT Summer Institute in Peacebuilding, where she helped train people from 31 countries to work as peace-builders in post-conflict communities.

When she was in the Dominican Republic, she and her husband did farm work, bird monitoring, conducted a census of latrines and access to lights, and also taught.

(We) lived and worked in a squatter community in the mountains, Parker said. Families who had been kicked off their land by the dictator to create a national park.

There, Parker said she gained a greater appreciation for quality of life.

For so many people life is very hard, and so many have very few choices, Parker said. Education is everything, and something never to take for granted.

Rex Richards, president of the Greater Valparaiso Chamber of Commerce, sees Parker as an agent of change.

Her skills and talent are so deep, Richards said.

She can communicate leadership principles in such a way that everyone can understand her concepts. Kris is one of the most talented people I know in community development leadership training. We are so fortunate she lives right here in Porter County. Her impact is statewide.

Richards met Parker when the Valparaiso chamber began its leadership program with Parker as one of the individuals who developed the curriculum. At that time, she was the community development and economic specialist in the Porter County Office of the Purdue Extension Service.

She trains future leaders, Richards said.

She opens eyes to how to get things done in a community. What greater contribution is there than to mold thinking and solve problems at the community level, and get things done? That is the very thing that has made this country great. Kris primes the pump of civic engagement to make each community a success. This is what makes Kris a real change agent.
Dimitri Olympidis learned as a young child that Christmas Day was special, because he got to go to work with his dad at the family-owned convenience store.

"Our role on Christmas was to support your employees and customers. The genesis of why we were open is because our customer needs us, and I learned from an early age the service mentality taught to us," Olympidis said.

Olympidis, 39, who lives in Valparaiso with his wife, Crystal, and three children, said he began working at Family Express early on, cleaning floors and doing whatever was needed.

"It wasn't work for us ... We loved going out with dad," Olympidis said. "We were taught very young the culture of service."

His dad, Gus (Kostas) Olympidis, opened his first convenience store, called Time Low, on the west side of Valparaiso on Christmas Day 1975.

He said he instilled in Dimitri and his two other sons the same strong work ethic.

Dimitri's two younger brothers are Spiro, 37, in charge of fuel procurement, and Alex, 29, vice president of operations.

"It's not an imposition because you love your work," Gus Olympidis said.

Dimitri Olympidis said he was only 4 or 5 when his dad brought him to work at the convenience stores.

"That's where I grew up; dad built it on his back, and we were there with him," Olympidis said.

Anxious to work

Following graduation from Valparaiso High School, Olympidis said he attended Valparaiso University for a while but quit after about a year and a half.

"I was too anxious to get out to work," Olympidis said.

The convenience store started in 1975 has grown to a 65-store chain with three more stores in the works, all located in Indiana.

"My life is about being a student, not at school, but learning every single day," Olympidis said.

Olympidis did strike out on his own for 11 years living and working in California, Washington and Arizona.

"I wanted outside experiences," Olympidis said.

Olympidis started out in sales and ended up operating one of the top franchises for UCC Total Home, now called Direct Buy, a membership club for savings on furniture, decor, kitchens and more.

"I have been relocated back here in Northwest Indiana for the last five years," Olympidis said.

Olympidis said the basics he learned from his dad put him in good stead whether working outside or inside Northwest Indiana.

"What I did out there was not different than what I did here, which is to put emphasis on service and the things I learned when I was 4 years old from my dad," Olympidis said.

In addition to opening three new stores this year, Family Express is always striving to bring new products and services to the public.

One of those new products will be pizza.

"We are on the verge of introducing a high-quality pizza program, the recipe of which is second to none," Olympidis said.

Setting a positive example

Brandi Anstine, chief branding officer at HealthLinc, called Olympidis an outstanding asset to the community.

"Not only is he a positive example of philanthropy, but he is also doing an outstanding job in his role at Family Express," Anstine said.

Olympidis spearheaded two Family Express initiatives: the "Better For You" section and the newly launched Free Fruit for Kids.

"Not only do these campaigns demonstrate innovation, but they also show commitment to health and community. I can only hope more organizations follow this positive example," Anstine said.

Under the Free Fruit for Kids program, children ages 12 and younger could receive a free banana, pear or apple at any of the stores this past summer.

Its part of a broader Better For You initiative that will consolidate more healthful foods such as yogurt, fruit cups and veggies all in one place in Family Express stores.

Gus Olympidis said he is proud of his son's accomplishments, including the fact that he went on his own for 11 years, but came back to work for the family business starting as a sales associate.

"He had to go through the milestones to learn the business. He had to prove himself to his employees," Gus Olympidis said. "It's the joy of my life to work with this young man."
LAPORTE  The president and CEO of LaPorte Hospital has resigned seven months after ownership changed at the for-profit company Community Health Systems.

Thor Thordarson had held the top position at LaPorte Hospital since 2009 and was heading up Starke Hospital in Knox on an interim basis since the departure of its president and CEO, Craig Felty.

Community Health Systems acquired 80 percent ownership of both hospitals in March in a transaction with IU Health, which retained 20 percent ownership. Community Health Systems acquired Porter Hospital in Valparaiso in 2007.

The Tennessee-based Community Health Systems announced a week ago it is exploring a sale of the company or another financial transaction. The health care services company had for years been aggressively acquiring hospitals, becoming one of the countrys largest for-profit hospital chains. But recently, it has been forced to shed hospitals to alleviate debt.

Its three local hospitals last week issued a statement saying they remain focused on operating their facilities in ways that improve the health of their patients and communities.

LaPorte Hospital on Friday gave no reason for Thordarsons departure and he did not return phone calls requesting comment.

In a prepared statement, hospital officials said the search for a permanent CEO will begin immediately.

Members of the board of trustees, medical staff and administration will participate in the search to identify a candidate who will lead our hospital into the future, officials said in the statement.

Gigi Fergus will serve as interim CEO until the search for a permanent CEO is complete, officials said.

Fergus has been serving as a project executive at the hospital for the past several months. She began her career as a registered nurse and subsequently moved into hospital leadership and consulting roles, according to hospital officials.

The administrative changes should not be viewed as a negative or a positive for any of the parties involved because they often happen whenever ownership of a hospital goes into different hands, said Leigh Morris, former president and CEO of LaPorte Hospital.

When youre going through an organizational change like the type the hospital is going through, you have new approaches, new ideas. Its just a typical thing, said Morris, who performed some independent contracting duties for the hospital last year. He is also a former member of the hospital board.

Until Community Health Services took over, the hospital operated under a governing board that maintained control. The board now plays an advisory role, Morris said.

When LaPorte Hospital became affiliated with IU Health, Morris said the hospital maintained its autonomy in terms of its management and leadership.

Thats not the way the Community Health Systems organization operates, Morris said. So, there will be a difference in it. We can only hope that difference will turn out to be a positive for everyone concerned.

Morris said its necessary for the hospital to operate as a business.

If you dont pay attention to the costs and managing of the organization, youre going to be in trouble. A good for-profit organization can do the job very well, said Morris.
MERRILLVILLE  More than 40 small business owners as well as representatives of nonprofit organizations and larger CPA and law firms learned more about the states INBiz online portal at Centier Banks Corporate Centre on Thursday morning.

Whether businesses are a century old or new start-ups, the online portal provides a secure one-stop resource to register and maintain their enterprises, Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson told her audience at the bank.

Launched in April by the Secretary of States office, INBiz is administered by the offices business services division and replaces the states old legacy system that was used for years. All businesses registered on the legacy system are now part of INBiz, she said.

New businesses are one of the driving forces behind Indianas economy, Lawson said.

The aim of the online portal is to make it easier for new and existing companies to do business with the state by allowing them to use one username and password.

The home page at www.inbiz.in.gov allows visitors to do business searches without registering for an account. This business search feature is the most popular with more than 50,000 people accessing the site to date according to Google Analytics, Lawson said.

And the portal has already been expanded, adding links to both the Indiana Department of Workforce Development and Indiana Department of Revenue, Lawson said.

Its a way to cut the red tape for you as small business owners, Lawson told the group. We are now up to 70,000 users.

The new link to the Department of Workforce Development allows registered businesses to pay unemployment taxes and file quarterly reports. A new feature that Lawson calls the electronic briefcase includes My Alerts which will notify a business owner when unemployment taxes are due.

Currently businesses cant file taxes through the link to the Department of Revenue. However, the DOR link allows businesses to handle tax registration, she said.

You can upload documents to the site instead of sending through snail mail, Lawson said.

To meet cyber security concerns, INBiz uses the state-of-the art National Institute of Standards and Technology standards and Microsoft Azure, she said.

We want this to be a simple and efficient customer experience, she said. This has been a journey of many hours and an unprecedented partnership in the State of Indiana. Its totally been worth it.
A procession of artistic proportions will be held at noon today in Chicago.

Arts fans can watch as the Fluxus sculpture Concrete Traffic gets moved to its permanent home in a parking garage at the University of Chicago. Concrete Traffic is a sculpture created by artist Wolf Vostell, who crafted the piece in 1970.

The sculpture weighs 16 tons and is actually a 1957 Cadillac De Ville encased in concrete. The procession will begin at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave., and continue on to the area near the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago where it will be permanently displayed. Along the procession route there will be performances and other programs for people to enjoy.

There will be a free public discussion at MCA Plaza prior to the sculpture being moved. Later at the corner of Ontario and St. Claire Streets where the sculpture was created and parked for months in 1970, there will be a performance inspired by Danger Music by artist Dick Higgins.

This is an amazing opportunity to bring it back, but its also terrifying, said Christine Mehring, chair and professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago. Mehring instituted the conservation of Concrete Traffic.

The sculpture was originally commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art and after a few months at the museums former location near Ontario and St. Clair, it was given to the University of Chicago. It sat in an outdoor lot at 60th Street and Drexel Avenue for quite some time.

Mehring said, through the last four decades, the sculpture had been decaying and when she found out about it, she wanted to help bring the sculpture back to life.

(I learned) we had this great art which was not being showcased well. A lot seemed to be decaying (on it), she said.

The conservation process on the work began about four years ago. I thought we must bring this back to the public, Mehring said.

In storage, a work is not useful, its dormant, she said. Mehring explained that Concrete Traffic, was meant to be a happening when it was made. Its really an event sculpture. Its like a performance.

With the recent return of Concrete Traffic to the University of Chicago and the fact it will have a prominent place to be exhibited once again, there will be a variety of programs held in conjunction with the installation.

These programs or Concrete Happenings will include a Drive-In Happening, which will feature the projection of auto-related movies and videos by Vostell, which takes place Oct. 14 at the Universitys North Parking Garage. For more information on other programs and Concrete Traffic, visit arts.uchicago.edu/concretehappenings.
Theatrical music director Doug Peck said it's rewarding to be working with a rich musical score such as the score in "Wonderful Town" at the Goodman Theatre.

The score, by Leonard Bernstein, features 20 of the stellar composer's tunes.

"This is a beautiful story of two sisters taking care of each other," said Peck, who also worked on the Goodman's "The Jungle Book," "Animal Crackers," and "Candide" among other shows throughout Chicago and other cities.

"Wonderful Town" continues through Oct. 23 at The Goodman Theatre, which opened its new season recently with the production directed by Mary Zimmerman.

Peck said the story of sisters Ruth and Eileen, who head to New York in search of professional success and love, is told with the strong Bernstein compositions in the background propelling it along. The full orchestra in "Wonderful Town," features 17 musicians.

"(Bernstein) was equally comfortable working with classical music (as well) as more theatrical music," Peck said, about the popular composer. Among other beloved Bernstein works were "On The Town" and "West Side Story."

Peck, who is collaborating on this project with associate music director/conductor Ben Johnson, said it's great to work with The Goodman Theatre and its talented roster of artists in presenting this favored work. Staff at The Goodman, he said, respects artists and their work.

"The Goodman gives you time to get (a) show the way you want it," the music director said.

Peck is also particularly excited to be working with a fairly new project at The Goodman, which he co-created. It's a Musical Theater High School Intensive which began last summer.

He said it's open to 25 students each time it's presented and runs three days a week for 8 weeks. "It was a huge success," Peck said, adding he'll be looking to present satellite locations/experiences of the program in the future.

FYI: "Wonderful Town" continues through Oct. 23 at Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, Chicago. Tickets are $25 to $103. Call (312) 443-3800 or visit GoodmanTheatre.org/WonderfulTown.
VALPARAISO  A 25-year-old Crown Point man was sentenced Friday to nearly five years of probation after pleading guilty a couple months ago to a single felony count of sexual misconduct with a minor.

Jacob Anderson was charged with molesting a 14-year-old girl when he was 21 about 50 times between September 2012 and December 2012, according to charging information.

The girl said she felt scared during the abuse because Anderson was quite a bit bigger, according to court documents.

The abuse came to light in January 2015 when the girl told her boyfriend, who in turn encouraged her to tell her mother.

Anderson's mother reportedly told police her son was diagnosed with autism in first grade and that he "does sometimes know the difference between right and wrong," police said.

Anderson struck a deal with prosecutors to drop a second count of sexual misconduct with a minor in return for his guilty plea. The agreement also called for a sentence of five years, with all to be suspended and served on probation except the two days Anderson served behind bars.

Anderson is required to register as sex offender and comply with those restrictions, according to Porter Superior Court Judge Bill Alexa.

He is also to undergo a sex offender evaluation and any recommended treatment, the judge said.
CROWN POINT  Amid a rash of bizarre clown sightings across the U.S., a Crown Point teen dressed in a clown mask reportedly spooked neighbors enough to prompt a call to police Wednesday.

Lake County sheriffs police were dispatched about 1:50 p.m. to the area of Brookside Drive and 123rd Street in reference to a person wearing camouflage and a clown mask, according to police.

Police located the 18-year-old in the 12500 block of Shelby Place. He reportedly told police he thought it would be funny to walk around in a mask. Police let go him with a warning, department spokesman Mark Back said.

Police told the 18-year-old it was not safe for him to do that because he had scared neighbors in the area, Back said.

Other clown sightings have been reported across the U.S. in recent weeks. Some reports have turned out to be hoaxes, while others have resulted in more serious charges.

In Pennsylvania, police are investigating whether someone wearing a clown mask may have provoked a confrontation Sunday that resulted in the fatal stabbing of a 16-year-old boy.

In Martinsburg, Pennsylvania, police charged an 18-year-old with harassing, threatening and prowling after he allegedly rapped on neighbors doors and windows Sunday while wearing a clown mask and displaying an Airsoft toy pistol, according to the Associated Press.

Authorities in Greenville, South Carolina, were among the first to report clown sightings in recent weeks. According to the Associated Press, late last month, children reported clowns trying to lure them into the woods with money, but sheriffs deputies found no evidence of such.

Since that time, people in Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and now Illinois, have reported scary or suspicious clown-related incidents to police, according to the AP.
INDIANAPOLIS  House Democratic Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, is warning Hoosiers that electing Republican Eric Holcomb governor only will continue the states current old-fashioned and backwards-thinking administration.

We can do better, Pelath said. John Gregg will bring the type of pragmatic, common-sense leadership that Hoosiers are crying out for.

The nine-term Region lawmaker was part of a Democratic crew traveling Indiana this week on a Pence-Holcomb Detour tour attempting to link the states recently appointed and largely unknown lieutenant governor with his deeply unpopular benefactor, Gov. Mike Pence.

Pelath said Holcomb is among those in the GOP-dominated Statehouse who seek to pit Hoosiers against each other and intentionally keep a downward pressure on wages.

Whether it be our LGBT community, whether it be our workers who struggle to make it to the job site every day, (they) too often attack these people as being a problem rather than embracing them as being part of the solution, Pelath said.

He also cited the Cline Avenue Bridge in East Chicago, closed for nearly seven years, as an example of what happens when Republicans like Pence and Holcomb are too busy pushing a divisive social issues agenda to address key infrastructure needs.

What (Hoosiers) want is long-term leadership thats focused on real growth and real issues that matter to real people, Pelath said.

Indiana Republican Party Chairman Jeff Cardwell responded by declaring that Gregg  the Indiana House speaker from 1996-2002  already had his shot to improve the state.

He could have left Indiana with a reserve balance or brought about full-day kindergarten and pre-K, but instead, he used his influence to help himself and his friends, Cardwell said.

Holcomb never has been elected to public office.
MERRILLVILLE  Every year, Influential Women of Northwest Indiana celebrates the achievements and success of female leaders in 11 different industries, from business and construction to government and healthcare.

On Thursday, more than 750 people and representatives of more than 300 businesses gathered at the 2016 Influential Women of Northwest Indiana awards banquet at Avalon Manor to honor Northwest Indianas female leaders who contribute and have a positive influence on their communities.

Selected from a pool of more than 200 nominees, 22 received accolades in those 11 categories, with one named Influential Woman and another Up-And-Coming Woman in each of the industries. Four women, one man and a major corporation were also honored with awards including the 2016 Torch Award, the 2016 Supporter of the Year and the 2016 Empowering Business of the Year.

During the ceremonies, 2015 Influential Woman winner Mary Shacklett said Influential Women alumni have impacted the Northwest Indiana region in many ways.

Many of us are the first women in our organization that broke the glass ceiling to reach the top management rung, said Shacklett, senior vice president of finance and chief financial officer with Community Healthcare System. We were able to achieve that status by working hard, proving ourselves and making our companies more successful.

Leane Cerven, from Northwest Indiana Bancorp/Peoples Bank, received the 2016 Overall Influential Woman of the Year award, while Kristin Johnson of SecurMAR, LLC was honored as the 2016 Overall Up & Coming Woman of the Year.

The 2016 Community Leader of the Year award was presented to Sue Reed, of the Crossroads Regional Chamber of Commerce. Ellen DeMartinis, of Opportunity Enterprises Inc., netted the 2016 Torch Award.

Ed Kasza, of The Little Guys Home Technology, received the 2016 Supporter of the Year award and Strack & Van Til was honored with the 2016 Empowering Business of the Year award.

Throughout its history, Influential Women of Northwest Indiana has donated more than $80,000 to charities and nonprofits dedicated to assisting women and children.
EAST CHICAGO  Residents living within the citys lead- and arsenic-contaminated Calumet neighborhood can learn more about available resources during a public meeting Saturday.

The meeting  hosted by Calumet residents incorporating as a nonprofit called We the People will be from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at American Legion Allied Post 369, 1401 W. Chicago Ave., in East Chicago, according to a news release from the group.

Residents can find out how to get involved in the groups efforts to form a Community Advisory Group, which will ultimately include representatives from all cleanup zones of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys Superfund site, according to the release.

The forming of a Community Advisory Group will allow residents to participate in the EPAs cleanup process of the Superfund site in a meaningful way, according to the release.

The EPAs Superfund site is divided by three zones  bounded by Chicago Avenue to the north, 151st Street to the south, the Indiana Harbor Canal to the west and Parrish Avenue to the east.

A team of pro bono lawyers advocating on behalf of Calumet residents regarding housing, environment and health issues will also be on hand, according to the release.
HOBOKEN, N.J.  A rush-hour commuter train crashed through a barrier at the busy Hoboken station and lurched across the waiting area Thursday morning, killing one person and injuring more than 100 others in a grisly wreck that renewed questions about whether long-delayed automated safety technology could have prevented the tragedy.

People pulled chunks of concrete off pinned and bleeding victims, passengers kicked out windows and crawled to safety, and cries and screams could be heard in the wreckage as emergency workers rushed to reach the injured in the tangle of twisted metal and dangling wires just across the Hudson River from New York City.

The New Jersey Transit train ran off the end of the track as was pulling in around 8:45 a.m., smashing through a concrete-and-steel bumper. As it ground to a halt in the waiting area, the train knocked out pillars, collapsing a section of the roof.

The train didnt stop. It just didnt stop, said Tom Spina, who was in the terminal and rushed to try to help the victims.

Ross Bauer was sitting in the third or fourth car when the train entered the historic 109-year-old station, a bustling hub for commuters heading to New York City.

All of a sudden, there was an abrupt stop and a big jolt that threw people out of their seats. The lights went out, and we heard a loud crashing noise like an explosion as the roof fell, he said. I heard panicked screams, and everyone was stunned.

The engineer was pulled from the mangled first car and hospitalized, but officials said he had been released by evening. He was cooperating with investigators, Gov. Chris Christie said.

A woman standing on the platform  identified as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, of Hoboken, a former employee in the legal department of the business software company SAP in Brazil  was killed by debris, and 108 others were injured, mostly on the train, Christie said. Seventy-four hospitalized, some with serious injuries that included broken bones.

The train came in at much too high rate of speed, and the question is: Why is that? Christie said. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said investigators will determine whether the explanation was equipment failure, an incapacitated engineer or something else.

Some witnesses said they didnt hear or feel the brakes being applied before the crash. Authorities would not estimate how fast the train was going. But the speed limit heading into the station is 10 mph.

The National Transportation Safety Board planned to pull one of the black-box event recorders Thursday evening from the locomotive at the back of the train. The device contains information on the trains speed and braking.

But it wasnt safe enough yet for investigators to extract the second recorder from the engineers compartment because of the collapsed roof and the possibility of asbestos in the old building, NTSB Vice Chairwoman Bella Dinh-Zarr said.

Investigators will examine the engineers performance and the condition of the train, track and signals, among other things, she said. They also plan to look into whether positive train control  a system designed to prevent accidents by overriding the engineer and automatically slowing or stopping trains that are going too fast  could have helped.

None of NJ Transits trains is fully equipped with positive train control, which relies on radio and GPS signals to monitor trains position and speed.

The NTSB has been pressing for some version of the technology for at least 40 years, and the industry is under government orders to install it, but regulators have repeatedly extended the deadline at railroads request. The target date is now the end of 2018.

While we are just beginning to learn the cause of this crash, it appears that once again an accident was not prevented because the trains our commuters were riding lacked positive train control, said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y. The longer we fail to prioritize investing in rail safety technology, the more innocent lives we put in jeopardy.

Both Cuomo and Christie said that it is too soon to say whether such technology would have made a difference.

Over the past 20 years, the NTSB has listed the lack of positive train control as a contributing factor in 25 crashes. Those include the Amtrak wreck last year in Philadelphia in which a speeding train ran off the rails along a curve. Eight people were killed.

Even without positive train control, there are still safeguards in place at the Hoboken terminal.

NJ Transit trains going into Hoboken have an in-cab system that is designed to alert engineers and stop locomotives when they go over 20 mph, according to an NJ Transit engineer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the accident.

Trains like the one in Thursdays crash are also equipped with an alerter system  a sort of dead mans device  that sounds a loud alarm and eventually stops the train if the engineer goes 15 to 20 seconds without touching the controls.

But it was not clear whether those mechanisms kicked in or would have made a difference if they had.

The train was not equipped with an inward-facing camera in the cab that could give a fuller picture of the operators actions, though Dinh-Zarr said it did have outward-facing cameras on both ends.

The Hoboken terminal handles more than 50,000 train and bus riders daily, many of them headed into New York City. After arriving at Hoboken, they take ferries or PATH commuter trains across the river to the city.

Passengers said the train, which set out from Spring Valley, New York, was crowded, with standing room only in the typically popular first few cars, but authorities had no immediate estimate of how many were aboard.

Jamie Weatherhead-Saul was standing at a door between the first and second cars. She said the crash hurled passengers against her, and one woman got her leg caught between the doors before fellow riders managed to pull her up.

Michael Larson, an NJ Transit employee working in the terminal about 30 feet away, said he saw the train go over the bumper block and lift up into the air, stopping only when it hit the wall of the stations waiting room.

As the train hurtled into the depot amid concrete dust and dangling electrical wires, I couldnt believe what I was seeing, he said.

William Blaine, an engineer for a company that runs freight trains, said he saw the trains engineer slumped over the controls after the crash.

More than 100,000 people use NJ Transit trains to commute from New Jersey into New York City every day. With the Hoboken station still closed as of Thursday evening, NJ Transit trains out of Penn Station in Manhattan were crowded with commuters forced to find a detour around Hoboken.

My 30-minute commute is turning into at least an hour and a half, said Steve Malfitano, who had to go into New York just to get from one New Jersey city to another. But he added: It is what it is. Its better than what those people had to go through.

In 2011, a PATH commuter train crash at the Hoboken station injured more than 30 people. The train slammed into bumpers at the end of the tracks on a Sunday morning.
There isnt a more repugnant example of self-entitlement in local government than the case of disgraced former Lake Station Mayor Keith Soderquist.

The four-year federal prison sentence shackled to Soderquist Wednesday should send a meaningful shudder through the ranks of any unscrupulous public officials who have stolen  or are thinking of stealing  from taxpayers.

It also should be a bucket of cold water, reviving voters and reminding them to demand an end to the patronage, nepotism and culture of political self-entitlement that has led to more than 60 Northwest Indiana public corruption convictions in recent decades.

Among his transgressions, Soderquist was convicted of stealing from the citys food pantry, which serves a community with its share of economically struggling residents. The former mayor also was found guilty of misusing money from his election campaign.

It was all to finance gambling excursions Soderquist took with his wife, Deborah, who ran the food pantry and also was convicted in the scheme.

Its an extreme sickness of the mind when people seek public office, supposedly to serve the public, only to enrich themselves at public expense.

In Soderquists case, it was so ingrained he couldnt even muster a proper apology during his Wednesday sentencing hearings in U.S. District Court, Hammond.

Judge Rudy Lozano asked Soderquist if he had anything to say before prescribing sentence.

Soderquist apologized to his wife and stepdaughter, both convicted co-defendants in his cases, for the trouble he caused them.

Its enough to turn the stomachs of each and every one of us.

Soderquist should have apologized to the residents of Lake Station for stealing. He should have apologized to the needy of Lake Station he shorted by stealing from a food pantry to fund his gambling thrills.

Actions like those of Soderquist and the dozens of other criminally convicted elected officials or their connected contractors keep a white-hot spotlight trained on sitting Region government leaders.

To those leaders: All eyes are on you. Most of you dont have to be told not to steal or commit other crimes against your constituents.

None of you should have to be told.

For those who dont get it, we all must remind them that public disgrace and prison cells await.
Consider the phrase "President Kaine," because if Hillary Clinton, for any reason, has to leave office that will be your POTUS! Mike Pence has more experience than Mr. Kaine. I for one may not like Mike Pence, but I don't know anything about Mr. Kaine. Does he have any idea how to run the government? I wouldn't have any faith in the man's ability. But you Hillary fanatics give Mr Kaine the chance and NEVER complain if it happens!
Murder charges

filed in deaths

ELKHART, Ind.  A Fort Wayne woman who told police she killed two of her children has been formally charged with two counts of murder.

The Elkhart County prosecutors office filed the charges Friday against 29-year-old Amber Pasztor in the asphyxiation deaths of 7-year-old Liliana Hernandez and 6-year-old Rene Pasztor. Elkhart police found the bodies of the children Monday evening hours after they were abducted from the home of their custodial grandparents and authorities issued an Amber Alert for them.

Jail records show Pasztors due to make her first court appearance Thursday. Shes being held without bond in the Elkhart County Correctional Facility.

Prosecutor Curtis Hill Jr. says Pasztor also is a suspect in the shooting death of a neighbor, 65-year-old Frank Macomber, whose car she was driving when she was arrested.
FORT WAYNE, Ind.  Gov. Mike Pence, the Republican vice presidential nominee, returned home to Indiana on Friday to campaign for GOP candidates for governor and U.S. Senate  both of whom are locked in tight races.

During a subdued rally in Fort Wayne, Pence lavished praise on his anointed successor, Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb, and Senate candidate Todd Young.

Young, a Republican congressman, faces Democrat Evan Bayh  a former governor and senator who unexpectedly joined the race in July after former U.S. Rep. Baron Hill struggled to get traction and ultimately dropped out of the race. Holcomb was tapped to be the GOP gubernatorial nominee after Pence dropped his re-election bid to become Donald Trumps running mate in July. He faces former Democratic state House Speaker John Gregg.

This is not any ordinary election, Pence said, urging those in attendance to help turn out voters for Young and Holcomb, whom he called the states next great governor.

Pences campaign schedule has made him largely absent from the state and he has appeared at just a handful of events since he was selected. While the appearance was ostensibly to boost the candidacies of GOP nominees, most of his remarks were about Trump.

As he has several times on the campaign trail, Pence appeared to try to soften recent remarks by Trump, who posted a series of late night tweets attacking a former Miss Universe referenced by Hillary Clinton on Monday in the presidential debate.

The media and the Democrats, they seem helpless to figure him out. They all keep telling each other the usual methods, the usual methods are going to work against him. Now we got him. He said this, he tweeted that, Pence said.

They think they finally got him right where they want him and then they turn on the TV the next morning and Donald Trump is still standing strong.

Democrats noted Pence has had a low approval rating in Indiana and said the rally was a sign that the two GOP candidates are in trouble, particularly Holcomb.

Having unpopular Mike Pence hold a campaign stop for his hand-picked lieutenant Eric Holcomb in Fort Wayne means one thing  Holcomb is in trouble with the GOP base, said John Zody, the states Democratic chairman.
BEIRUT  A year of Russian airstrikes on areas outside government control in Syria have killed more than 9,000 people, displaced tens of thousands and caused widespread destruction, an opposition monitoring group said Friday.

On Sept. 30 last year, Russia began an air campaign backing the ground forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, turning the balance of power in his favor in many areas  including the northern province of Aleppo and the suburbs of the capital Damascus.

Opposition activists have blamed Russia for most of the recent airstrikes against rebel-held neighborhoods of east Aleppo city that have killed more than 320 civilians in the past two weeks and demolished many buildings.

The anniversary came as violence in different parts of Syria claimed more lives Friday, mainly in Aleppo city where at least 12 people were killed and dozens more wounded.

A Syrian opposition monitoring group that tracks Syrias civil war said a year of Russian airstrikes have killed 9,364 people in the war-torn country.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead include 3,804 civilians, among them 906 children. The dead also include 2,746 members of the Islamic State group and 2,814 from other rebel and militant groups, including al-Qaidas affiliate in Syria.

Russia on Friday is marking one year since it launched its air campaign in Syria in support of Assad. In light of that, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a warning to Russians abroad about possible provocations, urging them to exercise caution.

A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russias involvement in Syria is justified by the fact that militants have not managed to capture the capital, Damascus. Marking the 1st anniversary, Dmitry Peskov said that Putin never gave a timeline for how long the bombing mission might last and still wont.

Russias declared goal was to support the Syrian government of Russias long-term ally Assad and Peskov insisted that in that respect the operation has been a success.

If it wasnt for the Russian involvement, the Islamic State group and other terrorists would have been sitting in Damascus, he told reporters.

Regarding figures cited by the Observatory on casualties as a result of the airstrikes, he said he would not comment reports by a group based in the U.K. The Observatory relies on a network of activists on the ground inside Syria.

Also Friday, Russias Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow is doing all it can together with the Syrian government to help the U.N. arrange weekly pauses in Aleppo to deliver humanitarian goods. Its the Nusra-controlled people in eastern Aleppo who refuse, he said referring to the al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham Front, which used to be known as the Nusra Front.

Speaking to BBC about his countrys military operations in Syria, Lavrov said: We are not using any munition which is prohibited by the United Nations. I can assure.

The backers of the opposition blasted the Russian intervention.

Russia claims to be committed to a political solution in Syria, yet since its military intervention, the brutal Assad regime still clings to power. Russias action has not curbed the regimes atrocities, said Britains Special Representative to Syria, Gareth Bayley. Russia has proved to be either unwilling or unable to influence Assad and must bear its responsibility for the Assad regimes atrocities.

A video posted on the oppositions Shaam News Network described Russias military operations in Syria as a year of crimes. It said that after a year of airstrikes Russia has not been able to defeat the insurgents.

Russia continues to blame the U.S. government and U.S.-backed insurgents for the collapse of a cease-fire earlier this month after only one week. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in a phone call Friday that Washington must force the factions it supports to split from the Fatah al-Sham Front, according to Lavrovs office. The front is deeply intertwined with multiple other factions regarded by Washington as moderates.

The State Department has threatened to end all diplomatic discussions with Moscow on Syria if the assault on Aleppo continues. On Friday State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters that the threat remains on the table.

Were on the verge because we have not yet seen them take the type of actions we are looking for them to take, Toner said.

This is on life support, he said of U.S.-Russian diplomacy. But its not flat-lined yet.

A year after the airstrikes began, Syrian troops pushed into rebel-held eastern Aleppo, a move that was highly unlikely before the Russian airstrikes began.

The Observatory said government forces captured a hospital in the city a day after regaining control of a nearby Palestinian refugee camp.

The Syrian military said government forces are strengthening their positions in the largely abandoned Handarat refugee camp and took control on Friday of the Kindi hospital, an unused structure that has been damaged by years of war.

The Observatory said the hospital is on the northern edge of the city, just 2 kilometers (1.3 miles) from a major intersection north of Aleppo known as the Gondol roundabout.

State TV also reported intense fighting in the central Suleiman al-Halaby area where it said troops captured several buildings. The area is home to a main water station that supplies Aleppo, Syrias largest city and former commercial center, with drinking water.

The Local Coordination Committees, another monitoring group, said eight soldiers were killed in clashes with rebels near the water station.

Syrian government forces have been on the offensive in Aleppo for days under the cover of intense airstrikes. State news agency SANA said rebels shelled the government-held part of Aleppo, killing 20 and wounding 55.

The Civil Defense volunteer first responder forces said airstrikes in Aleppo killed 24 people, adding that search operations are continuing to recover more people trapped under the rubble. The Observatory said Fridays airstrikes on several rebel-held neighborhoods in the city killed 12 adding that the death toll was expected to rise.

The U.N. health agency decried an unfathomable situation for medical care in rebel-held parts of Aleppo, pleading for a halt to the violence that has prevented aid and support from entering.

Dr. Rick Brennan, emergency risk director for the World Health Organization, said the security situation is too dangerous for outside medical personnel to enter rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

Speaking Friday to reporters in Geneva, Brennan appealed for permission to evacuate the sick and injured. He said 846 people have been wounded, including 261 children, in the last couple of weeks.

He said fewer than 30 doctors doing work thats beyond heroic are now in eastern Aleppo, where at least 250,000 people live under siege.
Do your students know who Glenn Beck is? He is a conservative radio host and media personality who surprised many this summer when he urged his fellow conservatives to understand the Black Lives Matter movement. He then published an Op-Ed essay in The Times that begins:

In a recent speech to a group of conservatives, I made what I thought was a relatively uncontroversial point about the commonalities between Trump supporters and Black Lives Matter activists. I thought this was a simple idea, but the criticism was immediate and sharp: How dare I try to understand the other side? But as people, wouldnt we all benefit from trying to empathize with people we disagree with?

Have them read what he has to say  and read some of the 919 comments Times readers made in response. What do they think of the argument he makes? What issues about which they feel passionately might they seek to understand from an opposing point of view?

_________

6. Back up statements with evidence and sources.

These days it seems like politics and propaganda take precedence over rational discussion, especially when the conversation goes online,  writes Chris Sloan in an essay at KQED Education on Teaching the Art of Civil Dialogue. He suggests teaching argument the way its been conceived since Aristotles time.

It seems that everyone agrees that in order to be college and career ready our students need to know how to write argument and back it up with evidence. In reality, this approach falls short when our own assumptions are challenged; however, research shows that learning gains are greatest in these moments of cognitive dissonance.

The winners of our annual Student Editorial Contest, in which we invite students to write about an issue that matters to you but back it up with evidence both from The Times and elsewhere, can provide models for how to do this. You might invite students to scroll through the essays and find a few that interest them to see how the evidence is woven in.

And this related lesson plan can help with tips and ideas. In it, we quote Andrew Rosenthal, former Times editorial page editor, who made a video for our contest and reminds students to do their research. He says:

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, youre not entitled to your own facts. Go online, make calls if you can, check your information, double-check it. Theres nothing that will undermine your argument faster than a fact you got wrong, that you did not have to get wrong.

_________

7. Listen better, and ask genuine questions that seek to help you understand rather than judge.
WASHINGTON  Federal auditors ruled on Thursday that the Obama administration had violated the law by paying health insurance companies more than allowed under the Affordable Care Act in an effort to hold down insurance premiums.

Some of the money was supposed to be deposited in the Treasury, said auditors from the Government Accountability Office.

The administration ignored the statutory requirement to collect funds for the Treasury, even though the requirement was expressed in explicitly mandatory language, the accountability office said in a legal opinion.

The Obama administration had defended its interpretation of the law, saying the payments to insurers were needed to help moderate increases in premiums under the Affordable Care Act.
 The new Dior is coming! Maria Grazia Chiuri, who revitalized Valentino with her partner in design, Pierpaolo Piccioli, has struck out on her own as the new artistic director of Dior, the first woman to hold the position in the 69-year history of the house. (She follows Raf Simons in the role, who has moved on to New York and to Calvin Klein.) What to expect? At the very least, the latest iteration of that most sacred Dior totem, the Bar jacket, first designed by Monsieur Dior himself and reinterpreted by all of his interpreters since Gianfranco Ferre in the 80s. In other words, the new, new, new, new New Look.
Edie Windsor, the veteran L.G.B.T. activist who emerged as arguably the most famous figure in the marriage equality movement, has gotten married again.

On Monday, she and her new partner, Judith Kasen, a vice president at Wells Fargo Advisors, were wed at City Hall in New York.

The city clerk was Michael McSweeney; the officiant was Angel Lopez.

It was an understated ceremony. The brides arrived in a black Uber car with just one witness, Danielle Reda, Ms. Kasens best friend.

Ms. Windsor and Ms. Kasen wore black suits and wound up at the clerks office a little later than usual because Ms. Reda forgot to bring identification and had to run back to the Upper East Side, where Ms. Kasen has an apartment, to retrieve it.
Federal health officials on Thursday advised pregnant women to consider postponing nonessential travel to 11 countries in Southeast Asia where the Zika virus was circulating.

The warning from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was not as urgent as those issued starting in January, which advised pregnant women to avoid Latin American and Caribbean countries overwhelmed by the Zika epidemic.

The countries cited in the new advisory by the C.D.C. include Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

The C.D.C. has warned pregnant women since Aug. 30 to avoid Singapore because of a fast-growing outbreak there.
Powerful, infuriating and at times overwhelming, Ava DuVernays documentary 13TH will get your blood boiling and tear ducts leaking. It shakes you up, but it also challenges your ideas about the intersection of race, justice and mass incarceration in the United States, subject matter that could not sound less cinematic. Yet Ms. DuVernay  best known for Selma, and a filmmaker whose art has become increasingly inseparable from her activism  has made a movie thats as timely as the latest Black Lives Matter protest and the approaching presidential election.

The movie hinges on the 13th Amendment, as the title indicates, in ways that may be surprising, though less so for those familiar with Michelle Alexanders 2010 best seller, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Ratified in 1865, the amendment states in full: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. As Ms. Alexander underscores, slavery was abolished for everyone except criminals. (13TH opens the New York Film Festival on Friday; it will be in theaters and on Netflix beginning on Oct. 7.)

Image Angela Davis, scholar and activist, in 13TH. Credit... Netflix

In her book, Ms. Alexander (the most charismatic of the movies interviewees) argues that mass incarceration exists on a continuum with slavery and Jim Crow. As one of the three major racialized systems of control adopted in the United States to date, it ensures the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race. Under the old Jim Crow, state laws instituted different rules for blacks and whites, segregating them under the doctrine of separate but equal. Now, with the United States having 25 percent of the worlds prisoners, a disproportionate number of whom are black, mass incarceration has become metaphorically, the new Jim Crow.
Asked if he recalled Mr. ODowd screaming at Mr. Baroni for not getting the county executive the money fast enough, Mr. Wildstein replied, Yes, sir, I do.

The governor wanted the Port Authority to give that money to the Hudson Urban League so that Sandy Cunningham wouldnt run against Steven Fulop, right? Mr. Baldassare asked.

That is my understanding, yes sir, Mr. Wildstein replied.

Mr. Baldassare attempted to discredit Mr. Wildstein by asking him to recount how he had bragged to friends about some of his more colorful political exploits. He stole Senator Frank R. Lautenbergs suit jacket before a debate, so the senator would be uncomfortable as he debated the candidate Mr. Wildstein was working for.

When a local newspaper endorsed a rival candidate, Mr. Wildstein said he went out early in the morning and bought every paper in town so no one would read it. He offered to deliver petitions for a candidate opposing him in a local election, then threw them out so that he could win.

And once, in a phone call, Mr. Wildstein said he pretended to be a representative of the actor Alan Alda, to try to convince an adversary that Mr. Alda wanted to run for the United States Senate in New Jersey.

Mr. Baldassare argued that Mr. Wildstein had begun the bridge scheme with the hopes of bragging that he had moved the cones to change the lanes. And once he had been caught, he tried to drag in Mr. Baroni and Ms. Kelly.

Sir, I never had the intention of bragging about the cones, Mr. Wildstein said.

Mr. Wildstein began working with prosecutors the week after the scheme to close the lanes became public in January 2014, when a legislative subpoena revealed an email to him from Ms. Kelly a month before the lane closings: Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.
A 44-year-old battalion chief with the New York City Fire Department who was killed by debris after a house exploded in the Bronx this week has been promoted to deputy chief, the mayor and the fire commissioner said on Thursday.

The announcement came as investigators dug through the rubble on the property in the Kingsbridge neighborhood to determine if the blast had been caused by someone tampering with a gas line. The authorities have said marijuana was growing in the house and have arrested two men, though neither has been charged in connection with the explosion.

One of the men, Garivaldi Castillo, 32, of the Washington Heights neighborhood in Manhattan, was arraigned on felony drug possession charges on Thursday. The second man, Julio Jose Salcedo Contrer, 34, of Cliffside Park, N.J., was expected to face the same charges, the police said.

The explosion on Tuesday killed Chief Michael J. Fahy, a 17-year veteran, who was directing operations at the two-story house on West 234th Street, where firefighters were investigating a reported gas leak. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Daniel A. Nigro, the fire commissioner, announced Chief Fahys promotion on Thursday, and said he had passed the exam in 2013.
The abuse that 4-year-old Myls Dobson suffered  the beatings, burnings and deprivation  lasted for three weeks and ended with his death in January 2014. The prison term his killer faces will be far longer than the life the little boy had.

The woman who was charged with beating the boy to death in a Manhattan apartment while he was in her care pleaded guilty on Thursday to murder, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., announced.

The woman, Kryzie King, 29, also pleaded guilty to assault and attempted assault and faces a prison term of 22 years to life. Ms. King admitted that she had repeatedly beaten Myls over a three-week period until his death, binding his hands and feet and whipping him with electric cords and belt buckles, Mr. Vance said.

The plea, in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, came a week after Justice Robert Stolz offered the sentence, slightly less than the maximum of 25 years to life that the district attorney had proposed at previous court appearances. She is to be formally sentenced on Oct. 21.
Even before one of its trains crashed in Hoboken Terminal on Thursday morning, killing one woman and injuring more than 100 others, New Jersey Transit was an agency in distress.

The third-busiest commuter system in the country, New Jersey Transit has been operating without an executive director for nearly a year, its board of directors has not met for three months and it has not explained how it will close a $45 million gap in its budget this year. Last month, two of its buses collided in downtown Newark, leaving two people dead.

The cause of the fatal train crash has not been determined. But whether it proves to have been a case of human error or of mechanical failure, it is sure to focus more attention on a transit agency that has been operating in secrecy.

New Jersey Transits management has been told to go into a bear cave and disappear until told to come back out, said Martin E. Robins, a former deputy executive director of the agency. We dont know anything about whats going on.

Mr. Robins, who has been a critic of the agency in recent years, said he could not recall its board suspending monthly public meetings before this year. It has done so since June, when New Jersey Transits interim management grappled with a state budget that left the agency about $45 million short of what it needed to operate this year.

Since then, Gov. Chris Christie and legislative leaders have failed to reach an agreement on an increase in New Jerseys gas tax that would have replenished the states Transportation Trust Fund. That fund, which nearly ran dry this summer, provided more than one-fifth of New Jersey Transits annual budget. In July, Mr. Christie ordered the suspension of all highway and transit projects paid for by the trust fund.

Mr. Robins and other transit advocates warned that cutting off financing for so many improvements could lead to more mechanical and safety problems.

It does beg the question how quickly and how severely is the transit infrastructure in New Jersey failing, given the inadequate funding and resources that theyre being given, said Veronica Vanterpool, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. The public has a right to know what the budget numbers are, how is N.J. Transit staying afloat these days? How are they covering their day-to-day operating costs?

Mr. Robins pointed to the sharp reduction in the annual contribution to New Jersey Transit from the states general fund, less than $35 million last year  about one-tenth of what it was in 2009.

This is not an incompetent agency, Mr. Robins said in an interview earlier in the week. What youre dealing with is an agency thats being systematically starved.

And since November, it has been an agency without an established leader.

Veronique Hakim, who was highly regarded as the executive director, resigned to join the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York. After a search for a successor, New Jersey Transit held a special meeting in April to appoint William Crosbie. But Mr. Crosbie turned down the job, leaving Dennis Martin the interim director for an indefinite period.

Right now, theres a leadership vacuum at the agency, Ms. Vanterpool said.

While its management and funding have been in flux, New Jersey Transit had not been plagued by safety issues heading into this summer. But that changed dramatically on the morning of Aug. 19, when a bus carrying passengers in downtown Newark crossed the path of an empty bus. The collision sliced one bus in half and killed one of the drivers. A passenger died later from her injuries.

On Monday morning, two New Jersey Transit buses collided in the Lincoln Tunnel, injuring dozens of passengers and causing long delays for other commuters trying to get into Manhattan.

But according to federal records, the last New Jersey Transit rail accident that resulted in the death of a passenger happened 20 years ago. On a February morning in 1996, a Hoboken-bound train overshot a stopping point and ran into the path of another New Jersey Transit train. The engineers of both trains and one passenger were killed, and more than 160 others were injured.

Rail-safety advocates argue that crashes like that one could be prevented by a technology known as positive train control, which automatically brakes a train that has run a stop signal or exceeded speed limits. Federal officials have called for passenger railroads to adopt positive train control by the end of 2018.

In its 2015 annual report, New Jersey Transit said that it had equipped a locomotive and a cab car with the components needed for the system and that it would start installing hardware along tracks this year when design plans are finalized. The Federal Railroad Administration said that New Jersey Transit had not yet installed the technology.

It was not clear on Thursday whether the system could have prevented the crash in Hoboken.

At a news conference, Mr. Christie, a Republican, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, a Democrat, were reluctant to address that question. Mr. Christie said officials first had to determine the cause before deciding what steps should be taken in the future. We cannot answer whether any other apparatus or system could have prevented it, Mr. Christie said.

Mr. Cuomo said that the technology could help in some circumstances, but that officials did not yet know why the train was traveling at a high speed.

Hundreds of people die on the nations rails each year, but the vast majority of them are motorists or pedestrians who get in the paths of trains and are struck. Workplace accidents kill railroad workers far less often, but still fairly regularly.

Passenger fatalities are much rarer, about seven for every 100 million miles traveled by passenger trains. But there have been some major, recent exceptions.

Last year, six people died, including five passengers, when a Metro-North Railroad train hit an S.U.V. on the tracks  the worst accident in the railroads history. Three months later, an Amtrak train derailed while going too fast around a curve in Philadelphia, killing eight people.
One man threatened to marshal 1,000 votes against any elected official who dared to disagree with him. A woman who took an opposing stance was warned about making enemies. Another was so distressed she broke down in tears in front of her 4-year-old.

The issue causing so much anger and consternation: where children will go to elementary school in a section of the Upper West Side. New York City has proposed to move some blocks out of the zone of a popular school, Public School 199, which is mostly white and well off, into that of a lower-performing nearby school, Public School 191, where the students are largely poor and black or Hispanic. The city hopes to achieve a more diverse racial and economic mix at the schools, as well as relieve overcrowding at P.S. 199.

The debate is now stretching into its second year  the city dropped its effort last year amid protests. It has grown, if anything, more rancorous, with local elected officials castigating City Hall for not listening to parents concerns.

Im just livid, Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal, a Democrat, said at a meeting about the rezoning on Wednesday evening, admonishing Education Department officials not to think they could pull the wool over everyones face.
The plan, according to City Hall, is to use $16 million  the equivalent of the proceeds that the Department of Citywide Administrative Services accepted in exchange for lifting the deed restriction last year  to build a new center at 30 Pike Street on land owned by the city and used by the Environmental Protection Department as a repair yard. The total cost of construction could exceed that amount, though Eric Phillips, a spokesman for the mayor, said it was not expected to be substantially more.

Mr. Shorriss testimony followed reports from two inquiries by the Investigation Department and by the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, as well as supplementary materials in the form of emails, memos and other records related to the decision to sell Rivington House to a for-profit nursing home company, Allure Group, in 2015. After paying the city to remove the deed restriction, which had limited the propertys use to nonprofit health care services, the company sold the building to a luxury condominium developer for $116 million.

Councilman Ben Kallos of Manhattan asked why Mr. Shorris had not followed up to make sure his decision  that the center should remain a nursing home  had been observed.

Council member, the government is large and we have very excellent staff, Mr. Shorris said. I dont personally execute the decisions I make. He said no one had been disciplined over the matter.

Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, has said that he learned of the issue with Rivington House from news reports in late March. But Mr. Shorris testified that he informed the mayor of the issue after requesting in late February that the Investigation Department begin its inquiry. Mr. Phillips, the mayors spokesman, later said that those two events were contemporaneous and occurred in late March.

The City Council hearing, which finally took place after a several-month delay, did not include testimony from Stacey Cumberbatch, the former head of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services. Ms. Cumberbatch left that post in January, two months after the city lifted the deed restriction and weeks after anger over the nursing homes fate began percolating.

Mr. Shorris said her departure had nothing to do with Rivington House, though he pointedly did not answer a yes-or-no question as to whether she was asked to step down, saying only that he had approved her leave and move to NYC Health & Hospitals. (She has since retired.)
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Any American under the age of 50 has no memory of living with a liberal Supreme Court. That could change soon. Were a Democratic appointee to fill the current opening, laws could change on voting rights, corporate power, campaign finance, criminal justice and many other issues.

For the first time in decades, Jeffrey Toobin writes in the current New Yorker, there is now a realistic chance that the Supreme Court will become an engine of progressive change rather than an obstacle to it.

Toobins article got me thinking about how quickly the Supreme Court is likely to dominate the political scene if Hillary Clinton wins.
President Obama campaigned hard in 2008 for the votes of American Indians. He vowed that his administration would pay special attention to their grievances about federal mismanagement and the governments recurring neglect of treaty obligations. Few have been ignored by Washington for as long as Native Americans  the first Americans, he told the Crow Nation in Montana, promising a change.

Flash forward to this week as Mr. Obama attended his eighth and final White House Tribal Nations Conference, an annual summit meeting of Indian leaders he instituted. He received praise for actually delivering on his pledge in multiple ways, including the announcement of $492 million in lawsuit settlements with 17 American Indian tribes for alleged federal mismanagement of their funds and lands. The government holds more than 100,000 leases to manage about 56 million acres of tribal lands rich in mining, timber and oil resources that have historically been exploited at the tribes expense.

The settlement was the latest in the administrations resolution of more than 100 tribal claims, some of them a century old, at a cost of more than $3.3 billion. Separate from that, the administration settled a complex, 13-year-old lawsuit in 2009, agreeing to pay $3.4 billion in compensation for federal mishandling of hundreds of thousands of land trust accounts. That signaled a sea change in the long and bitter history of Washingtons treatment of tribal interests and grievances.

Beyond that, Mr. Obama was given credit by tribal leaders for creating a White House council to maintain lines of communication with them; establishing a buyback program to help tribes regain scattered lands; expanding the jurisdiction of tribal courts; and including tribal women under the protection of the Violence Against Women law in 2013.
I think the writers have really taken it over the top. Its like watching Scandal in its eighth season where you just feel that they have exhausted every possible trick and theyre emptying their notebooks at you.

Would you commit to another season? I think Id like to see it recast.

And we chat with Susan Dominus, of The Times Magazine, about the surprising ways that gender is playing out in pop cultural depictions of Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton in this campaign, a topic she is studying closely this year.

If we are going to extend gender stereotypes all the way to their worst place, its celebrity, lightweight  that reads as in some ways feminine and inconsequential or not perceived as a real threat, Ms. Dominus says. And in that sense, Mr. Trump, in some ways, is the more feminized figure. For all of his bluster, when was the last time that people were this obsessed with a candidates hair? Ms. Dominus asks. It was Hillary in 2008!

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Mr. Fallenberg found a real estate agent and looked at 20 places in the Old City, Acres ancient neighborhood of winding streets and narrow, often dilapidated homes. He found a four-room home still under the ownership of a family whose great-grandfather had come to Acre from Turkey. Three years later, after many months of restoration and renovation, Mr. Fallenberg is calling his new home Arabesque, with its motif taken from the stenciled signature on a home just down the block that is owned by the grandfather of Suha Arafat, the widow of Yasir Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

It took time to turn a rundown apartment of original Crusader stones and Turkish elements into a livable space. Mr. Fallenberg was determined to do a proper renovation and restoration in his new home, a project that cost far more than he had originally intended. In fact, he has ended up turning his home into a writers retreat as a way of offsetting the costs of the renovation, and fulfilling a long-held dream of offering a place that would help Israeli artists work on their own projects.

We did everything according to the book, said Mr. Fallenberg, who hired a stonemason and his team to do the first portion of work, which involved peeling back the walls to discover the original stones underneath.

I had him walk around the house to understand the stones, said Mr. Fallenberg. When I saw what they were doing, I understood theres no other way to work on this kind of stone.

Part of a wall in one bedroom was built with Crusader-era stones, while another bedroom included an ancient passageway constructed with three arches from the Crusader period. That was made into a unique en-suite bathroom. There were windows in unusual locations in the bedrooms, sometimes between two rooms or high up on the walls for ventilation purposes. The original floors were not in usable condition to be restored to their original stones, and Mr. Fallenberg had them paved with a colorful Persian tile pattern mimicking the Turkish period, with touches of the cerulean blue found throughout Acre.

The rooms were unusual for their great height and ceiling design, with arches that meet at the center. Mr. Fallenberg said he was loath to cover any of the original stones in whitewash, but his architect, an expert in local restoration, convinced him that there could be such a thing as too much stonework.
If you do a pop-up restaurant in Hong Kong, and 400 people come to it, youll meet enough people to open 20 restaurants in 20 countries, says the nomadic 25-year old English chef James Sharman, as he huddles over a makeshift bamboo table. Hes in the vacant basement of Beijings Opposite House hotel, where his traveling dinner series, One Star House Party, will begin to put that theory to practice over the next two years.

For the past few weeks, Sharman and four friends have been engaged in a mix of culinary anthropology and light construction, as they hustle to develop a menu and build a temporary restaurant. They have even hand-carved the wooden spoons diners will use to consume the multi-course menu inspired by Chinas imperial history. I love building a menu from an experience, he says. A chef can research an ingredient at home on the internet then carefully source it once hes arrived, but its so much more palatable to immerse yourself in a culture and build out a dish from an experience youve had. Traveling around the globe, they will repeat this process  each month, they will spend three weeks researching and building a pop-up restaurant, and the final week serving food  over the two-year duration of the project, which will culminate with another (homecoming) dinner in Hong Kong.
At a moment when Mrs. Clinton and the Obama administration have warned that Russia is trying to influence the American election, the mysterious release of the tape is also certain to raise new questions about the scope of attacks on the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

A former Defense Department official present at the fund-raiser, Andrew C. Weber, who raised the question about nuclear modernization, verified the contents of the tape, but also suggested its release was part of the same hacking campaign that exposed D.N.C. emails.

Before she turned to nuclear matters, Mrs. Clinton used the fund-raiser to suggest that she would be much firmer against foreign nations that hack into American networks. Though the administration never formally accused China of stealing the security-review records of nearly 22 million federal employees and contractors, she called the theft a gold mine for Chinese intelligence.

They are at it all the time, she said of the Chinese state-sponsored hackers. But she also seemed to suggest  more directly than she did in Monday nights debate  that she thinks the best deterrent to the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians and the North Koreans, all of whom she named, was a dose of American offensive cyberweaponry.

They have physical assets that are also connected on the internet, she said. So they have to know we would retaliate. So that provides a certain level of deterrence.
The name Richard D. Trentlage may not roll off the tongues of most Americans, but generations of them, for good or ill, can no doubt sing along with some of the catchiest advertising jingles that he wrote for companies like Oscar Mayer and McDonalds.

Especially this one:

Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener That is what Id truly like to be Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener Everyone would be in love with me.

Mr. Trentlage died on Sept. 21 at a hospital in Libertyville, Ill. He was 87.

His daughter Linda Bruun said the cause was congestive heart failure.

Mr. Trentlages melodies, lyrics and tag lines were practically a hit parade in the advertising world, many of them with the mental stickiness of flypaper; among others, he wrote McDonalds is your kind of place; Wow! It sure doesnt taste like tomato juice, for V8; and Buckle up for safety, buckle up! (sung to the tune of Buckle Down, Winsocki) for a National Safety Council seatbelt promotion.

The Oscar Mayer Wiener Song had its beginnings in September 1962, when Mr. Trentlage, who worked for large advertising agencies like McCann-Erickson and DArcy before founding his own company, learned that Oscar Mayer, the food giant known for its deli meats and frankfurters, was sponsoring a contest for a wiener jingle.
WASHINGTON  Saudi Arabia paid millions of dollars to Washington lobbyists to keep it out of court. They have been unsuccessful. And now it is up to the kingdoms lawyers to limit the damage.

With families of Sept. 11 victims now able to pursue legal claims against the Saudis, the fight over responsibility for the terrorist attacks 15 years ago is likely to shift to a courtroom in Lower Manhattan, not far from where the World Trade Center once stood.

The legal battle could last for years, and would be waged using thousands of pages of documents, deposition transcripts and official government investigations. It could end in millions  or billions  of dollars worth of Saudi assets being seized in a court settlement, or a judgment that largely vindicates the Saudi government, which for years has insisted it had no role in the deadly plot.

Lawyers for both sides were shaping a legal strategy on Thursday, the day after Congress overrode a veto of a law allowing the 9/11 suits to go forward. For more than a decade, they have been blunted by a sovereign immunity law protecting foreign governments from American lawsuits.
The third said she had to withhold vocal disbelief when her daughter took her 3-year-old to an occupational therapist because she wasnt eating fruit. I did suggest that she might be panicking too soon, and that she herself only ate grilled cheese sandwiches for one year, she said. When the therapist also told her that some long-term perspective was necessary, my daughter said to me, O.K., but you dont get to butt in on this a second time. So now we have something we call the one-time only rule.

Of course, there are times when some interference may be called for. Sandy (who did not want her full name used) thought her son was coasting through his first year of college until she received what she thought was an annoying call from the mother of his roommate.

[Is it ever O.K. for a relative to discipline your child?]

She started asking me if Id talked to my son lately, if I had any worries and so on, Sandy told me. I was ready to hang up on her when she said that, apparently he had not been attending any classes and was spending most the time in the dorm room. I called the school but because of a law, they are not allowed to say anything without the students consent. We finally went to Michigan and found our very lost and confused son. Suffice to say, in the end, I was grateful for that phone call.

Though every childs life has its own trajectory, and every family its unique dynamics, there is some general advice that fits all. Parenting is a learned skill and like any other, might need some peer or educational counseling, said Donna Naftalis, a grandmother who worked in early childhood development. Support groups that offer guided instruction are valuable in forming new friendships for the new parents, and can offer nonjudgmental feedback from others who have been through it.

Dr. David Anderson, senior director of the ADHD and Behavior Disorders Center at Manhattans Child Mind Institute, suggested: Share your own possible shortcomings and soften any comments by first pointing out the persons strengths.

My own mother was exemplary as both mom and grandmother, but it was not until her memorial service that a friend of hers told me, Your mother said one of the great surprises of her life was how good a parent you turned out to be. I wish Id heard it from the original source.

In the meantime, tread gently and consider the words of the childrens book author and grandparent Judith Viorst. She wrote a book about what happened when her adult son Alexander  yes, the one who had that famously terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day  temporarily moved back into her extremely tidy home with his wife and three kids.
LONDON  At one point during their first television debate, Donald J. Trump repeated his suggestion that Hillary Clinton lacked the stamina to lead the worlds greatest superpower. In Britain, the question found its echoes in an equally acrid discussion of leadership and power.

As in the United States, the very notion of what qualifies would-be leaders to lead in Britain is open to unparalleled scrutiny.

Democracy seems ensnared in a battle to redefine itself in a time of dislocation that threatens to leave voters in limbo. If you are a Briton living in this country and believe in democracy, these are days of confusion.

The nation is led by a Conservative prime minister, Theresa May, who inherited the job after her predecessor, David Cameron, had no choice but to step down after the voters backed a withdrawal from the European Union in a referendum that he had called.
WASHINGTON  Escalating airstrikes in Syria. Sophisticated cyberattacks, apparently intended to influence the American election. New evidence of complicity in shooting down a civilian airliner.

The behavior of Russia in the last few weeks has echoes of some of the uglier moments of the Cold War, an era of proxy battles that ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. President Obama, fresh from a meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin this month, wondered aloud whether the Russian leader was content living with a constant, low-grade conflict. His reference was to Ukraine, but he could have been addressing any of the arenas where Mr. Putin has reveled in his new role as the great disrupter of American plans around the globe.

It seems to me we have Mr. Putins answer, said Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of a coming book, A World in Disarray. Hes answered in the affirmative. Low-grade conflict is his thing. And the question is how directly or indirectly we introduce costs.

None of these conflicts have, in fact, cost Mr. Putin very much. Cyberpower in particular is tailor-made for a country in Russias circumstances  a declining economy with the gross domestic product of Italy. It is dirt cheap, hard to trace to a specific aggressor and perfect for sowing confusion, which may be the limits of Mr. Putins goals.
The estate of a German Jewish businessman sued the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Friday in an effort to claim one of its most valuable Picassos, The Actor, asserting in court papers that the museum does not hold good title to the painting because the businessman was forced to sell it at a low price after fleeing the Nazis.

According to the filing in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the former owner, Paul Leffmann, had to sell his home and businesses in Cologne, Germany, before he fled with his wife, Alice, to Italy in 1937, as conditions in Europe worsened.

Before they left Italy for Switzerland, and finally fled to Brazil, he sold the painting in 1938, the lawsuit says. The sale was made under duress to the Paris art dealers Hugo Perls, a collector of Picassos work, and Paul Rosenberg, Picassos dealer, for $13,200, the suit says.

In 1941, Thelma Chrysler Foy bought the painting through New Yorks Knoedler Gallery for $22,500, a price the estate says is evidence that the 1938 sale had been at a discount. She donated it to the Met in 1952, where it has been continuously displayed since.
The Scream

Two versions of Edvard Munchs The Scream  there are four  have been stolen in recent years. In 1994, thieves broke into an exhibition at the National Art Museum in Oslo that coincided with the Winter Olympics and pried the painting from the wall; it was recovered by the police in a hotel four months later. In 2004, masked robbers burst into the Munch Museum, also in Oslo, one morning, shoving guards to the ground and stealing a different version of the painting, whose value was estimated at roughly $100 million at the time. It was recovered two years later by the police.
The Italian prosecutors office said that the works had been recovered during an investigation of the Amato Pagano clan of the Camorra Mafia family, which is associated with international cocaine trafficking.

In January, Italian prosecutors issued arrest warrants for several members of the clan and for criminals associated with them in a drug ring with contacts in Spain and the Netherlands, the Naples prosecutor, Giovanni Colangelo, said in a telephone interview. At the same time, Italian financial police identified assets belonging to the clan  with an estimated value of 20 million euros, or about $22.5 million  that could be confiscated. Those included real estate, two companies, a plane and a boat.

One of the gang members arrested in January told the police that the two paintings were in a house in the town of Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples. The house had at one time been occupied by Raffaele Imperiale, who Mr. Colangelo said was one of the leaders of the trafficking gang. (Mr. Imperiale is in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, Mr. Colangelo said, and Italian authorities have asked for his extradition.)

Lt. Col. Agostino Tortora, a financial police officer who worked on the case, said the paintings were found on Sunday afternoon, wrapped up in a cloth in a small hallway next to a kitchen.

Investigations are underway to determine when the paintings had come into the possession of the clan, he said. We know they were stolen in 2002, we dont know when they came here, or if they were stolen specifically for the Camorra, all that has to be investigated, Colonel Tortora said.
The orchestras management said that it was currently running a $1.5 million deficit on an annual budget of $32 million, carrying more than $11 million in debt, facing ballooning payments to its pension fund, and grappling with a decline in state funding and the loss of several key revenue streams. The chairman of its board, Devin McGranahan, said in a statement that a recent assessment suggested that the orchestra was on track to run out of cash and have to close the doors in May/June 2017.

The musicians said they had unanimously rejected a proposal by management that would have cut their pay by 15 percent in the first year (to $91,153 from $107,239), followed by small increases in the next two years.

They said that the proposal would have also frozen their pension plan and moved them into defined contribution plans going forward, as well as reduced the size of the ensemble, which currently stands at 99 players and two librarians. Management officials said that they were seeking to freeze three positions that are currently vacant during the course of the contract, which other orchestras have done in recent years. The union noted that management was also seeking discretion about whether to fill other positions that become vacant in the future, which could further reduce the size of the orchestra.

The musicians said that they had agreed to pay cuts and other concessions over the years. But they said in a statement that they have never faced demands for concessions this severe, nor have they encountered such a bizarre and stubborn ideological stance.

Melia P. Tourangeau, who became the president and chief executive of the orchestra last year, said in a statement that Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra musicians are exceptional artists, and deserve every dollar and every benefit we can afford to offer.
Deutsche Bank has credible liquidity shock absorbers.

The German lender reassured its own employees on Friday, not for the first time, after reports that some hedge funds were withdrawing cash. It clearly has big problems, but a 2008-style liquidity implosion need not be one of them.

Since that crisis, regulators have revamped the way they oversee bank liquidity. The centerpiece of this is the so-called liquidity coverage ratio, which tests the quantity of assets a lender holds to withstand 30 days of investors pulling money in a stress situation partly modeled on the financial crisis. The idea is for liquid reserves to be at least 100 percent of likely outflows. Deutsche Banks 124 percent as of June is better than that of big peers like BNP Paribas and Citigroup, and means at the very least that regulators have breathing space if lots of Deutsche Banks varied customers decide to withdraw their money.

Thats not a problem at the moment. Some 72 percent of its balance sheet of 992 billion euros was funded by capital providers such as retail depositors, who are likely to be the least flighty, as of the end of June. True, whats left still exceeds the 223 billion of cash and liquid securities that represent the banks first line of defense. But jittery hedge funds provide only 33 billion.

Deutsche Banks own relatively robust liquidity cannot stop customers withdrawing money if they start to panic. But the real reason they should not is the arsenal of central bank liquidity support available to it should that be needed. Since 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed, and panicked authorities had to take stakes in banks like the Royal Bank of Scotland to neutralize fears over their access to funding, the system has been significantly tooled up.
From the chaos of the sovereign debt crisis to the acrimony over an influx of refugees, European authorities have proved something less than an exemplar of coordinated government action. The European Union has become a focus of populist anger, further constraining options. And Germany has opposed bailouts for lenders in other lands, making a Deutsche rescue politically radioactive.

All of which adds to worries that Deutsche amounts to a fire burning, one that might yet become an inferno, while the fire department is consumed with existential arguments over its purpose. If the alarm sounds, no one can be sure what, if anything, will happen.

In the worst case  now highly unlikely  the bank could collapse, inciting a scramble to pull money from markets around the globe. Institutions that trade with Deutsche would feel an urge to collect their cash immediately. Given the scale of the banks balance sheet  1.8 trillion euros, or more than $2 trillion  that inclination is likely to spread to every crevice of finance. Economies would grind to a halt. Jobs and fortunes would disappear.

Image Rumors are causing significant swings in our stock price, John Cryan, the chief executive of Deutsche Bank, said on Friday. It is our task now to prevent distorted perception from further interrupting our daily business. Credit... Daniel Roland/Agence France-Presse  Getty Images

Despite murmurings in pundit quarters that this sort of situation may be unfolding, provoking comparisons with the catastrophic bankruptcy of the American investment banking giant Lehman Brothers eight years ago, most economists dismiss such talk as overwrought and overblown.

Deutsche is sitting on cash reserves worth 240 billion, or about $269 billion. It has sold bonds that can be converted to equity should the need arise. The Justice Departments proposed fine of $14 billion is viewed as the opening of a negotiation that could cost Deutsche a fraction of that amount  thinking that sent the stock surging on Friday.

Not least, Deutsche Bank is a classic example of the species of financial animal known as Too Big To Fail.
LONDON  The Royal Bank of Scotland said on Friday that it would rename its investment bank as the lender outlined plans to comply with new rules intended to protect British retail banking businesses in a financial crisis.

Banks in Britain are required to wall off their retail banking operations by 2019, a practice known as ring-fencing. The rules are intended to shield the retail business from the impact of investment banking and other activities in the event of another global financial meltdown.

R.B.S., which is 73 percent owned by the British government after a bailout during the last financial crisis, said on Friday that it would transfer a majority of its British and Western European banking businesses to a ring-fenced entity by the end of 2018.

The investment bank would be renamed NatWest Markets at the same time and would be outside the ring-fenced bank.
Serious complications are rare among children infected with the Zika virus after birth, federal health researchers concluded in a study published on Friday  a rare bright spot in the unfolding story of the epidemic.

About 160 teenagers and toddlers infected with Zika virus have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since 2015. The agencys new study marks the largest survey yet of laboratory-confirmed cases in children.

All of the infections were the result of travel, most commonly to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. About 100 of the cases occurred in June and July alone. The report represents just a fraction of the actual number of children in the continental United States infected with Zika.

The children, aged 1 month to 17 years, were initially identified because they had symptoms of infection; only those who became ill were included in the research. Yet most people who are infected have no symptoms at all.
For the record, Scott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller, has not said whether he plans to run for mayor next year.

And yet, Mr. Stringer has said plenty.

In August, he released a report accusing the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio, a fellow Democrat, of displaying poor management in its handling of the removal of a deed restriction on a Lower East Side nursing home, which allowed it to be sold to a luxury condominium developer.

Last week, he threw verbal darts at the mayor during a speech before the Association for a Better New York, an influential civic group. Then he went on the radio and tossed a few more.

There is a long and understandable history of mayors being at odds with their comptrollers, who serve as the citys official chief auditing officer and an unofficial thorn in the side of City Hall.
HOBOKEN, N.J.  Federal investigators have still not inspected the train that slammed into a busy transportation hub here, killing a woman and injuring more than 100 others, because of the extensive damage at the scene of the crash, officials said on Friday.

A day after the crash set off a panic at the station during the morning commute, federal investigators have provided few answers about why the train careened into a wall. On Friday evening, officials said that they had not yet interviewed the trains engineer or examined most of the train.

Jim Southworth, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said he had not sent investigators into the front of the train because of concerns over asbestos and the structural integrity of the building. The damage from the trains impact caused part of the terminals roof to collapse.

Because of the asbestos, because of the unsettled structures that were not sure about, Im not allowing anybody to go in there, Mr. Southworth said at a news conference. None of the evidence in there is perishable, so I have the time to go in there.

Federal investigators said they could not estimate when the historic station, Hoboken Terminal, might reopen or when they would remove the train from the tracks, prompting questions over how long New Jersey Transits train service to the station might remain suspended.

Image Thomas Gallagher, the trains engineer, who was injured on Thursday.

Officials were still working to schedule an interview with the trains engineer, Thomas Gallagher, who was injured on Thursday, said Bella Dinh-Zarr, the vice chairwoman of the safety board. The results of his toxicology report were not yet available, she said.

While investigators removed the event recorder from the locomotive in the rear of the train, they were not able to download the information on it and sent it to the manufacturer for assistance. The recorder is an important device that can reveal how fast the train was traveling.

The safety board planned to spend as many as 10 days at the scene of the crash as part of the investigation, which could take a year to complete. The board will review several possible factors, including the engineers actions, the trains maintenance and the railroads tracks and signals.

The trains crew had been cooperative, and investigators were scheduling interviews with two other train crew members  a conductor and a brakeman, officials said.

At the station, part of the collapsed roof was resting on top of the front of the train.

As you can imagine we dont want anyone to go in there until its completely stable, Ms. Dinh-Zarr said.

Another obstacle facing investigators is the likely presence of asbestos inside the 109-year-old Beaux-Arts building that houses Hoboken Terminal, Ms. Dinh-Zarr said.
Jordan has stood out for its relative stability and religious tolerance in a region roiled by conflict. But the murder on Sunday of Nahed Hattar, a prominent secular writer, is an alarming sign that Jordans laws on defamation of religion encourage violent extremism.

Mr. Hattar was shot three times as he prepared to enter a court in Amman to face criminal charges related to a cartoon he had posted on Facebook. Riad Abdullah, a former imam known for his extremist views, was arrested and charged with premeditated murder. Mr. Hattars family is outraged, saying the government failed to protect the writer, despite being alerted of multiple death threats.

The cartoon, which depicted a bearded man, presumably in heaven, in bed with two women asking God to bring him wine and cashews, provoked an uproar in Jordan, where many saw the image as blasphemous. Though Mr. Hattar quickly removed the cartoon, deactivated his Facebook account and apologized, Jordanian authorities charged him with the crimes of inciting sectarian strife and insulting other peoples religious feelings.
To the Editor:

Concern as Venezuela Refuses to Accept Aid (news article, Sept. 28) rightly depicts the horrific economic crisis affecting our country. While President Nicolas Maduro has refused to accept foreign aid to alleviate the growing humanitarian crisis, Venezuelas Democratic Unity coalition welcomes international support and cooperation.

In February, the ruling Socialist Party turned down our request to enroll in a World Health Organization program to receive subsidized medical supplies. In May, legislation in the National Assembly to declare a health emergency and authorize medical imports was also rejected by the government.

Despite these setbacks, Venezuelas political opposition will not give up on our commitment to providing citizens the basic right to food and medicine.

The dramatic economic crisis facing our country makes a political change imperative. As the article mentioned, the National Electoral Council (C.N.E.), which largely operates as a tool of the current administration, has tried to delay until 2017 a public referendum to recall President Maduro, as allowed in our Constitution.
In areas that retain grammar schools, fewer than 3 percent of grammar school pupils are eligible for free school meals (a proxy measure of social deprivation), compared with 18 percent in non-grammar schools. High-achieving children from poor backgrounds are less likely to be selected for grammar schools than those from prosperous areas with similar abilities. Over all, school results in Kent, one of the few English counties that retains a selective system, are similar to those in the rest of the country, but poor children do worse and rich children do better.

If there is evidence that grammar schools help entrench inequality, there is, however, little evidence that phasing them out has helped improve social mobility. A landmark 2005 study from the London School of Economics, which described social mobility in Britain as low and falling, showed that two children born, respectively, into poor and prosperous families in 1958 were more equal as adults than two similar children born in 1970. More recently, a 2010 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that on social mobility Britain came near the bottom of the class among rich nations.

The geography of social mobility has also changed. A government report published earlier this year observed that the key division now is between London, where even children from disadvantaged backgrounds do relatively well, and coastal and old industrial towns in the north and east of England, where most of what the report termed social mobility coldspots are to be found.

This division maps onto a deepening political fault line. London overwhelmingly voted Remain in the recent referendum on membership in the European Union. Many of those coldspots are in areas that voted to Leave; theyre also areas where, unlike London, the populist U.K. Independence Party enjoys significant support. Issues of social mobility and social disaffection have merged. Against this background, the new grammar schools policy seems less about improving education for the poor than about stemming social disaffection, the political consequences of which are becoming unsettling.

The fact that neither selective nor nonselective school systems have improved social mobility in Britain might suggest that the problem lies in the very idea of using schools to engineer a more equal society. A decent education system can help a few individuals progress beyond the circumstances of their birth, but it is unlikely to change fundamentally the social and economic structures that entrench inequality and restrain social mobility.

In focusing on social mobility, what has gone missing is the idea of education as a good in itself. One of the reasons people regard grammar schools with nostalgia is that they seem to represent a standard of good education. But they do so for only a few.
Rosetta, the first spacecraft to orbit a comet, is dead, setting down in a final embrace with its companion of the past two years.

Radio signals from Rosetta flatlined at 7:19 a.m. Eastern after it did a soft belly-flop onto Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at a speed of two miles per hour, slower than the average walk.

For the last few minutes, people at the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany, watched their computer screens mostly in silence, but with some nervous chatter. When the radio signals ceased, they applauded and hugged in a celebration that was part joyous, part somber.
There are arguments to support this view, but in fairness, the feared business does not really exist yet. And if it did, what would it be worth?

Image

That situation underlines how quickly the world is moving to a form of economics that rests on owning the richest possible data resources.

Data in all forms seems valuable right now, because rich and varied data is at the core of machine learning and artificial intelligence, the basis for analyzing and predicting almost any action that can be digitally measured. Without A.I., now-hot fields like robotics and virtual reality would be pallid, perhaps even nonexistent. It is expected to change product design and manufacturing and how people think about work, which is where the LinkedIn data comes in.

These are the early days of what stands to be a transformation that will take decades, but the data assets are already being battled over. Without them, people cant build products.

Thats why Salesforce, which lost out to Microsoft in the $26.2 billion purchase of LinkedIn in June, is upset about possibly losing access to all that job-hunting data. It is just building up its A.I. business, and it needs to worry about this. (Its worth considering whether, if Salesforce had won LinkedIn, Microsoft would be complaining to the E.U.)
Three decades ago, this hushed and hallowed place was a theater of war. Surviving witnesses still speak with awe of what they heard and saw then  of flights of white-feathered arrows and vaulting bodies, and the ever-rising din of voices in eternal conflict.

The smoke has now cleared at the Harvey Theater of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the frenzy of warfare gone still. Peter Brook, the director responsible for the artfully arranged cosmic carnage called The Mahabharata, staged here in 1987, has now returned in contemplation with Battlefield, an elegiac play of stark and uncommon beauty.

Mr. Brook, one of the great forces in world theater since the 1950s, is back to tell what is essentially the same story, or at least an epilogue to it. Created with his longtime collaborator, Marie-Helene Estienne, Battlefield revisits the bloodied fields of The Mahabharata, the ancient Sanskrit narrative that is the worlds longest epic poem, which was adapted into nine hours of stage time for Mr. Brooks Theatre des Bouffes du Nord by Jean-Claude Carriere.

In 1987, that play was the event of the New York theater season. The Academys then president, Harvey Lichtenstein, had reclaimed and refashioned an abandoned movie theater, the Majestic, into a raw, ruin-like space designed expressly for the presentation. And theater cognoscenti lined up for the privilege of sitting from morning into night on hard benches that left no bum unnumbed, as they watched an international cast of dozens suffer, ponder and die.
The post-debate polls are beginning to trickle in, and it already seems clear that Hillary Clinton has received a bump after the first presidential debate.

A wave of high-quality battleground state surveys released on Friday showed her with a comfortable advantage in New Hampshire, Nevada, Florida and Michigan. The gains suggest she might lead by as much as five percentage points nationwide, up from about two to three points before last Mondays debate.

Its hard to know whether the shift will last. If youve been following The Upshots coverage of polling over the last two years, you know that were pretty circumspect about shifts in the polls. But no matter how you cut it, the debate is bad news for Donald J. Trump.

As we wrote ahead of the debate, it has been hard to make sense of the polls over the last few months. Mrs. Clintons lead has bobbed up and down, between two and eight percentage points since the spring.
There are fewer than 40 days left in the presidential campaign, and most Americans have made up their minds. But a sizable minority of likely voters have still not taken sides in this extraordinary election, and as the race tightens, their choices become increasingly important.

What do we know about the undecideds? Data from the RAND Corporations Presidential Election Panel Study and weekly surveys conducted by the online research firm YouGov for The Economist give us a trove of data. Among the many thousands who have completed the most recent YouGov surveys, roughly 8 percent of registered voters who plan to vote are undecided. In the RAND data, about 11 percent of registered voters are undecided. Estimates from other recent polls place the number of undecided voters this cycle between 2 to 12 percent.

Despite the possibility that there may be more undecided voters this year than in previous elections, the undecideds of 2016 look a lot like those who remained unsure at this point in 2012. They are less interested in politics and the news, less partisan, and less likely to hold opinions on issues dominating campaign discussions. Essentially, they think less about politics.

According to the YouGov data collected since June, only 29 percent of undecided voters pay attention to the news most of the time compared with 57 and 64 percent of those who have already decided to cast ballots for Hillary Clinton or Donald J. Trump, respectively. They are also less likely to have watched any of the political conventions.
Two years ago, several older men with intellectual disability were found living in virtual segregation in a seedy bunkhouse in South Carolina, across the street from the massive meat-processing plant where they once worked. One man was still working at the plant, disposing of the D.O.A.s  that is, the poultry that arrived on trucks already dead.

After The New York Times exposed the situation, in the small city of Newberry, S.C., various government agencies worked to rescue the men from their shabby living conditions, and began a series of investigations into the hows and whys of the arrangement.

Now the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a disability discrimination lawsuit against Work Services Inc., an employment agency that operated the bunkhouse and provided workers to the processing plant. This follows a separate lawsuit filed last year by the Department of Labor, alleging that Work Services Inc. had failed to pay the men federal minimum wages and overtime.

According to the lawsuit, the company had discriminated for years against the men by providing little or no compensation for their work. In addition, the lawsuit alleges, Work Services had required the men to live in substandard conditions, restricted their freedom of movement, and deprived them of basic opportunities to engage with the world beyond the bunkhouse grounds.
Straggling members of Congress bolted from Washington on Thursday for the campaign trail, and if Senate leaders can be believed, it is pretty rough out there.

It is sort of like a knife fight in a phone booth, said Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and majority leader, about the razor-close nature of the handful of races that will decide control of the Senate.

He and Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat who stands to assume the majority leader post if the party is able to mount a takeover, acknowledged that the Senate is up for grabs, with Democrats on offense.

Mr. Schumer predicted a Democratic victory, but he said that the possibility of a win for his side had been made more difficult by an influx of money behind Senate Republican candidates from the political network headed by the conservatives Charles G. and David H. Koch, who are focusing more on the Capitol than on the White House.
After his unexpected retirement in 2010 from the Senate, Mr. Bayh joined a Washington law and lobbying firm, McGuireWoods. Republicans have tried to paint him as a handmaiden of special interests, a charge he predictably rejects. Ive missed public service since the day I retired from the Senate, Mr. Bayh said.

Indiana has a recent history of punishing once-popular politicians who they think have gone Washington. Former Senator Richard G. Lugar, one of the states most respected political figures, was ousted in a primary in 2012 by a Tea Party challenger.

But Senator Dan Coats, a Republican whose retirement created the opening for Mr. Bayh, made a comeback in 2010 after his own revolving-door turn as a lobbyist. Mr. Coats noted that the climate this year seemed more hostile. It might matter more this year than ever, he said.

How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause. Learn more about our process.

Others have found themselves going from beloved to spurned. Former Senator Bob Kerrey had been gone from Nebraska for nearly 20 years when he tried to return to the Senate in 2012, leaving his wife and child back in New York City as he faced bruising attacks.

By November, half the people thought I had never lived in Nebraska, said Mr. Kerrey, who was defeated and returned to New York as quickly as he had left. Republicans are better than Democrats are in doing that sort of thing. They did such a good job they probably saved my marriage.

But Mr. Bayh enjoys many advantages that keep him as the front-runner in the race, Democrats and Republicans agree. The son of former Senator Birch Bayh, Mr. Bayh is part of a Midwestern political dynasty that spans generations of voters. A moderate who was long viewed as working well with Republicans, Mr. Bayh fits the states self-image as almost defiantly sensible.
He discussed it himself in passing at his one public event on Thursday, a rally in Bedford, N.H.

The American people have had it with years and decades of Clinton corruption and scandal, corruption and scandal. And impeachment for lying. Impeachment for lying. Remember that? Impeach, Mr. Trump said.

Democrats believe such critiques will become only harsher and more pointed.

Mrs. Clinton declined to wade into the topic on Thursday. Im not going to comment on how he runs his campaign. Youll be able to see  we have two more debates  what he says and what I say, told reporters.

But Republicans have questioned whether such a line of attack would be effective. Several prominent party members, including Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who as a congressman helped lead the impeachment case against Mr. Clinton 20 years ago, have said publicly that they believe Mr. Clintons behavior is a dead issue and that Mr. Trump should look to the future.

Correct the Record, a super PAC that defends Mrs. Clinton, has troves of background on women, including Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey, who have accused Mr. Clinton of sexual assault. The group has also prepared a vicious counterattack on Mr. Trumps marital history, which includes two divorces and infidelity.

Some of Mr. Trumps advisers have tried to suggest a narrower line of attack: focusing on allegations that Mrs. Clinton tried to discredit women who said they had been harassed by Mr. Clinton. Chief among those suggesting this approach is Roger Stone, the longest-serving Trump adviser, who wrote a book called The Clintons War on Women, which lays out allegations from Ms. Broaddrick and Ms. Willey, which the Clintons or their lawyer David Kendall have denied. The issue of Bill Clinton and women is not about marital infidelity, adultery or indiscretions, Mr. Stone said.
More than two-thirds of the Democrats cash went to a dozen presidential battlegrounds critical to any Clinton victory. The biggest beneficiaries were Florida, which has taken in close to $3.5 million, and Pennsylvania and Ohio, which have each received more than $2 million.

In each of those states, the funds from the national party have made a difference, erasing deficits in federal contributions against the respective Republican state parties.

The money followed a legal but circuitous route turbocharged by the 2014 ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, which struck down Watergate-era limits on the combined amount one person could donate to all federal candidates and parties in an election cycle.

Like other candidates for federal office this year, Mrs. Clinton can accept only up to $5,400 from any one donor over the course of her campaign. But after the McCutcheon decision, Mrs. Clinton established an agreement last year with the Democratic Party under which she asked her wealthiest patrons to write checks in excess of $300,000, more than double the old limit, to the Hillary Victory Fund, an account made up of the national and state parties and the Clinton campaign.

That amount is a lump sum equal to the total contributions each donor is allowed to give to her campaign and the Democratic National Committee, along with $10,000 to each of the 38 state party organizations now participating in the arrangements.

How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause. Learn more about our process.

Because there are no limits on how much money party committees can transfer to one another, most of the state parties have cycled their share back to the Democratic National Committee. The party then moved the cash into a smaller number of battleground states to prepare for Election Day.
Hillary Clintons strong debate performance has lifted her standing in a handful of battleground state polls, an indication that her first face-off against Donald J. Trump halted the surge he was enjoying for much of September.

A poll of Florida voters conducted entirely after Monday nights debate shows Mrs. Clinton receiving the support of 46 percent of likely voters, while Mr. Trump was garnering 42 percent. The survey, conducted by Mason-Dixon polling and research, indicated that Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party nominee, was the preferred candidate of 7 percent of voters.

Mrs. Clintons strength in Florida, a state Mr. Trump almost certainly needs to win if he is to compile 270 electoral votes, owes to her advantage among women and overwhelming support among Hispanics and African-Americans, the poll showed.

A New York Times Upshot/Siena College poll of Florida voters before the debate indicated the race there was effectively tied.
No, Donald Trump does not have a yellow Labrador retriever named Spinee that is recovering from surgery. Neither does Hillary Clinton. Those rumors, curiously enough, are propagated by an internet hoax site that seems to delight in pranking celebrities.

But Mrs. Clinton does have two dogs, Tally and Maisie, which, if she were elected president, would be the latest in an illustrious and colorful line of first pets.

Mr. Trump, if elected, would be the first president since Harry Truman without a pet. (Mr. Trumans family was given a couple of dogs that did not take up permanent residence at the White House.)
Nine months after instructing Alabamas probate judges to defy federal court orders on same-sex marriage, Roy S. Moore, the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, was suspended on Friday for the remainder of his term for violating the states canon of judicial ethics.

It was the second time in his contentious career that Judge Moore, an outspoken conservative, was removed as chief justice, and it followed his most recent star turn in the nations culture wars.

The suspension was imposed by the states Court of the Judiciary, a nine-member body of selected judges, lawyers and others, which found Judge Moore guilty on six charges. While the court did not take him off the bench entirely, as it did in 2003 after he defied orders to remove a giant Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building, it effectively ended his state judicial career. His term ends in 2019, and Judge Moore, 69, will be barred by law from running for a judicial position again because of his age.

The court said in its decision that most, but not all, of its members had supported fully removing Judge Moore from the bench, but removal requires a unanimous vote. The decision to suspend him, the court said, was unanimous.
Gov. Jerry Brown of California signed a bill into law Friday that requires minimum sentences in sexual assault cases, a direct rebuke of the penalty handed down in a Stanford sexual assault case that attracted nationwide attention this year.

In that case, a former Stanford student, Brock Turner, 21, served just three months in jail after being convicted of sexually assaulting a 23-year-old woman behind a Dumpster. His sentence  originally six months  was widely criticized as being far too short, with many excoriating the judge who issued it, Judge Aaron Persky of Santa Clara County.

The new law imposes a mandatory minimum sentence for such assaults, removing a measure of judicial discretion in such cases.
The agency has developed an acute case of the slows, and it could not be a more critical moment, said Tara Raghuveer, deputy director of the National Partnership for New Americans, a coalition of 37 groups that held citizenship workshops around the country. The groups scrambled to file applications before May 1, she said, after the immigration agency originally advised them that the process would take four to six months.

This year for the first time the naturalization drive also had high-profile backing from the White House, which sponsored ad campaigns, gave $10 million to community groups and made fixes to make it easier to apply. But officials said the White House was not monitoring the results to confirm that the immigration agency was completing naturalizations in a timely way.

In the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump, the immigrant vote could be pivotal, especially in states with large numbers of Latino immigrants.

The naturalization backlogs are bad news for Mrs. Clinton because polls in those states show Latinos favoring her by gaping margins. In Florida, for example, more than 66,000 potential new voters stuck in the backlog could be enough to affect the outcome of a race that polls show is a virtual tie.

Citizenship applications generally surge during presidential election cycles. In 2007 and 2008, more than 1.4 million immigrants became citizens, stirred by a combination of an impending fee increase and the historic candidacy of Barack Obama.

This year, immigrant groups set a goal of one million naturalizations, and the application numbers were on track to reach it. In May, the Obama administration announced another fee increase for later this year, which could have moved some latecomers to apply. Then the backlogs emerged.

Many immigrants decided to become citizens because they just wanted to vote, without being drawn to a particular candidate.
Willington, second from right, reunited with his family for the first time in years at a FARC conference.

Credit... Federico Rios Escobar for The New York Times
Others said they simply did not believe the figures, a lack of confidence that highlighted concerns over the reliability of Chinese data among both Chinese and foreigners.

Here are the highlights of what Mr. Ma said at the meeting, as reported by Beijing News and Yicai, a Shanghai-based business media group also known as China Business Network:

 Maternal mortality in 2015 was 20.1 per 100,000 women.  In the first six months of 2016, it was 18.3.  There was an increase of 30.6 percent in the first half of 2016 over the same period in 2015.

In an article in its health section, Sohu.com quoted Mr. Ma as saying that the increase was an urgent problem and calling for greater investment in hospitals, maternal health care and in training obstetricians in an era of two children.

Fishy, said Wang Ling, the author of A Beijing Pregnancy (), a novel about pregnancy, abortion and birth, on Population Internal Reference, her private WeChat site. Ms. Wang, who uses the pen name Lingzi, did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.

Under what circumstances could the rate be 30 percent higher in the first half of this year than in the same period last year, if last years overall maternal mortality rate was 20 and this years so far is 18? Ms. Wang asked.

Such an increase in the first half of 2016 could be achieved only if the rate had been a very low 14 per 100,000 in the first half of last year and a very high 26 per 100,000 women in the second half, according to figures on Ms. Wangs WeChat account.
Only later, on Friday evening, did Xinhua provide more detail, confirming the Chengdu papers account. In a five-sentence report, it said the police, working for 33 hours, had solved the case. Mr. Yang, who worked in Kunming, had returned home and asked his parents for money. He had an argument with them and killed them on Wednesday evening, Xinhua reported. Later, in an effort to conceal his crime, he killed 17 other people. On Thursday, after being arrested in Kunming, he confessed.

The list of the victims reported by The Beijing News included three people surnamed Yang who all also had the character qing, which means clean or pure, in their names, suggesting that they might have been related. In all, 10 of the victims were surnamed Yang.

Interviews with residents of the area appeared to corroborate these reports. In Daibu Township, a sprawling mountainous locale that encompasses Yema, the killings were the main topic of conversation at the markets, residents said. One, a hotel owner surnamed He, said that at first people suspected the crime was a terrorist attack, echoing the killings in Kunming in 2014 by militants from Xinjiang that left 29 people dead.

Then, people learned that the suspect in the killing was from the area, socially awkward and liked to gamble, Mr. He said, adding that most of the dead were relatives of Mr. Yang.

Another resident, a woman surnamed Li, said that the tiny hamlet within Yema where the killings took place, called Baifengwan, was particularly remote, and that many people had never heard of it.

At midday on Friday, the home page of the official news portal in Kunming focused on a story about the local real estate market. The train crash in Hoboken, N.J., received extensive coverage nationwide, as did the override of President Obamas veto of the Sept. 11 victims bill, which was a hot topic on Weibo, Chinas Twitter-like social media platform. The Yema killings were not.

Nineteen people died, and CCTV doesnt have a report on it, wrote one Weibo user called Starry Sky in a Sunny Room, referring to the state television network. Speechless. Chinese news is villainous.
MANILA  President Rodrigo Duterte said Friday that he would like to kill millions of drug addicts in the Philippines, defying international criticism of his countrys bloody war on narcotics and escalating his brutal rhetoric with a reference to the Holocaust.

Hitler massacred three million Jews, Mr. Duterte said after returning to the Philippines from a trip to Vietnam, understating the toll cited by historians, which is six million. Now there is three million, theres three million drug addicts. There are. Id be happy to slaughter them.

Killing that number of drug users would finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition, he said.
SEOUL, South Korea  South Korean Coast Guard officials said Friday that they were investigating the deaths of three Chinese fishermen whose boat caught fire during a crackdown on illegal fishing.

The unlicensed fishing boat with 17 crew members on board was stopped on suspicion of poaching in waters off South Koreas southwestern coast on Thursday, a statement from the coast guard said.

Image A Chinese fishing boat caught fire during an inspection by the South Korean Coast Guard on Friday. Credit... South Korean Coast Guard, via Associated Press

When the crew members locked themselves in a steering cabin to resist an attempt to search the vessel and question them, coast guard officers threw flashbang grenades into the cabin, the statement said. The grenades are nonlethal but produce a blinding flash of light and loud sound.
But in a country where female leaders are so rare, simply voting for them can be a revolutionary act, independent of their individual political views.

People werent voting for her as an ideological statement, said Daniel C. Sneider, associate director for research at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. Rather, he said, voters chose Ms. Koike mainly because she campaigned as an antidote to predecessors who had been embroiled in financial scandals. For voters, somehow, empowering a woman is kind of a reform statement, he said.

Even those who are discomfited by some of her political views acknowledge the powerful symbolism of a woman in such a prominent position. Seeing her in a kimono waving a flag in Rio, I thought it was significant, said Ryoko Akamatsu, president of Women in New World, International Network, a womens advocacy group. Although Ms. Akamatsu opposes Ms. Koikes conservatism, she said, its meaningful to let the world know there is such a woman in Japan.

Ms. Koike, the daughter of an oil trading executive who traveled frequently to the Middle East as a child, studied Arabic and sociology at Cairo University in Egypt.

She displayed an early maverick streak. In an episode described in her memoir of Cairo, Furisode, Climbing the Pyramid, Ms. Koike decided to hike up a pyramid, a prohibited act. When the police threatened to fine her, she bargained with them to reduce the fine and carried on to the peak, where she donned a kimono and made a pot of green tea under the hot sun.
Elli Avram Sets The Internet On Fire With Her Bold And Sizzling Hot Pictures In A Towel; Check Here
A court in Cyprus ordered on Friday the deportation of an Egyptian man accused of hijacking a passenger jet, forcing it to divert to Cyprus and demanding to see his former wife, who lives there.

Judge Dona Constantinou of the Nicosia District Court ruled that the man accused of the hijacking, Seif Eldin Mustafa, 59, should be returned to Egypt, despite his claim that he might be tortured or even killed if he was sent back.

In rejecting his claims, the judge found that he never suggested political motives for his actions in March, and that he had no record of participating in protests or of facing charges relating to his political beliefs.

Dina el-Fouly, a spokeswoman for EgyptAir, laughed when told of the ruling. We havent been told anything yet, but this is good news, she said.
BEIRUT, Lebanon  An array of groups allied with the Syrian government pressed an assault on rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Friday, as the World Health Organization said heavy bombardment of the area by Russia and Syria had killed 338 people in the last week, including more than 100 children.

With more of the citys already limited hospitals destroyed in the latest offensive, Dr. Richard Brennan, the organizations director of emergency response, told reporters that many of the 846 people wounded were expected to die for lack of treatment. That includes 261 children, he said.

There were competing claims about the success of the governments offensive on Friday, with the government saying its fighters had captured more territory in northern parts of the city and penetrated the center of Aleppo, where they were clashing with the rebels.

Rebel commanders denied the reports, however, saying government forces had not made any progress since capturing the Handarat refugee camp north of the city on Thursday.
WASHINGTON  When Bill Clinton took his place on Friday at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem for the state funeral of Shimon Peres, he was part of a tangled tableau: leaders from Israel and the United States who came together to mourn a giant of peace but who nurse their own political feuds and rivalries, stretching back two decades.

Standing close to the former president was Israels prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Mr. Clinton energetically tried to defeat when he challenged Mr. Peres for the prime minister post in 1996. Nearby was President Obama, whom Mr. Netanyahu not so subtly tried to oust in 2012 by signaling his support for Mitt Romney, Mr. Obamas Republican opponent.

Hillary Clinton was absent, though she met with Mr. Netanyahu last Sunday in New York. She has not had to deal with him putting his thumb on the electoral scales, even if he did meet with Donald J. Trump for 80 minutes at his office in Trump Tower before seeing her.
JERUSALEM  From across the ocean and across the Green Line, they came on Friday to the mountaintop sanctuary of Mount Herzl to bid farewell to Shimon Peres, marking what one called the end of the era of giants. But the question of the moment was whether it was a funeral for a man or for his dream.

Twenty-three years after Mr. Peres helped negotiate the Oslo Accords heralding peace between Israelis and Palestinians, President Obama and other leaders from around the world paid homage to his tenacious search for reconciliation. And yet the memorial service made clear how elusive that idea has actually become in this part of the world.

The funeral brought together Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, something no mediator has been able to do in recent years, and the men shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. But the encounter went no further, and the momentary pause in their war of words seemed unlikely to last beyond the interment.
Pandas are cuddly, but not to each other. They muster about as much enthusiasm for sex as a human does for a root canal.

In part because of those lousy libidos, the worlds giant panda population is disturbingly small. A sign at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Sichuan Province says that saving the giant panda from extinction is of the utmost urgency  but the urgency isnt felt by the pandas.

Why are they so un-frisky? Chinese scientists have been studying that question for decades, with an eye toward fomenting fornication. (China owns all of the worlds pandas, including the few that have been born abroad to parents lent out for hefty fees to foreign zoos.)

Panda biology is part of the problem. Females enter estrus only once a year, for a very short time in the spring. They are receptive and fertile for just 24 to 72 hours. A male panda needs to make his move then, or wait for another whole year. There is perhaps no mammal that is less often in the mood for sex than the female giant panda, Scientific American said in a 2012 article.
The phone representative was encouraging, but first I had to sign a release. I had the choice of faxing it back or dropping it in the mail, and I chose fax. The reply would take weeks.

As soon as I started in with the various fax machines in my office, however, I knew Id made a mistake. The first didnt work. The second, a combination copier-fax-scanner, screeched a bit, at which point I remembered the stories Id read about how they store images and leave users vulnerable to identity theft. That one didnt seem to work either, so I moved to Machine 3.

The next day, a colleague approached my desk. She handed me 53 copies of the Aetna form, each of which had my Social Security number and date of birth on it. Machine 2 had belched them out, one by one, at some indeterminate point.

DATABASES I also hoped to figure out what drug I took in 2009 that did not agree with me. What was it again? At first, I couldnt remember the name of the doctor who had prescribed it, so I checked in with two companies that provide reports on peoples prescription records. They sell access to life and other insurance companies, which ask applicants to grant them permission to do a sort of medical background check.

Wouldnt it be great if you could gather deeper insights into your applicants potential mortality risk? the website of one of the services, ScriptCheck, cheerily asks insurance companies. It would also be great if consumers could see what ScriptCheck has on them, but the website doesnt offer any information on how to do so. So heres the phone number to request a free report: 844-225-8047.

I wasnt able to get this one right away, but it turns out that Im destined for disappointment. A spokeswoman for ScriptChecks owner, Quest Diagnostics, told me that the outgoing message on the above phone numbers voice mail asks for your insurance companys name for a reason: ScriptCheck will give you only the prescription data that it gave the insurance company, going back seven years. So a request next week based on a 2013 insurance application will yield information from the application date and before. And my hunt for 2009 data based on my last life insurance application, which was in 2006, would yield nothing.

A ScriptCheck competitor, IntelliScript, moves more quickly and offers information for consumers on its website. Within 24 hours, I got an email response letting me know that the company had no information on me in its files.
ANGELINA JOLIES decision to file for divorce from Brad Pitt was certainly a blow to many fans of the Hollywood couple. But because the couple has six children, homes around the world, assets in the tens of millions of dollars and hard-to-value royalty income for years to come, their split offers an opportunity to look at how other wealthy couples manage their divorces.

Divorce lawyers, financial advisers and mediators say divorces dont have to be the type of acrimonious free-for-alls that make for riveting movies. Instead, they can be negotiations that provide financially for both parties and leave some semblance of a relationship to allow for joint parenting.

When you look at Brad and Angelina, thats the easiest divorce in the world, said Nancy Chemtob, a family and matrimonial lawyer who founded Chemtob Moss & Forman. You get every house in the world appraised and you look at how much money there is. California is a 50-50 state, so you split it up.

(Of course, they may have a prenuptial agreement that would deal with the disposition of assets, leaving custody of the children as the central issue.)
Caught between Netflix binges and digital detoxes, Americans cant decide whether they love or hate technology. Despite being a pioneer of electronic music, the composer Steve Reich has maintained a similar ambivalence throughout his long career. Decades before the Grammy- and Pulitzer-winning heyday that has made him one of this countrys most renowned artists, Mr. Reich struggled with the very technology that first brought him fame.

On Monday, Oct. 3, he turns 80, a milestone that has been celebrated in the music world all year. Then, on Nov. 1 at Carnegie Hall, comes the premiere of his new work, Pulse. For fans of Minimalism, the style Mr. Reich pioneered, the word pulse summons his most recognizable quality: From the pulsing of tape loops to the pulsing of voices, the hallmark of his style has always been a relentless rhythmic beat. But the idea of a pulse also figures large in his complicated relationship with technology.

Mr. Reich made his name in mid-1960s San Francisco. Experimenting with tape loops, he discovered what he subsequently dubbed phasing when he accidentally let two identical tape fragments gradually drift out of sync. In Its Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966), Mr. Reich played recorded voices against themselves: As they phased, the voices began to reverberate, then echo and eventually blur into chaos.
THE MINOTAUR TAKES HIS OWN SWEET TIME

By Steven Sherrill

261 pp. John F. Blair. $26.95.

In Steven Sherrills first novel, The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break (2000), readers met the grizzled ancient Minotaur bunking in a trailer at the Lucky-U Mobile Estates, working incognito as short-order cook at a ptomaine-inducing dive called Grubs Rib. (I am not making this up.) There are many kinds of hell for villains of the ancient world, and this is one. The creature, still horned and monosyllabic, seemed to be paying off a karmic debt for his violent history. Hed been banished to live forever among the mortals he killed for lunch during his pre-Christian past. Sherrill has since written three other works of fiction and a book of poems. Now, 16 years after the beasts last sighting, Sherrill provides more picaresque misadventures for the killer-bull biped gone geriatric, in The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time.

The question arises: Is the Minotaur of Greek myth relevant enough to deserve eternal life, much less a sequel? True, our own culture seems, during this bread-and-circus election year, ever more showily pagan. Ours is a colorful age, if barbarous. Bully-pulpit Caligulas abound.

Ovid describes the Minotaur as part man, part bull, half cattle-shaggy, half smooth. Surely this creature deserves a brief campaign bio here: You might remember how, when King Minos wife fell hard for a gigantic white bull, their calf-child arrived lactose-intolerant, hungry only for human flesh. (I am not making this up, either.) A subterranean maze gets constructed as Minotaurs cradle and prison. Dante later defamed the creatures violence with a walk-on role in the Inferno. And only one century ago, Pablo Picasso  boy-wizard at drawing animals and humans  found the Minotaur allowed both virtuosities concurrently. The horny, weak-eyed he-male beast became his spirit animal.

Sherrill also puts the monster to metaphoric use, confronting in both novels the spiritual impoverishment of contemporary America while feeling his age. Five thousand years is a long time to be old! Especially if you find yourself, as here, a Civil War re-enactor idled between show-battles in Old Scald Village, Pa. Slang-prone Americans have whittled the Minotaurs name to M. We encounter him living at the decidedly second-rate Judy-Lou Motor Lodge: Free Coffee and Mountain Views. He still has horns that get in his way, as horns will. In exchange for room and board, M does motel repairs. The Gupta family, Indian immigrants, run the place. Coming from a cattle-respecting nation, they accept the quiet bull-man in Room No. 3. He is either luckless or divine, or both. It is Sherrills conceit that few people notice Ms bull-furred face and head-rack. Such features might easily qualify the Minotaur for a more lucrative show business career as, say, frontman for Megadeth. Still, certain earthy women find Ms shopworn bull-likeness in no way off-putting.
I love knowing everybody. My quirk is that I nickname everybody who works for me, and I dont know if I can nickname 250 people the same way I can with 50.

How do you come up with the nicknames?

Through the stories they tell over time. There will be something that is very memorable that totally captures them. It becomes a big thing the day you are nicknamed, and everybody knows the story behind why you get that nickname. You can literally go to company events and we only call each other by our nicknames.

I assume you have a nickname.

Its H.B.I.C., which they have promised me stands for Head Betty in Charge, but Im pretty sure thats not what the B stands for. But its out of love. My business card says Head Betty.

You built up Sprout Pharmaceuticals to bring Addyi, a drug to treat low sex drive in women, to market. Was it hard to watch your grand plan go south after you sold the company to Valeant?

In a word, its disheartening, maybe heartbreaking. Exits for founders are often unsatisfactory in that you have this baby, and the baby will probably live its best life through adoption. The goal was that women around the world would have access to the drug. But the adoptive parents dont always have the same vision.

Tell me more about how you hire.

Ill have them give me their three-minute commercial  tell me about yourself, soup to nuts  to see where they start. They may start when they were born, or in their resume. I also love to hear what their favorite business is and why. Its probably not a question theyre commonly asked, but those who will fit in with our culture will find it pretty quickly. And it will probably not be a formulaic answer. It will probably be about some mom-and-pop store that they grew up going to and why it was great.

What career and life advice do you give to new college grads?

I tell people to walk into your bosss office in the first week and say, I want to be great at this. Im here to add value. Id love any opportunity to learn. If youre sitting in front of me and telling me that you want to be great, Im going to believe you.
If the goal is to keep corporate executives honest, compensation clawbacks arent doing the job.

Thats what the recent action by Wells Fargos board shows. Yes, the banks directors acted on Tuesday to recover $60 million in stock grants from two top executives in the wake of the phony-account-opening scandal. But the move came almost three years after the improprieties came to light  and should serve as Exhibit A for the shortcomings in these pay recovery programs.

Recouping compensation from top executives involved in misconduct seemed like a great idea after the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals. Initially, Congress assigned the task to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the nations top securities regulator.

But the agencys scope is limited. It could recover only a portion of pay from chief executives or chief financial officers if their companies were found to have cooked their books.

After the financial crisis, lawmakers went further, tasking the S.E.C. and other major financial regulators with writing new rules that would require companies to institute clawback policies of their own. Those rules are not yet final, and in testimony on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Janet L. Yellen, the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve Board, said getting the rule on the books was a top priority.
RE: FIRST WORDS

Wesley Morris wrote about Colin Kaepernick and the question of who gets to be called a patriot.

The near requirement that a person stand for the national anthem is a peculiarly American notion. What should be more meaningful and profound are the freedoms and liberties that the anthem represents, including the right to protest injustice against you or others. Colin Kaepernick has been excoriated by many for not being grateful or patriotic enough. Id say that the conversation he is helping to inspire is about as patriotic as a person can get. Edwin Andrews, Malden, Mass.
In certain circles, Danny Fields is a mythical figure. Hes a rock n roll mover, shaker, influencer and scene maker  a Harvard Law School dropout who eventually fell in with Andy Warhols Factory crowd and went on to manage the Stooges and the Ramones. And yet, when it came time to watch Brendan Tollers new documentary, Danny Says, about his life, Mr. Fields had to brace himself.

My agenda was, first, would I have to jump out the window? he said. I watched it and decided that A, I did not have to kill myself, and B, he really made a good movie.

Parts of Mr. Fieldss story had been told over the years  most notably, in Legs McNeil and Gillian McCains oral history of punk, Please Kill Me (which is dedicated to Danny Fields, forever the coolest guy in the room). But Danny Says  opening Friday, Sept. 30, and named for a 1980 Ramones song  represents the first attempt to capture the full sweep of his experiences, from befriending Edie Sedgwick to fighting with Jim Morrison.

Its a story about a person inventing himself and then helping invent a culture, Mr. Toller said in a telephone interview. How was Danny at the right place at the right time, so many times? I think hes really a philosopher at heart, who helped launch a revolution.
Although its in the crush of Midtown Manhattan and surrounded by storefronts hawking perfume and leather goods, J. Levine Books & Judaica will take you back to the shtetl.

Founded in 1890 in Vilkomir, Lithuania, the shop moved to New York City in 1905. It has been passed down through four generations of Levines  which is no small feat, as Danny Levine, the current president, points out.

The first brothers in history, Cain and Abel, killed each other, he said. Its so hard for family businesses to survive.

The store is narrow and brimming with merchandise: Thick, gold-lettered prayer books sit opposite stuffed blue Torahs for children; Kosher Kurls conditioner is displayed near cases for mezuzas, the small parchments that protect the home.
When Rich Marins brand-new 300-foot-long legs arrive from Italy this weekend, he is hoping his friends will stop teasing him.

Mr. Marin is a giant of a man  6-foot-5, 350 pounds  dwarfing everyone around him. But those legs dont exactly belong to him; they belong to his latest project, a 630-foot Ferris wheel that is slowly coming together on the Staten Island shore.

People say to me every day, When are you going to start building? said Mr. Marin, the chief executive of the New York Wheel, which will become the biggest observation wheel in the world when it is finished in about a year and a half. When the legs arrive, thats the day people stop asking me.

On a recent tour of the bustling work site, Mr. Marin tried to show how high the 60-story wheel would reach. But there were no reference points. Itll be right about where the sun is, he said, squinting and pointing to the midmorning sky.
New York characters galore, both good guys and gangsters, leap from the pages of Undisclosed Files of the Police: Cases From the Archives of the N.Y.P.D. (Black Dog & Leventhal, $40).

While not all of the cases were previously undisclosed, each entry is generously illustrated, many with rare historical photographs and bite-size anecdotal accounts by the authors: Bernard J. Whalen, a police lieutenant; Philip Messing, a reporter for The New York Post; and Robert Mladinich, a retired detective.

Undisclosed Files reveals that before Johnnie Cochran defended O. J. Simpson, he prosecuted Lenny Bruce; that police profiling dates back well into the 19th century, when Thomas Byrnes, the chief of detectives, ordered his men to arrest any known criminals south of Fulton Street on sight; and that the first criminal in America convicted solely on fingerprint evidence was a man named Caesar Cella, in 1911.

The authors, thankfully, define terms like the third degree (it follows after the initial round of questioning by the arresting officer and the second round, by the assigned detective, fail to yield results). They recall anarchist plots to blow up St. Patricks Cathedral and remind readers of the best-selling Daily News front page featuring Ruth Snyder, convicted of murder, in the electric chair; they detail the carnage of George Metesky, the Mad Bomber who terrorized New York in the 1950s (who, of that era, can forget the grinning photograph of Metesky, a disgruntled former Consolidated Edison employee?); they touch on the cases of Judge Joseph Force Crater, who disappeared in 1930 (and is still missing), and of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed as Soviet spies in 1953.
A Dagger In The Heart Shelby County v Holder Op Doc Shelby 0812-DSv43 Transcript On-Screen IDs (lower thirds) Julie Fernandes: Advocacy Director, Open Society Foundation (correct the spelling of her name in the cut) Hans von Spakovsky: Senior Legal Fellow, The Heritage Foundation Debo Adegbile: Civil Rights Attorney Eric Holder: Former U.S. Attorney General Ari Berman: Journalist/Author Edward Blum: Director, The Project on Fair Representation TEXT CARD: A Dagger in the Heart Shelby County v Holder BARBER AT RALLY: Every time you attack and suppress the vote, thats violence! Thats social violence, thats psychological violence, thats political violence and its time to stop the violence. BLUM: I fundamentally believe that African Americans were gravely disadvantaged throughout the bulk of American history. I do not believe they are gravely disadvantaged today. TEXT CARD: Edward Blum is a conservative legal strategist and backer of a legal defense program that has funded cases challenging the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 BLUM: There is racism in modern America. There is homophobia in modern America. Theres anti-Semitism in modern America. The question is what should government do about that? ARCHIVAL AUDIO: MALE: The President of the United States... (Applause) LBJ: The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men. ARI: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is widely regarded as the most important piece of Civil Rights legislation ever passed. And it was meant to end the problem of voting discrimination in the South. It struck down things like poll taxes and literacy tests that had prevented African Americans from registering to vote for many many years. GFX: Voting Rights Act document / Map showing areas covered under Section 5. ARI: The most powerful part of the voting rights act was that under section 5 those states with the longest histories of voting discrimination had to approve their voting changes with the federal government to make sure they didnt discriminate in the future. FERNANDEZ: Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was the most effective civil rights provision in our history. It was the thing that changed the game for black, and Latino, and Native-American voters across the country. VON SPAKOVSKY: By 2005, the registration rate of black voters was on par with and in many states exceeded that of white voters. The turnout rate of black voters was often on par with white voters and exceeded that. GFX: Graphs showing changes in Black registration & turnout from 1965 - 2005. VON SPAKOVSKY: There was no longer any kind of the systematic statewide discrimination that had caused Section 5 to be a necessary requirement. BLUM: Section 5 did its job. TEXT CARD: In 2010, Blums lawyers filed a lawsuit on behalf of Shelby County Alabama challenging the constitutionality of the formula in the Voting Rights Act that determined which jurisdictions required federal approval to change their voting laws. SCOTUS ARCHIVAL AUDIO (Under Text): ROBERTS: Well hear argument first the morning in case 1296, Shelby County v Holder. REIN: I think the problem to which the Voting Rights Act was addressed is solved. You look at the registration, you look at voting. That problem is solved on an absolute as well as a relative basis. SOTOMAYOR: Counsel, the reason Section 5 was created was because States were moving faster than litigation permitted to catch the new forms of discriminatory practices that were being developed. As the courts struck down one form, the States would find another. HOLDER: Theres no question that weve made progress as a nation, but progress is not a destination. DEBO: The election of Barack Obama represented many things. One of the things it turns out that it represented was the biggest push to turn back voter access since the Jim Crow period. ARI: When minorities became the majority in Texas, thats when Republicans really began pushing for voter ID there. African-Americans and Hispanics are two to three times more likely to not have a government issued ID as white voters. FERNANDEZ: The Texas voter ID law went through the Section 5 process to have the district court decide whether it was racially discriminatory. And the Federal District Court said it was, and blocked the implementation of the voter ID law. BARBER AT RALLY: And so if youre mad about our elected leadership, and how theyre handling the peoples business, you better raise your voice and vote your dreams. BARBER: It doesnt take much, so if you can get just one percent or half a percent people to not be able to vote or just to not show up then you can win elections. FERNANDEZ: Once you have an election, its over. Because once the election is over, people are governing. People are moving on. So, in voting, its a critical feature to be able to stop racially discriminatory voting changes from being implemented in the first place. TEXT CARD: Since 1965, the Justice Department and federal courts have used Section 5 to stop more than 3,000 discriminatory changes from taking effect. HOLDER: I thought that there was a basis for the Court to simply uphold the Voting Rights Act. The majority of the people in both the Civil Rights Division and the Solicitor Generals Office had a different view - that the Court has taken the case with a purpose. SCOTUS ARCHIVAL AUDIO: SCALIA: Even the name of it is wonderful, the Voting Rights Act... who is going to vote against that in the future? Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes. DEBO: There could be no more ahistoric articulation of what the Voting Rights Act is than that characterization. For a person to say that race is not a salient factor in American life today- You can only say that from one of two positions: One is a position of privilege or the other is a position of ignorance. Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush - all signed reauthorizations of the Voting Rights Act, and so for a long time the Voting Rights Act wasnt about partisan politics it was about the American promise. SCOTUS ARCHIVAL AUDIO: ROBERTS: I have the opinion of the court this morning the case 1296 Shelby Vs Holder... TEXT CARD: In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that portions of the Voting Rights Act were unconstitutional. States previously covered under section 5 no longer needed federal approval before changing their voting laws. BLUM: When that opinion came down it was a very gratifying moment. Your race and your ethnicity should not be something thats used to help you in life or to harm you in life, that is - that is what the vast majority of Americans believe. ARI: Within an hour of the Shelby County decision, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott tweets that his states voter ID law which had been blocked under the Voting Rights Act would go into the effect. FERNANDEZ: Now, a federal court had said its racially discriminatory. But the provision of the law they used... POOF! They implement the racially discriminatory law. ARI: A month after the Shelby County decision, North Carolina passes a sweeping rewrite of its election system. The state cuts back on early voting, it requires strict ID, it eliminates same day voter registration, it eliminates pre-registration for 16 & 17 year olds. They even eliminate citizen awareness month which is meant to encourage people to register to vote. FERNANDEZ: As soon as theres not a racial discrimination check on the statute, they decide to pass a bill that includes tons of provisions that they, themselves, had negotiated away because they were concerned they wouldnt pass the Section 5 test. GFX: MAP showing 17 states that have new voting restrictions in place for the 2016 election ARCHIVAL AUDIO (Under Text): MALE NEWSCASTER: Todays decision apparently clears the way for several high profile laws including stricter voter ID requirements in Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas... ARCHIVAL VIDEO/AUDIO: JOHN LEWIS: I never thought that I would see the day when the United States Supreme Court would put a dagger in the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. ARI: This is going to be the first presidential election in 50 years without the full protection of the Voting Rights Act. BLUM: If the states that were covered by Section 5 make changes to their election procedures that harm minorities, voters can come together, form a plaintiff group, hire attorneys, and challenge that. That is how our legal system works. ARI: These lawsuits are very expensive, and the burden of proof is on those facing discrimination as opposed to the states that are doing the discriminating. And laws can only be challenged once theyve been passed. So, youre now faced with a situation where voters are facing discrimination and then laws are being challenged. TEXT CARD: In 2016, the courts found that the Voter ID laws enacted in North Carolina and Texas after the Shelby decision were racially discriminatory. The court declared that the voting provisions in North Carolina targeted African-Americans with almost surgical precision. BARBER AT CHURCH: Now if people are trying to take your right you must be powerful. Nobody would go through all this trouble; nobody would go to the supreme court, nobody would vote like this if they thought you were weak. You must be powerful. TEXT CARD: In the 11 states with strict voter ID laws, minority participation in general elections dropped by 4.7%. This could disenfranchise as many as half a million minority voters in 2016. END.
On matters military and diplomatic alike, Mr. Peres was courageous and imaginative. He was willing to consider and often to risk almost all political, diplomatic and military options, regardless of how fantastic and unrealistic they might be. In 1967, he sought to avoid the Six Day War, anticipating heavy losses for the Israeli army. He reportedly suggested that instead of going to war, Israel should detonate a powerful and extremely noisy device that would scare Egypt, Jordan and Syria out of their plan to attack Israel. He found no support for this scheme, but had it worked it might have significantly altered the events of the last 50 years  avoiding the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

But over the course of his political career, Mr. Peres participated in the oppression of the Palestinians who have been living for nearly half a century under Israeli occupation. In 1975, when he was defense minister, Mr. Peres granted permission to one of the first groups of Israeli settlers to remain in the West Bank. Later, he supported the establishment of several other settlements, laying the first obstacles to the so-called two-state solution.

Over the years, Mr. Peres sent diplomatic feelers to Arab leaders, primarily King Hussein of Jordan, who had been talking secretly with Israeli leaders for decades. In an abortive agreement with the king, Mr. Peres consented in 1987 to end the occupation of the West Bank and put it under Jordanian rule. Later, Jordan and Israel concluded an official peace agreement, while Mr. Peres was foreign minister. The Palestinian issue remained unresolved. And in 1993, as foreign minister, Mr. Peres signed in Oslo the agreement that led to an exuberant ceremony on the White House lawn and gained Mr. Peres the joint Nobel Peace Prize. Oslo faded away; the Palestinian issue remains unresolved.

The rest of the world hailed the Oslo agreement as proof that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be resolved. But within Israel it was, and still is, controversial. The right called Mr. Peres a defeatist for ceding some control of the West Bank, the left called him an expansionist because the agreement didnt end the occupation. Both sides were not entirely wrong. In fact, Mr. Peres was trying to please everyone, settlers and peace activists alike. That was the story line of his political life.
For more than half a century, a rent-controlled apartment at 1150 Fifth Avenue was the home and office of the British-born journalist and social commentator Alistair Cooke. There, on the 15th floor, he famously worked on the Letter From America series for the BBC from a desk overlooking Central Park.

The genteel Mr. Cooke, best known in the United States as the longtime host of PBSs Masterpiece Theater (now just called Masterpiece), died at home in 2004, less than a month after officially retiring at age 95. His wife, Jane White, an artist, moved out about a year later, allowing the owner of the prewar building, which converted to a co-op in 1987, to sell the apartment.

Mr. Cooke and his wife, were they still around (Ms. White died in 2011), likely wouldnt recognize the place today, except for the stunning views of the park and reservoir from the living room and most of the bedrooms. The current owners, Othon and Kathy Prounis, bought the simplex, No. 15A, from the sponsor in 2006 for $4.35 million, and commenced a top-to-bottom overhaul that took nearly two years, modernizing and reconfiguring the entire space.

The reimagined apartment, at East 96th Street, was recently refurbished and refreshed with new millwork, lighting and kitchen appliances, and is now about to return to the market. The asking price is $11.75 million, according to Randall Gianopulos, the agent at Sothebys International Realty who is listing the property. Monthly maintenance is $7,467.
Solar power in New York City may finally be having its moment.

The number of residential projects across the five boroughs has risen to more than 5,300 this year from 186 in 2011, according to state officials, and there are another 1,900 in the pipeline. The solar boom has been prompted by a 70 percent drop in installation costs in recent years, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, along with the streamlining of government approvals and incentives.

The upfront cost for installing solar panels on a single-family house runs between $20,000 and $50,000, but federal, state and city incentives and tax credits can cut that cost in half, said David Sandbank, the director of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authoritys NY-Sun initiative, and homeowners say that once solar panels are up and running, monthly energy bills can fall by as much as 85 percent.

Most of the citys existing solar projects are on single-family houses on Staten Island, but townhouse owners in Brooklyn are getting on board, and owners of apartment buildings in the Bronx and Queens are also starting to consider ways to harness the suns power.

The solar industry itself has surged. According to the citys Economic Development Corporation, five solar installers were operating in the five boroughs in 2005, but by 2015, the number had increased to about 55 companies, employing about 2,700 workers.
Silence has a price. The humble act of hanging a window placard gives an average citizen a voice in a political landscape dominated by players with deep pockets. A yard or window sign is an inexpensive way to participate. Such signs have been a historic way that residents can express their political views, said Jeanne LoCicero, the deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. Youre putting yourself out there, and in that way its unique. But for millions of New Yorkers living in multifamily buildings, that option is off the table.

Unless, of course, you own the building. Consider 337 Lafayette Street, a construction site owned by the developer Aby Rosen. Since August, it has been wrapped in a green barrier emblazoned with the phrase Vote Your Conscience, a nod to Ted Cruz, who uttered the words at the Republican National Convention before endorsing Donald Trump in late September. The sign could also be read as a jibe at Jared Kushner, Mr. Trumps son-in-law, whose company owns the nearby Puck building.

Paradoxically, 337 Lafayette Street was once known as the Peace Pentagon because the building traditionally housed left-leaning tenants like the Granny Peace Brigade and the Socialist Party USA. Those tenants were displaced after Mr. Rosen bought the property for $20.75 million in 2015.

Sometimes, even ownership does not guarantee political expression. In February, Joseph Hornick, a retired firefighter, hung two flags bearing Mr. Trumps slogan Make America Great Again outside his house in West Long Branch, N.J. They were the first campaign flags Mr. Hornick had ever flown. I was proud to put those flags up, he said. Until declaring his support for Mr. Trump, he had hung only the American flag of 1815, the year his home was built.

In March, Mr. Hornick received a citation for violating a town ordinance restricting the display of political signs to 30 days before an election and five days after. He faced a fine of up to $2,000 or 90 days in jail, or both, although it was unlikely he would have received such a stiff punishment from the municipal court for a first offense, according to his lawyers.

Mr. Hornick was not deterred. I would have done a year in jail, he said. I was only concerned about who was going to guard my flags. (Vandals had repeatedly stolen them, but Mr. Hornick replaced them with new ones from eBay.)

The story took on a life of its own, said Mr. Hornick, who soon became a local celebrity in his community near the Jersey Shore as news outlets took notice. By May, the case had been dismissed. In June, the town repealed the ordinance.

This kind of ordinance is probably more common than you think, said Eric D. Sherman, a Manhattan lawyer who represented Mr. Hornick pro bono, along with the ACLU of New Jersey. People arent aware that its unconstitutional.
Susannah Vila lives in a large studio on the parlor floor of a townhouse in the East Village, but whos to say how long shell be there.

A serial subletter, Ms. Vila, 31, sticks with apartments in much the way Henry VIII stuck with wives. Yes, its true she did once manage to stay put for a full year  the current record  in a two-bedroom place near Union Square. But balance that against the apartment above a restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where Ms. Vila departed after just one month  another personal record.

Since transferring from George Washington University to New York University 11 years ago, Ms. Vila, an entrepreneur, has lived in 15 apartments in New York  in neighborhoods including Greenpoint, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill in Brooklyn; and Union Square, the West Village, Hamilton Heights, Morningside Heights, Chelsea and Chinatown in Manhattan.

But Ms. Vilas moves have not all been domestic. She lived for brief periods  and also sublet  in Mexico City, Peru and Cairo, where she was a founder of the Engine Room, an organization that consults on the use of technology for social change.
Long dead, a poet, Gower, is come.

Reborn, I stand here as I stood

By firesides in darkened woods

At harvests and when fasts were broken

Both high and low born heard it spoken.

Let echoes of the past remind

Your modern ears of simpler times.

Ill tell of ancient rights and wrongs

Of what we feared or praised in songs.

If a man dead for centuries

Can tell a story that will please

You watching on this living night,

My candles tale I set alight.

Pericles 2016 Ellen McLaughlin.

Now, Your Turn

How would you rewrite the famous call to battle from Shakespeares Henry V? Thats the kind of challenge being taken up by playwrights invited by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to look at the Bards plays and translate to contemporary modern English those lines that need translating. Setting and time period should remain the same and yes, we know, this speech is pretty great. But how would you make it more accessible and still keep in mind meter, rhyme, rhythm, metaphor and more? Give it your best shot in the comments.

King Henry V

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace theres nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Location

The blocklong oceanfront hotel sits at the northernmost fringe of South Beach. Museums, shops and restaurants are within easy reach. There are also three Tesla electric cars driven by staff members and available between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. for free drop-offs within a three-mile radius of the hotel.

The Room

Our fourth-floor room was spacious and airy, with an L-shaped couch, large wood coffee table and multiple cushioned chairs. The king-size bed, outfitted with a hemp-blend Keetsa mattress, was perched on a raised oak platform. Missing but not missed from the room: a phone and brochures. Instead, a hand-held device, called the 1 Guide, doubles as a TV remote and is used to order room service, text the valet, request turndown service, and more. Unfortunately, the system failed more times than it worked. While breakfast was delivered in a timely fashion, other requests required follow-up calls. And when we tried to check out via the device, we received an error message and a bellhop never came up to collect our bags. Worse, no one answered when we called for assistance. Amenities included a yoga mat and a Nespresso machine. A minifridge contained juices, organic beer and coconut water as well as the usual soda and liquors. Snacks included kale chips and chocolate bars with sea-salt.
The chef Ethan Stowell closed his first restaurant, Union, in 2010, after the economic downturn hit downtown and Seattleites were less interested in luxuriating over fancy tasting menus at linen-draped tables. Since then he opened a series of smaller, more casual restaurants in residential neighborhoods.

The chef returned to his refined roots this year with the March opening of Marine Hardware, bringing back high-end ingredients like foie gras and truffles. This time its not downtown but in the Ballard neighborhood, in a 100-year-old building that houses another of Mr. Stowells restaurants, Staple & Fancy.

Though the food might be refined, there are no table linens. In fact, the seven tables are bare  all the better to showcase Mr. Stowells carefully chosen ingredients and venerable technique. Weve grown with Seattle diners, he said. They want chanterelles and duck breast in a comfortable, casual, hip environment.
How much better would the market perform under a President Clinton than a President Trump?

Consider the rise in stock futures. At first blush, an increase of less than 1 percent doesnt sound like much. But it points to something much bigger. After all, if a relatively small decline in the likelihood of a Trump presidency led to a modest stock rally, then a larger decline in Mr. Trumps electoral fortunes would most likely lead to a larger market reaction. A surprise win for Mr. Trump would probably set off a substantial market correction.

We can be a bit more precise. According to political prediction markets, the odds of a Trump presidency fell by nearly six percentage points during the debate. By contrast, the difference between a certain Trump loss and a certain Trump win  by definition, a 100-percentage-point change in probability  is around 16 times as large as that six-percentage-point drop. It follows that the difference in the value of stocks under a President Clinton versus a President Trump is 16 times as large as Monday nights stock market shift.

Putting the pieces together (multiplying that 16 by the percentage point rise in the S.&P. 500 value), this suggests that the market expects stock prices to be 10 to 12 percent lower if Mr. Trump wins than they will be if he loses.

This is a big difference.

What does it all mean? When economists conduct event studies like this, they typically do so in the hope that movements in stock prices reflect the informed bets of traders trying to assess the future profitability of the businesses theyre buying or selling. If thats right, then Wall Street is telling us that if Mr. Trump is elected, it expects the profitability of Americas largest businesses to be about 10 to 12 percent lower on average in the future.

This is all the more remarkable because it occurs despite Mr. Trumps having promised an enormous profit-raising corporate tax cut. Either the markets dont believe hell deliver on these tax cuts, or they believe that the rest of his economic program will do enough harm to more than offset the benefits of lower taxes.
The press took note when Hillary Clinton wore pantsuits from the American label Ralph Lauren at the Democratic National Convention and at the first presidential debate. But the brands favored by her opponent, Donald J. Trump, have slipped under the radar.

While the Republican nominee has in years past expressed a fondness for the upscale Italian label Brioni (owned since 2011 by Kering, a French corporation), it was not a certainty that he has been wearing Brioni suits on the campaign trail.

An email exchange with Hope Hicks, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, cleared things up. Mr. Trump has indeed been wearing Brioni as Election Day draws near, and he also favors suits by the Brooklyn label Martin Greenfield Clothiers, among others, according to Ms. Hicks.

Mr. Greenfield is perhaps best known as the tailor to President Obama. Other fans of Greenfield suits include the former New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the former New York City police commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. Jay Greenfield, a son of Martin and the co-owner of the company, confirmed that it had made several suits for Mr. Trump before the start of his presidential run.
13 of 17

Liberty, a golden retriever, was a favorite of the first family. She was often photographed sleeping by the presidents feet in the Oval Office, swimming in the White House pool and running around on the South Lawn. When she had puppies, the nation was charmed. But the public was not charmed enough to re-elect Libertys owner, who goes down in history as the only man to have served as both vice president and president without ever having been elected to either office.
BEIRUT, Lebanon  Secretary of State John Kerry was clearly exasperated, not least at his own government.

Over and over again, he complained to a small group of Syrian civilians that his diplomacy had not been backed by a serious threat of military force, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.

I think youre looking at three people, four people in the administration who have all argued for use of force, and I lost the argument.

The 40-minute discussion, on the sidelines of last weeks United Nations General Assembly in New York, provides a glimpse of Mr. Kerrys frustration with his inability to end the Syrian crisis. He veered between voicing sympathy for the Syrians frustration with United States policy and trying to justify it.

The conversation took place days after a brief cease-fire he had spearheaded crumbled, and as his Russian counterpart rejected outright his new proposal to stop the bombing of Aleppo. Those setbacks were followed by days of crippling Russian and Syrian airstrikes in Aleppo that the World Health Organization said Wednesday had killed 338 people, including 100 children.

At the meeting last week, Mr. Kerry was trying to explain that the United States has no legal justification for attacking Mr. Assads government, whereas Russia was invited in by the government.

The problem is the Russians dont care about international law, and we do.

Mr. Kerry has been hamstrung by Russias military operations in Syria and by his inability to persuade Washington to intervene more forcefully. He has also been unable to sell Syrian opponents of Mr. Assad, like the ones in that room, on a policy he does not wholeheartedly believe in.

His frustrations and dissent within the Obama administration have hardly been a secret, but in the recorded conversation, Mr. Kerry lamented being outmaneuvered by the Russians, expressed disagreement with some of Mr. Obamas policy decisions and said Congress would never agree to use force.

Were trying to pursue the diplomacy, and I understand its frustrating. You have nobody more frustrated than we are.

The meeting took place at the Dutch Mission to the United Nations on Sept. 22. There were perhaps 20 people around a table: representatives of four Syrian groups that provide education, rescue and medical services in rebel-held areas; diplomats from three or four countries; and Mr. Kerrys chief of staff and special envoy for Syria. The recording was made by a non-Syrian attendee, and several other participants confirmed its authenticity.

John Kirby, a State Department spokesman, declined on Thursday evening to comment on what he described as a private conversation. He said that Mr. Kerry was grateful for the chance to meet with this group of Syrians, to hear their concerns firsthand and to express our continued focus on ending this civil war.

Several of the Syrian participants said afterward that they had left the meeting demoralized, convinced that no further help would come from the Obama administration. One, a civil engineer named Mustafa Alsyofi, said Mr. Kerry had effectively told the Syrian opposition, You have to fight for us, but we will not fight for you.

How can this be accepted by anyone? Mr. Alsyofi asked. Its unbelievable.

In the meeting, he and the others pressed Mr. Kerry politely but relentlessly on what they saw as contradictions in American policy. Their comments crystallized the widespread sense of betrayal even among the Syrians most attractive to Washington as potential partners, civilians pushing for pluralistic democracy.

One woman, Marcell Shehwaro, demanded the bottom line, asking how many Syrians had to be killed to prompt serious action.

What is the end of it? What he can do that would be the end of it?

Mr. Kerry responded that Assads indifference to anything could push the administration to consider new options, adding, Theres a different conversation taking place since the intensified bombing of Aleppo and the further breakdown of talks with Russia.

But he also said any further American effort to arm rebels or join the fight could backfire.

The problem is that, you know, you get, quote, enforcers in there and then everybody ups the ante, right? Russia puts in more, Iran puts in more; Hezbollah is there more and Nusra is more; and Saudi Arabia and Turkey put all their surrogate money in, and you all are destroyed.

At another point, Mr. Kerry spelled out in stark terms distinctions the United States was making between combatants, which have upset the Syrian opposition: The United States wants the rebels to help it fight the Islamic State and Al Qaeda because, as he put it, both have basically declared war on us. But Washington will not join the same rebels in fighting Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia allied with Mr. Assad, even though the United States lists Hezbollah as a terrorist group like the others.

Hezbollah, Mr. Kerry explained, is not plotting against us.

He also spoke of the obstacles he faces back home: a Congress unwilling to authorize the use of force and a public tired of war.

A lot of Americans dont believe that we should be fighting and sending young Americans over to die in another country.

One of the Syrians in the room assured Mr. Kerry, No one is requesting an invasion, but he insisted that the rebels needed more help.

As time ran short, Mr. Kerry told the Syrians that their best hope was a political solution to bring the opposition into a transitional government. Then, he said, you can have an election and let the people of Syria decide: Who do they want?

A State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said later that Mr. Kerry was not indicating a shift in the administrations view of Mr. Assad, only reiterating a longstanding belief that he would be ousted in any fair election.

At one point, Mr. Kerry astonished the Syrians at the table when he suggested that they should participate in elections that include President Bashar al-Assad, five years after President Obama demanded that he step down.

Mr. Kerry described the election saying it would be set up by Western and regional powers, and the United Nations, under the strictest standards. He said that the millions of Syrians who have fled since the war began in 2011 would be able to participate.

Everybody whos registered as a refugee anywhere in the world can vote. Are they going to vote for Assad? Assads scared of this happening.

But the Syrians were skeptical that people living under government rule inside Syria would feel safe casting ballots against Mr. Assad, even with international observers  or that Russia would agree to elections if it could not ensure the outcome. And that is when the conversation reached an impasse, with Ms. Shehwaro, an educator and social media activist, recalling hopes for a more direct American role.

So you think the only solution is for somebody to come in and get rid of Assad? Mr. Kerry asked.

Yes, Ms. Shehwaro said.

Whos that going to be? he asked. Whos going to do that?
Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore has been suspended without pay for the rest of his term.

The Alabama Court of the Judiciary found Moore guilty on 6 counts of violating the judicial canon of ethics.

In a 50 page final judgement, the court said the evidence was "clear and convincing" that Moore showed disregard for federal law with his administrative order issued on Jan. 6, 2016 to probate judges to not issue same-sex marriage licenses.

"It is the unanimous judgement of this Court that Chief Justice Moore should be suspend from office without pay for the remainder of his term," the judgement said.

A majority of the court said Moore should be removed from office, but Alabama law requires the decision to be unanimous.

Moore said in a press release the decision reflected the corrupt nature of the political and legal system at the highest level.

"This was a politically motivated effort by radical homosexual and transgender groups to remove me as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court because of outspoken opposition to their immoral agenda," Moore said in the release.

At his trial on Wednesday, Moore called the charges against him brought by the Judicial Inquiry commission "ridiculous."

This was a matter that was clearly in law, Moore said during the trial. It had nothing to do with what I felt about same-sex marriage or anything like that.

The suspension was effective immediately.

Moore will also have to reimburse the Court of the Judiciary for the cost of proceedings.

The Judicial Inquiry Commission filed a complaint against Moore in May over an administrative order to Alabama probate judges in January stating Alabamas same-sex marriage ban was still in effect.

The U.S. Supreme Court declared, in a 5-4 ruling, all same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional in the June 2015 case Obergefell v. Hodges. Before that ruling, Moore issued a similar order in February 2015 after a U.S. District Judge Callie V.S. Granade declared Alabamas same-sex marriage law unconstitutional.

I never defied Judge Granades order, Moore said Wednesday. What I did was point out the federal rule of procedure that governed federal courts. I support federal courts. Ive quoted federal courts throughout my opinions.

Mathew Staver, Moores attorney and chairman of the Liberty Counsel law firm that specializes in litigating to promote evangelical Christian beliefs, said in a press release the court's decision was a violation of the law.

"To suspend Chief Justice Moore for the rest of his term is the same as removal. The COJ lacked the unanimous votes to remove the Chief, so the majority instead chose to ignore the law and the rules," Staver said. "...Todays decision by the COJ to suspend the Chief for the rest of his term throws the rule of law out the window. This system must be changed."

Staver said the administrative order was "merely a status report" on the case pending before the Alabama Supreme Court.

"The order did not change the status quo," Staver said. "It did not create any new obligation or duty. To suspend Chief Justice Moore for the duration of his term is a miscarriage of justice and we will appeal this case to the Alabama Supreme Court. This case is far from over.

The Liberty Counsel points out in its statement if the Alabama Supreme Court hears an appeal, all current justices will have to recuse themselves and a new panel of judges would need to be appointed to hear the case.

Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which filed the initial complaint with the Judicial Inquiry Commission, said the Court of the Judiciary did a great service by suspending Moore.

"Moore was elected to be a judge, not a preacher," Cohen said. "It's something that he never seemed to understand. The people of Alabama who cherish the rule of law are not going to miss the Ayatollah of Alabama."

Alabama Republican Party Char Terry Lathan called the verdict disappointing in a press release and said the Court of the Judiciary is unaccountable to the voters of Alabama.

"Judge Moore was elected, twice, by the citizens of our state," Lathan said. "In light of this, two groups who are unaccountable to the voters have overstepped boundaries in suspending a statewide elected judge."

Lathan added the Alabama Republican Party had passed a resolution opposing the removal of Moore and a resolution calling on the members of the Judicial Inquiry Commission to be elected instead of appointed.

The Opelika-Auburn News has reached out to the Judicial Inquiry Commission for comment on the verdict.

Moore was previously removed from office as chief justice in 2003 after he refused to follow a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building. He was re-elected as chief justice in 2012.

Gov. Robert Bentley office said the governor had no comment on the verdict.

Acting Chief Justice Lyn Stuart will oversee the court and the court will continue with eight justices.

Alabama law prohibits anyone 70 and older from being elected or appointed as a judge. Moore is 69 years old.

Moore's term expires in 2019 with the election of a new chief justice in 2018.
The impeachment investigation of Gov. Robert Bentley has become a test of the powers of the Alabama Legislature after the Alabama House Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas for Bentley and his former adviser, Rebekah Mason.

The subpoenas came after special counsel Jack Sharman told the committee on Tuesday that Bentley, Mason and others connected to them had not fully responded to document requests.

"Some witnesses have been less cooperative with the committees efforts, Sharman told the committee. Some of the witnesses have simply declined these documents or to meet with us without offering any particular reason.

A House Judiciary subcommittee of representatives Merika Coleman, D-Birmingham, Dickie Drake, R-Leeds, and Matt Fridy, R-Birmingham, approved the subpoena request.

Ross Garber, Bentleys attorney hired for the impeachment investigation, said Sharman was conducting a fishing expedition and creating a political circus.

Despite having no authority to do so, they have issued broad, abusive, ambiguous subpoenas, and have threatened to spend Alabama taxpayers money to finance long, protracted litigation to test their power, Garber told the Opelika-Auburn News.

Besides Bentley and Mason, subpoenas were sent out to Johnathan Mason, Rebekah Masons husband; RCM Communications, Rebekah Masons company; Michael Echols, CPA for Bentley; JRM Enterprises Inc. and the Alabama Council for Excellent Government, a non-profit set up by Bentley that paid Rebekah Mason.

The subpoenas ask for financial records and any documents related to the firing of former Alabama Law Enforcement Agency head Spencer Collier.

Collier revealed that Bentley had a relationship with Mason after he was fired for what Bentley said was a misuse of state funds.

Collier said he was fired because he cooperated in the prosecution of former House Speaker Mike Hubbard.

Bentley apologized for saying inappropriate things to Mason after a recording of a phone call between the two was released, but he denied having a sexual relationship. Mason has since resigned from the governors office.

Sharman told the committee on Tuesday that they do have subpoena power but they will have to involve a court to enforce it.

House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Mike Jones said the committee will do what it takes to conduct the investigation.

(Sharman) is hired under contract, Jones said. If there was a point where his fees went beyond whats already contracted, then it would have to go back in front of a contract review. So thats a process that would constantly have to be approved  if it was necessary.
People can certainly have different opinions about what churches should say from the pulpit, especially with regard to politics, but no one should want the federal government  rather than congregations themselves  to be in charge of what is said. And telling a church that it must give up a constitutionally protected freedom to remain tax-exempt doesnt pass constitutional muster. Thats why the legally sound Free Speech Fairness Act introduced in Congress Wednesday is very much needed.

Unfortunately, many people conflate what they personally think a church shouldnt do or say with what the Constitution allows.

The Tax Codes restriction on political speech by non-profit organizations, popularly known as the Johnson Amendment, was named after its sponsor, Lyndon Johnson, who maneuvered the levers of senatorial power to insert the provision into a massive tax overhaul bill in 1954. Congress passed that bill without any thought about its impact on the constitutionally protected freedoms of churches, and Johnson wasnt targeting them either. It was an incumbent-protection measure specifically designed to silence two non-profit organizations opposing Johnsons Senate run because they thought he was soft on communism.

Some have wrongly claimed that those who oppose the Johnson Amendment dont understand this, but they very clearly do. The primary organization that has sought the end of the Johnson Amendment, for example, is the Alliance Defending Freedom, and we have, from the beginning, clearly and repeatedly explained that this amendment wasnt enacted to target religious groups and that it was never intended to affect churches.

All this does is emphasize how much more the Johnson Amendment should be dismantled rather than preserved. If churches werent the target, why should they remain affected by the legislation? And if the purpose of it was suspect, then how much more so should it be changed through legislation like the Free Speech Fairness Act?

To say that it should remain on the books just because a lot of people would prefer for churches to stay out of politics is not itself a justification for involving the IRS as a church-speech enforcer. The claim that churches have little to worry about in terms of an IRS investigation and enforcement of the Johnson Amendment is based on the notion that not many churches have been investigated. But the IRSs recent legal settlement with the Freedom From Religion Foundation that apparently placated that atheist group by creating new secret regulations by which the IRS will investigate churches certainly flies in the face of that dismissive statement. Furthermore, the mere threat of being investigated is itself a chill on free speech, no less so than the IRSs other questionable investigations of conservative groups. And thats a major constitutional problem.

In addition, the reason that few reported instances of enforcement by the IRS exist is because most churches are afraid of the IRS and the penalties the agency can levy for a misstep. Also, audits are confidential, so no one really knows how many churches have been intimidated into silence by an IRS audit over the years. As noted, churches have been subject to it  and intimidated by it  for well over 60 years.

What of the claim that a churchs tax-exempt status is the same as a government subsidy, and so the government has the right to demand non-partisan speech? First, a tax exemption is not a government subsidy  otherwise wed have to say that the government is subsidizing everything it exempts, including the religious ceremonies of churches. The U.S. Supreme Court has made that even more clear by recognizing that the government cannot condition the receipt of something like tax exemption on the surrender of constitutional rights. If that were allowed, the government could mandate that churches which refuse to quarter troops will lose their tax exemption. The argument is preposterous.

Second, fixing the Johnson Amendment doesnt mean that churches will be turned into political action committees or that dark money will flow from 501(c)(3) organizations into politics. As noted, churches werent under this restriction until 1954. They frequently spoke out on candidates before then, and there was no legal or constitutional crisis. The Johnson Amendment wasnt created to address any problem going on with churches because no such problem existed. As for the fear that nonprofit coffers will be opened to political contributions, plenty of legitimate avenues exist to address that concern without keeping in place a law that forces someone to give up a constitutionally protected freedom.

Rather than more strictly enforce the Johnson Amendment, Congress can fix it through the Free Speech Fairness Act to remove the IRS from the speech police business. If not, a court should declare it unconstitutional. Congregations can decide for themselves how much they want their pastors to speak about political candidates. The answer is not to have the IRS referee whats preached.

Erik Stanley is senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom and heads its Pulpit Freedom Sunday effort.
For the first time, the worlds highest criminal court ruled this week that destroying cultural antiquities is a war crime.

The case, handled by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, spotlights the risk to historic sites in places controlled by Islamic extremists, who have traded plundered antiquities on the black market or destroyed them in a twisted interpretation of religious law. Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, a member of a jihadi group linked to al-Qaida, was sentenced to nine years in prison for organizing the destruction of centuries-old Muslim shrines in Timbuktu, Mali.

But does the courts action this week signal a greater international effort to pursue justice in these cases? Will the court now prosecute members of the Taliban or the Islamic State for similar war crimes?

The likely answer is no.

The case against Mahdi does signal that these sorts of cases are on the courts radar, said Alex Whiting, a professor at Harvard Law School and a former senior official in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. The court can pursue cases only in countries that are party to the treaty that oversees it, or cases that have been referred to it by the U.N. Security Council.

The Timbuktu shrines, brick and mud structures built from the 15th to 17th centuries atop the graves of Muslim scholars, are modest in comparison with the massive Buddha statues destroyed in Afghanistan or the Roman ruins demolished by the Islamic State in Syria. In Afghanistan, the Taliban dynamited the 1,500-year-old Buddha sculptures in Bamian in 2001, calling the massive monuments gods of the infidels.The destruction of the statues in Afghanistan occurred before the court opened, so that case cannot be prosecuted, according to the courts charter.

This month, Fatou Bensouda, the courts prosecutor, issued a policy paper on case selection and prioritization. The paper expands the focus of the court to include environmental degradation, corporate crime and land grabs when connected to other grave crimes against a population.
Jodi Barber and her husband this week received the best 30th anniversary present they could hope for.

Better than a second honeymoon, their gift is a law designed to curtail our spiraling opioid epidemic.

Seven years ago, the Laguna Niguel couple lost their eldest son, Jarrod, to prescription opioid addiction. Ever since, Barber has battled to save countless others from dying in what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls a national epidemic.

With only a few days left for Gov. Jerry Brown to ink the bill and praying Brown would sign, Barber on Tuesday morning called the governors office about SB 482, which requires doctors to consult a patient database before prescribing opioids.

Called CURES, the statewide database records opioid prescriptions and is built to prevent addicts from something known as doctor shopping, amassing prescriptions from different physicians.

Friday was the deadline for Brown to sign. On Tuesday evening, Barber received an email from the governors office. Brown had signed the bill into law.

With tears and smiles, Jodi and Bill Barber celebrated as best they could on their anniversary the following night.

But stopping the deadly opioid epidemic requires a multifaceted attack and the bill isnt a cure-all. Some advocates go so far as to say CURES is just the opposite of its name, that it promises more than it delivers and even creates a false sense of security.

CONCERNS ABOUT CURES

Dr. Robert Kutzner is a pain and addiction interventionist. Instead of simply prescribing an opioid for pain, Kutzner employs a holistic approach with a team that includes chiropractors, psychiatrists, masseuses, psychologists, physical therapists  any field that might help with pain.

The goal is to reduce pain while keeping patients as much as possible off fiercely addictive prescription opioids.

CURES gives me a starting point to see whats going on with the patient, said Kutzner, who earned his medical degree at USC and is medical director for MD Clinics with offices in Tustin, Fountain Valley and Santa Ana.

Kutzner added he also uses the CURES database every several months to ensure a patient doesnt stray and start doctor shopping. The doctor backs up his findings with urine tests.

But Kutzner cautions CURES doesnt cover everything. Methadone clinics, for example, arent a part of CURES. If addicts want to, they can get methadone and sell it on the streets without CURES tracing the opioid.

CURES, Kutzner points out, also doesnt stop street sales of opioids.

Denise Cullen, executive director of the nonprofit Broken No More, goes further with her criticism of CURES. It infuriates me that theyre spending money on it. Its an illusion and a facade.

Cullen, who lives in Tustin with her husband, buried her only child, Jeff, before his 28th birthday. His death sparked the couple into action. With no salary and now with more than 100 Broken No More chapters in the United States and Canada, she has attended conferences at the White House with the federal drug czar. In two weeks, she will fly to Atlanta, Ga., for her nonprofits third bi-annual conference.

She knows too well that the cycle of opioid addiction is complex and vicious. Like a deadly whack-a-mole game, for every attempt to beat down a path to addiction a new one pops up.

You have someone whos dependent on opiates and you take away the opiates, Cullen explained, then they find heroin  which is killing people.

At least with a pill, they know what theyre getting.

States that have CURES programs, Cullen said, show no reduction in overdoses. CURES takes money away from treatment. We need treatment on demand at a cost people can afford.

A NEW HOPE

Barber is something of a go-to person for parents and young addicts seeking advice and support. The work pays nothing, except satisfaction  and much mourning.

Earlier this week, Barber learned a young man died from a fatal opioid overdose in south county. Then, a young woman was sent to a hospital in a coma with the same symptoms.

Barber testified in Sacramento for CURES. But she takes no credit, saying the bill was the result of hundreds of people supporting it.

Jarrod was getting pills from his doctor, Barber shares. Patients lie to doctors. Now, (with CURES) they can see which patients are doctor shopping.

If her son had lived, Jarrod would be 26. Since his death, Barber has co-produced two documentaries on drug addiction in Orange County, Overtaken and Overtaken 2, Where Are They Now. She speaks frequently about opioid addiction, appears on radio and television and blogs and tweets.

For Barber, requiring doctors to consult the CURES database is a sweet victory, a dent in the war against opioid addiction. Its awesome news. Thousands of lives have been lost.

Lets hope the new law helps. In the last 15 years, according to state officials, opioid overdoses in California have shot up 200 percent.

My review of Orange County coroner records over the last five years shows a steady increase in deaths.

From prescription opioids alone, this county averages more than one death every two days.

Contact the writer: dwhiting@ocregister.com
What do you get when a physical therapist, an advertising executive and an actress put their heads together to open their own business?

For husband-and-wife team Brian and Robin Christenson and their friend Kirsten Vangsness of the CBS drama Criminal Minds, the end result of a three-yearcollaboration is Orange Countys first distillery and tasting room.

Blinking Owl Distillery is dedicated to producing earthy California spirits made mostly with local ingredients. The tasting room, which opened last week, is serving vodkas and aquavit. It beat out Cismontane in Santa Ana, whose distillery production has been stalled due to lack of funding.

In November, Blinking Owl  tucked in an industrial area near the Santa Ana train depot  will be bottling its first gin. A young Blinking Owl whiskey should arrive in two years after aging in toasted and charred oak barrels.

The distillery represents a passion project for the Christensons, who have had training in making wine and spirits.

As residents in Santa Anas Artist Village, the couple began hunting for a production facility in their hometown. We fell in love with the community, Brian Christenson said.

In 2014, the couple signed a lease for a 6,500-square-foot warehouse at Washington and Santiago overlooking the citys famed water tower. Their landlord is Santa Ana developer Jack Jakosky who also owns the historic Santora building downtown.

The Christensons, who have since left their day-time gigs, have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars investing in a distillery they hope will showcase distinct flavors of California.

Longtime friend Vangsness, who plays the bespectacled techie character Penelope Garcia on Criminal Minds, is an investor.

While visitors might spot Vangsness in the tasting room every once in awhile, the Christensons are the heart and soul of the operation. And, they have spared no expense to ensure the distillerys success.

The hybrid distilling equipment is imported from Germany. The systems copper exterior makes for a grand visual, seen through a glass window behind the marble-top bar in the tasting room. Theyve also tapped distiller Ryan Friesen to head the operation. Friesen, hired in 2014, has studied under well-regarded distillers in Michigan and Japan.

Their end game is to make a distinct bourbon that reflects the flavors of California.

Whenever possible, the spirits will be made with local and organic ingredients. For example the orange-flavored vodka is made with oranges from the Heritage Museum of Orange County in Santa Ana.

California wheat and corn make up the bourbon mash.

We will never make a Kentucky bourbon. We want our bourbon to taste like California, Brian Christenson said.

As the business takes hold, the Christensons will be looking at distributing their vodka and gin. Theyre in talks with local distributors and bartenders.

But first, they need to step up capacity. They hope to produce 3,000 cases over the next 12 months.

We need this to be a business, not an expensive hobby, Brian Christenson said.

The tasting room is open Wednesday through Sunday. Visitors, by law, are limited to 11/2 ounces of liquor. Tastings, which include three 1/4-ounce sample of each spirit, cost $10. Each 750ml bottle is $40. Tours are $25 and include tastings. Address: 802 E. Washington Ave., Santa Ana.

Contact the writer: nluna@scng.com
MORGAN HILL  A wildfire in a mostly remote area of Californias Santa Cruz Mountains has now destroyed eight homes and sent a firefighter to the hospital, officials said Thursday.

One firefighter was injured and hospitalized, but no details were given on his condition.

The blaze burning for three days had previously only burned one home. Its not clear whether the destruction of seven more houses is new or just newly discovered by firefighters surveying burned-out areas.

Despite the damage, cooler weather and additional firefighters had officials hopeful Thursday that the blaze would be contained in days.

Full containment was expected by Monday, though wind gusts of up to 35 mph forecast for Friday night could complicate the firefight, state fire Capt. Mike Perez said. The fire has burned 6 1 / 2 square miles and was threatening 325 structures. It was 34 percent contained.

Mandatory evacuations were lifted Wednesday for Santa Cruz County. But evacuation orders remained in effect for neighboring Santa Clara County, where most of the 300 threatened structures are located, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.

The blaze broke out Monday during a statewide heat wave that brought witheringly low humidity and temperatures in the upper 90s. A 10-degree drop in temperatures and increased humidity helped fire crews. The cooling trend was expected to last through the week.

It was among several blazes burning during a time of year when the drought-stricken state sees its largest and most damaging wildfires, state forestry officials said.
A 44-year-old man was found guilty Thursday of attempted murder in a 2014 stabbing attack on his estranged wife in Santa Ana.

Juan Carlos Guadarrama arranged to meet with his wife in a parking lot in Santa Ana on Sept. 20, police said soon after the crime. When she arrived, he stabbed her multiple times and shot her with a pellet gun, leaving her injured while he ran away.

Officers responded to reports of someone screaming and found the woman lying next to a car with stab wounds to her chest, neck and abdomen. She was hospitalized in critical condition but survived.

Guadarrama was at large until three days later, when someone tipped off authorities that he would be at a park in Anaheim.

On Thursday, the jury found him guilty of attempted murder and felony making criminal threats. He is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 13, according to court records. He faces up to 13 years and eight months in prison.

Jurors deliberated for about one day before finding Guadarrama guilty. He faces a sentencing enhancement for premeditation and deliberation, which his lawyer contests.

The couple had become estranged when Guadarrama became depressed and started drinking following a series of family tragedies and strain in his marriage. He became convinced, falsely, that his wife was having an affair. The victim eventually kicked Guadarrama out of their home.

City News Service contributed to this report.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7865 or afausto@scng.com
Artist Alex Cook often paints his murals in schools and public places, not correctional facilities. But the three-word message of his art projects is perhaps just as valuable for jail inmates as for anyone else.

Thats why Sandy Haase of Yorba Linda wanted Cook to create a mural in the Orange County Central Mens Jail in Santa Ana.

Haase has volunteered with the Orange County jails since 1986, helping with religious services and acting as an assistant chaplain. She discovered Cook online. The Boston-based artist has made more than 100 murals, including 17 in the last two years with a simple message: You Are Loved.

It resonated with me, Haase said. I thought, Wouldnt it be great to do it in the jail?

Since Tuesday, Cook and eight inmates on the jails painting crew have been at work on a big mural in blues and greens covering one wall of the jails chapel. Its a simple image with a simple message, three words in giant, curving capital letters.

Haases proposal to bring Cook and his You Are Loved project to the jail dovetailed nicely with other efforts to refresh parts of the jail this year, especially the chapel, which recently got new lighting and a new coat of periwinkle blue paint.

Geoff Henderson, who is in charge of programs and services in the Orange County jails  including parenting and vocational classes  was already thinking about a mural for the jail. He had reached out to the roughly 1,000 people who volunteer in the Orange County jails as counselors, pastors and teachers and asked if any had a connection to an artist. Haase did.

Haase met Cook when he came to Los Angeles in February to paint a mural at Berkeley Hall School, a private elementary and middle school. She heard him talk to the students about self worth, a message she thought could translate well to the jail.

Haase started a GoFundMe account to pay for the project. Donors, many of them friends of Cooks and Haases, gave $4,700. The First Church of Christ, Scientist, San Juan Capistrano raised $2,000 by offering to match donations from others.

Cook said the You Are Loved idea formed while he was working on a mural at a New Orleans elementary school in 2013.

I just had this idea come to me which was, Why are we trying to be subtle about this thing that we are trying to communicate to our children  that we love them? He ended up putting those words directly into the mural he was painting.

The same message, said simply and directly, is important for inmates, Haase said.

When I come in and do church services, you can just see it on (inmates) faces. The world is against them, she said. That You Are Loved message is very strengthening.

George Birdsong, chaplain at the mens jail, agreed. People feel like theyve made terrible mistakes. (But) the whole Christian message is about love.  You want to instill a sense of hope that theyre not stuck in a one-way track.

Capt. William Baker said the chapel used to be dingy and cluttered, largely unchanged since he started working at the jail in 1987.

Theyre away from home. Theyre away from family, Baker said of the inmates. Its a scary place to be.

With Cooks 10-foot-tall-by-32-foot-long mural, the aim is to uplift them, he said. Especially for inmates without visitors, they might not hear those words for a long time.

Inmates did not comment on the mural.

The jail in Santa Ana is the second correctional facility where Cook has made a You Are Loved mural. For seven years, Cook was a volunteer chaplain in a jail in Boston.

People who are in need grab onto the lifelines that they find, Cook said. Its a very powerful message that can really, truly have a transformative effect on people, especially people who are wondering if theyre valuable, if theyre important, if theyre good.

Contact the writer: aboessenkool@ocregister.com
HONG KONG  In a remote Chinese mountain village, 19 bodies were found. Among the dead was a 3-year-old. Hours later, a young man was arrested in connection with the killings.

Had this crime, discovered Thursday morning, occurred in the United States, it would have ranked as one of the most horrific mass murders in the nations history, worse than the killings last year in San Bernardino, California, where 14 people died, and the 2012 shootings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, which killed 12.

But in China, the countrys censors have been hard at work taking down posts about the killings on social media that deviate from the terse, five-sentence account released Thursday afternoon by Xinhua, the official news agency, and dutifully reproduced in print and on the internet across the country.

Although Yang Qingpei, 27, was arrested in relation to the killings in the village of Yema  wild horse in Chinese  little was publicly known Friday, 36 hours after the bodies were discovered, about what happened. The police arrested Yang Thursday afternoon in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, more than 100 miles south of Yema, Xinhua reported.

The Beijing News was one of the few news outlets to go beyond Xinhuas account, reporting that Yang was a native of the village and that the police did not suspect the killings to be a case of terrorism. No official reports indicated any possible motive, and there was no indication what weapon Yang is accused of using, though in China it is far more common to commit homicide with a knife than with a gun.

It was also not clear when the killings took place. Xinhua reported that the police received calls around 7:50 a.m. Thursday. But The Beijing News referred to a document listing the names of the dead from the 9/28 incident, suggesting they might have occurred the day before.

One paper in western China, The Chengdu Economic Daily, citing a classmate of Yangs, reported that he had racked up large gambling debts while working in Kunming. He had asked his family in Yema for money, but his request had been rejected. The report was subsequently taken down but remained cached on Google.

Only on Friday evening did Xinhua provide more detail, confirming the Chengdu papers account. In a five-sentence report, it said police, working for 33 hours, had solved the case. Yang, who worked in Kunming, had returned home and asked his parents for money. He had an argument with them and killed them Wednesday evening, Xinhua reported. Later, in an effort to conceal his crime, he killed another 17 people. On Thursday, after being arrested in Kunming, he confessed.

The list of the victims reported by The Beijing News included three people surnamed Yang who all also had the character qing, which means clean or pure, in their names, suggesting that they might have been related. In all, 10 of the victims were surnamed Yang.

Interviews with residents of the area appeared to corroborate these reports. In Daibu Township, a sprawling mountainous locale that encompasses Yema, the killings were the main topic of conversation at the markets, residents said. One, a hotel owner surnamed He, said that at first people suspected the crime was a terrorist attack, echoing the killings in Kunming in 2014 by militants from Xinjiang that left 29 people dead.

Then, people learned that the suspect in the killing was from the area, socially awkward and liked to gamble, He said, adding that most of the dead were relatives of Yang.

Another resident, a woman surnamed Li, said the tiny hamlet within Yema where the killings took place, called Baifengwan, was particularly remote, and that many people had never heard of it.

At midday Friday, the home page of the official news portal in Kunming focused on a story about the local real estate market. The train crash in Hoboken, New Jersey, received extensive coverage nationwide, as did the override of President Barack Obamas veto of the Sept. 11 victims bill, which was a hot topic on Weibo, Chinas Twitter-like social media platform. The Yema killings were not.

Nineteen people died, and CCTV doesnt have a report on it, wrote one Weibo user called Starry Sky in a Sunny Room, referring to the state television network. Speechless. Chinese news is villainous.

David Bandurski, a China researcher at the China Media Project of the University of Hong Kong, said that even with the countrys restrictions on the news media, the lack of information about the killings in Yema was unusual.

Many news organizations in China depend on commercial success for their viability, so, as in the United States, a sensational story akin to the 1959 murders in Holcomb, Kansas, made famous in Truman Capotes In Cold Blood, is catnip for a new generation of enterprising reporters, he said.

There are many possible explanations for the lack of news about the Yema killings, he said. The villages remoteness is one factor: It is high in the mountains, above 8,000 feet in an area famous for growing lilies and strawberries.

But the lack of coverage might also have to do with the political environment, Bandurski said. Under President Xi Jinping, Chinas occasionally rambunctious media has been put on an increasingly short leash. The government strives to control the story during any disaster, as it did last year during the fatal capsizing of a cruise ship on the Yangtze River.

It doesnt have to raise a red flag politically or ideologically for them to censor it, he said.
ATHENS, Ohio  After decades as one of Americas most reliable political bellwethers, an inevitable presidential battleground that closely mirrored the mood and makeup of the country, Ohio is suddenly fading in importance this year.

Hillary Clinton has not been to the state since Labor Day, and her aides said Thursday that she would not be back until next week, after a monthlong absence, effectively acknowledging how difficult they think it will be to defeat Donald Trump here. Ohio has failed to keep up with the demographic changes transforming the United States, growing older, whiter and less educated than the nation at large.

And the two parties have made strikingly different wagers about how to win the White House in this election: Trump, the Republican nominee, is relying on a demographic coalition that, while well tailored for Ohio even in the states Democratic strongholds, leaves him vulnerable in the more diverse parts of the country where Clinton is spending most of her time.

It is a jarring change for political veterans here, who relish being at the center of the countrys presidential races: Because of newer battleground states, Clinton can amass the 270 electoral votes required to win even if she loses Ohio.

Their map is a little different, and Ohio is not as crucial as it once was, conceded James Ruvolo, a former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party who lives in the Toledo area, a Democratic bulwark that Clinton has not visited once this year. Theyll keep putting in money, but I dont think theyre going to put a lot of her time in here.

Ohio has long basked in the presidential spotlight. Every four years, fall would bring frequent candidate visits, ceaseless television commercials and breathless, county-by-county tallies of its voting returns late into election night. Democrats in the state got used to rock concert-style rallies, like the ones John Kerry staged in Cleveland and Columbus with Bruce Springsteen in 2004 and President Barack Obama held at Ohio State to kick off his 2012 re-election campaign. Obama held five events over three trips to Ohio in September 2012 alone.

And it was all for good reason: No candidate of either party has won the White House without carrying Ohio since John F. Kennedy in 1960.

But its Rust Belt profile, Trumps unyielding anti-trade campaign and Clintons difficulty energizing Ohios young voters have made it a lesser focus for Democrats this year, even as it remains critical to Trumps path to the White House. As Clintons aides privately note, the demographic makeup of Florida, Colorado and North Carolina, which have a greater percentage of educated or nonwhite voters, makes those states more promising for Democrats in a contest in which the electorate is sorted along bright racial and economic lines.

And with a once-competitive Senate race in Ohio turning into a rout for Rob Portman, the Republican incumbent, Democrats can quietly pull back from the state with little fear of down-ballot consequences.

As the place where Appalachia meets the Midwest, and where industrial centers arose not far from a vast farm belt, Ohio has prided itself on being a version of America writ small. Its immigration patterns reflected that, with New Englanders resettling here, followed by Germans and eventually Eastern Europeans. At the same time, Southerners, white and black, crossed the Ohio River in search of freedom and opportunity.

But even some of the states proudest boosters acknowledge that Ohio, which is nearly 80 percent white, is decreasingly representative of contemporary America.

Ohio, like a melting iceberg, has slowly been losing its status as the countrys bellwether, said Michael F. Curtin, a Democratic state legislator and former Columbus Dispatch editor who is co-author of the states authoritative Ohio Politics Almanac.

He continued: Its a slow melt. But we have not captured any appreciable Hispanic population, and there has been very little influx of an Asian population. When you look at the diversity of America 30 to 40 years ago, Ohio was a pretty close approximation of the country. It no longer is.

What is less clear than the racial trends is whether the state will continue to grow more forbidding for Democrats in future presidential races. That could be determined by the choices the national parties make after the election, particularly whether Republicans continue Trumps project of shifting from a business-friendly to a more populist approach on immigration and trade.

If the Republican Party looks more like the Trump coalition and the Democratic Party looks more like the Obama coalition, then the states Democrats must win will no longer be Ohio and Iowa, said David Wilhelm, a manager of Bill Clintons first presidential campaign and a former Democratic national chairman who lives in suburban Columbus. They will be Virginia, North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia.

Yet that same Obama coalition was enough to hand the president a two-point victory in Ohio in 2012, when the states demographics were no less challenging for Democrats. The difference now, Ohio voters and strategists from both parties say, is in the two candidates and the issues at hand.

Facing Mitt Romney, who was easily caricatured as a country club Republican, Obama battered him as a handmaiden for the wealthy and criticized his opposition to the auto bailout, which lifted Obama with white union Democrats in car-making communities around Youngstown and Toledo.

But this year, Republicans have put forward a candidate whose views on trade are indistinguishable from, if not more hard-line than, the AFL-CIOs.

Republicans used to run on God and guns, Ruvolo said. Well, Trump added a third element: trade.

Paired with Trumps jeremiads about immigrants taking American jobs, it makes for a powerful combination in a state that has suffered from the decline of manufacturing. Though he lost the Ohio primary to Gov. John Kasich, Trump still carried a stretch of counties along the eastern spine of the state, its most economically depressed region, where thousands of industrial and coal-mining jobs have been lost. Trump is expected to pile up significant margins in those counties in November.

Some political veterans speak with wonder about private polls showing Trump leading even in bedrock Democratic communities. I see, at best, lack of enthusiasm in traditional Democratic areas, said Dennis E. Eckart, a former Democratic congressman from suburban Cleveland.

Mike Dawson, a Republican strategist who runs a website on Ohios political history, said Trump would be competitive in two counties in Youngstowns Mahoning Valley that the Democratic presidential candidate has carried in every election for 60 years with the exception of 1972.

It is no coincidence that the same region kept re-electing Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. from 1985-2002, despite his routine flouting of ethics. Traficant, a longtime Democrat who died in 2014, was known for mixing inflammatory rhetoric, a squirrel-like toupee and a hard-edge populism.

There is not a dimes worth of difference, as George Wallace once said, between Jim Traficant and Donald Trump, said Eckart, whose district abutted Traficants. They say anything, do anything, just act outrageous, and people just kind of like that.

Clinton remains strongest in the more affluent and educated areas around Ohios population centers  Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati  where some voters who backed Romney four years ago are appalled by Trump.

Emily Huber, a 29-year-old evangelical Christian and loyal Republican in Columbus, is one of them. As she sold candles and jewelry made by victims of sex trafficking at a farmers market in the shadow of the state capitol, Huber said she and her husband were unsure whether they could back Trump because of offensive comments that she said show his true character.

What will determine who wins Ohio, said Rep. Steve Stivers, a Republican, is if Hillary can pick up a bunch of voters in the suburbs to offset the rural and some of the industrial areas.

Clinton has an organizational advantage, with 60 offices across the state, and is flooding Ohio with surrogates: Bill Clinton is expected in the state on a bus tour next week. But her campaign is sensitive about her absence, which has become a local topic of discussion. After this article was published online, it hurried to announce that she would return on Monday, though without specifying which city she would visit.

A Clinton victory in Ohio may also require rousing younger voters, which is in doubt. When a group of Democratic Ohio mayors campaigned recently for Clinton in Athens  home of Ohio University and seat of the county with the states largest percentage of millennials  they drew little interest.

As students stopped at sidewalk ATMs to prepare for parents weekend, they expressed only lukewarm support for Clinton. Paula Atfield, a freshman from Cleveland, said she was voting for Clinton because shes not Trump, but added that the election was seen as a joke on campus.

Neither of them are suitable, she said. Most people arent even voting.

At a news conference earlier in the day, the Dayton mayor, Nan Whaley, had buoyantly declared that the state would send Clinton to the White House. Ohio is the decider of presidents, she said.

But now, Whaley sounded less bullish. I think its crucial, she said of a Clinton victory in Ohio, before quickly adding of Trump, Its just not as crucial as his.
NEW DELHI  India said Thursday it carried out surgical strikes against militants across the highly militarized frontier that divides the Kashmir region between India and Pakistan, in an exchange that escalated tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Pakistan dismissed the reports that Indias military had targeted terrorist launch pads inside the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir. Islamabad said instead that two of its soldiers were killed in unprovoked firing by India across the border.

Tensions, which are always simmering between India and Pakistan, spiked after an attack earlier this month on an Indian military base in Kashmir. India accused Pakistan of sending militants belonging to the outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammed group, headquartered in Pakistan, to carry out the attack. Pakistan denied the charge.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been under heavy pressure to respond to the attack on the military base.

Indian officials gave few details about the strikes across the disputed border late Wednesday night.

Significant casualties were caused to the terrorists and those who support them, Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, director general of military operations for the Indian Army, told reporters in New Delhi. Singh said the operations were over and India has no plans for more strikes. He said he shared details of the strikes with his Pakistani counterpart.

Indian soldiers traveling on foot crossed the Line of Control into the Pakistani-controlled portion to attack several targets based on intelligence about imminent attacks, said a high-ranking Indian official who would only brief reporters on condition of anonymity. He said the Indian forces killed at least 10 people before retreating back into Indian-controlled territory. The Indian soldiers suffered no losses, he said.

The Pakistani military flatly denied any surgical strikes had occurred.

There has been no surgical strike by India, instead there had been cross-border fire initiated and conducted by India, a Pakistani military statement said.

Pakistani officials said two of their soldiers were killed and nine others were wounded in the exchanges at five different places along the disputed border.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the unprovoked and naked aggression of Indian forces.

The Pakistan military said in a statement that it befittingly responded to Indian unprovoked firing  implying it returned fire  along the Kashmir border near the villages of Bhimber, Kel and Lipa.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Thursday the U.S. expects Pakistan to combat and de-legitimize U.N. designated terrorists.

The U.S. is firmly committed to our partnership with India and to our joint efforts to combat terrorism and were prepared to deepen collaboration on U.N. terrorist designations, he said. At the same time, we continue to be in close contact with Pakistan and we continue to value the important partnership that we have formed with them on a range of issues, including security issues.

Pakistan has sharply criticized India over its heavy-handed clampdown in Indian-controlled Kashmir following the killing of a Kashmiri militant leader nearly three months ago. Some of the biggest and most violent protests in recent years have broken out against Indian rule in Kashmir since the July 8 killing of Burhan Wani by Indian soldiers. A rolling curfew has been in place and more than 80 civilians have been killed by Indian troops who have used live ammunition and shotgun pellets to quell angry crowds.

Kashmir is split between India and Pakistan and is claimed by both.

Most people in the Indian-controlled portion favor independence or a merger with Pakistan. India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over control of Kashmir since winning independence from British colonialists in 1947.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the insurgents and pushing them into the Indian portion of Kashmir to attack government forces and other targets. Pakistan says it provides only political and diplomatic support to the insurgents, who have been fighting since 1989.
Democrats continue to close the gap with Republicans in the countys voter registration, with the GOP advantage now under 5 percentage points for the first time in 36 years.

The Republican lead has been shrinking since 1990, when the edge was 22 points. But the pace of change has accelerated considerably this year.

From 1990 through 2015, the margin shrank by an average of just under 1 point annually. Since February, the lead has narrowed to 4.7 percentage points from 8 percentage points.

For Democrats who have toiled for decades in what was long touted as the nations most Republican county, the prospect of gaining the upper hand is creating a palpable excitement.

People used to politely chuckle when I predicted that Orange County would be blue by near the end of this decade, said Dan Jacobson, chairman of the Democratic Foundation of Orange County  which has helped fund registration drives. They dont do that anymore. And as it turns out, I was probably too pessimistic. This county is quickly becoming a Democratic county.

The last time there were more registered Democrats than Republicans in the county was 1978, when they briefly reached a 0.3-point advantage.

Republicans are now 38.9 percent of county voters, an all-time low. Democrats are at 34.2 percent, their highest since 1994. Voters with no party preference account for 23 percent, down from the all-time high of 23.6 percent last year.

The long-term trend is largely due to shifting demographics. Latinos, who favor the Democratic Party over the GOP by more than 2-1, are 18 percent of the electorate and growing. And voters ages 18-34, who heavily favored Republicans in 2002, are now more likely to register as Democrats.

The accelerated pace this year has been attributed to Democrats launching stronger voter registration efforts than Republicans, and to distaste for Donald Trump helping spur those efforts.

Thank you, Uncle Donny, Jacobson quipped via email. Please dont destroy our nation while you help boost the O.C. Democrats.

Asians and Trump

Of course, there are plenty of Trump supporters in the county, including Santa Anas KV Kumar.

Kumar hasnt talked to Trump since being named to the GOP nominees newly formed Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee. But he has met him several times over the years, first in the hotel at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City in the early 1990s.

While Trump is now one of the most recognizable people in the world, Kumar says that first meeting passed without him recognizing the real estate mogul.

The clerk told us every room was booked for 50 miles around, recalled the India-born Kumar, who lived in Maryland at the time.

It was night, it was snowing and my wife was in a wheelchair. She was recovering from surgery. A man put his hand on my shoulder. He looked at my wife and asked her how she was. She said she wasnt feeling so good. I said, I dont know what Im going to do.

The man went to the clerk and said something. The clerk then called Kumar back, told him there was a suite for him and that it was on the house.

She told me it was Donald Trump we were talking to, Kumar said. By the time I turned around, he was gone.

The 31-member advisory committee announced by the Trump campaign Sept. 25 also includes Orange County Supervisor Michelle Steel, who was born in South Korea and whose husband is former state GOP Chairman Shawn Steel. Kumar said no meetings have been scheduled.

Some polls show Trumps popularity among Asian American voters as low as with Latinos. A survey in the spring by Asian Americans Advancing Justice and two other Asian nonprofits found just 19 percent of registered Asian Americans had a favorable view of him, while 62 percent had a favorable view of Clinton.

But while Asians are the fastest-growing ethnicity among voters, they are just 3 percent of the electorate right now. That is predicted to increase to 5 percent of voters by 2025 and 10 percent by 2044, according to AAAJ.

In California, Asian Americans account for 13 percent of voting-age citizens. In Orange County, its 19 percent.

Contact the writer: mwisckol@scng.com, @MartinWisckol
Over the past few decades there has been a dramatic increase in the privatization of our nations prisons and jails. That growth has been accompanied by increasing scrutiny of private prison operations as one report after another has revealed disturbing conditions inside those detention facilities.

Last month the Department of Justice Inspector General issued a report that concluded that private sector prisons are less secure and less safe, for both inmates and staff, than Bureau of Prisons facilities. The Justice Department then announced that over the next five years it would cease using private prisons.

If we are paying attention to whats best for our society, the Department of Justices action should be just the beginning of the elimination of private prisons and other detention facilities. You may not know this, but the corporations that own private prisons also operate jail facilities in cities throughout Orange County, where elected officials have handed over control of this important public safety function.

A brief published in June by the non-profit research organization In the Public Interest found that people incarcerated in prisons operated by for-profit companies, like Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group, have higher rates of recidivism than people incarcerated in publicly managed prisons. Evidence also suggests that prison telephone and video call companies make business decisions that increase the likelihood that prisoners subjected to their services will return to prison or jail.

Whats more, operating correctional facilities arguably does not even constitute the core business of the largest private prison companies. Business Insider has reported that in 2013 that Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group requested that the Internal Revenue Service allow them to restructure as Real Estate Investment Trusts, to allow them to significantly reduce or even eliminate their corporate tax liability.

In other words, these companies are only nominally prison companies  they are really real estate companies.

And its real estate development where they make their big money off of taxpayers. According to the Washington Post, in 2014 CCA contracted with the Obama administration to build a $1 billion facility in Texas to detain women and children from Central America seeking U.S. asylum. The Post reported that the facility generated 14 percent of the companys revenue and led to a year of record profits.

So how did these companies invade and inject profiteering into an industry thats aim should be in helping to create a more just and fair society?

Their influence is well documented. As the Washington Post report determined, since 1989 CCA and GEO have contributed $10 million to candidates and another $25 million to lobbying efforts. Those investments have enabled the companies to have significant input into the enactment of laws that increase demand for the services they provide. In other words, they have pushed for criminal justice policies that have increasingly relied on incarceration, all motivated by their own profit.

Private prisons have been exposed for their poor performance, dangerous conditions and bad investments for taxpayers. The time is now for federal, state and local governments to act in concert, restore integrity to the correctional system, and take detention out of the hands of profiteers.

Jennifer Muir Beuthin is general manager of the Orange County Employees Association.
IRVINE  If youd like to find out what modern education looks like, you need to go no further than Beacon Park School.

Classrooms at the brand new K-8 public school are equipped with couches, comfy chairs and pillows as well as traditional desks so that each student can configure them in a way they can best focus on learning. Teachers can also adjust the furniture based on how they want to teach that day, such as splitting them into small groups or lecturing in front of them.

Sliding glass doors that connect classrooms to common areas allow students to expand their workspace.

Irvine Unified School District officials showcased such features to local dignitaries Sept. 28 as they hosted a dedication ceremony of Beacon Park School, which opened doors to students a month ago. Visitors went on a self-guided tour of the facilities using their smartphones to read QR codes.

You have a ton of flexibility to do a wide variety of things, Beacon Park Principal Bob Curley said about the new campus, calling it 21st century design.

Beacon Parks first-year enrollment includes only K-6 with 426 students. The school will be K-7 in 2017-18 and K-8 in its third year.

The opening of Beacon Park is a reflection of whats happening in Irvine, one of the fastest-growing cities in California.

The school serves students from nearby Pavilion Park, Beacon Park and other developing Great Park Neighborhood communities. It prevents other schools from overcrowding, Irvine Unified spokeswoman Annie Brown said.

The district also opened Portola High School to accommodate the growing population around the Orange County Great Park this year.

Curley, who was principal at Bonita Canyon Elementary School, said he was attracted to the Beacon Park job because he felt the design of the new school encouraged collaboration not only among students but also staff.

I also liked the aspect of having a community grow up around the school, he said. It gives us the ability to really define what our role is in the community.

The school has some of the same features as Portola High, such as the innovation lab  which Curley described as a new spin on traditional computer labs. Instead of having a bunch of desktops so that students can learn how to use computers, the innovation lab offers space for students to use laptops and work on projects.

Beacon Park is also the only middle school in the district with a gym. Its fitness lab is equipped with ellipticals and treadmills.

The campus will accommodate about up to 1,000 students at capacity. The $85 million total cost to open the school, including land, is being funded by Great Park Neighborhoods developer FivePoint.

Contact the writer: tshimura@scng.com
Daniele Struppa is a numbers man.

Trained in mathematics, he has math on his mind as he drifts off to sleep, during his midday runs and perhaps most of all Friday, when hell stand to be formally inaugurated as Chapman Universitys 13th president.

He takes leadership of a 155-year-old institution with 10 schools and colleges that awarded nearly 3,000 degrees in May and welcomed more than 8,000 students in August.

What you do as a mathematician is train yourself to recognize very complicated patterns, Struppa said. This is important as an administrator, because, in reality, managing complex institutions is also about recognizing patterns. When do you see an opportunity, when do you see something developing that is likely to become a problem?

Struppa joined Chapman as a professor and as provost in 2006, serving the last decade as right hand to President Jim Doti, who stepped down Aug. 31 to return to teaching.

Dotis presidency was a period of explosive evolution at Chapman, with six colleges added and enrollment quadrupling in 25 years. Doti oversaw the opening of the Musco Center for the Arts and the groundbreaking of the $137 million Center for Science and Technology.

Now, with the sciences shored up, Struppa said starting an engineering school is a natural progression, filling a hole for the university.

Chapman is ranked among the top schools on the West Coast  a good start, Struppa said. Hes aiming for the Top 100 nationally within the next 10 years.

The school has a blueprint for this success in its Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, he said. In opening the college, school leaders focused on cutting-edge technology and recruiting notable industry faculty. Students around the nation at least consider Dodge when scouting film schools, he said.

In the years to come, Struppa wants to similarly invest in Chapmans other schools, making them destinations of equal caliber.

I think Daniele will help bring Chapman esteem, and perhaps more of an academic focus, while I was a bit more playful, Doti said.

Naming Struppa the universitys next president received overwhelming approval from the faculty, Doti said. For someone whos a provost for that long, thats truly an anomaly in higher education. Usually, after that period of time, theyve burned too many bridges to be popular.

Struppa also has the advantage of already being well-known among the student body, Annabell Liao, president of Chapmans Student Government Association, said.

Dr. Struppa is a very smart man that students are familiar with and feel like they can count on, she said. He holds a lot of respect among students and knows the importance of listening.

Born in Milan, Struppa brings an Italian flair to the presidency. A lover of his homelands cuisine, he said he takes joy in preparing pasta dinners for his wife and two youngest daughters.

When he gets a free moment, Struppa said he enjoys art, listening to classical music  he fashions himself a mediocre piano player  and reading.

Like his predecessor, Struppa too has climbed mountains, conquering Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Elbrus in his younger days.

Struppa has his passions, but none shine brighter than his love for mathematics.

He likens math to a sport, a competitive fellowship with his peers, racing to solve problems and to break new ground in the field.

Math, Struppa said, can pop up in very unexpected places  which he uses in his teaching.

We hold these truths to be self-evident from the Declaration of Independence sounds strikingly similar to the self-evident axioms seen in Euclidean geometry. Much like the Founding Fathers, Euclid began with self-evident truths and built the rest of his theories upon them.

Sound like a bit of a stretch? It might be, had Thomas Jefferson not been known to be an avid reader of Euclid, Struppa said. In a sense, Struppa teaches, math was a major player in the birth of our country.

David Henley, a 22-year board of trustees member, said he had doubts a mathematician would make a good administrator.

Sitting in on Struppas interview for the chancellor position  then called provost  I heard him talk and I was absolutely transfixed, Henley said. His address was about the classics, romance languages, history  someone with many talents. He just mesmerized me.

A decade later, Henley said no one on the board had doubts choosing Struppa as Dotis successor.

We knew right away that Struppa was the only serious person wed consider, Henley said. It was a meeting of minds, everyone agreed.

As much as he wants to push Chapman onto the national stage, Struppa said he realizes the schools expansion is happening at the heart of the Orange community.

Complaints Chapman is encroaching too far into Olde Town, pushing off-campus housing deeper into neighborhoods, have gotten louder in recent years. University officials have put further expansion plans on hold while they address complaints of party houses and lack of communication.

Struppa said he is coming in ready to address the issues, with a commitment to increase the number of students housed on campus from 36 percent to at least 50 percent. He wants to make it mandatory for freshmen and sophomores to stay in university housing, to limit the impact of younger students on the surrounding community.

Struppa said he may want students to be able to make mistakes and learn from them, but repeat offenders will be dealt with more seriously.

I look at my students as an extension of my family, Struppa said. I care about my students  not just the math I teach them and the grades they get, but them developing as adults.

Contact the writer: jwinslow@scng.com
No matter what anyone else thinks, 19-year-old Orange County model and pro surfer Malia Ward knows more keenly than ever how far $100 can go.

So does Village of Hope, an Orange County Rescue Mission shelter that accepted 2,400 diapers and 100 boxes of baby wipes as a donation from her Friday.

On Sunday, Ward posted on social media a smiling photo of herself accepting an oversized $100 check for winning her division at the Newport Classic surf contest.

She was shocked at some of the replies.

I got a lot of positive comments about it and a few negative comments about how much money I got, she said.

Dont spend it all in one place! one commenter said.

Lol, $100 you get to keep all of dat? another said.

A Fox News TV report that Ward and her mother, Jacqueline Miller, saw about an Orange County shelters appeal for diapers and baby wipes inspired the surfer to turn those online comments into a positive.

She announced on social media that she would use her winnings to buy diapers and baby wipes for Village of Hope. She invited others to match her $100 donation. Family and friends responded, upping the pot to $1,000 worth of diapers and baby wipes.

I (can) kind of serve as an example, Ward said. My hope is that by doing this myself, people will not think, Oh, someone else will do it, because it starts with you. That inspires other people like, Hey, I can do this too!

Ward. whose father Chris Ward is a veteran pro surfer, grew up in San Clemente and now resides with her mother, also a San Clemente native, in Corona del Mar. Ward attends Orange Coast College while pursuing careers in modeling and surfing.

When she won the $100, she actually was pleasantly surprised, she said, because it was a city surf contest.

I didnt even know I received any money for first place, she said. I thought it was a gift bag. I thought it was awesome that this was a fun event and they gave you money for first place.

She said that when she delivered the diapers and baby wipes Friday, the people at Village of Hope were grateful. They loved my story, she said.

Its really inspiring, said Anna Song, director of development for Orange County Rescue Mission. She did amazing. It sounds like she got her own little village to join her effort.

So its back to Lower Trestles for Ward this weekend, surfing, $100 lighter, training for her next pro contest a week from now in Costa Rica. First prize: $12,000.

While Ward wont be home to attend a Miracles for Kids fundraiser Oct. 8 at Monarch Beach resort, the silent auction there will be offering a Malia Ward surfboard, surf lessons, surf leash and wetsuit.

Contact the writer: fswegles@ocregister.com or 949-492-5127
Khoudia Diop is a young Senegalese fashion model who recently rose to internet stardom after her unusually dark skin tone was captured in a photo for the Colored campaign, a platform that celebrates different skin shades.

Khoudias melanin-rich skin has taken the internet by storm, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, especially on Instagram, where she regularly posts photos of herself using the handle @melaniin.goddess. People seem crazy about her stunning natural beauty and unique skin tone, showering her with compliments about her look and declaring themselves impressed by her positive attitude and confidence.

Photo: The Colored Girl (@thecgirlinc)

Now an empowering young woman with a successful modelling career, Khoudia Diop admits that her charcoal-dark skin has been the target of bullying while growing up. Responding to a Facebook post about her nicknames  Darky, daughter of the night, mother of stars  she said that bullies used to come with all kinds of names thinking Ill feel bad about my color, well guess what, I loved them all and showed them how much I didnt care about what they think. And its that type of attitude that really makes this girl special.

Photo: The Colored Girl (@thecgirlinc)

Skin bleaching is a big problem in many African countries, with millions of African women turning to whitening creams to achieve the imposed global concept of beauty dominated by eurocentric standards. A disturbing report found that 75% of Nigerian women are using skin lightening products to achieve a fairer skin tone, followed by Togo with 59% of women and South Africa with 35%.

Photo: The Colored Girl (@thecgirlinc)

There is a wrong belief that the light-complexioned ladies are more beautiful and acceptable to men, Olanrewaju Falodun, a consultant dermatologist at the National Hospital in Abuja, told Afrizap. Over time ladies who are dark complexioned who have internalized this wrong perception tend to lighten their skin to improve their sense of selfworth. The other reasons are ignorance and peer pressure.

Photo: The Colored Girl (@thecgirlinc)

These women should really take a close look at beautiful, self-confident women like Khoudia Diop and learn to feel comfortable in their own skin, instead of using potentially dangerous chemical products to achieve a beauty ideal imposed by the media.

via Melinated
The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) has officially launched this years One Good Idea competition and is encouraging students from Offaly to enter.

Now in its 9th year, the aim of the One Good Idea is to increase students understanding of energy efficiency and climate change by encouraging them to take individual and collective responsibility for tackling these important issues. Contestants must come up with creative ideas for an energy awareness campaign to change behaviour and improve energy efficiency in their homes, schools and communities.

Open to primary and post primary school students, participants have the chance to win prizes for themselves and their schools. Entry can be made via www.seai.ie/onegoodidea and the best projects will be showcased at the national finals in Croke Park on the 16th May 2017. Closing date for entries is 11th November 2016.

Speaking about the competition, Denis Naughten T.D., Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, said: I believe a key element in the future of energy efficiency and awareness that will bring about behavioural and attitudinal change in our society lies with our school children. I am convinced their creative ideas and enthusiasm will have a significant impact on attitudes and practices. As the first Minister appointed by the Government with dedicated responsibility for climate change and energy policies I congratulate the SEAI on the One Good Idea initiative which encourages school children to learn about the important subject of energy efficiency and climate change.

Commenting, Jim Gannon, CEO at SEAI, said: I am very impressed at the passion, enthusiasm and creativity shown by last years participants in getting the message out about the challenge we all face in addressing climate change. The competition raises awareness of climate change and the simple ways each of us can respond to it. The students also benefit directly, building a whole range of skills that will serve them well both during and beyond school.

Thanks to the continued support of AIB the project has grown substantially in the last few years. Speaking about the partnership, Ray ONeill, Head of Sustainable Business at AIB, said: AIB is delighted to support this venture to encourage students to come up with smart ideas to change behaviour around energy awareness. AIB is leading by example. Our green strategy includes zero waste to landfill and 100 per cent renewable electricity targets.
The countdown is on as over a quarter of a million people are expected to take part in the largest festival of maths in the world, Maths Week Ireland 2016.

The week kicks off on Saturday 15th October and runs nationwide until Sunday 23rd October. To find out what is happening in Offaly log on to www.mathsweek.ie or follow @mathsweek on Twitter.

World renowned and locally acclaimed mathematicians will entertain people of all ages with the wonder of maths over the week through fun and interesting talks, games, teasers, challenges and magic maths shows.

Launched today by Minister for Education and Skills Richard Bruton and children from Rutland National School, Sean McDermott St, events will take place all across the island during the week.

The all-Ireland event is run in conjunction with partners including Science Foundation Ireland, the Department of Education and Skills, universities, institutes of technology, teacher training colleges, visitor centres, libraries other groups and employers both North and South.

Launching Maths Week Ireland 2016, the Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton T.D. said, Events such as Maths Week have a significant role to play in both the promotion and understanding of maths and the wider STEM agenda among young people today. With widespread recognition of the importance of maths for the future of our graduates, it is crucial that we encourage a positive attitude towards maths, making it accessible to all. Over 250,000 people of all ages are expected to attend maths events throughout the week, I would encourage people to get involved and wish all those taking part every success.

Dr Ruth Freeman, Director Strategy and Communications, Science Foundation Ireland, said We are delighted to support Maths Week 2016 which is now the premier mathematics event on the calendar. Maths Week has gone from strength to strength and this year there are even more events and activities taking place throughout the week. Maths underpins many exciting career avenues; it is a skill that is needed in todays world, and one that everyone should feel able to develop. It is for that reason that Science Foundation Ireland is delighted to see Maths Week support the development of a positive attitude towards Maths in Ireland.

Highlights of the week include:

 Maths in the City kicks off the festival, Saturday 15th October, Grafton St/Sth King St.

 Maths workshop for teachers, parents and the public

 Spains best known mathematics Professor, Fernando Blasco, will use magic to introduce students to prime numbers, knot theory, Sudoku and quick calculations on 17th October

 US Mathematician in Residence James Tanton will address 1200 students in the RDS on 18th October

 WIT lecturer Richard Burke will talk to students about maths and how to mind their money in Waterford on 19thOctober

 Annual Hamilton Walk on 16th October from Dunsink along the Royal Canal

 RIA annual Hamilton Lecture with MITs Professor Shafi Goldwasser on 17th October

 Mathemagician Andrew Jeffrey will be filling the Helix Theatre Dublin with his maths-magic show on 20th October

 The Maths Week Ireland team will amaze children and adults with maths wizardry at Maths in the City Belfast on Saturday 22nd October

 Douglas Buchanan, Bubblz the mathematical clown, Robin Wilson, Kjarton Poskitt are only a few of the other names that are part of Maths Week this year

Eoin Gill, Maths Week Ireland Co-ordinator said, Over the past ten years we have had over 1 million people engaging with Maths Week Ireland, mainly primary and post-primary children, while helping them to have a more positive attitude towards maths.

Were delighted to celebrate the 11th annual Maths Week and to see this festival growing to the largest in the world. Its a true partnership of people working together for a common aim - a very important aim - to promote mathematics for all. We started with just 13 partners and now we have over 50 groups including all of the universities and institutes of technology, teacher training colleges and many professional groups and visitor centres providing events and activities for all.

Maths Week shows what we can achieve through a concerted effort by all working together. There is widespread realisation that improving Irelands proficiency of mathematics is vital for future wellbeing and its heartening to see a great improvement in interest in maths among our young people and Maths Week will continue to foster that interest as we enter our second decade.

Eoin Gill added that the support of sponsors is central to the success of Maths Week.

We simply would not be able to bring the positive message about maths to as many young people as we do reach, without the support of our sponsors, Department of Education and Skills, Science Foundation Ireland, the Department of Education in Northern Ireland together with ESB, Xilinx and CRH.

Co-ordinated by Calmast at Waterford Institute of Technology, Maths Week Ireland is run as a partnership of over 50 public and private sector institutions and groups, including the universities and institutes of technology, professional bodies, libraries and visitor centres who are committed to promoting an interest in mathematics, as well as many of Irelands flagship employers. It is an all-island event.
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Agricultural News

Record Harvests Around the World and How They Are Affecting Prices Here at Home

Oklahoma State University Extension Grains Market Analyst Dr. Kim Anderson talks wheat prices with SUNUP's Lyndall Stout this week- and reviews how crop harvests around the world are affecting prices here at home. A common theme happening around the globe it seems are crops hitting record high harvests. Dr. Anderson notes that the US corn harvest happening now is being reported at 15 billion bushel, which still is a little lower than expected. Russia's wheat harvest is wrapping up with a record harvest, and Argentina and Australia will begin their wheat harvests very soon, both anticipating large yields as well. The shortfall here is in Australia; recent precipitation seems to be damaging the crop's quality. Dr. Anderson suggests this may help prices some at home, but it would take major problems with Argentina's crop to make any significant impacts. He estimates a situation like this could boost prices 40-50 cents higher up to a dollar in extreme cases. He admits though, that while there is always room for hope, the probability of this occurring is unlikely. Wheat exports however seem to be in relatively good demand, higher from last year all around running upwards of 20-30 percent higher.





Looking in the long term though, Anderson says the answer will not be found in quantity but quality. He insists producers' focus needs to be on growing a product high in protein and test weight with good milling quality. Accomplishing that could drive prices up to $4.00 he says. Inversely, prices could drop below $3.00 if we get another large, poor quality crop.





You can watch their visit tomorrow or Sunday on SUNUP- but you can hear Kim's comments right now by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.





Beyond Lyndall's weekly chat with Dr. Anderson- the SUNUP crew has a very full lineup for your viewing this weekend:





This week on SUNUP, Brian Arnall discusses the importance of N-rich strips in helping guide nutrient management decisions in newly-planted fields.





- Next, Larry Sanders and Shannon Ferrell provide an overview of the OSU Extension Fact Sheet they co-authored about State Question 777.





- In Food Whys, Kyle Flynn explains the differences between various cuts of beef.





- In the Mesonet weather report, Al Sutherland looks at the shift to fall-like temperatures, and Gary McManus shows us how drought is increasing in eastern Oklahoma.





- Then, Kim Anderson analyzes what's happening around the world that could impact wheat prices.





- In Cow-Calf Corner, Glenn Selk talks about winter supplements leading into spring calving season.





- Finally, SUNUP's fair tour continues as we travel to Pontotoc County and on to the State Fair of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City with an accomplished 4-H'er.





Join SUNUP:





Saturday at 7:30 a.m. & Sunday at 6 a.m. on OETA-TV





























Listen to OSU's Dr. Kim Anderson explain the global factors affecting wheat prices here at home

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Let the Bidding Begin - Oklahoma School Land Leases Coming Up for Auction in October

It is that time of year again when the Commissioners of the Land Office will be auctioning off five-year term leases to parcels of school land around the state to benefit public education in Oklahoma. Farm Director Ron Hays met with Harry Birdwell, secretary of the Commissioners of the Land Office, this week to get a feel for how these auctions have been working out for the Land Office and what potential bidders can expect this year. Birdwell says that the Land Office currently manages roughly 750,000 surface acres and about 1.3 million mineral acres. One fifth of that total will be up for auction this year.





"We do have quite a lot of land in the state of Oklahoma," Birdwell said. "This year those auctions will be held beginning October 17th and ending November 1st. All the proceeds from cropland and grazing land and recreational land in 43 counties in Oklahoma go for the benefit of K-12 and higher education in the state."





According to Sec. Birdwell, live auctions will take place this fall at nine different locations throughout the state, where a total 570 tracks of land will be up for lease, most of which are quarter sections. Birdwell directs those potentially interested in bidding to the Land Office's website where details on all lots can be viewed.





If you are interested in bidding, you may get lucky and find a steal, but don't expect to pay anything less than fair market value. Birdwell says that despite sluggish economies in the agriculture and energy sectors, the income generated from school lands under his and the commissioners' oversight, continues to trend upward.





"And I'm proud of that. When Gov. Mary Fallin became governor six years ago, the School Land Commission had $1.6 billion in vested funds. We now have $2.3 billion," Birdwell said, attributing the growth to wise investments and management of the state lands. "We've done several things that enhance the generation of income from investment in commercial assets and development of commercial properties throughout the state."





Over the last five years, distributions to beneficiaries have increased in the order of 44 percent Birdwell says. That is greater than any other period reported in the state's history - which is great news for Oklahoma's public education system.





"For fiscal 2016 which was completed June 30th, we distributed $102.3 million to K-12 school districts in the state and $32 million to 13 higher education institutions in the state. And the distributions to K-12 were the highest in the history of the state."





Secretary Birdwell will join Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays for his weekly In the Field segment on KWTV News9 in the Oklahoma City area on Saturday morning at 6:40 a.m.





Listen to Ron Hays' entire conversation with Secretary Harry Birdwell about the upcoming school lands auctions, by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.





























Listen to Harry Birdwell discuss the upcoming Oklahoma School Land Auctions with Ron Hays

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Organic Oklahoma Conference Coming This October at OSU - Register Now

The 2016 Organic Oklahoma Conference is slated for October 6-7.







Consumer demand for organic foods continues to grow and provide new opportunities for growers. The Organic Oklahoma 2016 Fall Conference will provide those interested a chance to learn about topics important for successful organic farming including crop production techniques, soil management, food safety and pest management methods of interest to Oklahoma farmers. This two day event will be held Thursday and Friday, October 6 and 7 at the OSU Oklahoma City Campus.







This year's program will feature two distinguished speakers with extensive experience in Organic farming. Dr. Kathleen Delate, Professor of Horticulture at Iowa State University works extensively with no-till faming systems for organic agriculture and will speak on The Future of Organic Agriculture. Dr. Elena Garcia, Professor of Horticulture at the University of Arkansas will speak on Organic Fruit and Vegetable Production and discuss recent work with organic fruit production systems.







In addition to these invited speakers, a slate of Oklahoma Farmers and Researchers will address a spectrum of topics of interest to organic farmers. The use of high tunnels for organic fruit crops and greens will be discussed as well as the use of row covers for controlling insect pests and managing insect pollinators in vegetable crops. The use of alternative types of cropping such as Agro-forestry, traditional and indigenous crops and the introduction of some less common tree crops will be addressed. Additional crop production topics will include organic pest control methods and drip irrigation systems. A fundamental aspect of organic agriculture is soil improvement, management and stewardship, and to this end talks will address the understanding of soil health and the use of cover crops. In addition to these presentations there will be displays and demonstrations of seed inoculation methods, hand tool selection and maintenance, and pesticide application equipment for organic farming.







Registration in advance of the conference is $65 and will include noon meals and refreshments during each day. For additional details and registration information, click here.







Source - Okla. Cooperative Extension













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US Wheat Associates Accompany Mexican Millers on Tour of America's Breadbasket

A group of millers hailing from Mexico is touring through wheat country this week, visiting coops and wheat destinations, allowing them the chance to look at different areas where they could potentially source the grain they require to meet their needs. Accompanying these millers on the tour is Chad Weigand, assistant regional director with the US Wheat Associates, Mexico City office. Farm Director Ron Hays caught up with Weigand as the group passed through Oklahoma during the latter part of this week to gain some insight on the tour and those traveling.





"We started the trip earlier this week on Sunday in Omaha, Nebraska," Weigand said, detailing their migration from Omaha to Manhattan and Great Bend, Kansas and then into Oklahoma. "We have Grupo Trimex, which is the largest milling company in Mexico. 13 mills in Mexico scattered throughout the country."





Weigand explained that of the total 55-60 million bushels of wheat running on average through Trimex, about 50 percent of that is hard red winter wheat. He says traditionally, Mexico is the No. 2 importer of US wheat behind Japan overall, but in first place when it comes specifically to HRW; most of which is shipped by rail. And while Mexico has fair wheat production itself, their industry looks to the US for quality.





"That's always what millers are looking for," Weigand said. "They need protein for their bread making. Mexico, they do produce a good amount of wheat, but about 60-70 percent of that is durum wheat, and so it's not suitable for bread making. They're looking for hard wheats from the US for import."





Although the US remains on top in exports to the Mexican wheat market right now, Weigand says that the Russians have appeared on the scene in recent years. With Russia producing larger harvests, cheap freight weights and a weak ruble - Russian wheat has been priced much cheaper than HRW going into Mexico.





"Russia's been the main threat as far as HRW goes because it's a wheat that's similar in quality, not quite as strong in protein, but it's most similar to a HRW," Weigand said, "so that has displaced some HRW sales to the US in the past three years or so into Mexico."





Listen to Chad Weigand's full conversation with Ron Hays for a more complete look into the group's tour around the US Breadbasket, by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.















Listen to Chad Weigand for a more complete look into the group's tour around the US Breadbasket

Listen to Chad Weigand for a more complete look into the group's tour around the US Breadbasket

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One Georgia mom was pulling clothes from the dryer, with her 4-year-old son nearby, when she heard the boom and saw the damage. Another woman thought something had crashed through her roof. In one instance, metal shards shot into a hallway and ripped holes in the wall. Laundry rooms have flooded. A whole house shook.

The cause of this carnage, according to a federal class-action lawsuit filed last month, is another exploding product made by Samsung.

Not smartphones, but washing machines.

Its not the sort of explosion, as with the lithium ion batteries in phones, caused by chemical reactions. Some washing machines, the suit alleges, vibrate violently under heavy loads, causing the tub to become unfastened, resulting in a dramatic centrifugal explosion that destroys the machine and nearby property.

The lawsuit alleges that Samsung has known of its exploding washing machine problem for years and did little to warn consumers. The plaintiffs  three women from Texas, Indiana and Georgia  demanded, among other things, the immediate issuing of a safety warning about the top-loading washing machines in question.

On Wednesday, more than a month after the lawsuit was filed, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission released a statement about safety issues with Samsung washers.

In the statement, posted on its website, the agency said it is actively and cooperatively working with Samsung to address safety issues related to certain top-load washing machines made between March 2011 and April 2016.

It did not specify which models are potentially dangerous, but the lawsuit alleged there were at least 11.

This warning comes just weeks after Samsung recalled its Galaxy Note 7 cellphone after the gadget began exploding in consumers pockets and vehicles and on airplanes.

Samsung, for its part, declined to comment on pending litigation, according to CNN, but released a statement on its website addressing the Consumer Product Safety Commission warning.

As of now, the agency and Samsung advise owners of the companys top-loading washing machines to use lower speeds, such as the delicate cycle, when washing bedding, bulky clothes or water-resistant materials.

There have been no reported incidents when using this cycle, Samsung said in the statement.

Samsung called the incidents rare and said affected units may experience abnormal vibrations that could pose a risk of personal injury or property damage.

It is important to note that Samsung customers have completed hundreds of millions of loads without incident since 2011, the Samsung statement said.

The lawsuit, however, paints a more dire picture.

Photos included in the filing show the tops blown off the washing machines. Some lurched so violently, the lawsuit alleges, that the machines spun and jumped from their original positions. Holes were punched into drywall, and nearby appliances were dented or scratched.

Melissa Thaxton, a plaintiff from Dallas, Georgia, was standing next to her washing machine, unloading clothes from the dryer, when it exploded. Thaxton said it sounded as if a bomb went off, according to the lawsuit. Her 4-year-old son was playing nearby.

Complaints reported to SaferProducts.gov describe similarly jarring experiences.
WASHINGTON  Outraged lawmakers pressed Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Wednesday to punish Wells Fargo & Co. for creating as many as 2 millions fake accounts, but she declined to commit to any regulatory penalties.

Two million phony accounts. Break them up! Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., told Yellen during a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee on the Feds regulatory responsibilities.

Sherman said Wells Fargos problems indicated that the San Francisco-based bank was too big to manage. He asked Yellen if she would at least seriously consider breaking up Wells Fargo using the Feds authority to downsize banks that pose a risk to the financial system.

We will hold the largest (financial) organizations to exceptionally high standards of risk management, internal controls and consumer protection, she said.

When Sherman said that the Fed hasnt been able to do that with Wells Fargo, Yellen responded that we believe it is possible, even though it is extremely challenging.

When violations do occur, Yellen said that bank executives should face consequences.

I think it is very important that senior management be held accountable, she said in response to questions from Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass.

Lynch criticized the recent $185 million settlement with Wells Fargo that ended investigations into the scandal by Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because the bank did not admit any wrongdoing.

If it didnt happen here, how we can even imagine ever that a bank might be required to take responsibility? Lynch said. It blows my mind that theyre getting away with this and theyre paying a little slap-on-the-wrist fine.

The Fed supervises the parent holding company of Wells Fargo and the largest U.S. banks. Last week, Yellen said the Fed would look into the procedures at those banks to make sure they were complying with consumer protection laws and other regulations.

Yellen recommitted to that review Wednesday.

We are undertaking a look comprehensively, not only in the consumer area but in compliance generally, because there has been a very disturbing pattern of violations, she said. Among the areas where those have occurred are mortgages and foreign exchange trading, Yellen said.

Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass., said Wells Fargo has faced 16 enforcement actions over the past five years, including an $85 million fine from the Fed in 2011 for mortgage lending abuses.

That fine was laughable to a bank the size of Wells Fargo, he said.

Dont you think its time the Fed does something? Capuano asked. How long does this stuff go on before you get outraged and take action?
Authorities say a 78-year-old Albion, Nebraska, man was assaulted and his wallet was stolen Thursday outside the Ameristar Casino in Council Bluffs.

Gary McDonald told police that an unknown man struck up a conversation with him as McDonald got out of his vehicle, which was parked in the south lot of the casino at 2200 River Road.

Police said McDonald told them that as he walked toward the casinos main entrance, the man accused him of having an affair with his girlfriend. The man pushed McDonald into a grassy median near the valet drive-thru and then removed McDonalds wallet from the pocket of his pants, police said.

The man fled, getting into a maroon or red sedan driven by an unknown woman, police said.

McDonald was not injured, police said.
Anthony Garcia now has a jury that will decide his fate.

After a grueling week, attorneys and Douglas County District Judge Gary Randall whittled about 129 potential jurors down to 12 jurors and four alternates on Friday.

The 12 primary jurors are six men and six women. Three men and one woman will serve as alternates.

Those 16 will return Monday to hear opening statements in the trial, which is expected to last four to six weeks. Garcia is charged in the March 2008 killings of Thomas Hunter, 11, and Shirlee Sherman, 57, and the May 2013 killings of Dr. Roger and Mary Brumback, both 65.

Prosecutors allege that he killed the four because of a grudge that festered after Hunters father, Dr. William Hunter, and Dr. Brumback fired Garcia from Creighton University Medical Center in 2001.

Friday was an exhausting and emotional day. Potential jurors were asked repeatedly whether they could set aside the emotions attached to such a significant case.

Even those who had never heard of the case were torn up. One of the toughest parts to handle: Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine mentioned that jurors might see a photo of 11-year-old Thomas, with a knife through his neck.

After my (initial) interview, I went into a bathroom and I just cried, said one potential juror, a young woman. This is all an overwhelming experience.

Judge Randall acknowledged that all murder cases spark emotion. The question, he said, was whether jurors could decide the case based on the evidence, without letting emotion cloud their views.

Both Kleine and Garcias attorney, Jeremy Jorgenson, tried to flesh out potential jurors views. Jury selection is a bit of a misnomer  its more a process of elimination, with each side crossing out names until 12 jurors and four alternates remain.

Jorgenson posed an interesting question: How many potential jurors want to be on this trial? A handful of people raised their hands. One said he was a criminal justice major. A few said it was their civic duty. Another said he is now fascinated by the case.

Jorgenson, who said he was a bit nervous, noted that this case was perhaps the trial of this century, if not last.

The biggest trial since ...

He said he was blanking on the name of the guy from the 1950s.

Starkweather, Judge Randall said.

Jorgenson said he has four kids and lives a couple blocks from the Dundee home where Thomas and Sherman were killed. No question that these crimes should offend the core of every single one of us, Jorgenson said.

In fact, one potential juror  a teacher  cried through much of both days of jury selection. Jorgenson questioned whether she could set aside her emotion and decide the case based on logic. Just because Im emotional, Im still a very logical person, she said. Ill be honest and say anyone who hurts children is hard for me. That was hard for me yesterday.

The woman wasnt chosen for the jury.

Another potential juror said she shuts out any news about horrible crimes or natural disasters.

Theres only so much room in my brain, she said. And I fill it with positivity.

Garcia himself showed little emotion throughout. He appeared to nod off a couple of times.

During one break, he fell asleep, only to snap awake when the judge blared: All right, lets get going.

Garcias younger brother, Fernando, an investment adviser, sat in the front row in a suit, watching defense attorneys go to work. Fernando Garcia said Garcias parents, Frederick and Estella, are in Omaha and plan to attend much of the trial.

Jorgenson asked potential jurors if anyone believed that Anthony Garcia was guilty just because Omaha police arrested him.

It means they have their suspicions, the middle-aged man said. Doesnt mean necessarily that they have the right person.

At that, Garcia nodded his head.
LINCOLN  Prison reforms meant to reduce overcrowding have fallen short of their target prison population so far, the head of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services said Friday.

Corrections Director Scott Frakes told a legislative oversight committee that the states total inmate population when he arrived in February 2015 was 5,383. As of Tuesday, he said, the population is 5,306  a decrease of 77.

But the current population is about 500 inmates more than estimates by the Council of State Governments Justice Center, a group that has helped several states reduce overcrowding. The group projected that the population would be 4,762 at the end of September 2016.

Frakes called the groups numbers overly optimistic, though he said he believes that reforms are moving the system in the right direction.

Former State Sen. Steve Lathrop, who led the committees questioning, asked Frakes whether he thinks the prison system will be at or below 140 percent capacity by 2020, at which point a state of emergency must be declared.

I believe we are going to be able to make that goal, Frakes said.

Though Frakes pointed to a number of initiatives to address the systems capacity problems, some members of the committee expressed concern.

We still have a long way to go to get to that 140 percent, Omaha Sen. Heath Mello said.

Fridays all-day hearing focused on overcrowding and efforts that officials are taking to better prepare inmates for release. Nebraskas prisons were at 157 percent of design capacity in September, though that number is higher if state inmates serving time in county jails are factored in.

Chronic overcrowding is just one problem that the troubled agency has dealt with in recent years; another is the mistaken early release of hundreds of inmates.

The department has a hard time recruiting staff, said Diane Sabatka-Rine, deputy director of institutions. About 200 protective services posts are vacant, which means other officers must work mandatory overtime. A recent staffing analysis said the department needed an additional 138 corrections officers.

Lathrop called the large number of vacancies an underlying problem to public safety.

Sabatka-Rine also acknowledged that assaults on staff members are rising at an alarming rate.

From January through August, 141 staff members have been assaulted, 10 of which resulted in serious injuries, she said. That compares with 78 staff assaults  about half that number  in 2013, none of which resulted in serious injury, she said. Those assaults ranged from hitting to throwing bodily fluids.

To be clear, our departments goal is zero staff assaults, she said.

Sabatka-Rine said inmates are more defiant. Frakes attributed the spike in assaults to a lack of programming, a lack of space and a general need for a healthy culture.

Frakes was hesitant to attribute the increase in serious assaults to overcrowding, saying serious assaults were down in 2013 when the prison system was about 150 percent over capacity.

To say theres a direct cause and effect, I struggle with that, he said. He noted that overcrowding is certainly a factor.

Omaha Sen. Bob Krist questioned whether good time is being taken away from inmates involved in recent disturbances. He said he believes the department doesnt effectively use good time, which can shorten an inmates sentence.

He called keeping corrections officers safe the departments No. 1 problem. Weve got to have safe institutions, he said.

Disturbances at Nebraska prisons have included the 2015 riot at the Tecumseh State Prison that left two inmates dead, the escape of two inmates from the Lincoln Correctional Center in June and the August assault of nine corrections officers at LCC.

More recently, inmates started two fires in cells, one using a battery and a candy wrapper; staff fired a warning shot at the Nebraska State Penitentiary after inmates refused to leave the yard and converged on staff; and Nikko Jenkins, who has been convicted of killing four people, was able to get an officers badge, keys and a razor to cut himself.

Other topics discussed during the hearing:

 More than 1,300 inmates are eligible for parole, but theyre not being paroled, said Rosalyn Cotton, chairwoman of the Nebraska Board of Parole. Inmates dont show up to parole hearings, or theyre so close to their jam out date that they waive their appearance, she said. Some inmates dont want to participate in programming that would be required for parole. The board also sees issues with the availability of programming to address sex offenses and substance abuse.

 The annual cost to house an inmate is about $35,000, compared with $45,000 for those on death row, who are in restricted housing that requires additional high-security staffing, Frakes said.
Authorities are warning people who live in the Norfolk area of a recent phone scam involving a call from a sweepstakes company.

Police said a caller claims the person has won a large amount of money or extravagant prizes. The sweepstakes winner is told to pay taxes on the winnings and to wire or send cash or a cashiers check to cover the taxes.

Variations of the scam include a caller asking for the winners personal and banking information or for the winner to send iTunes, Green Dot or other prepaid credit cards.

Police urged people to never release any personal or banking information over the phone. Police also said a valid sweepstakes, raffle or contest will not request any prepayment of taxes or fees.
A former teacher who had a sexual relationship with one of his former middle school students  starting when the girl was 13  has pleaded guilty and faces at least two decades in prison.

Brian Robeson, 36, was a math teacher at Alfonza W. Davis Middle School, near 130th and State Streets. He pleaded guilty last week to one count of first-degree sexual assault. In exchange for his guilty plea, a second count of first-degree sexual assault was dropped by Douglas County Attorneys Office prosecutor Molly Keane, court documents show.

Sentencing has been scheduled for Oct. 11. He could have faced up to 50 years in prison, but Robesons attorney, Michael Bianchi, said his client agreed to a recommended sentence of 40 years. Because of state sentencing laws, that means hed have to serve about 20 years in prison before hed be eligible for parole.

Keane said the plea deal ensures that the victim wont have to testify at what could be a painful trial. As a condition of the deal, Robeson will also have to register as a sex offender.

He wanted to do the best thing for both the victim and her family, as well as his own family, Bianchi said. And that was the best solution, given the options that were available.

Robeson was arrested in December after police received a tip that he was involved in an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old girl  a former student.

He was swiftly fired by Omaha Public Schools. Robeson had taught in the district for 13 years, including 10 years teaching math at Prairie Wind Elementary. He taught seventh-grade math at Davis.

He was initially charged with two counts of sexual assault against a juvenile, which carried a potential sentence of 20 years to life on each felony count.

At a court appearance where he was denied bail, a prosecutor said contact between Robeson and the girl started in 2014, when she was 12. The two began to have sex when she was 13, including in a car and at the girls house.

Bianchi called the states evidence against Robeson quite compelling.

I dont know if I ever had a client who fell so far, so much, with the level of bad judgment used in this isolated situation, Bianchi said.

The mother of the girl filed a protection order against Robeson to block him from contacting the girl and her family.

In the protection order, the mother said they learned of the abuse when a neighbor caught Robeson inside the familys house, watching TV, while they were out of town. The girl had given him the security code for the house.

The mother said Robeson had manipulated and groomed her daughter, earning her trust, encouraging her to sneak out for sex, giving her gifts and promising theyd marry when the girl turned 19. The girl lied to her parents at one point so Robeson could take her on an overnight camping trip, according to the protection order.

These have all stunted her adolescent growth and development in ways that cannot be portrayed in the worst of horror movies, the mother wrote.

The mother said they believed the abuse had gone on for as long as 12 to 18 months.

Robeson has two young children. His wife filed for divorce in October 2015, before his arrest.
LEXINGTON, Neb.  A group of 24 veterans are visiting the nations capital for a patriotic tour of monuments and memorials on a Dawson County Hero Flight.

Thirteen veterans from the Army, six from the Navy, four from the Marines and one from the Air Force are part of the Dawson County Hero Flight. .

Patriot Guard Riders formed a flag line to greet the veterans and their escorts as they gathered Wednesday at the Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles for a send-off.

The veterans were honored again as they boarded a bus provided by the Lexington Public Schools for the trip to Omaha, where they spent the night before flying to Washington, D.C., Thursday morning.

Members of the Lexington Volunteer Fire Department also helped with the send-off by parading a fleet of vehicles adorned with U.S. flags.

Clayton Schubert of Wilcox, Nebraska, said he was stationed outside Washington, D.C., for six weeks in 1952, and he and his buddies would hitchhike to D.C. on the weekends. He said most of the men in his company were sent to Korea, but for some reason he wasnt. He was one of six sent to Germany instead.

I want to see how much it changed, Schubert said.

The Hero Flight group will visit memorials linked to their service, including the World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War memorials and see Arlington National Cemetery. The group is to fly back to Omaha Saturday evening.

The Hero Flight is a way to thank veterans for their service to the nation, flight organizers said, and it is funded through donations. Veterans travel at no expense, and their escorts pay only $500.

This is Dawson Countys second Hero Flight in five months, but applicants for this trip werent limited to Dawson County, said Steve Zerr, veterans services officer for Dawson County. This flight was opened to veterans beyond Dawson Countys borders to accommodate some veterans who couldnt fit on previous flights launched in other areas.

Ron Leininger of Lexington, Nebraska, was drafted into the Army during the Korean War and advanced from corporal to sergeant in 28 days. He said a cease-fire was issued the day that he completed his training. He joked that it was because the enemy knew he was coming.

He said he got pneumonia a couple of times and so shuttled around training sites in the United States.

Pneumonia might have saved my life. You never can tell, Leininger said. He said he spent 16 months overseas.

He said he is looking forward to seeing all the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Ive never been in D.C. before, so it will be a new experience.

Dawson County Sheriff Gary Reiber, who joined the Marines at 17 and was sent to Vietnam at 19. He said hes looking forward to this trip even though hes been to D.C. before. His previous trip came during a partial government shutdown, so some sites were closed.

I think its a privilege to go. I look forward to going with some veterans that I know, he said of the Honor Flight.

State Sen. Matt Williams told the group that things they see in Washington might stir emotions and memories of days gone by, and that their service helped protect freedoms.

Williams said what freedom means may have changed in the minds of the veterans from the time of their enlistment to today, with the addition of children, grandchildren and communities we love dearly.

Williams said the send-off was not a day to mourn those lost. Today is a day of celebration of what you have done and what others following you will do.
WASHINGTON (AP)  A year after Russia waded into the war in Syria, aiming to flex its national security muscles and prop up beleaguered Syrian President Bashar Assad, Moscow appears no closer to one of its military goals: getting the U.S. to coordinate combat operations in the civil war.

And prospects of a diplomatic resolution seem dim.

The yearlong offensive of airstrikes and ground combat in Syria, however, has showcased some of Moscows newer military capabilities and underscored President Vladimir Putins willingness to go to war to protect an ally  particularly one that hosts a critical Russian base on the Mediterranean Sea.

More broadly, it put Russia at the center of the conflict, providing an opening for diplomatic cooperation between the U.S. and Russia to end the civil war.

But it also further complicated the U.S.-led campaign to wipe out Islamic State militants who found a haven amid the chaos.

The diplomacy was collapsing this week with the U.S. threatening to end all Syria-related cooperation unless the bombardment of Aleppo stopped. Russia responded that the U.S. was encouraging extremist attacks on Russian assets.

Russia has demanded that the U.S. separate the anti-Assad rebels it has supported from al-Qaida-linked militant groups, who often intermingle. But the U.S. has been unable to do so, and instead has said it remains focused on defeating the Islamic State group.

The bickering and diplomatic stalemates have threatened to compound other U.S.-Russian issues, such as economic sanctions or the annexation of Crimea.

As members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday demanded to know the Obama administrations Plan B for Syria, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out the administrations view.

The leverage (the U.S. has) is the consequences for Russia of being stuck in a quagmire that is going to have a number of profoundly negative effects, Blinken said, adding that Russia will be seen throughout the world as complicit with Assad as well as with Hezbollah and Iran in the slaughter of Sunni Muslims, Syrias largest religious group.

Under blistering criticism from senators, Blinken said the administration was actively considering other options for how to end the bloodshed. Syrias civil war has cost 500,000 lives and created the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

A year ago, worried about its naval base on Syrias coast and determined to shore up Assad, Moscow began to build up its military in Syria, sending in aircraft, fighter jets and troops.

Against the backdrop of an early failed U.S. program to train moderate Syrian forces, Putin began launching airstrikes in Syria on Sept. 30, 2015. Moscow insisted it was targeting Islamic State extremists. But in the ensuing months, Russian airstrikes pounded rebel strongholds and civilians, largely in areas where there is no Islamic State presence. According to military officials and humanitarian groups on the ground, the Russians have bombed hospitals, schools and, recently, a U.S. aid convoy, killing throngs of innocent civilians either deliberately or inadvertently, because of their use of powerful but imprecise dumb bombs.

Concerned about safety in the increasingly crowded skies over Syria, the U.S. set up a communications link with Russia to de-conflict the airspace and reduce the risk of collisions. That minor cooperation will continue even as other cooperation is ruled out.

According to U.S. officials familiar with the discussions, the Russians made it clear to the Pentagon from the start that a key long-term goal was joint military coordination with the U.S.  a move military officials and others stridently opposed.

Russian leaders, said one senior U.S. official, had a singular focus during the talks with defense officials and that was to be able to project themselves as military allies with the United States. The official was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly so spoke on condition of anonymity.

Putin had several objectives entering into Syria. One was to demonstrate Russia is a global power, said Evelyn Farkas, former U.S. deputy assistant defense secretary and now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington.

But last week the negotiations to set up a joint military implementation center collapsed, and it became clear that Russia was not going to make good on its publicly stated effort to control Assad or force the government to abide by the cease-fire.

I think this has proven to be tougher than the Russians expected, said Derek Chollet, a former assistant defense secretary for international affairs and now a senior adviser at the German Marshall Fund. I see no evidence that Russias intervention in Syria is increasing its diplomatic or political influence around the world.

In fact, if anything, what Ive heard from Europeans is that the intervention in Syria last year was so shocking in its brutality that it quashed any sort of momentum there was to lift sanction against Russia in Ukraine, he said.

Meanwhile, the fighting, according to experts, has revealed an array of technological and strategic weaknesses within Russias military and its command structure, including its lack of precision targeting, a cumbersome decision-making process and, at times, limited real-time awareness about what is going on at the battlefield.

The U.S.-led coalition has also had its share of mishaps on the battlefield, including an airstrike that mistakenly hit dozens of Syrian soldiers just as the cease-fire began earlier this month  plunging the talks into turmoil.

Russians military campaign in Syria, however, did allow Moscow to showcase in combat for the first time its long-range cruise missiles, launched from the air and from the sea.

Farkas and others say that in the wake of the collapse of the cease-fire and the resumption of all-out war, time is not on Russias side.

The Russians need to be thinking more carefully, that the Pottery Barn rules apply, said Farkas, referring to the often-quoted you break it, you bought it slogan. Russia now has lead responsibility for rebuilding Syria.
LINCOLN  The scene felt like a corporate seminar aimed at pumping up the sales force to set quarterly records.

Spontaneous cheers and applause echoed off the cinder-block walls of the prison gymnasium. Participants exchanged high fives, handshakes and smiles. There was lots of laughter and even a little dancing as James Brown screamed I Feel Good on the loudspeaker.

It made what took place Thursday within the walls of the Nebraska State Penitentiary seem just a little surreal.

Nearly 80 inmates wearing tan dungarees stood on one side of the gym. Many are serving long sentences, some for violent crimes.

On the other side were business executives and charitable foundation representatives, a state senator and a former speaker of the Nebraska Legislature. They were among 38 volunteers who came to the medium-maximum security prison to help launch an innovative program that teaches convicts how to be entrepreneurs and wage-earners upon their release.

By the time Thursdays four-hour event was over, both inmates and volunteers said they were hopeful that the program will help change the course of a prison system rocked in recent years by a deadly riot, overcrowding, mismanagement, and a series of violent attacks on correctional officers.

The Defy Ventures program, which currently trains about 1,600 inmates in New York and California, wont cost Nebraska taxpayers anything, at least not yet. Charitable foundations will cover the $2.5 million cost of a three-year trial run, said Ken Stinson, chairman emeritus of Peter Kiewit Sons Inc., and the catalyst for bringing the program to Nebraska.

Stinson attended Thursdays event along with staff of the Kiewit Foundation and Lozier Foundation. Others supporting the program are Rhonda and Howard Hawks, founder of Tenaska, and Bill Gerber, former chief financial officer at TD Ameritrade.

Catherine Hoke, founder and CEO of Defy Ventures, said her program has a proven track record of keeping 95 percent of its graduates out of prison for at least three years after their release. In Nebraska, about 30 percent of convicts return to lockup within the same period.

Hoke, who formerly worked in venture capital, said her approach succeeds by appealing to the risk-taking qualities inherent in both entrepreneurs and many who engage in criminal activity. The program connects inmates with volunteers who help them build the skills necessary to start a business or nail down a job  resume writing, interviewing, communicating and organizing.

The program also offers support services to inmates once they are released to help them find and keep employment, Hoke said.

Stinson said Hoke approached him late last year seeking a donation. He in turn encouraged her to consider starting the program in Nebraska to help meet the need for effective prison programming. Ideally the program could also help the states economy by creating new businesses while helping current employers fill jobs.

What were really talking about is not statistics, but helping people once they get out of prison to live productive, fulfilling lives, Stinson said.

Scott Frakes, director of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, said he strongly supports the program not only as a way to reduce recidivism, but hopefully to change the culture within the institution. Gov. Pete Ricketts said he hired Frakes from Washington state with the goal of transforming the culture throughout the Nebraska prison system.

There hasnt been this kind of energy, this kind of hope in this facility in a long time, Frakes said.

The program also has been started at the Omaha Correctional Center. If it shows promise, the goal is to launch it in all of the states prisons, Frakes said.

He also said if Defy Ventures duplicates the success its had in other states, he will ask state lawmakers to fund the program long-term.

During Thursdays event, Hoke referred to each inmate as an EIT, which stands for entrepreneur in training. In order to be accepted into the program, inmates will have to fill out a 12-page application and write a five-page essay.

Once theyre in, they will attend three hours of classes three times a week while completing additional assignments outside of class. And the program will seek to bring in additional volunteers from the community to help with life skills and employment coaching.

Since she started her nonprofit organization in 2010, Hoke said 150 graduates have started businesses. Many are modest, but she mentioned a former inmate from New York who started a fitness club that now employs a dozen people.

Inmate David W. Brown Jr. said hes already come up with a pitch for a recycling business he wants to start for the purpose of employing ex-convicts.

I start with bad attitudes but I recycle souls, said the 55-year-old Omaha man, serving four to six years for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

But Hoke warned the Nebraska inmates that they cant hold out for their dream job once they are out. They have to get employed, stay employed and make legal money for your families.

A key element of the programs success involves recruiting businesses and companies to hire ex-convicts. Hoke mentioned that she and her husband and business partner, Charles Hoke, have moved to Omaha to help oversee the program, and they will soon hire two staff members to help run the program in Nebraska.

On Thursday, she led communication exercises intended to help the volunteers see the inmates as people who made poor choices and bad mistakes. She said the program is based on the doctrine of second chances.

Hoke mentioned that her own experiences have helped fuel that belief.

She formerly ran a similar prison entrepreneurship program in Texas but was forced to resign after having inappropriate relationships with several former inmates after they were released from prison. Hoke has said she made poor decisions at a time when she was going through a divorce.

During Thursdays event, nearly all of the minority inmates in attendance said they have experienced racism. Most of the 79 inmates also said they came from broken homes or were abused as children. Some said they have been shot or stabbed.

Most said they never thought they would live past the age of 21. And most said they have children on the outside.

Several of the volunteers said the event was much different from they had expected. Mike Flood of Norfolk, an attorney who formerly served as speaker of the Legislature, said hearing the inmates describe challenges in their lives was a humbling experience.

They have hopes and dreams just like everybody else, he said.

State Sen. Laura Ebke of Crete, a member of the Judiciary Committee, which deals with the Corrections Department, also participated in Thursdays event. She said she thinks the program has the potential to do good things.

Inmate Odies Scott, 55, of Omaha said he felt uplifted by having people on the outside actually listening to him, maybe seeing him as something other than a criminal. A repeat offender, Scott said hes motivated to break the cycle when he gets out after serving four to five years for false imprisonment.

Right now, all these guys are believing in themselves again, he said.
DES MOINES  Hillary Clinton returned to the difficult political ground of Iowa on Thursday with hopes of banking early presidential votes in a battleground state trending firmly toward Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Iowas lengthy early voting window makes it the first battleground state to begin recording ballots this year, and it is among only a few states that allow weeks of in-person voting ahead of Election Day.

Democrats hope to use an advantage in organizing power to return the state to their column.

We are starting to vote today in Iowa, Clinton said. We have 40 days to win an election thats going to affect the next 40 years of our country.

She urged supporters to go directly from the outdoor rally where she spoke to an early voting station nearby. Democrats had organized transportation to several sites.

Republicans have conceded that early and absentee voting is not their top priority in Iowa.

Still, the Republican National Committee said its staff collected more than 250 absentee-ballot applications during a Trump event this month in Clive, Iowa, and nearly 300 at a Wednesday rally in Council Bluffs.

The tight race reflects the challenges that Clinton faces among liberal primary voters and white voters without a college degree.

Clintons razor-thin victory over Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa caucuses made clear that she would struggle to energize young and disaffected voters.

She won the caucus vote largely on the strength of a massive turnout operation but is struggling now to close a gap against Trump of about 5 points.

At her Des Moines rally, Clinton offered a hopeful message.

She recounted her own background of working on childrens issues and her fathers struggles as a small businessman.

I know so much of this campaign has been about, you know, whatever my opponent said and who he attacked and who he denigrates  and the list is long, Clinton said. But its not about that, its about you. Its about your families and your future, and each of us should be telling you what we intend to do in the job.

Dennis Goldford, a professor of political science at Drake University, said Trump is performing better in Iowa than other battleground states for a variety of reasons: It is the fifth-whitest state in the nation; manufacturing is still a significant sector of the economy; and there is a large rural working-class population without four-year college degrees.

Democrats are making a different argument in Iowa. Less-reliable voters, including the young, are the targets of Democratic outreach to encourage early voting. The theory, Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon said, is that voters with less history of voting or greater challenges to voting on Election Day can be rallied to vote now, while more-reliable Democratic voters are a safer bet to show up Nov. 8.

As Clinton spoke in Des Moines, the campaign mounted other early voting rallies in cities across Iowa, including Waterloo, Sioux City and Davenport.

Even with a microphone, Clinton raised her voice to be heard over the shouts and boos of Trump supporters across the street from the open-air venue in downtown Des Moines.

The crowd was modest and Clinton was more subdued than she has been in other campaign outings this week, as she celebrated positive reviews of her debate performance against Trump on Monday night.

She joked that she, at least, will study for the next debate next week.

The election will be close, but we can win Iowa, Clinton said in closing.

Clintons campaign said registered Democrats hold a nearly 3-to-1 advantage over registered Republicans in vote-by-mail requests across the state.

But Republicans argued that she is underperforming compared with President Barack Obama in 2012, when more than 4 in 10 Iowa voters cast early ballots.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.
Give the Nebraska prison system a hand for joining the modern age. The state is no longer using pen and paper to tally the criminal sentences of Nebraskas prisoners.

Last weekends rollout of a computer system that calculates, adjusts and double-checks the sentences of state prisoners should close an embarrassing chapter for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services.

The new system is expected to prevent another systemic failure like the one The World-Herald discovered in 2014. The newspapers analysis found that Corrections had miscalculated prison sentences for nearly two decades, which led to more than 171 inmates being released early, including 51 who committed new crimes.

Some mistakenly released inmates were rebuilding their lives and keeping out of trouble when they were rounded up and sent back to complete their sentences, disrupting their jobs and lives.

The state later identified more mistakes, related to miscalculations of good time and mandatory minimum sentences.

Weve created a system that shouldnt allow that to happen, second-year Corrections Director Scott Frakes told The World-Herald.

Implementing the new computer and software system is expected to be costly  the state allocated $395,000. But the new system will be more accurate, factoring in the impact of good-time laws, new legislation and Nebraska Supreme Court rulings that affect sentencings. It also will calculate sentences based on 365-day years instead of the old method, based on a 360-day year.

The prison system plans to double-check the release dates and parole eligibility dates of all 5,300 inmates. Many sentences will need to be tweaked.

This combination of modern technology and human review should have been in place years ago  most governments and businesses have long used computers for complicated work.

Theres plenty of blame to go around. Governors and prison leaders fostered most of these problems by looking the other way. The Legislatures frequent revisions to criminal sentences made for a convoluted stew. And lawmakers waited too long to assert themselves by establishing oversight tools such as a prisons inspector general.

Still, this marks an important step in state efforts to turning around the Corrections Departments listing ship.
Ronnie Green, the new chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, demonstrated impressive vision in his recent State of the University address promoting ambitious goals for the University of Nebraskas largest campus.

The chancellors forward-looking message, describing key goals across priority areas, was in keeping with Greens approach during his previous service as vice chancellor of UNLs Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources. During those years he and his team worked with faculty to develop a well-designed strategic vision that has energized East Campus as well as the food science components at NUs Innovation Campus.

In his campuswide address last week, Green hit the same themes of ambition and collaboration in setting out a vision for UNL as a whole.

Green said he aims to put together a team of key administrators to provide leadership as UNL pursues strategies to increase enrollment and student diversity; improve graduation rates; boost research funding to even greater levels; and burnish UNLs reputation in areas of excellence such as early childhood development, brain studies, food security and nanomaterial research.

It was the right message at a time when UNL, already on the upswing in numerous regards, is ready to scale even greater heights.
The question about the TPP  the Trans-Pacific Partnership, President Barack Obamas signature trade agreement  is whether it has already gone to the political morgue or whether its still in intensive care.

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump oppose the agreement, while the president has urged ratification. With Obamas term ending and his already-modest influence eroding by the day, TPP seems dead.

But it may still be in intensive care.

In a speech to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank, Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee whose jurisdiction includes trade agreements, said that the TPP could still be ratified in the lame-duck session after the election and before a new Congress takes office.

Brady gave two main reasons to approve the TPP.

The first is geopolitical: It would maintain and enhance American influence in the Asia-Pacific region and act as a counterweight to Chinas growing economic and political power. As Obama has often argued, TPP would give the United States a major role in regulating global commerce in the 21st century.

The trade agreement codifies rules on intellectual property (patents, copyrights), data flows and state-owned firms, among other things.

Ratification of TPP would fortify Asian confidence that the United States intends to remain a Pacific power. Rejection would sow doubts.

The second reason is economic: Asia remains a fast-growing region. TPP would eliminate most tariffs among the 12 member countries, aiding American exporters in these markets.

The advantage may be particularly important in services (tourism, consulting, finance and engineering), where U.S. firms are especially strong. In 2015, the United States had a $762 billion deficit in goods trade (machinery, steel, medical equipment) and a $262 billion surplus in services trade, leaving an overall deficit of $500 billion.

According to the Peterson Institute, the 12 countries in the TPP accounted for about 36 percent of the world economy and 24 percent of global trade in 2014.

The biggest countries ranked by their economies are the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia and Mexico. The other countries are Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Other countries  say, South Korea and Indonesia  might someday join, perhaps even China.

Still, anti-trade sentiment is pervasive in the campaign. Why doesnt Brady dismiss TPPs prospects as bleak?

People change once they get into office, he says. Translation: The campaigns anti-trade and anti-globalization rhetoric might recede before the realities of governing. Although Brady didnt say so, one implication is that a victorious Hillary Clinton might put up only token opposition to TPP, both because the case for approval is strong and because she might feel obligated to Obama for his political support.

Even with this, getting a deal would be difficult. Brady indicated there are some details to the TPP that require further explanation to members of Congress or renegotiation. These include rules on drug pricing, data storage and tobacco products, according to a spokesperson for Brady.

In addition, with many Democrats adamantly opposed to TPP, Obama would need to rely heavily on Republicans to approve the agreement.

Unless he can round up enough Democratic votes to ensure victory, its unlikely that Republicans would even allow the agreement to be taken up.

We are running out of time, Brady told the Peterson audience. The TPP may yet wind up in the political morgue.
Cauvery row: Release water or face the wrath of the law, SC tells Karnataka

Bengaluru

oi-Vicky

New Delhi, Sept 30: Warning Karnataka that the wrath of the law would fall upon it if orders are not followed, the Supreme Court ordered the state to release 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water daily to Tamil Nadu between October 1 and 6. "One knows not when the wrath of the law will fall upon him," a bench compromising Justices Dipak Mishra and UU Lalit observed.

The Supreme Court also ordered the constitution of the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) by October 4 and directed the centre to do the same. Further it said that the CMB will visit Karnataka and Tamil Nadu on October 4 and 5 to assess the ground sitiuation.

The court has directed the CMB to report to it on October 6.

The court took serious note of Karnataka not following its orders. Karnataka had passed a resolution to release water only for drinking purposes in Cauvery basin and Bengaluru. The Bench said: "This is your last chance to follow the orders or else face the wrath of the law."

The Bench also told Karnataka that it must not forget that it is part of India.

"You must obey the law. Article 144 of the Indian Constitution mandates that everyone follows the orders of the Supreme Court. It is unfortunate that you are defying orders of the Supreme Court in flagrant violation of the Constitution. This is the last time we are ordering you," the Bench said.

OneIndia News
They fire one, you fire two: How Ajit Doval changed India's policy on Pakistan?

Bengaluru

oi-Vicky

Bengaluru, Sept 30: "Fire at will. If they fire one, you fire two." This is what Ajit Doval, the National Security Advisor had told the Border Security Force last year after Pakistan resorted to cross border firing. The surgical strike that was carried out by India on Wednesday night once again reflects the NSA's policy that Pakistan is getting out of control and there is a urgent need to move away from the policy of strategic restraint.

If one looks at the events that unfolded after the Director General of Military Operations announced on Thursday that a surgical strike was carried out, it is clear that India had its tracks covered.

The response from the United States of America was not adverse. In fact during the conversation between Doval and his US counterpart, Susan Rice, the latter emphasised Pakistan needs to do more to clean up its terror sanctuaries.

The statements made by Johny Kirby, the US state department spokesperson, also did not criticise India's action. Instead, Kirby termed the Uri attack as a horrific one and condemned terrorism in all forms. He, however, cautioned both sides and said that the issue should not escalate.

Also read: US urges against escalation of tensions between India, Pakistan

A clear shift in policy

Since Doval was appointed the National Security Advisor, there has been a clear shift in India's policy. He had made it clear that with Pakistan it is high time that India moves out of its policy of strategic restraint. Unprovoked firing from across the border or terrorist strikes carried out by Pakistan must go unpunished, he felt.

India did exercise a great deal of restraint after the Pathankot attack and hoped that Pakistan would crack down on terror sanctuaries. After all Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid the ground work for peace following the surprise visit to Pakistan just a week before the attack.

Also read: India hits Pak, conducts surgical strikes on terror launch pads along LoC on Wednesday

However, India increasingly found Pakistan becoming more provocative in nature. Terror attacks in Kashmir followed by stage managing the unrest had become too much for India to handle. The Uri attack was the final resort and India decided that the time for strategic restraint was over.

The offensive defence doctrine

Doval follows an offensive defence policy. According to this doctrine, India will strike pre-emptively at Pakistan's vital installations and terror camps across the Line of Control (Salahuddin's nuclear threat: What did Modi-Doval do to rattle Pakistan so much?).

He says that there is no need to take Pakistan's aggression lightly.

Even when Pakistan indulged in cross border firing, Doval had told the BSF not to exercise restraint and fire two bullets if they fired one. He even told them not to conduct any flag meetings at such times.

He said that if India continues with its policy of strategic restraint, it would demoralise the forces largely. They should not become sitting ducks due to a restrained policy, he would say.

Following the Uri attack, there was immense pressure on the government to act against Pakistan. While several people sought for overnight action, Doval carefully strategised the next course of action with the Indian army. During the deliberations it was said that India should strike at Pakistan, but it has to be 100 percent successful. India did not want a single casualty.

Further at these meetings the NSA also said that Pakistan should not continue with their terror tactics.

Pakistan keeps hurling the nuclear threat in an attempt to bog India down and this cannot continue at any cost, he also said. He told the army to go all out and carry the operation assuring them of complete backing from the Indian government.

OneIndia News
In a first, two inmates of Institute of Mental Health tie the knot

"Put an end to rumours on Jayalalithaa's health"

Chennai

oi-PTI

Chennai, Sep 30: DMK President M Karunanidhi today urged the Tamil Nadu government to "put an end to rumours" regarding the health of AIADMK supremo and Chief Minister Jayalalithaa by providing proper information to the people, while wishing his arch rival a speedy recovery.

"As I had already mentioned, though I differ with her ideologically, it is my desire that she recovers soon and take up official duties as usual," he said and wished her a speedy recovery.

Karunanidhi said although Apollo hospital, where the Chief Minister is recuperating from fever and dehydration, was issuing bulletins about her health, "some unwanted rumours" were deliberately being floated by "some persons."

"Some persons are spreading unwanted rumours about her health on the social media and to put an end to these, proper information about the Chief Minister's health must be made available to the people," he said in a statement.

Karunanidhi suggested that photographs of the Chief Minister be released through the media to quell any kind of rumours being circulated about her health.

Jayalalithaa (68) was admitted to the hospital on September 22 after she complained of fever and dehydration.She has been advised to stay for a few days at the hospital.

PTI

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Story first published: Friday, September 30, 2016, 17:10 [IST]
The politicisation of the Army explained by architect of surgical strikes

Four years on: Remembering the surgical strike that dealt a lethal blow to Pakistan

Surgical strikes aftermath (In Pics): Border villagers shifting to safer locations

Feature

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, Sept 30: In the wake of mounting tension between India and Pakistan following after Indian Army's surgical strikes at the terror launch pads across LoC on Wednesday night, border villagers have been asked to pack their bags and move to safer places.

Anticipating a possible retaliation by Pakistani troops, Army reportedly asked people living within 10 kms of the border with Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab to vacate their home.

"We have asked border villagers living along IB and LoC to shift to safer area as a precautionery measure," Deputy Commissioner, Jammu, Simrandeep Singh said.

These directions have been passed on to people living along IB in Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts and along LOC in Rajouri and Poonch, officials said.

In Punjab too, people residing in villages within 10 kms of the International Border were asked to shift to safter places. Six districts of the state share border with Pakistan.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal put the entire government and political machinery in an emergency mode, an official spokesman said in Chandigarh.

Story continues in images.

Punjab: People migrating to safer places In Attari, border residents migrating after government asked them to vacate their villages as a precautionary measure following India's surgical strikes at the terror launch pads. The planned attack was carried out by the Indian Army about 2-3 kms across the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday night. Jammu: Man riding to safe place In Jammu, a man living close to the border with Pakistan ride with a motorcycle towards a safer place after authorities asked them to leave their villages for safety reasons in R.S Pura. Jammu: People moving to safer places Swarm of villagers at a filling station in RS Pura sector close to Indo-Pak border following surgical strikes by Indian Army across LoC. Villagers migrating to safer places in punjab Attari: Villagers leaving their home with bags after government asked them to vacate their villages. In one of the most daring act, Indian Army on wednesday carried out surgical strike at the terror launch pads. Punjab: 'Apna Ghar ham chor chale' Attari: Border villagers migrating after government asked people to vacate their villages falling in 10 km range of international border with Pakistan as a precautionary measure.

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Story first published: Friday, September 30, 2016, 14:27 [IST]
Bid for international Yemen war probe fails at UN

India

oi-PTI

Geneva, Sep 29 The bid to launch an international probe into the conflict in Yemen failed today, in a defeat for the UN rights chief who demanded an inquiry.

Rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said last month that a fully independent, international investigation was needed to end impunity for a raft of grave violations against the Yemeni people.

A group of European states, led by the Netherlands, then spearheaded a push at the UN Human Rights Council for a resolution setting up an international inquiry.

Saudi Arabia, which is leading a military coalition in support of the Yemen's government against Iran-backed Huthi rebels, has been staunchly opposed to such a probe.

In the end, the EU-backed resolution was scrapped, leaving only a competing and far milder text on the table, drafted by Sudan.

That resolution, which was adopted without a vote today, mandated Zeid's office to enhance cooperation with Yemen's own National Commission on the conflict.

Rights groups including Amnesty International have described that commission as feckless, one-sided, and lacking the expertise needed to conduct a credible inquiry.

But before it was adopted, today's resolution was beefed up to say that -- while assisting Yemen's own investigation -- UN experts should be "collecting and preserving information to establish the facts and circumstances of alleged violations and abuses."

Zeid was instructed to provide his own reports on the conflict, presumably using information gathered by his own staff.

"It's a step in the right direction", John Fisher of Human Rights Watch in Geneva told AFP, noting that the resolution "fell short" of the hoped-for inquiry.

Salma Amer, UN Advocacy Officer at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, said in a statement that the text "puts Saudi Arabia's desire for impunity above the need to protect the people of Yemen."

But speaking on behalf of the EU after the resolution was adopted, Slovenia's representative to the UN in Geneva, Vojislav Suc, described the text as a "good and reasonable compromise."

A similar effort to set up a UN inquiry was withdrawn at the Council last year, under Saudi pressure.

More than 6,600 people, including civilians, have been killed in the Yemeni conflict since the Saudi-led coalition began its air campaign in March 2015, the UN says.

AFP
TRS, BJP are two sides of same coin: Rahul Gandhi in Telangana

BJP announces Rs 5 lakh compensation to kin of Uri martyrs

India

oi-PTI

Jammu, Sep 29 The BJP today announced Rs 5 lakh compensation to the families of the two slain soldiers of Uri terror attack who hailed from Jammu.

The announcement was made by the chief of BJP's state unit Sat Sharma at a meeting of the party's Working Committee in Udhampur.

"The BJP stands with the bereaved families of Uri martyrs and will provide compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the family of both the soldiers from Jammu province", said Sharma.

Sharma hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian Army for taking "courageous step in destroying the terrorist launching pads across LoC".

"India has not attacked Pakistan but the terrorist launching pads, wherein the terrorists were waiting to cross into our territory and cause extensive damage to the citizens and properties," he said.

Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh said the surgical attacks will not only send a very strong message to Pakistan, "the perpetrator of terrorism, but also the separatists and the sympathizers of terrorists".

"The present government at the Centre is very clear that India will not tolerate any such activity which pose threat to the unity and integrity of the country or cause loss of lives of soldiers and innocent civilians," he said.

During the meeting, ministers, MLAs and MLCs were told to prepare their "report card" as the same will be helpful in mobilising the public in favour of the party by making them aware about various initiatives undertaken by the elected representatives.

PTI
Cauvery Mgmt Board: Centre asks 4 states to send nominations

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Sept 30: Union Water Resources Ministry today asked four Cauvery basin states to nominate their representatives to be appointed on the Cauvery Water Management Board as directed by the Supreme Court.

The apex court has directed the Centre to set up the Board by October 4. It ordered all the stakeholders -- Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry -- to give names by 4 PM tomorrow of the representatives to be on the Board which would be chaired by Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti.

"We have issued letters to four states seeking their nominations," the Ministry Secretary, Shashi Shekhar told PTI.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka government, which has been vehemently opposing the formation of the Board, has confirmed having received a communication from the Centre in this regard. "We have received the letter. We still have time till tomorrow to decide on the nomination," a state government official said.

PTI
Cauvery Row: If you disobey court, I can't argue for Karnataka, Nariman tells Siddaramaiah

India

oi-Vicky

There was drama in the Supreme Court with Fali S Nariman, senior counsel appearing for Karnataka refusing to argue the Cauvery case and make any submission on behalf of the state in the Supreme court.

[Also Read: Cauvery row: Release water or face the wrath of the law, SC tells Karnataka]

During the course of the arguments, Nariman made public a letter by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in which he had said the state was not in a position to release water to Tamil Nadu as directed by the court. Nariman had replied to the Chief Minister saying he would not argue for the state until the SC orders were followed.

While it was initially believed that Nariman had withdrawn as Karnataka's counsel in the Cauvery case completely, members of the state legal team told OneIndia he had refused to argue before the court only for today. He will continue to represent Karnataka.

[Also Read: Cauvery meet in Delhi inconclusive: Uma Bharti says will go on hunger strike if need be]

When proceedings began, Nariman brought to the notice of the court Siddaramaiah's September 29 letter to him. In the letter, the CM had said that the state is in no position to release water. The CM also mentioned the resolution passed by the Karnataka assembly and said that all parties had agreed that water could not be released. Siddaramaiah requested Nariman to make these submissions to the court.

Nariman wrote back to the CM in a letter dated September 30 that he would not be able to make any submission today. "I will certainly read out your letter to the court. But you must realise that all of us appearing for the state are officers of the court and since the court has issued a direction for release of water, despite the resolution passed, we must honour the order of the court. I must therefore inform you that apart from reading your letter and my reply, we will not be able to make any submission on behalf of the state to the court," Nariman wrote.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, September 30, 2016, 17:18 [IST]
Desperate Pakistan may orchestrate attacks, stay alert, Home ministry advises states

India

oi-Vicky

The Ministry of Home Affairs has issued an advisory asking all states to remain vigilant during the upcoming festive season. The advisory also asks all metros to stay vigilant for the next 30 days. The advisory has been issued following the surgical strike that India carried out across the Line of Control. Border areas are already on heightened alert. Several villages have already been evacuated along the border as a precautionary measure.

[Also Read: Afghanistan defends India's surgical strikes in PoK]

On Thursday, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) had also warned that a desperate Pakistan may orchestrate a terrorist retaliation. Pakistan is likely to sponsor a series of attacks on India, IB had warned.

While there is already heightened alert along the border areas, officials warn that Pakistan may try and engineer a strike in a major city as well. The IB has directed police officials of major cities to remain on alert as some Pakistan-sponsored elements may try and strike. The alert warns against strikes by Pakistan on strategic locations as well as crowded areas.

Intelligence Bureau officials said while army camps and checkposts along the border with Pakistan are on terrorists' radar, in the cities, crowded areas and major locations are potential targets.

[#SaluteToTheArmy: Twitter salutes Indian army for its bravery]

The alert calls on city officials to watch out for sleeper cells of outfits that subscribe to Pakistan-based terror groups. Fringe elements also could be activated to carry out a strike, IB officials warn.

Home Minstry officials say that a desperate Pakistan will look to hit back and hence security must be tight. Police officials must check all elements including those belonging to fringe groups to ensure that nothing untoward takes place, a Home ministry official said.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, September 30, 2016, 18:22 [IST]
Bank holidays in November 2022: Here is the full list of non-working days

Dying declaration: Bansal, son sent suicide notes to media houses, CBI

India

oi-Maitreyee

As sordid details behind the suicide of BK Bansal's family are out in the open, one more revelation indicates how the entire episode was well-planned in advance.

[Bansal suicide case: DCW services notice to CBI]

A day ahead of killing themselves, the former Director General Corporate Affairs and his son Yogesh had couriered their suicide notes to several media houses and the CBI.

According to media reports, Delhi Police on Thursday visited the office of the courier company, reportedly used by Bansal to send the notes.

The employees of the company told the police that two men visited their office and enquired about their services. "Later, they sent eight couriers to several media houses, and one to the CBI's office. They came on their motorbikes... one of them was constantly talking on his cell phone," added the sources.

[Also Read: Sordid details: BK Bansal's wife, daughter pushed to death by CBI?]

Bansal, an accused in a corruption case, and his 31-year-old son allegedly committed suicide at their residence in Delhi on Tuesday.

Just two months earlier, Bansal's wife and daughter also hanged themselves at their residence after the senior bureaucrat was arrested by the CBI in July.

The suicide notes, left behind by the former bureaucrat and his son, blamed the CBI for harassing them and pushing the four family members to end their lives.

[Also Read: Shocking suicide notes: 'Tainted' BK Bansal, son allege harassment by CBI]

Bansal was arrested by the CBI for allegedly accepting bribe from a prominent pharmaceutical company on July. The investigative agency raided eight locations in connection with the case and recovered unaccounted cash. However, Bansal was later released on bail in August.

OneIndia News
In Pics: India celebrates Surgical Strike by army across LoC

Ranchi: People celebrate after Indian army's Surgical strikes along the Line of Control, in Ranchi on Thursday. PTI

In Pics: India celebrates Surgical Strike by army across LoC

Mumbai: NCP Mumbai party workers celebrate after Indian army's Surgical strikes along the Line of Control, in Mumbai on Thursday. PTI

In Pics: India celebrates Surgical Strike by army across LoC

Patiala: People celebrate after Indian army's Surgical strikes along the Line of Control, in Patiala on Thursday. PTI

In Pics: India celebrates Surgical Strike by army across LoC

Lucknow: Mahant Dviyagiri of Mankameswer temple and people celebrate after Indian army's Surgical strikes along the Line of Control, in Lucknow on Thursday. PTI

In Pics: India celebrates Surgical Strike by army across LoC

Patna: People celebrate after Indian army's Surgical strikes along the Line of Control, in Patna on Thursday. PTI

In Pics: India celebrates Surgical Strike by army across LoC

Bhopal: Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) workers offering laddoos to a poster of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to celebrate the surgical strike inside the Pakistan by Indian Army to revenge Uri Attack, in Bhopal on Thursday. PTI

In Pics: India celebrates Surgical Strike by army across LoC

Ahmedabad: People with National flags celebrate the surgical strike inside the Pakistan by Indian Army to revenge Uri Attack, in Ahmedabad on Thursday. PTI
India, Pak should take measures to avoid military escalation: AIFB

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Sep 30: The All India Forward Bloc today said the surgical strike carried out by the army has sent the message that New Delhi was not soft towards terrorism and asked India and Pakistan to take "all possible" measures to avoid military escalation.

"The surgical strike carried out by Army yesterday has boosted the morale of Indian soldiers and involves a message that India is not a soft state towards terrorism. The party (though) is of the opinion that these actions should not lead to a war," the party said in a statement.

Stating both India and Pakistan are "nuclear power nations", AIFB said nobody can predict casualties in the eventuality of war.

"Moreover, people of both the countries are not in favour of military action, they are for peace and harmony.

"(Hence) the AIFB urges upon the political leadership of both India and Pakistan to take all the possible measures to avoid military escalation in the region," the statement said.

Behind Pakistan's military confidence: China's growing shadow

The party termed as "good diplomatic measures" to isolate Pakistan by putting pressure to postpone the proposed SAARC Summit in Islamabad, reviewing Most Favoured Nation status to it and raising the issue of terrorism sponsored by the neighbouring country at United Nations General Assembly by India.

Surgical strikes were carried out by India on seven terror launch pads across the LoC on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, with the Army saying it had inflicted "significant casualties" on terrorists preparing to infiltrate from PoK.

PTI
The Biodiesel Sector projected to accelerate sustainable growth across India

India's steel industry now 2nd biggest, target is to double crude steel output in 10 years: PM Modi

Fact Check: Rishi Sunak never said India needs a PM like Manmohan Singh

India extends curbs on sugar exports for another year

From being a victim of terrorism to exploring global solutions: India praised at UN's Counter Terrorism meet

News flash: PM Narendra Modi discusses Cauvery issue with senior ministers

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Sept 30: Cabinet Committee on Security (CSS) meeting scheduled to take place today. Meanwhile, Rajnath Singh to meet top officials of ITBP to review security situation in border areas.

Get all the latest news updates of the day:

12:00: Investigation agencies in Delhi have been totally saffronised and working on whims and fancies of their political masters: Vikramaditya Singh

11:15 pm: Maldives expressed hope that the required measures will be taken by relevant member states to convene the Summit at an early date.

10:45 pm: PM Narendra Modi met with senior ministers today to discuss Cauvery issue.

10:15 pm: High alert at Rajiv Gandhi Int'l Airport, Shamshabad in Telangana.

9:45 pm: It is clear even if 1 country withdraws, the summit cannot be held; that indefinite postponement of SAARC is not good for members:Nepal Govt

9:30 pm: Home Minister Rajnath Singh talks with the family of the jawan who crossed over to the other side of the LoC and assures them that they will bring him back.

9:15 pm: Grandmother of a jawan who crossed over to the other side of the LoC died after not receiving any information about him.

9:00 pm: Petrol price increased by Rs. 0.28/litre and diesel decreased by Rs. 0.06/litre in Delhi

8:50 pm: CISF strengthens security arrangements at Tehri Dam in Uttarakhand .

8:40 pm: Bhopal: Bus catches fire in Bhopal after a motorcycle rams into a bus.

8:20 pm: Decision by India to derail Summit effectively contradicts Prime Minister Modi's own call to fight against poverty in the region: Pak MOFA

8:10 pm: A new set of dates for holding of the 19th SAARC Summit at Islamabad will be announced soon: Pakistan MOFA

8:00 pm: Gunmen ambush Mexican military convoy, kill 4 soldiers: Official

7:50 pm: Army on high alert along LoC after #SurgicalStrike by Indian Army.

7:45 pm: High alert in Indo-Nepal border in Uttarakhand after Indian Army conducted surgical strike.

7:35 pm: Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah calls an all party meet tomorrow at 5pm over Cauvery issue.

7.28 pm: Any manufacturing undertaking set up from 1/4/15 to 31/3/2020 is eligible for 15% of higher addl. depreciation & 15% of investment allowance.

7.00 pm: 7 districts of Andhra Pradesh notified as backward areas are Anantapur, Chittoor, Cuddapah,Kurnool, Srikakulam, Vishakhapatnam, Vizianagaram.

6.42 pm: GST compensation to the States will be decided later: Finance Minister.

6.40 pm: Once GST Act is passed, we want the draft rules to be ready in anticipation so that the rules can be notified immediately: FM Arun Jaitley.

6.38 pm: There is one item on GST council which wasnt taken up, calculation of annual increase of revenue: Finance Minister

6.34 pm: Army has fulfilled its promise made to the people of India by conducting surgical strikes on Pak territory, we appreciate this: BSP.

6.25 pm: Spreading tide of extremism and terrorism is a threat we (India, Mali) both face. We in India, face it from across the borders: Hamid Ansari.

6.15 pm: Terrorism can't be justified on any grounds.India condemns it in all forms; it should be dealt in comprehensive manner: Hamid Ansari.

6.07 pm: Tourism and Culture Minister A Chandulal releases audio CDs of Bathukamma songs on the occassion of flower festival in Hyderabad.

6.03 pm: Vice President Hamid Ansari addressing the National Assembly in Bamako (Mali).

6.02 pm: Terrorists today opened fire on a joint police and CRPF party at Kulgam in Jammu and Kashmir. The incident occured near the Behinag Sumo Stand at Kulgam. No damage has been caused in the firing. A search operation has been launched.

5.47 pm: We have a population of 1.25 bn, why do we have to import artists from Pak? says Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant.

5.39 pm: Salman Khan should consult with his father Salim Khan before making such statements, says Shiv Sena leader Subhash Desai.

5.35 pm: EU agrees to ratify Paris climate deal (Source: AFP).

5.34 pm: MHA issues advisory asking all states to remain vigilant during upcoming festive season.

5.27 pm: There shouldn't be any boundary musically, but will support the government's decision: Singer Mika Singh on the call on ban on Pak artists.

5.26 pm: Terrorists fired upon joint patrolling party of police and CRPF in Behi Bagh of Kulgam district (J&K). More details awaited.

5.23 pm: TRS MP K Kavitha marks Bathukamma (floral festival) in Dubai, UAE.

5.00 pm: Michael Ferreira and other accused remanded to police custody till October 13 by a Mumbai court in Qnet scam.

4.55 pm: AAP rebel leader from Punjab Sucha Singh Chhotepur resigns from the primary membership of the party.

4.51 pm: Malkangiri (Odisha) Few villagers, owing to superstitious beliefs, have turned to 'tantriks' after medicine failed to cure their children.

4.50 pm: Accused of Park Street rape case sent to police custody till October 14

4.45 pm: Japanese encephalitis claims 19 lives in Malkangiri, Odisha.

4.33 pm: India beat Bangladesh by 5-4 to win U-18 Hockey Asia Cup in Dhaka.

4.25 pm: Royal Air Force Aerobatics Team Red Arrows to perform an aerial salute to IAF on Air Force Day on 8 Oct in front of Chief of IAF.

4.19 pm: We are not against the people of Pakistan, nor are Pak people against people of India. It is about the Govts: Shyam Benegal.

4.15 pm: Not the right time to shake hands with Pak; Pak artists dont come on work visa but tourist visas. Action should be taken, says Amey Khopkar, MNS

4.00 pm: Artists came cause they were called for some project, whats their fault? Pak Govt has nothing to do with the individuals, says Shyam Benegal.

3.55 pm: Punjab Minister Bikram Singh Majithia visits border villages in Attari Sector,meets locals on Surgical Strike.

3.45 pm: Police search team arrests 13 Maoists in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh.

3.30 pm: Islamic Centre of India celebrates in Lucknow after Indian Army conducted on Surgical Strike in Pakistan territory.

3.10 pm: Actors and terrorists are different. Pakistani actors come to India with proper documents: Salman Khan.

3.05 pm: "One knows not when the wrath of the law will fall upon him" a bench compromising Justices Dipak Mishra and UU Lalit observed.

2.56 pm: You are part of India. You must obey the law and also Article 144 of the constitution which mandates everyone follows SC orders, SC tells. It is unfortunate that you are defying SC orders in flagrant violation of the Constitiution, SC tells Karnataka.

2.55 pm: Fali S Nariman releases Karnataka CM's letter saying no water would be released. Nariman replies to CM saying would not argue for the state until SC orders were obeyed.

2.50 pm: SC orders Karnataka to release 6,000 cusecs Cauvery water daily from October 1 and 6. This is your last chance or else face the wrath of the law, Supreme Court said. SC asks CMB to visit Karnataka and TN on October 4 and 5 and give report to court by 6th.SC tells centre to constitute CMB by October 4.

2.34 pm: Mohammad Shahabuddin surrenders before Siwan District Court in Bihar.

2.20 pm: Called PM Modi to congratulate on this; this is what we expected from government, happy about it: Uddhav Thackeray, Shiv Sena chief on surgical strike.

Called PM Modi to congratulate on this;this is what we expected frm Govt, happy about it:Uddhav Thackeray,Shiv Sena chief on #SurgicalStrike pic.twitter.com/UwVOXSmFbx  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

2.17 pm: One CRPF jawan injured in an IED blast in Bijapur district in Chhattisgarh.

2.00 pm: BJYM protest against fee hike in self financing medical college issue, water cannons used against protesters in Trivandrum (Kerala).

1.40 pm: I applaud PM Modi's boldness & seriousness to fight terrorism: Afghan Ambassador Shaida Mohd Abdali on Surgical Strike by Indian Army.

1.34 pm: It is clarified that these are fake and example of black propaganda, says Army Sources.

1.31 pm: We request that these clips not be circulated or telecast: Army Sources.

1.30 pm: Few Pak channels are playing doctored video clips showing Indian Army casualties. Same is also circulating on social media: Army Sources.

1.28 pm: Supreme Court adjourns hearing on Nestle's Maggi case to 3rd October.

1.26 pm: Will move another petition asking Mohd Shahabuddin be moved to a jail outside Bihar and trial to be thrusday video conferencing: Prashant Bhushan.

1.05 pm: Pak deprived India of participation in Asian Trade Promotion Forum CEO meet by withholding travel permission of trade counsellor of Indian High Commission in Islamabad to travel to Lahore: Sources.

1.04 pm: "He will be taken to jail forthwith," says Prashant Bhushan on Mohammad Shahabuddin's bail has been cancelled by the SC.

1.01 pm: Mohammad Shahabuddin's bail has been cancelled by the SC.

12.53 pm: Border villages in Fazilka being evacuated after Surgical Strike conducted by Indian Army in Punjab.

12.45 pm: Plea seeking action on Dengue and Chikungunya in Delhi: SC slams Delhi Govt,says how can they say no officer wants to take any responsibility?.

12.44 pm: BCCI SGM adjourned till tomorrow as some representatives were not having proper authorization letter from their respective boards.

12.43 pm: I want to thank him (PM Modi) that for the first time in 2 and half years he has taken an action that is of the stature of PM, says Rahul Gandhi.

12.36 pm: They should have done this before MNS, they took so long to take this decision, says Shalini Thackeray (MNS) on IMPPA resolution to ban Pak artists.

12.32 pm: My party and I stand with PM Narendra Modi. What he has done is right, says Congress VP Rahul Gandhi on SurgicalStrike conducted by Indian army.

12.30 pm: Right now we're very overwhelmed with the loss of our soldiers, the country is mourning the loss, says Kangana Ranaut on call to ban Pak artists.

12.23 pm: Patna High Court says that Bihar Govt's Prohibition of liquor act is "illegal".

12.20 pm: Family members mourn the death of Naik Raj Kishor Singh who succumbed to his injuries, today on Uri Attack at Bhojpur, Bihar.

12.09 pm: Adarsh Housing Society matter: Supreme Court adjourns the matter for October 6.

11.48 am: If we as a nation decide that we won't pollute our surroundings, our society and eventually our country will be cleaned: Narendra Modi.

If we as a nation decide that we wont pollute our surroundings, our society and eventually our country will be cleaned: PM Narendra Modi pic.twitter.com/LfQ2hog8eS  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

11.37 am: Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan has been able to establish its roots among people very soon, were able to create atmosphere towards cleanliness: PM Modi.

11.20 am: Narendra Modi presents cleanliness drive award to NCC cadres at the inauguration of INDOSAN (India Sanitation Conference) in Vigyan Bhavan.

PM Modi presents cleanliness drive award to NCC cadres at the inauguration of INDOSAN (India Sanitation Conference) in Vigyan Bhavan pic.twitter.com/Axiss1bHJ4  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

11.04 am: Security forces on high alert in border areas of Nowgam in Handwara sector (J&K) after Indian army conducts surgical strike.

10.52 am: Kadir Khan, main accused in the Park Street rape case in 2012, was arrested from a hide out in Delhi last night.



10.47 am: Gurdaspur(Punjab): Administration build temporary bridge to facilitate villagers being evacuated to cross Ravi River at Dera Baba Nanak area.

Gurdaspur(Punjab): Administration build temporary bridge to facilitate villagers being evacuated to cross Ravi River at Dera Baba Nanak area pic.twitter.com/Dc3Or4gr3V  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

10.17 am: Bihar: Fire breaks out at Vikas Bhawan in Patna. 3 fire tenders reach the spot.

Bihar: Fire breaks out at Vikas Bhawan in Patna. 3 fire tenders reach the spot. pic.twitter.com/k2yMf6NRcs  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

9.53 am: US Senator Mark Warner and John Cornyn, Co-Chairs of Senate India Caucus wrote to PM Modi expressing support for India, condemning Uri attack.

9.35 am: Rajnath Singh to chair meeting to review internal security at 11 AM, today after Indian army conducted surgical strike in Pak territory.

9.20 am: Crude bombs hurled near a place of worship in Podanur in Coimbatore.

8.55 am: One more soldier injured in Uri attack succumbs to his injuries in R&R Hospital. Death toll now rises to 19.

8.38 am: Pakistan violates ceasefire on Line of Control near Akhnoor.

8.20 am: Vice President Hamid Ansari held delegation level talks with Malian Prime Minister Modibo Keita

Bamako: Vice President Hamid Ansari held delegation level talks with Malian Prime Minister Modibo Keita pic.twitter.com/q41kiMIlf2  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

8.05 am: We've seen those reports. We're following the situation closely: US State Dept Spokesperson John Kirby on surgical strikes conducted by Indian Army.

8.00 am: Rajnath Singh to meet top officials of ITBP to review security situation in border areas.

OneIndia News
Let's not pat our back, be prepared for retaliation: Raju

India

oi-PTI

Hyderabad, Sep 29: Former Union minister M M Pallam Raju today cautioned the NDA government not to "pat its back" for the "surgical strike" across Line of Control, saying it should be prepared for possible retaliation from Pakistan.

However, the senior Congress leader appreciated the timing as "perfect" for the strike on Line of Control (LoC). "I would like to commend the Indian armed forces on the well planned surgical strike across the Line of Control.

India has been exercising restraint and that has unfortunately been interpreted as weakness by Pakistan. I hope the strong message that has been delivered by the armed forces will be taken note of by Pakistan," Raju said.

"I think this is a good retribution. But at the same time we have to be prepared also. Let's not pat ourselves on our backs. We should also be prepared for retaliation from their end. In what form the retaliation comes, will it be (in the form of) stepped up terror attacks or would it step up (its activities) that would lead to war. This is what we have to be prepared for," Pallam Raju told PTI.

DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh today said India carried out surgical strike on terror launch pads across the Line of Control, inflicting "significant casualties" on terrorists and those who are trying to support them.

India hits Pak, conducts surgical strikes on terror launch pads along LoC on Wednesday

Replying to query, Raju said the ruling NDA government has given sufficient freedom to the armed forces which yielded good results. "I am happy that they have given the armed forces the freedom to step across the Line of Control and take action.

Before that they have also built up sufficient international pressure to give a justification for the strike," he said. The former Minister of State for Defence blamed Pakistan's Army and ISI for terror attacks on India, saying they are encouraging such acts as the neighbouring country can never win a conventional war against India.

PTI
Fire breaks out in BEST AC bus, no passenger hurt | VIDEO

As the countdown clock struck zero, rocket of Aakash BYJUS took off from Bandra Bandstand

Modi should give Jinnah House to Jinnah's daughter: Subramanian Swamy

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, Sep 29 BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Thursday suggested that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should hand over Jinnah House in Mumbai to the only daughter of founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

"Now I suggest PM hand over the Jinnah House in Mumbai to Jinnah's only daughter Dina Wadia who refused to go to settle in Pakistan," Swamy tweeted.

Swamy's tweet came after India carried out surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads across the LoC in Pakistan and inflicted heavy casualties.

Born as Dina Jinnah, Dina Wadia's relationship with her father became strained when she expressed her desire to marry a Parsi-born Indian, Neville Wadia.

Jinnah, a Muslim, tried to dissuade her, but failed.

It is said that when Dina married Neville, Jinnah said to her that she was not his daughter any more.

After the marraiage, the Wadias lived in Mumbai and had two children, a boy and a girl.

After Jinnah returned to Mumbai from England to take charge of the Muslim League, he built himself a palatial mansion South Court (Jinnah House) in Mumbai, which became his residence during the politically momentous decade preceding the creation of Pakistan.

The house, designed by Claude Batley, a British architect, was built in 1936 and is located at 2, Bhausaheb Hirey Marg, Malabar Hill. In 1948, it was leased to the British Deputy High Commission which occupied it till 1982.

Successive Pakistani governments have often expressed deep interest in acquiring the property free of charge for sentimental reasons.

During his visit to India, then President Pervez Musharraf had renewed Pakistan's claim to the house which he had suggested to then Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee should be given to Pakistan so that it could be turned into a consulate.

However, Dina Wadia who lived in New York City, wrote to the Indian Prime Minister demanding that the house on the Malabar Hill, be handed over to her.

IANS
Prime accused in Park Street gangrape case arrested

India

oi-PTI

Kolkata, Sep 30: Over four years after the infamous Park Street gangrape case, Kolkata Police has arrested the prime accused Kader Khan from Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad district.

Kader along with his accomplice Ali Khan was arrested by a special team of Kolkata Police in a joint operation with Delhi Police from their hideout in an apartment in Ghaziabad last night, the officer said.

Sources in Kolkata Police said the duo would be brought to the city on transmit remand and likely be produced at a local court tomorrow. The victim, a mother of two, was gangraped on February 6, 2012 by five men who had offered to drop her home from a night club at city's Park Street area.

Acting on a tip off that Kader, absconding since the incident, sleuths of Kolkata Police started tracking his mobile calls, he said. Soon after he was located somewhere near New Delhi, sleuths started zeroing on him.

On Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar's instruction, a special team was formed to nab Kader. "We had information that Khan has returned to the country and was having regular interaction with his family members in Kolkata over phone.

We started tracking their numbers and found that calls from a particular number from Ghaziabad were made... We started tracking it and found that it was Kader's," the officer said, adding that Kader had rented the apartment in Ghaziabad under a psuedo name.

It was learnt that Kader was hiding in Bangladesh and after running out of cash he returned to Delhi through Nepal. After keeping him under surveillance for almost a week, a joint team of Delhi Police and Kolkata Police team raided his hideout last night and arrested him, the IPS officer said.

PTI
In India terror down by 34%, civilian deaths by 90% since Art 370 scrapped: Shah

Lack of development in J&K for decades was one of the reasons behind rise of terrorism: Rajnath Singh

In J&K, over 130 youth choose Indian Army's 'Sahi Rasta' over radicalisation

People of J&K hate corruption, I always felt their pain: PM Modi

40 down and counting: Forces on the verge of wiping out Pakistani terrorists in Valley

#SaluteToTheArmy: Twitter salutes Indian army for its bravery

India

oi-Maitreyee

Social media was abuzz moments after the Indian Army conducted surgical strikes on seven terror launch pads across the Line of Control on Wednesday night. The strikes were carried out 10 days after gunmen attacked an army camp in Kashmir's Uri sector, killing 18 Indian soldiers.

From politicians to patriots, people from all walks of life hailed the bravery of the Indian army on various social media platforms.

Some of the trending hashtags on Twitter since Thursday were #SaluteToTheArmy, #indiastrikesback, Pakistan, #surgicalstrike and indian army, to name a few.

Here we bring some of the tweets:

This is how Home Minister Rajnath Singh congratulated the army men:

Congratulations to the Indian Army on successful counter terrorism operations against terror groups and their launching pads. 1/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 29, 2016

Even the opposition Congress welcomed the strikes. This is what Vice President of Congress Rahul Gandhi said on Twitter:

The Congress Party and I salute the Indian Army and our jawans for acting valiantly to defend our country & our people. Jai Hind. (2/2)  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) September 29, 2016

It is not just the politicians who supported the strikes. This is what popular author Chetan Bhagat had to say:

Looks like someone justified his chest size today.

This is India. You don't mess with us. Ever. #surgicalstrike.  Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) September 29, 2016

This is how common Indians are reacting:

We are grateful to the mothers Who give birth to these soldiers. #salutetothearmy pic.twitter.com/qNgQu0woSC  Follow News (@FollowN74776983) September 30, 2016

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Friday, September 30, 2016, 14:27 [IST]
Spooked terrorists make retreat after strategic strike across LoC

India

oi-Vicky

The likes of Hafiz Saeed and Syed Salahuddin spoke of a war against India. They tried to convince their cadres that Pakistan was invincible and can stand up to India. However, all that changed on Wednesday. After the surgical strike, the terrorists across the Line of Control (LoC) made a strategic retreat.

Intelligence Bureau officials say that there was a major operation being planned by the operatives of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Hizbul Mujahideen. By the turn of winter, these outfits had decided that they would send in at least 200 more terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir to strike at army camps and also keep the state under boil.

Strategic retreat after surgical strike

The terrorists of these outfits were, however, in for a major surprise on Wednesday night. The army which planned this operation in coordination with the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing moved swiftly for about 3 kilometres. Once they had approached the targets, they took down the terrorists who were not prepared for the surprise.

Also read: India strikes: Pakistani cabinet reviews LoC situation

Also read: They fire one, you fire two: How Ajit Doval changed India's policy on Pakistan?

As a result of this action several terror launch pads have been abadondoned and terrorists have moved back. They have moved back several kilometres now, Intelligence Bureau officials say.

Prior to this strike they were as close as 500 metres to the Line of Control. However, as of now the camps have been cleared out in fear and the terrorists have moved back, the official also notes.

In the operation, there were seven launch pads that were destroyed. Three were destroyed completely. Sources say that at the time of striking, the special forces fired at the terrorists and also hurled smoke grenades into the camps.

OneIndia News
Video: Why Chinas former president was escorted out from stage

China concerned about workers in Balochistan

International

oi-PTI

Beijing, Sept 30: China on Thursday said it was highly concerned about the security of its workers involved in the $46 billion economic corridor passing through Pakistan's troubled Balochistan province after a Baloch leader warned of attacks targeting the project.

"China is highly concerned about the security of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CEPC). We appreciate great efforts made by Pakistan side in ensuring the security of corridor and Chinese workers there. We hope that Pakistan side will continue to do so in future," Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Thursday.

He was replying to a question about the threat of attacks by Allah Nazar Baloch, head of the Baluchistan Liberation Front (BLF), who has vowed to target the corridor connecting China's Xinjiang province and Gwadar Port.

Geng said CPEC is the result of the consensus reached between the leaders of China and Pakistan.

Also read: China reacts guardedly to Indus Water Treaty talks suspension

"It is of great importance to improving the well being of the people of the two countries" and improving their economic and social development, he said.

Allah Nazar had said "we not only wish India should support the Baloch national struggle diplomatically and financially, but the whole world".

He had also welcomed the statement made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on human rights violations in Balochistan. India has raised objections to the corridor as it is being laid through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. China has brushed aside the objections, saying it is an economic project aimed at improving conditions of people in the region.

The strategic project which included highways, rail and pipelines to pump oil from the ships docked in Gwadar to Xinjiang was also expected to provide access to China to Arabian Sea opposite the Mumbai coastline.

Also read: Baloch nationalists protest outside Pak mission over terrorism

But in recent months China is increasingly getting worried about safety of thousands of its workers involved in the project even though Pakistan is forming a new security force providing two security men to every Chinese worker.

A Chinese worker was wounded in a bomb attack in May.

For the first time, Chinese official media said this month that Beijing is concerned over "increasing cost of security" and the "potential setbacks" to the project.

In an article on September 13, state-run Global Times said the project is unlikely to have a "plain sailing".

"China may not want to put too much focus on the region. At the very least, it would be unwise to put all its eggs in one basket," it said, highlighting for the first time China's increasing disquiet over the project which also also cast a major shadow over India-China relations.

PTI

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Story first published: Friday, September 30, 2016, 7:48 [IST]
India wants to expand ties with Israel, says PM Modi

Peres one of few people who changed history: Barack Obama

In Pics: What made headlines across the world

International

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Sept 30: Several world leaders including US President Barack Obama, former US President Bill Clinton, Prince Charles and others gathered to attend the funeral of former Israeli president Shimon Peres. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Peres as a "great man of the world".

Leaders from over 70 countries attended Peres' funeral even as hundreds of supporters came to pay their respects to him. Peres died early on Wednesday from complications from a stroke.he was 93-years-old.

In other news, a day after India said that it conducted surgical strike along the LoC, Pakistan lawmakers rubbished the claims and said it was firing from both the sides across the LoC.

Here are some images from across the world that made headlines:

Bill Clinton pays tribute to Shimon Peres Former US President Bill Clinton pays respects by the coffin of former Israeli President Shimon Peres at the Knesset plaza in Jerusalem. Peres died at the age of 93. Pakistan denies surgical strike by India Pakistani lawmakers leave the Parliament in Islamabad, Pakistan. Pakistan dismissed Indian military reports that it had carried out strikes against terrorist launch pads inside the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir. Hamid Ansari arrives in Mali Vice President M Hamid Ansari receives a ceremonial welcome at Bomako airport in Mali on Thursday. Cluster bombs being inspected in Idlib, Syria U.S. and Russia escalated their war of words over Syria as government forces kept up their assault on Aleppo's rebel-held quarters and registered tenuous gains. Barack Obama meets Simon Biles President Barack Obama leans over to speak to US Olympics gymnast Simone Biles in the East Room the White House during a ceremony where he honored members of the 2016 United States Summer Olympic and Paralympic Teams. The Royal family enjoys a tea party Britain's Prince William, and his wife Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, take part in a tea party with their children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, at Government House in Victoria, British Columbia.

OneIndia News
PM Ardern: New Zealand couple held in Iran allowed to leave

In Iran, men and women are 'equal' only in torture

Iran fires mortar shells into Balochistan, trigger panic

International

oi-PTI

Islamabad, Sept 30: Iran border guards on Wednesday fired three mortar shells into Pakistans restive Balochistan province, triggering panic among the local population.

"Mortar shells fired by Iranian border guards landed in the district of Panjgoor," a provincial government official said.

Two of the shells landed near Frontier Corps check-post, while the third landed at Killi Karim Dad, the Dawn quoted the official as saying.

No property or human loss was reported in the shelling.

Locals panicked as a result of the attack, and Frontier Corps personnel reached the site to initiate investigations. Security forces tightened security at the border after the incident.

Pakistan shares a 900-kilometre porous border with Iran and the two countries in 2014 decided to boost intelligence coordination to wipe out terrorists from the border region.

PTI

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Story first published: Friday, September 30, 2016, 14:29 [IST]
Bank holidays in November 2022: Here is the full list of non-working days

Happy Chhath Puja 2022: Wishes, quotes, Facebook status, WhatsApp messages to share with your loved ones

Caught on camera: 17-year-old teenager stabbed to death for protesting sister's harassment in Delhi

Pakistan will respond to Indian 'provocations', warns its UN envoy

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Islamabad, Sep 30 Pakistan's UN Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi on Friday said that Islamabad was exercising restraint and warned that if New Delhi continues its "provocations", then the country was ready to respond with all the capabilities in its command.

On Thursday, Lodhi met with New Zealand's UN Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who is current president of the 15-member UN Security Council, and urged him to informally brief the world body on the escalating tension along the border.

She is scheduled to meet UN Security General Ban Ki-moon later on Friday to discuss the situation, Geo News reported.

Talking to the media after Thursday's meeting, Lodhi said she brought to Bohemen's attention the dangerous situation that was building up in "our region as a result of Indian provocation".

She said, "our call to the international community is to avert a crisis before there is one."

Lodhi said Pakistan was "showing maximum restraint but there were limits to our restraint if India continues with provocations."

India on Thursday said it had carried out "surgical strikes" on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control in Pakistani territory. Pakistan has denied the claim, saying it was only LoC firing that killed two of its soldiers.

Lodhi added that India acted irresponsibly and the international community should urge restraint on the country.

IANS
Cauvery meet in Delhi inconclusive: Uma Bharti says will go on hunger strike if need be

New Delhi

oi-Vicky

New Delhi, Sept 30: The meeting in New Delhi convened over the Cauvery waters issue remained inconclusive. The meeting convened by Union Minister Uma Bharti in which the Chief Minister of Karnataka was also present remained inconclusive. Tamil Nadu chief minister was represented by the PWD minister of the state.

Both the states put out their points during the meeting. Karnataka later said that there was no outcome from this meeting.

Uma Bharti after the meeting said that Tamil Nadu did not accept Karnataka's proposal for a central expert team to visit both states and carry out an inspection. "I am very disappointed as I could not find a solution. If the need be I shall sit in hunger strike to solve the problem," she also said.

The meeting got into a loop when both sides did not agree on the point of an expert committee. Karnataka insisted that an expert committee should first visit both the states following which water will be released.

Also read: Karnataka defers release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu felt that the expert committee should visit the state only after the water is released.

The Centre will now inform the Supreme Court about these developments on Friday. The court had told the centre to get both the chiefs of the state to sit across the table to find a solution. The court will hear the matter on Friday.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Friday, September 30, 2016, 9:21 [IST]
Bank holidays in November 2022: Here is the full list of non-working days

Efforts on to secure release of Indian soldier from Pakistan: Rajnath Singh

New Delhi

oi-Vicky

New Delhi, Sept 30: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said that all efforts were on to ensure that the India soldier captured by Pakistan is released. India will officially take up with Pakistan the issue and seek release of the 22 year soldier, Chandu Babulal Chauhan.

Pakistan newspaper, Dawn reported that 8 Indian soldiers were killed and one was captured after a strike. India has denied that its soldiers had been killed.

On the captured soldier, the Indian army said that such inadvertent crossing by the army and civilians are not unusual on either side. They are returned through existing mechanisms, the army statement read.

Singh said that India will take up the matter officially with Pakistan. Efforts are onto secure the release of the soldier, Singh also said.

Meanwhile, the Director General of Military Operations, Lt Gen Ranbir Singh spoke with his Paksitan counterpart about the issue. During the conversation, he demanded that the solider be returned to India.

OneIndia News
Bank holidays in November 2022: Here is the full list of non-working days

India strikes at Pak: Modi to chair a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security

New Delhi

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, Sept 30: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) on Friday to discuss the situation in the wake of the surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.

Modi had also chaired a CCS meeting to review the situation along the Line of Control (LoC) on Thursday.

The army, sources said, targeted seven terrorist launch pads two kilometres across the LoC and that "scores of terrorists were killed".

Also read: India hits Pak, conducts surgical strikes on terror launch pads along LoC on Wednesday

The Director General of Military Operations (DGMO), Lt. General Ranbir Singhon Thursday confirmed the news and said that surgical strikes were carried on terror launch pads along the LoC.

"On Wednesday we got concrete information that terrorists had tried to infiltrate through the LoC. The operation was to hit out terrorists who were trying to cause harm to India. These operations have been suspended for now," the DGMO said.

IANS

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Story first published: Friday, September 30, 2016, 7:35 [IST]
Central team roped in as dengue cases in Bihar rise to over 5000

Bihar's Gopalganj by-poll to see a tough fight between BJP and RJD

Alert Bihar chief secy foils bid to withdraw money from his bank account

Liquor ban illegal, Patna High Court rules in Bihar

Patna

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Patna, Sep 30: The Patna high court on Friday struck down the liquor ban imposed by the Nitish Kumar administration in April.

Hearing a petition against a ban, a high court bench termed it "illegal", and criticised the stringent provisions in Bihar's new excise law.

Read | Bihar liquor ban: Experts say 'draconian' new excise bill may face legal test

A PIL was filed a day after the state government declared Bihar a total dry state on April 5.

The petition contended that the state government's decision violated human rights of a citizen about what to eat and drink.

After imposing the ban, the state government had passed the Bihar Excise (Amendment) Bill, 2016 during the monsoon session of the state legislature.

Governor Ram Nath Kovind recently gave his assent to the legislation, which provided for stringent prohibition law in the state.The new act is to be implemented from October 2.

Among other provisions, the new act made any offence committed in contravention of this law non-compoundable and left no room for anticipatory bail.

Under the law, habitual offenders could be booked under the crime control act (CCA) and externed from the district.

The new act also provides for arrest under non-bailable sections for consumption or possession of liquor in the state territory.

It also seeks to punish all adults in a family for liquor consumption by an individual family member, or if liquor were recovered from one's house.

IANS
It was clear Kane Williamson was unable to recover from fever and had to sit out the Kolkata Test, one they have to win to keep the series alive. If they thought a change of captains would address their luck with the toss, Virat Kohli won it for the sixth time in a row at home and chose to bat. To know more watch video.
Accession Day: Valley lights up on this day when J&K became part of India

After surgical strike, border villages in J&K evacuated

Srinagar

oi-Vicky

Srinagar, Sept 30: The villages in the Samba sector and R S Pura in Jammu and Kashmir are being evacuated after India carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan on Wednesday night.

Also read: India hits Pak, conducts surgical strikes on terror launch pads along LoC on Wednesday

Even in Punjab, villages in the 10 kilometre radius of the Line of Control were evacuated. People were seen leaving their villages fearing an attack by Pakistan in retaliation to the surgical strike carried out by India.

Local authorities in Punjab used loud speakers to make the announcement regarding an evacuation. All schools and colleges in the border areas have been closed as a precautionary measure.

Home Ministry officials tell OneIndia that the country is fully prepared in case of any eventuality and the evacuation was just a precautionary measure.

J&K: Villages in Samba sector being evacuated after #SurgicalStrike conducted by Indian Army (Last night visuals) pic.twitter.com/gzQxitknxD  ANI (@ANI_news) September 30, 2016

The border areas have been placed under a state of maximum alert. Both the Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir government officials are in touch with the home ministry. The home ministry has advised the governments to get the border areas evacuated.

The Border Security Force has been mobilising its troops. Security has been heightened along the border. Further the BSF also cancelled the Retreat ceremony at the Attari-Wagah border. Tourists have been advised not to go towards Attari for the ceremony.

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Sky News 31 Oct 2022

In his first speech as Brazilian President-elect, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised to unite a divided country - and stop the..
by  Graham Pierrepoint



Commuting in London carries its own expectations and even its own social code  not only can you expect the tube to be a fairly busy ride, its not exactly a situation where many people stop to have a friendly chat! While the reputation of your average underground commuter being unsociable may be little more than stereotyping, the emergence of a socialising scheme for the tube has set more than a few travelling tongues wagging  and not, it would seem, in a particularly enthusiastic manner.

Tube Chat, according to The Telegraph, is an initiative dreamed up by Jonathan Dunne, a Colorado-born NHS worker who has been trying to encourage commuters to be more open and friendly with one another on work-based journeys  and he advised the paper that his initial experience in handing out badges to bolster the campaign ran rather against what he had been hoping for. Dunne had created 500 badges with the phrase Tube Chat? emblazoned on the front  with the aim that anyone wearing the badges would be shown as willing to engage in random conversation with anyone that wished to approach them.

While Dunnes intentions are valiant, he advises that the people he handed badges out to werent particularly receptive  and the scheme has been lampooned and discouraged by several users on Twitter. It is perhaps a British stereotype that openly talking with strangers is a no-no  but if Dunnes initial experience is anything to go by, along with the reception it has received online, it would certainly seem that the idea of showing yourself as open to chat to strangers is going one step too far for some travellers!

Dunnes efforts are admirable in that he is trying to encourage people to talk to each other during typically dull journeys to, from and around London  but perhaps badges are not necessarily the way forward. He started the scheme after having failed to organise an Olympics-based summer event for his local NHS team  meaning that it is admirable that he has retained such optimism in the sociable nature of the London public!

Perhaps more people should start connecting with one another  it would, after all, be fantastic if everyone got along  but it seems that on this occasion, the only factor that is pulling people together is a strong and rather vocal dislike for the Tube Chat badge!
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Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York:

Harvard Management Company, the professionally managed $36 billion university endowment, has hired N. P. Narvekar, 54, to the roles of president and CEO. He succeeds Stephen Blyth, who resigned in July. Blyth cited health reasons for his departure after 18 months on the job.

Narvekar is joining Harvard after serving in the same role at Columbia University in New York.

Robert A. Ettl, who had been leading the endowment since Mr. Blyths departure, will become chief operating officer, according to a statement from HMC.

Narvekar is a former JPMorgan Chase & Co. derivatives trader who is cre......................

To view our full article Click here
Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: BlackRock will be working with New York-based Artivest to provide a platform for broader distribution of BlackRock alternatives funds. Artivest is a technology-driven alternative investment platform that also offers brokerage services. BlackRock has approximately $120 billion in assets under management across its alternative investment strategies. The first strategy available on the platform will be BlackRock's private infrastructure investments opportunities. According to Artivest, the platform will be aimed at the qualified purchaser space and will allow them to see a menu of BlackRock products online. From there, investors can make allocation decisions and receive reporting documents online. "The benefit to the investor is that they can join these funds for lower minimums than they otherwise would be and they are gaining access to the same products institutions have, with all of the pros and cons that come with that," James Waldinger, founder and CEO of Artivest tells Opalesque. Over time, the full range of alternative strategies offered by BlackRock including hedge funds, private equity, real estate and private credit funds will be available through the platform. "We will take the lower minimum investments and funnel them together into a larger allocation," Waldinger explains. "One of the nice things about putting this all online is that we will be able to see what types of funds retail advisors are most interested in...................... To view our full article Click here
Opalesque Industry Update - Actis, a leading growth markets investor, today announced the appointment of Carlton Byrd as a director in the Investor Development Group in the New York office where he will further bolster the fundraising and investor relations expertise. Carlton joins from Commonfund where he was a Managing Director and spent several years raising capital for PE funds from US institutional investors. Prior to this, Carlton carried out a number of business development roles in the hedge funds industry, having started his career in Financial Services with Goldman Sachs in 1994, where he spent eight years. Carlton holds an MBA in Finance from Harvard Business School, and a double degree in Economics and Applied Science from University of Pennsylvanias Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology. Actis is a leading investor in growth markets, delivering consistent competitive returns, responsibly across three asset classes of Energy, Real Estate and Private Equity. It has a growing portfolio of investments across Asia, Africa and Latin America and US$6.3bn assets under management today. In June 2016 Actis closed Africa Real Estate Fund 3 with commitments totaling more than $500m, comfortably exceeding the original $400m target. ARE3 is the largest opportunistic private real estate fund targeting sub-Saharan Africa raised in the market to date. The diverse investor base includes pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, development finance institutions and endowments from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Commenting on the appointment, Adiba Ighodaro, Partner and head of the New York office at Actis, said: We are very pleased to welcome Carlton to the team in New York. Carlton brings with him extensive experience, an impressive track record and considerable acumen. He will further strengthen Actis presence in the US and most importantly his expertise will help to realise the ambitions of our investors.
Reprinted from Paul Craig Roberts Website



The New Cold War

(Image by archive.altweeklies.com) Details DMCA



Pundits have declared a "New Cold War." If only! The Cold War was a time when leaders focused on reducing tensions between nuclear powers. What we have today is much more dangerous: Washington's reckless and irresponsible aggression toward the other major nuclear powers, Russia and China.

During my lifetime American presidents worked to defuse tensions with Russia. President John F. Kennedy worked with Khrushchev to defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Richard Nixon negotiated SALT I and the anti-ballistic missile treaty, and Nixon opened to Communist China. President Carter negotiated SALT II. Reagan worked with Soviet leader Gorbachev and ended the Cold War. The Berlin Wall came down. Gorbachev was promised that in exchange for the Soviet Union's agreement to the reunification of Germany, NATO would not move one inch to the East.

Peace was at hand. And then the neoconservatives, rehabilitated by the Israeli influence in the American press, went to work to destroy the peace that Reagan and Gorbachev had achieved. It was a short-lasting peace. Peace is costly to the profits of the military/security complex. Washington's gigantic military and security interests are far more powerful than the peace lobby.

Since the advent of the criminal Clinton regime, every American president has worked overtime to raise tensions with Russia and China.

China is confronted with the crazed and criminal Obama regime's declaration of the "pivot to Asia" and the prospect of the US Navy controlling the sea lanes that provision China.

Russia is even more dangerously threatened with US nuclear missile bases on her border and with US and NATO military bases stretching from the Baltics to the Black Sea.

Russia is also threatened with endless provocations and with demonization that is clearly intended to prepare Western peoples for war against "the Russian threat." Extreme and hostile words stream from the mouth of the Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, who has called the president of Russia "the new Hitler" and threatened Russia with military force. Insouciant Americans are capable of electing this warmonger who would bring Armageddon upon the earth.

Yesterday, Israel's voice in the US, the New York Times, added to Hillary's demonization of the most responsible leader in the world with this editorial: "Vladimir Putin's Outlaw State." This irresponsible and propagandistic editorial, no doubt written by the neoconservatives, blames all the troubles in Ukraine and Syria on Putin. The NYT presstitutes know that they have no case, so they drag in the US-orchestrated false report on MH-17 recently released by Washington's Netherlands vassal.

This report is so absurd as to cast doubt on whether intelligence exists anywhere in the Western world. Russia and the now independent Russian provinces that have separated from Ukraine have no interest whatsoever in shooting down a Malaysian airliner. But despite this fact, Russia, according to the orchesrated report, sent a surface-to-air missile, useful only at high altitude, an altitude far higher than the Ukrainian planes fly that are attacking Russians in the separated republics, to the "rebels" so that the "rebels" could shoot down a Malaysian airliner. Then the missile system was sent back to Russia.

How insouciant does a person have to be to believe this propaganda from the New York Times?

Does the New York Times write this nonsense because it is bankrupt and lives on CIA subsidies?

It is obvious that the Malaysian airliner was destroyed for the purpose of blaming Russia so that Washington could force Europe to cooperate in applying illegal sanctions on Russia in an attempt to destabilize Russia, a country that placed itself in the way of Washington's determination to destabilize Syria and Iran.

In a recent speech, the mindless cipher, who in his role as US Secretary of Defense serves as a front man for the armaments industry, declared the one trillion dollars (1,000 billion dollars or 1,000,000 million dollars, that is, one million dollars one million times) that Washington is going to spend of Americans' money for nuclear force renewal is so we can "get up in the morning to go to school, to go to work, to live our lives, to dream our dreams and to give our children a better future."

But Russia's response to this buildup in Washington's strategic nuclear weapons is, according to Defense Secretary Aston B. Carter, "saber rattling" that "raises serious questions about Russia's leaders' commitment to strategic stability."

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Pakistan-India relations are on the height of hostility following militant attack on Brigade headquarters in Uri area, Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) with reported killing of 18 Indian soldiers and destruction of a frontline base close to Line of Control (LOC). India has accused Pakistan behind these terrorist attacks. However, Pakistan Foreign Office has rejected these allegations against Pakistan and Pakistan's Director General Military Operations (DGMO) has called them as 'unfolded and premature'. Pakistan has asked India to provide evidence and actionable intelligence for the attacks before accusing Pakistan. Pakistan Army Chief Raheel Sharif in a corps commander conference on September 19 has declared that his country was "fully prepared to respond to the entire spectrum of direct and indirect threats from India." It has been reported that the overall military alert levels are high and contingency planning is in place in Pakistan but according to sources in Islamabad, no special or extra-ordinary deployments have been made on the eastern border yet except the usual operational forward line deployment on the eastern front of the LOC.

However, in the overall hostile environment, the prospects for Pakistan-India war are unlikely because of many reasons; firstly nuclear weapons are the most effective deterrent to prevent both countries from war. As Pakistan has 'First Use' policy so even a modest military action against Pakistan would be responded with a nuclear strike. Secondly, according to research concluded by South Asia security analysts, George Perkovich and Toby Dalton, India has limited military capabilities to indulge into joint air and land operations and requires improvement in the intelligence capacities. Thus, waging a war against Pakistan with inadequate resources, doctrinal weaknesses and limited capabilities is not in its favour and keeping this in mind, the Indian military has restrained to retaliate with militarily action after the Uri attack. The Indian Law Minister Ravi Shankar has stated that 'Indian response will be done with full diplomatic and strategic maturity.'

Thirdly, India has no substantial evidence to confirm Pakistan's involvement in the attack. Fourthly, Modi's international reputation which has already been criticized because of his Hindutva ideology, extremism and Human Rights violations in Indian Held Kashmir would be much deteriorated after any move against Pakistan. It would be a dent to India's aspirations to become United Nations Security Council (UNSC) member as it would decline its global profile. Fifthly, Modi's ambitious economic vision and economic and social reform agendas would be sharply affected incase of Pakistan-India war. Sixthly, the tense situation may likely to influence Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) poll results in the upcoming provincial elections in the state of Utter Pradesh (UP) in India and seventhly, any threat to the development of CPEC or attempt to jeopardize the region's economic growth and stability would prove harmful for Indo-China bilateral relations. Lastly, the international pressure from major states like US, UK etc. that have urged Pakistan and India to resolve their differences diplomatically and through peaceful dialogue would compel both Pakistan and India to avoid any military action in near future.

In the light of the prevailing crisis, India may get engage in covert activities inside Pakistan particularly in Balochistan, try to isolate Pakistan while flogging its terrorism card and propaganda against Pakistan or step up its atrocities in IHK as a reaction to Uri attack but the overall possibility of war between Pakistan and India seems very low. India has also acted cowardly by withdrawing from SAARC Conference, which was expected to be held in November 2016 at Islamabad. At the same time, India is threatening Pakistan on the water front as well. Declaring cross border firing as surgical strikes by India are another propaganda by India to aggravate the situation. Despite, all these factors the chances of a full-fledge war are quite bleak. Pakistan-India war is not possible in near time soon.

The mounting tension would have a negative impact on the economies of both the countries as well. The foreign investment and local investment would halt in the prevailing situation and particularly for Pakistan, it would affect the development of CPEC project. As India has bigger economy, so it would also be affected but the situation may worsen if trading partners cut off their economic interactions with Pakistan or refrain from signing economic agreements to put international pressure for resolution of crisis. Similarly, Pakistan has appealed to UN to take serious notice of the aggressive statements of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his public speech, in which he has announced that India will mount global campaign to isolate Pakistan internationally. Such kind of Indian rhetoric against Pakistan and harsh statements would only widen the gap and increase trust deficit between the two countries. Therefore, both the countries should make joint efforts for improvement of their bilateral relations and resolve the crisis through peace and diplomatic means that is in the mutual interest of both the states and also important for regional peace and harmony.

Aymen Ijaz (Islamabad)

The writer works at IPRI.
By Dave Lindorff

UPDATE: Shortly after this program was aired, and after this article linking to the podcast was posted, a group of praying Lakota at the Standing Rock protest site were confronted by at least 40 deputies of the Monroe County ND Sheriff's office. They reported that the deputies -- in full riot gear -- aimed their guns at the unarmed men, women and children, and arrested 21 of them. One elderly Lakota woman in her 80s reported that in all her life living on the reservation "I never had a gun pointed at me until these sheriff's did it." She called the experience "terrifying."

A Vietnam-era veteran living abroad who is Lakota said he fears that the current Standing Rock resistance movement could end in another massacre. He says that a friend from the days of the '73 AIM occupation in Wounded Knee wrote him saying, "Standing Rock is not Wounded Knee 1973 --- they're not armed, they have no cover, no security. This is more like the first Wounded Knee." That Wounded Knee was when US Army troops in 1890 raided a Lakota encampment and massacred some 300 Lakota men, women and children.

Hopefully such an atrocity will not happen again, but the Monroe County Sheriff's action is not a good sign. Increased support and solidarity, and demands for more media attention to this standoff, are the best defense in this latest struggle of America's indigenous people.

Levi Rickert, founder, publisher and editor of Native News Online [2], talks with "This Can't Be Happening!: radio host Dave Lindorff about the latest developments at Standing Rock, North Dakota, where the Sioux People are still taking a rock-solid stand against efforts by the federal government and the oil industry to run a crude oil pipeline from North Dakota's Bakkan oilfield south to St. Louis through Sioux lands and sacred sites. Rickert also talks about a meeting of tribal representatives from the 500 recognized Indian tribes in the US with Washington government agencies to hammer out a protocol for having "substantive" discussions between tribes and government agencies whenever a decision is going to impact them.

Rickert talks about how the whole indigenous community, including indigenous people in other parts of the world as remote as New Zealand and the Arctic, are sending support to Standing Rock to help Sioux activists and their supporters prepare for the long haul as cold weather starts to move into the prairie.

Lindorff also segues into a discussion of the worsening slaughter of unarmed people -- mostly people of color -- in the US by increasingly militarized and gratuitously violent state, county, local and federal police. To hear the whole hour-long program, please go to the Progressive Radio News' This Can't Be Happening! podcast [3] of the show, which aired Wednesday.
Everyone agrees that the Zika virus poses a threat, not only to pregnant women, but possibly to everyone. The virus attacks fetal brains. But scientists don't know the long-term consequences of carrying the virus. That's worrisome, since the virus can be transmitted by mosquitoes and then by those infected through sexual contact and transfer of bodily fluids.

Are we prepared to effectively tackle the Zika threat?

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), The Federal Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institute of Health (NIH) do stellar jobs in carrying out their mandates. But they face formidable obstacles for dealing with pandemic threats. While these and other agencies have resources for initiating research, funding research by others, and mobilizing national and international resources, with each threat they almost have to start from scratch to crank up the global response engines, which are widely dispersed and fragmented.

According to a White House sponsored report in 1994 about worldwide responses to disease outbreaks, "the U.S. Government response to international epidemics occurs on an ad hoc basis... The authority of CDC, for instance, does not cover international disease control and prevention, and USAID, provides aid for improving the lives of the citizens of the developing world, has limited technical and financial resources in this area..." Despite more recent CDC policy initiatives starting in 2010 to address global health, in practice little has changed. That was evident in the widespread criticisms of the slow U.S. response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014. One scathing report criticized the U.S. for focusing on travelers from affected areas passing the virus on to others at home rather than addressing the virus at its source.

A January 2016 United Nations report, Protecting Humanity from Future Health Crises, lamented that "Too often global panic about epidemics has been followed by complacency and inaction." The report warned that future epidemics could be far more devastating than the West African Ebola outbreak and that "a highly pathogenic influenza virus could rapidly result in millions of deaths and cause major social, economic, and political disruption."

Why don't we have an adequately funded organizational infrastructure ready to respond to pandemic disease threats with a primary focus on treatment, cure, and prevention (vaccines)?

Although the World Health Organization (WHO) aims to be a central body to mobilize and coordinate global actions in response to pandemic threats it may be too underfunded and too physically dispersed to accomplish that role, with a staff of "more than 7000 people from more than 150 countries working in 150 country offices, in 6 regional offices and at our headquarters in Geneva." An independent international panel of experts concluded that the WHO moved too slowly in response to the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa: "...there was strong, if not complete, consensus that WHO does not have a robust emergency operations capacity or culture."

The Zika virus was first identified in Uganda in 1947 and later in East Asia. Because it seemed to be confined to those regions there was no sense of emergency on the part of the industrialized world to find a cure or vaccine. An investment for the treatment or cure of Zika by pharmaceutical companies was deemed too expensive for too little return on investment for a confined disease remote from the industrialized world. As Bruce Lehman, President of the International Intellectual Property Institute, explained: "The extensive cost required to produce a new pharmaceutical product has meant that private sector investment in pharmaceutical innovation has been disproportionately directed to products meeting the needs of patients in developed countries, particularly in the United States, which combines strong patent protection with a market free of price controls."

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Despite Spiraling Demand for mHealth Monitoring and Diagnostic Medical Devices, Hesitancy among Consumers will Delay Growth

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The introduction of mHealth has been hailed for bringing underserved patient groups into the folds of the healthcare system  a change that has until now acted as the greatest driver for the global mHealth monitoring and diagnostic medical device market. However, with the use of mHealth solutions nearing ideal levels already, it is now innovation that will be rewarded by both healthcare practitioners and consumers. The myriad of mHealth solutions that are hitting the market through progressively more intelligently designed apps and platforms continue to rely on mHealth monitoring and diagnostic devices for success.Research Report:As a result, the opportunity in the global mHealth monitoring and diagnostic market will grow at a phenomenal rate, as per a study published by Transparency Market Research (TMR). According to the market intelligence firm, this market will generate revenues to worth US$8 bn by 2019, expanding at an astounding CAGR of 43.30% 2013-2019. Despite the ample opportunities that are mushrooming in the mHealth monitoring and diagnostic medical device market, a few roadblocks should be expected.In this blog post, TMRs lead analyst answers two important questions pertaining to the global mHealth monitoring and diagnostic medical device market:Q. The use of mHealth monitoring and diagnostic devices is already high in American patients. Does the picture look as bright elsewhere in the world?A. While its clear now that the U.S. has thus far been at the forefront of the global mHealth monitoring and diagnostic medical devices market, companies have already begun to see gains from the growing adoption of mHealth in European countries. Emerging economies in Asia Pacific and Latin America are now beginning to warm up to the concept of mHealth monitoring but the levels of awareness among both medical practitioners, and consequently, patients, remain below the desired levels. So it would be safe to say that while the number of opportunities for deploying mHealth are higher in emerging economies, they might not necessarily be as valuable to begin with. This scenario is projected to change in the long term, with the increasingly affluent consumers in countries such as India, China, and Brazil showing relatively less hesitation in using mHealth monitoring and diagnostic devices.Interpret a Competitive outlook Analysis Report with free PDF Brochure:Q. Which specific category of mHealth monitoring and diagnostic devices will see the highest gains moving forward?A. Based on a comprehensive analysis we recently conducted, there is little doubt that glucose monitors will see fantastic growth in both volume sales and revenue. We project the glucose monitors segment to log a very strong CAGR of 49.4% between 2013 and 2019. The reason behind this projected growth is clearly established: The number of diabetics worldwide continues to show an alarming rise. The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) estimates that there will be 592 million diabetics in 2035. Thats much higher than the projected population of the United States in that year. The demand for minimally invasive blood glucose monitoring systems will largely drive the growth of the glucose monitors segment. Turnaround innovations will also aid this segments growth consistently.However, a sizeable number of patients still continue to show a greater preference for face-to-face interactions with their healthcare providers. This is a challenge that mHealth monitoring and diagnostic medical devices companies will have to contend with.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Market Report On Netherlands Orthobiologics Market Outlook to 2022

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"The Report Netherlands Orthobiologics Market Outlook to 2022 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"GlobalDatas new report, Netherlands Orthobiologics Market Outlook to 2022, provides key market data on the Netherlands Orthobiologics market. The report provides value, in millions of US dollars, and volume (in units) and average price data (in US dollars), within market segments - Bone Graft and Substitutes, Viscosupplementation and Bone Growth Stimulators.Note: This is an on-demand report and will be delivered within 2-3 business days of the purchase (excluding weekends)The report also provides company shares and distribution shares data for the market category, and global corporate-level profiles of the key market participants. Based on the availability of data for the particular category and country, information related to pipeline products, news and deals is available in the report.The data in the report is derived from dynamic market forecast models. GlobalData uses epidemiology and capital equipment-based models to estimate and forecast the market size. The objective is to provide information that represents the most up-to-date data of the industry possible.The epidemiology-based forecasting model makes use of epidemiology data gathered from research publications and primary interviews with physicians to establish the target patient population and treatment flow patterns for individual diseases and therapies. Using prevalence and incidence data and diagnosed and treated population, the epidemiology-based forecasting model arrives at the final numbers.Capital equipment-based forecasting models are done based on the installed base, replacements and new sales of a specific device/equipment in healthcare facilities such as hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centers. Data for average number of units per facility is used to arrive at the installed base of the capital equipment. Sales for a particular year are arrived at by calculating the replacement units and new units (additional and first-time purchases).Extensive interviews are conducted with key opinion leaders (KOLs), physicians and industry experts to validate the market size, company share and distribution share data and analysis.Get the Free Sample copy of this Report @Scope- Market size for Orthobiologics market categories - Bone Graft and Substitutes, Viscosupplementation and Bone Growth Stimulators.- Annualized market revenues (USD million), volume (units) and average selling price ($) data for each of the market categories. Data is provided from 2008 to 2015 and forecast to 2022.- 2015 company shares and distribution shares data for Orthobiologics market.- Global corporate-level profiles of key companies operating within the Netherlands Orthobiologics market.- Key players covered include Medtronic plc, Arthrex, Inc., Sanofi, DePuy Synthes, Inc. and others.Reasons to buy- Develop business strategies by identifying the key market segments poised for strong growth in the future.- Develop market-entry and market expansion strategies.- Design competition strategies by identifying who-stands-where in the market.- Develop investment strategies by identifying the key market segments expected to register strong growth in the near future.- What are the key distribution channels and whats the most preferred mode of product distribution - Identify, understand and capitalize.Read our latest Press Release atTable of Contents1 Table of Contents1 Table of Contents 21.1 List of Tables 41.2 List of Figures 42 Introduction 52.1 What Is This Report About? 52.2 Orthobiologics Market Segmentation 52.3 Definitions of Markets Covered in the Report 63 Orthobiologics Market, Netherlands 73.1 Orthobiologics Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), 2008-2015 73.2 Orthobiologics Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), 2015-2022 93.2.1 Bone Grafts and Substitutes Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), by Segment, 2008-2015 113.2.2 Bone Grafts and Substitutes Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), by Segment, 2015-2022 133.3 Orthobiologics Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), 2008-2015 153.4 Orthobiologics Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), 2015-2022 173.4.1 Bone Grafts and Substitutes Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), by Segment, 2008-2015 193.4.2 Bone Grafts and Substitutes Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), by Segment, 2015-2022 213.5 Orthobiologics Market, Netherlands, Average Price ($), 2008-2015 233.6 Orthobiologics Market, Netherlands, Average Price ($), by Segment 2008-2015 253.7 Orthobiologics Market, Netherlands, Distribution Share by Revenue ($m), 2008-2022 273.8 Orthobiologics Market, Netherlands, Company Share by Revenue ($m), 2015 284 Overview of Key Companies in Netherlands, Orthobiologics Market 304.1 Medtronic plc 304.1.1 Company Overview 304.2 DePuy Synthes, Inc. 304.2.1 Company Overview 304.3 Rottapharm Madaus GmbH 304.3.1 Company Overview 304.4 Baxter International Inc. 304.4.1 Company Overview 304.5 DJO Finance LLC 314.5.1 Company Overview 314.6 Arthrex, Inc. 314.6.1 Company Overview 314.7 Wright Medical Group N.V. 314.7.1 Company Overview 314.8 Stryker Corporation 324.8.1 Company Overview 324.9 Ferring International Center S.A. 324.9.1 Company Overview 324.10 Seikagaku Corporation 324.10.1 Company Overview 324.11 Orthofix International N.V. 334.11.1 Company Overview 334.12 Sanofi 33MarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. 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Popular Market Report: Netherlands Spinal Surgery Market Outlook to 2022

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"The Report Netherlands Spinal Surgery Market Outlook to 2022 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"GlobalDatas new report, Netherlands Spinal Surgery Market Outlook to 2022, provides key market data on the Netherlands Spinal Surgery market. The report provides value, in millions of US dollars, and volume (in units) and average price data (in US dollars), within market segments - Spinal Fusion, Spinal Non-Fusion, Vertebral Body Replacement Systems, Minimal Invasive Spinal Devices and Vertebral Compression Fracture Repair Devices.Note: This is an on-demand report and will be delivered within 2-3 business days of the purchase (excluding weekends)The report also provides company shares and distribution shares data for the market category, and global corporate-level profiles of the key market participants. Based on the availability of data for the particular category and country, information related to pipeline products, news and deals is available in the report.The data in the report is derived from dynamic market forecast models. GlobalData uses epidemiology and capital equipment-based models to estimate and forecast the market size. The objective is to provide information that represents the most up-to-date data of the industry possible.The epidemiology-based forecasting model makes use of epidemiology data gathered from research publications and primary interviews with physicians to establish the target patient population and treatment flow patterns for individual diseases and therapies. Using prevalence and incidence data and diagnosed and treated population, the epidemiology-based forecasting model arrives at the final numbers.Capital equipment-based forecasting models are done based on the installed base, replacements and new sales of a specific device/equipment in healthcare facilities such as hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centers. Data for average number of units per facility is used to arrive at the installed base of the capital equipment. Sales for a particular year are arrived at by calculating the replacement units and new units (additional and first-time purchases).Extensive interviews are conducted with key opinion leaders (KOLs), physicians and industry experts to validate the market size, company share and distribution share data and analysis.Download Sample copy of this Report at :Scope- Market size for Spinal Surgery market categories - Spinal Fusion, Spinal Non-Fusion, Vertebral Body Replacement Systems, Minimal Invasive Spinal Devices and Vertebral Compression Fracture Repair Devices.- Annualized market revenues (USD million), volume (units) and average selling price ($) data for each of the market categories. Data is provided from 2008 to 2015 and forecast to 2022.- 2015 company shares and distribution shares data for Spinal Surgery market.- Global corporate-level profiles of key companies operating within the Netherlands Spinal Surgery market.- Key players covered include Medtronic plc, DePuy Synthes, Inc., Stryker Corporation, Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc. and others.Reasons to buy- Develop business strategies by identifying the key market segments poised for strong growth in the future.- Develop market-entry and market expansion strategies.- Design competition strategies by identifying who-stands-where in the market.- Develop investment strategies by identifying the key market segments expected to register strong growth in the near future.- What are the key distribution channels and whats the most preferred mode of product distribution - Identify, understand and capitalize.Table of Contents1 Table of Contents 21.1 List of Tables 41.2 List of Figures 42 Introduction 62.1 What Is This Report About? 62.2 Spinal Surgery Market Segmentation 62.3 Definitions of Markets Covered in the Report 73 Spinal Surgery Market, Netherlands 93.1 Spinal Surgery Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), 2008-2015 93.2 Spinal Surgery Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), 2015-2022 113.2.1 Minimal Invasive Spinal Devices Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), by Segment, 2008-2015 133.2.2 Spinal Fusion Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), by Segment, 2008-2015 153.2.3 Spinal Non-Fusion Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), by Segment, 2008-2015 173.2.4 Vertebral Body Replacement Systems Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), by Segment, 2008-2015 193.2.5 Vertebral Compression Fracture Repair Devices Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), by Segment, 2008-2015 213.2.6 Minimal Invasive Spinal Devices Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), by Segment, 2015-2022 233.2.7 Spinal Fusion Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), by Segment, 2015-2022 253.2.8 Spinal Non-Fusion Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), by Segment, 2015-2022 273.2.9 Vertebral Body Replacement Systems Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), by Segment, 2015-2022 293.2.10 Vertebral Compression Fracture Repair Devices Market, Netherlands, Revenue ($m), by Segment, 2015-2022 313.3 Spinal Surgery Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), 2008-2015 333.4 Spinal Surgery Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), 2015-2022 353.4.1 Minimal Invasive Spinal Devices Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), by Segment, 2008-2015 373.4.2 Spinal Fusion Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), by Segment, 2008-2015 393.4.3 Spinal Non-Fusion Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), by Segment, 2008-2015 413.4.4 Vertebral Body Replacement Systems Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), by Segment, 2008-2015 433.4.5 Vertebral Compression Fracture Repair Devices Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), by Segment, 2008-2015 453.4.6 Minimal Invasive Spinal Devices Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), by Segment, 2015-2022 473.4.7 Spinal Fusion Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), by Segment, 2015-2022 493.4.8 Spinal Non-Fusion Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), by Segment, 2015-2022 513.4.9 Vertebral Body Replacement Systems Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), by Segment, 2015-2022 533.4.10 Vertebral Compression Fracture Repair Devices Market, Netherlands, Volume (Units), by Segment, 2015-2022 553.5 Spinal Surgery Market, Netherlands, Average Price ($), 2008-2015 573.6 Spinal Surgery Market, Netherlands, Average Price ($), by Segment 2008-2015 593.7 Spinal Surgery Market, Netherlands, Distribution Share by Revenue ($m), 2008-2022 633.8 Spinal Surgery Market, Netherlands, Company Share by Revenue ($m), 2015 644 Overview of Key Companies in Netherlands, Spinal Surgery Market 664.1 Medtronic plc 664.1.1 Company Overview 664.2 DePuy Synthes, Inc. 664.2.1 Company Overview 664.3 Paradigm Spine, LLC 664.3.1 Company Overview 664.4 Stryker Corporation 66MarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.State Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Norway Arthroscopy Devices Market Analysis & Forecast Outlook to 2022

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The report analyzes and presents an overview of " Norway Arthroscopy Devices Market Outlook to 2022 " worldwide.GlobalDatas new report, Norway Arthroscopy Devices Market Outlook to 2022, provides key market data on the Norway Arthroscopy market. The report provides value, in millions of US dollars, and volume (in units) and average price data (in US dollars), within market segments - Arthroscopes, Arthroscopy Fluid Management Systems, Arthroscopy Visualization Systems, Arthroscopy Implants, Arthroscopy Radio Frequency Systems, Arthroscopy Radio Frequency Wands and Arthroscopic Shavers.Note: This is an on-demand report and will be delivered within 2-3 business days of the purchase (excluding weekends)The report also provides company shares and distribution shares data for the market category, and global corporate-level profiles of the key market participants. Based on the availability of data for the particular category and country, information related to pipeline products, news and deals is available in the report.The data in the report is derived from dynamic market forecast models. GlobalData uses epidemiology and capital equipment-based models to estimate and forecast the market size. The objective is to provide information that represents the most up-to-date data of the industry possible.The epidemiology-based forecasting model makes use of epidemiology data gathered from research publications and primary interviews with physicians to establish the target patient population and treatment flow patterns for individual diseases and therapies. Using prevalence and incidence data and diagnosed and treated population, the epidemiology-based forecasting model arrives at the final numbers.Capital equipment-based forecasting models are done based on the installed base, replacements and new sales of a specific device/equipment in healthcare facilities such as hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centers. Data for average number of units per facility is used to arrive at the installed base of the capital equipment. Sales for a particular year are arrived at by calculating the replacement units and new units (additional and first-time purchases).Extensive interviews are conducted with key opinion leaders (KOLs), physicians and industry experts to validate the market size, company share and distribution share data and analysis.Download Sample copy of this Report atScope- Market size for Arthroscopy market segments - Arthroscopes, Arthroscopy Fluid Management Systems, Arthroscopy Visualization Systems, Arthroscopy Implants, Arthroscopy Radio Frequency Systems, Arthroscopy Radio Frequency Wands and Arthroscopic Shavers.- Annualized market revenues (USD million), volume (units) and average selling price ($) data for each of the market categories. Data is provided from 2008 to 2015 and forecast to 2022.- 2015 company shares and distribution shares data for Arthroscopy market.- Global corporate-level profiles of key companies operating within the Norway Arthroscopy market.- Key players covered include Arthrex, Inc., Smith & Nephew Plc, DePuy Synthes, Inc., Stryker Corporation and others.Reasons to buy- Develop business strategies by identifying the key market segments poised for strong growth in the future.- Develop market-entry and market expansion strategies.- Design competition strategies by identifying who-stands-where in the market.- Develop investment strategies by identifying the key market segments expected to register strong growth in the near future.- What are the key distribution channels and whats the most preferred mode of product distribution - Identify, understand and capitalize.Follow us on LinkedIn:Table of Contents1 Table of Contents 21.1 List of Tables 41.2 List of Figures 42 Introduction 52.1 What Is This Report About? 52.2 Arthroscopy Market Segmentation 52.3 Definitions of Markets Covered in the Report 63 Arthroscopy Market, Norway 83.1 Arthroscopy Market, Norway, Revenue ($m), 2008-2015 83.2 Arthroscopy Market, Norway, Revenue ($m), 2015-2022 103.2.1 Arthroscopy Implants Market, Norway, Revenue ($m), by Segment, 2008-2015 123.2.2 Arthroscopy Implants Market, Norway, Revenue ($m), by Segment, 2015-2022 143.3 Arthroscopy Market, Norway, Volume (Units), 2008-2015 163.4 Arthroscopy Market, Norway, Volume (Units), 2015-2022 183.4.1 Arthroscopy Implants Market, Norway, Volume (Units), by Segment, 2008-2015 203.4.2 Arthroscopy Implants Market, Norway, Volume (Units), by Segment, 2015-2022 223.5 Arthroscopy Market, Norway, Average Price ($), 2008-2015 243.6 Arthroscopy Market, Norway, Average Price ($), by Segment 2008-2015 263.7 Arthroscopy Market, Norway, Distribution Share by Revenue ($m), 2008-2022 283.8 Arthroscopy Market, Norway, Company Share by Revenue ($m), 2015 294 Overview of Key Companies in Norway, Arthroscopy Market 314.1 Smith & Nephew Plc 314.1.1 Company Overview 314.2 Arthrex, Inc. 314.2.1 Company Overview 314.3 DePuy Synthes, Inc. 314.3.1 Company Overview 314.4 Stryker Corporation 314.4.1 Company Overview 314.5 B. Braun Melsungen AG 324.5.1 Company Overview 324.6 Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc. 324.6.1 Company Overview 324.7 Biomet, Inc. 334.7.1 Company Overview 335 Arthroscopy Market Pipeline Products 346 Appendix 356.1 Research Methodology 366.2 GlobalData Consulting 386.3 Contact Us 386.4 Disclaimer 39MarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.State Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Special Purpose Needles Market to be a US$ 17.26 Bn Market by 2026

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The global special purpose needles market is projected to be valued at US$ 17,261.5 million by the end of 2026, registering a CAGR of 7.4% during the forecast period (20162026). In a new report titled Special Purpose Needles Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 20162026, Future Market Insights delivers key insights on the factors and trends impacting the global special purpose needles market over a 10-year forecast period (20162026).The market for special purpose needles is witnessing steady growth across the globe owing to an increasing geriatric population. According to analysts at Future Market Insights, Increasing prevalence of diabetes and infectious diseases and increasing incidence of cancer and spine disorders across the globe are the primary factors driving the growth of the global special purpose needles market. Availability of better reimbursement options for some types of special purpose needles in developed economies is likely to propel demand for special purpose needles over the forecast period. A key trend witnessed in the global special purpose needles market is the development of advanced techniques in the production of special purpose needles to facilitate enhanced patient safety and comfort. However, rise in awareness on needle free injections and risks associated with injections are major factors expected to hamper the overall growth of the special purpose needles market over the forecast period.Request Free Report Sample@The global special purpose needles market can be segmented on the basis of product type (Fine Aspirating Needles, Biopsy Needles, Hypodermic Needles, Pen Needles, Suture Needles, IV Catheter Needles, Implantation Needles, Dental Needles, Ophthalmic Needles, Blood Collection Needles, Spinal Anaesthesia Needles, Epidural Needles, AV Fistula Needles, Cannula Needles); application (Sample Collection, Drug Delivery); and distribution channel (Hospital Pharmacies, Private Clinics, Retail Pharmacies and Drug Stores, E-Commerce).Segmentation highlightsThe Pen Needles product type segment is expected to gain popularity over the forecast period, driven by increasing global adoption of small sized needles for insulin injections. The Pen Needles product type segment is estimated to reach a valuation of US$ 644.3 Mn by the end of 2016, registering a CAGR of 9.1% over the forecast period.The Sample Collection application segment is estimated to register a CAGR of 7.7% while the Drug Delivery application segment is expected to register a CAGR of 7.1% during the forecast period.Demand for special purpose needles over the forecast period is expected to be the highest in the Hospital Pharmacies distribution channel segment, which is expected to register a CAGR of 8.5% in terms of value.Request For TOC@Regional forecastThe North America market has been estimated to dominate the special purpose needles market while the market in APEJ is expected to be the fastest growing in terms of revenue growth. The markets in North America, Western Europe, and APEJ are estimated to collectively hold 74.7% market share of the global special purpose needles market in 2016.Vendor insightsMedtronic, B. Braun Melsungen AG, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Terumo Corporation, Smiths Medical, Boston Scientific Corporation, Novo Nordisk A/S, Argon Medical Devices, Inc., Stryker Corporation, NIPRO Medical Corporation, Cook Medical, and SERAG-WIESSNER GmbH & Co. are some of the major companies operating in the global special purpose needles market. These companies are adopting innovative strategies to bring in improvements to their product design and are initiating advanced R&D activities and market consolidation to strengthen market foothold and expand customer base.Browse Full Report@ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Market Size of Surface Disinfectant, Forecast Report 2016-2026

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Disinfectants are chemical substances that are applied to non-living objects and surfaces of the floor to destroy microorganisms. The essential use of disinfectants is part of a strategy to prevent infectious diseases. Here surfaces are considered noncritical items and they contact intact skin. The use of noncritical items or contact with noncritical surfaces carries little risk of causing an infection in humans. Surface should be clean in hospital, clinics and Ambulatory surgical centers because there is higher possibility to spread the infection among patients and staff.Clean t185he surfaces with disinfectant is the first and foremost step to prevent the infection in the hospital. Medical device surfaces such as hemodialysis machines, gloves, stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, CT scan, MRI scanners and X-ray machines can become contaminated with infectious agents and contribute to the spread of Infectious diseases while examining the patient health. To prevent this, noncritical medical equipment surfaces should be disinfected with an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) -registered low- or intermediate-level disinfectant. Examples of some of clinical contact surfaces include light handles, switches, reusable containers of dental materials, countertops, and telephone handles.Request Free Report Sample@Surface Disinfectant Market: Drivers and RestraintsSurface disinfectant place a major role in preventing infection. The main driver of Surface disinfectant is its use. Increasing the prevalence rate of infectious disease globally drives the surface disinfectant market. Developed countries and developing countries are plays a major role in surface disinfectant market. Guidance from International organizations such as World Health Organization (WHO), International Federation of Infection Control (IFIC), and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) to prevent infectious diseases also drives the market. Great awareness about the use of surface disinfectants also one of the driver for this market.However, while using disinfectants we need to take precautions and we need to use the disinfectant which is approved by government organization such as Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).Surface Disinfectant Market: SegmentationSurface Disinfectant market is segmented into following typesBased on TypeOxidizing disinfectantsSodium HypochloritePeracetic AcidHydrogen PeroxideNon-oxidizing disinfectantsQuaternary Ammonium Compounds (QACs)BiguanidesAmphotericsBased on FormulationLiquidsSpraysWipesBased on End UserHospitalClinicsAmbulatory surgical centerHome care settingsSurface Disinfectant Market: OverviewWith good awareness about healthcare among people and guidance from international organizations about the use of surface disinfectant, the use of Surface Disinfectant will increase and the market is expected to have a healthy growth in the forecast period (2016-2026)Request For TOC@Surface Disinfectant Market: Region- wise OutlookDepending on geographic regions, the global Surface Disinfectant market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East & Africa.The use of Surface Disinfectant is high in North America because it is highly developed region, having good healthcare setup and people are having good awareness about health care. In Asia pacific region china and India also having rapid growth in health care set up. Europe also having good growth in this market.Surface Disinfectant Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in this market are3MSTERIS plcReckitt Benckiser Group plcMetrex Research, LLC.Whiteley CorporationUPS Hygiene Pvt. Ltd.Carroll CompanyABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Pine Derived Chemicals Market Forecast and Segments, 2016-2026

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The chemicals derived from pine tree and its parts occur naturally. Thus, pine is a renewable source of chemicals that find applications across a diverse set of industries. Pine trees occur predominantly in regions like North America, Latin America, Asia and Scandinavia. Traditionally, these pine derived chemicals have been used in adhesives industry, construction industry and healthcare sector among the others. In the recent past, these pine derived chemicals have been used in applications such as in printing inks, adhesives, soaps & detergents, resins, plasticizers, surface coatings, fragrance chemicals among the others. The pine chemicals are obtained from distillation of semi-solid extracts of resin and fatty oil. Primarily, pine based products are derived from gums, stumps and by products of Kraft pulp. Pine chemicals include rosin, tall oil, turpentine, resin etc. Major chemicals like turpentine, tall oil fatty acids (TOFA) and resin acids among the others are derived from by-product of sulphate pulping process.Global Pine Derived Chemicals Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe chemicals derived from pine trees are naturally occurring and thus environmentally friendly. Their use results in lower carbon dioxide emissions as compared to those from use of traditional sources. In the recent past, extensive use of products derived from crude oil and natural gas have led to increased pollution and environmental concern. Hence, there is a pressing need to decrease the consumption of fossil fuels in order to reduce carbon footprints and carbon dioxide emission. Thus, demand for these eco-friendly pine derived chemicals is expected to witness a steady growth over the forecast period. Pine trees, the source of these pine derived chemicals do not occur abundantly across the globe but are concentrated in regions of North America, Latin America, and in some European & Asian countries. As such, the limited availability is expected to create a challenge to the growth of the global pine derived chemical market during the forecast period.Request Free Report Sample@Global Pine Derived Chemicals Market: SegmentationThe global pine derived chemical market is segmented on the basis of application, type and geographical region.Based on the type of chemical, global pine derived chemical market is segmented in to the following key market segments:Tall Oil Rosin (TOR)Tall Oil Fatty acid (TOFA)Gum RosinGum TurpentineSterolsOthersAlso depending on the End-use industry, the global pine derived chemical market is segmented as below:Printing inksAdhesives & paintsRubberPaper and pulpOthersGlobal Pine Derived Chemicals Market: Regional OutlookThe global pine derived chemical market is segmented on the basis of geography into seven key regions namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa, Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) and Japan. North America region has a strong presence in global pine derived chemical market followed by Asia Pacific. The United States accounted for the largest share in global pine derived chemicals market. Increasing demand for environmentally friendly products in order to reduce the carbon footprints is expected to drive the global pine derived chemical market during the forecast period.Request For TOC@Global Pine Derived Chemicals Market: Key playerskey players operating in global pine derived chemical market are as follows:Eastman Chemical CompanyIngevity (MeadWestvaco Corporation)Arizona Chemical Company, LLCGeorgia-Pacific Chemicals, LLCHarima Chemicals GroupArakawa Chemical Industries, Ltd.Renessenz LLC.Foreverest Resources Ltd.Mentha and Allied Products Pvt. Ltd.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Warehouse Robotics Market Intelligence Report Offers Growth Prospects

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Warehouse robots are gaining a lot of popularity and its rising importance due to its usage in varied number of applications such as food and beverage, automotive, pharmaceuticals, electronics, construction, defense, oil and gas. Companies are investing huge in research and development activities in the warehouse robotics market, especially developed countries for product innovation and also to automate it in a more advanced way. With rapid advancement in technology and increasing demand of warehouse robotics to improve product quality, production and space utilization, the market for warehouse robotics market is growing at a positive rate globally.In December 2014, Amazon installed almost 15,000 robots in its US warehouse to cut operation cost by one-fifth and to meet up the increasing consumer demand during festive seasons. They also wanted to compete with the brick and mortar stores and to deliver items to customers on time and at a faster rate. The technology was developed by Kiva Systems, a robotics company. Recently, Amazon announced that it would renamed Kiva systems to Amazon Robotics and also hire a head of Robotics.Warehouse Robotics Market: Drivers & RestraintsIncreased demand of automation, time saving and reduction in cost, increasing number of stock keeping units, increasing demand and awareness towords quality and safety production, advancement in technology, increased use in various applications and industries such as food and beverage, electronics, are the important market drivers for the warehouse robotics market.Initial high adoption cost related to training, deployment, lack of awareness and difficulty in interacting with robots for some end users are some of the barriers which is hampering the growth of warehouse robotics market.Request Free Report Sample@Warehouse Robotics Market: SegmentationWarehouse robotics market is broadly classified on the basis of the following segment By Product:Fixed RobotsMobile RobotsGantry RobotsStationery Articulated RobotsBy Application:AutomotiveFood and BeveragePharmaceuticalElectronicsConstructionDefenseOil and GasOthersWarehouse Robotics Market: OverviewThe warehouse robotics market has grown substantially at a healthy CAGR due to recent advancements in the technology and increasing demand in its applications. Asia Pacific will emerge as the fastest growing region for warehouse robotics market due to increasing demand for automation and increasing awareness about quality production.Visit For TOC@Warehouse Robotics Market: Region-wise OutlookThe warehouse robotics market is expected to register a double-digit CAGR for the forecast period. Depending on geographic regions, warehouse robotics market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market for warehouse robotics market due to increasing research and development and increasing investment made by the automotive companies.Warehouse Robotics Market: Key PlayersSome of the key market players in warehouse robotics market are ABB Robotics, Kiva Systems, Foxconn Technology Group, Seegrid, SSI Schaefer, Swisslong, Fanuc Corporation.About Us:Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centres in the U.S. and India.Contact Us:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Battery Management Modules Market Trends with business strategies and analysis to 2025 explored in latest research-The Insight Partners

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The Battery Management Modules Market to 2025 - Global Analysis and Forecasts by Components, Applications, End-users report provides a detailed overview of the major factors impacting the global market with the market share analysis and revenues of various sub segments.Browse market data tables and in-depth TOC of the Battery Management Modules Market to 2025 @Battery management systems are particularly designed to meet the requirements of managing and protecting Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV), Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) and battery packs used in Electric Vehicles (EV) with automotive grade quality. The growing applications of batteries that can be recharged in telecom, military and healthcare, and developing market for hybrid and electric vehicles are factors propelling the global market growth. The progress of battery management systems in power grids and automotive industry are representing the strong adoption of BMS globally. Automotive sector holds the largest market share and then comes consumer/handheld and energy. Possibility of fire accidents of electric vehicles (mostly battery electric vehicles) resulted in consumers concerns regarding the safety of electric vehicles. AS compared to HEV, both BEV and PHEV have more compound battery system assembly that needs more efficient battery strength and safety; thus, BEV and PHEV require more developed and dependable BMS. The BMS market is anticipated to propagate the growth of the EV market.Request sample copy @The electronics manufacturers are concentrating on producing small versions of electronic products, resulting in reduced size of BMS. Rising demand for reducing fuel costs and maximizing vehicle competence has led to technological progressions in EV and HEV. To upsurge utilization of battery storage ability and evade hazardous incidents caused by battery overheating, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) of e-bikes and e-vehicles are integrating BMS systems in these vehicles. The global market for BEM is experiencing complex competition due to existence of huge number of manufacturer.The global battery management system market is segmented by topology into distributed, centralized and modular. Further, the market is segmented by component that includes battery, DC/DC converter, power module and communication channel. Also, the global battery management market is bifurcated on the basis of end-user into automotive, consumer/handheld and energy. This market is also bisected by regions i.e. Europe, APAC, North America, South America and Middle East & Africa.Inquire about discount on this report @The global market for battery management system is dominated by Asia Pacific owing to existence of major automotive manufacturers and increasing usage of hybrid and electric vehicles in China. Europe and North America covers the second largest share in the market. L&T Technology Services, Electric Vehicle Innovative Systems, Valence Technology, Inc., Panacis Inc., Johnson Matthey PLC, Merlin Equipment Ltd., Ashwoods Energy Limited, Vecture Inc., Toshiba Corporation, Lithium Balance Corporation, SK Continental E-motion, Nuvation Engineering, TWS are some of the key market players in the global battery management system market among others.Some of the key points covered in the report: Battery Management System Market Landscape Battery Management System Market  Key Industry Dynamics Battery Management System Market  Five Forces Analysis Battery Management System Market  Competitive Landscape Battery Management System Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025  Topology Battery Management System Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025  Component Battery Management System Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025  End-user Battery Management System Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025  Geographical Analysis Battery Management System Market, Key Company ProfilesThe report provides qualitative and qualitative insights about growth rates, key market shares and factors driving the market drivers for all segments. The report highlights the growth rates and market sizes of various segment and highlights the sections expected to experience high growth rate in various geographic segments. The report also consist of company profiles of the market leaders and various players in the Battery Management System Market. These company profiles include product portfolios, market developments, financial performances and SWOT analysis for each company. The report also offers a competitive landscape of the Battery Management System Market.About The Insight Partners:The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.comintelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Intelligent Energy Storage Systems Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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Intelligent energy storage systems are a smart network of various energy storage units in a complex that help users enhance their total energy savings. They accept the input from multiple energy storage units and render them usable as just one unified energy storage. This also allows the various individual energy storage units to function separately without any interference from the central intelligent energy storage unit. This provides multiple energy saving streams for users, which is the main reason why intelligent energy storage systems are increasing in demand.Get Free PDF Brochure for more Professional and Technical industry insights:The report on the intelligent energy storage systems market examines the market from all angles, shedding light on its competitive dynamics, segments, and the key trends influencing the growth trajectory of the market in the near future. The performance of the intelligent energy storage systems market in various regions is profiled to provide a complete overview of the regional dynamics of the overall market. Major players in the market are also profiled to alert users of the best opportunities for collaboration as well as their major competitors.Intelligent Energy Storage Systems Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe major driver propelling the global intelligent energy storage systems market is the increasing awareness about the importance of reducing the consumption of electricity. Since renewable energy has not yet been commercialized to the optimum level, conservation of the available energy has emerged as the best way to deal with the current energy shortage. This is likely to remain an influential factor in the development of the intelligent energy storage systems market in the near future.Decline in the prices of batteries and other necessary components has also boosted the availability of intelligent energy storage systems in the last few years. Technological advancement in battery technology has also given a boost to the market.The increasing demand for smart infrastructure and smart electronics and the rising incorporation of various Internet of Things (IoT) technologies have benefitted the intelligent energy storage systems market. Users are becoming increasingly aware about the availability and benefits of smart energy management systems due to the increasing popularity of the IoT, which has helped increase the demand for intelligent energy storage systems.Intelligent energy storage systems are also scalable, which adds to their appeal. Individual users can install intelligent energy storage systems in their residence, industries can apply them to manufacturing plants or even across the supply chain, and utilities can incorporate them in power grids. This has given a boost to the adoption of intelligent energy storage systems and will continue to be a major driver for the market in the coming years.Intelligent Energy Storage Systems Market: Geographical OverviewNorth America is the leading region in the global intelligent energy storage systems market. The early incorporation of the IoT in North America, particularly the U.S., has helped the market prosper in this region. The establishment of smart grid infrastructure in the U.S. has also helped the intelligent energy storage systems market.Europe and Asia Pacific are the other major regional markets for intelligent energy storage systems. The dynamic economies in Asia Pacific are expected to come to the fore in the intelligent energy storage systems market in the coming years, with governments in countries such as China and India proactively attempting to encourage energy conservation initiatives.Key players in the global intelligent energy storage systems market include Alevo, Beacon Power, ABB, Green Charge Networks, azeti Networks, NEC Energy Solutions, and CODA Energy.Browse Industry Research Report with free Analysis:The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About UsTransparency Market Research is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We are privileged with highly experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700Albany NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453E-mail: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Accelerating Advancements in chemical and Biochemical engineering

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Conference Series LLC Conference on ChemBio-2017 welcomes researchers, academicians, scientists, Institutions, corporate entities, associations and students from across the world to Milan, Italy to attend the International Conference on Chemical and Biochemical Engineering which is going to be held during June 7-8, 2017.Focusing on Bridging Chemical Engineering with Biotechnology:ChemBio ChemBio-2017 brings together Scientific Researchers and technologists from the fields of Chemical engineering, Biochemical, Chemical Catalysis, Industrial Biotechnology, Chemical polymer technology, Bioreactors etc., and gives knowledge on advance research and emerging technologies in Chemical engineering and their applications.World Congress on Chemical and Biochemical attains its significance in many fields, like pharmaceuticals, design and construction, petrochemicals, food processing, specialty chemicals, polymers, biotechnology etc. Chemical engineers use chemistry and engineering to perform raw materials into usable products, such as petrochemicals, medicine and plastics on a large-scale, industrial setting. This international conference will focus on many interesting scientific sessions on such as Chemical Engineering at glance, Chemical reactors, Thermodynamics, Chemical Polymer Technology, Biochemical Engineering and bio molecular engineering, Fermentation Technology, Enzyme Kinetics, Bioreactors, Bioprocessing for Food Engineering, Industrial Biotechnology, Electrochemical Engineering, Inorganic chemistry usage in chemical engineering, Process Chemical Engineering, Advances in Chemical & Process Engineering.There is a steady growth for Chemical field from $21 billion EURO to $40 billion EURO from 2008-2020; this will increase the market share of bio-based products from 4% in 2008 to 6% in 2020, providing 43,600 new jobs within the biochemical industry only. Future growth will be affected by the cost of biomass but also by fossil fuel prices and by the level of public support.ChemBio-2017 attracts Lab Directors/Associates, Head of the Departments, CEOs of the Chemical Companies/ Chemical and Biochemical researchers & academicians, Research scholars in Chemical and Biochemical engineering, Directors and Co-Directors of research based companies across Italy and US who are investing in Biochemical Engineering, Delegates from Chemical and Biotech Associations.For more details please visit-For conference registration / sponsorship application and additional details about ChemBio-2017, visitWorld Congress on Chemical and Biochemical attains its significance in many fields, like pharmaceuticals, design and construction, petrochemicals, food processing, specialty chemicals, polymers, biotechnology etc. Chemical engineers use chemistry and engineering to perform raw materials into usable products, such as petrochemicals, medicine and plastics on a large-scale, industrial setting. This international conference will focus on many interesting scientific sessions on such as Chemical Engineering at glance, Chemical reactors, Thermodynamics, Chemical Polymer Technology, Biochemical Engineering and bio molecular engineering, Fermentation Technology, Enzyme Kinetics, Bioreactors, Bioprocessing for Food Engineering, Industrial Biotechnology, Electrochemical Engineering, Inorganic chemistry usage in chemical engineering, Process Chemical Engineering, Advances in Chemical & Process Engineering.Reese Holland2360 Corporate Circle, Suite 400 HendersonNV 89074-7722, USAPh: +1-888-843-8169Fax: +1-650-618-1417Email: eurochemengineering@chemseries.com
Valuable Letting Advice Offered By LetBritain Global Limited

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(London, UK) - LetBritain Global Limited (), proudly presents their collection of informational resources for those who would like to enter the letting business or even those who are just curious of this industry. These resources are conveniently found on their website,, under the Letting Guide tab.LetBritain Global Limited presents downloadable contents on the LetBritain Landlord Procedural System, Landlord Letting Guide, Photographing Your Property, Property Valuation, Descriptions of Properties, LetBritain Tenants Procedural System, as well as the Tenant Letting Guide. These are particularly beneficial for people who have no or little knowledge on how to manage their property on their own.In the Photographing Your Property guide, landlords are taught how to take decent photographs to make their properties more appealing to prospective tenants. They are provided with the basics of lighting, best angle detection, as well as clutter removal.LetBritain Global Limited is committed to provide their customers with the best letting experience possible. According to them, Here at our online letting agency, we understand that some landlords may be renting out their properties for the first time-or perhaps they didn't have so much luck in their first rental project and want to pick up a few tips for their next endeavour. We've put together this guide to help with the initial marketing and advertising of your rental property, all split up into handy sections.Discover all of these guides and determine which one is most helpful by logging on toAbout LetBritain Global LimitedLetBritain Global Limited is a company that specialises in providing an online letting experience to landlords and tenants. They help their clients do away with exorbitant and traditional letting fees and allow them to take full control of their property. Getting in touch with LetBritain Global Limited could be accomplished in plenty of ways. They welcome phone enquiries via 020 3105 7450. You can also send in your written messages via their websites contact form or via email address info@letbritain.co.uk. For more details, visit their official website,LetBritain Global Limited is a company that specialises in providing an online letting experience to landlords and tenants. They help their clients do away with exorbitant and traditional letting fees and allow them to take full control of their property.A company that specialises in providing an online letting experience to landlords and tenants.
Market Forecast Report on Renewable Methanol, 2015-2025

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Methanol is also known as wood alcohol or methyl alcohol. Renewable methanol is considered as the oldest form of methanol production. Usually, it is made from natural gas. Fermenting biomass is the alternative way of producing methanol. It is widely used in various sectors, including, transportation, chemical, wastewater treatment plants and other industrial uses. However, concerns about climate change, energy security, and air quality have raised questions about the production and use of natural gas.Renewable Methanol Market: Key TrendsEfforts are on to develop alternative fuels so that dependency on petrol is reduced. The demand for global methanol market is growing especially in transportation sector, as methanol consist of a liquid fuel that has demonstrated a successful displacement for diesel and gasoline. It is estimated that renewable methanol offers reduction in carbon emission ranging from 65 percent to 95 percent.The largest use of methanol is in making chemicals. About 40% of methanol is converted into formaldehyde, and from there into several diverse products like plywood, paints, plastics, explosives, and permanent press textiles. Investments, government support & regulations, and environmental concerns are driving the increased acceptance of the global renewable methanol market.Request Free Report Sample@Global renewable methanol is bifurcated into three categories on the basis of product type,Formaldehyde (in 2014 major single downstream market for global renewable methanol, with approximately 21 million tons of methanol consumed for formaldehyde production i.e. 28% of global demand)Acetic acidMethyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE).Major challenges for the renewable methanol market are high cost and low production, but advancements in technology and new innovations are likely to reduce the cost. The renewable methanol market is expected to witness robust growth in the near future.It is projected that in the future, the demand for renewable methanol will increase by over 100 million tons. The bulk of this demand is generated by China (worlds largest methanol consumer and producer). The U.S. is another significant dynamic supplier of methanol. By 2018, the US is expected to become a net exporter of methanol.Request For TOC@Renewable Methanol Market: Key PlayersSome of the major companies operating in the global renewable methanol market are, Eastman Chemicals, Biomethanol Chemie Nederland B.V., BASF, Blue Fuel Energy, Petronas, and Celanese, Mitsubishi chemicals, Statoil, and VarmlandsMetanol.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Smart Glass Market Analysis and Forecast, 2015-2025

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Smart Glass Market OverviewSmart glass is also known as switchable glass or magic glass. Smart glass changes its light transmission properties when light, voltage or heat is provided to it as a stimulus. Smart glass is used usually in doors, windows, partitions and skylights in residential as well as commercial buildings. They can be controlled manually as well as automatically. Smart glasses help in reducing cost of heating, air conditioning and lighting.Smart Glass Market DynamicsSmart glass has various advantages, such as energy efficiency, user comfort and reduced carbon emission. Due to these advantages, the use of smart glass has increased in personal vehicles. Global smart glass market is estimated to register significant growth rate during the forecasted period. Factors that are driving the growth of the global smart glass market include growing adoption of green initiatives, such as eco-friendly and green buildings, non-electric technologies, such as thermocronics etc. Increasing demand of smart glasses in automobile and aviation industry is also fuelling the growth of global smart glass market.Government support and initiatives all across the world has also helped provide an impetus to the smart glass market.Factors which are restraining the growth of global smart glass market are high cost as compared to their alternatives, slow response of large sized smart glass, concern while maintaining exact colour balance, and a general lack of awareness about their benefits. In the near future, global smart glass market is estimated to witness commercialization, it will be in terms of enhanced operation efficiency and cost efficiency, and wide range of applications and incorporation of advanced materials.Request Free Report Sample@Smart Glass Market: SegmentationGlobal smart glass market is segmented on the basis of verticals, technology and regions. On the basis of verticals, the market is further sub-segmented into various industrial verticals such as transportation, infrastructural development, and electronics industries. Infrastructural development sub-segment is further categorised as residential, commercial and architecture. Among these verticals, infrastructural development is largest in terms of market share. It is mainly because of increasing demand of smart glasses in architecture. Smart glass in architecture helps in controlling light and heat. Use of smart glass is also growing in residential and commercial buildings in the form of doors, windows, partitions and skylights. Followed by infrastructural development, transportation vertical is second largest in terms of market share with high growth potential during forecasted period. In transportation vertical, smart glasses are used in automotive, aviation, car or bus and in marine.On the basis of technology, the market is sub segmented into thermochromic device, electrochromic devices, liquid crystal devices, suspended particle devices and micro blinds. Liquid crystal technology based smart glass is usually used in electronic devices. In automotive and architectural applications, electrochromics and suspended particle devices are used commonly; for power generation application, thermochromic and photochromic technology is used.Request For TOC@Smart Glass Market: Region-wise OutlookOn the basis of regions the market is further sub-segmented into seven regions, North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan), Japan as a separate region, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Middle East & Africa. Out of all these regions, North America dominates the global smart glass market in terms of high production as well as consumption of smart glasses. But it is estimated that European market will grow significantly in near future due to its architectural advancement i.e. presence of large size windows in residential as well as commercial buildings compare to North Americas buildings, updated building construction and efficiency standards of government. Owing to these advantages, it has been forecasted that the European market will overtake the North America smart glass market.Smart Glass Market: Key PlayersKey players in the global smart glass market are Vision Systems, PPG Industries Inc., Asahi Glass Company Ltd., Research Frontiers Inc., Corning, INC., RavenBrick LLC, Sage Electronics, Pleotint LLC, Hitachi Chemical Co. Ltd. And Smartglass International. These industry participants are following common strategy of technology licensing and vertical integration. Also it has been observed that market players are focusing on collaboration and partnership with flat glass producers, material science and chemical companies and Insulating Glass Unit (IGU) manufacturers.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
GD Rectifiers are pleased to announce that they will be supplying the IXYS RF Power product range to Europe as well as the UK

IXYS RF Gate Driver

http://www.gdrectifiers.co.uk/products/category/semiconductor_components/ixys_rf/

http://www.gdrectifiers.co.uk/products/category/semiconductor_components/ixys/

http://www.gdrectifiers.co.uk/products

The European distribution extension to the RF Power range was a natural progression for GD Rectifiers who have been a distributor for both IXYS and IXYS UK Westcode for the past 22 years. With IXYS wide range of semiconductor components paired with GD Rectifiers technical expertise and sales acumen, the partnership is set to be a great success.IXYS RF Power Modules combine state-of-the-art CMOS gate driver ICs and power RF MOSFETs in single devices to enable more compact and efficient designs along with a reduced parts count. The modules are packaged in IXYS RFs low-inductance RF package incorporating layout techniques to minimise stray lead inductances for optimum switching performance in a surface-mountable device.GD Rectifiers stock the full range of IXYS RF products which include: RF Amplifiers, RF MOSFETs, Hybrid Modules, RF Drivers and Gunn Diodes.GD Rectifiers are the official IXYS RF Power Distributor in the UK & Europe, with over 50 years of experience, they are an ISO 9001:2008 registered company that design and develop bespoke power semiconductor assemblies to control voltage, current and frequency for international industrial markets.For further information on all IXYS RF products click here:Or to view all other IXYS products click here:Find out more about the latest GD Rectifiers product range here:GD Rectifiers is a Global Manufacturer and Distributor of products, services and solutions to commercial and industrial users of power electronic components.Established in 1963, GD Rectifiers has over 50 years of extensive experience across a large range of markets, specialising in new and current technologies for industrial power control applications. An extensive product offering has built GD Rectifiers exceptional reputation as the go-to power specialist with innovative experience across: Aviation, Automotive, Rail, Medical, Industrial and Electronics markets.GD Rectifiers are an ISO 9001:2008 registered company that design and develop bespoke power semiconductor assemblies to control voltage, current and frequency for international industrial markets.GD RectifiersBentley House2 William WayBurgess HillWest Sussex
Baby Food Packaging Products Market Demand, Size, Analysis 2015  2021

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Baby food packaging products are designed to target the manufacturers dealing with baby and toddler food products. It is also designed to provide convenience to consumer in terms of carrying food products form one place to another. Increased consumer preference towards spending on packaged baby food product is expected to drive the demand of baby food packaging product market in the near future.Download Sample of this report @Baby food packaging product market is segmented on the basis of raw material which includes glass packaging material, rigid plastic packaging material, flexible plastic packaging material paperboard packaging material, and metal packaging. Among all these segment flexible packaging material is expected to occupy major market share followed by rigid plastic packaging material during the forecast period.Baby food packaging product market is further segmented on the basis of type which includes bottles, cans, liquid cartons, pouch/sachet and others. Among all these segment pouch/sachet is expected to contribute major share in terms of revenue. Pouch/sachet packaged products are easy to use and convenient to carry which is predicted to support the growth of pouch/sachet packaging segment in baby food packaging product market. Moreover, liquid cartons is also expected to show a substantial growth in the near future. Increasing demand of flavored milk and juices for toddlers is predicted to support thre4 growth of liquid cartons segment in baby food packaging market.Baby food packaging product market is also segmented on the basis of application which includes, milk formula, dried baby food, prepared baby food, ready to feed baby food and others. Among all these segment milk formula is expected to contribute the major share in terms the usage of baby food packaging material. Moreover, ready to feed product is also expected to show a substantial growth in the near future. Increasing urbanization and rising disposable income has led the consumer to get inclined towards more convenient product which is supporting the growth of ready to feed baby product market. Thus is expected to simultaneously support the growth of baby food packaging material market across the globe.On the basis of geography, Europe is expected to contribute to the highest in terms of market share in baby food packaging product market. Moreover Latin America is expected to show a substantial growth in the near future. In Latin America Brazil is expected to contribute the major share in terms of revenue. Increased demand of baby food products especially prepared baby food across the country is expected to support the demand of baby food packaging product market within next five to six years. Whereas, Asia pacific is concerned it is expected to register a healthy double digit growth by 2020. In Asia pacific region China is expected to be the most dominant market for baby food packaging product market followed by Japan and India. Increasing awareness regarding the nutritional benefits for packaged baby food product is predicted to drive the growth of baby food packaging product market across the region. Moreover, rising demand for convenience baby edible products due to increased number of working women is predicted to drive the growth of baby food packaging product market in Asia Pacific region.Rising disposable income coupled with increased number of working mother has raised the demand of baby food which is expected to support the growth of baby food packaging material across the globe. However, packaging manufacturers need to consider food perishability, which is expected to restrict selection of packaging material, and thus predicted to restraints the overall market growth.For more detailed information (desk of content material), Figures and Tables of the report @Some of the major player operating in baby food packaging material market includes Prolamina Packaging, Tetra Laval, RPC Group, Silgan Holdings, Rexam PLC, CAN-PACK S.A, Winpak among others.Key geographies evaluated in this report are:North AmericaAPACLatin AmericaKey features of this reportDrivers, restraints, and challenges shaping the Baby Food Packaging Products market dynamicsLatest innovations and key events in the industryAnalysis of business strategies of the top playersBaby Food Packaging Products market estimates and forecasts(2015 -2021)Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each PMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With a wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports strive to serve clients and satisfy their overall research requirement.For information regarding permissions, contact:Persistence Market Research90 Sate Street, Suite 700 Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Europe Production Market Share of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping by Type in 2016

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http://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/europe-single-nucleotide-polymorphism-snp-genotyping-industry-2016-market-research-report.htm

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Europe Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Industry 2016 Market Overview, Size, Share, Trends, Analysis, Technology, Applications, Growth, Market Status, Demands, Insights, Development, Research and Forecast 2016-2020.In the current competitive era, it is imperative to keep a track of the latest policies adopted by key companies operating in any market. This can help vendors, stakeholders, and clients form better decisions about the market. The study on the Europe Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping market provides key insights into the competitive background of the Europe Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping market. The research report covers a comprehensive analysis of all key organizations and new entrants operating in the Europe Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping market. New strategies adopted by key companies are briefly evaluated by the analysts in the report.The research lays its entire focus on the key local and international companies functioning in the Europe Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping market. Every company is profiled with details such as production capacity, key areas of operation, new product developments, and revenue. Offerings of key companies are examined in the Europe Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping market report. By using SWOT analysis, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of key companies are measured in the report. Moreover, analysts also study the status of research and development activities of all companies operating in the market.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Along with the information about the key companies and their developments, the research report also measures the cost, price, revenue, and gross of the companies. Statistics related to key firms provided in the report help vendors and stakeholders understand their dominance. The report provides data about the feasibility of new projects in the Europe Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping market. The report highlights key factors that can assist the new entrants in increasing their contribution.Details regarding new project investment are also given in the report by the analysts. The report is an ideal blueprint of the Europe Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping market and provides the current scenario and future prospects of the market.Browse Complete Report with TOC @Table of ContentsChapter One Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Industry Overview1.1 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Definition1.1.1 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Product Pictures & Product Specifications1.2 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Classification & ApplicationChapter Two Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis2.1 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Raw Material & Equipments Supplier and Price Analysis2.2 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Labor & Other Cost Analysis2.3 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis2.4 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Manufacturing Process AnalysisChapter Three Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis3.1 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Capacity and Commercial Production Date3.2 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Manufacturing Plants Distribution3.3 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping R&D Status and Technology Sources3.4 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Raw Materials Sources AnalysisChapter Four Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Production by Regions, Technology and Applications4.1 2010-2016 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Production by Regions(such as US, EU, China and Japan etc)4.2 2010-2016 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Production by Product Type & Application4.3 2010-2016 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Price by key Manufacturers4.4 2010-2016 US & China Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value Analysis4.5 2010-2016 Europe and Japan Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value Analysis4.6 2010-2016 US and China Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Supply Import Export Consumption4.7 2010-2016 Europe and Japan Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Supply Import Export ConsumptionChapter Five Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Sales and Sales Revenue by Regions5.1 2010-2016 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Sales by Regions (such as US, EU, China & Japan etc)5.2 2010-2016 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Sales Revenue by Regions (such as US EU China Japan etc)5.3 2010-2016 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Sales Price by Regions (such as US EU China Japan etc)5.4 2010-2016 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Genotyping Demand by ApplicationsRead More @About UsQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Global and China Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) 2016 Market Policies, Usage Regulations, SWOT Analysis & Elite Sales

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http://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-methyl-methacrylate-mma-industry-2016-market-research-report-sales-2016-market-research-report.htm

http://www.qyresearchreports.com/category/chemicals-market-reports-57.htm

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Global Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Industry 2016 Market Overview, Size, Share, Trends, Analysis, Technology, Applications, Growth, Market Status, Demands, Insights, Development, Research and Forecast 2016-2020.The Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) market, its overlying industrial chain, and its presence across different regions are the focus of this research report. The report profiles the competitive landscape of the Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) market in the global context. The competitive landscape analysis has been complemented by Porters five forces analysis. Key players in the market are profiled using SWOT analysis, which reveals the potential trajectory each market leader will experience. The report also includes a detailed study of their holdings across different regions and their latest developments. Their financial structures and business operations are also reviewed to explain the competitive landscape of the Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) market. A separate section includes recommendations by industrial experts to the existing and new market players.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The analysis of the industrial chain includes an examination of the manufacturing capacity and value in its utilization, the cost structure of the product catalog, and industry policies that affect the global Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) market. The report also performs a detailed analysis of the market dynamics concerning upstream raw materials and downstream demand, and import and export trends in the global Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) market. The report also offers insights into the factors influencing the growth of the market and their impact on the global Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) market.The report examines the development of the global Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) market in each region through accurate historical statistics. These statistics are then used to make insightful projections about the markets future trajectory, which can be readily implemented by market players. The market share and future growth trends of each segment are mentioned in the report.Browse Complete Report with TOC @Table of ContentsChapter One Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Industry Overview1.1 Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Definition1.1.1 Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Product Pictures & Product Specifications1.2 Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Classification & ApplicationChapter Two Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis2.1 Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Raw Material & Equipments Supplier and Price Analysis2.2 Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Labor & Other Cost Analysis2.3 Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis2.4 Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Manufacturing Process AnalysisChapter Three Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis3.1 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Capacity and Commercial Production Date3.2 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Manufacturing Plants Distribution3.3 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) R&D Status and Technology Sources3.4 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Raw Materials Sources AnalysisChapter Four Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Production by Regions, Technology and Applications4.1 2010-2016 Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Production by Regions(such as US, EU, China and Japan etc)4.2 2010-2016 Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Production by Product Type & Application4.3 2010-2016 Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Price by key Manufacturers4.4 2010-2016 US & China Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value Analysis4.5 2010-2016 Europe and Japan Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value Analysis4.6 2010-2016 US and China Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Supply Import Export Consumption4.7 2010-2016 Europe and Japan Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Supply Import Export ConsumptionChapter Five Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Sales and Sales Revenue by Regions5.1 2010-2016 Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Sales by Regions (such as US, EU, China & Japan etc)5.2 2010-2016 Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Sales Revenue by Regions (such as US EU China Japan etc)5.3 2010-2016 Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Sales Price by Regions (such as US EU China Japan etc)5.4 2010-2016 Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) Demand by ApplicationsRead More @About UsQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Welding Consumables Market To Reach US$ 11.8 Bn in 2016

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http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-940

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The extensive use of arc welding and oxy-fuel welding processes in the manufacturing of automobiles and machinery has generated considerable demand for flux and filler metals as welding consumables. As a result, the global market for welding consumables is expected to witness a significant growth in 2016, reaching the market value of US$ 11,835.8 Mn at a y-o-y growth rate of 5.4% over 2015. Furthermore, the global demand for welding consumables will also be influenced by the rising trend of automating welding processes in automobile and construction industries.The lack of skilled labour for fabrication welding processes is expected to trigger the need for welding automation technology and generate mounting demand for welding consumables. The growth of the global welding consumables market is also expected to be driven by the rapid industrialisation, the surging real estate sector and the rising number of end-use welding applications. On the contrary, the stagnant adoption levels of advanced welding technologies in developing countries is anticipated to curb the overall growth of the global welding consumable market.Request Free Report Sample@Based on the type of welding consumables, the global market is anticipating a stellar growth by the stick electrodes consumables. The stick electrode segment will continue the dominance in terms of the global market share and account for over 40% by the end of 2016. However, the segment is expect to contend with stiff competition from flux-cored wires and solid wires due to their cost-effectiveness.Based on the welding techniques, the arc welding segment will continue to dominate the global market and account for US$ 8,256.4 Mn revenues by 2016-end. On the other hand, the booming automotive industry and the growing production of multipart machineries will incite the use of resistance welding and oxy-fuel welding in 2016 and beyond.By applications, the use of welding consumables will be elevated in the building & construction industries and the automotive& transportation sector. Also, the soaring consumption of welding consumables in marine applications is anticipated to develop additional growth opportunities for the global welding consumables market.Request For TOC@In 2016, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) is projected to be the most lucrative region for the growth of the global welding consumables market and will exhibit more than 30% of the global market share. The booming real estate sector in APEJ countries such as China and India will drive the demand for welding consumables in the construction industries. North America and Latin America are also expected to favour the growth of the welding consumables market, owing to the rising adoption of advanced welding technologies in manufacturing industries.The increasing need for automating the welding processes has influenced the business expansion of major welding consumable manufacturers. Hyundai Welding Co., Panasonic Corporation, Fronius International GmbH, The Lincoln Electric Company, Denyo Co. Ltd., Kemppi Oy, Tianjin Bridge Welding Materials Co. Ltd., Colfax Corporation, Air Liquide, voestalpine AG, Arcon Welding Equipment, and Illinois Tool Works Inc., among others, represent the key players of the global market for welding consumables.Long-term Outlook: In terms of market value, the global welding consumables market is forecasted to register a 5.5% CAGR and generate absolute $ opportunity of US$ 8,295.4 Mn during the forecast period 2016-2026. APEJ region will continue to be the most lucrative region, expanding at a CAGR of 6.7% over the forecast period.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Industry 2016 Market Size(Value,Volume), Forecasts, Gross Revenues & Applications

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Global Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Industry 2016 Market Overview, Size, Share, Trends, Analysis, Technology, Applications, Growth, Market Status, Demands, Insights, Development, Research and Forecast 2016-2020.The report is the result of extensive research carried out by a team of analysts and researchers scrutinizing the Carbon Nanotube (CNT) market according to its geographical segments and applications. The industrial chain supporting the Carbon Nanotube (CNT) market is studied comprehensively, including accurate and up to date information about various aspects such as the manufacturing chain, top offerings by the vendors, efficiency in utilization of available capacity of production, and industry policies that affect the Carbon Nanotube (CNT) market. It also gives detailed descriptions of the research methodology and economic indicators of the global Carbon Nanotube (CNT) market used in the compilation of the report.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Efficient and dependable analytical tools such as market attractiveness analysis, investment feasibility, and investment return analysis are used to examine the Carbon Nanotube (CNT) industry. The competitive landscape of the Carbon Nanotube (CNT) market is examined using tools such as Porters five force analysis and SWOT analysis. Costing of products available in the Carbon Nanotube (CNT) market is analyzed with respect to the profit gained by vendors, as well as the policies affecting it. The cost-profit margins are reviewed regionally, leading to analysis results that explain the market condition in a specific geographical area. The resultant statistics can be used as a tool by new entrants as well as existing players to make focused market policies.To provide a better understanding of how the market functions, market dynamics such as drivers, restraints, and opportunities, along with their impact on the Carbon Nanotube (CNT) market, are mentioned in the report. The report also provides a comprehensive snapshot of the historical condition of the market, which is useful in determining the future growth trajectory of the Carbon Nanotube (CNT) market. It also points out profitable market strategies to exploit the development of the market in the forecast period.Browse Complete Report with TOC @Table of ContentsChapter One Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Industry Overview1.1 Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Definition1.1.1 Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Product Pictures & Product Specifications1.2 Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Classification & ApplicationChapter Two Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis2.1 Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Raw Material & Equipments Supplier and Price Analysis2.2 Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Labor & Other Cost Analysis2.3 Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis2.4 Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Manufacturing Process AnalysisChapter Three Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis3.1 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Capacity and Commercial Production Date3.2 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Manufacturing Plants Distribution3.3 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Carbon Nanotube (CNT) R&D Status and Technology Sources3.4 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Raw Materials Sources AnalysisChapter Four Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Production by Regions, Technology and Applications4.1 2010-2016 Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Production by Regions(such as US, EU, China and Japan etc)4.2 2010-2016 Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Production by Product Type & Application4.3 2010-2016 Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Price by key Manufacturers4.4 2010-2016 US & China Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value Analysis4.5 2010-2016 Europe and Japan Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value Analysis4.6 2010-2016 US and China Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Supply Import Export Consumption4.7 2010-2016 Europe and Japan Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Supply Import Export ConsumptionChapter Five Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Sales and Sales Revenue by Regions5.1 2010-2016 Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Sales by Regions (such as US, EU, China & Japan etc)5.2 2010-2016 Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Sales Revenue by Regions (such as US EU China Japan etc)5.3 2010-2016 Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Sales Price by Regions (such as US EU China Japan etc)5.4 2010-2016 Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Demand by ApplicationsRead More @About UsQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Global Baby Bottles Market 2015 Shares, Company Investments, Growth Elements & Gross Revenue

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This study is compiled for providing a detailed analysis on the global Baby Bottles market. Market evaluation has been presented in terms of trend analysis, product manufacturers, and geographical demand. Yearly estimates on the market for Baby Bottles have also been presented in this study. The prime segments and sub-segments of the market are also analyzed and the predicted development of each of these segments has been presented in the report. Furthermore, the key business strategies adopted by the prime vendors dominant in the global Baby Bottles market for better penetration into the market also form a key part of this study.In the following section, an analysis on the global Baby Bottles market on the basis of value, revenue, and size is encapsulated under this study. Factors impacting the development of the market, such as the market drivers, opportunities, restraints, and trends also form a vital part of this report. Then, the report presents information on the technological developments taking place in the global Baby Bottles market and insights into how these developments are poised to impact the growth of the market.To Download Sample visit @The report further utilizes various analytical tools such as SWOT analysis and Porteras five forces analysis for providing an accurate understanding of this market. The dominant regions have been encapsulated under the geographical segmentation section of the report on the global Baby Bottles market.The vendor landscape section of this study familiarizes the readers with the top vendors operating in the global Baby Bottles market. An evaluation on these players on the basis of attributes such as company profile, product introduction, and contact information has been included under this section of the report.Browse Complete Report with TOC @Table of ContentsChapter One Baby Bottles Industry Overview1.1 Baby Bottles Definition1.1.1 Baby Bottles Product Pictures & Product Specifications1.2 Baby Bottles Classification & ApplicationChapter Two Baby Bottles Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis2.1 Baby Bottles Raw Material & Equipments Supplier and Price Analysis2.2 Baby Bottles Labor & Other Cost Analysis2.3 Baby Bottles Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis2.4 Baby Bottles Manufacturing Process AnalysisChapter Three Baby Bottles Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis3.1 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Baby Bottles Capacity and Commercial Production Date3.2 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Baby Bottles Manufacturing Plants Distribution3.3 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Baby Bottles R&D Status and Technology Sources3.4 2016 Global Key Manufacturers Baby Bottles Raw Materials Sources AnalysisChapter Four Baby Bottles Production by Regions, Technology and Applications4.1 2010-2016 Baby Bottles Production by Regions(such as US, EU, China and Japan etc)4.2 2010-2016 Baby Bottles Production by Product Type & Application4.3 2010-2016 Baby Bottles Price by key Manufacturers4.4 2010-2016 US & China Baby Bottles Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value Analysis4.5 2010-2016 Europe and Japan Baby Bottles Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value Analysis4.6 2010-2016 US and China Baby Bottles Supply Import Export Consumption4.7 2010-2016 Europe and Japan Baby Bottles Supply Import Export ConsumptionChapter Five Baby Bottles Sales and Sales Revenue by Regions5.1 2010-2016 Baby Bottles Sales by Regions (such as US, EU, China & Japan etc)5.2 2010-2016 Baby Bottles Sales Revenue by Regions (such as US EU China Japan etc)5.3 2010-2016 Baby Bottles Sales Price by Regions (such as US EU China Japan etc)5.4 2010-2016 Baby Bottles Demand by ApplicationsRead More @QYResearchReports.com is an unimpeachable source of market research data for clients that comprise acclaimed SMEs, Chinese companies, private equity firms, and MNCs. We provide market research reports on various categories such as Energy, Chemicals, Alternative and Green Energy, Manufacturing, Machinery, Pharmaceuticals and Materials, and Glass.1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United States+1-518-621-2074866-997-4948USA-Canada Toll freesales@qyresearchreports.com
Global Nitrogen Market: Trends,Opportunities and Forecasts, 2015-2021

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Nitrogen is an odorless, colorless chemical element which is a source of raw material in various important industrial compounds such as nitric acid, ammonia, and cyanides. It occurs in majority of the organisms, primarily amino acids such as proteins, and nucleic acids (RNA and DNA). Nitrogen is widely used as fertilizers where synthetically manufactured nitrates and ammonia are some of the vital industrial fertilizers used in the agrochemical industry. Other than fertilizers, nitrogen compounds are versatile organics used in industrial applications, developing Kevlar fabric and pharmaceutical drugs such as antibiotics.Request Sample:The global market for nitrogen has been witnessing noticeable growth mostly due to the development of the fertilizer industry. Moreover, long term leases of ammonia vessels at fixed prices have enabled large scale companies to manage transportation costs thereby providing economical delivery to the consumers in developed as well as developing regions. These companies also own manufacturing facilities as well as major supply contracts with certain region emerging economies such as China thereby gaining flexibility and logistics strength for the imports.Growing demand for fertilizers on account of increasing food grain production is anticipated to boost the demand for nitrogen over the forecast period. However, increasing health and environmental concern regarding the ill effects of nitrogen based chemical fertilizers are expected to slow down the growth of the market. Increasing focus towards developing bio based agrochemicals such as nitrogen fixation biofertilizers are anticipated to provide new opportunities for the growth of the market. North America remained the largest consumer for nitrogen. However, Asia Pacific is expected to lead the market over the forecast period on account of increasing use of agrochemicals and rising industrial activities in emerging economies such as China and India.Request TOC:Agrium Inc., PotashCorp, ICL Fertilizers, K+S AG, Sinofert, Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile(SQM), andThe Mosaic Company among others are some of the major manufacturers of nitrogen dominating the market.About Us:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact Us:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Phytosterols Market is Expected to reach US$926.7 mn by 2021, Expanding at a 10.0% CAGR between 2015 & 2021

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Recent technological advancements have made phytosterols fit for commercial extraction. In the last few years demand for phytosterols has considerably increased across developed countries as they witness a high incidence of heart diseases. Despite being structurally quite similar to cholesterols, phytosterols have cholesterol lowering properties. The knowledge regarding the same has been fuelling their demand across countries with high prevalence of obesity, which is a primary cause of heart diseases.View exclusive Global strategic Business report :However, as per Transparency Market Research (TMR), the phytosterols market is yet to establish a strong footprint across developing countries. The inadequate awareness about the intrinsic health benefits of phytosterols limits scope for the markets growth across these regions.Nevertheless, the prospects for the market in Asia Pacific seem very lucrative, as India and China witness a rising incidence of coronary heart diseases. Spurred by these factors, the global phytosterols market is expected to report a CAGR of 10% between 2015 and 2021. The market is expected to reach US$926.7 mn in 2021 from a valuation of US$473.8 in 2014.Use of Phytosterols as Food Ingredients to Increase RapidlyPhytosterols exhibit diverse applications across industries such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and food and beverages. In 2014, the use of phytosterols as food ingredients held the largest market share in terms of value. According to TMR, demand from food ingredients segment accounted for over 50.45% of the market in 2014. The rising use of phytosterols as food ingredients due to their cholesterol lower properties is expected to fuel demand from the segment during the forecast period. Manufacturers operating in the food and beverages industry are including phytosterols in many of their food products to cater to their consumers health requirements.However, during the forecast period demand from the pharmaceuticals segment is expected to rise at the highest rate. The increasing awareness among consumers about the benefits of phytosterols in reducing the risk of heart diseases is fuelling demand from the segment. Furthermore, the incidence of heart ailments is expected to increase in India and China, thereby escalating phytosterols demand from these countries.Browse Full Phytosterols Market Report At:Besides this, the cosmetics industry is a niche segment in the global phytosterols market. However, the demand from this segment is also expected to rise in the forthcoming years. The rising disposable income of consumers will be the primary factor bolstering use of phytosterols in the cosmetics industry.Europe and North America Emerge as Most Lucrative Markets for PhytosterolsGeographically, Europe accounted for 40.27% of the demand witnessed in the global phytosterols market in 2014. The increasing application of phytosterols across end-use industries such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and food and beverages has been fuelling demand for phytosterols from the region. Besides this, the increasing incidence of coronary heart diseases is a key factor fuelling demand for phytosterols from Europe and North America, alike.The high prevalence of obesity has emerged as a major cause of concern for policymakers in North America. Since phytosterols are cholesterol reducing agents, they are considered ideal for preventing increased cholesterol level in human body. Their demand is thus expected to increase substantially across these developed regions through the forecast period.In contrast, the lack of awareness about the benefits of phytosterols is limiting the markets expansion across Asia Pacific and Rest of the World (RoW). However, TMR, expects, the phytosterols market in Rest of the World to rise at the highest pace during the forecast period. The rising disposable income of consumers in RoW has led them to upgrade their lifestyle. This will subsequently boost prospects for the phytosterols market.Some of key players operating in the market are Archer Daniels Midland Co., BASF SE, Bunge Ltd, Triple Crown AB, E.I. DuPont De Nemours, Pharmachem Laboratories, and others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Managed Services Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2015-2022

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The new research report on Managed Services Market offered by DecisionDatabases.com provides Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast till 2022.View More about Managed Services Market Research Report @The report on global managed services market evaluates the growth trends of the industry through historical study and estimates future prospects based on comprehensive research. The report extensively provides the market share, growth, trends and forecasts for the period 2015-2022. The market size in terms of revenue (USD MN) is calculated for the study period along with the details of the factors affecting the market growth (drivers and restraints).A glimpse of the major drivers and restraints affecting this market is mentioned below:A. Drivers> Rise in the complexity of technological solutions> Dependency over heterogeneous networks of applications and infrastructure> Increase in the adoption of big data solutions> Reduced cost of operation and flexibility to match custom requirements> Technical support by Msps> Cost-efficient servicesB. Restraints> Doubts in efficiency and effectiveness of managed services> Long-term recurring expenditureGet Free Sample Copy of this Report @Furthermore, the report quantifies the market share held by the major players of the industry and provides an in-depth view of the competitive landscape. This market is classified into different segments with detailed analysis of each with respect to geography for the study period 2015-2022.The comprehensive value chain analysis of the market will assist in attaining better product differentiation, along with detailed understanding of the core competency of each activity involved. The market attractiveness analysis provided in the report aptly measures the potential value of the market providing business strategists with the latest growth opportunities.The report classifies the market into different segments based on type and end-user. These segments are studied in detail incorporating the market estimates and forecasts at regional and country level. The segment analysis is useful in understanding the growth areas and probable opportunities of the market.Leading Segment in this market:By Type - Managed Data CenterBy End-User - Large EnterpriseBy Geography - North AmericaThe report also covers the complete competitive landscape of the worldwide market with company profiles of key players such as Accenture PLC, AT&T, Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Computer Science Corp., Ericsson, Fujitsu Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Enterpris, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd, IBM Corporation, Nokia Networks, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and Wipro Limited. A detailed description of each has been included, with information in terms of H.Q, future capacities, key mergers & acquisitions, financial overview, partnerships, collaborations, new product launches, new product developments and other latest industrial developments.Major Table Of Contents:1. INTRODUCTION2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY3. MARKET ANALYSIS4. MANAGED SERVICES MARKET ANALYSIS BY TYPE5. MANAGED SERVICES MARKET ANALYSIS BY END-USER6. MANAGED SERVICES MARKET ANALYSIS BY GEOGRAPHY7. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE OF THE MANAGED SERVICES COMPANIES8. COMPANY PROFILES OF THE MANAGED SERVICES INDUSTRYOrder a complete Managed Services Market Research Report @DecisionDatabases.com is a global business research reports provider, enriching decision makers and strategists with qualitative statistics. DecisionDatabases.com is proficient in providing syndicated research report, customized research reports, company profiles and industry databases across multiple domains.Our expert research analysts have been trained to map clients research requirements to the correct research resource leading to a distinctive edge over its competitors. We provide intellectual, precise and meaningful data at a lightning speed.3rd Floor,Fountain chambers,Nanabhai Lane,Fort, Mumbai - 1E-Mail: sales@decisiondatabases.comPhone: +91 99 28 237112Web: decisiondatabases.com
Global Classroom Displays Market to grow at a CAGR of 30.04% during the period 2016-2020.

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"The Report Global Classroom Displays Market 2016-2020 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"DescriptionAbout the education sectorOver the years, the education sector has built IT infrastructure to be able to seamlessly employ educational technologies. This development in educational institutions is contributing to the gradual transformation of the traditional classroom structure. The latter is being replaced with other modes of education such as blended learning and collaborative learning.Technavios analysts forecast the Global Classroom Displays Market to grow at a CAGR of 30.04% during the period 2016-2020.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global classroom displays market 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of display devices to the education sector that includes K-12 schools and higher educational institutions.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:North AmericaEuropeAPACROWDownload Detail Report With Complete TOC at:Technavio's report, Global Classroom Displays Market 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsBenQPrometheanSeiko EpsonSmart TechnologiesOther prominent vendorsAcerHitachiLG ElectronicsSonyMarket driverAdvances in technologyFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeHigh implementation costsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendGamified learning experienceFor a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?Browse all latest Press Releases of Market Research Reportsat:About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports.MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients.We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated researchreports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and typesof companies spanning across various industries.Contact90 Sate Street,Suite 700 Albany,NY 12207 USATel: +1-518-621-2074Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizFollow us on LinkedIn:
Flexible Plastic Packaging Market : Facts, Figures and Analytical Insights 2014  2020

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Plastic packaging refers to packaging containers made of polymers such as high density polyethylene (HDPE), low density polyethylene (LDPE), polyethylene teraphthalate (PET), polypropylene (PP), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Plastic packaging is one of the most rapidly growing segments of the packaging industry, and combines the best qualities of various plastics to deliver a wide range of protective properties while using a minimum quantity of material. Technological innovation and changing consumer trends in the packaging industry have led to the growing demand for plastic packaging.Factors such as growth of the food & beverage industry, increasing consumer preference towards flexible packaging and rising demand for plastics in pharmaceutical packaging is expected to propel the market growth for plastic packaging. However, fluctuation in crude oil prices which leads to change in prices of its downstream chemicals is expected to slow down the growth of the market. Nonetheless, growing demand for bioplastics and emerging usage of nanotechnology in plastic packaging is anticipated to open growth avenues for the plastic packaging market.Read Complete Report @Plastic packaging is segmented into rigid plastic and flexible plastics. Within rigid plastic packaging, products are cased inside rigid containers with dimensional stability. Flexible packaging is made up of flexible or yielding materials, which readily alter shape when filled with goods. Rigid packaging (including bottles, PTTs, closures, etc.) accounts for majority of the global plastic packaging. Rigid plastics are expected to witness exponential growth as plastic containers are generally preferred to metal, paperboard, and glass packaging in many applications.Food & beverages was the largest end-use segment for plastic packaging and accounted for over 65% of the market share in 2013. Changing lifestyles and eating habits of consumers has led to growing demand for packaged fast foods over the past few years and the trend is expected to continue over the next few years. However, medical is expected to be the fastest growing application segment in the plastic packaging market as the healthcare industry is expected to grow significantly over the next few years. This growth is as a result of various factors including governmental initiatives, rising consumer awareness regarding general health, increase in disposable income, rising number of chronic diseases and growing aging population among others. Stringent regulations regarding packaging of pharmaceuticals to prevent fraudulent drugs in the market and to maintain the chemical properties of the drugs is expected to boost the demand for plastic packaging over the next few years.Enquiry For This Report @Asia Pacific, accounting for over 35% of the market share, witnessed the highest demand for plastic packaging in 2013 and this trend is expected to continue within the forecast period. Several factors such as rising demand of packaged food, changing lifestyles and eating habits, and growing demand from the healthcare industry are expected to drive the demand for plastic packaging in this region. Demand for plastic packaging is expected to be above average in developed markets of North America and Europe in the next few years with respect to end-use industries such as medical, and food & beverages among others.Request a Sample Copy of the Report @Companies such as Amcor Ltd., Bemis Company Inc., Huhtamaki Oyj, Mondi, Sealed Air Corporation and Sonoco Products are key players present in the plastic packaging market. Several large, medium and small scale plastic packaging manufacturers offer a wide range of plastic packaging of various sizes, shapes and colors possessing different technical specifications such as thickness, breadth and width among others.About MRRSEMRRSE stands for Market Research Reports Search Engine, the largest online catalog of latest market research reports based on industries, companies, and countries. MRRSE sources thousands of industry reports, market statistics, and company profiles from trusted entities and makes them available at a click. Besides well-known private publishers, the reports featured on MRRSE typically come from national statistics agencies, investment agencies, leading media houses, trade unions, governments, and embassies.Corporate Office State Tower 90 State Street, Suite 700 Albany, NY 12207,United States
Unbelievable globally growth of Industrial Protective Footwear Market in 2014 - 2020

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Industrial protective footwear market encompasses safety footwear in order to improve workplace safety in different industries. These industrial utilities include chemicals, oil and gas, construction, transportation, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, food and mining among others. Safety boots have a protective reinforcement in the toe, which is made from steel or a composite material such as polyurethane or aluminum among others. End users in this market purchase different safety boots depending on the requirement and the needs of a specific industry.At present, safety footwear comes in many styles that include clogs and sneakers. Formal safety footwear is also available which is used by supervising engineers across different industries. Safety footwear come with safety symbol printed on them. Government regulatory bodies issue this safety symbol and it indicates the protection level of the footwear. In addition, these boots are produced in compliance with the safety shoe standards of different countries such as ANSI (American National Standard for Personal Protection-Protective Footwear) standard in the U.S.Read Complete Report @Occupational safety and health legislation in many countries mandate the use of safety boots in industries. At present, these regulations across regions such as North America, Europe and Asia Pacific are fueling the demand for safety footwear. In addition, with the increase in number of worker accidents, the adoption of protective footwear is increasing. Worker safety issues are being addressed and industrialists are focused on improving the safety standards owing to which there is an increase in the demand for safety footwear globally.Construction is the largest application segment for industrial protective footwear in North America. The construction segment was valued at USD 668.6 million in 2013 and is expected to witness stable growth in the forecast period. However, oil and gas is the fastest growing application segment for industrial protective footwear in North America. The oil and gas application segment was valued at USD 158.4 million in 2013. The increasing number of automobiles and increasing usage in business utilities is one of the major factors boosting the growth in this segment.Enquiry For This Report @Europe dominated the industrial protective footwear market in 2013. North America followed Europe very closely with a significant market share. Leather footwear held the largest market share for industrial protective footwear in Europe. The leather footwear segment was valued at USD 1890.8 million in 2013 and is expected to see stable growth in the forecast period. However, plastic footwear is expected to be the fastest growing product segment growing at a CAGR of 7.8% from 2014 to 2020.Request a Sample Copy of the Report @Presence of large number of safety shoe manufacturers in countries such as Italy, Germany, France, Spain and UK among others is positively supporting the market in Europe. For example, Italy has a larger number of key market players such as Jal Group, Giasco, Safetal, Siili Safety and Sofra among others. In addition, stringent regulations related to the mandatory use of safety footwear are responsible for the growth. In North America, the demand is increasing due to strict legislations coupled with the growth of niche markets. Asia pacific and RoW is majorly supported by growth in countries such as China, India, Taiwan, Korea, Brazil, South America and Africa among others. These regions are expected to have high growth during the forecasted period.About MRRSEMRRSE stands for Market Research Reports Search Engine, the largest online catalog of latest market research reports based on industries, companies, and countries. MRRSE sources thousands of industry reports, market statistics, and company profiles from trusted entities and makes them available at a click. Besides well-known private publishers, the reports featured on MRRSE typically come from national statistics agencies, investment agencies, leading media houses, trade unions, governments, and embassies.Corporate Office State Tower 90 State Street, Suite 700 Albany, NY 12207,United States
Refrigerated Counter Market to Cross US$8.7 bn by 2024 - New Report Released by TMR

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Refrigerated counters have been witnessing strong demand globally majorly due to the growing presence of restaurants and food chains around the world. The refrigerated counters market is mostly concentrated in North America and Europe owing to a large number of hotels and catering service providers in these regions. The emergence of new hotels and cafes in response to the ever-growing tourism industry in developing countries is also likely to support the growth of the refrigerated counters market.The implementation of government regulations to control energy consumption and reduce the use of harmful refrigerants is expected to boost the replacement demand for refrigerated counters among end users in the coming years. Increasing stringency of food safety and quality regulations are also anticipated to support the market.The revenue of the global refrigerated counters market stood at US$4.5 bn in 2015; this is projected to expand at a CAGR of 7.7% during the forecast period to reach US$8.7 bn by 2024.Download Report Sample:Hotels End-use Segment Holds Immense Promise of GrowthSystem catering emerged as the top end-use segment of the global refrigerated counters market and is projected to hold a whopping 80.9% share by the end of 2016. However, the segment is expected to lose a marginal share in the market by 2024. The hotels segment, on the other hand, will exhibit a strong 9.3% CAGR in terms of revenue from 2016 to 2024. Within the system catering segment, quick service restaurants (QSR) are expected to contribute the highest revenue to the overall refrigerated counters market.By design, counters with doors and with prep-table tops are expected to dominate the market due to increasing demand in kitchens. By product, the others segment, which includes counters without standard dimensions, is expected to lead the refrigerated counters market in the coming years.Geographically, North America and Asia Pacific are the most promising markets for refrigerated counters. While North America is expected to account for a 36.9% share in the global market by 2024, Asia Pacific is anticipated to register an impressive CAGR of 10.1% from 2016 to 2024.Growth of Hospitality and Tourism Industry a Major BoostPublic health and safety regulations play a vital role in the refrigerated counters market. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that the outbreak of food-borne diseases and the contamination of food are posing a major threat to public health at a global level. It has been observed that production, processing, and transportation of food are the primary causes of food contamination. In a bid to reduce the incidences of food-borne illnesses, several food safety organizations are introducing stringent food preparation and storage regulations, which includes the use of refrigerated counters, the author of the report states.The ongoing expansion of fast food chains is also expected to benefit the market for refrigerated counters as these facilities require an extensive range of refrigerated equipment. This trend is particularly going to impact the demand for counters with drawers, doors, and prep-table tops. A rise in the number of hotels, restaurants, and other food service outlets catering to the needs of tourists across Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific will also support the refrigerated counters market.Read More:Illinois Tool Works, Inc., Hoshizaki Corp., Ali Group, Electrolux AB, and Liebherr - the top five players in the global refrigerated counters market - accounted for a share of just under 62% in 2015. Transparency Market Research notes that this fragmented market is characterized by the presence of an increasing number of players attempting to gain market share via mergers, acquisitions, and divestments. Product innovation and technology differentiation are expected to be the major competing parameters for manufacturers in the next few years. With the number of players looking to enter the refrigerated counters market expected to rise, the degree of competition is slated to increase by the end of forecast period.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Patient Temperature Management Market - Strategic Assessment and Forecast Till 2021

Patient Temperature Management Market | Beige Market Intelligence

Patient Temperature Management Market- Report InsightsThe patient temperature management market to reach $1.642 billion in 2021.The market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.59% during the forecast period.Global Patient Temperature Management Market-Strategic Assessment and Forecast Till 2021 report considers the present scenario of worldwide patient temperature management and strategic assessment of the market for the period 2015-2021.The patient temperature management systems are the medical devices used to regulate patient temperature i.e. to maintain normothermia. Normothermia is defined as a bodys core temperature of 36C - 38C. The temperature management systems are used to maintain the normal body temperature of critically ill patients during surgical procedures. These systems are widely used in a range of application areas. The market for patient temperature management can be categorized on the basisBy Product Type Patient Warming Systems Patient Cooling SystemsBy Application Perioperative care Acute care New born care Other applicationsBy End-User Surgical Centers Emergency Care Units Ambulatory SitesBy Geography North America Europe APAC ROWFurther, a detailed mapping of the region wise regulations and associated legalities governing the usage of the Patient Temperature Management System is provided in the report. The report also provides market share and profiles of the key vendors operating in the Global Patient Temperature Management System Market and further shows a detailed competitive landscape of key players.Patient Temperature Management-Market Size and DynamicsThe worldwide patient temperature management market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.59% during the forecast period. The market research analyst at Beige Market Intelligence expect the market to reach US$1.642 billion by 2021.Rising demand for surgical procedures and guidelines set by the National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE) for adoption of patient warming systems in several indications is driving the market growth for patient temperature management solutions. The patient warming systems account for the large share of the market in 2015 and are expected to grow at a highest CAGR of 8.0% during the forecast period. Factors such as growing demand of warming systems owing to the benefits it offers and launch of more patient warming systems as compared to patient cooling systems is driving its growth. Chemotherapy is amongst the common treatment used to cure cancer patients. The treatment of chemotherapy employs patient cooling systems to protect hair follicles and prevent hair loss. Thus, with the rise in number of cancer cases, the market for patient cooling systems is likely to propel.Patient Temperature Management System  Geographic AnalysisNorth America accounts for the major share of the market in 2015 in terms of geography. North America is expected to continue dominating the patient temperature management market in near future followed by Europe. After North America, Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow. Europe is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.84% during the forecast period, which is slowest amongst all the geographies. In North America, the U.S. holds the largest share in the patient temperature management market.The growth in the patient temperature management market in the U.K. can be attributed to the estimated rise in incidences of heart surgeries and increase in number of cosmetic surgeries. A number of market players are focusing on expanding their business in the emerging countries of Asia-Pacific. The report outlines the market size and market growth in the major geographic regions and different countries.Patient Temperature Management- Drivers, Trends and ChallengesThis market research report on Patient Temperature Management System provides an overview of the factors driving and restraining the growth of the Worldwide Patient Temperature Management System market. The market research report also outlines the emerging market trends that will contribute to the growth of the market during the forecast period.Some of the factors driving the growth of Patient Temperature Management Market are rise in incidence of cardiac and neurological disorders. Many research studies have indicated that survivors of cardiac arrest are prone to suffer from devastating neurological impairments. High incidence of cardiac arrest positively impacts the patient temperature management systems market. Temperature management is widely used to prevent neurological damage after cardiac arrests. Also reputed healthcare organisation are using the patient temperature management system to maintain the normal temperature during the cardiac and neurologic surgery. Other factors include cancer treatment or chemotherapy. The increased use of chemotherapeutical treatment for the cancer patients is another major factor for the growth of patient temperature management products.A larger number of conferences revolving around the temperature management market have been organized in the past few years. Players in this market are focusing on developing portable temperature management systems to increase its adoption during emergencies. For instance, in October 2012, Welkins, LLC, received FDA approval for its EMT and ICU temperature management systems.Development of such portable devices is likely to increase the adoption of patient temperature management systems at ambulatory sitesPatient Temperature Management System- Market Share and Key vendorsThe report Patient Temperature Management market also provides the competitive landscape of the key players. The report covers the players operating in the entire value chain of the market. The major players identified within the report are3M CompanySmiths Group plcCovidien plcStryker CorporationC. R. BardZOLL Medical CorporationGeratherm Medical AGInditherm plcCincinnati Sub-Zero Medical DivisionThe 37CompanyAbout Beige Market IntelligenceBeige Market Intelligence is a provider of competitive business intelligence, working across various industry verticals. Our expertise and knowledge ensures that the market analysis Beige provides is comprehensive, detailed and complete. The analysis helps our client organizations become aware and to make educated decisions, as far as investing or devising a marketing strategy is concerned. The actionable insights delivered through our market research provide a comprehensive market analysis for every level of market segmentation in an industry.Our team of experts ensure the analysis you receive is not just analyzed and presented, but can also be customized based on the clients requirement. Our deliverables guarantee our current global client base do not look beyond Beige when it comes to competitive intelligence.Beige has an employee base present across the globe. Our analysts come with numerous years of industry experience, which ensures we not only understand our clients but deliver high quality reports as well.Beige Market IntelligenceChinnapannahalli Main road, Bangalore- 560037contactus@beigemarketintelligence.comUS: +1 347 903 9949UK: +44 20 323 99499APAC: +91 99 012 75473
Facilities Management Market in Poland: Soft Services to Remain Most Widely Adopted Service Type, says TMR

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Transparency Market Research states that the Poland market for facilities management will exhibit a remarkable 9.7% CAGR over the period between 2016 and 2023. As a result, the market, which valued at US$14.34 bn in 2015, is expected to hold an opportunity of US$32.62 bn by 2024. Of the key end-use sectors employing facilities management services, the corporate sector accounts is the leading revenue contributor to the Poland facilities management market and is expected to account for a nearly 19% of the market in 2016. In terms of type of services, the segment of soft services dominates and is expected to account for a nearly 60% of the Poland market in 2016.Brochure Download:Rising Adoption of Outsourced Services to Bode Well for Market GrowthThe Poland facilities management market is primarily driven due to the vast rise in demand for outsourced services to manage and increase productivity across the corporate, manufacturing, retail, and industrial sectors. The increased adoption of outsourced facilities management services across these sectors in Poland is expected to have a medium impact on the growth of the market in the short and medium term of the forecast period but high impact in the long term. This is expected to be a result of the rising penetration of Poland-based outsourced facilities management services in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.Owing to high competition across almost all sectors, businesses are emphasizing on the enhancement of performance and quality of their core services. The practice of seeking certifications for business activities and practices has also significantly increased in Poland the past few years. Consequently, an increasing number of businesses are shifting towards facilities management services outsourcing to support and increase the standardization of core services. This is expected to increase business collaborations with facilities management services internationally as well, leading to a rise in international contracts for support services.Preference to In-house Service Implementation to Hamper Market GrowthLack of awareness regarding the benefits of effective management of facilities to the overall revenues of a business and preference to in-house facility management services are the key factors hampering the growth of the Poland facilities management market. In-house facilities management services are mostly preferred across sectors where the provision of facilities management services requires the resources to build skill and knowledge for improved customer service.Report:The Poland market for facilities management is also expected to be hampered by the potential rise in labor costs, which reflects directly in the overall cost of a facilities management project. This factor could also be a potential factor stimulating companies on establishment of facilities management departments in house to support their core services.The facilities management market in Poland is highly fragmented and competitive, served by a strong base of international and domestic service providers, observes Transparency Market Research in a recent report. Key facilities management companies with their operations spread across the globe collectively held a share of 47.3% in the Poland market in 2015. In the same year, notable service providers in the facilities management arena with their services confined within the country accounted for the rest.Competition in the market is chiefly based on the cost and scope of the services being offered, both of which have significantly intensified owing to the large number of service providers. As a result, service providers have been focusing more on expanding their offerings and increasing the chances of extending present contracts. Some of markets key vendors are Sodexo, Inc., Bilfinger HSG Facility Management GmbH, Impel Tech Solutions, and Cushman & Wakefield.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Refurbished Medical Devices Market Will Grow Steadily At A CAGR Of 7.39% During The Period 2016-2020

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Refurbished Medical Devices Market 2016-2020" to its huge collection of research reports.Refurbishment involves restoring equipment to its original condition without altering any of the product's specifications. The process ensures maintenance of the safety and efficacy of the medical equipment without altering its performance. Therefore, refurbishment varies from the replacement of worn parts to cosmetic changes to complete the end-to-end manufacturing process. Usually, the replacement cycle depends on the agreement between vendor and end-user. For most refurbished medical devices, the replacement is done after 3-5 years and depends on the working condition of the device.Technavios analysts forecast the global refurbished medical devices market to grow at a CAGR of 7.39% during the period 2016-2020.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global refurbished medical devices market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of global refurbished medical devices.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEATechnavio's report, Global Refurbished Medical Devices Market 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsGE HealthcarePhilips HealthcareSiemens HealthcareToshiba Medical SystemsOther prominent vendorsAgito MedicalBlock Imaging InternationalDRE MedicalEverxIntegrity Medical SystemsRadiology Oncology SystemsSoma TechnologyStrykerMake an Enquiry of this report @Market driverIncreased sales through online marketingFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeConcerns regarding quality, safety, and efficacyFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendOEMs with strategic partnerships to propel refurbished devices marketFor a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Global LVAD Market Report: 2015 Edition | Now Available at Researchmoz.us

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global LVAD Market Report: 2015 Edition" to its huge collection of research reports.Left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) are mechanical heart pumps used to support a failing heart in patients with advanced heart failure. LVADs are lifesaving modules for patients who need temporary cardiac assistance and for those waiting for heart transplantation. They are used in the bridge-to-transplantation (BTT), destination therapy (DT) and bridge to recovery. LVAD is a key potential area of focus for researchers and various manufacturers at present. The cost-effectiveness and increased insurance reimbursement conditions are likely to increase the demand for LVADs in the future.The report Global LVAD Market provides a comprehensive analysis of the global market for LVAD, global BTT and DT market along with in-depth study of the US market and focus on application area worldwide. The major trends, growth drivers as well as issues being faced by the industry are being presented in this report. The three major players in the industry, Thoratec Corporation, Heartware International Inc. and Abiomed Inc. are being profiled.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The key factors driving the growth of the LVAD market are increasing diabetic population, rising healthcare expenditure, ageing population and technological developments. Some of the noteworthy trend and developments of this industry are new product development and expansion in number of LVAD centers. However, the expansion of global LVAD market is hindered by serious adverse events with implantable LVADs and barriers for DT adoptionBy combining SPSS Inc.s data integration and analysis capabilities with our relevant findings, we have predicted the future growth of the industry. We employed various significant variables that have an impact on this industry and created regression models with SPSS Base to determine the future direction of the industry. Before deploying the regression model, the relationship between several independent or predictor variables and the dependent variable was analyzed using standard SPSS output, including charts, tables and tests.Table Of Content1. Overview1.1 Heart Failure1.1.1 Introduction1.1.2 Various Stages of Heart Failure1.1.3 Available Treatment Options for HF1.2 Ventricular Assist Device1.2.1 Type of VADS1.2.2 Applications1.3 LVAD: An Overview2. LVAD Market Analysis2.1 Global MarketMarket ValueMarket VolumePenetration Rate2.2 The US LVAD MarketMarket ValueMarket VolumeMarket SegmentsPenetration RateImplant Volume GrowthMake an Enquiry of this report @3. Market Dynamics3.1 Key Trends and Development3.1.1 New Product Development3.1.2 Expansion in the Number of LVAD Centers3.2 Growth Drivers3.2.1 Technological Advancements3.2.2 Growing Ventricular Assist Devices (VADs) Therapy3.2.3 Ageing Population Worldwide3.2.4 Increasing Diabetic Population3.2.5 Rising Healthcare Expenditure3.2.6 Economic Growth3.3 Challenges3.3.1 Serious Adverse Events with Implantable LVADs3.3.2 Barriers for DT Adoption4. Competitive Landscape5. Company Profiles5.1 Thoratec Corporation5.1.1 Business Overview5.1.2 Financial Overview5.1.3 Business Strategies5.2 Heartware International Inc.5.2.1 Business Overview5.2.2 Financial Overview5.2.3 Business Strategies5.3 Abiomed, Inc.5.3.1 Business Overview5.3.2 Financial Overview5.3.3 Business Strategies6. Market Outlook6.1 Market Forecast6.2 Forecast Methodology6.2.1 Dependent and Independent Variables6.2.2 Correlation Analysis6.2.3 Regression AnalysisBrowse Our Latest Press Releases @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Latest Research Report on Global Car Rental Market Analysis and Overview 2015

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Car Rental Market Report: 2015 Edition" to its huge collection of research reports.A car rental company rents automobiles for short periods of time, generally ranging from a few hours to a few weeks. It is often organized with numerous local branches (which allow a user to return a vehicle to a different location), and primarily located near airports or busy city areas and often complemented by a website allowing online reservations.The key factors driving the growth of the car rental market are rising internet and mobile penetration, growth in urban population, rising population of HNWIs and growing economy. Some of the noteworthy trends and developments of this industry are consumer spending trend, growth of virtual car ownership, development of rental management system and growth in used car auction. However, the expansion of global car rental market is hindered by global financial turmoil and liquidity constraints and heavy capital requirement.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The report Global Car Rental Market provides an in-depth analysis of the global car rental market, with focus on key markets of the US, Brazil, and China. The major trends, growth drivers as well as issues being faced by the industry are being presented in this report. The three major players in the industry, Enterprise Holdings, Avis Budget Group, Inc. and Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. are being profiled, along with their key financials and strategies for growth.By combining SPSS Inc.s data integration and analysis capabilities with our relevant findings, we have predicted the future growth of the industry. We employed various significant variables that have an impact on this industry and created regression models with SPSS Base to determine the future direction of the industry. Before deploying the regression model, the relationship between several independent or predictor variables and the dependent variable was analyzed using standard SPSS output, including charts, tables and tests.Table Of Content1. Market Overview1.1 Car Rental Business Model1.2 Car Rental Conditions1.3 Revenue and Cost Structure2. Market Size2.1 Global Car Rental MarketMarket ValueMarket SegmentsPenetration Rate2.2 Regional Analysis2.2.1 US MarketMarket ValueMarket Volume2.2.2 BrazilMarket Volume2.2.3 ChinaMarket ValueMarket SegmentsCustomer Demographics2.2.4 KoreaMarket ValueMarket VolumeMake an Enquiry of this report @3. Market Dynamics3.1 Key Trends and Developments3.1.1 Consumer Spending Trend3.1.2 Growth of Virtual Car Ownership3.1.3 Development of Rental Management System3.1.4 Development of High Speed Trains and Airlines3.1.5 Growth in Used Car Auction3.2 Growth Drivers3.2.1 Growth of CarSharing Market3.2.2 Increased Consumption on Leisure Travel3.2.3 Increasing Gap Between the number of licensed drivers and Private Cars3.2.4 Rising Internet and Mobile Penetration3.2.5 Growing Urban Population3.2.6 Economic Growth3.2.7 Rising Population of HNWIs3.3 Issues and Challenges3.3.1 Global Financial Turmoil and Liquidity constraints3.3.2 Heavy Capital Requirements4. Competitive Landscape4.1 Korea4.2 The US4.3 Japan4.4 China4.5 Brazil5. Company Profiles5.1 Enterprise Holdings, Inc.5.1.1 Business Overview5.1.2 Financial Overview5.1.3 Business Strategies5.2 Avis Budget Group, Inc.5.2.1 Business Overview5.2.2 Financial Overview5.2.3 Business Strategies5.3 Hertz Global Holdings, Inc.5.3.1 Business Overview5.3.2 Financial Overview5.3.3 Business Strategies6. Market Outlook6.1 Market Forecast6.2 Forecast Methodology6.2.1 Dependent and Independent Variables6.2.2 Correlation Analysis6.2.3 Regression AnalysisAbout ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Global Crude Oil Pipeline Market Will Reach 537.8 Thousand Miles Of Total Length, During The Period 2016-2020

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Crude Oil Pipelines Market 2016-2020" to its huge collection of research reports.The crude oil processing cycle involves many stages to locate, develop, produce, and utilize the oil found underground. The overall petroleum value chain, based on these activities, is divided into the following broad segments:UpstreamMidstreamDownstreamTechnavios analysts forecast the global crude oil pipeline market to reach 537.8 thousand miles of total length, during the period 2016-2020.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global crude oil pipeline market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report presents the vendor landscape with an analysis of the significance of innovations in the current market, and how they may prove to be game changers in the future.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEANew report, global crude oil pipeline market 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsABBGE Oil & GasSaipemTechnipKinder MorganShellOther prominent vendorsBharat PetroleumBPCairnCaspian Pipeline ConsortiumChina National PetroleumInter PipelineMOLSaudi AramcoSunocoValero EnergyAker SolutionsBechtelDaewoo Engineering & ConstructionHyundai Heavy EngineeringMott MacdonaldTecnicas ReunidasWorley ParsonEmerson Process ManagementFMC TechnologiesHuawei TechnologiesInfosysRockwell AutomationSAPSchneider ElectricWIPROYokogawa ElectricZTEMake an Enquiry of this report @Market driverIncrease in multinational joint development agreementsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeRequirement of billion-dollar investments in pipelinesFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendHeated pipeline technologyFor a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Surf W3eductaion and Get the Best of Online Education

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W3Education is a school directory portal that stacks a number of links to different reputed educational institutions. Any students logging in with this school directory portal can easily obtain access to more than a hundred thousand degree programs. This website neither is an online university nor does it any resources to garner in-depth insights pertinent to a subject. However, an individual obtaining membership with this portal can easily find links that shall redirect web surfers to different online universities from across the globe.Many students, in the present date, lead a combined lifestyle of pursuing education and earning simultaneously. Education being made available via the internet is one of the most happening tasks that have assisted many students and working professionals to expand their knowledge in a certain domain and earn at the same time. W3Education group has also made its appearance with a main aim of making things easier on the part of the students to find these educational institutions and universities that can help them enroll for different programs.As an online instruction index gateway, the W3Education sprung up with a central motivation behind being advantageous and helpful to understudies. Empowering understudies to discover each data they are looking for identifying with instruction in any given stream right from artisanship and outline, business, correspondence and media, culinary expressions, designing and engineering, style, lawful studies, and restorative studies can be found over this gateway. W3Education is stocks mass measure of assets that can be of awesome help for understudies in enlisting for their favored projects.The administrations offered by the Education Directory bunch does not include a penny's ventures in this way making utilization of these free assets can simply help understudies to never sweat about money related deficiencies. Seeking higher studies in a specific area dependably conveys awesome brilliant light to the eventual fate of the competitors.In addition to offering links to reputed online schools, students can also find career information that can help them make wiser decisions when it comes to choosing the right degree programs. The experts linked with this school directory group constantly make an effort to update the number of schools and accredited institutions made available for students. In this way, students can have many more references and resources to pursue their dream career. Visit the official website of the W3Education group atto know more.W3education is a reputed directory web portal that maintains huge networks of different online education and institutions. Students can log in at W3education and find renowned institutions that offer access to pursue graduate programs and diploma courses in various spectrums. The W3education is now growing to be the largest education directory portal.Contact :Casella Postale 143,Castagnola, Ticino6976, Switzerland
New Study on Global Elevator and Escalator Market Research Report: 2015 Edition

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Elevator and Escalator Market Report: 2015 Edition" to its huge collection of research reports.Elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors or levels of a building, vessel or any other structure. The major product segments of elevators are gearless, geared hydraulic and machine-room-less elevators. Whereas an escalator is a moving staircase or a conveyor transport device for carrying people between floors of a building.The global elevator and escalator (E&E) market comprises three main segments: New equipment, Modernization and Maintenance. Globally, half of the people are migrating from rural areas to urban areas, with rapid urbanization in emerging nations like China, India, and Middle East the demand for new equipment will surge in the years to come. In mature markets like US and Europe, cities and buildings are growing older and hence needs to be upgraded or modernized. Modernization is in itself a complex process but ensures safety and accessibility. For smooth movement of people inside and between the buildings, the equipment is to be maintained on a regular basis. There lies a huge growth opportunity in the maintenance segment.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The key trends observed in the market include sustainable urbanization, elevator and escalator technologies transforming the buildings. But there are certain challenges too which include pricing pressures, safety and environmental issues and availability of skilled workforce. The markets main growth drivers include accelerating urbanization, growing GDP, aging of installed base, demographic changes and growing green building market.The report provides a comprehensive study of E&E market globally. The industry comprises few large players such as UTC-Otis, KONE, Schindler and ThyssenKrupp. All these companies have been profiled in the present report highlighting their key financials and business strategies for growth.By combining SPSS Inc.s data integration and analysis capabilities with our relevant findings, we have predicted the future growth of the industry. We employed various significant variables that have an impact on this industry and created regression models with SPSS Base to determine the future direction of the industry. Before deploying the regression model, the relationship between several independent or predictor variables and the dependent variable was analyzed using standard SPSS output, including charts, tables and tests.Table Of Content1. Elevators and Escalators: Overview1.1 Elevator and Escalator (E&E) Industry1.1.1 Life Cycle1.1.2 Supply Chain1.1.3 Value ChainMake an Enquiry of this report @2. Market Analysis2.1 Global MarketMarket ValueMarket Segmentation2.1.1 Maintenance MarketMarket ValueInstalled BaseRegional Breakdown2.1.2 New Equipment MarketMarket ValueNew Units InstalledRegional Breakdown2.2 Regional Markets2.2.1 ChinaTotal Installed BaseNew Units Installed2.2.2 AsiaPacificTotal Installed BaseNew Units Installed2.2.3 EMEATotal Installed BaseNew Units Installed2.2.4 North AmericaTotal Installed BaseNew Units Installed2.2.5 South AmericaTotal Installed BaseNew Units Installed3. Market Dynamics3.1 Growth Drivers3.1.1 Accelerating Urbanization3.1.2 Growth in GDP3.1.3 Aging of Installed Base & Safety Requirements3.1.4 Dynamic Demography3.1.5 Growing Green Building Market3.2 Key Trends3.2.1 Sustainable Urbanization3.2.2 Elevator Technologies Transforming Buildings3.2.3 Efficient Escalator Technologies3.3 Challenges3.3.1 Pricing Pressures Remains3.3.2 Availability of Skilled Workforce3.3.3 Safety and Environmental Issues4. Competitive Landscape4.1 Global Market4.1.1 Maintenance Market4.2 China5. Company Profiles5.1 United Technologies Corporation5.1.1 Business Overview5.1.2 Financial Overview5.1.3 Business Strategies5.2 Kone Corporation5.2.1 Business Overview5.2.2 Financial Overview5.2.3 Business Strategies5.3 Schindler Holding Ltd5.3.1 Business Overview5.3.2 Financial Overview5.3.3 Business Strategies5.4 ThyssenKrupp AG5.4.1 Business Overview5.4.2 Financial Overview5.4.3 Business Strategies6. Market Outlook6.1 Market Forecast6.2 Forecast Methodology6.2.1 Dependent and Independent Variables6.2.2 Correlation Analysis6.2.3 Regression AnalysisAbout ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
MAN President Sani Shehu: Nigeria is now a re-emerging mining nation worth exploring

Mines and Steel Dev. Minister, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, to open Nigeria Mining Week in Abuja

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A national mining event, which we hope will grow into an international event is how the President of the Miners Association of Nigeria (MAN), Alhaji Sani Shehu, describes the upcoming, inaugural Nigeria Mining Week which is taking place in Abuja in October.Following the enthusiastic response from the mining community and the Nigerian government to the inaugural iPAD Nigeria Mining Forum in partnership with PwC Nigeria last year, MAN has joined forces with organisers Spintelligent and PwC Nigeria to create an all-encompassing meeting place for the sector.According to the MAN President, Alhaji Sani Shehu, the industry should know that with the renewed Government interest in mining development in Nigeria and the incentives such as tax holidays, removal of export duty for mining equipment and readiness of indigenous operators to partner with foreign investors, Nigeria is now a re-emerging mining nation worth exploring.International mining event for NigeriaThe Nigeria Mining Week will comprise a grand opening, where Nigerias Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, will deliver the welcome address, as well as the second edition of the iPAD Nigeria Mining & Quarrying Forum in partnership with PwC conference and exhibition, and then various workshops for artisanal and small scale miners, followed by a grand closing.The event is hosted by the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development and will welcome the entire mining ecosystem comprising of artisanal and small scale miners, junior mining operators, exploration companies, local and international investors, financial institutions, traders, solution providers as well as government bodies, to meet and discuss the current state of the market.MAN President Sani Shehu says his expectations for the Nigeria Mining Week include: to discuss and analyse the recently approved Mining Road-map with the view of operators playing their expected role to achieve the desired aspirations. Also to expose Nigerian minerals potentials to attract foreign investors and to set up a follow-up mechanism to see to the implementation of the communique reached at the end of the event.He adds that the event will become a continuation of the journey that will terminate at an international annual mining event for Nigeria.Industry support for forumThe countrys mining industry is showing its buy-in again with Bank of Industry already signed up as the silver sponsors while well-known companies such as Advocaat, Aelex, Akabogu & Associates, Banwo & Ighodalo, Kian Smith Trade & Co, Nigachem Nigeria Ltd, Palladium Mining Ltd and SBOG are also confirmed as bronze sponsors.Nigeria Mining Week dates and location:Conference and showcase: 25-28 October 2016Event location: Sheraton Hotel, Abuja, NigeriaThe Nigeria Mining Week is organised by the Miners Association of Nigeria in partnership with Spintelligent and PwC Nigeria. Spintelligent is a well-known trade conference and expo organiser on the continent. The company has particular expertise and experience in mining and infrastructure development events; including the long running flagship shows such as the iPAD series, the DRC Mining Week, CBM-TEC in Zambia, the Kenya Mining Forum in Nairobi and African Utility Week in Cape Town.Senior communications manager: Annemarie RoodbolTelephone: +27 21 700 3558Mobile: +27 82 562 7844Email: annemarie.roodbol@spintelligent.comWebsite:Postal address: PO Box 321, Steenberg, 7947, South Africa
Friday 30 September 2016 3:08pm



Professor Richard Barker

The University of Otago has selected Professor Richard Barker as the next Pro-Vice-Chancellor of its Division of Sciences. Professor Barker holds the Chair in Statistics in the Divisions Department of Mathematics and Statistics. He will take up the role for an 18-month period after Professor Keith Hunter retires at the end of this year.

Announcing the appointment Vice-Chancellor Professor Harlene Hayne says she is delighted that Professor Barker is moving into the position.

Richard Barker is a highly experienced academic who has done much to transform his departments research culture while also enhancing the quality of teaching and service it delivers. Additionally, his cross-disciplinary research background provides him with a strong appreciation of the importance of fostering collaboration across different areas of the University, Professor Hayne says.

Professor Barkers research interests include statistical theory, methods and analysis for applications in areas such as fisheries and wildlife ecology, sport science and exercise physiology and climate change.

He gained his BSc (Hons) in Zoology and later a PhD in Statistics from Massey University after spending two and a half years at the US Fish and Wildlife Research Center in Maryland.

After working as a programme leader at Landcare Research, Professor Barker joined Otagos Department of Mathematics and Statistics in 1998. In 2007 he was appointed Professor of Statistics and was Head of Department from 2008 until early this year.

In 2013 he received the New Zealand Statistical Associations Roger Littlejohn Research Award, which recognises excellence in research based on publications during the previous five years and has supervised or co-supervised more than a dozen masters and PhD students.

He is Director and Chair of Hopkins Farming Group Ltd, a Manawatu-based agribusiness and a Director of Oritain Ltd, a Dunedin-based company that specialises in the origin of food using trace-element and stable-isotope technologies.

Professor Barker says he is excited by the opportunity to lead the Division of Sciences at New Zealands most science-intensive university.

It is a privilege to have the chance to build on the legacy established by previous leaders of a division which is already strongly performing in research as measured by its PBRF standing but also by the quality of its teaching, he says.

Professor Barker says he looks forward to working with Heads of Department and other leaders in the division to build on its existing strengths in the natural and physical sciences, and particularly in areas relating to health sciences.

A key part of our strategy has to be working with Health Sciences and the other two academic divisions at Otago, which already have strong collaborative links with our division, he says.

Professor Barker says he is also keen to ensure that the division continues to play its part in supporting Maori and Pacific aspirations and diversity more generally.

For example, we are already noted for our outreach activities that support Maori and Pacific Island development in the STEM subjects but there is always room for further growth in this area, he says.

The Division of Sciences is home to the departments of Botany, Chemistry, Computer Science, Food Science, Geology, Human Nutrition, Marine Science, Mathematics and Statistics, Physics, Psychology, and Zoology, and also the Centre for Materials Science and Technologies and the world-leading Centre for Science Communication. It also includes two schools: the School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences, and the National School of Surveying.

For more information, contact:

Professor Richard Barker

Tel 03 479 7756

Email rbarker@maths.otago.ac.nz
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At 3420 E. Ashman St., theres a small sign indicating a new school. Its a reflection of how Stormi Sutherland wants her Montessori to run.

The 53-year-old Dallas native welcomed little ones for their first day of school Sept. 6 at Stormis Montessori, housed inside Faith Ministries near the East Ashman and Waldo Avenue intersection. At a ribbon cutting on Friday, she told those in attendance her dream had absolutely come true.

I dont want to be very big because I want to give 100 percent of myself, Sutherland said.

Sutherland lived in Bay City for 26 years with husband, Murray, 63, a Scottish professional boxer. They met in Dallas on the set of the 1983 movie Tough Enough. The couple moved to Midland about six or seven years ago and said they love it here. They have two children and four grandchildren. Sutherland said she has Montessori credentials from a school in Columbus and an associates degree in early childhood education from Delta College.

Currently, she has 18 students under her wing. They range in age from two and a half to six. She works with a two-person staff (she hopes to hire a third) in two rooms. There are another two rooms that could open to double capacity, though in her aim to stay small, she may use one as an office.

Murray built playground equipment and other furnishings over the summer. Turkey, deer, squirrel and other wildlife took notice of the mulched area, its tiny wooden picnic tables, toys and mini climbing ramp. They regularly emerge from nearby trees to join students and staff when outside  so often that Sutherland calls them a kind of class pets.

They get to see them all the time, she said.

Both inside and out, her goal is to teach independence, problem solving and coping in an authentic Montessori philosophy, which, along with the children, she said she adores.

I want children to be able to express themselves, she said. I want to provide children in our community a second home. Theyre capable of great things.

A typical day starts with activities in the churchs fellowship hall. Around 8 a.m., students expend some energy on the playground, which Sutherland said helps them concentrate and settle down once back inside. Also on the agenda are large group and individual skill-building activities, which can involve reading, calendar and presentations. A playground revisit follows at 11 a.m., then lunch, then a nap. Afternoons could include crafts, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, riding trikes.

She said Midlanders have grasped the Montessori philosophy.

Children thrive on a schedule and knowing whats coming next, Sutherland said. And if something is not developmentally appropriate, well stop.

Catering individually to students helps build social and emotional wellbeing, and when that happens, they can learn anything you put in front of them, Sutherland said. The preparatory school seeks to set up children for kindergarten and adulthood (because theyre going to be one, one day,she said).

In a way, Sutherlands style of tutelage may create codependence in addition to the independent tenets she practices; some 2-and-a-half-year-olds learn more from their classmates than from a teacher or guide, which, she said, can be beneficial for both age groups because it instills leadership in the older children.

Sutherland said the Montessori is not state funded, and that funding was sparse and difficult in the beginning. Efforts from supportive friends, family and staff were crucial, she said. She wants hers to be the best Montessori in the area, and to teach a love of learning that children can carry with them the rest of their lives to grow and inspire.

Its a good feeling to be a positive role model in the community, she said. I care a lot about it.

To enroll, a one-time $150 registration fee is required. Rates are $800 a month, and school is in session from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. A half price option is $375 and students attend from 8 to 11:30 a.m. Sutherland said parents can email (stormismontessori@gmail.com), call (989) 522-3954 or stop in at 3420 E. Ashman St., where the school is open for tours. See more info at www.stormismontessori.com
A sentencing date has been set for a former Central Michigan University faculty member who pleaded guilty in a federal child pornography case.

Mark Thomas Ranzenberger, 61, of Mount Pleasant, is to be sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas L. Ludington on Tuesday, Jan. 5.

Ranzenberger appeared earlier this week before U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Patricia T. Morris to make the plea to one count of possession of child pornography involving minors under the age of 12. Sentencing guidelines are set at 11 to 14 years in prison in the case, and Ranzenberger will be required to register as a sex offender.

The plea came on the same day Michigan State Police from the Mount Pleasant Post confirmed troopers had assisted the U.S. Secret Service in a separate investigation involving inappropriate contact. In that investigation, Secret Service agents located a possible victim during their investigation into Ranzenberger. The Secret Service directed the victim to the state police, and troopers completed their investigation with help from the victim.

The allegations in the case concern inappropriate contact that occurred several years ago between Ranzenberger and the victim.

Court documents state the contact occurred between 1995 and 2002, when Ranzenberger sexually abused a girl under the age of 12 approximately three times per week.

The findings of the investigation were turned over by the state police to the U.S. Secret Service, and no federal charges will be filed in connection with that investigation as a part of the plea in the child porn possession case.

An affidavit in the federal case states a U.S. Secret Service agent was notified in March by CMU Police of a child porn investigation involving Ranzenberger. The investigation began on March 4 when a student reported to the universitys Faculty Personnel Services that while in class, Ranzenberger accessed files from his Dropbox account which showed thumbnails of pornographic images.

Found on the computers were photos containing images of nude children in sexually suggestive poses, the affidavit states. Also found during forensic examinations of other digital media seized from Ranzenbergers Moore Hall office were numerous images of young children engaged in sexual acts, a number of PowerPoint presentations believed created by Ranzenberger containing photos of young girls naked and engaged in sexual acts.

In total, about 1,032 images of child pornography were found.

Of those, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children determined 86 images were of an identified child.

After the police investigation began, Ranzenberger  a temporary faculty member  was placed on leave by the university. He later resigned. Ranzenberger also served on the Mount Pleasant Planning Commission, and resigned on March 21.

Ranzenberger was the weekend editor at the Daily News until 1997, and was a writer and editor at the Mount Pleasant Morning Sun until 2013. Ranzenberger had worked at the university since 1999.

He is being held in the Clare County Jail.
U.S. Airmen and Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) members participate in an 11-day Bilateral Exchange Program at Yokota Air Base, Japan, Sept. 27, 2016. Members of the JASDF toured base dormitories, a U.S. Air Force C-5M Super Galaxy aircraft and the 374th Security Forces Squadron K-9 facility. The program is designed to strengthen the U.S.-Japan partnership and expand interoperability between the U.S. Air Force and JASDF through hands-on experience.


Senior military representatives from both the United States and the Philippines were on hand to kick off the joint and bilateral U.S.-Philippine mass casualty response training here as part of U.S. Pacific Commands Air Contingent Sept. 26.

The Air Contingent is helping build the capacity of the Philippine Air Force and increases joint training, promotes interoperability and provides greater and more transparent air and maritime situational awareness to ensure safety for military and civilian activities in international waters and airspace. Its missions include air and maritime domain awareness, personnel recovery, combating piracy, and assuring access to the air and maritime domains in accordance with international law.

The deployment of the air contingent detachment is another example of how the United States and the Philippines are committed to maintaining credible combat power throughout the Indo-Asia Pacific region while the U.S. continues to work closely with the Philippines and our network of partner nations. This is just one way we are exercising continued presence and demonstrating our commitment to our partners and allies in the region. As part of the engagement, U.S. experts in mass casualty response from across the Department of Defense will exchange ideas and techniques with their Filipino counterparts in the critical skills of triaging, staging, treating and transporting victims of a mass casualty event, a critical skill in an area of the world long-affected by disasters of various size and scope.

Thirty years ago, if a mass casualty event struck the Philippines, the U.S. military wouldve been called upon to assist in any number of ways, said U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Brian Pecha, U.S. Pacific Command surgeon general. Now, [the Filipinos] may need our assistance with airlift and some logistics, but we can have a true subject matter exchange in which they share lessons learned from previous disasters and were able to share with them lessons learned from recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Armed Forces of Philippines Brig. Gen. Mariano Mejia, AFP surgeon general, noted that preparedness is key in this situation.

Our partnership with the U.S. and civilian sectors is very important, Mejia said. We should have awareness, innovations and policies in place for all stakeholders. With close cooperation, we know each of our contributions and also the capabilities of the civilian sectors in the event of a disaster.

The relationship between the U.S. military and both civic and military leaders throughout the Philippines is marked by a long tradition of cooperation.

According to Filipino officials, there is never a bad time to prepare for the next disaster.

This training is very timely, said Mejia. We have all the disasters of the world right here: typhoons, tsunamis, earthquakes, all of them, so we need partners like the U.S. both before and during the disaster so we can be prepared.

There is an old saying, In a crisis, you dont rise to the level of expectations, you fall to the level of your training, said Pecha. It takes continual training to be able to work effectively amongst the different organizations.
BLOOMINGTON  Closing arguments are scheduled for next week in the bench trial of a Bloomington man accused of shooting another in a 2014 dispute over a gambling debt.

Deonte Jordan, 21, was charged with attempted murder, armed robbery and aggravated battery with a firearm in the December 2014 incident in the 900 block of West Washington Street.

Closing arguments are set for Tuesday before Judge Scott Drazewski.

In testimony Wednesday, victim Joshua Corbert identified Jordan as the man who shot him several times at his apartment after a dispute over gambling proceeds. The men had played dice earlier in the day, he said.

Bloomington Detective Todd Wolcott testified Thursday that Corbert also picked Jordan from a lineup shown to him by police as he was recovering in a Peoria hospital.

A photograph of Corbert on the witness stand, posted Wednesday on Facebook, drew the attention of the McLean County Sheriff's Department, the agency responsible for security of the McLean County Law and Justice Center.

Sheriff Jon Sandage said a woman admitted taking the photo with her cellphone and posting it on social media. She was removed from the building; a report will be sent to the state's attorney's office for review for possible intimidation and contempt of court charges, said Sandage.

Jordan's co-defendant, Herman Adair, 22, pleaded guilty last year to obstruction of justice for giving police a false name for Jordan. He is serving probation.

A public safety camera installed by Bloomington police on West Washington Street produced footage that reportedly assisted detectives with their investigation into the shooting.

Jack McQueen, supervisor of the police department's crime and intelligence analysis unit, explained his work on the video to Drazewski on Thursday.

Several segments of the video time-stamped for the two-hour period before the shooting were played in court. The video showed several men getting out of a vehicle in the 800 block of West Washington near the apartment where the victim was shot.

A passer-by found Corbert lying in a pool of blood in the street, according to police testimony.

Prosecutors Ashley Scarborough and David Spence also played portions of a videotaped police interview of Corey Jackson, a witness in the case.

In the video, Jackson became emotional when asked to identify Jordan from a photo lineup the day after the shooting. In court Wednesday, however, he identified the suspect from the lineup but did not connect him to the shooting.

The witness acknowledged during the interview that was afraid of the suspect.

Wolcott admitted under questioning by defense lawyer Ron Lewis that Jackson was shown a photo of a gun during their interview even though a weapon was never found during the investigation.
PAXTON  More than five months after a dog was found suspended from a bridge in Ford County, Sheriff Mark Doran said he is as anxious as anyone else for an arrest to be made in the case, but crucial test results aren't back from the state crime lab.

Everybody wants me to hang somebody, said Doran. But I've got to have the right person to hang.

Asked whether he was confident an arrest eventually will be made, Doran said earlier this week, It depends on how the evidence comes back.

Police have two suspects that we're interested in, he said, but if the evidence doesn't link back to either of them, the case will be pretty much over.

Doran declined to describe the evidence sent to the lab and said lab officials have given him no indication of when he might receive results.

Some of the stuff we send over there, it takes eight months to a year to get results, said Doran, expressing frustration with the delays.

It was April 20 when a mixed-breed chocolate Labrador retriever named Bear was found shot and tied to a closed bridge. Its leash was tied to a post on top of the bridge, leaving the dog's feet barely able to touch the ground, police said at the time.

Bear underwent surgery and treatment at the the University of Illinois Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Urbana.

Rather than being returned to his original owners, the dog was adopted by a new owner. Officials have not released the name of the new owner, but Doran said he has seen the dog and he's doing great.

At the time the dog was found, the hospital reported Bear had injuries to his neck and jaw, an injury to his rear leg, extreme dehydration, chronic skin ulcers and hypothyroidism. He spent about three weeks in the veterinary hospital and also received follow-up care after leaving.

Pictures on a crowdfunding GoFundMe page created to help raise money for his veterinary care show how Bear has improved with treatment.

He's having trouble adjusting to male figures, Doran said. The behavior problems he has are not unusual for what the dog's been through.

The dog is undergoing training to address the behavior problems, according to Doran.

He said police have pretty much talked to everyone they thought might have useful information and have canvassed the neighborhood. If someone has information they think could help, they can call 217-379-2324, he said.
Adult Swim original "Rick And Morty" Season 3 from creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon are amping up the surprises in S3 with an unexpected twist. Fans of the Adult Swim series, who have been following the adventures of Rick Sanchez and Morty Smith, would know that a claim of "unexpected" for "Rick And Morty" Season 3 is huge.

To be sure the Adult Swim series is opening "Rick And Morty" Season 3 quite strongly by breaking Rick Sanchez out of maximum security prison as Den Of Geek cites. Such a high-profile escape by Rick Sanchez at "Rick And Morty" Season 3 premiere is in keeping with how Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon developed their Adult Swim series star.

Hardcover WITH A SOUND CHIP!! 11/23 in comic shops, and in bookstores December 6th! @OniPress pic.twitter.com/pJUaMrcpel  Rick and (((Morty))) (@RickandMorty) September 27, 2016

Even more so as the planned escape for Rick Sanchez from the clutches of the Galactic Federation in "Rick And Morty" Season 3 will be through the help of an unexpected rescuer. However, nothing is more unexpected than the twist that Dan Harmon promised is coming in "Rick And Morty" Season 3 as Uproxx cites.

It's hard to face your future. The Pocket Mortys update is live! https://t.co/UQmBTuYvCt #JerryMorty pic.twitter.com/BaHBqYJQnz  Rick and (((Morty))) (@RickandMorty) September 22, 2016

Naturally, fans of the Adult Swim series have been busy trying to suss out the unexpected "Rick And Morty" Season 3 twist that Dan Harmon promised. A theory on Reddit by nijikai proposed that the unexpected twist that Dan Harmon promised for "Rick And Morty" Season 3 will be a big reveal linked to C137 Krombopulos Michael (Andy Daly).

According to the Reddit theory "Rick And Morty" Season 3 links to the quick switch that "Mortynight Run" in S2 did on the C137 Krombopulos Michael, Rick Sanchez and Morty Smith. The keys to the big "Rick And Morty" Season 3 reveal, according to the theory are the Jerry Day Care ticket and the appearance of Mr. Poopybutthole in the later half of "Mortynight Run" in "Rick And Morty" Season 2.

Whatever twist "Rick And Morty" Season 3 has in store for Rick Sanchez, Morty Smith, Beth, Jerry and Summer, Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon will undoubtedly enjoy building the Adult Swim series up to it. As it is, Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon will be ready with the twist, a trip to Hawaii, and possibly some help from Vin Diesel when Adult Swim airs "Rick And Morty" Season 3 by Dec 2016 at the latest.
Netflix is releasing the "Amanda Knox" documentary on Friday, Sept. 30, in the hopes of setting the record straight on the murder that happened nearly 10 years ago. The documentary crew puts Amanda Knox in the hot seat as she speaks truthfully about her conviction and subsequent release from prison. Will the "Amanda Knox" documentary sway the viewers' perception about what really happened?

Amanda Knox, who hails from Seattle, was then a 20-year-old student studying in Italy in 2007 when she became the primary suspect in the murder of her roommate, British student Meredith Kercher. The Italian courts found her guilty initially and Amanda was incarcerated for four years.

However, she was released from prison after an appeal and then went home to America. She was once again convicted in 2014 and was supposed to be sent back to prison. However, another appeal in 2015 has otherwise declared her a free woman. CNN has the complete timeline of the Amanda Knox-Meredith Kercher case from the beginning to January 2016.

Because of these trials, the guilty verdict for Amanda Knox has lingered from the public's perception of the murder. Netflix hopes that the "Amanda Knox" documentary will finally set the record straight. Now at 29-years-old, Amanda still insists she was "wrongfully convicted" of the crime. As one life was lost, another life has been ruined by the media.

"What I'm trying to convey is a regular person like me, just a kid who was studying abroad who loves languages, could be caught up in this nightmare where they're portrayed as something they're not," Amanda Knox said on "Good Morning America," Yahoo reports.

Amanda reveals details of abuse and mistreatment by Italian investigators and police in the "Amanda Knox" documentary. But the production also presents the other side of the story, with Raffaele Sollecito, who was Amanda's boyfriend when the murder happened, journalist Nick Pasa and investigator Giuliano Mignini.

The "Amanda Knox" documentary was produced for five years by Brian McGinn and Rod Blackhurst. Take a look at the teaser to the true crime drama in the video below.
Texas lawmakers are being urged by citizens to expand the use of medical marijuana for individuals with autism. The state allows the use of cannabidiol or CBD, a marijuana extract, in people with intractable epilepsy, a seizure disorder which cannot be controlled by treatment.

AmyLou Fawell, the executive director of Mothers Advocating Medical Marijuana for Autism (MAMMA) and who has a son with autism, wants Texas lawmakers to expand the Compassionate Use Act for other medical conditions, Time Warner Cable News reports. Medical marijuana involves using the whole unprocessed marijuana plant or its basic extracts to treat or manage a disease and its symptoms.

The two major cannabinoids from marijuana that can be used for medical purposes are delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and CBD, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. THC lowers nausea, boosts appetite, and decreases pain, inflammation (redness and swelling) and muscle control issues.

CBD also lowers pain and inflammation. It is also good for controlling epileptic seizures. Scientists are currently studying whether medical marijuana can be used to treat HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, mental illnesses and substance abuse disorders.

Republican Representative Jason Isaac agreed with MAMMA's goal to expand the use of medical marijuana. Isaac, however, admitted that gaining support from his fellow conservatives will be hard.

Fawell's autistic son, 17-year-old Jack, is a little bit verbal but is non-conversational. He is aggressive and self-destructive at times, which Fawell attributes to pain, inflammation and his nervous system being "on fire," TWC News further reports. Jack's autism makes it difficult for him to communicate his problems, so he lashes out.

A family in Oregon used medical marijuana on their severely autistic child. Like Jack, Alex Echols has extreme, self-destructive behavior such as slapping his face until it bleeds and slamming his head on walls.

This prompted his parents to commit him to a state-funded group home when he was eight and was eventually introduced to cannabis-based treatment, according to the Huffington Post. Alex's dad wrote on his blog that the child underwent a positive transformation after medical marijuana treatment.

In Minnesota, the health department is currently in consideration about allowing other conditions -- autism and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) -- to be included in its medical marijuana program, which was passed into law in 2014, MedicalJane recounts. The law encompasses intractable pain, cancer, HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, Tourette syndrome, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease), seizures or epilepsy, severe muscle spasms like multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn's disease and terminal illnesses where a patient's life expectancy is less than one year.
Even the best fall down sometimes, so they say, and the recently-split golden couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are no exception to that. While the kids--Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Vivienne and Knox--serve as the former couple's pillar of strength, friends and families have come to support Pitt and Jolie amid the demise of their relationship.

In a report by E! Online, it was said that the "Maleficent" star has found a beam of light through her colleagues, Baroness Arminka Helic and Chloe Dalton. Together, the three are the brains behind a non-profit foundation, Jolie-Pitt Dalton Helic London, and the two ladies were said to have been guiding Jolie through her current emotional crisis.

Helic, a member of the House of Lords, is a British-Bosnian born former advisor to United Kingdom Secretary William Hague. Meanwhile, Dalton has been a former aide to Secretary Hague as well and is the daughter of British ambassador Sir Robert Dalton. The two women reportedly support the 41-year-old actress from her humanitarian advocacies up to her personal life, as per a Telegraph report.

Jolie's friendship with the two lady dignitaries started in 2011 when she worked along Hague. The former Secretary was the one who granted the actress an honorary privilege to teach in London School of Economics according to a Vanity Fair report.

While the actress has her crew to support her, Pitt also found a few individuals, particularly his parents. The "Inglorious Basterds" actor seek refuge from his parents, William Alvin Pitt and Jane Etta Pitt. In fact, the grandparents to the famous brood of six were reported to be in charge in taking care of family matters while the former husband and wife's divorce settlement is in the works.

Jolie filed divorce from Pitt of two years--and partner for 10 years--on Sept. 18, and is yet to reveal the cause of the split. Both were said to be privately talking about their divorce and the "main concern is the custody over their six children," as reported by Daily Mail. Currently, the actress pushes only visitation rights to be granted by her estranged husband.
"The Originals" Season 4 will bring in more shockers from executive producer Julie Plec as Klaus Mikaelson (Joseph Morgan), Elijah (Daniel Gillies), Kol (Nathaniel Buzolic), Freya (Riley Voelkel) and Rebekah (Claire Holt) come out of their S3 finale incarcerations. "The Originals" Season 3 finale had been an ordeal for the Mikaelsons as well as Hayley Marshall (Phoebe Tonkin) but S4 is bound to outdo the previous season on The CW.

As it is, "The Originals" Season 4 premiere will reveal how Klaus Mikaelson will escape from the Marcel Gerard's (Charles Michael Davis) dungeon. "Sleepy Hollow" actor Neil Jackson is noticeably joining in as Alistair Duquesne in "The Originals" Season 4 premiere as IMDb indicates.

What are your plans on October 8th?? We have an answer: season 3 of #TheOriginals on Netflix. https://t.co/MfFiA3IH0U  Originals Writers (@OGsWriters) 23 September 2016

With a special and singular entrance at "The Originals" Season 4 premiere, perhaps Klaus Mikaelson gets help from Alistair Duquesne in his escape. Unknown to Klaus Mikaelson, "The Originals" Season 4 already has dangers lining up for him.

Klaus Mikaelson and the children of New Orleans will, in fact, are the main targets of villains rolling in with "The Originals" Season 4. The rest of the Mikaelsons, who have been under the care of Hayley Marshall and Hope (Summer Fontana) during the five-year time jump off "The Originals" also need to exit dreamscape.

Still, fans would do well to recall how Daniel Gillies described the way Julie Plec crafts events in "The Originals." Earlier on Daniel Gillies told Access Hollywood that discovering the unexpected twists Julie Plec brings into "The Originals" is like being hit with a pile of bricks.

Going by what Daniel Gillies says, fans will have to be wary with hasty conclusions on "The Originals" Season 4. Julie Plec will expectedly lay out a neat bait in "The Originals" Season 4 just before Klaus Mikaelson and the gang get the rug pulled from under their feet.

The CW will air "The Originals" Season 4 premiere at midseason in 2017, with the firm release date to be announced. What is the biggest surprise you are anticipating for Klaus Mikaelson and his family in "The Originals" Season 4?
A New Hampshire 2-year-old child was rushed to the hospital after her 7-year-old sister accidentally run over her, the New Hampshire police reported. Police said the child did not obtain major injuries, just bruises on rib cage, upper part of right arm and minor injuries on scalp, chin and leg.

On Tuesday night Sept. 27, 2016, in Salem, New Hampshire, police got a call from a mother telling that her 2-year-old child had been run over in an apartment complex. This is according to CBSNews. The report confirmed that the mother admitted that she had given the car keys to her 7-year-old to start the car.

"Apparently, the mother had given the 7-year-old keys to go outside and start her vehicle, which was a 2003 Ford Focus," Captain Joel Dolan told WMUR. "In doing so, when the girl started the vehicle, she was also able to manipulate the vehicle into gear. The vehicle went into reverse, backing over the 2-year-old, who had followed the 7-year-old outside," he added.

A witness supported this claim. "I saw the baby trying to open the door and it wasn't opening so she was going behind the car and the car was going back and it hit her and she got hurt really bad," Liana Gallagher, witness of the accident, said to CBSNews.

Furthermore, the police force reported that the mother was just inside their apartment when the accident happened and she only knew it when she heard the scream of her 7-year-old daughter.

"The mother went outside, according to the officer as well as one of the neighbors," Capt. Dolan said to WMUR. "They were able to pick up the 2-year-old, and they were also able to call 911. The Salem Fire Department as well as the Salem Police Department responded."

According to nbc4i.com, the police forces are still determining whether to file a case against the mom. "They are inquisitive. It might be something that they ask their parents to do, but to let them go out there and do it unsupervised on a piece of equipment that is as heavy and as dangerous as a motor vehicle, it's just not good common sense," Capt. Dolan told nbc4i.com. The investigation is still on - going, as per Salem police.
"Sister Wives" Season 8 is believed to be on the verge of being cancelled on TLC, as Kody Brown's wives are allegedly threatening to leave the reality series. While the reason behind this is due to Kody's plan to add two new wives to his list, a recent report suggests that a spinoff series focusing on the wives alone may be in the works.

This article contains spoilers. Read on if you want to learn more about the details of this story.

A "Sister Wives" spinoff may be in the works on TLC, as rumors of the show's cancellation after Season 7 are heating up online. Cancellation rumors began after a report claimed that Kody Brown was attempting to look for two new wives to add to his list.

Kody's official wife, Robyn Brown, has allegedly had enough of Kody and is threatening to leave "Sister Wives" Season 8. Kody's two other wives are also planning to do the same, which means that the TLC reality series will be without its cast members.

Many fans expressed their thoughts on the rumored "Sister Wives" Season 8cancellation. Fans said that the show was only interesting because of the wives and not because of Kody Brown.

As In Touch notes in its earlier report, an insider shared that the Brown family has been facing a lot of issues. TLC is reportedly planning to pull the plug after the seventh season of "Sister Wives."

"Sister Wives" has been quite a controversial series on TLC because of the Brown family's setup. Kody is legally married to one woman, but he keeps three more with him and they are pushing to get this polygamous setup legalized, reports World Religion News.

According to the publication, Kody and his wives are fighting to legalize polygamy in Utah. The family's lawyer stated that they were investigated shortly after "Sister Wives" aired on TV, which is why they are appealing to the court to decriminalize polygamy within the state.

Should a "Sister Wives" spinoff happen on TLC? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!


It looks like all hope is not lost for "Limitless" Season 2 despite showrunner Craig Sweeney's statement that a renewal may no longer happen on CBS or another network. A recent report claims that fans are threatening to unsubscribe from Netflix if the online streaming service does not pick up the show following its cancellation after season 1.

This article contains spoilers. Read on if you want to learn more about the details of this story.

"Limitless" Season 2 may still happen; that is if Netflix pays attention to the requests of fans and viewers of the Bradley Cooper-led show. According to FX News Call, fans are threatening to pull out their subscription from the streaming giant after hearing that the network was not interested in picking up the show.

Netflix has been known for taking shows that were cancelled by other networks, but the online streaming service refuses to pick up the show. According to reports, Netflix finds "Limitless" Season 2 too complex and complicated for the network.

This led to protest among fans and viewers who are still hoping to see "Limitless" Season 2 renewal happen on Netflix. As most fans can recall, the show was cancelled on CBS because it failed to live up to the network's expectations.

While "Limitless" Season 1 went off to a great start, the show failed to sustain high ratings for the entire season. Ratings are often the basis for a show's renewal or cancellation.

However, Sweeney's statements on Twitter shatters hope for a "Limitless" Season 2 renewal. According to the showrunner, there is no hope to get the renewal on other networks as what fans have been wishing for.

Fans are still taking in support from other viewers through online petitions in hopes of calling the attention of other networks for "Limitless" Season 2. It remains to be seen, however, whether Netflix would respond to fans' threats of unsubscribing from their service.


A Review Series of Anonymous Tip, by Michael Farris

Pp. 391-397

After meeting with Lynn, Gwen has a sudden urge to get out of Spokane and go somewhere on a vacation. The only vacation she can afford, she realizes, is to go visit her sister Pam, who lives in California. You know, the sister she hasnt once talked to about any of this. The sister Ive long suspected she must have some sort of feud with, or irreconcilable differences. And because Gwen never goes anywhere without her parents, she invites them to come along with her and Casey. Her mom seems okay with the idea until she says she wants to leave tomorrow.

Mom, Im serious. With everything that has happened, especially now because of Gordons death, everything has tumbled in on me, and I need to get out of here for a while. I dont want to do anything elaborate, just go to Pams and sit on her patio. Go to the park. Walk around the mall. Maybe go into San Francisco one day. Just take it easy. I think it would be good for Casey, too.

June acquiesces and says shell talk to Stan.

Gwens supervisor and father both understood the circumstances surrounding Gordons death.

Is it bad that I initially thought supervisor and father were both meant to apply to Stan?

The emergency vacation was approved. The nine-hundred-mile drive would begin in the morning.

Gwen let Lynn know where they were going but told her not to tell Peter how to contact her unless there was a lawsuit emergency.

Now we switch to Donna and her prospective in-laws. Stephen is arriving on a flight to Spokane, to be sworn in as a lawyer in Washington State. Donna has arranged for some one-on-one time with Stephen during his brief visit, which is important because shes planning to make Stephen her method of getting out of Spokane the moment the lawsuit is over. To do this, she needs to shore up her somewhat rocky relationship with him. I find myself curious, though, why a whip-smart feminist woman like Donna needs to use a man as her escape route. Couldnt she just get a new job elsewhere and move? This really doesnt seem like consistent character development.

We get a bit of travelogue after the flight arrives:

They cuddled in the back seat of his dads Mercedes as they drove down the Interstate, up the South Hill, past the modest houses south of Comstock Park where Gwen lived, and on to the modern imposing homes of rock and glass that hung on the edge of the cliff that abruptly defined that part of Spokane.

And with that, were back to Gwen, Casey, Stan, and June.

Gwen sat in the back seat with Casey and read books to her for the first hour or so until they left the Interstate at Ritzville, turning south of rate Tri-Cities on U.S. 395.

Gwen actually interacting with Casey? What is this!

Casey settled in to play with her dolls for a while, which allowed Gwen the luxury to stare out the window.

Dolls would be Farriss go-to little girl toy, wouldnt they. Predictable.

Once Casey falls asleep, Stan wants to know whats going on between Gwen and Peter. Gwen hadnt been telling her parents any of it, remember. But now shes trapped in the car with them. Bad move, Gwen. Youre stuck. Gwen tells them that she likes him and he likes her, but it got complicated and maybe its over. She says they fought after Gordon died but doesnt give details. She says Peter is still very angry with her. Stan tells Gwen Peter still cares for her, that he could see that when he ran into him at the funeral. This is so awkward.

I saw the way he looked at you in church. he may have run right out to avoid you, but his eyes told me a great deal. He still cares. Dad, I just dont know. Gwen, listen to your Father. Peter wouldnt give up on you, June said. I think hes the greatest. Hes got to come around.

They correctly deduct that she wanted to go on the vacation to get away from Peter, and they tell her that means she cares too. Gwen is very uncomfortable. I mean, my god. She has basically just been told to marry Peter by her parents. And can someone tell me why the hell Father was capitalized there? Im not familiar with it being capitalized unless it refers to God. And for the love of all that is holy, can we avoid mothers telling adult daughters to listen to your father to begin with?! Jeez!

And now back to Donna and Stephen.

Stephen is taking Donna for dinner at the Manito Country Club.

They dressed in their very best. Donnas dress had been a gift from Stephens parents at Christmas. It was Stephens favorite.

Maybe its just me, but Id think it was weird if my in-laws gave me a dress. Thats just weird. Im not a barbie for others to dress. And remember, Donna and Stephen werent even engaged, much less married, when Stephens parents gave her this dress. Double weird.

Donna and Stephen talk around the bush for a bit until Stephen realizes Donna is trying to get him to ask her to marry him (something hes done before, but shes always turned him down). You are making this pretty awkward for me, she says. Generally a girl gets asked these things. Farris tells us that Stephen had enjoyed himself a great deal in D.C. and that he had dated a half-dozen girls or so and hated to give all that up so soon. But he remembers that hes going to return to Spokane in two years, and that his parents like her, and that shes the sort of girl hes supposed to marry, so he obligingly asks her to marry him again, and she says yes, ecstatic to have an escape plan.

I have to wonder, though. Donna knows Stephen is planning to move back to Spokane, right? Is she just wanting to get out of Spokane until things have blown over, and two years will be enough? Where will she work once shes back? Or does Farris expect her to become a housewife? Anyway, they start haggling over wedding dates, and ultimately settle over getting married on Valentines Day and having a honeymoon later.

As he kissed her across the table, he wondered if he should cancel his date for next Friday night. Probably not, he concluded. After all, he wasnt engaged when he made it. It was his first loophole, and he still wasnt officially a lawyer until Monday.

This is just dandy. Nice catch, Donna.

What lesson is Farris trying to tell here, exactly? Obviously Stephen is a playboy, and obviously thats a problem. But not so long ago, it wasnt considered a problem so long as the young man eventually settled down with a good, marriage-quality wifei.e. Donna. Sewing wild oats before marriage was expected. Stephen feels more like a typical old school gentleman than Farris may intend. Or is that Farris intention? But why? What is the purpose of all of this? It seems fairly clear that Stephen is going to eventually humiliate Donna by leaving her. Is Farris simply trying to bring our villain to an unhappy end, when the book concludes? Or is there a greater moral Im having trouble working out?

Either way, every woman in this book seems stuck in some mans story. Except maybe Rita, although, to be fair, she was caught up in Blackburns wrongdoing, and is still tied to his story, and his fate.
Patna: Authorities in Patna on Thursday were investigating the death of a guthka trader whose body was found inside a car found near the Sri Krishna Puri Park under mysterious circumstances.

As reported, passers-by on Thursday morning saw a white Indica parked near the park with a man who appeared to be sleeping on the back seat of the vehicle. However, when the car did not move for hours, people tried to wake up the man only to find him non-responsive.

Police arrived at the scene and found the body of 45-year old guthka trader Shyam Kishore Singh inside the car with all of its windows closed. His mouth had signs of foam indicating the man possibly died of poisoning.

Singh's body was sent to the Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) for an autopsy as police seized his car and the cell phone that was lying in the car next to him.

As the news of the discovery of the body spread, Usha Devi, the wife of Singh, came looking for her husband who had not returned home since last night. Accompanied by her sister-in-law, a distraught Usha Devi identified her husband and told the police that he left the house on Wednesday afternoon shortly after lunch when he received a phone call.

He then failed to return home and attempts to contact him on the phone went unheeded, Usha Devi told the police.

Authorities are investigating the case from various angles including suicide and murder.
Patna: The body of the last jawan to die in the recent Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attack in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir arrived in Patna on Friday afternoon where he was given full state honors before being taken to his native district of Bhojpur.

Raj Kishore Singh, an Indian army soldier who was seriously injured in the September 18 attack by Pakistani terrorists at the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir resulting in the death of 18 Indian soldiers and at least four terrorists, succumbed to his wounds at a hospital in Delhi on Thursday.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced a compensation of Rs. 11 lakh to the family members of the martyr, officials said.

The body of Singh, the third Bihari to die in the Uri attack, was taken to Piparpainti village in Bhojpur district where he was cremated with full military honors in the presence of hundreds of people including family members.

Singh leaves behind his wife Kanchan, a 10-year old son, a 12-year old daughter, mother, three bothers and a number of grieving close relatives.
News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism.
Iranian Union Leader: Less Pressure on Teachers Thanks to Rights Activists

09/30/16

Source: International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran

Under Rouhani, They have changed tactics from hard forms of pressure to milder ones.



Esmail Abdi, secretary general of the Teachers Association of Iran



The leader of Irans largest teachers rights organization has said that due to pressure from civil rights activists, the government of President Hassan Rouhani has been less repressive towards teachers rights activists since the signing of the nuclear deal in July 2015.

The reason why [imprisoned teachers] have been freed or are granted extended leave is because of the pressure put on the government by human rights groups, said Esmail Abdi, secretary general of the Teachers Association of Iran, in an interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

After the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] JCPOA was signed, the government made a logical retreat in the face of pressure from the teachers community, he said. They had no choice but to let us go free and allow us to hold demonstrations and express our professional demands.

The Teachers Association of Iran was formed in 1998 during the reformist administration of President Mohammad Khatami. Since then dozens of its members, as well as independent teachers, have been arrested and imprisoned for terms ranging from four to 15 years for peacefully defending teachers rights.

Although there are currently no members of the association in prison, some are awaiting trial and many of those who have been released have faced serious difficulties returning to their profession.

At least two teachers have also been executed. Hashem Shabaninejad and Hadi Rashedi were hanged in 2013 in the city of Ahvaz in Khuzestan Province based on confessions given under torture, according to one of their family members.

Rouhani Era

There are now 16 labor groups that have permission to operate and hold general meetings. The government didnt want this situation, but it has been forced to accept it, said Abdi. It is very clear that theres a battle going on between [moderate] government officials on one side and hardline forces on the other. When we look closer, we see both sides belong to the ruling establishment, but the Rouhani government has acted a lot better, especially since accepting international demands under the JCPOA. These are all positive things.

During the [administration of former President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, there were no discussions [with leading teachers] and the operating permits of professional teachers groups were not renewed. But now we see change in the air in favor of teachers, added Abdi.

Abdi noted that in accordance with Article 10 of the Parties and Associations Law, the Interior Ministry under Rouhani had issued permits for more than a dozen professional teachers groups, but had also demanded that their operations be limited to local provincial branches rather than to those of national entities.

Ostensibly, they want professional organizations to expand and be active in every province. But ... what they are really trying to do is to prevent us from having a national organization... I think this plan has been injected into the Interior Ministry by the security forces so that we would not be effective in all cities near and far, said Abdi.

Independent unions are not allowed to officially operate in Iran, strikers often lose their jobs and risk arrest, and labor leaders who attempt to organize workers and bargain collectively are prosecuted under national security charges and sentenced to long prison sentences.

Abdi was arrested on June 27, 2015 by the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Organization a week after being prevented from leaving Iran to attend an international teachers conference in Canada. He was subsequently sentenced to six years in prison by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court and is free on bail awaiting a final ruling by the Appeals Court.

The former spokesperson for the Iranian Teachers Trade Association, Mahmoud Beheshti Langroudi, is also currently free on bail. In 2013 Judge Abolqasem Salavati of Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court sentenced Langroudi to five years in prison. He was released on bail in May 2016 after a 22-day hunger strike.

Banned from Work

In April 2016 Rassoul Bodaghi, a member of the Association and one of the most prominent labor activists in Iran, was conditionally released from prison after serving more than six years, but was banned from working again as a teacher. In July an informed source told the Campaign that Bodaghi has been harassed by the Intelligence Ministry since his release from prison.

I am the only member of the Teachers Association who has been banned from work, Bodaghi told the Campaign. I havent asked to be reinstated. I will not beg officials of the Islamic Republic to let me go back to work. They unlawfully bullied me out of work and now they are sending over people to get me to come back and ask to be reinstated.

If they dont ask me to come back to work, I will resume my activities and drag them to international tribunals for banning me and putting me behind bars, he said.

Bodaghi was arrested on September 2, 2009 and sentenced to six years in prison for assembly with the intent to disrupt national security and propaganda against the state. He was also banned for five years from engaging in social activities.

He was conditionally released from prison on April 29, 2016, but has since been charged with insulting the supreme leader following an altercation with guards at a hospital who tried to prevent him from visiting a former cellmate.

Three other teachers-Abdolreza Ghanbari, Abdollah Momeni and Mohammad Davari-have also been banned from working in the educational system because of their political and civic activities.

At the time of his arrest on January 4, 2010, Ghanbari was a high school Persian literature teacher. Judge Abolqasem Salavati sentenced him to death for his alleged connection with the banned Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) opposition group, but in February 2013 the Appeals Court reduced his sentence to 15 years in prison. In March 2016 Ghanbari received a pardon and was released. His wife told the Campaign that he was not mentally prepared to challenge his teaching ban and go back to work.

Momeni, a former prominent student activist, was arrested on June 20, 2009 while working as a high school social sciences teacher. He was released on March 13, 2014 after serving a five-year prison sentence. He was not banned from work by the court, but two years passed before his teaching license was reinstated.

Davari, a middle school teacher, was arrested on September 8, 2009 following a security raid on the headquarters of the moderate Etema Melli Party. Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court sentenced him to five years in prison for assembly and collusion against national security and propaganda against the state. He was freed on September 8, 2014.

Fortunately, I had not been banned from teaching, but I was banned for unjustified absence from work during my imprisonment. I was able to get back my professional license in November 2015, Davari told the Campaign in an interview.

Exile, Forced Retirement and Salary Cuts

Most labor activists who faced security issues have been forcibly retired, said Abdi. Ali Akbar Baghani, Mahmoud Beheshti, Hashem Khastar and Mahmoud Bagheri have all been forced to retire. Mehdi Bohlouli and Mohammad Reza Niknejad were released on bail and could go back to work, but are awaiting to hear their fate from the Appeals Court.

Baghani, a board member of the Iranian Teachers Association, was arrested at his home on April 29, 2010 by security forces. In January 2013 Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court presided by Judge Yahya Pirabbasi sentenced him to a year in prison and two years exile for propaganda against the state. In March 2016 he was released from prison and in April he began his exile in the city of Zabol, in Irans impoverished Sistan and Baluchestan Province.

According to Abdi, the following teachers have been forced to move and work in other cities: Ali Sadeghi, Madar Ghadimi, Hamid Mojiri, Hamid Rahmati, Nabiollah Bastan, Peyman Modirian and Eskandar Lotfi. Abdi added that several teachers have been forced to retire before becoming legally eligible and others have received salary cuts because of their civic activities.

Fahimeh Esmailzadeh Badavi, a female elementary teacher from Khuzestan Province, has been in prison since 2005-longer than any other teacher, according to Ahmad Madadi, a former member of the Teachers Association of Iran. Badavi was arrested in connection with issues concerning [Arab] minorities. Her husband was executed, but shes still in prison, Madadi told the Campaign.

Theres a lot of pressure on teachers groups, especially in Khuzestan and Kurdistan Provinces, added Madadi, who currently lives abroad. For instance, Nasser Azizi has been exiled from Kurdistan to Semnan Province for five years. Weve had about 700 cases of forced relocations, salary cuts and demotions.

Madadi said that compared to Ahmadinejad era, teachers rights have improved under Rouhani, but that security pressures persist.

What has happened is that they have changed tactics from hard forms of pressure to milder ones. Teachers get summoned and threatened by security agencies in order to make them reduce their activities, he said.
Iran-Europe nuclear cooperation growing: Atomic Organization Chief

09/30/16

Source: Press TV

Iran's nuclear chief says cooperation with Europe in the area of nuclear technology is on the rise, more than a year after a landmark nuclear deal was inked between Tehran and six world powers. Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi made the remarks after visiting a nuclear hospital in Vienna, Austria, on Thursday.



Head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi



"We have [reached] several agreements with the Europeans, including the one on nuclear safety with Switzerland and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed [in that regard]," said Salehi, adding that a bright future awaits Tehran-Europe cooperation.

The MoU was signed on Wednesday by top Iranian and Swiss nuclear safety officials at the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations Office and other International Organizations in Vienna.

Salehi further said Tehran is engaged in serious cooperation with the Czech Republic and is collaborating with relevant EU institutions, namely the European Atomic Energy Community, Jet Company and ITER, an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject.



cartoon by Javad Takjou, Iranian daily Etemad





Touching on his visit to the Vienna nuclear hospital, Salehi said that there is no such medical facility in Western Asia and Iran will open a similar site in the capital, Tehran, within the next 4-5 years if funding is provided.

Tehran and the P5+1 group of world powers, namely Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany hammered out a nuclear accord, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in July 2015.

It went into effect in January and resolved a long-running dispute over Iran's peaceful nuclear program. The deal, which took effect in January, ended decades of economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.
Dr. Arash Alaei and Dr. Kamiar Alaei: Conveying a Message of Hope through Education

09/30/16

Source: Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA)

PAAIA interviewed Dr. Arash Alaei and Dr. Kamiar Alaei to discuss their imprisonment in Iran, their ambitions to provide medical education to displaced Syrian refugee students, as well as their aspirations to inspire the next generation of students to become doctors.



Dr. Kamiar Alaei (L) and Dr. Arash Alaei





Dr. Arash Alaei and Dr. Kamiar Alaei, both members of the IA-100, are brothers who grew up in Kermanshah City, Iran. The Alaei brothers began developing comprehensive projects on HIV/AIDS and harm reduction in their hometown, and later expanded their efforts into Tehran - but their worked sparked major controversy. The brothers, accused of conspiring against the Iranian government, spent three years in Tehrans Evin prison from 2008 to 2011. Even through their imprisonment, the doctors worked diligently to establish health practices amongst their fellow prisoners.

In 2012, the Alaei brothers established the Global Institute for Health and Human Rights (GIHHR) on the University at Albany campus, aiming to bridge the gap between health and human rights access across the world. They also established the Global Multilingual Online College (GMOC), offering accessible academic programs in multiple languages. GMOC targets displaced individuals and refugees around the world who desire to continue their education.

Recently, a Times Union article highlighted their most recent achievement in providing accessible online academic courses to Syrian refugees, and PAAIA had the opportunity to discuss their experiences and latest accomplishments.

PAAIA: Life as a student is challenging, life as a medical student is even more daunting, and life as a medical student fleeing a war-torn country seems impossible. What first inspired you to make the lives of these students easier?

AA: We were in medical school years ago. When students want to continue their education, they have passion to change their society and improve quality of life. When you look at students who are displaced in Syria or around the world, you ask how can they continue to follow their passion when they live in a village, dont have access to school, or there isnt even hope for tonight? We thought maybe we could deliver them academic courses, and in doing so we are saying we are with you, we dont forget you. We can connect them with our students and faculty members. Maybe their lives will be easier and maybe their hope and passion will come back. Technology gives us this opportunity. Even if we are far from each other, we can still remain close.

KA: As a medical doctor who was once a medical student, I understand how difficult it is to be a medical student in Iran. Those who want to go to medical school have a passion to serve the community, but now those students are facing challenges. The responsibility of society is to support them. This was the reason we were motivated to help them. I believe in academic institutions, in contributing to science, and in my responsibility to make the environment safe for the next generation so they can continue to contribute to society. More than 90% of Syrian doctors left their country. A huge shortage of medical providers exists in Syria. We need a new generation of doctors who can help people in Syria.

PAAIA: The online science courses, some of which are taught in Arabic, are available via mobile phone. How has the fact that courses can be accessed via smart phone impacted the success of the program?

AA: When we began, a survey found that 85% of our target group does not have access to computers or laptops because they are displaced refugee students. Another survey found that 97% of them had a smart phone. We discussed with our colleagues in computer science how we could deliver courses via smartphones. Then, we created an application using smartphones as the platform. We could deliver higher education in a useful manner to them. When we evaluated it, we saw it worked very well.

KA: There are a lot of online courses, but most of them are in English and the few courses in Arabic are not provided by academic institutions. We wanted to use U.S. - standard courses, taught in English, and still remove the language barriers. Most of our students do not know English. Syria is one of the few countries in the Middle East where all medical textbooks and education is in Arabic. One of the indicators for success is the fact that we have a high retention rate. The students are also very engaged and excited about taking these courses.

PAAIA: Many of the programs students find themselves in conflict zones. Have any of the lectures focused primarily on emergency first-aid training or trauma treatment?

AA: Next semester we want to deliver more than just academic courses. We want to incorporate classes which can also be used to help them control trauma. We also want to increase courses for non-health students and small businesses that could be beneficial to their personal lives as well.

KA: There are core courses required for academic competencies, but in the future we want to have some applied courses that can help their lives. We also want to provide mental health or social entrepreneurship courses. Some of these students may go to border countries where they experience a cultural shock.

PAAIA: You are currently working with UAlbany computer programmers to further develop the mobile application. Can you tell us about any new ideas you are planning to implement?

AA: We want to utilize user-friendly platforms for online courses. Our target now is Syrian refugees, but our goal is to deliver long-distance education for displaced refugee students worldwide. Our cohort of students from Syria do not have access to personal computers, but maybe other students do elsewhere. How can we develop a user-friendly platform delivering courses in other languages? The program for displaced Syrian students was developed by the GMOC and GIHHR, both located at UAlbany. With support of UAlbany faculty members, the UAlbany provost, and the Dean of International Education, we are delivering courses in the native language to our Arabic target group. In addition to the Intensive English Language Program, we think after two years we have to improve their English proficiency and connect them to a worldwide network. We established the GMOC, and the vision is that millions of people around the world who want access to an education but are not proficient in English can take courses or connect to other universities that deliver courses in English.

PAAIA: You were treated harshly and unfairly in the Iranian prison, Evin. How did you maintain your optimism, your drive to inspire others, and your determination to teach while imprisoned?

AA: When we were in Evin prison in solitary cells, it is up to each person to determine how they think about their future. You can be sad and lose hope, or you can think the future will come soon and this is not my entire lifetime; this will finish. When you think positively, you can survive and use time in a solitary cell to develop your plans for the future.

KA: We have been working in our field of HIV/AIDS and drug use for a while. Since that was our passion, nothing stopped us. Not even imprisonment could deter us. Our main goal was to serve the community. We believe all people need help. Even prisoners need special attention, so we continued our work for disadvantaged populations.

PAAIA: Since being released from Evin prison in 2010 and 2011, you have been giving back to those who helped with your release. How rewarding is it to provide hope, inspiration, and opportunity to Syrian medical students through this program?

AA: Thousands of people including doctors, faculty, and many others around the world supported us when we were in prison. Now, this is our time. We are faculty members in the largest higher education system in the United States, and as a member of SUNY it is our job to help people who need to receive higher education. This is our time to share our happiness and our time to give hope to hundreds of students in that situation.

KA: It is not that we are doing something special, I think this is anybodys job to pay back. We have worked for over 15 years with the homeless as well as prisoners and now we are very happy to help medical students become the new generation of doctors who care for disadvantaged populations. Our hope is to have a better definition for doctors who care about society. Also, a significant proportion of our online students are women who are excited to learn and that is very rewarding.

PAAIA: The Global Institute for Health and Human Rights strives to bridge the gap between health and human rights. Focusing on your experience in Iran, what is the greatest obstacle you feel must be overcame to help narrow the gap between health and human rights issues?

AA: The GIHHR is an institute we established with UAlbany, and along with the GMOC part of the goal is to close the gap language barriers create. The GIHHR focuses on improving the rights of people to have access to health. To improve the quality of health, we must pay attention to equity and justice and to deliver any program for people around the world, you cannot just focus on medicine. We have to expand the right to health for those living with HIV/AIDS, the right to health for sex workers, and the right to health for displaced people and orphans. There are any number of target groups we must pay attention to.

KA: One of the main gaps we have is that doctors do not know about human rights. Additionally, we have lawyers who do not know about health. We aim to educate using both frameworks. Traditionally, human rights focuses on advocacy, but the field of human rights is much broader than that. There are a lot of applications to policy change, implementation, and research. Very few studies focus on the right to health, which is a fundamental human right. One of the biggest challenges is that these studies dont focus on key populations like prisoners, injected drug users, and males who have sex with both men and women. There are a lot of cultural barriers in developing countries in the Middle East, so we want to overcome social stigma and increase access to health care services.

PAAIA: What goals do you have for the programs future? Do you see it expanding to other universities? How can interested individuals get involved?

AA: Our target with this project was Syrian refugees, but there are millions of displaced refugees all over the world. Education is a key part to their future, so we would like to engage with other universities as well as individual faculty members to help deliver courses in a multitude of different languages and locations across the world.

KA: We want to scale up. Because we have hundreds of thousands of displaced students who want to continue their education, academic institutions have a very critical role in helping them do just that. Also, sustainability is another goal for the programs future. We need a lot of resources. We hope to have not only academic institutions, faculty members, and individuals who are interested in education to be involved, but also funders of national and international organizations to co-sponsor the initiative so we can ensure this projects sustainability. Any individual can be involved depending on their interest. They can help by volunteering, translating, serving as educators, fundraisers, or recruiters for the program, or helping adapt our technology to a new platform. We have a diverse set of needs and anyone can become involved depending on that persons interests
Cortana has a new boss, and he has a problem: If Googles turning its Google Now digital assistant into a chatbot, should Microsoft do the same with Cortana?

So far, the answer is a definite maybe.

In 2014, Microsoft first unveiled Cortana, the digital assistant within Windows 10. Interacting with Cortana was simple: You asked a question, she responded. In the last few months, however, Googles Assistant has offered an alternative: a chatbot that interacts with users via an ongoing stream of text and images.

As of Thursday, Cortanas future lies in the hands of Harry Shum, the executive vice president in charge of Microsofts new Microsoft AI and Research Group. In an interview with PCWorld, Shum said he hasnt ruled out adding a Cortana chatbot to its roster of digital assistants. Shum said Microsoft is also trying to figure out whether to port a successful Asian chatbot, known as XiaoIce, to the American marketwhile avoiding a repeat of its last, disastrous chatbot initiative, Tay.ai.

Navigating those waters wont be easy, and Shum played it safe when asked what Microsofts plans were for chatbots.I want to emphasize the complexity and difficulty of this type of product, Shum cautioned. I think its still early.

Mark Hachman With the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, you can access basic Cortana functions on your lock screen. But unlike a chatbot, theres no history of your interactions.

Cortana 2.0: Chatbot or assistant?

According to Shum, Cortana was originally designed to quickly interact with the user, then get out of the way. I would say Cortana is designed to help people complete a task, whether it be a reminder that they should buy something for moms birthday or that they should leave for home because the traffic is jammed, Shum said.

Over 133 million people have used Cortana, asking a total of one billion questions of the digital assistant. Given Microsofts recent statement that 400 billion devices run Windows 10, and by extension, Cortana, that means less than half of Windows 10 users have never used her. (Shum said Microsoft believes that Cortanas usage compares well with other assistants on the market.)

In the meantime, Google debuted its Assistant chatbotcurrently part of its Allo app, but eventually expected to break out and replace Google Now within Android. Assistant suggests topics for users to interact with, such as quizzes and games, and it suggests follow-up topics to continue the conversation. It also keeps a running tally of the conversation, allowing a user to scroll back and continue it from an earlier point in the conversation. Cortana lacks all of these features.

Right now, theres no reason to believe that Microsoft will rip out the familiar Cortana icon on Windows 10 PCs and phones and replace it with a scrolling window of text messages. Still, chatbots, with their back-and-forth exchanges, could significantly boost engagement, Shum acknowledged. When you design a different kind of agent like a chatbot, the amount of user interaction is significantly higher and different, Shum said.

Google Assistant not only maintains a record of your interactions, but also suggests followup questions for additional interactivity. Cortana does neither.

The shadow of Tay

Still, the idea of a new digital assistant might be a virtual minefield within Microsoft. Microsofts first, long-ago attempt was Clippy, the notorious Office Assistant whose name became synonymous with unwanted attention. Cortana debuted with an appealingly sassy attitude, but many see her as a vacuum through which Microsoft siphons personal data. And then, of course, theres Tay.

The Tay chatbot was infamous for inviting dialogue with humansand quickly turning into an invective-spewing digital teenager, after some mischievous humans learned that Tay.ai could be taught to parrot the worst of the Web. Tay was retired, and theres no indication that itll return.

A relatively tame (and untrue) comment from Tay.ai. Microsoft is determined never to let this happen again.

XiaoIce couldnt be more different. Shum described the XiaoIce chatbot as a very exciting product. XiaoIce (pronounced Shao ice), unveiled in September, 2014 (just a few months after Cortana), debuted as a friend that users could add onto Weibo and other Chinese microblogging services. Microsoft later brought XiaoIce to the Japanese market, and were thinking about what to do for the U.S. market, Shum said.

One of the defining characteristics of Cortanaand Tay, and XiaoIcehas been a personality, as Microsofts own (translated) example dialogue shows:

Jerry: Finding Mr. Right is a great movie. What do you think XiaoIce? XiaoIce: Oh, romantic comedies are my favorite! It stars Tang Wei, who finds love in Seattle. You should watch it. Jerry: Do you like Tang Wei? XiaoIce: XiaoIce: A goddess! She stole my heart and then went off and married! Tom: To who? XiaoIce: Havent you heard? XiaoIce: Tang Wei is engaged to famous Korean director Kim Tae Yong.

Shum didnt mention Tay specifically, but he did say Microsofts history would affect future product plans. We will learn from the other chatbots we have already shipped and some were still developing, he said. Shum added that Microsoft is paying attention to rivals, including Googles new Google Assistant.

A bounty of bots

If Microsoft does decide to build a Cortana chatbot interface, some of the groundwork is already in place. In April, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella unveiled his Conversations as a platform strategy and Microsofts Bot Frameworkproviding building blocks for conversational interaction. Derrick Connell, the corporate vice president of Bing, said then that he envisioned Cortana as an arbiter of sorts, negotiating between you and additional third-party bots.

Microsoft didnt say then what form Cortana would take in that scenario, and Shum didnt seem committed to defining it further. We have to see what kind of user scenarios are more important for the users, he said. I dont think that there will be only one intelligent agent in the world anytime soon. I think we will learn along the way.

Cortana is just beginning to help you out as you navigate the Web.

Right now, weve just begun to accept the notion of a digital assistant, but not one that can act on your behalf. Cortana can pull up coupons when we visit a retail site, but she cant buy you movie tickets. Asking Cortana to negotiate with bots on your behalf would be a step beyond that. To get there, though, its possible that well have to see Cortana inside of a chat interface.

To architect the next generation of digital assistants, Shum has more than 5,000 computer scientists and engineers at his disposal in his group, which includes Microsoft Research as well as the Bing and Cortana product teams. The integration of research and product has never been tried before at Microsoft, and Shum said he expects significant innovations as a result.

[J]oining forces with MSR [Microsoft Research] I suddenly have very high expectations in terms of the quality of Cortana, the user experience of Cortana, Shum said in an interview. All will continue to improve.
Microsoft made a splash earlier this year when it announced the largest acquisition in its history, signing an agreement to buy LinkedIn for $26.2 billion. But now, Salesforce is trying to convince the European Union to block the deal.

Salesforce Chief Legal Officer Burke Norton will argue to the EUs competition authority that Microsofts control of LinkedIns dataset following an acquisition would be anticompetitive. EU competition chief Margarethe Vestager said in January that her agency would be looking directly at whether a companys use of data is bad for competition, and these complaints seem aimed squarely at those comments.

Microsofts proposed acquisition of LinkedIn threatens the future of innovation and competition, Norton said in a statement on Thursday. By gaining ownership of LinkedIns unique dataset of over 450 million professionals in more than 200 countries, Microsoft will be able to deny competitors access to that data, and in doing so obtain an unfair competitive advantage.

The spat is part of what seems to be at least a partial unraveling of the relationship between Microsoft and Salesforce. Both companies were in a bidding war for LinkedIn earlier this year, but Microsoft won out. Since then, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has taken several shots at Microsoft over the deal.

Microsoft President Brad Smith didnt mince words when he fired back at Salesforce, citing the companys dominance in the CRM market.

The deal has already been cleared to close in the United States, Canada, and Brazil, he said. Were committed to continue working to bring price competition to a CRM market in which Salesforce is the dominant participant charging customers higher prices today.

Even if the EU doesnt block Microsofts acquisition of LinkedIn, it could opt to take a deeper look at the deal, which would drag out the process of getting the deal done, likely by a matter of several months. Microsoft and LinkedIn expected it to close this year.

Its yet another in a series of fairly rapid recent hostilities. Despite a partnership with Microsoft, Salesforce recently announced that it would be running more of its workloads in Amazons cloud. After that, Microsoft got Hewlett-Packard Enterprise to move from Salesforce to Dynamics 365. Its a far cry from 2014, when the companies forged an historic strategic partnership.
Voters in the 31st Congressional District this November face the same question put to them two years ago: Do they want to send a seasoned local politician or his challenger to Washington?

Rep. Pete Aguilar, the freshman Democrat and former mayor of Redlands, faces once again his opponent in the November 2014 general election, Republican Paul Chabot.

Our vote goes to Aguilar.

We endorsed Aguilar two years ago and find ourselves once again supporting his experience, pro-business mindset and broad understanding of the 31st Districts most pressing issues. Aguilar, D-San Bernardino, has behind him nearly two years experience serving the district that stretches from Rancho Cucamonga to Redlands.

Chabot, who has kept the pressure on Aguilar since 2014, touts his military experience and hopes to attract voters with his pledge to fight terrorism, improve veterans services and bring a military base back to San Bernardino.

His call for a renewed focus on national security certainly resonates in the 31st District following the horrific Dec. 2 terrorist attack in San Bernardino.

Aguilar, too, is concerned about terror. He has been criticized for jumping on gun-control measures as a response to the Dec. 2 attacks, though he does not claim that such measures by themselves could have stopped the massacre in San Bernardino. Rather, he supports bills that have at least a chance to better protect communities from those intent on doing harm.

Education and economic development are important issues, too, especially in a district that has yet to fully recover from the Great Recession. As a former mayor, Aguilar knows this, and emphasizes the need to open doors for job growth throughout the Inland Empire.

Aguilar recently introduced a bill requiring the Veterans Administration to complete records requests for vets within 14 days or explain why the records will be delayed. In July he introduced legislation extending the college loan repayment grace period and holding off interest payments during the grace period for students with subsidized loans.

Aguilars focus on quality-of-life issues  jobs, transportation, protecting Medicare and Social Security, and improving services for veterans  is in step with the needs of the 31st District.

Vote Aguilar on Nov. 8.
A Temecula man was arrested after authorities say he ran from a traffic collision that left three people critically injured in Menifee early Thursday morning, Sept. 29.

Deputies arrived at the crash in the 27000 block of Newport Road about 2 a.m. to find that a collision had occurred and one of the drivers, identified as 31-year-old Matthew Stockdale, ran from the scene.

A Toyota Corolla with three people inside was broadsided by Stockdales Ford Explorer, according to a news release from the Riverside County Sheriffs Department.

Deputies would later learn he was intoxicated at the time of the crash. The Temecula resident was found at his home and arrested on suspicion of felony hit-and-run and DUI, the release said.

He was taken to the Southwest Detention Center.

Those injured were taken to a nearby hospital and the road was closed until about 7:40 a.m. during an investigation.
Denise Broome positively beamed as she shook her head back and forth, luxuriating in the tingle as the hair of her new wig brushed against the back of her neck.

I feel so good! exclaimed the 43-year-old from Hemet, a cancer patient who lost her hair during treatment following a double mastectomy this summer.

Broome was given the wig by Michelles Place, American Cancer Society and Pantene on Thursday morning at the Hair with Hope event at Pechanga Resort & Casino, which featured 30 people getting their hair cut at the same time.

The hair  ponytails of at least 8 inches  will be used to make wigs like the one given to Broome, who had been covering her head with scarves.

Pechanga staged the event in the resorts lobby  the donors were seated on raised platforms under strings of pink lights  to highlight the need for hair donations.

Susan Heppner, senior market manager for the American Cancer Societys California Division, said hair can be donated through the societys website, which features a page that explains how to cut it and mail it in, or at the Spa Pechanga salon in October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

In exchange for the donation, the salon is offering a free haircut and style.

Following the event, Broome hung out with her husband, Dewayne Broome, taking pictures and sharing her story.

She credited her husband with finding the lumps during an examination in June, which led to her to see a doctor.

I said, Honey, this doesnt feel right, recalled Dewayne Broome, who since has become a vocal supporter of regular examinations for both men and women.

You can save a life, he said, clutching one of his wifes scarves in his hands.

One of the donors Thursday, Chuck Willerup of Hemet, provided multiple ponytails, the result of more than two years between cuts.

Willerup, 62, dresses up like Santa Claus during the holiday season and visits childrens hospitals, passing out toys to the kids.

He said he planned to get his hair and beard tidied up later at the salon to prep for his work in the big, red suit.

Its an honor to be able to help, said the nursery owner, who watched his mother battle cancer in the 1970s.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9698 or aclaverie@scng.com
Be prepared for a big spurt of growth, experts predicted Thursday at the seventh annual Inland Southern California Economic Forecast Conference.

Steady gains today may lead to the Inland Empire becoming a dominant force in the region, said Christopher Thornberg and others at the event, put on by the Center for Economic Forecasting and Development at the UC Riverside School of Business.

The three-hour event at Riverside Convention Center was subtitled Inland Empire 2035: Planning Today for the Economy of Tomorrow.

Thornberg cautioned against buying into miserabilism arising from election year politics.

This is a real word, Thornberg said. I love this word. Miserabilism is the philosophy of pessimism. Or, if you will, its desperately trying to convince everybody that things are much worse than they actually are. And wow, are we in the midst of one of the biggest phases of miserabilism Ive witnessed since I started studying the economy on a regular basis.

Were looking at Main Street, said Robert Kleinhenz, who delivered the Inland forecast.

He had lots of good news for the region.

 Median income reached $56,048 for Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

 Taxable sales grew 4.7 percent year over year from the first quarter of 2015.

 Non-farm employment was up 2 percent year over year in July 2016.

In addition to the logistics sector, commonly called red-hot, Kleinhenz saw growth in manufacturing and leisure and hospitality.

He found an interest in dining out a particularly healthy sign.

As residents of the Inland Empire have gone back to work, have seen their paychecks on the rise, theyve spent more time hitting both the fast food establishments and heading into restaurants.

Kleinhenz noted a re-emergence of professional, scientific and technical services, which could help increase the number of Inland residents who work in their own counties. Currently the region has a high percentage of commuters to Orange County, Los Angeles and San Diego.

Both Thornberg and Kleinhenz said the Inland housing market hasnt fully recovered from the recession despite the fact that it has the lowest prices in Southern California. They attributed the situation to Californias tax system, which they said doesnt make it profitable for cities to invest in afforable housing, and the inability for potential homebuyers to qualify for loans.

Thornberg called it the 16th largest labor force in the nation.

If you pulled the IE and put it anywhere in the nation, this would be an enormous economy. This is an economy that has more workers than Kentucky, that has more workers than San Diego, that has more workers than St. Louis. There are more workers in the Inland Empire than the entire state of Nevada.

The Inland Empire will continue to have much higher growth than Orange and Los Angeles counties, Thornberg predicted, leading to the addition of 1.2 million people in the next 20 years.

Think about that, he said. Thats New Orleans, folks.

Despite the optimism, growth will present serious challenges to the region.

Among them:

 Increased density: This is already manifesting itself in street and freeway traffic.

 Education: A shortage of college degrees has long been noted in the Inland Empire, but the region will need an educated workforce to attract employers.

 Demographics: There will be more young people, but the senior population will surge. Each group has different needs. Youth need education, but seniors who drive less but vote more, are less inclined to fund schools and roads.

 Funding: Local government cant count on the state to meet their needs in building and maintaining infrastructure.

Contact the writer: fbuck@scng.com or 951-368-9551.
New evidence that supports a convicted persons claim of innocence will be weighed under standards already accepted in 43 other states with legislation signed by Gov. Jerry Brown this week.

The new criteria, in effect Jan. 1, will replace Californias current standard, which is considered extraordinarily high, according to a news release from organizations involved in legal fights to free wrongfully convicted people.

The points unerringly to innocence current standard of proof essentially means you could have no other possible way the person committed the crime, said Alex Simpson, associate director of the California Innocence Project based at California Western School of Law in San Diego.

With the new standard, individuals must prove that had the new evidence been available at the original trial they more likely than not would have been acquitted of the crime, a standard still difficult to meet but considered fair and in line with other states, according to the news release.

RELATED:

Woman in jail since 2009 set free

DA appealing reversal of murder conviction

How Kimberly Long is rebuilding her life after murder convictions reversal

Its just a more sensible standard, Simpson said.

Sens. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and Joel Anderson, R-Alpine, authored Senate Bill 1134. Besides the San Diego-based project, other supporters included the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University School of Law, Loyola Law Schools Project for the Innocent and the ACLU.

The San Diego project represents Kimberly Long, of Corona, and convinced a judge in June to vacate her conviction in the 2003 bludgeoning death of her boyfriend.

The judge based the reversal of Longs conviction on a claim of ineffective assistance of legal counsel. The Riverside County District Attorneys Office appealed that order to the 4th District Court of Appeal.

New forensic techniques, including DNA analysis, have produced new evidence in a number of cases. Since 1989, more than 1,760 innocent people nationwide have been exonerated, according to a news release from Lenos office.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9075 or gwesson@pressenterprise.com
Re: Did debate change minds? [Opinion, Sept. 27]: I like what Charles Krauthammer said when asked the same question: It was a draw and a draw usually goes to the challenger. It must have been a shock for many Democrats, who only get their news from CNN, MSNBC or the New York Times, to watch and hear Trump for the first time (unfiltered) go toe to toe with the worlds smartest debater and most qualified person ever to run for president. Now they know why their candidate is not 50 points ahead in the polls. Informed Americans know that Clinton is a failed leader whose bad judgment has been exposed. She has made too many mistakes to be president and she cant be trusted. Americans know its time for a change from the same old Democratic Party tax and spend policies that have put the nation in the mess were in and they dont have anything to lose by voting for Trump, but everything to gain.

Lawrence Rookhuyzen

Corona

Prop. 47 is a disaster

Re: Prop. 47: Reckless or is it reforming [News, Sept. 27]: One thing is for sure, the jail population has been decreased. But the study by the San Francisco Center For Juvenile and Criminal Justice reporting that crime has decreased as a result of Prop. 47 is a total lie. The study does not include all of the crime committed that is forgiven by Prop. 47 which does not result in arrest. Our politicians cannot be honest and report the real statistics because they do not support their point of view. The real facts are that crime has dramatically increased.

We cannot believe anything a politician says. Especially the bleeding hearts that feel sorry for those in jail. They belong in jail because they commit crimes. I dont care what color their skin is, they belong in jail and so do their supporters.

Proposition 47 has been a disaster and should be killed. It has done no good other than reduce the county expense for incarceration. That is a high price to pay for our safety.

Glen Chaffin

Corona
Two students with a knack for science are among the top 30 finalists in a national competition.

James Fagan, a Riverside seventh-grader, and Nathan Deng, a ninth-grader from San Marino, were among those chosen to travel to Washington, D.C., Oct. 27-Nov. 1 to vie for $100,000 in awards at the Broadcom Foundation and Society for Science & the Publics sixth annual BroadcomMASTERS.

BroadcomMASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering for Rising Stars) is a national science, technology engineering and mathematics competition for middle school students.

James, 10, attends Riversides Educational Options Center, which includes a virtual school. He said he was thrilled when he heard he was among the finalists.

I thought it was a great honor to be representing my family and my entire school district, said James, who was a sixth-grader at Alcott Elementary when he did a project titled A Wind Tunnel to Test for the Best Aerodynamic Characteristics for Flight on Mars.

For his project, James built a wind tunnel to test various aircraft wing designs to see what sort of drone would best be suited to fly back and forth from Earth to Mars repeatedly.

Mars has always fascinated me, he said. So it got my attention that in the year 2020 NASA is going to send a drone aircraft to Mars. I thought, Why doesnt NASA send a reusable drone to MARS?

His findings showed that a reusable drone would work.

James placement at a four-county science fair earned him a nomination to BroadcomMASTERS.

Nathan Deng, a 13-year-old freshman at San Marino High School, will take his project, titled Drop by Drop: Manipulating the Surface Tension of Water to Find the Best Way of Cleaning, to the competition.

The reason why I did the project was because Ive always been fascinated with the cleaning process, whether in the household or involving oil spills, said the teen, who was an eighth-grader at Huntington Middle School when he was nominated for BroadcomMASTERS. He earned first place at the local, county and state competitions.

Nathans project involved lowering the surface tension of water using variations in temperature and varying concentrations of surfactant, the main ingredient in soap, and salt.

A lower surface tension of water actually cleans better than a higher surface tension, he said.

He found that increasing the temperature of water lowered the surface tension. He also discovered that using a surfactant alone lowered surface tension, as did adding a little salt with the surfactant. Making such changes in cleaning could not only save money but also could possibly reduce the environmental impacts of using the chemicals in soaps, he said.

Contact the writer: community@pressenterprise.com
The operations manager of the Friends of Upland Animal Shelter has been arrested and could be facing molestation charges after being suspected of engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a minor.

John Patrick Moreno, 35, of Ontario  who started with the shelter in July  is accused of a lewd act upon a child, child molesting, misdemeanor, contact with minor for sexual offense, and going to meet with minor for a lewd purpose, according to a news release from the Upland Police Department.

He was arrested Sept. 21 and booked into West Valley Detention Center. He is being held on $350,000 bond and is expected to appear in Rancho Cucamonga Superior Court on Monday.

Upland police were contacted by a 15-year-old female, who said she was volunteering at the Upland animal shelter and was driven back from an event by Moreno, when the incident occurred.

Moreno engaged in inappropriate conversations of a sexual nature with the victim, the release states.

Police allege inappropriate conversations were sent via text messages.

The victim reported the incident to police Sept. 19.

Detectives began an investigation and set up a sting. Acting as the juvenile, detectives set up a meet with the suspect at Olivedale Park. Moreno agreed and showed up to meet whom he thought was the juvenile, according to the police.

Police determined that the suspect took additional steps in furtherance of his crimes and evidence was recovered during the investigation, the release states.

Management and staff of the nonprofit Friends of the Animal Shelter are cooperating with the investigation, the release stated.

Under a reorganization aimed at saving the city money, Friends of Upland Animal Shelter assumed responsibility for shelter services May 1.

Moreno came to the shelter with 16 years of experience  working with military dogs and a running the Worcester County Humane Society Maryland as its executive director.

Anyone with information about this crime is asked to contact the Upland Police Department 909-946-7624, ext. 3341 or Detective Lon Teague 909-946-7624, ext. 3229.

Callers wishing to remain an anonymous are urged to call the WeTip Hotline at, 1-800-78-CRIME (27463).
A bill that sought to prevent rogue drones from straying into the paths of airliners and firefighting aircraft through technological means has been rejected by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Brown said Thursday he had vetoed Assembly Bill 2724, which would have mandated that drones with GPS be equipped with automatic shut-off, or geofencing, technology that directs unmanned aerial devices to steer away from airports and fire zones.

The legislation, sponsored by Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Los Angeles, also would have required drone owners to purchase insurance beginning in 2020, to cover damage from accidents.

This bill creates significant regulatory confusion by creating a patchwork of federal, state and local restrictions on airspace, Brown wrote in his veto message. Moreover, the Federal Aviation Administration will likely assert federal preemption on the bills geofencing requirements.

Calling the legislation piecemeal, Brown suggested a more comprehensive approach to drone regulation that factors in existing federal regulations.

But Gatto said the legislation was badly needed to protect the flying public and firefighting pilots, at a time when drone incursions into the paths of aircraft are on the rise.

This legislation was desperately needed to protect the public from near misses at California airports, and to protect firefighters as they fight wildfires from the sky, Gatto said. I hope a major incident does not make everyone regret todays veto.

The bill was opposed by the Arlington, Va.-based Consumer Technology Association.

It was the second year in a row that Brown vetoed significant Gatto legislation on drones. In 2015, the governor vetoed a bill that would have created penalties for operators who fly their drones in fire zones.

Also on Thursday, Brown vetoed Assembly Bill 2148 by Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, which sought to restrict the flying of drones over state park and wildlife lands.
Q. What happened in New Jersey?

A. A commuter train, New Jersey Transit train No. 1614, bulldozed into the Hoboken Terminal station after crashing through an end-of-the-line barrier at 8:45 a.m. Thursday. A woman standing on the platform was killed and more than 100 others, mostly train passengers, were injured when the train slammed into the concourse.

Q. How did that happen?

A. The cause is under investigation. The trains engineer was reportedly cooperating with investigators after being treated at a hospital and released Thursday.

Q. Is there technology to help prevent such accidents?

A. Yes. Such technology includes positive train control, a computerized safety system designed to automatically stop or slow trains moving in unauthorized ways, such as faster than speed limits or running red signals.

However, Southern Californias Metrolink spokeswoman Sherita Coffelt said its not certain if positive train control would have prevented the New Jersey accident because the cause is still unknown.

Q. Why didnt that technology prevent this accident?

A. New Jerseys Transit trains dont have positive train control. All U.S. railroads had been ordered to install the system by the end of 2015, but regulators extended the deadline to the end of 2018 at railroads request.

Q. Have similar accidents happened here?

A. A Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train crashed with a Metrolink train full of commuters in Placentia on April 23, 2002, after the freight train crew missed a yellow warning signal to slow the train, killing three people and injuring 162, the National Transportation Safety Board found.

A Metrolink train engineer and two dozen others were killed and 135 were hurt in Chatsworth Sept. 12, 2008, when the engineer ran a red signal while texting train fans and the train crashed into a Union Pacific freight train.

The Chatsworth tragedy led Congress to pass legislation shortly after to require positive train control technology on all passenger lines by the end of 2015.

Q. Whats been done to prevent such accidents here?

A. Since 2015, all seven Metrolink lines  91/Perris Valley, San Bernardino, Inland Empire-Orange County, Riverside, Orange County, Antelope Valley and Ventura  are equipped with positive train control.

Since 2008, Metrolink trains have been equipped with automatic train stop, which stops trains if engineers dont respond to beeps from an audible alert system inside the engineers compartment by pushing a button and stopping the train themselves. Thats now a backup system to positive train control.

In Los Angeles County, Metro operates four light-rail lines and two subway lines, which are heavy rail like the New Jersey Transit train. Metros system and trains are installed with automatic train protection that slows trains approaching stations if the operator hasnt already reduced excessive speed. The system can also help prevent train-versus-train collisions.

Automatic Train Protection doesnt operate where Metro trains run on streets with regular traffic, due to the presence of vehicles and pedestrians. Operators are trained to be extra-vigilant in those areas, which have special train signals for operators, dedicated traffic signals for motorists and active and passive signs for pedestrians.

Q. Could such an accident happen here again?

A. Thats difficult to say without knowing the cause of the New Jersey train crash, Metrolinks Coffelt said.

Sources: Metro Executive Officer of Corporate Safety Vijay Ahawani, Metrolink spokeswoman Sherita Coffelt, wire services.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9444 or shurt@scng.com

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The San Bernardino County District Attorneys Office is investigating a report of a sexual assault at the University of Redlands on Labor Day, one of two such reports at the liberal arts college that day.

The Redlands Police Department and university officials received a report of a sexual assault against a female student by another student, who was an acquaintance. The rape accusation involved alcohol consumption, said Redlands police Lt. Travis Martinez, declining to elaborate.

He said that case was turned over to the District Attorneys Office for review, and the office is awaiting toxicology results.

One of the categories of sexual assault is rape by intoxication, Martinez added, explaining why toxicology results are necessary in the district attorneys weighing of the evidence.

District attorney spokesman Christopher Lee said Wednesday that the case is still pending further investigation.

University spokeswoman Wendy Shattuck said the college is conducting its own investigation. No arrests have been made.

Redlands police also received a call on Sept. 5 by someone whom Martinez would identify only as a third party saying a female student had been sexually assaulted. Officers went to the university and talked to the woman, who refused to cooperate, Martinez said.

We made contact with the alleged victim, and she chose to invoke her right to not have law enforcement investigate, said Martinez.

He declined to elaborate on the allegations.

We cant release too many details because the (woman) may want to proceed at a further date, Martinez said.

Shattuck said in a statement that in any case of a serious and continuing threat to the campus community, the university complies with federal law in providing timely warning to students, which sometimes includes multiple notifications to students, parents and employees.

Additionally, the universitys police chief ramps up staffing and patrols, if necessary, and the schools Student Life division, which includes medical and counseling personnel, may communicate directly with students following certain incidents.

For the two incidents you are inquiring about, our assessment was that the standard of serious and continuing threat to the campus community was not met and thus, the university did not issue a timely warning,  Shattuck said in her statement.

From 2011 through 2015, there were 31 reported forcible sex offenses at the university, of which 16 were rapes. Most of the victims did not file police reports, and many refused to identify their assailants, according to university crime statistics.

Last year, there were four reported forcible sex offenses at the school, including three rapes, but none of the victims filed police reports and three of the victims refused to identify their assailants, the statistics show.

Festivities abound at the college in the first two weeks of September, when students, returning and new, begin the academic year.

Labor Day is the last day of new student orientation week, and about 25 events were scheduled, university spokeswoman Jennifer Dobbs said.

On Sept. 10, the university hosted its annual Jungle Jam all-school party, where an 18-year-old female student drank too much and was taken to the hospital the following morning as a result, said Carl Baker, spokesman for the city of Redlands.

She complained of not feeling well and was vomiting after drinking, Baker said.

Contact the writer: jnelson@scng.com; @SBCountyNow on Twitter
Tucked between parking lots and shopfronts, and cased in beat-up bricks, The Vibe bar and music venue in Riverside looks like just another dive. But for many, its a sanctuary.

Across its 14 years, The Vibe has hosted hundreds of performances  from sweaty and wild punk rock shows with national touring acts to open mic nights that became a proving ground and incubator for the Inland hip-hop scene.

During The Vibes lifespan, packed shows werent uncommon. However, over the past few years, attendance has decreased, prompting owner Mike Sherman to close the bars doors for good Saturday with a final ska show playing the venues coda.

It was so important in the last decade as a place for bands to grow and have a place to play, said Riverside musician and promoter Patrick Maloney. It wasnt downtown; it was a little different and a little rougher, but it was real Riverside its sad to see it go.

Sherman, 55, said the decision to shut the bar down was one of the toughest hes made. But ultimately, he believed he would start to lose significant money if he were to keep it going. By cutting out now, he said, hes breaking even.

Its terribly sad, it was a hard decision, Sherman said Wednesday, in his office in the back of the bar. I dont know what Im going to do with myself coming up here, for the next few months. Ive spent my nights here for 14 years; this was a big part of my life.

Big names in punk, metal and hip-hop have graced The Vibes two-foot-high stage. Among them: Orange County metal-core band Bleeding Through, metal and rap combo Body Count  fronted by rapper and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit star Ice-T  , Southern California rappers Murs andAb-Soul, and members of Grammy-winning hip-hop group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.

Controlled chaos

Sherman opened The Vibe in November 2002, while also operating the Hudson Theater and Gotham clubs in San Bernardino. As the San Bernardino clubs shut down, Sherman focused his efforts at The Vibe, while keeping his day job as an auto mechanic.

It started as a way to get out of the job Im in now, but Im still there, Sherman joked.

He prided himself on taking a chance on the shows that no other venues in town would book, like those featuring gangster rap, death metal and punk rock groups.

Sherman kept the crowds in check by being closely involved in the security operations, and keeping a sharp eye on how people were acting.

It can get out of control, you just have to monitor it, he said. I mean, Im not going to lie, Ive been in the middle of a disastrous show. You know, it happens.

One such show was Los Angeles based hardcore punk group Fears performance in 2012. The band, which has been around for close to 40 years and credited with helping shape the sound of modern punk rock, is known for causing a ruckus on stage.

Maloney, who attended the show, said the bands set lasted about 15 to 20 minutes before turning into a giant brawl, ending with security guards using pepper spray to subdue the crowd and the band fleeing, leaving their merchandise behind.

Common ground

But for every out-of-control show at The Vibe, there were several mellow, violence-free shows, Sherman said. He worked with promoters to book local hip-hop shows and open mic nights. Some of the most well-attended events to occur at the venue were the Common Ground hip-hop nights, booked by Inland rapper and promoter Noa James.

Working with promoters like James, and seeing hopeful young rappers cut their teeth at the regular night were Shermans favorite parts of owning The Vibe.

All the music, all the bands, the artists, the camaraderie of everyone coming together for events, I had a good time, Sherman said.

One of those people was Khari Butler, who raps under the name Dirty Birdy. Butler was one of the first acts Sherman booked at The Vibe. Butler said playing there helped launch his career.

This place means everything to me, its like losing a family member, Butler said. Its very important for the hip-hop scene in the I.E. It became a second home to artists trying to make it.

A number of rappers from the Common Ground, including James, Curtiss King and Stevie Crooks, landed spots on the Paid Dues independent hip-hop festival.

James, whose final Common Ground show after eight years at The Vibe took place Thursday night, said losing The Vibe is bittersweet, but the scene would continue.

The venues the frame, not the picture, James said. I love it, but you can cut out that picture and roll it up and go frame it up somewhere else. This really is a beautiful ending, but also a very majestic beginning.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9284, atadayon@scng.com, @PE_alitadayon
Mothers milk may have even greater benefits than previously known, according to a researcher at UC Riverside.

Biomedical sciences professor Ameae Walker, a researcher at UCRs School of Medicine, says not only do antibodies pass from mother to infant during breast-feeding  something that has long been recognized  but the benefits of some vaccinations can be transferred in the process.

Walker, who has been doing research at UCR for 37 years, said it was thought that whatever cells were passed to the baby through mothers milk would be quickly destroyed by the babys immune system. Instead, Walker and her team found that those cells can wind up in the thymus, a lymph organ in the chest just above the heart. The thymus is instrumental in producing T cells, which are important in fighting disease.

Walkers research, which appears in the most recent edition of the Journal of Immunology, showed that rather than destroying the mothers cells, the thymus used the immunological information in the mothers cells in the production of its own cells. The UCR team specifically looked at how this mechanism worked in mice that had been vaccinated against tuberculosis. The baby mice they nursed showed the benefits of being vaccinated against the disease as well.

Walker said the evidence shows that the effects are permanent.

They are now going to be around for the lifetime of the baby, she said of the immune cells. This is a lifetime thing.

It may help in battling tuberculosis.

Although rates of the disease have been on the rise in recent years, tuberculosis is not prevalent in the United States. But its a huge problem worldwide, Walker said.

She said vaccinating women before they get pregnant could have significant benefits in fighting the disease. And, though tuberculosis is a bacterial infection, Walker thinks the immunological transfer could work for viruses as well.

Were in the process of putting together a proposal to extend the study to see what would be the impact of this process on other kinds of immune diseases, she said.

Walker said the process was technically very difficult to study, and she was discouraged from pursuing the research by colleagues who thought it was a misguided endeavor.

Everyone I talked to said, Nah, cant possibly be true, she said when she shared some initial evidence with them. Every single one said, It will never work. As a scientist, that kind of appealed to me.

Walker suggested that not only was breast milk from an immunized mother a good thing for a baby, but that it is likely a variety of breast milk would be even better. Each person has his own physiological record of battling disease, and each of our immune systems is different. Exposing a child to other sources of immunological information could improve its ability to fight off disease.

Walker said she has heard of some new mother support groups engaging in foster feeding of their infants.

Id say, talk to your friends about having a breast-feeding circle, she said. It was normal in human societies a few hundred years ago.

Morales HONORED

Tomas Morales may be running out of room on his trophy shelf.

Morales, the first Latino president of Cal State San Bernardino, has been honored by several Latino organizations in the past few weeks.

Most recently, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities announced that it would present Morales with its Presidents Award for Excellence at its annual meeting next weekend in San Antonio, Texas. Morales is one of 10 people being honored by the organization this year.

Last month, Morales received Mexicos Ohtli Award, the countrys highest honor to a civilian outside the nation. And he recently was named one of 2016s 101 Most Influential Latinos by Latino Leaders magazine.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9595 or mmuckenfuss@scng.com
Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Honourable Edward Doe-Adjaho, has bemoaned the total neglect of various tourist sites in the Anlo Traditional Area of the Volta Region.



He noted that the neglect of tourist sites in the region has rendered majority of young men and women jobless.



He made this observation at the official launch of the 54th Hogbetsotso festival at the forecourt of the Banquet Hall in Accra recently.



Highlighting on the theme of the festival; Exploring and Expanding the Tourist and Historical Sites of Anlo to Enhance Development, he said the Toko Atorlia, Wenyas Wells Xan Budo and the monkey sanctuary among others were potential tourist sites that must not be abandoned.



The festival is to commemorate the final movement of the Ewe people from the Republic of Togo to Anlo in the Republic of Ghana.



According to him, the theme for the festival was to chart a path of solidarity, peace and reconciliation amongst the people of Volta Region.



He however, lamented the omissions of the Keta Harbour, Eastern Corridor Road among other projects in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) manifesto.



He also used the occasion to advise the people of the Volta Region who recently warned the NDC government to construct the deplorable roads in the region to have patience.

Source: Today Newspaper









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The top five students in Actuarial Science department at the University of Cape Coast have received valuable awards from Prudential Life Insurance Ghana.



The awards are part of a major initiative by the life insurer to support high achieving actuarial science students in Ghana. The five outstanding students received the cedi equivalent of 500USD, had their exams fees reimbursed and were presented with study notes at an awards ceremony.



The award winners were Alfred Annan Bentil, Isaac Nketsiah, Nii Amoo Decardi-Nelson, Isaac Debrah Asirifi and Precious Kobina Aklasu who achieved the highest grades in the group and was also awarded a year-long internship at Prudential.



Emmanuel Mokobi Aryee, Chief Executive of Prudential Life Insurance Ghana, said: We are absolutely committed to investing in the community in Ghana and helping to support the next generation. We hope these awards enable these superb students to achieve their aims.



Prof. David K. Essumang, Dean of Physical Sciences, said: All of the staff here and the award winners are delighted with the support from Prudential Life Insurance Ghana. These awards will not only help these students to achieve their career goals but also help to develop actuarial science in Ghana.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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President John Mahama says the upgrading of Ghanas economy by Moodys shows that the managers of the economy are doing the right thing.



According to him, "Ghana is rising, Ghana is doing well".



President Mahama was speaking at the VIP Lounge at the Kotoka International Airport in Accra on Wednesday night on his return from his engagements at the United Nations and the United Nations Organisation for Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).



"In my absence, we were pleased to hear that Moodys has upgraded Ghanas economy. It shows that we are doing something right," he stated.



"We are pleased about the way things are happening. Let us continue to work together and I believe more than the sky is the limit," he added.



Moodys, a UK-based rating agency, rated the Ghanaian economy B3, which showed stability from a negative outlook.



General Assembly



President Mahama was in New York for the 71st UN General Assembly meeting. Then he flew from New York to Paris on the invitation of UNESCO to speak at the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) lecture on Powering the SDGs with access to information".



He spoke on the importance of information and media to sustainable development, with a focus on Goal 16 of the 2030 Agenda.



In his briefing at the KIA, the President described both engagements as successful.



"Ghana has become an icon in the international community and I am proud to have represented my country well through the debates and speeches that took place at the General Assembly," he said.



He said the SDGs meeting, which he co-chaired with the Prime Minister of Norway, Ms Erna Solberg, provided opportunities to map out strategies on how the two leaders would create awareness of the SDGs.



UNESCO meeting



At the UNESCO Headquarters where the President also held a meeting with the UNESCO Director-General, Ms Irina Bokova, he said they discussed important issues about Ghana.



A strong case was made for the Mole Game Park and the Lake Bosomtwi to be recognised as World Heritage sites, he indicated.



Besides, he said, they discussed how conservation could be improved in the Akwamu Gorge Forest, which has a good number of its species becoming almost extinct.



Investment



President Mahama also mentioned investment as one area he devoted attention to while in France.



He stated that during a meeting with the business community in France, he continued his promotion of Ghana as an important destination for doing business.



He disclosed that at a meeting with the Chief Executive of Air France, the airline boss indicated that from next year Air France would start direct flights from Accra to Paris.



"I believe that it falls in line with our vision of making Accra a major aviation hub in West Africa," he said.



On his bilateral meeting with French President Francois Hollande, President Mahama said the meeting was fruitful.



Discussions included extension of French support to help Ghana achieve universal water coverage by 2050

Source: Daily Graphic









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A Techiman Municipal Fire Commander is in a critical condition after his penis was chopped off by a 24-year-old woman for attempting to rape her in her room.



Narrating her ordeal to Adom News Agya Wusu, the victim said she works with Mr. Eric Ansah Andor at the Techiman Fire Service at Techiman in the Brong Ahafo Region.



According to her, she was at home one day when Mr Ansah came with his cloths to have them washed.



The victim said, after offering her boss water and was returning to the kitchen to start washing the clothes, he dragged her from behind and started abusing her sexually.



The lady said, she initially tried defending herself but the man threatened her and was left with no option than to give in.



I offered him water and in an attempt to enter my other room I resisted initially and later he threatened me saying he is the commander and so anything he wants he gets it and because he said that I got sacred he would do something bad to me.



"I decided to play to his gallery on the bed and I told him I am ready and so he should do whatever he wants to do with me but after romancing with him for three minutes, I grabbed his penis and bit it hard.



She noted that, after biting Mr Ansah, he started bleeding profusely and so called for help from their office. The fire officer was later rushed to the Dr. Kesse Hospital at Techiman for medical attention.



The incident she added, has been reported to the Techiman Police station who has begun investigations into the matter.

Source: adomonline









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Some angry graduate students mobbed the Employment and Labour Relations Minister Haruna Iddrisu at the Ministries enclave on Wednesday in a bid to fetch the Finance Minister for them to present a petition.



The GRASAGs demonstration was to pile pressure on government to release their thesis and bursary grants. The irked students put concrete blocks and some placards under the ministers official car to prevent it from moving while he was away to convince the deputy Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson to come and meet the students. According to Starr News, the behaviour of the students angered the bodyguard of the minister who was forced to pull out a gun and threatened to shoot those denting the car. Abdullah reported the demonstrating students chanced on Mr. Iddrisu who was driving by, and promised to fetch Mr Forson for them, and in a bid to assure them that he will return, he left his car behind and his driver.



The National GRASAG president Rashid Etuaful told the media, having waited for close to an hour, the crowd got incensed and began chanting which led the bodyguard to threaten to shoot them, but was restrained by other security men at the scene.The Employment Minister later returned with Mr Forson to receive their petition. The latter, however, said it was the Scholarship Secretariat that was supposed to have received their petition.

Source: starr FM









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The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has explained that it dismissed the ford gift petition against President John Mahama because the President did not contravene the 1992 constitution in accepting the gift.



According to CHRAJ, at the end of its preliminary investigation, it came to the conclusion that based on the extensive evidence assembled, the allegations that the President contravened Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution by putting himself in situations of conflict of interest was not substantiated.



Consequently, the commission held the view that full or further investigations into the allegations were not warranted and therefore dismissed the allegations.



A 78-page extensive decision by CHRAJ on the matter, a copy of which was available to Graphic Online covered the genesis of the saga from the time the story was aired by Joy FM in June this year, to the various media publications, the subsequent petitions by individuals and groups, and the in-depth investigations by CHRAJ, which included the review of audio and video footages and various extensive interviews with ministers and public servants.



The issues that triggered the investigative powers of CHRAJ in the preliminary investigation were contained in petitions by three complainants, the National Youth League of the Convention People's Party (CPP), the Progressive People's Party (PPP) and Nana Adofo Ofori.



Below is the 13 issues considered and the subsequent decision taken by CHRAJ on it



Issue 1: Whether the acceptance of the Ford Expedition vehicle by the Respondent [President Mahama] contravened existing Gift Policy under the Code of Conduct for Public Officers



Decision: The Commission is satisfied that the gift in question forms part of gifts prohibited under the Gift Policy under the Code of Conduct. Although the evidence show that the Respondent subsequently surrendered the gift to the State, the action nonetheless contravened the gift policy.



Issue 2: Whether the acceptance of the gift by the Respondent placed him in a conflict of interest situation under the Code of Conduct for Public Officers and Conflict of Interest Rules?



Decision: Having reviewed the evidence on the actions and conduct of the Respondent after the gift was made, the Commission is satisfied that his actions and conduct sufficiently dealt with any conflict of interest that could have been occasioned. In the circumstances, the Commission finds that the Respondent did not put himself in a conflict of interest situation or contravene the conflict of interest rules under Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution.



Issue 3: Whether the Vehicle which is said to be a brand new vehicle at the time it entered Ghana was cleared at Tema Port as a used car in order to undervalue it and pay less duty.



Decision: On the basis of the evidence, the Commission is satisfied with the explanation from the GRA that the vehicle was assessed in accordance with sections 89 & 91 of Act 330, and not described as used vehicle to undervalue the duty payable. The term used therefore, is not synonymous with the term secondhand vehicle.



Issue 4: If the Vehicle was declared as used when it was new on entry into Ghana, whether the State suffered a loss of revenue



Decision: In the absence of direct evidence to the contrary, the Commission accepts that the duty paid on the vehicle was the regular duty payable under the law, and therefore the State did not lose revenue on the vehicle.



Issue 5: Whether the Registration details of the Vehicle can be found at the DVLA and if so, in whose name was the Vehicle Registered



Decision: On the evidence available, the Commission is satisfied that the vehicle is registered and used as State property in same manner as other operational vehicles at the Presidency.



Issue 6: Whether the Vehicle has been added to the Presidential pool and if it has, when was it added?



Decision: Based on the overwhelming evidence before the Commission, the Commission is satisfied and finds as a fact that the vehicle was received and added to the Presidential Pool on 2nd November, 2012.



Issue 7: Whether the Respondent has perpetrated fraud on people of Ghana by representing to Ghanaians that Ouedrago Cheik Mohammed was actually the importer of the vehicle in question when indeed the vehicle was transported by road with personnel from both Ghana Embassy at Burkina Faso and Ghana Boarder at Paga through to Accra.



Decision: On the basis of the available evidence, the Commission finds clearly stated on the face of the Customs Temporary Vehicle Importation permission duly stamped and signed by Customs officials the name of Ouedraogo Cheick Mohammed as the owner/driver and therefore finds the allegation of the perpetration of fraud on Ghanaians on the part of the Respondent totally misconceived and unsupported by the evidence.



Issue 8: Whether the Gift was given with intent to corrupt the Respondent and whether the Respondent knew that Djibril Kanazoe made him the gift with intent to corrupt the Respondent



Decision: The Commission is satisfied with the actions of the Respondent after the gift was made, and accordingly finds that his conduct was not consistent with that of a person who had been corrupted by a gift or improperly influenced by same.



Issue 9: Whether the acceptance of the gift (Ford) amounts to a bribe.



Decision: The Commission accordingly finds that the circumstances under which the gift was delivered to the Respondent, and conduct of the Respondent after the gift was made sufficiently rebuts the presumption of acceptance of a bribe by a public officer.



Issue 10: Whether due process and procedure were followed by public officials in the award of contracts



Decision: On the strength of the evidence, the Commission is satisfied that the procurement process and procedure were regular and within the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663), in particular, Section 43(1).



In the absence of direct evidence to the contrary, the Commission accepts the evidence of the Public Officials involved that the contracts were awarded regularly and in the normal course of their duties.



Issue 11: Whether the Ministry of Roads and Highways was in the process of "handpicking" Djibril Kanazoe for the award of an 28-kilometer Wa-Hamile Road worth GHC82,000.000.00. because of the gift of the vehicle to the Respondent.



Decision: Under the circumstance, the Commission finds the allegation that the Ministry of Roads and Highways was in the process of awarding the contract for the construction of the 28 kilometre Wa-Hamile road worth GHC82, 000,000.00 to Djibril Kanazoe through sole sourcing speculative and not supported by the evidence.



Issue 12: Whether the Respondent influenced the award of contracts



Decision: In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the Commission reiterates its earlier finding that the evidence do not show that the Respondent influenced the award of the two contracts won by Djibril Kanazoe or his company, Oumarou Kanazoe Construction Limited.



Issue 13: Whether the Respondent has conducted himself in a manner that has violated Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana by a receipt of a gift of the vehicle



Decision: In the circumstances, the Commission is satisfied that the Respondents conduct did not violate Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.



Final decision



Article 287 (2) the 1992 Constitution makes provision for what the Commission may do in respect of the results of its investigation:



The Commissioner for Human Rights and Administrative Justice or the Chief Justice, as the case may be, may take such action as he considers appropriate in respect of the results of the investigation or admission.

Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) has taken up the filing fee bill of all its parliamentary aspirants contesting in the December polls  a total of GHS2,750,000  General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia has disclosed.



General Mosquito, as he is affectionately called, revealed this to party supporters on Thursday September 29 as he accompanied Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur to submit President John Mahamas nomination forms to the Electoral Commission.



We want to assure all our parliamentary candidates that we are ready with the deposit for all the 275 aspirants of the NDC across the country. If you are filing your nomination anywhere in Ghana and you have a letter of introduction from the General Secretary that acts as an indication that your deposit has been provided for in Accra so, you dont need to worry yourself about the payment, he stated.



Mr Nketia advised party supporters to intensify their campaigns across the country to make sure the NDC retains power after the December polls.



We recognise the fact that our colleagues in the NPP completed their parliamentary primaries only yesterday, so that is an indication that they are not ready for the elections. But we have been ready all along; all our candidates have complied with the rules. So, from today, the battle back to the Flagstaff House has begun. Go to the nook and cranny of the whole country and sell the good news to the people, he encouraged the gathering.



Meanwhile, todayFriday September 30 is the deadline for the submission of nomination forms for both presidential and parliamentary nominees.















Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Deputy General Secretary of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), lawyer Obiri Boahen says the 78 page report by the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) is incomplete without the voice of the Burkinabe contractor, Oumarou Djibril Kanazoe, who is the at centre of the controversy.



According to the lawyer, CHRAJ has done a shoddy job for failing to invite the contractor to interrogate him before drawing conclusion.



CHRAJ yesterday released a 78-page report on its investigation into a gift President Mahama received from a Burkinabe contractor, Oumarou Djibril Kanazoe, which became public following an investigation conducted by a journalist, Mr Manasseh Awuni Azure.



CHRAJ in their statement said, Whilst the Respondent contravened the Gift Policy by accepting the Ford vehicle, his actions after the gift was made clearly cured any conflict of interest that could have been occasioned. In the circumstances, the Commission is satisfied that the Respondents conduct did not violate Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.



But commenting on the findings, lawyer Obiri Boahen said, the report can only draw one conclusion which is, President Mahama is being protected. The outspoken politician said, Kanazoe is a ''material witness'' in the matter and for him not to have been invited, makes the work of CHRAJ incomplete.



He said, it does matter the number of witnesses assembled to testify in a matter, rather it is the weight of their testimony that matters most.



He added that, for the fact that CHRAJ was able to establish that, President Mahama contravened the gift policy, he should do the honorable thing by resigning from office as President of the Republic of Ghana.



He however, expressed his disappointment in African leaders stating that, no African leader in the sub-region will ever resign over such findings. He said, a leader in Europe would have resigned from office if they were cited in such a controversy.



"Every reasonable individual would have resigned from office over this finding and so I'm challenging President Mahama to resign," he said.



''I don't hate African leaders, but you have a leader who has been cited to have contravened the gift policy and still in office. President Mahama has contravened the gift tax law.''



According to CHRAJ, it was satisfied that the gift in question formed part of gifts prohibited under the Gift Policy under the Code of Conduct and that although the evidence show that President Mahama subsequently surrendered the gift to the State, the action nonetheless contravened the gift policy.



CHRAJ, also established that the President was not culpable of conflict of interest, bribery or fraud in relation to the manner in which the vehicle was given to him.



But responding to his comments, lawyer David Annan who was also speaking on the same show said, lawyer Obiri Boahen was only citing his own complaints over the saga.



CHRAJ he posited, struck out the case and there was no need for him to make the comments.



On the issue of Kanazoe, he said the contractor could not have been compelled to testify because he is not a Ghanaian, and that, the content presented to CHRAJ by JoyFm's Manasseh Azuri was enough for CHRAJ to prosecute their case.

Source: rainbowradioonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Look, there are a few rhetorical flourishes you generally cant get away with as a world leader in 2016. One of the big ones which tends to land you in a bit of hot water is comparing yourself to Adolf Hitler. Its especially a bit off when youve been accused of running death squads and calling for the mass killings of drug dealers and users in your country.

Thats Rodrigo Duterte, the President of the Philippines and generally a dude you do not want to fuck with. Duterte was elected in June on the promise of dealing with the countrys drug problem, and hes basically applied the solution he embraced while mayor of Davao City: slaughter em.

During a press conference, Duterte dismissed critics who likened him to Adolf Hitler, before appearing to basically agree with that comparison.

If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have he reportedly said, before pausing and pointing to himself. There are three million drug addicts [in the Philippines]. Id be happy to slaughter them.

You know my victims. I would like [them] to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition.

Yeesh. His remarks immediately copped condemnation by Jewish groups across the globe. The comparison of drug users and dealers to Holocaust victims is inappropriate and deeply offensive, said Todd Gutnick, from the Anti-Defamation League. It is baffling why any leader would want to model himself after such a monster.

Welp. A promise to kill millions of drug dealers sounds absurd  but hes being blamed for the deaths of thousands of people already, and he doesnt have a problem with vigilantism from citizens and the police.

Source: Reuters.

Photo: Getty Images.
So, look. The housing market here in Australia is kind of a bust at the moment; largely out of reach of most young people hoping to make the shift from renters to owners.

Maybe its time, then, first-home buyers started looking outside the box a little bit and went abroad for that ever-elusive first house.

And if youve got ridiculous amounts of cash just lying around the house doing nothing, you could make a foray into the property market by picking yourself up a piece of Hollywood history.

The iconic Victorian mansion that served as the set for the hugely beloved 1993 Robin Williams hit is on the market, with an asking price of an eye-watering US$4.45million.

Located in the swank Pacific Heights neighbourhood of San Francisco, the house has (obviously) seen some minor alterations since the film was shot there over twenty years ago, but the interior remains virtually identical to what was featured in the film.

In fact, the largest change the house has seen is that the exterior has been painted a *slightly* different colour.

The house was last purchased in 1997 for US$1.395million by an owner who was said to be extremely welcoming of fans stopping by to get a look at the house for themselves.

Following Robin Williams tragic death in 2014, the house served as a makeshift memorial, with scores of fans leaving flowers on the houses instantly recognisable steps.

If, per chance, you happen to have stumbled on to a secret pile of cash you totally forgot you had, you can cop a look at the houses listing over on them internets.

No word on whether or not the house also comes with a frosty cake for which to stick your face into when in a tight spot.

Source: Variety.
Students and faculty gathered at the University of Sydney today to protest former Prime Minister John Howard, who was being awarded an honorary degree by the university, on the grounds that he is a racist and a war criminal.

Police clash with protesters as John Howard awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Sydney. #9News https://t.co/cMOHktVYI7  Nine News Australia (@9NewsAUS) September 30, 2016

Cops clashed with the protesters, and the event was held up by about 15 minutes.

As you would probably be aware, Howard is a controversial Prime Minister thanks to his attitude and policy on issues like asylum seekers and the Iraq War. The protest was held outside the universitys Great Hall, and was led by Nick Riemer, a senior lecturer in English and Linguistics.

I think there was a very strong message sent today that university management cant cosy up to a  racist without doing so against the wishes of staff, Riemer told Guardian Australia.

Its treated the people who work here with absolute contempt  The vice-chancellor and the chancellor seem to believe that theyre beyond any kind of scrutiny  There has been no attempt by anyone in authority to justify their decision.

The doctorate Howard was receiving was described by USYD as acknowledging Howards world-leading gun law reform, leadership in East Timor and contribution to Australias economic reform.

Protesters were concerned that awarding an honorary doctorate to someone like Howard stood in contrast to the universitys otherwise progressive image.

Source: The Guardian / SBS.

Photo: Getty Images.
Of all the utterly baffling stories that have emerged from the constantly surprising shitstorm that is our highly beloved #auspol, 26-year-old Liberal MP loses his seat in an election and then turns up on a Kurdish resistance frontline in Iraq in a gun battle against ISIS 3 months later has got to take the bloody cake.

But for whatever reason, as weird or stupid or completely mystifying as it may be, that is what has happened to now-former Liberal MP Wyatt Roy.

Roy somehow found himself dodging bullets from ISIS forces whilst visiting Kurdish Peshmerga efforts in the disputed Domez region of Northern Iraq.

A real thing that has actually happened.

After being dragged over the coals today by just about every politician who had a microphone put in front of their face (their verdict? Hes a fool) Roy appeared on The Project a short while ago to attempt to explain exactly what the absolute living fuck he was doing hanging out in inarguably one of the worlds most dangerous locations; one that just about all western government expressly warns citizens against travelling to.

Speaking via Skype from Dubai, Roy uh look, he tried to explain his reasons for being there. But he kinda really didnt explain anything at all, much to the very clear annoyance of host Waleed Aly, who also took the opportunity to journalistically chastise Roy for such a risky move.

In a tense moment, the pair verbally butted heads with Roy explaining that him being caught in gunfire on the frontline of an active battle between Peshmerga and ISIS was extremely unlucky (yeah fkn right), and Aly positing the cost, both in terms of time and money, that wouldve been incurred to Australian forces should something unthinkable happen to Roy whilst in that situation.

In terms of the travel advice, I have enormous respect for the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade and the advice that they provide, but it is very different to the advice that is provided by the United States, or the United Kingdom.

Look m8, Im not fancy big city foreign affairs expert, but Id be willing to be the house on the fact that the US and UKs advice about travelling to Iraq revolves primarily around a recurring theme of dont fucking do it.

Source: The Project/Twitter.
Brace yaself Beliebers, it looks like the piss is out of the proverbial bucket, because numerous Aussie outlets are teasing a BIG BLOODY Justin Bieber announcement which is 100%, defo, no-doubt the dates and deets for an upcoming Australia and New Zealand leg of the Canadian pop pests current Purpose tour.

Litch everyone from Frontier Touring to Nova have been spraying the not-so-sneaky teaser re: Biebs Downunder 2k17, across the internet, for example here, here, and oh yeh, here at this giant fuck-off countdown clock on Frontiers site:

WHAT COULD IT MEAN?????

Yep, the recently reformed(-ish) ratbag, (whose last album was actually v. v. good, dont lie to yourself), will be heading our way sometime next year to hopefully take his shirt off lots. I particularly enjoy when he does that bit, TBH.

Full details will be announced by Kyle & Jackie O Tuesday October 4th at 6am. Which kinda makes the countdown above more like a harbinger of irrevocable doom, cause it means Ill have to listen to those two shitheads.

Anything for JB, am I right?

Photo: Getty / Kevin Mazur
The Cambridges Canadian Cuteness tour rolls on  this time, in a canoe!

On Friday, Prince William and Princess Kates last full day of their week-long tour of Canada, the royal couple stepped out on Haida Gwaii, an archipelago on the north coast of British Columbia, for a canoe trip to the Haida Heritage Centre and Museum.

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After yesterdays big day of royal fun, Prince George and Princess Charlotte stayed behind while their parents were greeted by drummers and Haida warrior paddlers for the canoe ride to the heritage center.

Kate sported a casual look in a dark green blazer by Smythe, white ruffled top, matching skinny jeans and her favorite cowboy boots. She topped off her stylish look with one of her go-to hair accessories: a headband!

Prince George and Princess Charlotte Have the Best Time in Canada!

After a welcome by members of the First Nations and performance of traditional prayer, song and dance, William and Kate were expected to tour the area before heading to the new Haida Gwaii Hospital. Later on Friday, they are scheduled to take a boat ride on the Highlander Ranger during an expedition promoting youth fishing.

Tomorrow is the familys final day in Canada. Saturday morning they are set to take a brief tour over Vancouver Island before flying back to London on a Canadian air force plane.
Rachel Brougham: This is why Halloween is the best
OPEC quarrelling even before ink on deal dries



Iraq's Luaibi complains about OPEC output estimates

ALGIERS

Petroleumworld.com 09 30 2016

For years, debates in the OPEC conference room were dominated by clashes between top producer Saudi Arabia and arch-rival Iran.

But as the two managed to find a rare compromise on Wednesday - with Riyadh softening its stance towards Tehran - a third OPEC superpower emerged.

Iraq overtook Iran as the group's second-largest producer several years ago but kept its OPEC agenda fairly low-profile. On Wednesday, Baghdad finally made its presence felt.

What it did, however, pleased neither Saudi Arabia nor Iran.

Iraq's new oil minister Jabar Ali al-Luaibi told his Saudi and Iranian counterparts, Khalid al-Falih and Bijan Zanganeh, in a closed-door gathering in Algiers that "it was an OPEC meeting for all ministers", a source briefed on the talks said.

Luaibi also said he didn't like the idea of re-establishing OPEC's output ceiling at 32.5 million barrels per day (bpd), according to sources in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Reviving a ceiling, abandoned a year ago because of a Saudi-Iranian clash, was seen by some members as crucial in helping OPEC manage a vastly oversupplied market and prop up prices that stand well below the budget needs of most producers.

But Luaibi told the meeting the new ceiling was no good for Baghdad as OPEC had underestimated Iraq's production, which has soared in recent years.

Confusion followed, according to sources, and after a debate OPEC chose to impose a ceiling in the range of 32.5-33.0 million bpd - a decision dismissed by many analysts as weak and non-binding. OPEC's current output stands at 33.24 million bpd.

As ministers including Falih and Zanganeh emerged smiling from the room and praised OPEC's first output-limiting deal since 2008, Luaibi called a separate briefing to complain about OPEC's estimates of Iraqi output.

"These figures do not represent our actual production," he told reporters. If by November estimates do not change, "then we say we cannot accept this, and we will ask for alternatives".

Luaibi went even further and asked a reporter from Argus Media - whose data OPEC uses among other sources to compile estimates of countries' production - to disclose from where Argus' estimates were coming.

"Your sources are not acceptable. And if there is deviation from the government, then Argus will not work in Iraq," Luaibi told the Argus reporter.

DIFFICULT NEGOTIATIONS AHEAD

Luaibi's revolt shows the fragility of the OPEC deal.

Between now and November, when OPEC meets formally in Vienna, the group will have to overcome huge obstacles to agree a binding deal.

Key among them will be to establish at least some semblance of country quotas to make sure members limit global oversupply, which has helped halve prices since 2014 to below $50 a barrel.

Iran insists it wants to raise output to around 4 million bpd as it emerges from European sanctions. The Saudis have proposed that Iran freeze production at 3.7 million bpd.

Riyadh is offering to cut its own production to 10.2 million bpd from 10.7 million but most analysts argue it will fall to such a level anyway as the summer heat eases, reducing the need for cooling.

Iraq has seen spectacular gains in output in recent years and is asking oil majors to expand production further to above 5 million bpd from the current 4.7 million.

"The deal is a bit of a farce," one OPEC source said.

A source familiar with Iranian thinking said it was still positive that an agreement had been reached: "No one will offer anyone a free ride. Technical committees will work out details."

For Michael Wittner, head of oil research at Societe Generale, the decision shows Saudi Arabia is turning its back on letting the market manage supply.

"It remains to be seen how many real barrels will be removed from the market. To me, the significance is way beyond that: they all sat down in a room and made a decision."










Tranlin's $2b paper mill in US advances Updated: 2016-09-30 10:02 By PAUL WELITZKIN in New York(China Daily)

A Chinese company's planned $2 billion, 344-hectare paper mill in the US state of Virginia took a significant step forward when a major engineering and development contract was signed on Wednesday.

The contract, signed with Jacobs Engineering Group Inc, is for developing the overall site. It will include work on the design of the new plant's pulping facilities and units for tissue-making and fertilizer production using the proprietary technology of Vastly, also known as Tranlin Inc, which is the US subsidiary of Shandong Tranlin Paper Co Ltd.

"It's a complex project and, as Jacobs lays out the design for the site, a major part of the work will involve all the environmental permits that will be required," said John Stacey, senior vice-president of marketing and product development at Vastly.

In 2014, Tranlin said it would invest $2 billion over five years to build its first US manufacturing operation in Chesterfield County, which is about 32 kilometers from Richmond, the state capital of Virginia.

The plant is expected to generate 2,000 new jobs by 2020. It is the biggest Chinese investment and job-creation project in Virginia. The company broke ground on the plant's site along the James River in 2015.

"We are within the schedule to begin full operations by 2020," said Stacey.

The plant is expected to begin limited production of bathroom tissues, paper towels and napkins in 2018 by importing rolls of paper from China.

"In 2020 everything including the paper rolls will be made in the United States with American materials," Stacey said.

Stacey said Tranlin had decided to use the Vastly name to represent the brand.

"Given the massive scale and many facets of the manufacturing operations, multiple product lines and our site restoration efforts, we wanted a big name with virtually endless possibilities."

"This is an exciting opportunity for our global consumer products business. We have a long history of assisting our clients in growth and expansion in global manufacturing," said Bob Pragada, president of Jacobs Industrial Line of Business.
Fosun joins high-speed railway PPP project Updated: 2016-09-30 10:16 (China Daily)

A view of the headquarters building of Fosun International in Shanghai, 11 December 2015.[Photo/IC]

Chinese conglomerate Fosun International Ltd said on Thursday it will invest in a 46.2 billion yuan ($6.92 billion) public-private partnership project to build a high-speed rail link, becoming the first private firm to take part in a high-speed rail project.

The government is keen to lure private capital to infrastructure projects to alleviate the debt burden of local authorities, and has promised policies to support PPPs.

In January, the government said it would test PPPs in the railway sector with eight high-speed and intercity rail projects including one in Zhejiang province linking the cities of Hangzhou and Wenzhou.

Fosun in an emailed statement said that its wholly owned subsidiary Shanghai Fosun High Technology Group Co Ltd signed an agreement with the Zhejiang government for that project's first phase, which will join the cities of Hangzhou and Taizhou.

Fosun did not disclose how much it would invest in the project. Billionaire Guo Guangcheng, chairman of Fosun, said there was much scope for investment as infrastructure per capita in China lagged that of developed countries.

China built the world's longest high-speed rail network in less than a decade but its national railway operator took on heavy debt in the process. At the end of June, China Railway Corp's liabilities totaled 4.21 trillion yuan.

Fosun also said Sunvision Capital, a subsidiary of its property arm, was involved in close to 500 billion yuan worth of PPP projects across China.

Reuters
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According to an explosive Newsweek story out Thursday, Donald Trump secretly conducted business in communist Cuba during Fidel Castros presidency even though it was illegal.

On Thursday during a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Trump tried to lie his way out it.

Video via WMUR:

The Republican nominee said:

I never went to Cuba. Ive never been to Cuba. I never did business with Cuba  Theres nothing else to say. I never did business in Cuba. Id tell you very openly if I did. I was not involved in doing business in Cuba.

Unfortunately for Trump, theres actual evidence that his company did, in fact, spend money in Cuba. In a tweet shortly after the Republican nominee lied about his business ties, Newsweek reporter Kurt Eichenwald shared the proof.

Tweet:

Trump now says his company never paid a consultant 2 go to Cuba and never discussed how to make the biz trip look humanitarian. Hes a liar. pic.twitter.com/opehJojN6M  Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) September 29, 2016

According to an invoice sent from Seven Arrows Investment to the Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, Inc., the Trump-owned business incurred nearly $70,000 in expenses prior to and including a trip to Cuba.

It gets worse, though.

Not only is Trump lying about his business ties with Cuba, but during the time his company was illegally spending money in the country, Trump was trying to figure out how to pass the expenses off as charity, which is the only way it wouldnt be considered a violation of the embargo.

Once again, the Republican nominee is hoping that if he repeats a lie enough times, people will either start believing him or just brush off the story entirely.

The media needs to do its job and make sure he doesnt get away with it.
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After being in circulation for over three decades, USA Today has never issued an official endorsement in a presidential election. This year, the newspapers editorial board wrote that a Donald Trump presidency was too dangerous for them to once again sit on the sidelines.

Because every presidential race is different, we revisit our no-endorsement policy every four years, the paper wrote. Weve never seen reason to alter our approach. Until now.

The newspapers official non-endorsement urged voters to reject the Republican nominee and, by a unanimous decision, called Trump unfit for the presidency.

The editorial board wrote:

In the 34-year history of USA TODAY, the Editorial Board has never taken sides in the presidential race. Instead, weve expressed opinions about the major issues and havent presumed to tell our readers, who have a variety of priorities and values, which choice is best for them. Because every presidential race is different, we revisit our no-endorsement policy every four years. Weve never seen reason to alter our approach. Until now.

This year, the choice isnt between two capable major party nominees who happen to have significant ideological differences. This year, one of the candidates  Republican nominee Donald Trump  is, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, unfit for the presidency.

From the day he declared his candidacy 15 months ago through this weeks first presidential debate, Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he lacks the temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty that America needs from its presidents.

Whether through indifference or ignorance, Trump has betrayed fundamental commitments made by all presidents since the end of World War II. These commitments include unwavering support for NATO allies, steadfast opposition to Russian aggression, and the absolute certainty that the United States will make good on its debts. He has expressed troubling admiration for authoritarian leaders and scant regard for constitutional protections.

The newspaper went on to list traits that make Trump unqualified to be president, calling him erratic, ill-equipped to be commander-in-chief, and serial liar, all while slamming his bigotry and poor business record.

USA Today noted that it wasnt officially endorsing Hillary Clinton, but they did say her shortcomings are less likely to threaten national security or lead to a constitutional crisis.

Some of us look at her command of the issues, resilience and long record of public service  as first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of State  and believe shed serve the nation ably as its president, the editorial board wrote.

The USA Today isnt the only paper to speak out against Trump in this campaign cycle.

Two days ago, the Arizona Republic endorsed Clinton  the first time the paper has ever supported a Democratic candidate. Earlier this month, the Dallas Morning News also threw its support behind Clinton  the first endorsement of a Democrat by the paper in 75 years. The Cincinnati Enquirer, breaking from almost a hundred years of Republican endorsements, also endorsed the Democratic nominee, calling Trump a clear and present danger to our country.

As the election nears, newspapers all across the country are making their voice heard  and urging voters to reject the most dangerously unfit nominee in history.
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Hillary Clinton slammed Donald Trump for his ongoing meltdown over Alicia Machado, tweeting, While Donald continues day 5 of his Machado meltdown, well be in Florida talking about national service. Youll want to watch.

While Donald continues day 5 of his Machado meltdown, we'll be in Florida talking about national service. You'll want to watch.  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 30, 2016

The Clinton campaign explained in a press release, Today, as part of her larger national service platform, Hillary Clinton announced her plan to create a new National Service Reserve that will allow young Americans to serve their communities and their country.

They cite a need for a new service outlet especially for millennials, AmeriCorps is receiving five times more applications than it has spots to fill, and the Peace Corps has seen a 32% increase in applications compared to the previous year. Additionally, national service helps Americans pay for college and build skills that are attractive to employers.

During Trumps five day meltdown, the Republican nominee has tried to slut-shame a woman for allegedly doing the same things his current and third wife has done, although his wife was paid for it.

After Trumps surrogates explained that it was okay for Trump to body-shame Alicia Machado, they began attacking her as a porn-star over an alleged sex-tape. Trump used his platform as a presidential candidate to attack Machado for this and urge everyone to watch the sex tape that he considers porn.

This makes Donald Trump more pimp than president.

We are on day five of the meltdown, which was provoked by Hillary Clinton bringing up Trumps body-shaming of the former Miss Universe; the Republican candidate referred to the beauty queen as Miss Piggy and Miss Housekeeping because shes Latina, among other criticisms.

Watch here in her own words:

Donald Trump called her "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping." Her name is Alicia Machado. #DebateNight pic.twitter.com/0wrISjJe6z  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 27, 2016

Trump responded to this criticism by going on a five-day bender to try to destroy the young woman, as if he could make his comments okay by demeaning her and dehumanizing her. This is a common tactic by an abuser  to impugn the character of the victim in order to excuse the perpetrator, while heaping more humiliation and abuse on the victim as punishment for not taking the abuse silently.

Sadly, Machodo has struggled with eating disorders in the past, making Trumps comments and those of his surrogates even more troubling.

Donald Trump is continuing to hurt himself with women voters, as he did during the debate with his childish and rude behavior toward Hillary Clinton. Trump cant afford to lose more voters, but the more he talks the more he loses.

Familiarity breeds contempt when it comes to Donald Trump.

Hillary Clinton is leaving Donald and his five-day temper tantrum in the dust as she continues to talk about actual issues and ways she hopes to help the American people.
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Hillary Clintons Alicia Machado trap slammed tightly closed on Trump as Clinton told a Florida audience that her Republican opponent is deranged and melting down.

Video:

https://youtu.be/a1jmEKS2pX0?t=1h12m52s

Clinton said:

He finds it a lot easier to insult women than to talk to the president of Mexico about building a wall. I mean, really. Who gets up at three oclock in the morning to engage in a Twitter attack against a former Miss Universe. I mean, he hurled as many insults as he could. Really. Why does he do things like that? I mean, his latest Twitter meltdown was unhinged, even for him. It proves yet again that he is temperamentally unfit to be president and commander in chief.

The bait was placed in the trap on Monday night at the debate. Trump immediately took the bait and had been snared in the Alicia Machado trap for the entire week. Hillary Clintons campaign set Trump up, and the Republican nominee is so driven by his personality issues that he has derailed his entire presidential campaign.

The story started when Clinton brought up Alicia Machado. Clinton lit the spark that Donald Trump turned into an inferno by fanning the flames and giving the story oxygen by attacking a former Miss Universe.

With one swoop Clinton has proven Trumps unfitness for the White House, and no other candidate would waste time less than 40 days before election day smearing a former Miss Universe instead of running for president.

Clinton set him up, but it is Donald Trump who is hopelessly trapped.
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Senator Harry Reids office says, Senator [Mitch] McConnell likes to say that divided government is a great time to get things done  but that has not been the case under his leadership. And the numbers prove it. From Republicans, we get a lot of sloganeering but very little in the way of any actual deeds.

Here are the facts:

By every objective measure, Senator McConnell has led the least-productive divided-government Senate in the past three decades  including the Democratic Senate led by Senator Reid under President Bush.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Services facts and figures, both sides most definitely DONT do it:

Leader McConnell/President Obama, 2015-16

Bills passed: 338

Judicial nominations confirmed: 20

Total civilian nominations confirmed: 255

Leader Reid/President Bush, 2007-08

Bills passed: 466

Judicial nominations confirmed: 58

Total civilian nominations confirmed: 475

Yet Mitch McConnell is repeatedly on record talking about productivity:

Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): And divided government is the perfect time to do hard stuff because together, no one can take political advantage of it. [PBS Charlie Rose, 6/1/16]

Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): Frequently, times of divided government are quite good times in terms of achieving things for the American people. [Fox News Sunday, 1/26/14]

Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): Divided government is the perfect time to do big things, the perfect time. [NY Times, 11/14/11]

Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): Its also important to remember that some of these periods when you had divided government have been quite productive. I think of the second Clinton administration, with welfare reform, with balanced budgets, with trade agreements. [Press Conference, 11/30/10]

Yet if you look at the record, this is not what has happened:

Rather than big things we have been treated to a clinic on entropy; a lot of big words rather than big things, and very little action. Sadly, the same is true in the House of Representatives, where Paul Ryan has turned talking about fixing problems without actually fixing them into an art form.

The GOP has become all about talk and bragging about fixing problems that arent really problems. Its time for McConnell and his pal Paul Ryan to go, and for Republicans to make way for somebody who is willing to get things done. These people were elected to do a job, and in all the years hes been there, Mitch McConnell has steadfastly refused to do it.
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Donald Trump gave the panel on MSNBCs Morning Joe a good laugh this morning as he urged his followers on twitter to watch a sex tape. Yes, a presidential candidate promoting what he thinks is porn. As Huffington Posts Sam Stein told the panel, this is unnatural and weird.

Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016

Trump has had a very difficult time keeping on task this election cycle, seemingly distracted by every little imagined slight, and this time, he may have derailed his campaign as he launched a tweet storm in the wee hours of the morning attacking former Miss Universe Alicia Machado.

Joe Scarborough invited The Washington Posts Robert Costa to read Trumps morning tweets on air, which was the occasion for great hilarity, as Costa had a very difficult time keeping a straight face throughout.

Watch courtesy of MSNBC:

Scarborough next asked Eugene Robinson what these tweets meant, if Trump was acknowledging that he lost the debate. First joking that what this meant was that the staffer tasked with taking Trumps phone away at night was off today, Robinson answered in the affirmative:

Itsflailing. He cant deal with the fact that he got creamed in that debate. Earlier in the week, he was apparently raving at the surrogates to go out and say that he won the debate, rather than he lost the debate.

As Robinson pointed out, this Miss Universe thing is hurting him with women.

Sam Stein jumped in with the remark that all Trump has done is give this issue life, repeating what I said here this morning that,

He cant get over the slight that he feels was handed to him during the debate. This is who he is.

Costa agreed: Thats who he is. But thats not who he needs to be if he expects to be elected president. Trump, as always, is his own worst enemy, even as he blames literally everybody else.

In other words, Hillary Clinton played Trump perfectly Monday night. This not only had immediate dividends, as he became thoroughly flustered and lost focus, but also long term, as he has now derailed his entire campaign in pursuit of a personal vendetta.

As Jeremy Peters of The New York Times told the panel, Trump cannot process criticism.

Though there are only a few weeks left of this election cycle, it is going to be a very long few weeks for Trump if he cant focus on what matters rather than letting himself become distracted by every critic and every criticism, indulging in what Mika Brzezinski called his self-destructive narcissism, especially when he  as is the case here  is not the victim in the scenario, but the bad guy.
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As the actual President was giving remarks at the memorial service for former Israeli President Shimon Peres at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, Israel, Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, was attacking his former Miss Universe Alicia Mochados past.

Heres how Donald Trump spent his early Friday morning:

Wow, Crooked Hillary was duped and used by my worst Miss U. Hillary floated her as an "angel" without checking her past, which is terrible!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016

As my colleague Hrafnkell Haraldsson explained this morning, Donald Trump and the Right have grossly exaggerated Alicia Mochados past in order to try to smear her with the sort of things that they virulently defend Trumps wife Melania for having done. Thats called a lack of integrity and a lack of values.

Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016

There is no shameful past and Trumps own wife has posed nude so much the pictures are everywhere, but that doesnt stop Trump from trying to publicly shame Alicia Machados sexuality.

So while President Obama was saying important things like:



Shimon once said, The message of the Jewish people to mankind is that faith and moral vision can triumph over all adversity. For Shimon, that moral vision was rooted in an honest reckoning of the world as it is But he was still a teenager when his grandfather was burned alive by the Nazis in the town where Shimon was born. The synagogue in which he prayed became an inferno. The railroad tracks that had carried him toward the Promised Land also delivered so many of his people to death camps.

And so from an early age, Shimon bore witness to the cruelty that human beings could inflict on each other, the ways that one group of people could dehumanize another; the particular madness of anti-Semitism, which has run like a stain through history. That understanding of mans ever-present sinfulness would steel him against hardship and make him vigilant against threats to Jewry around the world.



Donald Trump was trying to slut-shame the woman he already body-shamed.

This is how Donald Trump operates, at the lowest level and with no integrity.

I have always defended Melania Trump from attacks on her sexuality  even from the left, and so for me to defend Alicia Mochado from the same is not a partisan knee-jerk defense. Its basic humanity. If women are to be treated as equals they must not dehumanized via their sexuality.

Donald Trump spent his morning abusing his power to try to slut-shame a woman from the megaphone of his position, so that the entire world now thinks she has some shameful past, while President Obama was discussing how the cruelty human beings could inflict on each other, the ways that one group of people could dehumanize another.

Of note, Donald Trumps bullying of Hillary Clinton during the first presidential debate did him no favor with women voters, he actually lost support from women while Hillary Clinton gained it, according to an NBC News poll.

Donald Trump dehumanizes anyone who crosses him. He abuses his power  money and position  to pick on people who have little to no recourse against his attacks. Real leaders like Shimon Peres and President Obama understand the terrifying danger in dehumanizing others.

Donald Trump is not worthy of taking President Obamas place in the White House. No matter how low hes been treated  including by Donald Trump himself, who remains proud of his racist birther attacks on this President, Obama has continued to take the high road.

President Obama is a real leader, Donald Trump is a wanna-be, abusive low-life who belongs in the gutter from which he came. Republicans should be ashamed for standing by this man.
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Donald Trump and his campaign keep hinting that he might hit Hillary Clinton with Bill Clintons affairs at the next debate or town hall forum.

This, of course, is a really stupid idea so chances are high that he will do it. This makes his disparaging comments about the women Clinton cheated with relevant, and naturally, theyre not pretty.

Years ago, Trump called Paul Jones a loser and said that the public would have forgiven Clinton if only he had had an affair with a really beautiful woman instead of Monica Lewinsky. These quotes were brought back to life today by Greg Sargent at the Washington Post.

Sargent also published a Post compilation video of Trumps comments. Watch here:

In 1998, Trump said in an interview with Chris Matthews, Paula Jones is a loser, but the fact is that she may be responsible for bringing down a president indirectly. This quote was first unearthed by WaPos Glenn Kessler.

In 1999, Trump said this about Monica Lewinsky, pointed out in an earlier article by Sargent, Its sad because he would go down as a great President if he had not had this scandal. People would have been more forgiving if hed had an affair with a really beautiful woman of sophistication. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe were on a different level.

With all of the promises and threats to come after Clinton on this, it turns out that it is Donald Trump who gets the sexist trophy out of this entire mess, because only Donald Trump judged Bill Clintons affair based on the looks of the woman.

Its okay to cheat if the woman is beautiful? I really dont think the women of America are going to respond well to that.

This is a double fail, because its not going to go over well if Donald Trump tries to hold Bill Clintons affairs against his wife. Women  especially younger women  see this as the sexist, blaming the victim attack that it is. Even many young Republican women I talk to think this is beyond offensive.

Trump tries to claim this is about Hillary Clinton defending her husband over these women, but Hillary herself had been misled about their involvement with her husband and no sane person is going to hold her hurt reaction to her husbands betrayal over her head. And again, Bill Clinton is not running for President.

This is actually one of the most insulting things Republicans keep pushing, because it says that they wont take Hillary Clinton on as a person herself. They are attacking her as a wife of a former President.

Having an affair isnt sexist. I keep trying to tell Republicans this, but as people who inherently do not understand what sexism is, when they try to use it as a weapon against the first women presidential candidate on a major party ticket, they are bound to make fools of themselves.

Sex isnt sexism. Defending a partner who has cheated isnt sexism.

Using Monica Lewinsky as a weapon without regard to her life is pretty crappy, but it looks like Republicans arent about to give that up. Theyve been doing it for two decades and theyre not going to stop. Lewinsky herself has said that she was fully consenting, there was no harassment or abuse by Bill Clinton. Make of that what we will, it was a long time ago now, but she has said she doesnt appreciate being used by Republicans who misconstrue the events of her life for their own means.

Donald Trump is such a sexist, he cant see the trap he is falling into. Younger women, younger married women, were already appalled when he suggested he might bring this up.

Women expect to be judged on their own merits and work, not on their husbands actions. This isnt exactly a novel concept. We dont judge male politicians on their wives behavior. When male politicians cheat on their wives, especially Republican men, we are told its not relevant and God has forgiven them.

Donald Trump can try this but it will be a big old box of fail, yet again. And I suspect Hillary Clinton will be waiting for him.
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Former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura still growls with his usual indignation.

His sense of outrage against what he sees as government's overweening ways has, if anything, become more pronounced. People think they are free, but they're not. Not really, he says.

His new book, "Jesse Ventura's Marijuana Manifesto," takes aim at government's war on cannabis, as well as the burgeoning infrastructure  the laws, the government agencies, the prisons  that he says is designed to keep people from legally accessing marijuana. He will be at Barnes & Noble at Rochester's Apache Mall at 4 p.m. Saturday to talk about his new book.

Here are some excerpts from interview Ventura had with the PB.

Why are you so passionate about this issue?

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Marijuana brought back my quality of life. I'll just state without going into many specifics that someone close to me developed epileptic seizure disorder and was getting seizures up to three to four times a week. When you deal with someone with a seizure disorder, it affects more than just the person having the seizures. It affects everyone around them.

We were at wit's end. And so we went to Colorado. Colorado has legal medical marijuana. We got medical marijuana: Three drops under the tongue three times a day. The person's now on it in Minnesota and has been seizure-free for over two years.

On why people should have the right to smoke marijuana:

Marijuana has never killed anybody. You can binge drink and die. Look at the colleges when these kids binge drink and die. And here in Minnesota, let's look at our own Prince. Had Prince been on marijuana, he'd be alive and playing music, wouldn't he?

No one has died from an overdose of marijuana. No one. If you die from an overdose of marijuana, you will go down in history as a first. You can make history.

If marijuana is my top issue, who should I support in the presidential election?

(Libertarian Party candidate) Gary Johnson or (Green Party candidate) Dr. Jill Stein. Johnson already said unequivocally that he will do what he can to end the wars in the Middle East and bring our kids home. He also will eliminate the war on drugs. Now you want the repercussions of the war on drugs: The militarization of your police forces. This police mentality that we're dealing with today of shoot first, ask questions later  that all comes from the war on drugs.

Would you give Edward Snowden a pardon?

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Absolutely. No doubt about it. He's a hero. Anyone that is a whistle-blower with the government is a hero. And they pay a huge price for it.

Do you see any parallels between your success as a third-party candidate for governor and Donald Trump's rise?

I see a little bit, but I actually saw more with Bernie Sanders in the fact that I didn't take any special interest money. I wasn't owned by any lobbyist and I didn't provide the money myself. That's where I differ from Trump, too. I'm not a billionaire paying my way to get elected. So I saw more parallels with Bernie's campaign with the people than I did with Trump, although everybody equated me with Trump. Donald's a friend of mine. I have nothing against Donald. I just don't support Republicans or Democrats. I'm voting for Gary Johnson.

Are you comfortable with the idea of a Trump presidency?

I'd have to be. You're not given a choice. I feel the same way about Hillary. All these people that want change. The only way you're going to get change is to stop voting for Democrats and Republicans. As long as people continue to vote for Democrats and Republicans, you're not going to get any change. You're going to get business as usual. They're all owned by the corporations.

Did you watch the debate between Trump and Clinton?

No. Absolutely not. I would have watched if they had (professional wrestling promoter Vince) McMahon as the moderator. I might have watched that. That would have been more entertaining.

On how the American sniper Chris Kyle case has impacted his life. (Ventura won a defamation lawsuit against Kyle, who was killed in 2013. But the $2 million jury award was overturned on appeal with major media companies supporting the appeal)

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In light of 33 major media conglomerates coming into my court case, you think they're going to to hire me. Since the Chris Kyle thing happened, I've lost all my jobs. No one will hire me in the United States. My current employer that I signed with now is the Russian government. Pretty pathetic. That's what I'm facing. That's what this Kyle trial has done.

On his gig with RT America on election night (The Washington, D.C. TV channel is a global multilingual television news network based in Moscow)...

I will be going to out to Washington, D.C., and I will be manning with Larry King and Ed Schultz. Russian Today America, that's where I will be election night. RT is seen by 800 million homes throughout the world. It's second only to the BBC. So Jesse Ventura will be more powerful than ever. Jesse hasn't disappeared. He's gone international.
It's a legislative race that hasn't been getting much statewide attention  until now.

That's because newly released campaign finance reports show an outside Democratic group is pumping big money into House District 28B with the goal of defeating longtime Preston Republican Rep. Greg Davids. As of Sept. 20, Alliance for a Better Minnesota had spent more than $113,000 on radio ads, TV spots and mailers in support of Spring Grove DFLer Thomas Trehus. Conservative groups have fought back, with the Pro-Jobs Majority and the Minnesota House Republican Campaign Committee forking out more than $50,000 for anti-Trehus ads.

Trehus points to the influx of outside cash as proof that he has got a good shot at defeating the 12-term incumbent.

"It's actually been quite a surprise to see the influx of outside money. But I knew six months ago that I had a good shot at it, and I don't think anyone else really knew that. But obviously, outside groups have done polling and they've realized that themselves," Trehus said.

But Davids dismisses the idea that he is in any political danger. While talking to a reporter, he was busy putting up campaign signs in the district.

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"You need to personally be out there showing folks that you are working hard, and that's what's going on," he said.

Davids has been defeated before. In 2006, he lost to DFLer Ken Tschumper by 52 votes. Two years later, the Preston Republican won back the seat. Recent elections show mixed results for Democrats. In 2012, district voters favored Democrat Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney. Two years later, district voters backed Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson over DFL Gov. Mark Dayton.

Alliance for a Better Minnesota has already spent nearly $2 million to support DFL candidates across the state, according to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board . ABM Spokeswoman Susie Merthan said the group believe Trehus a good shot at defeating Davids.

"(Trehus) lives on a family farm in the district. He's focused on creating opportunities for everybody  not just the wealthy  and focusing on education and things that working families care about, like paid family leave," Merthan said.

Pro-Republican groups have been pushing back, spending money on ads and mailers attacking Trehus. Pro Jobs Majority, which is linked to the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, has spent more than $36,000 attacking Trehus. The group's chairman, Bill Blazar, declined to comment, saying the group does not discuss spending on specific races.

A recent mailer paid for by the Republican Party of Minnesota features a picture of a baby in a diaper. It states that the baby can stand up and say no but "liberal politician Thomas Trehus can't say no to his liberal party bosses."

GOP Party Chairman Keith Downey said he is confident that Davids will win re-election this fall.

"Greg Davids, like any incumbent, has to take the race seriously. He is one of the leaders of our caucus, chair of the tax committee. No wonder they would try to target the district," Downey said.

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But Minnesota DFL Chairman Ken Martin said recent polling shows Trehus has a chance at defeating the Republican incumbent.

"It's become much more competitive. We've seen in our research that we've got an opportunity to win there," Martin said.

On the campaign trail, Trehus said he is hearing plenty of voters talking about their frustration with legislative inaction in St. Paul. That includes the failure of lawmakers and the governor to reach a deal on tax cuts, transportation funding and millions in statewide construction projects.

"You look at all those factors and it's a really good time to be running against a longtime, establishment incumbent," Trehus said.

Davids counters that what he hears from voters at the door is frustration about the size of government. He also predicts that having Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at the top of the ticket will help his campaign in the rural district.

The mood among voters "isn't anti-incumbent. It's anti-government and there's a big difference," Davids said. "And so if you have been advocating more reasonable, more responsible government, it's very positive."

Big spenders

Here are some local races that have attracted big spending:

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House District 21A: Democrat Lisa Bayley and Republican Barb Haley, both of Red Wing, are battling for the open seat. A review of reports shows this race has so far attracted the most outside money of any race in Southeast Minnesota  a grand total of more than $167,000. So far, conservative groups have the advantage, spending more than $118,000 in support of Haley and against Bayley.

Senate District 21: Freshman DFL Sen. Matt Schmit is facing off against Republican Mike Goggin. More than $152,000 from outside groups has already poured into the district. Democrats have the advantage so far with more than $127,000 being spent on behalf of Schmit.

House District 25B:Former GOP Rep. Fran Bradley and DFLer Duane Sauke are competing for the open Rochester seat. More than $108,000 has been spent on ads and mailers in the district by outside groups. The vast majority of that money  more than $88,000  has been in support of Sauke.
Rochester-area legislative candidates weighed in Thursday night on the use of lethal force by police, gun violence and the Black Lives Matter movement.

More than 70 people packed the Rochester Public Library Auditorium for the candidate forum, which was sponsored by the Rochester NAACP, Rochester Muslim Community Circle, Rochester for Justice and First Unitarian Universalist Church.

Who attended the forum?

All 12 Rochester-area legislative candidates participated. Attending the forum were Sen. Dave Senjem, R-Rochester and his opponent Dale Amorosia, DFL-Byron; Rep. Duane Quam, R-Byron, and rival Linda Walbruch, DFL-Mantorville; former Rep. Fran Bradley, R-Rochester, and opponent Duane Sauke, DFL-Rochester; Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, and rival Rich Wright, DFL-Rochester; Rep. Tina Liebling, DFL-Rochester, and opponent Will Waggoner, R-Rochester; and Rep. Nels Pierson, R-Rochester, and challenger John Austinson, DFL-Eyota.

What should be done to limit the use of lethal force by police?

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Some DFL candidates suggested it is time to re-examine the standards for the use of lethal force by police officers. Liebling said this would be an important step in helping reduce police shooting.

"If we change the standard for lethal force, at least we would lose fewer lives. So that would be a good start," Liebling said, winning applause from the crowd.

Her GOP rival said he would like to make sure police officers receive the best possible training.

"I don't believe any officer specifically goes out thinking that they want to harm someone. I believe that there are plenty of officers out there who are doing the best of their ability every single day and there are situations that come up where force is required," Waggoner said.

Several candidates said they would like to see the state step in and help provide departments with non-lethal equipment and body cameras. Amorosia said getting police departments body cameras and making sure that footage is available to the public is important.

"When you have these body cameras, the number of complaints goes down," he said.

Senjem agreed it's important that this equipment be made available. He said he voted against a bill at the legislature that set standards for the use of body cameras by police because "getting the tapes to the public is fairly onerous, and I thought it was too onerous."

What should be done to reduce gun violence in the community?

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Many of the candidates said they want to see more young people take gun safety courses. Quam said he believes that step would help prevent some gun-related tragedies.

"We've got to let people know that video games are not real life. And I think some of the tragedies have been when kids found a gun, and it was something new and they sort of acted out video games," he said.

His DFL rival said she backs the idea of requiring universal background checks for purchases of guns.

"I don't think it's an issue of Second Amendment rights. I think it's an issue of common sense and what we are going to do to keep each other safe in our communities," Walbruch said.

Sauke also wants to see expanded background checks for gun purchases and wants more done to target the trafficking of guns.

"If the supply of guns starts to diminish, that will in the end remove some of the opportunity to get that gun," he said.

Bradley noted violent crime is down in the community. He said he is a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment and didn't voice support for any additional regulations.

"I am generally of a mind that bad people doing crime are going to find a way to find guns  no matter what," he said.

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What about the Black Lives Matter movement?

All of the candidates were asked the question "Do black lives matter?" Wright said more needs to be done to tackle racial inequities in the state. To do that, he said lawmakers need to talk with members of Minnesota's minority communities about steps that need to be taken.

"The only way that I see we can come to a solution to this is if we open our hearts, open our minds and have an honest dialogue about what is going on and what the solutions are," he said.

Nelson said she firmly believes that the key to reducing racial inequality in the state is making sure that all students  regardless of their backgrounds  have access to a quality education. That means increasing the diversity of teachers and working to reduce the achievement gap between white students and students of color.

"We have the largest education achievement gap in the nation. It's time we changed that," she said.

Austinson credited Black Lives Matter for raising awareness about racial inequality. He added that, "We've got to get the media to quit trying to divide us."

Pierson said it is embarrassing that the question is even being asked whether black lives matter. He said of course they do. But he also expressed frustration that some groups are unwilling to talk to each other about the problem.

"I was called a racist because I belong to the same political party of another individual. And so the bigotry goes both ways, and we have to shut it all down," he said.

A heated exchange

At one point during the forum, two women wearing Black Lives Matters T-shirts stood up and specifically asked Quam whether he believes black lives matter. He responded, "Human life is

precious, can we agree on that?"

One of the women responded, "Yes or no? What we are asking is a yes or no question."

Forum moderator Mark Stephenson stepped in and that part of the debate ended.
Could law enforcement officials investigating the abduction and disappearance of Jacob Wetterling done things differently? Could the case have been solved sooner? The man behind the heinous act apprehended more quickly?

That's the crucial question at the heart of a new podcast series, " In the Dark ," that delves into the 27-year-old mystery that ended last month with the discovery of Jacob's remains in a grove of trees on the outskirts of town. Since the release of the first two episodes earlier this month, "In the Dark" sits at No. 8 on iTunes' top podcasts.

Minnesota Public Radio reporter Madeleine Baran, the story's lead investigative reporter, notes at the outset of the podcast that unsolved investigations that last nearly three decades are, by definition, failures.

The chance of finding an abducted child alive recedes as crucial minutes and hours elapse. Case studies of child abductions show that if a child is going to be killed, it happens within five hours of the abduction 85 percent of the time.

Yet Baran says local law enforcement officials have stated repeatedly to her that everything that could be done was done to find Jacob.

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Baran finds that unwillingness to admit any mistakes startling, especially given what was learned from the murderer's confession.

Serialized story-telling has undergone a revival the last few years, thanks to the enormous popularity of podcasts such as "Serial." Such powerful stories have attracted millions of listeners. Serial, a podcast hosted by Sara Koenig, unspooled the story of a young woman's murder in Baltimore in 1999 and the arrest and conviction of her ex-boyfriend for murder. More than 40 million episodes have been downloaded.

Yet re-examining cold cases years, if not decades, after the original crime is one thing. But are listeners interested in retracing the horror of child abduction and murder, especially one that was so recently solved? For many, the instinct is to recoil from such a re-examination.

Yet the early suggestion seems to be yes, if there is something listeners believe can be learned from the case.

The podcast "In the Dark" was only weeks from being launched when investigators revealed that Jacob had been found. Producers moved up the podcast's release a week earlier than planned after the news broke.

The Wetterling case reshaped the law toward sex offenders and contributed to parents having a more protective, wary attitude in how they raised their children. Local governments now keep track of sex offenders through registries. Many parents no longer let their children go out at night.

Baran said in her MPR interview that the testimony of Danny Heinrich, a former Paynesville resident who confessed to killing Wetterling and a person long under suspicion, raises new questions about clues that were missed. Even as a frantic search was being undertaken. Heinrich took a Bobcat from a nearby construction company and used it to bury Jacob's body.

"Some aspects were out there, almost blatant," Baran said.

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Dodge County

Hayfield tells folks to fix it up

The Hayfield City Council has amended the building and appearance portion of the city's nuisances ordinance. The amendment is related to unfinished landscaping or unfinished exterior appearance for which no building construction permit had been issued within the preceding 12 months.

Fillmore County

Watershed plan heads to state

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PRESTON -- Members of the Root River One Watershed, One Plan (1W1P) voted unanimously Wednesday to submit the watershed-based planning document to the Minnesota Board of Water & Soil Resources for final review.

BWSR's board of directors likely will vote in December on the Root River 1W1P document. The plan then would go to each local government unit in the planning area to vote on whether to adopt it.

Goodhue County

Pick up a basket at the Fall Festival

NERSTRAND -- The Nerstrand United Methodist Church will have its annual Fall Festival on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The event includes lunch, crafted baskets, a bake sale and thrift items.

Houston County

Chamber dinner is Saturday

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The La Crescent Chamber of Commerce will hold its 12th annual Dinner at the Depot on Saturday. The location is Joe Ready's farm, 31994 County Road 1, La Crescent. It is on Apple Blossom Scenic Drive overlooking the Mississippi River Valley. Contact Martha Meyer at 895-4486.

Mower County

Historical Society honors volunteers

Mower County Historical Society is hosting a Volunteer Appreciation Reception on Monday at 5 p.m. MCHS Board and Staff members are providing treats and snacks. Contact 437-6082 for more information. The location is 1303 6th Ave. SW, Austin.

Wabasha County

Hunger task force forms

Wabasha County is forming a hunger task force with the help of the Blandin Community Leadership Program. The task force will evaluate and address the hunger issue in the county through the program.

Winona County

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McCutcheon to perform at WSU

WINONA  Wisconsin native John McCutcheon will bring his award-winning style of folk music and storytelling to the Harriet Johnson Auditorium at Winona State University's Somsen Hall at 7 p.m. Saturday. The concert is a benefit for Solomon's Song, the nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting healthy living, celebrating diversity and reducing stigma, according to the organization's website.

A health fair will precede the concert from 6 to 7 p.m. Tickets are available through Brown Paper Tickets at solomonssong.brownpapertickets.com.
After months of discussion and protests, Mayo Clinic confirmed Thursday it will sign a contract next week with Morrison Healthcare for its food service.

Service Employees International Union Healthcare Minnesota, which represents 350 Rochester workers affected by Mayo's decision, first reported the clinic's decision in a news release Thursday, and Mayo confirmed it later in the day.

"Our team gathered input from stakeholders across the organization, reviewed options, requested proposals and evaluated potential vendors," according to the statement released by Mayo spokeswoman Ginger Plumbo. "This is the right plan, and we intend to sign the contract with Morrison Healthcare and move forward with the transition."

Mayo says the food contractor change from Sodexo to Morrison Healthcare , with about 700 Mayo employees in southern Minnesota becoming employees of Morrison, is about improving the quality and efficiency of its food service at all its facilities.

Atlanta-based Morrison Healthcare is one of the largest national food service companies, serving more than 650 hospitals and health care systems.

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The SEIU Minnesota local called the announcement "a sad day for Rochester."

"It seems clear to everyone except Mayo executives that this plan is wrong, but they have refused to even have a basic dialogue," said Jamie Gulley, president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, in the news release. "So we are going to continue doing what we have done all along: fight to ensure that these remain good jobs so that Mayo patients and employees continue to receive the excellent food service they deserve."

Union officials have been meeting with Mayo officials since the plan was announced in June . The union is concerned that food service employees could face wage cuts and reduced health care benefits.

"SEIU has contended that this decision is about making a profit," the Mayo statement says. "In fact, our food service operations have always been an expense item, an important investment we make to care for our patients and staff."

"Mayo Clinic has been negotiating in good faith with the unions that together represent approximately a third of Mayo's food service workers," the statement says. "We respect the bargaining process and will continue to negotiate in good faith."

SEIU wants Mayo to address a number of principles, including that the food service agreement include recognition of the union, adoption of the union contract and employment guarantees for all employees at the same or higher rate of pay.

The two sides are scheduled to meet again on Wednesday and Thursday.
Man guilty of killing girlfriend, her daughter

MINNEAPOLIS  A jury has convicted a Minneapolis man of first-degree murder for shooting his girlfriend and her daughter to death.

The Hennepin County jury took only a couple of hours to convict Gonzalo Galvan late Tuesday afternoon. The 51-year-old will automatically be sentenced to life in prison at his Oct. 6 hearing.

Galvan called 911 last September to report that he had shot 48-year-old Eugenia Tallman and her 15-year-old daughter, Victoria Alvarez. The couple's seven-year-old son was unharmed but witnessed the shooting.

The criminal complaint says Galvan told police she was leaving him and taking both children.

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Court records show Galvan had been charged with domestic assault at least three times previously, but each time the charges were dismissed.  Associated Press

Man struck and killed by train

BIG LAKE  Authorities have identified a man who was fatally struck by a freight train in Big Lake.

The Sherburne County Sheriff's Office says 24-year-old Cody Haberman, of Big Lake, was hit about 6:15 p.m. Wednesday by a BNSF train. The location was equipped with a full complement of warning lights and crossing gates.

Haberman's fiancee, Kassey Jacobson, says he had just left his job at a McDonald's up the street from where he was struck.

Restaurant's owner Kris Genck says their thoughts and prayers go out to Haberman and his family.  Associated Press

Sisters found dead in villa on African island

MINNEAPOLIS  A Minnesota man says his family has been given little information on how his two sisters died while vacationing on a tropical African island.

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The bodies of Annie Korkki, 37, of Denver, and Robin Korkki, 42, of Chicago, were found in their resort villa last week in Seychelles, an archipelago nation off Africa's east coast in the Indian Ocean.

Their brother, Chris Korkki, said the family has learned nothing so far through official channels about his sisters' deaths. He said his mother and brother have traveled to Seychelles for answers and to make arrangements to bring his sisters' bodies back to the U.S.

"All I know is my mom and brother are working with local officials and the U.S. Embassy," Korkki told The Associated Press on Thursday, adding that embassy employees have been supportive.

Emails sent by the AP to police and the foreign ministry in Seychelles weren't immediately returned Thursday. Phone calls to the Seychelles foreign ministry and police rang unanswered.

The sisters' bodies were found Sept. 22 at the Maia Luxury Resort.

Korkki said his sisters were adventurous women who wanted to experience life to the fullest.

"They were frequent travelers both domestically and internationally," he said. "They were kind and generous and compassionate, and were wonderful people that had a positive impact on a huge number of people."  Associated Press

Regency Beauty Institute closes its 79 campuses

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ST. LOUIS PARK  The Minnesota-based Regency Beauty Institute says it's closing all its 79 campuses, including five locations in its home state.

The company says it doesn't have the cash to continue to run the cosmetology school business. The company is based in St. Louis Park.

The company says it's trying to reach agreements with other schools to accept its students.

Regency operated Minnesota schools in Blaine, Burnsville, Duluth, Maplewood and St. Cloud.  Minnesota Public Radio
I received a political mailing that encouraged me to vote for Fran Bradley, and it was sent to me by Pro Jobs Majority. I went to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board website , to see what I could learn about the organization that sent me the flyer.

I found out that Pro Jobs Majority has raised well over $500,000 since the beginning of this year, but all of that money came from one source  the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. So basically, this flyer from Pro Jobs Majority was really the Chamber of Commerce asking me to vote for Fran Bradley  for their own business interests.

Personally, though, I am more inclined to vote for Duane Sauke, who has been to my door more than once. I have had several opportunities to visit with him, and I feel confident that Duane will represent me and my family, and the whole community  with energy, intelligence and compassion.

Joseph Nix

Rochester
As the Olmsted County Board proclaimed October to be Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Chairwoman Stephanie Podulke noted things have changed.

She recalled working with the local women's shelter before there was physical shelter, when volunteers would take abused women into their homes. They were frequently contacted by women who received a card from police officers after a call regarding domestic violence.

Podulke recalled an astonishing conversation during that time: "One of the law enforcement officer's statement to me was 'Why don't you just give these out in the food-stamp line?'"

"Think about how far law enforcement and community awareness has come since then," she added.

Unfortunately, we haven't come far enough.

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Last year, 34 victims of domestic violence were murdered in Minnesota. Countless others were injured, some who are known and too many who continue to hide their physical and emotional scars.

While more than 65,000 adults receive domestic violence services each year in Minnesota, less than 50 percent of victims seek help, according to the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women.

The grim statistics proves more must be done. Still, we're glad to know attitudes are changing. Domestic violence is not something found in only certain households; it cuts a tragic path across demographics.

Awareness efforts must be just as broad.

As Neil Dennison of Olmsted County's Victim Services program noted, "It's important to bring up our domestic violence awareness, not just for women but for everyone  men, children, teenagers."

Podulke said that increased awareness makes a difference. "I'm proud of everyone for growing and understanding how serious domestic violence is and what a long legacy it passes down to children," she said.

That legacy means we need to continue to support efforts to raise awareness, throughout October and throughout the year.

Domestic Violence Awareness Month provides a chance to increase conversations. As events occur throughout the region, they offer opportunities to support local shelters, as well as provide insights on how to prevent domestic violence.

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Dennison pointed out that fighting domestic violence isn't always a matter of stepping between an abuser and victim or even offering shelter. Sometime, it's a matter of shining a light on improper attitudes, demonstrating ways to change mannerisms and being willing to speak up. "There's many ways you can stand up to domestic violence," he said.

On a larger scale, we need to continue to ensure housing and services are available for anyone seeking to leave abusive relationship. We ensure services are accessible to all, and we need to continue raising awareness whenever possible.

Whether you have a personal connection to domestic violence or not, take time this month to learn more about it. Raise your own awareness.

Who knows? Maybe you'll find a way to step in and help someone put an end to a brutal legacy.



Raise awareness

Just some events to raise awareness in the coming month include:

 5:30 p.m. tonight in Rochester's Peace Plaza, Remember My Name Display and Candlelight Vigil.

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 6 p.m. Oct. 3, 5K Purple Ribbon Run/Walk at Terra Loco, 1190 16th St SW #150 Rochester, to support Women's Shelter, Inc.

 7 p.m. Oct. 11 in Room 417 of University Square, UMR Connects: Women's Shelter presents: "Tough Guise 2- Violence, Manhood, & American Culture"

Displays will also be used to raise awareness throughout the region, including the Minnesota Coalition of Battered Women's Clothesline Project, which will be set up in the Double Tree skyway.
Lt. Col. Emmanuel G. Escaba will take command of the Guam Army National Guards largest unit during a change-of-command ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 1, beginning at 10 a.m. in Building 350 at the Guards Readiness Center in Barrigada.

Lt. Col. Escaba has more than 29 years of service as an enlisted soldier and an officer. He has served in various leadership positions throughout his career. In his full-time capacity, Escaba is currently the comptroller division chief, assigned to the United States Property and Fiscal Office.

The 1st Battalion, 294th Infantry Regiment is the largest unit assigned to the Guam National Guard, formerly comprised of a battalion headquarters, a headquarters company, three rifle companies (Alpha Company, Bravo Company and Charlie Company), and a weapons company (Delta Company).

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The battalion has deployed its forces to the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan and the Philippines in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. In 2013, the battalion mobilized and deployed approximately 600 soldiers to Afghanistan, which is considered to be the largest deployment of reserve component forces from Guam, known as Task Force Guam.

The battalion has consistently proven it can be relied on when called upon. It is strongly committed to consistently training professional and competent soldiers to support our nation and island. The battalion stands true to its motto: Maseha Ngaian Yan Manu, or Anytime and Anywhere. The battalion stands ready and able, at home and abroad, to fulfill its mission.

Lt. Col. Romeo J. Delfin has been commander of the 1st-294th Infantry Regiment since June 2014.

Guam Air Guard command chief

Chief Master Sgt. John M. Quinata will assume full authority as command chief of the Guam Air National Guard during a ceremony on Sunday, Oct. 2, beginning at 3 p.m., in Building 350 at the Guards Readiness Center in Barrigada.

Quinata currently serves as the security forces manager with the 254th Security Forces Squadron. He has been serving in this position since September 2004 and helped to stand up the squadron the following year.

Quinata began his military career in September 1981 when he joined the Air Force as an active-duty airman. He became a member of the Guam Air National Guard in August 1990. His career includes duties as noncommissioned officer in charge, Administration and Training Division, 3rd Air Division; chief of administration, 1st Combat Evaluation Group, Strategic Air Command; unit training manager, 254th Civil Engineering Squadron, Guam Air National Guard; management analyst for the Department of Commerce; director for the Customs and Quarantine Agency, government of Guam; and lastly as a senator of the 27th Guam Legislature, where he was the chairman for the Public Safety and Tourism Committee.

As command chief of the Guam Air National Guard, he will be the highest enlisted airman charged with managing the efforts of and mentoring over 300 enlisted airmen. He will also serve as principal advisor to Brig. Gen. Roderick R. Leon Guerrero, the adjutant general of the Guam National Guard, on all enlisted matters, including issues affecting the commands mission and operations, and the readiness, training, utilization, morale, technical and professional development and quality of life of all enlisted members in the organization.

Information was provided in a press release.
Environmentalists always guffaw if you suggest they want us all to go back to living in caves, but the consequent logic of their practical positions certainly points that way. Consider these recent news stories:

Sierra Club: No Gas, No Coal, No Nukes; Lansing Utility: No Lights, Then The Sierra Club has adopted a position that would effectively require all electricity in Michigan to come from renewable sources such as wind and solar. This appears to have caused a rift between the environmentalist organization and Lansings public utility over the replacement of a coal-fired power station set to close in 2020. The Sierra Club opposes building a natural-gas powered plant to replace the coal-fired plant, the utility says. Ive given up trying to talk to them, said Dick Peffley, the general manager of Lansings Board of Water and Light. The Sierra Club supported a natural-gas plant the utility built three years ago. But according to Peffley, it is now opposed to all nonrenewable forms of energy, including nuclear, coal and natural gas. . . They (Sierra Club) believe all energy that will be lost can be replaced by renewables or energy efficiency, Peffley said. You cant supply energy that way. With only wind and sun, this country will be black.

I dont think the good Mr. Peffley understands that this is not a bug, but a feature. As Australia apparently learned the last few days. From the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:

South Australia pays the price for heavy reliance on renewable energy Hard on the heels of a near miss in July when it narrowly averted widespread blackouts, South Australia was warned on Wednesday night to prepare for an extended loss of electricity in the wake of wild weather. . . In an unprecedented development, the state was cut-off from the national electricity network, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) said resulting in a state-wide power outage in South Australia. As a result, the entire electricity market in the state had been suspended as it sought to work with electricity transmission company ElectraNet to identify and understand the severity of the fault, as well as determine a power restoration time. The extensive disruption follows the narrow avoidance of widespread blackouts in South Australia in July. At that time, the state government brought pressure to bear on a local power company for an idled power station to be restarted to avoid potential disruptions, following a lack of electricity generated from wind and solar sources at a time when it was unable to import sufficient supply from Victoria. But Wednesdays event will trigger renewed debate over the states heavy reliance on renewable energy which has forced the closure of uncompetitive power stations, putting the electricity network in South Australia under stress.

Seems to be going catching. From CapX today out of Britain:

When it comes to UK energy policy, costs are not the only concern. The last 10 years has seen capacity plummet dramatically  but it has also seen the UKs energy security come under increasing threat. The culprit is a series of EU directives which have been forcing many coal-fired power stations to close prematurely. At the same time, inept domestic policy has meant that there are simply not enough new gas-fired stations to make up for the shortfall. . . To make up for the shortfall in domestic capacity, Britain has been increasingly reliant on electricity from abroad. In a written parliamentary answer in May of this year, the Government confirmed that imports of electricity have risen by 30 per cent in just two years.

Coming soon to a state near you as a result of the so-called Clean Power Plan? And if so, who will we import electricity from?
The Detroit News has been around since 1873. Until now, it has never endorsed a non-Republican for president (it endorsed no one in two of FDRs races and sat out the Bush-Kerry contest in 2004).

This year, though, the Detroit News is has endorsed Gary Johnson for president. Of Donald Trump it says:

The 2016 nominee offered by the Republican Party rubs hard against the editorial boards values as conservatives and Americans. Donald Trump is unprincipled, unstable and quite possibly dangerous. He can not be president.

The paper seems to prefer Hillary Clinton:

Hillary Clinton, has an impressive resume and a presidential bearing. And although we disagree with her nearly across the board on the issues, we acknowledge she has the temperament to be commander-in-chief and leader of both a diverse nation and the free world.

However:

[C]haracter matters. Her career-long struggles with honesty and ethics and calculating, self-serving approach to politics trouble us deeply.

Hence, the endorsement of Johnson. According to the editors:

Johnson has excelled at public service. In his eight years as the Republican governor of New Mexico, he cut taxes while balancing the budget, and left the state in better fiscal shape than when he arrived. He also was a champion of school choice, and the state under his guidance made great strides in improving education.

Unfortunately, Johnson appears clueless when it comes to foreign policy/national security, and not just because he doesnt know what Aleppo is and could not name a single foreign leader. Johnson wants to decrease military spending, ignore ISIS until they attack us on U.S. soil, eschew enhanced interrogation techniques for terrorists, close Gitmo, and abolish the NSA.

When asked whether the United States should have entered World Wars II, Johnson replied: I dont know. This is not a serious guy.

As for Johnsons running mate, William Weld, hes a liberal Republican. Weld supported Barack Obama for president in 2008.

For me, the options this year are voting for Trump and not voting for any presidential candidate. Trump is a better option than Johnson because he has a chance to defeat Clinton and is not saddled with the libertarian ideology when it comes to foreign policy and national security.

What impact will the Detroit News endorsement have? The conventional wisdom, I think, is that Johnson is drawing more support from potential Clinton voters than from potential Trump voters.

However, the Detroit News is a Republican paper. Thus, I infer that its endorsement is more likely to influence potential Trump voters than potential Clinton voters.

But this assumes that its endorsement is influential. These days, I doubt that most newspaper endorsements matter.
William Smith, the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, has ruled in favor of a Brown University student who was suspended for two years for an alleged sexual assault. Judge Smith ruled that the student did not receive due process.

The judge found several defects in the procedures by which Brown tossed the student. For one thing, Brown told the student he would be judged under the 2014 student code of conduct, but then, without warning, switched to a new and harsher code that did not exist when his alleged offense occurred.

All is fair in love and sexual politics.

In addition, Browns training of sexual assault investigators apparently caused them to deliberately overlook evidence with the potential to exonerate Doe, such as exculpatory text messages sent after the alleged assault.

Exculpatory text messages? Why should they stand in the way of expelling a student based on an accusation,, as a Dartmouth sexual abuse awareness coordinator once put it?

Based on what Ive read about the way colleges handle complaints of sexual assault, the defects in Browns procedures, though egregious, are typical. Indeed, many colleges no doubt view them as features, not bugs.

Brown probably did. Its great that Chief Judge Smith has disabused them of this view.

Throughout his ruling, the judge expressed his reluctance to intervene in a matter like this. He concluded, however, that Browns misconduct left him little choice.

The judge also had some choice words for the Brown students who launched an email campaign attempting to pressure him into ruling against the male student. He wrote:

After issuing the preliminary injunction this Court was deluged with emails resulting from an organized campaign to influence the outcome. These tactics, while perhaps appropriate and effective in influencing legislators or officials in the executive branch, have no place in the judicial process. This is basic civics, and one would think students and others affiliated with a prestigious Ivy League institution would know this. Moreover, having read a few of the emails, it is abundantly clear that the writers, while passionate, were woefully ignorant about the issues before the Court. Hopefully, they will read this decision and be educated.

The judge seems not to have been paying attention to what the education of students who attend prestigious Ivy League institutions consists of these days.

The male student had, by virtue of a preliminary injunction, won the right to Brown this Fall. However, he elected to attend another college with the hope, apparently, of finishing up at Brown in the Spring.

The courts ruling leaves Brown free, though, to retry the student using better procedures. Brown says it wont make a decision on whether to have another trial until it learns whether the student plans to return.

Whether or not he tries to return, the student has performed a real service by litigating this case.
Arcen Cetin, the Turkish immigrant accused of murdering five strangers at a mall in Washington state, voted in the last three election cycles even though he isnt a U.S. citizen. So reports KING 5, a Seattle television station.

Cetin, who is 20 years old, registered to vote in 2014 and participated in three elections including the May presidential primary. However, Cetin is ineligible to vote because he is not a citizen. He immigrated to the U.S. at age 5 and is considered a lawful permanent resident, but has never applied for citizenship.

How, then, was Cetin able to register? Because Washington state doesnt require proof of citizenship. All an applicant has to do is claim U.S. citizenship, and he or she becomes a registered voter.

Cetin is hardly alone in committing voter fraud. Ethan Epstein of the Weekly Standard cites research finding that non-citizens vote in significant enough numbers to actually sway elections (in favor of Democrats of course), including Electoral College votes and the composition of Congress.

Perhaps the fact that in Cetins case, the non-citizen fraudulent voter is a mass murderer will gain enough attention to overturn, or at least call into serious question, the ludicrous notion that voter fraud is a myth.

Nothing will be done in response, but at least America will be less deluded about the integrity of its elections.

UPDATE: Im told that Cetin may actually have become a citizen before he voted, by virtue of his mother being naturalized when he was under the age of 18.
The energy industry is not immune to finger pointing, particularly when money and politics are at stake. Tensions often rise when competing interests from traditional energy sources, such as coal-fired plants, and renewable networks, such as wind turbines, rub up against one another. In Australia, these tensions were on display when a strong storm cut off an entire Australian state of 1.7 million residents  including the city of Adelaide  from electricity for 24 hours this week.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce told ABC radio that he blames the states reliance on wind energy for the blackout.

Obviously we know that South Australia has had a strong desire to become basically all renewable energy and the question has to be asked: Does this make them more vulnerable to an issue such as what happened last night?" asked Joyce, who noted that this is what happens when you turn power into just a complete social policy.

Joyce isnt the only politician chalking up the outage to renewables. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told the press that the states aggressive use of renewables may be to blame.

Relying on renewable energy such as wind, of course, requires a robust system of energy storage to help ensure that energy is available when its needed, particularly when the wind isnt blowing. But supporters of South Australias green energy initiative say the blame on wind turbines is unfair, and that it was probably unprecedented damage the storm did to three out of the four transmission lines that connect Adelaide with northern parts of South Australia, according to Mashables Andrew Freedman.

ElectraNet, which owns the transmission lines, confirmed that 23 transmission towers were pushed over in the South Australia storms, which brought 60 mile per hour winds and saw up to 80,000 lightning strikes. Two tornadoes were confirmed in the region.

Freedman noted that South Australia is in the process of implementing and achieving vigorous clean energy targets and currently derives all its power from a mix of wind, solar and gas. The state met its target of producing 33 percent of its energy from renewables in 2014, and has set a new target of 50 percent by 2025. The state has invested about $6.6 billion in expanding renewables.

If anything, wind power proponents in the region said the storm would have caused outages no matter what the source, and that the regions use of wind brought the power back online sooner than it would have been with traditional energy generation.

Wind was going strong when the network went off and was among the first back on when the network recovered," Andrew Bray of the Australian Wind Alliance told The Australian. The failure of the network was a weather event, pure and simple. Extreme weather knocked out 23 transmission pylons. Storms of this magnitude will knock out the power network no matter what the source of power is.

The region plans to conduct an investigation as to what damage occurred when, and why the states backup power assets did not come online.

No matter what the cause, its important to remember that UPS backups can help restore power when needed. The affected areas lost power for 24 hoursthats a detrimental amount of time for businesses to be out of operation. If businesses and homes had had their own backup systems in place, they would not be left in the dark when the states backups failed to come online.

Edited by Alicia Young
Israel on Friday deposited $20 million in a bank account run by the Turkish Justice Ministry, as part of a reconciliation deal between the two nations.

A report in Istanbul said that the money is intended for the families of the 10 Turkish victims who were killed during a 2010 raid on the pro-Palestinian flotilla by Israeli commandos.

It said that the incident sent relations between the two former allies into a tailspin.

The report said further that Israel and Turkey repaired their broken ties over the summer, though tensions remain.

It said that notably, Turkey did not send a high level official to the funeral of Israeli president Shimon Peres who died this week.

It said that the next step remains for the sides to appoint ambassadors for the first time since the deaths.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Turkeys government, run by the Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP), has been broadly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and the Islamic Hamas movement that controls the Gaza Strip.

(dpa/NAN)
The National Council on Works has approved the constitution of a task force to sensitize Nigerians and facilitate the removal of illegal and inappropriate speed bumps from Nigerian roads.

The task force will also determine the correct location and types of speed bumps to be erected on the nations highways.

This formed part of memoranda submitted by the Federal Road Safety Corps and the resolutions arising from the 22nd meeting of the National Council on Works in Katsina State with the theme Prioritization and Optimization of Allocated Infrastructure Funds.

According to the council, most of the road traffic crashes which occur on the highways could be traced to the presence of inappropriate speed bumps which do not comply with contemporary global standards on road markings and signages.

The council therefore endorsed the constitution of a special task force to be led by the Federal Controllers of Works in each state, Federal Road Safety Corps, Nigeria Police, State Traffic Management Agencies and affected communities to sensitize and facilitate removal of illegal and inappropriate speed bumps from Nigerian highways.

According to Bisi Kazeem, Head , Media Relations and Strategy, FRSC, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, indicated his Ministrys support for the Federal Road Safety Corps initiatives towards enthroning safer road use in Nigeria.

On violation of the Federal Highway Act, Mr. Fashola said that the full width of the highways has been encroached by illegal activity in the name of trading and business.

When we spend money to build a road of two or three lanes and one or two lanes are taken over by trucks parked on them, or traders positioned on them, it constricts movement, causes traffic, results in lost man hours and stifles the economy. This is not the way to build property and it must stop, he said.

He therefore requested the support of the state governments to work with the Federal Controllers of Works to recover the right-of-way.

Let me be clear. I am not against trade. Indeed, improved trade and commerce is what the economy needs most. The roads that my ministry is charged to build and repair are meant to boost trade and commerce, he said.

According to the Honorable Minister, trade and commerce that takes place right on the highway or within the 45.72 metres right-of-way is illegal counter-productive, adding that the following objectives will be pursued vigorously: It is not to relocate or drive away traders, it is to locate them to the set back of the 45.72 metres right way and we will not compromise on this. If the first thing we achieve is the recovery of the right-of-way, commuters will be able to report a better traveling experience this December.

The Minister also frowned at the activities of petroleum products transporters who carry cargoes of up to 60,000 litres on the highways, instead of the maximum of 33,000 litres approved by law, thus exceeding the capacity of load recommended for the Nigerian highways, with attendant grievous consequences on the state of the roads.
Suspended lawmaker, Abdulmumin Jibrin, on Thursday gave his colleagues in the House of Representatives three days to return all questionable allowances they paid themselves.

Mr. Jibrin said any lawmaker who fails to heed his call should be prepared for the backlash that would follow when he publishes details of how such official perpetrated the fraud.

Mr. Jibrins statement came a day after he was suspended by the House for 180 legislative days approximately a full calendar year as the House sits three times a week after being found guilty of violating House ethics and lawmakers privileges.

It also came a month after Mr. Jibrin accused his colleagues of raking in millions in illegal allowances, and after he indicted himself as having received N650 million illegally.

To return their loot, Mr. Jibrin advised his colleagues to individually approach the appropriate authority and make arrangement on how to pay everything back into the federal purse.

I have written to the Clerk of the National Assembly to stand by in anticipation, Mr. Jibrin said. In the face of the revenue challenges and biting hardship the country is currently facing, there is no better time the country needs such money than now.

Mr. Jibrin said he resolved to take this action after receiving numerous enquiries from different corners on the need for him to back his allegations against the House leadership and other lawmakers with evidence.

I have come under intense public scrutiny and pressure to prove that there exists systemic corruption in the House, Mr. Jibrin said.

Mr. Jibrin said he was specifically demanding the return of a N10 million illegal allowances his colleagues allocated to themselves while the poor were struggling to make ends meet.

House spokesman, Abdulrazak Namdas, did not respond to PREMIUM TIMES request for comment Thursday night.

Mr. Jibrin had frequently threatened to release shocking details about fraud in the House since he first accused Speaker Yakubu Dogara of budget fraud over two months ago.

On August 27, Mr. Jibrin said he had identified two governors working to shield Mr. Dogara from prosecution and vowed to reveal their identities. He has yet to do so.

Similarly, Mr. Jibrin said on September 19 that he was releasing some revelations that will send shock down the spines of Nigerians. He hasnt done that, either.

Mr. Jibrin said the process that led to his suspension was flawed and vowed to reverse it in the court of law.
The presidency has decided to keep mum on a minister who was indicted for fraud when he held office in a different capacity.

The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Usani Usani, was indicted for financial impropriety for his role when he held office during the military era.

PREMIUM TIMES is in possession of a government white paper which documented Mr. Usanis indictment after he was found guilty of fraud in 2000 by a panel established by the Cross River State Government.

Mr. Usani, who had just finished serving as the Cross River State Commissioner for Agriculture, Water Resources and Rural Development, appeared in 1999 before a government committee set up to investigate financial impropriety among officials of the preceding military administration in the state.

The committee, officially known as Financial Impropriety/Verification Standing Committee, was inaugurated in 1999 by the then governor, Donald Duke.

It was chaired by Orok Oyo, and had Andy Ikpeme, Ekpe Ita, Otu Oka and Akomaye Adie as members.

According to the document, Mr. Usani, because of his alleged intent to defraud the government, was said to have refused to apply government approved scales, when he paid out some money as fees to Gersh Henshaw & Company, a firm of estate surveyors and valuers, which handled the contract for the valuation of vehicles, workshops and equipment belonging to the Cross River State Water Board.

The valuation was said to be part of the African Development Bank water project in the state.

Gersh Henshaw & Company was paid a lump sum in dollars, the document said.

The committee said the state government lost N16.323 million because of Mr. Usanis deliberate action.

Mr. Dukes administration, apart from accepting the committees report, directed that the N16,323,150 be recovered from Mr. Usani, and that he should be prosecuted.

The government, according to the document, accepted to forward particulars of the transaction to the Code of Conduct Tribunal, with a complaint of financial impropriety and abuse of office against Mr. Usani.

It also accepted to blacklist Gersh Henshaw & Company from getting further patronage from the government.

PREMIUM TIMES couldnt verify, as at the time of publishing this report, if the state government recovered the money from Mr. Usani, and if it also handed over the case to the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

Mr. Oyo, the chairman of the committee which indicted Mr. Usani, said the minister never went to court to challenge the indictment.

Cross River keeps mum

Like most other white papers by various tiers of government, which some analysts have blamed for the impunity among public officials on corruption matters, Mr. Usanis indictment appears not to have been followed through by the Cross River government.

The current Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Cross River, Joe Abang, declined to be interviewed by this newspaper when he was contacted on phone.

His counterpart in the Ministry of Information, Rosemary Archibong, told PREMIUM TIMES that, You can talk about government white paper if you have it. I am not in the position to comment on the criminal aspect of it, because it is only the court that can decide on that.

None of them would comment on whether the state planned to take any further action on the indictment.

Mr. Usani, who served as commissioner from 1997 to 1999 under the military administration of Colonel Umar Ahmed, did not pick calls nor respond to text messages sent to his telephone line.

The 55-year-old politician, who is also a pastor, was Chairman of the All Progressives Congress in Cross River before he was appointed minister in 2015 by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Before then, he contested for governorship in the state in 2003 under the National Democrats (ND) and again in 2012 under the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN.

It is unclear how Mr. Usani was able to scale through the usual thorough background and security checks when he was slated for a ministerial appointment.

Presidency keeps mum

For an administration whose major mantra has been the war on corruption, the Muhammadu Buhari administration has kept mum on the ministers indictment.

When PREMIUM TIMES contacted presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, he asked that an email be sent to him. He is yet to respond to the email over two days after it was sent.

Should the presidency decide to shield Mr. Usani, he may not be the first to enjoy such privilege by the administration.

The administration has received a lot of criticisms from Nigerians for its treatment of corruption allegations levelled against the current Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, and the Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau.

Mr. Usanis case is, however, unique as his indictment has been made official by a government gazette.
Despite raking in about N1 billion from sale of forms, only N45 million was released for the conduct of the tragic 2014 immigration recruitment exercise, a witness told the court on Friday

Tabugn Sylvanus, a retired Director and Secretary of the Board of the National Immigration Service, NIS, said N201 million was actually required for a proper conduct of the exercise.

Mr. Sylvanus also told the Federal High Court that a last minute adjustment made to the recruitment exercise moved the number of expected participants at the Abuja test venue from 6,800 to over 66,000.

Mr. Sylvanus is the second persecution witness to testify in court during the ongoing trial of former Interior Minister, Abba Moro.

Mr. Moro, who was also the chairman of the board of the NIS, is accused of defrauding hundreds of thousands of job seekers, who paid N1,000 each for the recruitment test.

Despite raising about a billion naira from the job seekers, the tests were poorly organised at different centres across the country, resulting in deadly stampedes with at least 18 deaths confirmed, majority from the Abuja stadium stampede.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, said part of the proceeds of the recruitment fees was used to buy choice property in Abuja.

The anti-graft agency charged Mr. Moro alongside Anastasia Nwaobia; a deputy director in the interior ministry, Felix Alayabami; and a company, Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited.

Narrating the circumstances that resulted in the deadly stampede during the March15, 2014 NIS recruitment exercise, Mr. Sylvanus said the cheque of N45 million which came from the contracting company, Drexel Nigeria Limited, was placed in the accounts of the various officers coordinating the exercise on March 12.

We wrote the chairman (Mr. Moro), indicating the cost of the exercise. We came up with N201 million and forwarded to the honourable chairman for approval. The chairman gave his approval and conveyed same to Drexel, Mr. Sylvanus said.

The company fired back that they were not supposed to be responsible to fund the exercise. But as a benevolent gesture; they attached a cheque of N45 million as their contribution to the exercise.

The cheque was received around March 12 at 3 p.m.

Immediately we informed the chairman who ordered that we trim the budget to meet the available sum of money. We launched the cheque of N45 million. Officers were able to get their alert on Friday, but a few others could not get the money till the following day, he said.

Mr. Sylvanus explained that the Federal Government incurred no cost during the preparations for the recruitment exercise.

When asked if he knew why the government resolved that each applicant pays N1,000, the retired civil servant said he was not aware because he was not present when the decision was made.

According to Mr. Sylvanus, after receiving the cheque and making the necessary adjustments, they met Mr. Moro for approval.

The board chairman glanced through the arrangements for the exercise and called for an adjustment of the arrangement for venue, he said.

The chairman took a glance at all our plans and said we should proceed. The only objection he had was that the initial arrangement for candidates to sit for the exams at their various states was altered because candidates had indicated preferences.

It was this change in plans that led to the disaster, Mr. Sylvanus explained.

Because of the change in the announcements that candidates should sit at their choice venues, FCT that had about 6,800 now got up to 66,000 candidates, he said.

They now came looking for the National Stadium and for that, an additional N3 million was required. From the budget, we had to collapse what we had proposed for marking and for fuel to be able to get N2 million.

The Comptroller General, Immigrations also sent in N1 million making N3 million, Mr. Sylvanus said.

OFFICERS FORESAW TROUBLE

The ex-immigration official also told the court that officers who went to survey the National Stadium, Abuja, that Saturday at 4 a.m. reported that some applicants slept at the stadium, awaiting the exercise.

I took that as a warning sign that the security architect that was duly placed may not hold, he said.

Mr. Sylvanus said he immediately made several calls to the board chairman but could not hear him because there was too much noise in the background.

He said they then tried to reach Mr. Moro, but could not. He said they were later told that Mr. Moro was in church and had switched off his cell phone.

When the minister was contacted, Mr. Sylvanus said, he went with them to get the details of what transpired.

At 11 oclock after we had gotten in touch with all the states, we went to the National Stadium, but could not get in. While we were trying to get in, we got a report from the officer in charge of the FCT recruitment that there was an incident in the western gate. We went to the National Stadium where the security explained to us and the honourable minister what had happened.

What happened was that there were people from inside the gate that were trying to get out and some from outside who were trying to get in. The number of those trying to get in was more that those from inside trying to get out. So while they were trying to get in, the ones outside fell the gate and on those inside and they were trampled upon.

After about five hours of hearing the witness testimony, the trial judge, Namdi Dimgba, adjourned the matter till October 14 for further hearing.